Muse

hi pan from tacoma here i'm calling about the song i sing to my dogs um when we're running i started years ago in my oldest chocolate lab and now i'm doing this with my endless lab it is take it easy uh the song was written by jackson brown and gwen toy but uh mostly people

know it from singing uh by the egos well i'm running down the road trying to loosen my load I got seven doggies on my mind. Four that want to haunt me, two that want to stone me, one says she's a friend of mine. Take it easy, take it easy. Don't let the sound of your own pause drive you crazy. Thanks. Power out.

T-B-T-L.

Well, all right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of TBTL. This right here is the show that just might take it too easy to live. My name is Luke Furbank. I am your host right over there, my friend and the longest-running co-bro of the program, Mr. Andrew Walsh. Hello.

Right off the bat with a good one, a little tribute to Glenn Frey.

reason i wanted to call you andrew w walsh which is not your middle name nope and would be would make it i think it would be odd to name someone andrew w walsh like you would either do the w in the middle name or the w at the end but not andrew william walsh andrew w walsh andrew william

walsh does not actually sound bad but you're right you're there are not a i feel like there not a lot of names that are a ww like oh oh andrew oh andrew w walsh people do like that w though like my friend paulie will call me a dubs i think the w excites the imagination it does it excites

my imagination much like that song we heard from listener pam in tacoma that's pretty good talking about uh the the the cover i didn't know that was a jackson brown song either although now that i

hear that that totally makes sense yeah i'm gonna assume that every song at least every eagle song is a jackson brown collab in some way i told you my my jackson brown story oh by the way uh before

we get to that uh just a reminder or maybe a refresher if you're tuning in on this tuesday for the first time this week we're doing some special programming this week it's uh pet sounds the tbtl song tournament pet song tournament where we're playing songs that the listeners sing their pets and then we are picking some of our favorites and then we're going to pick an overall champion um today silly little dove songs uh pet sounds for the tvtl pet song tournament colon silly

little dove song wait hold on hang on to that one because i'm looking ahead i don't think we have any let's save that i know we have some bird songs coming up that work okay maybe need to save that that's we know where music for your weekend is going to be yes we'll try to work that in right

I was doing a TV story. First of all, Jackson Brown is one of those artists that I have heard many of his songs. I know he was extremely popular in the 80s and has a lot of like big songs to his name and is, you know, beloved by a lot of people somehow. In fact, even I think our buddy Camaro Kev, there's a Jackson Brown song he used to love to do at karaoke. um but it's it's one of those like sort of cultural blind spots for me i don't have a lot of thoughts about about jackson brown and then i was in la i was doing a tv story about mandy moore the singer and actor mandy moore and she was doing a kind of a smallish show in la as a warm-up for a tour she was doing a music tour i'm gonna guess a music tour that was canceled because we were doing all this in like what maybe fall of 2019 or something i think there maybe were some rumors out there about a kind of a flu that was going around possibly originating in wuhan and i assumed well that'll blow over pretty quickly anyway she's at she's sound checking and there's i'm talking there's we're trying to get our shot set up like we're trying to get our little bit of footage of this rehearsal and maybe i'm gonna go on stage and talk to her or something and there's this guy who's also kind of in a bit of a rush and he's also somehow part of the i don't know if he's one of the roadies or whatever but he's comes up and he's asked me if i know what's going on i'm like yeah we're cbs tv we're filming here we need to do this and he kind of wanders away and anyway it's only later that i learned that's jackson brown i remember that and i had first of all i just did at that time i didn't know jackson brown by his face um and i i it's the kind of thing where when i'm at a place and we're doing this filming for cbs i immediately over assume what our social standing is what my social standing is like and in most

rooms that's probably a safe assumption most of the time if you're with a national television broadcast and you're doing something people are intrigued by it people are excited to be around it it's kind of a little bit of a in most situations it's kind of like oh cool that's happening this was not one of those situations this was a situation where jackson brown just wanted to sound check because he was going to play later on as part of this night also nobody told me that and he just wanted to get up there and sound check really quick um so he could be on with his day and I was like where does this guy get off trying to rush me one of CBS's lesser correspondents when he is just some rando but he is just the rando who wrote the song that Pam likes to sing to her dogs while jogging the fact that you called him Bozo was really what I'm trying a new thing by the way I

just looked it up I mean I know that these things sometimes have sort of a longer production tail on them but just so you know that piece you that piece you did on mandy moore aired on march 8th 2020 so it goes back to my theory which is that you caused

you caused the pandemic that's wild to think about because that literally was so march 8th would have been i feel like march don't we kind of consider march 15th to be the day the music died is that like kind of as i feel like that was the day the nba canceled their season and

tom hanks and rita wilson had it that would make sense because i remember where i was that day i don't remember the date but i do know that um genevieve's birthday is march 9th and we were going to the international district to have dinner for her birthday at a place that she loves and i remember people were already starting to talk about like well do you go out for stuff like this and there was already a little bit of like you know um you know xenophobia about like asian restaurants or whatever sort of which of course we were not you know party to but like uh i just remember that being kind of a conversation on the night of her birthday which would have been March 9th so yeah it was the the dialogue was heating up right there in early March this is

not even an interesting thing to say because we all have probably unless maybe it was like Zinzi who's a in what epidemiologist or something Dr. Zinzi but like for people like me I remember that so we did livewire that week and i made a joke that at the time seemed funny but in retrospect was really dumb which was about the people in the audience that these are people who really did not want to waste the money they spent on this ticket or something i made a joke about kind of like us us in the audience being the like you know we're the strong ones kind of a thing because i didn't realize later that just like the idea of staying home and staying out of public areas was going to be itself a heroic act that we all needed to do right at the time it was framing kind of as like well we're the ones that aren't fraidy cats would i come to rue that take yes nobody remembers except

for you though and you keep re-amplifying i know right and then the other thing was so then you go

flash forward i'm back in la i'm at dan tana's i'm having some dinner at dan tana's there on whatever that is set sunset or santa monica i think it's sunset and uh that's when i look up And of course, scrolling across the screen is is the announcement that the NBA has called off its season and that Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have tested positive in Australia. I think maybe he was there filming this Elvis movie. And I have a conversation with our Livewire producers and we make the decision to cancel that week's show. And we'd never canceled a show before. And I was like, on the one hand, kind of relieved because I'm generally lazy person. But on the other hand, thinking like, wow, that's pretty, we're kind of overdoing it here by canceling the show. And I thought, all right, if we want to lose out on a week of ticket sales, and dear listener, it would be, I don't know, a year and a half before we would, if not more, before we would ever get in the same room again and actually try to do the show. I just have the worst sense of where trends are going, is what I'm trying to say. Like, I don't know who's going to win the East Division of Pet Sounds today.

I was just double checking to see. I wanted to see what my calendar looked like. First of all, I'm now so far back as to like April of 2020. And my God, my calendar, as I click further and further and further back in my Google calendar, suddenly there's nothing. There's just like, you know, there's dentist appointments, whatever. And then you just get, you start getting back into 2020. And it's just like, oh, there's nothing except record TBTL, record TBTL, record TBTL. Like that's literally it. And I wanted to see what was actually going on. let's see here could your piece of did i say march 8th because march 8th was a sunday so that's good that lines up appropriately and uh it looks like yeah we went to dinner uh that that night at uh maneki you've been to man i think i've been to maneki with you maybe even before that was one of your favorite places too right one of the oldest restaurants in seattle possibly right yes we have i do think we've been there before i'm now looking

I'm looking at my calendar, and I think, wow, it's strange. Part of it is that I put TBTL record on my calendar every day. Yes, me too. So that probably makes it seem like there's something going on, even on these days when I'm just looking. Okay, so we're talking, you said we're talking March 2020.

So I'm looking at March 2020. March 8th was that Sunday where your piece aired, and I went to a pre-dinner celebration with Genevieve. And now I'm starting to see later on in that week. Yeah, Mandy Moore airs. There you go. Let's see. Thursday the 12th, American public media contingency meeting.

So I think maybe, am I, I might be off on that March 15th as being the, as being the, I think it was maybe March 11th. Because I'm in LA, March, God, this is such a great segment. I know. March, so this is March 2020. I'm back in LA the 10th, 11th, and 12th. That would have been when I was at Dan Tana's. And then we have LiveWire scheduled for March 12th, Thursday. I don't think that show happened. I have Wait Wait from Home on the 19th. So from the 12th to the 19th, Wait Wait had, like, canceled. We had a McMillan Men recording on the 18th at 11 a.m., if I remember that. In fact, looks like we had two McMillan Men recordings that week.

Luke, you know what? I can tell you for sure that it was Wednesday 11th, because I have something on my calendar here on the evening of Wednesday 11th, Wednesday the 11th of March. You had written a note, the NBA season will never be canceled. Boy, were you wrong. And I was trying to figure this out until, as you described the week more, I was like, oh, I see what's going on here. I have a note from me on Wednesday, the evening of Wednesday the 11th, that says, leave house for Genevieve thing. I'm like, leave house for Genevieve thing? What's her thing? And I remember, oh, Genevieve was having a clothing swap party, I believe, with some of her friends. They'll come over and share clothes that they don't want anymore, and that's a treasure to somebody else or whatever. And so I had to get out of Dodge for that. And that is the day that I went to Mike's Chili Parlor. And I sat at the bar and I ate my chili. And I didn't know anybody there. And I was making a little bit of small talk. No, no, no. Because nobody was doing that yet. And then I was sitting at the bar looking at my phone and watching the TV. And on my phone, I remember seeing that the Hanks or Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson. The Wanks. The Ranks. um i had the announcement broken i remember saying that to the bartender i'm like um the the you know uh tom hanks has covid or whatever and she's like no get out of here and then we all i think she turned up maybe she turned up the volume on the tv or we all started paying attention to the tv where we saw the scroll go across this as the nba uh season is you know it has been canceled or at least postponed at that point or like paused at that point i don't remember what the actual designation was but i'll never forget exactly where i was i could probably

point to the booth if they let me back in that place i i have to give live wire credit we pivoted so fast because we were supposed to do a show on the 12th and then it was just like as of like the next monday it's uh live wire house party we're talking to charlie brand from miniature tigers

house party being your contingency right i'm at home yeah yeah live our house party cheryl strayed

and then a Shea Serrano interview from home. And then I have on the 3rd of April, Saltine Dinner Pickup, which would have been a restaurant in Bellingham that we loved that had then pivoted to that lake where no one could come in here, but we're going to make dinner. Our friend Craig and Val's really cool restaurant in Bellingham. This is not interesting to the listeners, but fascinating to me, Andrew. Do I love this? Is that the right way to describe it? I'm, it is so crazy to look at these things and just, it takes me back to those moments so vividly, this idea that like all of a sudden we're, we're ordering this dinner that we're going to pick up on a Friday, but we're ordering it a week in advance. So they have a head count of how many lasagnas they're making. And we're buying this dinner from them because they're our friends. And we really want to make sure that their restaurant stays in business for when this is over in a couple of weeks.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm clicking through here and seeing things like, oh, this is when like Gus came over, a little Gus came over to a little Gus at the time came over to be like a guest on Brains On to he was kind of like the coronavirus correspondent for a while. and he would come over and I would we'd all mask up and I would like sanitize his microphone and everything before I think one of the things about this is it doesn't seem like four years ago and uh let's see here yeah because we're already past so it's more than four years now right we're past March of 2024 so that would have been the four-year mark and it just like and I know that it lasted for more than a year it wasn't just 2020 but it just seems like I can't believe how far that date was, that March 11th of 2011, or I'm sorry, of 2020 when I was sitting on that bar stool that it was that long ago already and that it already feels like nostalgia. in a way yeah i'm i'm sorry i'm just lost i'm lost in my cbs hugs interview what in the what this is i was just looking at our calendars i did a story about uh i i think i did a commentary about how we miss hugging or something oh yeah of course will we ever shake hands again yeah we need to like we miss out when we stop hugging each other or something that human conduct anyway That's a bad business hug. Stop the tape. Stop the tape. That's a bad first 15 minutes to the TBTL Pet Sound specials. Okay, so so far we've got Pam and Tacoma taking it easy.

That's right.

Although I think this one is more like Take It Easy by the Beagles.

Oh, that's pretty good. That's why we had to do calendar talk. That's right. We had to buy some time while you came up with that.

And now we've got another song, though, submitted by one of our listeners that they sing to their pets. What do we got?

Yeah, so I don't remember the details of this, and maybe that's good because Maggie can explain herself. This is Maggie in Swarthmore, I believe, out there in Pennsylvania with a pet song.

So for the songs you sing your pets, we had cats back in the house that I used to share with a bunch of people in West Philadelphia. And we had cats that loved to stroll along the countertops. And, of course, that's gross. So my roommate, Carol, would take them by the legs, like one hand around their back legs and one hand around the front legs.

That seems deeply uncomfortable for the cat. Can you picture that?

I can absolutely picture it. In fact, I would probably do that to Bubbles, except she would remove my hand surgically with her teeth. Because we can talk about it more after we hear the song.

As Genevieve would say, you pull back a stump if you try that. Right, seriously. Mama didn't raise no fool.

One hand around their back legs and one hand around the front legs and lift them down off the counter. But while singing, no kitties on the counter, no kitties on the counter. I don't think it got through to them, but it did stick in my head 30 years later.

All right. No kitties on the counter. Short but sweet from Maggie in Pennsylvania. What were you going to say you want to get into?

Well, I feel like what's going to really happen this week is the emerging emotional divide between Bubbles and I is going to become more and more apparent. And maybe we're just, you know what it is? Part of it is like absent parenting on my part. Part of it is just she's like a teenager now, maybe, or something. Maybe we're just in that mode. But one of the things, here's the thing. Becca is a very, very fastidious person and keeps her place really nice and clean and is a very clean person and also much more germ aware than I am. And she's more like you in that when we will sit down to eat, if I don't run to the bathroom to wash my hands, she will definitely have hand sanitizer for me. Like, hey, do you need some of this? like i might go days to be honest with you if i'm left to my own devices i might go and i'm just by myself i might go days without washing my hands formally i'll shower and stuff but i won't like wash my hands before i just eat a meal in my house or something she is a very very kind of clean germ aware person and one of the things i know she doesn't love is the cat walking on her kitchen counter oh yeah and her dining room table yeah that's bubbles what does holly do does Holly does not, well, let's be honest. I don't know physically if Holly could get to the countertop these days.

Yeah.

Just due to her kind of general chill vibe.

Yeah. And heft, right? She's a heavier cat.

And heft. And heft. I don't want to body shame her. She'll hear this. Oh, I love a fat cat. But Bubbles will just constantly walk on every countertop and the dining room table, and no amount of yelling at Bubbles will change that, and you go grab her and you pull her off and you put her down on the ground and she just goes, sproing, right back up onto the counter. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't love that in my house, but I'm not as worried. I'm not thinking about surfaces the way that Becca is. And so I feel bad that my cat that I foisted upon her is also really, really tends towards that kind of non-hygienic behavior.

Well, here's why you don't have to worry about it too much. And I say this as a relatively clean person anyway. Even if a cat walks on the counter, It's not like they were just digging in their poop with those paws. Oh, wait. That's exactly what they were just doing.

That's part of the problem. Not that you want a dog jumping on your counters, but think about it. You'd actually be better off. Based on what their post-poop behavior is, dogs are not necessarily – I mean, they do kind of scratch around a little bit, but it's not – it is in the cat's actual nature to paw around in the litter. Yeah. And so, yeah, I'm with you. It's a gross thing. I'm not happy about it.

Oh, yeah, I'm not dunking on you. I just mean that that's what I think about. And like. You know, so bingo. I mean, listen, every cat I've ever had knows that they're not allowed to go on the counters. And I will use spray bottles when I was younger and meaner. I actually had a super soaker that I have a lot of regrets over. I'm sorry, Alex. Rest in peace. But you got the business end of a super soaker when I was probably like 14 years old. And I felt like it was a personal offense or an affront that he would go on the counters. because here was my and genevieve of course has always said and i think i finally have started to hear this a little bit it's like it's not personal andrew it's not personal i would say well how is it not personal when they don't do it in front of me and if they hear me walking into the room and if they're breaking that rule they will i will hear the telltale sound of them jumping down right and it's kind of like how is that not personal they know they're breaking my rules

like if that's not personal what is i'll tell you i mean is it more or less personal that bubbles will do it right in front of me and then look at you does not yeah doesn't even have like like she doesn't even think oh i better i better not do this uh you know i don't think she thinks of me as her father per se but she doesn't look at me and think i better not jump on that counter that guy's going to be upset she is in no way affected by my disapproval that in no way moderates her

behavior so well um i feel you the draw is very strong though because like so i have a squirt bottle i'll squirt bingo that sort of gets him he doesn't like to be squirted although but like he is so he'll he reminds me more of your your dog rudy than of your cat bubbles because he is so food motivated like and that's where i feel bad for him like he just can't turn it off if we're making food in the kitchen and not to be rude but especially if genevieve is making food in the kitchen. He'll run in there because he knows there's a better chance of food not landing where it's supposed to land. And he gets a little...

The blast zone is wider. Blast radius.

I don't understand how it ends up on the walls. I was cleaning like... Have you seen the movie Ratatouille? That's how some of the best food

is made by a human getting it everywhere while a rat controls them.

Genevieve does have a rat that she wears under her chef's hat. That's part of it. So anyway, I will see him. There are times where instinct draws him so much that even if I'm right, there he like forgets himself and he'll like jump up for a second i'll be like bingo what the hell are you doing like i'm so shocked that he'll do it in front of me and then he he remembers himself and he's like okay i gotta wait until you turn your back and you'll go running away or something like that but yeah i take it pretty personally and also it is kind of gross i try to keep the thing is i really do try to wipe the counters down a lot i always keep an all-purpose spray bottle around um i'm actually not a big fan of hand sanitizer i don't like the way it makes my hands feel, but I do wash my hands a lot

for whatever that's worth. You've got to get some of this stuff. And this is an official ad for Ja? Ja? J-A-A? Jao? J-A-O. Her? This is something Jao Refresher. Addy got this for me in my stocking. I'm running dangerously low on it. It smells and feels so good. I do think, back to the pandemic talk, because that's why everybody tuned in on this Tuesday.

Summer Tuesday

we had such a i mean the problem was our sort of qc our quality control on on hand sanitizer who was making it what it smelled like it just during the pandemic it was like you know any port in the storm and we all had that experience of like realizing that the hand sanitizer being created by the companies that had been distilleries of alcohol and had shifted production to the hand sanitizer there was an acrid vinegar smell that that was going into what they were doing and i don't understand why that was but it was bad bad it was it really really was should we call today's show here in jow i'm still hoping we have a marmot related song coming up and i can work in music for

marmots what else do we have okay so we have a voicemail from our buddy bill who used to be in

toronto but he's not there anymore hey guys it's bill in kingston we had a rusty dog named molly who died a few years ago a couple years ago she was 15 years old she had a tail docked when we got her so she had no tail and we'd sing molly yo molly yo she's the cutest dog i know she has no tail but that's okay she rags her whole body oh she rags her whole body power out that is

adorable to picture oh that's so cute you can hear the love in bill's voice too and bill is usually very withholding very taciturn yes um person when he communicates with us but you can just hear the love and i also i you know my my boxer named flea that i had with my first ex many many years ago also because that was i mean that was i guess the deal when you went and got a dog from a breeder they had docked is it docked to the tail not docked i still never knew where the dog lived could never show up imagine doxing a dog yeah it's like they live on one two three elm street and um we can put all their person you can put all their personal information up there you can call the swat team on them right but i um i flee when we got flee she already did not have a tail um and i mean we could have probably gone a different route and either found a more

humane breeder or just gotten a rescue dog oh it wasn't a oh i see i thought you were i thought it was a rescue dog she was a rescue dog that a previous owner had done no somebody that was

advertising boxer puppies in the paper and we drove way out to somewhere and i think if you're ever looking for a pet or looking at a small dog or cat or whatever it might be marmot you should do the math on how far you're driving for this animal because the further you're driving the greater the likelihood you're bringing this animal home there's no driving three hours or driving two hours and then getting there and then deciding yeah we'll keep looking like just know that the more now if you go three blocks you might be able to get out of there without the tiny cute animal but if you're going like i remember we drove a couple of hours to get to these puppies and by the time we got there and also the conditions were pretty lousy we were sort of looking to get the puppy out of this environment and uh and so we did but um anyway that was that was i that was flea's thing flea would do this like entire body excitement waddle which i don't know if she was aware she didn't have a tail i don't know if she understood what a tail was and that she was missing it but i know exactly of what bill sings i can yeah i don't have that

personal experience but i feel like i can picture it and it's definitely a display of happiness which i definitely enjoy as well i think about picking up bingo bingo's the only cat and i guess the because i haven't had any dogs so i guess the only pet that i've ever had where there was a waiting period there was a seven day waiting period and i said but i'm angry now do you remember that joke from the simpsons it's one of the greatest simpson jokes ever homer's trying to buy a gun but i'm angry now um no but like we went we knew that there was somebody you know somebody who worked in the pet care industry who was fostering, you know, she, she was, she worked in a vet's office, uh, but she fostered kittens and she had a couple of litters of kittens.

Inspired by kittens.

And so Genevieve and I drove down to Tacoma on a, I think a Saturday afternoon and we knew we were just going to meet some kittens and we might choose. And we had a, I think we had a pretty good feeling that we were going to be choosing our kitten that day, but we also knew that we would not be coming home with that kitten. I'd never had that before. um and uh because the kittens were still a little bit too young and i think they still needed a couple of shots again like this was just such a it was such a caring place to get uh and it was like so inexpensive not that that was a driving thing for us i couldn't believe that these kittens were like all the you know they had all of their shots and they were fixed and everything that needed to be done um but they were still sort of you know wrapping some of that business up so vives and i went down there and we met bingo and then leaving without bingo but knowing and I think we'd already named him Bingo at that point too and knowing that Bingo, we'd be going back to Tacoma to pick him up and we went to this little diner that we passed on some sort of a larger road. It was an old-fashioned diner and showing the waitress at the diner that like, look what we just adopted, like photos on our phone and then the whole experience. I'm kind of glad that it was a sort of a delayed process a little bit. It was very special.

that sounds like a good yeah like a good i don't want to say compromise but like yeah a good way for it to work where you know you're going to get the cat so you're excited about the cat but also you're letting the cat spend the amount of time it probably needs hanging out with the mom that sort of happened with bubbles i went and visited bubbles with the the family that had you know had the cats that had had bubbles and she was very very cute and so i put down a deposit and we met at a PetSmart and then it was I don't know a few weeks or some amount of time and then I went to pick up the cat and that was when I realized oh the um maybe let's say 14 or 15 year old young woman who was raising these kittens with her mom who seemed very chill and very cool with everything at the PetSmart like parking lot it was only uh when we were in the uh their home their lovely home in in the greater Portland area and the mom was dutifully retrieving this kitten that I realized this might be hard for a 14-year-old young girl to say goodbye to this adorable kitten that she's been raising as her own. But at least I'm there. And I don't know why that was the day that I wore like a black cloak. And I kept going,

gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme.

I was doing that the whole time. It was a strange day for me. carried was interesting too no give me that cat i um i just i don't want to pile on but weren't you then like kind of over overcompensating with the girl and saying you know i'm gonna take good care of her and didn't didn't the mom or a parent say to you maybe you should just like kind of just back off and let her have her space am i making that up or didn't somebody sort of gently guide

you might have been i think what you're what you're remembering is the way i described my Internal journey with it I think which was I couldn't I realized it was like Ripping the bandaid off and just kind of Like luckily I brought Becca By the way that really helped Because it was like okay at least there's one There's one person here with good energy That this cat will probably And little did we know how much that cat would live with that person's Good energy because now she's staying there But I think I went on this journey of Trying to be like it's gonna be fine And then realizing no this is just making it worse But then I sent them I actually, here's what I did do though And I'm proud of this I wore them down through sending them so many pictures Of Bubbles living her best life That eventually they were like, looks great Looks like the cat's doing fine, okay You got the impression that they were like, we can shut down

This line of communication now

Not overtly, but it was like They left me on red longer and longer When I would send these, like at first it was like How's the cat doing? And I would send all these pictures And they'd be like, oh amazing, I showed whatever the daughter's name was and she's so happy and then it was like i kept feeling like i needed to like justify to them that the cat was doing well and then eventually six months in i'm like sending them here's up latest update from bubbles and i'd be like i'm just looking at it's unopened now for two three hours and they open it cool cool awesome uh we've moved on dude all

right here i'm moving on let's hear our final song i have one more song for you here this is um from listener Natalie. Hey y'all

Natalie in New Orleans here. This is my humble submission for the pet song segment or show or for any other time for that matter. This is a song that is embarrassingly elaborate that I actually wrote or co-wrote with my mom one summer I guess when we were bored I was home from college. Kind of a Jackson

Brown, Glenn Frey kind of

relationship there and it is in dedication to my dog who lived to be about uh named blue blue merle australian shepherd real character he lived to be 17 years old went through a lot and had a lot of different nicknames so this song sort of captured some of that character and some of those nicknames at least one two one two three two for two eyes are blue oh what those two foot can do has anybody seen my boy pointy nose bobby tail bark and beg and raise in hell Has anybody seen my boy? So if you run into a two-foot-two, all covered in birds, chasing cows and drinking scum, you can bet your life he ain't no cur. He's Mr. Sweet, charmer too, doctor knows, and kissy blue. Has anybody seen my boy? and yes that is loosely or actually pretty closely based on the flapper 1920 flapper tune five foot two eyes are blue um there you go perhaps that teared me up that makes me miss

blue it's so sweet also one of the rare songs that can integrate the word cur both accurately and to serve the rhyme.

Right. And doesn't involve the Golden State Warriors coach.

Right, exactly. Different spelling.

How about that, though? How about that as a little NBA pull from yours truly? Very good. Thank you. Just give me that bell, man.

Can I do good? Give me that bell. Am I a good, Andrew?

I love that song. At first I was tearing up out of joy, and then I was like, I think I miss Blue. Like, that is the sweetest song.

You know, it's so interesting you say that because I think I went on that same journey, and I think you can hear that in a lot of these songs, but maybe in particular in that song, is obviously the love that folks have for their pets. And you can just imagine all the different times that that song was sung. Yes. You might even say song sung blue. You could even. But, like, you know what I mean? And yeah, you can just hear in all of these songs, what you can do if you've ever had a pet and ever been a maniac, like I have, you can picture yourself in the shoes of any of these people who are singing these songs, and you can kind of imagine exactly what it looked like and sounded like, because we've sort of all been there. But that is a particularly, particularly good song. I want to know what parts the listeners, it's Natalie, correct?

How much of the song did Natalie write How much did her mom write What is the publishing on it

What are the publishing rights

What's the breakdown Is it the reason I couldn't do my TV story About the band War A while ago Because the guy that wrote Hang on Sloopy Owns 51% of the rights to the band War I didn't know that There was some confusion about who we should be interviewing That's a low rider band Oh my friend And, you know, I was like, why can't we be friends? Oh, okay. Why can't we be friends? Really?

That's the same group.

Yeah. Oh, I had no idea. And an interesting sort of multiracial group and a cool story from L.A., but it turned out that it was the complexity of figuring out who we could talk to and when and what actually comprised the band all these years later. As is often the case, you know, you'll hear about multiple versions of, like, of Queens reich touring your casino circuit yeah it's like which queens reich am i am i getting here because different people there's some disagreement about who gets to call themselves that band and i just it's sad it's such a beautiful song it's so sad that it's torn natalie and her mother

apart in this way or if it hasn't that we're trying to do that right now certainly by the end of the show and succeed they will be torn apart so this is of course the tough part of the show before we thank our daily donors where we um have to crown a winner and i don't want to I don't want to bully you, or I feel like I went first yesterday. Would you like to go first? Would you like me to go first? Give you some cover so that you can be a good guy. Yeah, why don't you go to everybody? Wait, are we announcing it or just mine? Is this the final say?

All right, your thoughts?

That's how we open. That's how we opened the floor Into discussion I think that's how we opened the Philadelphia show Only one of those Made me cry and it was Natalie's Flapper Town So I would probably vote for that I mean

I think that these were all great songs I love all of them But I think I'm with you I don't know if it's because I saw you on video Tearing up Dabbing my eyes I thought you just had maybe like a piece of meatball Lodged in

Well, I do blow my nose. I do lead to a lot during the show. You do some eye-dabbing from time to time

for non-emotional reasons. But no, I think they were all great, but I've got to go with Natalie in New Orleans for all the reasons we've laid out. Again, though, these are all phenomenal pet songs. Yes, exactly. And I think everyone who entered today's the Eastern Bracket should be very proud of themselves. They're all wonderful, heartfelt tunes.

Were any of these folks from the East? Yeah, New Orleans is more central.

I consider Ontario in the east of Canada.

And Pennsylvania, you know. Yeah, way east. Yeah, very east, so that's good.

In fact, so far east that it's right near where we're going to be on the 28th of September when we do a TBTL Live from Philadelphia. You can still get your tickets at tbtl.net for that show. Thank you for being a 10. All right, before we get on out of here today, we've got to thank some of our daily donors. These folks donated and are donating to TBTL. It is how we are able to keep doing this thing week in and week out, even on weeks when we're a little pre-produced because we're traveling to various points. We have to, Andrew. You and I have to sometimes go places so that we will actually have some experiences that we can then talk about on the show. Like, don't think about this as being Luke maybe went to Italy. Think about this as Luke is out collecting experiences, working hard to collect experiences to then talk about on TBTL.

Okay, I see what you're doing here. We talked about this. We're not paying for your Italy trip, Luke. That is not a business expense. We've gone around and around and around on that.

Well, and unfortunately, so has the IRS,

and I've been told in no uncertain terms. Yes, we keep saying.

But I do consider it a work event in that as I move through the world and as I experience things. Sometimes I've got to leave this hill to go have some experiences that are interesting and novel. It's sort of like in the 80s. I feel like we've been on kind of an 80s kick this week because of the Love Boat theme song and things like that. Sometimes the Keetons would have to go to Europe. Yeah.

And those were everybody's favorite shows.

Shake it up. I don't think anyone liked those shows. They were shot on a different kind of film, which was upsetting for me as a viewer. I was never a regular enough.

Not on a soundstage, I think, is the big deal there, right?

Right. It went from being a two-camera shoot to being maybe more like a one.

camera shoot or something or something there would be something that felt off and scary about when these families that we knew to live in this very kind of specific backdrop of the so-called two camera shoot where they got the stairs coming down from upstairs when you see them out in the world doing things it's you know i don't like that at all that's uncomfortable i learned i feel like i

already said this on the show recently but i was listening to some podcast that recaps old movies And they were talking about the first Muppet movie and that one was called the Muppet movie. Right. And they were talking about how like, you know, part of the excitement of that movie at the time doesn't translate to nowadays because of so much production that we're used to in our films. But that what blew people away. Do you remember? Did I already mention this to you? Was that you could see Kermit the Frog's legs that people were like, we can see his legs because they only knew him from the Muppet show set or I guess Sesame Street at that point. but he was always shot at that point from, like, you know, his belly buttoned up.

Uh-huh, and he has to have legs because everybody else has legs, and if they're going places, then he's got to have some getaway sticks. He's out in the world, yeah. I was trying to find the Family Ties. I don't know why I just picked that, but it seemed like the kind of show where they would have gone to Europe or something in the 80s. I was Googling it. I don't know if—there was a movie called Family Ties Vacation.

Well, it must have been a made-for-TV movie.

It must have been, but then this is— The internet always delivers on this particular measure. People also ask, what is the saddest episode of Family Ties?

Oh, I know. It's the one. Well, maybe it's not the saddest, but I remember there was one that was a very special episode. This is the era of very special episodes. Was it when Tom Hanks was drinking? Oh, wow. That's a tough one. Was that Tom Hanks who played the alcoholic uncle?

I think he played the fun uncle who also had a drinking problem.

And then I think that uncle also had marital issues, too. I could be confusing That's not my experience No but there was kind of a weird episode That really stood out because it was It totally broke the format of the show And it was like It was Alex's character Talking to a therapist Who was off screen and he was like On a white background and they would It was like a very minimalist It was like a very minimalist Shot I believe he was kind of on a white background But then every now and then almost like a play various props would sort of come in and I believe he was talking to a deep-voiced therapist that we never saw and he's sort of like kind of pleading his case and starting... Family ties

beyond therapy maybe? Maybe. Can you read the description on that? Lauren is upset over the lack of communication and emotional sharing between herself and Alex. She suggests that they see a therapist to discover the cause of their problem?

That sounds more like couples therapy. Yeah, the one I'm remembering is and maybe this is something I'm very tempted to do some Googling on the fly. Like, I literally only remember this from it being a new episode. Like, I don't even think I knew it as a rerun. I think I remember it being like, because this was a show that my family watched when it was new.

Was it maybe My Name is Alex? That sounds closer to it. Alex's friend dies in an accident. As the family grieves, Alex tries to mask his pain, but he can't hide his sadness and other emotions forever.

That sounds closer. And if it wasn't that episode, I wonder if maybe it was an episode after that one where he then does confront his pain. Because I remember him starting off being very, you know, if not defensive, very guarded or whatever. But then the more he talks it out, the more he gets emotional. And believe it or not, you had mentioned the band War before. I believe because it was such a boomery show, at some point the Trogs wild thing starts playing and he plays air guitar for a moment. I just have these snapshots of this in my brain. Do you have anything that backs me up?

You're getting a lot of this right, by the way. It's definitely called A, My Name is Alex. A two-part, hour-long, very special episode of the NBC... Yeah, ah, my name is Alex. NBC television series Family Ties. The episode aired on March, blah, blah, blah. The episode won numerous awards. So basically it sounds like part one is the family grieving the passing of Alex's childhood friend in part two. Alex is talking with an unseen therapist to help him to confront the issues he must now deal with resulting from Greg's untimely death. Through play-acting, Alex revisits his grade school days and situations with his family and attempts to reassess his own life. I freaking nailed that. You really did, Andrew. You know what? You're actually the winning song today from the Eastern.

I see that it's on Paramount+, but I went to play it and it says the video is unavailable right now. But yeah, part one and part two. Yeah, anyway, so check that out.

Definitely do. And if we were, Andrew, if we were ever looking back on TBTL and thinking about critical moments in the history of this show and our lives, we'd of course start with David Zuckerman, who's in New Rochelle, New York.

our first daily donor today. Thank you, David. Also, Marissa Uterberg, who's in Lakewood, Ohio. Marissa! A place you know and well. Very well. And well.

Indeed. My old stomping grounds. Sounds sinister when I say,

a place you know and well. Yeah. I miss Lakewood. We've got to say thanks to Laura Piles, who's in Shoreline, Washington, a place I know and well. Oh, yeah. Me too. Very much. And then our friend, oh, Nigel Herbig, who's in Kenmore, Washington. Mayor Nigel. Mayor Nigel, who—I mean, Shoreline and Kenmore are so close to each other. I wonder if at some point Nigel was somehow Laura Piles' elected official on some sort of regional council.

Is there any chance that this is the same person, and when they are in Kenmore, they are Nigel, and when they're in Shoreline, they're Laura?

I mean, and also, is it some sort of electioneering if Nigel votes for himself in the person of Laura?

The important thing is, if this is the same person, they're donating twice for each personality, and that I encourage.

I don't want to make light of multiple personality disorder, but if you do have them and they're all donating, I'm counting that as some sort of a silver lining. Kelly Sweat is in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. forever defined now by, and I'm sure we had this conversation last year, isn't that the name of a beer, I believe, that they drink now in Family Guy, right? Or does Family Guy just take place in Pawtucket?

It takes place in Quahog. Oh, yeah, we always have this conversation. We've had this exact conversation. And do they drink at the Thirsty Clam?

They do, and I feel like the beer has something to do with Pawtucket, but I could be. I could, or maybe that's something more... No, the Drunken Clam, apparently. Good old Sam Adams, the Sam Adams Beer Company. For some reason, I hear the name Pawtucket, and I get thirsty for a cold one. So, Kelly, thank you for supporting the show and for making me thirsty for a cold ones, as Strong Bad used to say. And then we've got Ariel Dierdorf, who is in Seattle, Washington. All of those folks whose names I read are our donors today and are keeping TBTL going with their generosity. So thank you very, very much.

You want a little wind underneath your wings? Pawtucket Patriot Ale is the brand of beer that they drink in Quahog, Rhode Island on The Family Guy, and based on the little label I see, the fact that it's called Pawtucket Patriot Ale leads me to believe that you were absolutely right about the Sam Adams kind of parody

there. Uh-huh. Right. Oh, because it's got a little, like, figure of a... I will say, though, Sam Adams adds with the guy who is not named Sam Adams, but he's the Jim... Jim... Is it Jim Walsh? Is this a distant relative of yours? The guy Jim something or other who was the kind of face of all the Sam Adams ads for a very long time. Very effective marketing in my opinion.

Were these the kind of cheeky ones from just like a couple of years ago? No. I feel like they might have had a funny campaign that I found surprisingly humorous.

This was much more earnest. It was like I'm – he was like the founder supposedly. Oh, okay. Jim Koch. Oh, okay. Jim Koch. I don't think related to the brothers. everybody calm down but I think the ads were sort of like I'm Jim Koch and I started Sam Adams for this reason and it was pretty earnest but he seemed likable he seemed like a Bob Costas type kind of a friendly if diminutive kind of guy who was talking to you in sort of soft tones about why he poured his heart and soul into this beer and it was kind of a breaking down of the it really stood in contrast to like whatever Bud Light was doing at the time or Budweiser, which I'm sure is why they came up with the campaign.

Yeah, I don't know if that rings a bell to me. Did it end up kind of giving way to more of an actual guy dressed up like a patriot in 1780?

Well, they did have your annoying friend from Boston or something like that.

Oh, that was the one that I think I liked more than I thought I was going to like. I thought the annoying friend from Boston, because that usually Boston-style humor like that or even parodies on Boston humor does not land well with me. maybe it was the soft bigotry of lowered expectations but I remember thinking your annoying friend from Boston was actually kind of a decent campaign I agree

well because the joke is kind of on those you know on folks that are fulfilling that stereotype so I'm always down for that

yeah sure anyway thanks everybody

thank you very much for supporting the program that's going to wrap it up so now we have we have our champion from the west and our champion from the east we have Clementine singing Roscoe with a retired outlaw from Monday's show. And then today we are crowning Natalie, the New Orleans Flapper Town fame. Day two winner. Tomorrow we are going to check the south bracket. And you know why? I'll tell you on tomorrow's show, Andrew, why I ordered these in this way, why I went west, east, south.

Earth-Faced North, right?

I did think it was interesting that you're ending on the North because I think of North as being, you know, as kind of up.

Okay, well, I'll explain that to you on tomorrow's episode. Sounds fun.

It's going to be a good conversation.

It sure is. And we'll see you all for it when tomorrow comes. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. Good luck to all.

Power out.