Muse

And we've become great friends. I mean, close. We'll just sit in the front room, and we'll sit there. He'll walk, he'll go to the front door, kind of knock on the door, and then sit down. Then I'll sit, and then he stands, and he's out in the front. Then he'll come in, and we just sit there. And he'll stand, and I'll sit, and then I stand, and you sit. And then we're both looking at each other, and we're just nodding. Like a couple of nodders, right? TBTL.

OK. Ah, I've been waiting for this moment for months, and it's finally here. What's up, girl?

Let the fun begin.

That's a toy, girl.

I'm, I'm, I have, I'm easily, I don't, hmm. How did, do you follow? How drunk are you?

A lot to vary. I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed or buy anything sold or processed or process anything sold, bought or processed or repair anything sold, bought or processed. You know, it's a career. I don't want to do that.

What do you say we go out and get some Carvel? I got the time if you got the diapers. All right. Hello. Good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

This is where the good times happen.

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Got it. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia. Nice to be doing the show from home again, finally. Although it is still some crazy weather up here. It is so windy and rainy. Didn't know you like to get wet, though. Unpleasant. As I like to say, though, thankfully it's warm and dry here inside the studio, so we are all ready to go with episode 4220 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Slice Soda is back. I'm back. I've returned. Now with more probiotics. Just what the Slice lovers wanted. I'll tell you the interesting history of the Slice Soda situation. I know that was a lot of S's, dude. Also, Andrew went and saw a film yesterday. So who needs a movie? We're going to get his thoughts on the film Hitman.

Well, what did everybody say?

And speaking of Andrew Walsh, he's actually here right now. He's the longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. As Jay would say, he's got flow. He's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I was going to break this news to you yesterday, but I forgot, so I'm going to break it to you now. It's not really news. It's something I need to reveal to you. You didn't happen to watch last week's Hey Dummies video in the TBTL newsletter, did you? You're saving it. Of course I did. You're saving it for a moment where you can give it your full attention.

Exactly. Yes. No, I mean, I watched it. I studied it. I have some notes.

It's like me and that Donald Glover show. What's Donald Glover's show?

Atlanta.

Atlanta. Like, I saw the first season of that and part of the second season. Everybody was like, it blew everybody's mind. I remember the second and third season, I think, especially blew everybody's mind. And I keep saying, I'm going to watch it one of these days. I just want to really sit down and pay attention to it. It's a show that's too good for me just to have on sort of casually. But I've been saying that for, I think, a decade now. Like, when I think about how long that show's been out, I just keep saying, no, it's so good that I haven't watched it. You don't understand, Donald Glover. It's a compliment. compliment it's the highest compliment and that's you and that and by the way using that logic tbtl

is so good 99.99 percent the american population is also saving it they're just so when they can

give all 4 220 episodes their full attention one of these days i'm going to sit down and start with episode one of course um here's what happened in the week in review video i got a question from listener stan who um wanted to know if there'd ever been a pair of headphones in our lives that we loved i believe the quote was more than life itself and so it sent me on this whole journey of talking about headphones past present and future luke it was really a perfect question for me because it can i think i said this in the video it contained like audio gear cable management and nostalgia all in one which is just kind of like yeah so it was like four hours long And my head explodes by the end of it. So check it out. No, but I was talking about the kind of I went through my whole evolution of headphones, you know, not studio headphones, but, you know, for my various Walkman, Discman, iPods, et cetera. Floppy disks, power gloves. You know a lot about technology. And and so anyway, I started by.

talking about the headphones that I had as a young man that I still think about a lot and as I explained it in the video it was like back in the I want to say I had these in the late 80s but maybe it was more like early to mid 90s that I started to buy these I had a couple of pairs of them I think over the course of my life and they were the first like what we would now call earbuds but back in the day they weren't as much of a thing back in the day when people were still wearing headphones that would kind of go over the head you know with some sort of maybe even

i know what you're talking about though these are the ones that went in did these kind of go

in your ear they were the first ones that would go in your ear we didn't call them earbuds back then i think that was something that came along with the apple technology um but the reason i love them is i bought them at radio shack they were radio shack brand headphones and they came in a little plastic disc about the size of a small silver dollar pancake or something like that I really need to figure out better things to reference. I don't know how big the... It was like a plastic capsule the size of birth control pills might come in. If they still come in the circle, sort of, that's probably a better...

Two things that are hard to come by in this country if you're a woman. Silver dollar pancakes and healthcare.

Well, it depends on what part of the world and what part of the country. Some parts of the country, it's very easy to get a silver dollar pancake, but very hard to get the pill. And then it's vice versa in other places. But anyway, I was talking about these things and how much I love them and how I remember sitting on the bus and listening to Nirvana's Nevermind for the first time, listening in my black Megabass Walkman and having these things plugged in.

And I just remember, like, did the megabase, was there a button that could activate the megabase?

Well, you probably noticed it when you were watching the video. I found a photo of my old Walkman on eBay, and I zoomed in. It had both a megabase switch on the front of it, Luke, but it also had a bass and treble adjustment on the front of it. Uh-huh. I remember those. Yeah, it was a black Walkman. It was, like, on the face of the case. And, of course, it had auto-reverse, too, because who has time to flip your cassette tape when it reaches the end of one side? I love that thing. I am very surprised. Maybe I'm not surprised. Maybe I just used to be a more healthy human. Starting as, I think, maybe a young adult in my early 20s, I started saving all of my old technology once it stopped being of any use to me. And I have this box of all kinds of old technology, including a PDA. Back in the day, PDA didn't just mean public displays of affection, but it also meant that you had this small computer in your pocket that did everything except make phone calls or do anything worthwhile it just held a stylus it did yes i have it it's

my dell i mean i'll i'll i had one of those too um i don't think i ever used it for anything productive but i just thought well this is going to change my life now i'll be able to digitally

organize my entire life i've organized i did use it i think i kept all of my um all of my contacts in there and i think i could sync it up to my computer and so whatever program would like sort sync contacts and then i think i sort of use as a calendar as well i remember me and my friend katherine she had one and like she's the only person and this is going to sound filthy but we were just friends but uh me and katherine i think would like we would touch our pdas together and information would swap somehow using blue yeah it was called a bump yeah a bump wasn't

yeah yeah you and katherine right with the pdas doing a bump right nothing about this it's okay No, but it was no. But literally, there was a thing there was. And I can't remember. It must have been in like the PDA days where the big thing was you can bump your device into someone else's device and it will the information will travel.

I just have a memory of. So just for context, Catherine is now my good friend, Paul's wife. And they were a couple way back in the day. And they introduced me and Genevieve. So we were all like a very we're all very close friends. And I just have this memory of just like being at some party at Genevieve's house. And I think maybe Genevieve and Catherine lived together at the time. And Catherine and I are just like, it's just like so early 2000s. We're just like, we are on top of the world as we're like trying to smash our non-cellular connected PDAs into each other so that we can swap contact information that we already have because we're practically family. So anyway, I don't know why I, I don't know at what age I realized, oh, it's worth saving this stuff when it's no longer of use to me. because it bums me out that I no longer have my very first Walkman. You know, my very first one was actually a yellow sport Walkman that I sort of stole from my mom. It was hers, but she didn't use it much, so I used it more and more. She'd stopped jazzercising by that point. Exactly. You got the vibe. And then I got my own with Megabass. And, like, at some point that stopped being useful to me. That makes sense. I was in college. I'm listening to, you know, the modern world of CDs. But, like, I can't believe that at some point this guy, Andrew Walsh, said, well, I'm done with this Walkman, I'm going to

throw it away now? Like, what would I have ever done with it?

Is it possible you pawned it because you owed the mafia money on a horse race when your horse didn't come in?

There is a... I have a vague recollection of punching my fist through a styrofoam hat as my horse did not come in. How did I pay for that?

Well, Andrew, you've exposed yourself because the punch through the hat is the celebration, I believe.

Oh, it is? Well, that's a great question. Why would you punch through your hat in happiness?

I think just delirium. Okay, now we're getting down to it.

I'm picturing this in The Simpsons, sort of. Like, how were The Simpsons parodied this?

This is a great question, and we tackle the big issues here on TBTL. Is the punch through the hat because something went right or because something went wrong? Because you're right. As I say, I've always assumed it was because your horse wins. But now that I think about it, that is a very weird response.

I feel like I'm picturing that sort of trope being parodied in The Simpsons and somebody like punching through their hat in frustration when their horse doesn't come in. But I don't know, maybe the listeners have some context for that. But here's where I'm going with all of this. So I was talking about these headphones in the video. And like I mentioned, I no longer have the headphones. I no longer have that Walkman, but I referred to them. So I grabbed some photos of them. I actually looked up like, you know, 1990s era Radio Shack earphones earphones that wind up in case or something like that and i found pictures of them i found the actual actual ones and i found those pictures on a website that you might be familiar with called ebay and this raised a question for me during the video like do i just buy these goddamn things like i don't have a huge need for like wired headphones right now but they were only fifteen dollars luke to rebuy my childhood to rebuy my well my my young adulthood riding a bus and listening to music and so the listeners won't be able to see this but I'm holding it up to the screen for you what I'm holding right here Luke is a $16 purchase that came in the mail yesterday and I could not be happier I haven't plugged them into anything yet so I don't know what they sound like but this is the exact headphone and headphone case that I used to listen to music on I mean not the exact one same model i don't think that these are actually from my home um but uh they came packaged so well they were 16 on youtube meticulously packaged i got to go on to ebay ebay sorry i got to go to ebay and write this person a review because they're in perfect condition they were so meticulously wrapped they weren't new they were used which really raises the question do you want to put used headphones into your ears but the they're cleaned up so well i'm so maybe those Headphones have more to fear from your ears than your ears do from the headphones. That's a good point.

Shh, don't listen to the bad man. Don't listen to the bad man. Here's what I want to give a shout out to. Headphone jack technology for remaining unchanged. Yeah, well, until... All these years later, you could still plug, well, until Apple. Yeah. Right? Because I'm guessing, wait, does your phone have a headphone jack out, or does it also on some kind of newfangled connection?

could you plug those headphones into your phone yes my phone currently has a headphone jack out but it might be the the last one like i was interested in a google pixel i think when i got this phone probably like five or more maybe about five years ago now um but the google pixel again some sort of technology that wasn't plain old like kind of you know you know mini plug-in technology and i was like no i want to be able to plug my phone into my audio board if need be but like fewer and fewer phones have that jack now the the the headphone jack wasn't hurting

anyone it was just sitting there my case just recessed into the phone this case literally just

broke on me i was just talking about i was trying to get it open sorry wheeler dealer 2000 you're getting the yelp review of a lifetime i think that there's not to be all poor me about this oh no but i think it's because thing broken well just a little part of it is broken but i think it was a little bit hard to open but my my fingertips are numb it was just something i've been dealing with for a while and like i think maybe i was trying to open it something that didn't open too easily but also with my numb fingertips i didn't know how much pressure i was

putting on it andrew you're slowly turning into the rock monster from the never ending story if you utter the words these look like strong hands after you couldn't protect the princess

from the nothing i just bought back my childhood and carpal tunnel took it away it still it still seems to latch pretty well but i was just so excited about how like the condition thing it was oh i'm sorry that's okay it's still latching pretty well again i mostly just bought these as something to keep in my drawer and remember the good times but um it's still it's still in

pretty damn good shape honestly okay that's good that would be such a bummer i want to say this though, to Tim

Apple and whoever decided I can't have my headphone jack anymore in my iPhone Here's what y'all didn't think of a Person is flying back across the country from New York on Saturday a person's phone is Very low on power a person needs to charge their phone

I'm talking listen to it at the same time and

Listen to the use the headphone out for watching tick-tock and and a person, I'm talking like the guy from Game of Thrones. Who's the guy who, a person, was the guy who was always saying a person? Oh, yeah. A person could, a person might?

Yes, he was like the guy who had all the masks, all the faces, remember? He had a whole hall full of faces.

He sure did, he sure did. Sometimes when you describe this show out loud, it sounds really dumb.

You know, having a hall full of faces isn't a personality, okay?

He was training Arya.

He was, exactly. i can't remember his name he was like a high priestess of some weird religion yeah or priest

i guess of some weird so i was so a person might have this dilemma which i faced for five and a half hours flying back which was charge my phone and then sit there and stare into the middle distance or um by the way i've noticed on tiktok that there's a i wouldn't call it a trend but i've seen it a couple of times where people the new challenge is to they'll just call it like raw dogging a flight where you don't bring anything with you for entertainment you just stare at like if you have a screen and there's like a map of where the plane is you you don't have any headphones you don't have any distraction and you just stare at that screen and there was a guy who did it for

a nine hour flight and how is this how is this um communicated though because if you're not using you're not taping yourself or anything because you're not using he was i guess he was he said

something like just me and it's like a little video of him it's like just me raw dogging another nine-hour flight successfully raw dogging another nine-hour flight so i guess we're going to believe him that he did that but just the flex of not bringing anything on the flight is kind of an interesting one to me i am not capable of that and so what i had to do because the charging port is also the headphone port now on my phone i would charge the phone up for a while yeah and then when i just couldn't stand the uh the the sort of boredom anymore then i would you know start like plug my headphones back and i'd be on like 12 power and then i'd watch my little videos and then it would just go down to like you know critical levels and then i have to plug it in again i can't believe that they didn't think about that that that's this port now this whatever you call it this lightning thing or i don't know if it's lightning or thunder ask imagine dragons um but uh but yeah i i that i feel like that was a real failure of imagination on their part

yeah i mean they they knew right they just figured they'll deal with it i mean that is kind of the thing not to go on like an anti um iphone tirade but that was one of the things that turned me off about it is like you they would release a new one and you would just have to buy it based on what they said is good for you sort of like there was just no competition and like you couldn't say well what if i do want this feature instead of this feature it's like nope you take what daddy gives you and so like i never kind of liked that aspect of the iphone i feel like i'm in a molting stage

where i'm slowly shedding my usb skin and it's being slowly replaced with usbc but there's still a little bit of usbc that's or usb rather that's kind of hanging on you know what i mean i'm like a snake or something i guess molting is more what birds do but like i've got like all these usb charging units that are around the house and of course some of the power outlets that i put in yeah that were usb they have oh that has a usb charger in it the future is now and but more and more my stuff is usbc and that of course will be the standard eventually on both sides because i

still think like what i'm seeing a lot of standardization going towards is like the i guess it's technically usba is the big traditional one i think oh is that what i didn't know that I'm pretty sure, yeah. I think I've had to look it up before. Might be wrong about that, but let's just say it's USB-A. I still find a lot of stuff that is like you plug the USB-A into the power side of things, whatever the power source is, and then USB-C into the device, you know. I will say, like, I told you I got this new computer a couple of weeks ago now that I've been using to replace my old Dell. And when I got my old Dell, which, again, is, I don't know, less than 10 years old, um when i bought that i was trying to buy something the complete opposite of what i had bought before i think i used the analogy when i was describing this last time is when you rent a

place and you realize you don't like about that a lot by the way since i said that yeah like i

didn't like the lawn i didn't like that there was no laundry in my old place so then you totally optimize the laundry situation in the next place you rent or whatever you just move into a lucy's laundromat yeah exactly then you're like you know what i miss the kitchen and then the next time you Just move into it.

a kitchen so that's why we have a vending machine my old uh so anyway the laptop that i've been using here for years and years to you know like do all of my production work on and to um play audio on the show and all that stuff my go-to laptop was a very small laptop because the one i had used before that was huge a huge gaming laptop and so i knew when i got my my dell whatever five ten years ago um that i had it was a big adjustment period like the screen is so small a lot of the various like editing programs and stuff i i use were much more difficult to to use and and various things about the small screen i loved how small it was how i could slip it into my backpack on a trip and like how unobtrusive it is like it really changed my life as far as its portability but i used it 95 of the time just sitting behind my desk plugged in you know i didn't take it on the road all that much when i did it was great so this new computer that i got is somewhere between the last two it's not as huge as the first big-ass gaming computer i got for video editing it's not as pocket-sized as that little dell um but you know it's a chunky 15 incher god just moving on keep going but one thing that i've sort of liked is and this might feel like turning back the clock to you luke is i keep discovering little things that oh now i have a kind of a decent sized laptop again i'm not constantly running a whole bunch of usb things into a usb converter if that makes sense to you my other laptop was so small and skinny that it was just it was just covered in dongles and like you know like it only had usbc inputs any of which could also be the power input but i still because i'm doing you know i am plugging in like i have literally i digitize vcr tape so i have like a some sort of vcr converter thing i have all of these um audio um kind of boxes that we use to digitize our analog audio gear like i have kind of a complicated setup here not to overstate it and i realized i really loved having my sleek little dell but 95 of the time i was dealing with the fact that i was using a way too small of a computer and when i got this new computer and i went to plug some things in and i'm like holy shit snacks i have ports for days i have usbc i have usba and i got a bunch of both of them and i'm just kind of like oh it's kind of nice to be back home you have usaa which is one of the main things that differentiates you from gronk don't tell gronk because i didn't serve So anyway, like, I just sort of feel like I'm just going back to being a basic C, which is a basic computer or whatever. Like, I kind of like I felt like a modern jet setter with my tiny little computer.

But honestly, you're daisy chaining this whole series of things because you don't have enough enough inputs in the computer. Yeah. You know, it's now I just.

Yeah. So now it was kind of nice to like roll back the clock and realize, oh, I can just plug in this USB thing here and that USB thing there.

I want to make a computer that's just the – it's that time of week, Andrew, where I forget the name of the roided up MLB player that we like John Goodwin to send us images of.

Oh, yeah. I can remember his name.

I'll call it Ladarius Conch Squatch. Lasteroid something or other. I want a computer that's lasteroided. It's just all ports. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. It's just ringed. Yeah. It barely functions for anything other than it's just got millions of inputs so that you can just do anything you need to do.

That's an awesome art project.

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, let's thank some dazzling donors. these folks are dazzling us with a donation of dough that is significant and is the financial lifeblood of the show i was in a big meeting yesterday with lots of very smart people trying to figure out you know how to and this wasn't john and i meeting behind your back andrew this is about a different project um that you know it's hard out there for a media production And as we were having these conversations and trying to plot a course and figure out how to, you know, how to stay solvent and things like things of that nature, crab rangoon and things of that nature. All I could think was, thank God for the tens, like Kathleen Halloran of Norman, Oklahoma, boomer sooner. Sooner rather than later. Uh-huh. Is that what they say? Sooner. I hardly knew her. Sooner. Sooner for what? Good. Oh, I like that. Just keep, we'll just keep doing these. Sooner for what? I'm assuming, I'm making a big assumption that Kathleen is an Oklahoma.

football fan being that she's when you assume you make an ass of you and me uh hi luke andrew and john i'm a recent listener december of 2019 well welcome kathleen a mere five years when tbtl was a pleasant break and i do enjoy the football talk after all i am a sooner fan i mean that was an educated guess, Andrew, I feel probably 99.9% of the people in Norman, that's where Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma is based. And I know that because I once went to the UW versus, I've told the story many times, but I went to a game at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, and it was the UW Huskies against the Oklahoma Sooners. And they were like, I think maybe the number one team in the country or very highly ranked. And the Huskies were back when they used to lose every game they literally had the huskies had an 0 and 12 season which is really hard to do in college football because the way big time college football works is you pay inferior opponents to come play you for your first few games and that so you always start out 2 and 0 because you played like lower mississippi valley school of dental hygienistry or something you know

you paid them but at this in this period was the u-dub the bottom of the the feeding

No, I mean, apparently we were, but we didn't know we were. In other words, we were still, if you look at that 0-12 season we had, I'm sure the first three games were still patsies. There were still teams that were brought in to lose to us, and we couldn't even beat those teams. That's rough.

That's the economics of college. Yeah, that's not a good use of money. Like, if you're spending a lot of money to bring in just, like, bait, just like throw worms into a pot of fish.

Exactly, and then the worm just sinks your boat.

Yeah, exactly.

But that year, I went to the game. My buddy Cotter, a.k.a. the colonel, his uncle had season tickets to the Sooners, and we went to the game, and I wore purple, and I had been having some beers, and the first play, I think, like, the first or second play from scrimmage, our tailback, I believe it was Lewis Rankin, ripped off, like, a 70-yard touchdown run, and it was 7-0 Huskies, And I taunted those Sooners fans like you wouldn't believe and then the Huskies lost like 65 to 7

And you're taunting as like the major underdog like I mean and I was like oh yeah I was like take that

Oh yeah like I was I was I thought I was about to witness a miracle And um it was not the case the miracle was not to be and it's amazing I got out of that stadium in one piece

I am really glad that you were not there with Danny O'Neill because I don't think that you guys would have survived. You would have fed into each other's rage.

And honestly, not a court in the land would have convicted the Sooners fans. I would have sided with the Sooners fans as they were pummeling me and Danny. Anyway, I guessed right with Kathleen.

I see your point! As they're just punching you in the head.

I know this community is very much animal lovers. I support Second Chance, a no-kill shelter here in Norman, Oklahoma. As a business owner, I do the roundup to meet card minimums if the customer wants to donate to that shelter in addition to cans. So it sounds like what Kathleen's got going on is if you're purchasing something and you're not meeting the minimum for the credit card charge, you can round up. But that rounding up, that goes to charity. I like that. Very smart. And then maybe there's cans, like a can you put some loose money in if you have that as well. Sounds like it's all going to second chance, a no-kill shelter. And I am very, um, I will tell you this, they get me with the, do you want to round up for charity thing? Like, it's very effective to me because of how little I value the idea of change, even the concept of it. I'm not going to get the change. Like for me, the saying I'm going to round up, it's like, well, what am I going to do with the 45 cents? But I was never going to have the 45 cents.

It was just digital.

It was just, like, it was, I mean, it is not theoretical in that it exists somewhere as, like, binary code, right? But, like, if I'm, you know, checking out of the store and, like, do you want to round up for, like, you know, St. Jude's, I'm like, hell yeah, I do. I've done my good deed for the day, sir.

Yeah, but a no-kill shelter, can you get behind that? I mean, as a cause to support, it's kind of controversial. But on the other hand. Saving cute animals. That's right. Yeah, yeah, no, it's a great cause.

so everybody um we don't know what kathleen's business is but um kathleen tell everyone on facebook or something what your business is so they can people can visit it and then round up to support second chance no kill shelter in norman oklahoma kathleen says uh support your local shelter and if you are a business owner consider this option yeah i mean i don't want

to over complicate things here but kathleen you mentioned that you're a you're a business owner and you're and you're using your dazzling donor message to kind of bring attention to this

Thank you.

great cause second chance the no kill shelter so i'll say it again but also like if you like the tens to i don't know what your business is but if we can support you in any way if you want to email me and just say that you're today's dazzling donor and this is what your business is we can give you a shout out maybe and and you know a dazzling donor message later on this week because it's nice that you know tens like to show up for tens absolutely kathleen thank you for supporting

tbtl now tbtl wants to return the favor so let us know maestro on your mark on your mark get set

Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody rattle, dattle.

Hey, look who it is. It's Mike Mead. Hey, hey. Of West Lynn, Oregon. If you hit East Lynn, you've gone too far.

Mike, and I don't know if you know this, Luke.

It's my Scottish accent coming through. I apologize. If you hit East Lynn.

It's your Albanian accent coming through. Mike was the official, not scorekeeper, but tally-er of the Song of the Summer contest. I believe the last one that we did at Chateau Saint-Michel. Remember, we counted it up and announced it at the event.

Was that like Lizzo won or something?

I feel like it might have been that year. It might have been around 2015 or something like that. Mike, because Mike is an accountant, and he said, hey, I'm the, he was like, he was our own personal PricewaterhouseCoopers, is what I'm trying to say, yeah.

Well, what had happened is, he had already gotten accidentally handcuffed to a briefcase.

Exactly.

So he figured, let's make it a feature, not a bug.

Exactly, yeah, it's a good look, though.

And so he went to accounting school, became an accountant.

Just a whole bunch of people there, kind of glumly carrying briefcases. Everyone's just handcuffed to a briefcase.

I figured, why not make some lemonade out of these lemons. Mike, thank you for your help on the Song of the Summer. I don't know if this is as good a time as any to announce this, Andrew, but it's come up in conversation. Right now, people have asked us, why aren't you doing another Song of the Summer? And the issue is copyright for us. It was such a fun TBTL tradition, but the internet and the various portals that we use have gotten very, very adept at flagging our content if we play a song that we don't technically have the rights to. And I don't know if you have Dua Lipa money, Andrew, but I don't. No. And so we would love to do a song in the summer contest, but the issue is that every show where we played any music from the various kind of competitors would be taken down from everywhere, and then you wouldn't really be able to hear it.

I mean, the best option that you've come up with is that I do a scat version of every song that is submitted, which I'm working on. Skiddy bop bop bop. Yeah. That's all I got so far. That was a song called Skiddy bop bop bop. By Dua Lipa. By Dua Lipa. Oh, you're familiar.

Mike says, first, let me start with a short story. Many years ago, there was a website called Twitter. One day, I happened across one of my aunt's profiles on Twitter and saw that she only followed two people. I think one was Barack Obama, and the other was definitely Luke.

Oh, nice. I'd vote for Luke a third time if I could.

This led to many text conversations between my cousin, Hanley, and I about her mom knowing who Luke was and what a TBTL is and how Hanley is an occasional listener herself. Fast forward to 2024. That same cousin, Hanley Mead, and her business partner, Madison Scribner, are opening Respite. Or would you go with respite or respite?

No, no, respite there, I think

A wine bar and bottle shop On Stone Way in Ballard

Oh, no, in Wallingford In Stone Way in Wallingford

Who looks at the word Wallingford, Andrew And says Ballard?

I don't know, in Stone I don't think Even goes through Ballard Oh wow, that makes no sense

It's in Wallingford

I want to check this out One of my favorite pot shops is on Stone Way in Wallingford So the next time I'm there.

That is not run by Madison Scribner and Henry Mead.

It's actually a very nice little shop. But, oh, this is a cool area. This is where Stoneway Hardware used to be. Yeah, I love this area. This is great. I want to check this out.

I'm looking at their website. Are you kidding me?

Wait, I want to look.

They've got a wine club. It's all happening. Look at this. This looks amazing. Respite Wine Bar and Bottle Shop in Wallingford, a.k.a. Ballard, on Stoneway. It's just north of 41st Street, and very soon, pending some pesky permits and construction completion, Respite will feature sustainable wines, delicious food, and much more. You can go to respitebottleshop.com to get on their mailing list. So it sounds like this is actually in production right now.

Okay, gotcha. I was trying to figure out if I've passed this place, but I don't think so. It's slightly more north than I was picturing, but I definitely know this area, and I love this area. I kind of miss living.

I know right where it is. it's very close to the

What is going on with my Seattle locations, Andrew? It's very close to the Wallingford Boys and Girls Club on 45th, where I used to play summer basketball. And we would play on a Thursday afternoon, but they had had bingo in the gym the night before, and there would be cigarette smoke still coming down at least 10 feet from the ceiling. There would be a cloud of trapped cigarette smoke in the Wallingford Boys and Girls Club gym.

Well, that's good, as long as you're getting your exercise. That's the important thing. I think so. 40th. Let's just do this. I love doing this. I love messing this up. I love destroying people's dazzling donor messages with just hyper.

I'm already the one who mislocated this entire this entire project as being in Ballard when it's very much in Wallingford.

So 40th in Wallingford. I'm sorry. 40th in Stoneway is where that Pagliacci pizza is. Can you picture that? Yes. Yes. So this is 41st, right? So it's just one block north of that. Where's Archie McPhee? Archie McPhee is 45th. 45th. That's definitely 45th, yeah, and that's where the QFC is up there, yeah. Thank God we got to the bottom of that. You still got it, you still got it, herbs!

Lauren Langley Puddle and I hope to see more 10s there. Oh, this is Mike of the Langley and Puddle family. Oh, certainly. So, I see, there's this respite bottle shop thing is all, you know, it's all connected. It's all interconnected to TBTL life in one way or another. Also, I think this is the first time learning that Puddle does not have

an S on their name. It's not the first time. it's been brought up many times it's the it's the first time the first time remembering it

did i say this last time this came up is puddle puddle is like the nordstrom of people that are named puddle it's like you don't want to put that extra s on there that you don't that you don't need to it's like if people really know they say puddle but if they don't they kind of call they

call puddle pike's place market exactly this just came up on the show i don't think it was yesterday so it might have been late last week i said that's one of the that's one of the local things here in the Pacific Northwest or maybe Seattle specifically Nordstrom is not Nordstrom's Pike place is not Pike's place. And then just earlier in the show, I think I put, it wasn't Bartel drugs. I know that one is sort of, that's in between because they sort of started adding S's and then Rite Aid bought them and then put them out of business. It is Rite Aid's though. It is Rite Aid is what it is. Anyway, I did think of another one. If I think of it later, I'll, I'll throw it in.

Well, Puddle, that's the other one. It goes Nordstrom Pike place and Puddle. puddle exactly and respitebottleshop.com go check them out and thanks mike for all your help and support hello and welcome to top story all right what did you think of hitman oh um sorry i thought

you're gonna talk and i was just gonna read my twitter for a while i don't actually even have twitter um i here's the deal i went in to see hitman you mentioned it because you said you heard uh an interview on the uh new york times yeah interview the show is called the interview i believe marchese sexy cool is that the name is that his name andrew we all have our own

fred schneiders okay we all have our own way to remember david marchese's last name i like

it is david marchese and i said marchese didn't i so i still got it wrong but marchese sexy cool is a pretty good spoof dude but anyway you were listening to an interview with the director Richard Linklater about his his new film and I didn't know that he had a new film and I don't have to reiterate everything we said on yesterday's show but he's got a pretty broad body of work as a director and he's one of those directors who when I hear he has a new movie I'm like oh yeah well I should check it out because generally speaking I like his stuff but it's not like I mean I think Wes Anderson would be the polar opposite of this whereas like you know exactly what you're going to get when you go into a wes anderson movie i mean some are better than others but they're just like he has a very specific style that he is just leaning further and further and further into um whereas richard linklander makes various kinds of films you know we were talking yesterday about sort of the he's got a couple like a scanner darkly which are very like kind of arty and dark with that integrate animation he messed around with that as a storytelling device he's done these like epically long things like boyhood that literally takes him a couple of decades to make because you literally see this actor grow up sort of not in real time but I think people are familiar with the concept of boyhood and you said he's working on another like 17 year long project like that now I never saw which by the way is not Sondheim I think I thought it was oh

no it is Sondheim I guess the music is by Sondheim and okay maybe the the script is by somebody else

but yes merrily we roll along so you know he's got various reputations he's got like kind of like his early stuff of being like slacker which was like very low budget like early art movie kind of thing um and so it's hard to say exactly what he does one thing that I almost mentioned to you in that conversation yesterday was a movie that I thought it was a bit of an outlier for him but I think you've seen it called Bernie with Jack Black and it's like based And...

based on a true story or some events you know we got to be careful now after after baby reindeer but like it's sort of based on a true story and it's like it's a different tone it's like kind of dark comedy based in in link letter is based in texas right he's an austin guy so that's another cool thing about his movies is you have this through line of them being either kind of texas or new orleans based stories which you don't get tons of in in modern cinema and so i would say this movie is much like Bernie which is it's kind of a dark comedy kind of this would be considered like kind of a comedy action film I think um but like it's it's not like an intense love story like I assume before sunrises or after so I haven't seen any of that trilogy but during sunrise during that's the middle film post post sunny day um what you know like it's not a super intense movie like that it's much more kind of palatable i would say for sort of a broader audience and i will say when i sat down in that theater and the lights went down luke and you could hear the click click click of the projector that is being operated from a satellite somewhere um right i literally had

zero idea somehow feels good in a place like this this has happened to me several times over the

past year or so and I love this experience all I knew was I was going in to watch a Richard Linklater film that was only going to be in theaters for a little bit I think before it bounces to Netflix next week and so I was like oh I think it's only playing in theaters for like three or four days this week I could go watch this movie I go get my work done go to the gym and then go see a matinee of this because I'll never watch it if it's just on Netflix so I was like oh this is perfect and it wasn't until I'm sitting in the seat that I'm just like this could like the credits could you know the opening credits could be in black and white it could be an arty film I know nothing about this other than that you told me Richard Linklater's got a new movie I was like that's weird that I'm I have no idea what I'm about to see so I gotta say I was very pleasantly it's a very fun thing not to even know the the broadest of strokes of what the tone is going to be or what the plot is going to be which I actually still don't either

truthfully i mean i know it's about a hitman and he takes on numerous identities that's sort of i don't know i don't know anything about about the like the look the style the feel if it's a comedy

or anything and i am somebody who's pretty sensitive to spoilers so i think the listeners can trust me that i'm not going to spoil anything but basically i will give you what like the the two-line plot synopsis would be in um in imdb or something so i don't think this would be spoiler territory but um essentially the butler did it i mean it is incredible when you get to the end And it turns out that you're just like, I never saw it coming that I didn't take. I mean, no, essentially, it's the story of a pretty unassuming man who's like a college professor, but also does some tinkering side work for the police. You really have to. It's apparently, again, based loosely on a true story and a real character. But you I immediately had to really suspend a lot of disbelief as far as characters, motivations and how even the very the even the very basic setup of this. But it's this kind of an unassuming college professor who does some side work for the New Orleans Police Department, helping them with the technology that they use to bug people and incriminate people. OK. And so he's just more of a kind of a techie guy. It's never really explained how he got this gig or why he does it, but mostly he helps bug people who go in and try to get people like suspects to incriminate themselves in hiring a hitman.

So, in other words, if like, you know, I see things are bad who Google hitman Portland, right?

Well, they're on the freeway like you did. So, like, if I had an enemy in my life and I'm looking to off that person, I might find a hitman. But then, you know, the New Orleans police find out about it. So they send in an undercover cop who's bugged. And then, you know, you get you get them to admit it on tape. And then there you have it. Well, can I just say something up getting real quickly?

And I don't want to I don't want to be pro crime or pro getting away with it or pro not being arrested if you have nefarious intentions. But just a word to the wise. It's always a gun, an undercover agent. they're always wearing the wire if you think you're hiring a hitman i promise you it is an undercover police officer pretending to be a hitman like every true crime story about someone who tries to hire a hitman is but it was actually the police like i don't know if i mean i don't want again i don't want to give people advice on how to avoid detection i would just say don't try

to have anyone killed well definitely no i mean do you um i mean this is dark but i mean clearly LASIK, like King LASIK, that was a real one, wasn't it?

That was a real one. And guess what? It was a cop. It was? It was a cop. Oh, I thought, no, I thought there was an actual murder. No, no, no. It was stopped. The guy who wanted to do it. It was? Oh, I was using this argument. Yeah, McEvick. Oh, okay. No, McEvick's in jail. So it was King, it used to be called King and McEvick, like Lasik. And the guy McEvick decided that he wanted to off his partner, King, who's still there. And he hired someone. He thought he was hiring someone. I don't know if the guy was a cop or just telling the police what was going on, but he basically laid out this whole plan to have his business partner killed while I believe Makovic was in Europe traveling.

Oh, so King was the target of this. I didn't realize that. King was the target. Oh, geez. And go off, King. Well, you are right. I tried to throw one example in your face of an actual hit that went there.

Don't mess with me on true crime, bro.

Especially when it comes to, again, hyper-local news stories.

When it comes to people who buy a lot of advertising on Kyra Radio.

Kyra Radio, exactly. Oh, OK, well, actually, that makes me I thought I mean, that's still a very dark story. But I always thought that there was some real tragedy that went along with it, whereas they were able to stop that. And it was just a plot that didn't go through. OK, you're right. All right. Looks right again.

OK, clearly lays it co-founder gets 20 years sentence for murder for hire plot.

So, yeah, I was just looking at that, too. So anyway, this story is about this guy, this professor, who helps the police just with the technology around this, but then ends up getting thrown more directly into the action and has to pretend to be a hitman himself. That's the broad plot of this movie. There are a lot of twists and turns to it. It's one of those where I really enjoyed watching it. Would you say more twists than a bag of pretzels? That's exactly what I would say. And then you would be incredulous, and then I would go to idioms.com.

And I would find out that Walt knows what's going on.

yeah um but uh so i did enjoy it like i say even at the very beginning i had to be like really like i really had to i really had to kind of stretch my disbelief a little bit and be like okay does this go with it like some of them and then later on i'm thinking about the movie i'm like wait a second that person that person did that but would that person really do that like there's you know you can't take it too seriously essentially i think link letter would say maybe in those instances lean into the more comedy aspects of this but the two um the two leads oh one other quick thing that i thought was interesting i didn't know until the end that it said based on an article from texas monthly of course you and so was the i'm sure bernie was based bernie was as well yes and i always think of that because i didn't know about texas monthly until i think our friend bobby right long time listener of tbtl as a sort of quasi prank signed me up for a subscription to texas monthly but it was like don't throw me in that briar patch like it turns out i loved texas

monthly oh man texas monthly is spectacular like yeah it's and it's anomalous too like it i i don't know what their funding situation is but they seem to be you know sort of holding it together i think just because the work that they do is so well respected i mean it's so hard to make it in the journalism game and texas monthly appears to be thriving they do really good stuff they re i mean

just incredible feature writing. And so a lot of things are based on, in fact, Lion King. I'm sorry, Lion, not the Lion King, Tiger King. Did you know that the Lion King and the Little Mermaid are both based on Texas Monthly articles? Texas Monthly articles. Yes, it's a true story. But anyway, so that was just a little dazzling detail I wanted to throw in there. And again, sort of-

When Rafiki raised Simba up in front of the town, it was only the beginning of a sordid tale. that involved murder for hire undercover agents and a town's beloved mortician

so um if you know the movie bernie it's sort of in the style of that kind of funny kind of dark kind of actiony but the last thing that i want to mention about it was i was unfamiliar with the two people who play the leads and one of their names the guy who is the main character yes now I was unfamiliar with him I think our listeners will be familiar with him so it won't be a shock to them but the whole time I'm watching this and I'm thinking when I describe this to people I'm gonna have to say this guy is like a handsome Tom Cruise and I'm not saying that to diss Tom Cruise I'm saying that obviously Tom Cruise especially like you throughout the like 90s whatever like the handsomest man in the world or whatever right and uh or or you know or so some magazines would say tom cruise not short in the good looks department but short in the shortness department um but this guy is like tom cruise only built like you know i mean he's like he's just in such good shape his face is super handsome in the face area as genevieve would say um but then also he's

sort of doing these are all things that have been used to describe me yeah yes exactly i mean by me

on my tinder bio and so it's a little bit tough when he's supposed to be this unassuming this unassuming professor guy but then he

just takes off his glasses and then by the end of the movie he's just abandoned his glasses because he's a handsome man they're like well still i've abandoned my glasses he's still i've abandoned my glasses my daniel plane view impression do you not have eye issues anymore because well whatever but it is like we went to king lasik he was really he's really good in it he's incredibly handsome and i didn't realize that he's in that top gun movie so i don't know but if he if he was studying too close to Tom Cruise because he's it's almost like he's doing a Tom the way he smiles and winces and like does all this stuff it's very Tom Cruise I didn't hate it again I mean he kind of smolders as does the woman who you know plays the the the I guess the secondary character the the lead love interest to him and her name I need to look up I don't know if you can look it up on the fly but she um was not somebody i was familiar with and they have a lot of chemistry it gets it gets i'm gonna say this it gets pretty horny at times i was a little shocked about it's pretty also terms that have been used to describe tbtl is it adria or jonah yes yes and she's maddie masters she's really good in it and they really have chemistry and so i would say they really smolder it's a it's a good watch but i'm saying this maybe self-consciously to you luke as somebody who i think really likes verisimilitude in movies i think you might have some issues with some some leaps of faith that you're gonna have to take as the viewer as far as what somebody's motivation would be or you know if everything sort of sketches out in the end i really appreciate

the heads up that's i still want to see it but that's a good good thing for me to know going in So I will, I will, I'll, I'll go in with my eyes open so that, so that I don't get turned off by some, some sort of like things that maybe strike, you said strain credulity a bit. Now, here's the thing about Glenn Powell. He was in the Top Gun Maverick movie along with Tom Cruise. He is a licensed pilot. Oh, why do you think he's a licensed pilot? Andrew, Tom Cruise, his co-star in Top Gun Maverick paid for him to attend flight school. Yes, he does all of his own stunts. not only does he do all of his own stunts he does a make a wish so that all the people he works with can do their own stunts

especially the people who look like young hot versions of him yes that's right you want to be the next Tom Cruise

yeah if you do I will send you to flight school so you also can start doing stuff that we really don't need you to do

right exactly but I mean honestly from just a like if you like to look at at handsome men this movie is certainly for you I like to look at handsome men yeah no it is definitely um it's sort of uh yeah anyway it's a it's a it's a pretty good watch again i wasn't sure if i was going in for like a really intense sort of more artful movie or arty movie or whatever it was going to be so um uh i think i may may have benefited from the sense oh one personal thing here is i'm a man of a certain age and a man of a certain thirst and so i always get like a really huge soda when I'm there or something. Did you get a slice while you were there? No, we should transition into that. I got a root beer. This was a Regal Cinema, Luke. Oh, I wanted to tell you. They removed all the self-ticket. They used to have kiosks. Didn't you mention the other day like... Got it. That root beer. Didn't you mention the other day like why do they even have people behind the glass with one of those squawky little boxes anymore?

I noted that they didn't have that person when Becca and I went to see uh the fall guy oh and and we just had to go to the concession stand and buy our tickets there and i said i don't think that the um i don't think the person and the squawky box is long for this

world it's as far as it being a job at thornton place here in my neck of the woods they seem to be leaning into that because they used to have like three or four um like kiosks where you could buy your seats from the robot and then like one person behind the glass they've gotten rid of all the kiosks for some reason you you have to interact with a person now um uh but all of that is to say i uh got myself a large soda i had just been to the gym so i'd probably drinking a whole thing of water or whatever and about i'm gonna say two-thirds of the way or three-quarters through the movie i was like i can't hold this anymore i need to take a quick bathroom break i've done that a million times during movies i never feel like i really lose the thread you just have to sort of get a sense of a low point in the storyline and you come back and you can figure it out pretty quickly I left during a I'm still not exactly sure what happened like I it's pretty clear what happened by the end but like I left it's such a critical part something happens to a character that I always came back and for the first time in my life I'm like oh shit like I don't wait what happened to that person and what I still don't know what the I don't know.

what the movie's perspective is as to something that happened like critically to a character.

It's like leaving the sixth sense when you realize Bruce Willis has been dead the whole film.

Do you know that I've only seen the end of that movie and it was in a theater? It was in a drive-in theater.

Were you making out for the rest of the film?

No, it was just...

Canoodling?

It was me and a few buds. I'm trying to think. We might even... Only because when you're going to a drive-in theater and you're a teenager, you have to sneak somebody in. I feel like we might have even snuck somebody into the trunk or something, but no, it was a few buds, but we were there to see a different movie, but we pulled in, and The Sixth Sense was just ending, and so we all saw the end of The Sixth Sense.

It's actually a very, I think it's a very well done movie, and if you didn't have that experience, and if you saw it at the time, it was a pretty big mind blower, although Nate Bargetzi, the great comedian, has a bit about The Sixth Sense, so you understand roughly the plot, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Napar Getze says that what he finds interesting about that film, because you have Bruce Willis just existing in the world, but like, you know, his wife, like, isn't talking to him or whatever, but he's in rooms with her and stuff, and it's because, of course, he's like a ghost or whatever. He's been dead the whole film. Napar Getze said, it's interesting to think that it's more plausible that his wife just didn't talk to him for the whole movie than that he was dead. Like, basically, he was just in kind of an argument with his wife for the whole film. you know and then she was kind of giving him the silent treatment essentially like that's it's premised on this idea that if you've ever been married you can probably relate to this right regardless of you know what your gender might be that if you've been married or in a serious relationship it's conceivable to you that there might be two hours where someone is totally ignoring the other person yeah right because of an argument about what route you took to get home

from somewhere or just tilting your head in a certain way that you take as a response sort of

right give you that's like more plausible than he's like the way you pull off that he's been dead the whole time is that people know that there are times in your life where you're just not talking to your partner um but um that's funny that you've only seen the end of that film but you so you basically missed some critical moment of hitman i did but i mean i was able to

figure out there were a few a few minutes when i got back that was really panicky because i knew something happened this character but i didn't know exactly how it happened and so and that was going to be critical but it was it eventually was spelled out to me in a way that i was able to understand the rest of the movie but i still when it comes out on netflix in a few days here i probably will go and just see how it's revealed to the audience what is revealed because i still have some um i still have some questions about that by the way and i'm trying to google this on the fly i'm gonna mess this up so bad but of all the drake lamar um uh-huh are you know the the diss tracking and the beef and everything yeah you must be familiar with the um with the the dazzling detail that Lamar messed up some Haley. He messes up Haley, Joel Osment and,

he does. Oh, Kendrick Lamar has a, uh, has a typo in his diss track of Drake that involves Haley, Joe Osment, uh, the, six kids, uh, with Joel Osteen.

He literally,

the mega pastor from Texas.

So he was, they were,

they were trading the Haley, Joe Osteen. That's an interesting mashup character.

Oh, wait, what did it? Yeah, right, No, right. I'm saying, a combination of those two people so the what were the i'm looking for the lyrics here and if

i can even read them um i want to mention that joel osteen is the guy from this big mega church in texas who would not let people during a storm stay in the church but you know who did mattress mac who had all the furniture stores was letting people stay in the furniture stores in the furniture right right right you know which i try to remember every time every time mattress mac is betting $12 million on the Astros to beat the Mariners. I try to remember he was also the guy who let people sleep in the Lazy Boys at his store where Joel Osteen, who is supposed to be living a Christ-like life, was like, no thanks, nobody come stay at our church, please. Because that's not what Jesus would do. Jesus would never let displaced people stay in the church.

That's not what he's about. They might breathe on the electric guitars. The line was, and I'll clean this up a little bit, see if this will make sense. am i battling ghost or ai feeling like joel austeen funny he was in a film called ai and my sixth sense telling me to off him so like it's violent um but but that's such a funny mess up and like everybody acknowledges that kendrick lamar like you know basically one quote one and basically the whole thing i mean kind of died down and he just released these really long intricate you know hard-hitting diss tracks and it's like when you think about the just like all of the references and all the lyrics like this would happen at some point and when you're not doing it like through like a record label or you don't have a big editing process and you're just like doing this and getting out as fast as possible to try to instill shame in drake

It's a, you know, honorable thing to do. Yeah, you're going to get one Joel Osteen instead of Haley Joel Osment, which is just such a weird, but it's there. He didn't go back. He didn't change it. It's just sitting in there like forever, just like a misplaced Osteen took astray.

I love that because it makes Kendrick Lamar very relatable to me as the co-host of the podcast because we do this constantly, constantly. I'm always, you know, you know, attributing something to the wrong person or misremembering something or whatever. It's just it's constant. I'd like to know that it can even happen to the great Kendrick Lamar.

If anything ever happens to you, he's my number one go to for a fill in replacement for you.

Well, Andrew, fast forward, I don't know, a year or two at the theater. you might have been able to drink a slice because the soft drink from the, the PepsiCo soft drink from the 1980s and nineties and barely into the two thousands is coming back. But now it's a, it's been a purchase. The rights to make slice have been purchased by this company, Suja who I don't know if you, you probably don't go in for this stuff, but I actually drink a fair amount of their stuff. They make like those, you know those kind of like fancy juices and things that have a lot of turmeric and ginger in them and things um but you can buy them it's pre-bottled it's not like you go to a juice shop and they make them fresh they're like in the bottle in the grocery store they're prohibitively expensive but i still buy them a lot because i really like them that company has acquired the the rights basically the like the the trademark i guess or the the the name and likeness of slice so they can make that product. I thought it was kind of interesting that someone else, some company that's not Pepsi, owned the rights to Slice in the interim.

Why? Why? Like, why this matchup? Like, I could see if you were somebody like, you know, if you were a company or a person like me who has some nostalgia and misses the old soda, you're going to bring back the old soda. But there seems like such a huge gap between what suja life does and and slice like well it's actually well it for students of history

for students of slice history and andrew as we always say on the show if you forget your slice history you're doomed to repeat it um slice's whole thing in the 80s was it had real fruit juice in it oh that was the sales pitch i didn't know this either i'm this is according to their Wikipedia page. This is what I found very interesting about it. Slice was rolled out by Pepsi in 1984 as a replacement for something called Team T-E-E-M and it was a competitor to Sprite and 7-Up. Its distinguishing characteristic at the time was that it contained 10% fruit juice. Oh, I did not

remember that at all. I'll bet you if I go back and watch old commercials, I'll realize that.

Then in 1986, they expanded with mandarin orange apple and cherry cola flavors. I feel like for our generation, Andrew, the mandarin orange An orange slice.

Yeah, orange slice. What would you like? An orange slice. Oh, God.

There was nothing more refreshing than an orange slice. But their whole thing was they had real juice. And then over time, they took out the real juice, which seemed to have been a bad idea. Let's see. By May 1987, Slice was a big success upon release, inspiring other juice-infused drinks based on already existing juice brands, such as Coca-Cola's Minute Maid Orange Soda and Cadbury Schweppes Sunkist. By May 1987, Slice held 3.2% of the soft drink market. That's pretty significant. Slice was 3.2% of the entire soda market in 1987. One year later, it had fallen to 2.1% and was below 2% by June of 1988. By 1988, the juice content had been reduced. The packaging now just said, with fruit juice, instead of 10% fruit juice. And the slogan was changed to Either you got it or you don't Which is weird because it seems like They're telling on themselves about the fact that they don't Got as much fruit juice in there

Parathetically, we don't

By 1990 the packaging had been Redesigned and the juice content dropped entirely The line of flavors was also Expanded again To try to compete with Crush And then, let's see By the summer of 2000 Lemon Line Slice was replaced in most Market by Sierra Mist which became a national brand in 2003. The rest of the Slice line was replaced in most markets by Tropicana Twister Soda in the summer of 2005. So from a significant portion of the entire marketplace in 1987 to an afterthought by 2005, but what I find also fascinating is that a company called New Slice Ventures, LLC, bought the trademark to Slice in 2018. What did they know? You film firm and also found an entire LLC around buying the trademark to Slice because you're like, there's got to be some value in this.

And you do it in 2018, which is a long time since it sunsetted. Like, they saw something.

Like, it's just crazy to me that this company was like, you know what, we should really corner the market on the trademark for Slice. And then they were right, apparently, because this Suja company came and bought them. Now, here's the thing, though. I don't think anyone remembers that the thing about Slice was it had real juice in it.

I didn't remember that at all.

So the idea that the Suja company is going to reboot Slice, but it's going to be healthier, it's going to have more real juice. And I said probiotics earlier. I don't actually know if that's the case. Don't hold me to that. But basically, it's going to be a healthier version of what was Slice. But there was nothing healthy about Orange Slice, and that was what was great about it. I don't really understand who the market, who the consumer is of this new healthier version of something. And that's greatest thing was it was very unhealthy back in the day.

Yeah, something seems off about this. I'm not looking for a conspiracy theory, but I can't wrap my head around it. Because like you said, I looked up Suja when you said that the bottles are pretty recognizable. And it's like they have their own thing going on. You know, it doesn't make sense to me. Like, I think over Suja for what? Oh, shit. That's such a good show title. I have to erase Marquesi Sexy Cool, I guess.

Oh, I don't know. Marquee Sexy Cool is pretty good, too, though.

I don't know. This is a tough one.

I'll just say Suja for what tomorrow, okay?

Yeah, make sure you do that.

I'll introduce it into the conversation, apropos of nothing.

The very first words out of your mouth. I just kind of don't get it. They have their own branding going, oh, I was going to say Bed Bath & Beyond. That's a brand that runs into a lot of trouble, but it's like a really good brand for decades here in the United States.

I did buy something from Bed Bath & Beyond recently, by the way.

Because Overstock bought them, right? And that sort of made sense. Like, Overstock, it's like, we're already here. We're already sort of in the space. Let's buy it. In a certain way, it's kind of like Max, like kind of including an HBO tab. I mean, that's a little bit of a clunky parallel there. But, like, you can sort of understand how these branding things sort of weave in and out. But I don't understand why Suja is like, nobody really remembers Slice. And they certainly, I mean, people remember Slice of our generation.

but like they don't associate it with that that idea that it ever contained any kind of real fruit juice like that's so weird to me that's not the selling point like why is that and also it seems off brand for suja yeah that's what i mean it doesn't you know because it's all healthy and they're in those you know little kind of squarish bottles and like again i if i'm drinking one of those it's because i think i'm kind of healthifying myself in a way and that's yeah and that's not what anyone's any kid's memory of a slice on a hot summer day an orange slice it was not like Did you know this contains juice, Andrew? Do you know either you got it or you don't?

I don't. For a while there, when I was in L.A., maybe it was just because, like, the weather, it made me... I don't know. My eating habits changed in L.A. a little bit. I mean, a little bit. I do remember leaving after every...

You started going to Erewhon a lot.

Well, do you remember I used to tell you how I'd eat those super sad meatball sandwiches at the subway, like, after an episode of press play? And I just like I'm self-loathing and hating myself and hungry. And so I'd go to this subway that was just packed with all of the Pasadena students, community college students, you know, in in in Los Angeles. And Santa Monica, rather. And and I'm just like, whatever, it's like middle aged man, just like crying into his meatball sandwich surrounded by beauty. um but uh what was it oh but for a while there i got in the habit of drinking like kind of like those hearty juices in the morning like they they come in a bottle that look like suja but it's not suja if i showed you one of these you've seen that odwala yeah

odwala or odwala yeah yeah i think it might have technically been i only learned it was odwala because there was a big odwala i always called it odwala but there was a um an e coli uh sort of situation with them where somebody got sick in the Northwest. And then that was when we all learned that it was Odwalla,

not Adwalla. Oh. And you know, they have some that are like juices that have like, you know, like the kind of the green juices that are mostly made from vegetables or whatever. But then I think I was just drinking fruit ones anyway. Like I'm looking at mango tango here and various things. And like, I don't know if I entered this thinking I'm doing something more healthy for myself. I must have thought it was relatively healthy. But like looking back, and I even think of my friend Matt at the time even said like a lot of sugar in those and like he wasn't some sort of fitness guy I don't think he was trying to shame me he just sort of like noted it sort of I'm just like oh yeah what am I doing I'm just drinking like really intense orange juice right now I think there are healthier ones you can buy but I wasn't drinking them I think I got a couple of the green ones and I was like not for me Thank you.

Yeah, the when I was like a kid, I mean first of all those odd wallows or odwallows or however the heck you say it They were not cheap like in for sort of kid Finances, so it would be the thing like if a kid had brought one to school. God, where did you get seven dollars? They go back that far. I didn't realize that. Oh, yeah, and and they used to have this one that was strawberry and banana Which was just like unbelievably delicious because it was you know just a mix of really sugary and fruity delicious things but i remember the odd wall of strawberry and banana like i just thought like man if i like save my allowance for three weeks i could get one of those yeah right like i remember maybe like linda shea giving me one one of these kids that like her dad sam shea owned a donut shop on aurora um actually not super far from actually across from the sprouts what's now the sprouts which used to be kmart yeah yeah there's a donut shop there and he used to own that and so anyway they were doing pretty well the shays and i think one time she had like an extra one and gave it to to me and i was like this is gold i'm gonna really savor this but yeah i don't think i don't think there's a strong argument that it's it's health food necessarily i'm looking this up because i

saw that i saw a headline that says coca-cola is shutting down odwala juice so odwala still or odwala what is it odwala i don't know i've i've i'm going back and forth let's go with i've muddied the waters here i swear odwala was a 90s alternative band that you need you're thinking

kind of dish walla but sure tell me all your thoughts on god because i'd really like to meet

her unicorn again dish walla but i was trying to figure out oh what is so at some point coca-cola must have bought or distributed uh walla juices or whatever but it seems to still exist but i'm on i'm on the wikipedia page the reason i'm laughing is i said because it was founded by three jazz musicians no i'm laughing because i mentioned that it had to be like one time i think my buddy matt went by was like oh those have pretty high sugar i'm like oh what an interest it just stuck in my head that he said that and i started thinking oh yeah what am i doing this isn't healthy and i happen to be on a paragraph like deep into this wikipedia article odwala's sugar content could be even higher than coca-cola's for example odwala's mango tango the one that i just referenced mango tango had 3.67 grams of sugar per ounce almost one full teaspoon one full teaspoon of sugar in every ounce of juice in other words i don't i think that matt probably had just been reading about this or something when he came by and tapped it on my desk because again you you know Matt who I'm talking about he was not a body shamer in any way so anyway this sort of interesting that I was probably like well I'm in LA I'll just have a I'll just have one of these bottles of fancy juice in the morning and I should have been drinking an uh I should have been drinking a

monster energy drink it would have been better for me I'm just looking at the um kind of origin story of this on the internet and it says founded in Santa Cruz by three jazz musicians which is also not how i expected this juice company to have been no me neither i mean and ours there

are they any good the art ensemble of chicago with the jazz group i guess i saw water we got

we got to get out of here i'm sorry but we i we are we did like a literally an hour show before the show we were talking you and i just chopping it up and then we're doing a show and we've got some other recording to do as well today but i saw this i saw like a sticker on a water bottle in a car yesterday that I can't get out of my head and it's something, like, the sticker was something like jazz without boundaries. And I just thought, if there's anything that has been unbounded in its existence, it's jazz. Are we pushing back against the overly rigid form of jazz? I believe we are. What does jazz without boundaries mean? Can I get a bumper to say, keep your laws off my jazz? Keep your laws off my boundaries. What? Like, jazz without... It's jazz without boundaries. Like, I can't think of anything that historically has been less bounded than the art form of jazz. It's like what it's known for. I'm with you. Okay, good. I just had to get that out of my system. All right. I guess that's going to wrap things up here on this Tuesday. I want to thank everyone for listening, and I want to encourage you to join us tomorrow for another edition of TBTL. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourselves. Go Mariners. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Hi, my name is Puddle, and I have something to tell you. No mountains too tall, no humans too small. Thank you.

Power out.