Muse

So let's fire up the Batman-mobile, go to a taco stand, and eat some feelings, okay? Okay, I just, I think it's Bat-mobile. Batman-mobile. Bat-mobile. That's what I said, Batman-mobile. You're putting the man, there's no man, it's just Bat-mobile. Bat-mobile. Bat-mobile. Drop the man. Batman-mobile. Bat-mobile. Bat-mobile.

T-B-T-M Guess what day it is Guess what day it is

Friday, Friday Gotta get down on Friday

You're singing that wrong

How? I made it up Ladies and gentlemen, meatloaf cake With only 433 calories 52 grams of protein And only 5 kyber hydrams

You call hamburgers steamed hams Yes, it's a regional dialect

This is not your mama's podcast. This is too beautiful to live. Were you just using a synthesizer? Nope. So you mean to tell me that all of those sounds were coming from your body? Yup. I'm the president of rap music, and I need to work with you right away.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Friday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

Ain't no sympathy in an Arby's parking lot.

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

I like turtles.

Coming to you from the offices of Walsh, Walsh, and Dormat right here in Seattle, Washington. Bring it back home, baby. Bring it back home. Where we are converging like a Voltron. I just got here last night. TBTL employee numero uno, John Sklaroff, will be arriving a little later this evening. Andrew's, of course, here, and we are getting ready for episode 4,000. That will be Saturday night at the Neptune Theater. Of course, this episode, the one we are currently recording for you, is episode 3,998 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. I've spent the last week going back and forth up and down the West Coast. I've been working on some TV stories. I've been working on stuff in preparation for the 4,000th episode, but there's been one constant in my mind, and that is a song that I heard on TikTok that I don't think is a very good song, but I can't get it out of my head, and I would like to now put it in all of your heads. Oh, my God.

That's so crazy. Why?

So that you, as Andrew would say, I would like to put my evil inside all of your brains. So you too So maybe when we get together the 4000th episode We can have a sing-along to this Very questionable song from TikTok Also, speaking of the 4000th I've got an update Regarding the construction in front Of the Neptune Theater

Hey, what happened?

And also, of course, we have a P.O. Box A TBTL P.O. Box And we get all kinds of mail there It's very exciting The new phone box here! The new phone box here! So we're going to play a round of what's in the box Since I'm here in real life with one Andrew Walsh Speaking of the longest-running Cobra of the show Maybe best known for his depictions The tall ships, their grace, their splendor And all that intricate rigging His new name is Targus, Targus But we know him as Andrew Walsh And he's joining me right now Good morning, my friend

Good morning, Luke I remembered to unmute my microphone at the very last minute Hey, not bad

You know, that portends good things

Exactly

For the 4,000th episode

You know what else portends good things is the fact that I'm remembering two things at the top of the show that we should talk about related to that. Not just the construction situation, which you'll update us on in just a moment, but also, I buried this at the end of yesterday's show, so let me bring it up to the front here. We got a note from listener Jessamine Specimen, who says, I was wondering if you would mind mentioning that we are planning a TENS meetup before the 4,000th episode. This is at Big Time Brewery on Big Time. Cup of coffee in the big time. Yeah. So Big Time Brewery is in the university.

Cup of coffee in the big time.

It's really hard to say brewery. It's in the university district nearby. It's on University Way or the Ave as we call it here. Folks are meeting up there at 4, between 4 and 7 p.m. before the show, which is around the corner at the Neptune Theater. So anyway, if you want to show up tomorrow night, 4 to 7. Also, Luke, we didn't talk about this before the show. So, but I think we want to talk about our little audience interaction thing today, don't we? Do you have that on your, do you have that on the show sheet that you typed up on a computer, then tried to print and then hand wrote because you couldn't connect to my printer?

No, but I did text it to myself. Look, look, so this is my very elaborate kind of personal notes system. And.

What do I have there texted to myself from this morning? The writing thing.

Well, a lot of pictures of your feet for some reason. Well, that's a side business. Promote the questions.

So I did text it to myself so I would remember, and then I completely forgot it. Do you think anybody, Andrew, would have the cojones, the chutzpah, I'll just say it, the bravery to open a brewery in an area that wasn't an urban environment and name it the rural brewery. The rural brewery. Like, I feel like if you got the joke, you would get the joke so hard. I mean, I feel like it would be a spectacular failure of a business. But what if you named

your place the rural brewery? The rural brewery. I mean, that gives rural juror a real run for its money. Yeah, no kidding. People would be like just throwing bricks through the window just based on the frustration. Yes. They're like, great location. You know what? Wonderful beer. Forget it.

We're going to Wendy's. Yeah. Like, I mean, just think about what a disincentive that would be just to people trying to make plans to meet up there. Yes. So we are going to be looking back during the 4,000th episode and looking forward. And, you know, we're nothing if not futurists here on TBTL. I've been accused of that a lot in my life.

Too forward thinking. Yes, exactly. I mean, just prescient.

People say you live in the moment too much. Exactly. But so we thought it would be kind of an interesting thing to ask the TBTL audience what they think we will be talking about on the 8,000th episode of TBTL. So like in 13 years or so from now, roughly, what are we going to be talking about? And if you go to tbtl.net, there's some kind of a button there and maybe even a QR code, although I think whatever is easiest. But you can go to tbtl.net right now and you can submit your answer, your your your sort of like your best guess at what we will be talking about on the eight thousandth episode of tbtl. Also, if you're coming to the show on Saturday night, we're going to have like little flyers. John is right now as we speak, John Sklaroff, TBTL employee numero uno, is in Minnesota going to a Kinko's printing out flyers. And you'll be able to scan those and the QR code and then just send in your response right there. We're going to collect those up and then we're going to read some of them during the final segment of the 4000th episode. So if you can't make it to the 4,000th episode, or if you can and you just like to be ahead of the curve, go to tbtl.net right now as you're hearing this and put in your suggestion for what you think we will be talking about on the 8,000th episode of TBTL.

Yeah, we'll have a button on the main page. You can also go to tbtl.net slash 8,000. So those are the two.

Those are our two big announcements. there is a there's a pre-funk at big time brewery and also you can you can you can be a part of this 4000th episode even if you're somewhere else in the country even if you're not able to make it and so please do that we the more the more suggestions we get the better the segment's

going to be so and we will for those of you who can't make it people have asked like well will we be able to hear it this will be the 4000th episode it will drop into the stream Yes, we will play this on the pod. We are going to play it as that 4,000th episode, so you'll hear it next week.

Speaking of the 4,000th episode, Andrew, I'm staying across the street from the venue, and in fact, the window from my hotel room looks at the marquee, and I'm not going to lie.

Now, are you sure you want to – I mean, we're going to have a whole – this is a situation where we have a whole bunch of listeners actually going to be in that place. We joke around about people.

But I mean, I the problem is it's the only logical place where we would be staying. Like I was going to try to be more opaque, but it's like whatever. Just I mean, well, then give me the room number. You need a key card to get to the room. I mean, these are these are nice people. These are these are good folks. So and I think a lot of people are actually staying. I think that that hotel, the graduate hotel is kind of the official. Oh, really? I mean, not in any financial way, but I think like I've got family that's staying there. Like, I think it's it's the most logical place to stay if you're going to the 4000th episode.

So if a listener gets lucky, they could see you locked out of your room in your skivvies the next day.

Yes. Dare to dream. Dare to dream. But so this morning I when I'm in town, I usually if I have a chance to go on a jog, I really like to go over to Green Lake. But I don't have a car this time and I didn't have a ton of time this morning. So I decided to do a little tour day University of Washington. I don't think I've really I mean, I've I've been on the campus briefly in the last 20 years, but I certainly haven't done what I did today, which was to actually like run along campus way and wind my way around the different buildings and kind of take. real trip down memory lane it was ideal because it was early in the morning you know there's not that many classes in session this summer so there was not a lot of people i pretty much i had it more or less to myself and i have to be honest with you did you sign up for any credit cards get a free water bottle table for but it's the one uh that jennifer garner promotes so where she's too loud in the library she's always fruing that bra yeah exactly um but uh so it i i'm i'm being totally honest it was it was kind of a little bit of a like um i don't know like an inspirational moment or something because i did run by the university of washington communications building where i took many a class and where i used to be an intern at kuow and i sort of had a moment of just again because i just haven't i haven't like gone around the campus in this kind of way maybe since i graduated because if i've been on campus it's been i did a tv shoot there once so i was going to where we were filming but this was just like a chance to really be there and take it all in and kind of reflect on this idea that like first of all it's like 25 years since i went to school there and also how kind of weird and surprising it is that i'm back in town to do this like i leave the hotel and i look and there's the marquee which says tbtl 4000th episode which is kind of cool and then i go up and i run around all these places that are really seared in my brain because that's how it is when you go to a college if you if you're there for four or as i was five years you really wear some grooves in your brain eight years of your life yeah right you start to really kind of like you just i mean anyway so just being there and thinking gosh i'm here to record like a bunch of people are going to show up tomorrow uh to watch me and andrew do this podcast thing that if you would have told me in college well first of all there's going to be a thing called podcast I would have said you're crazy that'll never work

because again will I tell you about the watches in 2023 you can talk to him again

known futurist it'll never work but like if I just this idea of like we're here I'm here to do this show with you and it's been around for all these years and people love it granted a small group of people love it and then and just like thinking of myself when I was writing for the UW Daily or something, you know what I mean? I'm like 20 years old. I just want to be involved in journalism, in telling stories, in like entertainment. And like they were like, well, there is, nobody's writing about swimming currently. Would you like to do that? And I'm like, yes. Just like sitting there in these like funky offices of the UW Daily in the communications building, writing these totally uninteresting pieces about swimming. Like, and anyway, just all this time later to just be there as a as an adult with this really blessed like lucky life and career it was a very very nice morning but anyway i think if i were to go back to my old campus i mean keep in mind like

you have maintained a connection to this part of the world you've lived in this part of the country like if i were to like i and you and i think i'm even more um overwhelmed by nostalgia than you are i think sort of if i were to go back to kent state university where i i can't say i never went back after i graduated i think i went back to meet friends at the old radio station like once maybe a year or two after i graduated but that's still that era right yeah so like whatever you said what's it been 25 years or or thereabouts or something i graduate 2001 um and so uh i i think i would just i think i would be felled by nostalgia i honestly think i would choke on my nostalgia if i were to find myself dropped at kent state university do you think some of that's

because you haven't gotten it out of your system every five years like it's been building for that

long so it would be that intense i think i think i'm really prone to nostalgia um and sentimentality and um and yeah i mean i i don't know i don't know what it'd be like maybe part of me i also have sort of a bad brain so maybe part of me would be like oh i boy things have changed a lot and i don't remember as much but i think there would be certain things it's like when you see something that i mean i'm there are things that i can't literally cannot call to mind right now that i probably saw every single day on a walk to some class i dreaded and were you to see it

part of my life now it would be the first time in that many years that your brain remembered it

existed that thing it could be the most unremarkable thing in the world it could be the it could be a bump on a tree you know absolutely which is what i that's what i majored in by the way being a bump on it on a log is my mom did your mom used to say that to you yes don't just

sit there like a bump on a log boy that was a big thing in the 80s boy log bumps were really taking some real pr hits in the 80s they really were i've never heard someone say that in the in the

aughts but that's a good point has anybody ever said it in a good way like what are you planning on doing this weekend oh man i plan on just sitting around like a bump on a log sounds great do you know something I don't know. i have totally stolen from you and genevieve though is lumping it up oh yeah that means

something very specific when the cat goes under yeah because bubbles doesn't do that because

bubbles is has undiagnosed adhd but holly becca's cat loves to lump it up go underneath the covers and if i leave the bedroom door open yeah and i like if i leave the room the door to my room open and i'm watching holly and i come home there's just like a lump somebody's lumping it up i'm like look at that lumping it up do you mind that because i know that you're kind of a no pets in the bed kind of person it depends on how recently i have washed the sheets and to be and to be honest with you i'm more diligent about keeping that door closed the more recently i changed the sheet sure so i tend to change the sheets on sunday so sunday every week that's good sunday it's i have i have to be honest with you i feel like bed technology or sheet technology has really improved like um i don't wash now here's the thing i don't wash my duvet cover every week that's like every other

off the duvet cover because you know putting it really on you untangle that whole thing and wash the duvet cover every other week about every other week maybe every three weeks okay we've gotten rid of duvets in this house I'm against it I hate that process I just love the feeling of it

but like a lot of weeks what I do is I take the duvet off I put it you know somewhere and then but the sheets it's like you know first of all we have sheets because we've done so many ads for companies over the year and like you know I just take them off and then I you know it's it's it's I grew up like changing the sheets on your bed when I was growing up just felt like the like the worst job. And I think it was because also my bed was always against a wall. Like the way my bed is oriented in my apartment, by the way, R.I.P. very soon. Soon. I don't even know. I don't even know if I have room for a king size bed at my new place because there's these like weird, funky rooms upstairs that are like there's like when the construction guys came out to this house that I'm going to be moving to next week that, you know, I've been working on. they said oh yeah this is one of those one and a half floor houses i was like how they go yeah this was a whole thing where basically there was all these just tiny houses built in the 30s small houses where the second floor it's almost like you i mean it's it's like real john malkovich i was about to say that yeah uh like you kind of can't i can stand up but it's weird anyway all of that is to say if you see any puppeteers avoid them i let i will let holly lump it up if it's like Thursday uh-huh right I feel like ah we're on the down you know we're on the downhill to changing that but if it's if it's Monday it's like no way no no yeah yeah yeah uh so it's very it's very cute though to see a cat lumping it up it is and it's amazing how long she can do it because it's like like there's like it's like there's no sensory anything going on for her like she'll be in if I would let her she would be there for five hours yeah and I'm like wow

what must it be like to be that okay with your thoughts yeah bananas we used to do that a lot too she doesn't lump it up so much anymore i think that maybe she's a little worried that if she lumps it up that um bingo will just launch himself onto her yeah but bingo on the other hand he has he doesn't lump it up but he every time have i told you this every time we make the bed like he comes running oh my god and he's like what it's bed making time he just did this this morning it's impossible right he just goes no he's in the covers in the covers like yeah we just make him in the bed and then he goes crazy and he just he loves it so much and eventually when we walk out he'll tunnel his way out and then i'll straighten up the bed again but he just like

he comes running from any house i can't get the fitted sheet on the mattress sometimes because bubbles is under fitted sheet yeah she will be like she and also laundry forget it yeah you dump a bunch of laundry on the bed and you're trying to fold it oh okay yeah but um so i'm i'm coming back up brooklyn uh street uh wrapping up my little jog and i'm standing at the corner of Brooklyn and 45th and I look over and Andrew Santa must have come early because when I went to bed last night in the hotel I will be honest with you I was I was excited that we're going to do the show I was I was I was stoked about the fact that we're on the marquee but I was a little bummed that that excavator that big old earth moving digging machine and a bunch of other construction wood and stuff was right there in front of the theater in front of the theater And when I left for my little jog this morning, it was still there. And by the time I finished, it was gone. Oh, wow. Maybe not even Santa. Maybe like reverse Santa must have come early because this is whoever takes things away. You know what I mean?

Yeah, right. Yeah. Somebody came and took that. Now, I'm just worried maybe a worker just like drove it to get breakfast somewhere and drove it back. That would be awesome.

So I look over and it is actually gone. and all the, like, construction wood is gone. Jalapeno! Jalapeno! Jalapeno! It still has this, that road closed sign. Oh, okay, yeah. But I see there's all these worker dudes there. And I'm like, my plan was to go back. This is why I was a little late getting here today, by the way. My plan was just to go in the hotel, do my thing. But I was like, let me just go ask.

So I cross the street And I go I stand and there's this one guy And these are like you know These are folks that like work for like Presumably the city of Seattle Orange reflective vests Tribal tattoos The smell of a recent cigarette Has been smoked This is not your comfort zone It's not my comfort zone

Talking to people Or trying to find a common ground With people who work with their hands for a living tends to trigger insecurities in you in certain scenarios now i'll tell you a scenario where i

can hang a bar because i can't out drink them and i'm not even kidding like if you and i have experienced this where it's like we go into a bar in somewhere in rural america somewhere that's populated with a lot of folks that work with their hands and i will as a defense mechanism like the puffer fish it blows up as a defense mechanism mine is i order a jameson and you headbutt somebody well later i will possibly headbutt somebody but like but yeah generally in this moment it's like they're and they're kind of talking about something and i don't want to be like hey guys but i'm kind of standing there i'm waiting for one of them to notice me one of them does hey what's up and i was like hey i was just curious how long is this road closed sign is this gonna be here because they've now cleaned up the excavator they've cleaned up stuff but they're still doing something with down the street a little further down 45th there's some sidewalk concrete that's being adjusted right so it's like the work in front of the theater is done but there's something a little further down and and they go oh yeah well we're still working down there and i said oh okay yeah and and the one guy actually he's really nice he goes why'd you ask and i go oh because i'm doing a show here tomorrow night and i was just hoping you know that this would be as cleared up as possible he's like oh we can ask rich so like the other guy is the supervisor and he's like it's probably cool let's ask rich and then he goes rich what do you think can we like move this thing or something move the road close move the road close sign oh look at you and i'm like this is how doers get more done i mean i'm like is this really happening like are

they and then they said you know what we'd like to cut your jib come with us on the road here's

an orange reflective vest part of our road crew yes um we're heading to a sports bar in kent we're heading to an applebee's our natural environment is it applebee's where you and i always end up on the road yeah yep uh by the way some some of the finest meals i've had out there on the highways and byways of america with you have been at applebee's um but uh and so first of all they were shockingly receptive like the one guy it was it was actually was quite heartwarming Now, unfortunately, the one guy who was the most into it was not the supervisor. So, I mean, he would like honestly would have just been like, yeah, what do you need? Like, we'll just whatever. The other guy being the supervisor, I think, had his eyes a little more on the like what the overall project was. But what Rich, the supervisor, told me was it's totally OK tomorrow night if we move the sign, if we move the road closed. We can move it out of there. We can move the cones during the show. Move it where? Just up over by, like, what, the record shop or something. Like, we can pick it up and move it off the street so that people can get dropped off in front of the theater. Oh, nice. Because, I mean, actually, I don't even know if you're really supposed to do that anyway because 45th is kind of busy. But I said, we may have some folks with mobility issues. Yeah, exactly. And it would be really nice if there was somewhere close to the theater where they could get out. And they said, yeah, it's a real hassle with a sign like this. So if you need to just move it during the show, you can move it. Just make sure you put it back and put the cones back afterwards.

Oh, wow. Well, I mean, how's that? It's like we have permission, but like does permission matter if that person isn't there when we're moving this stuff?

Why are you snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

I'm just saying that I will still be nervous moving this because I'll be looking around and like, you know what we need? I'll move it. You know what we need? Orange vests. What? Do you know that Genevieve got to don an orange vest? Do you know about this? No. All right. I hate to tell her story because I think she's in earshot right now. But she was riding on the bus I think this is maybe pre-pandemic She was riding on the bus And the bus found itself in a tricky situation I don't know if it had to go off its route temporarily Or something But it was one of those things with the huge long bus That bends in the middle And it found itself in some situation Where it couldn't navigate itself out And the bus driver said Is anybody willing to go outside and direct me through this But you have to wear this orange vest And they pulled an orange vest out Gave it to Genevieve Genevieve, can you get in here? I think I'm butchering your story.

Was it maybe that the trolley cables came undone? Because that happens a lot.

Oh, I don't think it was that. I think it wasn't an electric vehicle. I think it was just that the bus kind of got off the route.

We're hearing about your bus heroics.

I'm just going to give you my microphone. I'll go outside now. The plan's working.

Hey, by the way, Veeves, thanks for covering for me earlier this week. week i really on tuesday i appreciate it i didn't get a chance to tell you that yeah no i always enjoy it um the audience always enjoys it let's be honest so what happened with you donning the orange reflective garb of uh something with the bus that's from years ago yeah didn't you didn't

didn't a bus driver like deputize you give you an orange vest and told you to go outside and get

him out of trouble yeah i feel like i actually talked about this on tbtl well clearly we forgot about it yeah yeah a couple years ago um i was in i was on a bus that had uh for some reason had a detour off of its normal route and it wound up in like a really small street over there in

tangled town and i mean it's literally called tangled town how do you think a bus like that's

gonna come on yeah they should have seen it coming um but we end up on a street that was really too small for the bus to make the turn it needed to make with the way the cars were parked and stuff and so the bus driver said asked for a volunteer to um put on a day glow vest and get out and essentially like help them back up so that like because they had to i don't think i even knew buses could back up right yeah so i thought well i like you know that sounds interesting and i you know i can do this so i grabbed i took the thing and i you know i just stood there and kind of like followed the bus driver's instructions about um you know yelling when they were backing up too

far or whatever did they had the bus gone off of the route or was there like was the bus driver

freelancing yeah basically they were i my memory now and it's been a couple years is that we were we would not normally have been on that street but we had to for some unexpected reason whether it was road closure or something that caused the bus driver to make a decision to go into this neighborhood instead of staying on whatever normal route it was uh-huh and we learned quickly why they don't normally go onto that street because of the way it's a narrow street with like parking on both sides right the bus couldn't make the left turn it needed to make and so there was some maneuver that she was able to do that like backed it up enough so that it could make the wide turn

the left turn well we got into this conversation because i was telling andrew how so right now in front of the theater where we're doing the 4000th there's been construction which you may be aware of because you work over at the university but 45th street has kind of been in flux and they had this big excavator that was parked right in front of the theater which amazingly they moved this morning so it's like a giant improvement yeah but they still have like a road close sign but it's like turned around now so I like asked the construction dudes what the scoop was and this

is because you have to bring all the lunch boxes right like you have to park something big well no

it was well that's a good point as well i was just thinking more for the listeners really i was thinking more for the aesthetics i just would like it if the theater was pristine and there wasn't a bunch of like construction cones and stuff but um i i did also think and i think we've heard from some listeners who who it would be a lot easier for them because of mobility stuff if they could be dropped off right in front of the theater and so i asked these two construction dudes i was like how long is this road closed thing and one of them was geeked to hear that i was doing a show surprisingly so now he may have thought i was ross matthews because that's on sunday night who is that ross matthews is uh other than my my uh ex-wife carrie the pride of cedro woolly washington he was the intern on the tonight show with jay leno and then became a whole personality unto himself and he is our show is on saturday night and then ross matthews is because where the construction guys were looking up it was like listing all the different you know things that are happening point is one guy was pretty excited about it and he was like i think we can probably move the sign let me ask rich the supervisor rich was a little more circumspect as the supervisor yeah but what he said he's got to play it cool and rich was also very nice like both of them were way nicer about this and i thought they were going to be and what rich said was if we need to move for the show if we need to move that barrier and the cones for people to get in there we are allowed to do that so i thought that was a i thought that was actually like a pretty big concession from them yeah that's a huge win now andrew rightfully i think is a little worried about us changing the safety uh mechanisms for 45th oh no no no i'm sorry no i'm not worried

about safety i'm worried about getting hollered at because like if somebody just sees us moving the stuff around people will be like hey you can't do that and be like no rich said we said we could but that's why this is what comes back to did you save the orange vest from the bus because if i can And Dom, the orange vest is going to look like I'm supposed to be there.

Oh, I can get you an orange vest.

I unfortunately had to return it to the, it went into the little box at the front of the bus that they say not allowed to sit on.

And I assume it also has flares in it. There probably is every kind of like for the emergency situation of a bus.

Were you really sad when they took your vest? I need your vest and your flare. And you're like, okay.

And they're like, your other flare. You had one in your ankle holster. Well, Vives, maybe you and I can pull a sneak move.

I'm happy. Look, the thing is, like, if you act with enough, and Luke knows this. I know Andrew doesn't. If you act with enough confidence and assumed authority, 99% of the time and 99% of the people are not going to question you.

I do think, I do want to be careful, though, because I think that the road close side is where it is. So you don't, like, get too far along that section of 45th before you have to move over.

But aren't they supposed to be moving it? Like, isn't the goal to have them move it?

Well, they're leaving it there because there is still a little, like, a very tiny amount of, like, a form. This is getting so boring, but, like, you know where, like, back in my day it was a Pier 1 import? Was that still there when you worked there?

I've never seen a Pier 1. What's there now?

It's 45th and the Ave. There's nothing there. There's blight. Oh, the blight's been there forever now. 45th and the Ave used to be.

Yeah, I knew it as an American apparel.

Before it was an American apparel, it was a Pier 1 import back in my day.

You know, that was my high school job, my high school summer job. My first job was Pier 1.

Really?

Yeah.

So that was the American apparel. Anyway, they're doing like a sidewalk expansion. And what they're doing today is they had some forms where the concrete was being poured to expand the sidewalk. Right. It's not a major road hazard, but there were some little pieces of wood sticking out from it that I feel like if people were to just bomb them, down 45th in that lane they might like knock those things out so they still wanted a little bit of barrier so what I was thinking we can do is pick up the sign and just move it down to the end of like where the theater is so that people won't drive on that part

yeah you could do that you could also invest in a couple of traffic cones

well there are tons of cones we just reorient the cones okay well it sounds like we've got a plan

thanks get that vest

if you need an instruction you know the Ghostbusters 2 I think where they go in where they do the they pretend to be road work guys or like under the city construction guys and they do a pretty good job of bluffing the cops who come and ask them about it.

We'll watch that tonight. We have to for training purposes. It's one of my favorite training videos, Ghostbusters 2. Do you like Ghostbusters 2 better than Ghostbusters 1?

I mean I think it's in the category of extremely solid sequel.

It also has an extremely solid soundtrack because I believe that's the one that has the Bobby Brown, well, I guess we're going to have to take control. That is so good. Which, no offense to Ray Parker Jr. or Ray Parker Sr., but I think that that Bobby Brown song is a superior song to the Ghostbusters song.

Oh, yeah. It's extremely good, for sure.

Yeah. They're the Ghostbusters, Luke, and they're in control. They sure are. Thank you, Genevieve.

Thanks, Veeves. Appreciate you. So you and I will handle the signage thing on Saturday night.

Bring your vest.

Yeah. hello and welcome to top story all right i am sorry to do this to you andrew but there has been a song that has been taking up so much room in my brain for about the last i don't know eight nine days that the only way for me to clear out some space so that we can properly do the 4000th episode is for me to unload this song onto you and the listeners all right that's fair enough now there's a whole genre of tiktok that for some reason is being delivered to me algorithmically a lot on my for you page now for you is not the same as who you are following i'm saying this for folks who may not be familiar with tiktok so the for you page is it's a little bit misleading because it's it it sounds like you asked for this stuff in a way but you didn't it's what the it's what bite dance probably like you know i assume that like chairman she is like sitting in his palace somewhere in china just like sending these directly to me i think that's

how it works right so yeah yeah that's my understanding of it that's actually some congress people's understanding of it as well sadly um but uh the for you page is just kind

of like the things that the algorithm thinks you might like and i don't know why this is being delivered to me a lot but there's a whole tiktok jong of like folks who really want to make it as musicians but are really don't seem it doesn't feel like it's something that's a natural talent for them and it's not like a band that's playing out of tune or like a you know a lot of people make bands with their friends in high school or college and it's like the band's not really going anywhere but it's fun there's this this genre that I have for some reason gotten a lot of is very different it's like a single person who will like studio produce some you know pretty bad song like and by studio producers I mean like at their house on their computer because that's the other thing the technology makes this very doable and then they'll lip sync they'll go out somewhere and they'll make a video of themselves

performing the song and sometimes those things will catch the there it's one of those things where they're kind of like so bad that I think people start reposting it with the joke a little bit being on the person who made the song which I've really mixed feelings about I mean that's the kind of humor that I used to very much traffic in when I was younger and I think as I've gotten older and I've just personally made a lot of bad creative decisions I started to have a little bit more empathy for folks that are just trying and having fun and it's like I don't know like let's

not punched down or whatever i know it's tough though because i don't really know this genre that you're talking about i don't spend a lot of time on the ticks or the talks but i um there is like a if somebody takes themselves too seriously and sort of doesn't have a certain sort of like kind of personal awareness of what they're putting out there it's hard not to cringe well that's sort

of where a guy named sean stevens comes in so this guy i saw this pop up on my for you page and i'm going to say this video had like when i saw it i don't know it looked like it maybe had like 1200 likes or something which is not very low why is that appearing in your for you it's it's strange it actually happens more than you would think like my for you page is not necessarily only things that have in fact it's more rare for something to pop up that has 1.2 million views than it is for something to pop up that has 200 views which again is is strange i don't know how that's making it this dude likes bad music well that's what i'm wondering about or this guy likes deep cuts so this guy sean stevens he's canadian and the video is him standing in times square and let me describe the look of sean stevens he's a guy he's older than me which immediately kind of gives me a a slightly odd feeling because like i don't belong on tiktok in my mind and like i basically feel Like, the people that belong on TikTok are either under the age of 30 or over the age of 80. This middle range of, like, people like me, or at least middle-aged dad types, I don't feel like we need to be on TikTok necessarily. And this guy has, like, he, his hair is dyed kind of a green, almost like a little bit the color of, like, the Joker's hair.

He's a bit older than us, you said. What is his hair situation? Is he rocking a pretty full head of hair? He has a good head of hair.

he has a good head of hair in fact you could even google him if you did like sean stevens music

well i'm gonna i'm gonna be an advocate for the listener here yes that's great thank you so his hair being dyed i did ask that in seriousness because and i'm i honestly like i'm not trying to shame anybody but i as somebody with very thinning hair myself like i just gotta i gotta just keep it you know pretty cut pretty short and can't go crazy with it if you have hair like mind where I'm you know balding but not fully bald if you let it grow long and start dying and stuff it can be very unflattering everybody can do their own shit but for me

that's very unflattering no that's not this guy's look he has a he has a pretty good head of hair he's wearing he's looks my guess would be he's like fifty two he's one thing is he's clearly got like um veneers like his teeth are he has one of those like very white very perfect smiles that like no one has like ever and definitely no one has at 52 and what is is his complexion darker so the teeth really pop through uh he's a like kind of my complexion i guess but he's wearing like a vest and a plaid tie and his hair kind of dyed green and he says something like i traveled a thousand kilometers to come do this oh canadian right which also is weird that i'm like hey uh if you're trying to appeal to the u.s market now i would walk five thousand kilometers it's like sean just do the do the conversion if you're trying to again you're trying to break into the u.s market break it down to yards thank you so he's like so i'm just gonna play this tape for you and this is him he's standing in time square and he is singing this song that i cannot get out of

my head i traveled a thousand kilometers to new york city to do this i am rectangular i feel it in my bones i am rectangular oh shit it's already feel no hole i am rectangular And again, he's lip syncing to this in Times Square.

Is the camera kind of spinning around him? No, it's just fixed on him. By the way, the song is 47 seconds long and cuts off. Just listen to this. That's the whole clip. that's the entire song that I can find it's him singing I Am Rectangular for about 41 seconds

I couldn't make out all of the lyrics but is it basically about a round peg in a square hole or vice versa well that's the definitely

That's the vibe, but you bring up a great question, Andrew. No one can figure out if he's saying, I fill no hole or I feel no hole. In fact, this is part of how this song is taking off. There are people duetting it, okay, which is where you split screen, and you have people like this guy. I don't know this guy's name, but he's trying to get to the bottom of that exact question. Okay.

I have to know, because it's different every time. Is it I fill no hole Or is it I feel no hole Because you say You say feel

And a lot And then that just cuts off too It's gotta be a fill By the way

Really? That's just where it cuts off?

That's I'm Andrew when I say the TikTok aesthetic is the up cut

Yeah

It is an aggressive up cut

I mean I kind of like it when it's done perpetually But that really seems like he accidentally let go of the button It's gotta be fill though It's got to be Phil. Yes, it sounds wrong, but the way he sings it is weird. But that's the only thing that makes sense. I'm rectangular. I fill no hole.

Yeah, but it's also like, why is the song 41 seconds? Why is he singing it in Times Square? By the way, this guy, Sean Stevens, his real life is the CEO of what appears to be a very successful marketing company in Canada called Tree Frog. And if you read this guy's bio.

Go Tree Frogs. Seattle, what is it? North Seattle College here? Oh, really?

They're the Tree Frogs.

Isn't that awesome? That's a dope game. They have signs up over there. It says, go tree frogs. I'm like, I don't even know what games, but I want to go to a tree frog. I'm into that.

I think that's got to be relatively new. That's much cooler than whatever it used to be. So here's the thing. Like, the song is not really for me, but there is something about it that's a little catchy. And what's really-

It will be in my head all day. Like, it's already burrowing in.

What this has now launched, and I feel like it's still kind of like you're going to be, if you're somebody who's extremely online like I am, and if you're somebody who's on TikTok, I think you're going to be seeing more and more of this throughout the summer because I think this is this meme or this whatever you want to call it is just starting to take off. but it's it's it's now it's unfolding and it's now blooming in the way that all of these tick tock things bloom which is other people covering it so you have a whole range like this is a guy who is just also has his hair is dyed green so maybe he feels a kinship and he are you just uh is that you playing it yeah i'm just playing it in the background here but oh because you're gonna get to hear this song many many times before we're done this segment so i'm watching

this on tiktok on his and i was going to ask you about this this is sean stevens right i'm watching i don't know i can't see your computer but you said his name is sean stevens yes sean stevens dot music sean stevens it looks like it's the official one there are subtitles did you say that and i i misheard you there's always subtitles on tiktok right that's what i thought that's why i was going to ask you like wouldn't that answer the question of no because the subtitles are

often wrong okay i will say on the subtitles it is feel right but i think the subtitles are auto-generated so a lot of times when i'm watching again this is part of why tiktok is so flippin addictive because i can watch tiktok in like uh the airport if i don't have my headphones charged i don't even need the sound because everything on tiktok is subtitled yeah i know

that's one thing that i kind of enjoy and i appreciate too i um think about that as you and i make content too like making sure that it's you know accessible um for people who need it but also just people you don't know where they're going to be watching this content and most stuff that i see if it's a tiktok that's sent to me or a instagram reel or something like that there's a very there's at least a 75 chance that i never even hear the audio the one problem with the if

because i will often have the audio on one problem is when i'm watching comedy like stand up on tiktok the subtitles are slightly ahead of and it'll tell me the joke before the person yeah that's weird so i have to like intentionally not look at it sometimes yep so okay so here's another person singing this song now this guy is part of a whole other i would say genre of tiktok which is a person who is have like this video has like four views it's just because i looked at the hashtag i'm rectangular and it's a guy who's just like in his room by himself and he's got green hair and he's singing his version of the song and being weird about it and it's not funny and nobody really needs this in their life but there's a lot of this that goes on on tiktok too i am rectangular

I feel it in my bones I am rectangular And you are a circle I am rectangular That's him just stopping

just to be funny and weird.

What is the line before him stopping there? And you are what?

And you are a circle?

You are a circle. I could not tell. I could not tell what was going on.

Then you've got people who are... This guy is in on the joke a little bit. He's like some kind of a hipstery guy who's just doing it acapella now.

I am rectangular, I feel no whole, I am-

I will take the original.

You've got this guy who's doing it as sacred choral music. This guy has written out. He has figured out the notes of the song. And above him on the screen on TikTok is the actual sheet music for the song now. And he is, as he's singing it, he's moving his finger, one of his fingers against his other finger to demonstrate where on the musical side. scale he is with the sacred choral version of the song

I am rectangular I feel it in my bones I am rectangular I feel no hole I am rectangular and you are a circle he says this is apparently one

something above a drone you've of course got somebody who just did it on piano it's actually kind of beautiful as a piano

song this is uh like a sensitive show from the 80s music oh like a an episode the whole family should watch like a family ties type i think you see like photographs flipping or yes absolutely

Or it could be Tim Allen telling his son he's not going to die of cancer right before the Diet Mug Root Beer Dana Carvey show.

This is my favorite.

I mean, it's actually kind of beautiful. I'm not mad at this song. Also, this person extended it. This is like a minute 35, so I'll kind of fade this down on my end and bring you the next version, which is we start to enter kind of the indie kind of quadrant of TikTok. This is a kind of a Screamo indie version of it. I don't know if it's technically Screamo. I'll play it for you. Tell me what genre, what kind of music this strikes you as.

I am rectangular, feeling in my bones.

By the way, this guy says on his, like, the script on his thing is, I traveled eight miles to Los Angeles to play this song for you.

Wow, the Decembrists has really hurt. That's some tough times. Okay, calm down. All right. That would be the person at karaoke, especially at the end there, where you're just like, all right, everybody just settle the F down.

Right, totally. So then you've got a guy who plays under the handle Michigander, and he's now doing kind of the indie music piano version of the song.

I am rectangular. I feel it in my bones. I am rectangular. I fill no hole. I am rectangular. You are a circle.

There you go. Again, that's that TikTok up cut for you. Now, what I want to play for you is really the thing that kind of turned me around on this song or at least made me think of it differently. So at one point I had just seen the Sean Stevens version. And I again, I will admit. So there's something about his presentation that felt it made me it made me feel a little bit uncomfortable because it seemed like a way of looking for attention in the world. That's not the way that I look for attention. And it made me feel a little embarrassed. It's like you're a guy in your 50s. You showed up in Times Square. You have green hair. You're wearing a plaid tie. And you're lip syncing to your own song in Times Square. Like it was again, it's just not how I would be in the world, which doesn't mean it's wrong for him. But and then I saw this guy named Corey who does music. And his point was literally he writes. I think I actually screen capped it so I could get it right. Let me see if I can find this on the fly. he he said uh let me get to this his thing was basically if Bon Iver recorded this song it people would be loving it like like basically saying here's what he said okay but if Bon Iver dropped this one we'd be hailing their brilliance and Pitchfork would give it an 8.2 so this is the Bon Iver treatment of the song and when I heard this I was like this guy kind of has a point

Yeah, that's like the penultimate song on some 2003 indie record.

It's just like a quick little interstitial. Totally.

No, you're so right. There was always that little, like, song.

lit yeah now so this is the next thing that happens of course with that version from cory is a guy named mikey drums duets it and he adds his drums so now one side of the screen is cory doing bonnivere version and then the other side is this guy adding his drums to that version

nope you're a no that's a no for you i'm a no on those drums yeah they're a little soft and yeah and two i don't know not the right treatment it turns it into a cheesier genre

right those drums i don't like the production well we have then finally my probably a sousaphone i get a hat wobble it's a flam rest flam rest uh this is probably my favorite and it's from the same guy, Corey, who now gives it the Sufjan Stevens treatment. And I will say this is a song I, first of all, would legitimately believe was a Sufjan Stevens song. And I legitimately find this to be good, listenable music. This is the song Rectangular by Sean Stevens of TreeFrogMedia.ca, as interpreted by a guy named Corey Music with a K, doing a Sufjan version.

Got to get that banjo in there. This could be on this Kansas record.

How's that project going? Is that the most rectangular state? Probably. That flourishes.

So there you go. those are yeah that could be like kansas or one of the dakotas that could literally be if that's

such a good point that's such a good point it actually would it would actually be a good song about a state that's extremely rectangular we got them so i guess that's just i i wanted everyone to hear every possible presentation of that song um which you know is again the original song is not so much for me but i i guess here's here's here's my takeaway if i hear this version of the song I traveled a thousand kilometers to New York City to do this.

I am rectangular. The vocal, like what he's doing. I don't know what the processing is. I am rectangular. But also what he's singing.

Feel no hole. I think he says feel no hole. He definitely pronounces it that way. Do you want me to back it up? He definitely pronounces it that way, but that doesn't, the lyrics actually make sense if it's Phil.

I know, but nothing about this makes sense to me.

I feel it in my bones. Because actually, you know what?

Because I feel it in my bones. Yeah, we have a side-by-side.

What if he's saying, I feel it in my bones? Is it we're talking about that? No.

I feel no hole. I am rectangular. And you are a circle.

I guess my point is, when I hear that version of the song, I kind of have one reaction. And then when I hear the Bon Iver or the Sufjan version, I have a totally different reaction And I think that just speaks to how presentation Really affects me I mean, is that an obvious point? I guess it kind of is

Well, I don't think it shows I don't know if you're implying That there's something superficial about that But no, I mean, of course there are Different genres that we like And different ways of producing a song, right?

I guess my, again

And you are a circle Has anybody fixed that? Can you go back? I want to hear how Bon Iver Light does this. You want to hear how Bon Iver

does it? Okay, hold on, let's see. Yeah, let me back this up. I'm just going to have to start it from the beginning, so permit me. I can't hear this version enough.

I am rectangular I feel it in my bones I am rectangular I feel no hole I am rectangular You were a circle But how does he do it in the original, though?

I don't think there's any way around it. That's what I'm saying. I mean, there's no fix for that. There really isn't. All the TikToks in the world can't fix Sir Cole.

Can't put Humpty Dumpty together again.

You are a Sir Cole.

Anyway, thank you for humoring me on that, Andrew. I feel better. I feel like a weight has been lifted.

Yeah, well, because you've spread your disease.

Yes, I've shared it. Well, I mean, I'm hoping people catch our disease, Andrew. Isn't that the entire? Now I just need to Now we just need to get Sean Stevens covering Catch My Disease And we'll have come full circle Alright A little what's in the box my friend

This is my box This is my box I never travel without my box Oh what's in the box In the first drawer I keep my magic stone

Oh, what's in the box? Licorice! Licorice! Blood sweet licorice! Blood sweet licorice! Have some. You can probably hear me rooting around in my own drawers. What's the top drawer? I should have like a razor blade to help us open some of these packages from listeners. There's one here that Luke... By the way, I've had a couple of... Listen to all my pens. Do you like that sound? I've had a couple of packages sitting here in my office for quite some time, and then I got a note from a listener saying, hey, did you get my package? I haven't heard anything about it yet, and I feel bad about that. And so in one of these, I know what's in here. Okay. And it's beautiful, and it's handmade by an artist.

It stopped moving at some point. Let's see.

When I shake it, let's see here. All right, everybody calm down. Everybody calm down. Ask you to open that. I'm sorry I don't have a proper. Oh, here's a proper utensil. Oh, interesting, Andrew. This package.

It is rectangular.

It is rectangular. Here, I'm going to give you this.

Okay. This looks like it's from Sierra. Yes. Sierra in Chico, California. Oh, look at how it's been adorned. Pizza, bowling shoes, kittens.

It's got that fun tape, right?

Yeah, I don't know what you call that, but I don't think I've mailed anything, physically mailed anything in, I don't know, years. Am I opening this or am I waiting?

I want you to go ahead and open that, because I know what's inside. I've seen digital versions of it, and these are the originals, and they're really cool.

Okay. I am opening this. It's a big kind of envelope. Whoa, okay. It says, well, 5-30-23. Okay, Sierra, we got to it. Oh, that was from May, from the end of May.

Well, it's barely July.

Sierra says, hey there, friendos. I sent you both portraits ages ago of your then-pod pets. and realized y'all needed portraits of your new babies. So here you go. They're 5 by 7 inches, so they should fit a standard frame. I love a wooden Goodwill frame myself. Oh, nice. Luke, the, let's see, ring in Bubbles' portrait is meant to be her treadmill. Hopefully that translates. I had a baby in November. Oh, congrats. And have been, yeah. Oh, that's awesome. Congratulations, Sierra. And have been time banditing ever since, but i keep up with the times in the newsletter and will listen quote live when i can to this year's thon so exciting no mountain too tall signed sierra oh my gosh dude you're looking

at the portrait now right so good so what is that is that is that watercolor or what is that i don't

know art terms but i do know but it's painted in some look at this sierra has a business critters

by sierra unique pet portraits look it up sierra c-i-a-r-a am i right about that and it's sierra

barsotti.com and barsotti is b-a-r-s-o-t-t-i because i said i was gonna say that barsotti.com or you can find her on instagram at critters by sierra dude andrew these are remarkable that's

why i wanted you to open that because again i think i mean they're finally said i don't know

if you got my package they're so perfectly done i can this be the show pick today oh yeah absolutely Or that or Sean Stevens with his green hair.

I think we should maybe.

These are spectacular. I mean, this is a dead ringer for Bubbles and Bingo. I know. But in their finest moment. And in fact, this is like usually Bubbles is tossing Holly's salad. Oh, God. So I'm just, I have to answer. I'm a truth teller. These are incredible. Oh, my gosh. Like, Sierra, thank you. This is going to have a place of honor in my house.

Yeah, and I believe I have digital versions of the first ones, too. Like, I have one of Theo, rest in peace, and Professor Bananas around, too. So, like, it's a good collection. And the fact that, like, somebody that we know just made this. I mean. I don't understand. I have no artistic bones in my body. Oh, look at the little bird in the background of Bingo. Oh, this is beautiful. Thank you, Sierra. I also have a package here. Let's see here. So this was a package that seemed like maybe it was book-shaped. It was wrapped in brown packing paper. And inside are some classic Reader's Digest, going back to 1949. So I grew up with Reader's Digest that were from the 60s and 70s because my grandma just dropped off a huge box of them at our house one time. And then so I spent my childhood sitting on the toilet reading Reader's Digest from the 60s and 70s and wondering if the people will survive the drama in real life. Well, that's what I was wondering about. But these are really old. These go back to 1949, early 50s. Here, take a look at this. This is like the classic stuff when they still put the table of contents on the cover. You want to know a baller move? Yeah. We don't need to gussy this up.

table you want to cover fine it's the table of goddamn contents because we don't have an inch

to waste i want to know when they started drama in real life though because i think 49 might have been early because you know what in 1940 1949 andrew real life was drama yeah yeah just oh smell that yeah i know i get a whiff of that no no yeah that's classic that's the exact smell of the archie double digest exactly i want to get i want to see though what like i want if they did have let's see uh drama and uh drama in real life in this era i wanted i wanted to try to like read what some of the stories were like what some of the you know events were that led to it but honestly i bet they didn't bring that around you know that's actually kind of interesting to think about andrew because what was the reader's digest thing that they added that you kind of thought was a little wasn't there something in reader's digest that well that you were like it's a little new wasn't like how to make a friend or something oh well that was one recently that was really funny

It was written. The headline was written like Mr. Peanut Butter from BoJack Horse. Friends, what are they? How do we find them and how do we keep them or something like that? But generally speaking, like, yeah, the cover, like the content is way more kind of spread out. And like this Reader's Digest used to be dense, right? Like, again, table of contents on the front page. Very just like now they have these like really bad Photoshop covers. Remember the Statue of Liberty holding a chicken wing? for the spook and forget. Best states, snacks in every state. Rainier cherries in Washington.

By the way, you know how many times I've bought rainier cherries now because of that? Has that gotten in your head? Multiple times. Yeah, it works. But this is my point. This is my point, Andrew. So this is OG Reader's Digest that the listeners sent. It doesn't appear to have drama in real life. Really? Not that I can find. 1949, they weren't doing that.

Do you have any humor in uniform? Do we have any all in a day's work? Do we have the joke sections is what I'm saying. You look at that. I'm going to read this. But here's what I'm – Oh, go ahead.

Let me just – This is important, Andrew. This is the important work of our time. Whereas we now think that Reader's Digest sucks because – or not sucks, but Reader's Digest is selling their soul because they have the Statue of Liberty holding a chicken wing. At some point, somebody was reading Reader's Digest, and they were like, drama in real life. Yeah. That was their version of like how to make friends. Yeah, that's a good point. And like I lived for that shit when I was a kid. So, I mean, you know, that's the march of progress.

I've said this on the show before, But I remember being a kid and reading so many of those. And then at some point, again, probably on the toilet. I think we had a brown, squishy toilet seat. You know what I'm talking about? Almost like the plastic pleather. Oh, yeah.

And it was like the air would slowly. You'd sit on it and go, psst.

Exactly. I was sitting on that thing as a little kid looking up at the little jokey plaque that my dad had hanging down there that showed a picture of a kid on a toilet that said, no job is done until the paperwork is complete or whatever. And I would read those dramas in real life Until my legs went numb And then I remember one day realizing Wait a second, they always survive Otherwise, who would have the details of this story And that's the day I became a man

I was far too old when I realized that I mean, I was absolutely Now let me just read you Do you mind, Andrew? I know that we probably should move on

Well, I do want to acknowledge who sent this Because I haven't sent that at all yet

Andy Rooney

It was Andy Rooney This is from listener Nancy, who says, I clean out old houses. This sounds like a dream, by the way. I clean out old houses and run a store in Olympia called Fun Junk. By the way, people can check out Fun Junk on Instagram, at Fun Junk online. I think it's, yeah, it's at Fun Junk online. Anyway, in my search, I found this little stack of Old Reader's Digest. I thought of you immediately, and so I'm sending them your way. May they provide you with a small amount of entertainment. A small amount? Are you kidding me, Nancy? you've already made my day. P.S. I met you once at the garage of the Fremont Sunday Market. I have a booth there. I totally remember that and this reminds me that I need to go back to the Sunday Fremont Market. Okay, what did you want to read from the stack?

I just wanted to kind of like let people know what Reader's Digest was doing in 1949. They started with some kind of an essay by Albert Schweitzer. That's a pretty big get for them

called Your Second Job. Well, are they just reprinting that from somewhere? Probably.

Actually, is that what they do? This is the first that I'm actually realizing that.

Luke, literally in adulthood, like literally in the past five years, I said, oh, they're barring content. They're like, that has always been the whole point of Reader's Digest. It's a digest of other. Andrew. It's reprinted from The Atlantic. It's reprinted from other publications.

Andrew, I was this year's old. I was almost this year's old when somebody pointed that out to me. And you know why? If I would have taken a moment, I would realize this because you're right. The table of contents being on the cover shows you where everything's from. So that's just from Albert Schweitzer But you also have something from The Atlantic The giant snails on the rampage

That's so funny that I said Atlantic

That was an Atlantic piece Oh, Life in the United States

United States they do have the flip to it flip to it I want to hear some of those jokes so this is

1950 the one 49 okay 49 page 13 page 13 life in these United States these are going to be jokes from 1949 I can't imagine there will be any problems with any of these jokes I'm sure that they will all hold up uh let's see actually you know what these appear to be they're probably pretty innocuous right no but i mean what i mean is i don't even know if they're really jokes or more humorous anecdotes yeah that's kind of what they do because humor in uniform was just straight

up jokes right or was it also that no it was like hey i when i was uh when i was in training camp my patrol they're always anecdotes i consider myself to be an absolutely dead center normal

average american okay life in these united states i had stopped at uh at the study of a chicago clergyman to take him to lunch and just as we were leaving, the telephone rang. He listened courteously for about five minutes, then began to reply. In the middle of a sentence, however, he broke the connection with his finger and then hung up. When I simply have to get away, he explained, I always hang up on myself. The poor telephone company gets blamed. Bores would never think a man would cut off his own voice. That was sent in by Robert Taylor of Bayside, New York. You know what?

timeless funnier today true today as it was in that space what i have no idea what just happened

in that story i think the premise or why the story is interesting is because he's a clergyman and so a clergyman it'd be you wouldn't expect them to hang up on someone else although the terminology is weird because he says i hang up on myself but i think what it is is that he got bored of his parishioner i see and he kind of just like click oh i see so he's getting out of He's getting out of an annoying conversation, which is – that's what I'm – that's my guess.

Yeah, and the phone company gets blamed.

Okay, here we go. Let's try this from A. Jensen in Susanville, California. God, Andrew, I really – I need my reading glasses for this. It's so sad. By the way, not a big font. I don't know if people – No, they have large print readers digest. Those are the ones my mom was always grabbing. Okay, here we go. I was shopping for sewing supplies when a sweet young thing came in and asked me to see a sample of the new plastic dress forms molded on the buyer's own figure. All right, I'm already not feeling great about this. The clerk, with an appreciative glance at her figure, I'm feeling worse about this, showed her a sample form and its many advantages for fitting. Do you know how to sew, the clerk asked, or would you be interested in the lessons we offer? Well, I suppose I should learn to sew someday, the girl replied vaguely, But I'm interested in the thing right now because I just found out I'm going to have a baby. And I want one around the house to remind my husband that I didn't always look the way I'm going to look in a few months. Fantastic. Good stuff. Good stuff. I'll be digging into that more later. You know what? Let's skip ahead to page 63. Treat your colon kindly. Oh, nice. By Dr. William Harley Glavke, MD. Last year, the American public spent $99 million for laxatives. We buy more of these drugs than any other home medications. Possible custom explanations, possibly custom explains a lot of this large expenditure. Considering digestive waste as unclean, it is easy to reason quite wrongly that if it remains in the colon, it will poison us. Nothing seems more logical than to clear out the system, to get rid of the poison that seemingly causes our dizzy feeling. poor appetite or dopiness so the poor old colon has been needlessly driven and drugged until it's a wonder there's anything left of it this is actually raising an interesting point i bet you people were laxative themselves yes you know to to poor colon health which reminds me andrew we do

need to do our tandem colonoscopy i know basically i wanted to get through this summer as far as like our big transition and like you wanted to get as much red meat processing through your digestive system but i did say like once i get through this big really busy period i'm going to have to put my i'm gonna have to turn my health into a project because um it's been way way way too long since i been to a doctor um i wanted to play for you so okay really quickly i don't think there's a note in here because it's sent directly from amazon but it does look like somebody sent us a copy and i believe you interviewed jamie is it loftus oh wow raw dog the raw dog the book uh the naked truth about hot dogs it's a great book you were saying it's a good book um you know what this is from amazon so i don't if the person i feel like somebody might have emailed me to say it was coming my way but this was again from this spring and unfortunately was it maybe a maybe a maggie we'll see i'm not sure if that's true but whoever sent it thank you very much I'm sorry I don't. It's a good read. You will enjoy it, Andrew.

It gets into, I mean, it's sort of like.

I like this art on the inside. It's kind of like. It's like a kid's book growing up or something. There's a map of the United States with various styles of hot dogs per region.

And look at the cover behind the, like, the real hard cover is also cool.

Oh, yeah, the cover when you take off the, what do you call this? Book jacket, maybe? The jacket, yeah. I actually like the cover underneath even better.

But, like, what's great about this book is it's sort of like come for the, like, oh, i had a great hot dog in at ben's chili bowl in dc but stay for the actually interesting social commentary about the the history of like labor in this country and the way that we um consume food and why people got into hot dogs i mean it's it's an actually much more subversive book than you would expect about hot dogs it's not just like and then i had a hot dog in albuquerque and it was great i ate hot dogs for a year no it's not that at all it's the opposite of that To Jamie's eternal credit It's a very very fascinating read

And I remember Genevieve said that she kind of Was just flipping through the radio And caught part of your interview with Jamie On Livewire and she said it was really good actually

Well thanks I've weirdly heard that from a few people And I don't hear that a lot Andrew So I have to attribute that to Jamie You know it's funny when I was down in LA This week I was driving around Oh on Sunday after my plane landed And I got into the rental car And our pal Francis Lamb from The Splendid Table, our former colleague, was interviewing Jamie Loftus about the hot dog book. And they were talking about hot dogs. And I was like, is Francis even going to bring up the fact that he was once on our salute to the American hot dog? We were standing at the grill at my old house on the phone with Francis Lamb. I can't remember how I rigged up that phone. I don't know how you did it either, but it's amazing. I have photos. And that was on the air. We made that as a radio show. That was a radio. That was an hour of radio about the hot dog. And I just felt like, Francis, you know, honestly, like, you need to put some respect on our name. Like, we were, because he was, like, talking about how he loves hot dogs and how he always, like, he was acting like a real hot dog head. And I'm like, okay, fine. But where did we, where were you first identified as a hot dog head? As a hot dog head. It was on our salute to the American hot dog. Thank you.

Hey, I want to play a voicemail for you that is related to all of this. So I got a text message from Maggie. This is not the middle shelf. This is Maggie from the East Coast who sent me, I believe, a text message after hearing my conversation the other day on the show or our conversation the other day on the show about my desire to become a true hooper, about my hoop dreams, about how I wish I was a little bit taller. Wish you were a baller. I wish I had a rabbit and a hat and a cat and a six foot crawler. Crawler. I wish I could get with Leoshi. Anyway, it is true. There is a I don't even actually just wish you had a crawler. You're just hungry for a donut right now. A maple bar. But there's a I told you that I was taking a little shortcut in my neighborhood and cut across a church parking lot very near my home. And there was a like a basketball hoop in the parking lot. One of those kind of portable basketball hoops with a full size one. And I was like, oh, you know what? I could see myself just like grabbing a basketball if I found one at Goodwill or something like that. and just practicing shooting hoops out here instead of being in my basement throwing darts all the time, especially in the summertime. And you encouraged me to do that. And I said, yeah, I'm just going to keep an eye out for a used basketball or something. And then I got a text message from Maggie in Swarthmore, I believe, saying, hey, I just sent you a basketball and I'm leaving you a voicemail to tell you why. Now, I don't have the basketball here with me right now because it's probably at the post office as we speak. Maybe we can pick it up later on our adventures. Yeah, I would love that. Actually, we should do that. But I did want to play Maggie's voicemail, explaining why she felt the urge to send me this basketball.

Hey, Andrew, this is Maggie. And I sent you that weird text about the fact that I've sent you a basketball and it should arrive tomorrow. And it really is not meant to be all creepy and stalkery. It's really just that I also really hated gym as a kid and sports as a kid. And that made me think that exercise wasn't for me. And I'm still like I'm a pudgy middle aged mom type. But post-COVID, I discovered how much I love going to the gym and how much better I feel when I exercise and how I shouldn't have let other people's idea about what my body should look like or my gym time look like make a difference about what I did. And I just feel like if you want to go and shoot hoops at the church parking lot, you should do that, even if you wouldn't want to play a pickup game. And I just felt like you shouldn't have to wait until there's a basketball at Goodwill. And I hope you enjoy it. And I hope you don't think it's creepy because it's really not meant to be creepy. And I love the show. Bye.

Blocked and reported. No, that's incredible. Incredibly sweet. I cannot wait, Andrew, until you go full Heir to a Dream, which is the Pete Maravich book. Oh, of course. Well, I know that. Yeah, when I was in high school, Mr. Collard, our basketball coach, made all of us read Heir to a Dream. And the whole thing with Pete Maravich was he was a phenomenal basketball player, but he was also phenomenal with his dribbling tricks and his shooting ability. And he would do things like ride in the car. his dad would drive the car pretty slowly but also faster than a person would like walk and pete marriage would dribble the basketball out the window he would like sleep with the basketball he would carry basketball everywhere he would do all of these ball handling drills that are still kind of still actually pretty revolutionary and um of course i took all of that to heart and would like sleep with a basketball i would lie in bed just like doing my shooting form over and over again i see this as your future and i'm very excited yeah well let's honestly let's try to

stop by the post office today yeah we have some errands yeah we gotta go involving lunch boxes moving truck anyway so perfect exactly so we will do that thank you so much maggie

all right let's do a little uh music for your weekend before we get on out of here uh what song would you like please tell me it's we didn't pick the same song this week which is i am

rectangular that is actually it's the iron and wine version that I have called up here I don't think I told you about something phenomenal that happened to me after a baseball game last Friday Luke it's the one it's the one week anniversary of something phenomenal happening to me and Jen this is the story Genevieve and I went to that Blue Jays game last Friday the Mariners had a very surprising walk-off win I was out of my goddamn mind with joy I thought of you because

of because of what you had talked about on the show which was the feeling of being a stranger in your own home stadium when there's so many uh Blue Jays fans I got pretty real about that with

Genevieve when she was on the show earlier this week because I didn't there was something I had not told her which was as I was taking the bus into the area for the stadium we were just driving through huge crowd not driving through but there were just on the sidewalk huge

crowds wishing that the bus driver would

be driving it was nothing but Blue Jays fans Luke I mean I did not see any Mariners jerseys until I got very close and I was just like and I started to get so upset I almost called Genevieve to say I'm not feeling well like I don't like I literally I mean I didn't come super close to doing it but the idea flashed in my head like again we were there by invitation of Genevieve's colleague and friend and somebody who I like a great deal, and I was very excited. It was a perfect night for baseball, and the seats ended up being perfect. But I was already so upset. I'm like, the Mariners have disappointed me so much this season. I know they're going to disappoint me tonight, and I'm going to have to shuffle out of this stadium with all of these chanting Blue Jays fans, right? And I'm going to be – I was like, I don't know if I'm ready for that.

They're going to say, we traveled 1,000 kilometers to come ruin this game for Andrew.

Well, it turns out they are rectangular. and so like they're you know starting all these pro blue jays chants and everything during the game and then um i uh and then when we end up winning i became i don't think i was like rude or did anything i don't think i embarrassed genevieve but i was just like as all of these blue jays fans were just like pouring out of the stadium i stayed in my seat which was on the aisle just like clapped in their face and was just saying let's go mariners which is like uh you know kind of changing around their little chant for the blue jays so anyway that was where we left things and uh came out of the park just feeling just so high on life and amped and we got home probably we took the bus all the way back home didn't get home until like 11 30 or something which isn't super late but we sit down on the couch we're like we should watch something and i'm just still like kind of buzzing and i don't know if you do that thing you get a smart tv where it's giving you suggestions from across all different kinds of platforms too many things to watch what's smart about that equals mc squared so you know it's like this is on hulu this is on netflix but like when i'm in a mood like that especially late on a friday night or whatever that was i don't feel like just like dialing up the beginning i want something that just feels more random to me i can't explain it i want something that more matches like the kind of old-fashioned tv experience so i'm just sort of flipping through and then youtube is one of the apps on my tv so youtube is suggesting something and what youtube is suggesting i guess based on things i've looked for before was the entire two-hour program of solid gold from the end of the year 1982 it was the top 40 songs of 1982 countdown now i did not grow up watching solid gold but i always just knew of it right and i put

it on as a lark it began with a commercial break it's a local pittsburgh tv recording you're already in and i'm just like oh my god what the heck so i put it on i leave the room for a little bit and then jenny was like oh you gotta come here like there was a very young john goodman an unknown john goodman in a york peppermint patty commercial before he's anybody you know i mean he was

somebody i think he did love he also did a like a um like a old spice aftershave commercial when

he was younger that i saw and i barely even recognize him yeah he was really good looking he's in a really famous i don't know famous but like he's in a um footlocker commercial where he comes in and lists all the different kinds of shoes that he wants i want this i want this i want this anyway so we're watching this in 1982 is not really a big musical year for me personally it's not really my tastes but you had all i mean you had um lionel richie was one of the biggest names on there you had the go-go's we had a lot of like a lot of kind of like air supply performed a song when i say perform they're all lip-syncing to the album track you can but they're actually there the artists are there exactly and they're performing in some way presumably doing all out of love it's yeah i think so yeah um but it's not all 40 what they'll do is they'll do like one or two performances then they'll say let's get through the next three or four songs by having the solid gold dancers dance while they click through a couple of songs yeah it was great we watched the whole thing like i just sat down it was like two hours sounds like a really like

you know let's be honest it's a it's a friday night maybe we've had a couple drinks maybe we've had a couple puffs that's like the perfect it was engagement level of content it was so great and

also just like it just was like oh man this song and this song and you had your melissa's manchester you had your juice newton oh juices newton um in fact and that's where i'm gonna start today or this is and end today luckily um is with a juice newton song that i did not know about called uh love's been a little bit hard on me are you familiar with this juice newton song i'm familiar with juice newton but not love has been a little hard yeah like what is juice newton's big hit um she was an angel of the morning i think she was actually and i love that song man i think that's one of those songs i felt subjected to as a kid because my dad loved this genre this sort of Country rock crossover type of deal But I end up growing up To like that stuff that I avoided as a kid And then there's this song Isn't that a great song Is that a big karaoke song Do people do that at karaoke a lot I don't feel like I've heard it a ton I put it on the jukebox a lot I have a go to jukebox list Anyway I love that song That's not what I'm playing But I'm going to play this song Which I was introduced to via A 45 year How long was 1982 We'll worry about that later Well it's 2023 now so it wouldn't have a 5 in it But either way a 40 year old recording Of Solid Gold Here's Love's Been a Little Bit Hard On Me The album version from Juice Newton

I've got nothing to be ashamed of Love's been a little bit hard on me If I shy away it's only because Love's been a little bit hard on me Love's been a little Can I offer a little advice for listening to this song?

Picture it as a traveling Wilburys song. Oh. Or something like that. Yeah. Not this part. That guitar isn't. I don't know why I'm trying to wrestle this song away from Juice Newton, but I feel like it has Tom Petty doing the lead vocals with Roy Orbison doing the backup or something.

That guitar part sounds a lot like something that would have been on a Keith Green album when I was growing up, which was Christian music from this same era. Also, that song feels 100% like it could kick off the Licorice Pizza soundtrack, the P.T. Anderson movie.

You know, I was really disappointed in myself the other day. we were doing a show I think it was during the live TBTL-a-thon shows we're listing P.T. Anderson movies and I didn't even list that one as one of the best like I forgot about that that is such a good movie

but it's also brand relatively new it is yeah so don't don't you know it's like you need to you need to happen it's happened across the movie or happen upon the movie a few more times for it to move into the sort of

you know pantheon but there's another one that I was mad about because it's I love it oh Inherent Vice I just had to look it up

I never saw Inherent Vice. I don't know if you'll like it. That's the Joaquin Phoenix one, right?

Yes, but it's very...

Is it like a pinch-on?

It is, yeah. Thomas Pynchon, I think, pinch-on. But it's very much... And I've never read the book, and I heard it's pretty hard to sort...

the movie itself like it's not a straight line you just have to like kind of jump into it and enjoy um the the feeling of following this like kind of grubby 1960s era private eye in southern california like it's just a vibe and it doesn't matter if all the loose ends are tied up or not it's just like it's just such a i saw it in the theater and it's just so pleasurable so anyway that might actually be my favorite pt anderson film i just that'd been bothering me that i forgot that in the moment i am going to call an audible andrew omaha omaha by the way football

are you feeling it in your blood that's i'm i'm i'm feeling feeling it somewhere and uh i am i got again every every year we we say the same thing which is there is absolutely nothing about the nfl that is redeemable except for the fact that it's so goddamn entertaining i mean yeah

As we say, you got to give them credit. They almost killed a man on the field and then somehow turned it into a promotional opportunity of redemption.

I mean, it is just it's I saw a I saw a meme on TikTok that was like when you can start betting on football in a week. And it was the office where I don't even I don't I'm not like a completist on the U.S. version of the office. I mean, I've always enjoyed anytime I've seen an episode, I've really enjoyed it. but I don't know all of the things, but it's like Creed Bratton. Oh, yeah. It's like giving Jim Halpern like a shoulder massage going, one more week. And that was some like, like some kind of, you know, BRB betting like TikTok account that was basically saying, we can start betting on the NFL in one more week.

Anyway. Do we know where the, so Hard Knocks must have begun this week too. Oh, you know who the Hard Knocks is this year? No, it'd been a big question mark, right? It's the Jets. it's the Aaron I thought they were fighting that but they must

be eligible they couldn't fight it they can't yeah that's one of these rare and I know you probably that probably makes you less interested because you dislike Aaron Rodgers so much

but I have a feeling I have a feeling that that will bring the world even more I mean listen he's become a heel like nobody needs me to dislike Aaron Rodgers anymore but I'll bet you he doesn't come off that great I don't bet you he doesn't come off great in any situation

he's inoculated against being a heel Andrew but like um yeah no i'm i'm like you know uh bill hater eating popcorn gif yeah i'm so excited about because usually i mean a lot of times the hard knocks team isn't of particular interest because they're a team that didn't go to the playoffs there's all these rules around who has to do it and it's you know if you went to the playoffs you can turn them down and so it ends up being up and coming teams unless you get a good dan campbell situation like we did with the lions

And I think if it's a first year coach, you don't you can opt out to.

Yeah. So I like it takes a really got to thread this needle to get an interesting team. And I do think the Jets with Aaron Rodgers will be interesting. Anyway, I'm calling an audible because I'm just feeling summer vibes here. Andrew, could we go with are you what are your thoughts on Animal Collective? Do you do you mess with Animal Collective?

I don't I mean, I know some songs. I feel like I had a CD at one point, but my knowledge is very shallow.

I'm a big, I mean, I'm not, I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but every time I hear an Animal Collective song, or also Panda Bear, which is like a subset of Animal Collective.

But more ethereal, right?

Remember those, to me, all of them sound like different versions of Brian Wilson's mental health. Like Beach Boys Brian Wilson versus Smile Brian Wilson. You know what I mean Like it's all It's all got like A tremendous Beach Boys vibe to me

And I love it Okay So I just called them up So My Girls is their most famous song Yeah and that's what I wanted to play Okay that's great Yeah I do know that song And I thought maybe That'll put us in the mood

For the weekend The song I had selected Was a little downbeat So let's go with Yeah Let's go with Animal Collective My Girls

Now picture Tom Petty

Picture Bob Dylan staring at Jeff Lynn with confusion. I didn't know these guys were from Baltimore. Oh, me neither.

much and a fear of me a solid soul and a blood of me with a little girl and my spouse

I'm also talking over it so we can play more of it. Yeah, exactly, so we can get to the... Just know that this is a gift we're giving you called Us Not Getting Pulled From Spotify while we play Animal Collective. Ooh, Animal Collective announces new album coming out. This was Pitchfork two days ago. I don't see the hard knocks about that. Oddly, Aaron Rodgers is also a member of Animal Collective.

Did you consider that Wilco documentary to be a hard knocks? I am trying to break your quarterback. I am trying to break your quarterback.

This is also from Pitchfork. Animal Collective share their new 22-minute song called Defeat.

Called Defeat? Wait, is that an Onion headline? No, it's directly out of Pitchfork.

That sounds like that would defeat you, my friend.

22-minute song. A 22-minute song. Called Defeat. That's the best joke you've said.

That's honestly, that's an act of aggression towards you specifically, Andrew.

No, I don't dislike – what was that – you played that song that I liked last week by His Golden Messenger. Oh, His Golden Messenger, yeah. Which I like that. But there is another band that has a long, weird name, and it sounds like something that you and I would not like. But then I kind of got into them a couple of summers ago. I can't remember. And they have, like, long songs, like 20-minute songs. I love a good long song. Yeah, I mean, it just kind of depends on what it is.

Just the war on drugs isn't doing it for you at seven minutes.

There was one time, like, now 10 years ago. In my head, Andrew. Where my friend Avish, I said, you're going to love the War on Drugs. They're great driving music. They're good road trip music. And so I expected a certain amount of tempo to go along with it. And so my expectation, I don't, I like the War on Drugs. I don't think it's necessarily good road music, depending on where you are in your jersey.

You know the kind of people who don't appreciate the War on Drugs? People with tattered ass undies. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Okay. My girls. I've got our listeners. Yeah, that's the fellas from Animal Collective. Our listener suggestion comes from, hey, it's our friend Larry Asher from the School of Visual Concepts. If he chooses Brimful of Asher. Oh, God, that would be so soft. Larry, you know what? There's a six-month waiting period between songs, but I do suggest you submit that one again. Larry, of course, had us down to the School of Visual Concepts to talk about podcasting and stuff like that. Larry says, Luke and Andrew, now that no one, including me, listens to terrestrial radio anymore, it's not easy to bump into new music that you had no idea you would like. But by golly, you do. That's one of the things I really like about music for your weekend. Well, I had such a serendipitous moment yesterday listening to a Pandora station called French Café. This song popped up. And while I have no idea what she's saying, I sure do love the happy summer beat and Luzon's Smoking Enhanced Voice. That sounds pretty French. That's the main way that they cultivate their voices in France is by smoking a lot of darts.

Is it Luanne, L-O-U-A-N-E?

It looks like there's a, is there a typo in there? Oh, yeah, you know what? I think Larry, Larry, you have to wait eight months to send in your next song. I think there's a, well, there's a typo in one of them. In the message, or in the body of Larry's message, it looks like there's an S in this person's name.

I don't think there is.

Okay, so it's Luanne, all right. I sure do love the happy summer beat of Luanne's smoking enhanced voice. Here's what I know about her. She was a contestant in the second season of the French version of The Voice in 2013. Her debut album in 2015 went to number one on the French album charts and moved the meter in Belgium and Switzerland. In other words, it's no surprise we've never heard of her. But give this a listen, especially the very end. Well, Larry, we're not going to get to the very end because that is a recipe for getting pulled from Spotify. But we will play the very beginning of this song by Luanne. I'm going to just go with Equis Mose. I don't know. That's as close as I can get on this French name. With French, you're just like, I don't know, which letter should I drop? Exactly. Where should I stop saying this word? I mean, literally, where do I trail off? That's my version. Get at me, Babble. Anyway, thanks, Larry. This is how we're going to wrap up our broadcast week. And we'll just say thank you for Hanging out with us We are going to be back here on Monday With more Imaginary Radio But of course we'll see a lot of you on Saturday night For the 4000th In the meantime have a great weekend Take care of yourselves and please remember

And good luck to all.

I don't use foul language and I don't like to hear anyone else use it either.

Power out.