Muse

What I like to do is first lay down a kind of syncopated beat that 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 more than it is a rock beat. I do a flam rest, flam rest, flam rest, followed by sort of kind of an intricate African thing on the low drums. So it goes like so. The pattern is you ride on this tom here. Hopefully you've got the 17 toms. And it goes something like this.

TBTL.

In the next hour, we will present information that's both shocking and enlightening. Oh, boy. Who keeps putting Twizzlers in the fridge? I told, is it Sarah? Crystal. Crystal does. She likes some food. Okay, well, Crystal, you and I are going to have another Twizzler talk. I cannot believe this stuff is on the radio. So, this is what our youth is being subjected to.

That was great. That was good. You went for it. I appreciate that.

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. This is a whole new level of nerd. That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works.

Well, all right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Gotta do it again, right now. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

I like turtles.

Coming to you from beautiful downtown Burbank, California. California got sunshine. It's actually not a sunshiny day as of yet. Everywhere I go now, I'm followed by the cloud fog. Cloud fog. I don't know what that means, but it's a cloudy day staring at the San Gabriel Mountains here in the San Fernando Valley. bringing you episode 4,197 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. You know, I was really kind of conflicted about what part of the greater L.A. area I was going to stay in when I came down here for work for the next couple of days.

I'm not even supposed to be here today!

Like, this is not, despite the fact that I do share a name with this city, it's not really where I usually like to stay. I'd like to be over on the west side, near the beaches and the sand and the beach volleyball, which you know I play a lot of. But this was more convenient to where we're filming, and so I just figured, suck it up, put on your big boy pants, and just stay at a pretty mediocre hotel near where the filming is. It'll be easier that way. And, well, I learned a lesson last night. I'm learning! An important lesson about finding satisfaction in places that you might not. And I want to share that message of hope with you, the listeners. I also unlearned that message this morning. So more on that coming up. Also, it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day. So we'll do some Blur's Day messages. Oh, and we're going to talk to this guy, the longest running co-bro of the show. may be best known for his Miami meat tent. He's Andrew Lewis Edward Walsh. The Weenie Bikini. And he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

That's the full name. I briefly worried for a split second. I was like, oh, maybe I shouldn't give my confirmation name out on the radio. That really identifies me.

Is that your password for something?

No, of all of the things, of all of the information.

You need the last four of your social, your confirmation name.

Like, nobody knows. Literally, I might be the only.

It's 7474 Punky Brewster.

Aside from you and the listeners now, which is a small section of the population, I think I'm the only person, or at least before yesterday's show, I was the only person who possibly knew what my confirmation name was. Maybe my sister.

Do you think your parents would have remembered? Not like, I'm sure there's documentation, there's some sort of framed thing, But, like, if you just wake Bob Walsh up out of a dead sleep, what was Andrew's confirmation name? What are the chances he remembers?

Like, slim to none, I think. I don't even think there is a framed thing. In fact...

It seems like the kind of thing there'd be a photo associated with. And maybe one of those photos that were big when we were kids where the person is staring off into the middle distance.

Right, yeah. Or there's, like, a shadow of yourself behind you. Right, exactly.

It was extremely ponderous, the photos that we were taking in the 80s professionally.

Yeah, I'm trying to remember. You know, when you're baptized, now we're just getting right back into the sacrament of confirmation here. But when you're baptized, you have a godfather and a godmother, again, that your parents choose. Exactly.

there was not enough pizza at my confirmation or my baptism I'll tell you that much but anyway I think when you go through the confirmation process you also you choose someone who is not like your it's like I don't know it's like your godfather for confirmation and I can't remember what that title is called but I believe that's my uncle Frank I believe I chose my uncle Frank to be my I don't know sponsor that's very AAE it works if you work it So I'm working the confirmation system. So anyway, I don't even think my Uncle Frunkle, as I like to call him, would know what my confirmation name is. I'm not sure.

Well, me and the listeners know now, and we're never going to let it go, Andrew Edward.

Alou. That was one thing I did like about throwing the Edward in there. It's not the reason I did it, but as you mentioned, my middle name was Louis, and so my initials kind of made a sound. Alou. Alou. You can call me that if you want. Here I am giving myself nicknames again.

Call me Alu.

Great Paul Simon song. Very good. Okay, speaking of names, I told you before the show I wanted to give you a quick update on something. I don't know. This is one of those situations where I just don't like loose ends, and we had some loose ends on the show, and those, well, Luke, those ends are tightening. Okay. Goodness gracious. You ran into a listener named Kate in an event recently, and this is Kate, who is also a dazzling donor of the show and runs the Green Lake, what is it, Strength and Conditioning?

You know, I literally called it the wrong thing. When? When I ran into them, and I called it the name of an adjacent fitness project. I felt so bad about it because they're so—

You called them Green Lake Bicycles?

Exactly. I called them Green Lake Jakes. which was the drive-in I used to work at down there on Green Lake Way back in the day. But, no, I'm now very, very nervous about trying to say from memory the name of their strength and conditioning. I believe theirs is Green Lake Strength and Conditioning. Now I'm just doing it, Andrew. Yeah, it is. I'm taking a risk. I'm risking it all. I'm shooting my shot. Double-checking it.

You're good. You're solid. You're on solid ground. This is going to be a new day for you.

Ironic in that I'm in Los Angeles, a place known for its temblors.

You're not. You're in Burbank, and your last name is Burbank.

I am, and it's a whole other world up here, which I can't wait to tell you about.

Okay. So anyway, we did hear from Kate, or Kate, when she saw you, I think, at an event, mentioned, like, hey, I'm one of the Kates that got together for the great Kate.

That was where, okay, I forgot where the conversation unfolded. I think so. It was at the studios of KNKX Radio in the Pike Place Market.

Right, and she reminded you that she was one of, I believe, three Kates who got together on TBTL way back in the radio days When producer Jen wanted to see how many listeners named Kate she could get to come into the studio And I later learned, told them to bring their favorite snacks So we knew that Kate of Green Lake Strength and Conditioning was one of the Kates And then we got a voicemail from another Kate saying, hey, I'm Kate number two out of these three Kates and we should try to get a Kate reunion going on. Where is the third Kate? And she called out. She's like, the third Kate must still be listening. Is the third Kate out there anywhere? Well, I will tell you, Luke, the third Kate is out there and apparently she's listening and she's still here in Seattle. So I was frantically, like, I'm putting together the world's shortest spreadsheet right now with all the Kates in there so we can keep track of it.

Would you describe it as a spreadsheet even shorter?

It's a spread shh.

Because I believe we've got some of those hanging around here. Actually, not on this computer. You're very lucky.

Oh, you don't have any of the techno geeks?

Well, here's what I've got.

Isn't that for techno geeks?

So that is, this is called techno geeks even very shorter. Sorry, it's going to be loud. My bad. Here we go. Can I fix this in time?

Isn't that for techno geeks?

That's what you got. That's what you got. So I'll give you a little bit of an update on our third Kate. Now that we know it says, yes, I'm still a faithful listener and donor. Jen reached out to me to be on the Kate show after I'd been on the deep fryer episode. So Kate is also involved with your long running beef with the other Cairo radio hosts.

Yes, no longer with us. The late Dory Monson was quite unhappy with that. And, you know, that's actually one of those things. I don't want to get bogged down in that. but i will say this i think he had a point with that one like that was the kind of thing where as i had the i had the confidence of a much younger woman and i was just like brash and like oh we're doing prezine we're frying fish in this in this hermetical

sealed studio because we're being funny and we're making like 10 people laugh with this and then everyone did legitimately have to come in and work there the next day yeah and say well why does it smell like someone fried fish in this radio station i would be studio and and i was i remember the time being like you know get with it old man but now i'm like now that i am an old man i'm like yeah

i wouldn't appreciate that either right turns out the old men are right when will the world recognize that we old men are right, right?

Who's going to shake their fist at these clouds? You, cloud fog. No, you need a guy.

You need men shaking their fists at those clouds.

And tying onions to their belt, as was the fashion at the time.

It was the fashion of the time. So anyway, oh, we did hear from our friend Kate of Dates with Kate. You thought that might have been the third Kate. She's not one of them? She said, no, she was not one of those Kates, but also still hanging out in the Tens community. So we had extra Kates.

we had extra Kate we had basically Luke and Kate plus eight uh-huh which would be a great name for a reality show um uh that's so fascinating so we because I can think of uh we had our friend she didn't really go by Kate but there was somebody who was a producer at Cairo named Katie Springer oh yeah of course who was legendary on the show because she came on one time to just break down her strategy for shopping at Ross Dress for Less because she loves Ross one of the best episodes of the show that i can remember it was many years ago it's probably in the archives but so we had a lot of people um who were named uh kate or katie uh not a lot of kathleen's that i can remember but but that was a that's a it's a big name in the demo and i'm glad to hear that as many of those kates are still engaging with the product as as as they are i mean people's lives change people move on people feel like you know they've heard the my four stories enough As hard as it is for me to admit that, I think I could see someone going, yeah, I've had about enough of this, TBTL. I think I have 4,197 of these. That's probably sufficient.

But once you've deep fried with the TBTL gang, you are deep fry brothers.

It is a very time consuming and very boutique publicity strategy where you deep fry things with each and every potential listener, or therefore creating a strong connection and making them a P1 for life.

That's what they did on Morning Edition, I believe, when they were getting their start. Before they went woke. Before they went woke, and now they're going broke. Now we shake our fist at the cloud. I just want to share a couple of dazzling details here, and then we'll hear about how you changed and then changed back in the course of 12 hours.

The important thing is being, even at my age, able to change, but then also able to change back to how you were right before you changed.

In less than a full day. Less than eight hours. As far as deep frying went, this Kate had brought cheese curds to the party. I don't know if you remember that, so it wasn't just fish.

I don't, but I could use them right now.

I hope the cheese curds were fried before the fish. Otherwise, those were fishy-tasting cheese curds. That's my own little editorial there.

I think we might have had multiple fryers going, if you can believe that. That was probably added to the issues. Oh, you know what? I think I'm actually confusing two things, though, here. I think we might have done a deep frying episode And then we did a Prezine episode And I think the Prezine episode Is what Caused the ire of the other folks At the radio station Because I think we were cooking mackerel Because you know Mackerel is a currency Canned mackerel is a currency In a lot of federal prison

Okay

They would basically stand in for like a dollar bill Like a can of mackerel would be equal to a dollar It's a fascinating study of basically how ridiculous the idea of currency is Unless we all agree that it's a thing Because I don't want 50 cans of fish from the prison commissary Like I don't want to eat that But it's $50 I can buy cigarettes with it I can play poker with it I can buy a food that I want to get from the commissary There's all this stuff you can do with it If we all agree these cans of mackerel are money And it's not hugely different than Which is why I'm calling for the abolishment of the Fed Andrew, I don't know if you know I've been doing a lot of deep diving On LaRouche And I think I've really gained some Insight that I'm looking forward to sharing with the listeners

You've been advocating for a silver Based economy for quite some time For as long as I've known you It is interesting that, first of all, I would like to point out that In a certain way, the macro thing makes more sense than a dollar bill Because you can't eat a dollar bill

Yeah, you could actually eat the macro in the pinch

Things go really bad, right? But it is interesting. So in my head, there's always been like what I would refer to as the TBTL deep frying fish incident. But really, there was a cooking fish incident and there was a deep frying episode. And those two things were not the same. You did not deep fry the mackerel.

I think we did. No, no, no. This is what I'm saying. I think it was cooked in an open skillet type thing with oil in it. Yeah. Yeah. The premise of and, you know, if anybody should remember this stuff, it's me. And if there's anybody who doesn't remember this stuff, it's also me. But what happened was we got a hold of some kind of a cookbook or an online listing of food that people were making in prison. and our friend drew mcfriz had you know been incarcerated and he had made all kinds of fascinating burrito combinations from the vending machines and stuff he told us about i think we might have even had somebody call in who was recently released from prison and was describing how she would make these elaborate candy roses out of jolly ranchers you basically cut this kind of like a tupperware style box you put a hairdryer in it so you create kind of a convection oven you melt down Jolly Ranchers and then you spin the liquid Jolly Rancher onto some kind of a stick in so it looks like a rose and now you've got a rose shaped or a flower shaped Jolly Rancher sucker anyway we were really in on that we're really into this thing called Prezine which by the way Andrew this is nobody expected or wanted the show to go here but do you know that I have started corresponding on TikTok with a guy who is incarcerated because I really like his cooking style no yes true story i have been fascinated for a long time with the elaborate i mean we had the pristine thing on the show and by the way things about that i don't know if i actually really stand by like one thing was we like uh like sean and jen got to pick their like prison names yeah i got into some dicey territory i forgot about that well i think her name her name was granny i forget what sean's name was i might have had one too it i don't think anything was was was was actually like over the line but i guess it was a way of talking about people considering our carceral state i think it's a way that i wouldn't i wouldn't make a joke out of like jen being quote-unquote tough or a gangsta or anything like that that isn't really the way that we would probably talk about things here in 2024 but back then we did and that was what we did and i feel like i have this memory of looking across the studio into and this would be the craziest part i don't know if this is true or not but my memory is that because there was this little phone screening soundproof booth that was in the on-air studio of the very first version of of cairo where we hosted tbtl so before they did a remodel it was this kind of really dumpy little on-air studio and then there was a room it was like almost like one of those showers that you'll see in the corner of a bathroom when you don't really have enough room i missed that booth i

loved that booth i was screened calls in that booth before so you actually worked there you

got there before the remodel yeah yeah and yeah you could it was it was kind of like it was like you were on the enterprise or something because you were in this little glass or you were about

to answer a question on a 1950s quiz show right yes or you were being isolated so yes exactly so

that you didn't hear or you're yeah something was like yeah but anyway so that was where jen usually worked and my memory is like that might have even been where the fish was being fried Which seems like the worst possible idea Because it seems like it'd be stuck in there even longer But anyway, there was the Prezine episode Where we cooked prison food And then there was the deep frying show Where we just deep fried things And I think those were different events Now, on to the guy that I'm corresponding with on TikTok Who's cooking He has this setup in his cell Where he's turned one of the I don't know, maybe it was his desk Like, I think it depends on the layout of the cell you're in But some of them, you've got probably a metal desk where you can, you know, sit and write or do whatever, read your books. But some guys will take that and they will somehow scrape all the paint off of it. So it becomes basically a big stainless steel cooktop. And then through all kinds of ingenious methods, they create heat and they just turn this into a big grill top. And there is this guy on TikTok that I've been following who just cooks stuff every day. And I don't know how he got a phone. I don't think that's technically OK, but whatever. And he's just filming the stuff he makes every day. And he is so joyful and he is so excited about the food he is making. And he and I just I never post comments on TikTok, but I posted something. I said, hey, man, I see you or something like I just thought this guy's in jail. He's cooking up food. It might be nice for him to have some person who's not in that state with him in that world with him to just be like, hey, man, I see you like you exist in the world. And what I didn't expect was the next time I logged into TikTok, I had a comment. Hey, thanks. I appreciate being seen. So I was like, okay, well, and I was like, you know, how did you, so then I like messaged him back. I'm like, how do you get the heat under the thing? And he's like explaining it to me. So I've struck up a very unlikely correspondence with a guy. I don't know what jail he's in. I don't know what he's accused of or what he was convicted of. And also, again, I don't think he's really supposed to have this cell phone, but it's an interesting kind of relationship to have. And it goes around a lot of the structure of incarceration. Like, it's not like an inmate. from Appalachia State you know it's like it's not like the opening call from cereal it's like I can just literally text this guy in jail and ask him like hey how'd the lasagna turn out I don't

understand how well you're gonna be surprised to hear this I don't understand a lot of things about what goes on in prison Luke I'm unfamiliar with that having said that I don't understand how you can have like a popular i don't understand how you can have a popular tiktok channel with regular content in that circumstance if you're not allowed to have a cell phone like i don't

understand how that works i also don't understand how it works um and i would say this guy's account is not it's not like he doesn't have you know millions of likes on he'll put a video up and will get like 30 likes um so it's not like it isn't a national phenomenon my guess would be it just as sort of a right hand left hand thing my guess is that well a few things one he's just seems i he seems like a guy that is a low problem for the jail like my guess is that the people that are incarcerating him i feel like he's not someone who's making their life actively harder so they're going to leave him alone i also don't think he's probably supposed to turn his desk into a giant open griddle sure well yes that's what i mean and that's i mean that's clearly going on and i there's no putting that away when the guard walks by so that's another question i don't understand how that's you can smell it as as we i mean i wish i could god it looks great well one hand a guard

can smell it you know what i mean like that's what i don't understand this is i know i don't i don't

get it either and then the posting of things and then the messaging back and forth and the and the like all of it is is kind of surprising to me but and and i think maybe that added to the fact that when i posted a comment just saying like yeah i see you man somehow i didn't really think he would see that but it's like what else is he gonna do yeah he's got a tiktok account he's hanging out in his cell he's cooking up food he got a new celly by the way recently which is like man did that guy hit the jackpot because he's gonna be well fed yes like you gotta have Of all the people that you're going to share a cell with, you get friggin' Paul Prudhomme?

I don't know how I'd feel about that. Are you serious?

I would be so down for that.

Well, think about my personality. I'd be nervous all the time. I don't want to get in trouble. You would not have hung out with me as a kid. I was always scared of everything.

Well, my thought would be, first of all, you would get to, he made these, like, I think he made these nachos the other day, because, like, the game was on, and, you know, he had a plate for the celly and the celly was like you know thanks man or whatever and i was like man if you're gonna have to do some time living with the guy who makes nachos when the game is on and is also just seemingly a very agreeable sort he seems like whatever your fear might be about being incarcerated and how are the other people going to treat you this guy again i'm viewing this through his tiktok videos i don't know what his what his deal is but like i was like man that's the guy i would want to be i would want to be dealing with oh he also puts cottage cheese on everything would

that be an issue for you i was gonna say yeah i was like can i be the celly who's like um could you make me some nachos without cheese please oh you're you're uh lactose intolerant no i just don't like cheese i was not built for prison is my point i don't i see that as a very

very low it's a non-zero chance of you being incarcerated but i'd say it's pretty close to zero unless you know something really changes let's say after november and they're just rounding all of us up yeah right then then it then it becomes a maybe a slightly that it gets more red dawn than i really want it to get in this country like the just i don't think you would

remember this but i wrote a dystopic uh tbtl newsletter from the future after trump was elected the first time and it was very much along those it was very much along those lines it was written as like a sci-fi trope of like somebody had found my journal of the future after they rounded this all up it was a dark it was a dark do you have any desire four years to see that movie civil war did you hear about this wait is this the is this the one that has been in the making for a really long time is it a remake like a alternate history thing um it's with kirsten

dunst and it's based it's basically like a a movie about an authoritarian president i believe played by nick offerman who i think i haven't seen the movie but my sense is it's it's it's sort of like what would happen if if our worst fears about like a trump presidency a second presidency came you know to pass no i don't know much about this no it's getting a lot of attention and it's it's it looks like it's a really really interesting movie i listened to a like hour-long interview with the director on like pod save america but the i think the

premises you have these working journalists who are trying to get out to dc to photo document something um because of well their feel you know the fact that they're journalists but also i believe that what happens they're crossing the country and they're seeing all the different kind of ways that americans are dealing with this fact that we are no longer living in a democracy um anyway so but i i i'm both very um intrigued by the movie and i've heard really good things about it but i'm also like i don't know i go back and forth on how much i want to get into the sort of like the sort of uh cosplay if you will of the things that also are legitimately major points of

anxiety for me yeah especially right now you know like i feel like if we were to a better a more solid ground with democracy but yeah right now it sort of feels like i don't know if i need to live

the nightmare in a fictional universe right like when i saw red dawn as a kid i i a i found it actually very upsetting because i just never got to see like sort of quote-unquote scary movies as a kid or movies that were that weren't basically rebecca of sunnybrook farm or something but also it didn't seem like a real thing like it didn't seem like those troops are really going to come for us and the thing about the this dystopian stuff now when it taught when we're dealing with like a president who refuses to give up their office when they've clearly either term limited out or have lost an election that doesn't feel like a funny lark it doesn't feel like do electric sheep dream of whatever like no it's like shit dude that's happening that's like happening right now and it's kind of moved from speculative fiction into documentary and i don't know if

i'm ready for that and ironically red dawn was written by a guy who actually did believe that that was what he he felt like he was addressing a real existential threat right like that guy I can't remember his name but that guy um isn't Walter um what's the name what's Walter from

the Big Lebowski Obchek what's his last name oh oh oh um you mean the character that John Goodman

yeah whatever John Goodman's character it's maybe I'm messing up his name there no it's Walter right anyway yeah it's um I think it's like Sobchek or something Sobchek yeah I think he's based on the guy who wrote and directed red dawn am i wrong about that because the guy who wrote and directed red dawn okay i'm gonna tell you what i think i know let's do this i do this with my friend nick sometimes about what i think i know about a basketball player things that i just glean from listening to sports radio what do you think you know about john morant oh okay this is exactly the game i know that john morant has i and it always ends with me saying and i don't know what team he plays for so I'll tell you this I don't know what job plays what team job plays for but I know that he ran into trouble was it two seasons ago because he multiple times was posting things on Instagram where he was showing or flashing a firearm of some sort and the first time he was warned and I believe the second time he was suspended and I believe he got into some other off-court issues as well that's all I know how right did I get any of that you got a lot of it

Right. He plays for the Memphis Grizzlies. Okay. He, yeah, he kept getting in trouble because he kept flashing guns in, like, Instagram videos when he had been told not to do that, and the league kept suspending him. He's also got some stuff pending with, like, a, he got into a fight with a teenager who was playing pickup ball at his house. Yes, oh, right. Yeah, yeah, right. Forgot that one. The thing about John Morant is, John Morant has some of the most ridiculous dunks. Like, I'm just tracking who has the most ridiculous dunks. that's my level of engagement with the nba is like who do i see on sports center doing a very sick dunk and john morant because he's not huge it's like you know if jokic does a dunk it's like well did you have to bend over for that even like wemby it's like it's cool but wemby does not have to jump off the ground to dunk but if you're like john morant it's probably like six four which is the perfect height for dunking because you get a lot of clearance between a lot of separation between you and the floor and john morant just has as we used to say hops the other thing that's weird is john moran's dad is regularly getting into it with people at games like his dad will come watch the games his dad will get into with people the games and i will see john moran's dad who seems much younger than me which means we've reached a point andrew where the players in the nba have fathers who are younger than me yeah not the players are younger than me that's a given their progenitors are younger than me i am i'm aging out of having a kid who is young enough to play in the nba at this point yeah that's true in the nba she'd be at the end of her career she'd be 30 it'd be like does she have another couple of good years in her that's where I'm at and by the way I'm looking at this picture of John Milius creator of Red Dawn one of them and god he looks

exactly like Walter Sobchak okay so here's let's play this game on this and then you can tell me

I think you might be very right he down to the like kind of sort of aviator glasses that are amber tinted or whatever you want to call them those but the kind of glasses John Goodman's character is wearing he looks exactly like this dude and my

my understanding and i could be messing up the history here i'll try to clean this up later

Thank you.

and then let you know if i was right or wrong if you can't google it on the fly but i am pretty sure that he directed red dawn as his directorial debut i used to think that it was the only thing he ever made but i don't think that's true but i don't think his background was in filmmaking i think his background was in paranoia i think that he was like i think he was like a big nra guy like I mean, it checks out. Think about it.

Like the commie Ruskies are going to come for us and our guns. Although, didn't they pick like Korea or something because they wanted to? Or was that for the update? For the remake. Because they didn't want to get in trouble. They wanted to show it in China, right?

Yeah. I think that was it. But yeah, it was Cuba for the first one. It was the Red Dawn was a Cuban invasion, I believe. And again, I could be wrong about that.

But here's some results from the Internet. Is Red Dawn based on a true story? I think we'd remember. I think we'd remember

Right Can you back me up About anything I said About the director And writer That he

I'm trying to Although Okay let me Yeah let me get to John I need to get to John Frederick Milius' page By the way Still alive

Maybe a listener Maybe one of the Cates

He was a writer Oh my god Yes An American screenwriter Director and producer A writer for the first Two Dirty Harry films

Oh okay No so he wasn't In the industry For a while Before Wrote Apocalypse Now

So this guy does seem like he was, and by the way, I'm only saying he is the guy that Goodman is based on, because he's the one that looks more physically like him. There's two dudes, and one dude doesn't look like John Goodman at all, and the other guy does. I'm assuming it's the John Goodman-looking guy. Oh, okay, but let's see. Milius is a self-proclaimed Zen anarchist, but he also publicly aligns himself with conservative factions in Hollywood. He's been a consultant to a military think tank The Institute for Creative Technologies That sounds ominous

Okay, so he did have a film background I was wrong about that But he was I do think that we're right That Goodman's character in Lebowski Was based on him And that he truly was a conservative Kind of gun nut Who was scared of a Red Dawn situation When he made Red Dawn

That would also make sense Because you know that Lebowski is based on a real guy from the film industry oh that's oh i didn't know he was in the film

industry but i knew it was based on a real guy from around washington state area right

he was a real guy um who was in i think did like film pr or something he had some job in the industry where the coen brothers interacted with him and they thought he was so funny and and odd that it inspired them to write an entire movie about him i guess we should say the dude i think

we called him Lebowski but I guess technically his character is the dude he's not Lebowski

oh right well but he is Jeff I mean his name is his name Jeff Lebowski oh yeah that's right I

feel like I always call that character Lebowski and people are always correcting me and they're like are you talking about Lebowski or the dude but you're right I guess right but it's confusing

because you got two people with the same name which is where you know the whole thing starts to get confusing but anyway uh it would make sense that both of those characters were kind of drawn From the world of filmmaking Different parts of it Because you got the Coen brothers And they probably just like Were sort of When they interacted with those kind of folks Or heard about them Put those characters kind of in their pocket And that totally makes sense And also if you just think about Red Dawn It's like yeah It's a complete like Sort of conservative fantasy About like the you know Red communist scare is coming for us Like it totally checks out That that would be made by somebody who You know had a conservative worldview

And it was Jeff Dowd Speaking of dude The dude is the real guy right The dude it says it's like kind of a composite But it says the dude is mostly inspired by Jeff Dowd An American film producer and political activist That the brothers met while they were trying To find distribution for blood

What were they The Menominee 5 or something What is the name of the The treaty that this guy helped write That Lebowski helped write I can't remember the details of it It's so funny because I don't know if it's a real thing or not but it just sounds like something I heard a Joan Armitrading song about at some point. It's just like a perfect kind of 70s liberal manifesto that he wrote that was on behalf of probably some progressive organization or whatever. I don't know. The details of that movie are so perfect to me. Even though you know, and I've said this before, I did not really like that movie the first time that I saw it.

Oh, I don't know if I knew that about you.

I think I saw it at the Crest Theater in Seattle.

Oh, that's great.

Does the Crest still exist? Please tell me it does.

I believe it does. I follow Vanishing Seattle, and I feel like I would have gotten an alert. I discovered the Crest, and you were very happy that I had discovered the Crest. I think I saw it.

saw the spider-man into the spider-verse first movie like the first one of that franchise the animated one around the time i discovered it yeah so i was there you know maybe pre-pandemic i don't know if it survived the pandemic but i'll check i think i would have heard i i feel like i think i

saw lebowski there and i walked out of the theater just going like i don't really know what that was i don't really get it you know me i like i like my movies fairly straightforward fairly linear linear not a lot of like although you know one upon many many uh re-watching of uh of that film i realized that even the things that i thought were kind of like that i thought were too fantastical were really just filmmaking choices like for instance um when he gets knocked out and he's having those fantasies about like a bowling ball rolling over him and stuff like that it's because he's unconscious it's because he's you know been had his bell rung as we used to say in football so like it was scenes like that where i was like i don't want to what if he's flying um he's a bowling ball's rolling over but now i'm like oh no that's just that's the coen brothers way of describing that he's kind of not really fully conscious right now and he's having other sort of dream state thoughts i can roll with that now you can roll with it yeah i believe there are two

dream sequences in that one one where he gets knocked out somebody drugs him the pornographer drugs him and he gets knocked out and then there's a horn and then i think jackie treehorn and i think there's another time he maybe gets bonked on the head or something or i don't know what it is but i actually i love those dream sequences and i do think that they are like and as i think you're acknowledging now like they are cordoned off as truly dreams what's going on in his head while he's unconscious and i for a while there maybe not blood simple but everything like after blood simple up to maybe they stopped with there will be the weight they didn't do there will be blood uh anyway um but i feel like the the coen brothers always worked in one dream sequence into almost every movie they did i guess you can oh wow me on that too and i always thought it was

very i feel like they do them very interestingly speaking of there will be blood there was be blood yes in this hotel room which is not a very interesting story other than man be careful around sharp new kitchen knives i was chopping up some fixings for me and walt the other night and i nicked my finger and i had this band-aid on it for like two days and i'd showered with the band-aid on a couple times so it was getting pretty furry and i thought well this looks unkempt so i took the band-aid off um and it turns out the uh cut on my finger had not healed in this how many days ago well it was taco tuesday andrew when uh i believe i made tacos for for walt and i so today's thursday so today's taco thursday so two days anyway i um i didn't even realize it was bleeding until i was tying my shoes and then i looked down and i'm like why is there blood on my brand new white nikes that i'm supposed to wear on this film shoot and it's because my middle finger was just like dripping blood onto the shoe which was very unfortunate what is the

material is it a leather type or is it a cloth fabric it's a leather which i was able to wipe

off the shoelace what cannot be undone is the shoelace got some blood on it um but i got it off of the rest of the shoe so there's just a little spot on my shoelace it's not too too bad but really what it is is that the um i'm concerned about housekeeping and uh the bathroom has a significant amount of bloody paper towels in there like something uh you know north of a shaving incident south of um you know a homicide may have happened in this room i don't i never like it when the housekeeping staff has to come in and find uh bloody things maybe what i'll do is transport that out of the room roll it all up in some paper towels and throw it in a garbage so that nobody has to deal with that because i would not enjoy that if i was on the housekeeping team here at the Marriott. Just keep rolling

it and rolling and rolling it up, like all this stuff until eventually it's about the size of a body and then roll that up into the bed sheets and then carry that through the lobby down to the

dumpster. You know what? Let's do this. Let's thank some dazzlers and then I want to, it's not even an interesting story, but since I went on so much about it at the beginning of the show, I just want to tell you about my little breakthrough and then breakthrough on my breakthrough here in the hotel. and we've got Blur's Days to do as well. But let's thank some Dazzling Donors before I get this show even further off the rails.

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.

Hey, look who it is. It's one of the Dannys.

Hey, Danny.

Hey, Danny. How many Dannys do we have? Are Dannys the new Kate, and have I already asked that? I'll see you next time. I don't know if you've asked that before. I don't know how many Dannys we have, but this is Danny D-A-N-I.

We have a legal team of Dannys, right?

Right, but I don't know that this—I don't think this Danny is a lawyer, if you can believe it. Not all Dannys are lawyers. Practicing lawyer, anyway. All lawyers are Dannys, but not all Dannys are lawyers.

Oh, okay, that's a good point. Danny's in—surprise! Arizona. Hi, guys, and tens. Oh, by the way, Danny is one of the wonderful, generous people supporting TBTL with a significant donation of dough. That is why Danny is a dazzling donor. And that's why we're thanking Danny today and reading this message. I was trying to figure out how something deep and meaningful, or to figure out, rather, something deep and meaningful to write about sobriety for my dazzling donor message this year. Okay. But the voice that keeps kicking around in my head when I think about getting clean and changing your life is Mike Frizzell's.

You're just talking about Mike.

That's right. Drew McFrizz, a.k.a. Mike Frizzell. You know, I was thinking about that. I don't want to. I do not want to go on some yet another massive tangent here because we don't have all all morning. But I think in talking about our friend Mike, rest in peace, that we focus so much about his time, you know, robbing banks and his time while incarcerated and his time after all of that. And like I didn't I don't think a lot about the fact that he was someone who was in really serious active addiction, hence the bank robbing and was on, you know, this is before we heard the words fentanyl, but was, you know, one of that wave of people who was given an opioid for pain after a surgery without any warning about what it could potentially do. And I remember him saying to us on the show That the first time he took I can't remember what it was Percocet or something After he had a knee surgery He said it was the first time he ever felt comfortable In his own skin ever And to have that experience And then to go through everything he went through And then to actually gain sobriety from that It's really amazing I don't think I really gave him props on that The way that I should It was just kind of a given Like oh you're just not doing opioids anymore But it's like this is that's a very very very tough struggle for people and i know everybody deal with that

yeah and everybody's journey is different but it's like mike seemed so together by the time i met him and knew him and he would you know we we would correspond quite a bit and i think about mike

a lot he was together enough to bust your balls to the degree that made you feel uncomfortable

luke whenever i hear anybody say cooperstown on the radio i correct them out loud and i say it's cooperton and i think of mike whenever i hear anybody because i said i think i said cooperton cooper's tin one time and i don't think i was joking i think i was just confused for a second and also one time i referred to when i was new at watching baseball i referred to um when you have two players sort of sharing a position on a team you might have a couple of different players who play third base for you during a season that's called platooning but i believe i called it full metal jacket on tuning. I said, are they pontooning at first base? Every time I hear somebody talk about platooning and baseball, I think of Mike teasing me about that in a good way. But what I was going to say on a more serious note is by the time I met Mike, you know, he I mean, still just huge personality, but also just like so together. But what we know about addiction and what we know about sobriety when you are somebody who deals with addiction is like that journey doesn't just end like it's a struggle. Everybody's got their own journey, of course and I don't know what Mike was dealing with on a daily basis inside his own head but it's not like oh I'm all good now I'm yeah I'm got you know it's a struggle for a lot of people it's a daily struggle maybe not daily for everybody and then you think yeah so while I'm talking to you and we're living this life like people people always have something going on in the background

and some of that shit is really tough absolutely and and I appreciate Danny reminding us of the way that our friend Mike was able to change his life and have an impact on so many people you know and I think that was something that was possible due to his sobriety at least from I don't know what his exact deal was either but I think he was able to stay off the blues going forward thankfully Danny says I guess I'll just keep it simple and I'll say if you feel your life is spinning out of control and has become unmanageable because of any kind of substance abuse there is a better way it's hard work but you can do it and you are so so worth it peace and love tens peace and love I appreciate y'all so much that is a really good use of your dazzling donor message Danny and we really do appreciate it so thank you so much and thanks for supporting the program maestro on your mark

get set get set now ready ready go everybody rattle dattle

it's Tom Cleary of West Hartford We'll be right back. Connecticut, not East Hartford, not regular Hartford, not stores where my sister Liz used to live when she was going to Yukon. We're talking West Hartford, Connecticut.

Regular Hartford. Boy, I really messed that up.

Regularford.

I wish I was from Regularford.

What kind of dressing do you have? Regularford? Okay, can I have it on the side? Tom says I decided to become a dazzling Donor a few years ago because I realized how Important the podcast and community are To me and when Luke and Andrew announced their Independence last year I was even more excited To continue contributing To the show Tom that's exactly the kind Of energy we'd like you to continue harnessing Right on through If I can be honest with you we've been starting to have Meetings about our upcoming THON and Last year we were so Unbelievably Relieved touched and grateful for the support and i know a lot of that was because people it was exciting we were going independent and nervous making for the listeners and so we really hope that this time around people continue to see the value of supporting the show it's not like okay well we did it and now we don't need to keep doing it we do um so thank you tom for helping us get to this point we hope you can keep it rolling for us um i work in the media and i am constantly seeing bad news about layoffs to shows and companies and companies shutting down so it's nice to be along for the ride on a positive story for a change watching tbtl start to thrive as an independent listener supported company i can't wait to see where luke andrew and john take things next and i'm more than happy oh see tom already was tom was way ahead of me uh i am more than happy to continue supporting them as they figure this whole business thing out you know i forgot to tell

you this did oops sorry that's the wrong sound uh but did you know that they were talking about us on npr recently did you hear any of this tape do you have any idea what i'm talking about listen to this no this is from i believe um what is what show does aisha roscoe host it's uh is that

saturdays or sundays oh morning edition yeah morning edition i think no no sundays because

she does the puzzles yeah she does the will shorts thing yeah listen this is her guest talking here

So, about a year and a half ago, Luke gets together with Andrew, who he met years ago. They start a company. So far, they've raised more than $1.2 million from Silicon Valley venture capital companies. And this is for two guys with balloons.

Listeners sent that in. All I had to do is snip out the name of their company, and I pretend that that's us. Of course, I don't want the listeners to think we're raking in Silicon Valley dollars.

Hold on a sec. The people were named Luke and Andrew?

Yeah, that is not AI or anything. That's really a clip. I didn't even listen to the whole story. It had something to do with using technology.

But there was a guy, there was a dude named Luke and a dude named Andrew. They got together. They had some balloons. They got $1.2 million. Yes.

So about a year and a half ago, Luke gets together with Andrew, who he met years ago. They start a company. So far, they've raised more than $1.2 million from Silicon Valley venture capital companies. and this is for two guys with balloons

I love

we bought a balloon but it doesn't mean we think we're better

it really does tick a lot of boxes

I can't believe who sent that to us

I'll get you an answer you finish reading this message I'll get you an answer

I'm surprised that we haven't received that more I'm surprised that Becca didn't tell me because she's like a dedicated listener to that show I just feel like the fact that it's Luke and Andrew that's a coincidence that's amazing let me also just really clarify to everyone including tom cleary we have not yet figured out how to make 1.2 million dollars off of two balloons no um so uh we do still need the support of the tens of listeners and we do really appreciate it thank you tom so much and thanks also to danny for keeping tbtl going

hello and welcome to top story i'm embarrassed now that i'm even making this a top story andrew but

But basically what happened was I, in fact, last week when I was down here in Los Angeles, I was talking about how much I love this other hotel that I stay at a lot called the Hotel June and that I like it so much that I get nervous about someday finding out that it's, you know, come under new ownership and has a whole new concept and maybe is not part of the Marriott Bonvoy family. like that's a weird kind of like pre-mourning the loss of a business that you are just enjoying um you know getting to uh whatever use or stay at but the thing is we're filming some uh stuff on the warner brothers lot today related to the wrapping up of the tv show young sheldon and it's that's all happening basically here in burbank california and so

So as much as I wanted to fly into LAX, stay at my favorite little hotel, and then take like an hour and a half, potentially, hour and 15 minute lift ride out here, and then turn around and do an hour and a half lift ride back to the west side, and then do it again tomorrow, potentially, I just thought, that makes no sense. Like, that's just silly. Fly into Burbank. First of all, it's just such a better airport. It's all the Guy Fieri food you can eat. They just hand it to you. It's like when you fly to Hawaii and they give you a lay when you step off the plane. Here they just hand you a basket of wings. And it's just super low stress, the Burbank Airport. And then I thought, I'll just stay at the Marriott in town. It's nothing fancy, but it will be convenient. I was like, I'm going to stop trying to basically curate every second of my waking life into this maximized way that makes me feel sort of all right. And be like sometimes things don't have to be perfect So this was the decision I made Because I've stayed at this Marriott before Andrew And I knew that it kind of It's kind of lousy Like I stayed here last time There was a Transformers convention going on I'm sorry The last time I stayed here There was a Transformers convention going on

The toy and game and universe Or like the electronic Really

Yeah and I didn't actually I got in really late I think I got in at like 12.30 or 1 in the morning. I was checking into the hotel, and people were still just like spread out throughout the hotel lobby and bar area, just hardcore talking Transformers and showing their Transformers off and trading Transformers and just having a blast with it.

Well, that is intriguing. It would be hard for me to concentrate on my own work knowing I could hang out with Transformer people.

I mean I was tell you what I was impressed at the how how hardy these folks were partying because I was like I was done I was like after midnight I was like just get me to my room please and then but everybody were going they were going ham on that but anyway so this is a convention center and hotel right next to the airport in fact I called a lift last night the guy picked me up and he goes no you're not going far and I was like really and then he took me out of the airport and then dropped me off at the Marriott like I could have walked here I'm basically by uh you know where the rental cars are i just couldn't see the hotel i didn't know it was like actual walking distance so i'm basically saying actual walking distance though because but as the

crow flies and as the car drives maybe but it's very close but i mean you can't just like walk

off of a lot of airport lots right that is true i don't know what the kind of accessibility if you will in terms of yeah where can you actually walk with your suitcase or not i don't i just felt a little sheepish when you know we we exited the hotel and I looked right up and I just saw a big sign that said Marriott I was like that's where we're taking me he goes yeah okay but anyway I the point is I didn't really want to like I kind of didn't want to stay in this hotel because it's kind of junky the rooms are it feels very very lived in it feels like there have been a lot of conferences and conference attendees that have moved through the rooms of this hotel whereas the hotel june that i like to go to it's so designy and it's not even that it's fancy it's just it was put together by hipsters of a certain age and that's the kind of hipster that i sort of aspire to be and so it's like just the the paint choices the way that the place is laid out i just it's it's much more for me if you will than like this marriott is like where you come for some sort of like um because uh you work for a company that sells siding solutions and you're getting together with other people in the industry to talk about your particular product that's what this hotel is the hotel june if they're having a conference it would be the people that sell the caraway kitchen pans that are too much of a hassle to cook with that i bought that's the energy of the hotel june it's like cool instagram cute like designy and this is like you know somebody from an older generation than me with a name tag on going around. It's Gil from The Simpsons. I was about to sell a little bit more siding that would have helped me get my gas money back to Omaha. That's the energy here.

Give me Gil dressed up like Megatron.

I can't even call to mind Megatron's voice.

I don't know either. I'm sure it was deep

and electronic. Bad and scary. Probably the same guy that played Cobra Commander. Probably also to just throw him on the Megatron case. I feel like that was the thing. Those shows were animated by the same company, Transformers and G.I. Joe.

And the voice of Cobra Commander is very upsetting as well, very hissy, right? Like a snake, yes.

Yes, that was Cobra. I always mixed up Destro and Cobra Commander.

Oh, yeah, Destro was Chrome Dome, yeah.

Point is, I get here last night. It's also kind of late. It's like maybe 10 o'clock at night, and I have reserved. One of the things I thought was, well the upside of me staying here is I, it's a very, it's not an expensive hotel. So I could maybe get like a little bit of a larger room, kind of set up my TBTL broadcast center. Like I'm going to be kind of down market with the hotel, but maybe a little more up market with the actual room they put me in. So I select a certain kind of room and I get checked in and, or I'm checking in and the woman who's checking me in, who's named Kim, who I really liked, by the way, Kim was a bit older than me um but but just seemed like she'd seen a lot she's working the probably the graveyard shift at the marriott burbank airport but she was likable um she said we have a problem i was like what and she was like we only have one bedroom left that is the kind that you selected with a king bed but the air conditioning is broken i was like well is it really going to be that warm she goes you don't want it it's not going to be pleasant so i was like all right she was well so i can get you a room with like two beds and it's weird i always like go towards i want a king size bed but then i realized i don't like thrash around in the bed i don't cover all of that real estate i always just think the king size bed just seems better but i don't like need that much in fact two beds you can throw your suitcase on one of them there's just kind of a utility to having two beds in the room if you're just by yourself so i was like all right kim but i have one negotiation because there was this cooler behind her of waters and i go can i have one water she goes you can have two and i was like all right i like this she also said when she looked my id she said your name is burbank i thought there was a mistake and i was like no there's no mistake that is my name but thank you for acknowledging that that is weird like she's the first person who is i've been traveling through this area a lot lately she's the first person who has given me the satisfaction of commenting on the fact that it is strange that my last name

is the same name as this city i think last time you were there you were just standing on a street corner yelling my name is burbank and nobody was giving you giving you what you wanted well the

police did arrive so i did get some attention yes but it was like i was like thank you kim for noting this thing that everyone else has just breezed right past like it just doesn't and so that made me like kim that meant that when kim told me we have a problem there are no hotel rooms that are the kind you booked i got to put you in this other one i was like whatever you know what kim gave me two waters she noted that my last name is burbank it's going to be fine so i get my key card i come to my room and andrew when i tell you it is right out of central casting of

luke's nightmare room um it's like can i get it's overlooking a parking lot with a dumpster

is this right i would have killed for a parking lot with a dumpster okay what was it looking over It was perched atop, I don't know, not even the HVAC system, some other weird system of gas tanks and like, I don't know what these things did, but it looked like I was perched over some sort of like shale oil harvesting operation somewhere in, I don't know, the Balkan oil fields of South Dakota or North Dakota. it it was a weird industrial process going on literally outside my window like my window looked out on a whole series of tubes and tanks that were oh by the way all rusty as well so it was worse than just a parking lot then it's these two beds that were smaller they were they were like not two queen beds not even two full beds i think they were two twin beds oh wow to where i was literally in my twin bed that i got into and i thought this actually i might roll off of this whereas i don't think i need a king size bed this is like something that like hayley mills would sleep in in the movie the parent trap this is like from a bygone era what size bed do you have at home is it a king or

a queen it's a king it's a king i think there's no way that these were twin beds they're probably doubles and you've just forgotten how small a double bed is compared to the king lifestyle

that you lead king it might be thank you king um it could be the case but it was i was just like And then also, you know, all the street noise, because I was basically at the ground level. And, you know, just like looking around the room, just about everything about the room was what I would not select. and as i got into uh the tiny bed and the tiny cot that they provided me with i i decided to do something which was to just bloom where i'm planted i was like this is going to be fine people do this all the time they go on work trips they stay at hotels sometimes the hotel is nice sometimes it's not as nice you get through it you get up you do your job it'll be completely

you watch defending your life you go back to bed watch defending your life you go back to bed

Exactly. Like, I was like, everything doesn't have to be perfect. And my life is going to be a lot more manageable, or at least my life is going to be filled, I think, with more joy and less heartbreak. If I figure that out going forward, if instead of constantly trying to shift my external environment at all times to be the one that I've been wanting or thinking about.

or hoping for, to figuring out how can I exist within this context and be okay. All right, it's sort of a junkie room at a Marriott. This happens to people. You'll get through it. And so honestly, like, it felt really good. I went to bed, and I just felt amazing about this idea that I could just be okay with things. And then I woke up this morning, and I got my little workout outfit on to go to the gym. And what I had to do, Andrew, to get to the gym was walk through the lobby and like a moth to the flame, like a like a southern magnet approaching a northern magnet. Are those the ones that attract to each other? Right. The different polarity.

I don't know. Are you talking about actual magnets? Are you talking about how do they work? I have it all written down somewhere in rhyme.

I basically was like Physically I turned into like A cartoon character that's smelling a good smell

Yes okay Your feet leave the ground

And I start floating to the front desk Because even though I've made this huge life decision The night before to just be fine With this as I'm walking by the front desk There's no one in line I realize there's an Opportunity for me to come up to them and say hey Would it be possible for me to get a new room

Of course this is no longer Kim this is a new person

This is Kai You have to have three letters In your first name And it starts with a K That's the rule here apparently And I tell Kai The situation Hey I had booked a certain kind of room And they didn't have any of them left When I got here last night And Kim had said by the way Come back tomorrow and ask about it But I had decided I wasn't going to ask about it I decided I was just going to Just deal with it It's going to be fine But I couldn't Because I got to be me And I went up to Kim and i said um you know i wanted to have a room with a king bed and uh and they didn't have any left and uh kim told me that i could ask for a different room and and um and kai typed a few things on her computer and she said okay i'll switch you here's your new room number and uh i got uh the key card i got my stuff out of my old room i brought it here to the new room and it's absolutely lovely in here it's got the bed is in its own room i have a little i have a it's like more of a suite huh i'm she put me in some kind of a suite i can look i'm looking at the san gabes i'm uh as opposed to some sort of industrial piping system i had an extra table that's part of this little kitchen area that i could wheel over here to the window andrew so doing the show with you today and tomorrow i can actually like be by the window which you know i like so much it's I don't know if this is real or not but I feel like it smells different in this room everything about this room is better and when I walked into this room and observed it and saw what was going on and realized how much more pleasant the next 24 hours of my life will be I realized that we are our only advocate for ourself and that I need to stop trying to just be okay with shit when it's not right and I need to demand a better outcome well then I say you

march yourself right down to the lobby right now and you tell Kip that you want more water. Kip. Kip is the only other name I can think of. That's true. When you said that, I took that as a challenge. I'm like, are there any other three letter names that begin with K and the only thing I can come up with is Kip.

You can be having so much fun Just remember that life is much fun You can be nothing but fun

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How does Cam Chancellor spell his name? K-A-M? K-A-M! Okay, go down there and say hello to Cam for us. Interesting, right. We're going to do some Blurs days here, But I wanted to note that it was listener Chris who sent in that NPR tape from a morning edition Sunday. And, yeah, they were talking about some sort of – Luke, it was about the intersection of Silicon Valley technology and the ecosystem. We got a Blur's Day here from Sarah in Bellingham who says, hey, Sarah, I believe she's in the pickleball district of Bellingham, says, please wish Brian near Holler Lake a happy Blur's. Holler Lake. Holler. What did I say? Holler. Holler.

You hate being hollered at, but you love being hollered at. That's what you can remember. It's true.

Yeah. That's kind of my hood, Haller Lake. He turns 50 next Tuesday. He's kind, generous, thoughtful, and I couldn't ask for a better brother-in-law and TBTL grand progenitor. Kevin and I are excited to celebrate his milestone, this milestone, with you later this month.

Enjoy your birthday colonoscopy prep. Whoa. Got a text from a friend of ours saying they're going the pooping on paper route for their colon check.

Yeah, I could have done that, but I don't like half measures, Andrew. As I said to this person, get back to me when you've got a sandworm going up your b-hole. Okay.

I'll beep it out Anya in New Hampshire You know this has come up before And I apologize I don't have a pronouncer here It's A-N-J-A I think it's Anya But it could be Anja In New Hampshire Says happy 13th birthday To Colia Yes exactly like the movie Was there a movie called Colia? Oh yeah there was Oh I didn't know that Beautiful movie called Colia No I didn't know that Like of what vintage?

Eastern European From the 90s It's about a I don't think it's a dad and his son It might be an uncle and his son But it's an older man and a young boy I think the boy is Kolya And it was a very sweet, sweet movie

80s, 90s, kind of A while back, you're guessing Yeah Kolya, let's see here Let's see here Happy 13th birthday to Kolya Who first listened to TBT on his way home From the hospital at two days old And now has become a full-fledged 10 We're so proud of the kind, smart, funny teen You've become Love, Mom, and Dad The Oddly in Connecticut, Heidi Oddly, says happy third birthday to Anya Rose Bruno Latte Dreidel Patutor.

Wait, what? So we've got an Anya and an Anya. Spelled differently, yes.

No, you know what? I think I pronounced this incorrectly. I'm glad you stopped me there. I think this would be Ayana. Ayana, A-Y-A-N-N-A. Happy third birthday to Ayanna Rose Bruno Latte Dreidel Tutor. Mom and dad are so proud of all your hard work in gymnastics and swimming. We know you're going to have so much fun in preschool this year. Cheers to being three and going on so many more adventures with you. We love you to the moon and back. Aww. Ayanna Bear. Cute. Right. Andrew says, one more trip around the sun, one more blurs. A shout-out from my lovely wife, Grace. She's a real 10 out of 10, and it would really make her day if you two could give her a blurs on her golden blurs day, a.k.a. the birthday that falls on a Thursday. She recently had a full ACL reconstruction and repaired the viscus. Indeed. Yes, Michael, she did. From a skiing accident, needless to say, she has spent a lot of time with an elevated leg listening to the podcast. Well, hope you're feeling better, Grace. Good luck. Happy blurs day. Interesting, right. Leah says, here's my Blur's Day message for Rhoda in Portland, Oregon. Happy Cinco de Cuatro de Rhoda. I'm so grateful to have you in my life and that you introduced me to TBTL. I don't know how I would be surviving grad school without it. You're Llamamazing. I can't wait to see you this summer and go to Kashuigi. Love, Leah. Boy, they're really whizzing some smokers in for you. I didn't get that one right either. I think that's Kashiwagi. Kashiwagi. I think it's probably. What is Kashiwagi? I think it's a restaurant in Portland. Kashiwagi. I can't wait to see you this summer and go to Kashiwagi. Sorry, everybody. Do you know where Kashiwagi is? Do I? No. So explain that. I Googled it briefly when I threw this into the, I think it's maybe a sushi place in Portland. Oh, okay. It's also apparently some character from some sci-fi thing because the SEO on the restaurant, Kashiwagi, is not great. Okay, got it.

Oh, wow.

Oh, wow. Denny says, I'd like to wish my brother Dave a belated 36th blurs. We come from a long line of garbage men. Our family has been in the garbage business for over 100 years. Interesting, right. In a move that would surely make our grandfather and great-grandfather proud, Dave has stepped into a management position. This has been in addition to being an outstanding husband and father. I couldn't be happier to have you as a brother. I don't know why I said brother that way. It sounded mocking. I didn't mean it mocking. I was just trying to sing.

Happy Blur's Day, Dave. Also, I think that the show has really generated a lot of content relevant to the interest of those people over the last couple of years. I mean, it's been a really, really fertile time. If your profession is garbage and listening to the show where so much of the conversation is about garbage and even the stuff that isn't is garbage.

Yeah, you think that's an accident, Luke? This is how we build audience. This has been my plan all along. You think I'm just really that interested in garbage? No, I read the books. I'm doing the work. I'm getting new listeners. I'm struggling with this next blur. You said people are making my life. They're really throwing whizzing some smokers at me, too.

day it looks like tan ying i mean spoiler alert wants me to do an impression of the kid from the dr jones or from the indiana jones movies and say dr jones oh wow the way it's spelled out here with an accent that i don't know that i'm comfortable doing so i'm gonna

isn't that the kid that ended up being the man in everything all at once all the time i think so yes that kid who became that man not white right exactly that's why i don't think i'm

going to do this exactly as it's spelled, but Tan Ying says, happy birthday to my littlest five, when Mommy and Dabby, and it is spelled that way on purpose, Mommy and Dabby, your brothers and Hugo love you so much. You are the bossiest, but also the sweetest, so we just want to wish you a great, and then it says shouting, I'll just say Dr. Jones. rhoda said i would really appreciate it if i could squeeze in a very happy belated birthday to my best co-worker friend and tbtl daughter julie she's the best and deserves a very happy blurs day after a stressful start to 2024 we love you julie happy blurs is that the second rhoda reference during these blurses you know i was going to ask you that too is that the same Do we have two Rodas? I mean, what are the chances we have two Rodas? That's right. Roda is going to dinner with Leah, and yeah, that's probably the same Roda getting some love. Or no, no, giving some love to Julie here. I mean, that could be different. One is receiving a blur, one is giving a blur. Maybe Roda is the new Kate. Maybe. We should have a Roda reunion. Or no, just a union, because it would be the first time.

Sure. Absolutely. If we have more than one Rhoda, reach—if your name is Rhoda, reach out to us, and then we're going to count how many Rhodas we're dealing with here on the show. You need to start a new spreadsheet, yeah. Yes. All right. That is going to wrap it up for today's program, but I have some really incredible news. We're going to be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you, and I know you're all happy to know I'll be broadcasting from a hotel room that I don't find completely soul-crushing, and Andrew will be mere hours away from his first-ever trip to a Dave and Buster's.

Oh, that's true, yeah.

And we're going to talk about that. There's Dave and Buster's in the news this week, which I want to talk about with you. And there's Dave and Buster's in the news of Andrew's life.

Yes, I will be learning what a Dave and a Buster is. That's right.

So tune in tomorrow for all of that here on TVTL. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves. Happy Blur's Day to everybody. Go a little sluggers. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.