Muse

I know what you're probably thinking. I wonder what this man's thoughts are on the garlic bread slash pizza debate. Have you heard about this? You're keeping up with this? If anybody nodded along, you're a liar. Because I'm the one who sparked the debate, and this is my first time going public with it. There was a time, a simpler time, when you could very clearly tell garlic bread from pizza. Garlic bread was a baguette. A few slits cutting it And some garlic butter 65% melted between them I think it all started going downhill When they started making garlic bread the same shape as a pizza Then they came out with cheesy garlic bread This is garlic bread in the shape of a pizza With a bit of cheese That I can take But I was in a restaurant the other day Went down to the garlic bread section of the menu Checking out what's going on Used to be a section reserved for garlic bread matters. Garlic pizza bread. Have you heard of this product? It's pizza base. Garlic butter. So far, so good. Cheese. I'm okay with that. Tomato sauce. That's a pizza. With too much garlic in it. Seems like you can call anything you want garlic bread these days. TBTL.

i'm gonna let you in on a little secret every day once a day give yourself a present don't plan it don't wait for it just let it happen it could be a new shirt at the men's store a cat nap in your office chair or two cups of good hot black coffee hi luke this is one of your

favorite listeners gail and i'd like to say that i'm passionate about walking and i'm passionate about tbtl and i think what a great combo i love to walk and listen to tbtl at the same time think

about what you're saying right now because it's the smartest idea anyone's ever had we have all

the facts on this we need we don't need any more facts in the land of truth my friend the man with One fact is the king.

All right, they're going to run. See you on the flippy flops.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Wednesday edition of TBT, all the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

It's just such an insular, navel-gazy thing, which, again, I don't complain about much anymore, but in this case, I was like, it's not great.

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

Brother, who are you?

What are you doing? Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia where, you know, before I left on my big trip, I took a lot of time to mow the lawn and weed the garden and try to make everything totally nice. I figured that would mean things were OK when I got back.

It was a waste of time to do that.

Everything went to seed. It made absolutely no impact on the landscaping situation around here. But I'm going to tackle it again and get back on top. We're going to get back on the horse right after we finish today's episode, which is episode 4,286 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

Where we will bring you the second installment of the TBTL Travel Guide, Curing Lonely Planetness. Oh, and the adventure begins again. Today's travel tip, why you want to be very careful about the car that you rent if you are visiting Sorrento in Italy. When we're going, we don't need roads. I had a truly, and I mean this, truly harrowing experience that I will tell you all about coming up. But first, I got to welcome this guy to the program. Longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Oh, wow. He is Andrew Walsh, and he is joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. You know, I feel bad for what I did to the listeners at the very end of yesterday's show, which everybody listened to very closely. They leaned in, and at the end of the show, I said, you know, I acquired something recently, Luke.

Yeah, I mean, I leaned in. I've been on tenterhooks about this.

And people have lost. I've been getting emails. People were losing sleep about it. They're like, what did you get? What did you acquire? And it's just, I mean, I try to be, I try to follow some of the tenets of, did I say tenets? Tenets. Tenets of good broadcasting, which is to keep the listener engaged, right, and string them along to a certain degree. But I hope I wasn't disrespectful because what a cliffhanger for me to end yesterday's show on. Yeah.

Is it tenant or tenant?

I think it would be a tenant of broadcasting, right?

Are you looking it up? Are you saying that? I am. I mean, there's, of course, the Christopher Nolan film, which is currently dominating the search. I have no idea what that movie is about, by the way. I think I've always thought that, like, it's like the Ten Tenants of Good Business. I thought it was Tenet.

But this will be, I will be the first one to say that I'm... No, it is Tenet, you're right.

The Ten Tenants of Taekwondo. There's a lot of T's, dude. There's a lot of T's, dude. Could you name the Ten Tenants of Taekwondo? Because I can.

Can I try? Can I try? Yeah. Okay, wow, this is so far out of my wheelhouse. Okay, respect. Yes, I'm going to give it to you.

Honor.

Honor, okay, yeah, okay. Honor is the brother of respect. That's one of the things that I learned in my dojo.

They have the same mom but different dad. It wasn't always smooth sailing.

I am going to say focus or concentration.

I'm trying to find one of these. Yes. Okay, self-control. I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to say self-control is the cousin of focus.

Okay. Yeah, and as Naz would say, sleep is the cousin of death. Let me see here. Okay, we have ten tenets. Ten. Right? Okay. I'm doing well. I'm going to be honest with you.

They feel similar to me.

Okay, oh, okay.

It sort of could have been like the three tenets of Taekwondo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so the last one was self-discipline. How about, how about, how about, did I already say respect? Was that my first one? I think it was your first one. I gave it to you with honor. That's right, honor. Okay, so self-discipline. I thought there was going to be other self ones. How about self-esteem? Only it's not called that. Self-respect, self-esteem, self... Not really.

In fact, it's kind of the opposite.

Oh, okay. Shame.

Shame is one of the... Well, the more productive version of shame. Discipline. Discipline? I'm going to give that to you again as self-control. I think it's the second time we've... It's humility.

Humility. Yeah, you're right. That's better than shame. Yeah, okay. Wiping up your sweat off of the mat.

afterwards community i'm gonna give that to you i feel like you're a good member of the taekwondo community if you do that if you hose down the mat when you're done i do that here you know what in the madrona hill studio you know i have that treadmill and i uh was uh jogging away on it this morning and when i get done i uh do this incredibly sexy thing where when i am exercising sweat is flying off of me everywhere and if i'm at like a hotel you know uh like a workout situation I the longest 30 seconds for me Is when I'm done with the jog And when I'm going over to get The little like you know pre-soaked Sanitizer thing because I It's like when I used to take Rudy on walks And like Rudy would poop and I would be I'd be like producing the poop bag With a flourish so anyone around Would know that I'm like definitely picking this up It's like I I'm mortified that someone would think I'm just Stepping off the treadmill and leaving the gym I'm going to get the thing because the amount of sweat that I leave on that I don't think everyone probably needs to fully clean off the treadmill or the exercise equipment I do yes but I do it every day in my own little area here where I'm the only person that uses it but I don't do it with like a sterile here's the thing I just use I have these um gym towels that I purchased which I can't recommend this highly enough if you want to elevate your workout experience go on Amazon or go to some place where they sell these things, maybe there's something more brick and mortar, buy like 15 of those little towels they have at the gym. It's not expensive. It's a treat. They have blue bars on them. I look forward to wiping my sweat with these towels. Anyway, I use that to wipe down the treadmill and I always think to myself, boy, you're really phoning it in for the next person. You're just using this dry-ass towel to clean this sweat. You're not even hitting it with a disinfectant. And then I remember, I am the next person and it's fine.

you know that moment at the gym that you're talking about where you're like okay everybody's watching nobody is but you assume everybody is watching me get off this thing and now i'm going to cross the gym to the cleaning station but people don't know if i'm crossing the gym to go to the cleaning station to return and clean up my mess they might think that i'm just one of those people who's going to like just leave it behind for somebody else some unsuspecting elliptical ite to come and just like exercise in my old sweat well i'm obviously not going to do that i'm going to clean it down. But what I do is I leave my water bottle behind on it. Smart. So at least it's kind of like, hey, I'm leaving that behind. And now that there's Bluetooth technology, I've come to, and this is like me really telling everybody, trust me, I leave my phone. I'll leave my phone and my water bottle sort of like on the little like kind of elliptical top, you know, where it's resting during my exercise.

so that people know, oh, this guy's not leaving his phone behind. He is definitely coming up to clean up like a good boy. So smart. Yeah.

That reminds me of a moment that happened when I was in Paris. And, of course, this is day two of a TBTL travel guide. We were staying at a Marriott property, and they had this actually kind of amazing upstairs executive lounge that I guess we got into because I'm in the whatever Marriott thing.

Wow, suddenly somebody doesn't want to say bon voyage.

Which is, I said to Becca, I go, if I don't say bon voyage to someone in France accidentally, because you're saying bonjour all the time, bonjour, bonjour. I was like, if I don't say bon voyage, that'll be a miracle. But I was getting us a couple of refreshments. It was after a day of walking around. And basically this thing was open, I think, 24 hours a day or close to it. And they always had a coffee machine and water, which is like, the water is like gold. You know, it's like free bottles of water. Why wouldn't you? and in the morning and in the afternoon they would also have this whole spread of food like you could have just eaten your breakfast and your dinner there and been set and they're pouring wine and it's the whole thing I go up there and I wanted to, they had these little tables that would have two chairs and you could look out on the whole skyline of Paris including the Eiffel Tower and so I had to make a work call and I, believe it or not, on WhatsApp by the way because I was incurring all kinds of long distance, like international long distance charges and shit, and then somebody finally, my buddy Anthony was like, just use WhatsApp I was like, oh, yeah so I go, and every one of these little, there's these little alcoves, right, there's lots of places to sit up here, but the primo places are these alcoves because you're sitting at a table looking out the window at Paris and I go, and they're all taken I finally get to the last one nobody there, I was like, oh my god, and it also has the best view of the Eiffel Tower, because Beck and I have been having our coffee there every morning so I sit down and I'm just like oh my god this is so perfect I can look at the Eiffel Tower while I have this phone call and at some point I'm getting into the phone call and I look over and this woman has come up and she looks at another woman who's sitting over at a different table and she just kind of starts laughing to her with exasperation and she kind of looks at me and she looks back at the other woman kind of like people and I kind of put the phone down and I go oh can I help you and she goes well that was my table and I said oh I'm so sorry I go yeah there was nothing here reserving it she goes well yeah because all i had to reserve the only thing i could have left was my purse and i was like thinking a lot of things one was well you probably could have left your purse second of all i know that's i'm that's kind of a yp not an mp like i'm sorry that you didn't have anything to reserve the table but there is no universe in which you can think that i am out of order sitting at a table that had literally nothing indicating

it was safe yeah unless she i mean unless the person that she was being exasperated with who was sitting at another table you could have asked that person hey would you mind you know just reserving this for me because there's a chance that woman did not do it yeah and she might have needed her purse where she was going who knows you know like but um and you know i don't know if she's a local but if you're traveling another country i think a lot of people wouldn't be comfortable just leaving their bag there so i'll give her the the break on that but yeah there's no need to like kind of if there's any sort of like what did you do by the way vibe i just gave

of course i just gave her the seat i didn't care the vibe was people what are you gonna do the vibe was that i was being rude yeah that i had taken the vibe was like she had left her purse or something else her sweater on one of the chairs i had come taken it off moved it and sat that was the that was the response she was kind of like exasperated like i can't believe you're sitting in my chair and it's like there's no way for me to know this was your space you did not even put Put a napkin down. I mostly was just like, get creative, lady. Like, take your wallet out of your purse and leave your purse. Or take something out of your purse that you're not worried about. By the way, this is under, like, behind two keycard scans to get into this place. So it's a fairly secure environment. But I was like, get creative. Like, don't just be like, well, I didn't have anything to put down. Therefore, I'm annoyed that you were sitting at a table that appeared by all outward indications to be totally available.

I got some text messages from a friend. And by the way, we're pretty far away. We need to finish the Taekwondo thing. And I still haven't revealed the big reveal yet. Courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, community, strength, humility, knowledge. Was humility in there twice? I looked it up, by the way. I was going to wow you by getting them all in order. But, okay, so we finished that.

Although it depends on the version you looked up because one lists indomitable spirit.

No, I'm on the first. I figured it was the first. You're on the thing Google wanted to show you and me. I was, yeah, I was doing it along with you there. Okay, this is from a friend of mine who is also a listener of the show. I did not get permission to share this. I don't think he would care, but because I did not get permission and I... I want to do it now. I am just going to not tell you who sent me these text messages, because it was a private conversation, but I think this is okay. But he sent me this text message a couple of weeks ago. I need to vent. This is out of the blue, by the way. We're not in the middle of a conversation. He just sends this to me. Do I know this person? You do. I need to vent. I'm at a busy bar downtown, and there's a big line to wait for indoor seating. A small bistro table was open outside, and the host told me that I could snag it. this is a small like eight by 36 inch table my my friend tyler was going to join me shortly i'm standing there enjoying my drink and then this 25 year old guy and by the way i'm sort of reading this in past tense as i um sort of recap it here but this was sent to me while this is all unfolding okay i was standing there enjoying my drink and this 25 year old guy in a muscle tea sets up a laptop on my table and starts working like I can't impress on you how weird it was no high no do you mind if I hang out here for a second while I wait for a table nothing I told him hey you're welcome to hang out for a bit but my friends are coming he looked up and said huh okay it was a full-on polite laptop rage oh like like me polite Parker so my friend is sending this to me like while he is he is like at one of these only little tables he it's his table and i guess it's because maybe that's not seated because it's like a standing table this person just decides to pull out his laptop and just without asking just take over my friend's table he says i put my phone down i took out my headphones and i just stared at him like like we were friends and he was just being rude then his friend joined us lol they colonized my table i asked the guy with the laptop what are you working on said oh uh a deployment thing his friend asked me if it was okay i said no it's weird and then i just sort of reacted he sent me a video of this as it unfolds i never got i never found out exactly how this resolved itself i imagine that my buddy's friend showed up um and maybe they they vacated but like the absolute audacity yeah the odd this this was sent like the beginning of august it is now the beginning of september that conversation has been I wasn't even there and that's been living in my brain For a month

That's infuriating and the opposite of what I was doing I want to be very clear But I felt that I was being Ironically this person Who emailed you or texted you rather I think was treating this colonizer This table colonizer with more Like respect than this woman was treating Me with when I didn't even do anything

Yeah I think my friend I didn't do shit I didn't rig shit I think the thing is my friend here has a lot Of Andrew in him and And so he couldn't be confrontational in the way that the moment really called for. Instead, he's just kind of being somewhat passive aggressive, like, what are you working on? You know, and just staring at him.

It's also awkward because if your friends aren't there yet, it's kind of hard to kick them out. I have friends coming. You need to leave right now because it could be like, well, we, you know, like, it's like, you can stay until my friends show, but then I'm going to need this table. But even that, the whole thing is awkward.

Yeah, just like, this is not a, I mean, I don't know what I say in that situation. Just maybe like, this is not a communal table. I'm, you know, I'm here with friends or something. But then if I do that, then you're sitting there the whole time as that person is like glaring at you, waiting for your friends to show up. I don't. Right. Hey, listen, I I don't want to eat up too much of today's show because I really want to get back into your travel adventures. But I I did acquire something at a garage sale week. All right. Broadview, the neighborhood of here in Seattle. Talk about farting through silk. Yes. I knew you would understand this. And I might have alluded to this. I mean, Ursula Royteentown. I did not run into her.

I think she might live in Blue Ridge, but Blue Ridge is a culturally Broadmoor, Broadview.

This is a neighborhood that is not far from me at all, but economically very far from me. And every year they hold a coordinated garage sale day where neighbors, if they're interested, can have their garage sales out there. One day, two years ago, Vives and I woke up and I randomly said, today would be a good garage sale day. She looked it up. It happened to be the day of the Broadview Garage Sale coordinated day. So we went, and that was the day, again, this was two years ago, that I ended up coming home with that big box of VHS tapes and started digitizing them. We went back. We skipped last year, and then we went again this year. Oh, I already mentioned this to Phyllis on the show, by the way. I did get another huge box of VHS tapes full of all kinds of movies that somebody had recorded. Are you almost done with your first? Did you finish your first box, Andrew? finished my first box but luke it happened i stumbled on somebody's secret porn stash literally after four after four hours here i have the tape here i keep it close by after four hours of um green acres episodes no there's a period where like

of the green up acres sort of cancels and then it it just kind of goes into like really really rough like i taped over a million times like kind of staticky 80s era it was from the spice 2 channel so spice is apparently already which is something i had heard about but i did not that

wasn't something i had access i don't know if i ever got i believe me i would have i would have crawled across broken glass to get eyes on the spice channel as a kid i don't think i ever did I just heard about it.

I had heard of it, too. I had forgotten about it until I saw this thing with Spice, too. And it's just, and I was telling Phyllis, it is just like the grody. Like, first of all, it's so taped over, and the fidelity of this tape is so bad because it's set to, like, the lowest. It's, like, six-hour recording. SLP. Yeah. Super long play. And you can really only make it out, really, if you're watching in fast-forward mode. I was sort of scanning through it. When you actually stop it to play it, there's so much sort of, like, just degradation in the tape that it's not very visible. But, again, this would not be where I'd be turning for my carnal pleasures anyway. Yes, exactly. But that's not the – I think you – That's amazing, by the way.

Is that the thing you wanted to show me?

You understand why that's special, right? Like not that I need that in my life, but just like, yeah, isn't sort of like if I'm going to be a dirty bird about it or if I'm going to admit more about myself than I want to or maybe realize it's that. it's fun to digitize this stuff, but it's also every time you put a tape in there, you don't it's something that was personal to somebody at some point, sort of, and you don't know what it's going to be. Some listeners have sent me stuff that has been a real insight into their personality, which I found very, very interesting and endearing in the way they were kind of saving and what's the word for? Curating. Archiving and curating. And so, anyways you get different things from different tapes where it's like, four hours of green acres right into some spice too where people are doing so were you watching green acres and then just

all of a sudden or you fast forwarding through you're looking for commercials right yeah i'm

looking for commercials and so i now have a little monitor kind of a separate monitor that i can set up on my desk where i can just sort of fast forward because these tapes are super super long now and most of them the commercial they didn't even they were such good archivists that they didn't record the commercials which is kind of a irony right right so i'm trying to just burn through these quickly and throw them away as opposed to those other ones which were the other ones i found a lot of them were very seattle 1995 mariners related so i wanted to be careful with those and document them and these i'm just trying to burn through but i was like oh

green acres hey buddy and they know what you've been up to he was like no one's gonna watch four hours of this and then right i mean that's just amazing like that's a very interesting it never occurred to me there's a very interesting place to store that information yeah like you know no one's gonna like they'll have given up uh before they get to the part that's got the the racy stuff The big question is, if you showed this to Kamaru Kev, would he be able to identify any of the actors, particularly the men?

Whatever this was, it didn't even seem—it was the grottiest thing. It was not, like, produced movies.

It wasn't, like, starring, you know— No, it was, like— Some famous, some—what's that guy's name? The, you know— Ron Jaren. John Holmes.

Yeah, you and I, our references are so old. Are both of those guys from the 70s, I think? Probably. but anyway you know it was more like it was like i don't know handheld reality tv like it was just gross it was super what i saw of it which is very little was super gross like it really it was almost like it gave you the sensation of the opposite of what it was supposed to do it made you just like just feel bad about everything sort of and again i only watched like maybe two minutes

of it or fast like maybe 1.5 hours of it yeah i only watched maybe like i only and then i kind

of slowed it down and sort of enhanced enhanced and stuff okay yeah so i'm at this garage sale day we make our grand return um two years later and we go back to this one house that i remembered the first time we were there had um a very interesting clearly these are two people who are kind of collectors it's a man and a woman and they're i'm going to put them maybe in their 60s maybe even maybe in their 70s and um they have a whole bunch of like uh i think movie posters from various eras that are really interesting a whole bunch of music records and cds and a few other things that were like it just sort of and then i realized later as we were leaving this guy the husband of the couple presumably has like kind of an old beater car that is painted to look like an accordion and i realized oh this is kind of a um in fact i wonder if somebody in broadview knows the accordion car guy i'm not sure this guy seems like maybe he's a character one of the things on the table was um the type of transistor radio that you and i like and it looked like um you know a vintage red radio and it's like not that big it's like the size that you and i talk about like you would take it to the beach right and um and listen to the ball game on it and so i'm like for ten dollars maybe i should just buy this thing but there's a little tag on and it says requires special battery and i'm like what is going on with this It's quite a spell. special battery? Is it worth it? Should I look it up? I start like kind of Googling around. I'm trying to open up the back of it. I asked the woman, like, do you know anything about this special battery? And she says, no, maybe my husband does. And she calls him Al. Al. I don't think his name was Al. He comes out from inside where he was rearranging his records probably. And he's very, very nice. And he kind of takes off the back. He's like, yeah, see, it takes like, and I guess these old transistor radios, Luke, took what they called an A battery and a B battery now that's not the size of the battery I think that was just the parlance of the day and the a battery as in position a looks like it's just like a modern c battery and the actual size and amp if yeah I know I'm getting kind of confusing with all of it but we know what a c battery is right like the size of a battery so that would put go in the a slot but then the thing that would go in the b slot I'm like oh it looks like it's just like a nine volt and then we're looking more closer at it and there's actually a schematic in the back of the radio um and it's not a nine volt battery luke it's like a 67.9 volt battery some old battery that was super powerful that it took to run this radio and like why would a beach radio need that much power it turns out this baby is a tube radio it has three tubes in the back i'm going to show it to you now and maybe i'll add this oh my god i love it it looks like just a small little like beach radio right standard a standard brand radio yes and but it's heavier than you would think because it's got three tubes in there if i can get this thing to work it is going to sound so good i start looking up like

where do you get one of these batteries and there's like it seems like there's one weird brand that makes them and you can get them through like battery plus or something um and i'm gonna But they're $40 for a battery. And I don't even know if this thing will work once I put the $40. I was hemming and hawing about this thing so much that the guy said, just take it for $5. I'm like, all right, for $5, it'll always look good. But I'll be sad if I can't get it to actually work because I think it would sound so great. I'm showing you the back of this thing now. Oh, my gosh, dude. That thing is beautiful. You can see the inside of it. And it's imperfect. I didn't know this term. I think a lot of people will. I was showing this to our friend Hauser, and I guess it's Bakelite plastic or Bakelite plastic. Are you familiar with that?

Yeah, Bakelite. I've heard that. Yeah, I've heard that. I didn't know that was also on radios. I think I knew that mostly as like a kind of dish, like a dish thing maybe. Oh, okay. I could see that. There's certain things that are made out of plastic kind of from the 60s and stuff. But that thing is, I mean, here's the good news. If you never get it to work, it's just a beautiful object.

And it's in great shape for how old it is.

Is that a leather handle?

It's like, I think it's fake leather, but it's like no cracks. No, I mean, whoever had this, you know, this guy had it. And then whoever had it before, they took care of it.

Can you imagine listening to Kixi on that thing?

Can I? It's all I've imagined.

So you're going to splurge for the battery.

I am. I was supposed to order it already, but then I kind of forgot. And now I've got some travel going on.

Order it so that you'll have something to be excited about when you come back from your vacation.

No, I'm going to order it when I get back from my vacation because I don't want a weird battery sitting in my mailbox, like turning my mailbox into a potential bomb or something. I'm going to order this thing.

Of all the batteries that won't, it's not like a lithium battery on the plane.

Yeah, I don't know what this thing does. I was looking it up. I'm like, well, is there a way for me to kind of get around this? And all these old radio collectors to fulfill the B battery requirements, they have this thing where they take a bunch of 9 volts and daisy chain them together and then have it like a tail off the back of the thing or whatever. But then I think, I don't know, you had to do one part of the process that seemed a little bit like, I don't want to get into building battery bombs. Like, I'm just going to buy this thing and see how it works. How much fertilizer do you need for this? I was joking with these. It's like, all I need is 10 9-volt batteries, some lye, and some fertilizer, and I'm in good shape. I just thought you'd appreciate that from a design standpoint.

It's a beautiful little guy, isn't it? That is absolutely beautiful. I want you to – I want the battery to work, and then I want you to play it into the microphone for all of us to hear its beautiful sounds. Yes. And you get it all up and running.

And maybe – and I don't know if this is true or not. Of course, there's no baseball on anymore because the baseball season is over. But I heard that the Mariners might start another season next year, and so maybe you and I can listen to some Mariners games on that thing. I heard they're going to be great.

By next year, you'll have it all working, and then when the Mariners resume playing baseball, then we'll be ready to go.

When the Mariners really make leaps and bounds in the offseason by getting some brewer. By trading Logan Gilbert? By trading Logan Gilbert for some. To get a bat? To get a bat who's aging and is injury prone, but might just turn it around.

Here's the thing. If we can just trade away all of our pitching, then we'll have hitting, and then we won't have pitching.

Yes, exactly. And then you'll get me a hairbrush, but I have shaved all of my. That's right.

I was trying to make that a gift. of the Magi thing, but it was limited success.

All right, I told you that was going to be a quickie. It only ate up 30 minutes of the show. Thank you for being a 10.

All right, let's thank some of our daily donors. These folks are supporting TBTL with a donation, and we are so happy and excited about that. When I was on my trip, I had weird thoughts when I was on my trip. one of them was here in Italy or in France they don't have any idea I'm a podcaster like I don't know what job first of all no one was wondering what my job is but I promise you whatever they thought my job was podcaster was not on the list even the people in that weird box restaurant that I offended by saying please don't use that offensive word like I just thought huh you know over here I'm just a I'm just a regular civilian and I could have any kind of job but back home I get to do this fun thing with Andrew, and I get to do this fun thing because of support from people like Tyler Setter in Wichita, Kansas.

Hello, Tyler.

Go Shockers. Mm-hmm. Do you know why I said that?

Yeah, because the Shockers are a sports team that are related to the Kansas area.

They sure are to the Wichita State area. Ah. The Wichita State Shockers. They've got a good basketball team from time to time. They're in Kansas. Thanks, Tyler. John Williams. is in John Williams is in the witness protection because he's from somewhere called Midwest City Oklahoma yes it sounds like a comic book John Williams of Midwest City he exists I swear thank you there are dozens of us dozens John for real thank you so much thanks to Teresa Fabella in St. Thomas, Virgin Island. Ooh, now that's exotic. Yes, it sure is. And then Eileen Gormley is in Renton, Washington. That's exotic in its own sort of way. It is.

Hi, Eileen.

Michael Sean Gardell of Arlington, Virginia, where I must always remind folks, I did very briefly live near the Garfield Metro Station there. And that was also where some kids tried to shoot me with a BB gun and missed, thankfully. Oh, yeah. Imagine a world where I had a very bad bruise on my shoulder

So you were working at NPR I was working for NPR

I had enough juice with NPR That they brought me out to DC To be a part of this internship program Where they were going to stash me with the newscast unit But I didn't have enough juice That I got to just decide where I wanted to stay so the person who brought me out Ellen Weiss said my friend has like a back house in Arlington Virginia where you can stay whereas like now it'd be like okay I'm part of this program part of it is housing I might want to find the housing I'm going to live in or what like I don't want it to be my friend has a back house you can use it was a simpler time

was it simpler we were younger we were broker we were just scrappier

I was less I was way less like particular about everything like the next time I came out to DC for one of these things I lived in the Henley Park Hotel is what I'm trying to say but I literally lived in a hotel for like three months it was weird

a real royal tenenbaum

yes but in this case I was staying in this little funky back house in Arlington and one day when I was walking home a window shattered behind me and I thought well that's weird and then I looked at the window and realized that wasn't a spontaneous act and I looked over and there was a car full of kids pointing a gun at me i thought a gun i was like that's scary but it was a pellet gun they just had it way ramped up

but um but anyway that's the era of this was the era of lee boyd malvo as well i believe everybody was on it you know maybe that's where they maybe they maybe that's where they got the

idea luckily it wasn't a real gun and i think they were just miscreants being bad and they they uh later i was asked to come testify in the case and i said no i'm not going to i was back in la and i was like i hope they you know i hope these kids receive an appropriate punishment but i am not personally flying back to dc to talk about that one time a pellet almost

hit me wait so that's how that's how you you found out because obviously a pellet almost hit you i called the police oh you did call the police okay i was gonna say how i called the police i

was like i don't know if this really matters but like i think i also didn't know what they were trying to hit me with so yeah you don't know that it was a sketch yeah and then they i can't remember exactly the order of events but i think it was like you know they took down my name and phone number and i just figured that's gonna be the end of that just a couple you know some teenagers being teenagers and then i got a call from a detective who was like i'm like looking at this we caught the kids they'd been doing this all over like they'd been making trouble probably like knocking mailboxes over and being

just generally troublemakers and but so we're gonna take it to trial would you be available to come back I think by the time this guy called me I was literally back in Los Angeles and then would you come back if you need to come back to testify could you and I said I'd really rather not if you don't need to have me there he's like okay I just want to put you down as if you'll be able to come back or not I never heard about the rest of the case it didn't it wasn't above the fold in the Washington Post but I'm sure it was a big deal to Michael Sean Gardell and everyone else living in Arlington, Virginia.

I bet you, certainly.

And then, it's our friend Dayadly Patusik in Hamden, Connecticut. That's right.

Dayadly, how you doing out there? Long,

long time supporter of the program and cute child haver. That's right. Thank you so much to all of the donors for making TBTL possible. We couldn't do this without you. It's time once again for TBTL travel guide. I feel like it went pretty well yesterday. I don't want to pat myself on the back too hard, but like I mean, I'm not saying it's useful travel advice, but it is advice. Was I not

entertained? That's what

it is. I'm just trying to be entertaining. That's all. And also, tell you about my real experience on my recent trip, including after we left Rome, we were in Rome for like four days or something, we headed south. and we ended up in Sorrento now the reason we ended up in Sorrento was because, let's be honest, it was so expensive to stay on the island of Capri, you've got this area called the Almalfi Coast which is pretty well known, it's gorgeous, it's on the Mediterranean it's very you know, it's very talented Mr. Ripley, except it's not in France but it's just like it's this tiny island off of Naples that's Capri and I was looking at places on Capri And I realized it was prohibitively expensive So I found out that Sorrento is also beautiful And a little less expensive And so I booked us this Airbnb And what I was looking forward to about the I wanted this trip to be A lot of it to be we're going to go see things Like we saw everything in Rome I said we saw the Colosseum We did eventually see the Sistine Chapel We went to the Aqueducts, the Appian Way We really checked a lot of things off the list But we went to the Spanish Steps Went to Trevi Fountain We did all that stuff But then I wanted there to be a section of the trip Where I wasn't doing anything Because that's really the kind of trip That I usually like to take Particularly with like my job stuff Where I travel so much To be honest with you It's not usually like Going somewhere and doing a bunch of things Doesn't sound like a vacation to me Yeah I'm usually the same way This was why though I said this yesterday why I actually really, really was so glad to be traveling with Becca because we did more things than I would have done if I was left to my own devices, and I was always happy we did those things.

And happy you did. That's good to hear.

You know, like at the end of the day, I would reflect fondly on all the cool stuff we saw and how we just maximized our time in this way that, again, if left to my own devices, I just won't. I'll just kind of, I'll laze about, I'll sleep in, I'll kind of, I don't know, I just won't, I won't be as motivated to do stuff. So I wanted the trip to have a lot of the being kind of motivated part, but then I wanted to build in a period where there was not going to be—we didn't have to do anything. We were just going to laze about. And so I saw this Airbnb listed at this place, and I was like, this looks really promising. And I actually, to be honest with you, it was not cheap. I don't know. It probably ended up being the same as if we were staying in a pretty nice hotel. But what I liked about it was it was like we were going to have our own kitchen and our own kind of hang area and our own little swimming pool and stuff. So, like, I wanted us to get a bunch of groceries and kind of like hole up in this amazingly relaxing spot and not be going places every day, not have to do anything. Just we're going to make our own food. We're going to hang out. It's going to be great.

Can I ask you a quick question that totally interrupts your story? But it goes back to something that I really wanted to ask during yesterday's show. and i'm not asking for specific numbers here trying to put you on the spot but when you were talking about that experience you had that was supposed to be the special dinner experience but ended up being very fraught and uncomfortable was that also really expensive was that like kind of in the back of your head like i'm paying pretty penny for this or was it like well it was a little

expensive but that wasn't really part of the dynamic it was i think total uh 150 euros so i I think it was $75 per person.

Oh, okay, that's not too bad, right?

That's a little more, now that's euros, so that's probably like $170, which is, you know.

Oh, oh, yeah, okay, yeah.

That's a good, you know, $170 dinner is not cheap, but it wasn't like, it wasn't in... the cost of it was less of a problem for me than just the, like, awkwardness of it. But it also didn't help. As Becca pointed out, it was really mispromoted. I thought we were having dinner, and they were going to bring some wine out. We were having wine, and they were going to bring out some snacks.

I see. Okay. Which I also didn't appreciate. Now, I've said this back in time. I was just kind of curious, and I'm not trying to be aloof about how much that is. That is something that you're paying for, and there's a premium. I'm a little bit, I think, jaded. Everything is so expensive when you go out to eat, even here for a very basic meal in the United States, like in Seattle specifically now, that splashing out $170 for two people for an incredibly, you know, like kind of boutique dining experience. It's not like the type of thing where it's kind of like, OK, we had this circled on our calendar. We knew that this is something we've been saving for before the trip or whatever. I was just kind of curious about how much that had played into it. But anyway, now we're back. That's behind you. You're in Sorrento, and you have your eyes on this Airbnb where you're just going to cozy down a bit.

I had sort of booked. Airbnb makes you do this thing where you pay half to reserve it, but you can still cancel the reservation pretty close to the date. And if you do, you get all your money back. So I, because I am the way that I am, if I see something like this that I like, I'm reserving it, even if I think I'm just going to cancel it later because I don't want anyone else to beat me to it. you know and i so i did that and then i kind of forgot about it and then they whiffed the half of the money out of my account and then i still think i could have maybe gotten it back but actually this is very smart by airbnb i never had to pay all the amount at once yeah so it kind of like it made it less painful if i would have had to like all that money would have left my account i've been like ouch but by the time the second amount was ready to go i had already gotten over the pain of the first amount going out so i was like all right i'll let this ride but anyway the one of the things the woman who owns this place uh this this property um was very helpful she had a lot of like really detailed information of course like a google drive of things that you should know about this place and um of course i didn't look at it until we were literally on the ferry going to sorrento i was like let me see if i can open this google drive on my phone and like one of the things was um uh you should rent a car uh to get here which was news to me i figured we'd take a cab up into the hills this place was like six miles out of town and sorrento is this unbelievably beautiful seaside town it's right you know on the water and there's all kinds of recreating going out in the bay and people are kayaking and they're on insane yachts and there's all these restaurants and things that are perched along the hillside. Like, it's just very, very beautiful. But I didn't really, I initially figured we'd just, like, get a taxi to take us up to this place. But what I didn't really realize was we would then be trapped up there because it's, like, six miles maybe up a really steep, tiny kind of mountain road where there's, like, no shoulder. You can't really, even if you wanted to walk down to town, it would be kind of unsafe. And so I was like, this should be, I kind of thought, well, this should have been like maybe one of the first things that you met there's two things that i thought in retrospect they should have mentioned with this particular property and one of them i found to be a huge huge benefit but i could see people not finding it to be a benefit and that is there were three really big really friendly dogs that live on the property at all times now i loved these dogs these dogs were giving me freaking life in fact today's show pick is a picture of one of the dogs named Marvel just running down to see me. Their dogs were Abby, Winston, and Marvel. And I loved them so much. Every time we would come out of our little part of the house, Abby would be laying right at the door. Abby really wanted to come in. We were like, you're going to need to stay out there.

Is the person who's renting this to you and the person you said that sent you the Google Drive, is this person on site somewhere then? I think under normal

circumstances she might be, but she wasn't this time she was i found out later in thailand who's taking care of the dogs the caretakers because this was such a bananas property that there's like a family of italians that live there to tend to the lemon orchard oh wow slash it was like this place had this place had it all lemon orchards olive groves tomato plants um but uh in the directions so that was one thing i thought oh, I love these dogs, but if you didn't like dogs, this would be a kind of, like, if you were, like, afraid of dogs or allergic to dogs or just, like, not a dog person.

It's not listed on the listing, huh?

It said it in a roundabout way. It said something like, we share the property with three awesome dogs or something. It wasn't like, it should have been basically in all red, hey, if you're not a dog person, keep scrolling. I am a dog person, as is Becca. I was We'll be right back. I'm besotted with these dogs, but if I wouldn't have been a dog person, this would have been a major—if I would have been my mom, Andrew, this would have been a major issue.

Your mom likes dogs, Luke. It's just flea.

Do you understand that after we did that episode of the show, I walked into the house and my phone started ringing and that was my mom, and we ended up talking about if she likes dogs or not?

I was going to say, there's no way she listened to that that quickly, that she turned it around that quickly.

It just so happened that we got back—what I was telling her was she needs to get a dog. She and my dad need to get a dog because I need my mom to develop a walking practice. My mom is very mobile, which is great, but I want her to stay very mobile. I was telling her, get some books on tape, get a dog, take the dog for a walk every day, listen to your books on tape, make it a ritual that you look forward to.

Can I just disagree with one thing about that? Don't bring a living animal into your goals for changing your own behavior because that leaves the animal. I would try to establish the walking behavior first and make sure that you are the person who can do that because then when you have an animal that is reliant on that, you have proven that you are that person. Don't run the test on that once something is dead.

Well, the only thing I would say to that is they live on like four acres. And if, let's just say they got a dog and my mom didn't want to walk it, that dog would have the time of its life. The dog is going to the place that people lie about a dog going to when they have them put down. Wait, what do you mean lie? I know what you mean Like if you live in an apartment And if you live in an apartment And you aspirationally want to start walking a dog I could not agree with you more Like let's not Or any animal Let's not make them You know This like representation of a new version of you I strongly agree All this is to say The two things that might They probably should have put higher up in the copy Was for this property Was there's going to be some dogs And they're going to And one of them Marvel is going to really love like rolling around in like a wet bog because he's warm and then he's going to want to like come up and love on you so like that's a factor and then the other thing they should have said is you have to rent a car because if you don't you're trapped up there like that's a pretty big component of this and because we got the news really late i'm like renting a car on my phone as we're like zooming over there on the boat and because of that the only car that apparently they had at the the rental the europe car they didn't have an avis in sorrento or i would have wizarded my way right into it they had this place called europe car and i so we get this car rented and it's like a luxury vehicle it's listed as and i just thought well we'll get there and then we'll just tell them we don't want the luxury vehicle give us a yaris give us a fiat right because one of the things it says in the direct i will give credit to the owner of this airbnb one of the it says in the directions is you need to rent a small car because the roads are really small up here like really narrow so we get to the europe car place and i go hey we have this audi reserve but like we just need a smaller car and again i was talking about this a while ago there's a brusqueness the lady was like no it's like what she goes we brought the car i'm sorry i'll spare everyone the accent that also sounded like vaguely eastern european she basically said uh we brought that they brought the car over here for you you have to take this car which is so not how it would ever be in america like now granted in america i'd be at an avis lot at lax and it'd be like 84 million cars right i think part of for me the mental adjustment of italy was everything is not excessive the hotel you're staying in doesn't have a thousand rooms the car rental place doesn't have a lot like with 50 cars on it at all times like we had this audi reserved this like fancy ass audi and that's the car you're getting gosh darn it that's the one they brought over and so from the old country wait we're in the old country what so i we're still in downtown sorrento at this point and i don't really understand the implication of this vehicle yet so we go outside they bring the car up we get in the car it's actually a nice ass car i'm like oh this is pretty dope it has ac which

i'm telling you i was loving because most of the time i was in italy i was my if i had like a a temperature gauge like a car does it would be in the h at all times did you say what what kind of car this is an audi an audi okay but a big audi not like i used to have space car that was an audi a3 oh an audi a3 would have been it would have been perfect for this place it was not what you needed was an innie honestly that's a solid joke my friend and i would have taken it because what i realized was i don't think you want like this audi is technically a luxury vehicle you don't want this audi when you're on sorrento you literally do not want this to be your car that's why that's why no one had taken it that's why they were like it's your problem now bro it's your hot potato because we start out driving We're in, like, downtown Sorrento, and I would say the streets are, like, narrower than in Seattle, but, like, they're a street. There's enough for two cars. You're driving around. And the first thing was the directions to this Airbnb were absolutely and totally unhelpful. Like, it was like you go up this road, and it's, okay, well, first of all, none of the roads are marked. It's not like you get on Aurora Avenue, and you go to 135th, and you take a right. like that's not the vibe yeah it's like the roads are there might be a little via day something that's like on an old building but like you're not it's not there's not signage there's not and so we put it into the map i was going to ask you that was my next question how's the mapping software doing shite the mapping software we put so we get in the car i put it in the map and it says here's how you get there and i'm like oh my god everything's coming up millhouse we got ac We got this car The map's telling us where to go We're driving on these winding roads That are like overlooking the sea It's playing a version of Life Goes On by the Beatles But it's in Italian Life Goes On Obla Di Obla Da But in Italiano I look at Becca and I'm like Tape this dude this is amazing We're just like living the fantasy Until I don't know we get like six miles out of town and the entire route like just shifts so i'm looking at it on the car readout right it's got like this blue line that's like here's how you get there all of a sudden we're way up this mountain and the line just shifts it just goes like no actually sorry you know i know you were following this but that's not what we're doing anymore you got to go back that way seven miles like huh now first of all it's like impossible to make a u-turn on these roads because now the road is like it's wide enough for two cars but there's zero shoulder. One side is like a thousand foot drop into the Mediterranean and the other side is like a rock wall and in fact every time, oh and there's, have I mentioned there's just scooters whizzing past everyone at all times because the scooters have no patience

it's mostly people on scooters so they're just like swarming your car going around your car, going between you and a tour bus at all times, you have to be like head on a swivel when you're doing this driving so like i find somewhere to sort of do a u-turn or like do like a 20 point turnaround we take our very life in our hands i want to mention something too at the beginning of this whole journey the europe car person came to me and said as we were inside the woman said you don't have like the full insurance and i've just been trained now never take the full coverage it's a rip-off you know if i'm renting from avis i'm like i don't know cbs will somebody will cover this i I have car insurance for my car. What are the chances I'm going to crash or something? So inside, I told him, we don't want the extra insurance. That's just, like, reflexive now for me. So then we get out to when the car comes, and then, weirdly, like, one of the younger men giving us the car, he goes, you know, I noticed you don't have the insurance. And I literally said to him words that would come back to haunt me. I don't know why I said this. I said, I love my insurance. What a weird way to put it.

Because you're thinking, I do have insurance. Well, Genevieve has always had in me, because Genevieve, when we rent cars 99% of the time, it's Genevieve who's renting it. And maybe I even heard this from my parents as well. Like, you don't need the insurance. Like, it's like, it's not just something you pass up, but there's sort of like this, I don't know if it's our generation or what, but there's a little bit of a, yeah, that's how they get you. You know what I mean? We have this little bit of internal, like, you're trying to scam me. So you were being a little bit, you were being a little bit, like, sarcastic with him because that was your instinct.

It's just what we were talking about the other day on the show about that kind of constantly having your like guard up. Yes, yes, yes. And I have that, you know, up like they don't even ask me at Avis, do I want the insurance? I'm like, I'm a wizard. OK, please. Lies do not become. Look at that. But now I'm in another country. I think it's pretty clear. I think the hat says it all. Two toilets. I think that says it all. So that like when I'm in Italy and I'm like, they're already making me take this Audi I kind of don't want. and like and the second guy is going the insurance for some reason i process that by saying i love my insurance now the thing was from that point on i have never been more nervous about destroying a rental car and we're up in the hills of sorrento the map just flips around and just says like oh you know how you thought you were going to the right place it's you've been going the wrong way the whole time i was like how could that be so we we finally get turned around and and we're going down the hill and I'm just like watching this little blue line just jump around and like, we'll be driving in the direction it says and then all of a sudden it'll just reorient and they'll just be like pointing the other way. And it's like so confusing. And also taking us down these roads now where like I turn left down this road that I think it's telling us to do. And let's say that this like Audi we had is, I don't know how wide.

one of these cars is let's just say it's like i don't know nine feet wide or something i swear this road is 10 feet wide and it's these stone walls that are going up on the sides that's why it matters the width of the road because it's not just like hey this is a narrow road but you're driving it's like you're constantly about to scrape the car on one side of this thing and because this is a fancy new car it has these sensors that are going off on all the corners going every time a corner of the car is near something it was a solid it's supposed to be like beep beep you're near this which is like because you were like threading this needle now here's the other thing this road these roads are two-way roads so you're going down so we're descending down this steep like channel of this road and every so often either a person on a scooter is coming up the other way or a full-on other car and then you just have to like do this negotiation where like they back up or you back up we end up like the nearest driveway

or something I mean they don't even have

like I mean yes but I feel like driveway is even overstating it like nearest point where for some reason there's two more feet of road that someone can kind of like worm their way over to and then you have to like go around them and then your cars are like a

millimeter apart from hitting each other what is um what is becca's sort of demeanor and state of mind during all of this she seems like she is not somebody who is she's calmly supportive

but we're both feeling like at any moment we are going to end up in a situation by the way we haven't even gotten to the place at any moment we are going to end up in a situation where the car is irretrievably trapped that was the thing because you're going down these like this here's the thing with italy and particularly like sorrento and rome these were not built for cars like this these are old cities that were built for like a person on a horse or something like it was definitely certainly not built for like maybe for a motor scooter not for a car and not for like a full-ass american four-door car not that audi is made in america but you get the idea so I get we get down in this like weird like hippie campsite and there's like a guy and I'm trying to like tell him about where we're trying to go there's a huge language barrier as you might imagine and he's just like kind of pointing us up the hill we have to go back through this like campsite and then go back up the road we just came down we get back up to the main road so you

retrace the steps where the line originally took you and then it changed its mind on you then you

yes we're doing this for like an hour and a half would we're like and then we're just trying to get back down to sorrento i'm like we have to go back to sorrento and start over and just like start this from like scratch so as we're trying to go down to sorrento it's still trying to get us it thinks to this place and one time it does this like sharp turn i was like well maybe that was the turn we missed again all of these roads i can't overstate this none of them have any signs marking what they are called so sending us the list of directions being like go up via this and then do this and this it's like that would be amazing if any of these roads were marked in any way shape or form and they're not and they all sound the same too you know they're like it's italian so there's just like hairpin right turn and i'm like well maybe that's the thing so i whip it up this road and again we're back in one of these alleys where it's just stone walls the width of the car and we start going up and we just hit a dead end it's a construction site there's a car behind us that's probably on the same journey of discovery where now we are at a dead end where there is a construction site, there is a fence like a temporary fence that someone has pulled down and I realize if I drive over this temporary fence, like a chain link fence, if I drive over this, I could turn around in this little construction site and try to get out of here, although there is a car behind us like who the hell are you? so i'm like and i'm also at this point like my anxiety level is at like a 20 because we're getting we keep getting lost i keep going down increasingly more treacherous roads where i mean this one is one we're legitimately almost trapped like i don't know how this is going to work but i'm like bex we got to do this i'm just driving over this fence that's somebody else must have the same problem because it's like a cyclone fence that's been like pulled down it had these cement blocks on the bottom of it for it to stand up somebody has just pulled it down so it's lying on its side but it's still substantial right and i'm just like all right here we go and as i'm driving over it i can just feel it just shredding the bottom of the car and the words i love my insurance are ringing through my by the way this is again not that long after i made the fateful decision to not get the full coverage and we like we get over this like fence thing and i like i'm just like it is just like my whole financial life is flashing before my eyes the people that were behind us after they see me do this they're like we don't want any part of this dude they back down the alley i turn the car around now i can kind of see what we're up against and i realize well i can do this thing where i move one of the cement blocks and i've kind of already smashed the fence down

more so i'm like all right you're getting out of the car and moving one of these cement blocks now

Yes, I'm getting out of the car. I'm moving cement blocks. I'm trying to stamp down the fence. And I turn to Becca and I say this thing. I know I've talked about it a lot on the show, but I'm being serious. This is the thing that's been getting me through my life a lot of late. I literally said, this is the good part. I was like, can we make this the good part? Driving over this fence in Sorrento? And we both just kind of laughed. And we were like, and again, this is where I'm so lucky. Becca is so chill. I mean, she told me later. Internally I thought we were pretty much fucked But she's not like She doesn't respond to stress In a way where she's like what are you doing Or like she doesn't Show it and therefore It's not like two bad things happening at once Like I'm taking us on this weird Road where we're gonna destroy the car And pop the tires and she's like really Like noticeably upset with me Maybe internally she is but like This is why we travel really well together Thankfully but like so go back over the fence and now we're go we get we're just going downhill i'm like i don't know what this thing wants us to do but we're just not stopping till we're back in sorrento and at the same time because the person who owns the house is out of town she has like said this is the number of my friend who is going to meet you at the house who you can call so i'm i'm dialing i'm like driving dialing internationally on the cell phone calling someone who has sort of medium English. And I get her on the phone. She's very nice. But she's like, I'm like, I don't know where we are. We just drove over a fence. I go, I think we're in downtown Sorrento. She's like, okay, good, perfect, perfect. And I'm like, I'm looking at this fountain. She's like, okay, great, perfect. And then she's like, keep going. She's trying to talk us back in, but she doesn't actually really know where we are. And at one point, she's like, okay, perfect. Keep going straight. And you're going to see the old wall of the city. And I'm like, I'm not seeing that. We end up going up into now another dead end situation where we go into this like underground of this apartment building where it's, again, made for like a motor scooter. I end up going down like hundreds of feet into this underground parking where the only way for me to get out is to literally just back out like the most stressful, like don't hit anything, back out. This was the only macho move in my life. Like, Becca was like, when we got out of there, I backed us out for probably seriously like 700 feet of backing out of this apartment. And Becca said, that was the most manly thing you've ever done. Backing out of this tiny space. Yeah, she goes, I would not have been able to do that. And I was like, I will take the W. Just remember that when I'm weeping quietly tonight in bed, please. So we finally get back down to the city, and we're talking to this woman who's trying to help us. but my phone is on like four percent and i'm the only one that has her number because i have the airbnb account so i have this number from the airbnb message but becca doesn't even have it and

i'm like write down this number she's like okay is there a pen she goes no i go i don't know text it to yourself i'm like plus three three seven nine two forty four blue omaha omaha like it's like the longest string of numbers because i go hey you might get a call from my girlfriend because my phone's about to die. She goes, oh, my phone is about to die.

And I was like, don't say that. Oh, my God. And you don't have a car charger for that? Is it a...

No, because it's US... Even though the rumors are everything's supposed to be USB-C, it's a USB to my iPhone thing. I don't have that. I have everything as USB-C now.

Oh, I see. So it's like a classic USB coming out of the car.

It's a classic USB coming out of the car, and I don't have any chargers, any charging cables for that Because I was told it's 2024 And we've moved on In fact I heard Europe was the whole reason we had to move on So it's like the phone is on And now it's like We've sort of gotten oriented I think we're heading in the right direction But she's being like the kind of description That this very nice woman is giving us Is like okay And I'll try not to do the accent because it's bad Like I'm bad at it but she's like okay You go up and then you're going to come To a very weird turn And I'm like define weird Like, what does that even mean? A weird, and at the weird turn, go left. And then I'm just like, okay, are we at the weird turn? What is the weird turn?

It's like a bunch of mimes on the corner. Right. They're fighting.

Right. That was weird. Okay, that's what you're talking about. That's a weird, that was a weird turn. So, like, she, like, I get to this thing that I'm like, this isn't a normal turn, kind of, like, I mean, if.

Again, if I spoke Italian or she spoke maybe better English, it would have been, you're going to come to basically a fork in the road and there's a right and a left. Don't do the right, do the left. That would have been it. But I interpreted this to be, and I go back, do you think this is the weird turn? She goes, I think this is the weird turn. Okay, take the weird turn. Now the phone is on like 2%. And she's like, when you go up that road, you start looking for this one sign. And I'm like, okay. And then we're driving, but it's like, I keep thinking, did we go too far? We're not seeing the sign. We pull over. there's just like a guy maybe he's like 20 and just like a kind of dirty basketball shorts at like a t-shirt and and like he's just kind of walking on the side of the road and we roll on the window and i'm like um uh casa alena or something like the sign is not even related to the house but it's for the like road the guy is supposed to meet us at this thing that says like casa alena or whatever and i just go to the guy like casa alena and he kind of looks and goes He actually knew where this was He was like up He didn't speak any English But he's like up up And then he's like doing this handshake Like you're gonna go around and then down And I was just like okay well he's heard of it So it's a thing And like as we're going up the road My phone dies And we go around a bend And we go out another bend And there in the distance is Casa Elena And the guy Anthony who's meeting us Is out he's waving from his little car And we like pull over and we're like we're not even there we're at the main road which going down to the place from the main road involved no fewer than three different points where i had to stop the car and do three-point turns like areas where it was not almost not physically possible to get the car there and i was like when we got it down there i was like i guess we're never i don't know maybe

the car just stays here like so you mean you met this guy and then you follow him in your car Follow him down. Okay, yeah, and then so it's this place. So it's this final road.

But he's in, like, a teen, you know what he's in? A white Fiat. Yeah, right. That's, like, three inches large, and he's just, like, doing fine. We're following him. It is the most, like, labyrinth of, like, this little road and then this road and then this road and then, like, all these different villas and, like, a statue of the Virgin Mary, like, a whole shrine and shit. Like, we are deep in, like, out there Italy at this point. and thank god we had him to follow and thank god my phone died not like a minute earlier because we would have been screwed like we like thank god he was there because there would have been no universe in which we would have gotten down to where we were supposed to go even off of the main road there was like 30 turns all of these little weird things look the same they're just like these tiny narrow passages that are barely wide enough for any car and they all look the same or they're all weird in the same way we i'll tell you when we actually like went through the gates of this cat whatever villa um malangalo or whatever it was called and like got down there and parked i swear to god i had aged probably seven years just from the drive out there and how many days

did you spend at this villa four maybe and then i assume you didn't you never got in the car again Until you needed to get out of there

My desire was to never get in the car again I couldn't overstate that Becca's desire was to not be trapped for four days With only me

I understand that instinct as well

We negotiated a settlement which was one day we would leave With the car and I tell you I'm not like a nervous Person with driving and stuff at all I would say I'm Mildly overconfident about my skills I was like For like a whole day leading up to us Leaving the place I was like Like a wreck

but it's like it's so stressful becca didn't drive though becca didn't want to drive either

no i she was she i mean she was very supportive and was very like man this would she actually said something she was like her she has a brother named scott and a brother named jeff and they're both very good competent drivers and she literally said jeff scott and you are the only people i would actually trust to do this which again i took as a high compliment um but it was it was so intense like just trying and i was i was like i can't believe like they can even legally rent you a car that is this size here like they shouldn't be able to like because if you have to go down we were also when we were down there like what if we had to call 9-1-1 like you couldn't get an ambulance down here right yeah like what do you do yeah yeah what if somebody fell like how would they also how would you even tell them where you were like i can't i can't overstate this this place was down a random rat maze of tiny little narrow alleyways that were constantly he's jutting off and zigzagging like i don't think that if i spoke fluent italian if i was silvio berlusconi having a bunga bunga party at this place and somebody fell while bungaing i don't think i would have been able to tell the ambulance how to get there you couldn't you couldn't bunga them out of there they bungaed but then they couldn't bunga right exactly um so uh so that I guess my travel tip in all of that is to say,

If you are in Italy and you are renting a car, rent the smallest car they will buy. I've never wanted a Yaris more, Andrew. I was thinking of you. I was like, this is where Andrew had it figured out. I'm Mr. Canyonero.

Rest in peace, the Yaris.

I saw a couple of Yaris's in Italy, and I almost want to take a picture and send it to you. Now, that being said.

Eventually, there will be no more Yari on the roads. They stopped making them.

They came for the Yari, and I said nothing.

When did they stop making them, like 2015 or something like that? Like, if you see a Yaris, respect that Yaris. It's going away.

Put some respect on its name. Not too much respect, because it won't be able to go up a hill. But I have never, honestly, I've never been more, you know, I've never been more envious of just a very, very small, very functional little vehicle. Now, one of the things that would have been an issue if we would have gotten a teeny tiny car is we had so much luggage. was so gigantic our luggage that um i don't know if it could have fit in much smaller of a car but let me say this once we were there it was like unlike any place i had ever stayed first thing the woman who owns it was not there so instead of it just being like we're staying in this kind of apartment that's like part of this villa and we have access there's two swimming pools and we have access to them and there's a lemon grove and there's or orchard or whatever you call the thing with lemons in it and there's like wild they're not wild there's like tomatoes and peppers growing there's like it's garden everywhere and you're just like you can go pick anything you want from the garden and eat it i mean it's real eden vibes up there but since she wasn't there because normally some of that space would have been shared and i would i was a little bit apprehensive i was like i don't if we want to sit by the pool and relax but there's like the owner of the house and her friends there that's going to be kind of a different vibe well that never happened because she was gone so we had the whole place to ourself it was this like i don't know if the villa was ancient and re re like rehabilitated or if it was built 30 years ago to seem ancient but it was like you walk into this little thing that we were staying in and it literally had a book that said accidentally wes anderson and it was just like a picture book of things that were wes anderson that were actually not designed by wes anderson and that just was the entire vibe of this place The apartment we were in was just so charming and so whatever your dream of an Italian villa was. And then we had these dogs. And then they even had a gym there because it was way too hilly to go out and go walking and running. So in the morning, I'd run on the treadmill, and Becca would do the weights. And then I would walk outside and just pick an entire giant-ass thing of grapes and just start eating them to hydrate. It was just absolutely fantastic. That's great. And, yeah, so I, you know, it was worth it to get there, I guess. I mean, once we were there, it was worth it, but it was arduous. And not even arduous. It was so stressful. I really had a couple of moments where I was like, I don't know if I can handle how stressed out this is making me. Like, I'm going to get this car literally wedged into a stone wall between two stone walls. I'm going to wedge this car, and I'm not going to be able to get it out. And I don't have the insurance for that. Cut to the end of the story. We drove the car back to Rome because we flew from Rome, well, to Dublin and then to Paris. And to Dublin was just because we had to change planes. We were on Aer Lingus. And to go, we were going to Paris eventually. Spicy. And we get the, what's that?

I just said spicy.

Yeah, I know, right? Believe me, it took us like three days to finally break down and make the joke. You know what it means? It means air fleet. Nobody's told them in Ireland that lingus has a real different, real loaded kind of connotation out here. But all that is to say, we get the car back to Rome. We take it to the airport, and I drop it off, and the guy comes, and he does the walk around, and he goes, all right, perfecto, sign off on the thing. And when I tell you I felt like George Clooney at the end of an Ocean's something movie, Like, I just pulled the biggest heist off of, in fact, you know what, they actually jacked me up on the gas price. When we got the car, it had seven-eighths of a tank, and the guy who gave it to us said, it's not full, take a picture of it. And we returned it, I told the guy, I was like, it's not full, seven-eighths of a tank, it was seven-eighths when I got it, I have a picture, do you want to see it? He said, no, no, no, it's fine, get the bill from Europe car. And they're like, you returned it one-eighth of a tank light, you owe us $22. And I was like, you don't have any idea What I did to this car You think you're getting over on me? Au contraire, amigo As they say in Italy

You know what?

Have your 22 euros, my friend Because you have no idea

how much I beat the shit out of that Audi.

That thing doesn't have brake lines anymore.

Oh, my gosh. That is unsafe for whoever is taking it out.

That is unsafe at any speed. Exactly. And the speed is very slow. Get Nader on the case. Yeah, yeah. Wow. You almost buy, I mean, you upped the stakes, but, like, it's so funny to hear your anxiety level. But, like, you kind of went through the same, like, literally with that Yaris. Remember I got a scratch on a Yaris that I went to return? We were in Arizona, right? We were in Arizona, and I literally was just, like, worrying about it the whole time, and then, like, I returned it, and just, like, you felt like I was getting away. I think, didn't I have stories in my, did I have, like, a story ready to go or something? Of course, the stakes were much lower then, but, yeah.

Well, I mean, this goes back to the whole thing of traveling, which is if I was in the U.S. and I had a car from Avis and there was some problem with it or I dinged it or the windshield got busted like happened with you and we were in Denver, it's like I would just be like, well, I don't know. I'll work it out with the guy. Like, you know, I'll just I'll talk my way out of it. that was the thing that on this trip i had to really kind of grapple with which is i navigate my world so much based on i'll be able to talk my way out of this or into this and it was humbling and a really good reminder to like not have that that tool in my arsenal because first of all there's a lot of privilege around that tool there's a lot of just like either being a nudge which is just annoying or being kind of like white privilege that i'm not really checking in the moment just a lot of stuff that goes on and to be in a place where i don't have that as my fallback i can't just like weasel my way into and out of everything it was really kind of a it was a reminder of how lucky i am when i'm traveling around the united states and my thought was like dude if i like jacked up the bottom of this car on that fence do they just make me buy the audi like i don't know the rules in europe i don't i mean good i'm like hey can i not buy this audi

no they brought it over special hey we all saw what happened to amanda knox there's no reason

for us to trust these people i mean that's a whole other thing because i like interviewed amanda knox as we were walking around rome our hotel was near like the police station and i was like man i can't imagine how disorienting it would be to be an american in the police state or the police whatever system of Italy.

And she was a kid, right? She was a kid. She was very young, college age, I guess.

I mean, that would just be insanity.

Yeah.

I didn't know. Yeah, maybe it's jail. Maybe it's mandatory straight to jail.

Yes.

You are not getting the insurance on the Audi straight to jail. Like, I don't even know, but it was.

Too much insurance?

Also jail. But did you say too much insurance?

Too much insurance? Also jail. Yes.

yeah like i was i was i was extremely relieved to have that car off of my hands i guess that also made me feel a little bit like you andrew because you and i don't want to misdescribe because i know you like driving i've said you don't like driving before and that's not correct but you don't like sometimes being responsible for a car in an environment where the car is a

hassle parking yeah yeah exactly i don't and i i'll be legit i don't the cars that i do drive when I own a car is we always buy very small cars that I know how to navigate. I don't like driving big cars. Smart. Smart cars. How smart is that? E equals MC squared. That is one of the best comedic breaths. There's something of a for people who know the drop that we're talking about from the office.

Can we start with that tomorrow?

Even though I probably abused it.

A little free standing comedy. Freelancing comedy. Everybody can

laugh. It doesn't have to just be the dumb ones. Anyway, yeah, so I can't remember what I was saying. But, yeah, I mean, I don't know. And also I think it's changing as I get older. It's weird because maybe this is, again, sort of a, I don't know, maybe this is stereotypical of a guy of my generation or whatever. But I consider myself also a good driver. For as little as I drive, I actually consider myself a pretty good driver. And when I was younger, you know, that sort of head-suredness made me a bit of an aggressive driver. I drive so carefully now around Seattle because I like, you know, I just it's not that I'm scared, but I just am like there's no reason for there's so many cyclists around and I always want to be conscientious of that and pedestrians. And maybe I'm becoming more of a Seattle driver, maybe even sometimes being too too polite to the pedestrians or the bikes giving. I just give such a wide berth because I'm just like the older I am, the more I'm like, man, I'm just driving this potentially killing machine around these streets. And Seattle is changing where more and more areas like the Ave, they're doing so much to discourage driving, which I'm again, I am for I like that. And so when you're driving on the Ave now and I don't know the last time you've been through the Ave, Luke, but certainly during the pandemic, they sort of, you know, just.

blocking, taking off areas that used to be street areas or parking areas, and it's now all outdoor dining, and they have this, the light rail goes through there now, so there's all these just like roads that are actually closed off now, and it's more of a kind of a pedestrian mall area, and so when I'm driving through that area, you always had to be careful looking out for pedestrians and college students, but now you really feel like this is a place, you're allowed to drive your car here but more and more this is not a place for cars which i respect mad respect as the kids say um but when i'm doing it so that's why i'm just like i don't care if the person behind me is going to get a little bit irritated i am going to drive very slowly through every little crosswalk i'm going to be i'm going to creep along as i'm driving in those areas having said that i still think i'm a good driver i think i'm a good parallel parker i think that i'm i mean again i think this is just maybe ego and a lot of people suffer from this i think I'm a better driver than most people are are on the road but I'm probably not it's just a feeling that I have it's it's one of those like you know

fit more than 50% of people can't be good drivers and be good at sex I mean like that's the day sometimes do these surveys and it's like more than 50% of themselves rate themselves as above average at driving oh yeah right yeah the math doesn't math on that yeah yeah yeah you know so it's like we all think that we're a little better drivers than everyone else but we can't all be better than average at that.

I would definitely enter a parallel parking competition with somebody if I could either use my own car or have a decent amount of time to practice in the car that I would be parallel parking.

I am generally pretty proud of my parallel parking skills because of my time as a valet. So I had to parallel park a lot of cars. But I will say this. I have never been more like, this is what Andrew was talking about with like small cars that are low hassle like i i guess i felt like me having this car even though it really wasn't my fault and i i was fine with a fiat if i could have gotten one i felt like this is everything that's wrong with me as an american is i got to get the biggest car because people

were looking you didn't want it though that's i didn't want it but in the back of my head i was thinking that like and you probably also have this sort of like i'm the american trying to navigate these streets in a giant car because i'm an american i need a giant car and it's like you

didn't want that car exactly but nobody knew that and that was the problem because when we were when we were exiting so going from the property where we were staying up this like crazy winding series of whatever's in these tiny little impossible to navigate like tiny road alley things like you invariably would be hitting other cars and like not hitting but but coming to a like heads with like a garbage truck like a tiny garbage truck or like a a tiny car or a scooter and then again one of us would have to kind of back up and make room for the other and do this like very improvised kind of thing and i couldn't i wanted to tell all of them if i spoke italian i didn't try to get this car that was what was killing me i wanted the escalade right i was asked for the tahoe they didn't have it so so that's the travel tip for today if you're going to italy rent the smallest car possible and you will absolutely thank me so what's up for tomorrow where are we tomorrow tomorrow andrew we visit the city of lights paris okay which i have to say i hate to say it a lot of light it was pretty cool i had very low expectations about paris i'd been there one time before and it did not make a huge impression on me and if i'm being honest i tacked it on because becca had expressed an interest she's like hey if we're going back and we can stop in paris that would be amazing and um i had an absolutely wonderful time and i i'm getting what the hype is all about so we're going to talk about paris tomorrow have you seen the movie starring billy crystal forget paris where he's a basketball referee is he about is

Is he also a recovering alcoholic, or am I wrong about that part of it? My dad keeps telling me that I would love Forget Paris. It angers him now. It irritates him when I talk to him. He says, have you watched Forget Paris yet?

I feel like he is a basketball ref, although I don't know why he's in Paris, but I feel like he has some great scenes with, like, I don't know if it's Barkley or somebody. Because he's a ref, they bring in some actual NBA athletes of the time, and he has it out with them on the court. So there's a lot to love.

Yeah, it does say he's an NBA referee, and it's a love story. Anyway, I need to watch it so that my dad—

I'm just saying, everybody watch Forget Paris tonight so that you'll understand what I'm talking about tomorrow.

But, Luke, importantly, don't you forget Paris. Let's not get our way— If you forget Paris, we're screwed for tomorrow's show, okay? I got nothing.

I'm writing a note to myself. I'm out of radio.

to show you on a podcast. So I'm out of visual gags for the podcast. So make sure you don't forget Paris.

I will remember to not forget Paris for tomorrow's show, which we hope you all will be able to join us for. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.