Muse

I'm going to play Jerry's Choice. Ooh, that's right. And I'm going to sing along. And I'm going to maintain eye contact the whole time. And guess what? I don't know the words. Harry Truman was the guy. America, Red, China, all the countries, other people, everyone is fun. Joe Mantegna, E. McKellen, I have to buy new toaster. This is awesome, you're so stupid, jumping up and down. Woo! Oh, I got another repeat. Come on, Ron. You want to hear it again or you want to talk? No? Okay, next verse. Freddy Krueger bought some pants. Oprah has a turtle farm. Peter Piper, pee-pee, poopy, daddy ate a squirrel. Fuck it!

TBTL! You know how someone might describe a situation that's unpleasant or confining as being like a prison? This is what they're referring to.

I'm thinking about getting a new haircut. Changing stuff up. And maybe getting like an Arnie Schwarzenegger jingle all the way type of haircut. You know, short, tall, and stiff. Kind of like how I like my men.

And one more thing. You're not going to sue us, are you? Oh, no. Litigation is for the middle class.

They just think that they can just get in our Kool-Aid when they don't even know the flavor. Oh, that's a good one, Kayla.

well all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a monday edition of tbtl the show just might be too beautiful to live you keep using the word i don't think it means what you think it means my name is luke burbank i am your host spock sabotage the system comedy from the hollywood broadcast center right here in portland oregon where it's just an absolutely gorgeous gorgeous june day california got sunshine it did have kind of a weird morning i don't want to start things off on a dark note but i was sitting on my couch getting ready for uh the day and uh there's a car accident car v pedestrian outside my apartment then i had to call 9-1-1 and um i was on hold for like i want to say about 11 minutes which is a long time to be on hold with 9-1-1 fortunately um everyone seemed to be okay actually i will say this fire department got there very fast as did the police and uh things seem to um be again in the realm of okay for something like that happening But tell you what, made me very happy to be safe and sound and bringing you episode three thousand nine hundred and fifty nine in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. You know how on this show we we believe that Bozo did the dub and also we believe that Tim Robinson is maybe one of the funniest people working out there right now.

I got to figure out how to make money on this thing. It's simply too good.

We love that show. I think you should leave. and now there's been a great profile of Tim Robinson and really kind of meditation on the show I think you should leave in the New York Times basically getting at the question of why is it that some of us love watching situations on that show that if they were happening to us in real life would make us deeply uncomfortable stinky and speaking of deeply uncomfortable I might make the listeners deeply uncomfortable with a little audio tape that I recorded this morning in my actual shower. What a fun, sexy time for you. So we'll play that if Andrew allows it. Speaking of my friend Andrew, he is the longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships, their grace, their splendor, and all that intricate rigging. I wouldn't mess with this guy, I'll tell you what. He's got like every meme ever produced on the internet. He can knock us out with his memes.

He's joining us right now. Good morning, my friend. Good morning, Luke. I have a question about your adventures this morning. Yes. Not to make light of them. I'll call them your adventures of calling 9-1-1. Oh, you mean the 9-1-1 call? Yeah, exactly. Let's leave the shower stuff for after dark. For after we don't have a show anymore. When you called 9-1-1 and were talking to the operator, was it very forefront on your brain, not very forefront on your brain, or not at all on your brain that you were being recorded, and if this became a high profile case you would be played on am radio stations around the state because working in commercial radio right really changed the way i think about the words i choose on the rare occasion i'm calling 9-1-1 which is obviously very rare you know what's interesting that's a

really good question i think because i haven't worked in commercial talk radio in so long that same thought which was also very much at the

of my mind back in our Cairo days it's receded to the point where that wasn't going through my mind today what I was thinking was what if I mean I could see that the person who had uh been uh you know hit by a car I could see that they were people had gathered around them and they were sitting up so it felt like this is not great not a great way for anyone to start their day but this person appears that they are going to survive this but what if they weren't what if somebody you know what if something much even more pressing were happening and i'm in minute 10 of being on hold with like and when i say on hold i mean the line has not picked up and then i'm thinking it's monday morning at like 7 30 is this a high call volume hour of the week like um but then the person i talked to was very professional it turned out andrew that they already had dispatched people

i was not the first person to call 911 that was my next question because i feel like that is often it like especially if there's a group of people around there i'm like you probably weren't the first one they might have been on other calls dealing with the same exact incident i will tell

you this and again i'm sorry i hope this doesn't sound like i'm trying to be in any way glib or make hashtag content out of something that's obviously very serious but it was a pretty intense thing because i i think it might have been the person who who who maybe hit the pedestrian what i heard was a sound a sound of kind of a loud thud and then a person in obvious distress and at that point i'm like oh gosh what's going on i look out my window and this person is running from their vehicle and they're just going oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god they're just yelling oh my god over and over again which is exactly what i would be yelling yes you know what i mean like it was just like i just i think that's what i what i go to in a situation i mean i haven't been in too many situations like that but i was like oh my gosh i know exactly what's going through that person's mind now it was unclear to me if the person who was saying oh my god oh my god oh my god if they were the person who had actually struck the pedestrian or if they had observed someone strike them and then you know zoom off i i still don't know the answer to that um but uh but anyway there's something about that most likely i mean i i am saying this because i

wasn't there and we're not right i'm not being investigated by police it chances as an eyewitness i mean chances are if that was the reaction like that feels like the person who cannot believe

what they just accidentally did yeah i think that probably was the case and they you know to their I guess you would say credit they were the person on the ground with the person who was struck and they would not leave their side until the fire folks the paramedics had the person on a stretcher and were rolling them away so you know as far as those sorts of things go it appeared that that person let's say if they are for the sake of this conversation the person whose vehicle did make contact with the pedestrian they handled it with as much i guess love as you can in the aftermath of that i mean they were on the ground holding the person you know and and doing what they could so again hopefully the person is okay and uh and uh and hopefully no one today has to call for a more pressing issue at 9-1-1 because uh again it was i guess really though maybe i was in the queue because other people were reporting the same incident so maybe that kind of undermines my overall theory that it's too much of a hold time at the old Portland 911.

Yeah, who knows? And you said they arrived at a decent time.

They got here fast. I live, in this apartment, I live pretty near a fire station, it turns out. Although we don't

hear it like we used to in your old

studio. They don't, yeah, because thankfully the street that I happen to live on isn't their main, like, thoroughfare they use, like at the other place. But I did actually have that thought this morning as well, which was it's a very fortunate thing to be living near emergency services yeah i mean that the sort of difference between um you know life and death can really come down to that and then i started doing trying to do the math on where is the fire station near the other house that i'm working on being like okay if i'm going to get injured definitely try to do it at this place but also though make sure that we don't

have any open windows facing that you're really trying to thread a needle here of being in the in the safety zone but the the non-noise zone of sirens right well then of course i open the

i step out on the balcony sorry i'm belaboring this but i'm like on the phone with 9-1-1 and i'm stepping out on the balcony to try to get a better view of what the latest is and then of course bubble shoots out onto the balcony puts like over 80 percent of her full body come on through the like railing and i'm like now i got this going on i'm like hold on uh let me i gotta to call pet 9-1-1 because i got almost i got a cat that's about to be in a world of hurt if she falls off of this balcony talking about just like The I feel like I've addressed this before in the show, so maybe we should just move on. But I had a moment yesterday speaking of kind of being in the car and really wanting to be hyper vigilant about pedestrians and cyclists around you. I'm in my old neighborhood, the Roosevelt neighborhood. Right. And, Luke, I don't I don't know if you fully comprehend this. In fact, I'll go back in my in my photo role and see if I can use this as a show pick. But you know that scene in I Think You Should Leave where Patty Harrison, Party Hardison, is driving and she's got a bunch of tables and she keeps yelling and she keeps yelling, somebody dirtied my tables. And they just keep on saying that it's her job. Her job is tables. And the joke is nobody can really tell, like, what is her job? Her job is tables. She's also mad at Eddie Munster. She's mad at Eddie Munster. Exactly. I did a terrible job of recapping that. But if you don't know what I'm talking about, you know enough now. Point is, that has actually been my life for a long time. On Sundays, when I volunteer, one of my main gigs, probably about 70% of the time, is I'm the person who drives to a location, a garage of one of our volunteers, and I load the back of my hatchback up with tables, Luke. We call the job tables. Have I ever told you that? This is the truth. Who's doing tables this week? Andrew's doing tables. OK, I'm doing tables. So not only do I have a job that is called tables, it looks not unlike that scene, except instead of a minivan, I'm driving this hatchback that has like those foldable, like when you when you unfold them, they're like full banquet size, like, you know, portable tables, you know, plastic tables. And then you fold them in half. Right. You tuck the legs in and you fold them in half. and i can fit exactly seven of those stacked on top of each other in my car every time somebody sees me either load or unload the tables and chairs and sign and all the shit that i carry in my car on sundays they cannot believe it it all fits in their only one way luke it is exact when my parents used to make me put my lincoln logs away and i hated it because they didn't fit in the box right but they taught me you put the longer stuff in first that lesson stuck with me for the rest of my life because I shove so much shit in the back of my hatchback.

Do you ever worry you will Tetris it and it will all disappear? If you pack it too perfectly, it just goes, and it's gone.

I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good news is we live in a magical, wonderful world. The bad news is we've got to plunk down about $700 for tables. Anyway, so when I'm driving that, my rearview mirror means nothing, right? I look back, I look into the rear view mirror and all I see is Luke tables and somebody dirtied them and it might've been Eddie Munster. And, but there's this moment where I always have to take a right, a right hand turn at a traffic light. There's usually pedestrians. You got to wait for them. But also while you're waiting for the pedestrians, it's very easy for cyclists to come speeding down their own bike lane, which is also to the right. And they're usually going to be coming from behind me. and there's something about actually putting eyes on something instead of just using a mirror and yesterday as i'm driving down 65th and i see that i'm passing three cyclists on my right and so i know when i get to the stoplight up here i'm gonna have to stop for a long time and make sure that they know that i see them and that i'm not going to turn in front of them or into them right into the right lane as they're speeding down this hill and the thing is i had to totally rely on my side view mirror to make sure that all three had passed like i see them pass but then like there was this moment luke where i was still scared to turn i'm like i know there were three cyclists i saw them all turn but right now i'm only relying on this mirror and somehow like i didn't trust mirrors for this like second i'm just like everything in my life changes and everything potentially in somebody else's life changes if i miscalculate this yeah you know and especially You know, this is a very kind of like a little urban, urban neighborhood. And I'm just like, there are so many opportunities for exactly what you saw happen outside your apartment this morning.

Well, I was, you know, driving that U-Haul a couple weekends ago. And the same thing. I mean, there's no the rearview mirror is doesn't, you know, doesn't serve any purpose. You're just looking at the at the like sort of box part of the truck. and i was the whole way driving down the freeway i was just being like overly overly overly careful i would like look in the mirror and then i would you know try to like for changing lanes and stuff it just i felt unsettled the whole time and so finally it's early monday morning and i'm driving down here to do the show and to drop the truck off and i come there's this blind turn getting out of the neighborhood up where the other house is and i i guess i got cocky because i checked my left, I looked to the right as well as I could based on the configuration of this Hurkin truck and this really bad poorly designed intersection and i just start to ease out into traffic or out into this little two-lane country highway and i just hear and i just hit my brakes i can't even i still can't see a vehicle yeah but i just hear a horn and i just like immediately stomp on my brakes and just like subaru just goes zooming past me like i just about merged so that just set my anxiety that reset the clock to zero on my anxiety or that reset the clock to 100 on my anxiety yeah no shit i was just starting to think okay i got this like that's and that's what you're talking about it's like you're so worried about some part of this that you're not understanding like you're looking at the mirror you're looking at the lane you know there were three cyclists now they're past you you're looking at the mirror you're looking at the lane your brain is going is there a universe in which there is somehow a cyclist still in my blind spot right exactly well i'm glad that uh glad you were able to deliver the tables it's funny that they give tables to the person who drives a uh a volkswagen gulf well they don't give it to me it's just we're a very

i wouldn't say i'm missing it well no i just mean like it's just you know first of all i like doing it um and it does all fit in there and also like we don't have you know luke as we talk about this podcast our uh volunteer organization is a very boutique operation like you know we don't we don't have a vast we don't have a vast quantity of volunteers so we're all we're all right okay

that makes sense yeah uh so what you're saying is if folks would like to volunteer and come out

and help sure yeah folks with a car slightly larger than a where i am no you don't have wagon tables i like doing tables it gives me a sense of purpose that's really what it's all

about it just gives me a sense of purpose uh if people think that's the only i think you should leave talk they're going to hear on today's episode boy are they wrong um when we come back i will play you this shower audio and um which if i were to play you just one section of it andrew just one section of it you could very much get the idea that something

untoward is going on is this like not what's happening one of those shampoo commercials from the 90s where people are enjoying washing their hair a little bit what was what was that like um It was like something essential, organic essentials, essential organic, organic essentials.

Yeah, it's not that it's completely family friendly. And and we'll play it when we come back in a moment here on TBTL. Hello and welcome to Top Story. Andrew, does the the idea of the cold plunge hold any appeal to you? Have you seen this? Do you know people that are evangelists for this?

You mean like the thing that you did one time after you had a run and you go into the cold bath, the big tub full of ice water?

Yeah, I think the last time I did that was many years ago, like before TBTL. Or did I do it more recently?

No, you did it more recently. I have tape of it here. Oh.

Oh, my God. Andrew, you know what I have tape of today? Me taking a cold shower. It sounds eerily similar.

It's the same thing.

I really have to.

This is like the creaking door audio. It's not done yet.

A terrible feeling of coldness. Oh, shoot.

That was it. That was probably from, I don't know, 2018 or 19 or something.

Well, Andrew, I should really keep notes. Because what happened was, well, first of all, I feel like all of this cold plunge stuff that I see all the time on TikTok and Instagram and hear people talking about it's kind of wearing me down it's kind of getting to me in in in the way that i'm starting to believe it a little bit like i mean have you heard about these sort of alleged uh medical benefits of it now what i was doing probably that time was just trying to um do essentially an ice bath after a long run that's exactly what that was yeah because what that's all about is just yeah it's just kind of like um you know that'll help your legs not be so sore the next day but of course there's this whole other thing now of people buying these you know like they'll buy these like um galvanized metal tubs that are for like if you live in wyoming and it's for like watering your horses or something exactly yeah and then they get in there and um it just seems to come up incessantly on my various feeds but people really swear by it and it is supposed to really kind of release a lot of good you know chemicals in your brain and really set you up for the day and um becca was texting me saying you should really like if you know if you're feeling ambitious you should really try to do this cold shower thing and so i actually did it today and i recorded it but now how much do the folks who listen to this show need to hear of me being in some kind of cold water if I remembered that i had already done that ice bath thing i probably wouldn't have taken the time to record this so i i kind of ruined your bit then by playing that you didn't ruin the bit at all i ruined the bit by not remembering that i already did the bit um but is but this time it was a

shower i feel like that's a very different that's a i'm not justifying the tape here um but it feels like that's a bit of a different thing that's like kind of dipping your toes in right i feel like plunging into a cold bath there's something more um extreme about that it seems to me yes

Well, let me just – I'll just play you some of the tape, OK? And again, apologies if this is too similar to something that we did – I did like four years ago. I guess what I think is the listeners really need to hear what it sounds like when I'm cold. Clearly, that's an impulse I have. OK. Here we are, as you can probably tell, in the shower. And I have the water temperature at the sort of normal temp I would use. but i've been hearing all this chitter chatter about cold showers in the morning being sort of like a form of a cold plunge and that it's great for your metabolism and it's like doing uh you know healthy cocaine or something so i'm going to place this phone i don't think it's ever been called healthy cocaine for the record i think that's just my invention strategically just outside of the stream of water and i'm going to see how long i can go wish me luck by the way completely um unrelated to what the actual content is can you believe the audio you can get on your dang iphone these days like on the like memo setting yeah i don't know like i don't i don't

have an iphone so i don't um remember you and i tried using my android to record some stuff in australia and some of it came out really well but then other stuff maybe we were overcompensating were yelling and it all came out distorted so i don't know if i can i don't know if i can bro down on that technology but do you so it's because i thought that the android it certainly has a better camera right isn't that what i mean it used to i also you know i've got a five-year-old phone or whatever too so shit moves fast but uh i i was in uh um no where oh uh arkansas last week

and i was also working i was filming a tv story there but then i was like also in the process of of editing and producing a different tv story that was going to go on this weekend this last weekend and i found myself to where they just needed me to record what we call scratch tracks they just needed me to record the script so that they could ever you know the know what the timing was and i just like whip out my iphone i'm in this rental truck that they gave me i guess that's how it works in arkansas they give you a rental truck and i swear to god the audio that i recorded on my phone in that rental truck i ended up re-recording it later but it was not a huge step down it was not bad like i mean just you and i being old radio hands think about 20 years ago if somebody was going to try to record themselves in the shower the like amount of preparation and waterproofing of various things and like i was just getting in the shower and thought okay i'm going to try to do this thing maybe i should audio document it hit record on my phone and just put it on the towel rack that's kind of near the front of the shower that was the extent of my audio prep and uh the recording is actually pretty good i have stumbled on something here that is

unrelated to what we're talking about um i'm fine but i feel that i need to tell you about this and this is going to probably segue us into i think you should leave talk okay that's fine but here's

I just want to tell people I did it for about maybe a minute and I feel great right now.

Yeah, I do imagine that idea of it like sort of kicking your metabolism, like kind of jump starting in the morning. That part is compelling to me. I mean, it sort of sounds awful, but it also sort of sounds like the type of I mean, I, you know, just gut reaction. I'm like, oh, I could I could buy that, you know, like that part of it sort of sounds interesting to me. And that's the only kind of compelling part. Taking the plunge does not, though. I don't think I'd ever have the constitution to, like, jump into a cold bath. But here's what I discovered. And this is just, like, because I just stumbled on something here that maybe you know about it. I feel like if you did, you would have told me about it. But I was thinking ahead to the end of the show, as I usually do. During the show, I'm usually sort of thinking ahead to the end of the show. Like, what am I going to have for lunch, et cetera. And I was thinking, oh, at the end of the show, maybe I'll just do a little, like, kind of Easter egg audio drop of a piece of tape from the I Think You Should Leave sketch. where Patty Harrison is driving these tables around and Tim Robinson just keeps screaming, her job is tables. Anyway, I have it here on YouTube. It's the official audio. I'll play it later maybe. But now YouTube is suggesting things to me and it is suggesting something called Patty Reviews Exotic Animals, colon alligator. And then when I click on that, if you think my shower tape is...

you dirty it probably will be yeah yeah anytime you let patty harrison go where patty harrison wants to go i swear it gets real blue real fast i don't know who this person is who's like youtube

channel this is somebody who just goes by alexandra and they have a whole bunch well maybe they have about i don't know 10 15 videos on their page and the majority of them are something called patty reviews exotic animals alligator otter owl kangaroo they're all between like two and a half and five minutes long and i did not know about this as you know patty harrison is one of my what i think my favorite like kind of breakout star of the i think you should leave universe she's been in i don't know not even all that many sketches but the one she's in tend to be my favorite she's pretty memorable i just i just love her to death and uh anyway and so now i i see i just stumbled on like a vein of like patty harrison reacting to exotic animals that we really need to get through the show so i can just spend my afternoon watching this and like you said i don't trust playing this live on the air uncensored because she is filthy she really

she really is in the best way yes entertaining way for people who are of age yes well speaking of i think you should leave so yes sam anderson uh who's writing i i really enjoy uh wrote this big uh what's the profile yeah but there's another muscular a big muscular profile you know sometimes when they're talking about like a kind of writing they'll call it muscular i don't like sol bellow or something like so but you know anyway i just wanted to try to sound literary yeah i wrote a long profile of tim robinson and the uh the show i think you should leave now first thing that jumped out at me was i really appreciated sam anderson writing and i don't think in a sticky way about how bad the actual interview was with um with tim robinson and also zach canan they're the co-creators of the show um basically like he describes this they're they're having this dinner at a thai restaurant and it's very clear to him that tim and zach did not want to do this interview it had been put off for weeks and weeks and weeks you could tell that like Netflix realized that a profile in the New York Times would be a big deal so you have the PR people from Netflix exerting pressure and what eventually happens is and this is at the same time when they're editing they're doing the final edits on season 3 of that show so they're just like living in the edit you know room and their brains are totally elsewhere what they finally agree to do is meet at 8pm at a Thai restaurant that closes at 9pm and uh sam anderson just goes through the list of sort of questions that he's asking tim and zach to which they have zero interesting responses yeah this is the type of thing where with a lot

of celebrity profiles like this or like interviews that are are told in this style it often frustrates me if the the creative people who are being interviewed are this sort of i don't know if aloof is the right word i guess maybe in this case reticent often aloof i would say and i always kind of have the argument like listen part of your job is doing the press as well like like it or not you this is something you had to do and by just going to this restaurant with the new york times reporter and basically giving like kind of i was gonna say one word answers but basically saying oh yeah i don't know i don't know to everything like that i don't know that type of thing usually irritates me obviously I'm way in the bag for for Tim Robinson so I give him the benefit of the doubt um there's one thing that sort of irritates one thing that sort of irritates me about uh what Sam Anderson does here though who obviously is at the top of his game as a New York Times profile writer but like he says like listen I went into this knowing that these guys do not like doing these interviews i know that tim robinson does not like talking about the creative process i knew that i was gonna have to kind of like warm them up or whatever they'd make some small talk and maybe you'll get into this about how tim robinson keeps on putting more and more spice on his food um but then the the writer says i tried my favorite icebreaker question what is your first good yeah that's not a good icebreaker question right yeah i tried my first ice break or i tried my favorite icebreaker question what is your very first memory Robinson said he couldn't remember one neither could Kanan I'm just like can you remember your first no I can't that's like once you're if you're having fun with somebody or you're playing a game like maybe that'd be a summer games question like once like once the the conversation is is rolling and everybody's having fun but like if you are somebody who's like listen I have a limited amount of time here I'm talking to people who don't like to talk about their creative process, who I know are going to be tough, like just keep the small talk going and then ease into some questions that may be related to the topic. I was really

i'm totally taking over this segment just with my one irritation about this line but like i spent a lot of time today like kind of daydreaming like well what how would i do that obviously i'm terrible at interviewing famous people but like i'm thinking like well if he doesn't want to talk about his own art maybe somehow segue into talking about what the reaction to his art has been like hey you know like somehow get to hey when you were working on season one and nobody had seen this stuff yet like you know what did you sort of what did you expect what was your worst case scenario or best case scenario for how the world would react to this you know maybe like and again i'm not guaranteeing that you're gonna get a good answer out of tim robinson when he just wants to go back to the editing suite but like certainly not like hey i'm gonna okay i know you guys don't like doing this so let's do this what's your very first memory like that just i just think that's a

That's a really hard question to answer. Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm with you. In fact, you know what? And this is a go-to for me a lot when I'm interviewing folks, is just starting kind of, either starting at the beginning, like when did you get interested in comedy? Which he sort of gets into ultimately in the piece, talking about Tim Robinson saw a traveling production of Second City when he was living in Detroit and he kind of fell in love. And then that became all he wanted to do Was improv and he got at Second City In Chicago But I think that's a good question A good question would be like Are you surprised at the sort of Huge success And just the intense love Around this show I feel like that's a question that you can answer That's not making you get into Why you think something is funny or not funny Or what your process is Or talking about your family I mean it is very charming by the way that tim robinson is is is married to uh his high school sweetheart who is an electrical engineer for gm and it sounds you know like he's just loves his kids kids loves his wife like is kind of i'm with you andrew in that oftentimes i'm kind of like yeah you know you got to promote the thing don't be a jerk play the game promote the thing but something about tim robinson i'm like you know what just make the show i don't care if you promote it yeah you're forgiven for some reason just because i like him one other thing that's i mean there's so much in this article that i found really interesting one is uh sam anderson getting into this question of like why do we enjoy watching these scenarios you know whether it's a a training you know an hr training session or just any number of things someone's holding a baby and the baby starts crying just what happens on the show so frequently is it's a situation that starts out very much like a lot of real life situations we've all been in you know you're hang you're on a first date or you're you know a few couples are getting together to play a board game or whatever and then things just kind of go off the rails in this way that's very specific to this show and it's very cringy in a way i think cringe is overused by the way but it's just it's the kind it's creating moments that if you were in the moment you would feel like a real deep sense of unease and yet watching other people in that moment is kind of weirdly fun and i guess the theory that sam anderson comes up with is and and some other people chime in on is basically like it's sort of like eating something spicy which is actually where the article starts because tim robinson really likes spicy food and he's putting too much peppers on his food at this thai restaurant but it's like eating something spicy it's a way to dip into that feeling that we're all kind of afraid of in a way or we're all trying to avoid you're dipping into it but in a safe way you're experiencing it but you're not getting consumed by it because it's not your real thing which is probably also why people like horror movies it's probably why we like a whole host of things that if they were really happening to us would

be terrible yeah and he brought up nathan fielder in his piece as well like hey that's why people and also um the cringe comedy of like uh of um larry david why am i blanking on the name of the show curb your enthusiasm and i was thinking about that and how i intake these various shows like the cringe of i think you should leave does not make me uncomfortable every now and then especially in season three it there are a couple of a couple of scenes that got so shouty it made me made me a little uncomfortable or like i was like oh but for the most part like you know that things are going to be ratcheted up in these sketches they're going to get more and more uncomfortable usually they're going to end in shouting but not not always um but for some reason like it like it doesn't make me uncomfortable it only makes me laugh right but then with um curb your enthusiasm well curb your enthusiasm is a different thing like i think i actually have maybe a little bit more issues with that show as it went on anyway but let's just say the golden age of curb like the early days like i really enjoyed that but i had to watch it in like doses like i could watch maybe two maybe three episodes in a row but then i had to be done with that and i had to watch Watch something else because that kind of cringiness, what Larry David is putting out there, I just couldn't take. It made me feel physically uncomfortable. And then Nathan Fielder, because you're actually dealing with like real people, like he's incorporating real people in an almost a pranky kind of way. I have no desire for that whatsoever. The tiniest bits I've seen on that on TV, everybody or online, I should say, people say it's genius. I believe them, but it's not for me. And so it got me thinking, like, what is this version? Why? Like, why is that spectrum there for me? And what is the difference?

well just to uh sort of talk about the nathan fielder thing for a minute because i've been trying to get into that the rehearsal thing and i just can't in fact becca and i watched an episode on the plane together flying back from california and we it was it was one where i actually laughed out loud at the premise so the pre you know obviously i think most of our listeners are familiar the rehearsal is this h i think it's hbo show where he is like his premise is lots of things in life are kind of complicated and difficult because we kind of are doing them for the first time whether it's asking someone on a date or raising a child or whatever if you could just rehearse these things a bunch before you did them before you had these conversations maybe it would be easier um and so then he builds these incredible elaborate sets like this one guy wants to ask someone out on a date and so he nathan fielder has them build an exact replica of the bar and then runs all these rehearsals with the guy the thing that i did think was funny about the premise of the episode that we were watching which was a woman is interested in becoming a mother um and so nathan fielder is like well let's rehearse this and so what they end up doing is hiring all these babies and child actors and teenage actors and like you know late teenage actors so that she can live in this house and basically practice being a mother where the child gets older every week the funniest part though is that the babies are only allowed to work for like a certain amount of time so they keep swapping the human babies out through this window which is okay so that's like kind of funny like when you get the reveal and like what the the how ridiculous this plan is but then after that and again this doesn't mean a lot to you because you haven't watched the show the problem is that it's it's a show that's for me the problem is it's a show that's parading itself as some kind of reality thing where these people are really learning a lesson and nathan fielder is really on this journey but none of that is as far as like so in this particular episode they're trying to find someone to kind of live in the house with her and be sort of a co-parent and they pick this guy who's first of all appears to be mentally ill which i thought was like kind of dicey in terms of like the morality of that then that guy doesn't work out so then then supposedly nathan fielder decides he wants to be the co-parent in the house and then he has to call everyone and ask if it's okay but it's just like what it feels to me like is something that is portraying itself as very genuine that is very not genuine and that like i don't it's like it's so clearly not genuine it's so clearly not that nathan fielder just decided at some point during the filming that he should actually be in the house this was always the plan so that i just can't hang with that show uh so you know just in case people got up this morning wondering does luke take cold showers and does luke like the rehearsal with nathan fielder uh Yes and no. Anyway, the other thing, though, about the – I think you should leave – well, you were mentioning the table sketch.

One of the things I found really interesting in this article was about the specificity of the writing on the show because there are these little – the show almost has its own vernacular for like – like they'll take something that you've never heard as a way of describing something. And they'll say it with such sort of like conviction, like somebody, you know, going to the bathroom and really leaving, you know, a situation. They're calling it a paint job. And you like no one's ever called it that that I know of. But by the end of the sketch, you're like, yeah, oh, a mud pie. Oh, he took a little slice. Like one time they're talking about someone not using enough toilet paper. And they go, he just took a little slice. Like I've never heard toilet paper described in terms of a slice. But you sort of buy into their universe. And in the table sketch, this is Sam Anderson's writing, the way language glops out of everyone's mouth like soft serve ice cream, quote, I can't know how to hear any more about tables. A driver's ed teacher yells at his students after they won't stop peppering him with questions about the bizarre centrality of tables in his instructional videos. And now you're in more trouble than me, unfortunately, a man says to a co-worker who's lost his temper. a temper that's from a season three but i can't know how to hear any more about tables um is i believe that's something that zach kanan's kid said a version of that and he heard it and wrote it down and that basically what's happening what we're seeing is highly scripted even down to something that seems like it would just be a flub. I can't know how to hear any more about tables. It's like Zach Kanin hears his kids say some version of that, thinks it's funny and weird, writes it down, it ends up in the script, and then you have Tim Robinson delivering it verbatim. I thought that was kind of an interesting thing

that I wasn't aware of. Yeah, I haven't read this whole piece yet, just enough so that I could criticize the icebreaker question and then visualize myself as Sam Anderson, a New York Times interviewer, really doing a better job with this piece that that was my journey um so i anyway i haven't read the whole thing but it's really interesting this question of language like that to me is the killer app of the show if i can use that phrase that your landlord's in it more on that in a moment yeah that's right my landlord is in the my former uh like a property manager in la is is uh in the final episode of season three please finish the language thing because i really want to get into this landlord thing but um the uh there's the way it's usually tim robinson's character but like you say luke like it's amazing how you can swap other people in for that character at all times and the language stays the same so it's very clear that it's not an improv thing like there is a voice to the show and the way people talk the language is imprecise in a way that it makes it at first hard to remember the lines but also why the lines are so funny when we talk about the guy who's covered in makeup because he's supposed to be doing a prank show and he's supposed to be Carl Havoc dressed up like an old man walking through a mall and it's unclear he's supposed to like he's part of a reality TV show where he's supposed to go around the mall doing pranks to people but he just says he's got he's too hot and he's got to get the shit off of his face and what he finally says like the the killer line of that is I don't want to be around anymore and the reason that line is so funny is is is because it's so imprecise like the in the in the sketch his producers don't exactly know what that means is this a cry for help is this mean like he doesn't want to be in the sketch anymore but it's not like i don't want to be here anymore i don't want to be on this earth anymore it's not precise it's i don't want to be around anymore and that is what's so funny and same with everybody always quotes and sort of shares the meme of tim robinson on a white background just yelling uh you sure about that you sure about that but really it's the like the the tag on that that is i'm sure that's why right are you sure about that that's why are you sure about that that's why right like it's that like it's that it's like slightly bumbled language that and again you know it's not an accident it's not just an extension of tim robinson riffing or something because you hear other characters do that too and i just think

it's goddamn brilliant yeah it's a very uh well everything that you're saying um now listen why i sound a little distracted because i'm trying to get to a particular sketch that uh that involves your actual former landlord and not just your actual former landlord but a person who was referenced on this program i believe back in those days if i'm correct yeah yeah because this was also the person who was telling you that you have to stop smoking on your balcony yes yes exactly that's

amazing when when it was near the beginning of our um period with american public media like around 2015 um when i started doing this job full-time one of the i i i set it up this way because I struggle with this this was like a a multi-week saga on the show if not more than that about whether or not I should be able to smoke outside my apartment on my little balcony at the time obviously I was a smoker I'm not a smoker anymore and my attitude about this has changed a bit but the reason I have weird memories about this is because I feel like we in a certain way had a bit of a more of a spotlight I just talked like a we had a bit of a more of a spotlight You sure about that?

That's why I can't know how to hear any more about Spotlight.

Exactly.

So anyway, I remember some people being like, yeah, that was the first I heard of the show was you going on and on about like whether or not you should have a right to smoke outside, you know, on a balcony that you pay rent for. It's not like you're smoking inside. And, you know, I was pretty put out at the time. And the landlord said, hey, listen, we we all have our windows open. It's L.A. That smoke comes right into our house. Now I totally, totally understand that, and especially in a world where there's so much less cigarette smoke than, like, the 90s when I was coming of age. Like, you can – in my neighborhood, if somebody lights a cigarette four blocks away, I can smell it here because we're not used to that smell as much. And so I can totally imagine. And I also know that there was some – they were dealing with some health stuff in his family at the time. And so I think the smoke was sort of a trigger. He had quit recently, I think. It was all these things. But at the time, I was just like, I couldn't believe it. So if I want to go smoke a cigarette, I got to.

to put on my shoes go outside of a lock gate make sure i have my keys um and it was this whole saga and i still i don't know how people heard that at the time like it was it was funny because i was being such a dingus about it well it's funny because i remember at the time totally siding

with you yeah that's right i remember you had my back yeah having a balcony you know um and which is an outdoor space and being able to sort of like enjoy yourself there if that means you know smoking a cigarette it didn't seem to me at the time like you were being uh crazy and yet now in 2023 it definitely seems like the kind of thing we wouldn't do anymore yeah i mean honestly like

because i remember thinking like okay it's fine you can rent an apartment and say no smoking but i should always be allowed to smoke outside right whereas now i'll bet you if they're renting that place out i can't believe it's been almost like it's exactly 10 years i think since we rented that place they could easily put in the thing there's no smoking on our property it's like you could There's tons of places that say no smoking on our property.

I think that's the rule at this building I'm in right now. I'm sure of it, and that's totally fine.

You literally can't smoke anywhere on the building, in the building. But anyway, I will say this, though. He was always a sweet guy. He was never a brute about it. I felt put out. I didn't like the rule. But this guy was a very, very sweet guy, and we knew he was an actor. And, you know, I will still see him in commercials sometimes, and I would see him in commercials at the time. But then as I'm watching, I hadn't seen him on TV in a while, and then I'm watching the final sketch of I Think You Should Leave this latest season, and I'm just like, oh my, is that, oh my God, is that David? And I skipped ahead to the credits, it's David Young, right, or David Jung, I can't remember how to pronounce it, J-U-N-G, I believe his name is.

I have it right here, I have the actual sketch, which I think, Andrew, is arguably the best, to me it's the best sketch maybe of the entire season, and what's interesting is Tim Robinson's not in it. I don't know if it's going to translate to audio. Probably not. But let me just play a little bit for you, starting with your former landlord who's leading a kind of sort of a team-building HR-type event. And here we go. Let's see how long it takes.

I'm going to show you a quick scenario that has a lot of different right and wrong answers.

Is this the voice he would use to tell you to stop smoking on your balcony?

Well, later on when he gets angry in this sketch, I think I said you imagine that guy telling you you can't smoke anymore. So they're talking about conflict resolution in the workplace. Shout them out, and we'll discuss them.

Hey, so I had to take Barney to that lunch meeting, and I know that you were still working on that project. Do you mind giving half the credit to Barney as well?

So this is, of course, one of those sorts of HR videos that we've all been subjected to that's presenting a scenario where a person is being put in an awkward position because her manager is asking her to do something that he really shouldn't be asking her to do about sharing credit on something. And anyway.

obviously she's been put in an uncomfortable situation what are some things she could say

everyone in the room is looking around kind of sort of awkwardly nobody wants to pipe up and there's a a woman looks like she might be in like her 50s or 60s who finally decides to pipe up back away banana breath what the hell did you just eat a banana

i'm sure that's what she'd like to say totally okay for real what are some ways she the journey

that this woman goes on for the rest of the sketch it's so amazing to me because she is uh i i think a person who hasn't had a lot of w's in the sort of public speaking arena and she has just whizzed a smoker with this banana breath comment and it has literally changed the course of her life she she basically says we should make t-shirts commemorating this hr session she starts recruiting people to be a part of the t-shirt she starts put asking people what size t-shirt should i put you down for which is a total hr violation yeah she she's like i'm just asking her the size of her body right there's this subplot with a different guy where she's like will you draw the picture for it and he's like i can't draw computers and then she's like just do it it's a box and then at the end he presents her with this drawing of a computer which is terrible and she yells at him it's just like i just again i love tim robinson uh but it was really fun to see somebody else kind of inhabiting that space and it being a woman and it being a you know woman of a certain age like it was just this i feel this this uh this woman who is uh who's portraying this character is so great because she starts off you think she's going to be one kind of person in the sketch and as she gets more and more pushy with everyone else she really becomes a different person and she's so i feel so good at portraying this i am blanking on the name B-

But I think she sort of has the vibe of, I want to say Phyllis in The Office, sort of a person of that sort of age and demeanor, sort of. Yeah, yeah. So, like, if you haven't seen, you know, I think you should leave, kind of picture Phyllis from The Office. I don't know, like, character-wise, but that's kind of like her demographic, right? And then she kind of, like, she gets a laugh with this banana breath line, and then suddenly she's gotten the laugh and she's gotten that taste of success. And so she really wants to parlay this into a cottage industry.

And she's like, I mean, I just would recommend people watch the sketch as opposed to hearing me lamely retell it. But I just think it's a real work of genius. And getting back to that, the specificity of the language, back off banana breath. What did you eat a banana? I could go a lifetime and never write that line. Like it's just such – it's just so specific. It's so slightly unhinged. It's not a thing someone would say, but it's right next to it. I mostly wanted to play that so that I can start using that. Now it's canon. Now it's introduced into the TV cell lexicon. Oh, yeah.

We need to isolate that tape, don't we? Yeah.

Absolutely. It's definitely going to become in heavy rotation here.

So moving away from the show again and back to this piece, how we started. And again, I've read maybe, I don't know, a quarter of this, and I'm looking forward to finishing it over lunch. But does it come back? basically the beginning of this piece is I tried to interview these guys, they gave me an hour they gave me no useful information so let's just examine the show and the humor of Tim Robinson and maybe tie it to this theme of spiciness and toying with the idea of uncomfortable cringe humor but not immersing ourselves in that world does the article ever come back to the dinner, do we get any more or is it just kind of like the dinner was a failure but I got my hour and now I'm going to write more about the show and my own thoughts about it they never go back to the dinner the

dinner dinner was an unmitigated disaster right it was a total scratch it was just a jumping off point it produced nothing useful um but there is some really good stuff from sam richardson basically it sounds like sam richardson doesn't hate talking to reporters and is love to hear it i love sam richardson everything good in the piece that is a quote is from sam richardson who's Tim Robinson's co-star in Detroiters And is in a lot of sketches He's in Veep He's splat in Veep So basically I think what Sam Anderson realizes is He's not going to get anything useful out of Tim Robinson Or even Zach Canaan So luckily Sam Richardson is available And happy to kind of fill in some details About the early days of being in Second City with Tim and things like that The other thing that he brings up in this article that I thought was kind of interesting was – let me just read you a little bit from this. It would be a mistake to confuse Robinson's comedy with the usual, quote, very male comedy, the archetypal bad boy swinging his id around, railing against PC culture and his nagging wife, preaching that the rules are stupid. That society is a scam and a cage, and we should follow our desires and never negotiate and certainly never apologize. Robinson's comedy is doing something much more interesting. This is comedy of the superego. It understands that every moment of human life requires a negotiation with rules and that it is hard and stressful and there are so many ways you can go wrong. But the negotiation is also vital. The rules, after all, are holding some pretty destructive forces back. One of my favorite things about I Think You Should Leave is all the crying. Robinson's characters cry while driving and at parties and in the middle of work meetings after, say, a man chokes on a hot dog he's been secretly eating out of his sleeve. Or after the boss makes him make a skip lunch, Luke, or after his boss makes him take off his ridiculous hat. One man tries to diffuse a tense situation by doing a whole zany Blues Brothers style dance, but it backfires, making everything worse. And so he pulls off his sunglasses to reveal a puffy, wet, red face. And then he goes into this very long, I think, interesting meditation on, like, how much crying happens in the show and how much Tim Robinson's characters are crying all the time because they're basically – they're sort of lost. They're trying to follow the rules, but they don't really understand the rules, and they're so frustrated they're about to explode, and it's manifesting in tears. And there's an interesting conversation with, I think his name is Akiva Schaefer, who's, I think he's one of the Lonely Island guys, but he also directs a lot of these sketches. And even when you print out an article, Andrew, if it's a thousand pages long, you sometimes can't find a thing.

And what the director of some of the episodes says is that they'll often do a couple of takes, and then the more takes they do, the more that it becomes the case that one of the characters starts crying.

a tim robinson character um and that that they'll just end up uh uh these guys are really having a hard time schaefer told me he said robinson and kanan's extremely meticulous scripts originally contain zero crying but it arises naturally during filming uh we'll do three takes and i'll be like oh this guy should start holding back tears schaefer said then sketch after sketch they'll realize wait a minute this guy seems like he might be getting teary too then we start joking should every character be crying by the end I had not considered how much crying happens in this show but there's a lot

of crying you know what I like also that adds a weird twist to the show is there's not truly like just straightforward how do I put this like if I say straight characters it sounds like I'm talking about their sexuality I mean like straight men or straight women or whatever the word for that is Like, you might be at a party scene, and you see, okay, this Tim Robinson character, like, okay, he's a weirdo, okay, and the awkwardness is cranking up, and around him, people are mostly acting normal, but even the normal people are not usually totally normal, you know? like it is a universe where they're weird too and i've been thinking about that throughout the series anyway but there's another there's a sketch in season three that really that really kind of like magnifies that where tim robinson's character at a party like there are like three main categories it's like office situation party situation game show and then you know then some other things but there's a lot of those three things and in this one party tim robinson starts acting like an absolute lunatic for some reason that i don't feel like getting into right now um but then there's this group of guys who love his antics and they start imitating his antics where you think that he's about to get like everybody's gonna give him the side eye and like he's gonna be persona non grata at the party instead he becomes a hero at a certain group of people at this party and i was like yes that's kind of been there all along right even the scenes and other other uh seasons where he's sitting around a boardroom table and then his co-workers start saying hey boy this this table looks like a surfboard maybe i should surf on it and then somebody starts like spraying a little sprist a little sprist a little spray from their from their bubbly water or whatever they're creating a beach scene and you're like okay now i know what's gonna happen tim heidecker tim heidecker uh tim robinson is gonna take this to an extreme level and everybody's gonna act you know be put off but the thing is they're acting weird too like if i were in that room they would be the weird ones you're totally right there are almost

no normal people portrayed in this which is kind of more fun that way right because if everybody was just like if it's the normal people and then the tim robinson's that gets kind of old pretty fast but it's like like you said everybody is is off kind of a tick and the one thing i'll say about season three is it feels like they tried even they decided none of these things need to need to land there does not need to be an ending to any of these the sketches feel shorter to me just from a time standpoint some of them but then some of them seem incredibly long maybe maybe i'm just focusing on the ones that just it's like i'm kind of thinking how are they going to get out of this and then it's they just don't even try it's just all of a sudden baby baby baby yeah some lines i kind of love honestly i mean it's it's definitely an approach i mean i will tell you this it i'd rather you just like end a sketch somewhere randomly almost towards the end than like do this sort of snl you know where you're trying to land and it's not really landing and the last thought you have is the viewer is like well that was kind of a whimper so they definitely don't suffer from that because i feel like you know if anything if they're like we don't really know how to end this they just like they almost just it's like the how you know videos on tiktok end at an abrupt time now yeah it's almost the sketch version of that yeah it's not cut off by

like into the word but like it like my my favorite of the sort of abrupt endings is and this was a very short sketch but the maybe one of my favorites was the egg video game sketch um where a guy's at the office and he's playing this ridiculous video game maybe i can associate with it it's like this mindless dumb video game where you if they made that you'd be playing it on TV they have made it I need to click on it actually our buddy Hauser sent me the link and people have tattoos of the egg already Luke but basically it's like this guy's playing this

now when it's spreading it's backside

yes that's the tattoo that everybody's getting yeah so just some like worker in his office and he's obsessed over some dumbass very simple video game where for some reason you need to feed eggs to an egg character but then his co-workers come into his office look over his shoulder and then the game gets really dirty after he gets to a certain level and the egg

like, bends over and spreads his egg butt cheeks and shows everything. And it's just, like, a simple line drawing. It's both, like, filthy and also ridiculous at the same time. How could it be filthy? It's, like, a simple line drawing. And the sketch ends with him just saying, we should be able to watch some porn at the office. Baby, baby. And then it just goes into the music. And, like, it just, like, for some reason,

that one just slayed me. I love in that sketch, and then we'll stop, and we'll never bring the show up again. for the rest of time, I promise. Except for the TBTL-a-thon. July 3rd through 7th? Is that when we're doing it?

It definitely starts on the 3rd. Yeah, 3rd through 7th.

3rd through 7th. Unless we don't raise enough money.

Maybe the 3rd through the 10th. Maybe the 3rd through next July. We'll see. We should be able to look at some TBTL-a-thon at work.

But I love, so yeah, you basically have this person who's like, they have their own office, they're an office worker, like you said, Andrew. But they're clearly doing a really lousy job. And it's becoming frustrating to their colleagues Because all this guy's doing is he's just like staring at the screen with this mindless game He's so unrepentant about it That's what cracks me up His colleagues eventually come around Maybe one of them is even his boss Come around behind his desk And they're looking And you know any normal person would like minimize this game And try to put up a spreadsheet And be like I'm working And they're asking questions like what the hell is this And his response is I don't know I've never been to this level before It's like He is somehow inoculated from responsibility because he's never even been to this level. And then he gets to the level. The egg starts doing dirty things.

His co-worker or maybe boss says, we can't watch porn at the office. And he just looks like confused. Like, we should be able to watch a little porn. And then it just ends. It's like the sketch wasn't even about watching porn. It was about this ridiculous egg game. Baby, baby, baby. Also, I mean, for real, the imaging and the music that is used in the interstitials. And it's like it is sui generis and perfectly fits the tone.

And is that original like from somebody – that's the other thing I'll say about this show. I'm not surprised to hear that people have tattoos of that egg already and that somebody built that game. Because one of the things – if you're into this and there's going to be a lot of our listeners who are just like, God, this is literally the worst episode of TBTL I've ever heard. And that's saying something. But if you're into this whole world of I Think You Should Leave One of the things that's kind of fun about it is How much kind of world building there is by just fans of the show Yes You know, calicocutpants.com or whatever Like, people love the show so much that when there's a joke Like a pretend video game in it Someone will just go out and code the actual video game Then you can play it

By the way, when you type in I think you should leave theme song The first hit I get is this YouTube video Doris Wilson, Big Flame Theme from I think we should leave So I get it I take it that this was an I don't know if you were asking If the music was created For the show But it seems like it's an old song So good It's so good I'd love this without the context of the show Just want to hear what the lyrics are Yeah There's a flame A flame A big flame In my heart Yeah yeah yeah

Can I just say what we always say about music from this era? Other than, you know, I think you should leave. How have I never heard this song before? How is it not the number one song in America for many weeks in 1969 when it was released on authentic records? Like they're in particularly in this kind of I'm just going to say Motown sound. um like there was so much unbelievably and i don't just mean specifically from the label motown but just like at this time in american music there was so much amazing music being released particularly by black artists that like if they hadn't unearthed this for the show i would have gone my whole life

not knowing this exists and it's such a good song um same with the the theme song for um big mouth Do you know that song? Uh-uh. So you know the show Big Mouth, right? The Kroll Project? I'm familiar with it.

I haven't watched much of it, but I know it's a, what's his name? A Nick Kroll film?

Nick Kroll.

Yeah, exactly.

And John Mulaney. John Mulaney. I'm trying to think. He's definitely in it. I think it was a collaboration. Yes, exactly. But anyway, the theme song to that is a song by Charles Bradley. Take a listen to this. But, and it's called Changes, but I have something that, if you don't already know, might blow your mind it blew my mind this is just i'm not playing this from the tv show this is just the song changes by charles bradley so hopefully this is the i'm going through yes and the show it's an animated show that is all all about specifically puberty so you know the theme of going through changes is um quite literal here Thank you.

I skipped ahead a little bit here I believe, by the way, I don't know if it was written this way

But I believe Charles Bradley's mom had passed Not long, and so these lyrics were very much He was thinking about his mom at the time

Now, Luke, can I blow your mind?

Oh, look at Chris. Chris is leaving the room. No, Chris is leaving right now. I don't know if you know this or not, but what blew my mind was that is actually a Black Sabbath song. Whoa! Mind blown. Legitimately mind blown. It's either it's it might be Ozzy Osbourne solo, but I'm pretty sure it's a Black Sabbath song. Yeah, I saw it because I loved that song from the TV show. And again, it's just thematically perfect. And then I think I looked it up or something. And the first thing I saw was Charles Bradley performing this maybe at like KEXP Studios or maybe WIEP or, you know, some station like that. Maybe The Current. I don't remember. And and he talks about how he's it's a cover of an Ozzy Osbourne song.

I was like what the hell I did an event with him years ago really Charles Bradley yeah yeah and it was really funny because I mean like he uh he definitely at that by that time in his career he was very much um you know he had spent time as a James Brown sort of impersonator early in his career and um and definitely had by by the time I was a thing at the Neptune I was probably on one of those sasquatch announcement parties or something it was some kind of a deal some fundraiser i don't remember but anyway it was pretty wild because just all his outfits he had in his dressing room he had like a whole thing of all these jackets you know because he had these like real kind of involved embroideries and stuff on his jackets and um just the way that he had like with his entourage and with like he had like almost the entire upstairs of the neptune was just all like that's where charles bradley is nobody go in there like it was a real old school kind of like star like star studded approach that you just don't you don't get that on live wire we you know yeah i just most of the time it's like yeah we're just kind of chilling backstage but it was like charles bradley was definitely at that point and it wasn't like he was you know not being nice or anything but it was just like it felt like eight tour buses had rolled up if he had done the james brown thing where he collapsed on stage and then they kept trying to like throw a cape on him and he kept throwing it off i would have been unsurprised and by the way he turned in like an insane performance of a couple of songs and he's the do i have this right in fact i'm

wondering if maybe you were telling me about this guy and then later on i sort of went down a bit of a rabbit hole with this guy never like kind of connected the two is he the guy who i think you were telling me like was not famous until like like yeah really late in that really late in life he died too early died at 68 but like he like throughout the 60s and 70s he wasn't a name it wasn't until like the 2000s that he kind of blew the hell up right yeah there were some there were

Sharon Jones also had a bit of a similar path where she was working I think as a parking lot like security person or attendant and playing music but not really hitting it big until like Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings kind of took off and same thing with Charles Bradley he was uh he was you know doing all kinds of things um along with his music and then eventually eventually it sort of caught on um and uh i mean man what a talent though yeah i'm looking this up it must have been this sasquatch launch party featuring charles bradley circa 2016 that would have been

about when that probably happened here i go once again with the email every week i hope that it's It's from a female. No, man, it's not from a female.

Like, no offense to Strong Bad, but that's a pretty big come down musically. From Charles Bradley covering Black Sabbath. Like, it's fairly rudimentary email music.

All right, let's play a voicemail here from listener Rachel in Pittsburgh. I don't think I need any setup for this. I think it will just reveal itself.

Hi, guys. So this is Listener Rachel in Pittsburgh, and on – oh, boy, I'm time banding, but sometime this past week, Andrew just mentioned his Tonight Pants and how the movie theater experience maybe is related to that somehow.

Oh, the movie theater experience just being that, like, I don't like those big loungy chairs in movie theaters. I prefer just, like, rain.

That might be your hottest take. It's just in that I've just never heard anyone else who doesn't enjoy that. And so I like.

I like that. I feel like that's what keeps this show vibrant.

In the theme of There Are Dozens of Us Dozens, I did hear from a couple of other compatriots who are just like, yeah, I don't like it. It's just too – it's just like I don't feel like snuggling up in public is basically my vibe.

You don't want to be like – like, for instance, if they had waterbeds, I wouldn't want to sit on that.

Right, exactly.

Because it would be too like, oh, I'm being all like vulnerable around these people. And it's just I draw the line at waterbed and you draw at full lay flat seat.

Yes, I love that. See, I'm always doing that. I'm not trying to goad people into slippery slope arguments, but just saying, like, is there a line? OK, right. We can establish that there is a line for you. It's between bed and waterbed like you would go to the theater and sit on beds. I've done it. I've brought my own B.Y.O.B. That's the most two gotch thing you've ever said. And then but the waterbed would be too far. Like for me, it's like, yeah, those those reclining cushy chairs are too much for me. But anyway, yeah. And my tonight pants are basically, for those who don't know, and maybe Rachel will explain this here, is they're not sweatpants. They're not like they're they're like old chinos or khaki pants that are maybe a size or two too big. And they're comfortable for me to kick around the house in. But if there were an emergency, I could run out of the house and still potentially apply for a job as a banker.

Well, my 11, my husband Mike, was listening and he said, tonight pants. And so I explained to him that Andrew has these pants that he wears that are typically more, you know, not jeans. They're much more like this casual type pants that he wears around the house that are used or whatever. Maybe I'm getting that wrong. But Mike, my husband, goes, oh, you mean sweatpants. I said, what? He said, yeah, sweatpants. The mix between sweatpants and dresspants.

So a little bit is lost in the phone. Sweesspants? But I believe we're saying sweesspants. So Rachel's husband has had tonight pants this whole time. He just calls them his sweesspants.

Because after you've worn a pair of khakis long enough, it gets really nice and silky feeling almost. So it's like sweatpants that you wear them as, or they feel like sweatpants, but they look like dress pants, and you wear them around the house. And I realized my whole life I've been living with this man who also has night pants, but I just thought he was more formal, wearing, like, oh, I'm going to put his evening pants on, I guess. I don't know how it ever clicks for me, guys, but, Andrew, you have a like soul in my husband who calls them sweatpants. All right. Power. Dozens.

Dozens.

I feel seen. You won't see her husband lounging at the AMC. No.

In fact, I believe that movie should be standing only.

Somehow reclining feels good in a place like this.

Somehow reclining feels wrong in a place like this. Anyway, that's what I got for you. I got a couple of packages here from the old P.O. box. Maybe tomorrow we should open the box.

From what's in the box. From what's in the box, yeah. Hey, just, let's see, a little reminder that July 29th, TBTL, 4,000th episode in Seattle, Washington. I am hoping that by the end of today, I will have, we've got the venue. We're working out a few little financials. We're dotting a few last I's and crossing a few T's. But I'm hoping maybe even by tomorrow's episode, Andrew, we can actually at least announce where we're going to be in Seattle on Saturday, July 29th. But we do hope that you can circle that on your calendar and plan on joining us for the TBTL 4000th episode where I will not make that sound with the microphone standoff.

Oh, I thought that was maybe the sound machine in the background. Yeah, I got some messages from people who are like, hey, listen, I'm coming in from out of town. I'm really worried about not getting a ticket. You know, can you just secretly tell me when they're going on sale? We're not, just so you know, like we're not withholding anything right now, like for a big announcement. We're just, we're literally trying to figure things out. And then I, you know, we talked about this off air, Luke. I would say let's, you know, ideally let's maybe try to get our ducks in a row and make one announcement maybe late this week or early next week. I'd like to make about six that have contradicting information. I know, like we just keep on dribbling this information out. I think it's confusing. But I would like to say that maybe by the latest and you tell me if I'm wrong about this, but maybe by the latest, maybe by this time next Monday, we can at least say, hey, this is the detail. This is where we're going to be holding the show and go here to buy your ticket. So it should be it should be soon. That's not a guarantee, but it should be soon. And it will be in Seattle. And Luke, am I OK in saying this to like I if everything works out with this venue, which it will, we don't have to worry about people.

people being left out right this isn't like a situation where the club is so small that if we

if we got there it would be a pretty record turnout i believe for our show i think i think we'll be justified as far as capacity goes because some people are like well i'm buying airline

tickets but i don't want to buy airline tickets if i worry about like not getting a ticket to the show itself so i don't think you have to worry about that so um yeah just wanted to get that

Buy those tickets, buy those airline tickets. We promise we will make it work. No one will be, no one who wants to come to this will be left out.

Also, one last note on this. This is just an idea. I'm freelancing here. Luke might not sign off on this. But if you are from out of town and you are interested in coming to Seattle for the 4,000th show on July 29th, but you're worried about airfare or whatever, we do have, as I mentioned a moment ago, a P.O. box. there is a chance you could mail yourself to seattle yes if i did you want me to give out

and then and then we know what's in the box exactly you better hope we do a what's in the

box segment right before the show it's janice po box three three six eight seven seattle washington nine eight one three three tbtl po box three three six eight seven wrap yourself up ship yourself to the tbtl uh po box text me from the po box once you're in there and i'll go get a bowl of soup across the street, then I'll pick you up from the post office. Yep. So definitely poke some air holes for yourself. Yeah. You know, though, I might not get a bowl of soup across the street. You know, I've been going to that place, Tic Tac Pho, at least once a week. I take my book there, I read my book, I have my lunch. They have a pho with wonton that I've been kind of getting into lately. I show up the other day, Luke, closed, new hours, Closed on Wednesdays Wednesdays are my number one Tic Tac Fuh day Now I don't know what's going to happen anymore

Boy, between tubs and Tic Tac Fuh

I mean You can't catch a break What are they doing to me? Anyway, Lotus Pond also in the North Seattle area I highly recommend that if you're in the mood for Fuh

Alright, that's going to bring us to the end of this episode of the show

Are you sure you didn't want more Fuh recommendations from me? You got one more? Golden Deli in L.A. Oh, really? It's not in L.A. It's in Alhambra. I always get that wrong.

All right. We are going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. So please do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Monday. Enjoy that nice weather. That's what's going on where you are. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

We'll be right back. But what is the generic job? Just tables. Power out.