Muse

You're watching Sunrise 7. It's 6.43 as Sunrise 7 continues. He's an award-winning and master yo-yoist, and he's from right here in our area.

But he has more than fun tricks. Boy, oh boy, we're going to submit this one for an Emmy. But he has more fun tricks that are more than just about yo-yos. Amy Fluxop, rescue me. Take it away from me this morning. Good morning again, Amy.

Rescuing you, I don't think it's even possible this morning, Jeff. I don't know. I'll do my best, though. Kenny Strasser, who is actually from Anagoga, and as we said, he is a master yo-yo list, and you've competed in a lot of different competitions. Tell us a little bit about how you got started to be a yo-yo master.

Honestly, I am just a 35-year-old kid at heart, you know, twice divorced. I have no kids. I don't have a girlfriend, don't want one. You know, it takes a lot of practice. My parents live in Denver. They just got divorced. My dad is now in Oshkosh. And honestly, I'm just going all around. I have a brother in Portland who I don't get along with very well because of his wife. And I'm not going to go. My dad. Hi.

We're dealing with some issues this morning. So we will actually just head that back to Jeff and Bob, and we'll be joining you a bit more with some of these yo-yo tricks coming up in just a bit.

T-B-T-L

Ah, this gazpacho soup just burned my lips

The gazpacho? Yeah, it's been sitting out, it warmed up It warmed up so much that it burned your lip Let me explain something to you If you're expecting something ice cold And you bring it up to your lips and it's room temp It's going to feel like your mouth's on fire It's going to feel like your body's on fire.

Don't bully me, all right? I can't take it. I was cyberbullied within an inch of my life last night. I don't even know what that means.

No one knows what it means, but it's provocative. We've established that you don't have any journalistic integrity, but what would it cost to buy you something?

TBT out!

Well, all right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Tuesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. It's electric and there's no turning back. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia where it's a kind of a gray day. I'm not ready to fully 100% submit to the fact that um you know summer is kind of behind us now it's post labor day and it's time to really start thinking about real life and fall and all of those things um and the weather is going to be helping me later this week i think it's going to be like 100 degrees or something it's going to be very hot it's going to be very uncomfortable for everybody uh but i'm actually i'm i'm okay with that because like i said i'm still hanging on to the idea that it's summertime and the you know The vibes are immaculate, and we're still chilling. We're not barreling into real life again, at least not in my mind. We are barreling into episode 4,285 in a collector's series. It's Belle. It's old Belle. Still kind of working, even though I've been out of town for the last couple of weeks. While I was, I guess, out of town, or maybe just getting back to town, I found out that I, in a roundabout way, finally made it into the pages of the New York Post. I'd like to point out to anybody watching, this is really bunk journalism. Not for the reasons that I expected. We'll get into that. And also, this day one of the TBTL travel guide, TBTL Curing Lonely Planet-ness.

Gentlemen, to bed, but we leave at 9.30. Ish. Ish.

I'm going to go through some travel tips based on my recent journeys through mostly Italy, a little bit France, a tiny bit Iceland coming up in the next few shows. Today, why you want to be really careful before you sign up for like an exclusive intimate dinner with wine pairing while you're in Rome. Sweet pairing wine! So we'll do all of that with the help of this guy, longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. There's something about him I can't quite place today. I think it's maybe his new Skechers that make him seem so cool and athletic.

You're like the coolest person I've ever met.

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

Good morning, Luke. I know that this is an audio medium, but I want the listeners to relax and know in confidence that neither you nor I are wearing white today. We are, as you mentioned...

At the beginning of the show, post-Labor Day, we would never make that faux pas. And I just wanted to let everybody know that we are here wearing colors other than white.

You know, I was buying some pants online. And I was looking at the—basically what I do now is if I find any piece of clothing that seems like it works, then I just continue to buy that clothing. And I bought these pants at J.Crew in person a while ago called Tech Pants that I was very excited about. and I was going to buy a couple more pairs of these pants, and I was looking at them online. I felt confident and comfortable buying them via the Internet because I know exactly the size I'm looking for, the make, the model, all of that. But they had some that were in white, and not only because, of course, I would never commit the fashion crime of wearing white after Labor Day, but just generally I looked at those pants, and I did not get any white ones. I thought, I may never wear white pants again for the rest of my life. Like, I don't think I'm a person who can pull off white pants. I'm barely a person who can pull off a white shirt anymore. It's got to be under something. You will never catch me in a white T-shirt ever in public. And you will never catch me. You will rarely catch me in a white collared shirt by itself. I feel like white is not my color.

Do you feel like it has to do with how it interacts with your complexion, your body type? Your body. I see.

Definitely a white T-shirt. I think is just not my friend It's not particularly flattering for me Well t-shirts are dangerous games They are but a white t-shirt is especially dangerous I was playing this game In Europe With Becca which was Is that what my body looks like? Is that what my body looks like? We'd be walking around And we're going to talk about Rome today Everybody is sweating Because it's like 100 degrees It's not comfortable for any People are just obsessively like fan they have these like everyone was like either wearing neck fans or like holding battery operated fans which for some reason i was like i will not buy one of those from one of these guys on the street everywhere trying to sell you and then i was always like why didn't i buy one of those those look great yeah but anyway i was also uh because i am uh locked inside my own broken mind always trying to assess like what is the degradation of this body and what does it look And what I decided on the trip was, it ain't great, but what I am happy about, I guess you could say, or mildly relieved or less shamed, is I don't think I'm making clothing decisions that are making it actively worse for me. A thing in Europe seems to be to wear, if you're a feller, a pretty tight shirt, regardless of if that's particularly flattering to you. like there's a lot of guys that are probably in the boat that i'm in you know mid late 40s not a person who's um maybe a wouldn't be described they robbed a bank they wouldn't be described as like a particularly heavy person but also you know things are starting to go south and in all kinds of different ways that you're just like if you're wearing let's say like i would be wearing probably like a black t-shirt that's a little maybe not not huge not way oversized but certainly not hugging my form and or i had these um these j crew shirts that i was wearing that i brought literally five of that were like a terry cloth kind of thing they're collared they button up but they're solid colors they're dark and i feel like they're again fairly flattering and i the main difference if there was any between me and a lot of other fellows fellas who are in the same boat that i was in it's like i was not doing anything to actively make it more work make

it worse what was going on for me well i i do love that you and i and you know we had a long conversation yesterday about like just shoes and what we're comfortable in and how we see ourselves that probably has less to do with body issues than what we're talking about today when you're actually talking about like in the shirt sizes and how we're presenting but i will say i have not made any progress in my body shame that i've been carrying around for my entire life but i truly truly appreciate that the younger generation seen and i know that everybody has their own feelings about things and everybody's on their own journey i don't mean to make a blanket blanket statement but generally speaking when you look around at younger people who are i don't know maybe you know in their early 20s and younger um no matter what their body shape is being like seemingly so much more comfortable and saying, I'm going to wear this shirt. I'm going to wear this shirt that shows off my midriff. And maybe it's not a midriff that, you know.

Historically has been valued.

Yeah, I'm trying to think, like, that Sarah Michelle Gellar, which I'm just proud that I pulled that out, would have been flashing.

I am too, and I also want to say a happy belated anniversary to her and Freddie Prinze Jr., who just celebrated 22 years of marriage. We covered that last week when you were gone.

No. But anyway, you know what I mean? Like, you'll sometimes even see, And I see people post this on Instagram, like, and I can't remember. remember the specific example but it'll be like three co-stars from some movie or tv show from the 90s and one of them was supposed to be the heavy one and they're all just like in great shape you know and just like and you and i are kind of a product of that and i like to think that i'm i'm broken in individual ways as well that society maybe can't take the credit for um but anyway i am i am just i i adore the fact that i would say again i don't want to say that nobody is burdened with unrealistic expectations for their bodies. But when I see people of all body types who are like kind of younger and just feeling themselves, it truly gives me like very uplifting feelings.

We are both hugely into body positivity, except for ourselves. Us, exactly. Even each other. We have each other's backs. We just don't have our own backs. I am actually often describing you to people and I'm going, I'm like, when you meet Andrew, it's not going to be whatever it is you're expecting. It's not going to be that.

If he were to rob a bank, they wouldn't describe him as an ogre.

Like, seriously, because your sort of, you know, your self-description of just various things about how you feel about yourself, etc. It's like, it's always a thrill to watch people meet you. Because it's like, they're like, I've had literally more than one person take me aside and go, that was not what I was expecting.

They come up to me and they say, are you the guy who's going to let Andrew out of the basement? Like, when do we get to see this creature?

I mean, it's very smart, actually. You're very, like, you're definitely managing expectations way, way, way down. I guess I'm just saying, when I was traveling and when you'll be traveling soon, you know, it's sort of the Hippocratic Oath for us, which is first, do no harm, to how bad we could look in the world. Like, if I had a message to the men of Italy, it was like, go up one size. Just go for it. And again, that's actually really not even about, like, somebody's particular weight. It's just like I don't think a tight-fitting shirt on a guy is ever a particularly great look.

I mean, ever. I mean, we were talking about Swayze recently.

I am thinking about guys that are kind of in my similar state. Yeah, okay. I was going to say. Right, if you're some complete hunk. I mean. Gosh, you could get away. But then it's just like, you know, why are you showing off? You need to make it like, oh, what was your problem with the hit man? you thought glenn powell was far too cut to be a kind of nerdy college professor well it did

really strain credulity and i mean i liked that movie for what it was i had no idea what it was going in other than that um our boy link later had directed it and you had mentioned it on the show oh link later's got a new movie and it was only in theaters for like one day before bumping to netflix so i went on a wednesday afternoon to see it i had no idea if it was going to be like super high-minded and artsy or this was more of his like kind of straightforward kind of more fun romps um but i had literally no idea what the plot was and i didn't even know who glenn powell was going into it because i hadn't seen top gun or his early things and this was at the beginning of i believe his summer surge when he was on everybody's lips oh oh if only he were on everybody's lips um but yeah i right away was kind of like wait a second why are they doing the as somebody put on instagram recently like oh this whole movie hitman is basically the oh the ugly girl is wearing glasses and then she takes them off and suddenly she's super hot. At least the other girl's

Glenn Powell. Yeah, exactly. He gives some credit to Progress.

Yes, exactly. He is a snack, as they say. I don't imagine that him or Kurt Russell could ever wear a shirt that I would describe as too

tight. A young Kurt Russell. You're talking like Captain Jack? No, Captain Ron?

I think Captain Ron is what you're thinking of. I still haven't

dealt into those waters. I was going to say Big Trouble in Little China But I feel like that movie is so racist It probably is I thought it was great when I was a kid But I know that that movie Has got to be just full of Really terrible stereotype stuff I actually read the Texas Monthly piece That Hitman Was based on It's a great read I read it after I watched the movie And I didn't even mean to read it It came up in some feed And I was like well I've seen the movie And I started reading it It was so well done that I ended up getting through the whole thing. And it actually kind of lowered my opinion of the movie in a way. What it did was it reminded me how much you need to Hollywood something up if you are hoping to have a hit on your hands. Because the article itself was just great. It was so well done. But because of, I sort of retroactively could see all the places where they kind of like went and did something slightly different so that it would be more like movie-ish than the real story, which was plenty entertaining.

Yeah, I don't I don't think this is a spoiler, but, you know, obviously the movie is based on some real events, but it also is like you're watching it. You're like, how could this part be true? And so at the very end, I believe they reiterate.

that the story is based on some true events, but don't they even say, except for part X or part Z? Right, and they do something very clever.

They're showing pictures of the real guy that this was based on, which I actually really appreciate. I love that kind of reveal at the end, so you have a little bit more of a sense of the real person in there. Speaking of incredible journalism, Andrew, over the weekend I had that TV story where I interviewed Ryan Seacrest go on television, which was, let me just, between you and me and the 10s, boy, that was a lift, because they needed the, I didn't know this, they needed the piece to air before the first Wheel of Fortune episode featuring Ryan Seacrest hit television.

Which comes out a week from yesterday, I believe, the 9th, Monday the 9th.

Yeah, but the problem is the 8th is a political show for the TV, like, basically the 8th would have been The natural day to do it but that's Next Sunday but it's also A day that was already like it's blocked Out for Sunday morning it's a politics show So it had to So I was like well if his show starts on the 9th We'll do this for the 8th I'll go on my big Trip I'll come back I'll You know jam that story out Like then even maybe I'll go Back down to LA and interview him then what I found out Was no it needs to air on Like September 1st this is before I go on my trip so that involved Flying to LA doing this like interview, red eyeing to Nashville and then writing the story while in Nashville and then trying to update it while in parts of Europe, like getting, and our buddy John Goodwin is who produced it. And he, and my other buddy, Mike Levine was the editor. Um, and they were great because they basically like only hit me up when it was kind of like, okay, we need you to do this now. It wasn't like a, normally there's like a real dialogue that's going, but everybody was being pretty chill because i was kind of trying to be on vacation but um i uh the story aired or whatever and then i i was reading the new york post yesterday and i saw a headline it says vanna white was very scared about her wheel of fortune chemistry with ryan seacrest and i just thought huh she must be just like shopping that quote around to everybody because i feel like she said that to me when i interviewed her and i click on the story and it's just the new york post writing a story about the story that i did i mean not about me but about like just taking the things that the people who i interviewed those people being ryan seacrest and vanna white taking what they said and making it a story that you could read in print now to their credit it said during this weekend's episode of cbs sunday morning and then there's like a hyperlink so they were not trying to like steal any valor um they're just but it's a very i don't i i'm this kind of like sort of content creation i guess has been going on for a long time i just it's never been about something i did and i actually can't make up my mind if i'm i think i'm flattered by it to be totally honest and again it's not like they tried to like fully make this their story like they admit right up top this is based on something that happened on tv but then if you breezed past that part you're just reading an article that's just a rewrite of what I did pulling quotes that like Ryan Seacrest said to me although I did also feel so by the way this was somebody named Eric Tedisco writing for the New York Post and it's also complicated because I think the flattery is that I bet you this guy's job is to watch Sunday morning every week and other shows like that and do this kind of repurposed journalism if you will like oh our readers of the New York post they know who vanna white is they probably have thoughts and so a quote a pull quote from her saying she was very scared about something that'll get a couple clicks and so uh yeah they

just go and they just basically like write about vanna white and ryan seacrest and use the quotes that they said in the uh article there was another thing that was kind of funny i wrote this line about ryan seacrest hosting his first episodes of wheel of fortune because i went and was watching I was getting to watch him do some of his first episodes We haven't aired yet But I was in the studio And he seemed really comfortable to me And then I put that in the article, in my piece Purely as a transition line In other words, I needed to get from some kind of thought To another thought Another quote really from him And the way to bridge that in my mind was just to say He seemed comfortable when we were watching him But then they're reporting on me They're saying According to CBS Sunday Morning The American Idol host seemed quote seemed comfortable in his new tv job so that is now the new york post i guess just going off of my opinion that he seemed comfortable at his new tv job so that was the part that was kind

of funny to me i had some questions i had read i have not seen your cbs piece but you included a link in the show sheet today uh for this post piece so i read it this morning and i was i mean it doesn't strike me as being as odd that they basically took another story and rewrote it, rewrote it, they rewrote it because you and I, I feel like I use source material on this show and talk shows all the time that do that. The New York Times will have an in-depth political piece, but I scan the whatever version of whatever blog that basically rewrites it and gives you the highlights of it, you know, like there are just, it's just such a common thing. But I can imagine when it's your source material, how shocking that is. So I'm not trying to be dismissive of what you're saying. I'm just saying as the person who I'm not directly involved with it. So it seems like pretty common practice in 2024. I did want your opinion, though, on something. So clearly there were a couple of places in this. I mean, and I mean, I don't want to overstate it and I'll let you comment on it. But it was clear that they wanted to like at least slightly give the impression that they broadened it out and got some other source material. I saw that they quoted somebody in the Daily Mail talking about it. she just doesn't uh jibe with ryan like she did with pat and no one really expected her to a source claimed about her in the daily mail and then it says that the post also reached out to somebody but this was luke this i believe was an insider close to the post not somebody who was named it says however an insider close to seacrest told the post there is absolutely no truth to that story they have started working together and they're having a lovely time on set the truth of the matter is this is all like who no no offense but like i really don't care how while they get along on set um and it's also silly but i did you at least notice or appreciate the nods towards trying to say okay we took some source material from sunday morning and then then

tried to stretch it out a little bit yeah i think they threw a little um you know whatever you want to throw into the soup kind of thickened it up a little bit but like uh it's funny because when i was talking to vanna white and asked her if she was nervous or whatever as she said uh then she said something about how we're getting on she goes despite what they're saying online and i was like oh really i didn't even know that and she's like oh yeah and so she on tape went on this whole yeah she went on this whole thing about how like everyone thinks they don't like each other but they like each other and it just seemed like and that was not what you were going in with and that

sort of now that it's written up in the post that way it's almost like she sort of did she sort of create this a little bit by well i think she just noted blowing i think what i said to her was i was

like you read the comments i mean none of this is in the story but this happened right like to be honestly this maybe maybe this is uh gets into issues of my due diligence before these stories i i didn't know that there was anyone saying they didn't like each other it's like you said truthfully it's the i mean you and i famously are not on speaking terms outside of the show and yet we do this five days a week it kills um you know to great effect like to me it's like i don't actually think they have to be friends although i'll be honest with you now having met both of them they both seemed incredibly nice i would be shocked if they didn't like each other they're both like damn this is a good job we have and we really have to just like kind of chop it up however briefly on these episodes and be nice people to each other and we both get paid handsomely like what's not to like like i would be i would have been super shocked if there was any truth to this idea that there was any tension having met both neither one of them seems like a tense person so when she brought that up i was just kind of like oh i didn't even know i didn't know that was even going on but whatever and then it's funny that that's where the new york post went with it sure boy if they would have had boy we i could have saved them some time reaching out to someone very close to seacrest because i literally have vanna white addressing that very topic we just

didn't think it was interesting enough and you're not the person who's close to seacrest i take it um that they're quoting here i had another question for you oh not a question just another observation about this piece which again seems to really it doesn't sound like your piece is focused on are they getting along or are they not but the post is just going where like the social media of course fire is but also i like the way vanna tell i don't i don't think i don't know if this came from your story or not but she's like you know there's you know addressing the rumors that we're not getting along here's a photo of us having dinner together and she captioned it friends at work and friends outside of work it's like vanna like well that's the thing why that seems so fake like anybody can that wasn't from our social media that wasn't from our piece because

that was something she did on social media but it gets back to that thing where she without prompting from me immediately wanted to dispel this idea that they don't like each other and i think it's because having met her for all of 20 minutes she seems like a deeply nice person who is not into being a part of conversations about how like she doesn't like people or they don't like her because i think genuinely there's probably nobody that doesn't like her and she again i just couldn't see any universe in which she would have a problem with anyone including Ryan Seacrest, I think it probably legitimately bummed her out that there was this like weird speculation that they did. So it's kind of like, yeah, it's a little bit sort of trying too hard to, but it's, it's to me, it's the reaction from someone who's not used to having articles, negative articles or, or like.

I don't know like drama filled articles written about their work who like and also it's not true I mean it would be like as if and this would never happen as if like if you and I if somebody really was trying to write things about how we don't like each other probably the impulse would be like that's totally silly like like you'd want to correct the record like her wanting to correct the record on this I think speaks to the fact that it's totally untrue and it bothers her which I find kind of charming like you're one of the more well-known and beloved people on television like practically ever and i would think she would just be so over any kind of like speculation comment comments commentaries whatever she'd just be like well that's the internet but she's like no like hey i want you to know that we like each other you know i i think the comparison the the

analogy between this and let's say you and me and our toxic relationship is slightly there there is a complicating factor i'm not just trying to be funny emphasis on the trying but there's another dynamic here specifically when it comes to vanna white though i think because it's not just hey do we get along and do andrew and luke get along it would be more like if and this would never happen for a million reasons but if you left tbtl for some reason um forced or otherwise i'm let's just say there's a trail um and then somebody else came in to sort of sit in your chair somebody else came in to do the intros and do everything that you know what i mean the kind of the main hosting the hard work exactly and i and i just have somebody else i'm supposed to interrupt every i have it on 5.4 seconds i have to interrupt um no but it's in your contract and then there are these stories about andrew the guy who is sort of second fiddle but also the person who stuck around and is the legacy person, is not getting along with the new guy or the new person or whoever that would be. That adds a layer to it. It's not just, hey, we want to dispel these rumors, but also me personally, Andrew, don't want to seem shallow or little or like, oh, I can't get along because I was friends with Pat and now I'm going to be sort of the legacy person who's maybe stamping around or being a little bit particular about the new guy. It's not just about both of them. It specifically, I think, would land on her and speak to her personality if there are any truth to these things, which is maybe why she is especially, you know, if I'll use the word maybe slightly defensive on that.

I think you're totally right. I hadn't thought of it that way. And again, I think that that's probably a world that she's pretty unused to being in because I don't think it's a show that's been, you know, it was not a show that was surrounded by controversy except for maybe towards the end. I think when Sajak might have had some like political takes or something, but none of that involves her. I think it was just kind of like this American institution of television That didn't, when it got Attention it was never because of some sort of Scandal or an issue, it wasn't like the Price is Right Where there was like problems with the like You know, Barker's beauties And things like that, like I think there was some Stuff that went down, like this was just a show That was pretty scandal free And so if the media Out of just an absolute dearth of things To talk about, and by the media I mean like the New York Post and the Daily Mail That's the other thing about this that was like, I'm flattered that I guess on the fundamental level, I'm flattered that I get to do the kind of work that actually makes it into the conversation in this other way. It probably truthfully makes me feel semi-relevant. It's also sad it was the New York Post, the worst newspaper in America that I also read every day.

I was going to say, but also one of your most regular reads.

So, you know, but again, with a deep level of self-loathing as I'm doing it, because it's like, I mean, it's the land of like every time Trump tries to float a nickname for Vice President Harris, it ends up on the front of the New York Post. Like they're just right there with him. Like it's there. And it's like the the the the editorials are just it's just so bad. it's the fox news it's like a judge janine piero's fever dream most of the new york post is just it's just absolute it's just terrible it's just the worst but they do have some funny stories sometimes the headlines are kind of are kind of entertaining it is it's it is one of my regular reads but i feel really kind of i don't feel great after reading the new york post because as i'm scrolling through like kind of tabloidy stories that don't involve me i like it it's kind of like you know it's it's a fun read it's it's completely sort of sort of you know it's like eating sugar or something it feels good in the moment and then i go by the editorials i mean if i were just to go to like i'm not going to whatever to go to today's edition of the new york post there'd be three headlines that you and i both would just like want to jump off a cliff after reading because it would just be you know terrible uh clickbaity anti you know immigrant like they're they're like the kings of like new york is dying which i feel is just the worst look when you're in a town like you know it's like it's just anyway all that is to say i was surprised i guess i'll say pleasantly that there's somebody now the next that that somebody was rewriting some of my work the next thing i've got the next code i have to crack is getting onto the damn howard stern show for one of my sunday morning pieces um they're also back this week by the way i'm so flipping excited like as the tens are to tbtl i am to the stern show and they've been on break for a long time dude like i mean listen to the tens uh who who you know listen through some of the special programming we do a couple times a year or whatever thank you appreciate it love the downloads um but i will just say uh any like slight break in normal content that tbtl might take it's got nothing on what they do on this third show they were gone for

like almost three months like i was gonna say i don't think because i you know i i again i bring it up whenever possible. I am now a proud subscriber at the $5 a month level of Sirius Satellite Radio, and I plan on canceling it. I've got to figure out how you did that, because I'm getting soaked. It's an introductory offer, so it's one of those things where you were mentioning this about- I'm going to delete the cookies in my cash and try to re-log into Sirius. Exactly. I may have to dump it when that $5 offer goes away in a year. I have it marked literally on my calendar, cancel Satellite Radio. But I was going to say, since I've had it, I don't think that The Stern Show has been producing new episodes like sometimes when i do have access to the satellites i will uh i'll i'll mess around with that a little bit but i think in the back of my head i've been like i don't know every time i try that it i'm getting tricked into re-listening to something that was you know i'll be like yeah i'll be enjoying it and then 10 minutes in i hear a reference to something that was like oh this was basketball season and then suddenly i just i don't care anymore isn't that the weirdest thing

I mean, that's what we try to, with some success, counteract. I mean, I was thinking about this yesterday as we were dialing up the show on Labor Day, and you and I didn't even have a conversation about if we were working Labor Day. Now, listen, I know this is like, is it work what we're doing? And also, get down off the cross, burbs. This ain't that hard. But you and I, I am proud of the fact that we never put a rerun out, ever, all year round. like that is a pretty insane thing to do and and and again you know i'm sure there are some shows that are more listenable than others and people like it to be the drumbeat of our daily lives which i think that's probably the to the degree that there's some sort of dynamic in this show that resonates with people i think that it's just kind of a running daily sort of like code diary or something if that makes sense and when we break out of that it can be a little tough for the listeners um uh but but it's just like yeah uh that show is they go on hiatus for extremely extremely long periods of time so i'm very excited they're going to be getting back to things um and i was in italy and howard stern was in italy so that's another way that i feel like there's a parallel uh track uh for both shows although i kind of feel like he was staying at nicer places

than we were you think so um well i i wanted to mention i mean or maybe reiterate something i've told you on the show i've been listening to more um levitard show not as obsessively as i was for a while and getting much quicker with the kind of skip button if an episode isn't for me but um listening more and they are all uh big sunday morning heads and sometimes they'll start rattling off some of the uh the correspondence i haven't heard your name yet but you know that i mean i i think it's inevitable that eventually they'll maybe name drop you and if that is the case I am wondering if I will be the one to break that news to you before a listener. That's a real question I've had in my head.

John Takamoto will be telling me immediately when it happens.

I don't think John's got as much time on his hands as I do to listen to that much levitard.

Is John still the person on the Facebook page who gives the update when he's posted? Is that still a thing?

I think so, but I don't know. I just consider all of our listeners to be more productive members of society than me. They just don't have time to be digging through that much levitard.

I don't think I'll get name checked on either of these shows but even if they were just talking about a story I did that would be enough because what they'll be talking about is the person in the story the story itself it won't be like I'm working on a piece I'm going to go to California and interview the guy that made Tiger King he's got a new show out called Chimp Crazy and I'm doing a profile of him as this kind of unlikely sort of cultural force his name is Eric Good and the story on him is he was like a nightclub impresario in new york and then started all these restaurants he was a very very successful nightclub and restaurateur guy but he always loved reptiles and he got really into like turtle conservancy and he got really immersed in this world of like conserving animals and he had all this money so he moves out to like oh hi california and he starts making these little like

Nature docs that are like nobody is watching but he just like truly has a real heart for these animals And in fact runs this big turtle conservancy now and in along the way of doing this He started like encountering some of these sort of animal collector peoples and he's always working on these different Like he's shooting for years and years because he's self-financed So he can just shoot all this footage and then figure out where the story is Like he doesn't go in knowing the end of the story And that's how he ended up with the Tiger King and Carole Baskin and all that. He's got a new one out called Chimp Crazy.

So I was going to ask you, but I guess I'm clear there. But I was unclear there if you were talking about the subject of the new documentary or the director himself. So you're saying the director himself, whose name is Eric Good. That's the person you're both interviewing. And he's the one who also worked in the restaurant industry, but then became fascinated himself with the people who are involved in animals. Did you say that he also got involved in animals? Did you say turtles or something?

Yeah, he runs this big turtle conservancy that is like when a zoo shuts down or if there's a poaching operation or something, they will do what they can to get the turtles or tortoises or whatever out of either environments that aren't good for them or places where they might become food or a handbag or something and try to take care of them. Um, and, uh, but the other thing, the other thing is not, this is TBD, I guess, but like we're debating, the producer and I are going around and around, uh, about if we should also go out to like, uh, Missouri, where the sort of like the Joe exotic of this thing is. So in other words, we're going to California. We're going to interview the guy who made the movies. Our first thought was like, let's do a story about this guy who's like in his third act and yet is like the, he's make, I mean, Tiger King was probably the most popular documentary of all time if you go on like views or something. This one, it's called Chimp Crazy, which he said he didn't like the name. He wanted it to be called Ape Shit, but HBO didn't like it. I'm like, Ape Shit is a great

name. Yeah, it is. In HBO, that's the whole point. Is shit even a swear word anymore? And you're HBO. That's the whole point of HBO. It's not television. It's Ape Shit. It's Max

or whatever. But we're trying to decide if it's worth going to the Ozarks to talk to the main real focus of the series who's this woman named tanya who had this very complicated story with a particular chimp named tonka and like do we go talk to her or is that going to make the story like is that going to extend the story into this whole area that we don't really have the time for on television and also it's a different kind of story anyway here's what i'm here's my point if ever like stern or levitard if they ever end up talking about a story i do it will never be a we saw this guy luke burbank on tv it will be uh have you seen the like the lady from chimp crazy right on sunday morning it will always be about whoever we are talking to and i'm fine with that even just i mean this this new york post thing it isn't about me at all it's about vanna white like no one's like luke burbank had a moment to sit down with vanna white it's like vanna white said she was very nervous about something so that's all it will ever be but even if it's just that i think i would be pretty chuffed as we like to say well you already have

controversy swirling around your chimp crazy director of hbo chimp crazy defense controversial tactics amid misrepresentation claims are you up on that scandal you gotta i am very up on that

bottom of this uh what he did was because after he made tiger king he became kind of persona non grata in the like exotic animal community sure as you might imagine yeah and so what he did was he like hired a proxy to pretend to be the director of this documentary so that it wouldn't be like oh it's the guy who made tiger can you be like we're a documentary film crew we're making a thing but he hired someone else to basically just like pretend to be the interviewer and director

well pretend to be or to be the person who's on well i guess that's the is that maybe where the

question of like i guess what the pretend to be means exactly yeah yeah but like so sort of sending someone else in to do the interviews and to kind of be the face of it from the director standpoint so that they wouldn't connect it with him yeah and that gets a lot of attention in the show and it raises a lot of questions i mean he's very there he's very like like it's it's it's talked about a lot it's not like he did this and didn't talk about it it's like a big part of the show oh so you've you've seen screeners huh oh yes oh okay let me just tell you yeah speaking of things this is only this is if you're if you're not phyllis fletcher keep scrolling this is only for my friend phyllis fletcher one of the number one things that howard stern talks about on the howard stern show that is relatable only to me is how unbelievably complicated the studio screener process is when like warner brothers in this case sends you the links to chimp crazy i add scott Ackerman to the list he talks about it all the time on the show it is unbelievably difficult to they send you this content because they want you to have it so you can talk about it and then they make it impossible for you to access the content it is like i could probably hack into the pentagon easier than getting my goddamn warner brothers screener certification he he was talking scott ackerman

on Comedy Bang Bang recently was talking to somebody and I think they joshed him for maybe not having seen the screener yet. And that's kind of part of his character too, is being extremely kind of aloof in a comedic way. I need to start cultivating that as my scene. But he was like, I tried, man. And the third time, I was just like, I'm done. And they're like, oh, the system. And then I remember another time he made an offhand comment saying something like, yes, well, I watched your movie exactly how the director intended, with my name plastered across the center of it because they have all of those anti-privacy things. I remember in L.A., sometimes my friend Matt would give me some of the hot screeners at the time. I would take them back to my sad little Airbnb and watch them, but there's always some sort of, you know, not water print. What do you call the print? Yeah, watermark. Watermark across it. So it's like, oh, I got to see it just as the director wanted me to on a tablet with the world. For your consideration. Yes, exactly, plastered across it

Yeah, that's best case scenario That means you've actually logged in

Yeah, you've gotten into it

The hard part is getting them to Actually, like, anyway But yeah, so Hope springs eternal that I will someday get mentioned Not even me, but my content will get mentioned On one of these shows Thank you for being a 10 Hey, let's thank some daily donors until my ship comes in and I start getting mentioned on Lemon. What is it? What is the Meadowlark Media?

Meadowlark Media, yes.

I almost said Lemon because there's Lemonada, and then Meadowlark's last name was Lemon.

Meadowlark's last name.

The Globetrotter.

Oh, I didn't know.

I always assumed that Meadowlark Media was a reference to Meadowlark Lemon, maybe, who was the most famous Harlem Globetrotter.

That sounds so much cooler than the explanation I read back in the day when they formed it. I think it really has to do with the animal, a meadowlark.

Well, that's also nice. It's nice. It's so boring, though. It'd be more funny if it was like Red Clots Media, who was the manager of the Washington General of the team that the Globetrotters would play.

Now that seems like a levitard project.

Stacey Bryant of Madison, Wisconsin is our first donor that we want to thank today. Thank you, Stacey. Appreciate you. Also, Tiffany Davis checking in from Gig Harbor, Washington, where I'll just mention, I believe this is still the case, if you have to cross the toll bridge to go to the Whole Foods, they will, I think, credit you the amount of the toll. They will discount it from your purchase so that it doesn't cost you money to drive to that Whole Foods. Nice, nice. News you can use. Very smart. Yeah. Jamie Carpenter is in Murphy's Borough, Tennessee. Murphy's Borough.

That is a toughie. So it's Murphree. So there's two R's.

I think I've been saying it wrong all these years, too. I think I've been calling it Murphy's Burrow. I think I've been leaving out that F.

Well, who would blame you? What judge would convict you for that? That's a lot of R. That's what we call an F sandwich there because you got an R, an F, and an R. Yeah. And some people would say that's an R sandwich, but I would say no sandwiches aren't named after the bread. Sandwiches are named by what's between the bread. Ooh, smart. And in this case, that's an F.

You should start a podcast called The Spoonful.

I really, I will consider it.

That's a very, very interesting observation that I've literally never considered, which is sandwiches are named for the thing between the bread.

Yeah, and so in this case, it's an F sandwich, but I'm focusing on the R's, which is that's a tough thing to do to somebody, put an R on each side of a letter.

I don't know how close Murfreesboro is to where I was staying when I did that story about that marbles tournament. That should have made it on Levitard.

did that make it on the made it on television

it's about basically a marbles tournament in Tennessee but that was when I was staying out at this little airbnb out on this farm and there were those donkeys that I would feed every morning

I loved it I remember the donkeys I was daydreaming about marbles I could see myself getting into marbles I don't think I'm going to I think I've got other things to be obsessed with but I could see myself getting into marbles

I could absolutely see you getting into this. It's the same kind of thing. You set up this, you kind of make this little area of your yard, I think it's actually called maybe a marble yard, and you just go out there after work or whatever in the warm Tennessee evening and you just kind of spin these marbles in this certain way.

It's got strong darts kind of vibes. And the sensation of having a bag of marbles. I mean, we just have some marbles upstairs in a bowl just for the very reason that I like to, well, I think they, I don't know what they're left over from, but Genevieve put them in a little bowl. And I like to sometimes just go up to the mantle at our fireplace upstairs and just play with the marbles in the bowl. Did you know, before we thank our next donor, that my grandfather used to, he would always make jokes about, you know, aging and how one of these days he was going to die. and we were going to go visit him in the Marble Orchard. He'd always say, I'm heading off to the Marble Orchard. You ever hear that one before?

I don't know if I have, but I like it. It makes it sound very, very beautiful. I was in a, when I was in San Francisco, I was walking around a cemetery because one of the stories that I'm working on is about what happens if you pass away in San Francisco and nobody identifies your body. There's a guy who will take the remains out in the bay and give them a very respectful, albeit Celine Dion related, final resting place. But we were walking around in this, this is the, okay. We're here to talk about Italy, Andrew, not this fact, but there is this town outside of San Francisco that I think could be its whole own story. That it's where all, there are no, there are only like a couple of cemeteries in San Francisco because the real estate is so expensive and it's just so tightly packed. It's not a place that lends itself to big, large grass areas where people are underground. So at some point, they moved all the remains of pretty much everyone out to this town that's like 20 minutes outside of San Francisco. And now it's like there's 70,000 souls in this town. Of course, I can't call it to mind right off the top of my head. But there's like 70,000 remains there, and there's like 1,500 people live in this town. It's all cemeteries. they moved everybody out there and at the time they probably thought this is a million miles away no one's ever going to go here and now of course just a suburb like that people live you know near and around and stuff it's just all it's all cemeteries you know i am not particular

about what happens to me after i pass on i've said i don't want to be like kind of buried in a traditional cemetery with like that big casket or whatever it seems like kind of a it doesn't seem like a very economical name of the town but oh okay it doesn't seem like a very good use of of space and like i don't know i don't like that idea i'm always you know cremate me and whatever i don't i don't i'm not somebody who's super into like ceremony but just now while we were talking about that i was like oh you know what would be fun is if you just shot me up in like a firework or something like take my cremains i'm like but that can't be legal but i googled it while you

were talking and it is what hunter s thompson did i thought he was shot out of a cannon i was i guess

i meant just like in the spirit of being projected into the sky sure yeah but in and but of course I'm no Hunter S. Thompson. I didn't think that somebody like me... Well, you don't have a Johnny Depp to come in and pay for the goddamn launch,

which I think is what happened to Hunter S. Thompson. And I'm not going to be your Johnny Depp. Yeah, Johnny Depp

actually, he paid for it, and also, did he actually pull the string or light the fuse? I thought he did. But either way, there's a whole host of services that are called cremation fireworks, so that is a very attainable thing for me if I wanted to go up in a firework. Okay. As long as I'm not on the hook for it financially, I'm into it.

I think we can get Veeves to pay for this. And as long as uh let's see uh paula fowler of burion washington isn't on the hook either no but

but paula can come to the fireworks show if you want paula can pull the string paula can light

the fuse as a thank you also uh beth middlehoven of renton can help absolutely still in the area yeah and they're both renton burion i mean they could carpool probably yeah um and then on the way out to wherever we're doing this don bligh they can pick up don bligh who's in seattle Washington. Burien, Renton,

Seattle. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Holy Trinity. Yeah, we'll do it someplace central. Well, thank you to all of our donors today for making TBTL possible. We could not, and we should not, honestly, and we would not do this without you. That rights-free music, Andrew, can only mean one thing. It's time for the TBTL Travel Guide, Curing Lonely Planetness. Day one.

Rome this really puts me there by the way doesn't it absolutely just imagine

it's about a hundred and five degrees cobblestone I can taste massive amounts of cigarette smoke just clouds of cigarettes really it is really wild to be in a country where people are just absolutely chain-smoking constant

smoking you know i often look down at this great country of ours and i always think that we kind of have some of the worst habits of the developed world but honestly that's a good little little reminder you know the u.s really did and especially as as a place that grows so much tobacco and is you know and is now we don't live in the american south so i don't know how you know in the states where you can still smoke down there boy when you're just farming zins now is that is that like a vaporizer product no it's this white packets that you put in your

your mouth and they're just pure nicotine they're sort of it's like it's like a tobacco dip except it's contained yeah packet and it's it's promoted as being healthier because it doesn't have all of the ingredients from chewing tobacco and the fiberglass. But it's TBD on that. But it really like the Zin market has exploded. So it turns out those tobacco companies are still going to find their way.

Life finds a way. Absolutely. Now I'm going to get emails from people sending me all the smoking and vaping rates in the U.S. and saying how far we have to go. I'm not trying to say good job brownie on an aircraft carrier. I'm just saying that that is kind of a good reminder that There was a huge public health push in this country 20 years ago. It was at the late 90s, whenever that lawsuit, whenever that class action lawsuit went through. And it actually has kind of worked in a lot of ways.

It certainly has, anecdotally. Now, here was something. I looked it up at some point. Becca and I were in some airport somewhere, and I was like, I want to get eyes on where the U.S. is compared to Italy. And this is going to sound insane. And I think this data was just out of whack. But like they were trying to say They trying to say Americans had a higher Smoking rate than Italy But I can just tell you anecdotally Not even flipping close Not like Everywhere first of all you can smoke outdoors But in like the you know if you're in an outdoor Cafe which is pretty much everything this time Of year there in Rome You can smoke we were constantly Surrounded by cigarette smoke that doesn't happen In the US if you're sitting in an outdoor cafe First of all it's not even allowed So that was a bit of an adjustment But what happened was We left from JFK We flew, got to Rome And it was like 6 in the morning And basically what it meant is We'd flown all through the night We took effectively a red eye And we get to the hotel And I noticed one thing And people, if you're going to Italy Maybe be prepared for this There's a certain brusqueness That I think I probably am going to attribute to the language barrier, even if somebody is fluent in English, like they can speak English in a way that helps transmit the information. There's a nuance that I think is lost sometimes because I noticed that I was often asking a question or asking for something and the answer was just no, like as opposed to in the US, it'd be like, ah, I'm so sorry, you know, usually, but like, for instance, we get to the hotel now it's like seven in the morning. It's already about a hundred degrees, right? We've been on the plane. I'm in long pants and like, I just feeling gross, you know, like 15, 16 hours of flight and not sleeping. And, and then we get to the hotel and now granted it was way early, but because I am, uh, you know, a platinum elite bond Voyager, I've just gotten very used to special treatment at hotels. Like pretty much if I show up, they're like, yeah, we've got a room for you. I'm also used to staying in really large hotels, chain hotels. This was a little hotel in Rome And we show up And I was like, we're here And the woman just, I go, could we get in our room? And the woman just goes, no And Becca goes, it is 7am Or whatever, it is like 7.30 I was like, that's a really good point It's almost a full day ahead of when our reservation starts With this place But what that meant was We basically checked our stuff Like our bags And then we were just like flung out into the world for like seven or eight hours and that's not something i'm very good at anymore like i'm i'm very as i was saying on yesterday's show my sleep has been kind of weird i'm very precious about my sleep and i'm not a trooper that will come as no surprise to the listeners but i'm just not the kind of person who's like because i've been very fortunate that i sleep pretty well i don't have a

lot of experience with like not sleeping for a whole day and then just going on with my life If I don't sleep for a whole day I cancel my life the next day And go like I'm not doing life today I'm sorry I need to just wait around Until I can go to sleep because I feel Unwell if I didn't sleep and now I'm supposed to just be A normal person that's how a lot of the globe is Operating like for whatever reason It's like maybe they don't get a lot of sleep because Of all kinds of things and then it's just Time to go and be a person I'm such A little delicate flower Around that stuff Becca not so much Just like you know Might get a good night's sleep might not It's never just like, I slept bad last night, I slept poorly, and so now I'm just not doing anything today. She was like, all right, let's hit the road. And I was like, oh, do we have to? Well, she's also like half your age. Half my age, half my size, twice my energy, four times my beauty.

I've never been the type of person.

who's great you know even when i was a young person and should have had that kind of energy i'm not somebody who likes um i've always liked to like okay reset let's take a shower and now prepare for this thing i'm not somebody who likes to just like oh okay i have to check my bags and then wander around a foreign town after just feeling sweaty and grimy i've never been that

person i'm more like take a shower sleep for six hours and it turned out to be great actually Because we couldn't do that I didn't get to just like sleep all day And then just like first of all blow up day one of being there Like my conception was we'll fly all night It'll be miserable We'll get there We'll check into the hotel We'll sleep all of Sunday We'll just waste Sunday completely And then I don't know figure it out from there And Becca was like I would vote we don't waste Sunday And this will become an emerging theme on this trip We did so many things that would not have been exactly how I did them if I was by myself and I'm so glad we did them the way we did them you know and maybe this is something Andrew you can take on your big trip you're taking which I think you probably do anyway but it's like I was pushed out of my comfort zone to a certain degree or out of my whatever out of my just having things exactly how I would have zone and I was always really happy that it ended up going the way it went because I think my thing is to prize my own comfort and my own like I don't know just whatever it is my own little plan or something and and and think well i'm on vacation i shouldn't ever be doing anything that isn't exactly how i want to do it but then again for one thing we did end up just being out and doing things on sunday and we got so much in we walked to the vatican and you know i'm not a particularly catholic person but there is something about so we we get to the vatican and uh we we just start getting in this random line not to go into the vatican which by the way they're doing mass like every hour and you don't have to show any paperwork that you're catholic you could just go sit in this mass if you want which is kind of again it's not my personal like faith practice but there is something undeniably beautiful about being in the vatican when mass is going on like we what we did was we got in this other line I thought we were going to the Sistine Chapel We weren't, we were going to this Basically I don't know, 500 or 600 Step Like, okay, so here's what happened We got in this line at the Vatican I didn't really know what we were doing I thought I would try to ask the guy at the front Can we go to the Sistine Chapel I asked him in English, he responded, no Which would become a theme on the trip It was like, it's closed I was like, oh, okay, because it was Sunday I guess they closed the Vatican Museum which is how you get to the Sistine Chapel. But we did have this other thing, which is the top of this basilica. It's basically the big high dome that's above the Vatican. Is it the St. Thomas Basilica? That sounds like it could be a thing.

Yeah, sounds like it could be a thing to me too. No, just when you said basilica, that name popped in my head, but I don't know if I'm talking about it.

I think it's St. Paul's Cathedral. I think that the cathedral itself is maybe called St. Paul's, and I don't know what the name of the basilica is, but that seems like it might be the name. But what happens, now again, imagine I'm at like, I'm in the words of our friend Gus, I'm grimy, I'm slimy, I need a shower.

Oh, wait, no, that's, I think that's listener Brett's kid doing an imitation of me.

In the words of listener Brett's kid, is that Rockwell?

Yes, it is. Thank you. I apologize, Rockwell, for not remembering your name on the fly. Luke is good at that.

Good job. um i so we this this also by the way again i'm not trying to i'm not trying to throw becca under any buses here but if you want to know one thing about my girlfriend it's that she's going to get her steps in and if there is ever the opportunity to do the walking version or do the elevator version we're doing the walking version and i looked at her so there was like to get in most cases you'd be the same though right absolutely yeah typically speaking when it's not 100 degrees And I'm not in my J.Crew tech pants Which are filling up with sweat My back, like our friend Camaro Kev would say My back was a waterfall All week But it's like we get in the line And it's like, okay, there's the tickets that you take the elevator And then there's the tickets you take the step And I go, which one would you prefer? She goes, have you met me? And I was like, alright, we're doing the steps So we did, we take the steps So then we go up this thing And it's like On a crisp November day If I'd had a full night's sleep, it would have been no big deal, but it was not that, and it was warm, and I was really getting sweat, like just getting over het, as they might say. But we go up this endless stairs, and then we emerge, and I didn't even know what we were emerging into, but we emerge into this, you wouldn't like this, by the way, Andrew, this walkway that is, it felt like it was about 300 feet above the... floor the ground floor of the vatican where the mass was going on you're like up in heaven in this thing and they're doing the mass and they're singing and you're just like you don't really expect what you're about to see which is like these incredible frescoes this art that's just again it's not important to me religiously but it was just it's undeniably beautiful and you look down and it's like this mass is going on and it was just like beautiful like we both kind of becca and I both, like, stopped and had a moment of being emotional from just the ambiance.

So it's like a – I'm sorry. I'm taking away the emotional core of your story, but I was trying to picture it better. What is the – so it's like a long walk. It's almost like a catwalk.

It's a big, round catwalk. Imagine – so you can walk around the entire – because you're up in a dome now.

Okay, yeah.

So you've walked up all these stairs to get to this round walkway that is at almost the top of this basilica. And if you look down, which, by the way, that's the part you wouldn't like.

You look over the edge, though. You don't look between your feet. You look over the little, okay, gotcha.

There's a railing, and you look over the rail, and if you're me, you tell yourself, don't lose your mind.

Yeah, I'm losing my mind as you describe this, actually.

Like, I had that actually a fair amount on this trip, which was something like the Eiffel Tower, which I'm going to talk about on a later episode. But it's like there there was a good number of times where I was like really saying, don't lose your mind. Like, I know you're not going to jump off this. In fact, you're really afraid of falling off this. But why would that make you crazy and make you jump off this? Don't do that. I was it was a battle that I was on a lot of this trip. But anyway, this basilica was really, truly beautiful. Would highly recommend it. Then, as we were walking out, again, just because we had time to kill, I did something that I've never done before, which was one of those, there was just hawkers everywhere. Just like, that room is just full of people trying to sell you stuff. A lot of folks who have come from, like, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and South Asia, like, that seems to be a group of folks that are doing a lot of, like, these buses, these hop-on, hop-off buses. so the guy is just selling you hey you want to take this bus tour and I'll give you a deal on it and it's hop here's the map it's hop on hop off and so I was like we still have so much time to kill and frankly I wanted to stop walking so I was like let's just buy one of these bus tickets which again I always think everything is a scam this is why sometimes traveling internationally is stressful for me because I feel like I'm always getting scammed even when I'm not even when I'm just paying the price that it costs for something I was like, I'm sure this guy is going to like just fleece us, but I don't know what else to do. And it's like, no, it's like, you know, the tickets were like, I don't want, I don't know. The tickets are supposed to be like 25 euros a piece. And of course I'm like 20. And he's like, if I do 20, I don't get any commission. And I was like, just like it or lump it. He's like, all right. And then later I just paid him the 25 because he was a sweetheart. But he sells us the tickets. He walks us over to kind of where the bus is. And he's like, oh, it's across this bridge. Gene's like, see that? That's your bus. They come every 10 minutes. So we go over there, and that bus is already left, now we're waiting for the next bus. And I swear, until we actually, the bus came and we got on and they accepted our ticket, I was like, we definitely bought fake tickets. Like, this is 100% not going to work. It was exactly what the guy said.

I know that feeling of, you know, I felt that way as a young adult sometimes just being in U.S. cities, but like taking a cab, I remember. My friend Pauly would sort of like kind of feed into that too. I think I inherited some of his paranoia about that. But he always assumed that, and this is before rideshare services, so you're just getting in the back of a cabbie in the Boston area, and it's always the assumption that this person is going to be going out of their way or taking a long route. And that feeling, and maybe sometimes they were, but having that constant feeling of being worried about being taken, it can really destroy your experience. I felt that once or twice when I was in Mexico, and I had to, like, really, I remember telling you about it later, like, really to kind of talk myself down, like, why were you doing that? Like, at the end of the day, that was how many pesos, which is, like, how many dollars to, like, what were you getting worked up about? But it's, like, this feeling of, like, well, I don't know the language here. I don't know the layout. I have less agency here than I do in other places, so therefore I'm paranoid.

Totally. And I was mostly able to stifle that, but I'm with you. And since this is the TBTL travel guide, I would say to everyone, if you're wired like me and Andrew, try to try to work yourself out of that mindset because it just makes it less fun. The other thing that I found tremendously useful is Uber works in all these countries and it just works with the cab services. So part of it is you could just take an Uber, but also it'll just say like, yeah, we're going to send a cab and here's how many euros it is. And this is the route. and and it was like that's all we that's all we i mean we walked everywhere but when we weren't walking for whatever reason if we need to get from the airport to the thing or something i just

used uber and again uber's corporate culture is probably i don't know what the current status is i know there was a period of time where it was very toxic i truthfully i think these ride share companies really grind down the drivers i don't like that part of it it's sort of like amazon you know like i i don't feel like i'm probably making the world a better place by maybe using these services but on the other hand the relief that i felt when we just i would diet call it on uber we had this one we went out to the aqueduct we decided to we went on this like crazy walk one day we went to see the appian way uh which i highly recommend if you go to rome it was maybe my favorite thing we saw and i've been to rome before but i'd never been out to this it's basically the first what they would call like the first super highway ever really built that they know of and this was a road that went from rome down to pretty close to naples it went like hundreds of miles and you can still walk on like miles of it in this national park and it's crazy to be walking along these these stones that like julius caesar like would have been taken along and stuff like it's a very cool ancient thing but we kind of were on the appian way and it was like we're by the aqueduct do you want to go see that and of course becca was like yeah and i was like uh should we call a cab or walk she was like well how many miles is it like a couple she's like oh we probably should walk then so i put it in the map and of course i can't believe the map would legally let us walk on these roads we were walking on it was so sketch we're just like on all of these roads where there's no shoulder and like too many cars and like but but urban though right urban uh kind of sort of suburban really like i mean it varied because it was a long-ass walk i also i also basically developed this thing i call rome miles so like you know if you walk around green lake that's three miles that doesn't feel at least to probably to you and me generally anyway that doesn't feel like an insanely long walk like it's a kind of a nice relaxing thing to do right like three miles in rome forget it the miles will be 20 because it's like you're constantly like stepping around people you're like avoiding people trying to sell you stuff you're like kind of it's there are no straight lines you know it's like it's like you're constantly weaving down all these different things like so we make it over to the aqueduct which i was kind of expecting i mean the aqueduct themselves is insane how did they do this and by that i mean how did they know so this was a project for the aqueducts right well if you believe rogan probably um the you know the aqueduct was basically the romans figured out that they could get drinking water from the local, I don't know, mountains or something, and they could bring it down to Rome. All they had to do was build this giant trough, which the part about it that I do not understand is how they kept this thing on point as far as the loss of elevation.

Because if I was the guy, think about it, this is miles and miles and miles and miles of this thing. It's like Roman arches, which you can kind of imagine. They were very into that. and then a big trough on top of these it's basically a huge wall that just kind of goes

slightly downhill yeah i can picture that oh by the way saint thomas basilica not a thing i mean it is somewhere else i have no idea where i came up with that having said that i can picture photos

of the aqueduct so it's yeah it's a big thing of stone that starts out at one elevation and then ever so slightly goes downhill so that the water will move downhill but how did the guy in like mile seven make sure that he was just going low enough but not too low like if i was in charge of this let's say it's 100 miles right i don't know how long it was let's say it's 100 miles in mile five i would be hitting the ground i'd be like oh crap you'd already started going i mean it would

suddenly it'd be too steep yeah take a fall yeah it'd be like anytime i try to write out a sign

by hand and i realize like i didn't leave enough space for the final letter yeah right or like a

kid's poster you're making it vote for me for a class and then the dent is sort of like bending

along the ent is going down like that'd be me with the with the aqueduct it'd be like okay we're supposed to make this thing is supposed to lose a little bit of altitude every so far but like i would have totally run it into the ground like five miles in because i would have made a mistake early on and like i don't know how did they i guess they had tape measures or something but like how did they how are they so precise with this like standing on top of it like with your tape measure going okay this part has to be like one micrometer lower than that part and then we just keep doing somebody had to measure where it was at the beginning what it needed to be and then go to the the end of the aqueduct where it's going to feed the water and go that is at that elevation this is at this elevation this is the amount of

elevation loss that needs to be achieved very very like sort of precisely so this will work it's just so many things like that like with the coliseum oh my god dude i don't even know if i really want to get into this because it's kind of a crazy story but like we took a tour of the coliseum which i think i would recommend doing that if you're going to go to the coliseum uh do a tour because first of all it's informative and also you don't have to wait in the same line you kind of pay a little bit of a premium but you get to go around the line which when it's 110 degrees as it was uh was quite welcome to just keep moving but we had this tour guide who i kind of liked but he was a real character so we meet up with him we're in this group of people and one of the things i learned in italy was when you are with a group a tour group in one of these like very active places like the coliseum in rome there will be people constantly coming up to you thinking that this is their group but it's not there's like a thousand tour groups and they're all booked through these different like weird basically like something that google elevated when you said like coliseum tour it's like you know you get the like what i don't know how they add they do the seo but it's like you buy it from some place and then it's an app on your phone and you've got to have the tickets again the whole time i was always expecting all of this to be a scam but it wasn't it like worked but we found the tour guide and we start we're going through the line and a guy and his wife and kids come up because they don't want to wait in the line and they say the guy says hey we want to join the tour and our tour guide who's like kind of comically brusque with people goes no no no no no what he needed to say if i could have like quantum leapt into him would have been to say this tour you have to set it up online i'm sorry but what he said in his kind of somewhat rudimentary english was no no no this is not the tour for you this is not for you and the thing was the guy who was white had a wife who was black and their children and the guy literally says our tour guide why because she's black oh wow yeah real record scratch moment and then our tour guide said well somebody wants to get slapped right now that does not de-escalate things no and i like i i was like i was watching this happen in front of me that I was like can I please help I didn't I was like can I please intercede here and explain that like this is just a thing that was set up on the internet like many hours ago it has nothing to do with anyone's racial identity etc by the way the wife I don't think she even

heard any of this I wonder if they recently had experienced something maybe specifically all the time yeah yeah I don't know like what what that experience would be like in Italy specifically if there's more overt racism or i don't know again i'm a white person so maybe it doesn't have to be more like you say but oh my gosh yeah what uh yeah and you know what's crazy escalated twice like with two sentences that just kept escalating it was a slow speed crash that i

saw happening when the guy said this is not for you i noted that the man's wife was non-white and And I was like, he's gonna hear this as a commentary about her racial background. And he did. And it was very weird to watch it all happen exactly the way I feared it would happen. And what I really thought in that moment was, I'm observing a white person who's finally had a day-to-day experience of what it's like to be non-white in the world. And I didn't even, and I don't wanna speculate, I don't know these people. My guess would be that his wife, who's been a non-white person her whole life, was probably used to it. But what she has is a husband who is now, from being with his wife and is a white guy, has now observed what the world can be like for people who aren't white. And he is especially radicalized by this experience.

They're a younger couple then?

I'd say early 30s, maybe. Everybody's younger than me now, so it's hard to tell.

Everybody's a kid, I know.

But I was like, you know who it wasn't? it wasn't his wife who was like trying to figure out what was going on with this. It was him. And I was like, and then when our guy responded with like, someone is trying to get slapped. I was like, don't please don't. And then amazingly the guy took that to just be like, well, I guess this isn't the tour group for us. Whereas I was like, this is about to go to 11. Right. World star style. So it was going to be serious world star, except as this was happening, we were also passing through security and going into an area that this guy could no longer get to so like it kind of like we were everybody got separated out and it didn't

go past that but becca and i looked at each other like oh that was not ideal wow wow that that also the story though of just like all the different tour groups and everything it does sort of give me agita as you would say a bit like it just it's a little bit like um you know veves and i have traveled to mexico a handful of times in our adult life and um you know i've gotten used to it now so much of stuff that maybe gives me anxiety is just a matter of well you're it's just a new experience you know and then once you're kind of used to it it can be less intimidating but like when you first get and we've been to various cities in mexico um and when you get off the the airplane and you find yourself in the in the sort of airport area where you're going to start looking for your ride whether or not it's public transportation like it was with genevieve because god love her she was just Like, we're going to make public transportation work on our last trip.

But, you know, I can't believe you did that.

I know. Well, she did it. I was I was pretty game for it. But I got to say, by the time we were leaving and I was anxious to get our flight out of there and the bus situation wasn't working, I got a little bit. I don't know if I got cranky, but I got a little quiet about the situation. But I but generally speaking, when you get quiet, Yandy, when you get off the plane and there's just like all these people saying. And that is a moment where you can really feel like you're being pushed into something. Because if you don't know the situation, be like, no, no, you need this car. You need this car. You need a car, sir, sir. It's a bizarre of people kind of shouting at you, everybody trying to get your attention so that you'll take whatever their service is. It can feel overwhelming.

The smart thing about Rome and the same thing with Paris, which are the two major places we were, I guess, is that they both have flat taxi zones. So it's got a big sign. First of all, there's somebody there helping you. who speaks English, and that's, like, so it's, you know, from the airport to anywhere that's in Rome, it's, like, 55 euros or whatever. So you, they've, I think some of these big cities have responded to that kind of agita, we'll just use that word again, to try to, like, make it a little less kind of a Wild West of, like, you know, so you know what the charge is going to be. Although, I will tell you this, we took, I didn't fully unleash the Uber when we first got there. I just didn't know how it was all going to work. I was like, eh, so I just, we got in the cab, and the guy was super nice, he spoke decent English, was really helpful, this is when we arrived in Rome, and as we're driving, in the back of my mind, I'm like, well, we'll just see what this costs, and then it just cost exactly what it was supposed to cost. And the other thing, too, that I would recommend is, like, using your credit card or debit card a lot because it just takes so much of the, like, the other thing that's stressful is, like, fumbling with euros and, like, and a lot of times, like, what I've noticed in, again, most, like, anywhere we were in Italy and in France, everybody is just used to taking your card. and what that means is you don't get in a weird thing where you're paying someone and then they don't have change and then you're like am I going to have to sort of tip on this more than I want to because they don't really have the change like the two or three silliest interactions I had which is one I bought a parasol for my girlfriend Andrew nah bro for me it for me

by the way I was confused by that I assumed it was for you the whole time

well let me just say I was as I noted It may be one of the only men who was strolling about, like I was in some sort of George Bernard Shaw play or something, because it was brutally hot. But in that case, it was like, I don't know, the parasol was 12 euro, and I had 20, and of course the guy didn't really have proper change, and being a $15 parasol or something. like I just anywhere I could which was pretty much everywhere unless you're on like a real street interaction everywhere I could I just paid with my card and nobody was mad about it you know in the US sometimes it's like if it's a relatively small thing it's like they kind of give you a side eye like I was like I'm using my card everywhere I can because the exchange rate is negotiated by your bank and you don't have to deal with that question of do I have the right change are they giving me the right change I mean it's euros it's also not that complicated anymore in those two countries But, like, that was another real—between using ride shares, between using Uber, and just paying with my card everywhere, it really kind of, like, took down my anxiety that I feel about those interactions.

I don't want to distract too much from your story of Rome, but I think listeners are really going to want to hear this, a big update in my life that started just three days ago, I think. I am now—okay, here we go. Build it up. Build it up as much as possible. This is important. So listen up. I am now a fella who pays for things with his phone. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I did it at Sprouts the other day and I said

look at me. You're a Sprouts man and as part of being a Sprouts man you're a

pay by phone man. Actually you know I did do it at Sprouts but the first time I did it was at the QFC. I told you I got to go to both now. It's complicated. Yeah I know it's fine. But I was getting out of the car.

You and QFC will always be friends. Yeah, no, absolutely. You're just transitioning. It's a conscious uncoupling.

It's not even an uncoupling.

Well, you don't think it is yet, but it will be.

No, I mean, QFC will.

always provide for me things that You're always going to root for each other, but it's just

going to be the nature of the relationship. Andrew, do you think I haven't been through this a couple times?

The transition? Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, I believe you pay with your phone for things now, right? Like at the grocery store or whatever?

I do, but here's the problem with how... I don't know if this is in my iPhone settings. The way mine is set up is I hold my phone by the little tap reader and then it does... It activates a thing where it obviously shows me a little picture of my card, but then it says Face scan So what I have to do is put the phone up to my face And I don't know Until the day I die I'll never look at my phone When it's doing a facial ID and just be normal I have to like put it right up to my face And make like a slack expression Like try to really let the phone know It's me Like it's a sort of total recall situation Exactly I'm going to three boob planet I just need to get scanned in real fast And like what it looks like to the person who I'm paying the thing for is that I'm having a problem with my phone. Just imagine. Here, I'll do the exact thing. Look, I've even got my phone here, okay? So it's like, you're the merchant. I'm paying. I put the phone on the reader and then I go.

And then you hold it up and you get it.

Hold on, I make this exact face.

He looks like kind of a confused... You look a little

confused there. A little furrow-browed. Unfortunately, that was the picture it took for my facial scan, so now

I have to do this. Oh, I see. You're always trying to match

the photo trying to match whatever my energy was when i did well mine doesn't do that they're always like it works and i'm like i know i know it works i'm trying to make it and then i have to

put it back down on the thing my uh my guy doesn't do that that sounds like a good security thing but i went to the qfc the other day and i got out of my car and i was like oh shoot i don't have my wallet but then i touched my backside and i did have my wallet i don't know why i freaked out for a second but as i was getting out of my car i was like you know one thing i've been meaning to do is just like learn how to pay for things with my phone. I've had to be reissued a new credit card recently because my other one was compromised. Then it was compromised again. I'm on like my third credit card in three days. One of those was me, I apologize. No, it's okay. Yeah, I noticed there was a lot of parasail. Yeah. Wait, I said that wrong. $15 parasails. Parasailing is different than a parasail. Anyway, I was like, you know what? Today's the day, and maybe because my own international travel is coming up too and maybe paying with your phone could get me out of a jam or two i just wanted to do a test run on it so i go uh and i'm like i know i'm gonna forget by the time i'm done grocery shopping i do my grocery shopping i get to the register and i went to pull out my wallet i'm like no no no we do this with a phone but i'm looking for a tag on it that says you can you know use google pay or whatever it's called and i didn't see any tags so i say to the guy who's monitoring myself checkout i'm like hey man can i pay with a phone here he's like yeah if it's got three green dots up there it means you're good to go and i'm like oh my god so and you don't have to open an app or anything you You just have to unlock your phone with your thumb and scan it over top of it. Boop. My phone gave me an immediate receipt, and me and the guy look at each other. I'm just like, I'm like a young person. He's like, yeah, you're always going to remember your first one. I'm like, yes, man, yes. And anyway, and so now I just do that. I did it at Sprouts the next day. I didn't even ask anybody. I just pulled it out and used it like I've been doing it my whole goddamn life. I felt so cool. There's a woman probably like 10 years older than me behind me. I'm like, she's probably impressed with this. She probably sees what's going on with my phone right now.

The next level is, I got to get my watch to, it's supposed to be, like, Becca's watch is also her wallet. No, that makes sense, yeah. Which is, like, of course. But, like, I haven't figured out how to link those two things in my life. But, like, that's the ultimate. Because we could, like, if we're in Portland or something, and we go out on some long walk or jog or whatever, and then we want to get some coffee, I'm like, ah, I don't have my wallet. She's like, mm-hmm. It's like a very, that's the next level of convenience. But the other thing that I want to warn people about, if you are traveling really anywhere but in Rome, is if you're looking, we were always trying to find, like, some kind of a—the first night that we were there, because Rome is full of sidewalk cafes, and they're always trying to pull you into them, and we—like, I'm not great at planning ahead, so we didn't have, like, a list of, like, restaurants we were trying to go to while we were there. But I hate the feeling of being like We went to a lame place We went all the way to Rome It's the city, it's known for its food Why eat at the Olive Garden of Rome When, you know But night one I was just like I told you we got there, we were out all day I was so fried that we We tried to go to this place that did have good reviews Got there, it was actually closed Which I was like, thanks website You let me make a reservation But then you get there and it's closed Also half of Rome is closed in August So just be aware of that. All of the good restaurants are pretty much closed because it's hot as balls and everyone wants to go somewhere else. So we go and the restaurant's closed and they let me make a reservation. So we're just walking down this alley and there's a million other of these little outdoor... cafes we get dragged into one of them it's fine it's pretty basic food um but uh i was like well we're gonna really try that was our one like basic ass meal let's try to really elevate our experience here so like um i found this one restaurant that had really great reviews no available tables but they did have this thing if you're willing to sign up for this like food and wine lesson that you could which was you know not super cheap but if you basically like they you know they had like two sessions or something you could sign up for this and it looked like the photos it just looked so cute and it was like oh you're going to be in this really cute restaurant and you're going to be having food and wine but they're going to be telling you about everything and the backstory and like it'll be informative and educational becca used to work in the wine industry so she's really interested in that and i was like oh this will be so cool like we're gonna it's like we're eating at this restaurant but better because we're gonna get this whole little like geography lesson about the terroir and everything what i didn't fully realized was this was a private dinner with i want to say six other people who of course we didn't know going in and it was in the basement in this tiny room this kind of like and the room

was very cool it had all these books on the wall have you seen the menu are you starting to get are you starting to get worried if you've seen the menu you're starting to get worried the movie the menu yes do you know what i'm talking about i do know what you're talking

about. And yes, I did get a little worried. We get seated in there and we're like the first people there. And it's, I realized, Oh my God, this is a very small room. I thought we were going to be in the restaurant in the kind of like environment that was the excitement of the restaurant. We would just be at a big table and they would be coming by and giving us like a really cool explanation of stuff. And then we could just like eat and hang out. We were in like, yeah, it was very much like that. We were in a private room in the basement, totally silent, surrounded by books and bottles of wine and maps and like we're there it's like an australian couple that you know seems perfectly nice kind of younger they were i think on like kind of their extended honeymoon or something and then i just hear the next people coming down the stairs and they're like they've all got wine already and it's like a guy maybe in his like mid late 70s who's like sorry we started without you he's got his wine he's putting back and like his other friends and and, like, they sit down. Boorish Americans?

Are these Americans?

I immediately identify them as, if not MAGA, very MAGA sympathetic. Like, just the energy coming off, and they're from, sorry, Andrew, to say it, they're from Ohio. They were, like, just, they were not bad people, per se. They were just boorish Americans, like you said. They were just older-than-us Americans from the Midwest who have watched too much Fox News. And it's not like they weren't overtly like, nobody was wearing a MAGA hat, but I could just tell that like, I could just tell kind of what their lived experience was and what their politics probably were, and that we were all going to be together for the next two hours making awkward conversation because that's what you do when the lady who's pouring the wine and bringing the food out leaves for long stretches. and at some point somebody said what so it was like it was two husbands and two wives and uh and at some point i i should call becca because she gave you the exact thing they they said the one of the there was a woman the the there was one wife who was just largely silent she just kind of didn't have a lot to say that was fine another woman who was like very talkative but kind of this i don't know how to describe her personality except to say she would self-identify as the nicest person you've ever met but also you if you had to review her would find her to be and i mean just anyone find her to be incredibly passive aggressive and annoying but she would say i just love to talk to people and i just like the australian couple that was on like honeymoon they were like yeah we've just been traveling around and seeing all kinds of things and the The woman would say things like, it's amazing to see things. That would be her feedback. Seeing things is amazing. And they'd be like, yeah, we're just getting to experience a lot of different things and having a honeymoon. Oh, a honeymoon. She talked constantly, and there was no nutritional value to any of it.

Now, be careful. Just be careful. This is what I do for a living.

I was like, this needs to be a, like, can we get, like, Kristen Wiig back to SNL to play this person? It was the weird, I don't know if I'd ever experienced somebody exactly like this. She loved commenting on things and saying things, and none of it contained any information or takes. Except when, of course, the topic of, oh, you know what it was? And this is on me a little bit. This is my fault. And somebody from that side of the room said, and I'm going to use the word, they said gypsy. And I said, I don't know why I needed to do this. I said, oh, you know, a thing I recently found out, that was not true, but I was trying to be chill, was that we don't really use that word anymore. And I swear, I was saying in a nonjudgy way, I was like, oh, I just found out that, like, that's not really the preferred kind of word. And I was trying to kind of take us all on a journey of discovery, making it seem like you're just offering something like, oh, hey, this is a funny like, here's something I just learned.

Right. Right. Not finger wagging. You're trying. No, I was trying to be so on finger wag.

And boy, was that a mistake? Because what it there is something in the nature now of people. Again, I don't think it's just age related, but it kind of is. It's boomers. I'm sorry. And I know some of my very favorite people on Earth are boomers.

Some of my favorite donors are boomers.

Precisely. And I'll do this. I'll use care. But there is something about a certain kind of boomer now in America. Their number one fear is being told they can't say something. It triggers something really deep in them. Like, they don't even know what the things are they're not allowed to say. But this idea of, like, I said it wrong, and you're telling me I can't say it. it like it just lights some kind of part of their brain up in this way like it feels like that and unchecked immigration are the two greatest threats to their existence even though they live in ohio they literally haven't seen an undocumented person ever right right but like that and the fact that they're not going to be allowed to use the word gypsy when they're doing i don't know their day-to-day life it is the biggest threat and so the it it wasn't even like we had a specific argument about that that word i said roma is the kind of preferred thing now um it was it started them just kind of oh you can't say what would i i don't know i just i just feel like you should be able to say what you want to say or something and then becca offers very very innocently something to the effect of well it just seems like if there's ways of talking about people that makes them feel happy or like if there's ways of talking about someone that's like less offensive it just seems like it's pretty a pretty small thing to you know she's just offering the most non-threatening kind of like thing about how we talk about people and then the woman who is doing the majority of the talking and saying nothing takes this as becca personally criticizing her which she wasn't doing by the way and she just starts going to her to her seat mate what did i say did i say something

And not even addressing her this very— Not even addressing Becca. You described this woman earlier as passive-aggressive, which is the most passive.

Did I say something? Because she's also the kind of person that would be like, I would never intentionally say something that was ever mean to anyone. I'm not even capable of that. I'm such a good person that I'm— Like, if I said something, it must have been— Somebody must have misheard me. Like, I am so pure as a driven snow because all of my motivations are totally pure and because I've never done anything bad because my white privilege has never in any way negatively impacted anyone. She's just like, well, what did I say? Did I say something? I want to mention, this is like 30 minutes into the two-hour dinner.

And I really thought... By the way, I have a question. This is such a pragmatic question, but I'm trying to picture the room. Are you sharing a table?

Yes, a not very large table.

Eight people all around one large table.

Surrounded, Andrew, I felt like the walls were at my back.

And inching closer.

you go down all these stairs into a basement like antiquarium where it's like the walls really are it's if it was like you and me and vives and camaro kev and rodent and marade if it was like katie are like our friends it would be the most fun night in history but as it happened it was brutal I remember thinking at this point what is the sunk cost on this how deep am I because you had to pay up front which I think by the way is not an accident they were like we better get our money before this thing happens because you never know the other thing I said to Becca was I can totally imagine that if you get a better group of people in this room with you people are probably making friends like crazy because you're traveling you're a couple you don't really know every you don't know a lot of people in this town let's say it's another couple they're roughly your age you have a shared they speak english they're maybe even from the u.s you hit it off you're all traveling like oh wow this is we were great meeting let's trade numbers like i could see it actually being kind of a bonding experience if you get a good group but we just got i mean the australians were kind of

just like net neutral um but the ohioans were incredibly rough and i realized just like this was i didn't even realize what a roll of the dice this was also what is the restaurant thinking like putting eight people in a box and there's like basically imagine you get in an elevator with people you don't know and then they start serving food like that energy of being in an elevator when you're just like how quickly can i get to my floor because this is oppressively awkward that we are now in this box together and we don't know each other i just want this to be

over that was the whole night it is punctuated by like maybe presentation is too strong of a word but it's punctuated by courses coming out and then an explanation and a geographic kind of contextualization for the food and everything there are moments of what maybe like 10 minutes every now and then are five minute little uh explanations from the staff of what's being

served yes and that i think i was expecting that to carry more of the evening than it did a i was expecting that presentation to be longer and b i thought well you know they'll say like this is where this wine is from and then everyone will have an interesting anecdote or something it'd be more like the lady would finish and she'd be like this wine is from this region and it's uh you know from the sunny region of tuscany or something and then uh then she would leave and And then the one woman would go, we love, I mean, a sunny region. We love it. And now there was another 40 minutes of silence.

And you and I both shared this. A before a conversational void. Exactly, a vacuum.

Which is probably where the Roma thing came from.

Right, yeah.

Because it's like, I can't just sit there and be quiet, so I have to try to add to the conversation. And in my mind, I don't know why I thought this was going to be a good clarification, but that's probably why I got into that whole thing.

Yeah, yeah, that's, you know, I wonder what the majority of the, you mentioned like, hey, I'll bet you a lot of times it's a good group down there. Good just meaning, honestly, a good group could be everybody who's more in the vibe of the Ohioans in this case. You know what I mean? Yeah, sure. A good group is just like whatever. Absolutely. However you feel about it. A good group is a group that vibes together. And sometimes it might be people from different sort of – I'm going to use the word class here, although that sounds –

Although I believe these people were loaded, which really helped.

And I mean more like –

It really helped my opinion of them.

Cultured, I guess. I mean class in the cultured sort of sense of that. You know what I mean? Like not just do you have money, but like kind of how are you treating this experience? What are you coming in? What are your cultural touch points? Like how do you navigate the world? Those types of things. You could have a group of like all hipster foodies down there. You know what I mean? who have been, like, already reading about this menu and hoping that this thing and then bonding over that. And maybe there are other instances where, and maybe this is where you and I aren't good people, you know, you meet people that are vastly different than you and you find similarities and you get along and you've had your eyes opened. But that's probably rarer. We're all human beings here and we want to be around our kind.

It was just like, okay, let's pay a bunch of money for this food. Let's go into this box. What is one of the worst outcomes? Well, one of the other people going, what did I say? Did I say something? And looking at my watch and going, there's another 90 minutes. It's like how people must feel during TBTL. There's another 90 minutes of this.

Speaking of, we have gone over 90 minutes. I don't want to cut short your... All right, that's probably enough for a Tuesday. But Luke, just so you know, one thing that I've sort of learned recently is that the nomenclature Roma is preferred. I just wanted to let you know.

What did I say? Just well... What did I say? By the way, Andrew, I have amazing news. Tomorrow, TBTL Travel Guide, Curing Lonely Planetness, Part 2, Sorrento, Colon, Big Cars, Small Roads. Okay, I'm here for it. So I've got, and actually today was probably a lot of digression. I've got serious travel help tomorrow that your Rick Steves of the world are not going to get you.

Nice. Your Foders? If you don't mind, I'm Foders. I want to kick something off here on the next show. I'm going to learn how to talk before tomorrow. I'm looking forward to that. But I also acquired something recently that I think is going to be right up your alley. I'm looking forward to doing a little show and tell with you, if I may.

Okay. Well, that's all going to happen on tomorrow's episode, so please do tune in for it. In the meantime, take care of yourselves. Have a great Tuesday. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.