Muse

Hi, this is Jorge from Arkansas. I call and listen to your show to get away from political jargon everywhere. And here you go talking about that lily-livered, liberal, cockamamie crap.

Please can you keep that out of your show So we can have it escape From the discourse Thank you

All good

Here we all are Together again This is coming from a place of jam And that place I don't have a map for it so sometimes we don't go there but i'm gonna try to go there today don't take this the wrong way

but you've just been kind of hanging around a lot lately which isn't a bad thing but it's also

not a good thing i gotta be honest with you sir the kind of work i do i don't think it's as interesting as you think it is it's not like in the movies i mean the things that i work with i don't think that they would be interesting to an audience so i'm nervous

but i'm excited at the same time um so i'm just gonna start talking about what i like and hope

i get some new prize well all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a monday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live oh fabulous my name is luke burbank i am your host as jay would say he's got flow coming to you from the madrona hill studio perched high above the mighty columbia where it's a a gray morning be turning into a sunny afternoon it'll be pretty warm up here uh nothing that we can't survive now that we've installed our mini split heat pump which is also a air cooler if you want it to be i was uh sitting in my house yesterday in the afternoon recovering from having attended exactly one day of a music festival sorry billy joe we did start the fire tells you where i'm at in my life i go to one day of a music festival then i need the whole next day just to sort of you know couch rot as they say and from uh my living room area and out on my little deck i can see down onto this island um where there's a kind of a i wouldn't say a hidden beach but there's a little section of sandy beach this is all in the columbia river but it's protected from the wind and and the big big ships and everything and people love to pull up i've learned this now this summer people love to pull up on this beach and either camp overnight or get out the canopies and have like a fun day of barbecuing and i will admit to you that sitting in my house with the air conditioning running um and watching the Mariners lose to the Philadelphia Phillies. Well, I like occasionally would get up from the couch and go look out the window at how people who are meeting life on life's terms are living. It didn't feel great for me, but the point is the temperature. The temperature was nice in there. So I don't have to worry about how warm it gets out here anymore. I do have to worry about episode 4,263 in a collector series because that is where we are. And I have to worry about the fact that there's going to be a lot of foot talk on the show today.

What face would your feet make if they could make a face?

Feet in the news. Well, the news of my life. Feet that I saw at the music festival. Feet that I'm planning on bringing to Italy. And also feet that are marauding the city of New York. Much to the chagrin of the fashion writer for the New York Times. And if you don't like foot talk, I don't know what to tell you.

Deal with it, Cate Blanchett!

And if you like foot talk too much, I also don't know what to tell you. See somebody about that. Anyway, that's the plan for today. Of course, we're going to talk to this guy, the longest-running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He is coming in hot off of an Andy weekend.

I'm flying in hot for that hottie.

So we know he's going to have a lot to share with us on this Monday. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

I've been trying to figure out how I can tell you something that I really want to tell you about without completely hijacking your foot stories.

Honestly, many of the listeners would really appreciate it if you forestalled that.

I actually was talking to Genevieve about what I want to talk to you about today, almost giving it a dry run to see if there's a way I can communicate this because the thesis of what I'm about to say is like the most...

weirdly sort of um cocky thing i could possibly say in a certain way because i don't love this

from you i dealt with this is in short short supply from my friend andrew i dealt with something

um on friday that i don't think i've had to deal with a lot in my life which has made me realize that i'm lucky in a lot of ways but um i don't know how this is going to come off but like i realized on friday and it took me about 24 hours of processing that I was just dealing with somebody who just doesn't like me. And, like, when I say that, I mean, like, it sounds like, oh, Andrew, you just graced the world with your presence and nobody ever doesn't like you. I know that's not the case. I met a lot of young people when I was a young person who didn't like me. You know, in my adulthood and even my young adulthood, there obviously were a lot of people that I would meet who maybe were way too cool for me or I felt intimidated by because they were part of a certain sort of class or hip class or whatever. So I'm not saying that I walk through the world and everybody's like, oh, that guy is cool, certainly. But for the most part, people don't just openly dislike me. You know what I mean? Right. Which really sounds like, again, kind of like I'm bragging about that.

You also, I mean, just to be clear, you are somebody who, and I've been in a lot of situations with you now, You really do go out of your way, I think, to be gracious to people, to try to meet them in the middle, to give them the benefit of the doubt. It's a big part of your existence in the world is not rubbing people the wrong way. So when you find out that you, in fact, are doing that, it must be kind of shocking.

I feel like I'm, in describing this, I feel like I'm like Jon Hamm in 30 Rock, where he doesn't realize he's...

Because he doesn't understand his handsome privilege.

Yes, exactly.

You have kindness privilege.

I mean, I don't know. And again, I realize how I'm setting this up makes me ironically very unlikable. But let me just tell you what I'm talking about here. I mean, I guess maybe just for the sake of whateverness, I'm going to leave names out of this to not make it too personal, although the names are very findoutable. But on Friday, I went into KUOW to do the Week in Review program, you know, the Bill Radke kind of roundtable. It's always Bill Radke hosts it, and he has like three guests. And you talk about kind of the week's news, specifically here in Seattle or Washington State or whatever. And, you know, it's kind of a process. Bill and the producer and the guests start trading emails early in the week saying, hey, what's on your mind? What are the things you want to talk about? This week, it happened to be a pretty heavy week as far as like some of the news coming out of like City Hall or I should say the City Council. a lot of crime and punishment-y kind of things and stuff related to labor and minimum wage. I'm trying to think maybe even you and I got into that a little bit last week. I can't recall. But I'm always very – first of all, I've only been on that show a few times. I always feel like I'm kind of in and out of my depth on that show. I definitely don't walk in there like I feel like I deserve to be in there certainly. So I try to do as much reading as possible. And you look at the makeup of the guests, right? And I don't exactly know what role I fill when they invite me on that show. I think maybe somewhat somewhere between a seat warmer and maybe like maybe we'll say something funny every now and then. So sitting I'm sitting between two people on the show on Friday, one of whom I know is going to become me. She's a reporter for the South Seattle Emerald. And, you know, she's like very well read and researched as a reporter. But also I know kind of approaching a lot of these issues from, you know, from the left. The other person is somebody who has worked on various like statewide conservative campaigns, like actual like kind of the statewide arm of national campaigns or whatever. And I've never met either one of these people before. And before the before we show up at the studio, we're all kind of trading emails like, how do you feel on this topic? How do you feel on that? And so I can sort of see that me and this other person are more aligned. And and also I'm sort of getting responses from this other person, the more conservative person. And I'm kind of like, wow, he's really kind of not, you know, he's kind of short with his words. And he and I really don't agree on a lot of things. And I always go through this little I go through this little process, I think, during these situations where I'm like, OK, I'm going to be on I'm going to be on the show with somebody who's way more conservative than me. But like, I don't need to win points here. I'm not representing, you know, like I think I can. My first my first reaction is like, I got to bring it. I got to represent like my viewpoint. Right. And then I'm like, wait a second. We're here to have a conversation, and I will do my best to represent my point of view, but I don't need to score points, and this isn't like a debate. I'm terrible at debates.

I wouldn't do the show if it was a debate-style format, but I think I get nervous that the other person maybe is going to try to own me or something.

That last time you were in a debate, it raised real questions about your fitness for co-broing. So, I mean, this is why you've really got to stay.

it really did wait are you talking about wait what are you actually talking about are you just

talking about no i was just making a joke about debates and what the impact oh right no that is true i'm sorry i oh are you talking about the the world's most infamous debate from uh merely a

month and a half ago was it a month ago or four lifetimes ago that that debate yesterday sorry about that yeah no I I let that um fall at my feet but anyway yeah so my point is I really I think the first couple of times I went in the show I was like I gotta go in and really represent because I'm going on the show with somebody who we really we're gonna lock horns and then I remind myself no no that's not that's not what we do here and also I'd be terrible at that and I don't want to do that I don't want to be that person so anyway me and this other guest are already in the studio on Friday kind of waiting for the third guest to show up it's me and the and the woman who's the writer for the newspaper and this guy comes in who's again kind of representing the more conservative viewpoint and he comes in he knows bill and he knows the other guests they've been on before and you could sort of tell that the last time these two guests were on they probably got into it a little bit but they were also like hey it's good to see you again you know i was thinking about our conversation and we agreed more than we disagreed or whatever and i kind of saw that and i said hello to this fella and and i even heard him say he's like oh i'm really in for it today or something I heard him say something like that to Bill when he came in and I literally had this feeling of like I don't want people coming into KUOW feeling like if they're if they're more conservative than me feeling like they can't come in there and get their points across like I literally had this thought like I don't want somebody coming in feeling like they're it's a trap because number one public radio already has a reputation for you know kind of being coming at things from the left whether or not you buy into that or not and then definitely this writer we saw all of her notes where she's coming from and then my kind of snarky notes on some of these issues you see where I'm coming from I really was like I don't want this guy to feel like he's coming into something where we're all gonna beat up on him or something so I tried to be pretty gregarious like right from the start like kind of shared a laugh with him it seems like things started off okay and then as the show went on and like there were several times some of these issues came up I said my opinion on them but I would always say like but I defer to these people to my left and right who are much more into policy who know more about this I felt like I was kind of bending over backwards and letting a couple of points go like honestly this fellow would say a couple of things like I don't need to get into the details of it but like he would say something that'd be like actually I have a fact that could belie that right now but it doesn't matter I'm not here to score points just like get my perspective across but then like kind of halfway through the show I realized it was harder and harder to sort of engage with him and then at the very end of the show at the very end of the show it was just like i always push them to try to do something lighter you know i don't want to talk about this heavy stuff and so i just gave my usual listeners of this show are familiar with my rants about like fancy restaurants or whatever and i was kind of bummed about the closing of the of the big mario's pizza and the kind of cozy nature of that we went into a lot of detail of that last week on tbtl so you know what i'm talking about and anyway like so i went on that whole rant things the greatest hits i even stole one of your jokes i think like stone what do we call like what did you say like a artisan pizza place would be like stone plus fire plus artisan pizza or whatever i think i stole that just heads up on

that so anyway like just trying to like kind of get us all to laugh or whatever and then i and so i turned to him i'm like do you have any do you have any suggestions because he was before the show before we knew each other we were like kind of broing down on like various small little diners around town like Flo Anna's on Lake City and he said yes I had a very great meal the other day at a place called the herbal farm it's in Woodinville and it's very nice and I said oh okay okay that sounds great like he's like yeah it's in Woodinville I'm like does the e-line go there like I literally said does the e-line go there because I was like I wasn't sure if he was setting up another joke or are we just missing I said oh well I just thought because we were chatting before the show about various diners like there was something about like I don't think he was trying to win anything at the end but like I think he just had totally disengaged from me in some way that like we were totally on different paths and after the show we all kind of trade emails hey thanks that was fun or whatever and I sent him a personal email that said hey I just had a question about something that you said on the show it wasn't like a controversial thing it was just like tapping into his expertise as like somebody who's run campaigns before and it was just like kind of a logistical thing I'm like hey you happen to say this I don't want to derail on the show but like what do you think of you know you you had mentioned this but you know could it work the other way or something and he like told and I said either way you know um you know hope we get to share a mic again soon and he like totally didn't respond to my email that I sent on Friday afternoon just sort of a quick follow-up nice to chat with you I had one question for you and really I was just like okay and then the rest of like kind of Friday night and Saturday I'm sort of tossing around the show in my head beating myself up over certain things I said or whatever but just still trying to puzzle piece together my relationship with this fella because like again I was trying to be very nice and then

about i don't know 9 p.m on saturday i just was like oh he just doesn't like you like it's not like he thinks he's better than you it's not like you're you won anything it's just like you were just not likable to this person and maybe even my obsequious nature of trying to be likable made me even more unlikable like whatever it was he just straight up didn't like me in a way that i was not super familiar with and in a certain way like i'm sort of glad to have had this experience i think i need to learn something from this i don't know what yet

i well okay now this is you've you experienced this i didn't so i don't want to come swooping in and telling you that your feelings are wrong but i do have an an alternate take on the restaurant conversation at the end of the show which is just this is a person who isn't like a professional radio person which you are a professional radio person as much as you don't claim that mantle I think it's accurate and I mean you've made your living working in radio or whatever this is for the last 20 years of your life and so when you are sort of if I if the roles were reversed and and he had said something random about something in the greater pacific northwest as his kind of end of show thought and then he had sort of lobbed the hacky sack your way and you had nothing in mind you would have still in that moment ginned something up sorry we've got a fly over some crop duster they're spraying the hill for tansy i've now decided to just hire an old 1950s biplane crop duster to take care of it it's actually the best 800 i've ever spent no but um i the the thing about him saying the herb farm and then just kind of end of sentence that feels more like just i mean no offense but being not particularly experienced at radio because you know we're good is this show good debatable do we keep the needle moving absolutely you and i are needle movers that's the main thing the show has going for it is the needle moves five days a week that's

literally what i told bill after the show i said well bill i moved the needle and i said not an audience i just keep the needles moving is what i meant because i realized i honestly i flubbed i we weren't on the air but i was like i moved the needle and that sounds a lot more celebratory than what i mean like i got the ball across the goal line right no no i just kept the ball in motion

you know what i did i i ate some pitches yeah that's right i gave you exactly i ate up a lot of innings and there was a lot of traffic and it was it was a lot of stressful high leverage situations and but i ate innings for you yes that's definitely completely how i can sit that's also funnily enough how i can where i see myself fitting into the larger media landscape is just Like, that guy will eat some innings. Yeah. That guy will show up at Pickathon and eat up some innings in the Lucky Barn on Saturday if you need him to. But I am – again, I'm not trying to tell you that you're reading this wrong because I didn't – I wasn't there observing the exact vibe. But an alternate explanation of this is – well, first of all, I think we can agree this person is not looking to be your new best friend, even if they're indifferent on you, which I think is maybe more the likely scenario.

Maybe. The herb farm thing, I will say, is maybe I shouldn't have brought that up as a supporting piece of evidence to my initial thesis.

Because you're saying the vibe you felt in the room was something.

Yeah, that was just weird, honestly. And, again, I'm not using this podcast now to dunk on this person. Because, I mean, maybe this person would even hear it. I was even wondering, like, wait a second. You know, I never think of myself as somebody who has a reputation. I know I had a radio show for an entire year in Seattle, but it never occurs to me that anybody would have heard it. You know what I mean? Except for the handful of people who I know who are friends and listener Joyce, who I saw at the bead making show who said or at the bead making party who said that she used to listen. But, you know what I mean? It never occurs to me that somebody could have heard something I said 10 years ago and just like has me labeled as some like as some like Seattle liberal or whatever, again, as we heard at the beginning of the show. because I don't think anything I said was important enough that it would have stuck in anybody's craw, you know? I was sort of like, wait, did this guy not like me coming in? At what point? And that's where I sort of came to the fact that, like, oh, no, I think I just had a chance to win this guy over. And maybe in my attempt to win him over, I made myself even more cringey or something. Like, I'm not sure.

Well, I don't, I would, I've not observed you to ever be cringey in the world. Like, seriously, as your friend, like, you and I just going around and doing things. But there's also the kind of person who, if they somehow perceive that the other person really wants to be friendly or to be on friendly terms, there are people in the world that are just wired to be more withholding, and the more they sense you trying to reach out to them, the more they sort of withdraw, and that could totally be the case here. I am, based on what you described But again, you, also there's a vibe I didn't see the vibe, and you were there for the vibe So that's why I would defer to your opinion on the matter But I also think it's I'm trying to think of the last time I think for me And if we can for a moment focus The attention back on me It's been almost 8 minutes And I don't even know what's going on Do I even exist if I'm not the centerpiece of these conversations But like I think because I am Pretty annoying A lot of the time It's more understandable for me That somebody would just not be Like I heard once Around the way that a program director of a station in LA said like Luke Burbank will never now I heard this from you I think but that like Luke yeah we don't we don't want any more Luke Burbank on this station and it's funny because my what I remember was I wasn't offended I wasn't like how do I win them back literally my thought was I'm surprised that doesn't happen more like really and truly because I feel like I do say back when I used to be on public radio in these little guest appearances on places and stuff and i was in a heavier rotation on weight weight i do feel like i say a lot of stuff that upon close scrutiny someone might be like is that really the vibe we want on public radio

and not that i think i'm the elvis mitchell no but it is true like you have more of a personality you will stick you you'll stick your neck out more for something and that's what makes you like i'm not even i'm joking i'm not joking here although it's going to sound corny but you have a showman in you whereas i don't you know what i mean and so you're willing to or you just have a better personality or more of a personality well two things can be true the line is busting up i gotta go um no i uh so anyway no it is true like i i just want to get

along you know but also just how i am in the world is more annoying like being late for things or put you know expensing that that thing that maybe was on the line or why was luke the only one staying in that hotel when everyone else on the project was staying in the other hotel like i just do a lot of stuff that i i to me it would be reasonable for a lot of people to be like yeah this guy's not for me and it does happen but when it happens to me it's explainable when it happens to you it is mystifying because of the fact that you are really you really go to great lengths to make sure that you're relating to people which i think is one of your great qualities so to to to have the sense that this person none of it was working that this person is is walking around the world thinking andrew walsh not for me i can see why that would be a shocking thing to consider

and just to be very clear and i tried to set this up in a way that i don't think i was clear about But like if this person was a was a bass player for a really cool band, like I would totally I would not be shocked by that. You know what I mean? I'm not trying to say that I have become best friends with everybody that I've met. Or I mean, there have been plenty of people in my life through various phases who would either just totally disregard me and not even see me, you know, Or see me as like somebody who's a little thirsty to be their friend because I think that they're really cool. Or again, because of some sort of a gap in our sort of like social class strata or whatever. But like me, I guess there was something weird about this and that like, well, I mean, I guess I don't care. I mean, maybe that's what's the weird thing. He's like, he's not somebody who's like super cool that I'm looking to be best friends with. I just don't want to be if I'm going to be in the somewhat new world of sharing microphones with people professionally. but like i'm getting outside my bubble when i'm 99 of the time i'm talking to you or genevieve or other people who like see see almost eye to eye with me on almost everything well if i'm going to be put in a world where we're going to be having conversations and we're coming at them from very different places i just kind of want to be you know like i just want to be friendly and get along you know what i mean so it's kind of weird it's not like i'm like oh everybody loves me and wants me in their band like no plenty of people don't have time for me and my bullshit i'm sure but Like, there was just something about this. I was kind of like, oh, I just thought we were a couple of nerds, you know what I mean, on public radio together.

Now, 24 minutes in, I think we're unearthing the critical piece of this. This is why you play the game, though. Because seriously, this is actually quite interesting to me. So what I'm picking up from you is that part of why you were a little befuddled by this whole thing was because of the fact that on paper, the person who you think might kind of not really be buying what you're selling isn't some fancy, famous, exalted person or some noted quick wit or some star of the music stage. It's somebody who's kind of sort of a functionary of sorts. They're kind of in the trenches of local politics. It's the kind of person that maybe should be a little excited to meet Andrew Walsh instead

of vice versa. Not excited to, but not kind of outwardly dislike. I just didn't think I gave him anything to outwardly dislike me about. And maybe, again, it was maybe because there were a couple of moments where we were talking about things and I felt like I pulled my punches a little bit. And maybe that's just me getting high on my own supply a little bit. But I was kind of like, oh, I really didn't want to have an antagonistic relationship with this person. my question though and this is uh something that i guess we'll find out maybe by tomorrow how is this going to shift for you if into your inbox sometime today drops an email from this person because i also can very much relate to like it's a friday afternoon sure i'm i'm the thunder is rolling somewhere and i'm at the center of it and uh you know i'm not really like looking at my phone well not for that sort of thing at like say 3 p.m on a friday is it possible this This person is also just kind of not a great communicator on email.

Yes, I think this person is probably not a great – based on some earlier emails, he was very, very short with his notes ahead of time. Like I gave little blurbs about what my take was on various topics. The reporter gave really long notes about her take on topics, and this guy gave very, very short, very, very, very short. So that is a big part of this. He's clearly not somebody who wants to be email friends for sure. So that's part of it too. I would be shocked if I got an email back from him. And that's fine. It was like, it's not any one of these things, Luke. It's just kind of the combination of all of them. And, again, if I'm trying to get at anything here, and I know it really makes me, I mean, again, I just want to point out how ironic it is that this is about as unlikable as I get talking about this. But it really was like, because Genevieve, as you mentioned, was gone. She was spending the weekend with some friends at the lake. So I had this kind of, you know, I get pretty nervous about these Friday KUW invitations. And so it takes me a while to sort of like kind of come down off of them. And if you can imagine me puttering around the house by myself, kind of like it's hard not to re-litigate almost everything I said on the show. I have some major regrets about some things I said that I totally didn't need to say. But, you know, but I also wasn't killing myself over the weekend. I was like, yeah, it is what it is. You're going to do live stuff. You're going to say some stupid shit, like whatever. it wasn't terrible but it was just like kind of me puzzling and that it literally took me 24 hours to sort of be like oh the answer is like really simple like I'm not saying he hates you I'm not saying that he's got a dartboard up with my face on it it's nothing as extreme as that it's just kind of like this person just doesn't like you and doesn't necessarily like being in the same room with you and that's totally fine it was just sort of something that it took me a while to sort

of land on well that you know and and and when you arrived at that theory of the case then did it just kind of like liberate you a little bit did you stop re-litigating it a little bit or trying to figure out what could i have done differently like did it bring relief yeah well

yeah i mean because it kind of brought me to where i am now which is that it's kind of funny what a how pompous i am like no no for real like i do like again bringing up that like john ham like i was just like andrew you're so you're such a you're you just think you can grace through the world just like kind of like oh i i don't know like disarming people or something i was like i no no sometimes you're just not likable and that's fine and like i honestly i'm not i'm not hurt by it i'm more like sort of like i think it's funny how dumb i was about it sort of if that makes

sense or how blind i was to it well you put a lot of time and energy into i mean it's kind of your whole brand is likability i'm being serious so i can understand why it didn't jump to mind as the as the first possible case i i will be very curious to see how this plays out and to see if you do get a terse but you know sort of like a terse response from this person but one that meets the minimum standard of a reply something like great being on with you as well you know looking forward to it exclamation part a point and then this person's name or whatever yeah maybe i i

would be pretty i'd be pretty shocked by that i i'll bet you this is kind of the end of the story i mean until i meet more people that i discussed um but uh no i mean i you know unless we end up Unless somebody else invites us to be in a situation like this again, I doubt that he and I will be reconnecting at the herb farm anytime soon.

Hello and welcome to Top Story. Sorry if I sounded the teeniest bit distracted during your story, Andrew. I have been in the way that you'll sometimes... Well, you don't play Hex Empire anymore. What is your kind of mind-soothing thing that you play sometimes?

I don't really do anything during the show anymore, maybe because we look at each other, but right now I'm just taking some notes in the show sheet. But anyway, what are you doing?

Well, I'm listening to you carefully, and I'm also perusing men's sandals online for reasons that I can talk about in a minute. First, just a quick update. I went to Pickathon over the weekend. Actually, it was one of the people, I guess you could say, helping out. I, um, they have this thing called the lucky barn. So are you just, it's pick a thon something that has ever even, are those words you've ever heard? Is that a thing that you're even moderately aware of? It's sort of a thing down here in Portland, but I'd never been to it before. Yeah. I mean,

I've heard of it. I also like, you know, doing like I did. Yeah. I've heard of pick a thon,

but I don't.

know specifically the portlandness of it only because like there was a pickathon i went to in ohio because as part of a folk show like so i okay i think i understand like the general vibe

i think i didn't understand the general vibe because the thing about pickathon is it has a name like pickathon which you're right that sort of says folk that sort of says a certain kind of energy but they also book pretty big names to this uh to this festival over the years like there have I've never been to it until the other day, but I had been to their website or back in the days when I actually tried with LiveWire, I'd be like, well, who's coming to Pickathon? And could we somehow snag them while they're in the area? And I was often impressed by the sort of top of the bill. This year it was Courtney Barnett, by the way. Oh, nice. Although that was Sunday night at 10 p.m. And Lukey was busy staring out the window at people camping on the beach, which is my version of living a life. um so i was like i can't stick around for this but so because they get pretty famous people often to play the show i guess i just thought that this was sort of like other music festivals that we've been to whether it's thing fest or in the olden days sasquatch or even coachella in the early days um which i went to the first one of those i think and i was not prepared for the real Oregon country fairness of this whole thing like of course it's going to be 99% well let me put it this way I wore my typical uniform to this thing which was which is some J.Crew tech pants some black Nike sneakers because I figured it'll be probably a little bit dusty and one of my kind of those collared shirts that I have a bunch of that I wear most days i'm not wearing one today ironically but generally speaking and i you i might as well have been in a black tuxedo dude at this event like the fact that i had pants on of any kind was over the top the fact that i had like had a collared shirt on the fact like i don't know the fact like i was wildly out of step with the general vibe of the place and also just the kind of i i would say a very very um uh crunchy energy right like if you think of the typical kind of like a granola type of uh we used to use it i guess somewhat kind of a little bit as a as an insult but i don't really mean it that way just like a person who is treading pretty lightly in this world and who has a much more open mind about almost everything than i than i have that whatever you'd call that energy a deadhead if you will somebody who likes enjoys the music of the band fish people that are just not hung up on shit the way i am that was the vibe i was definitely the one person in like monochromatic colors being like god my nikes are getting dusty

right now yeah i'm picturing yeah i mean i'm picturing sort of a hippie leaning dusty crowd a lot of yes probably probably a lot of fellas not even wearing shirts festival kind of energy

sure a lot of that energy a lot of just again it was just kind of like come one come all there's kids that have set up because also was you know this is all ages so a lot of people with kids and families and actually it was pretty cute because you had kids that had set up little stages to kind of play on or set up a little stand to like teach you a magic trick for a dollar or like you know and which oh my god I would have I would have freaked out for that when I was that When I was 12, if somebody would have said, you can set up a little stand and then sell magic tricks or teach people magic tricks and get real money in your pocket, I would have flipped for that. So, like, there's a lot of a lot of it that was really a little three card Monty. Oh, my God. I mean, I would have absolutely absolutely run a savage on that entire place. But so I don't know why it was that when I got there and I realized, oh, that's what this is. It was so jarring for me. But because, again, I think it was a fun thing. And and I have to be honest with you, I hadn't heard of most of the bands that I saw on the bill. But every stage I walked past, I heard music that I found really compelling and and particularly consider particularly when it came to the barn that I was helping host. There was three different groups of performers that I was kind of interviewing during their set. and then and we were recording this for live wire um all wildly different styles of music and all of it so good like i felt like the music was top notch and it was it was fun to get to hear stuff from bands that i wasn't particularly familiar with this was the one thing though that happened andrew that i did have a moment of going huh okay there is a certain kind of entitled white person in portland who is a little much for me and let me just explain so uh the way that these these i was hosting basically three different hours of events at this lucky barn so I would introduce the artist and then the and by the way one of them the first one Sammy Brayman who's an incredible fiddle player and musician she is in a group with our friend Riley the only's oh yeah okay great she's like by association unfortunately for her so steeped in tbtl like she was like oh yeah I remember when we played our first show at folklife and uh riley and leo just gave tbtl a shout out from the stage

when they were like 10 years old well she's slowly backing away yeah we played a song by the only's like a couple of months ago it was really good yeah i think that might have been viv and riley oh i'm sorry okay my apologies but we have played stuff by the yes we absolutely have we've had

riley on the show before like so i was so stoked to see that there was a tbtl connection and also So this group that Sammy was playing with, which was other kind of old-time musician folks that are all roughly her age, and they all have different bands, they're all from Nashville, it was so, so good. I mean, it was like incredibly entertaining music. And then the second performer that I kind of hosted was a singer-songwriter named Aaron Ray, who also sounds great, and just like, it was packed. There was like a line around the entire building, and like only 10% of the line even got in, like it was crazy i'm rarely associated with anything that successful so that was kind of a that was a that was a rush a natural rush and then the final performer was a woman from chicago named kara jackson who i would i can't remember if maybe we've randomly played a kara jackson song for music for your weekend but she is a like singer-songwriter it was just her and a guitar and it was flipping mesmerizing like it was one of those things where i was kind of like and maybe I'm just going through some stuff, but I was like, don't cry, don't cry, you're sitting in the front row, just don't let the emotion of this, like how pretty it is or how interesting it is, get on top of you, because I'm kind of, I don't know, I'm wired in such a way that, it's almost like when it's like, okay, you're reading something and you're like, don't stumble over that word, don't stumble over that word that you can see down, like in the middle of the next paragraph, and then you of course do it, because you're telling, I was like, okay, don't start getting emotional, don't start getting emotional, you need to ask a question after this, And thankfully I was able to fight it back. But anyway, so those were the musicians that I was kind of helping out with. And the way that the thing worked was I would get up and I would introduce the musicians and then they would play their set and then I would go up on stage and then I would interview them for a while and then I would go back down to where I was sitting and then they would play a final song. That was kind of the plan. And these shows were all actually really packed. So, because it's a popular, I guess, part of the festival. So in the last one in the Kara Jackson performance, she's playing her set, and then it's time for me to go up with the microphone and interview her for a while. We're going to use that on Livewire and stuff. And I go up, and I'm sitting in the front row of this tightly packed thing, and I vacate my seat in the front row. Now, mind you, I have introduced myself at the beginning of the set, and I've said, hey, I'm the host of Livewire. We're recording this for our radio show. Here's how it's going to work. we're going to hear some music from Kara Jackson and then I'm going to interview her a little bit and then we're going to hear some more music that's the plan so anyway I get out of my seat that I've been sitting in for the whole set and I'm on stage interviewing Kara Jackson and now it's time for me to wrap up the interview and to go back to my seat because Kara Jackson is going to play her final song and by the way I don't want to be on stage with her because I don't want to pull any of the focus like this is her set I did my little thing and now it's time for me to go away

And I look over to my seat, and there's just a fucking guy in bare feet with fucking white guy with dreads just sitting in my seat without a care in the world.

If this person were to have walked into the show late, is there anything indicating that this seat wasn't reserved? Like, in other words, like, does this look like any other seat, only it's in the front row that's not cordoned off in any way?

I mean, here's the thing. it first of all they they stopped letting people in because it was really packed so i don't think that this person was unaware of me being in the seat but let's just say they had somehow gotten in late like been allowed into the barn it also to me is a certain kind of entitlement to look around and go okay there's all these people sitting on the ground in the aisle right because that was the sort of thing so you're going to step around you're going to walk down the aisle of the show. You're going to step around all these people that are sitting on the ground. You're going to find a seat that's at the very front row right by where the artist is. And you're just going to figure that's, I guess that seat's been empty the whole, the whole show. Let me just sit in it. I mean, I guess it's theoretically possible, but it was just like, I guess what I'm trying to say is there is a certain kind of white person in Portland who has.

taken their level of self-acceptance too far like do not accept yourself so much so that when you enter a room you assume any seat is for you like especially the one front and center in front of this like i had to sit there on stage i just i tried to slouch i tried to like get myself as far away i mean honestly what i could have also done was just walked over to the corner of the barn and hid which maybe that's what i should have done but i just tried to make myself very small and very far away from what was happening three feet from me on stage because I did not want it to seem like I was trying to be part of the song or I was trying to be part of the attention that was being directed towards the song.

You just tried to hold your tambourine as quietly as possible.

That's right, and only hit it.

That's the other thing. You want to talk about entitlement. That's the other option. You could have gone back to your seat. You could have hidden the corner or you could have just grabbed a tambourine and just really accompanied it. Was it Cara? Is it Cara Jackson? Is that who the artist is?

Kara Jackson, yes. As she performed her hit song, Dickhead Blues, yes. Literally, that was the song. I'd be up there with my Tam, like, hey, is this cool, Kara? Is this cool?

It turns out that song was about me.

It's a good song. I would recommend the live version was, I mean, so I had listened to Kara's music, and I thought it was pretty good, but then I saw it live, and I thought it's phenomenal. Like, I mean, unbelievably. If you have a chance to see her live, if she's coming to a town new year, I would very much recommend it. But I just, I don't know, maybe it was also because like, I'm just so not, is not accepting the right way, not self, maybe I'm not self accepting and therefore I'm not accepting of others. Maybe it starts with me. Like I don't really like myself. So most people start out kind of on my last nerve. Like there was something about this, I guess my experience with the people who are the most like open to anything in life is that they're also, in my personal experience, the most open to asking you for a ride at the least convenient time. And I've had some friends that fall into this category. A lot of the people I know that are the most just like, hey man, just let the universe handle it. It's because real people have to do a lot of the propping up of this person's existence. That's been my experience with that.

It didn't occur to me until about a minute ago that I was like, oh okay, I know that one experience you've had with one person in particular has really shaped your view of these things. I'm not trying to limit it to one, but Like I, I know of one person that really, there's one person in particular who you and

probably the listeners can, can, can figure that one out. But even just other people, I remember, I remember when, uh, I remember Carrie was in this acting class, um, that she would do with somebody who was like incredibly crunchy and just kind of like, Hey, the, you know, I just let the universe take care of things. And I just, I just don't stress. And this was always the person who was like, Oh, by the way, on the, on the group chat, like can somebody cover my uh you know my bill for the for the class for this weekend and also here's where i'm staying right now uh anyone who could come and get me and give me a ride that would be much appreciated and it's just like we would both roll our eyes like yeah the universe is taking care of you the universe called everyone else who's just doing their normal shit and then has to pick you up like that guy probably is like man the universe just gave me a seat right in the front row of the show and it's like that wasn't the universe dude that was you either either just not really putting the situation together or uh you know or being willfully defiant of the rules

i don't know what if that guy was bob boylan hey all seats considered i wanted to um i wanted to mention i'm on the the pickathon website now of course after the fact i'm looking at at the musicians and i was gonna say aside from uh bonnie prince billy who in this photo is featured with some very upsetting face paint it's very strange i can't abide and then courtney barnett who i'm a huge fan of of course um and i'm looking through the rest and i'm just like yeah i don't know any of these other people um i might have heard of the barbers and then i see rat boys were playing i don't know if you remember this i told you um you know it's i'm not a huge fan of the name of that band because i think it evokes a certain sound that i don't think they actually perform but i fell in love with their record last year produced by um what's his name chris walla and i discovered them like i don't know last summer last fall or something and i love their their last record and they did not come to seattle during their last tour so but they were probably performing it looks like they were performing somewhere probably around the same time you were hosting this event

Yes, I noticed them, and I remembered that from your Music for the Weekend, and also this is Lorelei, who is somebody who I played for Music for the Weekend like two weeks ago, was also playing there, and again, the timing was not ideal. I didn't really get to see anyone who was, and let's be honest, again, this is how ossified I've gotten as a person.

got there, I set up shop at the place where I was kind of working, I did my job stuff and then I would kind of take a walk in between the sets because there was like an hour off and what I was just stunned by was so I was there on Saturday, I think it started on maybe Thursday, I think it's like a Thursday through Sunday so it's four days it was day three for everyone and people were just like completely loving it and I thought I'm in hour two and I'm ready to go and like i need a shower i was talking to folks about like they're like one of the things about this festival i guess is that it goes really late at night like um i think it was aaron ray who was on like nashville time she was the second performer that i was hosting um she was like god i was so embarrassed i could barely stay up till one last night i'm gonna do better tonight because i guess there's jam sessions that break out and all kinds of there's just music happening everywhere until all hours of the night and i just could not believe i could not conceive of the idea that there would be this was saturday i couldn't conceive of the idea that at 10 p.m the following night there would be people getting ready just then to watch courtney barnett right my brain could not handle that information and then this is not about everybody else for always this is about me like something has fundamentally shifted inside of me that like i cannot imagine doing a music festival for multiple days and i had like artist parking i had a little wristband that let me go everywhere i mean i was as hooked up as i could be at this festival i had to put up with none of the hassle although i will say this too in pickathons as a credit to them this was a pretty low hassle environment compared to a lot of the other festivals i've been to like sasquatch but maybe it's because this is a you know a few thousand people instead of 50 000 people or

something is there camping there out of curiosity there's camping there and there's camping and it's

all like kind of either literally within the the the boundary of the festival so you're inside the festival and you're camping there which is great or it's really close it's literally across like a little road so that was that was convenient for folks i mean people were having a great time none of this is about me saying that they're doing anything wrong with this festival they're doing it right i'm just doing it wrong as a person i guess or i'm just a person who needs i mean man When my butt hit the couch Saturday night at I don't want to say like 9 p.m., I was so excited. I had bought some fixins for making a sandwich, making kind of like a traditional, like the kind of sandwich you would get at just like a deli in New York with iceberg lettuce on it. You know, I don't put any meat on it, but I put a ton of cheese. What kind of bread? So this is my new thing that I've been really getting into is using an onion roll, like hamburger bun, onion roll. And so I put all the fixings, the cheese and everything, on one of the buns, and then I put the other bun, I put some butter on it, and I broil it in the oven so the cheese melts. It's like if you're at a, you know, what are the, like a, is it, what's the place where they, oh, pot belly. I like that they toast everything automatically, so I'm trying to reenact the experience of going to a pot belly. So the cheese is all melted and everything's all warm, and then I throw on, like, the mayo and the mustard and all the seasoning and stuff with some oil and vinegar. But it has to have this iceberg lettuce on it, which is really funny because that's such a kind of low-rent lettuce to put on things. But anyway, as I was, like, biting into my New York deli-style sandwich at 9.15 p.m. on Saturday, I was just like, oh, this is amazing. This is everything I was hoping it would be in better.

There is a—I'm going to totally butcher this, but there's, like, a New Yorker cartoon that kind of comes across my feed quite a bit where somebody is showing up to watch an outdoor movie somewhere. they're just saying oh great this is perfect it combines everything that i want not being able to hear the sound and having a sore butt or something like that and it just reminds me of like going to like you know because you know like everybody loves the hollywood forever movie showings you know that famous cemetery of course in los angeles most people know that and they will have they have the summer tradition that people absolutely love and i went to at least once but i remember going

very grumpily did you see any famous people when you were there i don't think i saw any famous

people there i remember going into this one very grumpy though because i still had not I still had not bonded with LA and I was having a tough time with my job there. And I actually remember they were, this was a showing on a Sunday and I'm actually just remembering this dazzling detail. Now I'm pretty sure I was coming back from my first weekend visiting Seattle. I think I moved to LA and then I, after maybe a month or two there, I came up to do some TBTL shenanigans with you and I missed Seattle so, so, so, so much. And then after a weekend in Seattle, like came back down and it was like you know Genevieve and our LA friends and they were so excited to do this you know Hollywood for everything and I think the the movie was um Vertigo you know I love I love old films like that but like I remember just like sitting I think I just came in grumpy

anyway because I just wanted to be in Seattle. I didn't like the idea of coming quote unquote home to Los Angeles. And then just like sitting on the ground and being like after 10 minutes just being like, oh, there are no more comfortable positions for me on the ground. Like I've tried feet out leaning back on my wrists. I've tried, you know, crisscross applesauce. That doesn't last for too long. I've tried the potty squatty. I don't know what else I tried, but eventually it's like the joints don't do it anymore. And by the way, this was 10 years ago. I wasn't even 40

yet. Have you, if we can switch to joint talk for just a moment.

Sure, yeah. And I don't mean

wacky tobacco. Somebody offered me some wacky tobacco at Pickathon. Actually, a very, very respected medical doctor who I'm longtime friends with and who I love. And it was like, hey man, I got a joint if you want one. And I've never felt like more of a narc that I was like, nah, I'm good, man. It's like the first and last time that a joint has ever been turned down at pick-a-thon I think

history that's good you were driving

well I also I still had to do like two more interviews and I mean as if my brain isn't already broken enough trying to do those things

yeah I wouldn't take I wouldn't partake in that in that situation and I am I am no stranger to that lifestyle

yeah like me I mean maybe a drink would be I could roll with that and maybe that would loosen me up although I also wasn't doing that but like oh man some marijuana no thank you sir on stage but um uh oh speaking of joint pain i just want to tell you that i continue to think of you day in and day out because you've been dealing with you've been dealing with this this rheumatoid situation which by the way any updates on that any improvements

well only this that i i was also thinking about telling you although i shouldn't admit this on the show but um i did have a nice weekend of just like kind of having to you know genevieve was was out with friends all weekend and i was really looking forward to this weekend of just like kind of resetting my summer a little bit i'd been feeling better i'm on this medication i'm like i can kind of get some things done that have been piling up and one of the things that was piling up was the front hedges especially the area where ours are growing super wild and they were right next to the neighbors which have been cleanly cleanly cut and so on saturday i was like i gotta do this i gotta do this i'm feeling good and so saturday i spent a few hours like actually like kind of climbing the ladder and doing a chunk of the hedges, and I will say that I am paying for that. Oh, really? Like Saturday was great, but, yeah, Sunday was rough, and Monday a little bit too.

In all of the old familiar places, i.e., is it like your wrists and your ankles?

Mostly ankles, yeah. Like the wrists and stuff are still like kind of, you know, they kind of come and go, but the wrists have become definitely the least of my issues. Like it's okay. I poured a full pot of coffee today. I was like, look, we've. so that's it's always my it's always my ankles and knees and just like a lot of swelling so anyway i'm not trying to complain too much but just more like it's this it's going to be this push and pull of like well i feel good today now i want to do the things that i want to do and when one of those things is kind of strenuous work on a ladder of trimming the the hedges it was like saturday night you and i were texting because it was a really from our perspective great ball game on saturday night and so i spent part of saturday night like sitting on the picnic table on our porch just like having a drink and watching the game on my laptop and looking at my hedges that were cut which was one of like the you know just one after this summer especially like it just felt so good but also feeling my feet throbbing and just being like oh you're also an idiot you're also an idiot so anyway that's that's where i am i'm glad you at least got got to have

that saturday night moment yeah that was yeah that was the other thing too right is as i was making my sandwich and i was mere steps from a shower would i need one yeah and about to sleep in my comfy bed the mariners were pulling out was arguably an extremely botched umpiring performance which uh will take um and yeah that was another saturday night the the comparison between uh the the lifestyle i was confronting of of of tenting of tent camping and and being outdoors and being barefoot and all that versus the where I was with the Mariners winning texting with my friend Andrew was yeah it was a real come up for me now on the subject of of joint pain and I don't want I'm not trying to throw down because I have a temporary situation uh versus kind of the implications of what you're dealing with but I mentioned to you last week that I kind of sprained my ankle and this also I think is is what 48 is like it wasn't like a debilitating sprain I just twisted my ankle going down the stairs but it i mean i have been trying to fix a situation by running on it every day which oh that's not working or it is the number one thing doctors recommend have

you tried standing on top of a ladder and trimming my edges right that's actually talk about that's

a workout for your for your ankles uh very much so but i uh what i what i've been really struck by is how easily i've been putting on shoes and socks for all these years uh-huh is this has this been a big part of your experience of like how much

you need ankle flexibility to easily put on a sock and a shoe it's now the most challenging part of my morning is okay let's get this sock thing handled okay now the shoe let's figure that out because i don't have much like up and down flexibility and what about what about swollenness though because that's been a big issue it's a little bit on swole it's not so that's that's that it's it's the more the fact that i just can't move it a whole lot um and and really like my whole foot is bruised and I think it's it's like I jacked up some like tendons and ligaments that are on the top of my foot and also on the kind of front right side of my shin okay yeah and so those two things are actually the problem the ankle itself just kind of is what it is but it's like all the things that are above and below the ankle that I think make it so that my foot moves normally are kind of like not working great and i again this is such a small thing compared to what you've been dealing with but i just keep thinking of you when i'm trying to put my sock on and i'm like oh this is so much harder than i expected it to be well my yeah my situation

was a little different as in like i you know it took me a while to realize that the swelling issues i was having was moving to the other parts of my body like in and i had gotten a brand new pair of shoes. I think I had mentioned this to you. The first time I put them on, I could barely put them on. On Amazon, I bought a couple of shoehorns. I was like, I guess I'm at that age now. Then that was right before I started to notice. Then I got another pair of shoes that should have been easily slipped on. I couldn't fit into those. Then I think I started to piece things together. I'm like, oh, I'm swelling all over the place. That's why I was using those shoehorns. My issues with shoes have been a little bit different than that. Not so much the flexibility but just the oh shit i can't fit into shoes anymore but i wanted to ask you like are you icing yours down a little bit like no i'm doing nothing for it i know i should i'll try to do

that tonight that's the problem is i think i am not really recognizing the fact that i'm almost 50 years old becca would absolutely hate to hear me say that but i think that my thought is oh yeah well if i was 25 and i kind of twisted my ankle but it wasn't like in constant pain and i could walk on it pretty much fine and i jog on it most days and it just kind of is what it is it'll just work itself out and it's not working itself out because i'm not doing anything to help but i'm not elevating it i'm not icing it i'm not taking ibuprofen like i'm doing none of the stuff that i should do because in the olden days it would just kind of work itself out it's not working itself out in fact in some ways it seems like it's getting worse and i think that's because i'm not 25 anymore so i need to address things like this in the logical fashion which is to just like yeah do do the things that they tell you to do when you've got a bit of a twisted ankle

but i know you got a lot of things going on but if you can sort of like and i don't even know for i've been eating a lot of popsicles lately um like kind of like relaxing and then the day because i definitely have to put my feet up on most days like i have to put my feet up at the end of it not every day but like kind of like actually elevate it like under some blankets and stuff and so like i just sort of like um tried to lean into it a little bit like okay this is my time to do this and that's why i was watching like the x files for for a while or whatever just like sort of like carving out this time and being like well i need to do this and like especially where you describe this pain like i can totally see you filling up like a gallon size ziploc bag with some ice cubes it'll rest perfectly on your foot on an ottoman and you sit there and say all i can do is is watch this game i can't putter right now have a popsicle and do whatever i know that's

honestly built an excuse very few people enjoy sitting as much as i do it is as we know the opposite of standing it is and i just you know i should be taking more advantage of this than i am so i'll um you know

i uh maintain that this is actually musically a pretty good song

this came up like what a month ago or something and we got like an actual like angry email from somebody like i had finally gotten that out of my head and i don't think it was kidding on the square i think this person was like no i'm sorry that is it was it was rory from arkansas

hey rory if you're still listening uh thank you for listening i appreciate the call this is we're referring to the the tape that we started the show with um and uh i can i can understand sure i think that the feeling of of looking to tbtl to be a refuge from uh from the the larger predominant or prevailing i should say conversation around politics i totally get that sometimes it comes through because also we're just narrating our lived experience here and that's a big part of our experience these days but i get it i hope you're still listening i hope you i hope that if us talking politics hasn't fully turned you. feel like if we were somewhere having a beer with rory we would have more in common than not well i

would go in thinking that but then he would just really dislike me by the end actually wait were

you on the panel with rory on friday let me go to the website here i go once again with the email every week i hope that it's from a female no man it's not from a female all right i know i promised

even more foot talk but on tomorrow's show because actually I'm in high level negotiations with Becca about what acceptable footwear is when we go to Italy this summer because I'm reading things I'm seeing things online I'm hearing things on the wind about the acceptance of sandals now and you know shoeless or I should say sockless shoe ideas and I know it's going to be crazy hot there and I know that I've never really figured out a good solution to like tennis shoes and socks so i'm considering it but i'm i'm i need to i need to give a careful consideration uh today and then tomorrow i'll be ready to

report on what my sandal plan is okay yeah i am weirdly interested in this even though it sounds

like a topic i'd be very you're also going to be in a warm place this summer where you might have

some shoe questions kind of although sandals are definitely a no-go for me but um i would be interested i don't know what don't answer this question now i actually am interested in hearing it but i'm you said you're in negotiations with becca i'm interested what those what shape those are taking and also i you know if there's a chance of getting her on the horn during this conversation i would not mind hearing uh the conversation around this but um good idea okay

well i'll reach out i don't know if that's possible people talk to her people let me know

i'm a pretty good booker let me know if you need me to reach out uh in the meantime i did want to Play a voicemail for you here I almost started the show with this today I thought this was a great voicemail that came in just this weekend I did want to say one thing about that Rory voicemail That we played at the beginning of the show That came in I think I was going through some voicemails today And I think that came in weeks ago And so in all seriousness I don't think things have gotten better

No, didn't we just do a show

Wasn't Thursday You and I just His reaction was not to the heavy handed Politics we were talking about last week So I do wonder if he's still with us. But anyway, we also got this voicemail that did come in just over the weekend on Saturday, in fact, while you were at Pickathon or maybe after Pickathon while you were eating your sandwich.

Hey, guys, I'm on the field at T-Mobile Park. Is that what we call it now? I am at batting practice. It's Saturday afternoon. My 15 year old is trying to figure out who I'm calling and I'm not going to tell him. I just met Luke Raley. We were feet away from Ichiro himself. I'm shaking. I had to tell somebody to hear that. That's my 15-year-old. And all of this was happening because I was sitting on the toilet on Christmas Day, and I was scrolling Twitter, and I saw the Mariners' PR team tweet, asked me to retweet something for a chance to win, and I did it, and I won. So here I am telling you to keep taking your phone to toilet boys and girls and everybody else, all the them, some babies and babies meet, everybody else in between, I power out.

I mean, I knew I loved that voicemail when it was live from T-Mobile Park, but when it went back to, oh, and I'm here because I took my phone with me to the toilet on Christmas Day, I knew it was a winner.

Good for them. I love that. Two takeaways from that. I feel like Luke Rayleigh, and I don't know what his exact batting average is this season, and I was probably a little down on him at the beginning of the season. I feel like Luke Rayleigh is really doing a lot of reputational repair on the name Luke. All the damage I've done to it, I feel like Big Luke is really... I feel like there's just... I love watching this guy play. He's a big old guy, but he runs really hard and fast. Bunts? Yeah, bunts. Like Tom Berenger in Major League. We love to see it. the other thing is I love how committed to the bit Ichiro is yeah like remember like he was like a special assistant something or other manager and and like he's still doing it like he's this is not a bit like you know they did that thing the marriage did something where they kept him on the team kind of in a sort of ceremonial thing until they played that game in Japan because they wanted him to get his flowers over there as well and like then I forget you you know it better than i do but the exact chain of events of the different titles they were giving him and it all just felt kind of like the thing you do to honor someone who who played really hard for you for a lot of years but like the idea that he's just out there like taking bp with these guys or throwing bp for whatever the hell ichiro's doing i love that he's He's still doing. i didn't realize that he's still doing it but i will say in like those those few years after his retirement and you know people would joke about it but not at his expense that like he was still fully dressing like full uniform and like you said like taking batting practice and like you know out there like kind of encouraging the the guys and like it would be like you're right he played that first series in japan one season then stuck around for the rest of that season then came back for the next one and I guess maybe we're into year three or four of that now and I didn't know he was still doing it but it really brings me joy because this sounds kind of sound this sounds condescending but like I was worried about him I was worried about him in the way I sort of worried about my dad when he retired my dad like worked his ass off like his whole life like getting up literally at 4 30 in the morning to get to work and work like 12 hour days and then drag his ass home at the end of the night and um that was his life but you know he needs i'm speaking of my dad you'd think well you need a break after that but sometimes those are the personality types that have the hardest time with retirement and you worry like how far before you maybe get depressed because there's you don't know what to do with your time or you just find yourself going back to work somewhere or something and luckily with my dad he has really taken to retirement the dude is lazy af no no he's uh no he's he's loving it he's he's biking everywhere he's been hanging out with his friends he's really taking advantage of his retirement for the last 10 years or so and i'm so happy and in a certain way it's like each row is like my dad and i'm not the first person to say it that like he was a man who i think he and a lot of people wondered what would

a post baseball life look for him his entire life was baseball an intense relationship with baseball an almost OCD relationship with baseball so when you take away the daily grind like what does it look like and it's sort of I mean again I'm not in his mind but it sort of seems like he found a way to keep baseball a very close part of his life um without you know as he ages out of the game as a

player absolutely no I think you're right and I think uh I I'm with you that I don't know if I was worried for Ichiro, but I wondered what it would look like. Because Ichiro had that, for some reason, I was talking about this the other day with someone, about the people who are the players, I should say, professional players who are just on a totally different level. And it's a combination of physical talent, but then this weird mindset that just, it's like Kobe Bryant. It's like Michael Jordan, famously. There are just these players who Tom Brady probably is on that list of just who who are physically they they got some gifts each rose on this list but then they just like also have some sort of a thing where it's like they're the ones who like the day after they win the championship of whatever their league is they're back in the gym at 5 a.m just like taking a million shots or lifting or whatever like it's like that is its own kind of obsession obsessive compulsive thing that serves you when you're in the sport but then it raises the question what are you going to do when the when you're not in the sport anymore because it is literally you're not like one of those people that's you're not alan iverson where you're good at it but you also really want to hit the club afterwards with your buddies like or where you know this sport is some part of your life and you're enjoying the accolades and the money but you're also doing a lot of other stuff like then there are the people that are doing no other stuff and itro seemed like a person for whom there was no other stuff it was like that time

This goes back a long way But I was moving away from Los Angeles And I had to take a day off of TBTL You and I usually, you know, we're usually doing this show In one fashion or another Every weekday, it's usually you or I And I remember I just straight up took a day off I don't know what you did with the show that day Probably had, you know, somebody else on I don't know how you replaced me

I'm sure the audio was questionable

I don't, I don't, I don't This is pre-AP, it doesn't even matter So anyway, but I just remember being like Okay, I'm just taking the day off and i uh had a bunch of stuff to do because i was moving out of la and i had to take the day to like return cable boxes to xfinity and all this stuff and i was doing literally that i returned a cable box to xfinity uh at the mall right before the mall opened but i was able to use the bathroom in the mall and i was the very first person to use it and it was the most amazing experience i was like how am i not on tbtl today like i was like i cannot take a day off something is finally

happening in my life i need i need to get on the horn asap and then breaking news coverage about the toilet i just used at this mall that nobody's been in yet i think about the fact that that is

where this landed after where that voicemail started it's all bathroom talk yes exactly it was christmas day yes all right uh that's gonna do it for today's show but you probably already know this as a listener we're gonna be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you So please do join us for that. Are the Mariners playing today, by the way? Nope, day off, and then Tigers tomorrow. I'll be there tomorrow. Oh, nice. Okay, look for Andrew.

If you're trying to get up the stairs over there in left field, just don't let him zipper merge with you. He's been doing it all over town. I'm just going to be jumping in and out of line, jumping in, jumping out. All right. We'll see you tomorrow. Have a great Monday. In the meantime, please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.