Muse

Okay, the computer is tabulating. Oh, you got category I9C3G6.

I9C3G6. Is that as good as it sounds?

You have a robust sense of self and are well-suited to leadership positions, characteristics, strength, determination, tenacity.

Yes, I suppose that's accurate. They do call me Tenacious Ray down at the country club because for the past 10 years I've been suing them for discrimination.

T-B-T-L T-B-T-L I love your imagination And your imaginary show I've got to have that thing on 24-7 I love the patter

We can save any segment We've done in the past, okay? Remember that segment where we did the world's fattest pets? Glenn lost all the tapes We made that work You mean when we got those two rabbits And we tied them together to look like a big fat one? Yeah, people loved it They bought it.

I see you exhaling, sir. We're going to be with you in just a moment. You've got to be patient, okay? We're very, very sorry. Our apologies. We apologize to you. You will not have to wait that much longer at all.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Oh, wow. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

Hey, I'm just here to remind you that when life isn't horrible, it's actually pretty good.

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where we are looking at another kind of gray, rainy day. But that's typical around here, as I am remembering. In the Northwest, it usually gets nice on July 5th, the day after the day, that being the 4th of July, where a young Luke Burbank wanted it to be sunny and nice so that I could light off fireworks and have a wild time. I have to be honest, 48-year-old Luke, he's okay with a little rain on the 4th of July. He's okay with keeping the loud explosions and the general carousing to a min, to a table minimum, as we say in poker. Anyway, this is going to be a table maximum. This is Max Bet on fun right here. Episode 4237 in a collector's series, which is where we find ourselves today. Let the fun begin. And I've got an update. Speaking of maximally interesting things, I've got an update on my battle with the Litfad Corporation of China. Can you verify? Can you give me some 411? When we left off yesterday, I had just sent an email to them asking what the steps are for me to return this sconce, which is kind of the wrong color. At least not the color I thought it was going to be when it's in its resting, non-illuminated state. And I have received a response from the Lit Fad Company, so we will talk about that. Also, it's a Thursday, aka Blur's Day. What are you doing today? We'll do some Blur's Day messages, and we're going to talk to this guy, the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ship. Something else you may not know about him. This guy is a four-and-a-half-foot-tall pile of awesomeness. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I feel a little bit bad. I'm looking at my emails. I was going to start gathering some Blur's Days for everybody's favorite segment later on in the show. and I'm saying just, you know, you know how you and I are. First of all, we're very cool. We're very handsome, very funny. That's kind of how we are. But also, things come into our inbox. I assume that you're the same way, and you might leave it read for later or unread so you'll check it later and you sort of never do. And sometimes a subject line, now I don't want to encourage people to use bad subject lines. Good subject lines are the order of the day, but sometimes a subject line is so good.

The only answer for a bad subject line, Andrew, is a good subject line. Second day in a row I've made a version of that joke.

The only thing that can stop a bad subject line with a CC is a good subject line with a BCC. I tried to expand that out a little bit. I'll be honest with you. It didn't work. Here's what I was going to say. I love a good subject line that tells me what's going to be in an email, but sometimes that allows me not to open an email. You know what I mean? It'll be like, oh, okay, that's not immediate. I know Blur's days are immediate. I got a deadline on that every Thursday, and frankly, I'm past the deadline, and so I'm going to start working on them now. But there's a deadline to look at anything that says Blur's Day. I got to open that on a Wednesday or a Thursday, right? But when I see emails that say, oh, hey, I made something. A lot of people have been making AI-related stuff for us lately, a lot of songs, a lot of stuff. And so sometimes, and this is not good of me as a producer.

or even a person, I'll see like, oh, somebody sent in an AI song. That's great. I'm going to check that out later, but I'll leave it marked as unread. And I'll sit down at some point and I'll listen to a bunch of these AI things that people are sending in. And then I kind of, then they, you know, fall further and further down in the emails. And then I got an email from listener Stephen yesterday. I think it was listener Stephen that's saying, hey, listen, I sent you guys an AI thing. I'm so embarrassed. Just like the Seattle Times never published, you know, your rant and rave. I'm embarrassed. You must have hated it. I'm attaching another one, a take two on this. Maybe you'll like this one better. Now, I don't know if this is better or worse for Steve, but the truth is I didn't hate your first one. I haven't listened to it yet, and I feel really bad about that. But also I feel terrible knowing that you've been twisting in the wind, thinking that I listened to something and didn't even have the courage and politeness or the conviction or the courtesy, the courage, conviction or courtesy to write back. but the thing is sometimes these things stack up a little bit and I apologize for that

I want the listeners to know that when we don't respond it is not an indication of how we felt about your message it is an indication we have likely not read your message which is very different one is just kind of I mean would you rather have a parent who is very reproachful and judgmental but is paying attention or a parent who is just checked out and has no opinion on your grades, et cetera. Right, exactly. Because we're more door number two around here.

Yeah, and that doesn't mean that I don't love you guys or that I think I'm better than everybody else. You just love darts and the Mariners more. I wish I could play darts. I miss playing darts, man. It's funny how things connect. Like, I shouldn't, I'm not trying to make you feel bad for me. Whatever's going on with my hands, people have it much worse than I do. But I haven't played darts in whatever, a couple of months now. and the thing is now like my desire to go to record stores is not there because i buy records so that i can listen to them when i throw darts you know what i mean like does that make sense like i just there's several things that are also did you happen to see that oh chris is leaving

the studio yeah did you see bingo just jump out from on i did onto my back and then out the door

that's how he gets down from the windowsill i think that's when bingo knows that you're starting that funny talk again and goes like you know i i've got places to be and other things to be

listening to than this dribble drabble you know let's let's leave that those conversations aside for a moment i will say i'm sorry i'm a little bit behind on voicemails and and emails and stuff but please if we don't respond to something it doesn't mean that we don't don't love what you

sent in um i will it is amazing though the power of being withholding if because the kind of person i think who tends to enjoy our program is probably a person who is a little bit similar to us yeah they maybe are somebody who is in their head a bit they are somebody who uh doesn't maybe do always do well with long stretches of silent reflection you know and kind of like being being in a room with someone and hanging out but not needing to say a whole lot like that's really not the vibe of this show this is being in a room with someone and needing to say a lot That's really the TBTL way. And so I would imagine we attract people to the show that are like us in a way. And so those folks, when they send something in and they are kind of picturing us looking at it or listening to it, maybe pretty close to when they've sent it in and then having thoughts about it and then talking to each other, me calling you up and going, boy, this was a swing and a miss for old Steven. Like, I would like it's it's weird to be on the kind of withholding side of that, Because I know very much what it's like to be on the Steven end of this in other parts of my life where either I send some email to my bosses back in New York for CBS or I'm in a tense moment or for me a fraught moment with a family member or I'm asking, I don't know, just when I put something out there and I'm feeling uncomfortable about it anyway or I'm a little nervous about the response and then there's no response for a while. The stories that I will write in my own head about how the other person feels about it are almost endless.

My whole goal when you started this talking about that, I was going to do my obvious joke of like give you no response and just like, you know, let you feel the tension of not being the person who responds. But I got to say, you did get me with the idea of you and me to be like, look at this ass that Steve sent in. I promise the listeners That is never ever the vibe That would indicate you and I talk Off air Unless I'm getting paid That is not part of my afternoon

When the TBTL biopic comes out Someday years from now First of all who will play us Suzanne Summers will play me Well Rest in peace That's going to be a tough booking

Oh, right. I don't think I realized that. I don't know why I thought that. I was just thinking about the Three's Company biopic.

People who were replaced by other actors or something?

Well, this has come up on the show somewhat recently that there was some biopic, some kind of cheapo biopic that was made in the early 2000s about Three's Company and about all the kind of infighting and tension and everything. So that show was just on my mind. And I just thought Suzanne Somers would do a good version of me. But I guess that's out of the question. and off to find somebody else, maybe a Chalamet. It's one of the two.

Oh, sure, Chabladoo. Chabladoo. But also along with whatever the casting questions will be around who plays us, there will definitely, what will come to light will be the fact that we loathed each other off air. Yes, exactly. We lived very, very separate lives. We realized that we don't have to be friends in real life to pull this off. We just have to be here when it's time to do the show. And then when the show's over, we are both on to our lives outside of this friendship or collaboration, I should say.

People's heads are going to spin when they realize we've lived next door to each other for 15 years. We just refuse to be in the same room.

We've been sharing a studio apartment.

But we refuse to be in the same room. That's why we dial up. Because I remember that's part of the Three's Company thing, too. They just gave Chrissy's. Chrissy and Janet? Whoever was on the outs, whatever actor was on the outs, they made her just like, in order to fulfill her contract, they would give her one phone conversation.

She was always in the kitchen, right, on the other end of that swinging door or something?

No, I think she was on the other end of a phone line. Like, literally, they would place a phone call to her at the end of the show, and that way they would include her. Yeah, it was a real cold set.

Well, it's funny because that's now become a time-honored tradition because on the whatever they call Sex and the City now, and what's it called? And that happened Well that happened What is it called all the things

It starts with an ellipse right

Well that just happened

You ever notice Wait no that's not it

Whatever they call the version of that show I want to get to this without looking it up I think it's called in just like that I think I knew that the whole time I just wanted to I don't know why I wanted to shade that show I actually very much like Sarah Jessica Parker i think she's a national treasure that that show has never been that universe has never been one that particularly spoke to me but all that is to say um kim cattrall she of scatting oh sure legend on this program and other places you know she was in one of those things where she was really on the outs with the producers and maybe the other actors on the show and so the big news and we also talked about this on on tbtl when it happened the big news was like she's back for season three of and that just happened and um but of course the scene was her on the phone calling sarah jessica parker like it was literally like she's in a limo calling her saying i can't come to your birthday party her rejecting an invitation i believe that's literally what it is she's in like a limo or some kind of town car she's on her way to the airport and she's calling the sarah jessica parker character i believe to tell her i can't make it to your party but but yeah but then she's talking she's like put me on speakerphone to the apartment i believe she says something to the physical dwelling oh wow um and and and that's the big scene her big return oh wow oh wow her big return is just like a classic thing where the people don't like each other where they're never in the same room and i can't believe that they they they got you know hollywoodreels.com to bite on that with the exclusive right when they finished up writing about kevin costner's non negotiable for his green mountain coffee they were able to bring you the exclusive that she

was back for season three and then just like that dies for that kind of exclusive oh yeah they do kidding me that is right up their alley i love that mug the one i'm using yeah i know that i'm really getting away from what we're supposed to be doing here well you're leaning into the visual component of this show which is not available to the viewers or listeners but um for now this could

be on instagram andrew as i'm speaking okay oh shoot then hold on i mean listen look at these two faces and tell me these are not faces that should be broadcast on the intranet this is the

only way i can hold my face luke so i'm not horrified by the still image that i will see when john sends me he sent us something today like hey is this little clip okay to post to instagram i'm like yeah where'd you get the wilford brimley look alike and i'm like oh shit that's

are you over the wilford brimley cocoon line yet are we both i think so where are we with that

are we older than he was in cocoon aren't we i think we're pretty far past it right wasn't he in his i thought like he was 33 he was super super early anyway that is this coffee cup andrew is

actually this reminds me of a conversation that i want to have with you

about basically utensils, dishes, and a man named Walt Burbank. And it all unfolded this morning. So first thing, I'm using this coffee cup because I'm out here in the Madrona Hill studio. And what I have done recently was Becca and I went to Cost Plus World Mart in Tigard, Oregon, and I picked up some new bowls and plates and other things. because I haven't had any proper eight-piece serving set of plates and bowls and stuff like that. And so I got some this weekend and put them away in the kitchen in the house, and that meant I had kind of all the weird leftovers, the motley crew of random things that I had been using in there, and now that's coming out here to the Madrona Hill studio because we're eventually going to have a little kind of kitchenette deal in here. And this, to me, feels like a great place for a random assortment of kind of non-matching dishes and the like. And like this green, it's, what do you call this? Is it enamel? It's metal. It's like when you'd go camping. What do you call that?

Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's metal with enamel over it. I like that. Genevieve has enamel bowls like that. Genevieve actually has an addiction issue. This seems like the right place to air it out. Yeah, definitely. It's morphine, weirdly enough. No, it's... You've got to love the old school addiction. It's the Lodnig. Yes, I never say that.

It was after...

What is Lodnig?

They gave it to her after that Civil War battle and she was never able to kick it.

Anyway, she's great at solving mysteries now. Is she curling an opium den somewhere on the Bowery? But she likes those bowls that are like enamel and then I think they're often like... They're often kind of silver. They're natural silver, kind of reflective on the outside than on the inside. They're like enamel like a nice bold orange or red or something. Can you sort of picture that kind of bowl? We have a lot of those around. A lot of them, several of them are on display on various tables. I think I put some holiday in-shell nuts in one of them. That was kind of fun, but mostly they're just there for looking. And we have some that are even, I think she's honestly, I think she's got some tucked away in various drawers and stuff. Like she comes home sometimes she's like i got another bowl or she'll go rushing into a room which is

funny because it sounds like she's really she really runs a tight ship around your coffee mug situation which brings us andrew to this right here so i filled up a like a a big uh you know kind of tupperware bin not tupperware but you know i'm talking about those storage bins with random dishes that were from the the kitchen in the house to bring out here to integrate into this space and my life out here. I'm actually very excited about it because there's a working refrigerator now, so this half and half that I like to put in my coffee, it can just live out here in the fridge. It's starting to become more and more functional out here. That's why I'm using this cup because this cup is part of the leftovers collection. I love it. It's part of the Motley Crue.

Drinking in the boys' room.

yes exactly uh we've got this we've got a handsome mug i'm jealous um we've got a one a i could go grab some of them we've got a ceramic uh one not a ceramic excuse me like a typical porcelain one that is charlie brown themed and it says i feel strangely confident today um we have we have a whole bunch of different ones but this brings me to the conversation i had with my dad this morning My dad, who, by the way, is buying some building supplies down in town, and I realized the difference between—I'm no youngster at 48, but the difference between being 48 and being 70 is pronounced in terms of how you use mapping software when you are about to run an errant.

You print it out from MapQuest. Well, obviously. Oh, by the way, Brimley was 49. I need to get that in there, so we still have some time. You're 48 right now? Are you 48 right now?

I'm 48, and I've got a good portion of 48 still in front of me before I'm 49. Let's live la vida loca, my friend. We've got one year before we enter Brimley territory.

I'm literally at that age, getting near the end of a decade, where I'm getting confused as to how old I am. I believe I'm 47, and I think I'm turning 48 in November. So you do have like half a year on me.

I've skipped way ahead to 50. I have plans for the decade of 50 to 60, Andrew. I've been really working on them lately in my mind. Do they involve giving me that mug? Absolutely. That's one of them. That's one of the top things I'm going to do in my 50s. I'm just kidding. I seriously have been thinking about this like I'm writing off the rest of my 40s. I'm allowed to do it.

You're writing off the rest of your 40s.

It's like my diet starts Monday, okay? My diet starts when I turn 50. In two years. Yeah. I got two.

two years of what the hell ever I want to do. But then when I turn 50, between 50 and 60, I'm going to get my shit together because then at 60, I got to really start thinking about like retirement. Do I have enough money to live on in my retirement? Health, things of that crab rangoon and things of that nature. Like I literally just came up with this plan. Okay, my fort, listen, my forties, this is, though my forties are basically over. I might as well enjoy the last year and a half of my forties and just go buck wild and throw caution to the wind. Then 50, that's when shit gets real 50 to 60, 10 years, a decade of serious living, good decision-making, hard work, industriousness, planning for the future. 60. Now I'm still 60. You're still, you're in good health. Ideally, you've got some good 60 to 70 should be good.

years that's maybe wind surfing decade right there you're 60 and i'll have the money to do it exactly

andrew yes because i so 50 to 60 those are going to be the 10 years to change my life and then i can enjoy the fruits of that labor from 60 to 70 and then whatever good years i can wring out of 70 to 80 maybe they'll have medicine by then that'll make you know 80 the new 70 i don't know but like the good news is it means i can just go i can do literally anything i want for the next year and a half that's what i'm trying to tell you i'm gonna get into some pretty um

sketchy territory here very dangerous territory not as sketchy as i'm gonna get between now and the age of 50 yeah well i'm wondering and i don't see i i don't know you know becca's situation so i don't know if she would apply here or not but what if you spent the rest of your i'm trying to think the rest of your 40s or maybe the first half of your 50s looking for an extremely wealthy woman to marry like that would really help out with the retirement stuff right i could never

be a kept man i mean yes so great you have no idea what you're missing i have yes i obviously i've got the i've got the build for it yeah pool boy looks is how i describe uh-huh yes but i am far too obsessed with my autonomy and my independence i have a person that i know who shall remain nameless who was a version of a kept dude but not ever in like you know the sort of like um cinematic style where he was he was uh living with a very very rich older woman and he had all of his needs met he just never had a car or a place to live he was always crashing with people he was dating but in a way he was still basically having his needs met financially and otherwise through these relationships that he would have and the thing i always thought that looked unappealing about it was he never got to know when he could use the car because he was it was never his car it was always like well so and so is not using their car so i can borrow it and now i can go do what i want to do and i would always return enough honestly if you only have

one car between the two of you, I'm talking wealth here. You're talking two cars. I'm talking-

Or two cars and an unlimited bus pass at a minimum.

I'm talking two cars, a free bus pass, and a paddle board. Uh-huh. Sup? A stand-up paddle board. That's right. Yes.

Okay, so the way that my dad navigates the world using- First of all, he doesn't use Waze, which I don't know why. You're probably not a Waze guy either. You're probably-

I use Google Maps. I mean, I used Waze- No, you and Walt. When I was in L.A., I used Waze, but then somebody told me that at a certain point, I'm pretty sure that Waze just tapped into all—I think they're tapping into the same data. It's just presented somewhat differently.

I think you're probably right, but I'm the kind of person for whom presentation means a lot. And, like, for whatever reason, I've gotten locked into the Waze lifestyle. And I think it refers back to some source map that they're all using or most of them are using. But I've had a bad experience with Google Maps for some reason. and I don't know why. It just seems funky on my phone. I'm used to the Waze interface, so that's what I use. But anyway, my dad had to go to this other place in town to get some certain kind of lumber that they didn't have at Home Depot. Well, the first thing was I came out of the shower, and my dad goes, we've got a problem.

That's always a good way to start a conversation.

And he was on the Home Depot website, and they didn't have a certain kind of plywood, a certain thickness of plywood that we needed for this particular project.

Oh, a plywood problem. Okay.

Yeah. And so I said, well, why don't we call Baker Lumber and find out because they've got they got a lot of stuff down there. And he goes, oh, OK. So I call them. And sure enough, the good news is they had basically exactly what we needed. Shout out to the local business, Baker Lumber and Longview, Washington. Sorry, sneeze break. Gesundheit. Thank you. And so I called them. They had the thing. like oh great well where are they in town and i said well just put it into your phone i'm like they're right there in town they'll be easy to find and he goes oh okay i go do you use ways and he goes no no i use google maps i'm like okay so i will tell you this he didn't get the ipad out so that was a win he did do this on his phone so at least it seemed like there was some good potential

so i'm hearing you're not coming right out and saying it but you have some snobbery around

google maps you think it's for olds i feel like google maps is the reels of finding things in that tiktok is where the cool youngs are like me and reels is when it filters down to the facebook

generation wow i feel so different having used both and maybe it's changed a lot again i used i used ways when i was in la and that was that was like 10 years ago now so um you know maybe it's changed a lot but i think of ways as being so childish looking it's like it's got it's very like cartoonish and definitely you can put on i remember for a while i put on um like the you can put on celebrity voices you're using idris elba to get you around that would be i'd just be but

is it stringer bell idris elba or is it regular from england idris elba just swooning my way across the 10 but i heard a crazy story about that by the way about what idris elba did not let um david simon and the other producers of the wire know he was from england until like his fourth or fifth audition and in fact the guy who played carcetti who's i believe maybe irish by his origin like busted idris elba in an audition like what in front of the producers of the wire was like oh so where are you from in baltimore again because a casting director had told Idris Elba, David Simon wants realism for this. No British actors playing people from Baltimore, people from certain areas of Baltimore. But Idris Elba really wanted the part. So he learned, basically, he really dialed in his American accent. And his Baltimore accent? His Baltimore accent or whatever. Although I don't feel like he has a very strong... I don't feel like it either, yeah. He doesn't have a Baltimore accent as much as he just doesn't have a British accent as Stringer Bell. But he went in for the first audition, and I think he may have even lied and said he was from Baltimore. They asked him where he was from. He doesn't say he's from England. He does the audition. Everybody loves him. He gets called back. Now he's in the third or fourth audition, and this is life-changing for him at this point, right? Like he's kind of one of those, I think, struggling actors. And the guy who plays Carquetti, I forget his name, but he's also that guy's little finger in Game of Thrones, I believe, says to him something like, and Idris Elba has told the story that this guy was really basically effing with him in this moment. So it's like, so what part of Baltimore are you from again or whatever? And he just has this like he's at this fork in the road. Like, am I going to just fully lean into like making up this even more elaborate story and lying? Or and he just basically goes, I'll go to be honest, mate. I'm from England.

And what are you going to do at that point? Recast if you're already in production, you know?

Well, they weren't. It was in the audition. Oh, so audition, not on set. He didn't have the job yet.

Oh, I thought it was on set.

OK, but they liked him. No, on set. Then, I mean, honestly, frickin' ride in on a penny farthing going, bring a chimney sweep thing. Hello, governor. Like, they're screwed at that point. No, this was before he officially had the job, although they liked him a lot. So this was obviously not a career ruiner for him. But anyway, you're of the opinion that Waze is childlike and not necessarily, like, the cool way to find your way around. And you might be very right about that, by the way. I will admit this is just my personal preference. But here's the thing my dad did.

I just wanted to say, I believe it was Terry Crews whose voice I had on very briefly on my ways, which is a terrible, no, it wasn't nice. Like, I like Terry Crews, but you don't need somebody shouting at you to take a left. Like, of all of the voices, I remember-

Was he in his Brooklyn Nine-Nine character, or was he in his, like, was that like Old Spice linebacker university role?

Is it that, I mean, yeah, he was like being very, very shouty, and again, I love Terry cruise again national treasure but like that was just such like take a left on some pulvin on like all right okay terry let's take it down a notch i also don't usually use voices anyway i just i remember it was a new feature at the time i was like i'll give it a shot bad idea anyway go ahead

okay so my dad looks it up and and uh and he's got the directions and i said yeah you know well now you've got it on google and he goes okay so i go down the hill and then i'm going to go i'm going to go across oh what is it okay it's seventh and then river and then i'm going to and he literally narrates the entire journey on google maps of getting to the place and that to me seemed very generational because i'm not a young cool but if i'm going somewhere and i know that it's either in google maps or ways that pretty much large

ends the conversation around getting there at that point I'm gonna get in my car I'm gonna plug the phone into my little system there and then it's just gonna tell me how to get there either to me there's absolutely no need for me to read a turn-by-turn directions off of my phone of what the Google Maps is going to have me do you get to the lumber store right and I found it kind of charming actually I do then and by the way it perfectly summarizes my father because my dad is sort of astride a couple of worlds. He is not so old that he would never use Google Maps, but he is old enough that he needs to read all the directions that Google Maps is telling him before he embarks on the journey.

I know I tell this story a lot, so I'll tell it abbreviatedly here, but I had the same exact attitude, but this was more than 10 years ago now. This was when you and me and Dave Ross went to New Hampshire to cover the primary. Nice. Now you're just playing. Wait, that was you making that noise.

That was me doing my Bill Murray impression.

I thought that was pretty good. I wasn't looking at you.

If Bill Murray had just sneezed.

For a second, I thought you were playing a drop of me imitating Bill Murray. I just heard a voice in the background. But I was going to say, I remember when we- New Hampshire? I mean, what would this have been, 2012? I guess what lines up with the primary candle?

I know that I still have audio in my computer that's titled John Huntsman.

If that helps.

And it was from like we went to a John Huntsman event and I recorded it and then loaded it into my computer to like play on the show. So if that if that helps put it in some sort of special date and time.

I feel like Rick Perry must have already been running then, too. Oops. That's also, by the way, me doing an impression of Rick Perry. That's not Rick Perry saying oops. The third one, the third one, Department of Energy. Okay, so what I was going to say was you and me and Dave Ross were going to New Hampshire. I've lived in New Hampshire before, and we're going to go cover the primary for some reason. Back when Cairo would send three people over to New Hampshire to cover the primary. And I remember, you know, David had done this before with his previous producer, now a good friend of mine, Libby Dankman, who is, let's just say, a thousand times smarter and more put together than I am as kind of a professional producer. And I think the last time they had gone, maybe the mapping technology on phones wasn't quite all there. So Libby and Dave had printed out all the maps and had gotten maybe even physical maps or whatever. And I remember the only time in my life I remember looking at Dave like, what? You don't need to do – he's like, you got them all printed out? I'm like, I got them here, dude, on my phone. And it probably, you know, God knows what generation phone that was. I'm like, and then we, and plus I lived in New Hampshire, right? And then we're out there and I remember we're going to an event. Oh, I can picture his, it was way up north. It was at an arm.

Was it like Winnipesaukee?

It might've been, it was up north and it was in an armory. Do you remember us covering a very famous, he's a very famous politician. I can't think of his name right now. He was running Newt. It was Newt Gingrich. Yeah, it was Newt. And it was a Newt. And he was up there in an armory and I'm like, yeah, let's go. and we, you know, start our journey in Concord where I have cell reception and I dial up the map. And then I forget when you're in between cities in New Hampshire, at least then, you lose connectivity. And at some point I closed my map app and then opened it back up, I believe. I think that's how I went. All I know is I was in the front seat. I believe Dave was in the back seat, maybe like producing a story. You were driving and I think I might have whispered to you that like, I don't have the map anymore. I can't remember. I remember being scared S-less that Dave was going to find out because I was kind of like, Dave, we don't need to print maps where we're going. We don't need maps. And now I have turned off my map, and we have no cell connectivity, and we're going to cover this thing, which we're going way out of our way to cover.

And there's nothing worse than disappointing Dave Ross.

No. And he's like, Dave takes this stuff seriously. He's like, Cairo didn't fly us out there so that you and I could go get.

But Cairo didn't fly me and my one pair of underwear out here so that we can just, you know, kick up our heels in Manch, Vegas.

I remember that might have been the last time I've had truly that feeling of like, I'm going to be in so much trouble with my parents. Only in this case, it wasn't my parents. It was Dave Ross. But like that I had I live my life in a way that as an adult, I don't have to have that feeling. I don't lie. I don't spin tails. I don't have, as far as anybody knows, a whole bunch of various wives in different locations that Genevieve doesn't know about. You know, like I live my life in a way that I can avoid that terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach where I know something that somebody else doesn't know. And when they find out, I'm going to be in trouble. And I remember that being a very, very long car ride. But we made it there because I have photos from that.

armory and i remember my takeaway from that newt gingrich event was you know i find newt gingrich's politics pretty abhorrent and i think his personal conduct has been pretty lousy honestly that being said it's weird being in a room with someone like that because you're kind of like oh i get it a little bit you know what i mean like he was actually very charismatic yep and the people

in the room liked him and a steady hand he sort of gave the steady hand vibe right yeah he was

more likable in that room than i expected him to be because of the fact that he is you know responsible for a lot of really bad things in american political life i think he kind of ushered in and and um but but yeah being in that armory with him i was like oh yeah he is he definitely knows his stuff and he knows how to make this crowd feel the way he wants them to feel like oh this is this is how you get to be newt gingrich you're pretty good at this thing actually so yes We did make it, because I wouldn't have had that experience if we would have just been driving in circles. That's right. I also remember John Huntsman was wearing, like, a leather kind of, like, bomber jacket. I don't know why.

I can't even remember the John Huntsman. Oh, I didn't go to the John Huntsman. I might have gone.

That might have been a solo mission.

Yeah, I can't even—I barely remember anything about him at all. I'm looking him up now.

Let me see if I can find in here this, because for some reason, this, like— Is he going to find the tape of whatever you collected in New Hampshire? This is called Huntsman Grassroots. Do you want to hear what John Huntsman said? Yes.

Trying to figure out. So this is 2012, right?

Yeah. Yeah. This is, so John Huntsman talking about grassroots.

We've put in a lot of time and a lot of effort. It's all about grassroots politics. You know, people say maybe you can Twitter or you can Facebook your way to political success. Nonsense. Not here. People still expect you to get out and earn the vote. You've got to get out there and walk it and shake hands. You've got to have a message from your heart. Thank you, Governor.

Are you tired, Governor?

Not at all. Are you kidding? Do I look it? Thank you, Governor.

Wow, you've got time to be alive. You can't Twitter your way out of this. No, you can't. Nor can you X your way out of it. So here's the thing about my dad and the utensils, Andrew, that we started this whole conversation when you were complimenting my coffee cup. So, I, in moving all of the Motley Crue of dishes out of my little house out here to my little studio. I took out these bowls. I had these white bowls. They're apparently made by Good Housekeeping. Not just a magazine anymore, Andrew. They make bowls.

Really? They're in the content business. Wait, no, they already were in the content.

Well, they're in the delivering content to you business in the way of things that go in bowls. And so they're just like a standard white bowl. You can imagine it. Anyway, I bring them out here because what I have purchased for the new kitchen that I put in, Are these much more I think of as stylish Kind of low rise Bowls So they are a bowl They have the same volume As a regular kind of a bowl That you would have had cereal out of as a kid You can picture that The thing that's a little more in style these days Is a bowl that's a little bit Shorter but wider

Squared off and less round on the bottom It's round

Well I mean it's not How do I – I'm terrible with – it's a rhombus is what I'm trying to – no. It's not squared off, but just imagine more squat, but the same volume. So it holds the same amount of cereal or soup, but instead of it being closer together and piled up higher, it's less of it and spread out more. It's a swimming pool.

I don't think I prefer that in a bowl.

Well, you and Walt have a lot to talk about, Wilford, because he doesn't either. And what happened was, well, the reason I bought these bowls was because, one, I think they look kind of cool. Also, they're easier to stack. I told you, this little kitchen I put together, because I designed it myself, it's pretty small. Like, a real designer would have been like, you might want more cabinets in here, sir. You might want to, this might not be a, I know you want to have the kitchen near where you can see the river, but there's a reason why it shouldn't be here. So we're dealing with kind of a lack of storage space And I can stack more of these bowls In the cupboard because they're a little more squat And again I also like the design of them They're black, they look kind of like I have some hasami Stuff that Addy got me I have a hasami bowl that I got from some sponsor That we did an ad for And we got to pick one thing off their website Which is this kind of Japanese brand that I'm a fan of So I bought these bowls Anyway, today I, Walt, I'm like coming out here to do the show. And Walt goes, what did you do with the white bowls? And I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, all you got are these other bowls. They're not for cereal. I go, well, dad, I mean, they hold the exact same amount. the other kind of bully goes yeah but they don't work for cereal and i was like what do you mean they don't work for cereal like it's a bowl you just you instead of having like your any by the way my dad eats frosted flakes who even eats frosted flakes anymore in 2024 in this economy so i'm like dad instead of it being like you have eight frosted flakes on top of each other and the milk you just have two frosted flakes but there's more of them and he's like no it's not the same he goes it's harder to fish in a lake that's shallow i'm like no it'd be easier to fish in a lake that's shallow the fish are closer to the surface and then we had a mini debate about it it almost ruined the relationship and then i just came out here and got him one of the good housekeeping bowls and gave it to him and i was like i'll keep this bowl in the kitchen for you and your frosted flakes but you it sounds like your team walt on this yeah i mean on the boat

like i can picture what you're talking about i'm sure they look really nice too and i'm not saying that they're terrible or that I would call you out on it for giving me a different bowl.

Better not during the TB Cellathon. I'll kick you right to the curb.

But I mean, I think the shape of a bowl does impact the experience. Like if you have a bowl that is longer and more shallow, it's going to be to get like when you're especially down near the end, whether you're having like a soup. I can picture like this seems like the type of bowl that if I went to a restaurant and I got like a pureed soup, like a pea soup or like a carrot puree. Sometimes those are really good. I could see it being served in a bowl like that, but it is true that if you're serving something like that, because it's got such a big, wide bottom, just like me, there's going to be more stuff in there, but it's going to be a tiny layer of it, so you're going to have to tip the bowl more to get the last bites out of it, right? That's a good point.

I did eat some lentil soup out of one of these the other night, and it seemed fine to me.

I'm sure it's fine, yeah. But, I mean, there is a difference in experience, I would say.

I guess so. I mean, you're just having, I would say, a less cool experience than I am when I'm eating my lentil soup. Do you know how cool I looked eating this lentil soup out of this low square bowl? No, I'm sure that you could have seen it, Andrew. Oh, man.

Do you like yourself a pureed soup, Luke?

Not my go-to. I do like a big split pea. But a carrot puree I probably swerve on. I'm not a big carrot guy. I feel like bad ROI. why like mostly sugar like of the things that we're told are vegetables they're the least i mean i know that they have uh stuff that's good for your eyesight i think it you know it builds your rods and cones or something i don't know what remember do you remember being a kid and being told carrots are good for your eyesight yeah of course is it um well i don't know what it is that's in there but as far as like a carrot soup to me is going to be a little bit on the

sweet side it is going to be a little bit sweet probably with some ginger in there but then you cut it with some salt um i remember having that i think maybe with you in portland one not that

you had it but i think i was having dinner with oh i went to noble rot maybe or was that the one

that was sort of on the roof or they have the garden on the roof yeah that was just a for some reason that just sticks in my head as being an incredibly good night i don't usually like i don't usually i love soup and again this is how we keep the young listeners i love we we we talk or not talk about all kinds of things we both love soup i was just playing that for genevieve the other day just to make her laugh before after these messages um i uh but i don't seek out a like genevieve loves making a puree she'll love making like a split pea or something like that i'm like because i think she's got an immersion blender that she really likes oh yeah and she loves her blender and she likes making soups like that i i'm not usually craving a soup like that but when it's put in front of me especially if it's a kind of a nicer restaurant it can it can really hit the

spot but that's yeah that's about what i got some nice although you don't go in for the creams and the dairy but like a nice kind of a puree type of thing that's got some sort of you know dollop of some kind of cream and some chive on there and stuff i like the i like the accoutrement yeah that come with it the good news andrew is when you and john are here for tbtl-a-thon 15 uh you'll be out here where we have the good housekeeping bowls so if you decide if you need a bowl of frosted flakes then uh we've got the exact right bowl for you you will be totally set you don't have to you the the square bowls are down in the house this is the fancy bowls are

down there for the fancy oh yeah that's right you're not you said i'm not even allowed in the

main house i think is what no no no no it's like when i used to go play basketball at sam gillette's house when i was a kid me and jimmy and micah and occasionally peter uh this kid sam gillette had really he'd really pulled off uh i think a pretty effective strategy of keeping us out of his house and out of his good snacks which is he was that kind of latchkey kid who the rule was my mom said

no one's allowed in the house uh but the mom's not there to enforce it the mom's not there to

enforce it yeah so we'd be like playing basketball he had a hoop in his side yard and we would be playing basketball out there and it would be

like cold it would be like fall moving into winter and it's kind of clammy and grimy and like your hands are all just covered in like this gross cold wet dirt from like just shooting this basketball over and over again we would play this game bump we would play 21 or as we called it booties and like there would always be a point where we would be out there like freezing and hungry it's like 5 30 it's already dark now you know because it's northwest and he'd be like i'm gonna go inside and he'd just be inside eating like Totino's pizza rolls in like a warm kitchen. And we'd be looking at him through the kitchen door and he'd be like, my mom said no one's allowed to be in here.

So you're not like all going home to your own dinners, whatever they may be. He's just taking a little snack break. Maybe it's more like 4 o'clock.

Let me be clear about the timing. It's probably more like 4 o'clock, so it's not quite dinner time yet.

But you're not all leaving, though. You're sticking around.

No, we're waiting for him to come back so we can continue the game.

Oh, that's weird. I wouldn't stick. Oh, God, that's weird. I wouldn't stick around for that.

That's hella weird. That's why it stuck to me to this. That's why 40 years later I'm still talking about it.

I guess you – did he have the only poop or something? Couldn't you just go somewhere else? I don't like this kid.

I don't either to this day. I don't like this adult. Wherever you are, Sam, you're on my list. You're on my list. I don't think your mom had that rule, truthfully.

Let's get her on the show. Let's find out how strange that rule was.

His mom came up on the show a while ago because remember you and I were talking about how this kind of very like 80s mom look of like puffed sleeves and a certain kind of almost like the look that dustin hoffman is achieving in tootsie the kind of tootsie look is back in style and how like in when you and i were growing up in the 80s if you saw a mom kind of dressed like tootsie with

those her puff sleeves and those glasses and a little bit of a country vibe to the dress a little

Yeah, she seemed kind of impossibly old, but was probably like 31, if that. That was Sam's mom to a T. She was a single mom. She would come home. I mean, we were usually gone by the time she got home. But she would come home, and if we did happen to catch her, she'd be coming back from whatever her corporate job was. I don't know what she exactly did. But she'd have that kind of puffed sleeves. sort of my memory of it is she looked a little bit like uh right out of that which is a style

that totally came back a couple of years ago i had one friend that i that i knew of that had a divorced parents and i didn't see in his mom we always thought of his mom as being like super cool and like kind of super like urban right because she lived in the city we lived out in valley city which even though it has city in the name it's a misnomer it was the country um and that's where we went to school but i think you know i was trying to avoid saying his name because i in case it got into anything sensitive but i think it's okay this is my friend tony who i talk about a lot on the show i mean it's easy to figure out because i didn't have a lot of friends um but we lived down the country but he would spend weekends with his mom like in the city which was the big city of canton and that's where he'd get up to things like he'd ride his bicycle around parking lots which just sounded so awesome to me and that's where he and shane i think apparently found a bag of money in a parking lot which i asked him about as an adult i texted him And I said, was that a true story? Am I remembering that? He's like, yeah, we found a bag of money. I think it was a little bit less than I'd remembered in my head. But as a kid, you find any kind of bag of money, man.

You would go hang out at the YA Tittle display in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and just stare at it.

That's right. Yeah. No, he would do things like he would get like paddle ball games and he'd go into the Kmart and get a whole handful of those bouncy balls out of one of those machines. and literally just go behind the Kmart and hit the hell out of those bouncy balls with his pad. These are things that I say now that don't sound that impressive, obviously, but my God, the idea of living this urban lifestyle impressed me so much.

Well, you know the funny part, if I can just interject not a serious note, but maybe a more like, I don't even know what note this is. It's interesting to me that this probably did to some degree inform your adult life. this idea of like i'm out in valley city there's not a lot going on i really would like to be living somewhere closer to where stuff is where i i don't know if you had thoughts about walking versus driving in those days but i do feel like your adult life like you're somebody who really likes to be where you're close to things and where you can walk to stuff and like you talk about that first place that you and veves had in seattle how you kind of wanted a room where you could sit and like you know kind of watch the world go by and stuff like it feels to me like a lot of your adult life maybe that was early thoughts of that were related to tony hitting super balls off the back

of the kmart well if i don't know i i think even if tony and his his mom who lived in canton even if they weren't in my life i still think what really informed me was living in valley city

Thank you.

and wanting the opposite of that growing up. I didn't want to be spending my weekends mowing the lawn. I mean, everything that I built my adult life around was kind of a reaction to not wanting to be in the country, wanting to be in a place where I could walk places as opposed to getting on my bicycle and riding for half a day just to get to one person's house. I didn't want to take care of a house like that. I wanted to live in a place where I had mobility and everything.

And now you spend all weekend cutting up your hedge into small pieces and feeding it into a solo stove.

Exactly, yeah. But, yeah, so definitely growing up in, I mean, literally, I've said before, like, the opening shot of Tootsie or whatever, whether or not it's the opening shot, but just like those.

When she's in that big city, crazy, packed street.

All those shots of Manhattan, you know, with just like those 80s movies of Manhattan where it's just like mass movements of people going and then somebody saying, hey, I'm walking here. You know, like that was my dream as I was sitting in this little farmhouse out in the country. But all of that is to say, Tony's mom, I remember just being very intimidated by her because she was she was just like she looked like rock and roll. Like she just was like like this cool mom. But also she smoked all the time.

And she like she sounds like Monique. Oh, that's right. It was this kid that I knew named Aaron when I was a little kid, like maybe six or seven. His mom was named Monique. She was divorced. She worked at a hair salon. She had blonde hair, and she drove something like my memory was it was like a Camaro. But I don't know what it was, but it was a fast car, and she smoked cigarettes, and she had bottle blonde hair. And I just thought, I don't know what's going on with this lady, but I want more of what she is selling.

And I remember, though, but I remember being very intimidated by her. Now, I was always intimidated by any adults, but then this was an adult that I had not interacted with anybody like that before except for Tony's mom. And I remember just generally being intimidated by her. And I don't know if I've ever told you this before, Luke. I'm sure you'd remember this if I had. But one time I was at Tony's house in Canton. It was by the railroad tracks, which I thought was so cool. Just amazing. Like everything you don't want. He had a recording studio in the basement and he complained about the trains all the time. But I was like, but we can just go outside and just play on the railroad tracks right now. which we did, we were probably like teenagers at this point, or young teenagers, but anyway, we were at the house, Tony's mom wasn't there, and I picked up an electronic game, like some sort of card game, it was a type of, you know, it was a little, it was a little like electronic device that only had one game on it, right, and I didn't know how to play any card games, so it was an electronic card game, and I beeped it, and I booped it for a little bit, and then I put it back down, and then, and I don't think that she was, i don't think that she was uh in any way like inappropriate here it was just her reaction she came back she was like who was messing with my game you messed up i don't know if i messed up

her score she probably saved her she had something saved on it it was some high i don't know if it was

a high score or what it was and she was like legitimately mad at me and again i don't think she screamed her head off or did anything that but it wasn't like it wasn't like you know some parents being mad at you because you broke the rules of the house or whatever it was just kind of like a a peer with a lot of power being very mad like the one person i really did not want to mess up her her card game was this i just thought it was a toy anyway i bet you wanted to go home so bad at that moment i definitely yeah i definitely wanted to get out of the kitchen i remember it took place in this very small kitchen and i don't know if i went out to play to throw rocks on the railroad tracks or make a fake radio show with Tony down in his studio in the basement, which is what we did. But I know I needed to get out of that kitchen.

God, there's nothing worse than getting in trouble with your friend's parents. It's one thing if they're in trouble, but if you get brought in on it, on the case, if you're considered an unindicted co-conspirator or even indicted co-conspirator, God, that's the worst. That was like, I'm out of here. I'm just going back home right now. I cannot handle being in trouble with my friend's parents at all.

Yeah, or just watching your friend get yelled at by his parents while you're just there and you're like, what am I supposed to be doing here? You just want to make yourself invisible.

As long as they were getting yelled at, I could handle it. But if it was like you too, I mean, I didn't love it. But I'm saying for me, if I was in trouble, you know what I mean? If I was part of it, if it was not just the parent yelling at their kid, my friend, But if it was the parent yelling at us, both of us, yeah, I was like, oh, yeah, like that was terrifying to me. Like I wanted to get out of there.

Anyway, do you have any more thoughts on soup?

Hello and welcome to Top Story. If you remember, Andrew, yesterday at the end of the program, I took your advice, which was to.

send an email to this this company called lit fad yeah um about this sconce and instead of trying to argue with them about what the nature of an orange sconce is if an if if for a sconce to be orange it needs to be orange at all times or if just when the light is on it turning orange is enough for it to be considered an orange sconce instead of trying to sort of debate these large meta issues with them i should just say hey this isn't going to work for me how do i send it back to you it's a hyper color sconce it shows you where the sconce has been sweating so at least wear this to a middle school dance right this is a really good design um so i did that i said hey there this product is not going to work for me based on the color how do i return it to you for

a refund have a good time luke i do feel like we should have left off the the mocking um and

And so I said to you, my prediction was that the response from LitFad was going to be that they were going to just say, basically, that I'm not able to return the product. And in fact, this morning, well, at 119 a.m., I received a message from LitFad. Dear Luke, thanks for shopping at our site. We are very sorry for not meeting your satisfaction. However, we confirm we have sent you the correct product, and they do not have any quality problems. In this case, we cannot provide the return service. Please understand. Best regards, LitFad.

Oh, they changed their, I don't know what you call it. Please understand. It's always been have a good time.

They have the awareness to not sign that email, have a good time. So it's learning. The AI is learning, Andrew.

Do you want me to call the Better Business Bureau? Like, we're out of options here. I'll do one better.

I called Chase today.

Oh, nice, nice, nice.

So here's what happened. I like this. I started with finding this transaction and figuring out. This is really the principle of the matter at this point for me. This was about a $100 item. But for me, it's somewhat about the $100, but more about the fact that this, there was there was never there was never going to be any kind of ability for me to return this product to them like it was just never going to happen like they send you this boilerplate thing that says your product has arrived please check and make sure it's okay and if it's not take a picture and send it to us but like that was all just that was that was all an illusion michael like that was as i said yesterday the way that the global supply chain works they mailed me this thing they got the hundred dollars from me there's no way the economics work out for any sort of return now they should have put maybe they would have put in all caps this product is not able to be returned so you better like it when it shows up yeah that you know that i they could have added that sort of caveat emptor as it were but they didn't and you know basically like this just feels sort of like a screw job and i could chalk it up to well you know you win some you lose some i buy a lot of stuff online every once in a while it's not going to work out it's a hundred bucks but for some reason that the what feels to me like the unfairness of this the fact that there's really no realistic mechanism for me to have satisfaction on this matter kind of bugged me and so i checked the uh sort of like how i paid for this and of course i used paypal which i use paypal a lot because this is something paypal has done that is very smart for their business model i don't know if you've run into this, Andrew?

Uh-huh, I think so.

When I'm trying to pay for something and I've got multiple ways to do it, do I want to enter my credit card information or my debit card information? No, but there's old PayPal. There's your old friend PayPal.

Yes, and I thought you were going to say that they are a good company that will kind of have your back in instances just like this, right? Even more so than a bank?

Less so than a bank in my experience.

Oh, okay. I thought they were good at that because I thought I used them. I reached out to them when I the one time I bought something directly from an Instagram ad as opposed to finding it elsewhere online and then it seemed like it was going to be I talked about on the show we don't have to go on the details but it really looked like it was going to never show up and that I gotten straight up ripped off by this company and when I reached out to PayPal I feel like they were

pretty responsive well I started with PayPal this morning and it was a lot of hoops and it was a lot of like go to the um go to the look whatever center go to the help center and uh and and put in the item number then i would go to the help center and they would say you have no current items that you're disputing and then i'd be like well how do i put an item in to dispute it and then anyway i figured i would just go to chase bank because they deal with this more they're my bank i've had them for many years i don't think that matters but like i just felt like

Thank you.

I, I've, I've at times in my life had to dispute things through Chase Bank. I just, for some reason, it felt like I'm going to go to the source on this one. And sure enough, I called them. I got a pretty helpful person who wasn't the person who could help me, but they referred me to another person who said, I'm starting a ticket for you. We're refunding you the money provisionally until we can get to the bottom of this essentially. So you have the $100 back in your account, and now we're going to try to get in contact with LitFad. I was like, good luck with that one, and we're going to see what happens. Now, I am guessing that what is going to happen is in a certain way Chase is just going to eat it on this because they're going to refund me the money, and then they're going to try to get LitFad to tell them what happened, and then LitFad is going to be uncommunicative, and then they're going to end up just leaving the money in my account. For some reason, that is my prediction of how things are going to go. I guess it's possible that I could find out a month from now that Chase has clawed the money back from my account because they got some answer from LitFad that was satisfactory to them. But I feel like they're the get Jesse in this case. They're on my side. They're on Luke's side. And now the pressure is going to be on LitFad to defend their actions of not taking a return. And my guess is it's going to end up – I'm going to end up getting to just keep the money. That is my prediction. But I will tell you in a month or two when I find out what their final verdict is. But for the time being, I've got the $100 back in my account.

It is back in your account. So they credit you that – the bank credits you that even before they get their money back from the Chinese government. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I think that since you've probably never done this exact thing before, like, have you ever, in recent memory, have you used Chase to chase down some more money?

No, and that's, I was scrolling through, I also feel like this buys me a little bit of, I have some credit with Chase, and also, honestly, with PayPal. If I had to use PayPal, I would. It just felt like it was going to be more complicated, but, like, in both cases, I have hundreds of transactions, and zero of them I've ever asked to have reversed. So I feel like that's, like, I have some capital, so to speak, in that department. I'm not somebody who's, like—

And it's not $1,000. It's a hundo, right? With shipping, I think it was $113. It was, like, in 89. Something in that neighborhood. Right. And so, you know, it's not super excessive.

I'm like Donna from yesterday, Andrew. It's not every review I'm leaving is a negative one, and it gives me a little bit more believability, right? Like I'm not a person who is trying to sort of protest and argue every single payment that I ever have to make to anyone at any time. Like it's, you know, I feel like I have a pretty good track record of of not doing this. And so when the one time when I'm like, hey, this was a bad experience, I feel like they're going to I'm going to get this one.

Speaking of Donna, guess what literally just popped into my inbox? Oh, what? A survey invite from Alaska Airlines asking, how do we do now? I'm a big fan of Alaska Airlines, but this how do we do is going to be asking me about a flight that I took that I got to the airport at 615 for an 8 a.m. flight, only to have it bumped three hours all at once because of staffing issues on the airplane. And so I spent five hours in the airport and Alaska made it up to me, Luke, by offering me a twelve dollar meal voucher. And they sent that out after I'd already paid for my meal. They wouldn't have known that, but they could have been more Johnny in the spot. And also, Alaska, you're in the airline business. Have you ever had a meal at an airport restaurant? What do you think that twelve dollars is going to get you? You know what, Luke? I think I'm going to take this survey. What was the eye contact like? We didn't talk smiling like we didn't talk. Well, actually, I mean, the truth is like the I was furious in the airport, but I I did not in any way, of course, even be close to gruff with anybody who was none of them. None of them did it. And honestly, like truth be told, I mean, I'll be honest about this. I am I am brand loyal to Alaska. I think they are. So, you know, generally speaking, I do think very highly of them and I think very highly of their flight crews. They're always so nice and so gracious. I realized, too, one of the rare times I didn't get like a cocktail on the plane. They probably would have definitely come. They probably definitely would have come to my drinks that on that flight. But it was so early, like I didn't feel like drinking in the what ended up being an 11 o'clock flight back home. You know, if you're going on vacation, I think you can start drinking as early as you want. But coming home on a Sunday, I didn't want a cocktail. But anyway, I was I was so furious. I was like Googling the salary of the CEO.

who just like got like a $5 million bump and made like $10 million last year alone. And I'm just like, I'm frantically like Googling everything I can about the CEO of Alaska Airlines as they're offering me a measly $12 so I can buy a sip of a croissant or something. Oh, you drink your croissants now. Yeah, I do. A sip of a croissant is actually one of the French films I'm working on currently. So anyway, I was really galled by that. I feel like, don't offer us anything. Like, $12 is nothing in an airport. And there were so many restrictions on how you could use it. And it was sent out long after I'd already paid for the one meal that I did have at the airport. So I will be filling out this survey.

Well, I have to say, you were also, this sounds like I'm siding with Alaska. You were also there earlier than the average bear. Like, I wonder if I was-

Is there 90 minutes before a flight? That is what they tell you to do. Well, maybe I was like slightly more. But like, by the time I got through security-

saying that like when they issued you the $12, if you would have gotten, would it have been possible? Like how, how close to the announcement that the flight was canceled or sorry, moved back and the $12, are we talking a couple of an hour? Like if they do that 30 minutes before the flight, it's like, screw you. But if they do it like an hour and a half before the flight, I would, I would venture, well, I would personally probably get my $12 use out of it, but I'm also a, you know, I'm a Johnny come lately on these. I'm looking for it now. Here it is. It came in

at 714 they so who's getting the flight was at 8 a.m i think most people are at the airport at 7 15 for their 8 a.m flight well here's what it assumes boarding by that point we are sorry for

the delay it is what they're assuming there is that you ate nothing before the flight and now you have to kill time so you're gonna go find some food and here's your 12 to go find your food but that's a that's a that's a misunderstanding most people have probably already gotten their coffee and like you already had your meal etc you know what i mean like before that you got the news

that the flight was going to be delayed and it also just sort of feels like because you literally cannot you can't get like a breakfast plate for i mean i honestly think the breakfast plate that i probably bought at the airport which was like you know two eggs bacon and toast i think was probably fifteen dollars right oh sure like i mean at least now i got one bloody mary and then a tall cup of coffee while because then i had time on my hands well you were at the passage by hudson

right what are they charged you at the good one were you at the can one i went into passage by

hudson and they didn't have my simple little pretzel twist they had all kinds of flavor blasted and sourdough stuff i had to go to an old-fashioned hudson to get what my what my low brow uh desired what your low brow desires um but uh anyway i just sort of feel like giving you a twelve dollar voucher in an airport for for supposedly a meal that's essentially saying well we know that you're going to have to open your wallet to pay for the rest of this anyway and again like i don't i just wish they had given me nothing because then i wouldn't be doing this super cheap like thing like and i ended up not using it because i'd already i wasn't going to go back to another restaurant to eat something that i didn't want and then still probably have to pay the balance of it I'd still be like you know see that's what I would

have this is this is where for somebody who I'm talking about me here for somebody who is not the greatest with money and making smart financial decisions all the time I have this very weird hang-up where like if I told you about the time I think actually I don't know if I talked about this on air but like Becca and I we were in Vegas and we were staying at this hotel and they had like given me some free nights or whatever and it I didn't realize but it came with like a food comp that they didn't tell us about until we were checking out and the lady was like oh you've got a 70 dollars of like free food and i was like what seven and i go well yeah that's a lot of money and also i was like well uh will this if i come stay here again in a year will it be or she goes no you got to use or lose it i was like please hold i went to the coffee shop because one of the places you could use this food comp was the little coffee shop down the down the casino and i was like how much are these mentos and she was like i don't know three dollars and i was like i'll take all of them and i just oh 100 i got like and then i was with beck it was a game i was trying to get to exactly 70 of crap from this coffee shop and putting it in my bags and getting the fanciest coffee they sold and like because we were actually going to i think it was like my mom's birthday or something uh in up in where they live so i show up at my mom's birthday And I've got Mentos for days. I'm the hero of all the nephews and nieces. That's great. But that's how my brain works. If you're telling me that I have $70 of free stuff, I'm using that. I don't care what happens. So my response would have been I would have been pissed at Alaska for delaying me. But I also would have been like, well, I'm finding something to spend this $12 on. Gosh darn it. That's just my wiring for whatever.

I think the reason I didn't was because I was like, there's.

Because I don't think I could use this at one of the stores. It said, like, you know, presented at the restaurant that you use this. So, like, what I wanted was to pay for my pretzels and soda with this. And I will be honest with you. I didn't even try. And, again, that wasn't, like, a regular Hudson News or whatever. I didn't try based on the language of that thing. Maybe I should have tried swiping it. I didn't tell you this, actually. When we were getting into conversation, it's all about airport and Donna this week. But, like, honestly, when I was using self-checkout at the regular Hudson News, not the Passage by Hudson, they had maybe four kiosks. And, you know, those little stores are very crowded, right? Like, you have a bunch of people who are, like, kind of milling about and other people who are in a hurry. And everybody's always kind of bunched up in those little stores is my experience. And lines, it's kind of the way they are set up, often like the counter where you pay for things is sort of in the middle of the Hudson News, and it's just unclear where the line starts because it's kind of a circle. Well, they had four self-checkout kiosks, and one woman who was yelling at us, like yelling, she kept saying, read the screen, read the screen. She was trying to keep people flowing through, which I appreciated as people were not exactly being as efficient as they could be. And so I like having somebody there.

Because those things, I've used them, are not intuitive the first time you approach one.

And there is some sort of like design in like the the checkout experience where after you've done everything you've paid and you take your pretzels and your Dr. Pepper and you leave, the computer asks you one last question, but you don't have to answer it. So you're already gone. And then the next person is coming up to the kiosk and before they can start their new transaction, they have to like hit something on the screen to end yours. And this woman, that's why she keeps yelling at everybody, touch the screen, read the screen, hit the screen, read the screen. And she's being very aggressive about it. She was not smiling with her eyes. Donna would have hated this person.

Oh, God. What I wouldn't give for Ken in a situation like this.

Oh, Ken was not there.

Life is number one. You can be having so much fun. Just remember that life is much fun. You can be nothing but one.

All right, it is time for some Blur's Days. I should probably remind people that the way you get a Blur's Day read on the show is you email me directly, andrew, at tbtl.net. That's the only place we collect Blursdays via email, andrew, at tbtl.net. So explain that. And I am explaining that. Also, you know, I do, some of these came in very long, just so you know, if you don't hear your entire message, I do have to edit them down. Just wanted to let people know. If you're listening, you're like, what happened to the third graph? I just want to let you know that sometimes I do have to edit these with much love and care.

Edited for clarity. That's what we say before every Blur's Day session, like when there's a conversation in the New York Times. Some parts of this interview were edited for clarity. Exactly.

Because, I mean, listen, these are personal messages. I feel a little bit, you know, I try to be cautious with what people are writing. They're writing personal notes to their loved ones. And so what is my role in there? Well, just, you know, keeping everything clicking along here. Cindy says, happy Blur's Day to my five. Jason, what up, brother? special team special player can you do that can you do that sketch yeah a sketch reference do

your imitation of that because i don't really know the source material as well uh well sketches that i i found out now i believe this is a bit of a character a guy is doing i thought it was just how the guy was but he's he's a dude who who it's boy the life cycle of internet fame right now if you're talking about things like twitch and tiktok it is like that of a fruit fly it is it can be like 24 to 48 hours to go from you don't even exist to your the only thing anyone's talking about to no one's talking about you again so uh at least as far as like the tiktok side of it goes there's this guy sketch and he plays you know madden or some sort of football game and he would like be streaming these things and he would be kind of putting out some funny burns on people when they would play him and then when he would do well he would say things like special teams special plays special players um thank you brother would be there it is

I remember the story. I remember all of that because then I remember we were – somebody was doing it to a bunch of NBA stars, I think maybe during the playoffs or whatever. I just – I felt like I had ruined the read on that because I'm less familiar with the source material. So I just need to hear you do it.

What I'm struck by is now we're seeing nothing from Mr. Sketch. It isn't – and again, maybe over on Twitch it's a different story, but it just – it burned white hot, but it burned too close to the sun. That's not really how that metaphor works, but it got too close to the sun, and now nobody's saying special teams, special plays, special players, except that person who is wishing someone a happy birthday.

This is Cindy saying this to her five, Jason. Congrats on turning 13. I was going to write your entire birthday message in the language of the teen, but I'm pretty sure I embarrassed you enough on the reg. You are a great human. I'm super proud of you, and I will always have your back no matter what. What? Happy Blur's Day, Jason. Got it. Nancy says, happy Blur's Day to awesome Megan, who introduced me to the wonderful world of tens. I love you. As frustrating as a mom can be, we'll watch another year go by together in peace and love.

Okay.

Happy Blur's Day, Megan, from Nancy and moi. And Loire. Loire is how you say Luke in French. Really? No. Happy Blur's Day to Vernon in Tule, Utah? T-O-O-E-L-E. How would you say the name of that town or city? Tulele. Tulele, Utah. Tulele? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Happy Blur's Day, Vernon. The best popsy out there. Here's to another year of bike rides and begrudgingly spending time together as a family. We are so grateful to have you as our dad, and we love you. Love, Allie, Cassie, and Maddie. Cute. That's very

sweet. Very sweet. I've started calling my dad Pops, by the way. This has been a late development. He's Pops now. He was never Pops when I was growing up, and now he's Pops. I went

through a phase of doing that in I think my teenage years, and then I think I just got out of the habit.

How did Bob take that? I feel like if you're a teenager, and you're starting to call your dad Pops, that can be kind of a flex in a way a way of kind of like sort of reframing the dynamic in the in the relationship was that what you were doing oh i was calling my bus driver pops oh okay that makes a lot more sense that

makes a lot more sense no i think it was during i could be misremembering this a little bit but it was during a time i think when my dad was going through a divorce he and i were living together um in like in like kind of the small apartment we were working together during the summers like he was my boss and so we were spending a lot of time together kind of as bros and so maybe i was saying pops more instead of dad maybe right i don't know if it was work situations or if i was just having fun with the language but that's my memory of it i think he was open to it uh-huh that was those

were wild times for you he'd come home and you'd have like a tie on the doorknob like hey bro Exactly. Occupied. That's right. Oh, wow.

Now, I'd be sitting in the easy chair from 1972, probably playing my Nintendo cartridge with 92 games on it and listening to whatever Aerosmith tape I bought for $2 at Chainlink Addiction. Or no, not Chainlink. Whatever next was Chainlink. Let's see here. Sheila in Ithaca says, Happy Blur's Day to Cindy. I'm sad that we don't see one another often enough anymore. I hope this next year remedies that. I miss you, friendo. Happy Blurs Day, Cindy. That's the same Cindy we heard from at the top of the show? I'm guessing. Probably. You think we have only one listener named Cindy? Let's see. Yes, I think so.

Unless my mom's friend Cindy listens.

Could be. Finally, it's Gray in Wichita's Blursdays, a Wichitan. Gray says, it's my Hitchhiker's Guide year, 42. Now, I've never read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but it's funny that this just came up on Spotless the other day. One of our listeners, we number all of our listeners on Spotless like any good podcast does, and a listener had written in requesting the number 42 because of the year. or because of the Hitchhiker's Guide number 42. Do you have any idea what that means, though, Luke? What is the significance?

No, that's also something I've never read. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Yeah. I bet you I would have enjoyed it as a kid. It seemed, you know what? Two things. One, for some reason, I always mixed it up in my mind with Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. Oh, yeah. Which I bet you also I would have liked, but the name just was off. The name, I was like, I don't care about fixing a motorcycle.

Like, that's how literal I was and remained. So, like, as a kid, people would be like, I mean, when I say kid, teenager, oh, you've got to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. And I was like, I do not. There will never be a time when I need to fix a motorcycle. Like, that was my actual thought. I bet you I would have liked that book. But I also kind of filed it under the same category as A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I bet you I would have loved both books.

Maybe. I think they're very different in tone. I remember starting Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. That, I think, is a very, like, that is a book about, like, kind of reflection. I think that would be really up your alley, I'm guessing. It's about kind of, like, reflection and not doing things the quickest way. But I think it's about, I could be wrong, but I think it's about sort of intentionality, sort of, maybe before we use that word so much.

I'm guessing. I mean, Zen is right there in the name, right?

Yeah. Having said that, I know I started it. I don't remember if I finished it. whereas I think Hitchhiker's Guide is more like, and that's Douglas Adams, right? I haven't read these, but I think they're much more like

It's John Adams, as portrayed.

I know, whenever I say Douglas Adams, I say I always have to remember, wait, is this one of the founding fathers or the person who wrote that? Portrayed by Paul Giamatti. That's right. But yeah, I think they're a bit more goofball-y. But anyway, I don't know. I'm not the one who read them. Gray did, and Gray's turning 42. I've been an on and off 10 for ages. I was also fortunate enough.

On and off?

Yeah, I don't know. Well, stay on through the thon. That's what I say. That's what I always say. I have a tattoo that says that, and it's very confusing. So explain that. Let's see here. Grace says, I was also fortunate enough to be on an episode of TV Tellers Callmakers way back in the day, and I recounted a story of my wife and I making wine, and then it blew up in our closet in the middle of the night. I don't know if you remember that. I do remember this. Yes. I got back to eagle soaring this year and decided to jump back into the podcast, and it feels just like a comfy pair of running shoes. Hey, welcome back, Gray. Welcome back, Gray, and happy Blurs Day. 42, Jackie Robinson's number. From the south side of Chicago.

I was about to say that.

Easy, Rico. You were the only one who would, people were like, wait, he wasn't from Chicago, but you get it, you get it. Yeah, cool people get it.

Cool people get it. All right, that's probably as good a place as any to wrap things up today. What are we going to call the show? Thank you for listening, everyone.

Oh, I need to tell you something. I was going to tell you this off-air, Luke, but this is really important. On the show sheet, you've been mentioning the TBTL-a-thon is coming up. Yeah, I have it as 14.

That's just to remind me of what it's not.

You've never said it wrong on the show. No, I haven't. It's totally unimportant. You say 15 every time, but I've been meaning to tell you, hey, buddy, it says 14 on the show sheet.

It's dangerous what I'm doing. Be careful. It's spicy. It's dangerous what I'm doing. That was just a typo the first time I put it on there, and it remains. But every time I look at it, I remember, don't say that. Say the other thing.

All right.

Thanks, everyone. We are going to be back here tomorrow. Hey, TBTL employee numero uno is going to stop by tomorrow because, Andrew, it sounds like you had quite an adventure at the bead shop. I did. Getting some of the beads for our TBTL friendship bracelets. We're going to be making thousands of in a week and a half.

I'm so excited to tell you guys about my experience at the bead shop, Picking up a bag of H's that was waiting for me. But it wasn't all that was waiting for me. I'll tell you more about that tomorrow. Also, we will tell you the dates and times and how you can sign up for the Zoom craft nights that we're doing. TBTL presents. I just crafted my pants. Never not funny to me. And so John will be on to tell us all about that. And you guys can start signing up after tomorrow's show.

We will see all of you then. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves. Go Joe Biden. And please remember, no mountain too tall. Good luck to all.

Power out.