Muse

Okay. This is Carolyn from Encinitas again. I'm sorry to bother you. I just called a few minutes ago, but then I just started today's episode and Andrew leads off with how do you spell Albuquerque? And I was born in Albuquerque. So my dad made sure we knew how to spell it when we were very, very small. A-L-B-U-Q-U-E-R-Q-U-E. Anyway, I should have tripled my donation. you all just speak to me keep going thank you bye okay t-bone time for some serious crunching what happened he was telling me how he's the jesse james of rock and roll and then right in the middle of a sentence bunk a coconut fell on

his head terry poo terry poo terry poo terry poo terry poo terry poo terry poo that's our second Arby's in town. Some say it's better. The fries are curlier. Though, I wouldn't know it. I'm loyal

to the original. I like not having fun. I like your idea of fun. I mean, our idea of fun. I like

not having that. My door is always open, except when it's closed. But you can open it when it's closed. Are you even listening to our story? Yes. Well, listen to this. We have a story to tell. So

listen and write it down. All right. Hello. Good morning and welcome everyone to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Are you sure? That's what they said on Ask Jeeves. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Everything you're about to see is my real voice. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia. You know, we do this show five days a week and the number one question that we get uh when the topic comes up is what do you talk about like how do you do that five days a week just you and your compadre just chopping it up and um there are you know some weekends that provide us with a lot to talk about then there are you know other weekends like this one that we just went through totally dead just a news desert just absolutely nothing of note going on at all over the last day or two for us to talk about here on a monday show well what did everybody say so i guess we'll just focus on my immediate life which is that i am still the caretaker for gigi the standard poodle she is here she is uh i guess you could say helping me out in her own special way which is to just stare at me from just across the room, but that helps.

I'll say, what's up, dog?

I'll put a little pep in my step here as we arrive at episode 4,254 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. Oh, this is going to put pep in everyone's step. We have an announcement today about TBTL Live in Philadelphia, Saturday, September the 28th. You want showmanship? You got it. You do not want to miss this. I mean, you don't want to miss the event. But you don't want to miss the announcement about the event, which is going to happen in like 10 minutes. And by that, I mean possibly an hour from now. It depends on what conversational rat holes I end up in with this guy, the longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. You know he is coming in hot on a Monday morning. He's basically... Straight gas homie! He is fired up for this. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

I'm fired up now, now that we were able to have, like, a, what, a half-hour pre-show meeting. I rolled in. I told you, I didn't realize the degree to which I was having a case of the Mondays until we talked for a while.

You have a lot going on this week. Yeah. I mean, honestly, like, you've got a hectic week, and I would understand why it would all feel a little bit overwhelming.

I like to say, is it too dramatic to say I'm going under the knife?

No, because it's literally what you're doing.

Yeah, but I mean, it's sort of, you know, I'm going in for a very routine procedure. It is going to jack up the rest of my week. I'm going in super early on Wednesday. I got to get there at 645 in the morning, Luke. That's the scariest part of this whole thing is waking up at 645 and they're going to do this carpal tunnel surgery on both of my wrists. So I'm kind of in this mode of trying to figure out everything I need to get done that I will need my hands for. In other words, I'm trying to think of like all the emails I might need to send this week and can I get them all sent before Wednesday at 6.45 a.m. and then tell everybody, don't expect any emails from me after that. Will people accept voice memos? Can I send professional voice memos the rest of the week if I need to communicate with people?

You absolutely can, but how will you even be able to activate the one button for that happening?

I can't quite picture. I don't know, man. I mean, I guess we'll find out one way or the other on Thursday. We're putting you down as a TBD on Thursday.

On Thursday. I think I'll be able to join you on Thursday. My plan is to have all of the little intro packages, the little montages that we play at the beginning of the show. I'm planning on having those all picked out for the rest of the week. Like I think I told you earlier, my plan is, so the surgery is on Wednesday. I'll have all of Wednesday afternoon and evening to sort of get used to the new reality. I will have bandages around my hands, Luke, but I don't know if I told you this. The bandages are going to go to about the base of my fingers and the base of my thumb. So I should have my little thingy doos.

I'm just worried about pain in the moving of your fingers. Can you set up a Rube Goldberg machine between now and the surgery, Pee Wee Herman breakfast style?

I like where you're going with this.

What this machine makes is a podcast. What it does is something presses down on a record button on Riverside. and this is something else turns on whatever audio channel like my voice comes through can you can you automate this in some way that's uh both uh fun and cartoonish and effective and at some

point can i shake a box of mr t cereal and say i pity the fool who don't eat my cereal a la peewee's big adventure that's my favorite that's my favorite can you do i mean that's

because here's what i'm concerned about uh for thursday is even if you have as much of the show pre-set up as possible i guess i don't know what do they tell you about even the functionality of let's say your index finger can you press something down with it or will that cause pain i just don't want you to be i know you're commonly in emotional pain while doing the show but i would like it to

not also be physical pain well we'll see i mean also i'm guessing i'm gonna have painkillers so that raises the question like if these things are gonna make me loopy at all do i feel comfortable doing the show loopy believe it or not as as much no seriously they've got you on those blues yeah that's one got you off those perks i'm not somebody who likes to do the show anything but sober you know what i mean like i feel like way back in the day there before i was part of the show when you guys were live on the radio there's more of a party atmosphere surrounding it and i've as much as i love imbibing and you know me personally i should i like it as my doctor would say quote too much um i don't like being professional you know what i mean like drinking

or doing it's not a fun feeling to be a little bit not totally in control of yourself but then also saying things into a microphone for thousands of people exactly because i harbor some seriously

dark thoughts that i am constantly working at suppressing when the mic is open okay so here's the thing and i've been yeah wondering whether or not to tell you about this but you know we're talking about whether or not i'll be able to function enough to do the show i think i will if i wake up on thursday morning or go to bed on wednesday night and i'm having um concerns about that i will you know text you or i will have my assistant to let you know that you're gonna john

and i absolutely have it covered i really don't want there to be the added stress in your life of like oh no am i going to be able to do the show if you can't do the show it's totally fine we will totally handle maybe i'll have ryan seacrest co-hosted that's who i'll be talking to on thursday after our show never get my job back that guy needs one more job yeah right

exactly me and say jack in the corner um i i'd listen to that i uh so here's the deal and this is i'm gonna i'm gonna this is things are about to get real real with you here at the beginning of the show since we don't have any world news to talk about you're throwing your hat in the ring for the new veep stakes no i'm i'm going for the nomination oh yeah i mean it's not a done deal I will, I will, what did she say? I will. I will earn and win. Earn and win, yeah. Okay, so here's the deal. When I was talking to my father a few weeks ago about my carpal tunnel. Who has had this surgery. He has had this surgery in one of his hands. When I said, yeah, it looks like I'm going to be going under the knife, daddy-o, is how I said it to him. And he said, please, I will. I've asked you so many times to not call me daddy-o. I will disown you if you ever say.

Father, please show me the respect that I deserve.

He said, well, you're not going to get them done at the same time. I'm like, yeah, I'm like, I don't know. I haven't talked to the doctor yet. I don't know if that's a possibility. He's like, well, you know, and my dad is not a man who exaggerates these things. You know, like he also had the same like kind of tests where they put needles and electricity through his nerves. He's like, you know, it wasn't painful, but it wasn't great. And that's how I guess I would describe it as well. And he said the recovery from the surgery, as I've heard from other people, is like, it's great. Like you almost immediately start feeling feeling in your fingers again and you gain especially once the bandages and then the stitches are out. But when I mentioned to my dad, well, I'm thinking about, you know, maybe they can get them done on the same day. Dad's like, no, I mean, how are you going to go to the bathroom? Yeah. Did we already talk about this or you just, you know, but I mean, it's, I think it's the thought that's on the minds of every American who's listening to this. It's the number one story trending right now at NYT.com.

The number one thing on Americans minds today is how is Andrew going to TCB?

When you hear that, listen, ever since Alicia Arneson broke both wrists doing the presidential fitness shuttle run when I was in middle school, and she showed up at school with Cass on both wrists, the question has remained in my mind. When something like that happens, what are the bathroom implications? Because it seems like you need one of them to be operating semi-normally for this to be okay.

Yeah, I'm worried. So, again, my fingers and thumbs will be mobile. They should be sticking out of the bandage. The actual cut, I don't know if I told you this, Luke, the actual cut happens above the wrist, kind of in the middle of the hand above the wrist.

Oh, I had always pictured this being kind of like right on your wrist somehow.

Me too. That's how I pictured it as well. But I've been looking at photos of it and then turning away from the photos as my head starts to swim. I'm looking back at the photos. Honestly, the thing I'm most nervous about, aside from bathroom issues, is them taking the stitches out in a few weeks, because they don't put you under for that. And my dad said that the person, and this is not going to happen to me, I'm sure, but my dad said that when they went to take the stitches out of his hand, I don't know if it was a nurse or, yeah, it must have been a nurse. she had such a hard time getting started that at one point she asked my stepmom who apparently was in the room with them to hold my stepmom to hold her phone with the flashlight oh sure over she's like i just can't get it so apparently my dad's being poked and prodded while they're trying to take out the stitches while his wife is holding her iphone with a flashlight on so the nurse can see the stitches better that sounds like a nightmare situation this is truly the greatest

country on god's green earth as our friend michael medved likes to say i mean a health care system where the standard of care is somebody's wife holding an iphone flash anyway but yeah i am a

little bit um i am worried about mobility i i've been thinking this is and again i don't know how deep you want to get into this and again i think people's brains can fit in or fill in the details but so if i have mobility in my fingers and the thumbs the question is like how much does one's wrist need to bend in order to take care of paperwork when one is done using the bathroom and this is something I've been sort of trying to game out in my head and I've been taking various precautions like putting, well I don't know if we want to get into this or not, but I bought some, upon a listener's suggestion, I bought a package of like those, they're really long plastic gloves that you put on your hand and arm they go all the way up to the shoulder and these are for showering um to keep your hands dry while showering and i already tried putting them on and my hands are too even pre-swelling i mean that sounds like even if you didn't have

surgery like a nightmare of trying to get something over your hand yeah my hands which are already

like kind of just big meaty hands and now are swollen and then will be bandaged i don't i bought a package of them they only came in i was like oh they'll probably come in like a package of 20 or something they came in the number of three like i have two and i guess it's because they think you

have you lose one inside of the horse i guess i was like what what who like why three why is

bull insemination listed anywhere on the amazon page for this because that's what these gloves seem like they seem like some kind of real all creatures great and small situation where you're checking to make sure a foal is developing properly inside in utero in a horse you never

go full city slickers that's what they told me i don't know how well you remember three is a weird that is a weird number though it's because they they're thinking that this that this is for somebody who has had surgery or has an issue with one hand and now you have three showers worth here probably where i'm like oh no i'm gonna use two of them right away and there's an error on the

of these things being, like, comically oversized?

That's what I think.

Like, are you going to do some jewelry work while wearing them later? Like, what would the possible upside of these things being, like, it should just be like a jokey, like, you know those, like, oversized sunglasses, novelty sunglasses? It should be that of gloves.

And they did come with a giant pencil for some reason. I don't know why.

Frankly, it could be a mitt. It doesn't need distinct fingers.

You know, that's the thing. I'm not going to be able to fit my fingers in there at all. And yeah. And again, like they are pretty big. I do have large hands, even in the best of times. And so I will run up against these. And these are the blurst of times. So anyway, I have those things, but I'm almost wondering because they're so big and unwieldy, do I not try to use those in the shower? But are those my.

Are those my safety gloves for bathroom times? That's something I'm considering as well. I have moved a whole – I know. I told you. I'm not sure how deep we want to get into this.

I'm just imagining you with this contraption on your arm trying to reach around. I mean, this is where – my friend, let me get on Amazon and see how fast I can have a Toto bidet at your house.

That's what my buddy was hanging out with my buddies on Friday, and they're just like, you need a bidet. I'm like, I don't want a bidet.

I mean, this is if there was ever a time for it. This is probably the time. although i will say and that you know as a a long long time proponent of the product i would tell people that just error on the side of if you do have a bidet error on the side of caution my process is i a a small a small application of toilet paper as well um and then and like you don't trust the bidet to do all of the cleaning is what i'm trying to say you still need to brush and floss folks you need to thank you that's a perfect analogy like it's because i think when i first got mine uh here i was like oh this is this is amazing i'll i'll never have to use toilet paper again and uh i i think i don't think i got into any overly terrible situations but i learned that what i would do is i would use the bidet first by itself and then i would go back through for a little just triple check pass with the toilet paper and realize oh then there may have still been some residue so yeah definitely belt and suspenders this my friends I just want to tell if you if you've been hitting it with just the bidet and then the dryer and then you're walking around the world just thinking everything is a okay I'm just saying err on the side of caution because you could be things could be a little less ship shape than you're thinking Genevieve's

going to come home from work and she's going to see the garden hose is strung through my studio window just coming through I love it all the way through the basement into the bathroom duct tape

wrapped around some parts where like leaks have sprung and it's just got the now this raises the question which one of the watering settings are we using for the bidet is it shower is it cone it's not full is it yeah oh boy you could have some real repercussions from that is it soaker what are we what are we doing here uh anyway well all that is to say andrew um uh we're i speak for the listeners when i say we're all sending you our very best this week and please please do not put any pressure on yourself to try to be a hero and do the show on thursday or friday i am looking

forward to seeing um all the tens who are showing up the eagles that sunday this will be you know a week from yesterday now we're having our big uh bracelet making party we are at capacity now we're going to be sending out an email to everybody who signed up about details of kind of when and where to show up for this really looking forward to that but this is going to be i believe they said that I must keep the bandages on for four days, and I believe Sunday will be day number four for that. So I also have some reservations. Well, first of all, I mean, the cool thing is I'm not going to be able to set up any tables or anything. I'm just going to be bossing you and John around. I'm just going to be like, boys, I think you want to move that about three-quarters of an inch away from the wall. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. And I'm putting on my kind of supervisor tone there. Foreman. Can I be a foreman? That sounds even kind of tougher. So I'm going to do that. But here's my concern. Again, I was talking to some friends about this, and one of them, actually, I was with my friends when I ordered these. I was at the Fish Sticks game, Luke. I was at the Dub C Fish Sticks game on Friday and watching the game.

I don't want to be I don't want to get there's no reason to go negative here but I will tell you when you mention that I feel like that I was a different human being when I received that text from you about the fish stick was it kind of annoying I thought it was no no no no no no no it wasn't annoying I was in just such a dark place because the Mariners were losing and Joe Biden was digging in and it was Friday night and I was just like I I'm actually this is I think a positive story is the difference in how i feel my emotional state today which i probably might probably the pendulum has swung too far to the other side but just when you mentioned being at the fish sticks game i was thinking of how lost i felt as a person as a person who's a fan of the mariners and democracy how lost i felt on friday night and and how i mean we got one win under our belt okay we'll take it and we've at least got a puncher's chance at saving democracy

Here on Monday morning, yeah, comparing where you are today versus Friday. I just want a difference 47 hours can make. No, but you shouldn't be nice. So here's the deal. So the Fish Sticks are a very small, I guess, collegiate-level baseball team that's relatively new. They're probably like the Pickles. If that, I'm not—I mean, this is a very, very small baseball club.

They've got some of these leagues where the college players play when their college season is done, and they usually stay with families. Yeah. Is that the level that we were—

Yeah, they're playing at literally a high school.

It's where, like, Seattle Prep plays baseball. So, like, they're playing on a high school field. I think the Pickles is a bigger to-do than this. Certainly this is as tiny as you can imagine. But tons of fun. I'm there with our boy Hauser, a.k.a. J-Dog, and my friend Paulie. It's a good time. Used to romp with them. And anyway.

Didn't the Fish Ticks ask us to throw out the first pick?

Yeah, our buddy Brandon. Brandon, I want to say Sparks, is a longtime listener of TBTL, And I believe one of the coordinators and media people for the fish sticks. A couple of times I thought I saw him, but I wasn't sure. And I didn't want to be going up to strangers saying, are you Brandon? The name Brandon has become politicized. Yeah.

I explained let's go Brandon to my mom this weekend.

Damn, that's a show in and of itself, isn't it?

I also love that there were people that didn't know what that meant. Yeah, I know. That's kind of reassuring. It is pretty sweet. A lot of stuff that's not on my parents' radar that actually it's useful for me to remember that most people are not like me walking around just in this constant state of anxiety and also anger towards someone who is, like, flying a Let's Go Brandon flag. Most people are like my mom. They didn't even know what the reference was.

So let's go back, though. I do want to talk about my—because I think you're being a little bit kind here, and I'd actually like an honest—I'd like an honest answer from you for once in your goddamn life, Luke. OK, you know, so the Mariner. So I'm at this Fistix game having a good time with my buds. Right. And and then I know that the Mariners are starting. Let's see. This is Friday. So the Mariners are just beginning the second half of their season with the most important series of the season so far. The team that we are in contention with for first place. And depending how this series goes, we are potentially going to lose our first place spot, which we end up doing. And Friday is game one of a three-game series. I was already pre-mad about it. Like, I didn't even watch the Mariners game. I was kind of following the score a little bit on my phone.

Didn't I tell you that on Friday that the Seattle Times got the exclusive that the Mariners were, quote, fired up? Oh, you know, I had forgotten about that. Mariners, quote, fired up for series against Houston.

What they meant was Ty France was fired. I think you misread that headline Anyway, so I'm having a time And then we have our text chain, right And there's maybe a little bit of mumbling, grumbling Going on in the text chain, although I think the text chain Was relatively quiet I think other than every now and then somebody just being like Trash team or whatever And then I took sort of a Quick overhead shot of the ballpark That I was at, this small little Ballpark, this little field Where the honkers were losing To the, the northwest honkers, Luke we're losing to the great name i know i do love that name and so i sent a i sent that quick photo and i just said well the you know the fish sticks are beating the honkers three to one or whatever it was at the time and i gotta i felt like how i can laugh about it now you can laugh about it at the moment though i was like as soon as i hit send on that i'm like that's not what the boys who are grinding it out watching this awful mariners game need right now and it's like i probably you specifically because you're most sensitive to that stuff but generally speaking i was like that was kind of an asshole text and you can be honest with me you probably were like that's not what i need in my life right now you just sending flippant text messages from uh from

a uh fish sticks game no i listen i i didn't have that thought is the good news i i let me put it this way it didn't make me mad it also didn't make me feel better about the mariners it just it just was kind of a what i recognize it as is exactly the text i would send if i was at the fish sticks game like seriously and like that's kind of the the funny thing about this text chain that you and i have now been on for years with a bunch of our friends is like we're never it's very rare that all like what is it like maybe five people on this text chain or something six people it's extremely rare that all six people are in the exact same kind of state of mind slash watching the game with the same amount of interest i mean you know if it's the super bowl or something and the seahawks are in it there'll be a level of of of kind of unanimity on it but it's we're all coming to this text chain from different places all the time you know what i mean and i just recognize that sometimes like if i had been some if i'd been at a dog park with gigi i would have been like update uh the dog park and kelso is doing fine you know what i mean like

you say gigi's been working on her swing in the off season yeah she's retooling she's she's fired

up she's absolutely fired up to go on this walk around Lake Sacagawea so I didn't it really didn't bum me out it didn't add to my frustration it also didn't add to my mirth it was just kind of it was kind of a thing that I recognized for exactly what it was which was like you were at the fish sticks game it was and and at least the scene was okay there so it really didn't

it didn't seem tone deaf to me okay that's good I didn't you know you don't want to you don't want to poke a bear and at this point like everybody was the bear because we're watching and I'm not But see, that's the thing.

And I am the leading cult. culprit of this in our text chain although I would like to say I think that we have eight on that

text here I just did a little math by the way eight people that's pretty big I would like to say

that I do think and I don't think anyone is really tracking this but I I have definitely tried to reduce my level of acrimony acrimony towards other people in the text chain this year like I'm get real down on the mariners but I'm trying to not get real down on any of our friends who might be contributing even if you know there are times again we have a specific friend who for some reason when they go low i go lower and i don't know why that's the reaction i get and there been a couple times where it's like they put in something really negative and i kind of want to a little bit be like for some reason i want to be my aggression turns towards them instead of scott service or jerry depoto i've really tried to what i'm trying to say to you andrew is i don't want our text chain to be a place where when you send a text about the fish sticks you're thinking is luke mad at me or you know i just don't that's not fun energy in there and that's not like i want this to be something that is fun for all of us and adds to our enjoyment not takes away from it or makes us feel nervous or makes us feel like we're doing it wrong and to the degree that i've contributed to that culture i apologize i'm really trying to not do that anymore well i

was also trying to figure out how i would react to that if i was at home and i was like watching the game you know i've got it dialed up on some gray website or some gray market website or whatever and I got it plugged into my TV in the base. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm reading a picture when I'm like fully engaged in a game and it's killing me, Smalls, you know, and you're like, and then if one of you guys were to, so it's not just you. It's also like, I don't know, just being that person who's just, you know, and again, this kind of goes back to your story, I guess, but you just don't want to be that person who, when the Seahawks lose the Super Bowl in a terrible way, just say around say why is everybody so sad you know you just don't want to be that person in the that gal lives in infamy in my mind and clearly mine as well so anyway that well i i mean part

of why i can be so magnanimous here today is because i do like a lot of people uh of certain political persuasions i i did get a shot of hope anyway yesterday uh fired up becca and i were driving and she let out a a noise that i thought could only i mean i didn't even know what i didn't know what was happening but it was it was like oh my gosh and i thought did i just like blow through a red light what's going on here um and uh and it was of course the news coming through from the new york times that joe biden was stepping down um that i mean i i don't we don't have a lot of like sort of political insight to add to it but what i can tell you is that the way that i felt upon hearing that was i would just describe it as euphoria it felt euphoric to me it felt like i had taken some kind of drug for the like rest of the day like we took gigi on a walk over kind of in like the beaverton area and it was like my feet didn't hit the ground i was just like wait so you're saying there's a chance like again the whatever the x's and o's are politically in terms of you know where harris polls against uh you know trump and stuff like that i don't i don't have any insight on all that but i can tell you that my emotional state changed so drastically yesterday and i'm and i'm immediately like in the car put on msnbc like

on sirius satellite radio that's what i usually listen on yep and i just started playing it

through my stereo because i was like it's gonna take npr a minute i know you've heard of the show it's been a minute well i was like we'll see actually npr you know they got on it faster than normal i think that would maybe an hour or two an hour and a half in they had like special coverage

going it really did take them that long that's funny i will say last weekend with the assassination

stuff they were on it immediately which is almost a harder story to cover yeah in the breaking news format because you don't there's just so little that you can really say whereas this thing okay you have to shift into talking about it but we've all been speculating on it forever so there's already a lot of sort of pre-programmed content right on this question of if it'll be harris what the process is etc like somebody took a shot at donald trump somewhere it's just like i mean that's just out of the blue yeah totally totally out of the blue i i would like andrew to say one thing about the television coverage um uh and the media coverage of this really it's not as much a tv story as it is a media story because i i was toggling between npr once they shifted into the coverage npr and then msnbc and um i was i was struck by a couple of things first of all even though it's 2024 even though we have uh unmanned robot drones that will deliver your food from DoorDash or whatever. We still live in

in a world where when news like this breaks, the first like five guests any network gets on are just terrible. Like it's just always the most random, it was like a person who would pick up their phone and then tread water on the air with us, which is fine. That's just part of the process. I was just struck by it because I would listen to the radio until they put someone on who I thought doesn't have a whole lot to add to the conversation. And then I would switch over to TV and I would just kind of go back and forth. The big thing that I will teach at my broadcast college that I'm gonna found, Andrew, is the whole premise of my school will be telling producers, please, please, please never ever talk into the earpiece of the person who is trying to broadcast live, particularly on television. Because unless you have been in this situation, you would never understand how unbelievably jarring it is to be talking and then hear words in your ear. In fact, it stops you from talking. It is impossible. Like, someone should go on AGT and win it. America's Got Talent. Their talent being, I can keep talking and treading water here while someone is saying things into my ears. You can read things on your computer screen and keep talking. You could be handed a note and keep talking. The thing human beings cannot do is hear something in their ear and keep talking. and i'm telling you that afternoon on msnbc was a it was just a comedy of errors of producers like breathlessly saying things into people's so like and by the way everybody did a fine job whatever but like so katie turr was in the hot seat i like katie turr a lot but katie turr is talking and is has just asked david pluff a question david pluff who's like important obama you know campaign person and maybe obama administration person maybe just campaign i I don't know, but I'm always interested in what David Plouffe has to say. So she asked David Plouffe a question. He starts talking. I was also excited because they had finally lined up some of the people that I think generally have some insight, you know? They weren't just like randos on a cell phone somewhere. It's like, wow, you couldn't get to Zoom, okay. So she asked Plouffe, and Plouffe just starts talking about something, and I'm really intrigued. And she goes, David, David, I'm so sorry. I have to stop you right now. Going to Craig Melvin right now. We have NBC's Craig Melvin. and it's on the phone you hear hello and then uh hi craig hi there oh oh you're a guest oh you're a guest you're a guest uh yeah oh i i thought uh okay they were telling me something in my ear and i um what do you have and then and then i mean i guess he had something that was kind of useful which was like he was breaking the news that cliburn jim cliburn of south carolina was going to endorse kamala harris but there were just and again i'm not i want to be very clear i'm not saying i would have been better at any of this everybody on the air were total professionals but i was there was like at least three or four times where somebody was on air talking and then

they just stopped so abruptly and were so confused because somebody had just said something into their ear when i was like this could have been an email like i don't know how it is that we're not just handing people notes or there isn't a dedicated screen like a computer screen where the information goes craig melvin waiting to tell you about cliburn endorsement line three i don't

know i mean i just i think everybody is so fired up you you're totally right but yeah i heard

adrenalinism is core adrenaline adrenaline adrenaline is coursing through everyone's veins

i was listening to a lot of msnbc too and i'm thinking of like one particular moment where rachel maddow was going to toss to break she's like okay and she just had announced like i don't know maybe a couple more congress people this is like pretty far into the coverage at this point and she's like announcing a couple more maybe groups or maybe congress people are endorsing kamala and then she's like okay we're gonna go to a break and when we come back and oh okay i guess we're not going to we're not going to a break i guess we have some more news to share and then the news to share was just like it was like one more endorsement from somebody it wasn't it was not that important and then she gets it out there and you can just tell she's confused like why did you stop my flow going into a break to announce this thing that we could have come back and said it was just like at this point it was a rolling snowball of endorsements like it was not some huge breaking thing it was another like i don't know it wasn't a state legislator but still

you're but you're totally right and i would probably have reacted the same way if i was in the control room i'm one of the producers and i'm just like vibrating at 11 because this is just such a crazy news story and you want to be you want to be the network that's getting these things happening first and so you're just like every little new thing of information feels like we got to get this on the air ASAP but also you have probably not been in the position of trying to talk into a camera while someone's talking into your ear so I mean and it happens in talk radio too luckily no one's really looking at us at least in the olden days but I

i just like i that's just one of the weirdest sensations and i just kept noticing it happening yesterday i just kept thinking like i got at one point like i was in my head thinking if i was one of the on-air hosts and i'm just making a point or talking or transitioning to something and somebody starts talking into my ear about something that we could have dealt with after the break how would i have then reacted would i be that person that goes into the control room and is like never ever or would i see it for what it was which was just like everyone's excited we're all trying to do our job you know like i was i was almost like i was trying to game out how i would respond if i had to go through those moments on national television like would i be a total diva and just like screaming at people and creating a hostile work environment would i just be like eh it doesn't matter like i don't know what my reaction would be i i fear maybe a bad one because i respond very poorly to feeling embarrassed even though i do so many things that are embarrassing but i like i i if i feel like super embarrassed and maybe that somebody else contributed to a thing that made me feel really like i was twisting in the wind that does kind of activate some really not particularly gracious part of me so i could see myself just being like the second we go to break getting on the talk back and going i swear to god if anyone ever comes in my ear again with this information when i'm trying to talk on air it will be your job you know like i feel like i could see myself and then it's all captured on tape and then it's on the new york post and then i'm fired it

could be a bad scene so speaking of energy i want to tell you really briefly about my kind of journey with this news yesterday and then a realization i sort of had late in the evening as i was sort of reflecting on the day um first of all i had mentioned to genevieve earlier in the weekend or maybe late last week when my phone buzzed about something I said every time my phone buzzes the only thing I want to see is a news alert from the Washington Post telling me that Biden has has stepped down like that's the everything else whether it's an email a voicemail or something from the New York Times trying to get me to engage with our new podcast like the only push notifications I want something from the post Biden drops out exactly and I was just like kind of lounging around late uh late I guess this news broke pretty late morning or whatever I I was still just sort of laying in bed, and one of those mornings would sort of, like, would get up, but then kind of lay back in bed, just the siren song. Anyway, point is, I was very surprised when—

By the way, that's the worst part about having my dad here. There's a lot of great parts, but, like, I can't pull that shit. Yeah, right. Like, he wouldn't care, but it's unseemly for him to have to keep coming upstairs going, are you sleeping again? Little Lord Fauntleroy. Yeah, like, come on. Yeah, like, he doesn't come from the school of, like, we got up, but then we decided to go back to bed for a period of time.

There's this line in the TV show, the, oh my goodness, I started this sentence knowing what I was going to say.

The Simpsons.

It's called The Simpsons. No. Goodness gracious, it's the Americans, where, you know, you have, you have. They're undercover spies. Yes, exactly. They're Russian spies who are living a very American life, but the woman in the family. Kerry Russell. Thank you. Exactly. It's been a while since I've seen it, so I'm blanking on all the characters' names. I also feel under pressure right now anyway you know like to see her you just assume that she's just another suburban American woman in the 80s or whatever um but you know when you see her just talking to her husband she's the one who really truly still believes in the um you know in the everything that they've been fed as far as kind of the Russian outlook on things you know from work ethic to everything else and at one point like the the the um husband says you know I got to go spend time with this woman i'm having an affair with because i'm leading her on and she's you know like he's doing spy work with this woman and he said something like you know she just wants to have a lazy sunday and carrie russell looks at him it's like my favorite line from the whole thing she just looks at him quizzically and says a lazy sunday like those words do not even make sense to her and i will say that to each other all the time like when we're like doing exactly what we did yesterday just like you know kind of getting up having a cup of coffee laying back down is having a lazy Sunday. The idea that in some cultures, that is such an American privilege to have a... What is a lazy Sunday? What a terrible aside. If I had been able to remember anybody's names or the name of the show I was talking about, that would have been awesome. We got there.

We got there. So you're having a lazy Sunday.

Yes. Boy, I was going to try to make this quick. I was just surprised when I got a push notification, and it wasn't from the Washington Post, and it wasn't from the New York Times or even the Seattle Times. It was from TuneIn Radio, which is where i listen to like a lot of like if i'm listening to i use that see you know like if i need to listen to the seattle sports station but i'm on my phone i'm not near an actual radio i'll listen to that i just listen to various radio stations on it including an msnbc audio only feed sometimes and for some reason it was tune in radio that I brought it back.

Broke the news to me. What a weird way to get it. It was such a weird thing.

So anyway. It was Lumens, the people have been buying outdoor sconces from. Use the promo code Kamala for 15% off right now.

So I tell Veeves, and we're like, oh, wow, that's great. And now we're just kind of very thirsty for more information. Like, what happens next? What is the process? Blah, blah, blah. Like you say, MSNBC, they had this. I think Jen, how do you say her last name? Saki. Saki. I love her, by the way. But I don't you know, her background is not in breaking news stuff, obviously. And so I think it was during her shift. And I think they kind of slowly shifted her out of there to put more breaking news people in the host chair while this was happening. And so MSNBC was a little bit more looking back on Biden and right, fed him the way that everybody promised we would if he stepped down and everything. But I was just like, what's next? What's next? And then the Kamala news comes out and then I kind of go about my day. And then later on, I come home maybe around four o'clock, five o'clock in the afternoon. I start making start preparing dinner. And now I'm like listening just to constant MSNBC. The news cycle is much more exciting now. There's like, you know, Kamala's front and center. She's gathering all this momentum as far as like it sounds like the party is unifying. And all of a sudden, like, I don't know, maybe about an hour after doing that, I realized I'm psyched. Like, I don't know when the switch happened. And I think it's sometimes it takes a while for me to process things. And while I had been waiting for a long time, like I knew this is what the party needs to do. And this gives us the best hope of defeating Donald Trump. I still kind of had a lot of questions. How is this going to shape up? Whatever. And then as the shape of the story started to really firm up and like where we are on Sunday evening, West Coast time, I'm suddenly and then Genevieve got home from she was at the Mariners game. She got home from the ball game. And I just I was like, Vives, I can't remember last time I was like kind of this excited, Like in a certain way, I was so grumpy that it took Biden so long to get out of the race. But I was like, in a certain way, if we had gone through a regular like kind of primary process and Kamala had been chosen a long time ago, like the blue might be a little bit off the rose now. Not that I wouldn't vote for her, but in a certain way, I feel like we all feel like we just had a near miss experience sort of or a near death experience or something like that or a near miss. And like, because of that, I'm especially excited. And I was just like, I realized like the rest of the day, I'm just like, I am so excited where this is going. I am fired up. I'm excited to go to the, go to the polling place, or I guess I do it by mail these days. But then, and this is where I want to come back to the energy around all of this. Late last night, I was taking a, I was taking a late shower, trying to enjoy them before they go away from me for a few days. It was a lazy Sunday. And I was just reflecting, and this might sound really corny, but all of a sudden I I realized that, like, at a certain moment, Joe Biden, who I've had some frustrations with but I think has been an amazing president for four years, he has had a certain energy around him for four years, obviously, but also a campaign energy around him for a couple of years now that has gotten more and more heightened and then more and more fraught.

but then the moment he finally made his two announcements about stepping down and then endorsing Kamala things must have gotten so quiet for him in a way that must have felt unearthly in a way not that he's he's still president of the United States he's still got a lot of responsibilities he still has a lot of things to do in order to like kind of you know continue this handoff but all of the all of the focus kind of came off of him it was on him for a bright moment in the first hours of the story breaking but now everybody is just like we need to surround kamala and get her into the oval office and i just wondered what that wonder what his evening was like once things sort of died down if he felt like a vacuum that's such a great

question i was just thinking about who hit publish on the tweet yeah like and was it the story goes that he brought people in and at like i think it might have been 145 east coast or something he told some of the people in his real inner circle and then at like 146 that was when the announcement went out and that was intentional like he really wanted everyone to hear it from him he didn't want it to leak in some way so it was like but just like what was that 60 seconds like between you know and and and and just yeah that feeling of the it must he must have felt every single emotion you can feel you know what i mean like despair because the dream is really over of him having a second presidency um relief because he doesn't have to try to beat donald trump or he doesn't have to keep this trying to roll this rock up this hill he doesn't have to do another debate and be you know like he must have just had every single feeling that you could have you know yeah and i will definitely say though that like

you know, I, I think it's okay for me to share this, but like, you know, Becca got emotional in the car when we started just like reading this news headline. Uh, we got it from Jimmy Johns, by the way,

that was the push notification. Um, well they're very fast. Yeah.

Presidential news so fast you'll freak, but like she got really emotional, she got emotional, not really emotional, but I totally understood that. I think I felt it a bit. I noticed that Van Jones, the political commentator was really choked up about this on cnn talking about it and i totally understand that because it it's just amazing how my conception of this person changed so dramatically and in such a it went from being like man you are about to really mess this up for like the future of the country to being like that's one of the most selfless things i've ever seen anyone do in terms of at least politics right and it's just i don't know i don't know another time where somebody has gone from me imagining them one sort of way to an immediate 180 degree turn in my conception of them you know like so that was kind of that was also a i guess an interesting experience um from from our kind of from my side of it i guess or whatever i'm sure a lot of people kind of felt the same way so i did also like you said andrew like what happened with you i went from person who's been having a hard time interacting with this content to i literally if i could just be like if i could be in a war room if i could be down on like a trading floor where there's just a hundred screens with information about this and i'm also just like listening to a speaker and i'm yelling bye to somebody and sell and i'm doing hand signals if i could have if i could be somehow absorbing this information through every possible part of my of my brain and body i would like i was and i woke up this morning with like a pep in my step because i was i keep using that phrase but maybe that's because that's how i'm feeling i was like oh i don't have to avoid listening to the daily today like all of the news around this doesn't have to make me sad when i knew things were changing for me and hopefully for this country andrew was when last night i saw charlie xcx calling kamala harris a brat that was a big

that was a big mood man because like did they make the album did they with the font the green

the green field and the brat i i believe she did i mean i think charlie xcx is the one who's who's

named it brat summer right yeah i think she has a song that's her album right and isn't there a meme and everybody's punching like their own little like kind of version of that uh anyway i'll look up the kamala brat and i'll make it a show pick i mean it was and then like again this

is the most anecdotal this is the most anecdotal rabbit hole of a way for me to think that there might be some shift in the electorate because i don't know if any of these folks are like gonna vote or are even in the u.s or whatever but the amount of energy that was just of kamala harris queen energy that was just happening on tiktok that never existed for biden like not even in his first time out like i think listen you know he's a guy's given his life to the to the public service of america and again i think he did a very heroic thing yesterday but like biden was always kind of like well he's better than the alternative i did there was and then every once in a while he'd have the aviators on and someone would try to make a thing it was always kind of those those

memes with him and the red eyes i always hated it it never seemed natural right it felt very

astroturf i mean with barack obama there was obviously a genuine level of just like this guy is badass and this guy has abilities that very few people on the planet have that was never the energy around Joe Biden even when you know was four years ago or even you know I mean even at his sort of height it was just like people were relieved that it meant Donald Trump wasn't gonna be president again I'm feeling like this something is coalescing around Kamala right now that is an excitement that has not maybe ever existed in the Biden administration and and again just because of the this is where I'm trying to get into the X's and O's, which I don't have any special knowledge of, but I just, it, it feels like this auspicious moment for her where, like you said, if she would have run in an open primary, I don't know if she even gets the nomination. You know, she didn't, when she ran for president, she didn't have a particularly successful campaign, but here she is at this moment, a person who's just manifestly younger and more vigorous, a person who was a prosecutor in California, which was kind of bad for her as a candidate, but now good for her in terms of where we are kind of, a lot of people are and sort of conceptually like if they try to say she's some woke left-wing liberal she can be like you know i also was a prosecutor i also you know did a lot you know which again you can we could talk about the justice system on another day but i just feel like she it feels like this moment has come together in this way that was not you would have never scripted this way it would never been expected but it feels auspicious in this weird way that i just And... I have very, very optimistic feelings about what the future of this country could look like based on the last 24 hours.

Yeah. And, you know, I was never not going to vote for Biden. I was distraught after the like a lot of people after the debate. And I just couldn't I literally could not believe what I was seeing during the debate. I think I didn't get a lot of emails on this, but I did get one email from one listener, you know, after talking about the debate performance and how frustrated and disappointed I was in Biden to still be running. And somebody saying, hey, basically, I mean, they didn't put it this way, but essentially like this idea of like, hey, toe the line. You're talking into a microphone. Don't make it sound like you're holding your nose here. Like we need to rally around the candidate because democracy is at stake. And I understand that. And I understand that. I understand the stakes of this election and how important it is. I was never not going to vote for Biden. I was never going to tell anybody not to vote for Biden or to, you know what I mean? Like, of course, it's important. But I've heard from other people who are still like, ah, this isn't going to make a big difference. Like those who are going to vote for Biden are now going to vote for Harris. It's not going to move any needles. And I just could not disagree with that more because their campaigns are also about energy and and, you know, propulsion and momentum, maybe maybe even Joe meant. um but like there is an i am now not just going to sort of like stubbornly vote for biden and basically against trump i am now going out and voting for kamala harris like i am yeah fired up and like and that and that i'm not somebody who like kind of wears his politics i mean i talk about my politics and my views but i'm not like somebody who's like puts campaign posters in my yard or bumper stickers or whatever but there are people like that and there might be people who like wouldn't engage that much with the Biden because like well I'm going to vote for Biden but I'm not especially excited about it but when you have people who are just like oh my god I can see a future where I am excited to have Kamala Harris in the Oval Office and that is where I am right now like the idea of that like excites me the idea of Biden raspily you know being sworn in for a second term and wondering if he's going to tip over on the dais. And again, I'm not trying to be ageist or whatever, but like he was not he was not in a condition that I felt good about him, you know, serving another four whole years. And like now I am so fired up about this. I just don't think you can say, eh, the same people who are going to vote for Biden, we're going to vote

for Harris. I think this is a huge, huge deal. I do, too. I mean, I think enthusiasm goes a long way in a campaign because i mean turning people out getting people to actually go stand in line at the polls or to mail in their thing or whatever knock on turn out is very much an enthusiasm question in my opinion and yes like uh our friend chris hayes always points out and he's totally right that like listen because of the polarization of our country if you take any person and you literally anyone and you just make them the republican or the democrat candidate right now they just wake up with 42 percent of the vote because that's just what happens and because they have a d or an r after their name and then the real work becomes that you know those persuadable voters those those swing states and those places like that i just think the enthusiasm jolt from this and also i mean look the thing that kamala harris has been the most out front on is the question of of abortion in this country and that's the worst issue for the republicans like that's the one where they are very out of step with the national mood like it's not overturning jobs is a very unpopular decision politically and so i feel like she's well situated to talk about that i just i just kind of feel like what we're gonna see is the more first of all the earned media this is getting is just off the charts like the amount of just free coverage they're getting it's all anyone's going to talk about for the next two or three weeks and i think the more that kamala harris is in the public eye and the more that she kind of shows herself to be what i think is a very capable person i think and and the more that trump then tries to because the one of the things that's weird about trump's whole like popularity is the more he is in front of people the less popular he is like trump benefits from being kind of out of the conversation because then people forget how unhinged he can be and then they kind of they so the more that he is out in the world the historically the worst that is for his ratings and i think the more that people get to see kamala harris being competent and strong and and somebody that we can imagine as a leader i just i feel like that you know the idea that they're like saying she's still losing in a lot of these places or you know that's because the poll was would this vice president who's not even running for president would you vote for them or would you vote for Donald Trump like I don't even think that was a very accurate measure of how people feel like let's run those numbers again in a week when she's officially the candidate and I would be really interested to see what that looks like my guess is I just I just think it has to move the needle more than the very dour political knowers would say but then again you know i'm just a humble fish sticks fan over here shooting from the hip on paul i mean i don't know how any of this stuff works but but uh but i my personal level of enthusiasm is quite increased yes friday i mine

too and i think we're going to see a lot more people sort of um motivated by this i think we're going to just see a lot more energy around and i'm very excited and you're right like everything he said about the polling i'm obviously no expert on this either you know i mean i did think i i think i saw one corner heard one kornacki segment on this which is interesting to just to listen to a kornacki segment they're very visual in their nature yeah does it does it play the same if you don't see the khakis i was the excitement i was just uh i was just like making dinner and just sort of like listening to an endless msnbc stream but um you know he said like basically if you look at the biden polling numbers and the harris polling numbers like there's not that much of a difference harris you know slightly slightly better but probably within the margin of errors but he's like but this is where she's starting from or somebody said that like yeah but this is where she's starting from she has not been campaigning for kamala harris like we she's been campaigning for the president you know for for biden so anyway i'm yeah i don't want just keep repeating myself but um i'm just i think so excited and i think she can win and we're going

to do everything we can to to make that happen i the last thing i'll say is i just think that And maybe there is some poll that quantifies this And I just haven't seen it But I think what is difficult to quantify Is the number of people Who were very unenthusiastic About both candidates And what this does What the idea of an alternative To these two octogenarians What that looks like For a bunch You know what I mean I just don't think that that can be overstated How big of a difference that is And how many people were just really like uh either one of these things again and now there's like oh but but you're saying that there's like you're saying there's an alternative for that there's somebody who's a who's much younger and by the way is a woman and now there's going to be the sexists out there i guess who that kind of maybe is a disincentive certainly we live in still a very sexist country by the way it's interesting when i talked and racist and both yeah it's like it's like which one are we more that's an open question are we more sexist or more racist in this country or can it be a tie for both but like yeah i just think that this idea of a of all of a sudden a new entrant who is not either of these people that were both just somebody said the the other day that they were just the only two people that could beat each other or the only two people that each one could maybe actually beat right like because they were kind of locked in this death spiral of like two actually very unpopular candidates if you looked at their approval numbers who were just like it's like which one is going to somehow at the end be slightly more unpopular than the other one and therefore lose like what a what a dreary way to pick the leader of the free world having having

like these deranged conversations about golf matches like fantasy golf like just embarrassing

just absolutely embarrassing i just think it's totally i i think that i think what i hope anyway will be borne out is what a big difference it is to have somebody else in there and and the people who will be persuaded just by that alone just by the fact that this person is is uh you know relatively young and uh and it is not one of these two people that just we just felt like they were sort of forced upon us as a fate accompli and and that's being shaken up now and i just have this

sense that that's going to really change things and and and she still gets and she gets still the benefit of campaigning on a very successful four years and and the record of the Biden administration because that was the best thing Biden had going for him as a candidate this time was his record right and she gets to claim some responsibility for that record as well now what do you think of my you know this show is nothing if it's not hot take central and you told me I should start like kind of heating up my hot takes a little bit earlier in the show and I'm sorry to drop this an hour in but what do you think of Kamala picking Joe Biden as her running mate?

he would be one heartbeat away from the president once again all right the other thing that all of America is talking about Andrew it's the stuff going on in politics it's it will you or will you not be able to wipe your tuckus and then the third thing in that order the third trending story right now on Google News is today's announcement about tbtl live in philadelphia saturday september 28th now i have uh had the finest uh artificial intelligent minds create three different possible songs to make this announcement uh i created these while you and i were talking earlier andrew um they are from something called suno.com. Suno for what? I don't know which ones you've used in the past. I don't know if I'm using a good program or not, but I thought, you know, when we make these announcements, it's always kind of nice to have some music, but we've been so worried lately about, you know, getting pulled down from various places. It would be a shame if the episode where we also announced where and when exactly the show will be in Philadelphia on the 28th, it would be a shame if that got pulled down. So can I play these three songs for you? And then can we decide which one we want to play when I make the announcement?

Yes. Okay. So no announcement yet. We're going to choose the announcement.

I'm willing to announce, I'm comfortable announcing that we do have three AI songs for the announcement. Okay, here we go. So first one is Live from Philly, and I guess I asked it to do Hopeful Upbeat Pop about TBTL live in Philadelphia on the 28th. And this is what it came up with. Uh oh, it's like a YouTube tutorial. I don't even know how it knows our names are Luke and Andrew. I didn't put that in. I just said the TBTL podcast coming to Philly September 28th. So it must have gone on the internet and figured out that we are a host of this thing. Yeah, I didn't tell it research Yeah, right more than we do on a usual baby

Underneath the stars above Podcast waves flowing free Like a symphony Real love and feeling tonight Real love, real life Every story, every smile Makes this moment worthwhile Memories etched deep inside With friends' time while spent in stride

Alright, that's kind of Swing and a miss on that one

It's a magical ride

All right, so that's song number one. That's Hopeful Upbeat Pop, Live from Philly.

Did they say something about free-flowing like a symphony? Because honestly, a symphony is very by the book, by the note. I would say jazz is free-flowing, right?

City of brotherly love, underneath, stars above, podcasts, waves, flowing free like a symphony.

Flowing free.

Yeah, I wouldn't say symphonic music is not necessarily free-flowing in that it's not improvised.

No, but I guess it kind of has that.

But nothing rhymes with jazz is the problem.

No, that is true. Razzmatazz. But then you're getting further and further away. Okay. Just wanted to see if I was right about that.

So then I asked it to do a song, everything the same except a 90s hip-hop song. And I knew going in that that was probably a bad idea anyway. I don't know. It doesn't seem like it's in the wheelhouse of AI to try to create 90s hip-hop. But this is 90s hip-hop, live from Philly, September 28th.

By the way, it says TBTL live in Phillytown.

Okay. It didn't understand that word was live. Oh, I thought it was just slang. I just feel like it should know that by now. It should be able to figure out the context for when we're saying live or when we're saying live.

Does this feel like 90s to you?

I don't know what it feels like.

It doesn't feel like 90s to me.

Yeah, it's a little more, it's got a little too much Fall Out Boy in it. Yeah. It's got a little too much, this is how legends are made.

Yeah, and a little bit of I am the fire starter.

Maybe, oh yeah, the prodigy, maybe imagine dragons. Maybe we're imagining some dragons now.

Well, broadcasting does take its toll. Wait, what rhymes with broadcasting? What is it?

East Coast heart and soul, broadcasting takes its toll. but we rise take control on this mic we unfold and that is true i do have this articulated arm that i'll probably unfold i don't know so that's 90s hip-hop tbtl live in philly though that's a real problem there that sounds nothing

like 90s hip-hop i thought for sure i was gonna like that more than the first one but now i'm

not entirely sure which i like so this is the thing though andrew this is the funny part i then thought okay i don't know just in the for the rule of three what if i just ask it to do a country song like a country version of tbtl live in philadelphia on the 28th and but i accidentally left hip-hop in so when i was changing the kind of just i was adding country i should have just put country in and deleted the hip-hop but instead we got a 90s country hip-hop version and i think this one may be in a weird way my favorite even though it's 90s country hip-hop tbtl live from philadelphia announcement song

i mean you know classically live from philly where the heart of country meets the beat

Yeah, exactly. Everybody knows that.

Up in Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell rings loud. TBTLs in town withdrawing quite a crowd. Hustle and bustle, skyscrapers touch the sky. We're mints and country twang with a bit of hip-hop fly. Yeah, this is better.

It's kind of good, right? Some Bubba Sparks in here? What's going on?

Lookin' at her, gettin' mic check. Soundin' no-so-fine. Broadcast a lot from the city. One show at a time.

I mean, it got cheesesteaks in there, which I did not ask, I didn't, I did not put my thumb on that scale at all. It just figured that out, which I also think is pretty, oh, you know, this is, I'm, honestly, this is the first time I'm hearing this, Andrew, because I was doing this, like, while you and I were talking, so I didn't want to spoil it, but I'm seeing another really good Philly reference here coming up.

oh no oh they didn't pronounce it right no was that a yingling yes it knew yingling was a thing

but it didn't know how to say it well i can associate with that yeah right

dude i'm getting a preview of the lyrics they get great in the final That's right, the ghost of Ben Franklin Andrews watching with a glint in his eye. I love that. Franklin's ghost is watching with a glint in his eye, making music fusion under Philly's autumn sky. It is happening in autumn. It's happening in September.

I mean, come on, right?

I mean, number three is like a clear winner, right?

Yeah, no, I mean, and also it captures the spirit of TBTL, that we're like rap with a country twang.

Everybody knows that about us, and everybody says it, and we've been trying to run away from that title for too long.

Yeah, and now it's time to just embrace it.

Do you have a drumroll over there? Sorry, we should have talked about this.

Do we have drumrolls?

I can grab one on my side, but I'm trying to play the 90s country hip-hop song and play the drumroll.

Okay, yeah, I have some drumrolls here. It's not as long as yours, not that it's a competition, but just so you know, it's only six seconds and it ends with a cymbal. Are you okay with that? That's fine. That's totally fine.

So can we play that, and then I'm going to announce where the show is, and then we're going to play our new TBTL Live in Philly anthem, Franklin's Ghost. It's called Franklin's Ghost.

Yeah, with a glint in his eye. Okay. All right, here we go.

Okay.

For one night, Saturday, September 28th, the Friends Center of Philadelphia becomes the Friendo Center when TBTL takes over Philadelphia.

And we're also taking it to the streets, and we're taking it to the streets.

up in philadelphia the liberty bell rings loud tv teals that's right we are going to be at the

friends center of philadelphia that's right that is the quaker gathering place right there in downtown philly it is so appropriate for us because this show is all about friendship and it is the center for friends it is also so inappropriate for us because when we bring the country hip-hop 90s style that we're known for to this very historically significant very serious very high-minded place where so much important stuff has happened over the years it may be a bit of a culture clash andrew but we're going to give it a shot i think we're going to lean into

community we're going to lean into storytelling these are all things that happen you know in in the society and i think it's going to now the thing is there are some rules right if we're if we this we're not doing this in like the bar from roadhouse where you and i are going to be behind chicken wire and people are going to be throwing beer bottles well andrew i'm hurting that i'm

hearing that city streets are calling and that we hear that urban strum blend in farm and city just watch how we become that's the well no that's the vibe i'm bringing to this you're

You're stating the obvious again, though, Luke, obviously. But, yeah, and so it's going to start at, and now I don't have my cheat sheet in front of me, so I'm freewheeling here, and I hope I'm doing right. It starts at 6, and we have a hard out at 8 p.m., right? We have to get out of there. We have to be broken down. No, the hard out is at 9. But the show has to end at 8 in order for that to happen.

I've already worried about this element of the show.

I have to be honest.

I feel like I can get the Quakers to give us a little bit of latitude on that 9 p.m. thing. I don't want to get loosey-goosey with that. I don't want to be wrapping the show up right before our hard out, but I don't want that to be something that makes it unfun for us or the listeners or the attendees. I don't want us to be operating under this anxiety around the hard out.

Well, I mean, I think that we've planned for it. If we start the show at 6, which is the plan, and then we wrap up at 8, and that gives us an hour to get out of there. And then we're in bed by 9. Two hours is good. Now, this is where— We have dinner at 4. If you have it at 4, it's called supper. Supper.

We have supper at 4. The show's at 6.

You and I have not discussed throwing this out to the listeners, although I will say I think this is where our Philly area listeners can really, you know, come in for us and help us out a bit. Is it okay for me to say this? I think we want to have maybe a celebration after the live show as well because we're not going to be able to serve any food or drink at the Friends Center. Do we know that actually for a fact? Well, I know that there's definitely no alcohol. That is definitely a fact. Okay, that's been confirmed. Yes. And I know that that is definitely a rule, and I thought there was no food and drink, generally speaking.

Can you hide alcohol in your body before you get to the show?

As long as it stays in your body.

Are they going to be using magnometers?

I don't know if they're using magnometers.

So you probably can hide some alcohol inside your tummy maybe somewhere else at, like, 5 p.m.

But that better stay in your tummy is what I'm saying. Like, don't have so much.

We've been down that road before, too.

Exactly. So I think we're going to go have a really fun show at the Friends Center and then really let loose somewhere afterwards. And I'm not sure exactly where we're going to be letting loose yet. But this is going to be, like, we've been looking at the space. I've never been in this center before, but I am very excited to be in this space with, again, like kind of a long tradition of like community building and literal friendship.

Yeah, I think it is definitely going to be a different environment for us. We're usually in a bar or some kind of theater somewhere. This is a totally different vibe, but I think we can make it a totally fun vibe. And think about this as a hangout with your TBTL friendos, a live show, and then we're going to go to an after party somewhere and all be together and be as rip-roaring as we need to be. We can finally bring that kind of 90s country hip-hop style to Broad Street that TBTL is known for. But I guess what we're saying is it's going to be really fun at the friend center, but also it may be a little bit more like it's not a dimly lit bar with beer spilled on the floors. It's like a place where Benjamin Franklin would think about the future of democracy. Boy, isn't it better, Andrew, that we're doing this show with at least democracy having a chance?

Yes, I'm very excited about this.

I just thought about that. I mean, I think the big winners in this whole thing is TBTL Live in Philly. Because if we were there, you know, with just the breaks beating the boys as bad as they were previously, that could be a kind of a tough energy and a tough vibe. So that being said, I mean, it is going to be a very interesting moment to be gathering together. You know, we'll just be a little bit over a month out from this incredibly important election. We're meeting. at a place uh you know that certainly a number of the founders you know were quakers i mean i actually have a lot of respect for that faith practice i've been to a quaker wedding and those people are still married andrew 20 plus years later so they're on to something those quakers

nice yeah that's so um also can we mention how people can get their tickets because basically uh as this show is posting to the internet we are putting a button right at the top of tbtl.net that says click here to get your tickets to the philly show uh tickets are only 35 dollars and also that is a clean 35 dollars we are paying no additional fees we're paying the service fees so we're eating it on exactly so 35 dollars no more than that that's right so 35 bucks a ticket uh

I'll say what we say about most things now. We are bad capitalists. This show is not about us making money. It's about us getting to come hang out with folks in Philly and to bring our patented brand of 90s country hip-hop to Broad Street in Philadelphia.

We're taking it to the streets. Life from Philly, what a horror country meets the beat. Up in Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell.

Yeah, so TVTL.net to get your tickets right now. It's a pretty big room, so we're hoping there's enough room for everyone that was another thing that we kind of went back and forth on in trying to locate a venue we certainly didn't want to pick a room that was too small that wasn't going to it would be a real shame if somebody wanted to come to the show and they couldn't so we think the room is is going to have capacity but you never know i mean we haven't done a live show in a while people seem very excited about it we haven't done anything on the east coast since our brooklyn shows or brooklyn show so um yeah you want to get your tickets now because you know they could sell out we'll see yeah definitely

And I hope that $35 range works for everybody. You know, that was something that we went just in ultra transparency here. Full disclosure. Yeah, full disclosure. We just went around and around on that because this comes on the end of TB Telethon in which you guys were super generous to keep us in business. And like Luke said, we're not making any money on this. We just priced it this way so that we hopefully can break even on it and that everybody can hopefully afford to visit or come to the show if you're interested in doing that. And so anyway, a lot of thought went into that. And I hope that works for everybody.

Yeah, we really tried to pick a price point that wasn't going to be like overwhelming. So somebody who maybe just signed up to support TBTL, maybe even went up a level is like, oh, and I'm going to like fly or drive to Philly. Maybe I'm going to get a hotel room and then the tickets are going to set me back hundreds of dollars. We really didn't want that to be anyone's experience. So we are absolutely trying to keep the ticket price as low as possible so that everybody who wants to come can come and that price will not be a barrier. Also, I guess that means, Andrew, that it's all ages.

It should be.

I mean, yeah. I mean, if we're at the Friends Center, I think people of any age can be a friend. So that might also be a bit new.

I'm going to be swearing my head off, though. I mean, are kids okay with that?

If you think I'm going to let you stand there in front of Franklin's ghost, Andrew, and use coarse language.

What's going on with his eye?

is it glinting it is god there's so much glint in his eye it's unbelievable we will be making music fusion under the philly autumn sky though so that how much i can promise yes yes yes absolutely so that's the big announcement and remember in that order the big announcement in america today tbtl live at the friend center of philadelphia saturday night september 28th and also democracy

may survive those are the two big stories today and also not unconnected i would say no i mean

honestly like all joking aside kind of connected like i i'm i'm glad that we're making this announcement today with the energy that i personally have like it could have been a if if this decision from biden had been you know stalled or if it had come a week from now or if If it did not come at all, I think that that's a I don't know if I'm able to bring this kind of 90s country hip hop energy to this announcement, Andrew, because I think it would be I'd be laboring under this kind of just generalized anxiety that I've had.

I don't want to overstate it. And I'm worried that I'm going to overstate it here. I don't want to overstate it, but I think that we can safely say that you, me and the tens of listeners are going to save the democracy.

I think it starts here. I think it starts with Franklin's ghost. the hit song that is sweeping the nation right now and that you will probably be hearing a lot you're gonna be hearing that song a lot over the next few months so get your tickets we will see you in philly on the 28th also my mom and dad are coming so that's gonna be a whole thing uh they are psyched about it like my i think my dad is getting i think he has complicated feelings around his new found level of tbtl celebrity i think he i think he doesn't enjoy it when it feels to him like he's being misrepresented like when he said chinese bullshit sure talking he still kind of reminded me of that like he just really wants people to know that he's that's not how he views the world in in terms of like you know regional or national or ethnic terms he just meant he thought that these things were poorly constructed and they had all come from china so i don't think he likes that feeling but i do think he is intrigued because when i told them about the bracelet thing he kept he's like well when are you guys doing it and it was like okay and i could see the wheels turning in his head as to like oh well maybe your mom and i could stop by and help out sure they can't they're getting ready for a trip to leavenworth but okay i see the i see the in like they're coming they're coming to the philly show but they're also going to be in philly for like two weeks before this i don't know just getting in the zone just running up the stairs at the library just drinking raw eggs just getting

ready for this whole thing wow all right yeah are they gonna be punching um raw meat yeah

they do that anyway but that's like you know holdover from the days of gospel it's woohoo

meat it's yeah i don't know you know what we got this side of side of beef it's pimento loaf

yeah it was out behind the gas station and they said we could take it so here it is do you know

my neighbor um who is you know she's definitely a bit younger than me and definitely filled with more life than me but i probably filled with more life than me when i was even her age i don't know i'm gonna guess she's probably still in her 20s or something um just really good person uh has been and very interested in sort of like kind of sprucing up the backyard they live next door to us but they're renters um and uh she was putting out all these potted plants the other day and genevieve was asking her about them she apparently and i'll bet you some of our listeners know about this are she dumpster dives for plants so apparently like home depot and stuff will like they'll buy all these plants but then they dump them and the people in the know have like a schedule they know when they're going out there and apparently they'll stop you like home depot will stop you if they catch you doing this because they want to sell you plants but apparently for some reason they're dumping and what is that like really uh trendy plant that you keep talking about most era most era she got a couple of those um and yeah exactly and these were things that for some reason we're like maybe nearing the end of their life or whatever but she's like grabbing them from the dumpsters at a certain hour and then bringing them back to health in her own backyard. How smart. Yeah I don't know what you said that reminded me of that but I just never

heard of dumpster diving for plants before. It's also you know there I mean I think that actually you know taking food that's not been taken out of the package out of a dumpster doesn't have to necessarily be gross like I probably wouldn't do it but I don't think it's a health risk but boy you're talking about plants you've eliminated any kind of ick factor yeah i was at home depot recently in the plant department as i am want to be and i did notice that a bunch of the starts were like drying out like i don't know if they didn't get watered enough or whatever and i did have this thought like huh i guess they must price that in like they they must know that a certain number of these are going to have to get thrown out because once they're dead like no one's going to buy this dried ass tomato husk but i bet you something that isn't quite that dead that can be revived with somebody who knows what they're doing that's a that's actually a really good idea

i'm looking at my wave file for today's show and i'm just realizing that my microphone has been way lower than yours this whole time i'm trying to figure out if i can um compress the heck out of today's show to make it sound better or if i have to go into riverside and actually construct the show i have to do extra work to make up for my mistake while recording if i seem a little bit low level wise today dear listeners just know it's because i was so lazy that i didn't go and get the better files from riverside and i'm just trying to make this recording work when they go

low we go lower that's going to keep making that joke because it seems apropos so all right that is going to do it for today also walt is coming around the corner he is giving me a thumbs up that means andrew we have sconces we've got sconces sconces attached you mean or you sconces attached to the side of the house over where the deck is that means we can now have illumination out there that's very exciting congratulations oh we've also got um we've got a mini split that's working which means we have climate control now in the house nice last night and we put in i put in some solar shades so like last night we were watching msnbc but i didn't have a bunch of glare from the windows because i had pulled down these shades and i was telling the mini split to make it cold in there hanging out with gg and getting possible good news about the future of American democracy. It was quite a Sunday night out here.

That's right. And the Mariners won. What do you know?

And, you know, I think that that technically put us back in first place.

Oh, tied. Maybe tied. Tied, yeah. I'll take a tie. We'll take it. We'll take it. Yeah. All right.

All right. Thank you, everybody. We'll be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. In the meantime, have a great Monday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all. we did it we did it joe power out