Muse

First of all, I love it. Quick question, though. Am I panicked about the fire, or am I being brave for everyone else?

The fire. It's a fire sale.

Oh. Okay, I didn't, um... Well, let's give it a shot. Oh, my God! We're having a fire sale! Oh, the burning! IT BURNS ME! EVACUATE ALL THE SKULL CHILDREN! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

day it is guess what day it is everybody's looking forward to the weekend sex money power fire choking being dragged behind a speedboat it's all the same thing please uh refrain from scolding us for our

approach our approach is legitimate that was great that was good you went for it i appreciate that

What's that drop that's like? You're doing a good job, sweetie. What you do is so important.

Sweetie, have a good show. What you do is so important.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Friday edition of TBTL. The show just might be too beautiful to live. Got to do it again, right now. We sure do. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. If you want to talk, I've got two ears, and they're tuned to the listening station. Coming to you for the final day from my actual parents, actual basement. Hey, Mom!

The meatloaf! We want it now!

It's interesting. We've been down here now so long that I think I'm going to miss this place. I'm going to miss this bric-a-brac when we're not here. But we are here today because it is the final day of the TBTL-a-thon.

That cash could really get me out of a couple of jams.

This is the one time out of the year where we remind you all that this is 100% listener-supported imaginary radio, and if you have a chance and you're so inclined, we would love it if you toddled over to tbtl.net and helped support us with a financial donation. It's been going great this week, but of course, it can always go a little better. And we're really counting on having a kind of strong Friday here to get us to where we're trying to be in terms of being able to do this for our real actual jobs. We've only done it 3,983 times so far. Let the fun begin. So it feels like we're really kind of settling into a groove here. Oh, by the way, one of the fun things on the TB Telephone Week is that we take phone calls. We've been getting calls from all over the world. We had a call from Switzerland yesterday, or as I like to call it, Sweden. We've had people both old and young. We pray to the callers both old and young. And anyway, we'd like to hear from you. It's 206-414-TBTL, 206-414-8285. We've also got some top stories, including a full download on the Threads app. It's called the Internet, and it's a fresh new way to check out sites, buy clothing, and surf music. We were doing two important things yesterday at the Airbnb. One was monitoring how the fundraising is going, which, see previous comments, it's going fine, but again, we could really use your help today. And the other thing was everybody comparing notes on how it's going on threads, the so-called Twitter killer. So we will update everybody on that. And also, if you got up this morning wondering, what does Twix actually mean, the name of the candy? Now that's interesting. We will finally explain that for you. And we'll talk to this guy, longest-running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's here to chomp, grumble, and kiss squeak. And he's high off of being called, I think, hunky in the comment section during a recent Zoom thing we did.

The weenie bikini. The ding-a-ling sling. The grape smuggler. The Miami meat tent.

The Andrew Walsh. She's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend. Good morning, Luke. I'm not going to waste anybody's time here. We have a guest on the show today. They are visible on the YouTube stream. There is one thing everybody is saying on the YouTube stream right now, which is this guest's name. They do not care about me. I hate to say this, Luke. I do not think they care much about you today either. Understandable.

You're like the coolest person.

You mean Genevieve has? Welcome to the show, Veeves.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's exciting to be here on the final day of the drive.

You're injecting some much-needed intelligence, creativity, cleverness into what, let's be honest, is a flagging broadcast here on day five from my parents' basement.

These are tall orders, but I will try to deliver.

Hey, Veeves, say something clever.

Oh, no.

Oh, also, please, let's not sleep on TBTL employee numero uno, our good friend, the VP of, what is it, the VP of Finance and Operations. I love pickles. It's my heritage. I love a pickle. John Sklaroff, welcome. Good morning, good morning. Okay, here we are. How's everybody feeling here on day five of this thing?

You know, I'm here. No, I'm just joking. I'm feeling great. It's been a – no, I'm just joking with the negative energy there. No, it is – I was very tired yesterday. At one point, I was working on some stuff on my laptop in the common area of the Airbnb we're staying in, and you just turned to me and –

Which, by the way, is tearing my parents' relationship asunder. Oh, yes, more on that in a second.

I mean, it's tense up there. And you just turned to me and said, did you just say you're exhausted? And I said, I guess I did. I do a lot of talking to myself. That's one thing that I'm realizing on this trip, because John keeps talking to himself, too, and then calling it Pulling in Andrew. So apparently I talk to myself all the time. And without even realizing it, I guess at some point yesterday I just said, I'm so exhausted. Do you remember this? I do remember that.

And I don't remember vocalizing that. I hope it didn't feel like I was calling you out. I did remember when you said that, and I sort of was just trying to check in with you and see how you were doing.

Well, it's a weird thing for a friend just to send out into the universe. I feel like I was setting you up to say, oh, how's my buddy doing?

No, I don't think you would do that intentionally. But you and John both do tend to kind of narrate kind of what you're doing. But it's only because you both are doing all of the hard work associated with the TBTL-a-thon. I really mean that. Like, we get back to the Airbnb. Both of you just go right to work on your laptops. Both of you occasionally vocalize whatever it is you're doing. And then I just go lay down in the yard and unbutton my shirt. and start shedding clothing. Veeves, are you used to Andrew's kind of self-talk?

Oh my gosh, it's relentless. That wasn't where I was trying to take this. Are you serious? You know how Bob Belcher in Bob's Burgers talks to the food? Oh, my little burgers, you're going to be all salted and peppered in a minute here. Well, that's not talking to myself,

that's talking to my food. That's different.

But you talk to all the objects in your life, so if you're puttering around the kitchen, you're like... Oh, Billy Joel, we did start the fire.

I don't think I talk to everything. I wasn't trying to roast Andrew on this. When I'm making food, I sometimes talk to the food, which you should do, to honor it. Absolutely. I talk to the plants sometimes if I'm spritzing them, which I do a lot. How are the plants, by the way? Are the plants okay?

I don't know how the plants are doing. I kind of abandoned them. I asked our good friends, Camaro, Kevin, Anita, to watch the cats for us. and i did not want to since it was such a late ask i like basically the the night before i came to meet you guys i said hey can you come up feed the cats and i didn't want to add anything to that like can you water the plants right so oh you know what i did for my tomatoes in the backyard i soaked them and then i didn't again i didn't want to ask any extra favors like can you water the tomatoes so i filled a wine bottle and i you know stuck it in the dirt and then it you know As long as it's saturated below the wine bottle, the water won't come out. But as the ground, as the dirt dries, it'll let the water out a little bit at a time. So it won't last the whole three days, but it'll give me some grace period on the watering.

I've seen that move and never understood what it was for. I thought somebody just enjoyed the wine so much. They spiked it into the ground like a football. This wine was good! I never put it together. That's such a clever hack.

Yeah, I love Clever Hacks. That's mostly what I do on Instagram is like sewing, gardening, and woodworking hacks.

Sometimes if I'm talking to myself too much, Genevieve just lays me down and sticks a wine bottle in my mouth. With wine in it, yeah. Sometimes a Jim Beam bottle.

And as long as you're saturated, it won't pour out.

I'm good for like three days.

Yeah, definitely. If you'd like to give us a call, the phone number is 206-414-TBTL. 206-414-TBTL to check in on us here on the TBTL-Authon Day 5. John, as the Minister of Finance on this program, how are you feeling about things here on day 5? Do you feel like you are going to have a job on Monday? Yeah, I do.

I think we're doing really well. It's really encouraging to see. Of course, I think we've been saying it's expected because of the generosity and how often

in this community is the tens but we could be doing better you know it's one of those things we've we've started to say those last couple days if you've you're like waiting to like when's the time you know yeah this this is it this is it and so yeah we're doing good but but now there's historically in public

radio fundraising which we are no longer a public radio show I don't be very clear about that right if you're trying to write this off on your taxes but talk To slow down But in public radio fundraising Historically there's always a kind of a Friday Bump people are waiting as we used to say On the show for the eagle to shit People are waiting to get paid things like that This show works a little differently in that We have a small but extremely Fervent group of fans Who the real core folks Jump right in like even Last Friday a week ago When the site went live we had a lot of people Donating which we really appreciate I'm hoping that we will buck the TBTL trend this year Which is to say we'll have some late donors Some people that actually are waiting until Friday to donate We're really hoping for a big bump today Which is not always how it goes on this show But I'm daring to dream This is a whole new phase for the program As we are independent Looks like we have a call too, Andrew

Yeah, we have a call waiting for us here I don't know if this is appropriate or not But I believe this is another actor Now, we've already heard from one actor this week.

I have a sound effect for this, actually. The weenie bikini. Hi, you're on TBTL. Who's this?

This is listener Danny.

Hey, Danny. How are you?

Hi, Danny. Thank you. I'm good. I was not expecting a weenie bikini introduction, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

Nobody ever expects the weenie bikini introduction. I don't want to put you on Front Street, but I have met you, Danny, and you're very hunky, and I think you could pull off a Miami meat tent.

well i'll uh i'll take your word for that you literally my wife is in the kitchen right now and she almost snarfed into her water now danny we were just talking about the fact that we were

doing a tv telephone right now i do not want to put your private business out on front street but how much can you share with the listening audience um regarding what you told us via email about kind of what's going on in your life right now being a working actor during a writer's exactly

Oh, I'm going to answer the whole deal so that nobody else has an excuse.

Oh, no, no, no. We're not trying to get into your finances. We just want to know what it's like to be a person who relies on the Writers Guild of America to write the lines when the Writers Guild of America is not doing that.

Oh, well, it turns out, yeah, it's real hard to shoot TV when there are no scripts. So, yeah, it's been a lot of theater auditions for this guy recently. I dusted off the old equity card, which I had to take out mothballs.

Can you share with us some of the productions you've auditioned for?

Oh, God. So, I mean, everything and everything that I could. So there are these things called equity principal auditions, which are basically like any time that there's an equity production, they are obligated to have a public audition, even if the show is completely cast.

Oh, that sounds fun for you.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, my God, it's a blast. I mean, honestly, I kind of, I don't mind it because, to me, it just takes all the pressure off. Where it's like, if you go into an audition going, oh, the show's already cast, so there's no way that I'm going to book anything here. It's just a chance to have some fun, and there's no, there's nothing riding on it anymore. And then if you get a call back, hey, that's just crazy.

It's like when you go into a job that you're really excited about, but then you find out there's an internal candidate, and they just legally had to open it up. Yes. And you're like, well, I guess this is—

That's how I got this job. Yeah. Now, for folks that don't know, Danny is an actor in New York. You're on the television show FBI, and so are you—

Tuesdays at 8 o'clock Eastern Time.

That's right. Wait, wait, wait. I don't think you're allowed to be promoting things during the strike.

No, he's allowed to. Are you kidding me?

So there's no there's no episodes right now, so there's nothing to promote.

OK, wait. So they're not they're not in reruns or anything.

I'm sure they're in some kind of syndication. But again, like we we were able to shoot out the rest of our season. We were on season five. And right when the writer's strike began, we had we had scripts written. So we had like two more weeks left of shooting. And so we had to like we couldn't do any rewrites. We had to shoot what was written, but we were able to finish the season.

So how do the rewrites usually work? Like, is it you shoot a scene and the folks in charge are like, this isn't working, and then the writers furiously rewrite it? When do rewrites come into play typically?

All the damn time.

Right when you've learned your lines? yeah exactly so it's there are there are the new pages that the actors get on the day so like you know the principles will get like there's a there's a color coding system for the scripts and so it's it's for the way for production to keep track of which edition of the script it's on so it goes from like white to blue to pink to and they're like you know there have been a lot of rewrites when you're getting into like yeah this is the let's break out the goldenrod page burnt sienna yeah no exactly it's like there's like double blue at some point it's just like

oh man triples are best but so but danny you could my question is like what are they rewriting for are they are they sharpening the dialogue like is it just that somebody is arbitrarily being like make it better like what are they trying to fix solve for i mean it could be anything there could

be like a character that was supposed to be in a follow-up episode that they're referencing that for whatever reason their actor had a had a commitment that they can't get out of and so they have to write that character out of this episode that some of like the producers can just decide that the dialogue isn't punchy enough or that they need to throw in a joke or something like it could be anything and so it's it's like you always have the actors and it's you you get your original copy of the script when you know if they so you're looking at it you get the script in advance you do your table read and then by the time you're shooting the day the script can be completely different and so they're usually again they're getting new pages on the day so they're off in their dressing room trying to trying to memorize the scene that they've already prepared for and like oh well now the dialogue has changed so let me go try to you know memorize this as fast as i can before we're shooting it in the next hour were there parts of the script that were

just sort of sketched out that they couldn't actually finish by the time you were taping it and so you had to actually have like Detective Brown just say et cetera et cetera et cetera or TK TK TK

yeah it's just it's just Jeremy's sister's just saying bolo 30 times in the job

rutabaga rutabaga rutabaga TBD

or and anyway I guess I solved it

and that's why we're called the FBI you can't go wrong with that do you know danny this might have come up this might have come up and on the show or just in you and i talking in real life but like one of my first star sightings when i moved to la was jeremy sistow oh my god lucky you i was pumped i think he was he in i think he might have been in six feet under and i was her brother i was in a big six feet under phase at the time and i went into the um bathroom at a bar called akbar in la and jeremy sisto came out and i was like it's happening i am living in la la land i am seeing jeremy sisto

uh jeremy is such a cool guy he's like the sweetest humblest dude in the world i love him to death that's awesome like all like all the principles on the show like it's it's very rare that you get on a studio show and, like, there's not a smelly kid in the whole cast. Like, everybody there is just so genuine and sweet.

Danny, are you worried that if there's not a smelly kid in the class that you might be the smelly kid?

That's what I've learned. Yeah, I mean, there is that. There's the saying at the poker table where you can't spot the jump in the first five minutes. But luckily, I'm like one of 25 people that just populate the room. So there's plenty of us that are just like nameless faces. Well, you're not nameless to us.

Every time I'm watching the show, I'm looking for you. I'm scanning the room when Sisto calls a bolo and I see you, Danny. How's the boat, by the way?

Oh, my God. The boat is amazing.

Okay, good. You haven't had to sell it yet due to the strike, right?

Well, it's not my boat. but I just work on other people's boat. Oh, okay. Yeah, so first off, Genevieve, it's so much fun to talk to you. I've talked to these bozos plenty. Wow, okay. I have other things I could be doing.

I just want all the listeners to know that I have other things I could be doing. I'm calling out a bolo for my self-esteem.

Well, Danny, if you have anything you want to ask me, you can ask me anything. But I actually wanted to ask you something, which was I think you had another listener who's an actor, Max, maybe, who mentioned he was doing a play earlier this week. And I wondered if, like, the big winners from the writer's strike is the theater community. Like, are they the ones coming out with, like, a ton of working actors who are looking for work?

So it's crazy ever since the pandemic. I mean, it's been like live theater was, you know, has always been kind of it's been.

It's like theater's never going anywhere, but it's, you know, there's less of a demand these days on live theater. And after the pandemic, I mean, it really it really did take a hit. So it it it is exciting for like for, you know, doofuses like me to be like, oh, I can't shoot TV. Let me go try to be on the stage.

That was a dead on Andrew impression.

uh it was so it was so great to hear from max too because i feel like like max and i in my brain are like intrinsically linked at the hip because we met each other at the get together in brooklyn and that's how you know max was like he was just a little huddle of uh us talking after the show and max was like yeah i just shot an episode of fbi and i was already in my cups and i was like

do you have a background danny in doing theater like is that something that you enjoy and that you feel comfortable doing because it's a totally different world than television i would assume

it's such a different muscle i mean you know it's one of those like one of the coolest things uh i'm gonna take it to sport talk for a hot second one of the coolest things that uh from the espn michael Jordan documentary the last dance they talked about is when he went to go play baseball and how he had to like retrain his body because it's all athletics but it's a different muscle set to play baseball than it is to play basketball and how like again like he's a naturally athletic dude but it's just like one of those when you go from a different sport you literally have to just train your body differently and that's kind of like that that was just like oh I never thought of it like that but that's like you know there's different things for theater and and film where it's you know obviously like film is very very tight you know the camera's three inches from your face so everything everything is very small it's all in your face every every little wince in your in your eyes and in your mouth everything is how like so minute and you know obviously theater is you're playing to the back row but even just like again like talking about like memorizing new lines on the day an hour before you shoot it but then it's done it's your it's shot it's in the can you never say that again whereas theater you're you're starting in the beginning and you're living through the experience of the character from start to finish over and over again every night it's they're both really challenging and they're both super fun in their own way so it is something that i have a background in and i love to get on stage whenever

i can were you like in every high school production at your high school oh hell yeah buddy what was what was a memorable uh for you like production you were in play etc

uh i'll start i was in colby five god uses kids so uh in my eighth grade play i played tevye from fiddler on the roof to laser wolf to tevye

to sidle my daughter my wife that's the one i wish that was the first time i sang that song

this week it's absolutely not i heard you singing that in the shower the other day

by the way r.i.p topol who just uh passed away i know i don't know what that means he was the guy who played fiddler uh he played um tevye in the like film production of fiddler i didn't

realize that so but you're telling me so the point of all this is that uh michael jordan played basketball as well as baseball. That's news to me. I think

that the SNL sketch that perfectly summarizes Michael Jordan's overly competitive streak was based on the scene from that docu-series where he's playing like quarters against like a person who is just like a security staff at the United Center in Chicago.

He's playing him in quarters.

He's playing and like and he's just crushing this guy. This guy is making like three dollars an hour working security. And Michael Jordan wants to beat him. SNL did a sketch where they had, I believe it's Heidi Gardner play the guy. And just by the end of the sketch, he's just wearing a barrel because Michael Jordan has so thoroughly fleeced him at this thing for like that means nothing to Michael Jordan, but means everything to this person. And that was when I was like, oh, yeah, I think he might be a bad person. And I grew up idolizing Michael Jordan.

Well, Danny, I just wanted to say to you, thank you very much, because, again, not to turn you into some monetary lever, but it really was touching to get your email just saying, hey, listen, I don't know if you've heard, but there's something called a writer's track going on. That means there are no lines for me to read. These are not the best financial times in the world. So I can only give X amount of dollars. And I will say the X that I feel like. It was $1,000 a month, by the way. Danny makes terrible, terrible money.

And it's so generous and it really, really means a lot. And for you to think that you would have to apologize for donating anything to the show during this time. So thank you very, very much. And just thanks for being part of the community for so long, too.

Yeah, of course, guys. I mean, I listen to you every night. You guys put me to sleep every night. It's amazing. We hear that. One last question, Danny.

What's the scuttlebutt on how long, like being in the sort of acting community, How long do people think this strike is going to go?

The last time the writers were on strike, it lasted 100 days, and we just passed 50 recently. And so, again, I don't represent any kind of negotiation team.

I've heard you and Fran Drescher are in talks.

Isn't she the head of the union right now? it's so yeah Fran Drescher is the president of SAG and it's so wild like in my inbox amongst like emails from like my mom's cousin is asking if I'm going to be July 4th I'm just like oh yeah Fran is emailing me how the SAG negotiations are going I hope she's using

the nanny voice while she's negotiating

yeah it's every Every time that there's an email, I'm just imagining her, like, I imagine that the paragraph breaks are punctuated by her laugh.

Extreme Fran Drescher.

So you're thinking maybe 100 days would be a kind of a likely thing in that the last one went 100 days. Is that the point at which the rich studio heads finally break?

It's going to, so think about this. Right now, all the things that were shot during the spring are airing. And so it's going to be the fall by the time that people are watching their normal TV, watching their stories. And there's not there's not an update on how how Cassidy is going to get out of this jam in the hospital.

Yes. Oh, yeah. Well, when the well runs dry, it's going to get very real for the execs.

I mean, that's the idea. And so SAG SAG's contract was actually up at the end of June and they extended the deadline for negotiations. But we were asked to give our negotiation team pre-strike authorization because they kind of saw the writing on the wall where they were like, We want to enter into these negotiations with the ability to just go on strike if we see it, if that's the tack that we want to take. And so it's kind of one of those, like, we extended the deadline for our negotiations until the middle of the month. But there is a very real possibility that not only will the writers, but the actors are going to be on strike soon, too. So we'll see. We'll see.

Well, we're wishing you really good luck with that, Danny. And, you know, obviously, I think that somebody of some of the signs that I saw the WGA members like carrying were like, you're welcome for this Tesla. Because I just imagine the people that are, you know, at the high levels of Netflix and the studios driving their Teslas to the to the lot on the backs of a lot of hardworking actors and writers.

I will say for if there's any guild to go on strike for the Writers Guild of America, the picket signs are on point. Solid. Solid.

Yes, definitely.

Yeah, like, I'm sure we've all seen, like, we've seen pictures where it's just like, give me fair pay or I'm going to tell you how succession is.

That's great. All right, man. Well, good luck, Danny. Thanks for calling in. All right, fellas. And don't go broke supporting us, okay? For real, dude.

Yeah, yeah. All right, don't worry.

All right. Okay, well, then up your donation. I mean, I don't know your life. And again, that's Female Bikini Inspectors, Tuesdays at 8, CBS. Federal... Bye, Danny. Danny just was like, all right, I got to get off the line now. This is endangering my recurring role on this sitcom.

They hear that I... Not sitcom, this drama. If they hear that we're calling it Federal Bikini Inspectors, we've got real trouble. Hey, let's talk about Threads for a moment, which is not just a new drama coming to NBC on Thursday nights. It does sound like a thing that Meghan Markle was in. What was she in? Shirts. Suits.

Suits. So very close. And then wasn't there a Daniel J. Lewis movie called Thread or Threads?

The something Thread. The Infinite Thread. That was the initial name of APM On Demand, I believe. I mean, literally, I believe we were on something called Infinite Guests. Wasn't that like a, that's a P.T. Anderson film, I believe. It is, yeah. We shot in the theater, I believe, yeah. See, I didn't, that was a. Phantom Thread. It was a phantom threat. It was supposed to be his mic drop, right? He was supposed to do this movie and then not act anymore. Daniel Day-Lewis? Yeah, that was the plan, I thought.

Was that a miss, by the way? Because I feel like There Will Be Blood, which is a collaboration of those two people, that really permeated the culture in a certain way. And I don't feel like we talk about Phantom Thread very much.

Yeah, I do not think it did super well in theaters. I actually prefer... It's an intense movie. I can conditionally recommend it to people who like that kind of sort of... It's slow, it's intense. I thought it was good. I'm not a huge fan of There Will Be Blood.

Yeah, me too.

Really? I mean, it's...

I'm surprised that Andrew doesn't like that movie. It was too scenery-chewy for me. I know that's Daniel Day-Lewis' kind of whole thing, but my God, that movie seemed interminable. It seemed like it was very long.

You've got to write the first one.

First thought, best thought. And just so over the top. I know that the I Drink Your Milkshake thing is iconic now, but I did not like that scene at all. I was just like, come on, I have places to be. And guess what? I don't have even places to be.

His performance in Phantom Thread is much more restrained and intense. Everything he does is intense. I don't think he has another gear. But it's a really interesting, but quieter and more introspective story. And the female lead is extremely good.

He sews clothing.

He's a master tailor and fashion designer, essentially, for these upper crust women.

By the way, for the role, Daniel Day-Lewis did work at an H&M for over four days. He learned how to fold shirts.

He was like, what would most closely approximate this character's experience? I know, fast fashion.

Fast fashion, exactly. I enjoyed the film.

He apprenticed at Shein.

By the way, just learned that's how you say it. I was calling it Shine.

I called it Shine for like a year until someone finally...

My daughter led me astray, but I heard on the Marketplace Morning Report yesterday, they were saying Sheehan, and I was like, well, they probably researched it. What do we think... I know we want to talk about the social media app threads, but what do we think the best Paul Thomas Anderson movie is?

Oh, wow.

Because I know the answer. Okay, what do you want to start with?

Boogie Nights. Boogie Nights, very good. A little formulaic, though, right? the whole like kind of right like from nothing rise to stardom and then the downfall by the own kind of a little formula like just a little bit like it was a little like that whole like it's it's that's how all of those kind of biopics at the time were sort of but i mean a lot going for it i'm not trying to be a jerk i'm just saying if we're ranking within the pt

anderson's i just think there are so many amazing breakout performances first of all even like i'm no mark walberg head but even casting him as dirk digler i think it was kind of because at that point he was marky mark from the funky bunch yeah it was a bold move at the time philip seymour hoffman's character is just i mean um they're just even heather graham roller skate girl like there's just a bunch of great performances burt reynolds right don't sleep on burt reynolds

there was a dream of it there was a time this is funny i think this came up maybe off air earlier this week there was a time when i would have put magnolia on my top five movies of all time list Now it's slid down pretty far. Again, I feel like there are some scenes in there that are just like a little bit over the top in a way that I'm just kind of like, okay, everybody, let's just take a little nap and come back. But Magnolia. Somehow heartbreak feels good. Somehow napping feels good in a place like this. Somehow frogs coming down from the sky feels good in a place like this. I talk about structure and surprise. Like the opening of Magnolia is definitely top five movie openings of all time for me. and there are some really surprising things that do happen so i love the structure and i love the performance of magnolia i don't know if the whole film stands up but that would definitely be on my list and also the adam sandler one is pretty good too punch drunk love punch drunk love is pretty

good yeah where he's like trading in the yogurt the yogurt i used to have a teacher when i went to pillar of fire christian school for um preschool i had i probably told the story before but i had a teacher her name was mrs foreigner which is not just a hot band that recently played a porsche dealership owner uh location that i went to they literally hired the band foreigner to play for

like 200 people i was hoping they hired a cover band named mrs foreigner uh mrs mrs foreigner was

my teacher and somehow there was this thing that we were told which was she needed to collect upc whatever right somehow this was related to her i'm not kidding diabetes checkup so we would like wash out our yogurt containers we were all cutting out these giving her upc symbols all the time so she could get her diabetes medicine it was a different time in 1983 yeah you know is health

care is our health care system better I don't know.

worse yeah oh she had the cadillac she had the cadillac plan too yeah there were a lot of that

there was a time in american consumer life where we were cutting out upc uh codes for a lot of different things like i remember i don't remember what it was it wasn't to get diabetes medication but it was like to get some perk or something so yeah that was a very real that felt very real

to have that be part of that movie one of the first radio stories i i i got to do was about this kid and he was from the seattle area i again i think we just talked about this like recently on the show but it was there was a pepsi commercial where you could get these like pepsi points and it was like this kid's having a great day he's got this like sunglasses 200 pepsi points leather pepsi leather jacket 500 points and then this harrier jump jet lands in his yard and it says like a million pepsi points and this kid figured out you could buy a million pepsi points for like ten thousand dollars and he went out and raised the money and bought a million pepsi points and was like where's my jet do you know that i can pepsi settled with him they did not

give him the jet but they settled with him for some amount of money i came across that original commercial somewhere recently i don't know if it was one of my own vhs tapes that i've been combing through uh from the 90s that i found at a garage sale or maybe it was um i don't know i think maybe i found something online that was oh genevieve was it not we should we should tell the guys if we really want to impress them what we were watching i don't know if you'll remember this i believe the night before i left on this adventure we dialed up a uh bowling championship from 1983 who do you think you are i want to say i am yes exactly and then had the commercials in it still too right and they have they showed this one bowler you know like they're i i was gonna say all the bowlers sort of look like sad sex that's not true there was a hottie boom body that you

were quite into right yeah there are a couple there was one guy who was very cute yeah um but Like this guy, I think it was Mark Roth.

Yeah. Mark Roth. Mark the Dragon Roth.

And then underneath his name, when they show him getting ready to roll, and they, you know, Mark Roth. And instead of being like four-time champion of blah, blah, blah, it just says, Mark Roth, married and no children.

Married, no kids. Mark Roth, confirmed bachelor. What?

Why is that relevant? Why is this relevant?

I think that might have been anyway where I had seen that commercial in the wild. I was like, oh, my God, you saw the Harrier Jet. That's what it's called, right? A Harrier Jet? Yeah, Harrier Jump Jet. I saw the Harrier Jet. I'm just like, oh, man, this is just the beginning of the story.

Do you know where I interviewed that guy who had got the Pepsi points? The Red Robin at Northgate Mall, the old one. Oh, yeah. Red Robin, famously not available in the Midwest. Never. I'm just trying to amp up our listeners. The most controversial thing that I've said this week is apparently that when I thought that Red Robin was local to the Northwest, this is mainly what's driving donations, is people trying to get at us to clarify that they grew up near a Red Robin.

I'll tell you what, if you grew up near a Red Robin, please donate at least at the $6 a month level. That's all we ask.

Donate at the throw your phone level over the proximity. Wow, the Mark Roth. Yeah, Genevieve took a photo of it, and I'm showing Luke right here. That's amazing. That might be the show pick today, in fact. Okay, back to threads. Can we talk for a moment about this? I am exceedingly chuffed about the appearance of threads, how much interaction I'm getting on threads. I've got it on – this is how you know I like the app, Veeves. It's on the first page of my phone. Screen one, yeah. Yeah, it's in the coveted screen one position. I've got four – not to brag, I've got four notifications. This thing is just absolutely delighting me.

Yes, it's me too. And I never, I told you this yesterday, I never really liked Twitter. I always, it always gave me a bad feeling. And then when Musk, you know, started torpedoing it and making it terrible, I was like, great. I only, I needed a tiny nudge to be fully off of Twitter, but I did miss reading it. I never really engaged with it, but I miss kind of just having it as like a place to check in on what was the zeitgeist. And I feel like Threads is going to be able to do it i mean the the the importing of every of me and everybody else in america who's on instagram uh in the world uh was so seamless like it's making me think like

for better for worse meta's figured it out but genevieve do you have any feeling like this is going to be a less toxic environment or whatever turned you off of twitter do you feel like this is a better alternative or this is just going to be it's at least it's at least probably i feel

like at the moment because i was i engaged with twitter in a very passive way before musk took over and i was content to keep doing so you know i didn't i wasn't like militantly against it i just didn't really like i wasn't a huge power user so if this is only as bad as it was before musk took over that's fine with me that's like i think that's a win i do think people i mean are

report

that it is a less toxic place i mean it's like day three of it yeah but it does seem like the the especially toxic folks are still over on twitter it's like you moved out of a neighborhood where your neighbor sucked yeah well i mean just they're still there set it up to like be like this

is a sucky neighborhood so hopefully all this all the suck people will stay there i do i mean again

i'm i'm historically terrible at predicting trends or what's gonna i was actually speaking of twitter And again, this is a story I've told so many times on the show, but I was at a thing many years ago in like Sonoma, this like get together of like NPR luminaries and other thought influencers before they use those terms. And I was talking to a guy who had founded one of the three founders of Twitter. And I thought this is going nowhere. So that's my history with predicting things. But this does feel like a Twitter killer to me because I just feel like the people like me who've been itching for Twitter but don't want to be there are just vibing. Like they've been – I think they were added like 20 or 30 million people in the first couple days. It's all the people I like are on there. And again, it seems like it's not as bro-y. The funny part is everyone who's defending Twitter, because I keep seeing on threads, people roasting Elon Musk when he's retweeting things that are defending his position. And they're all from an account that has Doge in the name. It's not his account. It's like, Doge dude says like, F you threads. And then Elon Musk is like just retweeting like an emoji that's like thumbs up.

Are we sure it's not a burner account?

I wouldn't put it past him. No. So are you seeing Musk on threads himself? He is? I don't think he did say something, and I'm paraphrasing.

He for sure has a burnt, like a secret account on threads. Oh, 500%. Yeah.

He said something early on, like by early on, I mean two days ago when this thing launched, and I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like, it was the weirdest statement, I thought. He said, it's better to get the approval of a bunch of strangers than, or it's better to get roasted, again, totally paraphrasing. He was basically, it's better to get roasted by a bunch of strangers than to just get the approval of your friends. Meaning. Attention. Like being on Twitter, even if people are like trolling you, is better than just being in this little like womb that is threads. I can, day two, I can report. That's not true. Yeah. I'm really, I wasn't the person who got particularly roasted on Twitter. I didn't put that many hot takes out. I tried. But that's why I blocked you. But I'm loving it over there. And actually, it turns out I don't need the approval of a bunch of strangers as long as the people that are following my Instagram give me the love. It's causing the same little dopamine drip.

Well, and too, I think once the content on Threads stops being all about Threads, which it currently is, it's going to be really interesting to see how people start to have real conversations again. And Twitter and Threads and whatever else on the internet doesn't need to be a place where we all agree. And I actually think it would be better if it wasn't if we weren't all just in our own echo chambers. I'm fine. I love disagreement. But it's like, can we all grow up a little bit? Maybe this is our moment to transition from like Internet adolescence to Internet young adulthood, where we can have disagreements and discussions that remain at least in good faith and and civil. And we can kind of weed out and reject and collectively say, if you're going to be a troll, if you're going to argue in bad faith, if you're going to argue in racist ways and be just a disgusting animal, we reject you from this community. But we can still have disagreements.

Genevieve, if we're going from childhood to young adolescence in the internet, does that mean it's the internet's bar mitzvah coming up soon?

Yes, and that's why we need you to donate to TBTL right now. Didn't you say there are certain monetary values that are attached to numbers for bar mitzvah gifts?

Yeah. So there is, as the resident Jewish person on the team, there is something called chai. Like when you hear l'chaim, which means like it's a cheers to life. And chai is the letter. I heard the song. Yeah. The number 18 in Hebrew. And that is so people will give gifts that are multiples of 18 as like a way of like saying good luck. So if you get like a check from your grandmother for $36, it's like, good luck to you.

So how would you feel about like a $36 a month level from a donor to TBTL? That'd be pretty good, right?

That'd be pretty sweet, 36 and the math up from there. Great, great, great.

How would Todd Stout feel about that? Andrew, have you put the Todd Stout coin? By the way, I want to mention it that at the $10 level, if you can support us at the Susie Burbank level, which is $10 a month, you will receive a commemorative I saved TBTL coin. It's a real thing. It really says I saved TBTL. If you're in a family with other listeners and you want to really flex this Thanksgiving, that would be a good way to do it. Just throw down that coin. That being said, we have some proof of concept that John got from the people that make the coin. And one of them we've been talking about is Todd Stout, founder and president of something.

called the First Watch Partnership. But Andrew, you've been, as you say- It's a handsome coin. You've been worrying this coin. You've been kind of rubbing all up on this coin over the course of the week, but now you've put it in some kind of protective casing. Is it because you feel like you were- We're starting to wrap up here. Were you rubbing the coin too hard?

Todd Stout said, I love you too, but even love has its limits. No, John, I did not mean this as a selling point, but actually this little plastic envelope- The little vinyl, yeah. it's going to cut a little vinyl envelope the coins do come in this because it is a limited edition uh commemorative coin that says uh i save tbtl or in my case says todd stout founder and president um and uh and so yeah i i just discovered this over by john's desk i just grabbed this little uh plastic thing i put todd stout to sleep for right now but it is worth saying and i'm not trying to do a hard sell here and we can go back to talk if there's a day for hard selling this it's arrived but yeah so i i don't know maybe throughout the weekend we'll leave this coin available but after that like it's literally like that's the whole point Luke you've been saying this this coin was like specific to this moment in TBTL history I saved TBTL that is the whole point of this drive we think that we can keep going forward but we need your help to do it and so you should get a little coin that says I did this I saved this thing that I love yeah absolutely and so this weekend is it huh yeah I think we'll see probably Sunday night maybe it gets turned off maybe maybe Monday maybe maybe Maybe Monday, maybe Monday morning. No, I just want the listeners to know. This could have been an email. We're closing it down pretty soon. Speaking of mornings, really quick question to you guys. A question that I raised with Genevieve as we were driving here today and we were flipping through the radio and I heard, I think, Staying Alive by the Bee Gees, but it's still morning. What station were y'all rocking on the drive over? I was scrolling through, but do you think it's weird to listen to disco in the morning? Has anybody ever done that?

It doesn't seem like a morning sound to me. No, it seems like a late night, early morning.

Maybe early morning. Three in the morning at Studio 54, maybe. But like 9.30 in the morning to hear Stayin' Alive. And again, no judgment if you like that. But as the Simpsons once pointed out, flying a kite at night is weird. I sort of feel like listening to disco in the morning is kind of the same vibe.

But let me say this about Stayin' Alive. Famously, that is the rhythm that you want to use if you're ever doing chest compression on somebody. Okay, good. Did I ever tell you about how I had to use that after y'all left Arizona?

Did I ever tell you this story? After we all left Arizona.

Remember when our van broke down? Yes, I do remember. And by you all, I mean you and Kiki Lolo, I guess.

Okay, yeah. So, wait. No, no. You gave somebody the Stayin' Alive chest pumps?

A dude got hit by a car. What? I happened upon him, and I did CPR on him. Wait, wait. What? Yeah. I don't think we talked about this on the show. Well, I was guarding the Delica. I mean, I wasn't literally guarding the Delica. How did we not talk about this on the show? I don't know. This should have been a week of programming. It was wild. His leg was broken at a crazy angle.

I remember, I knew this story. I knew that this had happened. Yeah.

And then thankfully a nurse showed up and then took over. But for the first leg. Where were you? In a parking lot or side of the road? I might have been near the Talking Stick Casino. I cannot confirm or deny.

Maybe this is why we didn't talk about it on the show.

It's very possible. No, I was walking on a road not far from our hotel. and a guy had been hit by a car and he was lying in the road and he was in a really bad shape and I was like, what do you do? And I did chest compression on him and I thought of the song Staying Alive as I was doing it. And he was not doing great and he, I don't want to say he came back to life but he was, when I left, the nurse was working on me, had a pulse, he was okay, but he was like not okay when I showed up. You saved his life. Listeners. And this is why we donate.

You're not going to donate to this hero sitting at the same time. Lifesaver. I consider myself a lifesaver. You saved a man's life, and you're not donating to this show? The point is-

That was also during a drive. So what have you done during this drive to match that level of heroism?

I hit over three people driving here. You win some, you lose some. Loosen out back triaging the squirrels that his dad is killing.

His dad's hitting the squirrels with a BB gun.

The point being, staying alive does come in handy sometimes as the chest compression thing. Is anybody curious about the meaning of the term Twix? I mean, I didn't wake up this morning wondering about this, but I saw a piece in the New York Post about it. It's funny, too, what gets recommended to you if you click on a story about Twix, you've been eating Toblerone all wrong. Chefs reveal sweet secret. Drink and eat these surprising foods to fend off memory loss.

If we have time, can we get it under the Toblerone? Yeah.

Yes, that's actually probably more interesting.

I love Toblerone, but if I'm eating it wrong, I want to know.

Andrew, might you Google that? Hey, Gorgle, have I been eating Toblerone wrong?

We also have a caller, just so you don't.

Other stories we would accept from this, other stories you might enjoy, include King Charles' life-size bust made of chocolate unveiled ahead of him.

head of tour nation and americans spent more on legal cannabis in 2022 than chocolate comma beer colon report i guess this is just searching for chocolate related are you on delish.com by any chance i'm on whatever the new york post is repurposing with the five people that still work there so uh apparently twix i i just assumed twix was a you know a catchy name for something i guess somebody was on twitter a user by the name of fuji was tweeting at the twix corporation and asking, is it true that Twix is short for Twin Biscuit Sticks? Twin Biscuit Sticks. Twix. Twin Biscuit. You guys know famously that Triscuit, right, is electric biscuit? Oh, I learned that on this show. No, I didn't know that. Yeah, because it was powered. It's actually, I believe, from Niagara Falls. The Triscuit factory was near there, and they were using some kind of hydrological and electric biscuit. Twix said that is not 100% correct. It is not for twin biscuit sticks. Twix stands for twin sticks. Twin sticks.

Twix. Twin sticks.

Alright, anyway, let's get my mom down here. That's a pretty good segment that I did. Also, I'm on a

Toblerone, you're eating Toblerone wrong article. You're eating a Toblerone?

Missed opportunity.

There's a right way to rock in a Toblerone. I do not understand what it's talking about, and I don't think it's worth getting into on the show, frankly. I'll tell you how I eat a Toblerone. Just bite each triangle up, right?

Yeah, obviously, or break it off and then eat it.

While you might think, this is from Insider, while you might think there is no wrong way of eating a Toblerone, whether it's nibbling at it, like Luke, funny that they shouted you out there, biting off a piece or inhaling it whole, there's certainly an easier way to break off those delicious triangles. I'm literally editing this on the fly because I don't like some of their passive voice. Former Kent State writing advisor, Andrew Walsh, checking in. A peer writing assistant, Andrew, here. You've probably been breaking pieces off by pulling them to the outside. This can take some dexterity and muscle power and often results in chocolate-covered digits. Instead, you should be pushing the triangles inwards towards the rest of the bar. A simple tap on the tip should do it. You tap it inwards and it breaks off. They want us to basically push on the top of the triangle

instead of on the bottom.

Yeah, this is worth it.

They just needed to fill space. I somehow made this segment worse. The Twix thing was not interesting. No, you did my bidding. I asked you to look up the Toblerone story. Are you saying I was just following orders? That's a very touchy thing. Oh, okay.

That article did what its PR people intended to do, which was show me a bunch of pictures of Toblerone. Did I move the needle for you? Really? Oh, I love a Toblerone.

But also, presumably that was put out by the Toblerone people, right? They were like, what if we start a whisper campaign about how people have been eating it wrong?

What's a fake controversy about Toblerone?

Well, speaking of, I mean, is Toblerone blue or gold?

I hate the whole Twix campaign, which has been going on for a long time, about people competing over left versus right. That's the stupid, I hate those fake controversies and commercials.

Should we take one final call here of the thought? I've been texting my mom furiously, and apparently she's on the exercise bike. They have a Peloton. How shocked would you be if you found out my parents have a Peloton? Pretty shocked. Yeah, no, they have, I think, some kind of bike my mom found by the side of it. Yeah, I was going to say. No, no, no. I'm brain. I would be, if my mom does, hey, ma? Can you hear it? The meatloaf.

The meatloaf.

We want it. I told her, I was like, hey, mom, I'm going to text you later to come down on the show. She's like, okay, I'll bring my phone. Oh, hey, ma. Okay, come on down.

What do we think?

Do we think my mother has heard of the word Peloton?

I don't know. Yeah, come on down. Come on down, Ma. We're ready. Should we take a phone call in the meantime? Let's do that. Let's buy some time here. Okay, so come on down, but we're going to take a phone call quickly, okay? Okay, hold on. I have a sound effect for that.

Okay. Yeah. I want it to be funny, but I'm just going to have to do this again. The weenie bikini. Sorry, that's our new sounder today. Hi, welcome to TBTL.

Hi, how are you? Hi, who's this? It's Chris O'Leary from Brooklyn. Hey, Chris. how are you nottingham england wait what i'm in nottingham england is there a brewery over there that needed exploring or a sheriff i'm literally outside a brewery right now you've got me the brand is strong yes yes yes um but yeah i actually i'm disappointed i was going to try to call earlier this week from slovakia which is where i was the last few days whoa because the greeting hello translated in Slovak is ahoy. So I would have been able to say ahoy, ahoy.

Ahoy, ahoy?

I don't think that drop is appropriate here, Lee. I apologize. How's it going over there? Are you there for work or pleasure?

This is all pleasure. I took the 4th of July week off, which is what I was concerned about as much as you guys were in terms of getting a donation during a holiday week.

Yeah, it's not going great. I'm going to be honest with you. Yeah, that's why we need everybody to donate. We don't know how we're going to pay Genevieve here on Friday.

So let's see. It's nighttime. It's nighttime.

it's like uh it's like uh eight o'clock there okay the pleasant hour what are you how much longer are you in europe uh i fly back on sunday back to new york so um just here for for 10 days and uh have been tracking this on as much as i can uh despite being overseas and have you met up with listener paul aka saul no that was actually one thing i was like so so i mean i've been all over the place uh but it only came to me today i'm like that's right there's there's at least a few tens within you know 50 miles of me right now wow so um yeah um are you gonna no pressure

but are you gonna be able to make it out for the 4 000th oh absolutely nice there was there was no

question in my mind in fact i already had it i already had a trip booked uh the week after to see the red sox play the mariners um so i'm just extending the trip on the front end excellent

and you're going to be one of those fans who's rooting for the red sox in t-mobile park yeah

uh i really in a nice way we know chris chris is good people yeah you're not going to be like

You're not going to be a mass hole.

No, I'm from Rhode Island, so I also detest mass holes.

Yeah, right, right, right, right.

Yeah. We have a little, you know, competition between us. Actually, I have a dilemma that I need you to help solve that came out this week.

Okay.

On Wednesday, I got an email from my landlord saying that there was music, loud music playing from my apartment late into the night. Apparently, my smart speakers started playing on Monday and was playing at loud volume for like three days. and I didn't know because no one told me as soon as I went on to the A Word app

I'm not saying it

I saw that there was music playing but I have no idea how it started playing

Did you see what song it was on?

Oh it was playing a whole Spotify playlist I guess

What kind of genre are we talking about? Is it disco? Is it hardcore rap or more like Bone Thugs?

what was it it was more like uh emo and pop punk from the 2000s from what i can gather so like amy grant okay sure sure and i and i i i want to know if you have any advice on how to smooth

things over with my neighbors oh man yeah you gotta bring home gifts can you bring home gifts

from europe that's actually not a bad idea are you are you on decent terms like do you are you

friendly with your neighbors as it is uh it's new york city we're like i i know them by name and like acknowledge them in the hallway but that's the extent to which we have a relationship

vives do you have a thought on this as the resident intelligent person i thought of something

you could do because everyone likes to get revenge so maybe you could like empower them to somehow disturb your sleep, you know, like at random hours. You can give them like a three-week window where they can just –

Log them into your app.

Yeah, they can just turn your app on whenever they want, whenever you're asleep.

That's interesting.

So that's interesting because one of them has on several occasions woken me up from sleep with his loud party. So that's one of them. Oh, so this was already – This was actually payback.

This is just payback. Yeah, you're good. Yeah.

You know, this actually makes me feel better now. Yeah, no, actually, honestly. The one on the other side, though, I feel really bad about that.

I'd turn it back on if I were you, if you can do that remotely. I have a version of this, which is I didn't realize how loud Bubbles' meowing is. Oh, really? Like that you can hear it through various walls. Like I have this apartment in Portland, and Becca is often watching Bubbles, and she told me that her across the hall neighbor told her that when she's not there they can hear and they i don't think they were saying it in like a upset way but they were like we can hear the cat yeah and i just thought like my apartment on the corner like of the building and i assumed that when i was gone like no one was the wiser and then i went to take the garbage out one time and i was like to take the garbage out of my building i go all the way down to the far end of the hall take a left and go down another hall and then we have one of those trash chutes i had just put the trash in the trash chute and i closed the door of that room and i hear bubbles is meowing echoing down the hallway to me And I have left her there alone easily 1,000 times. Yeah. And she has been apparently annoying everybody on my floor of my building.

So that answers the question, though, because, Genevieve, didn't you tell me there used to be an urban legend that cats only meow around humans?

I don't know if this is an urban legend. I had heard or read somewhere that they only purr around humans.

Oh, I had that wrong.

I don't know if that's true or not.

Oh, okay. Well, never mind.

I know they don't just meow around humans. I mean, when we had Theo, towards the end, Theo could be heard for miles.

Yeah, that's definitely true.

Definitely for Bubbles, it's her missing me, her being like, where'd you go? Now, what I don't know is, how long does she do that? Is it just the time it took me to take the garbage out? Or is she doing that for like hours and hours? Yeah, I don't know. Who knows?

Yeah, Chris, I would strongly suggest, I mean, I don't know. Obviously, I do not know your neighbors. But have you considered giving them I Saved TBTL coinage?

or a lunch box how about 1 to 400 lunch boxes I'll collect as many as I can at the 4,000 you're not leaving with fewer than 10 O'Leary you're going to need to check your bags thanks for calling in and travel safe we'll see you in Seattle

thanks so much and congratulations on going independent

thank you we'll tell you how it goes by the end of today we may or may not be here on Monday safe travels All right. Hey, Mom.

Do you want me to swap out with Susie?

Well, maybe we can share the Mom mic. It's called the Mom mic, Genevieve. Mom, can you come on over here real quick? People, there are basically two breakout stars of TBTL this week. Well, three. John. By the way, John, people were really loving you on the comments.

They haven't gotten to know me yet.

Other than the anti-Yankee contingent. Right. Just come around here, Mom. Back through. Okay. Just don't knock the lunchboxes over again if that's possible. Or do. It's fun. John, Genevieve, and my mom are all the breakout stars of this week. Hi, Mama.

Hi, hon.

Are you and Dad getting divorced? What's going on? Like, when you guys were arguing outside, it really reminded me of being like 12 years old. I felt a real anxiety around that. And it's my fault because I told you you could go to the Airbnb where we're all vacating, although we technically have it rented for one more day. And you wanted to go, and Dad did not. Are you guys okay? Am I going to have to, like, am I going to get two Christmas presents, one from you, one from Dad?

you're so funny what's going on um well i think it's uh it's just the same old same old

oh wait this is actually getting this was meant as a joke but you're getting real

yeah yeah like what i get jazzed about my hubby does not get jazzed about that's the way it is

and um now donate now to get my mom a studio apartment where she can live her truth yeah um you know we'll get over it okay good no you guys i i feel though mom that you you and dad at this point you've been married 45 years yeah i feel and maybe this is not your experience i think you guys have hit a real kind of understanding and sweet spot i feel i feel that you two are happier together than i've ever seen you would that be a an accurate assessment i think

so although it's a it's a daily thing yeah it's a daily like why are you so different than me yeah and you would think after 45 years it'd be like hello this is the way it is but and i see some progress in that yeah but it's still hard when it comes to certain things oh yeah okay i

mean who wants me at this age i'll tell you what people literally everybody people are lining up in the comments section. Mom, I want you and dad to stay together, but I'm telling you you have options. I mean, just from the tens. Very popular.

Now, if your dad died tomorrow, I would not, I'm not going to say I would not be unhappy, but I would not look for another guy to marry. Partner, yeah. Not at all. Not even Kurt Vassallo?

You want to try to track him down?

I can imagine. He must look really old now.

Mom, can you tell the story really quickly as we're wrapping things up this week? Mom, we have one minute. Can you tell the story of Nervous Nelly when you were a server at Curvis Allo's dad's mafia restaurant?

Yeah, I have something to show everybody, but I'll wait on that.

Wait, what? You brought notes?

No, they're not notes, okay? Wait, what do you have? You know when you were talking about like, you know, you can.

even stay the night there at the b&b which is right on the uh right before the bridge to bainbridge island yeah so i go on craigslist as i do every weekend looking for rummage sales garage sales and they are having the biggest rotary rummage sale in bainbridge island tomorrow well it's perfect hello yeah crime yeah you should go um your dad won't care about that okay but i this is the reason i really have to go i said so i printed the address and i forgot to hit one copy

so i got like 14 colored copies i would i need like 13 of those so that's actually perfect that works out what you staple them together so let's see 63rd annual bainbridge island rotary auction and rummage sale let's see we've got uh looks like they've got coffee makers they've got furs yeah i know which is really funny um mom can you can you tell the story of when you were a waitress at a restaurant in Philadelphia that you are pretty sure was a bunch of mafiosos that you had to bring them their drinks? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, I was dating this guy,

Kurt Vesallo, you know, this Italian guy. I was in with the whole family. So I was working for their, they had a deli, Vesallo's deli, and then they opened a little like luncheonette for pizza steaks pizza things like that so i got the job of being one of the waitresses that's what we called them back then waitresses they still do that yeah i think so so uh yeah but i was full into this relationship with kurt like we were like looking toward marriage the nine yards but i was only 16 17 something like that and uh his but his that's not my biological

father is it uh no there was a period of time in there there was a period of time where i thought Curvis Allo was my biological father. I'm not kidding. Like probably between age like five and eight. I was like, I think it's that guy, Curvis Allo. No, definitely not. But, you know, I love

the guy. But to tell you the truth, I loved his Irish mother even more. But she married this Italian. He would have gone to the Airbnb with you, 100%. Maybe. But anyway, so I was working as a uh waitress in their little deli no their extension luncheonette place and uh but kurt's father and his uncles were so scary they were really handsome guys italian really handsome they had really nice stuff you know great cars but they were they had this like sort of like silence about them so when i was working there i would like you know bring them more coffee or whatever and they would be talking like hush hush talk and then when i would get there they would all like completely stop talking and i'd like give them their drinks you know there was no alcohol so i would just give them their coffee or their soda or something and then um then i'd leave and then i'd come back because it would always be like it was their restaurant so they could sit there as long as they want right it would be kurt's father and three of his uncles mario or mario

Luigi.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's kind of names.

Sure.

So I was starting to get nervous because I knew something was going on. And so I would like, you know, every Friday and Saturday night, I think I worked, or Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I don't know. And it was getting more and more tense. So I would like bring him their drinks. And then Kurt's dad, he was just mean sometimes. And he would, hopefully he is long gone. He won't ever listen to this.

He's actually a donor.

alfonso was his name anyway like thank alfonso we'd like to thank dazzling donor alfonso vasallo but anyway he would like say thanks nelly and that was like a nickname for me because he would call me nervous nelly and i hated that because he was the one making me nervous sorry

i didn't mean to bring up a painful memory mom but i wanted to drive home to the listeners we need the donations so my mom can go into the witness protection program and also go to this Rotary Club rummage sale. That rummage sale sounds amazing, by the way. This actually does look really fun, Ma.

Yeah, but I didn't want like 14 pages, especially colored copies.

Well, but you know, the good news, Mom, is that they're not, it's not like you- I forgot to hit one. It's not that you printed the same page over and over again. What you really have is a cool, like-

Combination of what they got.

You have every, I mean, I want to go to this. I need a door for the house that I'm working on. Like, at least you didn't print the same page 20 times.

but it was just a joke like yeah i really got to go to this sale to save something some money because i got all these colored copies that i didn't need well mama i just want to say i want

to say i love you so much and i really appreciate you and dad letting us um hang out down here in the basement like i i said to john and andrew like uh maybe we can do the show from my parents basement and then they were like well do you need to ask them and i was like i know they're just going to be like fine with it and sure enough i asked you and you guys were both just like so

gracious and sweet and your dad said

He loves seeing you so much. He really felt that way at the house.

Did Kurt say that? Oh, Walt? Oh, yeah. He's cool, too. And, of course, thank you for letting us have a truck drop off three pallets full of TBTL lunchboxes.

We'll get that out before the 4,000th episode. But, Mom, I love you so much. And, again, you're the breakout star of TBTL. Get Dad upstairs while the comments are still cycling on YouTube. and you can show him how much people love you. Maybe then he'll go to the Airbnb.

Well, he's doing his handyman job, so he's gone.

At the Annonsons.

So hopefully things will get patched up, but you better believe I am going to not only go to that rummage sale, it starts at 8 a.m., I'm going to hang my hat at that place. Okay, good.

You do it, Mama. Have some fun. Okay, we love you. Bye, guys. Thanks so much. There she goes, Susie Burbank, for now. Maybe going back to Susie Kelly. You just don't know. we have more questions than answers anything else we need to say as we bring this TBTL-a-thon to a close my good friends thank you to everybody

who's taken this journey with us thank you to everybody who has donated so far if you haven't it's not too late yet please show your support during this very critical time for the show but we love you all and thank you for being here with us watching the live stream a lot of the same folks I see that we have Snacks the bunny in the chat now. What up, Snacks? Yeah, it's not even a human affair anymore. It's all creatures, great, and small.

Exactly. And I do believe we are going to leave the button up. So if you're hearing this and it's like Sunday and you're just getting around to it, you still can donate. We're going to... Next week, hopefully, ideally, if we hit our goals, we will just be in gratitude mode. We'll stop with the sales pitch. But if you hear this, there's a decent chance you can go to tbtl.net and still throw a little money in the kitty. So thank you for that. Veeves, thanks for being here. Yeah, absolutely. It's so fun to- I cut her mic already. Yeah, my mom was going a little long, I know.

Can I just say one thing really quick to the listeners, which is that I'm so grateful for everybody who's donated. And I don't know, I'm sure the listeners know this about Andrew, but may not realize this about me, is that I'm not a huge risk taker. And Andrew and I together are not generally like huge risk takers. We've always been like sort of take them the safe road. And so it's been a really challenging, you know, it's been a scary, exciting, but scary thing to do to sign on to this new endeavor and to kind of let go of the, to do it without a safety net. So it really means everything, really means everything to us, you know, as a family to, for the tenants to support this show and for it to be meaningful enough for people to support it. And I'm grateful to everybody who's donated. And if you haven't and you have the means, I just personally want to say I hope you I hope you'll consider giving because it really does mean a lot to all of our families.

Yeah. Thanks. And also, I mean, as always, well said, Genevieve.

I mean, really, I'm going to donate. And I think that a lot of people do know, of course, not to get into our family finances too much. But Genevieve, of course, does have a job, but she is terrible at it. And we never know how long she will have that. So it's always day-to-day with her. So it's really important that I remain the breadwinner. For example, I should really be doing my job right now.

You're making probably the most compelling argument for Jonah. I mean, for real. Thank you, Genevieve. That was eloquent for always. So, all right. Hey, John, thank you. Welcome to the team. We love you. Thank you. Oh, wait. Hold on. We have some important breaking news. Stop the music. Stop the music.

Before you get off, your dad gave me a call. I didn't know it. Hold on. Breaking news.

Okay, hold on.

And then he says, I'll go with you tonight out to Paul's Bow. It's a Christmas miracle. He doesn't know about the rubbish sand.

Dad is going. They are going to Paul's Bow. Ladies and gentlemen.

Harmony is restored. Wow.

You know, the best way to celebrate is by donating to TVTL to celebrate my parents not being divorced. Your donations made that happen. Okay. Back to the music. Thank you again, everyone. We appreciate you. We love you. And we are just so absolutely grateful and humbled by the support. Again, we'll leave the button going through the weekend. So if you get a chance, please help us out. In the meantime, have a great rest of your Friday. Have a great weekend. Go Mariners. We'll see you on Monday. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. My parents aren't getting divorced.

I love candy for dinner. What about you? Power out.