Muse

So get this, Belinda is saying she has fibromyalgia yet again, which means that I have to cover the Houston Conference.

That is so awesome, babe.

It can happen anytime. Oh my god, you're not even listening to me. Here at Listen Alert, our trained operators are standing by, waiting to respond to your calls to hear how things turned out. We're prepared with such phrases as, Are you kidding me? Or, uh-huh? Or, she's the worst. Sounds like you handle that perfectly.

Listen alert, this is Jeff. Tell me everything. Don't leave out your feelings.

I'm on my third day of green juice, but since I'm having a salad tonight, I think it's okay.

You should have a podcast.

All this is covered by a low, low price of $100,000 a month. So it was like my grandma's house, but at the same time, it was not totally my grandma's house? But, but, but, but, but, we will not listen to your dreams. We are not saints.

TBTL!

Have you ever had a dream that you, um, you had, you, you, you could, you do, you, you want, you, you could do so, you, you do, you could, you, you want, you want him to do you so much you could do anything?

You have no reflexes, your blood tastes like root beer, and some of your bones appear to have vanished. You are legit crazy. You are losing your malleables.

Can't you say anything in a normal way? The answer, sadly, is not yes.

I love these guys. They make funny with their mouth.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. The vibes will be the illest, and the jams, not ridiculous. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host...

We did it! We did it, Joe!

...coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it's June 17th today. It feels like it should not be raining, and yet it somehow is. Didn't know you like to get wet, though. That being said, because of some rip-roaring seasonal allergies this year, I'm actually kind of glad that it's raining because that seems to tamp down the grass pollen. I had a situation last night where i was i wasn't gonna go to like you know i wasn't gonna go to the er or go to one of those you know sort of emergency care clinics one of those zoom clinics but i was like has anyone ever died of an allergy attack i wondered that to myself last night because it was going so hard my um my allergies and i realized oh here's what i need to do i need to get my guy jerry out here to cut down this tall grass i live on this hill and most of the hill is just this wild tall grass that's gone to seed now and i need to get jerry who does brush hogging out here and then i texted him and i've had no response from him and i remembered oh yeah jerry doesn't do texts jerry is of the generation that doesn't understand all that text stuff it's a it's a landline to landline call kind of situation so i'm going to do that later and try to see if we can get on top of some of this grass stuff. I've got to do that later because we have some important business here on episode 4228 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Big TBTL announcement today.

This is special.

This is special. Including the announcement of a project that we will be embarking on that I think there's a less than 50-50 chance we'll actually be able to pull off. Let's take on projects that we know we can't do and do them. So we will talk about that. And, of course, we'll talk about all of that with this guy, longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. By his own admission, sometimes he comes in on Monday morning maybe dragging a little bit, but not today because of our big special announcement.

I'm so excited about this show.

He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my hyped-up friend.

You got it wrong. I'm dragging hard today. I need this announcement to put life into me. Yes, this is why it's so fortuitous, I think. Okay, I see. Because I am dragging in.

You've got to be careful, though, Andrew. You start, you know, taking downers to fall asleep and then announcements to wake up, and then you're just locked in a terrible cycle.

What's the opposite of an announcement that would put me to sleep? Like, I listen to Johnny Dollar. No, that gets you. Oh, I did want to ask you something, or I wanted to ask the universe something. Is it a sign that you're getting older when you start getting push notifications on your phone telling you that old episodes of Gunsmoke are coming up soon. Because I've never listened, as much as I love old-timey radio, I don't love old-timey cowboy stories so much. Yet, for some reason, the Sirius Satellite radio app on my phone really has me pointed out as a...

Gunsmoke fan because I keep getting notifications Morning, noon, and Night. Hey, hey, hey, Andrew Hey, Andrew. Gunsmoke's about to start Hey, Gunsmoke's about to start. You interested? I'm like, no. How many times do I have to tell you? I'm not Interested in Gunsmoke. I don't think

I knew that Gunsmoke was ever a radio Program. I knew it as A television show That was even too old for me I knew it existed as television Content. I'd never watched any of it But I didn't realize it started out as a radio

program i don't think i was really when it came to television i wasn't into any non-lorn green cowboy westerns you were a bonanza guy i did watch bonanza i'm assuming i watched bonanza because the intro was so iconic and maybe it was let's face it was probably the only thing that was on the five channels that we got at the time the other three were probably some sort of you know morning news shows or i could watch bonanza or maybe coming up next mikhail's navy that's right I never watched McHale's Navy, but, yeah. Did you experiment at all with Bonanza as a young person?

Well, absolutely. I mean, every young person goes through a time of experimenting with their Bonanza. But my mother was in love with Michael Landon.

Oh, yeah.

And young Michael Landon played, I believe his name was Joe, the character of Joe on Bonanza. She loved him from his, of course, Little House on the Prairie days and then later his Highway to Heaven days. So we used to watch And the same thing though There was only so many channels And we had this small black and white TV That mostly resided in a closet But would get brought out It started with it was brought out for special occasions And then it just kind of We're just taking it out of the closet so much Let's just leave it here And then it was Now we just have a TV we're watching That was the camel's nose under the tent Of my family's television viewing

A special occasion was like a special televised event or company is over and you're going to watch a movie. I assume there was no VCR attached to this rig.

Well, not originally, no. So the story was, remember how I said, let's get right to the announcement today, Andrew? Yeah, we're doing great. Let's get right to the announcement by way of 45 years ago in my family history.

You can't get to any announcement without first passing through Gunsmoke and Bonanza.

We need to build the foundation of how you and I became the people that we are who are going to make this announcement in a minute. So when I was a little kid We didn't have a TV at all And my parents would check out a film projector From the Shoreline Public Library And we would watch film Films that my dad would set up in the living room We would air pop popcorn with not enough butter on it Little has changed My parents still eat their popcorn with not enough butter on it

In case they need to ship something later They can just put it in the box

People use that

People have been emailing me If you want a green alternative to like those styrofoam peanuts or whatever just pop popcorn that doesn't have butter and salt on

it and use it as packing peanuts my parents were i was talking to them about this this weekend because they were over and i said you all have the smallest carbon footprint of any two people i know who are unfamiliar with the term carbon footprint yeah right like my parents are the absolute like perfect example of two people who tread lightly in the world but none of it is because of a particular environmental concern it's because they're very very parsimonious i saw some

free pallets on uh free cycle the other day almost forwarded it to you and your mom but i was like no that's probably best just kept between me and free cycle so we didn't have a tv then we then we

eventually got like a black and white tv i think probably somebody at the church was giving it away but it was just like a very small one and it was there was no dedicated place for the tv it mostly sat in the closet because the idea was we weren't a tv family we just had one you know that got four channels that had that classic knob that was like as you turned it and and then it went from being mostly in the closet to occasionally coming out for who knows what to being like well we'll just leave it out to being kind of like well now we have a tv and we kind of go look at it um sometimes but not very much to like well now we sort of watch you know let's get maybe let's get a little better tv and then we got a better tv then we started watching things like rescue 911 with William Shatner and America's funniest home videos with Bob Saget that was big Sunday night in the Burbank household and then one day many years after the technology had debuted my dad brought home a TV that I've said I've talked about on the show a lot that I think perfectly encapsulates my parents approach to both money and technology we now had a TV actually I think the TV was independent of this product my dad brought home a device that was called a vcp it was a video cassette player did it have an r in the name did it record no it did not it only played so we could not do the thing that every kid wants to do when they get a vcr which is record shit off of television it was made by the company lloyds not of london and it was only

a thing that played movies it didn't record movies and my guess is it was $15 cheaper and like the video only or whatever you only that's it's video only

we play video only yeah I mean in fairness video that's right in the title

that's right it was right there so yeah so we so that was kind of but but in the days of watching Bonanza with my mom it'd be like a summer morning and there was only so many channels and one of them would have Bonanza and we would watch it and my mom would would wax rhapsodic about just what a good heart that character of joe from bonanza had um you know as played by michael landon and then later i think heart in

that case was uh probably a synonym for patootie right yeah you would say it was well my mom was

interested was a little south of his heart yeah right i mean oh god what a segue into our big announcement today i'll be patootie don't worry thank you i'm very excited about this actually even i brought this drum roll music oh you know what i want to do too andrew i figured i would try to look nice for this big announcement we're doing how about that there we go luke's putting on a sport coat today the big announcement andrew the big announcement is that tbtl-a-thon 15 thank you for being a 10 is just around the corner that's right july 8th through 12th live from right here at the Madrona Hill Studio, we will be presenting TBTL-a-thon 15. It will involve... Let me get out my bell here. Let's see. You still got it in you, buddy? No. This is going to be the last, like, four dings from this bell. If the thon goes well, I'll have enough money

for a new bell. That's what I was going to say. That's what we built this around. Luke needs a new... TBTL-a-thon 15, Luke needs a new bell.

Yes. Papa needs a new bell. Papa needs a new pair of bell. Alright. TBTL-a-thon 15, thank you for being a 10. July 8th through 12th, featuring phone calls, zooms, a big announcement about the next TBTL live event, amazing thank you gifts, and can you hear the oomph going out of this bell?

Yeah, it's a little bit of a thud. It's like a thud and a ding, yeah.

It's exactly like that party horn that we play during this announcement music. It's like a... And, now if you're scoring at home, just to remind you Live events, I can't ding this anymore It's going to die It's got one ding left I mean, do you want me to ding?

I do No You don't trust me No

Wow Weird flex, but okay, bro Tell me when to stop Am I doing it right? No, it's actually, that's too aggressive We're going to be taking calls We're going to be Zooming with all of you We're going to make a big announcement about the next TBTL live event. We have cool thank you gifts. And we also have, Andrew.

Oh, that was good.

A really, really dumb idea that is very likely not accomplishable for us, which is you and me and TBTL employee numero uno, John Sklaroff, who will all be assembling here in the Madrona Hill studio. We were going to maybe call this Thon from the basement to the kitchen, because we've moved out of my parents' basement where we were last year, but we haven't made it that far. We've made it into the, so far, not yet constructed kitchen here in the Madrona Hill studio. But anyway, the three of us are going to get together for this week, July 8th through 12th. And what we are going to do is we are going to make TBTL friendship bracelets. Because the theme of the THON is thank you for being a 10. We are going to make friendship bracelets for anyone who donates any amount of money. One dollar? You're getting a handmade TBTL friendship bracelet. By us. Not by a TaskRabbit that I'm secretly Googling right now. No, no, no. Very much by us. Yeah, okay. $10,000 I am illegally your wife. No, you will also be getting a handmade TBTL friendship bracelet handmade by us you me or TBTL employee numero uno John Sklaroff. Yes, we are going to very likely be making I mean if everything goes okay Thousands of friendship bracelets right here in the studio during the week I think it will emerge as the biggest plot of the whole thon can the

of us and let's be honest andrew you're not coming into this right now physically in the best shape so you may actually be taking more of a supervisory role while john and i really go to town i tried to make thousands of friendship bracelets we are going to hand make friendship bracelets we are going to send them to you as a thank you for donating to this year's i mean there's other

thank you gifts as well but everybody who donates it everybody who donates at any level at any level We'll get this friendship bracelet. Now, I need to give you and John some credit here because the original idea was mine, but my idea was we make one friendship bracelet and we sell it to Martin Shkreli for billions of dollars, and that's it.

With the caveat that he cannot duplicate it.

He cannot duplicate it. He cannot show it to anybody. He cannot share it. He cannot wear it. That was my idea, and you said, you know what, Andrew? TBTL is about the people, and I think that's exclusionary. And I said, I hear you. And then I started making up all this, like, BS about my hands hurting lately so that I can't really.

That was actually, I have to be honest, the groundwork you've been laying on this has been pretty substantial. And I give you credit. I give you credit for being committed to the bit of not being able to help make these bracelets. No.

Can I be honest with you? I know that I am dealing with something with my hands. and a while back you had sort of mentioned or you've been mentioning maybe sort of just sort of casually during meetings well Andrew you probably won't even be able to do this and I was actually

I actually don't want you to do this I know you don't and in my head

I was a little defensive about that I'm like no I'm not going to kayfabe this if I can make bracelets I want to make bracelets too and I'm like maybe I won't be able to do it quite as fast as you guys and so maybe that'll be part of it too like how many we get done I'd like to kind of show progress at the end of every day as we stack up these friendship bracelets. But I will say that I'm not going to pretend my hands are worse for dramatic purposes. I like doing stuff like this, and damn it, I'm going to help. And then I woke up this morning, Luke, and I couldn't open my cat's food. And I'm not even joking about that. And I was like, huh, maybe I will be taking a foreman's role. So we will see. I am hoping, in all seriousness, no kayfabe here. I want to make these things. I love doing stuff like that.

I mean, the irony is if you're if you were not dealing with this kind of like hand numbness issue stuff, this is right up your alley.

I love it.

It's like he is put on put on some gun smoke radio show and sit down with progress piles of beads and thread them through things. It's very it's more up your alley than it is up my alley. But but yeah, definitely it's not. I mean, first of all, I don't think it's actually going to be possible. here's what i hope you can help because i hope that you're by by july 8th i hope that you've seen some real improvement in what's going on with your with your with your hands so i'm hoping for for everyone involved that you can help with it but what i really really want to push back on is the idea of you trying to do this thing when it's really uncomfortable for you that's just so not

worth it no i don't i i won't i won't be a hero about it i will uh participate but i do want you know this is the important thing no matter the level of my own personal participation i am going to be writing you and john very hard about this you know what i mean whether i'm making well one to every hundred that you make or whether i'm making one to every two that you make no matter what i am going to be perfect insufferable i am going to be uh just bugging you all the time about output where we are on these things so yes it's probably mostly just attention to detail because

Because now this is, I mean, it's not like I'm going to be sending ones out that say B-T-B-L.

We think. I don't know. Let's find out where we are in the 11th.

You have a much higher attention to detail when it comes to the audio of this program, the naming conventions of files, file management in general. You're a very meticulous person in a good way, not in an annoying way. And I'm more of a kind of a sexy, kind of fly by the seat of my pants sort of a fellow. And so I could see you coming and looking through the like hundred bracelets that I've made and going and just like separating out the ones we can send out from the ones that have to go back on the scrap heap and just finding issue with all of them.

It'll be like, is it Lucille Ball or is it Laverne and Shirley? Either way, it's a contemporary reference who kind of can't handle the, you know, the conveyor belt of chocolate. Yeah, exactly. It's Lucille Ball, Andrew.

I went to the building where, actually that's not true I went to a See's Candy and did a TV story Where they made me a smock, kind of like the one that she's wearing It said Luke on it And I actually stood by a chocolate conveyor belt And tried to sort them and found that it was very hard to do Yeah, I believe it There was no getting away from that In a TV story about a chocolate factory in Los Angeles You're not going to not reenact the Lucille Ball situation, although that was actually

I found out later, not actually filmed in the facility. I believe she is working for See's Candies or they're working. Lucy and Ethel are working for See's Candies, but it's not filmed at the place I was at in LA. It was at some other studio.

Laverne and Shirley also dealt with a conveyor belt though, right? Yeah, because they worked

at like a bottling place in like Milwaukee, right? Yeah, I think so.

One of them put their glove on one of the bottles and it went sailing down the very beginning.

yeah i will say donate to this show full of current references i know between gun smoke

we got some bonanza in there the kids love bonanza i appreciate you giving me credit for attention to detail but i do have to just in maybe your defense or at least so that i don't steal too much honor remind you that um last year's tb telethon gift of the coin has a uh typo on it thanks to me remember i spelled can we we i wrong or something i don't even remember that's a handsome coin it is a nice looking coin yeah that is a handsome here's what i'm excited about with the bracelets too they're not all going to be exactly the same we are making them by hand you me and john that is we are that's not that's not a joke and also we have um kind of various tbtl sayings and stuff that we'll be making on these things they're not all going to be have exactly the

same have we we don't have to announce that right now but i'm trying to remember from our various meetings have we locked that in we've locked in our yes the beads have been bought in the oh yeah

they're here yeah they're in your place yeah we've been getting these shipments in fact you know what andrew hang on a sec i'm gonna shake that box before we make these things i think we should jump into the thing of beads like scrooge mcduck earlier yeah that's the stuff i have so many

beads here that have been just getting delivered. There's so many beads that the lifting of this box behind me, Andrew, I almost couldn't do it. And all of these beads are supposed to go

onto

friendship bracelets that we're going to make. Like, the sheer number of... I don't want to give away too much, but I'll tell you this. There will be... Some of the friendship bracelets will have The letter U Yep, that's all

Say no more I can't hear I don't have my headphones on Say no more

Sorry

Say no more That's enough of a tease One of them will have The letter U in them That's enough Say no more Also, you know

I'm wearing this shirt I thought I'll wear A decent collared shirt For this And I have one I have many of these Penguin Like collared shirts One of them is missing A button, Andrew Is that the one you're wearing? It's missing this button And I thought Yeah, but this is It's just, you know, from the waist up. No one's going to see. And then I just realized as I was grabbing those beads that not only can you see this, but that my stomach was exposed. Oh, there's your little belly a little bit.

Yeah, I didn't even see the belly at first. Let's cover that up. People are showing their bellies a lot, though. You're on trend with that. People like to show their bellies these days.

People, no one's been asking me to show my belly.

You know what I liked about those bags of beads? And I don't have video of this, unfortunately, but I saw you do it. When those beads arrived in those bags, you took the bags, and then you took, like, this Bowie knife thing off of your hip. and you cut into the bag, and then you took your pinky, and you dipped it into the bag, and you rubbed some of those beads right onto your gums to make sure that they were real beads.

I was confused. I thought you were going with like a Tauntaun reference, like I lightsabered open the beads, and I crawled inside for warmth. No, I like that, too. You're going more cocay, more Bolivian marching powder.

I do like the idea. I was saying this when your headphones were off. Is there a chance that, did you buy some sort of inflatable pool or something that we can pour all of these beads into and then jump in like Scrooge McDuck?

As we always say, individually those things are loose, but together they form a very solid kind of mass that would be very painful. I did buy an inflatable pool that I loved that lasted exactly one year, one season here, Andrew, and then I put it in the basement. I ordered it from a company called Miele, and it was classically one of my Instagram purchases they've made, you know, just like a kind of an inflatable, a little small inflatable kiddie pool, but it's very designy the colors, colors are cute it's sort of, it feels vintage in a way, it almost feels like something from the 1950s or 60s and like everything I buy on Instagram more on that coming up later in the show potentially I inflated it, it was great for, I don't know, the month or two that I had it set up here at the house and then I deflated it and put it in the basement for the winter and then I brought it back out on the first kind of warm day of the spring and I put some water in it and it doesn't hold air anymore I don't know what changed while it was in the basement but it's

As are so many things in my life, it was completely form over function. It was like a cute thing that didn't actually do a good job of being the thing it's supposed to be, which is an inflatable kiddie.

Was it, this is a personal question, but was it priced appropriately? Or was it one of those things where you're like, well, listen, this was cute. It wasn't that expensive. It doesn't work anymore. I got a summer out of it. Or is it like, no, I paid enough to expect several summers of good times?

there are some things that if you go out and buy them at like retail prices they're pretty cheap so that if you do the instagram markup if you pay the design tax if you pay the cuteness tax it's still not that much money but it's more than you should have paid by that i mean i want to say this was 60 bucks or something oh okay yeah 60 or 70 bucks but also if i would have gone to my local walgreens it turns out all of the summertime fun is now being purchased at Drug stores you go in Like Walgreens and CVS's And the like they're mostly just Pool noodles now like you go In and it's just like at least out Here it's like aisle after aisle Of like Pickleball but it's with like inflatable Paddles you played in the above ground pool That's mostly what they sell and if you were To go into there and buy like a little blow Up pool like like the less designy Version of what I got my guess is that cost you 20

Bucks sure yeah one with so Spongebob on it or something

right so this was i was overpaying for something that was only going to work for one season but it wasn't like i didn't pay three hundred dollars right it was still under 70 bucks probably but that's still twice as much as i would have paid for something at the cvs that probably would still work is the thing like that's uh what i've been running into with a couple of things that i impulsively buy because i like the look of them on instagram i'm just glad to hear that your

drugstore seasonal section is still vibrant where you are because I go and I know that this is well well tread territory for us but I go into some all the pool noodles are locked up oh my lord

they don't even you have to get anymore you have to get a tag and bring to the front and they'll

come unlock the 99 cent pool noodle like there is a you know I don't know if it's a CVS or it wouldn't be a Bartel I don't know what it is not too far from me where I went to grab something recently and it feels like the area of the store that is designated as seasonal goods or whatever seasonal and that's going to be your your pool noodle section of course or it's going to be where like the holiday stuff is in the in the winter or whatever I feel like that section is getting bigger and bigger because there's less and less to actually there's less and less actual useful stuff to buy at these drugstores but while that section gets bigger they're having trouble filling it and it is just so depressing it's like one dirty easter bunny like literally hanging from the shelf sort of just dangling there in 2022 yeah it says we'll get through this pandemic together on a heart like oh wow it is they are so bombed out around here i've been thinking i need to go get another covid shot and i'm like i don't even know i gotta go to the suburbs for that i'm I'm not letting those people stick me in my arm.

Fancy town. Yeah, exactly. That is an interesting, from a sort of business standpoint, we're talking about the TBTL-a-thon, which I'll mention, and if you're hearing this, the great likelihood is you already understand the economics of TBTL, but this is our once-a-year fundraiser where we basically ask folks to support the show, and that's how this is a thing. That's how we, you, me, and John, can do this for our actual jobs. um but like it's an interesting economic model if you see these stores these cvs's and walgreens and the like moving more towards just like seasonal stuff because it's none of it is worth stealing because none of it by itself is very valuable there's probably not a huge aftermarket for it and with the with the asterisk that we've talked about on this on our show so much which is a lot of that sort of like story of these of these retail stores that say we can't do business anymore because of retail theft that is there's a real question mark around the reality of that and how much that's just them trying to cover for not being good at business stuff but that being said what's never locked up are like the inflatable beach balls or the like uh some kind of a halloween like a thing that is like a it's a ghost but it's one of the ghosts from pac-man but you hang it on your door but it wiggles when someone knocks on your door it's like a halloween thing a witch and

a broom that dangles and screams from time to time none of that is locked up no no like i do like the idea of i'm going to try to this is what i'm going to do for the thon i'm going to try to steal a beach ball in broad daylight can i walk in put it under my shirt and just and then walk out of the store rubbing my belly they would never mess with a pregnant person no exactly

just walk out saying that was a spicy meatball can i get away i bet you'd get away with it yeah

i bet you would absolutely get away with it although you are putting yourself in a certain what you've done then is you've quote unquote concealed it and that's not that i'm giving people advice on how to liberate things how to liberate things from stores but i would just say if you're thinking about doing it don't conceal it because that's really when yeah if you i i am this is not legal advice but I'm under the impression that if somebody walks out of a store with something you're in a certain amount of trouble but you might be able to make the argument oh I didn't realize that I had this still or something as soon as you conceal it game over and this is by way of this is all information I've gathered from watching way too many TikToks where it's like body dash cam evidence of like showing up at the whatever the target and somebody has is accused of stealing a whole bunch of stuff And you'll hear the police throwing around terms with the manager like, did they conceal it? Did they go past the registers? There's all this terminology that I think puts, and maybe it's state by state or whatever. But I just want to make sure, Andrew, that if you do steal a beach ball and if you are sent upstate, I want you to try to coordinate it so you don't miss the TBT elephant. That's fair. Because we really need you here to supervise the bead making.

That is fair. I have become a serial shoplifter, it turns out. I probably should have mentioned this earlier on the show and probably not during the TB Telethon announcement, but it's truly an accident, but I keep on stealing garlic from, I mean, maybe it's only happened maybe three times over the course of however many months, but when I am shopping, I have one of those, I like the short, the kind of stubby, two-level grocery carts, right? Like, I think most of us prefer those.

That should be 80% of the carts. Now, I speak as an unmarried person with no young children, and same for you, Andrew. Maybe that's where this comes from. But at the grocery stores that I frequent, they have far too few of those little guys and way too many of the honking ones. And a lot of places don't even do baskets anymore because of anti-theft.

Oh, I didn't know about the basket thing, but I will say anti-theft. one um grocery store manager uh i'm like a young i'm one of those young people who likes to get into conversations with grocery store managers and then you know talk about gun smoke um but a while back at my old grocery store i i asked him i'm like why do you not have enough of these short like little little guys and all these big guys and the street value of the little guys are more in other words if somebody wants a grocery cart on the street they're probably going to be more attracted to the kind that you and I are attracted to in the grocery store so they're harder to kind of keep on campus if you will according to one person I talked to one young cool person but

I did see somebody pushing one of those little guys down the road they're handy in nowhere near a grocery store recently so there might be something to that yeah one time I in my old

neighborhood I remember finding a grocery cart like it was like at least a block away but it It felt like a mile away from the grocery store I was going to. So I pushed it to the grocery store. And it was the only time in my life that I was pushing a grocery basket down the street. And I did wonder. I'm like, I wonder what I'm putting out there in the universe with this look.

How are you stealing garlic? Are you putting it in the top shelf and forgetting about it?

Yes, there's this top little. So you have the top basket and the bottom basket. But then you have this little area right by the handle. It's just like a little shelf where you can. And there's usually a cup holder on one side of it. so you can put your starbucks or something in there and then the rest of it is just like a little shelf that is perfect for garlic and several times i've gone out to the car everything is because i do self you know checkout and self-bagging everything's bagged up and then i get out to my car and i realize oh the garlic is still sitting on the little shelf up there um and i never i never put it in the bag i never rang it up and uh you know had you concealed that and then tried to leave the store yes if i put that up under my shirt so okay anyway back to operation beach ball We'll get back onto that later. We'll see how the thon goes and whether or not we can afford our own beach balls. That's right.

Will Andrew be able to afford beach balls at the market rate, and will I be able to afford a new bell at the— That's right. —when we wrap up TBTelathon 15? Thank you for being a 10. Seriously, though, we do hope that you all will have a chance to tune in. You know, selfishly, we try to have a high tune-in factor because we think that will lead to a high donation factor, and if we have a high donation factor, then we can keep doing this for our jobs. but also we do really try to make it a fun week like we take phone calls uh we're going to be

streaming live on youtube so that people can listen to the show and chat with other tens in the in the comment section and that's how you'll know when to call in and so we'll be able to take you know sort of be broadcasting live as we tend to do take phone calls and you mentioned luke um at the beginning of the show that we're also going or at the beginning of this announcement at the beginning of the show we did some very important bonanza work but um

You mentioned that we're also going to be announcing where we're going to have our next big TBTL event. And I will just say, people have been reaching out to me from around the country saying, please make your big event in X city or Y city. And I will say, based on the texts I've been getting from some people and based on what our plans are, there are going to be some pretty happy tens out there, I think.

And some pretty sad tens.

Well, let's not focus on that. we can't be everywhere all at once and that's probably a good thing but this is going to be a really fun event that we've been planning and we're giving you plenty of heads up yeah yeah

we're gonna give we're giving everyone plenty of heads up to make some you know if you're not in the area where we're going to be doing the thon or excuse me the live event uh we'll give you plenty of time to get there we tried to pick something that was somewhat centrally located to a lot of different places where uh where we know we have a pretty high concentration of listeners so i'm i'm really excited about this this live show that we're going to announce during that week so uh if you can please tune in the other thing is we are once again bucking the conventions of when you do a fundraiser like back in the public radio days it's a given that you don't do something like this in the dead of summer like one of the worst weeks you could think of probably the worst week ever would be the fourth of july which is what we did last we did last year Yeah. But we were declaring TBTL independence this this year. We've decided to do it the week after that, which is when a lot of people are on vacation or kind of like the rhythm of people's lives are really different in the summertime. And so again, we're going out on a limb and hoping that you all will tune in. And if you're donating, you'll keep that rolling and maybe even kind of find it in your hearts and your pocketbook to to see if you could even kick in a little more. If you haven't donated, maybe this is the time when we finally break breakthrough to you but anyway we would just love mostly though we would just love it to be a really fun week of as they say engagement where we just have lots of calls and people chat chopping it up in the comments of the live stream and people zooming in at night and like we just we get to kind of revel in what a cool community of friends this is that's why we picked the theme thank you for being a 10 because we are so thankful to be doing this all these years later and it's only

because of the 10s and also i don't know if you alluded to this or not it's going to be fun to make all of these um friendship bracelets and like you mentioned yeah for you uh well it's going to be fun for me that's what i said it's going to be fun for me to watch you guys make all these uh friendship bracelets that i will then take credit for because everybody needs a boss like hey um and so everybody who donates will get one of these and it will be made by us having said that we're also working on some really really fun uh thank you gifts for various levels of donating that I think people are going to be very excited about. We'll get John on the show. I don't know if it's going to be later this week or in the coming weeks to talk more about what these other gifts are going to be, but I'm really excited about them as well. We've been designing.

We have been, I've been getting shipments of things here, of mock-ups and various things to kind of go like A or B, A or B. I feel very, when my dad's been here working and we just get these deliveries and I pull out a variety of different, like we said mock-ups and examples and proofs of concept and I lay them out on the kitchen counter and I go yeah we're deciding between what to do for the thon as a thank you gift and these are some of the options I feel like for once I feel like a cool yeah business guy in front of my dad mostly what happens is and my dad is here working right now by the way is he just walks he's doing real person work he's walking back and forth to the basement he's getting pieces of wood he's cutting things and then he just looks up here sees me holding up beads and in this outfit with my belly showing and he kind of I think he just wonders how is this a living for my son but I mean

he's got other kids too that he can be proud of so don't worry about that yeah yeah you know and again I don't want to give away too much here and we can't say what all of the gifts are going to be but one example of and I think you said that your dad was in the room while you were doing this is you were holding like pimento loaf in one hand and bologna in the other and you're just like I don't know what speaks to the tens what says thank you for being a 10 more pimento loaf or warm baloney and so these are the decisions we've been making as we've been going through the thank you gift

process yes um we've ordered 15 tons of dry ice and uh we're going to be sending out cured meats on ice to the tens of listeners who are able to donate this because we're curating because we're curing global loneliness we're just curing global loneliness i don't even have to modify the word

exactly yes boy i was smoking global loneliness no it is going to be fun and we do have so this is a kickoff uh here just to explain what's going on freebasing global loneliness oh no um but as the weeks go on as we get closer and closer to july 8th we'll be able to tell more and more about what

the ins and outs of this thing are going to be but i i am really excited about it it's always a really good week to connect with the listeners too like to have listeners kind of connect with each other via like i say the chats and and you mentioned we're going to be doing a couple of live zoom events during the week where people can get all can gather with us uh virtually so a lot of

fun stuff also it means that you and sklaroff are going to actually come here to the madrona hill studio no one's ever been in here except basically walt like and and and you're gonna get to actually

come check out my junk pile you said that i have to that i am not allowed above the basement level

you said oh man that basement andrew i wouldn't even put you down there that is it is rough that's another i have this list of things that i'm trying to get kind of sort of ironed out here before you and John show up because I mean this is this house is a construction zone and it's not going to be anywhere near done by the time you you all get here but I would like it to be you know I've been talking about this for like going on a couple of years now and I would like it to be somewhat presentable but I'm also that means I'm putting a ton of pressure on myself to try to get various things you know wrapped up or in place or whatever so that you guys show up and you go oh this is what this guy's been doing for two years but then I also have to just realize It's not going to happen I'm not going to be able to get this place all dialed in And I have to be okay with that It really is, I'm being totally honest It's an emotional journey for me to have the two of you here To my house Because I'm the kind of person that really wants Everything to be very Perfect and dialed in And for you to come and be like What a lovely House you've been kind of building Slash remodeling slash whatever And it's not going to be that It just isn't possible so I have to just kind of like emotionally get past that and just be like it is what it is there's a lot of stuff that is still uh kind of homely and half torn down and that's just gonna be that I'm gonna have to hope that you guys still like me even though that's the case you know it

save it for your fancy friends honestly this is a good soft launch for you like I am so soft launch what have you heard I am so not the person you have to worry about for stuff like that in fact I was just telling somebody this recently and this is not this doesn't paint me in a complimentary light but the thing that I probably the phrase or moment of Larry David's show Curb Your Enthusiasm that I think I relate to the most was when he showed up at somebody's house for a dinner party or something and it was like a new house that somebody had moved into and they said do you want the tour and he said no I'm good and then he goes on this whole thing about i don't need the tour i don't need the tour and i'm like yeah i don't need the tour either like larry david speaking putting words to my feelings i don't need the tour i'm a just like you know i'll see the bathroom when i need to use the bathroom i'll see the bedroom when i sneak in there and go through your stuff when your back is turned like you don't need to give me the tour

like you know you have some more time but that's interesting because you're also not a person who is is is uninterested in like home decor and decorating and cleanliness and like you're Your and Genevieve's home is really lovely, and that's lovely because of the time and energy that you have both put in. And so it's not like you're just – you don't just live in squalor and you're like don't care about the environment you're in. You do care, but you're just saying you're not hung up on what my environment is.

It might be – well, it's a couple of things. I think it has more to do with – now we're getting deep. And are we still in the announcement? Because maybe this is not the time to bring this up. I think it has to do with – and this is something that you and I haven't talked about a lot, although it's come up in our relationship. and I think it's probably come up in a lot of my relationships that one of the things and I think this is probably a trait this is an unusual trait for some people but I think some people in our audience will probably understand it um understand this feeling but I am somebody who since I was a little kid to this um advanced age of mine I've always struggled with knowing how I'm supposed to react in a moment and then living up to that moment being performative in some way uh which is odd that i have this job and maybe while you were you were saying you know andrew wake up we have an announcement today uh at the beginning of the show i think sometimes i struggle to um when somebody is showing hey look at my nice thing and the obvious thing to say is oh that's such a nice thing or like there's a a list of things that are like that society says you're supposed to say in that moment like oh i really like that lamp the thing is i probably really do like that lamp but i just those moments of like kind of getting a tour or giving a tour by the way i would never even when I move into a new place say hey let me show you around the new place and it's like you'll see it as you as you need to you know like right there's something about those moments that

that make me uncomfortable yeah the pressure to have a kind of a response is you respond especially poorly to that I do too actually

When I feel like there's a prescribed response.

I wanted to use that word, but I always forget how exactly. When it's just subscribed. You hate events where there's a subscribed response that you're supposed to offer. No, I actually have that too, but not as strongly as you do and in such a way that I just sort of, I guess, override it. But I know exactly what you mean. And there are people in my life who I love very much who need that kind of feedback a lot. and some of them might even occasionally admonish their children for not wishing, not enough of them wishing them a happy anniversary even though, as I said and then edited in the text format I'm not married to you and sometimes it can be challenging for me when I know that a person just, all they need is for me to just give them the response they want and why is it so hard for me and why am I withholding this it's so easy for me just to say the thing I know they want And yet it just sticks in my, it sticks somewhere in my being, although less so as I get older, because I think what I'm learning is it's just like, you know what, just give them their moment. It's not hurting me. That's kind of where I've gotten to. But my instinct is exactly what you're describing is to just kind of like not enjoy situations where there's an expected response from me.

Mm hmm. Yep, exactly. But anyway, so the point is, though, and I'm not saying that to set up me being rude when we're visiting you, but to give you some freedom, just like I'm not the person that I know that you have this vision in your head as you're doing all this work. And you have these visions in the same way when I'm cleaning up my house or painting something or whatever you it's hard not to imagine. Oh, yeah. When people come in, this is what their experience is going to be like. Yeah, there's a certain amount of upkeep or improvement of our home that even for somebody like me who doesn't, you know, invite many people into the home or like it's not like I'm somebody who socializes a lot and has dreams of hosting dinner parties.

But I'm still what I'm without that you don't invite a lot of people in without legally disclosing to them a couple of things that the court requires. Right. Exactly.

I mean, I actually do have a lot of dinner parties at my house. It's just with me. It's just my dinner party. Jeremy has a lot of dinner parties at your house. I just plow into a frozen pizza, as I did on Saturday. But all that is to say, but of course, part of it is, oh, yeah, when I clean this up. And the opposite side of that, too, is, boy, if somebody walked in here right now, I'd be embarrassed that there's so much cat hair around my fireplace or whatever. And the thing is, nobody's walking in. It's just a sort of motivating little thing in the back of my mind. And so having said all of that, as you're going through this major renovation that's been going on for years now, and, of course, you have very specific tastes and you're going for something that is going to be very, very beautiful, I'm sure a big part of it is like that day when everybody comes over and they all have a glass of wine in their hand and talk about, you know, how wonderful, you know, my design is or my lamps are or whatever. This is where the word soft lunch comes in for me, and it's not because I'm a big, soft, roly-poly guy, but you just don't have to worry about that for me. Like, you're letting people into your house, but not the people that you need to impress.

I feel like I can speak for me and John. That's really, actually, that's helpful to me because, you know, and I do know that about you, that you're just not a, how do I put it? Like, if I feel embarrassed because I have, like, a pimple someday or I have something going on, the number one person that I can trust will not notice that is you. Yeah, exactly. You just don't, you're just not clocking the world. We're still considering having you, having some tests run on you, Andrew, to see what spectrum you might fall. No, I'm kidding. Like, I do really appreciate that about you. You're a very nonjudgmental person. You're overly judgmental about yourself, which I wish you wouldn't be. But you're very, very nonjudgmental about other people in my experience, and particularly me. And you're just like, you're a good hang because you just don't care. You're not looking around for like, oh, hmm, I see that crown molding doesn't really match up or, huh, you went with that. Like, you're just not that way. And that's a relief for somebody like me who's kind of gets hung up on like, yeah, what is the experience going to be of people coming over to my little house? And again, I keep saying little house because it is on a prairie. and also because like for all the hype about the construction project it is particularly compared to like the burbank springs like the burbank springs home the the that i had up in bellingham was like a pretty nice place after we got done fixing it up and it had some really cool features and like i was pretty proud of that house and people would come over and be like wow this is really you really did something here this ain't that this is you know kind of this is what a twice divorced podcaster can kind of do on a budget and uh who's you know hit the edge of that budget and then asked can I get more HELOC money please like it's not it's it's a humble little abode that I'm trying to make into a kind of a nice comfortable place for me and it's it's happening over time but there's also to my left and you can't see

this andrew a massive pile of debris that i've dragged out of a kitchen that i demolished uh another room that's going to become a bedroom that i just demolished and why is it still there because it's eight hundred dollars to have lonnie the junk guy haul it away or i could burn it because a lot of it's just wood unpainted wood but i'm nervous that we're now getting kind of late in the season and i don't want my neighbor brian to freak out if i actually am burning stuff so like that's also the reality of my existence here is like a massive very unsightly debris pile that i kind of can't afford to have hauled away and also i'm too afraid to burn

as long as it's not a massive pile of like dirty underwear i'm fine with it that's the only thing

i mean underneath some of the wood is okay that's fine well then keep that covered up the term we

That's why it costs Lonnie. That's why Lonnie charges so much. He knows what's underneath that wood.

He shows up. Like the wood's free, dude. He's dressed like Dennis, like Dustin Hoffman in Outbreak.

Yeah, right.

He's just in a full PPP suit.

Can I say one more earnest thing here about this announcement? And then we can thank, speaking of, we can thank the Dazzling Donors who've made this show and other shows possible. This is a really important TV telethon. You know, last year when we broke away from American public media, there was a lot of energy naturally around that. It was a very scary time for us and a lot of uncertainty as to whether or not we're going to be able to make this, you know, happen to be able to continue to do TBTL on our own, you, me and John. and because of that a lot of people stepped up and a lot of people gave like double or even sometimes triple and quadruple what they would usually give some really really generous folks um and i'm i have a little bit of concern that we don't have that energy this year because we've been doing it for a year and everybody might think oh look it's fine the show's fine and the thing is we still very much rely on these thons like you said this is the one time of year that we are able to kind of raise money so that we can keep this going day in and day out. And it really does go to real things, not Luke's giant pile of underwear, but like the computers.

No, I don't have the $800 to get Lonnie to haul that underwear away.

Right, exactly. So I don't want to kind of make this unfun or press the issue too much, but I also want to say while I look forward to this week. Save that for the thon, Andrew. Yeah, exactly. No, I mean the thons, I'm always very proud that our thons, When the time that we're asking for money is also some of the most fun times we have on the show. I'm very proud of that as somebody who's worked in public radio a long time and have heard people apologize to their audience because they're having another, you know, fun drive or something. Oh, I'm so sorry about this programming. Let's try to get it over with as soon as possible. We're not like that. We're like, hey, let's make a really fun, great week of programming where everybody can get together. But I also do want to say that the message of raising money for another year of the show is also really important.

and that's and that is why we're doing it right and i haven't run this past you or um john so i'm probably you know i don't know if this is the messaging or not that we're trying to do but i guess i would say if you really the here's what we really really need to have happen this thought we need to keep this thing rolling by that i mean if you've been donating and you can keep that going that's incredible what we really just need to do is not lose people we need to like this is working but there we are nervous you and john and i about what the energy will be around the second time because they're like you said there's a real people were were rightfully concerned for the long-term survival of the program last time we did this and now it's like okay it worked we did it for another year and then we're worried that people will be less concerned for the long-term survival but it it's we just we need to just like uh hopefully keep everybody kind of doing what they're doing or maybe doing even a little more if they can but that's it we don't like last year was phenomenal we're not asking i guess what i'm really trying to say is we don't want anyone to do anything that is not good for them in their financial life to keep the show going but we also would be very bad if if everyone just kind of took their foot off the gas right and thought well the show's fine now like that would be a bad thing because uh this i don't know what the glide ratio is on this program but let's just say it'd be over pretty quickly yeah exactly like we're not gonna be able to be around if we don't have donations and i have not i have not i mean

just to not we shouldn't make it personal but i i haven't like updated my resume in a really long time and the idea of having to do that really scares the hell out of me so let's please keep

tbtl in business at least another year you don't think you don't think 48 year old public radio producer is yeah you know you don't you don't think those jobs are growing on trees andrew

You mean somebody who hasn't produced a news talk show in about a decade now and has just been making fart jokes on a pod?

day in and day out. You don't think I'm at the top of the list of candidates that public radio... You know what? We're joking around about something that is getting too scary for me right now. Let's just keep TBTL healthy. I've got three words for you, Andrew. I was thinking about it today

on the treadmill. LSAT prep. I literally was like, well, I could always do an LSAT prep course and then see how I do on the LSAT and then become the world's oldest lawyer. wow like i mean i i don't know why by the way i want to mention everyone it's going fine tbtl the state of our union is strong but i think when you have the kind of job that we have where we exist only because of the generosity and the support of the tens you can't help but feel a little unstable in the world at all times because we don't provide we don't really provide anything that like you know we're not doing a trade here we're not plumbers we're not doing something that everyone's going to need and so you could always go out and do that job we're doing something extremely niche that a very small but loyal group people like and that's such an honor and it's so cool but it also sometimes when you're on the treadmill makes you go huh i wonder if i should just do an lsat prep course to be safe true story uh all right okay well there's a bit of good news and terror on a monday i mean my internal terror at all times about if this is going to keep going But thanks again for, you know, for getting us to this far. And speaking of which, maybe we should thank some dazzling donors.

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. On the subject of fundraising, let's thank some people who've been raising a lot of funds for us by sending them to us. and it's, you know, see previous comments. It's how TBTL can exist from dazzling donors like Adrienne Hughes of Portland, Oregon. I think she gets embarrassed when I lean into this, but Dr. Adrienne Hughes. Dr. Adrienne Hughes.

Dr. Hughes. That's right. One of the, not only a dazzling donor to this here program, but also one of the delightful people that I got to hang out with in Hawaii about a year and a half ago. coincidentally ran into adrian and her family in hawaii and we spent some nights hanging out

yeah the crew of us it was a lot of fun uh adrian says i apologize for my dazzling tardiness really dr hughes is it uh working in the is it working in the pediatric er that's been distracting you from writing an essay to a show that you're also giving money to is that is that is that why is that why this is late um this year i want to highlight a special portland venue the alberta rose theater huh i'm familiar with it originally it opened as a motion picture house in 1927 the alberta rose theater has transformed into a premier portland venue for amazing music comedy circus and aerial dance production as well as the occasional live wire show the rose is owned by a remarkable man joe who brings our town joy through his incredible theater a huge shout out to will moose mason adam vaughn phoebe genevieve and chao the main reasons why the rose can provide our community with this vital space this is such an interesting message from adrian do you know most of these people all of them and i wholeheartedly agree uh the alberta rose is uh is an amazing place and i mean obviously we do live wire there but while i'm there doing live wire i'm also looking at all the posters for all the other stuff that comes through and it's always really great And it's also a certain kind of content because of the size of the room. I want to say it maybe holds like 450 people or something. It's not a place where you're going to get somebody who's going to sell out the schnitz, which is like a couple of thousand people. So it's not that sort of person. It's a different kind of artist or performance where it's like something somewhat boutique, but with usually a really great connection with the crowd that comes out. Like, it's just the energy is so good, and it has to do with the size of the venue, the kind of groups that come through. Adrian says, I hope this message gives my 11, Will, a manager-producer at the Rose, some drive to elaborate, to elevate to full-blown 10 status. I bet I knew this, and I've forgotten now that Will and Adrian are an item, and that Will is one of the folks at the Alberta Rose Theater. He enjoys listening to TBTL because he says it helps him understand me better. that's a good pitch um dr hughes as i've been trying to study your kind i found this reference material to be useful um like why i have a tbtl license plate and why i cannot pronounce refrigerator refrigerator correctly luke and andrew please

continue your daily tangential talks i can't imagine a week without your voices uh adrian we couldn't imagine a week without you um and thank you and really great shout out to the rose yeah if you live in portland and you're looking for something to do check the alberta rose schedule and just see who's coming through because it's always something interesting eclectic and it's just a totally cool vibe and i love those people i do wish that they had a door on the green room where i get ready because i'm very worried someone's going to see me shirtless

But other than that, Will's going to walk in and be traumatized.

Will would never recover from you can't unsee that. You can't unsee a shirtless Luke Burbank. So anyway, Adrian, thank you so much. We really do appreciate you. Maestro.

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

It's our friend Jeremy Merrill of Des Moines, Iowa. I just realized something, Andrew. I am just now, as I'm talking to you Coming into my right mind Like, I have been Absolutely zooted on Allergy medicine For like most of the show today From allergy medicine I took Last night at, asked me what time it was 9pm when I went to bed I slept from 9pm last night until 8am today I must have woken up at 6am Turned my phone alarm off And not even realized I was doing it

that's scary man yeah when you wake up and you're like wait a second i know my alarm went off like did it ring and just blare until it gave up on me and went off by itself it's rare that i have that like i know when my alarms go off but every now and then you wake up and you're like what happened was that thing just blaring for an hour and then gave up on me or did i actually turn it off and i

have no recollection of it yeah i mean i can't remember the last time i slept in until 8 a.m i just my body does not allow it anymore that's not a flex it just is what it is it's the aging process it's the dying process and i'm fully bragging i'm just dying that's right tv telethon 16 we're not bragging we're just dying and uh so i looked at my phone i was like it's 8 a.m and also i was shocked because i had i got in bed at 9 p.m it was still light outside and i thought this could be a bad idea but i'm so allergic right now i'm so uncomfortable that i just i'm gonna like go to sleep and hope that that ameliorates this and i um i thought i'm gonna wake up at like three in the morning and my body's gonna be like wtf and not only did i not wake up at three in the morning i didn't wake up till eight in the morning and you know woke me up i had to pee so bad yeah that'll do it nature i'm also of the age where there's no there's no 11 hours of sleeping without the a massive need to mictriate but um anyway uh in all of that last night before i went to bed i took some allergy medicine and it had me space ghosting until this moment until the moment of reading jeremy merrill's name so now we're going to start the show you're sober now that i finally sobered up some black coffee throw me in a cold shower get me right here we are jeremy says thanks Thanks, Luke and Andrew, for more than a decade of daily entertainment and companionship. When the news broke about TBTL splitting off from the mothership, I just had to set my donation to Dazzling. Nice. Thank you. This is what we were talking about. Folks like Jeremy, who really stepped up last year during the thon. Thanks, Jeremy. Set my donation to Dazzling. Luke and Andrew are really the cool older brothers I never had. What? And isn't it cool, Jeremy? Listening to a couple of cool guys like us talk about waking up really, really needing to urinate. uh note i had older brothers they just weren't very cool well nobody's ever called me cool before

so this is right now i'm sobering up this is great thank you but do you feel a pressure now

to be cool we know that you don't like a feeling you have to respond in a particular subscribed way hey don't worry that's you always jumping sharks and hitting soda machines to get that free soda

I guess I was doing something that the Fonz did. I guess so. I think I was somewhere between the Fonz and a forget about it kind of guy there. I don't know. I don't know what I was doing. All I know is remembering things. It was super cool. That's what I know. Incredibly cool.

I will use the bully pulpit of my dazzling message to ask John to allow Luke and Andrew to continue the grand tradition of TBTL. Whenever it was an ill-advised road trip across Australian wilderness or an ill-advised hitchhiking trip across the American wilderness, the TBTL road trip has long been my favorite part of the show. I formally request that a fraction of my donation be shaved off to help fund more TBTL road trip adventures. Okay. Huh. All right. Jeremy, that's useful feedback. I think we sort of never really know what it is that the listeners like from the show. And I know the road trips that we've done Have been fun adventures But I think our personal jury has been out As to if it's better or worse content than normal well yeah you know i'm gonna be you said something before luke you're like we didn't talk about this messaging and so you went on a limb and i'm gonna do the same thing here and talk about uh kind of a private meeting that you and me and john had as we were talking about planning this tbtl-a-thon um we love the tbtl road trips as well and usually they are attached to a tbtl-a-thon and i think we'll probably do more in the future and um for a while there the three of us were going down the road if you will of planning a tb telethon that was a bit of a road trip and it had a lot of ins and it had a lot of outs and it had a lot of um and it was going to be a really tough thing to pull off and at one point i think we for various reasons but this was honestly the driving one we realized this isn't bringing us closer to the listeners this particular road trip that we were planning it was it was going to be an adventure for us but it wouldn't have allowed a lot of the things we like to do during thons which is actually connect directly with the listeners and have take calls take calls and have zooms and get together because the road trip that we had been planning was kind of so arduous that it didn't allow for that kind of stuff and in the past we did that all the time and we just went on our road trips and i would like to do that again sometimes but just so you know and i maybe i'm speaking directly to jeremy here um we love doing those i'd like to do them again but if you're wondering why we're not this year it's really because we wanted to make sure we did kind of focus on bringing everybody together again this year as opposed to us going on you know some weird road trip the

three of us and maybe what we can think about doing is a tbtl adventure that isn't necessarily linked to the thon yes like because the thing like you said the thing that people seem to like about the thon is that sense of community really leaning into the kind of tbtl community aspect which is more difficult if we're in let's say the northern territory of australia yeah right there we're mostly focused on not becoming Patty Moriarty 2 at the Pink Panther Pub in Laramah. So maybe the thought is we can do the Thons in a more stable way that allows us to do all the community connecting, but we could have a TBTL Adventure Begins Again, you know, because those are fun, too, and because those are somewhat entertaining for the listeners.

And now we have to, because Jeremy has earmarked part of his donation for a road trip. So we will start thinking about that today.

Jeremy says, I genuinely love the show and hope for the best for all of you. Well, thanks. We hope for the best for all of us as well. Power out. And as always, what you do is so important. Hey, Jeremy, thank you, seriously. And thanks for that note about the road trips, because that is really useful information. And we will take that under advisement and we'll try to gin up some adventures for you in the not too distant future you know the adventure i've been on with walt of late andrew is uh getting back into our brit box content box which is watching bbc uh shows and we've kind of burned through all of the like original ones we were watching one was called baptiste and then we were really in the one called shetland and we're through all of that so now we're on this new one called wallander which is starring kenneth branna oh wow he can act which i can't quite tell if it's like if that's an upgrade or a downgrade or a side grade for him because he's such a kind of you know renowned actor and shakespearean actor and he's done all these these really great projects and i don't know if it's just because he enjoys the lifestyle of being on a tv show where you know you kind of you're you probably can go home to your real house at night and sleep and And honestly, this is probably a pretty well compensated situation, you know, like I don't know if this represents Kenneth Branagh needing work or or if he actually like if this is a good gig to have.

Do you think so this is like a pretty new show? This isn't something from like 10 or 15 years ago.

It's not from 15 years ago. It's it's my guess is it's about maybe five or six years old. The reason I say that is because the episode we watched last night had to do with a hacking attack. But you want a really, you want a flashing light as to a moment of time that a show is being created in. Let's see their representation of what computer hacking looks like.

Yeah, like Sneakers, the Robert Redford film from, was that the late 80s? That was maybe the mid-80s or whatever. It's a very different situation.

Right. And this was, I would say, there was a part where the kid, they had basically grabbed like a sort of supercomputer savvy kid to help them stop the hackers. And at one point, I believe he did plug an Ethernet cable into something, which made me think, okay, it's not, this wasn't shot a year ago. Because I don't know if an Ethernet cable would still be relevant to this whole process in 2024.

I got actual numbers for you, 2008 to 2016. so maybe a little bit longer than you thought yeah oh so this was and we're watching season one so this was 2008 yeah so it was closer to 15 years ago it's it's a pretty good watch each episode is kind of like its own little movie it's like self-contained you know what i mean it's not a show where episode one feeds into episode two what's really weird about watching these shows with my dad he's watched all of them and he has literally no idea what is going on at any time Or how the show works I go hey dad are these Is this season all like one narrative Or is each episode it's own thing And he goes yeah I don't really know And I'm like didn't you watch this You didn't notice if these were discreet movies Or a plot line But anyway it turns out each one is it's own thing And the one we watched yesterday Which was season one episode two Is where there's this like And I'm going to spoil this a little bit There's a kind of anti-capitalist group That is going to try to like crash the world economy through hacking or something but what i love about this show is it's in a fine tradition of these british shows there's another one called um van der volk that it's so bad but it's like i don't know why this is what goes on with these british shows but i guess they're just tired of setting them in england or in the uk so sometimes like with wallander it's set in sweden but everyone has a british accent so like kenneth branagh's character he's detective wallender he's supposed to be swedish at no time does he speak swedish he does not have a swedish accent he does not i don't know what a swede looks like but like you have everyone associated with the show is british and is speaking with british accents and sometimes cockney accents but it'll be like okay we got to go see tour we got to go see tour bjornsson about to find out what happened with this computer hack they get to tour bjornsson's house and he goes hello govna like and then when he like when van when um when wallender is like typing things you see the screen he's typing in swedish but then but then he has to when he's reading and when he gets an email That's in Swedish He then has to say it to himself Under his breath So we hear it in English Yeah right

Yeah yeah

Because otherwise So he's like He's a wanderer's getting an email That's all like Hey doe Blah blah blah By the way I took college Swedish And the amount that I speak Is hey doe I've learned more Swedish From going to Ikea At this point Than from being in Swedish At the University of Washington But like So he gets an email It's all in Swedish But then he has to go Go to the Go to the power facility At 5pm You gotta be kidding me Like, they have to write in something where he then verbalizes what's in the email so we hear it in English. It's the weirdest thing. I don't understand why this is the conceit or why they decide to set these things in Sweden when no one is Swedish.

Yeah, I was watching a show. I know that you said you had some interest in watching this. I don't think you've watched it yet. Shogun. It was getting a lot. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I do want to watch that. I can't remember what streamer that's on. I feel like that might be maybe a Netflix thing. But it's interesting. I mean, I found it to be very good what I watch, but also so dense and you really have to pay attention because there's a bunch of different languages spoken in there. And so there's a lot of subtitles. And also, like, I just have no like context for this part of history. And so, like, it's just kind of a lot to kind of process for a guy like me. But what I saw, I liked. But one thing that really confused me was like almost most of the dialogue is in another language. So you're constantly watching subtitles, you know, whether it's Japanese or what have you. But then I'm going to mess this up. I'm pretty sure that Dutch is the other main language that's spoken it. But Dutch is not subtitled. They just switch Dutch to English, if that makes sense to you. So there's so there's actors who speak the English language, not necessarily British English, but just speak the English language. And when they're representing somebody who's supposed to be speaking Dutch, they're actually speaking in English. so we can understand them but they don't do that for the Japanese or the other languages and I don't understand why like I'm already watching so much of this and reading the subtitles just subtitle it all like why are you spoon feeding us

and the actors are speaking English it's not dubbed over with English later the actors just shift into English but that's actually supposed to it would have been Dutch in the original

it's such an interesting I'm sure something's been written about it or somebody's asked the showrunners about that decision and I have not read it so I don't know I don't know what they would say about it, but it does seem like such a strange decision to draw that line in the sand.

Well, you know, the other, since today's theme, and let's be honest, the theme of every episode of TBTL is the dying process, this is the stage that we're at. Now I'm starting to just watch everything with the subtitles on. Yeah, Veeves has been doing that for a long time. Like, so it started with me and my...

dad watching these bbc shows or whatever british shows where the accent was so thick yeah that at times you kind of didn't really follow even though it is english but it's like it's a version of english and so like but now now we're just watching you know wallander where it's almost unaccented just british english which i should be able to follow but we're just like now we'll leave the subtitles on and i hate it when the subtitle kills luckily this is not a very humorous show so it's not really killing the joke for me but i don't like it when the subtitle gives me some information before i'm ready to have it as the viewer yeah you know as the experiencer yeah

genevieve and some of our friends have been doing that for a long time um they just say of course we watch everything with subtitles now i don't do that like i'll put on subtitles if i need it for you know like i say if it's a if it's a more mumbly show or whatever but if if it's clear to me what people are saying i really don't like having the subtitles on because of that exact thing like my brain will maybe process the subtitle ahead of time or or it'll draw my vision away from like what i want to see on the screen i'm going to say something here that i want to be very careful in saying because it's going to put me potentially on the wrong side of history and i don't want to be like ableist or whatever um but something occurred um with me for the first i think for the first time in my life um a few weeks ago when we went to see the new Mad Max movie Furiosa we saw it at the Cinerama here in Seattle and the whole thing they called it open captions not closed captioned I always wondered what the difference there is maybe closed captions you can turn them on and off at home and open caption is it's captioned and you can't control it I don't know what the difference is but for people who were viewing the movie who couldn't um you know who can't hear the dialogue or whatever the whole thing was captioned like in the movie theater the entire Mad Max movie was captioned and you know it's such a screen on the screen yeah and I gotta say it I I didn't love it and again like I understand why there's a need for that and I don't want to be like hey listen you're you know they're making this enjoyable for a group of people for a group of our population who wouldn't be able to enjoy it otherwise and they should be able to enjoy the movie too so I I don't want to come off as complaining about it and I understand it But I will say it was a new experience for me and for a movie that I was going to see on the huge screen in a theater like that because of the cinematic splendor of it. I found it to be pretty distracting. So anyway, but I mean, listen, there are worse things in life and I will put up with it if that's the way things go. But I had not dealt with that before.

That's interesting. I guess I was going to say, well, maybe they could give out tablets or something that would have the subtitles or the captioning for folks. But then, of course, you're having to look down at that and up at the screen. The only way that it makes sense is for it to be on the screen so you can watch all of it and then experience the dialogue as well. Yeah, I'm with you. I think that that might be a bit distracting for me. And my thought was, well, maybe you can have some special showings, some special screenings that feature that so people know. But then again, that gets into this question of othering. Yeah, yeah. How about we just have special water fountains for different people that they, you know, they're all, you know, it's like, I mean, honestly.

TB12 on 15. Donate that.

No, but I'm being serious about my thought of being like, well, why don't they just have some special screenings that then can have the captioning? But it's like that's kind of a potentially slippery slope of like creating these special scenarios where this thing is happening versus it just being the default setting and then the rest of us. I'm with you.

You're like Wednesday at 2 o'clock. Sorry to cut you off, but I had the same thought process. I was like, oh, I wonder if there's usually special times. I'm like, well, that's no good. like oh we all get to go see this on a friday night but you know if you're hard of hearing or if you need subtitles for whatever reason hey we have an availability for you wednesday at two or

whatever like that right that's no good yeah no that's i mean that's that's why it's complicated i i guess i would i haven't been to a movie that's that's done that um you know as the default setting i do think inclusion is really a good idea i guess i would say i'm probably where you are i would be a little distracted by it but ultimately i would say hey if it's going to make someone's life better i'll adjust in the way that you know we we hopefully make accommodations in different ways like you know the parking situation you know the closest parking spots to somewhere are probably for people that need um you know mobility help and things like that i just kind of go with well that's what we do in a society but it is an adjustment right i think i would be i would be exactly where you are with it um did it say anything when you and veeves booked the ticket did it say you know this is uh a special showing or is it your understanding that that's just kind of like what they do for all the films now you know i it would be pure

speculation on my part our friend bought like six of us went to see this i think and so my friend just bought all the tickets and we then motor so i know i don't even know that i saw you know whatever i probably had the ticket on my phone at some point but i didn't really pay that pay that much attention to it but um yeah so so i don't know but it was like Thank you.

And it wasn't it might have been I don't know. It wasn't opening night, but it was like dang near the very beginning run of it. It might have been the first or second night that this thing opened. So it wasn't like I don't think it, you know, it would have been when a lot of people were going to see it.

I want to set up a couple of plot points for tomorrow's show. OK, one is I want to hear tomorrow, Andrew, about the fight that you've been having with your future self, because people know that you have a lot of fights with your past self. That's a given on this show I want to know about the fights you're having With future Andrew

Let me put it this way I was And I'll put this in scare quotes Caught Breaking a Polite rule of Society this weekend And I feel like I was in the right I feel like I was in the right about this But there was a person who saw me perform this action and decided to call me out on it and this person was about I'm gonna say you know maybe you know 15 20 years older than me and called me out in the sarcastic way the exact sarcastic way that I have tried to call people out before for parking rudely or whatever and it didn't

end with one comment I then so this I thought this whole thing was was future tripping this is no

current tripping somebody called me out on something uh let's see was it sunday uh at t-mobile park somebody called me out on something and this person who's a bit older than me called me out in the exact same manner that i've called people out before and i'll tell you the rest

tomorrow okay that makes my my plot point much less interesting which is i'm going to try to use a neti pot for my allergy situation at the recommendation of listener um kirsten in san Francisco who sent me a really helpful list of things to do for this allergy situation because Chris Kirsten also suffers from pretty hardcore allergies and says neti pot in the morning and night so what I'm going to do when we're all done today is I'm going to go down to my local drugstore I'm going to buy five to ten beach balls I'm going to also buy some kind of neti pot and I'm going to try some nasal irrigation and see if that helps and I will report back tomorrow But I want to hear about your story of, were they calling you out for not being Croatian-American enough?

They were calling me out for dumping my neti pot water into the public supply. I will say, I got to, now that we're, let's see, we're basically at the part where you and I can just talk to each other and not worry about whether or not the listeners find it interesting. But I did get to go to two of the games in the series this weekend, Luke. What a series. I get to go on Friday and Sunday, two fantastic games to be at.

I'll tell you what, when your baseball team is winning games and putting distance between them and the second-place team, this is a fun sport to watch.

Yeah, huh. It's really fun when they win. What's this weird feeling that we have that isn't pure misery?

It's almost like none of the pathos and just horrible feelings that I don't know what to do with that I feel normally when watching the Mariners.

Well, I have good news for you because we're heading to Cleveland to play the Guardians later this weekend. One of the best teams in baseball. All those old feelings will come rushing back quickly.

And then heading out. Are we hitting Baltimore on this road trip as well?

Oh, my God. Is that true? I didn't even realize that. Are we doing Cleveland-Baltimore? Holy smokes.

I think it's going to be. I'm going to get a chance to re-experience all of my anger at this team's hitting coming up. But anyway. All right. Okay. I do want to hear about this tomorrow, what happened to you at the baseball game and how you were called out or in or whatever. and hopefully by tomorrow I'll be the proud owner of a neti pot as well. I was tempted to order it on Amazon, but it takes two days to deliver, so I'm going to have to go brick and mortar on this. This is the 1800s. All right. Hey, thanks for listening, everyone. We are going to be right back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for you, so please do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Monday. Take care of yourselves. Mark your calendars, July 8th through 12th, TBTL-Athon 15. Thank you for being a 10. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

you know it's funny you know i've been talking to you all day and i know you can't hear a word i'm saying hey what are you looking at now hey that's what i call a right pretty girl Hey, look over here That fella right there That's that handsome Joe Cartwright This guy's always watching me when I'm shaving I just can't seem to get rid of him Power out