Muse

So excited for Tim Wall so that we finally have a vice president who's just giving us Midwestern dad stuff. Like after he finishes his Blooming Onion, he looks at the waiter and he's like, looks like I hated it. Just a vice president who calls little kids slugger. A vice president who, after he tried Reese's Pieces for the first time, just went, oh, these are dangerous. A vice president who, when he's trying to pass someone on a sidewalk, just goes, just gonna sneak right by you. A vice president who, when he gets on the elevator and there are a bunch of people there, he's like, oh, it looks like it's a party. A vice president who loves the city, Chicago, but not as much as he loves the band, Chicago. A vice president who wants to know what the secret ingredient is. Tim, it's paprika. TBTL.

Hi, Luke and Andrew, it's Irene, and I have a funny joke for you. okay what is the radish's favorite food beats me

i can't hear you that's not true of course but cheer louder yeah if youtube dirtbags ever mess

with me again i'll take this to the next level you don't do 22 episodes of celebrity outhouse with lorraine abobit without learning a few things remember that time you left a comment

underneath that youtube video when someone replied and called you a dumbass so you replied and told them it takes one to know one and then you stayed up all night hitting refresh on your browser waiting for them to reply and then you fell asleep crying i remember it differently this is like that

and i also think it wouldn't hurt you to talk to a therapist about your bathroom issues because there's clearly something going on there 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 this is where the good times happen. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Hi, everybody. Coming to you from the Sunset Strip at the foot of the Hollywood Hills. California got sunshine. At Mondrian. It's the kind of hotel where they don't have time for the definite article. It's not the Mondrian, It's Mondrian. And it is, if I might say, everything that is wrong with Los Angeles. Every single thing that people dislike about Los Angeles, California, is encapsulated and promoted in one place, and it's called Mondrian. This might come up in the show. Here we are at episode 4269 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Maybe I'm just a little salty because I had a real kind of two very different experiences with my air travel this weekend. So I was in San Francisco last week. I flew home to Portland, Oregon on Saturday, and I had a real kindness done to me. The kind of kindness I didn't think was possible in the computer age by the gate agent at the Alaska Airlines thing. And then on my way back down here to Los Angeles on Sunday, I was roasted mercilessly by multiple airport employees.

Boom. Roasted.

It hurt my feelings, and so maybe that's why I'm in a state here. Also, if my feelings were hurt, if I'm angry, if I'm salty, it's nothing compared to the Aussie breakdancer Ray Gunn. Australia is a wonderful island. Who dominated the headlines over the weekend with her particular approach to breaking And we will talk about that today And we'll talk to this guy, longest running Cobra of the show Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships He is here for a Monday morning party, my friends

I like to party. Do you like to party?

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

Hey Luke, I know listeners love it when we have important business meetings on the air So let me just do this I meant to ask you this before the show

But here we are Are you pushing for another cola?

Yes, but literally I just want a cola

No, you just want a Coke

It just tastes so good in the morning I did get a note right before the show Maybe we shouldn't get into financial stuff But anyway, John wants to know I know we have not been doing commercials But he says that an outfit named Mondrian Has reached out to us Wants to know if they can do ads I think you're thinking of the Mondrian Is it the Mondrian or Mondrian? I'll have to ask John about that. It's apparently Mondrian. Mondrian. Mondrian. So anyway, maybe, I don't know if we want to talk about it now. No, I have no idea what Mondrian is other than what you said at the beginning of the show. But when you say it's everything bad about L.A., can I take a quick swipe at it? Please do. And then, what do they say, release the rest of my time to the gentleman from California?

Yes, the balance of your time back to the gentleman from southern Washington.

Yes.

The gentleman from Mondrian. I remit the balance of my time

So is this a place that's sort of like kind of trendy and very Instagram friendly, but it's all a facade and at the end of the day, very kind of uncomfortable and cheap?

My friend, well, I guess the show's over. No mountain too tall because you have nailed it, sir. I hate those places. Well, this is the thing. This place has been around for a long time. Oh, OK. All right. And it's on the Sunset Strip. It's kind of in a, you know, you might say trendy area of Los Angeles, but it's not even trendy. It's where you it's where you might stay or it's where you might hang out at Sky Bar, which is the name of the bar here. I think it's where you might hang out if you were really trying to make a certain kind of Los Angeles scene. If you were hoping that maybe a scout from Bravo would be here and might see that you and your antics warrant a reality show. That's the energy around here. And I'm not matching it, dude. So I'm filming an interview with Ryan Seacrest at LACMA later today. That's the L.A. Museum of Art. And because of time constraints and because I'm then going to be running from recording our show to that thing back to the airport to fly to Nashville, I thought it prudent to stay as close to where we're filming as possible. Usually I stay over on the west side in a humble little abode called the Hotel June. But because of proximity, I'm staying at this place, Mondrian. And when I rolled up last night, the scene outside of the hotel just told me everything I needed to know. It was, you know, I don't want to be rude, but just a bunch of young people dressed in a way that just said, well, I don't expect them to. How do I put this? I don't care if anyone notices me or not, but I knew that this was not the hotel for me based on this, the vibe, the sort of energy, the outfits, the youthfulness. again maybe this is just a story of me being old i guess but i was like oh yeah no this is not for me i just want to get checked in get to my room and uh and and you know just kind of hide from

all of these people and you don't think the rest of these influencers wanted to go upstairs and

watch forensic files i asked each and every one of them i called becca when i got her i said i and i'm not even kidding i said i think there might be a kardashian here because there was like a bunch of SUVs and like security people and stuff. The other thing that happened was because I am a very, very, uh, cosseted and persnickety now when I landed LAX, I really hate taking the shuttle bus to where the Ubers and lifts are. So our friend Kat Solon tipped me off that if you just call, if you, if you order the slightly more expensive version, uh, they will pick you up at the airport they'll pick you up at the gate like you don't have to get on a shuttle bus to go to your next ride so sometimes it's actually cheaper it's a very weird i don't understand the gig economy but um in this case because of what i ordered i got like a stretch escalade picked me up and the guys who drive those stretch those big old escalades are very very polite like they're over like they're obsequious in a way because they don't know who i am and i think probably their typical client is some sort of rich person that expects a certain level of lugs or somebody

who's maybe well i mean they're they're rich somebody who's like wealthy but maybe more on the bubble because like the uber wealthy in la or the you know truly wealthy and the true celebs will have their own ride service you know of some sort so this is like the the definitely the people who are sort of like they see themselves and and certainly aspirationally like knocking on the door of that i'm not trying to tell you i'm just sort of running that by no but you're not wrong

with that yeah yeah so i the i end up rolling up to mondrian in this like giant you know tinted probably bulletproof vehicle and when it pulls into the valet the guy jumps out and runs around to grab my bags and uh and side note i have enormous amounts of luggage right now which will be part of the later story of me being roasted at the airport but um and so it's like i'm getting out of this giant car by myself I have all this luggage the guys like being really helpful there's all these people waiting they're like who is this guy what what what show is he producing and anyway that's the vibe was the vibe was not immaculate for me but anyway that's fine whatever it's a hotel I check in I get up here I watch some forensic files I crash out but this morning is when Mondrian really kind of proves itself to be all show and no go because well for one thing they just don't have a normal phone in here like a hotel phone you know the kind that god intended andrew where it has a picture of housekeeping it has a pic of like a housekeeping person a picture of like food and it's like that's in-room dining it's a picture of you know and you just push one of those buttons they've got some cordless modern phone that when i would hit zero it would just go to some weird it would just be like a how do you have a hotel by the way where the default setting on the in-room phone is not just hit zero if you need help how how's that memo not gotten to mondrian so what are you saying

when you you see a phone there the phone is do you say it's a cordless phone did you say it's

cordless it's like a very like i would say it looks like a sort of you know how like 90s modern 90s design is back if that makes any sense like something that they would have had in the 90s and being like this is the future that is the aesthetic that's back now in a lot of these places

yeah oh i didn't know i didn't know it was coming back i follow i'm going to send you a link later i follow a wonderful design site that is just based on like like 90s office interiors and i would have never thought i would love that so much but it's so great i'll send it to you later but just a warm hug it is like but but a cold warm hug because there was nothing warm that's a show title yeah actually i'll write that down i'll write it down cold warm hug because you know like the whole the the the i've never talked about this before so i don't think i have the right words to talk about this stuff it's like something that i love but i have no language around but like the aesthetic of um those office interiors of the 90s are very cold right i always think of the the look of the 90s especially as depicted on television or what have you is a very blue and purple lit sort of vibe whether you're talking about you know a hip-hop video or just like a commercial for some sort of Microsoft product. But it feels warm to me because that is the era in which I would sit in those types of interiors and read Dilbert. Anyway, I digress. So there's a cordless-style phone in your room, but when you pick it up, you don't get a dial tone. You get a busy signal?

No, when you pick it up, first you have to hit talk. Oh, okay. So then you get a dial tone. But then if you hit zero, there's no instruction on the phone. There's no instruction anywhere in the room as to how to operate the phone. Here's what I wanted. You know me. I'm a pot of coffee in the morning at the hotel man ever since four days ago when I got really into this vibe when I was in San Francisco. That was my big ritual in the morning was order a pot of coffee. So I thought I'll treat myself to a pot of coffee here at Mondrian. And so I pick up the phone and I hit talk. I get the dial tone. And then I just do the natural thing in the hotel room, which is you hit zero because there was no other indicator. And it just goes to a busy signal. So I'm looking around the room. I find folded up in my stuff a piece of paper that is instructing me on how to use the phone. So, again, this could have very easily, I could have thrown this out. I could have not taken it from the front desk. Like, there's a million ways I could be in this room, post-shower, unclothed, with no way to contact anyone for help by way of the phone in the hotel room. But I found this piece of paper, thankfully. So if you want to dial the front desk, you hit 6040. I mean, that's intuitive. I think we can all agree that is an intuitive thing to hit for the front desk. Now, if you're trying to dial room to room, you press 7 for a three-digit room number, but for a four-digit room number, you dial the room number. Again, this is pretty basic stuff, but I don't stay in a lot of hotels, so it's not natural to me. Domestic calls, dial 9-1, followed by the phone number. Also, for international calls, dial 9-0-1-1, followed by the phone number.

It's good to have a lot of nines and ones in here, because what could go wrong?

Also, imagine making an international phone call from the cordless phone in your room at Mondrian.

That's the other thing, too, in this idea of, like, to call another room. I literally, I mean, there must have been a time, maybe in, like, even high school, or maybe as a very, very young man, if I was on a trip with a group of friends, you were calling another hotel room but when's the last time you've dialed another hotel room i mean i see maybe like back in your 20s if you were like going to like a casino resort or something with like the mummy in tune or something maybe you guys are calling to coordinate but i mean honestly if it wasn't a night and weekend and i was low on my family plan or something like like in this day and age who's not you describe all these like i'm assuming like floppy hat influencers downstairs and like are they really gonna like call the other room some of them are

pressing seven for a three-digit room number but some are hitting for a four-digit room number they're dialing the room number directly like why did you even print that out yeah yeah but so i then call 6040 and they transfer me to cafecito which is uh i guess the coffee shop restaurant downstairs it rings andrew for 20 minutes and why do i know this because it just was ringing ringing ringing and then it would ring like four or five times and then it would play the most ear piercing sound and then it would just go back to ringing like it was i don't understand what the technology is would just be like this very grating horrible sound and then back to more ringing and i just put it on speakerphone i took a shower

i'm just curious at this point got out of the shower still ringing uh and uh you know got myself together got ready for the show with you and then just hung up decided i don't need coffee from cafecito i'm also not going to join their loyalty program which andrew was called disloyalty and as in what loyalty disloyal dis i mean that's actually i think what they're going for the graphic design is my passion is so freaking strong at this place disloyalty has a big strikethrough on the word loyalty so it's just dis and then loyalty is struck through but then when you read the the fine print on it it's dis hyphen loyalty disloyalty gives you bigger discounts for going somewhere new etc etc also i took a cold plunge this morning andrew because the shower doesn't have hot water and this is not i don't know how to operate the shower it was the knob was turned to the hottest it could go and the water was cold and this was part of why the shower took 20 minutes because i kept waiting and waiting i was also listening to that new yorker profile about rfk jr man fascinating stuff yeah i'm still halfway through it viz beat me viz paced

me on that and now she's telling me all the dazzling details it's insane so i wasn't really

that mad because i was just standing nude in the bathroom listening to a profile well putting my hand in the water also it's one of those rain showers which i don't think are actually very effective for cleaning or i should say rinsing all of your nooks and crannies i've never used

so is it just like a is it a big shower head or is it actually not even a shower head is it like

something that actually drips from the ceiling it drips from it's a giant shower head that drips

from the ceiling but you need you know i think i've been in something similar probably nothing that quite that fancy before but i've been in them where it's kind of like well this is nice but i also need an i need a little side action a little side action with a side sipper with some

power with some strength in the stream exactly i need this needs to be hit both vertically and

horizontally oh sure that as well the angle but also a little bit of more power right because the the how is the how is the um what's the word i'm looking for the pressure coming from like the rain

i don't remember because what i ended up doing was jumping into this freezing cold rain shower like washing myself off as quickly as possible and then jumping back out of it like because i'm not exaggerating when i say there's no hot water here like every possible way that this hotel could disappoint me both in form and function it has done it my friends that is ridiculous well

no hot water are you have you reported that are you i mean no i just was you know i was i was on hold with cafecito i was you're there for one night right so it's like what am i yeah i'll be

honest with you the room itself is they gave me a nice room like a it's pretty it's pretty large there's a couch like the room itself other than a non-functioning phone cold plunge and um disloyalty uh i don't really hate the actual the room itself it's just what i what i'm really learning and really, this is less a story about Mondrian and more a story about Burbank. I'm just old and I like to stay in the place that I stay when I'm here in LA and it's, it, nobody bothers me in the words of June re martial arts. Nobody bothers me. And I have my jog that I do. I, I jogged over to Runyon Canyon. And, uh, it's this, what it, what this is a story of is me being only comfortable in a very specific set of circumstances, and this is not that set of circumstances, and I'm being a crank about it.

Well, yes and no. I mean, I'm sort of similar.

I think warm water in the shower

is a reasonable request. I think the warm water, that's exactly what I was going to say, that that is absolutely a reasonable request. The rest of it is, it's a bit of a taste thing, and you have a lot more experience in hotels like this. You also have a higher expectation of a hotel experience because you're on the road so much, and all of your situation with CBS and everything.

A precious little, little Lord Fauntleroy.

But we are old and we are cranky. And it's funny, I had dinner last night with a couple of friends. And my friend is dating somebody, has been dating her for a couple of years, but they live out of state. I'm not going to use names here. But this is a pretty good friend of mine. And he's significantly younger than me. He's like, I think, about 10 years younger than me anyway. It never feels that way because he's kind of an old soul. um and uh and we've known each other for a really long time but now he's dating somebody who's significantly younger than him and i kind of didn't realize that before i met her and they've been together like i say for for a bit now uh but it was like a little bit into dinner i was like oh my god like they're in and just a wonderful wonderful person but i was like wow this is maybe the first time in a long time i've really really like felt an age gap of just like

And, again, we had a great time. It's not like people of different eras can't have a nice time. But, like, any cultural references, and you know that I would struggle with a cultural reference anyway. I'm kind of like, well, what is your favorite song on Kixie? You know what I mean? It was just like one of those things I was like, oh, wow, I really sort of felt my age. And not in a, by the way, not in a bad way, like, oh, I'm so old, I'm ready for the grave. But just sort of like, oh, yeah, like there is a there is a pretty vast difference between somebody who is in their mid to late 40s and somebody who is in their mid 20s, you know. And so, you know, I am a cranky old man.

Yeah. Like like it's funny because we've talked about this a lot on the show, kind of like something that seems like something that seems like something from the 90s. OK, let's say something in 1991. That was what? 33 years ago. It was 1991 33 years ago Am I doing am I mathing that correctly Like that would be like You know in the 80s something from the 1950s yeah right yeah Well you don't you don't listen to Al Jolson I try to pick the most racist examples That I can I'm really I'm really struggling you're not a big fan

Of the jazz singer wait why Are we doing this

You're not a fan of Amos and Andy? Point being.

Gone with the wind? You don't have a lot on that? Okay. Yeah, exactly. There is. Anyway, I don't know why I brought that up other than just to say, like, yeah, I mean, I do think at 47. And also, I am like a kind of a lowbrow, grumpy guy anyway. Like, I think my basic needs at a hotel might be slightly different than your, or maybe significantly different than your basic needs at a hotel. but either way i don't think that either one of us are really into the idea of like being staying in a hotel because it's part of a scene certainly yes exactly like i was i was could not

get away from the scene fast enough although i was hungry and i think this was maybe maybe this was what broke me andrew and this is a very specific thing but when i moved to los angeles many many years ago in the 1950s Al Jolson was topping the charts and um the first week that I got here so the mummy was living down here got here a little ahead of me and there was a few formative things that happened during that week one we played pickup basketball at the YMCA in Hollywood and I had a really good game and I saw uh the guy who plays the woman's husband in my big fat greek wedding so i was starstruck we uh we surfed we went surfing and um i've told the story a million times but there was dolphins swimming around us and i thought it was beautiful and another surfer informed that was because of the raw sewage that is pumped into the bay and el segundo and they like to eat that and the other thing that happened was the mummy and i met up at this mexican restaurant here on sunset like 10 feet from here and it was just like a sunny afternoon in LA and I had this job that I was so excited about working at NPR and I'd never lived in a different big city than the one I grew up in. And it was just one of those moments that was really magical for me. And so I was pretty hungry when I got here and I thought, I asked, I go, oh, is that Mexican restaurant like around here, like across the street? And the woman looked at me and said, oh, they tore that down. Now it's a billboard. The real estate was more useful, More valuable as a billboard that has the Mexican joint that I used to go get cheap margs at. And maybe that's what broke me.

I was picturing, like, before you even said a billboard, I was also just picturing, like, oh, nobody's been in that building for 30 years. That's a name I haven't heard for a long time.

Takes a drag of cigarette. Exactly. I mean, seriously, like, oh, that's just a parking lot with a billboard now, sir. Right. Well, then I'll be eating some Pringles from the minibar.

thank you very much yeah time marches on but you know what i didn't think it was going to march on past me that's that's what hurts yeah but you know what as time marches on i think that you and i both in our in our different situations are both we're better off in 2024 than we probably were in earlier times maybe i can't speak for you but there's something about like we are i just want to make you know i mean you're there and again like i know that you're not trying to dine out on this but you're you're there and you're teasing about like the influencers who are out there because they're trying to be on some sort of kardashian project but like you're there in in hollywood interviews ryan seacrest for cbs cbs you know i mean like you know i kind of had that thought too

this morning thank you that's a good you know what that's a good and i know you're not offering it as a privilege check but that actually is a good privilege check and just a kind of like you know i have this silly tattoo are you here on my arm for moments like that i was thinking this morning on my little jog, like, you know, well, for First of all, I was listening to The Daily, and The Daily today is, it's literally called The Worst Three Weeks of Donald Trump's Campaign, and I texted it to Becca, and I said, put it in my veins, to quote our friend Chris Hayes.

Okay, okay.

I was just like, I mean, I was jogging on air this morning because I listened to Jonathan Swan just recite how badly it's going for Trump right now.

I literally have that bookmarked, not as the audio product, but as, because I want to read that article. There were two New York Times articles this weekend, and I read one of them, and I didn't realize that Genevieve had already read this and the other one because, again, she was just like feasting on it. The first one was – I'm going to avoid using their – well, one was Willie Brown. Did you read the article about Trump doubling down on the fact that he says he was on a helicopter in the 90s that almost crashed with – am I right about it? Politician Willie Brown, I believe San Francisco mayor. I don't want to mess this up because the whole thing is I'm dunking on him about how he messed it up. Essentially, he was on this this helicopter trip that he remembered. He was with a different black politician.

No, he was with Jerry Brown.

Well, Jerry Brown, white, right?

Yeah. The one I read. Sorry, I don't mean to. I'm not trying to I'm not trying to create the exact scenario that we're trying to roast someone else for. But the article I had read, but this was a couple of weeks ago. maybe it's been clarified or a week ago was that it was gavin newsom jerry brown the white one-time governor of of california and donald trump and they were surveying wildfire damage is that still

the story no this i think this is a totally different trip because i think this is a trip to or around jersey or something and i'm gonna mess this up um and but the whole point of it is trump claims and i am right willie brown is the name i'm looking for right uh willie brown is the

person that says he was never on this helicopter with trump because yes yes trump is trying to use it as a way of running down vice president i just want to make sure willie yes sorry go ahead

sorry i didn't mean to interrupt i was just like i was a little bit like because of the whole because of the racial nature of this i didn't want to be the person messing up people's names so i felt a little bit but the whole point of this story is trump insists that he was on this helicopter with willie brown and willie brown as you say was running down kamala harris uh again way back in the day and willie brown is saying no i i i was not on this helicopter and so there is a piece and specifically don't just read any piece about this you have to read the new york times piece about it because they interview the other black politician who is now 95 years old and the whole thing is about how like well yeah i guess and but the the person that they interview is so hilarious and snarky and a 95 year old i mean it is the best writing and the best interview and this guy is just dunking on trump and it ends with a power out that i won't tell you what the man's joke was but it ends the final line is it just ends with him saying and he laughed and laughed it is so That's amazing. So I read that piece and now I'm dying to read the worst three weeks of Donald Trump's campaign. I'm saving that one.

All that is to say that when I was on my little jog today, because I'm kind of, again, I'm in this area of Los Angeles that is not a place I spent a lot of time when I lived here, but I spent this very formative week coming here. And I was thinking, I was like, you know, it's been a long time since I lived here. I do really love this town. and I'm here doing something that's really fun and not everybody is you know privileged enough to get to do this kind of stuff for work and if you would have told 28 year old Luke so that's literally 20 years ago if you would have told me when I moved down here 20 years ago and I was going to that Mexican place for Marg's like okay this is what it's gonna look like in 20 years I would have been like that's a really good outcome for me so it's it's useful for me even though although I hadn't yet realized that the there was no hot water in the hotel that would have radically changed my moment of of of presentness but um no i mean i i really i really am very very lucky and very privileged in this life and and um honestly you know people pay extra for cold plunge sometimes

i got it for free absolute free from the hotel yeah that's a real choice no i think that's a that is a basic expectation that i mean for and you i mean you're being way more chill about that

aspect of this than i would be to shower walsh that would be mission critical for you exactly

Like I need to take a shower after my shower in case I worked up too much of a lather in the first shower. Like showers are important to me. They aren't just they're not just for cleaning. They're they're they're a form of non eco friendly self care and therapy. Exactly. So, yeah, that would I just I can't imagine being at the end of the day or at the beginning of the day and and not having my shower. That would be rough.

Well, again, I'm like the second we're done recording today, I'm like packing up my enormous suitcase and heading over to LACMA. So it's, you know, the. The good news is I'm not going to be – like when I go to Nashville, I'm staying there for four days or something. So if there's no hot water at the Omni in Nashville, we've got problems.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that you'd have to adjust for. So let's see here. Your work day has not started. You're rushing over after our show today to go do the interview and then get out of there?

Yes, exactly. And I've been deep diving on Ryan Seacrest from Atlanta, Georgia, which for some reason was surprising to me. Did not know he was a Georgian.

Well, this is your second interview with him, right? You've interviewed him once.

On the set of Wheel of Fortune.

So what specifically, was this always planned or was this, well, now that we're in production, we realize we need some follow-ups on this, that, or the other?

It was always planned that there was going to be the, like, go to Wheel of Fortune and watch them make that show and chat with him and chat with Vanna White. But then we're going to come back for a sit-down. What ended up happening, though, for a few scheduling reasons, including just a bit of a miscommunication and to me not realizing that this story needs to be on television September 1st, because that's, I think, the week that Wheel of Fortune debuts, the new version with him as host. Now, you and I both know that I have a lot of travel, international travel between now and then. And and so I basically like had to I wasn't I was not even supposed to be here today. I wasn't supposed to be here today at all. Like I was going to come down here after I got back from my big trip. And that was not going to work for a scheduling thing. So I am down here today. And then when this is done, I am getting on a I'm taking a red eye to Nashville, which is one of the best ways to prepare for being on stage at a corporate conference like I'm going to be in the next three days in Nashville. You definitely want to take the red eye there. I think that's what they recommend, just to kind of put you at just at your highest level of performance. They say a cold plunge, no coffee, and a red eye is kind of the ideal conditions.

Well, aren't you meeting up with people who are from New Zealand? And so maybe you're like, if you were meeting them on their soil, you would be bedraggled after a long time.

Yes, I'm trying to really lean into that. I'm trying to really lean into the jet lag aspect. Exactly.

Like, look, I did it for you. I did it all for you.

Yeah, it's method acting. I'm really I'm submerging myself deep into the character um okay so that is by the way why I have all this luggage because after Nashville um I'm going on a trip going to Italy for a minute and this I'm not coming home between now and then and so I have this like the largest suitcase I've ever brought around probably um and I feel pretty silly about it honestly because I'm you know a pretty pretty uh experienced traveler and i have my whole system and like i'm not used to uh the world of um of having a massive like steamer trunk thing with me and what happened yesterday was um i called a cab to take me down to the airport because i was going to be you know my car is going to be down there for weeks and weeks so i just figured smarter to um to leave my car at home and the guy who took me the cab the same dude who took john uh our buddy john sklar off down to the airport my guy up there uh he's i love him but he is let's say not super into the internet world of like ways and stuff and mapping software i mean he's lived in the area for a long time he knows what he's doing but i was looking at the map there's all this construction on i-5 like south of where i live between me and the airport and i'm looking at and ways is saying you got to get off the freeway and go on this kind of crazy twisty turny back road thing and uh and he just was not interested in that and it was this weird negotiation where i was trying to kind of say to him like all right here we are we're at the um getting pretty close to that exit and uh here's where uh you know and he just it you want to talk about generational differences as as our generation is different than the one you know 20 years younger than us my generation is younger than this guy's or different he just wasn't having it just was not interested in taking this other route said it was going to be hard on we call that we call that a

grandpa simsic grandpa simsic is no longer with us but we used to go on road trips when we were young and i don't think i was old enough to quite pick up on all the tension that was in the car but i've heard about it a lot later like we'd go on these road trips and usually if it's just like me and my immediate family my dad and my mom and my sister and i we'd be on a road trip and then if grandma and grandpa simsik came along and then if grandpa took the wheel he just he just would not hear anybody if he wanted to keep driving he would just keep driving well you could pull over here if we want to go to that spot no apparently no acknowledgement he would just keep driving and like it was just like there's just like there was no room for negotiation and apparently i was somewhat shielded from the tension on those road trips. Um, that was the exact energy that was going on with me and this, this, this guy, I was just like, okay. Um, and I'm showing him the screen and it's just like, I, I, I like this guy a lot and there's no cabs up there. So I want to stay on his good side if I ever need to take a cab. But I was just like my, I died inside because we went right past the, like the, the side route, the, uh, you know, you know, diverging route or whatever you want to call it, the detour. and then we just went into the teeth of some of the worst traffic i've been in in years they're resurfacing some bridge and we spent a good hour in the traffic i mean we spent an hour going like maybe seven miles and what that meant was uh we were now i was now pretty late for my flight like you know me i don't usually thank god i i was planning on getting to the airport like two hours early and i ended up getting to the airport at like 45 minutes before my flight no joke i mean

i know that it's pointless to make this argument but like that is and i know that i over calculate on these things i'm way too careful with my time but like that is part of the rule of getting there two hours early is because you don't know what's going to happen on the road on the way there the goal is to get there two hours early and maybe 99 of the time you end up having to wait but like i've been in a car i've been taking i've been taking genevieve and her friends to an airport one time and then i'm just the driver and we got stuck in this awful traffic and i had to drop them off at the airport and they had to rearrange all their schedules so that's sort of my that's my

nightmare scenario yeah that's my paranoia right there yeah well this was um it came true for me i mean sort of although under normal circumstances for me 45 minutes before the flight is a okay i have pre-check I'm usually not checking a bag it's I'm that's actually okay generally except in this case I have this gigantic bag this gigantic suitcase rolling suitcase so I get up to the counter and the I get the the agent there the you know luggage person where you you know check your luggage goes I go he goes where you going I go Los Angeles he goes oh the five the 550 or whatever i go yeah he goes you missed it and i'm looking at my phone i'm like it's 40 that's in 44 minutes i didn't miss it and he's like yeah you can't it's too late for the luggage and that first of all was a bummer because i think he could have i was one minute under the deadline or behind the deadline or whatever i think he could have probably got it on there but he just wasn't a can-do kind of person he was a kind of like oh i don't know about that kind of person which it seems like a bad job to have that personality just because you're gonna spend a lot of time all day being like oh that sounds rough because people are always having a moment with the air travel so I was like I feel pretty confident I can get to this flight he goes all right well run for it and I'm like bruh I was in this airport 18 hours ago and you know what I was in it 18 hours before that probably I live here I know exactly how much time it takes but anyway so he says I go well can I just take this luggage and can I have them check it at the gate and he goes yeah they'll probably do that as a great thanks so i go there's literally no line at tsa pre-check i am through the security in under a minute or something so things are good things are on track i put this gigunda suitcase up on the uh you know tsa whatever x-ray machine and uh it comes through and it just stops it comes out of the x-ray thing but then it just like stops but you know they do that all the time with your bags they're always stopping the bags and then you know looking at them and whatever and the person the woman who was in charge of the x-ray seemed to be having a kind of a bad day because one she flagged my other bag because it has this microphone in it which is a 50 50 thing so the guy was going through my other bag like unzipping it he was like podcaster i was like you know it nice finally we finally entered the discourse we exist us podcasters um he was like podcasters like yep and uh but anyway meanwhile my huge bag is sitting still a little bit inside not the actual x-ray machine but that's kind of like metal housing that's like south of it you know and you're not supposed to reach in there like it's a big no-no to reach in there and the lady is just mean mugging me like seriously she's staring at me and and i'm just staring at the bag and i'm staring at her and i think that she has stopped of the conveyor belt and she's looking at something else and she just goes you're not

supposed to have that i was like huh she goes it's too it's too large you're not supposed to have that checked bags are checked bags and i was like okay so then i'm trying to figure out what the deal is like is she going to confiscate it so i just kind of like without breaking eye contact with her i reach into the metal housing and just remove my giant bag and just kind of put it down And just go on my way Like And I can just hear her muttering Like to herself Because there's not anyone around I can just hear her basically being like Check bags or check bags I'm like that guy

should not be doing that like she's just talking but she's not stopping me but she's not stopping

you that's that's where i would get really flustered and be like what do you want me to do and i would like say something incomprehensible and my face would be red and i would like talk myself into a worse situation where you well that's what i was trying to avoid i was like i

don't like just see what happens i don't dig her energy but i am not going to litigate this right now because that will lead to me not being able to bring this bag with me so i wish i had more I wheel it. I wheel it to the gate. By the way, I get to the gate, Andrew. They're not even boarding yet. It's like, so, so that part of my calculation was, was pretty spot on. So I go up to the, the guy that's working now at the gate. And I said, Hey, can I gate check this? Or I know we've had a whole thing about gate checking. It was like, can I check this? So this is going to go under the airplane. Can I check this? and i go i have this bag it's way too big to go in the over can i check it he goes sure no problem and he just like prints out a thing and like just wraps it up it doesn't even look at the bag doesn't give me any grief i'm like okay we're back on track then they start boarding the plane and as i get close to the guy who's scanning the tickets you know on your phone his eyes turn into saucers when he sees this bag that i'm wheeling and he goes he literally just goes what happened like like it's like i was wearing white after labor day like he was personally offended by the size of this bag that i was rolling onto the plane and in in all honesty like

if i didn't know the back if i didn't know your backstory and if i worked there or if i were just another passenger especially because i feel like i'm always falling victim not always but often falling victim to the like we're looking for people to not bring their bags on we're looking for volunteers oh we don't have any volunteers we're now going to make it mandatory and then they bat they tag my bag right as i get to the gate or whatever and so like i i if i were to see you if i were another passenger and i didn't know your journey i would just assume that you're trying to get away with something not that they didn't let you check it because of the because of the

timing right i do have a big old like printed out thing on it which i would hope would indicate that I'm not trying to bring this onto the inside of the airplane, you know, or whatever the like. But that being said, he just looks at me and goes, what happened? And I just mutter to him. I go, computer problems at the front. And I just keep, and I can hear him exactly in the same way that the TSA lady was. He's just going, well, that's not, it's too big. You're not supposed to have that. That's not. And he's just, but he's not stopping me. And I'm just hearing him. Two times at this airport, Andrew, I had people annoyed with me who then were just talking into the void about how annoyed they were with me, and I just wheeled it down, put it at the thing, and I was like, we will see if that makes it to Los Angeles.

Because you had to leave it there, right? You had to leave it there at the end of the sky bridge.

Yeah, kind of like right before you get on the plane, you know, that little door thing.

Yeah, you leave it there and you look at it one last time, and that's really important for you because that's your podcasting stuff.

like no my i had my podcasting stuff in my in my um small bag that went in the overhead or my small suitcase so i actually had but what i didn't wouldn't have was any clothing yeah yeah any my running shoes like a bunch of stuff that i would really need yeah and my my concern normally if i have to do that i'm not concerned in this case i was like what if the person who comes and gets the bags looks at this and goes like oh this guy sucks why would he bring this huge bag and they just decide to like i don't know leave it behind or put it under the jetway just like to teach me a lesson i i don't feel a lot of anxiety around this stuff but i very much did when it came off the thing in los angeles i was super duper relieved because i was like i could see them

just being like we're going to teach this guy a lesson right yeah yeah yeah but it you it worked

it ended up there it worked here i am andrew cold plunging and being radically present and excited that um i get to do the job that i get to excited i get to talk to you excited that i am not an australian breakdancer at the olympics who's being forced to clap back did that story make

it on your radar well it just did well it was at dinner last night actually i was actually thinking the only stories i'm gonna do a little accounting here um the only stories from the olympics that i um was aware of this year was the guy whose dong got caught on the crossbar when he was again

which is the craziest thing to me and i think this comes up during our special pet programming that there was a different amazing pole vaulter named mondo duplantis and that's not the person who got the junk caught on the thing that sounds like the guy who would get his junk caught on the

thing. Sounds like a guy who'd get his Mondo Duplantis caught on the thing. That's what I'm saying. A different dude got his junk caught on the thing. So there was that story. There was the story of the bear butt that was caught on camera. And I know that because. lindy mentioned it on our crossover episode um and so therefore those were the two i think those were the only two things that really caught my attention from the olympics this year and then last night when we were sitting in by the way shout out to this little bar i don't spend a lot of time in georgetown but you know georgetown has those cool it's a neighborhood here in seattle for folks who don't know and it's got these uh cool old buildings and there's a couple of uh little bars down there right on kind of the main drag on airport way one of them is called called mods i I don't know why I was in the mood to take my friends there, but I had just kind of sort of stumbled in there one afternoon with Genevieve. And they may be the only place in Seattle that has a like a fried bologna sandwich, like a thick cut fried bologna sandwich you can get with an egg on it. It's really good. And so I was like, who wants bologna sandwiches? Turns out I was the only one in my party that wanted bologna sandwiches. But anyway, it was like, you know, it's kind of like a cozy kind of Seattle bar type of place. And they had the Olympics on and they had those closing ceremonies on. So I was watching a lot of the closing ceremonies yesterday, some really bonkers stuff happening there. And anyway, that was the extent of my Olympics coverage until somebody said, what about that breakdancer from Australia? And I said, oh, well, I heard that you need to, like, you know, kind of make up your routine sort of on the fly because you don't know what the music is. And everybody looked at me and said, you didn't see this. And that was not the problem.

Did you end up seeing it? Have you seen the moves?

I saw a little bit of it on the TV when we were sitting there yesterday, and then I, this morning, kind of scrolled through and saw it. I did not get to see the entire performance. I just saw the clips that people are making fun of online.

I not only watched the performance, I went back, Andrew, and watched the Oceana breaking. And by the way, it is called breaking, not break dancing. This has been a whole thing. i went and watched the oceana breaking finals where this um dancer slash scholar um actually i guess moved i was upon seeing her uh at the olympics my question was how did this happen who did this person beat who was worse at break dancing than this person right right right that

got her but she won like both in 2000 or i'm sorry 2020 and 2021 right she was like the national

champion i guess so and she somehow moved through the oceana finals which is i guess that region that she came out of to get to to get this spot in the olympics and her dancing and that was not it wasn't like she was like you know flying around the room at that one and then just kind of decided to do something avant-garde for this one um she just appears to be a person who has a real love of the game but not any kind of particular skills at it and the whole story is really interesting to me though because i feel like it's i mean we we live in a in a time where i think rightfully so we try to not pile on people for no reason like you know cyber bullying and the like and and this show used to in its olden days i think we did a lot more kind of roasting of people and piling on and then i really i don't feel great about that i think we do it less now i think that's a good thing but this is kind of being framed as like the australian minister of the olympics says everyone should stop cyber bullying her and she's like clapping back and everything and i i don't know i have a she's framing it as like this is gendered in a way like would you say this about a male break dancer and i guess i feel like yes i would like the core of this is that this is a person who got to the olympics in a sport and then couldn't do the sport and i think that's fascinating um like this idea that it's that it's about something else or that it's it's unfair for people to point this out or to kind of give her a hard time it's like i don't know i just i'm trying i'm trying to run it through all these other possible scenarios or versions of this and i feel like in any scenario like if somebody was doing the javelin and they couldn't throw it at all we'd be like how did that person get to you know how did that person get to this level where it feels it reminds me a little bit of like when vives walked away from her piano performance right it's one of those things where you got somewhere that you probably shouldn't have been and you had a choice and it was either walk away fake an injury or just do a kangaroo dance and you did door number three which i kind of salute you for but i also think it's kind of okay for us to all kind of look at it and be stunned by what happened so here's a hot take and it really is

i guess sort of a hot take but it's like a lot of hot takes it's an incredibly stupid take but i'm

it's it's a cold take you have to wait a long time for it to warm up and then you eventually

just get into the cold take i have okay here's what i have i have the papa murphy's of takes it's gonna start cold but prepared and you're gonna take it home and put it in the oven so no i i i want to float this somewhat seriously although what i'm gonna say is both stupid and somewhat offensive okay okay so i've set this up that's a big that's a big that's a big jump that i need to um that i need to clear here but um so these events are obviously subjective i'm not into the olympics and i'm not into really any kind of dancing at all so i'm like the worst person to weigh on the weigh in on this or i'm the perfect person to weigh in on this um so the subjectivity of olympic sports always seems like it could be problematic but keep in mind i don't watch these olympic games and i don't really care that much but you mentioned like hey if you get up there and you can't throw your javelin as far as the other person like that's very measurable right if you have that big heavy ball right the shot like it's very measurable and then you have the other thing is kind of like well it's very subjective like a lot of the you know floor routines or what have you but then there is also a but there's an understanding of something that that is the athleticism that goes into something and the

creativity right and what were you gonna say there i'm sorry i was just no go ahead a speak speaking of which the judging of things did you hear this crazy story about the the olympian from washington state i believe from vancouver who thought she had a bronze medal and now they've

taken the bronze that is a wild story so complicated it has to do with like when you are allowed to

challenge and the challenge was four seconds late and the challenge from her coach was four seconds

late but they didn't notice it at the time but then the other team was at uh bulgaria or something

so i guess i didn't hear about that story and then weirdly not only did she not get the bronze she's in fifth place now can't you just give give everyone a bronze medal like honestly participation or like seriously that is a a bummer and that the weirdness of it being down to like you didn't you you missed the challenge window by four seconds it's just like a totally nut story

It is a banana story. So anyway, here's my really hot take on this. So I didn't watch any of the other, like, breaking competitions. And I didn't even watch this one all the way through. I was, like, playing catch-up this morning after, like, everybody sort of being astounded by this woman kind of doing this weird floppy thing on the ground. Kind of doing, like, some sort of a fish out of water was, like, the one kind of... Shades of Corky at the end of Waiting for Guffman. But as I was sitting here this morning kind of flipping through a bunch of clips of these and having no context for it, I'm kind of like, I don't know. I'm kind of enjoying watching this. Sure. And then I'm kind of like, at the end of the day, and this would be, I guess, the Papa Murphy's of takes, like all dancing looks stupid except for the stuff that we culturally have decided doesn't look stupid. Right? Like if any other culture were to kind of land, you know, I'm sure to maybe say like, is that person having an episode? I mean, yeah, I mean, there would have been a time when even like what we think of as like really badass 1980s break dancing, somebody from a different discipline or maybe even somebody with no skill or or, you know, kind of intellectual concept of dancing at all would still say these people look ridiculous. they're spinning around on the ground in the street like what are they doing but the other people are kind of like that's badass and that totally matches like the vibe of what we're doing here and then somebody else might say why is that person only dancing on their toes like why that looks so painful and they're only on their toes the whole time you know what i mean like going to the kind of the other end of the spectrum or just like what we do at weddings when we're like just letting loose and letting go or honestly every dance i see on tiktok makes me cringe because i don't like dancing and so again I'm not trying to take the fun out of dancing for people but dancing by its very nature is something absolutely ridiculous that is just an expression of sort of like kind of joy in a lot of cases but also discipline I'm not trying to take a I'm not trying to make it sound like all dance competitions are just like how well you can do at your cousin Larry's wedding but like you know like dancing at the heart of it is sort of a human endeavor that is that is that sprung up culturally but also through something inside humans that make them want to move and as somebody who doesn't really kind of have that gene or whatever you can sort of make the argument that I don't know it's all kind of silly and in a certain way I got a lot of I got a lot of joy watching this person in green flopping around and doing a little uh doing a little did I see a kangaroo hop I swear I saw a kangaroo hop no you did you very much did and so

anyway kind of brought me joy so i guess that's where i'll leave my papa murphy's take i love that take by the way much like when you pull a papa murphy's pizza out of the oven and it's piping hot i'm i'm an appreciator of that take that was that's a very interesting take to me which is yeah like all dancing is weird if you think about it and so we've just decided some of it's not weird and then this person did something that we decided was in the weird category but it brought you some joy i do think it is reasonable one of the things that she um uh put on uh like some social media platform was like uh i'll

I hope to basically she was saying something to the effect of, I guess we'll see what they're saying about the B boys outfits tomorrow. In other words, saying that this was sort of gendered in that people were talking about her outfit and stuff in a way they might not with the male breakers. Again, I just, I just think I really and truly feel like what she did was funny and good for her. It gave us something to talk about. It entertained you. I also think it's reasonable for us to point out that it was kind of, it was sort of ridiculous. I don't think, i guess my point is and this is this is like the papa murphy's pizza andrew that i pulled out of the oven on the debate night and it collapsed it disintegrated in my hands it ripped so that all i was holding was about one and a half pieces of papa murphy's pizza the cheese was scalding my hand but it was all the dinner for me and walt so i had to keep holding it like hodor so i could put it down on the counter where it was clean and the rest of the pizza was on the ground my dad is so sweet he looked at he goes i'll eat that i was like you will not eat that you'll absolutely we're

not eating that you mentioned this is on debate night this is like the president or the presidential debate like would let a couple months ago okay yeah the greatest thing to ever happen to u.s

politics we now know but what a night right i get this papa murphy's pizza uh and the problem is like it's it's on this paper like sheet but then if you want it to be crispier you're supposed to take it off of the like paper thing for the last like five minutes okay but there's something with my oven and doesn't like these things so it it ended up still being very floppy and I was trying to like corral it back onto the paper thing and it just the whole thing fell apart and I literally was just the amount of pizza that I just grabbed was the pizza that we we were able to eat that And you go from that to that debate performance.

What was the worst thing that happened that night? The pizza?

My dad took the larger piece of the torn pizza.

So you guys, you salvaged two pieces that landed on the counter, and the rest ended up on the floor.

It was one regular-sized piece and one kind of like weird-ass torn piece.

And that was, and so you, and this is not like in a construction zone, right? This was your kitchen floor. No, it's a normal. But you didn't trust the kitchen floor cleanliness enough? No, it also landed cheese down. Oh, shit. Yeah, that's done. That's done. Did you end up getting another pizza? Did you order some takeout?

No, I ate like a weird torn piece. I think I probably had some like other random food that I just kind of heated up or whatever. But like, no, that was it. And again, that was the lead into that debate.

Oh, wow. Did you say, well, it's all up from here?

well again and i think listen i called the chapel the phenomenon that is chapel rhone and i also said on um whatever that was the next morning wednesday maybe i said the future is not written that's and um i mean that's a pretty safe statement because whatever happens it will support that idea but i'm proud of that too the future is not written because boy oh boy is it ever a different world as i'm jogging down sunset listening to jonathan swan go on about i believe the term he used was cement footed campaign of which i think really says it all i sent you the article

about the um about the helicopter oh are you already sort of i was going to tell you like scanned it a little bit but it's read it um get to the article as fast as you can but read it as slowly as possible because you only get to read that article for the first time what so it's it's

it's pretty crazy i mean listen i don't want to i don't want to uh criticize the news cycle or the main the msm or get into like fake you know fake news territory but it's pretty funny because there was legit a story in one of the major papers about that helicopter ride and what they they interviewed gavin newsom and gavin newsom said it was me and jerry brown and trump and we were surveying wildfire so clearly there was multiple helicopter rides and this one that that is cited in this maggie haberman piece is a different thing which is so much worse and more racist yeah yeah It's just but it's just like there turns out to be almost a limitless supply of helicopter rides that Donald Trump went on that he only vaguely remembers.

And it's just this article is just and again, it's Haberman and a couple of other people. I don't recognize the other bylines. Maybe that's just my shortcoming there. But mostly the heart of it is interviewing this other politician, Holden, who's now 95, a former Los Angeles City Council member. And I'll just say it now, now that I kind of have it in front of me. But apparently another one of Trump's helicopters had had a malfunction or something, but a Trump helicopter had crashed in the previous months and several people, I believe, lost their lives. And now you have this politician, Holden, and Trump is giving him a flight around Jersey or something. And Holden, this is a quote, he was trying to impress me.

start flying to New Jersey. He said, look at that skyline. Look how beautiful it is. And I am part of it. Holden said he wasn't impressed. I grew up in New Jersey. He said, ain't nothing new to me. Anyway, we start flying to Atlantic City. He's talking about how great things are. And about 15, 20 minutes in, the pilot yells, shut up, shut up. Donald turns white as snow. He was shaking. He said the helicopter's crew had worked frantically to set the aircraft down safely. He thought, how the hell do you let your staff not maintain your aircraft after you just had a crash that killed some of your staff how could you let this happen again i thought if we go down this is your fault that is nate holden um recalling this this flight with him and trump in the 90s wow yeah and

and the fact that in donald trump's mind that was willie brown i mean i don't know i guess we talk i'm not listen i'm not trying to defend the guy we do talk about the mandela effect here and also my memory is kind of shot so i guess i could see myself maybe doing that but but it's not a good look at all is large haberman collider a show title i don't really i don't it doesn't really

work it just came into my brain it is funny but also the problem here though is he's you're right and like i don't want to maybe dunk too hard on just the kind of mistaking of details or even people again this is 30 years ago and there's the implied you know or implicit or implied racism of him confusing two black men who are politicians in california and that that is a problem um but also but i would also just say the bigger problem here is trump has brought this up both in his recent book and the reason it's in the news now is because he brought it up i believe during the press conference um yes and he's trying to use it that he had a personal conversation where willie brown was besmirching besmirching besmirching the name of kamala harry which that is clearly bullshit if the if that helicopter ride didn't ever take place the way he claims it does yeah

it's not a simple slip of the memory it's a gross attempt to besmirch somebody in a in an event that never happened you know it's just like like it's just it's it's it's it's not great and again may i may i direct you towards that article the worst three weeks of the trump campaign i think you'll find it i think uh have it for dessert tonight yeah when i'm done with the locale

dessert when i'm done with my wordle at lunch oh i busted out on a wordle by the way i had 132 day streak or something that all went crashing upon the shores of my ignorance a couple of days the

The word was Mondrian. The word was Mondrian. All right. That is going to do it for today's episode of the program. But guess what? We're going to be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. So please do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Monday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. Power out.