Muse

Never had you figured for a Doors fan. I'm not really a Doors fan, but sure, I like to get into them. You want to be a Doors fan? You can't just go buy any album. It's scientific. Sure. You gotta buy this. Waiting for the sun. Listen to it every night around dusk for about a month. Then what? Who's playing bass? No one. No bass. No bass? That's right. But don't let that scare you, my friend. Let that liberate you. Because when you're free-flying with the doors, man, what do you need a safety net for? TBTL!

Good afternoon and welcome to Judgment City. You've just had quite a little journey, so for now, relax and enjoy the ride. Be honest. What is it about me that no one respects? My hair? Yeah. I'm thinking about getting a new haircut. Changing stuff up. Maybe getting like an Arnie Schwarzenegger jingle all the way type of haircut. You know, short, tall, and stiff.

These people are lost and on drugs, and they have venereal diseases. That's not for you. You don't know them.

In 1971, Bill Greats invented Microsoft. Wouldn't it be cool if I could remember my dingus password from my email?

Well, all right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Come on, brain. Think of things. Come on, brain. Be so smart. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

You know, with my fecalist in jail, I can eat whatever I want today.

Coming to you from San Francisco, California, where it is extremely cloud foggy. Cloud fog. And the rumors are true. You know, we've been going around on this on the show. So the least interesting original observation about the weather in San Francisco, which is, of course, the coldest winter I ever spent was the summer in San Francisco. But boy, was that true yesterday when I was walking home from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where we had been filming, and the cloud fog had moved in. It was windy, and it felt like it was about 45 flippin' degrees. But here's the thing. I wasn't even worried about the weather because something else had happened to me yesterday here in San Francisco that was so profound, so exciting. I've been waiting for this moment for months and it's finally here. It really, honestly, sort of caused me to think about futurism in a different way. That was the most... I'm in San Francisco, so I feel like I can make those kinds of tech bro statements that I'm really rethinking futurism. But anyway, I'll tell you what happened with that. And then I came down a little bit off of the high of my first experience when I went to a restaurant and felt a fair amount of anxiety.

It's a restaurant within a restaurant.

So we will talk about that and so much more here on episode 4267 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. We have an article from Rob Sheffield in Rolling Stone Saying that America's hottest band Is Creedence Clearwater Revival And when he said that, that shocked me We will make the case for CCR And why they are having such a moment Or why we're trying to figure out why they're having such a moment On this Thursday, also known as a Blur's Day

So we'll do the Blur's Day messages

And we're going to talk to this guy longest-running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Speaking of rock legends, he's, of course... The soulful rocker from New Hampshire. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

You almost went full shingy there, didn't you, with your futurism? I did. Digital.

I'm using a headset microphone.

Yes, you're popping your peas just a little bit, just enough to let us know that it's a live talk.

I planted my flag on that topic, by the way, or I drew a line in the sand. I'm going to be in Nashville next week. I'm going to be helping out with this big kind of corporate get-together. And I was going over things with the folks that are putting it together. And I was going to have a shingy. I think the plan was for me to have a shingy-style mic. And I asked with great, very delicately, because they're paying me, to do this. They're being very nice. So I don't want to be a hassle. But I said, could I just have a handheld microphone, please? And literally, it was like, I don't want to look like I'm doing a TED Talk.

Oh, that's what you said, but that's not the full story, though. It's not about how you – I mean, maybe it is partially for you how you look, but also it is about mic usage as somebody who uses a microphone every day, right? Like, yes, you're right. If I were on stage, well, I'd be embarrassed for a lot of reasons, but I would feel uncomfortable visually with that weird little microphone, but also, like, you do a lot of moving away from the microphone and moving into the microphone, and you know – Most people.

don't know how to use microphones which is why they have to use those and that's fine but like you don't want to you need to clear your throat from time to time if you're me you need to blow your nose from time to time you need to get away from that thing yes that was the way that i pitched

it to them was as a professional i know exactly where that microphone should be in proximity to my mouth but mostly it was because i didn't i my rider said i either get two coffee cups or i get a handheld microphone because i gotta do something with my hands that's i literally would not know what to do with my hands if they were both free because the microphone was was uh you know right near my mouth or have you seen the one they do on broadway sometimes where they put it in the middle of your forehead like it's flesh colored and they will just put it in the middle of your forehead i think the theory is it picks up the audio well but you know if they put it on your cheek you know you're either you might scratch your cheek or you just your cheek moves a lot when you're singing your forehead doesn't really move in the same way and so i've seen a few productions where the person has a flesh-colored teardrop lavalier microphone coming down from their widow's peak and i just think we've given too much power to the sound guys i am i don't care that they're in the union i don't care that they're grumpy i don't care that we're all afraid of them and we are We're all afraid of them Don't let them put the microphone On my widow's peak, please

Yeah, that makes me deeply uncomfortable But I'm the type of person who doesn't like I don't even like stickers on me Like one of the One of the greatest Showings of respect

Lies the devil ever told

Was that he didn't exist There is a

One of the greatest lies Raphael Dever ever told Was that the Mariners were going to be able to beat

the Detroit Tigers why why are you bringing Devers into this because I said Dever instead of devil oh oh oh I thought I was I misspoke I turned off the game yesterday by the way I was just like you know what I'm just gonna turn this off and I'm gonna watch I'm gonna watch something more relaxing uh with Genevieve a show called The Boys that has so that that just freaks you out very very dark programming just incredibly dark when it comes to just graphic violence combined with um you know stories of of of the coming fashion fascists it's a parallel story of what's going on in america and in a in a extreme trump-esque world and i was like you know what that seems like a better thing to relax to than the mariners tigers game um so anyway uh i was gonna say i i don't like stickers i you know there was a child uh in my life for a while it was not my child it was a neighbor's kid who I babysit for a while. We played poker. Thank you for clarifying. We played poker. I sold her cigarettes. It was a pretty good deal. There was a child in my life for a while. Well, you know, because I don't have a kid. Never used. Yeah, right. But I remember running into her and her mom at the grocery store. I was like, hey, how you doing? And she had just gotten a pack of stickers. And you know what? I don't even think it was a new sticker. I think she pulled an old sticker maybe off of her hand or something and stuck it onto my hand. And I was just like oh thank you sweetie thank you so much and then i just ran to the frozen food section and pulled that off like i do not like stickers on my hands at all so the idea of a sticker microphone being smack dab in the middle of my forehead makes me uncomfortable well i luckily prevailed in this

conversation i wouldn't even call an argument because nobody was arguing they were being very nice and they said yeah we can get you a handheld microphone and the relief that washed over me was intense because again more even than the wanting to have control in the proximity it's uh it's just the fact that i don't want to have two hands unencumbered when i'm standing on stage because i do not know what to do with them the other thing and i'm sure this has come up before when the topic of microphone technique has been a topic but the greatest lie the raphael ever told was that those lectern microphones are a good flipping idea. They are a solution to a problem made by a person who's never stood on a stage and tried to give a presentation. You know what I'm talking about?

Well, I sort of know what you're talking about, and I don't want to stop your flow, and I certainly don't want to argue.

No, I'm flowing, and the listeners can tell, so don't stop it.

I don't want to stop. Hold on, I'm getting my room service coffee, please. I was trying to be as less flow as possible, or as least flow as possible. Here's the thing, though, that I think we need to acknowledge going into any conversation, without sounding snobby about it, and I'm not even putting myself at, you know, or pretending that I'm at your experience level on stage with microphones, but like... Respect. When you're talking about a lectern microphone, 99.9% of the time, that is for people who don't use microphones.

phones. I mean, that that is the sound person's like whether you're talking about somebody in a at a lectern in a, you know, is it Kane Hall in the campus? Thank you. Or in a church or or if you're talking about somebody giving, you know, like some sort of a TED talk, but they don't you know, their background is an audio. Like, I think the challenge of the audio people is always trying

to meet people where they are. Right. Yes, that's fair. That's a that's a fair point. And as somebody who is on stage a lot interviewing people and then looking across and seeing the befuddlement in our audio folks' eyes as the person continues to not get close to the microphone. That is a pickle. The thing about the lectern microphone that is a problem is it is supposed to be this thing that sort of catches everyone's voice and then they don't have to think about it. But what most people do is they lean into the microphone this little wand microphone and so first of all they're stooped over in an awkward in an awkward fashion and it's too loud and then the person is turning it down and then it's too quiet and again i guess it's not i know i'm trying i'm not trying to put this on the sound people and we have some audio people we have some sound americans who listen to the show and i don't want to disrespect their duplication but i just that thing has never ever worked i i guess the way it's supposed to work is you're supposed to stand you know bolt upright read your script or say whatever you're going to say and don't get in any way closer to the microphone because it is supposed to be able to pick up your voice where you are as you said it's supposed to meet you where you're at but most people i think don't do that they lean down into

it and then the whole thing falls apart and it gives you that awkward body language as well right i don't know i'm trying it's driving me bananas i shouldn't even bring this up it's driving me bananas that i can't think of specifically what bit it is but i can totally i feel like david cross addresses this subtly in more than one in more than one sketch or at least one where he just does i feel like he does such a good job in mr show maybe other things as well but in mr show of being the guy who doesn't know how to use the microphone like either he's like he's all on it and it's popping all over the place and like leaning over into the lectern like that. You know that? And the sound and the visual. I would watch you doing your version of David Cross.

I'm loving this character.

It is a specific sound. I know I've said this on the show a million times and people listened and remember to every word I say, but I think they do a really good job of it. Less comedically, but very, I think, astutely. Like sonically. And sonically in the movie Magnolia, where you have Tom Cruise playing that really toxic guy who may or may be tj mackie exactly he's on stage and he's giving his like his toxic ted talk to the men of the audience about how they can how they can score with the ladies or whatever only it's very it's very gross the language that he uses and uh and he is wearing one of those headset mics and they and like the you know the sound people in that movie really capture that that it's way too close to his mouth and it's popping the peas and it's like you can hear everything but It's just slightly distorted. I love that they do that.

That's so great. Great sound design on that. Definitely, yeah. By the way, the guy that I am convinced is the sort of real-life basis for that T.J. Mackey character, Tom Likas, has officially retired.

Oh, really?

Good news, America. We outlasted Tom Likas.

Well, there's still archives, though, right? I can still get my film.

Not really, because when the news came out, Uh, our friend Camaro Kev sent me and our buddy JD, uh, the, the, uh, little article in some local paper that Lycus was hanging it up. And I said, was he still doing it? And, and Kevin said, I don't think the website has worked for like a couple of years. The new normal, which was the name of his audio website was, didn't seem to have any kind of streaming content or the archives. It was pretty kludgy as it was. And I have to be honest with you, I was kind of annoyed by the tone of the article because it made it it really made it seem that Tom Likas had rejected broadcast media versus the real case, which is people good hearted people of America had finally essentially rejected Tom Likas. like it's like you know after however many years he's hanging up and his quote was something you know typically self-aggrandizing like when it stops being fun i don't want to do it anymore and i or i just was ready to do other things i was like dude nobody was going to your kludgy ass yeah misogynist website and and that's why you stopped doing it don't pretend like this was

working and you stepped away from it it was not working there was a generation of and like just even putting the the the toxicity and grossness of him aside there was a generation of radio like almost like what people would describe as legendary broadcasters you know national names in radio which you know there are only a handful of those um walsh burbank wall in in that sklaroff now exactly it's the mount rushmore broadcast that's right fletcher uh is the fourth exactly um but uh anyway um you know there is that era of sort of aging broadcasters who'd really hit the high water mark in their broadcast careers But then we're trying to segue into whatever the digital future was. But it was before. Chingy and I, thank you for using the proper term. And you know that I'm actually, once again, evoking David Cross there. In the revamped season of Mr. Show, which I think was just called With Bob and Dave or something. It was like season four that came out decades later. He does an imitation of Chingy, that futuristic guy, that Silicon Valley. Well, actually, he's an Australian guy, right? anyway and he does an imitation of him he keeps on saying digital that's basically all his imitation is is he'll just say the future digital the past digital train that's another david cross impression that i love to hear you do it helps that you probably haven't heard the original so you don't know how terribly i'm butchering it but um anyway i don't remember what i was saying other than they kind of they they thought that they were making the leap from like i want to sort of i i want to maybe step down my career a little bit i don't want to be going into the to the radio studio at 3 30 4 a.m every day to do my morning show or whatever and all the work that goes into it numbers are sliding the future digital but podcasting hadn't exploded yet so they created websites and they said well you know my my buddy tom likus put up a website with like a paywall and like he's got such an addictive audience that people are going there and paying him you know like five a month and he's raking it in or $15 a month I have no idea what that model was and you just sort of saw a lot of people doing that and it was just sort of like I feel I don't feel bad for them like they're fine but it's definitely like sort of a in between generation I feel like that kind of missed that step in between

and we are almost too old for it but we got so lucky that a guy named James Bottdorf worked at Bonneville Media, which owned Cairo Radio, and when, you know, when some people were sort of realizing that this digital thing was going to be important, this dude who was just, you know, the web guy at the time, I think he's like running the organization now, but the web guy at Cairo just was so good about making sure that all of our files played when you went to the Cairo website and went to the tbtl page and clicked on it and that small thing was so huge for us because at the time most links most mp3 links on websites that were that you know promised to play you some audio were just dead links because somebody didn't and by the way also sean detori japan's number one mixer at about 9 45 i would look over at his computer 9 45 p.m and he would be in the process of like encoding and uploading all three hours of tbtl and he did that every single night diligently and because of that we somehow luckily got you know in the habit pattern of enough people that this is a thing but we are almost i mean we are so close to being those guys who worked in radio and then heard about this this kind of like podcasting thing and then started a website and if you go to it now it's just a graveyard of like three attempts of real player of dead real player what a specific and perfect reference real player real player just give you like kind of a bad empty feeling in your soul yeah because you never clicked on real player and had a good

sort of experience it was always dead download this rn file and you're like i guess and then you download and it's like but i'm still just a pointer file that needs something on the you're like i don't know what i'm doing here this is going to be a bad idea i'll tell you what i always

quote listen you have a free pass for the rest of the show after your real player reference sir

um this is a bad i don't i always quote this digital uh with bob and david sketch i don't even think it's that great honestly it just stuck in my craw but it's only like a minute and a half long it begins with bob introducing david's shingy character it says keynote speaker they're in a very cheap sort of looking stage that would be, you know, again, the type of stage one would present in Silicon Valley.

How does he do it? Well, we're going to find out tonight. Here he is, IOL's digital soothsayer, Shangy! Shangy is his face. IOL.

Digital! So he's coming up through the crowd saying digital in people's faces. He's got big black hair pointing on glasses. Does he have a ponytail? No ponytail, but like kind of wild, like he's the guy.

I think the real Shingy has a ponytail.

ponytail, which I feel like is part of the problem.

This is hair that is, it's like huge hairband sort of hair. It's like jet black, sticking up and like long and back.

Ivory Tower, right? Right. Here we are, yes? All of us together in the here, in the now, yeah? It's all about digital, yeah? The web allows us to be everywhere with our eyes, right? Hey, rocket!

He's showing us slides. The sides of things, like a rocket ship.

You're in the past. Noise. Communication, yeah? Through sound waves, right? Wave bye-bye, gone. Digital, right? Nature, right? Renewal. Recycle. It's a life cycle, man. It's digital, right? Time. Melting. Tempest fugit. In flight. Gone forever. Shoot it down. We missed it. Digital. White man, black face, facing reality, reality, evolving, digital, yeah? Microorganisms, right? Micro is macro, small is big, up is down, I'm a clown, digital.

I don't know.

At what point is he channeling Ringo Starr?

I think the person who uploaded it was like, we get enough of this and the sketch just ends in the middle but that's fine

I want to apologize too for misdescribing David Shing's hair aka Shingy he doesn't have a ponytail he has probably the hair that David Cross has oh yeah I just sort of he seemed culturally to have a ponytail to me based on my memory of things

I wondered about that when you said that I'm like I'm pretty sure that David Cross is wearing very specific Shingy hair yeah that is

he just has wild mane of hair and you know it's probably a nice enough guy but um that's a digital that's a devastating send-up future

digital digital yeah i mean sure i'm sure he's a nice i mean i don't even know that i'm sure that

he's a nice person but you know i'm in the belly of silicon valley if it gets out that i'm besmirching shingy they won't let me out actually that's a really good point they won't let me in a waymo

again andrew yeah yeah let's get into that we're 20 minutes in i didn't even want to get into any of this bullshit today i just want to hear about your self-driving car dude we got a real player

reference within the first 20 minutes of the show hell yes all right let's hear about your experience there okay i went in a driverless car yesterday and it was incredible like i i was a it was a it was an intense experience in my life that had me this is how we ended up on shinging i guess had me rethinking i don't know maybe not rethinking but just feeling like holy shit the future is kind of here you know the joke is like we were promised jet packs and all that like it felt like I got a jet pack yesterday I was we were filming down in the San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge by the way that's a whole other thing which was we went out me and the crew from CBS we went out on this boat to basically film this funeral director named Ruben and his assistant Johnny to film them dispersing the cremated remains of people who have passed away in San Francisco and didn't have any next of kin. So they are identified. We know who they are, but there was nobody that would come and claim their remains. And so what the city of San Francisco does, which I think is actually pretty awesome, is they go out to the harbor and they disperse the remains. They're technically called cremains, which is kind of weird, out in the harbor. So that's what we were doing. But on the way back, I needed to get a car to to, you know, bring me back to the hotel. And I had seen a couple of these Waymos driving around and I was under the impression that these things still needed to have a human being sitting at the steering wheel. i did not comprehend that san francisco is full of what appears to be hundreds of fully driverless cars and so i like downloaded the the app for this thing and it was exactly like signing up for any kind of ride share took like one minute and then i hit come pick me up and then two minutes later a driverless car freaking pulled up with my name by the way well my initials lb on this digital screen on top of it and I got into the car and it drove me back to the hotel and it was

I mean it was mind-blowing you know I think I did have a better beat on that than you because I just seen a lot of people posting things online of getting self-driving cars I forgot that it's specifically Waymo though because I was gonna my first question for you was like did you know you were getting a self-driving car like did you just call an uber or a lyft in one of the

them pulls up but now that you say that of course i remember waymo because people were messing around

with those waymo cars yeah like um what was the uh coning them or something right traffic cones

over their sensor yeah i sort of learned that on the show because people were posting videos of that and i didn't understand what was going on and then people had kind of fact checked that and said yeah if you put a a traffic cone on and it just confuses the hell out of these cars but um which sounds like taking a dangerous situation and making it more dangerous but i guess it's a way of like sort of striking back at technology that you don't approve of but um uh here here's my question for you um you you chose Waymo specifically because you wanted this experience or because where you

were it made the most sense because I wanted the experience I mean San Francisco is full full of Lyfts and Ubers so that's never an issue getting one but I had seen a couple driving around and I was I was sort of intrigued um because I'm with you that I I did see people posting I'm in a driverless car but i somehow thought that they were just like influencers who were like allowed to have some sort of act i didn't realize that just any old person any old podcaster like myself could just like walk out on the street hit a button on their phone and a freaking robot car will just come get you and then you get in and then it just drives you where you're going and like i it really was i mean you can watch the hey dummies video this week in the newsletter which is me basically just freaking out in this car while listening to post malone because they also give

you a lot of great radio options wait how do you operate that through the app it's just like why

no there's a there's like a touch like a you know like a tablet kind of screen where you're sitting as the passenger and uh and so yeah i mean you know it's it's it's super integrated everything is um but um i don't know i went yoda on it there super integrated it is everything but anyway yeah for for some reason this this moment of just being in a car that did not have a human driver made me feel like we have technology can maybe actually do some shit that we need going forward like I feel like sometimes you know the promise of technology does not always pay off but I just had this genuine moment yesterday of thinking okay we might be able to solve a lot of issues through not to go not to go full shingy on it but like i i i felt very very excited about human potential because this thing happened where a driverless car took me 1.4 miles to my hotel

okay i just want to let you know that um i have decided that at some point later on in the show and i don't know when and i might even do it without telling you i am going to play something called niche is the new mass uh with david shingy shing which uh seemed to be a uh that actually

sounds like a ted talk i would give no joke like you know narrow casting versus broadcasting um i feel we're gonna play him and it's gonna be eerily it's gonna be a better executed version of the kind of thing that i'm often saying to people it looks which is gonna kill me it looks like it's

going to be uh an interview style format i just want to see how close the david cross thing comes But anyway, but OK, so you really you went from the micro to the shingy like almost immediately. You're like, OK, so I called this car and I pulled up and I have my initials. And now, you know, what does this say about the future? But like we've skipped over so much of the human experience here. Tell me about the feeling of sitting. So you open the door, you sit in the back seat and you have this moment where the car is now about to start driving. And I have a very specific question for you that I think I am going to be disappointed in the answer to. Did you immediately feel the need to go to the bathroom? Because I feel like I would have that sensation of suddenly I realized.

It was sponsored by Barnes & Noble.

I do feel like I would suddenly have that feeling of just kind of like, oh, everybody just left and I'm here alone. Oh, I got to go to the bathroom.

No, but I will tell you this. It was driving faster than I expected. Okay. I was thinking, oh, the only way this can operate in a major U.S. city is if this thing just goes, like, at a golf cart speed and is crazy cautious. It wasn't. Like, I got in. I shut the door. It started driving. It didn't make—I thought it was going to—I thought literally I was going to have to put the seatbelt on before it would even start moving. Like, I just thought it would have all of this, like, super safe stuff built in. no a voice just says even though this car is automated it's still i'm paraphrasing here but it was basically like even though this car is you know automated it's still driving on the streets and you need to be safe so put your seat belt on but it was driving when it told me this it was admonishing me in the way that maybe a driver would it wasn't like we can't move forward until you've put the seat belt on sir and from there have you ever had a driver do that to you before

i have drivers do that to me and it like real it really irritates me i feel so infantilized and it really pisses me off when i it's not like i'm like hey just drive like i'm just looking for the seat belt like often maybe not often but it's not uncommon to get in the back seat of a of a rideshare service like that and like the seat belt is like maybe jammed back in the cushions

or something you're underneath some lilo and stitch blanket situation right exactly Seat cover. You're trying to pull it out. Or there have been times where maybe I'm going to a party where we're bringing a dish or something, and Veeves and I are sort of getting situated, and the person, I kind of don't realize that we're not moving, and the person will say, sir, I cannot drive until you put your seatbelt on. I just want to be like, you know what, I'm going to put my goddamn seatbelt on. I don't need to be shamed by you.

It's funny because for the longest time, in the words of Billy Joel, whenever I was in a taxi cab or a rideshare, I actively didn't wear the seatbelt as if I was protected in that vehicle by some sort of magical bubble that meant no one could ever crash into this car. Like, I'm talking decades of my life. It was like, well, why would you ever wear a seatbelt in a taxi cab? Like, that's lunacy. And then one day I thought, you know, physics still applies. I'm not siding, by the way, with the overly brusque rideshare person who's making you put the seatbelt on. That would also annoy the heck out of me. But it's just funny how forever I just thought, like, why would you even wear a seatbelt when you're riding in a taxicab or a rideshare? And then one day I was like, because a crash could still happen. Again, I'm not siding with them. I'm just saying this was my personal journey.

I think that's a generational thing because I think I was probably the same way for a while as well. And I think it's because did we used to buckle up in taxicabs? I don't think we did.

I don't think they even had seatbelts in the taxi cab.

I think they did, but, like, I do remember thinking, like, it's weird that we don't have, like, seatbelts on buses, you know? Right. But, I mean, I guess if you get into an accident with a bus, like, the physics is just different, right? Like, something really bad has to happen for you to maybe need a seatbelt on that. I don't – you know what? I don't want to think about that. I don't want to think about what I –

Do you don't want to think about the E-Line having that kind of trouble?

No, exactly. Okay, so it was driving faster than I thought it would. Yeah, yeah.

and it was it it did this weird thing this is all in the video by the way so i'm not trying to cannibalize the hey dummies but there was this moment where we were i think it wanted to turn right but there was a pedestrian in the crosswalk and so instead of waiting for the pedestrian it went an entire additional block and then like did a right to go back to where it had been trying to go and i think that was like some sort of ai calculation that i don't know if it's ai or not But like some sort of like high level math calculation that was basically saying, and this is the kind of thing a human would never do. We would just wait for the person to cross the street. But this robot car knew that going an additional short block and then taking a right was going to actually be faster than waiting for the person, if that makes any sense. And then when we came around this corner, as we were executing this, there was a UPS truck parked right in the road, like happens. and there was more people crossing the street and I thought we were either going to hit the People or the UPS truck, we hit none of them and it just cruised along and went around the truck and it was, I have had human like Lyft and Uber drivers who drive more slowly than this Waymo car did which I was kind of surprised by

Oh do you know one thing I just wanted to say before because I know I'm going to get emails from people but we don't hear from that many listeners who talk about their experiences of driving ride shares, which I'm kind of surprised about. You'd think we'd have more listeners who do that since you're in your car a lot. And we obviously.

I think it's the customers who ask them to turn TBTL off.

That is true. Anyway, I was going to say, I'm sure when somebody is sort of chastising me a little bit and saying, sir, put your seatbelt on, I'll bet you a million bucks it's a policy. You know what I mean? I'll bet you these people are just following the rules that they've been given from the company, which all the more makes me surprised that these cars at Waymo will even go. I would think for sure there would be a chip in that seatbelt that would say, OK, this car doesn't drive until not to relitigate that. But I'm pretty shocked by that.

I know I was I was expecting it to be kind of annoyingly like hospital corners. And it was pretty chill. It might have been drinking. I don't know.

Yeah, that's probably too chill for probably a lot of the residents of that area. I hear a lot of complaints about that, but it seems like they've sort of, if these cars have taken over such a huge percentage of the driving population, I'm kind of actually surprised we haven't heard either more horror stories or more just sort of complaints.

Well, that's, okay, so that's the other part of this was in the morning we were filming out on the water, and then I came back to the hotel, I did a little bit of work, and then I went over to, we're doing two stories while we're down here. The other one is about the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, acquiring a big collection of art created by people with developmental disabilities and or physical disabilities. And by the way, if you live in San Francisco, go to this exhibition. It's amazing. It's called The House That Art Built, and the stuff is totally incredible. We're going to go out to the studio where a lot of these artists work out in Oakland on Friday. But point being I show up at SF MoMA For our kind of afternoon

shoot and i am so psyched about this waymo experience and i just can't tell enough people about it and every person who works at sf moments universally hates waymo and i couldn't say and yeah just kind of that sort of like oh really oh all right well i'm glad it worked out for you i mean just this kind of knee-jerk negativity about it which you know i guess they come by honestly they live here i don't but i was trying to understand i mean i guess one argument could be like loss of jobs it seemed to be that more you know san franciscans do not want more cars on the road here because and that's a reasonable issue or reasonable point you know more cars is typically bad for a city but it just was weird that i was so excited about and everyone who lives here was like basically we don't like those things yeah i mean i know that and that that's

what sort of led to the people putting the coning cones on the cars to confuse them and sort of like kind of in some way like sort of fight back against this this trend but and i you know so like i kind of have an awareness that is generally like frowned upon by people in you know who live there and so i didn't mean to like kind of be ignorant to that i hear that but as a national i was very ignorant to it by the way oh really oh yeah well yeah i walked into sf moma like you guys i come with great news but then but then what do they say though is it just like the idea of it is it because they're driving and parking in ways that are that are irritating them or

that's the thing nobody gave me a specific argument for why they don't like it they just it's like so many things in politics they couldn't really specify a specific reason why they don't like it they just kind of didn't dig it was what i was getting from people and that's probably a larger conversation about just like city life right you know like it's just been categorized as like one of those annoying things that's happening that you know again maybe because they don't have these in um longview washington yet i was just like a you know i was jack mcbrayer just like falling off the cookie jar truck just yeah right super excited about this but but yeah nobody could give me a specific example of why they now i know there have been a few issues you know where sometimes they stop for no reason and like you said that the coning thing was going on all that was more i think human intervention but i don't know if they were all electric which i don't i think they they might be electric i'm not actually sure but it seems to me like if they're electric and they're not dangerous for people it seems like a good thing to me in a city in a place like to just to just eliminate but again i mean this is also a job that people have so maybe this is an atomization of something that would displace a lot of people that are working That was not, by the way, the case that was made to me yesterday by anyone who was sort of not into it It wasn't like, well, the jobs It just seemed like people just generally Who live here kind of were like a little down on the idea

Well, I mean, and I'm not just trying to bend over backwards to be an annoying liberal I woke up this way That's not even what they say What did they say? I woke up like this But, I mean, I can see broad societal arguments for it as somebody who has not read up a lot about the the conversation or even controversy if you will but like generally speaking like as somebody who loves public transportation and would love if cities are going to have to like kind of change their infrastructure at all or even like kind of consider certain you know design elements based on transportation i would prefer it to be like some sort of mass transit so you know the the more energy car is still a car yeah a car is still like it's still transporting one to three people you know individually or whatever but like i'm I'm not trying to get bent out of shape about this, but I could see that as an argument, certainly, especially as I know. I mean, I have not spent hardly any time in San Francisco, but I know that they have a decent public transportation system. But also people complain about the BART a lot, right, like about its reliability. Is that still a thing? Is that a common thing that you hear when you're down there? There's all the BART's broken again.

Well, this is the thing. I'm such a little little Lord Fauntleroy when I'm in San Francisco. I'm always staying right in the middle of the city because that's typically where we're filming. And I don't take the BART, and I'm not usually, like, I'm not going out to Fruitvale Station or whatever. Like, I'm just not interacting with that side of real life in the Bay Area. So I'm a bad person to ask about that.

Yeah. Oh, you know who's going to be on the show in a couple of weeks, by the way? Our friend Cassie, who lives this on a daily basis. Speaking of Oaklanders. Exactly. And I think might have some insight on the BART. So stay tuned for that.

So you stole Cassie Chattelaine.

Mm-hmm. Stole. Stole. You and I are both taking some vacation time coming up. And so there's going to be some weeks where we're doing some special programming. By the way, some really fun special programming involving listeners singing their songs to their pets.

we've already recorded some of those shows that was turned out to be such good programming thanks in no part to us but thanks to the listeners amazing but yeah we're both going to be recording

some shows with guests as well and i didn't i mean you could have did you reach out to did you reach out to cassie no and she shows me okay yeah okay just wanted to make sure that we understand i'm jealous though that was a very good thought cassie can come on with you as well cassie can cassie can be on the show every goddamn day as far as i'm concerned hey can you play us

Perfect.

After all of this buildup, can you play us a little Shingy? Thank you, my buddy. Let's take it. So I have no idea what I'm dipping into. This is like a three-minute video. Shingy, a Shingy that looks like, let's see, this was posted one year ago. So his black hair definitely is turning a little gray or whatever, just to kind of give you a sense of where we are. This isn't like the height of Shingy. I think this is kind of more modern. When would the height of Shingy be, like 2006 sort of? Is that where it was like?

I mean, I thought he had a ponytail as of 30 minutes ago. Okay, good call.

Okay, so anyway, he's sitting on the couch with somebody who's interviewing him, I think. I believe I've cut to the first answer that he gives.

One, there's a lot of places and touch points where people can have these communication tools, and that's why PR should be at the top, front of the seat, period, full stop. It's very different to marketing, but it should be within the marketing chamber. It's very different, and that should be brand-led. You call that a marketing chamber? People are like, oh, the trajectory and growth of TikTok is incredible to watch. Yeah, it is. But it's in niche ideas. Right. So you just want to learn how to cook. It's really an interesting place. Right. So if you want to know about niche fashion, it's niche music. Super bloody niche. And we used to call that the long tail. Totally. So niche is the new mass, particularly in that category.

I don't know if that really works as audio, but I will say this. David Cross nailed his gesticulations. That is amazing. That's almost where the joke is. I don't think I realized that before. I don't think that the patter is as Crossian as I was hoping.

I've been sort of reassessing my relationship with David Cross's stand-up. Because it's been popping up. Speaking of niche being the new mass, it's been popping up on my TikTok a lot. And do you ever see this, or do you ever hear someone on Kixi, Andrew? And I'm trying to make this relatable to your interest. Appreciate that, yeah. Do you ever see someone doing stand-up? This must be the experience, by the way, of the TBTL listener often, which is we say something and they have a totally different experience and they want to just like immediately call in or email us and be like, what do you, there is an explanation for that or no, you're totally wrong about that. David Cross has a bit about a Toomey luggage store that's in the airport, which is kind of a funny premise, like because you're already through security, like why would there be a luggage store in the airport when you're already, you know, about to get on your flight? Like presumably you, you use the luggage to get there. but I have been to multiple to me stores in airports because that's the kind of luggage that I have historically used and they'll fix it for free. If you have like a zipper that falls off or whatever, like I, you know, maybe I'll, I would, I don't think I've ever bought something, but I could see myself buying like a upgraded, you know, computer bag there or something just like in the airport, like you're in, you're in the state of mind of luggage. And so it's a, it's a funny premise, But I've actually my lived experience has been has countered the premise of his joke. That being said, I have seen some stand up from him that I thought was pretty funny because I'd always thought he's such a funny comic performer. He's such an interesting, smart guy. I never liked his comedy very much because it just felt very like George H. George W. Bush is a war criminal. Yeah, well, it's changed.

I was going to say that because I was wondering if that's where you're going with this. Like Genevieve and I have obviously been big fans of his and specifically kind of through Mr. Show, but generally speaking, big fans of his for a long time. And we were on a road trip. I mean, early in our relationship, like I mean, early enough that we were going on a road trip to like the Midwest from the East Coast or something. And we went to a probably Barnes and Noble to buy audio CDs, like audio CDs, but like stand up and other kinds of audio entertainment. Like we didn't just dial it up on our phones. And we bought, and I'll swear here because that's the name of the album. We bought his album that came out like at the height of the Bush administration, which was called Shut Up, You Big Fucking Baby. And even then we were just like, it was so angry. Not that there wasn't and there's a lot of reason to be angry, but like it was just like whatever it was, 60 minutes of just like such angry stand up that you agree with. It's sort of how I describe like Twitter before I kind of kind of did kind of a purge of the people I was following years ago, whereas like, yes, I agree with all of the outrage I'm reading here, but it's not making my experience good. I don't need to just be in another You don't always need to be in a room with a bunch of people Who agree with you who are all just like scared And angry and yelling all the time

And so that was definitely call that three weeks ago. Right. Exactly. So, I mean, hey, listen, we all need those at times, but it can also be a bit much. Right. And so anyway, point is, Vives and I also I think I saw I don't remember the details of what I think I even saw that luggage bit live because David was like touring three years ago. I don't know how it fits into the pandemic timeline, but I know Vives and I saw him live in Seattle somewhat recently, I believe, and the tone had really shifted a great deal. It was more like kind of personal experience, and I found him to be a bit more charming.

Right. Like he's a parent. I think he's actually been a dad for a decent amount of time now, but I feel like that's some of the material that he does now. He's doing airport material. He's bringing it. He's meeting me where I am as a as a comedy fan, which is in the most obvious of places.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, boy, I don't. There's no need for me to get it. There's no need to do it. Do it. Embrace your fear. I really don't trust your dark side. So, of course, Tuesday, just a couple of days ago, was Election Day, primary day. And I feel pretty strongly about things that are going on here in local politics in Seattle. I have a lot of opinions that I can not get into right now, but let's just say that when I talk about the city council, notice I don't call it the CC, because CC is a nickname, and the city council is no friend of mine, speaking of David Cross bits. But I follow on Instagram The Stranger. They put out the Seattle's alt-weekly.

Which just was sold, right?

Yeah, it was, but I'm hopeful for the future of it. I'm blanking on the fella's name, but he started a media company. He's a former Seattle, I believe, kind of Democratic politician who started Grist, I believe, or at least started the company that started Grist, and now that media company. I don't know what the deal with Grist is anymore, if it's even around anymore, but I believe that's that company.

Was it like that kind of focus on environmental journalism?

That's my understanding. I wasn't a P1 of that, but that's my understanding of what it was. But anyway, I follow this. It's very rare that I kind of comment or engage too much on Instagram. And I don't know what it was, but I went to cast my ballot and I had some strong feelings contained inside that ballot as I went to drop it off at the North Seattle College ballot drop box where I always drop off my ballot. But and as I dropped, you know, I pulled in the parking lot and I was dropping it off and I do that. You know, I've done that every election cycle. And maybe sometimes you see one other person dropping something off. But it seemed like it was really busy this Tuesday, which I was very surprised about as everybody. You know, it's an off year primary. Like it's just like there were, you know, the free for all. Yeah. And the people who were coming out, like who are going to like run for governor, like it was like 50.

Did you get your semi-Bird vote in?

Yeah, I was able to throw in my vote for semi-Bird. No, I went full-Bird, actually. But anyway, it was just kind of like a lot of the races were going to be foregone conclusions. A lot of the other races people aren't going to be paying a lot of attention to, right? It was supposed to be very, very low turnout. I think they were expecting like 40% turnout or something. I don't know what it ended up being. But I was sort of chuffed, as we say, to see that it was really busy. There were all these cars kind of pulling in. it just seemed like the ballot box just and again this is just where you drop off your ballot was super busy and um later that day I was just sort of like mindlessly scrolling through Instagram and uh I saw that the stranger had uh posted something about hey you still have time to vote you know turn in those ballots by 8 p.m. and I posted something which I almost want like I don't even know why I did this this is so weird this is so unlike me to post something like this I just wrote I wrote in the comments nobody had commented on this at all and had been posted for like i don't know several hours i just posted posted i can report that the ballot box at north seattle college was busier than i've ever seen it today and i voted behind a bearded neighbor wearing a skirt sporting a black lives matter bumper sticker on their car and i'm feeling optimistic so that's what i just shared with the stranger and it was a positive message though

yeah it was a positive message yeah yeah that's good i thought this story was going to end with you were like somehow acting out in the comment section you were just being like let's go

no what here's where i'm going to get in trouble is what i'm going to say next because you seem

very hesitant to get into this and what you just told me didn't seem like something you should be

hesitant about and i um and then i i i posted that i don't know if it's fair to say i forgot about it i kind of forgot about nobody reacted or then yesterday i noticed so this like a day later or whatever i noticed some one person hearted my comment right and i'm like oh and so i clicked on it to see who it was i don't know who it was not anybody i know um but then i noticed that there are two more comments posted since then okay and one of them says no ceasefire no vote i thought the stranger had more ethics and somebody else said way too many people on this list support an ongoing genocide you'd think that that would disqualify someone and so people going after the stranger for encouraging people to vote in local elections gets the result of people saying how dare you expect me to vote for a state lands commissioner when there's an ongoing genocide i am not saying that to i hope i don't even need to say this i'm not saying that to undercut the sentiment there and that what's going on is beyond atrocity and the fact that it's still going on is beyond atrocity and we need to have conversations about it i don't think i'm the one to have the conversation on about that on this microphone but you know i think people would hopefully know where i stand on that having said that i don't think that encouraging people not to vote in local citywide and state elections is the right way to try to send a message about an international issue like an ongoing genocide like if anything like do do your part like there was something about that i don't see how that in any way achieves the goal that you're going and i thought the stranger had ethics encouraging people to vote in local elections and anyway maybe it's because i saw that as unethical and i just and i look at what's going on in our city and i see a lot of things that i consider unethical and i'm Like I'm going to the ballot box. And also, by the way, I was really excited to see that some of these things that I was voting on and some of these people I was voting, let's just say, against where we're kind of like coming out my way. And I'm very locally speaking, I'm I am even more optimistic now than when I posted that about what's going to happen here in the general election. And again, I kind of don't want to get into that because for most of our listeners, it's boring and whatever. But again, I don't think I'm the most articulate on these matters. But anyway, just seeing people just being like, I thought The Stranger had ethics. How dare you encourage people to vote in these local elections when people haven't spoken out on a ceasefire plan? It seemed to be missing the mark for me and actually kind of bummed me out, to be honest with you.

I share your read on that situation. I mean, obviously what I would say is that's one noisy person. I think I have that in my mind because the company that acquired The Stranger and the Mercury is called Noisy Creek.

Oh, yeah. Have you been doing a little Googling?

Brady Walkinshaw is the state lawmaker who bought it. I was just going to say that's a person who I think is dealing with other stuff, and for some reason the outlet that they're using or the way that they're trying to express, I think, other things going on for them emotionally is to neg people who are encouraging people to vote, which seems more about them than about trying to get to a solution in Palestine. Also, I was just kind of surprised I guess pleasantly surprised And this sounds like such an insult But I don't mean it to be Sorry, I'm trying to Mulaney right through that

Yeah, I can tell

I'm trying to just keep it going I was surprised literally to find that the stranger Somebody thought there was economic value to the stranger I'm surprised somebody bought the stranger And I say this as a person who loved that newspaper And I don't read it as much because I don't, you know, I don't watch the news because I'm a podcaster. But like I'm just I was sort of like, wow, someone paid money for the stranger. So they think that there is a future for that, which I found encouraging.

Yes. And it's not like some sort of a holding firm that is going to buy the name and then the people that bought the OG dead spin. Right. Exactly. Or the or the L.A. Weekly, which is just like a really tragic story as well. and there's still something called um the the la weekly but it's just like it's it's just not what it used to be they just gutted the they just bought the brand basically and and they're like the enemy of journalism essentially the people who who bought and gutted publications like that whereas the stranger and again we'll see where things go but like they already hired i'm trying to remember um where she comes from but they apparently like brought in a like a legit new editor who's going to be like i think the the editor at large um and uh and i think they brought her they're bringing her in um from like a legit publication that i'm blanking on right now i think she worked at rolling stone during you know i think i think it was rolling stone although rolling stone itself is hannah murphy winter that's the one is it rolling stone uh let's see

i think it's rolling clicking through this okay a little bit all over the place but um but anyway

they seem to say like our plan is to put more money into journalism i don't understand how that's an economic model that's going to work for them but i will definitely like honestly if i don't think they would ever be anything but a free paper but whatever the economic model is if if they're true to their word about like expanding and bringing the stranger maybe back to some of its more um journalistic heights um and you know kind of you know shining a light on thing i the Stranger did some good work. It did some hilarious work. It did some very entertaining work, but it did some really good work as well. I would definitely support this. I don't know if they would do something like a fundraiser. I don't know if they hold events to raise money. I don't know what the economic model is. But as somebody who lives here and cares about this stuff, I will certainly do my best to support it.

yeah i mean i would read a local paper that had some insightful commentary about the news and had i saw you which you know uh nobody saw me anymore nobody's seeing me that's that ship has sailed but man that was a big draw for me back in the day they've been doing that again lately by the way

they do like they put that on insta i love it they'll do a round smart use yeah yeah yeah i

I would totally support that. I mean, it's weird. It feels like there is this, there's this kind of, I don't know what the analogy is, but like it's, it's this kind of bridge that is hard to build. But if you built it, it seems like there would be people that want to go on the journey with you. Again, this analogy is really all over the place. The idea is, if you talk to people about, like, hey, a local thing in Seattle that's funny and interesting and telling me things I didn't know and connecting me with people who have kind of similar interests and maybe want to go on a date with me, whatever, like, that just seems like something that has value. But it's so hard to, like, deliver on that enough over time that enough people pick up the paper or go to the website or read it, you know. I mean, there are a lot of things in the media these days that are on paper sort of a good idea, and yet they can never seem to survive long enough to get that, you know, to get enough people interacting with that content for it to be somehow profitable.

I mean, it's amazing how sometimes TBTL, even on a day where I feel like I am literally at my worst articulate wise, which the fact that I said articulate wise, I think proves my point, tends to have a theme. Because if we try to address this, we get really into shingy territory. You know what I mean?

All I'm saying is niche is the new mask.

We're literally talking about like everything you say I agree with. And then if you want to kind of follow that line of thought, you also have to say also in this day and age where what the expectations of what we pay for has changed so much, you know, like I was at lunch yesterday and I don't know if I was actually I wanted to ask you about this if you had taken sort of a similar journey. Do you still pay for the New Yorker? You have a New Yorker subscription, right? I believe Genevieve has a digital only New Yorker subscription, but they have it locked down so much that I can't get into it. Genevieve and I both have our own logins to the New York Times, and the New York Times, no, we're a family. We pay. We each have our own login. I don't know if you can set that up for the New Yorker, but essentially if I try to click on a New Yorker article and I don't have any more free ones left, it'll say, okay, we're going to send a number to your phone so you can log in. But my phone is Genevieve's phone, and she's at work right now. Like, I just want to read this thing. So yesterday I was so carefully reading that profile that I knew was coming out about RFK Jr. I don't know if you caught any wind of that either.

The dead bear profile?

Yeah, he got out ahead of the dead bear story because this profile was coming out. With Roseanne Barr, like you do. And I was reading about the dead bear story, and then I was like, why is he volunteering this? And then I saw, like, oh, and he's, you know, this is an article I read last week. it said he's getting ahead of uh he realized it was all going to come out in this what they called an expose in the new yorker and i was like okay i gotta save my free my free article for that so yesterday as i was eating a bowl of uh of wonton pho in the u district i was like carefully like reading it but being careful not to click out of it because it was my last free article if i click out of it or try to get to it through another app and it all i'll have to stop reading it so anyway all of that is to say like with the expectations like i this place where i was eating soup yesterday reading this article was like a block away from that bulldog newsstand one of the last places in seattle bulldog is still there yes they've reopened post-pandemic and they're offering magazines again for a while they went to being just a a coffee shop but now they're a magazine shop again which again you want to talk about like how does that work right and i almost went in just to buy the latest new yorker like so that i could continue reading this article at home because i knew it was going to block me out but anyway all of that is to say the way we dance around these paywalls which you and i are guilty of in various ways or in this case not guilty of because we pay as a family but having to navigate it like and then you have the stranger which has always been free but got it's got its money through you know like it's it's connection to like advertising you know shows and other various nightlife events and what have you But all of that shit has just changed so much. I don't understand how in 2024 you come in, add money to that newsroom or spend money on that newsroom and then recoup it on a free weekly. I just don't I don't get it. But I mean, I hope it's for the best.

Yeah, me too. I wish them success. I think the world is a better place with stuff like that happening. The world is a worse place, Andrew, if you're going to go. I might even be today. on the RFK Jr. Celebrity Cruise. Does that get mentioned in the profile?

If so, I haven't gotten to that part yet. I'm maybe about halfway through.

I haven't gotten to the article, although I'm very excited. You know what I'm excited to do? Listen to it through my New York Times audio app while I stroll around San Francisco, California. I don't know where I caught this, but it was somebody talking about, and I don't know who this, I didn't really have, this guy wasn't really on my radar, But there's an actor named Zachary Levi And he played like Shazam He played Chuck Remember that TV show called Chuck

Oh I remember the name of it Yeah I didn't watch it

I didn't either I think he was a special agent But relatable I don't know what Chuck meant But anyway He then was Shazam In those movies that were like a Marvel movie But my guess is there was kind of It was sort of a Marvel comedy of sorts

I think DC by the way I could be wrong But I feel like Shazam was sort of an answer to Deadpool, but I'm probably getting us in more trouble by saying that.

Not a topic, though, that people have strong feelings about at all. No, exactly. Anyway, I somehow was, I was reading something about the kind of like career downfall of this Zachary Levi guy who was, you know, kind of a pretty big movie star. And I think he just put out some movie called like Harold and the Purple Crayon or something that was not, didn't do well at the box office. So anyway, and now he's one of the celebrities on the RFK Jr. and Cheryl Hines tour. And it's also just like, really, Cheryl? I know you're married to the dude, but what kind of mind-pilling happened to you? But anyway, I then went down the rabbit hole figuring out who are the celebrities on the RFK Jr. and Cheryl Hines fundraiser cruise off of Long Beach or whatever. And it is Drea DiMatteo, a.k.a. Adriana from The Sopranos. Boo. Meta World Peace, a.k.a. Ron Artest, who I kind of love, actually. And I'm really bummed that he's, you know, this is something that appeals to him. And then an influencer I hadn't heard of. And then the guy who played Shazam. But I was sitting waiting to get my hair great clipped at the Fred Meyer in Longview, Washington. And I was like screen capping the poster for this and sending it to Becca, just being like, these are all people. These are all entertainers who are now on our no fly list.

Yeah. Well, here's here's here are two things that stood out to me in the article. Now that you say that dazzling details, one of which I should have known but didn't, which was when he was running as a because he started off running on the Democratic ticket or had intentions to do that or something. and did you know that kucinich was his campaign dennis kucinich was his campaign manager see i guess i feel like i should have known because i liked kucinich me too big time i'm from cleveland like yeah i met kucinich a couple of times when he was having his moment with his

tall wife yeah yes i mean every wife looks tall compared to dennis kucinich but okay yeah yeah

um so that really bummed me out but then apparently when he decided to run as a independent kucinich parted ways and the other thing was because i've always wondered about the cheryl heinz of it all you know like again i own i don't it's not like i'm somebody who like knows anything about cheryl heinz's personal life i just liked her performance on curb your enthusiasm yeah and because that show is so like sort of cinema verite and sort of like an extension of larry david's real personality it's in and and his life events it's really hard for me sometimes to remember that they're not really married you know what i mean and that she's really not the character that she plays on that show but i'm always like damn dog like you're you're married to this guy and then there was one line in there that said when he was and i i don't know if i fully remembered this or maybe i blocked it out but when rfk jr was apparently like maybe before he was fully running but you know speaking out about the um the vaccinations during the pandemic and drawing comparisons to the third reich uh apparently as he was making those comments the third reich of politics yeah right it's not your title no i'll do third reich of i'll do poopy pants or whatever over that but uh anyway um uh he said that he came home and and told her maybe we should get a separation for a while so all of this doesn't come down on you but as of where but that's all there's like one sentence or half a sentence about that and i don't know if they pick up that thread again but it never explains what happened did they separate temporarily or not like how does she feel about this stuff and again it's not a profile on her so maybe that explains it but it did for a second i was like wait what like you had the sort of like you you had the sort of ability to sort of like read the tea leaves and say or read the room maybe and say like, hey, maybe this isn't good for you, my wife. Maybe you don't want this smoke, but I don't know what ended up happening with that.

She clearly embraced the smoke. I read a New York Times profile of him about him and the pets. He's got a lot of animals. He's really into feeding these crows. And it mentioned basically, like, I think he had an ostrich that really hated. Is it Hind or Heinz?

I was saying Heinz. I thought it was Cheryl Hines, right?

Apparently he had an ostrich that was constantly menacing Cheryl Hines early in their relationship, like in attacking her. And then I think he got rid of it, which again, red flag. If your bow, if your boo is both anti-vax and has an ostrich that's trying to kill you.

Oh, OK.

Move on.

Yeah, yeah, no. OK, yes. I wasn't sure what you meant. The red flag has like, I think I thought you meant like that is a red flag of Cheryl. I don't know. I got confused for a second.

No, I mean, she's putting up with a lot in this relationship.

If your ostrich doesn't like your girlfriend, get yourself a new girlfriend. Like, no, ostriches probably hate everybody.

They do, but I just feel like, you know, this guy's got a lot of wacky theories. And he has a wild animal that lives with him that's trying to hurt you. You've got options, Cheryl. Blink twice if you need us to come in and save you.

He's an unvaccinated ostrich.

There's a right way to rock And a wrong way to roll You can just listen to your soul Just remember that life is number one You can be having so much fun Just remember that life is much fun You can be number one

Last week, we were practically collapsing under the weight of so many Blur's days. Today, it's a little bit more manageable, but we have a...

Good. I feel like I say ostrich incorrectly. I've always said ostrich like it ends in G, and it doesn't. It's an ostrich, right?

Yeah, that is how it's spelled, ostrich. I heard somebody professionally saying milk the other day, which is something I think I grew up saying.

You must spell very seen.

Yeah, because do I slip into that? I thought I'd retrained. Growing up, we always said milk until, like, Genevieve, I started dating Genevieve. She said, are you saying milk or milk? It's still with an I. And I thought I had corrected myself on that. But, yeah, I mean, some people are still calling.

I think you've got milk dialed in, but I think the name Hal and the word pal are still, that's your growing edge.

Yeah, maybe, because I wouldn't even know. Once you tell me that that's an I, not an E, I know how to correct it. I can hear and see milk versus milk, but hail is like, how else do you say it? H-A-L. Hail. Hall? Hole? Hool? Hool? Is it Hool?

That's like all of those as options.

Well, coincidentally, our first blurs I hear is from Hool in Broadview. Oh, perfect. It's Phil in Broadview says, happy birthday to my partner, Sarah, from swim practice to baseball to scouts to summer. Thanks for keeping it all crispy with us boys And for growing a little older with me I sure do love the bejesus out of you Love Phil

That is adorable I was having parental thoughts the other day When I was eating some dinner in PDX And I was watching the Little League World Series I don't know if I'm like You know I've got a 30 year old child I'm not young I don't know if I see more children in my future But I would really dig having a kid Who played in the Little League World Series But the problem is I would have to give them a name like either Maverick or Doozy because the team from St. George, Utah has a kid named Maverick and a kid named Doozy on it.

And those are given names?

Those are given Christian names. You know why? Because I googled the team and there was a story in the St. George, Utah newspaper about how the team is doing. And they were, I mean, the names are just wild. White kid names, white kids who play high-level baseball in 2024 it is a it is an adventure out there i'm not even remembering some of the craziest ones but i know one was named maverick the coach's kid is named maverick and then i looked it up because there was a kid named like doozy brinson or something i think i'm kind of liking doozy you know i i like it better than maverick yeah maverick is that that just seems like you're i mean you name a kid man i mean you are that kid honestly you give the kid a lifted truck as their second birthday present? Like, what do you get for the Maverick who has everything? I mean, yeah.

Culturally speaking, though, I mean, you've got to separate the names from that. I feel like any kid who goes to the, whatever their name is, any kid who's at that level of baseball at that age, there's probably lifted trucks involved, right?

Right, and that's why we sponsor.

are the TBTL Junior Sluggers. I've been to their games. I've got eyes on it. Zero lifted truck energy for the Junior Sluggers, and that's why we love that team.

Rachel in Amsterdam says, Happy Blursey to Ivan. Hey, these are our pals, Rachel and Ivan. Another trip around the sun, another thousand hours of TBTL to bring us inordinate amounts of joy. Better not be ordinance. No, sorry about that. A whole other situation. Sorry, Rachel's a woman of words, too. How embarrassing for me. She sure is. Published author, journalist, Ivan appreciator. As we all are. I love spending birthdays with you no matter where we are on this blue marble. This week we're in L.A., and while we didn't have an inn at the Magic Castle, this is your Golden Blurs Day, and that might just be the most magical thing of all. I love that for them.

Also, do you have an inn at the Magic Castle? does Veeves. I know you all spend a lot of time there. The inn

at the Magic Castle is you get a hotel room at the Magic Castle Hotel for one night and that gives you access to the actual Magic Castle for one night.

I saw some little like digital Digital? No that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying digital. Totally different. Digital. I saw like some kind of online trailer. I couldn't tell if it was just an ad for the magic castle or if it was indicating a reality show about young magicians but i thought i would watch that reality show competition like a a reality competition show about young magicians trying to make it at the magic castle i would watch that even if it weren't

at the magic castle that is so interesting that nobody's tried that yet isn't that a good idea it just seems like such an yeah especially i mean i would say that the not that there aren't plenty of competition-style shows and reality-style shows out there. I don't really pay much attention to them, but I feel like it's at least crested. It's at least peaked, right? I feel like 10 years ago, just like every day, there was a new, some sort of reality show that I would see advertised during football games or whatever. I sort of feel like we've at least plateaued on that, right?

Yes, I think our hunger for that is somewhat sated, generally speaking but yeah I saw these young people doing these magic tricks and the format was I don't know if you're familiar with this it's already now speaking of things that have sort of crested the format is like saying I'm a podcaster of course I bring a road mic with me I'm a podcaster have you seen this online like I'm a cat mom of course I'm going to have hair all over my pants I'm a cat mom oh so that was a thing that was going around the internet a bunch was like I'm a fill in the blank and then you kind of make statements about the characteristics of the person of whatever you've just described, you know? I'm a Lyft driver. Of course I'm going to tell you to put the seatbelt on before we drive away. I'm a Lyft driver. Of course I'm going to have a laminated card that says tips appreciated that hangs off of the back of the passenger seat. Anyway, that was the format that these magicians, they were like, I'm a young magician. Of course I'm going to mechanic a deck of cards, which is the term for when you make the cards go in the order you want them to. I'm a magician, of course I'm gonna and so I couldn't quite tell if it was just some meme thing that the Magic Castle was trying to do or if it was actually indicating a program but whoever runs the Magic Castle, I'm here for it if you guys do that show, I will watch it

Yeah, is it still wasn't it Doogie Howser for a while? The Magic Castle also had its share of scandals Neil Patrick Harris? Neil Patrick Harris I think was the head of the Magic Castle there for a little bit or at least the president and a client, I'm not exactly sure Also a client. Yeah, also a client. Nancy says, I want to wish myself a happy 70th Blur's Day. Heck yes, Nancy. Happy Blur's Day, Nancy. Maybe this year I'll figure out what I want to do with my life. It feels very strange to have such a big number attached to me. I'm sure she won't hear this, but I also want to wish my sister-in-law, Laura, a very happy Blur's Day. We were both born on August 27th, a few years apart. She's a wonderful person, and I'm grateful that she's in my life.

Be the change you want to see And make Laura listen to this

That's right Be the change we want to see

Also if you have any spare change You can get us out of a couple of jams

Give it to the stranger I just realized that it says 827 I wasn't sure if I was supposed to hold on to that one But I will use this opportunity to tell people Please if you want to submit a Blur's Day message Email it to me Andrew at tbtail.net And you must put Blur's Day in the subject line Otherwise, I will not see it. And also, send it in on the week that you want it read. Sorry, Nancy, if I kind of got ahead of myself on this one. Corbin says, happy Blursday to my dear friend Toby. I consider myself so lucky to have your love, support, and laughter.

over all these years. I don't know how many folks appreciate Les Miserables and Weird Al like you and I do. Nice pronunciation, by the way. Thank you. Weird Al. Right? Weird. All you have to think, yes. Yes, good.

Ironically, you do say that kind of funky. But you said Les Miserables. Weird Al.

Weird Al. Weird Al. But that is one of the tens of reasons we are lifelong buds. Party hard. Happy Blurs Day, Toby. brian says happy blursday to my fellow tennessee 10 molly it's only a matter of time before our paths cross and when they do b-day drinks on me hope you have a great one i didn't realize you

meant like birthday i thought that was just a really interesting construction of a sentence drinks um b-day drinks on me like it was cajun or something oh b-day b-day b-day food b-day drinks on me.

Oh, I see. I didn't follow up.

That was like B-E-D-A-Y drinks. B-Day drinks? I guarantee they're on me.

It's the economy, stupid. Zach says, I want to wish a happy Blur's Day to my 11 and former 10 back when she listened to podcasts. Lauren. Oh. Wait.

You lost one, Andrew.

Weren't we trying to get another Lauren to listen earlier? No, that was Laura. Nancy was talking to Laura. This is for Lauren. Lauren says, thanks so much for crushing it through this wildly rough year. I literally couldn't make it without you. To paraphrase the mountain goats, we're going to make it through this year if it kills us. Happiest of Blursdays to you, my sweet. Huh. This looks familiar. A listener named Hannah. Hannah says, can you wish Maddie a happy Blursday? She's 18 today.

I refuse to accept that information as being factually based.

We are nine hours ahead in Italy, but I will make sure she listens to the episode on Sunday when we're flying back to London. Thanks. Love you, big brother. Love Hanser.

Love both of you. My niece, Maddie, who is just one of the most talented, smartest, sweetest people out there, is, I'm sorry, Maddie, I have bad news for you, not allowed to be 18. That's under the Harris-Waltz regime By the way, I was really going around

I sent you on the wrong track on that, didn't I? Is it Walls? It's Walls, right?

Oh, it's Walls, it's Walls

It is, and I think I'm the one who put that poison in your brain To the window to the Walls I heard it on the news like the next day or something I was like, oh my god, why did I do this to Luke? I confused everything

The only reason that I didn't I'm usually very embarrassed of myself in those things But I was watching Jamel Bowie put out a video right afterwards and he didn't know how to say the name. He's like, I got to learn that. I was like, okay.

But it is Walls, right?

If I'm sharing this with Jamel, it's Walls. I believe it's Walls. Under the Harris-Walls regime, it will be illegal for my beautiful, talented niece to turn 18. Can I put a spin on that, though?

Here's the deal. Once you're 18, you get your own bank account. You start supporting the podcasts that you love and rely on. Like, I'm just saying.

Maddie, do not. This is an absolute no from your uncle. By the way, I've been thinking about getting, this tells you where in America I live. I've been thinking about getting a yard sign, which is such a low, which is such a low level of commitment. And also, I mean, I'm also planning to do some phone banking legit, but like I had to go through, like, I tried to do a quick accounting of my neighbors and the vibe. Like, I live in an area where it is potentially the case that having a yard sign supporting Vice President Harris and Tim Walls could bring you, could put you in for some amount of, like, you know, I don't know. I don't know what. But then I thought, if I can't put a GD yard sign out and stand behind that or stand by that as a thing, I don't know. Maybe I don't want to live there. So I'm getting a yard sign. But I think I might see if I can hire Walt to make it.

Oh, man.

And I'm thinking about it being camo.

yeah it'd be funny yeah like those hats did you read that like those hats i was i'm considering

buying one of those hats but i don't want to get assaulted in the home depot yeah yeah yeah i

actually i really like that um who is it uh who who is the oh it's um chapelle roan right those hats are kind of like kind of uh because chapelle roan has chapel roan or sorry chapel roan no wait is it chapelle it's chapel it's chapel roan okay sorry yeah um but uh i would love a character

named Chappelle Rhone, who's just telling stories about playing basketball with Prince while singing Hot To Go, just bringing together.

I always think of you first. I think I've told you this because you played that as music for your weekend. I can't remember if it was yours or a listener's, but you said like before I'd ever, and I think a lot of people had heard that name, you were like, I think this is going to be more than just a popular musician. This is going to be like a craze. and boy were you right about that.

It's the only thing I've ever been right about but I will tell you that every time I see the footage of her at Lollapalooza and there's just oceans of people I'm like, well put that in the win category for Luke's predictions. Everything else is in the L category.

And also she played on the block party too it actually caused some real concerns.

Did you see any of the footage of the people at the gas station and stuff?

No, not at the gas station. I saw overhead footage of the craziness but what did you see?

oh just basically it was so sold out her show but you know obviously you can hear them for capitol hill block party you can hear the music if you're not actually technically in the perimeter of the thing and so i mean tens of thousands of people just came out to stand around on capitol hill particularly at this there was a huge scene at a gas station on capitol hill that's kind of adjacent to where the block party happens i know of everybody just singing chapel ron songs i mean It was like a, you know, it was some kind of it was a Beatle mania or something.

Do you think they know that it's that of every I think I stumbled so much today and somehow that's going to bother me more than anything. But anyway, I authorize you to cut it out. I was going to ask you for your own safety. Do you live near and I know you don't know all of your neighbors, but do you suspect that any of them might be Supreme Court justices?

Hold on. I'm doing a mental inventory of the flags.

That's the only way you can get in trouble, you know, just letting your beliefs known.

I really did, though, like I went on this whole on my little jog this morning. I was well, I was listening to The Daily, a really good, by the way, edition of The Daily today. They had a reporter go out to a town in Wisconsin that has been going very much for Trump of late. And they went out with a guy who's a Democrat who's just kind of door knocking to try to take a temperature read on what, you know, sort of voters in a swing state who are in a district that's historically been going for Trump, what they think about the change in the ticket. They didn't have the Tim Walls information yet, which actually would have been kind of relevant because I think the whole point of him is that stuff. But anyway, it was a very good episode. but it had me thinking about yard signs and just anyway that topic and the journey i went on was like oh i should get a yard sign and then it was is somebody gonna like i don't know egg my house and then i was like no my neighbors are actually pretty chill i don't know what their politics are but there's nobody there's nobody and i'm at the end of a kind of a dead end road like and then i was like i can't believe i'm a 48 year old man who is actually scared to put a yard sign up Like, what does that say about me and about the discourse? And then I ended on, I'm going to call my dad and hire him to make me a huge-ass Harris Waltz sign, and I might legit make it camo.

Ooh, I like that. Also, you've got to hang up those Teddy's letters, I think, that you grabbed from your dad.

And I've got to put on my Teddy, because it's time for me to go out and do another TV shoot.

It's time for me to give one more Blur's a shout-out. This is from Katie. We just ran out of music a while ago. Katie says, I hope I'm not too late to wish Corinne a happy Blur's Day. Of course, Corinne. Our pal down south, Corinne.

Hot air balloon enthusiast.

Exactly, indeed. But Katie also says, I just found out that she and I share the same Blur's Day. So happy Blur's Day to my fellow 10 and my Blur's Day twin. Happy Blur's Day to you too, Katie. It says, I hope you had an amazing day. That's from Katie to Corinne and from us to Corinne and Katie and everybody involved. Happy Blur's Day, everybody.

Especially Maddie. Although, again, sorry, it doesn't count. You're going to be perpetually 17 and a half, as far as I am concerned. Maddie really roasted me in the Hawk Squad today, which hurt. Well, her name is spelled, the shortened version of her name is M-A-D-I. And I typed it in, and it auto-corrected to a more conventional spelling of Maddie. And then I corrected it, and then she said, from like Europe, from across the Atlantic. She said, yeah, that was autocorrect and not just my uncle not knowing how to spell my name. Ooh, yikes.

Salty birthday. So it begins.

For Madeline.

So it begins. I mean, I can't tell if it's. Madeline.

The irony is that I mispronounced the full version of her name. Oh, is that true?

Is it Madeline? It's Madeline. It's Madeline. Well, I would never make that mistake.

It's Chappelle Madeline.

Right, exactly. Now you can't cut it out. I'm sorry. That was dirty. No, I'm going to – I'm probably just going to Nixon tapes this whole episode where I'm just going to accidentally lean on the delete button for big chunks.

There's so much from today's show that I'm fine with you cutting out of me and meandering.

I'm not feeling – I don't know.

I'm in a silly, goofy mood today. I don't know what to tell you.

No, you are fine. I like silly, goofy. I don't like whatever I was putting out there. But anyway, tomorrow is going to be freaking amazing.

It's going to be – we're going to end on such a strong note tomorrow with the Friday show. You're not even going to believe it. You're going to have so much – you're going to get tired of all the good podcasting. You're going to say, sirs, please, we can't handle any more good podcasting.

This show's going to be so good, it's going to make you puke.

so tune in for that tomorrow in the meantime have a great Thursday happy Blur's Day to everybody out there and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

power out