Muse

Rollo, the chocolate treat with caramel inside. Rollo, Rollo, Roll your boat gently in my mouth. Pop, top, check it out. Lick the foil with your tongue. Give it to your friends as a gift. Let's change gears. Rollo, Tony, Brown Town. Check yourself at the door. Give me some more, give me some more, give me some more on your Rollos. That's pretty good. TBTN! Oh, this is my jam right here.

Yeah, most people think I'm on drugs because I'm always happy. Are you on drugs? No, I'm not. I'm high on life.

We may have created a monster in the lab. It's not a monster. It's a cyborg that can kill without remorse. And there's just nothing wrong with listening ever. So listen, if you know what's good for you.

Remember, to achieve success, you must first conceive it and believe in it. Remember, impossible is nothing.

Well, hello, good morning, and welcome to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?

Ha ha!

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 were.

Coming to you from Westchester, Los Angeles. On a beautiful Thursday morning, it is episode 4,257 in a collector's series. Down here in Los Angeles to interview one Vanna White and one Ryan Seacrest, which has me thinking about maximizing my handsomeness.

The world needs to see the madness that is my upper torso, okay?

And today might finally be the episode of the show where we get to talking about looks smacking or looks maxing, depending on your preference. Also, Amazon is trying to cut down on something called coffee badging, which is not nearly as delicious as it sounds. We will get into that on this Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day, because, of course, on Thursdays, we do the Blur's Days. We'll do that as well. And we'll talk to this guy, the longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships.

That's a tuna, bro!

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

Good morning, Luke. How's your system now? You told me that your system was a little kludgy this morning, and I said...

And I was hurt by the fact that you assumed I was having tummy times. By the way, sorry about the ambulance steaming down Westchester Avenue here in Los Angeles.

Maybe they heard about your tummy times.

Yeah, maybe they know something I don't.

Yeah, exactly. So you were talking about your computer, not your... I just figured travel, you know, sometimes people get upset tummies when they travel. I thought that's why your system was kludgy.

Well, you know what I realized yesterday as I was flying down here was I haven't actually been traveling that much lately. And it brought back an entire kind of series of experiences and content for the show. I was walking out of LAX and I had the thought, Sky Jinx, ooh, because I saw the person whose job it is to empty these massive garbage cans, like as you're going into departures, right? So somebody drops you off at the airport. Are you in a relationship with Genevieve wherein you drive each other to the airport still?

It really depends on the context. I'd say at this point it might be 50-50 depending on timing. If it's a weekday work trip and one of us is working, we'll make our own way there. So anyway, depends on context.

When you say context, do you mean basically?

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

Okay, I was avoiding that question, let me be honest with you. She picks me up from the airport and takes me there. I make her take public transportation. That's the heads and tails of it. Wow, that is quite a flex. No, I'm just joking. I do feel like she, probably if you were to sort things out, she probably does do me the favor more often, but I feel like that's because I'm traveling on weekends more often than she is.

But any gotcha. Yes. Well, so here's what happened. I landed LAX yesterday and this is the new normal at LAX, which is if you take a, like a ride share, they will text you or call you and ask you to go from the normal. Well, okay. So there's two levels, literally there's two levels, but also there's two different things that happen. If you try to use a ride share, I learned this from our friend Kat Solon, by the way. What were you trying to do? Were you trying to like something on Kat's Instagram the other day and you couldn't, so then you did a different thing?

Oh, yeah. I like Kat's photos.

And she posted a nice photo on her stories. And then I went to like it. Did she shadow ban you? I went to like it. And Instagram says, we can't send your like at this time. You can't like it right now. What do you mean I can't like it? I am liking it. I'm liking it in my heart.

We've hit our limit for the day.

Yeah. And so I took a screen cap of it. And I publicly said, I like this photo, Kat. I'm sorry that Instagram won't let me like it. And then I later found out. She was like, oh, yeah. You couldn't like it because I immediately deleted it. I didn't think it was that good. And I was like, oh, shit. I just kind of amplified something that you deleted.

And then I amplified your amplification of that.

My bad. Oh, here on the show. I was like, did you? Yeah. I thought you did it on Instagram. That would have made my day.

Anyway, so something that Kat learned me was the new deal at LAX or the recent deal at LAX is when you go to take a ride share, you now have to get on this bus. I think it's called the Laxit. and like there's just no getting a ride share to come pick you up unless you order the like black service or whatever they're like the fancier version of lyft or uber it's not like a black job i don't i don't follow that and i i won't dignify it with a response sorry i'll just

very quickly um in what in which rambling speech did trump say was it during the debate i think He said that he was, like, providing jobs and black jobs and became this whole thing of, like, a lot of black people saying, wait a second, is my job a black job? What is a black job? And, of course, now we're hoping that the presidency will once again be a black job. Right. Thank you.

That was where I was trying to play this for.

You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?

Well, you've been traveling. Your system is kludgy. Thank you. Anyway, so the new deal at LAX is that you have to get on this bus to go to where the ride share is, which is so frustrating because the whole reason for calling a car to come pick you up is so you don't have to get on some kind of shuttle bus. If you were going to do that, you could take public transit. You could go to the rental car center. But now the new thing is it is so jacked up at LAX that when you go to the area where you would normally get the fancier version, thank you CBS, of the ride share, which by the way also is sometimes not more expensive than the regular one, which just tells you about the vagaries of the gig economy. So in other words, sometimes it could be like 30 bucks to go take the lax it bus to the place. And it could be 25 bucks for someone to come pick you up at the at the airport, like standing on the curb, like for the fancier service. But anyway, so now what happens, though, is when you call that, because, of course, I call that every time they then call you and they say the traffic is insane. can you go up to departures and meet me so the the uber and lyft drivers have figured out that being on the lower section of the lax whatever thing is so so kind of like um clogged with traffic that it's much faster to pick you up where normal like people in a family structure where you're normally where genevieve would be dropping you off and i was standing out there Waiting for my guy Who also was so apologetic I don't want to put this in a way that sounds weird My sense was Because first of all it wasn't a hassle for me at all And I was happy to get where I was going faster But the guy who picked me up The only words he said to me And he said them at least 15 times Was I'm so sorry And my sense was this is the Like the duolingo this guy was doing Had kind of Had locked in on I'm sorry

Oh I thought he was just like me

no I what again we'll never know because he and I did not converse on any other topics but he kept saying I'm so sorry and I kept saying it's totally fine but that he was apologizing profusely while I was I did not break out the assalamualaikum by the way even though it was a little tempting because I threw context clues I figured this guy might is from probably from a primarily Muslim country likelihood is he is Muslim if I threw out an assalamualaikum he would sense that i come in peace but i was like he doesn't need this on his wednesday night guy would so i agree with your instincts there thank you um so i'm standing out there waiting for this guy and i look over and the person who works for lax who is emptying out those huge garbage cans that are the ones that you would throw something in before you get on your flight that was why that whole description of departures versus you know where they normally pick you up came in okay but not

like the last and just to be clear and i think you've made this very clear we're talking about curbside here we're not talking about the last minute garbage cans right outside tsa where no people are putting all physically outside that's some kind of soup in there right people are pouring out water bottles they're throwing diapers like oh god i've actually

Special, they have, you know, special, like, weird rolling plastic containers for that, right?

I've seen that. They recycle all of that, by the way. They consider it gray water.

As-salamu alaykum. So, I just happened to be killing some time there, and I was watching the person who takes all of that stuff out. First of all, they don't have a good, it's not like you can't, for some reason, just bag up the garbage. like you can't pull up the like plastic bag knot it at the top and put it in something else and wheel it away like for some reason at LAX the plastic bag needs to stay or whatever the liner needs to stay in the thing so this person had to hand pick everything out and put it in a different garbage bag and what I was shocked by was the amount of towels and clothing that people apparently throw away when they arrive at LAX but before they get on their flight.

That seems like it would be the opposite. I feel like if you're flying into LA from a colder area the colder airports would have... But you're not flying in. Remember, you're leaving. Right. Well, let's see here.

Yeah, that's what I mean. Are you throwing out a towel before you get on the plane or throwing out a t-shirt before you get

on the plane? Yeah, see, I could see like you get to LA like you're off the plane. You're like, I don't need this winter coat anymore. Or maybe even as you're stepping onto the plane in the Twin Cities you're going to ditch all your extra clothes because you're going to LA you bought a one-way ticket you don't even know if you're coming back you know you're definitely

in a Sheryl Crow song of some kind

that's right you're definitely in a convertible with both of your hands up in the air like Drew Barrymore a la Boys All the Time Mad Love Boys in the Way Boys on the Line

Jingle All the Boys

Jingle All the Boys Indeed God I was just

Andrew this was the craziest part As I was watching this woman who worked at LAX Just kind of grab Thing after thing out of this Garbage can and put it into some other bag First of all my thought was I'm never throwing anything again Never throwing anything away again For the rest of my life

Sorry to interrupt your story I want to see this person's job description Have you seen this process done In this manner more than once Enough that you think that this is a policy And that they really can't take those liners out Or maybe in this one particular case, the person looked down in there and said, you know what, there's mostly a bunch of clothes in there. I'm just going to grab it quickly and throw it out. But, like, the policy cannot be for your workers to go and handpick all of the garbage out of these nasty garbage cans at the curb at the airport. That can't be the regular policy.

I went into an entire fantasy universe in which I had this job and I was rising through the ranks, Andrew. And you changed the policy. a lot of time standing there waiting for well i just thought like this can't be the policy this is ridiculous also if i had this job if i emptied this fast enough would it be would my supervisors note it and would i become like the star overnight garbage emptier and then would i become the manager of the overnight garbage emptiers and then would i become you know the

my pillow guy at some point right eventually you're president of lax and then you change the policy because you you came up you brought yourself up through up by your boot heels through

the ranks it's very hudsocker yes i did i really had the thought like is this how this person is is this the training on this has there been training on this and also what is this and i hope this doesn't sound judgy but i just thought like what's it like for this person to have this be their job at 11 p.m. you know monday through friday like to go in and do this but the other thing i was struck by was someone threw out a friggin buoy knife you saw that yes amidst amidst the towels and clothing and various chick-fil-a fast food detritus there was just a full-on buoy knife in there that this person then just tossed into the other bag like this was a thing that

they see on a pretty regular basis and this person didn't have any interest and they weren't separating out things that might be worth saving because i was wondering if maybe that's one of the because here's another reason why i'm quite sure this cannot be official policy at lax is because of exactly stuff like that and i was thinking needles i mean there's all kinds of

safety concerns you do anything sharp anything that might poke me exactly you do not want your

workers sticking their hands down into yeah i mean there's so many dangers in there um but i was wondering maybe the workers have realized hey a lot of people do throw away a lot of good stuff and so i'm taking upon myself to maybe you know do it this way and then see if there's anything worth like kind of salvaging because there must be a lot of good stuff in there there was as i

observed it yesterday no scavenging this person was did was pretty unimpressed by the fact it would appear that they had found a full-on like you know the kind of bowie knife that has like a reverse serrated yeah like what is that for by the way the other side of the blade of the knife that's going the other direction and is kind of like you know like is that's fishing related is that that's funny i was gonna say that too i was like

i feel like it's fishing related but i don't know it was the only time i was allowed to hold one of

those knives when i was a kid was if dad my dad and i were out trout fishing so it just occurred

to me so this isn't even foldable was it in a sheath or anything that's so dangerous for this person just reaching down in there they weren't but here's the

thing they weren't they'd open the side of the imagine one of those like garbage can like sort of commercial waste basket things that you might throw something in as you're going into the grocery store you open the container and then you can see everything in there so the person wasn't reaching into the void and just grabbing stuff that being said it was dangerous which i made a kind of slightly dark joke a second ago where i said do you have anything sharp or anything that will poke me i have thoughts on the whole fact that the number it would seem and we're in a week where the potential or i should say the the likelihood of police violence is very extreme in a particular case that happened i think in illinois that's really really upsetting but i watch a lot of like police content online somehow it shows up my tiktok feed and they're always saying do you have anything sharp anything that'll poke me it's like entitled karen busted for shoplifting at walmart and then it's just like the body cam the dash cam and the cops are obsessed with do you have anything sharp anything that will poke me and i thought when's the last time one of you mother effers got poked by anything like can we why are we that obsessed with do you have anything sharp anything that will poke you get that don't you get

get that at the airport too i mean it's probably been a long time since you've had your bags tossed But often if I'm traveling for work, I guess it's been a while since you and I have like really, well, I guess we'll find out in September. But like if I'm taking equipment with me, radio equipment to Philadelphia for a live show on September 28th, the Friends Center. Yes. There's a very good chance that I'll have radio equipment in my bag, which will, you know, set off all kinds of alarms. And then some TSA agent will have to pull me aside. And they always ask, do you have anything sharp, anything that'll poke me?

When's the last time anybody in law enforcement got poked by something sharp? i just feel like it's one of those things that's in the curriculum that maybe we have people that you know work in law enforcement like it could there could be a needle or something maybe it's because i've been just getting the steady diet of like like police body cam content of late and it's always about something very unimportant right i'm not talking about body cam of police violence towards someone but just like you know again entitled karen thinks she can steal garbage from lax or whatever the thing is when somebody is getting the the legal treatment the the law enforcement treatment this whole do you have anything sharp anything that will poke me i'm like did one cop get poked one time is this the like and also if i had something sharp that was going to poke you i probably wouldn't tell you i'm probably in a state of of life you know what i mean where it's like i'm not gonna go oh you know what i have this drug needle because i'm currently in a mental and you know drug crisis like it it feels like one of those boilerplate things that we can just stop asking because i just don't think it's going to give you a useful response and i don't think it's that to me it's it feels part of this larger idea that like it's them versus us and we're just full of sharp things that will poke them even though all we were trying to be was a karen shoplifting from target that's all we were trying to be all we were trying to be was a entitled karen who's shoplifting from target and now as soon as this thing shifts to we're probably going to have to go downtown they're like do you have anything sharp anything that would poke me it's like all i was doing was karening this these this this stuff from from target i wasn't also carrying around a buoy knife in my pocket secretly that's going to now poke you

The irony is we were trying to shoplift a bunch of needles, so.

I think I'm showing my frustration around the particular incident that I'm trying to not specifically reference, which I'm not sure how aware of it you are, but it's, but it just, I'm really on edge about the copification of America this week.

And the and the and the tone and the language. And I mean, even even before this particular instance that you're referring to, which is just like so hard to get out of your mind, just generally speaking. I mean, this is something that I felt in my bones and, you know, we should really probably just I feel I feel myself spiraling as we start to say this. This is something I felt in my bones, even when I was just like, you know, a long hair punk in the suburbs of Cleveland, just like the way police would talk to us sometimes. Like, and honestly, sometimes we were doing things we shouldn't be doing, maybe drinking beers in a park or something like that, you know, and I would like to point out from like a sharp container that might poke them. Right. Exactly. And I'd like to point out here that, like, I want to 100 percent like check.

privilege here or at least acknowledge my privilege as i was a you know white teenage boy who went to a private high school who's getting maybe rousted for drinking too much red dog in the metro parks or whatever like i'm not trying to make myself sound like a victim here or that i was you know threatened in any way other than people you know catching me doing things i shouldn't be doing having said that like i think a lot of people in their bones feel it from the very beginning that like when the cops talk to you in that copy way it immediately sets a us versus them vibe and sometimes it doesn't you don't even have to be like this the the center of their attention i remember one time like just trying to scooch around a police officer that had totally blocked a uh alleyway to pull somebody over and that they just love that there's a sort of vibe that they give off and and the more that they are sort of militaried up in their kind of like uh posture and and uh equipment and everything it's just like i was watching something the other day of like some some cops busting teenage girls for I don't know harassing them from a rooftop or something and I guess the whole I guess the whole point of it was they knocked on the wrong door first and they were so aggressive to this young woman for like the first 30 seconds they wouldn't she just kept saying why why why okay I'll get my ID and she was so polite to them and acquiesced and then they realized oh this is the wrong apartment like this was a girl that they woke up from her sleep and they were just like bullying her from the moment like they would not give her a reason for knocking on our door and i'm just like we are all just like once a cop has decided that they have you in their target there is nothing you can do and so in a certain way like as you're describing that is there anything sharp is there anything that can poke me i actually think and you know i don't want to play devil's advocate on this right now because it's not the point of your story i think there's probably decent on paper policy for that i think there's all kinds of dangers and especially if you're just working at the tsa and you're not copying that kind of attitude or whatever you don't want to get stuck by something that could potentially seriously

impact your health i would like to see i would like to see the number of times that somebody in tsa or law enforcement has been poked by a sharp thing i would put it in lower than the number of brass knuckles that they've that they've confiscated but i think the my point is i don't

think there's anything inherently wrong in that policy any more than somebody at the grocery store asking me if i want paper or plastic or using my own bags i think the reason is upsetting

right now is because everything else is wrapped up in yeah i think you're right also i just and again i want to check my privilege too i think i just i watch way too much tiktok which for some reason the algorithm is now just delivering me tons of body cam footage and again not about serious issues like the one that we're dancing around but just like petty issues which is just again like they go into that script and it's always do you have anything sharp anything that'll poke me and I so I think and I also just personally hate boilerplate content that is not in my opinion rooted in a real experience like I just don't think the number one thing that is threatening the people in law enforcement and the TSA is getting poked by something sharp and the fact that they say it it just feels like one of those kind of I feel like this is the second time this week this has come up but one of those like kind of brazil-esque kind of weird bureaucratic things that no one even asks themselves is this a real danger to me it's just now in the script and so everyone's just kind of um uh saying it that being said there was something sharp that might have poked this woman who's emptying the garbage outside of lax departures a bowie knife and she as she didn't um in this particular case she didn't grab it out of the one garbage and put it into the other she was kind of tipping it in this way that a few things were falling she was grabbing like plastic bottles by hand and then tipping it sometimes and i just thought holy shit like that's a free bowie knife do we say buoy it's buoy right buoy knife i think it's a free knife yeah and then i was about to go up and ask her is that normal that you have a buoy knife in there but then the lift showed up and then i got in like i started profusely apologizing and And I was on my way. So I haven't traveled in a while, Andrew, is the point of this story.

And that's why your gutty works are all mucked up, right? And which is why that drop you played before was a little bit slow. Yes, precisely. Yeah, I want to learn more about the policies of trash emptying at LAX. I mean, you know.

It's a terrible system.

Yeah, you've really hit me where I lived here. You know, it's a story involving trash and trash policy. It has everything. The rules around it. Air travel. But, yeah, that seems odd, but also I don't know 100% that I'm picturing it properly. So, okay, more research on that.

It was not a good system where you have some kind of a vessel or some kind of a thing, a cart that you push, that's clearly designed for the task of taking care of this thing. garbage can which everyone is using before they enter the airport to go on their flight which again uh not to you know keep going back to this but a weird amount of clothing and towels like and i don't think it was just it wasn't like it came from the same the sense i got watching this happen was it wasn't like one person just kind of emptied their suitcase of clothing and towels into this right like it was like this was a pretty regular thing that people are like i'm not going to bring this t-shirt on the flight i'm not going to bring this hand towel on the flight and i want

to know those people's story what happens in las vegas stays in las vegas so they had to take off

there what happens in las vegas doesn't get to last oh sorry i meant because you threw it out

in los angeles i meant los angeles i said the wrong thing um well uh but the thing that i find upsetting about this and i'm sure this person was wearing gloves i can i can almost imagine they were wearing gloves late were they blue latex but not thick enough gloves but that's the thing like you're grabbing towels you're grabbing shirts you're grabbing knives what have you but also are you grabbing banana peels are you grabbing like did somebody throw away throw away their half drunken starbucks latte is there is there a stew going on in there are there loogies like i don't yeah these are the things i'm concerned about not the things that are gonna poke me but the things that are gonna poke me in the soul right things that are sharp

and will poke your soul um what i was also surprised by was that it wasn't just a soup you didn't have yourself in the words of carl weathers a stew yeah like because that would be the number one thing you would expect is oh i can't take this half consumed beverage into the airport i'm gonna throw it in here and i will tell you this if you can throw a container that has liquid in it like a substantial amount of liquid if you can throw that into a garbage bag and not have it ruin your day, that's a sociopathic test. You've passed as a sociopath. Like, there's nothing more unsettling than having to throw away something that has liquid in it, but you're throwing the entire thing into a garbage situation.

It always gives me a bad feeling. I want to talk to you about something here that is sort of related, and don't go to tbtl.net right now because I'm bleeding to something here.

Are you telling me or the listeners?

I'm telling you. I'm telling the listeners they should go to tbtl.net and buy tickets to the upcoming show that we're doing live in Philadelphia on the 28th of September. I am telling you not to go there because I'll tell you, I'm not proud of yesterday's show title, but it did get me thinking about the story that you told yesterday when you were at the grocery store at the checkout line, and the young person behind the counter said, hey.

I'm at tbtl.net, by the way.

Dang it. You spoiled what I was going to tell you. because I don't like what I came up with for a show title, but it is what I think you should have said in the moment. And this is easy. It's one of those things where you have a moment with a stranger and then later on on the drive home, you think of all the things you should have said. This young person who was checking you out, not checking you out like, hey, check out that podcaster, but more like- It could happen. It could happen, but in this case, I'm quite confident it didn't. The person who was checking out your groceries rang you up for an artichoke and then said, ow, your artichoke poked me and then went to get a Band-Aid and you didn't like the fact that there was an accusatory tone because there's a gray area about who's a artichoke.

Like I selected a particularly danger.

And also you hadn't paid for that thing yet which technically meant it was still the store's artichoke but you could have said in the moment I guess that's why they call it an artipoke or something along those lines. That was what I was building up to.

I didn't even give you the full story on that, Andrew. There was so much I left out which was the person checking me out said, ow your artichoke poked me and i said to them it's your artichoke oh you did say that for this reason i didn't tell you this yesterday and then they said i guess it doesn't want to leave the

store and i was like that doesn't even make sense no it does i guess it does it's fighting it's like if you're trying to pull like you pull a cat somewhere that they don't want to be they're gonna they're gonna start no i luke the more you tell me about this person at the at the counter you've got me going the other way i want to go back to the checkout line with a human cashier because this person sounds sort of like they have a really good sense of humor when you're in a hurry that's the thing i think your artichoke poked me the more i think about that the more artichoke and art of pokes yeah it's a good title it's a good title it's a little bit it's a little jammed in there but okay thank you anyway welcome to hey welcome to the west coast luke that's what

I didn't really hit, have some fun. Get a Bowie knife. I really did have the thought, though, like, oh, this is what a lot of the content of the show typically is, is me going places and observing something. And I haven't been going places or observing anything. And I was like, oh, this feels right. This feels like hashtag content.

Good. I just don't want to hear about any delayed flights. Oh. dude like i mean first of all i had no problems in that department but we haven't even gotten into that but like what a weird thing to lay bare whatever is going on with delta's systems specifically they're still not up and running yeah and it's like your frontiers your uh spirits your kind of you know budget air airlines which are usually kind of failing in the in the service and functionality department they all seem fine it and alaska was fine last night and american and i'll just keep naming airlines but somehow delta is uniquely screwed by this and that just like the videos that i'm seeing when i'm not getting cop footage i'm seeing people that are just asleep in an airport somewhere for like four days it's bananas and it still all has to do with the the um compute the computer systems i guess that somehow through delta's system like deeply out of whack and more so than any of the other carriers so that they're still trying to get back online with that like obviously the system is up and running there was a crowd strike thing i think

which definitely already sounds right right that's all i can think every time i read those articles first of all when the news was breaking no none of the articles i read did a good explanation of what crowd strike was or at least not in the top few graphs there was something about like oh my god i'm sorry that i just took this to the most boring place i don't need to get in this i'm like mad about some reporting i read a week ago but i just like i they just kept on explaining they're not even explaining but just sort of saying the the issue that brought down you know all of the airlines or halted flights for a long time and had everybody's uh doctor appointments canceled was because, and then they would just say, because CrowdStrike wasn't interacting with Microsoft, whatever. And I'm just kind of like, what is CrowdStrike? And why does it sound like some division of Cobra from GI Joe? Yeah. Why in the world did you name your

company CrowdStrike? I saw the CEO of CrowdStrike the day that this all went down or initially emerged. The CEO was on some like CNBC type of show apologizing profusely. I would give this person credit it was one of those ones where he was like yeah this is a terrible mistake on our part and we are working right now to rectify it i was like okay that's comforting or at least that's refreshing like he wasn't trying to go he wasn't trying to minimize it in my opinion but it's like also why is your company called crowd strike right that name what a terrible you are that's perfectly described it sounds like a subsidiary of cobra from gi joe but um yeah

Do you think this person was also your Lyft driver? Because everybody's just really apologizing a lot.

As-salamu alaykum, Destro.

That would be a show title, but it's not.

Hello, and welcome to Top Story. All right, Andrew, we are finally going to get to our look-smacking segment that everyone has been waiting for all week. That's not true. The thing people have been waiting for all week, and by people I mean our friend Phyllis Fletcher, is really the article about coffee badging. Should we maybe start there? So if we're going to satisfy one of the top story requirements today, we at least satisfy the one that our friend actually wants to listen to and talk about?

Yeah, I'm happy to do either. I've read nothing on the gum story, and I think I read about half of this. I could be wrong about this, but the coffee badging thing was in the newspaper the other day. I read the first couple of graphs, and I was like, okay, I think I got it, and I just moved on. Maybe there's more dazzling details in the rest of the story, but I think I get the broad strokes of it. People are—this is about changing the habits of work from home, right, trying to get people back into the office.

Yeah, this was a piece in—by the way, the Seattle Times has a dedicated Amazon reporter, which kind of makes sense, actually.

Yeah, definitely, yeah.

It's somebody named Lauren Rosenblatt, and they write, Amazon might be stepping up requirements for its return-to-office mandate, and workers are feeling uneasy. After more than a year of requiring employees to work from the office at least three days a week, Amazon is now considering a minimum number of hours per day to meet that mandate. According to screenshots from the internal messaging app Slack shared with the Seattle Times, The crackdown, the messages say, seems to be focused on something called coffee badging, a term coined in 2023. It refers to workers who pop into the office to grab a coffee and then head home, allowing them to skirt in-office requirements but still clock the appropriate number of badge swipes. This is where I actually kind of feel like the article could be a little bit more clear, because it would seem that if you were coffee badging, If you were just showing up at, let's say, 9 a.m. to scan your bet swipe your badge get a cup of coffee and then i guess you don't swipe it on

the way out is that how that works i'm not that i'm not sure about but maybe they just see that you've swiped in and swiped out on this day but they're not they previously hadn't been digging into the numbers of seeing like well what was the what was the length of the time stamps it just

seems like very very easy for amazon to figure out when you went in and when you went out i mean

This classic punching in and punching out. That's what I used to do when I worked for my dad. Literally, it was so satisfying. I know we've talked about it, but an actual old-fashioned, probably 1950s or 60s era time clock thing where I had an actual little library card to go chunk, chunk, right into that thing. You punch in, you punch out. And I'll tell you what, I don't know how they handle it at Amazon, but at Walsh Manufacturing, they looked at those time stamps.

I think when this has come up before, I've told this story, which is the first job I had that used one of those guys, one of those law and order style, almost makes the same sound. Time card stampers was when I worked at Cregan's pharmacy. And the problem was it was so loud that when I would use it, the pharmacist named Wally, there was two pharmacists that were kind of the head dudes. One was named, I think, Verle and one was named Wally. They would hear it and they would know that I was leaving. And sometimes they'd come out and go, why are you leaving? I hated the job so much that I just wanted to leave in the middle of the day. But I also was afraid to leave without clocking out. So I would have to clock out. And I would try to thread it in so gingerly that it would go conk conk. But it's always going to go conk conk. Of course. The finesse with which I slide the time card in is not going to affect the motion activated, you know, whatever. ink stamping of it, but I somehow thought if I could just carefully put it in. Kong, kong. Are you going home? I'm like, you know, what I wish I would have said was, yeah, it's a thousand degrees up in that attic where you have me getting down vials to put prescription drugs in, and this is an OSHA violation, and yes, I'm going home. And by the way, if you need me, I'll be across the street. And also, Wally, you're dating Sandy, a woman much younger than you a single mom much younger than you who lives also across the street from me i know all your

business wally does sandy work there too does a sandy in their office romance or an inner shop

romance no it was an interneighborhood romance sam wally now that i look back on it was clearly having a midlife crisis he drove like a what were those like mazdas that were like a kind of mazda's

answer to a jaguar oh i wouldn't know but it did have a little spoiler on the back

Kind of, it had that sort of Plastic fin On the back window, you know how there was a period In the 80s where we were like We were not putting Just like You know, a tint on the back of the window But there was like a weird plastic Like kind of grating That was fins that I guess Probably, I don't know what it did It kept the sun from coming in through the back window Do you know what I'm talking about?

I know exactly what you're talking about It was slatted, it was like probably four or five or six of those black plastic slats coming off the back. It makes the car go faster and be more badass.

Right, and Wally had that. By the way, Wally seemed so old to me. Wally was probably 44. Okay, Wally's 44. But he then at some point took up with Sandy who was, lived across the street from us and I think maybe was living in her parents, in a home owned by her parents. Maybe she was, her and her children were living in the lower level. I know a lot about Sandy's life because i one time babysat for them and that is when i first watched the movie roadhouse because they had a bunch of vhs types and i was like i looked at i thought this will have boobs like this has a there's a chance of nudity in this film it's there is if i recall there's

some nudity in that film but i think that film is much more for the female gaze if i recall aren't the aren't the sensual scenes in that like very like you know i mean first of all you got the

swayze right it's yes i mean i mean i would say more dirty dancing is is more specifically for the female gaze but i don't know i mean i don't what is the hot part of when jeff healy is playing angel eyes behind chicken wire as people are throwing bud lights yeah it gets the ladies going

no i thought and listen you've seen that movie more than me uh but i understand just one time but i understand the female gaze more than you so we're the perfect people to talk about no i feel There were a couple of scenes, at least one very sort of gauzy, romantic scene on a rooftop, I believe. Doesn't he and the ingenue go on the rooftop and explore the contours? each other's bodies like i just sort of feel like in my memory those scenes were very steamy and maybe maybe it's from conversations i've had with women in my life i'm not exactly sure where i'm getting this or why i'm why i'm tripling down on something that i'm so deeply uncomfortable talking about now that i'm in the middle of it but i just sort of feel like that is you know do you have any memories that are sharp or will yes i believe that's what's happening right now please take the microphone please Luke what does Jesus say if if uh please take this cup yeah take

this or take this crown yes um I I think you're probably right because here's the thing about Patrick Swayze that we love is he was allegedly a badass but I think his main appeal was to the Sandys of the world and the fact that Sandy had it on VHS exactly supports your your premise which is you know we all thought that Patrick Swayze was for the boys but Patrick Swayze was really probably for the ladies I think Patrick Swayze was for everybody and I like that I like that he was able to you know be so useful to so many different kinds of folks but anyway I remember seeing Wally leave Craigans like close up the pharmacy window because it also had a drive-thru window some powerful Jimmy stewart rear window kind of like parts of my life as a kid we lived in this rental house but had these two huge windows that we would just sit on the futon because my dad had done a job for a futon company so all of our furniture was futons and we just stare out the window all day because we were so bored i was going deep into my history of unschooling the other day on the show and i remember just watching like out of a out of a kind of a mystery movie or something wally like close up the pharmacy window walk past his like mazda rx7 or whatever the heck it was down to sandy's house and then go in and i thought oh that's a sex thing is happening they were probably just going over their paperwork and you know who knows that what was actually i mean i think they were they were dating in some capacity i don't know if he was going over there At that very moment For something sharp that would poke Sandy But I was definitely like Oh and for some reason I had a sense I don't know what I think he was single for what that's worth I want to put that in the record

It wasn't an affair I don't think it was an affair

I think he was in a midlife crisis I think that's why he had the car

So he wasn't connected So it was just two consenting adults

It was just two people sharing each other's strength Sharing each other I don't think it was especially untoward but i just remember like going oh that okay that's what's going on anyway that was the guy who was busting me when i was trying to just leave craigen's pharmacy at two o'clock on a tuesday instead of staying until five o'clock like i was supposed to and the

now answer me i was the original coffee badger in oh yeah we should get back to that story in hindsight luke andrew talk about coffee badging which really means they discuss whether or not roadhouse was for the male gaze or the female gaze but looking back do you think that he was really busting you or do you think that older people like you know a lot of the stuff I was much shyer I believe and maybe a little bit more easily intimidated than you I'm guessing as a you know

I was pretty intimidated by grown ups yeah

because I was just wondering like how much of what was his name was what and the other person's name was what I like them

his name was Wally and let me just paint a picture for you he was a kind of a barrel chested guy with gray hair and like mutton chops oh nice he was a pharmacist at the pharmacy yeah and part of why he seemed very old to me was because of his gray mutton chops but again i bet you he was like younger than i am right now what was the other

person's name like sandy no no the other person who worked at the um verle verle yes see i love this walter and verle but like do you think they were really giving you a hard time or really just Sort of like enjoying, like kind of enjoying teasing the young kid on the staff a little bit just for their own pleasure and not even really thinking about it that much.

I think a couple of times they were legitimately annoyed with me.

Okay, okay.

Which they had every right to be. Like I had been hired for this job. Also, this was a place I would shoplift from frequently before I worked there, but not while I worked there, which maybe they were just like, we'll appease this kid by hiring him and then he'll stop stealing like upper deck, mint condition upper deck basement. cards from this place um and it worked i didn't i never stole anything from them while i worked there but then when i quit being a stock boy i think i went back to thieving that's right that's

where you got your i was gonna say playstation one or whatever it was right whatever nes thing

it was which again you returned it we we So... I mean, this was, look, I don't want to throw Peter under any buses right now, but this was, I was the lookout. Now, the way that felony crime works, as the lookout, I was still culpable for the crime. But if you drive the getaway car, you're in as much trouble as the person who did the dirt. But I did not actually steal it. I was, again, I was pretty afraid of adults in my life. For a person who now doesn't show enough nervousness around authority figures, I was pretty afraid of them and so I was Distracting the gal who Was you know at the front area while he stole It but then again he had a change Of heart I probably at that point was like Holy shit dude we have pulled off the heist of the Century but he was like This is too much He didn't say this but if he would have had The words for it he would have said pigs get fed Hogs get slaughtered Like you can steal a certain amount Of stuff from Craig and his pharmacy without them calling The cops but this Nintendo system Might be over the line

I like that expression. I don't know that I've heard that before.

I feel like I didn't hear it on the wire, but I could have. It would fit in. Somebody's telling Karketty on the wire. So then the issue became somehow reintegrating the Nintendo back into the environment because that was the problem. You can't just walk in and go, I know that I have this very expensive video game system that I want to put on the shelf because I'm just feeling generous. It was as much stress to put it back in the store as it was to take it out of the store.

Yeah, exactly. Did you sneak in at night underneath red laser beams? Did you have to wiggle your butt?

Yes, we looked like the cover of a Gas Huffer record.

Oh, I don't know.

That probably didn't make its way out to Ohio. There was a band in Seattle called Gas Huffer that was...

That doesn't seem like your kind of band. I'll say that right now.

Oh, I have no interest. I have no time for that.

Oh, no. You were like, the Violent Femmes seem too intense for you.

You know, the Violent Femmes are coming to Portland on Saturday night, and I am debating seeing them or coming up to get a good night's sleep in before our event on Sunday at the Eagles. And it's the Violent Femmes, T-Pain, and Billy Idol. Now, that's a lineup.

I can't figure out how any of those fit together. I don't think they do

I think they're trying to The idea is some people will come for the T-Pain And they'll stay for the Billy Idol Some people will come for the Violent Femmes They came for the Violent Femmes And I said nothing

Wait a second Is it like something that is kind of a festival Or a fair or a beer garden-y kind of thing Or is it just like a It's all of the above Yeah, okay, this makes a little bit more sense

But it's the same ticket Let's say it's $50 or something you buy a ticket to see all of those performers and we becca and i were walking gigi yesterday along the waterfront in tom mccall park and i just heard somebody because it's all fenced off now and somebody like security telling a person who was walking who was he was like yeah it's going to be t-pain the violent femmes and billy idol i just turned to becca and i said that's a hell of a lineup like who's the person who likes all three of those things and i think the answer is nobody but everybody maybe likes one of those acts or two of those acts and so then you get

everyone to come down and then you can tolerate like i don't i wouldn't say that i dislike any of those acts like obviously violent femmes would be the draw for me that's who i'd go to see

how many violent this is how many violent femme songs can you name because i could only name like

two yesterday oh well this is gonna be you're kind of putting me on the spot but i definitely had at least one full Violent Femmes album that I loved and I was really surprised I remember when somebody introduced them to me the first song I heard from them other than the two that you hear on the radio all the time is like this very long 8 minute epic song with crescendo and everything I remember somebody playing that for me and I was blown away and got pretty obsessed in college not obsessed that I learned more than one record but is it I almost said shake it off They do a little rap about halfway through. Wait, no, that's Taylor Swift. But now I'm on the spot, and I can't remember the names of any of them.

Anything about this sick beat?

This sick brain, unfortunately, can't recall the name of the song.

The ones that I could name were, of course, Blister in the Sun and Day After Day.

Day After Day? I don't know if that's the name of the song. Oh, okay.

Day After Day. and then I was like oh and then there was that one Why Can't I Get Just One Kiss and Becca said that's the same song

oh okay and then you had but you had you know American music I like American music I mean that's a great song I think Add It Up is the song maybe that I was thinking of Add It Up I love Violet Femmes is a very long one do you know that song? Maybe that's my music for your weekend.

Well, the reason... Oh, we're doing that again. Okay. I don't know, or not. I'll start compiling that for tomorrow.

I was feeling anxious this morning. I was like, are we doing it or are we not? And so I was like, well, I don't have anything.

You're like, make a note. Have music for your weekend ready to go on Friday, and then have a thought ready to go on Monday for Lindy and me.

Oh, shoot. You're right. I got to have a thought. God dang it. I have one weekend to come up with a thought. Actually, Add It Up is only about five minutes long. I just remember feeling like it was very long the first time I heard it. And you know, Gone Daddy, Gone. You know a lot more than that's them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

See, the reason that you even brought Violent Femmes up is because of the thing I've said on the show so many times, which was I did find the Violent Femmes very off-putting as a band, as a kid, not based on their music, which is very accessible, but because they had the word violent in the name.

Yeah.

I didn't get the joke at all.

I think that's very relatable. I know that you specifically, I'll think of you sometimes when I hear the name of a band, I'll be like, that wouldn't be for Luke. um and but i uh but i think a lot of people can relate to that i think i had heard of the violent femmes and you know that does like i was just like oh wow that sounds like a pretty heavy thrashy band i'm pretty sure genevieve grew up thinking you know until she got to a certain age and somebody said no no the violent femmes are very like very very poppy and alty but not necessarily

like angry music so back to coffee badging it's apparently not officially a policy at amazon that you're not allowed to come in swipe your badge get your coffee i guess and swipe out but it's now being kind of sort of discouraged by management but this just kind of points up like how confused all companies are about what like you know it back to office versus working from home even looks like like am this this behemoth that is amazon is afraid to say formally no coffee badging but they are having people go like could you not essentially like which i don't know i mean the whole topic of kind of like return to office versus work from home is i think so complicated because in a way it's like we don't need to be at the office but also i do think it is fair to say something is a little bit lost by nobody being in the office yeah i mean this is

this is what i must have said this on the show before and i know i've said this on like other podcasts or whatever in fact i made a i made a joke i was very proud of the joke that i made on kow those many months ago uh when i said remember i had accidentally shaved my beard off and i had said like the way like the city council talks about making ever forcing people to go back to work when it doesn't really make sense is they would suggest that i just try to paste all of the all of the whiskers back onto my face because that's the way it used to be it just sort of feels like you're trying to reverse time on this now i am somebody of a generation that does appreciate going into the office just speaking for myself like and it's weird that i would say that because i haven't gone into a traditional office in years and years and years now like almost a decade now which i can't believe but there's still something about going into an office place and working with people that i truly miss and that i truly enjoyed when i did do that And so I'm not put off by it the way some of my kind of younger colleagues and maybe friends have told me that they just think it's ridiculous when they work in some company where everything they can do at work they can do sitting behind their computer at home and they're just as productive. but to have these policies that say but it's bad for the city we need we need to pay employers force your employees to go back to work because not because it makes any sense from a practical standpoint but it makes sense because we need to generate taxes in the city because we need more commerce in the city it's like such a reverse way of getting commerce in the city you need to cities are supposed to be where people are you know i mean they're supposed to the the the services and businesses in the city should serve the needs of the people, not vice versa. It makes no sense to me at all. But it's just like we're in this transition phase. And it's not just employers, but actually policymakers who are just so desperate to get people back in the office. And I understand it's not an easy solution. Like you have companies that have just, I mean, in some cases, billions of dollars in real estate, like some of the most expensive real estate in you know like in in in dense areas in urban areas and it's useless now unless they force people to go back to it but if it doesn't make sense for your ends we it's tough and i don't have the answers and i'm not the person who's sitting on like you know office space in downtown like a bunch of empty office space in downtown seattle right now your heart breaks but this for these mega companies but like the situation but the the solution cannot be just plug your nose and hold your ears and pretend

That it is still 2015.

Plug your ears and hold your nose?

Do whatever you want. You're the one with the kludgy system.

No, you're totally right. Here's how we're going to save corporate America is we're going to just force everyone to go back to work even though they don't need to be there so that we can justify this gleaming glass tower that we have a really unfavorable lease on for the next 20 years. Like it's just such a terrible way to, to, you know, fix the, well, the economy doesn't actually need fixing is the other funny part. Like it would appear that, you know, if we, if we believe, uh, you know, the Biden administration and the Harris administration, have you, this is a, such a tangent and we need to get to blurs days. actually you have an out too so I don't want to have you I found myself the other day referring to Vice President Harris as Kamala in a way that like my daughter called me in on you know which was like oh hey would you um you know would you say that if if if Vice President Harris was a man and I think I think I was initially slightly defensive because I was like well no it's Because Kamala is kind of a unique name to me, and it seems very, you know, I don't know, just memorable to me. And I thought it was like, it's a compliment in the way that my mom might say something slightly racist, but then say, but no, it's a compliment. I'm like, yeah, but it's still not. And then there was a piece in the Times, I think, or no, there was a piece on NPR yesterday that was like, I guess people, me included, have a tendency towards using the first name of women who are, you know, in the public eye. in a way that we wouldn't do it if it was a man. So I'm really trying to work on just saying, I guess, Vice President Harris or something, not using Kamala, but I love the name Kamala. It's such a good name. I want to use it, but I don't want to use it in a way that's kind of misogynistic.

Well, it's not something I've done a lot of reading about, but it's something I've been thinking about. In fact, I've been thinking about it lately again, but I was thinking about it a lot during Hillary Clinton's campaign as well, because that was the same thing. You talked about Hillary. I mean, sometimes you would say Clinton, But we really leaned into calling her by her first name. And I remember I'm sure we even probably talked about on TBTL because these are the types of things I like to I like to talk about. I wondered, like, is that a bit of sexism? Like we say we say Biden, we say Obama and then we say Hillary. And now there were certain like there were certain caveats to that. There was already a President Clinton who is Bill Clinton, as most of our listeners know. And so that's one caveat there. Also, I sort of felt like in and I think this is true. I don't think I'm being defensive in saying this, but I think that Hillary was a brand that the Hillary Clinton campaign really leaned into. Now, whether or not they were just maybe maybe they were kind of like just acknowledging the fact that everybody calls her Hillary because of some, you know, inherent sexism in our culture. But I do think at a certain point it was like, you know, the signs said Hillary, you know, like the bumper sticker. I mean, not always, but often you would, you know, see that branding. And so if a campaign is leaning into it and so I would actually I mean, this is one of those things where I would sort of defer to people who are closer to her and well, and to Kamala Harris herself, Vice President Harris and and the people close to her, because in a certain way, like, is it inherent sexism? But another way, is it like a branding thing? It's like, I think, you know, we want we want, you know, Kamala in 2024. Like it sort of seems like that's kind of good messaging. So I honestly don't know. You said there was a write up about it where there are people kind of weighing in on both sides. It said shed any light on this.

I didn't actually hear it. I got a text from Becca as I was walking into the airport yesterday and she said, are you listening to OPB right now? And I quickly brought up OPB on my phone. And I said, you mean the tumbleweed story that our friend Anna King did? She was like, no, the story before that about how we tend to use women's first name in a way that we might not do with men. And because I know this is also something that Becca had noted about how I was talking about it. And I was like, no, I missed that. So that's the extent of my knowledge of the NPR piece, was that it happened yesterday and definitely made an impact, presumably, on the two most important women in my life, i.e. my daughter and my girlfriend. Yeah, yeah. Because they both are probably like, knock it off with the informalism around Kamala Harris's name.

Yeah, I think it's a really interesting question, but I also do wonder, honestly, what does she say and what does the campaign say about that? Because there could be, in this case, a benefit. it you know i feel like other people i feel like there were other and again i'm not trying to be defensive i i love conversations like this but i'm just like exploring it oh yeah you're right we do need to get out of here i'm looking at the clock but um i uh you know i feel like i mean this is such a lame example and maybe i'm just grasping

at straws here but with like lieberman and like joe mentum just trying to think were there other instances where certain you know male politicians i like to try to yeah like tried to lean into that a little bit ike i mean we're going back a ways now but um yeah are there no i mean i think my

guess would be that and and yes we got to get to blurs days my guess would be it's the kind of thing where it does sometimes go both ways but because of our history of sexism in this country we we should be super careful about like dwight d eisenhower was in no way diminished by us saying i like ike yeah but there's a higher danger level of of informalizing or somehow not respecting the accomplishments of a person who is a woman yeah you know so it's like it probably does happen on both sides but we should be more careful about one of those one of those events than the other

oh absolutely yeah and i i just to be very clear about that i'm not trying to do what people do

No, just to be clear, I'm the ally on the show. Right, right, right. Disgusting.

Well, they did this. Like, what about-ism? I'm not trying to do that. I actually just think it's a really interesting question because I think you're right. There's obviously inherent sexism. But I'm also just sort of wondering, though, from a very specific situation here, which is we are trying to get a message across and seriously, like a brand across, like, you know, that is part of campaigning. Could it potentially be seen as a good thing? You know, I don't know. But it also is, you're right, like, is it a way of us kind of like over familiarizing ourselves with, you know, and not giving the respect and the title that, you know, kind of goes back to Dr. Biden, too. You know what I mean? Like people when they say Jill Biden versus Dr. Biden.

I feel like that definitely the branding around Dr. Jill Biden has stuck. I feel like that's what I hear the most. In fact, I would note it if I heard Jill Biden anymore instead of Dr. Jill Biden. I think and I wish this was my idea but somebody proposed on the internet the other day that if Kamala Harris finds herself in a debate with Donald Trump she should call him Denald yes yes because he either intentionally or I honestly think it's unintentional I just think he's such a moron that you know never says her name right I just think it would be the funniest thing if she only referred to him as Denald

right like Liz Lemon referring to Denald Glover on 30 Rock all those years ago?

I didn't even know that. It's a weird

throwaway joke that I've always been a little confused by. I think, because I think that, I don't think that Donald Glover had made an appearance on the show yet. He was a writer on the show. And there's this funny, like, meta joke where Liz Lemon throws, just sort of throws out the name, like, Donald Glover? I can't remember if she's reading it or whatever. And I have always assumed that it's a bit of a statement about racism. Like, because obviously the name is Donald, but like, a white person seeing a black person named Donald. It was just like Denald. I think it was maybe a meta comment or it was just pure absurdity. I'll never fully know but it always sticks out of my mind. Maybe because I thought his name was Denald Glover for a while. Racist. I know.

There's a right way to rock and a wrong way to roll. You can't just listen to your soul. Just remember that life is number one. You can be having so much fun Just remember that life is much fun You can be nothing but one

Does he say in the song, Just remember that, uh? Does he literally give up on that line?

Yeah, I think he just gives up on that word. That's one of my favorite parts about that.

That's so great. How am I only figuring that out many years into this project?

I don't think people were calling Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth, right? That was definitely a Warren ticket. And, of course, Klobuchar's famously goes by Bayme. Do you remember that?

No. Were they trying to make that a quote-unquote thing?

I do think that during the primary season, you know, whatever, two cycles ago or one cycle ago, I cannot tell time anymore. I remember there was a lot of, instead of Amy, it was like Bayme and Klobuchar. Oh, sure. Hear me. I was weirdly on board with that. Like, I found it so cringy, but also I kind of liked it. I also never fully understood why her eating salad with a fork was abusive to her.

With a comb.

I'm sorry, with a comb. Everybody eats it with a fork. Her eating it. Somehow, like, that was, was it passive aggressive? Is that why that was mean? She grabbed a salad from an aide, and they didn't have a fork, so she just sort of grumbled and ate it with a comb? That seems like more of a self-owned than abusive behavior.

I think that the – and again, who can never know? I wasn't –

on the inside of this. I think that the argument was that she was not good to her staffers or not pleasant to her staffers and that maybe she dressed one of them down for getting a salad, like one of those boxed salads, but not getting a fork and then was exasperated and then said, fine, I'll just eat it with this and then used a comb.

Just used a comb. I mean, a hair pick I can picture, but just a comb? Anyway. You know, I heard...

Sorry, we need to go, but I need to take one moment to talk about Howard Dean. Okay. I heard Howard Dean the other day on Morning Edition, like speculating on something like he's become this person that the NPR turns to in the morning sometimes, I guess, for, you know, his political takes. And he said he was saying something about, you know, basically the way that perception can become the reality. And he wasn't talking about Klobuchar specifically, but he said, you know, it was like me and the scream speech. And I just like something inside of me just felt so sad for him that like, you know, but I don't think his point even was that the scream speech had been what, you know, ended his presidential run. Because, of course, that was sort of one thing that happened. But he wasn't able to translate the kind of excitement around his campaign that was virtual for like people going into the booth and voting. That was the story on him. But he just said it in this way that it was like someone who has been totally defined by this one thing and has to acknowledge it. And so he said it, but I just was like, don't give him that, Howard. Like, don't acknowledge that, dude.

Yeah, I don't know. But it also sounds like you sort of come to peace with it as well. Yes. Good talk. Thanks. Interesting, right? Just one more thing about Claire McCaskill. All right. Oh, hey, let's get into some blur states here. If you want to wish somebody a happy Blur's Day or a happy birthday, email me, andrew at tbtl.net. Be sure to put Blur's Day in the subject line. That's how we start these things out. I had this one all ready to go last week, and somehow I skipped right over it off of my script. And I apologize. This is a little bit late, and that is my fault. Happy Blur's Day to Karen in Kenmore from your crosstown cousin, Melissa in Ballard. It was so fun seeing you at Wait, Wait. Thanks for being my date date. You are so cute and funny and talented, and I love seeing your updates on the family text. chain, even if I'm not a particularly active participant myself. Let's get together soon, okay? Happy Blurs Day, Karen and Ken Moore. Sorry, Luke was using Karen as a disparaging name earlier. I am not my brother's keeper.

For the record, I don't agree with that terminology. I was just speaking to the SEO. Is that even SEO? Whatever the thing is that they've decided is now going to get more eyeballs. But I don't agree with that. I'm using that disparagingly towards the people who would write that on the video.

You're trying to reclaim it.

Yeah, exactly. For the Karen's of the world.

Okay. Cassandra and Victoria would like to send a Blur's Day wish to Sarah in Portland on her true blurs of days this year. I am so happy TBTL brought us together, and I'm so sad I miss meeting up with her this spring as we had plans to go to the sushi place where we first met up. I'm really missing her yoga classes. Have a joyful year, Friendo. Okay. Happy Blur's Day, Sarah.

I know exactly where they can meet up. Yeah? Philadelphia. Nice. September 28th. What's going on out there? The Friendo Center.

Okay. Anything happen in there?

I think Kurt Vile is playing an unannounced show.

Nice.

God, that would be so cool. Now we've got to get Kurt Vile. I don't think we have Kurt Vile. That was not like a weird way of me trying to announce that we do not have Kurt Vile on the show. Although, I don't know. I mean, we've had him on Livewire. I could reach out. I'll reach out to Courtney Barnett and see if he's available.

Hey, Courtney. Hey, Courtney. I would go to that show. Is your friend Vile? Is your friend Kurt? Sorry, I don't know why I did Vile there. I guess I went with Vile because he's a man. Well, because he's a man. I got to get out of this show. Bobby says, I want to wish my wife Shannon a happy Blur's Day. If I hadn't already known you were the one, it would have been confirmed when I managed to convert you into a 10. Aww. Can't wait to celebrate with our friends on Friday and then our trip to Boston. I promise not to get too overly emotional at Fenway when we're watching the Mariners, regardless of their performance. Are the Mariners still a thing? I didn't know they existed anymore. I am really, really shocked. I really thought that the headline would come out late afternoon or this morning that Scott Service was going to launch. And not that I'm advocating for that. I don't think that would really make us a more winning team right now. But it's just sort of, it's so like, Mariner's Land is so dark right now. So dark. As I say, happy Blur's Day, Shannon. Right.

Mike says Langley Grace is turning 11 Hey Langley From her jokes to playing volleyball and pickleball To knowing everything about Harry Potter And some celebrity named Sailor Twift Or something like that You're just a downright delight to be around You're a great sister to Puddle, friend to many And the best firstborn your mom and I could have ever dreamed of Plus, you've never met a dog that doesn't love you And finally Angela says happy 16th blurs day to pemberley now that is a cool name happy blurs day sure is dad and i are so incredibly proud of the strong young woman that you've become we know that you will be an amazing driver as you prepare to take to the road this year oh wow pemberley one one word of advice as you get behind the wheel the same advice that my father gave me when i got behind the wheel Boot it in the ass, Pemberley Boot it in the ass

You know a friend of ours I was texting with a mutual friend of ours And they were talking about How they couldn't believe They were taking their daughter out for their first drive And I was like, oh my god, I can't believe how old They're that old And they were like, no, they're 13 And we were just on a country And I was like, okay, that's not how that story works That's a right of passage

I might know who you're talking about I think you might

You know, it's just kind of like, I was like, well, I guess I'm glad I'm not losing my damn mind.

Yeah, right.

Because like, there's no way this person is old enough to do that. And it's like, there is no way. They are not old enough to do that. They were just, you, the story was about a child driving, not a story about a rite of passage.

It's a better story though. Children driving. It is. It is actually a better story.

But I was like, like, okay, we could have, I don't know, we could have framed this differently.

Well, she can reach the pedals though. That's still an accomplishment.

Yes. That absolutely is. I was telling this person, I was like, the most knockdown dragout fights I've ever had with my mother was not when I fathered a child at 17 or many other things I've done that have been extreme. It was driving the Ford Fairmont with my learner's permit while my mother was sitting over on the other side of the bench seat. The worst fights we ever had.

You mean her just supposedly teaching you the ropes or whatever, showing you the ropes, teaching you?

Like, kind of supervising me. It was like, I think my mom has control issues around, like, you know, riding in a car but not being the one driving it. And then it's like her child is doing it anyway.

Yeah, very.

And I was four.

And you were four and drunk. I buried the lead on that story. And drunk.

Yep, yep. On Mott's applesauce. Okay, thanks for listening, everybody. I just threw out some applesauce that my dad had left in the fridge, so I've got applesauce on the brain. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for you. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall.

You're not my mat, sir. Good luck to all. Sorry. Wow, slipped that one in under the gate. Power out.