Muse

Listen, wife's going out tonight. I'm gonna have the guys over. We're gonna watch the fish on the big screen. I'm gonna grill up some brats. I got a micro brew chilling in my wet bar and I was gonna warm up some ziti. Why don't you come by if you got some triple-fried pizza dough or some kind of frozen meatballs or whatever it is. You can warm it up in my microwave or you can warm it up back at home. Bring it over pipe and hop and if you want to bring over a vegetable medley, a crudite, figure out how much lunch meat you can spare. Maybe bring over pound and half two pounds of black forest ham maybe a dijon mustard spread any kind of dessert maybe a german chocolate cake or something like that i tell you what would make you a big hit with the dudes is get some key lime pie ala mode i'm talking about ice cream on the side right and you i've got to have a bite of my homemade ziti i'm just going to warm her up she's been in the freeze uh thanks for the invite but you know i love her those hot mozzarella sticks cube them up put them in some marinara sauce you have them on standby of course you can't go wrong with some sour cream and onions so long as you're bringing ridged chips.

Yeah.

TBTL!

Okay, T-Bone, time for some serious crunching. I've only ever said I love you to two men my entire life. Stone Cold Steve Austin and a guy in a dark club who I mistook for Stone Cold Steve Austin. It's 10 o'clock in the morning. I'm in the Charleston Town Center Mall,

and I think I'm the first one in this bathroom this morning. It's perfectly clean.

So look, why don't you download my blog? It's free. Of course we do appreciate donations.

Anybody know what this is? Huh? All of this is the digestive system. And now we're going to have a couple of guys who's going to give us a presentation about what happens when the digestive system isn't working properly.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TVTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. That's the saddest thing I've ever heard. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. As Jay would say, he's got flow. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia.

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

It's an absolutely gorgeous day. I did some lawn mowing yesterday, and I'm now the proud owner of not one but two lawnmowers. This is a two-lawnmower household. In this household, we believe Bozo did the dub, and we need not one but two lawnmowers to properly handle the lawn situation. So that's under control, and we are ready, my friends, to do episode 4187 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

speaking of lawnmowers i'm going to dip my toe back into the waters of listing something for free on craigslist which is so far caused me no end of stress i don't want to sell anything

buy anything or process anything as a career last time it was a refrigerator which stressed me out

and now i've decided to put this lawnmower up there for free so we'll probably end up talking about that also i know we're going to talk about this pasta particularly the cascatelli pasta with our good friend dan pashman from the sporkful welcome to food news today he's got a new cookbook out called anything is possible did you know because i didn't until i read the book that pasta in italy is more or less a fascist plot i'm not saying that like jokingly it literally is connected to fascism we're going to find out about that and so much more when we talk to dan later in the program first though we got to talk to this guy why well because he's the longest running cobro of the program maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships he's also um he was king of the tuck tuck sound he's andrew walsh and he's joining me right now good morning my friend

i blew it luke i blew it right before we were getting ready to record i threw together a little intro i thought dan's gonna be on the show let's have something food related i did find something food related but we have that whole uh portlandia sketch about pasta cutting pasta out of your life do you remember that it's a very sad moment for fred as he has to throw away all the pasta because he's just learning about carbs feels like well maybe that would have been two on the nose that's how i'll justify this you know what i was going to use that but it was two on the nose for today exactly andrew that would be so predictable of this show and if there's anything we like to be It's unpredictable. Absolutely. So I had a dream last night. No, just joking. I'm just joking. It's that unpredictability. I'm joking. I'd like to hear about this lawnmower thing because it's a little bit fortuitous that you have a lawnmower story today. I'll tell you why later. Okay.

Yeah. So I, for.

a good while have been risking my life maybe not my life but i've been risking my safety when i try to mow certain areas of my lawn with this riding lawn mower that i bought which is an electric it's a ryobi i love it so much it is this tells you how how sad my life is but one of the greatest joys of my life is uh on a nice afternoon climbing aboard this electric riding lawnmower and mowing the lawn but the problem is i also live on a hill basically this is the madrona hill studio after all we are perched high above the mighty columbia so i'm on a fairly decent sized piece of land i think it's like a couple acres maybe an acre and a half but most of it is like a very steep hill and sometimes when i'm mowing what will happen is the lawnmower because of the angle that i'm at will go up on like two wheels or so which the issue there is well one it's in danger of toppling but two but it also looks super cool i keep inviting my neighbors over to watch me do it seeing if any of them will be impressed i'm trying to reenact

you on your what was it go-kart my go-kart you're like every girl in the neighborhood that you have a crush on you're like come on over watch me mow the lawn i'm trying to get gail down here from

up the street aka gay yes but the the real issue is that if i get up on two wheels or if if a couple of the wheels are only minimally connected to the soil or the grass the thing stops moving because there's not it's not getting any traction and it's happened what happens every time i mow the lawn that i end up getting stuck in this fashion then i have to get off the lawnmower and then i have to like kind of drag it to a place where all four wheels are now back on the ground and it turns out this thing is really heavy and it's like actually not an easy task uh so and then there is again seriously the the real risk that if it were if i were to be going too fast and it were to be too steep the thing could roll back on me kind of like what happens to people on quads what may or may not have happened to rick riz yeah right when he was out riding a quad he's our number one

authority on quad accidents thankfully he was okay well he i guess he picked up where um who was the seahawk who was drafted and did he roll out of michigan yeah he rolled a quad and then didn't play for his entire rookie what should have been his rookie year right yeah exactly and

then played i think minimally in the nfl um so what this has me what this means that there are certain areas of the yard that are actually not getting mowed because i just can't it's not possible to drive the riding mower around them. And one of them is kind of in the front part of the yard. It's on this sort of down slope from this tree. So what basically happens is I'll go out, I'll mow the yard. It'll look all nice. I'll sit on the deck. I'll admire my small fiefdom here. And then there'll just be like a couple of areas where the grass is just out of control growing because it's never been addressed. And it's a large enough area that I could weed whack it but i'm not gonna get a good even people are like did andrew did andrew have a dream could we

go back to that is there something else we can talk about i had a dream i was mowing the lawn don't you need a push mower though or like you know a push mower with power assist i mean that's how we always did it when we had land growing up we we got what we could with the big mower but

then you go around trimming with the push mower see i didn't know this was the thing i didn't grow up in the country like you did andrew so and when you say push mower you mean a mower that is

motorized but well you walk behind it growing up the first one we had wasn't motorized we just pushed that son of a gun and then when they when they invented or the sort of what there's a term

for that i think power assist no the way those blades are there's a term for those blades oh no

i'm not talking about the old-fashioned kind like dennis the menace's neighbor might you mean a

lawnmower that takes gasoline and makes noise and yeah okay and you

push behind it yeah it makes noise but then you know I always think of

push mower being the like the one that is literally just has blades on it oh yeah

I don't yeah I don't know if I'm using those terms incorrectly I don't think so I think you get a push mower nowadays I listen to a lot of baseball so I hear a lot of radio commercials for steel real people steel people Luke which is the

and we honestly are not doing And from a law enforcement standpoint, are not doing enough about that.

Why isn't we talking about the fact that Rick Riz is bragging about real people stealing people? But anyway, I hear these steel commercials and they talk about various pieces of equipment. I noticed they don't call them push mowers anymore because they want to like really emphasize the sort of power. They call them a walk behind mower now because that sounds easier than pushing, I guess. But essentially, yeah, like, you know, a motorized push mower.

When when I put push mower into the internet

All of the images I get are of the thing I was talking about. But also Home Depot, their entire section of push mowers are exactly what you're talking about. Same thing with Lowe's. So I think I'm going to say that the term push mower can apply to both probably.

I would guess so too. So anyway, I'm talking about a motorized push mower, a modern one, but one that you can do your trimming around trees and whatnot.

Okay, so I'm still relatively new to the riding mower game, which is why I still get an irrational amount of joy out of it.

It's not irrational, and I hope it never goes away. And it's not about your life being sad. I wanted to correct all of that.

But, you know, I never had enough lawn that was even something to consider. But so, yeah, so I'm new to this whole thing, and I've just been kind of living with these various – I've either been – I literally did a thing, I don't know, a couple weeks ago where I was going around the tree, and I was holding onto the tree with one hand to try to muscle the whole riding mower down onto the grass so that it was maintaining contact as I went around the tree. And it didn't feel like a good system. Shut it down. We don't do that. So here's the thing. I've had one of these push mowers, by which I mean the kind that takes gasoline, in the basement of the house since I moved here. And why? Because Becca's brother and sister-in-law were staying here for a little while while they were they'd sold their house and they were looking for their new house. And they brought their stuff up here, including Scott's push mower, a Honda. And I've had in the back of my mind that I should probably wheel that thing out, dust it off and and, you know, start using it in the little areas you can't get to with a riding motor, which, again, I didn't realize was a system. It sounds like they've been doing it since time immemorial in Ohio. But when I brought that thing out yesterday, I realized it is seriously jacked up. The tires are bald. Have you ever seen a mower with bald tires? I don't know. I didn't think that was possible.

No, but I admire the person who used it for so long and so loyally.

And I don't think it was Scott because both of the homes that they've had, their previous home in portland another their newer home neither one has any lawn i don't know what the story on this mower is but somebody really put some miles on it to the degree that the pole cord is broke was ripped oh no and somebody retied it like a million times but when this was the thing that broke me when they retied it they didn't think to thread the cord you know how there's like a little eye bolt or there's a there's a little thing on the on the kind of handle of the mower that the cord needs to go through to keep it sort of contained. Like a guide, yeah. A guide, if you will. Well, somebody, first of all, wow, you have to be very strong, or you have to have a serious rodent problem in your basement or whatever, your shed, that maybe they chewed through this cable. But somebody literally ripped this cable and then retied it, but didn't feed it back through the little guideline. so it's kind of just loosely wrapped around the arm and i think you all understand andrew how

kind of unsatisfying that is and unsafe honestly one thing about a mower like that is you don't want a bunch of like yeah i don't know strings hanging out off of it right and and and like it

i would have to cut it feed it back through and then retie it also the knot the way that the cable the cord was tied back together was i'm sad to say exactly how i would tie it back together which It's just like eight million, not like not some kind of clever like this is a clove hitch or something like. No, they just went like they just tied it and then retied it and then retied it. And it's just this big knuckle of of tied up cordage.

Right. Is that also, though? Let me ask you a question. Is there a chance that they did that part kind of on purpose? Because by not feeding it through the guide, that was the only way to keep the whole thing from sucking back into the into like the engine, into the into the mower itself. like is that not keeping it from going all the way in is that where it stops i look at the person

i i see by the evidence of this knot and how it was tied that this is the result of a very very unwell mind that's why i recognize the moves because it reminds me of my own mind and i can't imagine that there was any functional reason or practical reason for it i think they just tied it a bunch and then we're like oh shoot i should have put it through there well i'll just wrap it around here that'll do um and so anyway I wheeled this thing out of the basement of my house and I assessed it and I actually tried to pull on it a couple times and I just realized this is this is not happening like I bet you that I can buy a cheapo Ryobi electric you know we'll call it a push mower um and have that to go around i mean there's something that feels quite excessive about having two electric lawnmowers i'll be honest with you but i i didn't i didn't want to deal with this this other lawnmower which brings me to the point that i have listed it on craigslist for free we will see what happens with that i'm assuming that that there's a brisk trade in semi-functional lawnmowers i mean truthfully i think there are guys that their whole thing is like getting free lawnmowers making them work again and then selling them i think that's a whole thing so i'm guessing it'll go pretty fast

yeah maybe or like maybe like they don't refurbish this one but they use this one for parts for another one they're working on yeah i don't know much about that world it sort of sounds appealing to me if i knew anything about oh i bet you would love it yeah some some serious

tinkering going on but anyway yeah i went down to uh the uh the home depot and i'd i swear to god it's like that is not my new j crew like i always talk about when i go into a j crew i look around and I think, well, the algorithm has certainly figured me out. Why does everything in here look appealing to me? Like, oh, I would wear those pants. Oh, that's a nice-looking hat. Like, everything they have in a J.Crew is basically designed for a dude exactly like me, which is because I'm just a certain type of guy. It's not because of anything special about me. It's because I'm, in fact, very predictable. Now that's me with Home Depot. I walk in, and I just think, I did need an orange bucket. Perfect. Or in this case, guess what they have a pile of boxes of Ryobi walk behind very, I'm going to be honest here, very, very shoddy lawnmowers. And that's actually what I wanted. I didn't want to pay very much money for this. I didn't need it to have like assist. You know what I mean? It's such a small area of lawn. I don't need it to have its own kind of motorized move.

Oh, really? I thought I thought maybe you needed that because of the hills are so steep.

it's it's uh in this case i don't think i do um what i just wanted something that was one step up from like a fisher price kids lawnmower where when you push it a thing pops little balls in it

yeah okay like i wanted yeah i wanted my like my vacuum cleaner sure yeah and and this was

totally because of cost like i did not want to buy i did not want to have to pay a lot of money for some fancy lawnmower that i could use you know on like a significant portion of lawn this was a very specialized thing that i just needed to mow like 80 square feet of the lawn and so i want it to be as cheap as possible and they were having this is a weird thing about home depot lately they are constantly in the midst of a black friday sale i don't know if they know what friday is or what what the traditional parameters of black friday are but they are the guy i go over and by the way this is the same guy who sold me my countertops gus i go over to the lawnmower this thing these boxes of lawnmowers and gus is standing there and i go gus how much are these lawnmowers because there's no price on them and he goes uh to the back of the store and retrieves like a circular like the thing you get in the mail and he's leafing through and he goes oh yeah they're uh you know the exact price i'll just tell you andrew 299 normally 350 but guess what it's a

a black friday sale well any any friday can be a black friday if you drink enough on thursday luke that's what my uncle always said blackout friday yes blackout friday does it come with a battery and a charger too it does come with a nice the whole kit and caboodle for and i i really do

feel like a real people steel people except for me it's ryobi people biobi people that's their slogan i like that i have the whole family of ryobi products now i have my that's awesome the weed whacker is Ryobi the riding lawnmower is Ryobi and now the push mower is Ryobi and the good news is the weed whacker and the push mower take the same 40 volt battery oh god is this what

they mean when they say squad goals this is the future that I'm trying to build when they talk

about the singularity I believe this is what it refers to I got like a green works this and a Ryobi

that and like two of them were inherited when we bought the house like you are this is what I'm

building towards when i'm a when i'm a real boy i i have to say that like last night um i got down on like my workbench in the basement i have like two char so the this thing came with a new charger so now i've got like a charger bay yeah it's got like two different chargers uh going and it's got the i should actually go down and maybe during the break today i'll go down and change them out but i've got like four batteries that are in rotation that are some are charging some are waiting to be charged. And like, it was so satisfying the interchangeability of all of this, but sure enough. And I'll tell you this also, the number one sales pitch I can make for this Ryobi mower is I did not have to basically build it from scratch, which has been happening to me a lot lately because I am still in kind of acquiring mode for a lot of products that I need for this house and i order many of them in the mail and it is amazing the

level of deconstruction of so many of these things when they show up like they take so like i have a sink that i'm putting in here in the madrona hill studio and um it it took me this is not exaggerating it took me a good three hours to put the thing together it was so the the kind of framework for it and the thing that the sink sits on top of the cabin if you will um everything that i get in my life like there's the buying of it and then there's the afternoon dedicated to trying to piece it together and including your writing lower your writing mower if i remember correctly yeah yes there was there was some assembly required oddly enough um this was great i got it i took it out of the box because also of course i'm doing all of this at like 6 30 at night this is my style and i'm like can i charge the battery enough of this push mower that i can finish this lawn mowing tonight because of course i want to like sit on the deck eat some grilled asparagus and look at the lawn this is my life now and um the mariners had a day game so i was looking for something to fill the mariner shape hole in my heart last night and um and sure enough i and but but i was also thinking like it's going to really mess up my timeline if i get home and and take this thing out of the box and it's just in pieces like every little thing but no it was totally assembled all i had to do was like unfold the handle and the battery had some charge in it so i put it on the charger and i was able to get enough juice out of it that i was able to take it around to the parts of the lawn i can't get to with the riding mower and mow them and now the uh ryobi the riding mower is this is in its little hangout area under the deck and next to it is the push mower and it's like uh it's like mama mower and it's gonna say a little family very cute yes something out of a something out of a pixar film i love it don't get

two don't get between the mama mower and the baby no no no that's the only they're not usually

aggressive unless they think that they're young or being threatened but now if i can keep going with the like pixar theme we've also got this old jank ass mower this honda who would be voiced by i'm wondering who who would voice the who would voice the honda mower with the maybe i don't know owen wilson or something the honda mower with the with the broken string that's double knot tied and Doesn't go through the thing anymore. Maybe Owen Wilson, because he's like Lightning McQueen in Cars. Maybe he gets to be the, I don't know, the new spiffy push mower.

He's kind of broken down, this character. He's seen a lot of life. Steven Root could do it. He's not the better for it, maybe. Steven Root, yeah, I can see.

But he has wisdom.

I feel like he's got. Okay, so he's not like a problem family member. He's not like the alcoholic that everybody avoids. No, no, no.

I think I made it sound like that at first. But now I'm realizing that in the world of Pixar, they don't really feature those characters. It's like, you know, yeah, it's kind of broken down. But maybe it's got something, maybe in a pinch, this mower can actually teach the other new EV mowers a real lesson about friendship.

Do you think H. John Benjamin has ever done voice work? Was that in the intro yesterday? Him doing his various impressions? Yeah, which I can't remember what that show is from, by the way. It's him, you know, doing, quote unquote, impressions of Bob from Bob's Burgers or Archer from Archer. But I don't know if that's even from either one of those shows anyway.

Yeah. So that's the that's the latest here. We are now a two lawn. We're technically a three lawnmower family, but trying to get down to a two lawnmower family because I felt I guess is the thing. I felt bad just taking the other lawnmower to the dump. because it does probably have some usefulness still left in it to somebody who wants to invest the time to fix it up. I think it's probably a working lawnmower, but I'm not that person. But I felt like just taking it to the dump and throwing it away seemed like wasteful somehow. I'm hoping that someone will take it, but I want to have minimal interaction. That's the whole thing about this Craigslist free stuff. I don't want to have to be here when somebody shows up. I don't want to have to make a new friend. Like, I just want it to not be here anymore, you know, with the least hassle for me.

I was just going to say, like, do you live in a part of the state where you can just put that thing down at the end of your driveway with a sign that says free on it?

I guess I could. You know what? Not the end of my driveway. There's not enough traffic. I'm literally at there's a sign that says end of County Road right at my house, which makes me feel like, you know, I'm I'm slightly off the grid. I don't know if, like, if I were to, heaven forbid, have to call, like, emergency services, would they stop, like, 20 feet from my driveway and go, this is as far as we go. This is the end of County Road. Somebody else's problem. But what I could do, and maybe this is what I should, if I don't get any bites, what I could do is put this thing. think in the back of my car and take it down to like there's a you know interest like there's basically like the the intersection of the kind of larger arterial road and a few other roads where people put like you know weed whacking literally there's a sign right now that says weed whacking and it's so bad first of all I saw the guy putting it out um I just happened to be pulling up onto the hill when I saw this guy kind of pull his car over and then walk over with a sign and I couldn't see what the sign said and I just saw him kind of like putting it in the grass And then I went on my way And now I can see the sign And it says He clearly Didn't really like start He didn't have a good plan For writing the words Weed, whacker, work On this piece of paper So he This is again A thing that I do He basically ran out of room And instead of just starting over He just made the word whacker He just curved it around

Oh yeah I know that move

So it's like weed And then under it Whacker And then work under it like i'll do weed whacker work for you yeah no that's a lot that's the kind of attention

to detail that i want from my lawn service i wanted to it's just weird that i both saw the

guy putting the sign in i feel like i want to call him and go hey um you seem like a nice dude

really we should redo this sign yeah let's just work on this together like i swear 20 minutes is

going to radically change your experience as a small business owner in terms of the people who call you only the most desperate or unhinged person is going to respond positively to this

sign yeah unless somebody sees a deal and they're like you know what i can get a deal from this weed whacker work work um but i could actually just take it down there and put it out with free

and i'm sure it'd be gone like in a moment so maybe well let me see it also the issue is uh i have a a relatively small vehicle um and uh i don't know if i can actually fit this thing in my car but um but yeah it was very uh it was very satisfying yesterday to have now the proper i've been on about these ladders and everything i'm i'm big on getting the right tool for the right job um and now that i have this like smaller mower that i can go around and get the um this i i guess for a long time it just felt like that was so excessive like i have a lawnmower why would i get another lawnmower but now i've fully given in to yeah to suburban life and no

this is the way you need something to trim you need you need something to edge and trim and you

need the sitting lawnmower this is oh and that was another thing too that i did that i think is elite level is i took the guard off of the weed whacker so i can just have as much of that weed whacker string going as i want to oh it's i want to see how far you know no no i have i got some uh car hearts that i wear when i do this i got some car heart like overalls but like that is you want to talk about like absolute power corrupting absolutely when you are just a grown person and you don't know if i do you can make the weed whacker string it could be like a six foot radius just walking around like you just trimming the trees you just look at something across the yard it's the feeling of power is intoxicating with because normally there's like you know how like At the bottom of the Weed Whacker, there's that guard that is probably like some sort of legal thing that they have to put on there. But it means that you can only get a certain amount of Weed Whacker string going. But if you take that off like I did, I mean, it can be anything you want after that. And I'm really, really enjoying that feeling of just running that thing way out and just getting everything that my eye can see.

Because usually I think that guard has the blade on it, right? It's like a built-in regulator so that, like, because I know mine, if I pull the plastic string too far, you give it one little whoop, and then that blade clips it to the proper length. You fool. You're out there. Well, you know me. I'm a rule follower.

Well, this is Andrew. I don't know if you know this. The county roads don't apply out here.

Yeah, no. You're in your own territory. Absolutely.

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-dazzle.

All right. We do have to thank folks like Nathan Kirk of Salt Lake City, Utah, for making this a job that we can have that we can then use to buy lawnmowers and to buy unregulated weed whackers or whippersnippers. What are the other names we've learned?

Maybe in Canada they call them that, but just to be clear, I'd like to say here that these funds all go towards supporting TBTL, buying equipment so that we can do the show. We're not starting a whippersnipper empire with your dazzling donations.

No, but I mean, I get paid from this job, and then I'm allowed to use that money.

to buy as many lawnmowers as I want.

No, that is true. Once it clears, you are allowed to buy as many as you want.

At least my content really happened to me, Andrew.

Hey, I'm not, you seem defensive.

Nathan is in Salt Lake City, Utah and says, haven't done one of these in a while, but I just wanted to say thanks. Thanks to John for all that you do and your supportive note. Thanks to Luke and Andrew for keeping me laughing through all these phases of life and keeping me human. Thank you for showing up and being a constant. And thank you for always outside voicing my inside voice. Couldn't do this without you. I mean, I guess I could. It's a little much to put that kind of pressure on you, but it wouldn't be half as fun or rich. That is all. Power out. Job done. In the words of Jeb Bush, please clap.

I forgot about your job done phase.

Yeah, I need to get back to that. I've been following that guy on TikTok, the pool guy.

He's a British guy, right? Yeah, exactly. It's a Britishism.

yeah his um his his thing is that yeah he cleans these very very very scummy mossy swimming pools and then please clap when he's done he says job done and i think it's that for me it's hearing job done while also visually seeing this extremely satisfying thing of the swimming pool being all yeah sparkling and blue where it was once just like had moss growing in it is um is very appealing So, Nathan, thank you for supporting the program. Job done when it comes to keeping TBTL rolling. So, thank you so much. Maestro.

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

We've got to thank Kelly Moore.

Kelly.

Like the paint store. Kelly paints. I bet you Kelly's been saying that for their entire life. I mean, Kelly Moore is literally like, I think that the store is called Kelly Moore, right?

Oh, you know what? That was lost on me for a moment there. I thought it was just Moore Paints. But no, is Kelly Moore the name? Like the full thing is a paint store? I don't think I knew that.

I think they do. Wait. Kelly Moore Paints abruptly ends operation after 78 years.

Oh.

Kelly Moore Paints has announced it will immediately cease operations and will close its stores after nearly 80 years in business.

Yet Kelly Moore continues to support TBTL. That's how important TBTL is to Kelly.

Exactly. In the Chapter 11 restructuring, they were able to. The bankruptcy court did allow them to continue supporting TBTL. That's right. We sure do appreciate it. Kelly says, hi, friends. I hope you've come to this message on a lovely, sunny spring day. Kelly, how did you know? And not an early March day full of lies and snow. i'm so grateful for tbtl i there is a um a uh a young woman that i follow on tiktok who i just think is so so funny and uh maybe the voice of a generation her name is mads i think her name might be maddie or something um she looks like she might be in her like mid-20s but she just does these lists of things and her extemporaneous thoughts are just so trenchant so spot on but she was doing one the other day that was basically like things that must have a really good PR department and one of them was spring she was like she was like yeah everybody loves spring uh we think it's so great what is it it's it's torrential rain and wind that makes me wonder is it safe to be outside like I was like that's a really good point we everybody loves spring except really I think what we love is early summer like we're just right now moving into the part of spring that is that's really enjoyable a significant portion of spring is actually very terrible weather

and that gets no coverage speaking of lies I mean that's exactly what happened to me was it yesterday when I walked outside I think it was maybe the past two days I'm down here in my basement I do have some windows and I see that it's a bright sunny day outside I'm like oh that's exciting can't wait to you know run an errand or whatever people do it bright sunny weather for me it's running errands and then i walk outside and it's cold and wet like the ground is wet and it's frigid outside and i'm like that that is a lie that's the kind of lie that kelly is referring to

exactly kelly thank you for for finally you know accurately describing spring um kelly says um i'm so grateful for tbtl i've been listening since sometime in 2012 and somehow have not missed a day. God, I've missed a few days. Kelly has better attendance on the show than I do, which is incredible. I remain in awe of your commitment to doing a daily show. I look forward to each day's new episode with a concerning amount of excitement. It's a fun escape when I'm feeling good and a lifesaver if I am feeling down. It's hard for me to toot my own horn, especially since Since I play the viola, that's a pretty good spoof. But I'll try anyway. I teach violin viola lessons to kids in the Seattle area. If you want to learn more, you can connect with me on Instagram. It's at violagirl285. Beware, it's mostly cats. You can also find my silly earrings on Etsy. The shop name is Partly Sunny by Kelly. So go check out ViolaGirl285 If you want to learn the viola Or see things involving cats And if you want some earrings Go to Partly Sunny by Kelly on Etsy I had to pause today's episode to write this So now it's back to listening What you do is so important Signed, Listener Kelly Kelly, what you do is so important And we really appreciate it

I want to toot Kelly's viola a little bit more here

Who that sounds like

I just need to back away from that phrase for a moment But, say, Kelly is also the person who I believe had the original idea for and helped set up the Tens Helping Tens website, which I believe is still going strong, where if you're working on a project or you have a small business or an Etsy shop or something, you can ask Kelly to – I think it's okay for me to say this. I think it's still going strong. You can share it on tenshelpingtens.com, which is really cool. Yeah, and Kelly has been performing with North Corner Chamber Orchestra up here in North Seattle. I've seen her perform. She's amazing.

So go check out everything that Kelly is doing. I'm trying to find, I'm looking at Kelly's Instagram right now. And as advertised, it is mostly cats. But that seems to chart really high with our listeners. But they're good cats. Yeah, I think they'll enjoy this. So Kelly, thank you for supporting TBTL. We couldn't do this without you. Hello and welcome to Top Story. All right, our top story today. our good friend dan pashman from the sporkful is uh is back with a new book anything is possible every time i think i couldn't be more jealous of you dan um you find a new way to make me jealous that is one of the greatest titles ever for a book oh first you invent a pasta shape cascatelli then you create a limited release series of podcasts about the making of the cookbook related to pasta, and then you name it, anything is pasta-able. It just keeps getting better and better for Dan Pashman. I appreciate it.

Yeah, I am pleased with the title. I'm not going to lie. You know, we did a podcast series about my three-year process to invent Cascatelli, and that series was called Mission Impostable. So that was my three-year quest to invent a new shape of pasta. So then I decided to do this cookbook, which was sort of inspired by Cascatelli, because everyone was sending me pictures of what they were making with my new pasta shape, and it was like 75% tomato sauce, meat sauce, and mac and cheese, which is fine, but it just sort of made me realize.

I think I might have sent you one of those photos, by the way. It was mostly you. I have definitely sent you, like, I've sent you, I think, multiple photos of when I've been somewhere. Like, I was at a 4th of July party a couple years ago, and then someone was just serving cascatelli in a pasta salad, and I was like, I can't believe this is happening in the real world. I know, it's so weird. I'm just eating this pasta that Dan flipping invented.

Did you have to tell everybody at the party?

yeah that's not like me andrew i would never tell every single person that my friend

is responsible for this pasta yeah i mean i still buy it in the store even though i don't have to just i get excited when i see it there i'm like holy shit i'm gonna buy it um oh you're oh but

are you buying it because you're sort of hoping that as you're checking out the cashier will be like hey aren't you the guy who invented this um no that's but that's more my wife you know uh my

My wife, Jadie, who was like the number one skeptic of this entire project, but to her credit, is now the number one PR agent for it. So she'll go to the store and be like, oh, what's this? Look at this. She'll have the kids in the aisle of the store like, hey kids, have you heard about this new pasta shape? I think we should buy it.

What exactly is the deal with that? Like it's for sale in, I feel like maybe the first place I saw it was Trader Joe's, but I feel like I've seen it in multiple multiple stores. Is it just for sale? How does it work selling pasta? Is it just for sale anywhere

for anyone who wants to sell it? No. So I patented the shape and I trademarked the name Cascatelli. So I just licensed it. Like I didn't want to get into the business of actually making pasta and trying to have a factory or whatever. So I just licensed it to existing pasta companies and then they can make it. So there's one license is to Sfolini, which is the original sort of top quality, top of the line one, but it's a little harder to find. You can order it online. It's spelled S-F-O-G-L-I-N-I. That's the company in upstate New York. And then I licensed one at Trader Joe's. It's in all the Trader Joe's. And I licensed one to Bonza that is in all the Whole Foods to have gluten-free versions. Those are the three versions that exist. Unbelievable. That is, boy, talk about drop shipping. You don't even make the pasta. You just license the name Cascatelli and the shape Cascatelli. It's pretty good.

But let me tell you something. The Bonza one literally came about because people were emailing me when Cascatelli first went viral. And they were like, what about a gluten-free version? And I literally cold messaged an executive from Bonza on LinkedIn. And I was like, hey, I don't know if you heard about this, but I invented a pasta shape. Would you ever want to make a version? And he wrote back. And then, like, you know, a year later, it was in the stores.

Wow. I love it. I love your sort of can-do attitude. I feel like I taught you so much at the Bryant Park Project. Would you say most of the success is due to the six months we worked together at the Bryant Park Project?

Absolutely. Well, you know, you helped inspire me to start my own podcast. So if it hadn't been for that, then, you know, I said, if Luke's doing it, he's doing well. He left the world of public radio, and he's out there crushing it. with his all the tens are going crazy for luke so you know let me give us this a shot

well you're welcome my friend um hey i uh i didn't realize but one of the things that's really great about sporkful is that it's such a fun kind of like casual experience it's as you say it's you know it's for eaters not foodies but like it's also got a lot of information in there which i always find really entertaining and related to this uh mission impossible book like i did not realize that basically like italians only recently got into pasta as a thing that my mind exploded when i learned that totally look and and i should say in all seriousness like

luke this is something that you can take some credit for because i feel like like this was something that was your bread and butter at npr uh and has continued to be which is like you know finding ways to package information in ways that is funny and entertaining which obviously in the world of public radio is something they sometimes struggled with so i feel like you know when we worked together i was like oh like this guy's really good at like finding some sort of way into something that makes it so much more fun um and so i you know but yeah so the this book anything's possible i did a research trip across italy uh because i was like why not right like if you can go to italy for work then you should do that um and eat a lot of pasta um and yeah my biggest takeaway was that pasta only became like the national food of italy about 100 years ago I mean, Italy only became a country about 170 years ago. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of history in the region, but it only became a country recently. And it was all these very fractious regions. When the fascists came to power around 1900, they wanted to unite the population under this sort of nationalist identity. And they also had to feed the masses cheaply. And they thought pasta was the answer to that. There's a whole archive of fascist propaganda about pasta being the true Italian food. The fascists started building pasta factories in places where there were none before, parts of Italy, where they didn't have much pasta. And that was what really grew pasta. And I was shocked to learn that a dish like carbonara, which is just the classic dish of raw beaten eggs, guanciale, which is pork, cured pork, pecorino romano cheese, and black pepper. That's four ingredients. If you ask any Italian today, they'll say that's carbonara. And they'll tell you that their grandmother's grandmother's grandmother's grandmother has been making it that way. I would have guessed the Roman emperors were eating carbonara. It turns out that carbonara was invented in the 1940s, and only because of American service members being in Italy during World War II and bringing rations of bacon and eggs. And those made their way into Italian kitchens. It's like spam in Hawaii or something. Yes, but even for decades after that, the recipe for carbonara varied widely. There were many different things they put in carbonara that any Italian known to today would clutch your cannolis at. And so it wasn't until about the 90s, the 1990s, that the recipe for Carbonaro was standardized. There's just so much mythology. There's just a lot of mythology, mythologizing.

But the Italians are famously low-key about their traditions and messing with them, right?

That's right. That's why there's an entire Instagram feed called Italians Mad at Food.

Why did you decide to write a book that platforms fascists? someone's got to Andrew you know

well you want to we want to hear the other side right exactly yeah just trying to be fair and

balanced that's all but so I mean that's something that comes up in in the book is this tension I guess if you will about like basically trying to invent and do a new thing with because the stated purpose of this book is to basically do all kinds of pasta dishes that are not the sort of traditional standard red sauce meat sauce whatever um but you're doing that in a in a space as we now say that is notoriously resistant to new things or very tied up in the like like you said my grandmother's grandmother's grandmother made it this way and that's the only way to do it did you like legit get any Thank you.

pushback like in italy or from people uh who are like italian about like cascatelli i mean pushback

is strong i think that they were it was so weird and different to them i mean i brought when i did my research trip i put like two boxes of cascatelli in my suitcase just in case i ended up in a conversation with some italian i learned how to say i invented a new shape of pasta in italian just because I wanted to see what's on their faces. You know, I was like, hoy inventato, inventato, novo forma di pasta. It's a very specific corner of Duolingo. I was going to say. Exactly, yeah. It's one of the deep cuts. But I, so at a certain point in my trip, my wife and kids met me and we're staying at a B&B outside Naples. And after a couple of days, they were sort of made friends with the owner. We're sitting out on the veranda, chatting after breakfast with this owner, Antonio, You know, very Italian guy. And Janie tells him, my wife Janie says, you know, well, Dan invented a new shape of pasta. He just looks totally befuddled. They don't even push back. They don't know what it doesn't. It doesn't register to them. So Janie goes and gets the box of pasta and brings it back and hands it to this guy, Antonio. And he looks at it like he has just been handed a moon rock. He doesn't even know what to say. And then he's just staring at it and staring at it and staring at it. And then he looks up and says, but it's American. you know and and then janey sort of like trying you know i'm you know trying to play it cool but janey's were like well it was kind of a big deal in america and it's in a lot of stores and blah blah and he just didn't get it you know after he left janey said that summarized his reaction as

oh you're cute you know so his thought was nothing that is american no american-made pasta whatever its origin story is can ever stand up to italian-made pasta that's right that's right

And he just immediately. So it's not even that they push back. They're not that they just trivialize. They're like, what a cute, silly little American. Isn't he funny? Why don't you run along now?

What do you think was the you might know this or I'm putting you on the spot, but what do you think was the last new pasta shape before Cascatelli?

You know, I mean, there have been a few invented over the last few decades that were kind of more like publicity stunts or gimmicks. like the famous designer Philippe Stark invented a pasta shape in the 80s or 90s and that one, it's sort of like but it was never massive. Glasses? What's that?

Isn't he famous for like round glasses or something? I think so, yeah. So it was like round glasses shaped pasta?

No, it's like, picture like a rigatoni, like a tube, but there's a wavy crossbar across the middle that makes the cross section almost look like the Pepsi logo. if that makes sense or a yin yang um yes yeah yeah but but then and then on the outside of the tube there's two like little tiny sort of bucatinis like spaghetti tubes that are stuck on the outside he called those the wings um and the you look at the shape it looks cool in a picture but they could never get it to cook evenly so it was oh you know so that's what a lot of more recent stuff was andrew was kind of like oh here's something that looks really cool and they'd have all these fancy blueprints but then when you try to cook it and eat it it was no good yeah it's

just sort of seems like people would just assume well we have all the pasta shapes we need and you were like no no that we don't have there are more that we need i i was guessing maybe the wagon wheel the the frivolous the sort of fun flirty wagon wheel that i loved as a kid that seems like a

modern shape to me it's actually not and you've hit on a bit of a hobby horse for me here andrew um here we go the wagon wheel cooks very unevenly it's a really terrible shape It was invented by a guy named Benedetto Cavallieri, whose eponymous pasta company exists to this day. It was invented about 90 years ago. And when it was invented, they said to him, but Signore Cavallieri, the shape doesn't cook evenly. And he says, well, that's the point. Then you get different textures, which is true to a point. Like, a pasta shape with different textures and different levels of tooth-sickability, as I would call it, can be good as long as it's not too extreme of a disparity. I actually ordered Benedetto Cavallieri brand wagon wheels online. It cost $15 for a pound of it because I just wanted to try. Like, maybe I'm just not eating the right wagon wheels. Let me get some fancy ones. And I had it shipped to me from Italy for $15, and it was like—it cooked so unevenly, it was like eating pasta mixed with uncooked rice. Oh, wow.

yeah and what was that was he just big on the look of it or like what was if it cooked so uneven like why did why did he even think this was a good idea I mean

look I maybe maybe it was selling it maybe he was getting him attention I'm not I'm not sure you know maybe he liked you know I learned in Italy there's an expression we know that we may know the expression al dente for like to like like your tooth's posture, but they actually have an expression called auto.

Kyoto Kyoto is like a nail like a hammer and a nail and that's like so if you're some Italians think that al dente is still too soft and they want it really firm like I would say somewhat not fully cooked and that's called al Kyoto so like like it has nails in it and so

maybe he just liked his pasta al Kyoto. Huh what about this this pasta or this preparation that it's the weirdest thing basically like i was i saw you on tiktok talking about this like assassin spaghetti or whatever yeah and then i swear to god all i've been getting for the last three weeks has been people marveling over the preparation of this assassin spaghetti what is

this exactly yeah so this is one of the it's like like you said luke like most of the dishes in this cookbook like there really are no of the classic basic traditional italian pasta sauces this is a whole book of pasta sauces with no recipe for tomato sauce, no recipe for plain old lasagna or classic bolognese. I like those dishes. I just feel like the world doesn't need another recipe for those. So these are all either really new and different or novel pasta sauces or a handful of very obscure Italian ones that aren't the old standbys in America. And one of those is Spaghetti a la Sassina. I went to the city of Bari where it's from to go to the restaurant where it was invented you take the spaghetti you cook it in a tomato spicy tomato sauce you can vary the level of spice to your liking and cook it down and cook it down to the sauce turns like a paste and then you keep pan frying the spaghetti until it turns charred in some places like charred and crunchy in some places uh golden brown and crispy in other places and chewy and and regular pasta in a third set of places and these different textures come together uh to just create the most incredible textural sensation and i really love it and yeah i mean i'm not the first person in america to publish a recipe for it uh it's been out there but i i dropped my recipe for it and got it published and i did this tiktok that's now got like over two million views and yes i i think that basically every other food media outlet that has published an assassino recipe in the last few years that but that hasn't gotten much attention when they saw that i was putting a big push behind it they all republished all of their videos okay and recipes and suddenly it was everywhere yeah

it looks so so good and in fact like i was listening to the whole series that you did about the the creation of the cookbook and it was just like it was troubling because i would finish an episode and then i would just immediately go into my kitchen and just start eating raw pasta shoveling into my mouth because that was how powerful a call what was the what was the gnocchi that you had the like like deep fried gnocchi or something oh yeah

there's a couple of crispy, of gnocchi recipes. One of them is like a crispy gnocchi pasta salad with tomato and preserved lemon. There's a whole section in the book on pasta salads called pasta salads redeemed, hold the mayo. And I like mayo, I'm a mayo defender, but I just feel like people's perception of pasta salad is just macaroni salad, the end. And there's a lot more out there. To me, a great pasta salad can do a lot of the things that a great salad can do. It can be bright and acidic and fresh and crunchy but when you add when you do it with pasta instead of just greens it also becomes a lot more satisfying and so yeah there's a crispy pan fry the gnocchi store-bought gnocchi there's no pasta made from scratch in this cookbook i don't know who has the time for that it's all store-bought box store-bought boxed pasta and store-bought gnocchi you pan fry it you mix up the sauce you just get cherry tomatoes from the supermarket preserved lemon which is one of my very favorite ingredients it's in a number of the recipes in the book it's uh you can you know it's a common ingredient in north africa in the middle east and it's incredibly lemony and savory you can get it at whole foods you can get it a lot of stores it's not hard to find you can also make it it's just lemons and salt um but it's one of my very very favorite dishes so like i i try to be thoughtful about when i ask people to put in extra effort so we're not making pasta from scratch you're not making tomato sauce from scratch um we're not like like there's our recipes with artichokes they call for canned artichokes i have no idea how to prepare a fresh artichoke i've never done it in my life i don't plan to start but i will tell you to go to the store and find preserved lemons because that's the one thing

that's going to take this dish to the next level i always tell this story i think every time we have you on the show but like the moment that i knew that your brain worked differently around food dan was when you were describing to me your tailgating situation at the giants games yeah and how you would do something crazy like what you would keep the like these sausages like in a ziplock bag or something crazy like yeah this was my egg and cheese tailgating egg and cheese yeah

it would refresh my memory so so the night before i scrambled the eggs and i cooked them in the pan and i kind of formed them into patties so they're like pre-cooked scrambled egg patties and then i cool of them.

put them in Ziploc bags. And then when you light the grill the next day, you just get some rolls and some cheese and Taylor ham if you want, or a pork roll as the South Jersey folks call it. I'm from North Jersey, so I call it Taylor ham. And you can grill up your meats, you toast the bread on the grill, you melt the cheese, you reheat the egg patties, but this avoids having to like saute and deal with a pan and all that extra gear in the parking lot. And you just throw

the egg patties in and then you're ready to rock you know the other thing that the other way that you changed my life permanently dan was unbuttoning the bottom two buttons of my shirt when i'm driving somewhere to do an appearance and i don't want the section that goes over my belly to get

wrinkled i don't remember teaching you that but i still do that to this day you gotta get it to lay

flat otherwise you get like seat belt shirt yes exactly like i think of you every time i'm going somewhere in a nicely pressed shirt that i don't want it to get wrinkled i unbutton the bottom two

buttons and i think of dan pashman i'm very honored now i'm gonna think of you every time i do that

good how's it going with the book by the way i feel like i'm seeing you in a lot of places that you're getting a great push you're on 99 pi and and doing all kinds of appearances you said something in one of the episodes that maybe it was on 99pi where you said the first book that you put out you said it didn't sell well so if this one doesn't you're not getting to make a

third is it going okay it's going well yes i mean it hit the bestseller list so it's officially a national bestseller so that's been super exciting so yeah the publisher seems really happy thank you and um it's definitely been more successful than the first um and you know i don't know you I'll have a chance to do a third but at least now I can say like I feel like the first book I did eat more better which came out like 10 years ago there are some parts of it that I still love but it didn't fit it was like a book about my opinions about food without any recipes or any really practical information at all um so it was it had its shortcomings it didn't fit into any genre um but I learned a lot doing it now I feel like I learned a lot doing this cookbook so I'd love to do another cookbook just because I feel like I'm learning more each time I go through the process and getting better at it so i would love to have a chance another crack at it but i don't know yet i'll get to do another one but at least i can say like i do feel like i'm very proud of this book and the recipes are really good they're really different but they're also very accessible for home cooks you know i'm not a chef i'm a home cook so this book's for home cooks and um and i i feel proud of it honestly so like from that standpoint it feels like a success um and yeah i'm sure i got a few uh is this gonna air tomorrow the 19th this is airing right now this is going out live we're live i thought you said we're gonna cut things no no no your shirt

back on i just want to scare you that's funny no this is yeah this will be people will be hearing

this within hours of us recording it um yes so so i've been touring all around the country having a phenomenal time um i got three more shows on my main tour left these are live podcast tapings and book signings the seattle one is actually sold out um but i must be nice um i can't sell a ticket in seattle it's my hometown well i you know i uh i credit also lindy west who i'm in conversation with for that one she's you know she's a big star there so she's probably selling a lot of the tickets for me but um i got shows in la and san francisco uh the la one is in conversation with andy richter um and there'll be food samples uh free food from wax paper and then san francisco i'm in conversation with sam sanders from vibe check formerly of npr um and some other special guests there too so if folks want to get tickets you can go to Sporkful.com slash events. There's tickets there.

What did you just say? I'll be in San Francisco talking to Uri Berliner. That is a joke that's only funny to us. I know. Too deep in the world of public radio culture or whatever. So where can people get the info, you said, for your shows?

So Sporkful.com, you can find it all. You can go to the events page for the live shows. the book is anything's postable 81 inventive pasta recipes for saucy people you can get it wherever books are sold you can also order a signed copy along with a pasta gift set from sporkful.com uh and get the sporkful podcast there's a special series all about the making of the cookbook which i think um will give you a new appreciation for what actually goes into a cookbook because i had no idea until i did it and i think you'll never look at a cookbook the same

way again if you listen to this that's what i've been listening to it's really good dan like in the same way that the the you know the shows about the invention of cascatelli were just so um fascinating this is a another spin on that and it's really good the episodes are really awesome

thank you i appreciate it means a lot coming from a fellow radio pro like you luke

well i like i said i'm i i remain it's a it's about 50 50 being impressed and being deeply jealous of your success but i'm holding it at bay at only 50 being deeply jealous so that's good well

I appreciate that. Lower than it is for some, I'm sure. But look, you know, we're all at different times in our careers, jealous of somebody else who's doing really well. But I think a certain amount of that is a healthy motivation for all of us. us to try to be you know we all push each other to keep doing better and better work well you're doing great work out there dan thanks for uh coming on old tbtl thanks you guys shout out to all the tens out there thanks dano yeah go see dan when he's coming to a town near you

there's a right way to rock and a wrong way to roll you can't just listen to your soul Just remember that life is number one You can be having so much fun Just remember that life is much fun You can be number one

I'm opening up my email here, Luke, even checking the spam folder because last week, moments after Blur's Days, I mean less than five minutes after we said good luck to all, I got a late-breaking Blur's Day message from a listener, and I didn't have time to squeeze it in last week. So we're going to start with that. Today, in fact, this is Christina in Shearborn, Massachusetts. Okay. Shearborn? Sounds expensive. Sherbin? Sherbin. They say everything lazily. It's Sherbit. It's Sherbit. Your wife's new name is Sherbet Sherbet. Christina says, I'd like to wish a very happy Blur's Day to my 11, Jimmy. He loves inside jokes. Hey, we got those. Gary Gallman. Hey, we play that. And Cats. So I'm trying to convert him into being a listener. He's also really into sports. Yeah. He's into sports. So maybe the TBTL Junior Sluggers content will push him over the edge. As there's a drive in a deep left field by Castellanos, it will be a home run. And so that'll make it a 4-0 ball game. Meanwhile, he's still a solid 10 in my book. Happy 53rd Blur's Day, Jimmy. The girls and I love you beyond measure. I hear this town name all the time, but when I see it in front of me, and I know I have to say it, it makes me nervous, Luke. This is from Brooke in San Luis Obispo. Uh-huh. Yeah? S-L-O, sure. How did it sound coming out of my mouth, though? It sounded good, actually.

Oh, yeah.

I'd like to wish my five Oscar a very happy golden birthday. We know Oscar. Brooke says he turned 12 on April 12th, and we couldn't be happier to have him in our lives and part of our family. Oscar's one of your most enthusiastic listeners. He called in during the TBT elathon to talk baseball. He also submitted that Star Wars quiz during the Winter Games. We love you, Oscar. Love mom, Tom, brother, Arthur. Nope, I'm sorry. No comma between brother and Arthur. So, Mom, Tom, Brother Arthur, and Sherlock the Cat. That's cute.

You're like the coolest person I've ever met.

Calm down. Also, happy Blursy to Kathleen, who is crushing it in Minnesota. This didn't come with a specific name attached, by the way. As the bestest mom to one-year-old Kieran and Pups, Bear, and Tiger, Kathleen is a passionate gardener and a talented quilter and a caring friendo to many. You are truly leaning into the Minnesota lifestyle. We are amazed and we are proud. Love and hugs from your Colorado TBTL fam. Pie just fills the cracks of the heart. Now this is an interesting little adventure we're going to go on here. We got a happy golden birthday from Brad to Nolan. And Nolan is a genuine new listener. I don't want to say genuine, but that's the rapper, right? Genuine is how we say it. Sure. Okay, right. Nolan is a friend of genuine and also a genuine new listener, becoming a 10 last summer. I'm proud to be your actual dad and your TVTL dad. Cute.

I just want you to be normal, and clearly you're not.

Welcome aboard, Nolan. Thank you for listening. also speaking of brad and nolan aj wants to get in on this one happy less than a week belated blursday to my bro-in-law brad hey that's the aforementioned brad a 10 from the radio days and my tbtl progenitor and fantastic husband to my sister and father to my niece and nephew and happy blursday to my nephew nolan son of brad who transitioned from being a 5 to a 10 last summer while listening to episodes and caring for a rescued jaguar? What? And other jungle wildlife in Bolivia? What? How's that for a dazzling deet, says AJ. What? What the f? What the f? What the f? Indeed. Be careful out there, and happy Thursday. Meow. Rachel in Pittsburgh says, hopefully I'm getting in on this on time. Time for my best of buds. Andrew in Baltimore, here's to wishing that all your gifts are cash this year and no one sings you the happy birthday song except for me on the phone when there's no one else who can hear this. I've got to figure out how to make money out of this thing. It's simply too good.

They're trying to make it look fake. I just re-watched that the other day, dude.

I think I only saw it once. I think I've only watched season three once all the way through.

It's the only thing that's been downloaded onto my phone on Netflix. So if I'm on a flight and they don't have great Wi-Fi or whatever, I'll just go re-watch it on my phone. Yes. So it's become my constant companion.

You know, we were talking a while back. You were saying, like, how do you watch content when you lose your Wi-Fi in airplanes? And I was like, I know I do it, and I couldn't figure out how. And I'm like, I think some listeners reminded me later. It's like, oh, the apps. Yeah, if you have the app, then you can kind of save your content there. good good aside there jesse in cincinnati says free apps could you please wish a happy blursday to lawn chair larry thank you so much oh the tradition continues luke i love it i believe lawn chair larry's birthday is actually tomorrow i made a mistake at the beginning of the show for a second i thought it was lawnmower larry which is why when you're talking about your lawnmower I was like, oh, that's foreshadowing and not quite, but Tiffany Tiffany didn't forget Tiffany says it's mid-April and as we do every year, it's time to take a moment to remember Lawn Chair Larry on what would have been his 75th Blurs, so it's a pretty big Blurs for Lawn Chair Larry I was just like, you gotta be kidding me

Sorry, I wasn't trying to play the full version of that

And Stacy from Spanaway says, I'd love to wish Lawn Chair Larry a happy Blurs Day He would have had a cherished Friday birthday. He was such a great example to dream, dream big, and often. Happy Blur's Day lawn chair, Larry. Do you hear that scratch every now and then? What's going on? I don't know. No, I think it's just in the music, and I happened to swell that song. It probably just happened during the recording. It was like a lavalier mic brushing up against somebody's bass guitar. I have no idea.

I love that every year I forget about Lawn Chair, Larry. So do I. It is. Honestly, it delights me so. And it's the one upside of me having an absolute shite memory is that every year when the listeners remember and I don't, it just makes me so happy.

And his deal was he tied a bunch of balloons to his lawn chair because he wanted to break a record or something by flying through the air in a lawn chair.

I don't know if it was a record A record Setting attempt but I do Believe I mean I just Said Andrew I have a terrible memory my memory I'm looking it up yeah he ended up in LAX airspace I believe he might have also brought A pellet gun He did the balloons right And he dropped the pellet gun Early in the voyage So he had no ability to like Manage the sort of flotation of his thing. But then here's the part, this is maybe the most important part of the story and the part I don't remember is, did he die from this or did he come down safely and then die of unrelated

things? I'm pretty sure he came down safely. Yes, it says here, the aircraft became entangled in power lines, so that's great. But Walters was able to, so I guess his last name was Larry, it's Larry, Lawn chair Larry Walters He was able to climb down to safety And then the flight attracted Worldwide media attention So yeah I don't know what actually

Did it say if he was trying to set a record or anything?

Looking at that here It says background Lawrence Richard Larry Walters Had often dreamed of flying But he was unable to become a pilot In the United States Air Force Because of his poor eyesight Instead he became a truck driver Also we wouldn't mind if you had good eyesight for that

As the other people on the road Boy A little collateral damage To the truck driving industry

Well I can't see for shit So I became a truck driver instead Do a lot of driving at night

With over 80 tons of Explosives Flammable items Being carried around the roads of America

Says his first thought of using Weather balloons to fly was at age 13 after seeing them hanging from the ceiling of a military surplus store. In 1982, he decided to try his flying idea. His intention was to float over the Mojave Desert and then use a pellet gun to burst some of the balloons in order to descend safely. And then that's where the background ends. But I think you're right. I think he loses that. I mean, it's already a banana. idea i'm gonna shoot my way down i don't even know if a pellet gun that's bad like i those weather balloons my guess is that they're pretty burly right they're not like it's not like the thing you get at the front of like the safeway yeah right have them in the floral department blow you up some balloons my guess would be those things are pretty robust um because of what their job is right and i guess they have weather instrumentation on them and then you send them up and then they give you some information that's what a weather balloon does i guess i guess although

these look very bright and fun like the photo oh you know what one of them is from a from a quinceañera there's another tbtl connection here that i totally forgot by the way he did successfully shoot a couple of the balloons before dropping the gun so i guess he tests on the ground i'm looking at this beautiful photo of lawn chair larry uh on on wikipedia and it's like a perfect blue background sky with like a whole bunch of very colorful huge balloons and a tiny little lawn chair hanging from it and i think i'm ready to go to press with this luke i cannot remember what this thing is called do you have a computer in front of you right now can you go to tbtl.net okay i don't know if you remember this but i did something a year ago when we had to launch our own

website i'm just laughing yesterday's show pic you found that photo of the giant hand on jackass

and i watched part of that jackass clip the high five with the giant spring-loaded hand i meant to text you that last night it was really funny they specifically get a guy they're pretending like they're having some sort of a luncheon or something so they give one guy a whole tray full of soup as he walks through the door it was a great sketch it's on youtube i also really love that that that still image too of of um what's his name again johnny knoxville standing perfectly behind that giant human hand but anyway i don't know what this little icon is called i think there's a name for it but if you're on like a chrome browser or something luke look up in your tabs right now you know gmail has its little logo and like all the other tabs have their logos if you look really really really really really carefully at the tbtl tab that little logo that's lawn chair larry my boy i got it from wikipedia a year ago it's such a good picture I was like I don't know what to use for our little like tab icon thing and I mean you need almost a magnifying glass and you'd have to know what it is I think in advance but that's a little that's a little secret lawn chair Larry that is an amazing photo though and you're right it's like it's it looks like you know something out of a Disney movie we'll end today's show where we started it with my imagined Pixar plot line okay a guy has three lawnmowers he's trying to get them to his friend

the only way he can do it is to tie colorful balloons to them and send them across the Mojave Desert.

That's right.

And Mark Hamill voices one share Larry. Ooh, that'd be actually very good casting because, you know, Mark Hamill's a little older now. He's seen a lot. Yeah, that'd be perfect, actually. All right. That music tells me it's time to wrap today's program up. I don't know if people know this,

but I played the music on this end, and now more and more I'm just like, I think I'm done. I'm fine with that.

this music i've told you ending the show you would think starting the show would be the hard part for me ending the show is has bedeviled me for 4 187 episodes of the program so i love it i'm all for you just firing that music whenever you're bored i think it's a good litmus test a good canary in the coal mine for the listeners well tomorrow's friday you're gonna hear this

music at like five minutes into the show i'm gonna cross just a seamless crossfade just a bpm

match like grimes couldn't pull off at coachella did you see any of that no oh we got to talk about that tomorrow she like because coachella is going on and grimes like was having this had basically a huge meltdown on stage trying to dj a set when she couldn't beat match the songs then she's trying to explain like bpm to the like assembled 12 year olds at coachella anyway yeah all right Well, maybe we'll talk about that tomorrow. I don't know what exactly the rest of the day holds for all of you, but I hope it's going to be a good one. And let's see. Anything else that I need to say here at the end of the show? Probably not. Go TBTL Little Sluggers. Have a great Thursday, everyone. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all.

When you eat pasta, you are essentially sending a hormonal message to your body saying, pack on more fat that's what's happening so even without cakes and chocolate pasta itself turned into sugars in your body that's what makes you gain all the weight well that's it we're throwing our pasta out peter all pastas lasagna all of it we're done all this stuff you even oh no no

No, no, no, it just happened so we can look at it. No, we're cutting it out of our diet. We are done with pasta, we are done with spaghetti, we are done with linguine, fettuccine. Fettuccine doesn't count. It absolutely counts.

No more pasta. Just have a bowl of spaghetti, come on.

No. What happened to you, what happened? No more pasta for you or me, okay?

It's over, we're done.

Okay. Power out.