Muse

Hey, buddy. How you doing? I'm good. I feel so much more relaxed. Thank you, Helen. I just feel like I'm excited and I feel relaxed and I'm ready to party with the best of them. And I'm gonna go down to the river. Wow, it looks like somebody's really relaxing now

Go ahead, drink it in Don't be shy Lookin's for free Touchin's gonna cost you something

You seem to me to be a pretty righteous hombre I wish you were my grandpa

That's a good joke That's clever It's not clever It sure as hell isn't a good joke

Now, you're not going to read about this dimension in a book or in a magazine or in a newspaper because it doesn't exist anywhere except in my own mind.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Friday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

Well, I guess this is the part where the art gets made.

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

The comments are savage. Very, very savage.

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where we had a really beautiful sunrise this morning. The sun just shining, glinting. Although glinting, I feel like, sounds like there's a small amount of sun. And this was a large amount of sun. It was more a bathing of sun over there on the hills of Rainier, Oregon.

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

Still a little bit of snow there on top of the hills, but the beautiful, warm sunlight. Hopefully we'll get more of that today because I could really use some vitamin.

I'm sorry, I'm tan. I like to be tan. It just feels good.

I did see a photo of myself recently. Have you had the experience Where somebody sends you A picture And the point of them sending you the picture Is not to say, man, you looked weird in this They're sending it to you Because either they're reminding you of something Or saying, remember this fun time we had Or this, that, or the other But all you can focus on is Dear God What's happening in this photo with me I found out last night that I'm actually, this morning, again, we're recording this pretty early on Friday, I'm supposed to be down in Portland doing a local television appearance to promote the 20th anniversary show of LiveWire, which is next week at Revolution Hall. There are only a few tickets left. You might want to get them now. And we were trying to remember something about the timing of the event, and for whatever reason, our fine, fine PR person who we work with there at LiveWire sent me a photo. It's just reminding me of the green room of this television station in Portland. Because I was there last year doing the same kind of thing. And all I saw was a person who looked very much like a cross-pollination of an Oompa Loompa and a tomato.

I'm sorry, I'm tan. I like to be tan. It just feels good.

Like, it was, I don't know what was going on. I think that sometimes when I'm not feeling my absolute best in the appearance department, which would be all the time, I think if I get outside and I get some sunshine and I get a little bit of a tan on me, it's going to look better. But then sometimes it can go too far. It must have gone way too far. I look like I was having a medical event or something. I hope it was the lights in that room. But all that is to say, I'm hoping we get a nice day today. I'm hoping that whatever level of tanness, of melanin, I guess melanin's probably internal. I want to be clear. I'm not claiming to have melanin. I'm claiming that I don't want to look on television this morning the way I apparently looked last time I did this. That's the point of this whole thing. Let the fun begin. And also that we've arrived at episode 4158 in a collector series. Because of that fact that I have to go down to Portland soon uh we've had to do some uh some rearranging some shifting and a few other things to make sure that we can make sure and have my mother suzy burbank i'll say what's up on the program today because i promoted it yesterday

and um and i'll just take you on my journey real quick because of my mom's schedule which is very busy as well she's a busy lady and because of my schedule i'm a busy guy a busy sunburned guy i um i reached the decision early this morning that it was not going to work out to have my mom on the program we're gonna have to just try to do it next week or something i was going to do this whole other kind of get ready with me deal i was going to try to tap into the viral power of tiktok a couple of years late and and just record myself in the car driving down to do this local tv interview and then kind of do a post mort on it that was going to be the show today up until i'm not kidding like 10 minutes ago and then i um looked at old hawk squad the family text chain that I'm on and my sister Hannah said who's a dedicated TVTL listener said can't wait to hear you on TVTL today mom and I realized oh I have no choice but to um but to figure out how to make it work to get old Susie on the show and I am excited to talk to her because I want to discuss her regrets about how she mothered me I wish I hadn't done that She sent me a text a while ago Apologizing for not letting me watch Scooby-Doo as a kid And I want to further unpack and interrogate that So we're going to do that coming up on the show in just a minute We've got to give the people what they want We've got to give the people what they need And by that I mean my sister Hannah Listening to her own mother on a podcast Heard by thousands Her own mother, who she gets to speak to Pretty much every day of the week featured right here on tbtl oh i wanted to mention by the way um before we get into that a blessed and happy expired peacock day to all of you who celebrate

jalapeno jalapeno jalapeno

if you are one of the people like me who got strong-armed railroaded bamboozled flim flammed into signing up for dang peacock because you wanted to watch that one football playoff game with the chiefs that was on only available on peacock yesterday i believe i don't know it was maybe it was 1201 this morning uh your peacock uh membership that you hopefully immediately unsubscribed from has now expired and so congratulations to all of you if you like me manage to um really pull a fast one on the uh nbc network by signing up for peacock for the trial period getting the football game and then remembering and that's the key remembering to unsign up for it and uh and uh and now you got the email from them saying your membership has expired you don't have to do anything else and well let me tell you that was a good feeling that i actually for once in my gall darn life uh managed to follow through on canceling something that i was signing up for only at uh as a sort of trial run to get something that i wanted to have in that moment oh by the way i haven't even mentioned how quickly we forget everyone how quickly we forget i haven't even mentioned the longest running cobro of the show maybe best known for absconding to mexico is absconding i think absconding usually indicates stealing something he's fleeing to mexico my friends fleeing not absconding he's down in mexico he and veves are enjoying a nice little vacation time and and so here I am hosting the show solo once again I was I'm not usually plagued by intrusive thoughts about my performance on this program some of you might wish I was plagued by more intrusive thoughts because maybe that would help me be a better host I just don't really think about it a lot until I'm here doing this show by myself in the words of the band spiritualized we are now floating in space there's something very floating in space about being here talking into this microphone just just by myself talking to all of you drinking coffee early in the morning out of my mug that my daughter adelaide got me it's of course the one where lucy from peanuts has her little um advice booth the doctor is in she's talking to woodstock and the advice she's giving to Woodstock is darling don't you go and cut your hair do you think it's going to make him change which if you know you know anyway when you're just sitting here having coffee talking to this microphone it's a weird experience for me because I always have

my good friend, Andrew Walsh here. And maybe because of that, I found myself yesterday and last night, um, reflecting on the various issues that occurred during yesterday's recording, including, but not limited to, uh, me not editing any of the blurs days, uh, messages much, I'm sure to the chagrin of Andrew, if he were to hear it, he runs a tight ship around the blurs days. And I ran a very loose ship. I just cut and pasted a whole bunch of long, overly long email messages into a different email program that I didn't realize until I was reading it actually cut off a bunch of the end of the messages. So I had to basically take these special birthday messages that people have written with love and care to the people in their life who they love and admire, and then I had to essentially make up the end of every sentence like i said yesterday it was essentially a mad lib and um and that wasn't great i'm not proud of that there was a like slight technical times with the opening audio tape um that was just the tiniest of things when i sent the file over to tbtl employee numero uno john sklaroff and then i jumped in my whip and i was heading up to seattle to talk to old ken jennings for this tv story john was talking to me about there was you know some little bit of audio issue that i was trying to diagnose somewhere near dupont washington by listening to audio files on dropbox on my phone very safe behavior um and uh also i don't have the right music for the dazzling donors and i've done nothing since yesterday to fix that problem i have a bill haley in the comets version of the razzle dazzle song because i don't know i don't remember things oh by the way to listener megan yesterday who was our dazzling donor who wrote in her message i saved tbtl and i said i have no idea what you're talking about there's another thing i'm not proud of megan emailed me back uh last night and said i'm holding a coin dude that says i saved tbtl and i remembered oh yes we mailed out thousands of coins to people who had donated money, and the coin, the commemorative coin, says, I saved TBTL. And mere months later, I've forgotten what we had inscribed on the coin, what we had put on there. And so, Megan, yes, thank you. I see you, and I hear you. Yes, you did. You and many others did save TBTL. Anyway, yesterday's show, I feel, other than the guest, a person named Stephanie DeSantis, who I thought was lovely, and I thought was entertaining radio. So other than that, everything else about the show was pretty much a debacle. And I want to I want to apologize for that. And I'm torn because I was about to say, don't tell Andrew how bad it went, because I don't want him to know how much we need him around here. But on the other hand, maybe do tell him.

So he stops this madness of going on vacation and leaving me here to mind the store because it's not good. I used to mind this store. This I was the only person minding it. i was the proverbial guy behind the counter with an apron on you know who who who you'd come down and you'd buy a a pound of flour and a couple of pork chops from and i'd tie him up in some nice wax paper with some twine and um i'd have the little am radio going in the background listening to the ball game i was that guy this was my store and oh how times have changed and even times have changed, but also times have changed. Speaking of stores, do you have a store that you realize you cannot go into, or a kind of store that you cannot go into without emerging with something from that store? I figured out what that store is for me yesterday. It is a video store. It is a video dvd store independently run not for profit that is single-handedly keeping the dream of cinephiles and synasts alive all over the city of seattle and that store is called scarecrow video and we were there filming with ken jennings of jeopardy fame because he's also on the board if you don't know uh from scarecrow video it is an amazing um very long-standing i'll just say video store in seattle that has managed to survive through just the hard work and dedication of a bunch of people i don't think it they're not printing money over there but it's you know most big cities have one i think it's movie madness in portland there's one called vidiots there there are like most most big cities might have one surviving place where you just go and hang out if you love movies and uh you know there let's be honest there's it's not a compelling argument in terms of there's not a compelling use case for why I spent $50 on DVDs yesterday at this store, but I can't walk into a cathedral, if you will, a sacred space of movie appreciation and not emerge with some of physical media. So what did I get? I bought, this is Spinal Tap, AKA Spinal Tarp, if you're the Fred Willard character in Spinal Tap. I bought the Spinal Tap on Blu-ray with some special features. It's got an hour of deleted scenes and outtakes. It's got audio commentary. It's got a featurette catching up with Marty DeBerge. And it's got four classic Spinal Tap music videos.

Oh, Spinal Tap appearing on the Joe Franklin show. Are you kidding me right now? If you lived in New york during a certain era and you liked things that were bizarre you loved the joe franklin show oh that's great um and uh something that just described as spinal tap sells cheese and a variety of other exciting products so i got that i bought um uh the odd couple original comedy classic with jack lemon and walter matthow i don't think there's any movie i've ever seen with jack lemon in it that i do not absolutely love this has got to be billy wilder right as well let's see oh no directed by gene sax it's culturally billy wilder though wouldn't you agree the odd couple the og odd couple movie doesn't it feel culturally billy wilder anyway i picked that up and then i bought um for some reason cool hand luke with paul newman i i mean was there a flippin cooler customer in the history of this planet we know as earth than paul newman really throughout his life but especially in the cool hand luke era i don't know i can't decide on what forget this taylor swift era's business i cannot for myself decide what era of Paul Newman's existence is the coolest era for Paul Newman I mean what was it when he was a race car driver was it was when it was it when he was just wearing just short shorts for some reason and like a sweater and sunglasses and holding a beer I often talk about alcohol consumption this way as somebody who's consumed a lot of alcohol in my life in fact too much at times i always a way of me trying to moderate my behaviors is to think about for me my life when i'm you know further up in years than i am now i'm 47 i'm no spring chicken but like you know when i'm 65 years old i don't want to be that guy at the end of the bar who's just been putting them back you know heavy duty for for 40 adult years because it never looks cute sometimes when i'm trying to moderate my behavior i literally say in my mind hey luke make the vanity play this is what just so you know this is by the way this is what happens when Andrew's not here I just go into the deep recesses of my brain but I literally say hey hey Luke make the vanity play i.e. maybe leave that alcohol alone because you don't want to be looking the way a lot of the people used to look when you used to go to the tattletale Roger's exciting tattletale in Culver City, California. And yet Paul Newman really, really belies that theory because Paul Newman loved to have a beer and he loved to have some wine. He and Joanne, his wife, used to just like love to sit around on a sunny day and have a beer. And goddamn, that guy looked good.

I need to really put that version of Paul Newman out of my mind. Paul Newman, beer in hand, cigarette, smoke in a heater beer in his hand silver fox looking untouched by the ravages of time i need to put that version of of him out of my mind because then that makes me think well maybe it's time to uh maybe it's not so bad for me to enjoy a adult bevy here anyway i picked up cool hand luke i did i will be honest with you and the folks at scarecrow video are amazing they're just they were so nice i get nervous nervous is the wrong word i get a self-conscious when we're filming somewhere with cbs where normal people are just trying to exist because i really want it to be clear to the people who are working at the place and the people who are customers of scarecrow video to know that i don't think we're anything special and i'm sorry that we have big cameras and lights set up and that we're kind of blocking things and everybody there was super nice about it but i i will admit that when i was buying these dvds and maybe they're technically blu-rays i don't know i as i was walking up to the counter i was thinking

is this a cool selection of films to be buying should there be more kurosawa in here should there be more czech filmmakers should there you know like is this look spinal tarp cool hand luke and the odd couple really is this really is this really a cool collection of a physical film that you're going to now take home and will i ever watch it i don't know was that a donation can i write this off on my taxes will is there ever going to be a night where i'm here uh perched high above the mighty columbia and i break out the odd couple on dvd or blu-ray or whatever it is and put it in my dvd or blu-ray player and then just watch it i hope i would love that to be how my life works i don't know if it'll happen i may have just made a donation to scarecrow video but god if That's the worst thing I did yesterday. I can definitely live with that. Oh, hey, speaking of donations.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody rise, low, dazzle.

Let's thank some dazzling donors. Here's what I would like to say to these wonderful, generous people who are supporting TBTL with their hard-earned dough. I know you're not getting the real song, but just pretend this is like that upside-down airplane stamp. try to think of this as a feature and not a flaw that you were one of four people who got thanked during the Bill Haley and the Comets era when Luke was minding the store you know who's getting that special honor today Deb Tanas who's in Tacoma, Washington what up Deb Deb says I started this TVTL journey back from the beginning I've donated for several years But I felt I really needed to step it up In the fall of 2022 I ventured on an adventure Of walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain That's the thing I was trying to remember the other day, Deb We were Oh, you know what? We had another donor Who has the podcast about hiking And that donor was talking about hiking in Spain, and I was saying, I wonder if that person was hiking along that particular trail, that path, that, you know, whatever they call it in Spain. And I was thinking of the Camino de Santiago. So thank you for reminding me of that, Deb. Deb says, I did all 500-plus miles carrying my backpack over the Pyrenees from France into Spain across the meseta of central Spain, completing 36 days ending in Santiago de Compostela. Trust me, there were some difficult climbs and long, boring stretches. And that's just listening to TBTL. I added that part. The only thing that got me through some days were my imaginary friends, Luke and Andrew. I took you with me on this journey. I've made several international trips over the years, and TBTL has always come along for the ride. Thank you, and also shout out to my buddy, TBTL's Lisa, who ventures with me to all the TBTL events and milestone shows. Thanks, guys, for keeping us tens sane in a sometimes crazy world. that Deb is incredible that Camino de Santiago I'm actually 36 days I'm shocked that you can do that in 36 days my sense is for me backpacking 500 miles that's probably four to five years easily I mean I were you jogging this 36 days that's I mean I'm sure it felt long don't get me wrong i'm sure in day 33 you were like oh my god maybe this could be another tbtl-a-thon stunt

do we think i could get andrew out on the camino de santiago in spain andrew loves walking he loves a healthful walk he would want to bring his camera and he would want to take pictures of random things along the way which would be fine but um that sounds amazing uh and deb i'm glad that we were able to you know hang out with you on those journeys and keep you company and thank you for keeping us company in the donation department if you know what i mean we couldn't

do this show without you maestro which is me on your mark on your mark get set get set now ready We've also got to thank Kelly Nilsen.

Kelly says, Nilsen, like Harry Nilsen, the singer. Oh, we know.

We stan Harry Nilsen on this show, Kelly, but we stan Kelly Nilsen even more, who is in San Diego, California. Kelly says, hi, friendos. Last year, I finally had a business to promote, and some stalwart tens reached out to support me. What a beautiful circle TBTL creates. My business is Bravo Financial LLC, a flat fee, advice-only fiduciary financial planning firm. Kelly, do you handle small S-Corps? based in southern Washington, in the media space. We might need some help. My business is Brava Financial LLC. I'm based in San Diego, but I can work with folks across the country. I would love it if the Tens would check out my website, bravafinancialplans.com. That's bravafinancialplans.com. If you like what you see, sign up for my newsletter, which, Kelly says, I promise to send more often in 2024. So if you were getting Kelly's newsletter last year and you were like, we need to step up the pace on this, Kelly says the pace has been stepped up. And you'll be getting more newsletters from Kelly if you sign up. Who doesn't want a good fiduciary advice newsletter from a 10? I mean that very seriously. I would click on that. That would have a high open rate from me. Maybe I'll sign up. Thanks, Kelly. I can always use some financial advice. Red or black at the casino is the... This is the part where Andrew would start to have a meltdown because he would think that I'm indicating that the donations are not safe. They are very safe. They're in a lockbox, as Al Gore used to say. I'm not even allowed to know where they are. I don't have any access to any of the donations except for when I get paid through ADP or something. If you have questions or comments, email kelly, kelly at bravafinancialplans.com, and let me know how I can help you. That's kelly at bravafinancialplans.com. I always end with poetry, and so this dazzling donor message is no different. And this is the poem that Kelly has included. It's by Raymond Carver. it's called Late Fragment here's the poem and did you get what you wanted from this life even so I did and what did you want to call myself beloved to feel myself beloved on the earth it's Raymond Carver with Late Fragment submitted by Dazzling Donor Kelly thank you so much Kelly

what you do is so important okay so do i do i need to be in sight oh what's that i mean i thought i was just going to be audio my hair needs washing you know what i mean you're just no mom we're

just um we're only going to use the sound from this we're not going to use the picture but

we're moms on the net we became moms on the net because there are so many resources available on the internet for moms and their families mom first of all i am pleasantly shocked that you

figured out how to make this computer system work well it's so funny because your dad whenever i need to like copy and paste he does it so he's never really shown me the shortcut like he just does it so i was like a little nervous like can i do this but i think i if i follow through i mean

it's pretty much it's not rocket science you know because i was already going with like plan b in my mind like what are we going to do but um but this is great this is working thank you so much for coming on sorry for all the scheduling stuff um no problem now yesterday i was all excited and i said on yesterday's show that you were going to be on today and then uh when things got all complicated with my schedule and your schedule then i was going to not have you on and then hannah got into hawk squad saying she was excited to hear you on the show well i didn't say anything to hannah directly no she heard me on tbtl i think promoting it right she's a she's a pretty faithful listener she is and so then i felt shamed within the hawk squad that i felt like i had to figure out a way to make this work so gotcha thank you for um thanks for taking the time to talk to me i wanted to kind of get a sense of what exactly was going on for you when you sent me that text a little while ago about Scooby-Doo being actually pretty good and also saying, sorry that you didn't let me watch Scooby-Doo when I was a kid.

Well, you know how I substituted the school district when I was in elementary class, and they were watching that during their lunch break. And I was like, there's nothing. nothing to worry about with scooby-doo you know these were little guys you know probably uh i don't know first graders or something like that but i think the thing about scooby-doo when you

were a kid was because it was always about ghosts right and was was the thought for for you and dad that things like ghosts were kind of kind of similar to like witchcraft and things that were

thought to be sort of a cult basically i guess so because you know they were always opening a door and there was some ghost and i just thought you know back in those days it was just it just seemed like it might give you nightmares or something you know it's a little scary because you were

pretty young weren't you i was young and i was also a pretty um easily scared kid because of the fact that i didn't i wasn't allowed to watch a lot of scary stuff when i did see something i wasn't afraid of scooby-doo but other stuff that wasn't scary to other kids would definitely freak me out because i was a little bit sheltered when it came to like my tv viewing do you remember the one and only time i actually went trick-or-treating uh yes and did you go with

who did you wind up going with it wasn't church kids it was some neighbor kids it was when we

lived at northgate but do you remember what do you remember what my outfit was oh my goodness

i was a roman soldier i knew i was gonna say that i was gonna say was that the roman soldier

because you were in a play right no no i was um i was pharaoh in a play where dad made my thing just a roman soldier i just had this helmet that dad decided to convert i mean i did think there was a certain irony that we were christians but i was dressing up as the person who killed jesus you know i got about i think one block from the house and i um and and the first house that we came to where the person giving out the candy was dressed up and it was a my memory of it was it was a woman who was dressed as a witch and she opened the door and she cackled witch-like and my memory is I just ran directly home. That was it. That was, that was, that was all the trick or treating I needed in my life. So that's kind of, I was sort of a, I was pretty fragile kid. But, but also I think we talked about this on TBTL when, when I got that text from you, the thing that made me more fragile was definitely thinking that the moon was going to turn to blood and that there might be a rapture at any moment. That was way scarier than Scooby-Doo.

I totally agree. That is a scary thing for a kid to think about, you know?

What do you think, what was the, was there like a, at the church, at Gospel Irish Christian Fellowship, were there like meetings amongst the parents about kind of like, hey, what are we letting our kids do? Or what are we not letting our kids do? Or where did the quote unquote rules kind of come from?

well i think they went all the way back to our initial days when we lived in eureka okay you know your dad and i got married and uh jim durkin who was the main pastor he had probably a very negative growing up experience even with like christmas being um you know i he was an orphan

for one thing oh wow so we probably had orphans loved christmas i feel like they feature prominently

and all christmas stories right but apparently it didn't work for him i mean he he was a lot

interesting i didn't know this so that was where the kind of no christmas thing got its start and

then he did of course jim durkin was good at doing his research before google was around you know and and technically christmas could not have happened in the dead of winter like that in december yeah because the shepherds were um you know with their sheep it wouldn't it would have been more like september so and then the whole thing about a christmas tree there was like a pagan worship of a tree right right so he he had all of this like fuel yeah why christmas was not about the birth of jesus it was overshadowed by some other things and even saint you know like not saint nick so much but santa claus presents materialism so we were kind of fed into that and I didn't really, I didn't have really like super, you know, cozy feelings about Christmas growing up either because all my kids, well, you know, since my mom had died and my dad remarried, we, we were poor. We just seemed to always be poor. So we didn't have like, I would get like socks for Christmas or something and I needed them. But still like, it wasn't, it wasn't like I would call my girlfriends up when I was of age, you know, or they would call me to give me all that they, you know, their list of all that they got. And I wasn't, I was embarrassed because I didn't get those kind of gifts at Christmas.

Yeah.

So that sort of fed into it too.

So you were, that's funny because I would expect if you grew up with kind of like not a particularly great experience with Christmas, that maybe your thought would be as an adult, oh, I'm going to go like over the top.

on Christmas with my kids. But then, of course, you're at this church and they're saying, yeah, we don't do Christmas. And so you're kind of just like, I guess you just sort of felt like, I mean, what were you going to do? Like disobey the entire church to do Christmas? Although I do

feel- I was always a little bit of a rebel. Yes, you were, Ma. And I will tell you,

I felt like you were trying to get the camel's nose under the tent on Christmas in our household. And here's why. Because remember how it was like no tree, but stockings were like, okay. So you started putting up stockings i felt like you started bringing a lot of like um wreaths and things stuff that was made out of basically christmas tree material like you were turning you were warming up the water on the frog that was dad so so eventually we were able to get a tree

he was always much more of a rule follower oh and he is to this day by the way right i know believe

me he's here I'm and and I'm you know I'm already Addie Addie called him did you hear about this

oh I was right here sitting in the right next to him she she FaceTimed him for for some help on on

some electrical issue and this is what he told me last night he said I gave her the IRS version of that and I was like I don't know what that means but it's not good it means that you told her that

her entire house is about to burn down at any moment right but he was just like it's a really old place yeah but i was like trying to interject a little like maybe you know if she can get a hold of her landlord right then she can put it in his court you know like right because she was really she's so smart the things that she's figuring out lately yeah i don't know where she gets that from but i'm i'm i'm impressed but she's um but she is messing with like old old you know uh electric

no so she definitely needs to be careful with that but i do think it's funny that you know dad is very as i say belt and suspenders and even here when we're working on the house he that we go through a phase with every project where he feels like it's probably not possible and he becomes a bit dispirited and then sure enough he figures it out and then it all gets worked out but i'm

i'm learning this about your husband he only says no first like no that's not going to work right and it's like then you just like your balloon is completely deflated like okay well it's not gonna work and then but i know not to believe that anymore you know what i mean yeah

because you and i mom our answer is always yes which has its own drawbacks right like as a

personality type they turn out to be a no and that's disappointing you know now now let me ask

you this speaking of trying to turn nos into yeses like when when you were finding out that i was

sneaking off to watch he-man at colin's house and riding my bike you were watching it was he-man but

it was something else oh god i don't i mean i was i would hey whatever they had on on afternoon after school television i was watching it uh secretively did you like did you did you see yourself in me in your rebel son or did you just think i was bad and i was going to hell

for all these rule breaking i saw myself in you from the get-go from the minute you put sentences together you know okay it was i was certain like oh you are me in a little boy version you know i

was the little girl version of you well so then i mean was it hard for you as a person who's not inclined to want to follow the rules to live within a system where there were like so many rules. The term I think we used to use would be maybe legalistic or something, like a church

structure where there's a lot of do's and don'ts. Well, yes, but there were some things about my experience in a church that wasn't the Catholic church that seemed to me, even though it seemed like there were some rules and regulations, it wasn't as cut and dry. In the Catholic church, I, you know, I, I didn't feel like there was any wiggle room. It's like, you have to be mother Teresa to go straight to heaven or my aunt Joan for that matter. But you know, you, I was never going to go straight to heaven, no matter what. And you know, you go to this in between place called purgatory. This is the way I was raised. And that is as bad as hell, but you will eventually be prayed out of it so you know those kind of thoughts like there's like there's no use trying

anymore i felt like they were gone what about just but what about confession i always thought the cool thing about catholicism it's why i'm still considering adopting it because i feel like isn't the rule you just get to do whatever you want and then you just apologize for it on like

to the priest and then you get a do-over but it's not it's not you know it's not cut and dry it's not like okay you're because in 10 minutes you're going to sin again and then it's all repeated you know what i mean yeah i so yeah it just felt like it felt like i had more wiggle room in my christian faith to you know be like who i wanted to be and i was like okay with that and other people would have to be too

because god was okay with it you know sure sure um now uh did you did you believe in your heart that if i watched cartoons it was going to be damaging to me or were you kind of just going along with and by the way mom i'm not upset about this i even said this on tbtl i'm not bothered about the scooby-doo stuff i'm just curious about your experience as the person having to set the rules for me during that era like did you find yourself just kind of going along with these rules for me because they were the rules or did you believe in them did you think if I watched

he-man it could be not great for me well I just think that you know kids watching a lot of tv even back then isn't really good and you had such such a mind that was like a sponge so I really didn't think you needed to waste too much time with the boob tube you know what I'm saying yeah yeah absolutely and that's why i really liked sesame street but you remember those years we

didn't even have a tv you know yeah there was different phases of television life in our house there was no tv there was that small black and white tv that would go into the closet that i feel like you would occasionally break out and watch the little house on then when we were at 77th eventually we got like a tv that was in the living room that stayed there but then remember dad had all those different uh devices it was like he was wily coyote and i was the road runner just him trying to stop me from watching tv like he had this special remote control that that he would hide he had like all these different things to try to stop us from watching remember when he would come home and he would put his hand behind the tv see how hot it was

because i it had to do with like flat out disobedience you know what i mean at that point it's like don't just pull out all the stops because you got some babysitter that's busy on the phone with her boyfriend you know or whatever like don't he didn't want you to take

like full invariant which is by the way exactly what i did the second the second you left the house that tv was on i was watching the a team i was lying through my teeth to whatever babysitter

we had it was i mean i looked perfectly fine i'm allowed i'm allowed yeah exactly and she didn't care as long as you're quiet you know that's the thing like you know so it was i think it had to do with like just being completely defiant by saying you know i didn't watch it and that's why he would come and touch it and be like oh yeah you watched it and plenty

because it's hot you know now do you mom if you could do it over again do you think and this sounds like an intense question. I don't mean it to be, but do you think you would have changed maybe some of the messaging around there is a lake of fire that you could potentially go to even as a child, if you're not right with God? Like, do you think you would do that differently? Because I will admit that was a little, that was a little freaky for me as a kid.

I don't know that you were ever getting that message from me.

I don't think I was getting it from you specifically. Like, I don't think that was really your deal but i just mean generally like remember we would do that bible study and there would be i swear for some reason that bible study in our house on 77th i swear there was like six months that was just on the book of revelations i don't know whose idea that was

i still don't understand revelation i don't think anyone does yeah but um i think that you know here's the thing with your dad as different as we are and you know that we um we blend well because he's he loves me so much yes he does thing because i've never been loved like that even my own dad my own dad who has really he was the one that stood out with that kind of like affection toward me in love you know as caring for me and i never met anyone who had that same kind of care except in your dad and of course it's a different type of love too but there's just this like he's coming to your place and he's like making sure the coffee's all ground and the little coffee pot is out you know and i mean i should just learn how to make a latte for heaven's sakes it's here

there is a point there is there is a there is a moment each evening when dad is here working where he knocks off and i swear the thing this guy looks forward to the most is getting done getting everything cleaned up getting his cigar out and calling you on the phone to try to help you figure out how to turn on the fireplace

hey you know what i get some damn good fires going here mother damn please that's a very of his very very it's like sometimes he doesn't give me enough he'll say i know you're smart hon you're very smart but sometimes he thinks he has to take care of things a little bit too much It's hard to know where the line is because dad is a very caretaker-y person, which people like you and me very much appreciate. It is. In fact, he said to me this morning, we were going through all of this instruction for these Ikea cabinets that we're trying to put in. And he said, you know what you could really use is a filing cabinet. And I don't know why I slightly lost my cool with him, but I go, yeah, there's one in my office. I'm 47 years old. and then i thought of you because i thought of you getting sometimes maybe a little like dad is just the sweetest guy and he just wants to be helpful and every once in a while in that wanting to be helpful he forgets that i am also like an adult person in the world who owns a filing cabinet like you know what i mean it's almost like a little bit more but it all comes from a place of

love right okay so a good example of that is like i had lost my passport oh yes i remember this in the whole story you know i was going to go to um oh yeah i think i was telling you were going to go to niagara falls right and i was telling it when you guys were down the basement yeah yeah yeah and the thing thank you for your donation by the way mom of course when i when i was just don't tell people how little it is no way are you kidding me mom that's a decent amount of money over the course of a year thank you uh you're so welcome but you know um when i did find it it was just a happenstance because i was i don't know i guess i was straightening up books or something

wasn't it in a wasn't it in a dvd case or something no it was just alongside some of my

better books that i have hardback books and it was just slipped right alongside two books you know like tale of two cities and and uh pride and prejudice or something two hardbacks yeah and it was this little blue sliver and i was like what is that and when i found it i was so overjoyed and i like ran out to the shop to tell your dad and you know what he said

oh wow and i was like wait what you know why why what what was why was that his response

reminded him of my forgetfulness or something and i'm like will you be happy with me i am so

happy right now you know well it's hard you know here's the thing i think most people um it you sort of get one or the other right and and you get the folks that are wired the way you and i are which is like kind of like uh sort of terminally optimistic and excitable and excited and losing our passports left and right and you get the people like dad who never loses anything but when you want him to switch over into being like us that's a that's a that's a journey for him

because it's not his wiring exactly like i'm like thrilled that i don't have to go to any more effort for a while because i spend a lot of time looking for that thing yeah you know it just it gets frustrating when you lose something and you know that it is in in the home yes because you you know i had used it to uh for id for this respite you know military care yeah and i was sure that it didn't get thrown out i mean i had gone to back to the military to ask them you know the office and i i tried everything and then i just had to just hang it up you know and just not worry about But then when I find it, it's just like so rewarding.

Yes.

And that happens way too much with me. There's important things. And sometimes you just, and of course, sometimes you find it after you get all the effort to replace it, you know. And I was just happy I didn't have to do the replacing.

Well, Mom, if you want to know just how close to the tree this apple fell, I told you the story of, remember when I got married for the first time? Uh, we were gonna, we were going to Italy for the honeymoon. And of course I didn't even realize like passports take weeks and weeks. And I think I went the day before, um, the wedding to get my passport. And that was a problem. It also didn't help that my birth certificate, I have a different name on my birth certificate than Luke Burbank. And because I'm a finesser, I, and because it was pre nine 11, I was able to get this woman to take pity on me at the passport office. And she said okay i'm going to issue you a one year passport but you have to come back and get it renewed it's not good for seven years or however long a real passport is this will get you to your honeymoon i said okay she gave me the passport i completely forgot about this until one year and one day later when by coincidence me and my first ex were gonna go to paris because there had been this crazy deal on flights i think it was like iceland air or somebody was trying to there was some new airline that was trying to get more business by just basically giving away tickets to europe so we got a two like two tickets to paris round trip for like total of $300, something insane. Right. And I'm standing in line to go through, you know, the airport to get on the airplane. And I hand them my passport and they go, this expired yesterday. I know. That story just crazy. And I had to go home. I had to get up the next morning and I had to go to the passport office. And guess who I got? The same lady at the passport who was like, and i was like remember this yeah i was like you gave me one you gave me one job which was make sure to get this thing renewed and i didn't and she laughed and she renewed it and everything was fine that's so great yeah i don't know if you and i can be trusted with passports mom that

that goes to show that people are generally pretty decent you know i'm sure there's the there's the you know terrible people in this world but people are generally they they got your back you know like i i don't think people are out to be like mean and you know yeah like that lady like she she was just like this is this is for the storybooks but i'm gonna let

let it go you know yeah no i think i think most people uh if you give and this is the other thing mom, that I think people like you and I tend to rely on too much. Who is it? Is it Mae West? Who is it who's talking about, I've always relied on the kindness of strangers? I think Mae West wanted to come up and see me sometimes. She was a little more sexual, really, a little more fresh, a little more fresh. But the kindness of strangers is something that you have relied on throughout your life and that I have now relied on throughout my life. Absolutely. And actually, strangers are

usually more kind because they don't really know you they're not they're they're not over your

they're not tired of your bs the strangers of the world well mom speaking of people who aren't strangers but they're they're people you may not know but you kind of know you mentioned to me this morning i was on the phone you've been dipping your toe into the online world of the tbtl 10s yeah where did you go and say hi it's luke's mom suzy where was this happening

tbtl chat you know it comes through like messenger facebook mess oh this is the first i'm hearing about this yeah you know i had that respite job last night too with those two kind of crazy kids but i finally got them all settled down and i was just playing around on my phone and i saw it and i was like oh this is a good thing you know yeah i could get through tbtl chat so then i just mentioned that we were going to be that's why it was important that i come on because i've already kind of like sealed the deal yeah you were already hyping yourself up

on in the chat function we had to deliver now what are people saying over there are you a big

hit with them wonderful like that you know one of the first comment was like i forget who it was but she said i'm so starstruck right now it's really cute is this because she knows that you won the that you have a variety of people on that on that tb10s you know yeah was she starstruck to

meet the uh mayfair can ball champion eight years old beat 10 year olds or whatever it was

well 12 beat up to 12 year olds um well it's just funny because they know me through you

that's the thing you know well but you're on the show a lot mom and you really are i think kind of the, probably the breakout hit of the program. Um, and so that was why I knew that if like, even as much as part of me was thinking this morning to just get, get the show done with, get it in the can, get it up on the internet at a reasonable hour, as opposed to what's going to happen now, which is, this is going to be a, it'll be a Friday night. Listen for folks. I realized that once we had promised them some Susie Burbank, uh, we, we had to deliver on that mom. Last question for you, because you recently had a big birthday. Um, what, how does it feel? Do you mind if i if i mention your age definitely not how does it feel um how does it feel to be 70 any

life lessons like how are you feeling okay well i was feeling great the day of the birthday because you guys were all here friends were here and it was really like an up day yeah but i have been struggling ever since really yeah only because like you know i i love sitcoms you know like reruns and you like arthur in king of queens he's in his 70s the guy is just you know

like ridiculous yeah it is aging you know yeah ben stiller's dad right jerry stiller who plays

yeah yeah stiller um ben stiller's dad jerry you're right and he's long gone now of course but you know like he's like the funniest part of the show because he is so old and ridiculous and then i like like everybody loves raymond same kind of thing you know marie and frank you know they're they're not even 70 apparently they're in their 60s but is it that you you don't like the idea

thinking about yourself becoming the kind of like kooky elder elderly like uh kind of character on

the sitcom that is our family absolutely because there's always the older parent or the the one that's you know kind of a little loony but they are 70 you know kind of thing and and i just remember seeing like uh and a rerun of everybody loves raymond and i think the frank you know the father was he had a he was really recklessly driving the grandkids and so he had to get his license renewed and uh because it had expired a year before and they didn't know that and then he passed the test but i remember saying to robert you know what is dad 66 now and that was like yeah and it's like what 66 I'm 70 you know right right this idea that like this is like okay so maybe I'm I have to be more careful driving you know mom if it's any consolation I mean they

should have confiscated your license years ago probably probably in your 20s I don't think has anything to do with your age no mom here's what I would say I totally identify with that because i'm having my own version of it i'm 47 and i hear about people who pass away at 60 and i think that's not old that's 13 years away from me you know you start to like there's all these sort of outside events and things that make you confront what your own age is and for some of us everybody loves raymond apparently but here's the thing ma like i'm watching dad right now he's in the house he's hoisting some cabinets up. They probably shouldn't be doing. You are, you worked a long shift last night. You worked today. You're on the TBTL messenger talking to people. You and dad are not the people in the sitcom. You're, you know what I mean? I mean, you're, you're not, you're not the, like, you're both working, you're both healthy, you're both active. You know, you're, you're not, you're, you're not just some kind of like one dimensional joke for, uh, you know, sitcom writers to write about like even though i know that it's not fun to see that i'm just telling you as your son that's not your life you're the person you're very you're still vibrant you're still very much like you're still the person who ruined my childhood by not letting me watch scooby-doo and i think that is the big takeaway for all of us today okay but you know

what i heard something about um using your handwriting like cursive it's really good for the brain okay and i do i do handwriting well you have spectacular parochial school handwriting yes and i'm going to start this is the thought i had today i'm going to start writing letters because you know how i want to write yeah i'll start by writing letters like writing a couple letters a month or so to different people by using my you know handwriting yeah i think that's really

good for the mind apparently absolutely and you have lovely handwriting mom and i can i can i could

pick your handwriting out of a lineup because i if you don't use it it becomes you know more shaky

obviously like everything okay well listen here's your first job write me a letter apologizing for not letting me watch scooby-doo okay i will easily enough all right mom listen thank you for doing this today i know you've already had kind of a long day and thank you for figuring out the technology of how we could actually talk on this little program it's really fun i'm glad to have done it it's a lot of fun i love you enjoy your dad free weekend enjoy your walt free weekend okay

indeed i will love you okay thanks bye

all right that is going to do it for this week's tbtl broadcast and for today's episode i know i was going to do some music for your weekend um but uh it's getting so late in the day i just want to get this episode up and also how can anyone ever top the song ice blink luck by the cocteau twins so that is what we are going to go out with today i want to thank you all for listening thank you for tolerating uh me when i'm semi in charge of things i have amazing news andrew walsh is back on monday and so everything will be ship shape once again in the meantime have a great weekend take care of yourselves hug your loved ones because they're real special people as we learn every time I get to have my mom on the show and see you on Monday until then please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

Don't know so much in your own way