Muse

Don't you judge me. You're the selfish one. You're the one who charged his own brother for a Bluth frozen banana. I mean, it's one banana, Michael. What could it cost? Ten dollars?

You've never actually set foot in a supermarket, have you?

I don't have time for this. T-B-T-L Guess what day it is? Guess what day it is?

It's Friday. Friday! Okay, gotta get down on Friday. Everybody's looking forward to the weekend. Okay, beagle, beagle, boggle, boogle, boogle, boogle. It worked.

It worked. What worked? Our little plan. You see, first we get your attention with the boring stuff, then we hit you with the excitement. Bam!

Bam! This is the way we talk in Tucson, Arizona.

Beagle, boggle, boogle. Beagle, boggle, boogle.

That's a ten. Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Friday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. I can't believe you're still on the air. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Bumping them gums, telling them lies. Coming to you from Los Angeles, California, specifically the Westchester neighborhood, just mere steps from Los Angeles International Airport and yes, one more day here in California. California got sunshine. Where they got sunshine. They've definitely got that, my friends. And they've got a show called Wheel of Fortune that I got to go watch them play yesterday. You play to win the game. Got to hang out with Vanna White and also Ryan Seacrest. I think that Vanna White I don't know if it was that she was trying to impress me or that she was trying to be extra kind. I think it's probably door number two. But I'll tell you what happened in that moment. It was kind of surreal being there, honestly, the whole thing. So we'll talk about that. Oh, by the way, this is episode 4200 and let the fun begin. 58 in a collector's series. All week long, we've been trying to get to this one dumb story about teenage boys chewing really hard chewing gum to try to make their jaws look extra handsome or something. I don't know if we're going to get to that today, but I saw a different kind of dental-related story in the New York Times that I did think was kind of interesting. It was the five things that we're doing that dentists say is keeping them in business. And that headline sounds pretty click-baity, but I was genuinely surprised by some of the things that were on the list. And then one thing, one specific thing, one of the dentists just mentions offhandedly to the New York Times reporter. Incessant chewing of ropes and chains has worn his teeth to nubs. So we will get into that, too, probably. And we'll definitely get into it with this guy. He's the longest-running cobro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's sort of the Randia Rosarania of podcasts in that historically he's been really good. He's been having a slightly off season, but he's showing some real promise. And then we think he's going to really change the dynamic here on TBTL. You're still doing a podcast? He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

And the good thing about TBTL is we famously take sort of like good, talented podcasters who are struggling, and we bring them over here, and they miraculously get better. They return to form.

This is one of the most forgiving podcasting environments.

Absolutely. That exists. People will talk about the marine layer surrounding this podcast, and some people will say the talker's eye is a little bit left of center. Something's off about it. Something's off about it, but I don't believe that stuff. I think I'm really going to hit some dingers.

I think you're going to have, I think you're honestly, I think you're going to hit some dingers and you're going to really, of course, we're talking about the fact that the Mariners, who are an absolute free fall right now, have picked up a guy, Randy Rosarinha, in the trade that was, you know, who's been a good player at times, but is having kind of a rough season and is now coming to a place, T-Mobile Park, where, what is the opposite of this is how legends are made?

This is where legends take a nap in the dugout, is what I believe. And I'm going to make a correction.

This is where legends are slayed.

This is where I'm going to make a correction, and this is probably one of those corrections that I'll live to regret. But I believe, at least my belief on this morning of the 26th, it's a Rosarena, I believe. I don't think it's a Rosarena, just for future reference. I could be proven wrong about that, but I think it's a Rosarena.

So I was mispronouncing it, or was I adding a syllable?

I think you were adding the little squiggle over the N.

And I don't think there is. I think it's Randy Arosarena. And again, we might have. I've never heard it Arania before, but maybe I've read it more. Where's Randy Arosarena from? I'm curious. I'm not sure. Originally, I mean, you don't mean Tampa Bay, right? He may be. He's Clearwater St. Pete. I mean, it's totally possible. I honestly wasn't sure for a second. I'm like, you would know that better than me.

I guess what I did, and I'm not trying to dig in on this because I have no facts to base this. Because he does not have, probably does not have, like Ronald Acuna. Yeah. I think it has that. What's the, this is how you know that I don't understand. Is it a tilde?

It might be a tilde.

No, tilde is a programming term, isn't it? Isn't that what a tilde is? Or is that thing called the tilde? And then you can use it when you're writing, like, programming.

T-I-L-D-E. A tilde is a punctuation. I love her work in Snowpiercer. Tilde. A Rosarania? Yeah. No, it's a tilde. It's a punctuation mark that looks like a wavy line. and it has many uses. Okay, thank you.

So that tilde, which is, you know what's funny? The reason that I was, boy, nobody said so many wrong things so quickly in a show than I already have. But when I learned what that thing was called, I think it was when it was starting to be used in certain kinds of like computer programming. And so I associated it more with being a computer programming word than being an indication of how you pronounce something in like a Spanish language. But anyway, like Ronald Acuna has that, right? Tilda, like over the N in his name. Probably, yeah. And Arosa Reyna probably doesn't. And I've just been sort of placing it there because I have a whole theory that Randy Arosa Reyna is probably from a Caribbean island. Cuba. I just looked it up. He's from Havana. And so I just was kind of – but see, I don't – when you said, well, maybe he's from Tampa, maybe he's from Tampa. Like, he could be. I just was like, most of the players, so many of the players in MLB are from, you know, the Caribbean or from Latin America that I just assumed a Rosarena was a Rosarena.

What was the song? I am. In some ways, you are so bad to me. And in some ways, you are so good to me. And in one of the ways you are talking to my exes. And one of the ways you are good to be is I will throw you the most stingy scraps of pop culture information and you will gather that slop up from your ankles and put it together into a knowledge snowball.

It's basically like an O2 pitch and you're just burying it in the dirt because you do not want to accidentally leave one up in the zone for me.

But you'll just dig it out and just like get it out of the park 410 feet. There is a pop song that I'm going to say was popular about, well, I want to say five years ago, but the way time is moving quicker these days, I'll bet you it's closer to 10, somewhere between five and 10 years ago, that had a hook. I don't know if it was a hip-hop song. I believe it was a hip-hop influence song, if nothing else, like that style of pop. And it had the catchiest hook of a female singer or singers singing about Havana. Do you have any – it almost sounded like it was a sample from like an old – almost like it was a sample from an old like 40s song, only clearly it was a modern recreation of it. Does any of this ring a bell to you?

All I'm getting is Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega.

Yeah, that's not it. Is it – well –

That was a joke, but I don't know the song, but I promise you I don't think you're thinking of Mambo No. 5.

I mean, so I know that the singer lists a whole bunch of people's names. um a whole bunch of different women's names okay uh and it's a particular i'm just joking

this is an ordering of mambos is that what you call it by when you have one the more than one

mambo together it's an ordering of mambos i'm gonna say that this song if i can give you another clue it's it's more than mambo number four okay i swear to god it's less than mambo number six but i just I can't I'm just not giving Is there any chance It is actually called Havana Featuring Young Thug And it's by Camillo Cabello Or Camilla Cabello Oh yeah yeah yeah Camilla Rosareña I think this might just be it I probably So it wasn't a sample It was actually the artist Singing the actual hook Of the song And it was Featuring a young Well now we're getting pulled down In Romania I know It's music for I'm gonna talk Yeah this is it Oh my god six years ago i was right that it was between five and ten um this song is so good this one of those pop songs obviously i didn't even know either the artist's name uh but i hear it on the radio every now and then and as somebody who is not as you can tell very familiar with pop music i will say that one always stops me in my tracks um i think i'm mildly aware of that song but you

No, I am not more aware of it.

i'm realizing and this occurred to me when i was in the lift yesterday on my way to the sony picture studios if that was from six years ago that was also pre-pandemic right just barely yeah i think so yeah my knowledge of pop music is completely through the portal of tiktok like there and when i was in the lift i knew every single song that was playing on the like you know kiss one oh something here in L.A. because I watch so much TikTok that just these songs like if that song would have come out three years ago, I would totally know it because I would have seen someone doing some kind of a dance to it or like a, you know, a grumpy cat would be doing something. And and but but so if it's before that, this is before TikTok made its way into my heart. I have a pretty limited knowledge of those kinds of pop music songs.

Yeah, I don't know how that one slipped onto my radar either, other than it was probably a pretty big hit it might have been used in commercials i'm not entirely sure but um i did want to so back

to the i just i just want to put a quick pin in this because it's been real jibber jabber there's been a lot of sexual jibber jabber from me you don't think that people who just casually don't

follow baseball don't know what we were talking about we were just making a bunch of sarcastic

references at the top well that's what i was trying to try i was trying to mitigate that ever so slightly by just saying the mariners got this guy who is a pretty good hitter but he's coming to play at the place where we play baseball uh which famously for reasons that are never scientifically quite pinned down seems to make players who are good at hitting bad at hitting and some people think it's a weather thing some people think it's the permissive nature of seattle fans um something that's the rude nature of seattle fans who insist on cutting in line when they're going up the stairs there are no about them there are no firm answers but it's just the Mariners attempt, I mean, hey, look, if they wouldn't have gone and got somebody, I'd be mad at them for that. So they're trying. But the idea that they're going and getting someone who's having a little bit of a challenging season already, and then bringing him to this place where people seem to go from doing really well to really poorly, it isn't lighting the fire of hope in me the way that like, you know, I wish it would have. But that's what that was a dumb reference to. And it's because when I start talking to my friend Andrew, and the Mariners have made a big move in the 24 hours between episodes i'm incapable of not bringing it up

with him either directly or from the side reference it exactly and one thing that i wanted to say and i i had this on my note sheet yesterday this is not a long tangent here luke who's going to hear about your about your um hollywood friends your george clooney's and your california raisins but they were all there but i did want to say something that i neglected to say yesterday which is I'm worried about, I'm going to say about 164 of our listeners. I'm concerned about them. We have 428 listeners out there who I am totally psyched about. They are in great shape, but we have 164 listeners who donated during the TBTL-a-thon at a level that garners them a TBTL Junior Sluggers shirt, but we don't know what size to get them yet. Oh, John Sklaroff, TBTL employee numero uno and business boy numero.

Honestly, the the the bit of dirt holding this entire snowball together.

Exactly. Dirt boy numero uno. How did that go from so positive to so negative? As Luke just called him. No, no. John has been emailing folks a form so that the folks who donated at that level, If you have a shirt coming your way We need to know what size to order And so John has been emailing a bunch of people We've heard from, like I said, a whole bunch of people But there's about 150 people we're waiting to hear back from So keep an eye out Or take a look in your email The email I think went out yesterday or the day before And we get that filled out And we get a t-shirt headed your way There is a bit of a deadline Because we can't be ordering these one by one We've got to place one big order for them So we don't want you to miss out On your We can even put Randy Rosarena on the back of the shirt if you want.

I was going to say, if you don't respond, we will just send you a one-size-fits-all Ryan Court jersey. So you're highly incentivized to get in touch with us and let us know your size so we can send you the correct shirt, the correct raglan shirt. That's right.

We're going to send you one that says the TBTL Junior Rosarena is what it says now. It changes constantly.

Yes. I was going to say to you, Andrew, kind of reflexively, instinctively on a Friday, as I often do, big weekend plans. But then I realized we have weekend plans together. Yeah, we do. Yeah. We're going to be making bracelets. We're going to be getting together to make a buttload of bracelets on Sunday.

So am I going to be afraid of the bracelets or am I going to be brave for everybody else? No. I was going to say, are we going to be making bracelets ourselves? Are we going to be like, and I'm trying to think of a good comparison here that doesn't take us back to the- Santa's workshop. But we aren't going to be the elves. We're going to be like the cockswing. No, we're Santa. Okay, we're all Santa? You, me, and John are all Santa?

Santa the cockswain? Whoa, Santa would be a really bad cockswain. He would because of weight? He's a man of pretty, I mean, he's got a bowl full of Jell-O. Yeah, that didn't occur to me that body shame plays in that. You know, I'm not trying to body shame Santa, but I'm just saying.

I got to say, if you're going to body shame Santa, July is like the best time to do it.

Yeah, definitely. I've been, you know, I've been to Branson, Missouri with a bundle of Santas in July, and it is a weird ass experience. That's a true story. Yeah. I did a story about a Santa Claus convention, like as in people who are professional Santa Clauses. And interestingly enough, their wives at some point become Mrs. Clauses, whether they wanted to or not. It's just an inevitable thing. You wear the mask long enough. You bake the sugar cookies long enough and they begin to fit. like i heard story after story of um of from these from the wives of these guys i mean the evolution of becoming a full-time santa is this um you have a beard you decide to stop dying it people start someone makes one person makes one comment oh hey you look like santa and then you have this idea well maybe i could monetize this and then you become like a mall santa and then you kind of get into it and then you start doing more things and then you start to take it very seriously then you join this like fraternal organization of full-time santas and then you never go back now meanwhile your wife is either she is going to never see you again for four months out of the year or she is going to take on the the character of mrs claus and that

happens a lot of the time and it's it sort of sounds like the heat is being turned up on the water so it's not kind of like the signs are there early on and you can make a decision if this is the

the life choices you want to make i yeah it's i i think it just comes down to like someone's got to give the santa a ride to this event yeah it's going to be me i'm going to be there already i mean what if i just did you know throw a little rouge on my apple cheeks and uh and put on a mrs claus-esque dress the next thing you know it's a whole lifestyle for these folks um but i but so so i'll be mrs claus you be santa john will be um can be like the head elf like the

kind of angry guy in the movie elf i don't know that i've ever seen the full movie elf i gotta be honest with you i've seen i feel like it's such a cultural touchstone that i've seen i've probably seen all the parts out of order but i've never sat down to watch the full movie elf

it is really charming i mean and i think if you if you were a parent obviously that that's the kind of content that tends to come into your life more if you have children or you know nieces and nephews or whatever um but then it's like this also kind of works on a on a as a grown-up i found that movie very entertaining it also brought together in the way that the movie swingers brought together a bunch of stuff that i was i'm not really super proud of this but it you know 22 year old luke burbank was like the movie swingers was written for me because it was young guys who were trying to figure their life out and saying catchy things to each other and a bunch of stuff that like again i don't think it necessarily holds up i'm not into it but it just felt and it had this swing dance soundtrack and i was kind of into swing dancing it was just like in the same that's how elf was for me because i was a parent and uh it has will ferrell in it who i love it had zoe de chanel who i you know had a bit of a crush on the soundtrack was great like kind of you know sort of ray charles doing winter actually that might be when harry met sally but like it just had like all of these things to it that were sort of perfect for me bob newhart makes an appearance rest in power um so i don't know why you would ever find yourself watching elf but if you are sometime during the christmas season stick with it it's a good movie that's like gummo for me

uh-huh right exactly all those all those elements that i think you're thinking of julian donkey boy eating you know the things like just things i was into like you know eating cold spaghetti in the bathtub filled with dirty water um going around town and well i'm not going to say what

else is in the movie it's so goddamn dark so i do think we'll be i i see our role as being the um kind of hosts of this event i mean i'll listen i'll get i'll get down and dirty with a with a slab jacking bracelet happily i've you know i've made hundreds of them at this point i know what i'm doing but i think it'd be probably we'll be floating around we'll be chatting with folks will be you know giving them performance improvement plans and things like that just kind of telling them telling them some ways that they could do this a lot better that seems smart yeah

we're ordering the pizzas by the way things are a lot of pizzas i mean we have a lot of people

coming but for some reason the amount of people that are coming it didn't quite occur to me to

realize how many costco pizzas we're ordering i seriously do not want to um stall your stories from La La Land any further on the minutia of Seattle, but I will say you might find this somewhat interesting.

And it's a location here in Seattle that I directly associate with you because the first time I went there, you took me there. And I thought it was a magical place in its initial incarnation. And now I finally went back in its next life just the other day, and I thought you might want to report. And I'm talking about the place that we used to know as the North Lake Tavern, the pizza joint. In fact, we made a David Horsey joke earlier this week. It was that place that was like an old school pizza place that also had a bar in it, but it had these big David Horsey, a kind of a murals cartoonist from this area who went on to be at the L.A. Times. Huge murals by him celebrating UW athletics that harkened back to probably the 80s or probably 90s, I'm going to guess. And it just felt like it had a bar in there, but it felt like a kind of if you wanted like an old school family sort of pizza place that I would still go to that you took me there. And I think we were there with Nick Jarin and Camaro Kev, maybe after we crashed one of your boats or something.

Oh, yeah, that sounds like a post-boat kind of situation.

Yeah, and I always liked that place. I was charmed by it, and then I knew it was up for sale, and it ended up being bought by the people who own Big Mario's. In fact, they turned it into a Big Mario's. And I was wondering how much of the charm they were going to keep, how much of the horsey they were going to keep. It's been under ownership by them for about a year.

Were they going to put the charm before the horsey?

No, don't put the charm before the horsey. Oh, remind me to make that a show title. So the other day, Genevieve and I, on a whim, I was just like, here, I'll give you the quick backstory on this. Actually, I guess I'll be on that podcast today. I recorded it yesterday on the KUOW podcast, Seattle Now. And one of the stories was about pizza in Seattle, our friend.

Oh, yeah, they're doing some kind of like a competition in the Seattle Times.

In the Seattle Times, yeah. And Bethany Jean Clement, who's one of my favorite writers, I mean, just writ large in Seattle. But a food writer for the Seattle Times is a great writer. One of the ways of covering pizza, her and her colleagues were kind of literally weighing pizzas, like the best pizzas in town, but weighing them and seeing like which one is the most value if you wanted to go by weight. I mean, it's a bit of a it's a bit of a jokey canard, obviously. But I got to say, there was a little bit of pizza snobbiness in there. And I was sitting there reading that it was like Wednesday night or Thursday night, I guess Wednesday evening. And I was like reading all of the I was doing my little job of like being a podcast guest and doing reading all of my materials. And then I started reading this thing about pizza and they were being a little bit snobby about it. Like, I don't I don't want to be here defending Domino's pizza. But as I said on the show, there is a time and a place for Domino's pizza. And like that place is when you're in a depressing hotel room in Kelso, Washington. Like you don't you don't want to go to Bruno's. But I'm saying that you don't want to go to Motu Pizza. You don't want some, like, there's a time and a place for almost every pizza, with the exception of the place next to the strip club near my house, which is just bad. But aside from that, anyway, so I was reading this piece, and they're, like, weighing pizzas and also talking about how bad Domino's is and then how good this one pizza place is that you can only get it because there's one guy making it in his apartment.

Yeah, when the dough, like, is in the mood for it.

Yes, and he, like, literally, like, there's one guy making it. You've got to be on a wait list. that shit just pisses me off so much the idea of being on a wait list for pizza I can't tell you why it doesn't make me mad that other people do it but it makes me mad that anybody would ever even consider that I would do something like that it's just anathema to pizza eating to me and I literally stopped reading the article I'm like Genevieve I can't do this anymore I'm hungry let's go get some pizza and so we were in the car before we even decided where we were going I'm like oh let's go see how the big Mario's takeover of what an act of defiance it really truly was I am being the change I want to see in the pizza world.

I put down my newspaper and I said, somebody's got to do something about this.

That's right. And I did do something about it. And Luke, it really was the pizza dream that I needed. Because, I mean, I've had plenty of Big Mario's slices before. Usually, you know, you order by the slice at the bar or whatever. That's usually my Big Mario's experience. I'm sitting at the bar by myself watching whatever 80s movie they have on the VCR with subtitles. but this time like you know the layout of the old tavern is like it's still the same so like kind of big booth some tables spread around or whatever you could sit at the bar if you wanted to but Vives and I just sat in an oversized booth they brought one of those little pizza trees out to set the pizza up on top we got like a large pizza it was so much food it was like those really floppy New York slices it's like the closest thing to like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pizza which is what I think is kind of the platonic idea. Cowabunga dude. Cowabunga dude and we just cowabungered our way through that pizza it was really really good i bet you you have not been there since they've taken over but i'll no i was happy to see that it was a very vibrant crowd it was like you know it's like probably the biggest big marios and they were doing a quiz night just like very very just like it was both like it was both like warm in the old school way of like i wanting to sit down in an old old-fashioned pizza shop, but also modern in a way that didn't feel like, I don't know, when's the last time they washed that David Horsey mural?

Speaking of which, they left the murals up, right? That's a big thing.

No, they didn't. No, it's much darker in there now. At first, I was like, I'm going to be bummed. I really was thinking this. I was like, I'm going to be bummed if those things are down. Those are kind of a part of history. Even if they're corny as hell, they're kind of a part of history, and there's a campiness to them that I felt like you could work in. But once I was in there and I saw what they had done with the place, I was like, it probably needed to be done. It's probably underneath there somewhere. They probably didn't destroy them, but like, no, they are not visible anymore. It's more dark, darker walls in there now.

I mean, you know, this is the march of progress. But like I when I had read the article that they were taking it over, I was under the impression they were going to try to preserve the charm, which it sounds like it's a charming place. But it doesn't sound like it maintains any connection to the old days as the North Lake.

Well, the biggest change would be that you don't see the murals. But, I mean, I don't know if that would say that it's not it's not preserving any of the charm. Like I it doesn't feel in other words, like I've been to a lot of big Mario's, as I know you have, too. And they tend to be kind of smaller places, a little like in mostly like mostly surrounding a central bar area, you know, and it doesn't feel like that. It does have that charm of an old school pizza shop. That's why I was saying, like, I liked going in there with Veeves. Like, I wouldn't have, as much as I love hanging out in the other ones, that was not what we were in the mood for on Thursday night or Wednesday night. Like, it did have, it did have, like, a homey feel to it that I really much enjoyed.

My memory of that place, because that wasn't, like, the North Lake Tavern for me loomed larger in my imagination than in my actual, like, going to it a lot. Like that time I was there with you and Du Bois after we fired off a flare gun on my boat in a non-emergency situation, which was questionable. That was probably one of maybe four or five times in my life I'd ever been there. My memory of it is that it's a cinder block building, and I feel like it had relatively low ceilings. How close am I with my memory?

Did it have low ceilings? It has a very – it has a bit of a womb-y feel to it. Like, it feels comforting in there, but I don't picture the ceilings as being super low. But let me take a look.

Because, again, this is the problem for me is the David Horsey thing looms large because, like me, he graduated from Nathan Hill High School. Like me, he has a Pulitzer Prize. And there is this, and this is just what happens in cities and in life, which is out with the old and in with the new. And I think the new of Big Mario's is a good new. I mean, I like those places a lot. But the North Lake Tavern was such a specific vibe, the way they made the pizza. So it was that kind of tavern style pizza that's got like way too much stuff going on, you know, to where that is the kind of thing you might weigh it as opposed to the Big Mario's, which like you said, is sort of New York style pizza, which, of course, I also love. and then it was those murals and my memory of the North Lake Tavern is the kind of place you go after a softball game or after a disastrous boat trip and you eat this certain kind of really heavy pizza that might have like sliced tomato on it which I don't even normally like but somehow at North Lake that would be a good and they'd have silly names for the pizzas you know the pre-made or pre-designed ones like it was a whole energy and it sounds to me like this new place is awesome But it sounds like energetically, if it's not the same kind of pizza, if the murals are gone, if it's like it just sounds like it's an awesome place that doesn't seem like it has a very strong connection to what I think of as that North Lake Tavern vibe.

Well, I mean, as a person who was there a couple of days ago and who was really anxious about having too big of a change, I will say that I was happy.

It felt the same.

It didn't feel the same. No, I wouldn't say it felt the same, but I would say that it still – it carries over some – and it does have, you're right, kind of lower ceilings. I was, like, trying to picture – not like those kind of gross drop ceilings, but it is very cozy in there, and it has sort of some beams coming down. I'm sort of, like, reminding myself with some photos here. And, yes, like, here's the deal. I loved the vibe of that place. I'd gone a couple of times. I'd even gone by myself one time. I remember going in there, and I think they even had a – like, back at North – when it was North Lake Tavern, I watched a Mariner's game, I think. on the big screen i think i was one of the only people in there sitting at a table in the middle of the dining room and so like and so like i having only been there a few times myself had a real affection for it and again those murals also huge part of like where else would you see something like that right and so when i heard that they were closing i was like oh no that's a real bummer like i'm gonna really miss that place but then when i heard that big mario is a place that i generally trust as far as like creating like nice or like kind of good spaces that I am comfortable in. I was like, oh, okay, this could be good. So you're right, they've taken out two things that you associate with these specific murals and that style of pizza, which by the way, the pizza there, like I liked it because they cut it into squares in the old day, like you said, it was that tavern style, which is a big deal.

for me but honestly it wasn't that good like you would get olives on a pizza and it was like that tapenade remember i think we talked about this before and they just like covered the pizza with it and honestly like i was anxious going in there thinking like i don't know i really had an affection for this place and you go in and that's what i'm saying like it doesn't feel like it's like so different like oh it's capitol hill comes to north lake or whatever it's just like it is more modern it's more vibrant it doesn't feel like it's dying you know but it also doesn't feel like it's like the unicorn on capitol hill it's like it's still a cozy place to go in there and it was actually like when we got there it was probably probably earlier in the oh well we got there probably around 7 30 because i know that trivia started at eight and um we didn't stick around for trivia but uh anyway just like you know there were some older people still in there i saw like you know a group of people probably like 10 years older than us like kind of shuffling out as as more younger people kind of came in for the um for the for the trivia so i don't know i would say that it didn't keep yeah they're not making the old pizza like the old people did and they did change the decor a little bit but it's not like some huge renovation where you wouldn't recognize the place or feel different in there it's a i don't know i'm i was very happy with the vibe it was exactly what we needed in that moment i think that there is just a certain era

of seattle that i kind of grew up in but also i think i came of age in a little bit that's very associated with just certain vibes right that was like and and sorry we have some sort of a fire emergency happening here on westchester boulevard and i can see all the way down the road i can actually i can see to like baldwin hills from here and i can see that there's a line of fire trucks so sorry if they're going to be noisy i can't even hear them no um but uh like i think it's almost like there's an aspirational idea of seattle that i grew up with as a teenager and as a young person and when I say aspirational I don't even mean this is good stuff to aspire to I mean it's the stuff that I heard about that was I thought like the cool stuff one was the Duchess Tavern and one was North Lake Pizza and these were places where I feel like I had heard that people in their 20s would go and therefore they became very like you know kind of like I guess mythical in my mind even if I'd never been to them or if I didn't go to them a lot and this legitimately this guy named david horsey who's uh you know this editorial cartoonist who also by the way painted a huge mural inside one of the gymnasiums at the old nathan hale high school the one that i went to he had painted like the gym where the wrestlers would practice the whole inside of the gym the walls were david horsey style high school wrestlers doing high school wrestler things um and so you know this idea this guy that i went to the high school with uh i didn't go with him he was a little before me but this went to the same high school and things like that and and when the huskies were good and steve entman was going number one overall in the uh nfl draft and like i don't know there was just this what felt to me probably because i was younger and because i didn't know how much not great stuff was going on in the world and in seattle you know i'm talking like 19 like early 1990s seattle feels like a certain place to me and i think that's because i was i don't know 15 years old or something and i just like you know i was a very happy 15 year old I'm happy to say and there was this sense of what the town was and over time things just change and every time I hear about something changing it's sort of like hard for me to square that with what I think of as peak Seattle even though it probably wasn't but my

mind says it was peak Seattle well here's where I and this is maybe where we're where it's a sticking point on this is because I feel like I'm usually or traditionally even though I didn't grow up here and I'm not talking about peak Seattle back in the day I'm the one who's usually um sort of and i'm not saying you're doing this but i i often on the show have sort of belly ached about like seattle changing too much i mean this has been an ongoing thing for a decade now even when i left seattle and like saw all my favorite haunts closing and then being replaced by like really boutique places i even remember like some listeners getting it into getting into it with me saying that like you just can't be like anti-change all the time like things move on stop blaming the younger generation for you know not supporting these dying old depressing places or whatever And I was like, well, whatever, like, I like what I like, you know, but I think what I like about this particular changing of hands is it doesn't feel like, remember that place? I know you remember that place when you and I were in, you know, in the Twin Cities and whatever, how many years ago it was. And the stew bot took us to that incredibly charming old school Polish bar, right? Which I'm blanking on the name of. You probably know it off the top of your head. Maybe not. It's called Havana.

It'll come to be. Yes.

No, but anyway. But anyway, like that place, and I don't know why I'm going outside of Seattle for this, but this is the story of like so many places in Seattle where there's like some really cool place that had years and years and years and years.

of history and then um it needs to close either because of you know rent pressure or whatever but then some some like young trendy operation takes it over and said we're gonna capture the spirit of the past but still look to the future but then everything is gonna be like triple the price and it's gonna be like you know if it was a barbecue place where you get a slab of ribs now you can get like two boutique ribs for like quadruple the price or whatever you know what i mean like everything would just be like so precious and so like i could i could have seen somebody taking this place over and turning it into some sort of like super trendy hipster like precious pizza place or like the kind that they weigh in the seattle times you know or whatever yeah and it still feels like a you know it time moves on and you know there were things i miss about the other place but i kind of like this because it was like that other place the last time i was in it it felt a little dying and this this gives it a boost this gives it a boost of life without without ruining the vibe for me i felt kind of relieved honestly and again that's just that's a compelling

argument yeah no no but that's i think that's a compelling argument and honestly i haven't been to i haven't been to that place since you and i were there and i and i haven't obviously been to the new iteration so i'll i'll totally take your your word on this and i think that is a compelling argument that maybe there's a way to bridge some of this stuff so there's at least one foot somewhat kind of in the past if you will or in the history of the thing but but enough of the other foot in the kind of future that it can stay around because of course yeah nostalgia is great but if everything just is no longer profitable and then it goes away then it's really gone so maybe you know it's better to try to bridge it into the future a little bit i can't remember i still can't remember the name of that bar but i what i think is in in minnesota but if but if i remember it we somehow ended up there on literally the last night of its existence right we were there on the the last night because it had been I remember reading about that we were there on

um I mean maybe you're right about that that's not my right we were definitely there though it was it was um it was St. Patrick's Day that we were there right right and there was there was like

people coming in and singing there was like kind of a roving band that came in I tried to fight one of stew's friends in your defense by the way and i had to leave the building and then come back

in i wasn't upset about anything he just ate a fry off my plate and i was yes i was upset about him

eating a fry off your plate i did not like that guy's energy and i remain he's still on my list but um but here's the thing though what i was told was that was the swan song for that place maybe it wasn't literally the last night but it was like in its final days of existence and because I kept saying wouldn't you know we finally get to go to this place or we get to find out about this amazing place and it's also it's like it's not going to be here and then it ended up getting you know purchased by someone else because then I became kind of although I can't remember the name of the place I started following the news related to it and then they did exactly what you're describing somebody bought the name and then opened a new place with the same name but with like all everything was glass and like you know it was like it retained none of the charm of the original thing except it just had the same name the other thing i remember is that the polka band there was called the world's most dangerous polka band oh yeah those are all the details i can give you about this place are you is google helping us at all yeah it's nice

it's nice bar uh yeah yeah and i do know i yeah i mean i i'm looking up what the last night was we don't have to get stuck on that i i believe that when we went there we knew that it was in its last year or so we knew that it wasn't long for this world but i don't believe it's last night

was saint patrick's day are you sure they didn't close it after i tried to fight stew's friend i'm pretty sure yeah they were like we're throwing in the towel we can't have this kind of public radio hoi polloi troublemakers coming in here and ruining the vibe i remember looking for commercials i

wanted to find old tv commercials for knives and i couldn't i think i came up i'm checking my um audio files here i came up short i think and you did couldn't you just imagine some like commercial from like 1984 like a guy in like a band in the background like a satiny jacket yes

and then like a tucked in short sleeve collared shirt and some like polyester slacks and like a unconvincing comb over and inviting you down to knize like standing outside of knize but with the

world's most dangerous polka band behind 100 yes yes okay 100 you know who would love knize

vanna white oh god she would fit right in although she's more from the south than i realized in fact She has a pretty pronounced Southern accent, which I don't know if I've ever heard her say any words. I mean, she and Pat Sajak at the very end of Wheel of Fortune have a kind of a brief, you know, moment where they reflect on the on the episode. But I don't I don't know if I could have told you a ton about like Vanna White's the fact that she has, again, a fairly pronounced Southern accent. So, yeah, I'm here doing a TV story.

Ryan Seacrest, who is the new host of Wheel of Fortune. I don't think none of the episodes have been on yet. So for people that are into Wheel of Fortune, I think it's like still Pat Sajak, but they're furiously taping new episodes that will drop like in the fall or something that will be of the kind of new, they have a new set and obviously a new host. But I have to say that I'm more of a Jeopardy person, I guess, than Wheel. I just am so bad at Wheel of Fortune. um that I've never been a super regular viewer of it because if I were good at it I would love it I would watch it more it would be like you know I would get some kind of uh dopamine hit from being right but I am just even yesterday in the actual soundstage staring at the letters I was like I got nothing it'd be one of those ones where it was like every single almost every single letter was up there solving the puzzle and I was like ah it turns out you can't read I mean what a way to find out right like sir that's just my name tag right um but uh but it was even though i'm not a particularly wheel of fortune obsessed person i was really kind of surreal to be in there with that wheel and with this like hyped up crowd and with vanna standing over there touching the digital one of the things i noticed by the way because if you remember in the original days of wheel of fortune vanna white's job would be to turn those letters that were you know it was a physical thing and then at some point they realized this would be a lot easier if we went digital because there's no reason to have i was thinking i wonder what the stagehands were doing so every time there was a puzzle the stagehands had to like set it up reversed and like you can't mess you know what i mean like they had to set up all these letters on these weird turning things that were blank on one side but then had the correct letter on the other side like that actually seems like a pretty complicated process. So one of the things I didn't realize was a lot of times when Vanna White hits the letter, it doesn't actually go from blank to the letter. It's like hitting your phone. You know, sometimes you'll hit your phone and nothing is happening. And you're like, what the hell? And it's just being weird. I was watching the letters be weird sometimes. And I was like, so stressed out for her. Like, I think that, you know, ungenerously, you could make a joke of like, well, what is this job? It's like turning letters or it's touching letters. But when I was watching it in real time i was like oh god please let that please let that thing change let that screen be working when she hits it because if not like what is she gonna do and it turns out what she did is she just went and hit it again and everything was fine but i was like i was weirdly dialed into the process of vanna white changing the letters on the screen was it almost satisfying because i i don't

watch a lot of wheel but i maybe just like in i don't even know flipping channels or being in the same room with an old person or that's such a rude thing to say i think listen i love me some game shows these and i have been actually dialing up a bunch of old super password on youtube and watching it i could go on forever about that but um but anyway um i guess i have seen because when you're describing vanna white like touching the letters to change them i know that i've seen that before and i swear as you describe her kind of having to maybe double tap it sometimes i swear that that rings some sort of memory for me too but in a certain way like it reminds you that

she's doing something yes that was the thing i think i would have assumed that was just programmed and literally it was a pantomime like the letters yeah we have there are four a's bing bing bing bing and then she walks over to it and then somebody in the control room just makes the thing change like you could do it that way but no she has to tap it and sometimes when she taps the screen it doesn't change for like a second it was like what are we gonna do and it was like just hit it again and then it usually changes also the rhythm of the game is to some degree affected by the speed at which vanna white can walk across the stage and change these things because which i thought well that's actually great for the players because imagine you if you didn't have a vanna white um if you just if there was a digital screen and then it just changed based on what the guesses were you would have way less time to try to think about what you were looking at or try to put together an answer in your brain like vana white's existence is very good for the wheel of fortune contestants it'd be much worse for them if it was instantaneous that's interesting i almost wonder

if you could gamify that in a certain way right like yeah if i can i choose well you wouldn't know though but yeah it's in your like pick a letter way over on the other end of the stage

so it's gonna buy yourself 2.4 seconds instead of 1.4 um the the way in which i i vanna white was being very gracious to me um but also she she said she's a huge sunday morning fan and um and she said i love your she was like oh no i love your pieces like and i was like there's no way that vanna white is aware of the specific stories that i have done on cbs some. morning i i'm sure she's aware of the of the show but there is no way and i was i disagree with that

i completely disagree with that she's really she's first of all she's totally in the she very much is in the demo she's the demo and i'm not even saying that as a dig like that that is the demo of cbs sunday morning and that's fine yeah and the reason it's the reason i maybe feel strongly about this is because like you know like the the guys on the lebitard show like especially dan i i was wondering if you were going to get a shout out on the Levitard show the other day. I've been kind of dipping back into that a little bit here and there. And, you know, Dan loves that show. Some of the younger guys on that show love CBS Sunday Morning 2 and they'll drop a Mo Rocca reference here and there. There's a woman that they mentioned, a correspondent whose name I did not recognize, but maybe she's new. They said that she was killing it. And I was like, I'm on the edge of my seat. I'm like, if they say something about Luke, what if it's not super flattering? in do I tell you or would you if somebody on the Dan Levitard show mentioned you by name in the context of CBS Sunday Morning and I did not hear it, I Andrew Walsh did not hear it, how long do you think it would take you to learn that information

it might take a while because I don't know outside of you how many people that listen to our show listen to that show

that's what I'm wondering about too

That'd be the big question. And particularly now that it's a digital product only as opposed to, you know, being on tons of sports radio stations, it could potentially take a while.

That's why I was like, I could because I think I was maybe listening to an episode that was, you know, maybe a few days old or something. I'm like, could I be hearing Luke mentioned on Levitard? And this was a few days ago and he doesn't even know it yet. I was actually a little bit anxious about it. But sadly or happily, they did not mention you. But I just think that like that shows on a lot of people's radars. Like, I just I wouldn't have been surprised if your name had come up on Levitard. And I don't think that Vanna White was just saying that.

Well, it was a very nice thing for her to say. She was incredibly gracious. And and then I talked to Ryan Seacrest as well. Also very, very pleasant, very like very good at answering questions, you know, that are posed to him by a TV journalist. Like direct eye contact, very present, very like self-deprecating. deprecating like you i sort of got the feeling when we got done with these two these were like shorter interviews we're going to do longer interviews later but these were like on the set you know standing next to the wheel and stuff and when we got done the producer that was helping out um said wow that was great and i was like it's almost like those are two professional

people we just interviewed yeah two people who are just like known for being pleasant whose fame

yeah i mean that diminishes very good at the job yeah exactly you know like like it's like oh well this is kind of how you got this job you're very and you're good at like seacrest was very good i was not actually sure to be honest with you because i've you know he's a pretty well-known person and i know he's hosted a lot of these kind of high profile things but i don't know he could also just be somebody who's a little checked out when you're talking to them like he's by the way they were in the middle of recording uh six episodes six of these and they were running like three to four hours behind because this was the first day they'd ever tried to do it on this new set and there's a lot of moving parts right so like it was also a stressful moment for him where he i could have very much understood if he wanted to just be like okay i'm going to talk to this guy but i'm really thinking about the next one of these shows i have to because they record a bunch of shows in one day it's the same way jeopardy works they they record like a week maybe they were doing five shows they work a week's worth of shows in a day and that's like the rhythm of the thing but he was not that way he was totally present he was again making direct eye contact he was thoughtfully answering the questions um but i was really stressed out for the contestants like more so than i was for the people because i did a story about ken jennings and jeopardy i'm apparently the quiz and game show correspondent now for sunday morning um but i being on the jeopardy set was really interesting and i was geeking out because i love that show but being on the wheel of fortune set was stressful for me because i was like putting my place my putting myself in the place of these contestants and i was like this is really hard now maybe it's not hard for people with a different kind of brain than i have but i was just like oh god please like don't like there was one where this contestant was a at that point fairly obvious answer and she kind of guessed the wrong thing and like there's that thing at the very end which i know you're not super dialed into the game but there is this puzzle at the very end when you win the show so there's three contestants by the way they freaking nailed it on the contestants this is their what they're filming right now is going to be their like debut week with like the new host and new set and everything so you can tell that they went and they got the absolute best contestants they could possibly get they had this one kid who was like a like he looked kind of like machine Kelly but like more affable who had a great story about starting out in med school but then realizing he was squeamish when he when he first saw blood so then he dropped out of med school now he's in like a touring Jimmy Buffett cover you know cover band or something that's the backup plan that's an

interesting always so one of the safety band one or the other either I'm gonna to be a brain surgeon or i'm going to be in a touring jimmy buffett cover band he was like so

great at just like none of the contestants seemed even a little bit nervous about the kind of like interview the crowd was hyped that that kid i think his name might have been andrew he he was great he was dressed very kind of colorfully and then you had these um the two other contestants of this game i watched were both women of color and they had great stories the one was there because her like I think it was maybe her aunt who had been really she'd been really close with they'd always dreamed about someday being on Wheel of Fortune and that person had passed away and she was now there in that woman's memory and like the crowd like on cue she's like and so it's like you know we made it she looks in the camera and says we made it and the crowd goes ah it felt like a Paul Thomas Anderson movie dude like except Philip Baker Hall should have been hosting except that

Yeah, except they didn't leave this deep, dark pit in your tummy.

But it's like, I mean, it was like the people on, the people competing seemed like they were cast in a movie about people playing, you know, Wheel of Fortune. The crowd was like oohing and aahing at all the right moments. Like they were, like it really felt, it felt like a movie about this thing, if that makes any sense.

That's amazing.

And so it was really fun, actually, and I enjoyed it, and I really liked all of the people. And I I also think I don't know this for a fact, but my guess would be that there's an intentional I don't know if rebranding is the right word, but the way that you mentioned the sort of age component around around, you know, people who might watch Wheel of Fortune. And I think also somebody said to me off air that when I say off air, I mean, I won't identify them because I don't know if they want me to put this out. But they said that their theory is that Jeopardy is Democrat coded and Wheel of Fortune is Republican coded, which I think is really a funny take. I don't think that's where they're going anymore.

Somebody said somebody just said that to me the other day. And I'm trying to figure out if you guys are quoting me. Wait, was that are you? This is a mutual friend. Oh, OK. Who said that?

I might have said it to you off air or on air.

No, no, I know who said it to me the other day, and I'm trying to figure out if they are the person you're quoting or if you guys are both quoting the same person.

Have they recently created a hyper-unrealistic baseball player?

Yeah. Do they send us clips of? No, it's somebody that I've been watching game shows with on my couch lately. That's literally what Genevieve said to me, and she wasn't quoting anybody.

That's wild. So a mutual friend of ours texted me that when I was talking about doing this Wheel of Fortune thing. And I thought, well, that's such an interesting take.

It's so funny. Genevieve literally just said that to me. And I said, well, it's hard to separate from the Sajak-iness of that.

Yeah, and I think you're totally – I think very keen insight by Genevieve per always. And I do think probably the Pat Sajak component, he had been that host for so long. I think his actual politics are pretty bonkers. which he generally, I think, kept them off of the show. But then towards the end, it started to burble up. What I sensed in that room was it was a much younger, much more diverse kind of scene. And it made me think that there's been a pretty intentional thought around who, now that we got this new, relatively young host, you know, and who we may have for the next 30 years, what is the, like, what are we going to do with this show? And it felt very like they're like, we are not going to be the, you know, the show for people who are much older we are going to try to be a kind of a new exciting thing that younger people and more diverse audiences actually take some interest in and i have to tell you i don't know if it's practical to get every person who they want to have watch wheel of fortune on tv into the studio to watch it get made but if they could they'd have a lot of hardcore viewers because i swear to god i'm about 80 percent more interested in wheel of fortune now having been there like i just i i'm i thought it was a really interesting process and now i'm like okay now i Maybe it's also because I've interviewed the people on the show, but I feel like I now have some connection point to Wheel of Fortune and Vanna White, by the way, who I would have never expected that. Vanna White took up pretty much 0% of my brain before this, and now, having met her and having had her be so kind and also having her pretend that she knew about my stories on Sunday morning, I am a hardcore Vanna White fan.

Again, I don't think she's pretending, and she's certainly going to be familiar with them now. she's going to be familiar with this story at the very least i have a bit of

of um i guess i'll just call it a take i guess um that i that i veves and i have been like i told you kind of watching some uh old talk shows on youtube and i want to be a little bit withholding here because it just occurred to me i just wrote down on the notepad super password because i told you i'm trying to come up with thoughts in case i need them for our recording with with megan and and so i it occurred to me i have a lot of thoughts on super password so i'm gonna leave that on the table for now yeah it's very powder it's very rare that i embargo my uh my game show takes but i do think it's sort of interesting that uh and i i i'm searching my soul here i really do not think that i have game shows on the mind because of your adventures in la because if i'm being honest with you i rarely can remember what exactly you're covering when you're on your various stories me too honestly so don't feel bad but i but i mean maybe maybe subconsciously that is why I had game shows on the brain the other day but I remember I sat down to watch some TV with Genevieve we wanted something somewhat mindless I don't know exactly oh I know we were on YouTube anyway because Genevieve wanted to look something up um and then we're on YouTube so I'm like oh you know what I love Super Password and I remembered I don't know if you recall this time um on TBTL where you dialed up an episode of Super Password and just was pausing it and seeing if I could get the answers before the contestants it was really fun actually that show is so good but anyway so we were watching some of that and then i i mentioned to her i'm like hey should we kind of watch some other you know game shows from the 80s i guess i was just trying to like kind of have that cozy feeling of being a kid again or something because these were off and on in my in my childhood home and i said hey maybe we could put on an old price is right and i was starting to dial it up and then it occurred to me like i love playing password because you know there are questions or clues or whatever that are definitely tied to that era but there's still pop culture questions and same with like a lot of various even if you dialed up an old uh jeopardy or whatever you could still play along in 2024 and then i went to i was like maybe we can just watch some uh uh price is right like everybody loves the price is right when i think of the price is right i think of like being one of the most kind of fun frivolous shows with the big wheel that you spin and basically like all the little toys you got the little hiker guy going up the alps you got pachinko like it's so like it seems so fun and flashy but when i before i hit go i was like i don't want to play along with prices right i don't want to like i don't

have any interest in the going at the time cost for a broil hill dining room set luke it was like

it was like the scales came up is this what they're talking about in the bible when the scales fall from your eyes it was like for the first time in my 47 years i was like i don't give a shit about any of that like i like the little games i like watch i mean the the kid in me really enjoys the idea of watching a little hiker going up the alps and then he accidentally falls off to the tune of a goofy sound effect but honestly the yeah the actual substance of that show like i just told you the other day like when i'm grocery shopping i mean i shouldn't brag about this and it's very irresponsible but i'm not even usually paying attention to the price until like i'm already checking out i'm like boy that was a big bill like i have zero interest in guessing

the price of things huh yeah you know i always just my i loved the price right growing up but not because of ever successfully playing along because i was a kid and i didn't know how much stuff costs but then I also just assumed I think incorrectly that the prices were literally just kind of randomly made up that they weren't based in reality in the real price but then there was somebody who had actually you know what I don't know if the prices are based in reality but I know there was a guy who had I saw this on the internet a while ago who had studied like the price is right like every episode for what they charged for what you know what they basically said things cost and he knew all of the prices for everything because he had just studied it and I was surprised to hear that there was like things coming up repeatedly but it was like this guy was just it was wild to watch and it was kind of like that guy that figured out how to like um press your luck the guy with like one like an early vcr you know that whole story you know it sort of rings

a bell you might have brought it up because press your luck you got to hit that button right at a certain time there must be some sort of delay or something you got to really you really got to know

exactly when to hit it yeah and there's the whammies you know which is like the is like getting craps or whatever and some guy had access to a vcr or some kind of vcr thing before that was really common and got tapes or got these tapes of press your luck and then just studied the patterns of how the like little thing went and studied it so effectively that then he just absolutely dominated the game and years ago there was a rumor they were making a movie about this and it was going to star bill murray as that guy and i thought oh i would totally watch that

So was he using the VCR to practice? pushing the pause button at a certain time like yes yeah he was i think now this part i'm probably making up but i almost feel like he built some kind of you know simulation of it or something or he was so i mean really i mean all you could say he was accused of was just practicing and really preparing himself to be on the game but i think i don't know if they changed things after that or what but it was a kind of a semi-famous story but anyway there was a guy who did slightly a version of that with prices right which is that he just learned all the prices and there's this crazy i feel like there's this crazy footage of him doing like the showcase or not the showcase but the whatever the first thing is when you run you come on down as it were and it's like he's just to the penny getting things and really knows what he's what he's doing um we are getting close to the end of the show andrew but i would be remiss if we ended this week without getting at least briefly to these couple of top stories you have like can you hang with me for 10 15 more

minutes i got like i got about three minutes and then i'm out of here i gotta go play with

the cats i'll be concise uh the story that i kept referencing all week that we never got to but we've more or less covered is that there is a trend going around of buying super hard chewing gum which is rumored to help your jaw become uh large you'll you know you'll be somehow more attractive to people and the whole idea the whole thing is called looks maxing which is something that particularly boys of a certain age i think they're trying to find themselves are buying this gum from the internet uh the all i need to say about it is they talk to a dentist who says there's just no way this is going to actually make a difference in your jaw structure so in case anyone out there was thinking about buying the chewing gum that gives you a manly jaw it's probably not worth your time the other dental related story though that i saw that was kind of interesting today was uh from the new york times it was written by jancy dunn and it was five things you do that keep dentists in business and Jancy interviewed a number or a few dentists to ask like what are the things that are sending people in for kind of like emergency dental work or just needing more dental work than it might otherwise I'm stopping there when I said Jancy Dunn because I think if I remember right Andrew it might be the case that Jancy Dunn was the reporter who I interviewed when I did the Bryant Park Project I did that very disastrous interview with the band Sigur Rós I have this vague memory that so we decided to try to make something out of this bad interview I did and I interviewed a reporter from Rolling Stone who was really really experienced at interviewing bands and we kind of broke down the interview about like what I did wrong

I can get I just fact checked it I believe this is Via an old live journal post, literally a live journal post from something called Girls Still Kickin', official blog for author Bonnie Burton. I believe Bonnie wrote up the anatomy of an interview gone wrong with Sigur Rós and Jancy Dunn.

So, okay, wow. Well, so now Jancy is at the Times and is covering five things that your dentist says is why they're in business. That's just funny. You heard me recognizing in the moment that Jancy Dunn is part of my personal history in the media. Because she was great, by the way. That was by far and away the best part about that disaster of an interview was the post-mort with Jancy Dunn. But anyway, this is also a really good article. These are the things that tend to send people to the dentist. Popcorn. Not obviously the popcorn that's been popped. But there's always you always get those you get those little, you know, incorrigible recalcitrant kernels of corn that refuse to be popped chewing ice that sends a lot of people to the dentist, which I thought that was kind of interesting because I feel like with popcorn, you're going from something that when it's been popped is fluffy and easy to eat. but then when it's unpopped is like as hard as a rock this it's like is there is there a section of the ice that's harder than a different section of the ice it just seems like ice is kind of what it is like i i think of as like hurting your teeth being going from i think i'm biting into something that's soft into oh my god i'm biting it on something that's hard it's about angles luke

it's about angles i'll bet okay certain certain chunk of ice gets in in a certain way and just like you know and you're chomping down and not thinking about it i just want to warn you because

You're a big ice chomper, I see you.

I'm an ice chomper, I am an ice chomper, and I'm a big popcorn boy, so these are all, I gotta be careful, but what I'm glad to hear about is, I thought at first, like when you said popcorn, that it was gonna be like, you know, an accumulative effect, or maybe even with ice, but you're like, I would know. It's not like, oh, I'm cruising for a bruising with all my popcorn eating and ice chomp, and it's just like, be careful in the moment.

Yes, the popcorn thing is like, it's fine up until it's not.

Okay.

You'll know when you break a tooth on an unpopped kernel, just be careful is what I'm saying. Sipping energy drinks I know you can't stop shotgunning the monster energy drinks But um uh they're very bad for your teeth they have so much acid and sugar in them it's easy for me to demonize energy drinks because it holds no appeal to me you know so like it's like i love nothing more than roasting energy drink culture but that's only because i don't like them if i

liked them i'd probably be a little more defensive do you think i'm rare in that i'm just somewhere in the middle on them do you think that most people are either very against or if not against It's, like, kind of against or mocking of or don't understand it and just sort of categorize it as, like, sort of a very low form of consumable culture. And then other people, like some friends of ours, Camaro Kev, who just, like, really embrace the culture. And I'm kind of, like, I enjoy talking to Kevin about them. I enjoy talking to anybody who's, you know, kind of obsessed with anything. But also, like, it's rare that I get them, but I did get one, like, I'm going to say, like, I don't know, several weeks ago. It was like maybe a Saturday evening. I had dropped Genevieve off at the Eagles, and I was like, I'm going to come home. I'm going to maybe eat a little gummy. I'm going to make myself, like, some sort of a Red Bull and vodka drink, and I'm going to clean the hell out of the house. And I did it, and it was great.

I thought you were going to say you're going to eat a gummy, and then you're going to drink an energy drink. And I thought those seem like they are really in conflict with each other.

I mean, I do think it was a Red Bull. Yeah. So I had like a Red Bull and vodka. And I mean, no, I mean, that's kind of why it's good. You know what I mean? So that you're just sort of you're a little bit energized and you're like kind of zoomed out or zoned out a little bit and you're getting your your your puttering done. It was great. So anyway, I'm in the middle on energy.

I think that's very rare. I think you're either a person who consumes a lot of energy drinks because they give you they give you energy, they give you wings and also because you like them. or you're a person who consumes zero of that like me like it's i can't i mean i've had my share of you know vodka red bulls in my life but that was just a means to an end like i am if i never had another energy drink in my life it would be completely fine by me but then again that makes it easy for me to be a little harsh on it the other thing that's easy for me to be harsh on is vaping because i also don't do that um and vaping is one of the things that's apparently very bad for your teeth and is sending a lot of people to the dentist. And here's another thing. They found that people who vape have less healthy oral microbiomes. Is there anything that you want to have less than an unhealthy oral microbiome? That sounds like a bad breath. Your oral microbiome, I would argue, stands between you and a happy life. Because we've all encountered folks that are dealing with a less than ideal oral microbiome and it can be pretty intense to be around and i feel like it can be really can really have an impact on folks so that's maybe an argument against vaping too again easy for me to demonize because i don't do it you know what i'm wondering

about with that is because like they're talking about vaping here and i'm wondering i'm like well then smoking must be even worse right i'm wondering is is like vaping worse than smoking or is it just that more people are vaping these days than smoking and therefore it's like more of something to sort of point out?

I think it's because these are sort of, I don't know if you'd say surprising, but things you might not have expected. Like smoking is pretty obvious. Yeah, in fact, the first line of that graph is smoking is one of the worst things you can do for your oral health. But there's a widespread misconception that vaping is safe versus Dr. Nguyen. So, but yeah, smoking is definitely up there too. Also using fluoride-free toothpaste. So if you've red-pilled yourself into thinking that fluoride is bad for you or the amount of fluoride in toothpaste is bad for you. It turns out dentists would highly disagree. They think that fluoride is something. That's a whole, you know, the anti-fluoride movement, right?

No, but it doesn't surprise me. I'm sure one of the presidential candidates is on board with it. Oh, maybe a couple. Yeah, well, that's true. We'll definitely want to. Hey, listen, I'm really sorry to interrupt here, but this is kind of important. It's totally off topic, but I just wanted to give you a quick update here on something old friend 99 on blue sky just tweeted sorry i was gone for 11 days i was

listening to blue oyster cult okay go ahead that is a blast from the past since you're off of twitter i just happened i'm just sitting here and i happen to click my little blue sky icon on my taskbar i'm sorry i'm boring you no i'm sorry i just i thought that you would enjoy a little

blast from the past i love i love that he's still out there in the trenches he old friend he also

josh letterman he also just posted a photo of bruce springsteen that you've probably seen going around from variety magazine that says bruce springsteen is now a billionaire forbes estimates and i've seen that go around and uh old friend 99 says people he hasn't heard from in years are suddenly going to be coming out of the woodwork all right still using that image of

that like yes young yes young but old looking person yes yeah or yeah

out.

It might be a slightly tweaked version, but it's upsetting, yeah. I love it. I love that that's still happening. Honestly, that's like—we're down a David Horsey mural at the Northlake Tavern, but at least old friend 99 Josh Letterman is still doing God's work. Okay, this is the whole thing about this article that actually— and this, again, completely now squares with the idea that it was written by Jancy Dunn, who's a really good writer and has good instincts for storytelling. So they go through the list. This is a fairly typical thing. Hey, avoid these things if you want to take care of your teeth. And then there's just this part that goes A final note Now this is not one of the five things to avoid It's just a thing that clearly came up when Jancy was interviewing these dentists A final note Make sure you brush your teeth before your dental visit Said Dr. Stephan Quote, it's not a big deal But it is a kind of nice thing to do, she said Sometimes I get tempted to be like Oh, I can see what you had for lunch But I don't say it Who doesn't do that? But she's thinking it She will spot some tuna fish lodged between patients' molars Dr. Stephan said or i can see a piece of lettuce i mean i'd rather see their teeth she said and i was like that is that is amazing to me that anyone would go to the dentist without brushing their teeth beforehand now obviously you can't make up for years of of of ignoring your teeth and your dental health by brushing your teeth on one day or flossing for one day like we all know that that's not gonna you're not going to be able to reverse whatever but at a minimum you don't want to actively have junk in your teeth when you go to the dentist can you believe anyone is ever doing that okay

in a certain way no but i want i have i have a lot of thoughts on this okay it's like washing why would you wash your car before you take it to the car wash no no no no no of course you i mean that and especially if it was something as awful as like tuna fishers like i mean that that is i I mean, what example to give. But OK, when I go to the dentist, 99 percent of the time I am leaving from my home. I am done recording with you for the day. I've posted the show. I go in the bathroom. I give my teeth a really good brushing, not to try to cover up bad oral hygiene over the past six months or whatever, but just because, yes, somebody is going to be in my mouth. I want my breath to be as good as possible. Having said that, there are people who have jobs and are like leaving work to go to the dental office, go to the dentist. Now, I remember when I was working from an office place, I would take a toothbrush and toothpaste into work with me on my dental days, on my dentist days, so that I could brush my teeth before I go to the dentist. Some people, though, might have jobs where they don't have easy access to a sink if you're out on a work site or something like that. So here's what I would like to say. Yes, of course, you should find a way to brush your teeth before your dental exam having said that i've always thought that dental offices should have a little bathroom where they can even offer to you and they could even get you know they'll often give you a free toothbrush at the end anyway give it to you up front and say you know if you'd like you can brush your teeth before the visit and you don't have to be judgy about it um and then did i just did i did

you just drop your mic you're so impressed with my i was trying to get to my barbaro files I bumped my microphone And almost knocked it off of the table here

That's how things get broken If you'll recall last time that happened Right? Doesn't that seem like Something they should do? Same with like, I don't know if they do it In orthodontist offices or whatever But not everybody's leaving from home There should be a little place where they say If you'd like to brush your teeth Here's a toothbrush and a little thing of toothpaste And there's a little water closet over there

That's a great idea We don't offer that as a hygienic option or service and i mean you know like a single use cheapo toothbrush doesn't really have to cost hardly anything um and and to just have like a dispenser that's dispensing fluoride toothpaste and um and and then you know yeah just like a a bowl of or a cup of you know toothbrushes that would be that we i wonder if we could make that like more of a thing If that could become more standard, it's just like a way of, hey, we're going to, you know, we're going to be cleaning various parts of our body. Maybe we now it shouldn't be in a restroom. That's the one thing. It should be at a special brushing room because you don't want that in the room where people are also using the toilet. That would be gross and weird, although we do it in our own homes. So I don't know.

Yeah, you're I mean, I mean, I understand sort of your feelings about that, but you're extreme about that. Like I'll brush my teeth. It's not totally uncommon for me to brush my teeth in a public restroom as long as it's not too nasty.

Yeah, but also if all the toothbrushes are sealed in their own plastic wrap, which they should be. Yes. Oh, yeah. You don't want it sitting out in like a cup. They're very protected from whatever's going on anyway. This is a good idea, Andrew. I mean, it took us, I don't have my timer with me, an hour plus today to get to it. We finally did. some important work here yeah and you know like my and i i want to just say that like my dental my dentist does not offer this i think they should and i love my dentist simply dental in um kind of the the denny dexter area couldn't recommend them enough love them having said that they have a big bowl of macaroni salad that they just leave out in the middle of the table in the waiting room and people can kind of just eat it if they want they they don't have any kind of um utensils just by hand use their hands yeah and um and there's no like napkins or anything but they have some like bottles of hand sanitizer around if you want um and it's just like for me like that that is not the most sanitary thing and also it's not good for when you're going in to get your teeth cleaned

you know yeah and it's room temperature which is yeah i mean you want to get there early you want to get there this is definitely a reason to make your appointment before noon when it's still got a little bit of refrigeration going on because by like two or three the flies start buzzing and

Oh, especially for the shrimp cocktail, too. Did I mention the shrimp cocktail?

You didn't, but I was assuming there was something like that. All right, Andrew, here's the real cliffhanger of the week. What are we doing here? Are we doing music for your weekend? Are we not? Where did we leave that yesterday?

I'm hearing from listeners who are, like, diswrought that I'm pushing to end music for your weekend. And I feel bad wearing this crown of evil.

but um but i don't know i don't know what you you proposed something a week ago that was why don't we just play my guess is that the well are the listeners sad because they're not going to get the our pearls of musical wisdom or is it because they are sad they're not gonna be able to send in

songs because most of these people saying like this is how i hear about a lot of new kinds of music okay yeah honestly which is funny too because i sort of feel like i always have a chip on my shoulder i feel like i'm not good at talking about music some listeners have teased me about that before but it is accurate i'm not good at talking about music but you know the listeners send in songs i'm just i'm not arguing one way or the other here i'm just telling you kind of like my thought process and what i'm hearing from people is like people do appreciate you know i'm sure there are plenty of people out there that don't like the music that we choose but there are people out there that do appreciate hearing music that they're not hearing anywhere else um and and that it introduces them uh to music and and that actually makes me feel good whether it's your picks my picks or um or uh you know the listeners picks that's uh that's a nice thing to say but it is getting i mean it's weird out there like so many things we've done on this show have always been sort of in the gray areas like for decades people well a decade or whatever people would say hey i'd like to you know have coffee with you we're gonna start our own podcast what are the rules about like playing music i know you play music on your show and i'm like we don't play music because we're allowed to we just haven't gotten caught yet and like more and more we're not like so far the damage has been limited it's just sort of me thinking about the future so am i like future tripping about this like we've probably lost a total in the past year maybe we've lost north of five south of 10 episodes that are simply not on spotify and oh that's

actually pretty significant i thought i was always joking we're getting pulled down in romania but you mean like there are episodes of our show that do not exist anywhere on

Spotify because of this on Spotify and or YouTube, but it doesn't mean they're not on Apple podcasts or if someone's getting,

but if someone uses, you know, I tend to be very, I use the pod catcher that I use now, you know? So if it moved to stitcher, well, RIP, but you know what I mean? Like that actually is a, I don't, I don't think I actually realized how significant the situation is. I was kind of half joking the whole time, but yeah, if, if we're not on spotify because of a song that seems like a really bad outcome to me yeah

that's this goes back to the apm days remember we would get those long emails from apm and they were from spotify but they were just being sent to our bosses and then being sent to us just saying hey here's a list of like and the thing is it's like not just they'll just like they have their little like web trackers out there and they'll find episodes going back to 2012 but also like things that are like just from this last year or so and those be like here are like here's a list of 15 episodes that um that that have you know have copyright notifications and you know unless you can like fight these these accusations like we're taking them all down and usually we're just like all right well there's nothing we can do we didn't really have you know uh Michael Jackson estate's permission to play that song why are you playing so much Michael Jackson Luke he is a

predator i you know i asked him when i was at that trial and he walked past me i said um there's gonna be something called a podcast that's invented in 15 years and you're not gonna be here to see it but i would i want to if i can use a lot of your music on that podcast do i have your permission did you see that was actually not the it's kind of sad i've lowered i've lowered the bar

No, not the worst. So not even close to the worst. Will that get us pulled down in Romania? And by the way, it should. Well, I don't know, man.

I don't know. It's so funny. Like we're listeners just so you know, we're literally having these. I mean, as you hear like these, this is not, this is not an act. We keep on thinking we're going to have this conversation off the air, but instead it just gets to be Friday afternoon and we're like, I don't know what to do here.

Well, should we play? We have a listener suggestion and I don't, maybe that's the best way to do it.

at least it mitigates it it takes it reduces it by two-thirds yeah exactly maybe we start doing

that from now on let's do that and then maybe if we're particularly inspired so here's the thing keep sending me your music for your weekend selections please luke at tbtl.net put music for your weekend in the subject line and i um i have a folder where i'm putting these because i know some people i know the feeling of being like so jazzed about a song that i just want to like tell people about it um so i would it'd be nice if there was still an outlet for that and you will still get to hear new music um but maybe not playing as much of it would increase our chances of not getting pulled down maybe we see how that goes for a while and here's what i would like to

do and i'm asking you this specifically on the show so that you can't say no i don't think this is a huge ask but from now on on thursdays or fridays can you send me a song that you would have played on the show for music for your week i'm talking to you luke not the listeners can you send me a song and not like you don't have to write a paragraph but just like one sentence about why this is your musical pick for the week. And I'll put it in the newsletter. Now, there's not going to be a newsletter this week because I was supposed to have surgery the other day.

My wrists aren't even supposed to be here this week.

Yes, it's so weird. I got done with work around 3.30 yesterday, and it was a Thursday, and that's usually when I'd start buckling down. So I'm like, okay, I've got to record this. And then I just said to Veeves, I'm like, I should be doing the newsletter, but I already wrote a whole newsletter about how there's not going to be a newsletter this week. and while I now could do it because my wrists are not all bandaged up like I kind of just want to let this ride and she's like let it ride and I was like okay and I just started like I ran a bunch of errands and I got a bunch of stuff done and I feel I got to be honest with you I feel kind of guilty about it but I also got a lot of shit done

yesterday good I you've more than I think you've more than delivered on the TBTL newsletter there will be a newsletter

next week and I think that maybe what we do is on the podcast we play the listener selection I will also share that in the newsletter but you and i will also share our music for your weekend selections with just a

sentence about why we're sharing it dig it i think that's a great solution okay uh so that will be the that's the new path forward uh and we'll see how that goes so our listener suggestion was sent in by listener shannon who said hey i hope the thon is amazing it was thank you shannon worked No doubt. I was listening to this album last week, and I think y'all will like it. It's Previous Industries, Open Mike Eagle. The album is Service Merchandise, and the song is called Roebuck. And I noticed that the spelling of Roebuck looks like Sears and Roebuck, so I don't know if that's coincidence or if that's referenced in the song, but we know Open Mike Eagle a little bit.

yeah so so i'm a little confused here so this is a project of open mic eagle and it's called previous industries like that's this is the specific uh like kind of artist it's a great

question andrew and i mean if you think i was going to google this before the show you are i'm going to find out here sadly mistaken i know that it involves mike eagle who was part of the earliest class of apm podcasters that we joined on with like podcast class number one when um Steve Nelson was, is it Xavier? Is that the name of the X-Men? No, okay.

Oh, oh, oh, oh. Yeah, no, I think you're right about that. Professor X, Professor Xavier.

Professor X, is that, are those, what are those X-Men? Are those X-Kids?

Those are X-Men, I believe, yeah, X-People.

Okay, in that first class, we had open Mike Eagle. Yes, it's true. And then we had us, and here we are, reunited 15 years later.

Yeah, it always used to bring a little joy to me. He, in some ways, clearly acknowledged me as a human being online in ways that wasn't just like I'm a fan, but as a colleague or whatever. We were Twitter friends for a while, and I was like, wow, he actually has probably listened to my podcast maybe once and then stopped.

And I think Ben on the podcast, too, right? Wasn't he a guest occasionally?

Was he on? I don't think we've ever had him on the show. He was on Livewire, I think. Oh, cool.

I thought we had cross-promoted You know, maybe that's why Infinite Guest Never quite worked out Not enough cross-promotion between the pods Maybe

Okay, here's what I'm learning I believe that the main artist here Is called Previous Industries But this whole album seems to be Kind of a collab with Previous Industries Open Mic Eagle, Video Dave, and Still Rift

Okay And it's suggested by listener Shannon And the song is called Thank you. I got it here. And then Shannon said, hope the link works. Okay. So you can tell me. Did the link work? I didn't use the link. That's always a dangerous path for me. I just found it on Spotify. So here we go. All right. Excellent. That's going to do it for this week. Thank you for listening. Thanks for hanging out with us. We'll be back here on Monday with more Imaginary Radio for you. In the meantime, have a great weekend. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

The mountains calculate the payout. How many? I need a scientific calculator. I need a film camera with an adjustable aperture. I want a three-piece stereo with a five-disc carousel that's sweeter than an apple dipped in peanuts and caramel. One time I bought a bow and arrow Before I figured out that Michael Jackson was the scarecrow My sisters both used to have braids and hair bows The crib ain't never have no airflow We never had a day at Central AC We always had a plate of rice and beans I ate meat My mother lives in the same house we've been in since I was a baby I guess besides that you're in Haiti

Have you seen the catalog? It got so many things I wish I had them all And I would not feel sad at all If I could buy everything in the catalog

Yo, no returns, no exchanges Finger through the pages, no paper cuts Self-addressed stamped, got me amped while the selection Got me waiting for the shipping times with less than prime handling Oversized dimensions, pay the extra for the weight and balance Standing on the porch, lighting the torch up for the postman Twice rung, at once two-hole gung for the white van Every card scam ran through the work stand Power out.