Muse

The boy's on YouTube so much, he knows more about YouTube ads than his own schoolwork. Okay, that's not true. What's 5 times 5? I have no idea. What's Trulicity? Trulicity is not insulin. See what I mean? Trulicity is a once-week injectable medication to improve blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. What can you tell me about George Washington? Not a single thing. What can you tell me about Gold Bond Men's Lotion? You talking about Gold Bond Men's Lotion with skin-strengthening protein and 7-intensive moisturizers to make dry skin look healthy? Tell me about Benjamin Franklin. I can't. Tell me about Wayfair. They offer free two-day shipping on thousands of products. Recite the beginning of the Declaration of Independence. You know I can't do that. Recite the beginning of a Sky Rizzy ad. I have moderate to severe Crohn disease, but now they're Sky Rizzy and you're just moving them up. Two significant symptoms of relief with Sky Rizzy, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements at four weeks. I don't get your point. You don't get my point? My point is you should pay more attention in school than you do on YouTube. I pay attention in school. No, you don't. And I barely watch YouTube. Okay, when is Independence Day? Okay, nobody knows that. And when shouldn't you take Cialis? How would I know that? Okay, still, you get my point. I'm kidding. Do not take Cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain because it could cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure.

TBTL! I don't know what this is, but Jay says it's a f***ing big sea turtle. For one thing, I have no shame before another mortal. All my shame is between myself and Christ. I'll never drop my eyes to another human being. You're drunk. I'm not. You are too. Prove it. Name all the states in America in alphabetical order. Alabama, Alaska, Arizona. Reverse order. Wyoming, Wisconsin. Australian accent. West Virginia. In the style of Anthony Hopkins in Legends of the Fall.

Virginia Vermont. Whistle. That's the voice of the youth of America. We have all the facts on this we need. We don't need any more facts. In the land of truth, my friend, the man with one fact is the king. Let's blow some tiny minds.

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

You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia on a beautiful day. where I dialed up late for the show because I was walking around my yard, trailing behind Gigi, the standard poodle, had her on a leash because she's prone to running away, just waiting for her to finally find the exact perfect little patch of grass to poop on. there's nothing uh really there's no time when the things that we do for these animals particularly dogs uh when it's more stark really what what a questionable decision it is than when you a fully formed human being who did not just fall out of a coconut tree when you're just walking around waiting for a dog to drop a deuce and delaying the start of your podcast which by the way today arrives steams into the station at episode 4255 in a collector series let the fun begin i was in the grocery store yesterday and i received a somewhat not just somewhat a very surprising text from my friend andrew walsh and when he said that that shocked me about his visit

to the doctor yesterday you have no reflexes your blood tastes like root beer and some of your bones appear to have vanished.

We're going to find out about that coming up. Speaking of my good friend, who is also the longest-running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships, he would like to just basically stick up for his hot takes today, right at the top of the show.

They are goofy. They are friendly. They are really, really good. That's all you need.

He's Andrew Walsh. She's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Does this mean that I have to produce a newsletter this week? Because I had really set the stage for me not to be able to do a lot of my weekly responsibilities related to my job.

I don't want to jump to the end of the story, but I want to say there would have been, if I were in your shoes, a temptation to not correct the record about what may or may not be happening now for you.

Oh, think about the cosplay that could have gone into that.

by yourself i mean there's just there you've got you've got all kinds of options until you text me the following message which you did yesterday which was big update on my medical journey i'm not getting wrist surgery on wednesday like before you send that text i mean you could you could get away with almost anything but once you do that you're locked into a story and

it's a beautiful story you didn't read the next text the next text says i'm getting brain surgery

Therefore, I must be pampered even more is actually where that's going.

See, you haven't done enough advance work to set that one up. I know. That is the problem. This whole wrist thing, you were really hammering away at it for months. So it was quite believable when you told us about it. But seriously, that was shocking.

I think my inarticulateness, by the way, has really laid the groundwork for me having to have something done to my brain. And I honestly, if you look back at the last 15 years or so of working with me, you don't think I've been dropping little hints here and there that maybe somebody should look at my brain. Let's focus on your big, meaty hands. Let's not.

I was genuinely surprised. I mean, it's been a week of surprises, hasn't it, Andrew? It really hasn't. I mean, and it just it hasn't stopped because the big surprise for me yesterday was that you texted me that you're not going to get this double wrist surgery on Wednesday that we had all been preparing for in various ways because of why what's going on?

So, you know, I don't have to go over the entire back story here, but I've been having issues with my wrists and my hands that have been diagnosed as kind of carpal tunnel and tendinitis. And I had always from the from the moment this sort of popped up almost overnight several months ago. Now, I had concerns that there might be an underlying issue. You know, I've been reading about like kind of how sometimes you can get like rheumatoid arthritis and that'll cause swelling in your joints, which will then lead to things like carpal tunnel because it's squeezing everything and cutting off, you know, the nerves and what have you.

Well, and if may I just quickly at the risk of belaboring this. At the risk of belaboring this. As most of the, I mean, is at the risk of belaboring things a good show type?

No, but I just thought of it. it's wristy business that's the show please photoshop a picture of you in just an oversized

boyfriend shirt with ray-bans on sliding into the room um at the at the risk of of going too far back into the archives on this the things that were suspicious about the strictly the diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome that you pointed out on day one of talking about this was you woke up one morning with swelling and with numbness in both of your hands which seemed not to be the way that carpal tunnel presents itself it was like something else changed in your body and now you were having this feeling you also had a history of some sort of eczema which is autoimmune you you said this on day one and yet it was seemed really difficult to convince your primary care physician that this

might be something to consider yeah i mean this is a very small point to correct but for the record The numbness sort of came on later, but I did wake up one morning with like a lot of wrist and hand pain in both wrists in both. And then and it just never went away. And then I was like, oh, I can barely play darts anymore. And then I couldn't play darts at all. And then I continued to wake up and in this fashion. And so, you know, I understand there's a reluctance in the medical community to have your patients coming in with like kind of like too much WebMD research behind them. Because I understand how that could be kind of annoying or like you're just like watching too many Sky Rizzy commercials or what have you and self-diagnosing. What is trulicity? Well, I'll tell you what it's not. It's not insulin. Well, so anyway, I do. So when I first went to the doctor, and I think that was like the end of May. I just happen to remember that was like May 22nd or whenever. I went in. I said, hey, listen, a week or two ago, woke up. Wrists are all jacked up. Happened in both hands the same night. It's gotten worse. And I don't think I necessarily said I've been reading about rheumatoid arthritis, but I did, you know, state that I'd been having some autoimmune issues leading up to it and that those kind of outwards facing autoimmune issues like kind of skin irritation and stuff went away as soon as this started. And so I just had a feeling that there might be something kind of more going on. And my doctor really said – just kind of kept coming back to me. He's like, well, you know, we sit behind our desks all day. And I was just kind of like, okay. So we're just going with – I never doubted that I had carpal tunnel. I do have carpal tunnel. I've been electrocuted to prove it. Right. But it is an underlying issue. And so anyway, I keep going down this road. I go back to my doctor. It's about, I don't know, a month ago or something and just told him, you know, things are just worse. The tingling in my hand is now numb, still can't use my wrist that much. At this point, the rest of my body seems mostly fine. He suggests that I go get this test where they put, like, you know, electricity through some of my nerves. I found that to be pretty uncomfortable, and then I got the bill the other day, and I found that to be even more uncomfortable. Which is our way of announcing TBT elephant 16. That's right. Buddy, can you spare a dime? Luke's kid, and I'm the kid. That's right. So anyway, so I go through all of that. And then after the kind of getting the clear diagnosis after that kind of, I'll call it the electric test, because it's more exciting to call it that. Some real Timothy Leary vibration. There was a lot of the electric Kool-Aid acid test. I knew that I was going to have to have surgery, and I went to see the surgeon who had already operated on my hands when I broke them. And I like him a lot. And he's like, yeah, you got some tendinitis going on and you also have, you definitely do have carpal tunnel. But what I said to him, because now at this point, I started to get a lot of pain in the rest of my body. And we've been talking about like my issue with my wrists.

But honestly, over the past like two or three weeks, my much bigger concern, if you can believe it, is the fact that I've had a lot of pain in my ankles and my feet and in my knees and in my shoulder. And like it's been really kind of – Your wigs have also been shaken? My wigs have been shaken, exactly. hot sweats. At what point do you become that little girl? Somewhere between Bill Murray and

What About Bob. My tongue was shaken, my head was shaken, my arms were shaken, and my legs, my feet too. Does that basically describe where you were having discomfort? That's where I was having discomfort.

So I go into the doctor a third time. This time I don't see my regular guy. I have an appointment with somebody on his staff and I tell them, hey, whatever's going on with all this, you know, with my wrists has now seemed to have spread to other places and again i keep thinking like this this is rheumatoidal in some way right this is swelling in the joints and everything and again i had an appointment scheduled for surgery tomorrow early tomorrow morning to um have the go under the knife as i believe under the knife described exactly to have my wrists uh cut open and the carpal tunnel taken care of and the tendonitis as well um luckily i was able to see a rheumatologist yesterday that had been on the books for about a week and I will give my um kind of doctor's office credit for getting me into that appointment pretty quickly although I feel like it should have been quicker it should have been back in June that I had seen this fella um and for the $850 yeah electrical that as well and again I want to make it clear I do have carpal tunnel yeah like it was that that was an accurate thing but I'd always thought that what about the things that is causing it and should we be looking at something else so anyway this doctor comes in i like him immediately he's a kind of a younger guy with just comes in with like kind of really great energy i tell him the whole story as i kind of told it to you just now somehow i was more articulate to him i feel like i'm all over the place because i know the listeners already know this journey and i'm trying to hit the highlights

they love it though it's like springsteen playing born in the usa it's about as long

give them the hits and what's springsteen's longest song so um all of this is to say i like this guy he comes in i tell him the whole story and he's kind of like nodding at me like kind of knowingly um and he's asking me a whole bunch of questions about this and that do i have this symptom do i have that and then he's like okay uh let's get up on the table here and i sit on the edge of the table and he says you know i tell him that i have this um surgery coming up on wednesday and right as i'm getting set he hasn't examined me yet you know he's gonna put his stethoscope up to my back and ask me to breathe they always do that i think they just like the sound of my breath They like the sounds of your lungs taking an air.

They do. That rattle. They're like, God, I love that rattle. It's just so great. Reminds me of Grandpa. It's almost Caribbean. And so anyway. If you put your ear up to Andrew's back, you can hear the ocean.

That is true. Call me the conk king. Anyway, so I guess King conk. Anyway, he gets me up. King conk ain't got nothing on me, Andrew. now let me ask you this is there somebody in the bdsm community who goes by the name kink kong and if not why not should it be one of us should it be one of us that's the kind of thing that

would take you into a community you may not otherwise have interest in but because you have such a solid name you then have to kind of reverse engineer it from there it's amazing what the trouble puns have gotten me into over the years and the door find you ball gagged into in a basement you're like you know i wasn't even into this but i i came up with a name king kong that was so good that i just had to follow this oh thank goodness we already have wristy business

as a show title otherwise that may be creeping up um so anyway i'm just the guy hasn't even like fully examined me yet and it's not even a very it's not like a super invasive exam at all he just sort of looks he's about to look at my wrists and ankles and again take some very basic readings or whatever uh but as i'm kind of getting up in the table he's like okay and you say you have your surgery planned for a week from wednesday and i'm like no no it's this wednesday it's the day after tomorrow like early morning and he just like kind of stops and he just sort of like gives me this look he almost like kind of almost imperceivably like kind of shakes his head a little bit i'm like what you don't think i need the surgery he's like well we'll get to this I got to examine you first, but I think if nothing else, we'll probably need to postpone it, but let's just, we'll get to that. And then he gives me a very kind of very brief, you know.

What is going through your mind when he says that to you, we're going to postpone it?

Well, you know what the interesting thing is, maybe, is I was always, that's a bar that we rarely clear on this show. I really need to find it. I really need to find another bridge because I feel like I'm lying to the audience. um i had been thinking if i go into this appointment and the doctor says uh you know you might want to consider canceling i just had in the back of my mind that something could happen where they suggest maybe me canceling my surgeries and i remember thinking like no i think either way i need these i do think i have an underlying thing going on but i have heard from a lot of people people in my family friends i luke you and i have a mutual friend who apparently had this done um to both of her hands at the same time and and was telling genevieve this weekend that it really was like you know survivable it's like it's like you get around it's fine and so like i and almost everybody who's had this done i heard from from some listeners as well i heard from some listeners as well who said like it is real like once you have the surgery done it is like you feel the difference immediately and so i've been really relief and i'm desperate for relief so in the back of my head i was kind of like if they're going to tell me to postpone my surgery i probably i might wave off that advice especially because i'm on a bit of a timeline i'm you know taking a big trip to croatian i kind of want to be as i want as much movement as possible i want to feel as good as possible for that but honestly like i said before the thing that's been living in my head even more than my wrists and hands lately have been the fact that i can't really walk around that great like some days i'm fine i went to the ballpark with my buddies the other day and it was actually a pretty good day you wouldn't stop texting about it yeah i'm just like i'm having a great time losers but then there are other times where it's like literally i have to take like kind of one stare at a time and tightly grip a banister i'm just thinking how am i going to get off a plane somewhere in eastern europe and like walk for you know like i made dinner the other night i was feeling good and then by the end of that you know standing on my feet for two hours i was like holy shit i need to get off my feet like now i could And, you know, and so anyway, I've been kind of worried about like more than just my hands and wrists, just like getting around and mobility, you know, that I don't get a lot of activity. But one of the things that Vives and I do like to do is go on walks or just like, you know, skip driving somewhere. I've been driving more lately to places I'd usually take the bus or or walk to. And, you know, again, these are these are things I just take for granted until you can't walk around anymore. and just like, geez, my life is, again, I feel like I'm exaggerating a little bit, but I will be honest with you how I felt as somebody who has not had to deal with a lot of health stuff in my life. I've just over the past few weeks felt my life getting smaller and smaller in a way that has been like both unpleasant and also scary to think about the future. So anyway, when this doctor, again, I kind of like immediately, he kind of says, well, you're going to probably want to

postpone that at least, but let me, let's do the exam and then we'll talk about this. So he does a pretty quick exam, looks at my ankles, various swollen areas. And then, you know, I sit back down and he's like, yeah, I mean, I think I can pretty accurately diagnose you with rheumatoid arthritis. And, you know, we're going to put you on these medicines. And so he's putting me on, I guess, a long term, as long as the side effects aren't too bad, kind of a long term medicine. And also he's sort of jumpstarting this with another prescription that I'll be taking for a couple of weeks. And he's like, I honestly think in a couple of days you're going to be feeling so much better like literally in a couple of days he's like oh and i'm like even my wrist and everything he's like yeah he's like yeah you have carpal tunnel but i think that when we remove the swelling like you're gonna have so much relief there and oh no and then he said to me something that i even asked the surgeon about and again i still i like and i trust my surgeon but when you're a hammer everything's a nail right and i remember even saying to the surgeon like you know my wrists are swollen like does it even make sense to do surgery on something before we get the swelling

to go away he's like it'll be fine are we starting to think that he was a little too eager andrew the the surgeon remember the way he like he was changing his schedule he wedged me in i was golf game he was trying to convince dirty diana that it was a good idea i had now it's starting

to look a little sus i had to call diana to break that appointment yesterday i told the person who

answered the phone because they're don't send me to diana just pass the message on please i don't

to talk to her i literally so we're jumping ahead here he said like i would postpone that surgery at the very least like see how this stuff works and i said okay i'll do that and and again i i trust this guy this guy is both a rheumatologist and an internal medicine doctor so i i think i need to talk to somebody about seeing if he can become my primary care doctor as well as my rheumatologist since it sounds like this is going to be sort of an overriding theme of my health care going forward i'm gonna be seeing him a lot anyway and i'd like to one way or another i think i need to get my primary care doctor out of the picture but you mean the guy who was worse at diagnosing you than i was in me and me yeah and just like the it would what really sticks out in my head is when i went back the second time and was kind of like you know look at the swelling or whatever and he's like you know we just we sit at our desks all day i'm just like you said that last time you gotta be kidding me yeah and so i took his advice i got i got in the car did you

end up having to tell diana and what could you glean over the phone was her emotional state so

i get in the car and i call the the place where i'm going to get the surgery done again i really

like all these folks but the reason if you didn't hear this episode was sort of moved to slot you

in yes and this woman was very the way i described her was like she was just the embodiment of the word no she sat behind her desk the surgeon came you know the surgeon brought me out of his office after a consultation and said we need to squeeze Andrew in we just had that thing open up that one spot open up and she's like he can't do it tomorrow it won't get cleared by insurance and also somebody already took that and she just like everything the doctor said about squeezing me into the schedule she was just like no no no maybe dour Diana she was a little she was a little dour right and uh and I was I was just trying to be overly friendly with her she's just the type of person where I felt like I'm just gonna like kind of solve this with as much empathy and kindness as possible she might be having a bad day whatever it is but it was just so funny how she was just like no no no and then finally the doctor comes back I canceled such and such I opened up this slot book them for this day and then she's like which wrist are you doing I'm like both and she like just stops and looks at me like are you you can't do both I'm like I need to do both she's like okay so anyway this is Diana who I'm very intimidated by I get in the car yesterday I'm like okay I got to cancel this appointment they just squeezed me in and I'm like 48 hours away from it or less. I get in the car and the phone tree says, if you'd like to talk to the scheduler, hit this button. If you'd like to talk to this person, hit this button. And I'm like, I think I need to talk to the scheduler, but I think that's Diane. And I think I'm just going to hit zero and see if I can get somebody at the front desk. So I hit zero. I just want to see if I can get past Diana. So I hit zero and I am on hold while they deal with some patient ahead of me. I kept looking on the dashboard of my car when I'm on speakerphone or whatever. It says how long you've been on. It's like seven minutes, eight minutes. I think I got up to like 12 minutes. Like, you're the next patient. You're the next patient. Finally, after, I don't know, almost 15 minutes, somebody at the front desk picks up. Hi, how can I help you? I'm like, hey there. I need to cancel a surgery that I've scheduled for about two days from now. And the person says, oh, okay, yeah, you need to talk to Diana about that. And I'm like, oh, okay. And then she's like, let me see. I'm going to transfer you over. And then I said, Luke, I'm like, I think Diana's going to yell at me. And the woman sort of like paused. Like she didn't say, what are you talking? She didn't say, get out of here. What are you talking about? Our story sort of checked out based on her co-working experience. Exactly. And she just sort of laughed a little bit knowingly. And then I said, you know, they kind of moved heaven and earth to kind of get me in there, squeeze me in or something. And she's like, okay. I'm like, and as she's continuing to try to transfer me, I'm like, don't let Diana yell at me. She's like, okay, you tell her that if she starts yelling at you, that Christine at the front desk says she's not allowed to yell at you. I'm like, okay.

I'm more afraid when Diana goes quiet. Yelling, it's like I can deal with that. If it goes silent on the end of the line, that's when I'm moving.

But that was a real conversation I had. I just wanted to see if I could get some acknowledgement that Diana is, but I also like in a jocular way. Like, I'm not trying to beat up on her. I was trying to tease it in a kind of a knowing way. And anyway, she does transfer me. And I said, hey, Diana, I need to cancel this appointment that I made. I don't think she necessarily remembered me. But at one point I did say, hey, I just want to. And I was a little I was a little ass kissy, honestly. I was like, hey, I just want to thank you again. You guys really wedged me in and I really needed it. But, you know, my doctor says that he would like me to wait on this for now. Some other things have sort of popped up. And she even said, oh, OK, are you OK? Is everything OK? I'm like, yeah, everything's all right. So me and Diana bro down. And she canceled it for now. Here's the deal. Here's where I am today, Luke, on the 23rd of July. First of all, tired from talking so much. Secondly, on various medications that my doctor says I will maybe start to see some improvements potentially. I mean, I just took my first. These doses are bananas. I took nine pills today of various things. Whoa. They're small pills. uh but uh and those were just recreational then i took the prescription drugs that he gave me but uh anyway i'm hoping to see kind of how this works out there are some you know i'm not going to get into what i'm prescribed but you know there are some potential side effects that you want to be careful about so i'll be going in for him to

do some more testing side effects involve hot air balloon rides and tai chi wait hold on a second

i thought i followed your joke and now i don't think i do i just think that's the kind of stuff

people are doing oh yeah in advertisements for these kinds of drugs when you see how healthy they are again yeah they're they're hot a lot of hot air ballooning yeah i had a very hacky joke in my stand-up comedy days about like you know the windsurfing and the all the stuff that you end up doing in these ads and basically going, this is better than any life I've ever lived, essentially, not on these meds.

The doctor said, if this works out well, you will be sitting in side-by-side bathtubs in the woods with your partner before you know it. I see. That's it.

I believe a different medication.

Maybe. I don't... You know what? I honestly... I've had so many appointments lately. You took so many pills. You don't even know what you were taking. I can't remember what's going on. So I did cancel that. I will probably not have any kind of surgery before my trip. I think we'll just sort of see how all of this goes. I will have a check-in with him before I leave again, again, to see, make sure all the blood work looks okay, that these pills aren't bad for me. But aside from that, I'm kind of excited because, again, even if it doesn't completely solve my hand and wrist issues, if it even mitigates those but does solve my inability to go on a stroll, like, that'll be huge. Like, that'll just be huge.

I mean, it sounds to me like, and again, this is much like some other national news. We're all crossing our fingers and hoping this goes the way it might go. But it sounds like you got exactly the kind of feedback from the rheumatoid doctor that you were hoping to get, which was this is a diagnosable issue. They have created a thing that helps with this. We're going to give you that thing. You should probably see relief from this. That was the thing you wanted so badly, this whole, I mean, as anyone would. And then, you know, the surgery thing totally makes sense because, like you said, you were having carpal tunnel. And also, absent your GP giving you any kind of useful help, you were like, well, whatever will make some of this at least go away, even if all you're getting is relief in the numbness. Like, I just think you were rightfully very desperate for any improvement in your situation. But it sounds like the the the feedback you got yesterday, at least initially, is literally exactly what you were hoping to get.

Yeah. And expecting to get not just hoping, but just sort of like just looking at the obvious signs around me. And again, like I try to be deferential. I even said to this doctor again, like I I had been reading about rheumatoid arthritis. This sounds like what I have. I understand why you want to be careful with self-diagnosis and the age of the Internet. But like also we should be informed, you know, like I didn't say that second part. But like, again, when I'm going to see my doctor through my GP three times in a row, but then I go to get some blood drawn and the person casually diagnoses. Oh, look, I see you have arthritis like me, you know, like all the signs are there. And so I do feel like now I can while I'm I'm pretty deferential to doctors. And I know, you know, I think that you can think as you get older and you navigate the health care system more and more, some people can be overly cranky towards health care workers in a way that is sort of like ugly and unfair. I think I think there are other people, often women who navigate the health care system and have doctors, especially male doctors who don't believe their pain, listen to them or believe them or are dismissive. And so, you know, those are kind of two ends of the spectrum. I try to like kind of keep all of that in mind and sort of advocate for myself, but also not go in there and say, hey, I read this on WebMD. I think you should prescribe this to me. You know what I mean? But having gone through all of this, it's kind of bullshit that my doctor after day one didn't say, well, I want you to at least meet with my colleague, the rheumatologist. You know what I mean? Like that. Yeah. I understand why he can't prescribe these things because you need a specialist to do that. but they he should have had me i mean they had the blood work taken like there were some inflammatory markers or whatever like he should have just had me see this person literally a month or two ago and it's just the fact that hey i'm i may still need this surgery like i don't know what this is going to do for the tendinitis like this is going to take care of some of the swelling it'll probably relieve some things i don't know for sure that i'm suddenly going to be fine in my hands and wrists or maybe i'll just need it on one of them who knows we'll see but it shouldn't have been so close to the surgery date like it was almost like yeah random like i could have had this appointment two days after the surgery just as easily based on how our schedules

looked and that would have been i mean can you imagine the frustration that you would have felt if you get this you know pretty pretty invasive i mean granted it's a it's a it's a it's a day surgery but even so you know you get this procedure done it it changes you know a lot about how we're doing the show this week it it could have some you know you're gonna have to have the stitches etc etc all the all the hassle and everything

not great that comes with his surgery and then you go to the room the rheumatologist two days later and he's like yeah I probably would have told you to skip it on that I mean that would have been I feel like that's how you show up back at the surgeon's office looking for Diana with a real chip on

your shoulder no no no Diana would have been actually Diana isn't isn't life

funny Andrew that Diana was probably the one advocating for you by trying to not

have you do the procedure I had a lot of I don't know well dr. Riviera fast He did say his favorite part was when I gave him the money. It's your window to weight loss. I had a lot of, yeah, I had a lot of, I don't know, I was going to say angels and devils on my shoulder. That makes it sound like some were good and some were bad. That's the whole point of that expression. But I had a lot of input from a lot of people. Like I said, a lot of listeners were writing in with their personal experiences on both sides of this, by the way, from a health care provider perspective to a patient perspective and got all kinds of feedback. I you know every look Diana gave me when I said I was going to get two wrists done at the same time to my dad saying are you going to go to the bathroom to other people saying it's not that big of a deal I had them both done at the same time to a lot of people saying hey listen the the relief is almost immediate that's the thing like I don't know that I would have gone in and been like I can't believe I went through that surgery because there's a chance that the surgery would have given me almost immediate relief after I got the bandages off anyway and it's not a high risk one i want to be kind of clear about that like this could be the scenario as kind of galling as it is it could be more galling it's not like i was i was about to go under the knife on something that is really risky or life-changing or just dangerous you know what i mean it probably would but it is expensive you know like it's uh this is a i'm the the bills are definitely racking up on all of this stuff every blood test every time i go to see my internal medicine doctor like it's all been kind of racking up and like i told you that special carpal tunnel testing which i just found to be pretty unpleasant anyway ended up being like very expensive and so anyway uh yeah i i don't know that i'd be furious if i had gone through with the surgery this whole thing has been sort of a weird journey but it was i i gotta say i really like this rheumatologist like he gives me all the good did you ask him can you be my forever

doctor i mean that seriously because you said he's an internal he does internal medicine so did you

go could you just be my new dad i am working on the language around that i've already sort of dismissed will you be my new dad i mean maybe we can put it back on the table but um i have been kind of thinking about that like like i think i rambled earlier like he does do both he made a point of saying one point during my visit that he said, you know, this is one of the reasons I like to split my time between internal medicine and rheumatology. Like, I kind of, I like spending time with rheumatology patients and being able to kind of work with them and give them relief or whatever. And I was kind of like, oh, that's kind of cool. I do wonder if he has room on his plate for another, like, kind of patient. But I just think naturally my next appointment is with him so that he can take a look at like the effects of and side effects of uh this medication and everything so it might be one of those things where I just sort of naturally start seeing him a little bit more but I am thinking about broaching that without like saying anything that would force him into an uncomfortable situation if I'm complaining about why I want to switch doctors you know what I mean I'm sort of like practicing how much do I want to say that I'm pretty

disappointed you don't have to be dragging your ex to your new guy especially when they live

together you know what i mean or when they're best friends or whatever so are you thinking this will

be more of a situation ship i am just kind of undefined you're not don't like make him feel like you're trying to lock it down but just like hey i just like being with you and i just would like would vote for that happening more often than not i would just say again we're still

workshopping the language around this uh right now and i haven't landed on anything so forever daddy is out though is that forever daddy i had dismissed that if you're if you're saying i should reconsider that i will put it back on the table for now but it's kind of low on the list yeah

that's true well i have to say andrew i am i'm really really happy to hear this news for you um mostly because i actually don't know what i was going to do on thursday if your wrist weren't going to cooperate i mean i was talking a big game but um but i was i was going to be in a hotel in los angeles i was going to have seacrest on the brain it was going to be a

Ooh, do you want to talk to my guy about that? Seacrest on the brain?

Does he also handle brain stuff? Because I got Seacrest on the brain. I've got moderate to severe Seacrest on the brain.

But you still haven't answered my question. Like, I sent a newsletter out last week saying, hey, there won't be a newsletter next week. I'm having hand surgery. Now everybody knows I'm not having hand surgery, but I'm just feeling what the doctors call lazy. Like, I had my whole week set up.

be a lazy boy. I think you should, I think the listeners will forgive you, the readers will forgive you for skipping the newsletter this week because, by the way, you're still dealing with this situation. I mean, I'm assuming it's not magically fixed as of right now. So, I mean, my advice would be to you've already set the expectation that this week we're not going to do a newsletter. I would just I would embrace that and then see how you feel next week. Yeah, we'll see how it goes. I might, I might, I might. I'm just glad that there seems to be a little bit of light at the end of this tunnel for you Me too I was saying that about the surgery last week But this, I mean, obviously the ideal situation is that this kind of clears up a lot of stuff And all of a sudden it turns out that a lot of that tingling and stuff was just because nerves were being pressed on by swelling Yeah Which, again, I mean, my experience with anything even close to this was working at a plumbing shop when I was a junior in high school But if you just think about

I should have come to you first

If you just think about the implications of inflammation and how it could be pinching something, it could be creating a Chris Sullivan choke point, it just seems like to reduce that swelling down will give you a lot more information about what is permanently damaged in there and what was just reacting poorly to a lot of inflammation.

I should have talked to Chris Sullivan about this too now that you say that I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't do that.

I mean, there's kind of a long list of people you should have consulted before your doctor.

You, your boss at the plumbing company, Chris Sullivan.

I don't know if that guy's alive. We're lucky he's not. Choke Point Academy.

Choke Point Academy. Anyway, yeah. So that's it. That's where we are today. So I don't have surgery tomorrow. Thanks, everybody, for the well wishes. I appreciate it. I feel a little bit like a fraud. I mean, if you've listened to me babble for the past 38 minutes, you know it's not fraud. But I, I, I'm not somebody who deals with like kind of, I guess like, I always grew up thinking that if somebody says they're sick, they're probably faking it. That's not something that I like. It's because I grew up in a very strict household. My dad was, my dad was a small business owner who had a lot of like kind of blue collar workers who would come in. And according to my father, I would hear a lot of stories about them, you know, saying they were sick when really they had the Budweiser blues. or the Budweiser flu, or whatever you call it, or whatever. I don't mean to totally blame my dad for that, but I just sort of feel like I grew up in a household where if I said I was sick, there was a lot of skepticism around that. And sometimes that skepticism was founded. I mean, I remember times that I would be like, I don't feel well because I don't want to go into school because something bad was awaiting me there. So I'm not trying to totally blame my parents here, But I think that I have a bit of a, I have a bit of a complex around these things, sort of, especially when it kind of comes to getting out of work. And so, like, I woke up this morning, I saw somebody had texted me, hey, I think somebody had mistaken and thought today was my surgery day. And somebody was like, hey, good luck today, thinking of you. And I'm like, wow, there's all these people who are thinking I'm going into surgery. I have all these friends who've heard me talk about nothing but my bullshit the past few weeks. And like, I don't know, I just sort of feel I feel a little sheepish If you can believe it about all of this

I don't think you should feel sheepish And by the way, you were such a trooper during the thaw I mean, that was a really intense week for you and John Somehow the least intense for me But other than trying to make sure We had enough bottled water and coffee Although I actually didn't help on the coffee You guys also bought the coffee But that being said, I mean, I saw you at times In unguarded moments when you were not noticing You did not realize you were being observed where, like, your movement...

That's a Luke Burbank classic right there. I learned more about myself from you telling me things you saw me do when I didn't realize you were watching.

Sometimes through the blinds, sometimes just here in the Madrona Hill studio. Oh, by the way, did you see my... Speaking of the Madrona Hill studio, and I want to come back to one thing, but did you see my cool new sign, courtesy of Listener Jamie?

Oh, nice! That is exciting. I love that. We saw that during the Zoom call. Yeah, now, I don't know. Should we... Just do this right now. Jamie reached out to me, Luke, and I'm not trying to turn this into a competition, but Jamie reached out to me yesterday or the day before and said, hey, you know, I'm sending that thing to Luke and I have something for your studio as well. And I'm looking for, what is in the box, Luke? This is my box?

Is that the name of the song? This is my box. What's in the box? This is my box. This is my box.

I never travel without my box Oh, what's in the box? In the first drawer, I keep my magic stones Oh, what's in the box? Licorice! Licorice! Black sweet licorice! Black sweet licorice! Have some.

That's less upsetting to me every time I hear it. I forget about the connotations of the movie Seven.

Oh, oh, right, because of the what's in the box. I thought you meant the music of Giancarlo Minotti in A Mall and the Night Visitor. Oh, no, that is.

How dare you, sir. That brings me. So anyway, I'm trying to.

It's the operetta that formed Young Luke Burbank.

I believe Jamie sent me another wall hanging.

So you're trying to open the package.

Wall hanging, yeah, I am assuming.

That was sent to you by listener Jamie, something. Now, I'll buy you a little time. Are you ready? I think I got it right here.

It's wrapped up nicely. It's wrapped up in cardboard. Oh, wow. Oh, this is, Jamie has like a laser cutter, right? Look at this thing. Look at that.

Whoa, that is beautiful.

Help me describe that, Luke. This is like a wood cut.

Yeah, like a wood cut of TBTL in the font that we use, and then no mountain too tall behind it. There's a mountain, so it's a beautiful.

And it's like three-dimensional. That's a nice wall hanging. Thank you, Jamie. This is great.

Well, you put that up in your studio.

Maybe I can hang it. I think Jamie specifically made it so I could have something hanging behind me. Oh, that's nice. Or maybe on my shelf up here. I don't know. I'll find a better place to kind of display it.

I did have to change the, on my shelf, I had to actually change the alignment of the shelves. You know what I mean? Because I didn't have an opening that was the right size for the woodcut that says Madrona Hill Studio. And by the way, it also spells it in the official sense. And I know that Jamie works in forestry, so this is probably part of why that was. And she's very apologetic. It looks like Madrone. pronounced madrona i guess madrone and jamie was like oh i can recut it and make it the way you like to spell it which is kind of the wrong way madrona and i was like no i like to have both of our options covered now so now we have madrona hill on the outside of the building and madrona hill different spelling here on the inside of the building love the thing so what i wanted to say andrew was i don't think that you were in any way on your bullshit about this and i I appreciated how much difficulty you were operating under just to get around and do your job and go stay in this very crummy hotel that you and John were staying in so that we could do the fundraiser so that we could keep doing this as our job. So I just wanted to say thank you, and I think you should be nice to yourself. I also think it's so interesting when you're talking about the being sick thing, because don't you think this idea of what being sick is is so specific to the family you grew up in because i also grew up in a family where being sick was i mean again i don't want to i'm just going off of what you said but like i'll tell you how it was in my family being sick was not really encouraged because you were going to be in my mom's hair like i was the kid that would go and okay i'm going to be honest with you i might have been faking it by going to the nurse at school but there should be no way that my mom would know that so as to say just have him lie down for a while and then go back to class like i was the kid that if i went to the nurse and i was like can you call my mom the answer was never okay your mom will be here in a half hour to get you that was not happening it was like and i wonder how big of a job it is being a school nurse just negotiating the different kinds of parents there are because there are the parents that will like life flight you out of there and then there are the parents like like my mom who was like absolutely not i'm going i have yard sales to go to today you think i'm going up to the school and getting you because you got a tummy ache you know like that was just not the vibe in my household and it was not encouraged it wasn't like oh my gosh you're not feeling well well let's just stop everything we're doing and let's cater to you that was not the vibe and what's funny is I so that's kind of still how I tend to think about it doesn't mean that I think people are faking it if they're sick but I just I don't I'm not a very I wish I was more empathetic and I wish I was better around helping people who aren't feeling well But I just didn't grow up in an environment Where like You know what I mean? I just grew up in an environment Where it was just kind of like, well try to get over it One time, I don't think this actually happened Because I think I would have like literally died But I There's a 5% chance that my appendix Burst And we didn't do anything about it Again, I think I would know by now

You'd be poisoned I believe

Well, that would explain a lot 40 years of appendix poisoning Of dealing with that I remember coming home I was riding my bike I must have been you know eight to ten years old I was riding my bike and suddenly I felt a stabbing pain in my kind of not right where my like abdomen was but sort of to the side that was so unbelievably painful that I couldn't ride the bike anymore I could not continue to be upright I had to get down and hunch over and wheel my bike home oh by the way the fact that I had been on my bike 20 miles from home also just typical of the childhood that I was living in like I was in the wind and then was shot down by like whatever this was and I'm like I just remember walking up our street and like being so hunched over that I could barely like reach up to the handlebars and wheeling this thing the bike home and then just like going downstairs.

this was I believe at the time where I feel like my memory of this is that there was a period of time where I was sleeping on a hide-a-bed in our basement because I don't think that we remodeled remodeled by which I mean made it a functional little room in the basement of our rental house like there was a cement basement and there was like a little weird space that eventually my dad went in and drywalled and painted and stuff but anyway I just remember being on the basement as a kid

too I mean it might have been a hot summer

yeah I mean I was my little layer down there i would i have my nerf basketball hoop i would listen to the sonics games and reenact them it was a great time anyway i remember being on this hide a bit and being in so much pain and just cry like just like crying from the pain and and and being like you know inconsolable because how painful this was do you think at any time i think this went on for probably a day and a night and then at some point it broke and then i was okay do you think at any point there was any consideration of taking me to seek any kind of medical care absolutely not it was a non-starter like your kid about the age when appendix do be bursting your kid is like and your kid who by the way is most of the time off smoking cigarettes on the roof of the bathhouse theater like i was not this was not a play for attention i would have much rather been off doing whatever dirt i normally would be doing your kid who has no history of faking this kind of stuff is overwhelmed with pain, uh, uh, kind of un, un, un, uh, identifiable pain in the abdomen area. And it is not even on the table to take that person to a doctor. So that maybe I just used what you were talking about as a springboard into my own trauma, but I know what you mean about like having kind of a complicated relationship with the idea of being sick, um, or even other people being sick, because there are also people that were raised in families where like sick just meant you didn't feel happy today and i i don't think that's the worst way to be it has taken me a long time to come around to that but i mean maybe what we need to talk about is an expanded definition of what not feeling well is yeah because maybe we need to think about a world where there's a lot of things that could be a not feeling well today and it turns out the world is going to keep spinning most of the kinds of jobs that we have will be okay particularly if you are in like corporate america kind of stuff now in other words maybe we need a more expansive definition of of what not being up to doing something is certainly more expansive than the one that I was raised with.

I have a question for you. It's very specific and it goes back to the beginning of your story, but I found it an interesting detail. I had mentioned that, sure, on occasion my parents maybe had the right to be skeptical about me wanting to skip school because I said I didn't feel well. I remember at least doing that once and then kind of freaking out because my mom kind of called my bluff on it, um, in, in a complicated way. But, uh, I remember at least once, if not a couple of times, like waking up in the morning and saying, I don't feel well, I don't want to go into school for whatever reason, whether I just wanted to day off or I was avoiding some sort of confrontation with a teacher or something or a test or what have you. You had mentioned maybe going to the nurse's office. I don't know if you were being literal there. Um, some people take you literally and not seriously. Some people take you seriously I don't know where I am on that, but I don't think I've ever in the middle of the school day pretended to be ill just so I could go to the nurse's office. Because for me, it's like then I'm still just in the nurse's office. Like under what circumstances would you do that to avoid something specifically or just to shake up the week? Just to shake up the week, just to feel different.

I'm not kidding. Like just boredom. Yeah. just like not like i'm trying to get out of a test not because i remember doing it at daniel bagley elementary school probably like two or three times where literally i just think and i and i don't know it's so long ago maybe i really was a little bit sick in one of the times or not i i'm just knowing me i'm pretty sure i was probably faking it a lot of the time because of literally just being like i'm bored this is i'm shaking up the i'm shaking up the situation here i'm going i'm going to be in this and you're right i mean the nurse's office that room that you lie down and with the paper on the you know on the like kind of like a doctor's office type examination table or whatever like that's arguably a downgrade from the classroom environment like other students solitary yeah you're in you're in you're like in special housing unit now or something it's like as opposed to which by the way one of the most misleading names for something in jail now you're in the special housing unit i mentioned this to the head of the oregon state president he had to concede that's a very misleading name for solitary like if I'm going in there I'm like oh special housing unit sign me up yeah is it a shoe is it a smart home right exactly but no you're right it's like it's weird I don't know why I would do that I think probably my thought was I'm bored of being here at school if I start this ball rolling down the hill of being sick then maybe I can come home maybe I'll be

to come home i think part of the problem too was they if you were sick they wouldn't release you to go home your parent had to come get you that's probably policy now we lived three blocks from the school i walked to school in the morning and i think if they would have just said to my mom okay your son says he's sick do you want me to just let him come home maybe i could have gotten away with that but the fact that it meant she had to come be at the school for any amount of time outside of her, whatever her plan was for that day. And I want to give my mom some credit on this. She had at least four other humans currently breastfeeding when these calls were happening. Like it was like my mom, you know, my mom had a lot going on with all of the kids. And so I can kind of understand why it was like, she was just keeping her head above water most of the time. But that would probably be why I was doing that. I was a really, really bad student. Like, I mean, I told you, I came very close to flunking fourth grade Because I never, I did not do any of the assignments. This sounds like a joke or like I was some Alex P. Keaton, but I would go to class and I would sit in the back of the classroom and I would read the Seattle Times front to back every single morning and throughout the day. And then we had these, like those round things of books, you know, that kind of spin around and I would just get like dig out Encyclopedia Brown books and stuff. I, during all the times that we were supposed to be working independently, I was just reading.

And that's why people say that you might not be book smart, but you're definitely David Horsey smart.

Oh, I was so up on David Horsey. I was so much more up on David Horsey than any other fourth grader. I mean, I could have told you what Pat Buchanan had put in his latest op-ed piece. I mean, it was a very weird thing because I was in this certain way, like, you know, i was kind of filling my brain with a lot of way more complicated notions than the curriculum of the fourth grade at daniel bagley elementary school but what i was not doing was filling out any of the worksheets in a timely manner we had this thing called the blue book and the blue book was your name would be written in it it was unlike the book of life and that you didn't want your name written in it actually that's not true everyone's name was in it but if you hadn't you would hope that you would just be your name and then nothing else if you had late assignments Those late assignments would be entered in Under your name And I remember looking at that and realizing Probably five pages of this Are just my assignments Like I was dominating the blue book Like it'd be like Just like Luke Burbank And then just like page after page And then you just see like the brown nosers Who'd be like their name and then nothing else So anyways yeah I was a very I was really not well suited For the school environment As a young kid So I think I probably just got bored and wanted to go home or something I mean, then you had the other part of my life Which was when I would randomly not go to school for a year And I was so desperate to get back in the classroom That's the funny part Because it was so boring to have no social life To just be home waiting for Peter Williams to get done with school Or James DeMuth so I could go hang out with someone

There was some level of home teaching though, right? Homeschooling or no?

Well, I mean, street smarts Here's the curriculum Figure out how to get your mom To take you to Alfie's Pizza And possibly a bank shot What's that?

Oh no, that's pipes and pizza Pizza and pipes

I think I make that mistake every time Well, because they're both Very sort of fundamental to my Childhood unschooled story So it's very forgivable that you would Also, Alfie's does sound like a place where they might have a pipe organ

Yeah, maybe like a smaller pipe organ In the corner

um I in in when I was in like because I didn't go to first grade and so I think that might have been when I was really pizza I was really working that pizza and pipes pipes angle but then I think I also didn't go to sixth grade and that was when I was more I was I that time I had had leveled up to Alfie's pizza because what was really cool is if it was like a rainy depressing Tuesday we could sometimes I could finagle an Alfie's pizza and then a bank shot off of Evangel Books which was a christian bookstore in alderwood where we could rent some movies like the christian musical high tops which preceded forget about high school the musical get back to me when we're talking about twin finn and the other characters from high tops the musical so like a day when me and my sisters because none of my sisters were going to school either right so this is when i was in sixth grade a day when we could get pizza from alfie's and get high tops the musical and then come back home and watch it on our videocassette player, that was a good Tuesday. So I learned how to manipulate my mother at a young age, and that was the main curriculum. As far as any other formal training, no. There was a system called Abeka Books, which was, I think, the kind of standard, if you were in the conservative Christian movement, in the evangelical movement.

and you were going to homeschool your kids, you would order these a back of books. But we didn't do things that way. We had like a couple of random ones that my mom had maybe picked up here or there at a rummage sale. We didn't have like a set curriculum where you went from, you know, this principle to this principle to this principle. And so it just never really came together. We just basically just hung around trying to pull scams on my mom all day. That was the curriculum.

Was it hard to go back into seventh grade or were you like really anxious to get back amongst peers? Because that's a big transition time often anyway. Like seventh grade could be the beginning of like a new school because it's junior high now with lockers.

Seventh grade, if I remember right, was I think if I remember that that was the year that I broke my arm catastrophically at football practice. I don't know if I believe you. a week before a week before school started and so i was in a cast which i actually kind of think was helping me a little bit with the social status with a cast new kid with a cast maybe i was trying to play that angle um you know i i i think and also you know it was a i was going to this christian school jesus creek that like i i i think i i sort of socially i think i was able to integrate pretty well because i kind of now i don't know if i would have done as well at public school and in fact i would dip sorry this is just turning into this bizarre recitation and probably repetition of my these stories about going to school but one of the things was when i would go to public school for brief moments so like when i was in when i didn't go to school in sixth grade there was still something called the cat test the california achievement test that you like had to take like even if you weren't going to school like the state wanted to keep some sort of tabs on you in terms of like, are you developing as you should be? So I was so psyched about this because it meant I got to go to Hamilton Middle School, later dubbed Hamiltraz, I believe when my sister Hannah went there. But I would go to like real school for like two weeks just to take this test. But I would get to go to lunch. I would get to take the bus. I think I told you this. It took me three days to get kicked off the bus, which has got to be some kind of record.

But did you do well on the tests, though? Was it one of those things where it was kind of like, oh.

I absolutely crushed them.

So you didn't have to sit in class all day, and then you could just go take this test and see, I'm still developing like I should. My mind is developing as it should.

I think, I mean, this sounds like a real humble brag, but as far as any of the reading comprehension, anything that wasn't math-related, I was in the very, very high percentile of it. So maybe that was why my mom didn't feel a lot of pressure to change up her particular approach to my pedagogy. But I just remember going to public school and having this dream that it was going to be like a movie, like an 80s movie where I was this kind of cool, mysterious new kid that all the girls were sort of taken with. And realizing that I was this dorky evangelical Christian kid who didn't know the vibe. You know, first of all I didn't know anyone there So I didn't have any existing friendships I didn't really know what was totally in style For clothing and stuff I didn't get the inside jokes And because I was kind of an outsider But trying to be like, hey what are you guys joking about It was like especially off-putting So I did very poorly during those like brief weeks Where I would get to go to school It wasn't like I was a big hit So when I finally got to go to real school And just like be there That was a relief because I could actually build some you know kind of semi-normal social relationships it's kind of fun to have the opportunity to try

to reinvent yourself i remember i tried to do that in eighth grade because i was with the same classmates you know kindergarten through sixth and then seventh a lot of the same kids only an influx of more as we all started to go to junior high school but it was you know as as has been well documented on the show my um my you know social status was it was nothing to be envied during those years. And so when I went to eighth grade, brand new school, I mean, totally different district. In fact, I went to a Catholic school in eighth grade for the first time. I'm meeting all these people for the first time. I'm like, they don't know. They don't know what a loser I am. Turns out they did. But I convinced myself that they didn't. I was like, I can be a different person here. They have no idea what my past is. But it's amazing how quickly you just fall into your I guess proper social status or strata well all of the I feel like all

the pop culture taught us that if we just change schools we had a shot yeah right did you do didn't you like start going by Andrew instead of Andy I tried that was one thing glasses or something I

remember that was a big thing it very very very first day of eighth grade I remember waiting outside with my classmates it was weird like we'd all kind of gather by class outside in the parking lot and then at a certain time they'd open all the doors and we'd go to our homerooms and I remember going to my homeroom and meeting my new homeroom teacher. I can't remember his name. He was a very tall, kind of a nice avuncular fellow. And I said, you know, my name's Andrew. And then he's like, OK, I'll introduce you to the class. Keep in mind, most of these kids have known each other since kindergarten. And this is their last year of being kind of classmates together in eighth grade. It was kind of I went from a junior high scenario down to an elementary school again for eighth grade uh just because of the way it was set up and i remember the teacher having me stand up and he introduced me to the class and he introduced me as andy and i was like what in the living hell like my name is andrew i just said my name is andrew i'm trying to do something here teach i'm trying to reinvent but my guess is because my parents only knew me as andy i'll bet you they filled out a lot of paperwork or whatever or maybe i'll bet you that goes back to that i i'd be surprised if he was just like calling me andy randomly after i said my name was andrew but i do remember that moment in my mind now you know decades later it's very cinematic and ironic that it was just like it was my big moment and from like literally minute one of being introduced to my roommates i was sort of uh side swiped or or under somebody pulled the football out once again

yeah from aunt from andy brown yeah i i was desperate to change my name i hated my name growing up, which is weird because it was like the name of the cool guy from a space movie. I don't know why that didn't.

The name of a cool guy from the Bible.

Yes, Dr. Luke.

Oh.

Not the producer. Not the guy from Two Live Crew. But no, he was a physician, I believe, in the Bible. The person named Luke. Wait, really?

Yeah. Luke in the Bible was a physician?

I believe so. I mean, I could have gotten some bad intel. But, I mean, let's be honest What do you think physician meant back then? Yeah, well, they called them barbers, for starters Yeah, exactly Let me just bleed out some of these blood humors for you Yes, thank you, Doctor But I really did not like the name Luke It felt overly, I think because I was embarrassed About the fact that our family was so overtly religious And Luke was a very religious, very biblical name at the time It wasn't, again, also it is the guy in Star Wars But for some reason that did not confer any coolness in my mind And I really Now here's the irony I really wanted to use my middle name which was Christian Which is like the name of the religion That I was trying to get away from A little on the nose There was a cool kid named Christian Like you know what I mean There was already somebody with that name But not like at my school Like maybe I played baseball with him Or just knew him from the neighborhood or something Like somehow I got it in my mind And there's no facts to back this up but I thought Christian was a cool name and I thought Luke was a dumb name.

Christian Slater was a pretty cool character at the time.

But I had gotten on this baseball team and we got jackets with our names, which, oh my God, I would kill to find this jacket. I mean, it's just in the, it's probably in a landfill somewhere, but it was my, it was the all-star, I made the little all-star team in my league and they, we got special all-star jackets and without even asking me, they just made mine Luke. And I was like, well, I'm going to wear this jacket until it turns to dust because I want to try to impress everyone with this. I got on the All-Star team. So I have to keep being Luke as long as I'm wearing this jacket. And then the mood had passed by the time I grew out of the jacket. I would love to find that jacket, though. That would be really fun.

I bet you it's pretty sweet.

They were so ugly, though. The guys the year before had these cool ones, and then this was the year they decided to do some. it's funny because i bet you now if i saw it i would think it was cool looking but at the time they chose this green and gold colors like it it seemed like they i was like wouldn't it be my luck that the one year i get one of these jackets it's like the year they choose to do a bad kind of vibe or whatever although again i would i would pay a thousand dollars to get my hands on

that jacket wherever it is but i guarantee you it's a thousand times better looking than the all-star uniforms last year here for the mlb here in seattle like i just i can't get over the mlb that doesn't look like anything to me oh my goodness i know it doesn't when did they when did they uh outlaw baseball because i can't remember the last time i watched a baseball game

nor can i nor can i i know oh my gosh like i seriously my dad and i are watching this new show on mgm plus which is actually not bad i finally got him to move into this decade actually i got him this was his idea but it's called like rogue rogue army or something and it's the story of these british guys that formed this thing called the sas during world war ii what basically happened was you had the nazis and the italians who were fighting on behalf of the nazis in like north africa and you had these allied troops that were trying to get to these airfields and

and um and and destroy them and you had this this ragtag team of of guys who shouldn't who nobody expected to actually do anything and they were called the sas and anyway it's pretty good so we've been watching that and i've uh i've actually been enjoying mgm huh i don't even know mgm plus oh sorry sorry who even knew that that was a thing that i'm now paying five dollars a month for my point is andrew last night i didn't even we didn't even watch extra innings we watched As soon as the angels tied it, I just said, we're watching Rogue, whatever the show is called. We're switching over to MGM Plus, Dad, because I know how this story ends. And that's, I feel like, when something really dies inside me. It's a one-to-one game. They could still win it. It's an exciting game, but I'm so hurt by this team that I can't, that's enough for me to go, I got to do something else. And then sure enough, I just see a text from Durst saying, make trade. and I'm like, okay, well, I know what happened there. And I was very happy with my decision to switch over to MGM Plus last night.

Oh, and you're also, by the way, just for the record, giving them too much credit. They didn't make it to extra innings. They lost in the ninth. They couldn't even rally at the bottom of the ninth. So there you go. That's our team. That's rough.

That's rough. But a lot of my summer has now freed up. And, Andrew, now that – this is a little preview for tomorrow's show. Now that there hopefully is a little bit of improvement in your health situation, we can start focusing on look-smaxing you. Okay, are you ready to be look-smaxed?

Is it look-smacked or looks-maxed?

I think it's looks-maxed. Okay, good. Would you do it if it was looks-maxed? I want to max your looks. And I've got just the rock-hard chewing gum to start this whole thing with.

Is it look-smackers? Okay, tell me what we're talking about here.

talking about the gen z trend of boys trying to make themselves look very appealing with all kinds of things but the latest is this crazy incredibly difficult to chew gum that's supposed to give you like a really rock hard jawline oh i mean i could use don't you think that would help

the show if you and i were both looks maxed i mean i kid i mean again i don't i i'm not calling this out visually so that john will put on social media in fact i hope he doesn't pull any clips from today's show because well again i'm reevaluating my whole life here luke i was growing my beard back yeah i like your beard thanks i kind of like is it a hassle to deal with i just really have enjoyed shaving so this all started you know maybe like four months ago or something i accidentally shaved like a big patch in my beard and then i was like oh shoot i just had to shave it all down um and so i had a mustache it wasn't a planned thing and i didn't think i looked good with the mustache but i did think it just made me smile in a way that i can explain i think i looked literally goofy like i think i looked bad and kind of silly but i liked it sort of and i was kind of like i'm kind of i'm glad i don't have to spend my whole life hiding behind a beard they are friendly they are really really good that's all you need exactly and also So very importantly here, and I'm sorry I'm getting away from looks maxing, but I really enjoy the process of shaving. I've been enjoying, like, buying shaving creams that I like the smell of. I love the way I smell after I shave. I like the way Bingo likes the way I smell after I shave. He's my bus driver. And so anyway, I just sort of liked the whole thing. But I've been growing a little bit of beard back because I figured with my hand surgery, I won't be able to shave for a while. and you know we're going to be doing another show with Megan and Lindy of text me back pretty soon like there's a chance that my face will be on social media more than usual and so I'd like to have at least a full-ish beard by then but right now a face hider but like right now I am in the the danger zone with this it just looks like I haven't shaved in a few days it looks like I have heartburn it looks like i am playing like a ineffectual like cop in like a late 80s movie you know who i'm thinking of is i look like lieutenant eckert in batman 89 and i think that's a universal i don't think i have to explain that any further i don't even need to google that i look like i should be wearing a trench coat i should have a hoagie in one hand and a styrofoam cup of coffee in the other i look very unhealthy and like i just have i've like i've just forgotten to shave the past few days because my wife and kids have left the state and I'm never going to see them again but I still got to go in and fight with the commissioner okay I want to say that you

do not look anything like Max Eckert other than just the exact amount of your beard right now like I just saw a picture of him this is not what you look like in the world Andrew for the record but you didn't have the amount of facial hair it's a very good comparison just in the literal length of your facial hair right now. That is where the comparisons end. look like this. Oh, there he is. I haven't seen this in a while. Hey, Eckert, think about the future. Okay. Oh my God. No, this is the show pick. I do. I'm going to dress up like this guy right now. He's got a full mustache, but he hasn't shaved in five days. He's got a fat face and he's chomping down on a cigar. That's not how you look. This is so great. That is not. I don't

show pick. Other than just the specific length of the facial hair right now. So anyway, by tomorrow we'll have you looks maxed or at least looks mediumed. Okay, good. And it's going to be just fine. Okay, yeah, tell me.

So, wait, that's it? It's just a tough gum? Can we get the tough gum?

I'm going to, Andrew, I'll tell you all about it tomorrow. I'll tell you all the various ways.

Oh, I thought we were doing the story. You're just pre-promoting.

No, I'm previewing it. Remember I said a little preview for tomorrow.

Oh, no, I don't remember that because, okay, can we, and maybe this is on your agenda too, if you're getting ready to wrap up, can we hammer home the message that we have tickets available for our big East Coast Philadelphia show? We can.

You will be able to come see our 90s country hip-hop styling, Philly Looks Maxed, at the Philadelphia Society for Friends. That's the Quaker Center. We're going to be there Saturday, September 28th. And you can get tickets at tbtl.net, and we would love to see you there. Yes. A lot of folks have been snapping up the tickets, and you should be one of those folks. If you haven't already, make a weekend out of it. Come to the city of brotherly love.

Come to the East Coast. Have a good time.

Yes, precisely. So I promise there will be – it will not be Nakatomi Plaza-esque.

No. But I'll say this. We're doing this at the Friends Center, a place of – I don't know if they use the word worship, but a place where they have their friends' meetings. We're going to do our TBTL there. And it's hard to say kind of how much Quaker influence is going to sort of seep into our presentation. A lot. But the one promise I have to listeners is this will be unlike any TBTL live show we have ever done and probably ever will do.

A tradition unlike any other.

Unlike any other. They say there's no whining in football, but there's certainly football in wine country.

We love that drop. I don't know whining in football, but every August, football comes to wine country.

Hey, I was a little bit closer than I thought.

Mostly I just wanted to I was wondering Should we go out with our theme song

Sure let me stop the words by doves Should we go out with our

Let's see if I can actually get back to Should we go out with our official TBTL live in Philly theme song

I think so as long as you feel like The sound isn't too Quaker I hope we're not leaning into the culture Too much or cultural recreation No I mean this is

the, this is

Wow, this is the exact energy we're bringing

September 28th to the Quaker Center, so please do join us for that. Get your tickets at tbtl.net. Thank you for listening, everyone. We will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

The history, and we're adding to the tale. TBTL's on the airwaves, riding on this rail. City streets are calling, we hear that urban strum. Blit in front of the city, just watch how we become Franklin's ghost is watching with a glint in his eye Making music fusion on the Philly's autumn sky We got the beats of poppin' guitar strings in the air

Making magic on Broad Street, good vibes everywhere Singing TV, VL from...

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