Muse

I frequently am behind cars that have bumper stickers or something on them that I wanted to tell you guys about and I, like, take pictures of. But then I don't send it because it's, like, weird to have a license plate on it. But I just have to tell you, the person in front of me, I don't know what it's called, but the thing around the license plate, so, like, the license plate holder, says, I'd rather be slamming the back of my dragon. I just needed to share that. I'm sorry. What? I've made a terrible mistake. The license plate cover thing or whatever does not say I'd rather be slamming the back of my dragon. It says I'd rather be slamming in the back of my dragula, which somehow makes less sense to me. I don't understand, but I just wanted to correct myself. I'm sorry. okay well i googled the phrase because it was killing me and apparently there's a rob zombie song that says i slam in the back of my dragula so clearly this person is a rob zombie fan so that was it i'm so sorry for all these words now tvtl

i was just fixing to get me some grub beans i love beans big fat hot juicy beans now don't get me going on beans or i'll be jabbering away till the sun comes up all right

you guys like impressions here's that guy bob from bob's burgers hi i'm bob from bob's burgers how about that show archer you watch that show archer here's that guy archer hi i'm archer from that show, Archer. Now, what if those guys met?

Could you crawl back out of my mind?

If you want to pick a fight with your body's sexual chi, it's just going to drive it inwards.

This party is going to be off of the hook.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. This is probably a party that you don't want to attend, but you're locked in. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. You're still doing a pod cart? Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it is...

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

It's an absolutely beautiful day in the neighborhood, and we are so excited to be bringing you episode 4,185 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

I have been having some interactions with, I guess we would call it artificial intelligence.

Does this sound like a musical robot?

One of these interactions feels like the future is now. And one of them feels like a robot might have fallen in love with me. And I'm going to talk about both of them coming up here on the program. Also, there was an art heist of sorts in Germany.

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

I mean, it's sort of a reverse art heist. We'll explain what that is coming up, and we'll talk to this guy, the longest-running cobro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships.

There's a Hidden Rally Ranch party in my mouth.

He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

The sun came out, Luke, as you did your intro, and I feel like that is a symbol for what we're doing today. Yeah, I didn't even realize it until I looked up.

When I start talking, it's just cartoon birds start landing on people's shoulders. It's a whole thing.

Yeah, exactly. That's what happened to me. I got a cartoon bird on my shoulder, which is a problem because it's shitting cartoon shit all over the place. I shouldn't say that. It's a family show.

It is. Sorry for cussing. Sorry for cussing. Hey, brother. Special teams, special plays, special players. What is that? It's a guy called Sketch, who is a, I guess maybe like you'd say a Twitch streamer. He plays a lot of like Madden, I think is what it is. but I don't watch any of that but what I do see is him on TikTok clips of him from Twitch but now on TikTok where he's just saying really funny things when he's playing Madden against people and one of the things he constantly says is he'll say something it's not even a swear word but it's just slightly maybe inappropriate like how we're trying to be a more appropriate show for young people. He'll just say something that's a little bit ribald And then he'll say, sorry for cussing. And he also will say, hey, brother. And he holds up kind of one finger like this. And when I was in Vegas this weekend, Becca and I were walking down the strip and there was a guy in a T-shirt that said special teams, special plays, special players, which is a thing that this guy Sketch says.

Really? Wow.

And I just saw the guy and I went, hey, brother.

And he had no idea what I was doing because he had completely forgotten that he was wearing this t-shirt

You think, I was wondering too, or did he end up with this shirt somehow not fully understanding what it meant But you'd think it was just one of those things he forgot, like, oh, I got this hat on That's why somebody's given me the Go Mariners high sign

Right, which had happened, did that happen to you or me?

Some version that happened to you No, it didn't happen to you, you happened it upon somebody else, right?

Like they were wearing some sort of sporting gear and I think I jogged past him and then I saw him on the return and I said something about the Mariners like relief pictures and it became clear that he was like just thought it was a nice looking hat or something. But no, this guy on the strip, he did eventually realize what I was talking about, and he laughed. But I only realized later that was like, that's a weird thing to say to someone. Because let's be honest, most of us, if we put a shirt on, a T-shirt on, at the beginning of the day, midway through the day, we've now forgotten whatever the T-shirt is. And so somebody going, hey, brother, to us is totally out of the blue. I also just felt like, what a weird thing for me to be a fanboy of.

A random, sort of a random TikToker. A Madden player. Or not even a TikToker, but a, yeah, somebody who has been repurposed for TikTok. Exactly, exactly.

Like, I just think it's funny when he says, like, special teams, special plays, special players. Sorry for cussing.

But look who's coming around on Twitch, though. I mean, that's the big thing here, right? Oh, I have fully come around on Twitch. I know. I know. It's like we were talking the other day. Like, when you're, actually, I'm slipping into something else. I was having an imaginary fight with somebody yesterday that I kind of don't want to get into. Yeah, I thought I was having aphasia there. But I was having an imaginary fight in my head with somebody yesterday that I don't want to get into.

Is it somebody that I know?

It is not somebody that you know. Well, then have at it. I don't feel like getting into it because it's just literally personally embarrassing for me because it's something. I'll tell it. I thought about this. This was in my head, and I realize if I can't tell this kind of stuff on TBTL, I'm totally useless. But I'll just tell the story. I promised myself I wouldn't say it because I am deeply, deeply troubled about my mindset yesterday and my actions to a certain degree. Hey, brother. And I think that I can pull some lessons out of it, though.

Okay, because I do want to – this is a rare move for me, but I do want to just remind you that I believe the last time that you said, i don't know if i want to talk about this and then you talked about it it had to do with your inner ears and you really did beat yourself up afterwards and i don't i i really want to hear what you're about to say but i also really don't want you being mean to yourself so i'm going to do the rare thing here which is to say if this is something that is going to cause you to then kind of have intrusive thoughts i would say don't talk about it i appreciate that there's a there's

something that I don't think I've communicated to you about the ears situation and I'm not going to tell you what it is but one of the reasons I'm so upset about that story is because I could not bring myself to tell you all of the details and there are some details that go along with my ear situation that are so gross I just couldn't bring myself to tell you or the listeners about it and so therefore I went on a journey but then I kind of tightened the reins and I'm like well I'm just in this uncanny valley of all those people being like, that story wasn't that gross. And I'm like, yeah, because I couldn't tell you the gross part. But I also still can't tell you the gross part. And I was like, with those things, you've either got to tell them or you can't tell them.

I really appreciate that clarification because I genuinely couldn't figure out why you were so, I don't want to say hung up. That's mean. But that just seemed like the kind of thing we talk about on the show pretty frequently. We've got to do this five days. We've got to keep the needles moving five days a week. and the the way that that seemed to really be living in your head didn't totally make sense to me but now it makes more sense with that context so thank you for that yes there are

some more symptoms involved that i realized were too putrid to say on the show because i discharge do that and so and so i just didn't uh that's why i was so mad about that because i was like now i have all these people who are like you just sort of kept on apologizing for your story it wasn't that gross and also you know like i i deal with this stuff too and it's kind of like yeah but oh i didn't you left some stuff out and it's like either and that's let's get to this years it's leaving some stuff out but i'll just tell you let's get to this story you're gonna regret which i really i mean i'll just tell you the whole thing i guess i have to like if i if i can't if this isn't the purpose of tbtl i guess i don't know what it is but i really seriously had every intention of blocking this from my mind and then the very first thing that happens is i'm like hey, Luke, the sun is out. Also, you want to hear why I'm mad at myself today? But here's what happened. You know how passionately I feel, and you feel as well, about the way.

They both Major League Baseball, the Mariners to a degree, and these media deals are completely screwing over the fans, the fan base.

The very lifeblood, if you will, of the operation, the people who go out of their way to pay attention to this. When we have the narrative that baseball is having trouble attracting people, the few people who are attracted to it should not be made to jump through all manner of hoops. With the NFL, it's not cool, but you kind of get it. The NFL, you know, has a certain swagger to it. It's a very popular thing. And unfortunately, it means they get to kind of like, you know, set the terms a little bit. But Major League Baseball, of all sports, should not make it hard on us.

But also the irony there is the football games are still available on free television for people who want to get a digital antenna or something. I mean, it's so amazing that it's baseball that is. I mean, it's actually football who could do more of that is still saying, hey, listen, for the local market, we will still make this content available for the local fans. And baseball complains about not being able to get fans, but then does everything to like kind of, you know, blackout games, even if you're paying for this app.

You got to get a pretty early to make the NFL look good.

Yeah, exactly. And so, OK, so this is something that lives so large in my mind. And obviously you and I were talking about it. You and I are on the same page on this, so we've been winding each other up with your whole, like, trying to pay an extra $240 a year just to get the baseball games when you're already paying a lot of money for cable and everything. So that was already the back story.

Is that the math? I think it might be way more than that. Well, no. What's $20? I guess it's $20. Okay, yeah.

It's $18 a month extra, I think. And so I think we did the math.

You're my fact checking cuz, and you are not wrong.

So anyway, you and I have been talking about that. We didn't talk about the fact, or maybe we did at some point, but we didn't, I think, address head-on the fact that certain games like this last Friday night game also isn't available. There are like three random games a year that are pulled from the broadcast that you were paying money from. They're pulled from Root Sports just so that they can be an exclusive on Apple Television. And you can sign up for a free trial of Apple Television to get it, but then they take your credit card number, and if you don't cancel, then you have to. You know what I mean? It's just like I think it's just such a screw to the fans who either are at the park half the time buying $18 beers or paid for this now extra expensive cable package. And it's really unfair to the bars and restaurants that, like, literally for me and Veves, Veves called a couple of bars on Friday to say, hey, can we come watch the game? They're like, we can't put Apple TV on our bar televisions, a complicated system. And so anyway, all of this makes me really angry. And it's that last little lanyard of, and oh, also, we're going to pull a few games a year and make them exclusive on Apple TV. Well, I turn on my favorite local radio show, my favorite local sports radio show, Bumpin' Tracy, right? Stacey, why do I? I listen to so many hours of the show. Stump and Bracey. Stump and Bracey. So I love these guys. I think they're both really talented. Stacey, I remember when she was brand new in the role and she's a younger person and a woman in a role that is traditionally male. And I think she gets a lot of slings and arrows from the fan base on that. I just think they both do such a great job. She was paired up with a radio partner that I think didn't do such a great job before. And then when Michael Bumpus came to be her co-host, I just think they're really nailing it.

Stacey Jo Rost and Michael Bumpus, right?

Yes. And she is the way I can remember it's Rost and not Roster. She said if she ever had a sports podcast about, like, fantasy drafts, she'd call it The Roster, which is such a good name. Anyway, I'm a legit big fan and sort of a – go ahead.

I don't want to – I'm sorry. I don't want to derail this, but I feel like we're going to see big things out of Stacey Jo Rost. I agree. I think that this is just a moment in time where she's working at the local sports talk station in Seattle. And my guess would be that that that she will become a big a big player in the sports media game and well-deserved.

I would I would agree. And also and she's had this role for several years now. And I don't want to sound condescending, but like I remember when she was brand new and I would be filling in at Cairo Radio or something. We would do crosstalk or whatever. And her kind of being a little bit more restrained on the radio side, but then like kind of turning off the mic and just like having so much personality. And I'm like, we're going to see more and more of this personality on the air because she's just such a natural talent. And kind of watching that as somebody who, again, I sound a little bit condescending here, but as somebody who does work in the industry and is a bit older. And also, I just hear a lot of like in casual conversation with people, I will like literally like at the Eagles or something when she was new and be like, oh, I hate her. And I'm just like, I think that's coming from a place of you not wanting to listen to a young woman talk about sports and a certain amount of social conditioning there.

I like my sports commentators older, whiter, and more Christian.

I like a healthy amount of weird coded evangelical talk when it comes to somebody's quick release at quarterback for a second.

Wait a second. You're not talking about Chris Mad Dog Russo here. No, I got it. I'm dialed in. I'm dialed in anyway. You want baseball? The dog is not to cover. All of that is to say I'm kind of a hero and a champion. No, but I am. I think it's the term that most of the women of America are using. Exactly. I'm a big fan of Stacey and Bump. And I turn on the radio, as I often do, for a quick lunch yesterday. I'm puttering around the kitchen, and I just hear her saying, I'm sick of hearing fans complain about the Apple TV broadcast. It's $10. Just buy it. I know some people are saying, I can't afford that, and I'm sorry if you can't, but I think most of the people complaining can. Just buy it. Get over it. Just buy it. And Bump's like, yeah, just buy it. You can watch Ted Lasso, too. That must have hurt you. and so I don't know if you know that I've been doing this somewhat recently not a lot but from time to time I will text into uh ESPN on this show or another show I did not know you've been doing this not often but it's one of those things that once you have the number saved in your phone it's easier and easier I kind of didn't realize that oh yeah this story has a lot of this isn't even the embarrassing part I forgot to tell you that I'm like for example the other day I was listening to um the afternoon show uh who is it it's um bob bob stulton dave wyman wyman exactly and bob was going on and on about um george kirby how he hasn't had like the best season so far and was talking about all these stats and he's like but still after like four outings zero walks and And I'm like, no, no, no, he walked two batters in his very first inning of the season. So a little sharpshooting. I didn't get a response to that. I'm just like, Kirby walked two in his first inning, I think.

You're like, you're talking to an Akron groomsman here, sir. We know the stats.

I just remember that because Kirby is known for not walking players.

They were talking about it last night, literally on the broadcast.

Okay, yeah, so you can even back me up on that. Oh, 100%. He walked two players in his very first inning. It was notable.

The Mariners have been so bad that the thing that the announcers are hanging their hat on currently is that George Kirby tends to not walk a lot of people.

Right, exactly.

As the Mariners are potentially losing. They didn't last night, but generally speaking, the announcers have had to find these bizarre statistical side notes to try to fill time. When Mike Blowers isn't awkwardly sitting there silently when the subject of Jackie Robinson comes up. issues god that was an adventure last night but i'm sorry i digress but anyway i wanted so like

for example when i heard that kirby like it was a little bit of a it was just a i don't know the whole point of him listing all these stats was the power out was and he's walked nobody i just texted in kirby walks two in his first inning i think so i wasn't even like you bozos i want you to know like i'm not like trying to be a troll or blowing up the hotline if they're asking for opinions on things sometimes i mean rarely i would say about once every well like once a month maybe i might find myself texting into the um espn local espn hotline although i the reason i'm pausing is this story belies that because i just texted it on friday and then i texted it again yesterday because when i heard like stacy and bump both being like really dismissive i thought i think i found myself a little bit for lack of a better word like really bummed not just like i disagree with you but like what a let them eat cake like sort of attitude and the truth is i think it has less to do with money and i think it has more to do with generations like i think that like probably somebody of stacy's like age and place in life the idea of having apple tv is as common as having like maybe basic cable in the late 90s for me or something it's just like right for

instance these are probably a generation of people who they didn't have to cut the cord because they

literally never had the cord yeah and Apple TV also has most of probably like I'm not I don't know if this is connected to me not having Apple products too but like I just haven't needed Apple TV we buy all these other ones Netflix Hulu or whatever I don't feel like I'm missing much with Apple TV and so like I just don't care and I don't like the idea of being forced into and I also think it's really disingenuous to just say it's just ten dollars it's just ten dollars it's like it's not just ten dollars it's signing up for a service that I'm going to end up paying for to watch these three games, at least across the course of a baseball season, which is going to be, let's say, six months at $60, you know, or something. Anyway, just to say it's just $10 pay, it makes it sound like it's a pay-per-view situation. And by the way, I would almost be more open to that. If it was like it's on Apple TV, you can sign up for a subscription, or you pay $5 or $6 to watch this one game, I would actually be more into a la carte stuff.

Well, of course.

They don't do that, though, because these entire things are to force you to sign up for Flippin' Peacock or whatever to get the Kansas City playoff game so that you forget to unsign up from Peacock. Right. It would be a much better user experience to pay $5 to watch a game, and I'm with you. I would be fine with that. They intentionally don't offer that because the entire thing is built around tricking you into forgetting that you're paying for one of these services.

And so for me, as somebody who doesn't have Apple TV and doesn't really want it, I get kind of I get irritated by this. Right. And but I think I do after, you know, again, this lived in my head all night last night. And to a degree that I'm like, I was troubling myself about it. But like I'm thinking it's a generational thing. And I was like doing all these analogies in my head. I'm like, what if this was an all religion network or what if it was an all phishing network? and they just made you sign up for the $10 a month to watch three Mariners games there. Would Stacey and Bump feel different about that? I feel like they would, but to them, it's just like, it's Apple TV, we want it anyway because we're lasso heads or whatever. So having said all of that, after this very dismissive, like I turn on the radio and immediately they're just like, just pay it as $10, you guys are all being dumb or whatever. I just wrote, our tax dollars support this team and they continue to screw fans and the bars that want to play the game. That's all I wrote. And then, and I kind of forgot about this, And I've Stacy and I have kind of texted before, not like via DM or whatever on Twitter in the old days, like just me sending her like kind of fan notes and just saying, hey, you guys sound great.

I forgot about this element of the story, Andrew, which is you guys are actually kind of friends in real life or at least associates. The thing is, but it's clear that she doesn't know. Nobody at the show knows that this is Andrew Walsh who's reaching out via the text line, right?

Yes. And honestly, if somebody said this is Andrew Walsh, I don't think at this point she would know. I honestly don't like because I did a couple of two ways with her three, four years ago when her show was so different and I haven't been in that building. I don't work there anymore. If you recall, I got fired ceremoniously, honestly, which was one of the rare times that there was a ceremonious firing. It was really great. No, they just turned off my key card after not after I had no fill in gigs for like three years. So anyway, I don't know that she'd be like, oh, this is my friend or even that she would remember me. But I'm also like not saying, hey, this is that guy. I'm just like a random texter. And in this case, I just wrote in, hey, you know, you know, I just think that they're screwing fans over. And I forgot that the one thing about Stacey that I think she's gotten a lot better at, but I could hear it in the broadcast a lot at first. reminded me so much of my early days of hosting the night show on Cairo which is she was constantly battling the listeners as she was getting feedback in real time and I did that on the show and I tried to at first I thought it was fun but I think I ended up making my whole show shadow boxing with people who were texting in the text line and I was hearing her do the same thing you can really tell that negative feedback really gets to her and that is I think she's cleaned that up a lot on broadcast but something happened to me which has never happened before every now and then a host on the show if we're just like you know if i send in a chuckler or something they'll respond like yeah whatever but this time i i said you know i said what i said i said that you know they're screwing over listeners and and bars that want to show the games and immediately i got a text message because they're in break it just says it's an mlb decision not mariners and i'm just like okay and i'm like yes and so i wrote back yes i met at the mlb and all the millionaire owners and decision makers and then um i wrote i absolutely love you guys but i can't believe you're defending the millionaire class over the fan base well i think that triggered oh stacy and wrote back yeah i'm not doing that i'm just uh saying hearing people complain every single time it's on apple gets old get the service or listen on the radio those are the options mlb ain't gonna stop uh no isn't i don't know why i turned that into ain't mlb isn't gonna stop sending a handful of games there end of text new text from stacy i just think there are infinitely more things to complain about than spending nine dollars on a streaming service when you knew weeks in advance that the game would be there and i said that's not really how it works i can't the

advance time is weird to me because what are you saving up the nine dollars is weeks in advance so you could you could make sure to bring some scrap metal down to the scrap yard and get that nine

Well, maybe like sign up and then be prepared to unsign up and then maybe like again. But again, if her argument is like it's just nine dollars, just do that. And I'm like, OK, then you're suggesting I do that three times over the course of the baseball season. So I am only paying an extra thirty dollars for three Friday night games. And by the way, they take the good games. They don't take a Wednesday day game. So so you think it's reasonable. The argument here is it's reasonable for me to sign up for a free trial, then cancel it right away then do the same thing in August and then do the same thing in September or however it breaks down like that you that is such a disingenuous argument it's coming from somebody who already has Apple TV

likes Apple TV and is sick of people complaining about this. And for me, and I will be the first one to admit, like even to be where I am right now on this, to like kind of try to put myself in Stacey's shoes as somebody who's younger and, you know, and probably just more comfortable with signing up for services like this than I am in the way that I grew up. Like I'm really trying to put myself in their shoes because I have been arguing this with you or, you know, you and I riling each other up and like i see it as such a global thing where everything is connected from like the from like the media companies to them doing a big roster dump a salary dump you know like the idea of the millionaire owners not getting as much money so they're making decisions that hurt the mariners on the field so they don't hurt their profits like meanwhile kalanick is

getting a hit against the akron groomsmen it's just all kind of like piling up on you yeah

Kellnick's hitting, what, 785 or something like that. So anyway, and I'm like Charlie Day with all these strings on a map, and I'm going crazy. But the thing is, that's where it ended. I mean, clearly this was getting to her a little bit. And this is during a commercial break. She comes back and ends up talking Seahawks draft shit after this. But again, the host of a show sending a text and then thinking and then coming back with another text. like clearly this was a little bit of a debate and again i don't she doesn't know me i'm not that was kind of a thing too this isn't like i got into it with a friend or that i need to look this person in the eye at work the next day or i feel like oh i don't i don't want to host with this person anymore like i feel like that's usually reserved for me yeah no i just i was sort of thinking like what if i had to what if we had i i used to host a show for several months with a you know conservative guy who would make up facts you know and like he would say stuff and then i would fight in my head with him all night and then i have to go into work again the next day like none of these things are happening to me yet last night as i'm listening to the baseball game and playing darts i couldn't let this argument end in my head to a degree where i mentioned to you on the show last week as you and i continue to not go to therapy but try to teach each other

lesson i consider this a form of therapy and i am submitting it to kaiser i'm getting reimbursed

Good. Kaiser Sose is one of the greatest mental health doctors in the game.

What if that was who your medical provider was, was Kaiser Sose?

So anyway, last night I'm like, I'm listening to the game. I'm playing darts. I made tacos. And like the whole night, though, I keep on like, I'm actively trying to shut down my brain. But every time, every time my brain just like settles into like every time I stop actively working to think about something else, my brain, I will realize, is still fighting with Stacey. And there's no reason for it. And it was spinning. Again, I use this analogy a lot. Like it was exhausting me. It was like a fan was broken in my laptop and it wouldn't shut off. And it was just like it just was going and going. I'm just like, Andrew, stop it. This is the stupidest thing. This is the stupidest thing. you don't know this person it was a text exchange that happened hours ago about a fan disagreement about something and I wasn't angry I just kept on like my brain does this thing where it keeps unlocking into like but the arguments are all right there like it's so obvious and like what if I put it's like a failure of me presenting it in a proper way you know what I mean because it seems so obvious to me and I'm like you know what I get like this sometimes in matters that are closer to home whether it's I don't know if I'm being peevish about the the cleanliness of the kitchen or having to do dishes that I didn't dirty or whatever it is and sometimes I have the same feeling of like but can't you see can't you see how I'm oppressed here or whatever and so like I am trying when I find myself in a situation that is troubling to me or my reaction to it troubles me like it was last night I was like what can I take away from this like because you're having a bad night for reasons that are ridiculous. I had poison kind of going through my brain last night for the stupidest thing. And I kept on consciously trying to tell myself, stop being stupid. But then I started saying, well, what can you take away from this? And why are you so upset about this? And I was like, I don't know why I'm so upset. But I actually recognize this pattern in me when it comes to things that actually seem like they do matter more. And I need to remember in those moments in the future, that those are also just stupid fan debates with a sports radio host like I need to, like, remember because I think my body almost physiologically gets into some sort of fight or flight mode on these things. And not that I'm a confrontational person, but that I will just carry it around and argue in my head. Things that, like, don't need arguing and don't leave me certainly in a better place or make me a better person. So, anyway, that's my embarrassing story of just, like, getting into a fight, a text exchange with a broadcaster I really like yesterday. and Not being able to let it go all evening, hours after the fact.

I think this is interesting for so many reasons. One, I think that you...

Also, my ears are gross.

More on that, please. Full. I need the full explanation of that story. But I think it's interesting because you are finding yourself in a way, in a position that the listeners to this show sometimes find themselves in. Which is these people that presumably they really like, because they listen to this. um say something or have a thought that is they that the listener very much disagrees with and i think i think this my guess is this was exacerbated for you because of the fact that you really like this broadcaster stacy joe rost and if it were you know colin coward or something if it was you know if if it was chris mad dog russo you want baseball the doggies got you covered i think they've stopped using that promo on on serious and i'm bummed because i never i missed my window to record it and start playing it on this show just to put that evil inside the listeners ears but i think that because you really like both of the people that host the show that take was particularly a bummer for you and it in a way that we sometimes are on the receiving end of where we'll say something and it's something that our listeners or a listener disagrees with and it really hits the listener pretty hard but it's weirdly a compliment because it's it only bothers the listener so much because they actually like us and when we wildly disagree with them on something that's important to them and the thing about this is it's not just a as we like to say on the show it's not a conversation about baseball right it's not it's not simply about a sort of means to an end get over it just sign up for the thing everything in life costs money you like something you pay for it that's how life works it's not that's not the argument in my mind this is about justice on a global scale like this is a stage capitalism seriously like we live yes we live in a world where the chasm between the haves and the have-nots it grows increasingly and where when we pollute the planet the people who are really on the receiving end of record temperatures live in like sub-saharan africa and live in um you know like in places where they're already they don't have enough access to health and safety and resources and so when when we when we make the the temper when the temperature is raised by a degree i don't feel it here that much high above the mighty columbia but somebody living in pakistan where there is flooding that is out of control now is feeling it and in a way that conversation is related to the mariners putting the game on apple tv in my mind i mean seriously right yeah yeah you know and so so to have when we're talking about it in those terms it is a big deal and then when it's

some people that you really like and they're basically saying f those people in pakistan who are who are who whose homes have been destroyed like that's i can see it feeling a little bit

like that um and so the stakes are pretty high yeah for me like you know i don't draw that same that same path that you drew but like my own path of like what it does say about where we are in capitalism right now and just like the people who have all the money calling all the shots and making and again just like tying to this idea of like mlb in one breath complaining about not being able to get fans but then just so systematically disrespecting fans and trying to bleed them dry and like yeah i have this whole global thing about it and you know who doesn't stacy joe ross right she's just like just watch the game or listen on the radio and like i just couldn't kind of get over the dismissiveness of just like let them eat cake sort of and i'm just like but it doesn't it really doesn't matter and it's clearly this is a pet peeve of mine and somebody else has a pet peeve about i don't know the draft or the the you know that that may also to them seem super important And to probably a lot of our listeners who maybe even listened to your cable saga the other day, maybe even were like, yeah, like just whatever cable company suck. Get over it. Like, I don't know. In the same way that, like, you know, I pay $40 for a bucket of popcorn in a movie theater. I don't even complain about it because I started saying years ago, like not at the sphere.

You won't.

No, you can't get it. Or as I called it yesterday, show description online. I didn't realize until I saw somebody like repost the show somewhere that I called it the dome in all caps. like it's famously the sphere I meant to fix it last night now it's too late I'm just like I don't care anymore but it's just I like that our new name for it is

your wife's new name is Dome Dome

so anyway Dome do me like that I apologize for being long winded here

But it was just really bothering me how much my brain wouldn't let go of that last night. It was just like my brain was broken, Luke. I kept saying, like, it doesn't matter. Play darts. Enjoy this game. The Mariners had a good game for once in their goddamn life. Sorry, kids.

Sorry for cussing. Hey, brother.

Hey, brother. Anyway, yeah. And that's what bothered me. I'm just like, wait, wait, wait. There's something going on in my brain right now. I should stop. I should try to examine whatever chemical reaction I'm having. And also maybe try to remember this when I'm having that chemical reaction about something in a relationship, a relationship that actually matters, that I actually have in my life, literally whether it's with you or Genevieve or anybody else in my life, a parent or whatever, that I need to like if I'm feeling this way about something that seems important in those relationships, I better remember how I feel right now because clearly there are just chemicals in my body that do this even when the stakes mean literally nothing.

Well, I think that's a really positive takeaway from it, honestly. Like, just, you know, realizing that something's happening for you, and then, like you said, trying to figure out what can I learn from this. I think that's a very, very good outcome from this thing that could otherwise just be, like, kind of a bummer for you. So I commend you on that. And I would like to tell you that for all of the complaining I do about our baseball team, I did last night get to have a quasi-postcard moment with said team now i still so this whole thing here this construction project at my house has been to create a moment during which or yeah during which a sport that i like is on television but a food that i like is being prepared by me and it's all happening at the same time and i can see the television from where i'm preparing the food and uh nothing in my kitchen like the where i've put this kind of new kitchen in none of it works the sink is not connected to anything the there is no um wire to the oven like you cannot turn the oven on none of it works but last night i hauled everything out of the working kitchen into the non-working kitchen so that i could prepare my asparagus i could drench it in olive oil and salt and pepper while i watched the mariners actually do okay for once and then take it all back into the working kitchen and then cook it like it was the most unnecessary series of steps but i'll tell you it felt great i made a video i sent it to becca it was like i know this is silly why did i bring all of the items out of the real kitchen out to the non-working kitchen do this whole thing and then take them back into the working kitchen and then like it was purely so i could watch you know uh like luke raley throw down a bunt like this was uh the movie major league like he was tom berenger in major league and i loved it

so let me ask you i think that all makes sense to me with maybe well depending on how you answer this question can you see the television from the working kitchen no okay then that's totally reasonable to me that's not any more unreasonable than taking your laundry in front of the television you wanted to watch the game and do your meal prep

That's a good point. Yeah, that is a good point. I mean, the whole reason I did this whole silly thing is because the way that the kitchen was set up when I bought this place is it is this tiny little dark room that's cut off from everything, which is what they always say you want in a kitchen. you want whoever is trying to prepare the food to be completely isolated and uh you know not able to engage with anything fun that's going on outside of the kitchen environment so um that was good design but uh yeah no i've been doing this whole this whole project to try to change that but i'm so antsy like i the kitchen will not be working until walt comes back from anna maria island oh they're still there huh i'll tell you the the lives that my parents lead uh in terms of the amount of time they spend in florida for people who are i will point out not well off for people who i don't even know what unholy flight they took to get to well here's what i do know my dad was texting me at 10 o'clock at night saying we're in line for the airplane i this was like at sea tech and i thought well that's that's late to be getting on a flight to florida uh-huh well that's got red eye written all over it uh-huh and probably a stop somewhere out of the country

yeah right right but we have to lay over in the azores yes exactly so um uh but though they're

down there in florida they're loving it they're sending us many photos from anna maria island and uh until my dad comes back and helps me hook up so i'm very proud of my you know pendant light installation but that's my my new found ability to kind of do some amount of remodeling here it stops at hooking up the aluminum wiring that goes to the.

outlet that powers the stove that is a bridge i am not going to try to cross myself because i'll do it wrong so um but anyway uh yeah so the kitchen doesn't actually work but i just like to hang out in it and pretend that it works i basically have like a i'm like a child with like an easy bake oven and a pretend kitchen i like to i'm playing house in my own house oh was it oh was it like a

plastic asparagus it was yeah it was you have to hit that with so much olive oil to get it

even edible yeah anyway um but i did have a nice night and it was night that it was nice that the mariners actually uh were appeared to be semi-competent i'm sorry that you were shadow boxing but i also think that you turned it into something useful and i think that's actually

pretty good do you know i woke up this morning and i was like going about my morning and then i had a moment of being like oh my god i haven't even thought about it like all morning i'm like i i just needed i just needed to sleep i just needed to turn the page well consider it turned

and also i think a lot of listeners can identify uh with what you said except the ones that can't and they're going to be texting you angrily and i hope you'll use this quick break before we thank the dazzling donors to roast them on the text chain i will hey if you are a fan of food and conversations about food and also podcasts that are really good i need to recommend the sporkful for you it's hosted by dan pashman dan has done so many things in his career since his time as a producer on the bryant park project with me including inventing a new pasta shape called cascatelli i didn't even know that was a thing you could do didn't know people could just invent pasta shapes but dan did it by gum and uh now he likes to talk about food on the sporkful but not not in a way that makes you feel excluded from the conversation but in a way that makes you feel included like to say that the show is for eaters not foodies meaning you don't have to like know what a michelin star is from the michelin man to listen to the sporkful it is so entertaining i mean there's just so many different avenues of conversation related to food that dan and his guests uh mine for great great podcastery so make sure you go check out the sporkful wherever you

get your podcasts we was hope we was hoping for some razzle dazzle razzle dazzle that's right man razzle dazzle on your mark on your mark get set get set now ready ready go everybody razzle

all right let's thank those dazzling donors who are supporting tbtl with their donation of a Dazzling amount of dough. Talking about Jack Eckert in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I like that Jack used the pronunciation clarifier to clarify how the name Jack is pronounced.

How is it? It's Jack.

As in shack or hack or snack. That makes sense, I guess. I don't want to get cocky here because, you know, pride goeth before destruction. but i do feel like jack is one of the names we can generally speaking that one we can nail

no i mean let's not i don't have that kind of confidence but you're a bit older than me maybe

someday i will yeah someday you'll learn how to say the name jack jack says just wanted to take a moment to applaud any librarians out there who would have guessed they'd be on the front lines of defending freedom of speech and thought they are the true heroes thanks of course also to luke and andrew i've been hooked on tbtl since uh i think the november 2016 episode where andrew

got shocked in the kitchen oh wow that was yeah the thanksgiving uh yes i don't like to i don't

want to um laugh at your misfortune andrew but uh that was really funny i'm sorry that you didn't feel that it felt it created pain in your life but it was hilarious we tried to do a special

episode you and carrie were in your kitchen in bellingham i was in my kitchen i think with genevieve and maybe somebody else or maybe just the two of us and we were you know talking down the line somehow connected through technology and trying to cook up some thanksgiving dishes together in our respective kitchens and then at one point i went to touch the stove and i got shocked really bad and i still don't know exactly why i was wearing headphones holding a microphone that i don't know where i don't know where the shock came from i don't live there anymore no

What did you learn from being shocked in the kitchen?

What I learned was that there's nothing funnier than the sound of me being shocked because Carrie, your wife at the time, could not stop laughing and said that she could only picture me as a cartoon cat where you can see the skeleton while it's holding onto the wire, which is indelibly in my mind.

And apparently in the mind of Jack. of Cambridge, who says, the pod cart has been a staple of my ear diet. Was that what you left out of your eczema story?

Oof, wow.

My ear diet. For all the different ways that this podcast has been described over the years, ear diet is a new one.

Yeah, it is. And let's make it an old one. Let's make it a former one.

Let's take it right from cutting edge to dustbin of history.

That's right.

the pod cards are the staple of my ear diet through life changes marriage retirement and let's not forget the pandemic lockdown who can forget Jack I do have that moment sometimes Andrew where I just think in fact when Becca and I were walking around the Fremont Street experience as the zip liners were zipping over our heads I had this thought like three four years ago this place would have been empty there would have been a couple I mean I know Vegas was I think vegas was one of the least compliant places as far as you know uh you know social distancing etc but even so like it every once in a while i'll just be somewhere where there's a lot of people and i'll just think nobody was here three years ago like this was shut down or it should

have been i think about that in the grocery store sometimes like i think about like this whole wall of paper towels would be just gone it would be like nothing you know and i think it's good that we remember that like we lived through something and i remember having conversations with you we didn't know how it was going to end or what the end would look like and i know that there are still vulnerable populations out there um but for you know the the majority of society to have gone back to what looks like quote-unquote normal life i hope i never stop appreciating that honestly

Yeah, absolutely. Jack says, it never fails to make me crack an idiotic grin and or phone-throwing eye roll on a daily basis. Hey, you know what? If you're having a reaction, Jack, we're doing our job. In other words, Jack says, I'm glad to support the show. Well, we're glad to both crack you up and infuriate you. Just don't text Andrew offline. I mean, I don't want to keep going back to that, but what I think is interesting about it is that I'm referring back to this, you know, Mariners, Apple TV, Stacey, Joe Ross thing. I would have before you told me about the extent of the back and forth texting, I would have told you that that's just a take that she was grabbing out of thin air because you and I both know this. When you're doing like three hours of talk radio a day, sometimes you just got to have a take, regardless of how deeply you feel that take. You're just like, well, I have to say, I have to have an opinion, have an opinion, stupid. Like I have to have an opinion on this and I'm just going to, today I've just decided that my opinion is, yeah, we, enough of complaining about the various, you know, streaming services, but that wasn't what happened because it also I will tell you this I I never argued I don't remember arguing with any listeners or texters during the breaks because that was when I was running to Grand Central Bakery and getting two eggs over easy hold the bread hold the potatoes like that feels like work to me and I'm not getting paid to do that work if that makes sense It's like I have the takes that I have, and then as soon as the show's over, I'm done having takes. Or when we're on a commercial break, I don't even – like I just don't even – I'm too lazy to have a take during the commercial break, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I mean I do think it was a little bit different like with you and Dave there, and then you had a producer. Most of the time it was me who was keeping an eye on the text line, and then I would collect responses for the end of the show. It was a little bit more formalized like that. Whereas I kind of get it when I started the show, you know, my night show and I was doing it solo, you know, like the corny idealistic way of putting it is I wanted it to be kind of a rolling conversation. You know, I wanted I loved the idea. There's something about that live aspect of it and kind of like the most opposite of my public radio roots for me to be the host on the air, reading the messages live and reacting to them. And, you know, and if I was able to keep my emotions in check or if I could have been if I could have done it in a more mature way, I think it still is a kind of a good way to do live radio. But when it just lives in my head and I'm just like, you end up talking to the trolls, you end up programming your show to the trolls. And that's that's where I think you need to, like, kind of mature a little bit as a host. And I do think that, by the way, Stacey has done that. I don't want to get that. I don't want to get that message mixed up.

Yeah. Well, thank you, Jack. We really appreciate you. Maestro.

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

Look who it is. It's Cheryl Churchick.

Sure is. Of Corvallis, Oregon

Hey, that reminds me Yeah Do we ever find those signs that somebody stole off of our van When we were driving through Corvallis Magnetic signs

We were not able The judge would not issue us a warrant to search Every square inch of Cheryl's property But I have a hunch that if we did We would locate the signs

Uh-huh, and we would make a documentary about it No, that is a, I believe those things flew off the van as soon as we hit the highway. I know.

What? I mean, I think, I can't remember if I said this. I'm sure I did say this on the show, but I feel like there was some sort of conversation. I might have had a conversation with my dad where he said something like, yeah, I don't think he said they could fly off the side of the van, but what I remember is there was some conversation about what the maximum size of an magnetic vinyl sign you know could be and i don't remember anyone saying because it was going to blow off but it was one of those things that were like yeah we only do it you know two foot by two foot and i was like can i pay more to make it six foot by six foot and they were like i guess somehow like that thing those signs blowing off the delica i think was a direct result of me not listening to the people who know more about that kind of stuff than i do but i didn't it didn't ever occur to me that the surface area was going to be a problem because it was going to lead to the things flying off somewhere near cottage grove

the irony is that the van would not go fast enough for our needs but it went just fast enough

it could only achieve the amount of speed that would make these signs we bought from quick sign or whatever off, but not fast enough to get us out of the Sonoran Desert.

No, exactly. As we made our way to Cheryl's house where we did a show from Cheryl's driveway.

We absolutely did. Cheryl says, TBTL has been such a part of my life since sometime in 2009. I wish I could know exactly what the first episode was that I listened to, but it keeps me company and picks me up when I'm feeling down. The show is often what inspires me to get up and be a doer getting more done when I'm trying to procrastinate and it helps me stay just a bit closer to my tween age kids by hipping me to the latest memes and social media trends. Cheryl, just say a special team, special plays, special players. Hey brother, sorry for cussing. See if your kids know what sorry for cussing means. I don't know what it is about having my imaginary friendos in my headphones chatting away about home improvement projects, but thank you Luke and Andrew and John for continuing to make this happen tbtl is tonight pants for my ears again a lot of ear talk wow and a new and novel way to describe this experience yes tonight pants for my ear diet tonight pants for my ears uh thanks to my family lance julian and irene all of whom we met when we were down there broadcasting um for laughing with me and always understanding when i randomly say no thank you rich kazarian and i wish i hadn't done that i think we haven't done that i think we can find those do you know who the i wish i hadn't done that is by the way yeah that's jerry

springer i wish i hadn't done that um also i want i want cheryl to know that i literally said no thank you rich kazarian to my computer today as whoa excuse me we're getting sorry things are getting wild over here when did i got it i got an email from like i don't know spotify or something and said, hey, we've signed you up for a newsletter or whatever, and as I hit unsubscribe, I literally said, nobody was around me, nobody could hear me, but I literally said out loud, no thank you, Rich Gazarian. No thank you, Rich Gazarian. There are dozens of us.

Hey, by the way, how rudimentary was the text-to-speech programming in the day? Because that's what this is, obviously. This is me typing the words, no thank you, Rich Gazarian, into one of these programs that's going to, like, we'll take your text and we'll make it into, like, a human talking. And this is what they came up with.

No, thank you, Rich, because Arian. Wait, is that a robot or a human? Is that you?

Andrew, I hope you're sitting down. Uh-huh. That's a robot.

That's a robot. Wow. Ooh, that's kind of a... I don't know what you're talking about when you mentioned you pre-promoted something in your intro today about you falling in love with a robot. No, thank you, Rich, because Arian. Yeah, about AI.

You know what? Let's get to that in a minute here. Thank you so much, Cheryl, and everybody in the church household yeah thanks also jack thanks for making tbtl possible today hello and welcome to top story on the subject of artificial intelligence i had this interesting experience yesterday so i am going to be in national this summer i'm going to be helping out with a corporate conference and um for an accounting software company which you know maybe tbtb should hire andrew but um let's just leave that alone for now i think yeah that's interesting um and uh they wanted to um announce it i think within the company like newsletter or something and so the people that have been helping and by the way this is all thanks to a 10 who i believe is in australia who said hey i listened to the show and we're having this like all staff get together in nashville this summer and they're looking for someone to help emcee it would you be interested so um that was very nice of them uh that cash could get me out of a couple of jams as we like to say but anyway um they wanted a headshot of me and i don't have any headshots uh other than like maybe the ones that we had taken for apm years ago and I don't even know where those are like I don't even have access to those and I actually sort of acted and those even weren't really headshot headshots like the the beginning of my career when I thought you needed headshots I had some that I had to pay for out of my own pocket but um I've never liked that as a thing photographically like I don't know I just think it's let me just say it's not for me this like me standing there being like hey it's me luke burbank you know um and so as my career has grown i guess you would say as i've had more jobs where you probably need headshots i've become more resistant to having headshots anyway these folks wanted me to send them a headshot i said i don't really have a headshot but i just i was like i'll ask our photographer at the radio show if she has any pictures of me that kind of could pass for a headshot and um that was actually taking a little while and there's i guess a lot of pictures of god i weep for the live wire photographer having to look through many photos of me but anyway uh i they they texted me while i was in vegas and they were like hey they really want to make the announcement on monday do you have a do you have a headshot so i did what anybody would do in this situation which is i went on the internet to find a google image of myself and i did and i don't even like the picture but it was close up and it seemed headshot ish and i realized this is going to be going out in the corporate email it doesn't matter if I like the photo or not because it turns out I don't like any photos of myself so this just put this on the list of all the photos I don't like so I sent it to them but I literally like downloaded it to my phone I believe I might have been like walking you know on my way to the dome Andrew I was either entering or leaving the

dome and so this was a very low kind of low-tech thing like I just downloaded the picture to my phone sent it to them said will this work and then yesterday they sent me back one and they said and and one of the problems when you just download something from the internet is like and this is something you know much more about than i do but it's like the pixels are wrong or

something like it wasn't high res it's not high res enough exactly it was real yeah so i was like

god like like i don't know what to do because there are no i don't own any high res photos of myself that would work for this and then they just said we got it covered we used an ai program that changed the resolution.

Yeah, that makes sense.

That's a thing AI can do?

I mean, I hadn't heard about it in that way. It just adds pixels? But that makes sense. I did for a video for the newsletter one time. I don't think it was a hate on it. I think it was just like a video I did. I think I did it to visually show the listener something I had already tried to explain to you on the show, and I did a miserable job of using the words to describe it. But where you take a photo, like there's all this AI stuff that is built into things like Photoshop now, where it literally uses AI in the sense that the computer sort of senses what is around it. In this case, it would probably be what is around these individual pixels and how can I fill it out? I did something where I kept on expanding the edges of an image further and further and further out. And the computer was like, oh, there's a little bit of a branch here. That must be a bigger branch. And then you go out further and further. And then eventually an entire township is built around a photo of a tree I took or something like that. Because you just keep on saying, guess what's around it? Use your AI, use your artificial intelligence. And so that sort of makes sense. In fact, that's a really good practical use of AI. It can sort of read the pixels and just kind of create like pixels around it and blend it together. I like that.

I would say it's the first time in my experience that AI has gone out of the theoretical and has been part of the practical. Just like, yeah, here's the problem. This guy downloaded a photo of himself off of the internet. That's low res and he's sending it to us. How do we fix it? Well, the AI can fix it. And it did. That's amazing to me. Just like, it's the first time that it's ever AI has actually solved a problem in my life, as opposed to just been this theoretical thing that we talk about on public radio, uh, is AI has AI gone too far or whatever. Like, it's just, no, this just works for this. And the funny thing

too and the great thing was uh they wanted to get luke burbank's team to sign off on it and i thought that was funny because i exactly they called each and every one of the little sluggers it was like i was like oh this is this is adorable you think i have a team the team is me and i'm fine with you using the ai photo i'm trying to find the actual uh email thread it was uh Let's see here. Hey, we're hoping we can get this. Let's see. We used AI and we got this back. We wanted to make sure we ran it by Luke and his team first. Let me know if they are okay with the larger scale. And I just said, I'm good with the AI version sent from my iPhone. That's the team. The team is me.

I would have created a fake email address with a fake signature. You know where I thought you were going with that? although this makes more sense as you set up the story and talking about ai but i had a somewhat similar experience i'm going to say about six months ago i needed a headshot and i always go through the same thing like i had one headshot taken of me um when i worked for cairo radio when i first started so that would have been and it was a nice one but that was 2012 so it is now 2024 so using a headshot that is more than 10 years old seems dubious to me but i man did i use the hell out of that one but even that one i remember the photographer for the radio station saying you know you got to do this where you're launching a radio show we need at least one head shot and it was a colleague of ours named Chris Luke I don't know how well you remember him sure photographer at the station at the time and he did a really nice job he's like come on let's go out he works for Winnebago now is that really where he works yeah oh that's interesting yeah um and he's like let's go get it let's go get a taco and a drink and you can relax and then I'll take some photos of you around Capitol Hill and it'll be fun and he did such a nice job yeah that's one of the things about photography that i learned um you know i like taking photos of things but i could never be a professional photographer because being a professional photographer doesn't mean just knowing how to use a camera it means knowing how to talk to people and make people at ease and and also control a crowd at a wedding and and like there's the social aspect of it is probably really understated yeah i feel like the the social aspect of being a photographer is is the bigger part actually i feel like anybody can learn to use a camera but um so anyway i couldn't use that headshot anymore there's been a few from live events or whatever but every time somebody says i need a headshot i get this bad feeling in my gut because i didn't like the ones that were taken of me and it's not the photographer's fault but i just didn't like the ones that were taken of me you know in 2015 for tbtl i think i had some taken in la that again were fine i just don't know where they are i'll do the same thing you do i'll go online and see if there's any photos of me or i have a folder of bric-a-brac photos of me but then this one day i think kow the local radio station needed a headshot of me i'm like oh god damn it all right i'll look or whatever and then i put the project down i went outside to go grab some lunch and then as i as i left my house i'm like oh my god it's a beautiful day and oh my god the camera on my phone has so many more pixels yeah than any camera that would have been used 12 years ago anyway good point and also i don't the reason a lot of my headshots are bad is because i'm so uncomfortable doing headshots around another human being behind a camera so i do think and you probably didn't have this in la but i grabbed a tripod and i just put it up on my deck and i had i think it had just started snowing and i had my hat on i was like and i was able just to do a like literally a two minute photo session with myself to get like my best modern headshot and I sent it to him like why didn't I do that forever ago why didn't I just find a moment when nobody was around and take my

own headshot that literally never occurred to me until you just said that of course that's what I

should do duh because that way you can be comfortable and you can do as many takes as you want and you can be as picky as you want and you can be your own art director like for me that's the thing it's just so hard for me to look natural when somebody is saying okay look natural I'm

taking a bunch of photos of you now did you mutter under your breath yes yes work it i said work it a lot yeah you better work it's giving it's giving runway model eat girl were you saying all of those

things to yourself you ate girl because i i was on my way to lunch cheryl that's a freebie you could use that around the kids too yeah um the other thing that happened to me involving i don't

know i don't think this is really technically ai but i told you when we were in vegas we were staying at the um the cosmo hotel um the cosmopolitan because they gave me free nights free rooms although it was very like this is a as as they say very very much a first world problem but it was kind of annoying that so they sent me a thing in the mail that was like hey do you want some free nights at the hotel and i was like um okay maybe and i had that like voucher for the slot machine that i could only redeem in person and um and the last time that we were down there which was for becca's

brother's uh 50th birthday um also the Cosmo was offering some free rooms I don't know why by the way this is happening I don't gamble a significant amount of money there I'm not in some high roller I'm no Avis wizard of the Cosmo I don't know why uh they're offering me this but I'm not going to argue with them but when we stayed there most recently it was really nice because they gave us a room that had a view of the Bellagio fountains which is super cool and the Cosmo is

they advertise sometime right it's kind of a young sexy yes vegas to tell to the point that

i'm about to make because their whole shtick is like risque and you know like you know anything could happen or something so they've clearly programmed their i don't know if you've noticed this staying in hotels but it's if you're staying in a hotel that's trying to be cool one of the big things is they have an ai program that starts texting your phone in a very flirtatious way This is, I've experienced this at multiple hotels now I think they've realized And this is kind of gross actually That when some, like a hotel just sends you a text That's just kind of perfunctory You're probably not going to pay a lot of attention But if they put a horn devil emoji in it And it's from someone named Rose As a, you know, you might be more likely To kind of like give it a second look I will be totally honest I am more aware of these, like, flirtatious texts that the robot is sending me than just a very, like, you know, thank you for checking into Hyatt. The ice is located on the third floor. When you get a text that's like, hi, Luke, I've been waiting for you. I'm Rose, Rose emoji, resident mischief maker at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

And a little thick Rose.

Now that you're checked in, make your way to your room in the Boulevard Tower. But first, here's what my human friends say I have to tell you, and then a robot emoji. And then I think this is the disclaimer that this is not a person, because my guess is, it says, you know, humans tell me I have to tell you this text sent via auto dialer, message and data rates apply, blah, blah, blah. I'm guessing that without doing that, a significant portion of the male population staying in the hotel would be thinking that this was the person from the front desk and that they're being hit on, and they would probably be responding like, what are you doing later?

Yeah, like a lot of sad-looking guys just milling about. I'm serious. The lobby waiting for Rose.

I 100% think that would happen. I don't know if you've met dudes.

Are you Rose?

I really made a connection with somebody named Rose who worked at this hotel.

Yeah, we really had a...

I'm here for the National Association of Broadcasters. By the way, an actual conference that was happening when I was there.

Oh, really? Have you ever been to an NAB conference before as a broadcaster?

No, which I said to Becca, I was like, I promise you I've bead more than most of the people wearing these lanyards. An actual thing I said, standing in line to get into the dome. Because that's at the convention center, and all these people are walking by with these lanyards, NAB lanyards. And then I spent our time waiting in line, going through all the people speaking at the conference. And I was like, I could have been invited to this. I'd be as much as these people, if not more.

I'm going to look at the NAB conference.

It is long. The list of speakers is incredibly long. So here, continuing on from our friend Rose, P.S. When I'm in a good mood, I tend to be generous with friends. Just reply insider to get access to my real-time exclusives. And then just continues on With this flirtation And then today Because technically the room I checked out yesterday But the room went through today Like that was the offer So I get this text I wake up to this text From this GD robot It's been a pleasure To have you push my buttons Ciao for now XOXO Pretty forward from the Like right? Yeah Like I mean I don't know Maybe I'm just old and old fashioned, but that just definitely is like, thank you. It's been a pleasure to have you push my buttons. I mean, that is like overtly sexual content from the text device at the Cosmo. So I had

something dialed up here that I was going to, I tried to get this ready when we were still talking about Rich Gazarian and how far text to speech has come over the years. And so I found like one of the first Google results for a free text to speech reader here. And I wanted to hear and i just randomly chose one of the the female voices jane i think maybe uh and just dialed up no thank you rich gazarian i want to hear what this sounds like it's no thank you rich gazarian it's honestly still more robotic yeah that's not super considering you rich gazarian

We have an endless supply of Andy Rooney saying TBTL shit, right? Right. You would think, no, thank you, Rich Gazarian, in a past. Can we get Andy Rooney saying, no, thank you, Rich Gazarian? That's elite status, right?

I think listener Steven can make that happen. I can make this happen, though. I can't remember exactly what your text message said.

Thank you for pushing my buttons.

Is that what Rose said? Yeah. Is that what Rose said?

I think she said, it said. I'm not going to anthropomorphize this thing. Okay. It's been a pleasure to have you push my buttons. Ciao for now, XOXO.

Okay. C-I-A-O, is that right? Yep. I don't think I'm going to type XOXO because it'll probably just read those. It's implied.

It's been a pleasure to have you push my buttons. Ciao for now.

I met somebody.

Is it working? We had a connection. Are you Rose?

Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man, it's not from a female.

It's not even from Rose, the flirtatious text, whatever, service.

I have a whole bunch of voicemails to play. I'm trying to figure out which one. Okay, this one sort of puzzled me. Yeah, I'm going to play this one. So I told you on the show, this is going back a little ways here, and I'll try to keep this as brief as possible. But I told you that I'm very disciplined, as everybody well knows, about the garbage that I take to the curb every week and the rules surrounding it. I was surprised to see a $9 charge on my bill the other day for extra garbage taken to the curb. I called the city. They said, oh, we're not sure. I said, I definitely did not take extra garbage to the curb. They said, well, maybe there are things like if the lid doesn't close all the way, if there needs to be at least three, no more than three inches of space between the lid and the top of the garbage can. If it's more than that, they'll charge you for it. And I was like, oh, my God, I did throw away some awkward, like, mini blinds that might have had the lid sticking up a little bit. And so, like, I can't believe they charged me for that. So anyway, I didn't say that to the person on the phone. I said, I don't know, man. And I did not put extra garbage out there. And she said, well, they didn't take a photo, so we're taking that $9 off of your bill. And I'm like, okay, great. The next time my garbage was picked up and emptied, I came out to get my bin. And this is one of those big city bins that has – it's a big city bin. I don't go in for your big city bins. But, you know, it's got, like, the wheels on the bottom, so it's top heavy. And I saw that the garbage collector had emptied my garbage bin and then placed it upside down.

Right, which we thought was maybe that was a flex.

Because it seems more difficult to set it with the heavy side up with the wheels. You know what I mean? I don't understand, like, how that was the most convenient thing to do.

That's real game day bucket go boom energy.

Right. If it was on its side or something, I'd be like, well, they, you know, they didn't set it down carefully and it just tipped over or a raccoon knocked it over. I don't know. But I just seem like such a weird thing. So I said to you, is there a chance that the garbage collector like found out that I contested that charge and now the garbage collector is mad at me? And I thought that that was a ridiculous premise, but I wanted to raise it. And I think you said maybe that is the case. I'm not sure. But you what I said was a little bit more.

I can't think of any alternate explanation for why they would put your garbage can upside down, because as you've already stated, that seems like more work. So why would you do this thing that is more work if you weren't trying to clap back message?

But the thing that didn't make sense to me is like what the garbage collector is so tuned in to the city that they know whether or not a chart like this person got back in their truck and ticked a box somewhere that said charge this guy for extra garbage pickup. how in the world would the person in the truck find out that i had contested that charge what does the city send an alert to garbage collectors saying hey the commission that you were going to make on that nine dollar extra garbage fee was uh that's where the theory really starts to fall apart it really falls apart right so anyway take a listen to this hey andrew this is your

conservative friend that's listened since day one out in federal way hell yeah used to be a garbage man for two years who've done two different line of trucking you don't mess with the garbage people he definitely found out about it he's pissed off get him a gift card to subway or something no starbucks or bottle of booze but they know what goes on and same with your mailman if you have a regular mailman my wife's a letter carrier don't mess with your letter carriers either your regular letter carrier have a great day that's almost started to get chills near the

end of that that was the equivalent of him leaving the voicemail upside down

i have a specific set of skills fascinating garbage collector like i i would still like to know like how does the garbage it just doesn't seem right to me that the garbage collector would receive that feedback that i called and said i didn't like call to complain about my service i didn't say hey you need to send a they've been skipping my house or whatever like there's no need for the garbage collector to know that that $9 fee was wiped from my bill but anyway I don't know this listener's

name. Maybe when you were contesting the charge there's some kind of a system you know like an email that gets generated for the garbage collector that's like as if they would remember it but that says like hey this person is contesting the charge what do you remember about the number of inches that the lid was propped open like again it would be insane for the garbage person to be responsible for remembering that kind of stuff but maybe there's maybe in the challenging of it this kept happening to me by the way at the cosmo while the uh text program was overly flirtatious the people working there were under flirtatious for my liking because when we got so oh i didn't even finish that story but basically what happened was i got something in the mail that said like would you like to come back for some free nights And I was like, OK. And I called and I was like, can we get one of those rooms that looks at the Bellagio fountains? That was very nice last time when that happened. And the person on the phone said, absolutely. That's what we have you in. I was like, oh, excellent. So then the day of the trip, Friday, I called to double check. I said, I just want to like check in on this because we really liked the fact that the room looked at the fountains. And that was a big part of because, again, there was no real reason for us to go to Las Vegas other than that stupid ticket and the fact that it was going to be kind of warm. So part of it really was even if like I don't gamble one dime while I'm there, even if like we just hang out in the hotel room and look at the fountains, it would be a nice, relaxing weekend. And that was primary to the whole experience was this particular kind of room, which, again, very nice that I live in a world where someone wanted to give me a room at a hotel. I know that this is not like a story of generational trauma, but so I called and the person said, yes, absolutely. We have you in one of those rooms that looks at the fountain. So imagine my surprise when we got to the hotel and checked in and they said, oh, yeah, we don't have any rooms facing the fountain. It's fight weekend. So it's sold out.

And Becca and I were going to fight for the room.

Exactly. Becca and I were both saying, when is it not fight weekend in Vegas? That's like saying it's Vegas weekend in Vegas.

Yeah, yeah, because our friend was, we have a mutual friend who was just there the weekend before, I think.

Every weekend is, it's like, it's gambling weekend. Sorry.

It's breathing air weekend. Exactly.

It's gravity applies weekend. Like, what? Of course, it's always a fight. I mean, the person that checked us in, who became forever known as Joshua, because that was his name, was zero help. Here's what he did. we got there and i said uh oh i just wanted to like triple check what sort of room we're in and he goes you're in the you know like he starts telling us about the room and it's a pretty small room and it's facing a parking structure you know how i love that kind of thing andrew and i said oh you know what i think there might have been a miscommunication because i talked to them on the phone this morning and they said that we would be in a room that was facing the fountains and that was kind of a big part of the appeal for us we want to look at the fountains and he goes well and he starts showing us on this video screen the kind of room we're in as opposed to the kind of room that looks at the fountain. And at some point, Becca went, we understand that we're in a different room. Like, his response was not to say, oh, sorry, we don't have that kind of room. Oh, sorry, there was a miscommunication, et cetera. It was just to keep showing us the layout of the two kind of rooms. See, here's the room you're in, and here's the layout of the room you want to be in.

Now, was there any, like, was he, were there features, was he leaning heavily on features that might even seem better in your room? No, he was not.

Joshua was not Doing what you're describing Which would have actually been kind of an okay move Which was to be like Unfortunately we don't have any rooms that have By the way I'm channeling Philip Seymour Hoffman Trying to get the rug back From Lebowski

Right right right

Unfortunately we do need the rug back No I was like He did not have the wherewithal to be like Sorry we're out of rooms facing the fountain But here I have good news This room that we have you in has these features And you'll really like that He just was going, this is the kind of room that you're in. This is the kind of room that you're wanting to be in. And we were eventually, after like three times, Becca was like, and in a nice way, was like, we're very clear on the difference in the room styles. So I said, is there anybody?

We want the better one. That's what's leading the conversation.

See the one that you're pointing to that looks better? That's the one. That's where we're trying to be. So then eventually Joshua just went and got his manager. and I could just tell as soon as the manager

immediately emerged from the back room that the manager was also not going to be helping us i don't know if he pulled this person in off the street i don't want to stereotype around tattoos they did have a fairly poorly done chest tattoo which was visible and looked like it had not been fully thought out now i have a lot of tattoos that a lot of people would say are probably regrettable but like there was something about the fact that this woman had a tattoo on her chest that looked like she had had her friend do it on a whim that made me think this is not the person that's going to solve this situation for me. And she just came out and was, as you might imagine, zero help. Like she was not brought out to solve the problem. She was brought out to also point at pictures on the tablet of rooms we were not going to be put in. And it was frustrating because of the fact that I had been told explicitly two times by people on the phone that it was going to be one kind of room and she said well who did you talk to and i said a person who answered the phone clearly not even at the hotel like you know it's a large hotel and they subcontract the stuff out so when you call to try to book your whatever the hell they call this system it's like your um identity number or something when you try to book it's like you're talking to a phone bank somewhere like i wasn't going to say it was latirza and then they're going to go get Letirza and bring her out and then she's going to go, I did tell them they'd have a fountain view and they're like, okay, problem solved like, you're going to have to believe me on this that I talked to somebody and they said this to me, so then

But it's also, and just to be clear because I think I'm following this, you don't have any kind of leverage because it's a free room, right? You can't just say, fine, I'm taking my business elsewhere Although there was another hotel

trying to give me a free room, which really irked me the Delano which is over, I think, at the Mandalay Bay or something Because I stayed at the four seasons in the Mandalay Bay on CBS's Dime. So I think they think maybe I'm somebody. That was the same hotel Kamala was staying in. So she's also probably getting emails from the Delano.

Yeah. She can flirt with the robot.

Let me tell you this. Oh, the other thing that the lady, the manager kept saying is, we're 105% booked tonight. And I thought, well, that sucks for the 5%.

Yeah, who's on the roof? Who's sleeping in the garage?

We talked about that for the rest. We kept talking about everything being 105% committed, which was like, again, this is like something that they tell you to say. I was like, I promise you if Kamala Harris walked in here, she wouldn't be in a parking lot view studio room. I bet you amidst the 105% of capacity, you would find a room that would be sufficient for the vice president of America at the Cosmo. And again, it was a free room. I eventually we just went with the well I mean okay so I know I'm sorry making the story so long and so boring but basically like it goes to my point that most of the time when somebody and look these two people Joshua and whatever the manager's name was they just work there like you said yesterday on the show Andrew it's like I don't need everyone who's working somewhere that I'm interacting with to be my best friend or to make me feel like some big shot I don't feel like that's their job that's not their responsibility like they just got up probably gave their kids breakfast got dressed came to work like that's their reality i don't expect them to um i don't know go above and beyond for me like i really i really don't expect that from them but like it was just frustrating because i am of the opinion that when somebody said so i was like okay where there was like she was like you're going to be in the boulevard tower there's two towers there the chelsea tower and the boulevard tower the boulevard tower is as the name would indicate near the las vegas strip so it's a louder it's just more going on than the chelsea tower which is a slightly quieter basically for olds for people like me who were in bed both nights at 11 p.m in las vegas and i said could we at least be in the chelsea tower she said we're at 105 capacity and i was like okay so we trudged off to the like less great tower well sure enough our room our little sliding glass door opened out onto not just a parking structure but also where the pool is where they have parties the marquee day club slash night club so this is a crazy loud musical experience that goes until three four in the morning so as you might imagine it was loud and not easy to sleep so the next morning i go downstairs let me ask you a quick

question why did you said there was another hotel offering you a free room what would have been the harm of just like walking across town or wherever it is and just like checking out that room and maybe just renting both free rooms for the night and then just spending the night in the better

one well the problem was by that time i don't know if the offer was still valid i'd have to maybe they were at 105 now it's a fight weekend luke it's a fight weekend and also by the way the geography of las vegas is insane

insane from the hotel we were in the Cosmo you can very clearly see the Delano and it's also

probably 11,000 miles away in just terrible walking conditions just rolling our bags like

it's so everything is like oh it's right over there right and then an hour later you're like how are we further away from this that happened when we were trying to walk to the dome to straighten out the tickets with Ticketmaster, we kept being like, we see it. It's a massive structure and somehow we're not getting closer to it. So I just, you know, I, I, they had me over a barrel because they were giving me the room. So, you know, I can't be that angry about this, but the next morning I went down. Oh, and by the way, I realized that they have a whole check-in if you're Bon Valais, a whole separate area with free coffee. And I went in there and the people were like oh absolutely yeah we'll move you over to the chelsea tower click click click click and i was like and we moved to the chelsea tower we weren't in we didn't have like the fancy view but we were in a much quieter area that was fine for us it was totally a-okay but i knew that there like the night before when the manager was being like we're at 105 percent of capacity i was like i even said in a kind of nice way i was like yes but this is a very very large hotel there are thousands of rooms in this hotel and I can't imagine that every single room is currently occupied by someone like someone's gonna come check in in an hour this is by the way it was like 7 p.m. when we were doing this someone's gonna come check in at 11 p.m. they're going to a room that room is sitting like this idea that we're at 105 percent of capacity therefore you can't be in this other tower it was belied by the fact that the next morning they're like oh yeah we'll just put you in the other tower like there's always a way with these things it's just do the are the people that you're dealing with do they feel like making it happen for you and both of the people we were dealing with did not feel like making it happen for us on friday night again many worse things have happened in people's lives i'm not complaining i am complaining but i mean i'm recognizing that it's not that big of a deal but it was just this feeling of being like i can't prove oh the other thing that i was going to say is about the fact that this hotel was big on checking up on things when i went down to the bonvoy desk and i said hey you know i was on the phone with people and they kept saying we were going to be in a room that like faces the fountain and she goes well we never do that for complimentary rooms and I go well we did have that last time and she goes when were you here I go February and she looks at and she goes well they were just being

nice to you I was like okay so well how about you be right it was like okay your argument is falling

apart pretty rapidly here we never do that on complimentary rooms except for the last time you were here so there is a precedent for this happening I mean I was I was done arguing I just wanted us to not be on top of the marquee day club and night club which happened uh we moved everything was a okay but it was like what i was surprised here's what i'm saying what i was surprised by was how often the people at this hotel that i were talking to checked on my story

in other words oh you mean like kind of saying when were you here and looking up what room i

had been in february oh yeah like i would think she'd just take me at my word that like last time I was like, Hey, can we be in a room that faces the fountains? Well, you're on a complimentary thing. So we're not going to, we don't do that. Oh, okay. Well, they did it last time. When were you here? Like, she's going to catch me in a lie. She's going to look up the reservation and find that the room that I was in faced the parking lot. Like it was, and then she looked it up and it was like, well, that was them being nice to you. Like it was just every starting the night before. And even that morning, every time I said something to them about the last time I was here, they looked it up. They were trying to figure out who I talked to on the phone. It was like, it was strange to me because I just feel like in those customer service interactions, if you're the person who's doing the customer service, you just believe the person or you don't. But like checking up on it is such a weird thing to me. It's like the guy's lying and I'm also not going to put him in a room facing the fountains or the guy's telling the truth. And I'm also not going to put him in a room facing the fountains. Like fact checking my story when I'm still not going to get to the room facing the fountains is a weird step to me.

it's also funny that like she tap tap tap looking it's like oh the notes here say they were being nice right like that was what the i did take some satisfaction in the fact that she had to observe

that in fact i was in a room facing the fountain last time like she had to give me at least that much but then again it's like then i i love that the how much the goalposts were constantly moving we never do this on a free room okay we did do it but we were just being nice right yeah anyway Again, much worse things are happening to people all the time than my little—

Yeah, my garbage can is upside down.

Exactly. From a garbage person, garbage comma person, who it sounds like might actually have it out for you.

I'm not sure. Since then— Well, this is how in my head about it I am now. The next week, so it was upside down the one week, and then the next week it was perfectly set up facing the street, and the insanity in my brain was like I almost didn't pull it from the curb because usually when it's emptied, it's askew a little bit. I was like, are they putting it there perfectly?

Never let them know your next move.

So that I think it hasn't been emptied And it will collect all of the dog poop Of all of the dog walkers in the neighborhood This is how they get you It's like, no, they just set it down They just set the garbage can down, Andrew That's what happened

I love it, you open the garbage can And there's a handwritten note that just says Just subscribe to Apple TV And there's a knife through it

Just pay the money, loser It's a banana, Andrew What could it cost? $9

Alright, that music tells us that this has probably been enough tbtl for one day boy long shows yesterday and today yeah we

were up to two hours yesterday oh an hour 45 i want to apologize uh to all of the people that

tuned in to hear tbtl little sluggers content and got none of it today uh we'll give you an update next game uh thank you thank you everybody for listening we are going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you please do join us for that in the meantime have a great tuesday take care of yourselves please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all three two

this is my fight song my andrew fight song the fight didn't last long Unless the story was just very long Power out