Muse

Hi, guys. Just calling to say thanks for making this be what I was singing on my way to lap swim this morning. Swimming. Swimming is the opposite of dry landing. Happy Friday.

T-T-T-B-T-L. Guess what day it is. Guess what day it is.

It's Friday. Friday. Gonna get down on Friday. everybody's looking forward to the weekend I came here to do two things eat

eggs and nothing and I'm not out of either be bop bop bada boo I've never been a person that had friends and so my friends were two imaginary white cats

all right you ready yeah okay beagle beagle boggle boogle okay ready to do it

fast okay beagle dogle boogle stop talking get off the phone and let's do this let's do this

immediately let's go all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a friday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live if you can see yeah the numbers all go to

11. My name is Luke

Burbank. I am your host coming to you once again from what is it? 40 probably 46th and Broadway baby. New York City! In the heart of Times Square. I'd like to take a moment to tell you all about the Taylor Swift Eras Tour which is coming to a theater near you and coming to some eyeballs called mine repeatedly thousands of times over the last 24 hours. That's not even the least of my problems here in New York City. I am dealing with some extreme, for me anyway, back soreness. You're entering

a world of pain. And

I have to be sitting for this part of the show because I'm activating these little audio drops that sound like this. But once we're underway, I'll probably be standing and trying to stretch and get comfortable. So, just, you know, spare a thought for old burbs here on episode 4048 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. I had a challenging evening last night trying to access NFL football on Amazon Prime. Amazon was being a real pill. Isn't that for techno geeks with spreadsheets? But it actually turned out in my favor. I'll explain how. Then speaking of futuristic technology, the elevators in this hotel are very futuristic. You might even say smart elevators.

What is the deal with the smart car?

But are they so smart, America and parts of Samoa? Are they? We will talk about that. Oh, and we'll find out the big development in Andrew's life.

Things are going to start happening to me now.

Speaking of, my friend Andrew, the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's got a big weekend planned out. I'm an activist and house party enthusiast. And he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I worry that the show is just skewing too young these days, what with more and more of the programming being handed over to conversations

about colonoscopies and bad customer service my damn back and lower back pain smart elevators that are just a little too smart for their own good andrew elevators these elevators i mean in

my day luke well we'll get to that later how's your back it's not great although i will say this

it's i've i've had back pain and spasms at times where there is you cannot get comfortable there is no relief from the pain that's not what's happening to me right now it's been kind of building all week i think it might i don't know why i think it's jogging related because it actually feels fine when i'm jogging and it feels better when you know for a bit afterwards so i've been kind of blaming it on that but it might just be what my back has decided to do this week but it's been getting a little a little more pronounced throughout the week it's the lower kind of right side of my back just above my gluteus maximus i know the exact spot i had some issues there recently too it's a nice little part of my body that likes to kind of just spill out over my um my belt line yep when i'm wearing a t-shirt that's too small so i consider it really one of my more appealing physical features but is that literally the love handle by the way no i guess

the love handle is more yeah it's maybe slightly behind the love handles love handle more specifically on the side yeah if you hit

the love handle district you've gone too far that's how you'll you know just right before you get to love handle town um and it it's been it's been getting a little bit more uncomfortable uh with each passing day but the thing is it's fine when i'm standing and critically it's great when i'm lying down one of my very favorite postures to be in when i'm doing a missionary style andrew

oh come on uh people didn't hear yesterday's show they don't know what that's a reference to it just

sounds off well it sounds like it's dirty but of course as we established yesterday it's not really a thing that people are out there saying except when promoting the musical book of mormon the point is i've there are people in so much more discomfort than i am i don't want to sound like uh i'm whining because i do have the now i'm standing up by the way and i am uh holding this microphone what i look like opposite of sitting uh it sure is it's the opposite of running around um and i look like a young tiktoker who is out uh i think there's a tiktoker that i really love well i mean she's a singer and i found out about her on tiktoker name is lola young i played one of her songs for our music for your weekend and her kind of aesthetic in her videos and her promotion of her songs is to go out in the world with this exact microphone i'm using Which is a Shure SM7B It's very popular with podcasters And sing into it But she'll be like sitting on a dock in England Or she'll be like walking through a Tesco or something I look like one of these young hip See Andrew can't you hear the demo getting younger I look like one of these young hip TikTokers because right now I'm Stamding and Talking into the microphone I don't know what the implications are for the audio I don't know if I'm rustling the mic cable This is not ideal But it's what I'm dealing with right now And what it has actually done as i realized andrew is it for once has put a legitimate urgency on the question of do i get upgraded to first class or not on my flight tomorrow oh yeah usually that's a purely a um that's purely a just um me being a spoiled person and hoping i can just be in the lap of luxury kind of thing that if it works out great and if not it's not a huge deal but i i do think that Sitting... We will have to play that song again for people at some point, just so they know why I keep saying the word. Do you have access to it? Maybe somewhere. I think...

I think I linked to it on our website. I think I've got it right here.

Oh, there it is.

on your head uh still got it jordan alvarez but um i uh i think that i think that sitting on the airplane in a pretty small seat of coach will be one and with not a lot of ability to kind of move around will be particularly uncomfortable for me if this doesn't remedy itself by tomorrow when i was uh going out i was we were filming in green point brooklyn this morning andrew and i will tell you that as i was taking the uber out there and back i had to like shift my position so many times that i i i kind of worried that in both ways the uber drivers really they were lyft drivers would think something was up with me because i was i was my body was being so chaotic it was as if maybe like i had was on some kind of a drug or something because i just couldn't get comfortable and i would like kept shifting and everything so the idea of doing that for six hours flying across the country does not sound fun to me so i guess this is a message to alaska airlines please please have a heart in the words of bonnie rate and let me sit in first class on the flight home my my very back depends on it have a heart i thought you're gonna go with um skrill skrill who is that band that we like to sing have a heart oh yeah i think the song was

real real right but there was a there was a bootleg version that i liked it had a slightly different name but i don't think i got close to it anyway um that was not helpful for anybody

except no but now i cannot well because there's a whole journey ring ring is what they the version

i had was ring ring right it was at the sleigh bells is the name of the sleigh bells look at us

being so young this is one of those things andrew with this that song looms large in my mind a because i i loved it and i feel like there was i think it was there was a version called real real right

r-i-l i can't there was some version that i knew of i didn't even know about the record one one was ring ring one was real real but i don't know which and i think spelled r-i-l-l i'm not saying real real and i don't remember which one was released on the record and which one was the

more garagey version yeah there was one that was stripped down that was really cool um but what i And then we'll see.

Why I remember that song is because it was also the moment when I realized my daughter knows more about music than me because she goes, oh, yeah, like from Maggot Brain. And I go, like, from what? And that riff in that song, Ring Ring or Roll Roll, is actually from a funkadelic song called Maggot Brain.

I remember you telling me that like years after.

And I did not know that was the case for many years of listening to the Sleigh Bells version. And my then, like, I don't know, 22-year-old daughter said, oh, yeah, oh, the Maggot Brain song. And I was just like, you're just listening to deeper cuts by Funkadelic than I am. It was like, you know, realizing that you can beat your dad up or being the dad and realizing your son can beat you up. It's like, well, we're passing the baton here. We know really who is holding the power and the cards in this relationship.

and it's no longer me because liking music is is is like a weapon with me and add it it's a

contact sport it kind of is a low-key as the kids say i think i told you and the listeners this story i was in vermont once at a at a cheese shop dadless cheese and probably some wine in vermont would recommend and uh a song came on their like you know just whatever sonos thing and it was from a band called Amanaz who were part of a particular kind of rock movement in Africa in like the 70s and the song I thought was so good and I shazammed it and then I was just really psyched to send it to Addy whose response was oh yeah you should check out like their second record or something I was like really can I have can I get can I introduce you to something cool anymore that you haven't learned about already and the answer was no so yes Andrew it is a contact sport between

us and i have been vanquished it's driving me bananas trying to figure out uh which i think ring ring was the one that maybe they originally that they actually released like kind of more widely but we'll we'll try to figure this out maybe can we can you play them from where you're at yeah let me play because the thing is i feel like the like kind of stripped down acoustic one is so much better is there any chance this is it with or is this going to be a live noisy oh this is it this is the one yeah so this is ring ring Does this seem like a remix, too? Boy, this takes me back. Yeah, something's different, but this is a slightly different mix than the MP3. I had, but this is close. Oh, really?

This sounds like the one I was listening to. This is very close with a different mix.

Anyway, when you say have a heart, that's what I think of.

You don't think of, have a heart. No. Won't you have a heart? That's me doing Bonnie Raitt like she was on the soundtrack to Oh Brother Where Art You Where Art Thou That would have been a really different movie if it was Oh Brother Where Art You

Where Art Ya Hello How Art You I kind of lost that a little bit because I don't think I know the song you're talking about but the Oh Brother soundtrack was obviously like omnipresent if you worked in public radio

I just was singing it in an overly countryfied way trying to sing like Bonnie Raitt but then going more into Man of Constant sorrow sounds that I meant to now I want to clarify one thing too So the album, I think, is called Maggot Brain, but the song that Funkadelic did is Can You Get to That? And I'm just going to play that from here. And now, I don't want to take anything away from Sleigh Bells, but definitely the best thing about that Sleigh Bells song is the riff.

Yeah, that's strange. That is very strange that it's not technically, I guess it's not technically a sample. Like, again, I don't usually get, I don't get worked up about that stuff, you know, kind of sharing and being influenced by and carrying on a tradition. Like, I know when money is involved, that shit changes, but, like, generally speaking, I don't get, like, kind of super offended by that. But the fact that it's so direct, you know, another version of that is, um, nope, shouldn't have brought it up, because now I can't think of either band. Never mind. Um, but, uh.

I'll get to that later when I stop thinking about it so hard and talking at the same time. But I don't know. It sort of seems like, yeah, but at some point you kind of got to, I mean, I don't know. Like, I feel like you got to let us know. I don't know how. Do you just stop in the middle of the song and say, by the way, we want to acknowledge that this music we're using belongs to Maggot Brain.

It's like, yeah, I don't want to take anything away from Sleigh Bells. but it's and and they obviously they're paying the you know like the funkadelic folks i'm sure like whatever uh you know rights they i'd be curious actually to see on the on the songwriting credits i guess i don't know for a fact if like if the band sleigh bells had to share any of the profits from that song with with the folks in funkadelic but it's just almost like there's i this is you want to talk about uh starting to go down roads that we don't need to andrew because i can't think of the exact song which means this is a meaningless conversation but there is a song going around tiktok right now that i love so much but it is kind of in the way that that bruno's bruno mars uptown funk song was just kind of a a combining of like five existing you know songs from various eras it was almost like it's interesting it's a great song it's very catchy but it's just you just took a bunch of other songs and kind of combined them that's what this one is it's a guy rapping maybe by the end of the show i'll think of it he's basically taken a super popular song he's just changed some of the lyrics a little bit and then he's putting it over a different the music of a different song but it's like everything in the song is something that was existing already and he's just kind of gone out and harvested it all and it's a very catchy song But I cannot give you an example of it, what I'm talking about, Andrew, because I can't remember it. And I was just Googling popular TikTok songs trying to solve the mystery for myself.

It is hard, especially when you have like a brain cramp like I just did while you're trying to talk. And so now that I handed the mic to you for a moment, I was able to get my song feet underneath me here. I was talking or what I wanted to refer to was Elastica's Connection song, which I love. You remember this from the 90s, right? so that was a pretty big hit yeah at the time and i remember going to college and then people like were telling me oh you mean the way they ripped off that wire song and i'm like what are you talking about and here's a song by uh the band wire that came out i think in the 70s oh wow i don't think i don't i don't think wire ever goes So you have Elastica to thank for that

But again, we always end up in the same place with these conversations Which is, there is also a finite number of chords and guitar notes So you kind of have to be realistic There just aren't that many new guitar chords being created So at some point things are going to become there's only so many ways you can aggressively and coolly strum a guitar while we're doing this and

i don't know if this is entertaining at all i've really gotten sort of just like into this conversation with you and like it's kind of hard to remember that other people are listening in on this um but there is a song and boy we're really doing music for your weekend before music for your weekend but there is a song that we're really doing music and injustice we're doing podcasting an injustice we're doing your back an injustice somehow i know i'm sitting down again it's really not a good idea i want to talk to you by the way about wallet placement in a moment oh wait no that doesn't go anywhere because you don't have a traditional back wallet do you i do oh you do okay we'll talk about that in a moment when it comes to back issues and sitting on an airplane but um this song hit my radar the other day i'm gonna guess that you know this because i heard this as a soundtrack on instagram somebody you know like put up a reel or something and they use this as the background music and um i liked it so i flagged it and i was listening to it uh yesterday and i was like i like this but it reminds me of something that we played a lot on the show maybe during like an old music or i'm sorry like a not music for your weekend what do we call it summer slam the tbtl summer slam um song of the summer the eras tour coming to a theater i'm sorry andrew i just keep looking no i mean advertising work so anyway take a quick listen to this song it's by a band called Jungle, or the duo called Jungle. I think there are a couple of DJs, maybe. Do you know them? Back on 74 is the name of this song. Tell me if it reminds you of something like very close that we used to listen to.

a lot like i really like that but it also when i hear it it drives my brain crazy because it

sounds just like something else well first of all it sounds like the pharrell song happy from Happy Feet. Is that what it is that I'm thinking of? Yeah. Cue that back up again. Will you play that while I grab? Yeah.

I'll just keep playing this because I don't think it's good.

And then there's another song that it sounds like too that I'm going to do. Is that song not called Happy? Yeah, Happy. It's from Despicable Me Too. Okay, ready? Here we go. Just listen to This While I play Yeah the beat

Okay can you play

Your song again Because there's one more thing That I think you're thinking of That if I hear it one more time It might remind me

Yeah there's something else That I'm definitely thinking of That is closer I'm going to play this more From the beginning now

okay so there you go that's back on 74 by jungle okay um and what how when is what era is that

music from i'm pretty sure it just came out this um i mean i don't know what the sample is from but i think that that's a relatively new song there's you want to talk about a weird ass way

to get to the song that we're trying to think of. I feel like one of our friends in L.A., maybe when Angie was living in L.A., had suggested it to us, and it's a song that, it's by Quadrant. Qua. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Qua.

Qua.

I feel like it was like Crouch Creep. I think that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah, you know, I thought it came by, you know, now that you say the name of the band, And I feel like that came to you, that came to me via you, via tune, maybe. No?

But what are they, it's called Quandre Diggs? Is it by Seattle?

Oh. Free Safety Quandre Diggs? It doesn't have something about umbrella or rain or something in it, does it? Why do I associate with that? I know the song you're talking about, and I know it's from.

It's like Slippin' is the song.

Yes, yes, yes, that is the song. Oh, my God. Let's see here.

This is, is this kind of what you were thinking? I think this is what I was thinking of.

I know.

This is not. Why couldn't you have just told me it was? I was so proud of myself. And who is this band? This is Quadrant.

This is Quadrant. It's Quadrant. Okay. I couldn't quite remember the name of it. So it's Quadrant. I love this song, and I know that you played this for me like years ago. But that's not what I'm thinking. There's something more modern. Well, we're driving our listeners crazy one way or the other. They either know what we're talking about or they don't. They just want us to end this. But there's something that we played, I feel like, in a more recent Song of the Summer competition that is so close to that Back on 74 song I was playing.

There's also, hmm, yeah. There was a band called, like, Oceana that did a song. This is not helpful. That was, whoa, whoa, sorry. We're not trying to do that yet. That was similar enough to that Quadrant song that when I would hear it, the song by Oceana, that I would always think, oh that sounds exactly like uh that sounds very much like that quadrant song but i doubt you would

have heard that yeah that doesn't sound like something that i'm familiar with so is it anything

by neil pert or is getty lee involved by the way another when i'm not looking at taylor swift i'm looking at i think getty lee wrote a book and one of these gigantic uh gigantic digital billboards here in times square it just keeps delivering when it's not i can't see it from here as well But when I'm down on street level, just a four stories of Geddy Lee, which I'm going to be honest with you, that's more stories of that's that's a bigger representation of Geddy Lee than I probably need.

Is the name of the book four stories of Geddy Lee? Because that would be pretty cool. Or what about the voice of Geddy Lee?

Yeah, right. Other than that case, he's sort of referencing Steve Malkin.

getting back to the airplane trip home andrew which again i've got a lot riding on this now i forgot to tell you that when i got on the airplane flying out here you know i oh first thing was that i was the very last person to not get put up into the front of the airplane so it was like just i was just staring at my name top on the waiting to upgrade list just kept saying burr slash l burr slash l and i was like please please some fancy person missed their flight and there was like no line at the airport i was like what are the circumstances that someone does not take use their first class seat from portland to new york city and uh there was no universe in which that would happen because the flight was full and i was sitting back in the uh the the the regular part of the plane which is fine except i sat down and uh i the the couple next to me were were um they were actually quite adorable they were a couple probably maybe in their 60s or something they uh were wearing masks they were being very safe they had brought their own very healthy food andrew they had baggies of salad like ziploc baggies of salad and apples and at one point the woman was eating very dry like kind of like a like a rustic piece of bread and then just taking a bite of a radish and then taking a bite of her bread and then taking a bite of her radish and i was like these are very healthy people um but as we were getting they donate to public radio you know that right oh well that's part of the story andrew because i was that the the flight crew flight attendants are coming through and i'm like all right it's time for daddy to get a couple of vodka sodas and i always like go like can i have a vodka so like i because of all the flying that i do on alaska like i get a free drink and they have a very very chill policy about it because uh i will go hey can i can i get a vodka soda and then they go do you want to and then they just give you two of the bottles so now it's like can i get a vodka soda and then the lady just holds up too and i'm like yep and then that's kind of how we that's how we uh how we fly the friendly skies but um right as i was about to do that lady turned to

me and she goes i know who you are i almost made that joke i almost said oh these people know who you are i didn't know that that's where the story was going but if you have somebody who's eating like radishes and granola on a plane exactly out of portland yeah these are very like high the

probability of them being a public radio listener is um it's about 100 but what was funny was uh and again this is the rule somebody was at the eugene show a 10 i mean it was a couple of 10s there and they came up and they said jokingly the live wire show that is and they jokingly said i have to identify myself and i said yes you do thank you very much but so these people without even knowing it were kind of following the rules because they said oh i know who you are but i'll i promise you the rest of the flight i was on my best behavior andrew uh went with one vodka soda instead of five did not get up to pee one time on the entire flight to new york city did make sure

that people are judging you if you get up to use the restroom on a six-hour flight i don't think

so i certainly wouldn't judge someone but i felt like it was still a it was still kind of a like a it was a check mark in the isn't that guy from the public radio show a mensch i felt like he didn't even get up once like that's menschy behavior i don't think it's expected i don't think there's anything wrong with someone using the restroom but i felt like i can add that to their experience of uh he did not even get up to go to the bathroom also i made sure that i was never because i was on the window seat i was never ever accidentally taking that arm rest for my right arm that was for the middle seat because you know that's the one thing about being in the middle seat is you should get I think you should get both armrests you should get your right and

your left armrest because you're already in a crummy seat you know I miss I mean you said this but in my head I wasn't picturing them like literally kind of trapping you in the window in the same row so in other words if you got up to use the restroom they would have had to get up as well I was picturing them sort of across the aisle from you my apologies no they were I was

on the window and uh i was a place you would never be voluntarily andrew which was hemmed in

by two people that used to be my move i used to only do window seats but then yeah i got to an age where i was like i'd rather be in the aisle and not uh bug people but now that what you said totally makes sense when i was picturing them across the aisle from you which i don't know why i was i couldn't understand it as as as you and i say some weird shit on this show but i was like you just think that these other people who are in another row they're not even in the same part of the airplane i'm just showing off yeah just like boy that boy never pees i was like oh okay you didn't make them get up and move their shit and to let you out of the aisle that makes sense

to me my boy says he can hold his bladder for 50 hours he can hold his bladder for 50 hours

sorry about that that was me like kind of not picking up the details of the story and just

being well i actually i i wasn't clear i mean i could have been on the aisle and they could have been sitting at

the window in the middle seat too so i wasn't actually overly specific but yeah it was the case that me getting up would have meant they had to get up now they they listen they're not going to hear this there are a couple of retired optometrists from the uh university there at forest grove in oregon i got the whole deets um but i uh they did get up individually i think to use the restroom and what i was kind of waiting for was i feel like when you're a couple and you're on an airplane and you're in this position and again it's kind of maybe a little hard to imagine but it's like I'm in the window the the woman is in the middle seat and the husband is in the aisle seat I feel like it's a solemn there's a solemn agreement if you are part of a couple and one of you goes up to use the restroom and you have the person on the window hemmed in both of you need to get up and use the restroom right then because you're a team and now this person on the window doesn't have to kind of do that ask they use the restroom individually they let their bladders dictate their behavior and that meant there was never a time when i could just get up because what would have happened if they would have both gotten up and used the restroom or if like the the wife has used the restroom so the husband's like well i'll just go ahead and go now too then i can just skirt skirt out of my spot i don't have to do the weird ask that never happened because when they use the restrooms they they were alternating there was always somebody block there

was always an optometrist blocking my way no i don't agree with you you don't agree with that no um although like always do that what you would with becca what you would do is you know like if if i were in the window seat in that position like yeah take advantage of one of those moments where the defense is soft like where there's only one person there instead of two but uh but i don't know that i don't think that it's up to the couple to like to sink their bladders i'll take it a step

farther, Andrew. I have at times, if I'm in the middle seat and I don't even know the person in the aisle seat, if the aisle person gets up to use the restroom or if I'm on the aisle seat and the person in the middle gets up to use, if anyone in the process gets up to use the restroom, I will often just take that as my cue to try to use the restroom too. So we're all doing this as part of a team exercise so that while we're all up, we're all doing what we need to do. And then we're all settled again as opposed to making that person on the window have to like ask me to move kind of thing I mean I don't mind getting up and moving it doesn't bother me but in fact I go to great lengths to try to be not a hassle on the flight to the point I told you once that story of it was a very early morning flight and it was me on the window an empty seat and then somebody who was sleeping and I was trying to just gingerly sneak past them while they were sleeping and they woke up and i think just coming from a relatively deep sleep to like me sort of shuffling by then by the way my front of my body was pointed in the other direction it was like hugging the seat this person this woman just started yelling no no no no and i was like okay all right just just try not to wake

you up all right here we go she was so that was not part of a um that wasn't part of like a dream or her being shocked she was like no no i'll get up don't try to don't try to crawl over me she was

actually consciously telling you that i think what she was was half asleep half awake did not want me squeezing crawling over yeah i have to be but don't i don't even like the term crawling over to be introduced into this conversation because i was not crawling if anything she was going to get a face full of my butt but not you know i would like you were just slathering your way right over her body that's that's better thank you i'm just a stickler for accuracy but i but i but i want to be clear like in a trillion years i would never even if a person was sleeping and it was like first class and there's all this leg room and you can actually do it it would never ever pass in front of someone i didn't know with the front of my body like uh just for this exact reason but i think what happened was i think this woman woke up what she was probably trying to say to me was hold on i'll get up but i think because she was still partially asleep i think because she didn't enjoy at all the thought of me squeezing past her or as you say slathering past her slithering pastor sliming your way past her sexaling sexaling along let's move on anyway um i think it was like it was basically a very it was coming from a very sort of like primal kind of deep part of her where she had zero chill um whereas maybe if she'd been awake and sitting there she would have she would have maybe expressed it a little differently it was coming from like right in the core of her being that's interesting that's

uncomfortable though i don't like being hollered at especially like and again you and i are also i mean you've gone out of your way many times now to say which way you were facing but either way important that is but it is personal space and i think that you and i are both very conscientious about that as well like we do not want to do anything that would even be like would That even come close to being perceived as to being in a person's space and a woman's space. that way and so like i feel like that must have really hit you where it it did because i well i

just learned a lesson which was it's better to wake the person up yeah certainly than to try to i mean my intention was to not disturb her sleeping yeah but the the downside of being woken up from sleep versus the downside of waking up to find a fine sweet hand that is my backside well you ruined it just shimmying past you here's the other thing though waking a stranger up is

also an intimate awkward it's also awkward because like you you want to kind of keep your distance and excuse me excuse me excuse me but like if you're kind of too far away they're just going to sleep through it because they're already sleeping through a public space you know uh in a public environment so yeah then if if they don't have a partner that's awake that can wake them for you that's also something like you certainly don't want to touch a stranger who's right asleep

totally uh i think really the takeaway is i should just start sitting on the aisle seat like you are I think this is a compelling argument for your way of getting through life. I wanted to, well, tell you two things. One, I made a handsome little amount of money on the Chicago Bears football team last night, by the way. I was texting with a friend of ours who is a Chicago Bears fan and who's really been through it for the last few seasons. And I said to them, hey, if they would let me bet on football in the state of New York, I'd be laying heavy money on the Bears. And this person said, they do let you bet in the state of New York. What are you talking about? And I realized DraftKings was just being weird on my phone because I don't live out here. So I just had to tell it, had to basically let it confirm that I was here in New York State and and therefore I should be allowed to. I did. And boy, the Bears really triumphed last night. But I was all excited to post up here in my hotel room and watch it on my laptop because it is playing on stupid Amazon Prime. and uh i pay for prime and i kept trying to do it and it kept saying something's gone wrong and then eventually i turned my computer off turned it back on and it said something like we don't like your vpn or you have a weird vpn and i was like i don't have a vpn and then i went on the internet and then it said um it was other people saying i can't stream prime in my hotel room it thinks i'm on a vpn and i don't i'm not on a vpn and then the number one rated answer to it was yeah that just sucks you might want to complain to the hotel yeah the hotel might have

a setting some sort of a setting on their thing that is being read as a vpn at the router level

that really sucks dude i was so mad because like that you pay for it you're not password sharing

this is you on the road taking your account with you now the weird thing is is i wonder if you did have a vpn on your computer oddly if you could have turned on your vpn and then it would have been a more amazon friendly vpn if that makes sense like if yeah if the solution to this actually was a vpn but that's not a given like when these systems like because trust me i have a vpn and sometimes um i would try to use that because again i pay for the all this stuff for the major league baseball app or whatever but they block out games that you would want to watch that your own team plays and it's just like so ridiculous so i've messed around for a long time like getting a vpn then saying that i'm in a different city and then changing my location in various ways but like these um systems like in this case the mlb app it just knows like it certain vpns and isps are just like blacklisted and so because of that they're trying to tamp down on piracy but like you're paying for a service i was trying to break the rules i didn't care because i think they're highway robbers but like in this case you're paying for a service it's so frustrating it was

really frustrating i could watch it on my phone by the way which was also wait for it on the wi-fi i was gonna say so it's not the cell data thing you know the other thing that didn't work oh this

was the good news though you know you could have done you could have turned your phone into a wi-fi

hotspot i did that i did that this morning andrew listen i did that this morning to get into our tbtl email guess what go daddy doesn't like the wi-fi at the marriott marquee in new york that's funny

maybe because it's a small hotel chain that nobody's really heard of exactly and this is

a little boutique hotel with about 47 000 rooms in it like um yeah so what i did this morning because i was trying to get the music for your weekend uh dialed in and i couldn't get in i was in the same message from GoDaddy that I was from Amazon to stellar companies obviously and I thought well maybe I was watching the football game on my phone last night and I was on the wifi so I was like I bet you this and sure enough I turned my phone into a hotspot I don't know if it would have streamed the football as well but it was just great for me getting into the email and picking the listener's suggestion for music for your weekend so I felt like quite the techno geek with spreadsheet there but the thing that Thank you. is this is the this is the good news out of all this in trying to figure out what's going on with my amazon settings and things before i figured out it was this vpn problem or a alleged vpn was i went into the like settings on my amazon i realized i have been paying via amazon prime for the sundance channel stars and something called mgm plus and i don't even want to know how long i've been paying like 9.99 a month for these various channels that i have certainly i'm sure what happened was i wanted to watch one thing one time like possibly years ago and have been i mean it's like i sort of shudder to think how much money i've wasted on this not realizing this but i just want to say great job amazon you were so bad that i now am paying you 30 less dollars a month for things I wasn't using. So congratulations, Jeffy B. Hey, let's thank some of our donors. These are the wonderful folks who are supporting the program with their donations. It's how we're able to do this thing five days a week. We want to thank Christopher Sherrill, who's in Madison, Wisconsin. Thank you, Christopher. Thanks also to Karina Lynch in Lake Forest Park, Washington.

Now answer me this, because I should know this. Lake Forest Park is north Seattle? Is that like north of Seattle?

I'm not trying to make you feel bad, but I think around two months ago, we discussed the fact that you bought your camera in a parking lot in Lake Forest Park. So if that puts it in perspective. No, I need to remember that.

Yeah, I've lived here for so long, there's no excuse for me not knowing the surrounding communities anymore. I never leave a three-block radius, as you know. So, okay, yes, that's how I need to remember that. Don't feel bad.

Cameraland. Don't feel bad because as I've been chatting with people here in New York, I'll sort of mention, oh yeah, I used to live here. And then they'll ask me one question about New York and I'll be like, Taylor Swift era's tour coming to a theater near you like i have so little information about you know first of all places to go and things to do and then also just even the direction of like oh it's that way or uh how far from here what's up like somebody was like what what should we uh i was having i was having a little um a little kind of what would you call it appetizer meal of uh of various things at uh juniors here in Times Square. I did go, although I didn't, you know, everything, it's pretty meat forward. I got a tuna sandwich and some french fries, which was very yummy, and some coleslaw.

Get some pickles.

Yeah, the pickles were good, although I'm still, you know, I'll still go for a good old Clausen myself.

Really? They didn't live up to them?

Well, the pickles that are done at a real deli are usually a little more bitter because I think that they might brine them a little bit longer. Yeah, yeah. and I like it to be not quite so briny, but it was good.

But was it a pickle plate, like with the pickled carrots and everything? Or was it just a pickle? No, I took a picture.

It was beets. Here's what I got. I took a picture, and I'm going to send it to you, because I thought this might come up. Oh, God, I'm so hungry. I thought you would be curious. But anyway, I was talking to the folks that were sitting next to me who were visiting from San Antonio, and they said, oh, you know, have you ever lived here? I was like, yeah, I actually lived here for a while. oh what should we do i was like oh well the staten island ferry i go that's that's my big recommendation to anybody that visits new york because it's free you kind of go by the statue of liberty and then you get off and on staten island and go have lunch and then you get back on it's just a nice fun thing to do you get to see the lower tip of manhattan all of that and they go oh can we get there by the subway i go yeah and they go which one i go i couldn't tell you and it's like a major it's it's like i know it's the red line but it's like it's a very it's it's one of the main like you know like uh the subways that the particular trains that go down there to like the what was like world trade center was actually the name of the stop i think they're very like it's like you could be in new york for under five hours and know what subway line goes to the southern tip of manhattan and i lived here for a while and can't tell them and then i think they probably assumed that i was just uh some sort of grifter who was trying to get them to pay for my meal at juniors did they buy any watches as soon as i was opening my trench coat they said no no no in that case they were very in the right to do so uh we also want to say thanks to jules foster who's in eugene oregon thank you jules i don't know jules was at the jules were you at livewire in eugene oregon were you the person By the way, this is your rule, so don't let me get in the way of it. But I sort of feel like if a listener is at an event, like LiveWire, sure, you're a TBTL person, you're identifying yourself. It's fun, but I feel like you're already on your best behavior if you're on stage at LiveWire or saying hello to people at LiveWire. It's more like if they see you at the bar across town three hours after Livewire. Precisely.

That's, yeah. Just ask yourself this. How sketchy is this environment? And the sketchier it is, the more you need to tell me that you're there.

Yeah, and also, what are you doing there, sketchballs?

Mm-hmm. Thanks, Jules.

I wasn't talking to Jules there, by the way.

Thanks also to Alicia Fluffy Nicholas.

Hey, I love it. A nickname.

Of Benson, Arizona. I didn't realize our system could even handle a nickname.

I wonder if that's what freedom avails us. I wonder if it's our new independent system. People are just filling in Alicia Fluffy Nichols. I love that. Love it.

Absolutely. Hey, you know, this would be for next year, but if when you're filling out your information and you want to put in some kind of a fun thing, feel free. It'll zazzle these up, right?

I will say this. First of all, John's going to hear this, and maybe he should be the final say on this, because I've gotten several of these coin and certificate packages, the thank you gifts from the TB Telethon, returned to our P.O. box, and I'm trying to give them back in the right hands. Some, like, I've gotten six back, I think, or seven, and about half of them, people were like, oh, yeah, I moved. Here's the new address. Boom, boom. I reshipped them out. Several people, at least three of them now, are saying, yep, you got all the details right. One person said my postal carrier is sometimes not so great at their job. Everybody else was just like, yep, you got it right. And I don't understand why these things bounced back. And so now I'm worried if people are going to go bananas with nicknames, if that could just add more problems.

I'm just saying you put your real name in, you put your right foot in, you take your right foot out. No, you put your real name in. Yeah, you got to keep your real name. But then like what Alicia Fluffy Nicholas did. Yeah, exactly. You put your real name and then a little fun something, a little lanyop of fun for us. Love it. So Jerome Bergquist, who's in Richfield, Minnesota, decided to go with the standard Jerome Bergquist. But now Jerome knows that next year, if he wants to, he can be Jerome Spiky Bergquist. Nice. You know? Thank you, Jerome. Also thanks to Shauna Madden, who's in Bothell, Washington. I bet you, at some point, whether they know it or not, I bet you Shauna and Karina. Shauna's in Bothell. Karina's in Lake Forest Park. I bet you they have driven by each other on Ballinger Way. In the camera district.

Not even realized it. In the camera district, probably.

In the camera district.

Yeah.

That's right. Exactly. So thank you so much to all of our donors. Thanks for making TBTL possible. Hello, and welcome to Top Story. Just very quickly, this is so, this isn't even a bottom story, Andrew, but I mentioned it at the top of the show. I even had you send me an audio drop about smart cars from the office. so to just pay it off the elevators in this hotel are that those kind of elevators where you don't get in the elevator and hit the floor you're going to you tell one of a number of digital screens what floor you hope to go to and then they assign you an elevator

i think i've maybe i've had something similar to that before really i feel like it's a growing

it's sort of in more and more new buildings it's kind of how it works and obviously the theory is that it is more efficient because well really what happens is every elevator is packed it becomes more like the airlines where they have eliminated flights so that every time they fly somewhere there are no empty seats like that's to their advantage this is like you never get on an elevator that's empty because it's routing every you know it's just it's it's operating efficiently which is sort of good except andrew if it's one of the last two mornings where burbs has been jogging in central park and is very sweaty and not uh pleasant to be around and not someone me i'm the person in this story someone who wants to be in a crowded elevator for the sake of the other people yeah and you cannot get because normally what i would do is i would you know if there's a bunch of people i'll wait and then they've all gone up and then it's like okay now i'll try to jump in an elevator solo and get to my floor this one doesn't really let you do that because right when you think you're going to be you know um having the elevator yourself a very nice group of japanese tourists gets into the elevator with you and you're just like what's japanese for my bad like no no no

no yeah exactly so it's been very frustrating and again also it's what i've realized is not just if i'm sweaty but just generally speaking if every time you leave the hotel floor you're on you have to be in a pretty much packed elevator i'm realizing that's one of the most i don't want to say socially fraught but a packed elevator an elevator full of strangers It's like time stands still It's It is the It's like It's like the longest 20 seconds of your life I don't I don't understand What it is about elevators That Make it so awkward But they do You want to not be In someone's space You want to not be Making too much small talk But zero small talk Seems rude It's like Where do I look Like where do I actually Like stare at It's And I've had zero Non-awkward elevator trips Since staying in this building because of this smart elevator that's a little too smart for its own good the thing that happened today though when i was taking the elevator up at one point was i happened to get in one of these and there was like a there's a metal panel like a look kind of a door and it was unlocked in the elevator and i opened it i i kind of creaked it open and what do you think was in there andrew

um i really want to guess this what portal to narnia what that was going to be my second guest my first guest was going to be a pickle what was it it was a button for each floor

and it worked because i tested it so the elevator i guess if you like work for the hotel or the elevator company and you get in and you need to like manual override you can they have this was news to me because i take these kinds of elevators a fair amount there you know like i said typically in a bigger city but there i don't think it's specific it's usually to the size of the building really more than the size of the city it's in but i've always been there's just a lack of agency that happens with these the other thing that happens is everyone who gets in looks for the button for their floor even though there's not it's like the ken doll of elevators you think there should be something there and there's just a smooth kind of just a smooth a smooth surface um and as i've been studying this because i thought i might bring it up with you every time particularly somebody let's say my age or older gets in they immediately start looking around for like where's the even though they've done the thing out in the like elevator waiting area they immediately forget that that's how this works it's muscle memory i mean that so much and brain memory it's like and so everyone's always befuddled and uh and and you again it feels like a lack of agency because you can't press anything it's like you have now committed to going on this ride in this you know to in this container and it's they should almost put some dummy buttons up just so you feel like you could if you needed to yeah also what is a

kid's favorite thing to do in an elevator exactly well fart but the second favorite thing is to push

the buttons and i did both um but i but i it was weird it was crazy for me i don't know maybe crazy is overstating it but it was i was fascinated to find out that they have the buttons they're there

they're just not but you see them but you still it doesn't really help your situation because you still have to get on in the same way right yes that part's not helped but and in this after i

just made that whole thing about no non-awkward elevator rides i will say that this is when i was getting coffee i did happen to somehow get this elevator to myself so what do you think i

opened it if otherwise right would you have i would have opened it but what i wouldn't have

done was made it stop at a floor that i wasn't going to you just want to test out the system i did i wanted to test out the system what was interesting was so i'm on the 30th floor i hit 29th floor to see if it would stop for me and there's a little there's a digital display that shows you all the floors it's going to and in this case it only said 30 and i hit 29 and it still only said 30 but when we got to 29 it stopped it felt like i was ordering off menu

andrew wonder if somebody somewhere is really pissed like somebody is like watching you know like there's a there's like a kink in the system somewhere like so like everything is off for the rest of the day and there's one person who's trying to figure out like they're in a control room with monitors all over the place and they're trying to figure out why everything is off a tick

and they're trying to trace it back to you they're like the claw from inspector gadget they're petting a cat they're painting a cat you never see their face but they're just monitoring everything well you know what take that the claw i made the elevator stop at floor 29 even though it wasn't the most efficient thing for that elevator to do now for some reason i'm picturing that person

wearing the mf doom a mask and i don't know why yes but i was picturing like an officious kind of like person in like a a short sleeve button down with a name tag and Thank you. glasses who's like carrying a clipboard and and and angry um but i kind of like where you took it this kind of darker more epic place well i bet you that the mf doom mask is also because a little bit of master shredder from ninja turtles oh sure maybe that got mixed kind of similar kind of masking going on because we never saw the face of the person who petted the cat in um in spider gadget did we i don't know you just said the name and i already forgot the claw i think we never saw

the face yeah no he was always and he was like you said he was always petting that cat and was i think he had a voice though i mean if he didn't have a voice it would be really weird growly it was growly he had a gruff voice and he was you know obviously perpetually upset with uh well inspector gadget i don't know if you noticed this but he was it turns out not really the brains of the operation he had penny and brain that were always saving him yeah finally history remembers penny okay so what's going on with uh your darts career because it sounds like you're getting pretty close to is it an olympic sport yet have you qualified for the olympics i have not qualified

for the olympics yet but luke a little piece of technology has changed everything for me when it comes to playing darts by myself in the basement with headphones on that's one of my favorite things to do when we moved in here i think genevieve had this dartboard up probably within within the first few months of us living here so for about a year now i've been pretty obsessed with playing darts like every now and then genevieve will play uh is it a match or a game of darts yeah is it a match match i think it seems a match with me match sounds right because

it seems like it's kind of british to me the whole they call it cricket you know that one game yeah

yeah and that's usually what i play is cricket now i i will i i want to say something here i want to say this up at the top um what i want to talk about has to do with scoring of darts and i don't want to get into it i've had a lot of bad moments on this show over the years but some of my worst moments were when you talked me into trying to describe how to keep score at cricket and i don't remember exactly i remember trying not to get into the details and then i kept getting into the details and it was awful like literally probably the worst programming tbtl has ever put out into the world so i am not going to fall for that trap again and listeners um you can thank me later for that i guess um but it does have to do with scoring what has changed my game which is this i've been playing against myself trying to get better you know it's darts it's pretty clear like you're going for something you're trying to get the dart in the bullseye or you're trying to get the dart in a 20 you can sort of see if you're getting better at that or not over time right but the thing is when you're playing against yourself there is a sort of a you can only take the games so far because there is when you start counting points for this stuff a strategy to it that you can't recreate if you're playing against yourself because you can't you can't trick yourself you know what i mean you can pretend you're playing game a versus game b or player a there's gamesmanship and you can go back and forth yeah yeah if you're if you're playing

against me there's gamesmanship you do this so then i do that and i'm anticipating what you might do and you're anticipating how i might respond but when it's all you you that that doesn't exist

yeah so it takes away an aspect of the game where you can say okay player a has to get three bullseyes player b eventually has to get three bullseyes player a has to get 320s blah blah back and forth back and forth but there's also a way of accumulating points not just kind of closing these things out that once you open that door you just really can't play against yourself because you know what yourself is going to do um and i was playing darts by myself on i don't know it was like two nights ago and i was like there should be an app for this and i was like well of course there's gotta be an app for like of course introduce luke dartbot i have a new best friend And its name is DartBot. That's not the name of the program. It turns out there's a whole bunch of different apps and stuff. I'll see in case anybody's interested. I'll see if I can find the actual name. It's like auto darts or something like that. I'm not sure. I've got to be careful. That's how some very famous people died. I can't remember the name of the actual app that I used. But basically, I can use this app to go in and just keep score for myself. Or if you and I were playing, I could open this thing up. and it's kind of an easier way of keeping score if you don't feel like, you know, if you don't have a marker board or whatever. But you can also play against the computer at various levels. So I can now play like the full games with strategy and I am player A and the computer is player B. Now, is the computer actually throwing a dart somehow? Yes. My tablet turns into a robot. It gets up, it takes my darts. I don't let it use the good darts and it throws it and then it turns itself back into an iPad. No, obviously it's a...

Thank you.

the most handsome dad obviously your jokes are the best

you program them right they grow up right but anyway

no of course spare the rod spoil the

robot there's a show title but anyway yeah so it's just I don't have too much to say on this it's already boring but for me it is such a game changer because now I can play the games properly it is literally game changer I can play the games properly and I can actually track and get better so i use the free version of this app the first couple of nights to make sure i liked it and then yesterday i actually bought it like for 30 bucks for a year or something like that um where like i can now like watch my progress i can really it's it's already made me a better dart player because it's holding me accountable in a way and i can keep on raising the level a little bit harder i started very low it's like for cricket it's like zero through 10 for level and i think i i worked my way from like level three to now i'm on like level six i want to find the level where i'm losing enough to make it interesting uh but still getting better and marking my progress and for me like doing this kind of stuff it's very much about marking progress and now i can go back it stores every game that you scored for yourself so i can go back and it shows you like dart completion rate which is like you know how many times you actually hit your mark it is astounding i'm sort of bummed that i didn't discover it earlier but honestly i needed it now I needed a little, a boost in my dart playing.

How does it know what your DCR is? Because you're telling it? Yeah.

You're reporting the data to it? DCR meaning the dart count? Dart completion rate. Yeah, exactly.

You're still saying dart completion rate?

I don't think that's even quite what it's called, but basically. It's target rate, maybe? I can't remember what it's called, but, or is it target rate field? I think it's target rate field where the twins play.

I think it's lumenrate, galleryfurniture.com, field.

Anyway, yeah, as I say this, it's not interesting, but it's very exciting for me. But, yeah, so if I type in, like, okay, so it's my turn. There's three darts, and I throw it, and I'm going for, again, I'll keep it simple, the bullseye. And then I input that I got one bullseye and, you know, nothing else. Then my dart completion rate or whatever it's called for that turn is obviously, you know, whatever, one out of three. So whatever. So you throw the darts.

You throw all three darts, and then you input it into your iPad or your tablet.

Exactly, yep. And then the Dartbot, then it's Dartbot's turn, or Mr. Dartbot, if you want to be formal about it. Yes, Mr. Dartbot was my father. And then Dartbot will say, okay, Dartbot threw 120, and that's it, one single 20. Or it'll say, the Dartbot got nothing this turn, or the Dartbot got three single 20s, or what have you. And then you can start going back and forth, because I have a rhythm to my game. I usually try to get all the bullseyes first. but if the dart bot says no I'm my strategy is I'm going to try to get all the 20s and then start scoring tons of points on you on the 20s then shit I can't concentrate on the bullseye anymore I got to start nailing those 20s before dart bot starts racking up the points on me and it's just like it I just can't explain it to you I'm playing the same game but it is so different overnight

I bet and I listen you're talking to a guy who spent much of his childhood trying to figure out ways to play a sport a team sport just by himself and have it be fun and competitive like i would i would pitch like an entire baseball game's worth of pitches with a tennis ball off of a strike zone where i had to get three strikes before i threw four balls you know so i would like be pitching against the wall but i'd be keeping track of my mind and i'd be literally like my goal is i have to throw and you know it wasn't that hard because i didn't have a hitter actually trying to you know I didn't have a hitter teeing off on my pitches, so just throwing it in the strike zone was sufficient. But I was always trying to gamify these things, so I totally get why that's a huge improvement in the fun for you and also probably in your progress.

Yes, so, by the way, just in case anybody's interested in knowing which app I use, it's called Dart Counter. One word, Dart Counter. But I think there's a whole bunch out there, and maybe there's a better one I could have bought, but I'd already used this one.

I use Dart Wing Duck. That's just because I had to pay to sign up, And now it's like I don't want to lose my I'm number four nationally on dart wing duck, too. So I'm kind of a big wheel there.

What did you say before where I said show title and dinged the bell? I already forgot.

I think I said spare the rod, spoil the robot.

Oh, yeah. OK. So one thing I want to say.

It's a corporal punishment joke.

As I type that, I did want to say I was thinking about you. You know what I think is a good analogy, Luke, is you not as a child, but more recently when you. My basketball game. your basketball game you you would have this little game that you would play in your head like i cannot advance until i make this shot so many times and there's like a tiny bit of like ocd tendencies in there i think too but it's a way of like yeah of introducing repetition into your practice game in a way that you're holding yourself accountable and also just like how do you get better at something that's just like the simple part of shooting hoops or throwing darts it's just repetition do it over over and over again and this Thank you.

just adds a much more fun element to me and again holds me accountable in a way I can't stress how how much fun I've been having I might not even go to this concert tonight I might just stay home

and play darts I I want you to know that I saw some darts highlights on tiktok the other day and I think I knew what was happening uh-huh probably because of you so it was cricket but it was basically a nine outer so the I think it was cricket I what it was was and this was like huge This was, like, a very large room full of what looked like maybe up to 1,000 people watching darts. This must have been the, like, world championship or the European championship or something. And basically what happened was a guy won by throwing nine darts total. So he threw his first three, and they went in whatever that little kind of very small rectangle is.

Yeah, that's a triple. This wouldn't have been cricket. This probably would have been. Okay, well, whatever he did.

So I guess I didn't understand it. But I still what I understood was that it was cool and that I felt like I was. So what he had to do is he did the three triples or best. He did the three and then his opponent did something kind of screwed up, I think. And then he came and did a different three and then his opponent, whatever, kind of you could it didn't, you know, nail it. And then you can hear the announcers getting very excited because of what was now setting up almost like a perfect game of baseball or something. because he then did like two darts in the little small rectangle and then he needed a bullseye to win.

Yeah, yeah. And he did a bullseye. Yep. What game is that? These games, I think, and I'm just looking up here, I didn't know that it's sort of an umbrella term, and I may be out over my skis. I think we have listeners who know more about this than I do. But there are a couple of games that are called like—

What's their rating on Dart Wing Duck?

We'll find out. That are like 501 or 301, and apparently maybe, I think, and I'm just Googling this now, nine dart finish might be the umbrella term for that style of game because it is basically like you each start with 501 points and then you have to count you know the more the more points you get per turn the better because you're both trying to count down to zero but then not only do you have to land exactly on zero to end your game but often you have to land exactly on zero by hitting a double number so in other words if you oh god i'm talking about scoring jesus christ but let's Let's say that you've gone down all the way, and all you need is a 16 to finish the game to land exactly at zero and win. You can't just hit a 16. You'd have to get a double eight. Does that sort of make sense?

Well, what he hit was the bullseye, the very middle, middle thing.

So that's like a double bullseye. So he must have needed like 50 points to finish. So instead of hitting 25 twice, he got a...

What I liked about it, and maybe this is why... Maybe this is why it felt to me like I was following it because he needed to get the bullseye to win, Which for us non-dart aficionados I think we all just think that the way darts Works is you try to get the bullseye every time That's just like isn't That like a hole in one isn't that the goal like when I was a kid I had a dartboard on my Like on the outside of my door and I remember My dad when I hung it up my dad said you know that's really Gonna pretty much destroy the door And I said come on really and I remember When I moved out of the house and I took That dartboard off boy was that door shot

To shit it probably was pretty look pretty cool You took off the dartboard there's a solid like circle in the middle with a bunch of little holes around it. It's remarkably that

the door even existed anymore. It had so many darts had gone into the area surrounding the dartboard. You know what I

wish I had? A listener reminded me of this. I shouldn't say I wish I had it because they tend to be much cheaper dartboards and I love my dartboard but when I was, I feel like maybe when I was working for my dad, they had one of those cheaper reversible cork dartboards where on the back side was the baseball dart game, which I never played that because i didn't care about baseball if you google like baseball dartboard right now you might remember it it might it might stir some memories of your youth of seeing these things they were reversible dartboards regular dartboard on one side but then you would flip it around and if if i had this now i would play it somehow like you're basically trying to get on base with darts basically does this ring a bell now that you're looking at it i'm looking at it

i don't think i ever saw this because as you can imagine i was obsessed with baseball and i would

have no i've never seen this before but i now must have it yeah exactly i uh now i i would i think i again had access to a dartboard like that at one point but i only played the dart side because i didn't care about baseball but now you could see me while while and away a few weeks i was gonna

say hours with kidding me i could get into this this is now finally because i don't clearly i don't understand how real darts works but this is like i'm throwing it at where the out is i'm throwing it at a single i'm throwing it at you know i'm getting a strike oh yeah oh i'm looking

this now too yeah this is slightly different than the one i remember but fun stuff right

absolutely no i i this is i might i could see myself getting this you know that if you play wizard of oz and you sync it up with dart side of the moon um right at the beginning just gonna keep trying on that

All right. How about a little music for your weekend to wash away the stench of my Pink Floyd dart side of the moon joke here as we wrap things up for this week? What song would you I feel like we've already like you said, we've already almost done a music for your weekend this show. But are there any non sleigh bell related songs you'd like to play today?

Yeah. In fact, no joke. I'm really excited to tell you about my music for a weekend, something that I kind of stumbled on. I thought maybe you had played this artist on the show already, but looking at my notes, I don't think so. I mean, you tell me if you introduce me to this person. But before I get to that, Luke, I have another quick preamble, something I just discovered right now. I mentioned a few minutes ago that I'm going to that Death Cab Postal Service show tonight. Yeah, I think it's a two-night thing, but we're going tonight, which I'm very excited about. But our friend Katie just texted. she's also going tonight i believe and like sent a um i don't know the poster art or something for it the listing on instagram and guess who's like already you have the postal service and death cab for cutie they have another opener guess who the other opener is the bed ex i'm sorry i didn't want the best who i didn't i don't know what the connection there is but that's one of like of the pat of the music i've listened to in the past five years anytime the bests have a new record or song. I play it on the show. They're, I want to say Australian, right? I don't think they're from New Zealand. I think they're an Australian band with like great kind of 90s pop vibes. I just love them so much. I had no idea like that. I mean, it's weird. Like I'm going to see the concert of the year and now I'm like geeking out that the Beths are opening, but it just sort of seems like the perfect cherry on top. Like that's so great. Absolutely.

No, that's going to be fun. I'm so happy for you. Is it at a climate pledge? Indeed it is, yes. Wow, that's a big venue for a big band. I don't know why I thought of this because of my terrible FedEx joke, but I was in the UPS store. I was mailing some stuff the other day, like a package of some things, and there was a guy, it says on the outside, the UPS store. Everybody is wearing UPS-related outfits, and there was a guy who got to the front of the line and was so angry that they didn't mail FedEx stuff there. And I just saw the look on the face of the employee like, this is something that happens at least five times a day. It's so funny. Yeah, we only are able – we're only doing – we only do UPS here. I was told you do FedEx. Well, yeah, we only do UPS.

It's like going into a Burger King and getting mad they won't serve you a Big Mac.

Exactly. I was like, it is so clear that what they do and do not do here, it's not even like you're at a mailboxes, et cetera, or something where it's like maybe they are, you know, it's called the UPS story. This is what they do.

Yes, exactly. Although I also sort of understand it as well, though, in a certain way. I kind of do, too. Yeah.

But I think what I would do is I would ask sheepishly. This would be my move. I know this is weird because it's UPS store, but do you also do FedEx? And if they were to say no, I'd be like, of course you don't know. I don't know what I was thinking.

No, I'm an idiot.

I wouldn't be like, I was told you also do. I'm like, well, buddy, somebody gave you some bad intel and you need to take it up with them.

Exactly. It's like, how is that going to win the argument too? It's like, oh, you know what? Somebody told you that? You're right. I'll ship it for you.

Oh, sure. Dennis down at the Elks Lodge in Rainier, Oregon.

All right. So back to your music. Does the artist Joanna Sternberg mean anything to you? I do not think I'm familiar with that name. Okay. So Joanna Sternberg, I heard a new song by them yesterday and I didn't know much about them. I poked around a little bit and I was like, oh, there's one song in their back catalog from like a year ago that I heard. I thought maybe you had played it for me on the show. I don't know where I first heard it, but either way, there's this new song by joanna sternberg called neighbors and i found it immediately arresting it's just them singing with a piano okay and i hate to do this because i sort of feel like it's reductive to like automatically compare people um but it immediately which is my favorite mode i know it's hard it's really hard not to but it immediately because joanna's voice the way it cuts through over the piano and this very sort of blunt almost poetic in its bluntness style of lyrics it reminded me a little bit of daniel johnson right away and then i watched this 12 minute documentary about joanna sternberg yesterday called let me look this up too because i really want to recommend it maybe we can even post this what do we have for so maybe i can put this on the instagrams um the little mini documentary that you can find on youtube is no one really knows you joanna sternberg and it's an introduction to their work and like grew up in new york in specific subsidized housing for artists their parents were both artists they're somebody

who, like, clearly kind of struggles with some emotional stuff and basically spends their entire days making visual art and music and all kinds of stuff, and I just, this is one of those songs where I just, like, listened to it, like, eight times yesterday. I've lost all perspective on this. Like, I don't know if you hearing this song after my big buildup here for the first time that you're going to be very impressed by it, but it was one of those things where I listened to this song yesterday. I was like, well, that's interesting. I listened again, then I watched this mini documentary, Then I sent it to my friend. Then we texted about it forever. And then I went back to the song and I listened to it like eight times. And you know who loves it? Dartbot. Me and Dartbot were bro-ing down to this song over and over.

You have the best music taste, Dad.

It is. I love it. It calls me Dad. Anyway, I'm going to play quite a bit of this. It's only a three and a half minute song. I don't know when I'm going to fade it out. I'm going to fade it out when I feel like we've had enough because I feel like it's probably under the radar enough that it's not going to get us in trouble.

Oh, yeah, they went to LaGuardia High School of Music and Art in Manhattan. That is the fame high school.

Oh, okay, gotcha, yes. And their parents are both artists, like klezmer musicians or whatever. And this 12-minute, if you have any interest in what I've talked about or if you like this song I'm going to play, I cannot stress enough how much you should watch this 12-minute doc. It is inspiring and so beautiful. Here is a song called Neighbors, brand-new music by Joanna Sternberg.

You don't say hi to me, so I don't say hi to you You won't smile at me, so I won't smile at you So, so, what's next? So, so, what's next? I see you standing there, and you see me standing here Thoughts of approaching you are filling me with fear So, so, what's next? So, so, what's next? So, so, what's next? In the scheme of things I will never, though my heart it stings And my paranoia's chasing me Although we both must know That we are far too stubborn to Ever let our feelings show

There you go. Neighbors by Joanna Sternberg. Love it.

So good. Love it. That's great. I'm kind of like sort of scrolling through their website, which, of course, is in Comic Sans, Andrew. Yes, amazing. So just be ready. I know. Be ready.

I've been there. It's so cool.

I'm saying be ready for Comic Sans to come back. Oh, yeah. It's the Janko genes of fonts. Yeah. We never, we thought we had consigned it to the dustbin of history, but it's back, baby.

Yeah, no, there's something very charming about the whole website. Yeah.

And they do a lot of, like, drawings, too. And one of them is of Daniel Johnston. Oh, I didn't know that. So that tells you that your spidey sense was right. And this very much sounds like there was a place, there was a place called Sidewalk Cafe on Avenue A in Alphabet City here in New York, which I'm guessing is still there. And they used to have this thing called Locke's Antifolk Night. And it would be like the oh, my gosh, I'm spacing on her first name and I'm embarrassed because I sort of know her. But the woman who is half of the band, the Moldy Peaches, used to play there a lot. And the Trachtenberg family slideshow players would play there. We were filming there a lot when we were doing that documentary about them. and there's a there was just like a really cool scene of of folks just kind of making really interesting music really stripped down stuff and i would be i was on joanna sternberg's website to see if maybe they were playing somewhere in new york tonight that i could go see them play and it would be very much the kind of thing you might see at sidewalk cafe on avenue a so thanks for turning me on to this i'm i'm gonna be deep diving yeah i think yeah definitely check out that that

um little doc i told you one i mean there's a million things i could tell you about it but one thing that i thought was really moving was they said that um they had a like a music teacher a singing coach who was a well-respected jazz singer and at the time joanna was singing in like a lower voice that just felt right to them and but it wasn't their voice and their singer said you're not singing in your own voice or you're not singing in your own voice and then the the the teacher or the instructor or whatever heard joanna singing in their real voice and said You that. the voice and like and i just find that voice to be so arresting and again i get the impression that joanna suffers from like you know some self-esteem stuff and stuff like that and so like hearing about this journey and also like discovering the voice that i think you know whether this music is for you or not i mean that is that is a unique voice right and to think that

you're burying that introduce them to dartbot yes well your music is good your music is good my dad loves it i love dart bot but i'm gonna really introduce a real tonal shift from the music of joanna sternberg when i suggest andrew that you dial up the band or the musical duo 100 gex okay i had mentioned 100 gex in passing the a couple of weeks ago it was during a music for your weekend i believe and i had said something like well maybe i'll tell you about them next week or i'll play them next week or whatever and then i it whiffed right out of my brain and then listener amber emailed me and when i was able to hack back into my email this morning i saw amber going hey like essentially you said you're going to play 100 gex and you didn't and i like them so this isn't really the listener suggestion but it's kind of suggested by a listener and all i can say about 100 gex is i don't really know how to explain this music i guess it's been described as something called hyper pop uh they are a duo um that are from st louis uh it's dylan brady and laura less and they they apparently met supposedly at a rodeo in st louis at some point when they were in high school and and then sort of ran into each other later and started making music there doesn't seem to be uh a particularly consistent story about what 100 gex even means they've given apparently different explanations of that name it's like it's so outsider i can't tell if this is either the apotheosis of music or something that we'll all regret that it happened 10 years from now like it's hard to tell it's so different sounding and weird than a lot of stuff that i listen to it's like i said it's it's either it's either kind of like pushing the boundaries in a way that we'll see as revolutionary or it's terrible and i'm not 100% sure which it is But why don't we play Because I said I would And because Amber has requested it Let's do this song by 100 Gex Called Hollywood Baby And everybody just sit down Wherever you are And move away from any strobe lights Because you could possibly Find yourself in some kind of Medical situation

Wow Alright, here we go

We'll be right back. Don't make sure that no one gives a shit Better off if you just get over it I'm going crazy Little tiny Hollywood baby Brand new Mercedes I'm an empty crib going crazy I realized something, Andrew.

I picked their only normal-sounding song to have you play. Like, this is actually their way, way their most accessible song. Their other songs are, like, syncopated, like, crazy sped-up drum, you know, rhythms that are, like, electro, but then, like, intentionally syncopated and stuff. Like, that's actually a pretty catchy song that we just played.

yeah there were a lot of different elements in there it seemed like i couldn't get a grasp on it like it would slip into some of that like late 90s early 2000 kind of yeah it's a little blink 182 right vibe but then also but we were just talking about sleigh bells earlier and there was yes i heard that too like oh wow well it sort of starts with that sort of raw sleigh bellsy sort

of sound they're the kind of um art project where the main picture i've seen of them that i think is their publicity shot is clearly just taken maybe from someone's iPhone or from kind of far away of them crossing a street somewhere maybe in just kind of random part of LA or something or maybe it's Houston I don't know exactly where it is but they're dressed as like wizards and they're just crossing a public street and they're it's like blurry and they're not looking at

the camera and it but the thing of it is it doesn't just seem like a stunt it seems possible that they had been dressing like wizards for the for weeks at a time and this was just them being caught in the wild doing it like maybe a fan took the picture i don't know it's it's a what happens is as i allow sometimes tiktok to play me things that are like a little edgier and a little younger than what i listen to then it just delivers me more of that stuff and sometimes i like it like 100 gex so there you go i am relevant andrew and young and well i am dark bot's fun uncle

just keep weaponizing music luke that's the important takeaway for today's show my uncle luke has good music taste why can't you be more like your uncle luke wait now you're my

uncle what happened there why is my uncle your uncle how did things get horrified secrets does this family have okay the listener suggestion comes from listener christian which i picked because it is one of my names importantly um and listener christian said hey luke i don't send these suggestions in too much but after last week's last week's wilco conversation and you having a tear in your eye when you heard uh the together at last album it reminded me of my latest tear up song like you i'm an avid wilco fan and a test attend solid sound every year that it's offered god i would love to go to solid sound that's the festival that wilco puts together where among other things i think they learn like or they practice you know like a i don't know a hundred songs or some ridiculous number of songs and then they just have a wheel that they spin with all the names of the songs on it and then whatever song comes up is what they play i'm talking about wilco anyway um uh so listener christian says that he's been to a solid sound and my daughter is now 18 and at her first year of college and introduced me to zach brian if you haven't heard of him you probably will soon because he's really gaining some traction he released his new album right before my wife and i took our daughter to college hey driver the song i'm recommending reminds me of the path we all take you're my kid in the car with your driver to me this is me the parent and dropping you off along the road somewhere we never know where along the road that will be and when your driver will pick you up again if they will the song captures a life path most of us take and it makes me cry whenever i hear it but it's a jam i don't do spotify but the song is zach brian hey driver um featuring the war and treaty oh wow we had the war and treaty on live wire that's an interesting name for a musical act what is their makeup uh the makeup is that the uh they are a um they're both a romantic partnership and they play music together and i believe he was he served in iraq and um met his um i'm not sure if it's his wife or not but his collaborating partner i guess she would be treaty um not really but he met her at a music festival and one thing that I remember about the guy from the Warren Treaty was he played a piano in Saddam Hussein's palace when he was deployed to Iraq and they were like clearing the palace there was a piano and he went in and played it he told me the story on Livewire anyway that's a cool fact

I like the picture of him just playing the three notes that I know from Smoke on the Water

dun dun dun dun dun dun what if he started playing Hearts and Souls from the movie big um christian continues like wilco i think zach is an alt country artist you could get into i don't think his politics are bad either since he's featuring uh uh since he's featuring a people of color country band um but i do think he has a case of the big dog i don't know i don't know exactly what that means but um but i'll i'll take it in the tough guy vibes maybe Maybe so. He has a case of the big dog. So Christian says, crank out those tears. So here we go. This is going to be Zach Bryan featuring the war and treaty as we wrap up this week. And thank you all for listening and being part of TBTL. We're going to be back here on Monday. That wasn't me crying yet. That was just a small bit of street rice coming back up. Okay, great. That's better. Thank you. We'll see you on Monday. Until then, have a great weekend. And take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Well, the women are fine and the love is fair. Yeah, driver, you can drive me off anywhere.

Hey, driver, pull on over. I'm in a fight with God. This Carolina shoulder seems the place I'm getting on. Daddy always told me Never make a home on the road While you're letting me

sneaking out and the kids are growing old hey driver i've been riding is lonely way too long all the love i had worth giving was all spent on my songs hey driver the boys are gambling with more than just their cars with their bottles and their drugs

And their Bible's in their heart So take me down a road, it's a little bit wider To a place they still put sugar in their iced tea Where the women are fine and the love is fair

Yeah, drive me, you can drive me off anyway

Sometimes I feel like a million miles away from the office you know like that's robot me and this is real me i'm not a robot let's get drunk yeah okay cool power out