Muse

Now, I made you a very special dish. It's spaghetti, but instead of meatballs, it's raisin balls. They look the same, but they taste very different. Do you want to know what they symbolize?

Uh, yes.

So I'm the kind of gal who tries to make the best of things. And since meatballs will never, ever exist again, I said, Carol, get your hands up, grab some raisins, And you smash them into a ball, girl. I know we're not each other's soul mates, parentheses, meatballs. But if we give it a little effort, perhaps we can make it work, huh? Parentheses, raisin balls. So we might as well dig into the raisin balls, parentheses, life we've been given.

Mm. Well, you don't. You don't. These have turned. You might want to just eat around them.

Yeah.

for the number one show in hospitals and on sinking riverboat casinos. This is about respect. This is about personal space. This is about the violation. Got it. Here's the long and short of it. Someone has been touching my karaoke machine. This is Mr. T, and I want to tell you out there in radio land, you better keep listening to this station. And if you don't, I'm coming after you.

Well, alright, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host coming to you from Christmastown, USA. That's right, Leavenworth, Washington. the small faux Bavarian village of, and we have arrived, my friends, at episode 4094 in a collector's series. Apologies if my audio sounds a little different than usual. I was setting up my equipment here right before the program and had a catastrophic event occur that I will, I'm sure, spend the next, I don't know, 50 minutes to 90 minutes discussing with all of you and my friend Andrew Walsh. But what it means is I don't have any audio drops today. I'm actually recording my portion of the program on my cellular phone. That is, if my cellular phone is up to the task. So we're going to all find out together how things are going to go on this very improvised Monday edition of the show. But of course, that's what people love about TBTL, right? Is that you never know what's going to happen. And I, as one of the hosts of this show, also never know what's going to happen. Except for this one thing, which I do five days a week. And that is, introduce the longest running co-bro of the show. may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I don't think I've felt this precarious recording an episode of TBTL since I was crouching in a 2014 Scion hoping that Warren Olney wouldn't catch me tape-syncing with you out in the KCRW parking lot.

I will admit that this is also somewhat uncharted territory for me. I think you and I have said before, because, you know, we do a lot of these shows. Today is episode 4094 in a collector series. And I do a lot of them from various locations. And we always say, well, worst case scenario, we can use the phone. But I don't know if it's gotten to worst case scenario in years. So we're going to see how this goes. I was trying to explain this to you when I dialed you up a little while ago. I mean, when I literally called you on my phone and said, you're not going to believe what I just did here in Leavenworth, Washington. By the way, I'm here to tape a television special. Special? That makes it sound like a lot. You know, Mo Rocca does television specials, Andrew. I do little three-minute stories.

Sonny and Cher do television specials.

Thank you. Yes. I, Superman does well. You, Luke, do three-minute television stories. I'm doing a story about Leavenworth because it turns into this kind of Christmas wonderland this time of year. And I figured it would be kind of fun for Becca and I to come out here and, you know, enjoy some snowy, Christmassy weather, since that's not really what's happening in Portland. And we're in this Airbnb, and it's actually quite charming. and I was really looking forward to setting up my little audio equipment and getting my big cup of coffee. By the way, one of those cups, it's not quite the size that the Friends cast used while at Central Perk. But you know that kind of bigger than normal coffee cup that just tells you it's cozy time?

I believe fellow fans of So I Married an Axe Murderer will understand it when I say, excuse me, I believe I ordered a large cappuccino.

Precisely. So I've got one of those, almost one of those size cups of mugs of coffee here. And I'm in a room that's all pine, Andrew. Like it's all like the, the, the, it's sort of shiplap, but it's this beautiful tongue and groove pine. I'm looking out on the snow. I was really having this moment this morning. We watched White Christmas last night. I was just thinking to myself, as I set up my equipment, boy, this is a pretty lucky thing for me that I have the technology and the ability to do my job of TBTL co-host from this beautiful location. And in fact, this Airbnb has a very cool dedicated office area which is where i am there's a couple of monitors set up in here clearly the people that own this place they come in and they they work from here when they're here i was i was probably at about a 10 on my sort of personal happiness around doing these broadcasts with you this week a 10 out of 10 a 10 out of 10 andrew i'm not just saying that for effect it was probably because again sometimes when i'm doing the show from a remote location it's not ideal either it's a hotel room and the orientation of the furniture has me just staring at a wall which you know is hard for me i don't know which i don't know which undiagnosed thing i have that makes it so hard for me to do this this is an audio production i don't need to be looking at anything inspiring i could just close my eyes and talk to you but i will move heaven and earth or all the furniture in a Hyatt hotel room in order to be looking at whatever is the thing I can look at out the window to talk to you. So I generally do a lot of modifying of the immediate space that I'm in for recording these, but this has a beautiful little room that's got pine in it and a window looking out on the snow and ready internet connection. I was really thinking, And again, back to the coffee I had this delicious cup of coffee that Becca made And they had a fancy coffee maker here I was probably a 10 out of 10 Before disaster struck

Before we get into the disaster Let me ask you one more question Tongue and groove A carpentering term A woodworking term But also, I ask you A song by Krongbin I'm so glad you're laughing at that Because I really laid myself out That was not necessarily A great joke But boy did I take up a lot of space To splat it out there So I'm glad you laughed

It's 19 minutes long Sometimes you forget you're still listening to it Because the vibes are so immaculate And then you kind of You realize oh they're still noodling They're still noodling away You know what I'm realizing Andrew And this is I think really what America tuned into the show For on this Monday i'm looking more closely it's not actually tongue and groove it's just a very well done ship lap meaning so a tongue and the the the ceilings in in this in this airbnb because it's kind of a like a mountain chalet vibe the the ceilings are that kind of almost like a frame kind of steep you know angled ceiling and those i believe are tongue and groove and of course tongue and groove refers to the fact that each piece of paneling kind of interlocks with the other pieces of paneling There is a tongue and there is a groove and they all kind of sit together. But I was really and truly feeling so excited about doing these shows. The plan is to do today's, tomorrow's and Wednesday's show from here. And I was just I just was feeling I should have known I was feeling too good, Andrew, because right as that thought was crossing my mind, like this is ideal. you are in a cozy winter setting but you're also doing your job and like you've got this big cup of central perk coffee everything is great i then somehow bumped my microphone which sits atop a little microphone stand that's on three legs i it's it's i've been using this for years and years it is a little top heavy it is a little precarious but it's never you know led to what happened this morning which was i bumped it the entire microphone andrew which is i'm trying to describe it for the listeners imagine a t-shaped apparatus so you've got the base of this microphone stand that's the bottom part of the t and then at the top you've got or think about a hammer what a hammer looks like that's more or less the shape of this microphone the microphone goes horizontally and the microphone stand goes vertically i bumped this I don't know.

The microphone tipped backwards. The back half of the microphone fell into the mug of coffee, submerging half of my Shure SM7 microphone in a cup of coffee.

It must have just, I mean, okay, disaster aside and the fact that we might literally not even have a show to post today, just putting those small things aside, it must have been somewhat satisfying because that microphone must have just, oh, no, no. you have one of those really wide you you said specifically you have a very wide mug because if it was a standard size mug that would be like that whole reddit uh that whole subreddit that's about things that fit into other things perfectly i can imagine the sm7b like sliding right into a

nice mug no it was a huge mug and i didn't have time to appreciate just kind of the i guess you would say symmetrical coincidence of the entire thing i was just like holy shit i pulled the microphone out and I just, I don't know why, but I run upstairs with it. I'm in the lower floor of this house. I run upstairs and I start furiously drying it with a paper towel and telling Becca what had happened. And I was like, do I put this in rice? I don't know. What's the, you know, we're all used to at this point, our phone, you know, getting wet. Although most of the phones now are actually waterproof, which is the amazing thing. I was like, has the Shure microphone company looked into waterproofing their microphones they probably assume there's a low chance that any of this microphone will be submerged in coffee didn't know you like to get wet though sorry you

don't have your drop no i'm doing it for you i'm i'm here for you i'm doing i'm doing all the

imitations i'm really sad because i had some good drops lined up for today's program uh even after i realized i was going to be doing the recording in this bizarre fashion andrew muscle memory dictated that I go ahead and line up these drops, which makes no sense. I have literally a major disaster. I had that one ready to go. I had It's an Audiophile's Nightmare. So it's funny, like, you set up these.

First of all, have we talked about whether or not I'm allowed to do imitations of Denzel Washington? Like, does that cross the line?

With so much going on for me today, I had actually not even noticed how borderline that decision was. But I feel, I don't know who gave me the authority to weigh in on these matters. Well, Luke said it was okay. What I will say is it did not hit my ear. I'll tell you what, it didn't hit my ear the way fairly large sections of the movie White Christmas hit my eyes last night. Oh, White Christmas hit your eyes. When they do an entire number how they miss the minstrel show. Oh, jeez.

I wouldn't say it holds up great. I think, because I've never seen that movie. I've missed a lot of like kind of classic holiday movies, but I was at a friend's house and they had that on and I just kind of in the background, I was like, what, what, what, what, what is happening there?

The only thing I will give them is no one, there are no white people in blackface.

Uh-huh.

So there's that question mark.

I misremembered that because I thought there was. Okay. No, they're,

They're doing a series of musical numbers that is part of their, you know, whatever you want to call it, Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby, Wells and Davis. They have like a musical review that they do with all these dancers and stuff. And one of them is, oh, I miss those minstrel shows. And you're just waiting any moment you're waiting for one of them to, you know, sort of don blackface or to bring someone of color out in a way that's really regrettable. It never gets to that amazingly, but I can say through no fault of their own, there was nobody who was going like, we shouldn't do this because it's offensive. They just got lucky that at no point did they step in the deepest part of that hole of offense offensiveness.

But anyway, all that is to say, you know, there is a holiday movie called Holiday Inn that maybe I'm thinking of that does, I believe.

I see. And that is also Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. I know that because when I was going through Netflix last night and finding White Christmas, it was saying you might also like Holiday Inn with these two guys.

You might you might also enjoy going to a certain rally anyway, which is all a long way of saying, yes, Andrew, you can do Denzel Washington impressions on the show.

Because people other people are worse. Right. That's I think that's classically how that works. But all of this is to say, I thought that the biggest challenge to our recording today was going to be a soggy microphone. But I had the microphone upstairs drying out. I came back downstairs. And without getting too far into the weeds of our particular audio technology that we use, I have this little box called a MixPre. And it's just a digital audio thing. And what it allows me to do is take the microphone that I'm using, which is analog, and I plug it in there. And I also can plug my computer into this thing and it lets me play audio drops, lets me talk.

into my microphone. It lets you hear all of that stuff down the line, Andrew, without hearing your own voice coming back to you. That's called a mix minus. And it just allows us to basically do the show the way that we do it, you know, five days a week, 52 weeks a year. And what I realized was somehow in knocking over this microphone, because some of the cables were plugged into this little device this Mixpre one of the cables was plugged in to a USB-C port so like it's how this device gets its power it gets its power from my computer and I broke that thing apparently like it jarded it jostled it in some way that now when I plug in the USB-C to this thing it does not have any power it and of course this actually comes with an external battery pack which I haven't used in years and years and so of course did not think to bring with me which was i mean the numbers of different redundancies that i've sort of failed on here andrew are are pretty it's pretty lengthy i mean one thing i should just have a little silly usb microphone that i just bring with my kit so that if this happens i could plug that into my computer and i could talk to you at least on that connection like what has happened is that over the years this setup that we've been using has actually proved to be so durable and so reliable that I've slowly gotten complacent. And I've slowly, in the interest of being nimble and agile with my packing, I've slowly gotten rid of a lot of things that I used to bring with me. Like I used to have a little USB microphone in case of emergency. I probably had that battery pack with me in case of emergency. I had all these little redundancies that I've just kind of started again I've gotten confident and cocky and it's worked for so long I could have never imagined the force majeure that happened this morning of me knocking a microphone over which set into motion a series of events which means I'm now talking to you and recording myself on my cell phone by the way it doesn't help that I'm at least I think best case an hour and a half from any city large enough to have what they call a best buy, like any sort of like electronics place that might have some sort of digital input that I need.

I'm not trying to put you on the spot or be argumentative, but do you seriously think they don't have a mixed pre-store at Santa's Village?

Well, Andrew, the problem is they do, but it's only for the good boys. oh they got a whole i mean for the good boys they've got an entire store of brand new mix pre's that are not only brand new but they are programmed by eric stromstad to do exactly whatever this weird ass thing is that we do five days a week but i am on the naughty list so i will be getting a piece of coal that i'm trying to plug into my computer and it's not working no i mean Of course, this wouldn't have happened. Well, this could have happened at my house, at the Madrona Hill studio, because sometimes when there's a construction noise on the studio, I've been in the house. But if this would have happened at my house, there would have been 10,000 other sort of possible ways to work around this. It just so happens that this also is occurring in – and I say Leavenworth, Washington. We're like a good half hour outside of town along many a windy, snowy road. So it's not even – it's like a good half hour to get to the place where there's probably not anything that could possibly fix this situation. But if I get there, then I may be another hour from like Wenatchee, Washington or somewhere where I could possibly find a device that might help me. But even that seems like a stretch. So it's very possible that this is what we are going to be dealing with for the next couple of shows. And I hope that the listeners will extend a little bit of grace towards me in this technically challenging moment. Because I promise you, this is not my preferred way to do the program, nor is it probably yours. Because this also makes more work for you. So I apologize, Andrew.

Well, when the hedge beasts start chasing you later, just remember that the snowcat won't start because somebody removed the distributor cap. Did I get any of that right? I do remember that right. I got some of that right. It's been a while since I've seen the shinning. Some people just shin. So what we're doing here, and this is a new world. We've never done it like this before. I'm just going to take your technical talk and go even deeper. back in the day on the occasion that like for real I was working at a radio station but sometimes maybe I couldn't get into a studio because it was during the work day and and at I was working at a public radio station called KCRW and there are a limited number of students

So people didn't like it when I would just go in and talk to my friend for a non KCRW podcast for 90 minutes in the middle of the day. So you and I would find creative ways to do what we call tape syncs. And that would mean like I would take my little field recorder somewhere into the city or maybe just into the parking lot outside the radio station. You would be on your end and we could talk literally on the telephone, but record ourselves into, you know, field recorders, which are made for this. We've never, as far as I know, actually used an iPhone recording for the for the audio of the show. Do you can am I right about that? This is not the brand new territory.

Yeah, I am using the recording that hopefully the listeners are hearing right now is the voice memo function on my iPhone. And just so you know, I'm keeping a you know, I'm keeping a close watch on it. We're still rolling here. everything is everything is seems to be going okay but i also don't know what it sounds like because another part of you know typically when you and i are doing the show in the regular fashion we are able to monitor what we sound like we can hear ourselves to the degree that if there's a weird buzz in the line or anything else we can hear that i am not able to do that right now so i'm just kind of hoping that this recording that i'm the other thing i'm a bit worried about is heavy breathing because i'm holding the phone very close to my mouth as i talk to you and as you know from making hey dummies videos and anything else where it's like when you're when i've noticed this a lot with the construction project at the madrona hill studio which is i'm i make a lot of little short videos where i'm maybe documenting progress or sent you know sending my dad a video of like here's how they did this particular thing etc and the number one thing i notice in those videos is god i'm huffing and puffing yeah i did you i don't know if you're

just assuming i know that because uh we do the same type of work and um i'm a man of a certain size or i or if you've actually carriage exactly or if you've actually seen the hay dummies where i've addressed it because i recorded one where i just walked around the block not even around the block luke like i walked like half a block to go sit on a bench and do a hay dummies in finney ridge and neighborhood here in seattle and um i didn't realize until i got home and i listened to the tape that i'm like i am breathing so hard so then the next time i did one i was also walking but the whole time i was talking like this trying not to breathe too heavily i don't know i mean this must be an age and health thing right or are we just recording ourselves more i don't remember this being an issue in my life the heavy breathing man well i i'm gonna blame technology to some

degree because i um you know i think of myself as a somewhat active person i try to get out there and shake a leg i feel like my when i went to the dentist recently andrew uh for whatever reason they took my blood pressure and the the tech complimented me on my blood pressure which boy i was, tell you what, I didn't even need a car to get home. I just flew home

on that compliment. Well, I don't know if this is a compliment, but when they tested my blood pressure a second time, they said we need you to come back in three months so we can test this again. Is that a compliment? They said, sir, your blood type is ragu. That is a true, well, not the ragu part, but that is a true story. They're like, yeah, we need you to why don't you go to the gym? They literally said, like, you know, why don't you take care of yourself a little bit better for a few months and then come back and we'll check this again.

Well, I don't want to, let's see, I don't want to make that feel any worse for you, but by bragging about my, also my blood pressure, this was blood pressure taken by a dentist, which I don't know if that's even their wheelhouse.

Wait a second, you know, I did miss that bit. That's right, you said it was at the dentist and they took your blood pressure for some reason.

Yeah, I was there for a dental cleaning.

Oh, that would be funny if my dentist said come back for another blood pressure test.

Weirdly, they said my teeth pressure was terrible. so um here's where i'm trying to go with this technology has not gotten in the way of us being

flipping hilarious that's the thing it's like you know life finds a way we're learning with

this recording but anyway uh i think of myself as a you know i have a i'll give my cardiovascular health a solid okay right and even so i feel like i hear myself breathing heavily in all these videos I think it's that a poor craftsman always blames his tools, Andrew. I think that the microphone technology is very sensitive because we want to be able to put a phone on speakerphone and then place it down on a table, you know, in between a few people and then have a work meeting. That's less of a thing now that Zoom came around. But I think that the microphones are very, very dynamic and very, very sensitive that are built into these telephones to account for the fact that most people don't have great. cell phone microphone technique the average person is not thinking about how their voice is going into their device and i know this because i talk to people on the phone sometimes andrew and a lot of the time it's like are you where did you throw the phone in a well sir like what are you doing right now oh yeah i checked the tbtl listener line i know this it's it's i think a lot of it also a lot of that stuff has to do with our headphones and our cars taking over our phones now so a lot of it is like you know what the microphone on your cell phone's not even being used it's some other bluetooth yeah usually it's not a good recorder yeah not a good whatever you want to call it but i think i think that it's probably that we're both getting older and that our bodies and our lungs are working harder to just do normal things and i think it's also because the technology is very sensitive so i'd say it's it's a little of a little of column a a little of

column B. But here's what we're going to do now, because I'm a paranoid fellow. Yes, I know where this is going. You know, usually we have just even on a normal day, if you and I are both in our studios, I have a whole bunch of, you say, redundancies going. I have a million backup recordings going. Right now, we're doing something pretty precarious by recording directly into your phone. And frankly, any kind of backup situation we have here, I believe would be untenable. If listeners are hearing the backup, I apologize. So what we're going to do is we're going to stop and save that file a few times per show, and it's going to make me feel a whole lot better knowing that you got that thing secured. So maybe now is a good time to do that.

Absolutely, and then we're going to thank some donors. And by the way, I don't want to put any pressure on anyone, but we likely need to purchase a new mix-free as a show. So that's, you know, I'm just saying, think of us in your year-end giving, TBTL listeners. Yeah, if this is all working, we'll be back. We'll thank some donors, and we'll just keep going here on a Monday edition of the program. So, yeah, on to the donors. All right, let's thank some of our donors today who are making TBTL possible, Well, even on days like this, Andrew, when we have to get real kind of, I guess, MacGyver on it, if you will, folks like Judith Spencer of Walton, New York, still support the program. Judith says, and I'm kind of, this is a bit of a stretch, but I'm assuming Judith just says, I don't care if you record this on an old phonograph. I just got to hear Luke and Andrew's voice five days a week.

That's so funny because there's a note here that Judith said exactly that in her donor form. So that's amazing.

We have an Excel. There's actually a spot for that on the intake form, right?

Yeah, like it says, would you listen to this on a Victrola, yes or no?

What is the lowest level of fidelity you would accept as a donor to the program from Luke and Andrew? But let's be honest, probably Luke because he's the one that tends to mess this stuff up.

I'm recording in 4D right now.

I don't even know what that means. By the way, we're playing four-dimensional podcasting right now while everyone else out there is just in 2D. Thanks, Judith. Thanks also to Kelly Carson in Orlando, Florida. Thank you, Kelly. I was going to say, God, I wish I was in Orlando. But no, I wish I was here. I'm liking the snow-capped mountains and the evergreen trees and all of this, you know, Bavarian cozy business. I like all of this. I'm happy to be here. I just wish I had my regular setup.

cozy business. You're in the business of cozy.

I believe in mixing business with cozy, Andrew. So I hear. Thanks, Kelly. Thanks also to Tim Whitehead in Cartersville, Georgia. Thank you, Tim. Ironic that the Carters were from Plains, Georgia. But I wonder who's from Cartersville, Georgia.

And isn't Whitehead a place in New York, or am I making that up? I'm thinking of White Plains, probably.

You're thinking of White Plains. Yeah, okay. You're thinking of Kipps Bay. You're thinking of Sheephead Bay mixed with White's Plains mixed with Tim of Cartersville, Georgia.

That's exactly what I was doing.

Exactly. Or you're thinking of Megan C. Perry who is in Omaha, Nebraska. I've never been to Omaha, but I hear it's really cool. I have been to Omaha, and it is actually really cool. It's a very interesting place because, you know, you've got, of course, like a lot of these sort of – how would I describe some of the businesses in Omaha? Well, of course, you've got – you know, Warren Buffett is based there. So I guess Berkshire Hathaway might be technically based in Omaha. But you've got Mutual of Omaha. You've got a lot of these businesses that are – are kind of, you know, sort of rock-ribbed standard American businesses that have been around forever, insurance, things like that, things of that nature. And then you've also got, like, you know, Saddle Creek Records, right? You've got, like, you know, Conor Oberst and Bright Eyes. Is that Lincoln or Omaha? I think I thought it was Omaha, but I feel like I've been on a real hot streak lately of being wrong.

I'm just asking the questions. I don't know.

Yeah, exactly. Thanks, Rogan. you're just asking questions over there with your microphone and headphones that work must be nice

andrew a saddle creek independent record label founded in omaha nebraska you could really use

a win today luke i could really god i could really win here andrew um but but yeah omaha is a very cool place it's also i believe and this is what this is what happens andrew i have a small w like knowing that Saddle Creek Records is from Omaha and then I try to flex and then I really regret it but I'm do you remember that movie The Day Trippers um no I don't think so my memory is it's got a Liev Schreiber in it I think it's about some folks that work at a telemarketing place and I think it's based in Omaha and they just have like a kind of a they have a day they decide to basically skip work and kind of go just see the world as you if you will because I think at the time of that making Omaha was the main place in the United States for telemarketing for like helplines and things like that I think most a lot of that has moved offshore now but there was a period of time in the late 90s early 2000s where if you were you know if you were getting called

by a telemarketer they were probably in Omaha I did not know that I'm looking into this now I can't tell if it's in Omaha or not but um that just seems like such a Luke Burbank movie pull or at least as far as our relationship is concerned on this show like there's this period in the 90s where I feel like I was renting a lot of movies in college but like I was also just missing a lot of stuff and yet it really seems like the heyday of you you just seem really

plugged into late 90s movies well you know actually I'll be honest with you this movie was a big favorite of uh somebody that i was engaged to back in the day and it kind of it missed me when it came out okay but it was it's got parker posey in it it's got stanley

tucci hope davis grief this has everybody i would possibly want to see in a movie yeah um

and and it actually came into my life in in more like the 2000s but it's uh but it's yeah it's i It's sort of Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, and Parker Posey appear to be the kind of three main leads in the movie. I'm trying to, I'm scrolling through IMDb. You're not getting Omaha? I'm not.

I'm not getting whiffs of Omaha.

Oh, man, that hurts. I feel like, let's see here.

I'm not seeing anything saying you're wrong. Let's see here. Oh, wait, the 1996 movie The Day Trippers takes place in New York City in Long Island, New York.

Where did I get Omaha from?

Now, this is from, let's see here.

You know what? There's got to be another. Well, I knew that. You know what I'm doing here, Andrew? Well, first of all, let's be honest. I'm delivering on exactly the promise. That is, when I try to flex, I will manage to embarrass myself and show my entire butt during the donor's session. There must be.

Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. hold on hold on hold on really quickly sorry to interrupt but i might be able to save you here please do according to wikipedia this is the plot eliza discovers a love letter that may prove that her husband lewis stanley tucci is having an affair so she decides to go to new york city and confront him is there any chance that it started in omaha and then the action moves to

new york i'm doing everything here i feel like that might be what happens because i think they work as telemarketers in Omaha or in Nebraska somewhere and they go to the big city. But again, I don't, I'm, I'm working at a real disadvantage here today, Andrew, as I try to do this janky recording and I worry about, I mean, also the connectivity. Truthfully, it's amazing. It's worked this well, being that I'm in kind of the middle of nowhere here. So I'm going to just leave it to the listeners and the donors, folks like Ann Plummer of Pulsbo, Washington, to figure out if there's any truth in my memory of how the movie The Day Trippers unfolds.

If Parker Posey and the whole gang are all telemarketers then I think this all takes place in New York because that's where the whole gang seems to be. But I am checking here.

Is there another movie where Parker Posey and Liev Shriver have a wild day but they're technically tough? I'm clearly just combining two movies in my mind, and I don't know. I'm doing that, by the way, Andrew, I'm doing that more and more. Like, there was something that came up the other day, I believe it was on the show, or it might have been in my real life. It's all a blur, where I just 100% slapped two movies together in my brain, or the music video for one song with an actual different song. Like, I am now at the point where I can't trust any of my memories on anything.

Welcome to my world.

I will fully take, but what I do is even more sinister. I think you just think, you think, oh man, I'm not going to be able to remember that. And then you get a little bit in your head and then you have a hard time remembering something. I have something that's far worse, which is 100% confidence in something that is my brain lying to me, but I'm totally confident of it. So I say it with some air of authority, like The Day Trippers is a movie. If we were at a bar, I would have bet someone $1,000, depending on how much I'd had to drink. I would have angrily or forcefully bet someone $1,000 about the exact plot of the movie The Day Trippers, which would be wrong. But I feel so confident of it in my mind. I mean, that's a really dangerous – that's a dangerous game, Dano.

Here's what it is. You're thinking of Boys Town featuring Spencer, Tracy, and Mickey Rooney. Oh, of course. I actually do love that movie. I've never seen that. Oh, did you see? You know, we should thank the final donors, but I've been all weekend.

It's the final donor.

All weekend I was seeing that famous scene. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. I can't remember the name of the movie or the person who just died. A movie that you just saw with your daughter Adelaide recently.

Oh yeah, Paper Moon, Ryan O'Neill

Yeah, Ryan O'Neill just died recently Rest in peace, and so I was seeing that iconic Shot from Paper Moon of them Driving in their car together, and I was thinking of you Because you saw that movie with Addy recently

On Father's Day, and it was such It blew my mind because I don't know how I didn't know about that I mean, I'd heard of the movie, but how I'd never Watched it, and the fact that It's a kind of father-daughter, and they're You know, they're kind of Like con artists, and also the fact that the character, the daughter's character's name is Addie, and my daughter's name is Addie, and we saw it together on Father's Day. It just felt like everything was kind of coming

together. Okay, I want to play a game with you, but I think we should... Have we thanked Christy Pugh yet of Radford, Virginia? Well, we're about to,

but I got busy singing my version of It's the Final Donor.

Yeah, I just wasn't sure if I had missed... No, you didn't miss anything.

We had not mentioned Christy Pugh's name of Radford, Virginia, but now we are, and now we're thanking Christy and all of our donors today for making TBTL possible. We really do appreciate you.

Now, you can't play the top story sounder here, so maybe I'll put it in post, but it was a great way for me to commandeer the show. My apologies, but I am going to do something that is not Burbank approved here, Luke. I am going to rattle off 16 movies set in Nebraska, and you're going to tell me if any of them are the one you're thinking of, okay? Okay. You ready? Yeah. I think it's probably this first one. Is it Bad Grandpa? where's my desk bell sound effect okay so it's not it's not a bad grandpa is it election that

you were thinking of the tracy no but of course we love election we love that movie about schmidt another another alexander payne special turns out he's got a city he likes to put movies uh-huh

but no boys don't cry no oh it must be this children of the corn oh that's but the corn is spelled with the k backwards like that new metal band like the new metal band uh mr woodcock mr woodcock starring sean william scott an author not that i'm remembering is it let me ask you this

is it possible that in the movie the day trippers that they work as telemarketers but they're based in New York and I took that dazzling deed and then I took this other very questionable detail that I had that Omaha was a locus of telemarketing and I migrated them to a totally unrelated city and that's how this whole mess got started in my brain

that could be it it's not the movie Nebraska is it because that would be

also by the way are you sitting down another Alexander

Payne film amazing I do want to see that that is I think there are a couple of movies like this but that might be the most andrew movie that this andrew has never seen like everybody tells me like you've never seen nebraska you will love nebraska that's an andrew kind of movie and i've never seen it is it the movie peacock i didn't even know that was uh peacock no indian runner no no by the way we've actually had the screenwriter of the movie Nebraska on TBTL, Bob Nelson, because he was one of the people on Almost Live. And after Almost Live kind of, you know, sort of ended its run and then they had another run and the people in the Northwest will know what I'm talking about. This was like the local sketch comedy show we had on King 5 TV in Seattle. Once that was all done, Bob Nelson decamped to some kind of cabin, maybe not unlike this one I'm in right now, Andrew, and started writing screenplays. And the first screenplay he finishes is Nebraska, and it ends up getting picked up, made by Alexander Payne, nominated for an Oscar. It's a pretty good come-out role if you're a screenwriter.

Absolutely, and sorry for my distraction. I figured it out. You were thinking of Slapshot 2, Breaking the Ice, starring Stephen Baldwin and Gary Busey. Yes. I am so sorry that it took me so long to get there. I should have started with that one.

Is Slapshot, the original Slapshot, But does that have those brothers in it and the ones got the broken glasses with one of the black rimmed glasses that's broken? Like that's one that totally – you want to talk about a blind spot. You want to talk about one that got past the keeper, Andrew? I have no sense of slap shot. Me neither. We should watch it together. I don't know if it's just – I didn't grow up in a hockey place. I don't know if it's that I'm just like five years too young for it. But, you know, Becca is a little bit younger than me She's seven years younger than me But she just is so aware of the larger world of pop culture Including things that happened before she was born It's very rare that I mention something that she has no frame of reference for Except the band Atlantic Star Last night Here at the Airbnb they have a record player and one of the records that they had uh have is the uh home alone christmas soundtrack so i don't know if this is the original home alone soundtrack or if it's one that was just cherry picking the most christmasy songs and maybe adding a few because it's called the home alone christmas soundtrack which is kind of an odd name for it you think it would just be called the home alone right original motion picture soundtrack right this one is called home alone christmas soundtrack But I was so blown away that I put a little short video of this up on Instagram yesterday when we got here. It's a legitimately good Christmas album, in my opinion. It's got the Tom Petty, you know, Christmas all over. It's Christmas all over the world. And it's got a Darlene Love song that I hadn't heard before that's a Christmas song. I love the Darlene Love version of Marshmallow World. It's got that song The Home Alone theme song The John Williams one The world's most terrible version of recently It's got a lot of great songs on it But it also has a couple of weird sleepers Like it has TLC Doing a Christmas song And then it's also got Atlantic Star I'm also guessing Atlantic Star might have Slid past a young Andrew Walsh

Yeah I don't know Atlantic Star

They had two songs that loomed very large In my listening to the radio when I was a kid One was called Secret Lovers It was like Secret lovers, that's what we are We shouldn't be together But we can't let go of what we feel It's all so real And then they also had a song Called Always Which was like a real, just like It was getting played at every wedding For a period of time, it was a real love song And it was always like a guy and a girl singing An Atlantic star They did one of the numbers on this this uh a home alone christmas album and i was like oh my god are you kidding me atlantic star and becca was like yeah i don't know what that is so we finally found something that uh that that was because becca had two older brothers that are more like my age so she was being subjected to the music that i was listening to by way of the her family members who were my age so usually it's a pretty it's a it's a pretty uh you know sort of thorough list of things that she knows about but Atlantic Star was not on that list.

Well, this is interesting because a couple of things. I have not heard of Atlantic Star, and this is a true story, but just now when I typed it in, I somehow instinctively knew that star was spelled with two R's. So I'm not even joking. I Googled Atlantic Star with two R's, and I was like, why did I do that? And then it turned out to be right. So maybe somewhere deep down in my subconscious, I did have some knowledge of them. Secondly, Luke, guess where they're from? White Plains, New York. I know you thought I was going to say Omaha, but still, we were just talking about White Plains a second ago. We sure were. And you don't believe in a God. You want me to hit the Top Story sounder now?

Will you please? I mean... Hello and welcome to Top Story. I mean, the problem is the Top Story that I had was...

Because, wow, the Home Alone Christmas soundtrack is really good. So I guess we sort of burned that one. Kind of back announced that one. Want to go to voicemails? No, actually, well, I'm going to have to get over this thing that I'm dealing with, Andrew, which is the recording setup. Because it's putting me in a weird frame of mind. Like, we actually have some pretty good top stories that I do want to talk about with you. but i'm also feeling kind of like in this i know that like the listeners like get over it you're just recording yourself this is not a big deal i think what it is is that we have such a regular system for this that i just am so used to doing it one kind of way that in the fact that this is all out of whack today almost feels like do we even top story anymore do we get into these topics do We talk about Grand Theft Auto 6, Vice City. And do I just get past all the technical stuff and just straight up do an episode of TBTL with you? Or do I continue to just kind of talk about shiplap and tongue and groove, pine paneling, and everything that's in my field of vision? What would you prefer?

I do want to talk eventually. I was shocked and pleased to see that you had a GTA top story in the rundown, weirdly. And again, I think you just live in my head too much. Maybe I need to too much or not enough, maybe just the right amount. But it's funny because I've been hearing so much about this Grand Theft Auto game recently, and I was kind of wondering if I'm hearing about it, especially because it takes place in Miami and I listen to a podcast obsessively that is out of Miami, but also it's just been all over the place. However, I'm not saying that to get into the topic now. I actually might as well. Wait, hold on, though. Just hear me out. Hear me out. What if we held that off until tomorrow and we use the remaining time of this segment and you can explain to me why you sent me a photo of a chair wedged under the handle of a door with a steak knife in there?

Well, that's because I was having a moment as the show was was sort of starting where I just thought, like, could there be one more thing that's kind of going wrong for me here? um obviously i've spilt a lot of ink regarding the microphone situation but when i finally was ready to start talking to you i realized so becca is upstairs but she's also working today and was having a meeting with her work and it wasn't so much that i was worried about the sound from their meeting coming down here i was worried about the sound from our meeting andrew going up there so this this um cabin has a lot of uh what they call barn doors in it is that that's the term right the kind when you have a doorway when you have a situation where you want to have a door on a room but but it's not ideal for how much the door needs to swing out people will put those barn doors now on things where they just they're on rollers and they they sit against the wall when they're not in use and then you roll them over the opening and uh and then you've got a little privacy well what we've noticed in this house which is again it's a very cool place but it must not be totally level i think some part of this house must have settled at some point because there's multiple barn doors and they all just want to do their thing yeah i know you're talking about those you'll kind of like like the one upstairs you open it and then it just closes itself yeah and the one down here you close it and it just opens itself and so i was in here trying to get ready to talk to you could not get this barn door to stay closed what i did still have andrew was the steak knife i was using to try to fix my mix pre i was trying to do some sort of like field surgery on some of the prongs associated with a usb input on the device in the midst of all of this somehow one of these little copper like prong i'll call it a prong for lack of the right terminology something gotten bent in a different part of the mix pre due to this disastrous situation and all i had to try to fix it was a steak knife that i had taken from the kitchen suffice it to say it didn't work as you can tell right now and so i did still have the steak knife and i did what i thought was actually a decent fix which was i used one of the office chairs in this room i wheeled it up against the farm door the barn door am i using why does barn door sounds so weird to me is that what it's called i don't know what it's called i can totally picture

what you're talking about in fact i want to tell you about a little uh flight of fancy that genevieve and i were having last night regarding sliding doors and not the movie not the oh really not the classic ben affleck film well anyway that takes place famously in omaha that's what i was

thinking that's what you're thinking so yeah so i i i propped the door but there's something very kind of unsettling about using a steak knife like a serrated knife for any purpose other than what it's designed for which would be cutting up food it just has there's a kind of a slightly ominous you know i'm here i'm i wouldn't say we're snow bound we're not actually the road gets plowed pretty regularly but let's just go with this i'm snow bound in a cabin when everything is kind of all my gear is breaking down and i'm losing my mind and i'm holed up in this room using a steak knife to keep the door there's something ominous There was a slight cabin fever moment happening that I just felt like I should photo document and send to you so you could see what I was dealing with.

I'm not sure. Well, first of all, the photo is perfect for this show because it's a little bit unsettling. And if somebody looks at that and they hit play, they're kind of like, OK, well, they warned me. We knew we were in for it.

It telegraphs to the listener that this is going to be not the typical episode of TBTL just from a kind of sonic standpoint.

So Genevieve and I were fantasizing last night. Luke, do you want to hear about our fantasies? Yeah. All of our fantasies or just this one?

I just stopped the sentence right there and let me, hand me the baton and let me run with that.

Luke, pocket doors. We want to get into the pocket door game, not as far as selling pocket doors, but installing them into our home. And now I don't know that I'm using that term properly, But I'm talking about the sliding doors, but not the kind you're talking about that you can just sort of put on the outside of a wall, but the kind that actually is built into the wall. And you might not even notice that there's a door there, but then there will be a little latch and you can slide it. Here's the deal. We have way too many doors in this house because this house used to be divided up into like an upstairs and a downstairs for two different like renting parties. and because of that like there's a lot of shit in this house that is still sort of seems like kind of renter grade including this weird scenario up at the top of our stairs leading to the basement where we have a whole bunch of doors like three different doors and the reason for that was the one common area when this was a rental unit was this little laundry room area and so they had these various doors so that one party that makes a lot of sense so one party could come up and access it and the other party could but they could still lock their own doors so that you know because they weren't housemates the people who presumably lived here uh before us so uh vives and i originally when we were looking at the house and our friend sarah who is our realtor was kind of like oh yeah you're gonna want to take these doors out but actually even though it's kind of clunky looking um it is very handy with our cats because like we still have to kind of separate the cats when we feed them otherwise otherwise the young one will just steal all the old ones food and everything um and sometimes like when we're when i'm cooking dinner i have to put the cats downstairs because my god we need to talk about this another time i'm almost worried about bingo he seems to be a fine weight he's well fed we feed him a couple of cans of food a day but he is food crazy like he is so bold he will like he's just stealing food all the time he goes to ground with it he stole a couple of beans from me when i was trying to make chili the other day he took a a little like maybe a half a sleeve of crackers i saw him i just caught him as he jumped up on the table i turned my back for one second he jumps up on the table grabs it like a dog brings it to ground and runs over to the corner of the house where and so he could try to open it on a scratchy box like he's just and again like i don't think we're starving this cat he seems to be a good weight also he's right outside the door he can probably hear me so maybe we should talk

what does it sound like when he makes like a cell phone video does is there excessive heavy

breathing not not yet so maybe he is still on the um maybe he's a little bit too thin but um anyway so one thing that we were talking about though is how like i'm cooking i was cooking some jambalaya last night and um just like i had to constantly constantly be vigilant that the cats wouldn't come in especially bingo um and we just thought it'd be nice like we have basically two doorways coming into our kitchen and one of them has a door attached to it still the other one still has a pretty ugly door frame and you can tell a door hung there at one point but there's no door there anymore and it would be handy to never figure you for a door but um we realized what we want to do is if we could like sort of clean up get rid of that door frame you know kind of the molding around it or whatever uh and then install a pocket door there and then maybe even remove the other door leading into the laundry room and now i don't know i mean it seems like a complicated thing to install one of these doors into a wall that already exists it seems like you you'd need that in the original plan I don't know if this would even make sense financially for us I don't know if people do this for free but anyway that was what we were fantasizing about whether or not it's something that we can make happen in the next you know I don't know however many years but that would that would be such a huge improvement at least on just two of these

doorways I love pocket doors oh so great they're such a great kind of little detail and touch in a house, like, if, you know, I'm trying to think, I don't even know, maybe,

Was there like even – did I have one in Bellingham? I'm trying to remember.

I had one in a rental unit somewhere, but I can't remember where. But I remember distinctly that feeling of like that latch that you have to like – you kind of pop the latch so you can pull it closed. It's just so satisfying.

I mean I'm ready to make an argument that the new building codes, the standard thing should be everything is a pocket door. Because here's the real work around the issue. And by the way, you can absolutely put a pocket door in after the fact. But what it just means is that one, you're going to have to cut the sheetrock out of one side of the wall, and then you're going to potentially have to go in and just change a little bit of the support structure of the interior of the wall. Because what you probably have are some two-by-fours that are running vertically, and they're probably every, I don't know, maybe couple feet. And what you'll need to do is cut those out and then run a little small header above them so that the door can slide back and forth. You need to create the room so the door can go back and forth. And all that means you just need to move how that wall is supported. What I'm saying sounds very complicated. It's really not, actually, certainly for somebody who knows how to do it. it would be a load-bearing pocket door that's all I know but like if they would just put pocket doors if everybody just when you build a house if they just built pocket doors in everywhere then it would like that's the time to do it is when you're putting the wall up that's the easy time to do it and everybody loves a pocket door I've never been in a house where someone's like this stupid pocket door I hate this everyone's like this is magic like if you want a door you've got one If you don't want a door, you don't got one. Also, it's not swinging out and hitting anything or you don't have two doors banging into each other. We almost had that at the at my house. My dad and I spent actually way more time than you would think just standing in the kind of entryway of the house trying to make sure because there's going to be a couple of different doors. there's a door to a bedroom and then there's the front door of the house and they're literally like we were standing there for a long time going like okay we think we have this right that these aren't going to bang into each other but like that's a real thing i mean i i'm i'm willing to uh suggest some legislation in congress that just says let's just always do pocket doors everywhere can we keep it at the state level though i'd feel more comfortable with that i think it is i think it It is something that each state should decide for themselves. Here's the thing, Andrew. I feel like a federal pocket door law is not going to have the desired effect. I think it will end up leading to fewer pocket doors instead of more pocket doors, which is what I'm really going for here.

Yeah, and it'll never pass muster with the Supreme Court. Yeah, not this Supreme Court. That's for sure.

Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man. It's not from a female.

All right, let's do an email or V-mail before we ski-daddle. I'm realizing, too, Andrew, that because I'm now on this other weird recording system, I don't need to be in this little office room. I could be anywhere. I could be outside for tomorrow's show. Like, you know, just I'm on my phone, basically. I could mix it up. I could make it. There's a there's a wood fired hot tub, like as in a hot tub, you have to light a fire of make a fire of wood for actually, you know me, Andrew, if I'm at an Airbnb, I'm gonna have some show content. And today got really eaten up with the whole technical problems. But maybe on tomorrow's show, I can set up for you, I can, what I can do is lay out for you a back and forth between me and the folks that own this Airbnb, and I can get your opinion on, if I'm being a little passive-aggressive, if they're being a little passive-aggressive, it involves this wood-fired hot tub.

Okay, I do think the important thing, though, is the way things are going, you should probably try to move all your equipment as close to a big water source as possible. That's going to make me feel better about everything that we're doing.

Think about this, Andrew. Like, I mean, could my luck get worse? Yes. Although I also asked myself that during the Seahawks game yesterday. So I don't, maybe I don't want to tempt that. Anyway, okay. Emails of emails.

Here, I have a fun, just a fun little joyous voicemail here from our friend Anna in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. And I think it's worth knowing if you're not from around here. Capitol Hill is not an inexpensive place to live these days. No. kind of like the cool, hip place for decades here in Seattle and kind of the gay neighborhood of Seattle. But, of course, it still has a lot of that culture, but it's very moneyed as well. And there's a train running through it now as well, which makes it really accessible. And so I'm not trying to make it sound like Anna is Ms. Moneybags here, but I know that she moved into this apartment somewhat recently and really Thank you.

feels like she's on top of the world uh in lucking out and getting this apartment and that's where

this voicemail comes in christmas came early for this naughty little elf the craziest thing just happened to me this is anna in seattle hey guys um so i was i live in a building i rent they use a like rental portal um to pay our rent instead of you know dropping off a check or whatever and I was just signing up for it for the first time and it said that I wasn't able to process the payment and I was really confused so I hit up my building manager and they said it looks like everything's clear for December the $45 that it says on your account is a credit and so I was like to clarify it says that I'm all settled up through December and will the $45 go on to my January rent And they said, yep, it'll go on to your January rent. So by some trick of fate, trick of God, fingers crossed, I don't have to pay rent this month. And they paid me $45 to live in my Capitol Hill apartment.

Power out.

Right?

Oh, my goodness. I am going to, maybe because I'm kind of feeling fragile today, Andrew, maybe because I'm feeling like the sky is falling. here's what i'm gonna say to that listener first of all mazel tov second of all put that rent somewhere and don't spend it like put it just put it away much like when i found a gold krugerrand at little fat bat batting cages in kent that's what they used to call me and i am now they call you a big heavy breather what a journey no i'm sorry that's you know i was trying I was trying to make a joke, but then it ended up being at your expense. Please understand that was more about the symmetry of that joke than a comment on my good friend Andrew Wills.

The way I set up that voicemail, I hate the way I set that up. What I was trying to say was Anna lives in a really cool part of town, and so already that's a really cool thing that she's able to find this apartment and then this on top of it is nice. The way I set that up, I feel like I was saying that Anna is super rich or whatever.

Well, Capitol Hill in Seattle is an interesting neighborhood because, like you said, you've got sections of Capitol Hill that have these unbelievably palatial and historically preserved, like effectively mansions. And those are incredible. But then you've also just got a lot of apartments and housing for younger people. But it's also all very historic and generally not very cheap because Capitol Hill is, you know, just has so much stuff going on. If you're a younger person or just somebody who wants to be engaged in life in Seattle, Capitol Hill is a really good place to do that. But it is kind of a combo. It's not, it's not all old wealth and it's also not all just, you know, younger folks who are, you know, maybe in their first kind of decently paying job that allows them to be in this, a real place you want to be in Seattle if you can as a young person.

Yeah. Or, yeah, I mean, or anybody who's just, it's like the most culturally rich part of the city, certainly. And, you know, we, when we first moved to town, we knew that that was the place to live. I don't even know.

You lived right by the Boston market, right?

We lived by the Boston market, only I didn't know that it used to be a Boston market. I only knew it as a Starbucks. But, yeah, we used to live across from that B&O Espresso place that I think was sort of a landmark for a lot of people, too. But it's just, like, the really cool place to live. So, anyway, I'm really psyched for Anna. Congratulations, Anna.

But I am saying you should definitely hang on to that money because you never know, like, oh, the gold coin story that I've told a million times is they didn't – I found this gold coin. I brought it into the place. they basically said we'll hang on to it for you but if nobody calls in three months we'll give it to you and so that's sort of what happened i called back they were like yeah nobody called for it here it's yours enjoy it like i would i would hang on to that money for three months i just put it somewhere and then and just make sure that their system doesn't figure it out and then after three

months i'd you know you're worried about them coming and saying hey you owe us that money that

you that you I have experienced in the last couple of years and I can't think of the example off top my head but a couple of times where I thought that some sort of computer system had glitched in my favor and what I realized I think I might have gotten away with it once I think it was actually speaking of apartments I think it might have been when I was moving out of the first apartment I was in in Portland into the second one I think I think the first apartment sent me a bill that it seemed to me like they were maybe kind of misunderstanding in in my benefit what I owed them and I think I just was like absolutely

I'll pay you that and then I didn't hear from them but then I think my more recent apartment they gave me one number oh actually you know what it was too was the um the power company I thought I had gotten away with like a kind of a a um a bit of a scam on the Pacific power company of Portland uh and not having to pay my last month and then I did when they called me and said we're gonna send you to collections if you don't all I'm trying to say is I am a sketchball But also, I'm trying to say to the listener to just enjoy this. What a win. Take the W. But maybe also don't spend that money until you've got 90 days on it.

I would say the opposite, Anna. I would say go to Goldie's Shoreline Casino. Double that money. Luke's got a system.

Flush Fever, baby. Flush Fever. Is that your game? I believe there it's called High Card Flush. Andrew, the Flush game has so many names in so many places. It's all the same game You get like five cards And you want as many of them as possible To be the same suit And you'd like them to actually be the same suit And going in order It's one of the most ridiculously bad games For the players But it is so fun It's so, so fun I mean the edge for the house Is so, so pronounced But yeah I mean if you want to follow the Andrew Walsh system Anna, take that money And head up to Goldie's And spend it on pull tabs

And chicken wings Okay, so here's my system. Yeah, no, I would say if you want to take that money, go to Goldie's, don't even go into the casino area, just sit at the bar, spend about $20 to $40 on pull tabs, and then spend all the rest on those lightly breaded chicken wings they have there, which is amazing. And then I would say probably some- The salt and pepper wings, right? Salt and pepper wings, that's what it is. And then I think Jim Beam, and I don't think they have Miller Lite in a bottle there, but I think you can get yourself a Coors Lite in a bottle, but it has to be a glass bottle. Don't get one of those cans that are in the shape of a bottle. I don't know. Well, I do understand those. I think it's for venues where they don't want like broken glass and stuff. But my God, have you ever tried to drink out of one of those quote unquote metal bottles?

Yeah, it's not a pleasant experience. Oddly enough, it seems like it warms up really fast in your hand.

And when it's cold, but then when it's cold at first, it feels very uncomfortable to your to your mouth. I feel like the mouth feel on that Coors Light in a tin bottle is not great.

Speaking of beers, Andrew, I noticed yesterday, before I headed up here, I had like one hour at my house between Chicago, Los Angeles and coming out here. And in that hour, I chose wisely to watch the Cleveland Browns play on television. The Browns play the, I forget exactly, oh, Jacksonville, I think. with joe flacco under the joe flacco led cleveland browns the resurgent cleveland browns with their new quarterback joe flacco which for people that follow for people that follow football from that division will appreciate why that's just a truly stunning turn of events but during watching like a quarter of that game i saw that bud light the much maligned in some quarters bud light i always forget you do because Andrew you're not spending your life um with like you're not engaging in identity politics and identity commerce to the point where you dislike a beer because they sent a can to a a trans woman but anyway uh the new ads for Bud Light are Peyton Manning and Emmett Smith and it's very and their new tagline is easy to drink and it is a very wait who's Emmett Smith fluke he is the hall of fame running back from the dallas cowboys oh okay and it seemed to me that they're and it's like peyton manning comes into a bar and he just starts throwing passes with cans of bud light to people who are excited and then emmett smith shows up and then they're both throwing cans to people and then the the new catchphrase is bud light easy to drink and i think what what's looming over the whole thing is they just want you to forget that everyone was mad at them about this one thing and they want to say yeah but it's still easy to drink it like the let's please please put the politics and by the way paul it's not even politics really but let's not let's put the culture war aside and let's just focus on drinking bud light with the deeply inoffensive peyton manning who who is who's you know i'm i like peyton manning honestly like people like me like peyton manning but also probably people that are more conservative in their leanings they don't have a problem with peyton manning emmet smith is somebody who's very not polarizing like you could just you just can see a company that's desperately trying to somehow get back into the conversation about light beer with a certain sector of

american population okay you heard me laugh out loud there because i thought you're going to say something else i thought you're going to say looming over the whole thing was how are people going to open these bottles of beer without them foaming up all over the place i literally thought that that was the joke you were getting to i hadn't you're right you're

absolutely right in fact that would be a great tag on that commercial if every person opened one of those beers it just absolutely destroyed them like that would that would be a funny turn for that commercial that nobody saw coming i just think especially if it's easy to drink but no

here's my question for you though i mean i'm not saying that you're wrong obviously the entire marketing department's uh plural uh that that run miller light or whatever i'm sorry bud light very importantly bud light uh have been trying to figure out the messaging around what they would see as probably a marketing disaster but um but i guess what i'm trying to ask you is why this commercial as opposed to any other Bud Light commercial that aired starring football players during a football like this is not the first time Bud Light has had probably a football related commercial since since the backlash I'll call it it probably isn't it's the first one that I took

note of and you're right I'm probably I'm probably projecting an a massive amount onto this commercial because I just happened to be in one of the small towns near where I live and I was waiting for my pizza and I just like overheard a conversation about how everyone in that bar had officially ruled Bud Light out. So I think it's primary in my mind in a way it wasn't before. So that's probably part of it. But I guess I just, it felt, and again, this is probably my projection, but it felt to me like a commercial that is intended to see seem very effortless but to me felt very effortful in trying to anticipate any possible thing that could set people off again like you just like it feels like a crisis some kind of crisis pr firm and crisis advertising agency they helico that what they did was that move where they kick in the windows they rappel down from an a higher floor of the building and kick the windows in and then just renditioned the entire Bud Light brand to try to get it to try to get it to some place where they can just freaking sell beer again I don't think I'm looking

at the same one you saw but I'm looking I do see that they have a whole campaign I would this is a different this takes us in a different direction but like I'm on like the main page for Bud Light commercials now on this website I use called iSpotTV which collects commercials and it seems like they have a whole series of commercials called Easy to Sunday and it's not the one you're talking about this one doesn't seem to have celebrities and it just shows a bunch of people enjoying beer and football at the same time. I think I've actually seen those as well. But what I'm noticing is they have like seven or eight different versions and they're all like tied to specific games or at least matchups. It's like spot number one, Easy to Sunday Rams v Cardinals. Then there's Easy to Sunday, Chargers v Rams and then there's just like I won't read them all because it's just it'll just be me saying basically then you're just carry underwood

the rams take on the chargers here on sunday night i was about to start singing it but then i i was

getting the monday night song confused with the sunday night song but we don't have to get into that whole thing again but anyway i think we did it joe yeah oh my gosh i love that you said that

you know that i've really been trying to bring that back with becca like i anytime like i she's like okay let me know when you land then i'll just send her kamala harris saying joe we did it like that's my that is i that's my most used like meme in the last two weeks and at one point she just said i really appreciate you working this hard to bring this meme back but i love it i feel like it has so many it's just useful and it's a real swiss army knife of memes yeah we did it i

didn't feel like i sort of feel like it's having a resurgence but maybe i just talked to you too

much i don't know too much or not enough and there's that question again again right okay all right well let's go ahead and let's wrap this up and hope that all of this got committed to some sort of digital recording technology and uh remind everyone that we will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you again i may be in the snow i may be in a different part of the cabin we'll all find out together uh but nonetheless have a great monday take care of yourselves and Please remember, no mountain too tall, and good luck to all.

Last time I checked, audio was the second most important part of the audio video experience. So it's the least important part, right? I just wish we'd talk about my hobbies, too. What hobbies do you even have? Not really a hobby, but I'm pretty good at alienating significant others. Power out.