Muse

Well, well, okay. The sound people capture robots and drive and sell them at a garage sale. Kind of like a garage sale, but except they're selling robots. And no one's going to buy R2 and this shiny guy. This shiny guy always worries. Luke's going to buy those. And Obi Kenobi's kind of a teacher. He's teaching Luke how to learn how to do his little light-up sword. He has to try to block the little Pokeball. He tried to do it without seeing. Obi-Kenobi sometimes moves things around. Sometimes he disappears. Princess Leia got out of jail and out of the space ship. And they got the big thing that blowed up stuff. We blowed it up together. It blowed up Princess Leia's planet. But don't talk back to Darth Vader. He'll get ya.

TVTL how does it feel like i'm serious how does it feel like i've only seen one person ever have it as much as you currently do that was really good pizza oh this is the best pizza in a cup ever

this guy's unbelievable he ran the old cup of pizza guy out of business i don't think i can do

this you can do anything i want you to do but don't worry about it the audience will be completely drunk. And if we're not perfect, they'll take it out on us. But that's why you're going to be

perfect. You have to be perfect. With him out of the way, I think we're just going to be 360 spins

and slam dunk pointers. 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 about creating positive vibrations in a sacred chamber. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Fox sabotage the system. Coming to you from beautiful Seattle, Washington, and the offices of Walsh Walsh and Dormat, where I was getting to spend a little quality time with Bingo the Cat just a few moments ago. It was really a nice little dopamine hit to get to hang out with an adorable cat that's very, very social. And it is, by the way, a beautiful day here in the 206.

Oh, Ma, Pa, it's just beautiful.

Blue skies, unseasonably warm. It is lovely. It's the perfect weather pattern to bring you episode 4077 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. I'm up here in Seattle because I'm doing Live Wire tonight at Town Hall. Still tickets available. If you want to go, you can get a discount, too, by going to the website and using the code TENS, T-E-N-S, $10 tickets. But I journeyed up here early this morning and I had to use a rental car because my real car is it's overdue for like, you know, it's service appointment and it was hollering at me something fierce. But something happened when I was renting the car at the Portland Airport last night that was unusual for me. I felt some anxiety around some stuff that I don't usually feel anxiety around.

Everything about them just makes me nervous.

Also, we've got an update today on a story we brought you, I think, a few months ago. Can you verify? Can you give me some 411? There was a somewhat, I guess you could say, kind of eccentric dog walker in New York who had become friends with one of his clients, and that client had left him a painting, had given him this painting, and the painting might have been by the artist Chuck Close and might have been worth millions and millions of dollars.

That cash could really get me out of a couple of jams.

They have now, the painting has been sold at auction, and we can tell you officially how that story ended, so we will do that. And it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day, so we'll do the Blur's Day messages, all with the help of this guy, longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's sort of the home team today, okay? I'm the visitor, he's the home team, and it's causing him to really brim with confidence.

Another day, another victory for the OG.

He's the OG, taking out the sweats, the imposters. He's Andrew Walsh. Good morning, my friend.

I wanted to riff on that. I knew sweat was in there, and I was going to say something like, taking out the sweaters. And it occurred to me, no, that's more of an autumnal statement.

Fumbling my sweaters.

I knew they weren't sweaters, but I couldn't remember what it was. Hey, I'm confused about a few things. I'm confused about a lot of things, but let's focus on the things in your life.

confused about. You know, I got a text message from you. It was to me and our boss, John Sklaroff, yesterday afternoon from Portland. You were picking out your rental car. I thought that meant you were coming up here to Seattle last night and spending the night here, but you were just renting it the night before I take it so you could take it home and be prepared for this trip.

Yeah, I live north of Portland, but south of Seattle. So I was either going to need to go get it this morning and make the sort of commute even longer. And by the way, it turned out to be a very long commute. I say fee. Fee on.

Hey, hey, hey, hey. How do you say that? How do you say that word, like fee, fi, fo, fum? I'm going to beep it all, so it doesn't matter how you pronounce it. No, I think you're right. Fee. Is that what fee means? Fee? It's like a curse on you? Yeah, like fee on you, or fi. It's F-I, I think. So is it, well, it's fee, fi, fo, fum. Fum, right. Okay, I see.

What does F-E-I mean in slang? To express disgust or disapproval.

What a slang talk.

And only the most up-to-date, only the most current slang.

We're swinging for everything.

Is Gen Alpha sticking out their fee for the Rizzler? Here's what I would say. Bad job Waze, because I have become very reliant on that program to tell me how long it will take to get from one place to another. And last night as I was, you know, kind of planning out this journey, because this for me is not just coming to hang out with you and bingo and do the show and also do live wire tonight at town hall. I've got to go over to Redmond Friday, Saturday and Sunday and work on these these instructional videos for the big software company over there.

Their software company is over on the east side of Seattle.

There are. There's one Redmond and near Redmond in the in the software district. I got to look that up. So I had, like, a lot of stuff that I needed to, like, have ready to go. There's a lot of ducks in a row. And one of the things I wanted to figure out was, like, how much time will it take me to get up here? And so they have a very handy feature on Waze that lets you say, I want to be, I put your address in. I said, I want to be there at 10 a.m. And they said, then leave at this time. And I did. I left at that time, and I started driving, and then that number was completely made up. Like, there was, I mean, there was an accident which they can't foresee, but there was also a lot of traffic, which I feel like they can't.

And you actually can sort of foresee accidents, a three-hour trip through a couple of major, you know, I mean, you go through Tacoma, obviously.

Olympia, places, Crab Rangoon, things of that nature. So anyway, sorry to- Tacoma, Olympia, things of that nature. Sorry to, possible early show title. Sorry for making you wait around for me this morning, but I will- So, yeah, I grabbed the – the funny part is, of course, the reason I sent you and John the photograph of the vehicle they gave me was because it is the same kind of Jeep that we were driving.

So that is what you drove up here, and I have not seen – so, okay, so – okay, but you said in the intro that you had something –

Jeep Andrew is back is the takeaway.

Something was making you nervous about the car. You saying car, I thought it was an interesting choice of words. I'm like, oh, so you didn't get the Jeep because for some reason I don't call a Jeep a car.

Well, I wasn't talking about the Jeep. Oh. Oh, your instincts were right, my friend. Once again, your instincts were absolutely right.

To be clear, really the only part so far of this that really interested me is you did rent a Jeep, very similar to the Jeep that you and me and Scarra-

It's literally the same. It might even be physically the same Jeep.

Well, I left a mark on it. Let's go see if it's there. It's sitting in front of your house right now, Andrew. Let's go. What are we doing? We should be in that baby, driving around, recording this show.

Booting it in the ass, as you like to say. Nobody gets in the ass as you pull out, as you take an unprotected left into traffic. So here is the semi-short version of the story. I, because you know me, I love a good roll of the dice. I love the games of chance. That when you're signing up for an Avis rental car right now, because you know I am an Avis wizard still. Just always bring that up. Well, the reason I say still is because I don't know if I'm going to have my Alaska Airlines status after this year because I haven't actually flown enough to maintain it. Just talking to somebody else who's in the same scenario. I talked to somebody recently. I won't put them on Front Street, but I think you know who I'm talking about, who flew to Germany like business class to just absolutely pound the miles. But is still not there yet. Oh, really?

And that person is now considering potentially taking another little trip.

flying to frankfurt and back like literally taking like a weekend in december and doing some ridiculous international flight where i i get off the airplane and walk over to the other gate to get back on the airplane as i said to my friend at dinner the other night greta thunberg you're

gonna be in so much trouble with you know what i didn't even think about that that's okay i mean that's why nobody wants to have dinner with me anymore i mean that's not an insignificant

point actually you know what i'm gonna take an ultralight yeah

I'm going to be like Jeff Daniels in whatever that movie is where he teaches geese how to migrate.

Don't you think, for the sake of the environment, companies like Alaska Airlines should offer some sort of program where you can work for miles? So, therefore, you can earn some extra miles to get you just over the hump so you can earn whatever status you need for the next year. But you have to work at a CSA? Somewhere where you're reducing carbon? Oh, I was just going to say, like, you can push a broom. you can push a mop you can do something you can work literally work the airline for the company maybe get like those knee pads and those orange flashlight things you can do that you can earn

miles that way i think about that you know how you think about your your plan b is a movie theater employee i wouldn't say it's my plan b but i spend a significant amount of my life staring out the window of the airplane watching the interactions between the people that are doing not even when they're actually doing the little orange light up things but when they're joking with each other dude and on night as much time as you but i'd say and on a nice day i think what doesn't seem like there seems to be a lot of camaraderie but then you see him on snowy days and you're just like god bless oh my god thank you so i am i don't know if i'll be a you know top tier alaska person by the end of all this but i remain a wizard andrew davis and they can't take that away from me so uh basically i'm you know i'm reserving this car and they've got like there's you know the the smallest car and let's say that's whatever a hundred bucks and then the mid-size is like a hundred and three dollars and then the full size is a hundred and ten dollars like it's a very small increment of of increase and then for i want to say a hundred and ten dollars there's something called mystery car that's just like you can't see the past is history The future's a mystery It really should be It is draped, Andrew Andrew, the photograph is of a car Like shape With a drape over it Now who doesn't want to go for mystery car?

It should literally be the mystery machine Or whatever that thing from Scooby-Doo is

So, of course I choose mystery car Because like what Great, I could get a I don't even, like a Chevy Malibu Or I can get

A mystery car Like, what's the lowest they're willing to, like, what's the lowest, cheapest model they're willing to throw into the mystery crate anyway?

Great question. I mean, I should actually have found out, like, because mystery car could also just be, like, it's from the Flintstones and you have to use your feet. I mean, still a mystery.

It's one of those things that has to be on the railroad tracks and you push it up and down and up and down.

So, of course, I choose mystery car, but then I'm still up at my house.

And one of the things I'm sorry, we're so in the weeds on this, but, you know, this is knowing that the end of the story involves a Jeep has me on the edge of my seat.

So I so what happens is they're like mystery car. You'll find out the mystery car when you're, quote, on your rental. And what on your rental means is you're within the geo fenced footprint of the airport. Because, you know, usually I'm flying to the airport and then I'm getting the car. In this case, I'm driving from my house, which is a little weird. It's weird to drive to the airport, park your car in long-term parking, walk to the rental car thing. Something's off about that. It's like The Simpsons. It's like flying a kite at night. There's something not right.

Which raises the question, why did you not want to drive your own car?

Because my own car just hit its service due thing. And I didn't time it correctly, but what it's been doing now is it's making the sound like my seat belt is not belted when it is. Like, you know, if you have someone sitting in the passenger seat, they're not wearing their seatbelt.

Or a heavy bag of groceries.

Or a heavy bag of groceries. It will do that for like two solid minutes and just go service due, service due, service due. Like it is not, it will not let me rest. Also, I figured, you know, I've got this software concern paying for my travel. Why not save my trusty steed the whatever the round trip of like, you know, four or five hundred miles is. So I'm getting closer to the airport and I'm looking at my phone like, what's the mystery car going to be? And if I finally get I get on property and it says your car is a it was like a minivan. It was a Kia. I was like, it was a it was like a Kia Carvana or something. It was like a it was like a Kia. It was a Kia Rizzler. But still my heart.

I got your gear for the Rizzler.

I love a Kia, and I love me a minivan. I was thinking about gas implications, because it's just me. Now, the fact that I ended up in a Jeep, although it's a hybrid, and it has apparently electric on it. Oh, really? More on that in a moment. Maybe it's not exactly ours.

I was going to say, I don't think the one we had in Polsbo was, but I don't know.

So, okay, so I- get to the airport and I keep trying to hit this is what I love about mystery car this is why it's fun for me because I will whether or not I do mystery car when I use this app what I do when my plane lands when I'm on property it'll tell me here's your car and then I will and you there's a button that says like um you know change vehicles so within a certain class let's say that I just choose the whatever the mid-range rental is I'm on a tv story for CBS I get to the airport in wherever and i get off the plane and it says your uh car is going to be a yaris now you love a good yaris i love it it's i'm not a yaris guy myself so i'll start hitting change vehicle and as if it's a big enough airport as new vehicles are getting cycled in and gassed up and vacuumed and ready to go back out it just keeps letting you particularly if you're like a huge airport if you're at lax or something it's it really feels like a combination of slot machine it sounds like a slot machine it's a slot machine meets a swap meet meets the joy of discovery and newness because you just keep hitting refresh refresh and it keeps going how about this how about this so this is pdx not as much going on there so i keep hitting refresh refresh because the other thing i'll often do i don't even know what most of these cars are they'll be like uh congratulations your mystery car is a giat risler and you're like then i will image search the car because no joke most of the newer cars i don't know what kind of like is it an suv is it a teeny tiny car is it a crossover so i google this kia thing and find out it's a minivan i'm like i don't need a full minivan so i go to the actual counter uh in the parking area the very nice and the um the woman working there says let me see what else is available for mystery car and now i want to

point out that when you say mystery car you do this thing that the listeners can't see which is you put your your two hands together in front of your face and you twiddle your fingers together They're like, you're some sort of, well, like a wizard. That's what my brain's doing. Yeah, exactly.

That's the information my brain is getting when I hear, like, it's like someone's doing one of those tote boards, like, that just goes around and around and around. Like, I just, I get, I literally get a feeling of excitement.

Did the, but in this case, you were quoting the person behind the counter. So I'm wondering if they had the same excitement about the mystery car. But not without excitement. Not without excitement and not without helpfulness.

Like, it was a very good experience from a customer service standpoint. I was really glad that her answer wasn't, sorry, take the minivan. It was like, well, let me see what else is in there. And I'm just like, even more mysteries? Yeah, rummage around a little bit. I mean, by the time we're done, it could be a Ferrari. I don't know.

Do you want a Ferrari?

Not really. I mean, I would take one. I have many times turned down a banana yellow Camaro. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Many times.

Yeah, is it Camaro? We got a Chargers. And the first time Vives and I came to Seattle, they gave us a muscle car that was a bright colored muscle car. And we were in Seattle and we're like going up these giant hills. Like we didn't realize it was so hilly here. And I'm trying to, I don't probably couldn't even see over the hood. It was ridiculous.

No. Immediate. So, um, so she says, well, and this is again, this, all this buildup is about this one thing and it's not going to pay off, but she says other mystery cars we have, we have the Jeep Wrangler. That's what I'm in now. She goes, and we have the Subaru EV though. I don't even know what it's called. It's the Subaru something or other, but it's a full EV.

And it's a total EV, which means you'd have to plug it in. And also, it's probably like a slightly bigger car, like an SUV-ish kind of hybrid car.

Well, I asked her, I was like, is it like a crossover? And she goes, yeah.

Okay, yeah.

And I was, so first of all, my favorite size of vehicle to get as a rental car is a crossover. Something that's bigger than a, like higher up off the road. because when you're driving on i5 between here and where i live on a rainy day there's so much water at the road level that if you're in a regular kind of car sedan you can just be in a cloud of water so i like to be a little up off the road i don't want to be in like a lifted i don't want to be in grave digger yeah but i don't want to be like in a i also don't want to be in a muscle car down at like the yeah so i was intrigued i've also like i've driven an ev but i've never had an ev all for myself for four days to be responsible for to find those charging stations well my friend this is where i was really channeling you because i am usually like you know if something's new and shiny first of all i didn't even know they had evs that you could rent and i i so i what my brain what my thought was was first of all this is unique second of all it's probably usually extra money but they're giving it to me because mystery car and it's also how cool to i don't have to pay any for any gas just like to drive this like ev around the northwest like and i got really excited and then immediately i started thinking how will i charge it where does that even happen what kind of do you have to call the hotel in advance do you have

a place where i could charge my car what kind

of um connector is there can i do this at a tesla station is there a tesla station and i was immediately filled with questions and anxiety which is only notable because it is really the opposite of how i generally move through the world not to say that you know i'm uh whatever some sort of brave person but usually like i have i have no anxiety about flying places about renting cars about a hotel about the rest there's no part of being out and about in the world tends to give me like a feeling of like fear and questioning and for the first time that i can remember in many years i was full of fears and questions like will i don't feel like that's anxiety though i feel like

that's practical the line actually like i will admit when i'm anxious about things but if you are somebody who is going to take any kind of a decent you know extended trip using an electric vehicle and you've never done that before there are a lot of practical questions to ask like i think that like if you were to buy this car you would have to look at your surroundings say is this feasible for me i'm kind of surprised that they rent them i'm glad they do but i'm guessing that if you're renting a full electric vehicle for the first time you've done some research on it before you've just like decided at the counter to take an ev well the other woman who came over

said well they just they have charging at almost every walmart oh and then i was like oh well there's a Walmart everywhere so that's something okay and so I of course ultimately just kind of went uh I'll just do the thing that I'm more familiar with that I know if I have to I can put gasoline in and stuff but I do feel like I kind of missed an opportunity because it would have been a fun adventure for me to be driving down the road in an EV and I would have had to do some googling on I would have had to figure some things out but once I figured them out like most things that are intimidating because they are the unknown once you figure out what's going on with them they're not intimidating anymore and i i'm not usually easily intimidated by things i'm not usually the person that's like no thank you that's not for me i'm like give it a shot if nothing else it'll be a good story i sort of jump in with both feet and in this case maybe it's because i i certainly did not want to like be stuck on the road actually i said to the to the one of the people there i said yeah i think i'll just go with the um the jeep i don't want to get like stuck you know on like i don't want to get stuck in olympia with no charge left i just was picking a city between uh my house and your house and the woman goes i think there's a walmart in olympia and i was like that's not really i meant this figuratively not literally but um i don't know i i'm still not sure if i made the right call because i feel like i could have i could have driven it to my house i was a little bit afraid of like getting it to my house and then it because i don't have a charger obviously getting it to my house and then it being like stuck at my house or something like this morning which that's also not really realistic but i just it just it felt to me like too many question marks and so i went towards the thing that was for me less fun side note i have so much clothing with me because i have to wear a suit tonight for livewire i have bring all this wardrobe for the software training shoot and guess what they don't have anywhere inside of a jeep turns out the u.s military was not designing this for bringing your suits along no hooks in the back zero hooks interesting which i think is funny because they're really committing to the idea that if you're driving this jeep there's no way you're bringing like a pressed shirt with you like you know those little things i don't even know what you call them they're hooks right and they're in every car in america or at least there's like the little handhold that you can bring down and hook your clothes on none of that in this jeep see

this is why i'm confused because first of all even if you are a military person you still have your dress uniform i mean has anybody seen white christmas secondly taking the military aspects out of this if you have a vehicle that is like kind of advertised as also being a sort of you know potentially an off-road kind of experience don't you need those oh shit handles more than you do in my volkswagen golf yeah what are you grabbing on to as you're splashing through those

big mud puddles apparently you've got the top off yeah you're just going yeah hands are in the air and you're going woo but that's the answer so when i got home and then like last night i was getting all these different you know outfits again and everything is like the kind of stuff that needs to hang and i was just like how did i end up you know what you know what would have had hooks the subaru evie it would have had some kind of it would have some kind of a thing yeah possibly

sorry i was trying to turn down my microphone hopefully that siren is not being picked up too loudly on the thing well either way though here i am in the jeep willis but you're what

did we decide it's called willis but didn't somebody correct us or wasn't i wrong i thought it was a willy and it's a willis yeah i can't remember it's w-i-l-l-y-s so whatever we

landed on yeah um see what's what's wrong with your story here is please the point of the story as i was setting up was this is such an exciting day you've driven a jeep willis to my home it's right outside i could go put

hands on a hard body right now if i wanted to that is you could win instead you you spun this whole tale as a tale of disappointment and now we're just like like now i just have a jeep i feel like this could have been a celebration of life yes i don't know it's because i'm not a jeep

guy yeah that's why it was fun that jeep andrew got to come out just watch me study me sit next to me i want you to know that i did drive by um many other jeeps and did not do this the way did Not do the wave. I mean, I was driving by them like as in we were all going north. So first of all, they couldn't have seen it. But I was also having strong imposter syndrome like we talked about during the TBTL-a-thon. If you rent a Jeep and you're driving around and you're seeing lots of other Jeeps, do you give them the wave? Do you hold back because you're not really a Jeep person? I don't know.

The rental Jeep should have a bumper sticker. Yes. Like, this is just a rental. Forgive me for not waving. You know what? I'm going to I'm going to reach out to Avis corporate and another bumper sticker that says upside, though, I'm a wizard. Andrew you know

I don't want to like kind of make it weird but I feel like you kind of told me that my feelings weren't necessarily valid about the rental car story that it was you know I should I should feel a certain way about the getting the Jeep even though I'm feeling a certain way about missing out on the ev opportunity but i have good news for our listeners there's a place where nobody would ever judge someone that way and that's terrible thanks for asking the show made by our good friend nora mcinerney and her awesome team of course terrible thanks for asking um is a great podcast it's been around for a long time tends to kind of just like be really honest about the fact that most of the time when people ask us how we're doing we say fine and most of the time we're actually feeling well i don't want to say terrible but we're feelings our feelings are complicated let's just like my feelings are complicated about how you judge that story

when you say that i judged your story i feel misunderstood and attacked well i have a show

that you should go listen to right now andrew it's called it's going to be okay it's made by our friend nora mackinney whom we've gone on road trips with before she once drove us that's right In a minivan, her minivan, I believe, to Denver, Iowa. What a world. To kick off our hitchhiking trip. Nora is just an incredible person, full of wisdom. But also, I want to say this about Nora. One of the things I love about Nora's, just her writing and her hosting and things is that Nora is this very interesting combination of being incredibly empathetic. Like, I don't want to get too personal, but I know people who've suffered through grief. And I know that Nora reached out to them behind the scenes. Not not for anyone to know about other than because she thought it was important. Nora has that side of her, but she's also no bullshit. Like Nora is like the most straight talking but empathetic person you might meet. So if that sounds like something that you would like to have in your life, please go check out Terrible Thanks for Asking. Check out It's Going to Be OK, which is their daily little dose of a reminder that things, even though things can generally be not great, also things can be OK. and of course Nora has a new collection of essays a relatively new collection of essays it's called Bad Vibes Only oh and she's got a reading club as well so go say hi to our friend Nora McInerney and the crew over at Terrible Thanks for asking get it anywhere you get your podcasts hey tell them TBTL sent you so they know that these cross promos are actually doing something yeah and now let's thank some of our donors these are the incredible generous people keeping tbtl in business um you know tonight i'm interviewing uh sam sanders at uh town hall for live wire and I was reading an interview he did with Vulture Magazine recently about the state of podcasting. How is it? It's complicated. It's like dating Squiggy Fromm. It is complicated, Andrew. So, you know, Sam used to... She is difficult. Sam used to host the NPR show It's Been a Minute, and then he went and did a show for Vulture called Intuit, and that show is, I guess, no longer in production. He's got another one called Vibe Check that is very much in production. But as part of my assiduous research, I was reading this long think piece in Vulture magazine written by a I think a content creator or I should say an executive producer who had been producing the Prince Harry and Meghan Markle thing. Anyway, this whole conversation between people that make content about how there was this boom and bust cycle of podcasting. Once again, Andrew, made me feel so thankful for our whack-ass business model that somehow works. I know.

I mean, thanks to Max Wolkowitz out there in Brooklyn, New York. It's our pal Max. It's our boy Max.

Hey, Max. Max sent me a song the other day, and I never responded. Max, I'm a terrible friend. Thank you for this song.

Was it a cover of the Phil Silver penned song, Nancy, that I misattributed to Jack Webb?

No, but I want to talk about Jack Webb for a second. I know that a listener kind of corrected the record on that. We assumed it was originally written. It was McShell.

It was our friend McShell.

Oh, from Chicago. I believe so. I believe, yeah, who was pointing. Wait, really? Oh, you know what? We got another one from, I think, a listener named Kate, I think, who was saying that that song is not a Jack Webb original.

Can I say something in my defense on that? The internet let me down Because when I was doing my deep dive on Jack Webb And I heard that song Which I wasn't familiar with the fact that it's a song That Frank Sinatra had done before Funny part is it was written by Phil Silver Who I believe was the comic actor in the show Sergeant Bunko Phil Silver was one of those guys That would do walk-ons on all kinds of those Black and white sitcoms Like Phil Silver was a He was sort of the I don't know what The George Costanza of his time or something But I guess Phil Silver wrote it, I guess, that it was covered more famously by Frank Sinatra. But when I looked it up yesterday, I literally found some dag blame website that said that the song had been written by Jack Webb. And, of course, that was what I went with and I was incorrect.

And we were kind of spoofing on the idea that it sort of seemed like he was putting in a romantic love song. He was inserting some police talk. I've got a case against Nancy. thing and this again is a little bit of a correction of the record and I'm being serious when I say this Luke I do not want you to feel attacked as I say this but as I was posting the show pick yesterday I had a realization about something about our conversation that we got slightly off as well the music this isn't I want to make it clear to everybody this isn't important to anybody except for me but you were playing a bunch of songs off of a collection called Just the Tracks and it was a play off of Just the Facts Ma'am which is a misattributed quote, right? Attributed, I should say, a misattributed quote. And we thought, wow, so he had really leaned into this. Back then he had an album called Just the Tracks, ma'am. I just got to point out, that was a modern collection where they later named it.

Someone else did that. He didn't do that.

That's a collection from 2003. So it had been decades of the misquote out there.

Was he in Dragnet?

Did I get any part of this right? No, he was not in Dragnet. But he retired after a very successful stint on Jeff Regan, Investigator, where he plays the lion's eye. He says, I've done it all. There's nothing more to do. I made the show pick. The reason I discovered this was because I wanted to make the show pick, the album cover. I could picture that 1960s era. And when I looked at that one, I'm like, that's not a 1960s record. And the one that he has is You're My Girl, The Romantic Reflections of Jack Webb. and that album cover. Which is actually still a pretty great name. He's holding a cigarette

and there's a woman dancing behind him. The romantic reflections of Jack Webb is still great. Maybe better than just the tracks, ma'am. I got it.

Yes, definitely. So I just wanted to correct the record on that. He wasn't walking around leaning into this Just the Facts character.

He did say, Gannon, I am your father, though. He did say that. Yeah, that was him. Definitely said that. Okay, thank you for allowing that. I got very little of that story right yesterday, but wasn't it a fun journey to go on?

It was still a great journey, yeah.

You know who loved it? Timothy Mulligan excuse me Timothy Milligan can I take a mulligan on saying Timothy's last name I didn't do that on purpose but I'm not sad that that's how it worked out thank you Timothy Milligan of Woodinville Washington we've had a few Woodinville check-ins of late

yesterday remember you had to bow out very briefly when we were thanking the donors and so I actually didn't go

back and listen to how you how you edited that I just made like fart

noises no I just kept good I did it really wasn't an edit I just kept going and then I read the rest of the names and I warned the listeners that I don't have little stories about all of the cities the way you do. Stories.

Jack Webb once wrote an original tune in this town.

But one thing I did say very quickly, I didn't spend a lot of time on the donors, but I thanked somebody from Mount Lake Terrace, and I said out loud and to myself and to the listeners, but you weren't in the room, I said, Mount Lake Terrace, is that where I bought my camera? And the answer is no, and I was driving up north. I went to Linwood yesterday. They actually drove through the cultural center of Edmonds. I saw the whirly ball place. You know, you can finish the rest of these dinners and out. I was up in Linwood and driving home from Linwood last night, I passed Lake Forest Park. And I'm like, no, no, that's where I got my camera. But then in my head by myself while listening to the monkeys, I started to make a defense of my actions and words. Because I feel like Mount Lake Terrace and Lake Forest Park have a lot in common as far as names are concerned.

And you know, they're not like wildly far away from each other.

Are they both north?

They're both up around the, like, you could say the sort of 175th Street would be sort of the east-west boundary. And if you were to go, so if you were to go, God, I want to apologize to Kevin Connolly, who's in Cincinnati, Ohio. Kevin is like, there's nothing I care about less than how you get from Mount Lake Terrace to Lake Forest Park. But I will tell you this, Andrew, if you were to get off the freeway at maybe around 175th, you would be kind of generally, I think, in the Mount Lake Terrace area. And then if you were to head east, sorry, never east, east, basically Lake Forest Park is east. It's along Lake Washington. So you're going east towards the east side, if you will.

Okay, the highway sign said Lake Forest Park on the 5, right? I passed a sign that had an exit for Lake Forest Park.

What I'm trying to say is, Mountlake Terrace, Lake Forest Park, if you're talking north and south, they're almost, I'm sorry, if you're talking east and west, they're on a relatively even east-west axis. Sure, okay. That's what I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to help you.

And also the names. Like, I was thinking, I was bringing out, first of all, they both have lake in there, Lake Forest, Mountlake. They both sound beautiful. They both evoke beautiful images, right? I love terraces. I love months. So, yeah, anyway, Lake Forest Park, Mountlake Terrace. I would suggest that they just team up and just become Mount Lake Forest Terrace.

Uh-huh. Mount Lake Forest Park. I'm looking now. Hold on. I'm not because, you know, I only grew up here. So, yeah, basically what would happen, Andrew, is if you were driving up I-5 and you hit Mount Lake Terrace. Oh, you're right. Sorry. Sorry. If you're going north on I-5 and you're getting in Mount Lake Terrace, I do think you actually want to go west. Wait. No, east. This is my first time looking at a map. I'm going to just go ahead and shut this down and thank Libby Lewis in Des Moines. Oh, Des Moines, Iowa. I didn't know if we were going to Washington or Iowa. Yep, there it is. I don't know how you get to Des Moines, Iowa from either Mount Lake Terrace or Lake Forest Park, but I think it is possible.

Lewis.

Thanks, Libby. That's your George Clooney impression, isn't it? It is, yes. Thanks also to Jocelyn Hanlon of Norwood, Massachusetts. I don't know Norwood. Does anybody know Norwood? Probably Jocelyn, who lives there.

I'm guessing Jocelyn probably knows it pretty well.

Out there in Norwood, MA. Thanks, Jocelyn. Thanks also to Robin Schmidt of Fall City, Washington. Now, Fall City. What do you know about Fall City? Well, I know that one time I went to, I think, I feel like we had, when I worked at KVI, so I guess then that would have been, who was the company, who even owned that in those days? When I first started there, it was owned by Golden West, which is actually Gene Autry's company, but then eventually it was bought up by, I forget who the parent company was. It wasn't Sinclair, who was the awful one, it was something in between. Oh, Fisher.

Oh, yeah, of course.

The flour mill company that then got into owning. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, I mean, they started out in like flour and grains and then somehow bought radio stations. Fisher Broadcasting had an all-staff family fun day in Fall City where you go out there, you pick berries, you jump in a bouncy house. It was great. It was wonderful.

The bouncy house, I can see yourself sort of like falling backwards into the bouncy house. I feel like Fall City is the perfect place to do that. It's a lovely place. Yeah, it sounds wonderful.

And we thank Robin Schmidt for supporting us from out there in Fall City. And thanks to all of our donors for making TBTL possible. We could not do this without you. Hello and welcome to Top Story. Do you remember this story from some months ago, Andrew, the story of a guy named Mark Herman in New York City?

I remember the very broad outlines of it, but I actually am struggling with some of the details.

So Mark Herman was a guy living, I think, in New York. He was kind of working as a dog walker, and he started at some point kind of walking a toy poodle for his job. and it belonged to a retired lawyer and a person. Professor named Isidore Silver by the way I'm reading From the New York Times this is John Leland's piece In the Times very well written piece So this guy who's a dog walker becomes Friends with this retired lawyer and Professor named Isidore Silver Who had in the Late 1960s represented Chuck Close in a First Amendment lawsuit against the University of Massachusetts If I remember from the original article Now the artist Chuck Close Who is a very A very sort of Influential American artist Who then towards the end of his life ran into A lot of Issues around the Me Too movement Around his treatment of women and things like that Which I think did sort of tarnish Has tarnished kind of his legacy But there was certainly a period of time Where the art of Chuck Close Was very Very valuable and very much A collector's item He would do these sort of huge portraits That are made up it's funny because now they're just computer programs that will do it but you know you take these little swatches of color and you put them together in such a way that if you're up close it doesn't look like a whole lot I might be describing pointillism here more or less but then if you step way back it forms something that's more of a traditional you know portrait or whatever that's Chuck Close's style of work so Chuck Close in the 1960s had been hired to do this installation at the University of Massachusetts and I think what had happened and I don't know if this is in this article or the first one that i read but basically chuck close wanted to include some amount of nudity i think or something that was considered obscene in this show that he was going to do at the university of massachusetts and this was when chuck close was really struggling he was not famous he was not wealthy yet or whatever and the university of massachusetts pulled the show because of something that was objectionable in it so he then went and sued them saying like you have a first amendment right to do my art the way that i want to do it and i don't even remember what the what the what the sort of outcome of that lawsuit was but but supposedly this attorney of his ended up with one of these paintings from this chuck close uh display whatever you want to call it the never happened the other thing that i remember from the first article was that nobody liked isidore silver the attorney he was uh in the words of dr spaceman annoying like again i i should have just printed the first article because what i'm really doing is referring back to that but i i seem to remember mark herman uh at some point the dog walker saying yeah when mr silver was on one you just let him go i don't remember that part of the story basically it

seemed like this kind of quirky dude mark herman who was living in this pretty small apartment i want to say with like maybe his ex or his like his he like he had this kind of funky living arrangement which tends to happen in new york because you know apartments are so expensive you get people doing all kinds of stuff just to try to get by he somehow was like the sort of last person it sounds like who was really able to tolerate this kind of curmudgeon that was this guy is it or silver and so as um this guy is it or silver says his health was declining he kind of mentioned oh i've got this painting this rolled up painting that's a chuck close painting you can go ahead and have it and so this guy mr this guy herman uh paging mr herman mr herman mr bw herman i bet you we played that audio the last time we talked about or i did that imitation i've been doing that imitation since 1988 um so he said i hope the movie came out before 1988 he said take the painting don't google it just put it out of your mind he said take the painting and so this guy uh mark herman did take the painting and a few days later at age 87 mr silver passes away So Mark Herman goes home and he Googles this Chuck Close painting or Chuck Close paintings in general and sees that a Chuck Close painting has fetched four point eight million dollars. And he is like, this is incredible. I am I've gone from being very, you know, very poor and a very sort of humble living standards to I'm rich. I'm Rick James. now the problem is he takes the painting around it's not on us it's not on a canvas remember it's rolled up and he takes it around to a couple of like he takes it to Sotheby's and he takes it I think to this other place and they start to wonder if the painting is actually really a Chuck Close and um they they basically are like we are we don't have enough proof that this is Chuck Close what we could do is stretch it put it on a canvas but if we do this if we make it into what we think of as a painting that's all ready to go and it's not a chuck close you owe us thousands of dollars for putting it on the canvas which for mark erman mr erman is too much money so he's like finds this one place that'll put it on a canvas but he only gives him like part of the money because

He's, you know, kind of like the amount of money to even get this thing to the point of if we if we find out if it's real or not is too much for him or too expensive. And so he somehow gets it on a canvas, but they decide that it's not a real Chuck Close or there's not sufficient evidence. So he puts it in a van and takes it home to his tiny apartment where it's just sitting in his apartment when The New York Times finds him. I think he still owes whatever place stretched it onto the canvas some amount of money. And I remember the original story, him talking about how he showed up at the at the gallery wondering if they were going to let him take it out of there because he still owed them money. And I know that feeling so well from my younger days of like having something that I had sort of half paid for. and like there's like there's a period in your life once you get to a certain status i think that there's a lot more whether or not there should be there's a lot more trust around getting paid you know companies will bill you like they'll do work for you um and then send you the bill as opposed to you've got to pay up front of course this is one of the many ways that the way our sort of economy works is bad for poor people because if you're somebody that doesn't have resources you have to pay for everything up front and if you're somebody with a lot of resources everyone just assumes you'll just pay for it whenever it's convenient for you so anyway uh the kind of end of that part of the story was somebody found an article in the newspaper or in the student paper i believe in massachusetts talking about this chuck close

exhibition i think it was the new york times reporter who found that right that's the one i might not be right about that was the person who found it but that's the part of the story i remember is the photo i love archives somebody found the archival newspaper from the 1960s from the student newspaper and what was in the photo of the article the exact painting question by the

way it was actually carolyn white an archivist at the university of massachusetts apologies unearthed we have a lot of archivists in the audience so we gotta give we're gonna give them

their snaps no honestly another path in my life i i should be an archivist i feel like

I love that the guy John Leland writing this piece goes, then do X academia, as the Romans say, Caroline White, an archivist at the University of Massachusetts. That's a joke about deus ex machina, right? Oh, God in the machine, but this is academia in the machine with the archivist. So Mr. Herman then made plans with money from the sale. He would move to a new home with his girlfriend. Okay, so that brings us that we now have, we've verified the painting is real, he's got it, exciting times. That brings us to this week, on Tuesday, at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, all signs were promising. Even before the formal auction began, there was an early bid of $40,000, well above the auction house's estimate of $20,000 to $30,000.

Does that seem low to you?

I think some of it has to do with Chuck Close's personal transgressions. Sure, yeah. And also just the, you know, if it's not a Picasso, right? I mean, Chuck Close is, and it's also not a Chuck Close, probably part of it. And this goes to the like, the whole question of like, why do people collect art? Is it an investment? Is it about the art? It's not a Chuck Close that looks like what we think of when we think of a Chuck Close. So it probably doesn't have as much cachet because the kind of person who wants to buy a Chuck Close and put it up in their giant, you know, glass box of a house somewhere, wants a person to walk in and know it's a Chuck Close. If there's someone who's not hung up on what Chuck Close's personal behavior appeared to be. So the fact that this is him kind of learning his style is probably also keeping the price down. So the auction house is going at $20,000 to $30,000. First bid comes in $40,000 before the bidding even opens. Mr. Herman had never seen an auction before. Don't do it. Stifle it. Herman. Partaking. This is, again, I'm pretty sure John Leland must have written the original piece because this is very much in the same style. One of the things that I haven't mentioned is that in the original piece, I think, again, I'm going to say it's John Leland. I think he's on the beat of covering this guy's, Mark Herman's stuff with the art. I think he mentioned that at some point this guy, Mark Herman, had eaten some mushrooms and decided on how much the painting was going to bring him. I do remember mushrooms entering his stuff. He had had a vision of how much he was going to make on the painting because of, and he had said, I was on a trip, and I had opened the doors to perception, and I saw this number, I think. Now, this is another part where Leland- Do the people at Sotheby's take that into consideration? They, in fact, do not. So, this is where John Leland is once again tracking Mark Herman's intake. Having never seen an auction before and partaking lightly of a cannabis pipe, he weighed in on some earlier lots. That's horrible, he said of one- painting that's even worse i just love the idea of mark herman just over there hitting his hitting his vape and just being like oh that's bullshit um using a title he gave his painting he offered a headline for this article flop sells for 10 million dollars the shrooms called it so again just mark herman and john leland shilling and uh and mark herman being like flop sells for 10 million dollars the shrooms called it i'm assuming that's not the name of the article he thought his chuck close painting was worth 10 million not quite the shrooms were off that day my friend the shrooms it turns out uh were not a hundred percent right on this as uh at lot 77062 he started to get antsy i'm getting spilkus he said using the yiddish word

for spilkis did he write that is that really a quote i've i'm telling you this guy this this

john leland i'll tell you what can write uh his hope not unreasonable he thought was somewhere in the high six figures finally at 1 30 p.m the auctioneer called a lot 7 7 0 7 0 uh mr sergeant's cameraman dennis alberti trained his camera on mr herman i think that might be the um auctioneer or something it's a david and goliath story ms sergeant said mark's an ordinary guy who found himself in the unfamiliar world of priceless art and auctions that he decided to enter it and take it on the auctioneer started the bidding at 40 000 mr herman perked up the camera crew leaned in i think maybe oh you know what sorry i i'm leaving a lot of stuff out i've had a long day on the road piloting my jeep up here they are making a little documentary about this guy That's who Ms. Sargent was. Basically, a filmmaker read the Times piece about this guy and is now following him. So that's who's filming him.

And he's watching this auction.

He's watching this auction, presumably online, I believe, yes. I don't think they'll let you bring a vape pipe into the Dallas art auction. The auctioneer started the bid at $40,000. Mr. Herman perked up. The camera crews leaned in. Then, crickets. by 132 with no live bids it was all over oh james pinkow a lawyer who bought the painting with his father robert said the two were not big art collectors and had not expected to win but they had been drawn to the painting by the new york times article for different reasons the elder mr pinkow because it seemed undervalued the younger because of the story behind it he remembered the law case that started the whole saga i thought it would be cool to have the painting he said as of tuesday afternoon they had not decided in whose long island home it would hang as for mr herman by late by late afternoon he had gone through some of the stages of grief i'm really disappointed he allowed but then i think if i'd had a lot of money it would have put a lot of pressure on me and that's the last thing i need again again the dog walker abides is that how he ends the piece Yeah. So he got to, you know, I don't know how much of that the commission the Dallas auction house gets. But honestly, I think about this with with various things like on the one hand, if you thought it was four point eight million dollars, let's say if you thought it was one hundred thousand dollars, you're kind of bummed that you got thirty thousand, let's say, after taxes and fees and stuff. but if you were just walking the dog for a curmudgeonly attorney and he said hey i'm i'm in ill health and i wanted to just give you something to show my appreciation here's thirty thousand dollars yeah i mean you'd you know you would you would be like overwhelmed by that it's

like it's the perspective is so interesting on this yeah and the other perspective is because i you know i don't know anything about this world obviously but i i do wonder as the story around this painting gets more and more interesting with the help of the documentary with the help of the new york times and the and the funny writing around it the story around it gets bigger and bigger and more and more interesting that must have an impact in some way on the value of the painting and so when you talk about perspective like what you just said is a really good perspective if you were walking your dog and you just found 30 000 well i guess that's complicated if you find 30 000 on the ground but like you said we are the number one show about people finding money though Somebody, you know, your boss or whatever gives you $30,000 legally. That's great. That's a windfall. But when you're dealing with something where the value can fluctuate, you could also grow to be an old man watching this thing that you got $30,000 for increase in value, increase in value, increase in value outside of your grasp. And you can see other people.

That's where the weed pipe comes in. Take the edge right off of that feeling.

That's where you get the weed pipe. But make sure you have the right.

weed in there otherwise it's just gonna get worse right exactly you want sativa no you want

indica into couch or sativa oh is that how you remember it in the couch that's what somebody

told me once when i was trying to sure that's actually i was trying to convert over to being a weed person it didn't work but no you're i think you're absolutely right though that this my guess is that this will go up in value over time because now it has a story and has a story that's been now twice featured in the new york times with photographs and written very well by john leland so that story alone i mean the guys that bought it threw forty thousand dollars down on a flyer they were like whatever we don't know which long island home we're putting it in you know what i mean like exactly so there are people of that wealth and now some of those people that's this painting will become to a certain kind of person slightly infamous oh this was the chuck close thing that they banned from the thing and then the dog walker had it and then you know like so you're right once there's a story attached to it I think that every time it it comes up for auction I bet you it will grow in value but I still I hope anyway that um that that that Mark Herman can you know kind of find some peace with this because what would really suck is if he spends the rest of his life having complicated feelings about about this and feeling like he

missed something yeah i mean i think i was um at sprouts again the other day were you visiting your favorite your favorite rangy redhead i had a different i'm telling you everybody that works there is super friendly it's a grocery store here it's kind of you know it veers a little bit more towards like being a more of a healthful grocery store a little bit more of a natural grocery store kind of like whole foods i guess but not as big anyway they have really great staffers there And this time I had a different person who was my cashier and in she and the bagger, this woman I was talking to who was the cashier was a bit older than me and the bagger was a bit younger than me and both very chatty and the cashier. I don't even know, Luke, how in the world it came up. But this cashier started telling me we started talking about home prices for some reason. I'm telling you, I didn't bring this up. I didn't bring it into evidence. I don't know how the conversation went there. and she starts lamenting to me about like the house that she grew up in here in seattle being worth so much money she's like you should see it now it's three million dollars it was like tiny little house you should she's like you should see what they did do it i'm like i didn't see it originally lady i don't know but like i'll take the word for it there's something like this woman she actually was telling me about two different houses her first house and the house she grew up in here in the seattle area um are both just like worth so much money and there's just something that dogs you about that yeah she's working as a cashier in a grocery store in north aurora

you know so i what i don't appreciate is uh zillow oh yeah sending me because i've over the years when i've been fortunate enough to have a couple of different homes uh and always selling them usually for a my a modest profit but definitely not at the right time or um them becoming the possession of someone who i was once married to this is this is my cycle and uh because though i've spent plenty of time on the various uh real estate websites in those zip codes and also looking up my actual house to see what like zillow thinks it's worth or redfin or whomever now i'm you know the cookies it's just a baker's dozen of cookies of sadness because i will get updates about my old seattle house i'll get updates about my old bellingham house luckily i don't get updates about the la house i had but all of them oh i doubt that went up in value no no los angeles probably not um and i have to really i mean to be totally honest with you i mean it's very complicated for a lot of reasons but i have to just kind of i have to do a little bit of mental work to not let it um so well the other day my neighbor rich my old neighbor who's very real and who's coming who's

coming to live wire tonight he sounds ridiculous oh really oh that's great yeah and he's i'm sure he'll slip out before anybody can meet him though right he um he was just here he sent me the real

estate listing of a house that's not that's that's on the other side of of my old house and i'll just say i mean it's a it was a house where there was a very elderly person living and i guess part of it is the property can be subdivided so that changes the kind of calculation but i'll just say it was uh i had to sit down for a minute i had to sit down for a minute and kind of just go okay let's work through this because when you see a number like that who knows if anyone will buy it it could be like this chuck close painting it could go for 40 000 who knows but um with a lot of that stuff like because it'll just zillow will just for no reason or it'll go here's a zestimate on your house here's a zestimate on your house in mount baker and i'm like no no not today satan you know because anyway so um so yeah i i generally do okay with that because what are you gonna do just walk around I mean I don't want to get specific but you were telling me you were saying casually that

that you had been overhearing some folks having a few conversations about like business decisions that may or may not have been the way to go. And I don't think the people you're describing are like overly living in the past, but just that feeling of like, God, I could have. I mean, to be honest with you, like my dad thinks about that with the house that the the first house near Green Lake that we rented, which was on 76th Street, 70s between Aurora Avenue and and Winona. This is for that listener in Cincinnati. Let's see. If you go to Mount Lake Terrace and then you head southeast. You head south, yep. So, you know, we had this little rental and the people who owned it were super sweet and really liked my parents and really liked our family and tried to sell it to my parents for $72,000. This is a block from Green Lake. It's a little bungalow. And, you know, they just didn't like, listen, I love my dad And my dad has been such a great father and such a great person in my life and to our whole family. I mean, he's really like, I wouldn't change one thing about the guy, but I'll tell you what. He's the guy that when he's standing at the rental counter is like, question marks, let's not. Yeah, sure. And when they said, we'll sell you the house for $72,000, it was like, question marks, scary. Instead of the $300 of rent we were paying, it might be $500 of mortgage. It was like, yeah, we're not rich. Yeah. And we moved to a different rental one block away. And to this day, like when we're being kind of like harsh on my mom, like about some of her kookiness, my dad will literally bring up the fact that he didn't buy this house as evidence that none of us are perfect. that Poe Buddy's nerfing. Oh, wow, no. Don't bring that up. Like, he will literally be like, well, yeah, but, and I'm like, well, these are, you know, these are kind of, she said something mildly racist. That's really different that you didn't buy this house in 1986.

This is getting, now I'm a little bit off track from talking about the value of this painting, but I'm going to do something here that I'm going to call a forward promo.

Love it, for tomorrow's program.

Technically calling this a forward promo for tomorrow's program.

You've got me sitting on Spilkus right now.

Really what this is is me forcing a topic that you might not even want to talk about. But I alluded to this the other day. I'm not going to go into detail here. I'll tell you about it tomorrow. Because you're here, I think it's a good idea. I stumbled across a record in my record collection the other day. And I don't think this is a valuable thing necessarily, but it's an incredibly rare thing. And I had no idea. I have no idea where I got this thing. It's been in my – and I don't keep like a pristine record collection at all. I have a kind of a shitty crate of old records, but I pulled one out and then I looked it up. I'm like, where is this in this band's discography? And it's like, this is not in the discography. And I want to show you this record because I went on a whole journey with this. It involves Reddit. Hey, right on. I'm into it.

You can be having so much fun. Just remember that life is much fun. You can be nothing but funny.

Okay, Luke, we have a lot of Blurs days to share today. I'm excited about this. We've gone to a model, instead of going back and forth, where I just read the Blurs days, which I'm happy with. I hope everybody else is happy with that as well. I know that you have your computer with you, and you can play all kinds of sound effects from your computer, but I also wanted to say while you're here, I mean, if you so desired, I realize I have kind of a collection of, okay, I have this sound box. This is the TBTL sound box, right? So you're very familiar with that. I have this Halloween-themed sound box. I believe Veronique gave to me like maybe three or four years ago. Wait, who invited my brother? So that's got all kinds of... And then my buddy Holly gave me one the other day that just has like applause, crickets, rim shot, and boo on it.

But here's what I'm going to do. The thing is these are physically a little bit different. Yep, they're all physically different. So I will be vaguely aware of which one I'm holding, but Andrew, you can see this because we're in the same room. I'm closing my eyes.

They are closed.

And what I'm going to do... So in other words, I don't know what I'm activating, But I am going to, at random, activate a sound effect from one of these things for each Blur's Day. And we're all going to enjoy that together.

We're going to enjoy it no matter what. You will sit here and you will. I will turn this podcast around. Let's start off simply. Christine says, my husband Zach's birthday is November 14th. That was just a couple of days ago. I was wondering if you could wish him a happy Blur's Day for me. Christine.

Uh-oh, what happened? Where's the speaker on that guy? We're looking for the speaker. We're close. We got crickets. I think this is... We found the speaker. Okay, there we go. This is going really well, Christine.

Happy Blurs Day.

Happy Blurs Day to Zach. I'm taking that one out of the rotation. You're taking that whole box out of the rotation. It's too quiet, I think. It's interesting. Okay, so happy Blur's Day to Zach from Christine and from your pals, Luke and Andrew, the boys with the soundboard. So scary, Zach. Matthew Jebediah says, happy Blur's Day to my remarkable partner, listener Annie. I say, what's up, dog? I love all that you are, and I look forward to life's adventures with you, but especially those priceless granite ones. I hope you have an amazing day And feel so loved Because you are Cute Happy Blur's Day to baby Luca And welcome to Welcome to Parenthood Aaron and Justin It has been a long journey for you both And we're so happy for the three of you And Hunter the dog That baby is so loved already I'll say what's up Joe Whoa the microphone fell I want people to know that I'm taking the eyes closed thing very seriously to the point where I just jammed the sound machine into this microphone and knocked it out of its holder. And I'm also reading these with my eyes closed, too. Did we mention that? Yeah. But anyway, that message is from Mike, Lauren, Puddle, and Langley.

Hey, by the way, what's the name of that kid again?

Baby Luca. I might be saying L-U-C-A. Am I saying that right? I'm just saying pretty close to Luke. Pretty close.

Maybe, you know, could be, you know, named kind of after me. I'm just saying I didn't ruin the name Luke slash Luca for them, which I take as a compliment.

Avalon in Scotland. I was drunk. I drank eight beers yesterday. That was all I drank. Avalon is in Scotland, originally in San Diego. Avalon begins with an A. My name begins with an A. Uh-huh. So you're probably named after me. I would like to wish a happiest of birthdays to me this Saturday. I will enter my last year of my 30s, and to prove that one is never too old, I've quit my old job and gone back to college for a new one, turning older, but being surrounded by 20-year-olds in college is hard. But I feel happy of myself. Good for you, Avalon. Absolutely. Also to pick up, move from San Diego to Scotland.

I mean, those do have the same climate, though.

Yes, exactly. If your eyes are closed, can you even tell where you are? Albeit a bit creakier and full of a lot more garbage anxiety than I used to be. Anyway, happy Blur's Day. I wonder what Scottish garbage anxiety is like. I can't even. I can't even. Did they take my haggis? Sierra in Port Angeles says, happy 30th Blur's Day to the best boyfriend in the world, my boyfriend, Jake. Hey, cute. I love you so much. You are the most handsome Bobansom and my favorite person. Both handsome and Bobansom? That's right. I hope you have an amazing – what was that? Go Browns. Oh, indeed. I hope you have an amazing day, and I can't wait to see you. So that's to Jake from Sierra. Just take a little breather. It's a two-minute warning.

It's actually really fun for me to listen to this music with my eyes closed because I feel like I'm vibing extra hard to the bass work of Tim Heidecker.

Did you have some of that in the couch? I've had a lot of it. Gregory says, happy Blur's Day to my sister Catherine. So excited to see you on your blurs when I come home for Thanksgiving. I'm glad you became a 10, and I hope you can tell Luke and Andrew apart by now. Remember, Luke has bubbles and Andrew has bingo. Oh, that's helpful. It's pretty simple.

Man, is bingo ever a great cat. I mean, I don't need to tell you that, Andrew, but, like, I mean, just social and adorable. It's a lot like me. Mm-hmm. Yes, exactly. God gives his socialist cats to his anti-socialist soldiers.

He's a socialist? Nate says, I'm a day late. I'm a day late, says Nate, but happiest of blurs days to Brian from Portland.

Oh, yeah. Of course.

TBTL brought us together, and I couldn't be more happy with myself because of it. Love you, buddy. Happy blurs, Brian. We love Brian. I think that's Brian.

musician right i would did i tell you that i was on a uh uh i don't know a couple months ago i was on some local television in portland and i ran into um well i didn't run into but like after my segment was done there was a musical duo um that were really good um a couple of women playing acoustic guitar and singing and they'd collabed with brian our listener brian and i i felt like i was very connected to the portland music and i was like i know brian you bro down i bro down hard. They were trying to say I was drunk. I drank

eight beers. They were trying to say I was drunk. I drank eight beers. Wow. I'm just trying to figure out what my

editing abilities are with this thing once it gets going.

Jalapeno. Okay. Laura in Baltimore says, Happy Blur's Day to my 10.75 Chris. Okay, you're getting there. Ooh, I like that. What do you think this

is, by the way, Andrew?

If I get this right, it's maybe Maybe because I've had that thing for a while, but I'm going to guess a ghost, maybe?

This thinks this is what an owl sounds like. Doesn't that sound more like a mad scientist theremin type of deal? Yeah, it does. Yeah.

Also, what does a ghost sound like?

This is ghost.

Oh, yeah, that's what a ghost sounds like. Obviously. Yeah, duh. All right, where was I? Laura in Baltimore. Yes. Wishing Chris a happy Blur's Day. It's only taken 11 years to convert you down from full 11 status to 10.75. Welcome. I've enjoyed sharing TBTL with you since TBTL Independence Day, even if you do declare bankruptcy every three days or so. Fair. That's absolutely fair. I hope you have a lovely birthday this weekend. Vincent and I love you. Aw, cute. Heidi in Minnesota. You know Heidi in Minnesota.

That's Heidi opening up the cabinet Where she keeps all of her Latin books

I'd like to wish a very happy Blursay to my five Ayrton Who turns ten today I was about to say how is Ayrton ten already But Heidi got there first How did these ten years fly by so quickly He's creative

Didn't Heidi like bring Ayrton to like an event I feel like he might have been Like literally a week old Or something

That was the – I'm trying to do my math here. I don't think that could have been Ayrton because that was the Minnesota show at the VFW Hall. Okay. And I don't think that was 10 years ago yet. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Go Braves.

Anyway, Heidi says, how did these 10 years fly by so quickly? He's creative and kind and does everything he can to be the most amazing and thoughtful son. He's the one who made me a TBTL house in Minecraft just because he knew I'd like it. Aww. And finally, this message. Ann, happy Blur's Day. I hope you love that beers of the world puzzle. I'm not sure how it ended up in your pile of presents, but it looks challenging. Party till you puke. Love, Scott. That's a pretty good power out. Did you get what I just did there? I played two sound effects at the same time. You can open your eyes now. By the way, Luke's eyes were legitimately closed the entire time. I really. What if you opened your eyes and I was shirtless? That would be, oh my God, if I had done that. You've never seen me. I don't take my shirt off really around anybody. You've never seen me with my shirt off probably. I mean, there might have been a moment or two on the road where we've had to change.

Maybe like side, like from the back for a moment, side of your, you know, like shoulder or something. I don't even have a specific memory.

whatever whatever humiliation or awkwardness it would have caused if i had thought of that i might have done it what if your eyes were closed for that full like what do we just do eight minutes of blurs days can you imagine the moment if you opened up your eyes and i was sitting here everything's the same but i'm freaking shirtless the biggest mistake i've ever made

was thinking of that too late i have to say i really appreciate this about you and i think this is why we have a good working relationship because good because you would you do not want to have your shirt off but you know how much that would make me laugh so you'd be willing like you would choose the comedy over your personal comfort maybe i wish i'd at least

thought of it early enough to consider it because you were really keeping those peepers clenched i think if i would have seen a lot of gesticulating for you out of the corner i would have probably had to do it somewhat like quietly but like no but what i what i like though is that you would

even consider that because again i know that's not something that you want to do but you would understand that the the roi on that in terms of how it would have gone down i would have fallen i would have fallen on the floor rolling around honestly it would have been it would have been completely lost on the listeners because all they would have heard was just The Heidecker music and then just sounds that made no sense because I would have been dying. Let's not rule it out for some future hangout time. But ideally when we're rolling like a Hey Dummies video or something.

Well, see, no. I would never take my shirt off in a Hey Dummies video. But I still have not recorded this week's Hey Dummies video. My plan is still to do that nighttime clothing fit check. I love that. But I don't know. I can't do it if Genevieve's in the house. So Genevieve's working from work today. So if we can get done with TBTL in time, get it posted and everything before Genevieve comes home, I will do it. I don't think I can do that video with her in the house. Or I need her to film it for me.

I do need to show you some of the, like, fit check. Well, I guess you've seen the ones that the lebitard person does, right?

And I mean, it's really hard to avoid a fit check in 2023. I just want you to do the foot thing. Yeah, the foot thing. You're going to do the foot. Okay. I have special tonight shoes. Perfect. As long as you're going to do the foot thing, you've got it. Yep, yep. The thing that I was, well, whatever. The thing I was thinking about last night is, you know, I have a Tonight shirt that is so rotten that I wear now. But the thing is, I have one that I wear in summertime, too. And I was wondering, can I do the thing where I snap my finger? But I think you need practice. I don't think I'm going to be able to do that. Do you know that, like, when you're doing that via the TikTok platform, do they have some sort of tools that help you line it up? Or is it just learn?

I've never made a TikTok, so I don't know.

Because I'm going to be doing this like an adult. I'm not using the cool tools of the youth, you know? I don't think I can do that thing where I snap my fingers and I'm suddenly wearing my Summer Tonight shirt. But that would be great if I could. Well, give it a try. Yeah, I'll try.

I'll be tuning in.

And then I snap my fingers again, and it's all, it's just me in my birthday suit.

so everyone please definitely if you haven't subscribed to the newsletter do it's going to be a biggie this week and join us tomorrow for more imaginary radio in the meantime have a great Thursday and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

Tracy you are going to die what no when I tell you who I'm dating Squeaky Fromm She is difficult. Power out.