Muse

It's Solstice Games! It's Solstice Games!

Woo! That's today?

Oh yeah, your first Solstice Games. Wow. I remember my first time. I was 23 and I had just found out I was allergic to cashews. Cool. Uh, I don't think that I should participate. Don't worry about it. It's not about who wins and loses, you know? It's just about team building. There's no I in Solstice. But there's... Well, yes, there is. Yes. I've actually been trying to get them to change it to a Y for a long time.

TBTL!

We are addicted to podcasts.

It's crazy, but we listen to them when we're doing the dishes.

Don't tell people that, Chris. It's so random. What did you think about the ride? It was great. And apparently, I've never been on live television before, but apparently sometimes I don't watch the news Because I'm a kid and apparently every time, apparently grandpa just gives me a remote after we watch the Powerball. The story of this situation is, it's extremely personal. We are not ramping down.

We're just getting started. Nothing stops this train. Nothing.

All right, hello, good morning and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of TVTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

Isn't that for techno geeks with spreadsheets?

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. I'd like to grow a pair sometime. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio where it's a kind of a odd weather morning. It's like half of the yard is bathed in sunshine and then half of it is completely fogged in. This might be just the case. I've never lived up here during this time of year yet, and maybe it's just how it works. I was down in town today, getting on my little jog down there at the lake. I will tell you, I admire people that have the self-confidence to stand. This sounds sarcastic. It really isn't, actually. I admire the people that have the self-confidence to stand along a walking path or jogging trail or whatever you want to call it and chat with their friends, with their dogs and take up the entire thing. And as a fairly significantly sized adult person, me in this case, is huffing and puffing towards you, you know, on the gravel. well we don't have a fully budget here so i just have to imagine the sound of my feet on the gravel and breathing heavily and and you just don't move at all in fact you don't even look over it sounds like i'm it sounds like i'm being sarcastic it's i feel like i am so worried at all times that i'm in someone's way or space or blocking someone that's a level of comfort in my own body i've never experienced standing here chopping it up with your friends that you kind of ran into walking around the lake again a beautiful thing to have happen for folks and i'm glad that that it's a small community and people see people they know i really am happy for everyone involved i'm amazed that someone could just at no time from their periphery or just generally be like oh gosh there's a somebody's coming right along this path and i'm now blocking all of it and maybe if i moved over one inch they could get by i i know that this sounds like i'm sub tweeting these people so hard i just i want to be in that state of bliss myself at some point where i'm that unaware of the rest of the world i'm overly aware of the rest of the world and i'm also overly aware that today my friends december the 21st this is the shortest day of

the year don't stay in my house if you're dork-sided which means tomorrow is the second

shortest day of the year and then saturday third shortest day and on and on and on my friends we did it we have gotten to and we will soon be getting through the absolute worst of all of this That's a terrible way for me to introduce episode 4,102 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. It's the absolute best of this podcasting game. That's right. Chuck E. Cheese, the rat-themed pizza location or pizza outfit that's for kids.

It's cheesy, it's delicious, and kids go nuts for it.

They are trying to entice adults to come in with a much more adult pizza menu that we'll talk about. It's also a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day. so we'll read some Blur's Day messages and we'll talk to this guy longest running Cobra of the show may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships i would say he is in the absolute perfect emotional state today for cobra if you want to talk i've got two ears and they're tuned to the listening station

he's andrew walsh and he's joining me right now good morning my friend good morning i had a dream last night that don't worry this is a short one i had a dream last night that there used to be a old school pizza hut right in downtown seattle i dreamt i found some old footage on an old like video camera that I had apparently taken. And in the background, we were getting off like the video was shot from inside of a car. And I could see out the window that there used to be a pizza hut on this one highway exit. And I woke up jealous and mad that I didn't take advantage of a pizza hut

that never existed. I'm telling you, living adjacent to small town America, one of the main benefits, other than it also finally aligns with my personal politics a little bit more. That's not true. I wish I had the confidence to block the path of the running trail, and I also wish I had the confidence to let that joke lie, but I don't. No, what I like about being kind of out here in the middle of nowhere is the pizza is it's like a Pizza Hut bonanza, even though I don't know if there's literally a Pizza Hut, but as I told you, Bruno's is great Poker Pete's is great there's just there's an endless supply of the kind of pizza that we ate as kids often at an end of the year soccer party and the older I get the more that that's what I

want and I just I love it when you were eating pizza after a um soccer game was it square cut

pizza not much in the northwest that was that didn't make its way out out west much I do think that Little Caesars did that and that was the only from my childhood in Seattle the only place I could remember that you'd get like a giant rectangular pizza was Little Caesars and that was notable because nobody else did it so it was kind of like whoa I didn't even know that they

made it in this shape yeah and that's the vibe I'm talking about too just to be clear because I know that like kind of square shaped Detroit style pizzas sort of made a comeback and you know in in more like you know circles of people who care about food and preparing it I'm talking about cheap ass sheet pizza you know like after a after a little league game or something along those

lines our thing would be this would be more like the um the trophy ceremony at the end of the year and but i don't know why i picked soccer because of the various sports i played i never went to a end of year soccer banquet that was much more associated with baseball and football but sometimes it'd be at the alfie's pizza in shoreline which i think is still there andrew if you again i don't know if you've got pizza huts up there wait is that alfie's still there have you ever have you noticed you know where the um what's the bar what's the bar that our our buddy camaro kev the viking oh that's up there i don't know if you it's you go north of 145th so you're going on like is it i don't know if it's fifth avenue or something and you go up past a hundred you

no i i forget the exact cross street that little area i find very confusing anyway because streets stop being kind of straight there doesn't one of them sort of shoot across sort of uh diagonally and so therefore that little part of town which i'm trying to think is it like kind of pinehurst

area it's north of pinehurst i think you might even call it shoreline does wonder bread store up there you know where that qfc is i love this i'm not joking i love this the listeners don't But we do, and that's what's important.

I swear to God, I would listen to this if this was about a city I don't live in.

I'm serious. If someone says the words, is there still a Wonder Bread store there?

Yeah, right?

The Wonder Bread outlet, I think it was. Do you know what I'm talking about?

No, is this getting near a goodwill by any chance? See, I'm really bad with that part of town, honestly. I wonder if it's also been, if it's become a Franz now or something. I'm looking at an Alfie's, though. I'm not looking at it on a map. That's all I needed to do.

So why am I trying to get to the Alfie's by way of where is the Wonder Bread store? All I need to do is look up Alfie's Pizza Shoreline, if it's even technically called that. Yes. Oh, my goodness gracious. Locations, Andrew. Let's see here. It looks like, no, Andrew, it looks like it's gone. The Alfie's of my youth. It looks like they're kind of going through it, unfortunately. Their Everett store is temporarily closed. Their Oak Harbor store is temporarily closed, according to their Silver Lake and Everett store is permanently closed.

Okay, so this was a regional chain.

Yeah, this is a tough way for me to learn that the Alfie's Pizza situation has... kind of fallen on some hard times well it was because i mean this was one of those joints that had like a giant circular fireplace in the middle of it okay yeah and then all of those kind of low tables with captain's chairs that kind of rolled around so you could just it was so great but the pizza was very affordable uh so it was the kind of place where you'd go for your end of the year baseball uh banquet uh and award ceremony where i i one time i got i forget what it was it was a weird award and i got it in both football and baseball in the same year and it was bad it was the kind of award that was like least improved player it was sort of something like most likely to wear their jersey you know something that was like they were like what what can we we've done most valuable player we've done best hitter we've done like we've done all of these kind of superlatives that make sense and we've we still got luke yeah and we gotta he i mean we gotta give him a ribbon of some kind but we gotta give him a trophy i've got you know what andrew somewhere in this house somewhere in the basement i've got some old sports trophies i'm gonna dig out the greenwood boys and girls club baseball trophy that i got it at that alfie's pizza and try to figure out what it says on there because it was something very non-committal from the coaches and i feel like i got it in football and baseball it was like it was something that was just clearly a participant i mean it was the ultimate participation award the you you got spunk

kid the luke burbank you got i mean seriously that's the kind of thing they would have given

me because i had a lot of enthusiasm i will tell you this i knew more about alvin davis of the seattle mariners al rookie of the year by the way i knew more about the sports that i was playing than anyone on the field now playing the sports well that was that was a that was a bridge that i wasn't really crossing at that point in my life but as far as knowing about the sport so i'm sure the coaches kind of sort of didn't know what to make of me because I was like I was probably a fun hang but then they'd send me up to the plate and I would just freeze up and like couldn't get the bat off my shoulder well good eye good eye wait for your pitch Luke I mean I've told this story many times but I my entire first season of of hardball baseball that was it was you know kid pitch meaning uh you're the person pitching to you is from the other team it's not like a parent It's not coach pitch. I did not swing the bat the entire season. I literally didn't swing the bat. And that was the year that I got whatever this. What award do you give the kid who doesn't swing the bat all season?

Good eye. Yeah. The watchful eyes of Dr. Something T. Eckler. What is it? I don't know. Oh, my gosh. I always paint myself into this corner in The Great Gatsby. They keep driving down this road, and it symbolizes something. I don't know if it's watchfulness or a book.

Or I should at least watch the movie with the Jay-Z soundtrack.

I didn't care for that too much. Well, there's the Eckler Eye Institute. I don't think I have any of this. There's Austin Eckler. There's Austin Eckler, who apparently is also going through it right now. Did Alvin Davis, I have not looked this up. AD? From going as a 40-something-year-old, and not a young 40, by the way, in my experience of as a 40-something-year-old going around to garage sales on picking up old Mariners baseball cards. Do I have it right that Alvin Davis had a pretty bitchin' mustache?

He had a decent stash. I mean, it wasn't the main takeaway from his whole look, but he had a good stash. He had a good 1980, probably 84 stash. I'm forgetting what year he was the American League rookie of the year, but let me just tell you, in that era of Seattle Mariners, that would have been maybe when Chuck Cartier was our manager or something. That was all we had. It was just mass, profound, multi-generational futility for that team. And then every once in a while, one guy would do well. And I remember it being Alvin Davis, the AL Rookie of the Year, and just being like, I'll watch 162 games for one player who doesn't aggressively suck.

And that was AD. The Great Gatsby, in the middle of a strange gray landscape, He publishes a giant billboard of eyes without a face. It's the eyes of Dr. T.J. Echelberg. It's a creepy image. So it's like, I believe it's an advertisement for this doctor's eye service. But what does it actually symbolize? Well, I don't know. I'd have to read a lot on the air. What's the symbology there? But anyway, that at least for those who were, you know, throwing and then picking up and then re-throwing their phones, that was the smart reference I was trying to make that I should have just not made since I couldn't make it properly.

Well, with Alfie's Pizza Gone, Andrew, I don't know your exact

options but i'm sure the listeners have some ideas if i could recommend uh finding yourself a place in seattle that just makes that kind of old school pizza and i know you've got like you like that a pizza mart place right yeah i like a pizza mart we got some so i haven't been there i don't know what they're doing what they're working on over there but even like pudge brothers like i know you guys used to order from pudge brothers yeah i got it last night and listen i love that like the pizza is very yummy to eat but i'm talking about an emotional experience here beyond just like this is delicious and filling and makes me feel good i'm talking about something that something that that that like makes you feel like it's going to be okay and for that only bruno's pizza in longview washington well i do wonder like if there's something because i'm

trying to remember again aside from the shape of it and that like weirdly i know i keep coming back to it but that goes a long way for me because weirdly and i think i'm the only person i know who prefers the pieces without any edge crust at all which is strange considering that i'm like the person who you know i don't eat yeah many types of cheese or cheese in many forms so why would i want the piece that is like the most like optimized for that um but anyway so like my my recollections are more like that sort of experience whereas like an a pizza martin a pudge brothers there's certainly nothing fancy about those pizzas at all i mean you've had i'm sure you've had one or both right like you're not implying that they're like some sort of level up pizza because they're certainly not they're very very basic but they're not they're they're you're right

they're not fancy they're not artisanal they're not wood-fired um they're at least pledge brothers

i think largely meant for college students right so like i would guess just based on his proximity and it's a time you can't sit down in there it's like a pizza window practically yeah so it's i i'm

doing a bad job kind of explaining this but like yeah it's not that those pizzas are too fancy or anything it's that there's this there's this time warp pizza that's sort of different you know there's like the fancy pizza that everybody in Portland and Seattle now tends to want to eat which is fine it has its moments I enjoy it and then there's just kind of normal pizza like you're getting from Pudge Brothers and a pizza mart that's yummy and then there's this thing that just feels like time stopped in 1984 and that's its own category in my mind and I I didn't know that existed until i started going to poker pete's and now bruno's and i don't i that's all i can say is like it's it's somehow this other transcendent experience of just like it really really reminds me of of my childhood in some way you know what and this doesn't make sense and i've raised this

many times on the show before but the closest i had to that feeling which was like a kind of a hey we're not having pizza we're having a pizza party sort of feeling was that time when i think it was you me nick jar and camaro kev rolled off your boat after it broke down in the uh lake in lake washington and then we went to what is now big mario north lake yeah i haven't gone in there since they sort of switched hands and i don't know what it's like in there now uh but it was north lake tavern at the time and the thing is it's like i don't think i was in places necessarily like this as a kid because frankly there was a bar like there when you walk in there's a big you know 21 and over bar right there but the the walls as as we've discussed many times still have are just completely covered with these murals these hand-painted murals by david horsey the pulitzer prize winner nathan hill graduate exactly seattle times and la times uh political cartoonist um but they were all like focused on u-dub sports like rowers and and um the boys in the book you know like rowers etc etc name another sport all of the five sports gymnasts is what i think i was looking for there but anyway um but anyway there was something about that place i had not been in there since the time i rolled in there with like the four of you guys and um i remember like having a pizza party feeling now the pizza itself i believe we got olives on it and it was almost like totally covered in a tapenade so like the pizza itself I don't think matched the vibe of the old school pizza that you're talking about but something about that experience felt like pizza party not just pizza does that get you does that get me any closer to what you're talking about

kind of yes but again it's I think it comes down to it has to be cooked by someone who's 17 years old and gives a minimal shit about their job I don't know why that's a secret sauce and it has to do also with the I think I called this semolina last time But I might be wrong about that because I saw a frozen pizza or I saw a pizza somewhere that was listed as a semolina crust pizza, which I was like, I always thought semolina was this like kind of stuff that's you throw down almost like you would put flour down when you're making if you're rolling out a pizza, a dough so that it doesn't stick to the thing. I was, I think, wrong about this, but I thought semolina was the name for this kind of certain kind of thing you throw down. so that the the pizza you know the dough doesn't stick and that kind of adheres a little bit to the crust whatever I'm thinking of and maybe it's not called that it's this certain kind of thing that adheres to the crust and gives it us again I'm just doing the worst job ever of describing this but Andrew I am doing the best job ever of getting us I'm just gonna go ahead and will you allow this because we're not gonna talk about pizza now thank the donors and then come back and talk about Chuck E. Cheese pizza we just get this over with right now dateline irving texas um chucky cheese the iconic family entertainment center that has been delighting families for decades is thrilled to announce a twist on the traditional kids menu and indulging grown-up palate preferences with the launch of its first ever grown-up menu um when i saw this headline first of all i was like okay it's in pr newswire i guess this is Is what they do so I'm not it's not like the New York Times just printed Chuck E. Cheese Is rolling out grown-up food yeah

PR Newswire I believe is just a Repository for press releases They're not even just to be very clear They're not like they're not bunk journalism They're not journalism at all they're just like when you Release a press release it goes up there so that People like us can find it

Yes absolutely so I want to be By the way Andrew you are you sitting down This is for immediate Release This is an embargoed no sir We can release this immediately if not sooner What I was surprised though Was to find that These were things that they didn't have already On the Charles Entertainment Cheese menu A spicy Hawaiian Which is Appears to be a Hawaiian pizza That has jalapenos on it A home style barbecue chicken With barbecue sauce Shredded mozzarella Cheddar cheese topped with chicken red onions and green peppers so basically this would appear to be uh a thing where they throw barbecue sauce on it i've had that style pizza before sure it's yummy yeah it's not my go-to but i'm not it's weird i'm not mad at that pizza if i have a bite of it yeah but it's also not but like i just want to and then something called the spicy barbecue piggy which is a spicy korean barbecue sauce and then shredded mozzarella which i'm going to be honest with you i'm assuming they already have on hand it's what goes on the pizza and uh and then they put some uh bacon sausage jalapeno and red onions um so there's a lot of like pork product on this what i want to just take a moment here to identify is that from what i can tell the the announcement is that chuck e cheese is now going to stock their kitchen with some barbecue sauce they didn't have before a couple of jars of like chopped up jalapenos and also a spicy korean barbecue sauce they didn't have before that appears to be the major change to their pizza they've got two kinds of barbecue sauce they didn't used to have and some jalapenos that they're going to throw on things this is how committed they are to creating a menu that's tastier for those for those divorced parents who are being forced to be in the same Chuck E. Cheese because it's their kid's birthday.

And meatballs. My guess is they didn't probably put meatballs on kids' pizzas.

So you're going into the next part of the menu.

No, the signature meatball pizza. Aren't we talking about the four different pizzas?

Oh, I didn't see that. I don't have the same.

What? I'm looking at your link, no? Let's see here. Let's see here. Specialty Pizazz pizzas. Signature meatball, homestyle barbecue chicken, spicy Hawaiian, and spicy barbecue piggy.

That's the craziest thing. I don't have meatball on this. You know what I did, Andrew? Oh, did you print yours? You're not. I think when I formatted it, I lost that. OK, thank you. So they do have meatballs, which then make an appearance later because, yeah, they are offering, I guess, without the pizza, the mouthwatering meatballs. We're going to guess those are the same meatballs are going to put on the pizza, right?

Yeah, I'm sure they're the same frozen meatballs that, you know, they're Cisco meatballs.

I'm sure there is a place. And by the way, that's Cisco, the food supply company, not Cisco, the beloved gardening expert from the Pacific Northwest. although i feel like on this show we always have to make that clarification um it's probably the only program that has to do that have you ever seen this place called manic meatballs south of tacoma it's down by fort lewis no but you sort of have my attention i'll be honest it is one of those businesses that i am genuinely shocked is still a going concern it's either called manic meatballs or meatball madness no manic meatballs fast food in Lakewood Washington what is this it is apparently a place that mostly sells meatballs my sense is that like I could be wrong someone's going to email me and we've I'm sure there's manic meatballs fans out there that live in that area

But I got the sense that it was started not that long ago, maybe even sort of roughly around the time of the pandemic. And then I assumed was shuttered. And then I had written I wrote an entire story in my mind about the Manic Meatballs location, which was somebody had a dream. They thought there's not a good meatball focused restaurant in the Lakewood area. and we're going to do that and then like so many small businesses it didn't work out because it wasn't a particularly it turns out that there wasn't the demand there for meatballs that are suffering a mental health crisis and um and then one day i was just driving and i just saw a line of people lined up to go through manic meatballs and then they got a freeway sign and i was i was just i was they pushed my flabbergast button i can't believe that is of all the things that don't survive that's thriving so lined up in their cars as a takeout yeah yeah going through the drive-thru interesting because like though is there a word you is there a food you would be less likely to take as a drive-thru up well i mean i'll be honest with you i was with some

friends last week that's the end of the story i just thought you'd be shocked uh and we were reminiscing about how much we and we were reminiscing about how much we loved the meatball sandwiches you get at subway which were not necessarily good but certainly like i i've eaten my weight in them before and here's the thing i think that i'm just drawn more to meatballs than you are like i love meatballs it's what i think is interesting here is is balancing my head what you just described to me which is like a a drive-through takeout experience with the way they photographed these meatballs on their website like they're yeah if you were to look at this you would think like oh they're trying to like make these like really well-plated meatball meals meatballs like on rice that are like served with like some sort of a cucumber like a very fresh looking cucumber salad are you looking at these as well i am and i and i'll let you finish but

there's something else that's um that i'm realizing about yeah and like green beans and stuff but it

sounds like this is more of a fast foodie kind of place where it's just going to be thrown into a white bag and containers and you're going to eat it while you're waiting in traffic around the

tacoma dome well you know i don't know maybe i thought i saw a drive-thru maybe i was confusing with the popeye's chicken next to it no i think they do have a drive-thru but what i'm realizing looking at their menu is a lot about this makes more sense to me first of all the color choices it's yellow and blue that's very scandinavian that's i believe maybe the colors of the swedish flag and then i'm looking at the menu and i'm seeing oh this is basically like this is this is like a scandinavian in the way that they've got the meatballs at the ikea yeah this is like

that but way elevated this is like you like i mean you mentioned that your parents went through a phase where they were getting lunch at ikea that was more of a price point situation but yes but But still, I mean, that's still a thing. I mean, people do that, you know, like people fetishize the food at Ikea. And so that is an interesting kind of approach. Like, what if we serve that style of food, but you don't have to, you know, make your way through a maze. You don't have to suffer through a divorce. Yeah, right. Exactly. So I don't know. I'm sort of intrigued by this idea. If I were like, you know, I'm not going to drive to Lakewood to get a manic meatball. But you might be passing through Lakewood if you're coming down here to visit me. Right. Or if you and I are meeting to go to a Rainier's game this summer. Precisely, in Gig Harbor, famously the location of Cheney Stadium. The Gig Harbor Rainier's.

Somebody get at me if you've been to Manic Meatballs, or as I like to call it, Viking Meatballs.

It's already Viking Meatballs because it's Scandinavian.

But, you know, I mean, to be honest with you, now that I'm looking at their website, it looks like they do have much more of a concept than I realized. I think the first time I gazed upon— Also, it's in a building that doesn't look like it was originally a restaurant space. It's in a building that looks like it might have been like a title office or a small local credit union or somewhere where you would go for some sort of financial services. So I think I saw it from I-5. I saw the back side of it. and as a person who doesn't go out of their way to get a bunch of meatballs i just i was bringing my own bias to the to the to the experience thinking there's no way this is working but it turns out it appears to be working quite fine i'm now looking at photos of this place on google

maps to get a sense of the outside of it and i see that yeah it's in like a small little shopping little shopping mall i guess or what not a mall but like a little uh strip mall kind of thing with a couple of businesses next to it but there are some photos inside as well and you're right about the style of building this building was not clearly not built for a restaurant business and one of the one of the clear signs of that is when you start looking at the photos of the inside there's a giant vault inside there that used to be a vault for money or valuables so it's a

converted bank exactly yeah well good for them hey you know what support small business if you're a meatball, if you're a meatball fan or if you're just um you know i was gonna make a joke that was not i was gonna make a joke based on the idea that manic is part of the name but i don't want to i don't want to throw that out there but it is interesting because you know there's an alliteration there manic meatball just another manic meatball right or just another manic mom day as i uh tweeted after the monday night football game or tweeted as i instagrammed because when i was in leavenworth boy andrew i this is not the time for this but uh let's just go ahead and do this we stumbled becca and i walking around leavenworth we went into a store that had some of the most amazingly bad kind of like you know give me my wine and nobody gets hurt kind of like you know art paintings um this store had a bunch of different hats in it and i took pictures of them one of them said just another manic mom day which you know i thought was um i thought it i thought it was funny but in a sort of ironic way but then And it did seem to feel really apropos on that Monday that the Seahawks won and it was a very stressful day. But what I was particularly intrigued by were these paintings that they had that were for sale, that were just kind of, I'm terrible at describing art style, but like a kind of very rough, sort of rough paintings of women doing different things. And then like a catchy slogan or a piece of writing on them. You know what I'm talking about? The kind of like a painting of a lady who's really like living her best life. Maybe she looks like a flapper or something. But then the words are something like I can only care about one thing a day and this isn't your day or whatever. You know what I mean? Those little like kind of snappy kind of like don't talk to me till I've had my coffee sort of things. Is there a term for those kinds of statements? I'm not sure.

But is the text on these little paintings or illustrations sometimes like kind of boxed out or almost like the old label tape that I still use where it's like the letters are surrounded by little squares to like sort of frame the text?

Yes. And it's but then it's handwritten. And what these are, are they're all kind of adjacent to a joke? like but if you go into if you go into a certain kind of a store um you may be like a like the impulse purchase section of a joanne fabric or a tuesday morning um kind of place you'll see this stuff you'll see these little signs and little plaques you can hang in your house in particular i think they're aimed at women and they're not for me but they make sense they hold together kind of like you know again i'm i'm not i'm not doing a great job of describing them but what was struck me about these these these ones that were made was they were clearly just made by a person who has a dream of creating these kinds of things but they don't really so here's a painting of a of a woman it's a real close-up on her face she's got these kind of rosy cheeks and kind of white hair and a big smile and at the top it says my pants say yoga and then underneath her it says but my ass says french fries and birthday cake or the one where uh she says it's a it's a woman in a bathing cap and again kind of ruddy cheeks and she's she's probably at the beach and then it just says in my mind i'm always at the beach or this one where it's another it's a woman uh her face and then there's like a coffee cup that's kind of painted it's weirdly levitating above her hair Pilates oh hell no I thought you said pie and lattes hmm just some there's let's see one where a gal who looks maybe like it's a sort of a Britney Spears type character I party like a rock star a very poor rock star who isn't in a band anymore that just seems like someone's life didn't go particularly well like I it let's see another one a gal saying sometimes when I open my mouth my mother comes out I guess that's kind of sort of a joke just in looking at these what I was struck by was a person who had gone into stores like this and seen these kinds of things and thought I can do that and they almost did well they did I mean depends

on if it sells right like isn't that

a good point that's a very good point maybe like manic meatballs there's a whole market for this and it's just not me I'm glad

you brought it back to manic meatballs because I did want to just mention you weren't ready to do more you weren't done with that topic okay you might have heard me guffaw at something um a little bit ago something i had said and that that was your big mistake um no and i actually don't want to dunk on this place because i would potentially try this like why not it's like take out food we have different expectations whatever but we were just talking about how they have some pretty nice photos they hired a good photographer to take the photos for their website it is so difficult to take photos of food that looks appetizing you know that's why it's it's a whole special skill set yeah it really is and so they hired somebody really good and i and i applaud that because that is difficult i would not be able to do that and now i'm on not their website but just you know google maps and i'm looking at various reviews and photos and so these are just photos of the food that people have taken with their cell phones and most of them are in like takeout boxes or what have you and some of them actually like some of the fries are wrapped up in a nice little cone like that and put in one of those little you know metal french fry vases and then serve it that way with some like coarse salt that looks okay but the ones that are just like thrown into these plastic takeout containers like these clamshells i just sent you a photo that some customer took and never in the history of photography has there been a greater chasm between the look of a professional shot of this food versus what this looks like i mean this looks like stuff that people in world war one would have complained about and had a coarse name for when and by the way i'm sure it tastes so flipping good yeah and again i'm not saying i would eat this and i'm not dunking yeah and so like honestly like i mean i'm sort of dunking a little bit but i'm this is more to me an examination of presentation and i sent you the worst one i could find like some of them look okay but my god when You get to this one that I sent you, you're just like, oh.

Well, it's like, it's more of a sort of business branding conversation, or at least protecting the brand. It's like, you need to, I'm sure that if you go into this restaurant and you sit down and you order the stuff, I bet you it is delicious, and I bet you it's pretty sort of aesthetically pleasing when it comes out. But it's not a type of food that probably travels well and photographs well when it's in that mode. and so it's almost like you need to like you need to turn off comments if you're this restaurant or turn off you need to you need to somehow figure out a way so that people cannot be posting photos of their food because it's not it'd be like people posting clips of this show just like a random two minutes of us talking it's like that's the worst representation of what we do like if you if you come into the restaurant that is tbtl if you sit down if you commit to the time if you learn what the plot lines are then it can be pretty enjoyable but if you just throw some of it into a to-go

container and listen to it for two minutes forget it yeah and let it sit on the seat of your car while you drive it to your job uh and by the way i just want the last thing on manic meatballs if you can believe it i think we can leave it here but i just want to give you a w um in that there is i don't know if you already saw this but there's a lot of viking i can't uh i can never say that word um iconography iconography I always want to put this the emphasis on the wrong syllable in that yes iconography like there's a there's like a fake little part of a viking boat in there there's uh people with little uh swords and shields with the logo of the company on it so you're absolutely right about that sort of viking connection I'll tell you what you know

I try to generally kind of be semi-careful about what I eat or really more accurately try to do a little bit of the intermittent fasting that's been such a trend over the years and certainly not eat a bunch of french fries in the middle of the day because I don't think that's good for me. But I got to go into town later and grab some supplies. And after looking at those french fries i'd say there's a 70 chance i'm getting french fries today like you ever just feel that you're just like yep that's happening like i just know even though right now my brain says no my stomach says yes and my stomach is going to win and before i before i've returned here to the madrona hill studio perched high above the mighty columbia i will be horfing down french fries on the drive home back from home depot that's happening you want to know something

may be interesting about me as i think about this don't oversell it i mean you could also have the opportunity to opt out notice that i gave you the opportunity to opt out here you could go to break but i'll power through and just say i don't think i ever crave french fries now that is not to say that i don't eat french fries obviously if that's the option that comes with the meal or whatever but like right now looking at both some of the good and bad photos of these fries and i've enjoyed plenty of fry in my life i'm not saying i don't like them but they don't like if this was a a photo of a bunch of like really crispy golden onion rings like cooked perfectly i think i would have much more of a draw to that or even tater tots like there was a time uh you know i think before i moved to seattle where there was just like not as many tater tots in my life and then i moved here and they were in like every restaurant and like i think before i having so many tater tots I would really crave them again kind of something that maybe connected me to my youth but french fries are like maybe because they're just like always there and because as you know we've talked about like there's so many different variations of them I'm not, I'm just not drawn to them that much. I, well, the thing for me is like, I was going to, after looking at these photos on the Manic Meatball website, the ones that they had professionally taken, I was going to be eating something off of that website. God damn it. And because the meatballs are generally speaking kind of out for me, that leaves me with the French fries. I'm with you. Like, I don't get out of bed in the morning and go, the best thing today that I could have would be French fries. But there's just a whole Pavlovian, like my mouth is slightly watering. There's a Pavlovian situation that I'm now dealing with that is going to lead me to French fries. Although, you know what I made last night? Speaking of potatoes, this is my new thing that I'm very proud of, although they're not in any way difficult to make, but they're called melting potatoes. And you just you you you cut up some like some russet, but you peel and cut up some russet potatoes into like little kind of, you know, medallions. I like to make them thicker, by the way, pro tip. and then you just basically like in butter you you you get a good kind of crust on both sides you put a little rosemary in there then you bake for you pour some um you can put chicken stock i put vegetable stock in you cook them for 30 minutes they come out and there's these little discs that are crispy on the outside and totally like a mashed potato on like a croquette but maybe less work i could that's all i need to eat for the rest of my life i'll just i could live on these melting potatoes and i made them last night brought them out for walt uh who enjoyed them i'm i'm turning into quite the uh martha stewart here andrew with uh with my cooking i'm very that's the one thing i'm kind of proud of even though by the way the i saw it on tiktok the woman who was showing them goes there needs to be a name for these potatoes uh they're called melting potatoes but they should be called the easiest potatoes you've ever made and i was like

all right calm down i'm proud of this well i will speaking of food photography you mentioned this on the show a while back and um you described them and they sounded good but then you sent me a photo and to your credit i will say the photo um did them even of my melting potato yeah even more justice because you sent me one where you showed how it was cut what it looked like when you cut into it i was like oh damn that shit is fluffy in there like you're right golden brown on the outside and like it looked really fluffy and maybe i'll just actually go make myself some

i have one i have half of a russet potato left maybe i'll just go also is there anything more satisfying than peeling a potato not if it's like the 1950s and you're in the gomer pile show and your kp duty is to do peel 500 potatoes but if you're peeling like two potatoes it's very

satisfying i don't know i find it a little bit difficult it's like a and a little bit frustrating i thought you're gonna go with the rosemary there is there anything more satisfying than like breaking up rosemary in your kitchen than everything honestly the rosemary when it comes

out of this process it's like a salty it's like a salty snack treat unto itself it's actually almost my favorite part is i'm like chewing on a branch or rosemary like some kind of demented forest creature because now it's absorbed all this butter and salt and it's crisp because it's been baking so it's like each little whatever you call it it's not a leaf so much sprig so you're throwing

the full sprigs on there you're not even that's what the lady on tiktok did no that's interesting I just was picturing it more like kind of peeling it off the sprig a little bit. So you either have like the little pines or maybe even minced up a little bit. That's good. That's bold.

Then I'm chomping on those pines. I've never done that. Because they're just like little buttery, crispy things that just dissolve in your mouth. My goodness. All right. And can you handle the rest of the show? I got to go eat something, honestly.

Can I get myself a little pat on the back here? This whole conversation was brought to you because I had a dream about a pizza hut last night.

And we knocked out the stupid Chuck E. Cheese topic.

Oh, wait, I didn't get to say my big takeaway from the Chuck E. Cheese. I'll tell you what, let's take a break, and when I come back, we are going to reveal Andrew's hot take on this Chuck E. Cheese story. Are you okay with that?

Yeah, of course. Let's do it, but let's thank some donors first.

I have a bit of a new podcast obsession I'd like to tell you about. It's called The Distraction from our friends over at Defector. It's hosted by Drew McGarry and David Roth. Now, you've heard Luke and I obsess over David and Drew's writing over the years. And I just started listening to the podcast, I don't know, a month or two ago. And I knew I was already addicted when after listening to one episode, I quoted it like a thousand times the next weekend. They were interviewing one of the showrunners from The Simpsons. And I didn't even realize until like more than halfway through the show that it was also ostensibly a sports podcast. Well, it's about sports. It's also about movies and art and sandwiches and getting irritated by people who are talking on their cell phone in public with a speakerphone. That's something that's very close to my heart as well. Each week, these guys tackle all kinds of subjects, serious and impossibly stupid. Their words, not mine, but I'll back it up. If you like the kind of show we're doing here at TBTL, I think you're going to like this podcast as well, especially if you, like me, have at least a casual interest in sports. So dial it up on your podcast app or surf on over to Defector.com for more.

Why did you have to talk about sandwiches in that promo? I was just getting my shit back together. And you throw sandwiches in the mix?

I feel like, if we had the conversation about a vegetarian meatball sandwich, there must be good options out there.

Oh, yeah, I bet. You know what, that's a good point. I'm over here talking about no meatballs, but meatballs are probably the kind of thing that you could make a pretty good kind of knockoff of using plant-based stuff. Seems like it. The more sort of, like, you can make a taco with fake hamburger and it's pretty close to the real thing because you're throwing taco spice in there. It's about a lot of other stuff. The thing that they have yet to figure out is like a pretend steak that tastes like a steak. That's probably going to be the most difficult thing, but there's got to be a... But even in my... How are we talking about meatballs so much today? Even in my days of eating meat left and right and giving no thought to it, I was never drawn to meatballs as a thing.

That's the difference between us. That's the only difference.

That's the difference between our arteries. That's not even true. My arteries are so freaking blocked up with cheese. It's like, it's amazing any oxygen. Is that what goes through? It's amazing any blood, which carries oxygen. I can get through my cheese-hardened arteries.

If I hold out my arm like this, I can see meatballs going through my veins. Like, full meatballs. I'm not going to lie, it's upsetting. It looks like I should be in the...

It's like a python that swallowed a baby pig or something.

What was that? Lollapalooza adjacent anomaly show that you talked about in Seattle. Oh, the Jim Rose Sideshow Circus. Exactly. That would be your

thing. Mr. Meatball. Mr. Meatball. Love it. You know who else loves it? Colin Richard, who's in University City, Missouri. By the way, we're thanking the donors of the day. That's right. These are the generous, generous people that are keeping TBTL in business. Colin Richard's one of them. Thanks, Colin. Also, Tricia Scherer is in Bellingham, Washington. What a beautiful part of the world.

Was it you telling me on maybe yesterday's show about the cops that would round up the underage drinkers in Bellingham? Yes, it was. Yeah, watch out, Tricia. Yeah, be careful. You don't want to get an MIP. Yeah, if you hear about something called the party bus, walk the other way. It's a misnomer.

We've also entered that magical time of year, Andrew, where I have no idea if that was in yesterday's program or it will be on the air in two weeks.

Oh, shoot. Good point. But also not two weeks. I mean, we're two days away from the winter game, so who knows? Yes, exactly.

Thanks also to Jennifer Healy, who's in Sisters, Oregon. Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters. That's a cool town. What is that song? That's out on the way to Bend. It's not Patty Duke. That song was from White Christmas. Yes, the Haynes sisters sing that song, and I actually really like that song. I think it's very catchy. And it's now, they're making some kind of T-shirt of that, so I keep seeing ads on TikTok for it. So it's very present in my mind, because not only do I see it every year when I watch White Christmas, but now I'm seeing it every time I turn my phone on and look at TikTok.

There's a disturbing amount of thumping going on above my head right now And I do not know what's going on

Is Genevieve doing that Irish clogging class again? That Zoom Irish clogging class?

I think so, when I was in Ohio

By the way, when I eat too many meatballs and mess up the toilet That's also called Irish clogging Yeah, an Irish clogging class is how you learn to get rid of it

I went to an Irish bar with my folks to just grab some lunch or something. It was right next to a place I used to go, an underage rock venue called Flash Gordon's. I've probably talked to you about before. Flashes. It was very weird to be in the parking lot of the old Flashes that is now like a CVS drugstore and going into this old Irish bar with my folks. But anyway, we get a booth and there's all this noise coming from above us. And we asked the server, like, what is all that thumping? And she said, well, we have, you know, clogging classes above us, you know, during the day. My stepmom refused to believe it because she wasn't there for that conversation. And then when she came back to the table, we're like, hey, they're teaching, you know, like clogging classes upstairs. She's like, no, what are they really doing? What are they really doing? We're like, no, the. The server told us, like, it's not a joke, but she thought it was such a, I mean, it was a silly, it was like, I don't know, noon on a Thursday or something, and just above this Irish bar in Cleveland, they're giving clogging classes. I kind of loved it.

I love that that's happening. I don't know if I love it happening above my restaurant. I'm trying to think of the worst possible business to go in above your restaurant. I know. And I'm going to put that near the top of the list. Bowling alley, trap house. What are those second floor bowling alley? Yeah, right. We were filming in New York last year for a story that actually never ended up getting on TV about New York's cannabis laws. And the guy that we were interviewing was somebody who was up for getting one of the early licenses to do legal cannabis in New York. And what they had done in New York, I think this turned out to be a complete disaster. But what they were trying to do, which was interesting, was actually give the early kind of licenses to people who had been caught up in the unfair and typically racist enforcement of cannabis laws, of drug laws. And this guy was in that category. He had been in trouble for selling marijuana before and had done time. And now it was sort of like the state of New York going, we probably were being jerks about that. and because you know so much wealth was stripped out of marginalized communities by because of incarcerating large numbers of people from those communities over this stuff that we're now like hey no no harm no foul weed is fine so we're filming with this uh guy in his he also owns um like a gym kind of and uh like uh in in this old building down kind of in on the lower east side and we keep hearing this noise from upstairs and our sound guy is like, I wonder what's going on. He goes, oh, that's the pole dancing class that meets upstairs. And I was like, at the time, I didn't know Irish clogging or clog dancing was an option. I thought that pole dancing was probably the worst thing to have upstairs when you're trying to do a sound recording. Now I've got Irish clogging on the list.

Yeah, so just sort of like thump because I assume that they're not wearing footwear that is going to be quite as loud as that, but still like kind of dismounting off the pole. you're kind of yeah coming down to earth yeah sure yeah it was kind of loud yeah i could so it

was and also just the building this was one of those buildings that like i was right out of gangs of new york like it was it was like this building was built when whatever um uh uh what's his name's the what was his bill something or other the the character that um that oh my goodness

how could i daniel day lewis plays oh daniel day lewis yeah i have not actually seen that movie

Oh, I know it's pretty good. I was very like I've been I have I internalized this idea that that killers of the flower moon is a bad movie because people were making jokes about how long it was. And so I just filed it under like Martin Scorsese is getting older. He has unlimited budgets and time. This is just one of those movies. This is a bad movie. And then I was reading the the New Yorker film critic, not Tony Lane, but the other guy.

A.O. Scott, is he still doing it?

I think so. Was listing his top five movies of the year. And Killers of the Flower Moon was number one. And I was like, well, shit, I got to go see that then.

I should probably see it, too, because there's no way I'm watching a movie that long at home. I don't even watch short movies at home. And yeah, it's kind of like, you know, it's getting sort of sort of mixed reviews, but mostly positive. Genevieve saw it in the theater by herself, actually, while I was doing something, and I'm still mad at her for that. No, she's had an afternoon to kill, so she went to see it, and she said, you know, it's a tough watch, but, you know, intentionally so, and it's not without, like, needed conversation around it, but that it's essentially a good movie. It's not just like a bunch of, you know, again, like you say, a director of that, you know, a famous director prestige who's also like making movies this late in his career and the length of it. You could really just see it being like, OK, guy, we've gotten enough of you. But and I'm sure there are some people listening who've maybe seen it and hate it. But it sounds mostly like it's worth seeing and talking about.

Yeah, I think that I will, when I have a little more time, actually go to a movie theater and sit down and watch it. I'm thinking of it because isn't Gangs of New York also Scorsese?

Is it? I don't know that. I'm not sure. Again, I haven't seen it. I remember it was much Ballyhooed.

I thought it was pretty good. I did. But anyway, this building that we were in was basically from that era of New York, meaning every time a breeze moved through every single piece of like 150 year old wood went like the whole building was just wheezing and there was not one wall that was square there was not one floor that was level like it's a miracle some of those places are even standing in new york city i love that yeah it is scorsese by the way um and it is andrew amy roribach of seattle washington who's the next person on our list to thank for martin scorsese of donating to tbtl did you see that amy had left a map i don't know if you would

have access to this but she sent in a uh note with her donation that said please more meatball talk if you could more dream i did see that actually you think that i brought up meatballs accidentally

today no everything is done for a purpose didn't you see in my show sheet the note this is for amy exactly it's paid pay to play over here yes it sure is thanks also to nicole hampton of portland oregon i don't know if it's just because of my proximity to portland that i notice it more but i wonder if because of me living in portland and working in portland and now me being close to portland i feel like we've developed a decent relationship with that city i I feel like I'm seeing more folks from Portland as I read this list this year than in years past.

My relationship is still somewhat rocky. That is not on Nicole. No, I mean, it could be a live wire effect.

It also just could be that because I think about Portland a lot. Now I just notice it more like that, you know, phenomenon. When you get a certain kind of car, you start noticing that car everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure.

But, yeah, a lot of Portland representing, and we appreciate it.

Nicole, what kind of car do you drive? That's what I want to know. It's getting weird. Chelsea Neal is in Seattle, Washington. Do you feel like we're getting a lot of donors from Seattle, Washington now that you're living there?

A lot of people are saying, what happened to that old imaginary pizza hut that used to be in the heart of downtown Seattle that Andrew once saw in a dream?

Can you get Eater to write an article about an imaginary pizza hut? Possibly. Thank you to all of our donors. We could not do the show without you. hello and welcome to top story all right what were you gonna say i'm so glad you remembered okay so

one more thing on this charles e cheese charles entertainment cheese yes entertainment put some respect on his e i'm not sure which of these stories came out first and this is just this is a half-baked theory i have luke i'd like your take on it i know nothing about business as we are quickly learning um since we took the show independent but i saw a headline before i saw your press release about the new food options of chuck e cheese i had seen a headline like the day before that said chuck e cheese is looking for a new buyer they're like basically essentially i don't know how this stuff works but they're looking for like a one billion dollar sale of their company it's not clear that anybody is actually like kind of you know you know taking debate on that yet but do you think that this is a coincidence do you think that like those parts of the business are a little bit like separate like you had some people some some imagine rats uh somewhere like um thinking like we need to expand the menu and this is what we do and the business sided rats are like well we're also trying to sell the company or do you think that they're trying to expand what the brand of chucky cheese could be as they try to make it more um kind of like appealing to possible buyers great question i mean that is the weird thing about

business in america when you hear about like a company that's having all kinds of financial trouble and they're in free fall maybe they're insolvent in some way they're looking for a buyer and they're also buying they're also stocking up on korean barbecue sauce they're also hiring a pr firm to try to like it's i i don't know the answer to that actually because i you know it seems like it seems like things have been kind of tough over there for a while so are they is this is this spiffing is this trying to spiff up the brand so as to be more appealing and is this really the problem are there have there been a lot of um you know companies that would acquire them but they're like there's just not enough adult they just haven't bought three more ingredients for the pizza yet and and once they do that then this will be a really attractive company to acquire

Well, and if I take it a step further, again, with all the caveats that I'm just sort of thinking out loud here and I don't know shit about this shit. But what I have seen lately in this in this stage of American capitalism with legacy brands is early stage capitalism. Right. Isn't that where we're at? Yeah, I think so. Everything's going great. a lot of a lot of equality equity um no but i was gonna say you know we see the bed bath and beyond model or the radio shack model right where it's like these brands still have some value and if the company you know because i think chucky cheese went bankrupt like several years like during the pandemic or something right uh and so like i could see them trying to make it appealing where somebody just buys the brand of Chuck E. Cheese but then, like, kind of, like, sort of reinvents it but lazily so because, like, well, we now, you know, some, what do you call it? equity firm can buy it and then it becomes like maybe even more of a nostalgia thing for like you know adults go there and they eat shitty pizza and they play whack-a-mole or something I mean I don't know I can just sort of see the Chuck E. Cheese being like we want out of this I'm sorry Charles E. Cheese saying I want out of this business and some you know this brand that we've built up over the years has enough value to it for somebody to take it and just bastardize it

Well, that's what it's like mining, right? In that you, you know, somebody goes to the work to like, you know, do this exploration and kind of like go in and get out all of the whatever is valuable out of this mine. And then eventually they're like, well, it's mined out. We can't get anything more of value. And then someone else comes in and goes, actually, there's still a little bit left. And if we go in there and if we're just especially harsh with the environment and our employees and we can get a little more out of this. And then someone else comes along. I remember being in Northern California once on a TV story and finding these mines, these kind of small little mines like a person would run. and basically after they had been mined out these like folks that had come over from china or been brought over from china would go through and they would re-mine they would figure out there's still something to be extracted from this and these equity companies it feels like they're going to go into chuck e cheese and like you said if they do acquire it they're just going to like figure is there anything else we can still extract from this it never gets better for the company in question it's never it's like it by the way it's like what happened with the website deadspin now those folks have ended up at defector where we're currently being promoted andrew on one of their hit podcasts like i guess my point is there's a there's a death spiral for a company and bed bath and beyond is you know in that or they went through it where yeah somebody just kind like there's a little bit left to be extracted from this thing there's a tiny bit left in this natural resource but no one's ever going to come in and go like you know we should do is actually invest a ton in here and turn this into an eco tourism spa like and really really revive it that's why i was so fascinated with how minimal the addition to the menu was to make it an adult friendly menu because that's like a company that has no money to really do anything they're not like guess what uh we're gonna actually like have a whole new menu and we're gonna like hire a new chef and it's not even gonna be pizza anymore it's gonna be meatballs it's gonna be chuck e cheese meatballs we're gonna wash all of the the balls you jump in they're actually gonna be meatballs you can actually jump in and eat your way out from the bottom like they're not doing anything significant here they're just trying to get some earned media on pr newswire and here on livewire tbtl what do we call this show oh my gosh that was that was the you know what's amazing i'm I'm always worried when I'm on stage that I'm going to call LiveWare TBTL and here I just called TBTL LiveWare which plays to I think a lot of your a lot of your what would I say concerns about how asymmetric the promotional strategy is

can I just mention were you done with your point there because I just thought

I wasn't even making a point I was just kind of

rambling around well I mean you created an image of me diving into a pit of meatballs and eating my way out which is both

disturbing and intriguing which I also would do right now that's how hungry

Yeah. But another example I meant to throw in there, which sort of opens up a whole nother box of meatballs for us. And I'm not trying to derail the show today, but it was a story that sort of fits into this. What I'm talking about, about brand legacy, that would have been sort of interesting when it was more in the news. But did you follow that thing where Sports Illustrated, which is just I mean, to call it a shell of its former self gives is an insult to shells.

i mean you know there are some actually very nice shelves out there are like conks those are great

no but anyway so sports illustrated which is you know again another example of like a legacy brand that you know was like kind of purchased maybe even repurchased i don't even know um and the you know just gutted as a journalistic institution um but it's not even the complaint of like the early to mid 2000s where they've hired a bunch of young people for their first jobs out of journalism school to like rewrite an Instagram post or something and try to make hay out of it they apparently did you follow this were creating fake writers using artificial intelligence that were writing fake stories and I can't remember I did see that headline but I mean this is a legit story like somebody basically did investigative journalism when they looked at like some of the bios of the supposed writers at SI and they're like this looks like an AI generated headshot and the description of this is a this is a few weeks ago it was some guy named like chunt bradley probably right and and and then like sports illustrated hasn't admitted to it but the second it was called out in the media they scrapped like they pulled these bradley is no longer part of the sports illustrated they just pulled it all from the website

We didn't do that, and it's just like all gone out. They don't even care enough to like lie well about it. How much of that were you following?

I just only saw a headline that – I thought that they were actually being upfront about it. Like I thought it was like a story where like Sports Illustrated is testing this. I didn't realize they got caught trying to pass this off on people. But like, oh, God, what a dark – that hits me particularly hard because as I have told the story many, many times, like i subscribed as a kid like i was i probably wasn't even allowed to sign up for sports illustrated but during one of my unschooled years where i would just be sitting around watching daytime television or something i'd see those ads and you know i called in or sent off some mailer and started getting sports illustrated delivered to our house um i wanted to get the football phone i don't think they were even doing the football phone i think i just got this copy of a vhs tape Jonathan Winters doing sports comedy right yeah I didn't get any of it it was so over I don't well because it wasn't for 11 year olds and but I but I just loved Sports Illustrated it was such a big thing and I would read it you know cover to cover and and and so that just that one hits me hard because that was something that I actually really engaged with as a physical product so to hear that they're at the point where they're not only probably I mean are they mailing out like can you buy a Sports Illustrated you know magazine is it a

physical magazine anymore i wonder i don't know for sure my guess is no i don't think that they're printing anything like i said i think they are just like a floating idea of what sports illustrated used to be like on the they're just floating on the on the mists of time i don't know why i'm you know what i started reading a neil gaiman thing yesterday sorry about that um but anyway yeah so and also like my the reason i think i probably know about the story or the first place i heard is is one of the um producers on the lebitard show and like kind of hosts or whatever somebody who has a lot of air time she used to write for sports illustrated during and i wouldn't say during its heyday she's too young for that but while it still was real journalism and she takes pride in being a real journalist and like that's the thing sports illustrated i mean throughout the years i don't think we need to say this but like was like it was an that was the era of real journalism it was sports and yes there was things like the football phones and the swimsuit issues but But there were also like some it was it was sports news that was covered by a sports entity that also wasn't like airing the games, you know, like so much sports news comes from ESPN right now. Well, ESPN is also, you know, has contracts with the teams that they're covering, you know, in Sports Illustrated. I mean, that's good. Even if you don't care about sports, a lot of those stories are important to the general world. And just, you know, the the the the pride that former employees of SI used to have. Like you're saying that as somebody as a kid who appreciated it. Imagine like somebody who actually broke important news there at one point and just seeing that that name carries on when the product is nothing even close to what it used to be.

Yeah, this is a headline from Vanity Fair piece by Tom Clute. This was literally came out yesterday. Quote, the worst that it's ever been inside Sports Illustrated's winter of discontent. OK. And just in scanning, it looks like they do put out 12 print. editions a year they used to put out 50 now it's 12 and they have no full time photographers which I want to say why do I do this Andrew I think there was a guy named Walter Luce Jr or maybe it was I used to just read it but there was a Sports Illustrated photographer that was so famous that I felt like I knew his name as a kid because sports illustrated was the writing but then the photography these action shots it was amazing the idea that this magazine would have no i mean and you know there are lots of freelancers and folks that can take great pictures but the idea that there is no longer the dedicated uh the the permanent photographic staff or photography staff is really a bummer too because that would seriously like um that was a big part of uh sports illustrated back in the day you did a good job on

that by the way it's i believe it's a capital i o o s s so i don't know how to pronounce that either but i use i guess walter i use jr yeah sports illustrated photographer i mean i was

like a 12 year old kid who could have told you that there's a dude named walter i use jr oh you know why because he took a lot of pictures of jordan i'm looking because that was my number one obsession in life was these photographs of jordan that this guy took oh my god i'm on his

website right now i could eat these photos we both need to get some food

there's a right way to rock and a wrong way to roll you can't just listen to your soul just

Just remember that life is number one. You can be having so much fun. Just remember that life is much fun. You can be number one.

All right, let's do some Blursdays here. The first one is for our friend AJ out in Norfolk. I know you love saying that, Luke. I sure do.

They just want you to be normal, and clearly you're not. They just want you to be Norfolk, and clearly you're not.

This is from Brad. It says, happy early 50th to AJ and Norfolk from your in-law, Brad, and nephew, Nolan. We wish we could be there to celebrate with you like a 10-year-old, but we'll be thinking of you on the 27th, and we will extend the celebration into the new year. Happy Blur's Day, AJ.

First of all, you must wear pants for this. Eh.

Negotiable. Jonas says, last year I sent an email for Blur's Days about my mom's birthday. Her name is Mia. I remember this. I think Jonas even reached out to me ahead of time to ask how to do that. But Jonas says here, it caused a lot of stir within my family. And my younger brothers were annoyed that they did not get a chance to email you first. So this year, my mom reminded everyone about Blur's Days, and I decided to sit back and let someone else get the credit. But this did not happen. nice this did not happen so i am emailing you to please wish my mom mia a happy birthday so i like this because this is a happy birthday to mia from you know from jonas's heart however i see it's also a way of burying jonas's brothers here a little bit well exactly because basically what

happened was they were like hey what gives you're getting all this cred with mom for for remembering to send in a Blur's Day message to this weird podcast that mostly talks about meatballs. And then, is it Jonas, you said? Jonas, yeah. Jonas was like, all right, well, you know what, fine. I'll step back and let you all do it. And then, this always happens. Nobody did it. Nope. So now Jonas had to do it.

It is political correctness to run amok.

And so, Jonas, tip of the cap, and also a wag of the finger to your siblings for not stepping up to the plate for Mia.

And a wag of the Blur's Day to Mia. Happy Blur's Day, Mia. I don't want to let the negativity get in the way of that. No, no, no.

Let's focus on the positivity. But your family is falling apart. And also, we now know why Jonas is. I hate to be a gossip. Just kidding.

I love it. Jonas is the fave. Oscar says, happy Blur's Day to Brooke or mom from Oscar. Brooke has recently started. By the way, Oscar will be making. Oh, my God. He unmuted. This is not a spoiler. It is a forward promotion Oscar. Appetizer. That's right. Like the meatballs you're about to eat. Oscar made a wonderful Star Wars related quiz for the games that we'll be getting to in a couple of weeks. And Oscar called in during the TV telethon. Oscar is, I think, 11 years old. And Oscar says, Brooke. See, Oscar is not calling Brooke mom here for our sake. And Oscar says, Brooke has recently started a new job, is doing amazing at it. She has been an amazing mother to me and Arthur all 11 years of my life.

She is turning 46.

I am extraordinary. Brooke is fearless, cooperative, and fun for a mother. Mom, I hope you have an amazing birthday. I was transported here against my will in a meatball. You have more meatball drops than I thought.

I think that, yeah, one is. Is that exhausted? That was pretty much it for Meatballs. But that's, I mean, gosh, Oscar, what a prepossessed young person Oscar is, right? Multimedia super stuck. Prepossessed correctly. I just mean like very mature, very with it, very smart. I agree.

Thanks, Oscar, and happy Blurs Day to Brooke. Andrea, or possibly Andrea, says happy, oh, I already messed it up. Sorry. very happy 15th blurs day to my five turn 10 herschel and a very happy 15 oh fabulous i have a typo in here that's my fault it's a 15th blurs day happy 15th herschel i am so proud of you and the young man you are i have enjoyed traveling the world and the country with you and seeing the person you are becoming you're smart kind generous and hard-working i couldn't have asked for a better son thank you for being the fabulous person you are luke i'm gonna go out on a limb here i could be wrong about this but i'm pretty sure that andrea and herschel uh travel the world in an rv i think wow yeah and listen to tv one other thing about herschel that you can't forget

he was king of the tuck tuck sound oh i remember that yeah right by the way i misused pre-possessed this is good i this is blurs days but it's also a

time for me to learn to be influenced beforehand, especially favorably. So prepossessed to preoccupy or engross mentally. So to become, I guess, very fixated on something or to influence in advance for or against a person to prejudice or bias something. So maybe I could prepossess you against the meatball mania until you actually looked at the photos from the restaurant. And then you thought, Oh, these are yummy. I thought prepossessed meant like you're just very like you're precocious. Precocious is the word. I couldn't think of the word. But I definitely said prepossessed before meaning precocious. So this was... Thank you, Oscar, for helping me learn that I've been using prepossessed incorrectly all of these years.

Wanted to add a few comments regarding your mole situation. And happy Blur's Day to Herschel. Finally, Laura says, And by the way, Lars in Durham, North Carolina, would like to wish a happy literal blurs day. This one came in just under the wire this morning, by the way. Happy literal blurs day to our newborn baby, Quentin. We love him so much. And he has already listened to some TBTL while getting his diaper changed. You want to hit that again? Aw.

Come on. That's so cute.

I thought we were going to hit stinky again with the diaper. No, Andrew.

You're missing your sensitivity meter.

How dare you? No, that one was better. Happy birthday also to my husband and 10.75 William, who is the most kind, smart, and supportive partner and best dad to Quentin. Hey, congratulations, guys.

What's name do we know the baby's name? Quentin. Oh, Quentin, question. When was the last time you shit your pants?

Probably not all that long ago.

Okay.

During these Blur's Day messages. Exactly. Well, I've done the same, so there you go. Happy Blur's Day to everybody. You're among friends, Quentin. Yes, and congratulations. And by the way, we will be doing blurs days the next two weeks. So, you know, I know that some people were trying to get their blurs days in before the winter games, but we'll be doing blurs days on Friday. So I'm thinking about calling them like, whoa, blurs days, like maybe it'll be flurs days. So, yeah, don't you know, if you have some birthday wishes to share, don't wait. Go ahead and send them in to us. Andrew at tbtail.net is the email.

That's right. All right. Thank you so much, everyone, for listening today. We are going to be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for you. So please do join us for the Friday edition of the program. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

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.

Power out.