Muse

Do you know what you get when you hire a Party Down catering team? At Party Down, we have a simple motto. It's your party. You deserve to enjoy it. But how are you going to enjoy the party if you're worried about whether the shrimp cocktail's been sitting out too long, or is there enough ice, or do the guests think the party is lame, or are they stealing stuff, or are they going through the medicine cabinet because they're nosy, or because they think they might find something that'll give them a rockin' buzz? I used to do that last thing. Not anymore. Clean and sober. um wow that that that is quite a motto tbtl this is stuff so funny by the way did the comic come up with this because some of this stuff like

i feel like i could see somebody doing their act you go ooh and ah when i jump in my car people treat me like this hall of fame la lakers center oh he's hilarious dog who is rick moranis Are you all right? No. No, I'm confused.

I want to be the bad boy of public radio, like Elvis Mitchell. This party is going to be off of the hook.

Well, all right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of TVTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. It's your lucky day. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

Give it up for Luke Burbank!

Coming to you from the Hollywood Broadcast Center Right here in Portland, Oregon once again Where my gosh Oh ma, pa, it's just beautiful It is spectacular out In fact, it's probably too spectacular It is warm I had to go turn the air conditioning on here in the broadcast center It's going to be very hot It's going to be very uncomfortable for everybody But we will absolutely take it You absolutely love to see it And feel it And you love to arrive at episode 3,942 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Yesterday I was in Massachusetts, and at the end of the show we played about three minutes of an episode of TBTL that was actually created by AI. And, well, let me tell you.

Does this sound like our musical robot?

We did not comment on it at the time. We just played at the end of the show, ended the show. I've flown across the country and spent the entire five and a half hours in the air mulling this over. I have thoughts, and you're going to hear them coming up on today's episode. Also, the situation with my UPS delivery that never happened. Now, understand, the brother here is causing an overlapsation situation. We have an update on it, and we will share that with you. And then we've also got an update on the John Mulaney comedy special, Baby Jay, and this kid that was in the audience in Boston, which is the version of that special that made it to Netflix.

Jokes are really difficult, I must say.

I will be honest with you. Of the various possibilities, the one that appears to be the true one is not the one I expected. Oh, and speaking of kids and really adults, people of all ages. This next thing applies to anyone who's been born on planet Earth. It's Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day, so we'll do the Blur's Day messages. And we'll talk to this guy, the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. It is a pretty big deal for him to get to be on the show today.

Cup of coffee in the big time.

He's having a cup of coffee in the big time. He's Andrew Walsh. You're joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I just got a press release from the true Italian experience. The headline is Tourism colon Sustainability is the Trend of 2023. And I want you to know, Luke, the only reason I feel comfortable sharing that with you.

Because of the timeline on when you were allowed to share it with me?

It says press release for immediate release, my friend. That was not embargoed. i was a lot i mean when you get a press release that says tourism colon sustainability is the trend of 2023 you're like oh please oh please oh please let me share this immediately please be

for immediate release do not embargo this shit and open open open it's like the marshall's

commercial of our youth actually i don't know that i was just chanting along that was a regional thing i guess i'm easy to think you should really get me to join a cult i was just chanting along

with you i didn't even know what i was chanting um this has come up on the program before but if you grew up in the northwest like i did it's probably in the 90s or something maybe it was mervyn's i think it was a there was some one of those kinds of stores would have this sale kind of a yearly sale or whatever and there would be this this this kind of um sort of middle-aged mom type who would be standing outside the store wanting it to open she'd be chanting open open open. It was a very iconic sort of, again if you find somebody who's my age who grew up in the North they will know when you say open open open what that is a reference to i bet that didn't make

its way to cleveland i don't think so but if you would allow it i think i have i think i found the commercial here i'm gonna have to stop that music and hit this here hey where are you mervyn super

sale is back i'm here i'm here just in time to save on men's windridge shirts and kids oshkosh shortalls i can't believe i almost missed it don't miss saving 60 on all fine jewelry 14 carat gold

diamonds and sterling silver well i didn't exactly almost miss it but i am only four hours early

save throughout the store during mervyn super sales starting saturday slightly different commercial than oh wait no no oh shit i cut off the tag and i think i think that's when she says

starting saturday 8 a.m open open i'm sorry i almost ruined that by the way i know that you said middle-aged mom type like somewhat knowingly and winkingly but you're 32 dude you would be shocked to see how young she is you saw this with a child's eyes by the way this is allegedly from 1992 but if you were to see her she looks like she could be our kid oh god are we older than wilford brimley was in yet and when i say she could be our kid i mean our kid she looks exactly like if you and i had a kid together it's horrible it's just speaking of italian tourism

it's my version of Italian tourism Andrew might be to move to Italy because I made the mistake of following a couple of accounts on Instagram that are cheap European houses like cheap European real estate and I don't understand what is happening in Europe but there are like insanely beautiful rustic farmhouses in like you know Tuscany that are going for like a hundred and $50,000 I mean now I don't know the layout of Italy I don't know what you know obviously these are in rural places they probably don't have a lot of services it's probably these towns that are kind of you know sort of dying but just it's it's it's just for people that you know like that kind of thing it is just real estate porn and every time I see one of these some kind of and they're not it's not that they're giant villas it's not like it's a mansion with a swimming pool it's just like a very well-kept beautiful you know like i said some kind of like dwelling on a hill overlooking some vineyards and it's like a hundred and four thousand dollars and it's all i can do to not move there um and and start over as an italian peasant i mean you

already have a house uh in plymouth i believe plymouth massachusetts where you were you're

the rock i don't know if you're aware that's where the plymouth rock is not plymouth rock

Did you end up visiting that? I assume you did not. I didn't. I didn't have time.

I had to just use the internet as my version of getting to see it.

It's basically. You saw it. It's basically the same thing. I got the idea. Booth Bay, Maine. Actually, no. You're not allowed to be there because if you go to Booth Bay, I'm afraid you will stay there forever. Yeah, I don't know what's going on with Europe either. You hear from people. i'm not like maybe like you know not super super super rich people just like oh i went to europe and i i rented a i rented a castle you know you hear about people renting castles like yeah here's

what i think part of it is because i have believe it or not i have given this a lot of thought i think that i think here's what's going on uh in very rural america if you were to you know find a house in sort of the, you know, relative middle of nowhere in West Virginia or Wyoming or something, only states that start with W. That's all I'm talking about. Washington, Wyoming, West Virginia. You would find real estate that was more recently built. It would probably have been built in the like 1970s or 80s. The thing about Europe is it's such an old place that the same houses that you might find in kind of a not particularly considered to be desirable area of a u.s state where you and then you just have some kind of sort of average house that was built in the 60s or 70s or whatever it was built in the like 1700s or 1600s in italy so it has this sort of amazing patina it it sort of so they just have cooler architecture in a lot of places even places that no one's trying to move right now is my or older architecture i guess it depends on your opinion of what cooler is for me uh a lot of really old kind of intriguing stuff more intriguing than just like a split level in uh you know i don't want to name a city because we probably have a listener there but like just a 60s split level house that's on four acres kind of out in

the middle of nowhere yeah no i i think that's it too and also you know the upkeep i mean you You got to hire an ancient butler who...

It has ghouly or ghoulish or ghostly vibes. You're thinking more Romania. Oh, you're right. I am. I'm in the wrong part of Europe here. Does he get confused about European geography? Yes, he does. I saw some headline. I didn't need to click on it. I think I got everything I needed out of that. But basically said, like, Nicolas Cage had to file down his own real teeth in order to be fitted for the fangs. It was like, of course he did. Do you even, I mean, write the headline that he didn't do something to his body for those fangs. That would be more shocking.

Speaking of, I guess you would say celebrity dwellings, yesterday I went to the home of the actor Chris Cooper. Chris Cooper, he won an Academy Award for adaptation. He was in American Beauty. He's the neighbor who, the weird neighbor who ends up killing Kevin Spacey's character.

Yeah, he's a great actor.

He's a very good actor. And I went to his house to interview him because he has this kind of interesting connection to this story that I'm doing about this guy that lived to be 109 in Kansas City. His name was Charlie White. And there's been a book written about him. And he, this guy, Charlie White, dated Chris Cooper's mom for like the last like 12 years of both of their lives. Like she was like 90 and he was like 105 and they had this sort of great love affair. um but what was interesting was to see somebody who has an academy award and by choice lives in an incredibly normal person house with his lovely wife marianne and like i got to the house and i called the producer i was like are we in the right place and she was like yeah i'll come out and grab you and it the lifestyle of of chris cooper and his wife is so interesting to me they live in a very normal neighborhood uh in we were and we were talking about the movie the tv show yellowstone right which is this like giant ratings hit and and his he didn't say it was like yeah he turned that down i was like why and he was like the writing was just really flat i was like what

an interesting way to live your life which is exactly why kevin costner probably picked it up He's writing is so flat. Perfect. Like, that is so ironic.

Like, it's, I was, I was, I was really, it was a really interesting thing to observe. Somebody who could be living a totally different lifestyle, but chooses not to. By the way, also madly in love with his wife. They've been married forever and ever. She's madly in love with him. I mean, it's just like an extremely charming couple that were just again, just I couldn't quite get how normal their life was for being for being a guy who has an Oscar.

Did you say to him, oh, I understand why you wouldn't take that role. It was flat. Not like 1997's made for TV movie Breast Men, which is which on the poster says the boogie nights of the fake boob industry. it's about uh two was he in that yeah he was that obviously that is 1997 that he was he was not you know i'm sure he was getting his his career more off the ground that's a low blow but i just happened

to be looking at this imdb i'm like what is this well the thing that's really interesting was that they bought the house before he had um made it as an actor so they he was doing like he was building sets and like was in theater in new york but just kind of you know auditioning like crazy and they had a son who was born with cerebral palsy and it was a very expensive birth and they didn't have insurance and he got cast in Miami Vice for like one episode which got him healthcare through SAG so that they could take care of their son and they moved to the part of Massachusetts they were in because they had a better school district they thought for their son. But like they bought this house, he said, when they just bought this house because it was in an area where they thought they could send their son to school and they had no money. and now it's like this whole lifetime of a career and again like an academy award and like i mean he's the kind of guy that could be on one of those shows like whether it's what's the sylvester stallone when it's like king of tulsa or something oh yeah i always forget that that's a real thing i've heard and then like jeremy renner's got one that's like renner town or something like these all these guys of kind of a certain age and grizzledness there's always like a there's a show that they can do where they're either a cowboy or like a corrupt mayor and or a mobster so like there's this kind of certain role and he could totally have one of those jobs and just be printing money and living in LA and they're just living in this house that they bought when they had no money at all and I just found it to be so charming because it is so the opposite of how I live my life often to my great sort of detriment well that's why we call

you the mayor of kingstown which is apparently the name of i had no idea what you're talking Because they live in Kingstown, Massachusetts Or Kingston, Massachusetts

I didn't know what you were talking about That's the Jeremy Renner project That I think you were referencing

I only find out about these What I think are probably bad TV shows Because Howard Stern loves them

Of course he does

It's sort of like when I watch football on CBS By the way, great network Some of my very favorite people work for CBS But when you watch NFL football on CBS You learn about how many shows Tom Selleck still has Yeah, right Like, I learn about, like, whatever bad TV is out there, I learn about it because Howard Stern loves it. Like, you can't find a broadly written, like, lowbrow scripted drama that he doesn't love. And if it's good—

Bull? Is he still into Bull? Does that still exist? I remember seeing— Into what? B-U-L-L. I remember seeing ads for it during football games. Like, there's all these shows. I mean, we've said this before.

A guy whose job is his job is to analyze what a jury is going to say. You want to talk about a niche profession to write a TV? Like, I assume for the first four episodes are explaining what like, well, voir dire is the process of assembling the jury. Like, what a bizarre job for that star of that show to have.

Yeah, I'm sure I've never obviously seen a moment of that show, but I'm sure it's one of those things where for some reason, these professionals who work in the same field they have to explain things to each other that they would never have to explain to each other just so that the audience can keep up with it

from the people who brought you shipping logistics he's the guy doing the logistics on that uh that palette of um e-bikes nobody thought he could do it but he did it like yeah that's it i i guess people just love legal drama of any kind i guess because it's sort of and listen i was an la law head i also i really loved a show called civil wars which had um debbie mazer as the like like secretary for this basically was a divorce they were like a firm that specialized in divorce and i want to say it was like mar like oh man it It was the guy was Eli something was like the main guy. And then I forget who his co-counsel was, but but but they just it was basically like all family court stuff. But I just loved it so much. Civil Wars. I would watch it on this tiny TV that was built into the boombox that my parents didn't have didn't realize had a TV in it. And I would lie there on my futon watching Civil Wars like a normal 12 year old.

You know, you make a lot of jokes about your relationship history, something that I try not to jump on. because those are your jokes to make. But did it ever occur to you that a big chunk of your childhood was actually preparing for a divorce? I feel like there were a lot of divorce. Well, I guess I can name two now. Civil wars. And didn't you really like the divorce court? Am I wrong about that? I love divorce court. I got to be honest with you. Let's keep plumbing these depths. What else?

My various divorces have never been as fun as the TV show divorce. They've never been as salacious as the TV show divorce court.

Nobody ever talks about that, that we're letting children watch these shows that glorify divorce and we're going to grow up to want divorces.

Didn't Divorce Court have a big like beating heart was part of the like intro package?

Dude, I feel like you're the one. That's the one where it's fake, right? And I didn't even know that until like last year when you told me.

I think what they say is it's based. I mean, they have the flimsiest. First of all, it's actors reenacting it. And they say, like, based on real events or something like based on I mean, I think the real event is that people in America get divorced. Everything else that's happening is just, you know, scripted. But I grew up thinking it was real. I don't think I realized it was actors. That's why I just couldn't believe that they I was like, how is it that this show just always knocks it out of the park? Like you're just showing people who are getting divorced and yet they have some crazy stories. God, this is great television.

I'm looking at, well, as you do on a Thursday, a list of TV shows with divorce as a central topic. And Frasier is listed. And I don't think of it in that way, but it is true. I think of that as a recliner-based show. I think of it as a radio-based show and an annoying brother-based show. But, I mean, I guess it is true that that's what sets everything into action, right? He gets divorced and moves to Seattle. From Lilith? Yeah, from Lilith. That was the fanciest sentence I've ever heard. And I used to watch Frasier. I just saw her in an episode of News Radio over the weekend. B.B. New Earth? Yes, B.B. New Earth, exactly. It was ridiculous. That show. What are the other divorce shows?

Is Civil Wars on there? Civil Wars is not on there. I'm questioning the veracity of this entire list.

Honestly, I think you should question. I don't like this list. I don't like the way it's set up. I don't like the way I'm going. through it but it's from a website called other than that hello divorce.com so i don't know i'm

not even joking that is by the way that's my backup uh plan i own that website that's in case tbtl mock four doesn't doesn't work out uh that's my plan is to run that way hello divorce it is a

jaunty name for a website about divorce um okay so this goes up to the modern day which is i was looking specifically for divorce shows of the 80s and 90s but you got grace and frankie which you

know that's that lily tomlin um yes i guess these are just shows wherein the characters have gone

through a divorce i guess so that's what i say i'm not i'm getting off of this list let's civil wars

is an american legal drama i like that wikipedia is using the present tense it may come back civil wars is an american legal drama that aired on

that's wikipedia or imdb usually wikipedia wikipedia that is weird but i mean i guess

it is because you could probably get it on DVD somewhere right does it stop being a show if it's not in current production

I wonder this is so tedious I wonder if Wikipedia might have changed policy on that in the era of streaming because I feel like and I could be making this up this could be a Berenstain Bear situation but I feel like it would have said was a TV show Cheers was a tv show back in the day and i'm looking at a web's wikipedia entry for a show called happily divorced and it says is an american sitcom that ran for two seasons ending in 2013 i would say was there but you're right it's still out there somewhere the series focus on the lives and cases

of new york city divorce attorneys in the series two of new york's top divorce lawyers um charlie howell and sydney guilford form a partnership despite barely knowing each other following the mental breakdown of guilford's stressed out partner eli levinson the show had a famously misanthropic opening credit sequence in it romantic photo albums were shown as the voice track played couples ripping into each other in court as each of the show's principal attorneys interrogated them one by one on the stand this was produced by the way by steven bochco god what a time the 90s steven bochco other than cop rock steven bochco couldn't miss wait yeah yeah okay

bochco was the creator of all those shows like nyp yeah i think he was like la law and uh you

know he was i mean he was the doogie hauser md cop rock nypd blue hill street blues i believe earlier than that right no um maybe maybe he produced that i was just looking at the list of his steven bochco productions maybe that's like once he got enough juice he made his own company maybe yeah but this is actually not as many was i just the only like 12 year old steven

bochco head out i think so yes he did develop hill street blues and la law but here's what i was going to say i when you say bochco i always have to take a moment and stop and think is that the guy who created all these shows or is he the short mustachioed guy who is in all of these shows what's that guy's name who was the main guy in uh nypd blue dennis franz franz bochco i don't

Frank Franz was short, but other than that—

He wasn't? Oh, okay.

I don't know. You know what? Again, I was young. I was watching on a tiny—I was watching on a TV smaller than a common iPhone.

You were watching on a ladder, so everybody seemed—wait, no, wait, that would be my first—

Sipowitz? Oh, my God, dude. I had—I thought Sipowitz was just the coolest guy ever when he goes on a date with Sharon Alfonsi, who's the DA, I think. You know, he's a hard-boiled cop, and they go on a date, and he says, I sweat when I eat. He's, like, warning her that he tends to sweat when he eats. I mean, has there—and then wasn't famously the thing with NYPD Blue is we saw Dennis Franz's butt at some point?

I believe we saw various butts. I remember it was, like, the new show where they're showing butts on TV. That's all we knew about that show.

Anyone could have—at the beginning of the 90s, anyone could have predicted as the decade where we finally saw Dennis Franz's butt.

I mean, that's funny, but, like— Jimmy Schmitz, maybe. Yeah, I don't know. Do we see Franz's butt or Franz's butt? Because, I mean, we saw butts, and he was in it.

I believe Franz's butt. Really?

Well, you know what, Luke?

I'm going to do this for you. You're talking to the number one bochco head.

I'm typing in Dennis Franz butt. I don't even care. I'm serious. I'm not even putting it on the- I have a news alert. What do you call the secret thing where you Google things secretly and it can't track you? I'm not even doing incognito. I'm not even doing incognito. Let's see. here's a gif from when dennis franz showed his little butt um this is uh yep there he is he's in the shower oh there it is full butt got it you're right i wonder how they were able we all

win i wonder if how they were able to do that i mean wouldn't that have been considered like was it because it was after 9 p.m or something was because botch Thank you.

just had that much sway back in the day like i do think so but i think that's nudity right it is and i think that that was a show that broke i mean whether or not that needed to be broken like i feel like that what i mean that was the story of that show and it must have been because he was a hit machine la law like you said he developed and uh and hill street blues and then then all those other ones like i just think with the exception of cop rock which was one of the biggest like kind of like failures um he was he just must have had the the cachet to push that

through and i think it was on pretty late man did i ever love me some nypd blue i'll tell you what there were two shows that i remember coming out to great fanfare and both failing miserably cop rock was one of the other was called whole high and i don't think whole high was a um was a steven bochco thing but it was i believe it was some kind of a musical attempt maybe like a high school i I guess it was a teen musical comedy about the students and teachers at Cordell Hole High, a hip, urban, racially mixed high school, breakdancing, rap group, The Hole High. That's when I have to click on another link. So I guess it was like a musical high school.

And did you – so you liked the musical stuff?

No, I just remember it coming out. It was being promoted heavily. Like this was when I started to become aware of like networks have decided on a show they think is going to really like hit. And they're going to like spend a lot of their sort of capital advertising it during their other shows There was a time when you couldn't get away from an ad for Cop Rock or Hole High on their respective networks And both shows flopped pretty miserably, I think

Without looking it up off the top of your head Can you remember a show that I feel like was a spinoff of 90210 But might have just been a 90210-esque show Melrose? Okay, Melrose was definitely a spinoff But then there was another one where they were all in a band, right? And I'm not talking about, like, Josie and the Pussycats or the Archies. It was, like, I want to say it was, like, something like Sunset or maybe it was the name of the street. Oh, Sunset Boulevard, the movie. Was that a 90210 spinoff? Yes, it absolutely was. I'm ready for my clothes up, Mr. DeMille.

I'll be at the Peach Pit talking to Matt.

That's exactly how I remembered. Good work. We did good work here. Got there.

Okay, let's do this. Let's take a break. And then we really need to talk about this A.I. TBTL that we played on yesterday's show because it was fairly shocking to me. So stick around. More TBTL in just a moment.

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

Let's thank some dazzling donors. These are the wonderful, amazing people who are keeping TBTL going with their donation of a dazzling amount of dough every month. This is when I am legally required to remind you we're going independent July 3rd. And we are sure hoping that you, if you're a donor now, you can keep riding along with us. If you haven't had a chance to donate, if your finances allow for it, sure would help this new independent business that we're starting. I want to say.

Yeah, I was going to jump in really quickly, Luke. I got an email from, I think, a couple of people recently that seemed to imply, like, hey, when you guys go independent, if you end up putting stuff behind a paywall, et cetera, et cetera, and not complaining about it, just asking some questions. And I just want to make it clear to everybody, like, we have zero intentions of putting up a paywall or keeping this show exclusive in any way like that. Our model has been the same ever since you left the commercial radio station, which is like, if you want to listen to the show, you can listen to the show. I know a lot of podcasts are surviving through the paywall model, and that's great. But you and I have always talked about the fact that it's like our tens of listeners who brought us here. We're not going to start keeping people out. It's just that we're asking those of you who can keep it alive, if you're in a place to donate, people like today's Dazzling Donors, please, we will ask you to continue to be generous and to keep the show alive. But I don't think, I mean, I cannot imagine, I mean, I guess you never say never because you don't know what's going to happen, but like, I simply cannot imagine a world in which we would be some sort of a, you'd have to pay in order to listen to this show.

Absolutely not. I mean, first of all, one time we put one episode behind a paywall and it got four downloads.

Oh, wait, no, didn't you get a lot of backlash? It wasn't like $10?

I don't think there was any backlash, or if there was, I wasn't reading it because I was at a lake in Idaho. but we did these live shows at the columbia city theater and they were star studded and i remember thinking this was i was running the business back then and i thought this is an amazing show and maybe we'll ask people to pay a dollar to download it now some of it may have been technical but i remember it going from like uh you know downloads that we were being told were in the thousands if not hundreds of thousands to like 50 people or something so So just on that level, I don't want to do it. But no, more just like morally, we don't want it ever to be the case that if you like TBTL and your finances are not allowing you to donate, that you can't hear your TBTL. It's always going to be free.

Which is, yeah, which is why we really appreciate the people who do donate at all levels and especially the dazzling level so that everybody can listen.

People like Jen Joyce pronounced Uber Jen. Love it. Aw, our friend Jen in Seattle, Washington. Jen says, it's 2012. I don't know why this is what Jen's voice sounds like when I read it, but in a world. It's 2012. All of a sudden, the Uber Seattle Twitter notifications blow up. Luke and Andrew talked about Uber on TBTL. What the hell is a TBTL? I searched. I listened. I fangirled. Yes, I fangirled because Luke was on Wait, Wait. Long story short, I ended up making two wonderful new friends, obtaining a new nickname, and joining a community that I will never leave. signed jen forever a 10 ah jen well we love you i follow jen on uh various social media platforms uh tiktok and the like jen is a great follow and a great friend to the program for all these years doing amazing things yes absolutely i think it's the uh what is it the maker app exactly yeah do

you have the second graph of her of her story there because i think she'll get into this here

Oh my gosh, I thought that was the next I thought that was the next donor Tens Visit themakingapp.com To download and join the first Social Marketplace app made for Makers, crafters, and artists It really is special, shout out to the tens That are already part of the making app community Our feed gets blessed with Keith's leather work, and I've met a few Tens at our meetups, you can find Me at knitpearl Now I'll spell this for you k-n-i-t and then purl is p-u-r-l is that how that kind of knitting is that when you were purling

is it p-u-r-l i'm looking it up now that's always been my ass i know that purl is something to do

with knitting but i didn't know it was spelled that way yeah it's the process of knitting there you go okay knit purl i didn't need to spell that for you knitters out there you know what's up also i just took over our podcast wow okay jen honestly i was liking where this message was going but now i feel like we don't need more competition going forward there are enough good

podcasts out there please jen texted me the other day i can't remember why maybe maybe she was saying something like oh sorry for the delay in response i don't know what but she said i was i was editing my podcast something that you know about and i was like dude you think i edit my podcast like what in

the world would give you that impression current slash upcoming episodes will include interviews history of and stories connected to crafting and art of all types please help make me look good to our ceo by listening and subscribing you can search making conversation by making co wherever you listen to podcasts lol made you say it wherever you get your podcast by the way that's a great name for a podcast about crafting and making things um uh making conversation that's a very Jen, that's a solid name If you hadn't said it, I was going to That's great Yeah, well thank you Jen Everyone go check out Jen's new podcast Go to the Making app and say hey to a person Who's been super duper Helpful and supportive of this show for a long time Thanks Jen Maestro On your mark

Get set Now ready Everybody rattle

We've got to thank Candy Brewster Out there in Port Murray, New Jersey. Candy says, hey, I let this slide last year because I am a background kind of person, but I kind of ended up regretting it. I'm guessing Candy is referring to the dazzling donor message, maybe? Yes, I think so. Not just to miss a chance to hear my name, but more to emphasize the importance of connection. You two have mastered the art of connection, and we all benefit. I listen on my long commute, and when working remotely, have you on as background and company. We've all been altered by world events in the past few years, and we don't really know how it's all going to shake out. I could talk about my causes, people experiencing homelessness, but I just want to share this quote from a recent Ricky Gervais vehicle that really touched me. Happiness is amazing. It's so amazing it doesn't matter if it's yours or not. It's that lovely thing. Society grows great when old men plant trees. They know the shade of which they will never sit in. good people do things for other people that's it that's the end wow that is great isn't it yeah wow planting a tree that you will not sit in the shade of is a really profound idea um and candy says in your way you're doing good things for other people well thank god we brought it back around to us andrew yeah all right a moment of it not being about us and i would was very uncomfortable in that moment um candy thank you so much for supporting so thanks for writing in um and for for you know taking part in the dazzling donor message and for adding that like i think really good thing to think about here on this uh thursday thanks to both candy and jen for making tbtl possible we could not do this without you hello and welcome to top story All right. You know what? I want to – don't get mad at me, listeners. I want to do something really quick, Andrew. I want to just – can we tick through the updates, just get those over with, and then jump into the AI? Yeah. Is that okay?

That makes more sense because otherwise –

I feel like I started the show going, we want to talk about the AI, and now it's been so much Dennis Franz content.

Yeah.

Well, we had to Google his butt. I mean, come on. Yeah. Well, okay. The first thing is my UPS situation. Okay. So the very nice folks with the production company up in the greater Seattle area who mailed the suit, they have been filing all kinds of reports on my behalf. I had to send like a list of what the stuff was. If you missed those few episodes, basically I had a number of suits and some shoes mailed to me through UPS. And somehow in this day and age, in 2023, they've gone missing and no one seems to know where they are, which is just weird because everything is so tracked now. You should always know where something is, and this seems to be an exception to that. And they told me yesterday – I got an email from – I'm kind of going back. Sorry. I had all this ready to go on my other computer yesterday in Massachusetts. Let's see here. I have a response from UPS. they are ready to actually issue me andrew if you can believe this a payment for this whole thing which i never thought was going to happen like i i'm genuinely i said on the show i cannot imagine that they would actually ever send me a check and they asked do you want the check uh direct deposited do you want it mailed to you and they are going to send me a check apparently Andrew for $119.72 for how let me mention uh four suits uh coming in at I'm sure north of two grand but I Andrew am soon to be the proud recipient of $119.72

cents so i guess all's well that ends well how did you by the way did you see i meant to send this to you did you see we got an um an email from somebody who withheld their name oh no uh listener ben is also a ups insider i think we didn't we play a voicemail from ben oh um i thought this was oh maybe this is the same person this came in way after the voicemail this just came in yesterday or the day before but um maybe this person says i'm also a ups insider so i don't know I can't remember if they're both named Ben or not Now that you say that You do have to be named Ben to work at UP Or you have to be willing to change your name and go by Ben They just think it's easier if everybody's name is the same The other Ben No, the other Ben Anyway, I was going to say So what was the Effective chain of events That led to this windfall Of $100.19 Was this because You were able to hack the phone tree and get through that way or was this because you um because of other action you took

i think it was because of the action taken by a person who works for the production company it's so complicated because i did not mail this stuff it was mailed by a person who i don't even know if they work at the production company anymore but a different person has taken over the project and has gone to the store like where it was mailed from and filed whatever paperwork This is what they said. I entered in all the info loop gave me. However, because I did not enter a declared value at the time of shipment. Price is right. Sad horns, by the way, Andrew. At the time, I wouldn't have known the amount to enter. They don't have to reimburse you the full amount we requested in the claim. They are only reimbursing $119.72. Now, this is the thing. This is ultimately on me because I was trying to get other people to do my bidding. like this was not really officially part of the deal it happened to be that i was going directly from uh seattle to chicago and i didn't want to bring all this clothing with me and then just be carrying it around the u.s as i mentioned on the show the other day i got i i became too spoiled i became like some little dauphin who thinks it's everyone's job to help him out having said that why would you not put a declared value on something when it's not your money Like if I was mailing something Here this is me blaming the people that were trying to help me If I was mailing something and it i was not the one paying for it and they were like declared value i'm putting ten thousand dollars because what's the downside like if i'm because you know obviously if you a higher declared value could possibly mean i don't know more insurance costs maybe it costs more to mail something with a declared value of a few thousand dollars like this this the person who said uh um at the time i wouldn't have known the amount to enter it's like i don't know guess hi like if i'm mailing something for somebody and they're asking declared value i'm not going like well let me see what this is going on for ebay right now okay 47 okay that's what i'm just going like this is five thousand dollars of stuff that's just me but it's again ultimately it gets back to me being

lazy and i'm now paying the price i was gonna say before you actually read verbatim that email from the person who shipped it i was gonna tell you the only way this could be worse would be not because they're only paying you the $115 or whatever it is. $19. Come on. How many cents? $0.40? $119. $0.72, my friend. Drinks on me next time we're at the Eagles. $0.72 off of you. Yeah. I was going to say it would be so much more painful for you and hilarious to me if the people who had shipped it were the people who were like tailors and actually no clothing, and they were just like, yeah, no. We looked at the suits. Four suits. No, no. Exactly. $119. $119. I mean, honestly, that was high. That seemed high to us. We threw the 72 on there to make you not feel so bad.

Gosh, I mean, the thing that bums me out is these were the suits that I really like to wear. Like, that's why they were in play. I have a lot of suits, and most of them I don't wear or are not too small for me or they're out of style. These were the good ones. These were the ones that are semi-flattering, that are, you know, like, that's why I brought them with me to the project. That's the part that really bums me out. But you know, such is life I'm just going to have to figure out I'm going to have to take this $119.72 to the casino And turn it into zero And then go to J.Crew and use my credit card To my J.Crew card to get some new clothes, I guess I don't know

Yeah, and for me I mean, I think you don't dislike shopping As much as I do

I just like spending another couple No, definitely

I'm not trying to downplay that, honestly but I just mean that like I do enjoy the hunt for me also like uh shopping for formal clothes and again like the last time I did it was like over a year ago for you know my friends Nick and Rosen's wedding and like you know I ended up with a suit that I enjoyed but like I get I have a lot of anxiety about that that well you know what we need to move on to more interesting things but um I was just to wrap up my thoughts just like for me shopping specifically for formal clothing um always kind of it sends me to kind of bad places because I feel like a kid again and things don't fit right and I feel like a fat kid again you know what I mean it's like kind of so um at least you kind of enjoy the you you will find something you will be excited to bring it into your life will you end up getting these things tailored as well or do you have a body type where you can

pretty much buy something once you find it off the shelf I'm pretty um I can usually buy things off the shelf um I don't need to have it I don't need to have it like you know tailored generally The J.Crew thing that I just wore all the time was just off the rack, but the problem is they don't really sell it anymore, and that kind of bums me out because I actually looked for it when I still had it. This is the other thing because you know me. If I like something and I'm using it a lot in the clothing department, I will often try to get multiple versions, and I looked this suit up, and maybe they had it on J.Crew, but it was still kind of expensive, or maybe it was not even in my size. I was like – I remember thinking I should get a backup of this suit because something could happen. And sure enough, something happened. So that's all right. Life goes on. I just wanted to kind of, I guess – I could probably challenge that finding of $119.72. But since there was no declared value on the package, that's really – I'm surprised they're giving me $119. Honestly, like if there's no declared value, I guess if the scam is you can get $119.72 when there's no declared value. We should all just be mailing each other packing peanuts and clean and get there.

Well, that took a turn quickly. I do wonder sort of how they ended up at that number. But anyway, I could ask you a million follow ups and say a bunch of stupid shit and extend this. But I won't because we're tight on time. What was the next thing we wanted to tick off here?

John Mulaney, comedy kid. Right now. What I brought up after watching the comedy special, Baby J, which I thought was really good, was that he starts talking to this kid in the crowd. You never see the kid, but he's he sort of is obviously nervous about what his material because, you know, he's gone through addiction issues and things like that. And so he's sort of like sort of apologizing to the kid for what he's.

about to hear and saying you know don't do any of this and whatever and it's a pretty funny moment but i was sort of like man he's really rolling the dice if he starts talking to a kid during the taping of his comedy special because if it doesn't work it's baked into the show now and like i know that they often do a few of these kinds of shows maybe they'll tape it on two

different nights or something or but i was i think sometimes the same night like an early show and a Late Show. I think I saw one like that one time.

Right. So I just still, I was wondering what the story on that was and maybe if it was just he felt like he had a good one in the can so he just went for it and it worked and they left it in. You said we also have a voicemail from a listener who actually saw some of this process, right?

Yes, exactly. So I don't know exactly what your big reveal is, but we did get a little bit of insight from this listener,

Cameron. Hi, this is Cameron. We actually saw that John Mulaney show in Salt Lake City a couple months before the special was filmed. It wasn't 100% the same bits, but it was pretty close. Luke was asking about when he talks to the kid in the show and sort of warns the audience about, oh, talking about drug use or something and whatnot. And he did do the same thing at that show with a different audience member. I don't think they were 12. So my guess is that it's planned, but generally not a plan. Who knows with the live show? But yeah, that's something he did for us too. All right. Power out.

So that's from listener Cameron.

So Cameron says it was a person but not a 12-year-old.

It sounds like he did the same bit, but it was a different kid because they watched the special and they were at this live show and it was not the same person.

Right, but he said not a 12-year-old. I don't know. I'm wondering what the age of the not 12-year-old was. If he if he was if it was a 20 year old, if it was a younger kid, that's I'm I'm wondering if he started this bit and decided that having a little a younger kid would be funnier or something.

I'm not sure mentioned that doing the whole bit of like you shouldn't be talking to kids about drugs. And I got the impression from Cameron's that it was still a kid, but I could be wrong.

But OK, so definitely. OK, so we've learned one thing, which is this is definitely planned. And he's been he's been doing a version of this in his like the show that made on Netflix was taped in Boston and Cameron was in Salt Lake City. So clearly, as he was out workshopping this, he was doing this bit. Right. Like this is part of the show, which is kind of, I don't know, a little not disappointing, a little disillusioning for me because it had this. i mean this is why it was funny it had the feeling of being very in the moment which is what we all love as an audience is feeling like we're seeing something that's we're seeing something we ain't never seen before um so this is somebody on tiktok who goes by the name ruby tattoos day and this was sent to me by our unpaid bidet slash john mulaney correspondent television's own chris hayes who texted me this from tiktok and said well i guess this solves the mulaney thing this person went to a bunch of Mulaney shows and check this out Andrew this is quite literally the

most insane comedy niche that I can't believe that I know and I'm able to attest to but I went to six of the John Mulaney shows between May 2021 and February 2023 when I actually went to the taping and in between each show I thought it would be a good idea to take notes on what changed because when I first saw him he was straight up like I don't have endings to this bit like I'm literally doing this like from scratch so i was like i can't wait to see where this goes like i'm such a nerd i'm gonna write down notes i went to one of the shows in syracuse new york i camped in syracuse new york to see the show and melanie started doing crowd work with a child in the audience in the front row um i wrote down in my notes new crowd work with seventh grader harry clearly i got the name and age slightly off in my post show notes because this is all after my phone's been locked up millennia invited him back to the taping to redo that crowd work that's

insane so in other words her contention is that the kid who makes it into the special is there for the second time like not only has millennia been practicing this he's bringing the same kid back to do the same crowd work with which like again this is the craft of comedy i guess and certainly you know on we're doing live wire tonight at the alberta rose theater i'm gonna do a bunch of pickups things that i messed up we will re-record them at the end of the show that just happens but there's something about bringing the same kid back and and acting as kind of apoplectic as malaney does i feel slightly used and abused as an audience member well i'm gonna tell you a

story um that i've never told you i've never told you this before because we still have stories that Yes, because I really didn't want to blow up anybody's spot.

and the person that this involves sometimes does listen to the show. In fact, there's a good chance that they will hear me talking about this. Is it the kid from the Mulaney special? It is the kid from the Mulaney special. We have him here right now. Come on down. Wait. Was it The Price is Right I was doing this? Yeah. No, but I was going to say, and I need to be careful here, so my apologies for the vagary. I really don't want to blow up anybody's spot. But a friend of ours is a is a performer and had a pretty popular show here in Seattle a few years back that was getting written up and various things. And it was a stage performance of sorts. And when we went to see it, me and Genevieve went, we were blown away by one of the people that they brought up on stage. It was a person who was kind of generally seemed like kind of a buttoned up person. But then as the show went on, came out of his shell and was like the star of the show, this person that was pulled out of the audience. It was it was amazing and so out of character of what we all assumed this person would be like. Right. And then we're talking to our friend after the show and we're like, man, that person you pulled out of the audience, like amazing. And they're just like, yeah, that was really amazing. and that was it that was after the show our friend was just like yeah that was a great that was a great interaction we had and then i'm reading all of the reviews of the show in like you know the seattle times and the stranger and wherever else and everybody is just astounded and the night they went also a person exactly like the person we saw was pulled out of the crowd and did the same thing and came out of their shell in fact a couple of times a night and i gotta say i was like oh man like and also i think because i'm friends with this person and when i mentioned it they didn't even say like oh yeah well that's also that's probably the part that gets you yeah maybe a little bit and again i mean this is a dear friend who i love um but i was a little bit like oh okay it's also risky like when when if you were to read this review in again like in various seattle publications and say like whoa wow that sounds like something really big happened that night i'm going to go to this thing now and then the same exact thing happens i also wonder if as an audience member you're like wait this is exactly what i read about in the time that's a

good point a little bit if the write-up is what uh sort of prompts you to go to the thing then if the thing that was you know cool in the write-up if it happens again in exactly the same way it does maybe expose that this is a planned thing that being said 99 of the people who watched this millennia special did not go down this rat hole that i've gone down and just enjoyed it for what it appeared to be i'm sure most of the people that went to that show that you went to just enjoyed i guess the question for me is if if they're toying with us but they're toying with us in such a way that is enjoyable and that most of the people have a positive experience with does it matter that they're basically lying to our faces i mean it's showbiz right right I guess so Anyway that's the update on the Mulaney thing I mean I don't know why I thought One of the people One of the comedians most known for their exacting Joke writing I just maybe You know what part of it is I thought post rehab John Mulaney Was just maybe going to be a little more like You know kind of just I don't know Freewheeling Yeah kind of like whatever happens happens dude Like I've been to the edge I've stared into the abyss And I and I pulled back at the right moment. And now I'm just like not obsessively crafting every joke. Like, I don't know why that was the John Mulaney I'd created in my mind as opposed to the guy who's like hired an 11 year old Hasbola lookalike to come around to his shows and pretend to be offended by the jokes or whatever.

Actually, can we let me actually clarify one thing just for my own brain here. So that tape you played from TikTok or whatever it was, that person was saying that they saw the same person come back for the next show in the same city, right? Are we thinking that Mulaney was going around to different cities and doing the same sort of bit with a different kid or a different person in each place?

I get the sense this is the same person because the name that she says – so a couple things from that tape. It sounds like they confiscated everyone's phones, which is a pretty common thing now. And she said she was trying to remember the kid's name who was in the audience. And what she says, I think she says Harry or something. The name she says for the kid is almost exactly the name of the kid in the special. I took what she was saying to mean she saw the kid from the special in Syracuse or whatever and wrote down his name. Wrote it down wrong, but it was basically the name of the kid in the special, which, again, I forget exactly what his name is. But my takeaway from that was the kid that he's talking to in the special is not only a plant, but a plant who he has talked to before. A touring plant. See, that makes a difference. A touring plant.

as it were that makes a big difference for me like if this if millennia is going around from town to town and basically doing the same bit like this is the part of the show where I'm going to kind of find a younger person and riff with them and probably rely on some standards that I've established for this riff section but at least it's a different person in each city and maybe if somebody's really good in the in the early show bring them back for the evening show again still you know maybe maybe not ideal if you want to dig that deep but still like better than the idea that like millennia is just traveling around with a child like it's like it's that scene from what was that cohen brothers movie yeah that was divided that's literally what i was envisioning i'm not even kidding that exact thing the ballad of

of buster millennia i don't know that's a decent show title though at least all right let's talk about the ballad of of a i tbtl um what was the name of the listener who who put this together off the top of my head i want to say seth but i can double now we this we played this at the end of the show yesterday and i have to admit i i was a little foggy on the details i'm sure you you listed it or seth did but i didn't quite grasp all the details of how exactly seth created this three minutes of tbtl can we go back to what the sort of i guess you might say what methodology or symbology on this like what how how did what did he feed into what program to get this outcome

i'm gonna it's a very short note so i'm gonna read it directly again because i still even with seth's explanation i still have some questions i meant to email seth but actually seth will probably hear this seth you can respond to our questions um after we discuss this on the show So, but Seth said, I've been futzing around with AI tools. I used two tools, ChatGPT and something called Eleven Labs to make.

Well, that's the one. Eleven Labs is the one that they used to make my voice for that software. Okay.

And in that case, let's just take a pause here. In that case, the software project you're talking about, they took, they fed in a million samples of your voice and then the machine learned what you sound like and what your delivery is like. Then they fed it a script, and then a totally fake version of you read that script. Am I correct on that, Luke? Okay, so that's not Seth's project. That's the other one. But Seth says, I used ChatGPT and Eleven Labs to make this fake episode of TBTL. I had to editorialize a tiny bit, and I patched it together with audio software. But at least 90% of the script is generated from our AI overlords. so that that's all I know and so I don't know exactly what that means what does the what did the editorializing look like was that feeding information into the script and what I don't know and maybe what you're getting at here Luke is when we heard our voices in this bit and I should probably just play a little bit of it here was it taking was it doing what your editors did on that project you were working on and it just learned our voices and then spat out new words in our voices or was it actually using samples of our voices is that one of the questions that

you had well the way i understand this 11 lab thing to work is my guess is that seth fed recordings of your voice and my voice into it and then it generated based on what we sound like it generated a version of me and a version of you and so it's not like taking actual audio of us and then cutting up and you know isolating words and recreating speech it's just going here's what luke generally sounds like this is the tone of his voice this is the rhythm of his voice etc and we're going to make a copy of that that's the 11 labs part of it that's the voice part in the chat gpt was

seth probably said okay um here's here's some examples of what these guys tend to talk about now chat gpt create a script for what and then he took that script and then fed the 11 labs that makes sense i think here let's just take i'm kind of needle dropping this but kind of near the beginning to get a sense of both of our voices 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 for note 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 like yeah you have to make me stumbly honestly andrew you're not herky-jerky like that but in terms of the tone of your voice as far as like it's sounding like my friend andrew like just the voice quality not the again you don't sound like that you're not stopping and starting and up cutting and doing all that weird no but but but the voice is pretty Close and also the sort of Hesitation with words is what struck me yes it's like some of the words end kind of funny or like you say or sound a little clipped at the beginning or end but the thing that really struck me about myself here was oh yeah like really and again it makes me sound like I'm trying to be thoughtful about words I'm not I'm just trying to say words but the sort of hesitation before I form my thoughts are in this AI version of me I wonder why it says something about i wonder how tall ships got turned into my small hips first of all i would kill for some tiny hips really but you don't have big hips do you no way no i don't know i just i'm i'm wondering if that was how did that get lost in translation i mean it's actually a funny it's a funny joke but is it did seth type in seth would have to say he would have to tell chet gpt this one guy introduces the other guy by talking about tall ships right there would have there's no in what universe could chat GPT figure out that there's even something close to best known for touching my small hips right yeah like how could it get there without Seth letting it know that's what I'm wondering too and I'm wondering if that's where the editorializing came around and I wonder if that was a joke that Seth was making like changing it there that little blip you heard a little you might have accidentally heard a little tiny bit of a voice that sounded like Terry grosses i wanted to tell you that i was a little confused this sample that seth sent in began with terry gross talking and i wasn't exactly sure why and i realized later last night i cut it off of yesterday's episode i realized that's supposed to be like sort of the dry intro tape that we might use at the beginning of a show i'm not going to stop our conversation now to play it i'm just downloading it and i'll share it uh after the music today i'll share it as a little easter egg again so seth must have told it that uh i that what we do on the show is we often reveal things to each other because that's coming up a lot later in the tape we're both you're admitting you actually like cheese now that's another thing i'm wondering if we really need to have more we need more more info from seth and again he'll hear this and he can tell us like i'm wondering

how much of this he fed them and how much of it chat gpt just kind of like figured out because there's also a lot of like jalapeno talk and then there's revealing we're wearing jalapeno socks can you play a little bit more of it yeah let me play more of this i feel like maybe the jalapeno stuff that does feel like the computer probably came up with that by itself because i almost said themselves don't give them that power raise the machine raise the machine because it's like it's something that it picked up on as being talked about a lot but in the context of this doesn't make a lot of sense like the computer doesn't fully understand here i'm gonna needle drop this a little bit further along I think 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. Oh wait I thought Jesus Christ Luke I stopped the tape because I thought you were breaking it. Because you thought I was talking I wasn't that was the machine. That was the machine what about what about those clowns in congress talking cheddar how does it know 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 now that does not sound like no that does not it sounds like i'm doing a book oh absolutely luke yeah oh that's absolutely hilarious do you want me to keep going 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 now do i say your name a lot i don't feel like that is a speech pattern on my end that i'm and i don't believe so I would like it if you started doing it more though But only in that voice You're kidding Luke 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 So what do you say we celebrate our newfound honesty with a bit of cheese and some jalapenos and a clean desk. By the way, I don't like that the computer made you mispronounce jalapeno. It made you say jalapeno for a minute. What do you say we celebrate our newfound honesty with a bit of cheese? Some jalapenos and a clean desk.

There you said it right, but before that, it made you say jalapeno. If you go back.

Here, let me try going back a little bit. I don't know exactly where this was. I think this is...

It's like you're just secretly wearing jalapeno-printed socks every day.

Jalapeno-printed sock? Actually, you know what? It's like, this guy is going to mispronounce jalapeno at least once during this conversation. Like, honestly, props. I mean, what are you going to do? He's like, he's going to talk so fast. The one thing it didn't do is it didn't have me talking so fast that I just throw incorrect words in there. I do that all the time.

I feel like it started really strong, and it's sort of getting more – it's like something out of, I don't know, like Total Recall or something. You know, like in Total Recall when Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to get through security, and he's got – he's wearing this flesh suit that makes him look like a kind of, I don't know, sort of middle-aged woman. and then he like basically it's taking too long and so he ends up like the suit breaks down i feel like this whole thing is breaking down as we go further along in terms of its believability but it starts shockingly strong like i feel like it really sounds like us it really kind of nails our rhythm um it's it was better than than i was expecting you know what i'll bet you some of the

audio editing here is because i can sort of hear it is i'll bet you once you have a script you can feed into the 11 lab software or what have you it probably can only do one voice the the thing itself can't switch between voices i'm so in my head right now i feel like i'm talking like the ai version of me i'm not even joking this is really me do i have to say that jalapeno hold up can you guys see this this is today's newspaper um but uh um so i'll bet you seth had to like put in all of your lines as the chat gpt wrote it and then get all of your lines and then all of my lines recorded and then probably had to cut them together so it sounded conversational

really painstaking you don't think yeah that you you might be right if so seth wow thank you for putting the time in because that's so you're saying there was a there was a file that's my voice and a file that's your voice and then they had to be overlaid in like you know a garage band

or whatever I could see that and just kind of chopped up and spread out yeah I'm guessing that

that's my guess well I again I I think that this I'm hoping with a lot of help from Seth like I actually want the story to be that Seth really kind of helped kind of you know sort of what's the word I'm looking for kind of curate this in a way because if he didn't it really got a lot of our actual tone down like just the vibe of the show like what it makes me think is in five years if this technology is rapidly improving and improving exponentially as we've talked about it doesn't right now that's not a i mean people wouldn't listen to that in lieu of our regular show but it's not like a hundred miles away from what we do it's like 50 miles away and i'm hoping that that was because seth put a lot of time into making it into getting

it to within 50 miles of what we do uh i hope that too luke and by the way really quickly did you that was my invitation of myself as a robot um did you get a weird email from me this morning i did that wasn't that didn't pay off that well i just wanted to try something and let me set up what happened here i uh i got a note from google last week saying hey we're going to start integrating some ai features into some of our google products like gmail and google docs two things that i use a lot right um and they said would you be willing to be one of the early kind of beta testers on integrating ai help in these things i'm like yeah sure um and so today i got a notification yeah all right all right where's robot luke like him better um anyway so today i got a notification saying okay you've been approved or whatever we're gonna we're gonna try this start kicking the tires and so in those specifically those two programs google uh docs where i write like newsletters and stuff and gmail there is now a new little button a little prompt that says do you want help with this or can you know some ai help with this and what you can do is you can click on that button and just type in this is what i need like you can either type i saw you attach that yeah so i can either type in like an outline and then it'll fill it in and turn it into a to an actual like some sort of a you know a script or a newsletter or whatever or you can just say hey this is the type of email it's almost i mean frankly what i sent to you was more like what clippy would have done for a microsoft user in like 1999 i just said hey could you write an email to my to my friend telling him that i'm using AI to write this email. His name is Luke. And then it just shot you a very, very basic thing saying, I hope this finds you well.

I'm using artificial intelligence to send an email. I will be honest with you. This thing kind of popped up on my phone this morning when I was doing some other stuff. And I just kind of looked at the first when I saw, hi, Luke. I hope this email finds you. I was like, oh, no, I was like something. We don't talk like that. We don't talk like that. And this is why you and I are so nervous about this kind of stuff or just like one of us misreading the other one's tone or whatever. I was like I just saw the first like hi Luke come I hope this finds you this email finds you all and I

was like he's quitting TBTO what the hell dude you think I know how to post the show did that make you

appreciate me a little bit more today absolutely and um good I'm sending this every day it made me it really for about a half of a second my mind went in a million directions it was like is there a health diagnosis is are we being audited already we haven't even filed we've made no money so far we haven't even started skimming off the top yet are how are we already being audited like i had so many thoughts based on hi luke i hope this email finds you well that would be a weird email to get from me and then when i got into the body of it i you know i said i'm writing to you today to let you know that i'm using artificial intelligence to write this email i'm still under development but i'm learning new things every day i hope you're having a great day

jalapeno andrew it is weird that it goes from me writing to the robot saying i'm still under development like that's a clunky that's a clunky switch there you see like right right right it

should be saying it's still under development it's changing you know who it's writing on behalf of there but anyway um yeah that um that did kind of cause me a momentary panic this morning but Then I realized, oh, this is probably just, you know, this is just more, more fodder for our AI chat, because as we've established as a, you know, allegedly as a media outlet, albeit boutique, we are we have to talk about something to do with AI every single day on this.

Yeah, I know. It really is, though, because I mean, I thought about that, like whether or not I was going to bring up this Google thing with you today, because like it is like flooding. I feel like people are going to get AI fatigue pretty quickly, but it also is constantly being introduced into our daily lives in a way that like I just honestly cannot remember some new technology moving at this speed as far as integration into our lives.

yeah totally I know I mean again we said this the other day on the show but it's it's both over talked about maybe but also it's justified in a way you know like the amount of talk about is justified because of the way that it's already seeping into sort of regular life there's something on tomorrow show that I want to talk to you about something that makes me it involves futuristic technology and why I'm very jealous you live in Seattle so how's that for a promo tomorrow hell even I'll listen

There's a right way to rock And a wrong way to roll You can just listen to your soul Just remember that life is number one You can be having so much fun Just remember that life is much fun You can be number one

you get a couple of mentions in today's blurs days luke of course your blurs day was just uh this monday you still old news still celebrating um but we got a note from our friend sam who says happy 47th blurs day to my lovely husband barry aka broadcast barry our friend Barry. Sam says, here's wishing his new pizza restaurant, Black Moon, will have huge success. Also, happy Blursday to Luke, who shares Barry's birthday. That's right, they're out in... Pardon me, I'm getting emotional. They're out in Boise right now. Just got out there, I believe, today or yesterday, setting up, getting ready to launch a pizza shop.

Okay, good. So when I mentioned that the other day in passing, I'm glad that it wasn't either a year before this was being launched or the project had been

scuttled. Yeah, no, I get nervous

about that too. Our friend Barry with all his projects, including his pizza place. His top

secret pizza place, yeah. So Black Moon, I don't think there's a specific opening date yet, but it's my understanding that it's soon and it's in the Boise area, and I know that we have some boys 10, so everybody support broadcast. Barry, and happy Blur's Day, Barry. Absolutely. Donna

says, to Laura the Jackal, T-Bone Ninja, previous resident of columbus detroit evanston seattle now baltimore you deserve to be celebrated you are not invisible you are a stealthy awesome AF. And that is a superpower. Don't forget it. I am sorry this isn't in a Poe cadence. You win at Best Blur's Day Messages ever. Quoth the friendo... Well, that is in Poe. Quoth the friendo Donna evermore. So obviously... Jackal. The Jackal. What are you... Does Laura live in like a Gene Hackman movie

from the 70s? The day of the Jackal. A couple of Baltimore tens cutting it up there, of course, with the... Chopping it up. Chopping it up with the Edgar Allen Poe references. Mike says, happiest of Blur's days to my amazing partner in love and in life, Taylor. There are no words to describe my appreciation for you and everything you do for me and Mac. For your present this year, we decided we will take it easy on you and maybe let you win a round or two of Super Smash Brothers. Maybe. Love, Big Daddy.

Yes, he does. Sean says happy fifth Blur's Day to my number one, five, Yoshiaki. Sean.

This is our pal, Sean.

What the heck, my love? You're five? You're so kind, creative, charming, a ham bone, and the most important, you love Luke and Andrew as much as I do. Gosh, I knew Yoshiaki was a good kid. Mm-hmm. Now, Sean, when you say Sean, is this our friend Sean from?

I'm pretty sure this is Sean, the Houston Astros fan, whom we also met in Seattle for the show that we did on the boat. Yes, I'm pretty sure this is our Sean. So I am hoping that Sean is raising Yoshiaki to be a Mariners fan. That's my only hope here. Of course, you know what? You know what? What, Andrew? That's just too painful. Let Yoshiaki be an Astros fan. They deserve it.

Let Yoshiaki be a Jordan Alvarez fan. They deserve to win sometimes. We should really throw the ball to Jordan Alvarez more. We should definitely throw to the one hitter who can actually hit for Houston right now. Definitely do that. Anyway, sorry. This is Yoshiaki's Burlars Day message. And Sean is excited that Yoshiaki loves Luke and Andrews much as I, your real daddy, and TBTL. daddy do. Your wise words will be our guiding light for the coming year. Meanies are not nice. True that. Quoth the Yoshiaki.

Listener Brett here wishing my wonderful and talented wife and TBTL progenitor Amy a happy Blursday. Nobody deserves to be sick on their birthday so you get a makeup week. Rockwell Mac and I love you no matter what the cats say.

They're in the U district Indeedly do Max says I would love to give a Blur's Day shout out to my mom Robin She's a seven year ovarian cancer survivor Who is the biggest badass I know Robin has been a huge fan of the show for many years And I can't wait to let her know on air How much me and my dad love her Oh my gosh come on I can't even That's really really sweet Max Thank you for everything And happy Mother's Day too Well Robin Happy Blur's Day Happy Mother's Day, and we are so happy to have you around.

Indeed. I was texting with Max a little bit yesterday about this message, and Luke, I'm not trying to make you jealous here, but Max said that I was a celebrity. Let's let that sink in. I'll let the music play a little bit. You say celibate or celebrity? Sarah in Bellingham says, please wish my brother-in-law and TBTL granddaddy in the sweet cream district of Seattle a belated Blur's Day. He's the best, and the start of his 50th year deserves to be celebrated at least for another week. Here's to you, Brian. Huzzah, Brian. It sounds like Brian might live not too far from y'all. Exactly. Give me the secret signal if you see me walking down Aurora.

Sarah living near where I used to live in Bellingham, and are they, as a family, honestly stalking us?

Oh, that's a good point, moving around. Sarah's in the pickleball district of Bellingham. Am I right about that, or am I thinking of another 10?

Is that a different – I think that might be a different listener. I see. In the Pickleball District. I see. My apologies. I know where Hollywood Mike is. He's in Hollywood. Mm-hmm. And he says, a dual Blur's Day message to my almost Blur's Day mate, Luke. Oh, that's me. That's me. And myself. I'll be playing poker with friends on my birthday, though I won't be employing Luke's technique of telling everyone what cards I have. Try it, Hollywood. It works 50% of the time. It works 80% of the time. Mm-hmm. But if Luke would like to continue to try that method He's welcome at my game anytime It's like I do with rock, paper, scissor I will just say I'm going to do rock I'm going to do rock And the other person just drives themselves mad

trying to figure out if I'm lying or telling the truth. And then I just keep doing rock.

Do you know my theory? I think I've said this to you a long time ago. Do you remember my theory on rock, paper, scissors? I had a technique that I believed I could always win at Rochambeau if I played it just one round with someone.

And what was the, I mean, do you feel comfortable sharing it?

I do feel comfortable sharing. It's my belief that quite often it is human nature to throw scissors down first. I think it's a satisfying thing. I think paper is kind of unsatisfying And so I would always say I'll play one round of Paper, rock, scissors, rock, paper, scissors Rock, paper, scissors, right? I'll play one round With you and I guarantee you I'll win and I would throw down Rock and I would often win I think you're right because there's something About, first of all

Paper feels like the most beta cuck Thing you can do I know paper can cover rock technically But let's be honest, scissors are Sharp and cutty, that's kind of Badass, and rocks are hard and smashy and paper is just kind of paper nobody throws paper first it's an un it's an unsatisfying thing to throw down first and also i think staying in rock is a little unsatisfying like staying in rock you haven't done it you're on one two three in your hand nothing is changed yeah you're right actually i'm kind of i'm kind of with you that scissor is fun to do uh and my other hand is throwing a peace sign it's kind of a peace sign uh-huh sure that's my frank sinatra impression

no it was great um that you know that reminds me you know the rochambeau as they call it or rock paper scissors plays a kind of a big part in um the tv show patriot of which you and i did a companion podcast a while back called macmillan men which is still available um and i was going through a lot of voicemails yesterday i had a bit of a backlog of voicemails so i sat down in a coffee shop luke it was great oh i didn't tell you this i went to um i went to that top pot donuts on fifth ave where you and i had our first review first meeting yes with steve nelson i it's a great place to get some work done they have uh bookshelves lined the walls but it's still big and airy i just love doing work from there anyway i was sitting there i was listening to like a couple weeks worth of voicemails and we got this really nice voicemail from a listener who still only knows us as the hosts of Macmillan Men. She said, yeah, I still haven't gotten into TBTL yet, but I'm on like my 10th watch of the TV show Patriot, and I keep coming back to your podcast. I just want to thank you again for offering some companionship to those of us who wish the show had continued. It was the sweetest thing, and I want to send it to our friend Brandon Santos because he thought that we were choosing too unpopular of a show to do a companion podcast with.

Well, take that at your new job at wherever you work. He works at Vox. He was always one of our biggest champions, but I love sending him whenever anybody says something nice about McMillan men. I'm like, we got another one. What are the downloads on old McMillan men? Yeah, don't worry. No, no, don't worry. And I don't think anybody tracks that kind of stuff.

Right. Anyway, well, happy Blur's Day to everybody this week. And that is going to do it for today's show. Hope to see some of you at the Alberta Rose Theater tonight. Your boy, Scott Ackerman, is going to be stopping by. Oh, yeah. You want me to have him sign my, you know, sign my boob or something? Yes, absolutely. And then I can press it on your chest when I see you next?

You'll lick it and then we press chests together. I'll never wash this chest until I see Andrew. God, you come over here with a pimply chest.

No, enjoy that. With Scott Ackerman's autograph on it.

That's fun, though. I wonder how he is at that because his kind of, he sort of plays himself on the podcast, but he plays himself as a very difficult version of himself. He obstructs conversation a lot, takes it purposefully in dead-end directions. I'm assuming as he's trying to sell a book, he's going to be, you know, I'm sure he's been doing a lot of interviews and he'll be on his best behavior. But I am interested in hearing how that goes.

We are having him play a game called Between Two Urns, where we combine his ability to interview people with his being one of the creators of Between Two Ferns. Nice. So it'll be, you get one question, you get to ask these famous dead people, and then we just list people. Nice. I think it's going to be kind of a fun bit. We'll see. We shall see. Anyway, thanks for listening. We'll be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. Until then, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall. Oh, I say one more thing, don't I? I'm a little discombobulated. Is this the robot?

Who is this?

Jalapeno.

Jalapeno. And good luck to all. That's it.

From W. Hey. Oh, hi. I'd thrill an L for you. I'm Terry G. And this is, well, just some BS that I never said. My guest today needs an introduction. He's a guy. named fred that i met on the train he looks a lot like my ex but he's much younger and deeply committed to the sensual art of ice sculpture power out