Muse

I'm just going to come out and say it. I'm ready to take on the Catalina wine mixer. Whoa, whoa, slow down there, speed racer. I know what it entails, and I'm ready to nail it. I want it, okay? I want the Catalina wine mixer. Yo, yo. Hey, D-Man. Did you tell him what's up? I sure did. Hey. Hey, your brother wants a shot at the Catalina wine mixer. I'm ready. I'm walking tall. You think you're ready to run with the bulls? I've been earning and burning, snapping necks, and cashing checks. Screw it. Let's let him do it.

Pow!

Okay? I get it. Look, Brennan, here's the thing. It's the Catalina f***ing wine mixer, okay? Pow! Are you saying pow? What are you saying?

Pow! TBTL! Did you ever think that maybe there's more to life than being really, really, really, really, really, really ridiculously good-looking? I am a male model, not a male prostitute. Girls don't even wear that pants that tight. I bet your socks can't even fit the pants.

Uh, you know what you are? You're one of those little fancy lads, aren't you? Boy, you're cute. Gosh, what a sweet little outfit. Is it your little spring outfit? You couldn't be cuter. You're so adorable. Oh, my. You know, you remind me of my niece Sally. Lovely girl. She's a dietician.

I'm not modeling anymore for the two of you. Well, I guess I just have my first taste of the filthy side of this business.

Well, all right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. I was just calling about the too beautiful to be heard. I can't believe you're still on the air. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Oh, la, la. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia where it's an absolutely spectacularly beautiful Thursday morning. Oh, ma, ha, it's just beautiful. It's also frickin' freezing. It's like 27 degrees this morning. I think we may have warmed up to a balmy 28 by now here at, I don't know what it is, 7.30 in the morning. But man, oh man, it felt like December in Siberia or something this morning. The good news, though, of course, as always, is that it's warm and dry here in the Broadcast Center, and we are ready to bring you episode 4,157 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

Remember that story that bounced around the Internet by way of the New York Times a few years ago about the woman who was sort of described as regretting her decision to buy a house during the pandemic, a very beautiful home in Seattle, a home that was definitely not cheap. and how she had mentioned something about no longer being able to fly off to Italy to have some pasta. Well, the Internet had a lot of fun with her, and by fun I mean threatened her physical safety. It's called the Internet, and it's a fresh new way to check out sites, buy clothing, and surf music. And then, just, I don't know, maybe a month ago or so on this very program, Andrew Walsh, yes, the Andrew Walsh of TBTL fame, And he brought this story up as shorthand for, you know, privilege and for somebody who, you know, maybe is out of touch with everything. And well, we heard from that person. Her name is Stephanie. She's, I think, somewhat newly minted listener to the program. And we are going to talk to her coming up. We're going to talk to the actual person at the actual center of one of those sort of internet situations where everybody decides that we want to essentially make fun of somebody for the day. And one day that was her, and we are going to talk to her and get the real story coming up. Plus, it is a Thursday, a.k.a. a Blur's Day, so of course we'll do the Blur's Day messages. and a whole bunch of other fun stuff here on this Thursday. This is usually the time where I introduce Andrew Walsh. The longest-running co-bro of the show may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. That's funny. It's weird that he would go to Mexico, but he would leave the Internet connection up, but he would just be playing the sound of crickets. I don't, you know, I don't know what to tell you other than he definitely wants to stay very connected to the program, even though he is out of town. Sorry if I sound a little distracted. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a vehicle pulling up here to the Madrona Hill studio. And I think it is very. likely some sort of a delivery it wasn't it isn't like an amazon truck or a fedex or one of these things and this gets to that topic that i have brought up many times on the program the way that we the supply chain now has kind of subcontracted out the delivery of things in all kinds of novel and surprising ways just people in their regular vehicle more or less gig economy like an sd card up to my house. So I think that's what's going on. What's happening for Andrew is still a bit unclear. He's in Mexico, we know that. I'm

guessing, as of right now, I don't know if there's a time difference where he and Veebs are, but I'm thinking he's probably in a pool somewhere. Drunk people are so meta. Reading one of his pulpy books that he only lets himself really enjoy on vacation. It's probably four or five margs, and you can't keep him away from the margs. And he's just having a wonderful time. He is having a wonderful and well-deserved couple of days off today and tomorrow. So it's just going to be year old boy, Luke. By the way, tomorrow on the show, I've been able to lock down a very exclusive interview. Somebody who we have been working for years to get onto the program. And that would be my very own mother, actually. Susie Burbank is going to join us tomorrow. She's going to explain what exactly was going on in her life and in her mind when she sent me a text last week from a class that she was helping out in, a class at the local school there, where they were watching Scooby-Doo. And it inspired her to text me that, A, she thinks that the cartoon's pretty funny, and B, she's sorry that I wasn't allowed to watch it as a kid. So we are going to unpack that tomorrow on the show as I continue my solo hosting duties here. It has been a long time since I have been here essentially by myself doing the program, or I guess I would just say doing the show by myself. The most memorable time of me solo hosting the show was during what I think has now come to be referred to as the very dark ages of TBTL, which was like when we were no longer a radio show when uh jen flash andrews had moved on to greener pastures i.e driving around the country in an airstream trailer with her lovely husband jason and i was kind of just doing the show by myself when i could i mean i did it every day but it was just like it was very very um ad hoc as they might say and it was also a time where i think i was going through some stuff i was in the midst of probably what is one of my you know i don't know what the cycle is my six-year cycle of breakups forget the ring cycle forget the uh who wrote that who wrote the ring come on it's one of the most famous german operas ever wagner uh got there everyone thank you i didn't even use the internet i can't use the internet right now because i'm just talking to you usually if it's me and andrew and uh and he's talking i can be quietly searching for things but i can't do that right now i had to do that i had to search the internet that's called my brain to remember that wagner's the person who wrote the ring forget the ring cycle my cycle is like every six years i go through some traumatic breakup life change thing and i think i was kind of in the midst of one of those years ago doing the show

by myself and i found myself in a hotel room in san diego waking up about to go do a corporate gig where i was going to wear like a puffy pirate shirt and hand out 3d glasses to uninterested insurance executives and um uh it was i was also titanically hung over like like i probably should have been medevaced somewhere to have b vitamins pumped into my system but i was i was wildly hung over um and then uh wildly disappointed in my life choices that had brought me to this moment where I was about to go stand around uh and hand out these three-dimensional glasses and a puffy shirt and uh but I had to do a show and so I did I recorded it into a little handheld thing and I to be honest with you as I sit here in 2024 I actually I'm assuming that got on the internet nobody look it up please please don't go find that I don't I feel embarrassment about the first episode of tbtl um as it is i don't think i can handle hearing that again but i think it ended up on the internet but anyway that was the low point of solo hosting for me i think today could be a high point i really do i'm not titanically hung over not to brag i'm um we're recording this very early i'm gonna be honest with you just between you and me okay i don't think andrew will hear this although i don't know he's uh you know he's a very attentive type and he might actually go back and listen to these just to see if i got the levels right chances are minimal that I did, the audio levels, that is. But I think I'm a little bit of an earlier riser than Andrew. He's been very public about that on the show. I would do the show probably at 7 a.m. every day. This is prime burbs. It's all downhill from here, right? By 10 a.m., I'm spent. By 10 a.m., I'm ready to hit the bars. So here we are. It's early in the morning. I'm feeling fresh as a spring daisy, excited to talk to all of you, excited to jump in my car and head north from here after the show and sit down with one Ken Jennings of Jeopardy fame and TVTL fame. I'm doing a TV story about Jeopardy turning 60, which is happening pretty soon, and we're profiling Ken Jennings. The way it works at CBS Television, or at least CBS Sunday Morning, where I work, is, I don't know, a year ago, I sent my bosses an email. I said, hey, you know, they've just announced this new host of jeopardy and it's kind of interesting because he was a player on jeopardy his name's ken jennings that's pretty rare that one one year you're watching the super bowl because of course ken was a jeopardy fan and then next year you're playing in it that just doesn't happen all the time just radio silence just absolute just crickets from my uh from my superiors and And then like three days ago, I get an all caps email, Ken Jennings profile rush, meaning

we need you to get to Seattle and talk to Ken Jennings. Then we need you to go to actually next week. It's kind of fun. I'll be going to LA. I'm going to be on the set of Jeopardy there at the Sony lot, which I have never done before. I've driven by it many a time. So that will be pretty cool. But anyway, I've got that on the schedule for today. Ken and I are going to chat, I think at his house. And then we are going to visit Scarecrow Video in Seattle. um just a couple of a couple of aging Seattle icons Luke Burbank I guess a trio of aging Seattle icons Luke Burbank Ken Jennings and Scarecrow Video yes I did just manage to describe myself as an icon that's why I need Andrew here he protects me from myself he protects me from describing myself as an icon accidentally so anyway I got that going today we're going to buzz up there and then um we'll be back here i'll be back here tomorrow morning to do this with all of you again like i said we'll have my mom on the show also my dad is coming down tonight old walt b is coming down to uh help me work on setting up the kitchen here and uh so that will i'm sure generate lots of great content around my dad not knowing that the band fleetwood mac exists so So that's what we can look forward to the next couple of days. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you smash that like button. Don't smash it too hard, though, because that will hurt Andrew's feelings. Smash it just the right amount so that our downloads remain consistent for the next couple of episodes. That's what we're really looking for here. Oh, speaking of people who have smashed the like button, we should thank some dazzling donors. On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Is that the normal Dazzling Donor song? Sure isn't. Do I have the real Dazzling Donor music? Apparently not. Spent an hour today looking for it, both on the internet and in my various little music repositories on my computers. Could not find it. Did not want to bother Andrew. Did not want to make Andrew get out of the swimming pool for the real Razzle Dazzle music. So we're using the Bill Haley and his Comets version, which I guess is the original I'm reading. I think this song is actually credited to Bill Haley and the Comets. I don't know the name of the outfit that does the cover version that we use on the show. My hope is that this does not diminish how how much our friend Barbara West of San Jose, California feels in us honoring her dazzling donor message. That's right. Barbara is our first dazzling donor today. Long, long, long time supporter of the show. So, of course, we're thanking the folks who are donating a dazzling amount of dough and are really, really super vital to TBTL being able to continue

because we just, you know, I was listening to television's Chris Hayes' podcast this week, Why Is This Happening? An excellent show, to be sure. And he was talking to Ben Smith, the media critic and media creator, the guy that's in charge of Semi for now. and they're just talking about you know the news media landscape in particular and local media and just the way that everything has changed and and the winners and the losers and i just i every time i hear one of these conversations i am just shocked anew that somehow tbtl is in this very narrow kind of bandwidth of shows that can still do this and I don't know how it's happening it's thanks to folks like Barbara West in San Jose California who says so much pressure to come up with something cool but I fold under pressure so I'm just going to say the same thing I say every year TBTL is the longest relationship I have outside the one with my husband wow must be nice Barbara here sharing with you about my six-year Wagner-esque ring cycle of relationship destruction and you're just over there having a successful marriage with your lovely husband. It's my only appointment listening, and I don't think I've missed a single episode. But, Barbara, did you hear the one from the hotel in San Diego where I was about to go do an insurance thing? Luke and Andrew and also Genevieve, Bubbles, Bingo, now John Sklaroff, are very important to me and feel like true friends. At the 4,000th episode, I can't believe how wonderful it was to see people I haven't seen since the 3000th episode and even people I just met immediately felt like people I had known forever. Uh, we have the same language and that is an immediate connection. I'm so grateful for what you all do and hope you keep doing it forever or until I'm too senile to enjoy it. Uh, which could be any day now, really. I want to say that's Barbara. That is not me. I did not say that about Barbara. I don't think, I don't think the day will ever come when Barbara is not, you know does not have enough marbles to enjoy this because the good news is it takes very few marbles to enjoy tbtl so barbara thank you so much for all your support over the years i feel like barbara was one of the first people in my mind who i remember being a big fan of the show who was like not in western washington i mean i know there were a lot of you out there i don't want to start some sort of competition where everyone wants to prove that they were also early listeners in other places i mean i know that was happening but maybe something about san jose maybe the fact that barbara was going by san jose barbie at the time um which has really cycled back into fashion i'm going to say um with the whole barbification of of life as we know it but i remember thinking well this is cool we've got somebody in san jose california who likes this nighttime am radio show that we're doing um that was good that was a good feel that

was like in the words of coolio made me feel like it's working it's working uh so uh barbara thank you very much for for all the years of support and uh for making me feel like there was maybe you know some value to this thing very early on maestro i guess that's me on your mark on your it's like almost there right it's like okay this feels like the thing that we do but it's not exactly exactly like what we're used to i will mention though that the tv chill listeners are definitely known for their embrace of change like this is a group of people who've been listen to this crapola for 4157 episodes in which very little about the show changes so i know this is going to rock some worlds that we're using the bill haley version but just you know go with me dad is out of town okay i'm trying to make this work as best i can it's really more like mom is out of town and a dad is trying to figure out how to run this household and dad has been somewhat inebriated for the last 15 years and doesn't actually know where the napkins are so just i I don't, there's some, like over on that shelf, there's a couple of leftover napkins from Wendy's. Could you just use those, please? Could you please use those, Megan Yoho? Megan Yoho, our second dazzling donor today. Megan is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Megan says, I don't know if y'all know this. Boy, Megan, that's really, really leaning into the North Carolinian kind of situation, huh? Megan says, I don't know if y'all know this, but I saved TBTL. I did know that, Megan. But I thought I was sworn to secrecy on that. But now I guess we can finally explain to the rest of the listening audience how you saved TBTL. Please get all your health screenings and all the grams and the oscopies and the other ones involving fingers and or swabs. I marvel at this world we've been given by deity or fluke or whatever created circumstances for us to be here. we have this expanse of sky with fluffy clouds and we have mountains oceans rivers and lakes we have people who make sandwiches for the unhoused and people who rescue animals people who hike and stop to discover the flowers and who tell funny stories and listen to you when you need to cry some people try to cure cancer while others explore oceans and space we humans are a miraculous blip in this cosmos imagine that we all find our ourselves in this community. What are the odds? It can be hard to find the good in the world sometimes. This TBTL community we have, this is good. That was good, Megan. Oh my goodness,

that's inspiring words. It gets us no closer to understanding how you save TBTL, but maybe that was a reference to the screenings and the oscopies and things, because I am going to be getting a colonoscopy maybe that's what that's a reference to maybe it's an inside joke that is completely whiffed out of my mind but i will say megan thank you so much for supporting what we do here with your donation and just with all of your love and support and thank you for that really amazing like profound statement here on a thursday about the the the amazing thing that is this life and also the ways in which the very unpredictable ways that we kind of end up together and that we end up with the people I don't I'm not quite as so spiritual as to say maybe ending up with people we were quote unquote meant to end up with other people can think that and say that I respect it but the the circuitous route that we all take to end up in the place that we're at with each other and I have to say and I can get a little emotional here because Andrew's not here to judge me if Andrew was here, I'd have to keep a real stiff upper lip, but I don't have to do that because he's gone. But to get to be one of the hosts of this thing and to be in kind of, I guess you could say, in the middle of all of those intersecting experiences like Megan is describing, of all of you out there hearing this, you know, is an honor. It really is the greatest honor probably of my of my career life certainly not that this is much of a career but uh it is it is honestly the the most special thing i've ever gotten to be a part of and probably will ever get to be a part of um is doing this thing with with andrew and and with all of you so thanks megan uh really appreciate you all right from the from the emotional and the and the the profound to the dark dark dank corner of life that is the internet. We have an interview that I want to play for you that we recorded yesterday with somebody who has been on the radar of this show for some years, although not as a fully three-dimensional person, which is, of course, the problem with the internet, right? A lot of times we hear about people and we don't think of them as people. We think of them as an idea as the person who did this or who was caught on that news interview after their apartment burned down and said something unintentionally funny or you know we just we have a hard time at least I do sometimes remembering that the people out there we read about on the internet and then talk about and then again particularly on this show where part of our whole thing is commenting on people on the internet it's easy to forget they're real people well one of those real people. His name's Stephanie DeSantis. And she lives in Seattle. And she was featured in a New York Times article a few years ago about people who bought houses during the pandemic. And the quote that they pulled from her interview was talking about how she had basically sunk all her money into her house. It's a very beautiful house on Queen Anne. There's a picture of it.

There's a picture of her and her dog, Brady, in the article. But she also mentioned that this was going to mean that her resources were tied up in her house now and that she wasn't going to be doing things that might be seen as frivolous with her resources going forward because she needed the money for the house that got turned into basically like super rich lady can no longer fly to Italy to eat pasta on a whim and don't we feel not very bad for her uh that was kind of where the internet went that was where Andrew went I'd actually done I probably went there too back in the day nobody listen nobody look up what we said the first time around on this story and nobody look up the time I was doing the show in a puffy pirate shirt in San Diego about to go out to do a corporate gig don't look those things up just trust me when I say this came up again a couple weeks ago because we were talking about a different New York Times piece about some people who had embraced tiny home living I was incensed because they had embraced the living in like multiple tiny homes in different beautiful parts of Europe and the Mediterranean. And that brought, once again, this topic up of the quote-unquote house-poor pasta-eating lady in Seattle that Andrew kind of referenced in a sidelong kind of way. And can you believe it? We heard from Stephanie DeSantis, who I think had been probably hipped to the show from a friend of hers. And I figured of all days, this would be a great day to actually talk to her and find out a little bit more about her experience so here we go stephanie de santis uh welcome to tbtl hi luke it's great to finally meet you it's so nice to meet you and i i feel like there's it's it's unfortunate that Andrew can't be here right now to be part of this conversation because in a way he was the one that started it because he was referring to this New York Times article that featured you from a couple of years ago that some people have used as kind of a shorthand for somebody who's living a pretty good life and maybe not fully aware on the other hand I don't know if we need that kind of toxic energy in this conversation so it's just you and me I

i have to say i'm i'm very bummed that he is not part of this call because i i felt so bad for hurting his feelings by calling you instead of him no you know what but now i am fully aware of who both of you are and i love the show and someday maybe at andrew and i will meet i think

it's i think it's actually like fair's fair he was the one who kind of sort of mischaracterized you maybe and you're the one that didn't know he worked on the show so i think he would be one of many. One of many who have mischaracterized you. So for people that kind of missed this, this whole story, the first time it happened, or when it has come up subsequently on TBTL. So you were one of like a bunch of people, I didn't even realize until today, when I was actually rereading the piece, there are like a lot of people in this article in the New York Times, the headline was, they rushed to buy in the pandemic, here's what they would change written by Rhonda Kaysen, and it was sort of, the premise was people who bought homes during the pandemic, and how did that go for them, and did the kind of, the thinking, the group think we all had during the pandemic of a certain degree of panic, a certain degree of wanting probably to kind of, I don't know, sort of just lock ourselves down in the home environment, all these kind of psychological components, how did that work out for people who bought houses based on that. My question to you is, what did you think the article was going

to be about? That's a good question. All I knew was that the New York Times was doing a story on people who bought homes during the pandemic. That was it. And a friend of a friend recommended me to the New York Times because my actual experience of buying this house was fairly unique and kind of a quirky situation. It didn't follow your traditional home buying route. So I thought, what a great story. It will be very interesting. I will be one of hundreds that they interview. And I slowly, as it all rolled out, realized very different things.

And also you're presumably a fan of the New York Times, like as a reader. I mean, who wouldn't want to be profiled in what is for a lot of us our favorite newspaper? Like it's kind of a cool thing. So you probably were pretty stoked when you got the invite.

Let me say this. I was so excited to be talking to the New York Times. I mean, right? It's nerd heaven next to being on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. But I broadcast to everyone I know that I was talking to the New York Times. Keep an eye out. Everybody look for the article. My friends in New York, please buy the physical newspaper because it will be different in that paper than the Seattle paper. I was so excited. It is a bucket list experience. And, you know, while I in no way want to reignite or relive the very charming online feedback I received, I think there was a lot of important things that were missing in that story, including the real context.

Well, because you thought that the thing that made you interesting to the reporter was that you had bought this house kind of sight unseen. I mean, you had cited it, you had looked at pictures of it, obviously, but you hadn't physically been in the house, right?

That's right. So I had been looking for a house since June. Nothing was going well. Everything was unaffordable. There were bidding wars and it was COVID, so I hadn't seen my family in quite a long time. So I decided to go back to Massachusetts for the entire month of October, certain that my dream house that I could afford would not show up during that one month I was gone. And wouldn't you know, it did. So I had to send my realtor over with an inspector on FaceTime, sent my two best friends over to measure the rooms and video record everything, make sure I can fit my car in the garage. And we ran through the house. The inspector said it's remarkably clean for such an old house. And my friends made the comment that if you don't put an offer in on this house, I think we will. So I thought that was a pretty good selling point. Uh, so yeah, I bought the house sight unseen. All of my friends saw my house before I

did. And I thought, what a neat story. Uh-huh. Now, when you were talking to the reporter, to old Rhonda from the, from the times, did you, did you have a sense during the interview that the questions were, were more about, uh, like regrets or the, I mean, did you have a sense that this maybe was not the article you thought you were necessarily going to be a part of?

Not until about 45 minutes.

in when she said, so do you regret it? And I said, no, not at all. I love this house. It's my dream house. And she asked a couple more times in slightly different ways. Well, did you learn anything? Would you do anything different? What have you had to do it a second time? And by that time, we had been talking for about 45 minutes. We had this lovely, pleasant, hilarious, laughy conversation. And I will say I'm a pretty, I'm a fairly open person. I love engaging conversations. And most of my friends know that the way I talk is often just dripping with sarcasm, which come to find out doesn't translate very well in print. So when she started asking me that, I got where she was going. And I was happy to play along. Okay, sure, this is your focus. What did I learn from it? What might I do differently? So I started going down that path about like, all right, I'll play along. Well, you know, listen, if I if I had to do it again, sorry, I just knocked over something and scared my dog.

Was that is that the beagle from the photograph?

That's yes, the beagle. Wait, what's the currently chomping down on a tree?

What's the dog's name?

His name is Brady.

OK. Oh, right, right, right, right, right. As in Thomas.

As in Thomas Edward Patrick Brady, the third, because Tom Brady is a junior.

I'm from Massachusetts. Yeah, I can see in the background, I can see a significant amount of New England sports memorabilia in your house. Yes, it is a gal cave. So, yeah, so Brady is

upstairs. Behind me is my new rescue beagle, who is named Mr. Bean. Oh, cute. So, yeah, he's going hard on a treat right now because he's hard to keep occupied. So, going back to-

You were kind of in this spot, I would imagine. I have been I know exactly the position that you're describing, which is you're doing an interview and you kind of realize that, like, there's an angle that the person who's writing the piece is kind of looking for. And you want to sort of throw them a bone, but you also want to be truthful. And so that's kind of like the spot you found yourself in, basically.

Exactly. And I was incredibly truthful. I told her, I don't regret my house. I love it. But sure, if I had to do it again, or if I had to do it differently, there are some things I could consider. I lived in a very tiny place before that. And so maybe if I stayed in this tiny place that wasn't too expensive, I could take a year off work. Everybody was super burnt out in the pandemic. So maybe I could have taken some time off work. And I followed it up with. now I can't do that. I could probably take a few weeks off of work, but I can't take a whole year off of work. And I kind of got down. I mean, it was a very jokey interview. And I said, you know, she kept prompting me with this, like, do you regret it? What would you do differently? So I finally said, I started playing along by suggesting that things and experiences on which I spent my money before I was living in tiny, when I was living in tiny apartments, I would change to putting all that money into this house which is what I meant by house poor so like sorry I can't make your destination wedding this year because my money now needs to go towards a house so I jokingly said I'm okay this kills me uh PTSD I jokingly said I'm okay with that I'm okay with being a little house poor so I don't go to Rome for pasta anymore I've done that. I'm okay with not being able to do that anymore. So, you know, saying it kind of in a jokey manner and meaning that I've had great experiences. I've been in the corporate world working intense jobs for many decades. I've lived in tiny places. I value travel. I used to do these kinds of things. Now I can't. I put my money into the house. And I realized the timing of when this all unfolded, made it come across as an incredibly tone-deaf comment, especially in writing. And there was no context behind it. She didn't know that the impetus of that was that I was alone on Thanksgiving. I'd moved across the country. All of my friends had family they were going to. And I thought, I bet it might be fairly affordable to fly to Europe on Thanksgiving. I found a pretty cheap flight to Rome. I flew there on Thanksgiving. I ate pasta for the weekend.

So you really did do this. I thought that that was just like a hypothetical.

I really did do this. Absolutely not. I'm very truthful. But again, it came across as I was a girl who's like, darn, I want sushi. I guess I'm going to Japan. And it's not like that.

You took a trip to Italy because it seemed like a fun kind of slightly spur of the moment thing to do. But there was a much more context to it about. the holiday and your family. And, you know, you were just affordable, eat, pray, loving a little bit, but not in the, but not in the way that it potentially came off in the time. See, that's interesting because I don't think I even realized that I thought you were speaking completely in the sort of hypothetical. You kind of did do that, but, but maybe not in exactly the way that the

people interpreted it in the article. Exactly. I did do that. I use it as an example, but I think the way that it came across is that that is the life I live. Every weekend when I'm craving something, that is the country I go to. It's not the case. I did it once. It was so fun. I was able to afford it because I flew on a holiday and I was alone on a holiday. Why not do something fun

and spontaneous? Now I use that to fix my plumbing. Now, did you realize in the moment when you were kind of sort of offering that up as a, as a, something that was a little bit, you know, meant in jest or whatever. Uh, did you realize in the moment, Oh, this is going to be the, uh, pull quote, as they say, did you realize that you had given Rhonda case in some real

newspaper gold? No, but you know, who did is the friend of the friend who recommended me.

I think I mentioned the former friend of the former friend. Are these people now very cut

out of your life? The friend who would come to my house every night and comfort me and remind me not to read comments. Oh, wow. Okay. I told her about it and I told her how wonderful it was to talk to Rhonda, how much fun we had. I mentioned the Rome for pasta and she said, uh-oh, you said what? And I told her about it thinking it's part of a funny conversation. And I think she-

Is that person a journalist, the friend of the friend?

She comes from a journalism background.

Okay, so she heard that and she was like, mm-hmm, yeah, that's going to be in the piece. So take me to the day of publication. Did you know the specific date that this was going to be in the paper?

I did. I knew the date. All of my friends knew the date. All of my social media friends knew the date. My parents, my friends in New York.

For some reason, I imagine, Stephanie, that, like, this morning starts off for you like the morning for Belle in Beauty and the Beast? She's just singing her way through town?

Yes, just trotting through town. Just singing a song, spinning around.

Everything is just great. And then, like, I mean, truthfully, you probably looked at it online first. But, like, what was the, like, when did you first realize, like, oh, this, and by the way, did you, when you read the article, even realize that, oh, this is going to hit people's eyes differently than I expected? Or did you read the article and

think, all right, I said what I said? B. Choice B. I fully read the article. I know my voice and my cadence. Of course, I read it with my tonality. So I did read the article online first. It was

sent to me as a PDF without a headline. Oh, that's interesting because the headline is a

key part of this whole thing bingo so i read through it i realized wow oh my gosh i'm one of three storylines i expected myself to be one uh anecdote among many uh so i read through it and i remember thinking huh that's a little different than i thought it was it would be i'm i'm a little bummed that the full story of how i found my house wasn't explained i thought that was the interesting part okay she goes into more of the regret but you know what's fair she wraps it up by saying i don't regret it so and i saw the roman pasta comment and to me i went

like ha that's funny uh you also got a pretty awesome picture of you and the dog of you and

brady it's framed upstairs i mean that's a that's an all-timer when you're in the new york times i

i had the bizarre chance of being in the times as well years ago they wrote a little piece about this radio show i was doing in new york and i obsessed and obsessed and obsessed over what i was gonna wear because i thought this is the only time there's gonna be a photograph of me in the new york times and for some reason i went with a biggie smalls t-shirt um which was a bold choice a bold choice and uh i don't know where that article is but i i live with that to this day you got a very nice picture out of this whole thing you and the doggins i did i'm gonna tell

you another thing. I know this sounds crazy, but they treat you like they care. And it's going to be such a beautiful story. And they want it to be they want it to be the best it can be. So they sent a photographer who is local to Seattle. We spent an hour running through the house, taking fun photos of Brady and me. She's telling me these pictures are going to she's going to send them to me for my social media. It's going to be so great. My dating profile. I was going to say

Like that, I mean, that photo in the Times would be a real banger on like Hinge or something.

Yeah. Still hasn't gotten me anywhere.

there. Um, but I will tell you, so, so then comes the print release of the paper. So it's that Sunday. So I get the digital on Thursday, the paper comes out. Okay. I didn't realize. So this was in the Sunday, like that's the biggie. Oh yeah. It was, I think it was the front page of the real estate section in New York, not in Seattle. But when I opened it, I can't believe I open this and I see my face and Brady and above my face, it says buyer's remorse right above. So then I think, oh man, my mother is going to be so upset because she, the first text I received was from my mother and it said, I didn't know you regretted your house and I had to talk her down.

I'm guessing your mom is, is, uh, you know, probably has been reading the Boston Globe in the New York Times, you know, since time immemorial. So her daughter being written up in the pages of the New York Times is such a big deal, but she also believes it. She probably sides with the New York Times over you on your experience with your home.

Exactly. We're the people who believe everything we read. So I saw that. I thought, oh, that's a bummer. But what a great picture. I still thought the article was okay. And I started getting texts from friends and friends that I hadn't spoken to in a long time, just saying things like, Hey, I just wanted to check to see if you were okay. Like, Oh yeah, I'm okay. How are you? Finally, I got a text from a friend who said, Hey, I just wanted to let you know, like we're here. If you need anything like money, we're happy to help out. And now I get, Oh God, they read house poor everybody thinks I'm in trouble so I call I didn't I mean honestly

there's a certain I mean it's kind of nice to know your friends got your back I don't think anyone would text me that do you need money if they if they were if they got the idea I was in

trouble they might know not to believe everything they read so I did send a group uh actually I posted it on my Instagram and I just I jokingly again said hey folks as you can imagine with any celebrity. Don't believe everything you read. I'm doing just fine. What I meant by house poor was this. Everything's fine. Thanks for your concern. Uh, and so that I thought mitigated everything. Yeah. Then comes Monday and I get a text from a friend who says, Hey, um, don't be alarmed,

which means be alarmed. Exactly. That's the least alarming way or sorry, I should say that's the

most alarming way to start a message to somebody exactly so she says but um there's a subreddit thread about you i just wanted you to know um it's not bad it's not very nice and i don't use

reddit i don't know i don't know how hang on just a quick moment because i feel like if i was your friend and i knew that you stephanie were not a big redditor and there was something percolating down in the basement of Reddit, I would just leave that alone. I would feel like this is not need to know information for my friend, Stephanie. Well, wrong. Here's why she did.

Well, actually three people reached out. The reason they did is because it wasn't kind and they wanted to make sure that I was aware of it in case I heard anything about it, in case anything came of it. And once it started getting pretty dark, so it was three friends separately texting

me about it. I see. So they were like, actually, like there was a bit of concern around your like personal safety on this is why they felt like alerting you to it. Yes. What happened was it

sparked this online fury that just snowballed. And it got to the point where it incited the most hateful, threatening, scary comments, which again, I wasn't seeing because I didn't see Reddit, but eventually they would keep filling me in like, you know, someone just said this. I think we're going to file a complaint with Reddit and see if we can get it taken down. So my friends had it taken down, which I appreciate so much. I called my friend who's the journalist background who connected with New York times. And I said, you know, this happened. That's, that's strange. and she immediately said you didn't read the comments did you of the piece itself of the new york times and i said no should i and she said no don't read the comments this is something that we all know like it's never good just don't read the comments so what do you think i did yeah read the comments uh and i started going through the new york times comments and they weren't what i was hearing on reddit sounded pretty nasty the new york times comments were medium nasty. Uh, I went through, I think 10, I got the gist. People didn't love me like, Oh boy. All right. I guess that came across as little tone deaf. So I stopped reading them the next day. These same Reddit friends text me and say, Hey, um, not to alarm you again, but it's now a main Reddit thread. It's moved up from the basement from a subreddit to a main Reddit, whatever that means. It sounds, it sounds worse. Um, so what was happening is, you know, I think as everybody knows the anonymity behind online comments seems to just, it gives people permission to fill in the blanks about someone and form a full judgment of your character and then take it to the most threatening place. I think one person had said that I'm responsible for the entire Seattle housing crisis. And then people started posting my address, which isn't private because you could just look up the Zillow, but to post the address and say, in case anybody wants to go by.

That's got to be really unsettling.

That was a little scary. So my friends-

Thank God you had Brady, the world's toughest guard dog.

Toughest beagle. Yeah. Toughest Tom Brady namesake you know. So that was a little bit scary.

Yeah, I can imagine.

Yeah. And funny enough, my friends, every time they would send me a message, would say, don't worry about this. This is the kind of stuff that they're going to forget about this the next day. something else is coming up so i would i would go to bed with that thought in mind like okay this is going to blow over tomorrow and it would just snowball and i think by the fourth day it got to barstool sports and i'm sure you can imagine how that went yeah then the place where there's

notably restrained discourse barstool sports nothing sexist nothing weird going on at barstool

sports everything is totally fine i mean and of course being from boston i i i kind of enjoy sure right yeah again it was a little like oh oh god even they hate me you and dave portnoy

share a lot of rooting interest at least when it comes to the the socks and the pats and everything um i i mean obviously and you have spent much more time than i have kind of probably analyzing this phenomenon but clearly you somehow became this idea for people who are having a lot of feelings totally unrelated to you as a person and really probably unrelated to home ownership right who just feel like life ain't fair and you got the people for whom everything is great and then you've got the people who are feeling like their life isn't going super well and maybe that's because there's some nefarious forces plotting against them and i can see how it's such an easy shorthand like fly to italy pasta lady you know i mean like that was just like unfortunately like that that soundbite or whatever you want to call it was something that so many people that were having so many unrelated thoughts to you could then just fixate on right exactly yes and this

and and being house poor and um you know knowing that i bought a not inexpensive house but they don't know the context that i call from i come from a very small blue collar town on the east coast where the median income is thirty thousand dollars my parents owned a small local business it was a printing company they were not making millions of dollars my father had this tireless work ethic long hours customer obsession always driving towards perfection and and that was instilled in me so I have worked for as long as I can remember even getting those I don't know what they're called but like like working papers so that you can start working at 15 instead of 18 I worked holidays and summers all through high school and college and right after college I went right into the workforce. And so I've worked pretty intense corporate jobs ever since. And so I, you know, what's missed is I moved across the country all by myself. I've worked incredibly hard and made sacrifices for decades. And I would, I would hope that we could be celebrating a single woman on a single income who worked really hard and made some choices and was able to buy her dream house. And I'm incredibly proud of that. I'm proud to tell my parents I could do that.

It's so interesting. I hadn't thought of it from that perspective, but it could be a totally different narrative. The Times could reach out and say, we're going to do a story about people who are single or who are using their own income and are entering the world of homeownership. And this is the unique challenges that are posed when you have... I speak as a person who bought a house and is a one-income person um so this is this is also relevant to my interest but that could have the article could have been like hey look at this person who worked really really hard for their whole adult life and now they're getting to reap some of the benefits of that um but that was not the the article that that ended up coming out like how did you just on a kind of a personal level because the other thing is like my sin is you're not a person who generally speaking was showing up in news articles about things you're not you know what i mean like there's probably something that happens to a person who is who's used to being getting that kind of attention that they just kind of like they get used to it they get a quote-unquote thicker skin they just sort of are like whatever you it comes with the territory this was like totally new territory for you like how did you or have you kind of i don't know just figured out how to not let this bother you a bunch or is it still bothering you a

bunch well at the time like have you ever had a hero let you down um that's kind of what it felt

like yeah right so could the paper itself well that's the other thing too is sorry i we're interviewing you and then i'm like doing most of the talking no which is a pretty classic tb till trope but but like I'm finding it's it's it's it's very very very weird to be the focus of the internet I mean somebody once said the internet picks one person every day to focus on your goals to never be that person and it's crazy to go through life being not the focus of that until the day when you are the focus of that and like and you just never ever think about and I've been through a very minor version of it and i've had friends that have gone through really being like i'm friends with the guy who was known as bean dad in seattle i don't know if you followed that whole thing like that's a friend of mine a person who's been on this show our pal john rogerick um and like it's it's a very when it's either happening to you or someone you know pretty well and the internet becomes obsessed with them it is a really really surreal experience because it's been you've been seeing it every day but it's about people you didn't know so you just didn't

seem real to you until it's you, right? Right. I just want to say to your friend, Bean Dad, I actually don't know who you are. I just imagine Bean Dad can't be good, and I feel for you.

Yeah. He basically was just narrating this little silly joke about his daughter was hungry, and he was like, so I gave her a can opener and a can of beans, and I thought this would be a life lesson. And he was just, I mean, it was maybe not the world's greatest constructed series of like live tweets about this he was just kind of he was trying to be funny and it ended up getting to like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez weighing in on it it became a conversation about food instability about child abuse it I mean oh boy it rippled out into the lives of other people who know him like are they going to comment on being that I mean it was a anyway all of all of that is to say it's very very yeah you just never really think about the experience of the people at the center of this stuff until either it's happening to you as it has happened, Stephanie, or it's happened

to someone you know. Yeah, I'm grateful mine didn't make it to AOC because then that would be another hero that I would have disappointed. You're right. At the time, it very much felt like I trusted someone that I looked up to. I know we're talking about a newspaper, but something that was in my life, my entire life, I trust the New York Times. They are where I get my news. And so to have this hate thrown upon me because of that angle, really, it felt like my trust was violated. I know that sounds probably incredibly silly. I totally know because in the

media landscape that we all sort of now exist in, at least as consumers, there are a few places that you kind of think they're definitely the ones we can trust. And I would put the New York Times on that list for me personally um tbtl obviously is often cited as the most trustworthy source for all information um but right below that i'm finding that right below that is the new york times but but like um but i could totally see that like like feeling a real kind of sense of loss of of of kind of like your faith in this institution that you've that you've put so much faith in over the years and thinking probably, huh, if they can mischaracterize or at least set me up to look kind of out of touch, if they can do that to me, then they can do that to anyone in any article I've ever written in or sorry, read in the paper. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it's eye opening. And it

what I think the part that made me the saddest is that I love being open and honest and I'm not very filtered. It's one of the pieces of negative feedback I get in all of my annual reviews is that you might want to try being more filtered. Well, you are working for a famously low-key company in the Northwest. That's right. Everybody loves it, too. It's known as just the most chill place you could possibly work. Correct. Super popular, too. So it bummed me out that I felt like I have to be more careful with people. And the other piece that isn't fun is I hate being hated. I have a really hard time. when people hate me. I don't think anyone loves that, but you, you, you respond particularly

poorly. Exactly. Particularly. I hate having to deliver bad news. Uh, I'm in a job where, you know, you sometimes have to deliver bad news and I just, I despise it. I, I would rather be, I should just be in, uh, something like therapy or philanthropic giving. But I, uh, it was hard to think that there were so many people out there. I want to say millions, but probably not many people who just viscerally hated me. And the way that I, I mean, the first week I got through it by faking a lot of things, you know, joking, Oh, I'm a celebrity. This is what happens. Um, it's my 15 minutes, no big deal. I'll go on the morning news and I'll explain it all. So I, I dealt with it jokingly. My journalist friend knows that I was actually pretty, uh i was sad and a little bit frightened when my address was posted so she came over to my house and stayed um and then since then i this is the real bummer is that when did that come out 2001

no 2021 i looks yeah uh 22 february or maybe i'm looking at a reprint so it was a while ago yeah it was november 2021 you would remember uh i do i love that i'm like uh well actually Stephanie I let me tell you about this day that will live in infamy in your mind exactly so

since then everyone I don't know if it's everyone but so so so many people that I meet and know know me from that and I meet people in my job so I meet like corporate people that I am supposed to work with and they'll be like oh gosh right the New York Times article the Rome that goes to Rome for pasta lady or the Seattle house poor lady. And I'll be like, ah, wasn't that funny? Let me tell you the whole story. So I've told the story a million times in an effort to, you know,

reclaim your narrative, right? To use a very corporate PR speak.

Perfect. Own the narrative. Exactly. And show them that I'm not a terrible person. I meant it jokingly. It was tone deaf. And I realize that now. But haha, wasn't that a funny moment? But to this day, I have to meet corporate relationships who know me from that article. And,

you know, that can be challenging. Andrew is of the opinion, he always thinks this with any kind of a New York Times story, where the folks in the story might not be coming off exactly the way that they're thinking they are coming off he always goes to this and i can say this because he's not here to defend himself but i feel like he always goes to this one thing which is he thinks the reporters are very in on the fact that the person they're talking to is going to is going to become the target of the internet the next day like he he really feels like the in this case i actually agree with him i can kind of see how the reporter knew when when that one quote happened oh this is this is going to be good but did you feel like this was like uh like did you feel like this was set up from the beginning to to make you kind of look a little out of touch no i felt like i was

talking to a really nice friend on the phone we shared a lot um i think we were a similar age i i can't remember if she was single we shared a lot of things in common and we had a really nice phone conversation i remember hanging up and just thinking my new friend ronda at the new york times is so lovely uh so i really didn't until my journalist friend pointed out i know that's a quote uh and i thought yeah okay a funny quote and my friends who read the article certainly have all said similarly we read it with your voice we understood it um but i i think it took me reading a few articles with a new lens i see from that particular reporter which is also well i'm sorry not even from that particular reporter in the new york in in credible newspapers new york times um washington post and seeing that i wonder what the backstory is and i wonder if this is how that person thought this would this has permanently changed your brain

chemistry around particularly articles like this that we might call um i don't know what kind of category of news we would just lifestyle you know it's not you know it's it's not ukraine it's not a hard news story about a political event. It's kind of more like, look what these folks are getting up to, sort of journalism. And so now I guess when you read any of that stuff, do you really sort of take it with a pretty big grain of salt?

I do. And I think you guys talked about this on one of your shows fairly recently. I don't remember if it was for the tiny houses, the people that were moving to tiny houses. I think that's exactly when this. came up and now you have me really rethinking that Stephanie because my my kind of you know I was probably doing about these people exactly what everyone was doing about you and really my issue was not with the people in the article my issue was with the way the headline was written because their headline was something to the effect of um you know um the freedom that they found through downsizing or something there was some headline that was written which of course the people in the piece have nothing to do with the headline I don't even know if the reporter writes the headline the headline made it seem like some people had just sort of found a really kind of very very unattached way to live and as I read the article it was like might sounds like it'd be pretty nice

to have like three small homes spread out exactly in Sun Valley right and so but but again I was

getting all charged up uh kind of directing it at these folks even though they didn't really do anything the New York Times probably heard about them from someone friend of a friend and then said, oh, we want to talk to you about how you've kind of spread your life out from being in one place to being in like three small homes in different places or whatever. Um, so yeah, I mean, actually now that I'm talking to you and now that I'm thinking about how I sort of was talking about that, I probably, I probably regret that a little bit. It's not, and it's, it's

certainly not you. It's the way that these are, are written. It comes across as everybody is in on the story. Uh, so those people probably thought, um, I'm talking to the New York times or looking into how people are utilizing tiny homes. Oh, we're utilizing it in this really great way. Not knowing that they probably came across as, uh, we're, you know, we're moving out of our mansion into our tiny home for the summer on the beach. So not knowing, and of course the way that you would read the article, there's no context. So these people come across as knowing this and saying like, well, since we have a mansion and we have four other homes, of course we can afford to have a tiny home. Isn't that cute? And so I can see how mine came across as fully knowing it and saying like, yeah, I bought a house that most people can't afford and I deserve it. It comes across as though, I don't know, it came across as I'm bragging or it came across as, um, better than, and it just had no intention of starting that way, nor did I know it would come across that way. And I, and to, to your, to your point, I fed them the soundbite.

Well, again, though, the problem, this is, I mean, this is what you get for trying to help the reporter out. Right. Because again, I mean, just in talking to you here, I can tell that you're a very savvy person and that also you're like a good conversationalist. Like you're, you understand kind of like there are plenty of people who get interviewed and they just give a totally unusable interview because they like they kind of aren't playing along or they're just like not they're just you know they're just not doing the work like you were basically like you were meeting this reporter like 70 percent of the way on kind of like being you know just being talkative and and and really like you said being open and like probably intuiting like oh they would this would this would be a fun this would be an interesting thing for them to hear and interesting for their piece you know so you're sort of like trying to be helpful and in trying to be helpful you kind of uh i guess the classic definition of hoisting yourself by your own petard you kind of blew yourself up with this quote that was just meant to be helpful to the reporter speaking of which right have you and the reporter had any interaction in the aftermath of this surely not surely not i mean were you must have during one of your dark nights of the soul a couple of a couple of glasses of wine in you and did i want to forward her some you and brady sitting on the couch you must have been like you must have wanted to be like hey by the way uh this really kind of sort of has become a big hassle for me right sing her a taylor swift song

this is why we can't have nice things so you haven't i mean i i never did it's funny i never felt that way because i i feel like when everything unfolded i kind of got it and i got like ah that's where she was going uh i gave her a good sound bite she's doing her job this is how it is and i i think i just learned to be more careful and so i i i really didn't blame her i mean what what am

i going to say i'm just i'm a little surprised that she um didn't maybe i mean i don't know journalistically what the rules are on this, but like, if, if you write a piece about someone, I'm, you know, I've done a lot of pieces in my life. I don't think I've ever had one where the person that I was profiling kind of ended up getting caught up in this like updraft of internet attention. But I, I feel like maybe a little, Hey, I'm sorry. Hey, I'm sorry that you have armed guards outside your house now. Uh, that was not the intent that, you know, might

not be the worst email to send. Yeah. It's also possible. She didn't know quite the level it went She was you know, that level really went on the internet. So if she was looking at the New York times comments, maybe that's pretty, I mean, you can read the most, um, fair weather article and you will see hateful comments on it, uh, that you would never expect. Um, there's Brady. He just, he just came back downstairs. Um, so I, I feel like it's probably not that surprising when that happens and they probably get it with every article. Probably the most feel good article has those. So she may not have known how dark it went on Reddit. Like I said, my friends got those taken down. So it also went away every day. It got rebooted every day. So I don't, I don't know. And I don't know what kind of person she is. I don't know if she has that kind of empathy. Maybe it's, she probably was onto her next article, right? She's busy. I don't, I don't really, I don't blame her I feel like I it's it's sad I feel like I had to grow up a little well I mean

I was wondering about that like just if because you talked about not liking to be hated by people which um again none of us love that but I mean I've been in a lot of therapy in my life because things are going great and um and one of the things that I yeah I mean something that I still struggle with to this day is just letting people have their feelings about me um because you know i would also like to be liked and there's it's very it's it's it's really challenging when a bunch of people don't like you for something that isn't even really your fault or not you know something you were trying to do or whatever that getting to this place of like people are going to have their feelings about me i cannot control that that is going to happen and i have to just like release that is a big big thing in in someone's life did you did this in did this help you get to that point maybe faster than you would have otherwise? Yeah. So I talked about this

with my therapist as well. It's not Lisa Weinberg, is it? We don't have the same therapist. It's not actually. My girl, Lindsay, she talked me through this. She is the most level-headed, calm therapist. Nothing rocks her. And when I told her about this was the first time I heard her swear. And I was just elated. It's like, that's right. That's right. That's how you should react. This is infuriating. It's awful. So, you know, we did talk about it and we, we talk a lot about it's not me, it's them, you know, because people's feelings about you are about them. Yeah. Unless you do something really terrible, like let your dog poop on the yard and not pick it up. um so i think it's helped it certainly helped me know that you can't win them all yeah because i

bet you i bet you up to this point in your life you had been kind of winning them all right like as my sense like you're somebody who's you know worked really hard and and and presumably been successful in your job life you know of kind of like demonstrating value and and just like living a life that has a lot of w's right and then to sort of all of a sudden and almost this is almost the like this is the top of not the top of the mountain but it's like all of this work i've put in and and being able to purchase a home that i'm really proud of and that i'm really excited to build my life in and it's so cool that the new york times wants to write about it it's like one kind of expectation and it's like this is the victory lap in a way for a life of hard work

and that for it to be and now when people google you this is what they find out right right so You're right. And I don't want to say I've lived a life of lots of W's because I'm terrified that this is going to turn into like, oh, she just wins all the time. Not totally true. But yes, I pride myself on being able to have good relationships, being an empathetic person, being a loyal, good friend, and being genuine. I think that's how I maintain those relationships. and there was one person, I think as a matter of fact, I'm going to bring this up with Lindsay on Thursday. I think this might be where this came from. When I was in fifth grade, there was a teacher who just for no reason that I understood hated me. He just hated me. Mr. West. It's a made up name. No, it's not. He hated me and he had a brother who worked there who was one of my teachers who loved me. And I just couldn't figure it out. And I remember making it my goal in life to win Mr. West over. And no matter what I did, it failed. And I just couldn't, I couldn't win that. So, so maybe that's part of where it comes from, but I, I certainly, I certainly didn't like that feeling. And I certainly worked very hard to make sure that I'm not deserving of it. Sure.

doing anything to deserve it. Right, right. Well, I want to say, Stephanie, that I'm glad that for at least the tens of listeners that we have, the record has now been, I think, corrected.

Absolutely. Aces by us. Welcome on the show. Anytime. Um, I will probably, when we put this out though, um, mostly focus on the Tom Brady fandom and this is going to be an interview about somebody who likes, uh, a football team that, you know, I have some real problems with. So just so

you know, this, this will be, this will be mischaracterized, but for totally different

reasons. And it'll all be Patriots related as a Seahawks fan. Well, I'm happy to be known as that

lady and luke i have to tell you i'm so honored to be your your new 11th listener yes welcome i am

with you guys for good thank you and i mean seriously like i i just want to say i'm really i'm really sorry how this played out for you um because hearing you know the full story and again it's i guess what i will say is this is probably good for all of us to remember once again that there are people real people at the center of these internet maelstroms and it's so easy people can get reduced down to sort of one-dimensional figures so easily I mean it even luckily it didn't involve my name but like I was my ex-wife and I were like hired to basically be like be actors in this thing that's too complicated and weird to even try to re-describe here but basically it was supposed to be something it was it was for a big software concern in the in on the east side of seattle and it was supposed to be sort of like a funny viral video that was a a kind of a response to the iphone coming out when the i when when back in the days when the iphone a release of a new iphone was like a media event and everybody stopped what they were doing so this other company was like we should just do like a funny video that's like our response to it and somehow i got picked and from this room full of people that were watching the announcement in real time to what we were filming like hours later, it just went totally off the rails. Its biggest crime was it just wasn't funny, but the way it was interpreted by the media was we were making fun of the memory of the recently deceased Steve Jobs.

Oh, the timing is everything.

And it ended up, I remember watching it on like, seeing a clip of it on Fox Business News. Like the headline was something like, you know, this company uh you know dancing on the grave of steve jobs and they're showing clips of me and my ex like and i can just tell you having been in the room nobody at any point even mentioned the name steve jobs it was not what anybody was doing but when they came back from the the clip the the look of disgust on the face of the fox business news um anchors are just like That is just so, so low class of them. Like the surety that they had, that they were accurately describing what our intentions were when we were there and we know what the intentions were and it was not that. And they filled in the blanks about you. Yes. And all I can say is, thank God I was just an anonymous guy who was wearing kind of an unflattering V-neck T-shirt. Nobody knew my name. It wasn't my name, what I paid for my house. It wasn't this level of detail like in your article. So I can only imagine, I was an anonymous player in this more or less. I can only imagine that times, you know, a thousand was what you have gone through. And I'm, again, I'm really sorry for that. And I'm, I'm mostly, I want to apologize for Andrew for still buying into this false narrative about you.

Andrew, I'm still waiting for my flowers.

Yes. As soon as.

Well, I'll tell you this, as my mother says, everything builds character. And so my character right now barely fits in the room, but I'm okay.

I mean, listen, selfishly speaking, the fact that this is the broken road that led you to being a TBTL listener, I'll take it. We can use all of the listeners to handle self.

The positive that comes out. And shout out to my friend, John, who is your hugest fan. He is a supporter. He is the one who turned me on to you guys, and I'm so glad he did.

Okay. Well, John, thank you very much. Stephanie, no pressure on supporting TBTL financially. we know that you're house poor um so we'll just we'll i'll sacrifice one more trip for you someday when when financially your fortune turns around we'll we'll hope you can join the uh the donor class of tbtl but you'll be getting a check thank you seriously thank you for taking the time to do this today and like i yeah this is i mean i was our i i already had a sense of how kind of probably not accurate the the framing of this was but now i have a real sense for it so just i'm so glad

Thank you for providing me the platform.

Going forward, I promise you, we will never miss an opportunity to correct the record to people. That's the other thing. You're talking to the right person because I'm a big record corrector. It's been described as mansplaining in more ungenerous terms. I love being like, well, actually, unfortunately, I don't think that's my greatest personality trait, but I love doing it. And now if this ever comes up again, I want you to know wherever I am, whether it's on TBTL, whether it's on Wait, Wait, whether it's just at a party somewhere, if ever this...

particular story comes up, I will be the first person going, well, actually. Okay. So just so

you know, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. And I expect you to send me a text of a selfie with you and that person so I can count them as my new fan. It's just like me and Bill Curtis,

just like me and a slightly drunk Bill Curtis. Please don't let Bill Curtis hate me. No, no, no. He never would. Um, I mean, he is a person who would fly to Italy to have pasta and, and has probably recently that's how that's what a baller that guy is so amazing maybe he can take

me next time because i'm house poor come on to my house my house i'm gonna give you candy come on to my house my house i'm gonna give you apple plum and i forgot i do it

come on to my house my house come on come on that is uh stephanie desantis of seattle washington still enjoying her home the only i mean it's a i mean i was say looking at the article in the times and looking at photos of the home it's on queen anne it's an absolutely beautiful place i personally if i'm just nobody asked but my only note would be less boston sports memorabilia publicly displayed because it's just i don't know i don't know if it's a great look i don't know if it's a great look to celebrate a team that may have deflated footballs to help tom brady win more games i'm That's just me. That's just my opinion on the matter. But anyway, thank you again to Stephanie for jumping on the show. And please, all of you out there, now your job, like me, because you like this show, you like TBTL, you've heard me and Andrew talking about this subject over the years. Your new job is to become an evangelist for the real truth of that story and spreading the word. We all have to get out there. We have to do some fact-checking and some debunking out there, IRL, to make sure that Stephanie's newly-minted TVTL listener, Stephanie's good name, is rehabilitated in the public square. All right, let's do some Blur's Day messages here. If we, unfortunately, maybe missed your message this week, or if you are submitting it late, maybe you're thinking, oh, I'll submit it at the usual TBTL time. You may have missed it because, as I've already mentioned, I'm recording this a little bit earlier on Thursday than normal. I will tell you, Andrew has been from the pool, I assume, in Mexico, sending me Blur's Day messages as they've come in. And he's been trying to get me to edit them down to be a little shorter because he does that. But I am not willing to invest the work into editing these down and making them shorter. So I'm just going to read them faster. That's my current plan here with the Blur's Day messages. And if we did end up missing you this week because of a little bit of, you know, something getting lost in translation, just go ahead and resubmit them for next week. And we'll consider it an early Blur's Day message for the next time around the sun on this blue marble. Chad says, happy Blur's to my wife and co-bro for nearly 35 years. Amy in Minneapolis. Chad, you and Amy do not look like people who could have been married for 35 years. I mean, I've met you. That's amazing.

We are far enough behind on TBTL that we've forgotten about your blurs by the time. You'll have forgotten about your blurs by the time you hear this. So consider this your blurs booster. I see, Amy. So you've thought all the birthday celebrating and fun was over. But no, it's still happening. It's happening right now here on TBTL. Is it July in Minnesota when you hear this? Probably. But enjoy it. I won't say anything about that since that made Luke, oh, you know what I'm realizing? Chad, I'm sorry. Amy, I'm also sorry to you. When I pasted these things into an email program, I think it cut off the end of them. So I'm going to be, I'm just, I'm going to have to fill in the end of every sentence with whatever mad-libbing of a word that I think would probably go there. That's why I was a little confused by that previous sentence. Chad wrote a beautiful, beautiful email. I'm going to butcher it because I can't see some of the beautiful, beautiful email this. I won't say anything about, oh man. mommy and daddy times since that made luke blush last year i guessed at the mommy and daddy times so i'll just say i love you i'm so happy we're still making uh each other with each other many many years later

and you are indeed aging well. Signed, Chad in Minneapolis. Can confirm, by the way, that Amy and Chad are both aging flawlessly. And again, their appearance belies the idea that they've been married for 35 years. Congratulations. Andrew, this is Chad's Andrew. Apologies if this is too long. I will trust your editing skills if it is. Looks like you picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue, Chad. because it's just Luke over here reading these things without the final word in each sentence unedited. Next up, it looks like it's from listener Lee saying, can you please wish a happy Blur's Day to my friend Olivia? She is one of the most thoughtful, funny, I'm going to say muscular people I know. And I'm sorry I led TBTL to believe she was only nine years old last year because I didn't know what a Golden Blur's Day was. Could you play the Trees They're All Around Us drop for her? That would be pretty neat. All right. Lee, I'm going to see if I have this in my little system. Oh, hey, what do you know about this? Hold on. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. I'm going to get the volume all fixed up on this. How about this? A Happy Blur's Day to Olivia. This is just for you. Trees. They're all around us, but who gives a s***? Happy Blur's Day, Olivia, and thanks for checking in, Lee. Next one comes from Linder in Rhode Island. Hi, Cobros. I'd like to wish a happy Blur's Day to Maggie Middleself. Aw, hey, Maggie, happy Blur's. It was great to meet you at the 4,000th. Our chat was short and sweet. Since you were deep in your duties as master of ceremonies. i was not the only one who was grateful for those name tags that night what you do is so important i hope your year is filled with babbling butterfly banter beguiling burial broadcasts and various other things to start with b happy blurs day linder in rhode island shout out to maggie middle shelf happy blurs day uh next one from show and krista saying i you know this makes sense right because everyone's assuming that this stuff is all going to go to Andrew as it typically does um but I've I didn't realize how how much Andrew is editing these down just because I don't even it doesn't even feel like I'm part of this hi Andrew can you read this on Thursday it's Aaron's actual birthday on 3-7 so that's all the stuff he cuts out but I'm you're getting you're getting everything today you're getting the entire experience well you're actually not ironically because I don't have the last three words of every sentence of every one of these messages. So you're both getting more than you wanted and less than you wanted. That's the Luke Burbank promise.

More and less than you wanted in a podcast. That's TBTL when Luke is solo hosting. Aaron, it's your Blur's Day, and we are not blue-blue to know you because you're so awesome. It's true. we wish you a birthday as wonderful as you are congratulations on your new job and new home we're so impressed that you have it more together than this kid oh drop request uh the uh did you ever have a dream okay god would it kill me to pre-read these um let's see if i can find kid dreams he can do anything okay hold on i'm setting this back up everybody just or just give me a second here this is a lot to do as one person um let's see uh we wish your birthday as wonderful as you are congratulations on your new job in your new home we're so impressed that you have it more together than this kid have you ever had a dreams that that

you um you had you you you could you do you you want you you could do so you you do you could you you you want you want him to do you so much you could do anything could anyone have it more

together than that kid i don't think so that kid is um because of my hero of broadcasting that's what i sound like most shows anyway happy uh blurs day aaron from show and krista and we've also got a message coming in from kevin i wanted to write in and wish my wife sarah a very happy 45th blurs day she's a fantastic woman great engineer hard-working sailor and the best cat mom that her spoiled cat demi could ever hope for i love her so much and her smile her heart her playful sense of humor that make every day a little bit warmer and more bearable happy 45th and power out so happy blurs day to sarah from kevin all right that's gonna do it for the blurs days today and that's gonna do it

for today's episode of tbtl thank you for listening everyone thank you for tolerating my uh slightly jarring slightly janky solo hosting ability i'll have it together tomorrow i'm gonna get tomorrow's just gonna be slam dunks and 360 pointers and by the time we get to monday just be me i'll just be on the ones and twos it's gonna be incredible anyway thanks for tolerating today though uh that's gonna do it for this program on this thursday we will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you again. Lord willing, if I can get my mother to operate the software that me and Andrew use to record the show, which is not a guarantee, then we will hear from my mom Susie B tomorrow. And we'll do some music through the weekend and all of the normal fun stuff that happened on a Friday here on the program. So please do tune in for that. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves. Stay warm if you're in the PNW and please No mountain too tall, and good luck to all.