Muse

I read poetry and sonnets, and he plays the upright bass. Yama kipiebo, sedere fa kebo, in dog Latin he quotes. Uje, sapa, sere! Well, he bit all the he-dogs and winked at all the she-dogs. The town never knew such a hullabaloo as that little dog raised till the end of that day. we just have a good rhythm together you know he sort of feels me out i feel him out and uh we go

for it tbtl that's a donny brook that's a total donny brook a donny brook you know what a donny

brook is it's a donny brook don't worry because they call me devo because i can whip them good What kind of rap do you do? Are you like sort of sing-songing a rap like Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, or are you more like Street, like Will Smith?

You know, this is beginning to seriously undermine my self-esteem.

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

This is Democracy Manifest.

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Hi, I'm Luke. Coming to you from beautiful Kingston, Massachusetts.

That's a tuna, bro!

Where I've got to be honest with you, I am loving it here. Checked out the beach in Plymouth, Massachusetts earlier today. Got a little jog in.

In case you're wondering what's going on here, I'm having an absolutely fabulous time.

It's a gorgeous day. I didn't know that I was such a fan of Massachusetts, but it's just, yeah, just absolutely lovely on this Wednesday.

Oh, Ma, Pa, it's just beautiful.

And we've got an absolutely lovely episode of the program for you. It is episode 3941 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. We are going to hear the story of the great Cleveland balloon disaster. Please don't be mean to Cleveland. Of however many years ago. This is not breaking news. This is just something that the Internet decides to resurface, not unlike people that I work with, saying, hey, I'm just moving this to the top of your inbox. That's when you know you should be a little better, probably, about staying on top of things. I get a fair number of emails from different folks I work with going, hey, just putting this back at the top of your inbox. The Internet decides to put this story about the Cleveland balloon disaster at the top of our collective inbox about once a year. So we'll talk about that. Also, I've got a question. Now, I just talked about how much I'm loving Massachusetts. There was one thing I was not loving, though, yesterday when I got here, and that is the road situation in Boston.

Roads, where we're going, we don't need roads.

I would really like to get the explanation as to why it is that the roads leaving Logan Airport, the airport here in Boston, have to be so unbelievably complicated and twisty and turny and just kind of a major, literally a major disaster. So we may get into that. Oh, we've got an update on John Mulaney's Netflix special, Baby Jay. I was talking about how he spends a significant portion of his comedy special talking to some kid in the audience. Kids and fantasy. And how that would seem like he's really rolling the dice if it doesn't work out because you only get so many shots at this comedy special thing. Well, we've actually got an update from somebody who was at a series of the shows and can tell us what was really happening. So we'll 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 and all those intricate riggings. He'd be very much at home here in the South Shore area of the greater Boston district. Ooh. But with his tall ship drawings, he is Andrew Walsh. He's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Hey, good morning, Luke. You played a little piece of tape a little bit ago of an AI version of your own voice. Hi, I'm Luke Burbank. That's my imitation of a robot imitating you.

Hi, I'm Luke.

Oh, wow. I didn't even get the script right. Jeez Louise. Anyway, I woke up this morning to an email from listener Seth, which I plan on playing this for you at the end of the show in the email segment, unless this is so tantalizing that you can't wait for it. But Seth says that he's been messing around with AI tools for a bit and has created about a three minute episode of TBTL with fake you.

fake me oh no no i can wait many shows i can wait until maybe how's never is never good for you so i listened to the very very beginning of it just to make sure that like it would start cleanly or what have you um but i i it's mostly a surprise to me as well i don't actually know what's in it i have a very um cursory sense of what it's going to sound like um so anyway i am the problem if

If you play it at the end of the show, that's not the end of the show anymore. That's just the midpoint of the show. I'm sorry? Because obviously we're going to have thoughts and reactions and like, you know what I mean? Like, I can't imagine we'll play three minutes of A.I. Us and then we'll just go. Good night, everybody. So my point is, I wonder if we should play it at the beginning of a show. Could be today. Could be tomorrow. Again, could be never. But should we try to build in some time to react to it as well?

Yeah, well, I mean, we usually react to emails and voicemails, so I just sort of figured that was...

I just feel like this one's going to have a big reaction for me. Yeah, maybe, possibly, yeah.

Like a long reaction? Yeah, well, I mean, I guess we can hang on to it as well. I'm kind of anxious to listen to it, frankly.

Okay, well, maybe we played at the end of... The only reason is because the reason that I'm, for once, concerned about time constraints on this show, which, you know, if I had that concern more of the time, this program might be a better show. It's just because I am going to be leaving here and going to do a TV interview that's on a slightly tight time deadline. So I want to make sure that we can give it its proper due. But why don't we play it at the end of today's show? And then if we do have big thoughts on it, we could always revisit it tomorrow, you know, and just like kind of dig into it more deeply.

Wow. OK, that's an interesting thought. OK, then here's what we're going to do. We're going to do something bold here because I just figured, oh, we'll play this in the emails and we'll react to it like we usually do an email. But if you're worried about time constraints, here's what we're going to do. This is going to be weird. And this is probably a bad idea, but I think we should stick with it because I've already set it up this way. I did skip to the end of this file, and I know that this little mini show actually does end like an episode of TVTL with a little button on the end of it. So I say, I mean, it's going to be difficult for us. But, yeah, let's just literally, and this isn't what I was suggesting at first, but let's do it. Literally end the show with it. Let Seth's Robots close the episode of TVTL and it's bold. It's ahead of the competition. And I have a feeling we will have a lot of thoughts tomorrow. And that'll be it'll be like it'll be like a cliffhanger. Yeah. Sweeps, sweep, sweeps, weak cliffhanger. Love it. I got to bring sweeps week back to podcasting. I got to learn how to say that also. It's also on the it's not easy.

It's weak. And it's yeah, it's a little. Well, I one of the stories that I did for CBS was being held or is being maybe it's being held for, quote unquote, sweeps. And I was like, I was so flattered for something that I didn't even know existed anymore and probably doesn't probably only CBS Sunday morning. It's like it's sweet.

There's one editor in a vest and a visor still hunched over a keyboard or I'm sorry, a typewriter who's excited about sweep sweep.

He golfs with my agent Morty in Key West for two weeks every summer. Lukey! Yeah, them and the guy from Six Flags who does The Running Man with the Big Glad. Those three love to cut it up down in Key West.

Yes, and for some reason the dancing tax man is in there too. Wait, I might have that wrong. Is he an older guy? The guy with, oh shit, I think I've taken us down this road before and you don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

Who's the dancing tax man?

I'm going to say around like in the early 2000 teens, if that's how we say that, there were a bunch of commercials where there was some guy who represented one of those chain tax, you know, like tax help. Yeah, yeah. Right. Like accounting. H&R block. Yeah, exactly. And in the campaign was him. I believe it wasn't your guy, the local guy who had dollar signs all over his suit.

No, it was. No, no. That's that's Matthew Lesko. So I'm but it's also not we're not talking about the guy for Six Flags who does the who does the running man with big glasses on. He's bald.

I always get them conflated. So I think that they are different people because I remember living in L.A. and seeing the vehicle of this commercial character. It was parked outside of one of the locations of this tax place and the car matched the suit. I'll do a little bit of Googling and goggling over here. Don't expect too much here, but we'll see what I can come up with. Meanwhile, you're experiencing the maddening nature of trying to drive around Boston because you can't drive around Boston. It's a nightmare. There are exit ramps that never have, like, entrance ramps again. Like, you just can't drive around Boston.

This is a known thing then, I guess.

Try doing it before smartphones, my dude. It was like, I remember meeting Genevieve's dad.

For the first time, I believe he was visiting Boston. Vives and I were dating for like a month and I ended up being like an hour late for dinner because like nothing made sense. And I'm getting out of the car asking people like grumpy people at service stations how to get where I'm trying to get. And they're always just like, well, you can't get there from here.

I am, you know, I'm not particularly well versed in Boston, but by some odd quirk, I have been I've I think I've flown into Logan like two times in the last maybe like four weeks or something. And the first time I flew in, I was leaving to go to Connecticut and I got in the rental car and I just couldn't believe what Waze was telling me to do. I was like, OK, I take a hard right turn, but then I immediately Tokyo drift into a left turn. Then I go around three roundabouts and I go under the big dig and then I go over Gillette Field. And then I just continue to work my way through these neighborhoods where every turn is like some kind of corkscrew. And I thought, well, this must just be an issue if you're trying to go to Connecticut. Yesterday, I land here. I'm going in a totally different direction. I'm going down south of Boston by 30 miles So I land, I look at the distance I'm like, sweet, it's 8 o'clock at night This is 30 miles away And it goes, yeah, it's an hour and 20 minutes I was like, how can that be An hour and 20 minutes There shouldn't be any traffic And what I realized is because 12 of those 32 miles Are just driving around one roundabout For some reason you have to circle it 44 times before they'll let you leave

And you have to do the alphabet backwards, right?

z yes well you know what don't fall for that that's a scam nobody can do that you ask for

your lawyer that's that's right that is a dui question isn't i always think about that like

that i don't know if it really is oh isn't it that's so hard when we were like kids was that like no one it's actually impossible and it's just one of the ways that's how they get you but um i was in the general now this is this is this should be less cop like okay here's what i'm trying to say my theory is that the driving around boston and driving around logan is a disaster because boston is a very old city and the roads were built for a different era with different kinds of uh you know locomotion and it's just this is the holdover of being in like a revolutionary town is that it's just like sorry the roads aren't gonna work this ain't phoenix and like i can kind to live with that i would say the things immediately within the complex of logan airport that should be designed better because they you know built that fairly recently like paul revere had nothing to do with the building of logan airport i did so many like the what ways was telling me to do was so wild just trying to get out of the airport like listen most airports in probably the world at this point they you get in the rental car there are just giant signs that go airport exit and you just follow those signs and then you you achieve escape velocity from the airport not easy at logan i did about four laps around this one gas station that's in that's part of the whole thing and ways just kept going you go all the way down here then you do a u-turn and then you come back right where you were and then you do another u-turn and you go exactly where you just came from i was like this does not make any sense i finally just went rogue and managed to get out of logan and then the real fun began because every i'm like every road was twisty turny windy small again lots of bizarre like not even a right turn almost a borderline u-turn back to the right it was um it was challenging let me tell you i showed up at the hotel and i felt like i was jack lemon in the out of towners like i don't know if you've seen that movie would recommend by the way it's about a guy going to new york city who just encounters every single sort of like travel hassle you can and the joke becomes he's just writing down everyone's name like every time he gets bad the hotel doesn't have his room what's your name he's all writing it down in this small book like that's his tiny act of like agency he's just writing down everyone's name so he can

write a letter later i feel like your um your description of the streets around boston is like that's the type of thing where you might think you're saying that and the people there who live there and deal with it might might either not realize how crazy their road system is or potentially um agree with you but i feel like and i could be wrong and i don't want to paint with too broad of a brush of New Englanders. But one thing about New England that I picked up on is an attitude of, yeah, you don't belong here, basically. Like, I...

feel like they sort of feast off and this makes it sound like i'm like i think it's a rude thing it's actually just kind of a cultural thing i feel like the inability to travel easily around the roads of boston unless you just know you know and actually it's a little bit like that around seattle sometimes i think too with the um with aurora going through everything like it's very counterintuitive but around boston it really feels like those roads especially are built specifically as a test because outsiders are outsiders in new england i mean when you order a regular coffee at dunkin donuts well that means black with sugar and then cream which is not black

um sorry for putting it that way but you don't have cream i found out when i was in uh connecticut i asked for cream and the the woman i was at a duncan and i said can i get cream in that and

the woman said i don't have cream whoa that's really weird because yeah around there they say if a regular this confuses every newcomer because they say you want it regular and you think yeah just regular black right i'll add other stuff like no regular means cream and sugar like nobody knows that until they've gotten burned on it the first time everything is constructed like that around

there okay so this is what it was i asked for half and half and she said i don't have half and half i have light cream which i didn't know what that meant i said fine put that in but i was gonna to say yeah i wonder if i were to have if i would have purchased a duncan last night if you hold like a styrofoam cup of duncan does it start to glow and lead you where you need to go if you're in the northeast does it serve as some kind of magic talisman of directions and of navigation

i didn't try that but maybe that would work it glows brighter the closer you are to your destination

the closer that you get to um gillette field or whatever they call it yes actually weirdly the

closer you get to tampa the more it glows right well now i guess these days a beacon for tom brady

closer you get to signing up for usaa where does where does tom brady live like he doesn't have to

stay in florida anymore right because he doesn't play i think he lives in la he lives in okay that's

where the kids and the family are too because a friend of well a friend of mine who lives in la And her daughter does like super competitive swimming and is roughly one of Tom Brady's kids. I think maybe Jack Brady is the age. And she keeps like she has this dream. She's a big Pats fan. And she has this dream of like her daughter and Tom Brady's kid, like being in some competitive swim meet or kind of meeting somehow in L.A. And I because I think that that's where at least he he has some presence out there.

Okay, that makes sense. I mean, I did know that I think Giselle is his wife's name, right, or ex-wife's name. Ex-wife. Yeah. I believe they wanted to set up a situation where they were living close to each other for the kids, I believe. I did not realize that was going to be L.A., though. But, I mean, it makes sense given both of their careers now. Like, what is he going to be doing other than, I mean, he's got some huge broadcasting contract, right? But aside from that, he should just be an L.A. guy now, right?

It seems to make the most sense, like you said, because of just, you know, it being the sort of sports media epicenter, unless you're talking about Bristol, Connecticut. He's either going to retire to Bristol, Connecticut, Andrew, or Malibu. It's going to be one. I feel like I'm getting dangerously close to alienating our listeners in the Northeast. I want to say this. First of all, we love, love our Boss Tens and all of the folks that listen out here. So just because I was complaining about the roads, I don't want that to be taken as me not having a good time out here because, Andrew, I got up this morning and went out to Plymouth, which this is all kind of – Kingston and Plymouth, it's all kind of in the same general area. We're going to be filming in Kingston later. And I went out to this little beach area. I think it's called Nelson Beach Park, and there's just a little running trail that just goes along whatever this bay is. and it was spectacular i mean it seriously like it just filled me with so much joy though to just like get the sun and the breeze and and uh and then when i was done with my jog i i just sat on these rocks and just kind of stared at the water i mean it is gorgeous out here and everybody has been very nice since i've been here including the person who checked me into the hotel last night and i was i have to say i was a little bit like at first this person seemed a little brusque and what i so this was a you know what like i don't know eight or nine at night last night when i got here and the the woman who checked me in was well what happened was actually the person who literally checked me in was very nice but seemed like they were kind of new and i got my room and i went up and i i did what i always do which is i opened the uh the shades on the window to see what I was going to be looking at when I'm doing the show with you the next day. And what I was looking at was...

at was not actually just a parking garage, Andrew. It was the side of the roof of the parking garage, if that makes any sense. So literally there was just a six-foot obstruction that was two feet outside my window. And you know me. I'm nothing if not fragile when it comes to what I'm looking at when I'm talking to you. I need to be inspired by either Mother Nature or a Chili's, which are two of the options here in this part of um massachusetts i'm in so i go back downstairs and i talked to the person who checked me in and she just kind of like looks over to this other woman and says like jamie and what i realized was that the other woman was the manager and so maybe this and i hadn't done anything in the room it's like a random tuesday night i'm at a fairfield inn it's like i just didn't have the sense that it was like sold out i thought they'd be pretty easy i was just like hey the room that i'm in just looks at a parking garage the side of a parking garage roof did you have a room that just doesn't have that as the view and the manager came over and just doesn't even say a word to me just starts typing into the computer and just staring at the computer kind of grimly and like it's just seems to in my mind and again this is where the jack lemoning was happening because i had been i flew across country i drove for another hour and a half i did all those twisty turns in boston i just got here and i was just really ready to uh door dash some red robin to my room and watch the crack and play that was my big plan and because i saw a red robin in like two parking lots over as i was pulling in and i just didn't think my request was an overly hassle-y thing but the the she the manager just kept typing type and then she's and she was very like non-communicative until she said And after about what felt like four minutes of staring into the computer, she goes, we don't have any other – I had to move you to a larger room, which I was like, cool. She goes, but it has two beds instead of a king. And I was like, that's fine. That's awesome. Thank you so much. And she just like hands me the thing. And I like take it and walk out, come back. The room is great. The new room I'm in, Andrew, I'm looking at the – there's a little forest. It's very inspiring. That's why I've been doing so well so far on the show. That's why I've been so exciting and dynamic on the program. But I go back down this morning and I realize she's still there. I'm about to go for my jog. And I realized, no wonder this person was a little glum. This is nine hours later and they're still there. And I went up and I asked her, I said, hey, I am. And I was kind of bracing myself for this conversation because our interaction the night before had been so just kind of not particularly friendly. and I said hey I um I got a late checkout uh because the time it is here where I am right now Andrew it's like it's already after I should be in this room so I'd asked for a late checkout and I go I asked for a late checkout but then I moved rooms I was kind of hoping she wouldn't

remember me by the way but I was like and I just wanted to make sure that that had been transferred over to the other room and um she she looks down and she has this sheet and she goes are you in 306 and I go yeah she goes Burbank and I go yeah she goes oh yeah I moved you over last night and I was like man that's actually very competent because the first person had just handwritten a little post-it to themselves right that i was going to get a late checkout from my original room and this person the manager had already taken the initiative to make sure that my late checkout was moved over to this room and i was like okay i realize what i'm dealing with here which is a person who's actually hyper competent like not like i mean yes maybe a little brusque but also just really good at their job and they're not trading on being all like how's it going they're trading on being very good at what they're doing and so i i had like three other questions like where's the coffee how does the business center work um just where's the coffee how does your

business model work um and how long the business center like where can i print the show sheet

right um uh but anyway she just knew the answer to every question i had very professionally and then i just said to her because i felt like we'd kind of broken the ice i said like uh i go did you were you here all night and then she laughed she's like no no i got to go home but now i'm back

and while she was in god that almost sounds that almost sounds like it could be worse

i guess depending on how your circadian rhythms tend to work the best i would rather i'm the kind of person that would rather go home get a little shut eye and come back um but i just do really poorly like doing a graveyard shift thing while i'm talking i guess what i just meant there was

like it could be like if you have somebody that you I was assuming you met somebody at the desk who was just starting let's say their eight hour shift and it happens to be the night shift and so she was a little bit tired and therefore a little grumpy because it was like the first thing in the morning to her and also the night shifts are tough but if she was somebody who was finishing up an eight hour shift and potentially was back for another eight hour shift with just a little bit in between she could be because I was at a hotel once where the woman at the front desk a very young woman was telling me like she was like in the middle of like a 15 hour thing with like one hour off in between anyway go ahead so i think

she was wrapping her shift last night and then was starting her shift this morning but i don't know what i do know is as i was talking to her and asking her various questions she was looking at me she was answering my questions to the t she was also just typing into the computer something and as soon as i had gotten my questions answered this other woman who's staying here came up and And the person at the front desk said to her, like, I've returned all those charges to your card minus the $10 we discussed. She had this overly complicated computer thing she was doing for this other guest while she was talking to me. And she had done it, like, to exact perfection for this other customer. And I was like, oh, okay. So then I go. I do my little adventure, my little jog or whatever. I come back to the hotel. and as i'm walking in she goes oh um by the way i think that your keys should work um until 2 p.m but in case just in case i reprinted your new keys here they are and she just hands me these new keys like she had just thought well let's just err on the side of caution for this burbank guy and had done it gotten it together had it ready for me recognized me when i walked in i guess i was the sweaty guy who uh was wearing running shoes maybe that's not there's not like 10 of us in the hotel but like and you still cut the nipples out of your shirts too well i mean yeah but i mean that's just see that but that's my learner's world i don't think you realize that

that's sort of memorable when you like when you meet somebody who's wearing a shirt like that

it kind of stands out in the memory she was so on it i learned and also by the way like when she gave me the key i forget we had some other very brief interaction where i asked something and she laughed and i was like it was it was a really here's i guess the point of this not particularly interesting story for me was it's a really good reminder for me to withhold judgment because i think i'm very judgy and i'm also very sensitive and there was a a quick point last night when we were in like minute three of her silently typing into the computer where i literally started googling hotels near me because i was getting my sort of speech ready for if they were going to If I if the only room they were going to have for me was going to be staring at the side of the roof of the parking garage, I was going to just go stay somewhere else. And I was I had already rehearsed how that speech was going to go or I sort of previewed into my mind how I was going to explain that I need to get my money back. because if the only room like I had gone down this whole there was a some kind of a Homewood Suites or something like you know I'm in one of those like you know uh sort of parking lots where you've got a Chili's a a Fairfield Inn a Homewood Suites you know everything you could need I was so far down the road of like how upset I was about this and all she was doing was just finding me a way better room and she just was a person who again is very very good at doing the things that really mattered more about the job than being all like you know sugar and spice and everything nice and side note she was even that by the end of our knowing of each other today not that that should be a requirement but i just it was a good reminder for me to just calm down a little bit in the

moment well that's you know i was stumbling over my words earlier for a couple of reasons number one because that's how i talk uh and maybe my brain isn't fully awake now but also because i i'm not doing a good job of explaining what i mean about that sort of cultural um attitude of new england again this is a this is a stereotype this is a broad brush and also a lot of our i feel like kind of local and regional eccentricities um are maybe getting a little bit diluted in all areas of the country because people move around a lot there's so many more transplants i'm a good example of that but like when i was discussing the roads before and everything sort of having a bit of a well you're an outsider kind of feel to it like that it made it sound like i was saying they're all rude there and they don't want you there and maybe that maybe that's part of it but actually the thing is like i i kind of like it and maybe because i lived there for a decade of my life maybe some of that seeped into me or or maybe a better way of putting it is some of the pride of that seeped into me and so hearing you describe these circum like the idea of somebody being somewhat like more than reserved and also you know you'll always hear the word flinty especially in like maine and new hampshire but like that you got new england luke and i see i kind of like it and i like people who are you know they don't necessarily it doesn't mean that they're rude or mad at you they just don't waste words you know like that's kind of a that's kind of a stereotype of a new england person like i'm not mad at you you might think i'm mad at you i'm not mad at you i'm just not wasting words right now you know i'm not a it's not a super chatty bubbly place and you kind of begrudgingly appreciate that or at least I did but the thing is like people like you and me are also very sensitive souls You know, and I've been away from there for a long time. And so you may be experiencing that for the first time and like kind of your antenna being out and being like the thing I'm receiving back from this person feels quasi hostile is just, I think, maybe you adapting to a different communication style that that region traditionally has enjoyed.

I think you're right. And again, I think, honestly, if I will take and I can't you know, this is this is one anecdotal experience. I don't know how it, you know, relates or if it is indicative of everybody else. But I actually think I could get down with hyper competent, less chatty. I think I could live in that world. I mean, I would rather have somebody who had anticipated that my key card might stop working. Therefore, I have now made you new key cards because I figured you'd come back from this jog and here they are. Like that was a level of forethought that you don't usually get your fair field in in, you know, Oceanside. Right. I believe we literally stayed at a Fairfield Inn in Oceanside. That's why it came to mind.

And when you live in a place like that, you do adapt pretty quickly to communication styles. You and I, to draw a comparison, we're talking about sometimes you go to a restaurant, like a pho restaurant or something. The first time I went to a pho restaurant in Seattle and the servers literally did not talk to me and sort of seemingly almost slammed the bowls of soup down in front of me. I was kind of like, wow. My initial reaction was, did I do something wrong? Do I not belong here? But it's like, oh, no, that's just kind of how certain restaurants are around here. It's just like and then and now I wouldn't even notice that or or or want anything other than that. But if somebody is visiting from the outside, I was telling you from the outside, if somebody is visiting from another part of the country, I might prepare them for that. If it's my parents who are used to somebody at Chi Chi's crouching down to sing at their table. That's a gross exaggeration. But you know what I mean?

yeah well i'm uh i'm a lifelong new englander now andrew is what i'm trying to say i'm going to live here forever and um and just live on that little beach that i was at it whatever it's called nelson beach i will tell you the downtown of plymouth the little uh and by downtown i mean the little kind of area with little shops and stuff i mean right out of central kind of new england beach town casting like you've got the you've got the cape cods going you've got the the you know whatever you call those kind of like that siding that you'll tend to get kind of in in new england along the coast uh you just have like lots of adorable little shops it was like there was a some kind of a situation going on with a power pole and two police officers were directing traffic and they were both like just super local police guys like giving you a good wave and helping you and making sure none of the cars come it just it did kind of felt like You understand why people can get really locked Into a situation like this It was totally cute

I assume you did not see the rock right Plymouth Rock I did wait

Do you know that it had not occurred to me

That's where you are That's where you are baby I saw it once

Do you understand that it did not occur to me That Plymouth Mathetooth Might be the place where Plymouth Rock is Do you understand how dumb I am

That's where that's well, there are a lot of different places in New England that all have the same name. So maybe, you know, I mean, no, I'm just not smart.

I got to go see that before I leave.

I was wondering if you'd be interested because you're talking about this beautiful kind of idyllic jog. But like, do you want to go to a place where people are sort of like, I figure you might have looked at Plymouth Rock and not known I was looking at it. My memory, and I could be wrong of this. I only visited Plymouth once. I believe Genevieve's car was broken down or something. So we had to take the train out there to meet her grandma for a succulent lobster dinner. But if I recall seeing The Rock, I remember feeling like it was smaller than I envisioned it. But isn't that the way, though? Like anything that is so huge in the imagination of an entire nation or culture, of course, it's going to seem relatively small. I'm Googling an image of it, which is about as good as actually doing and singing. You don't need to go. Yeah.

Wow. It's really small.

Yeah. Are you seeing is there anything next to it? Is there a banana next to it? I'm looking for scale. I'm looking.

Well, it's got some kind of a thing built around it. Yes, I do remember that kind of stanchion. I assumed that it was like a giant, like a huge giant boulder or something like haystack rock on the Oregon coast, which is this kind of like massive, I don't know, you know, multi hundreds of feet high and wide rock that juts out of the out of the kind of right where the surf breaks. i always assumed that they named it like they they sailed in and they saw plymouth rock because it was so giant this thing looks like you and i could move it together but don't we really lifted

with our legs but don't though they oh my lord do they frown on that luke do not try to move

plymouth rock do i hang upside down and

kiss it for luck oh that's the blarney no you're supposed to pull the sword out of it jeez you don't know anything about american history i absolutely if i have time i will absolutely go look at plymouth rock i mean you're right there i guess why not yeah i will also you know we've been talking on the show the other day about embarrassment and intrusive thoughts andrew that is i am deeply embarrassed that i did not connect those dots i mean plymouth rock is you you could argue for the united states of america anyway foundational as an idea as something that was the beginning of this and again that's with with the full caveat that there were many native people living here so i'm not saying it's the beginning of north america but it's the beginning of the particular experience that we tend to value now it's Plymouth Rock is the beginning of the story I'm right near it I didn't even it didn't even occur to me when you said have you seen the rock I thought Dwayne Johnson had a house here and I'm not kidding you Andrew that's not a joke I was trying to think does the rock does he live out here does he do something out here

that is embarrassing I don't think it's that embarrassing I think there's a lot of places named Plymouth around the country you didn't happen to think of it

I was probably standing staring at that you know how the hotel lobby will have that like thing full of flyers I'm sure if I stared at that long enough there was some flyer there that said like come see the rock or take a segue tour to the Plymouth Rock or whatever I just

you know what I love thinking about now I wish this whole story had started with you saying so I got up to my room and I looked out the window and it was just like rock like i'm gonna stare at a rock outside my window there's like do you have a room where i'm

not staring at some shitty rock with like a gazebo over it like what it looked like somebody

graffito tagged the date into it i don't know yeah can you just can you give me a nicer room

so i absolutely would have done that by the way let me put it this way if one side of this hotel which it doesn't if one side of this hotel looked at the water right and you know me when i If I were to pull up to a hotel like that I'm immediately already doing the calculation What side of the hotel is that And how do I get on that side And if the other side was looking at Plymouth Rock And I got into it And I was looking away from the beach Towards some shitty rock I would be like Can I please get a new room That looks at the beach I'm no historian

This is not interesting to anybody but me But I'm having a little bit of an emotional reaction To something I shouldn't be having an emotional reaction to right now i told you that my one trip to plymouth and again this goes back i mean this must have been in our first couple of years of dating so this is literally 20 years ago was the last time i was in the town that you're describing um and i was only there once and i remember it was the first time i met genevieve's grandma and we were meeting her and genevieve's sister they were visiting from out of town but i think they wanted to stay in in plymouth because like you said, it's a beautiful place. So I can't remember all the details around it. But Genevieve was living in Boston at the time. And we were supposed to drive there to have a dinner with them. But if I remember correctly, her car had broken down like literally that day. And so or maybe it was the day before, but we had to scramble and we ended up taking in my memory, we had taken a train, some sort of rail ride out there to, to have dinner with them and meet up with them and i just happened to be on the plymouth not happened to be i'm now on the plymouth massachusetts um wikipedia page for the town and there's a little section for rail and i'm seeing a photo of exactly the platform that we got off and i'm realizing how much that like lives in my head like oh that this is how i sort of picture um this but what's making me sad about it is it's permanently closed apparently like it says the former mbta station in plymouth um and apparently apparently they had to cut back services uh due to budget concerns during the pandemic and then last year it was announced that it will never open again and i was planning on doing that right every 20 years luke how does that not keep them in business that's right i mean like they got that going for them which is nice yeah right anyway sorry that was me just that was pretty self-involved but man i'm just looking at this photo i'm like yes that's exactly it so many of my memories are wrong well no you know what's happening you're getting eternal

sunshine of your spotless mind that that that platform is starting to dissolve now right behind you for some reason you and genevieve are under a sink but you're dressed like a cowboy and someone

needs you to kill a bird i said i said something insulting to this platform and now i don't want to remember it and so now it's just disappearing from my memory oh man well i am gonna go try to

see that rock before because i mean come on that's a big deal in in this in the history of this of this version of this country i want to keep clarifying because i feel like

We just center the, like, white American experience so much that it's so easy to do. We're all taught it growing up that it's, you know, I slip into that very quickly, even though I'm, you know, I try to be more aware of how the world has actually come about these days. Anyway, okay, let's take a quick break, and then when we come back, we're going to talk Cleveland balloon disasters. Don't go anywhere.

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

Let's thank some dazzling donors. These are the wonderful, generous people supporting the show with a donation of a dazzling amount of dough each month, and we are extremely, extremely grateful. Folks like Kate Muller in Seattle, Washington. Kate says, Hi, Luke and Andrew. As in previous years, I'd like to use my dazzling donor message for some shameless self-promotion, if that's okay. More than okay, Kate. My husband and I own the best small gym in Seattle. Green Lake Strength and Conditioning.

That's right. Every time I pass this place, I think of Kate because Kate has talked about this in other messages to us, previous dazzling donor messages, and I used to walk by this place all the time in Greenwood. It's in a beautiful part of the city. Green Lake, I believe. Green Lake. I'm sorry. Yeah, I misspoke.

We would love for any 10s to check us out. we welcome and celebrate all bodies all people and all abilities and we have coaches who can meet everyone where they are fitness wise i am personally about the furthest from a gym bro that you could imagine and i want everyone to experience the community acceptance and fun that i found at our gym tens please check us out this is the website for uh their gym greenlake strength.com That's GreenLakeStrength.com. I'm checking on the website right now. This looks amazing. You know, Andrew, even though I now live permanently in Plymouth, Massachusetts, I have always really had a deep and abiding love for the Green Lake neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Of course, that's where I grew up. And then when I moved back to Seattle at one time, I was hoping to buy a house there, and it was a little priced out of that area back then. And every time I go back to Seattle I always make a trip to Green Lake And now this is only adding To what I'll call Green Lake ennui The fact that Kate and her husband Have this really cool Inclusive gym happening in Green Lake

Let me ask you a question I don't know why I'm going here But do you remember How many Russian twists you think I can do? How many Russian twists you can do No, do you remember You were up here in Seattle Doing some business I believe, and you and I ended up recording a TV tale together here in my studio one day, I'm going to say maybe eight months ago, maybe a year ago, and you ran into your daughter Adelaide. Yes. Coincidentally, I always picture it happening right outside of this gym. Is that where it happened? Because it happened in kind of the heart of Green Lake, right? Where all the kind of round, like not roundabouts, but where the streets kind of meet in a circle.

Mere steps from here. I'm looking it up on Street View. i always picture your interaction right outside this i'm it was really more it was nobody cares but nobody cares but i brought it up it was where the baskin robbins used to be that my sister worked at which is now something called like shelter okay um but uh yeah i was i was this but this this supports the larger point that i am obsessed with green lake still um all these years later because it just i don't know it again it just it brings back the best childhood memories for me it was basically our backyard because our actual backyard sucked because it was like one foot by one foot and uh and i love it there and i love that kate and uh her husband are are running a uh a gym there greenlakestrength.com back to tbtl kate writes i've been a dedicated listener uh since eli sanders's 2008 stranger piece i honestly don't know what my life would be like without tbtl i love you guys oh kate we love you shout out to eli sanders man we owe that guy yeah a t-shirt or something can we get eli to write about us again yeah hey eli how's this remember that show that you wrote about now they're independent again now they're older sizzle they're older and less interesting less relevant can a can an even less relevant show make it in this fractured media landscape i could hear i hear another pulitzer in eli's future for that anyway kate thank you so much for the support GreenLakeStrength.com. Go check them out. Maestro.

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

Everybody rattle, dattle. Hey, look who it is. Another Seattleite and long.

standing tbtl listener and supporter it's denny gomer denny denny says why do i listen to tbtl question mark i don't know period i guess because i like to listen for fleet for free-flowing conversation or if we ever talk about you know vermin flea-flowing conversation also could happen uh luke is a seattle guy or at least now a pnw guy and seattle is my adopted home of the last 49 years i love that denny has been in seattle for 49 years but thinks of it as his

adopted home yeah no that's a very new there that's a very new england thing too oh are you from here yeah i lived here 50 years oh you're not from here right um you probably have to use

ways to get around uh andrew is an expat midwest former ohioan guy just like i am uh denny is a former iowan uh their sensibilities agree with mine and while i don't always agree with their takes denny denny denny how could you not agree with our takes which are as we like to say non prey they are without equal our takes we didn't say accurate we said without equal that means some are much better than us and some are much worse but none of the exact same amount as ours no exactly i like that they let me glimpse a bit of current popular culture otherwise how i know who pd is thanks meat cat so that would be a pd usa reference i believe yes yes

there was a small glitch a very small glitch on the line so i'll just say that again um otherwise how would i know who pd is is what uh denny says there yeah the the the sounds like somebody doesn't want to do a tape sync later i think we can get through i just wanted to because it was during a dazzling donor message i just want to make sure it's absolutely clear there's a very very small little hiccup in the tape but um yeah so that's pd usa on tiktok who is also a musician

that we became obsessed with pd and i think thanks meat cat is a 30 rock reference it is thanks meat cat and then meat cat does something thank you denny and kate uh for keeping tbtl going we couldn't do this without you hello and welcome to top story all right i saw this thing on tiktok i don't know week ago and because i mean my goodness what has happened to my attention span like it was like you know the great cleveland balloon disaster was all this footage from like local you know tv as these millions of balloons were being released and i didn't have the attention span to watch to the end andrew and figure out why it was a disaster um and luckily you also saw this resurfacing and as a clevelander although i think you mentioned to me off air that you didn't grow up knowing the lore of the great cleveland balloon disaster that wasn't really a thing before the

internet well i don't know if it wasn't a thing but it really i don't know illustrates maybe my shelteredness of not really kind of knowing what's going on in the world because i grew up in the cleveland area right like the the exurbs like kind of out in the country but like the media markets back then we had we had three channels you know and they're all cleveland channels and this you know was a huge thing that i did not even realize was a thing until i was an adult and like you mentioned at the top of the show it kind of lives online now it'll go viral every now and then the like various videos dedicated to this event and then people will send it to me because they know i'm from cleveland and so maybe 10 years ago i became aware of this for the first time but Like, this checks every box of things I should have known about. I was a kid. 1986, I'm like, you know, like, 10 years old. So it seems like releasing almost a million and a half balloons into the sky would have been something that would have, like, appealed to a 10-year-old living in Cleveland at the time. It was, I realized for the first time, I think, hosted by Big Chuck and Little John, the micro celebrities or local celebrities of the 80s in Cleveland who I refer to.

They would do like TV, they'd introduce the TV stuff, right?

They had like a Saturday afternoon show where they would introduce the horror movies or like the old black and white scary movies. But they had just the lowest of low budget sketches that were so of the time, late 70s, early to mid 80s, a lot of like kind of Polack jokes, but they weren't Polack jokes.

They were called it like somebody from an unspecified ethnic background.

Exactly. I was setting that up so I could say that now I can't remember exactly how they said it. But yeah, some sort of like unspecified ethnic scenario or whatever. But, you know, it ends up being basically a Pollock joke because, I mean, you know, as somebody of Eastern European descent, that was very much of the culture that I was steeped in in Cleveland. And so anyway, here's the background on what happened in this event. And I will say that just this weekend, I think maybe you and I. we're wishing upon the same bright star here another new little mini documentary came out about this and was posted to the internet and the one that i saw is by a um a poster on youtube called tsd talks tsd talks i don't know what this person's deal is what else they cover um but this one sucked me in and it's like this i don't know nine minute little mini documentary and i'm like you know what i'm gonna go back and refresh myself on this so the deal was i believe it was a charity fundraiser for the united way i want to say and they they raised money by saying we're gonna break the guinness book of world records and release the most balloons ever into the sky and the number that they settled on was they wanted to release 1.5 million balloons and it was a fundraiser in this way people could buy a balloon so apparently all around the city they had this giant net like kind of in the center of the city and all around the city around this this several block area you could buy a helium balloon there there are people all along all along the streets filling up these balloons you buy it for a dollar and then you take your balloon as a citizen of cleveland and you let it go and then it gets captured in this net that is maybe a couple of stories above your head right and then the plan was once this giant net in the heart of downtown cleveland uh was filled with 1.5 million balloons they were going to open up the net and let them all fly off into the atmosphere

and i don't want to i don't want to sidetrack us but whatever mini doc that i watched part of said something like the balloons took hours to inflate and i was like hours 1.5 million yeah right why not days of something yeah yeah anything right how about lifetimes like i had so many questions first of all like how can you inflate one and a half million balloons quickly enough that the initial hundred thousand haven't lost their helium by the time you get to the i mean think about what a million actually represents in terms of how many a hundred thousand has to

happen ten times that's why i say i think they had people like all around the perimeter of this area just like filling balloons filling balloons i think according to the thing that i watched they they claim that they released 1.5 million but it's actually 1.4 million at the end of the day but like you know that's still a lot who's gonna quibble so you have this big sort of almost bladdery look from aerial shots you have almost this big bladdery looking net in the heart of downtown cleveland that's just been collecting balloon after balloon after balloon and then the plan was to release these i don't know at some point in the day maybe a very early evening late afternoon but there was some weather system coming in and so they readjusted their schedule And they're like, we got to get we got to get these balloons in the air earlier than originally anticipated. So it was a slight hiccup in the plans. But maybe that's why it was only a mere 1.4 million balloons, Luke. And so I watched the footage. Big Chuck and Little John say, OK, here we go. And they count it down. I should probably have queued up the tape for this. They count it down and they let all the balloons go. Now, in all of the footage I've ever seen of this, including most of the footage from this particular video, you would think it would be a splendid sight these are multi-colored balloons right being released into the air be a bright extravagant experience but when you release that many balloons on a very gray cleveland day and you're filming with whatever types of videotape my eight or something yeah like news cameras were using at the time it just all looks kind of gray washed out and this big black blackish brownish evil organism yes did you see that you must have seen these shots i got that far into the tape it looks like a terrorist attack from above it looks like black smoke swirling up from the heart of the city now this doc i was watching does have some still shots that were probably taken by local newspaper reporters or photographers and they captured it and framed it in ways that actually caught the brilliance of some of the balloons and and so there There was some beauty around this, but my God, every version of this that I have seen as the balloons are escaping the, and also like you just can't get rid of the net right away. It sort of pulls back slowly. So again, the bladder sort of, it looks like sort of like a rupturing bladder that becomes like smoke. But now here are the things. First of all, you might say to yourself, well, what did they think was going to happen to these balloons? It's like in this day and age, like we think about you were talking about spitting gum into some bushes and feeling bad about it. Like I did that again. Yes. Don't do that. I'm Plymouth Rock.

What did they Plymouth Rock didn't spit on me? I spit on Plymouth Rock.

You and I had done such a good job of avoiding that construction of a joke. Sorry. about that the whole time anyway um it is less than brilliant to look at and afterwards after there were several lawsuits that were settled um yes uh one of the main organizers i believe from the united way said we and i think the quote was we thought that the balloons would evaporate into the atmosphere which that's what i would assume that's not how science works these are rubber Like, what is less biodegradable than rubber? And also, I guess, what sort of compounded, if that's the right word, which it probably is not, the issues here was even though they released these early to avoid the storm that was coming, there was still some sort of a pressure system that came in that sort of, like, kept the balloons lower in the atmosphere than everybody expected. Now, the balloons did end up going far and wide up to Canada, of course. It's like where I mean, yeah, even they're going to stay in the sky and eventually they're going to come down and just litter the earth. Right. But here's what I found the most fascinating. As long as I've heard this story over the course of the past decade or so, I had heard that there was some lawsuit that there were a couple of fishermen who were out in a relatively small fishing boat on Lake Erie and their boat capsized, I believe, the night before or maybe earlier in the day. It had nothing to do with the balloons. It was a capsized boat and they were missing. And I'd heard that there was a lawsuit because this balloon disaster hindered rescue efforts. And in my head, yes, and I could never I could never quite picture that. I was like, that seems I don't know. I didn't really think it out fully, but I was like, I don't know. That sort of seems like maybe a stretch. That's something that you that you say because you're trying to make Cleveland seem like such a disaster that when you tell this story, you can also say this balloon debacle also caused actual lives. And that was just sort of what was, I think, my initial reaction in the back of my head until I watched this little mini doc and they showed what it's like to be in a boat on Lake Erie hours after this thing happened. And you see the shot of a camera at water level, basically looking over the, you know, I don't know, the side of the boat. I was going to throw a starboard, a starboard, starboard, starburns, starburns side of the boat. I'm glad I didn't bring it up and you see how impossible it would ever be to see a human floating in here because it looks like there are hundreds of thousands of heads.

These balloons came to rest on Lake Erie that quick.

I don't know exactly the timeline here, but this shot that was shown, it said that the balloon release hindered rescue efforts because you couldn't. They had a helicopter employed looking for these two fishermen and apparently boats. but and i don't know exactly what this footage i saw like when this was whether it's the next day

whether it's hours later that day i'm telling you is probably the first hundred thousand balloons that they inflated which were probably already almost out of helium when they let sure yeah

right down on lake erie and again and then the weather system wasn't as forgiving as they would hope or whatever but you suddenly it all clicked into place for me when i saw this shot of lake Erie at water level out in a boat and you're like oh balloons are approximately the size of a human head and you just see as far as the eye can see just balloons floating on the water and if you were up in a helicopter looking down on that it would absolutely destroy any chances you would have of identifying humans in the water and the fellas did end up dying and I believe if I'm remembering correctly there was either a settlement or they lost the lawsuit and did have to pay to the family of these guys so i don't make light of that but like for the first time i was like oh yeah man i get it there was something about the footage in this particular version that i watched this week that uh really made everything sort of come into focus for me it also didn't help that

the same time mothers against drunk driving was releasing a hundred thousand crash test dummies yeah that was that that was unfortunate a very unfortunate weekend for that's i mean that is really that's i did not know that part of the story and you're right that is the most fascinating that is the most that is an intersection of just unbelievably bad circumstances and timing because obviously it would be terrible to go missing on lake erie uh and and but that for that to be at the same time when there's all of this other stuff landing on there that makes the the the search like of all the weekends or of all the days that you could be looking for someone in lake erie The time when there's also a thousand Or ten thousand or a million balloons landing That is now I have to also say Like this Sounds like a great idea to me I mean it does now that we know how it played out It doesn't no no but I mean If it's 1986 And I'm we're with the United Way and we're trying to think of a cool way to raise a bunch of money. It's a genius idea, actually, because a dollar is not that much money. And I would pay even back then a dollar to have my balloon as part of this cool thing, you know, like so it's a smart way to raise money. I also would have assumed that the balloons would disperse, not like they wouldn't cease to exist, like they wouldn't, you know, go into the like ionosphere or something. But they would just like, you know, the world is a big place and a million and a half balloons, if each one of them go to, you know, if each one of them lands within a 10 mile radius, it wouldn't seem like the hugest deal. Like, oh, cute, a balloon floats back down to earth harmlessly in a field in Iowa or something, you know. That's how I would picture it playing out. Not 100,000 of these decide to settle on Lake Erie where we're looking for two bobbing circles already.

Now, there was something romantic about releasing balloons. As a matter of fact, there was a podcast that did a live show in VFW Hall in St. Paul, Minnesota, several years ago, where I believe they took some sort of a paper mache boat and launched it into the sky on balloons. That seems sort of irresponsible, too. I don't know if that got written up in the Star Tribune. I'm sure that show's been canceled by now. I'm sure. Was that depression mode? Yes. It was slam derby. What was the sports show? I can't remember. Anyway, but I mean, I remember being a kid. And again, maybe this happened everywhere. But part of what colors my upbringing was the fact that I grew up in kind of a rural part of the country. And we would do things. I remember as classes, we would write notes on balloons. Did you ever do that and have a balloon release party? And I remember even finding balloons in my yard No, but I would have killed to do that as a kid

I love that kind of shit The Boy with the Red Balloon really informed Did you see that when you were a little kid? The Boy with the Red Balloon?

Is that the David Duchovny softcore porn movie?

That's The Red Shoe Diaries

Oh, okay, then yes

And that was not a movie I believe it was a series of short films That you could, if you were lucky Your Uncle Johnny had it on VHS tape Wow, I didn't know And maybe when everyone was asleep You may have fished it down from the Philadelphia Flyers championship tapes and watched it.

Or so you hear. Or so I know. But I don't think I've seen this movie of which you speak.

Oh, it's it's quite adorable. It's it's very European. I don't think there's any words, but it's just a little boy. And he's got this huge red balloon on a rope and he's walking it. And he has all these adventures with this balloon. And I saw it because, you know, my parents' big thing for entertainment when I was a kid is they would go to the Shoreline Public Library and check out actual film reels and a film projector and then set up a whole thing at our house. So I remember watching the film of The Boy with the Red Balloon or whatever exactly it was called. I want to say it was French, but it might have been, you know, Romanian or something. What I knew was that there were no words. It was just music and this kid with this red balloon. But it definitely quite intrigued me to the possibilities of like being friends with a balloon, putting a message on a balloon like I would have been there for all of that stuff as a kid.

By the way, do you know that Shelter Lounge is permanently closed in Green Lake? This is unrelated to what we're talking about right now, but you had mentioned it.

Like the train station here in Plymouth managed to destroy another locally beloved place.

You mentioned that during the Dazzling Donor messages. It is kind of like right around the corner, a couple blocks away, I guess, from the Green Lake Strength and Conditioning Kate's gym. But yeah, and I did not realize, I didn't recognize the name, but I'm like, oh, I've been here before. That was kind of a nice place. Now that place is permanently closed, just like the train station.

And that, you know what? Well, it's because they built it on a Baskin and Robbins burial. That was their bag.

It was haunted by the ghost of 31 Flavors.

It was haunted by the ghost of my sister Liz having carpal tunnel syndrome. Oh, no, really? She used to come home and be just, like, icing her wrist for days because, like, it's actually a very rigorous job to scoop ice cream. At least it used to be back in those days.

That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I'm going to send you a photo, though, of these balloons. Maybe I'll try to use it as the show pic today, but I'll send you a photo of these balloons just floating on the water and how difficult it would be to, like, try to navigate through any of that. But, yeah, anyway, interesting.

Okay, I want you to watch Le Ballon Rouge. Okay, sounds good. The Red Balloon, 1956, France.

I can picture the movie. I'm pretty sure I can. It's such an iconic image. I'm pretty sure I can picture like the movie poster or maybe it's just been appropriated a lot or whatever. Yeah. Is it, now am I exaggerating? Is it like kind of a black and white?

ish thing but the balloon and the kidder is in color or am i just cheesing it up in my brain

like a no it's red rose on the keys of the piano it's two kids they're wearing oversized suits they're handing each other a rose the rose is yellow the derbies are falling over their eyes yeah golly 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.

Okay, we didn't get to the Malaney update today, and I've also, I have TBTL breaking news, Andrew. I just got an email about the UPS situation with my suits. So tomorrow, we've got, it sounds like we're going to have three things to talk about tomorrow. We're going to have our review or our thoughts on the three-minute AI version of TBTL, which we're about to hear. We have an update on what's going on with John Mulaney and the kid that was in his stand-up set. And we have what's going on with me and United Parcel Service. So a lot to tune into tomorrow.

That's why we call it Reaction Roars Day. Yep. That's what tomorrow is going to be. Okay, so I'm going to read this quick note from listener Seth, who says, hey, I've been futzing around with various AI tools for a bit, And I used ChatGPT and ElevenLabs to make a shortish fake episode of TBTL. I had to editorialize a tiny bit, and I had to patch it together with audio software. But at least 90% of the script is generated from our AI future overlords. Feel free to use this on the show, but also feel free to send me a cease and desist. I love the podcast. Thanks for your work. So I'm going to play this for you.

And I'll bring down the email music.

Yeah. And this is it, Luke. Let's you and I say, you and I, the humans, you and I, humans, will say goodbye here. And then I will just launch into this mini, it looks like, what, three and a half minutes? No, but a little bit less than three and a half minutes of fake TBTL with fake you, fake me. And honestly, people can tune in tomorrow and decide whether or not they're hearing us or these two robots.

All right. Thanks for listening to us. Again, the humans. And I listen to this with great trepidation But I will listen because it is my professional responsibility So this is Luke and Andrew Real Luke and Andrew signing off saying No mountain too tall

Good luck to all Safe travels Luke And now The Robits welcome to tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live it's the show where we talk about well uh all sorts of things i'm your host luke burbank and this episode is not a part of any collector's series with me as always is my co-host best known for his depictions of my small hips their grace and their splendor and all the intricate riggings his name is andrew walsh hey there uh luke uh how's it going friendo it's going pretty good andrew but i have to admit i'm feeling a bit guilty guilty what why is that well i have a confession to make i've been secretly thinning my own hair despite years of professing concern about my progressing male pattern baldness really luke that's actually quite a confession but you know what i actually have a confession of my own. Well, you know how I've always said that I hate cheese? Well, the truth is I've been lying to you and our listeners about all of that. The reality is I love cheese. I eat it all the time. I'm talking cheddar, Gouda, Brie, you name it. Wow, Andrew, I have to say I did not see that one coming. Well, I appreciate you finally coming clean, Andrew. And you know what? I have a confession of my own to make. I've actually been secretly adding jalapenos to my dishes despite pretending not to like them no way luke yeah i guess we both have our little secrets don't we uh well that's hilarious absolutely luke so what else have you been keeping from me since you asked i have to admit that i'm a bit of a neat freak i've been secretly organizing your desk every time you go out for lunch you're kidding luke yeah i know it sounds crazy but i just can't help myself and since we're being honest i have to say that i've noticed you've been adding jalapenos to your meals a lot more often. Like, for real. I hear you, Andrew. But you know what? There's one more thing I have to confess. I've been secretly wearing jalapeno-printed socks every day. Jalapeno-printed socks? Lately, uh... So what do you say we celebrate our newfound honesty with a bit of cheese and some jalapenos and a clean desk? Sounds like a plan, Andrew. And with that, we'll wrap up this abbreviated episode of Too Beautiful to Live. Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time.

Remember, no mountain too tall, and good luck to all. What a mishigas. What a mishigas.

I bought a tuna, bro. It doesn't mean I think I'm better than anyone else. I'm Terry G. Power out, dummies.