Muse

Tim Cramlin, Cramlin Advertising.

Cramlin Advertising? Are you Hank Cramlin's son?

That I am, yeah.

Hank Cramlin, what a legend. How is your father?

He went insane. He lives in a nuthouse now.

Oh. Well, the next time you see him, you tell him Sally Pomerantz from Chicago said hello.

He won't understand that. Talking to him is like talking to Bugs Bunny.

Well, then you tell him what's up, Doc.

Thank you. That don't mean a lot to him.

TBTL!

Is that a first time slammer? Slammer what? In the ring. How do you slam? Hey, I don't know, you tell me. Are you alright?

No. No, I'm confused. Nothing makes sense to me anymore. This face is not my face.

www.this and www.that. Let's www.explain it.

Sounds like you're really going through some tough stuff right now. It's too bad there's not doctors for your mind.

And I also think it wouldn't hurt you to talk to a therapist about your bathroom issues because there's clearly something going on there.

My God, man! How much more can we take? I can only imagine what the audience is thinking!

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of TVTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. I'm not even supposed to be here today! Coming to you on President's Day. I'm the president of rap music, and I need to work with you right away. Yes, it's a holiday for the vast majority of folks out there, but the podcasting never stops here at the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it is just soggy, soggy day.

You know you like to get wet, though.

But as I like to say, it's warm and dry here inside the studio, and we are ready to bring you a special holiday edition of episode 4144 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

You heard a little pause in my voice because this is usually the time on a holiday where I mention that will probably give you maybe a slightly amended show, a slightly shorter show than usual because it is a federal holiday and here we are working away. But then every time I say that, it means we do like a one-hour, 40-minute program. So I'm trying to not, I don't want to jinx it. I don't want to speak that into existence. I don't want to manifest it. I just want to tell you about a delicious, delicious meal I had this weekend.

I was transported here against my will in a meatball.

At a restaurant. And by the way, it wasn't the insanely fancy restaurant that Addie and I went to on Friday night. That was fine. That was all good. It was a different restaurant that I went to on Saturday That truly knocked my socks off We'll get into that Oh, and we'll talk to this guy Longest running co-bro of the show Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships Yes, it is a federal holiday Yes, he is here And that has not dampened his enthusiasm at all

First things first I love my job

He's the longest running co-bro of the program His name is Andrew Walsh Good morning, my friend

Good morning I told you right, like moments before we hit record That I didn't have a lot to say at the top of the show That's total bullshit.

You told me to take an especially short or brief sip of coffee, which I usually take a long, long drag off of this thermos. But you were like, don't do that today, because you're going to kick the hacky sack right back to me.

Yeah, that's right. Because I was like, I didn't get anything to say. And then you let me sit with my thoughts for 60 seconds, and I have a bunch. No, I do have two very. I'm going to try to support your efforts to keep this. Because I sit with it. A holiday-length show today, but I do have a couple of quick questions as follow-ups from when you and I actually saw each other in person on Friday. A couple of things were popping in my head over the weekend. I don't see a lot of people. Maybe that's why I'm in my head about these things, but I have two questions for you. One, you and I were chatting in the kitchen a little bit before Friday's show, and at one point it seemed like your eyes paused for a moment on my thumb, which looked a little bit weird. Did you notice that my thumb looked weird, and were you being polite by not asking me why it looked like I had a lesion on my thumb?

I'm going to tell you exactly. I had totally forgotten about any of these synapses firing in my brain from Friday until you just brought this back up. Did you forget that you were here? I forgot that we do the show. I forgot that we work for a company called Too Beautiful to Biz. I did not notice anything in the kitchen. Then when we were doing the show, I noticed you had what looked like maybe a little bit of whiteout on your thumb. And what my brain said was, I bet you that that is a treatment for some kind of small wart. That's exactly what it was. This didn't start as a quiz, but you're killing it. You're winning. My wart knowledge is unfortunately vast. Why would I want to broadcast to the...

broader audience if I'm feeling somewhat embarrassed about this little white thing on my thumb why would I share that with a audience that can't see me at all I don't know I was just curious because it is somewhat unsightly because you take this compound W stuff and it's just a small little blemish on my thumb but the process is you just it's like acid I don't know if you've ever dealt

with this before I've done with it many a electronica show compound W yeah and I'm just Like, I'm not seeing any dragons, but my tongue feels really off.

You know it's supposed to be topical, right? Did you not? Yeah. But anyway, yeah. So I don't know if you have ever done this, but it's like it kind of you just keep applying it day after day after day, and it kind of just burns away. And then, you know, like your skin, your healthy skin will grow back quickly. But the little wart thing, it just keeps on kind of burning deeper and deeper down. You're supposed to do it for like two weeks, and then hopefully this thing will be gone. So it's a whole process. But I did think later, I'm like, you must have thought I had, like, a gnarled, like, I had gotten into a fight with some sort of a wild dog or something.

Or somebody wielding a little sort of paintbrush of whiteout. Yeah, or that. Because it just looks like whiteout. It was the placement on the thumb. Well, first of all, the fact that you're a very fastidious person. So you wouldn't just, like, accidentally have whiteout on your thumb. And the fact that the placement, because I think I've gotten to work there before back in the day. The reason I feel like I know a lot about warts Was because I had A good number of them as a kid Me too On my knee in particular Like just below my kneecap I had a biggin And I remember I've told this story before on the show But they did like a dry ice Burning it off

At the nurse's office Looking back on it

No no sorry At the medical place

He said he was a nurse

Picked me up in his van Like you know I went to the doctor's office Probably for something unrelated Believe me I didn't grow up in a home Where we were getting brought to the doctor Over warts The thing that's crazy about it Looking back on it Oh and one other clarification from my childhood My sister Hannah I don't know why she decided to use Hawk Squad To clarify this Because all it does is probably draw more attention to the show than needs to happen, but I said last week that we didn't have a baptismal at Gospel Outreach Christian Fellowship. We actually did. It just wasn't on the stage. It was in the nursery. It was back in the area in the back of the church where the little kids would get babysat, and there was this, again, back to the carpet, there was this big carpeted box in one of the back rooms of the nursery that if you were to pry the lid off it, you'd realize it was in fact a baptismal. That's just a clarification for whoever cares, which would not be that many people. Anyway...

I don't like her airing our conversations on the family text chain either.

I'm not even part of that family. Well, great. Now she's going to start doing it. Now she's going to air this on the Hawk Squad. Probably that one because it was relevant to the family. It's relevant to gospel outreach. But anyway, the good news is I don't think my parents have the internet connectivity really to come find this and listen to it. Anyway, am surprised looking back on it that it was even decided that a kid, I'm going to guess I was nine years old, if that, maybe eight, nine years old, and I had like a wart on my knee. Why did they need to burn it off? What was going to happen to me medically if they just let it... Turn into a little frog. That's the problem. Did you not know that? Until I meet my princess! I'm on WebMD right now. Oh man, I felt like there was some kind of frog joke in there but i couldn't get there some kind of like rabbit md or webbed feet md i didn't know it seemed like it's really close to a toad joke webbed feet webbed feet md here's what i remember about the process it's so bad no offense that's amazing andrew am i or have i not activated this i mean legally we don't have to be doing this show today anyway my memory of this whole thing is i had this big kind of probably pretty unsightly wart on my knee there was other little small much smaller ones that were kind of going down my my leg but even so it's like i don't know why that mattered i don't know why we needed to apply dry ice to the situation because it was so painful and the problem was the uh the person the you know medical staffer who was doing the dry ice on the wart again i believe in the 1980s compound w had been invented yeah i don't know why we hadn't gone with less lethal means before we went straight to the dry ice situation you said

that this is a biggie i think compound w you know but i what i'm dealing with over here was a little

tiny guy so i didn't look little from where i was let me ask you a question though it sounds like you have some um some bitterness about this but only now only as we talk about it here on

president's day 2024 or as i call it president's day 2023 because i realized i have not updated the the show year i can't believe you one time were you gonna see if i'd go the whole year before

realizing this is a game that i've actually been playing luke i was every day you send me your show sheet i imported into my system and i changed the date on it i updated to 2024 but i don't say anything to you because i was hoping to get to december and on december i'm sorry to ruin your fun tell you that you've been using the wrong year i'm changing it now officially in the show sheet but still we made it to february 29th not bad that's a long long time for me to not really

understand what year it is you're going to say about the work i'm still writing 1986 on my show

sheets it seems like what i know about you and sorry if i'm misrepresenting your youth and your attitude here but it would seem like as a as a kid who had your own amount of self-consciousness revolving looks and skin problems and wearing clothes that you felt to be less kind of you know fashionable than maybe what your peers were wearing and somebody who probably was wearing shorts a lot because you're playing basketball with the boys your breakdance and doing all the things of green light that you've talked about i would think that you would be very happy to get

rid of a blemish on your knee if it was unsightly this the reason that i i um the reason i know that that wasn't where i was yet was because i was so young that i had not yet internalized all of my self-loathing that i now uh enjoy to this day and the reason is because i'm kind of skipping to the end of the story i can remember exactly where i was and what house what rental house i was in when it finally came off and i was so young that the game i was playing was pretending to be a baseball player in the living room and pretending to run the bases and slide into home base and being lost in this fantasy in the way that like a like a seven or eight year old and it was also this house we rented by northgate which we rented in starting in 1981 and only were there for a couple of years so all that is to say i think i was still pretty i was pretty young to be and i don't think at that point yet i was hung up on my my looks or my outfits that would come later and with a real vengeance but i i don't remember being mad about this except now that i'm looking back i'm just speaking just generally i don't know if this is the the sort of um you know standard medical procedure anymore there's got to be something better than dry ice but man that thing hurts so much and again why a seven eight year old kid needed to have this wart burned off But anyway, the first the first pass at it, the person didn't do it long enough, probably because I was screaming so much. So what I ended up getting was a really painful visit to the doctor and then a wart that never went away. And then we ended up back there eventually for some probably other reason. And the wart came up again and I got a different person. And this person was like, yeah, well, the problem last time was they didn't do it hard enough. oh geez and this lady went real nurse nurse ratchet on it just went just just went in in on this thing and uh she was not wrong it did turn black and eventually fall off as i was sliding into home base as a seattle mariner in my mind um so it worked and then what was weird was when the when the main wart on my knee died the little ones went away i don't know if it was their leader i don't know what i don't know what they just lost the will to live but it was the strangest thing they all just sort of went away raising the question here in in 2024 or if you like 2023 did i need to have the main one burned off or would this have worked itself out would i still have that wart on my knee at 47 that i had on my knee at seven if they wouldn't have burned it off

with gd dry ice when you're sliding into home and your wart is full grown veruca vulgaris which i looked up that's the technical name for uh common warts thank you for that that's my also one of my uh spells i learned at hogwarts i uh we won't get into it now because we're trying to do a short show but someday i will tell you that everything you just said um gets really close to the bone with me because some of some of my most persistent embarrassing moments like when i talk about intrusive thoughts happened to me in this one doctor's office that was related to having warts removed and this seemed like something that i returned to a whole bunch I remember the doctor at one point saying I was so squirmy in there and I had warts on my feet and I don't like people messing with my feet and I didn't like not seeing what was going on down there and there was a lot of freezing a lot of scraping though it wasn't dry ice for me it was something else and I was going back and back and back and he was scraping and I was in the office with my mom or in the doctor's office with my mom and I just I guess I'm telling it now and I just remember him at one point saying hey man stay dressed because I was squirming so much I was like pulling my shirt around and twisting it and I remember like feeling somewhat even mocked by the doctor and I just like the feeling I remember because I had to go back a bunch like probably i remember at least five visits and the dread of sitting in that doctor's office yeah and just like just not wanting to go back there and he was a gregarious guy or that's not the word i'm looking for but a garrulous guy i think is the word i was looking for um so i don't think he was ever trying to be cruel he was just a very no him probably saying

stay dressed or hey keep your shirt on but yeah exactly trying to be comedic but i was just i was

I just remember being my worst self in those moments, my most scared and most pathetic.

I mean, I think worst self is a really, really ungenerous way to describe it for yourself because you're a kid and it hurts. I'm like, I'll tell you what, when we went back for round two of my knee ward, I was super unhappy about it. I think that's a pretty – if you're a kid and you know that going to the doctor on this particular visit is going to involve a procedure that is going to be really painful, that's terrible. And I don't think any kid is stoic in those moments, just like, well, this is, you know, just keep calm and carry on. Like, I just don't I think that you are having a very normal childhood response. And again, I don't want to I don't want to litigate this here, I guess. But I'm very curious from a medical standpoint, what would have now maybe if you had a wart on your foot.

Bottom of my feet were causing an issue. So for me, it was hard to walk. Yeah. But I will say this, though. Part of my embarrassment was I don't have the memory of pure white pain that you're talking about. I remember feeling very uncomfortable and just more squeamish. And so I think the procedure they used for me was less painful, which is probably why I had to go back so many times. I don't think it was like kind of a one and done or in your case, a two and ton situation. And there was just like I say, like kind of a lot of scraping. It was a process. And so one of the reasons I was so embarrassed was, to this day, I don't know if it was so much painful as I just didn't like it, if that makes sense.

Well, again, bottom of your feet, that's another thing, too. Very ticklish, very uncomfortable, very weird. Again, I don't think that this one's on my friend, Andrew. I think this is on the medical profession. They should have given you a general anesthetic.

I know. I'm basically like that now. They should have put you for everything.

Hey, listen, you're talking to a guy that's got a colonoscopy on the horizon, and I'm a little like, ooh. Mostly I'm just For somebody who intermittent fasts a lot I'm pretty bummed about the not eating situation I'm like man I'm amazed anyone I would put my not eating skills up against Most average Americans It's a typical default setting for me But it's your choice It's my body, my choice I'm surprised as many Americans as do Can go through this process It's pretty rigorous It's pretty strict with the not eating I'm going to ask them to give me a general and you know that's also the week god i can really plan them that is the week of the livewire 20th anniversary show which is this whole all day long deal it's the same week that i'm coming up to help co-host an event at knkx for prx distribution where they distribute the radio show i have so much stuff happening that week that is probably i mean i don't want to reschedule this thing because i it's just it's on the schedule i they also say that you'll be you know you should be fine one should be fine a day after or something like basically i'm getting becca's picking me up i have a responsible adult driving me home and then supposedly the next day i'm back back at it but like what if i'm on stage that saturday night a mere few days later and just my whole just my whole But explodes I don't know I mean the problem with my work

Start falling out the bottom of your pant leg

I just start doing that shuffle Like Andy Dufresne does With the wall that he's taking out In the Shawshank Redemption as he distributes it in the yard It's just me on stage At Revolution Hall But like the problem For me with the work schedule That I have created for myself And agreed to There are no great weeks for me to go under the scope, as it were, to go under the arthroscopic camera system. So I guess it's just going to be what it is. And then the other big question becomes, when I go on stage on that Saturday night and I'm talking to the crowd there at Rev Hall, do I tell them that I've had a colonoscopy that week? I mean, I would share that with you. I would share that with the Tens. Is that too much to share with a bunch of quote-unquote regular people?

I feel like it's going to happen no matter what. I feel like, I mean, whatever you go in there thinking you're going to say, it's going to come out.

All that is to say, I'm a little nervous about that, too. So you're not the only one who's got a little bit of nervousness around medical stuff here. I think you are way too hard on yourself about not enjoying having unpleasant and painful procedures done on you at the doctor. Like, I think you think that there's this, that everyone else is in this world of stiff upper lipism. Where we're all just like Oh no I scheduled one for fun Whatever fill in the blank of whatever a one is Like I think and my guess would be Not to psychoanalyze you Right I live in a David Cronenberg movie But not to psychoanalyze You here on President's Day of all days But I think probably because Of the bad Feeling of being a kid and getting That and maybe other procedures Or things done where you it just was uncomfortable or painful or whatever and feeling really embarrassed about how it all felt etc that's really carried over into adult life for you to some degree and i think i just i've never heard you tell a story where i where i thought in the way back my mind like yeah he is being extra like i don't think you're actually nearly as extra about these things as as you are

saying uh about yourself well if you don't mind me saying we'll end it here um i'll just say to Clear the decks here. I'm sorry, Abraham Lincoln.

We was hoping for some razzle-dazzle. Razzle-dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle-dazzle.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set.

Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody razzle-dazzle.

Is it that time again? Sure is. For dazzling donor. I was trying to think of a word That sounds like thank you But starts with a D

Oh sure Dedications Dedications

Ooh nice Dazzling donor dedications Are starting my friends As of today Our dazzling donors Are folks who are donating A significant portion of money To the show every month And over the course of a year And it's vital to the program We would not be here Without any of the donations But in particular So these donations are the financial lifeblood of the program. And as such, we also like to honor and dedicate our donors. Now it's kind of breaking down grammatically. We like to thank them by reading a little message they've submitted. And we're starting, look at this, right out of the gate with Eric Smith over there on Bainbridge Island in Washington. Thank you, Eric. Beautiful. Bainbridge Island, Washington. Here's what Eric says. I want to use my message time to thank the TBTL and TBTB crew, of course. But mostly just to say hello and acknowledge my TBTL mother superior, Sarah H. from Bainbridge Island.

Sarah from Bainbridge.

Wouldn't be, and also mother superior, I'm getting strong, how do you catch a cloud and pin it down? How do you solve a problem like Maria? It wouldn't be 10 years deep in TBTL lore and audio drops without her. She chose not to mention me in her dazzling donor message, which is totally fine. I'm fine with it, really. I haven't waited patiently, end up my donor amount to make sure I could mention it to the entire TBTL audience this year.

This is a pitch. This is great. Become a dazzler donor out of spite or a dazzling donor out of spite. This is wonderful.

I love this, Eric. Thank you so much. This is the gift that's continuing to give. Not only are you receiving financial remuneration from Eric, but you're right, framing a really interesting world where the best way to get back at your friends and enemies is to donate to TBTL at a high amount. Cheers to the boys and the whole TBTL family Especially Sarah For being so kind and inclusive I love that this show brings me closer to others While simultaneously ostracizing me From normal society Because I yell hot Cheetos too often Here's to several thousand More episodes of highbrow banality I love you so so much That is

Eric doesn't say he loves us Eric likes the lowbrow Or the highbrow banality I love the highbrow banality so, so much. You had it as Eric loves us.

I consider the highbrow banality to be an extension of us. So ipso facto, if Eric loves that banality, he also loves us.

Eric, could you call or email and tell me whether or not you love me?

Eric is also bringing up another really good point, which is, and we're going to talk about this more in the coming months, and particularly during the next TBTL-a-thon about the incredible community of TBTL listeners, the 10s. I mean, that's really what's special about this thing. And this show has a way of drawing you very close to people that you may have never met in real life, but just because you have the shared language of the show and you follow what's happening to us, et cetera, but also of alienating you from the real people in your life because they don't want to be in a car listening to TBTL. As you draw closer to the 10s, you may draw further from the people who would like to hear less of this in their life. And that is, there is an irony there I'd never really considered.

Are there any other organizations like that that you can think of, Luke, that as you get closer and more involved in that organization and that organization wraps its arms around you and tells you how special you are?

None that are not on an FBI watch list.

slowly, slowly, slowly cut you off from the rest of your friends and family. That's good, right? Nothing comes to mind.

It doesn't look like anything to me. Eric, thank you so much. And Sarah, you know, balls in your court. That's all I'm saying.

Oh no, I hit the wrong one. We already played that one. It's our first day out. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody rattle, dattle.

Oh, I see. So there's the long one with the guy at the beginning. I'm not kidding. You think I'm trying to be cute here or clever. I'm not. Or clute. You think I'm trying to do this for the clute.

It's a clute point.

No, I had forgotten that there's the longer version of the guy saying razzle-dazzle, and then when I say maestro, and we're now thanking our second dazzling donor, it's just the music.

It's just the music. And by the way, while we're here, I'll just say this for a moment. People have written in and said, hey, what is that drop of the old-timey guy saying we were hoping for some razzle-dazzle? I don't remember. A listener sent that in because we do the Dazzling Donors, and that maybe like four years ago or something, somebody sent that in to me. I tagged it to the top, but I do not remember. I didn't label what that little piece of tape is if I ever knew. So if anybody knows, get at me again.

Yeah, thank you for that. And thank you also to Catherine Kachunis, who's out there in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Now, I'm guessing, are you doing the pronouncers on this or is Catherine Cochunas doing the pronouncer? Catherine sent that in. So Catherine actually said in the pronouncer that it sounds like a sneeze, which has been really coming up a lot on the show today. Isn't that a beautiful little bit of serendipity here on this President's Day? Catherine Cochunas is in Ann Arbor and says, shout out to Sten's Crafter page. It's a fun place to update works in progress and see what wonderful things other tens are doing. it's community within community and hello to all the michigan stens as well nice so i'm assuming

that there is a facebook stens branch wait let me start that sentence over i'm assuming that there's a facebook community that is related to the broader stens community where people talk about tbtl stuff but one specifically for tens who are working on their crafts and their projects and sharing it. I love that. Absolutely.

It's a very crafty community of folks. I think, again, maybe there's just, maybe when you listen to this show, you have to do something with your hands because it's like the tedium is so intense. Punch a wall. Right. There is also, by the way, a sub Facebook group of wall punchers.

You show off the size of the hole.

It's just people holding up hands that are wrapped in an ace bandage with cartoon red little things coming off of the hand it goes anyway uh thank you very much katherine um for supporting the show and shout out to all the tbtl stens crafters as well hello and welcome to top story um here is a top story andrew that um i didn't see coming this weekend as i mentioned it was addy's birthday and we had a lovely time went to the seattle art museum on saturday if you have not seen the calder exhibit there alexander calder who made these incredible mobiles um they're just they're wonderful and i didn't realize this is not really what i was going to talk about but i didn't realize that this guy is sort of credited with inventing this particular type of art or at least you know the first person who was doing it and putting it in galleries and like the thing that we've all seen in a baby's bedroom a mobile that wasn't like a widely and someone's going to find an example of this being in you know sixth century mesopotamia or something i'm sure there was i'm sure something like this might have existed yeah but calder's the guy calder's the guy and in fact mobile i learned was named by his pal marcel duchamp was like we should call those mobiles and anyway is

this a permanent exhibit now because i know i saw this exhibit but um i can't remember i think it

was in Seattle but I feel like it was like 10 years ago I think this is either some new I mean it's not new stuff it's from a private collection and it's been kind of promised to the museum it is this is a new version of it or maybe some new new examples of the work but anyway it was really fun we had a great weekend it was lovely and um and so on Saturday I was heading on back down here to the madrona hill studio and i'm i i was quite hungry on the road because again see intermittent fasting i'd eaten a lot of food on friday night and i on saturday was like trying to kind of maybe reel it back in a bit so we uh we wrap things up in the afternoon and now i'm driving it's probably five in the afternoon i'm listening to uh some sort of podcasting i've been really getting into um pod save america now which is yeah i'm one of the they must see their numbers just swell around this time of well this is relevant i think to our interest you me and tbtl employee numero uno john sklaroff because what happened was i've always heard about pod save america i've always liked those guys when i hear them on other shows i've just never gone to the source and then i was listening to the new yorker radio hour on saturday and it was david remnick interviewing uh john favreau from pod save america and that conversation was so compelling that i then went over and started listening to the real show and it was really good i mean it's it's very much for me a person who obsesses too much over these politics and also like sports you know i mean there's a lot of conversation around let's not talk about the horse race let's talk about the more important things But it is, in some way, a horse race to me. It is, I am, because of my anxiety around it, I'm obsessively wanting to hear people smarter than me put stuff into context and tell me how worried I should be.

Yes, and I like them. It's just, also, it's just a very, and we're not doing promo swaps with them. I don't think they need us to promote it. It's got to be one of the top podcasts in the world. But, yeah, it just goes down so easy. They're just also so likable. And also because they worked in or several of them worked in the Obama White House. They just say we like there's not even this like when I listen to something like Slate's political gab fest, which I also love. Like it's still like kind of it's used in the third person when you talk about this stuff. But I like that they're just like we are doing this and we are talking. There's no there's no veil of objectivity at all. Exactly.

I also was I've been obsessed with the Navalny stuff. like I don't know like a couple of months ago I got particularly intrigued is the wrong way to put it but I got very sucked into like what the hell is happening to this dissident you know you hear these Russian dissidents and they have names like Hortokovsky and Navalny and and Nemtsin and they kind of blend together you're kind of like I don't know who's in what penal colony but I started tracking the Navalny stuff pretty closely and then this craziness with them killing him so they did an emergency pod save the world about navalny which again was just like exactly what i wanted to be hearing or at least exactly what i was totally felt like you needed to be here exactly like it was it was it was so i'm i'm cruising down the highway i'm listening to all this sort of conversation and i'm feeling hungry and i'm trying to put together my plan for eating at home but i'm like there's no food at home and also i don't want to make anything but also i'm trying to i don't want to just grab another pizza and wharf it down i don't think that's the best call and and what do my eyes see like a like a beacon uh on the side of the road there a sign in lakewood washington that says manic meatballs that's right you sent me a photo and so i i had a little time to think about it because from when you see the manic meatball sign to when you have to get on the get off the exit it's honestly if they could i would say get closer to the exit you want to make that even more of an impulse buy you don't want anyone to talk themselves into out of and then back into it which is what happened with me that's a set amount of time right isn't that like just like the highway department probably actually has rules around where those signs are because what you don't want is somebody that's 10 feet from the exit seeing a manic meatball sign and then just pulling like a dukes of hazard type of hard right over for three lanes of traffic shouldn't have to use your handbrake but i meant like it should be

like a unit of time some people say that like a unit of time is the amount of time in any colombo episode in which the episode begins but before colombo shows his face you know and i sort of feel like that's a unit of time the amount of time between seeing the manic meatballs sign and then actually rolling into the manic meatballs parking lot right exactly oh sir

just one more thing i'll be totally honest with you because i'm always creating content andrew I saw this as an opportunity mostly to make good on a promise that I had made a while ago, which was when I first talked about this place, I will admit I was a little bit – I was surprised at its durability as a business because it just – you love meatballs. You're very intrigued by this. I was more kind of like, huh, that's interesting that that's a thing people are really into. Then, of course, we heard from the owner of the company who was lovely. That person was on Weekend Review. And I felt like, I think I probably even said, you know what, I'm going to swing through. I'm going to come through, as the kids say. But I was doing it mostly because I just wanted to be able to give you a report. And I wanted to make good on my promise to come through. So I drove on over there. I went through the drive-thru. And they do have the Impossible Meatballs. And I got that with a couple of sides. I got a little... Uh,

cucumber salad and some green beans and some mashed potatoes and really and truly i'm sitting in the parking lot and listen to my podcast i'm about to tuck into this and i'm just thinking i'm gonna have like two bites i'm gonna i'm gonna be like a a sommelier tasting wine i'm gonna just have a little you know splash a little bit of around in my mouth get the sense of the kind of the the the the notes and then spit it out into and spit it out into the parking lot in lakewood Like, I just thought, because I was, like, really looking forward to getting home, to stoking up a big warm fire, to, let's be honest, probably eating a pizza. I know I said I didn't want to, but I knew that all roads led to me probably grabbing a Bruno's pizza in Longview, Washington. So I was like, I'm just going to have a couple bites of this so that I can report back to Andrew on how it was. When I tell you, Andrew, that it was so delicious. So I cut into the first meatball And got a little mashed potato going And I took a bite And it was so flavorful First I was worried that there had been confusion I had been given regular meatballs Because it did not taste at all Like I was eating some sort of plant-based product They've got it seasoned up real nice I looked at the receipt I did have the impossible ones i horfed that thing down so fast it was so unbelievably good and and kind of stick to your ribs kind of food but also the salad was really good and flavored well the folks were really nice when i was going through the drive-thru i did feel kind of bad because when the guy that was checking me out like was giving me the food or whatever i was paying he had his head down and i had he had a manic meatball uh hat on and i was trying to get a picture of it to send it to you and then i realized so i try to do it kind of slick on my phone and then when i looked back at the picture on my phone it was just the guy looking right into the camera kind of like

why is this guy taking a creep shot yeah in that case you might just want to say hey can i take a picture of your hat because it's kind of like marketing for them anyway right and i'm sure

you would have been fine with it i didn't do that i tried to be i tried to be slick and then i spent the rest of the transaction feeling a little embarrassed i didn't even explain it i didn't want to get into like hi i know that was weird that i was taking a picture of your hat but actually your face but it's because i'm a podcaster and one time i kind of uh was a little dismissive of this restaurant and now i'm eating here because that's my penance i didn't want to get into all of that so i just i just i just pretended it never happened and uh anyway i'm just telling you andrew uh can can recommend i had a feeling it was so so delicious so i would i've now personally closed the loop on that whole thing going from a bit of hesitancy a bit of

suspicion to a very satisfied customer the um the irony is you said well I have so many things to say about this first of all people haven't been following this like when we first when you just stumbled on this as a conversation topic you were telling me about a meatball place that you would see sometimes from from the highway as you're driving through that area for some reason I think I assumed oh meatballs like Italian meatballs but that's not it we should mention this is more of like the Swedish meatball tradition like basically like if you don't want to go to Ikea but you do want them meatballs they're not affiliated but um carrie was on our little video series like you said the the woman who runs the place and owns the place and also heard us talking about went on the whole epic adventure of discovery of her restaurant like you said sometimes being dismissive but she's great also i know our listener lee rolled into there i got an email from him it seemed like it was text to speech maybe you're doing that lee um uh but uh but uh he said that carrie actually

served him there when he rolled up i was nervous that i was going to get carrie and that she was going to have a vague awareness of who i was which is a lot of uh which is a lot you wouldn't

if you saw a woman that you thought was carrie you wouldn't have said oh hey i'm the guy from the podcast you were in too much of a you didn't want to like get into it i didn't want it well

a couple reasons i didn't want to make it a whole thing i didn't want i didn't want to like seem like i was trying to oh yeah i don't either get a deal she would have given them to you for free

because she wants to give us free meals yeah that's okay so i didn't want i didn't want to

get anything for free and i also didn't want to make it weird and also if i didn't like it would it be like i wanted to reserve you know i'm the ruth reichel okay of meatball restaurants in lakewood and i wanted to i need to come at this from a sort of a journalistic standpoint and i didn't want to be locked into any sort of way of feeling about anything i literally was like let me just check this out as a as an anonymous citizen of the world and I did and what I found was it was flippin delicious mm-hmm I was gonna say before

it now I'm now I'm blanking on the name of it but you sent me out meatball meatball that's yeah that's the word you're thinking no you the shambles is the restaurant I was sitting at I don't know if you've ever been there it's a small little place kind of like it's very meat oriented so I wouldn't see you being in there but shambles that's a that's a have that right i'm i'm trying to because i wanted to

say the brambles but i know it's not the brambles is it this is not that insanely fancy place right

uh it's a little bit yeah it's i mean it's not insane not the ruins no it's not the ruins it's a place that it's like a kind of a stake place that's near it's kind of near the um the eagles uh but it's not on lake city way it's like kind of just off of lake city way on 15th i believe here in seattle you've probably passed it it used to be something else in fact it was like i think it's a place that a lot of people like and they were sad when it was gonna potentially close but then i think the one of the cooks bought it or something like that okay so anyway i've been there a couple of places or i've been there a couple of times and i've always thought it's fine um but i was sitting with genevieve we just wanted a somewhat decent meal i've been eating so much garbage lately and it was my idea i'm like hey let's go to the shambles haven't been there in a while so we're sitting there uh and it's a little bit of a nicer place and uh i'm waiting i don't know if we've even ordered our food yet and you send me a photo of your manic meatballs as taken in a takeout container in the car and i am filled with jealousy i'm like you got there first i love meatballs i really want to try that place i didn't really care that you got there first but i'm just like sitting there hungry and insanely jealous of this and you're about to eat

you're about to eat a different kind of food you're not you know on a treadmill somewhere

Right, but I'm hungry in this moment. And then I literally ate, I think, and this sounds hyperbolic, but I think I had potentially the best sandwich of my life. It was so good. It was some sort of a smoked steak sandwich. Like, this is more of a steak shop where you sort of, like, kind of buy the, you know, you buy a piece of meat a la carte and then some sides or whatever. And it's a little bit pricey for the steaks, but it's really good. It's like the type of cuts that I've literally never even heard of before. And anyway, but it's, you know, it's a nice place. But they had one thing that was sort of like a sandwich with some, like, frites on the side. And the sandwich, again, it was like a smoked steak of some sort, some cut I had not heard of, that was just on the perfect bread that had a little bit of garlic to it and various garnishes. It was just like, I can't even explain it, like just the touch of something that was pickled on there, the crunch, the mouthfeel. Literally, Luke, I think the best sandwich I've ever had in my life. So I asked her, I'm like, are you guys going to keep this as a regular item? Because things usually kind of rotate in and out. And she's like, I think we are now. She's like, we've had it for about two weeks, and this is all I'm hearing from people. People are freaking out. Yeah, it was amazing. But it was just so funny that I'm, like, waiting for this sandwich to come out, and I'm just like, God damn it, Luke's eating meatballs in a parking lot in Lakewood.

Well, I'm excited for you to have the real deal, too, because, I mean, I was having the plant-based situation. I can only imagine that the real ones are even more delicioso. So anyway, I just, I wanted to give you, and by the way, I say this with peace and love to Canlis Seattle, which is a, you know, a Seattle institution and a really fun place. That's where Addie and I went on Friday night.

It's like the shorthand for a fancy restaurant in Seattle, right? It's like the fanciest restaurant in Seattle.

I think it's the fanciest restaurant in Seattle. And interestingly enough, it has been since my childhood. And it's the thing about Canlis is I want to live in the actual physical structure of the restaurant because it's everything I love in the world. My guess is it was built in the 1960s or 70s. It's a big mid-century glass box that's cantilevered out off of Lower Queen Anne, looking out at a spectacular view of Lake Union and Capitol Hill and all of the twinkling lights of that part of Seattle. It is like if I were a Bezos, I would probably buy that place and just make it my house. So when I'm in there, I'm just like irrationally happy because of just the like aesthetic of the place. And it was Addy's 30th. It was a really, really fun night. But I'll be honest with you. Take that 20 bucks I threw down at Manic Meatballs and really gave that parsnip and sea bream I had at Canlis. Really give it a run for its money.

Yeah, about the same price structure, too, I would assume. Pretty close. Pretty close.

I can't even remember which one was more.

The cool thing was when they came with manic meatballs and they came and brushed your table off with the little brushes, right?

The question is, could you serve manic meatballs at Canlis but give it some kind of high-filling description where then the people would be paying out the wazoo? I believe Addie looked at me and goes, I think that's the Nordstrom family next to us. And she doesn't mean some people she saw at Nordstrom. It's like the Nordstrom family was literally the table over from us. I was like, boy, well, I don't think your dad, the podcaster, should be taking you out to dinners where the Nordstrom family is also eating as we speak. But all right. Look at this, Andrew. 47 or so minutes. We did it. On a holiday. We took the day off.

So let me just say this. You're welcome, Abraham Lincoln. Uh-huh. Yeah. We actually managed to go less than an hour on a holiday. This is rare for us. It's about boundaries, my friend. All right. Thanks for listening, everyone. Hope you're having a restful and relaxing holiday if you're one of the people that's getting to take it off. We are going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. So please do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Monday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.