Muse

Oh, boy, boy, just calling to let you know that I had a dream last night in which they carved all the rest of the presidents into Mount Rushmore. Like, it was a valley that went all the way down, and the most current presidents were carved at the bottom. So, that was a good dream. Power out. TBTL!

Giddy up. We're jumping on the audio wagon today, everybody.

Hey, this guy does not have the show figured out. I'm looking into his eyes, and all I see is fear and a little bit of shame.

In 1971, Bill Greats invented Microsoft. Wouldn't it be cool if I could remember my dingus password from my email?

We both have so much in common. We both love soup, and we love the outdoors.

we love snow peas sooner or later gentlemen you will eat your words you can't be that overly confident remember baby never you might eat that mic all right hello good morning and

welcome everyone to a wednesday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live

it's not as sexy as sending astronauts to the moon my name is luke burbank i am your host oh my god Yeah, I made it!

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, we are getting some...

Oh, ma, pa, it's just beautiful.

Some blue skies. The mighty Columbia is very still. It doesn't even look like it's moving, which might not be a good thing. I think it's supposed to move. I think that's some part of the hydrological cycle that may have been interrupted today. But it sure looks pretty as we make our way into episode 4136 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

And we're going to talk movies today. A new segment, TBTL, about movies near the movies. So who needs a movie? Three different stories, none of which by themselves probably rise to the level of a topic on TBTL. And I know what you're thinking. There are standards for the topics on TBTL? Yes, there are. none of these by themselves rise to that level but taken together as part of a movie based segment we just might we just might get there also remember how I was getting all of these tolls that were being attributed to an account that I had with the state of Washington and I was being threatened with collections and all of that well solved the mystery can you verify can you give me some 411 and I want to credit day listener for helping nudge me in that direction uh in just a moment also we're going to talk to this guy the longest running cobro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships he's just got kind of a earworm just a loop running his head at all times and it is this here's my sweet stash let's freaking party that's why he's so dang fun to listen to he's andrew walsh and he's joining me right now good morning my friend good morning luke i was

listening to um the dan lebitard show yesterday no surprise there in fact that's going to come back to haunt this conversation in just a moment but speaking of mustaches they were celebrating the life and times of carl weathers and they played an old interview they had with him a long time ago and he didn't and their point was that carl weathers was just a man who had so much gravitas and and in a certain way could wield so much power in hollywood but it was also just like such a nice person who would just hang and they didn't have any special relationship with him or anything but i don't know back in the day he was on the show by phone it sounded like he was even in a moving car somewhere and they start asking him basically to rank mustaches or they're throwing all these celebrity mustaches that just made me spit out some of my what did we decide it's called

sparkling water that just made me almost spit out some of my sparkling water oh the tape is so

charming because he just rolls with it they're like all right they're like is this is this one in the hall of fame hulk hogan he's like yeah i guess that's so crazy you got to put in the hall of fame and then like almost everybody made it in i can't remember who didn't make it in but it was just such an example of and you know again that show is a little bit like ours in that it's kind of insular it has its own language and sometimes you have people on who don't know that language but surprisingly they can hang anyway and it's like the most fun people to be around and he was

one of them i have my appreciation for carl weathers has really grown um since his passing because i you know of course thought of him as i forgot that he was apollo creed by the way which is crazy i thought of him more as the guy from arrested development you got yourself a stew i thought of him as the guy from happy gilmore i think i thought of him kind of in his post rocky life but i forgot that i mean that was really i think what introduced him to a lot of people and

I saw an interview, you know, sort of as part of an obit for him, where he was talking about how he got the role of Apollo Creed in Rocky. He really wanted the job, but it was one of those things where like his agent couldn't even get him a reading because they had all these other people they were looking at. And he finally managed to get this reading. And, you know, Sylvester Stallone famously wrote Rocky and I guess that Rocky II or whatever it was. And so Carl Weathers is doing the line reading with Sylvester Stallone and he gets done and everyone in the room is just kind of lack is there kind of no one's that impressed by the read and he just said i don't know where this came from but i said if you got me a real actor to play off if i could really do this scene and he said there was just this moment i know that feeling total silence and then everyone including sylvester sloan just cracked oh that's great i guess famously said he probably said this in a lot of interviews that he thinks that sylvester sloan cast him as apollo creed just So he could beat the crap out of it.

That's a good joke. I mean, how flippin' charming could you be? That is really wonderful. I know. I think of Predator as well. I mean, it's not like I'm a huge fan of Predator. In fact, I haven't seen the Rocky movies.

Or as Camaro Kev calls it for some reason, Predator.

The for some reason. It's just one of those words.

I'll never see the word Predator and not think Predator.

That's funny. Yeah, and Camaro Kev put on Rocky 2, I believe, at the Eagles on Friday. just to have on in the background as a tribute to Carl Weathers. I didn't know that he was in both the first two movies. I haven't seen those movies, and I accidentally kept calling it Rambo, which I don't think Camaro could have appreciated that much. There's another sort of similarity I'm noticing between our show and the Dan Lebitard show, and there's this sort of ongoing thing that happens. You know, the crew over there, they have a lot of producers on mic, a whole zoo crew kind of situation over there, and one of the things they bring up a lot is a lot of people can say shit on that show but it doesn't matter who says it because it kind of comes down on dan's head you know because it's right because it's his show so billy gill will you know call a quarterback ugly who's the quarterback in in buffalo oh josh allen josh allen oh i think josh allen's a nice looking fella ugly he called him something he said no he said josh allen has a dumb face i think he said okay no that is true that's actually a dumb face and then also dan lebitard is being quoted as saying that um josh allen has a dumb face well i would argue that the most of the really nice

looking men do have dumb faces i think those kind of go hand in hand think of a guy with a smart face and he's not handsome john ham john ham i don't think i mean did you catch him in the

unbreakable kimmy schmidt or no no he oh that's true in unbreakable and he also plays a person

of very sub right i guess you're right but he would plays a sub person of of sub intellect

right in 30 Rock you're right that was a terrible example I think of him as being such a kind of erudite smart looking guy and you're thinking Don Draper well that and also just sort of I think I'm mixing his personality as well just like in interviews and stuff he's like again a guy who

can just hang sort of totally and is a thoughtful person I'm not I do not I do not come here today to run down national treasure John Hamm I just I do think most of the sort of quote-unquote conventionally handsome men i think that it's a kind of face that doesn't scream i've been reading you know um kierkegaard all morning and now i'm here to talk to you it's like it reads i've been out you know i don't know doing some sort of macho handsome thing that doesn't involve

reading books never occurred to me you could read kierkegaard in the morning why that seems so long as you're not in a blue state a blue kierkegaard in the morning and slick slick rick at night he meant a blue law state everybody yes i did okay so sorry back to that yeah so anyway um that that whole dynamic over there just um popped in my head this morning when i was listening okay so you know how when the new york times has a story that sort of seems tone deaf when it comes to like kind of class and

how they're coming off oh you mean about the people that have embraced tiny living but it's

because they own four homes right and retired early and every time i i every time you bring something like that up I always go back to the same example the story the New York Times that came out several years ago about people being house poor and they focus on a woman here in Seattle who bought like a big beautiful house somewhere here in town and then has quotes like you know I can't just like if I'm hungry for pasta I can't just hop over to Rome for three days anymore because I'm house poor and we say we cite that all the time I should even say I cite that all the time I don't even know if you've read the article or not um oh I remember she lived in

queen anne i remember the photo of her oh okay yeah so you do yeah so anyway it's written on

the tablet of my heart and my real estate jealousy it's also written on the tablet of our voicemail line she's now a tbtl listener no yes my friend and the reason i say this comes down on your head is because she doesn't know shit about me man all she knows is she's a fan of yours How is this? I'm calling as one of your biggest fans I know you most from, wait, wait, don't tell me sorry, that's my dog going crazy

those dogs are also trapped stateside

hungry for a pause

anyway I've been recently introduced to your podcast, the TV TL, and it's fabulous and you've referenced me a couple of times in the podcast I also live in Seattle You may remember me as the Seattle house poor woman. So I would love to tell you the full actual story with context, because there's a lot more to it. And I feel like it might be a good, I don't know, I feel like you might be interested in understanding the background and the context and why I'm actually a very nice, lovely woman who subscribes to the New York Times paper version still, despite that article you're not arguing against privilege i was on lately don't tell me i i swear it's like a bucket list for my life it made me so happy and i thought i was going to be so happy being in the new york times my other bucket list thing um and then this happened so i'd love to tell you about it let me know if you're interested uh okay so i edited out the personal information

we have contact information very interested i think we should absolutely talk to this person on the show don't you think well you know i'm gonna be taking a couple of days off in march um maybe you could talk to her when i'm out happily is it because you feel ignored by that

voicemail well no i mean i just i mean the irony is that you are the one who brought that that's

what i and i am the one who's that's what i mean i don't not want i'm not i'm not actually trying to not talk to her i just feel so chagrined because i'm the asshole who brings that up every time and that she's listening and has no idea I even exist. I think she thinks it's just a conversation between you and you, which is fine. But I love the fact that you're on the hook and that I can go take a trip to Mexico. Well, I was in the mood for Mexican food, so I'm going to go down to Mexico. And then you can sort of mop up my mess. I mean, I'm also just very curious. I do

love, well, love is the wrong word, but I'm intrigued by stories where the narrative sort of gets away from you or where yes yes like I can I can very I don't even know the details but I can imagine the details of this how this happened and how it was probably misconstrued and how this has become something that's probably both very um I don't want to say embarrassing but it's probably kind of annoying for people to have certain assumptions about you but it's also kind of fun at a certain sort of party to say yeah I am the New York Times house poor lady I would imagine there are some upsides and downsides of it. I would very much like to talk to this person.

Yeah, definitely. We'll make some contact and figure out what works out well. I was so shocked to hear that voicemail this morning.

The larger issue here is that you and I, well, again, I don't want to speak for you. I am not a truth teller. I am not the kind of person who can just say something to someone's face and just let them live with it. i'm very very nervous about people who were talking about hearing what we're saying about them like i try to do this whole thing behind everyone's back which is ironic considering we are cross-promoting with many other shows to try to grow our listening audience exactly and i'm also hoping that none of the people that ever get mentioned hear the program and this only confirms my fear that anything we say may be used against us in a court of podcasting i mean first carrie

at Manic Meatballs now, Stephanie the House for Seattleite. But you know what? We're making friends along the way, Luke.

I mean, what a range of listeners from unlikely successful meatball-based restaurants south of Tacoma to, you know, folks who have been to some degree held up for ridicule in the New York Times. Although I got to go reread the piece, obviously, before we talk to that person. I'm trying to remember if the New York Times, how they framed it. Like, you're of the opinion, and this will come up if you're not in Mexico and if you do want to be part of this conversation, it's your opinion that when the New York Times writes a piece like that or writes the one that I cited last week, they know that they are about to stir up a hornet's nest, a nest of class envy.

That's what my point is always, too. It's like the New York Times knows what they're doing here.

Right. So it would be your opinion that that article, you know, it wasn't written in good faith. like hey people are struggling you know people have these beautiful homes that they've paid a lot of money for but it means they don't have a lot of other sort of discretionary income and here's an example of that you you feel like the person at the new york times was setting up our new favorite listener to kind of look privileged our new favorite donor is

didn't you read the headline house poor andrew we have various levels at which you can donate to TVTL, Stephanie. So if you want the headline, and I'm not trying to pile on here.

we can revisit this when we have Stephanie on the show. But just for that context, in case you're curious, let me let me just read you a couple of things directly from the paper. So the headline and this came out. Let's see here. I'm looking for the date. I don't have the date. Oh, here, February of 2022. So almost exactly two years ago. The headline is they rushed to buy in the pandemic. Here's what they would change. A frenzied seller's market led some people to make harried decisions when buying their homes that they now regret. And then so the article begins. They set it up. I think they focus on another couple first. And then the subheadline about a quarter down is the cost. And again, not piling on Stephanie here. I'm reading directly from the Times to illustrate what we're talking about, how this was set up. The subheadline, the cost of being house poor. Three months into the pandemic, Stephanie felt claustrophobic working from her home in her 800 square foot townhouse in Queen Anne. I'm sort of abbreviating here a little bit so like millions of americans she started looking for a bigger space she set her maximum budget at nine hundred thousand dollars but soon realized she wanted to stay in the central neighborhood she would have to pay more she upped her budget to 1.3 million reassessing her priorities quote i decided i've done a lot of traveling i've had a lot of fun i've done the thing where i'm like i'm hungry for pasta i'm going to go to rome for three days she said who works for amazon i don't know why i'm omitting her last name now it's in the new york Times, but I just know her as our good friend and donor, Stephanie, I'm going to Rome for three days. She said she works for Amazon. I can stop doing that now. I can afford to be a little house poor. So again, I think the New York Times knows what they're doing here. I mean, oh, yeah, they knew they had a juicy, juicy quote. Yes. And and and Stephanie, we're not the first people to point this out to her. Obviously, she even alludes in her voicemail to saying that like she was excited to be in the New York Times and I think I'm properly inferring there that it did not go as she had hoped and now she sort of has some regret about this entire thing because you know there were entire chat groups about this article

I have a lot of questions that you can't answer but Stephanie can so I will look forward to talking to her one of the questions I have is was she on wait wait don't tell me as the person who flies to Italy to have pasta or were these independent or discreet events

that's an interesting question yes I mean we don't really

Do that on the show typically Well that's actually not true She could have been the reveal in a Not my job You know bluff the listener thing

Oh you think that maybe When she says I was on wait wait don't tell me She means she was referenced on wait wait don't tell me

No I mean she might have been Oh the guest

Right right right

Not even the guest but the reveal So like it could have been Why are we doing this I don't know The person who could answer these questions I don't know It's a Wednesday What else are we going to do um so uh it could have been the case that there's a bluff the listener category that is like you know um extreme privilege or i don't know what how they would set it up and there's a real story and there's two made-up ones and the real story is about a person who told the new york times they can no longer fly to italy for pasta and then when the listener on the phone there's the random person guesses at which is the real story then they will play a bit of tape that identifies which was the real story and this could have been listener stephanie although she might have also just been a person who was calling in and participating in one of the games. Yeah, I forgot about that too.

I don't know. Yeah, so anyway, well we will, I assume that Stephanie will hear this, but either way, we'll reach out.

I also have great news. John Hamm will be leaving a voicemail, presumably for the next year. I think we just need to keep manifesting these guests. Yes, exactly. By talking about, anybody else you'd like to you know, Carl Weathers, unfortunately is off the list now. Anybody else we should be

manifesting here? Yeah, let me, can I put together a list and get back with you on that? Please do. So, yeah, I mean, I do think I have some apologizing to do to Nicole Kidman, I suppose. Yes, I had to stall and try to remember.

Somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this.

And the fact that she was the celebrity whose name I could never remember yet I always wanted to go to. Like, remember, like, it just became such a joke on the show. Like, and it still happens.

Somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this.

When I see her name coming up in a conversation on air or off, I have to start gearing myself up and start thinking of context clues to remember. I do not know why that name will not stay in my brain.

I've been having a real problem with Vanessa Bear currently. There was like three days I couldn't remember the name Vanessa Bear, who I am such a tremendous fan of. And I had seen something on TikTok where she was, it was like a, it must have been during the pandemic, or maybe not, I don't know, it was on that whatever that Andy Cohen show is, you know, watch what happens live or something. that's a whole world that I just because I'm not a real housewives watcher there's a whole world of pop culture that I just don't have any real sort of like entry point to and that involves that whole Andy Cohen world but anyway I saw this funny clip where I think Vanessa Bear was like zooming into Thank you.

to do a kind of dramatic line reading of what I assume was real dialogue from one of those shows. And it was so funny. And I just was having this moment of thinking, I think Vanessa Bear might be one of the naturally as funniest people, most naturally funny people out there. Like, I've never seen her in anything that missed from her performance perspective.

Absolutely. Like, just as a comedian, I respect her, but I'll also go on the record here, and maybe this will get her to listen to the show.

Oh, yeah, we're manifesting Vanessa Bear here.

That's right. I will be vulnerable and say she remains she is one of my current biggest celebrity crushes I can't I just can't help in the character of the kid studying for his bar mitzvah

Wait wait wait that's the version of her that gets you all revved up

Wait wait wait I feel like I can picture that but I'm not placing it what is where is that

She used to do a weekend update character that was like a little like 12 year old boy who was like I think studying the Torah for his bar mitzvah

Okay, yeah

And he's just like a, you know, I think kind of like Sort of unfailing Yankees fan He's just, there's something about her kind of in You know, dressed up as a little kind of unselfaware boy Who's excited about the Yankees That was just very funny And it would also be weird if that was the version of her I mean, I don't mean weird for people But weird for you based on what I know about you If that was the version of her that you were digging

Yeah, you know, young boys Probably I don't usually associate with the word crush for myself Sure, sure

I'll go on the record saying that too but i so after seeing this video of vanessa bear and having that thought like i just think she might be one of the funniest people in the world to me i could not remember her name and it was one of those things where i refused to look it up do you ever do that i was like i can't i cannot use that crutch i need my my brain come on brain think of things come on brain be so smart in the words of linda linda manuel miranda love is love is love and uh and i was like just and then like it took two or three days and then like yesterday i was like oh yeah vanessa bear yeah it came back to me but i'm you know that that one really worried me because i was just staring at this image of this person going i and i may i might have even interviewed her at some point i feel like you did maybe during the pandemic she had a show that came out that i thought was so genius actually i'm i i know we interviewed cecily strong but anyway it was based a little bit on her real life which was vanessa bear uh grew up really obsessed with the home shopping network and i think wanted to be one of the people on there and also she is a a survivor of a of childhood cancer in real life and her character on this show which i watched the pilot of that's why i must i interviewed someone associated with this program because they sent me the pilot and it was so great because she basically is like she manages to land this job at the like home shopping network but she's bad at it her character and when they're right when they're about to fire her she basically says her cancer has come back to get this and so they can't fire her and that's just like the that's the jumping off point for the show and i just i remember being totally bowled over by the pilot and then i didn't hear a lot about it after that but that was really that was really good as well of course she's great and i think you should leave um she's great in

everything was it barry i think she was in bear we played tape of her i think from i think yeah it was barry she's like a she's an agent and barry i believe a team oh seriously i didn't get i this oh yeah here can i play this for you please do this is something that you've probably heard

at the beginning of the show before so what is this new project you guys have for sally okay okay

Okay, so this new project we have, it's called The New Medusas, and we think it could really use the Sally Reed touch. So it's a show about three women who run a salon in Soho, who are just trying to get by, and they have snakes for hair, and they turn dudes into stone. Okay. So right now, the show, it's a little, I don't know. And I think that you, Sally Reed, could bring to it more of a hmm. I don't know what you mean. So right now the show, it's more yeah. And you could bring it to more of a yeah.

I think I know what you're saying. I have a client right now that's bringing to a Fox show that before was just eee. So we're looking for less eee and more eee. That actually wasn't in the email

That's great And of course our favorite I think you should leave sketch Is her bury me in the wet mud Yep

Anyway so Vanessa get at us Please we have manifested you Officially as a guest on this program Right after we get done talking to Stephanie

Of

Queen Anne living fame So let's thank some donors Here and then I do want to tell you I want to do something that will very likely Once again derail our top story actually maybe not it doesn't have to be I don't need to spend an hour telling you about this good to go situation but I might I just might look we put out a lot of TV TL 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.

All right.

Let's thank some donors. These are the generous people who have foregone a trip to Italy so as to have money left to support TBTL. And we sure do appreciate it. Folks like Annette Streak of Brampton, Ontario, Canada. Oh, our friends to the north. That's absolutely right. I don't know if Annette is paying us in U.S. currency, in Canadian. Let's be honest. They've got us beat on their paper money is way more interesting and entertaining than ours.

Yeah, it's got a lot going on. But also, I mean, if you stop and look at U.S. currency, there's a lot going on in there, too. It's not as colorful.

Have you ever looked at it? Excuse me. The Freemasons, the Illuminati. Sure.

Third eye.

There is much more going on on that U.S. money than you could ever understand, my little friend.

I'm sorry for even trying to weigh in here. Of course, I didn't really feel like my contribution of our friends to the north really added to the conversation earlier.

Well, you're going to get a chance to use it again, Andrew, in a couple of moments here.

So I'm trying to keep the hacky sack in the air here.

I'm not doing the best job. And I thank you for that. Also, Denny Goulet thanks you for that. Denny is culturally Edmonds.

Oh, our friends to the slight north.

Yep. Just the very slight north. He's culturally Edmonds, and he's also literally Edmonds. Oh, yeah.

Good. Thank you, Danny.

And then Aaron Smith checking in from the biggest little city in the world, Reno, Nevada.

Oh, wow. What happens in Reno stays in Vegas.

Big things. That's a good line. Big things happening in Reno, I'm told. I was flying home a while ago to Portland, and the guy on my flight sitting next to me is a some kind of a developer in both portland and reno and was telling me that reno is really coming into its own it's not just about the casino life there's all kinds of cool stuff happening in reno cool stuff including aaron smith living there nice and donating to the show thank you and then of course we've got another friend to the north a friend to the north that's right bill pollack in kingston ontario a one-time I'm Toronten. That's right. Now Ontario. Wait, Toronto is also in Ontario. Now a Kingston. Now a Kingston. Our good friend, Mr. Bill. Hey, Bill, how are you? I will say this, and I will listen to that. Will you? I will. I shall.

I will say this, and you will sort of listen and maybe also kind of check your email. Honestly, I do have a lot going on today. I know. I understand. It's kind of busy. I think it's hard to make the nickname switch or the nickname evolution. I mean, Bill in Toronto was a name that we knew very well and said quite a bit on the show. Bill always submits emails to the show and quizzes. He's a great quiz maker, everything. It was always Bill in Toronto. And when he moved to Kingston, he would sign his emails, Bill in Toronto, now Kingston. And I'm like, yeah, but you're going to be Bill in Toronto forever. But he's made it work. It's Bill in Kingston now. I think of that first. It took me a second to try to remember what it used to be.

Good for him. That's hard to do. So I was on a podcast called, actually, I don't know what it's called, but the guy who hosted is a guy named Shea and Irving. And he was a very frequent caller and maybe still is a very frequent caller to the, I think it was like the Dan Patrick show.

Oh, yeah.

And he was Shea and Irving. And he doesn't live. That was like Irving.

Shea in Irving, right? Okay, yeah.

S-H-E-A and then in Irving. And I assume that was Irving, Texas. Yeah, okay. And he kind of became famous on that show And is still famous on that show I don't think he lives there anymore I think he lives somewhere else

I think I was talking to him in another state, but he's still Shea and Irving. That's just like his, you know, that's his permanent handle. And I think that Bill in Toronto should embrace that, and he should still be Bill in Toronto.

Oh, you want him to go back?

No, I demand that he goes back.

You demand? Okay. That's something to think about, Bill. I'm kind of, I don't know. I'm not in agreement with Luke on this one. Well, just donate twice, Bill.

You can be Bill in Toronto when I read it, and then you can be Bill in Kingston when Andrew reads it.

Hey, that's a marketing opportunity there, or a fundraising opportunity. Get John on the line. Hey, anybody who wants to try out a fake name, you can also donate under a fake name, and we'll thank you twice.

It's like having kind of a stencil of a tattoo that you can take off, but you're just kind of trying it on. You're wearing it around. You can wear your fake name. You can practice it here on TBTL, as long as you donate twice. Exactly. Hey, thanks to Hesse Sa in Honolulu, Hawaii. This is our second Hawaii resident checking in in a row here. Hey, Luke. Thanks, Hesse.

Our friends to the West.

We don't get to say that often. Our friends to the Hess.

Our friends to the Hess. Exactly. Thank you, Hess. We appreciate you always.

Very much so, yes. And then Judith Drescher is in New York City. Oh. I've heard of that. You've been there, right? Not only have I been there, I will be being there again, I think, March 1st. I'm doing an interview with some breakdancers, and the real question is, Will I try to get out on the dance floor with them? I don't think that's in the script, but I know myself and my capacity for humiliating myself in the service of what passes as humor.

Somebody saw the beatboxing segment and then just pushed all the chips into the center of the table.

Somebody sent me that. It's been, I don't want to say meme-ified, because I don't think it's got millions of views, but somebody who I've never met had just pulled that, like somebody who runs a music TikTok page, And it just was passing it around as how to beatbox in 25 seconds. And it was the clip of me beatboxing being coached along by Kayla M'Lady, the beatboxer. And it was embarrassing because the context was missing. Exactly. On the TV story, at the end of it, I said something. I looked into the camera and I apologized to Addie, my daughter, indicating to the audience I understood how corny I looked. But that's not part of this clip that's sort of going around. And it's very embarrassing. I don't think Judith Drescher had anything to do with it, but if you did, Judith, it's okay. I forgive you.

Yeah, I mean, you donated to the show. Everything's fine now.

You're our friend to the East, and we appreciate you. Our friend to the East. Thank you to all of our friends supporting TVTL. We couldn't do this without you. Hello, and welcome to Top Story. um you know how i was uh getting those increasingly angry letters from i guess it's the state of washington maybe it's the washington department of transit who runs good to go i think that's wash dot right maybe so i was getting actually calls and messages saying you have unpaid good to go bills and we there's going to be a civil judgment against you this was to the tune of i think by the end it was like 63 or something and i said on the show that like i had looked it up and i had looked at the first of all i thought that maybe it was the car that i used to have with carrie and so i reached out to her and i was like hey i think you um your car is still like hitting up my good to go account and she was like uh no i changed all of that like the day the divorce was finalized have you met me and i was like okay fair point so then i was was like who is this person and I called good to go and uh whatever the numbers and I got somebody who was not particularly helpful and I'm gonna I don't know do I want to admit to this on the show I had the sense that I was reaching a call center a call center maybe in another part of the world and there was something about that in my experience with call centers and that sometimes it can be less than totally helpful because oftentimes the person you're dealing with has a pretty tight script that they're following and and this person who i spoke to uh just basically said you got to go on the website and file a report go on the website and file a grievance or whatever like basically say this this wasn't you and i went on the website and i filed the report and i immediately got a response that said you need to give us more evidence this wasn't you and i was like how do i prove that that wasn't i mean how do you disprove a negative yep as they used to say and uh so uh You know, I've been on a mission lately to rehabilitate my credit score because I had an unfortunate issue where I had this thing reported to my credit from home equity loan that I have and dinged my credit badly. Anyway, so I've been trying to be careful about that and make sure my credit is sort of OK. and when they started threatening me with like civil i thought wouldn't it be ironic if i got my credit back on track which i did thankfully and then it just went back down because of some yeah you know bs whatever thing that i didn't actually even do for once usually when i get in trouble it's because i did something this would be um i didn't do anything anyway i also got an email from a listener i'm scrolling through here we go uh it's uh justin reached out and said, I hope your good-to-go issues go better than mine. I had a similar problem after moving from Washington to Oregon. The new renter of my old place informed me about a collections notice

for unpaid tolls on a car I sold years ago. Despite removing the car from my good-to-go account and reporting the sale, the issue still happened. Finally, a helpful support guy resolved it after much hassle and time spent. And I will tell you, Andrew, when I got up yesterday, I had Justin's email in the back of my head. I saw those words, helpful support guy, And I thought, maybe I just got a kind of checked out person the first time I called. And so I called back yesterday morning and I got RJ. And when I tell you that RJ was a whiz at this, they, I don't actually know what pronouns RJ uses. So I'm going to go with they, them. RJ just was like a like a bloodhound on the case on the scent went into all kinds of figured out what had gone on which is and check this out on the on space car number two I had had so that was the Audi that I had that Carrie and I had I had one of those little sensor dealies you know like a kind of a black rectangular thing that you screw onto your license plate and that car had bit the dust uh and we had like just i mean literally the engine blew up and we just traded

it into the dealer yeah that was one where this happened to other audis right and like basically your engine failed right after the warranty i think it was at 101 000 miles yeah so it's like

still basically like kind of a new car that you basically felt new and it was only recently paid off and that was when i learned a lesson about fancy high performance cars which is don't buy them if you're a podcaster but anyway this was the sensor from space car 2 somebody took it off of space car 2 and then put it on their car and had been driving around the northwest racking up

tolls to my account oh luke you said or at least you wrote on the show sheet that you solved the mystery my friend this mystery is just beginning we have to find this person theories now oh because

i do have well shoot you know what i did have their license plate number because it was in my account but now that account has been closed thanks to RJ and and and scrubbed and what this person did what somebody did somewhere one time was take the sensor put it on their car and drive around but the reason it was a very bad plan was because their license plate is in all of the photos so now they are just going to be billed for those tolls that they incurred you can't you can't really do this I mean I guess you could drive around with no plates on but if you have a license plate the thing takes a picture of your license plate and so rj was like yeah well now this is just applied to their bill but what i mean there's no way that this person did this with anything other than questionable motives right like intent because you there was no i mean they have to know they didn't set up an account they had somebody had to unscrew this thing off of the front of a um of a totaled audi more or less a car that looked like it was in great shape but

yeah exactly no but like where's the last what what's the last place you saw your car where did you drop it off when you're like we can't work with this anymore i have to say goodbye to this

thing it i never saw it i never got to say goodbye to space car 2 andrew what happened was um i was up in bellingham doing something i believe carrie was driving around seattle in it and called me and said the audi just died like you can't even drive it and it was like it it blew a i'm not a car person but like it blew a a cylinder or something and she limped it up

not a car person but is having lower back problems

she like like you literally if you hit the gas the whole car bucked like some kind of wild stallion because you know was the the timing was off as far as the engine firing it was and she just sort of somehow limped it up to the dealership we bought it from in seattle and they came out and ran the diagnostics and were like the car is totaled and not to I don't want to get bogged down in that because that was a very I was very frustrated because previous to this happening I was putting an entire like gallon of oil in that thing every single week which along

with being expensive because it was synthetic oil it was there's no way that could have been how it was supposed to work you should not be adding a what is an actual amount of oil not

it's not a gallon is that a pint i think you buy a quart of oil right a quart thank you a

quart that is what it is that's what i was searching for in my brain a vanessa bear of oil um i was put i was putting a quart of oil in every single week and i'd go to the dealership and they would say yeah some of these just use a lot of oil i was like there's no way this uses four quarts of oil a month that cannot be the case and so to have the car then blow up and to have that you know i was i was quite frustrated because what happened was you know i was taking it to a dealership in bellingham where we lived okay i'm getting way too in the no no no i'm this is the point is i never saw this car again the way that i ended up what happened was we went to a dealership in bellingham that agreed to like buy the audi for parts and facilitate the car getting towed up to bellingham so i don't know what happened because that was part of the problem the car was down in seattle we were up in bellingham i was basically willing to give the car away to not have to deal with trying to re-transport it up to where we lived and in fact it was one of those things where we went to the dealership on like december it was new year's eve and we it was like there's a deal you know but it it's it's only good through the last day of 2020 or something whatever it was and so we bought that tiguan and drove it down to rodens for a

new year's eve party i remember that night i saw you there yeah anyway all that is to say i never

I never got to say goodbye to space car number two. I don't know who harvested the good to go, but let's not let's not stop asking the question.

I mean, so this is I mean, so it was somebody after the car. You make this agreement. OK, it goes back to the dealership and they're going to like just basically take it somewhere where somebody can use it for parts or whatever. Well, one of those parts was your good to go pass. And somebody said, you know what? That would look good on my car.

And there's no way they thought, hey, these are just, they just hand these out and you just put this on your car and then you drive through tolls and, like, the universe pays it. Like, somebody knew that they were taking somebody else's account and then trying to use it for as long as they could.

Yeah, like, somebody took this thing. You need a screwdriver. Like, somebody's, like, working on this car. Somebody's, like, dismantling it or whatever you do. And you got no money for, like, whatever the parts of that car were worth, right?

Well, no, we got, it was, like, trade in value. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Which is kind of a bunch of BS, probably.

Okay, but yeah, and so somebody just decided, hey, I'm going to take this. I mean, I want to know how common this is. I want to, like, when somebody does something like this, like, I want to, it would drive me bananas to see it, but I want to see them doing it, and I want to see their face. I want to see the whites of their eyes.

It was, you know, it felt like, I don't want to say a violation would be overstating it, and people go through real stuff involving crime and everything, and I don't, so I don't want to, like, I don't want to make light of that, and I don't want to, whatever. But it was a weird thought to realize that somebody had intentionally taken this thing and was driving around with it. And I also felt like I was sort of in some kind of a true crime show because I was like, I'm looking at a day on the calendar, like a toll was incurred on January 9th, 2024. And I was like thinking, can I prove where I was on January 9th of 2024? You know, like, do I have receipts? literally do I have receipts for us probably at the Home Depot in Longview that's probably where I was like I really was like how and god bless RJ RJ just like sussed it out very quickly but I was thinking like how am I gonna have to like get a paper trail and present it to RJ and to get you know to wriggle out of the cuffs on this one because I felt like this is very provable this wasn't me but how involved am I gonna have to get improving that this story reminds me of something

that i wanted to bring up with you the other day an email that i got not not tbtl email personal email neighborhood email which is one of my favorite topics um you know i'm on this neighborhood list serve that somebody automatically put me on when we moved here so i get emails from you know our neighbors uh often it'll be concerned about crime in the neighborhood sometimes it's hey i've made a batch of cookies and i have extras who wants to come over like there's some really sweet emails i see like our neighborhood did not have some sort of grandiose like a holiday lights this year but some people were like hey our neighborhood looks nice let's get together on a sunday and sip cocoa and take a walk around the neighborhood who's with me i was actually busy but believe it or not as anti-social as i am i found that sentiment on on a neighborhood listserv so sweet i was tempted to try to join um but truly a lot of it is a little bit next door-y um like hey i saw somebody you know messing with mailboxes or whatever and the thing is like some of the issues not to go into too much detail here I've told you about some of them Luke only some of them if you

you can believe it we have had some neighborhood issues I'm fine everybody's fine you manifesting your neighbor as a guest right we've had you know we've had we've had some some pretty serious issues with with crime in the neighborhood um and so I'm trying to give everybody who's a little panicky on this thread a little bit of grace you know as opposed to me just saying that everybody is being too hysterical as often happens in these but there is definitely some hysteria for sure um what I'm going to share with you is not necessarily hysteria but just something that I found so funny so the beginning part is not funny apparently over the past couple of weeks there have been a rash of somebody breaking into mailboxes right like prying them open I was a victim of that back in my old neighborhood luckily when we moved into this house we have a really solid mailbox I was very psyched to see that and you know I'm not saying that nobody could ever break into it I don't want to manifest that but it's a pretty solid mailbox and apparently some of our neighbors who have more pry openable mailboxes it was one of those things where it happened like several days in a row or during this period of time so you know there's somebody in the neighborhood who's probably you know desperate and you know pulling this mailbox crime and it just raises the question like what do you even think you know i understand like if you see a package like there could be value in there but like are people stealing ids i'm just picturing like whoever is prying open these mailboxes it's not a sophisticated enough um criminal that they're doing some long game where they're getting personal information then entering it and then filing fake tax they're not human trafficking people over this basically yeah because Genevieve was like maybe it's because of like people filing their taxes there's more personal information in the mail now and I'm just like I just don't think that the person who's probably whacked out on drugs prying this thing open is then saying okay I've got the last four of a social security number and then if I run this through the database and cross check it with you know what I mean I have a feeling they're just grabbing whatever they can and I think that prying open mailboxes in this day and age is probably not where there's a lot of money but having said that it starts an email chain about this and people i feel bad for that that sucks man but anyway one person wrote in to say hey to the entire um list like does anybody um can anybody tell me a good mailbox to get i see that some of you guys have good strong mailboxes would you mind me asking what kind it is because i want to get a a stronger one the funny thing about this email that came in is that's that would have all been handled in one sentence but then it goes on for about 14 more paragraphs talking about everything in their personal life and why everything has been super tough and like and because of this mailbox thing is triggering this and it's just like wow that's a lot you could have just asked what kind of mailbox y'all using but anyway um what i thought was hilarious was this thinking one another neighbor writes back i have this kind and it has not been broken into and they have a link to the kind of mailbox it is i have this kind so far has not been pried open and others of this brand i've walked past have not been pried open either i've had this one for several years that's all good i think by the way this is the kind of mailbox we have but the final sentence here confuses me however once everyone has a mailbox

that is harder to break into then the thieves will just get better at breaking in and i'm wondering if this person is saying okay person with the not so great mailbox this is the mailbox we use And it has been broken into this is this is good. This is the Rolls Royce of secure mailboxes, but maybe don't get it because we need some weaklings in the flock.

We need some sick members of the community to be picked off by the cheetah.

Like, I understand that when you're talking about cybersecurity, like, well, then the criminals just get smarter or whatever. Like, yeah, you're kind of playing whack-a-mole with crime all over the place. But we're talking it's almost like it's like saying, well, our house is broken into. Does anybody have a better deadbolt they can recommend or a better home security system? Like, well, yeah, we do use this home security system. But also, if everybody gets this good home security system, the thieves are just going to get smarter. I'm like, I don't think this applies to this kind of breaking and entering into mailboxes. Right. It was just such a weird response.

We're just trying to stay one step ahead of this international sophisticated crime ring of a tweaker just busting open a mailbox. I read it slightly differently, which is this person is not making any promises about the mail will be secure for the person who's asking about mailboxes. So I think what they're saying is here's what's been working for us. But that's no, you know, past performance is no guarantee of future profits, essentially.

Yeah. And you know why this why this topic is a little I don't know if you remember this, Luke, but it's a little triggering to me, too, Because when I was at my old apartment, which we were renting and I had a love hate relationship with my landlord, like for the most part, I kind of liked him. But then by the end, I really didn't. He seemed like I had a hate hate relationship, by the way. Maybe he'll become a listener. We had all kinds of like little weird stories about him and his perceived relationship between between renters and rentees. but um one of the things that

That that really irritated me about him. One of the interactions was when our mailbox, which was like, you know, a wall mounted metal mailbox, but not not super secure, was pried open and our mail was stolen. And all he did to fix it was take pliers and bend the little like the very small little like thing that latches to lock it with a key. Right. He just bends it back into place, meaning that the next time this gets pried open. I mean, we all know that like things loosen when that happens. And I was like, we need a better mailbox. We need a more secure one. And his answer to me was like, hey, listen, you can buy a different mailbox, but any mailbox is break openable.

Is it possible he's the person on this neighborhood text chain or email chain?

And the funny thing is, it's provably. I mean, I remember getting that email from him saying, like, anybody who really wants to break into a mailbox can break into a mailbox. So there's no point in getting a better mailbox.

Build a better mailbox and the world will beat a path to your door.

And I'm just like, our mail was stolen out of the mailbox that you provide for us. You're not securing it. And you're telling me they do not make more secure mailboxes than this piece of shit. Like, I went online. I almost emailed back, like, what about this one? What about this one? And the irony is we now have a very secure mailbox that we inherited with this house. And guess what? People are going around the neighborhood stealing mail, and they're not taking ours. Because guess what? They do make more secure mailboxes. It is a spectrum. Some are better than others. Steven. Should we

take a moment to compose a fiery email to both him and the people who said TBTL was losing money and are no longer working professionally in the

media? Oh, I thought you were going to say, should we just take a moment to compose ourselves? No, no, no.

I would never propose that. I would say, should we do a major victory lap on all of the haters?

The haters and the doubters. I want to be karmically careful, but let's just say... No, that's a good point.

No, no, that's a good point. I'm just saying, I feel like, you know, everything's coming up Milhouse today okay your mail is not getting stolen tbtl continues uh on uh surprisingly successfully thanks to our donors and listeners and uh it's a it's a good day 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 uh i have a a promise

for you andrew which is we really will do the movie segment tomorrow because i noticed there was an email from a listener and i haven't even clicked on it but a listener saying when you do the movie segment can you please play your old movie theme which was the coolest theme ever and i don't even know what the listener is talking about but they included a youtube link so tomorrow i want to i want to actually do the movie segment and i want to figure out what the heck this

listener is talking you don't think it's i always think of hooray for hollywood like way back in the day you would play hooray for hollywood with tom and jen when you're talking about i mean i

could just play it but then we're doing the segment uh do you should we just do the segment

now let's do that as an email right now i just want to know what the music is but then let's bring the segment back and talk about movies tomorrow are you cool with that plan i'm very

cool with that okay let me see hold on i'm logging back in please uh we're talking about the most hyper specific thing that only you and i and probably tbtl employee numero uno john sklaroff know about which is every time i log into our tbtl email i tell it please remember me and it never does oh i used to have that issue there was a box to click that says do you want to keep uh you want to stay logged in so you don't have to re-log in every time and every single time i click that box and every single time it forgets uh here we go ryan says luke i listen to old tbtls while i'm in my shop usually working on my train set i believe the term you used was loser ryan we've just manifested ryan into being on the show ryan i i'm did i say i don't i'm sorry if i said that I think I was trying to make a joke, and it was hurtful.

Weren't you, like, almost sort of quoting Alex Trebek in that? Maybe.

I mean, I don't think it's a loser move to play with a train set. No, I'm being totally serious.

I don't think it's a loser move to play with your little trainees.

No, no, no. I mean, if I said that, it was purely to try to be funny, but I don't like that kind of humor. So, Ryan, I'm sorry that I said that. i do not think of uh of of people who like to do model trains as i really don't i genuinely do not i wish i had more hobbies i wish there was there was oh my gosh andrew i'm clicking on the youtube link this was maybe the greatest theme ever for the movies you ready yeah it's from bangs

take you to the movies yeah you boy banks and this track did i carry to all the ladies out there who like to go to the movies you know especially you girl

this was our movies song bangs forgot about let me take you to the movie short a this is um this is radio days right when you guys were on the radio yes yes yeah yeah yeah great great reminder ryan thank you um yes we will uh we'll use that tomorrow when we do the movie segment

i had an email here um from our irl friend and uh podcast friend and i was like oh god are they coming for me uh you and i keep on assuming i think three times today i thought you were going to say something else and then the word kept going i was like oh good that's better um okay so i think we need to compose ourselves um uh so this is from our friend karen author of leaf your troubles behind and an expert on plant life and gardening and all those things sure uh and karen says hey it's your seattle gardening correspondent i heard you talking about uplighting trees i just want to i want to i want to get out in front of something here luke um karen is a true friend of the show you're not going to like what she has to say here because it does sort of it would put it would it would put it would dampen your plans i see so but what you're doing is

you're preparing you're you're you're preparing me for this information and trying to set it up in such a way that i don't shut karen out of my life i feel like you shouldn't shut karen out of

life we've talked about this stop trying to shut Karen out of your life and also I think that you don't like being told not to do things and I don't think that's the tone here but Karen did say I heard you talk about up lighting trees and how lovely they look which they certainly do it adds a lot of drama and shadows to a garden the problem with it though is plants actually need darkness to rest at night if they get too much light they think they have to keep photosynthesizing which is a word that I just said without stumbling on it Luke I just want to point that out Wednesday which puts stress on their leaves and system it's kind of akin to a sleeping with a light on the sleep is lighter and not so healing for our bodies also the plants don't produce as much uh shit karen i got photosynthesizing you're gonna give me this uh phytochrome a protein a protein that they need to regulate their leaf drop seed production budding etc one alternative might be to casting like light on a rock or a sidewalk instead i know it's not the same if you do light your trees at night maybe try a dimmer light if you do just watch for yellowing or wilting leaves

anyway have fun puttering in the garden this spring i wonder if i could put them on a timer here's the thing i'm not planning on leaving them lit like all night long yeah in the words of lionel richie yeah i'm i'm thinking it would be a nice little nighttime feature but then as i'm doing my little you know shutting things down closing time um that would be i guess if blink 182 did that song um as then i would turn the lights off and that would presumably turn the lights off that are on the tree so they would still get their good eight hours the trees will get exactly as

much sleep as i get that's kind of what i was picturing too at first i read this i was like oh well i imagine like you're having a garden party or you want to do some good old-fashioned tree staring um you turn them on but i kind of assumed you wouldn't leave them lit all night but then i was like oh maybe i'm making the wrong assumption there no um i do sometimes leave and

please don't get at me everyone i don't know this is probably not good for my carbon footprint but But occasionally I will leave the light on Tom Baudet style here in the studio because it's kind of pretty. And I like to sometimes be in my house and then look out the window and then look at the studio and think, hey, that used to be a garage. And then me and my dad worked a really a long time and very hard on it. And now it's a place where I do TBTL.

But that's cozy as hell looking. I totally get that. I totally, totally get that on a much smaller scale. Well, like I kind of, well, you know, we talked last week about how I'm a little bit obsessed, not maybe obsessed is too strong of a word, but like lighting is important to me. And one of the things I do when it starts to get dark kind of outside or around the house is I like to go into our bedroom and shed all of my clothes. No, I like to go into our bedroom and turn on my table side lamp. Now, there is a there's like a ceiling fan light up in the ceiling. But, you know, that's no, you know, like just. But as as as night falls to have like the little glowing warm lamp next to my bed so that I know that when it's later, like, you know, three or four or five hours from now, I'm going to crawl into bed and I have that nice little glowing lamp waiting for me. It's a total vibe.

yeah I can get that I think part of why I like this is because we were talking on the show about you know like how some people don't put curtains up and also how I enjoy walking around a neighborhood like in a city like Portland or Bellingham around kind of dinner time and folks are cooking stuff and sometimes you can kind of just see people in their nighttime routine again respectfully from the sidewalk but I don't have that out here because you know I do have neighbors I mean, I'm literally looking at my I have three neighbors that I. can see from here but it's just not that vibe if you know what I mean if it would be me walking up their driveway which would be unsettling I think because I don't have that in my life right now I have to I have to create it for myself with my own property so I have to sit in one part of my property and stare at a different part of the property with the light on so that I could kind

of get that feeling can I ask you a question yes do you think Stephanie and Queen Anne has blinds on our windows?

Wow, that's the first question I'm going to ask when we have her on. That's a great, great question. And then I'm going to get her favorite pasta recipe.

You guys are going to be best friends. We really are. You're going to be swapping your design magazines. Oh, believe you me.

Believe you me. I mean, yeah, I think I read that story very differently than everyone else. It was aspirational for me. Yeah. I was like, Queen Anne, 1.4?

Sure.

Hell yeah. All right. Thanks for listening, everyone. We are going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

If anyone touches my man, Kenny G, I'm going to be up in their face. And I'm going to start some. Sorry, I know that you don't swear, but like, I love to say power out.