Muse

Hey guys, it's Tom with an update. I know all eyes are on Paris and me if I'm swimming for Team USA or not. As you know, my only stipulation to Team USA was that I would only swim in the Paris sewers, and I would only swim with someone dressed like Marius on my shoulders that I could swim with, and then get through the sewers, and then at some point I'm supposed to be allowed to sing Bring Him Home. um, in the sewers. So if, if swimming happens in the Seine, I will not be participating. Just so you know, I will not be there. Do not look for me. Um, I'll be in the sewers. Um, I guess it really doesn't matter what the Olympic committee decides. I will be in the sewers with a guy dressed up like Marius on my shoulders. Um, but constant updates will be posted here.

the man or beast that i run from ain't been born and its mama's already dead what was the name of

the medicine um i want to say it's called uh crouch cream but that's not right i'm honestly

not judging you really so this super judgy feeling i'm feeling is just me feeling like You're super judgy and that's me? Shh, I get it.

I know who you are. It's been explained to me. I'm into it. Let's talk.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

Hey, where's the freaking gabagoo?

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

There's a hidden rally ranch party in my mouth.

Coming to you from the Southwaterfront of Portland, Oregon.

Oh, ma, pa, it's just beautiful.

It is looking like it's going to be a beautiful day. It is still the temperatures are very pleasant. It is going to be getting steamy here by the end of the week. It's going to be in the 90s. It's going to be very, very hot.

Never kick a cow turd on a hot day.

but for right now things are absolutely perfection and in fact being that i'm in the south waterfront it means there will probably be a bubbles appearance or two because i'm here at becca's house and we've got bubbles we've got holly go lightly we've got the whole fam here all together for episode 4239 in a collector's series let the fun begin and on this monday morning we've got some big news in the world of TBTL and Andrew's recent run-in with a guy on the stairs at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. We've got lots of news. And the question as to if this guy actually wrote a letter to the Seattle Times rants and raves about how angry he was at Andrew over this interaction or are we being trolled by the tens of listeners it is yet to be determined we will puzzle through that today on the show oh and speaking of my friend andrew walsh he is of course the longest running cobro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships damn fireball back at it again with the

white vans he's joining me right now good morning my friend i love hearing a white back at it again with the white vans reference we are keeping it we are keeping it fresh and young over here

like jenco jeans i feel like that damn daniel meme is is ready for uh another generation to

embrace it such a good meme if we can just take a moment to look back at our internet past what do you think that was five years ago more than five years ago now that that was sort of a meme I mean, it was so innocent and filled with joy, you know?

And as far as I know, never got milkshake ducked.

Yeah, exactly.

As far as we know, right? Yeah. That's always, because as you told me the other day, when all I wanted to do was enjoy the writing shed of Roald Dahl, you had to point out the fact that he was a virulent anti-Semite.

Sorry. Sorry.

We haven't heard any of that sort of information regarding the damn Daniel kids. So at least there's one thing that's still gold.

It is notable that after that show, two thugs showed up at my door, broke in, and took the Captain Fun mug off of my desk. They said that you sent them there.

Yes, you are no longer allowed to refer to yourself as Captain Fun.

It really, really bummed me out when I capped off your Roald Dahl story with a little reminder of our past.

I appreciate that, though. To be honest with you, Andrew, listen, was it the most fun way to end the segment?

Power out. Absolutely not.

I believe you just said power out.

But I am glad you did that because absent that clarification, we then are going to get a number of emails saying this guy had really bad opinions, it turns out, and we just saved everyone the hassle of sending that in. Right. And so I think it was, and also, again, the world is a complicated place, and if I'm going to go and sort of celebrate the fact that Roald Dahl had a very specific writing process where he sharpened his pencils in a very specific way. I think we need to give the context that he also was a virulent anti-Semite. That's just what you got to do. So I'm glad you did that, even though you ruined the segment.

Even though I lost my mug and potentially some of my responsibilities on the show.

Well, temporarily you lost the mug. You are now on community supervision as to if you are allowed to have the mug back. 30 days of not being a buzzkill, and you will get the mug back.

Well, at first, I got to start with a sergeant fun mug and then work my way up to captain once again. That's right. I mean, a lot of people don't know this. I used to have a corporal fun mug that was a real source of pride for me. You had the hat with the scrambled eggs on it, the whole thing? Wait, what is that? Is that the camouflage?

Isn't that, this is, boy, we're starting the week off hot. I am the world's worst person when it comes to sort of like military honors. But I've been dishonorably discharged from being a podcast host. That's hard to do. but um you know there's a certain level of i believe it's the navy where you have that kind of gold embroidery on your hat oh yeah it's a very like i don't know if that's admiral level but

they call it scrambled eggs oh i didn't know that's what they call it that's just not what

that's the sort of nickname for a certain level of of of of sort of achievement in i believe the

are you googling this bill of the of the navy cap it's on the bill like okay yeah yeah and i think

I think that's sometimes referred to as scrambled eggs, kind of jokingly, but what it really indicates is a high level of achievement in the military. I was trying to remember, I think I was talking to my parents yesterday. We celebrated my dad's 70th birthday yesterday, which was really fun, up at my folks' house. I took Andrew, I thought, I made one of the best videotapes of my career as a videographer. And I do weddings, too. I want to put that out there.

And they're all on tape, though. They are. They're all on high eight.

I shoot them on whatever that – was it a Sony where you would – and I think you had one of these, Andrew, where you would film on a cassette tape. It would actually use the cassette tape. Oh, yeah.

Fisher-Price. Yeah. Do I have that behind me? Fisher-Price. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But there was a moment where they had said –

Tell me what you recorded on your tape.

Well, I think the listeners know this is going to get good next week when we're asking for money. Yeah, right. It's the standard thing on the show now. i was able i sent this video to becca like they had all these these like really those sort of they're very popular now those balloons that are that are numbers but they're big and they're gold and they're they're very fun and it said happy 70th birthday for my dad and there was gold streamers it was a really cute scene that had been set up and then i went from that to just i did kind of like a a pan to the right i did a whip to the right just to my dad 100 percent asleep in an Adirondack chair by himself sitting by an outdoor fire and I was like this really

sums up what being 70 is I think I wanted to tell you about something I discovered this weekend have you noticed Luke that um my the stories of my life are coming more and more from basically like a one block radius on Holman Road or really like a one parking lot radius on Holman Road where like The QFC is, and a pho restaurant that I like, and the Papa Murphy's is there, you know. I guess salute to Patty's Eggs Nest, which is now just a hull of its former self. They've removed the sign. Anyway, this is the place where I live most of my life these days, because I love going to the grocery store.

Honestly, if you're going to be, most of your story is coming from a parking lot. I support that being the parking lot. It's a special one. it was you know whenever you bring it up i of course reference arts family center which was the thing there before the qfc and like yeah that was that that little area right off of holman road it looms large in my childhood experience so i fully endorse you making it now the locus of

your life at age 48 i really am getting into the holman road experience because now i realize that holman road is my passage to ballard the 40 bus line basically takes me anywhere in ballard i want to go right to the heart of ballard and holman road is is the road that it takes to get out there there's a place i um went to watch part of the mariners game on i believe saturday evening called the thirsty fish that i always wanted to check out and i wasn't sure like if it was kind of more of a dive bar or whatever it's actually not it's like it's a sports bar with just a few tvs in there but actually

Pretty decent, you know, burger, but like pretty decent burger and Brussels sprouts. Any whoozles. I'm really into the home and road experience these days. Across the street from the QFC, we're going to walk out of that parking lot. We're going to walk across the street carefully. We're going to wait for the light. We're going to use the crosswalk. We're going to walk across the street to where there's another parking lot. And in this parking lot, you have a-

Is that where the- there's like a Mexican restaurant there and a gas station?

You will see the back of a Mexican restaurant. It's now called like the Santa Fe something or other.

Who needs a Google Street View when you've got two old guys speculating on what businesses occur along Holman Road in Seattle?

Damn, Daniel, what's in that parking lot?

I believe, is it an oil change place, actually?

As far as I know, it's a gas station. I don't know of any place in there that'll change. I got cocky. Yeah, you went too far. You flew too close to the sun. Sometimes there will be a food truck parked in there, or sometimes a truck that sells flowers will be parked in there. There's a gas station that I use occasionally. And there's also a little drive-thru coffee stand called Beehive Coffee. Now, I don't think I've ever used a drive-thru coffee stand with the exception of one time with you and we're recording it for TBTL. Well, that's what I want to tell you.

I saw that footage of her slamming your windshield with a hammer.

Oh, yeah, right?

I can't believe you did that.

Where did that story come out of? That came out of the area around Seattle, right? Somebody was harassing a bikini barista.

Yeah, probably like Linwood somewhere up on Aurora. Yeah, whenever you see like an incident involving a scantily clad woman and coffee, you know it's coming out of the Pacific Northwest, the home for the bikini barista experience. And in fact, I think Washington State remains – Bex, are there any bikini barista situations in Portland that you've heard of, Becca? Is there any bikini baristas here in Portland that is a thing? Okay, I guess that it's migrated south, but it's very localized to the northwest, is my experience. Like, you don't find them, you don't, they go as far south as Salem, Oregon, I'm hearing from my sources. But still, you don't see them in Boston, as far as I can tell.

Yeah, in fact, I was going to say, for the rest of the country, because, like, obviously I didn't grow up here. I was very surprised to hear that there's something called a bikini barista shop. And I think it's pretty obvious from the name that what it is is you get your coffee and they put a little bikini on the coffee cup. At least I think I understand that correctly. Is that right?

Yeah, that's exactly. Yeah.

No, of course. It's never like a walk-in kind of place. There are always these drive-through stands that are going to be set up in a parking lot somewhere, but kind of permanent structures where you drive your car through and they'll give you a coffee or a tea or whatever you want to buy through the window. And I guess the people –

There's something so off about going to the Bikini Barista but then getting a tea.

Well, then wait for it.

Can I have an Earl Grey? And also, could I have you do a couple of pirouettes there, scantily clad lady?

You're going to like this story then. Stand by. Okay. So anyway, there in this parking lot is a coffee stand that you can drive through. It's called Beehive Coffee. And I never go through drive-through coffee stands. And so I have never paid that much attention to it, other than it's kind of in an awkward place. And sometimes I'm worried I'm going to run into it when I'm getting gas. But anyway, the other day, I'm getting gas in my car. I'm filling it up. And I happen to look over towards the Beehive Coffee. And for the first time ever, I see just sort of the torso of somebody sort of standing in the window. And I notice they're in a bathing suit. And it's not even a bikini, by the way. It was like a one-piece bathing suit. And, you know, I just saw it for a second. They were looking at their phone or something, and then they disappeared back into the shadows. And I was like, is Beehive Coffee a Bikini Barista? Like, I don't know why I was surprised by that. Like, I've seen Bikini Baristas in various parts of the city. For some reason, I just didn't think that this one – I mean, it's Holman Road. It's Wholesome Road.

The name is on the line. The name is not – the name does not clearly indicate that it is Bikini Barista. Not in any way, right? It's not called, like, Jugs Coffee. Right, exactly. Or, you know, something that's overtly scandalous. It's like Beehive could be a lot of things. Although I'm looking at a photo now, Andrew, and if I were to drive by this, I would assume it is Bikini Barista because they have built a privacy fence blocking your view of the service window, which always means Bikini Barista.

That was how this magic eye revealed itself to me. As I'm standing there, like, you know, filling up my car with gas, and then I'm like, oh, wow, did I see somebody going to bathe in, like, swimwear? and then like i'm like oh they do have that would be why they have that wall there and then i look kind of a little bit closer now i'm just like now i'm creeping i'm poking my head through the window no i notice oh yeah they have like they love that they have like a poster back there that shows like a woman like a cartoon woman in a bikini with like on the menu or something i'm like oh that's interesting okay so then i was gonna i was gonna tell our text chain about it our wordle text chain and a bunch of North Seattleites up here. And so...

I'm like, hey, do you guys know that that beehive, I mean, this is not relevant to us, but just out of curiosity, do you know that that beehive is a bikini barista shop? And just before I sent that out, I wanted to make sure I was right about it. So I type in beehive coffee into my Google browser and what comes up but the Yelp listing for it first. And I don't want, now listen, I just think this is so funny. I know that last week, one of the best moments in recent TBTL history was when you read a whole bunch of Yelp reviews by a woman named Donna, who we stumbled on because of her somewhat itchy review of a Hudson books.

Hudson News Passage. Passage by Hudson News.

I thought hers was just a straight up Hudson. Was hers a Passage by Hudson?

No, no, she was – that's how I landed on her because it was a review of the specific Hudson News kind of subsidiary that you had experienced at Sky Harbor Airport.

At Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, Arizona. So anyway, I'm not trying to compete with that. This is a very different vibe, but I just thought that this was funny. So I'm texting my friends. Do you know that that's a bikini barista shop? And then I'm like, oh, wait, I should double check that. So I look it up, and then I get to Yelp first, and it is confirmed. It's a bikini barista place. And I just took a little clip of this and sent it to the friend group because I thought the writing was very interesting and very thorough. So the first graph, this is from somebody named Steve in Redmond, Washington, who, by the way, just while we were talking a moment ago, I looked, he has filled out hundreds of reviews. He's got 22 pages of reviews. And most of them, they all seem very thorough and most of them positive or positive leaning. This one is four stars. It's from 2020. It starts with a description of the outside of the place, which is no longer relevant. It sounds like they've changed the facade since then, so I'll skip that. It says, I was greeted by a beautiful... There's going to be one sentence worth of the male gaze in this. I was greeted by a beautiful young woman, slender and toned, with fairly long dark hair, brown eyes, and very fair skin. She was cheerful and friendly, but not flirtatious like some bikini baristas. Her outfit looked like a lacy version of a skimpy one-piece swimsuit. Her outfit wasn't outside the range of beachwear or network television. Only prudes would be shocked. This is the graph. This is the graph. I was in the mood for hot tea and asked about the options. The barista asked whether I wanted caffeine or not. Yes. And she listed the flavors. I chose Earl Grey so Luke you're really nailing it I chose Earl Grey I put my reusable cup on the very wide counter and for hygiene purposes she filled one of their cups and then dumped it into mine she offered several add-on options such as honey but I declined I should have requested a little ice it was very hot we made some small talk it wasn't too memorable or anything different than you get in a regular coffee shop they go on to describe the tea as being pretty good they give it a four out of five but here was what i found shocking and more specifically our friend anita found interesting about this after i sent it to the friend group where else but seattle would somebody go to a bikini barista shop with a reusable cup for their earl gray tea this is this is an amazing this is a unicorn i rode up on my recumbent bicycle right i was just leaving the uh fremont solstice day parade and i reached into my tote

bag i reached into my pcc tote bag and retrieved my reusable coffee mug and handed it to brandy a lovely young woman who was dressed in something that was more or less beachwear yeah that is i mean my curiosity is are most of the reviews that steve has written for other bikini barista places or is steve just reviewing everything and anything he goes to and just just this just

happened to be what he was going to that day apparently um a lot of coffee shops and tea shops in here but not not this is the only bikini barista one that um i can find and again i don't want to try to rematch the magic of our donna episode but i do see 217 reviews again mostly four out of five stars on these things or five out of five not exclusively though from the post office to flooring places to plumbers places to mcmenemans um just oh amazon fresh only got two back in 2018 so i don't know what's going on there but they're all like very very thoughtful thorough reviews honestly the type of review the type of yelp profile that i would that i would um try to live up to myself sort of like you know what I mean like hey I'm taking this seriously I'm not just a crank out here like Like, just dialing up Yelp when I'm mad.

Right, right. Yeah, I mean, I wonder, and I don't know if it's in the review or not, I wonder if he knew that Beehive Coffee was, in fact, a place where the people working there were going to not have a lot of clothing on, and if that was part of the appeal for him, or if he just really needed some Earl Grey tea, and this was the place that he could go to. Because my sense of those places, I'm trying to think if I've ever been through one. I think I actually, I'm not kidding, I think I went through one accidentally years ago on Aurora, kind of across from what's now that Sprouts, which used to be a Kmart when I was a kid. I think there was in the parking lot of like, so across Aurora from there, in that parking lot, there was something that I legitimately pulled up thinking this is a coffee stand, and then I realized it was a Bikini Barista type of deal. But I haven't been to many of them because my sense is you're going to pay a real markup. And that's not like, that's not the vibe that's super interesting to me. Like I would rather get a good cup of coffee that was at a more reasonable price than to pay extra for it to be served to me by someone not wearing a lot of clothing, you know? And I also just, I don't want to make any judgments about the quality of the coffee or tea, but you just wonder, what are we hiring these folks for? And is it their barista skills or is it the fact that they're, you know, going to be kind of there without a lot of clothing on? So generally speaking, I would swerve on that just because I feel like I'm going to pay I don't pay eight dollars for an Earl Grey tea that may or may not have been made correctly. But sounds like Steve had a pretty good experience.

Yeah. And Steve comes off as somebody who has some experience going through bikini barista shops, but not somebody who is obsessed with them. Again, I'm going through his profile, and there's other coffee shops that are rated, but it says here the tea was a bit expensive, even for a bikini stand, $8.81 with sales tax plus tip. Holy smokes. This is in 2020. I mean, honestly, though, with tip and tax, aren't most trips to a coffee shop going to cost you around $10 these days? That's what Ira Glass was telling me back in the 90s when he tried to get me to support public radio.

i my sense is that if i go into a starbucks i and i get a drip coffee i'm expecting to pay i guess in the neighborhood of five dollars for the whole experience but that's like a drip that's like a medium drip coffee so i'm also getting like if i were to get a tea if i were to go into a starbucks and get a tea i would expect it to cost me five yeah tea is less than coffee especially

if like you know if i'm getting an americana or something yes uh but anyway it says not as expensive as a ladybug stand and i believe ladybugs that's a bikini barista too right so

clearly again has some kind of on the line and people might think it's just a coffee shop that is obsessed with the rodney dangerfield film that's ladybug that's what i'd assume for some

reason ladybug sounds more bikini i mean maybe it's because lady in the title maybe it's because i'm attracted to ladybugs um but like beehive doesn't tell me anything it doesn't like elicit anything sexual to me whereas ladybugs wow they really get me going yeah and i wonder i mean in

all seriousness for beehive because i've now i've gotten eyes on it on google like you had and i'm not trying to do any kind of morality here or shaming but like it you know like you said it's in a gas station it's called beehive coffee it looks like a standard coffee stand until you maybe get to that menu that has a illustration of a woman in a bikini or whatever But like, it's not inconceivable that like a mom in her minivan with her kids could be like, I really need some coffee. Here's the coffee stand. I just got gas. You pull up and it's somebody in, you know, lingerie. Like, again, I don't think there's, I'm not overly scandalized by that, but it doesn't seem like it's impossible that there would be people going through this, not realizing what they were getting into. And maybe with kids in the car and then they've got to have a conversation. Like it is, it's an interesting play to not make it as overt as, as could be.

Yeah. I have never, like I said, I've never been through one of these and I would be pretty deeply uncomfortable, I think, if I rolled up and ordered a coffee.

I would. Can we, as a TBTL field trip, can we go through a Bikini Barista and I will just record you trying to do your order at a Bikini Barista?

You would be able to power the country with the amount of eye contact I'd be making.

We have finally found a renewable source of energy. It's Andrew's anxiety.

No, I was going to say my eye contact. I would have so much like I would be so locked into looking at nothing but the server's eyes that I would just be so deeply uncomfortable for everybody. I did want to say Steve ends this by saying rating the bikini barista experience is mostly subjective and it depends on who is on duty and the tastes of the customer. Someone hoping for racy might have been disappointed. I rate the combination of a good brand of tea and a pleasant barista a four star. Yay, I'm a fan. So he was not the guy. who had his window shattered with a hammer, which let's just say I am 100% team lady who shattered the windshield. I'm sorry. I know violence is not. Everybody is. I mean, is there anyone? Although, I mean, it is illegal what she did. So for folks that don't know, there was this video that kind of made the rounds recently of one of these coffee stands where you had a customer who was being very rude, I think even threw this drink back on the server, which is totally unacceptable. and was just being it sounds like really rude and inappropriate and then the bikini barista just first of all love that you just have a hammer on standby like this is just this this clearly is something that has come up before because it wasn't like she was like oh let me try to find the hammer it was like oh no it's right where we keep it right next to the like you know coffee machine grabs his hammer and just totally bust this guy's windshield of his car and yeah i think all sort of uh justice loving people in the world knowing almost nothing about the story look at that video and go whatever she whatever whatever he said to her she is justified in doing this

and the aggression started with the customer i mean once you start throwing coffee on people i think it was iced coffee for whatever it's worth and i think it was two cups worth i i was not following this closely i'd heard little bits and pieces about it but then somehow in social media maybe reddit or something the video actually crossed my transom this weekend i put eyes on for the first time and it was a very quick little clip of the barista talking she says yeah the cops have come by here you know they've taken my statement never once have they questioned my actions in this altercation they've only i actually think that's interesting because i mean

look again i think the guy was in the wrong and i think sort of just like the the morality of the situation supports her busting his windshield the legality though seems like it might be a different thing because do you have the right to break someone's windshield because they threw iced coffee on you was that is that self-defense right were you were did you have a reasonable thought that there was a crime being committed against you wherein breaking the windshield was the only way to stop the crime like let's be honest we all know it's purely punitive by her and we're all fine with it it's really what it comes down to yeah exactly but i do think there

is a violence in in what the customer did so maybe that that he drew first almost i almost feel like

if she hits him with the hammer it's more defensible legally right right because he was coming at me i felt threatened i'm defending myself with the hammer it's like bashing his windshield is really not actually part of the self-defense argument no but but we're all like

good for you yes yes exactly so anyway tb tell the thon 15 andy goes to a bikini barista it's on

i am so incredibly here for that like i would i would and i will happily audio and video document

that what if what if i go what what is our ideal if there's supposed to be any kind of a any kind of a an attraction like that's the point of these things it's like we go through and there's like somebody with sort of like nerd glasses and bangs and a shins t-shirt there's a daria type

working right there's a there's a garofalo circa the truth about cats and dogs as character yes now you're talking my language i just think what i mean i don't i'm not saying this to um try to roast you too hard but i just i think like you said you would be making the most direct you would be burning two laser like two like laser focused holes into the back of the head of the person who was giving you the coffee because of how fixated you'd be on direct eye contact just like the ways that you would be wanting to indicate through non-verbal communication and somewhat verbal communication to this person that you did not come in the spirit of creepiness, but you were there in a spirit of wanting to get some real great tea. That would be really interesting to observe. I'm also wondering how I would also try to send that message because if I found myself going through one of those coffee shops, coffee stands, it would be very important to me to somehow let the person know that I was just there to get coffee, that I was not there to objectify them. And I don't know how you do that, how you exactly, because I'm sure that there's probably 10 times a day where someone goes i didn't even know this was a bikini barista right like that's probably the number one thing that dudes say when they go through that stand is like acting like oh what like in casablanca gambling here i'm shocked maybe i just i disagree i bet you the vast majority

of customers are very comfortable with it and probably go they probably have a lot of regular customers and there's probably a lot of hey sweetie and just like talking to women in a way that i don't and i'm not comfortable with but in in this context is probably not as you know offensive to the people who are working there because that is like sort of the industry as long as it doesn't cross a line you know i i don't know i'm not trying to make moral judgments but the thing about us is like i think us certain certainly me is like it's this scenario isn't even attractive to it's not like with

Well, yeah, I mean, secretly, we all want to go to a bikini barista shop. It's just that socially that doesn't fit in with my image of myself or the people around. It's not like, oh, if I could do this in a vacuum and nobody would know, of course. It's not erotic to you. No, it's not. I mean, there's no attraction. Like being in a bikini in a parking lot of a gas station is like not sexy to me, you know?

Right, right. Yeah, that's I've always said that, you know, and this is I guess these are not the only two categories. But certainly in male friendships I've had, there's the kind of time of the night where there's a certain amount of alcohol that's been imbibed. And there's one part of the group that thinks going to a strip club is a really good idea. And there's another part of the group that thinks going to the casino is a really good idea. It turns out they're both terrible ideas, but I was always more the casino version of the terrible idea because of the same thing. None of that has ever been a particularly erotic situation for me. So it's not hard for me to swerve on the bikini barista stands because it's not a thing that is really – it's not something I want to introduce into my life at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday. That's the other part of it. Yeah, right. It's not the magic hour generally when you're going through there. It's like, I don't know, a Wednesday at 10 a.m.? Is that when we're all horned up in this world?

There is a third group of men, I would say, who at a certain time of night really want to go home and kind of finish the castle they've been making in Minecraft. Right, while listening to Johnny Dollar.

You left that one. I apologize. I apologize, Andrew.

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.

I know what you're thinking. Didn't they do all the dazzling donors? Didn't they wrap that up like last week? As we get ever closer to TVTL-a-thon 15, thank you for being a 10 but you would be wrong friends we are not done with the dazzling donors because it turns out we might have let a couple slip through the cracks i blame and solidly i

want this on the record i blame john sklar off i mean this is clearly his fault it's really an embarrassment to the company uh i'm personally embarrassed on his behalf and when i say that i

mean of course this was probably my fault 100 you know i'll tell you you know success has many mothers but failure is an orphan and i just feel like that's really what's going on here we we don't know who to blame but uh we blame ourselves for the fact by the way the dazzling donors are folks who are donating a dazzling amount of dough which is why it's especially unfortunate if we would have not read their messages um and so we are writing that wrong right now and we're starting with look who it is dear friend of the program one brent henry martin of los angeles california hi brent hey brent brent says we've come around to that time of year when marv my cpa that is a deeply cpa name if you live in los angeles as brent does i feel like if i had a cpa in la his name would be marv i had a cpa named jamie but he was also in i want to say like taluka lake That's more where the Jamie's are The Marv's are down in LA somewhere

I had a CPA who was also Freddy Krueger's CPA if you'll recall

Uh huh, Robert England And I feel like we We talked about this at the time but like Did your, and I asked you this And you told me and I've already forgotten Did your CPA ask you for a headshot

No, no, no, no

Since you worked in radio

No, no, nothing like that The only reason I knew that What is it, Robert England Is that the name of the actor? Robert England The only reason I knew that he was also a client was not because he had a headshot or anything on the wall. I just saw his file sitting there on the desk of the CPA's assistant.

A way worse way to find out.

They were like digging into like I had made a bunch of mistakes the prior year. And so I was sitting at this woman's desk for quite some time as she was trying to like sort of untangle the mess that I had made with my previous year's taxes. And so I'm just like kind of looking around. And then there's a bunch of there's a bunch of files on the desk or next to the desk. And I was like, oh, my God.

It's like right on top of the Michael Myers file. I love it. This is the official CPA of TV mass murderers.

We're wearing masks now that you've entered it.

It's like Mr. Voorhees, you cannot write off chicken nuggets.

Who's Voorhees? Is that Jason? Jason Voorhees.

That's Jason. That's the hockey mask guy. I get him confused. Brent says, it's the time of year when Marv, my CPA, reminds me that you have to tell the tens of listeners to go to my website, which is behenrymartin.com. That's B like the letter B Like as in Beehive Espresso BehenryMartin.com I believe Brent's business Is not bikini photography And bikini design No I'm looking

And I'm deeply disappointed that it's not

I would love to see Brent

in a, you know, I would love to see a scantily clad Brent Henry Martin, but I think for now that's not going to be the case when you go to bhenrymartin.com he says, so I can reasonably deduct some of this donation as an advertisement. Technically no one has to visit the website where you can see some of my work and possibly hire me or buy art. You don't even have to follow me on Instagram at bhenrymartin exclamation point. Luke, you only have to tell the tens to go to www.bhenrymartin.com um so there you go brent uh mission accomplished heck of a job brownie uh we've officially made this a write-off to luke andrew john and all the other cast of characters that appear from time to time thanks for being the important hub in the wheel that is the tens community and the engine behind the noble cause of ending global loneliness your continued gallant service is recognized and honored go mariners signed brent p.s anyone interested in a tens meetup at dodger stadium sometime when the m's are playing the dodgers august 19th through 21st please get at me oh that sounds fun that is my favorite baseball stadium in the world by the way

i saw brent at uh the the mariners game maybe was it i think it was yeah it was last season i think it was a dodgers mariners matchup i believe here in seattle and we were able to hang out there a little bit as well Dodger Stadium is really special except I will say and I know I've said

this before and I hate to um uh you know designed by Roald Dahl exactly actually do we want to get

into the history of the stadium I mean honestly the history of Dodger Stadium is you don't need

to make it up extremely messed up but I will I will say it's a beautiful stadium once you're

there one of the things I love about um the the Mariner Stadium is first of all you can cut people

off on the staircase and nobody cares and here and and there are zero repercussions secondly that

you can just like walk right up to mariner's it's like right there in the city you know what i mean you can go there and listen to the game outside the stadium if you want to i was very shocked by dodger stadium when i moved to la i kept on looking at it i was i think i've told you this i was on my little scoot about my little uh my little scooter right and i kept looking at dodger stadium on my map on my phone i'm like i'm just trying to get i just want to see what it looks like from the outside i just want to see it and i keep driving around the the ravine i'm driving around i can't get to and then suddenly i kind of zoomed out or something i'm like oh because it's like it's surrounded by a sea of parking you can't like i love the fact that at least mariner stadium you can go up to it and touch it and feel the walls that griffey never played in no wait he

did play there in his in his second coming yes um you're absolutely right it is from an aerial perspective a nightmare of asphalt of impervious surface i mean it's just the worst but once you're in the stadium beautiful as a as a as a mid-century design fan myself i feel like it it's like a mid-century house somebody made a stadium that was also a mid-century house so of course it's very much up my alley um so if you want to go uh with brent to see the dodgers play the mariners hit him up go to b henry martin.com i'm sure he has some kind of a you know uh contact through there and or get him on instagram at b henry martin exclamation i know i just want to

say, I don't think you need the exclamation point for the Instagram. That's just him ending a sentence

with exclamation point. Okay, well, Brent, that's confusing, okay? Be Henry better at explaining

your Instagram page to me, please. First we skip your message, then we yell at you at the end

of it. Yes, it's the TVTL way.

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

It's Matt Bookman who says it's pronounced uh lake uh chargagana oh my gosh andrew i was gonna play the audio but it's going through the

wrong system what a world that's what i get on the fly no i was i'm fixing it on the fly i've got it

i just got to drag it over to this time here thank you the problem is i'm uh broadcasting from the south waterfront of portland so i don't have my normal system here and so i've got a little bit of uh finessing and futzing but it's worth it to make matt's request come true of lake lake so that's how matt's name is pronounced in case you were curious he's in san jose california and says hey friendos thanks uh luke and andrew for being a constant in my life since 2018 i heard the boat show and luke's frankness about this fiasco had me hooked i want to use my opportunity to encourage thinking differently about aging you and i are of a similar vintage and I feel as good as I ever have. A month before my 50th birthday, I ran my first 50K. The next year, I ran one every month. But you don't have to do ultra events to increase your health span. Jeez Louise. Matt's been doing a 50K. 50k every month that is that's substantial that is significant you don't have to do ultra events to increase your health span i am inspired by the blue zones doc on netflix to view aging differently i am so with you matt on that one are you familiar with this blue zones thing andrew i've mentioned it on the show before in passing they've looked at at folks who tend to live long lives and they happen to be in this thing they call the blue zone it's a lot of the mediterranean It's areas of Japan And I don't know if Matt's going to get into this I bet you is I'll read the rest of Matt's message And then I will supplement it and augment it With some of my dazzling insights On the blue zone kind of experience I fully understand We all have different bodies and life circumstances But it's also true that much of our struggle With aging in America is from how we live Not that we live The exciting thing is small changes Go a long way If you can get more activity it doesn't have to be quote exercise if you can eat real food it doesn't have to be vegan if you can connect with others and create habits for better sleep and reduce stress you can change the way your body and mind feel just about every day power out that was the thing about the blue zone stuff that really struck me the people that they found who were in these communities that tended to live a long time it wasn't that they were and again peace and love to matt char gaga mong gong gong booga booga bonga bang or however you say that that wasn't the tape by the way that was me really i want to be a peace and love to matt with the 50ks but what i thought was interesting was the it seemed that the main thing that was helping these folks live a long life was social connections it was their friendships and it was that they lived in communities where they tended to interact with other people late into life and that that was as big a part of their

quality of life at an old age as anything else it wasn't the story wasn't we found a community of people that all run 50ks it was we found a community of people who have strong bonds of friendship and also the kinds of foods they were eating tended to be you know more whole ingredients you know less processed food stuff like that but just this idea of social connection i think is really powerful and i'm somebody that for all of the like you know times that i get on the imaginary radio with you, I think I sometimes struggle to keep those social connections. So it's good for me to think about that because that it would appear is as big a deal as anything. So I guess my point is, you know, to encourage people along with Matt to like lean into your community, whatever that is, if that's the tens, if that's your family, if that's your neighbors, you know, whatever the deal is, like those social connections are really important for all of us.

Most of mine are on Holman Road.

Yes, that counts. Be have espresso. Absolutely. Thank you, Matt, for supporting the show. We really do appreciate you. And look at this. We've got a third dazzling donor. Maestro.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go.

Everybody rattle, dattle.

It's Steve Morris of Clarkston, Michigan. A Michigander. I don't know if Clarkston is that UP or is that Flatlander?

I don't know. One small correction, though, but it's Steve Maurice, because it says Maurice like the cat.

Oh, well, doesn't it say Morris like the cat? Like Morris?

No, I'm just joking. I'm totally trolling you. I just thought it'd be funny if the pronouncer is Morris like the cat and I thought the cat's name was Maurice. Sorry.

You really had me going there.

It wasn't worth saying. That's why I said it.

Steve, it's too late to take your money back. We've already spent it.

I'll give you half your money back because of my DNA.

We've already spent it on overpriced Earl Grey tees.

That's right, 881.

I was like, oh no. Because I did that last week. I think I was – I misnamed – I called someone's husband your name for some reason. I think I secretly wanted you to marry them. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I feel like I've been really – I'm really on fumes with these dazzling donors.

Steve Garfield, like Garfield the cat. Yes, Steve Heathcliff Heathcliff.

No one should. Steve says, hey, thanks for making a challenging year better and allowing me to live vicariously in the Northwest. Sorry to hear that you've been having a challenging year, Steve. You've made only worse by Andrew intentionally mispronouncing your last name.

I know. I'm reading that for a sentence. Like, oh, what an opportune time to troll. Great. Great. Sorry, Steve.

I still struggle to explain TBTL. So I'm not adding to your listeners, but I am still contributing. You know what, Steve? We struggle to explain this show to people. So it's quite understandable. And the donation, the support is really meaningful. It is, like, to our bottom line, to being able to do this. So we appreciate it I will leave you with two words Christmas songs I'm no Bean Baxter but I'm no slouch And I have much more free time Power out What do you hear when Steve says it Do you think Steve wants to suggest Christmas songs

for us i think more i think steve is saying more christmas music on the show and maybe offering his help to um maybe curate that i will say this and i'm down with that if it doesn't get us pulled in latvia i am getting that's that's the thing and i i mean i know again oh my god i'm never going to get my captain fun mug back but um after friday's show remember we played a whole

I threw that into Mountain Doom midway through today's show.

When you drink from it, you disappear. You know, we talk about sometimes playing music on the show and then on various platforms, especially Spotify and YouTube, we'll eventually get some notification that says, hey, you know, we're pulling this from our platform because you're using music that you can't play. Or it'll be like, yeah, in some regions. And for some reason, the region is often like Russia or something like this is blocked. But every now and then I'll get a message from YouTube that says this is blocked everywhere. Nobody will ever hear this show on YouTube. And that was the case with Friday's episode of TVTL, the last one we did. Now, you and I and John played a whole bunch of music, if you'll recall. We did a music for your weekend, and then we kind of went on this sidebar talking about various theme songs that various public radio shows have used over the years, shows that we worked on. Of all of the music that we played, do you want to guess which song got Friday's show totally banished from YouTube?

the who eminence what not Don

Henley's dirty laundry so if you already hated the Eagles here is more here's more ammunition for you and it does I want to say like I think we need to especially during next week's thons which I'm very very much looking forward to doing with you we cannot get booted from YouTube for our live broadcast so we can play no Don Henley I think we got to no Christmas songs next week Steve I apologize to say but I think we have to be really disciplined next week because I don't

want us getting pulled from the internet what about ai don henley what about ai inspired by

don henley songs i like that the boys of mid spring i like it i'm into it all right maybe

somebody could make some of those for us will someone make us some don henley some ai don henley inspired music that we do have the rights to use or at least that's minimally enforced in parts of latvia and other places that seem to pull us down um all that is to say thank you so much to our dazzling donors for making tbtl possible we really and truly could not do this without you you're going to hear a lot about that coming up next week i promise hello and welcome to top story you sent me a text yesterday andrew kind of out of the blue and the only response i could muster to it was two words holy shit that was all i had based on i i don't know what i thought you were sending me i thought you you know it's a sunday you're usually doing your pop-up i was like why why is this mariners related why is this man texting me right now it must be something really serious and it was because it was uh a rant from the seattle times rant and rave column which of course has become a big story on the show lately because you tried to break into the rant and rave column about your garbage situation

never ran it never got never got published but now they have run one which hits eerily close to

home to a story that you relayed last week on the show or recently on the show about a run-in you

had at t-mobile park yes so i won't tell the whole thing here but there's a staircase where like on the concourse in t-mobile park and it was a this was a this encounter happened two weeks ago on father's day in a sellout crowd very very busy day at the park and there's kind of a bunch of people kind of lining up to go up the staircase and vives and i sort of approached the staircase from the side and just sort of like you know weaved our way into the crowd notice i use words i use verbs like weave uh as opposed to merge merge zipper merged um yeah anyway it was i we just sort of figured you know this is like escalator rules at a at a subway station or a light rail station you know like you don't have to get in line to go up the stairs we weren't like waiting for a cup of beer at the top of the stairs or paying for tickets or anything it was just a crowd and we weaved our way into the crowd and then some guy who I kind of let go in front of us but then was walking up the stairs in front of me was turning around and kind of giving me a hard time like in this sarcastic way in a way that I might give somebody a hard time were I to think that they were out of line saying like oh you know something talking to me saying oh boy some people just think they can just cut in line they can just go you know the line starts back there that's how it started he said you know the line starts back there and i said oh really thanks for letting me know that you seem really well informed and then we're off to the races with the most passive aggressive like kind of back and forth with smiles on our face and i told the story on the show in great detail i mentioned that he was with somebody who appeared to be his adult son who kind of just realized that his dad was getting into a fight Thank you.

When we're at the top of the stairs. And so anyway, I'll read this to you. This was shared apparently on the TBTL Facebook page, which I don't have access to, but also then shared on the TBTL Slack page. I thought this was interesting. This game was two weeks ago and there's actually two rants in yesterday's rant and rave column related to that specific Mariners game. I'm going to start with the one that's least relevant to us, but I thought you might find interesting, Luke. Rant to the Mariner's Father's Day giveaway. The seat cushions are plastic nonsense that will end up in landfills by the end of the week. Make something of quality or better yet, nothing at all. I got to say, everybody in our group who ended up getting the Cal Raleigh Big Dumper seat cushion were very happy with their seat cushions. So this person, I don't know, I guess they were disappointed in the quality of it. Did you get one? No, I didn't show up in time for that, but I did get a good Croatian Day Mariner's cap that I thought was pretty nice. Anyway, and then a couple more down, you get rant to the rude and entitled ticket holders at T-Mobile Park who push and shove and cut others off who politely wait their turn to climb the stairs or walk down the concourse. Attempts to reason with people like this, who while at a recent Mariner's game with my son were met with sarcasm and selfishness. be a role model for children at the ballpark just trying to enjoy America's pastime which I will be honest with you when I first read that I was like that son of a gun like my initial reaction is this old man 10 years older than me or something this old man is like still carrying this around and but that thought lasted about five and a half to seven seconds until I was like oh obviously not to again Captain Fun Mug Bye bye, never seeing you again But there's no way in hell this is that guy This is exactly my story As told on TBTL Turned around into a rant By one of our listeners and submitted to the Times I would bet Almost literally anything on that

For me The giveaway That this is not the guy in question Who you got into it with Is the role model line And I think what it indicates And this is a this is i want to say this is a lesson for the listeners who would like to troll us in the pages of the seattle times listen harder i know it's i know it's difficult because the show is very boring and it's it's like i know it's like reading a book that's not interesting where you keep going back to the top of the page and then rereading the passage and like losing your train of thought and then going back and rereading the passage over and over again and at some point you're like no this book is just not good i understand that's the experience of listening to tbtl but if you would have listened harder you would have noted that the son in question is grown is a grown

person is not like a nine-year-old oh that's the role i thought that was just some icing on the cake to be funny but you think that the person who wrote this was picturing the son being a kid

be a role model i think that the person i think i think that the person who by the way full marks To whoever did this bit of trolling I mean like I give you A plus Only one note Which is you made the son Sound too young If you would have made It was clear that this was an adult son Who was sort of like Trying to figure out what was going on As opposed to like a little kid Who was like Knocking like a metal hoop Down the concourse with a stick Wearing like a Like a little shirt with like a ribbon on it or something like i think we have the age of the sun slightly off here that's other than that this

is perfect yes also well here's the other thing too is we've been obsessed with the rant and rave column for the past couple of months now we and the listeners have been running to it to check it every day to see if the thing that i sent in would get published i think we're giving up the ghost on that a long time ago now but for example and again i don't want to give people um hints on how to troll us more effectively but like if this was like uncovered somewhere like on reddit or a comment section you know what i mean like the fact that this was published in this specific column that we've been particularly obsessed with lately and that the i'm going to call this person the prankster knows that we're likely to see because we've been checking it out and that it'll be passed around amongst the tents again by the way great job like i'm yeah i mean i want to say no

offense but this is honestly it's funny it is but it's also kind of a it's a mild burn on you and that this person had this idea and two days later it's in the rants and raves yeah right right no exactly right yeah yeah they have clearly cracked the code on getting their rant published no i am

currently eluding you i am not joking i know i wrote about this in the newsletter and then like kind of retold it to you and i i don't know how how well you understand luke how truly embarrassed I am about the rant that I sent in. Oh,

Not in an unfun way. Trust me, I'm getting that mug back. But like in not in an Andrew kind of way, but just kind of like I bang that out so quickly and send it to the Seattle Times because I thought I was being sort of funny and arch. And but I did it right before TBTL because I wanted them to tell you about it on TBTL. Yes. And so I did it really quickly not to, you know, try to give myself too many excuses here. But at the time, I just thought it was funny. But it's kind of like when you respond to an email that triggers you a little bit like in the moment and you immediately kind of regret your tone about it. It didn't. It wasn't immediate. It was like a week or two later when I told Genevieve, oh, I think I'm thinking about sharing my rant on KUOW tomorrow. And she's like, what is your rant and what are you talking about? And as I'm reading it out loud to her, I didn't even have to look into into her face, but it did help. to hear my words echoed back off the walls of the rumpus room down here and as I'm reading this message that I'd written like two weeks earlier but hearing it with fresh ears I heard how unhinged and unpublishable my original rant was so if I ever do write a rant or a rave again I am going to maybe take a moment and sit with it sit with it before I submit it

the only part I thought that was maybe didn't work perfectly And although I would have been tempted to do the same thing Was the reference to your Blue Sky account I mean honestly I don't think it If you take that out I think it's a perfectly fine rant I think the Blue Sky account did kind of tip it over And also the fact that I couched that

Because I tried to couch it as a rant and a rave And I was raving myself For setting up a social media account It was really unhinged

But this listener This listener or whoever it is who decided to... It'd be weird if it wasn't a listener. Just imagine who else would have done this who's not somebody who listens to TVTL. But this is a very, very clever bit of trolling. But I mean, we put it at basically a very close to 0% chance that this is the guy from T-Mobile Park who you were arguing with on the stairway, right?

I think the only thing that would convince me would be if I saw that guy in person again, because I know what he looks like, kind of, to the degree that I can remember faces.

Yeah, you are kind of known for not remembering faces.

Yeah, that is true. But I have like an age range and like sort of a vibe off of him. And I remember he had a beard. He could shave that. He looked exactly like that person.

How much did he look like listener Bobby Pate?

Yeah, right. I do. I have a few.

My leading suspect right now, by the way, Bobby.

I have a few specific tens in mind who probably wrote this. And Bobby is at the top. again to his credit because there's something about the way this is a high compliment this is a weird thing to focus on and i don't even know what i'm trying to argue with this so maybe nothing but there's something about the term ticket holders at t-mobile park that also flag this to me as somebody who's having fun in the way they write now you could truly be mad at somebody and want to submit this to the rant and rave um and and then sit down and write it and use something like ticket holders but there's so something so journalistic about referring to somebody at a ballgame as a ticket holder like you would think that this would say ran to the rude and entitled people at t-mobile park who push and shove or even fans or something but something about ticket holder has and you and i have talked about this a lot having you know worked in industries where we have to write actual copy and it's kind of like on third reference we've already said people we've already said fans so then you say ticket holders in the same way you might use motorist as the third time you have to describe somebody who uh drives a car in a news story and there something about the rude and entitled ticket holders i'm just like i don't think this guy would say ticket holders i don't know why i don't i can't explain it but it just stood out to me

i will say this though of all the people you could have gotten into it with this guy seems like a person who might take it to the rants and raves that is something i also explored in my brain this weekend i will give i will i will i will give that its due like it isn't like there's a certain kind of person you might get into it with and like they've literally never heard of the rants and raves maybe they've never heard of the seattle times right like this is not that this does based on your description sound like a place where this guy might turn with his emotions that he is unable to express because you guys are now no longer on the staircase together yeah because he's me in 10

years i mean that was the amazing thing about this interaction is it wasn't like i mean we were the exact same seattle passive aggressive vibe of wanting to speak up for truth and justice and the mariner's way but had to do so in this like passive aggressive smiley back and forth and like this guy was so me and we both we both have dreams of someday being published in the rant and did he

look like you said you were talking about you have kind of you remember more or less his physical appearance did he look physically like an older version of you or was he very different looking than you I remember

he was wearing like a one-piece bathing suit and sipping an earl gray how much was he charging for i should have said and charging 881 for earl gray with tip and text now um no he did not look like me he's he was more fit than me he's he was a he was like a bit older than me but in better shape and uh a beard i wouldn't be surprised if this is a guy who like you know probably maybe maybe even runs you know he didn't you know whatever just he was a he was a trim slightly older guy

The reason I ask is because, you know, I don't go in for any kind of paranormal stuff or time travel or remote viewing or any of those kinds of things. But and I've told the story on the show before I did once when I was on a cruise ship somewhere in the Mediterranean, see a guy at the casino on the cruise ship who seemed like it might be me from the future. like he was a i i mean i don't know he at the time i was probably in my early 30s so you know my sense of him being quote-unquote older i had put i would put him probably in his 70s but he looked like me if you aged me up into my 70s like um just are we our physical bodies he just looked like me plus 40 years and we were playing blackjack just the two of us at this table in the casino on the boat and he and I were doing the exact same decisions during blackjack which is kind of sometimes a sort of a personal preference thing something like if you're going to hit on a 16 against a face card there's all this stuff that's a real kind of 50 50 and some people are just like I never hit 16 against the face card some people like I always do every single little quirky thing that I do when playing blackjack he was doing the same thing and I and we're both winning which helped and I swear he looked over me to me at one point I am

so sorry i did not mute my mic there did you hear that i was leaning off camera to blow my nose and i was doing all this and then i've been muting and unmuting my mic did you just hear a really

gross sound come down the line actually the main thing i heard was you apologizing about the okay

okay i hope that was way deep in the background and now i'm just calling it out oh so gross i'm

sorry anyway all that is to say the guy looked over at me and winked and i couldn't get it out of my head for the rest of the trip that i future me had time traveled back and i know this really messes with the sort of marty mcfly continuum of like you're not supposed to go the don't go see yourself or whatever if you're time traveling but i was like this is me from the future potentially and i looked over at my younger version of me and i just winked and then went on with my life so you're saying it's unlikely that this is literally the future version of you who's time traveled back

to t-mobile field to honestly i wish also i don't think that there's anything that i could have a son that age based on my life it's not a son what's that you it's not your son it's andrew oh oh oh i see you know this man had to have this adult kind of throws it off i'll tell you

something else all this guy had was a girlfriend 40 years younger than him oh the guy that i saw

on the boat so in line with your plans uh well you know i have uh i have something that i am gonna call headline rage right now i saw this headline this morning luke and i did not click on it and i got a little bit of headline rage from it and now as i'm looking at the rant and rave it's suggesting this article to me again which i believe is not a local article i believe it's something that is um maybe it maybe it was written specifically for the seattle times i guess it was maybe you saw this headline angry about having to leave a gratuity you might have tip rage and like listen there have been a lot of articles and a lot of chatter and a lot of talk about tipping in in recent years and it has changed a bit and there's various factors for it we've talked about it and what you tip you know in what circumstances you tip and when you don't etc etc i don't even want to get into all of that we all know that it's a conversation it's it's a fine conversation to have but this idea of oh you got angry about having to leave a tip you have something called tip rage I don't think tip rage is a thing it's just being angry any more than headline rage it's just such a this is such a bullshit way to write this don't you think

yeah and also it's like are they I haven't read the article and that sounds like you haven't either but like do they talking to some sort of well first of all if they're talking to a psychologist who's like yeah tip rage is real I don't believe that psychologist knows what

literally the first okay man first with the earl gray now with this listen to the how this article begins this is that was from a man who clearly reads these types of articles in the seattle times all right this is from the travel troubleshooter okay if you're upset if you're upset about being asked for a gratuity at every turn at convenience stores supermarkets even websites then you might have a case of tip rage quote there are now more situations than there used to be in which we're expected to tip, says Gail Sahar, a psychology professor at Wheaton. college in norton massachusetts that feels unfair to many people they're frustrated and angry like never are they like like tip rage is not in quotes it's not and then it's what is tip rage tip rage is the anger people feel when they're pressured into leaving a gratuity it's just like this is just something that is just being totally made up right now like let's let's take this conversation that everybody's already been having and it's already kind of tired at this point anyway but Let's just, like, plaster a name to it as if you're, like, covering new ground here, a new thing called tip rage. No, you're just—anything can be rage. You can have CD rage if your compact disc is skipping, if I'm going to use a modern example.

I mean, this is dark, but what you need for this article is you need to have some terrible event that was apparently spurred by someone being, you know, having the iPad flipped around to them. then if you've got something where somebody has a meltdown in the store and they start breaking everything then you can say a recent meltdown that happened over tipping raises the question is tip rage a thing yeah and then you go into it that would be an article like are people is it driving people to violence and then you would say probably not most people are just low-key annoyed by it because that's really i think that's that's where this resides in in sort of where was i the other day though i mean andrew you started this by basically more or less saying this is a topic that's been over discussed it's not that interesting we all kind of have the same thought on it which is like dang we're tipping a lot but let me just jump into the topic i think it's worth talking about i forget but but this the reason this isn't interesting is i can't remember where i was but i did have a moment the other day where i thought i thought oh i should tell andrew about this because what i'm trying to kind of compile now are examples of where the tipping is not for a service that we have historically thought about tipping on. And so I'm always trying to find those examples, and then they'll happen, and then I will forget to remind myself. So that's why this isn't really going anywhere. But I do feel like every once in a blue moon, there is that moment where I'm thinking, oh, we're tipping for this. Okay. All right. I do have that thought. But I would say it stops well short of rage. It's never rage. It never gets to the level of rage.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying really desperately here to think, because Tip Rage just doesn't, it doesn't fit, again, I'm just obsessed with this idea of they're trying to turn this thing into a phenomenon that has a name, Tip Rage, and it doesn't even make sense. The way we kind of turn everything into a gate, right? Yes. Sometimes that makes some sense, sometimes it doesn't, and maybe in this case you're going with Road Rage. Well, at least you have some sort of alliteration there with the two R's, and it's been a longstanding thing. So I guess this is. But again, they're not citing any examples like road rage is when you take it too far. It's not just being frustrated behind the wheel, but you take it too far. You experience road rage either yourself or people around you on the road. And it's dangerous and it's actually an action that you can point to. But like this doesn't seem to be that. And also, can we do can we bring some alliteration in here? The best I can come up with is tiptustration, but really it's frustration. So that doesn't even really work. Why I'm going there, I'm not sure. but it's like, I don't know. It just seems so lazy to me.

Tormented by tipping.

But that's not... That's how you sign off your letter to the advice column.

That'll get you in the rants and raids, my friend. Tormented by tipping. All right. We've tormented the listeners long enough, I think, here on today's program. So why don't we go ahead and wrap it up? But I have some truly incredible news. We're going to be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you, including the plan right now is to check in, Andrew, with our friend Davey Rothbart of Found Magazine, who's working on a television program produced by Mark Duplass. The Duplass brothers are doing a Found Magazine show, and they are looking for you, the tens of listeners, help in tracking something down. So this brings together everything we love on the program, our friend Davey Rothbart, Found Magazine, things that are produced by the Duplass brothers, even though they stole our thunder by doing the Lost in Larima TV version, but whatever, we'll put that aside, and something where the TVTL10s can actually help interact and help make this TV show happen. How's that for a forward pro?

Exactly. And we could, I mean, if we solve this mystery or if our tens of listeners can help solve this mystery, we could end up on television. We could be really famous. Have you ever been on television before?

I haven't, but it's been a dream for years. And I'll be honest with you, we will be stealing the credit. So if the listeners manage to solve this.

Oh, I see. From the listeners. Oh, yeah, that's fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously. 100%. Absolutely, yeah. Also, we will be asking for more donations in just about a week. So please remember to support us.

We will stop stealing your valor when it's the week that we're asking for money. The show will be good. then we will stop stealing the listeners' value. Anyway, so tune in for that tomorrow. In the meantime, have a great Monday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all.

Power out.