Muse

Mark auditioned for improv classes and was turned away from the theater for life just to take a class

Yeah, he they said no never forget that. Yeah, we don't want your money. I Initiated a scene they said was too violent mark for me I just need to know how you can go into an improv class just to apply for an improv class and get denied what happened Probably none checks leave those at home. I didn't know you weren't allowed to have a props or weapons The whole idea of improv is you're making it up with nothing. I have a mug watch She's incredible at prop work, all right? Okay, now show me, you're flying an airplane.

Help!

Okay, now you're driving a car. Okay, same kind of thing. A bus?

Oh, I can't do that!

A bus?

I can't do that! TVTL! It is simply two guys who just wanted to dig a cave. And what was the purpose? Yeah, what did they want to do with that? They just wanted to dig a cave to hang out. Love it or hate it, it appears to be another irreversible step along mankind's journey toward God only knows what.

I dove deep into your podcast because it's what you do when you're hungover.

You're here to make friends. Making friends is the name of this show.

You are a really good actor. Thank you, thank you. Well, you know, it's just living truthfully in imaginary circumstances and whatever. Enough about me. What's on your schedule?

Well, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Ready to laugh and drop until your socks come off? My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where, as we record this on this Monday morning, like so many people, We are eagerly awaiting the eclipse event that is going to be happening during the recording of the show this morning I have a total eclipse of the phone It's not going to be much out here in southern Washington where I am But some of you are going to be obviously getting to see complete and total eclipse of the sun by the moon Very exciting stuff

Don't stay in my house if you're dork-sided

Now, last time this happened here in the U.S., it actually did cut through the Northwest, and Andrew and I went and got in a boat with the dog and tried to go out in the ocean there in Bellingham and watch it. And I went back and found that episode, and I grabbed some of the audio from the moment of, I think it was like 87% of Eclipse that was happening where we were. And we will listen back to that together here on episode 4179 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. Plus, we've got an update.

Can you verify? Can you give me some 411?

on how the tbtl junior sluggers did this weekend playing there in the parkside little league kids and fantasy um well i'll say this i'm a mariners fan and i'm a tbtl little sluggers fan and well one of those teams did okay this weekend we'll tell you which one coming up oh and we'll say hi to this guy longest running co-bro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships he is andrew walsh and he's joining me right now good morning my friend good morning luke

I did not know that you were going to surprise us with tape of the last time you and I watched an eclipse together because I was going to mention to you that it is embarrassing how little memory I have of that. Like, I remember talking about it. I remember planning it. I remember vaguely kind of it wasn't until you mentioned that Rudy Rue the dog was there that I was like, oh, now I sort of have a physical memory of being on that boat. But, man, that wasn't that long ago, was it? Well, it was 2017. 17, yeah.

So it was a mere seven years ago.

Yeah, it's true. Better part of a decade.

Yeah, I don't want to overpromise. In fact, let me do this. Let me underpromise and underdeliver in the classic TBTL fashion. I listened back to most of that episode last night, and I grabbed the tape from the actual moment of not totality, because we didn't get to totality where we were, but let's say as much of it as was going to become eclipsed. It's a pretty big letdown You can hear it in the tape It was a bad episode when we did it And it's going to be a bad episode when we revisited

But now I'm starting to remember More of the context around it though I believe that show did get Really interesting but it didn't have to do with the eclipse

Yes and we will talk about that as well Okay

Another thing that I had forgotten

Until I went back I finally understand why even though these episodes are boring The listeners do enjoy re-listening to them sometimes, and that's because Uh-huh.

There are little gems in there. There are little Easter eggs, little things that, you know, you've got to listen to these episodes multiple times to just fully grasp all of the, to sort of wring all of the entertainment content out of them, if you will. That's right. So here we are once again, it's four years later and, wait, what's the math on that? Seven. Between four and seven years later. Between four score and seven years ago. And seven clips ago. Exactly. Here we are. Today is this big, big total eclipse, zone of totality that's happening out there in primarily it's it's sort of it cut through the northwest part of America last time. And this time it's coming from the northeast down to the southeast. And it's in fact, as I'm talking to you, Andrew, we are getting very close to what is described as the beginning of this event, meaning I'm going to be trying to you're kind of in a slightly different setup than I am. But I'm going to be trying to monitor this to see if and I think we're at a very low percentage here. It's like 15 percent or something like Washington is one of the worst states to be in for this. Alaska is the worst.

And here in Seattle, like not only are we not like in the right kind of pathway, but here in Seattle, like the Seattle Times today was like, will you be able to? The headline was, will you be able to see the eclipse? Which you shouldn't have a question as a headline. That's click, baby. She just said, you will not see the eclipse today. Here's a link to the NASA website because that's essentially what is so cloudy and rainy here. I was ready to go outside and talk to you on the phone during the eclipse, but there's going to be nothing apparently.

I don't think there's going to be much here, but I am concerned about my about protecting my eyes. Andrew, this is an important part of of of the work that we do and of me getting around in life. And everything that I heard leading up to this, of course, was make sure you get your eclipse glasses. And because we're so out of the area of totality and because it is so cloudy here, it didn't even occur to me to try to get those kinds of protective glasses. So here we are. It's a Monday morning. I realized I can actually hear from the Madrona Hill studio. I can step over to these sliding glass doors that were harvested from the house when we tore them out of the house and walled up this area and then brought them out here. Me and Walt B. It's actually very convenient because I can step over. I can slide the sliding glass door open and I can look at a cloudy area that does have a noticeable sunniness behind it, if that makes sense. So I'd be looking at the sun through the clouds. But what concerns me is if the clouds part, because as I'm looking around here, there are like a few little patches of blue sky. My fear is that if I'm staring at the sun during the 15 percent whatever eclipse here to create content for the show, and then the sun comes out from behind the clouds, I could be doing exactly what they recommend against. And so my solution for this, and you'll be able to see this, Andrew, on the video, is I have now gotten two pairs of sunglasses. And this is what I'm going to be wearing as I look out there at the sun here at the Madrona Hill studio. Does this seem scientifically to you like the proper amount of eye protection?

It's weirdly both scientific and sexy AF at the same time, which is amazing. Two pairs of sunglasses on at the same time. You could do some welding while you're at it. I don't know if you've ever done any welding.

That's actually one of my many side hustles. I do a fair amount of arc welding during the show, and I usually try to mute the microphone when it's happening. I still haven't figured out how I can do underwater welding. That's where the real money is. But, I mean, during the program. But it's something that I'm working on.

Have you ever worn an actual honest-to-God welding helmet?

I don't think I have, but I'm guessing you have at Walsh Manufacturing.

the amazing thing about yes and the amazing thing about it is you know the whole thing is like metal mostly and it protects you from the sparks but then there's that you know the we can all picture the classic little like rectangle cut in there and then there's like a piece of what you would think would be like sunglasses or something right but what you don't realize until you've put it on for the first time is that like those aren't like sunglasses grade right lenses in there it's like

completely black until there's a welding arc happening yes which makes it very disorienting

and like i used to work with these guys and they could just like weld like well almost with their eyes closed and like it's just no thing i could never get used to it because like you can't see shit until you're already welding and by that point it's too late like i just i couldn't get

my head around it is pure blackness i don't think that i would ever have what it takes to be a welder but if i could get into that that game and that business i would want to do so just for this one moment which is the head nod welding oh shit yeah visor coming down to move because that is you got it up on top of your head it's flipped up yeah And then you jerk your head down. And then it's time to go to work.

It's time to do something actually important in this world versus podcasting with two pairs of sunglasses on. Although, I mean, this could be my new look. We're always looking for something, Andrew, to differentiate us in the incredibly packed podcast space. Maybe it's this is the show where one of the hosts wears two pairs of sunglasses while they do the program.

I liked your original idea of just atrophy. Let's just be the last podcast standing.

I don't think that's atrophy. I think that's something else. But it's atrophy. Oh, attrition, I'm sorry. Yeah, unfortunately, atrophy is happening. But we're trying to fight against that.

That is true to my mind, clearly.

Now, hold on. Okay, it's 1030 as we're talking. So this is supposed to be the beginning of the eclipse here. Now, I don't think I'll be able to see anything because even at its most here in the Northwest, it's going to be a very low percent. But let me just. i'm gonna tell you this andrew i chose the drum roll that's too long that's what i want to tell you but also silly as these doubled up sunglasses might look when i looked at the sun guess what was happening the clouds were very thin moving across kind of like the hair on the crown of my head barely covering the sun and i was very glad i had these on i'm actually not joking like it was sort of doing what i was worried it would do like it wouldn't have been good for me to be looking at

the sun that directly so but still no i mean we're only like literally i think we're actually maybe a minute or two away right oh no 10 29 was supposed to start so i'm looking at right now

you're not gonna be seeing anything no down here in southern washington full sun but i can see the

sun andrew yeah that's good yeah i got no sunshine here i could tell you also have a window behind you and i can just tell from the colors that you can actually see green outside that window that's behind you when you look out my window right now everything is gray like i can just like i can tell that there's just and it's drizzling here and it's just like there's nothing it's a bummer because i wanted i thought okay listen i don't have those special glasses either um i can't afford two pairs of sunglasses like some pod i i negotiated a pretty good contract with two beautiful to biz that's good for you but what i was looking forward to was looking down at the ground and seeing those special little shadows that sure i still can't wrap my mind around why that is like i feel like if i take a light bulb and hold it like you know above the ground and then i take like some sort of

a pasta strainer round yes i believe that was one of the recommendations i heard on npr this weekend

no i was gonna say like even if i do were to take like some sort of light source like a light bulb And then let's say take a lid from a jar or something that's round. Right. And I were to cover that up. I don't think I'd be able to make a shadow on the ground that is so specific as like that Cheshire like look that you get during a total eclipse of the sun. So I thought if nothing else, I'll go outside, I'll look at the ground and I'll see a bunch of those little those little circles. But I don't think I'm going to get anything today.

I think well okay so I my understanding and we're probably talking about the same thing and I'm probably misunderstanding what you're saying but obviously you're tracking that the reason that if you were to make do a little thing with your hand or if you were to take a pasta strainer that those the sun that was coming through that and then making a shadow would look different obviously that's the eclipse being represented down on the ground are you saying that if you took a light bulb and you put some kind of little thing blocking it you don't think that that's what

would happen i have no idea what you're talking about with the pasta strainer or whatever i'm just talking about the if and maybe i'm out of my league here but all i know is when eclipses happen elsewhere and i think we saw this on the boat i guess maybe the tape will say not only can you get in a like not only can you wear the special glasses and look up at the sun to get the effect of the eclipse but one of the cool things about the eclipse is you look down at the ground during it and you will see like reflections of the sun that it'll create these weird shadows yeah and so that's what i was talking about that like i don't understand the science behind that is what i'm saying like science i don't okay well so do you want me to

try to explain it or is it like i'm is it just the the minimally informed informing the less

informed which is usually how this works yeah because it just it's funny that i feel like i couldn't recreate that myself using a light source and shadow and and something blocking it out but maybe i'm wrong maybe you are telling me that there's some experiments i can do at home that

will make me recreate that my guess is you could recreate it but here's my understanding of what is happening by by focusing the light that's coming down from the sun during the eclipse so by forcing it into a certain little area and and literally like pasta strainer was one of the things they recommend because if you hold it up it will some a certain amount of light will pass through those little holes and that light will then hit let's say the the the pavement of your driveway and then in

those little amounts of light that have come through the pasta strainer there will be these cool shapes because the sun is not shining unimpeded through those little holes it is being impeded up in the sky by the moon so when the moon is creating a crescent shape or the moon is doing something to the sun obstructing some of the of the of the light from the sun that's coming down to you to earth that you will see that reflected on the ground in the way the sunlight is coming through because you've created this little focus point where you're getting to see basically mini versions of what the eclipse is doing i don't know if that's a useful explanation or not

yeah no i mean i guess i understand that it's just that i i just can't get my and it doesn't matter we're not going to figure this out now and there's oh we're going to figure this out now But, like, I just feel like when you partially block a light source, like when it's not the sun, right, when it's something closer to home, I feel like it would be very difficult to recreate that effect because light just sort of permeates. Light travels around things or whatever. So it's hard for me to get my head around the fact that, like, if I were holding, like, just my own light source and then I took something round that would represent the moon and sort of, like, a lid and cover it up, like, the shadows of that cast is not going to be that specific. specific cheshire thing there's something about it being the sun so far away so intense that by the time it makes itself here and then you can you know use a strainer or whatever you want to use to make those little holes uh-huh it just basically what i'm saying is this shit boggles my mind having said that how do waves work do we have any sense of tides here's the real question

andrew how soon can you be in new hampshire because if we can get to new hampshire in the next i don't know 45 minutes we'll be in the so-called zone of totality another state that's got a zone of totality is Illinois and I was actually flying through Illinois this weekend I was stopped off in Chicago on my way down to Iowa where we were in Iowa City doing Livewire by the way a really fun show at the Mission Creek Festival in Iowa City didn't actually run into any tens and that might be Andrew because I believe on the show last week multiple times I promoted this festival as being in Ames Iowa two hours away totally different city different university that's where iowa state is i don't know how i got it in my head that we were doing the show in ames iowa but i want to apologize to anyone who went to ames iowa to see live wire um we weren't there you probably noticed we were over in iowa city doing the show but there were so many people on the flight heading to chicago who were eclipse chasers it was like a significant portion of the flight were people going to illinois to then go somewhere outside of Chicago but in that so-called zone of totality to the degree, and you might have seen this this weekend as well, there were like very, very, very budget hotels and motels that were charging like $1,900 a night for a room that normally went for $39.95.

The folks in Cleveland were pretty excited about it too, you know. I remember, exactly, I remember hearing from folks.

I understand that people know that's where cleveland is i just i meant ohio is one of the states that's listed as being in totality cleveland ohio yes i was not okay just wanted to clarify no you got me i was talking

about cleveland let me put these glasses back i uh no but i had forgotten that years ago when we were doing our murrow award-winning eclipse coverage uh-huh some folks were writing and saying hey we'll keep you know 2024 on your calendar because you guys should come to cleveland And then we're going to be in the zone of totality here and you can do a show. And I meant to do that. I forgot. But anyway, I had sort of forgotten about all that. I'm talking to my dad this weekend, who, of course, is in Cleveland. And I was just saying, oh, yeah, I guess we'll see a little bit of it here. And he's like, oh, well, this is the place to be. And I totally forgotten about that aspect of it. And then what a missed opportunity today. I get I get a text from him and it's like a text with a photo attached. And at first I just see like the preview of it. So I don't see the photo and it says, guess where we are with some sort of a face emoji showing excitement or something. And so I open up my phone thinking that my dad's going to be like on a mountain somewhere, like with special glasses on.

And it was just it was just the inside of a Jersey Mike's. We both love Jersey Mike's. So when we're at a Jersey Mike, sometimes we'll snap a photo and send it to each other. And I was like, oh, man, I thought you were going to be watching the eclipse. He's like, nah, this is better. I'm like, all right.

So, wait, but let me understand this. So he was – had he just completely moved on from the eclipse conversation?

Yeah, we were talking about the eclipse thing yesterday. And then this morning I get a text from him, and he's just thinking of me because he's at Jersey Mike's, a place we both respect.

But he wasn't – so, in other words, he wasn't intentionally – No. Like, he wasn't kind of head –

faking you he wasn't giving you the play action on this being like Andrew's gonna think that I'm in some interesting place for the eclipse but guess what I'm in a Jersey Mike's he he had fully moved on to the Jersey Mike's discourse and just wanted to let you know hey I'm at our favorite

sandwich spot exactly right and I just like I wake up in the morning and like it's just eclipse this eclipse that so everything I'm thinking about is sort of like through that filter so I assume when I get and I'm hearing a lot about Cleveland and people in that area being very excited and so when I see a text from my dad on the day of the eclipse saying, hey, guess where we are? I expect him to be in the metro parks or something. Now, it was still a couple of hours away at that point anyway. And I think that it's going to hit there a little bit later, even when you consider time zones. But yeah, I thought it was really funny. I'm like, oh, yeah, no, I thought you were looking at the eclipse, but you're just looking at a number 13 with jalapenos.

I have to tell you, Andrew, I'm not even kidding. here at the madrona hill studio even 10 minutes into this i am seeing a little bit of an eclipse yeah like i had i was expecting exactly uh sort of nothing interesting to be happening with this as far as what i was able to see it's kind of happening here like just the lower right corner right now of the sun which again i don't know if i should be looking at this with this particular setup but i'm just doing it uh there is cloud cover in front of the sun but you can see uh the sun i also picked the overly long thus thus back zarathustra um but i can actually see the lower right like the southeastern corner of the sun right now Has a little like There's a dark spot Another thing I realized this morning That I didn't know before I watched some kind of animations Of the eclipse And I always thought of it as being You've got the sun and then the moon just moves Kind of right in front of it But it sort of moves around So it'll kind of dip in And be blocking some of it And then it'll kind of migrate around It's not just like a You know, it's not just like a viewfinder where the thing just goes, and it just covers it completely. It kind of does it in this weird movement that I wasn't really aware of, which is also sort of interesting.

It's a cosmic dance, Luke. It's a cosmic dance. That's kind of how I like to think of it. Yeah.

But no, I'm actually pretty, oh, well, you know what? Now it's behind some serious clouds. So that may have been the extent of my viewing party from here in southern Washington. But I'm actually excited I got to see that much of it.

Yeah, I would be too. I'm a little jealous. I mean, when I just got up and looked out my window and what I see is a human door cut into the side of our garage and still the big piece of wood that was removed to create that door that is still leaning up against the garage because we don't have a truck and I don't know how to get rid of it. But, yeah, I'm a little jealous. It's nothing out there but gray skies.

I will keep – I mean, we've still got a good 45 minutes before this thing hits its maximum here in the Northwest. And so I will be continuing to monitor that situation. In the meantime, I have a fun announcement. Or maybe update is the word. The TBTL Little Sluggers this weekend took to the field against the Fire Pumas, Andrew. That seems like an unfair matchup already. That seems like a team that was definitely named by the players.

what's scarier than a puma well a fire puma until the fire kills the puma there's a just

there's a sweet spot where that's the most terrifying puma there is and then it's like well you you you kind of you owned yourself puma you lit yourself on fire i was scared of you for

a while but now i just wish you and your family well problem that sort of took care of itself it

did uh the tbtl junior sluggers defeated the fire pumas 5-0 and oh my god a shutout it in an uh eight and nine year old ball if that is the age group i'm gonna go back and double check that uh at this level i mean i was texting ben one of the coaches of the tbtl junior sluggers i was like how do you even get a shutout at this is that even allowed i would assume that maybe We spot everyone a couple of runs just, you know, just out of, I don't know, out of sportsmanship or something. I asked Ben what the junior sluggers' keys to the game were. And he said, after struggling in the early innings, our batters got much more selective and started swinging only at strikes. Oh, nice. We strung together. Controls his own. Yeah, exactly. We strung together. Let me get my special music here. We strung together eight hits in the fourth inning. Our pitchers are consistently able to get the ball over the plate. At this level, Andrew, that's huge. Honestly, at the major league level, that's huge. I'm looking at you, Emerson Palmer. Emerson Hancock. Emerson Lake and Hancock.

Emerson Lake and Hancock. I was literally screaming at the radio yesterday, Mercy Rule! Mercy Rule! As we were down at 1.10-1, I believe.

You're referring, of course, to the professional Seattle Mariners, not the TBTL Junior Sluggers, who are currently 1-0 after a dazzling, after just an absolute gem of a game, beating the Fire Pumas 5-0. Incredible.

Love it. Waiting for their pitches. I love that. In fact, I'm willing to send Munoz down to the TBTL Junior Sluggers level if he needs to kind of work some things out.

big question by the end of the season who will have more errors the tv chill junior sluggers who again are young young children or the seattle mariners who are professional baseball players and and errors don't even begin to cover it because a stat that's harder to pin down are

just missed opportunities like yeah do you know yeah that that that game i keep on hearing people talk about this amazingly bananas game that the mariners played i think it was i don't know thursday of last week or friday of last week no it was the day game so it was wednesday it doesn't matter either way it was just like embarrassing it was embarrassing on every level and everybody keeps on talking about the errors in that game and the thing is there were no official errors it was just it was just a mockery of the sport it's a mockery of a sham of two um yeah so the

the bad news is the seattle mariners uh are kind of going into the darkest timeline uh that we could have imagined where none of it works it was like well the pitching will be good can the hitting worker the hitting might be good and the pitching might fall off no all of it's bad right now but the tbtl junior sluggers are undefeated and honestly the hopes of a nation now ride with

them so um shout out to our team schedule like do you know when the next game is that's a great

question of a need to know basis kind of situation um yeah it's often they don't reveal the other

team or the location until the day of you have to be very careful so um but i'll uh i'll keep you

posted on that i'm gonna be out of town again this weekend so i don't know if i if the if the game is this week i'll try to make it down there if it's this weekend i'm gonna be a scratch for that but honestly maybe me maybe none of us being there is the lucky thing i mean that's a pretty

hot start five zero yeah maybe but i love the idea of being a problem in the stands i've never had that opportunity before oh you have somebody i've been to a game with you oh that's actually true shit no i've been a problem for the people around me at a major league baseball game but But I've never had the opportunity to be like, you know, I don't take it to the youth level, take it to the youth level, just like scream at umpires like the thrill of screaming. Come on blue at an accountant who is just trying to call balls and strikes as a favor for his brother in law has always been a dream of mine.

Our friend John Goodwin and I were trying to do a story last year about that exact thing, which is the dearth of Little League Baseball umpires because parents are getting so, so competitive these days. Yeah, yeah. And it's just a thankless job to try to call these youth games sometimes, and it's so intense. I mean, I promise you, at no time during my Little League career did my parents, A, come to a game, or B, come to a game and then excoriate the umpire. It just used to be the kind of thing where you paid someone $25, they put on a chest protector, and they showed up, you know? Now it's like you're in the—

They put out their cigarette. They put on their chest protector. Put out their cigarette, maybe.

And often didn't. Truth be told, like Greenwood Boys and Girls Club Rec League, Seattle 1984. I mean, they might have the guy might had two heaters in during the game, but like it just was a low, low stakes thing. And now there's there there are such there's such pressure on these players and sometimes on these officials that it's really hard to get people to agree to come be the umpires because they don't want to get yelled at, which is reasonable.

Yeah, exactly, which is why I like – well, obviously, I like our team for a lot of reasons, but I'm really glad we got to sponsor this team too because it doesn't seem like we are dealing with a level of baseball where people are taking it too seriously yet. We're not having – I'm assuming we're not having blowouts between parents and umpires.

Can I share an offline conversation online that you and I had?

Oh, I assume. Does that have to do with my feet?

No, it does not. And also, you can edit this out. But something that you literally said when we were talking about sponsoring a little league team, you and John and I was you were like, I believe you're you're sort of your vote was let's try to.

find an age range where it's fun and the kids are doing something that sort of resembles baseball but not an age range where i believe you said that they're little assholes you didn't want you didn't want us sponsoring a team that had a hyper competitiveness to it and a like a personal like you know coach like the hitting coach the personal swing coach is showing up to check on if the kid is putting into place the fundamentals that they've been practicing you know at the um at the facility where the hitting coach teaches you know i mean other words there is a level of competitiveness now to youth sports that's just kind of off the charts and i'm not telling anyone how to parent and i'm telling any kid how to be a kid but it would be less fun for us as a silly little podcast if the team we were sponsoring was if it was that serious like this is a good amount of seriousness that we're dealing with right now timmy just got back from driveline he's i was i was trying to remember andrew driveline which is where every single major league player now is spending their time i believe that's down in like south seattle

somewhere right oh is it i didn't know that it was in this part of the country i i also get it confused with the place where the pitchers go is that oh there's not the same place they might be i'm not sure like i remember trevor bauer that driveline baseballs in kent oh interesting i didn't realize that it had a local connection as well but yeah that's where everybody goes to like like the professionals go to like just tweet like scientifically tweak their their skills but um yeah i do i gotta say though i think you mostly um portrayed or recreated my attitude pretty well here but once you said a-hole i'm like the tbtl junior a-holes is also sort of like that's also that could be a different team down the line like our bowling team or something maybe with the

The listeners want to start a bowling league or something, bowling team.

That would be fun. Oh, man, no problem.

But I am, yeah, no, I'm with you. This is a really good, I think we've gotten lucky that this is exactly the right amount of competition. We want everyone to be having fun. We want everyone to feel good about having participated. And that includes both teams. We just want the Junior Sluggers to feel a little better about participating at the end. And they're starting off hot at 5-0. So, oh, you know, I don't know if this really matters now because we still have to play the audio of the last time there was a complete solar eclipse. But I just wanted to say a quick shout out, not even a shout out, a quick word of advice, unsolicited though it may be, to the American Airlines Corporation. So when I flew to Iowa this weekend, I was using American Airlines. That's not my use, but they are part of the One World Alliance, Andrew.

How did that get by every department? The One World Alliance sounds like the most threatening thing to any uncle on Facebook. Can't you see? Well, you know, they're all part of the One World Alliance.

Delta already had the Illuminati Mileage Club.

And I believe so bananas every time they say the One World Alliance.

Are you not a United Globalist member yet, Andrew? i think spirit airlines has the reptilian lizard people right they all fly through denver airport that's the one thing lucifer they have secret meetings inside of lucifer yeah yeah but um yes american airlines is part of is part of the new world order uh along with uh alaska airlines and so uh there weren't there weren't any good alaska flights to get me to cedar rapids iowa and then onto Iowa City. So I ended up on American, which I have a little bit of, I'm getting a little bit of preferential treatment. Like I can kind of get a slightly better seat in coach, but I'm not in the upper echelon of whatever their little world is, which is fine. But this was the thing that I was really surprised by in both directions. So we flew from Portland to Chicago and then on a smaller plane from Chicago to Cedar Rapids and then very early on Sunday morning from Cedar Rapids back up to chicago and then back out to portland and this chicago connection when we came out our flight took off from portland on time we land in chicago and i look at my phone and i see that our flight to cedar rapids out of o'hare is boarding our plane has landed and we weren't running late like this was not a situation where something had gone wrong with our initial flight We were on schedule and the flight lands and we're taxiing. And I looked down and I'm like, okay, your flight is now boarding for Cedar Rapids. I was like, Ooh, now I knew I was going to make it because I was pretty close to the front of coach. So I had a pretty clear exit path and I didn't check any bags. So I wasn't really freaked out, but I was like, this, I was like, this is cutting it. And we had, there was other folks from live wire that were all in different parts of the plane. And I was like, well, I'm going to have to, including our house band. our producer melanie so i was like i'm gonna have to like if i if i need to like you know sort of stand in the door samson like keeping it from shutting until we have the whole livewire crew on here that's what i'm gonna do because like otherwise and in fact a couple of the bands that were that were part of this festival were all everybody was running from different places to get to this flight mercifully everybody got on the flight the flight took off it was fine Well, on the way home, Cedar Rapids to Chicago, we land in Chicago. Again, the flight, I think, might have been early. And the young girl next to me, maybe in her 20s, is really agitated. She's checking her watch a bunch. Well, there's two things that I thought were, there was two things interesting about this. One was, I was in the elevator at the hotel. This was very early. This was like four in the morning, right? We had a very early flight. Four in the morning. I'm bleary-eyed. I have my luggage. Sunday morning I hit I'm on the seventh floor of the hotel I hit floor one it goes down and then the doors open and I go to take a step out and there's a woman and her daughter and her adult daughter and they're standing there and they're going is this your floor and I go oh I'm sorry

I thought I was trying to get off at one um because uh I go I just didn't think there'd be anybody else taking the elevator at this hour and she goes yeah she gets in we go down to the first floor we leave whatever I get to my flight I sit down in my seat 8a the girl from the elevator is in the seat next to me and i thought well that's a coincidence and i just said oh hey that's funny we were in the elevator together looks at me no response so that's fine we you know we just basically did the rest of the flight like it wasn't i don't i don't know what was going on exactly but it was i i thought it was a bigger coincidence than this person did so that was fine we and it

also like it's kind of a kind of a coincidence but also one of those well a coincidence that make sense right the reason why why are we all up at four in the morning we're all going to a same exact time going to the same airport going to the same flight the fact that you're sitting next to each other was it is a big coincidence yeah that's can we just stop though before you rush on let's examine this awkward moment for a moment not not that it sounds like it might not have been awkward like she literally did could she have had like uh i want to say this word right could she have had air pods on under her hair or something that you didn't maybe see she didn't

give me no response she went oh or something like she she heard me and it wasn't a negative response what it was was she was less blown away by it than i was yeah sure right probably owing to being 24 years old and having uh her whole life in front of her uh none of which and i was certainly was not looking to strike up a conversation i you know i'm i'm perfectly happy to uh to sit there with my airpods in and uh very likely overpay for access to tiktok for the following hour of the flight or whatever so it i wasn't like it didn't it didn't ruin my morning but i guess i was i thought it was a kind of a big coincidence that we were literally seated next to each other

and frankly a younger person should be more excited about that because they've seen less of the world than exactly and also we've seen more coincidences thank you i thought she should

have been blown away and also she's getting to see a person who's not going to be here forever That's like seeing some kind of an endangered creature in the wild, me.

Here's how I like to see this going down. Like, hey, that's funny. We were on the elevator together. She looks at you and says, huh. And then you say, you know, I'm going to die soon. Yeah. And just see if that gets any more of a response out of her. Just normal stuff.

Could everybody take your headphones off? I'm going to die soon.

I'm of advanced age. Yeah, that would make everybody comfortable. This plane is never taking off.

i can sky jinx i could just see the i could see the tiktok chad hauled off of point total chad carried off of american airlines flight in cedar rapids so uh whatever we we land and again i the the the person sitting next to me she she starts like fidgeting with her phone and being very kind of like and she's looking at her phone and she's like she does it this is what i thought was interesting is is i wasn't trying to be her bestie but i was surprised it was almost like she was actively trying to not interact with me because she looks at her phone and then she grabs a flight attendant and she says our our flight our other flight is is boarding in three minutes flight is like okay well try to you know do what we can i i guess this also would have been a time when it would not have been crazy to me for this person to look at me and go like i don't know if we're gonna make this flight because believe me i've got theories and thoughts this is something i deal with a lot but uh why would this person assume that your guys are both trying to catch the same connect i just feel like it's a conversation that i've had many many times on flights when the flight is taxiing oh man my flight lounges my flight boards in like 15 minutes ah crap there's also a thing that happens with flights which is i think You

This is very much human nature. A lot of us are much more comfortable having a brief conversation when the plane has landed. Yes. Because you know that at the worst, you have to have this conversation for maybe 10 minutes. Yes, you're not locking in. No, it's very nerve-wracking to start a conversation at the beginning of the flight because this may be your reality for the next four to five hours. I get not wanting to do that. there's this collective relief of when we're all there we're all about to leave and part ways so therefore a little small talk becomes less a little bit less weird but anyway i i left this this person alone but she was really i guess what it was what i wanted to say to her was but i didn't because i wasn't invited and that's fine i wanted to say you're probably going to be okay your flight boarding means you've got another 35 minutes before the thing is really critical Like your flight boarding does not mean that they're like not going to let you on the plane if you're five minutes after boarding. Boarding is kind of a loose concept anyway. I wanted to.

They're still letting dogs on who served in Desert Storm.

Exactly. Precisely. Mr. Mutton Chops, thank you for your service. So I kind of I felt like saying I didn't say that again. I'm not going to just like volunteer information to somebody who's. But she just kept like checking her phone. Then she was checking, like, the mapping, Google Maps to try to figure out how far the airplane was from the terminal, because it's O'Hare, so we're just like, we're somewhere near Schaumburg still, you know, taxiing, and she's trying to figure out the plane's GPS location as it relates to the gate, right? so this is and so then the second that the plane like it's not even stopped right it's like it's we're getting close though she's like out of her seat she's got her luggage down she's bombing past first class like this was a person who was very worried about making the next flight and my and and she was not alone andrew because i was in the front row of coach i was in eight eight uh row eight so i have my like little my bag and my little um suitcase that's up in the overhead and i stand up to grab it and i look and there are people that are literally shoulder bumping me this sounds like an exaggeration there is a it's like those um nature films when like water buffalo are trying to cross the stream and the serengeti at the same time so it's too difficult for the predators to get them or something that was like the exodus from this flight it was just people dead eyed straight ahead not they're not going to let you out to grab your stuff they because they are in panic mode because it turned out about 30 people on this flight were at least in their minds very close to missing their connecting flight all of which is to say american airlines you know me i'm usually big on like playing it fast and loose with this kind of stuff i'm usually like like i'll be annoyed if an airline wouldn't let me book connecting flights because like alaska airlines at last check they won't let you book a connection that's closer than 45 minutes oh interesting which is at times a little frustrating because it might mean you've got to be on a whole other flight but i'll tell you yeah i actually have some begrudging respect for it having seen what happens when you don't have those kind of rules where like everyone is about to miss their flight and freaking the frack out that was the thing the energy on that plane yesterday morning at like 7 20 a.m in chicago was tense you had a bunch of people whose entire trip was flashing before their eyes and they were going to be god darned if anyone was going to get out into the aisle and get their suitcase and stop them from their exodus from the plane it was a bad scene

well point of order here it was always my understanding and maybe this is just like maybe i just am wrong about this but i always thought that like to a certain degree if you're sticking with the same airline the airline has a bit of a beat on and and the and the flight crew has a bit of a beat yes as to if there's a big contingent of flyers who are trying to make a specific connection they can hold that plane they can be in communication and sometimes they'll even say like hey one of these planes you know hey everybody can you remain seated unless you have to make this connecting flight those of you trying to make this particular flight you can go first you know there's some courtesy there and i always thought that like if there's and if you you know are on there and your producers are on this is going back to your flight out but like you have i assume your band is krong bin so that's 20 people like whatever like you know your rep we know that on your flight going out there there's a clutch of people that are trying to make this connection you would hope that the airline would communicate to you that they see you and they're making you know some plans to make sure that you catch your flight but see that

i've totally had that experience when a flight is running late they'll really start getting on the on the PA system going, we know that they'll say a couple of things. One, they'll say.

just to let everyone know we have some passengers who have very tight connecting flights so if you could please let them get off the plane first that would be great and of course i totally do that and totally believe in that as a as a you know the spirit of community they'll also say sometimes like well we're gonna try we're gonna call those other flights and try to see if they can hold them etc but in both of these cases when we were trying to change planes in chicago and when this flight yesterday morning was in chicago in both cases the flights were on time so i don't think it even occurred to the flight crew to be getting into sort of like you know uh you know evasive action or whatever you want to call it because they everybody was the thing was the plane was on time the flight crew was everybody was behaving like everything was normal except the 30 people who were willing to fight anyone who delayed them getting off the flight and i was

like this is not a good system right now um flaming pumas wait who do we face exactly this weekend

The Fire Pumas.

The Fire Pumas.

And the Fire Pumas, they are out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. To be honest with you, it's not fair. They have to play. The amount of miles that the Fire Pumas have to travel every season is off. It's like the Seahawks. Yeah. Honestly, it's unfair. And I can't believe that they're making them play in Hamburg this year and then turn right around and play on Thursday night baseball in the Parkside Little League. It's almost like the league has something out for them. But anyway, that's all I wanted to say was American Airlines, you don't realize this but you have a bunch of people on your flights that are freaking out even when they're on time so you might want to might want to look at that whole system because

what do you what are you recommending to them though like are you saying the alaska airlines

i mean you guys are all in the illuminati together yeah what do you want better communication is that what you're saying put a put a put a limit on the you tell like you know what the uh how do i put this just basically don't let people book connecting flights that are more than closer

than 45 minutes together put a lock on that yeah that's you know me that's uh that's never

a um that's never a solution that i like because i want to be able to i want to be able to cut it really close and but and and get the flights that i want etc but honestly like i will say that with alaska airlines when they're on time you're never stressed out because they have this buffer thing That means you're going to be OK. It appears that American Airlines will let you book as long as the flights aren't like as long as your flight that you're connecting to isn't leaving before your plane lands. It seems like they'll let you do anything. And that actually turns out to be kind of a stressful system for the people who are trying to make their connections.

Yeah, no, I feel that. And I'm somebody who you will be unsurprised to hear or you already know from flying with me that I am, you know, the type of person who will start going through the worst case scenario, of course, be like, oh, no, I'm going to miss my flight. There have been so many times I've been nervous about missing my connecting flight in a situation like that, and I've probably, like, lost a lot of hair or gotten some gray hairs over that. I will say, though, I have been the victim of that before when it wasn't, like, technically our fault. Now, this happened earlier in my adult life, so I was probably, like, mid-20s. I remember it was a flight with a bunch of people down to the Outer Banks for, like, I think an extended weekend or something. And I just remember being so furious because, like, the airline did not apologize. They said, we booked these flights through the airline. We're going to catch this plane and then this one. And then you show up and you're like, where's our plane? And, like, it already took off. And it's like, but your plane was lit. Right. And there's, like, no, oh, yeah, we're sorry. That's the way. It was just kind of, like, this stern look of just, like, you want to get into it with us? You want to get into it with us? That we have already spent your money, but you're now stuck here in some.

Sir. Sir. Yes, sir.

Right. Exactly.

Sir, please don't use abusive language. What? Like, it was your plane. Sir.

right sir exactly i just remember and i was young and just like so frustrated to be like how is this the business model and like running through an airport to grab something else only to like wait for two hours for the next flight so i mean it does happen um but it probably happened to me once in my life but i've worried about it 150 i think i witnessed a version of it

taking the worst case scenario as i've already said today the darkest timeline yesterday in o'hare I had a bunch of time to kill because my my flight home to Portland was like three hours or so after I landed so I was just kind of wandering around the airport it's very unusual for me by the way I'm big on the direct flights and also on the getting there at the last minute I don't usually kill like three hours in an airport but I was like all right so I just kind of walked around and had a delicious breakfast torta at Frontera Grill in O'Hare and then I saw some folks doing that airport run and and they were like you know clearly like they're running and I look up ahead and I see where they're running and it's a gate it's an American flight uh American Airlines flight and it's going to Puerto Vallarta which is a pretty big that ain't like you're flying to Milwaukee you know from Chicago

Like, that's probably once a day. And these people are running. They got their bags. And it says, I can see the plane is there, but I can see the door is closed. And it says flight closed. And I'm just, I'm watching this whole thing unfold. And I wish I could say, Andrew, that I immediately sided with the people running for the plane. I did want them to be let on. but i was also kind of i had a sort of i don't know what the word is i watched it in the same way that i watch a true crime show with a certain amount of like a fascination that i don't feel good about because i was like my first thought was like did these people just plan poorly and now because they planned poorly they're going to get into it with the i also wondered if i was about to see an incident you know what i mean that was going to be like the kind of thing you might see on the internet later no i did not get my phone out i was not going to be the person taping it but i just wondered what we were going to see because it was one of those snapshot moments of the airplane is there the it looked like the jetway was still attached they had just closed the door these people are sprinting and i was like and everyone in the area sensed it we all sensed something was about to happen like we all sense that this is one of those exact moments of time where all of the forces of travel are kind of colliding in this moment because these people are going to ask the people to let them on the plane and those people are going to say no and it is going to be a shit show. We all kind of stopped, just like observe. And sure enough, the folks were like, the guy was kind of gesticulating and the passenger, the would-be passenger, and his female companion was a little bit more like, I think kind of, what's the word, resigned maybe. And I saw There was two gate agents And the one gate agent picks up the phone Is calling the flight And I'm like oh my god this is awesome This is happening And there's like this like Maybe two minute wait Which is like the longest two minutes of your life And the person I can see the male guy Kind of still gesticulating And I can kind of see the gate agent Kind of putting the hand out like okay hold on Hold on hold on and i'm just like i'm trying to employ uh apply my very best body language sort of reading like like okay it's the gate agent are they like they're kind of doing like a hold on hold on because they're like hold on hold on i got this for you hold on like what i'm trying to just really like diagnose the whole situation like hold on hold on hold on and then he's like takes the phone down and just like hangs it up and then he just points in a direction and the guy just goes

like he's like just kind of this is a bunch and he's just like kind of like pointing to the next gate that he's got to go to to rebook his tickets on another flight or something pointing to customer

service yeah at first i was like are these people not even at the right gate that's crazy then i realized nope he's pointing towards and andrew i've been that guy would you um would you would you think that the line at customer service was very short or maybe very long i mean and the guy Was so was upset he wasn't Upset in an inappropriate way he wasn't Being threatening but he was so mad And he I could see him just like holding the cell phone up To his ear and I mean if there isn't A more impotent move In adult in modern Life of you're walking Towards the customer service to get rebooked but you're Also trying to call the 1-800 number to see If you can jump the line online And I have to be honest With you it didn't even occur to me even though I had Just witnessed it on my flight it's

very possible these people did nothing wrong i was gonna say that yeah and that's probably why

the guy was so mad because exactly what you're talking about himself right yeah i kind of had my popcorn like you know oh some people that employed bad like i told you i sort of like watching those videos of people coming back to the cruise ship that's pulling away because they were like spent too long walking around the town even though they were told a million times you have to be back at the dock at this point those and now people will come out on the cruise ships and they'll wave to the people which is haterade of the highest order but i kind of get it this was i kind of had my popcorn out like oh what am i watching but now that i think about it i think i was just watching two passengers get completely and totally boned on this deal yes they probably flew there on an american flight that was running late or that didn't get them there in time to get to this flight and as far as we know may still be in

Chicago. Might still be in Chicago. Yeah. Yeah I mean I would say it's probably 50-50 you know at the very best. I mean Puerto Vallarta pretty far away

that's all the way down there. Yeah

the Milwaukee of Mexico as they call it

They certainly do We was hoping for some razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle That's right man razzle dazzle

On your mark. On your mark. Get set Get set. Now ready Thank you.

All right, let's thank some dazzling donors. These are the incredible, generous folks that are making TV Teal possible with their donation of a dazzling amount of dough. Oh, look who it is. Keith Stone in Libertyville, Illinois. That's got to be somewhere not too far from the from the eclipses, you know, a path of totality.

Yeah, that's a good point. Speaking of which, it might not be far from O'Hare either.

Those people might be staying with Keith, those people that couldn't go to Puerto Vallarta. It's about 11.19 a.m. here in the PNW in southern Washington. Let me, Andrew, see if I can get eyes on the latest with the, okay. I'm looking up at the, the thing is the clouds really are moving across the sun here such that there are times when it's totally obscured and then times where it's actually kind of fully visible. So I'm trying to see, because we're almost at the maximum here, right?

Yeah, this is supposed to be peak time here. We're like 10 minutes away from the peak time, which would be like 1130, I think. And I'll tell you this. You stuck your head outside there.

What are you seeing?

Yeah, I walked fully outside and looked up at the sky. And this is kind of shocking, but it would appear that the sun has exploded. It is pure blackness out there. I still think you should post the show. There were these four horses that were on fire that kind of like riding across the sky. I don't know if you've ever seen anything like that before, what scientists call that. But it was really disturbing, honestly.

Hold on. I'm texting Neil deGrasse Tyson. I am here not able to see anything particularly compelling. But I'm going to keep checking throughout this. Although the sunglasses do make it more difficult for me to read the donor message. Yeah, the double sunglasses.

I will say that in all seriousness, yeah, I just I fully walked outside and it's just like it's just total gray cloud cover. Like, I don't even know where the sun is up there. I was like just trying to look for the brightest part of the sky. But I wasn't wearing sunglasses because I do not need them.

Keith says, I love this show and the community within. I've been hooked since I heard Luke on Wait Wait when he was guest hosting for Peter and I followed him over to TBTL. Thank you, Keith. I think I've mentioned this on the show before, but some years ago I asked Mike Danforth, hey, am I ever going to be the fill-in host again? He said, probably not. So I'm glad you heard the one time they let me, Keith.

I also like the clear answer. They could have strung you along and been like, yeah, well, maybe we're trying various people out. We'd like to keep you in the rotation and then just never call you. But they're like, no, don't wait by your phone.

I still have never figured out what it was. I don't believe it or not. I don't think it was performance based. I mean, it might have been. But what happened was I was sort of the I'd filled in as host and was a panelist, did the Bryant Park Project radio show, quit NPR unceremoniously, was kind of blacklisted there by the powers that be, was not even allowed to be on Wait, Wait at all. And then those powers that be got fired. And then the Wait, Wait folks were like, yeah, we can have you back on. and that somehow the terms of coming back on never included, oh, and also you might be one of the fill-in hosts. I'm not sure. Again, I'm just glad that it at least got Keith on board with the program. Keith says, I love the TBTL holiday group card, the Stens page, the friends I've met on social media. I'm even happy to report that I've met a few friends in real life that also listen to the show. Shout out to you, John D from Libertyville. We've got two listeners in

Libertyville? Whoa, let's

call it tb cellaville liberty liberty libertyville bibertyville yeah we've got two listeners in bibertyville that's amazing i listen to the shows at work and while i'm busy in the leather barn making bags and other creations yeah heath has um a business where he does leather work and i've been to the website i've it's amazing it's incredible stone stone craft leather it's called you know exactly right let's see I share pictures and funny memes on the gram it means the world to me when my TBTL buddies follow along and encourage me shout out to all the tens who support Stonecraft leather so yeah if you're not following Stonecraft leather on Instagram go do that right now that's our friend Keith Stone's operation I'm currently in the process of creating a website it's still under construction but if this message is read in late March or April and if the good lord is willing and the creeks don't rise it's going to be stonecraft leather dot com it might just be up and running please go check it out no mountain too tall and go eat a bagel it is

oh sorry go ahead

this is the second biggest reveal today the first being is the solar eclipse going to be visible here and the second being is stonecraft leather dot Thank you. up and running, and you're saying, Andrew, it sounds like it absolutely is?

Yeah, sorry to step on the buildup there, but, you know, I mean, I'm a producer at heart.

You're saying looking at me, you didn't know if I had this under control?

You think I'm going to, like, put a dazzling donor in here until everything is ship-shape and ready to go? Oh, I see. You'd pre-checked. It is ready to go. StoneCraftLeather.com. Sorry for destroying the anticipation and buildup you were going through there, Luke.

Um, well, first of all, you're forgiven. Second of all, holy smokes. This is a great website. And it's brand new.

It's got that new website smell.

I can smell the leather. That smell of new leather coming off the Stonecraft Leather website. Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, look at this satchel. Are you looking at that satchel?

I sure am. I'm in the market for a new satchel, actually, because I bought this other one that was made of... Have you ever seen this ballistic nylon situation? Have you heard of this?

No, that scares me for some reason.

They really love it in a certain kind of luggage context. They love to tell you that it's ballistic nylon. Toomey uses this a lot. And I got this other kind of fancy bag that's ballistic nylon. But I just noticed the other day that it doesn't – the thing about a bag that's not leather, it doesn't patina the same way. Like leather just kind of gets cool and has a patina. My ballistic nylon is just getting kind of raggedy ass. Sorry, Keith, I used raggedy ass during your dazzling donor message.

Leather goods, some denim, and cast iron skillets, all things that get better with use and age. I love it.

And Keith Stone. He also gets better with age. Exactly, yes. He's been supporting the show forever. Thank you, Keith. Appreciate you. Maestro?

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody rattle. Sounds like somebody saw an eclipse.

It's happening. Sounds like somebody's seeing 15% of an eclipse Oh man, it's so cool Now it's gone from, I told you it was the southeast quadrant of the sun Now it's the southwest quadrant of the sun Where I am is blocked Now listen, we've got folks, by the time this airs Who will have seen the totality And, you know, we get it, okay You're better than us But for me here in humble old southern Washington It's actually still pretty cool

I'm going to look for round things in my drawer that I can sort of recreate. Just to play along at home. I got a fidget spinner. What can I block out the fidget spinner with? I need like a coffee lid. That was exciting. I know. I'm seriously a little. I mean, I literally just went outside and looked up. I mean, just like literally nothing. And I'm kind of jealous. I wanted to see something.

Yeah. It's almost as big a deal as Madeline Kanai sponsoring the program in Chester, New Jersey what up Madeline I'm going to put you on the spot no I'm not going to put you on the

spot I'm not going to ask you this I'm asking rhetorically okay did they used to live in uh

hold on Andrew yeah let me take my glasses off for this oh you're oh you took them both off I

thought you're gonna take off one oh yeah that would have been a funnier bit actually I feel like I feel like I met Madeline and um Madeline in in oh no Madeline in Arizona like the French cookie. Wait. Oh, there it is. Oh, okay. But wait a sec. Is the French

cookie a Madeline or a Madeline?

I don't know how you say the name of the cookie. Hey, Madeline

or Madeline. We're not we're not. What are we? Proust? We ain't highfalutin over here. We don't know how the cookie is pronounced.

I'm trying to figure this out. Genevieve speaks French. Saying like the French cookie

that indicates a world in which we know how the French cookie is pronounced.

Yeah, I'm looking it up. Can I get to the dictionary? But anyway, I was going to say, I thought that we met in Arizona, but I might be thinking of somebody else. And I guess that's awkward if I am thinking of somebody else. But I swear we've met before. And anyway, thank you so much for being a dazzling donor is my point.

Absolutely. Madeline or Madeline says, what can I say about you three bros? Whoa. What happened? I don't know.

What are you doing there? This is what's happening.

Madeline.

Madeline? That's how it says, Madeline, a small rich cake typically baked in a shell shaped mold and often decorated with coconut and jam.

Madeline.

That is, I've literally never heard it as Madeline.

Madeline.

Madeline? Well, you know what happens? If one of these desserts is also super dramatic, it's a maudlin Madeline.

What can I say about you three bros, Luke, Andrew, and John, that hasn't been said before? You're the constant in the queue of pods in my podcatcher and one of the best parts of my day because I can't wait to hear what Andrew and Luke have to say about current events. I have to make sure I'm not drinking anything when I listen to you because your hot takes reduce me to guffaws and snorts. Aw. That's really nice of you. Thanks for saying that, M. That's how we'll be referring to this. Madeline. Thanks, Madeline. I feel like that can't be right, though. I'm not sure. It's the dictionary. Madeline. Madeline.

i mean i'm with you i'm i'm lacking all confidence here for one change hey look what i got i got two um i got two i save tbtl coins and i'm just gonna i'm gonna recreate my own um yeah put on your sunglasses before you look at this yeah no it's i'm recreating my own eclipse right here look at

that but look it moves around it's a cosmic dance wow that's amazing hold on let me play the the music for it? Yeah, please. Okay, here we go. I mean, honestly, take that Science Friday. This is the only eclipse coverage that you need on a Monday.

That was so just for you and me. Oh, no. No, no, no. This is going directly to the internet, Andrew.

And for once, I stand by it.

There's your Eclipse coverage, 2024. We did it.

We did it, Joe. TBTL has kept me company through the last 15 years of my life, and through everything, you've kept me sane and centered. Thanks for being my friendly pocket companions. TBTL is more than a pod card. It's a community of kind and thoughtful people in a world of uncertainties and, at times, darkness. Maybe never more than today. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about? Depending on where you might be.

Don't stay in my house if you're dork-sided.

I'm thrilled you're thriving and independent, and I don't want to sound patronizing. This is the second dazzling donor message of late where somebody has prefaced it by saying, I don't want to sound patronizing. I remember that. But they're proud of us. And I'll say what we said last time, patronize away. Yeah, exactly. If you're proud of us.

Tell us more how you guffaw.

Honestly, if you're proud of it, we'll take it. We will absolutely take all of your patronizing pride in us. But I'm really proud of you three that you took on this endeavor. You've done a brave thing, and I hope you're reminded every day of how much good you put into the world. Thank you, friendos. What you do is important. Well, M, I want to say what you do is important because without donations like the ones that you have been making, we could not do this. I could not afford two pairs of sunglasses to narrate the eclipse from here in southern Washington. I mean, so everything that you said very nicely about us, please reflect it right back onto yourself. Yes. Because we're only here because of you. So thank you. And I promise if you can continue supporting the program, we will figure out how to say your name by next year's Dazzling Donor Messages.

Madeline.

hello and welcome to top story so we have been talking a ton about this eclipse uh situation today and of course we did what was it between four and seven years ago we did actually yes record a whole show related to this last time um and i was curious kind of like what it sounded like and how bowled over we were, Andrew, by the actual moment of not totality where we were, but most most totality. I mean, my thought going in and this has been now I've been very much disabused of this notion, because for one thing, Becca and her family, Becca grew up in Salem, Oregon. And it turns out this last time it was in the U.S. back in 2017, the Salem, Oregon was one of the places that had the kind of totality. and they all got together on the family property and people camped out and they watched it and to hear her describe what it was like and to hear other people who saw the complete 100% eclipse describe what it was like, they talk about it with a reverence and with like a, like, it's one of those things where 87% eclipse is not 87% of the experience and I get the sense that even 95% is not 95% of the experience. It was either you got 100% of it and it changed your life or you're everyone else. Have you gotten that kind of sense in talking to people in the years since?

Honestly, not so much, but I haven't—

Well, that's because you don't talk to people.

I don't talk to people about eclipses. It's true. That's like I do talk to people, but—

Politics and eclipses. Yes. It's just you don't get into it.

I have boundaries because, you know, then you're—you know, it can slip into other stuff.

Worst Thanksgiving ever. Mm-hmm.

you okay you said worst you said worst thanksgiving ever and i just chuckled because i wasn't sure

where we were going with that oh just because you know they say you don't talk about politics and religion right family get together so yeah but anyway um no i mean to finish my thought

in all seriousness no i i kind of did not get that impression that you're talking about but it makes sense i did and because i'm a big you know

We'll be right back. And I'm the kind of person who there's the experience that I'll have, but then there's the me thinking about the experience I'm going to have and planning it and then reflecting on the experience I had. And so this was one of those ones where I thought, well, we're getting most of it. Whatever. We'll go get in a boat. We'll try to make a bit out of it. We'll bring the dog. It was fine. But like you kind of mentioned at the beginning of the show, the big plot line from this day really wasn't because it was in August. But the big takeaway from August 21st of 2017 was while trying to get the boat, the motorboat, out of the side yard of my house in Bellingham, the Burbank Springs Broadcast Center, and down to the water to put it in, I just like nailed this planter. And as I used the term many times on this episode of the show, tacoed it, just completely blew up this wood-raised planter bed. And so I had a lot on my mind, I realize now listening back to this episode, that had nothing to do with us actually observing the eclipse because I knew that-

That happened first, huh? I misremembered that. I thought you were returning the boat back at home when you hit the planter, so it happened first. I do, you know, now that you talk about it, I'm remembering more. I also remember getting a little bit, there was some anxiety about getting the boat into the water after all of that too, yeah.

Well, there were many problems. One, the tabs on the trailer for the boat were wildly expired.

Oh, right, right.

So that would have been a bad thing if we got pulled over because I also don't have a boating license, which I don't know if that would have been relevant to this or not. But also, yeah, there was the fact that this big raised wood planter had been totally destroyed, and that was not yet addressed with my wife at the time. So that was like, kind of like, I knew that was going to be a conversation when we got back. Then there was the backing the boat into the water. There are whole YouTube pages that are just dedicated to laughing at people who are trying to back their boats into the water at the, at the boat ramp, because it's one of those things that once you know how to do it, when you're good at it, it's just super easy and straightforward. but if you if you lose your confidence for even a second it can be catastrophic it doesn't it shouldn't be as complicated as it is you're just backing down something but there's because of the fact that the boat trailer goes in like when you turn to the left the boat trailer goes to the right there's like a weird counterintuitiveness to it there's also the fact that there's often a line of other people waiting to put their boat in so there's this pressure it's just and i'm just not great at it so there was a lot going on and again none of it related to watching the eclipse and by the time we finally actually got out there in the water we uh called genevieve on a terrible

phone line i don't know oh gosh was she at the university she was at the u-dub yeah and like i

don't know i don't understand what the technology was but like every like only 20 of what she was saying was even audible i don't know if it's because we were out floating in the bay and we didn't have a good cell service or because too many people are on their phones at the UW. I don't know what was going on. The dog was there. Um, and I was trying to make her wear the sunglasses, which she wouldn't for a photo op. Anyway, here's the exact moment. And I, I, I'm trying to stress this. This is, you want to talk about like, you know, they talk about going out with a bang. This is really going out with a whimper. This is the exact moment of the, the, the maximum occlusion

that we were going to see well um i think that i think we're at the moment i think we're there i think we're at the at the max oh god occlusion don't are those white walkers

wow oh my god this is it's actually oh yeah we made a lot of jokes about the apocalypse um i i i don't i think i cut it out but i literally explained to the audience that i grew up in a very religious household i don't know if i don't know what was going on in 2017 that I didn't think the listeners knew that about me by now. But like, I was, you loved it. I know your kind of brand on the show is regretting how you sounded on the program, Andrew. But I never feel that way because I never listen back to the show.

Oh, they're going to say because you never miss.

No, because I never hear the show. But in this case, because I went back to listen to it, I was mortified. I was talking to the listeners like they had never heard what a Luke Burbank is before. It was a level of explanation that was so unnecessary.

And maybe this is ironic to say now, given how you're setting up this tape as being less than overwhelming. You might even say underwhelming. But is there a chance that because we were putting so much production into this and going out into the water, you thought, hey, this might be something that attracts new listeners. Or somebody might listen to this and not other shows because we're doing something special here.

I'm going to give myself the benefit of the doubt and say yes

Yeah, you should

But it definitely was

When I listened back to it last night, I was like, why in the world did I need to explain to people that I was afraid of the rapture growing up or that I, you know, but there was a lot of, yeah, it was, in fact, I think I might even, I might say it in this clip. I don't know. I tried to, I tried to shorten this up and tighten this up a little bit. I'm not sure what I left in or what I cut out.

It is getting more and more slivery, isn't it? The sun.

Yeah. You know, if I was a little kid watching this. Here we go. I would, if I was. Oh, yeah, good. We're going to get to hear me explaining to the audience that I grew up very religious. If I was a little kid named Luke Burbank growing up in the 80s in Seattle like I did, I would be pretty afraid of this because I grew up with a very real sense that the world was going to end in any moment. You know, my parents are super religious and like I – there was actually a – I remember there's a line in the book of Revelation about the moon turning to blood. Oh. And like we would do home Bible study and I don't know why they decided we should really – let's deep dive on the book of Revelation. Yeah. But I, I mean, I remember as a kid, many nights falling asleep or trying to fall asleep and thinking about the moon turning to blood and thinking about the, you know, basically the rapture happening. And the question was if you were pre-trib or post-trib, because that was like the Christians are going to get taken up. But are they going to get taken up? It's just such an interesting thing we're doing here, Andrew, because you can if you're wearing headphones like I am, you can just hear in the background the water lapping the sides of the boat. but like there's very little about us being in the water that is in any way useful to this audio like we also have a dog in the boat with us a dog wearing sunglasses like i i i endangered my you know driver's license going down to the water uh i destroyed part of the burbank springs homestead uh all this stuff was going on for the sort of subtle lapping of water in the background that no one except me is even picking up like this was so much work to create something that was so

forgettable is there more i mean i i feel like you're being a little bit hard on yourself like maybe maybe we didn't lean into the um the the sort of environment enough maybe we could have done more audio wise but like you you were setting this up like oh i went into all this detail about how i grew up in a religious household you're making a point relevant to what we're seeing we've got a lot of new listeners and you even said as you know or you said like you you you quickly referred back to the fact you know i grew up in a religious household like that wasn't over explaining anything i think you're being a little i do sound like i need to blow my nose i

don't know if it's seasonal allergies in august or what's going on but i sound very stuffed up in this tape but before the tribulation are they gonna have to go through the tribulation and then and i was really not into being tortured or being part of something called the tribulation when I was a little kid.

Yeah, yeah, no. Your parents were, did they ever utter the phrase, we like to study this book because it's the most metal of all the books? It is the most metal of all the books. That's a pretty good joke,

by the way. Honestly.

Yeah. Here, let's reset up this tape. I'm going to play some tape of the Eclipse where Andrew was really on fire, man.

He was just nailing it. Here we go, Mara. So, yeah, this is the kind of thing I would have definitely been like, like I was a kid who grew up thinking that barcodes were the beginning of the Mark of the Beast being put on us? Do you know this? No. There was a period of time in our church where we were like, it starts with the barcodes, and then they start putting the barcodes. Then you have to get the barcode tattooed on you, and that is the Mark of the Beast. Little did I know at that time that it would just be becoming an Alaska Airlines member is actually how officially you integrate yourself into the one world order and become marked with the Beast. Mine is just my gold 75K number.

I like hearing the water in the background. You can tell that we're out of the studio. I don't know if we're going to get into this in the tape. I feel like I've already, like, kind of ruined other things that you've been trying to set up. But I did want to say that I mentioned this earlier. When you mentioned Rudy was there, Rudy the dog, I was like, oh, that's right. And that helped me, like, kind of remember the situation more. And I think my biggest takeaway from the day, and I hope that I'm not ruining the tape here. my biggest takeaway from the day was when rudy um i think laid down on my feet oh that's not in the table dogs will do okay good like one of my favorite things is when like a dog will lean on you or if a dog will accidentally step on your toe and just like not move it you know or when the dog is so comfortable with you that in this case rudy would like curl up and she laid down on my like kind of on my feet and just like late and then that was like that that made it all

worthwhile for me and the listeners this explains why we have such radically different memories of this because you were just you were you were just like um riding along in a toyota 4runner and then getting in a boat and then a cute dog was sleeping on you i was like about to get arrested for driving uh unlicensed trailer no boat license gonna be about to get divorced because i mean ultimately it would prove to be the case um and like i just i think i think i was i was had the weight of the world on.

me all self-created and so wow speaking of the weight of the world we've got some oh is that the sun that's a military grade helicopter that i think i don't need my sunglasses for that oh my god andrew that is a low flying huey or actually maybe a tomahawk that sounds awesome yeah uh i don't really know there's there's fort lewis lewis to the north to well to the north of me and then I don't know what's going on south, where the next, like, Air Force operation is or base is. But there is probably four times a week that happens. And I'll say what I always say on the topic. We spend way too much money on the military, particularly on equipment. I don't think we – I don't agree with the military-industrial complex as it currently exists. But, god damn, those things are impressive. Yeah.

like they they do something inside my inside my chest and like that thing was like

I'm I'm sure I'm I'm misestimating it feels like it was a hundred feet over the studio I could

hear it and I could hear it loudly like I don't know how well that's gonna stick to I mean golly

but um uh so all right here's the uh here's the end of uh of this uh little you get a barcode tattooed on me right now that would just make my life even one percent easier I would do it Yeah, I know. In a heartbeat.

All you have to do is just, like, walk through and you don't have to pay for your hot dogs.

Well, now the hard part begins for us. Getting this boat back. You have the real trib. Back. Exactly. Getting this boat back on the trailer and then getting back home and then witnessing the damage that was done to the planter at the house all over again. So that was it. So I guess we're off to do that. Thanks for hanging out with us today, everybody. Hope you had fun watching the Eclipse. Hope you guys were all wearing protective eyewear. And we'll be right back here tomorrow. I don't mean literally here, like not on the boat, but we'll be back on your, oh, you know what? What? I forgot that at some point I meant to yell, this is special. This is special. So I'm glad I got that in before the show was totally done.

Yeah, no, it was smooth, too.

So that's pretty much, that was it. We just saw it, and then, I mean, then we just, I said, well, that's it. And then we played the music, and that was literally our coverage of the 87% of the Eclipse.

Wait a second. Do you have the full file there? because I think we have special tape after the music fades out, right?

I didn't listen to the Easter egg, was there? I mean, I actually don't have the full file right in front of me. You don't have it? It's on my other computer.

I'm pretty sure the entire show, you don't happen to have the show number, do you? I could dial it up on our website, maybe.

I can tell you exactly when it was. It was August 21st of 2017.

Okay, this is going to take me a second to dial up on our, because it goes so far back. Although, hey, can I just mention,

And I know this was all work that you put in, Andrew And maybe to some degree, John Kudos on the TBTL archive Thank you Last night I was like, well let me go try to find the last time there was an eclipse And so I googled like TBTL eclipse And that actually did not give me anything But then I thought, well let me figure out the day that the eclipse happened The last one in the US So I found that date, August 21st, 2017 And then I just went to the very, very easily navigated TBTL archive at tbtl.net And I scrolled down to 2017, I went over to August, I went to August 21st, and there I was. So if you run out of TBTL to listen to and you want to go check the archives, they're very, very user-friendly. So thank you.

I'm glad you were able to find that button. Yeah, because we have, like on our current website, we have every show we've done basically since we went independent about a year ago. But then there's another button that says View Complete Archive here. And that is something that is sort of set up by our podcast provider. And John and I coincidentally happened to be speaking the other day about how easy it is to navigate. It's a good search engine within there. Now, I have found this date. In fact, I was able to find it very quickly because I went to it and I just typed in Eclipse. In fact, I've even downloaded it. And I'm looking at the music here. And it does look like there's an Easter egg. And this is what I think I remember. Let me hold on. Please remember. No mountain too tall. Good luck to all. Will you steal my sunshine by Len? That was suggested by our friend Jen Flash Andrews Nice And then here I'm going to skip to the end of this Because here is And you really don't You really don't remember What happened here I seriously do not remember Oh okay good I thought this was Maybe what you were building towards For this whole thing No Here's the easter egg At the end of the show I hope I'm remembering this right

we're getting banned in so many countries

hold on i got this do you think carrie will notice do you think carrie will notice this i think you're good yeah that's that's pretty much shot all right well here's the thing

your planner box is now mobile that's pretty cool

Power out Okay not as good as I remembered I thought that we heard the actual crash there But I guess it's the sound of you trying to What was I trying to ratchet it back together Hold on I got this Do you think Carrie will know See I always remember it in my head I thought that was the sound of you I thought we were in the truck and had the actual tape Of you hitting that thing And you listen to the whole show aside from that That's not how the show starts That's not how the show starts Okay, I guess I thought I had tape of you nailing that thing, but I guess not.

Actually, I'll tell you what. That was a disappointment.

The most interesting. I just took your disappointment and made it even worse.

The beginning of the show is actually pretty interesting because it's just me fretting about all of the different things that have already kind of. And one of the things was it was unclear if the battery in the boat was going to be sufficient to actually start the boat when we got down into the water. So the first thing that we had to do was I had to kind of like basically test if I could move the engine up and down because that was going to indicate that there was enough battery power to start the boat. Because what I didn't want to do is get in the water, try to hit start and have the battery be dead. So I had to basically run like a test. If I would have had just like a battery tester, I could have done it, but I didn't have that. So it starts with me trying to like move the motor up and down to see if we have battery life, which we do. There's a lot of just like real in the weeds, like boat talk and stuff at the beginning, which I find fascinating, honestly. But what I thought would be most relevant for this would be listening to us at the moment of the maximum amount of the sun being covered, which it turns out that part of the show, not so interesting.

We just talked over it and then said, okay, I guess we'll wrap it up. Yeah, there was no kind of buildup to that, which I vaguely do remember now.

But that goes to the larger point that I think part of it was 87% of it was not 100% of it. I think if we would have been somewhere where it went to complete eclipse, I think we would have stopped what we were doing and kind of been like, oh, my goodness. Like, by all accounts, from everyone who's been there when that happens, it's really something. Like, it's like something you'll never forget. So I think that I don't blame us I blame the fact that we weren't in the zone of totality

Do you think Bonnie Tyler gets bank on days like today Because of Total Eclipse of the Heart

I know that they played it on the daily this morning

Yeah, everybody's downloading it on Spotify Or streaming it on Spotify I don't know how residuals work in the music business As far as spins on the old radio dial But you would assume that all across the country Lazy DJs are playing that song like crazy today

I noticed with the daily because this morning I was listening on my little jog and they were interviewing a guy who's seen every single solar eclipse of any significance over the last, you know, 40 years. And and they were talking about he met his his wife in India as part of a travel group that had gone to India to watch a 41 second version of this. In other words, it only lasted for 41 seconds. That's how much this guy loves this stuff. And then he talked about their wedding And how all of the music that the DJ played Had to do with sunshine or the moon Or things that are sort of celestial And then of course at that point They started playing on the daily Total Eclipse of the Heart But they didn't play The Total Eclipse part They played the Once Upon a Time I Was Falling in Love And I was wondering Is that because even the New York Times Doesn't want to pay the money If somehow that moves it out of fair use and they were gonna have to pay more they didn't do the payoff of like total eclipse of the heart they like it's like michael barbaro saying to the guy as the music as once upon a time i was falling in love starts to come in he goes and i'm sure bonnie tyler was played and the guy said yeah of course you gotta have bonnie tyler on there and then they just like play a little more of it and then they duck it out they never do the total eclipse of the heart part and my thought was either they don't want to pay for it or more likely there's a producer there who's like i'm

not doing that yeah i think i'm not gonna be a part yeah i will let's nod towards it we'll refer

to it but we're not gonna be that show that's playing total eclipse of the heart so as to musically reference this solar eclipse well in the words of michael barbaro

does he make that sound a lot he just like i mean i it's it's an obvious joke now but like every time i land on that show um and i i usually like it i'm not as much of a daily head as you are but um when he's the person who's doing the interview like it's so distracting that in the background he's letting out these and i'll do it to you like i even noticed like during this conversation i've been going oh okay i mean we're human we make reactions during conversations but His are so obtrusive. in a way and they sometimes sound just like almost like weird they sound outsized although we had a dazzling donor who said that exact same thing about me last week right that like I'll make like loud gasps or whatever while you're just telling a very normal story remember somebody mentioned this in the I mean ironically

I just made a very loud gasp about you saying that but I don't even remember that

but let me see if I can find that let's not and say we did it doesn't matter but anyway yeah but like he'll make these And sometimes they're almost like, like they have so much range in like tonal range in one little huh. It's it's very notable to me. But you don't you don't maybe you're just a nerd do it because you listen to it.

Maybe. And also, I think I do it a lot when I'm hosting Livewire. I think I do a lot of plant plaintive kind of hmm. Because sometimes it's just I don't know exactly what sound to make, but I feel like some response is warranted. But I don't want to distract too much. I want to indicate sonically to the person that I hear what they're saying, but I don't feel like it's time for me to start talking. It's a it's a weird thing. I will give The Daily. And, you know, of course, we are big Today Explained heads as well. I like it. I start my day with The Daily on my jog and then I close my evening out with our friends at Today Explained. But I will give the Daily folks Some big credit this morning They started the episode With Michael Barbaro Trying to talk To the guy who's seen Every eclipse And the guy's cell phone Just shitting out repeatedly And then they're like We're gonna have to try to call you back On a landline And then they pick it up With him on the landline And I was like We love that kind of Thank you We love that kind of deconstruction Like I didn't think it was a very very good way to start the episode um because it turns out the guy was in in arizona in a dark sky area and so he didn't have good cell coverage so it also was relevant to the conversation but it was just very very good way into the interview in my opinion

so what i've stumbled upon here is the michael barbaro soundboard okay which somebody has created that has a whole bunch of oh oh this one i hear that one a lot the hmm hmm got it got it

Got it. Mm-hmm.

Oh, that's a good one. That's a real Barbaro. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Huh. What about? Interesting.

Give me right.

I have a feeling, Andrew, if you could just program that board to just respond, I think, you know, in random intervals, you might be able to take a significant amount of time off from the show.

I might be able to. I'll just send this to you the next time I go down to Mexico.

Interesting.

right um here how about that so explain that so explain that okay now all of these are labeled right this one is hmm this one is hmm with an exclamation point this one is uh mmph but then so there's a whole bunch of these interesting right but then there's one big button down at the bottom it's like the space bar it's a big yellow button and it just has a question mark on it so let's hope that this is a super cut i don't know what this button is going to do if it's just going to be barbaro making a noise that is inexplicable or if this is like the internet because i got to this via reddit so this could be some sort of filthy prank on me as i play this live on the podcast here we go yellow button question mark wait wrong one how about this oh i see it just randomizes the board okay never mind boy a lot of build up from me today okay

you know what that'd be perfect for andrew your neck the next time you need to use your

sinko party mask yes absolutely your sinko sleep mask thanks for coming

i understand all right you know we didn't get to today but what i'm not kidding andrew i'm i'm quite curious about and we ran out of time on friday we ran out of time today but we're gonna do this tomorrow i swear to god there's no eclipse tomorrow so we're not going to get distracted with sunglasses and peering outside i want to hear about the latest with your hair cuttery and also with the listener voicemail on the same subject yeah affordable haircut options because i've actually got it because my last haircut was basically a non-event i've got to go get that done again this week and i need all the advice i can get so yeah let's let's talk

about that yeah i don't want to squeeze it in here either so we'll spend some time on that tomorrow all right oh i do want to remind people though it is plant week at tbtl's instagram page so if you um have any questions about your outdoor gardening or plants uh go to our instagram look for too beautiful to live on instagram and submit your questions there we have our friend karen hug is

Answering those questions and putting them up on Instagram with the help from John Sklaroff. And I also wanted to mention that Karen emailed me today to say that she has an article in today's Washington Post, which I had right up here. It's called How to Keep Your Garden Simple and Fuss-Free. If you are not already subscribed to the Washington Post, we can gift you an article. Just get at me. But yeah, head on over to TooBeautifulToLive on Instagram For some real fun plant talk

Excellent, I'll be over there watching as well I'd like to grow a pair sometime Alright, thanks for listening everyone, we'll be back here tomorrow With more Imaginary Radio for you Please do join us for that In the meantime, have a great Monday, take care of yourselves And please remember, no mountain too tall And good luck to all

Power out.