Muse

Thank you for being a tan, traveled down the road and back again. Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant. If you threw a party, invited everyone you knew, you would see the biggest gift would be from me. And the card attached would say Thank you for being a 10 What, do you got any words of wisdom?

What about for all the other kids trying to learn how to ride their bike? Can you say anything to them?

Everybody, I know you can believe in yourself If you believe in yourself, you will know how to ride a bike If you don't, you just keep practicing. You won't get the hang of it, I know it. If you keep practicing, you won't get the hang of it. And then you can get better and better at it if you do it.

Give me some thumbs up.

Thumbs up, everybody. All right. For Walkin' World.

TBTL.

Here's the 1-0. Swung on. There it goes. Deep left center. That ball is high. It is far. It is gone. But caught. Hey, you either get it or you don't. I don't, but I am so excited to be a part of it.

We have an amazing relationship. We both have so much in common. We both love soup and we love the outdoors. We love snow peas and talking and not talking. We could not talk or talk forever and still find things to not talk about. I don't know a lot about business, but he did an internet and now the computers like him and Wall Street is Google.

Hey, what do you say we'd both be independent together, huh? you kind of feel like a sellout can you really call it a sellout when they give you a free tesla for doing the show and boom goes the dynamite well all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a friday edition of tbtl that's a friggin booty call the show that just might be too beautiful to live my name is luke burbank i'm your host coming to you from the madrona hill studio perched high above the mighty columbia bring it back home baby bring it back home where we are in the final day of TBTL-a-thon 15. Thank you for being a 10. I cannot believe it is already Friday. It is already the last day of this. I can't believe I ate that whole thing. Of course, the important work of funding TBTL is yet to be finished. And it won't be finished until everyone who is in the right spot financially and emotionally to support the show has done so and we're hoping to do that today and through the weekend at tbtl.net so uh you got uh you got my money uh it's episode 4248 in a collector series let the fun begin i was um running around yesterday i after we finished up yesterday's episode i headed up to the small maritime village of port towns in washington to help out with the jefferson county land trust um fundraiser um which had been on the schedule for a long time and um i uh did that and it actually went a little longer than we thought that's how much fun we were having and i came back down here i got here at i don't know 1 30 or something in the morning and i am tired this morning wow we're just blowing through nap time aren't we but i am going to get through it because this is a very important day for our show this is the final day of the thon and i'm gonna lean heavily on the phone calls right because we're streaming on youtube worldwide which means you can call in 206-414-tbtl 206-414-8285 ahoy ahoy um in fact i may at some point we may throw the phone lines open and i'll just go to sleep and uh let the callers take it away here on the final day of the thon um that also means it's our final day to make ChexNotes, I don't know, 1,400 bespoke TBTL friendship bracelets. I don't know. Maybe we misestimated on that a little bit. I've made a huge mistake. We've been doing this project to try to make these friendship bracelets for everyone who donates at any level. Beads. Beads?

Beads.

Beads. But we think here at TBTL that there might be a way to take our poor planning and turn it into something truly special for the tens of listeners.

A problem or a blessing.

We've got an update on that coming up, too. And we've got this guy, longest-running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. I know he's been having a great time down here this week, but he is also very, very ready to get back home tonight, to get back to Andy Times. I don't know what his Friday night plans are, but... I might have fire at all when I go home. I'm not quite sure yet. He's Andrew Walsh. She's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I had a thought as I walked into your studio this morning, and it was a bit of a, I will admit, a bit of a wistful thought.

Huh.

And of course, the energy's high today. I don't want to bring everybody down. Speak for yourself.

I feel like this is the lowest energy I've been all week, and I apologize.

I just keep saying the energy's high. I think the energy will get high if I keep saying it, but I was looking around and thinking, okay, one more podcast to do here. Like you said, we're streaming out to the World Wide Web. Yeah, we are. We've been doing it all week. This is fun. But then when we are done with the show and I get it posted, I will start wrapping up my equipment. But one aspect of that did not hit me until moments ago, which is that bead cam, our 24-7 And I, on the jar of bracelets that we've made, that's my camera and my computer. I've got to tear that down, too. And so, bead cam is going to go dark for the first time since Tuesday. And I've got to say, I feel like I'm going to be slowly putting the pillow over a beloved's face. Okay. Wow. Maybe you don't care about bead cam as much as I do.

It's definitely, I will say. So, explain that. Your, probably the, I would say, as far as I can tell, the highlight of the week for you has been Beadcam. Oh, God, not even close. Like, I feel like you were, your personal jury was out on this entire project until Beadcam got set up. And then you started peppering John and I's text chain with, you can see the light changing on Beadcam. Oh, yeah. You were in your hotel room just staring at Beadcam, watching the wind slightly blow the little piece of paper behind it.

I've been enjoying watching the commentary from listeners. I guess they don't keep a whole history of it there on YouTube, but people were kind of in the middle of the night dipping into the chat and just being like, oh, look, there are beads.

You have a strong, emotional, borderline sexual relationship with bead cams.

Hey, I wouldn't say borderline.

Hey, speaking of our friend John Sklaroff, TBTL employee numero uno, this is a guy, and you know this if you've donated to the show, if you've interacted with John, this is a guy. He traveled out here from Minnesota. He's traveling back to Minnesota tonight. He's got big family to do this weekend, but he made time for this. There is almost nothing this guy would not do for TBTL, and we know that. I might have fired all. I'm not quite sure yet. There's almost no drop that I wouldn't play two times in a row. This is what I meant to say for John Sklod.

I'll get you told by 3 o'clock this afternoon with Neil Paulus.

He's right over there, and he is going to, I think, just help us get over the line here. How are we doing on this Friday, though? I mean, as far as like our goals for the week, our hopes, our dreams, do we still have jobs? Is this show still going to be happening?

I can confidently say yes. I think we still have jobs. However, all three of us.

Well, that's where it gets interesting.

You said you wanted to have a, what is a performance-based meeting? You said we want to have a performance-based meeting.

Well, we're putting you on a PIP, a performance improvement plan, which I need to be on one after playing that drop. I just want to say, again, I'm not trying to like overdo this here, but I am definitely feeling a little a little out of it. And so I want to apologize for any miscues or misstatements or I left the mics on before the show. And I really let's let's just take a quick moment. Let's see if we can process that and then and then move past it. The only way past it is through it. So we've been here now. This is the fifth show that we're doing like this. And it's a fairly complex technical setup And Andrew you've done such a great job with it And I really really mean that Like we're streaming on the internet We're recording this for the podcast version of the show There are multiple microphones And you are so good at this But I know that you Like one of your number one fears would be We are accidentally broadcasting Or we are talking into hot mics

I don't like a hot mic moment

Nobody does But you particularly don't like it And we made it four shows, four episodes this week with no problems. And then this morning, we're sitting around here talking about some pretty controversial stuff, which I believe is an audio cable of John's that might fall into Andrew's possession. Yes. And how did you realize that was happening, Andrew? because you

You the startle that went through you when you realized, oh, we're actually talking and people on the Internet can hear us right now was intense.

John had just flipped a switch to put the cameras live on YouTube. This is John's fault. No, no. This was our plan. We were talking about it. I'm giving John credit for doing exactly what was supposed to be done and also for taking over that aspect of the production. I appreciate it, John. And so you went live. And as we were planning on, we, you know, turn on the cameras about, what, five, ten minutes before we open our microphone, supposedly. But then I went to just to check to make sure that everything looked good on YouTube. And as soon as I opened YouTube on my computer, I could hear our own voices on like a 30-second delay coming back through the headphones. And there's a long delay for the live YouTube. So by the time we realized our mistake, there were probably, like I say, at least 30, pardon me, I'm still upset about it, 30 seconds.

the body has an interesting way of processing

the trauma the body keeps the score and then it belches it out mid-sentence the body keeps the gas until it doesn't I wish it would keep it a little more the body should keep the gas but anyway so I heard my own voice coming back and then John's mic is on so we killed it as fast as we could and then I start thinking what went out over the quote unquote air I'm trying to think and I don't even

mind telling people what we were talking about it was so banal and so so not banal it was interesting

it was so interesting and spicy it was spicy i mean it was two midwestern guys being really nice to each other about a audio cable you keep it no no you keep it no i don't need it but you you should have it in case you someday need it that's all it was but you know had we made this mistake or like i'm immediately like what have we been talking about for the past half hour like And I don't mind telling the audience, like, before that conversation, the three of us were going over Snoop Dogg's criminal record for some reason.

Well, I said there's some indication that Snoop Dogg's security detail is a pretty violent organization. And that while we, you know, everybody thinks that Snoop Dogg is a national treasure, and I don't know, maybe he is, there is, you know, there have been some stories of his security people being really violent and rough. So that was the thing that didn't go out over the air, but now is.

And I don't mind saying that we were talking about that, but it's just this and I think that all started because you quoted a YG lyric, another another West Coast rapper. Anyway, so I just had this moment of like, what have we been saying? I don't know what we were saying. And then realizing, oh, it was only open for a few seconds. We're talking very kind. It wasn't even like we were fighting about a cable either. We're just being very, very kind about a cable. So no harm, no foul. I just do not like that though

That's the good news The listeners in the comment section The viewers Like So I was immediately Trying to say to you Andrew Don't worry Nothing happened Then I look over in the comments And it's just like People basically going Hot mic Hot mic Whoops Or Let's see There's a lot of comments going on here But anyway It's a very active chat Yeah and people were Boys your sound is on Somebody said People were freaking out Somebody said How the sausage is made TBTL behind the scenes and uh so it was like any any thought that maybe this wasn't going out over the air uh was immediately dispelled by the people in the comment section enjoying the fact that they were getting a little view behind the scenes of what goes on here on tbtl land but what what nobody's talking about or at least what i don't think there's enough conversation around is how honestly yeah dapper us business boys look on this friday as we all have on our official tbtl raglan baseball jerseys. John, you had on checking out of the hotel, you had a nice little interaction with someone there at the Comfort Inn.

Yeah, so I'm wearing my St. Paul Saints hat to kind of go with it, and as I was checking out the person at the front desk I said, oh, you look like you're going to play baseball. And I got to say with confidence and felt great to say, oh, my company sponsors a Little League team, and that was so cool to say.

Yes, absolutely. You do look like you really, I feel like you should before your flight, try to see if there is a softball game going on somewhere in the greater long view kelso area and if you can kind of jump

i'm also wearing like basketball shorts because i'm going right to the airport from here and so i want to be like super comfortable so yeah i definitely might need to cross somebody over in

in terminal d2 or something yeah so but i'm ready to play ball yeah you know that when i was a youngster i was so um like obsessed with sports and playing sports that i would sometimes this is not a joke i would go to like a softball field on i think you might sorry about my power word there i would go to a softball a softball field on a sunday where adults were playing with my mitt and just hang out to see if maybe they needed a an extra person to kind of play right field or to like and it like actually worked a couple of times really like looking at i don't know if they were just taking pity on me or what but i would show up full Thankfully, I don't think I was in my full Domino's Pizza Little League uniform, but Thank you. I was like that proverbial kid with the baseball mitt.

Punching your hand into the mitt. Slingshot in my back pocket. Sure, yeah.

I'd recently been part of a Norman Rockwell-type situation. Just kind of like, hey, if you need somebody, if you need anybody, let me know. I'll get out there. I'll get after it.

So these shirts we're wearing are prototypes of the gift you can get if you give it the what, $25 a month level? Did I get that right? Look at me. Look at me. and of course we are asking for donations but I had a question, a more personal question about these shirts for you guys wearing these, I never this is the first time I've ever worn a shirt like this I'm proud of you Andrew

because you were setting it up yesterday

I wasn't sure if I ordered the right size or not

John, a special order of these these are not technically the shirts we're sending out to everyone because those are going to be ordered en masse so these are like you said Andrew kind of a prototype, kind of a representation of the shirt that you will be getting but yesterday you started managing expectations Andrew around whether or not you were going to wear your shirt which I respect you have your boundaries and I never wear t-shirts without

like a collared shirt over top of them like I don't have a body that a lot of shirts flatter in fact this is a selling point if this is what we're giving away everybody looks great John you look great hangs on me okay and I'm very self-conscious about these things however I was going to ask you guys does wearing this shirt make you more prone to calling people champ or kids champ i feel like i can see you in the airport later john just sort of like seeing a

kid and being like hey champ my go-to is boss hey boss what's going on really that's oh okay

but champ could work i don't like a guy now this is very different i used to work with a fella i was uh in high school i think i worked for my dad and one of the engineers in my dad's office would call me guy hey guy i didn't like that it seemed very it seemed like a very lazy greeting the thing

about boss is i was um there were some folks that were here working on the house and it was the guys that were painting the house and they were amazing i mean just a really great crew and uh and and i would highly recommend them orlando's painting and more if you're in the southern washington area but the the orlando the guy in church would sometimes say okay i got that boss and i felt deeply uncomfortable because this is actually as boss right if you're like the person paying the bill in that situation yeah i was like i was like that made i mean i understand that it's just it's you know it's a friendly way to interact with someone but like i got a lot i was nervous about the suit i was wearing last night to this event because it's all white and you know it's summertime i like to wear a nice white linen suit in the summer but it feels one click over from colonel and sure yeah you gotta be careful with that i've got a lot going on in my head around the dynamics and these things so somebody calling me boss puts me personally in a place where i feel a little

uncomfortable i really like using if i'm like uh at the food like a fast food counter or something calling the the cashier boss now that's nice i like that that dynamic i feel like when you're

taking somebody who may be perceived to be in a different social status than you and showing them respect i vibe with that yeah i just i would like to put it out there to anybody who encounters me in the world you don't have to please never call me boss you've called me boss a couple times on

this trip john and the one time you even called it out and said i mean that literally and figuratively

that's a true story i actually don't what is the flow chart is anyone the boss of this that's a real that i think i'm the boss if i had read any of the voluminous documents that we've all signed to make too beautiful to biz a thing somebody call bo ask bo i would tell you this though i am i'm pleasantly surprised at how these uh shirts are coming off on the broadcast i think they look very nice on all of us and i think it's a fun way to kind of wrap the week up and uh and give a little proof of concept to people so if uh if you have not had a chance to donate and uh and you've been maybe wait we used to say if you're waiting for the eagle to shit it was a much bawdier show back in the early days when i was doing it from my house and it was being held up by a stick it had none of the professionalism that it now has and we used to say well friday is you know sometimes when certain like i got paid today did you guys all get paid from your tbtb eagle

eagle shit yeah i didn't uh look okay wow must be nice you don't even know when you're getting paid i don't know it all just goes into an offshore account i don't really i don't i don't follow

those things but usually what happens uh in in these and john you know more about this than we do as a longtime public radio fundraiser but like uh you know the beginning of the week is really pretty exciting and pretty active and folks are coming in with the donations middle of the week can kind of be a bit of a lull and then you get to friday it's kind of like the last day uh if you've been putting it off if you've been thinking about it uh this is a good day to do it um and we would love you to do that and i feel like these shirts are encouraging people sure to donate and

and maybe get one of these shirts sent out to them if i can wear it without feeling embarrassed about my body, then it's going to look great on you. I can guarantee. But I do have a request And this is maybe getting too specific And missing the spirit of what you're saying here Luke, but please do not pay us An eagle shit That is not currency That we can do anything with I would much prefer That's very valuable in some countries It's a delicacy Yeah, I would take USD though for this thon Yeah, I think US Bank would reject I think so too I just wanted to clarify that

We will accept glass eels Which I've learned go for Sometimes up to $2,800 a pound My new thing is listening to New Yorker articles While I drive And that was one of the articles I listened to A glass eel A glass eel

Yeah, say more about that

Okay, so Maine is one of the few states in the US That actually allows legal It's basically eel fishing But I think that the I forget the term for somebody who is an eel fisher person But basically There are a certain number of licenses to do this in maine because eel is a delicacy in places like japan but they've overfished it and so the u.s is one of the few places where eels are not on like an endangered species list we still have some and these certain kinds of glass eels they will go up these rivers and then they will come back out and i guess maybe when they're going on their way up the river you can set out these nets these eels depend it's a very volatile price but sometimes these eels will go for like $2,500 a pound

And this is for eating mostly For eating, 100% for eating

And they keep them live So you catch this eel, or these bunch of eels And they're little tiny things And then they put them in these special Bags with pure oxygen Water and pure oxygen in them And they send it over to like Japan Where they're going to be eaten, or China And then they raise the eel The rest of the way there, and then they

Wow, and there's no there's no way to well this is probably awful I don't know how we feel about fish farming but aquaculture

oh I've got thoughts on it okay yeah so like

I'm surprised whether or not I don't know if it's ethical or not but I'm surprised that if this is the value of these things that people aren't finding ways to breed them there is

it's very expensive the startup cost there's one aquaculture operation in Maine that is doing this and it's millions and millions of dollars for all of the setup but once you do that then yes you do have a you know the possibility of of creating a lot of this aquaculture is the fastest growing segment of agriculture in the world and it already aquaculture i think accounts for something some ridiculous number amount of the world's food or at least world's protein is it humane is it a problem i would it's not a blessing yeah should we i'm guessing it's not although i will tell you this my intrusive animal empathy this shows you how it doesn't extend it doesn't really go to eels which is bad because it's like i'm i'm completely guilty of this sort of charismatic megafauna sure way of thinking which is like i i you know me i'm i'm very concerned about the welfare of animals and i get a lot of feelings that i don't know what to do with around animals feeling any kind of discomfort it really hits me pretty hard as i was hearing about what happens to these eels i just didn't have that feeling as if they had been any other animal and i guess that just indicates my my my anti-eel sentiment they seem honestly creepy but most of that is just based on flotsam and jetsam from the little mermaid those guys were up to no good speaking

of charismatic megafauna can we for a moment i'm surprised we have not talked about this off air um let's talk about charismatic cal raleigh micro no i guess a regular fauna um today John and I were driving from our comfort inn in the Jeep Willys I'm getting all your notes about that guys I know it's not the Willys in our Jeep and then at one point as we're sort of getting we're turning onto a road that is getting near your place Luke John makes the realization hey that's Luke driving in that car in front of us and so we're behind you and I'm wondering if you got to see the same thing that we got to see which is a few times now as we've approached your homestead here we have seen a black cat running on one of these little kind of side roads the roads not driveways but you would drive on them slowly like a driveway uh that you and your neighbors sort of share and i've seen this cat a couple of times and it always darts in front of our or kind of when it sees our jeep coming it runs away and then darts into the same exact place in the bushes every time it's like a little cat shaped hole i love it john has started calling he slows down every time he's like let's see if your friend did you see the kitten that's what i'm getting at that's what i'm sorry i grabbed your shoulder no that's fine i liked it that's what i'm getting at so human contact is something i i crave i saw the i saw the cat once and then john automatically started saying slowing down every time as if i'm a child in the back seat he's like well let's see if your friend is here andrew and i'm like we're not going to see him again and now we did see him a couple more times and then today john slows down Thank you. Well, I slowed down in front of you to just try to really make sure we gave the cat and the kitten a wide bird.

We were calling it him. I think we can now call the cat her because we saw it with like- It could be an act of father. Not even this, but it could be. It's not babysitting. It's called parenting dad. It's just 20-24. Yeah, exactly. But I was so excited to see her grab a little. And it wasn't even a, it wasn't the tiniest kitten I've ever seen either. It was like a kitten, and the mom looked at us, and it was, you know, scared of our vehicles the way she should be cautious of those, and grabbed her kitten by the scruff of the neck and dragged it off the road. I want to go outside and find that cat right now and pet it.

I didn't even know that kitten existed until this morning. Yeah, so what happened was I had gone down to town to knock out a quick little jog, and then I'm driving back up, and there's this Jeep behind me, but I didn't put it together that it was you guys. and so I'm just like okay and then I take a left up this kind of main road and I'm like oh I guess that jeep's also going up this hill and then I take a right on the smaller road to get down here and I'm like oh okay I guess they live in this neighborhood it's weird I've never seen this jeep before and then I literally for one moment thought is this an undercover cop that's so unlike you

like that sounds like a story that I would tell because I tend to be like not very observant or what again we always talk about that time you literally came up to me in a coffee shop in a hotel that we were both staying at and i looked right at you and said something and didn't realize it was you until you told me hours later that we'd had a conversation and i just didn't make eye contact so i'm really surprised like you've seen this jeep you have not been i haven't really

seen it from this it was a perspective thing i hadn't seen it in my rearview mirror yeah behind me it was just like and also my mind was wandering yeah and then i thought i because the other thing that happened this morning when i was going down to the this river to do my little jog i came around a sort of a corner it's kind of hard to explain but basically i came around a bend and there was a undercover unmarked police like state patrol guy with his radar gun pointing right at me now i wasn't speeding so it was fine and in fact i think what he was pointing at was the major like freeway road i just happened to kind of like go in between him and the freeway road but it was terrifying because i was like you know you like you you just you see a state patrol person you're not expecting they're in an unmarked car and they're literally like and i drove right past

him and there's something about the fact that they look like guns is intimidating i was getting both

barrels yeah literally of this like radar gut it was like it looked almost like a handheld shotgun anyway so i go past that so that was and then it was crazy because i went i did my jog and then i came back around and i was like is he still going to be here and sure enough he was not there because he was now down the road a ways pulling over some sad sumbitch. And I thought, this is why I need to learn how on Waze to indicate when there's a hidden cop. To tell others. Yes, to tell others. Well, we got that.

We were using Google Maps on the way here, John, and you said, oh, we're coming into a speed trap here, right? There was a little radar gun on the map, and the thing asked you, like, is the speed trap still there? You actually saw that. He was very diligent. He's like, he was like, do you see him? Do you see him? I don't see him anywhere. And then he said, I don't think it's here anymore. that you hit no on the app.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Never say no. Why would you say no?

Listen, this was on the drive down here from Seattle after I had already had my moment of, like... Okay, but just say yes.

There's only a downside to saying no, which is if the speed, let's just say, if the speed trap is not there, then, you know what I mean? Like, it's, like, let's just...

You know what the downside is? What? Congestion and more traffic. Oh, that's a good point. People drive, I think people would drive, you know, dangerously if they, I don't know. My answer is always just object.

hey boss don't talk to yours that way hey boss I've got some advice on your how you do with google with with me in ways and I don't know how to input any of the information like I don't know

how to tell the wider world like start the conversation yeah I don't know how to start the conversation you can you can but I know how to end it you can say like yes or no this

yes and my answer is always yes because I just figure I don't know maybe I didn't see that object in the road but it's worse if I say it's not there and it is yeah it's worse if I say the speed trap's not there and it is or whatever i don't know also i just you know not a fan of not a fan of the police state so i'm always just like everyone be on the lookout but i did feel like i was letting down whoever this guy was luckily he was in like a fancy volvo one of those like volvo suvs i think it's called like an x9 or something if someone is pulled over but they're in a really expensive car i feel less bad for them yeah yeah i'm with you on that all that is unless Yes, and if you got pulled over today Near Tallyway Whatever it is, 432 And you are a donor I apologize that I didn't warn you about that

We'll cover your legal cost

All that is, well, Danny will get on the case One of them But my point is just that, I don't know I had that in my mind And this Jeep, how are we supposed to say it? willies it's willies yeah i don't like that the jeep i don't like willis better the jeep willies when you're looking at it in the rearview mirror could be an undercover cop car first of all it's like this one is like a enamel gray it has these lights wait is our car gray ours ours is

ours is black okay well it's black okay i was gonna say like am i really that unobservant no

It is black, unless it's like navy

No, I'm pretty sure it's black

Okay, but the headlights Have you guys looked at the headlights? The headlights have a digital blue ring Around the white of the headlight Like an LED ring Like a Rivian sort of A little narrow strip of LED light I didn't know that Or whatever, xenon Around the main light Which has a vaguely cop-ish vibe So really, I had this moment of thinking Am I being followed by an undercover jeep cop right now and like really i don't need this in my life i'm just trying to go uh do this podcast and then take a nap it's all i'm a simple man with simple requests and only as we continued to like every turn i took the jeep kept doing the same turn i was like oh that's john and andrew that's who that is then i come around the bend and i see that cat old blacky and i i see that she's doing her thing by the side of the road which is pretty typical but then this kitten and then i was like i purposely slowed down because i wanted to create i wanted to get my car in between the kitten and the cat and you guys not that i think you're unsafe drivers i just wanted to be like i don't want those undercover cops messing with these exactly so i um uh i was very i don't know why i was very heartened to see that little kitten even though we have a we have so many do we use the term feral is we allowed to anymore can you say anything anymore it's been using the youtube chat that's for sure we have so many feral cats around here it's part of why bubbles has yet to move up here full time because i mean among a bunch of dangers to her i just don't feel like she and those cats would get on very well because there are and they're you see them walking up and down the street sometimes when we're doing the show there's like an orange one

there's that huge black one oh i haven't seen it from here i'll keep an eye out there's now there's

a hole and see that fence that's along the left there is one like fence uh piece of fencing that's

missing oh it's perfect it's like it's like a heathcliff cartoon and when you come down the

road the cats will scurry into that one missing piece of fence fence it really is a perfect kind

of fence for that kind of scene i love it so much i'm gonna um i'm gonna tell you about my plans uh speaking of the jeep willies yeah because you're taking that back to seattle john is

decamping for portland to get on a flight and get back home we're all we're scattering to the wind after this i'm scattering to my bed after this before we do that i am going to open up the phone

lines here uh 206 206 414 8285 that's 206 414 tbtl if you want to call in uh we'll we'll take your calls and talk to you in a moment here you might you might be on hold for a little bit but that's okay you can handle it um but yeah so i'm gonna tear down everything here and then so john flew into seattle so we what the trip from seattle to here was about two and a half hours i think right yeah and it flew by were two business boys chopping it up or whatever but i i kind of didn't realize until this morning i didn't really like kind of really put myself in in realizing oh yeah so i'm gonna wrap all this up and then i got a little solo drive by myself i mean you did more than that yesterday and back i did and don't you forget it yeah but uh yeah so i don't know i guess boy talk about starting a sentence and not really knowing where you're going with it me just sort of processing what my afternoon is like i guess i got a little road trip by myself and my

equipment and be in the silent bead cam now i will say and and this i don't what we've had such a good week what we've had such a good week i don't want to end it on any kind of what are you gonna get on me i do think there is i understand let me just preface this by saying i understand 100 why the decisions were made that were made but it is kind of funny that john is getting in a cab and going to portland to fly to seattle to fly home as you are driving by sea tech it's true

but I don't think that he'd make the flight comfortably if he were relying on me driving through Tacoma. It would be dicey because of Friday traffic. Friday traffic, Tacoma. And that's a fair point, but there is,

my prediction is... And I have no idea how long it's going to take me to wrap this stuff up. I would like us to synchronize our watches on this. This is my prediction. John's flight will be landing at SeaTac about the exact time that Andrew is returning the Jeep Willis, how do we say it?

I'm not returning the Jeep today, I'm returning it tomorrow. At SeaTac again? I am because I have so much equipment that Well as you're driving past it how about this

Like you're gonna go like I'm Foreseeing a world where John Is in a puddle jumper Flying over the slog and Andrew is down In a jeep and you're on a parallel track Going right by the airport but if that were the case

You'd still that that would that would still prove Our point that it would be too tight

for john because that would be john in the car with me as his connect oh no i guess the the flight lands and then they have to deboard it and clean it yeah but i and switch planes yeah going back

to minnesota this is one of those things where you know it's always like listeners like are you a luke are you an andrew and i'm like i think everybody's a little bit both because i'm like andrew in this sense where every minute makes me nervous and my layover is short enough that that would well that's that would terrify me or not you know because i i don't have i like to be at the airport at least an hour and a half earlier and i don't think andrew packing up his equipment gang gang me to the sea tack would give me enough time to get through security and do all

that it would be it would be tight and and so i again i think it was the right decision out of an abundance of caution but i just do think it's kind of funny that you're going to be driving essentially past the airport but i know that you want to listen to your reggae music in the car and john hates that so this was all a plan for you to be able to control the radio in the g Is that right? Is that your impression of reggae? No, I was just thinking that Or Uncle Cracker, I should say

I was trying to make that a reference to that drop we use from The Office Where Ned Helm starts singing What is it? Give Me the Beat Boy?

Yeah, I believe that's an Uncle Cracker song Give me the beat boys and free my little old soul I want to get lost in your rock and roll

Why do I hate that song so much? Because it's not good

Wait, what's that song actually called?

Well, I think he does a cover of it, right?

Uncle Cracker's a guy, not a band? He also does a song.

Oh, Uncle Cracker's a newish guy, but that's an old song, right?

I guess it is. Well, yeah. Is it the Doobie Brothers? That's what I'm seeing. But there's a cover of it. I feel like the re-release, and I don't know if that was actually Uncle Cracker or not. Uncle Cracker used to be Kid Rock's DJ is the only reason that I am.

Kid Rock is a DJ.

He has a DJ, yeah. Uncle Cracker's cover of Give Me the Beat Boy.

Oh, jeez, Louise.

And that was the song that you were singing. All right. What do you say we take a phone call here? God, please let this be Uncle Cracker. Please be a... Uncle Cracker, you're on the line. Please don't be mean to Cleveland. Hi, you're on TBTL. Hi, this is Uncle Cracker. Oh, my God. That's so perfect. I love your work. Every once in a while, things just work out.

No, this is actually Nick from Tacoma.

Nick, the king of ska. How did we materialize you? After a Ska reference, I mean, and you don't believe in a god.

Oh, well, you know, maybe I could just say that it's the phone line getting all garbled up. How are you, my friend? Long time no talk. How you been? Oh, I've been all right. I'm currently shuffling spreadsheets at my miserable day job, but I'm thankful that I work from home so that my boss can't stop me from watching the stream.

Nice. Are you watching the bead stream or are you watching the TBTL live show?

I actually haven't seen the bead stream. I've just been watching this. Okay.

Have you found yourself accidentally referring to it as a spread she to, like, somebody in a professional environment just because of the inculcation of TBTL?

Yes, but I'm pretty sure that no one I've actually said that to noticed. Right.

It's a kind of very minor thing. It's easy to miss in a good way, probably. So you do spread she stuff now and you don't like it? What's the plan? Are you going to just do this, you know, for the foreseeable future or are you trying to transition into something else?

Well, ever since I quit driving the drug ban six years ago, I've been working in health insurance. And, yeah, it's, oof. How can I how can I say how can I say my true feelings on my job without like running the risk of this reaching my boss and getting fired?

Sure. We've already had one hot mic incident today, so maybe don't risk it. But I guess here's my question to you, Nick. When we met you low those many years ago. I mean, we're talking early days of TBTL. We were fascinated by your job driving drugs around prescription drugs legal. should they be legal who knows but they are and you're driving them around did was that job more fun and more rewarding than the job you're doing now but just like this one the money is better the benefits are better like why did you get out of oh yeah the drug van game um pay um that that

job was like i i was working swing shifts driving 200 miles a day you know um i generally liked doing the job, but yeah, the pay was absolute garbage. Back then, I was only making about $16,000, $17,000 a year.

Whoa! But all the drugs you could eat.

Well, I actually can't take opiates, so...

So there was actually, Luke, I remember when I was talking to you on the radio about this low those many years ago, I mentioned that I couldn't take opiates, that they, you know, they make my throat close up. And then immediately you said, oh, so you're like the eunuch who guarded Cleopatra.

Oh, wow. What a reference. I mean, you know, every once in a career. I liked it. I've actually every once in a while pulled out an interesting fact. So you're allergic to them. I thought when you said you can't take opioids, I thought you were part of, you're one of the many Americans who've struggled, but it's more like an allergic reaction thing.

Oh, no. Back when I had my wisdom teeth taken out, I, I don't know, it was hydrocodone or something, and I took it, and immediately it was like, okay, why is breathing a little bit more difficult? And then it's like, okay, yeah, I'm just going to purge and, you know, try and get it out. It was nasty. That's really scary. Like I wasn't even I wasn't going to mess with that ever since.

You know, it's funny that you mentioned wisdom teeth because that for me was also a I always look back on it as kind of a not a fork in the road. But like I feel very fortunate that I'm not somebody for whom opioids really stimulate any kind of particular euphoria or good feeling. And obviously there are a lot of people that that is what happens. And when I got my wisdom teeth pulled, they gave me whatever they gave you back in like the late 90s. Uh, and I took them and I remember thinking that didn't seem like it was helping the pain And also I didn't get any good vibe off of it And I just like put them in the back of the medicine cabinet and Who knows whatever even happened to that thing of pills, but I thought boy I could have had a different life if when I took that it just made something in my brain feel okay And um, you know, I guess i'm I feel very fortunate because like I have terrible impulse control So i'm i'm grateful that that's not an impulse. I had to work to control and for you it's just your throat closes up so that's a pretty easy way to stay away from that stuff

well it was just that i don't know if it was nerves or but whatever happened it's keeping me away from it and i'm thankful it's kind of like it's kind of like the first if the first time you ever saw if you ever smelled cigarettes then like immediately make you wretch and keep you away from smoking but you know the first time i that would be something that i wish that i wish that happened to me when i was 18 because like yeah quitting smoking was really difficult can i

ask you a um health insurance related question here that is uh ripped out of the headlines of my own life i here's my question this isn't about the insurance coverage so much as about what would be charged in a situation i've been going to the doctor a lot lately for various things including like getting blood drawn and i see that i have i want to clarify it is dr arakaki it is absolutely we're gonna get oh my gosh i was watching like twilight it's like is it comet channel or something i was watching a bunch of them not the twilight zones but um the x-files i never watch a lot of x-files but like you're in a hotel room hotel tv doesn't count as we say so i'm like watching the x-files last night and then they had all these like commercials like a lot of different commercials i'd never seen or heard before like my little blue chew or whatever there was a golfer

that's like Viagra gum or something I guess

did they give a cute name to Boner Pill yeah yeah

it's called Blues Chews it's got a guy named Steve

there was one commercial I think it was for a different product

that is so many different types of wrongs

he was trying to golf with a floppy golf club and he says well this isn't going to work and then a lady comes in and sells him some pills and says now try it anyway um here's here's my question for you so um i see that i'm being charged not much like twenty dollars or something after insurance for some doctor related thing and i'm not exactly sure what it was but it's occurred to me that i think that might be when i went to the blood lab and they failed to get blood out of me they couldn't find a vein and i almost passed out after like them trying but they also couldn't execute you but they couldn't but um what would one be charged for a failed attempt at drawing blood that doesn't seem fair to the person who got poked a bunch but didn't uh but didn't actually get any blood drawn

uh what i would do in that case uh wait um do you feel comfortable saying who your health

insurance carrier is like costco etna united right no it's uh like it's fred's health insurance I think are you familiar crazy Larry's he has a little he's a kind of corner he works on Aurora Avenue North also sells gently used computers uh no I probably won't say what it is but I don't

even really know as long as it's not as long as it's not Aetna or United I would just call the number on the back of your insurance card and ask them what's up with your bill yeah and I'm not

Again, it's $20 is what I'm not going to challenge this. This isn't, like, something serious like getting a $13 charge on my garbage collection bill. You know, in a certain way, like, I'm actually just asking if that is right. Because let's think about it. No blood was drawn from me. So if you think of me as sort of a customer, that seems like a bad deal. But on the other hand, you still had two employees of a lab who were taking time trying to do their job. Grumpily. One of them grumpily, but then also probably spent more time with me than they would have had it been successful. Right. So I'm not even really mad about this. I was just a little bit curious. At first, I was kind of like, oh, come on. You can't charge a guy for poking him three times and not doing it successfully. But it's not their fault totally that they couldn't find a vein. It's probably me and my dehydration.

Yeah, if they don't complete the thing, I don't think you should be charged, but whatever.

Can you call someone, Nick? Any strings you can pull?

Can you draw my blood, Nick, in the back of the van?

You do not want me to hold needles or be around blood. That's why I'm not a nurse. But, no, seriously, if you have any doubts about it, if you've never received a bill but you're seeing something on your EOB that your health insurance company is sending you, just call them up and ask about it. And regardless of how scrupulous a health insurance carrier may or may not be, and even the best one is, well, Donald Trump-level scrupulous. Yeah, seeing the sausage get made for the past six and a half years has really made me not like sausage, I guess. But generally, like the best people in any of these – I like eel. I think I mentioned this before to you That I used to live in England as a kid And eel is pretty common over there

It's a big deal over there

It's tasty It just tastes kind of like You know Kind of like tough fish But it's good

Eel is good Like a fish that grew up without a father It's kind of a scary fish Or in the fence of East Anglia I guess Right Um, I think, and what is it? Is Unagi, is that the Japanese term for it? I think, I don't know. I'm the one who listened to a one hour New Yorker piece about it yesterday. Well, Nick, uh, anything else that you, that you want to mention, uh, before we, uh, move on to other

Thon related things? Um, nothing else. I just wanted to check in and say hi, um, and just, you know, be safe, do good shit, you know? Thanks, man. It's so nice to hear from you.

And Nick, you're one of the OG-est of the TVTL listeners. Day one, feather in my cap. It always, always warms my heart when I see an email from you or see you out at a show or whatever, because it means that, you know, we haven't completely driven away all the people who used to like the show. And that means a lot. So thanks, man.

Yeah, I look forward to seeing you in Philadelphia. Oh, hell yeah, dude. Wow. Wow, nice.

Okay, sweet. Well, we'll see you out there, brother. Thanks for the little segue there. we are going to be in philly september 28th tbtl live in philadelphia um this is the tbtl on the final day of tbtl on 15 thank you for being a 10 thank you for being a 10 and uh we've already talked about these handsome shirts or some handsome shirts almost just like these that are available at a certain level john what else uh can folks get

as a thank you for supporting tbtl yeah uh sticking with the junior sluggers theme for at $10 a month, you can get the pennant that Andrew designed. It's beautiful. It's so cool. It's the yellow and blue.

Pennant design is his passion.

Absolutely. At the $15 a month level, you get the Junior Sluggers ball cap, which looks... It's this same. So for people seeing this now on the YouTube, it's the same design, but in the hat is navy, the TBTL is yellow. And then at the $25 a month club, you get... I keep saying club. That's fine. You know what? It's still getting it wired.

It's a club of people who like supporting TBTL at the amount of $25 a month. Thank you. I mean, I think that's a totally reasonable way to describe it.

Thank you for supporting me through this. So it is this shirt. It's a difficult time. These difficult times. It's this shirt. These are the colors people ask. It's like a navy sleeve and then the navy TBTL across the front.

If you're trying to picture it, I've described it often as like a raglan. Yeah. A raglan shirt. That's why I hear it's called too.

And so these are the prototypes. They don't have it, but yours will have on the back Junior Sluggers number 10. That's right. Ours doesn't have that. Right, because it is the kind of priority. And then if you go up to 50, if you want to be a dazzling donor, you do get all those gifts. So at each of those levels, you get that gift plus the bracelet. But if you want them all. Fingers crossed. But if you want them all.

The bracelet, he said, with a certain amount of...

ruefulness in his voice yeah but $50 a month is dazzling donor you get everything uh plus your customized message on air and then if you have it in you to go up to $100 a month you get all of that plus your your special cameo style uh video from the two of you guys yes right yeah um these

are some really cool thank you uh gifts you know last year we because it was our first year as an independent show and we had like literally zero dollars when we started i mean that's kind of crazy to think about yeah we were in my parents basement surrounded by lunch boxes that at the time nobody really wanted and are the tbtb bank account had exactly zero dollars in it it's i've

been doing a lot of reflecting in the weeks leading up to this thon because a lot of the things that we're setting up here refer back to maybe last year's thon and you know i think you Mike Luke, does the listener know that this year's THON is happening exactly one year and one week off of last year's. So we did it during July 4th week last year. This year, we started on July 8th. And just like going back through old emails and looking back at my calendar from a year ago as we've been planning this stuff out, it's really hard not to take a moment to take stock of what this last year has been like. And, you know, now as I'm saying this, I don't want it to sound like we're just patting ourselves on the back because honestly we're patting the listeners on the back for supporting us so that we're able to do this but we unless you don't want me to pat your back which is fine consensual pat i mean yeah you just let me know it's okay it's a business pat um but uh you know we didn't just have zero money in the bank we had no website we didn't know if we're going to have an rss stream to get our show out there we didn't know if we're going to have our archive like we just didn't we literally started with nothing a year ago this just tells

you how much we hated carvana ads yeah exactly we were like we don't know what the future holds and you're right you you and and i know you're not i realize i turned this into a me petting but i know that you're not listen we all know you lack the flexibility to pat yourself on the back

currently even a business pat what you're watching is a bad pat stop the tape stop the tape

But but like, I mean, really and truly, you're absolutely right. Like last year, there was not only the question of could we raise enough money for this to be a job for three people? But could we even could you even figure out how to get the pathways set up so that the audio got into like people like Nick's phone?

Right. Exactly. I mean, and so there was John setting up all of the systems in the back end to make this happen. Like it's like it's been, you know, really smooth. I mean I know that you've had to do a lot of stepping in and helping listeners and everybody can email you john at tbtail.net with any kind of issues and you're super good at that but that's like Luke like you and I haven't even really seen what happens behind the scenes what John has to do just to get those systems in place too so I really appreciate that.

And so last year, because of all of those unknowns, we we had to really try to streamline the thank you gifts. By that, I mean, we just we didn't have the money to, like, create a lot of physical objects. So we had the coin, which I still think was really cool. And there's a typo on it. And that makes it even cooler.

Who speaks Latin anyway, though?

It's a dead language. I think so, you know, we did the coins, but that was kind of it. Well, this year, now that we have been able to sort of confirm that this works and is a thing and that we have a certain operating budget, now we're doing, you know, we're doing stuff. And I'm excited about the stuff. I think the stuff is really cool. These shirts are fun. The hats are really fun. People are going to ask you. I mean, really, I would say when you get your shirt in the mail, start at that moment preparing yourself to talk about TBT. Yes. Because it's going to come up.

And you're going to need to think about it in advance.

I mean, we have 15 years. I still don't know how to describe it. So if anyone comes up with a good idea, let me know. But like the shirts are really cool. The, the, um, the hats are, are really great. The pennants are awesome. And then of course we've got all the other digital stuff, the thank yous and the videos and everything. But I'm really happy with, this feels like the next phase of the life of, of TVTL as an independent entity, which is having some cool thank you gifts to send to people. Now, maybe the coolest thank you gift of them all, it has the least monetary value, but the most kind of um emotional labor went into it from us would be the tbtl friendship bracelet um that uh we our plan has been to hand make uh a tbtl friendship bracelet with a little tbtl slogan on it for each and every donor at every level and um it you know we knew that it was going to be a a really tough task and we we knew that the better that the thon went the more people that that were able to donate or continue their donation going the more of these bracelets we were going to have to make i don't think until we all sat down on monday night even though we you know we had our kind of respective breakthroughs we we've been enjoying the process of making them andrews met someone their name is bead cam

Like, you know, it's been going actually in certain ways better than expected, but also worse than expected in that we've made like, I don't know, a couple hundred at this point. We've got to make like, I don't know what, maybe 1600 or something.

Yeah. What is the total that we're shooting for? 16, 17?

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a ballpark. You'll have to do the numbers afterwards. But we're a little behind.

We're a little bit way behind, but we think actually that this is an opportunity for something really fun. And so this is what we're going to announce today. Sunday, July 28th, 4 p.m., the Seattle Eagles. That's right. Ari numero uno.

On Lake City Way.

That's right. We are going to be hosting a TBTL Bees Party. Bees.

Bees. Bees? Bees. Bees.

We are going to be getting together With however many of you Feel like spending an early Sunday evening With us We will provide pizza And beads And materials And we're all going to get together And we're going to just like Knock out the last I don't know Thousand of these That we need to make So we're going to have A TBTL bracelet making confab And it's going to be at the Eagles Which is so cool too Because this Eagles Is like This is kind of the clubhouse for at least the Seattle contingent of, like, TBTL Life for you and Genevieve and Camaro and all those people. So that's the plan.

I've already heard from several friends who, when I told them about this last night, they were like, I think we'll be there, too. So, yeah, you can meet some of the Eagle brethren that have loomed large in this show.

Sunday, July 28th, 4 p.m., the Seattle Eagles on Lake City Way. We are going to be there. John's coming back from Minnesota. You're flying back for this? yeah just uh two weeks from sunday so if anybody wants to donate to cover those costs um and i think we can knock this out as long as we you know as long as we have all the supplies which we're going to have and honestly i feel like most of the tens are so much better at this kind of stuff than we are i have a feeling that we'll be able to knock this out but we are going to try this very ambitious thing of over the course of i don't know how many hours it's going to be we're going to try to knock out like a bunch of these bracelets so there is a sign up sheet yes because um because this eagles is a fine fine place which by the way its original

life was as a quilt store this is the building this building when i was not the not the not

the fraternal organization it was a bunch of quilters who really liked drinking no uh i used to drive by when we would go to church on lakes and we'd be going down lake city way i would go past this building which was for quilting now it's the eagles um but we we do have a sign up list because we want to kind of figure out how many people are coming how much pizza should we order uh how many people can we fit in there so andrew what's the scoop on the sign up sheet

so if you um well it's not up on tbtl.net yet but later today there will be a button at tbtl.net where you can click that and sign up and also um if you're a newsletter subscriber there will be a link in the newsletter that's going out in about an hour i also i'm trying to um predict some of the questions people will have i think one will be our kids welcome in the eagles and they are There is a bar area, but this will be – like our crafting area will be in sort of the common area, sort of the ballroom area or whatever. You can picture it as sort of a banquet hall where you might have a wedding or something. That's where we're going to be setting up a whole bunch of tables and beads.

But it is a two-beer minimum for children.

Children must drink at least one bourbon, one shot, and one beer. Yeah, it's the George Thoreau good. Yeah. No, kids are welcome in that upstairs part. They're not welcome in the bar part for legal reasons. But, yeah, so kids are welcome. I don't think dogs are welcome. People often ask that. Well, if you have a service dog, I would imagine. Well, sure, of course, if your dog has its papers. No, I'm not sure about that, but people often ask about that. I would probably say it's probably not a pet event, but certainly kids are welcome. And, yeah, 4 p.m. You also need papers for your kid. Yes, 4 p.m. to TBD. Get him a vest. I think 4 p.m. until you finish making the bracelets for us is basically the time frame here.

So that's the plan. And I actually think that this is a good outcome because, you know, since we started this, we started talking about this. I've just seen so many comments from the tents going, will you please just send me a big bag of beads? Yeah. Let me help you with this. Yeah. And now we are going to let you help us with this. But we're all going to do it together because it'll be a fun hangout. Yeah. And and and we can get this done. And I guess we do. I feel like we need to. even though this seems kind of silly i feel like we should have people make the bracelets but then they should still just go home and we we still send do we still mail i i don't want this i don't want the situation to be that someone has to make their own friendship bracelet and take it home i feel like we should still mail it to them for a logistic standpoint to make sure i'm tracking who

who's getting what, like with our other thank you gifts. I think that was my plan anyway, which might sound silly to the people making them. I think we'll probably end up having some leftover lettering and be, you know, color beads after we've made the, the ones for the thon. So people are certainly welcome to like just craft some for themselves and their friends.

Like when I used to work for the wedge catering and we would bring back after like catering a wedding or something, we'd bring back all of the serving dishes to the kitchen, but the wedge slinging caps, I was slinging caps, good memory. but those kit that kitchen also had like um because it was a deli that you could go to in down in um this was kind of down in montlake you could get a sandwich there in the daytime like they had a little kind of sandwich uh counter so i would go put all the dishes back and then i would make myself my own sandwich at like 11 o'clock at night i'd be the only person in the place it would be like out of it would be a freaking cartoon yeah i mean it would be like this yeah i'm like a college sophomore i have unlimited access to cold cuts and pickles forget about it i would make this massive sandwich and then i would go and i would sit in my little basement apartment and i would eat my sandwich it was like the most fun thing but that could be you with a bracelet if we if we make enough of all the other ones you could make your own special little thing but but all that is to say i do think i think we should make all the bracelets And then John we should ship them to you Or you take them or whatever But then we should redistribute them to people Because it's fun to get something in the mail You know what I mean As opposed to having to make your own bracelet And then just put it on and then you just leave the eagles And you're like well I have this now We want it to feel like a gift

And I think we will ship it back to Minnesota for me Then to package with the other gifts Because I don't know how I feel about going through TSA With 1500 friendship bracelets I feel like that would be a weird

What if we get you a suitcase with, like, a false bottom. I like this. No, just a false bottom that you can pull out. But we'll pack all of the bracelets into, like, kind of a thick manila envelope thing and then put that in there. Yes, that's a very good idea.

I'm also wondering, now that we're talking about you, like, you're flying out today to go back to Minnesota and then you're coming back in two weeks. Can we just put them up in the Comfort Inn for, like, two weeks? Just keep them here in the area?

That actually might be the smart financial decision.

You know what

I could eat a lot more taco time

True

I jogged past your hotel today by the way And I just was thinking Boy those guys are troopers You are troopers It's not a spa I don't think we're going to be here For next year's THON In fact I just want to say this I don't want to get ahead of ourselves But I will tell you We've already got some plans in mind For next year's THON And it is going to be If we can pull this off I think it's going to be our best, maybe our most intriguing thawne ever. But that being said, I was jogging along the river and I was looking at your hotel today. And next time, if you are for some reason back down here, we've got to find another place for you all to stay.

Well, I will say this. Like, John and I went to get lunch at that place McMiniman's yesterday. It's the second time we've been there. And I think that's a hotel above the restaurant.

That is us sitting in this room together and broadcasting out to the world. is directly a result of me staying in that hotel oh that's right because you met the person at the bar downstairs who well no but even before that what happened was when the 40th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens was coming up and we're in the teeth of the pandemic I was still living in Bellingham I we were going to film on Mount St. Helens the story and I just wanted to find a hotel that was near Mount St. Helens and I saw that there was this McMinimins that was down on the river and i'd never heard of that little town down there it's called calama and um but i was staying in that hotel it just so happened that they had me in a room that was on the the columbia river side and it was like an april day we get this in the northwest sometimes like an april day that was just unusually warm so it was like a warm day i was sitting on this balcony i was looking at this river and i had this thought like where even am i right now like this is very idyllic and i've never considered this town at all so it was always kind of in the back of my mind and then cut to we're here yeah doing the show so anyway that place i mean if it's you know if they're running a deal or whatever we should be putting you up there next time that's a lot less

i was going to bring it back to how we handle our finances here because the thing is we're staying at a hotel that is more affordable obviously there are um you know very few i mean there's ice there's there's free ice uh there are not a lot of like amenities they're nice there i don't want to make it sound like they're very friendly yeah they're very friendly but that's right yeah but you know the room my room has they're friends of gary that's right there's a there's a crack in the wall you know the shower curtain rod is about to fall out of the the wall but when we went to lunch yesterday.

kind of looking at the windows of the hotel rooms above the restaurant at McMiniman. It was weird that you were staring into people's hotel rooms. Yeah, I had your binoculars. No, I was just looking. I'm like, I'll bet you those rooms are nice. And I had this thought of just like, should we have stayed there? But the thing is, I had that thought, and I'm sure I would have loved it, but it would have quadrupled at least to the cost of me and John staying out here. And we ain't trying to blow the entire team of telethon budget. We're bad capitalists. Yeah, and so listen, and I'm not trying to make it sound like we're martyrs. I feel like everything I start to say today ends up with us petting ourselves in the back in some way. But I just really do want people to know that we are very conscientious of how we're spending money around here. We're not flagrant. No.

I think you guys were when we were with APM, which I absolutely was. Even I wasn't then.

That was, I know, and that made me... I actually have regret about that. I should have spent more of their damn money. That was where... I'm not even joking.

Yeah, I don't think you are, and I don't want to say I wasn't angry Because it didn't affect me I was perplexed Andrew Because my thought was We do a lot for this company We redirect a significant amount of like The TBTL resources back into APM in general And I for one was like I'm not going to stay in a hotel that like You know makes me feel sad every time I go back Or I'm not going to stay in a hotel with live ducks in the lobby Although you loved that place

I kind of like that place That place had a little bit of It had some quirky charm to it that place was nice it had sweets anyway i don't want to get i appreciate you and john are very

very careful with the tbtb money i am not allowed to have access to it and so it works out uh the people that do have access to it are very responsible with it and the person who wouldn't be responsible doesn't know any of the passwords that's true you literally don't know where your card no and it makes john the only time i've ever seen john look at me i mean i'm sure this happens a lot when i'm not in the same room as you but the the most withering you've ever looked at me was earlier this week when we needed to buy a Cat9 cable for the broadcast. We needed an Ethernet cable. It was a cat of nine tails. Oh, well, that's in my different Amazon accounts that I use. We were buying this Ethernet cable to do the broadcast this week, and I did buy it on Amazon. And I said, okay, well, that's purchased. And John said, did you use your company card? And I said, I don't even have a company card. And you were so like.

You said it in a way that the tone of your voice, Luke, was basically, I want to be definitive. Because I feel like you've sort of danced around this. By the way, we have a caller who's been on hold for a little bit. We'll go to you in a moment. Thanks for hanging on. But I feel like in the past, you've sort of like had, you've been like, well, I don't know where the card is right now. Or I haven't activated my card. And then you just kind of been. And then this was the first time. It felt like you just wanted to. Honestly, because I wasn't even part of this conversation. I was just observing it. But you remember it. I remember you just said it in this way of, can I just tear the Band-Aid off of this thing? And you just said in a pretty kind of short way, listen, I don't know where my card is. I don't have a card. It's gone. I just use my regular card.

He did say much nicer than that.

He said it kind of nice, but in a very definitive way, just like, I don't want to dance around this anymore. Let's like the card.

I was just pulling a Joe Biden. Let's move on.

Exactly. Conversation is over. Let's move on. And John said, but does Kamala have a card? And we're just like, that is not where the conversation is supposed to be going this morning. Now, hold on one second.

I do have some kind of TBTB card over here by bead cam. Don't put it on the camera. No, I was going to just get it out and ask you, John, if it's the right card. You do that.

Can I take this phone call?

We're not going to have the ahoy hoy. So I'll just say ahoy hoy here and welcome this person from the 541 on the show. Who are we talking with?

Hey, y'all. This is Sherilyn Corvallis.

Sherilyn Corvallis. Hey. How's it going? This is Sherilyn Corvallis, Luke. Hey, Cheryl.

Hey, doing great. I am really excited to hear that you are doing this, the bead thing with the help of the tens, because that is just the kind of community that it just epitomizes what TBTL has been for me. And I'm so excited for that.

I mean, it is classic TBTL that we are both soliciting donations and then also soliciting people to make the thing that we're offering as a thank you for the donations and you are going along with it in fact you're excited about it so that is that's really on brand well there were so

many people on the chat uh or on slack saying hey the guys you know we're worried about the guys we we don't want andrew to hurt his hands this is a lot of stress for them let's you know we can all make our own bracelets i mean there's just so much you know support for you guys i know i love this And you know what's really funny is that there's already a Crafty 10s Zoom meetup planned by a 10 on that same day. Oh, really? I don't know if it will, like, become a collab or something, but for those who can't be at the Eagles, On July 28th from 1 to 4, it looks like Amanda Patton Wilhelm. I think she goes by UW Mandy on Slack. Yeah, she is organizing that for the Crafty Tens group.

Was that sort of inspired by our craft Zoom nights? Look at me. I'm just like swooping in and trying to take credit for this. But was it because we weren't able to chat with everybody who was on the Zoom night call, kind of an extension of that?

To be honest, I think this got started a little bit before that, but definitely picked up momentum, and they definitely wanted to plan it just to be – oh, jeez, I see Luke with the card on the – I don't know if my audio is behind my video, but I just saw Luke with the card on the – You can see it? Don't put that – no, don't put that up there.

I didn't even know you guys could see the table. I think, no, I think there's a delay in Cheryl seeing the other card that you had a moment ago.

Oh, that was just my personal one. Yeah, it turns out. Just so you know, Cheryl.

Do use that.

That's fine. Go ahead and steal that one. I literally went over to the thing, grabbed a card, held it up for John, and John shook his head, no, that's not even associated with TBTV.

Oh, my gosh. So anyway, no, this is, I think, separate, but I think it's going to be great for those folks who are, you know, on the YouTube chat and are saying they're so jealous they can't make it to the Eagles if they're not in, you know, in the area or can't make it in. It's just going to be a great alternative option. So if you're not on the Crafty Tens and you want to be in there, get in there on the Facebook group. Nice.

And who knows, we may still be making bracelets in Philly.

Yeah, I mean, we may need people to make T-shirts. We may need people to make hats. We may need people to make pennies.

You might need someone to host TBTL Live in Philly on September 28th.

I did take a silk screening class briefly in like HOMAC or some arts and crafts thing in high school. So, you know, we might be able to get in there with the T-shirt making.

Cheryl, I'm glad you called in because I actually was thinking about you yesterday and I owe you an apology. This is actually kind of perfect. And this is also related to something that I wanted to tell Luke regarding TBTL programming. um i put a i on the podcast at some point in the past month or so i put a call out for callers to leave messages in our voicemail line on a very specific topic and as often happens it was an idea in the moment while we're recording and i completely forgot about it and then i wasn't being a good business boy and checking the voicemail line and yesterday i was in the budget it in the comfort in yeah and i had a little extra time on my hand and i went back and i started listening to some old voicemails from like early to mid-june that i had not checked and the first one i heard was from you cheryl and it was you singing the song that you sometimes sing to your pet bird oh and you said you know you asked for these things and then i listened to the next 10 voicemails on the line it was all listeners i don't know if you recall this lou i must have

Did I ask people to share with us the crazy, you did the crazy stuff that we all say to our pets and sing to our pets?

Somebody called in, I don't know, prompted by what, and they sang us the song that they sing to their cats or something. And I said, hey, why doesn't everybody do that? Leave us a voicemail. And then I forgot, and I never checked it. And we have a grip full of people, including Cheryl, singing the songs on the voicemail line that they sing for their pets.

Cheryl, if we do decide to play that, how do you feel about it? I just heard you kind of groan. Would you like us to not play that?

No, I mean, hey, you know what? There's a disclaimer on that voicemail line.

Well, yeah, but you know, we're not going to hold you to that if that was just a moment of weakness.

No, you know, I think I'm okay with it as long as Andrew deems that I was generally in tune.

Yeah, and in fact, I put a reggae beat behind it. No, I thought it was really sweet, and I just kept listening to one after the other after the other, and like all these listeners from around the country, and so we're going to build. Luke doesn't know this yet. We're going to build a whole show around this. I think we're going to do a special episode of TBTL maybe this fall, maybe during the summer games or something, or fall games, or winter games, whatever the heck we call them, where we can really shine a spotlight on all these because it's really, really adorable, including the one. What is your bird's name again, Cheryl?

His name is Tito.

Tito, yes. We've met Tito.

Also, I see Anna L.A. saying that she sent in a song and was so sad that we didn't play it.

oh yeah that's totally on me Anna sorry about that but I have yours I heard it

it's all going to get played so that's really awesome well Cheryl thank you for calling in thank you for being part of the TBTL world we really appreciate you down there in Corvallis

hey no problem you guys good luck with the rest of the song here I know we're right at the end take care

thank you thank you for everything there's the famous Cheryl in Corvallis that's right one time when we

are at APM, one of our bosses took over sort of editing responsibilities for our TBTL newsletter. And it's kind of funny, the newsletter just sort of has a voice of its own, sort of, and it's a lot of, obviously, TBTL has a lot of, a lot of inside jokes and just references that we all just get, because we're all part of this weird ass cult, right? And of course, Sherilyn Corvallis is well known in the community. And the person who I was working with at APM, who, by the way, I really like she was a boss of ours for a while we had like so many different bosses and she was kind of our boss but um she also was a former like actual editor like in some sort of journalistic sense and it was a weird fit when she would edit i'd send her my newsletter just for like a second set of eyes on and make sure all the links work and everything but she was applying sort of like marketplace the radio show like marketplace-esque standards of editing on the newsletter and also

strange and also she was i really liked her as a supervisor i thought she was one of she's one of the better supervisors we had her and el ropa were a couple of good ones yes but she was not somebody who had been you know marinating in tbtl lore for years and years she had listened to some of it probably as a professional responsibility but her interpretation yeah of like whatever this is was kind of interesting right and so sometimes she'd put

edits in there like you know like i i don't know if this is an exact example but like if i were to write the word spreadsheet i would there's i would leave the t off i think it's an inside joke spreadsheet. And sometimes I would like put in the notes like, oh, leave this. There's a reason I'm doing it. Or if she would correct it, I'd say, hey, the reason I'm not accepting your change on this document is there's a reason for that. All of this is to say, and this is not a great power out, but it's an out, is I'll never forget when I referred in the email to Sherilyn Corvallis and then i got the edits back and it said cheryl and corvallis comma or again and i remember just thinking i'm not even explaining why i'm not accepting this edit change like it's cheryl and corvallis that's right i know cheryl and corvallis that's the brand it's not cheryl and corvallis comma or no we don't if you have to if you need a clarification

on the state uh that cheryl is is in i mean i don't even know where we begin exactly this whole project sorry for that story that was a long one um so i just to uh reiterate uh it's a bad idea to hold your actual debit card up on the air on a live stream but i do see it but i do think we can trust these if there's you know what if they're i don't know how many people are watching this is there like 50 people or 100 people or something watching it lives in perpetuity after

the fact oh please don't put this on the dark web do people actually think that they actually

i don't think i don't think you can see it and also honestly i don't think there's any money in that account i've often said i'm the only person that if you stole my identity my credit would improve oh this is you want to as we wrap the show up should we just end on a complete tangent

because that's the tvtl way turn off the phone line here yeah i think i think we should i think

cheryl and corvallis is a very is a very worthy person to wrap up the call portion of corvallis oregon oh you're a hundred percent it's not corvallis texas you know there's a corvallis texas they love that shit in texas there's a seattle texas there's a kalama texas um this is so apropos of nothing but i do think it's kind of funny so i was driving up to port townsend last night and uh i was i've been making this trip a lot recently because i was also going up to my folks house last week for my dad's 70th and you take the sort of exact same route and they are having monster trucks at the kitsap county fairgrounds and they've got that all these big signs but what's really funny is you know i i did that tv story about grave digger and i got to kind of like drive grave digger and stuff like that so i'm pretty tuned into the story of the regular monster trucks versus something called monster jam because you know this entertainment company Called Feld Entertainment They also do like Disney on ice And all that stuff They bought The rights To A bunch of these Monster trucks And the Kind of The prize one Was this thing Called Gravedigger So they're the only ones That are allowed to have Gravedigger But if you're gonna go To the Kitsap County Fairgrounds Like this weekend To watch their Monster trucks They have one That's in all their Billboards It looks exactly Like Gravedigger But it's called Identity theft

Like just nodding

towards the fact I don't know the character if these if we could think of these as like wrestlers right uh-huh the character is the vehicle's called identity theft and it looks like gravedigger

and I think that's so great Nigerian scam email is going up against him I would you said gravedigger and of course we talked about that a lot because you got to drive it and it's one of the most famous monster trucks out there and I really do I'm not I'm not I don't know the monster truck world well, but growing up,

Like that was a big part of growing up, whether we went to the Medina County Fair or sometimes we go actually to the Cleveland Coliseum and see motocross and monster truck related stuff.

Look at identity theft.

That is amazing. Yeah, it's all green.

It is 100 percent Gravedigger. It's the same colors. It's actually the same body style.

I love the fact that it's actually acknowledging the fact that it's sort of stealing the identity of Gravedigger. But what if we like Gravedigger? If you really stop to think about it, such a dark name. It's so dark. What if we gave these trucks a nice surnames like Caregiver? What if I drove Caregiver?

Do you want to know the backstory on Grave Digger? The guy, Dennis Anderson, who started Grave Digger, he used to do this thing called Mud Boggin down there on the outer banks of North Carolina. And he had this old kind of panel van truck thing that he would put these big tractor tires on because it would get better grip in the mud. and so he that was where he started putting these bigger and bigger tires on this thing for these like mud racing thing they would do and he apparently used to say like to the other competitors i'm gonna dig your grave i'm gonna dig your grave with my truck and that became

still very aggressive it's still very aggressive yeah and said i'm gonna i'm gonna give you care

identity theft the ride is a 1952 chevrolet panel van truck owned by straight up racing It's the truck counterpart Identity theft Both Resemble grave digger I just love that They were like We don't have a grave digger For this tour But we can make one That looks like And we're going to call it Identity theft That is just And this is tomorrow It's I've only seen A thousand billboards For it And I don't actually remember Listeners you're buying me One more night

At the comfort end Maybe I should cancel My flight back And just stay for the Bee party And go to this Just to go to Kitsap County Fairgrounds

And watch identity Bees Bees when when do you think if ever we'll stop saying that like i mean is that like frigiator that was for the rest of time if somebody says the words beads or bees we're going to be saying that veves

and i have been doing that for a long time because i was from a rest of development and but the thing is one of i know this sounds bananas but one of the first gifs i remember that like i fell in love with was that scene and it was didn't even have audio attached it just had the yellow letters it was an animated gif of her saying of um bluth what's her name what's the daughter's Why am I always thinking of it? Oh, not Lucille.

Portia?

I kind of feel better than you guys. Well, her real name is Portia. Oh, that's right. Lindsay, yeah. Lindsay's saying beads and Job's. I just picture Job. Isn't he like in his robe, like a brown robe on the couch, just like being a total layabout and just being bees? Anyway.

I never understood the majesty of that clip until this week. Like, I knew you liked it. Yeah. But like, it's now become part of my mitochondria as well.

It's so perfect. Well, this has been a really, really fun week. It has.

I want to just say, by the way, a big thanks, Andrew, to you. Since this is the... Oh, I'm getting the business pad again. This is the Andrew back padding episode of the Thon. I want to say really, really good job with all the tech. Thanks for making this work, John. Amazing work, my friend. Thank you for just sweating so many details and making it so that the... I mean, it was established earlier in the week that you're doing a better job than the Minnesota Public Television Network.

That's right.

a caller said that and they've got hundreds of employees and they don't make them stay at the comfort inn in kelso washington so you're doing a great job thanks man i really appreciate it and mostly thanks to all of you out there if you're hearing this as the podcast or if you're watching this right now on the um on the live stream thank you very very much for um your kind of continued support of this thing whether it's um financially uh whether it's just you know being on the stream and commenting with other people, whether it's giving somebody a ride from the airport because you met them through the Stens page or sending somebody a Christmas card or telling somebody that you care about them when they're going through a health crisis. This community of people is really, really remarkable, and that's what makes TBTL work. Otherwise, it's just three guys wearing raglan shirts in a converted garage. Yeah, we really wish it was. Without all of you, this becomes actually a diagnosable mental illness if we don't have you out there So thank you if again, if you've been considering I saw some people in the stream saying they were donating for the first time ever in 10 years. If you've been considering supporting the show and and you're getting very, very close to doing so, go ahead and come on over to the sunny side of the street and go to tbtl.net and and help us out. We've got lots of great thank you gifts. And we just like I said, we just want to keep doing this for our job. And it looks like we're going to be able to do that. So thank you very much from the bottom of our hearts. all right that's gonna do it we'll be back here on monday with more imaginary radio in the meantime have a great weekend take care of yourselves go mariners and please remember no mountain too tall

and good luck to all to oh andrew will you talk and remind me of gary and it's freaking me out oh andrew you remind me so much that it's scary and you're walking away oh gary power out

I'm going to go ahead.