Muse

The new sound of the 80s. Suddenly you hear it everywhere. Rap music. It's all beat and all talk. It tells you a story and makes you want to dance. Steve Fox examines an overnight phenomenon. Rapping to the beat.

Well, there have been talking blues and things like concertos for drums. But right now, all around us, and so compelling you never miss the fact there's no melody, is a music that is all beat and talk. It's rap music, and it sounds like this.

TBTL. You should be on the radio. You got everything it takes. Good looks and nice speaking voice, and what a personality.

After everything that's happened recently, I want to make sure that what you're about to do isn't not well thought out.

We are still on for this afternoon, right? Operation Monkey Brain.

He taught me how to fish, skip stones, whittle. He was like my best friend, you know? And my worst enemy. Awesome. Oh, I can't believe this is actually happening.

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

What the hell?

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. It's an audiophile's nightmare. Coming to you once again from the Gold Coast of Chicago, Illinois. Don't miss the Sausage Fest. Bringing you episode 3,917 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. Where we are going to talk about the new baseball rules today.

The crack of the mat, the roar of the crowd. That's right, baseball's back.

Actually, a ton of changes to the game. I was doing a little, an impromptu survey last night as I was eating dinner at a local Italian joint. Finding out if people like the new rules, like the fact that baseball games aren't taking as long to play. And we'll talk about that. Also, Elon Musk is at it again. If you are someone on Twitter who has a blue checkmark that you're not paying for, you'd be called a legacy blue checkmark person.

I know what you guys are thinking. Hey, it's the guy from Twitter. That's what you're thinking right now.

And you might be losing that blue checkmark pretty soon. So we'll talk about that. And it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day. So we'll wish some folks a happy blurs. And we'll talk to this guy, the longest-running co-bro of the show. may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, my friend. I'm having flashbacks to being on the school bus, heading to school in the morning, having not completed my assignments, and I'm hurriedly scratching out answers to a quiz I know I'm going to get wrong. I guess you don't take quizzes home as homework. Wrong choice of words there. I'm cramming on the... Ew. I'm cramming on the blurs days that's a song that's an old blues song that was a rap album actually cramming on the blurs days in that news special you brought us at the beginning of the program just on the blurs everybody do it on the blurs so that's where I am mentally right now how are you doing in Chicago

I'm always surprised to hear I'm doing okay although I'm very spoiled with hotels and we'll talk about it in a moment I'm always surprised to hear that you were not just like the most studious person because i find you to be a pretty studious adult and you you know you usually get things done before they're due you're very detail oriented when did that kick in for you

well i mean we're gonna get really close to go to therapy don't have a podcast territory here but i it's funny that you see me that way because i still feel like the kid in the back of the school bus scratching out answers i don't i mean we've worked together for a long time so i don't want to i don't want to dismiss the notion that you think that i'm a somebody who's on top of my game but i don't feel on top of my game certainly and at school was really rough for me like not just you know the socializing part of it like i just i hated school like i always was i was always like my sister would get like really good grades straight a's and i would always struggle not to get c's and getting a c i'd be in a lot of trouble in my family but it wasn't that you didn't

understand the information right was it just that you didn't like doing the homework or something

well i mean you've met me do i understand all the information you do that's the thing that's the thing andrew you are a smart person you really are no i appreciate that i'm not trying to just like be self-deprecating i'm trying to answer your questions honestly i mean i don't think that i was like some you know i don't think i was some some genius who like knew all the answers but was too lazy to school was you know school was tough not tough like I could barely pass but it was tough for me to um see on top yeah I was always a procrastinator I think I'm still a bit of one

I've been talking we're working on some some big summer plans and we have a lot of plates spinning and a big like yesterday was it yesterday or the day before I like dug into it and finally got a bunch of work done. But I spent like the first like three weeks before digging into the work, just worrying about it. And instead of like doing anything, just like carrying around this like kind of this ball of anxiety. And then finally I sat down to do it. It was somewhat enjoyable work. And once you get it done, you start to feel good about it. But I always have this thing of just, like, procrastinating and carrying around this anxiety before I finally sit down to do it.

Did you ever have that thing where you were on janitor duty at your school and there was a really complicated math problem that was sort of written on a chalkboard and nobody could solve it, not even the greatest minds of Harvard? And then you just looked at it and you were like, oh, the answer is seven, and you wrote it in there. And then they were like, damn, that's some good will hunting.

Do you know that that exact thing happened to me with one dazzling detail that you left out, which is the professor was Mork from Ork? Do I even have that right? Is that Robin Williams? Robin Williams. Okay, good. No, no. I've never seen that movie. Oh, he's a therapist. He is in that movie, though. Hold on. All right. In three, two, one. The therapist was Mork from Ork. We'll just punch that in.

Yeah. We'll fix that in post. He is, I don't know if he's exactly Will Hunting's therapist.

Wait, is that really, I've never seen that movie. Is that really why it's called Good Will Hunting? I think his name is, I think, I believe Matt Damon's name is Will Hunting.

I literally, I was this number of days old when I learned that. I had no idea. I've really avoided that movie.

I know that people love that movie and I don't want to yuck any yums, but it is, it's really

amazing that that movie won an oscar i mean again i haven't seen it it doesn't seem like a movie for me but i guess i can sort of stay out of the fray by saying i guess i can't truly judge it because

i haven't seen it well it just feels very much like a movie that uh two uh pretty privileged you know 20 something white guys wrote where one of the guys is a toughie that would be ben affleck And the other guy, wait for it, is also a toughie, but he's a genius. And he works at, I think it's Harvard. And not only does he get in bar fights, but he also solves impossible math equations because he's good.

Why doesn't he solve the equation of how to stay out of a fight?

Well, Andrew, if any of us could solve that equation. Well, that's true. It would be a very different world.

Yeah, you're right. He plays a character named Will Hunting. I had no idea. I'm now just realizing for the first time that it's not two words, goodwill hunting. It's goodwill hunting. See, I'm learning. You're never. Comma.

That's the thing. It's a lifelong love of learning. That's why people turn to this podcast.

Right, exactly.

I'm like Will Hunting who can't do math, is basically how I.

Yeah, that's the fuzzy end.

I feel like Robin Williams might be his therapist. He is certainly somebody that Will Hunting turns to, and there's a quite iconic scene where they're sitting on a park bench, and I believe Robin Williams is talking about his late wife. Now, this is set in Boston because Affleck and Damon decided, we need another movie set in Boston.

Although this was probably the beginning of that, no? I mean, just in their defense a little bit.

It probably was. I think you're right. And you know, write what you know, right? They're from that area, so that makes sense. By the way, I'm generally pro both of those people. It sounds like I'm roasting them. But Robin Williams has a Boston accent because he's, you know, from that area. And he's talking about his late wife's flatulence. And he's talking about how she fotted. And I almost left the theater. Just hearing Robin Williams Talk about his dead wife's Fodding And I think it's many people's favorite part of the movie

Now you're not against toilet talk So I take it it was the accent

I don't go in for that I'm not really big on that accent

So it's funny so if I wanted to avoid toilet talk On this show I just have to make sure that we're always Doing it in a bad Boston brogue

Exactly if you say it Like Robin Williams from Good Will Hunting The other thing that those guys are working on right now is a movie that's getting really good reviews even though i have to say the trailer looks terrible to me which is called air oh yeah when you said you went to see a movie the other day

i looked at the fandango and i'm like the only thing i could imagine him going to would be air

maybe if it doesn't if bud isn't after the word air miss me with that what about up in the comma

air okay i would actually that was a

It was a great film, in my opinion.

I did enjoy that. It just, I don't, when it's a biopic, but the person doesn't look to me enough like the person they're portraying, Ben Affleck is playing Phil Knight. And the premise of the movie is, there was a guy, I guess his name was like, I'm going to say Jimmy Vacario, who was some sort of, a person at Nike, in the kind of early days of Nike, who was tasked with going out and finding folks to endorse the shoes and i think that the way this movie is framed is that nike bet everything they had as a company on michael jordan and this is the story of the guy who went out and basically like got michael jordan to sign this deal stole him away from another company and the rest as they say is history but i don't know it just the trailer looked very hokey to me um and uh i don't just didn't it didn't seem like it was particularly well made but it's

getting really good reviews so what do i know well what about and i'm trying to think if i've asked you about this because whenever the whenever i catch a glimpse of this show which i watched a couple of episodes of i think of you and i want your opinion and i don't know if i already have your opinion but what about the hbo show that was uh yeah it's called showtime right about the 80s

la lakers the show yeah you know again so many people told me oh you got to watch that because that was an era of basketball that i was you know pretty tuned into um and that's part of the problem for me is i know what james worthy looked like i know what magic johnson looked like i know what michael cooper looked like modeling his la gear shoes there was a huge poster of michael cooper where it was this is now in style but i just remember being a kid and he had on these la gear uh you know high tops and then these socks pulled up and then these knee braces and then these shorts there was no part of Michael Cooper's physical body that was that was exposed he was so like braced up and geared up anyway I knew what those guys looked like and so watching people pretend to be them and I knew what Dr. Jerry Buss looked like also I resent that that project because the rumor is it is the project that ruined the relationship between Will Ferrell and Adam McKay which yeah that's the rough I don't know why I have an investment in that but

Because Farrell wanted to play the bus part, but I got to say now you and I are coming at this from completely, completely opposite positions because I don't know anything about basketball. I mean, I know, I mean, just the broadest of broad strokes about the Lakers in this era, but I don't even, I wouldn't have known the name Jerry Buss before even seeing this. And by the way, it's called winning time. That's the name of the actual series. And we put it on and like, I'm pretty sure the very, very opening scene is Magic Johnson in a doctor's office, I think, getting a diagnosis, but it's not explicit. And I remember sitting down with Genevieve. She didn't even know it was Magic Johnson and she didn't know what was going on. And so like, I mean, I was able to pick up at least on that. I'm like, that's Magic Johnson. I don't even think she knew that coming into it. So for us watching the first few episodes of this, it's a really well made show, but it's weird. It's almost like I know too little. Maybe the perfect audience is somewhere between you and me because I'm sort of learning historical facts from this thing that is really playing with the format in that way Adam McKay does breaking the fourth wall and stuff. And so my guess is the casting here is a little bit absurd. I mean, it's definitely they dress them up to be in the time, but it's also like it's a little bit absurd as well. So maybe I think they're trying to maybe appease people who do know that era so well to be like, just go with us on this. This is a kind of a broad take on the story.

I mean, I do like Adam McKay's work, so I should probably just I should probably give it a look. I just the problem is when I have even a small amount of information about anything, I then think that I am the world's expert on it. And anyone who's trying to kind of portray that to me or tell me about it or put it on film, I start I'm looking for holes to poke in it so that I maintain my superiority on the topic, which makes me one of the most fun people to be around.

And also, what are you doing this weekend? Want to hang out?

Attend films with. I've told this story too many times to count on the show. But when you mentioned that Magic Johnson getting his diagnosis of being HIV positive, I'm reminded of when I was interviewed by Carlos Del Valle on the local TV news in Seattle that day. And as a kind of budding, young, conservative type, I basically said, well, you know, he had unprotected sex with a lot of people, kind of deserved it. That's what I said to the local news. they they edited that out mercifully and just used a really random clip of me saying nobody believed him which was the completion of a sentence when they ask like how did you find out and i said well somebody just came into the gym i was playing basketball and so they went down to uh the the local basketball court to get the reaction from hoopers and i said somebody just stuck their Thank you.

head i mean i'm not trying to be glib here but this is really what happened somebody stuck their head into the gym at the green lake community center and just yelled magic got aids and then i said to carlos devai and nobody believed him and that was the part of the uh nobody believed

um nobody believed the the message nobody believed the person who had been reporting to us what was

going it wasn't until the local news showed up that we thought oh this is and again that was there was no internet in those days so it was just kind of like well there's a crazy person who came to the gym and is babbling about magic johnson let's get back to the game um but uh yeah i should watch that i should watch that uh because i do i do like adam mckay stuff and i'm sure that it's and you're saying it breaks the fourth wall does like that you know is jerry bus is duck yes i also get annoyed we have to call him dr jerry bus like i think that's kind of like what does he have a

doctorate in like sports medicine ownership i thought i thought he actually i thought we you know now i'm thinking we did talk about this on the show because i thought i looked it up and i thought it was some sort of a medical degree but i could be wrong about that um but

yeah john c reilly will turn the camera i looked it up at one point and can you just while we're talking can you google what is jerry bus a doctor of because i feel like i looked it up one time and it was something non-medical i feel like it was it was really it was like a dr phil kind of uh sort of doctor and he did he also allegedly win the lakers in a poker game or something isn't that

part of the oh i don't remember that it's that's not where the storyline begins and again now it's been i watched it when it was sort of new which i guess was at least a year ago if not more it might be you know i think i was wrong about it being medicine but it might be chemistry actually uh the the the doctorate um but i'm wow okay let me see that's um let's see dr jerry buss you're

right he is uh a chemist and a philanthropist okay you know what i take it back i am sorry i have really i don't know if i'm in a bad mood today because this hotel's not spoiling me properly but um i uh i apologize to dr jerry buss i apologize to his daughter genie buss dr genie buss i apologize to phil jackson her one-time boyfriend i apologize to matt damon and ben affleck but you

didn't have you didn't have it in there to apologize to me just for for associating you with all my negativity yes exactly from dragging me down with you all these years i've just been waiting every day we dial up i'm like maybe today's the day luke apologizes to me that's what keeps you coming back that's what i just keep you it's like charlie brown with the gold

darn football it's the it's the sixth habit of a highly effective person i know you've read that book the seven habits of highly effective people the sixth one is have it so that a person is always hoping you'll apologize to them so they'll continue engaging with you um i'm i'm at this this hotel the ambassador hotel which i was telling you um the other day was it's pretty nice but it's not a bonvoy property and so the fact that like they're not bringing me many free bottles of water or letting me check out at four in the afternoon or all of the uh status things that i have at a bonvoy because i've stayed at them so much i'm at i wish i had a cooler name i think it's like platinum elite or something i wanted to be more like a wizard like a navis wizard but i didn't realize until i was staying somewhere that isn't a bonvoy property how many little things they're always doing for me at the bonvoy places just to take care of me and pamper me the other thing i know is about this hotel is that i'm on the 15th floor the window opens all the way up which is rare in a hotel and in fact i left the window open so let me know if it's too noisy um because i'm in a kind of busy part of town but it was weird i was trying to open it to get a little ventilation and i figured it would be that thing where you can only open it like three inches and you can open it all the way up don't worry everyone i'm okay but i had an intrusive thought i was like that's a little dangerous well that is why they don't open them right i mean obviously liability exactly and i'm so i'm i'm now so used to not you know not being able to really anywhere if you think about it it's very rare you can open a window on the 15th floor of anything like open it all the way up and uh yeah i'm again i'm just fine everyone i am safe and sane but i did think oh that's that's like they should probably look at that that's a little dangerous to have uh you know access to but anyway let me know if it's too noisy um i do wonder about

that though like and this is this is the ambassadors again or no i'm sorry i'm yeah the ambassador yeah yeah you were telling me about this on an earlier show this week and um i won i mean clearly it must be some sort of a legacy thing i think if you were to build a hotel now you probably wouldn't even legally have the option to have windows that open all the way but i sincerely wonder if this affects their insurance rates like it must right Like, this is like a standard thing now, like hotels in like, you know, any kind of, I think, public space like that, even probably office buildings, like the windows on upper floors do not open.

Right. It's a it's a rare occurrence in this day and age. How much of a 80s sitcom theme song did I just quote? Isn't that it's a rare condition in this day and age?

What is that? Oh, what is that? Full House? do you know that Full House there were shows we weren't really allowed to watch in our house because they were a little fresh or dirty or something but I'm pretty sure was it Full House there was some show it might have been Small Wonder that we kind of weren't I mean we were kind of implicitly not allowed to watch just because it was so bad and I feel like Full House is sort of one of those just the tone and whatever if my dad walked into the room and something like that was blaring they would just like turn that shit off

That's the kind of thing that, like, as a kid, you would be annoyed by. But as an adult, you're like, thank you, Dad, for looking out for me. Thank you for your parenting. There was definitely a lot of that stuff in our house where, although my mom's taste is, you know, it's kind of all over the map. But there were certainly things that she wouldn't let us watch because she just thought they were corny. But then, on the other hand, she watched Little House on the Prairie every day and openly wept when Michael Landon would save the day. Or the Waltons.

Well, see, the Waltons. Veeves and I were just talking about the Waltons the other day. we know that is a cultural reference point and like the idea that everybody says goodbye goodbye John Boy or whatever at the or goodnight everybody says goodnight at the end of the show like that's that exhausts my knowledge of that show I feel like growing up in our generation you kind of need to know about that much about the Waltons that it's corny schlocky from a different era everybody says goodnight and there's somebody named John Boy like that's all you need to know but aside from that that's the gist like I don't I just never dug any deeper than that

Ben Affleck plays Dr. Jerry Buss In some of the later episodes of The Waltons

Do they break the fourth wall a lot in The Waltons? They do They do

John Boy's always looking to the camera It's sort of like an early version of The Office Oh yeah, yeah

Just like he stares at the camera Then the eyes get just imperceptibly wider To show that he's taken aback

And then sometimes he would actually make a Jell-O And he'd put the grandma's stapler In the Jell-O mold then, boy, that would really send her. I'll tell you what, man. All right. Let's take a quick break here. And then when we come back, I do want to talk about Fast Baseball and Twitter Blue Checks. So stick around. This is TBTL.

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

Hey, let's thank some dazzling donors. Okay. These are the... Yes?

I just said, okay. Yeah, can you hear me okay? You said, let's thank some Dazzling Donors. And I said, okay. I think the delay maybe hurt us there. Sorry about that.

It's just, it's rarely a call and response. I literally thought you were talking to Genevieve. Genevieve popped her head in the room and you thought you muted your mic. I wrote an entire story. It had to do with Bingo. Bingo had eaten his food a little too quickly and maybe upchucked. And Veve stuck her head in to say, Bingo did it again. And you're like, OK, actually, I didn't realize your mic was unmuted.

Bingo did do it again when I'm done recording with you today. I got to go upstairs and vacuum all this dirt up off the floor. He knocked over one of our plants. He gets the zoomies so bad now, Luke, or maybe so good. I don't know. He makes it zoom so good. He like he gets done eating in the morning and then he just tears around the house, like just tears around the house. He knocked over like a like a living room chair. It's not like an easy chair, like from the 80s or 90s. But, like, it is a, you know, a comfortable upholstered chair in our sitting room. He knocked the whole thing on its ass today by just, like, he tears around the house so that he's not even using the floor. He's just, like, screaming around sort of the walls like he's a motocross or something.

Like he's in, oh, man. What's your video game?

Oh, Circuit Breaker. Rocket League. Rocket League. Thank you. Why can I never remember the name of it? Circuit Breaker would be a great game, though.

It's time to thank some dazzling donors. These people are donating a dazzling amount of dough, which is how we're able to keep doing TBTL. Thanks to folks like Tom Cleary, who's in West Hotford, Connecticut. I'm a regular Robin Williams over here. Tom says, hi, guys. I never know what to write in things like this, even though I am a journalist and I am paid to write every day. Thanks for the daily. Is Tom the listener who works for Heavy, I think, if I remember right? There was something that came up on the show. Heavy is a website. That I think does a lot of stuff But what they do often is they'll generate some sort of Like if somebody pops up in the news And there may be someone who's previously not particularly well known It'll be like five facts about this person

I'm not familiar Now is this somebody who showed up at the Florida show That you're thinking of too And you had an inside joke related to that line of work

It's very possible Anyway, Tom, wherever you may work Thank you for supporting the show Tom thanks us for the daily entertainment and laughs and says, it's something I always look forward to, especially with everything going on in the world. TBTL is an important part of my life, and I am so glad I am able to help support the show and the community you have built. Power out. I'm going to be in Connecticut at the end of this week, and I don't know if I've ever been to Connecticut before, which is crazy because I lived in New York City, but I just never had any reason to go up there. I don't know if I've ever been to Connecticut.

I believe I've driven through Connecticut, but I don't think I've spent any real time there. Obviously, when I get my full-time gig at ESPN, I assume I'll be spending more time there in Bristol at the mothership. But as of right now—

Did you hear that Aaron Hernandez's brother threw a brick through, like, a window at the ESPN Bristol campus? No, recently? Yeah, like last week. He went on the run. He was chased through various Connecticut towns by the police, may have been having a mental health crisis, but wrote some kind of note on the brick. I guess he's unhappy about the way that he feels ESPN has portrayed the life of his brother, Aaron Hernandez, who was, of course, a New England patriot and then was convicted of murder and is no longer alive. But his brother threw a brick through a window at ESPN recently.

Oh, God, no, I did not know that. That is messy and sad. Okay, that is good to know. I will ask for an office without a window. That's what people always clamor for, right, in a place like that? Yes, exactly. Like something landlocked if you can. Something like in the basement, but like in the middle of the building, not in one of those corners.

Give me the Milton suite is, I believe, what you're going to ask for. Anyway, Tom, thank you so much. Maybe I'll see you when I'm ever so briefly in Connecticut. Maestro?

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

We have to thank Jenny in Encinitas, California.

Jenny!

We love Encinitas, California. In this house, we believe Encinitas, California.

It is south of cheese.

It is south of cheese and it's quite beautiful. Jenny says, last year I put in a plug for curling. Encinitas is also a hot spot for curling.

No, obviously.

And the World Cup is happening this summer. I'm putting in a plug for women's soccer and the National Women's Soccer League, which is just about to start. Basically, women's soccer is great, and everyone should go to games. The level of play is super high. It's super undervalued, so tickets are cheap. And they usually play in smaller stadiums, so you are super close to the action. And unlike men's soccer, there's no flopping. That is a strong sales pitch.

That's interesting. I did not know that that was a difference between the two styles of that sport because that is honestly that is a huge thing for me like and I know that I'm biased and I'm also like somebody who said like well I'm not necessarily looking to bring more sports in my life it's not like I have a hole that I'm trying to fill with another sport so I'm not like kind of you know in the market to expand but every now and then you find yourself you know just kind of falling into something but if I'm in a room and there are a bunch of soccer matches on at a bar or something I feel like every time I look up at the TV and I don't want to be rude, I feel like somebody is pretending that they're hurt and rolling around. But they're always men, I guess.

I feel like there was some, maybe in the MLS, they're trying to curb it a little bit. I feel like there's occasionally a rules change that says if you're caught flopping, you know. That's good. You get in some. But it's certainly in the World Cup, which I actually really love watching the World Cup. um uh the the men's world cup last year i was you know pretty pretty dialed into it and it is just the wildest thing that eight times a game at a minimum somebody writhes on the ground as if they were like you know they'd been flogged or something or drawn and quartered and then they just get up and run around and are fine and it's like we're how are we letting this happen in soccer we all know you're not that hurt I don't know if it affects the the call or not I mean there must be some reason why they do it like maybe they get you know I feel like the refs either call it a foul or they don't the amount that you writhe shouldn't have any impact on that and then they get up and run around and I'm like have you no shame didn't basketball this we're getting so far afield but like you know me I don't understand basketball at all either but isn't that why like you have a certain number of fouls because sometimes like kind of like by fouling somebody you can slow down the game and stop the game I literally know nothing about basketball as you can tell but like isn't there like something where like there's a limited number yeah because of this right because you can use that strategically and it's well it'll kind of come to the baseball conversation too how like people have been kind of like i guess utilizing rules and meaning like using them in a way that they weren't intended

we all know that you know a different definition of utilizing the rest of us yeah very impressed um uh the thing with basketball is that the clock stops when there's a foul or something or the ball goes out of bounds in soccer it doesn't and that's the other thing that drives me nuts about it is it's this very kind of vague thing where the some official just decides on what's called stoppage time at the end so the game is 90 minutes but half of it is people writhing or just like various you know things where if it was any other sport it would be like the clock would stop but it doesn't stop running in soccer and then at the end you know it's just some random person goes four minutes and then they just put four minutes on the clock and then like when the u.s is down and it's like there's four minutes of stoppage time and then someone's writhing during the stoppage time i'm like because you know what i mean like makes me insane because i feel like precious seconds are are uh you know are being wasted when we could be and it also the other thing that happens is and look soccer is an extremely aerobic sport so you know i mean you there's some crazy stats about like the distance that a soccer player runs during a game it's like a hundred thousand miles or something but anyway it's always like when you're just watching at home and your team is losing and it's you know it's in stoppage you're just like and they're just kind of like jogging to like throw the ball in it's like do you not understand that you're losing and that there's three minutes and 40 seconds of stoppage time left and you're jogging over to the ball like how are you not more frantic right now yeah i you know i don't know enough about

it and so you know hopefully later on in the show we'll be talking about baseball which i love and And I'm sure that there are people who who love soccer and understand soccer so much better than I do, which is you understand it at all. You understand it better than I do. And who will just be like, well, baseball is so boring. You know what I mean? I'm sure it's aggravating for people who actually know the details of the game, which you do better than I do, to hear it criticized from somebody who doesn't even watch the sport in the same way. So I'm going to try to, like, kind of back off of that now. But I guess to Jenny's point, it sounds like the women's sport kind of has either dealt with that or hasn't had to deal with that.

Well, Andrew, guess what? You're going to make an appearance in this dazzling donor message in 3, 2, 1. Andrew once said he's not smart enough to follow soccer, but he was wrong. He only thinks he isn't smart enough because he hasn't watched in person. So go to games, people. NWSL, USL, WSL, a nearby college. Whatever is in your area, I guarantee you'll like it or your pizza is free. Wait, hold on.

There's free pizza in soccer?

Who can turn that offer down?

Do you know that you and I went to, do you know, do you remember that you and I went to a soccer game once?

Was it Sounders?

Yeah, I think we were working at Cairo together. I think we got a suite or something. It might have even been through Alaska, although this might have been before your time with Alaska. It might have just been through the station. I swear, it might have even been a preseason match. But I remember you and I sitting up like kings in one of those like, you know, one of those suites looking down at the game and every now and then putting our thumbs out and pointing them up or down as to whether or not we were having one of the players carted off never to be seen again. Exactly. Yeah. I just have this kind of somewhat vague memory of it. And you explaining the sport to me, which sounds like some people might not enjoy that. I love it when people explain sports to me. For real, I love watching a game with somebody who's into the game. And if I don't know anything, I'll just sit there and absorb everything they have to say about it. For as much as I remember that night is a fond memory.

I played soccer in high school, so that's the only reason I know a little bit about it. And it was funny because I really wanted to play football in high school, but the school didn't have football. It just had soccer. So I was like, all right. And funnily enough, and this is not supposed to be a humble brag, but I was like first team all league in soccer, which I would have traded that for first team all league in basketball in a heartbeat. Like I just played soccer for something to do. And but I was sort of, I guess, pretty competent at it. Meanwhile, the sports that I loved basketball, I was incompetent at. And I was also cut from the Nathan Hale baseball team as a senior, which really hurt.

Having played up through senior year, then you got cut that would hurt no i didn't i transferred schools oh okay so basically like i um i i went out as a senior to play baseball and i remember it was the night before the the final cut down or so it was like an afternoon and we were all sitting around and the coach said okay well you know the last round of cuts is coming tomorrow or something and i remember making some joke i can't remember what it was but it was sort of a joke like you know boy that's good that's going to be rough for whoever gets cut or so i said something to the coach with an unearned degree of confidence about how much i was not going to get cut and then the next morning my phone rings it's like this is coach tono i go am i being cut and he was yeah you are wow so you got an actual

phone call i guess i don't know what i expected there it was pre-internet i don't know i was expecting y'all to i don't know show up at school and i'll look at a head i think you're thinking of west side story who's playing uh maria the camera angle is from the viewpoint of the cork board as you all like kind of like lean in to see if you got the part no anyway so point

is i do know about soccer a little bit um but only the brand that was played by small christian schools in the late 80s and early 90s in the seattle washington area anyway jenny we're gonna to go to a game on you but i can't promise that andrew's not going to say he disliked it just to

get the free pizza we can't rule that out no i mean i will yeah no absolutely i mean do my intentions matter in this just give me the pizza in other words you would lie about enjoying live

soccer just to get the pizza absolutely that's who i am that is well jenny thank you for the support assume this is your last time as a dazzling donor thank you thank you for keeping tbtl going hello and welcome to top story you know i didn't realize how many of the rule changes had gone into place this season in baseball everyone's been talking about the the pitch clock uh and that you know the pitcher only has i think it's like 15 seconds when no one's on base and 20 seconds when someone's on base uh to throw the pitch and the batter has to get into the batting uh box uh you know at a certain point like the idea is to speed the game up because the baseball games you know take a long time you and i have talked about how we sort of like that about baseball but then i didn't realize it was also the year where they outlawed the shift oh yeah you didn't you you didn't realize i knew that was i knew that was on the horizon i didn't realize that was this season as well i mean that to me is almost a bigger story than the pitch clock thing because you know so for people that don't know uh baseball uh so much for a long time well not for a long time for the last few years uh they've just done all this kind of data you know analysis on the game and figured out that most of the time what you really need in the infield is like most of your players on one side or the other based on what side of the plate the hitter hits from it's called the shift and uh it's really effective and they got rid of it i think

because it was too effective right yeah i mean every rule that they've put into place is to not just sort of as they say speed up the game but to create more action in the game to get the the ball and play more to turn it less into a everything is either a strikeout or a home run kind of situation and and having it be such a pitcher's game so i gotta say before these other changes were so prominently discussed and you know and set up to go into effect the thing i heard about the most was the past like over the course of the past several seasons is conversation about should the shift go away and I'd heard that the shift was going to go away and um I was against that in principle I mean I think all of these things are going to start with me saying I was against it in principle um and some I'm still against in principle and in reality there was something about that that I didn't like I just sort of felt like well the game adjusts itself um and you may have wrong about that but like i was like if they're if the defense is going to shift to prevent batters from hitting a certain way then the the batters are going to learn to hit in the opposite direction like it's hard it's difficult but i guess that just wasn't happening with with how good pitchers are and the way the game has sort of become a pitcher's game it's just like impossible to happen so they finally just said listen there is now going to be a certain area there are rules around where the fielders can stand and i was like but it's weird it's not football it's not it's not soccer it's not like it's basically like you have an off sides now sort of you're sort of implementing an offside situation which seemed really wrong to me having said all of that with all these new rule changes it falls to the bottom of my list as far as things i care about i'm totally like the clock and stuff i'm still not 100 on board with but the shift i'm basically fine with i think my my early read on the faster games is I'm never seeing baseball games anymore like it's a it's an actual threat to my fandom because like you know well I'm in Chicago right now and I'm often in a different time zone than the game or maybe I'm traveling and like what I like about baseball is it was always still happening you know what I mean I'd get off the plane or I'd be in the lift or I'd get to the hotel or whatever and it's like it's the seventh inning or something because the games were really long I like that because it just meant there was more potential time for me to be checking in i feel like so far this season i turn around and the game's over like the games and it's only like like 20 minutes faster right in preseason i read a stat that the average game in preseason was 25 minutes faster than before which doesn't seem like a huge difference but in my experience it feels like it i just feel like the game the game starts and you blink and it's the eighth inning and the mariners are losing and or you know like i'm always like looking at the mlb app on my phone oh by the way that is the most kludgy ridiculous mlb tv which i signed up for a trial membership on i spent like two hours yesterday trying to cancel

my my free trial before they started charging me it was so maddening because i have the app on my phone i could log in but i couldn't unsubscribe from my phone i had to do it through the website when i went on to the website on my laptop it said i didn't have an account it said i wasn't doing a trial account so the same website the same company on one hand was telling me i have an account and on the other hand was telling me i don't have an account therefore there's nothing to cancel i was i was about to go find um rob manfred and give him a stern talking to anyway point is i just feel like the quicker games are the people i was talking to at the restaurant last night all seem to like it because the cubbies were on and uh and everybody seemed to think it was good that the games are shorter i i don't really know i don't i'm gonna sound like such an old but i just don't really like want to fit baseball into a little window of my life and be done with it and on to the next thing to me the experience the game taking forever is part of the fun and i still think i kind of stand by that i've often i think at least in my head

compared it to the twitter experience or let's i i'm not on twitter that much anymore and i've heard that it's like kind of a even worse experience than it used to be but let's just say in like the era that you and i were pretty active on twitter that there's it's a constant stream of information and some of it is better than others some of it's more entertaining some you don't even barely pay attention to and but it's just kind of constantly there and that's how i sort of felt about the baseball season and a baseball game a sprawling game that can go on for hours and hours like you check you you you put it on i you know if i'm not in front of a tv i certainly have it on on the radio you can check in from time to time even if it's playing your mind might wander like that's fine like and people were complaining about like all the time pitchers were taking on the mound and again and even like there's a rule change now about how many times you can like kind of throw to first base or second base to try to pick off a runner that bothers me a little bit less but people who are in favor of these changes which seems to be most people and most hardcore baseball fans seem to be into these changes everybody I talk to everybody I talk to likes them but it really does I mean I guess maybe to their credit it forces you to pay attention to the game like the game every part of the game has become more relevant like I will say like you know there are plenty of games throughout my life that I've watched and paid attention to every pitch but there are also plenty of games where even if you're like I was at Teddy's to watch the opening day and I'm sitting there Genevieve is to my left I got my friend John to my right Camaro Kev is

there um would you say it was John's to the left of me leaves to my right that's what I was trying

to figure out what I was getting close to there could you hear me pause also when you said you were going to give Manfred a stern talking to and I didn't respond it wasn't because I was editing blurs days i want you to know that because i assume you think that it was because i was trying to think of a daniel stern joke you were talking about one commissioner it isn't daniel stern the

name of the nba david stern david david stern was the he was the nba commissioner who allowed uh the sonics to leave oh okay so he's not even the commission anymore okay no now it's a guy named adam silver who looks oh right the baldy yes some of the greatest dan lebitard looks like

Yes. Revolve around Adam Silver, the commissioner. Yes. I should have known that. But anyway, when you said when you said I wanted to give Manfred a stern talking to and I gave you nothing there, I just sat here quietly. It wasn't because I was abdicating my responsibility is because I was trying to think of what I was going to call a Daniel Stern, but apparently is a David Stern joke and a couple of commissioners.

cutting it up i don't know i just want in my defense i want you to know that i tried and

failed it's not that i didn't try well i appreciate it you know what we say on this show fail fast do they is that a thing that's a thing in silicon valley really oh just like okay like you want to fail like you want to basically like you want to fail fast so that you can then fix it and move on so it's that's supposed to be sort of like an encouragement to go for it sure i to be honest with you if the listeners heard a tiny pause in my delivery of that amazing rob manfred reference it was me stopping myself from saying bud seeley because for some reason bud seeley is always the commissioner of baseball to me although when i was a little kid it was bart giamatti who of course is paul giamatti's dad i could really use a win here exactly two days in a row i got the class That's basically something he said on Big Fat Liar.

Something he classically said during the 1995 draft. Anyway, so when I was at Teddy's watching this game and, like, you know, we're all pretty geeked up, especially me and John. Like, we were there to watch the game. And we were locked on it. He was playing some game on his phone. I think he was playing chess on his phone, actually. And he, at one point, had to say, what? We're back already? Like, he's like, I used to just, like, play chess on my phone. And I could, like, kind of time it to the commercials. and kind of bang out a match in between things. He's like, you can't do that. And I was like, yeah, like that first game, which was a very quick, a very fast-paced game that the Mariners won, which helped, I think that was a shutout against Cleveland, right? So it was like, you know, fate was on my team's side. That went by so fast. Yeah, exactly. And I will say it wasn't, because I'm trying to be really, I'm really trying to search my feelings and be honest about this. It was not a bad experience. And it really did force my eyeballs to not drift because you could do this thing where you're like, OK, well, it's a slow game. I'll drift down to Twitter. I'll Twitter out some joke about, oh, my God, Sam Haggerty, which I did on Twitter last night, which is the worst joke ever. And then he hit a he hit a ball. I'm just going to explain this for the two people who saw this tweet and think that I'm just off my rocker. It's not a good joke, but I want you to know there's a reason for it. And I just typed in more like slam taggarty. And what that means is he hit a ball really hard, which was the slam part of that. But then he dug for second base and was thrown out at second base. We was tagged out. So he got the single, but he was tagged out at second. So slam taggarty made sense in my head. Again, I'm not defending it as a joke. I just want people to know that I didn't like have a mild stroke. You were having a stroke. yeah exactly so anyway the thing is you used to like kind of you do that then you're paying attention to your phone a little bit then you look up okay it's still the same half of the same inning or whatever like you kind of can't do that anymore which i guess is kind of what they were solving for like i guess it is more of a reason to be there but i am a little slow in feeling acclimated to it like you are i do like the sort of the pastoral nature of just like i don't know what is time during a baseball game exactly like it would be as if everything we said

on tvtl was interesting and people had to tune into every minute of this show that that's not how you experience this program you uh you turn it on and then you go do something else and then you come back and it's still on yes but like if if every second of the show was riveting that imagine the pressure that's putting on the listeners to five days a week set aside everything and focus on what we're doing here that's how i think about baseball like i don't want to i don't want to have to focus that hard on the game i want it to be a sonic backdrop to my life i want it to be something if i'm you know at my house it's on the tv probably like it's just kind of occurring i might go into the other room i might you know like i i like i actually like the pace of the of the game before they sped it up because i don't want to have to be staring at every single pitch

with that kind of intensity yeah and a lot of people are saying hey well this is more of a return to the game how it was you know just just like a decade ago or something the game was faster and it was i mean i guess what my i mean this is just a silly thing to say but i mean i guess i'm i'm not advocating for longer games necessarily i just don't like the rule i mean i wish it just got there naturally the way that the if the games were faster in the past but it wasn't because there was literally a clock ticking down i do feel like the the idea of a clock ticking down really affects the game not just the pace of the game but also like how the players are going to

react to it and what's on the crowd yeah like it at whatever it's called t-mobile they in the beginning of the season when the mariners were playing at t-mobile there was a pitcher who was taking on the other team was taking a long time and the crowd was counting him down yeah karen check that guy is a piece

of garbage i gotta say that was the one good thing about the clock was the crowd really got in his head by counting down the clock for karen check he's the guy who used to have longer hair luke and he would always like he's a reliever for the guardians and he would before every pitch he would take forever he's also a vax denier and i think all kinds of conspiracy theories but he had this long hair and he'd always rub his long hair and grab it in back before pitching and there's no way he wasn't putting gel on that ball there's no goddamn way that his hair and now it's all cut short so who knows but anyway i i kind of love the crowd like harassing him and getting into his head by counting down like the entire sold out crowd chanting the countdown clock such a

different i mean that's just something that has never occurred in my knowing of base of major league baseball in my life yeah it's a whole different energy it's like i mean that's what you do in sometimes in basketball or something you know i mean this idea that there's a ticking clock it's just it feels sort of anathema to baseball to me or at least the baseball that i've known but um you know i guess i guess the for me the most compelling argument is like you said that it the games haven't always taken this long um in other words 10 years ago the games were faster because pitchers weren't preening uh every batter wasn't readjusting the velcro on their batting gloves 33 times also the commercials i think somebody might have even emailed this to us saying you know what really slows the game down the commercials like which which gets back to what we were talking about on the show the other day which is like almost every time there's something annoying happening in the world it's because someone's making money somewhere and it's like oh yeah major league baseball they really want to like they really want to make the game better for fans but heaven forbid they touch any of the revenue streams that are also delaying

things well the the in park experience will be interesting um i will say this it was like uh i think it was monday night game which was a loss to was that the i guess maybe the first game

the angels the angels um well you have to definitely try to throw to shohei otani i mean i mean definitely if there's a person that you want to groove it to it's it's a once in a

generation hitter like shohei otani well i mean are you just gonna like are you gonna give both him and trout the base just like walk them both each automatic put the first and second every time but um oh that was so that game was a game where i was like getting i think i had worked like right up to game time or something and i was like oh you know i i'm kind of not in the habit of baseball yet and i was thinking i'll play some darts and listen to my super long also you don't have to listen to every word lebitard podcast but i was like oh no wait it's baseball season and then it was like such a shitty game from the perspective of the mariners that it was a moment where i was like i'm kind of glad that this went by so quickly because like when it's when you're losing and it's just a slog of a game and you kind of rather be doing something else but you kind of also feel like well i'm going to finish listening to this game now i just sound obsessed like i can turn off the game whenever i want to but i tend to to not want to turn it off early even if it's not that fun of a game um but and i gotta say there was a moment on monday where i was like huh i mean that's sort of an argument for the clock like now i sort of i joke around about people bosses will sometimes say when a zoom meeting ends early hey we're giving you your time right i sort of felt like hey the mariners are giving me my time back i can actually get in an hour of listening to a podcast or something that isn't making me as miserable as the mariners line up on that

particular night somehow if the game is longer it makes me think there's a more of a chance for the mariners to come back which that's not how that works oh do you know that's not how any of

And there's only two outs now.

Oh, wait for it. I'm sure that that's, I'm sure that'll be, I'm sure that'll be their plan next year.

There's a right way to rock and a wrong way to roll. You can't just listen to your soul. Just remember that life is number one. You can't be having so much fun. Just remember that life is much fun.

Do you have a Blur's Day that you would like to share with another 10? Email me, andrew, at tbtl.net. Put Blur's Day in the subject line. Janine in Everett says, I'd like to wish my husband Chris a very happy Blur's Day. I'm sending this at his request. Emoji of person laughing so hard they are crying. Happy Blur's Day, Chris. We support you, Chris. That's self-care. Absolutely.

Instructing your spouse to wish you a birthday on a weird podcast that you love.

That's right. And I also like that Janine was supportive in this way. Thank you for being there for Chris. They sped up baseball so much. I'm slowing down the Blur's day. It's really letting it breathe. Brian in Portland here sending out a big Blur's day wish to my co-bro Nate in Tacoma. I get to hang out with him tomorrow for the first time since the pandemic hit. My longtime bandmate Emma Hill and I are going to play a house concert at Nate's place in Tacoma, which is a makeup show for one that we were supposed to do in March of 2020. Wow. Have fun, everybody. Happy Blur's day, Nate. Brian has submitted a lot of musical bumps and bumpers and theme songs for our ridiculous segments on the show over the years.

Is that Brian in Portland?

It is, yeah. Brian in Portland. Brian with a Y. Anne in New Hampshire says, I'm turning 60 this week. How the heck did that happen? I don't feel a day over 45. Anyway, I'm a lucky person with many good things in my life. One of them is TBTL and the Wonderful Ten. So happy birthday to me. That's great. Happy Blur's Day, Anne. And Ann's another longtime listener of the show and a pen pal of mine. We check in quite often. Happy Blur's Day, Ann. Robin in Tenver says, happy birthday. I'm so used to saying Blur's Day that I stumbled on birthday. And it sounded gross. Let me do that again. Robin in Tenver says, happy birthday to Renee in Tenver. Hey, we met both of those guys when we were in Denver. Yeah, we did. Hope you have a fun day and a great year ahead. Happy Blur's Day, Renee. Does Renee and her family run a garage? Do I have that right?

Oh, yeah. I think I met Renee and Renee's daughter at the Denver get-together. And, yeah, I believe they run an auto garage. Don't drive like my daughter. Oh, man, that's terrible.

Jeannie says, first, I have to wish myself a happy Blur's Day. Next, my daughter, Lily, turns two on April 7th. My five, Paul, turns five on April 19th. Not quite a golden birthday, but still. I guess you've got to wait until you're 19 to have a golden birthday. And my 11, Tim, celebrates his big day on April 24th. So happy birthday month all around to the best family a girl could ask for. I'm so happy to get to celebrate alongside my other April Blursday 10s. Happy Blursday to the Genie family. And finally, our pal Lisa, formerly of Ocean View, California, Luke. Do I have that right? Oceanside. Oceanside, California, currently in the Chicagoland area. Lisa says, everyone join. But always a packer. Always a packer. Always a packer. Everyone join me in wishing the happiest of Blur's days to Farron. Not only is she an extraordinary hairdresser, which we learned about in Farron's dazzling donor message recently, But did you know that she's also the president of the Ocean Beach Women's Club? I didn't know that. No. El Presidente. La Presidenta.

It's actual recording of people learning that Farron is the president of the Ocean Beach Women's Club.

Is there any surprise that you and I like long baseball games? When you play that drop, and I'll, like, just, like, let this breathe. You're the big guy.

God, I would have loved to be in on that recording session. I know. You know the actors were like, are we still supposed to be? Okay. Watermelon. Watermelon. Watermelon.

Lisa says, Farron is also a fabulous friend who will notify you anytime she has an extra ticket for they might be giants i wish i was in california to celebrate with you but wishing you a happy blursday from illinois happy blursday farron and that's it that's what we got for blursdays this week thank you everybody excellente could you tell that i kind of uh didn't do my homework like it came off smooth right like the end product was fine absolutely no i mean

if you hadn't if you hadn't told me that you were editing the blurses and let's be honest really kind of torpedoed the rest of the show with that i would have never known because that was a very good delivery of the blurs day messages i was trying to think of a david stern joke why won't you believe me you were trying to think of a daniel stern i was trying to and you were like okay what what am i going to reference is it going to be home alone okay so daniel stern is a person right okay good is it going to be the voice of fred on the wonder years is it going to be from breaking away. Is it going to be

Goose? Was that Daniel Stern?

Was Daniel Stern Goose? No, that was Anthony Edwards.

I always get those guys confused. I don't know why.

Yeah, Daniel Stern is very tall and still has his hair. And Anthony Edwards, I don't know his height, but he was Dr. Agreed.

i believe on er okay so that's stern who was on er or that's nope that was edwards edwards yeah that's why i get those guys confused okay i'm looking oh wow daniel stern has grown out a a late in life beard it's interesting oh i okay anyway that's me looking at pictures online are

we done here actual tape of people responding to the fact that daniel stern has grown a late

in life beard well i wanted to i was going to comment on it then who am i to comment on other

people's looks i mean look at me uh man i was having we got to go but i was having a thought the other day i really wish i could grow a beard i could get away with carrying around the amount of weight i'm carrying currently if i had a beard i can't grow a beard therefore i can't pull it off

i am half kidding when i say you should look into a really good fake beard do they make those i don't know i feel like they must maybe not

yeah i know that seems like it would be itchy and also i mean it would be good content for the show if i started amazing if i started gluing on a beard every day that was my amazing i mean that would be pretty incredible content i just i'm jealous of people who can grow a beard who can grow as we call it a face hider uh because i think it's flattering and i think it kind of you know it it it covers up uh you know it covers up some various things that i would like covering

up on my face so who's our 10 who's a um costume designer it's elena right oh in fact our pal elena listener of the show and costume designer to the stars um was on set with our pal cat solin the director i was seeing photos of them working together on set in la la land uh i think a couple of weeks ago it's a small small world it is did they meet through the show i i think that they were just on this shoot together kind of coincidentally but maybe uh but and then realized realized that they knew each other sort of through the show i don't think that they were

had a previous existing wow so they they they realized on set that they both like tbtl it feels like it gets longer every time i don't know how that's possible we're trying to slow down the game yes spice let's speed up our drops all right that's gonna do it for today's show thanks for listening everyone uh we will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you In the meantime, have yourself a merry little Thursday, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Hey guys, it's Joel in Chicago, a long time and first time anythinger, and I was inspired listening to the last episode to do this.

I wake up in the morning, and I roll out of bed. I consider shaving, but there's too much face on my head. Because my beard is a face hider. My beard hides my face. My beard is a face hider. My beard hides my face. There you go. There's your death cow's beer face. Power out.