Muse

I will say this, I'm enjoying a long night of Miller Lite, everyone. Yeah, Miller Lite, sir. You know about this? All the kids are going crazy for Miller Lite. Miller Lite lets everyone know, I'm here to have 17 of these. I'm going to gradually become a problem. In about five hours, I'm going to be an issue, but until then, Miller Lite. Miller Lite. The official beer of weekend custody, everyone. Miller Lite. She's not coming back.

TBTL. Big news, sports fans. I've decided to start calling everyone sports fans. Yeah, I know I'm not exactly the jockey type, But I watched Hoosiers last night, and I like sports now.

I have no idea what you just said, but I feel totally transformed.

Is this a joke? Because if it is a joke, I just want to say that I get it. I get the joke, and I'm in on it also. And it's hilarious.

Have a good show, dummy. It's what you do is so important.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. It's an audiophiles nightmare. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host coming to you from the very heart, the beating heart of Times Square in midtown Manhattan.

You really are the most devious bastard in New York City.

It is an absolutely gorgeous Thursday here in New York. Oh, Ma, Pa, it's just beautiful. And I am looking out on a whole variety of gigantic digital displays, advertising all kinds of things, and also various Broadway theaters. There is the ad for the Broadway show, The Book of Mormon, and they're trying to make something work that I don't think is really working. The sign says, Musical Theater, Missionary Style. But I don't feel like anyone who's had S-E-X Has ever called it missionary style I believe it's referred to Maybe as missionary position Style It just feels It feels like a billboard That's supposed to be edgy Written by people who maybe have Not lived the edgiest life I can promise you things are going to get very edgy Here on episode 4407 In a collector's series Let the fun begin. Because I got a haircut today underneath the set of the Today Show and Rockefeller Plaza. So if I get a haircut, you know it means story time. I'm going to get all anecdotal on you. Also, we're going to finish our conversation, or at least I should say continue our conversation about the TBTL eating contest. Welcome to Food News Today. That may or may not ever happen, but is of great interest, to me anyway. And it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day, so we'll do the Blur's Day messages. And we'll talk to this guy, longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's in charge of all of the audio stuff on the show and does a great job. Why? Because he takes it very seriously and also... Because I sit with it. He sits with it right there at his desk. He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

I do sit with it. I have to admit something. I feel bad. I'm sorry. I was typing something. I was preparing some Blursdays. What's going on with sex on the billboard? What was the billboard for? I'm so sorry. You just said that. I know the listeners are like, just listen to the show. But I'm like, I know, but I want to know now.

But some listeners may have gone into the other room when I was doing that. So you're really kind of an ombudsman for the listeners, Andrew. In that I hardly pay attention. Yeah, you're advocating for the listeners who are also only minimally paying attention, and I think that's a valuable service. By the way, before we get back to that, let me just say hello to our other guest today, the longest-running employee number one of the show. He knows all about Big Apples. He had some delivered yesterday during the program. You know, you've got to eat that microphone. He's John Sklaroff. Hello, my friend. Good morning, guys.

Good morning, John.

The SEX thing, Andrew, was a big—

John, you don't have to spell it around John. He's old enough now. Actually, I think he does so I can report it to HR.

Okay. Yeah. You are HR, right? I plead the fifth. Do we have HR? Are we using some kind of a... We should be using one of those, like...

you know you don't have a full-time hr person but you just kind of rent rent an hr person i hear those advertised often on public radio not that we're gonna have a whole long discussion about we did that yesterday we don't have to whole have a whole long public radio talk today but here's the thing there is a big sign for the musical the book of mormon right which was famously written by actually written by the south park guys um but the the billboard says musical theater missionary style and i don't think anyone describes that sexual position as a style like we had sex but it was missionary style you would say missionary position right like

but obviously they're going for a play on words because they're they are going for a play on words

right yeah but i don't i just doesn't work for me because it's not here let me look it up i don't

mind doing this i'm not even gonna i'm not even gonna use a separate like burner account i'm just going to type in missionary style we're all going to learn something today this should be i hope

your audio is muted i don't know what's as of today wait this is sex

oh what guy oh now i know why everybody blushes uh when they talk about it no you're when you type in missionary style the first thing that pops up is missionary position luke so i think

you're right yeah it's it's just not i i understand this i do this all the time in my various jobs where i i think something kind of works as a joke and then people say that's not really how that goes i'm gonna i can't we have so much to talk about and no this is exciting john's on a john's on a tight john's on a tight schedule but uh i don't want to i don't want to and i have so much i have so much to report from the paul mall hair cuttery underneath the today show y'all something happened there that may have changed my life and i'm not even not even being dramatic is this paul maul blart cop it's it's paul maul the famous houston rapper who always wears the grills wait that's paul wall dang it um i i have i things like uh musical theater missionary style they stick in a sort of a corner of my brain more than they should i'm working on a tv story that will air very soon about a um a guy who invented a whole bunch of toys like 800 different kinds of toys and he's 102 years old his name is um eddie goldfarb he invented those chattering teeth and uh somebody in the process of the script is going through various drafts it's being sent between the producers and the editors and stuff like that and someone there's usually just like a little name for the script and it's not going to be on tv it's just for us it's just a it's just a naming convention and someone decided to name this script about this toy inventor toying around and every time i see that my blood runs cold because no one in the history of the world has ever said toying around there's playing around or something else that toying around is not

a thing i disagree i love saying toying around i'm not i'm not joking that's a that's a thing toying around with something oh yeah where's your dad i don't know he's he's out in the garage again toying around with that damn car of his no really i don't how did i how did i live this many years

john i mean yeah john you're the tiebreaker tiebreaker i think it's definitely something i've heard a bunch i think maybe it had it never made its way to the northwest it never made its

way to my ears okay well then i stand corrected i apologize young kim that was a great i'd like and i feel comfortable calling young out now because it turns out toying around is a real thing i don't i've never heard that is that an idiom i've never heard those words put together that way and so i just thought it was sort of like close to something we would say but not quite i thought it was sort of the missionary style of yeah naming cbs stories but i i'm sorry you know what i retract my previous statement toying around is a thing it might not be super common but it's

enough that there's a million like toy shops and various online things they all call themselves toying around and there is something to flirt with i don't know if i'm reading the right part of the internet here but to toy around with is something on uh word reference.com which is one of my favorite word reference sites i like word reference.pizza as well but anyway um yeah i think

that one might be i think that one might be okay okay good well that's i learned something today i also learned something else guys and i'll try to be kind of quick with this i learned that i now get my hair cut at the same place that Prince William gets his hair cut. Oh, really? And you're both podcasters. Is that the baby? No, wait, wait. Who's the one that's not hairy? No, the baby is George. I'm sorry to watch the CNN Monarch show like Andrew. I couldn't have two worse. No, actually, Andrew is big on the Windsor, but not this iteration.

I'm bad at remembering all of it. No, no, no, you're right. So Prince William, okay, I was definitely thinking Prince Harry.

So it's like William and Harry, right? And Harry is the rebel. Right. And-

And William's over there.

And William is the one that's... Is he just bald, though? Well, this is the thing, John. Yes, I noticed that as well. Prince Harry is just toying around in Montecito, California with Oprah when William has to do the hard work of posing for photos at a barbershop, which I noticed, by the way, it's their main photo. It's also not, I think, the standout hair model you could get. The guy does not have any hair on top of his head, but he's very famous. I was just trying to get my hair cut somewhere near the hotel here in Midtown Manhattan because we're going to be filming and my hair was getting a bit unruly. So this was just the place that was physically the closest when I was on, you know, like a Google Map type of thing. This was on the plane flying out here last night. It was a place called Paul Mall. And I guess they have a couple shops in London and a shop here. And I will tell you this, $54, that's not much more than I pay in Portland at Rudy's. It's like a couple bucks more. So, you know, I was excited to see that. I was thinking, gosh, this could be, you know, again, Midtown Manhattan, you could be paying $200 for a haircut without meaning to. So the first thing that happened was I made the appointment from the airplane and then realized this morning that I had not timed my morning correctly as far as trying to squeeze in my jog and other various things I was doing. So I called the barbershop to reschedule. And the call very definitely goes to somewhere on the Indian subcontinent. And I thought, oh, that's a long way to go to just ask them if I can get my haircut a couple hours later. But the person was very helpful. I was like, no problem. 12 local time. So I moved it to 12 and then went over there. And like long story short, the haircut was fine. The business model was very interesting. I walk into, it's only people from the Today Show getting their hair cut there, like dudes that work at the Today Show who are all dressed exactly the same, blue collared shirt tucked into blue pants with dress shoes, and then a badge. There was about 70 versions of this guy who were coming through at various times. But as I was sitting in there waiting for Oksana, the person who was going to cut my hair, it went from being like zero people in there to being like 15 of these guys standing around. And I'm like, how is this going to work? It's just Oksana. And then one by one, haircutters would show up at the Paul Mall. They would walk in a guy with big gauge earring, you know, kind of gauge things in his ears. Another woman who was cutting hair was very on the tall side. Another guy who brought a Slurpee in with him. It was like every person waiting had a personal hair care person who had just come from some part of Manhattan descended into the basement of the Today Show to cut their hair. Meanwhile, I'm still sitting there. I was the only one who had an appointment at noon, and it's now 1230, and there's no hair being cut on me.

i'm looking at oksana who is doing a very and credit to her a very elaborate beard trim and haircut on a guy who also not unlike prince william has no hair on top of his head i don't know how long that normally takes but it's like the beard trim was very elaborate then there were the oils and the liniments and the this and that and i'm just looking at my watching and i'm not gonna get back in time for tbtl um so finally it's my turn and oksana is very nice she's telling me about her life in uzbekistan before she came to live here and um at some point she's sort of done cutting the hair and because this is one of those barber shops where it's primarily men going in there and getting kind of more barber shoppy type of stuff done than i usually get at rudy's she just whips out an electric razor and she just starts shaving my face which i did not ask for i didn't sign up for it there's no shaving cream on me and she just goes um you have very sensitive skin uh you don't shave with razor you have too many red bumps use this i was like that's some straight talk wireless that's some real truth talk thank you oksana i feel culturally like this probably wouldn't have happened at the rudy's in portland you have very red skin you need to stop shaving with a disposable razor but i have never shaved my face with an electric razor it was sublime oh really i like i might go back there and take a picture of whatever this thing oxana was using was because again it's also very odd to have someone just start shaving your face without any heads up that it's gonna happen yeah without like a did you sign up for the shave would you like the shave it started and by the way i didn't shave this morning i was gonna ask because you

always talk about how you're not like super her suit you don't grow facial hair very quickly so i was wondering like what state did you go in there like you know did she have anything to shave does she do it for everybody or did she assess how it happened i shaved yesterday uh

probably at like 9 a.m west coast time so it had been like

About a full 24 hours, and I am sewn on her suit that in a full 24 hours of not shaving, what I have is what she thought was, you missed a spot. She literally said to me, she's all done, she's trimming everything up, and then she just grabs this battery-powered electric razor, and then she just starts shaving kind of the side of my cheek, and she's like, you missed something. And then she kept looking at my face, she realized, no, this is this guy's facial hair. This is his entire, so then she's just shaving my whole face, she's just going for it. And I'm kind of like in a moment of panic thinking, is there supposed to be shaving cream involved? Is this, you know, like, I don't know, like, am I in danger here or something? And then, you know, in a matter of seconds, it was all done. And she was like, you should be using this because you have very sensitive skin. It's too red and you need to stop.

And and don't forget the bumps. Hey, Luke, this is good news. You have something new to buy. Oh, man. Have you been looking? Honestly, and again, we don't have John here all day, and I can talk about this shit forever. But the truth is, in fact, let's table this for another time. We need to talk about my beard situation because I have a trimmer that I bought. I had a trimmer that I used for a long time that was always fine. I'd buy a new one every couple of years for $40 at a CVS or something. My beard is like my girlfriend. But I can't find that one anymore. And the last few beard trimmers I bought have not worked for various reasons. And the latest one is even when I leave it on the longest setting, it's been too short. So for the past couple of months, I've been going back to trying to like grow out my beard a little bit, but then trimming it back with scissors, which has not gone well. So anyway, let's talk about that because you and I both are now in the market for better face trimmers.

I need to get this exact one that Oksana was using because it didn't grab any of my red bumpy skin as it was doing the thing. It was very comforting. I fear that if I buy a different model, it might not be as kind of gentle as this one was. Yeah.

Well, I love your little red bumps.

Thank you.

It's one of my favorite things about you.

I know. I love doing it missionary style with you, Andrew. I mean going to the Book of Mormon.

You know what I'm realizing as Googling missionary style is there are other positions, commonly referred to positions, that end in style. There's a hip-hop record by one Snoop Doggy Dogg that references that, I believe. Rivals, we must win. And I think that, yeah, maybe that's there. But, yeah, you're right, stretching too much on that one.

so we uh we were talking yesterday on the show about this sort of this idea which i don't know if it's becoming closer to reality or further from reality of some kind of a eating contest uh for us on the show and john you had told the story of eating 47 hot wings in utica new york which is still a medium to mild but yeah medium to mild spiciness yes right see that's important in that that that's absolutely no there's a blown o-ring like that frank's red hot coming back on i don't want people thinking they're hot hot i don't want stolen valor around that no fair i don't get the sense that in eating well there's of course the one chip challenge and things like that where it's like eating a bunch of spicy stuff but most of the like real huge volume of eating i see spice is never part of the deal and i think because it would make it impossible like You can either eat six pounds of food or you can eat stuff that's really spicy. Doing both is challenging for most people, I think.

Yeah, because that's a different kind of contest, right? We were talking about, and I think our friend had a connection to this guy or something too, but remember we were talking about that new, was he an Amazon honcho of some sort who, as we learned about his background, his thing was he would take his team to the Wing Dome once a month and they'd have hot wing eating contests because they have super, super, super hot wings there. Does any of that ring a bell to you?

Oh, yeah, that's a distant, distant, faint bell.

Yeah, and so there are like hot, hot competitions, but it's a different kind of thing, not like, yeah, not whorping down hot dogs dipped in water.

So one thing you said yesterday, Andrew, was you had some theories on what you think I wouldn't be able to eat, or what is this? Yeah, well, I've gone... It would be something I would have a hard time with. I mean, your stuff is easy, no offense. No, no, that's like, you know, cottage cheese eating contest.

Yes. Guess what? You won, Luke. Congrats. No, that's what I've been thinking about, because here I'm going to give you really quickly my journey with this, because I was thinking about this more this morning and I realized what I was proposed, not proposing, but the basis of what I was going to say is kind of extremely unfair, because what I was going to propose originally was if you and I were to have a eating contest. and John I'll leave you out of this for now because it sounds like you can handle your bones if you know what I mean but I was going to say oh well if Luke and I are going to have an eating contest like I would you know push for something that has bones involved and is messy on the face ribs or hot wings or barbecue chicken because I mean you and I neither

one of us like to have like you know food on our face or whatever i think even more than most people but um but you have an aversion sort of to eating bony things i think usually there's something very

animalistic about it it's not my it's probably not the top of my list but also with ribs the problem for me is even back when i did eat more of that stuff it's it's the kind of thing where the um time commitment by the way i'm getting some tbtl breaking news we do have john sklaroff here for pretty much as long as we need him Andrew so I just I want to alleviate any concern about John's schedule his meeting has been pushed back oh that's that's really good to hear did I

receive that as well I'm just not looking you did but I know you're not like you're not usually

hawkishly over your phone you just ignore me Andrew yeah I'll get back to you no um so uh the thing about ribs is I feel like there's so much nibbling like you're kind of nibbling on it Because it's not like a big – it's not a huge amount of meat always on the bone. I mean, also probably the kind of – probably part of why I wasn't that into ribs is because I didn't grow up in a household where we were like, let's Carolina smoke these things and the green egg and we're going to get the best. Like if we had ribs in the Burbank household, I promise you they were the bottom of the rib basement.

We grew up in a very big rib culture. I mean, literally my dad would enter rib cook-offs. Yeah, exactly. So, but I was going to say, though, knowing that about you, I'm like, oh, well, that would be a that would be a lane that would be easier for me if it was something with bones. But then I'm thinking about it today. I'm like, yeah, but that's because I'm choosing something that Luke doesn't like to eat. Now, not something that you have never put in your body before, but that would be like you saying, OK, exactly. The example I thought of you already joked about like cottage cheese. I'm going to say, OK, it's going to be ribs because Luke doesn't like him. And you're going to say, oh, cottage cheese or head cheese or, you know, haggis or whatever. And I'm just like, well, that's not fair.

That's a no for me, dog.

Yeah, it has to be something that we all agree we can stomach. And if you kind of feel sick by chewing off of bones that are messy, then that's kind of a shitty thing for me to even propose. And I feel bad about it.

Well, I forgive you.

Thank you.

But I don't forget, Andrew. That's the thing.

No, that's the problem. Weirdly, I do. I do the forgetting for everybody around here.

But yeah, the thing about like something like ribs or I mean, I will I will within reason, as long as it's not like veal or something is like within reason, I'm pretty game to try whatever we think makes the most sense and would be kind of mildly entertaining. But again, to me, the thing about ribs is it's like, how are we going to go in and inspect if every bit of rib meat is not on the rib anymore? What did they do in the chicken wing contest, John? I mean, this was just for a local bar, but were they going in and inspecting the wings?

Yeah, I mean, nobody was rifling through them with, like, a pair of gloves or anything. They were just kind of eyeballing it. But we had, like, our discard plate. And, yeah, it was, like, mostly honesty, you know, I think, and honest, you know, like, did you think the way people are, honor system, that's the word, honesty and honor system. That's what I was trying to get to. Thank you.

Yeah, so, like, I just feel like there are other things that we could eat that would be more kind of, like, easily and apparently, like, you ate it. you didn't eat it kind of a thing as opposed to like a thing you're eating where there's also something left over that then maybe we need to double check that did luke like leave does 80 of luke's hot wings still like got like some meat on the bones as it were i think honestly the the thing that i could eat i feel like i could eat a lot of because i eat a lot of it a lot is pizza like i regularly order now uh i will swing through the papa murphy's pizza down there in longview washington and i will get well i'll tell you what happened a couple of times ago i went in there and i think i told you it was a really hopping environment like more than i was expecting and i ordered the pizza and i ordered like a um i think i ordered a medium It's just me now, by the way. I ordered a medium, and one of the kids said, hey, we messed up an order. I don't even understand how this worked, but he goes, we messed up an order. Do you want it just to be family size? And I was like, sure. Don't threaten me with a good time.

Because were you ordering something with common toppings maybe? Like just – well, you wouldn't do pepperoni these days.

Yeah, exactly. I go thin crust. I go extra cheese. I go black olives and green pepper. I think it had to do with the crust.

I think it had

I don't know like I don't understand what goes on and I don't want to know what goes on behind the glass at a Papa Murphy's I think it had to do with they had pulled somehow they had pulled out like a family size crust if that makes sense so they hadn't even like done anything to it but maybe nobody else somehow I ended up with an offer of do you want this to be family size for the same price and I was like well sure I guess I've got pizza for a couple of days and I will tell you what my friends by the end of that night by the by the long

long end of that night that pizza was gone all of it family style one luke burbank no more pizza so i feel like i could i can do some damage on pizza so that might be i'm not saying that is what we have to if we do this but i'm saying that is something that i would feel and we all eat that that's also a good thing that is a form of cheese that you eat andrew although i don't know if no i

can do pizza that that's fine i mean when we talk i'm stuttering i'm already nervous because i you talk about how you like to eat a lot and I sort of feel like you eating pizza I feel like yeah well you've been and I love pizza and I think that sometimes I eat too much but I've seen you go to town on pizza and I feel like you've been practicing your whole life for this and now I feel out of my element Donnie yeah I'll tell you what nobody out pizzas the birds yeah and that's something

to think about yeah John how much pizza again no pressure and I don't know if this is an HR violation but what would you say is the most pizza you've ever eaten in a in a sitting or

in let's just say like an evening by yourself so um yesterday i said i was in a chicken wing contest but i also mentioned i'd been i'd done food challenges like in high school and stuff with my friends pizza is definitely among them so uh again luke you have no shot um wait what's the difference between a contest and a challenge challenge is just me and my friends all betting on whether or not i can do it contest is all right all right yeah so um or one case my friend's dad came by taco bell to see if i could polish off those times that's another one dad is just like

yeah john's gonna do it again everybody gather around like people have like their dollar bills

in their hands there are dice for some reason my best friend growing up steve he's my next door neighbor and his house was the one that we'd often like go to watch football at or whatever and that's where a lot of these food challenges would take place and uh taco bell tacos came up one time and uh we watched my choice and what'd you choose but i did 10 and 10 uh i tried to do 10 because they like like a box where you get 10 tacos for like eight bucks or whatever it is i think i could do that by the way well so we used to do like all of us let's like high school boys we would just do that ourselves like a box each right growing boys and um it was like oh can sklar off do two boxes and um you said this phrase the other day luke i think and this is this is what was flavor fatigue my friend chris was like it's not gonna be the quantity that gets him it's that

like artificial taco bell flavor which is right it's it's like taco bell umami we don't know what it is we can't scientists have studied it for years they've never been able to figure out exactly they They haven't been able to identify it, but it's like dark matter. It's there, and if you eat enough Taco Bell, because I actually eat a significant amount of Taco Bell because they have a decent vegetarian menu. You can get anything at Taco Bell, just make it with beans instead of the meat and the sour cream. I mean, as the onion famously joked, Taco Bell has come up with 800 ways to combine the same three ingredients pretty much. So I like Taco Bell, but after you eat a bunch of it, there's this weird Taco Bell taste in your mouth That's not any of the specific ingredients. It's just the Taco Bell-ness of it.

Yeah, and Chris nailed it. But when we were at the house and we were all joking about it, Steve's mom was very adamant that I'd not be subjected to these food challenges. And his dad knew a nutritionist. No, she just knew me my whole life and was like, don't do that to him. Can I ask you a real question, John?

I don't want to put you on the spot and I don't want it to because Andrew's lane really is childhood trauma. and so i don't want him to feel threatened this will just add to it i won't talk about garbage either did you feel like did you like you just use the term do that to him did these things at the time feel kind of like a fun challenge to you or interesting or what did it feel like your friends were egging you on in a way that you didn't have a total say in no like i definitely

have a say and like i said i think i said yesterday i'm very competitive so it's like if they're like sklarov can you do this i'd be like hell yeah like i wanted to prove i could and i enjoyed eating food that they paid for you know when you're like oh that's also and your friends are like three two boxes of taco taco taco says no to that um but going back to pizza luke to answer your question like we would all eat our like box of tacos um when i was in high school domino's um brought brought out the five for five deal or whatever it was so you get three medium topping like one topping pizzas for five bucks each and so like again like a friday or saturday night if you know we're doing the things that 16 17 year olds do you know like a little dragon a little other uh you know uh food things that make you hungry yeah um we would each like we would things that make you go food yes things that make you go food we would order like a bunch of those pizzas and every guy basically would like just down a whole medium topping.

topped pizza themselves oh please come on dude i could do that i could do that every three days a

week and four times on sunday i'm just saying like it was a regular occurrence and then there were other foods there were other right specific challenges that i dominated that people lost

money on and were upset how much pizza did you eat in in like one of those like contests or you

know challenges yeah so i think the most was so the town i grew up in had this pizza place called maria's pizza which is like the best like you know real new york style pizza um like thin crust but it was also like each individual slice you bought was like literally a foot long it was

that kind of joint i don't that's the weirdest business model to me you see it everywhere in new york like particularly right where i am like you get a slice of pizza and it's roughly the size of like half of a pizza that you would get at any other place outside of new york yeah they're the

best and like there are pictures online i'm probably still of like somebody holding slices of maria's pizza next to babies and they're like longer than the baby um you know just because that's a normal thing to compare pizza to and so like the challenge i had for that was i think it was four slices but my my friend steve same steve didn't think that that was gonna be enough so he wanted to have quote heavy topping on there so they all had sausage on them i was in yorktown heights yeah york town maria yep okay i'm looking i'm getting eyes on it that's a lot that's because

people i i just want to clarify for folks that have not been out to this part of the country this is not your grandma's four slices each each slice would be literally half of a pizza so that's

really more like two large pizzas or something when you talk about toppings i was kind of curious like if the three of us or anybody were to enter into a pizza eating contest would it be up to the participant to choose their own topping for example and and would anybody choose a topping is that a fool's game you think oh i'm gonna come in here and i like pepperoni so i'm gonna get pepperoni whereas the the wise pizza eater says nay this is not about toppings this is about having as little on the pizza as possible so that i can win this damn thing but that that gets to

the larger question too of like do we want this to be something that's kind of semi-enjoyable First things first We're losing to John I think is the given here

I've already lost to John

Has this been made clear to us And the audience at this point John you're of the opinion that this is not This is not even close You think you could definitely dominate me and Andrew In this particular space

Like I said it's not the best part of me But I'm competitive and you guys have no chance Absolutely no

You don't want this smoke What if it's a smoke eating contest What if we all see how many cigarettes we can smoke Oh no I lose that one too A long time ago I mean I feel like no matter what the food is I feel like in a contest between Luke and me I lose And now it sounds like in a contest between you and Luke You lose so by the transit of property I'm just going to film it

You're in third place But here's another thing though that I hadn't even considered John Until you mentioned how you spent your your your your misspent ne'er-do-well high school years we haven't even discussed the in the introduction of marijuana famously appetite stimulating marijuana because at no time when i have been eating mass quantities of food have i ever been high like that's never even that might be an entirely new dimension for me of eating that i don't even

know about can i just luke real quick uh in regards to my never do well i my mom is now i think a daily listener of this show oh sorry sorry mama sorry mama she i was the youngest of three and she knew so i just want to apologize to her real quick okay he is doing real good at his job

john's mom honestly very very happy i'm proud to have him here i'd worry more about the drinking that's really gotten away that's become much more problematic than than the another classic

walsh joke sending a parent into some sort of deep concern i have the feeling john that we're the bad influence on you as long as you don't have to hang out with us on a regular basis i guess that your alcohol consumption is within the realm of normal now when the three of us get together and i am i'm probably mostly responsible for pushing the envelope i feel like that's when things get a little things get a little bit overly excited when it comes to our uh our libations

Although I've never seen John lose, I was going to say control, but even close to losing control. I don't think I've seen you. He's always been the best behaved of the three of us. I can't picture you, John, in any way that seems like altered, even though we've gone out for nights of drinking. You're a responsible boy.

My mother-in-law has a funny story about that, but that's another time.

Oh, okay. That's for the mother-in-law stories contest we're going to do next week.

Different show.

Okay, so it sounds like what we're getting down to here is that we have no chance against John, so that means John has to be, what, the scorekeeper or something? Oh.

If you're the, if you're the, you know, Christian McCaffrey of this thing, what do we?

That's an interesting place to take this, Luke, because I assumed that it would be, and I'm not trying to get, I'm not trying, let me be clear. I'm not trying to get into this or out of it. I really like whatever. But I thought it was shaping up to be more interesting between the two of you, because I feel like you'd at least give him a run for his money. How about this?

Me against John, but I'm allowed to be high. And John isn't.

Can I propose something?

As somebody who's never smoked weed before, John, obviously, but has done a lot of reading about it, do you think that that would actually, is that something that would? That doesn't sound good to me, but I'm also weird in that way.

You mean you don't think it would help me?

For me personally, if you said, hey, we're going to do a contest and Andrew, you can smoke weed or whatever, have an edible or something first, would you want to? I would say no, I don't want that. What about you, John?

Like, it's ironic, I think, that now I live in Minnesota where they literally just legalized it like a month ago, and I barely am high at this point. But I do think, I mean, from my memory, yeah, no, it definitely makes you very hungry. I mean, that's the whole thing, right?

I wonder if it's more like snacking kind of hunger versus, you know, because I just remember, it's not something I've done a ton in my life, but when I have done it, I have just felt like insatiably hungry. but it's all it's just a lot of like snacking and noshing and stuff like i wonder if if it's that if it puts you in the state of mind for like sitting in front of three large pizzas and just like systematically kind of taking them down that seems maybe like a more strategic approach i do

think for all these particular challenges or contests wherever like i was definitely sober for all of those but other nights if we were just like doing our dominoes or whatever regular kind of food consumption there was definitely that element and we were all like just eating a ton of food in those cases it was also again like 16 17 year old boys which really are i think any of the listeners have teenagers like that just like a black hole of of food you know hollow leg yeah

i was i mean i think part of my way that i tend to consume food which is really not great like i'm not stoked about it is is uh like because i eat i i will like not eat for long periods of time and then i'll just eat like weight like way too much not in the way that andrew says he ate way too much but i will literally eat like you know and i'll eat three meals between 6 p.m and 12 p.m and and no meals between 12 a.m and 6 p.m it's like not a great it's not a great system but i think some of it is because when i was growing up we all we had plenty of food in the house like i did not have any food insecurity but we didn't have a lot of like the good food like food that i was excited about eating we were the ultimate we have food at home family you know that whole move like you're driving can we go to wherever we have food at home in fact i took my dad out for chinese food on tuesday night back in the back in southern washington and it was probably the second time that my dad has been out to dinner in the last year and you know the time before that when i took him out to chinese food the previous time my parents never eat out and we didn't eat out very much and we just didn't have yummy food in the house there'd be a little bit of it so when there was I would just go crazy on it like I basically have this weird scarcity thing in my brain around food which again is not because I didn't have access to food but I just didn't want to eat the weird stuff from the co-op that we had around or whatever so that has stayed in my brain for all these years and if I'm like I can I can eat a lot of food out of some weird feral shit

that I have going on from my childhood you know what I was thinking about earlier was foods that i love but feel like would be bad for an eating competition and i have what i think is maybe an odd one like okay for example here's one that i don't think is odd is like anything fishy for me like i don't love fish that much but like i really do enjoy a nice like sushi dinner but once i eat like my last piece of sushi i'm just like my body just sort of says that's enough fish like with no other food it just sort of says no no more fish i'm like okay and so that would be like that would be a bad idea for me one that sort of surprises me that i would put in the negative column is eggs because i love eggs i love all the different ways you can like what number would it be sort of north

of 49 and maybe south of yeah like i don't know somewhere he can eat 50 eggs he can eat 50 eggs

i said i said that boy's sharper than a bowling ball i heard a foghorn leghorn reference somewhere

yesterday by the way and i just was like is the is i and it wasn't even like on my phone per se i was like is the tv listening to me like what is how how did we talk so much about foghorn leghorn yesterday and then somehow it came up elsewhere in my life yet i can't remember where relevant

famously watch looney tunes all the time right yeah i do yes that is my i'm a real i'm a real

space jammer by the way do you know elmer fudd is in space jam just sorry to throw that in there Of course I was doing some Elmer fudd research the other day for a live wire game and i was like i can't believe he made it into space jam oh really like i don't know he just i i guess it makes sense he's part of the looney tunes universe but it just it just seemed odd to me he didn't seem like a natural athlete

you know he doesn't seem like an athlete but a big big name that's part of the joke though that's part of the joke in the space jam is that he's not a good athlete can i tell you the best uh or the weirdest part space jam 2 which is not good um is just an ip push for warner brothers so So by the time the big game is happening, the crowd is filled with all this other Warner Brothers IP. So there's like characters in the Matrix.

Oh, I've got to see this. I've got to smoke some weed, eat some pizza and see this movie.

There's like, Luke, there's like the hooligans from A Clockwork Orange, that's what I was trying to think of.

Yeah, I remember hearing about the Clockwork Orange hooligans are just in the crowd.

What a crazy way to try to backdoor people into watching A Clockwork Orange.

Because it was like when HBO Max was first coming out, and they were like, we have everything from Warner Brothers. And it's just like, it's Looney Tunes. What are we doing?

Think about the like, I don't know how many millions of people saw Space Jam 2, but let's just say that 15 of those people were staring at the crowd scene, and they saw the characters from Clockwork Orange. And they were like, well, I've really enjoyed watching LeBron James and the crew beat the bad aliens or whatever um and let's check out some of those other uh ip and then they turn on clockwork orange right this looks like a family film yeah i mean that's you can't come back from that like that is a real hard shift from from space jam anyway sorry andrew

didn't they end up remaking a clockwork orange with a bunch of looney tunes characters like you have elmer fudd's eyes propped open while they're showing him ultra violence um it's a great remake actually it's it's a rare good remake but anyway uh-huh i would now i feel like bunny as the malcolm mcdowell character is that the person with the cane and i think the main dude in it

the leader of what are they called the what are they the the somethings um the droogs or something

but don't you feel that eggs would quickly sort of just like the like while you're eating the eggs the idea of the eggs would turn on you like no matter what hard-boiled would be like to go back to uh cool hand luke i think that would be the toughest egg eating contest to have but like even something that goes down nice and easy like a scrambled egg or something like the first few would be good but then after a while you'd be like you'd be thinking about it you'd be thinking about the texture i think that that maybe that flavor fatigue would kick in and you start tasting more and more of the sulfur of the eggs and like i love eggs but i feel like i'd have one egg eating contest and i'd be done with eggs forever and i'm not willing to sacrifice that

my life i think andrew the move there though is like you have stuff that can alter the flavor so you have like hot sauce you have some ketchup or whatever like just little things that like when you're starting to get the flavor fatigue portion at least in that for eggs specifically you can

alter it a bit too so it's like it feels like you're eating something different that's interesting you would think that the hot sauce would be an impediment but you're right you might need just

something to change the flavor of that i have a i have a thought on this if i had to eat let's say 20 eggs, which I think I probably could do because I often, if I'm getting breakfast out, which is not, or if I'm getting breakfast late, I may have done this with all of you at my father's place in Portland, Oregon once. If I'm getting breakfast, I will regularly get a minimum of three eggs on the side, but they have to be over medium at a minimum. I think I love over medium fried eggs. I probably in my own life have at times not participating in any contest eaten maybe 10 of them like so I think I could if I was pushing it I could probably do easily do 20 eggs as long as I could prepare them over medium but you're right hard boiled forget about just think about the chalkiness of that yeah hard boiled could not do that and it honestly makes me feel a little like like something's coming back up by the way sorry to our listeners who are like easily kind of what's the word I'm looking for sort of like icked easily icked i don't know if these conversations are causing my dad sorry i just have to tell you two things that happened my dad and i were out for chinese food and i love this man he's one of the sweetest people i know but he has some quirks one of them was he starts telling me the he starts asking me if i've seen a movie and i said no i haven't that sounds kind of interesting and oh you know it's a movie about a father and daughter who are living in kind of who are unhoused but sort of living in a park in portland i think it's like don't leave a trace or

something is maybe the name of the movie ben what's his face right foster yes ben foster thank you and

i've never seen this movie but it sounded interesting to me my dad starts telling about i go wow that sounds really interesting i think i'd like to see that and then he starts telling me what happens and i go could you not tell me the ending and then he just proceeds to look me dead in the eyes and tell me exactly the ending of the movie i've had that before Why did you? you do that i just asked you not to tell me the ending of the movie and then you just plowed right forward he goes i know that was his answer i know it was like what kind of a what kind of a demented clockwork orange type torturer is telling you that they're like two-thirds of the way through the movie and you say to them hey that sounds intriguing i'd like to see it please don't spoil it for me and then they just tell you the end right there was so weird i just want to say really

quickly rosebud was the sled um i uh i i there are people like that and we all have our different line of what a spoiler is i saw some people not really taking us to task but like vehemently giving uh warning spoiler alerts when we talked when you told me about the barbie movie a while back and it's funny because like for me you didn't say anything that at all ruined the experience of going in to see Barbie like and I feel like I'm so sensitive to spoilers um but we all have different lines on that because you describing you know the basic outline of the Barbie film didn't seem like a spoiler to me having said that Genevieve will be telling me about a movie and I'll say hey stop you know I might want to see that and then you know maybe she'll keep going or something and then I'll complain about a spoiler or it's not maybe maybe that's not painting her in the fairest of life but she'll tell me something like have you gotten to this part yet or something in a book and i'll be like really you're gonna just ask me if i've gotten to that part yet like and she's like that's not a spoiler and i'm like but but it is it feels like a spoiler to me because now i'm waiting for this thing to happen right so we all have our different lines but then i have met folks who just like for me sometimes i think genevieve is just totally blind to spoilers but then there are people that genevieve feels does that do that to her you know where she's like i can't believe it they just i kept saying stop stop stop and they literally

couldn't stop themselves right the other thing he did we're eating chinese food and he goes we're talking about somebody that we know who had some sort of health issues and they had worked at a at a shipyard and he goes yeah their asthma was really bad because they were inhaling pigeon shit because there was this pigeon these pigeons would shit everywhere and i was like hey dad I've thought of this because of the ick thing I am very, in fact I've been in relationships with people that were like You need to calm this thing down But I'm not doing it to be dramatic I'm very sensitive to the experience of I'm eating and we're talking about something gross I hate that I do not like it at all Andrew, this is good intel for the competition Dude, I know

One time I mentioned to you We were at the Thing Festival and you were eating And I said, oh, I just ate something and my beard smelled And you put your food down and you're like, thanks for that

like you were basically done eating i would have totally done that i'm i agree or i i admit that it's an over sensitivity for me but it's it's real and i just i don't like i i cannot enjoy eating if i'm hearing about something that's strikes me as gross and my dad this is i can't remember this before or after he spoils leave no trace for me but it was all in the same event all in the same meal he goes yeah well you know his asthma was really bad because um you know these there was pigeons shit everywhere there and i go dad can we pick this up after the meal and then he goes and it would aspirate it would just aerial aerosol eyes and then they would be breathing it in and then it would be like just this shit going into their lungs and i'm like could we please could you stop this while i try to finish my low main did you finish it because i could definitely see you just like pushing the plate away and being like no no i oh i i uh i i definitely gave it a run for its money what what i this is our little this is our little system though now because my dad is still out there uh working hard high above the mighty columbia um on the house but he is not like i said he doesn't i i worry about him in the way that like my mom should worry about him when she leaves him alone like is he gonna eat is there food for him so he had easily four days of chinese food leftovers that he could just graze on and I intentionally overordered at the restaurant so that there would be a lot of food that he would be eating while I was gone so I think I think it's all being handled and I but I did not I did not finish everything but I did not stop the meal for myself because of the pigeon poop conversation well what I was going to ask

you guys how you feel about noodles I think the idea of like really like kind of soaked noodles like pho noodles would be really tough for an eating competition I feel like we'd all be like just like full as a tick in no time but what about an a sort of like a nice flavored asian style noodle with some like sesame noodles yeah like a sesame or what or what were you eating lo mein

luke that's wait well that's i that was actually i my dad was eating lo mein i was actually eating kung pao shrimp okay i just i don't know why i said lo mein it sounded funnier to me than kung pao shrimp well i'm gonna stay away from shrimp we've just i just realized something andrew you know what i i i think i might be able to even dominate john on this one whoa whoa whoa shaolin

mong bao baby oh dumplings i have i have truly horrified the servers at din tai feng over the years when going in by myself by myself back more in my meat eating days but i have had din tai feng in the last year and a half becca and i went there um because we're going to try to learn how to make a vegetarian version and i use this as an excuse i was like well then we need proof of concept because i love that so much i can eat easily eat three entire bamboo steamers of xiao long bao and that's when i'm also putting down a thing of green beans and the pork chop fried rice so if you took the sides out i think i could do five and each one of those has probably like 12 dumplings in it i am a dumplings i dude i'm like i eat those things like they're tic tacs Like it is it people like and Andrew, you remember this famously in our friendship. We were at the Dintai over in Bellevue once and I was just ordering and ordering and ordering. And the server, I think probably nicely was like, that's going to be a lot of food. And I took such offense to it because I was like, yeah, I've done it before. Of course, then I was really cornered.

What was this isn't my first rodeo?

I did, of course, consume all of the food that was ordered, which I think I want to do that anyway. Although I was sure as shit wasn't going to leave any leave no man behind after that conversation. But I am I I think I could eat a truly terrifying quantity of Shaolong Bao from Din Tai Fung.

I feel like I could eat a lot of that. Now, that does raise a question about like, you know, are we starting with them as they're piping hot? Because there's something about the fact that there's actual soup in there they can really scorch yourself on. So, like, you know, but then by the time you are nearing the end of one of the trays, like, you can, you know, usually be a little more carefree about how you consume it.

They start to re-congeal a little bit.

Yeah, so if we can have them when they're, you know, still, like, you know, very tasty and a good texture, but not quite, like, they're going to scorch you. Because that would be, that seems like that's a whole new thing, right? Like if you're talking about also like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,

sort of appropriate you're keeping it in southeast asia we'd always call it um oh is that really is futon well futons are japanese sure yeah that's not singapore i want to be clear i understand

singapore is not japan but i never even thought of that of a futon i just thought they originated in at kent state university in the in the common rooms um but anyway i uh yeah i remember spilling a bunch of that stuff and we called it flavor grease because this was just like kind of take out noodle but every now and then if you see um if you see Singapore noodles on a menu give it a shot like there's something about that flavor profile I like but like yeah a plate of noodles I feel like I could oh I feel Genevieve makes these noodles with just like a lot of butter and shrimp and like um parsley or whatever like that there are two things in my life that I feel like if you put it in front of me I can't stop eating it like a horse one is like Indian food and then But it seems like an Indian food eating contest would probably lead to tummy troubles, I would guess. Like if you're really pounding a lot of that stuff. I guess all of this leads to tummy troubles. All of these will be took. Yeah.

And this is a man who knows.

Yeah. But yeah, these butter noodles that Genevieve makes with shrimp, even though I wouldn't want shrimp on my eating contest. Like, oh my gosh, I can't. I literally can't stop. Like I can't. I go in the kitchen to clean up and then I start eating it and I have to like smack my hand away with my other hand to finally put it in the refrigerator.

You're turning into Bruce Campbell from Army of Darkness. You cut your hand off. It's like under a bowl.

And it's weird because it's a food that Genevieve makes here. There's none of those chemicals in there that tell your brain to keep eating them like Fritos.

Right. Caloric vanishing point. Well, listen. All right. I guess the big question now that we need – we don't need to answer it right now, but maybe we can put it out to the audience. Is there any Is there any upside to us actually Trying something or is we just talking About it enough like is this going to be Interesting listeners upsetting for the listeners Boring I got one email

From somebody who doesn't like the idea That it's not like Wasteful and gross Wasteful I don't have a strong opinion Like I feel like it's been done But I also I say no To a lot of things and this is one that like, pooping with you before our colonoscopies or climbing a billboard. Well, John said yes to that, so I have a buddy.

But we're using Andrew's house. I've got a friend in him.

You're using my house. You guys are coming over here.

your poop party yes absolutely yeah i call dibs on the downstairs bathroom a lot of i don't want god to be able to see what i'm doing um okay well you know what i here's what here's my vote and of course this is you know this is a democracy so we've got three votes i think i vote that we we hold off on it for now because of because of all the things that uh we've already mostly the fact that john will just win um but if something comes up down the line where there seems to be like an interesting or entertaining whatever i mean you know what i think and i guess i'm guessing you would be a no on this andrew but i don't know i would i could probably get talked into one of those stupid one chip challenges and i'm not like great with hot food i do think that there we did that like hell pizza once which was i think some people thought was kind of a fun bit but like i guess what i'm trying to say is why don't we table this for now so to speak but then if it comes up later i'm open to doing something but i don't feel like we need to force it yeah i'm

i'm with you on that as well i don't feel like this is something so unique that we need to force it but if it pops up i'm willing to do it i'm willing to try out some sort of a hot challenge

as well um i was john would you one chip it i uh maybe i actually think that also was a packy i think is the company i think they just discontinued it because a teenager literally might have yeah i

I'm going to be curious. I want to see where the chips fall, and I did that intentionally on that story. Sad story about someone passing away, but I felt that the causal chain seemed a little questionable. The headline was, teen dies from eating one chip challenge. I thought, my goodness. And then it was like, teen passes away quite suddenly. Mother thinks it might have been because he had had that one chip the day before. It started to become a little less open and shut. So I don't know why I needed to clarify that other than I've been thinking weirdly about that story a lot lately.

Well, we got to give accurate news here. We don't want to be misleading. Exactly. It's not clickbait on TBTL.

But also I see the just unbelievable discomfort people are in with that chip. And I don't know why it is that I would even suggest that because I don't want to be in that kind of discomfort.

Yeah, that's less appealing to me. I'll tell you what. Can we all just agree that we'll go out and have some pretty big lunches today?

Oh, my God. Andrew, do you know that I'm looking at the marquee for Juniors?

Oh, damn.

Not the one we went to in Brooklyn, but there's one in Times Square. But same place, same ownership. Same company, same everything. And it is just, it's like, I'm like Pepe Le Pew, and I'm about to just float on the cartoon smells over to Juniors. I am jealous. Either that or the Olive Garden. One of the two. A classic New York Italian restaurant, the Olive Garden, yes, where they do it missionary style. When you're here, you're missionary style. The Olive Garden, Times Square. Let's thank some daily donors. These spectacular, generous folks are keeping the show going with their financial support. Now, John did jump off the line to go do some TBTL, Too Beautiful to Biz, biz. So he's not here to backstop us, Andrew, on where everyone is. But yeah, that's right.

That was a nice because he saved us yesterday. Right. With a listener who we had in the wrong part of the country, maybe.

Yeah. We thought that I was hoping that they were in American Samoa. But I think they were in Northern California.

But abbreviated at A.S. for Always Sunny. There we go. So we've recreated yesterday's magic.

And now we're going to start some new magic today by thanking Sarah Adelman of Seattle, Washington.

Hey, Seattle. I like that place.

Seattle, Washington. Wait, comma, territory of Tonga.

Oh, okay. I have not been to that.

The Seattle, Washington neighborhood of the territory of Tonga. Thanks, Sarah. Thanks to Lisa Brines of Renton, Washington.

Hey, VMAC.

There was a couple of weeks where when we mentioned someone in Renton, I thought of the VMAC, and I think I even made the dumb joke a few times, can you go over and talk to the guys? Guys seem like they got the message.

Yeah, good job, all of our Renton listeners who went over there and said what's what.

Specifically, Lisa Bryant, thank you. Also, Jenna Munoz is in Singapore where they do the noodles.

Where they do my favorite kind of noodle.

Yeah. Jenna, thanks for checking in from Singapore.

Send nudes, as they say But N-O-O-D-S Send nudes, noodles It's a food joke It's okay, it's all above board

I have to say, and also it's good that John's not on the line anymore If there was going to be someone on the show Who was saying send nudes, I thought it would be me Yeah, I know, but I'm

Working on edgy Andrew

I love it

Lexi Janicek is in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

Oh.

That's MN. Yeah. There are a lot of rapids out there. There are big rapids. There are Grand Rapids. And can I just say something? Yes, you can.

Let's all slow down. You know, why is water in such a hurry?

You're moving too fast. That's right. You've got to make the morning last, Andrew, just kicking down the cobblestones. What an appropriate song for me to quote, sitting here in New York City. In fact, I can, from this room, I can see the, let's see, that would be the Hudson River, just a little bit of it. That's in New York now, huh? Yes, yes, they just added it recently. Pretty cool stuff. Thanks, Lexi. Also, thanks to Jamal Abdi in Arlington, Virginia. Thanks, Jamal. Appreciate you. And then Mary Donahue is in Brooklyn, New York. Oh, another New Yorker just like you. Mary, I'll see you at the Olive Garden. That's where everybody goes, Andrew, definitely. Hey, thank you so much to all of our donors. Thanks for making TBTL possible for all these years. We wouldn't be here without you. Hello, and welcome to Top Story. Just one sort of quick top story for you today, Andrew, which is just a follow-up on the Lady Gaga story. Do you remember that whole thing where her dogs got stolen, dog-napped, and very sort of tragically and dangerously, the person walking her dogs was shot. Thankfully, they survived. But there was a $500,000 no-questions-asked reward that was put out for the safe return of the dogs. and then somebody safely returned the dogs but it turned out they were sort of related to at least tangentially the people who did the dog napping and uh lady gaga and her people said well we're not going to give you the money because you were you knew the people that did the thing and this person this woman sued saying yeah but it said no questions asked and i can't remember we came down on this at the time my my memory is it wasn't quite as open and shut as i mean seems like the obvious thing is no if you're like the stepmom of the people that dog napped no we're not giving you the money you're a part of in a way this tangled web but on the other hand no questions asked the first question was are you the stepmom of the people who did this that's a question one question has been asked when it was supposed to be a no questions asked um but a judge uh agreed with lady gaga's people that was like uh no you don't have to pay this person because they were they're part of the crew i mean although that was the other thing there wasn't any i don't think there was any evidence that pointed to this woman as being the mastermind of the whole thing and her argument was i yes i did get the dogs from the people who napped the dogs aka my you know relations or my you know my sort of family but it was because i was trying to keep the dogs safe and i got them back to you safe so i should get the money which kind of sounds like a bullshit answer but also kind of doesn't sound bullshit to me

i mean yeah i'm going to repeat what i said last time and this is churned up like just all of the same feelings i had last time and it makes me sound like i side with the dog nappers which i most which i certainly do not i want to make that very clear and also on the record as anti-dog I'm anti dog napping. I'm anti like going up to a dog walker and literally shooting him and stealing two out of three dogs and the other one going running. I mean, that's so terrifying for so many different reasons. Having said that, you would think when you put out a reward for something and you say no questions asked, the whole point is like you have something that is lost that is so meaningful to you that you love so much. in this case these pets whether it be whatever you say no questions asked because in that moment you're saying well maybe maybe there's somebody who's connected to this in some way who will turn on the other people and so i will say no questions asked because this is my only chance of getting these dogs back now we have two courts which have agreed that that does not hold up you can say no questions asked and then you get your dogs back and then you can ask a bunch of questions and then it's like well then doesn't that diminish the next time somebody is absolutely desperate for something doesn't that demit and again it was a gang of people this one person sounds a little bit tertiary or secondary to the plot they pled down their their sentence is like two years of probation that was totally what this person who turned the dogs in is facing as far as a punishment so i'm guessing that that means you know wasn't like you said the ringleader wasn't somebody who certainly engaged in any kind of violence. And so if the whole point is, hey, maybe there's somebody who knows something or is it even slightly involved with something, we get them to turn and I'm out five. hundred thousand dollars which is a lot of money it's also lady gaga and she you know she can afford it and she got her dogs back because maybe that person saw this reward and said oh well you know what i will turn uh on doug i assume the ring his name was doug um so anyway apologies to all dougs out there but anyway yeah so that's my thing i could just keep on repeating that over and over but to me it's like it's senseless now you've just taken out the you know the next person who's in a desperate situation in something like this and they say that that is not believable it does not hold up in court you're not going to get your money and therefore you're not going to get your possessions or pets or loved ones returned

right I actually very much agree with you because I think that the idea is like you know reward please bring back this person or this animal or this whatever no questions asked and this thought is like oh if someone's walking down the street and they see Lady Gaga's French Bulldogs just like having coffee in a cafe Then they'll be like, this is where they are. Or you found them in an alley somewhere scared and you put them in your car and you drove them to the police headquarters. But that's just never going to be how it goes down. When you're going like reward, no questions asked, you're basically talking to somebody who was probably kind of involved. The great likelihood is the only people that would have useful information are already too close to the whole event. So if, I mean, you know, and I don't have a, like just, yeah. imagine if if i i brought you some stolen dogs andrew and then first of all thank you thank you for yes and i did let you pet them for five minutes before you had to take them to the authorities like i brought you some stolen dogs and then you were like oh this is wrong you shouldn't have stole these dogs and then you like took them back to the police and they reunited them with their owners and it happened to be that there was a reward but because you and i have been doing this podcast for so many thousands of years they're like oh he knows the guy who stole the dogs like well yeah that's generally how this is going to go down you're probably going to be getting somebody who is again a little too close to the entire event now in this case I mean I got

to take their word that she was somehow involved in the heist itself right like that she didn't

just find out that's a good point because if she was if I yeah I haven't I need to reread the story more closely but I think you're right that's a that's an important clarification it isn't like she was completely and totally not associated with what happened i think she was somewhat associated and maybe it's that somewhatness that was too much like if it would have been somebody who literally was just like at home and then these people show up with these animals are like we just did this thing and then they like call the cops and take the dogs into the cops maybe that would be somebody that would get to keep the money um but uh but in this case the as you said the courts have found that this person is not going to get god half a million dollars is a lot of dough too like it is it's weird because it's it's i think it's a pretty insignificant amount of money to lady gaga and it is uh you know i'm i'm guessing more money than than this person who thought they were going to get it uh would be getting on a typical basis it's a lot that's a lot a lot of money speaking of um of of popular musical performers andrew one of the things these these digital billboards here in times square are just they are crazy and they are repetitive remember last year it was like a it was like a santa horror movie yes that one with

the guy from street with the sheriff from stranger things i ended up seeing the trailer later and it

made a little bit more sense what was it called like i feel like it had the craziest it wasn't the santa claus i know no it was like but i feel like it just it kept playing this catchphrase over and over again that was cracking me up because of how bad it was violent night violent night first of all what a name yeah but now what i'm looking at is the ad for the taylor swift eras tour coming to a theater near you in theaters october 13th andrew by the way this is great um placement of this billboard because now i just promoted on our show but it is i can time it next and it comes around so it goes this taylor swift errors tour ad and then there's like one other there's an ad for some clothing company called vince camuto and then it pretty much goes back to the taylor swift ad like they don't have like not enough people want to pay for this this is a really primo billboard in times square maybe the most primo one the taylor swift clip is like nine seconds long and i have since we've been doing this show have watched it easily well how many seconds have we been doing the show every nine seconds like i it is on constant repeat but it's not long enough to like you know um i don't know it's not like it's a two minute music video it's like a very fast like 10 second clip it's going to come up again here in a second and i'll just time it for you um 1001 1002 1003 1004 1005 1006 1007 1008 i'm sold 1009 1010 1011 and it's over do you think i was counting slow uh that felt like Thank you. that was probably what maybe 15 seconds yeah it's just i i it needs to be longer or they need to have more ads on this billboard because i am starting to lose my mind yeah well i don't

think you're supposed to watch it over and over again it's not tv you know that right it's hbo

They didn't account for a podcaster, a lonely podcaster up in the sky, Andrew, just staring dead-eyed into it.

Yeah, I don't think that's really the point.

For an hour while he talks to his buddies.

If you feel like this billboard is not getting, you know, enough interest from advertisers, I mean, is there an opportunity there?

Do we need to get John back on the line? Exactly. I mean, I wonder what this is going for. I wonder how much it would cost us. It's back, by the way, Taylor Swift, The Errors Tour.

like this is what i can't two one thousand i thought i was four mississippi five mississippi

six did you grow up in a uh in a in a mississippi environment was that the unit of measurement for

you as a kid yeah i do think that that is if you were taking something really seriously you'd do

one mississippi two mississippi yep there was always the kid we i played a lot of like you know like kind of pick up football like two hand touch football with a few friends so there was never enough players but it'd be like okay you can rush the quarterback but there's nobody to block the quarterback obviously so you have to do five mississippi oh yeah before you can cross the

imaginary line of scrimmage remember that yeah there's always the kid who go one mississippi

two mississippi three mississippi four mississippi and it's like you're skipping some syllables there you're sorry about that donald whitehouse you're missing some letters there bro um i remember in

public radio when i was like a board operator uh at new hampshire public radio somebody who trained me said you say bob's your uncle between elements so another and i bet you this is not the case anymore with public radio we like things to be a little bit tighter but back in the day you know commercial radio was cacophony things were jammed together and one commercial would end and it would smash up against another commercial or songs would overlap and public radio luke things are different we're a little bit calmer here uh-huh yeah we do smarter here and did you do that as well like so in other words let's say the atc billboard ends and now you're gonna fire a local um a local sponsor a local underwriter or something it ends bob's your uncle then you hit the button like there's just enough space in between things is that something

that you ever trained on do you know that i never ran the board yeah that makes a public radio station even as an announcer i was never really an announcer that i can think of like i had this very odd track there was one time one time well not one time there was one board shift that i had and it was i want to say sunday nights maybe i was filling it on the sunday night i did have a board shift i kuow that was a bizarre hour of the night that i would do i think i did it for a few weeks and famously i played the wrong episode of the radio reader with dick astell you skipped a

chapter you went right to the end i think speaking of spoilers maybe your dad was getting vengeance

on you for i think because he does love that dick astell no andrew you're the only person on earth who will appreciate this and i think you appreciate it last time i brought it up i got confused as to if it was the pno number on the dat oh right do you remember the pno numbers on dats that would be this like basically a bookmark on the dat right yeah yeah i didn't know i was confused as to if i was starting what point i was starting at and i started it from a pno number instead of from the correct place but there was another time that it was a sunday and i was getting to do the let's say like eight to ten shift and this is when kuw was still at um at the u-dub on the campus and i remember my friend seth brolate was there and a couple of like the mummy was there and we were hanging out we had guitars this is the life we were living then we're like literally acoustic guitars with us and we went in the studio and we like played acoustic guitar music for the bump music in between like alternative radio with David Barsamian and like bridge is a liberal conservative dialogue with Larry Josephson I'm Larry Josephson and like and I think I even in that I think I didn't turn the right mic on so you kind of couldn't really hear us it was a whole thing but I didn't I don't think anyone ever trusted me to run the board I I kind of went from being a booker producer person to then, oddly enough, being the host person, but never had that middle step of like doing the announcements and running the board.

I only did a little bit of announcing. Did you just drop your microphone?

I just had the rare microphone drop. Not in a good way. Yeah, I have this. My mic is on this little flexible stand. Some people who look closely at the stand may notice that the letters NPR are etched into it with some kind of soldering iron But we're not going to focus on that

Why did you do that? Why did you solder that into it?

Just because you wanted to sort of feel like you were. I was.

It was before I worked there was, you know, dress for the job you want. Yeah. But for some reason, it's never happened before. The mic just keeled over and fell and banged into the window. Almost fell 30 stories down on top of a Tickle Me Elmo standing in Times Square menacing people.

Then you definitely have to tip him.

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

Hi everybody, who wants to do some Blur's days? This is from Maria in Minnesota. I just wanted to start that the weirdest way possible. We only have a few Blursdays today, Luke. And the first one comes from Maria in Minnesota, who says, I want to wish my tractor-obsessed great-nephew Henry a happy third Blursday. He received a TBTL lunchbox for his Blursday, thanks to Caroline, a Minnesotan. Is this real life? Caroline for bringing the lunch Oh, thanks to Caroline and Minnesotan for being his lunchbox mule. I also let's Caroline I'm not getting the details of how that was moved across borders. I also want to wish myself a happy Blurs and a Blursy New Year Okay, so Maria, you're celebrating as well

No way, Jose. Happy Blursy

to you. Blursy New Year and Happy Blurs Day to Henry. Enjoy that lunchbox We only had like two

of a maid did i tell you's andrew did i tell you's um either off air or on air that i was a couple weekends ago we were visiting my sister liz and her wonderful family including my nephews jack and abe just the apples of my eye although my nieces are also the apples of my they're all the i have a lot of apples in my eyes and i need to see an optometrist about that but um i was getting a little tour of their house they've built this really lovely home pretty much by hand in the woods and i went up to see jack and abe's rooms and they weren't even around this was not for my edification this was like just i was snooping and in i think it was jack's room he's got all his stuff that he's into with cars and stuff and he's like in the muscle cars and things and then just sitting on his dresser is the tbtl lunchbox oh nice and it just absolutely warmed this otherwise cold desolate heart because you know i think probably my mom brought it to him because my mom was pretty geeked about those lunch boxes yeah she was but it's like you know it it is what it is it's your uncle who cares but like he had it up in this like place of honor it just made me made me so happy i love that absolutely loved it yeah it was really sweet can i get one of those

i can get into get one of those lunch boxes do you know do we have any's and do we have any's

Do we have Zennies? I mean, did the venue throw out the last hundred?

There were like, I don't know how many, but there was a bit of a surplus at the end. But we said like we can't, we had no place to store them. Like that's the thing. We can't pay for storage of lunchboxes. So that was the end of the road for those. So they truly are collector's items now. Please clap. Stephanie says this. It's that time of year again. Gregory's birthday He's been dropping subtle hints all week Like don't forget to tell TBTL about my birthday That is a subtle hint I've been wanting to donate directly to TBTL Too loud and too specific But I wasn't sure what a good amount to donate would be So I looked to Gregory for advice When I asked him how much he donated to TBTL He said You don't want to know And now I understand And now I understand what a dazzling donor is I love it Nice Gregory Thank you both, and happy Blur's Day, Gregory, from Stephanie and us. Cute. And finally, happy Blur's Day to Donna in Baltimore from Laura in the same city. I'm so glad you took the chance to treat yourself to a birthday vacation in Norway. I hope the fjords are... Now you have a friend in the diamond business. I hope the fjords are gorgeous and that you're getting the rest and relaxation you so deserve. of Quoth the Friendo. Happy Blurs. Go Orioles. Power out.

Cute. By the way, yeah, go Orioles indeed.

Indeed, yeah. Tampa. Wait, no. Who are they playing right now?

Andrew. I embarrassed myself so badly last night. I was getting a late dinner when I got...

here to the hotel i went downstairs to the restaurant the bar restaurant which was thankfully still serving some food and i got myself a little i've been really in a mac and cheese mode lately got myself some mac and cheese and i was sitting there eating it and the people that came and sat next to me uh were from arizona i guess and all of these baseball highlights were flashing across the screen and i realized i don't know anything about the major league baseball postseason because once the Mariners were eliminated, I just kind of, I lost track. And also, I wasn't really ever tracking other than where are the Mariners going to make the playoffs. I wasn't like, I wasn't, I wasn't, I couldn't have told you the Phillies were getting in. I couldn't tell you that the Milwaukee Brewers were in. Like, I just didn't know this stuff. You probably did because you're doing fantasy and everything.

Well, the Brewers was the only one that was a total surprise to me, but I'm also just embarrassed that I had the Orioles going up against National League teams. Of course, they're playing the Rangers here. I don't know why I just said what I said.

well the listen you're gonna feel better when you hear this story so it's this um it's a guy and uh his sister they're a little maybe a little older than me and then his wife and they say something about arizona and i said like oh my gosh i'm so sorry for you and they're like what do you mean i go well that you guys lost and in my mind it was like here's what's really crazy in my mind when they said arizona i heard texas and i thought they were the Rangers side note the Rangers also won this is why it got so bad so they say we're from Arizona and I'm thinking they're from Texas and Texas lost so I go oh I'm so sorry for your team that sucks they go no no no it was good and I go wait what the Rangers lost they go no the Rangers won I said what and they go but we're from Arizona like I I misstated and I'm leaving stuff out by the way i wasn't drunk for the record i like i got just so first of all clearly i think of texas and arizona as being roughly the same place and i just i literally said like four incorrect baseball things in a row and then i just wanted to crawl in a hole and die because i do actually follow baseball very closely but only mariner baseball yeah no well that's that's mostly my

journey as well because i um was learning about baseball and the mariners at the same time so i never had any idea what was going on in the rest of the league this time I had a little bit more of an understanding um but let's see I'm trying to remember uh now I'm all in my head about this I I said that the Orioles I guessed at Tampa Bay but that's not true but they're yes Orioles Rays I believe right um well they were both they were both I don't think the Rays lost the Rays lost to the Rangers okay that's right so they're out which I think was kind of a shock right and now the Rangers are playing the Orioles and so for all the reasons go Orioles like big time like first of all that is that's officially the thing yeah today is game one of the orioles rangers

five game series well right but i guess when i asked the thing no i'm rooting for the orioles just because they're a rootable team but let's just say it was a less rootable team and it was a team from the al west i feel comfortable by the way doing this because it's at the end of the show so no one has to listen to the rest of this is just me and andrew talking do you i go back and forth on this like do we root in any way for al west teams because it means that our division is good and then if like an al west team wins the world series it means like it's it reflects well on the overall product of the american league west or do we root always against al west teams and do we always root against nfc west teams do we root against all teams in our division as they

progress through the season after we've been eliminated well i um am kind of a toxic fan and you know that and a bit of a hater so like i when it comes to like the astros like i would i will always root against the astros and by the way i've been thinking about something really the team

that cheated and yelled a homophobic slur at our best player yeah and here's the thing that bums

me out about the astros is before the whole cheating thing and and i would like to really point out here the reaction or non-reaction from the team the lack of punishment and this idea that somehow they were victimized by being booze after being big after getting booed for being big cheaters like it really bums me out because there is a so much to love about the astros like they used to play in a shitty stadium they have amazing like branding and uniforms and colors there i like the fact that they're tied to like the industry of aerospace and that they're yeah and that their mascot is named orbit as opposed to like being named after the guns that the team was like what Weren't they, like, the 45s or something originally? Oh, yeah, the Colt 45s. Right, like, there's so much to love about that franchise.

Their best player was 65 years old, Nolan Ryan, who's still probably the best Astro.

That's right. He's still playing, right? I believe he's coming out of the pen. So, anyway, I was thinking about the other day about how lovable the Astros could be if they weren't just so awful as a rotten organization.

Yeah, because I mean, I think, you know, Houston obviously, like, is, I think, a very, like, interesting and rootable city Like

Like it's they call it, you know, sort of the third coast and it's an incredibly diverse city. There's a lot about Houston that is interesting and that I'm rooting for. And I wish I wish that the baseball team with you, like if if they hadn't done the cheating and then if we didn't have this now kind of like simmering. Real kind of deep seated rivalry with them that's almost like violent, you know, it's almost like, OK, are they going to throw it our guy? Are we going to throw it their guy? Like it's it runs pretty deep now. But it didn't have to be that way. And and like, you know, I would be more naturally inclined to root for Houston than Anaheim as a general position. Yeah. If it wasn't all the stuff. Yeah, exactly. Leaving out all the other stuff, I would probably be like, yeah, Houston, you know, like they're a quirky team. Their stadium used to be named for Enron. Yeah, right.

Like there's there's interesting backstory there. And the Angels, weirdly, I now feel like kind of bad for Angels fans because that is like that's a I don't know if I use this correctly, but that is a bad beat to have two of the most famous and best players in baseball of the generation of a generation to just totally flame out for your team to flame out while they're on your roster. Like that's I kind of I'm actually feeling bad for fans, but I also hold a lot of grudges against the team itself for like throwing at Mariners players intentionally starting a brawl in the early, you know, you remember the huge brawl last season that they intentionally started. They put out a starting pitcher with this specific purpose of beaning our player as some sort of revenge tactic and to fire up their season last year. You remember what I'm talking about, right? I'm not describing it perfectly, but it was so infuriating that, like, I just have so much haterade in me. The Rangers is a good example, though, because I don't really hate the Rangers. They've struggled for a while, but I hate that they beat us. And really, I should sort of be like, okay, yeah, let's root for the team that beat us and go AL West.

Right, because if a team vanquishes you, but then they turn out to be really good, it sort of means, like, well, it figures you lost to a good team.

Yeah. And I will say that I will say the Astros themselves were actually pretty gracious after that 18 inning game last season where they finally eliminated the Mariners from the playoffs. Like I remember some player for the Astros actually saying that, like, no other team would have played us that hard. Like, like we and so, you know, that's pretty cool when the teams can kind of look back. And so I want to be a little bit more of that as well. I don't hate the Rangers, but I am very excited for our Baltimore listeners, our Baltimore fans. the Orioles just like it seems like such a great story they're in such a cool place right now that I wish the Mariners were at as well and so 100% go O's

alright that's where we're gonna wrap things up on this Thursday but we are gonna be right back here it's amazing the things that my brain thinks are actually stories for this show Andrew oh did you just hear me no I know what happened

I know I just mean I'm just embarrassed that I ended the show with that No, no, no, no.

Listen, I might tell you tomorrow the story about how I banged my knee today on 7th Avenue, and it really hurt. Sounds better than my post-season analysis. It's really embarrassing to hurt yourself as a grown-up. You know what I mean? It's going to happen more and more. Like, as a kid, you would just be crying, but as a grown-up, you're not supposed to cry, but you're in real pain. You can cry. I banged my knee. It was really bad, and I was like, how do I deal with this right now? So maybe I'll tell you that story tomorrow. So, all right, tune in for that. I'll be at the Book of Mormon tonight if anybody needs me. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves. Go Orioles. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all.

Hi, welcome to Taco Bell. My name's ETC. How can I help you?

I am mesmerized by the divergent culinary concepts at play here. cheesy gordita crunch fiery Doritos Locos Tacos Supreme I mean it's like Mexican jazz music power out