Muse

I don't think it's overstating anything to say that I was the first female to bring notoriety to our field. As Minnie the Moose, the Vernon Community College baseball team's mascot, I once held the splits for the entire length of an extra inning baseball game in spite of excruciating pain and a severe severing of my adductor longest muscle that eventually required four hours of surgery and added two and a half inches to my left leg, forcing me to retire. I wrote a tale documenting that journey. A moosing grace, a mascot's journey to God and success in real estate. TBTL! In the next hour, we will present information that's both shocking and enlightening.

This need you have to be the smartest guy in the room is off-putting. I mean, I understand how people can love podcasts. I just never, they've never fit into my, into my day. I just have never gotten into the habit.

It isn't so much about what it is altogether. It's more about the modulation and what it is once it starts. It's a little bit of a groove.

Can you say apple?

Apple.

Can you say banana?

Okay, T-Bone, time for some serious crunching. Well, all right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Tuesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

So explain that.

My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Oh, yeah. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where we're looking at another dismal day. Didn't know you like to get wet, though. Rain, clouds, cloud fog, all of it is happening here. And we're also dealing with some construction noise here in the studio today.

The volume inside of this bus is astronomical.

We have my dad here helping finish off the doorway to the bathroom. here in the Madrona Hill studio. And so you might hear a little bit of noise in the background. We actually recorded probably, I don't know, 20 minutes of the show already. I set up my whole kit in the house down there in the Burbs Mojo Dojo Casa. And the connectivity was a problem. And so I'm back out here, and we're just going to deal with the sounds of construction, and we're going to get through episode 4195. Let the fun begin in a collector series together because we have important work to do on the show today. And that is to remember one of the great dive bars of Seattle will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. The Mandarin Gate, a.k.a. the Mandarin Great, closes today. Today is, I believe, its final day of existence.

That's the saddest thing I've ever heard.

Many a memory was forged. Both good and bad memories were made at the Mandarin Gate over the years. They are in Oak Tree Village right off of Aurora in Seattle, Washington. And we'll talk about that today. In fact, a guy I made some of those memories with is right here. He's the longest running co-bro of the show. The guy's a nut bar. A nut bar. Possibly best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's Andrew Welsh. Are you joining me right now? Good morning, my friend.

Hey, man, I want to know if you think something is relatable, and I'll be honest with you, I don't think you will, but I'm going to try. You know how I don't like being hollered at? You know, that's the whole thing with me. I don't like people reprimanding me in any way or making me feel like I'm being hollered at. This system that we use to talk to each other is called Riverside, and so far it's been really great. I enjoy using it. It carries our voices across the Internet. It carries our visages across the Internet so we can even see each other while we do it. excited about. Yeah, exactly. But seriously. When you first log into the system and you tell it, hey, I want to start a new session with my good buddy Luke, and it's like, okay, I can help you with that. It says, I just need to ask you a couple of questions. First, there's a couple of buttons, right? It's like, is your camera on? You're like, yeah, this is the camera I want to use. It's very much like Zoom, in fact, if you've used Zoom, which I'm sure you have, folks, you what i'm talking about here but then there's a a two buttons uh it says are you wearing headphones and one of the buttons says no i'm not wearing headphones for this session and one of them says yes i am wearing headphones and there's a technical reason the system needs to know that it's a legitimate question

being asked of me by the robot. But sometimes I forget to answer that question, and I just hit the button that says enter studio, and when I hit that button that says enter studio, but I haven't told it whether or not I'm wearing headphones, I get a message in red that says, you must tell us whether or not you're wearing headphones, and I feel hollered at, Luke. I always feel, I resent the machine for reprimanding me, and that is a true story. I get a pang of something that I do not like, And I kind of get mad at the machine.

Andrew, when you started the show by asking, is this relatable? I could not have predicted just how relatable this would be to my experience.

With Riverside? With Riverside. Yes.

Is it relatable for the listeners? No. Absolutely not. No, I didn't ask them. Is it something that, is that a conversation that I have internally literally every single day that we connect? Like, my version of it is, because I have to click on a button that says, yes, I'm wearing headphones. There's no way to just set it as the default setting. And what my brain does every single day is tell Riverside, I'm a professional broadcaster. Of course I'm wearing headphones. Leave me the hell alone. I feel very... You take it another level. I do.

I am doing my job here.

Like I have a little mental argument with Riverside And it's the bigotry of soft expectations that it has for me That I wouldn't understand that I need headphones Like I'm like I've been doing this 4,194 times Riverside I know to wear headphones You don't have to ask me every time It feels very What's the word I'm looking for It's patronizing And I think about this every single time we boot up the system And it's amazing that you have a sort of a version of the same thought.

Yes. Now, here's the deal. Now, I'm going to be patronizing to you. But you do. I mean, no, I'm not.

Is there a way I can set it to not ask me?

Is there a way is there a way you can set me to not say what I'm about to say? No, no, I think more for the listener. Like, it's OK. You can use this system without headphones. It's not saying like, hey, buddy, you need to use headphones for this. And I need a verbal yes. Like you're in the exit row of an airplane. It's saying, like, if you don't want to use headphones, that's okay. We got you. We're going to put on something called, like, what, echo cancellation or something. That way you can do it. Like, so if you and I have a guest, like, let's say we're doing a week in review and they don't have headphones, that's okay. Riverside's got you. It's fine. But you are right. I wish I could set it to say every single time, yes, I'm using headphones because, as you say, I am a professional and I'm eating the mic and I'm wearing headphones.

Yeah, I just feel like Riverside is trying to sort of help people along who are a little bit maybe newer in this space, in this podcasting space. And we are not only not new to the podcasting space, we've been here so long it's probably time for us to leave. Yes. Like, don't let the door hit you where the good Lord splits you as you exit the podcasting space, please, Luke and Andrew. So with that, with us being the grizzled veterans of the podcasting game, I don't feel like I need Riverside to lecture me about proper headphone usage.

In red. And as you know, like the color of a note is very important to me. People, listeners still talk about pink ink. How long ago was it? I was living in Wallingford when it was a whole ordeal that we talked about on the show where I got into it with a neighbor of mine who was like doing a very Seattle thing, which is like basically parking his car. We lived on a residential street with street parking, and there was a place in front of my neighbor's house, but they would often just park one car there so that you couldn't fit a car in front of it or a car behind it. And I wrote a note what I thought. And again, I believed my tone was good in the notes. And I reiterated on the show that it was even written in pink ink, which is a very a very gentle color to write a note to your neighbor.

And it is recognized as the least threatening. That's right. Color that you make. Purple is a close second.

And this might even been a purpley pink, to be honest with you. Yeah. I mean, wow. I think the Dayton Accords were written in pink ink, I believe. Yes, all of them. That's my memory of that. Wait, is an Accord written? An Accord is not written, right? That's just the meeting. I took myself to a place that I'm no longer comfortable. You want to take it from here, Luke?

It's the prelude to the Civic Accord. Wait, are all Hondas named for peace deals?

You're right.

It's named a lot of Hondas.

That's right, yes. There's a gulf between both sides.

The Prelude, the Civic, the Accord, the Element, that's another Honda product.

Yeah, Honda Element.

Yeah, Element is the kind of like SUV-ish one, I think, a passport. Andrew, we're figuring something out right now. Hondas are based on diplomacy.

100%. I'm trying to look up all the different types of Hondas because I'm already way out of my element here. Oh, now I'm finding things that would contradict us, and I don't want to go there.

Wait, what would you mean as far as a Honda?

I'm finding names of Hondas that have nothing to do with diplomacy. like what like a brio that's not a real thing that's the right attitude uh oh you're right you're right that's not here in the united states hey um speaking i i don't i don't know what made me think of this maybe maybe honda did but some i went to the baseball game last night and something

i'm jealous because that was a hell of a game i can't believe you got to be there to see mitch

garver's walk off home run i know it reminded reminded me of this i'm seeing names like integra here and there was some uh and there was another oh that's an acura oh oh well maybe your integra uh but well what i see is something in another country called uh let's see here in in china the civic is called the integra apparently so we're learning that's confusing it is very confusing but also i see there's a there's something here available in china called the honda envix e-n-v-i-x which is what reminded me of the story i want to tell you great uh day at ballpark yesterday cold yeah very cold i was wearing a scarf the guy who sold me sausage was teasing me kept saying you warm enough you warm enough and i'd like well i wasn't giving him what

he wanted there by the way we hold that side of snark mr sausage man very snarky um but i mean i

think good naturedly and i love being uh teased you know that like i have some some people say

don't miss the sausage fest don't miss the sausage fest that is so loud i actually didn't

think it was loud enough did you i couldn't tell if you could tell how loud that oh i could tell

i almost i was not trying to play it i was not trying to play it that loud nor twice okay so

okay so this envix the honda envix reminded me of an aspect of yesterday's game uh which was not related to the game itself so people who don't like sports stop reaching for the fast forward button i think you'll be interested in this uh genevieve and i show up before our friends show up um and we are in our seats everything seems basically normal right before i guess maybe it was um right after the national anthem i noticed that one of the people in front of me was taking her phone and really zooming in on something along the third baseline now we're along the first baseline so it's kind of like you know it's not very close but i noticed that she's really zooming in on something i'm like my initial reaction was oh no we're sitting in front of uh atlanta braves fans like she's checking out what's going on in the dugout over there and like you know I should be able to coexist with people rooting for other teams in fact the friend I was there with is from Atlanta so he was he was rooting for Atlanta as is Genevieve as is Genevieve but they Genevieve roots for the Mariners and he roots for baseball he's he's the type of guy who just like when he liked the players on the Braves he rooted for them when he liked the players on the Mariners he rooted for them it was an amazing amazing day it really was one of my favorite games I've ever been to but here was an element that was new to me so i see her zooming in along the baseline i couldn't tell what it was it was just a very quick little thing i noticed and dismissed relatively quickly and then they announce who's gonna throw out the first pitch the ceremonial first pitch or as i once called on this show and i'll never live it down in my own head the first ceremonial pitch which you pointed out would imply that there's more than one ceremonial pitch it's the ceremonial first pitch i always have to just like you have to sometimes remind yourself left hand right hand wait which is left which is right i have to remind myself what order do the word ceremonial and first uh go in but anyway when they announce who's going to throw out the first pitch it's not one person but it's three people who i've never heard of before but suddenly the pep boys something was unlocked to me and i realized we were surrounded by k-pop fans it's a k-pop band And I don't know if it's a three-member band or if it's just three members of this band called En Hyphen, E-N Hyphen, but all one word. Ironically, no hyphen. Wait, what? So picture the word hyphen and put the letters E-N in front of it, but make it one word. And hyphen, I believe, is the name of the band. Am I right?

E-N and then hyphen. And then the word hyphen, but no hyphen.

Ironically, there's no hyphen in the hyphen, which is amazing.

I don't know where children go without shoes. But do you have it in front of you? Do you really think they'd have one? I do. Am I right? Okay.

And apparently, at least one of these people in the band, one of these singers, is apparently from Washington State, so that's the tie-in there.

Oh, okay.

But I didn't realize that. All I know is they announced the first pitch, and I heard something that I've never heard.

heard at the ballpark before which is a fervent high-pitched beatles fan-esque 1965 absolute scream from all of the k-pop fans in the stadium and suddenly i looked around and i realized most of not not most of but a whole bunch of a huge contingent of the uh of the crowd last night were actually mostly young women there to see this band throughout the first pitch. And then any time they would show somebody on the Jumbotron, sometimes they would show the band watching the game. They did that once. And again, it felt like I was in the middle of Beatlemania, which is, again, a very current reference.

This is almost exactly like when I threw out the first pitch. Is that what it was like?

Is that what it was like?

I mean, it was electric. I will say. And the number of people, particularly young females, that came just to see me sail that first pitch,

over Ben Davis's head almost the I will say these guys all got it over the plate so so good on them but it was so funny and this is where maybe I'm a little whatever I'll just lean into my I know that I'm not the cool one here I'm old and I'm not relevant and I'm a fuddy-duddy and I don't know I've never heard of this band I think they're relatively new but like when they showed the three guys they all do like a different mugging for the camera sort of and it was like it looked like it was out of the Kroll show just like how they each I don't know I can't explain how eat All three of them had a slightly different stereotypical mug for the camera, you know, and the crowd is just screaming their head off for these guys. It was bananas. And then as I like went to get some concessions later on or something, I kind of realized, oh, yeah, there's like a lot of people wearing this sort of K-pop fan outfit. If you can picture like sort of a like, I don't know, like a tennis skirt, a lot of young women like tennis skirts and boots or something like that. I don't know. But, yeah, it was it was like being it was the closest I'll ever come to being at a K-pop show.

Now, a couple things on K-pop, and I'm going to take, I would like you to, I'm going to yell hit, and then like a relay team, I want you to hand me the baton of us sounding out of touch, and then I'm going to run the anchor leg of this, which means I'm going to sound even more ridiculous as I talk over this router, I believe, that's now been brought into play

behind me. I was going to say, I don't know if we've established what's happening over there. I've heard a nail gun a couple of times. I want to let everybody know that everything's fine. You just have Bolton Ramsey over there doing some very sick things to reach.

Just saying we are disposing of some evidence. And that's all I can really say here on the show. I'm I'm that sounds like a router that is probably routering out some kind of mortise hinge situation. Is that what that is, Dad?

No, this is the oscillating multi-tool.

It's an oscillating multi-tool.

Genevieve just got one of those. She was very. No, no.

She go to the oscillating multi-tool district.

She went to one fall off a truck. She went to the tool district, which is our friend Roden's house. I believe she borrowed his multi-tool. Roden's got the setup.

Okay, so hit. You need to do the nail gun.

Can you do a nail gun right as you say hit?

Unfortunately, I'm not in control of those things. It's not a toy. No, Andrew, it's not a joke either. And you don't wear them as a joke. You don't buy them as a joke or wear them as a joke.

You don't wear nails across your, like a bandolier?

No. Okay, so here is the thing about K-pop First of all, whenever there's a large grouping of people And I don't understand what's going on It's K-pop Like I was in D.C. Becca and I were in D.C. Like a year or two ago And there was the I don't know what the particular naming convention is on this arena these days But I believe it's where the Wizards play And there was a line It was broilingly hot and there was a line around the stadium of young people. And I was like, what could be this popular ever? And, well, it was K-pop. That's what it was. And we found out. And the other thing I'll say is when I read about N-hyphen on Wikipedia.

Yeah, tell me everything because I don't know anything about them.

I have to feel like my dad is actually trying to save me from what I'm about to say.

Why? Are you about to be all judgy? Are you going to judge the youth?

I'm a little bit judgy. I'm about to be a little... Well, here's what I'm going to say. I feel like... I feel like he's doing this on purpose, actually.

What if I just start laying some tone over top of you as well? Are these voice-activated tools?

Do they only start when I try to talk?

Do you want me to spill a buster here while you... No, I'm just going to keep... I think it's fine. We can fear what you're saying.

Maybe this will be a welcome distraction from me reading... Okay, this is a new low, even by TBTL standards. When you read the description of the band in hyphen, it does not feel to me, how do you say, organic. Now, I know that that doesn't...

that should not impact the enjoyment that people gain from in hyphen. Everybody should like whatever they like. And if you love K-pop and you love these bands, I salute you. And I think it's awesome that you have a thing that is very fun for you. But when I read the about.

No, no, no, no, no, I need to. We have to correct something. I think this is a big correction and also might just color how judgy we want to be. It's in hyphen, which makes so much more sense. It's not N-hyphen. I mean, does it? Well, at least it sort of is like hyphen, like the word hype is in there. It's E-N-H-Y-P-E-N. I cannot tell you how many listeners and probably listeners with their kids listening have spent the past probably five minutes screaming at me as I told that story.

It really looks like the word hyphen, though. I stared at it as you spelled it. I spelled it out loud and looked at the word and just added a letter in there somewhere. I guess we added an extra H. Yes. We tried to take hyphen into hyphen. But my point stands. When you read the in hyphen Wikipedia entry, it does not seem like what it feels like is. And again, everybody knows this about K-pop. I'm not breaking any news here. And again, I don't want to reduce. I don't want to sound like I'm trying to tell anyone what kind of music they should like. Everybody should like whatever they like. But when you read, Enhypen is a South Korean boy band formed by Belift Lab, formerly a joint venture between CJENM and Hybee Corporation.

They're the ones who bought Bed Bath & Beyond, right?

Through the 2020 survival competition show, iLand. Oh, okay. So, it's a boy band formed by Belift Lab, which is formerly a joint venture between CJ E&M and Hybee Corporation through the 2020 survival competition show, iLand. Like, I mean, if that isn't just a couple of kids in a dream. Yeah, right. If that isn't. The next sentence on Wikipedia is, and boy, can they blow. I mean, again, this is something that we know about K-pop. And it's something that is, you know, for these, whether it's the Backstreet Boys or NSYNC or New Kids on the Block or, you know, the Spice Girls. I mean, this is something that has gone on for years and years and years. The idea of somebody who figures out what the sort of youth are into and then they assemble a band of people to make that music. This is an old tradition. I understand that. But there's something about the name Belift Lab, formerly a joint venture between CJ E&M and Hybee Corporation. Like, it's just it sounds this this sounds less like a band and more like a food stable ingredient that, you know, is being made in some sort of just being added to food in in some sort of a like a Charlie Kaufman film.

So there are seven people in this band, by the way.

And I'd like you to name all of them right now, Andrew, please.

Wait, I'm going to close my computer and name all of them.

No, I'd like you to read these names.

Oh, you actually do want me to do that?

No, I think that would be, I averred on that idea because I don't really trust my ability to pronounce these South Korean names.

Yeah, although most of them seem, I mean, there's no point in me listening, although most of them seem probably doable.

You said one of these guys is actually from Seattle, too.

Yeah, but I don't know which one. I'm trying to kind of figure that out here. So I did keep it keep in mind. Now I said this is the closest I've ever been to a K-pop show. I wasn't even seeing half of the act like I only saw three out of seven people there. But honestly, like, I mean, I know what you mean. Like that that sentence on Wikipedia is is hilarious. But also I don't care like there. I'm sure that I mean, you know, wasn't there an era of like a lot of the pop music I liked was all like kind of being created by like the same like northern European studio or whatever. and just like farming them out to the who are you thinking of well that's the thing this is where I get in some dangerous territory because a I can't remember things or people's names or celebrities faces or anything like that and b if I do list people that this is not true of like I was going to say Katy Perry but if I'm wrong about that we're going to get a lot of Katy Perry fans being like no no Katy Perry writes her own stuff like famously she's a girl boss and like I honestly

do not know but there's a lot of she slays all day Andrew and the fact that you are mischaracterizing that you you show almost no ability to rise and grind i do show almost no ability to rise

like in all seriousness this is becoming an issue um but and i slay god luke i don't even slay probably a tenth of the day how what percentage of the day do you slay oh man i

you slay more of the day than i do best case scenario i'm slaying probably 15 of the day I don't, I think when you're on.

to shoot you're slaying at least 35 percent of a day it's very site specific it's very focused

slaying it's a lot of me standing around looking at my phone and then when they're ready then i jump in and i slay for like a minute or two and then they cut and then i step out and i'm

unslaying i kind of want a mug that says slay 30 of the day anyway i can't remember but there's like a bunch of pop music i would say from probably the early 2000s or something when i started listening to some you know like kind of radio pop stuff and i feel like it was all really good and it was maybe like maybe britney spears i feel like there was like was it like was it norway where a lot of like there were like just these pop super geniuses and like a studio there that was like cranking out these pop songs but they were good you know but they weren't necessarily

organic no i agree and like that's why i said i mean there's there's a long long history of these kind of artificially assembled bands but i'm just saying even by even by those standards that opening sentence just the fact that it's got lab in the name no definitely no like it feels like these you know but but again that also might be owing to a language difference you know what i mean the that that word in korean might be have a different connotation like yeah you know like that so there's a there's a lot going on here and i'm trying to be careful culturally too because i I don't want to like other of these folks. But what I will say is that whenever I'm confused about a big group of people, it is usually related to K-pop. It's about some kind of a fun thing that people love that I'm totally unaware of. And I can't believe how many people love it as deeply as they do.

Well, if there is any, I mean, if you want a little bit of more cover from me on your sort of observation here, we'll call it. When I click on the link to Belift Lab, as it is in the Wikipedia, I thought maybe I could give you an easy answer for what Belift Lab is. Like, oh, maybe that's just, like, a fun name for, like, a cool recording studio, and they call it The Lab because they're mixing things up, and it's like a laboratory. Yeah, sure, I could see that. It takes me like a quarter of the way down the longest Wikipedia entry ever made, I think, for something called the HYBE or HYBE Corporation, which is a – did you already say this?

It's a wholly-owned subsidiary of the HYBE Corporation. It comprises three divisions, HYBE Labels, HYBE Solutions, and HYBE Platforms. Under each division are wholly and partially-owned subsidiaries of its parent corporation.

So what's not soulful about that? The company operates as a record label talent agency, music production company, event management, concert production company, music publishing house, and realtor. And realtor.

But again, please don't come for us, K-pop fans. Absolutely enjoy whatever you enjoy. That is great. I'm the first to tell you that I'm out of touch. I'm the person here who is not in the know. and and i'm not wanting to i'm not wanting to be critical of something that brings joy to anyone

exactly and like for me i'm not like no i am pandering here but i'm doing it honestly and truthfully as i pander like it only improved the ballpark experience it was so fun like they would just show other you know fans of the band formerly known as enhyphen they would just show one fan holding up a hyphen fan and it would create chaos in the rest of the stadium. It was amazing.

Is it possible that these people are just fans of the Hy-Bee Corporation? It's all kind of close. And its subsidiaries? I'm more of a fan of its subsidiaries. I mean, I'll take an hyphen in a pinch, but really, I'm just a fan. I celebrate the entire catalog of the Hy-Bee Corporation.

Including Adore, collectively known as Hy-Bee labels. I'm just reading your code.

Income, $187 billion in 2023, the high B. Here's what I love, too. Oh, by the way, the revenue supposedly – oh, you know what? Sorry. That's $163 million U.S. dollars, so $187 billion of, I believe, like South Korean currency. Yeah, because then it's also $2.1 trillion of revenue, I believe, maybe in its history or something. No, that's its gross revenue was $1.84 billion in 2023 U.S. And it's funny, too, because it just says, Hy-Bee, we believe in music. I know, I saw that, too. It is funny. It has sort of a- Hy-Bee Duff protest. A little too much.

It does sort of sound like something in some sort of a futuristic- Right.

not you what's the where they just the music gets injected into your mind

right exactly we some sort of precog yeah it's uh it's what plants crave that movie you've never Have you seen Idiocracy? I can't tell. I haven't, believe it or not. I feel like it might be a little broad for you. I felt like living it has been enough for me. Yes, I agree.

I mean, I do want to go back because, of course, you know, famously it proved to, unfortunately, be sort of prescient in a lot of ways. And I would be curious to just to kind of see which things kind of line up. I feel like, yeah, the Hy-Bee thing is like, you know, you've heard a lot of things in the news lately about Hy-Bee not believing in music. and i'd just like to we'd like to take a moment of your time to clarify we do believe in music

there's some sort of senate hearing where the ceos have to put their hands on some document and say

we do believe in music yes yeah anyway um but uh like did anybody leave the game though after the first pitch i'm sure that would be i mean that's a long time to hang out if really all you wanted

to see was these k-pop stars throughout the first pitch i was proud of my k-pop brethren um the so here yeah well that was an interesting thing was that there were several folks in front of us like actually two rows of folks in front of us um not full rows i'm gonna say maybe about eight people or something after the first pitch like we didn't know what was going on they just announced the first pitch these kids and then the people in front of us and behind us i mean just the highest pitch screaming you can imagine and beefs and i was like what is going on our friends weren't there yet and then they threw out the first pitch and then like again like eight to ten people in front of us just clear out immediately and by the way these weren't the cheapest seats these were like set we paid like 70 bucks a pop for our seats like these were they were along the first baseline they were they were good seats i don't always treat us to the those those level of seats but our friend uh wanted to pick them out and you know i was happy to do it it's nice to get good seats every now and then but my point is like if you really paid like half a tire don't get hey i need an update on that by the way that's yeah like half of one tire yeah after the dazzling donors so i need to hear what's going on with that yeah i'll i'll temper your expectations i i'll give you a little update but there's not a huge update but um but anyway yeah all these people in front of us did clear out right away but as somebody said they might have snuck down from like seats that were elsewhere in the park just to see the first pitch and then maybe they wandered around but like i went to get um you know i went to get a sausage do we have any audio associated with that that i can play at an ear bleeding level i can't remember you and i don't miss the sausage fest now it's too quiet now it's too quiet you and i you mentioned this earlier you and i already recorded for about 20 minutes today before we already did so i can't remember what i said when but the guy who sold me my sausage was making fun of me because i was wearing a pea coat and a scarf and i was all bundled up did i say that in this recording you said that here which necessitated me playing that

drop at about okay 140 of the recommended level daily level of audio drops i can hear myself

right now i think i need to maybe maybe we need to get that break and i can take a breath but um because i am not making sense i'm all over the place but when i that was probably like fifth inning and i saw a lot of like k-pop fans still there and like i say every now and then they would just show more k-pop fans in the audience holding up their signs like we love you and hyphen and like everybody goes crazy so like did you reference did you did you call them in hyphen

to anyone there did you say did you speak those words out loud to any fans like hey i see you're

a fan of hyphen and no i did not approach any i didn't i did not approach any of the young women who were there to see the band, yeah. Well, good. I kept that to myself. For once? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, yeah, it was a heck of a game. I was very jealous that you got to see it.

Such a good night.

It reminded me, I watched it with Walt here, and I've told this story before, but it reminded me in a way of one of my great baseball moments, which also didn't involve being at the game, but it was when I was a little kid and a mariner named Phil Bradley hit a grand slam home run in the ninth inning, and we were down by three runs and we won the game and there was something about and my dad uh used to come down and pray with me every night before bed which was very sweet and uh and my so my dad i had the mariners on my little clock radio my dad was sitting there and like sitting on my bed and we were gonna you know say a little prayer before bed but in the meantime we're listening to the end of the baseball game and i just remember being so unbelievably psyched as just a little jumping around on my bed and being so hyped i was almost that excited last night when mitch carver hit the and my dad was here we're like high-fiving like maniacs it was

really fun i wasn't sure how much your dad follows um the mariners cares about the mariners but not at all but if you have it on and he's in the room he's a human being with a heartbeat and a yes and

and we'll get excited about this stuff yes he does that's his that's his relationship with like all sports is that he will watch it if it's on my mom is really the like the the sports fan the avid sports fan in the family as far as the parents go so he'll my dad will patiently watch a game. He'll be excited if Mitch Garver hits a two-run hormone in the bottom of the ninth. But also, if he doesn't, if he never watches another Mariners or Seahawks game for the rest of his life, it will not diminish his level of happiness at all. I just don't think he really cares that much one way

or the other. Well, can you get him on the mic and ask him to name all five starters in the Mariners pitching rotation? Only

if he can do it as a sardicon.

From a dude.

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. Let's thank those dazzling donors. These are the wonderful, generous life forms that are supporting TBTL today. Starting with Andrea Elkins of Humboldt, Texas. We met

Andrea with the 4,000th episode.

We sure did. Andrea was absolutely lovely. Did Andrea bring the map, I think, if I'm remembering right? I think that maybe she was responsible for a map that people could kind of put a pin in.

Oh, I didn't know. I think I totally missed that.

To indicate where folks had kind of traveled in from.

Oh, that's cool. I didn't know that. What I do remember is I thought I accidentally stole her beer koozie that she let me borrow. And then later on, and so I gave it back to her, and I made a point of giving it back to her. And then later on, I saw the beer koozie in our home, and I said to Genevieve, I'm like, did you end up stealing the beer koozie? She said, no, Andrea gave it to me, and she said, you didn't want it. And I realized I accidentally rejected a gift. I didn't realize it was a gift. I thought I was just borrowing it. That was a convoluted story, but clearly the guilt lives big within my heart.

Well, and also, Andrea has been so supportive of the program. It's like we don't need to be stealing her koozie if that was what was going on. I understand that. Here's what Andrea has to say. It was lovely seeing y'all last July at the 4000th episode. And I hope I get to travel to see y'all again in the year of our Lord, 2024. Watch this space, Andrea. Watch this space is what I would say on that one. Regarding travel, has the crew considered conducting a short three-day cruise where us passionate tens could join our beloved hosts and employee numero uno with their lovely partners and enjoy the high seas, making a new illustration, which includes a cruise ship. I'm totally serious, and I humbly propose it at, see, Andrea's in Humble, Texas, humbly proposing this.

Humblely, yeah.

Yeah. That we consider this as a 2025 adventure, allowing folks time to save and make travel plans to whatever port best suits the crew, noting my 11 and I hopped on an Alaskan cruise after the 4000th episode and had an absolute blast while enjoying the splendor of the Pacific Northwest. Could we do that Andrew? Could we do a I mean that's something that like Jonathan Colton famously does the Joko cruise Yeah. This is a big thing now there I think there might be a is there a max fun cruise

There was definitely I don't know if people are still doing it. I also don't know if that trend has sort of peaked or not. I feel like I was hearing about it a lot more like i mean specifically podcasts kind of doing that type of thing but i think we're ignoring the bigger question here or at least to me the glaring question in andrea's um note which is she mentions her 11 and her went on this cruise after um after the 4000th episode and i am not confident that her 11 would want to be on this ship with us for that period of time i got i got a little bit of i got a little bit of a vibe of like i'm here i'm putting up with this you guys are okay but don't make me be around you for three straight

days that was the vibe i was getting from 11 huh i i think you could win them over you think so with my charm yes with your charm uh with your locking yourself in your cabin at 11 o'clock at night never to be seen again sir we have to confiscate these darts those are a weapon you and not bring those on the boat. I would happily do a cruise, but only if we can be on the boat that we went on in Mexico when you and Genevieve saved the trip for me by breaking into our friend Toon's house and getting my passport and overnighting it to me. But that boat was amazing because it had a daycare that at night transferred into the discotheque called Dr. Frankenstein's.

Oh, yeah, okay.

It was the greatest multi-use room ever. Bring the toddlers in in the morning, let them run around and, you know, get their wiggles out. And then at night, the adults come in and just get absolutely slammed at Dr. Frankenstein's, which it had this big Frankenstein's monster, like. kind of statue thing which i don't know if they like yeah why is it up in the morning kids couldn't they find something that splits the difference a little bit better and also it just seems like the chance of the kids finding illicit substances from only six hours before seems just like a dangerous kind of a like somebody's gonna you know find a mike's hard lemonade wedged in the

ball pit sweetie sweetie that's not a pixie stick put it down it's not a pixie stick

right like I just it's a massive cruise ship it seems like there has to be some other room that can be where the daycare center is but anyway I also thought it was hilarious and I would absolutely do a cruise Andrea if you can get us back on that boat whatever it's called I'd be honored and if they'll let me sail the boat which we know I've had great success with over the years yes Andrea says may your day dazzle and your pods snazzle

oh I like that

Always and forever, XOXO, Andrea in Humble, Texas. Well, thank you, Andrea, for supporting the program. Thank you for dragging your beloved 11 all the way out to Seattle to be part of the TBTL 4000th, and we do hope to see you again very, very soon. Maestro?

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

I don't know if this is something that you did intentionally or if it's just a coincidence, but we have another donor from Humble, Texas.

Ooh, I did not realize that.

Supporting the program. So that's just one of those things that just worked out. You don't believe in a God? So we have two listeners from, I wonder if they know each other. Well, maybe. This is Pauly Prissy Pants Elkins. Okay, now that's the same last name as Andrea.

I'll say, what's up, dog?

I believe this is our first ever dazzling donation from a Dalmatian. I actually don't know what kind of dog Pauly is, but this is definitely the first time we've ever had a pet as a dazzling donor. But we will absolutely take this. That's right. I mean, if you would, if anybody out there listening, if you have the ability to dazzlingly donate on behalf of your pet, by all means.

Oh, I'm sorry. Even better. You think this is somebody doing this on behalf of a pet? You don't think this is the pet themselves who opened up their pocketbook and donated?

I mean, that's a great question. Let me just read the message from Polly Prissy Pants of Humble, Texas. Dearest imaginary friendos. I mean, listen, if the dog can write an email, it could probably work a job.

So maybe this is Paulie's money

Thank you for keeping my favorite human companion In a buoyant mood for the last six years As you've gotten her through several job changes Moves to new homes and losses of loved ones While allowing her to see the humor in life Even in the darkest moments She cares deeply for each of you And your beloved pod pets Your partners in life and parents Although as a member of the four pod crew I'm hopeful her enjoyment of kitties is satisfied through her parasocial relationship with Professor Banana's bingos and bubbles. I see. So this is, the dog is, the dog has basically spent a considerable amount of its resources to really try to get ahead of a cat being brought into the home

in Humble, Texas. Yeah, in dog money this is like seven times what a usual dazzling donor. It's cute. This is pretty much the biggest

expenditure of the entire year for this dog. Really to just the dog does not want to have a cat in the house if you're listening to this andrea that's what i'm getting from the dog um i can honestly say that i have no desire to share her snuggles with a feline friend as she already seems too distracted by her 11 david cotton who doesn't have the appreciation i have for your daily doses of garbage stock home renovation updates and sky jinx okay please play the following drops for her double dazzling donation now andrew i don't i have the first time seeing this i've got all of

them well yeah because check it out you notice do you i think this probably came across in the email you notice how those drops those those those things that she lists are a different color it means they're hyperlinks they are this dog actually found the drops on marsupial gurgle.com This is why this dog is able to earn so much money, because...

Yeah, honestly, we're burying the lead here. There is an unbelievably intelligent dog living in Humboldt, Texas, that I feel like should be on the news.

Well, she's on a podcast, and I do have these dialed up if you want, because if you click on them immediately... I mean, I don't know if you feel the need to play them from your side, but I can play them here as you list them. Why don't you play them there?

It usually goes better. As we heard with my Sausage Fest drop, things could get a little heated. So the first one.

Was that on this show?

The first one that Pauly Prissy Pants Elkins of Humboldt.

texas would really like to hear is lady bong from fiji ladies bong from fiji that's me saying it surprises me i didn't preview this surprises me as well ladies bong from fiji wait let's see if

that's not the original no do you want to let me find the original in my um in my collection here

And that was a news story. This one was created from a wooden vase from Faye Jay. I'm unsure what type of timber, but it's a ladies bong for ladies. It's my new favorite bong. I wish I could smoke it.

Yeah, it's from some news story from Australia, right?

Yeah, I think so. Oh, then the next one is Come On Brain.

Oh, now this one, I think we have probably the original here. And this is Linda Miranda, Love is Love is Love.

Come on, brain, think of things. Come on, brain, think of things. Come on, brain, be so smart.

That's one of those drops that you've played for a long time, and I did not realize until recently who it was.

I feel like it's Lin, it is Lin-Manuel Miranda, and I think he's like, maybe he's like in Central Park or something. My memory is he's reclining like in the grass and he's trying to motivate himself to be inspired and write another hit musical. But I thought it would also be apropos for our show because we are often asking our brains to be so smart and think of things. And they usually don't. Next up, I see Scatman. I'm guessing this is Scatman's work.

Oh, I don't know what actually has been chosen here. Let's see. Let's see.

I'm a scat man.

Wow. Wow. That was more intense than I thought it was going to be. That was a lot.

Wow. I thought it was just going to be scat man's world.

Me too. Do I have that?

Very cool, though. Yeah. RIP, scat man. Rest in power. And then I feel like I don't actually know. I mean, I'm familiar with the words I get knocked down. I feel like that's the Chumba Wumba song.

Oh, yeah. I did preview this one. This is really funny. I'd forgotten about this. This is from your collection.

Well, I get knocked down, but, you know, I get up again, man.

I forgot about that. That is a guy doing.

It really knocked me down. Yeah, it's from TikTok, right?

Yeah, it's a guy doing an impression of Jeff Bridges doing the song Tub Thumping from Chumbalumba. So good. That's pretty good, actually. They should bring that back into the rotation. Well, thanks, Pauly, for reminding us of those things and for supporting the show. We couldn't be here without you. So thank you once again. Good girl. Who's a good girl? Who's a good dazzling donor?

I heard you're sort of not a little bit unsure how to land that plane. And then, of course, yeah.

Who's a good girl?

Hello, and welcome to Top Story.

Did I mute my Top Story sound effect, Andrew, when I muted my microphone? Oh, nice. Ooh, fancy. So I can actually, like...

Wait a second. I don't think you muted anything before.

I can mute my microphone, but I can still play you audio drops. Oh, okay, cool. So, like, for instance, right now, when this compressor is repowering itself. By the way, two years, three years we've been working on this house, I never get used to that compressor. It always terrifies me. Oh, really? Because it needs to build up its air pressure. So, because, you know, my dad's using a nail gun, which, have you used a nail gun?

I don't think so. It must feel powerful.

It is incredible. It must be how God feels When he's doing home remodeling Because it's just so great But after you have Shot a bunch of nails into something It needs to build back up The pressure of the compressor But I always forget that there's a compressor Related to the thing And then you're just thinking your deep thoughts And all of a sudden It just starts Making this incredibly loud jarring noise It always kind of throws me off

Now I need to clarify one thing here though very quickly um nail gun is not a gun it is not a gun that was a theragun joke um that was you and i used to joke all the time do not call it the keurig of nail guns i think we can talk about this now oh in fact i don't know if you noticed but we got a note from our old pal i won't read it on the air because i don't know that it's for public consumption but our old pal annie at american public media i don't know if she's still there or not but we were speculating on the air recently or on the pod

recently about uh the carvana ads and how much weight tbtl pulled with those carvana ads and she actually got back to us with some answers on that but um yeah this is before annie's time but you and i did advertisements for a theragun which is i still have a theragun mini that i use on the quasi reg so you know i i like it i stand behind the product but it was one of those um host reads that the instructions were a little bit ridiculous they called their product theragun But then in big red letters all over the script said, Theragun is not a gun. Do not refer to it as the gun. It's just like, well, then don't put it in the name of the product. I don't know what I did there.

We seem to be on a real hot streak with products that were very easily described as something that they did not want us to use. Because the other thing, that's why I said don't call it the Keurig of guns. Because we also did these ads for a thing called Drinkworks, which was actually a very cool product. You had it. I actually gave my device to Becca's brother Jeff And his wife Darcy And they loved it The problem was Right about the time we started doing the ads Drinkworks went out of business And it was this device That you could put these pods in And it would make you a cocktail And it got rave reviews I know you and Veeves thought it was really cool as well But the instruction for us As the people promoting it was Do not under any circumstances are referred to it as the Keurig of drink machines, which was basically exactly what it was.

And we found out later that it was made by the Keurig company. Like, why would you not want to lean into the, like, if you are, like, just talk about Keurig in general. Like, there are probably various brands of instant coffee making machines with pods now, but Keurig owns that space. If you can be the Google of anything or the Kleenex of anything or the Keurig of anything, that's good. Why would you not say now we have this Keurig for cocktails?

So anyway, and I here's my thought. If we would have been allowed to call it the Keurig of cocktails, it'd still be here.

Yeah, right. And now I will say when I first heard about it, I was like, because you said, you know, that these and I had fun with it. Like for me, making a cocktail is part of the fun of the cocktail itself. You know what I mean? Like I'm I do things the slow way, generally speaking. So, you know, like I remember they did have pods. We can just be honest about all this now. They did have pods for, like, a gin and tonic, and I was like, I think I got that one, Drinkworks. Like, you pour a bunch of gin into a glass, and you forget to put the tonic in it. I've got it, okay? Yeah, that's what you didn't like about it.

There was all this tonic getting in the way of your gin.

I call them G&Ts, gin and-

Don't gatekeep on me, Drinkworks. Don't you tell me how much tonic to put in my gin and tonic.

So anyway But it did end up being like there were a couple of times That people would come over and they'd say well what is that oddity And you'd be like well here's a pod here's a glass Do it do it my friend And so it was sort of a fun thing And I guess I will read a little bit of Annie's note here Our old colleague who says I'm pretty sure that your ad reads were responsible For the only sales that Drinkworks The long dead not a Keurig cocktails device ever made

Speaking of drinks Andrew That's actually a great segue into what I wanted to talk about with you today. I've been receiving a lot of messages on this topic. The closing of the Mandarin Gate restaurant. Been flooded with messages about that. In Oak Tree Village there in kind of North Seattle. What's funny is that there was a big Instagram post about it from, I forget the exact name of the Instagram account, but basically- Vanishing Seattle, I'm guessing. Vanishing Seattle. and I think that they sort of feature basically things about Seattle that have changed or are changing places that are closing things that we all remember if we grew up in Seattle or spent a lot of time there as I did and if you go to I don't have it right in front of me if you go to the Instagram post it's very well written actually and gives some nice there's some actual pretty decent reporting going on by this Vanishing Seattle account so props to them

I follow Vanishing Seattle it's a really great follow They do a good job of also throwing like sometimes they'll just do an update on a place. But if you see the outside of a building, they'll have to put like not vanishing really big in like all caps on the on the post, because I follow various Seattle photography things now. And vanishing Seattle is one of them. But sometimes like I'll be scrolling quickly and I'll see that like I think one of them is like Seattle at night or whatever. We'll take a we'll just post a photo of one of my favorite establishments and I'll be like, oh, no, it's closing. And then I have to look really quickly. Oh, no, that's not Vanishing Seattle. But I do recommend them as a follow. And this particular post that you're referring to is really good. It went into the history of the regulars there and the people who sang and and KJ'd karaoke there.

Frankie, the bartender who we loved, who the story goes with Frank that. he would he frank was was a character he uh one time i believe he quit in a huff because he was really frustrated i don't know if it was with the owners or the customers but and i it's this is you know i spent so many bleary nights at the mandarin gate that i can't remember fact from fiction i can't remember if this was something that i actually experienced or if i just heard about this but my man i think i might have been i might have been here for this but frank quit i think he was quitting he sort of quit a lot um and one of the times he quit he just said like i've absolutely had it i'm out of here he stormed out of the bar and he had left his wallet behind so he had to come back into the bar to get there's just nothing like less dramatic there's like not a worse way to have to re-enter a bar you just dramatically quit then i left my keys yep so i i remember either seeing that or hearing someone talking about that the time that frank quit and had to come back to get his wallet uh he's mentioned in the piece the kjs are mentioned in the piece our friend drew who by the way is in heavy rotation in a washington lottery ad right now i don't know if you've noticed that no i don't know if you if you because of how you have experienced your seattle mariners games uh which is either in person or via extra legal means um there's a washington lottery ad running now where people are playing darts actually this is very relevant to your interest have you seen this one people are playing darts and the the idea is yes yes i have they're throwing they're throwing darts at a dartboard that's been set up with locations on it yeah the idea is they're gonna pick where they're going because they've won the lotto and so they have the resources to go wherever and instead of hitting the dartboard a woman throws a dart and it hits a guy in his hat that says wyoming yes that guy wearing the had is drew our kj from the mandarin gate i did not know that see i don't know any of these kjs i

was not somebody who spent a lot of time at the gate except for the occasional times with you back in the day um so i'm kind of out of that world but i have seen that commercial um and i

had no idea that you knew that guy uh yes yes um and uh and like uh if you go to that that vanishing Seattle post and you scroll down to the comments I think it's like the third comment is just

at Luke Burbank oh you like people tagging you so that you would see I think somebody yeah somebody

just basically added me for so that I would see this um which I I feel like that's I'm proud of that the brand is strong yeah right that this post it only took like three posts for someone to be like this is something Luke Burbank needs to know about this is a guy who has dedicated a lot of time and energy to sort of saluting and fedding if you will the mandarin gate restaurant which i don't i've never been i had never been there in the daytime by the way like i literally never darkened the door before say like 8 p.m and probably not even later than that yeah like i couldn't tell you anything about what the lunch service was like there um i could just tell you that at night uh the drinks were very strong it was very dark in there uh they they had karaoke seven nights a week which we loved and uh it was just kind of a really there was also this little side area where our buddies Dex and Oscar would hang out so you have the main bar where the karaoke was going on and then you have the whole other restaurant which would always be closed but there would be like a couple tables in the restaurant part that were close enough to the bar that you could kind of hear the music but you weren't in the middle of it and that was kind of like the Pope's table that was like where the super regulars always held court and it was like our friend oscar and our friend dex and big l is that where big l was i think well big l would i think he would sort of go he would go back and forth but big l was part andrew of what was called i think in this vanishing seattle article they mention it the karaoke triangle which was uh the mandarin gate uh the rickshaw and i'm forgetting what was the oh it was a bowling

place yeah it was lalani lanes lalani lanes i think you've maybe told me about lalani lanes

before but aside from that lani lanes in greenwood yeah there was a time where and and big al i he would he would do this rotation he would he would um go and he would sing turn your love around at the rickshaw and then he would come down to the mandarin gate and sing it and then i think he might go over to the baron off and do it as well so he'd kind of develop his own karaoke triangle but um yeah lani lanes back in the day that was that was really where our love of karaoke was born it was the the Lonnie Kyroom uh was was incredible but um yeah I mean I think we started going to the Mandarin Gate I think I started going there with Camaro Kev and I think it was because it might have been like Newman or somebody or maybe even uh Dykstra like there was some it was odd that I came to the Mandarin Gate not because of like growing up in Seattle and you know knowing about it like as a place that people went to it was somehow connected to Camaro Kev and somebody in his orbit who had started going to this let's be honest real shithole of a place but uh but it became like our go-to i took chris hayes there chris hayes has done karaoke at the mandarin gate yeah um yeah it was like when whenever somebody came whenever a dignitary came through town if i had any say in the matter we were hitting the mandarin gate um i had numerous physical altercations there well mostly near misses i had a time where a guy called his brother to come fight me um that one never actually were you at that one were you

in the room for that one i don't think so i i know the story and so like you say like the memories of the gate tend to be fuzzy if you're doing it right so it's hard to remember um it's hard to separate things out from what i remember and what i remember you telling me i don't think i was there for that

one though yeah that was the time when there was a guy who was wearing sunglasses in the mandarin gate at about 11 p.m. and it was already a pretty dark bar and i don't think this was somebody who was dealing with a macular degeneration of any kind i think it was just a statement it would

be funny as you say that what if this whole time i've been picturing some guy who thinks he's cool with like mirror sunglasses or something but it actually was a very elderly gentleman with those giant medical wraparound huge plastic it was johnny knoxville dressed up as bad grandpa where your medical grade

it was not that it was a younger person who I think was just and and also I think what happened was I and again I blame it on the alcohol but I think that I you know I sort of commented about the glasses and this person was unamused and so then I took that as my cue to go on stage and change all of the lyrics to a song I believe the song was Against All Odds by Phil Collins, which I really had a thing for for many years, and I think I changed the lyrics to be about the guy wearing sunglasses in wars, which is ironic because there is a song called Sunglasses at Night by Corey Hart, which I could have just sung the actual lyrics and it would have been pretty relevant, but I instead changed the lyrics to Against All Odds to be sort of making fun of this guy, which was not a mature thing to do, and it was totally unnecessary, and I finished my song and I went and I sat in the back of the room with my friends and was very proud of myself for my creative uh song making hold on during the song

is he glaring at you or you guys well i couldn't tell because he had sunglasses on it's no idea what was going on internally for him or like is he just like sitting at the bar facing away from

you and you're at a table nearer to the stage and he's very stone-faced okay so he's facing the stage okay when i go back to the table my table in the very back of the room he does he he didn't look at me or say anything but he's staring at his phone and he's typing into his phone and i remember thinking to myself what is the what's like the worst thing he could be doing on that phone and it was texting his brother to come fight me that's a strange move i mean listen i'm gonna

be honest with you your move was kind of strange too but i agree i agree but i kind of forgot about that part of the story if i knew it that you actually did a parody song based on something the audience just because they were wearing sunglasses so yeah we're the provocateur here but um i do think that like if you find yourself so upset over something that isn't like you know what i mean like you haven't really been wronged in any kind of physical way you're just being teased at a bar like your your emotions are hurt or your feelings are hurt or whatever like it seems strange to be like i'm gonna show you i'm gonna call somebody else to beat you up I mean, maybe that's a huge power move.

The weirdest part was his brother had a puka shell necklace on that was very tight, which was not the look I was expecting for this guy to come steaming into the bar. So we're sitting there for some... Also, where was the brother before this? Just in the neighborhood? Was he at the IHOP? Was he fueling up on Rudy Tootie Fresh and Fruity? Like, he got there pretty fast for a person not having Presumably any idea this was going to unfold The way it did but the guy's on his phone And then next thing you know

He's still got a wing dome napkin tucked in

You know this guy steams in In a t-shirt and a puka shell Necklace and he goes over to the guy I'm making Fun of and he's kind of like uh huh and he's like the guy points Back towards me and then he steams over to me To fight me he's big Not uh not huge Not like not way bigger than me but certainly More amped up than I was I my memory I feel like the mummy Was there um I somebody I think somebody grabbed a beer bottle as the kind of motion I didn't get to that it was just a it just ended up being one of those kind of moments of bluster where everybody was kind of like this guy was you know ready to fight me and I was ready to fight him and then nobody fought anybody which is really the better outcome and there was the time when it did come to blows when a guy this was Thank you.

as the bar was closing, a guy was signing his check and he was wearing Red Sox, all like Red Sox gear. So it obviously would have been summertime. The Mariners had played the Red Sox. A notoriously charming team to have come to your hometown, Andrew, as I think you know. And I, in my, again, stupor of the night, I was trying to pay the guy a compliment in a weird roundabout way, which was to say the Red Sox are very good this year and the Mariners are not very good. That's what I was trying to convey. I wasn't trying to, you know, shit talk. I think in this particular day, the Mariners had beaten the Red Sox, but the Mariners had a lousy record this year and the Red Sox had a really good record. And all I was trying to say was something to the effect of, well, we got you today, but like long term, you're a better team. That was what was in my head. I was not trying to get into it with this guy. But he also probably having had some drinks, there was a failure to communicate. And it somehow escalated into him being very, very big mad at me So that when I was then standing outside the bar Because the bar had closed It was 2 in the morning, 2.30, whatever Standing outside in the bar I'm chatting with our friends And this guy just comes busting out of the bar And is now like nose to nose with me yelling And wanting to go to blows And then that did go to blows And then that was famously when I yelled You bleed for me which will go down in history as one of the weirdest things. It does sound like dialogue from Dune, though. It does sound like something.

Did you Alec Baldwin him or something and say, like, I drove here, and I'm like, I don't know what you were driving at the time.

I believe that I said, that's why I'm leaving in an Audi, but then realized that we had taken Vanessa's Jetta. Okay, right. So I then had to then go sit in the passenger seat of my girlfriend. full girlfriend's car into the passenger seat of my girlfriend's car and be driven out of there

after i had screamed that's why i'm leaving in and out but i mean this is a dumb question because um i think in the reality of fight like you know the fights that i see are usually in the movies and somebody always wins and somebody loses somebody's on the floor sometimes after one big you know uh what we call round is it a roundhouse a haymaker you know like that and i know that But then you go on social media. And I actually really avoid this kind of stuff. It gives me a very bad feeling. It wouldn't surprise you to hear.

Anytime someone's yelling world star, you're pretty much trying to get.

I was about to say that. You're trying to next the video. I don't spend a lot of time. My life is a world star ad. What is going on? I don't spend a lot of time in the world star community. But you'll see stuff like that on Reddit sometimes. And seeing real life fights filmed on a cell phone makes me very uncomfortable. And one of the reasons it makes you uncomfortable is because it's not cinematic at all. It's like meat hitting meat, and it's not like somebody is triumphant at the end. Yeah, that was a weird thing to say. Maybe I'm getting hungry and aggressive. I'm getting aggressively hungry. And turned on. And turned on as a whole stew with me. These all kind of light up the same part of the brain. Anyway, but I assume that there wasn't like somebody felt like they had won, and you drove off like Victoria. You did feel like you won? Was it clear?

Yeah, he knocked the guy. I don't think I knocked him out, but I knocked him down. Really? So we were, okay.

Okay. So it was cinematic. Congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you very much. It's a proud moment for me. No, it's not. What happened though, after I, I kind of laid him out was then his buddy tackled me. Oh God. Somebody tackled me from the side and then I was on the pavement. And then I remember Toon and Vanessa ripping some guy off of me who was, who was on top of me in the parking lot of the Mandarin gate. What a place.

And then you said, you bleed for me, and then you folded yourself up in the passenger side.

I said, you bleed for me, and that's why I'm leaving in an Audi.

And then you didn't, yeah.

And then I had to get a ride home from the rap battle from my grandmother.

It was pretty devastating. It was pretty devastating. I wanted to say, and not to, you know, I had heard about this closure this weekend. I think Camaro Kev had told Genevieve, who told me, we're all part of the North Seattle Triangle. I don't do karaoke, but I actually actually one quick aside here, as you were talking about that sort of like rotation of the North Seattle karaoke triangle, like there is something that I really like that still does exist. And I don't think it's formalized in that way. But like Genevieve and Camaro Kev will they do it less these days, but will often go to like, let's say the rickshaw or some of these other places in North Seattle, some places that are more closer to to where Camaro Kev lives. and they do get to know a lot of the people that they see at all the different stops and like one time i was at alone i was at the 25th or 125th street grill up here in north seattle just minding my own business eating like a a french dip or something like that and there was Something, I was texting with our entire friend group on Wordle or something, and somehow it became clear that the woman who was serving me was somebody that Genevieve had met, like, the night before at the rickshaw doing karaoke or something. And I even asked her. She's like, oh, yeah, I'm at the rickshaw a lot. She's like, well, I'm there Wednesdays. Not working, but she, like, had a schedule. She's like, I'm there Wednesdays from this time to this time or whatever. Like, there are these people who are up here in North Seattle kind of making the rounds. Big Al is still one of them. I don't claim to be part of it or even know much about it, but I find that really charming. I'm glad that Seattle is still sort of, it's a little provincial in that way. That word has bad connotations, but I mean it in the best way here.

And it also is a, not to be overly nostalgic or whatever, but it is also sort of a holdover from Seattle's past, I think. like i i don't think you would really get that same vibe down in the newly um you know minted south lake union yes you know there's some cool places down there but it's like it's a different energy it's like the the mandarin gate is very much the seattle that i grew up in for what that's worth and it's like a lot of folks a lot of them you know pretty working class it's a very kind of economically diverse scene um and uh like a lot of people on different parts of their journey let's say with alcohol as well like it's just you know it's it it's not the fancy kind of um you know sort of tech hub version of seattle uh it's the new version of seattle it's the old version of seattle and of course that's the version of seattle that i that i very much love the idea that you could uh sing a song at the mandarin gate go over to the dancing bear theater enjoy a performance there come back to the main i never did this but i but i feel like it has probably happened at some point the fact that you could you know just enjoy all of these experiences right in the same name conveniently located in the same neighborhood of course it's not called

the dancing bear anymore it's something else but it's like nothing gold can stay again like i try to be whatever but like the bus stop the genevieve and i usually um you know wait for a bus at is like basically across the street from that place and like we're waiting for the bus yesterday to go down to the ballpark and like i was like what a world like there's just a flashing sign that says live nude girls just like i'm just like this is my neighborhood it's like live was chris hayes who one time can i say this publicly who texted us he's like i kind of like the slow reveal that andrew lives in the hood like we're talking about me basically being neighbors getting a getting a pizza next to a strip joint the other like a couple of years ago for opening day or something like that but um yeah i'm just kind of like first of all the the term live nude girls really it's funny that that has still survived it really makes it seem like a zoo doesn't it like there's something very unsexy about that phrase i feel like i mean i am glad they're live yeah i could hey i mean think about the alternative okay so one thing i will say um as as we say goodbye to the mandarin gate here and i have some fond memories of that place too but nowhere near all of my fond memories of that place are when you and I and Genevieve and the gang kind of all started hanging out together and then we were hanging out with you and Camaro Kev there and that's kind of where I met Camaro Kev I think maybe but you know my history of that place does not go as far back and it's not as deep or as rich and I definitely have never beat anybody up in the parking lot there having said it's not too late I think they're still gonna be open tonight Andrew but I when i heard the news i was i'm a pretty nostalgic person um but i wasn't as sad as you might think i would be because unfortunately i had already mourned the loss of that place it was not in the past couple of years since the pandemic um it just was not that anymore and it hadn't

been that in a long time and they stopped karaoke a while ago they had stopped karaoke during the

pandemic and then never brought it back and like you know that would be one of the closest bars to me and you know me i can stand a dive bar like i'm not somebody who is at all precious about that but like even by my standards i remember i think maybe twice since i've lived in this house i tried walking over there for just like a you know like a or i was walking home somewhere i'm like you know what i'm just gonna stop for a quick drink at the gate and it was just the bar side of it especially like i you know here it was like six o'clock at night or something you say almost all of the beers were crossed out yeah and you could see where they had peeled away a sign that had said something i sent you and the gang a photo of just like the most depressing sign of what was left of the spirit of the gate because they had like crossed off like karaoke every night and it just said at one point it was karaoke one night then it was like karaoke no night and every beer on tap had been crossed off and like the bar was made mostly of duct tape like no joke i mean quite literally the bar was made mostly of duct tape and like there was no dive bar charm to it anymore And then they just started closing at 10 o'clock and they leaned into being a restaurant, which is fine. But anyway, like when everybody was sharing this news.

like it had been i was pretty bummed when we moved here i was like oh well that could be a quick place to go grab a drink from time to time but it really ceased to be that a long long time ago and you know now it's going to be i think maybe like a i think maybe an indian food restaurant or

something along those lines that's what they said it's going to be an indian restaurant so yeah i

wish i wish somebody would buy it and turn it into a bar that would be like you know an actual bar that would stay open like i would love a neighborhood bar like that but still it's probably best this is one of those things that's closing where i was like it's probably time it's time because it's still sitting there but it's it's making me sad as it sits there right like this

was one of those things where and not to be um crass or anything but like sometimes you hear about somebody passing away and your first thought is they were alive wait kissinger was alive until six months ago you know what i mean like that's kind of what i when i started people going the mandarin gate is shut and i was like that place was perpetually about to close for the last 20 years yeah literally for 20 years we'd be going in there and frank would be like it's closing next week and we'd be like and then we'd go next week and it would still be there yeah like it was always about to close and so i'm kind of surprised that it made it this long and um and like you said i think it's probably it's probably time to put it out of its misery to continue with the weird metaphor um so uh rest in peace mandarin great and all of the memories in there and uh you know uh if you go in there for indian food um you know spare a thought for all of the adventures uh that uh that we had in there pour a lassi out that's what i was gonna say is that an indian beer

i i probably messed it up i think that's like the the yogurt based beverage a lassi am i right

about that i don't know i'm big on rita but that's not a beverage that's the like that's the dip that i put on everything god now i really want indian food yes it's working i will yeah right i will like if i can't have rita with my indian food it's like what even is what even is life but that's that like kind of cucumber yogurt sauce oh okay yeah i know you're talking about i put i put on everything it's very very good but anyway yeah so uh r.i.p mandarin gate we'll miss you here i go

once again with the email every week i hope that it's from a female no man it's not from a female

all right emails or vmails sure sure i got a little story here from listener rachel prompted by our talk a couple of weeks ago about costco cracking down on non-members using the costco food court and we were kind of i think you and i were both a little bit surprised that costco decided to crack down on that it didn't seem like it would be a huge loss for them non-members buying cheap hot dogs but um anyway we talked about that story and uh that prompted this

voicemail hey guys uh listener rachel when i was in high school i went to school in shoreline and i was really close my school was very close to that costco on the on highway 99 and um we had an open campus in high school for lunches so once every about once a week my friends and i would all pile up in one person's car we would go down to that costco and we would accost someone in the parking lot uh a woman and we would ask her if she could pretend to be our mom as these teenagers um so that we could go in with them and get the food and no adult ever said no to us they're like yeah sure fine um and we did that for several months until finally one of the people checking ids kind of was on to us and he would start pointing at us and being like you don't belong here and we would run as fast as we could to go buy our food and um started to freak

us out so we uh we stopped doing that okay power out that actually sounds fun to me i was i told you that i came to costco late in life and i'm not as much of a fan of like the food court as everybody else seems to be i think there's a lot of nostalgia in there and it sounds like they've changed things up quite a bit um by the time i started to to grace that place with my presence but um i totally could get it if i was like a teenager and it felt like something i was sort of getting away with and sneaking in although i don't know if i'd ever have the gumption to ask an adult to pretend to be my mom i like it like some of the kids are um what do they call it becca

has a name for it like shoulder tapping or something oh yeah i used to say that in underage

In bars that allowed you to go in, even if you were underage, it was called shoulder tapping. You'd ask somebody of age to buy you a beer.

Right, and sometimes people would be hanging out outside of a 7-Eleven or something, shoulder tapping. I remember vividly a commercial, like a public service commercial from when I was a little kid, where somebody is doing that. So basically, I think it's from the perspective of maybe like a teenager.

I don't know if you ever actually see the teenager, and they're asking an adult who's going into a store to buy them alcohol. And I think that, if I remember right, they're saying, my mom needs some wine for cooking. And then the person says no or whatever. The PSA is about don't buy underage kids alcohol when they ask you to buy them alcohol. But for some reason, this idea of my mom needs wine for cooking really stuck with me. Well, she can't cook sober. Exactly. One for me, one for the pasta. But anyway, yeah, for some reason that really stuck with me. Our big move, and I've talked about this on the show at lunch, was to go to the Godfather's Pizza all-you-can-eat buffet. And I thought we were clever because we would just get one plate and then just share it with everyone. But then somebody, I think it might have been my friend Seth, figured out just steal the plate from the Godfather's. b-y-o-p bring your own plate in there and it turns out nobody at godfather's gives a rip if you're having a bunch of their cheap lunch pizza you can just bring your own plate and then just like eat all the pizza you want it god now i want pizza i'm so hungry right now i we can't

get into this i'm sorry if i started the music too early i thought i was doing us a favor by like maybe avoiding some some awkwardness at the end of the show but you had more tales to tell but have you heard the um we won't get into it just give me a yes or no answer give me a ver give me verbal yes have you heard the commercial that airs during mariners games and like probably on 710 espn all the time uh where they say marry the rig rate uh date the rate i messed it up marry the rig date the rate it's about interest rates they're basically saying like now is not a they're basically straight up saying like we know now is not a good time to buy a truck but we have great trucks you should buy the truck now marry the rig and then just refinance later they're literally saying just buy it now with these shitty rates and then refinance later and they're in heavy rotation they keep saying buy the or marry the rig date the rate and i'm just like what a genevieve even heard that she was telling me about it the other day i'm like yeah i've heard that that's

trucktober it is like that's that isn't that's an economic indicator right that's a canary in some kind of coal mine yeah having to do with the economy interest rates public sentiment like yeah The idea that, like, you've basically you're going to have to admit to people that this rate sucks. Yes. But you want the truck. Like, that's a very actually interesting data point to me.

I could see that as a sales pitch once you're in the showroom, but it seems like a strange thing to put on Front Street.

Yeah, definitely.

Trucks, trucks, and trucktober. There it is.

And that's not our friends at Northwest Motorsports, which, by the way, speaking of RIPs, shuddered unceremoniously at some point. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, a bunch of people also reached out to us on that. Like, all of a sudden, Northwest Motorsports just went away.

Oh, and vanishing Seattle's silence on that is notable.

It's deafening, right?

It's deafening, exactly.

Tell them the bone sent you.

And tell them the bone sent you.

All right, thanks for listening, everyone. That's going to do it for today's episode. We'll be back tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for you. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday. Go Junior Sluggers. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all. Beep, beep, ribby, ribby. Power out.