Muse

Welcome to Federici's. What can I get for you guys?

Well, as hard as it is to believe, given our apparent ages, this is my son.

Seems about right.

Okay, good. My son is currently studying at a local pizza academy. Really? Which one? New York Pizza Academy.

Well, then I hate you, because I'm a pizza academy in New York, man. Wonderful. So, what fraternity are you pledging?

i'm not there are no fraternities at new york pizza academy that's right you correctly answered

my trick question now i'm bound by pizza academy tradition to grant you any request wow this could not have gone any better we need to see all your delivery receipts from the last two months oh you got that delivery receipt exam coming up huh what a bear here you go take your time i'll be in the back trying to think of other ways to help you tbtl in a few hours you're going to be smarter than anyone you've ever met do you like see what i see a talking duck yeah that's it i've been doing too

much toot this is malicious fecal distribution you know you're overthinking it buddy yeah i mean just kind of see this as a fun thing to do or you make a little bread our apologies it's okay okay

We'll be right back. You're off to an awesome start. Thank you.

All right. Hello. Good morning. Welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. I need you to understand something so good. Check it out. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. It is our turn. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill Studio. Yes, I said it. Madrona Hill Studio. I did some deep thinking over the weekend, and I'm going to own it. I'm going to be loud. I'm going to be proud. I'm going to possibly mispronounce the name of the Madrone Tree in the style of my people, my people being Pacific Northwesterners. From the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, we are coming to you on a very, very stormy, windy day.

Let us throw Gorsion to the wind.

Getting my first taste of real life high above the mighty Columbia in what I think could be a fairly stormy place in the wintertime. I don't know. This is why you tune in, right? To hear about the weather in whatever place I happen to be broadcasting from. And I happen to be bringing you episode 4039 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. Last night it wasn't quite as windy, but it was rainy. And I just, I have this inflatable hot tub I bought online that I finally got inflated and I got the water temperature up warm enough to bask in it last night. And I was just sitting out there listening to Paul Simon and it was raining on me and I was just getting soaked, but I was warm. It felt like that scene in Shawshank Redemption when Andy Dufresne finally digs through a mile of shit and he breaks out of the pipe and he's standing in the rain, but he's just so happy. Anyway, I'm obsessed with my... Tastes like soot and hot water. I'm hooked. I'm obsessed with my new inflatable hot tub, which also appears to be deflating slowly. So I'll probably have to pump it up every day to go sit in it. Seems like a good system. Hey, the writer's strike appears to be over, so that's some good news. What does that mean for our entertainment? And when will we be seeing high-quality, prestige-written content? We'll tell you about that. Also, does it matter how people dress at work, particularly people who are U.S. senators? You dress for the podcast you want to host. uh chuck schumer has relaxed the dress code in the senate and uh it's basically got republicans lining up to say this is the end of civilization as we know it and democrats saying it doesn't matter at all and i don't know i i'm having complicated feelings y'all so we'll talk about those complicated feelings oh and speaking of the guy you just heard in that previous drop he is going to be joining me right now he is the longest running cobro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He likes to mix it up and sort of do his part of the show from all sorts of locations.

Sometimes from a chair and sometimes from a closet.

Almost always dressed as Superman. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Hello, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I'm just realizing as I go through some emails that piled up over the weekend that I did not, did not tip my Lyft driver after dropping us off home after the Eagles on Saturday night or Friday night. night and i feel terrible about this i'm going to i'm looking in my uh trip history now to see if i can tip this person but like toothpaste is out of the tube on that right the person thinks i'm a jerk like if they just get five dollars or ten dollars popping into their account right now they don't know it's me they don't know it's the charming drunk guy who is stumbling out of the eagle's

airy number one on friday night um i think they'll know it's from you because it will probably say hey, Andrew tipped you. But I don't think they'll remember who Andrew was.

What if I attach a photo of myself kind of giving a thumbs up and be like, I'm down for the struggle.

They should offer that. If Lyft wants to offload the money they should be paying their hardworking drivers to us, the citizenry, they should at least give us the option of including a picture so we can remind the person who, in fact, is tipping them.

It's me. It's me. I'm Mario.

I'll tell you what I do, not to brag but I do generally now tip on Lyft rides and I do generally do it one to two weeks later whenever it is that I go into the app again to try to call somebody, a new driver, it will say hey did you want to give so and so a tip and I go oh yeah that did happen a week ago so I'm getting zero of the sort of goodwill I'm getting zero of the credit

probably from these from these various drivers this is interesting and i believe helpful although i don't know if the writer or the drivers like this i did not put a decimal point in there i was going to tip six dollars here but i just typed six zero zero and as i typed pardon me as i typed the second zero it automatically said like you can't tip more than fifty dollars for this ride based on how long the ride was like probably so that drunken people at the end of the night aren't giving away $600 instead of $6, I'm assuming?

Probably so. I have an Eagles-related observation for you, Andrew.

Yeah, yeah, I'm here for it.

I went to visit the Eagles in Rainier, Oregon a while ago, something that I've been very excited to do because it seems like a real fancy Eagles. It's not perched high above the mighty Columbia. It's perched right atop the mighty Columbia. It actually has a deck that goes out over the Columbia River, and it has video machines. It's got karaoke. It seems like it has a lot going on and I had never been in it until a while ago and then I went and somebody was coming out the door and they opened it and I went in and she said, oh yeah, it's okay if you don't have your card and I was like, don't have my card and I looked down and you need a key card to get in to this Eagles even though I am a member of the Mother Aerie, Andrew. I am now officially a member of Eagles Aerie Numero Uno. And to be honest with you, I thought that that was going to be kind of a celebrity there. People were going to come up, they were going to want to touch my skin to see if I was real, to meet a person from the OG, the Mother Aerie. The hems of your garment? Yes, exactly. To be healed of whatever their various illnesses were. It appeared to be alcoholism, Andrew. The main illness.

That is the number one illness going around the Eagles these days. It's very contagious. Well, wait a second, though. So I don't know about this key card thing, but you do know that in order to drink or be, you do have the card in your wallet, right? Like you have your membership card because you need that in order for other clubs to know that you're actually an Eagle.

Is the membership card also like a key, like an RFID?

No, no, it's a little paper yellow card. Now, if you're in with Darren at Mother Airy number one, then Darren sometimes will bring a laminator into the club.

I was just going to say, what do you think the chances are of me successfully carrying a piece of paper around for a sustainable thing?

You don't have a classic wallet, do you? Do you have a phone thing? Oh, okay. They just slide that thing in your wallet. But, yeah, you need that. Genevieve has gotten into – in fact, that's right. She went somewhere like in a very small rural town on a hiking adventure. She tried to bring some friends into an Eagles out there. And I think that the bartender was an old cranky woman. It sounds like very cranky. and and Genevieve's card was expired by like less than a month like two weeks and she I think she kicked him out I don't remember how that I'm sure that they just saw like this group of like city kids coming in kids they're all in their 40s but they probably did see this group of city kids coming in or just like and did not like the vibe and were very strict about Genevieve's card I don't think that maybe they had one one uh one drink and then had to get out of there or something

so well this people will hold you to it i did sign myself in okay and again i did write mother i wrote airy number one and then i circled it and took a picture of it i meant to send it to you all but i forgot to but the thing was i i said to the bartender again i'm not kidding when i say i kind of thought i was going to be a minor celebrity in there i thought people were going to be like oh my god it's finally happened somebody from

the Mother Airy has come in here and graced us with their presence. I said, do I need a key card to get in here? She goes, yeah. And she goes, you have to be a member. And I said, I am a member of the Mother Airy. And she goes, yeah, you have to be a member of this one if you want a key card. And I said, well, can I sign up at both? She goes, nope, you've got to pick.

Yeah, you've got to pick which club you're a member of. Yeah, you're a member of us. You belong to us.

I thought it was just like I thought I'm a member of the Eagles and I can go into any Eagles anywhere and they all have to bow to me or something. I didn't realize

That's why you got into this

Except for the bowing Well that photo of all those bald eagles Andrew on the wall I want that kind of respect from people

That photo from 1910

Which is for people who haven't been to this particular location It's a bunch of old bald dudes All doffing their caps

Yeah like a quasi aerial photo Like somebody standing on a chair Definitely not a drone shot Yeah taking a photo down It's a black and white photo and you just see their bald pates like just a what 10 heads of male pattern baldness or they

also look very like subservient they look like they look like uriah heap oh i'm much too humble and i wanted that kind of treatment when i went into the i didn't realize that i have to i have to basically pick my allegiance and of course from a friendship standpoint uh it's mother erie all the way but from a convenience standpoint also from a it's pretty dope that they have a deck that goes out over the river i don't know man like would i be would i be excommunicated from our friend group if i joined if i signed up at the eagles in rainier oregon i don't i mean i

wouldn't be offended by that i don't think our friends would be i just don't know how you would do that at this point if you'd have to you'd probably have to go through the whole ceremony again with them with them i think so because you're a member of area number one you're a guest at other areas and they will let you in usually if you have the card but like they can like i say like kick you out there when i first joined the eagles there were a bunch of signs around oh there's no sign like a sign a handmade sign hanging in a local eagles airy luke it's just like i remember one that just said scrawled in the heat of the moment no talking politics or your 86th Like, you can always tell, like, what was happening in the moment that the sign was made.

That was definitely a sign that was written because of a specific situation unfolding during the time the sign was being written.

Exactly. But there were a bunch of signs around at first, when I first joined, that said, like, you know, if you belong to another Eagles club, you are welcome here. But we are not partaking in the steal an object game. Do not take anything from our area. Apparently, this was a game going on. I picked this up from the context, Luke. This is me picking up context clues. Apparently, there was a game where you would go into other areas and you'd maybe steal something off the bar or something. Sort of sounds fun. Yeah, until somebody steals your car keys, I guess.

Sorry, more like the no fun goals.

Sounds like you're going to go through another initiation ceremony. It sounds like you are no longer into the scene of Mother Aerie. We are no fun. We don't let you steal stuff, and we don't have a deck that overlooks the-

I didn't realize these things were as balkanized as they are. There's also no way I'm going to join this other eagles, because the only way that I got into these eagles was because Genevieve agreed to carry around a laptop with my face on it.

Like your surrogate, yes.

Like Bob Einstein in Arrested D. Yeah. Like, that was the only way that I was able to actually go through the ceremony, and I I don't think anybody at the Reindeer Eagles has seen a laptop. So I don't think they're going to let me get away with that kind of business.

It would be interesting to me to see if you just keep – first of all, you are going to need that yellow card at some point. Do you even think that you ever – did you ever lay eyes on it? Was it mailed to you?

It might have gotten mailed to me, and I might have accidentally tossed it. I'll have to request a new one.

Because my – here's what I would do if I were you. But again, you and I navigate the world slightly differently. But, you know, I would just keep that yellow card. I always tip my lip drivers promptly. I gave him 60 cents for a $25 ride in a in a photo of me saying, you're welcome. I you know, I people have stopped doing this and this is not a swipe at our listeners, although sometimes I would get this like nothing puts me off more than somebody who will like just like send in an email and then end it with you're welcome or like just a fact. It was like, actually, Andrew, you wouldn't call it Mother Aerie No. 1 because it's either the Mother Aerie or Aerie No. 1. You're welcome. You ever get some of those?

If I looked at the emails, yes, probably.

I've insulated myself. Sometimes it's a correction. Sometimes it's more fun. Just like, hey, here's a guy singing about hot dogs. You're welcome. Right. That was kind of a whole – that was sort of a –

trend for a while i did like basically saying saying you're welcome for something that was obviously maybe not a particularly valuable contribution or gift or whatever yeah that was very in style for a while i'm fine with that fad having passed but so um this really is news to me that there's as much um differentiation and like i said balkanization between these different fraternal i mean they're in the same fraternal order but that the different locations i just thought we were all one big happy family and that we could we could all just waltz into each other's eagles and we could steal stuff and uh we could just that it was all one big happy family but it sounds more like there's a little bit of a there's some there's some you know tribalism i believe

there is yeah i think and again i haven't well i did sort of witness it a little bit firsthand because i was gonna i was gonna try to make a um argument here that there might be a little bit of a urban rural divide as well because of genovese experience trying to go into this little eagle somewhere out in in the hinterlands but um you know i was just at not just at i mean when i was a new eagle i went to visit the one in ballard which is known as the salmon bay eagles club and i was there wait luke you know what i'm a liar i am a liar this story does not refer to that one this story refers to the one in west seattle there's an eagles club in west seattle And I was there with my friend who lives in West Seattle and two friends from Ohio who were visiting him, thus us. And I said, hey, let's all go to check out the Eagles here. I have my yellow card and I go in and the woman was quite short with us and really examined my card very closely. Like you really got the impression that she would have been happier had we not traipsed in there. Like, let me know right away that we had to be members and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, yeah, like you would just think that like, don't you want a tip? don't you want to sell some cheap hooch and like you know and and and some pull tabs i don't

understand no offense but like i don't see this as an organization that's expanding rapidly there is uh you know there is a lack of dark matter pushing the eagles into an expanding universe like i just am i wrong by the way although i will i'll tell you that when i've been at the eagles with you all it seems like it's thriving and when i was in this rainier oregon one however briefly it um it seemed like there were people in there so maybe maybe i misunderstand that it seems to me like our friend group are the only people our age which is now pushing 50 um who are in something like this but maybe that's maybe and maybe what that is is the urban rural divide in that in urban america or in major cities it's not normal maybe for people our age to be members but maybe if you get out into the country it's kind of the one place to go or something do you have Do you have any sense of what the sort of, like, health of the Eagles movement is?

I do not. I could actually maybe, like, do some Googling on that or something. And also, like.

If only we knew the president of our local chapter.

I know. Well, I was going to say, our friend Katie, who is the president of the Aerie No. 1, and people do have to. And inspired my hot tub purchase. Oh, that's right. People do have to bow down to her, by the way, and touch the hems of her garment. But it seems like, and I'm not just saying that because she listens to the show and will probably hear this. But, like, it feels like things have gotten much more vibrant at our Eagles under Katie's reign.

I can absolutely see that.

Katie also oversaw the Eagles in Lake City during the pandemic. So, obviously, that was not a boom couple of years. But, like, she was doing some yard work out in my front yard. And I meet so many neighbors this way, by the way. And when I'm doing yard work in the front yard, there is now a 65% to 80% chance that Katie will pass me on her way home from work and stop and talk to me for a while.

How awesome. Yeah, it's pretty fun. I love it. What a great old community vibe.

I'm out there for two long. Veeves is like, did Katie stop by? Anyway, so anyway, I would be interested in knowing this. But she said the other day she was passing me on her way to the Eagles, I believe. She's like, oh, I got to go to initiation. We're initiating more folks. And it seems like every Wednesday that there is an initiation, I'm hearing about more and more people being initiated, which is great. And, you know, again, I don't know if that's just the Lake City one. I don't know if I'm exaggerating that. I don't know what it looks like kind of on a global or national level for the organization. But I will say it seems like people want to be part of this, which is really great.

Or we're just aging into the day.

Yeah, we're aging into the demo, too. So in the game room up in the Eagles, I got to lay eyes on this for the first time. There are now a couple of pinball machines. They've reworked the dart area, so it's kind of like more an efficient use of space up there. And they have a dart league that comes in sometimes to do actual professional or whatever, not professional, but like real dart league competitions. competitions. And so somebody came in with like lasers, Luke, to set up like within like a millimeter of like exactly the height and distance for the dartboards now. And then there's

There's a couple of pinball machines. A Led Zeppelin III pinball machine, which is interesting. I have not been able to play it yet. They didn't go with Houses of the Rollie? They did not. It's a real missed opportunity. Oh, because of the ball. It rolls. Okay. I like that. Yeah. What do you got for X-Men? Because I think the other one is X-Men. X-Balls. Wolverine.

It's not good. Now, I think I already know the answer to this question. but is there any chance at all that you as a person who plays a lot of darts now and are actually very good at even though you're always very modest would you ever do like a dart league

or competitive darts or something like that well that's the thing like it's sort of tempting because i i have never done anything as a as a hobby or a pastime maybe is a better word that i've even gotten close to good at and this is literally just repetition right like it's not I don't even first of all, I don't I think for the amount of darts that I throw, I'm actually not very good. And I'm not just saying that, but it is a way of passing time and listening to podcasts and throwing darts. So it's repetitive. You're going to get a little bit better over time. Having said that, when we were having a party or sorry, Genevieve had her summer party and like I played a little bit of darts with some folks and I realized like I was the worst person in the room. like I was I was just like and I didn't really care I didn't even it wasn't like oh the pressure got to me because I maybe I just didn't care and maybe I didn't care too much is that a good way of putting that I don't know what it was but like whoever I was playing with was beating me and I'm like yeah because it would be tempting when I hear that there is a professional dart again not professional when I hear that there's competitive darts being played in a quasi professional way at the Eagles that I belong to it is tempting to say should I throw my dart in the ring but i feel like i feel like i would quickly be exposed is that how you signal you

want to be part of the darts league a guy stands up with a sign-up sheet and everyone throws a

dart at him i don't know nobody won't tell me here's a weird thing up next to the dart and they just moved the dartboards but they've maintained this photo and i don't want to be disrespectful to anybody who is who has passed especially if they passed prematurely but next to the two dartboards now is a photo of I'm he looks like maybe he was a middle-aged man maybe he was a man in his 60s or something I feel like he might be wearing a goofy shirt or something and it's like in memory of so-and-so he's got like a nickname or something and I assumed it was a member of the Eagles but it's not it's just a member of this dart league I shouldn't say just I shouldn't say just but I was talking to Darren again second mention of Darren who's like kind of concerned about he's like is this spacing right do we need to hang another scoreboard like if so do we remove that photo of that guy who died and i'm like is that an eagle he's like no it's like these dark guys came in and they hung it up i'm like is that our responsibility like is this

are you gonna remember me that way will you please bring a framed photo of me around to

various places i have a small photo of you in my wallet that i carry at all times it's your high school photo yeah good um nothing weird about that speaking of i would if you can find that yellow card luke i'd be interested to know if you become a somewhat regular at this area what's the town it's called in again rainier oregon rainier oregon how would i ever remember rainier um but if if you became a regular my guess is they might want to check your card at least once or twice and then they'd probably just accept you in as one of their own as a little eaglet um but i wonder how long you could just sort of like let's just say you went there every week or something which i don't think would be your would be your schedule but let's say you went there you know on the reg every couple of weeks i wonder if they'd eventually be like hey man do you want to belong to this one or not i i wonder if it would all be copacetic or not because people must move across the country right do they have to be reinitiated in ohio if they've been an eagle for 20 years in seattle

i wonder also i sound like i'm being very critical of my of my my brethren of my of my fellow eagles members i wonder what the social mobility of most eagles members is that's true like i wonder what i wonder how the social mobility of an eagles member compared to the

social mobility of the average american yeah yeah that i mean but but that being said sort of an

age thing though as well yeah um but but you're right like it would be weird if you it seems like it'd be a hassle to have to go through the whole initiation process again but again that's a good thing because that just means that i'm i'm gonna stay i'm gonna dance with who brung me and by that I mean brung me on a laptop by Zoom while I was on a walk with Becca. And that was Mother Aerie, Eagles numero uno. So I'm probably going to retain my citizenship there.

Okay, good. We can set up a little laptop so you can play bingo next time it rolls around.

I want you to carry a laptop around with my photo after I'm gone. Okay, sounds good. All right, let's thank some of our daily donors. Sorry if I sounded a little distracted or delayed there, Andrew. I'm trying to find out where I can get my COVID shot, my latest COVID shot. Oh, yeah.

We can get that and the flu at the same time now, right?

I think I'm going to do that today. I think Becca and I are going to go. So hopefully everything will be fine. I feel like the second one, the booster, kind of sort of had me feeling a little not great for, you know, a day or so. But everyone I know is getting COVID, and, like, we have Livewire at the Holt Center on Friday in Eugene, Oregon. By the way, if you're in Eugene, please come out and see us. Like, I cannot get COVID this week. I mean, most weeks I can't get COVID, but particularly this week. So I'm going to try to, what did Aaron Rodgers call it? I'm going to try to inoculate myself.

Inoculate yourself, sure, yeah.

But anyway, so I may have a report on that tomorrow. Right now I have a report on Dan Schlieff of West Linn, Oregon. What up, Dan? Over there in West Linn. You know where that is now?

My family.

I say now. I've lived in basically the greater Portland area for four years, and I'm impressed that I know, like, a major suburb of Portland.

So West Linn is very close to Portland, then? It's pretty close. Can you take the, what do they call it, the beaver train out there? The Max. The Max. Can you take the Max out there?

I bet you the max goes to West Lynn. Nice. But it's sad that I'm proud of myself about these very big... Like, when I drive without using Waze anywhere in Portland and Becca's in the car, I go, look at us. Look at us. And she's very nice and humors me and says, yeah, that's great, honey. But she must be thinking, dude, you've lived here for four years. You should be able to navigate the major roadways of this city at this point.

I have a really embarrassing question for you. Yeah. Wait, hold on. And I want to get there before I ask you, but I guess I'm just going to ask you, why did I say beaver train? Oregon Ducks. But who are the Oregon Beavers?

The Oregon State Beavers.

Oregon State Beavers. Okay, and then the Oregon Ducks. I was like, I know that there's a connection there. And then suddenly my brain went frazzled, and I was worried that people thought I was making a, well, let's just say a strange remark.

Well, so many things are named. You know, there's a beaver on the Oregon State flag. Oh, yeah, of course. Right. I'm going to tell you this. I think I would put the state of Oregon flag. And, you know, I consider myself a Washingtonian. I consider myself an eagle first, a Washingtonian second, and a patriot third. That's just my favorite joke to make for you. Something in rules of three is the third one. It's just something about my increasing suspicion about Hunter Biden. But, no, I very much identify with being a Washingtonian and all that. But I will say the state of Oregon flag is awesome.

Because the back of the flag is the cool part. We discussed this, right? You got the seal on the front. yeah you're right the beaver on a like very like you know just uh what's the word i'm looking for just like blue a lot of negative space just blue with a beaver in the middle and i literally dig

the actual beaver like illustration that yeah like it's very cool to me so i give them credit on that so anyway when you said the beaver train i mean i assumed you were talking about sex yeah right no that's what we call it um i i need to get back to thanking the donors here but Speaking of sex, Andrew No, there's a In the words of Stugatz Washington Huskies Oregon Ducks Collision course

Is that coming up this week? No, it's in a few weeks

The thing that happened last year That was a positive Was I was in New York City For work When the two teams played each other Now there is a very big rivalry Between these two schools and if you ask anybody from Oregon what's the one team you hate the most they say Washington if you ask anyone from Washington they say Oregon you think it might be the cross-state rival or one of the big schools from California for some reason and I don't I can't actually get to the origin of this whole thing but there is just acrimony between the University of Washington University of Oregon particularly when it comes to the football field it also so happens that becca's family becca is like the 15th generation oregon duck and her family is great and they're they're they like sports but they're also not like you know jerks about it but we were talking about going to the game because the ducks are coming to month lake to play the huskies this year and uh i i really it turns out it doesn't work from a scheduling standpoint but i was like i actually don't think this is a good idea i last year again i got i lucked out because i had to be in New York, but they were like, let's go to the game. And again, I was like, I don't think this is going to be good. I think feelings are going to get hurt. Probably mine initially, and then later yours, when I start saying things that are not cool to say to people that you love. But, like, it is one of the only things – well, that's not true. I also really loathe the Yankees and the Red Sox and the Patriots. So, I guess I have – Andrew, I guess I have a lot of hatred in my heart.

Do you still hate the Patriots? Like, my – I burn hot on my – with my enmity towards rival teams. But, like, the Patriots, I – first of all, I don't think I ever hated the Patriots as much as you did for whatever reason. I didn't like the fact that they were such a winning dynasty. It just was boring. And there were definitely times where I didn't like seeing them, especially after after the Super Bowl, where they beat the Seahawks, obviously, in a very devastating way. But like, I didn't hate them the way like I just like hate the Red Sox.

I love, love, love our listeners in Boston. And if I had been if I had grown up in the in the greater New England area, I would be the biggest mass hole out there. I would I would be all in on all, you know, Boston sports. So I just want to say that before I say my next thing, which is I find that fan base to be kind of tough. Now, listen, I also find the Seahawks fan base to be kind of tough if I wasn't from Seattle. Like, I would find the 12s to be really annoying. So this is just how it goes. I just want our listeners in Boston or our listeners who are fans of Boston teams, I want you to know that I love you and I'm holding you in my heart right now. But I find what I find annoying about Boston fans is that they are perpetually put upon. They will literally say it's Boston against everyone. I have a friend in L.A., Marissa, who is a big Patriots fan, and she literally is always wearing this shirt that's like Boston versus everyone. I'm like, except for the part about how you have, like, a million Super Bowls, and also the Celtics were a dynasty, and also, you know, the Red Sox have won multiple World Series. Like, you cannot pretend like you're an underdog when you have been so successful. Just kind of own it a little bit.

Yeah, yeah.

And I also know that, by the way, every fan base of every team thinks that they are a misunderstood team that is always subjected to bad calls and gets no respect. Rodney Dangerfield style. That's just part of being a sports fan. So I understand that that's not endemic to Boston fans, but there's something about that. I did see Bill Burr the other day make an interesting point about that particular Super Bowl game, Andrew, when the Patriots beat the Seahawks in a quite gutting fashion for us, which was that interception on the, like, one-yard line. And Bill Burr's point was, and he's a Boston guy and a very, very big sports fan, was that, well, first of all, he said something that I've actually been saying to people for years, which is, and this is where we all knew today's show would go, talking about the Super Bowl from eight years ago.

In the donor section.

This is precisely what dazzling donors, I should say daily donors like Lori Hope of Muckle Teal Washington, this is what they're here for. Thank you, Lori. My computer is being very slow today, Andrew, so I want to apologize if I seem extra kludgy. It's because my computer, when I'm trying to switch screens between the audio drops and then also the list of donors, it's taking me a minute. So thank you for your patience, Lori. Thank you also, Jolene Tashner of Portland, Oregon, for your patience and your support of the program now the point that bill burr made it's the same one it's the same thing i've been saying is that was not the worst call of all time a comedian named sam moral was interviewing bill burr on some podcast and he said well that was the stupid this guy sam said that was the stupidest play call in history and bill was like it actually really wasn't he was like you know and that's true that was not i mean it didn't he said the outcome was really bad but as a call it was not the stupidest play call because of what was going on with the clock because how many timeouts they had bill burr is mad because and this is the most boston response ever you won the super bowl dude bill burr's mad that bill belichick isn't getting enough credit for what a good call that defensive play was that's his basic point was that bill belichick is such a next level amazing coach that he had researched every single possible thing that the Seahawks could have done and would have done and he knew that he had basically had practiced the Patriots had had practiced uh defending that particular play from the Seahawks and so the Seahawks couldn't have known that the Patriots were already you know they were looking for that play and that was why that defensive back drove you know into Ricardo Lockett and picked that ball etc etc um I think he's right that it wasn't a terrible play call I also think he's wrong that uh Bill Belichick doesn't get enough credit for being I also think it's interesting to watch the Patriots

not be as good well yeah it really does sort of answer that question right like everybody when Tom Brady parted ways with Boston everybody's like well let's see where the legacy stays does it follow him to Tampa Bay or does it stay with Belichick and like it's really I mean I don't know if this is fair and I don't know enough of the I don't know enough details about football writ large, let alone what's going on in Foxborough, but like writ small, kind of but it really does sort of expose

Belichick at least in a superficial level like his record without Tom Brady is not good and their season right now is really kind of in trouble I mean there were only three games in but haven't they suffered some pretty pretty embarrassing losses I have not been following everything

with them I feel like the Patriots post Tom Brady see I always will see a clip of them and I'll think boy they're toast and then I'll find out towards the end of the season they're still actually not eliminated from the playoffs officially like they see basically for a team that on paper has not doesn't have a lot of real super highly talented players you know by NFL standards it seems like Belichick does still always get the most out of those players and and you know they're not dreadful they're not um and you know it hurts me to say this but they're not playing the way that let's say the Chicago Bears are currently uh playing um so I don't know what's going on with them but I But I don't think that Bill Belichick is the— You know who I think you could argue is maybe one of the best coaches in the league is probably Mike Tomlin with the Steelers. I feel like the Steelers are just always, always in the mix. And that helps that I think that their division has been kind of off and on over the years. But the Steelers, I mean, they've gotten into the playoffs. I mean, the year they beat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl, they had to win their last five games to get into the playoffs. But somehow the Steelers are just always in contention. They're always playing games that kind of mean something. You want to know one other quick stat before we thank Kay Constantino in Canfield, Ohio? And Kay was actually the one who told me this. I saw this on the Internet, so I haven't researched this myself. I haven't, you know, Bill James this or who's the Bill James of football? I don't know. I haven't sabermetrics this out. It's also a baseball thing.

For the past, like, three minutes, I've had a stat in my head that I've been dying to share with you. and I'm wondering if you're about to share it with me. I'll bet you it's the same one.

I bet you it is. I heard mine on Levantard. It certainly is. And I bet you they saw it in the same place that I saw it, which is, yeah, that Tom Brady has never taken – in his career he never took a snap in a game where he was mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.

That's exactly what I was dying to tell you. Yeah, so you saw that too. That's pretty crazy. Yeah, that is. And I will say this about the Steelers too, and of course I was a Browns fan for a long time, but the Browns have never been a threat to that division. And the Bengals, for the longest time, were never a threat in that division either. So I sort of feel like that was sort of a—the AFC North was sort of a two-team rivalry between the Steelers and the Ravens, you know, even though obviously the Browns had rivalries with both of them. But they were just such a non-entity. That's why I sort of think it's been cool to see the—even when I was a Browns fan, I didn't begrudge anything of the Bengals coming up into their own because it's kind of fun to see them achieve some success, unfortunately, this season. not going the same way. What am I doing? What am I doing? We should be thanking donors.

Well, I'm the one that took us on a whole football tangent, but I only did it because Krista Carwardine in Waltham, Massachusetts, Andrew, wanted me to talk about Boston sports fans. That's right. You're welcome, Krista. You're welcome. Oh, no. And also, April Bingham is in Seattle, Washington, and is just one of my absolute favorite people of all time. Thank you, April. Thanks for supporting the show. We appreciate you and all of our donors today. Couldn't do this without you. Hello and welcome to Top Story. The writer's strike appears to be over, which is a positive development. They haven't signed all the paperwork, but they agreed to something in principle. And I was reading this article in the Times, the New York Times, written by Yan Zhang, who wrote that in trying to figure out who, quote unquote, won this, this writer for the Times says, the two sides enthusiasm for the contract were on show in how they talked or didn't talk about it. The Guild Negotiating Committee, that would be the Writers Guild Negotiating Committee, heralded it as a success telling its 11,000 members in an email that the deal was exceptional with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of membership. The studios notably said nothing on the matter. So that makes me think that the Writers Guild actually maybe came out with a head in this or whatever. They kind of got what they wanted. I don't know. This, of course, has to do with AI and scripts that the studios already own and what the writer will get paid for a script the studio already owns and also if the studios can use AI to replace writers, and I guess for the time being they can't.

Yeah, you know, the article made a point of that saying, you know, the silence of the studios on this versus the, you know, kind of celebratory tone of the union. made it seem like it's a victory for one which by the way this reporter knows way more about this than i do but i also did wonder like the studios don't need to release anything because it's fewer people that you need to whip in they don't need to gas up their members right exactly like you need to i'm using whip there like in the um congressional sense you know nice use of that yeah thank you um but uh you know what i mean so the union needs to make it sound like this a big victory to get all of the rank and file that was supposed to happen much closer to when

you used the term whip properly anyway yeah this is what i'm talking about with my slow computer but yes no i think i think you're 100 right i think that there's built into this is the idea that the um that the the union is needs to make their members feel like all this picketing and loss of income etc was for something the studios just go back to presumably being a bunch of rich mostly white dudes driving their you know Rivian trucks into a studio lot somewhere you know I do think that's I feel like that's the new the Rivian is the new Tesla it's a cool looking truck

though I didn't know about them until you mentioned them on the show and then because again like I just I'm so unobservant when it comes to cars and most cars look alike to me well these really stand out you told me one time like keep an eye out for these trucks with interesting headlights and then suddenly I saw them I think like literally the next day kind of like that um what are the posters for the is it a Chinese dance company and Shen Yun I never noticed that you're like they're all over the place I'm like no they're not and then like literally I go to lunch after that conversation it's hanging in the pho in the lobby of the pho place I just had never noticed it before but um like that those Rivians I see them everywhere and I gotta say like Tesla is I'm not so into the way they look but um oh I got a ride in a Tesla the other day and I had to open the door by pushing a button the guy was like do not use the automated handle it'll break

the window i'm like all right i do not like the buttons of getting in and out of a tesla

that's my first experience with it isn't it confusing as all heck well i was having i was having a conversation about i was in the back seat on my way to the eagles by the way for this one so um and so i'm sober at this point and um i saw the guy had a couple of signs hanging on the back of the passenger seat but it was dark and I couldn't see it um and but then when I was I was like I think this has to do with getting out of the car so I'm sort of quietly moving my hand around being like oh where is the handle because clearly it's going to be a confusing way to get out and I can't find the handle so I asked the guy as we're getting close I'm like so I see a sign here I can't really read it is it hard to get out of here and he's like well just don't use the the he's like there is an a manual handle but if you use it it's for emergencies and it can if you use it too much it'll break my window just use the little button I was like ah and it's just a little thumb button and once I knew it was there I didn't find it confusing I've probably ridden in

I don't know 10 Teslas at this point it's always been in a rideshare type situation yeah and I feel like I'm maybe I'm on my way home from the Eagles so I'm a little bit like less coherent but I feel like I'm always a little and even the outside it's like you're it's like this kind of flush sort of like little, you know, I don't know, thing. People have probably seen the handle on a Tesla, but you kind of push in. I don't know, it's not intuitive to me. It's a non-Normandor for me, Andrew.

Yeah. Or maybe a Normandor. No, it is a Normandor. It's literally a Normandor for you. For me. Exactly. That was a really interesting, I didn't know about the Normandor.

If I haven't alienated enough of our Boston sports fans, let me take a moment to alienate our Rivian drivers. Not really. I do. I think the Rivian is a very cool-looking vehicle. i would be really interested to see what the occurrence of a riv i probably said this last time it came up i would be really curious to see the occurrence of when a rivian is being used to haul broken up concrete to the dump like i wouldn't if i had a rivian i would i would never let it get one speck of dust on it but it does seem interesting that this vehicle that is traditionally the idea and i know we've long since passed the time when people driving big giant pickup trucks we're using it for big giant pickup truck jobs like it's not rivian of drivers specifically it's the most drivers of giant trucks these days becca was um had a work event and it was a golf tournament and she said every single person that showed up to the golf tournament was driving a version of the same giant truck i was like oh the ceos of the local health care concern like that's like there's just a certain kind of truck that people like to drive and it's not usually used for for uh you know i don't know doing a lot of sort of manual dirty labor i think the rivian would be even a lower occurrence like i again i wouldn't ever i would if i had a rivian i would rent a different truck to do truck jobs but i mean this has come up on

the show before and this is actually your point on this topic that i'm just sort of parroting here but i think it's a good one to remember is like i i have a knee-jerk reaction Thank you.

when i see like big ass trucks driving around the city too because of the association often with like politics that i am not into or like some sort of pro gun like it's something is weird in my neighborhood where because i live in the city there are not a lot of big like kind of pickup style trucks but when i do see one it's almost guaranteed i told you there's one in my neighborhood that has a calvin and hobbs or just calvin peeing on jay insley's name which i think means they don't like the governor i'm not exactly sure what that means um that the governor was on fire there's another truck in our neighborhood kind of that i that i pass on the way to the train station that has like baby on board but it's got like a rifle in the baby on board or something it's like a pink right i i don't know the point is i associate it with those things with the but also i associate it with sort of this irresponsible gas guzzling yes bad for the environment sort of like yeehaw i don't care the earth is mine to tread on with a rivian you don't really have that so you have to sort of deprogram your brain a little bit like as long as these folks aren't like double parking

and taking up too too much space a lot i look forward to the episode the day after you encounter

your first rivian double park at the gym you think that's gonna happen today yeah not today

but i'm saying i want to i'm excited to hear from you the day after that happened no i mean a pig

parker is a pig parker for real but i do feel that like i think some of my um a lot of the hangups i have when i see like some giant truck that is spewing exhaust and there's like one person driving you're like there's not a scratch on there and i know that you're just taking this to the to the grocery store or whatever back and forth or whatever your errand is and that like i do have this like knee-jerk reaction and i'm like well does a rivian really apply it's an electric

vehicle right it's no i mean i'll i'm very happy to see more people driving electric vehicles and i'm with you it's it's it's also i would my guess would be it's also probably not this typically the same person yeah that's like they're not gonna have an oregonian sticker which you see out here um which is not great or all the people that were like i like guns and starbucks because like there was some you know bullshit rumor that starbucks wasn't letting you bring bring your sidearm into the kitchen i don't think there's a rumor i really

blueberry acai coffee yeah i think they did have like a you know a no gun policy but like good like you don't need a gun to get a cup of coffee right yeah you're right sorry it wasn't

a rumor i guess what i'm what i meant by that was if you had a concealed carry permit and you were concealing your weapon although by the way that's pretty that's a real misnomer at this point right because it was always when i was a kid growing up everyone was talking about did they have their concealed carry permit but the thing is the people that want to carry guns in public they don't want to conceal them what's the point like concealing the gun makes no sense now it's like i want to have it on my hip so everyone in this home depot knows that i am killing it in the bedroom right exactly you know what i mean like it's like i don't think is there even such a thing as a concealed carry permit anymore because no one's concealing it i did no there is and i think

that there are issues around there that i don't know about so i won't like answer that question straight on but you're right that i believe the controversy this goes back like what eight years or something with the Starbucks thing was I think the protests were like people carrying their AR-15s in there in protest or something. It's like, yeah, that's not a concealed carry issue.

Right. And those people have all now changed their allegiance to Dutch Brothers.

Yes, exactly.

And that's I don't want to say anything about the politics of Dutch Brothers. I don't know what it is. But Dutch Brothers strikes me as a place. If you think Starbucks is too fancy, if you think Starbucks is too high minded, you may enjoy Dutch Brothers. The thing that I was going to say about the Rivian, though, is, well, A, yes, I agree with you. It's awesome that it's electric. It's also, I'm looking it up, it's about $99,000 for, like, the real tricked-out one, which I'm not trying to count anyone else's money. Lord knows I don't want people doing that to me because I make a lot of questionable financial decisions.

They're going to say because I make a lot of money.

But, like, wow, $100,000. I mean, that's a that's a significant outlay for a for a vehicle. That's a, you know, that's getting close to a house, depending on where you live or at least at least a significant down payment on a house. Yeah, that's, you know, every time I see one on the road, I guess that was my point also was I feel like the the Rivian folks, because of just the I don't know, the culture around an electric vehicle are more likely to be somebody who is maybe closer to us on the political spectrum. It'll be a while before the Gundam mentalists and the Oregonians are driving Rivians, I think, and then decking them out with all of their, you know, paraphernalia to let you know that they would like your feelings to have sex with themselves, which you've seen that. The, like, stick man who is having sex with your feelings. Have you seen this going around on the vehicles? There's a big F your feelings movement, right? People wear a lot of shirts and say, you know, but they use the entire word.

um and that's of course a big it's not even a dog whistle it's a foghorn just saying like if i don't if you don't agree with me it's because you have too many feelings and i don't care about your feelings even though there's not a group of people who get more offended more

quickly yes over nothing than those folks in a certain way that shirt that shirt is a conundrum or like that shirt by wearing that shirt it's saying that you're up in your feelings about other people's feelings i gotta exactly i can't save this for the end this is 30 seconds of a voicemail i wasn't even sure i'm glad this came up because i wasn't sure if whatever conversation sparked this voicemail was too far in our rearview mirror but this is perfect for this okay this is

listener sam from florida i was listening to your conversation about regrettable conservative car decals and whatnot i living in florida have seen some truly spectacular things my favorite of which was the other day on my way home behind a prius that had a sticker that just said saving on gas

to buy more guns anyways the world is great so that's how they do it so you you finally get you finally get the electric vehicle but you gotta let everybody know i'm not a lib

that's really complicated like you know because i'm i'm very i'm happy this person's driving an an EV and I do wonder I mean this goes to the Rivian conversation as well I mean there may be some tipping point where it's and the Rivian is not that tipping point from you know from a cost perspective but there will be a tipping point where it's just cheaper to have because as much as as much as these these people that like to drive these big trucks that guzzle all this gas and everything as much as they like rubbing into the libs faces if at some point they're not having to pay an extra seven hundred dollars a month in fuel there will be a natural migration towards evs right like and grant and some smart ev maker will probably make some bullshit looking one that reminds them of their truck they used to go out and cuddle with at night or whatever but like there will be a point where those those dudes there'll be more of those dudes driving evs because it's just like well you know you're gonna my pocketbook is telling me that this makes sense I don't know if that's 10 years down the line or 15, or if in 15 it'll all be autonomous. And I wonder if those people will see autonomous vehicles as also some kind of plot from the libs.

Yeah.

Like, what's the political valence of autonomous driving, I wonder?

Well, it takes away control, I guess.

So that's not good. That's not great. Probably, unless a welfare queen is wanting to control her car, and then we need to take the... I mean, it's so complicated, right?

Right, yeah, yeah. good for the writers

here i go once again with the email every week i hope that it's from a female

no man it's not from a female we kind of didn't get to the other top story about how u.s senators dress but just in brief um it's weird to me because uh you know john fetterman from uh pennsylvania famously is he's the senator he beat dr oz thank god and he is famously just kind of like a guy who does not dress up for politics he wears hoodies he wears like he's wearing this one shirt in one of these pictures that's just like it's like um kind of a real casual casual like maybe it was it's like a shirt that a mechanic would wear but not like a stylish one that's kind of got like his name john on it and like he's wearing it for effect it looks like he might have

been working on a car and wearing it oversized too it's very much the type of shirt that i would

have worn in the 90s it's and it's my memory of it i don't have it right in front of me my memory of it is it's also kind of a couple of the top buttons are undone yeah but not in a way where he's trying to be like ricardo montalban and sexy it up it's just he just looks like a person who absolutely does not care what he's wearing and um and it's interesting because as our government is hurtling towards a shutdown the republicans are trying to make this a big issue like you know the dress code and and and how you know this is this just represents the moral decline of our world or something and i think that's bullshit i think that's them trying to distract i cannot lie to you andrew i don't get personally a great feeling when i see john fetterman wandering around the

senate looking like he looks i'm just gonna say it yeah i don't know i mean the fact that we're doing this in emails means that maybe it's good that i'm struggling to have a strong opinion on this because i think it's like super super complicated but i'm also with you like i listen you're talking to a guy who went to catholic school where i wore a tie i had to you know i had to wear a tie and had to follow a dress code and my hair could only be so long although i kind of um i kind of uh thumbed my nose at that rule a little bit luke's i was a real cool dude but yeah i've seen the photos you know as i'm sure you've heard i'm very cool but anyway you could

Never played for the Yankees. That is it.

it that's what held me back um that's why i played for the north seattle tree frogs instead um but any go tree frogs uh anyway yeah so i don't know how i feel about this because i don't think it's i i want a caveat and and for real say that i think this is a very complicated issue and the writer of this piece now have you read her stuff before ronda gerlick no i think i i want to say

that this might be special to the times i think ronda uh gerlick who wrote this piece is sort of maybe like a guest editorial person well she writes a bunch she writes this face forward

column i was poking around earlier today um she is a professor of i i think um english or literature and and uh uh i think journalism or something somewhere but she also does a regular smu is where she's is that okay what is that what is that southern methodist university okay gotcha anyway so and and her piece is really interesting her kind of take on this i don't know where she ends up coming down because i sort of feel like she was a little bit all over the place maybe as i am but like the issues like looking at this through a feminist lens is sort of interesting as well there was a paragraph in there that i'd never thought about before and i don't even know exactly what this argues but just saying that like a dress code for men has always been very um kind of easy to achieve and it's it's been a way of like sort of de accentuating the body so that everybody kind of looks the same from the neck down and you can focus on the face whereas with women even if there's a dress code there's still a million micro decisions to make um and of course we all know that women are judged more based on appearance than men are in our society so anyway uh i thought that graph in this piece was really interesting to think about like well flats or heels and if so how high is the heel like there's a million more decisions that a woman has to make or has to tends to make in our in our society whereas a man can just put on a loafer And every man's shoe in D.C. probably looks alike, you know, to a certain amount. So anyway, very interesting. But like I'm not against the idea that like Fetterman shouldn't necessarily be rolling in there in Crocs. Like I don't I'd like that doesn't seem right to me. But also there might be social issues here that I'm not like fully being sensitive to. But like, is it wrong to have some sort of guideline so that people in certain lines of work for the government can appear a certain way that I that I would define as professionalism?

Yeah, I'm with you. I don't have a particularly strong take on this other than I find myself in the unusual position of like, generally, I'm you know, I line right up with whatever MSNBC's take is on most things. And, and generally, like, if you have, I don't even know the specific Republicans, but I can probably guess at who's trying to make a big deal out of John Fetterman's outfit or the dress code. Well, Susan Collins, I guess, said she was going to show up in a bikini, which I was like, go, you know, live your truth, Sue. But like, it's just weird because I was so rooting for Fetterman against Dr. Oz, of course, and then all the stuff that Fetterman's been through in terms of his, you know, his stroke that he had and then his recovery from that and his depression, which came, they say, likely as a result of the stroke, which I didn't even know that was a thing. Like, it's fairly common in people who have experienced a stroke to then also deal with depression in the aftermath of it. I mean, it kind of makes sense, but I'd never really thought of it that way. Anyway, I've been very much rooting for John Fetterman, and I remain, you know, very relieved that he won. And also, I think he stands, generally speaking, for the right things, although I don't know everything about all of his politics. But that being said, it's an uncomfortable feeling inside me when I see him just kind of schlubbing it up in the Senate. Something about it feels off to me. And I don't have anything more insightful to say than that. It's just it hits me weird. Maybe it's just the journey. Maybe I just need to, like, experience more. I also will tell you this. If he were not a white man, I probably would be interrogating myself differently. like if he were a person of color who was dressing however they wanted to dress my knee jerk would be you do whatever you want to do like you know there's like that because you might say like

there might be some cultural sensitivity here that i'm not that i'm not familiar with and just giving people the benefit of the doubt um no i'm not wanting to be in the business of criticizing

or policing how how you know people of color or women or people who i'm not how they dress But John Fetterman is more like me than the other folks I just mentioned. And so I'm kind of like, could you like at least button the shirt up?

Like, I mean, Susan Collins comment. I mean, we're just doing this now. But like Susan, Susan Collins comment does sort of indicate that there is a line. Right. Like I think first of all, I would like to say I don't know why this is coming up now. You mentioned that maybe Fetterman dressing this way. I don't know if he's flaunting the rules and that's why it's come up. But I do think that politically speaking, this is a stupid time for whether it's the liberal caucus or the Democrats to be hoisting this. Like there's just bigger things going on. And of course, you can have the conservative. right latch onto this in a time when the culture wars seem hotter than ever like it just sort of seems like you're just giving bullshit fuel to the other side that can be a distraction for the most part but like i was gonna say that we all know that there is a line somewhere right like if if the dress code is simply you can't just wear boxer shorts and nothing else in in the senate like we'd all be like yeah yeah you should wear more than boxer shorts right yeah okay we agree with that okay what about boxer shorts and a t-shirt getting closer but i feel like we still need to move the line like we we have to all acknowledge that there is a line somewhere right so can we talk about where it is can we talk about it respectfully the reason that it's coming up is

because chuck schumer just relaxed the dress code so it previously had been um if you men were required to wear a suit and tie and women were required to wear pantsuits or dresses now senators have leeway to wear more casual clothing including t-shirts and jeans and in one senator's case their trade mark hoodie that would be john fetterman referring to there but you think

that he brought it up i mean i saw that it was schumer who kind of raised this but you think it was raised because of fetterman's style and being sensitive to maybe where he is like i don't

know that see that's the thing i don't really that's a good question and and i haven't seen that reported out anywhere which is why did chuck schumer decide to do this yeah now like a dumb time to and was there a conversation with fetterman and schumer where was fetterman wandering the halls of the senate in his shorts and a hoodie and and schumer was like either i have to go tell this six five three hundred and eighty pound bruiser from braddock pennsylvania that he needs to put a suit on or maybe i could just quietly change the dress code and maybe chuck just didn't want any grief i don't know i'm curious about how why this yeah why they're doing this now why are they giving any ammo at all to the also by the way joe manchin is another one who's making a big deal out of this like joe why don't you why don't you deal with your own house friend before you get

into criticizing the dress code of the senate i just hope somebody got some legislative votes out of this because it's like you know what i mean i hope i hope if this is coming up i hope it's because he's you know schumer is now like securing some votes on something that matters because otherwise it just seems like a terrible it just seems like a terrible time to just give this to fox news so that they don't have to talk about the about the looming uh government shutdown you

know yeah who i mean again we keep coming back to fetterman because it seems like this is a pretty specific to fetterman issue like it's just i i i wonder what the what the trade-off was you know like in terms of like if this was if this was chuck schumer doing something so as to secure a support or a vote from fetterman i wonder what you know i wonder what he wanted fetterman to to vote on that you know vote with him on that he wasn't going to because again this i i haven't heard of anyone else maybe in the history of the senate caring what the dress code was it seemed like the default setting for all these folks was basically what is already laid out in the dress

code yeah now do you want i have a good voicemail here from a listener should we play it today or do you want to save it for tomorrow okay well i want to hear today okay this is regarding a moment that I had at a baseball game a week or two ago where a foul ball came into the area I was sitting in. It really landed under the bench and the feet of people kind of across the aisle from me. And like John Fetterman, I reached across the aisle and then wrestled the ball away from the hand. Like nobody, I should put it, I didn't steal the ball from anybody. There was a scramble, and weirdly, even though I was furthest away, I was able to get my hand, like kind of just snake it under there and then kind of yank it out from under this guy's foot. And I ended up with the foul ball. But I immediately was like, well, hey, I won. Now you can have the ball because I didn't really need the baseball. And that led Aaron to tell this story of a sort of foul ball situation.

Oh, hi, Liz and Andrew. This is listener Aaron. And I was listening to Andrew's story about the foul ball, the Mariners game recently. And I remember what happened to my family at spring training. This is related to balls ending up in the stands at baseball games. We were sitting along the third baseline, and I think one of the players, JT, maybe threw a ball into the stands, and everyone kind of went for it. And it looked like maybe he was throwing it at some kids about three rows in front of us. And I was there with my kids and my parents, and the kids missed it. Everyone kind of went for it. And all of a sudden, we looked down, and the ball, as two rose up from them, and is at our feet, at my kids' feet, somehow had landed way up from where the ball was actually thrown. And my kids reached for it, and they were super excited. And these people to the right of us were like, shh, don't say anything, don't say anything. And I was like, okay, you guys, hide the ball, hide the ball. And then what happened after that?

for that is a huge group of people, including the supposed kids that were supposedly going for the ball, started looking for it. And it was a mass search for the ball. And the longer it went on, the less we were able, the less likely we were able to return the ball to these other kids. And the kids started crying. And I started feeling bad. But at that point it had reached it had been too long we had hung on to the ball too long to give it back because then we would have looked like idiots for the latin like jerks for the last couple minutes by not giving it to the kids so anyways i still feel bad about that my kids ended up getting a ball so at least the kids got it but um to those kids if i had to do it over again i probably would just give them to those kids anyways love you guys power up now one thing that aaron did not

mention in her voicemail is her kids are in their 40s yes uh no uh no i mean these are all these are all children here i think that the only mistake was not maybe celebrating it when it bounced up into your section and just letting everybody know hey these other kids have it now that's the way it goes at baseball situations the fact that i call them baseball situations

show what a big sports fan i am sure well it's no super bowl game it's a super bowl situation Right, exactly. Unless there was part of the story that I missed where one kid had the ball in his glove and was admiring it, and another kid just grabbed it and chucked it towards Aaron's family.

Cold cocked him in the face.

Right. Then that would be like, okay, just got to go back to the original kid. But I mean, it's a scrum. All's fair, between children anyway, all's fair in love and a baseball bouncing around in the stands. But I also absolutely know that feeling that Aaron described of being sort of the cat that caught the canary. and you've got to kind of keep your mouth closed because now it's too late. I've told the story so many times on the show, but that was what happened to me when I stole an NBA basketball from the Portland Trailblazers facility many years ago. I was there filming an Alaska Airlines commercial, actually a bunch of commercials, and there was all these basketballs everywhere, and they were like official real NBA basketballs, and I popped one into my backpack because I thought, when am I going to get a chance to do this again? and it turned out that they like count these basketballs and we all had to look for the missing basketball including me i'm surprised no one noticed a perfectly spherical bulge in my

backpack a bunch of you're a teenager here right a bunch of no i'm like i'm andrew i'm far too old for this kind of behavior i'm probably like 25 okay so it's a bunch of 25 year olds and one pregnant luke burbank we're all trying to find the guy who did this oh heavens let me go i'm pulling the full mrs doubtfire i'm trying to dust the seats with my perfect ball right right in your

shirt what could have happened that's my mrs doubtfire impression anyway all right well thanks for calling in aaron uh i guess that uh should probably uh do it for today's show boy it is windy up here andrew i was a little worried that like our our entire connection or the power in my house might go out because of uh just how stormy it is so we survived though so that's good veves

and i saw a telephone pole on fire on on saturday yeah i just remembered that i mean it was the fire was just beginning i had to drop genevieve off at husky stadium she had to do some work uh at the game before the huskies football game began and there's some you know ceremony or something that she had to be there for and uh I'm dropping her off and the traffic's getting kind of rotten you know big groups of people already tailgating or whatever and as we're sitting at this light for a long time we notice a single firefighter standing below a telephone pole I thought he was just there in case but then Genevieve's like no look up there's smoke coming off that pole and then we see like there's there's like way up in the pole like up by the power lines but not on the power lines there's just like a fire burning in the telephone pole and smoking and then a fire truck pulled up right as we pulled away exciting times why did i bring that up oh wind you were worried about the wind causing uh damage to your lines up there well yeah just i you know it's this is still

all kind of a new experience of doing the show from up here and it's like i've never i haven't lived up here through a fall and winter so it'll be interesting to see what the weather situation is i'm already regretting this purchase of these outdoor lights that i purchased off of instagram because there is no way they're going to survive this wind if this is a common occurrence oh yeah so anyway um well keep everyone posted on the weather here uh in southern washington throughout the week because i know that's what people really want to hear all right thanks for listening folks we'll be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio in the meantime have a great monday take care of yourselves and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

Thank you.

is everyone okay what happened did anyone see someone drove a hot dog shaped car through the window driver's gone somebody call the cops we need to find that driver they could have killed someone whose car is this yeah come on whoever did this just get fast we promise we won't be mad what well close our eyes just take your car and get out of here sir that's clearly your car wrong someone call the police it could literally be any one of us no it couldn't you're dressed like a hot dog so is that guy oh no donald might look like a hot dog but you're wearing an actual hot dog costume you know i don't have to sit here and be insulted like this i'm just gonna take as many suits as i can grab get in that random hot dog car random and drive back to wiener hall oh my god what happened here yeah we're all trying to find the guy who did this and give him a spanking It's obviously this guy, right? Yes. Power out.