Muse

Well, I see you got them snakes and sparklers, but where's good stuff, man? Good stuff? This is the good stuff. Snakes and sparklers. Are you nuts, dude? You need stuff to explode. Go boom! Why is that good? So you're gonna tell me that you don't have no black cats, no roaming candles, or screaming memes? No. Oh, come on, man. You don't got no ladyfingers, buzzbuttles, snickerbombs, church burners, gutbusters, zippity-doo-daws, or crap flappers? No, I don't. you're gonna stand there owning a firework stand and tell me you don't have no whistling bungholes no spleen splitters whisker biscuits honky lighters who's could do's who's could don'ts cherry bombs nips and dazers with or without the scooter stick or one single whistling kitty chaser no snakes and sparklers are the only ones i like tbtl

how many hot dogs you have for lunch three well there's your problem you're starving your body's literally eating itself you have to be it so we don't see it you have to live it or we won't forgive it you have to inhabit it or leave it in the cabin it's a b-a-r-t-y because i said so Hey, everybody stand by. Here we go again.

All right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. This is special. This is special. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. I'm an activist and house party enthusiast. Coming to you once again from my actual parents' actual basement. That's the saddest thing I've ever heard. Here on the 4th of July. Happy 4th of July, everyone.

There's an explosion in my mouth. It's like, holy Toledo.

But more critically, it's also day two of the TBTL-a-thon. It's really TBTL Independence Week, where we are reminding all of you that we are 100% listener-supported. and we are hoping that you will take a moment to head over to tbtl.net and make a donation of any amount that works for you to help us keep this entire thing going because we would like to get to keep doing this for our job and we'd like to get paid for that job.

Do you seriously believe that having money automatically brings you happiness? Oh, no, it doesn't automatically depress me either.

We have arrived at episode 3980 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. And once again, today, we will be taking live phone calls right here in my parents' basement. Ahoy, ahoy. Phone number 206-414-TBTL. 206-414-8285 if you'd like to get a hold of us. And we do have some top stories as well, including the ways that you need to be extra careful here on this 4th of July to not accidentally make something that people interpret as some sort of bomb threat. obviously and it's hot and dry out there and there is a wildfire that is burning along the gorge on the boundary of oregon and washington and uh the conversation around that fire and what direction it might go in is tearing my family apart and tearing the hawk squad text chain apart as well you're tearing me apart lisa uh so we'll get into that oh and also because it's It's 4th of July, and because we're monthly readers of Reader's Digest, we will bring you Reader's Digest's list of the best holiday snacks in every state in America. Holy shit snacks! So that's coming up. Oh, and we're going to talk to this guy. He is the longest-running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He goes by many names. Todd Stout, Jeep Andrew.

You think you're tough? You're trying to show me you're tough. I believe you. I believe you're so tough.

And he is joining me right now from just next to me in this table. Hello, my friend. Hey, Luke. How's everything sound? Everything sound good to me? All right, good. I even went back and watched some of the YouTube video from yesterday. It didn't occur to me that because we're streaming this live on YouTube and at tbtl.net, that then there would actually be like a video file, and then I could, as I did, go back and watch us and I thought it actually, like, you know all things being equal again, it's all we can do is be the people that we are and look the way that we look Which in my case is super hunky. Exactly You know, you've been working on your beef castle But no, I actually thought that the lighting looked pretty good, considering we're in my parents' basement, I was pretty happy with how yesterday's video looked and sounded as well So I think everything.

Has your computer shut off yet? No, the computer has not shut off yet. That's a win. I installed some new drivers yesterday. I know you did. I don't know what's going to happen there. But, hey, speaking of lighting, can we just take a moment to talk about that moon last night? My goodness. That was, I'm going to say it, romantic.

And I believe what you said, Andrew, as you came back into the Airbnb. Well, first of all, I noticed that I had a bunch of texts from you saying, where are you? You were trying to text me to get me to come down to the yard.

That was to John. I think John was like, the moon's out. Oh, John was asking me. I know. Where are you?

You guys were out in the yard moon gazing. And then I believe you came up, Andrew, and you said, I'm not even the kind of person who does this.

But you've got to come see the moon. I mean, you're in the kitchen making cheese and crackers. I was. Because we knew that the moon the night before was almost a full moon. It was ridiculously large in the sky. And then you had read that it was going to be even bigger last night.

And apparently 14,000 miles closer, which, as we talked about last night, doesn't seem like a lot, considering how far away the moon is.

Yeah. In moon miles, that doesn't seem that.

Actually, you know what, though? Moon miles, that might mean something. Yeah.

It's not Saturn miles.

It's not Saturn miles. It's not Jupiter miles. It's not even the sun. The moon is, I mean, 14,000 miles might actually be a sort of notable difference.

I hope listeners, Summer is taking notes here. our resident astronomer astronomer i almost said astrologist i need to back out of that joke before we do need to get a resident astrologist that would be actually really cool um anyway uh yeah so then last night you came outside and you're like huh no moon it must be too much cloud cover we couldn't see a moon at all and so then we were all kind of like puttering around doing our own thing and then about a half hour later me and john are standing outside and all of a sudden i'm like what is that little bit of light coming up over the trees over there i thought it was like maybe like the roof of a casino or something and then suddenly I realized oh no that is a giant that is just the very beginning edge of a giant red moon and we watched the moon rise throughout the night it was honestly one of the most magical things I had seen it was uh it was a wonderful wonderful

little thing for the three of us to get to share speaking of the third amigo in this triumvirate let's also introduce our VP of revenue and operations and resident New York Nick fun fact knower john sklarov you and i are showmates dude hello my friend guys good morning good morning yeah you guys were talking we went deep on the career of jason williams aka white chocolate and andrew you said something very sweet i don't know if you stand by this because you know we'd all been uh kind of celebrating day one of the thon going okay and just kind of enjoying ourselves uh as john and i were we're getting very deep into the weeds on various nba players including the one-time Sacramento Kings point guard, Jason Williams, you just said, I could listen to this all night. No, I'm sitting there, like, staring at the moon,

listening to you two just, like, ping-pong back and forth, like, well, he went to Stanford, well, he went to... Like, you guys are just, like, naming players from, like, the past three decades of, I guess, NBA basketball, and then every player that comes up, you guys would then say to each other, try to say faster than the other one, like, their entire CV. And I don't think they're called CVs in basketball. I'm not a basketball guy. like what school they went to what high school they went to and oh they're the ones who got in trouble because they were fighting with so-and-so and like it was like listening to my podcast because a lot of that goes over my head too and i'm just staring now when you say

your podcast you mean the ones you like to listen to you don't mean this one which is also your

podcast although it was like listening to this podcast because it's listening to you and john talk but like you know like some of my sports podcasts i enjoy the i enjoy the banter but some or the patter but sometimes i don't know what they're talking about but that's okay i can just stare at the moon and let it wash over me i really had a good time hanging out with you guys last

now now john i just i hope because again i was a little into my cups last night i hope that i didn't come off as trying to constantly like either one-up you or try to because i get into that mode and like i love talking about even though i don't currently follow basketball very closely because seattle doesn't have a team if we're talking 20 years ago basketball that was one of the main centerpieces of my life so i hope i wasn't being insufferable last night as we all

watched that beautiful moon rise no i i felt uh similarly that we were both insufferable for until he made that very loving comment about like people let's do it let's just bro down over alan iverson stepping over tyron lu the answer practice we're talking about practice i um i loved the

pattern i love the conversation did anybody point out last night that the moon actually looked like a giant basketball i did we say that i can't because it was a giant red ball maybe that's

started the whole conversation yeah there was another moment in the night and we have a lot to get to today by the way i think we've already got callers calling in we will put you on hold and we'll get to you when we get a chance but there was a moment andrew where i observed you in real time deciding to just take the path of less

resistance with me and it was when the neighbors were shooting off fireworks and i came out and there's you know this airbnb we're renting has kind of a little balcony off the back of it and you go down sort of some winding stairs down to where the yard is and i was very convinced i still i i don't know i this is not the hill i want to die on but they were shooting off the neighbors were shooting off like some fireworks like what i call mortars the kind that you know they're in that that tube that cardboard tube and you light it and they go up pretty high in the sky and they do kind of a big explosion oh yes and i was and while i was in the house the first one went off and it felt to me like the mortar had only gone up like maybe 40 or 50 feet like it exploded in a way that rattled the windows of our airbnb lit the whole place up and had my ears kind of ringing and my thought was i think it's supposed to go higher than that and then i came out and i was standing on the balcony saying that's messed up man that's that's not going high enough and you were saying no it's going the height it's supposed to go and i was like i don't think so man and then i was like i was like no definitely it's not because then they shot another one off and then you were like yeah i forget exactly what you said but i could just see that you were like this is not an argument we need to have right now but what i think was i didn't even i didn't

think about it that intently i mean i i did they seemed normal to me i also thought sort of thought like there's a giant is it a cedar tree you were talking about yes i think that they seem somewhat dwarfed by that and the place we're staying has is sort of on an incline so it seemed normal to me i'm not saying that you're wrong on the balcony yeah i think there was also

a 20 foot maybe a 10 foot height difference between because you were in the yard and i was on the balcony i'm saying i think we were i think we were looking at the fireworks from different levels so i just wanted to make sure in case last night you were like this guy i wanted to say i'm not saying you were wrong then maybe the fireworks were going up to the correct height but maybe i just because i was standing up on that balcony it seemed low to me that's i do remember that

conversation i didn't give it a second thought i wasn't i wasn't having nothing but think about it for the last 20 hours i was not having any feelings about that i do i mean they seem normal to me but i don't know i mean i don't know i you know i used to blow off a lot of stuff like that when we lived in new hampshire because i was what they call a good neighbor yes and that was our good neighbor policy and promise we will wake you like a good neighbor what andrew is there we had other neighbors who would get together and have these big parties where they blow off like real fireworks something i didn't have the opportunity to do much in my in my life and so once i realized oh this is a neighborhood that allows it on a fourth of july or two i went to kind of like around here like some huge firework store in new hampshire there's no regulation there i don't think it's because of native land so much as it's just like live free or die territory so we would come back with like these big boxes full of like you know it looked like um 24 30 like a grid of rockets that would go in there we'd blow those off and that was tons of fun i'm like oh i'm you know we're in a small little neighborhood but everybody seemed kind of cool with it because they were doing it as well but then i have this sort of cringy memory of then taking that a little bit too far and then doing it on nights that we were just having random summer parties and not everybody was doing it i was like oh we're all cool and then waking up the next day with like so much regret as i'm picking up these mortars and thinking about the burnhams who lived next door to us this sweet sweet older couple who never complained and and plowed our driveway for us And I was just like, oh, what did I do last night?

And you're talking like an August night. This is not Independence Day.

As Neil Diamond would say, hot August nights, just like blowing them off like the extras. So anyway, the point is, I'm not saying that I'm definitely right about those fireworks last night. I just don't care that much. They seemed normal to me. And I do think that the giant tree was sort of dwarfing them.

But I'm just hoping that tonight, because we're going to have a we're going to have a little BBQ. In fact, Susie and Walt are coming over and are going to be hanging out with us. uh vives is making the trip out and uh we're gonna have a little get together and then i guess the plan is we're gonna go look at some local fireworks like the city the city of kingston washington is doing but then i'm really hoping that the neighbors around the airbnb and not just our immediate neighbors but all around the area i'm hoping that they shoot off a lot of fireworks now i know fireworks are controversial yeah we have a lot of listeners who have pets and the pets have a lot of anxiety i'm not trying to elide that or be glib but i have to say like we are we are so strictly and clearly prohibited from messing with fireworks by the contract of the Airbnb. It's literally the only thing that the people, you were reading the thing the other night, John, right? Like the only rule they have is no fireworks. Everything else they're pretty

chill about. Yeah, it seemed pretty reasonable, especially compared to like Denver's Airbnb.

It was the opposite, right? Yeah, super chill. I love it. They just say, hey, listen, things break, accidents happen. I broke a glass this morning. I broke a wine glass. Why are you putting that on

the record well like you and why were you drinking wine at seven this morning it was last night's

glass did you get caught in charlie brown's pants i'm scared how much i like wine how much i need wine um what was i going to say but yeah the airbnb seems chill i just want to say kind of the same thing as you like i understand like growing up out in the country Okay. the idea of fireworks being problematic just was never a conversation we had like the idea of i mean i think people i mean i'm sure that there were dogs who cowered back in the 1980s in valley city ohio but it just was not something we talked about right i think people are more conscientious about that now more people are talking about that so i realize that fireworks are not good for everybody and because of that i do not light off fireworks exactly but if our neighbors want to but i was telling you in the car free looks i can't pretend i'm not encouraging it i'm not aiding it i'm not abetting it but if it happens around me i can't pretend to be outraged about it because i kind of still get a kick out of it even today like outside i'm hearing like booms off in the distance and it kind of it gives me a it gives me a little thrill now you do need to be careful

though because obviously this is a day where there's all kinds of explosions and you people just might be a bit on edge uh i heard a a new story this morning out of kansas that i wanted to play for both of you just as a bit of a cautionary tale is this the tape that you left

the basement, went outside and pulled because you wanted to keep it secret. It's about a bomb threat at a

Home Depot, and I just wanted you to hear just how wrong things go. And I want it to be a cautionary tale for everyone listening here on this TBTL Independence Day.

Scary moments for customers at a Kansas Home Depot. Police responded to reports of a bomb threat at the store in Wichita. A customer alerted employees. A man inside the bathroom said there was a bomb in the building. Police were able to locate the man responsible for those comments, and that man told police he warned other guests to leave the restroom because he was quote uh fixing to blow it up but had no intention of causing a panic man also told police others in the room laughed understanding his joke which i'm just now getting i like that they will not be pressing charges i

like that the news anchor was herself figuring out why this was funny as she was reading the copy i also like this home depot did not uh you know obviously try to charge the guy with anything i am curious years old though you know that right probably i was you know i hadn't i love the tape

i had never seen that before i thought we talked about on the show but yeah we that tape's been kicking around for a while but yeah that's wonderful what i want and maybe if this has

come up on the show before maybe i said the same thing but like i can you imagine being in a home depot bathroom and some presumably sort of like working guy comes in and says hey i'm y'all might I want to get out of here. I'm fixing to blow this place up. Can you imagine interpreting that in any other context? Then he's going to drop a pretty major deuce. Well, you made a mistake.

I mean, it's Home Depot. He should have said I'm going to give it a real paint job. Right. I'm sorry. It just seems like I did aided a bet that joke. My apologies. That's worse than fireworks.

I will tell you, though, that I am a real appreciator of a Home Depot bathroom.

I don't think I've had the pleasure.

I'm telling you, there's just something about being at Home Depot. I don't know. Like, you know, a lot of people say when they're in, like, a Barnes & Noble, it stimulates something.

Oh, definitely for me. That, yeah, I could paint you a picture of a Barnes & Noble bathroom.

Part of it is that I, because of this remodeling project I've been doing, I have found myself often at Home Depot on a Saturday. And who knows, like, you know, how many pizzas I ate the night before. And, like, you know, your stomach starts to feel a little bit of discomfort. I've even just been out driving around. I was in, like, I was actually, Sklaroff, I was in your old territory. I was somewhere in, like, Westchester County. Oh, yeah? While I was leaving Yonkers. Yeah, Yonkers. That's near where you grew up, right?

Like, 15, 20 minutes away from me. It's an aunt and uncle that lived in Yonkers.

I was out there. I was like Neil Simon. I was lost in Yonkers. And my stomach was not feeling super great. And I saw a Home Depot, like a beacon on a hill. Because the thing is, the Home Depot bathroom, first of all, it's in the way back of the store. so there's like i wouldn't say privacy but it's just like it's nice it's like you don't have to go like everyone's not waiting in line and then watching you go into the bathroom and then noting how long you were in there like it's nice and sort of privately positioned in the far back of the store sometimes it's a single like person you know use one it's like you could actually lock the door like you just a person can go in and shut the door and have the whole thing to themselves i mean that's that's chef's kiss but even the ones that are you know for multiple people to use there's the stalls are decent and also it feels like the kind of place where if you're as this guy was if you're really going to blow the place up you're amongst friends you're amongst a lot of people in work boots a lot of people covered in in plaster and paint and that's like poopers get more done show title probably not it just it feels it's not like you went in a starbucks bathroom and did a real paint job it's like you went into a place where the The other people, and for me, I'd be in the men's bathroom. The other guys coming in, no one is, like, no one's standing on ceremony. Right, no. They're all, like, everyone's operating on six gallons of black coffee from the AM, PM. They've probably smoked, like, five heaters.

And there's nothing you can do to that bathroom that they don't have the tools to fix. Like, you have those snakes that are attached to a drill. If you're going to plug a bathroom up, that's the one to do it. Yeah, you're in good hands. I also get the impression that they would be pretty clean. It seems like a pretty clean place. And let me.

ask you this this always gives me feelings i don't know exactly how to describe the feelings but when you're going to use a restroom in a place like that are you also often passing the employee break room and seeing like sort of the motivational posters on the wall or the employee of the month i cannot help but to sort of think like what would it be like because i've worked in places that have um that have lunchroom sort of like that before like at the fiberglass factory and i always sort of think like oh i i just can't help but to fantasize what just an average employee's day is like when they're like sitting in that break room waiting for their shift to begin you know

who had a ton of those kinds of posters although i don't remember any of them what they said specifically was that red robin we went to like you could see into because like red robin is a place that the culture there is very much about like as we learned great customer service and like you know and all the sauces all the sauces great customer service it's probably going to be somebody's birthday they're gonna sing that like a royalty free birthday song you know they don't sing the happy birthday song they sing happy happy birthday may all your dreams come true happy happy birthday is that the red robin one specifically that is at least the ones that i grew up with but they had a lot of those kind of posters that were just like about making every customer's experience like amazing and it's like it's sort of like when you what is it uh play like a champion today is that notre dame yeah where they tap it on the way they tap it on the way out to the field it's just like you know red robin like a champion today lots of motivational stuff okay so uh that's like a bird that's a little uh update on uh what happened four years ago at a red robin in kansas now here's an update on something that happened more recently as in this morning in my very family's uh text chain so this is actually a fairly serious story that leads into some fairly typical burbank inter nicene roasting slash whatever so there is a fire currently a wildfire that is burning an area of the gorge which is the where the columbia river kind of uh sort of cuts between the state of oregon and the state of washington if you're listening to this or watching from somewhere else and um some of my family my sister liz and her wonderful family they live on the washington side in a fairly wooded area um in a very beautiful home that they just built pretty much by hand by themselves and uh we're all pretty concerned because this fire is it's not right near where they are but it's too close for comfort you know it's like it's it's the kind of thing that we're all sort of on high alert for and it's really

scary you've been sharing photos with me and the details of this and like in all seriousness yes This is very serious, and I feel for the fam.

So I was checking in on Hawk Squad this morning with my sister and asking her kind of what the latest is, and she was laying it out there. And, again, it's the kind of thing where I feel like there's really very little I can do other than try to send good thoughts. And, again, I grew up in—our family was very Christian growing up, and so that's not part of my life these days. I don't have that kind of particular faith. But I wanted to say to my sister, Liz, we'll be praying for you. because sometimes I'll say what I usually say to people is I'll be sending you really good thoughts which I think means in my world view that means the same thing as we'll be praying for you but honestly saying I'm going to send you like the best vibes I can it didn't feel like it didn't feel like I was making the point of how much I am concerned for my sister and her family and how much I want this to go okay for them and so I tried to split the difference by saying I wrote uh well we'll all be praying for you guys to whatever god we tend to reach out to for me it's probably jeff tweede just because also my sister liz and i have been to many wilco shows together it's kind of a shared like sort of love language and reference for us and she you know she gets where i'm coming from so i send that along i get gets a laugh from my sister i like that she can maintain her sense of humor even during this very stressful time yeah um and then my dad sends in some like because my dad's like mr uh like uh computer guy and forest service guy he found some like forest service wildfire map that's like updating every 20 seconds so he puts that in the chain and then my mom weighs in i must comment that jeff tweede although a talent has no power to change a situation such as this bad form my son and then a like kind of like upset emoji do you guys remember when we walked in here we came into the basement and my mom was like luke luke oh yeah I came upstairs I came around And she was like I'm sorry I wrote that In the text chain She goes I just have some principles I have to stand on And I was like Mom it's okay So then My sister Liz comes I respond to my mom I'm willing to roll the dice Which got a laugh With your soul?

Is that what that means?

With Liz's entire life And beautiful home That they just finished building I'm willing to roll her dice Yes By praying to Jeff Tweedy And then my sister Liz says I'd actually bet on John Prine Which is why I was taking a picture of my John Prine tattoo

You were taking a

photo of your uh of your guns which is not which is not something i usually do muscles but i had a feeling the focus was the tattoo there it was and so i think things have kind of simmered down it's

also my niece uh violet's a two-year-old birthday today so now we're kind of on to that things seem to have stabilized in the hawk squad but we did have a real sort of a theological moment there where my mom and this is this is this is real actually i think you know my parents who are still very much people of faith i think they've made a certain amount of peace with the fact that their children have not we have not as a group embraced that lifestyle have they come to peace

with the fact that their oldest son is broadcasting from their basement they will never ever make

peace with that but like i do think that every once in a blue moon we sneak something in that it's even a little bit of a bridge too far for them and they'll have to like again in the gentlest and generally sweetest way, kind of be like, don't pray to Jeff Tweedy.

Right, yes, exactly. But I mean, we are-

Pray to Jeff Jesus.

Not to put you and everybody in the spot here, but I mean, we are here in the ancestral home. I mean, will we get any appearances, do you think? From my parents. From the folks, yeah. Or from Jesus. Or from Jeff Tweedy. Is this the part where I sing? I was starting with Jeff Tweedy.

This is the part where I sing the song. Excuse me. Me, me, my, mo, moo. We are standing on holy ground and I know that there are angels all around.

I didn't know this was the time for you to do that, but yes. Yes, it is the time for you to continue doing that. This is actually turning into a prayer meeting

down here in the basement.

I feel like that's an HR concern.

Do we have enough in revenue to have an HR person yet?

Yeah, that's a great question, Luke. I think it's a great segue because it's the fawn. I think we need a few more people to donate to get there.

Yeah, okay. Again, we were sort of talking about this back at the Airbnb, so I hope that I'm not oversharing with the listeners. But, of course, today is a holiday. It's a summer holiday. It's a week probably where a lot of folks are maybe on vacation or not at work and sort of schedules and routines are disrupted, which is exactly why in the public radio model you never do one of these fundraisers on a week like this. But we also just thought, well, one, we were trying to be nice to our old bosses at 8 p.m. and finish out their fiscal year. And then number two, we thought, well, maybe we can do some TBTL independence kind of branding. Maybe the upside of being able to frame it as TBTL is going independent on Independence Week, that'll help us. That being said, John, you were saying we're looking at being around maybe like a kind of a third of the way to where we're trying to get with things. Would that be kind of an accurate number?

yeah i think actually a little a little further along overall um we for we're looking for i think something we've talked about before and uh message of this on is whatever you do with apm just continue that that's right that would be awesome and so for people that give monthly especially uh some people choose to give one time awesome thank you so much the people that choose to give monthly we're about a third of the way there so if you were giving your like 15 25 bucks a month at APM just come over to tbtl.net and sign up to start doing that again because we're about a third

of the way there for that and what's so what's been a little let's just say intimidating about this process uh of going independent is you know there were we were been so grateful at all of the folks that have supported us over the years and there were a lot of people over the like i don't know how many tbtl thons we did at APM maybe eight or something who you know were donating money and had a kind of a regular withdrawal from their account they were used to it they were budgeting around it it was just happening and now we turned all of that off and now we're hoping to turn as much of it back on as we can and if you've ever run a business or something like this you know that getting folks even folks that like the show even folks that you know want to support tbtl sort of in theory getting someone to jump through the hoops to turn a thing on do sort of a proactive thing as opposed to a sort of passive thing that's really that's really where the work lies that's what we're i think we're doing okay on but we could do even better so to echo what john was saying if you're hearing this uh either you're watching the stream right now or you're just hearing the podcast version or you're one of my parents upstairs um and yet you haven't donated to the show yet no if you if you're hearing this and and you have been donated tbtl if at the bare minimum if you could just keep doing that we would be forever in your debt and if you know you're in a spot financially where you could even go up a little bit of course all the better but really just trying to get what was happening at apm to now happen for too beautiful to biz that's what we're really trying to do here and that's what we really need to have happen and we have some

thank you gifts for folks who are able to donate at various levels we've talked a lot about them so i don't want to belabor it here today and i'm sure it'll come up more on the show as the week progresses but we have created a special limited edition i saved tbtl commemorative coin we uh we worked with 10 Eric who has worked with us before on some TBTL projects

and he helped us design this coin. It's got you and me in a rowboat on one side.

And now Todd Stout. We've decided to add Todd Stout.

Also Todd Stout, who appears on the sample coin that we got from the company, making it these are solid coins that I've been worrying, as I said, during the entire broadcast the past couple of days. We also have, for folks who can donate at the $25 level, because we can't give away tons of physical things because we have – We don't have any physical money yet. We don't have any physical money.

And it turns out these lunchboxes are not exactly – the street value of these lunchboxes is fairly low that we're surrounded by here in my parents' basement.

And so we were kind of like, well, we can't just – we can't buy more stuff to give away as a thank you gift. So one idea we came up with is like what can we create? What can we take upon ourselves maybe content-wise? And so we came up with this idea of maybe creating like a weekly week in review where it'll be one of us up here or a couple of us up here today who are talking to you along with maybe a listener or a friend of the show, just kind of jawing about what happened on TBTL that week and what stood out to them. And just, you know, I think people are familiar with the idea of a week in review video.

Can I clarify something with that that we were talking about in the ride over here? Yeah. We intentionally, because we love to be hilarious and self-deprecating, we intentionally are spelling it W-E-A-K in review, as in maybe it's not going to always be the strongest content. We've had a few people lovingly checking in to say, you may have misspelled the word weak. But no, that's all. And you know it's funny because you're laughing so hard you could barely send the email.

You're laughing so hard you barely got it. But anyway, so that's something of a twenty five dollar a month level, but at whatever level you can give. And again, I don't want to I don't want to belabor this too much. We have actually some folks who've been on the line for about twenty one minutes now. So maybe we can get them on the air here. But if you've never given before, now would be a good time to even just like treat it like a tip jar. Like we love folks who can donate on a regular recurring monthly basis. That's huge. That's the lifeblood of the show. But if you're somebody who has listened for a long time but never been able to give for various reasons or never been motivated to give for whatever reason, thinking, hey, somebody else is doing it. They seem fine. They work for American Public Media. They'll be fine. We're not fine. And so, you know, even if you're just like, hey, I'm just going to throw 20 bucks into a tip jar, like just do that and become part of the TBTL universe with us in that way. And that's fine, too. And so anyway, I just want to encourage maybe people who've never made this leap with us before to make the leap, even if you just want to make it like just a little mini leap.

And, yeah, and again, not to go on and on about this because we've still got many days to do this, but the way that TBTL works, whether it's we're selling tickets for the 4,000th episode, which you can also grab at tbtl.net, or asking for donations for the show to exist, we are so, I'm just going to keep going with my very religious kind of parlance today. We're so blessed. We are so blessed to have so many amazing folks who have donated over the years and have even donated here in this THON. Like there's basically like a kind of a small and incredibly loyal and amazing group of folks who when we say, hey, we're doing the THON, those folks rush right out and donate and they get on the Stens page and talk about it and like they support the show. We always have a really great initial kind of flourish of the people who want to buy tickets to the shows or want to help support the show or just want to be part of what we're doing. The challenge for us is to then get past the kind of like our real core group of people because it's a surprisingly small number of people who have a surprisingly large amount of loyalty to the program so again like andrew was saying if you're somebody that's kind of on one of the more outer rings of the show like if you like the show but you're not like right one of the first people to rush right in and try to support it this would be a really good year you don't even have to do it next year just help us get the first year under our belt you know i don't even care what you do in 2024 wait wait john john's got

thoughts on that yeah like you know don't not do it in 2024 let me put it this way the i had to pay for a subscription to a piece of video software that we're using right now to stream and it's 20 a month i don't know if we're going to pay for it every month but we're paying for this month so we can bring you this stream just go online right now drop us 20 bucks you just

paid for the stream how about that yes there you go so if you're if you're somebody who who loves the show but maybe you're not part of that like initial group of people that are just like lining up right away like as soon as the link goes live to do whatever it is we're doing this is the year that we could really really use your help as well because we're just trying to get back to what was happening when we were at 8pm alright thank you again for all your support over the years now do we have a phone call? we certainly do ahoy hoy does the screen accurately tell me that this is Langley and Puddles? Kids and Fantasy yeah hello who am i hi who am i talking to right now puddles or langley Langley. Hi, Langley. How old are you these days, Langley? I'm nine. Nine? That's amazing. What grade does that mean?

I'm going into

fourth grade. Oh, my gosh. Where do you go to school? Where do you go to school, Langley?

Trillium Creek.

Okay, Trillium Creek. That sounds fancy.

Langley, you're smart not to give out too much personal information to somebody you've never met before. I just want to say that. I feel like we've met over the podcast. For listeners who don't know, Langley often calls in and leaves us jokes on the voicemail line. Do you have any jokes ready for us today, maybe related to the 4th of July holiday? Or am I putting you on the spot, Langley?

I don't have any jokes right now.

No, that's okay.

Boundaries are good, too. Puddles, how old are you?

She's not here. She's in a parade right now.

In a parade? Wait, what? What is she doing in the parade?

Yeah, I can try to get her though

No, no, no, let her do the parade That sounds much more fun than calling a podcast Hosted by two people her dad's age What's she doing in the parade? Is she on a float? What? Is she on a float in the parade? Is she marching? What is she doing?

No, they're just riding their bikes Okay

Oh, that's great Is that what you're going to go do after you get done with this phone call?

Yeah Hey, puddle, hey, puddle

Is that your dad, Mike, in the background?

Yeah.

Is the parade going like right past your house right now? What's going on? Where are you?

We're in my grandma's neighborhood. Okay.

And are you getting any candy? Is it one of those parades where they throw candy?

No.

Parade sounds kind of lame, I'm going to be honest with you, Langley. Life is full of disappointments. It's something you probably have to learn sooner rather than later.

Hey, Langley, let me ask you a question, because I think your dad mentioned to me that you're a big fan of Red Robin. I just went to the Red Robin for the first time earlier this week. What do you usually order at the Red Robin?

The mac at yours.

The what? Mac and cheese?

Yeah.

Nice. I have some 4th of July jokes. Nice, nice, nice. You ready, Langley, for a couple 4th of July jokes?

Yeah.

Okay. Why does the Statue of Liberty stand in New York Harbor? i don't know why because it can't sit i didn't say these were good jokes i just said they were jokes what do you call a duck who says bang what do you call a duck who says bang i don't know a fire quacker did that one get you did i hear a little laugh yeah all right good um okay uh what did one flag Say to the other.

Nothing. It just waved. Whoa!

We have a joke expert. Did you know that one already, or did you just figure it out?

I just figured it out.

That's very, very impressive. Do you have any desire to be like a comedian when you get older and have to choose a job?

No, but my friend Mary could be.

Really? Okay, then you're going to want to tell Mary this joke if you see her later today. What did the ghost say on the 4th of July?

What?

Red, white, and boo.

Oh. I feel like you could have gotten that one. What makes Mary so funny?

She can make funny faces.

That's pretty good. That's one of the pillars of comedy. All right. Has Puddles been dragged over there now? Is Puddles standing next to you, Langley?

No.

Okay. So we're never getting puddles, and that's okay.

Well, thanks. Before we let you go, did you have anything that you wanted to add? I mean, we listen to your voicemails all the time, but this is the first time we've actually had a chance to talk, I think.

My dad wants me to give a shout-out to Joe Baby.

To who?

His name is, we call him Joe Baby.

Joe Baby, okay.

Shout-out to Joe Baby. Happy Blur's Day.

Happy TBTL Independence Day, Joe Baby. Hey, Langley, do you want one to 400 lunchboxes? Could you use those? No? No, really?

Okay, well, thanks for being honest. Well, this call is over.

All right, Langley, thanks for calling in. Have a fun rest of your day and enjoy the parade.

Bye-bye. Bye. We'll get more. We'll hear more from Langley. We'll get more jokes soon, I think, on the voicemail line.

Because we first became aware of Langley when Langley was really young and leaving us jokes on the voicemail line.

Yes, they've gotten dirtier.

And now Langley is older. Langley's in fourth grade. That's like, you know, you're becoming a young person. And then is it going to be the case that when Langley is like 30 and calling in, I'm still going to use that sing-songy baby voice. Hey, Langley, are you at a parade?

And Langley will be like, yeah, I'm a corporate executive right now, and I'm taking my children to a parade. Sir, why are you using that tone of voice?

First of all, I'm hoping that Langley is employee number two, frankly. I'm hoping that we'll be colleagues at that point. But secondly, I didn't – I mean, were we using that voice? Were you using that voice? I don't know. I certainly don't think I was. I almost – I mean, I could be wrong. No, I don't think that is necessarily the right move, but I do find that I kind of talk to children. I might even get grumpier and less sing-songy when I talk to kids for some reason. You kid too hard.

Because you want to basically – I think you're probably trying to let them know that you are treating them as an equal, not as some sort of person who should be pandered to. Is that why you go in the direction of like – I don't know. What's the word I'm looking for? Not patronizing them?

I think I'm just awkward. I don't think about it. No, no. I don't think you're awkward. I don't think about it.

Listen, I've seen you with children. I don't know where you got them. Don't ask questions. I don't know how the police found you. No, I've seen you around children, and you're great with them.

I got some kiddos who are friends, sure.

Yeah, absolutely. So I think you're doing just fine with that stuff. Now, I am very much looking forward to finding out about the top snacks in each state from Reader's Digest. Now, I think, so you said, when we first got out here and we were setting everything up, you said, I grabbed this Reader's Digest. I don't know if there's anything we want to use, but I just grabbed it on my way out of the house. And then at some point, you took a moment to really gaze upon the cover. And that was when I heard something inside of you turn on. You were like, this, we're doing this. You came, you strode into the room, holding it aloft, because it has the most ridiculous cover photo ever.

Can you describe it? I don't know if I can talk. I will take a photo of this and make it today's show pick because I don't think even the people who are watching on the live stream can probably see from here. You can try. But it is a I mean, this is if you're familiar with the graphic design is my passion meme like this really leans into it. It is an image of the Statue of Liberty. But instead of holding a torch, Lady Liberty is holding a very sloppy looking red buffalo wing. Too saucy for me. In fact, sauce is dripping off of it almost down her arm.

Which to me is, I mean, honestly, that's unpatriotic.

It is. It is not. And now we have to burn the Statue of Liberty.

That's treasonous that you've made the Statue of Liberty have like Frank's red hot sauce going down her sleeve.

It's going to go down the sleeve. That's gross. And then I guess holding a big bucket of what looks like maybe popcorn shrimp or chicken maybe like a big red. But it is it is really something to behold. I know this isn't necessarily a visual medium, but here's the deal. And I don't know if you want to get into this now or if you're just teasing it. No, let's do it. Okay. I was just going to say that, you know, that the headline is, first of all, the headline is America the Tasty. Show title? I need some tissues. When I laugh this hard, I really need tissues. And it says the best snack in every state. And I'll tell you what. I've lived in – have I lived in four states? I think Ohio, New Hampshire, California, and Washington, right? And I am always disappointed by this. I am always like, what are you talking about? Like there's always a – they'll usually release at some point during the year, Reader's Digest, like the best – or every state's favorite sandwich or something. I'm like, what are you talking about? Although the Ohio po' boy is apparently really a thing. It's like kielbasa with French fries on top of it. I was talking to my dad about it. He said he's seen some people have that.

The problem with all of these lists is that there is no independent international standard for how you decide on what a region's favorite anything is. Yes, exactly. And so it always feels like where, like, you know, if it's like, what kind of candy do they like at Halloween and things like that? It's just like, it doesn't seem very reliable, but it's a fun conversation starter. That's when I just started to channel Jiminy Glick. But it's fun. It's inaccurate, but we like to read it.

So let me start with Washington State. We are in Washington State. You, of course, born and bred in Washington State. Not born here, but spent a lot of time. Well, bred here. Sure. I don't want to talk about you being bred anymore. Yes. Hey, it's bred.

If you found out how much they paid for my semen when they bred me in Washington. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Real stud fees. Oh, boy. All right. Oh, boy. Okay, Washington State. What is the court? Langley's not on the line anymore. They're at the parade. They have no memory this even happened.

Okay, what do you think? Do you want to take a stab at this? What do you think? Yes, I do. Washington State's favorite snack.

Okay, is this, I kind of promote it as being 4th of July related, but it's not like summertime snack, it's just snack.

It's 4th of July related because it's America the Tasty, Luke. What part of America the Tasty don't you understand? No, these snacks have nothing to do with 4th of July other than they're just putting this peg in this hole. OK, Washington State, I think that they're going to lean into something related to seafood because Washington State is along the Pacific Ocean and there's a lot of great, you know, like salmon and oysters and things, even though I would say I don't think smoked salmon is the favorite snack here. I bet you they said smoked salmon.

I think that that would be a good guess. Smoked salmon is a snack. That's something we should talk about, the difference between, like, meals and snacks, right? And I guess smoked salmon, you would have it as a snack maybe on a cracker, like with some schmear or something.

Yeah, or sometimes it would be, like, little pieces, too, that are kind of candied and stuff. That can be yummy.

I agree that that probably should be it, but I will tell you this, and this is not the case, I think. I haven't really done much show prep. This is not the key for most of these, but in Washington's case, it is something even more natural than that. This is something that grows. Okay.

You know why I was having a hard time getting this? Because I didn't have our snack music going.

Oh, there it is. Yeah. Where snackers get more snacks. Oh, no. I had the wrong song.

Just so you know, we have seven minutes of this. Okay. Now I'm getting in the right head space. Is it gabagool?

It is not gabagool. Okay. So you said it's natural. It is natural. It is a fruit, actually. Oh, an apple. It is not an apple either. A cherry. It is a cherry. It is Rainier cherries. cherries. Okay. I mean, okay, we have them. As a matter of fact, there's a family at the corner near where I live on Aurora. There's a family that has put up a pickup truck with a tent over it in the O'Reilly's parking lot, and they've been selling cherries by the pound, like walking into the street selling cherries by the pound. I have not bought any yet, but they were a pretty good price. But do you accept that as a snack? Not really. Seems odd, right? Apple even seems more like a snack than cherries. I don't know why. What do you think, John?

Can I interject on the apple thing? That's very much a fall thing. So you wouldn't do apples at 4th of July. I mean, you can have an apple at 4th of July. This is not related to 4th of July.

Other than it's America the Tasty. Just focus on that. So it's not 4th of July-y, but it is. But I do think an apple, it's like, hey, I want to have a snack. Okay, grab an apple. You wouldn't say... I mean, people do snack on cherries, but it just doesn't seem like the state snack to me. I'm a little disappointed, as I guessed I would be.

Yeah, that's – again, I'm not surprised only because my guess is a lot of these things are going to be less about a very airtight methodology and more about, like, hey, what is that state known for? Or what have we – you know what I mean?

Actually, do you want me to read the little graph? It looks like there's a graph here that I have not read. Across between the – this is, so, again, Rainier cherries. Across between the Bing and Van varieties, Rainier cherries have some of the highest sugar levels of sweet cherries. If you miss their short growing season, you can always snag a bag of dried ones from Chukar Cherries. Oh, Chukar Cherries. Chukar Cherries. Is that like a famous institution?

I don't know how famous it is, but I've seen it around. Their logo is like a bird. I think the bird is the Chukar, which is kind of ironic because the number one enemy of cherries in Washington State are birds. I did a story years ago, a CBS story, about all the lengths that farmers have to go to to try to keep the birds out of their cherries. particularly in eastern Washington.

That reminds me of a question that I had for Genevieve the other day. Because we have a lot of crows in our house, and they've been kind of not menacing with us, but we have a whole thing going on with these crows who live around our house. And I don't want to scare them off. What they're doing and contributing to our life is interesting. But it did occur to me, if we put a scarecrow up, would they be scared? But the whole thing about crows is they recognize faces. They're an incredibly smart bird. I don't think that a scarecrow is going to – Did scarecrows ever work? How did they become such a thing?

Well, I think that just our bird-scaring technology was – we lagged way behind other industrialized countries for many years.

I remember the scarecrow race of the 1960s. Yes, exactly.

JFK said, we will put a scarecrow in every field.

It actually – it jump-started the education system here in the United States. But, like, for real, like, I mean, it must have worked enough that enough farmers were putting scarecrows all over the place at some point.

I mean, the stuff that they use now, they use these randomly cycling air cannons.

Oh, wow.

That are just, like, they're often, like, I think they're, like, propane powered, and they just, like, go off all the time randomly. They use all kinds of netting situations. Also, like, you maybe see this sometimes. People put it in their cherry trees. It's in their yard. But like a certain kind of shiny kind of like a plasticky film that's like these little like ribbons. But it does something to the eyes of the birds. They don't like it. They don't want to go near it.

Is that why people hang CDs from trees to that same deal?

Right. Or just because it's, you know, sort of a lesser work from Paul Simon.

and you're just like, ugh, get this out of here. Now, you are not from Ohio. You shouldn't know Ohio snack. Hey, Mama. Hey, what's going on?

I need to tell you, Andrew, that I so agree with you. All right, we have a microphone over here.

We have a guess. We have a microphone over here. Hold on, it's happening. It's happening, y'all. We're actually using the mom mic.

We have the mom mic set up over here. We got Susie B. in the basement.

Hey, guys.

Mom, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Luke.

So you can actually hear us. Can you hear what we're saying upstairs? You're delayed. Oh, because you're watching us. Oh, you're watching upstairs. Oh, wow. We've got at least one viewer.

So I don't know if that matters.

No, no, no. That's great. When you're done here, you can run upstairs and then see yourself.

Okay. Which will be really cool. Not that I really want to. But I wanted to mention that what Andrew said about the cherries, I'm so in agreement with that. Which thing? Because they are snacks.

They are snacks.

Those Bing cherries? Did you say Bing or Rainier? No, Rainier.

Rainier, yeah. Either one. But you feel like I was kind of saying that it's not a snack. He was saying he doesn't think it's a snack. You think it is a snack. Oh, you're saying you didn't think? It just seemed like apples would be better fitting for Washington State. I don't want to get into a fight with you, though. No, no, no, no. You just came down there. I'll back off right away.

I thought you said that cherries, they're sweet. They're like a snack.

That's what Reader's Digest said.

Oh, Reader's Digest. Okay, I'm with that. Okay, because not with that picture that you were showing. You don't like that? You don't like that cover art? That's nasty. What's up with that?

I don't know, Mom. That's a great question.

I always thought Reader's Digest was super conservative.

No, they've changed. It used to just be like the cover was just a table of contents back then.

We used to have so many, Mom, we used to have so many Reader's Digests around that you would pick up at like garage sales. Oh, yeah. The Condense. Or what was the doctor's office? No, no, no. But it was the large print edition. Remember, we'd always have like they would be like, you know, for people that, you know, were having trouble reading the regular size print. We had a lot of large print editions of Reader's Digest.

Right, right. Yeah.

So, Mom, would you say cherries are like high up on your list of snack foods?

do you like yes and i'll tell you why okay when i was a kid we used to go to um my aunt joe and uncle ed's yeah um house uh my mom died when i was a little kid but my i would like to mention

to people that are just listening to this on the podcast my mother is addressing the webcam

no that's good i love a chair too yeah i'm gonna get you this chair while you talk while you talk

i'll get the chair so mom where was that where was um your aunt joe and uncle ed's house it was

in fox chase right outside of philly like three miles outside of philly but they had a cherry tree that was being cherries and it was the best cherries ever yeah and we'd go over there like on a sunday night in the summer and all that my cousins like they'd all want to play because we had kids you know siblings i had siblings and they had kids but all i wanted to do was pick the cherries and eat the cherries i was like under that big cherry tree all the time just picking and eating and picking and eating because it was so yummy.

Mom, why don't you and dad have a cherry tree? You're on all this land.

We do, but we don't have anything to pollinate it. So there was a cherry tree on the land, but you need, I think, a second cherry tree within a certain

radius. Oh, okay. You think I would know that. I actually was not aware of that at all. Mom, while we have you, Andrew, can you flip to Pennsylvania?

I'm there. That's what I wanted to get. I was wondering, Mom,

how you feel about the, because, you know, they're listing what they say are like The favorite snack of every state

It's not a sandwich

It's a snack I want to see how you feel about what they answered for Pennsylvania Being a Philadelphian yourself

I wouldn't mind hearing your guess at it Do you want to guess what the snack of Pennsylvania is? Sure I know what you're going to say And it's wrong What do you think it is? Hers potato chips Oh I thought you were going to say tasty cakes

Oh

I feel like both of those are good But wrong According to Reader's Digest Do you have a guess, John? Pennsylvania that is not in my bailiwick

is that on my wheelhouse how about pretzels

oh a hot pretzel remember when we remember we would go down we would like take the L down to like downtown Philly and like on a freezing cold day and get a hot pretzel on the corner

yep

that was fun

oh maybe I'll look thinner if I sit but if I sit am I still on pretzels it is

my friend

pretzels mom you're right soft pretzels yeah they are the best

Pennsylvanians prefer their pretzels big soft and topped with mustard true pencils. Like how I like my women. I knew you were going to say that. Sorry, Mom, you didn't hear that. I thought I did. Anyway, but you nailed that. I don't think I need to read you anymore, but you're actually right. Soft pretzels.

Now I want one. Okay, while you're in the Northeast, can we try Jersey? Because it's another place my mom spent a lot of time as a kid. New Jersey, sure, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, want to take a stab at this first? Well, I'll let you go first, Mom. I've got some theories.

I have a high amount of confidence that you're going to get this. Okay, well,

Well, pizza's not in the snack department.

I don't think so, unless it's on a bagel, but that's a whole thing.

Oh, I was going to say bagel next. Mom, how about this?

Mom, how about this? This is something I'm guessing, too. I don't know the answer. But something that you always would tell us, the very best of this thing came from New Jersey. You were obsessed with the New Jersey, something you eat that grows in New Jersey.

And you would always say, well, it's corn on the cob.

Jersey soup corn.

But that's not a snack. Corn on the cob. Oh, my gosh. It's like you don't even have to have butter and salt. It is sweet as can be.

I do the same thing. I don't even sometimes. Yeah, exactly. I don't even heat it sometimes. Okay, so that was wrong. I led you. Sorry, Mom.

But I knew the corn and the cob is what you're talking about.

Here, let me give you a hint. And maybe as a local or a quasi-local, maybe it doesn't jive with you. But if anybody goes to Jersey and they have to bring something back for their coworkers or friends, they're going to bring this back from a gift shop probably.

Oh. Gift shop. Oh, salt water taffy. Indeed. Yay!

Wow, that's pretty good. Salt water taffy. Which I never liked, really.

It really sticks in your teeth. You know? What are you going to do? Yeah, it always seems like. Except for the vanilla. Vanilla was yummy.

I'll be honest with you. People would go to those states and bring back saltwater taffy for the office, and it felt like an affront to me. Couldn't you just bring nothing back? It's a lot of pressure.

Well, you don't want to bring Tasty Cakes back because they don't travel well.

Well, I would disagree with that. I ate many a butterscotch crimpet that Aunt Mary Lou brought out, Mom, and I thought it was so delicious. Oh, yeah. Even a little squashed. But I was a kid. I had low standards.

A little squashed. It's okay. Okay, wait.

Now, John, can we see? I'm sorry. I'm not trying to direct you through this, Andrew. but can we do New York State next for John?

So based on the offensive cover of that, I'm guessing they're saying chicken wings, but as somebody who was a one-time chicken wing contest participant, I don't see those as snacks. They're an appetizer. They can even be a meal. And so if that's the answer, I take...

You want to formally register your complaint.

Can I confirm if it's that, Andrew, or is it something else?

This kind of gives it away, but it says it is, I'm walking here. No, it's buffalo wings.

What do they call that, a snack? Yeah, they call it a snack. Yeah, it would definitely be in the arturist department. I totally agree. I could be a whole meal if you order enough of them. There's not much meat on them. Absolutely.

I also don't like the fact, well, listen, they were invented in New York, though. In Buffalo. At Pete's Anchor Bar, I believe, right? It was Pete's Anchor Bar. I've told this story on the show many times because, in fact, Andrew, I think I was checking in with you as this trip was happening because I had gone out to Chautauqua, New York to do a TV story. I had lost my ID and so I was under the impression I couldn't fly home. I couldn't get on the airplane so I just rented a car and just started driving east. One thing I had was beef on weck. Oh, delicious. Delicious. But I also, because I was in Buffalo, I wanted to go to the place where they invented Buffalo Wings and it's this little bar and I went in there and it's a really cute place. It's obviously legendary But I also wanted to watch the Mariners game. And I said to the bartender, I was like, do you guys have the Mariners game? She goes, you probably got to go to Buffalo Wild Wings for that, which I found highly ironic that she was sending me to the mall to the Buffalo Wild Wings when I was at the cradle of life when it came to these chicken wings.

I mean, were the Mariners playing a local team? That's a pretty big ask just to play like some random baseball game.

There is no Buffalo local team. Yeah, no. Well, that's like in New York. No, no. I just was hoping it was like a sports bar where they had paid for all of the stuff. Aren't you going to Niagara Falls with your girlfriend's mom?

I am. Yeah.

That's fun.

At the end of September, never been to Niagara Falls. So I'm excited. Oh, cool. That is fun. Here's the thing. I just have to say that the apple so doesn't fall far from the tree when it comes to you, Luke. What do you mean? There was a time I was in Philly because my family, I still have a sister, brother. I have some family left in Philly. And I was flying back just alone without my husband. He would have helped me out with this, but he wasn't with me. So it was really hot. I was up in the bedroom packing, you know, getting ready to fly.

At Kathy's house? Yeah. Okay.

In this middle bedroom that's like super hot. Anyway, I had a vest on and I put my license in the vest pocket, just a little like sleeveless vest. But I was so hot packing my stuff, I took it off, put it over the chair.

Oh, mom. The vest.

And then my brother-in-law, who is –

Uncle Johnny?

Yeah. He's pretty –

Stern?

Yeah. He's easy to get upset. German? German, yeah. I've known him for a long, long time. They've been married over 50 years.

He's watching right now, Mom. He's a big fan of the show. What up, Uncle John?

Okay. So he was taking me to the airport. So we're driving to the Philadelphia International Airport, which is no picnic from my sister's house. and I was really glad that he was going to drive me instead of me having to take the train. And we get about three quarters of the way there, and I go, oh, my gosh. My license is in the pocket of...

the vest up in the bedroom was aunt kathy like working her shift at friendlies or something

something like that she crossing guard doing her thing he didn't mind driving me she hates to drive hates to drive so anyway especially in traffic but um so he's like okay we have to go back and i said no no no no i'll miss my plane if we go back just take me there i'll do some good

talking you know i'll talk my way out of this or into this airplane now was this after 9 11

i think it was oh it was after 9 11 pretty sure mom so my brother your confidence so much this is a wasted trip you're gonna call me when you get to the airport and say come pick me up and you know like i said he's easily angered and he didn't want to come back for me he was 100 my scariest

uncle that is true but he also did have a vhs tape of the red shoe diaries that was hidden away somewhere that i found once when i was there so he was okay by me but anyway he was so insistent

that there was no way i was going to be able to get on that airplane and i begged him please just take me and he's like oh so this is such a waste of time so he drops me off and says i know i'm going to be here in front of me should i wait and i'm like no no no so i go and you know where you get your ticket and i just told them my story and they let me on without one bit of id

i had to go through a little more security waterworks did you did you have to cry a little

bit at all actually i cry a lot but i didn't cry in this instance i do i usually cry my way i tried I had to try my way out of a speeding ticket the other day. It's a tool. It didn't quite work.

So did they look you up on, like, did they try in any way to verify that you were, like, did you have your, like, Safeway card in your wallet or something?

I think I did, you know, because I had the wallet, but I just didn't have ID. I didn't have a picture ID. So I think they might have called you dad or something out here. Anyway, they got me on. And I got on the very plane that I wanted to get on, which was pretty amazing. But I said that all because I know what it's like to lose something.

Well, you know what happened to me was I didn't realize that you could do that. And it wasn't until I was about halfway across the country and telling the story on the show, because I would stop in a town and then I would call Andrew up and then we would do the show. Yeah. One of the listeners said, basically, you can get on an airplane without ID. You have to prove to them that you are at least to their satisfaction. but it's really a judgment call on their part. And it's going to add a lot of time. You're going to have to be there for a while. But basically, you can get on an airplane in America without any picture ID if you can. And now, Mom, this is what's amazing. Now that you've been on this broadcast, and this is going to be enshrined on YouTube forever, next time you're trying to go through the airport without your ID, you can say, I'm Susan Burbank. And if you go to YouTube, you can see me being interviewed by my son and his friends for the podcast. So now you have, there's like a digital, like, you know, time stamp and watermark of you being who you say you are.

Right. If they go to that much trouble, I don't know. But I'm really trying to change this up because another thing is I'm going to, you know, Niagara Falls, but it's on the Canada side, which means that you have to have your passport. Yeah. Okay. So the last time I saw my passport, it was somewhere in the house.

i might be sitting on it let me hold on i'm sitting on my own passport it's my favorite

richard scary joke oh right you know that like sitting on our own hats i love it but um but

yeah so uh wait so you don't know where your passport is right now oh no i don't know and

on top of that is i'm going in the middle of september which would be too late now apparently to get a new one but it wasn't even that it was i did not want to put out the money because somewhere in this house is the passport and it's not expired can i can i swap stories on that mom

just so we can further cement in the listeners minds that we're basically the same person when i went on my uh the honeymoon for my first uh wedding yeah we went to italy and i had never had a passport before and i had never taken the time to look into how long it takes to get a passport also i have a weird thing which is my name on my birth certificate is not luke burbank it's Luke Kelly and so there was a lot of things that were standing in the way of me getting this passport including that it was the day before my wedding and I'm at the passport office in downtown Seattle and I have a birth certificate that doesn't have my real name on it and a driver's license a different name and the person behind the counter was like took pity on me I said I'm getting married tomorrow and the day after that I'm flying to Italy or I'm trying to she said listen go home get

some like yearbooks get some just anything you can get that proves that you exist and bring them in and i had to bring in like yearbooks and old little like you know stars of tomorrow the like kiwanis club stars of tomorrow um whatever you call that like the program and op eds that you went to the seattle times when you're eight years old i gave them all this stuff the the woman at the passport office this was pre-9-11 by the way she said i'm gonna give you a one year she goes i shouldn't do this i'm gonna give you a passport it's only good for one year which normally they're good for longer than she was like i'm just doing this so you can go on your honeymoon she said but when you come back don't forget you got to bring it in and you have to get like a real passport and i was like oh my god i will thank you you've saved my life this is incredible this is amazing flash forward one year and one day i am attempting to board a flight to paris with my passport that has expired by one day same deal uh i had we i did not get on that flight i had to go back to the same lady oh my god at the past yeah it's like seriously a year later yeah because it's a small office because it's where you go for expedited passports i had to go to the same lady in the same window and i said remember a year and two days ago when you told me oh my god but she just stamped it because once i had the passport that was the whole hassle she just like she just did something to extend it and everything was fine oh my god suzy can i tell

you something you know we're down here raising money today right we're asking people have you consider donating to tbtl that's not where i'm going but good job luke um no but we apparently have a listener named vincent who is watching the the stream today and uh commented on youtube a little while ago saying that he was kind of on the fence about giving had good intentions but hadn't hadn't done it but hearing your stories on the show pushed him over the edge that is a true story so thank you for raising some money for tbtl in the past five minutes yes thanks mom okay so

what i found out going back to the passport okay wait i can get everyone cancel your fourth of

july plans we're gonna be here for a while sorry i can get an enhanced license oh yeah yeah yeah

i've got a lot less oh nice investment and you can get to canada with that enhanced license yes sweet and you did you do it yet uh no but it's only three weeks it's only a three week thing

do me a favor intention of doing that yeah why don't you knock that out sooner rather than later and then put it in a place.

To say that I didn't do it is actually not true because I went to Paul's Bow to the driver's place and it was, I didn't have everything that I needed.

Gotcha, gotcha.

I had, I think it was the marriage license. And you were carrying a bomb. That was the, oh no, it was the birth certificate with my footprints on the back. But it wasn't the legitimate birth certificate.

It was your baby book. It wasn't the long form. Was it your bronzed baby shoes?

No, but it had, like it was big. It was a big certificate. Yeah. And, you know, it had my mom's handwriting on it and all that. It was special to me because, you know, like I said, my mom died when I was six. So it was special. And I was like trying to entreat the lady. Well, this is really, this is, she goes, it's darling, but it won't work. He goes, especially with those little footprints on the back, but it won't work. Come back. And it wasn't that big a deal. It's just, you know, 15 miles from here.

Mom, when I find myself in those kinds of situations that feel impossible or it's like I need a real break. I just pray to Jeff Tweedy. And usually things work out.

Or St. Anthony, please come around. Help me find whatever that's lost but can be found. All right. I don't aspire to either that.

Okay, Mom, well, listen, thanks for coming down. Thank you for making use of the Mom mic that we set up just for you. And anytime you hear anything going on down here that you need to clarify or weigh in on, you come on down, okay? You're always invited. Don't trip. Yeah, watch it. There's a lot of cords over there. Okay. Thanks, Mom. Love you.

That was a lot of fun.

Well, just in case anyone out there had any questions about where every single fiber of my being comes from. I know.

I mean, that's all that I've been sitting here reading the chat. Everybody's like, oh, that's Luke. Which one is Luke? Exactly. Where did Susie end and Luke begin?

Oh, my gosh. I'm also looking because, you know, we have a monitor here so we can sort of see the web stream. And it's very hard to not Sort of catch your own I guess you would say reflection or whatever And as I'm sitting with my mom And I'm just There's pictures upstairs Various pictures of my granddad My mom's dad Jack Kelly of Philadelphia PA It is just I am so turning in to my granddad Like physically Like my head is expanding I have the same hair that he had I have the same forehead that he had Like I am really turning into Jack Kelly It's also weird being 47 Because I don't know how old he lived but like most of the pictures that i've seen of him he's probably my age you know what i mean like he didn't live to be like it was a long time he didn't live to be like a hundred or anything so sitting here with my mom staring at my increasingly jack kelly face it's a real a real moment of family reflection for me hey i

have a caller here i i forgot that we've had a caller on the line loop for 29 minutes what if it was my mom with one more thing to say this person has either just they're now a skeleton on the other end of the line or they really want i don't know who this is ahoy hi there welcome to

tbtl oh hi hi this is michelle hey michelle mcnelly in mick where in mick soda minnesota Right, right. Do you live near where our employee number one, John Sklaroff, lives in St. Paul?

Not too far. Did you used to live in Mick Chicago, or did I just meet you in Mick Chicago?

No, I used to live in Wisconsin. I don't know where I got that from. Where the snack would be cheese curds.

Oh, actually, let's check that. Let me look that up. If it's not, that book is garbage. Yeah, no, I was also going to ask you about Minnesota, but let's start with Wisconsin. Let's start with Wisconsin.

Hang on, Michelle.

Wisconsin. Oh, Luke, do you have that bell? Because we are talking about some fried cheese curds. Okay, I agree with that.

I think that's a pretty solid one. What were you going to say, Michelle?

I have no idea what Minnesota would be. Well, let's find out together. Okay. Because we've got, you know, your Minnesota... I would say kolachki.

Oh, okay.

My husband is Czech.

Okay. Oh, yeah. How do you say that again? Kolachki.

Some people say kolachki.

Oh, yeah. What's in that? What's in one of those?

they're little dough things that have fillings in them and i'm hungry um i gotta start eating

breakfast on this thing this is really taking that out of me uh john what would your guess

be for minnesota you know uh the chicken wing thing really took me out so it's not like it's not a juicy lucy which is a stuffed cheeseburger but i would i would guess uh ironically maybe ludifisc you know like the oh sure the fish i don't think it actually is but it is yuck mcshell I mean, I think people that do it is a snack for them, but it is also horrible.

Isn't it famously terrible? Have you had lutefisk, McShell?

It's horrible. I'm an import. It's rotted fish. How about tater tots?

Oh, yes. That should be it. But you guys, this is another thing that grows on trees, and it ain't money, I'll tell you that.

Oh, I'll let McShell take a guess, but I have a guess.

Do you have a guess? Something that grows on a tree that would be Minnesota's state snack. McShell.

Apple? It is an apple. What? A honey crisp apple. Honey crisp apple. Which, why did I think that those were from Washington?

We grow a lot of them in Washington, that's for sure.

Okay, but they're not the ones that were invented at the- It's at the University of Minnesota.

Indeed it is. Yeah, no, we invented a thing called the Cosmic Crisp.

Cosmic Crisp, right. It's like a cosmic gumbo. Exactly.

That was invented at Washington State University. Yeah. How's it going out there in Minnesota, Michelle, a.k.a. McShell?

It would be better if I wasn't just getting over having COVID. Both of my 11th grade had it, and so we're coming. We're right at the end of it, so we're fine now.

Yeah. How many times have you had it?

This is our first time.

Oh, boy. You made it through the pandemic. Golly, that's amazing. I don't know many people who never, even people who are vaccinated like myself, It seems like everybody got at least Omicron or something. You never got it at all, huh?

No. I mean, we were vaccinated up the wazoo, all the vaccines. That's not how they're supposed to do it, Michelle.

That was the problem. You should have got it in your arm.

So I have a couple of very important questions for you. First one, this is directed to John. John, we're thrilled. Pretend we're thrilled to have you along, but how do I get my hands on another one of those sweet, sweet lunch boxes?

Oh, Michelle.

My husband walked through when I was watching this yesterday and said, I need one of those lunch boxes to build something called a Faraday box.

Oh, what is a Faraday box again? I've heard that term, but I've forgotten what that means.

It's something that stops bad actors from swiping your keyless entry.

Oh, right. It's like an RFID blocker.

Right. And a little tin box will work. So, John, how do I get one of those sweet, sweet boxes?

Listen, Michelle, we've been talking a lot about what to do with these, and I think we have some ideas, but send me an email at tbtljohn at gmail.

You can't say no. You can't say no. No, I love it. I don't know.

We'll get it out to you. We have some issues because we have more people who want these boxes now than when we were giving them away like five years ago.

For real, when we were selling them, now people really want them.

But we have some shipping issues because the cost of shipping it will be more than we'd probably be comfortable sending it. And the logistics of it, yeah. But you're going to say yes to McShell and then everything else. No, here's what we're going to do.

Here's what we're going to do. We're going to have my mom send them out.

Okay.

No, McShell, here's – McShell, this is – can I – I think I have a –

My mom would say a scathingly brilliant idea, which is, I believe her mishearing Hayley Mills in the movie, The Parent Track, who I think maybe says scathingly brilliant. Maybe it's scathingly. I think I have a scathingly brilliant idea. What if, Michelle, you reach out to a 10 who is going to be at the 4,000th episode, where we are very much going to have a bunch of these lunchboxes, and you work it out with somebody from the Stens page to mail you one of the lunchboxes. I believe we will be giving out as many as any one person can carry. How about that? Would that work?

That sounds fabulous. And I also, you need to pick it up because there's a really cute picture of the brew dog on the bottom.

Yes, I know. I've seen it. You know what's kind of interesting is we've got these. Those are very, very gingerly placed together. Yes, yes. Can you see that there on the live stream? The way, Michelle, I don't know if you've been watching the live stream or if you can see kind of what our orientation is. But, like, I have on my side of the table here, all the lunchboxes are stacked so that my face is facing outwards, which means I'm looking at Andrew's face. Yes, and I'm looking at yours over here. And it's interesting because sometimes I'm not even looking at real Andrew. I'm just looking at his cartoon, and it's, like, it works. He probably does better than I do, honestly. So we will – I think the best thing to do, McShaw, would be to work this out through the Stens or through the Slack or something like that. And I, there is a way to get you one of these, I promise, because we have a lot of them. Okay.

Well, I have one, but I need a second one. My husband is still in mine.

Sure.

And now, the other question is, at some point, can you give us a close up and a narration of that family portrait in the background? Oh, man.

You know what, Michelle? That's a great, why don't we save that for tomorrow? Because there has been a lot of conversation online. And I actually have a lot of thoughts about it because the where a lot of the conversation online has gone, at least on my Instagram stories and stuff, is not exactly where I was expecting it to go. So maybe we can kind of have that be a forward promote. Are you going to be able to watch? Well, you're down with COVID. You got nothing to do but watch this stuff, right?

I got nothing to do but watch this stuff.

So tomorrow or maybe even, you know what? Either tomorrow or maybe even on the Tentiques Roadshow, maybe we can get into that photo. Are you going to be able to zoom in on Wednesday night for the 10 Teaks Roadshow?

Oh, yeah. Boy, do I have some.

I love it. So maybe, you know what, since that's going to be an especially visual time, maybe what we can do is I'll give some kind of explanation of what the hell is going on in that family photo on Wednesday night. We will address it at some point this week, I promise, Michelle.

And we will be giving away copies of it at the 4th home.

One of your family pictures, too.

I'm sorry I talked over you say that again

John and Andrew we want to see your family pictures too

weirdly I didn't bring any to polls

well you can get Bob to send you one

alright well Michelle

hope you feel better and thanks for being such an awesome TBTL 10 all these years we really appreciate you

thanks bye

take care feel better please do feel better take care of yourselves and thanks for hanging out Michelle a part of the TBTL

family for quite some time good to hear can i give a plug luke please so speaking of the the event tomorrow night we have a few hundred people registered but we still have a lot of room so if you want to do it go to tbtl.net and there's a button that andrew put up there so people can

easily do so i mean i don't have to take credit for we put the button i mean we do everything

kind of collectively around here but thank you for the shout out um yeah you know and uh there's a lot going on over there at tbtl.net i mean again this always happens during these weeks where we're broadcasting by way of the website i feel weird talking about the website to people that have used the website to watch us talking about the website but there is a lot of stuff happening at tbcl.net there's a button to buy tickets uh for the four thousandth episode there's uh the button to sign up for the the the 10 teeks road show tomorrow night but most critically there's the button i just had to shift into um uh george takei oh my most critically uh most critically there's the button to donate to tbtl uh again if you're hearing us right now you've been listening to this whole hour uh plus so you already know the whole spiel i won't bore you with it again other than to say if you've been on the fence about it or if you've been thinking i'll get to it later just do me a favor do my blood pressure a favor and maybe go for it sooner rather than later it would be it would be so amazing for us to get kind of to where we need to get financially like to get to our goal maybe even before the week is over and then we can just like all enjoy this together as opposed to me waking up with night terrors that we're not going to be able to actually make payroll each month so if you've been kind of considering it uh celebrate tbtl independence day with us today uh by uh by going uh to that button on tbtl.net and donating whatever works for you um it's not about you don't have to be donating at the Thank you.

highest level if that doesn't work for you any old thing would help and would be very appreciated

yes and also just huge huge thanks to everybody who's donated so far we've seen absolutely um you know we one thing um that we're doing as a little thank you to to people who donate is we're putting everybody's name on a little ticker that goes across tbtl.net in fact we started in putting some names last night so um not everybody's yet but i don't know maybe we have 80 names in there or something right now and if you go to tbtel.net you can see this ticker going across the screen just scroll down a little bit and it's super cute it turned out exactly how we want and it's just a small little way of just it's just a fun little thing that we can throw in there and you can watch it tick by and you can see if you can wait until your name crosses and as we were entering those names yesterday we just saw so many familiar names names of people who have been with us for such a long time and we of course love our love our long time listeners as well as our new listeners um but just a huge thanks to everybody who's been with us for so long who has stepped up again and of course we have folks who've stepped up doubly and even triply this time around because they know it's so important so i just want to as we continue to ask for support also acknowledge yes thank you the gratitude that we have that's actually really important too yeah we don't want

to gloss over all the people that have been doing incredible stuff already and rallying each other online and and and inspiring each other to donate and upping their stuff and all of that so thank you uh very much your stuff your reward for all this will be i'm going to i'm going to force a lunchbox upon you the next time i see you i'm going to start carrying these around the streets of portland you know the rules we've been clear if you see us out in the wild you have to identify

yourself and you have to take a lunchbox and you have to take a lunchbox and you will be rewarded by jeff tweedy in heaven that's right the important thing to remember it is easier for a camel to fit

through the eye of a needle than for

for Jeff Tweedy to put a string on his

guitar that's what's so fun that's what's like so funny and fun about my mom though by the way she both believes in a very literal heaven and a very literal hell and also is laughing her ass off what I say I'm praying to Jeff like she's like I she can she can hang she's a fun hang yeah fun hang that's Susie B all right thanks for listening everyone we are gonna be back here tomorrow back in this very basement with another live stream for you, so please do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great 4th of July. Stay safe. Stay cool. Go Mariners. I feel good saying that again. Three in a row, baby. Go Mariners, and please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all.

The most rewarding part was when he gave me my money. Power out.