Muse

I wouldn't hurt him as much as the lads who are out there but I definitely felt it and I know how hard the boys have taken that. Be disappointed with the account that we put out but we've got another week to get back on the horse you know and take that horse to the water and you can ask that horse you can say hey horsey do you want do you want to have a drink or do you want to swim yeah and it's up to that horse to then realize what he wants to do in his life and that horse at the moment wants to go out on Saturday he wants to clippity clop all the way to the stoop he wants to say hello to those fans and he goes and he goes I'm sorry about the result last week but I'm gonna give a better a performance here at home against Bath. He's a slightly Irish horse. So we're looking forward to, like I say, getting back on that horse. And are you looking forward to getting back on the horse six months since you last saw you? I don't like horses. I can't ride.

I'm hip. I surf the web. I text LOL. Laugh out loud. OMG. Oh my God. WTF. Why the face?

The beginning is horrible, also the middle, so I'll give it a four. Oh, won't somebody please think of the children?

They say, you snooze, you lose, but we snozzed, and look what we lost. Uh-oh, he's starting that funny talk again.

Well, all right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Tuesday edition of TBTL, the show. It just might be too beautiful to live.

You've got to figure out how to make money on this thing. It's simply too good.

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Oh, yeah, buddy. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia where we are still snowbound and it is actually getting colder. The temperature is dropping around here.

Did you take a nap? Did you build a snowman?

And, well, I've got to get out of here this afternoon because tomorrow, very early in the morning i'll be flying out of portland heading for new york city um if i can make it up an icy hill out of my neighborhood uh it'll be an adventure for me and for you the listeners when i report on it either from new york city tomorrow or from uh right here one of the two things will happen and we'll fill you in on that this right here this episode 4 120 in a collector series let the fun begin as part of uh my life now as a person living uh in a snowbound cottage perched high above the mighty columbia i've been watching a buttload of television and that means also for me watching a buttload of advertising and i have some thoughts on who are the ad wizards who came up with this one a couple of ads that are in heavy rotation particularly during the football games uh so i will play you that tape and we will analyze those things also uh when i'm not watching commercials i'm i've been watching episode one of the latest season of true detective and

i've got thoughts well what did everybody think uh so we'll get into that as well plus we'll talk

to this guy longest running cobro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships every morning right before he turns his microphone on he asks himself one simple question

How did I wind up here? How did I wind up here?

He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Ah, Cheryl. You left the toilet seat up, Cheryl.

Hey, that's not a bad Bernie Sanders.

Trying to do my best Larry David. You remember that drop? I don't know why I like that drop so much. Somebody left the toilet seat up, and now he's wet. I'm all wet, Cheryl. I'm losing it. I can hear myself losing it.

I'd put it in your top five, though.

Yeah, it's a low top five, though. Well, for both of us, let's be honest. No, no, you have a higher ceiling on impressions. I'm not too into that.

As long as the impression is an Irish Bill Clinton. I think I'm one of the recognized industry leaders in that space. I have so much to talk to you about, Andrew, and so little of it is interesting here on this Tuesday. But, hey, have you ever seen a cat's footprints in the snow? This sounds like, I don't know. Are you hitting on me? It sounds like something someone's mom might have on a piece of art that's in the bathroom. But seriously, have you ever... I had no idea that cats essentially walk in single file. Oh, yeah. I didn't know this until I was... There's still a serious amount of snow here at my house. And so what I'm starting to see now over the days are the footprints or the track prints or paw prints of the...

various animals and what they get up to and i was trying to figure out what this mysterious thing was that walked in a perfectly straight line and then i went and observed that it's a cat there's i mean a number of big cats that live in in the neighborhood and yeah they walk in a

perfectly straight line i didn't know that yeah i mean now that you say that i definitely knew that it's not something that i was um it wasn't something i was prepared to talk about today honestly, on the show. No. Yeah, when you said, have I ever seen a cat's prints in the snow? I thought you were just going to be talking about how cute they are. I wasn't going for the in-line thing, but now you say it. Definitely, I've seen that before, yes.

When I see them, whether it's Bubbles or just the cats in my neighborhood walking, it does not occur, because they have four legs, and I guess the way I perceive them to be walking would be actually very plodding, if you think about it. If it was just like us on our hands and feet, like if we're doing a bear crawl. It's like if a cat was like, okay, right paw forward, left paw forward, back rear right paw forward. Like if that's what they were actually doing, they would be a very awkward animal. Of course, they're like very agile and they're just doing a whole thing. Now, the other thing that's happening to me as I look at the prints in the snow and as I look out on the Mighty Columbia where there are a handful of, I don't know if these are Canada geese or not. but pretty large geese that are just kind of floating in the water. There's like the mighty Columbia River, and then there are some little small islands that are closer to my house, and they provide a little bit of shelter, I guess. It's still the river, but it's kind of a protected area of the river. And I'm looking at these geese, and I'm thinking about the cats that live in my neighborhood, and also I've seen some deer tracks, and I have such intrusive animal empathy about the cold, and i legitimately don't know what to do about it like i have to just put it out of my mind i have to tell myself that like these geese i'm looking at right now that they their kind have lived in snowy climates for a long time and they're all here and they're going to survive at least most of them and they will have offspring and those offspring will live like they have some kind of system i can't get over the thought of how flipping cold i would be if i was floating in the river right now and and and if i think about them being cold it starts to really overwhelm me

you know usually with animals i think hey listen like you said they live out here they know what they're doing they can take care of themselves although i will say genevieve's empathy towards the birds and seeing how the you know like it's not usually um traditionally like below freezing for extended periods of time in this part of the world so yeah i mean animals aren't necessarily prepared for that and seeing how Genevieve and a lot of people on my timelines have been like kind of looking out for the birds during this extreme cold snap like Genevieve um has like specifically like one hummingbird who always kind of like hangs around I mean we have several hummingbirds but like it's funny I don't know before Genevieve started you know I guess being more and more interested in birds and me maybe listening to her talk more and more about birds I just sort of thought like yeah I don't know birds come and go I didn't ever think like oh yeah that's the same bird you know like that is our bird that's the bird that hangs out there but Genevieve you know watches their their movement I mean it's really creepy it's kind of like a police song frankly it's like a sting song it's very weird her stalking fields of gold that's exactly like that sting song fields of gold yeah everything you do I do it for you everything I do I do it for you anyway Ryan Adams and the Cardinals so anyway um you know like during this cold snap Genevieve has a couple of hummingbird feeders and one of them the one closest to our door that's kind of the main one like she was bringing it in every couple of hours letting it warm up and defrost and then putting it back outside and like there was a hummingbird waiting for it like in the same part of the yard like waiting for that thing to come back out so yeah i mean i'm i don't know if i'm really helping

your uh intrusive i'm looking at my my neighbor brian aka the snow monster he and his wife have a couple of bird feeders out and it is uh they must refill them a lot right now for the reasons that you're describing with veeves there are easily 15 starlings jumping on there and then an occasional jay will come down like these birds are going off on this food because of course they need more fuel to keep warm uh in this kind of cold weather and like looking at these geese that are just kind of sitting on the river the river is not frozen right it's got enough current to it that i don't think it think if it freezes over we've got real big problems but um it's the water must just be unbelievably cold and and again they they must have some system i i tell myself that they have like their feathers are you know wicking or something like waterproofing them and that they were just used to it and that they're not just sitting

their whole time thinking oh my god i'm so cold but if i let my brain go there i it really does a number now i should be more worried about the humans who are cold on planet earth and that's not just people in the u.s but i'm talking people who are dealing with all kinds of issues of of you know climate and migration and persecution like human beings are also suffering in the world and i do feel bad about that but i will tell you i feel worse for these geese right now and i don't know i don't know what to do with that in my mind i i don't get those feelings because i'm a

sociopath but i do get um speaking of the animals here not the humans of course um but uh i have been in my head a bit about my own pets in this weather like opening the door to such a um stark freezing temperature the past several days uh and again actually i want to make it clear things are starting to warm up here i think we're going to be hopefully above freezing by midday here in of course then a bunch of rain is supposed to come and then it's supposed to freeze during the commute again so i guess uh watch out for that i have some tips to stay warm pack your patience luke you know how you um you know how you wilson i think yours is about heat right don't you kind of get irritated when like local news stations have tips for beating the heat and it's kind of

like well yeah because it's always air conditioning area yeah the number one tip is go somewhere with

air conditioning drink a lot of water i was on blue sky i'm spending more time on blue sky lately i don't know why um and somebody had a list i don't know who it was but i thought they were joking i thought it was the type of thing where it like starts off obvious and then it gets more and more absurd but no it was actually a list of like things to do to you know to prepare for the cold weather and it was like stay indoors if possible if you're outside try not to sweat and i was like oh this is going to be great and then it was like keep your pets inside i'm like oh this is just really yeah i mean obviously yeah let's let's stay inside if we have that option that seems like basically you've listed let's stay inside twice and then if you go outside try not to sweat thanks blue sky uh anyway try not to sweat i think you know is that about snow shoveling i puzzled this for a long time and again because i was like oh this is gonna be a real corker um but uh you know what i'm thinking it might have been about exercising and it is true i've seen a lot of people like I mean on Saturday the temperatures were pretty extreme not quite as bad but Genevieve and I were having lunch downtown in Seattle here and some guy did walk by he wasn't exercising but he just walked by like in cargo shorts and flip-flops with no socks and a hoodie pullover and he did have a Sonics tattoo on his on his calf as Genevieve pointed out and a big beard well that'll keep you warm yeah yes exactly the sedale threet tattoo who is that is that a player from the that's a sonic yeah from the day um but any who's maybe the no sweating outside is like don't go outside to exercise maybe that's what that person meant because i have seen people like kind of maintaining their jogging rituals or whatever and they don't seem very bundled up to me but i'm a total wuss with this stuff you know so so i'm not sure but i'm going to be testing

these theories in new york uh this later this week again if we actually get out there i'm going to be doing some some work for cbs but becca is coming and one of the things you know she's a serious runner i'm a semi-serious jogger and one of the things she's really excited to do is run in central park that's literally been one of the things on the trip like we're going to go run sent to run the loop in central park it's i'm checking the weather it's going to be like 20 degrees so do we give up on that plan or do we just bundle up and and go for it i will say running in in pretty cold weather my experience is they say dress for the second mile so like usually once you're moving unless we're talking like what's going on in the midwest where it's minus 20 it's unsafe but if it's you know 30 degrees it's you warm up and then you're sort of fine uh although i have been very uh glad that i have this silly treadmill here the last couple of days it's come and quite handy. I was thinking that, boy, if I had like solar power, because I'm on a well, I was like, if I had solar power here, I could conceivably just like live out the, whatever happens in this country after the results in Iowa last night, I could just homestead out here. I don't ever have to leave this hill. If I can figure out how to cultivate some sort of food source, maybe I can just stay up here forever and just jog on my treadmill and talk to you and just stay here. Maybe that's the future for me. And watch HBO programming like True Detective. Did you get a chance to watch the first episode of the new season of True Detective last night?

No, I didn't. I watched that football game last night and then sort of just made some food or whatever. And I actually went to bed before midnight last night for the first time in a month, so I was pretty proud of that. But no, I did not end up watching the show. What did you think of it?

It was not good.

Oh, really? Not at all. Yeah. I mean, my opinion on the matter. Oh, just, just terrible. I wish you had seen the parts that I'm going to talk about because then I could get your thoughts on if I was just overreacting to it. I do very poorly with CGI stuff. Like, I think especially, like, I respond extra bad to it. I should just be able to tell myself, look, okay, this is just, you know, it's a made up thing in a show that's a made up show. so why do I care so much why am I so obsessed with the kind of verisimilitude of like a herd of caribou but so the it's set in Alaska it's set in a I think fictional town and Jodie Foster is the like kind of star of the show the main like police detective and and I don't think I'm giving too much away when I say it starts out the very opening scene is somebody who is hunting caribou And so literally the beginning is a guy in kind of a snowy field And he's got a rifle and he's spying these caribou The thing is the caribou It's obviously really hard to get a herd of caribou To like participate in your film shoot And do whatever it is you want them to do Because of union rules? It's a big, it's a SAG-after thing It was one of the few things not addressed in the recent negotiation caribou were very much sort of left off the um negotiating table but the problem for me it started with the opening it looked like the polar express starring tom hanks it was like a friggin cartoon of these agitated caribou and i was like write the scene differently like don't as the viewer because here the thing about the first season of true detective which i think really didn't land it very well for me and i do feel okay spoiling the first season of true detective that was the mcconaughey one and woody harrelson and uh uh when you got uh when you got god you got a friend and that friend is you that's my bill clinton that's pretty good irish the thing about the first true detective was i thought the cinematography was really amazing and the way that they kind of used a lot of these you know kind of sort of you could say economically marginalized or somewhat run down places it just built this suspense and it was visually really arresting and

compelling it just sucked you in and like the the i know our hit on that was that it didn't quite stick the landing at least for me and i think for you as well it seemed a little bit of

it was like oh the scary guy who's been mowing lawns in a speedo with the gas mask on oh was

he the bad guy oh okay yeah um and i don't quite remember the details i just remember sort of feeling like I wanted something that that was a little bit more of a satisfying ending but there's no arguing that that show was very compelling and it wasn't compelling because of any trickery it was compelling because of storytelling and sort of intimate scenes and and conversation and letting that stuff breathe right and this appears to have none of that going

for it first of all they decide to start it with this scene of these agitated caribou who are very very clearly cartoons and it feels to me like somebody watched the Stephen King's The Thing um was that a John Carpenter film that was set at like a in the South Pole or the North Pole set somewhere in a very snowy like research station where something gets into the everybody's

system if I remember right that is a movie that I've like it's weirdly like on my list if that make sense but i never remember to watch it that is like one of those films that that at least i feel like i should have seen but i have not although is that definitely stephen king because

that's news to me well i i don't know i know that it was i think it's directed by john carpenter

kind of famously um and i don't know john campbell jr apparently wrote the novella just so you know

oh okay so um and i'm looking it up kurt russell is in it by the way yeah yeah right anything with kurt russell i should see but it's it's it's basically based in some i'm just reading this now like a norwegian research station it's in the snow right this feels to me this so far this season of true detective feels like somebody watched the thing and then northern exposure and then tried to remake a combination from memory but they shot it in burbank california like it's just bad on every level like it's it turns out it's probably very expensive to go shoot in the arctic circle so while there's a certain amount of like actual scenes that are shot somewhere snowy so much of the rest of it just feels like oh you didn't have the budget to do this well why didn't you write it differently you didn't have the budget for a herd of caribou well then maybe don't make that the opening scene you didn't have the budget for good dialogue maybe um then don't write i actually made a note of this andrew one of the characters so you've you've got this tension that's being presented between jodie foster's character who's like the chief of police of this small town that old chestnut and then another I guess, Alaska patrol officer who I think used to work for Jodie Foster, but now she is working for a different department, but she's obsessed with an old case. And so the two of them have a kind of antagonistic relationship early on. And I believe this other character, I think she's like, you know, native Alaskan. And so the idea is that Jodie Foster's character is like suspicious of the amount of what's the word I'm looking for the amount of credit that this other detective gives to like sort of Native American ways or Native Alaskan ways and there's literally a line where Jodie Foster says something like did you did your spirit animal tell you that and this other person says and I'm quoting here my spirit my spirit animal eats old fucking white ladies like you for breakfast and that is a line that was written and then made it through the edit process and then was memorized by an actor and then delivered into a microphone and then recorded on videotape and then put in the edit room and then put on the final product of a thing that made it on home box office uh also that same character somebody asks uh how's it being a trooper and she says same different badge i mean it is i mean the i i i couldn't figure out what was worse about the about this thing the the the cinematography the lack of care given to just like like they said it so so what also the the key component of this at the beginning is that there's an a research base some kind of research base uh that's set out in the snowy wilderness that where something terrible has gone down and we don't know yet what has gone down but i can promise you andrew that by the end of all this it will be the most uninteresting outcome It's like a research base made up of a bunch of people from different parts of the world.

And, of course, there some NGO is found is funding them. But guess what? I'm sure it's going to turn out to be something having to do with big oil in Alaska doing some or big fracking or I don't know. Just throw in the most obvious bad guy in any scenario. It's it was it was not it was not for me. Let me put it that way.

So I'm going to take this to a place, as we proudly often do, that is just so terribly inadvisable for me to take it, which is about technology. And I have a question about this carabuse. I love technology. Do you love technology? I have a question about this carabuse situation.

But not as much as you, you see. Sure, the World Wide Web is great, but you, you make me palpitate. I don't know what you're doing. That's the song Kip Dynamite sings to his lady friend at the end. I love technology, but not as much as you, you see. Sure, the World Wide Web is great, but you, you make me palpitate always and forever. Okay, well, let's keep going with this. Who's Kip Dynamite? The movie Napoleon Dynamite.

Oh, okay. I saw that once when I first came up.

You met in a chat room. Now our love can surely bloom.

I honestly couldn't even tell you the plot of that movie. I know a kid runs for student council president, Pedro. That's literally. And well, that's a critical moment. Uncle who was a high school football player. And he ends up the actor ends up in something that I didn't realize. White Lotus. OK, yeah, that's that's all I know. I think I saw that movie when it came out, maybe when it came out on VHS at the time, but never returned to it. I didn't have the same sort of I didn't dislike it, but I just didn't have the same connection to it. A lot of people did. But it was the it was the Buffalo shot at the beginning of of Napoleon Dynamite that I just found like unbelievable. No, when you're talking about these, what are they? Not buffalo, not bison. Caribou. Caribou. Do you think – well, I'm trying to think how I want to put this. Before we get to that, I have noticed something in my own life that has been a little bit distracting. Genevieve and I are the proud owners of two smart TVs. Now, how smart are they? I mean, E equals MC squared.

Beep, beep. That's not very smart.

No, but neither one of them are super high-end, right? Like the one we bought, our newest one is, you know, it is a newer TV. It's less than a year old, and it's not something we bought used or whatever. So it's like supposed to be keeping up with the – Came with its own new HDMI cable. Yeah, right, exactly. And so – but it's not a high-end one. It's actually Hisense, which I think is a very affordable brand of television. But, you know, it's a smart TV with all the apps and everything, and has all the settings for the motion blur and all that stuff. that I even me who likes who likes technology and messing around with this kind of stuff like it's a I just don't quite get it I don't understand why certain movies end up looking like you know novellas or telenovelas or whatever the weird lighting and we've talked about it and Tom Cruise has talked about turning off motion blur when you watch Top Gun 2 and all this stuff and we've talked about it but I still don't have a good grasp on to that end we'd like a moment of your Time to talk to you. about video interpolation exactly thank you um but anyway let's use the example of the movie salt burn which uh i watched recently and genevieve ended up re-watching with me well genevieve watched it the first time up on on the tv upstairs and i didn't watch it with her she really enjoyed it when she heard i wanted to watch it too like whatever that was a week ago she said oh yeah i'll re-watch it with you and we watch on the downstairs tv which is the newer one um but there were scenes And it's a very, there are, it's a very deliberately shot movie, whatever. I mean, opinions about salt burn are like assholes. Everybody has one, but like, except for maybe me, because I don't know how I feel about it, but it's definitely deliberately shot, right? Like it is like, there are, there are shots in there that are, that look like beautiful photography, right? And it's very, and so, and I really appreciate that. But then there were times when, because of the lighting or whatever, it did seem like, it didn't seem like a rich movie. it seemed like sort of superficial. It had a TV sort of two-dimensionality to it. And Genevieve says, it was not like this upstairs. And like, you can go on my television, turn a bunch of things off, but it turns out, and I was talking to our friend Kamara Kev about this.

I was going to say, you have access to one of the greatest minds in television programming. And I don't mean like Brandon Tartikoff as in coming up with the TV shows. I mean literally programming your television.

Well, his theory on this is because I've messed around with it with him, in fact, and his theory is that like with some of these televisions now and probably especially maybe not the highest end ones, you can change the settings all you want on the television, but the apps can still override that. So if you have an HBO Max or a Netflix or a Hulu, depending on how those apps act on the TV in the same way, this is a weird example, but I don't know if you ever read a Kindle book on your phone. I do. And so like when you're reading a Kindle book using or when you're reading a book using the Kindle app on your phone, you can't turn the brightness of your phone up or down. You can only do it via the app, if that makes sense. Like the Kindle overrides the brightness settings on your phone. And I feel like these apps on the television essentially do the same thing for the TV program or the movies that you're watching. And so all of this is to say, and again, I told you this was so inadvisable for me to even bring this up but i wonder if on a different television or a different setting or a different setting on the computer those bison no caribou caribou um i was at

think of the coffee shop in the basement of where we used to go work at 8 p.m sometimes did you ever have that caribou coffee are you talking about avante market oh wait that was cairo radio that

It was Cairo. So this herd of Avante were storming across the landscape. No, I do wonder, and again, I kind of, I introduced this in a weird way, and I'm all over the place today. I hear what you're saying. But I don't want you to take it as like, hey, Luke, you're watching this wrong because you have the settings wrong on your television. Will you stop keeping how I watch my caribou? I just think it's a little, you mean cantaloupe. I think it's just a little bit complicated these days knowing if we're seeing it properly. And I wonder if that amplified the fakeness of that.

It's possible, but the thing I would say is there wasn't anything else going on. Because I know exactly what you're talking about, that old video interpolation. The unfortunate side effect is that it makes most movies look like they were shot on high-speed video rather than film. None of that was going on anywhere else in the programming. It didn't have that look of a soap opera. Everything else looked like a typical show on HBO. So I think it was just—oh, and the other thing is, and I'm not giving anything away, there's also a polar bear that features prominently in the show, and the polar bear looks like absolute dog shit. It does Tom Hanks voice that polar bear. Well, we haven't heard the polar bear speak yet, but if it sounds like Woody from Toy Story, I think we may be on to something.

Wait, is it the Coca-Cola bear?

It's literally one of the Coca-Cola bears, but it only has one eye.

Oh, okay.

Like, you know, it's been through something And it, like, walks in front of Jodie Foster's vehicle Sort of, I think, towards the end of the first episode But, again, Polar Bears, notoriously finicky Probably difficult to film But, like, this thing looked, like, seriously like one of the Coca-Cola Like, it should have had its, like, baby with it It should have been sliding down a hill Doing little donuts Like, they need to not make this thing dependent on stuff that they cannot easily film because the cartoonification of it for me was, and I hear what you're saying, it's possible, but I don't think I had the cartoon setting on. Like everything else was kind of normal, just this. I just think most people aren't as hung up on this as I am because again, I don't think Jodie Foster is a small town police chief in Alaska, like in real life. So I don't know why it bothers me. that it's a cartoon polar bear because like again i don't think that this is a documentary so i have i've suspended disbelief so it should expand to the universe of like yeah well whatever we animated the caribou we animated the polar bear who cares you know what it had me doing last night andrew was i was thinking am i just in a am i just in a crummy mood right now am i just being ungenerous with this show i was thinking what's another show that had a uh a sort of series premiere if you will season one episode one where there's animals involved and i remembered the sopranos and tony sopranos is ducks and i went and i watched the sopranos season one episode one last night and god damn does that hold up i want to i want to other than the kid acting the kids particularly aj aj is rough yeah i forgot every scene with aj is just uh just almost unwatchable and it doesn't get better no it just it's it's bad it's like why did they do writing some and and like meadow is a little more tolerable and i think she gets better over the years jamie lynn sigler but like taking that out of it the scenes with tony soprano and melfi uh talking and then the scenes with tony and the ducks like it's so good and i'm sure that ducks are easier to work with and easier to get your hands on in new jersey than maybe a herd of caribou or a one-eyed polar bear but it's possible like just lower your ambition with what you're trying to do and and just like write the show so that you can film it so that it's convincing to the viewer is is what i would say um but it also i think i may end up now re-watching the sopranos because which i know a lot of people have done i know you've done and i know a lot of people were doing it a few years ago i what happened for me was i was obsessed like a lot of people were with the sopranos when it first came out or whatever like you know a few seasons in i got the netflix dvds and i burned through them in like a weekend it was like waiting for my next three dvds to come got caught up it was a whole thing you know watching it every week and we would make food and we had t-shirts that said

i love you johnny cakes and it was just like a whole thing and then later on when i would catch episodes of it here there i was always maybe it was just episodes with the kids in it but it was always like is this really that good i'm not one of those people who's like the sopranos is the best television that's ever made but watching season one episode one of The Sopranos next to season whatever three episode one of True Detective it was not even close yeah and also I mean we don't

have to recap The Sopranos here but I mean I don't think The Sopranos did everything perfectly I mean it had some slightly weaker seasons weirdly even some of the I love Steve Buscemi but some of the seasons or episodes that he directed I felt like were weaker compared to the standard that the show set i mean that's one of those things where it sets such a high standard for itself that if it slips a little bit it's sort of a victim of its own greatness yeah so i don't want to i don't want to overstate it but i i do think that show mostly does hold up and what i think is interesting about that is it holds up the way they do um surrealism and literal dreams uh i know that i have sort of an obsession with dreams on this show but obviously that is something that can be very very hokey um when you try to put it in your television show or movie but i just i was always really impressed with the with the approach to surreality in that show like you remember when when the main characters dies and Tony goes like I think there's a whole episode where Tony who's the main I don't think we're gonna spoil anything oh yeah yeah and there's like a talking fish and

all this stuff but it's like it's but it's oh was it like Billy the big mouth there's Billy the big

mouth baths exists in the real world but then that's what I kind of like about it is that sort of imprints on him and we don't even know that during previous episodes but then it kind of comes back in his dream in the same way small things in our life will appear in our dreams anyway um i wanted to go back to what you were saying about verisimilitude with the technology and these animals and stuff and you're right like some people that that won't bother them much and that's fine like i don't think you and i want to sit here and tell people not to enjoy things that they enjoy if it doesn't bother them but i am similar to you where anything that pulls me out of the reality um is distracting to me and when it's something technological like that um i'm 100 with you like it can even just be one thing but it's just like this glaring reminder like yeah we know that jodie foster doesn't didn't actually go to um the police academy right like that doesn't bother me but there's still a way to tell us that's right michael winslow and um uh steve gutenberg maybe steve gutenberg at two tall jones i believe the only way i can remember steve gutenberg's name is by trying to remember the song from the um from the simpsons who made steve gutenberg a star we did uh anyway so i i'm totally with you on that and that's also why traditionally i like movies that i mean even go i i don't know if i would have had the the words for it.

back then and technology has come a long way but just like that's why in college i didn't like the big movies that had um you know huge explosions and anything that was cgi i mean that kind of that kind of story doesn't appeal to me anyway but also just like yeah if you can't tell a story with realistic caribou then don't tell the story with realistic caribou you can just make other you can make these decisions when you're writing it you know i mean i guess we don't know what it's like in the studio system maybe you assume that it can be done better and then budget cuts and various producers and lots of cooks in the kitchen and what have you. But that is why I think I tend to like smaller stories. Like, look at the holdovers, you know, like I'm not, you know, some people may like the holdovers, some people may not. But like it was a it was a smaller story in scope that is about relationship and conversation. And that's the type of stuff that I'm generally drawn to.

I mean, this seems like kind of filmmaking 101, but it just seems like start small, right, and then get bigger. like that's just all to me that's always the most interesting way to tell a story is a little thing is happening and then as we sort of pull out we start to figure out that bigger things are happening this is the opposite of that it's like a herd of caribou are distressed about something and go running off of the tundra and then a research station is thrumming with people and then all of a sudden literally a guy goes she's here and then we don't you know know what happened to these like it's like let's start with the let's start with uh the movie Pearl Harbor by Michael Bay and then let's slowly reduce it down to Jodie Foster and this other police person not liking each other like it's the opposite of how this shit should work in my mind again if you like it if you're a big true detective head and you're loving this season uh go for it by all means I don't want to yuck any yums but I as Genevieve said to you the other the marketing is really seemingly working I want to say fee fee on the marketing that has that although I you know for content for the show I guess I'm glad I watched it but like I feel like I got a little bamboozled I got a little you know tricked into thinking hey this might be prestige television and it's it's just so bad and then here's I think I'm in a fragile place because Trump won Iowa by 50 well he had 51 percent of the vote which I would point out it means he didn't get 49 percent of the vote among Republicans so half of the Republicans are like not him please but I think I was in a fragile state last night and so then I'm watching I'm watching this true detective which is prestige television and I'm watching The Sopranos and I'm thinking what happened to us as a society of television watchers that we it used to be The Sopranos and now we think that this true detective is good television like did we have we have we been just banging our heads into the wall culturally so that this is now passes for good storytelling because it's bad storytelling it's bad writing it's bad everything and and yet it's like I don't know that was I think that

I'm just in a I'm just in a bad place because season two sucked too I mean

that's where you have I think all the season sucked this is the thing I think about true detective I think it actually sucked I think the season one for the reasons we already talked about was really compelling and there were some good writing and and interesting visuals again i think at the end it was just oh it was that one freaky dude like that part didn't really wow me but but that would seem like the apotheosis of that show right and and then season two was bad and then this is seems like it's getting off to a bad start is it possible that it's all been bad and we were just fooling ourselves in season one

well for in my opinion season one and again i only watched it the first time i came out i haven't gone back and rewatched it they're certainly not in its entirety but I would still like if I can't really flip through the channels as we were discussing yesterday because it's all like

it's all I was just channel flipping last night like a rich person surfing but you know if I were

to drop in on a scene with McConaughey you know in that interrogation room or or him and Woody Harrelson driving and having a conversation I would stop on that like maybe as a whole it didn't it didn't stick the ending but it doesn't mean that the whole thing sucked i think there was good writing i think there was good acting i think there was yeah there was there were compelling reasons to tune into it and i think it was visually stimulating at times too so i wouldn't i wouldn't put that i would say that there are certain stories i remember saying this in a creative writing class like in college just like being in the middle of a story and telling the professor like we were all reading something together i don't i don't know what and saying like this will either be really good or really bad depending on the end you know like it like if they stick the the the landing here well then kind of withholding from us and everything really works but if they don't stick the landing why were you withholding all this shit from me that's that's a that's sort of a an issue i have with storytelling whether it's a whether it's a book or or a movie is like And I think this I think I'm kind of bastardizing a Hemingway quote here, and it's always great when you can quote Hemingway. But like there's no reason as the storyteller to withhold, like give us give the give the reader all of the information and make it compelling. Don't play trick games. You know what I mean? By like, oh, it turns out. Well, we didn't tell you this, but he was the cousin all along. And it's like, well, that's not compelling if you're just like dropping new information on us later on in the book. And it's supposed to be a twist. You know what I mean? Right. You can you can tell a good story and still give all of the information. Just be a good writer, be a good storyteller. So I'm a little bit all over the place. One thing I wanted to say to you, though, do you know what I think is one of the weirdest things about True Detective that a lot of people don't remember? Hmm. It involves Key and Peele, one of my favorite one of my favorite sketch comedy shows. the cultural impact of true detective bled over into an entire season of key and peel where the interstitials between sketches them like in true detective yes and the intro about that and the intro of key and peel for that season which i think was their second season or maybe their third season had this true detective-esque like slide guitar with like sort of a kind of a dark undertone to it like they modeled an entire season of a sketch comedy show as far as the interstitial nature of it on true detective it was that much of a cultural phenomenon and now you watch true detective and those two things are so separated out in our public consciousness is this yeah this is

i completely forgot about this that they did that for a whole season that's why i sort of

think that like yeah you the simpsons i remember thinking this again as a young person person watching the simpsons like the best simpsons were the ones where they weren't trying to connect it to what was going on in the culture in that moment because it just doesn't age that well and i think that that season of key and peel is still good i love those guys and i think they're brilliant but it's just such a weird thing now because you you would watch that and say why does this have this weird dark country theme to it i have no idea oh it's because we happen to be obsessed with another TV show back whatever it was 10 years ago that just you would never make

that connection today. Look, we put out a lot of TVTL every week, five episodes. And yet we hear from some folks saying, but what else can I listen to? And I've got the answer for you. It's Text Me Back, the new weekly podcast from Lindy West and Megan Hatcher-Mays and our friends over at KUOW. Lindy and Megan are actual high school friends. They went to Garfield High in Seattle together, and they've stayed friends all of these years. They've both done incredible stuff professionally and personally in the world, and now they're getting together every week to talk about pop culture and politics and their lives. It is such a hoot, and it is really one of my very favorite things happening out there in the podcast world, so please go check it out. Again, it's brought to you by KUOW and the NPR Network. They get new episodes out there every Thursday. So go get it wherever you get that kind of stuff. Did you hear me plant my flag during that promo for Text Me Back?

Plant your flag isn't saying we put a lot of our own stuff out there.

No, planting my flag saying, I refuse to say, wherever you get your podcasts.

Oh, was that in the copy?

No, I just, I refuse to say those words anymore at this phase of my career. And I'm calling it a career. I feel like we, there was a period of time where that was, you know, kind of the tag on every single thing. And now I'm, I just say, I just say, wherever you get that stuff. That's like a cool way to do it. that signals to everyone that I'm cool and I get it and that we're all kind of in on this.

Yeah, it's pretty edgy. I sort of felt like as a culture we were sort of past that, though. I didn't know that you were...

It's not what I hear on your Defector promos. You end each one with wherever you get your podcasts.

They did have... Well, they had in their script also. Wait, do you really? I was just trying to mess with you. Well, they said something like... They said, you know, wherever you get podcasts... I need to listen more carefully. Or go to the website, Defector.com or something. So I think they have a special little tag on theirs. But anyway.

Critically, though, both of those show now us an extra mention because of what we just did there.

That's true. We're extending that promo. Yeah, we are. So remember us.

Please. Now, the thing is, for those kinds of cross promotions, we, of course, don't receive any money. It's just a way to try.

Try to get more of our folks listening to those shows and their folks listening to our show. But we need to still have money for the budget of the TBTL, and we get that from our donors. We get that from fine folks like Barb Aerosmith of Indianola, Washington. Barb, long, long, long, long time friend of the program.

Yeah, thank you, friend. Appreciate you. Indianola, too. You know, we have a good friend. You and I have a good mutual friend who's from Indianola and often tells us stories of his boyhood there.

Yes. It's a beautiful place. We were not far from Indianola during the last Thawne.

Yeah, I didn't realize that until we were there for a while, and he started texting me, have you been to this Shell station? That's where I used to smoke cigarettes when nobody was looking.

Was that friend Michael Plastina of Morgantown, West Virginia? Is that the person you're vaguely alluding to?

No, no, I don't think it was Michael. I think Michael was in West Virginia at the time.

Oh, okay. Well, Michael, thank you for supporting us from out there in Morgantown. Thanks also to Chris Herbert, who's in Auckland, New Zealand. Where all the good music comes from these days. Does that, I could be wrong. Is this, has Chris moved? Was Chris maybe somewhere that wasn't New Zealand before? Has Chris always been in New Zealand? Huh, I don't know. Chris, get at me. Either I'm having an AI style hallucination, which I do sometimes. By the way, they have these promos now for some sort of AI thing on NPR, and it's advertised as hallucination-free. What? Are you familiar with the term hallucination as it relates to AI?

No, I'm not. But maybe you'll say something here that makes everything else click for me. Because speaking of McConaughey, I don't understand what's going on with AI commercials. I just – have you seen the McConaughey AI commercials? Maybe we save this for commercial talk. But not only are they terrible, like, literally, I don't think I understand. Yeah, I don't either. Yeah, okay.

Does that mean AI is the new gold? What? What are you talking about? AI is a flat circle. Thank you, Chris, very much. Thanks also to Carolyn Rose of Truckee, California. Can't drive a car in Truckee. Gotta drive a truck. No, you can't. Why do you truck on the carway and car on the truckway?

Oh, classic.

Yep. Gallagher, too. Thanks, Carolyn. Thanks also to Ivan Chabra, who's in San Francisco, California. I'm sure Ivan knows all about AI and AI hallucinations, living there in the Bay Area.

Are you going to explain AI hallucination during our conversation about commercials?

No, I'm going to explain it right after I thank Heather Lynch of Newtown, Pennsylvania. Thank you, Heather. Thanks, Heather. Appreciate you. So a hallucination is when an AI program just basically makes something up and there's no kind of explainable reason for it. Because, again, maybe it goes like you're the number one person who shouldn't be explaining AI and I'm right there. I'm number two with a bullet. We're probably neck and neck on not really understanding this stuff. But from what I've heard, sometimes these AI programs, whether they're like large language models or I guess more old school AI, they will just give you a result that makes no sense and isn't based even in like, you know, the AI programs kind of compiling of the information that's called a hallucination. And they don't really know why it happens. But part of it is that you kind of need the hallucinations because it kind of means that the thing is thinking creatively, but like a little too creatively in this case.

what my generation used to call a glitch in the matrix precisely and and so but but what's

interesting to me now is it's that term i guess is so widely understood at least by people who might possibly use whatever this service is that's advertising on morning edition on npr that you can now put like hallucination free or whatever in your advertisement copy and like people will know what that means like that's just a thing that you can kind of like promote about

your about your product has anybody looked into whether or not ai has an angel dust problem we don't talk about angel dust as much anymore we don't what happened to that i don't know i think

it was a scary drug i it made me if i ever needed to lift up a semi-truck though i i have a little vial of angel dust with me what i know about angel dust it's probably just meth right it's probably whatever the same thing and that's in meth is oh no i think angel dust was more

hallucinogenic right or you mean whatever because i i always i mean i don't know i don't know much about angel dust i mean i've done my research no um i always remembered angel dust as being presented to us probably in dare classes honestly as the thing that would was such a powerful hallucinogen that it would make people do ridiculous things and put their own life at risk Ah, I thought, well, I guess it's PCP. is what the internet says angel dust i was the what i and i'm happy to say i have not myself tried it the rumor that i was hearing was that it also made you super strong um maybe that was a like a tertiary effect maybe that wasn't even an effect i was a pretty sheltered kid too

but i always does pcp make you strong and i realized combining that with whatever i what didn't i had google something creepy about children yesterday i'm really creating a track record for myself here um i guess uh your sense of thinking is extremely clear in that you have superhuman strength and aren't afraid of anything apparently oh wow yeah i am i think it's just as

well that i swerved on that one yeah my more misspent youth that was never anything that

even came close like i've never known anybody who's taken it like it just was by the time we were of whatever age that you'd be conscious of that kind of stuff like i've just never known i've been around various powerful drugs that i have had nothing to do with but at least i've known at least but i've known somebody who's taken it or whatever like i've just never even hurt like i don't know i just don't know that we i don't know if it's around anymore i think it's

very it's that's very much about your social milieu right like i just think there and this something that i don't give like my parents and my upbringing enough credit for because a lot of times i talk about how you know we didn't have a lot of dough or i grew up thinking the earth was 7 000 years old there were a lot of things about my childhood that were like or that i also grew up thinking the earth was going to end or the you know civilization was going to end really soon because of the rapture those are all in the like in the in the negative category but in the plus category i was not hanging out with people that were doing angel dust and i do think that's the the kind of thing where like if you're not around that kind of stuff it seems completely like a bad idea and kind of aberrant and if you're around it or if you just grow up in a world where they're just exposed to a lot of stuff it probably doesn't seem as as crazy and i'm i'm very glad that i was as sheltered as i was because i'm not a person who uh you know has great willpower and great self-control around various substances and behaviors and things and uh the fact that i was just like trying to learn the guitar chords to awesome is our God so I could impress girls at youth group that was a very good thing for me as a young person but I I'll push back on that

notion a little bit only because like you know like unfortunately like so many people in America like there are people who are in my life both you know family and friends um and and and people that family and friends know who have you know unfortunately died from from drugs that I've never been around before like unfortunately that's obviously I think as most people know it's a huge issue in the country especially now but I have a feeling that with PCP in particular I think it's been replaced by other drugs you know what I mean like and so I don't know that I mean you know even my upbringing luckily like you say not that I should not appreciate that fact that that I haven't fallen victim to some of the traps of that kind of drug use but like I also think there's something specific about PCP that I just don't think I think it's outdated is I think maybe my point.

I'm just laughing that we're – this is the episode where we finally put our foot down, re, colon, PCP. I did not see that on the show sheet today. I did not see that for us here on today's broadcast. But, yes, I'm with you. I don't think – it doesn't seem like it's out there. It's sort of the my space of drugs. I don't feel like it's – There you go. I don't feel like it's super popular anymore. That's probably for the best. That's the poll quote.

That's what I'll put that one of those fancy little quotes and put on social media. No, I will not do that.

There's a picture of me as a cat right now on Instagram.

I don't know. Don't do it.

John, step away. Don't do it. Hello and welcome to Top Story. I don't want to cannibalize your fine, fine podcast that you and Genevieve host after these messages talking about ads and such. But there were a couple I'm hoping to just augment that. I'm hoping that maybe if you haven't talked about these particular ads yet on that other show, that maybe this will, you know, be some research for you or some preparation or whatever. But I have been seeing a couple of ads and I've been desperately wanting to talk to you about them.

I wonder. So these and I usually we have some sort of a theme or a game or a quiz or something we play on the show. But tonight's show is going to be just sort of a roundup because we've been seeing so many new commercials ourselves. and I haven't seen the list of commercials that you want to talk about. It'll be interesting to see if some of the things you want to talk about has also caught our eye because I do think we watch different things, too. I mean, we have some things in common, but again, I was streaming a football game yesterday from Australia. The programming, not you. What's that?

I said the programming was from Australia. You weren't in Australia. No, exactly. I want to clarify for the listeners.

You know, I was watching some football game. I guess it was over the weekend on some, you know, like some sort of gray market feed and all the commercials were Australian. So anyway. Yeah. Well, introduce your first piece of evidence, counselor.

Well, the first is that Pepsi is clearly, I don't know, I'm not sure exactly what their goal is here, but I think that they think that positioning themselves as the wilder cola choice is going to be somehow a difference maker between them and Coca-Cola. so they've got this new campaign I think it's like get wild or something it's and there's a few different commercials but the one that jumps out at me that I can't I genuinely can't figure out if I am just being the biggest pearl clutcher slash prude of all time or if maybe this is the whole point of the joke and I'm kind of missing it or whatever but like it's an ad where you've got um i i'm gonna assume a husband and wife you got two parents and the um the the mom is holding a baby and she's trying to get the baby to take a nap and they're in their kind of like kitchen living room area and she's kind of singing to the baby and she starts singing the little john and the east side boys song get low to the baby and then the dad kind of joins in and then they're kind of dancing and then somehow pepsi's involved i'm just explaining this so you kind of know what's going on in the ad here's the audio

get low get low get low 369 oh she fine hoping she can sing it to me one more time get low Get low, get low, get low

To the window To the wall

To the wall Till the

Till the Can we finish that sentence on this show? So you're singing a song to your baby That the next The next words are Till the sweat runs down my balls All these B words crawl Like Now maybe the joke is When you're a parent and you're sleep deprived You'll sing anything to your kid To try to get them to take a nap But I just think it's wild Maybe this is the campaign It is wild that she's singing a song To the baby that if you know the song Is a massively Misogynistic, terrible Unbelievably sexualized song

Yeah, I haven't seen this So this is new to me I saw a Pepsi logo yesterday That I think maybe a commercial was on in the background And I wasn't paying attention And it was just the shocker Gross Hey, talk to Pepsi, man I so yeah I I find that a little I find that to be an interesting conversation that I'm not going to weigh in on because I just think it's like just kind of culturally fascinating to think about this but as somebody who doesn't like have kids I just I don't know how to react to it. I just think it's interesting, though, that music that would have been scandalous, like that are, you know, that the baby boomers listen to that would have been scandalous to their parents or whatever. Like eventually they just it becomes like the least scandalous music in the world, you know, like whether it's drug references by the doors that then sell some product or whatever. Like we are in this era where you have people our age and even younger who grew up with music that was of a different sort of tone. but now they're parents like are they supposed to like kind of change who they are there I'm with you I'm not trying to dismiss your point I just sort of think it's it's interesting to look at

I don't have a strong opinion on it myself I was just surprised that of all the songs that you pick like for instance I don't have the audio in front of me but like Fred Meyer decided to do a bunch of ads that were kind of using I guess maybe like 2000s what we might call hip-hop songs and they used like um like the uh apple bottom jeans with the boots with the fur song um that one to me is like yeah that's a catchy number i don't i can't think of every single lyric off the top of my head um for that song maybe if you go into the fourth verse there's something that's a little bit like would we say that now or do we say that now but like i just think that the song get low by little john and the east side boys is just so very clearly a it'd be like if this woman was rapping the beginning of a too short song to her baby like it's just again and but then i also think am i just being old yeah it was you know when um you know when the kings men were doing louis louis and everybody was freaking out i mean do i sound as silly as somebody who's who was freaking out about Louie Louie I might I really might I I just was it was a it's it's a it was to me a surprising move from a giant corporation they're either saying the they're either saying like everyone's past the fact that this is a very sexual song or they're saying like

Either people don't remember or people should get over it. I'm not even sure. I'm not sure what they're saying with it. It just it struck me as a pretty, pretty edgy choice, considering it's being sung to a baby.

Yeah. And again, I hope you know that I'm not being dismissive. I think it is. No, I don't think it is notable. I think it's interesting. And like, I just I don't I don't. This is a weird thing to say, like on a show where we're just talking to each other. Like, I can't I guess I sort of I don't care that much. Like, I'm not I'm not like bothered by it in any way. but it is curious it is an interesting choice but like i just think that like in so many ways people have heard the radio version of those songs so many times that they don't make the connection now right you got to think the people in the room did though like nothing makes it to air on a national campaign of one of the two huge cola brands without right being without a lot of vetting so that's kind of interesting to think about too right like a bunch of people said yeah

no this is fine that's the yeah you're absolutely right that's the interesting conversation because i can only imagine how many ideas died uh due to groupthink and due to what we would call client feedback i.e pepsi like i'm sure that they were about to shoot like four versions of this commercial or whatever commercial and at the last minute the client said well actually we're thinking this you know that's it's it's really really hard to get something on television um because of how many cooks are in the kitchen and how and how of course the client is also footing the bill for the whole thing so they have final say and they're notoriously uh kind of mercurial and finicky so it's just it's kind of wild to me having seen i don't i've never really been in on like a national well i was the voice of one fire stick commercial but that thing was very uncontroversial we had almost no little john and the east side boys in that that ad but as i say i've not been in on these conversations but i can only imagine how how much conversation goes into one of these these commercials and to think that this is the song that got through is pretty crazy to me i want

to do something here that is i think you're probably going to be mad at me for even attempting this is going to be a disaster but i just want to hear what the you're going to sing get low from memory i want to see what the kids bop version does with uh get low now i'm looking at this online and i'm seeing i don't want to get fooled by the internet here like i i want to make sure that this is a legit one and not you know because there's been plenty of parodies of kids bop or whatever but i think this is real i'll tell you what i'm reading off of here it says this is the kids bop three album uh it says little john cover from the japanese version of this uh compilation it's a japanese bonus track so if i'm to if this is to be believed this is Okay, I'm going to say that this is, I got fooled by the internet. My apologies to everybody involved. They just sped it up to some of the kids. Yeah, that's a bummer.

Here's an interesting thing. There are websites, the Kidz Bop universe is so robust that there are Kidz Bop fan pages where they go through songs that are not covered by Kidz Bop.

And then create them themselves or almost like make a compendium of things that they want Kidz Bop to address.

I don't know what the point of it is. It just says songs not covered. And I don't know if they're basically saying these should be on the list or don't get fooled like we just did. I don't know what Kidz Bop that was allegedly on Or would have been on But for the timing But like Kidz Bop 9 Andrew does not cover Gold Digger Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx It does not cover Run It by Chris Brown It does not cover Don't Ya By the Pussycat Dolls featuring Busta Rhymes It does not cover Don't Funk With My Heart By the Black Eyed Peas I'm quite interested in the person sitting around making the list of the kids bop songs of the songs that were not covered by kids bop during a particular year it sounds like someone who was going can you believe that kids bop 21 didn't cover titanium david getta featuring sia what a missed opportunity

yeah it seems seems less than finite right like i don't know can you have that it's like maybe not that's but like how can you just list every song that isn't on an album right it seems like they're

going these these were some kids bop 26 the fact that it does not feature a cover of radioactive by imagine dragons is just i mean it's just a it's a tragedy really on a level we haven't seen in a long time the other commercial that i want to play for you uh that is just has made me irrationally angry the first time I saw it and um

And now I know why, because I did a little slight amount of research on the matter. It's this Gillette Lab commercial where it's like a young guy, maybe in his 20s, who's like shaving, but he's like FaceTiming with his dad. Have you seen this one, Andrew?

I am trying to think. This sort of rings a bell, and I'm wondering if that's because it's a commercial that maybe has been on in the room, but I haven't paid a lot of attention. Go on. Tell me what happens.

well it's the the basically the the young guy younger guy is got his phone with him he's in the bathroom he's about to start shaving and then his dad calls him and like so now we got kind of like a split screen thing going where they're facetiming and talking about shaving yeah and like the first time i i sort of caught the commercial i was like what in the world are these characters who are they trying to how is this supposed to be making me want to use a gillette product and then it got for me very quickly connected to a whole new england patriots situation because famously they play in gillette field and these are gillette stadium and these this i i can't think of a dynamic i detest more than the father-son relationship that's being expressed in this commercial so just take a listen to this this guy again pops hey son you

got a little something on your face needed a quick shave quick shave respect the process it Ain't my dad's razor, dad. It's from Gillette Labs. Gillette Labs? Gillette's ultimate shaving experience. This green bar releases trapped hairs from my face. Game changer. While the flex disc contours to it. Looking smooth. Feeling even smoother. How about hooking me up with some Gillette Labs? Check your text. You're the best. Nah, you're the best. The best a man can get keeps getting better. The next generation of shaving is Gillette Labs.

I feel like every mistreatment of women by men in this country is related back to this exact dynamic.

These are not famous people. These are actors portraying their father. They are TikTokers, it turns out.

Oh, okay. I didn't know that until this morning. I forget. I don't have their names right in front of me, but it's like Jack and Pete. And obviously, this is who Gillette thinks that their potential customers are. Like a kind of a borderline finance bro with kind of like an old school pops who's like, respect the process. Who says respect the process about shaving, by the way? Like, this dynamic of, like, you know I'll give you a knuckle sandwich I'll give you something to shave about Like, it's so off-putting to me They also have the guy The dad is drinking out of a, like, world's best dad mug But it's very subtle You had to watch the commercial eleventy times Like I did to even see it Like, it's exactly the dynamic That I don't want to see anymore In father-son relationships, honestly And it's, to me, again It feels like an extension of the New England Patriots It just seems real bro-y. It feels bro-y, it feels Boston-y. I know we have a lot of listeners in Boston, God bless. But it just feels like, hey, did you see how the Pats did? And also the dad is kind of ball-busting his son, but then at the end, the son is like, you're the best dad. And the dad's like, no, you're the best son. And it's like, okay, let's all go get drunk together. Like, it just, it's a dynamic that really, as you can tell, really sets my teeth on edge. And I'm like, this is really, this is where, Go back to the commercials where someone's shaving with a razor that has nine blades on it. Let's just go back to like a Tron-like animation where someone's shaving with nine blades and each one is trimming the hair closer and closer to the follicle. That's like, let's just go back to that. The idea of this, and then of course I read the press release. Oh, by the way, do you know, you wouldn't know this, but like the producer, the company, the media company that produced this commercial, this is so perfect. This is also why I'm kind of wound up this morning. vayner media vayner media is the ad agency that is run by a guy named gary v aka i think his full name is like gary vaynerchuk and gary vaynerchuk is this guy whose family had like a wine business a wine store in new jersey and then he grew it into this like behemoth and now has become this kind of like biz biz dude guru who you see all the time on like rogan and places like that like he's he's he's sort of he's a gary v is now his own brand of like if you want to double if you want to double your business every year do this and if you want to like calorie risk like everything that a everything that a young bro could dream of gary v has got you covered on life coaching and it's hilarious to me that this commercial that i just immediately detested like i just like from across the room I heard it and I was like I don't like that and then when I as I dig down into it it's like oh of course it's produced by Gary V like that the the takeaway here is trust

your instincts Luke trust your instincts okay so you talking about this commercial and the relationship between the father and the son I'm with you it sounds very off-putting and I think I have

that I don't think I've paid as much attention to it. It's just sort of like washed over me.

But yeah, it hasn't ruined your day the way it clearly has for me.

No, but it reminds me of a different dynamic, a commercial that I like a lot that I wanted to build a whole show around a few weeks ago. And I found it incredibly difficult and I had to sort of table it and it occurred to me, maybe I could use your help here, Luke, because here's the commercial I'm talking about. It's not a new commercial. I'm looking here. I actually called it up here. It's an E-Trade commercial that was posted to YouTube three years ago. So this thing is at least three years old. It might be might even be slightly older than that. And you see a kind of a young father. I mean, everybody's young to me these days. I'm going to say a father with he's maybe in his 30s, early 40s. He's got a kid there who's maybe eight years old or something. And they're sitting on the couch and they are try. In fact, I'll bet you this might have even come out during the pandemic when a lot of people who weren't usually FaceTiming or Zooming or whatever were experimenting with what I will call video phone technology. because I still live in the Jetsons age. But I don't know if this is ringing a bell to you, but you have this father and son, and they're on the couch at their place, and they're trying to talk to the little kid's grandpa, this guy's father, who's somewhere else. And the father's trying to use his phone to FaceTime, but he's using it like a telephone. So the dad and the kid are just seeing a big close-up of grandpa's ear. Does this ring a bell to you at all?

No, but it's a very good idea for a commercial.

Yeah, and if I recall, it's very charming. I'm going to play it for you. Then I'm going to come back and tell you what show I wanted to produce based on this. Dad, it's a video call. Hold the phone in front of you. Get mom. It says you've compromised enough this year. And then I think there's a tag on the end. Don't get mad. Get E-Trade and start trading today. Oh, that's too bad. That's a short version of it. There's one with a little button of a joke at the end. And he's like, use it like a mirror. And then he holds it really close to his face. He's like, have you ever used a mirror before? And so it's like a little bit ball busty. But it's like it's loving, you know, and there's just like there's there's charisma that comes off of off of there's really sorry. Yes, there is. So anyway, what I thought would make a great theme for an episode of After These Messages is people being frustrated by technology. Like I feel like there are a million commercials just like this, right, where somebody is like and maybe it's a commercial for an easier technology. Like you don't have to do it the hard way anymore. Or maybe it's sort of a gentle joke on older generations or whatever it is. I feel like you could do a whole commercial where people are just like, just don't know how to use technology. But there are just certain ideas that I have, Luke, that are just too big for this world. No, it's just there are certain ideas that I have that just don't lend themselves to a Google search. You know what I mean?

Like, hey, Gorgle, show me commercials where people are frustrated by technology is not really a thing that's bringing back usable.

results and sometimes you'll be surprised by it sometimes you know you'll you'll have some concept for a show and you'll look around for it and then you'll remember some of them oh yeah that's a really good one or commercials that use caribou to sell detectives or whatever i'm just proud i remember the word caribou um but whatever like a specific search term or that's a okay that's a silly example but like genevieve i mean this is a very easy one but genevieve did a show about commercials that featured owls years ago well that's pretty easy right commercials featuring owls let's look for this shit um but i was having a i was very frustrated thinking like this would be such a great show but i could not and in my memory i can't think of any other commercials that fit this category although i feel like i've seen thousands of them in my lifetime well i think

that the the one the commercials i'm sure that you've talked about extensively that do kind of feature an element of this are those progressive ones with the the you know the doctor who's helping and people not become their parents. Dr. Rick ads have a lot of that going on.

We've really exhausted those.

Although the new one of those where the guy wants to take a picture with LL Cool J is really good.

They're all good. I haven't seen the LL Cool J one, though. I've seen the new dumpster one where they're throwing things away. The guy's got to throw away the foot mats for his car, and it's not even a car he has anymore. but I haven't seen the LL Cool J.

Do you own that car? No. Let me just play this for you, Andrew. We're getting no closer to your question, but this is Dr. Rick. It's called Chance Encounter, and it's like one of the regulars now from that whole series of commercials where it's basically people who are not very old but who are becoming their parents, and he and Dr. Rick are standing in a bakery, and they're going to realize that LL Cool J is next to him, and Dr. Rick is going to be like, you don't have to talk to him.

Okay, when you turn around, you're going to see some more. We have a turkey and cheese. Let's imagine that LL Cool J has a bubble around him. Do we want to be inside? Hey, I'm Keith. There are some situations that young homeowners turning into their parents just can't handle. Yep, there he is. There's my nephew. I got a video of him. of him playing piano. He's showing LL Cool J pictures off of his phone. Progressive can't save you from becoming your parents. And then he's trying to

this is why I thought of it because again you've already said that there's too much of this on your other show but like the guy who's becoming his dad is trying to take a selfie and he's doing it wrong with LL Cool J. I just like the, I like Dr. Rick saying pretend LL Cool J has a bubble

around him. Hi I'm Keith. That guy's good I can picture that guy. I think he's the one who, does he have glasses? He's a white guy with glasses. He's also Yeah, yeah. And I mean, we could just do the rest of the show on the Dr. Rick commercials alone. And keep in mind, that's progressive. Progressive also has flow.

Progressive. Did you read? Did you? I'm sorry to jump on you there. But did you read that Katie Weaver? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just was like, of course, that was written by. I may have brought up in a previous show, but I was like, of course, our favorite writer, Katie Weaver, wrote about a thing we're obsessed with, which are the progressive commercial.

Yeah. Yeah. That was really good. And we talked about that quite a bit on After These Messages, too, I think. Um, but, uh, I was just going to say the, the progressive commercial, I mean, like how many, how many great campaigns can you have going at once? And I mean like literally some of the best writing on television, like the doctor campaigns, the doctor campaign is fantastic. I think most of the flow extended universe commercials are amazing. And the Katie Weaver piece got into this a little bit too, that like they're expanding that universe out without making it feel like they're pushing, um, Stephanie Courtney. Um, wait, did I say her name? of the right order yeah yes without pushing stephanie courtney um to the sidelines basically i love what they're doing with that whole campaign but the dr rick stuff we we've talked about the one where the guy is literally polishing his garbage cans and in the same one complaining that his hedges are growing too long right that one hits a little close to home for you that one hits a little bit close to home and have you seen the salad bar one i don't know if i have it's wonderful it's just like they're in some sort of modern salad bar you know little restaurant or whatever and uh it's all these things of these you know people who don't know how to navigate modern lunch and at the very end they're like okay that's 1999 he's like no no I'm just paying for my salad and I feel like it's such a good little tag that's actually pretty funny now when you say

salad bar because I have seen that commercial but I can't visualize it is it like one of those places where they make the salad for you on the other side like a chop okay because what that had me thinking about and you know we should do emails and emails probably but like the old school salad bar i don't that's a thing of the past right did they quietly retire the salad bar that's like under the sneeze guard like with the cherry tomatoes at the end like i'm trying to remember the last time that because if i'm around one of those i'm going for it like that's a if i'm if i'm in a pizza joint or something that still offers that that's right when's the last time i've seen a salad i just love that kind of thing and i feel like they don't do that anymore now of course there are lots of places that will make you a fancy and expensive salad someone will make it for you uh you know based on your preferences yeah but like i i would i would like to uh visit an old-fashioned

salad bar you know and you kind of it's hard for me not to group it together with a little bit with like an all-you-can-eat bar like those things were already sort of dying out before the pandemic and i'm sure the pandemic really okay whole foods still has like a kind of a kind of a classic salad bar but it's different though it's not what you're talking about like you're waiting for your main entree to come out and so you're gonna go make yourself a salad that ends up being way too big by the time you're done like sprinkling the carrots on top you're like this is supposed to be a small salad that like yeah i grew up with that and i love that and of course wendy's had the salad bars that were like kind of revolutionary at the time for a fast food restaurant when you

could get a get a good wendy salad and go sit in some kind of atrium yeah right yeah futuristic

glass box to eat your salad with fake newsprint on the tables advertising all kinds of tonics

simpler time here i go once again with the email every week i hope that it's from a female

oh man it's not from a female all right email or v-mail before we wrap her up yeah let me see here

i got a few things here um here you know one thing i wanted to do i want to give a shout out to uh listener micah um i think i'm pronouncing that right right m-i-c-a-h that's usually a

Micah, in my experience?

Micah texted me the other day. I was very obsessed with the combination of the Chewbacca yell, followed by Tony Hale as Buster Bluth saying, Hey, Hermano. And so I think using some very simple editing software on Micah's phone, they send him this.

Hey, Hermano. And it does hit, right?

Like it's got our theme song behind it. Yeah, it's pretty good. Here, let me see if I can play this one more time. I'm also learning. Oh, that's a video in my audio software was playing that video. That's interesting. Let's see here. That's very good. Yeah, it's good. Thank you for sending that in, Micah. And here's a quick little story from Max in Seattle. Hey, fellas.

Max in Seattle here calling in and a couple weeks ago I discovered what I think is probably Andrew's nightmare job now do you want to take any guesses at

this great question Andrew's nightmare job well let's see so we know that your dream job is working at a art house movie theater with a bowling alley in

the basement I'm just throwing that in there okay so we so that's kind of like

that's just a level set that for us we that's where we that's where you want to be so what's the opposite of that i mean i'm kind of like you know being a magic mike comes to mind i don't know if you'd want to be i don't know if you'd want to be a magic mike i feel like heights would be

involved now i know i know where max is going with this but i'm gonna put myself you know yeah window cleaner like one of those on the high rise right or somebody who has to like adjust the lighting in the rafters over a giant pit of cottage cheese or something like that that is by the way a growth industry really i mean did i ever tell you that that like when i was younger and knew that i wanted to get into or thought i wanted to get into something related to audio visual technology but i didn't know what that looked like and um i i toured a place that my dad did some business for which was a company in cleveland that basically helped major tours when they came in like musical tours or whatever like prince or madonna or whatever didn't he make the this was famously the the microphones some microphone holders for prince that were in the shape of guns that my dad made reluctantly or his company made uh even though my dad was not a big fan of prince um but anyway i think it was called eighth day sound was the name of this place and my dad was like oh you know you should go get a tour of that you know meet my contacts my friends there you know maybe there's a an internship or something is sort of doing a lot of that in my teen years and i remember going and visiting them and they're like you don't have a problem with heights do you and i was like i will show myself out like yes like i am not going in there were a few rare times even in my work at wksu when i was recording like symphony stuff and actually worcester ohio luke um at the ohio light opera i believe i'd have to go up a couple of times up into the like not the rafters but like the catwalk up there to like set up like stereo mics and i think i'm trying to think if i ended up just telling my boss i can't do that or i feel like i went up there once and just like was paralyzed with fear um and so anyway i often think anything with heights would be bad anything where i have to like deal with anything goopy and gross i was

gonna say yeah like like um well you've already mentioned cottage cheese but like cottage cheese Quality control Tastes tester Okay so my guess is That this is a job where a person Tastes sour cream All day Okay sounds good well I will have you know

That both of us are pretty wrong

Hey fellas Max in Seattle Here calling in and A couple weeks ago I discovered What I think is probably Andrew's Nightmare job Went to one of the Candlelight concert series events where we kind of sat down and some musicians, the string quartet played Christmas music and a bunch of candles were all over the place and the seating was kind of done by section so it was general admission and so we got there right at showtime because I'm on Luke's schedule apparently and there wasn't really any seating open for two people so there was actually somebody's dedicated job who worked for the event venue who went around and asked people to rearrange themselves to find two seats that were together, which involved, you know, going up, disturbing people's conversations and asking them to physically move. And, you know, immediately I cringed and I felt embarrassed. And then I immediately thought, I bet Andrew would absolutely hate that job. I'm not sure how much money you'd have to pay me to do that, but I'm guessing it's

not enough. Yeah, I mean, better than having to taste test sour cream mixed with cottage cheese in a high rise hanging off of a high rise hanging off a high rise without any kind of strap keeping me safe but this would make me very uncomfortable I will say

this there is a certain the fact that you work there that you're not just there with your like you know date saying could you please move or would you mind shifting over a little bit or could you sit close to that person I would say that the fact that you are that it's your job is a little bit of an insulation against, like, I would feel better about it if I had a vest on and I worked at the venue and I was saying, hey, we're just gonna need to, if we can have everyone kind of you know, kind of consolidate so we can fit more people in, etc. I would be more comfortable doing that than showing up with Becca going um, can I have you scoot over a skosh? That feels very, like, related to me personally, whereas the other one's just like, it's just a job. I would need a badge. Yes. And a taser.

In case people

refuse. I actually, I actually, uh, you know, I'm going to be hopefully anyway, uh, flying out to New York later this week. And I was, uh, and Becca is coming with, and I was looking at our, our seats and I was trying to, there was a moment where I, I had picked some seats for us, but then all of a sudden when I was logging back into the app, I didn't see that our seats were reserved. And I was like, are we like, did we get separated? And then I immediately went into that mode of, and am I going to be the person who's asking someone to trade seats with me? Oh yeah. so that I can be sitting next to my girlfriend. And I sort of hate those people when I'm on a flight. My thought is always, I don't know, handle your business. I don't want to be moving around because, and then also there are people, I think maybe even you've explained that this has happened to you and Genevieve on occasion and you're like, we live together. We can sit in our own seats for four to five hours.

I was gonna ask you about that. Yeah, because Veeves and I will take seat choice over sitting next to each other. We enjoy sitting next to each other. the ideal is to have like her window me aisle and nobody taking that middle seat. But there have been times where somebody takes that middle seat and we're like, okay, see you on the other side, you know, like, you know, yeah. Is that an option for you?

It probably is. The difference is that we don't live together. Sure. So it's kind of like if you know, so it is like, Oh, we're, you know, we don't like, how often do we fly somewhere? How often are we even, you know, able to, I'm living up here right now. so that's one element of it um luckily i was able to get i was able to quickly put us seated seated next to each other but i really did have this moment it's crazy how your brain can just like go from like a momentary thing of like oh we don't have our saved seats anymore and in a split second i had jumped into the future where i'm having to ask somebody to trade seats with me and then thinking well what would be the most advantageous thing well it would be if i was if my seat was closer to the front of the plane like if i'm if my seat's in row seven and this person i want to trade is in row nine so i'm giving them a mild upgrade they're getting closer to the front like i'm just you know i'm trying to think of like all of the ways that i could incentivize someone to want to trade like if i was being asked to trade seats what would i be looking for well i'd be wanting to get closer to the plane in my same seat so if i'm an aisle i want to be in an aisle but closer to the plane like closer to the front of the plane etc i went through this whole thing and then i just put us back in our seats and we were fine yeah that's

That's the Andrew condition right there. That's borrowing trouble, as Genevieve would say. I borrowed so much trouble in like one second.

One second I had had the whole conversation with this person. They had turned me down. I was like, eh. I lived this anxiety of this event that's never going to happen. They turned me down.

I started stalking them 30 years later.

There's a TikTok. Male Karen has meltdown on flight. I really went there. Anyway, things are going fine. That's the point. All right. Okay, thanks, everybody. We are going to be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. Maybe I can finally tell you about my breakthrough with television watching that I've been promoting for multiple episodes this week and have yet to get to. We'll talk about that tomorrow and lots of other fun stuff, so do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourselves. Stay warm and stay off the ice wherever you might be. I'd say stay indoors. That's one of my tips for beating the cold. Don't sweat outside. Don't sweat the cold stuff Don't sweat like my brother Don't sweat like my brother Alright, see you tomorrow In the meantime, please remember, in a mountain too tall And good luck to all Power out