Muse

What I need from you, because you're the bosses of the town, essentially, and I know that, is, this is so hard, I need more money.

Wow.

We watched it.

Steve's right. How much are you thinking of now?

Okay. What I need is $100,000.

Poor brother.

He's not kidding. Parky, our entire budget for the entire year is $15,000 for everything, and that includes swimming. Well, I don't have any swimming in my shit. No, no, I mean the pool. TBTL!

First of all, I'd like to see the chef face to face. These are the best Cajun chicken niblets I've ever had. I don't understand the question, and I won't respond to it. What do you see when you look in the mirror?

Daffy Duck. I have a picture of him taped to my mirror.

Okay, what do you see next to Daffy Duck?

Ryan Gosling.

Come on, is that even a celebrity? He's no Roy Donk, but he was a regular guest on the Colgate Hour.

We all know that I can make a s***load more money working for some multicolored happy town in a hermetically sealed box. But permission to be honest.

Permission granted.

I like that you guys are so weird.

Yes, we are the weird ones.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. I'm so excited about this show. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus. Coming to you once again from my parents' actual basement. Podcasts are the future of show business. Here on day one, two, three, four. Day four of the TBTL-a-thon. That's right. It's TBTL Independence Week. We are taking some time this week to remind all of you that this is a 100% listener-supported project. It's been truly humbling and gratifying to see all of the support and love and generosity that's flowed in so far. We're doing pretty well, but we still have a bit of a ways to go. We'll be updating you on what sorts of thank-you gifts you can look forward to and also kind of ways that we can make sure that this is a financially sound operation coming up. First, let's talk about the agenda, my friend, does for episode 3,982 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

Well, one thing is we will be taking your phone calls again today. Ahoy, ahoy. It's one of the more fun parts about the TBTL-A-Fon Week. The phone number is 206-414-TBTL, 206-414-8285. I signed up for a new social media platform this morning, something that I think I had more or less sworn off. I thought, I'm 47 years old. I've probably signed up for my last new social media platform, but I signed up for a new one this morning, and I'm actually very excited about it. I hate to say it, it was kind of cool. We'll talk about Threads, and not just Andrew's outfit, but also the app Threads, which has been called the Twitter killer in some places. Also, my mom went to the dentist yesterday and had a bit of a situation. I got, like, the first half of the story when I was making some coffee upstairs earlier today. I'll say, what's up, dog? So timing, depending, and also if we can tear her away from the Waltons, we might have a Susie B on the mom mic coming up. Plus, it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day, so we will do some Blur's Day messages. And we'll talk to this young man, the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's got like every meme ever produced on the Internet. He can knock us out with his memes. He's Andrew Welsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. If you look over at my computer, you will see that we are sending 400 cc's of pure, hot, white noise down the phone line right now.

Oh, good. That's a good thing, right?

Yeah, I think so. So if you're trying to call and you can't get through, it's because I don't want to kill your ears. We'll get this all fixed up once this intro music is done. Luke, you said something interesting in the sound check. Oh, for once. Well, it was only interesting because it affects me. It's kind of like the dream rule, right? Hey, I had a dream last night. Save it. You were in it. Tell me everything. I'm listening. But you said something during the sound check, and maybe just in the introduction now, although I was troubleshooting some stuff.

You were making sure to pump 400 cc's of hot static into the ears of the callers.

You said something about something that's been bedeviling me for years, and now it no longer... Oh, shit. Things are hard. I can usually tell when you're alluding to something in my life, and I'm...

I'm truly bedeviled again. Shall I tell you what it is I'm talking about? Can we start with that, or is that messing up your show sheet? No, it's not messing up my show sheet. In fact, it's exactly what I had. Don't look at this. I'm turning it over now. I had it on the show sheet for this part of the program.

Is it on the show sheet that's also on my computer?

Yeah, but it's okay. Just avert your gaze for a quick moment. First, though, before we do that, we must introduce the third amigo to this whole thing. He is TBTL employee number one. He's our VP of operations and revenue. and he's the pride of Utica, New York. He's John Sklaroff, everyone. You call hamburgers steamed hams.

Good morning. It's a regional dialect.

Is it a Utica thing to call hamburgers steamed hams? Because you actually lived in Utica, and that is actually in that bit from The Simpsons

that we're so obsessed with. I don't want to burst anyone's bubble, but I've never heard of steamed hams. I think it's actually a Connecticut thing they steam their hamburgers.

Okay, so it's not a Utica thing. So it turns out Seymour Skinner was lying to Principal Chalmers in that scene?

Absolutely.

I believe, actually, Bill Oakley, who wrote that scene, or is credited with helping create it, who's also a Portland resident like myself, said the premise was, wouldn't it be funny if we just made Principal Skinner have to keep telling increasingly preposterous lies? So that would make sense that the Utica thing is just more lies coming from Principal Skinner.

Yeah. And spoiler for Simpsons from about 20 years ago, his name's not even Principal Skinner. He took... Why? He's talking about Stolen Valor. Yes, right, in Nam. Yeah, Armand Tarzarian or something like that.

Now, did that plot line happen before or after the Mad Men plot line?

Before, before. And I think Matthew Weiner must have been a big, the creator of Mad Men, must have been a big Simpsons fan because that's clearly where they stole that idea. Yes, it's an homage. Let's get back, Andrew. Speaking of things that follow you throughout life, speaking of deep, dark secrets, except this isn't very much of a secret because you've talked about it a lot on the show one of the main points of stress in your life over the years has been what is going on with your garbage uh we've talked about it on the show extensively and in fact the old place that you and genevieve used to live at was on a busy street

i can say it now right roosevelt way right on a roosevelt way in seattle yes so now if you want to go leave some flowers there or whatever you can put a white bicycle down whatever to memorialize

andrew's time there okay that was a little that went a little harder than i meant i mean i guess

when i said flowers that is kind of memorial i guess i led you down that path my apologies why

am i apologizing but so uh so you know that was a very stressful time for you because you would put your garbage out sometimes the city would not collect it but they would tell you it had been

collected or you hadn't put it out properly lie luke you can use the word lie they start they

would lie to my face and you started actually live tweeting or like time stamp tweeting your garbage being out on the curb just to in case it later was a matter for the courts not unlike your

dice you like to carry in your pocket and also your hat leave them there i um i still to this day even though i have not had many garbage pickup issues at our new house i did have one and by the way i never even told you about that talk about like healing some wounds i had a whole thing with the city where they didn't pick up my garbage one day and it took about three days for them to come and collect it and and they did the the garbage collectors did report that they made the made up you know the makeup uh pick up and they didn't so it was a bit of an ordeal whoa i never even talked about on the show because i'm like you know what this is once in the course of a year of living here it's been good ever since i still though and this is my point and i don't know if this is post-traumatic garbage syndrome or what not to make light of that right um but uh i still take a photo i don't tweet it goodness i still take a photo of my bins at the end of my driveway every single time I take the garbage out.

Well, you might need to start doing that at this Airbnb we're at as well because we've been staying there this week. It's been wonderful, actually. I get to hang out with both of you. Veeves has been by. And, you know, there's now four people in there and we're consuming meals and having some drinks and things like that. So there's a certain amount of recycling and garbage being created. Genevieve drinks a lot of beer. Exactly. Like, it's just wild. Like, four half racks of Schmidt. I'm scared how much she loves beer. anyway uh andrew you have also kind of taken on the role thankfully of being sort of the the cleaning person you've at night you'll have some little andy times you've been doing the dishes which i really appreciate you've been um kind of keeping the recycling and the garbage separate and ready to go and one day you said hey where is the garbage and i said i think it's up at the street because like you know it must be the day they take the garbage out and then you reported back to me that you went up there with the garbage and with the recycling and that this very large extremely large recycling like bin like it's a biggie was so full already of other

people's stuff that you weren't even Budweiser cans not Bud Light Budweiser and that's no but

none of our brands no no no ever since they went woke You've completely abandoned all Budweiser products. No, I went to take out the recycling, a big, you know, pretty big bag of recycling. And there was a note on top of the recycling bin, I think, from the city that says specifically, like, only clean recyclables. So I didn't even do the thing where I throw the whole bag of recyclables in there. I'm like, I don't want to cause any trouble. I will open this up and dump it out and then dispose of the plastic bag we were using. But I opened up the recycling bin, and it was already, like, practically overflowing. It was filled to the brim with what I saw on top was a half rack of Budweiser filled with cans, and God knows what went all the way down.

And I can't believe that we had to travel all this way and rent an Airbnb for you to once again be thwarted by the garbage situation. And in a way, I'm being thwarted by it because I've been doing these little eagle-soaring jogs in the morning, and what I do is I go down and back a couple times. i go to the end the very first day i went to the right and i was on a highway and it was scary and i didn't like it plus it took me right past a casino which as you all know is dangerous for me very triggering so i've been going left now which is amazing this is just a life lesson sometimes you can sometimes if you've been going right figuratively and it's not working consider going left so i've been going left it's not a political statement i mean i don't mind if people take it that way based on my personal politics no politics but like it's just been a game changer all of a sudden it's just like the most way we got a wall we got a waltz we got to hit pause we got to hit pause on this because um he's my daddy and what does he do we have a walt burbank sighting dad has now come into the basement i don't think he wants to talk he's just dropping something off andrew what has my dad what has my dad brought in other than speaking of roosevelt way wow i am

seeing your dad the sign maker just brought in individual letters about what is that maybe three feet tall yes uh and i believe this is the old teddies sign t is for teddies the t is on top teddies the old watering hole that i used to go to all the time in the roosevelt area and also

i think some kind of piece of trim that goes under it dad is that is that the whole sign I'm here on camera because I don't have my dentures in it. Okay, okay, that's fine. I understand it. Listen, I'm also very vain. Is that the whole sign, Pops?

Yeah, this is one set of letters.

Whoa, that's a full teddies? Wow. You could put that up in your basement, Andrew, and then never, ever need to leave. Dad, hand that to me. You don't have to come in front of the camera, but will you hand it? We have people watching us on YouTube. Thanks, Pops.

Whoa, look at this.

Look at this.

This is amazing. Awesome.

I mean, again, I don't want to tell you how to live your life, Andrew, but this would be pretty boss to have this in your basement.

Let's see here. Are we going to spell the whole thing? You have to remember, your camera is backwards right here. I can spell Tay.

Yeah, like for Tay Oscar Hernandez. Okay, let's definitely not hit that. Let's see. Wow. Okay, this is like, we're going to be like those kids at the basketball game that have like painted their chest, but then they like are standing in the wrong order. I love this. Let's get that E going or that D.

This is the worst audio, but the best video.

Okay, this is the most amazing part. Do you know what is included? You know what my dad's holding?

It's the apostrophe. Because it's possessive. How are you only holding one thing, and I'm holding three? It's possessive.

Okay, okay, okay, okay. I love, Dad, that you included the apostrophe.

This is the most ridiculous thing. Here we go.

Dad, you've got to lower the little thing. Okay, wait. Andrew, your D is backwards. Okay, ready? Someone take a screen cap of this, please. somebody take a screen cap that's amazing

wow dad thank you

for giving this to Andrew

if you were not watching this live these videos are saved go to tbtl.net and we'll have a link to all of the videos on YouTube that we have been producing this week so you can go back at the let's see what is it the 13 minute mark you'll be able to see us holding up a bunch of signs that say Teddy again that is amazing

again Andrew I know you're very particular about your thanks pops your decorations and dad also I just have to say

this is old school signage

I just love I love that the apostrophe is you saved the apostrophe because I feel like the apostrophe is something it's Teddy's it's possessive the bar is Teddy's it belongs to Teddy people it's not more than one Teddy exactly and one of the number one

there is more than one Roosevelt

one of the number one things I see online in the discourse is people not knowing where the apostrophe goes and that is very frustrating to me but I love that Walt B was you know he was clear on the grammar anyway andrew i know you're particular about what you put up in your home as well you should be i am as well so i don't want you to feel pressure but i do think that would look pretty boss either in your garage or in your basement i think it's got to be probably a garage

thing i um the basement probably doesn't have the space it's pretty big it's pretty big yeah so the garage is not very big i don't know what i'm going to do but i do feel like that is something special i think i mean i don't know if your dad was joking but i think this conversation started because he said like well he's clearing some stuff out and he was going to burn it right and we're like well don't do that so if you don't want it i'll take it by the way i was going to say like if you have a place to display it in your beautiful new home the thing is i just want to save it from the ash pit but and i would like to be able to visit it sometime so if that's at your place or i have some other like degenerates that i used to spend a lot of time with at teddy's who would probably love to

have that as well i mean if you're not like i might put that up if you're okay with it i might put it up in the new tbtl studios yeah that might be kind of like a fun a fun little touch okay we'll work that out later as i was saying though before um fifty thousand dollars a letter though when i oh that hey wait a minute tomorrow if we need to work we're in the kind of we're in the home stretch and we're trying to get you know get to where we need to be goals wise for the for the fundraising i don't know man mail you a a walt burbank original teddy's sign series of letters

do we do we uh you know put the t at a higher value than the e i don't know the largest letter

we're gonna have to figure out uh do you think if we sell the sign we'll have enough to buy a new digital audio workspace a thingy that that is it just is the motu just completely bedeviling

the system right now well it was weird it was sending down that white hot noise i was telling about but then it seemed to clear itself up but we had a listener on the line for a second and then they dropped off which either they got really sick of us talking about letters that they can't

see i don't make no apologies for that part of the segment maybe they ran to youtube so they could watch maybe they're going to check their bank account to see if they can afford to donate

at the teddy's sign level but i will give out the number once again it is 206-414-8285 206-414-8285 Also, we do have an international call coming in, so maybe we'll get to that in a little bit. But we wanted to talk about some garbage situations.

Really quickly, I was just going to say what's happened is I'm jogging up and down our street because I like to go down to the end of the drive and then back and then do that again. That gets me at the little mileage I'm trying to do. But each time I approach our house, what I see is at the street level, massive amounts of spent alcohol containers, beer cans, tequila bottles, you name it. And it just, I have to. And that's just from what I put in there the other day, which wasn't too much, right? But it's sitting right on top of it and the lid doesn't close. And I was responsible for one of those. I was responsible for that bottle of Espelon, which I bought that. It's a tile of tequila. Now, I shared it a little bit, but I did think, oh, well, this is going to be the week. And now every time I get back from my little jog, I have to stare at the evidence of the amount of tequila that I've consumed over the first three days. And it's not an amount I'm feeling super great about.

That is the thing about recycling, right? It really tells the tale of your week in a way that you might not want to confront.

Depending on your particular lifestyle and choices, it can be truly shocking. And again, we've got multiple people now in the house. We're all, you know, having a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But it's a lot. It makes it look like we're throwing a wild ass party at this Airbnb.

But instead we're just maintaining. So that's what's going on with that. But, I mean, as far as garbage anxiety goes, I mean, you haven't even stopped to consider what's happening in my life right now. Which is? Which is garbage night in my neighborhood. Oh, boy. Garbage night, I guess I would say, is Wednesday night for pickup on early Thursday morning. Genevieve, as you noticed, came down here or around here, across here, over here. Over there. Yeah. Over there. A few nights ago. Now, she did tell me, hey, you're going to like this, but I took all the garbage out to the curb before I left. I'm like, great thinking. I couldn't love you more. She said, but now it's sitting out there for a few days collecting other people's dog poo. And that is not great.

Did she even take a picture? Did she even take a proof of life photo?

No, she probably didn't. Oh, my gosh.

so you're right so you're you're you're like that you're like the united states in world war ii

you're fighting on two fronts i feel like when i get home we are going to have a uh we are going to have a garbage can full of neighbor's dog poo and that you're saying you're not so it sounds

like you're not stressing about what's happening at the airbnb because it's not your real life it's like watching tv in the hotel room you can watch any television you want when you're in a hotel because it's not your real life it doesn't define who you are it's just who you are on that particular night in that particular room and you're saying here where we're staying whatever we've got a recycling bin overflowing with mostly alcohol remnants you're like it's not stressing

you though um when i first took out the when i took out the recycling and i i was confronted with other people's beer cans and i thought what who drinks this much is what i judged them by and of course now we can't find room for our own but um i did have sort of a moment where i'm I'm like, well, what if they never come to pick up the recycling while we're here? Like, do you send a letter to the people whose place it is and say, hey, just so you know, we tried to take out the recycling, but it was already like basically overflowing when we got here. Then it occurred to me, no, you probably nobody really cares that much. Just like let's not write imaginary letters in our head right now.

These folks that we're renting from seem fairly chill. I don't know.

It's not leaking.

It's overflowing. Like, because the little binder, the little, like, you know, laminated thing of the directions for the house, it basically just said, please don't shoot off any fireworks, which, mission accomplished. Even though we were surrounded by fireworks stands.

Yeah, you could have gotten away with it if you wanted to.

Well, but we were both surrounded by actual fireworks on the 4th, and we were, every direction you go from where we're staying, our fireworks stands.

The temptation was real, sure.

I mean, it was like, we were, yeah, it was like very, very sort of tempting. but um the big rule is please don't let off any fireworks and then everything else they were like

you have a dog that's cool so every time i see that sign they have a little sign that says we love best friends or something like that and you look closer and it says this place is dog friendly just like be responsible like everything that i've encountered in this house to the degree that there are any signs are just kind of like and there are very few there's a binder with some rules and there's one little sign and it's all basically like hey we're all adults here welcome to our place if you have a dog just be responsible about it if you're responsible about it yeah i

don't know someone's been having some tequila right it's like i've been huffing the recycling bin well like yeah and and then they also said which we now have been joking about they said if you know things break it happens uh there's something like a two thousand dollar insurance policy which we took to mean we can break up to two thousand dollars worth of stuff

right um before it gets back on the tbtl account what are we up to like nine we have like 19 how much was that glass i broke do you think like five dollars tops open market i think that could

probably fetch where's may by the way thank you everyone who zoomed in last night for the 10 teaks road show that was really fun and it was really great to get to see all of the cool stuff that folks have been holding on to i've noticed on facebook today on the stens page that there are a lot of people who we didn't have a chance to get to because there was a really long line of folks that wanted to kind of show off some cool articles and items and a lot of those people are now posting those on the Stens page so if you're curious about some other stuff that we didn't get to during the Tentique show it's there or if you had something if you were in line and we didn't get to you you can post it there and then people can get a chance to see it anyway they are pretty chill at this Airbnb but even so I feel like if we need anything from the actual people who own the place that we're in we cannot get to them they are their identity is being is being obscured through five to ten shell accounts yeah because they're using some product called vacasa and uh we booked it through airbnb this is going to get this is going to get boring and then it's going to get more boring oh good just everybody viking thing vacasa yeah if you've lived if you've lived an honorable life when you die you'll go to um so it's one of these weird things where you're going through airbnb which has its whole own set of things that can be annoying but then it's actually shifting you to this other thing called vacasa and what i've noticed about vacasa because uh we used it to book a place that that becca and i went for her birthday um is that it's not like airbnb in this way when you ran an airbnb from someone you get a little picture of them you get some kind of either phone number or email address you can get in touch with the person who is owning the place you're renting that is not how vacasa works i think the appeal of vacasa if you have a home or a whatever that you're looking to kind of rent out the appeal of it is you will never have to hear from the people who are renting it because when we rented the place uh for becca it um they had a gas fireplace in there that was very beautiful but could we could not turn it on no yeah and so i like if it was airbnb i would have texted the owner and said hey how do you turn on the gas fireplace instead i had to talk to the help desk at vacasa i was texting them how do you turn on this gas fireplace we really want to use it's beautiful about i don't know 10 20 minutes go by and i get a response from vacasa it's clear that someone has just googled how do gas fireplaces operate it was just and it was a giant like it was like five pages of text that was just cut and pasted from google like something i could have done which was in no way helpful to the specifics of this thing did you i was wondering if maybe

they just had this fireplace because it looks good but i mean maybe they don't trust the temporary tenants with fire in their house oh the reason i know that they trust people with whatever in

their house was because when we were walking around the house we went into a room that was unlocked and that was promoted in the listing so we know it wasn't like a do not enter which was the

office of the oil heating business that whoever owns this house runs and in the cabinets were post-it notes that had their full bank account number their full password for their bank accounts every every piece of personal data that you could ever be worried would be stolen from you was written down and pasted up to the walls in the cabinets of that room and i just thought this is you're exposing yourself to a lot of danger meaning i think they were okay with us running the fireplace anyway cut to password i love fossil fuels so cut to this place that we're that we're using this week it's also a vacasa situation and when we got there we realized that we didn't know how to get into the house and i'm texting with the helpline i'm on hold i'm on hold on my phone and on john's phone at one point we had dueling hold music i was hoping that the hold music would finally sync up in some way and then we can really rock out in stereo but the problem was again we cannot talk to the people who are the owners of the thing all you can talk to is somebody very possibly in a different part of the world who's answering a phone on behalf of

this intermediary called vacasa well if you ever have an opportunity to figure out who these people are i would like to tip my hat to them proverbially and uh just over literally over their chill rules

or over their reading selection or over what?

Oh, I do like that they have a lot of books. And like you say, first of all, it's a place that just has a lot of books. So I like that. But it also does run the gamut from kind of the high-minded stuff. John, what were some of the more high-minded – did I say Carl Jung or something? Yeah, I think that's exactly what that was. But also like all the way down to, you know, just say Genevieve grabbed a Stephen King skeleton crew book yesterday. I think that's a bunch of short stories. I don't know if we're kingheads here. Um, so like all kinds of like kind of pulpy fiction that I, that I like children's books, a lot of games. They have a, they have, Oh, I meant to ask you, John, just hold on a second. Listeners. Um, do you know how to play the, uh, do, do, do the settlers of Catan game? So we've, I've played it. I'm not an expert. I've played a few times. Could you teach me? Cause they have it and I've never played it before. And it seems like I'd like it. And I assume Luke, you don't know.

Can I ask Andrew just to, to, because again, we are live streaming this. I don't know how many people are watching, but there is a certain visual component. What was the activity you just did to mean Settlers of Catan?

These were little pieces. I've never seen a Settlers of Catan board, but I assume that you have little—

It looked like you were milking an imaginary cow. You were like, John, do you know that doo-doo-doo?

How does Meet the Falkers keep coming? Could you milk me? Or Meet the Parents or whatever. But I was doing like—I was imitating moving little pieces around the board. But really what I was doing was sort of the guy from Waiting for Guffman, who we just heard from. When you're playing with his big heads. Oh, you can always find a reservation. My Dinner with Andre action figures. Exactly, yeah. But anyway, I was wondering, I mean, you wouldn't, am I right about this, Luke? You would have less than zero interest of sitting down to learn how to play Settlers of Catan with me and John unless we put some major money on it.

Well, that would certainly intrigue me. That would kind of up the ante. But I'm not anti those games. The thing about Settlers of Catan is my understanding is there's a there's a learning curve, presumably. And so it would be like you guys would have to agree to play in some Settlers of Catan League with me going forward so that once I invest the an evening to learn how it goes, we could actually still keep playing.

I would like to learn how to play that at some point. I don't know. I know there are versions of it online, but I don't think it's the real deal.

Well, if we're going to play one game as a group, it's going to be Bible Pictionary. OK, that's right. That's here. I think I'm at disadvantage for that. Keep your priorities straight. Oh, listen, it's mostly Old Testament, John. Oh, great. It's right up your alley, dude. In my case, I'm still at a disadvantage. Hey, let's take a phone call, why don't we?

Yeah, let's absolutely do that.

Okay. Oh, yes. Andrew, why are you stalling? Oh, because I'm not playing the sound effect. Hold on. It's right here. Welcome. Ahoy, ahoy. Welcome to TBTL. Who's this?

Hey, it's Tigasa.

It's who?

Tigasa. I heard you had a problem. It's your garbage. It's your... Ah, Vakasa.

Who are we really talking to? Oh, Vakasa.

This is Remco from Switzerland. Remco!

Wait, you're in Sweden, right? Or something? Switzerland?

No, Switzerland. It's so funny how people always mix up those two countries.

I know, and I took Swedish in college. Hey, Doe, you think I would be able to keep them straight?

Yeah, we say gritsy.

So where in Switzerland are you?

Well, I'm in Utrecht, in a Crowne Plaza, which is so typical for listening to you guys. I mean, I've been traveling all the time and just listening to you guys all over the place in an anonymous hotel.

Wow. You travel a lot for work. Do you mind telling us what your work is? I think I gleaned some of this from following you on Instagram.

All right. Yeah, well, I've been working as a journalist for 20 years, and now I just, I mean, there's no money in that.

We've learned. Have you tried broadcasting from your...

parents basement so no yeah now i work at a joint called the asia society and uh yeah we are uh we're just trying to get people to be more aware about what's going on in asia uh beyond the the cliches

you know and so you're still sort of working in media like taking photographs and using your journalistic skills to get the word out about issues there yeah i'm their editor so i produce

i produce their podcasts oh wow wow and uh any notes i i write i write texts for them and stuff

like that i organize some events nice nice nice i say this every time and you've been a long time listener of the show yes you've been very kind to us you've donated in the past we'll get to whether or not you've donated this time around in just a moment but um i always say this and i know it doesn't really translate well to the podcasting medium but you are uh honestly one of my favorite photographers you take beautiful beautiful shots and you share them on instagram so i don't know if you have a public profile there or not but i would encourage people to check out remco's photos

yeah i appreciate that andrew and right back at you and i i've not been doing that as much in the past few years but i just bought a new camera earlier this year and just the feeling just you know walking around a city any city or whatever with that camera in front of your face instead of like looking through your phone it's just uh just it's a gorgeous feeling it really

is you know you know i am not that i i love living in the city and and luke you know where i live some of the areas around where I, where I walk kind of on a row of the way, right? Formerly that's where it used to be now, kind of a long Aurora. It's kind of one, you know, can be kind of one of the, I don't know what's the word I'm looking for. It's a place where you can,

it's a place you can buy a computer for $70 through a crack in the door.

You can buy a computer, you can buy sex, you can buy drugs, you can buy all kinds of stuff. There's, there's some scruffy looking people along the place. And often I will take like kind of a, I think it's about a mile and a half walk South and I kind of go up and down. And I do like Aurora, and I like taking photos of kind of urban environments. Like, I just have no, you know, I am impressed with people who can take beautiful nature photos, but I think it's really hard. Your mom said it best the other day when we were talking about the beautiful, huge new moon that was in the sky or the blood moon or whatever it was. We said, hey, we took some photos of it. She said, you can't capture a moon. And it's true. It's so hard to capture the beauty of nature, but I feel like you can capture the beauty of, like, sort of a gritty urban environment. But the only time I'm ever like keeping my head really on a swivel and sort of trying not to flash the idea that I'm carrying a big camera around me is when I'm walking up and down Aurora because I think people, if nothing else, might see it and have some questions for you because I've run into that in the past. And so it's sort of a bummer that it's like around my house is the one place that I'm not super comfortable taking photos these days.

Remco, can I ask a question? Do you speak Mandarin?

The basics. Yeah. I mean, I was mostly like, I was sent out there as a freelancer. So you're just, well, you all know all about that. Like every minute you don't worry, you don't earn your keep. Yes. That was why I got out of freelancing. And I went out there completely blank.

Really? And are you from the Netherlands originally?

Yeah, that's right. I'm from Rotterdam.

I'm also reading your bio on the Asia Society website. So I'm just sort of checking some of these facts against your lived experience. Do you like long walks on the beach? Yeah, why'd you put that on your bio? It's weird. Anything in particular, Remco, that you wanted to ask us, admonish us about, fact check us with?

No, I just, I mean, it's just, I mean, I don't know how long I've been listening. I've been, like, I had this TENS meetup in Austin maybe, like, five years ago.

Uh-huh, yeah.

That was the first time I met other people who knew you. And that was great. and then I can't believe this is the first time I actually speak with you I mean I'm not a big caller or whatever I just do my thing but I just wanted to call and let you know I'm in this anonymous hotel now and this has been the story of TBGL for me over the past I don't know 12 years or something and I love it

Oh wow that means so much to us Remco it's really been fun to get emails from you and to kind of observe you out in the world and I'll be honest with you it's you know it's pretty exciting when we have somebody who's traveling around Europe and Asia but of all the content that you could be consuming, you're like, we listen to these two guys and now these three guys.

When I started working at the Asia Society last year, my boss asked me, so what media do you consume? So I told him, which is true. I mean, I read the news and everything, but I said I do that early in the morning. I'm an early riser. And then between like 6.30 and 7.30, I just take a walk around town and I put you guys on. But I didn't tell him that. I told him, it's just a podcast. my mind off of everything and just really progressing for the day after i consumed like information this is just like a way to stay sane somehow for me oh my gosh that is

That's such a nice thing to hear and also very smart of you to wait until you'd already been hired and they'd already printed your business cards to mention that TVTL is a big part of your media diet because I sometimes could be seen as strike one in a certain professional environment.

I think the big thing here is for employers now and hiring managers, it's just become cliche to say that you listen to TVTL. They're like, what kind of media do you consume? And you have to say like, well, I know it's kind of like the question like, hey, what's your biggest weakness? Oh, I'm a perfectionist or whatever. it's like what media do you consume well i know it's cliche but obviously i listened to too beautiful to live with luke burbank and andrew like you know it's just like it's just like you

don't want to be that person i will say i avoid saying that when you guys were asking me if i was

interested in working with you i did not bring up i listened there was a ironically we would also count that against the person working for tbtl if they liked the show so well remco thanks for

checking in but if i may uh yeah um john i talked last year over to zoom uh that was really cool and I'm very glad you're on board.

Yeah, Remco, thank you so much. When you popped on the mic, it was great to hear you. It was nice talking to you back then. A lot of good times talking to a lot of tens over the last couple of years.

What time is it in Switzerland, Remco? I'm curious. Is it very early there, very late? What's going on? I don't know.

I'm in Holland. Oh, you're back in Holland. Okay.

What time is it in Holland?

What is it, 8.30, something like that? Okay.

Okay, great. So I just didn't know if you were staying up until some bizarre hour to make this happen, And in which case I was going to say thank you for that as well. But it sounds like it's a fairly reasonable time for you.

Yeah, sorry about that.

It would have been nice if it could have been four in the morning, but what can we do? All right. Thanks, Remco. Appreciate you. Nice to meet you. All right. That was that that felt to me like almost like a celebrity sighting because I've seen many emails from Remco and seen Remco in various situations, you know, TBTL related. But I don't know if that's the first time we ever had a phone call from him.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I've been cyber-stalking him for years. I mean, I know stuff about Remco. I just found out all about him. Yeah, exactly.

Hey, our friend John Sklaroff, who is the, I guess we could call you the mayor of TBTL Thontown. Love it. Kind of the guy, I wouldn't, no, I don't want to say you're the Guy Fieri, although I also have officially come around on the topic of Guy Fieri. So I know we have some listeners who over the years have been quite upset with me when I was using Guy Fieri as kind of a go-to joke, as a kind of an easy slam. Because the word on Guy Fieri is that he is the nicest person you've ever met, and he's really great to the people that work for him. So in the positive way of sort of honoring Guy Fieri, you're the mayor of TBTelathon Town. How are we doing on this Thursday?

Yeah, I think same thing we've been kind of saying all week. we're kind of tracking well you know things are things are going well but that's uh doesn't mean people can't give uh especially the folks who uh you know i think we've said before but i think this is a real emphasis here this is a uh pivotal pivotable pivotable it is a point in the show's history and it's like if you've ever thought like oh yeah i'll throw some money there away uh whether it's like a one-time gift or a monthly gift like this is the time yeah there's um you know uh apm for all of its wonderful attributes it was a big organization and but but so we don't have that anymore yeah and so uh yeah if you've ever been on the fence don't be jump on jumping on the side

it's fun yeah we've had a lot of people uh you know who have been supporting us for years jump right in and and up their donations and and inspire other people to donate like just watching everything happening on the stens page and getting reports john from what you're seeing and uh you You know, just all of the, like, really amazing generosity that's gone on is super cool. The thing that we're trying to do here, though, is basically rebuild as much of the situation we had at APM as possible in terms of the number of people donating. So there was a certain amount of folks, and this had taken eight years for us to build it up. There was a number of folks who were donating on a monthly basis at all different levels. And we're still trying to get back to that number, and we still have some work to do on that. And if we can establish a really strong kind of foundation financially for the show this week, this auspicious week, where we really just, like, took a leap, if we can do that, then it sets us up really well to just be able to keep doing this show forever and ever and ever. Amen.

And ever and ever. Wow. Got very liturgical there for a moment.

So I want to thank, I want to honor and thank everyone who's already donated. And I want to encourage folks who maybe you were donating before and then APM ended your donation and you either have been just distracted doing other things or you thought, well, I'll see how this goes or maybe they don't really need my money or, you know, we do. We absolutely, if we can get at a minimum everyone who was donating to continue to set up the new donation, if we can just transfer what was going on in our life financially that was going to APM over to this version of TBTL, we should be able to balance our book.

So that's what we're really asking today.

John, I don't remember if you mentioned this on the show or just a conversation we were having at some point this week, but you were going through some donor comments and somebody had donated a great deal of money, in fact, and said, hey, listen, I've been listening for years and years and years now and sort of been listening. And I think I'm using their term, like sort of been kind of listening on the back or the shoulders of others who have been donating while I've just been sort of listening. And I don't want to like, listen, not I just want to say this to not everyone can give. We understand that there's no shame in that game. And some people can give some years and they can't give other years. And that and that is fine, too. But I think a lot of our listeners can give. And if you're one of those people who just like for it's not because of your own financial reasons, but just because you haven't gotten around to it or in the back of your head, like, well, why? Why bother? They seem fine without me. Like right now, we're in a very pivotal time and we're not OK without you. So you can donate and it doesn't have to be some you don't have to jump in head first. You can just like donate at a modest amount of money. But I think the important thing is that we start hearing from people who've been with us for a while now and appreciate what we're doing. But just a bit of a show of support for from those folks.

Yeah. And this I got some donor comments from me. This isn't the exact one that you're referring to, Andrew. But this is someone else who said I'm a longtime listener. parentheses uh since i was 19 year old college student now i'm 31 wow first time donor tbtl is a huge part of my life so thank you so there's definitely people that are starting to do that and that's like super awesome and important and encouraging and uh just beautiful you know yeah

and one other thing real quick is that uh i know when we talked about we're going to go independent there was a little bit of concern maybe amongst a few people that part of the business model of tbtl would maybe become like a subscription model or a paywall or something where it's like well the guy's gotta the guy's gotta pay themselves directly now and so the way that they're going to do that is it's going to cost money to listen to tbtl it's never going to cost money to listen to tbtl like it's never going to be we don't ever want there to be a financial barrier to somebody lord knows the content is enough of a barrier like the actual show is hard enough garbage story it's hard enough to deal with we don't need to make people uh you know jump through hoops and also because we want this to just be available to anyone and everyone who wants to waste their time with it. So we're never going to go to the business model where to get a regular old Thursday-esque episode of TBTL, you have to pay money. What we're hoping is that we can figure out how to pay for all of this with the voluntary model where the people that are able to do it can and will, and that'll keep this thing going. And then the people who maybe aren't in this particular moment will definitely still get to enjoy the show. so um that's that's what we're doing but the only way that can work is for the people who are able and it could be five bucks a month you could join at the suzy b level ten dollars a month and my mother my my my sainted but also very um you know careful with her money mother said what ten bucks a month what is what could a banana cost lou ten dollars a month she was like it's ten bucks a month that's almost nothing i have never heard my mother say utter the words i've never heard her say an amount of money and then after that say that's almost nothing everything is almost something with my mother when it comes to that stuff and even she was like 10 bucks a month if we could get a i don't know 100 200 we get a a bunch of folks to just go like yeah i'll do five bucks a month or yeah i'll do 10 bucks a month that would be huge in moving the needle for us and setting us up in a way that we can know that each month we're going to be able to pay for all the things that we have to pay for now which it feels like the list keeps growing meanwhile

my mom's silence has been deafening yes so please somebody support the show in john's not getting

more in-laws john's maxed out on mother-in-laws so now it's time for you to step up all right

last thing luke just tbtl.net just go there there's a big support button do it there yes and

of course we do have various gifts at various levels that you can read about there maybe we can talk about more tomorrow but i think a lot of you know what's going on now yeah thank you so

much again to everyone who's been hanging with us this week and and on the live stream and on the zoom and all that stuff it's just been like very very fun to get to re-engage with uh with all of you the beautiful tens of listeners hello and welcome to top story let's talk about threads

baby let's talk about you and me i mean i think i got this online it was probably used this shirt

you talk about the shirt i'm wearing uh i had read i had read um about this thing the twitter killer that uh meta and mark zuckerberg were putting together um i'd read about it but i hadn't seen it and i actually downloaded the app today um of threads which is basically uh facebook and meta and instagram's answer to twitter and i downloaded this thing and i have already published my first thread i guess you could call it and i will tell you something my friend jalapeno jalapeno jalapeno i am loving it because what they did wisely so was made it look exactly like twitter that was my problem with mastodon that was my problem with some of these other things that had come along over the years basically i have since i quit twitter however long ago i've been trying to make instagram into twitter for me i've just been trying to when i have a fire thought and i have them all the time you guys i know yeah i've been trying to just like shoehorn it onto instagram probably ineffectively so in an ineffective way but i downloaded this thread thing today and again it's weird when i mean mark zuckerberg is no prince i mean he might literally be a prince i don't know i mean probably some

kind of nepo baby i don't understand the saudi government but my my point is it's weird i'm not

saying that like mark zuckerberg and meta are like you know exactly rootable like we can't hard to root for him that being said when i downloaded this threads thing and went ahead and like posted my first little i'm i guess we're calling them threads right i guess so yeah that's like the

point i was like a good name actually because it's sort of already in the vernacular but it's not

super dated right yeah and uh this is what i posted after six long months of not obsessing

over how my tweets were doing i'm back baby well i have one little so you had mentioned in the 13 likes already in the introduction of yesterday's show that there's some new social media app and we never got around to it and i wasn't sure honestly what you were talking about and then today i opened up instagram and it's like these five people have now joined threads i'm like oh Oh, this might have been the thing that Luke was talking about and said, like, you know, kind of a text version of, you know, social media from Meta and Instagram. So I signed up to just like moments before the show, just kind of throughout the day. And one thing I'm looking at right now, like I started following a few people. I just started following you a minute ago, Luke. But I'm seeing updates from all kinds of people that I certainly did not follow, like Portugal, the man. Like, I don't like this idea of them just, you know, pushing a bunch of random stuff into my feed.

There's a way around that. All right. I think it's on The Verge. I saw our friend television's Chris Hayes this morning, Andrew, on threads, and he was re-threading. I'm still learning the terminology. He was posting some directions, I think it was from The Verge, of how to curate your threads feed a little bit more so that you'll be getting stuff mostly from people you follow. The problem is I don't follow that many people on Instagram. So I actually don't mind getting a wider kind of range of folks throwing things up. But again, all I can say is this looks exactly like Twitter. I mean, they clearly figured out what's the line, how close to Twitter can we get without like being sued or whatever. But like it's what I've been craving, which is something that reminds me of Twitter, but that is not run by Elon Musk.

And Mastodon really, I mean, I really gave Mastodon a shot, but it was just too, I know the beauty of it for those who love it is it's decentralization. but the thing is that made it very it made it like a product that really appealed to people who want to who are a little bit more techie and nerdy and can kind of get up into that stuff um i i gotta say though i am very turned like there's something that instagram does which is um if you're just like kind of a casual user and you you are um you know you follow a bunch of people they will start uh inserting random stuff like you might like this post you might like this post and i always fight against that and like every time i see one of those you can turn it off for 30 days there's no and it always irritates me I don't like it when the social media companies are forcing shit on me and so unless I can totally turn off this stuff because like obviously it's in their best interest to shove more content in front of your face and but then already if I'm just seeing stuff that is recommended for me it means we're already in a world where stuff is getting aggregated and the company is deciding what is going to be more voluminous and what The company is deciding what I see and essentially what our culture sees. And right off the bat, 30 seconds in, I'm concerned about that. Do you know what I mean? Wow, but at least I had my 30 seconds. Well, I'm talking about me.

I'm not talking about you. Well, but I have to do whatever you say. Yeah, right, right. That's one of the weird things about the new hierarchy here at tbtl.biz.

And we all have to follow what John says. Now, my question, though, Luke, is I really thought that Blue Sky was going to be the thing. I've been waiting. You heard about Blue Sky, right?

I don't whatever that is I didn't download it I'm sure it came up on the show yes it's from Jeff

Lynn and the folks at ELO isn't it from like the original founder of Twitter like once Elon Musk took over Twitter they're like well we can create we can kind of recreate Twitter it'll be the same only we'll build in some

components that keep twitter from being as toxic as it was and instead of being a bird like twitter it was like blue sky like kind of a um but the thing is like famous people were accepted under the platform and i've been on a waiting list for like six months now and so it's like i guess they waited in beta for too long and made it too exclusive for too long it's interesting that

jack dorsey wanted to create a new thing that wouldn't be as toxic as twitter was when he as the ceo of twitter could have made twitter yeah exactly although it did get more toxic that was

I like the advice we got from APM when we were doing Too Beautiful to Live there, which was we had a big meeting, a big off-site, and the takeaway was just make an additional podcast that's more popular.

Yeah, no, that lives in my brain.

We could make TBTL better. No, no, no. Make another show that people want to listen to, and then we'll let you still do TBTL. Now, what I also think is pretty clever about this, along with the fact that it just looks like Twitter. They have the blue check marks. I mean, if you woke me up out of a sleep and showed me this, I'd be like, oh, I'm on Twitter. You'd be like, oh, Twitter has a new logo. Exactly, which I actually don't mind. It's a little at symbol that kind of does a thing. Designing, I'm okay with it.

Looks like a thread, yeah.

But, oh, yeah, I didn't put that together.

I literally didn't. Looks like a little kind of piece of thread that's sort of in the shape of an at symbol. It's cool.

But what's also smart is that I'm not a Facebook guy, except for this week where I'm eagle-soaring, see, on the Stens page, y'all. But I'm not really a Facebook guy anymore. But I have been spending more time on Instagram. And this, you know, God knows what's happening to my data here. And God knows what what I'm handing over to this generally terrible thing that is meta. Right. But it was convenient that it just it was like set your profile up or just drag your Instagram profile over. So for me, this is it's almost like this was specifically designed for me, a person who isn't on Twitter anymore, but misses it, who is on Instagram, but it doesn't really work for him the way that Twitter used to, because really all I like, Andrew, you're very photographically inclined, as you and Remco were talking about. like you're really good on Instagram I'm just I put up a photo as an excuse to put up what should be a tweet so here's this thing and like you know I'm looking at just uh people following me people re-threading me we got to come up with a better re-threading doesn't make sense but um anyway it feels like this was designed especially for me because I've been kind of missing that one and again my first uh thread ever was only half of a joke because it has been kind of nice for me to not be caught in the dopamine dump cycle and loop of trying to get uh feel good because i put out a tweet that people liked that like richard marx retweeted which actually did happen to me once uh it's still something i think about in my darker moments when i need to get the nose up richard marx once tweeted he retweeted me and said this is a great tweet and i was like the guy who wrote uh right here waiting for you mr daisy fuentes himself said this is a good tweet Are they still an item? Don't you tell me that Richard Marks and Daisy Fuentes are.

I don't know that I ever knew they were, but I love long-lasting celebrity relationships, especially if they got together maybe more, and I'm just talking about in the prime of their careers, but then they grow old together. I just feel like celebrity couples are so often kind of doomed. There's a lot of pressure in that industry, whatever the fame industry is.

That warms me heart. People.com Richard Marks on finding love with wife Daisy Fuentes after divorce. I'm in love in the most freeing way.

So wait, have they gotten together recently? I was putting together this whole narrative of them being together for like 30 years. No, it was like a month ago.

And they were both cheating on their respective spouses. No, that's not fair. They got married. Richard Marks married Daisy Fuentes when he was 54 in 2015.

Okay, so a bit of, well, I'm rooting for you kids.

You kids. um anyway i all i'm trying to say is i am very very intrigued and encouraged about this threads thing and i don't want that to be i don't want that to be an official endorsement for anything that mark zuckerberg does other than mma fight elon musk which is something that is being discussed by dana white from this just the names that keep coming up in this conversation are increasingly less likable but uh there is some talk that the two of them would maybe have an uh like an mma style fight and i think the smart money's on zuckerberg because he apparently is like really into brazilian jiu-jitsu and is going around training and randomly showing up at tournaments and sometimes losing but sometimes doing well so i would i would be intrigued i wouldn't pay per view it but i would be intrigued to see what happened if two of those two people

fought each other you wouldn't watch that fight andrew i you know again now i feel like i'm just we all can like different things but no i just i mean the song i'm really sick of the this billionaire class i certainly don't want any more money going to dana white's grubby dirty hands who said it'd be for money i mean seriously like i wouldn't pay for it but i would watch it well yeah but it would be like you said probably a pay-per-view thing but if it wasn't a charity element to it. But either way.

way like i don't want to give any of these people more attention they've taken up more attention it'll be just it'll just take over the cultural conversation for months leading up to it no i'm not for it okay you're against john you're for it right no i'm i am also against it what the hell

with this bearded this bearded coalition is really harshing my mellow on this show now i'm rooting

for a world where all three of those uh fellows lose uh unless any of them want donate to tbtl That's what I'm saying.

If you could donate at the Mark Zuckerberg level. You guys, I was going somewhere with that.

Let's do this, Andrew. Okay, yeah. We got Blurzays coming up later. We got some phone calls, but I'm willing to take your lead wherever you are.

Well, what I was thinking is I don't know if we have a way to get a hold of my mother to get the update.

Hey, Mom.

Hey, Mom.

Yeah, I'm coming.

I think we found a way to get a hold of your mother.

That just actually worked. We just literally did the thing

From that movie And it worked We got a mom mic I was going to propose Why don't we do the blurs days in the meantime

We'll do some blurs days But you take your time

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

Whoa, we can play air bass to the music together because we're in the same room, Andrew.

Aren't you kind of glad – I was telling Genevieve this the other day, and this is some real hater talk here, so my apologies. Aren't you kind of glad that we are past the height of air guitar fetishization of the early 2000s? I think that the early 2000s – I've been developing this theory that Genevieve laughed at me about. I think the early 2000s were some of the most terrible time for American culture, and I blame the internet.

I think what happened was we reached kind of peak irony in a way, or at least a high watermark for this kind of something that would have been derided. But then we decided ironically that we liked it. And then at some point we decided we really liked it, like playing air guitar. Now, I'm sure we have listeners that, you know, went to those air guitar competitions. And if you had fun, that's great. We don't want to yuck any yums. But I think there was a bunch of things like that where it was like the ironic embrace of something eventually, you know, as we say on the show, you wear the mask long enough, it starts to fit. And there was a lot of that going on. And you're also a person, Andrew, who just particularly doesn't like performative irony, whether it's Lasercats or Bacon or Talk Like a Pirate Day. Those are all things that really, really don't sit well with you.

The pirate stuff, I know it was supposed to be for charity, but it just became a look at my mustache thing. Like, oh, let's all talk about our mustaches. Let's do flash mobs. Let's do pranks and put them online. Let's pretend, like, let's turn our wedding proposal into a viral moment. Like, a lot of that stuff has sort of passed. I don't know if you could tell from the tone of voice I was using that those are not things that I enjoy personally.

We're trying to raise money this week. Could you actually break this argument out on Saturday's show?

Yeah, sounds good. Saturday's episode? Should we do some Blur's Days? Let's do some Blur's Days. I wanted to salt the ground before I planted some seeds here. Perfect. Hey, look at this. Our friend Langley, who we heard from earlier this week. Kids and fantasy. Langley called in earlier this week. Her sister Puddle was out in a parade and couldn't join us on the show.

Yeah, I found that a little sus.

Langley says, Langley and her dad actually both wrote in to say happy Blur's Day to Puddle. Not Puddles, Luke, by the way. There was some correction on that.

You know, Puddle, if you want me to get your name right, come on the GD show

But Langley got her message in first So sorry, Mike, I'm going to read Langley's message That says, hi, Puddle, happy golden birthday I can't believe you're six So, of course, we all know golden birthday means you're turning the age of the date of your birthday So it must be a July 6th thing So July 6th is today, and Puddle is turning six Hi, Puddle, happy golden birthday I can't believe that you're six I'm sorry I'm at camp and missing your special day, but I hope that whatever you do, you wear your brand new Crocs. Love, love. Kids and fantasy. Love your amazing sister. Wow. Okay. Sarah says, happy birthday to Phil, the very best husband and dad in all the land. Sorry, I said dad. Weird. From heading the scouts to jumping in to coach every Little League game. Oliver, Elliot, and I sure

do appreciate you a whole lot. We hope you're having an amazing birthday, and we cannot wait to celebrate you this weekend. You've got to be right next to me for it to look real. You've got to be right next to me.

That's actual audio tape of Elliot driving. Sorry. Who's the... Phil. That was actual audio of Phil driving. That was Phil.

We also... Oh, our friend Maggie in Swarthmore says, Tomorrow is my actual 55th birthday. Bring the fawn home strong for my birthday. Oh, I believe that's a message to our listeners there. Right, whoa. Yeah, happy Blur's Day, Maggie. Happy Blur's Day, Maggie. Hope it's a great one. Yep. And just one more here, and a very special one. Come on down, Tuesday. You can come on down, Ma. Don't worry. Sharon in Chilliwack, British Columbia, says, Happy actual Blur's Day to Amelia Ray, who was actually born yesterday. We have a newborn baby born yesterday, July 5th. Congratulations to my five, Sarah, and her husband, Josh. My two-and-a-half, my granddaughter, my two-and-a-half, Brianna, is now a big sister. Much love to you all. You know what that means, though?

Now that we have babies listening.

No more saying cuss words, guys. It's inappropriate and violent.

So I'm going to have to really clean up my act here now that the listenership amongst the under one-year-old set is growing by the week. Hey, happy Blur's Day to everybody. Happy Blur's Day.

Here, look, I'm just going to show you a quick picture of Emily Ray, how beautiful is it? Oh, my God. Happy Blur's Day.

Mom, does that make you miss being a mom at all? You were a mom of so many children. Do you ever miss, like, having a little baby, or are you really glad that that's not part of your daily responsibilities anymore?

I totally miss it.

Really? Yeah. You loved being a mom of young babies, didn't you? I. Hold on. It's all right. What happened? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Oh, no.

That was predicted.

There's two more that are going to go. Let them happen. Just let them happen. Lunchboxes. Lunchboxes. I've been calling them mailboxes. You have? Oh, really?

I accidentally called them mailboxes. Ever since we had the idea of bringing these lunchboxes in here, I've been calling them mailboxes in meetings. That was the first time I noticed that. Yeah. But they are lunchboxes.

But you can put mail in them. The good news is now we only have 397 mailboxes to give away. Hi, Mom. Welcome back to TBTL.

Thanks. Am I even on?

You're on. You're on.

Oh, okay. This doesn't sound like it. Which is okay, Tom. Do you want the headphones? No, no. No, it's fine. I don't do well with headphones. I don't know something about it.

Really? Okay.

Maybe it messes up my hair or something.

I can see, Mom, that you were really angling to get on the webcam. Now, Mom, is it true that...

Oh, my gosh. This was predicted, like I said. My kids were predicting it was going to be a downfall of lunchboxes.

Yeah, well, we made it until Thursday before that happened, though, so it's actually not bad. because I stacked those and I stacked them very precariously and they're still in the plastic because I was too lazy. I didn't want to take them out of the plastic and then put them back in the plastic. Maybe that protected them a snitch. It was bound to happen. Sure. Mom, is it true that after your last appearance on the show two days ago, you know, the 10s were so excited to have you on and people were donating in your honor, people were psyched to have you here that you then were trying to get Dad to watch the YouTube comments of people giving you props, but he wasn't interested?

No, he was looking for the backscratcher

in the other room. I was like, what? By the way, that's not a sex thing. They really have one of those backscratchers. What's one of the main features of this house is one of those like wood backscratchers.

How do you know it's not a sex thing? I mean, don't answer that, Susie,

but also Luke. I mean, there's a lot of kids. No, no, he just loves the backscratcher. He brought a lot of kids to prove. He has a very itchy back.

Yeah. So mom, what happened yesterday? You and dad went to the dentist and you guys go over to the University of Washington because it's much more affordable for dental care, correct? Here, keep scooting over. Yeah. We can get you on camera.

Well, I'm just... Oh, my gosh! I'm scared! Now it's completely down. Can you switch that? It doesn't fall on anyone's head. John's going to move the camera a little bit.

No, it's fine. It's fine. Just scoot over here, Mom. Just kick those lunchboxes out of the way. It's fine. Ridiculous.

Aren't they valuable, though?

I mean, if there's one thing we've established this week, it's that there is no street value for those lunchboxes.

Okay, gotcha.

Okay, I'm moving the mic stand. How many people are you even watching? 136 people. That is a small fraction of those people that will hear this later. So there you go, Mom. Now you're on TV. Are you happy?

Yeah, and I kind of like this blocking me a little.

Your drag could not be a worse shot, but okay.

Okay, all right. Let's just remember the many thousands of people who will hear this as a podcast, so let's try to focus on that. So, Mama, you were telling me earlier today that you and Dad went over. You get your – you do your dental stuff over at the University of Washington, dental school. Yes. Because it's much more affordable. Yeah. And although I guess this – I figured at the age that you're at, and I assume you are both on like Medicaid? No, no, care, care. Okay.

Kate is like the free stuff.

Oh, okay. You're on Medicare. I figured that they would like want to cover dental stuff, but I guess that's not the case.

No, dental is really very rarely covered. And if it is covered, you pay. Okay. And it always seems like dental is just like, is it even worth it? Yeah, exactly. To get the insurance?

Well, under the new TBTL benefits package, not only do we not cover dental, we don't cover medical. We don't cover 401k.

Got it.

You'll see us soon at the U-Dub dental school, Mom. So you and Dad went over there to get your teeth cleaned. But what happened, they started cleaning your teeth and then quoted you a price that made you feel like you were just going to leave? Okay, well, let me start at the beginning. Okay, we have about two minutes left in the show, Mom.

Okay, I'll try to be quick.

We have a hard network out. Most of the time we had allotted for you has been used up on knocking over lunchboxes. Okay. So it's shortening up your segment.

Okay, so I went to the dental school over there at the UW because the price was better for years. And I talked my husband into going because he was going to a private dentist and paying out of the nose. And so I talked him into going.

There's a weird dental office where they make you do that, but.

Yeah, but anyway, yesterday was really an experience from H-E-double-L. There's no doubt about it.

What, really?

Oh, yeah. So first off, I have this like sciatic nerve going and I have my first PT appointment.

we have about one minute left mom oh no and we have a hard net workout as Andrew said no okay you were having trouble walking to the dentist which was bumming you out

bumming me out and so they take your blood pressure first and it's this cute little student you know just learning how to do dental hygienist stuff yeah and so she takes my blood pressure and she says oh it's a little high so maybe you can take it in a few minutes so then they take it again she takes it again and I said well she said it's higher whoa so then now you've been waiting around getting anxious waiting to talk to her supervisor and see if I can even get my teeth

cleaned see I went that's I didn't even know that was a factor like that if your blood pressure is

too high that means we had gone and we live in the Kitsap Peninsula so you take the ferry over It's a big deal. And we already went what I thought was for a teeth cleaning about a month ago. And they just probed and they kind of messed around and they didn't clean them.

Yeah.

And I was like, really? And then they took x-rays. But they didn't clean the teeth. So then I'm back this time. I'm back this time to get them cleaned. Anyway, so the blood pressure was a delay. And then are you serious about the 30 seconds?

Now it's 20.

Oh, my gosh. This is really putting me toward the position.

Hold on. Let me check your blood pressure. It's very high right now, mother. No, but I just mean we do have to kind of speed it along.

They do kind of – oh, they do kind of. So they take the blood pressure. Finally, the supervisor, whatever you want to call him, the higher upper, he says, okay, well, we're just going to go ahead and do it.

So that was – the resolution to that problem was not Susie's blood pressure has gone down to a level that's safe for dental work. Right, right. It was, eh, let's not get hung up in the details. Let's just go for it.

So let me just say, so then the cute little dental assistant trainee, she's doing the same thing that was done last time, probing, taking measurements. Measurements, gum recession, things like that. And I'm just like, wait a minute, we did this a month ago. And she goes, no, I don't think so. I said, yeah. And I didn't get my teeth cleaned. So she said, okay, well, we still have to do it and so on and so forth. so they're doing it they're they're probing yeah marking probing marking apparently i have you know kind of serious gum issues going on oh no mom they're throwing out the numbers right

yeah sorry luke i'm extending this but um we're throwing out numbers and you're trying to interpret what do those numbers mean is it right because it's all language i don't understand they're talking to each other oh this one's a four this one's a seven you're like the math calculus the

calculus build up anyway so when she's working on me working on me it's very very uncomfortable And then she says, I don't think we're going to get to clean them today. And I'm like, wait, what? And then I asked her, like, what is the price of today? And she said, well, and she looks on her books and she goes, about $500. And I was like, wait, wait, wait. I have not even gotten the teeth cleaned yet. So anyway, it was a big deal. I got the main, you know, supervisor or whatever to come and talk to me.

So mom, wait, can I just, I want to understand the scene. are you you're in the chair yeah they're like you're like and you just are like get get me the supervisor because i'm not i'm not going to pay five hundred dollars for this no way because we

already paid for the x-rays from the last time 200 bucks and you went all the way over there

because it's supposed to be more affordable and so i just had to really

plead my case. Wait, so how did you do this? I told her this story. Look, we live on the Kitsap Peninsula. We come over on the ferry because we thought that this was a better way to go, even for a hygienist purposes. I'm surprised. Now, I don't want to blame the

victim here, but I'm a little surprised that you and dad didn't know what the cost would be before

you went over. Well, we did. It was what I was told last month was that it was going to be $200, including the cleaning yeah so that was my tool you know to say look i was told it was going to be 200 plus dollars for the full cleaning including the x-rays yeah and they were like

no no and they've got the supervisor now you're talking to the supervisor are you are you fully reclined in the chair while you're trying to make this case well i'm up a little bit

but you're like but i'm like still mostly i would not have come to all this trouble You know, I know you already have my x-rays. What can be done here? So she listens to my story and she says, well, it is quoted $200. So we're going to have to give it to you all for $200. I was like, thank you. Oh, ma. And sure enough, they did one quadrant of my mouth as far as cleaning.

Are they going to clean your entire mouth?

Yeah, I've got three more quadrants.

And they're going to do all that for $200? Like you don't have to pay any more. I mean, they're not like, they didn't go, we'll clean. But I have to come back. They're not like, we'll clean $200 worth of your teeth.

That's what I was afraid of.

Now, here's the other big question, Mom, because you and Dad respond very differently to this sort of stimulus. You put up a fight, and you advocated for yourself. That's one of the main things they say about the health care system is you have to advocate for yourself. Right. You said, I'm not paying $500 for this.

What did Dad do?

Well, he wasn't next to me, of course.

I know. He's like on the other side of the room. And you must have been worried like he's over there just paying $500. Right.

But guess what?

What?

He said, I'm not. They don't charge you right then and there. They send a bill. He's not paying it. He said, I remember us being quoted $200. Look at that. So I'm going to just hold my ground in that way. Walt B. standing up for us. Yeah, I know. What does he do?

I had to go through all the gymnastics. But mom, you know what that is right there? That is a lifetime of you berating him.

I know it.

Finally paying off. Because when you guys met back in the day, back at, like, whatever, Living Waters or something, that is not a guy who would have argued with the dental school. He would have just paid the money. But a lifetime of being together with you has taught him a different path.

Right, right. So they didn't really discuss the amount because he didn't ask.

I see.

But then he said, you know, well, they did quote us and I have the sheet at home.

Nice.

So, yeah, they can't pull this fast one on me either. So I was like, great. So it's $200 each. Okay, well, that's good.

But you have to go back a bunch of times.

You can go back three more times, it looks like.

Oh, Mom. It's quadrant. Can we talk about how your mouth feels right now? The idea of only having a quarter of my mouth. Part of it feels great. Yeah, only having a quarter of my mouth clean, because you can tell the difference when you leave the dentist, what's been cleaned and what hasn't. Exactly. How does it feel right now?

Okay, so they were doing the quarter of the mouth where there's already a missing tooth.

Okay.

Oh, I didn't know you had any missing tooth, Mom.

So that's the cheapest quarter of your mouth to do. Mom, I have to say, Mom, for your age, you have good teeth. Like, your teeth, they're not yellow. Basically. You've got all of them. Oh, but two. Except for the one in the back.

But they're in the bottom.

Yeah, they're way back. Sure. So, I mean, actually, like, I think that's the one thing, biologically, genetically, the one good thing about being in the Kelly lineage. The downside, alcoholism and a head like a potato. The upside, decent chompers. Hopefully. Well, no, mom, your teeth are great for your age. I mean, again, the ones you still have. Right.

So anyway, it was a bit of a nightmare because I had this sciatic nerve hurting me. and they're telling me there's $500. So I was like, no way, Jose, this isn't happening. So I think it got squared away. And then afterwards we had to do a few things for your dad's sign works. Oh, right. Go to Bellevue and I was just fit to be tied.

Yeah.

I was so hungry because, you know, you don't eat. I ate like a little bit of a smooth drink, smoothie before I left. So I was so hungry. And like they say about toddlers, you know, when they're misbehaving, you know, they're either hungry or tired. hey we all are yeah if we're hungry or tired we're not happy yeah so you so what did you end up eating over there well we went to uh uh taco chipotle oh chipotle chipotle yes yes sure and i went in and it was just out off of renton right by where the seahawks train yeah the v-mac yeah because it said mcdonald's and i was like well you know your dad was saying we have got to eat yes yes we hadn't eaten so but then the chipotle was there so i went in and just said to the guy you got some beans and rice and a whole bunch of salsa on top he goes yep wait so you didn't go

in order but see now now let me ask this why did you not just like order a burrito or a bowl were

you concerned it would be expensive no not really i just wanted like black beans uh-huh with really good rice yeah and what is that salsa that's really like

Peek. pico de gallo yeah and it was pico de gallo as a choice yeah and i said lay it on me now mom mom

i've got it was great i've got a chipotle hack for you i don't know if this is still in play but if you ever find yourself there again there is a thing that you can do which is order a side of tortilla which a side tortilla which is like two bucks yeah and then you can just get extra rice this is all on the side so you get a tortilla then you order a side of rice a side of extra rice which they don't charge you for a side of uh like the pico de gallo a side of beans they have all these things that are actually not additionally it's kind of like a subway in that way and you end up with you've basically made yourself a burrito from there for like two dollars wow and this was such a big deal on the internet that i think some chipotle's had to end their policy but i feel like i didn't see that i feel like you're on a hot streak between sneaking into the airport and and talking sneaking talking down the u-dub dentist i feel like you could talk the chipotle people into like getting you to like letting you build a free burrito there or a

two dollar burrito possibly i didn't even need the burrito i just needed some beans black beans he had a burrito okay good i'm glad somebody in this i didn't really share my black beans and rice with him because i was like this is mine we were that hungry we gotta go to chipotle i'm so anyway yeah

that was my day yes mom i'm glad that i'm sorry that it was a hassle but i'm glad that you advocated for yourself and got the u-dub dental school to relent and it also brings me i think to an important point for tbtl we are raising money this week to get my mother and father dental care if you would like to donate at the one tooth for suzy level our goal is to get her back to a full mouth of teeth hundred dollars a month will help uh get that done and even maybe get her a full-on burrito at chipotle we don't even get dental care and we're employees exactly i'm going

to be a supporter of tbtl now because i'm on it yeah hey suzy what's a late comer hey suzy what's

a dentist's favorite time of day? Oh, gosh. You know this one. You know this. You know it.

2.30? 2.30!

Mom, that was almost as excited as you were when you and Genevieve were talking about Poldark.

Oh, right, right. So that's it. Bye, guys.

Thanks for stopping by. Love you. Watch those cables on your way out. Take a lunchbox. Uh-oh. Okay, hold on. Mom Mike making some sounds. Can we kill that? Okay, great. Yeah, be careful over there, Mom. I'm sorry. There's lots of stuff.

I'm going to go up the hill.

All right. Okay.

Because my legs don't like perfect.

Okay, but I'm glad it's feeling better. She's got PT to go to now. Yeah. All right. Love you, Mom.

Now, I know it's a little bit long in the tooth, as you would say, Luke, but we have had a caller sitting on the hold for 25 minutes and 45 seconds. Let's let him on. Let's let him on. I feel like we should say a little quick hello here.

Ahoy, ahoy. Hi there. You're on TBTL.

Hello.

Hi. Who's this?

It's Oscar Davis of San Luis Obispo, California.

hi oscar davis of slo how's it going good how old are you oscar i am 11 years old oh my gosh luke asks every caller that i think it's a little bit weird uh where uh let's see how'd you hear

about tbtl uh from my mom she started listening to tbtl back in the radio days whoa was she in

slo as well i just like to show off that i know that's the abbreviation or was she up in seattle or how did TBTL end up in her life?

Well, so she lived in Seattle. Ah, gotcha. And then she moved down to Portland right before I was born, and then we moved here last summer.

Oh, right on. So you went from Portland, you were about 10, you lived your life in Portland, and then you went down to, you know, what's sort of almost Southern California. How do you like it down there?

It is drier and not as wet.

Uh-huh. Both drier and not as wet. how is it changing schools and having a bunch of new people to meet i've done that before and it

kind of stressed me out when i was a kid so that was it was actually my it's my third time so by this time i'm kind of like a pro so it was kind of easy but also very hard what are your pro tips

for for kind of making friends with a bunch of new people or fitting into a new environment

um probably just uh like learn what people like like and then try to like do things like that like for example i like baseball so like uh try to talk to other people about uh baseball who

like baseball you know that's we do that on this show except people don't care about baseball and it's a very frustrating because it's all that andrew and john and i want to talk about is

baseball oscar i have a feeling you know more about baseball than i do do you like watching

baseball or just playing um i like watching and playing baseball i also like uh looking up all

the stats about who are you do you have a particular major league team that you like

uh yeah i like the atlanta braves because my t my aunt uh she's like a die-hard fan so you know

you guys have had some decent uh teams in the last few years too i mean you guys got to the

world series a couple years ago right yeah uh that was very exciting yeah so you were like

old enough to really appreciate that and be like super excited yeah also nice job uh what was it

like on the fourth when you complete game shutout against the giants oh oh right uh do you mean the

mariners had a complete game shutout yeah against the giants who are my dad's favorite team oh wow does that cause any family friction uh no but you could tell like he was just kind of

looking depressed a lot yeah i'm so excited oh wow um do you have a favorite player just like

in the whole major leagues uh i i well i like freddie freeman but i like but since he got traded to the dodgers you know i've stopped really following him but i really uh like him

yeah you know how how do you feel um about the new york yankees generally speaking wow we're doing this uh-huh i utterly despise them yes yeah there you go right answer oh oscar will you be my

best friend yes oscar how do you feel about acuna he's a stud that guy's so fun to watch

he's he's like my second favorite player yeah he's awesome there you go um so now oscar my question

to you is uh your your mom uh sounds like your mom listens to the show turned you on to it do you listen to the show voluntarily now or is it just like you're in the car and you overhear it or your mom's, you know, I don't know, doing stuff around the house?

Definitely. It's, like, I kind of go in waves, but this time, like, I just love the show right now.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Well, that means a lot. Oscar, this is our first time meeting, but I, and I hope you take this as a compliment, you sound exactly like I sounded when I was 11 years old. Like, I would, if there had been something like this for me to listen to, I mean, I was listening to AM radio because that was the closest I could get, but like uh i i really appreciate like the fact that you as the kind of 11 year old person you are like what we're doing that means a lot to us because it really reminds me of the kind of 11 year old person that i was thank you all right anything else you want to say before we before we wrap things up today john did you did you want to quiz oscar on anything well no i think

oscar sounds like other than the hatred of the yankees um you know oscar seems like a good kid All right. Anything else, Oscar, before we let you go?

I want to tell John that the only reason I hate the Yankees.

Yeah.

But I also, like, one time I really liked the Yankees. That was only because at that point my dad liked the Red Sox, and I hated the Red Sox. So, therefore, the Red Sox natural enemies.

Your father's enemy is your friend.

Yeah, basically.

it's okay Oscar you know when it comes to sports uh rooting interest you like who you like and you dislike who you dislike no no disrespect to you my friend you are good you're a good fellow

yeah all right well listen Oscar thanks for calling in and thanks for listening and go Braves

yeah thank you all right great talking with you Oscar all right it sounds like the video feed

went down which is usually that's nature's way of telling us it's time to stop podcasting yeah

might have just gone back up now but anyway yeah that was uh that was a really great call to go

out that was that was awesome it's not going to get better than that and also the good news is the video was working when we saw the tower of oh my gosh and when the teddy's sign came in yes i am i'm i'm again i get the sense andrew that you were both appreciative but not necessarily needing to have that sign in your life and if that's the case i'm very excited to integrate it

i just want it saved i was actually going to talk to some of the folks who are regulars at teddies But if you definitely have a place for it, if you're going to hang it up, I want you to have it.

It was made by my very own father. Absolutely. So hands off, Teddy's regulars. All right. That's going to do it for this. It's the penultimate episode of the Thon Week. It is.

We have one more live streaming show, and that's tomorrow.

I just want to say as we go out once again, thank you from the bottom of our hearts to everyone who has been donating so far. It has just been incredible to see. We're still not there yet, though. So if you haven't donated, if you're on the fence, if you've never donated and you can even just kick us five bucks a month, that would be incredible. It would be really, really great tomorrow to get to do the show and to sort of know that we're going to be able to get where we need to get and not be kind of stressing about it. So thanks again. If you've been thinking about it, now is the time to do it. Go to tbtl.net, click on that button, donate, and you can see all the cool stuff that we are going to give you as a thanks for supporting the program. All right. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being part of TBTL. We will see you tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Go Mariners, and please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all.

I should not have brought up baseball. I understand. My mistake. My mistake. You've got to know your crowd.

Power out.