Muse

Hi Luke and Andrew. My name is Rockwell and I really, really like this show. So once I was just thinking about TVTL and food, then BAM! I came up with a TVTL sandwich made of tomato, bacon, turkey, and lettuce. I hope you mention it in the show. No mountain too tall, and good luck to all.

TVTL!

who do you see when you look in the mirror daffy duck i have a picture of him taped to my mirror okay what do you see next to daffy duck ryan gosling i'm the king of the castle and you're the dirty rascal crash into me crash into me well if it makes you feel better i'd rather be up here with you than down there with those teenage people with their memes and their hashtags and

Drake. Drakes. We'll walk that fine line between cutting-edge irreverence and trouble with the Federal Communications Commission. Watch out for that first step. It's a doozy.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. My name is Luke Burbank, safely back here at the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia. God, what a whirlwind. What an absolute whirlwind as we arrive at episode 4,107 in a collector's series, another edition of the TBTL Winter Games. And right over there is my number one compadre, Mr. Andrew Walsh. Can you believe that show that we recorded with me in Germany yesterday?

I can't believe we're still speaking to each other.

Yeah, I did some thinking overnight. I did some careful reflection. I visited a church or two here in, or there, sorry, there in Frankfurt, Germany, where I definitely was yesterday and where I'm definitely not today, and decided that we should mend the friendship, Andrew.

Germany changed you, Luke, in so many ways. You're referring to a trunk as a Das Boot now. I just came up with that. I was trying to figure out how to make boot more German. You throw a Das in front of it, and you have, have you ever seen Das Boot, by the way?

My knowledge of Das Boot is isolated, or I should say confined to Corky Sinclair, the character played by Christopher Guest in the kind of sort of prologue. Is the prologue at the end? No. Okay. Prologue comes first. What's the part at the end? Epilogue? Epilogue. the epilogue of Waiting for Guffman where Corky has moved to New York City and he has his store and he's got his Andrew McCarthy big heads. He calls them his big heads. He's got his Das Boot lunchboxes. It's not Remains of the Day lunchboxes? It Remains of the Day lunchboxes. What does he have from Das Boot?

I don't remember Das Boot being in there, but you've seen that movie way more than I have.

He talks about Das Boot for some reason. He goes, and he's like, you know, all those men trapped in that submarine. Muck, muck, muck, muck. I don't speak German.

Oh, that's right. His impression of German is muck, muck, muck, muck. I do remember that.

That's what I know about Das Boot is that it's German and there's a submarine involved.

Yes, there is a submarine.

By the way, I can only be saying this to you because I'm no longer in Germany now, Andrew. I wouldn't dare mess around with this when I was in Frankfurt.

No. I rented it one time when we still rented video cassettes. And so this would have been like in New Hampshire like 20 years ago. because it is I felt like it was a classic movie that people should see I mean I don't know why people should see movies but at that time in my life I was trying to see the big important movies yeah and uh I was so disappointed to see that it was overdubbed into English and I was just like give me the subtitles or give me death which I agree was an overreaction if that's what you're thinking that was Patrick Henry that's right um but uh anyway so I uh I was disappointed that I found it so distracting that I took it back and I'm like, someday I'll find this with subtitles and I never really, never tried. I don't know that it's, I don't know if that's an era

of filmmaking. It's definitely a filmmaker's movie. By that I mean, it's a movie that if you're somebody who considers yourself a cinephile or a sin-ast you might, you know, I've heard the people that have recommended, oh, you've got to see Das Boot, are the same kind of people that, to pull from The Simpsons, are sitting in like the Harvard Exit Movie Theater eating an apple during a film. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but the reason they might say that is I'm just on the wikipedia page is that The movie depicts both the excitement and of the battle and the tedium of the fruitless hunt and shows men serving aboard U-boats as ordinary individuals with a desire to do the best for their comrades in their country So I my guess would be having not seen this that that kind of sort of tedium the like the real moments the quote-unquote real moments that these folks are experiencing, that's the part that's arty and that they, you know, it's not just like... It's not just the Hunt for Red October where you've just got a submarine cat and mouse game, but maybe more just like the idea that you would you would take this this big flashy thing, submarines, and then you would go, yeah, but what's the lived experience of someone who's just trying to get through a boring afternoon on that submarine? That's got the mark of art.

I think there are people who would argue and I'm trying to think if I've heard somebody argue this, like maybe you or Genevieve, that the best part of the movie Jaws is not the action at all. It's the scene where they're getting drunk in the boat and just like trading stories about the scars on their bodies. Yeah, exactly. And so you're sort of like that is again, that's sort of like the tedium, the time in between moments. Right. Where the real soul of the movie lives.

I'm confused, though, about I guess it was it was released in 1981. I'm confused about the budget here because it says that the budget for the movie was 32 million, I think, Deutschmarks, which is equivalent to 34 million euro in 2021. First of all, when I saw 32 million, I thought that's a lot of money for a movie in 1981, but that's Deutschmarks. But they're saying that's equivalent to 34 million euro in 2021, which we'll call right now. So, I mean, that seems very low to me

Yeah, because the exchange rate between the US dollar and the euro

Well, let's just say, I think the euro might be worth a little more than the dollar right now

But it's very close to being one

Yeah, let's call it 35 million US That's like saying you made this movie for the equivalent of 2021 dollars of 35 million US

Yeah, that doesn't seem right at all I don't know Especially if you have to be on a submarine

I should stop getting all my information from Wikipedia Yeah, but I, alas, I will continue to do that for the foreseeable future, my friend.

I'm watching the trailer now. It's a little, oh, did they, oh, they remade it. I was like, this is way more clean and modern looking than I thought. This looks like they've remade Das Boot for Hulu.

You're like, why is Liam Hemsworth in it? How was he even born then?

Is he in that? Did you know about this remake? No, that's just a joke of a person who'd be in the Das Boot. He probably is, yeah, or Chalamet. You know, that reminds me. Chabladoo? I don't know if we've talked about this on the show. But they remade, I don't know, somewhat recently in the past several months and released Fall of the House of Usher, which was an old like one of those Vincent Price movies that I used to watch during the big Chuck and Little John Saturday afternoon movies growing up in the 80s. And like that was the I knew the original from that, like where every scene was just like so slow and boring and looked like a painting that only moved a little bit. You know what I mean? But I remember watching Fall of the House of Usher and the end of it scaring the hell out of me as a kid. And I've been seeing promos for the new reboot of it. It doesn't make me want to watch the reboot. It makes me want to go back and watch the original, although I have a feeling it won't have the same impact on me as it did when I was a little kid. And it was scared. The only thing I remember is obviously it's a very big, you know, mansion or something that's very scary. And as the action sort of heats up as much as it can in an old movie like that, it happens in the basement, I believe. Like, I remember them going down these stairs into this basement and maybe even carrying a coffin down into the basement. Do you have any connection to this movie at all?

No, I think I maybe heard the name at some point, but I couldn't. Before they rebooted it, before they dos-booted it, and I think I maybe read one thing about the reboot. I couldn't have told you what House of Usher even meant.

Would you say that it's too fresh to call today's show Das Boot It and Das Toot It? No, too fresh. That's okay.

Oh, you mean like to, no way. Okay. I love it. Now, can I quickly, though, speaking of which, can I play you this scene from Waiting for Guffman? I'm playing this just from YouTube. I haven't previewed it. I don't know. but this is 27 seconds, and it's allegedly the Das Boot moment that I was trying to refer to. Here we go.

I'm trying to get, it's very rare, the one, the action figures for Das Boot, because I love to do that whole, you know, kind of claustrophobic thing inside the sub, where they're, you know, das Kanda, das Mustensteh, you know, that whole German thing. I can't speak German, but it sounds like, you know, sort of a bunch of barnyard animals,

you know making that noise and sweating sweating now let me ask you this i remember that epilogue scene from the movie but they also you mean prologue released um uh like extra footage down the is this extra footage is this something that was cut or did you think this appeared in

that little that's in the original credits to my memory you would yeah like you know the movie ends And then it's sort of like As they're flashing the credits They're showing, like I said The kind of, you know Corky has landed in New York He's got his little store And he's kind of

showing off these Bizarro Lake items that he sells. I sort of remember that all being, because again, that was literally how I heard that there was something called Das Boot.

Yeah, right. And also you just saw My Dinner with Andre for the first time, because that's what I'm surprised about is that he's talking about two different action figures because I know that he talks about action figures for My Dinner with Andre, right?

Yes, these are the My Dinner with Andre action figures. You can always get a reservation. You can always get a reservation.

Yeah, exactly.

And the joke there is that there's no action in the movie, so what are the action figures?

Exactly. Speaking of TV and Hulu and Netflix reboots, et cetera, that actually dovetails nicely into our quiz today. When I say our quiz, I mean my quiz, because you're going to be giving me this quiz. Oh, really? Oh, indeed. It comes from Megan Megan Megan in Wallenford, who says, here's a game inviting you to identify the differences between Jack Reacher, Jack Ryan and Joe Pickett. All three currently have series on Amazon Prime. All three have long running book series. Can you tell who is who? Now, I've read some of the Jack Reacher books. I've probably read a Jack Ryan book. I mean, speaking of A Hunt for Red October, that's a Jack Ryan joint. And do you remember when Genevieve came on the show and tried to sort out for us the differences between Jack Ryan, Jack Reacher, and Joe Pickett? This is new to me. I don't even know Joe Pickett.

Yeah, I don't know what a Joe Pickett is.

I don't know either. But I looked it up, I think, a couple of days ago, and it's like a Western, I believe, but still based on a series of sort of pulpy books like the Jack Reacher series.

I see. Now, I'm surprised you didn't want to give me this quiz because you at least, if you've read Jack Reacher, that puts you, to use a Joe Pickett line, that puts you a far sight ahead of me as far as guessing on these things.

You're already quoting Joe Pickett. Well, that's why I thought it would be slightly more interesting because, like, I would have. You might actually get some of them, right? I might. You know, it's not totally guessing for me, but I'm not super familiar with any of them. I would guess that I will probably do best on Jack Reacher related stuff, but I'm not sure. And Jack Ryan, of course, is the character from the Clancy novels, Tom Clancy novels. Yeah. And Joe Pickett, like I say, I think that's some sort of a Western situation.

I think he was the sixth member of the Eagles. Joe Pickett?

Oh, right, right, right, right. And he played with ELO sometimes? Occasionally, yes. Yeah, right. Okay, gotcha. All right, so you're going to give me this quiz.

Okay. Jack versus Jack versus Joe. Okay. Classic Triple J situation. Yes, exactly. He is described in the books Again, I feel like this is already playing right to your strengths He is described in the books as 6'5", 225 With hands the size of dinner plates

Yeah, see, this is Okay, admittedly, this is an easy one I don't think they're all going to be easy for me

We're just starting you off easy, that's okay

But, yeah, that is something that Genevieve and I complain about The Jack Reacher movies not matching the description in the book Because Jack Reacher is a beast of a man But then played, I believe, by Tom Cruise a talented actor, but a smaller individual. But I believe that description you just read is describing Jack Reacher.

That is describing Jack Reacher. Nice. I can ding my own bell. But so, wait, okay, so but then the Jack Reacher TV show, he does have hands the size of dinner plates. I believe in the movies. That's a massive dude. When I was in L.A., I kept seeing billboards for Jack Reacher, and I was like, did he just get stung by a bunch of bees? What is going on?

That they fixed it for the TV show because, again, the Tom Cruise thing, that's a bit of a miss. I mean, listen, you can get Tom Cruise for your franchise, get Tom Cruise for your franchise. I'm not saying it was a bad business decision, but from an artistic standpoint, that is just not who Jack Reacher is, a small guy like that. Jack Reacher was huge, and he was a sniper. He has very good sniper skills. If that's a question later, you can skip it.

I do actually think that might be the one time you don't get Tom Cruise. Although, I guess if the Jack Reacher films that he was in made a bunch of money, then they made the right call. But to me, it's like if one of the fundamental qualities of the character is that they're enormous, you find a different project for Tom Cruise. I'm trying to think of another example. It's like, sure, Tom Cruise might want to star in a reboot of Dumbo, But he's not a flying elephant

No it's true you gotta cast a flying elephant for that

Right so alright Okay I got that off my chest thankfully And by the way you're one for one

Well it does make me think like Because I'm so bad with knowing celebrities I'm trying to think like who would be Like if Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't Was the proper age you'd picture Somebody more like that

Well Dave Bautista

Sure yes great you just got another point

Thank you Jack versus Jack versus Joe Should have been Dave All right, question number two. He has been played by Alec Baldwin.

Baldwin in a movie. Jack Ryan. Ding, ding, ding. Hunt for Red October. We were just talking about the Hunt for Red October. Yeah, exactly. Sorry, that was a little loud. I want to apologize to everyone's eardrums for that. But yes, you're absolutely right. That is Jack Ryan. Okay. These are going to get harder, I bet. this is so boring but like what i did to get these answers was i basically failed the entire quiz in the in the interest of of being quick about it i just hit submit which meant i got every single one wrong so it means when i'm reading you the answer the quiz thinks i failed yeah so last one it was like sorry jack reacher is enormous and has been since childhood jack ryan and joe pickett are more like average guys and then he's been played by alec baldwin in a movie. You were correct. You said Jack Ryan. My answer, sorry. Alec Baldwin played Jack Ryan in the first and greatest Ryan movie, The Hunt for Red October. Oh, I didn't know that was the first

of the Jack Ryan movies. That I find very surprising. I would have thought it was Patriot

games. Get down. That was the only Clancy I've ever read is The Hunt for Red October. I don't think I've read any Clancy. Okay. He has been played. This is question number three. You are two for two my friend He has been played by Tom Cruise In a movie

That it It's Jack Reacher

It is Jack Reacher Sorry Jack Reacher is a 6'5 giant Tom Cruise claims to be 5'8 But most people think he is 5'6 I love your joke That Tom Cruise does his own acting But I will tell you that I did see This I'm sure came up At the time on the show But for whatever the latest Mission Impossible movie is, he did a deal where he drove a motorcycle and he jumped off of a like a motorcycle jump ramp over some sort of like, you know, whatever the Grand Canyon is of Moldova and then Sky Dove. And I will be totally honest with you. That is one of those things that even though we're all tired of hearing about Tom Cruise doing his own stunts and even though it's just like we get it already. That's scary as shit. Like I don't care that you have a you have a you know your trained skydiver now your Tom Cruise I don't care that you have a parachute on your back. I would something inside me would lock up Like no matter how much I had practiced no matter how much I told myself This is the same as skydiving like your Tom Cruise you've jumped out of many airplanes making these movies This is just like that except the difference is you're not jumping out of an airplane You're just going off of a jump on a motorcycle and you're separating from the motorcycle something about I feel like I could jump out of an airplane What I could not do is drive a motorcycle off of a jump over a chasm and then let go of the motorcycle. That would be too much for me.

Okay, but let me ask you this, and this is going to sound defensive, and I don't mean it to be defensive. It's an actual question that I am pondering over here on my end. Does it make the movie better? I haven't seen the movie. Not having to have a stunt double definitely from a filmmaking perspective gives you the opportunity to do more things.

so that although I do believe that this person I can't remember my memory is he was wearing a helmet I don't think he was there's no way Tom Cruise is doing the stunt but they have him

wearing a helmet because then he could just be a stunt right and so so I have sat through I shouldn't say sat through that's a wrong way of putting it I but I have I am not very well versed on let's say the Mission Impossible universe having said that I've watched several of them in the theater with Genevieve um she's I believe a completist I think she's seen them all or at least up until like the latest one they divided into two movies for some reason I think it's like Mission Impossible part seven part one or something like that um but anyway um but like I've seen some of these movies and like I'm just never sitting there thinking oh man he's doing that himself or even like and it's not live anyway like it sort of just sort of feels like it's a way of getting the studios to fund Tom Cruise's desire to do daring do stuff like I'm sure it is like free solo or whatever right which maybe there's no it's also his own money I think he funds a lot of stuff he's a producer these days so like I don't know I don't have like I don't have a problem

with it I just don't know that I appreciate it at all I'm with you that like the last one I saw he's flying a helicopter and then the helicopter keeps like crashing and then sliding down a mountain there's a lot going on um i agree with you that it doesn't necessarily improve the viewing experience for me um in fact you could even argue it might take yourself out of it take you out of it a little bit because instead of seeing jack wait is he being who is he being a mission apostle

he's none of these people no he's none of these people he's joe pickett no i don't know who he is

he's cody pickett one time washington husky quarterback who had also done rodeo and call And for a period of time, I had the most...

think yards ever for a u-dub quarterback before like michael pennix jr can you imagine a college coach allowing their quarterback to also i think he did it before he got into uh i think he was from idaho and in like high school he did a lot of rodeo or something but like what i was going to say is it almost takes you out of it a little bit because instead of watching the character you're thinking this is the actor tom cruise this is yeah noted scientologist tom cruise flying this this this um helicopter that being said all i was saying was take out whatever the kind of like if it helps the movie or hurts the movie or whatever just the very simple fact that anyone including tom cruise i'm talking anybody on planet earth is capable of getting their mind into the place where they can drive down this pretty long like you know path or ramp and then go off of one of those almost like ski jump looking things out over into space out into a chasm with a parachute on their back then let the that the motorcycle go and then pull the ripcord on the parachute the fact that any human being on planet earth can their body will allow them to do that is shocking to me and i don't think of myself as an overly timid person that would i would i would lock up i could not do that i could i mean not the

parachute part or the motorcycle part or the speed part, but definitely the craft services table. You know, you are a motorcycle

guy. You are a dirt bike guy.

If I had had my druthers, I would be... I mean, I had this thought the other day. I'm now closer to 50 than I am any of the other big ages. I'm closer to 50 than 40 by quite a bit now. I guess I'm just not going to be a motorcycle guy. Like, growing up, that would have surprised me, like a dirt bike guy, because dirt bikes were such a part of, like, our culture. Like, I had a little dirt bike when I was a kid. My dad had a big dirt bike. He has a screw in his shoulder still because he tipped his bike going up a mountain. No, I actually think that one happened in the backyard. But, like, he used to literally. I think you're thinking of Rick Riz. My dad used to ride dirt bikes up, like, pretty, like, steep things. And if you paused at all, your bike would tip over backwards. You would have to keep going. Like, we kind of, you know, grew up with this kind of dirtbag element of living in the country that I really liked. And I love dirt bikes. I love the smell of it. But, I mean, I haven't been on a dirt bike since I was probably 14 years old at the latest.

I am not willing. Nay, I won't have it, Andrew. I will not have you giving up on your dirt bike dreams. My dirt bike dreams. My dirtbag dreams. Yes. Because I'm just a teenage dirt bike, baby. um i i still think that could happen for you maybe i don't i mean i'm kind of fragile well there is that and also it is a recipe for getting hurt yeah it really is that's the funny part is that i am i i would say i'm generally a person who doesn't put enough thought into like what are the physical implications of this thing but that's one whether it's atvs or dirt bikes or any of that stuff again because i didn't grow up in that world those are ones particularly atvs that i'm just like you're asking for trouble with those things you're going up these are so tricky

too like you like you know like you hear about people like rick riz and so many others and oh i'm sorry did you just say this who was the um who was the uh i did say rick riz i didn't say

who the seahawks yeah first round draft pick malik something that wasn't mcdowell was it

man malik mcdowell look at that mcdowell yeah teamwork makes the dream work that's right half of the name gets into these atv accidents and then that like you know it almost threatens their life

And that's one like, you know, Malik McDowell was doing his own stunts.

That would be a funny tweet if Twitter still existed. Does all of his own stunt anyway? Like, it's just funny. Like when you're more of a dirt bike person, not that I'm claiming to be, but like you think, OK, well, you're on two wheels. You got to keep your balance and everything. And then you think, well, like, you know, a forerunner or an ATV or whatever, like that's less tricky. But then you just hear about it again. Rick Riz, he's a bit older than me, too. and, like, somehow out with his son going a little bit too fast rolls that thing over top of him, like, certainly.

I mean, the sense I get is part of why the ATV or those quads are so dangerous is because, first of all, they feel stable because you've got four tires, but also they can very easily roll back on you. So, like, if you give too much, you know, you give them too much gas, if you boot them in the ass too hard, to use Bob Walsh's favorite terminology, whereas I would honestly feel safer on a dirt bike personally than on a quad Because the dirt bike thing It wouldn't be great But if it fell on you It's not going to crush you The way

Self-governing And those things are kind of heavy too But yeah It's not going to crush you completely By the way I believe he would say Das boot it in the ass

Right Muck muck muck muck Okay A couple more of these

Oh okay Okay I thought we were wrapping up Yeah why not I like it Okay good Yeah go for one Skip ahead I haven't seen all of these So try to get a challenging one I feel bad here i asked you to give this to me because i thought it would be a challenge and um i feel

like i've i've tricked you into giving me easy ones he is parenthetically was afraid of flying he is and was afraid of flying i'm better at this than i thought that's jack ryan that is jack ryan

i know that from the hunt for red october he doesn't he has to fly out to like an aircraft carrier or something to get close to the submarine and even though like he's the hero of the book and like what is he does he work for the cia or something you know like the the sort of like tough endeavors yet he's scared of flying um who made this quiz again this is megan and walling

megan says um yes a jack ryan's fear of flying is a plot point for the hunt for october i think jumping out of a helicopter into the ocean to get onto a submarine cured him i honestly haven't Kept up with the books.

That's right. He has to do that. Not only does he have to fly, he has to jump out of a helicopter to get to the submarine. Right.

How about this one? He is married to an eye surgeon. Is this a Jack, a Jack, or a Joe?

Interesting. An eye surgeon. Okay. Now, this is one that I actually don't know. So, this is where things get interesting. Jack Reacher is not married. You said married, right? Not dating. He is married to an eye surgeon. Jack Reacher is not married in the first – I think I read the first two books. At least in those, he's not married. He's a bit of a loner, a rambler. A rebel. A rebel. Jack Ryan. Oh, okay. Now, Jack Ryan, I remember from the Get Down movie, Patriot Games, he does have –

It says it's popularly known, the Get Down movie.

Get Down! I believe his wife is a professional of some sort. I don't think that she is a stay-at-home mom, so it could be that. But Joe Pickett, I don't know shit about Joe Pickett. Exactly. But if Joe Pickett is living, I don't know if it's like a modern cowboy movie, a modern Western, or an old-timey Western. If it's an old-timey Western, I don't think they had eye surgeons. I hope not. Like, just bite on this belt while we cut into your eye. That's rough. That's rough stuff. So I'm going to deduce here that it's Jack Ryan's wife.

Wow, very good powers of deduction. Jack Ryan's wife, Kathy, is an eye surgeon. Look at that. I wouldn't have known that. Joe Pickett is also married. Just giving you some free info here. Good to know. Jack Reacher has few romantic entanglements. That's true. But lone drifters aren't known for settling down, writes Megan.

A drifter. That's the word I was looking for, Megan.

How about he is a Wyoming game warden?

that is both jack reacher and jack ryan but definitely not joe pickett no i gotta assume

that that is joe pickett joe pickett is a game warden i know how to pick uh as megan writes okay his name isn't jack but he is also a taciturn leading man okay and is played in the amazon prime

series by tbtl fave michael dorman from patriot oh my gosh michael dormans are like the main character of patriot plays joe pickett this is the first i'm learning this no kidding you know what this explains something andrew i want to watch this now i like explains a lot i've been

seeing a couple clips of him of michael dorman on like tiktok because sometimes they'll just grab bits of content and put it on there it's not from the film company or the tv network it's just like a thing someone decided to put up and i've seen some stuff of michael dorman but not in patriot like you know what I mean I didn't know who the character was it must be him as Joe Pickett that's

that honestly like I'm not really into westerns but like he's so charismatic or sort of almost

magnetic sort of first of all this is produced by my parent company Paramount Plus so I've got a dog I've got a dog on that flight sure yeah I feel very in touch with the Paramount Plus family Andrew because back now a week or two ago when I was filming in Los Angeles with Taylor Tomlin uh the new late night host on cbs we were on the paramount lot and i've never been on a soundstage before but it was crazy it's a big giant empty concrete bunker like with like 150 foot high ceilings that they then built the they build the entire studio in what is that that's not culver where sony is is it no this one's on melrose it's paramount melrose i think i used to pass that i think yeah but i will watch this game warden joe pickett and his family navigate the shifting socio-political climate of a rural town on the verge of economic collapse when a murder victim winds up on joe's doorstep the pickets find themselves embroiled in a larger conspiracy

oh you know it's a dormant project because the headline i'm seeing here is joe pickett canceled at paramount plus after two seasons oh that sounds right that sounds about right

that's a by the way

one of the best that's one of the best reviews of the show that i can possibly think of i mean seriously canceled that means it was doing something interesting which is why people didn't buy into it from a from a larger and also the fact that is it michael dorman's fate to be to never get proper promotion in any of his i feel like it any of his programs can we call stephen conrad and see if he'll come on our show and promote joe pickett he will though he really will we got to figure that out too we got two aces in the hole my friend we've got pd usa on deck and we've got steven conrad on deck two people who we are obsessed with we are a few

days away from the new year 2024 is going to be the year of us having some finally we're gonna

things are going to start happening to us now andrew and by that i mean now

Thank you, baby.

I'm really hoping we've got a couple of Jacks and Joe in this. Or a Pickett. Or a Ryan. Or two Jacks and a, three Jacks and a Jill. That's one of the greatest scenes in Spinal Tap, Spinal Tarp, is when they show up, you know, as their tour gets worse and worse, they're showing up. I've played this audio not that long ago. they show up at a military function i believe at fort lewis washington is where they're allegedly or ostensibly it's like the it's like the officers dance at fort lewis or something or some some sort of military base that i believe is set in washington state and fred willard is their liaison and he's like talking to them about uh uh you know it was you you all are Spinal Tarp? Spinal Tarp? And then they say Spinal Tap. Here we go.

Hochstrat, you are Spinal Tarp? I'm Janine Peckert. Janine? This is Spinal Tap. Spinal Tap, no mistake. I'm Lieutenant Bob Hochstrat. Welcome to Lindbergh Air Force Base. This is your gentleman's first visit to a military facility. Fine, may I start by saying how thrilled we are to have you here. We are such fans of your music and all of your records. I'm not speaking of yours personally, but the whole genre of the rock and roll and some of the exciting things that are happening in music today. And let me explain a bit about what's going on. This is our monthly at-ease weekend. Gives us a chance to kind of let down our hair, although I see you all have a head start. These haircuts wouldn't pass military muster, believe me. Although I shouldn't talk. My hair's getting a little shaggy, too. Better not get too close to you. They'll think I'm part of the band. I'm joking, of course. Shall we go in, and I'll show you around? Walk this way, please.

You aren't familiar. Wait, keep going. Oh, keep going? Okay, sorry. Here's the two jacks and a jill.

Oh, oh, that's why you brought it up. Sorry. Shall we go in, and I'll show you around? walk this way please uh right through here did you ever run into a musical group works out of kansas city calls himself four jacks and a jill they've been at a ramada in there for about 18 months if you're ever in kansas city and you want to hear some good music you might want to drop by i can't believe i cut it off right before the read i forgot why you brought it up this is

well it was a long piece of tape if to the degree that that's fred willard totally improvising like I don't know how many takes they do in movies like that. I don't know if there's, like, what the, like, loose structure is or firm structure is. You know what I mean? But to the degree that that's Fred Willard just riffing Robin Williams style, that's just some of the greatest improv. Are you familiar with an outfit for Jackson and Jill out of Kansas City? They've been playing at a Ramada Inn there for about 18 months. It's just every single detail is so perfect. Kansas City is perfect. Ramada Inn, the length of 18 months. It's like, it's all just perfect.

Now, you and I have not talked about this. Genevieve hipped me to this after these messages a few weeks ago. They're bringing back Spinal Tap in 2024. I hipped you to that on our show, you so-and-so. Did we talk about that on this show, too? I remember Genevieve telling me about it. Genevieve just did it in a very light sort of room.

Do you remember the things Genevieve tells you more than the things I tell you when they're the same?

She whispers them in my ear. How do you feel about it? So it is connected to Rob Breiner, I think, right? And it's all the original folk. So do you trust this project, or are you leery? I don't remember talking to you about it.

I have a little bit of faith in it, or I have higher hopes for it than normal, because it is going to be the same people, and it's not, and this is what I said last time, what they're not doing is like Spinal Tap reboot, where, as far as I know, it's a bunch of young people who are pretending to be, it's like Spinal Tap's grandkids go on tour, And the guys from Spinal Tap have to watch it all happen Like, when they reboot, like, Boy Meets World But they're the parents When they try to make these older shows Current by basically creating a whole different cast And then having a couple of people from the original cast on there That doesn't

didn't seem like it really worked a lot of the time the idea i do think if you put michael mckeon christopher guest and harry shearer you know on the in the same shot and you have them talking about whatever's going on in the characters of spinal tap i think it'll be funny yeah it's my long very

kind of round no i mean that makes sense it's a thoughtful answer i mean i remember how upset you were when they recast ghostbusters with women you were like you're ruining my childhood i remember You were really strong on that.

Go woke, go broke.

That's what your tattoo says.

Yep. Have we thanked any of the donors yet? No. That was a tangent.

We're just getting warmed up.

These are people who've gone woke, but guess what, Andrew? They haven't gone broke. They've been red-pilled to understand that TBTL is 100% listener-supported, That this would not be here A lot of people who haven't been red-pilled They're just like, I guess TBTL just exists Because it does And then other people are like, guess what I've seen the other side And I know that TBTL can only exist Because of Kameon Geyer Of Belfair, Washington Thank you, Kameon Love Belfair That's out near where my kin are That's out kind of, sort of in between Where my folks live, where my sister Hannah lives Belfair, Washington Thanks also to Leah Chiarelli. Leah! Shoreline Washington. Long-time friend of yours, right? Long-time friend of mine. Going all the way back to Haller Lake Preschool.

And sister, I think, of my friend Dom. Cousin? That would make sense. Maybe cousin, sister. Sister.

Sister cousins.

My sister, my cousin, my sister, my cousin. Oh, that was a good joke. Okay, can I tell you about a good joke I came up with the other day that would be perfect in a stand-up set if I did stand-up or if in the hands of somebody who was good at stand-up did this. If somebody said, now I'm going to do my imitation of Jack Nicholson if he were in Chinatown. And then that sort of seems like funny anyway because then it's Jack Nicholson. And then you go, my sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter. But you'd have to do the imitation of him, of course. But, of course, then you have Jack Nicholson playing the Diane – not Diane Keaton. You have him playing the wrong role. Who was the – who played the ingenue in that? Faye Dunaway? Faye Dunaway, rather. You have him play – I just felt like it was a joke.

Is that a line Faye Dunaway says in Chinatown?

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of a huge reveal that I won't get into here. But it's a very –

You can spoil Chinatown. Yeah. I feel like we can be the show that spoils Chinatown.

It's actually – but it's also very, very dark and relates to sexual violence. But, yeah, there is a – Well, Merry Christmas, everyone. hey that's in the rear view mirror we can talk about chinatown spoilers all we want now maybe up until the first um we gotta squeeze it all in but yeah there is a scene and it's one of those yeah whatever and i think somebody's like kind of you know how back in the back in the good old days luke it was often portrayed as somebody hitting a woman in order to get her to clear her head you know that whole that whole good thing i think it's something like that somebody's smacking her and she every time they say who is this person she's saying my sister my daughter my sister my daughter is a pretty huge spoiler and also very dark imagery for me to bring up on the show today my apologies but particularly how do you feel about the joke though how do you feel

solid solid thank you really good um nancy nester albuquerque new mexico her jury is still and rightfully so andrew nancy nester's jury is still out i mean because you think that there's already

a goofy joke that you've already heard that like well he was in chinatown you think that's a joke But then you do Jack Nicholson doing a Faye Dunaway. Like, it works on so many different levels.

It does. It does. Just like Lisa Curry in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, works at so many different jobs to have the resources to support TBTL. And we appreciate that, Lisa. We couldn't be here without you. What about Brenna Cullerton, though, Andrew? All day you've been asking, what about Brenna Cullerton?

How does she feel about my joke and, you know, my budding stand? Are you worried right now that these people are literally going to reject their donations or, like, claw back their donations? They'll never hear it. This is the Winter Games.

The most likely outcome is going, hey, did you guys forget to thank me? No, we didn't. It was during the Winter Games when Andrew goes on his Chinatown riff.

It was so good. People are still talking about it. They'll be talking about it in 2025.

Brenna, thank you from Gig Harbor. Appreciate you. And then LaDawn Townsend is in Kingston, Washington. we've got a good representation of the olympic peninsula of the the sort of across the puget sound west side folks we've got kingston we've got belfair down there we've got gig harbor oh man i don't even want to don't even don't do it burbs don't it's don't do this today after christmas this is not this is not after christmas don't do this the day after the day

after christmas no this is like thursday dude don't do this two days after the day after christmas luke when i see gig harbor i think of our conversation from now many weeks ago about the placement of where cheney stadium is oh yeah and uh lakes cheney stadium uh tacoma and you had said it was in tacoma and i think i said oh i think it's in um gig harbor and it of course is in tacoma that's the official placement of it but um yes i'm just wrong i'm looking at it now good andrew i'm so glad that i didn't come back harder do we ever actually i don't really want to know the answer to this but i'm going to pose it anyway you know how sometimes we'll have like we'll each think something is one way or the other and we'll we'll be kind of like you know i'll think one thing you'll think another thing and then like even if the other person says i think it's this you're like the back of your mind is just itching the back of your brain is itching kind of like what is it should i double check that like when i said that i thought that you had to go across the narrows bridge to get to cheney stadium i have always in my mind pictured incorrectly by the way i guess pictured i've gone across somehow i've gone across the narrows bridge and now i'm rounding a corner and now i'm seeing cheney stadium that is just flat wrong i'm looking at the map if you were coming from gig harbor no but i was but listen the way that i was imagining it this is i was i was wrong the first time and you said oh no it's actually on the tacoma side and i was thinking in my mind he's got to be looking at that map upside down like i was really thinking like he must be like i knew you i knew you were looking at a map but i could i was i had such a hard time confronting the reality that for my whole life andrew for at at least my whole adult life, I have misplaced Cheney Stadium as to where it is.

Like, again, when do you think is the last time you've been there?

Well, I've never, but I've driven by it a million times going to my parents' house.

You've never been to a Rainier's game?

I've never been to a Rainier's game.

Oh, burbs.

I know, I know, I know. But here's the thing. I've driven past it roughly a thousand times in my life. Because when you drive from Seattle to where my parents live, which is Silverdale, Or maybe even if you were going to be going up to Kingston and you didn't want to take the ferry or Belfair Andrew or a really roundabout way to Albuquerque Like where you have to then take a different boat and get on an airplane. I have driven by Cheney Stadium Hundreds if not thousands of times in my life and I have always somehow perceived it as being after you go across the Narrows Bridge and you're on the Olympic Peninsula side of the bridge. That's just simply untrue. But I've always categorized it. I've always placed it there in my mind. And when you told me dispassionately and objectively looking at the map where it was, I rejected that notion in my mind until this very moment when I'm looking at it on the map. And sure as shit, that's exactly where you said it was.

Well, not only did I look at it on the map, I looked up the address too. And I looked up the address of the school

that is right next door yeah but i thought it was culturally tacoma well that i'm not kidding i thought it was andrew when i tell you my mind drew you want to talk about gerrymandering some shit my mind drew a map where it was actually on the other side of of of the of the narrows bridge so it was on the gig harbor side of the narrows bridge and it was somehow tacoma but because they had when i tell you my mind wrote an entire story about how this was that like oh that used to be Tacoma but now it's Gig Harbor but they just never changed it so it's called Tacoma but I was pretzeling myself so hard to try to not have to confront the fact that I have just misremembered where this thing is and all these years have just pictured it in the wrong place

which is exactly what's been happening you'll go blind if you pretzel yourself too hard by the way be careful with that um I we need to well we need to get out of here is what we need to do but we

also need to unless something mostly for LaDawn Townsend's benefit who's like enough already that's

right um you and i have not talked about this but depending on what ends up happening in the next few weeks during the off season of for the mariners uh-huh i i have decided that i will not be going to the ballpark that much this year i am furious at the ownership of the mariners right now and they make going to the ballpark such an expensive experience usually i don't care because it's something that i love but seeing what they're doing to the team so that they can continue to make profits and they don't feel like they need to put a winning team together in order to make profits and everything that's going on I am furious with them right now and I do not want to spend literally $18 before tip on a beer to line John Stanton's pocket anymore now I know that if I'm buying tickets to a Rainier's game and buying beer in a Rainier's game that's still the same organization but it's not $18 and so all of this is to say I didn't realize that You You've never been to a Rainier's game this season. I want to start seeing some baseball games outside of the just the Mariners. And I think that we should make a I mean, we don't have to turn it into content, but we need to get you to a Rainier's game. And like, isn't that kind of a halfway point for us now from me in Seattle and where you are?

It would definitely be it would it would involve me not needing to drive from Tacoma to Seattle, which can be very, very traffic. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that would be I think that would be that's wonderful. I would love to do that, Andrew, with you. Shorty with you. Let's do it. That's my Justin Bieber impression. I would absolutely love to do that. And we don't have the time or really this is not the place for us to unpack this. But we do need to convene a no point. We do. A hot stove league no point. And the only question is that I want to ask is can we love again? Is there any reason for us to feel any optimism going into this Mariners baseball season? because I'm struggling to find it right now. And about this time of year, maybe more like January, February, I start feeling like it's still dark and cold, but I start feeling a fire in my loins, Andrew, and an excitement in my heart. And it's because spring is on the eventual horizon and the Mariners are finally getting it together. This is every year we're told they're finally getting it together. They finally have all the pieces. They're finally ready to do this. And this is the one offseason where they're actively going the other direction. No. They're slashing the payroll. They're saying what you spent last year, spend less. So as other teams are – I mean, it's just amazingly good news to hear that the Dodgers were able to get Otani and the Yankees were able to get Juan Soto. You love to see it. You love to see it. The two biggest, richest franchises on the planet got the two best, amazing baseball players on the planet. You just love to see it. And for the Mariners to say we're going to spend less than we did last year, it's when we didn't quite make the playoffs and we should have last because we didn't have any hitting that we need. Yeah, exactly. And now we're going to spend less. It's just it. I it's got me in a real it's got me in a real pickle here because for me, half of the fun of baseball is anticipating baseball. And I'm having a very hard time anticipating baseball in any kind of excited way.

Well, I am still, you know, I am not rejecting my Mariners fandom the way I rejected my Browns fandom. I will still listen to the games on the radio. I will watch the ones that are available to me. But I am not going to do anything to put more money into their pockets. Like, I'm not saying I'm not going to any games this season. But, like, last season, I only went, you know, I went to, like, more than I'd ever gone to before. I think, like, 10 games or something, which isn't groundbreaking. But that's a lot. That's a lot of my summertime, 10 baseball games. And I love going to the park, but like I'm so, you know, the argument about like, you know, the Yankees and the Dodgers and we, you know, us saying that these major national teams can just like, you know, buy their way into the playoffs every year and into the World Series. And there's some truth to that. But I've really come around to like true Dodgers fans way of thinking about this, which is, yeah, we're buying we're paying players to be very good and play for us. To me, I always thought of those teams as enemy number one, whereas enemy number one now is John Stanton, our rich owner who only wants to get rich and does not give two shits about putting together a winning team unless it means more profits for him. But they have Julio, so they can put Julio's face on the billboards, and they know that we're still going to root for the team and spend money on the team with jerseys and everything. And it's like, okay, I'm still rooting for the team. It's not like a moral issue the way it was with Deshaun Watson and the Browns. I still want the team to win, and I will still pay attention. And I will definitely keep my expectations low as of now, as far as winning is concerned. But I just don't want to give them my money anymore. It's just such a screw. They've been screwing fans over for so long. And this is just like, I mean, one of the most insulting things, aside from like, you know, being an A's fan, which I feel bad for A's fans. Like, it's just so rotten. Well, I figured it out, Andrew.

Yeah. What we have to do, we can go to Mariners games, but only if we can sneak in. Oh, I like that. Orcid media. like little urchins from like a sneaking into a to a you know mets game the new york metropolitans game circa 1960 something who played at the polo the polo grounds was that the yankees probably just i i imagine that we've got like dodgers oh maybe the brooklyn dodgers sure that seems possible like i just the idea is you and i we're we're shoe shines by day we're plucky little kids who who don't have enough adult supervision and we're running little scams and shining shoes and then we we regal under a fence and then we pick up some old popcorn someone left behind and we're just kings for a day we can go to mariners games but only if we sneak in

and eat leftover popcorn, thereby not enriching John Stanton at all.

Exactly, and then we catch the game ball. In your case, we wrestled it away from a businessman who was going to give it to us anyway.

Yep, exactly.

I wasn't sure if I was going with the Don DeLillo or Luke Burbank version of catching a famous baseball. They come together.

They converge and diverge a lot.

You talk long enough, certainly.

Yeah, I do believe that we create a lot of white noise on this show.

That's for sure. Certainly. Nice. All right.

Thanks, everyone, for listening. See, this is why you tune into the winter games. Luke and Andrew's take on Mariners baseball in the 47th minute of the program.

With a little bit of a Don DeLillo drop at the very end.

We are going to be back here tomorrow. Well, at least Andrew and F. Fletch will be back here tomorrow. So tune in for that. New original programming. Not that this isn't new original programming. Everyone just calm down, everyone. That's all I ask. We're doing great. All right. We'll see you tomorrow in the meantime. Have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. Power out.