Muse

Hey, it's Krusty the Pizza Man! Alright, where's my 400 bucks? Hey, wait. How can you be here when your show's on live? Ah, I just threw on an old rerun. No one will know the difference. Children, remain calm. The Falkland Islands have just been invaded. I repeat, the Falklands have just been invaded! invaded guess what day it is guess what day it is it's Friday Friday gonna get down on Friday everybody's looking forward to the weekend well my friends are just beside themselves and I'm

gonna get to work with the co-bro oh god no please just just co-bro sure why not jokes do some okay what makes you laugh comedy obviously and sometimes tragedy light tragedy erectile dysfunction non-fatal hunting accidents waving at someone you think you know but turned

out to be a stranger that sort of thing go all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a friday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live come on to the coast we'll get together have a few laughs my name is luke burbank i am your host i'll say what's up dope coming to you from the madrona hill studio perched high above the mighty columbia

where we're looking at another fairly beautiful day oh ma pa it's just beautiful apologies once

again for the voice i don't know why as a person who apparently has very intense grass pollen allergies i decided to move to a little house on the prairie perched high above the mighty columbia because once again i'm dealing with uh that so uh sorry if my voice sounds pretty uh affected my sleep was very affected i give a rant to waking up at midnight so congested that you can't even lie fully flat because you worry that you'll have some kind of uh breathing event so I had to stay up to like 3 in the morning just kind of trying to wait for the allergy medicine to kick in and then I got desperate. I took both kinds which I'm told I'm allowed to do and the effect of that was by 3 I was able to finally fall asleep but I am as I sit before you talking into this microphone still high as a kite from the Allegra. So this might actually be a very entertaining Friday episode it's episode 4228 in a collector's series

Let the fun begin

I give a rant to seasonal allergies. I give a rave to buying a bunch of cameras off of Amazon.com and setting them up around your house so you can be some sort of modern day Howard Hughes of paranoia.

Turn your mother effing camera off now.

I'll give some context in a minute here. I'm not trying to turn the Madrona Hill studio into a security state. It really has nothing to do with personal safety and more just like seeing if a cat walked on the deck at 3 in the morning, which is kind of fun. Anyway, we'll get into that. Also, speaking of high technology, remember that Wu-Tang album that was released? There was only supposed to be one copy of it, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. and it was purchased by the guy martin shkreli so-called pharma bro he was price gouging on a life-saving medicine just because he could he then ended up going to jail for security fraud and one of the things that they confiscated from him was this this wu-tang record um because it had a lot of value because it was the only one of its kind and now in a lawsuit some of the people who got their hands on that record are saying no actually he did duplicate it are you disrespecting my duplication investigation and they're not happy about it so we'll get into that plus we'll talk to this guy longest running cobro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships he is andrew yala bano walsh and he's joining me right now good morning my friend

good morning luke i know you have two things from your from the headlines of your personal life that

you want to i mean i did just kind of lay them up i don't have a lot to add well here's what i would

Here, I'll add to it. I'll add to it right here. In a specifically accusatory way, in fact. Maybe it wasn't the allergies that kept you up last night. Maybe it was the surveillance system. We set up these systems with cameras to protect us. But does it actually...

Surveillance state.

Ooh, does it make us even more paranoid? The more cameras we get, the more locks we get, does it make us calmer or does it make us even more alert? That's what I'm throwing at you. Dude, you're blowing my mind right now. Oh, man. I think what Chris is leaving the room was. the why are you wearing multiple pairs of glasses i did you just keep taking off for emphasis i i think what was keeping me up was i had this itch inside of my ears that if i could have taken like i know you're talking about some kind of long if i could take in a small chimney brush and fed it in one ear had it just come out the other ear and then just gone with a cartoon i

You know, it's not so much the burning, but the itching. But maybe take a detour a little bit down into your throat. Do you also have that sensation where you want to scratch your throat through your ear?

The itch problem is inside the ears, and you just can't get to it. Oh, okay. Look, I know that what I've been dealing with this week is on the list of maladies. It's so low. but i've been so lucky in my life that i haven't dealt with a lot of maladies so i'm bad at it people me too and i'm also you and i were talking during soundcheck about our sleep patterns and i was saying how yeah last night i went to bed like 10 o'clock and and everything was everything was great everything was fine and then at like midnight i just like opened my eyes and i realized oh my god my head it's like it's inside a vice of congestion and it was almost to the point i was like oh i didn't think i was gonna like suffocate but i was like i can't keep lying in this position i have to sit up so things start at least draining a little bit and so i sat there for and i thought well maybe this will pass and and then it didn't and so then finally i got up at like 12 30 i went downstairs i got one of the generic allergy medicine pills and then one of these allegra's that i knew the allegra makes me feel kooky but i was like well you know i'm going to sleep so i can i'll just have some lit dreams and kooky's kind of your brand right it really is well whimsy yeah kind of my brand you know me i love a good i love everything whimsical you're the clown prince of podcasting sure am and um and so i thought well that'll who cares if i'm a little if i'm a little dazed and confused while i'm sleeping what i didn't expect was when i got up and then when I was doing my morning kind of prep when I was as I'm talking to you Andrew the high the weird spacey disconnected feeling has not subsided and I took this thing now ten hours ago or so but anyway I was saying how it interrupted my sleep which I'm very bad at having my sleep interrupted because I'm very fortunate in that I sleep I tend to sleep pretty well that's of all the different things that haven't worked out for me in terms of the physical department and health and wealth and all those things i can sleep your boy can sleep and i so that therefore i'm very very like unprepared for coming to you on about four hours of sleep

and this is not my typical four hours of sleep and still is still feeling a little uh a little goofy from the from the meds and making a face like bill the cat from bloom county because i'm

trying to itch the up you're right well when you say throat andrew do you mean that like the palate on top uh-huh that's exactly what i mean i think of throat as like here but you're right that's also really acting up yeah right now you can see yeah i'm trying to get my tongue oh wow there's

a cartoon bubble coming out of his mouth that says ac for some reason i'm not sure what that is bloom county jokes is that still is that still fertile territory for the youth of america wait

bloom county yeah well it's it's no all your base are belong to us sure but i'd say it's it's pretty

topical and pretty relevant yeah growing up were you more of a doonesbury or a bloom county because

both of them were a little county 100 because i didn't know what the flip was going on in

doonesbury i didn't know what the flip was going on in either though that's the thing but at least

the characters opus the penguin yeah yeah no in hindsight whatever his name was was it bill the cat bill the cat i think yeah like the the the um uh the the cartooning if you will the look of the characters in bloom county i was intrigued by it even though i had no idea what was going on i wasn't the art and the content did nothing for me of dunesbury they both just send love to my boss's husband by the way your boss's husband gary trudeau is married to jane paulie oh right

and does she still sign your checks i always forget it's weird uh yeah and she actually

before that um charles osgood didn't but she wanted to make sure everyone knew we were getting these checks from Jane Pauly I'm keeping an eye out here

a little Trumpy there right I think when I was a kid both of them just seemed

Charlie Osgood phone though so that was

they seemed just like kind of outside my understanding but I wanted so badly to understand them sort of it really seemed like one of those things where oh there's a whole another world that adults

understand that i don't and then i i think what would it have been maybe as i became more of a a young teenager i started to meet kids who were really into bloom county and i started to see the contours of that a little bit more like oh bloom county like the same kids who like really got into bloom county were like the first people who were into like monty python for my generation right like this sort of off the wall humor that was bizarre and maybe a little scary at times until

you got to know the rhythm of it i'm looking at old bloom county stuff now and i'm surprised this hasn't had some sort of resurgence in the pop culture just looking at like a bloom county book called like loose tales i don't know what era this is from but like it the aesthetic of it the actual font they're using for bloom county its time has come again like i'm surprised people aren't wearing a t-shirt with this on this isn't the hottest t-shirt to have you're right for 2024 there

was some sort of a resurgence though but it you're right it didn't it didn't catch the popular imagination as much of it as it should have but um didn't i don't know the name of the artist

behind bloom county if you already said it burke breathed which also oh i always said breathed is it breathed i don't know i'm guessing andrew and i'm also on a lot of medication okay i'll stop asking you questions that you know no no that's fine this is honestly it's i've got a truth serum

in me right now anything you want to know no but I I feel like I mean certainly in the past five years or so there was something that we might have even talked about on this show about breathed or breathed like maybe making like this this did the cartoon go away officially would I be wrong to say it made a comeback I feel like something happened where it did make a comeback somewhat recently but you're right why is it why don't we see hipsters wearing sort of like loose t-shirts maybe even off one shoulder with a build a cat on it this is going to sound like

a very sort of generational violence but i mean why aren't we seeing 20 year olds wearing this shirt with literally no idea what the thing on the shirt is oh right i did in my era i don't i'm not saying it's a slam yeah yeah i'm not trying to slam the youth of america uh i'm just i just mean there's a there's a period of time where a lot of people me included wear a lot of stuff that we think looks cool with no idea of the backstory and that's totally fine but like that

seems like that should be happening with this i want this shirt trying to think if i as much as i oh my gosh when you come to sartorial tragedies like look it up in the dictionary and you'll see a picture of young me like i just basically wore whatever my look tell me about i mean what kind

of drip were you demonstrating i mean it really depends i mean they're all tragedies but it

depends on what period of time right like as a little kid i just literally wore whatever my parents told me to wear you know so there's plenty of pictures of me it's like kind of nerdy but it would look pretty cute today in hindsight of me like dressed up in like my sunday best like maybe a sweater vest of some sort you know or like is it a sweater vest not a cardigan but like a pullover sort of sweater vest i feel like that plenty of those with me wearing maybe a short sleeve button down and my big glasses or something but that stuff that can look very cute in hindsight but

But then certainly there was a period where it was when you were allowed to make some of the fashion decisions that things started to.

Well, yeah. Well, I do remember like my parents also like, you know, the athletic wear or athleisure wear brand Russell. Like I remember like, I don't know, my parents had some line on some Russell sweatshirts. You know, I just I don't know what the background was, whether somebody was selling them for their kids at work like we were talking about earlier this week or we went to some outlet or whatever, whatever it was. but I remember having like three Russell outlet stores of Geauga County that actually maybe I mean honestly maybe I don't know all I know is I had a big Georgia bulldog pullover gray sweatshirt that I really liked but I mean I didn't know what a bulldog was I didn't even I'll be honest with you I wasn't I wasn't the sharpest tack in the drawer I don't know if I could have told you what a Georgia was at this point but I remember I remember loving the image of this pugnacious but also cute looking little bulldog i believe wearing a cap does the georgia bulldog logo wear a georgia hat i don't remember but i remember i love the way the decal felt on the shirt as well as very fuzzy and so

like i'm i'm going around he does have a hat on good memory yeah i just had vague vague sort of i mean not in every presentation but there is um but there's definitely one where he's wearing like a baseball cap that says g on it it's kind of old style like something you'd you'd buy at like

ebbets flannels or something yeah i think that was one of them that i had so i definitely went through a phase of like wearing shirts that i didn't really understand what they were representing in this case like in the sports world having said that i don't know once i was starting to make my own fashion choices and on the occasions that i would wear a concert shirt like i know i had some led zeppelins at some point i not not led zeppelins i had led zeppelins shirts just to be clear i was not flying led zeppelins um those were historically just kind of unsuccessful even regular zeppelins were um yeah i mean pretty dangerous but you throw the best case scenario you don't get off the ground in one of those yeah i don't know that i ever slipped on a shirt of a band i mean i think baseball cards would have been the perfect example i had a whole bunch of baseball cards but i didn't watch a baseball game until i was like 30 years old maybe but i remember like everybody just had don russ baseball cards during that like glut of baseball cards yeah

exactly so like i remember like that's a good example a hall of lame that was which ones were those so don i think it was don russ had this thing called the don russ hall of fame and all it was was an excuse to just sell more baseball cards put gold foil around the edge or something What it was was a painting of the baseball player that then was rendered onto a baseball card, but the paintings were awful. And we were obsessed particularly with, I think he was a Detroit Tiger, there was a guy named Lou Whitaker, and the painting of Lou Whitaker that was the Hall of Fame. By the way, I don't even know if this meant the person was actually inducted into Cooperstown. It might have just been Don Russ had decided this, but we were so obsessed with how bad these, me and Peter Williams, we would call it the Hall of Shame, a.k.a. the Hall of Lame, and we would be like, a good, a terrible painting of Lou Whitaker was just, that was the prize we were looking for.

Yeah. So I think, I mean, there are plenty of examples in my life of me wanting to sort of, I don't even think blend in, but maybe catch some of the excitement of what my peers were into and me not understanding it. I'm just trying to think if there's ever a time that I sort of like, because I do see, and I like, trust me, I do not, I do, people can wear whatever they want. I have zero issue at all. I do not want to be that boomery or exy person who's kind of like, oh, these kids are wearing Metallica T-shirts, and they wouldn't know a master of puppets if he marinetted them off the stage. I just had to end that sentence somehow. But, you know, I don't care. Like, whatever. Those are cool shirts. They look good.

They've never even entered Sandman.

Soap. We should have stuck with yours. Thank you for making me feel slightly better about what I threw out. It's called managing up, Andrew. But anyway, it is sort of an interesting thing. I think I would feel deeply uncomfortable doing that. As you know from me, like, you know, one time accidentally wearing a Baltimore Orioles hat out into public because I didn't realize that I hadn't changed it before I left the house. And then being approached by a security guard in the grocery store who just wanted to talk the details of Orioles baseball with me. Which is why you had to change grocery stores. It was just like, and teams, and teams, yes, exactly.

Yeah, I think what I was really, because I'm with you, I don't think I was wearing a lot of stuff when I was younger that I literally had no idea what the origin was. It was more, the reason I was saying that was because I just didn't want to sound like a curmudgeon that was like, kids these days are wearing shirts and they don't know what they mean, because I just don't really care if they know what they mean. So I was trying to kind of be an ally there. Yeah, sure, no, I'm with you, though, fully. But my version of that was more, I guess you could just say, I mean, this is a stretch. This is an appropriation in the real sense. But it was just like, I told you that like two of my absolute favorite T-shirts that I had. One was said Hawaii Fire Department that I picked up at like a Goodwill. It was just a white T-shirt, but it had like, it had at some point been a T-shirt that like, you know, you got if you worked at the Hawaii Fire Department. So I'd wear that and often with like a long, like a, we would call it like long sleeve underwear, long johns, you know.

Oh yeah, that's very 90s Seattle. Oh dude.

The dreams of the 90s were very alive for me In Seattle circa the 1990s And then I had This t-shirt that I aim to go get another one of Because I believe this place still exists Because I'm looking it up right now It's in Seaview, Washington And it's called Chico's Pizza And they have The I'm talking like the platonic ideal Of a pizza shop logo And it's this guy Presumably he's Chico And I would advise you to Google this, Andrew, and just enjoy the majesty of the guy on the sign. He's a total Italian chef pizza guy.

I'm going to ask you again for the details of that, but this is the reason why, because I just typed in Lou Whitaker Donruss just to see the very first result. There's some pictures and stuff at the top, but the very first actual result is from Amazon.com. 1990 Donruss baseball card, but guess which one it is, Luke? the Diamond Kings painting. I just sent it to you. Okay, Diamond Kings. Thank you. You know, that makes so much more sense because that's what I was going. I don't even know if they're in the Hall of Fame. This wasn't the Hall of Fame. We just called it the Diamond Kings, but we knew it as we decided to call it the Hall of Shame, a.k.a. the Hall of Lame. But yes, of course, this was the Diamond Kings series.

1990 yeah when I think I mean Luke I literally I cringe to think about this although it doesn't matter now like I my life is what it is why am I embarrassed about about social um awkwardness when I was you know trying to find my voice as a person as a kid but like there's something so embarrassing to me that I I know that I bought several I know that I was in possession of several Beckett magazines so that I could you know look up the value of cards that like literally Luke

It was back in the day when everything was being printed on newsprint. I feel like the Guinness Book of World Records. Weren't those Beckett's also on newsprint?

I know that the magazine itself was glossy. At least the cover was. I do think you might be right about the pages inside being somewhat phone booky, although I'm not 100%, but that sounds right. It might have even been one of those things where some of the magazine had glossy pages for features and photographs, But then when you got to, like, the now let's see how much your 1991 Lou Whitaker is worth. Oh, nothing. Somehow negative. Somehow you are in debt for owning this baseball card in 1991. I think that might have been, like, listed on, like, phone book paper, like you say. But anyway, it still does embarrass me that, like, I literally, Luke, wouldn't have known what a hit was in baseball. You know what I mean? Be nice to yourself. He hit the ball. But for some reason, I'm collecting baseball cards. It's like, what is that kid doing?

Oh, come on. What else are you going to do in life? I mean, also, you could have said that about the fact that when you moved to Seattle, you were not at that time a huge baseball fan. And now you, even though you will demure on this topic, you know so much more about Major League Baseball than I do because of your fantasy baseball play. You are so much more aware of what's going on. I just turn it on so I can scream at Root Sports for not giving me my content.

I just turned it on so I could watch the screensaver say this expensive channel is not available right now.

This little thing that says Root Sports that bounces around the screen and occasionally goes perfectly into the corner. But, like, you could have said, who am I to get into baseball at 38 years of age or something or football or whatever? But it's like, hey, man, it's the journey. And, like, I just want you to be nice to yourself. But I don't want you to be nice to whoever greenlit these paintings on these Diamond Kings. Now I'm just, like, scrolling through. It really looks like, and I say this with peace and love to, let's see, maybe people who are high school art teachers, but it looks like they had a not particularly high-achieving high school painting class do these. I'm just going to, if I can just take a moment to send you, like, Jose Canseco's. The Oakland A's, which, by the way, this was a high time to be an Oakland A. This was Bash Brothers time. And this was Ken Seiko and Mark McGuire, Ricky Henderson. So this was a really like the tide was very high. They had Dennis Eckersley, who I mentioned weirdly on the show yesterday, who looks exactly my dad. When when Dennis Eckersley, who was a closer for the Oakland A's, was at his peak of his powers, he was a dead ringer for my dad, Walt Burbank. Oh, in the mustache and the mustache to the point where somebody at my school brought in a Dennis Eckersley. card and erased the Dennis Eckersley off the pennant and wrote Walter Burbank in it that wasn't you that was somebody else it wasn't me I think it was Joe Dolan wow he was like you do not understand how much this guy looks like your dad I was like shit he really does like I mean they had both had like a mullet they both had a mustache they were they were like almost indistinguishable from each other but the Oakland A's uh Diamond Kings which probably there were a lot of them because they were so good at this time this was kind of like late 80s mid to late 80s that but these like did you see this jose canseco painting i just i'm looking at it now yeah i mean that looks does not look like you had a professional full-time portrait artist paint this picture of

jose canseco well maybe they were giving an opportunity to like young interns you know maybe we're looking at this the wrong way maybe it was there you know there could it could have

been um a pathway out of prison maybe they were having adults in custody exactly um you know as i've been learning lately uh work on this so maybe there's a backstory to it but yeah it's not um The Diamond Kings were not great So Chico's Pizza, here's the point I had this t-shirt that said Chico's Pizza And it was red And it had this Mascot from Chico's Pizza Which is this little funny cartoonish Presumably, I'm gonna go with Italian-American Although Chico sounds like maybe some other kind of name But anyway, he was wearing He had a My memory is he was smoking a cigarette The one I'm looking at I don't know. He's not smoking a cigarette. He's holding a thumb, kind of pointing towards himself.

Maybe that's what it is. Is he saying seven days without pizza makes one week?

He's saying exactly that. He's saying seven days without pizza makes one week, W-E-A-K. He's pointing at himself. It's a red outline, just like a kind of a pen and ink sketch with red outline on white. It's very cute.

So between my Hawaii Fire Department and my Chico's Pizza shirt, that was what I wore. But here's the thing. I had never been a member of the Hawaii Fire Department, and I had literally to this day have still never been to Chico's Pizza. So it's not quite like it's not quite like I'm wearing a shirt and I don't even know what Bloom County is, but it's more like I'm repping a brand that I have no personal connection to. I just think it looks cool, which is kind of a version of of being a bit of a poseer sort of.

I mean, I feel like that's the era, though, where you probably got these both at my Goodwill or whatever, which was where I got all of my clothes back then. Now, I wasn't usually probably repping some sort of a logo on them because I was buying just, like, the biggest button-down shirts I could find so that I could hide inside of them in case girls walked by.

That was a way in which, Andrew, you were very much ahead of the curve on fashion because that's in style now. Like, the way you were dressing with clothes that were very clearly too large for you is I see these, you know, on TikTok and stuff and various places on the internet, very young people. I'm talking people in their like early 20s now, like standing out on a corner somewhere doing that move where you're interviewing someone, but you're using the microphone that's built into your corded. Oh, yeah, yeah, AirPod headphones, and you're just holding that bump up to someone's mouth like in the questions are there's three categories of questions that that are very popular. One is how much money do you have in your bank account, which I think is an amazing question. I mean, it cuts right to the chase, literally or right to the Wells Fargo, depending. And then another one is how much do you pay for rent? And then sometimes it'll be can I come see your place? And then they'll take someone on like a tour of their place. Oh, sorry. This is not a third category, but it's something I'm personally obsessed with. There is a young woman on TikTok who's doing a special called Boy Rooms where she I think she's in Philly and she's in her probably early 20s, maybe mid-20s and she just goes and interviews boys like guys in their 20s about their rooms which are troubling just like the the state of affairs in these like guys in their mid-20s in their like room in a house that they rent with a bunch of buddies kind of a thing and then she'll just do like a breakdown of like so what were you thinking when you did this or why is there this much laundry on 80 percent of the bed or why is there a hole in that wall and the guys will kind to break it down and then she'll do this genius thing where she goes here's what I would do to fix it up and then she used this very rudimentary sort of like um uh kind of computer technology to uh augment reality the room and go I would remove all of this laundry I would turn the bed this way so it's not blocking the door and then she kind of redoes the room on the screen but it's it's not about the interior decorating it's about the like view into the world of these guys in their 20s in Philly who are living in these rooms you know what's weird is and this is gonna

sound really judgy and I try not to be judgy especially when Hannah and I do our spotless podcast like everybody's got their own journey and their their own comfort level with how they want to keep their own home and that's fine you can keep your own home however you want but I am surprised that and and this is I was gonna say it's like goes for just like everybody that I see online like I don't watch much TikTok maybe even the fact that I say I don't sit down to watch much tiktok is sort of an indicator there but you know like that stuff will creep its way into my life because there's so much of it whether it's people doing it'll make it around to old persons tiktok exactly and it's like whether it's somebody like doing a dance or surprising their spouse or but but mostly like young people or young adults whatever i am shocked i don't even think it's that that particularly gendered i'm like i just see all kinds of people's rooms and i'm just like wow you didn't even think about that pile of laundry behind you or that like you just have this exercise machine that is just like literally you have months of clothes and like again if that's your comfort level in your home that's fine and if that's your comfort level putting that in out into the world that's fine but like i literally cannot wrap my mind around that and it seems like it makes me realize that maybe i very much am on the outside of what people's comfort level with um not just clutter but like i just sort of certainly cluttered shots from a front of a from a cinema standpoint and that's what i consider tick tock to be a cinema but like i'm just like

oh wow we're just like throwing this lifestyle out there yeah when i during the pandemic when i got really really into looking at tick tock that was a big takeaway for me was wow the and and and sometimes it's a you know has to do with resources and socioeconomics and sometimes it doesn't And sometimes it's just.

Like you said, people, you know, just have different kind of lifestyles and ways to live. Also, not ironically, but I guess interestingly, by which I mean not that interestingly. I both kind of don't, I get kind of a weird feeling if somebody's just clearly got just a real, real mess going on in their house in a way that seems like it could be solvable. I sort of look at that and I think, what I really think is like, ooh, I don't think I would enjoy living in that environment. That would make me feel kind of uncomfortable. And if I were in there, I would probably set about cleaning it up because it just would I wouldn't I wouldn't feel great in that environment. On the other end, though, I also when people are just basically trying to flex with their place, I also don't like that. Sure. I don't know what the sweet spot and what the Goldilocks zone is for me. Like you'll get these people oftentimes they're like young, kind of like very successful. somebody who's maybe you know gotten into tech and and invented an app that's done really well or like there's this there's a certain kind of tick tock that is ostensibly about something but it feels like it's really just a home flex and i don't kind of love that either so it's like i don't know what i expect people to be doing don't have a house that's way nicer than mine but also don't live in squalor i guess is what i'm asking but you know who am i to tell you know now i get

nervous saying this because it could be misinterpreted maybe different ways but I feel like Nora our pal Nora McInerney kind of nails it right like she's got a great sense of design and the way she frames her shots and she has a beautiful home but it's also it doesn't seem flexy and it doesn't seem overly um kind of particular and she and she herself has such a natural warmth to her or whatever I sort of feel like that's the goal right yeah Nora McInerney

Our friend from various podcasts now And internet projects I feel like, because I follow her on all the social media stuff And I feel like every time I turn around She's launching some new interesting thing But Nora really has a great, I think, vibe for that Which feels both vulnerable But not overly staged But not kind of like, you know Also not like, this is unhinged Like somehow Nora always manages to hit exactly the right tone Which is why we must take her down Well yeah and also I would say One thing she didn't think through When she and her family moved to Arizona Was is their backyard set up Well for internet streaming Yeah And the answer is no because it's so hot Your phone will literally shut off As we learned when we tried to live stream From her backyard

That's right I'm one of the few people in America Whose cell phone has been in Nora's refrigerator because it got so hot. We packed it in an ice bath.

We were trying to get its core temperature down.

I literally did have to put my phone in her refrigerator as she was already on the road with her family heading towards vacation, I believe. Hey, speaking of cameras,

this has been a recurring theme this week on the show, Andrew, which is the way that things that I say maybe sort of bounce around in your brain when you're just living your life. Yeah. Maybe that's not the case. I don't actually know, but I can certainly say That when I'm just living my life here And I do something I sometimes think, oh what would Andrew think Because of how much time we spend Talking to each other during the week And I mentioned On the show, at the end of the show the other day That I wanted to talk about these blink cameras That I got And I set them up and I love them so much And yet I think Andrew would hate this So much, because I have, and I think I'm incorrect About this, I want to say I have this feeling that you really don't like cameras and i think you've even said that's not the case i think you've you've actually disabused me of this notion but if in my mind somewhere i have you filed i have your opinion on the matter filed as you think that like ring cameras and cameras like that are not good for us but i actually don't think that's your opinion what is your opinion no i mean i think that you

tie in the use of cameras to a lot of like the the neighborhood watch stuff that's going on with like the um next door app or whatever which i do think that like a lot of the people i will even just say most of the people who are on those types of sites um maybe i shouldn't say most of i don't know but there's a sense of hysteria and then what is often tied into that is here's a screen grab from my security camera you know of somebody walking too close to my fence or whatever so i think that some people it can it can play into some people's sense of paranoia which is why i was kind of razzing you at the beginning of the show i don't think they're necessarily bad and i i don't judge anybody who wants to have cameras around their house i mean this is a conversation that veves and i have been having for me personally so i i don't have really an opinion on it in in society or as far as other people's voyage with home security cameras for me personally and i really was just joking at the beginning of the show but i think maybe

Maybe I almost don't trust myself. Like I live in a neighborhood where there's probably a lot of weird stuff that's happening around my house, frankly. And I feel like if I see it all, it's not going to give me more of a sense of security. It's truly going to just make me feel more like, wait, why is that car parked so close to this?

Because what are you going to do with the information?

Exactly. And you've heard me on the show. I get really weird about my garbage bins or whatever. And it's kind of like it's more of a sense of myself. I think I have regarding these things where I if I because Vives and I have talked about I think this summer I'm going to install like kind of a ring. We just need a doorbell concertina wire.

Exactly. Just a light dusting of razor wire. I keep everything under glass. Wrecking yard.

But anyway, yeah. So like we're going to get a doorbell because my whatever. we don't have to get into it but i've inherited a like doorbell that has a camera built into it i don't think it's ring brand it doesn't really matter but i'm going to install that because we need a doorbell anyway and this was given to us and that'll be good if we ever do have a package go missing or something but the thing is like we've literally since we've lived here never had a package go missing the only time a package went missing was when somebody delivered it to the wrong house a couple of streets away and that neighbor came and delivered it to me himself so like we don't even have issues with that um but like maybe if something went missing we could say hey listen this thing never arrived that we ordered online but um I don't know I I'm rambling now because it's just like the struggle I have internally about do I want to know everything that's going on in every corner of my house while I'm sleeping and I think the answer is no

the journey that I've been on with having cameras here is basically when I bought this place I was still living in portland and this place is you know 45 minutes away or something from where i was living and i felt like there's a bunch of like construction equipment there and i have maybe some stuff in the house and it just felt weird to me to have this place that was completely off my radar um and there was also a lot of people coming and going you know construction people and stuff like that i just thought maybe i should have eyes on this in some way and i think i went on like wire cutter again big week for wire cutter on the show and i think they're gonna start getting some downloads i think they finally i think that wire cutter said like oh the best you know home security camera whatever you want to call them are like the google nest product and so i went and bought some of these because i also didn't want to have to like run a power supply to these things i wanted to just have something that was on a battery and so i bought these a couple of these google nest cameras and what i will tell you is they suck do not we're gonna we're gonna finally stick it to google andrew might be we might finally take google down but like they're so lousy for for one thing they have to attach to this base like a specific kind of base that are not belong to me because i lost one of them somehow and i had to buy a replacement on the internet like you can't just screw this thing into the side of your house and like and then charge it up and leave it there it you have to it's on a charger that you have to charge it every few weeks and either the charging cable died i had to buy a replacement charging cable or the actual camera itself died i was i think i started with maybe three of these then i was down to one that was working and then finally that one gave up the ghost and again you had this complicated base that it had to magnetically attached to so all that is to say those i threw those away eventually they were literally non functional like a complete waste of money but then i was like i still would like to because i'm i travel for work a lot i'm not here a lot of the time i get a lot of stuff delivered i just thought it's not a security thing because it turns out nobody ever comes and messes with my house thankfully in fact i talked to my neighbors about that at some point i was like yeah like i go i was was a little worried about just not just what was going to happen when you have a house that's largely unlocked and unmonitored and they were like yeah no one ever comes down here so it's just kind of a non-issue and i was like oh good to know and they have been a hundred percent right i have no concern about a security breach but i just kind of want to i guess like if i'm gone like you said and something gets delivered but then i can't find it when i get home i want to know did it actually get here i've had had occasion where folks have delivered stuff to like one of my neighbor's houses just seems like in this day and age i just a useful thing to have a little bit of a video record of stuff again not from a i'm going to be burgled perspective but

just from a i guess honestly kind of a gadgetry perspective like we can do this now we can see this stuff on our phone and it's kind of cool so i buy this blink thing off of amazon that they make And it's, you know, I don't know, 150 bucks It's four of these cameras And they just take little, like, not even a I don't know what this kind of battery is called But it's in a lot of things now

It's like a, it looks like a tiny, like a, like you put a battery in the, in the washing machine and then you dried it and it shrunk down. But it's also still fairly, it's like the thickness of a AAA battery, but it's shorter. Do you know what I'm talking about?

I do. Yeah, I've seen those.

It takes a couple of those. It lasts for two years. It took like a second to set up. And critically, these, it just screws the base of these things, just screws. It's just a normal piece of plastic. It screws right into whatever you're screwing it into. and then you click the camera on you have all this like you can move the camera around i mean it took literally 10 minutes to set these four things up and i'm loving it just as like a wildlife cam i've got footage of like cats walking on my deck at three in the morning like if i'm in the house and i hear someone pulling up and i think maybe the the delivery person's here i can just look at my phone like i'm in another part of the house and it just shows me oh yeah the amazon person the ups person's here so then i run outside and get the thing from them like i'm i if you if you're somebody who wants to get these for whatever reason i will just tell you a week into it i think it's a very very good product now here's the thing i went online and people hate this thing because amazon in their very clever very um evil way give you a month of free whatnot service yeah so like i am right now i'm i don't even know what this is going to cost me if i want to extend it but i'm in the like i'm in the honeymoon phase because i have all these clips of things it's like my phone is showing me like every time i come in and out of the house it's like sends my watch hey someone's going on your stairs and it's like yeah it's me but um after a month i'm gonna have to start paying if i want to keep all of that functionality and people online are like oh they intentionally make your life suck once you're not subscribing to their cloud plan so i don't know what's going to happen with that i feel like i'm setting myself up for a real letdown but i'm but for this month anyway again not from a i want to like send out pictures to my next door group about sus people in my neighborhood but just from a like there's something about being able to get on my phone and just look at what's happening on the deck or just look at what's happening outside the madrona hill studio or in the middle of the night it's like oh hey you know some this whatever this like animal walked through the yard i'm kind of

geeking out on the technology side of it yeah i could definitely see that and this is my concern too so i told you i inherited a couple of smart home things from my dad this doorbell he and i'll just tell you and now i feel great about this it is all this google nest stuff that he he upgraded

now that might be fine because the the i also used to have the doorbell thing and that was much better than these cameras that i'm describing to you but i i am a concern about this subscription

thing so basically not that we have to get into all the details of this but my dad said hey i got like i don't know x number of cameras i think maybe two cameras plus a doorbell plus a thermostat that are all tied to like a google nest oh yeah google home thing and i was like okay i was like i don't want the can we had talked about it i'm like you know i don't think i want the cameras if you can get any money for those online sell those because i don't think the doorbell has a camera in it that'll be enough so i just got like the i asked him for the thermostat thing and the doorbell but then i got those in the winter time and i didn't want to be messing around with my thermostat in case I broke something in the middle of the winter so I've been waiting for basically this time of year to finally get into this project of installing both of these things which I don't have a lot of confidence in my ability to do um so I will let you know but my dad was saying like well you got to sign up for this service like for the video I'm just like I'm not paying I there's just something in my head like I do not want to pay Google to turn the heat up in my home or to have a doorbell so like if there's some sort of service where they're like well you can't record anymore i'll be like fine then you're just a doorbell now how do you feel about that

does it actually you know what's hilarious i never even tested the theory of if it was a doorbell

you only were using it as yeah no we don't have a doorbell here so it would be nice

to be able to so it makes a noise like on your phone i don't know exactly how it's going to work but that would be nice because google speaker to play it maybe but i'll bet you it's tied to

your phone and like our tv is a brand that is um that comes with like google like i had never had any kind of smart home anything before but our latest tv which is i believe smart is that yeah right c equals mc squared um i think it's hisense is the brand of tv we got and i believe it came with like some sort of google home thing installed on it so i was like okay yeah i'll tie you into my google experience i'm already an android user and i'm very heavily invested in various google products so now that that sort of now i'm in this world of google home which basically means i have a tv uh congratulations to me but now i guess i'm going to be tying my thermostat and my and my doorbell into that which all could be very cool but like i say i don't want to find myself in the position that these online commenters found themselves in where suddenly i'm

reliant on it and just like google is doing with me with my email which i've been using for 15 or 20 years now suddenly saying well you're running out of space don't you want to give us some money you're running out of space and i'm like oh i hate the way they just like they they

groom you and i know that that is a complicated word i the the one the the new world of connectivity that i've entered andrew is my appliances oh yeah the appliances in my kitchen i just bought them like on homedepot.com as kind of a package deal i am the most like susceptible person to a company potentially lying to me by just telling me this used to be 1100 but we're giving it to you for 900 and it's like has 1100 but then it's red and there's a slash through it and then under it it says 900. like that has such an impact on my decision making were they charging 900 for it three weeks ago probably have i cross-referenced it with anything else no but that number is smaller than the number they've put a line through i'd be a fool not to buy it do you remember

i'm looking at the clock and i realize you you have some time constraints i'm okay i'm okay don't worry um but do you remember the time this lives in my head i think about it a lot both because it still sort of irks me a little bit but also because i'm not proud of my own behavior this is one of those two furs where i feel bad about it all around um no it's not it's not terrible i actually think it's kind of funny and i don't even know if you'll remember diamond king of self-loathing somebody paint a picture of andrew please no don't nobody do that well i do have to write down diamond king of self-loathing though that's very good um when we were doing um spots uh of self-loathing sorry i can't do it all um that's a lot uh when we were doing spots for american public media when we were a podcast on their network um we worked with a woman who uh was i loved working with her she was a good person but she was also the type of person who like took whatever instructions from the client very very very literally and also like if we submitted a a spot to her and said hey this is our spot she would almost be like sort of like looking for something to i felt like at times looking to kick it back to us to say well fix this because the client's not going to like that i'm like i think the client is way more chill about this stuff than you are but we had what they would call an onboarding meeting i literally don't remember the product or service we were advertising and i don't even know if you were part of this one but i remember sitting in this the cringiest onboarding meeting if you've ever been in a

sales onboarding that one of the west wing podcasters no that was a different one that

was kind of weird and i embarrassed myself a different way on that one but um i uh but in this one it wasn't cringy because of me it was cringy because like it's like me the salesperson for american public media like some intermediary like what like um company agency person yeah and then usually that's all you need like these are the this is what's going to be on the script do you have any questions for us you don't really need these meetings it's just a way of making

everybody feel like it was a way for a lot of people to get a salary yeah in the like 2018s Right. It's like, oh, I do onboarding for brand development for whatever. It's like so now I have to do a call. I have to do it like a Zoom call or maybe just at this point, a conference call where we just all get on the conference call and go seems good. And then we get the conference call like so weird.

But it would be nicer if it was that. But usually they just like walk you slowly through every talking point. It's like, yeah, this is a script. I'm going to like it's pretty self-explanatory. It's like the definition of this could have been an email and it was an email. but now we've turned it into a meeting but anyway i think it's to make everybody feel good there's a certain you know there's an aspect of sales that is about making everybody feel good a sort of emotional aspect of it okay whatever but i'm on this one it's me our salesperson the person representing the agency and then every now and then an actual client will come on so in other words if we're selling bob's burgers what a weird what a weird thing there's no cultural reference of bob's burgers right not that i can think of so every now and then you're like okay i'm going to do this read for bob's burgers but guess what bob wants to be on the line um oh okay so we actually have the actual client and whatever we were selling this time the person who represented the actual company was like this just bigger than life kind of do i must not have been on this no

usually we split those up i don't respond very poorly to that kind of energy and he's like oh

yeah we got this we got this and he was like so full of energy and i just remember we did a call with broadcast coffee i would never advertise for love you barry um everybody go support broadcast coffee right now um but anyway this guy comes on he's super huge energy and he's like oh and he just kept saying during this meeting i mean you got to tell your listeners this is the best deal we have to offer this is the best deal we have to offer we don't have any better deals than this i'm just sort of thinking back in my head like well yeah like you're making a sound like you're competing against yourself this is the best deal that we have to offer doesn't make any sense like sorry this is all spawned by you talking about like just believing that like we write a red number and we cross it out and we write a black number and he just kept saying like this is the best deal we have to offer and be like yeah it'd be weird if you were telling us to sell something that isn't your best deal so whatever i ignore it i get the script i do the spot but i don't mention that specific line this is the best deal we have to offer our salesperson of American public media kicks it back to me and is like, you know, you didn't hit this thing and you seem pretty excited about that and, you know, must be in there. And I'm just like, I remember writing back. I'm like, that line makes no sense. It's not saying this is the best deal in the marketplace. This is not the best deal anybody has to offer. This is our best deal. What does that mean? That means nothing. That's like me coming on this podcast, talking like an idiot, but saying, but this is the best I got. Like, it means nothing. I thought that was actually the business model. what we do okay let's ignore that example along with the bob's burgers but anyway i remember just being so steamed about this like you're really going to make me go back and re-record and remix this thing because of this nonsensical line because some clown came on the call and insisted that we do this so i read it in the most sarcastic way possible in fact i wonder if i have that somewhere real polite price maybe i should yeah maybe that gets into some dicey territory i shouldn't do it I'll bet you I have my original read on this where I'm just like, and this is their best deal they have to offer. I know you're thinking they might have other deals they're not telling you about, but I'm telling you, this is the best deal they have to offer. That was the next read, and I sent it in, and I think it was the only time our friend there just said, you know, I don't – this isn't working. You sound like you're being very sarcastic, and I remember –

Oh, wow, they picked up the sarcasm.

You actually jumped in and said, let me just do this one because I think you picked it up as well. Or maybe I just asked you, Luke, can you do this? I am so pissed at this whole process and the ridiculous of this. I can no longer emotionally do this read without just quitting.

You know, the funny part about that is I was listening to Pod Save America recently, and they're a podcast that's at the level that still does ads. It's really interesting to see the way, to me anyway, the way that the business model is just shifting with this. And by the way, we need to thank some, speaking of shifting business models, We've got to thank some dazzling donors Before we plunge right over the falls Here at about 53 minutes into the show But, you know, it just used to be Podcasts used to be awash in ads And now, I actually, in a weird sort of way When I hear a podcast that's still doing Those straightforward, like, Casper Reads Or BetterHelp, I'm like Alright, well I know you're getting A minimum of 50,000 downloads an episode Or whatever the thing is Because so many of those Kind of ad models have died because they just weren't working. So I was listening to Pod Save America is a podcast that's big enough that they're still using that model that we were using where you've got somebody reading some kind of ad for something with some kind of call to action and use the code, whatever. And they literally said, this is the best offer they're going to have or whatever, which I remember too. I didn't have as much emotionally tied up in it as you did, but I remember that being commonly a thing that was popping up in podcast reads and you know where that got it start i think those like 1-800 flower and those uh he's a four foot five pile of awesome vermont teddy bear ad yeah i remember in the old school days of those radio reads when those companies would just car sherry's berries when they would just freaking carpet bomb local radio with these ads these and i swear that was also part of the verbiage and i don't know if like a couple of people like jumped off of that ship as it was as it was sinking and then got onto the lifeboat of podcasting and it kind of got written into the sort of lot the um the laws of podcast advertising that's saying this is the best offer this is their best offer be i turned into woody woodpecker there for a second um but i i i heard that the other day and it literally hit my ear like oh they're still saying that okay i'm surprised

that the pod guys said that too because the pod save america guys because they're they must they're probably the podcast that is most famous for their for their um commercial their reads are really good because they make fun of the copy they just openly like i don't you know they're just so good at their job and early on they set their own tone and i gotta say like that was the one thing with apm is like we couldn't set our own tone because we sort of had a gatekeeper who was very much by the book kind of rule follower um and but I always envied them and Scott Aukerman well for various reasons because they're incredibly talented podcasters but also because they were able to leverage their um their kind of power and influence to be able to say hey we're going to do these ads but we're going to do them our way and the pod guys just like the pod save guys just like they rip into the ad copy I mean it must be almost a game now for the Thank you. people who are writing the ad copy to see, like, can I get these guys to read this without them just embarrassing me in front of my entire profession? And I love it. They're the best ads. You don't fast forward through them because you want to hear them roast. It's like such a

good strategy. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Like, they're very, very good at that. I forget what the product was, but again, it was like an old school product, too. It was, and I say old school, as in, like, you know, from four or five years ago. It might have even been a mattress company which again just feels like like you know like what were they were they had they just come down off of a flagpole sitting competition they just come down off of a a dance marathon uh in order in order to do this ad for a mattress company just feels so like it's such a specific

time of right yeah yeah specific time right when i was like yeah and and again the business model

was and somehow casper is still in business but the business model was let's mail every podcaster in america a one thousand dollar mattress yeah and then have them do reeds and hope that we sell you know enough mattresses that we you know that we can we can and again a lot of those companies are sort of still around so maybe they they knew something i was just pleased to get a free yeah uh keurig of cocktail machines out of the whole deal which i then gave to my brother-in-law um the thing i was going to say about how susceptible i am to thinking something is a deal is when i needed to get appliances for this little kitchen that my dad and i were building out And I say little, Andrew, because you'll see it someday Every time I walk around in there, I'm like, wow, this is really like This is a small, I built this thing from scratch And it is, it's cozy, it definitely works for me I'm like, wow, this is a small kitchen This is what happens, again, when you're not an architect Or a person who really thinks about design a lot And you just think, it'd be nice for the kitchen to be here Because then you could look at the river I'm like, woo, this is a small footprint for this kitchen But all that is to say, I was like, I need appliances. And instead of painstakingly researching and going to, you know, and like testing out different things, I just went on the Home Depot website and they were like, well, if you buy this dishwasher with this refrigerator and this stove, we're going to keep taking the more of these you buy in a bundle. We're going to keep more red slashes and then the other number is going to keep going down until, you know, you're like getting a deal you can't refuse. So I inadvertently ended up buying this entirely internet-connected series of appliances, which wasn't why I bought them.

That's kind of cool. That's the one thing. When we bought our washer and dryer, we have none of that Bluetoothiness or Wi-Fiiness. And I got to say, I didn't want to pay a premium for that stuff, but I was kind of hoping that we live in a day and age where you just get that anyway. It's just default setting now. Because I would have played around with that. like i love washing clothes and if i could like have my phone like alert me when the dry cycle

is done or whatever it's pretty cool actually and like i didn't even know these things had that until i well i don't know just one day there was like some logo on the inside of the fridge that said like think with a q and i was like what what does that mean i've never never done that a day in my life and then i started looking around and yeah it turns out there i'm some of them i I haven't actually been able to get them online yet because of boring details but like the um the hood the vent that's over the the stove which is also the microwave like a microwave that works as a vent that one's online and I can like I'll be I'll be sitting on the couch watching television it's now dark in the room I can turn the light on oh that's nice sure I was I was doing something out of town and my dad was working here and every time he would leave the refrigerator door open for more than like 30 seconds i would get an alert uh-huh i was like i love that you want to close

that thing i love the warm glow of the hood light above the stove it is yeah andrew it's seriously

one of my favorite things that specific light i will do this thing where all of the lights are out in the because again this house is teeny tiny and you just have this little kitchen and then there's this little kind of living room area and it's all the same room and i'll be watching tv and it will be i want the room to be generally dark because i don't you know i'm watching tv but i like the glow of the of the hood light it's just enough light that i can kind of see things if i get up to go to the bathroom it's not too much light it is a perfect amount of light i love that

too there's something so comforting about it and i'm gonna i'm gonna really go i'm gonna make

the dishes are whirring away in the dishwasher the coffee is ready to go like it's got everything

is straightened up and it's just like a note on the coffee machine it's andy times baby i saw something and this is i'm probably going to make this awkward by introducing race into this conversation because i don't even understand this but there was a meme that i saw um that i think i was like scrolling through reddit and it was like one of those if you know you know things and it was like a photo of like kind of a um it seemed more like a 90s sort of maybe like kind of middle

class kitchen or something there it wasn't like a fancy kitchen at all but everything was cleaned up and the lights were out and there was just the glow of the again the sort of the the oven hood light or the stove hood light kind of down and that's the only light on in the kitchen and it said something like if you grew up in a black family you know what this means or something in fact I'll bet you this is from one of my I follow several subreddits that are like can you explain the joke to me which is one of my favorite things I just roll through it was like explain this joke I didn't grow up in a black family or whatever and people were saying like oh and again I have I cannot speak obviously I cannot speak to the veracity at all but it really stuck in my mind because it was the type of thing I did not I was not aware of and my brain really chewed on this for a while but apparently the claim is that in certain families maybe particularly African-American families during a certain period like this meant the kitchen is closed for the night we've all we the family has eaten everybody's done everybody's done with whatever they've done whatever they need to do in the kitchen the dishes are done the dishes the dishes are done the whole scenario exactly oh i love that and mom or dad has cleaned everything up and i'm the person who likes to like have everything tidy lights are off the the hood light is on or whatever you would call that thing the overhead light is on and it's just such a feeling of of peace and and hominess i love

it so much yes i've been really leaning into that the last few weeks just because i've actually been around a bit and because you know things are more functional in there like i've been getting i've been doing some some real hardcore puttering of like cleaning every surface and like the the gentle burble of the ice occasionally dispensing oh god i don't have that in my life the ice

machine dude i don't have that but i know exactly you're just sitting there everything's fine and And it should be almost disorienting. It should be kind of a bad feeling, but when it's yours and you know it and you know the rhythm and you just hear from maybe a room away the gentle clunk clunk of another batch of ice hitting. Everything is as it should be right now.

All right. Well, someone's got to pay for these ice makers. Maybe we thank some dazzling donors.

That's right. And then if you don't mind, I have some good breaking news and a TBTL follow-up after the donors. Oh, sweet.

We was hoping for some razzle-dazzle. Razzle-dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle Dazzle. On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody

Razzle Dazzle. All right, let's thank some dazzling donors. These are the wonderful, generous people who are supporting TBTL by donating a dazzling amount of dough. Speaking of my full coverage in terms of cameras now here at the Madrona Hill studio, Andrew, I got a buzz on my watch that said, oh, you know, somebody's pulling up. And then I just look over and the the door here in the studio is kind of an all glass door to let a little bit of light in and my very incredibly nice um post office my uh male woman i guess who i really love she's just absolutely great is just standing in the door waving at me and putting a package down oh nice just like what does she think this is a podcast what i know you know what every time i say that now you're like it's not that people know what podcasts are i guess it just seems like a weird it i feel somehow very very exposed if somebody's just observing me do this and i don't know but

yeah no i sort of feel that but i don't think there's a confusion about it i just don't want my neighbors to know what i do because i don't want them to ask like oh well what is your podcast

because i don't want them hearing it right i'm thank god zach jost of portland oregon hears it um zach of course a long time tbtl fan as is his wonderful partner lauren and they were in brooklyn now they're in portland i've run into them at a portland pickles game and many uh another tbtl and maybe even live wire event zach says hey hermanos after years of hearing how tbtl gets people through hard times and reflecting on how lucky i am uh that that is not the particular Joy this show brings me Well I guess it's my turn Rough year y'all First my mother-in-law had a debilitating Stroke I'm so sorry Zach for both of you And for your whole family that's really tough Then my dad died pretty abruptly From the cancer that we knew was going to get him But not so soon

Oh gosh

Yeah that's a lot for Either of those events is so much to deal with And having them both happen kind of concurrently Must have been really really really tough Add to that Your run-of-the-mill challenges with work And raising a couple of teens It all feels like a lot I don't know, it doesn't sound like a very full plate Raising teenagers, dealing with family health matters I mean, job stuff, I don't know More like Job stuff, am I right? Right, and by that I mean Bluth I was going for the Bible But like a lot of other 10s out there This show is a connection to a particularly joyful community And I guess I didn't really know how much value that had until this year so thanks very much for that well zach i'm i'm so sorry to hear what you and the family have been going through man but i'm glad to hear that there's been at least a little bit of comfort provided by the tbtl 10s and to some degree maybe this show i am they say that in times of crisis hearing somebody talk about the connectivity of their dishwasher can really take your mind off of it i like to think of us as the glowing

kitchen hood light of podcasts.

That's right. You turn it on and it makes you feel a little bit more peaceful for at least a little while. Congrats on your independence from APM and the continuing success. Thanks for being fellow Mariners fans who delude ourselves into believing this is the year. Yeah, but Zach, I've been wondering if this is the year lately. Here's what I think, okay?

We lost a game yesterday, right? We lost half a game. We're now like are we six games or no no we're now we lost a whole game yesterday we're now five and a half

games above texas i think the mariners are in a crap division yeah if we get to the postseason it will be because of how weak our division is not because of how good our team is but chaos ball baby you get into the postseason however undeserved it might be and we've got a great staff and maybe for some weird reason our bats come alive like you're just you're playing with how if you're the Mariners and you win 86 games and you get into the playoffs you're playing with house money in my opinion and anything can happen I just want to know why the Angels can

beat every team except for the Rangers that's all I want to know I went I went to watch the game yesterday with Genevieve it was you know unfortunately a loss but we won three out of four you went to the field no I'm sorry I should I should restate that I went to a bar called bleachers in the Greenwood neighborhood to watch the game with the Veeves and we had some I said you were culturally Greenwood I told you that. I was telling her that on the walk and I think the more I think about that the more I reject it I think I'm culturally I think I'm culturally Aurora now I don't know if it's a point of pride or what but anyway I um but anyway it was a nice night we were watching but then as we were getting on the E-line again culturally Aurora I was getting on the bus with a guy who was wearing a Dodgers hat and it's kind of one of those sketchy bus stops where A lot of people don't make eye contact with each other, but I had to ask him. It's like, are you a Dodgers fan? He's like, yeah. And I'm just like, you had one job tonight, buddy. Like, you just had – all you had to do was beat Texas.

I think you said the Angels earlier. I got confused.

Oh, did I say he was wearing an Angels hat? I'm sorry.

No, no, you said, why can the Angels not beat everybody except the Rangers?

I was like, oh, I thought they were playing the Dodgers. Oh, jeez, my mouth just – my mouth is writing checks my ass can't cash. No, I meant the Dodgers. I mean, the Dodgers can beat everybody except the teams that well, the Dodgers did.

They committed the classic blunder, which is they won the first game by too many runs. Yeah, they had nothing left in the tank. I hate this in baseball. Would you beat a team like 18 to three? And you're like, no, can we just get seven runs for three games and take three W's, please?

Yeah. So anyway, but no, I am the Mariners are still five and a half games up over the Rangers.

yeah i i i i feel like you know with our pitching also with brian woo getting a relatively clean bill of health that's sort of that's pretty amazing like i don't know zach this could be our year i'm here for it and if root sports will just let me watch this team i feel like we might really uh do something zach says can you go out with highway anxiety by william tyler not to be confused with the song high anxiety by mel brooks from the movie high anxiety which he does sing i

believe in the movie high anxiety this is the one that goes life is a highway anxiety and i want to

ride it all night long not any further please uh i needle drop it maybe 245 into the song oh okay

all right i haven't i haven't sorry go ahead finish the power i was just gonna say uh power

out zach and lauren jost um i love that this tells you that zach is a long time listener to the program he's using the term needle drop he's already like uh they're gonna want to they're

gonna want to needle drop this 245 let's move it in i haven't i haven't previewed this song so i don't know what happens at the beginning and i don't know what happens at 245 but i guess we'll

find out at the end of the show now i want to say did i like high anxiety okay here we go why is it that Why am I singing a song called high anxiety by Mel Brooks? I don't know because there's a movie called high anxiety that he's in High anxiety Mel Brooks, and I feel like he sings the song High anxiety What I was just the sounds I was just making I didn't invent that really exists, but I can't seem to Locate this on Spotify well, and also it seems weird that he's singing the theme of the movie high anxiety in the movie high anxiety because I don't think he was playing like a singer or anything oh you found it high

anxiety whenever you're near high anxiety it's you that I fear

so he's in a piano bar somewhere and this is a scene from the movie I think and okay he is singing this kind of almost almost making aggressive eye contact with the woman sitting next to him and I believe this is the actor the woman who's in a lot of his films might even be in um the Frankenstein one Madeline Kahn I'm sorry or Cloris Leachman Frankenstein

it would probably be Madeline Kahn or Cloris Leachman I think it might be Madeline Kahn

although I'm not sure I'm not great with faces so I want to go watch this movie again I used to

love this movie I don't think I've heard of it a psychiatrist with an intense acrophobia which of fear of heights goes to work for at a mental institution run by doctors who appear who appear to be crazier than their patients i'm wondering uh watching it now in 2024 if it deals with mental health in the way that we currently talk about mental health that reminds me of what i know we

gotta go but last night vives and i put on i just wanted we came back from watching the game a little bit tipsy and i just wanted to watch something comforting and genevieve was hanging uh out in the basement with me so i didn't want to just turn on my stupid video game and so i'm like what could we watch that'd be comforting that would be the the kitchen hood light of viewing and so I landed on the couch trip which is something that I've talked about I think on this show before certainly I've told you about it off air you were very proud because um I mentioned that it's oh god now I'm blanking on the people who are in the couch trip but I was an Ackroyd

Walter Matthau and Donna Dixon um I'm just this is what the internet is telling me but there's

There's also somebody in it that I was describing this movie to you one time. Charles Grodin. And you said, oh, it sounds like it's the type of movie that have Charles Grodin in it. And I'm like, yes, that's exactly it. And you were so proud of yourself. That was off air. I think we had that. But anyway, it's this movie. The reason I want to bring it up is it's like some, I think, early 90s, maybe late 80s movie with those three. And it involves mental health. But what I love about it so much is I had never heard about this movie until I met Genevieve. And Genevieve told me about it, but she told it to me in this somewhat argumentative way, because apparently one of her roommates, this is what I don't know. I was teasing her last night. I don't know if like really she had a bunch of friends who really made fun of her for liking the couch trip or if just like one time one roommate was like, what do you like about that movie? It's not that good. Whatever it is. That's all it takes. It lives in her head. And this is going back 20 years now. So last night I put on the couch trip. We've probably watched it together or had it out in the background many times over the course of our relationship. But what I love about it, the most entertaining part of this movie is not the movie, but hearing Genevieve mumble to herself, fighting this argument with some roommate from a long time ago about why it's good. Like, literally, we'll be sitting there in silence, and she's sort of over at her desk. She's not even watching it. She's just, like, listening to it while I'm watching it and sort of puttering around. And I'll just hear her say, see, like, that's a perfect thing right there. Like, whatever it is, like, that is the structure of the movie. That is so relatable for me. She is always fighting this. And I literally said, like, who are you fighting with? Like, was it one time one person said, I don't think it's that great. She's like, no, nobody likes this movie. Like, everybody hates this movie and it's good and it's got this and it's got that. Like, I think the movie is fine. But what I love about it is not even Genevieve's appreciation of it, but her pure defensiveness when it comes to the couch trip. It is so charming.

I love it. She is embodying the LL Cool J lyrics, shadowboxing when I heard you on the radio. Yeah, right. I just don't know what made you forget that I was raw, but now I got a new ta? That's what she said.

Were you listening in?

Thanks, Zach and Lauren. Hope that you're doing okay through all that tough stuff. Maestro?

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

It's our friend Ian Seafelt of Superior, Wisconsin. I'm guessing that's adjacent to Lake Superior

That would make sense Or they just have a superiority complex Well that's what I was wondering

Honestly if anyone deserves it it's Ian He is a superior person we've met him But I mean you know I would say Let's let other people do the complimenting It's kind of my approach to life I play the humble card And then I let everyone else tell me that I'm superior

But you're the one who also wanted me to call you Slick You're like I have a new nickname and I want you to only slick all the time.

Andrew, that was an off-air conversation.

Okay, slick. Calm down.

Ian says, mark your calendars. Join us for the Twin Ports second annual TENS meetup. It's August 24th. Oh, yeah. Wait a second. Is that when the Duluth meetup is happening? This is the same one. Look, Ursa Brewing in Duluth. minnesota mcshell dazzling donor mcshell alerted us to this as well i was worried that we had

we had counter programming going on between the tens because i clearly don't pre-read these things

and i was a little worried but good memory on august 24th that you would remember it's the

same day i'm kind of shocked you know that's uh you know that was like when that one time i knew charles groden was definitely in a film yeah right uh yeah so this is our second reminder okay mcshell has uh is going to be at this thing and also ian is going to be at this thing august 24th Ursa Minor Brewing, Duluth, Minnesota. Any questions, give a shout to the Minnesotens Slack. Love it. So a bunch of Minnesotens are going to be getting together on August 24th at Ursa Minor in Duluth, Minnesota. Please go see them and say hi and say nice things about us, please. We're starting a whisper campaign about the show where you guys whisper to each other, aren't the guys great?

I mean, they're already getting together. I think we need to work on the people who don't Could be getting together to plot our downfall No, that could be true

I will say this I think you're having a meet-up on that day too, right? August 24th I feel like I was invited to something That's a whole thing A whole other kettle of fish we should Unpack on Monday

Why does Genevieve put my name on these invites? She writes and she sends out a thing

Out of my e-vite

Genevieve and Andrew's summer party I'm like, take my name out of it It's not mine And I was being quite serious I'm like it's not my party

Sorry I'm not trying to start anything here I'm bummed because I'm going to be out of town That weekend I'm going to be far out of town I think maybe all the way in Italia So I am a scratch for that But I believe that's also That's a hot I'm not saying August 24th is a hot, hot weekend Hot, hot Saturday All across the country So anyway, Ian, thank you for supporting the show Thank you for being part of a vibrant TENS community And thank you for not trading stories At the Duluth Get Together About all the throw your phone moments that you've had But rather trading stories about How much you love us And how excited you are that TBTL continues All these years later And that my new nickname is Slick What a cool ass nickname that is Alright before we get out of here Andrew A little music for your weekend And speaking of music I'll just tell you this We ran out of time on the Martin Shkreli story But that's just as well Because it means there's no chance Of me playing the Wu-Tang Baby They Rock the World Sound effect That you don't like Although I'm going to tell you this Friend to friend Compadre y compadre That would be friend and friend I didn't even have the drop ready to go Because I thought it would be a funny flex If I never played the drop the whole time That would be the entertaining move That would be the Just edge lord you

with this drop well the um the i really did i'm not joking during sound check or maybe it was just like during the intro that we were doing when we're recording i was like kind of flinching or like kind of like ready for you to play that i was very happy that you didn't um the the long and

the short on that is that martin shkreli just seems he's out of jail now but he seems to he seems to continue to just kind of troll be the generally unlikable person that he is And so he's been bragging online that he made a copy of this Wu-Tang record that he wasn't supposed to make a copy of and that he was live streaming it on YouTube recently. He had a listening party for the record, which doesn't seem like you're really low-keying it.

No, he's just a troll. He wants attention. I also heard that the record itself, I saw a couple of weeks ago a headline that that record is now in the hands of some sort of nonprofit museum, right, where people can maybe go in and have a session.

In all places, I want to say it's in like Hobart, Tasmania or something. Oh, okay, it's not in the US Yeah, well, it's I'm sorry, the album is being Displayed at the Museum of Old and New Art In Hobart, Tasmania

Oh, interesting, sounds like that will be next year's TBTL

I want to say also thanks to listener Nigel Who sent this story to me And what we'll do is If there is a ruling on this Like if he actually is going to be stuck Because it's in the millions of dollars The value of this thing is determined by its Sort of rareness, its singularity And if he gets stuck to actually on the hook for real money for this, we will update the story. But in the meantime, let's talk music for your weekend. What would you like to play for? And I've already called dibs on High Anxiety by Mel Brooks. So hopefully that wasn't going to be your song.

Let me see what else I got here. I told you and I was not kidding or maybe kidding on the square when I told you that a new record came out last month and I played one song off of it. And I told you I'm going to play more than one song off of this record in the coming weeks and months because I love this band so much. And I'll tell you what, I have been listening to this same record over and over. I can't remember a time since I was a teenager. There must have been other times. where I just have one record that I'm listening to over and over and over again, and it's by that band that you and I both love called Dead, D-E-H-D. They have several records out, but the latest one that came out just almost exactly a month ago is called Poetry. And I think I played for you the song Dog Days, which is the lead track off of it a few weeks ago on Music for Your Weekend. I'm going to play another song today. And honestly, my obsession with this record is so deep right now, I would expect to probably play at least one more song off of this record as a music for your weekend. And I don't care. We have no rules. Just rah-rahs. So here is my rah-rah song for today. This is what I'm guessing is probably going to be and looking at the downloads here. Yeah, this is by far the most played song off of this record on Spotify. I think this is sort of the standout single right now. It's called Mood Ring. You will know immediately. or maybe I'll say you will know 10 seconds into this song why I love it so much

I can't believe that he's with me, he's with everything I need, sexy little DJ. Get back now, you're going to be there, come on with a man with a little bit of danger. I can't believe that he's with me, he's with everything I need, sexy little DJ. I'll check my mood ring Give me that, give me that sweet believer I'll got these feelings I wanna shout-a-la-la-la I wanna shout-a-la-la-la-la

I can't get back, I never want it

Alright, we can't play the whole thing, but good Lord. Oh, that's really good. I mean...

I like the guitar.

I love everything. I love how it sounds like a... It starts off with that sort of heavy, like, overdriven bass, And then it just kicks into Kixi. I mean, it's like modern indie rock that is like based on that kind of old school sound that I love so much. That's not the sound of the whole record, but it is a driving principle of them, I think. Sort of this very kind of classic poppy sound. But honestly, like almost literally every track. And they both, like I will forever remember like this spring or summer, if I ever hear any of these songs, Once I kind of lay this, you know, once I kind of put this album aside for a little bit, if I ever hear any of these, I will be transported to this moment because I'm just obsessed.

It's weird to know that as it's happening.

Yeah, I just thought of that the other day because sometimes I'm listening to an album and I'm thinking, oh, I will associate that with this time. It was just, I think, two days ago I was walking home from watching a baseball game at a different bar and just thinking like, oh, yeah, I've been listening to this so much. Like, this is going to be indelible with the summer of 2024. That's really good. I'm babbling, but it's so good. The album is poetry. Listen to the whole thing.

The song that I would like to suggest is from Francois Hardy. Oh, yeah. Or sometimes I've heard her name said Hardiz, which is confusing to me because that's not really how it's spelled. But also, I'm horrible with French. I'm horrible with French. Francois Hardy passed away this week at 80 years old. and um the way that i sort of got very into her music and really not just her music but the whole that whole kind of genre of what was called yi yi music from france from the like 60s and i guess i was reading up on this last night it was called the yi yi movement because they liked american

songs that would say yeah yeah i was gonna say i think it's not yi yi right it's yeah yeah you're Yay, yay. Isn't it yay, yay?

I thought I saw it spelled Y-I-Y-I in the Guardian article.

Oh, it is. I thought it was Y-E-Y-E. Okay, sorry.

But that might just be one article. I don't know. I mean, really, I don't know a lot about her. And this is the weirdest way to set up this song, which is I like Francois Hardy a lot. What I really like is putting on an algorithm on a summer day that uses a Francois Hardy song as a jumping off point. because all of the places it takes me, including her music, but a lot of other stuff. I'm a real sucker for French music, music where the lyrics are French. Actually, this song that I'm going to suggest, which is called Tous les garçons et tes filets, I just butchered that. There's an English language version I found. This was her big song. This was the number one song in France when she put it out. This really launched her career. And she was a singer for many years and also a muse. she acted she was you know very very you want to talk about

as your grandma would say, a looker, Andrew. Yes, right. 1970s Francois Hardy is somebody that I don't have any difficulty looking at photographs of, a really striking person and was kind of a fashion icon and just had a pretty cool life. But there's an English version of this song, and I was thinking, well, should we play that because that's the language that primarily our listeners are speaking? And I was like, no, you've got to go with the French version. So can we hear a little Francois Hardy?

Yeah, if you don't mind, I want to hear how it's pronounced. It is Y-E-Y-E. It's Y-E-Y-E. And I just want to hear, because I've seen this forever, and I went through my own little phase with this. Okay. Ye-ye. Ye-ye is how you say it, for whatever it's worth.

Sounds like it's exactly in between.

Yeah, yeah, and ye. It's definitely not ye-ye, but it's like ye-ye? I always said ye-ye, but I didn't have it right either. I've never heard it before.

Ye-ye.

Ye-ye. Okay, so there you go. And so how do you say this again? And there you go. That's how you say it. Let's do this.

And the hand in the hand They go, love Without fear, tomorrow Yes, but I go alone By the streets, the pain Yes, but I go alone Because no one All right, so there's a little

Francois Hardy we're definitely getting pulled down in France today on yeah but that's okay sorry sorry listeners in France of which we have a few like I said the music is fairly simplistic I looked up the lyrics and it's you know it's a song about basically when am I going to find love which again not to frame it this way but I don't think there was any lack of suitors for a young Francois Hardy which isn't necessarily always how it works but it's funny reading the I wanted to understand the lyrics because I've heard this song a thousand times and I have no idea what she's singing about So I I got a translation of the lyrics and I was reading it It's about why can't I find love all my other friends are finding love and I was like well It's not it's a it's not due to lack of interest probably Francois, but she also probably didn't write it

Right, I think she did did she write her own music?

I think she was credited with co-writing it

I was listening to a song the other day from like the 50s or 60s and it was just I mean it was a type of song that I like the sound of and it was female vocals and I'm like i like this and i listened to it i'm like this is so degrading and it's just like you can do whatever you want it was not a song that i had heard of before so it's not so it was any song by patsy klein i kind of like that right it was like one of those like you can kind of do whatever you want i'll always be here like i'm sorry it was just like apologizing for things she shouldn't be apologizing for and i'm just like there is no way a woman wrote this song and i looked it up and of course it was written by one of those songwriting teams of a couple of white guys back in the 50s or something i'm just like you guys were writing this shit like male fantasies of how women should act and then giving it to women to sing like what a what a absolute troll

now i'm i want to make sure because i've been wrong about so many things who actually is credited with writing the song i can't i can't figure it out on the fly um let's see uh it's uh it's a song by french singer songwriter francois hardy with roger salmon credited as co-writer on hardy's original 1962 yay yay era recording nice okay so yeah so that's cool that's how do we say it this way yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah is that yeah yeah

yeah oh speaking of old recordings i know we have to get out of here i just want to say i promised you an update i got a very excited um text message from genevieve a moment ago that a big credenza with the record player inside Genevieve said that she had I didn't know that she had done this but apparently she had posted it to uh free cycle she says within minutes I just had someone reach out to me who's a big restorer of these things and said it was perfect for extra parts he needs so he's coming to pick it up later today he's over the moon about it how great is that I just didn't want to that I didn't want to smash this thing apart and if like Thank you.

If those little parts can go towards somebody who can, like, turn it into something brilliant again or, you know, help, you know, fix up another one of these things, that makes me so happy.

You have unsecured the bag.

Yes. Right.

First the bag was secured and then we didn't want the bag. And then we're holding the bag and we're like, I don't feel so good. There you go. All right. Our listener suggestion this week comes from listener Zach, who wanted to hear Highway Anxiety by William Tyler. needle dropped at the 2.45 spot. So that's how we're going to go out this week. Hey, thank you so much for spending this week with us. We're going to be back here on Monday with more imaginary radio for you. So if you could join us for that, we sure would appreciate it. In the meantime, have a great weekend. Take care of yourselves. Take your hay fever medicine. Go Mariners. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all.

Thank you.

And boom goes the dynamite. Power out.