Muse

Hey, uh, I think we can all agree this concert blows, right? You guys really want to see a crowd. You might want to stop by my secession rally later tonight. That is going to be off the hook. You ever heard of Warrant?

Yeah.

There's a cover band around here that call themselves Cherry Pie. Pretty sure we got their bass player. Oh, wow. It's going to be pretty good. Da-na-na, rock and roll, yeah, poison. What is that? Just general rock, man. It's going to be fun. TBTL.

Guess what day it is? Guess what day it is?

It's Friday. Friday. Gotta get down on Friday. Everybody's looking forward to the weekend.

Slow down when you're talking. Talk to me like you're personal. I think the only promotion I'm interested in is promoting you guys to generals in my friendship army. Yes, sir. And what's the deal with popcorn? It doesn't taste like pop, and it sure doesn't look like corn.

Shh. I get it. I know. I know who you are. It's been explained to me. I've been following your career forever. Be quiet. I'm into it. Let's talk.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Friday edition of TBTL, a show that just might be too beautiful to live. Back away, banana breath. What the hell did you just eat, a banana? My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host, coming to you from the Riverhouse Studios perched high above the mighty Columbia River, where it is just absolutely spectacular here, looking across the river over at the state of Oregon on what is going to be a very, very warm day up on this hill.

Never kick a cow turd on a hot day.

I have a lot of outdoor work that I'm not going to be able to get to until my indoor work is done today. This being some of my indoor work, my other various jobs and duties, also Zoom meetings and the like. So at about, I don't know, 2 p.m. today, right when it's starting to get brutally hot, is when I'm going to go outside and weed whack and mow the lawn and pull out a bunch of tansy, a bunch of invasive ragwort and other such things and it's going to be sweaty hot work and I'm not looking forward to it but I'm also going to be filling up an inflatable kiddie pool that I purchased on Instagram and when it's all said and done at about seven o'clock tonight I'm going to put the Mariners game on the radio I'm going to sit in the kiddie pool and I'm going to drink a Corona. And that is the that's the pot of gold at the end of my rainbow here today on this Friday. Oh, but first we've got to do this little bit of business. Episode three thousand nine hundred and eighty eight in a collector series. Let the fun begin. The Screen Actors Guild has now joined the Writers Guild of America in striking.

There are dozens of us. Dozens!

Meaning the film industry, and TV for that matter, are... They were effectively shut down and now they are freely shut down. So who needs a movie? What will we look at with our eyes? Well, if we're in Vietnam, not the new Barbie movie. How dare you? Because it has been banned due to something called the Nine Dash Line. which there is a very interesting story behind involving a map in the Barbie movie and what the producers of the film are likely trying to accomplish with that. So we'll talk about all that plus some music-free weekend on this Fri-yay and we'll talk to this guy the longest-running Cobra of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships their grace, their splendor and all that intricate rigging. He, of course, always has big plans

rolling into a summer weekend what's courageous about eating a hot dog he's Andrew Walsh and he's

joining me right now good morning my friend good morning Luke I'm sorry I'm gonna put you on the spot here I apologize for not asking you about this before the show but I have an important programming note can you set me up I know you're not in your usual studio today do you have the Ringo peace and love or attention Andy Dyer saying attention everyone attention everyone

Buddy, I travel with this audio.

Peace and love. Peace and love.

Oh, wait, but it's just saying peace and love. Yeah, that doesn't really set me up for an announcement.

Hold on, wait a second. Well, hold on. We got this.

Madams and... Ready?

This is a serious message to everybody watching my update right now. Did I say Andy Dyer? Is it Andy Dwyer? What is the name of the character? I'm really bad.

with Parks and Rec. Yeah. I enjoyed it when I watched it, but I wasn't like one of those completists. I couldn't tell you.

Looking it up here. That's what the announcement is that we now figured out. Yeah, it's Dwyer. I don't know if I said that right the first time. I think not.

Attention, everybody. Yeah, we're good. Dams and Miss Waz.

Okay, now I'm set up. This is a legitimate announcement that I have to make, a programming note, and it's very important for the people that it will affect. And this is going to sound familiar to you, Luke Because I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago When it was top of mind for me But then it fell by the wayside During the TV telethon But now we're back at it again Ladies and gentlemen One week from today Next Friday Whatever that date is I'm going to say, I don't know 21st probably if today's the 14th It is Wow Well, it's easy

Right off the top of your dome

Well, when Fridays end in sevens It's easy, right? Last Friday was the seven Well, triples are best But 7 is fine Triples are best I was going to say We now currently in our TBTL archives As you see them on your app On your phone or what have you We have about 350 Actually to be very specific About 365 old episodes Available to you You can scroll back 365 episodes Next Friday I am going to make that number 4,500 and something As we open up the entire back catalog, remember there are more actual files than episode numbers because the show used to be divided up into three separate podcasts.

Okay, because I was going to say, if we've already done the 4,000th episode, that takes a lot of pressure off.

I know.

We can go ahead and I can stop freaking out about what we're going to actually do content-wise for that program.

I was going to say, well, maybe we can talk more about that later. I just really appreciate that you are doing all the heavy lifting on producing and planning the life. You're like, anything you want to do, I will be here to support. But I know you're taking the reins on that. And my God, I have really been appreciating that. No joke. So I was going to say, though, if you are somebody who has a pod, you know, podcast app, I almost said pod catcher. I don't think we say that anymore. It's problematic. If you have a podcast app that automatically downloads episodes, especially downloads episodes, you're going to want to turn off that functionality for TBTL. If you use Apple Podcasts, you can go into TBTL settings and just tell it, like, I only want to download the latest one episode or the latest two episodes. Don't have it be all episodes because a week from today, I believe when I open up the entire archives, your phone will try to download thousands upon thousands of MP3s and potentially take up all of your storage. That is not something that we want. I don't think that is the default setting for most people. I could be wrong about that. I didn't get any extra podcasts in my app when we made the change a while back, but I know some people did. I also did a little test yesterday I opened up 15 more So if you're somebody who today Look down at your phone You're like, huh, I got 15 new podcasts from TBTL They're actually old podcasts But that means I'm specifically talking to you You're going to want to kind of nail that stuff Once we get through this It's not leaking, it's overflowing Once we get through it I think it's going to be amazing You're going to have every episode ever at your fingertips With a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of scrolling back But I don't want to brick your phone

okay thank you for that update and i'm and also thank you for not doing whatever that technical side of it is last week yeah and somehow endangering you know what was the most critical week possibly in the history of the program so i'm glad if if all hell breaks loose and we get into an overlapsation situation i'm glad it's happening uh once we've been able to successfully have the thon and and get everything you know kind of more or less on

the right track yeah exactly so i don't want i don't want to lose anybody who's like why is this podcast blowing up my phone i'm going to stop i'm going to i'm going to take it off my phone that would be the worst case scenario but it is one of the reasons why i didn't want to do it before

the thon in case we do lose the casual listener here or there um boy uh speaking of things being on the right track um or maybe speaking of things not being on the right track a couple of things going on here where i am at the house that i'm working on and having worked on first of all i spent like two hours this morning andrew just sweeping up dust which is the great way to get ready for a podcast especially if you're somebody like me who's highly sensitive to dust like i had two or three exceptional sneezing fits before you and i dialed up and uh i think it's probably going to happen a bunch more times throughout the broadcast, so please bear with me. of note that i'm muting the mic or even if i can't mute it in time i don't think frankly i

don't think you're muting it enough what a rude thing to say after i just blathered forever i couldn't i couldn't sit on that hilarious joke though i don't know why this is how i decided to

start the morning here but like the basement of this house is just an absolute disaster area like first of all it's one of those basements that just got like it just poured cement and it gets a kind of a little damp in the winter time it's not like a finished basement it's not like a nice place to hang out it's the basement of a house that was built it's a the story of a man with a brothel of a home and a pool filled with human excrement no i mean this house was built in like 1930 or something so it's like whatever they were doing in 1930 and it has been untouched since then except for they had to like cut a bunch of holes in the floor and pour new concrete footings to support some stuff that was happening upstairs of the house but in the process of all that it's just it's just construction debris and dust and dampness and it's just it's so unpleasant to go down there so for some reason i wake up this morning i think of all the things at this house that need my attention how about i go down to the basement and start cleaning it up i swear it was some kind of transference some sort of emotional like like again it made almost no sense other than i needed to do laundry and i just had this feeling i was like because i was like i can't like i can't just be walking through like ankle deep torn up drywall literally like just walking through massive amounts of debris to get to the washing machine every single time i have to do that like that's just not that's just no way to live and so and also there's something about

combining the act of doing something that is clean in such a literally dirty environment and like exactly the idea of even if you only have to transfer the wet clothes like literally two feet from the washer after the cycle to the dryer the idea of exposing those wet clean clothes to the atmosphere of dust being everywhere and like ankle deep drywall that makes me itch

not to mention that the actual like surface of the dryer and the washing machine were just covered also in like bits of insulation some tar like little pieces of like tar paper that had somehow come down like basically these guys just came in and they just went ham on the situation but let's just say the clean up is not really where they excel it's just kind of a disaster down there and so I just was like so I was just sweeping but it's so I mean I have piles of dust that I still haven't actually dealt with because I was like uh i was dealing with some other things including trying to coordinate with my guy jerry the whole reason i'm here today so i was last night i was up in port townsend helping out with the port uh with the jefferson county land trust event land fest which was a blast um and fun to see some old friends up there um but then i zoomed down here last night because i needed to be here in the morning for when my guy jerry who's supposed to be doing this brush hogging was going to show up I wanted to make sure to kind of like go over it with him, explain exactly what all I wanted to have him kind of mow down. Now, I talked about this before on the show, but like brush hogging is the term. And I might use some a different term in other parts of the country. But out here, it just means you've got big, tall, like grass and other things, blackberry bushes, stuff that is not something you can take down with a weed whacker or with even like kind of regular lawnmower. Like you need a piece of farm equipment to do it. and last year I was desperately trying to find somebody to do this and I kept calling all these legitimate like landscaping companies and they were all saying it's you know going to be two months before we can get out there and it's going to be thousands of dollars and so I called just a random number that I saw on a poorly made sign that was tacked to a telephone pole and the guy showed up that day and he did the whole thing he did a great job and I was like this is a miracle well today Andrew I'm realizing that maybe sometimes you do get what you pay for Or when you call someone who put up a random sign on a telephone pole, the process may not go always as smoothly as you hope. So I told you that I called him the other day. And clearly, this is not a guy who is totally up to speed on cell phone technology. Like, I'm not saved as a contact in this guy's phone. Let me put it that way. Because I had to re-explain who I was. And I used the locator of, it's the place you got stung by the bees. And he said, oh, yeah, okay, I know exactly where that is. and then I called him earlier this week to reconfirm, and he said, who is this? I said, Luke Burbank, and I gave him the address, and I said, Sporey got stung by the bees. He said, okay, I'll be there Friday. And so this morning, right as you and I were getting close to dialing up, I called him just to figure out his timing. I didn't know if he was going to show up. up during the show and i said uh hey it's uh luke burbank first he answers the phone who is this

and i go it's luke burbank we're getting no closer to becoming a contact in jerry's phone

and is he does he answer the phone who is this or does he say hello who is this he answers the

phone like this he answers the phone like our friend camaro kev doing an impression of every adult that he grew up with hello you call him and it's just hello and they're like hey jerry it's Luke Burbank who it's Luke Burbank the bee stings and the brush hogging and he goes yeah he goes I'm here I go oh great okay I'll come find you because there's a couple of other trucks here of other stuff that's going on so I go outside and I'm walking the perimeter of my yard and driveway and I don't see him and I call him he goes hello I go hey Jerry it's Luke I don't see you he goes which house are you and I give him the address he goes uh I'm in a different job is that not he's not even here he's at a totally different project he goes yeah i've been working working seven days a week got a lot of business what's your address and i'm like okay i give him the address again this is now this week easily the third time i've given him this address i've texted it to him i've spoken to him over the phone i again i was very proud of the beasting reference point i thought that was really gonna lock him in i even went so far this morning as to go i'm the tv guy because last time when he was out here uh we had been chatting and i had mentioned the cbs stuff and then he was telling me all about his wildlife photography that he does which actually looks really legit honestly and he was he kind of dropped one of those like hey you

should do a story on me and you're like that is exactly what the editors in new york are looking

for you know uh we've put up worse stories andrew i'm gonna say that by the way i'd like to thank cbs for renewing my contract this week for another year so let me just let me snark the hand that feeds me no but like this is this tells you how desperate i'm getting to make sure this thing goes down i i would be surprised if we did a story about jerry's wildlife photography even though it is quite spectacular but i was willing to dangle that as an as a way of getting him back like i did not this was the first time this morning as i was standing in my gene over here she's really waiting to do the intro this morning when i was standing in my yard realizing he's not even at the right house and when he was like all right we're gonna be here for about three four hours and i think it's just him by the way but he's also one of those guys that's i was speaking the royal week so i'm gonna be here about three or four hours and then i will try to come by and take a look and i was like we're going from like i'll be there today to do it to i'm gonna try to come by to take a look take a look take a look at me now jerry um so that was when again it's just weird how you know when i'm just like a i'm like a cornered animal with some of these projects like i need to get this done so my other neighbor isn't annoyed at me about this tansy and about the fire hazard of this hill that's just full of tall grass and uh so i'm like just in my like survival instinct kicks in as he's saying we'll try to get out there to look at it and i'm like maybe if i throw the tv thing down that'll up the ante like i'm not even conscious i'm doing it but i'm totally doing it for a specific reason i'm like i'm the guy from cbs television hoping that he'll be like oh oh yeah that guy and uh and maybe uh maybe if i go out there and do a good job uh he will be more inclined to do a tv story about my photography like i was i was that's how desperate i'm getting to make sure that this thing gets brush hogged so where are we now he is coming out to take a look or what i until i see the whites of his eyes andrew i will i mean so the the plan and this is by the way this is not the only person that i have worked with on this house and this project where this is exactly how it unfolds like and all of these folks that i've dealt with well with the exception of one guy that i hired early on in the process who

was a snake oh oh the guy who would say like i don't even come out for less than a hundred bucks

or something like that no no that was that guy luckily i did not retain that guy's service that was an electrician there was another dude i had that i had hired to do some contracting and he got real busy and so uh instead of just coming out and doing the work that i had paid him for he just threw up a whole bunch of other roadblocks and eventually uh just proved to be kind of a shady character but other than that i haven't dealt with any actually shady characters everyone has been good folks hard working but the way that they operate is so different than the way that we operate in corporate america or um the way you and i operate even doing this podcast or running this business nothing is ever a certainty and maybe it's because i'm Thank you. of general contracting this meaning i'm hiring out all the different subcontractors um or just maybe it's the part of the world that i'm in here you know like certainly when they build like in portland when a school is getting built it's not one of those things where like the dudes show up when they show up i mean that's like a big giant multi-million dollar thing and i mean it's you know it's a nine-to-five job essentially this is not that this is all kinds of plans and text messages and hey we'll be out there on this day and we'll go take a look at it and i would say 60 of the time it falls apart or something happens or oh the concrete truck got a flat or whatever just always something so it's like the airline industry exactly like a notoriously casual low stakes industry like airplane well i paid my money yeah but we don't

have room for you yeah but i paid my money yeah but we don't have room for you it's exactly like

that but with more sheetrock debris in the basement hopefully and but i mean serious like the joke that i've used and i don't know if this is this is really the the best joke anymore if it keeps up with our mores of the time but like trying to get somebody to come out and do any project on this house for me has become like trying to get a hot chick to go on a date with you like i'm like practicing how i'm gonna sound on the phone i'm like how was your weekend oh how we're the grandkids like i'm uh which is also how i talk to hot chicks how are the grandkids

where's this hot chick coming from like wouldn't it be anybody you want to go on a date i just love this we're we're we're just throwing around a hot chick now it's because here's the thing you can

listen to a lot of stern no but listen here's the point if there is somebody that is considered right or wrong to be higher on the social order than me then trying to sort of like woo them court them put it get i don't try trick them whatever that's all i'm trying to say i i preface that by saying i don't know if that's how we talk anymore i mean how about this andrew let me neutralize it for you it's like me trying to it's like me trying to get a date with a person

who i'm interested in going on a date with yeah no that's no that okay okay but but but like it's

here's my point it's just like so considering that it's a service that i am paying money for It's shocking to me how much I have to try to stay on the good side of people that I am, um, uh, paying money, like as the customer, it's just, the dynamic is really strange. And it's kind of like, it's something that has really driven me, like slowly driven me insane over the last two years because of exactly like this morning where I'm like, Hey, Hey Jerry, uh, you know, um, oh, you're here. No, you're at a different job. no you're not doing the job today no you're maybe coming over no um i have jane paulie right here um and she says we're definitely doing the story on you if you come over and do this brush hogging today today this man makes art out of nature oh my god dude you could work for the show no that's my pitch that's that's like that's exactly the kind now if only jerry had been someone who was on broadway 20 to 40 years ago then we'd really have really have a

Do you know that he hasn't been

I actually I'll tell you this This is called a pre-interview process Luke He is ruggedly handsome too Like he looks like he might Could have been in westerns Back in the day or something

Oh what age

I have him as younger than us No no old This is I think I think this adds to the kind of Sort of lack of facility With the cell phone And the like adding a contact No he's like Pushing 80

Oh my god No okay yeah yeah No, I just thought it was like just some rough and tumble guy in his like 20s or whatever. And this is just his life. And he doesn't have time for a lot of niceties or inputting names. And I didn't realize there was also an age thing. Wow. OK, wow.

Yeah. Yeah. And again, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to belabor this. This is I'm taking this the least interesting place. But the other thing that one has to put aside if one is trying to get stuff done out in this part of the world is personal politics. like he was saying i was on the phone with him a couple weeks ago and he was like yeah i'll be in wyoming because i gotta get out of this state and i was just like it's because you love jay insley too much you have to are you thinking you have to leave the state because you have so much love for the for the government uh in olympia that you just can't handle it and you need to go somewhere just to just to calm down but uh trust yourself you don't trust yourself with how would you love jay insley's attempts at trying to slow the the warming of the planet and you just have to be like like now i don't know i wouldn't say you'd be proud of me andrew but i you i i'm happy to say i stopped short of being like yeah that's some bitch you know what i mean like i'm not gonna jump in on like trashing I don't know.

jay insley or pelosi or whatever even if it means i'm gonna have to hog this brush myself like i'll stop short of like ever overtly agreeing with a political standpoint i don't agree with but i also am definitely not taking the opportunity to call the person out or call them in on why i think what jay insley is trying to do up here is is reasonable you know what i mean i i have i i have yeah i mean

i haven't been in that position i think with somebody who's i mean i don't know if holding you over a barrel is the right way of putting it i don't think that jerry dude my barrel holder only shows up like 20 of the time yeah but like i i don't know i have a little bit of a um whatever i don't even know why i'm bringing this up i i have a we i was getting my i was getting my oversized sausage outside the ballpark the other day right i told you about it what was the quote i didn't even realize i had said it but chris hayes texted us last night said this is a classic Andrew Walsh quote. It was something like, I was overwhelmed by the preposterousness of the size of this hot dog and its affordability. I think I have it right here. Yeah, what is it? May I read it? Yeah, it's not as fancy as I just tried to make it.

I ended up being astounded at the affordability of the sausage that I just bought.

That's kind of close. Yeah, that sounds like me. No, that's poetry. I actually do. I said this. It's not the most interesting answer in a text chain, but I do think that that would be a good TBTL quiz for people to find things like actual quotes from tbtl and then you and i have to guess which one of us said it especially if you pick quotes that might go against character a little bit also that's a good reminder you and i will be doing some tbtl summer games later this summer and some people have already been sending in uh games for us to play so if you have a game or a quiz you'd like to make based on the show or based on anything in your life or just a quiz you see in a magazine send it to me andrew at tbtl.net and put summer games in the thing um in the subject line i should say anyway i don't want to finish my thought don't worry about what i said to the hot dog vendor it got a little bit close to uh well you know kind of like well at least they cleaned up these streets for the for the uh you know capitalistic like uh onslaught of this mlb game and i just said you know she didn't put it that way she's like well at least they cleaned this place up finally i'm like yeah i'm sure they found everybody homes as i took the hot dog from her but like i i have trouble sort of um sitting on my uh sitting on my tongue which is probably a good thing but see you had the hot dog in your hand if this actually you know what that is that true no that's not okay i don't think that is true i think well then i paid my money but i was still waiting for the dog tip of the cap tip of the cap because

let me tell you if this brush was hogged i might have words with jerry no you need jerry next year Jerry's going to be in Wyoming I mean believe me this is the last year Oh that's right you said he's got to get out of there Yeah he was looking for property over there Because he just can't He's got to get out of this state And it's funny because Jerry I know where Jerry lives like roughly And let me just tell you It's not over regulated It's not like Jerry is coming Jerry's commuting down from Belltown To do this brush hogging He lives in an extremely Rural part of southwest Washington Where I am sure that it is like Almost as close to like Rousseau's noble savage as you can get Like and that's And he's got to get to Wyoming He's got to get out from under the thumb That was one of the other things he said to me was like

It was definitely political right Like there's no chance that he just means like He just doesn't like this area anymore

He was telling me about the cost For doing the job and he goes I gotta charge more now because they got a gas tax on me And he's telling me about this Some gas tax which i believe is uh for a moment i thought like oh maybe there's some special like for per like for your license to do a business there's a and then i was like oh no he just means how much gas costs oh yeah yeah there's no way he's registering this is like there's no way that there's like jerry's brush hogging incorporated llc that's an s corp and he's like you know i've got to pay a i got to pay a tax on fuel because of like you know environmental it's like no i think he just means get a gasoline or diesel or whatever uses just more yeah we have like a global

monopolistic industry that is like based on so much shady practice that gouges that literally gouges its customers but if you're of a certain like political mindset you're like well i can't afford gas because the liberals have taxed it like that's that's your takeaway i can't afford gas because the liberals have taxed it not because of the geopolitics of people of princes who sit on Fossils Tell that to your hot dog I know what is with me today

No no no Again I mean I feel like I have I have admiration for your The fact that you stick to your morals On things I have what I think of as my morals Or my ethics but they're so situational In that They go They can go out the window very quickly, not in practice, but in the way that I talk about them. If there seems to be a, um, you know, to use Maslow's hierarchy of need, if something seems to be higher on the, the hierarchy of need for me, i.e. getting my brush hogged, like, I'm not going to say like, I'm not, I'm just not going to say anything about the Inslee comments because I want to get this other thing done. And I, I do feel like that makes me sort of a bad person. I think it's good that you are not able to bite your tongue or as you said sit on your tongue stop bragging you also

you also know me well enough to know that it was probably more of a I make it sound like I took this hot dog from this woman I looked her cold dead in the eyes and made a great political retort no I think I probably said it loudly to my friend Paul who she was talking to as I like probably said it out of the corner of my mouth and stamped away and in classic cool guy fashion by the way

speaking of your friend, Pauly, I think that picture of him and Jay Buhner is actually really cool. And yesterday while we were talking, because again, when the show was done, I had to hustle off to Port Townsend. I was trying to find a picture of you and Photoshop you in with Jay Buhner and send it to you, but I don't really know how to use Photoshop. So if I sounded distracted for the last like 30 minutes of yesterday's show, it's because I was trying to figure out how to paste you in over Pauly so it was like a janky picture of you and Jay Buhner to just send it to

you to make you laugh. What if you had posted me in instead of Jay Buhner so I end up with a photo of me and Pauly? A very achievable photo? Is that a show title? Very achievable photo? I thought I

wrote something else down before and it wasn't. I'm getting my brush hogged. I said don't snark the hand don't stark the hand oh that's a good one you believe I believe you said that yeah actually you know I'm not somebody who's super into um uh selfie situations like I'm just I'm never um well I my whole life even before selfies was a were a thing I just like I never liked having my photo taken even as a kid very self-conscious don't like the moment I don't like the moment of waiting for somebody to take a photo of me and I don't like the feeling of of um I don't know I I don't like the feeling of being in a selfie. I don't like the idea of somebody seeing me taking a selfie, even if it's with a group of people or whatever. Just not into it doesn't make sense. Probably has to do with, like, my deep-seated weirdness that was established early on in my life. But I got to say, because this weekend was a very special weekend, talking about the all-star events that me and my, you know, my friend Pauly went to, I think I took two selfies, maybe, like, you know, one maybe during each event, just because, like, people were texting, like, hey, you having a good time? Like, here's proof of here.

i was looking for you in the audience by the way oh yeah yeah like i was i watched the home run derby and the all-star game and every time they cut to a crowd shot i had the remote control poised i was gonna pause it if i saw you i thought wouldn't that be the coolest thing ever if

they caught you on camera we were just too far along the first baseline i was because i had a friend who was watching in cleveland too and she's like i'm looking for you i'm like you you this is the home run derby you're gonna want to wait for a lefty who really shanks it because like i just I don't think that we're going to end up anywhere near anything like that. But but now I do have so like they were just these couple of quick selfies I took in our seats, I think, on two different days just to send to somebody who was like, are you having a good time? Yes, here it is. Me and Polly having a good time. But you know what? They're really nice photos. It's like one of those rare situations where I'm like, oh, like, oh, like we look like good friends who are having a wonderful time at a special event in the sunshine. And it's like, I'm not saying that I'm going to start taking more selfies, but I will say that I am glad that I did take these for the moment.

I'm starting to do that myself a little bit, which is I have, you know, my little system now worked out for selfies, which is kind of how I hold my camera or my phone rather. And like the angle, I kind of hold it up a little high because it's slightly more flattering for me. and you know I just have a system down now to the point where I was taking a selfie last night at this land fest thing in Port Townsend with actually with my old landlord Glenn who's a real he and Jerry would have a lot to talk about let me put it that way um but somebody offered someone oh do you want me to take a picture it was Glenn and his partner Jenny and me and somebody was like oh do you want me to take the picture and I was like no I got it because I actually have more faith in my little system now even though it seems like that used to not be the idea like uh one of us is gonna have to hold the phone out and like wouldn't it be better if a person who's not in the photo was holding the phone wouldn't that just make this it's like no it wouldn't actually now i've

got a system don't don't tread on me i where was i was with a group of friends oh you know who it It was our old colleagues and former managers, Beth and Annie, and me and Genevieve went to have dinner. It would have been sometime like the Sunday before our last week of work or something.

And Beth happened to be in town Our direct supervisor, whatever We had a nice dinner together Then afterwards, they're like, well, let's take a selfie For, you know, for whatever The reason people take selfies And I was like, okay And I took out my phone and I tried to do it And I realized I can't I mean, I have the longest arms of anybody here But I did not know how to take a selfie of four people I don't think I've ever done it before Somehow I was standing in the middle I now realize I don't think the selfie taker Can stand in the middle, right? And I'm like, I'm holding it out and I'm seeing my finger in it. And I'm like, what? And I just said, somebody else has to do this. I don't know how to take selfies. Like, I just I am just not of that generation or inclination.

You also have really, really big hands. That is true.

Long arms are big hands. Yeah.

Trying to kind of like hit that little, you know, button on there. I could see it being. And you're right. The main thing is that if the person is right handed, they have to be in the extreme right. If the picture taker is right handed and if they're left handed, they have to be on the extreme left.

And I don't think we had to set it up that way, but they didn't warn me either, and they're supposed to be the experts. Exactly.

Hello and welcome to Top Story. So the Screen Actors Guild has announced that they are going out on strike, effective immediately. This really shuts down what was sort of left of the Hollywood productions that were going on. I guess those would have been scripts that had already been written because the writers have been on strike for a while, although presumably there were some projects in the pipeline or scripts that were done and so still being filmed for TV and I guess maybe some movies. The thing that's sort of interesting about this is, as with everything now, it comes back to AI. Like usually, I was reading this piece in The Hollywood Reporter today, that usually over the years when the screen action has gone out on strike, it's been over revenue sharing, kind of like how much are we going to make on, you know, home video sales or on this new revenue stream. Basically, every however many years, 20 years, there's some new revenue stream. And then the actors usually get to it a little late In terms of their compensation And then the big companies, the film studios, whatever They're monetizing it early This one is sort of like that But different in that it seems like the biggest issue is The actors wanting to make sure That you cannot take and create an AI version of them And then just use it forever And like, again, as of today uh you know july 14th 2023 i think it would be it i don't think it would quite pass the you know the the turing test or whatever like to do a ai tom cruise and put him in a movie but i would two years from now three years from now i don't see why you couldn't and i don't see why why it wouldn't be totally and completely convincing like the issue is that and this is what the actors are saying led by fran drescher by the way very interesting to see fran drescher in a totally

different context yeah no kidding we had max on the max called into the show on friday i was already sort of out of i was feeling a little loopy by that point so i don't know if i was catching all of the all of the details but but fran drescher is the head of the guild

yes and is a very uh you know i i presume a very uh serious negotiator and serious person about this it's funny because you know actors the screen actors are it's comprised largely of people who we've seen on television being actors and now they're advocating for themselves as labor organizers there's like a picture of like Fran Drescher and an actor named Jolie Fisher who was in a show that I liked although I can't remember the show off the top of my head you're just seeing this like a bunch of actors that you know from other things now behind a podium saying like we need to stand up for ourselves um and again the the the basic issue seems to be that the i think it's american cad motion picture and television producers or something that's the other side is that they don't really it doesn't sound like they really want to fairly compensate or create actual guardrails to make sure that human actors are not either just like an ai version of them isn't just like what you get to use forever going forward. Like one of the things that the, I'll just call them the bosses to use labor parlance. The one thing that the bosses were proposing apparently was if you were in a scene, if you were in the background of a scene or an extra in a scene, they could use your likeness in AI for the rest of time and all they had to pay you was one day's work, one day's day rate. So you're an actor and let's say it's like a scene. It's at Central Perk. It's Friends. We're rebooting Friends and they're in the coffee shop.

And you're one of the people in the background, but you're visible. They could take your image. They could somehow a I ties it and just use you for whatever they wanted to forever and pay you. I don't know what a day rate is 300 bucks for being in the background like and one of the actors was saying that's not a good solution to this. So the actors are basically saying, like, look, our very the very idea of needing human beings to portray characters on film and television is under threat right now. And we have to set up some really strong safeguards so that this is even a job for humans in 10 years.

When you first said this, because I haven't been digging into the details of this, but when you first said, oh, they wanted to make sure that people can't use your likeness in perpetuity. I'm like, well, wouldn't that always be the case? Like, I don't think and I could be wrong about this, but I don't think in the current state of things that some movie maker could just use a photograph of me in a movie. you know what i mean without me signing over my likeness you know permission to use my likeness i was like well what do you mean but i see because you you're already you're talking about somebody that you've engaged with in some sort of contract anyway you've put them in one scene and now it's kind of like oh and now we own your likeness for the rest of this project which could be a project that goes on for 17 seasons or something that that is ridiculous i wonder like I don't know if this is a real concern or not and I'm not like I'm not on a high horse here I just wonder like will we see the blending of animation and like what we consider right now to be animation and versus you know live action like will we just see that blurred with characters that aren't based on famous people. So, in other words, they're fighting right now because somebody like Brad Pitt doesn't want his likeness just to be recreated. There's value in Brad Pitt's likeness, right? I don't know about you. I see value. A lot of value. I see value. Oh, boy. I saw Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I'd brush that hog. I mean, the roof scene, Luke. The roof scene. um but uh but like what if you it's not based necessarily on a specific actor who's already like sort of earned that reputation for likeness but you just create a really really good looking and really really um realistic looking ai character that isn't based on a real person you know what i mean it's just like the creation of an artist like is that something that is because i guess you can't really regulate that because people right now make you know illustrate and animate all kinds of characters right now it's just called animation as far as i understand and

i've read a total of one article on this and we have you know we have listeners who are in sag so um you know feel free to clarify and and correct my statements the sense i have is that the is that the actors are saying we need meaningful protection for we need to hear from the producers of film and television that they are going to create safeguards so that we still have jobs in 10 years and and i think they're saying that the the producers the the whatever it is alliance of motion picture and television producers has not put forward a real proposal so i don't even know exactly the details of what the actors are proposing but again it raises this larger question of like you're right i mean you can you're somebody's allowed legally allowed to animate anything they want you can make an animated movie if you want but i mean this is a real existential threat to being an actor in on television and tv or on streaming because let's be honest television or television and tv are the same thing television and movies but even all of that is really just streaming at this point like it's all kind of in the same thing and it it's what i was really wondering about when i was reading through this was and and again i say this i am very much hoping that the screen actors folks and the writers are um they get fair compensation and a fair deal they deserve it they're working very hard i have no love for the like rich studio execs or whatever but it's i really i'm wondering like in 10 years will they use human actors because i think and like yeah maybe brad pitt has value in being brad pitt but i mean who will be the what who will be like ai brad pit be the the thing that's created that is a character a person i guess you could say or a character that shows up in in various projects who is so human-like that people you know bond with it like the viewers bond with it like they can it seems like they'll be able to make a new brad pit some new version some new person that people are obsessed with out of just like ones and zeros and then just put that character that actor we'll call him an actor in quotes in all kinds of things and

have ai programs write those movies and like that seems like a terrible thing on the other hand there are a lot of industries that go through i mean for somehow hollywood seems sacrosanct to me but there are all kinds of things that humans don't do anymore that humans used to do and now we've mechanized them that's not me saying that that's how i think this should be it's just weird to be sitting on kind of the precipice of something and thinking like yeah you know this may not be a thing like in 20 years it might be like or maybe like this in 100 years people might be going did you know that they used to use a live human beings to stand in front of cameras and say things to each other like that could just seem like such a wild thing such a weird way that we got this thing done back in the olden days because there's just something that's so much easier and digital and whatever and cheaper that they in a way to do it then i mean i'm not hoping that's what happens But I'm wondering if it's what will happen.

I could be totally wrong about this. And this could just be because, you know, we're we're, you know, captives to the moment. And so, therefore, it's hard for me to imagine. But what you're describing is exactly what I was sort of like raising there in sort of the again, like I read a headline and now I'm sitting in my dorm room or at the end of the bar kind of espousing as a dumb guy would. but um like my gut reaction to the world that you just described is probably not because i still think we as like literally as not even as a culture but as a species sort of puts value on celebrity like the idea of well i met this we're just talking about it like the idea of meeting a celebrity like someday you may have the opportunity to meet jay buehner potentially even you know And what would you like if Jay Buhner didn't actually exist except for as some sort of a video game character, like, would you be excited to meet the creators of this Jay Buhner? No, I need to get off of that analogy because it's, you know, but let's just say that it's, you know, Agent X, which is like some sort of fake character that is made up and it takes the world by storm. but agent x can't appear at comic comic cons or agent x can't be in well i guess agent x could be interviewed by somebody on on maybe a cbs prime time do they still have pm magazine or no um anyway you know what i mean like i don't know i do feel like there but maybe we elevate other people in our culture like more uh more reality tv stars remain real but are in theater entertainment is by the way can we just talk really briefly about like tell me if you think that i'm exaggerating this or not but like it seems like there's a lot of buzz about ironically with all of this labor stuff going on this summer is the first summer in a long time obviously since the pandemic but maybe even before that that i've just heard so much excitement again these labor disputes being put aside about what's coming up in the theaters this summer from the barbie movie to oppenheimer Which is like the new Chris Nolan one I know nothing about that And then I can't escape all of the conversations About Tom Cruise doing all of his own stunts And the new what is it

Or as you put on threads he does all of his own acting

Which by the way I put that on threads a couple of nights ago And the next morning I woke up and I'm like I think I literally put that same joke on Twitter Like probably a few years ago That's me reacting to No shame in that game my friend Myself not being able to escape The conversations about Tom Cruise and the stunts i'm so done with the conversation about tom cruise and the stunts he does his own stunts it's been noted thank you having said all of that like there's somebody in the levitard show who calls this new mission impossible mission impossible part seven part one because i think it's the seventh installment but it's part one did you know that it's like it's like you know i'm trying to think of what would be a good bit the the diamonds of corruption part one or whatever the name of this movie is it's literally part one because now they've broken up franchises like that so they're calling it mission impossible part seven part one but like having said all of that i'm not really into mission impossible movies that genevieve likes them there's a chance i might find my ass in a theater not sitting on my tongue watching that movie maybe the barbie movie in oppenheimer as well like people seem to be excited about these theater going experiences and i gotta say as somebody who has a vested interest in one making sure the people who create these things get paid fairly but also the survival of theaters i want there to be theaters for me to go to even

just for popcorn movies into my old age i guess a comparison i think you raise a really interesting question which is is the fact that uh a character can physically walk among us important to how much we care about them the fact that tom cruise can show up at con and walk around does that make him more interesting than a completely computer-generated character. I guess the closest comparison would be like Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse is not real, but there are people that...

go to Disneyland and if they see Mickey they freak out because they're very excited now I don't get that excited about it so maybe there's a range of responses to that sort of thing but like you know I'm with you though I do think that the idea that a person exists in the real physical world is part of the the charm and the appeal and it's why we're so obsessed with celebrity it's because we want to know you know what do they have for dinner and what does their house look like and you know things like that so maybe that will maybe that will make the real human kind of actors and people like that more durable speaking of the barbie movie you sent me this article andrew and it is fascinating i will admit you sent it to me i think yesterday i i sort of read through the first couple graphs and i wasn't totally uh drawn into it and then i sort of got further into the story And I was like, holy shit snacks, in the words of the Archer television program. The Barbie movie is being banned in Vietnam because of one quick scene where, I guess, Barbie played, of course, by Margot Robbie. By the way, talk about range. Margot Robbie played Tonya Harding and Barbie.

Oh, she played Tonya. I never saw that movie. Did you see it?

I, Tonya. yeah it was really i thought it was really good allison janney was really incredible in it but uh there is a scene apparently this whole barbie movie by the way is i'm fascinated by it because it's made by greta gerwig and i have just endless respect uh for greta gerwig's work as a director um and so i i trust that this movie is um a feminist movie like a feminist take on barbie and like a I don't know I trust that it is something that rises above what I would think of when I heard there's a Barbie movie coming out does that make any sense yeah I mean there's a

weirdness to it right the way they I mean it's yeah it's not and I've never I'll be honest with you I don't think I've ever I have to whisper this because I'm embarrassed I don't think I've ever seen any Greta Gerwig stuff I just know the reputation Lady Bird nope never saw it like that's I know the reputation so good Sterling but I'm like starting to see like the stuff that's coming out this isn't just like obviously it's not necessarily just like a movie for for kids to play with their dolls or whatever like no this is kind of a weird like and it's kind of a fish out of water story and it's gonna be very visually stunning and like I say like this isn't the type of thing that it seems like I am the target for or that I would necessarily be drawn to but like it truly seems like it's a cultural moment like this movie feels like it's really a product of where we are in 2023

well I think it was really really smart to give the project to somebody like greta gerwig it's not the barbie movie made by michael bay right it's the barbie movie made by somebody who has made a lot of really interesting films and has a perspective so just that like the greta gerwig imprimatur on it makes me think maybe i would go see it because otherwise it wouldn't really necessarily be for me either but it's also ultimately think about this mattel had to sign off on it like this is you know the ip belongs to mattel so it'll be interesting to see kind of like how far this is not the unauthorized like barbie movie where they're calling her burby and it's so that like you know they don't i mean this is this is produced by the people that make barbie essentially this is a mattel approved product so i wonder a project rather but all of that is to say um in this article you sent me there is a scene where i guess what happens is barbie's famously arched feet go flat and she has to like enter the real the human world we're in versus barbie land or whatever and there is this moment where there's like a map that's portrayed behind her of the world of it's called the real world map and it looks like it was drawn by maybe a kid it's very colorful and kind of playful and there is part of the map that depicts essentially something that's called the nine dash line this starts sounding like alex jones real quick the reptilian hillary clinton shapeshifters are using the nine dash line um there is something called the nine dash line which i didn't know about till you sent me this article andrew which is essentially a way of of china asserting that they are in control of a large section of the china sea which this is very disputed by a lot of the other countries in the area who think that that should not be uh china's territory and in fact i think most international bodies don't recognize it this seems like this is china's deal and in this map so when i first read the article i was like oh my god how unlucky for whoever made this silly barbie map somebody was just googling maps and then they just like drew up they just stepped in it oh man what a what a you should do your research and figure out that you're drawing up a controversial you'll

like, boundary, almost like national border or whatever you want to call it. And then I read further into the article, Andrew, and shit got sinister.

Yeah, right? And it does, it's a squiggle. I want to point out, you said that, you know, you see this map for a second. I'm actually going to probably use it as the show pick today. It's just like a very childlike-looking map. It says the real world sort of scrawled on it and, like, very brightly colored, like, kind of land masses. And one of them does say Asia. And it's just got this little nine-dash little tail coming off it. But the interesting thing is, this is apparently, in the articles that I read, and I read a couple of them, not to brag, but the one I sent you was from Vox, which is a very trusted source. Like, Vox really, I mean, their whole thing is, like, truly explaining things, right? It says that this is on for a split second. It's not even on the screen, apparently, for an entire second, unless they're using that colloquially. Like, this is something that is a flash, a flash on the screen. But the board of appropriate films in Vietnam or whatever it's called, it's not called that, was able to go by frame by frame and said, like, no, no, no, no, that's a dog whistle to China.

Yep. And that's where things get, like I said, much more complicated and I would say a bit sinister because the only I think the only logical read on this situation is that the producers of the Barbie film wanted to cater to China because it's a huge market. And this little thing that I guess they were hoping would go unnoticed in most places, but would, as you said, be a dog whistle to Chinese audiences and certainly the people in China who are in control of what movies get into China.

Yeah, less the audience is probably and more the authorities, right?

Yeah, you're basically saying to China, hey, we got you on this Nine Dash line. Like, hey, you want to expropriate some maritime territory, much to the chagrin and the anger of a lot of other countries near you? We got you. Could you just put this Barbie movie in every theater, please? And then this article, I have the Vox one you sent along, goes on to talk about a bunch of other movies where that's basically also happened. these small things like i didn't know they remade red dawn in 2012 andrew but i guess they did yeah

and that didn't come up i'm kind of surprised with the sort of the 80s-ness of the conversations on this show yeah they had they changed because in red dawn it was a cuban invasion right a

communist cuban invasion and the original one in the 80s um yeah although the the i guess there was um it says i don't think it was cuban i think that they were vaguely i forget what this is what the article in vox says there is an important difference between turning a film's antagonist from chinese to north korean as was done in the 2012 red dawn remake so maybe what that means is

2012 yeah yeah no in the original one though i'm pretty sure it's cuban i could be wrong oh i see

so maybe in the 2012 one originally this like the bad guys or a bad guy was going to be chinese and then someone was like no no no no yeah let's not do that happened yeah because i almost i think i

remember that storyline coming out at the time yeah and then uh you know just like these examples

of movies where they make changes uh let's see dreamworks animated family film uh abominable was this nine dash line was showed up in a dreamworks animated film in the sony live action adaptation of the video game series uncharted starring tom holland they also put this nine dash line in also on the australian spy drama that's on netflix called pine gap they did um and like these are all these little again i just i can't imagine that somebody at the barbie movie accidentally put this little squiggle on the coast of china i think this is all these these filmmakers and i don't mean like greta gerwig but these produce i bet you i bet you greta gerwig literally didn't even know this was happening to be honest yeah i'm wondering like

because it seems like it's not the creatives who who would care about that i mean obviously you want your you want your film to be successful and the Chinese market is where you want it to be successful because of the size you know the power of the market there but like who made that like where did the order come from where somebody said like hey it's my job to make this sign that's going to be in the quick background of the plot setup in this movie but somebody who cares enough about the chinese market and the international market and geopolitical politics or you know the geopolitics of this was like okay we'll make sure to put a little nine nine dash squiggle in

there like how did that communicate it there's got to be somebody who's assigned to the sort of internationalization of the film and they probably go through the i don't know if they do dailies anymore I don't know if that's really still a thing but there's got to be somebody who goes through the movie with a fine tooth comb

And makes sure that there's not something accidentally that's going to piss off China. And also looks for opportunities to do some small things that would ingratiate the movie. And I'm sure that that's a person's job. And they must have been, you know, I'm sure there was something where it was like, and the script says like, or the whatever scene direction, the screenplay is like, a map of the real world pops up behind Barbie as she contemplates entering the real world. And somebody's like, okay, map, that's an opportunity. that's a chance like and and so then you're right that person then has to reach out to somebody in the art department and say hey when you're making this map because i'm sure that everything in a movie of this of this magnitude every single second of visual anything that gets on screen is considered by numerous people you know so somebody had to call up whoever was doing that map obviously digitally somewhere and say uh we love it we would like to have this little dash happening off of china like somebody i don't think the person that made the map was doing it i think somebody came in afterwards um another thing that's kind of funny and this shows that like you know i don't know how sort of uh hot and cold maybe this kind of stuff can run in china uh i guess that the uh the john wick movies were sort of um big in china for a while because there was uh an actor in john wick chapter four named donnie yen who's a vocal supporter of the chinese policies but then they pulled the movies because keanu reeves went to a tibet related concert yeah right it's just like it's so crazy it's like trying to be chick-fil-a and stay with your conservative base it's like if you do anything intentionally or otherwise that pisses them off they're like now you're out oh you hired a dei coordinator now you're woke it's like oh keanu reeves you went to a tibet concert pull the john wick movies yeah it sounds like and this is what

the article then goes on to say and it's not the most interesting thing for tbtl so i'll bring it up um but uh i the article does go on to say that also this sort of hold that the american you know kind of hollywood system has had but hold is the wrong word there but the the fact that hollywood would say hey we'll make this you know be successful in china by just making a couple concessions here or there, adding a Chinese character here or there, that it sounds like that is starting to soften anyway, that that Chinese filmmakers are taking back more and more of of their own box office or whatever you'd call it by making truly Chinese movies.

Yeah, this article points out that in 2011, Transformers Dark Side of the Moon was the highest grossing film in China. And by 2021, the highest grossing film was called The Battle at Lake Changjin, which was a historical action epic about a Chinese army person who manages to defeat the U.S. armed forces in a battle during the Korean War. and that that movie made $903 million and only cost $200 million to make. So it's like the Chinese no longer have to take kind of shitty American movies that are super broad just as their favorite thing to watch. Now they have their own shitty movies that they can watch and spend $900 million at the box office on. So I don't know if that's progress or not, but it's what's happening. How's about we do a little music for your weekend before we skeedaddle? Do you have plans to sit in a kiddie pool At any point this weekend, Andrew And enjoy the warm, warm weather?

You know, not a kiddie pool I told Genevieve I'm really feeling my Friday today We had a busy but productive week And of course coming off a really busy few weeks And today I'm just kind of like, oh wow I got a lot done yesterday I worked kind of late, but I really got stuff in order And so when I'm done with the show today I got a little bit more work to do But I was like, I've been living in my basement That's not a complaint. I love spending a lot of time down here, but I sort of feel like there's always a to-do list now, and it's fun to check things off the list, but I've totally lost my obsession of cleaning up my yard and, like, playing in the yard and touching grass, as they say. Grounding. And so I'm thinking about— Forest bathing. literally no matter if like you know i could work on some tbtl archives or whatever this afternoon but i think i'm gonna force myself to put on some shorts go outside and maybe start hacking at the last frontier of my hedges in the back of my house and that those things are beastly but i sort of feel like man i haven't done anything like that in a while the lawn doesn't really need mowing because it's that time of year where it's all turned kind of brown which is kind of a bummer But, yeah, I think maybe I need to reconnect with my reconnect with my yard today, Luke.

It's a good day for it as long as you've got a wide brimmed hat or something to keep off of you.

Thanks to Bill and Kingston sent me a mare. As a matter of fact, maybe that'll be the perfect time for me to break that out.

He sent me one of those bucket hats from the Canadian Postal Service. Oh, nice. Yeah, so I'm excited about that. I'll break that out. Maybe I'll even dunk it in cold water, Luke. What about that? And then put it on my head.

Yeah, I'm excited to get, again, I have like a, I don't know why I agreed to this. I have like a Zoom meeting at 1.30. Like 1.30 on a Friday, that should be illegal. This shows you how privileged my life is that I'm like, it's 1.30. I should really just be.

It's 1.30, I should be done with work.

I mean, I should be done with work for a Friday. But anyway, when that's done, yeah, I can't wait to get out there and and and start like hacking away again, just hopefully Jerry and I'll be working on parallel tracks. I'll be doing the easy stuff and he'll be doing the hard stuff, but remains to be seen on that. All right. Let's do some music for your weekend. What song would you like to play on this Friday?

You know what I've been listening to? And I'm still not super familiar with the record. I've only listened to it all the way through, like maybe two or three times earlier this week as I was kind of walking to the train and going to the ballpark and coming back. I had this kind of on a loop, and it's one of those kind of formative hip-hop records that was a complete blind spot for me. And I'm wondering if you have a lot more experience with this record, the Blackstar record, from what would have been late 90s, I want to say, mid to late 90s.

I only know maybe one or two of their most famous songs, but I do know that they are very revered in the world of hip-hop and the history of hip-hop. And I hear a lot of other folks, like, referencing Black Star.

Yeah, and it's like it's Mos Def and Talib Kweli, two, like, artists that we know as solo acts or that I always knew as solo acts. And what I didn't realize was when they were together as Black Star, they only released, like, one record. Like, now a couple of years ago they did a follow-up. But, like, it was one of those things where they released one record and then just sort of, I think, maybe did a, you know, some, you know, they would maybe do one track for a compilation here or there. But I think there's something kind of special about that when you create a record that like kind of stands in the annals of hip hop history like that. But you just like sort of let it stand. I think another reason I would get confused is because it was hard for me for a long time to remember that Blackstar and Gangstar are two different entities. Now, were you a Gangstar person? That's DJ Premier, right?

I can't really speak too much about Gangstar other than to say I had the exact same issue. which is I would blend both of them together in my head since I didn't know a lot about either group.

So anyway, I guess my point here is I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, but I will play, let's see, track three off of this. I think it's probably the most well-known song off of the Blackstar record, which is I think just called Most Def and Talib Kweli Are Blackstar, and the name of this song is Definition. I'm going to cue it up here, Luke, so that we're kind of going to start here. I think at the end of Kweli's first verse and then the hook here.

They was fronting, talking loud like you and RCA Get carded away with body parts and trays What a way to start your day, yo it's like One, two, three, most happens I live one

We came to rock it on to the tip top Best alliance in hip hop, why oh I said one, two, three, it's kinda dangerous to be a MC It's shot Tupac and Vicky Too much violence in hip hop, why oh

I said my hat keep on making it I mean, is it as good as most defs work with Microsoft in those commercials where he's doing

Be careful. Wait, was it? You've never done work for Microsoft, have you? No, I've only worked for an East Side software concern. Yeah, sure, yeah. Do I have that right, though? No, that's really good. Those were Microsoft commercials most definitely was in back. I don't remember, probably. I would be unsurprised. Doing, like, sort of spoken word. No, that's really good, though.

You know, I'll tell you that Talib Kweli is another one. I've actually interviewed him for Livewire. And, like, again, Talib Kweli is one of those people that, I mean, Jay-Z famously has the line that, like, lyrically, I'd probably be Talib Kweli when he's talking about like you know if he was trying to be if he was if he had his druthers or if he could be anyone like talib kwali is one of those guys who's just like name checked a lot and although i again i don't i have i couldn't tell you a bunch of his songs but just hear him there and you're just like wow this guy is really yeah fucking good yep yep yep all right uh pretty i would say a pretty severe tone shift for the song that i'm gonna suggest this week this was classically, a song that I was looking through Shazam and I was like, huh I guess I Shazammed that It's by Suki Waterhouse and the song is called Good Looking I would guess, Andrew, that you're not familiar with a life form known as Suki Waterhouse. No, I don't think so. I was only familiar because Suki Waterhouse is kind of a famous fashion person and model, and I believe is in a relationship with Robert Pattinson. And I assumed with a name like Suki Waterhouse was probably from a dynasty. Now, I looked her up. Her father was a plastic surgeon, so I don't think Suki was... you know, are economically marginalized as a kid. But there was something about when I had heard about a person named Suki Waterhouse, I just thought, I don't like that person. I don't like that person because they are like very, very, very, very, very crazily privileged and they make music in addition to modeling. There's no way this is going to be good. And that was what I was thinking for, I don't know, however long, a year, two, until I was somewhere and I heard a song that I thought was really good and I shazammed it. It was Suki Waterhouse. So I guess it just goes to prove that I can be wrong about things. So can we hear a little bit of Good Looking by Suki Waterhouse?

We'll be right back.

You know who it reminds me a little bit? It could be done by your favorite one, Jenny Lewis.

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Sonically a little bit. Yeah, a little more ethereal. As I was going to say, it's very dreamy and ethereal. I was thinking of, oh, my goodness. I can picture her face. Lana Del Rey. A little gang star. Oh, sure, sure. Maybe Jenny Lewis meets Lana Del Rey in that sort of summertime dreaminess.

Yeah, it's a very summery song to me and one that I've been listening to a lot. So there you go, a little Suki Waterhouse. And then our listener suggestion this week comes from our good friend Maggie Middle Shelf Willsey. Maggie says Hey, it's Middle Shelf Maggie. This is Saruna's new single. They're a local Seattle band. And Luke, you know the singer. It's Krista Wells whom you did some sort of a thing at Eastside Software Concern a few months back. They perform all around the guitar player Who's somebody named Alex Mortland Is my bass teacher And he and Krista wrote this song And I hope you love it And then I realized, Andrew, that I did not include I was gonna say, unless I cut it out I don't have, I don't know what the name of the song is Okay, so It's called All Hearts And it's by a band called Saruna Saruna is S-A-R-U-N-A And it is in Spotify So I thought we would Wrap up this week With a little music from Saruna

can you spell saruna again yes s-a-r-u-n-a gotcha okay give me one second here we should get this

dialed up in just no time absolutely and by the way i'll mention this will bring us to the end of our broadcast week but we're going to be back here on monday with more imaginary radio for you so thank you once again for spending all that time with us and for being part of tbtl can you remind me what the name of the song is again i'm having trouble finding this all right all hearts

and it's definitely in Spotify, huh?

I'm looking at it. I could just play it from here.

How about that? Oh, okay, yeah, you can do that. Oh, here, I think, here, I got it here. Thank you. Here we go, perfect.

All right, we'll see you on Monday. Have a great weekend. Stay cool if you're somewhere where it's going to be dangerously hot. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Driving down the empty road, you're all alone Who knows where you're going, where you're coming from All you know is how you feel you've lost someone And they're not coming home Endless miles are passing times and being in stripes Who will sweep the pieces of your broken life?

With all the memories and the fading lights, no one calling you home.

Said it won't be different when you're all wrong.

Handed out solutions to your problem.

You are a really good actor. Thank you, thank you. Well, you know, it's just living truthfully in imaginary circumstances and whatever. Enough about me. What's on your schedule? Power out.