Muse

And for you, sir?

I will have the gabagool.

The what?

The gabagool.

I don't really know what that is.

You know, gabagool. I don't have to have that. What he's trying to say is gabagool. Guys, I don't really think that we have that. That's okay. Bring him the gabagool.

Shh.

I will have the spaghetti with a side salad.

Okay.

If the salad is on top, I send it back. TBTL!

i'm going to suggest that we have a little constructive talking time not long at all i mean maybe maybe 10 minutes or um okay or maybe 15 is also good this is a show for dogs about dogs

starring one dog and one dirty dog wait a minute i'm a reasonable guy but i've just experienced some very unreasonable things you're the only one with the capacity for such tenacity and audacity But more than anything, I admire your veracity.

Yeah, I gotta say, this seems like a bad idea.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be beautiful to live. Two bros, bro hand it up! My name is Luke Burbank, I am your host. Are you sure? That's what they said on Ask Jeeves. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it is a warm day, maybe touching 100s of degrees.

Never kick a cow turd on a hot day.

The heat dome settling over much of the West, but luckily it's very, very hospitable here inside the Madrona Hill studio as we roll on up to episode 4,287 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

And it's another day where we will take part in the TBTL travel guide, Curing Lonely Planetness. Today. Where are you adventuring to? Places I haven't been before. we will be traveling to paris france by way of dublin ireland really we just changed planes in dublin ireland but there was something kind of funny about that airport we'll get into that and all the other things that were spectacular about paris france when i was there recently this guy is spectacular he's the longest running cobro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ship something else about him this guy is a four and a half foot tall pile of awesomeness um he is getting a surgery though to have that repaired he's andrew walsh and he's joining me right now good morning my friend i'm gonna be a five and a half pile of awesomeness get your spine re-lengthened you were so awesome that it actually compressed you down to four and a half feet yeah they're gonna put me on the stretcher though i look forward to that well

uh-huh well r and r um how are you feeling today my friend i'm feeling discombobulated and i feel I feel like the universe is mocking me, and I feel like past Andrew is mocking me in some sort of a way, and there's something bedeviling me. And the good news for you and the listeners is it's a completely tedious explanation of what's bedeviling me today. So, I mean, you don't even have to be here for this, Luke, if you don't want to be. Like, if you're looking to get anything, how are you on your taxes?

Are you saying that— Did you file an extension? You started to really, you know, last week when you were doing the show without me, you started to really enjoy the solitude.

Oh, wow. No, I didn't mean it. I meant that more as a dig towards me than you. I'm worried about what I'm about to launch into and how everybody's just going to go get a cup of coffee during this part of the show.

Well, I brought my coffee right here, Andrew. I have two ears and they're turned to the listening station.

Why are you holding two mugs of coffee? You didn't know what to do with your other ear. What do I do with my hand? What do you do with your hand? Oh, you're back to your little... Oh, actually, this is hot content. You're back to your beautiful green enamel mug. I thought you were, oh, you haven't gotten your new mugs yet. You learned during your travels that you want smaller mugs in the future.

Yes, I did. And you know what? I'm still doing the thing that I regret. And in fact, you know, in Europe, they have smaller coffee cups. That was something Becca and I, Becca consumes just a ridiculous amount of coffee. I consume a ridiculous amount of food. And when we sit down to eat together and we share, it's about 90% of it is getting shoveled down my food hole. But when it comes to coffee, we'll go by like a coffee shop, maybe a Starbucks if we're in a pinch. And she'll get like a venti, like the really big one. And I'll get a medium. And this will be like lava temperature hot. And I swear to God, like I start the car, we pull out of the drive-thru or whatever it is. I look over, the coffee is gone. hmm she can just absolutely put away the coffee and i'm like two sips into mine well when we were particularly when we were in italy we were trying to get

anyone to make us a full-on cup of coffee the way we would have in the u.s now maybe that was being no fun maybe that was not integrating into the environment because they're you know that's the land of cappuccino that's the land of a teeny tiny coffee like a wee little barbie size coffee and i could never get down everyone was drinking these teeny tiny coffees but for like hours i don't know if they're refilling them if they've perfected the art of like the tiny sip but all anyone was doing all the time, which I kind of respect, was sitting around, smoking cigarettes, chatting with their friends, and just nursing a tiny coffee. But that's actually the amount that I need, because what I do, as you're referencing, is I will pour myself a big old cup of coffee like this, and then I'll drink about half of it, and then the other half will get cold, and I'll dump it out and refill it. Instead of just pouring myself the appropriate amount of coffee, which is half of this, that's the amount that I'll consume before it gets cold. A couple of things,

Am I right that the term Americano came from that tradition in Europe, specifically Italy, where people are just drinking small bits of those cute little cups of cappuccino, but the Americans were used to their big cups of drip coffee, so they added water to it and called it an Americano? Am I right about that?

I feel like Becca was ordering Americanos, and they were still somehow very small. So I, because I'm a world traveler now and because I am so worldly, I was like, I thought, well, I know what I'll do. I'll just order a café latte because I was like, they love those. And then it was only like and they would look at me like, what? And then they would make me something that would be like coffee, a little like a cappuccino shop, but then like way too much cold milk. So that the whole thing was kind of room temp. And I was like, these fools, they invented café latte. And then I thought, that's French. What are you talking about? Oh, right. Not even Italian. I was like, they'll understand me when I say a French word to them.

Oh, that hadn't. Yeah, that was actually lost on me. But yeah, we're going. You're barging into Europe and you're like, I want it like they do it at Starbucks. And that's the voice that you did.

We went to a Starbucks in Naples, which is the most basic thing we could have done. But we were both really ready to get a big, tall, piping hot cup of coffee. It was a zoo. Everybody who was at the Starbucks in Naples Was there because it was a tourist destination For people who are from places where there aren't that many Starbucks and we were just going Because we wanted a tall cup of coffee and Becca's all excited she gets her coffee She's like through her limited Italian is Trying to basically do this order she does Which is like a half inch of steamed Oat milk so it's like a Big tall really hot like Americana With a little bit of oat milk on top And they make it And she's all excited and then she goes to put a little Sprinkle of I think like nutmeg on it or something And the whole lid just falls Into her coffee oh no Was it a prank not the contents But it no well that Oh just the lid okay not the lid Oh I was picturing like the old salt shaker Joke right and actually she wondered If somebody had had loosened the lid As some kind of joke but it wasn't that the All the contents went just the lid the metal Lid went you know but And she later said this is how desperate She was for a cup of coffee she fished it out and then drank the coffee. I would. And, boy, in the U.S. of A., this is a person who would never, ever, ever consume that coffee after some kind of foreign object had gotten into it. Literally foreign to her, in this case, being in a foreign soil.

She's very, very, like, a lot of hands were on that thing. And, yeah, okay.

Well, I told you we have this whole ritual. It's quite infantilizing for me, but also kind of a love language. She's always got the hand sanitizer spray. And any time we sit down, I'm just like fist deep into the frites or whatever we're eating, and she holds up this thing, and then I put out my hands, and then mommy sprays my hands.

And when you leave the house, does she say, you can take one toy? You can take one toy with you. I had forgotten about that whole thing from childhood. Genevieve said that to me one time. I don't know when. At some point in our adulthood, obviously. And we were leaving the house. She said, you can take one toy. And it just brought back so many memories of just like, you know, I remember like being kind of toted around in the back of my mom's Oldsmobile for a big chunk of my like, you know, let's say long summer days or whatever. And she has a bunch of errands to run. And I would use the back shelf of the back seat, if you can picture it. Probably should be buckled up, but I'm not. But it was a big tan boat of an Oldsmobile. and so that back bench looked like a desert and so I'd bring a couple of like Star Wars figures or you know some sort of action figure. Take them over to Tatooine. Exactly, exactly. Is that the desert one or is that the ice one? I believe. Okay, yeah. I think Hoth is the ice plant. Ah, good call. So anyway, yeah, so but I remember having to choose like well i can't bring all of my toys like what am i going to bring okay you can bring two action figures and one of their action grip weapons and that's what's going to have to get

you through this day of errands i feel like i i would imagine that i know what the data is on this but and in fact i'm sure it was pretty bleak but i wonder like were we losing a whole generation did i see the greatest generation the greatest minds of my generation lost in car accidents Because as children, we were all just wandering around the car with zero car seat.

I mean, they were huge cars and we were not buckled up. We were just like you say, wandering.

I mean, our family road trips in our Ford Econoline van that was also my dad's work van would be there would be one bench seat. And then the entire rear of the of the van would be a wood platform with a giant king size futon on it. And we would just lie on this futon bed, all of us kids in the back. By the way, I think I'm under attack from some F-14. I hear some planes. Yeah, I don't know if the listeners can hear it. There's a National Guard station out of Portland, out of PDX, and I think sometimes they come swinging up the river. But, like, again, I don't want to be glib because I can only imagine that it must have been really unsafe, and there must have been a lot of kids who were hurt or lost their lives. But I don't remember hearing about that. I don't remember knowing a lot of families who had car accidents where someone got really badly hurt. And now it's like, if your kid rides in the front seat, it's like straight to jail. You never even see a kid in the front seat anymore. And we, I mean, that was the constant for us. Was it a much, much less safe environment for us?

God, you know what me and my dad used to do? I loved this. And now I like to, I've probably mentioned this to you before going on a little trip down memory lane. I like to picture this now through the eyes of an adult and how cute this must have been. But I remember riding in the front seat with my dad. I don't know at what age this is, probably like in my early 20s. No, as a young kid, being in the front seat and my dad driving, he had a little Toyota. And I just remember being kind of a small, it was like sort of like a, I think it was like kind of a sporty car, but it had seen better days. I think there was a place where a radio was supposed to be, but it had been pulled out and another radio was in its place. I remember it seeming a little bit, it was not like a nice car. It was like the little like run around car. And if me and my dad were out on like a Saturday running errands, we would talk on walkie talkies to each other, except they weren't walkie talkies. I would use like the garage door opener, you know, and I don't know what I know that I had the garage door opener. I love pushing as the old school 80s garage door opener was just one. It was the size of a deck of cards with one big button in the middle. You know what I mean? One big flat button in the middle. Yes. And once we left the driveway, I could push that button all we wanted because it didn't because we were out of range of the garage door. And then we would just like Roger that or and we would just like I don't know what we would talk about. But like long car rides, just like talking via walkie talkie to each other, him in the driver's seat, me in the co-pilot seat.

That is certifiably adorable. And I absolutely love hearing about that.

The next time I'm in a car with him, I'm going to ask him if he'll do it with me. Did you have any rubber ducky, rubber ducky? What did you leave behind? Unfortunately, my brain is too smooth to remember such details. I just have a vague memory of doing that and just being delighted by it as well. Oh, God, that sounds like so much fun.

My big things with my dad were going out on work trips with him, being bribed by a fast food lunch. That would always be—I mean, I also would get paid, you know, I don't know, like five bucks an hour or something. But it was always like, but we're also going to go to Herfie's. It's like, yes.

Herfie's. You brought that up on the show recently, I feel like.

That is a, now I think it's R.I.P. Herfie's was like a burger joint in Seattle. But I just, like, I loved going out on jobs with them. I actually really hated doing the work. Which is kind of weird because you're like a 12-year-old kid. You're hanging out with your dad. You think it'd be kind of fun. But the work part of it, I was not into working. But I was very into getting to eat fast food for lunch.

Sure, yeah. No, I can see that.

would drive around in his work van and do that but but back to my original question like were we like again i don't want to say we're gonna have parents that are going to be emailing in and saying like why are you even why are you trying to litigate this or whatever but like it's like we treat children in cars are now treated like they are a nasa astronaut that is being put into space like it's like car seat up until they're 17 in the back but but like not like in the wrong direction like it's just like a very everybody in the airport and I've been flying a lot lately you know with these trips and stuff it's like these parents are just carrying these like massive car seats with them everywhere it's like again I'm sure it is much safer and and if I had a young child they would absolutely be in one of these car seats that I would probably because whoever I had the

The child would insist upon it. But, like, I'm sure that it is all for the good, but it's just weird.

Your kid has a little lawyer next to him. You're, like, just getting the front seat and says, my client will not be getting in the front seat.

On the advice of my counsel, Mr. Burbank, I cannot do that.

I love that you're trying to goad me into taking an anti-car seat. I'm not anti-car seat.

I just think it's kind of worse.

What, is it sweeps week?

What's going on over here? I'm not anti-car seat. I'm just reflecting upon the fact that when I was a kid, we were wildly unsupervised. You were playing Tatooine in the back of the car, and you're still here. And I know this is anecdotal. Just because you and I survived, it doesn't mean that it was a good idea or safe.

You know what my thing is, is I don't think kids smoke enough these days. Send them to Italy, dude.

You'll have them chain-smoking in about three seconds. You know, the other thing I noticed in Italy was their relationship with alcohol was really interesting to me. I did not ever, and we, you know, went out to eat a lot. We were in and out of cafes and bars and things like that. I didn't see one drunk person. And in Italy, I saw a lot of people having a glass of wine with lunch, but a glass of wine. I didn't ever see anyone doing a shot. I didn't see anyone advertising that kind of thing. I saw a lot of people either drinking a coffee for hours and hours or maybe nursing a glass of wine if they were, but I did not see anyone who seemed like loose at all, like in a bad way. Now, granted, we were also not – wherever the young people are, we were not there, so we weren't in whatever da club is. Maybe that's a different scene. But just generally speaking, I did not see one sloppy person. I did not see one person who looked like they had – and again, who knows what it looks like. But I didn't see one person who seemed to be having a problematic time with alcohol.

Yeah, I don't know what to say about that, because honestly, aside from me and my friends, like how often do I just see, you know, if I'm if I'm not at the Eagles or a place where I'm gathering to probably imbibe a little bit too much anyway. How often am I just, like, walking down the streets of Seattle? Sure. And, I mean, aside from people who are, you know, living on the streets and struggling with various things, like, how often am I just seeing, like, just drunk people spilling out of places? I don't feel like that often. I feel like it's just your exposure. I mean, that's a good point. But I don't know. I'm not trying to argue with you. I don't have anything to say.

My sense of it was they let them drink. I think you can drink younger there. and I think it my feeling was it was just a kind of a more chill environment where there was less shame around it and less prohibition around it and therefore the people seem to have a more chill relationship with like in America I mean again I don't want to judge anyone I don't tell anyone how to live but I'd be honest with you uh you know noon on a Tuesday and you're having wine at lunch that's kind of a move in America like I think that's it's not typical and it was super hypertypical in Italy, but also I didn't see someone having like a bottle of wine with lunch. You know what I mean? It just seemed like, like in America, it's like, it feels like for some of us anyway, and I'll put myself on this list. It's like, we're either not having any alcohol or we're going to have too much alcohol or something. It just seemed culturally. And I don't know, like, again, this is not much like my research on seat belts and car seats. This is not, has not been peer reviewed, but it was just, it just felt like people had a pretty chill relationship with alcohol, um, from, from sort of what we observed and you know what i really really liked about and in fact maybe this i'm just going to say it now this could have come up in the paris conversation in fact in particular in paris they had the third place you familiar with this this whole idea yeah i think i know of it because

there's a place called third place books a little small tiny uh local i guess chain a couple of bookstores here in town called third place books but they also have cafes and i think that's probably where i first learned the term third place which is kind of like you have your work and you have your home but the idea is a society should have a third place a gathering place a third place to go um that isn't work or home but a place where kind of community can sprout

and as becca and i were walking around often kind of later at night after maybe gone to dinner or something we'd sort of be walking back to the hotel there would just be people gathered all over we're walking in italy and there was this is weird i don't think they're related but there was a place called Kmart but it looked nothing like don't forget I shouldn't even told you that because you're going to picture a Kmart you're going to picture a Sprouts okay don't picture

a Sprouts where me and my dad want to put up a sign. I'm picturing what it used to be and it used

to be a Kmart that I've never seen. It was literally like a small little market that just happened to be called Kmart. And it had blue light specials. And yes exactly you could get your tough skin jeans. Okay good. And fishing line. Gotcha. No um it was just this little imagine it just as like a little maybe kind of market or something but and we walked by it and I noted it because I was like, oh, Kmart, there's no way that can be related to the thing we think of as Kmart. But as we came back from dinner, it had now closed, and it just had a little, like,

kind of half wall like maybe a three foot off the ground wall in front of the Kmart and there were now like I don't know five people in let's say their mid-20s to like maybe early 30s and they were just sitting around having like a beer and someone had brought some bread and some cheese they had little snacks out and they're just like sitting around on this wall just chatting and just like being together at you know 830 at night on a whatever it was and like everywhere you look You just sort of saw that happening in Europe This kind of third place idea Of people getting together And again in those moments It was never like people were not doing Touchdowns That I could see I guess it seemed like And again I know this is very very loose science Social science I'm applying here But it looked like The people were enjoying each other's company More so than they were there To consume any particular amount of alcohol That I could tell Again, anecdotally, it was just an interesting thing to observe. And Beck and I both kind of noticed it.

I had a weird sense of jealousy. I had a sense of jealousy towards something that I should never, ever, ever be jealous of. And it happened this Saturday. Genevieve and I were driving around Seattle running various errands. It was a beautiful, sunny day on Saturday, I believe. And do you know a bar that I believe has been around for a long time? I've only been in it like once or twice. But to me, especially from the outside, it always seems like kind of the quintessential kind of dive bar. Might be a little bit more of a billiard hall, but it's called Four Bees. And I've always been confused by the name of it. It's on Leary Way. Do you know where – let's do – oh, let's do this. Everybody's favorite part of TBTL when we just really dig into just minute locations in Seattle. Do you know where D.A. Burns is on Leary Way?

I bet you if I drove by it, I would recognize it. Yeah, I've been on Leary Way many, many times in my life, but I cannot picture this.

So Leary Way is a road that connects, I guess, just to flesh this out for everybody, that connects the neighborhoods of like Ballard and Fremont. And as you're driving from Ballard sort of into Fremont on this place called Leary Way, you're going to pass places like the Brown Bear Car Wash on the right. It's across from Hale's Ale. Oh, I don't know Hale's Ale. So that must be. That's what they do.

I think Moisture Fest. I think there's a thing called the Palladium that's in there.

Oh, if you go around back, yeah, I can sort of picture that.

And I wonder if Four Bees is a relatively new name for this place because I feel like it used to have a different name, which I can't tell you off the top of my head. But I'm very familiar with this corner now. I'm looking at it on Google.

I feel like it's been called Four Bees for as long as I've at least lived in Seattle, moving here in 2009, because I remember I went in there a couple of times before leaving Seattle for the first time.

It used to be five Bs, but the health department took away one of them. Now they're down to four.

Well, you know, Seattle's dying, and eventually it's going to be down to three Bs. And so anyway, I remember from the outside, it looks like a – I mean, I don't like to use the word sketchy. I don't like the way a lot of people – I'm very defensive about what is a dive bar and what is not. But it looks like a dive bar from the outside. And even for me as somebody who's very comfortable in dive bars and also pretty comfortable walking into like kind of quote unquote somebody else's dive bar and trusting that I can like kind of go in and not like kind of, you know, like accidentally sit down at somebody's stool so that somebody comes out of the restroom and says, hey, bud, get out of my stool. That's how I assume people talk in tough dive bars.

You're like, sir, if you'll just allow me to put on some Tom Waits.

Oh, I thought you were going to say, I'm going to put on these giant shoes and do the Pee Wee Herman dance to tequila on the bar to win you over. But anyway, from the outside, it's kind of like it looks like kind of a big building with a small little door. And it looks like very much like you're walking into a dive bar. There are no windows. I think maybe that's one of the things. There are no windows. So it's very like you go. And so you go in and it's pretty cavernous. I remember being surprised at kind of how big it was and how many pool tables were in there. And as I look it up online, it looks like that's sort of their raison d'etre, although they don't use that phrase on their website. In fact, I could get you beat up there.

Yeah.

Hey, son, do you say raison d'etre? I say, I have another dance for that. But anyway, so I just remember. Gemma Pell Cobra. Why did I bring? oh i was telling you that we were driving around and it was a beautiful sunny day and i just saw two guys walking into the the darkened door of four bees and i was like i haven't and this is a good thing by the way i'm not looking to do this but i feel like it wasn't all that long ago or maybe it was longer ago than i realized but at a certain point i stopped doing as much sort of like day drinking in darkened bars on sunny days when i moved out of seattle yeah weirdly i could wait hold on let's match up our calendars again because i told you

Like, actually, I was getting my hair cut at Rudy's a couple of weeks ago, and the person who was cutting my hair had recently moved here from L.A., and we were swapping notes. And this guy was probably about 10 years younger than me. I think he was maybe mid-30s. But we apparently had the same sort of taste in establishments. He immediately brought up the drawing room in L.A. Because he was from L.A., and he's like, well, do you know the drawing room? And then we talked about the name I can never – Ye Old, what's-its-face across – Oh, the rustic inn? the rustic in across the street and we just start naming all the i mean the frolic room he's like oh i lived at the frolic room that's where i do my day drinking and this guy by the way was like um you know he was an upstanding member of society but like we were just like talking about oh that that feeling of on a hot bright sunny day just like going crawling under the rock of a dive bar where you go in and it's super cool and the sun is blocked out and you're like you know what this is what i'm doing today this is i'm bukowskiing it today you know and um i feel like that has left my life which is again good i'm not complaining about this but i just had this moment of seeing these maybe you talking about like kind of not not seeing people imbibe as much i just saw these two guys walking into four b's i don't know what their deal is maybe they were both gonna have a diet coke and play a bunch of pool there are those folks but i was just kind of like oh man on a sunny day i'm going out i'm driving up to the sketchers outlet to prepare for my trip to croatia To get some sensible shoes, to get some sensible shoes, because I'm going to be doing a lot of walking, and you're just slithering right in there into the four Bs for a Saturday afternoon of blocking out the sun, and I just had a little tinge of jealousy.

I know that exact feeling because I've gone on sort of the exact same journey. There was a time in my life where there was nothing – there was almost nothing that was more appealing than the idea of just really whiling a day away. Because kind of losing a day somewhere, kind of unexpected drinking. And that's the kind of thing that would often take place in a – for some reason on a nice day but in a bar that was dark and windowless.

Yeah, not sitting outside. Like Genevieve would, if she wanted a day drink, she'd be like, good, let's find a place that has a little patio. And I'd be like, why in the world would you want to sit at a patio?

You, you name. Yeah, it's like, it's got to have like no windows and, and, and it's got to, you know, because then God can't see what you're doing. Exactly. And that used to be something that I was so drawn towards. And I don't, yeah, something really shifted to where it is not something that I'm drawn towards anymore. but maybe every once in a while I'll have a little, you know, like you said, if you're driving by a place and you see someone going and you're just kind of like, just a moment of wistfulness for it, but I've also, that is no longer the thing that like sounds like the most fun way to spend a second now the Skechers outlet also sounds like a living hell so it's not that I want to go do that either but I don't really want to go to the four B's, oddly

yeah, I mean, I definitely I don't know if those, I don't think those days are fully behind me, certainly but, and you know, and I still like to go like occasionally if like we'll talk about you know knocking off working on friday maybe going to big mario's or now it's baseball season and going you know somewhere like five o'clock and having a happy hour uh oh that's right i mean when it when it was the baseball season thank you my goodness um can't can't talk baseball they're killing me they're absolutely killing me but anyway um yeah so that that was my that was my so back to the back to the audio that's bedeviling you oh god where we started this whole thing by the way that was not a power out i just ended that story by going and you're like okay let's move on um okay so let's get into the tedium at the very beginning of today's show and i don't know if i really have a good way of playing it back but um in this we at the beginning of the show you heard a little clip from the tv show the office talking about gabagool and then there is a audio montage and in that audio montage you might have heard a clip of tape that i have been looking for for months now in my audio collection and i knew that i had this i knew it was not a figment of my imagination you hear molly i think it's just molly shannon or maybe molly shannon and will ferrell saying this is a show for dogs by dogs starring one dog and one dirty dog right and that is a clip of tape that i feel like i remember from the 90s when it first aired on snl it's from a sketch called dog show uh yes people are familiar with it i love iconic i love dropping that into a montage when i'm putting together like when i'm putting together an intro for the show and i should mention that the intro that you heard today was something that i constructed probably last year or a couple of years ago and i was just reusing it because i'm lazy okay get off my back it was just labor day recently i'm not sure how long i can ride that um but uh i know like sometimes when i'm building a montage i'm like oh, you know what would fit great there is the dog show drop. I just love that drop to kind of start off a montage.

Ever since I got this new computer and had to switch from Windows 10 to Windows 11, something has changed in the search function of basically the entire Windows system, the folder system, and that is where I keep all of my audio. I don't know. I've looked it up. I can't find anybody validating my experience, but the search bar does not work the way it used to, and ever since then, I cannot find that drop. Now, there is a chance that I accidentally deleted it. It doesn't seem like a great chance. I'm pretty meticulous with my files. There's a chance. But now, if I type in dog into the search bar of a window, I told you this was going to get tedious, I might get everything. I'm going to get a limited number of results. But if I put asterisk, then the word dog, then another asterisk, which is a hard word for me to say, then you'll get more results. Like that's an old school search term thing. I remember I'm old enough for that. Yeah, right. But that should not be a new component of Windows 11. But what's driving me bananas here is I have been tried typing it in DOS. That's exactly right. I mean, I have the flashing cursor here. I type C colon backslash DIR backslash dirty dog. Why can't we get any younger listeners? Yeah, I'm not exactly sure what's going on. But so anyway, last week while you were out, I specifically needed that drop because I was doing we're listening to more pet songs from listeners. And I was like, OK, I want to introduce that. So I looked all over for it, like for the hundredth time. I couldn't find it. I finally go back to the source material. I just go. I'm like, this is stupid. You're just you're doing this the hard way. You know, you have it somewhere. It's driving you bananas. But you also know what SNL sketch it's from. Just right. Grab it again. but that was like kind of a recurring sketch and the one that i grabbed uh i'm gonna see if i can actually play it here is actually slightly different let's see here this is a show for people about dogs starring one dog and one dirty dog and so i used that on the show last week but i'm like i don't think the one i had was said about that one's got will ferrell in it yes and is the other one only molly shannon though i would play it but i can't find it that's my You really can't. I literally can't find it. But then, so I went on this whole journey last week. So you have it in the intro package, but it's fused to the music. Exactly, which is, that's why I could try to, like, find that part of today's intro package.

Which also was my third favorite MTV alternative channel for a while. Fuse.

Fuse. Was that the one that was out of Canada? No, that was Much Music. That was Much Music, I think. Remember that?

Yeah, what was Fuse Channels, the Fuse Channels thing?

Was it like the harder edge of alternative? Oh, you know what?

It was. Fuse is an American television channel owned by Fuse Media. It was originally known as Much Music USA, a localized version of the Canadian cable channel Much, and was dedicated to music-based programming.

Okay, so you have Much Music in Canada, and sometimes that would leak down across the border. But then they made an American version called Fuse. So those two memories were fused together.

So are you saying there's no finding it? There's no you'd have to go through every because that was such a popular sketch that they did it multiple times. You can't find the particular version where Molly Shannon just says, well, maybe I could go online and, you know, keep going.

And, you know, I got what I needed last week when I found this one.

The show for people about dogs starring one dog and one dirty dog.

I don't know that that's better or worse than the original original one I had. It's just that and you know me, this is one of my great downfalls. Sometimes maybe it works in my favor, but also my downfall is I just get latched on to something. Like, why if I type in dog into my search bar and now it'll show up? Why can I not find my original SNL? I've searched every search term, SNL, Saturday Night Live, Molly, you know, and I just cannot find it. Yet it's a drop that I think I pulled back in 2012 and have used frequently, and it just does not seem to exist in my system anymore. And I don't want to just go to an old SNL sketch on YouTube once again and re-pull it.

I want answers. Well, and also you put a lot of thought into your naming conventions of your audio files. I can always tell when I'm going through my audio, I can tell the audio that you sent me and the ones that I put in. Because the ones I put in, there is no rhyme or reason to them. They are just like a mess. and yours are all caps with an underscore and they describe what's going on in the drop.

I have a little sketch in the file name somehow. I mean, it's very, there's a thumbnail sketch. There's a thumbnail sketch in the Wall Street Journal style.

Right? Mine are just a complete disaster. So when I can't find something, it's like, yeah, but I did that to myself. When you can't find something, it's like, wait, you've carefully...

tried to avoid this very thing from happening therefore you're probably pretty annoyed by it

the only well the one thing that sort of um doesn't belie that but that complicates things in this particular case is this system that i have has evolved over time i think i started building intros because i was like trying to think i started building intros for you before i was a regular on the show is that right i think i started building them maybe when you and i were working together in other capacities and i was like doing some tbtl production but i don't think i was like co-hosting at the time but i started yeah that sounds familiar i think that so but that puts it around 2012 or something so i think i joined the show and later on in 2012 so whatever it's been 12 damn years i've been making these things and when i first started doing it i didn't um i you know i didn't label them well like i some of like this one here is just called corn dog i don't know

what it is i don't want to get into the hot dog i'm starting to feel like a corn dog party and it

ain't flattering that's the one that you played i just hit something else i hit something called hot dog show outtake we don't need to hear that is this what oh that's how did that corn dog get so wet how did that corn dog get so wet that is yeah that's that from your videotape you've been logging that is like probably a super early drop that i pulled never used and just called it corn dog because i didn't know i was going to be doing this for over a decade you know so that snl drop that I'm looking for I would believe that it isn't as meticulously labeled having said that dog has got to be in it I didn't name it like Molly's show you know what I mean like it's just

driving me bananas I'm just gonna hit the I'm gonna I just did a search for dog on my little computer and I'm just gonna I'm gonna hit play and we're just gonna it's gonna run through there's like maybe five drops that reference dog I don't know what the audio levels will be I want to apologize it does start with my dear sainted mother though i'll say i'll say what's up dog

oh he's hilarious dog who is what's courageous about eating a hot dog that dog is barking that is not classic my dog he was a little dog named snuggles as florist machine says the dog days are

over wait what is that i'm starting so much of this is zach galifianakis that's really funny so uh i this just says the dog days are over i love this by the way i must have grabbed this at some point but it's it's zach galifianakis i think saying as florence the machine says the

dog days are over as florence machine says the dog days are over and this is i'm starting to feel

like a corn dog at a hot dog party, and it ain't flattering, I'll tell you that.

To charge them $35 for a hot dog and a pretzel, it gives New York a bad name.

And then this is just called dog. These are African wild dogs in Botswana.

Sneezing. They don't have allergies, they didn't sniff pepper. That's how they vote.

If they care at all about their children or grandchildren, sometimes I doubt that. I think, you know, grandchildren now don't write a thank you for the Christmas presents. They're walking on their pants with their cap on backwards, listening to the animal man, the Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dog, and they don't like him. Snoopy Doopy Poop Dog.

Walking on their pants. I vaguely remember Snoopy Doopy Poop Dog. That's probably from the radio show, right?

I think so, yeah. I forget who that person was, but they sound only slightly less old than us talking about DOS.

Yes, well, I will say this, dear listeners, I'm sorry to have put you through what I just put you through. It's not interesting. I've lost a file on my computer. That's all I need to say at the beginning of the show, and we wouldn't be 40 minutes into this thing. Having said that, if anybody uses – no, I'm not worried about the drop so much. Like, I got what I need. Like, whatever. But if anybody's like, yeah, you know, Windows 11, that search function has changed, but I have found a way to work around it. And here's what I've learned. I will accept your emails at andrew at tvtl.net. Thank you.

Well, I had this whole problem with, like, Apple Music or whatever they, you know, at least it's called iTunes. Like, where I had, and the listeners had to coach me up on how to, like, fix the search function. So you're not the first person who works on this show to basically have to hive mind the same exact issue.

Yeah, but I'm the smart one.

That is true. You're the computer savvy one. You're the one who downloads drivers. I'm an excellent downloader of drivers, I believe they say in Rain Man.

Right. As Florence the Machine says.

As Florence Machine says.

Thank you for being a 10.

All right, let's thank those daily donors. Yes. Who, they may not know how to fix your search function in Windows, but they do know how to donate to TBTL. and they've been doing it and it is how we are able to do this show and I'm talking about

Folks like Harrison Beal of Burke, Virginia. I used to live on Burke Ave. Oh, yeah. When you were in Wallingford, right? That's right. Yeah. I wonder if that's the same, if Burke Avenue is the same as Burke Gilman. Like the Burke Gilman Trail. I wonder if there was, and there's the Burke Museum. There must have been some very important Burke.

Yeah. I wonder. Maybe they invented the Burke in stock. That's, I think, exactly who it was.

Thanks also to Amanda Wilhelm, like the scream. In Linwood, Washington. I believe that's the Skechers District, right? For some reason, I feel like you went to Linwood for those Skechers.

Is that where Alderwood Mall is? Then you're absolutely right. In fact, congratulations, Amanda, on the new light rail station that just opened last weekend in your neighborhood. Love it.

Thanks to Matt Estrada, who's in Tacoma, Washington.

Nice, love Tacoma.

Does the light rail go to Tacoma yet?

I don't. Well, actually, you would know better than me. I mean, there is a train you can take from Tacoma to Washington, right? It's not light rail, though. It's heavy rail.

I was talking to somebody at an event. It must have been the beading party, I think, when we were doing all the bracelets. And by that, I mean the listeners. Beading, by the way.

Yeah, we need to make it clear. Bees? It sounded like you said beating party, like we were beating people up. That is not what happened. We were making beaded bracelets. Bees. The bees party, yes.

The friendship bracelet party at the Eagles. I think somebody was talking to me about how basically culturally Tacoma they think you are.

That I am. Oh, that's funny, because I laid something down on you a while back. I don't know if you recall this. I had passed through Tacoma a couple of times, actually while adopting bingo. So I do live with a Tacomaite here who was born and, I guess, raised here, but born in Tacoma. But in my few interactions in Tacoma, I did wonder if Tacoma is, if the spirit of Seattle actually lives more in Tacoma these days than in Seattle.

I think it does, and that's why I think you would like it. Yeah. And this person was saying that you would really like it down there, because it's just got like, it's got a, It's got an authenticity, an earthiness to it, a lack of pretension, all the things that you like. And Matt Estrada knows all about that. Keith Brewster knows what's going down in Chardon, Ohio.

Oh, Chardon. Is that on the east side of Cleveland, Chardon, Ohio?

I think is that in Geauga County. And I'm not even joking because I think I filmed a TV story in Chardon once about surprise weddings.

You do love saying Geauga County, and it is in Geauga County. And isn't that east? I feel like I messed this up. Yeah, it's like that's the east side. It's not technically Cleveland. It's a different county, but, yeah, it's kind of far east side.

Yeah. I think we did a story about surprise weddings, and we filmed the surprise wedding in Chardon.

Nice. And, yeah, didn't you tell me that there was some awkwardness at that shoot too, right?

I feel like there was, and I can't remember now. It was so many years ago, but, yeah, it was an interesting story. I don't know how the producer found someone who was planning on throwing a surprise wedding. That's a tough production lift. Yeah, unless it was. I told you, find someone in America who's planning on having a wedding, inviting people, but not telling them they're coming to a wedding.

Is there any chance it was one of those things where somebody said they were doing it, and then they're like, what? That's a thing? And then they're like, well, you should do a trend piece, and it was the original. We needed to get three of them. Oh, okay.

So then it could be like a New York Times, a classic New York Times trend piece. Yes. So thanks, Keith. Also, thanks to Rob Peacock in Portland, Oregon. Thank you, Rob. And Sarah Nerper. is that how you would say sarah's last name listen did we ever i would say have pronouncers and we

lost we do look look look you you can't see it but i am looking at the and i don't know if this is on us or on the listeners but there is an entire column on the spreadsheet i'm looking at for pronunciations and only about you know two people used it well sarah we've been thanking

sarah for years you think i would know how to say sarah's last name i'm going with uh norper you know what i need to talk to you know what new york new york

why don't we have a pronouncer on new york new york yeah uh i wonder if this is on us i find it hard to believe that this that that like 99 of the people ignored the pronouncer field yeah i'm wondering because i'm seeing a lot of people using it for nicknames uh and i don't you know i don't want to get ahead of ourselves but like it looks more like hey this is my nickname but nobody uses to actually explain how to pronounce their last names. Maybe this was on us. I'm not sure. I just don't want to throw the listeners under the bus.

Or maybe people just enjoy, you know, it's humanizing. True. When they hear me struggling to say their name for the seventh year of the month. Yeah, exactly. It's not frustrating at all. Well, thank you so much to our donors today for making TBTL possible. We really do appreciate you. That music known as Flutter sur la Seine Written by an AI program Could only mean it's time for The TVTL Travel Guide Curing Global Lonely Planetness This is French music. I had it right. Something that I said, vintage French music that sounds like you're floating down the Seine.

Oh, wow. Very specific. I love that your descriptions are becoming art in and of themselves.

Today, we're going to talk about Paris, France, where I was recently. Have you, you've not been, is this going to be, when you go to Croatia, will that be your first time in Europe?

It will be, yes. I've never crossed the Atlantic before.

Exciting times. Well, we left Rome. So we started in Rome, and we went down to Naples. We went out to Sorrento, and then we went back up to Rome to fly out. I was doing a lot of this with, like, miles. So it was kind of like the exact route we were taking was kind of funky. And we ended up on some pretty weird airlines, like Aer Lingus.

Oh, yeah, you mentioned that yesterday.

And your mind immediately went to a dirty place. It did. and uh and and because i was booking these through alaska like their website but if they don't fly there they'll just i guess put you on a different plane on a different airline but it was strange because air lingus is not part of their little club they're like one world alliance which does

sound ominous i know i oh every time they talk about the one world alliance i'm like wow you are triggering so many uncles right now by saying right it just sounds like why well the one world

alliance you know so we we're the somehow the like ticket that i could get for a deal tickets using alaska airlines miles or whatever somehow put us on air lingus so we took that flight from and it's like the southwest of ireland as in there are no there's no first class it's just kind of like it's you know it's a pretty i think it's a pretty um sort of bargain basement uh airline so we flew from rome to dublin and then we had like three or four hours to kill in the dublin airport and then we were going to fly from dublin over to paris and i will say the thing i was did not expect when we got to dublin was hundreds if not thousands of depressed florida state seminal fans in the dublin airport everywhere you look people were wearing the florida state colors because Florida State had played Georgia Tech in Dublin like the day before and lost in – at that time, I think Florida State was like the No. 10 team going in preseason or something, and they had lost to Georgia Tech. And I did not see one Georgia Tech fan in that airport, but golly did I see a lot of depressed Florida State fans.

Is that a traditional game that is held overseas? Because what is the one that always kicks off the college football season? And it's like Notre Dame plays so-and-so in Ireland every year as like the pre. Is that a thing? I thought so. And I know this because I feel like Vives and I were like grabbing lunch at a bar a year or two ago. And that game happened to be on, which is why I learned about it. It's like the week before most college games start, you have the Notre Dame so-and-so game.

I feel like that's relatively, and by new, it could be like 10 years they've been doing it but like the idea of college football teams playing overseas is not anything i've ever like growing up was ever aware of happening yeah so this florida state thing was news to you right well i had like you know maybe seen a mention on tiktok but i didn't i didn't understand it was in double i didn't know i just my experience was getting off the plane and being like oh so the florida state fan and then just being like but there's a lot like was there a tour group from tallahassee here and then like then like in all of the like you know all they sell in the dublin airport is whiskey everywhere you could get ham boned on the whiskey samples there by the way free like because yeah free whiskey samples but there's like 10 stores selling them and i told becca i was like boy if you wanted to just kind of like go around each store you could really tie one on just trying out the whiskeys but they had all this like florida state like paraphernalia in the stores there was like they were you know it was it was very florida state focused and they unfortunately lost the game but anyway so that was kind of weird we did i did like order up like a kind of traditional i guess maybe irish breakfast at this little i don't know restaurant pub thing i got like baked beans i like that and and uh eggs and toast and i mean i skipped it on all the like weird meat products but it was pretty good although I put the beans on the toast it puts the beans in the basket and then on the toast and I I'll be honest with you I don't get the beans on toast thing I know that's also kind of like a British

thing yeah I don't I don't go in for English or British breakfasts that often but on the occasion I do I enjoy it breakfast is like the only meal I think where I um go in for a lot of the sort of just spur the moment mixing up the ingredients on my plate or piling it high you know what I mean

Thank you.

Like, I might sit down with a piece of toast and some eggs, and I plan on eating them separately. But then maybe at some point during the meal, I might say, well, what would it be like if I put some of this egg on the toast and then ate it like toast with egg on it? Like, I go in without a plan, and I'm ready to get my hands dirty.

Well, we ended up getting to Paris. And I'd been to Paris once before, many, many years ago. And my memory of it was, like, it was fine. But I just didn't I didn't really ever I didn't remember it being like some life changing trip Or some like incredibly beautiful place I don't know if they've spiffed Paris up Since the 20 years ago when I was there Or if I've just matured into somebody who appreciates it But it is Such a cool town And if anyone has a chance to go I could not recommend it more highly The thing that I kept saying to Becca And she just never got tired of it Was I was going Rome started it And Paris perfected it meaning rome is a very ancient city and i think you know it's credited with coming up with various things that maybe were well you know sort of new architecturally and stuff like that but it still is a very old narrow cobblestone kind of windy city that's a little hard to get around sometimes then you go to paris and it's like wide tree-lined streets and just like the cutest cafes you've ever seen and just like i don't know just it was unbelievably adorable also when we got there was the opening ceremony of the paralympics which we didn't actually get tickets for but just the energy in the town was so cool um they had the olympic rings up on the eiffel tower there was like just all this kind of like along the river the seine they just still had all these different like stands set up you know like all the olympics the stuff from the olympics and then the stuff for the Paralympics was just like in full swing, but it was kind of great because we were still able to get a hotel, we were still able to get around, but it was like all the fun of the Olympics and Paralympics, but still being able to kind of like, you know, take advantage of Paris, it was like sort of perfect.

When you mentioned yesterday that we were going to be talking about Paris, I did want to ask you right in the back of my head, I wondered, oh, I wonder if Paris is a sort of strange place to visit the moment after the Olympics leave. You know, I think about, like, this is a very stupid, we'll just use the word stupid comparison. But, you know, when I was living in New Hampshire and the big thing every four years is the first in the nation primary, but really the the lead up to it. Right. As more and more journalists and national campaigns start like camping and then it all leads up to the big primary day. And you've sort of like slowly gotten used to, like, all eyes being on this small area. and having all the postpartum and then like literally the next day it feels like yeah the day after a party where like the you know you see a lot of like yard signs for that mean absolutely nothing anymore they're just like strewn about and like there's one person sweeping up a spotlight so i was wondering if um if paris was gonna be like that but if you had the paralympics rolling right into that well then there was still there was still energy it was totally happening i heard

that they sold like two million tickets to Paralympic events so it was still like it was happening you know so their energy was still just like very very cool in the town and we went to the like Shakespeare bookstore which is a very famous bookstore we went to Notre Dame boy the destruction of the Notre Dame like you know the roof of that thing is wild it's still totally under construction they're hoping to have it done by December of 2024 but i think part of the problem is they like the finding people that could help recreate a lot of this stuff that got destroyed in the fire because it's very you know kind of artisan and like things that they used to know how to do like i don't know a couple hundred years ago or thousand years ago or whenever that thing was built um but we just saw all kinds of cool stuff it was just like the pace of the city was really great there was one thing though i had kind of a breakdown because we were mostly able to avoid touristy moments where I just felt like, I don't know. I think I have the superiority complex where it's like I want it to just be me and Becca enjoying these various things, some of which are very famous, like the Eiffel Tower or, I don't know, the Louvre. But I want it to kind of be at our own pace. I developed a deep hatred for tour groups on this trip, although we did go on a tour group. I told you we went to the Colosseum, but really it's more like, oh, we're in the, you know, Vatican Museum or where else were we with, like, somewhere in Paris where it was, like, trying to look at something, but we just kept getting, like, consumed by these tour groups of people, which they're just trying to live their life. It's not their fault. But like I started to really develop this antipathy for that and thinking somehow I'm superior to other tourists, which is completely silly. But like I bought these tickets for us to take a river tour of Paris on this boat, you know, along the Seine River. And now. I'm a really big fan of the architecture tour in Chicago.

Love it.

It's just the best. But it's also led by somebody who I think is a docent with the Chicago Architecture Museum or Society or something. So it's very well done. And it's very highbrow, right? It's like you generally like you've got to kind of care about Chicago architecture or at least think that's interesting to want to get on the boat. When we got I bought these tickets online when we got to the place where you got on the boat. something inside me just died because there was like i don't know 700 slack-jawed tourists just there was just buses just dumping hundreds of tourists out of these buses to just wander down to this like cattle shoot that you would get in and then they just like let you on whatever boat had pulled up it just felt so unspecial so not like the chicago thing just like oh this is for the most slack jawed of tourists and now we're just going to be out there on you know like on the river with all these folks that was you know of course not really what happened we got on the boat it was basically fine except we did end up sitting next to these two nightmare americans basically the trip was great as long as we weren't interacting with americans andrews i was really

hoping this is going to be the same couple that you had that was a running joke that we had by

the way it was everyone was like hey who do you think is going to be uh our seat mates on the flight uh maybe the people from ohio yeah what did i say something what did i say what did i say what did i say yeah um these were this was a young couple a young very sort of conventionally attractive couple we decided that the guy was definitely a finance bro probably but they were like we thought maybe on their honeymoon or something but their conversation they were just sitting next to us on this boat and at one point i swear to god she goes something like what do you think the eiffel tower is named for and he literally said i don't know some guy named eiffel

wait should i know what the eiffel tower is named for i actually that actually might be the right

answer but it just sounded so profoundly dumb coming from this guy i'm profoundly dumb when

it comes to well a lot of well searching for audio certainly on my computer but certainly like history european history i i don't i don't know if i told you this i'm reading the count it was

named for a guy named gustav eiffel well there you go i was actually right it was right he said it andrew in such a dumb way you know he reminded me of like putty from science uh-huh sure yeah yeah yeah i can picture a guy named some guy named eiffel which again it's pretty messed up that that's the right answer yeah right but he just delivered it with such lack of i don't know what enthusiasm or something that it sounded like it was wrong yeah when i see like i'm not drawn to

that kind of tourism and it's not just linked to my desire to not leave the basement um but if i do think about traveling like that's the thing to i am not somebody and this goes for sort of celebrity as well which we've talked about a lot on the show like i'm not somebody who is interested in in in trying to feel the energy by being in the presence of greatness if that makes sense and so seeing things you have it five days a week I mean I'm jaded is is really is really what happened I would say like pre-2011 I was really impressed with people and things but then I guess I flew too close to the sun but um I uh you know like the idea of being like oh this is right I don't even want to pick an example because I'm just going to sound so dumb here but like let's just let's just say that it's the Eiffel Tower like it would be kind of cool to see that I think But that's about it for me. It would be kind of cool to see that. But then I really do picture exactly what you're talking about. Like, I can't even go see the Fremont Troll in Seattle, you know, a mile from here, which isn't something that I'm all that impressed with anyway. No offense to Seattleites. It's fine. It's like a local little curiosity. But you drive by it at almost any time, and you're not going to get a moment with the troll. you're just going to get like the the 30 seconds where you or your kids climb to the top of it and you take a photo there's constantly you're like whatever you're supposed to get off of that you're not you're just one of the many people who's buzzing around like an ant for a second so you can get your photo and then move on it's more like you're there seeing people than the actual thing and so that's why i'm not particularly interested in that kind of tourism myself well i

I am generally not either, except because, you know, I was with Becca, and because she was like, once, she hadn't been to Italy at all, she had been to Paris before, but hadn't been to Italy, so it was like some stuff that she really wanted to check off her list, so we did that, and the thing that was funny was, in each scenario, there was a moment where I was like, this is total bullshit, and then there was also a moment where I was like, I'm really glad we did this, partially to get the photograph, but also just to be like, I got eyes on this. thing like the Colosseum was a great example even though our tour guide did try to fight an interracial couple which was weird but like you know there's also the history of the Colosseum which is quite fascinating I'll tell you this boat ride on the river it was basically a mostly a nightmare because first of all the guy that was reading it was one of the things that said when you bought the ticket online was featuring um English right like as in you know they're going to give you this tour they're going to talk about the different things along the river in English and what it ended up being was a guy who obviously like a young kid who would spoke French as his primary language which makes sense we're in France but somebody had just made it was just like the script was in triplicate so the script was in French and then in English and then in Spanish and it was exactly like if you were to give me a script that was in English French and Spanish and then I would just read it cold so the guy was reading words that were english but in such a kind of um unfamiliar way for him yeah that it was i was i told becca i was literally getting more from the spanish than the english because sometimes i recognize the spanish word um and so the that that was fine that is what it is but then it was exactly what you're talking about that thing of just people being so obsessed with videotaping things through their phone and photographing through their phone to the point where it does not appear that they're actually experiencing whatever is going on and i know that's like not a very original take to be like why don't you put your phone down and just look with your eyes like i don't even think that's an interesting way to like admonish people right like but it was what was happening to the degree because we're sitting down on this bench we're all supposed to be sitting down anytime something cool is happening everyone's standing up and taking selfies of themselves with the thing meaning we who are sitting down can't see anymore which is kind of a bummer and right as i'm being like this is like the this is the the sort of end of civilization because of all these people the boat is finishing up it's like nine o'clock it's now dusk in fact it's actually like getting dark and the boat does this u-turn to come back to where it's going to park and the guy says in three languages by the way the eiffel tower is going to light up at nine and sure enough right as we swing around the eiffel tower does this thing i don't know if it's every hour or what but it's not like the permanent state of things just is a special thing the whole thing just starts sparkling like it just lights up like a literally like a sparkler and it was one of the coolest

things i've ever seen and like i made this little video of like the tower and then me and becca and we smooched in the tower and it's like it was the and nobody was blocking us and it was like this like four minutes of the eiffel tower sparkling as we were floating along on this river was like totally worth it like it totally justified the entire hassle and the lame couple next to us and just the fact that i felt very very unspecial going through this cattle shoot to get on whatever the next boat was like and that was kind of my experience with a lot of the stuff like i said that happened on this trip was something where i was kind of like internally thinking well okay we'll see how this goes and then always finding some moment where i was like oh i'm so glad i'm doing this i'm not back in the hotel room looking at tiktok or you know eiffel tower on tiktok that would be amazing right or as has been the case for me unfortunately many times on trips hungover right like profoundly hungover and so therefore not really wanting to go on and take take on the day and just kind of being like you know just kind of gutting it out for a good portion of the day until maybe it's night again and i'm feeling better or whatever like it was You guys got any four B's around here? Where's the four B's? Like, you know, I just, it was, I sort of pushed myself a little bit, or to be honest with you, Becca's schedule, I think, in the nicest way. She also let me sleep in every single morning. It was the cutest thing because we kept saying, we're going to go for a run in the morning. By the way, Paris has more people running than I've ever seen in any city in my life. Just full of people running along this river because it's totally awesome. It's like a great place to do it. but like we kept saying we're gonna get up early and run and then i would like wake up at like nine or ten it'd already be like too many people out there and she said at some point like i was like oh thanks for letting me sleep in she's like you know what like you never get to sleep in this is like your vacation i wasn't gonna ruin that for you i was like oh i didn't know that you like sleeping in i didn't either i think there's something about europe where well part of it was i i think my even though i said i didn't have a ton of jet lag i do think my nighttime sleep was a little less i'll bet you sort of like i don't know constant or relaxing or restorative so it was the kind of thing where i think i would really fall asleep hard at like 7 a.m that kind of thing so but all that is to say uh there was i was it was definitely the the the trip where i've done the most like okay we're gonna go to this thing because it's like the most famous thing in the city we're good we went to the eiffel tower on the day we left and by the way

would recommend if you can if your body allows for this the way that we did it was this is because we waited too long to get tickets but you can buy tickets to walk up the eiffel tower at least like half of it you can't go all the way to the top you need the elevator for that but for much cheaper and for no line you can just buy tickets and you walk up i mean it's a lot of stairs like 500 steps but it's doable um depending again on your sort of physical stuff going on but like we got there exactly when it opened this was the day we were flying out we walked all the way up we were like the only people on the stairs we got this like amazing view of the city we took all these pictures we walked back down and went and got on our flight but it was kind of great because we were like not like that's the most famous thing you could do probably in paris and it was actually

the least hassle of any of them did you um so what's it like walking up there and would somebody with a fear of heights my thought was andrew wouldn't love it yeah i was wondering because Because it's like it's constructed in a way where it's kind of open air, right, as you're walking.

Well, no, they do something very nice. And I was actually mentioning this to Becca. There's a tremendous amount of like fencing and like, I guess, maybe wrought iron or steel or something like it's kind of like you're in a cage.

But you can't see through it, though. I mean, that's what I mean. You can see through it. If you look down, you're looking through grading or the steps cemented.

Not once you're up on the observation decks, but I'm saying, like, as we were going up the stairs, there isn't a lot of, like, open space where, again, I was saying on the show the other day that, like, when I get up somewhere really high, I become afraid of falling and also afraid that I'm going to lose my mind and jump over the railing. This didn't even give you the option of going crazy and jumping over the railing, so it kept my anxiety low.

But even though you couldn't necessarily fall, my question, though, is because, again, my fear of heights is not rational at all. So even if I know I can't fall, are they the types of stairs that are that sort of metal stairs where if you look down, you can see through the stairs? A little bit. Metal stairs. Yeah. So even if I'm even if I have that sort of caging or fencing all around me, but I imagine you remember this. Were we in Minnesota one time for work? And we were just sort of hanging out by the river, I think, the mighty Mississippi. And we were up high on something. We were in St. Paul, right? And then we had to kind of walk down the set of stairs. And remember, I just suddenly went really quiet on you because the fear got me. Do you remember that?

I do. I can't remember where it was, but I do remember that happened.

It was at the waterfront. And I don't know exactly why we had to go from something high to low. I think it was a park or something. And I was like, yeah, I can do this. And again, I don't think there was a chance of me actually tipping over an edge or anything. But because it was that sort of like sort of metal staircasing, I'm like looking down at my feet. And suddenly I was just like, I remember saying to you, like, I'm not able to communicate with you anymore until I get off of these stairs, essentially. Like, I'll be fine, fine, fine. And then it just grips you.

Yeah, I had to on the Eiffel Tower. I had a couple of times, like, not look down through the stairs because I was like, I don't I don't want the fear to get me. I want to enjoy this. But the other thing that they had In Paris that was like A drug for me is Are you familiar with the Toshin You know Toshin books you know It's like a real Kind of designy publisher But basically what they publish Are things It's not like super highbrow To like where it's like stuff I don't understand It's like stuff that makes me feel highbrow But it's just basically about Mid-century architecture or furniture It's this book publisher That just publishes things That are almost designed in a lab To be of interest to me

And also look great on your coffee table

I've got currently like four of them On my coffee table In my house And I didn't know that they had a real store And they were having a clearance sale At the Tashen store in Paris And I was like I wanted to buy every single book In the store But then I was going to have to fly home with them So instead, I made a detailed list of things I'm going to be buying online and having shipped here.

Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. Did you acquire anything? Because it's fun to sometimes come home. You don't want to overload your bags, of course, but it's fun to come home with something special.

You know what I acquired were four different versions of basically the same blazer. i decided i really want my i want my look this fall to be like a blue italian like kind of wool blazer that's like uh you know you can just throw in a suitcase it doesn't get wrinkled very easily it's breathable but it looks kind of nice it looks kind of put together but it's it's very casual and i kept going into stores and finding what i thought was the perfect one and then buying it and these aren't like crazy expensive like sometimes it'd be like 50 euros or something Because in Italy a lot of this stuff is really cheap Like to

depending on what part of town you're in. And then I would go in another store, and then I would find actually the perfect one, and then I would buy that. And Becca, who bought zero things, was like, all right, you're getting another. I came in with four. And also this sweater that I'm wearing right now, I picked this up in Sorrento or something.

Oh, is that a sport coat? Our feet is a little bit fuzzy. That's not one of your sport coats over top of it. No, it's kind of a cozy sweater. Oh, OK. But here's the thing. Oh, I see. That's the sweater I'm looking at. It's like a cardigan. I see. Yeah.

I have like two items of clothing that I bought 20 plus years ago, like maybe 25 years ago in Italy. And there are two things that I wear to this day. So my whole thought when I was in Italy was I think these clothes are well made and I think that they kind of are timeless. So if the two things I bought here 25 years ago, I still have and still wear, which one is a sweater kind of like this and one is like a sport, like a casual sport coat. i was like why not take this opportunity to acquire like more things that i will probably keep for the rest of my life and wear so um but i also didn't really plan the packing part of it like i didn't some people bring like an extra suitcase just for tchotchkes and stuff and i didn't really do that so i i am sorry nobody in my life is getting a present but i got four presents which are four different versions of a sport coat you didn't bring me any saltwater taffy

i feel like isn't that the thing that people always bring back to the office or where are you visiting are you visiting you're visiting the east coast of the u.s yeah if you go down to the

shore yeah on the shore you're bringing back some saltwater taffy or is there a worse candy than

saltwater taffy by the way well i'm gonna um i'm gonna make some enemies with this one because it's beloved um but i am also not interested in macadamia nuts and when people go to hawaii they'll come back with macadamia nuts and i know that they are treasured and people love them but I'm like, eh, you can kind of miss me with both that and the saltwater taffy.

I'm cool with the macadamia nuts, so send them my way if you're going to send TBTL some treats. But, yeah, the saltwater taffy, I feel like there's a lot of candy that was invented back before we had good candy. I would put applets and cotlets in that category. I would put a lot of stuff.

What do they eat in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Turkish Delight. Turkish Delight has got to be in there. Turkish Delight in there.

Like, we just, you know, we've come a long way, baby. Like they say in the Virginia Slims ads. And I think the candy has really improved. Let's eat some of the good stuff.

I feel like every time I go to that really rough convenience store by my house, that AM, PM, Arco situation, I feel like every time I go in there, there is kind of like on the counter for some reason. I don't know if it's a sample or what it is. there's always some sort of new delectable Reese's product that is getting more and more out of hand. I was there yesterday just picking up like a six pack of Kurs and sitting on the counter as he's checking me out is something that is like the size of a Belgian waffle like still in the package. But it's Reese's? But it was all Reese's and it looks like maybe you break it off into like little squares but it was huge. It was like a it was Luke it was like a phablet no i i it was like a tablet i don't know it's this huge i'm like what is reese's doing but

also i kind of want that in my body yeah no i mean i went to a reese's store with becca in new york city like an entire store dedicated to reese's products uh-huh because i don't know did you get anything i ended up like no like i went i saw people walking around like well yeah because it was like people were walking around with like ice cream stuff they'd gotten there i think that maybe seemed good to me or something i forget why we went in but i look i couldn't pull the trigger on anything i ended up just like walking out without anything the guy running

the place was sort of charismatic but very curt with you as well and said never ever go in this

room was that how it kind of went down i saw somebody on tiktok they're doing an impression of charlie's grandfather and basically it was this like oh i'm literally dying oh man i'm so old i'm so tired oh and then charlie's like i've got this golden ticket anyone want to go to the chocolate factory oh i literally love chocolate oh okay i'll go like which was it dude yeah that is really true yeah well you really you really got some spring in your step now there's a golden ticket involved. That seems like a good place to end the show. Yeah, sure. All right, tomorrow, I don't want to... Yeah, what's up tomorrow? I don't want to wrap up the TBChill Travel Guide on a negative note, but I will tell you that there is a country that is on my list. This is a controversial statement. This is a hot take, or maybe a cold take, because it's a cold place, generally speaking. but I want to talk about Iceland tomorrow We did go to Iceland, however briefly, and yet it felt like way too long. So tomorrow, the travel guide takes us to Reykjavik, Iceland. So do tune in for that. In the meantime, hope you're having a great Thursday. Hope you're staying cool wherever you are. We'll see you tomorrow for more Imaginary Radio. In the meantime, please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. Power out.