Muse

Hello, I have a little song. I heard there was a secret food That when you ate could make you poo But you don't really care for spicy, do you? Put them on my nachos, please And when you do, don't forget the cheese My favorite little pepper, jalapeno Jalapeno Jalapeno Jalapeno Jalapeno Love the show, power out

TBTL What will your first sequence of the day be?

Computer, load up Celery Man, please He is a fan of the outrageous. He loves to surprise. He loves other things as well.

You guys are so fun. Just relentlessly fun. I keep thinking, when are they going to stop being fun? And the answer is never.

That was great. That was good. You went for it. I appreciate that.

What do you say we go out and get some Carvel? I got the time if you got the diapers. all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a thursday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live boom roasted my name is luke burbank i am your host another day another victory for the og coming to you once again from beautiful los angeles california and It is seriously beautiful.

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

Beautiful today. Earlier in the week, we had rain and atmospheric rivers and the like, but now things have returned to their natural state of blue skies, sunny weather, and just absolutely delightful things happening here in the Westchester neighborhood. We've got a delightful show in store for you. Episode 4147, in fact, is where we have arrived. And I'm down here working on a television story and had occasion yesterday afternoon to more or less question all of my adult life choices. I'm wondering if I've made a huge mistake when it comes to how I've how I've lived as a grown up in this world. I've made a huge mistake. And if it's too late to undo that that damage, if it's too late for me to start over in adulthood, we'll talk about that. also the truly wild story that has been lighting the internet up this week about a very savvy actually financial writer who found herself caught up in one of those scams where they call you and tell you bad things are going to happen to you if you don't give them cash and she did she put fifty thousand dollars in a shoebox and handed it to a complete stranger and oh my god that's so crazy why we will dig into that story as well oh and it's a thursday aka blurs day so we'll do the blurs day messages and we will talk to this guy longest running cobra of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships in other words in short things are going extremely well for him he's andrew walsh and he's joining me right now good morning my friend good morning

luke i have a um joke that i've been waiting about 24 hours to tell but i have to wait for the right time it's not even for you it's not even for the audience the fellow who's here installing a door on our garage what i call the human door like oh the human door is finally is finally going in it's supposedly happening now he's been working on some other things out in the garage stabilizing things the past couple of days moving around some you know uh what do you call the the place where all the electric all the electrical wires come together and it's like a box it's a something box like a whatever junction box junction box fuse box yeah i think it's a junction box he's moving that but eventually luke eventually i'm gonna look out my window right over here to my left and i'm gonna see a hole start to form in the garage that is right outside my window and i'm waiting for the hole to be cut in the garage but the door not to be installed yet so i can go outside and tell seth we've changed our mind we don't want the door anymore i've had this dad joke i thought i was going to see the whole yesterday and i was all geared up to come home from lunch and lay that joke on him here it is you know whatever uh 12 hours later and i'm still still waiting to deploy my dad joke yeah man that's gonna absolutely that's

gonna be best friends that's gonna slay him um that's very exciting you know i've been working obviously on my little place.

in southern Washington, and one of the more satisfying things is that whole cutting through a wall, a door-shaped hole, like some sort of cartoon character from, you know, I don't know, Looney Tunes or something, and then kicking it down, and then there you have it. In fact, I am in the habit of setting up my camera on a tripod and doing one of those kind of time-lapse things. So you might consider doing that. That could be kind of fun.

That's true, although I'm not doing the project myself, And so, you know, like, I don't know if I'm going to be setting up a time lapse to watch Seth do my work for me. However, it would be fun if we had a door that was like the shape of like Bugs Bunny or some sort of cartoon character like they did pound through. Can we make a door that is like kind of custom shaped like that? Probably. Yeah.

It needs to be very round on top, I feel like. That's the official Looney Tunes door style. It's not your typical, like, whatever the standard shape of a door that we think of. Is it be more, like, round kind of?

Oh, you're thinking the actual cartoon door. I'm thinking of making a door. Okay, picture this. Go with me here. And then we need to stop talking about this because this doesn't make any sense. A cartoon character, maybe in the shape of a rabbit, runs through a wall. There's no door there. I see. I see. And leaves the outline of the rabbit. Yes. Now I cover that up with a door that has a couple of, you know, specifically placed hinges so it can open up. But we walk through the rabbit shape to get into our garage. It's going to need to be a big rabbit. It's going to need to be a very big rabbit. We're talking Donnie Darko-style rabbits.

Are you, you said something in passing the other day, we were talking about finances, and you said something about pushing off the ADU project in your garage. Is that something that you and Genevieve have actually discussed at all? Have you considered turning your garage into an accessory dwelling unit?

Yeah, you know, I had said that in passing because I thought we had talked about it or that you and Veeves had talked about it. But yeah, that is a kind of a long term project now, like long term project, like something to save up for. But it would be like a it would be like a real project. It would be like tearing this thing down and like rebuilding like a two story.

Oh, you mean take the garage completely down.

Yeah, probably. Yeah, I think so. And actually have it because like Genevieve's been really into like crafting lately. I mean, she always has been and she's always had a dream of like having her own like kind of crafting space. A she shed. Exactly. Exactly, as everybody refers to them, a she-shed.

Oh, no, I have friends who refer to it as their she-shed.

Really? Is that still in the parlance, really?

I mean, unfortunately, yes. I have a friend in New York who shall remain nameless, but they live in Manhattan with their family and also have a rent a different apartment in their building for as their office and projects and kept referring it to as to it as her she-shed. and just a small part of me died every single time she called it her she shed there was a

commercial a while back remember it was in constant rotation during a football season I'm going to say like at least five if not a lot more than that years ago where there's like a couple standing in the backyard and one of them is saying they burned down my she shed does that ring a bell to you at all it's like a kind of commercial yeah anyway yeah so we're thinking like uh and again this is sort of like Genevieve entered it into the conversation I'm a hundred percent for it you know if we're able to you know save up and do something like this but actually yeah like kind of tear down the little we have we have a pretty decrepit what would be like a one car garage but we don't keep a car in it or anything it's actually kind of destabilized because somebody installed like a an electric door opener that doesn't even work anymore and there's just hardware hanging from the ceiling but they had cut out some of those support beams you know we're talking about those rafters yeah they just cut like these clearly like support beams they're just like well these are in the way they just cut chunks right is it possible that there was a tasmanian devil living there before you well somebody took a saw in the shape of a rabbit clearly not known for their adherence to building codes true yeah i'm excited about this andrew i want to oh yeah this

is right up your alley i fully support you and veeve's launching on this project i'd say in the

next week because i don't want to go to the bank and get fifty thousand dollars out i don't know

Oh, I know exactly how you can get some. Yeah. Actually, we're going to talk about that coming up. But, yeah, no, I don't want to be the only person on the show who's mired in some kind of, you know, over budget infrastructure project at their house that's slowly driving them to the brink of bankruptcy. I would like some company in that misery, my friend. So jump on in.

Yeah. And I mean, and Genevieve even said she's like, I don't even know. Like, we'd probably keep, you know, the bottom part of it would still have to be for, like, a workshop area. her like you know she does woodworking out there she has a little workbench but also it's where we keep our lawn mowing stuff weed eaters what do we what's the funner what's the more fun way of saying weed eater whippersnipper whippersnipper is that it i think it was whippersnipper yeah yeah so anyway That'd still be the bottom, but then like some sort of like a second floor where it could either be a crafting area for Genevieve or maybe a place for guests to stay if they're visiting or possibly even my studio would have to. You know, we have we have years to sort of think and dream about this. I'm the type of person who likes this sounds probably pathetic, but in reality, like I like having time to dream about something. You know what I mean? I like not having the need for this to happen right now because we're in a pinch. but we can just sort of like continue to let this dream evolve that's like half of the fun

in fact what for a period of time when my little cabin didn't have um any well floors i mean it had like a subfloor but when i would be in like doing something that was boring to me waiting in line for an airplane or maybe in the last mile of a jog i would literally kind of do this three dimensional fantasy in my mind of the flooring going in almost like they do when you watch one of these home improvement shows where they kind of like do a little graphic of like here's what we're proposing and it's it's very satisfying because it's not real like it just shows you this animation of what it would be like i would just go through and animate in my mind the idea of wood floor going into the house and it would soothe something in me i don't know what it just was it's i'm with you the the kind of imagining of something particularly if you're you know in like a relationship like you and vives are where you can kind of talk about it and and i know if I know Veeves. I mean, there's nothing she likes more than kind of going online and finding different potential options for things. You're right. That's a sort of buildup. I was going to say the foreplay of the whole thing is kind of maybe the most fun part. But then I realized, you know, we have a project, you and I and TBTB in general in the offing. That means I think I'm going to need it really carefully. I'm going to need to be careful about my word choice and even subject matter choice going forward. I can't I can't say much more about it than that. But this morning on my jog i was thinking i i'm just only speaking for myself but i'm going to really once we once we've kind of embarked on this on this little project that that you know the thing i'm talking about i think i'm going to be minding my p's and q's a little bit more because of who

might be tuning into the program because of who might be you've you've a lip elliptic to me what is the word i'm looking for i you're being so elliptical i am out of this conversation now but

we'll we'll talk more about that so i've i've ellipticaled you right out of even knowing what i'm talking about yes i thought we have a we have something coming up yeah a project on the horizon a project uh where um i think it may maybe turn a few more ears towards the show i see but those

folks i think would like people in okay but a small number of people but people who it'd be

very important that when they listen to the show they don't find it objectionable true i yep i was So I'm going to try to swear less and also use the term foreplay less.

That is smart. Luke, I was thinking about a different project. See, that's the thing about Too Beautiful to Biz. We have so many projects going. I know for real.

So many irons and so many fires.

That's why I was confused. I was picturing something else. We've got a lot of stuff going on.

Stay tuned to this channel. This is a very, very important media empire that we're building here.

That was so great.

Although I will tell you, it's it's one of those things where even as we're building TBTB into a behemoth, I'm suffering some real regret, Andrew, about the fact that I'm not a film director. And I kind of alluded to this yesterday a little bit because I've been down here interviewing a guy named Ed Zwick, who's a director of a number of pretty, pretty big movies. and we were at his offices in Santa Monica the other day filming and it was just kind of cool being around all this movie stuff and also just meeting someone who's done this at a very, very high level and thinking, A, they're very talented and smart but they're also not otherworldly in a way. It felt to me like, oh, I could maybe have done this. That was the beginning of that thought and then yesterday when you and I got done recording I went over to Hollywood. I like to call it Hollyweird. yeah la la land yep tell you what and i went over to hollywood to the american film institute and i'd never i don't think i'd ever been on the campus of afi i might have been to their theater before like to literally watch a movie but this was just it was a sunny day in february in los angeles and the campus is beautiful and it's just a bunch of young people walking around talking about movies with each other and we were interviewing a producer there who's a producing partner of ed zwick his name is marshall herskovits and we were in the library at the afi and they just had photos all over the place of all of the filmmakers who've come through there or worked with afi and it was just and the library is all books about filmmaking and it was to

walking through i was like this is hogwarts for me this is like a school where the only thing that you talk about and do is the stuff that i was obsessed with when i was in college but i was too busy doing my pre-reqs for a you know editorial journalism degree whereas i could have been at afi just learning about you know the aspects of filmmaking like i was just i was seriously walking around the library wanting to check out books from the afi library and then i notice i go out to you know grab a little uh like soda or whatever and there's like a cafe and there's just all these young people sitting around just talking about film and i'm just like i didn't even know this was a world that existed and now i'm like would it be poor form if i stole one of the identities of these young people and just assumed a new life as a you know maybe slightly

as opposed to just applying you're not you're not starting with maybe i'll apply you're already into

identity theft oh i don't think i'd even get into this school are you kidding me i've got to i've got to find someone who's already in so then i've got to figure out a way to disappear them is this

a situation like potentially okay all right interesting wow you're already kind of using

your cinema muscles there that's the thing it's like and answer it's honestly it's already a movie

plot right 47 year old freshman shows up at afi can't get no respect right um but i really did i

had this moment of of just kind of looking around this place because i guess what i realized is i've never been on the campus of a film school i've only been on the campus of like the college that i went to which is a great place university of washington is a great very inspiring place to be don't get me wrong but i somehow in my mind it had never really occurred to me that there is a place where you go and then that's just the whole thing is just talking about movies and learning about movies and writing your own movies and like the thing that i was the most obsessed with when i was say 25 years old there's there are places that that's all exclusively what they focus on and it in no universe occurred to me to try to pursue that path do you know that my because i also went

through a period of my life where i thought i wanted to be a filmmaker or something related to that and actually i'm pretty i don't have regret i'm pretty happy with where how my interest in media sort of kind of evolved to land me here i just knew as a younger person that i loved movies i loved trailers for a while there i had a dream of not being a movie director but actually a movie trailer editor like i liked the idea of people bringing bringing content to me and then me shaping it into something kind of short form because i got obsessed with the idea of like different trailers for the same movie could give totally different vibes

or stories. Well, and you know that's a thing now, right? What's that? Well, on, I believe, Netflix they've figured it out algorithmically. You might have even been the one who told me about this. Yeah. It can basically show you a part of the film that it thinks you'll be more interested in because of other things you've watched. So if they think that you're a rom-com buff, they'll find the part of Fast and Furious 5 Exactly. Where Vin Diesel is meat cuting someone.

Yeah. And that's what you'll see. Fast and Furious five meter and cuter is I believe that one was called. But anyway, so I'm babbling here, but I just remember and this is I think I think you'll appreciate this because you're old enough and and tuned into these things enough to appreciate this. my stepmom started cutting out i think out of the physical newspaper or was it a magazine those little new york academy of film ads that used to run all that what where was i seeing those all the time was it magazines it was like yes a couple of postage size uh i believe like yeah i

think it would actually be in the new yorker sometimes i feel like in the back of the new yorker near the guy wearing the beret yeah right yes the guy really intent on selling us berets from the back of the new yorker i thought about sending addy to one of those things one year when i was in new york for work and she was staying with me and i thought maybe i can get her into

that but i do remember those ads vividly i'm still wondering like what is that academy you

know what i mean like is it the barbazon what's barbazon barbazon modeling school oh is that what

the um chris elliott bit is based on handsome boy modeling school i think kind of yes i think you

You know, Barbizon was was was one of those places where I don't know if your marketability as a model was the main prerequisite for attending Barbizon. I believe it was your ability to pay the the, you know, entry fees for Barbizon. I my guess the way I imagine the Barbizon Modeling Academy as a kid was a lot of people, particularly women walking around, balancing books on their heads. Uh huh. That's just what that was. what I knew about modeling was you did a lot of walking with a book on your head so that you would so that you would learn how to like I don't know be very still while you walked or something well i don't know that you're looking for anybody to disabuse you of this notion at all anyway so i don't want to volunteer i'm also considering getting into

modeling was that's good afi and i'm gonna do afi by day and i'm gonna model by night

i um the thing that sort of made me after i got to a certain age like i'm not jealous of film directors anymore it didn't at one point seemed like a dream job to me when i realized just like how just physically demanding and in and like in tedious ways you know what I mean like the idea of like sitting around talking about film having a vision like all of that stuff is awesome but at the end of the day you're just like you got a tool belt on like I follow some friends who are directors on Instagram and like I helped the you know this is years ago I don't mean to inflate it but I had a buddy who was kind of getting seriously into making some films and entering them into contests and i was working with him on set and he's just like so much of his time is just like on set like building tracks for a for a camera for a shot that lasts like three seconds long and at the end of the day i'm just exhausted there's so little to show for it at that point i was like this is exhausting and i'm glad there are people out there doing it but i think it kind of like opened up my eyes to the fact that like oh there are more fun ways to engage with movies which is well eating popcorn and watching them well exactly i don't even think i'm i don't even

think i'm regretting that i'm not a film director i'm regretting that i'm not a film student sure yeah i just want to be a freshman at the american film institute that's all i that's all i want and yes i will be i will be wearing a t-shirt that says music band i will have a backwards hat and i will have a skateboard nice uh so that i blend in seamlessly with the student body but yeah i don't even the another thing i've been learning this week is as you said andrew the actual work of directing a film sounds incredibly taxing and tedious and and physically demanding in a weird way just because of the hours and so the guy that i was interviewing yesterday again i mentioned his name is marshall herskovitz and he he and this guy ed zwick met at afi that's why we were filming there they met when they were students and he was also very into being a director and he directed a couple of films and it went great he won like a director's guild of america award and he then but he told me he the first movie that he directed he felt so horrible the whole time he just hated it and and so and and then it was over and then he thought well maybe uh that was just that movie or maybe that was just the mood i was in so then he gets another job directing another film years later a couple years later and then said he was it's the most miserable he's ever been and at the end of directing the second movie was like i just can't this thing that i thought i wanted to do makes me feel so bad when i'm doing it that so they became a much more of a writer producer because of exactly what you're describing i think i think that there is uh this a misunderstanding about what it is to be a director of films and it's some kind of really glam thing and i think the the actual reality of it is it's pretty grim you don't just get to sit in one of those director

chairs all the time with a megaphone that's yelling action yelling action and cut cut cut

it's all wrong speaking of megaphones kind of an interesting uh experience here at the hotel that i'm staying at there's clearly a labor dispute going on um with um i would assume the folks that work here specifically but i don't know if it's broader throughout los angeles um because i heard something yesterday morning when i got up for a little while and then it kind of went away and And then I heard it loud and proud this morning, people protesting, people on megaphones saying, you know, we want a contract now, et cetera. And I got in the elevator to go out on my little jog this morning. And it was kind of an interesting experience because I could hear noise. I thought that there was people maybe outside the hotel or I'm near a grocery store or two. I thought some people were maybe they were, you know, there are people that work at the Ralphs that were doing a labor kind of movement thing. And I get in the elevator and it gets louder. And I'm like, are these are they in the elevator shaft? And sure enough, I get down to the lobby and I didn't know you could actually do this. But the like folks that were representatives from the local, I'm not sure exactly which, you know, which union it is, but it's it's obviously the union of of hotel workers were in the area in front of the elevator and the front lobby of this actual hotel with megaphones and with folks that work here. And they had signs and they were picketing inside the hotel lobby, which I was just surprised that they were even able to do that.

Yeah. And did it make you feel bad, like crossing the line, essentially, by supporting this thing? Because, I mean, isn't that and I'm not trying. Honestly, I'm not trying to put you on the spot because you already had this book. You're there for work. Like, how are you to know you're not going to get a hotel across the street now? But like, essentially, they are doing this. To send a message, not just to management, but to the people who are, like, you know, giving their money to this business.

Yeah, yeah. I think, I mean, it's really a bummer because I love this hotel. Like, it is, I have all my little, you know, my little systems around here. I have my jogging route. I like that. I do like that there's a Ralph's next to it so I can go get, you know, like a Starbucks in the morning.

It's not the rock and roll Ralph's, is it? You're not in that part of the town.

Is there a rock and roll Ralph's?

Yes. And I can't remember my L.A. geography well enough. It's on one of the main, I want to say, east to west throughways. And it's literally it's rock and roll Ralphs. And they play rock and roll when you're in there, like on the speakers. And I think they have like murals or paintings or something that like, you know, like honor various rock. I'll look that up while you continue your story.

I've been to the rock and McDonald's in Chicago many times late at night, but I don't know. I didn't know about the rock and roll Ralph's. No, this is the regular Ralph's. But anyway, to answer your question, yes, I think I would actually take that seriously because I don't think that there's a group of people I can think of who deserve, who are more deserving of fair pay and a fair lifestyle than the folks that are doing housekeeping at a hotel. Yes. That is one of the most thankless jobs, I think, probably in America. and uh and so i i will before i stay here again i will probably inquire with the front desk what is the status of that um because and again in this case it would literally i'm like checking out today and i also found out this fully found out this morning what was going on um but i did feel bad i felt bad because i don't want to align myself with an organization or with a hotel that's not treating its its staff fairly and in particular its housekeeping staff have you noticed any um

um well like well just tell me what is the housekeeping situation for example we've talked many times on the show that ever since the pandemic various hotels have various policies about that you either have to opt in you have to ask for it if you want daily housekeeping that's probably what some i'm just guessing but that's what some of these labor protests are about as well taking away those good jobs from the people who who clean hotel rooms like have what has the

service been like since you've been there well i got here on monday night and uh i think i got here monday night and so yeah on uh on both days actually because we were out filming the room was like the bed was made up when i got back so there is still some uh you know they're they've got some sort of staff and i don't i don't it's it's an interesting idea too because the i'm assuming that the folks that i saw i mean there was a couple of there was the guys with megaphones look like they're union organizers so they're people that are probably not you know based in this hotel or attached to this hotel they're probably folks that are working with you know with housekeeping staff to try to better their situation so there was those guys but then there was also you know some some people some women in particular who looked like they also work here but they had their signs out and I was like I guess I should ask the front desk what's going on But like, I don't know if they were doing this from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. And then literally put the signs down and then just went back to work cleaning the hotel. Or if, you know, if they left and if it's like the management here is having to pull double duty. I don't really understand what's going on. What I can tell you is if I hadn't seen the protest this morning, I wouldn't have really known anything was going on. There isn't like an interruption in the experience of I will say this, though. I don't know if it's in the words of Coolio, if it's working, it's working. But I did get a weird email from the hotel, or not a weird email, but a surprising email from the hotel early this morning, which said, congratulations, we have an amazing offer. If you would like to extend your stay by one day, we can give you 20% off. I've never gotten an enticement. I think what it means is that they're under-occupied right now.

Sure, but who's the traveler who can just say, I'm going to attack another day onto this trip, whether it's vacation or business?

That feels like a real Hail Mary. Yeah, it really does. I don't know if they're familiar with how airplane reservations work for most people. Yeah, I don't know who that would really work for, but it led me to believe that at this very moment, they're not oversold here, that they're trying to dig another night of the hotel into a pit and then cover it with leaves and hope I fall in to extending my stay.

They're calling it the trial separation special. If you're there.

Oh, I've been there, Andrew, and I've done that. It was called the Culver Hotel in Culver City where I where I set up shop during my first divorce.

Let your marital problems extend one more day on us.

You know what? Honestly, she may come crawling back to you, Mr. Burbank. If you stay here one more day, you may actually get some.

in this situation anyway um okay we uh we've got some dazzlers to thank and we've got some um truly shocking i would say uh sort of financial scams to talk about too those are unrelated concepts i want to say the dazzling donors and financial scams those are very very

different things okay you know i hate to admit it when luke is right about something right but I got to give him credit. He was right about at least one thing. He has been telling me for quite some time to check out the podcast, Everything is Alive. It's hosted by his friend, Ian Chilog. And Ian interviews inanimate objects, if you can imagine that, like a box of tissues or a bath towel. And Everything is Alive has a new series out now called The Animals, in which Ian interviews animals like a pink flamingo. I listened to that one yesterday. It was so good. A butterfly. We get to hear from the perspective of a kangaroo and this podcast features a lot of great comedians like our friend harry kandabolu or vinnie thomas connor ratcliffe a whole bunch i was especially drawn to the production style if i can geek out for just a second i the production of this podcast just reminds me of some of my favorite podcasts from back in the day just like really deftly done but with a very light touch and it feels very intimate for a ostensibly a comedy show and i I noticed that Hillary Frank was credited in the credits, one of my favorite producers of all time. So you've got to check it out. I'm giving this my full endorsement, even if it does make Luke look right. Check it out. Everything is Alive and The Animals, a new series from Everything is Alive. You can find it on your podcast app.

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 rattle, dazzle

Alright, let's thank some dazzling donors These folks are donating a dazzling amount of dough And it is really, really important for this show to exist We couldn't do this without very, very wonderful folks Like Cinder Conlon in Traverse City, Michigan

Traverse City?

I almost lived there

I almost worked there

Is that where Interlochen is?

Yep, exactly It's the nearest city to Interlochen

Hmm. I wonder if Cinder is in some way associated with that fine, fine arts. There was somebody. Oh, you know who went to Interlochen? Jewel.

Oh, that makes sense.

You were meant for me and I was meant for you, Jewel.

Speaking of grocery store music, have we talked about this before? Is Jewel the quintessential grocery store music? Like you're just shopping for beans or whatever and you realize you're singing along to the music coming from the overhead speakers and you realize it's Jewel?

I could hear that. I also think there's some Sheryl Crow, strong Sheryl Crow, you know, kind of vibes going on. Every once in a while, I think I saw somebody on TikTok kind of doing a joke about this, but sometimes you'll be in the grocery store and it'll be like a Phil Collins song or something that's like actually emotionally has more depth to it than you're really like expecting while you're shopping for your beans. And then you sort of have a moment in the aisle of, you know, How can I just let you walk away? Whatever, you know, like Against All Odds comes on or something. You're just like kind of get a little bit emotionally wrecked as you're just trying to live your life.

I remember Against All Odds used to be on, I feel like, grocery store radio quite a bit. Because before it became a whole bit about people waiting for the beat to drop on that song. I remember Vives and I years and years ago, like being in a grocery store waiting for those drums to kick in. I have the right song.

Are you thinking of In the Air tonight?

Oh, I'm thinking of In the Air tonight. Yeah, that's the one.

But both Phil Collins' work. Here's what Cinder would like to say with her Dazzling Donor message, or maybe ask, is it seriously Dazzling Donor thank you time again? Where does the time go? I'm thrilled to have been able to donate again to the best pod card ever. Hearing about Andrew's latest garbage escapades and Luke's most recent shenanigans makes my day every day. Guests such as John, Phyllis, and Veeves are always great to hear and add a lot to the show, and the 10s are the best, most supportive community anyone could ask for. I still want to throw my phone sometimes, but not all that often. You know what, Cinder? That's called harm reduction. We're never going to be a show that doesn't create any phone-throwing moments, but we're trying to do it less, and that's our promise to you.

And are we changing, or is Cinder? I mean, maybe there's just like sort of a we're consistently underperforming and so expectations lower as well. I'm fine with that, by the way.

I believe in therapy we would say we're growing towards each other.

Nice. I like that.

We're getting a little better, and Cinder is lowering her standards. Nice. Ever so slightly. Cinder says, I'm looking forward to many more years of listening. Peace and love. Peace and love.

Peace and love to you, Cinder, and thank you so much for all your support over the years of the TBTL. Maestro?

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody rattle, dattle.

We're also thanking Brant Severson of Moraga, California. I believe last year we looked up Moraga, California. Oh, really?

Because I had not heard of it. I was going to ask you because, first of all, I don't remember last year. When I say that, I mean, I don't remember last year, just full stop. But I was going to ask you if you knew about Moraga because it didn't ring a bell to me.

I don't want to make our our thanks of Brant Severson, dazzling donor. I don't want to turn it political. But, you know, one of the things that has Democrats, some Democrats in an absolute panic is this questions about like Joe Biden's memory. and uh they were you know this special counsel report on what he could remember and and when and it was sort of written up as if it was so damning and i thought oh my god if robert her that hack by the way if robert her was asking me any questions about anything that's happened in my life they would immediately start you know talking about sort of like memory care for me Like, I can't remember anything at all. I read parts of the report and things that Joe Biden was was like not sure on the year of. And I was like, yeah, I'm not there. I know like three dates. I know 1994 was when my daughter was born. And I think 19 2008 was when TBTL started.

Those are the only two dates I know. So I was talking to a friend yesterday who will remain nameless, but it's a mutual friend of ours um and it was somebody who's been on our little video series week in review and he was saying that like you kind of don't realize how things can kind of slip from your brain until you're like talking into microphones he's like yeah he's like it's just it's a different now i'm just getting defensive over phone throwing i think but no but it is a kind of a different thing that like when first of all when you're put on the spot your brain doesn't work as smoothly sometimes as you want it to um and then also and i think he was arguing more this Like there are so many times in casual conversation when we say, oh, what's that person's name? It doesn't matter. And you just move on. But when it's actually like imprinted on a video or a podcast or something, it seems like a much bigger moment because you feel like everybody's yelling at you.

Exactly. And like I, you know, you listen to Levitard a lot. I listen to the Howard Stern show a lot. And they have, you know, he and Robin are both like, I think they're like 70 now or something. So their memories are not as sharp as they once were. And there's a lot of times they're grasping for a name, a person from that thing. And I know who the person from that thing is. And I want to be yelling into my, you know, serious satellite radio account, you know, whoever the name is. It's a week. But it's it. Yeah. When you when you sort of put it down on paper in a special counsel report or commit it to a recording on a podcast, it makes it all seem a little bit worse, I think. Yeah. So I'm just saying back off, Cinder. And thank you, Brant. No, Brant says, congratulations for establishing TBTB and your independence. And thank you for continuing to provide TBTL five days a week. What you do is so important.

Thank you, Brant.

We've only been doing these dazzling donor messages for a little while, but I'm already seeing a pattern emerging, which is people who supported the show during the last thon we did for my parents' basement because they were like, this is really touch and go. this may or may not continue to exist and everyone seems very relieved that it exists and everyone seems very happy that we have stopped running so many carvana ads yes and also i mean we point this

out every year and it's very sweet and it's the nature of things but i just got to point out again to everybody who sent in a dazzling donor message we want to thank you we're doing this to thank you and it's so as we always use the word humbling when you are writing a special message that you're writing because you've supported the show so dang generously and you use your message to say thank you for what you guys do. That really means a lot, and we really appreciate it. But, dudes, right back at you. Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. And if people want to use their dazzling donor message to just gas themselves up, go for it. We'll happily read something about how awesome you are. And like you said, Andrew, this wouldn't happen without these folks. So as you said, to quote my good friend Andrew Walsh, right back at you.

And while we're here for a moment, I do want to say that apparently we're hearing from folks who are dazzling donors but never saw a dazzling donor form in their email box. It might have gone to your spam folder. You might want to look around if you're like, hey, I'm giving a lot of money to this show, but I never got a request for me to fill out, you know, like a special message.

I never got a homework assignment for them.

Exactly. Check your spam or we'll be. sending out another reminder soon or you can reach out to me or john sklar off and we'll we'll get you set up because we don't want to you know let anybody slip through the cracks here absolutely

not thank you so much appreciate our dazzling donors and everyone for making tbtl possible hello and welcome to top story all right a top story uh is a story that has been getting a lot of attention online it was uh written about in uh the cut is that a sub the cut is that still part of the new york magazine empire you know i always say the new york times but i think you're

right it's new york magazine i think this particular writer also writes for the new york times i think but yeah this is new york magazine the cut okay charlotte cowles is the

person who wrote this kind of first person um essay about something that happened to her and it is truly kind of head spinning to read it the headline is the day i put fifty thousand dollars in a shoebox and handed it to a stranger i never thought i was the kind of person to fall for a scam um and basically she tells this story um of being home on like a tuesday in october and getting a phone call from somebody purporting to be with Amazon.com saying that her account had been compromised or that somebody had set up a bunch of accounts in her name. So the call says Amazon on the caller ID. And the first person that she talks to says, did you buy these Apple laptops or iPads, $8,000? And she says, no, I didn't. and so then the person says well we we think that somebody has uh basically stolen your identity and made some fake accounts under your name and then that person passes her off to somebody else who's supposed to be like some sort of special investigator on the matter who kind of does this very clever thing which is like reads back to this woman her address and the last four of her social so she now has it in her mind that that they they know stuff about her and that they know this because um they're actually you know working for the government and uh and so then that person you know basically tells her that their her identity has been used to like purchase vehicles and that there was there's a vehicle found with blood in it there's a possible murder like near the border the u.s mexico border and this idea that like all of this bad stuff has been happening kind of in her name and that she's in she could be potentially in trouble for it but not if she follows the directions very closely and they continue to pass her from like one person to another and each person they have the same information about this whole story of the accounts that her name is associated with etc and by the end of this day and this is Halloween I think actually I think it might be literally on Halloween day by the end of the day quite improbably this very smart person who is also skeptical that was one of the craziest parts of this article she at times is asking these people on the phone how do i even know you're real like she it was not like she was just completely buying it um and and somehow there's something about the the human mind when we're put in a position of stress basically what they told her was all your assets are going to be frozen also these bad people who have stolen your identity they were they're watching your family they're surveilling your family so she just found herself in this position of like real terror that kind of just clouded out all of her executive function

of her brain and she ends up going to the bank and withdrawing this $50,000 with the guy on the speakerphone in her pocket, putting it in a shoebox at her house and with her husband and child at home, like in the house now, she gets the shoebox. They've instructed her not to tell her husband because it will somehow add to his culpability later if there's this legal thing. She walks downstairs and she hands this box of money to a stranger in an SUV and they drive off. And it's only a little bit later that night that it comes into focus for her that this has all been a scam.

And obviously it's really embarrassing for her. This is a really well-written piece. Yes, very much so. I, like a lot of people, probably came to this by hearing the reaction to it. First, I started seeing headlines like this woman shouldn't be a personal finance advice columnist anymore if this happened to her. Right. And I'm like, well, before I get too far into the reaction to this, let me read the source material. And, you know, it begins like, you know, I handed fifty thousand dollars in a shoebox into a car of somebody I don't know. This is how I got here. And it's really hard not to make a judgment call right away. right we've all been scared we've we're

being scammed from time to time um you know i thought i got scammed out of 36 recently luke and trying to buy a little doohickey for my sink to put my sponges in that you know yeah that put the fear of god in me obviously uh no more uh adu for this family um but uh we've all like kind of had some sort of brush with scammery right and it kind of puts bad feelings into you to say like i actually was scammed to the point where i gave up in cash fifty thousand dollars to a stranger immediately the reader is going to be like the fuck like i'm sorry sorry not supposed to say swear words anymore luke um but uh um you can immediately start judging and i tried to read this article as like kind of open-minded as possible because i'm like i can't imagine any scenario in which I am not telling my partner or spouse or whatever before going through with this before withdrawing fifty thousand dollars one thing that I thought was notable in this that it kind of took me a moment to realize as I was reading it is you pointed this out it all happens in one day and you and I have talked about this on the show before I think one of the key things to scams like this is the sense of panic that sets in right away and do not give the mark time to be rational keep on whipping up the irrationality and so i'm reading this and like it's amazing how targeted this is i think of scams as just like random like somebody you know call center calling a thousand people a day or something but this was somehow targeted to the degree that as you mentioned they had the last four of the social they had the name i think right off the bat they had the name of her child like that is going to be triggering for people we know your son's name is this or what have you um and they even had like photos they said like you are now actually on the hook for they're they're trying to paint her in the corner of being in legal jeopardy because her name is associated with a bunch of crimes and they have like fake photos of here was a bust right like was it stolen computers or drugs i don't remember what and they're showing her like fake photos of crime evidence and so immediately first of all putting her on her back feet by saying you are going to be in trouble here and also you cannot tell your husband because we either can't trust him or it puts him in danger and we if you tell your husband we're out we can't protect you anymore and the way it's written up in here um it really it really makes clear the pressure they put on her i still cannot come around to me going through with what she went through with like first of all i have a question for you and you're one of the only people in my life i can ask this to can you can you just go to the bank without any without calling the day before without making any kind of arrangements just like walk into your local branch of a bank and say i want to liquidate fifty thousand dollars and walk out with that in cash that some of this

this seemed incredulous to me or i'm incredulous about some of it i've certainly never taken that

amount of cash out from the bank I would assume that there's some you know kind of like checks and balances uh literally and figuratively like I would assume there's some kind of a thing where they're like UK we got we got it's like uh you know it's like buying a gun we need a five-day waiting period before we can actually I know the banks that I go to near where I live I would be shocked if they had fifty thousand dollars lying around that they're like here you go yeah um I mean that's that's part of part of this that's just I will give credit to the writer is that she she writes it in such a way that she's like I know this sounds crazy and I I know you know like there's a level of self-awareness and how she writes it that makes it very relatable for me as the reader like she's basically saying look I'm not an idiot some kind of there was like a psychological number that was done on me that had me so frightened and feeling so protective of my family and of my life and of that it just caused me to basically kind of warg out for an entire day and i know how silly this sounds and i know how it makes no sense and i can't believe i did it either but i did and here's what happened but yeah like the idea that like she's you know got the this guy who's allegedly a cia agent on in her pocket on speakerphone but she's not telling when one of the big instructions is you can't tell anyone what you're getting the money for you know because then we can't protect you like the it just there's so many times where this could have not worked out for the scammers like you just i wonder also i mean there's i'm sure these banks have lots and lots of fine print because they've thought about this before but i almost wonder if she if she would maybe have some sort of a claim with her bank almost like like if you get over served at a bar and then you go out and you you know crash into someone or something you might say well you should have never given me that much alcohol you could see i was drunk this is almost like you should have never given me all of this money on one You would have you should know that there's something up I mean truthfully I do think Financial institutions because this is so common Now I feel like financial institutions Should have Some kind of a thing that is If you try to if you go in and try to get out More than a few thousand dollars They literally have to read a checklist Are you doing this because Somebody told you that that your grandmother Has been kidnapped right you know Like there should be some kind of a little Like almost boilerplate thing like are you doing this because right now you think your identity has been stolen and you have to pay the people off in cash you know like like literally break the spell talk to somebody person to person and get them out of this fear based headspace of like I've got to do this to protect my family

do you remember that it was a very small detail but she said that the bank teller or the bank professional bank professional gave her the $50,000 and a pamphlet warning against scams I didn't catch that part really quick she didn't dwell on it um yeah no you should have to read that out loud yes exactly I um I don't want to turn this into one of those I don't believe this story this is the New Yorker I mean this is the New York magazine I should say I mean they have fact checkers they're not going to let somebody I'm sure there but I do wonder if something happened in the in the telling of the story that they took editorial license because I just feel like I don't know it just feels like there must be something I just I can't I'm really struggling with the idea that a person was able to walk into she didn't make a special trip to do we assume that she lives in new york did she she lives in brooklyn she lives in brooklyn okay so that you know you're in new york so maybe you can find a financial institution it's not like you just live in in brunswick ohio or whatever and you're going to the bank of america so anyway there was just something about that i couldn't quite get my head around for whatever it's worth but going back to her writing for a moment i have two little excerpts do you mind if i just read directly luke because i gotta say talk about relatable now not relatable in the way that i've ever given fifty thousand dollars to a stranger before but that feeling of when you've just kind of realized you've made a terrible mistake maybe even like the feeling of like reply all in on an email that was for one person but there's something in it listen to this description so she's now handed the money over after this whole chain of events. And now the guy that's been on the phone with her for hours now suddenly has ghosted on her. She can't call him back. And she reaches some other woman that she'd been in touch with related to the scammers. And the woman's like, he's not around anymore. And suddenly she starts to realize she starts to look around and be like, what have I done? Reading directly here. I went into my bedroom and I shut the door, feeling my face grow hot. I had a physical I had a physical sensation of scales falling from my eyes the room shimmered around me spots raining from the ceiling I saw the whole day peel away like layers of an onion Michael the FTC officer the Amazon call revealing my real life raw and exposed at the center oh my god I said my hands tingling you're lying to me Michael was lying you just took my money I'm never getting my money back and then so that feeling of just sort of having like as she says the scales fall from her eyes but then there's another moment and I don't know if I can call it up right here but she says the next morning I woke up and for a brief beautiful moment I forgot about all of this I know that feeling well yes and then the reality of my life suddenly suddenly I remembered the situation that I put myself in the day before and I think that people going through grief feel that sometimes when you've made a huge mistake but that feeling of waking up and having a brief second in the morning before you realize the huge loss or mistake in your life that was that was an entire

summer of my life when uh i had gotten someone pregnant but nobody really knew and i would wake up and there would be like three or four seconds where i would forget about this kind of ticking time bomb you know and that i'd go from being like oh it's a it's a warm summer morning and to, oh my God, I've ruined my life. Of course, the good news is it ended up being a great part of my life and probably the best thing that's ever happened to me. But in those moments that summer, working at a plumbing company and like just that, yeah, that sweet, sweet moment of a couple of seconds where you forget about the reality of your life is something I can really identify with. I definitely, I believe this for a few reasons. One, I think that, yeah, I think it'd be unlikely that New York Magazine would, or The Cut or whatever we're talking about here, would publish this without verifying some of it because they probably had a sense that it might get a lot of attention. Of course. And also, I think from this woman, Charlotte Cowles, I mean, she is really kind of rolling the dice with the rest of her career as a financial advice columnist because, as you said, some people, the feedback is like, how could you be so dumb if your whole job is financial advice? How could you fall for this? like

She's kind of admitting to a really big mess up in her life, and I guess it would be an unbelievably risky play for her to put this out here if it wasn't actually completely true. Because, again, I think her days as a financial advice columnist may be numbered, but her days as a writer of general things might just be getting started. You know what my thought was when I read this? I wonder if there's a book deal in this. I don't know if it's a full book or not, but maybe a book about scams. and i wonder if she could get fifty thousand dollars as the advance yeah i wonder i'll bet you yeah i wonder if there's a way to monetize this so that it ends up basically canceling out what her loss was that's how my brain works with these things i remember going to vegas years and years ago with our friend jessica and the mummy and like losing a what was a significant amount of money for me at the time you know i don't know maybe it was a thousand bucks or something um and that's by the way still a significant amount of money i want to be clear but like i remember being so kind of bummed on the way home and then getting on the airplane and then seeing a guy dressed like superman and then getting his info and then pitching it to this american life and then doing the story for them and i think they paid a thousand dollars like whatever they paid it was the exact amount i had lost in vegas and it felt somehow kind of

like well this all worked out and got you on this american life and probably parlayed into other

opportunities my first and last time on this american life is 25 years ago but anyway i was thinking about that for this writer in new york like wow i wonder if as as bad as this was for her and you're right andrew that description of that moment of realization like when she when the almost the room starts spinning i mean it's very very strong um the usual suspects it's

major kaiser so say vibes right i haven't seen it is that an important plot point have you really

not seen it no i i have okay well sometimes you have it and i never know but like yeah exactly like that the room starts spinning when you get the realization when you fully realize what has happened i don't know why this is so weird to me but the idea that her husband and son were home and that she's got this box of money and that she's like walking and she's like hang on a minute and then she's like walking down the stairs while they're looking out the window of their apartment in Brooklyn and then she's going up to I almost feel like I don't know what my reaction would be but I wonder if I was the husband am I like on the one hand it's I'm not trying to I don't want to be overly controlling and I don't want to act like you know I need to I don't know be involved in in every single interaction that my partner has with other people but I just wonder like if like if i was you know at becca's house and well if we lived together in a house we co-owned and she was like hold on i need to take this mysterious shoe box downstairs and hand it would i follow and go like hey what what are we doing here what's going on here that also better be a gerbil in there she says in the piece that her husband still doesn't want to talk about it because i mean that's another thing too that's very like that would be really really tough if you're the partner in this case because on the one hand you obviously you you want to you understand that this was the person you know your your wife in this case was not operating in her right mind and this was money that she had saved it sounds like from some of it from an inheritance and a lot of it just from freelance projects this was like literally her like emergency fund this is her pay her taxes fund um this was you know i guess my point is it would be on the one hand you'd want to just be like hey you know bad stuff happens in life this was a bad thing we're going to move on we're going to get past it but then it would be so hard to not keep replaying it in your mind like there's fifty thousand dollars walking down the stairs walking out to a car and if you are an suv if you would have just opened the front door and been like hey what's in that box as we like to say on this show andrew what's in the box it's like there's so many moments in that whole day for her but also in that in that hour let's say with her husband where this all could have just changed like if he would have just walked outside and been like so what is exactly going on here and what is in that box and why are you handing it to a stranger if just this kind of trance-like state was interrupted everything goes differently yeah and again i do think that

it's key that it all happened in one day as it's told here and so if that that panic does not give you a second to calm down it's not until it's all over that suddenly she's alone with her thoughts in her bedroom and then she suddenly like you said has that that room spinning moment and what have I done for me that you know I went into this you know like I told you with the hope of reading this whole thing and then sort of asking myself if I find her situation to be reasonable or understandable is she a sympathetic character in here and luke i am putting the biggest hex upon my house by saying this But at the end of the day, I can't get there. I as much as this sounds terrifying, I think the use of her child's name in this triggers something in her that I can't even relate to.

Unless they bring up bingo.

Right. I don't. So I don't even want to be, you know what I mean? So I don't want to be too judgmental on that. Like, I understand that. But like at the end of the day, this is one of those pieces that everybody should sort of read. And I wanted to talk about on the show today because I sort of feel like this is one of those things where if you're at any kind of a dinner party this weekend or hanging out, if anybody's read this story, everybody's going to want to talk about it. I told Genevieve, have you read this thing? And she said, no, no. Oh, and as soon as I described the truth, she's like, I got to read this now. She was reading it in the other room and then kept on stopping reading it and coming into my office to comment about where she was in the story. And one of the things we just can't get our head around is like not not telling your partner.

and well she did sort of text him yes but then something was up but then she pulls back a little

bit she pulls back she says that she deletes the texts but he clearly already got them so she deletes the texts to him that were on her device so i guess it doesn't live there anymore because she's believes that all of her communication is being watched that's another way they got to her right she believes that any email she sends any text she sends is being seen by these people who were stealing her identity so she tries to delete it and then apparently just tells her husband never mind everything's fine um but and then sticks with that and keeps him blocked out for the rest of this story and even when he concernedly said even when he says to her with an amount of concern what is going on with you she says nothing I'm fine and she takes out the money and and also the lawyer thing you know the scammers keep telling her don't call a lawyer if you call a lawyer you know we're with the CIA and if you call a lawyer we can no longer protect you and you're on the wrong side of the law here because your name is associated with all these crimes like i even in a panic state i i don't think i could resist the urge to tell genevieve i think i think something's going on here we need to get a lawyer like even if i partially believe the story of these scammers i'm still thinking i need a lawyer i do not i cannot in any way put myself in a position of taking any grand sum of money even half it to 25 to liquidate that go to the bank liquidate it put it in a shoebox and hand it through a car window i can't sympathize with

that i don't think i get there i i don't think i could get to that point although i do think that this article is really instructive you know i think like i think this will live large in the minds of a lot of people and if they were able to find themselves too far down that road this might remind them like it might break them out of the out of the trance i mean there's so many ways they've gotten so sophisticated with like spoofing people's voices or we've talked about that you know people getting calls where and it's it's the number looks like somebody in their family but then the person on the other end of the line is just crying so you can't quite tell if it's the person or not but then it's like they wake you up in the middle of the night and tell you that your sister has been kidnapped and she's crying on the other end of the phone and you need to do x y and z it's like they're so they're getting so good at this but i do think yeah you have to just like you at the most bedrock base level you have to just say i'm never getting cash and giving it to anyone nor am i ever transferring money to anyone there's never any circumstances where applying any money to this is going to be the right way to proceed yeah and if you kind of keep that as your, if you sort of keep that, I mean, again, you also might accidentally let them into your computer. I, I mean, I almost did that. I talked about it on the show. I got an email that said like, you know, thank you for re-upping your account with, I think it was, I forget even what they were pretending to be, but it was something I'd used before. Wasn't it a security thing, like a malware or some kind of an anti-malware thing or whatever. And it was like 300, I think was like 350 bucks you know like you've you've you've resubscribed for another year and of course I was like uh I don't want to resubscribe to that and there's a phone number to call and I call the number like and by the way I got this probably at six in the morning or something so I'm still a little bleary and I called them and I was like I get somebody who definitely doesn't sound like they're in you know the U.S. necessarily and I was kind of like hey I don't want to pay for this and they're like, okay, well, we have to get you to your computer. And then something just, like, clicked in my brain. I was like, oh, that's what this – oh, oh, oh, right. Okay, then I hung up and deleted it, thankfully. But, I mean, I will tell you that for the first, I don't know, 35 seconds I'm talking to this guy, no part of my brain was reading this as a scam. Had it been, I wouldn't have called them. I would have just deleted the email. So that's, you know, I don't know if somehow the safety of my family felt – associated with this maybe i stay in that heightened kind of irrational state for a little bit longer again they're just it's kind of it's both fascinating and heartbreaking to read this because there are so many times where she almost hits the eject button on it to where she's like talking to this this guy on the phone and she's like i don't believe that you're who you say you are and he's like i'll send you a picture of my badge and then she's like you know i'm not going to hand money to a stranger and he's like they're undercover and she's like well i want to see their

badge and she's like undercover officers don't have badges and you just you want to like somehow time travel into these moments for her and just be like don't do it like she gets so close to just realizing that this is bullshit but again i just think you know we are one of the things that we forget is that we are still cave people we still have a lot of our brain i think is taken up with what feels like basic survival kind of fight flight or freeze that just stuff just ways of operating that were developed i don't know 20 000 years ago when we needed or maybe even longer than that when we needed to keep ourselves alive and keep our family alive and we acted in these certain ways and now we live in a world where like somebody is um scamming you and making you feel afraid and basically somehow connecting up with these caveman brain behaviors but with this overlay of technology now of like pretend phone numbers and pretend cia badges or ftc badges or whatever so you i think that they've figured out that they can get you into a state where you're just operating in like survival mode what feels like survival mode to you and logic just kind of goes right out the window it whiffs right out the window completely agree and that's why i think i

I really like that part talking about the physiology of how she felt after all of this. And she talks about it a little bit as she's going through it, but maybe even could have talked about that more like that your mental state, like you're in this constant. They kept her in a mental panic state for like five to seven hours or something like that. And I think that like you're right, the physiology of that, if I think I'm saying that wrong, is so key to this thing. I also, for what it's worth, I think you're absolutely right. Like, this is the beginning of her finding her lane and becoming a bigger name. Like, I'm looking now. She's already been on CNN. I think maybe Fox as well, although maybe they're just using tape from CNN. She's going to do the talk show circuit. Her next follow-up article for The Cut has been, like, you know, how to avoid scams. Like, this is her lane now. She will probably be a go-to person on all of these. She will 100% get a book deal. And, again, it's a really well-written article, so good on her. It sounds like it'll be a good book. But I think this is in a certain way. I'm not going to say it's going to. I'm sure she feels deeply embarrassed. And I think that's another interesting aspect of it. She says that she she's clinging to any story she hears from other smart people who've been scammed. She clings to them because I know that feeling in other areas of just kind of being like, I'm not the only one. And you start to kind of like keep this mental inventory of of examples of things that make you feel five percent less bad about what happened to you. Exactly. So that's that's a huge part of it. I think there's still so many aspects of this to tell. And so I don't want to make. Oh, I was going to say, though, I don't want to make it sound like, oh, it'll all come out in the wash because you'll make that money back. I mean, honestly, the husband's reaction, as you pointed out, is really interesting as well. Like this is going to have personal implications for her that I don't want to make light of. But having said that, I think that this is the beginning of her career in a certain way. Somebody who's probably been working for quite some time

Yeah, hopefully she will be able to Launch from this Into a career of writing about it That does eventually recoup the money that she lost Yeah, and help other people

Yeah Just remember that life is much more than you can be nothing but one.

Are you ready to blurs, Luke Burbank? I was born ready, dude. Michelle says, happy birthday to my partner, Mike. You're a wonderful father and husband. You do so much for me and Cal, and I'm always impressed at how you can do basically everything and anything. I love every moment I get to spend with you. That's sweet. Excellent. That's my wife. People are wondering if Michelle is speaking of Cal Raleigh there. No, it's spelled differently. But did you see that Cal Raleigh, Mariners, catcher, is at the heart of the uniform debate, Luke?

I didn't know about the uniform debate.

Apparently there's some...

I think Nike has a new contract to make the uniforms and the pants are so sheer that you can see right through them. And there's just some innocuous, like actually pretty terrible dad joke that Cal Raleigh is telling on Instagram. Because he's the big dumper. Yes, but this actually isn't related to his buttocks in this case. What a fun, sexy time for you. It was some Mariner social media post of him telling some dumb dad joke, but he's wearing his uniform facing the camera. and you can see his shirt is tucked into his pants and you can fully see his jersey through the pants, you know, like both sides. It's so weird.

That seems like bad design.

It's terrible. And so everybody's talking about whether or not we're going to be able to see some exciting things.

Don't miss the sausage fest.

Whoa, whoa. Okay, anyway, Michelle, that was a little extra anecdote for you, but that is not the Cal we're talking about here. Happy Blur's Day to Mike. snakes says i would like to wish a happy 47th blursay to my truly lovely husband and dedicated 10 james i know hearing this on tbtl will be a highlight of your week also because your james-versary is during lent this year it really isn't too early to get a fish sandwich so happy to be sharing this life with you happy blurs day james here's my sweet stash let's freaking party how about this Megan and Emily sent in a special donation Luke for as a Blursday gift to their mom Christine they say our mom has been a loyal 10 for as long as we can remember when she's tidying up the house Luke and Andrew's voices are emanating from her phone in her back pocket and when she picks us up from school we listen on the car ride home Luke and Andrew and Bubbles and bananas, for that matter, have become household names in our family. So thank you for bringing our mom so much joy. That is so

sweet. Oh, hey, y'all said my name. That's really cute.

Yes, a little gift to both Christine and to us at TBTB. Although the bingo erasure there is notable. Linda in Lancaster says, happy birthday wishes. Did I, wait. That's the one where there's two different ways to say Lancaster, right? And I don't know which one it is

Is it the Pennsylvania one or the California one?

I don't know, so I guess no need for me to stop down Linda in Lancaster

Yeah, Lancaster, that's the California one So that's where you are now And I'm going to get all anecdotal on you

What if it was the other one?

Well, that's going to come as some tough news to the city That they've all been saying the name of the city wrong For all these years

I mean, I don't know I don't know if you're just spoofing I mean, there's Lancaster, as I said What would be the other pronunciation?

Lancaster

Lancaster. Okay, gotcha. Well, Linda says. Oh, my God. He a man. Sending happy birthday wishes to my Sten Facebook friendo, Catherine. I love seeing your posts of your sweet kiddos and kitty. Sending wishes also for your poor ankle to heal swiftly. No mountain too tall. Good luck, Catherine. Yeah. How do we have this? Like, nobody made this. Josh says, I'd like to wish a happy Blur's Day. I'm sorry, a very happy Blur's Day to my wife, Karen. Aw. I can tell you all the things that make her an incredible partner, but I'll just say that she's my favorite person in the world. She's the longest-running co-bro of my life, and me, Elliot, and Pearl love her more every day. Happy Blur's Day, Karen. Thank you.

Just study it out, and you'll see.

Andrew says, but not this Andrew. Another Andrew says, I'd like to wish a happy birthday to my favorite person in the entire planet and my very own Eleven, Camille. We started listening to TBTL together way back in 2012. And after a long time apart, the show is one of the things that has helped us reconnect. Not to mention kept our musical tastes aligned and current. Happy birthday, Camille. I love you.

We met on a BFF app.

Have you ever heard about these apps, Luke? They're like dating apps for friendship. It's like Bumble Friendship or something like that. No. Bumble Bestie. It's got a really good name. Yeah. If any of our listeners have participated, let me know.

I feel like TBTL is running a version of that.

We, every now and then, do get notes from people that say, can you create some sort of a dating app for TBTL10s or something? I think that that might just be putting ourselves in positions that could be complicated.

I just mean kind of the Stens page and stuff is a de facto way that people kind of make friends.

Believe it or not, I'm a complete catch. I should remember the clever name of that friend. Alan says, I want to wish Step of Sacramento a happy Blur's Day. It was six or so years ago that you mentioned TBTL to me while chatting in your cubicle. And after having listened to it one night, like drinking hot water and grass, I was hooked. Have fun at Community Shop. class and good luck on your next woodworking project happy blurs a step you're entering a world of pain and that's where we're going to leave it today happy blurs day everybody

ah good batch of blurs there that was a that was a solid blatch a blatch of blurs day it was a very solid blatch absolutely all right happy blurs day to everybody uh i guess that's going to do it for today's program but we are going to be right on back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you i don't know andrew because you can now see me because we're doing this on on video well two things uh one i because i'm playing little audio and stuff i don't actually have the screen up where i can see you uh-huh and that's dangerous that's a dangerous game dano because i forget that we're on camera oh i see yeah because i'm not looking i don't think i can i've realized i don't think i can do the show five days a week with you for multiple hours a day sometimes while staring at you and into the webcam makes this feel like a Zoom call, which is like, we all know how taxing that can be. We learned that during the pandemic. So I'm doing other things here related to the show, but I just have other screens up. But then what I realized is, oh, Andrew can see me right now. So you can probably see me doing a jig in my chair here in the Hotel June, because I have to pee so bad. So, so bad. So that is as good a reason as any to wrap things up today. But, again, we'll be back here tomorrow, so we'll see you then. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

At $100, $250, 90% of the people are coming in at $250, and I signed five people up today. Power out.