Muse

We have to get our story out before Graham runs her version.

Now, I know it's a lot to ask. If we take down the woman who runs the network, we could potentially lose our jobs.

But why did we become journalists if not to uncover the truth and use it to change the world?

You know what? I'm in. You know what? I'm in, too. Graham is mean AF. That's a Twitter term, which I can only assume stands for mean as Frankenstein. There is another term, DTF. Don't touch Frankenstein. To which I usually just reply, WTF. Won't touch Frankenstein. Right, so we're all in. TBTL. Guess what day it is? Guess what day it is?

It's Friday, Friday. Gonna get down on Friday. Everybody's looking forward to the weekend. What are you guys doing? Is this a host job where you're hosting me down? Dude, you host yourself down. You hose yourself up and down, Charlie. Now I hose yourself. Come on. What do you want me to do? I don't care. Yeah, get a job. Oh, get a job? Yeah. Just get a job? Why don't I strap on my job helmet and squeeze down into a job cannon and fire off into job land, where jobs grow on jobbies?

That was really, really, really terrible, but everyone does that kind of stuff sometimes. It happens, like, once or twice or three times in every life. Or twice. I mean one. Or once.

Let's get to the jokes.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Friday edition of TVTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Oh, yeah. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

I like turtles.

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill Broadcast Center, perched high above. The mighty Columbia. The weather is mid, but that is not dampening my enthusiasm today on the show, everyone. It's episode 4,303 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

Because we are mere hours away from TBTL in Philadelphia live.

I'll write it and we'll do it live.

That's right. We are heading to Philly tomorrow night. We'll be at the Friends Center right there in downtown Philadelphia. Hope to see you there.

I'm so excited about this show.

And, well, that's kind of—I'm being totally honest. That's where a lot of my brain space is right now. I know it's where a lot of Andrews is. The other place where my brain space is is over the fact that now the only ads I'm getting on Instagram are for male personal grooming devices. Because on yesterday's show, I talked about the Manscaped project. I wish I hadn't done that. product i don't understand how in the world that stuff is now showing up on my instagram feed but it is and i want to talk to this guy about it because i blame him for some reason he's the longest running co-bro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships he's all ready to put on a hell of a show in philly tomorrow night you want showmanship you got it he's andrew walsh and he's joining me right now good morning my friend i mean targeted advertising

has brought us the golden age of ads for things we've already bought. Like, this is something that I've noticed, too. Like, there are times where I kind of will trick the algorithm. By the way, good morning. Good morning. There are times when I try to trick the algorithm. Did you see the photo I sent you? I did, and then I deleted it. And then I blocked you, and then I threw in my phone. That's not the same product. But it's still a different brand product. But you, at some point, were on Amazon looking at various, you know.

Not Instagram, Amazon.

Yeah, but I mean, yeah, but this happens to me all the time. I was buying shoes recently, so now I've got all these ads for cute shoes, including I saw an ad the other day for this exact pair of Pumas that I bought a few days ago. So I was like, well, they know me well, except they don't know me well enough to know that I'm done shopping. I already bought the product. I feel like the long tail is after you've bought the product, you're continually getting ads for the thing that you've already bought or like different brands, but the product that you already bought, essentially.

See, I was under the impression that because I had purchased my manscaping product on Amazon.com, and this is so foolish of me, I'm being serious. I assumed that, okay, maybe Amazon will start peppering me with things, but I didn't know they were sharing that information with Instagram, where, you know, now I'm getting ads, and I sent you a photo, it's for these Squatch products, which I'm not a fan of, and they're in exactly the same kind of space, which is like, things for guys, but we're going to be really dude-ish about it, and it's somebody shaving a couple of ping pong balls, I think, that they're holding in their hand, and it's exactly the kind of thing you don't go in for, Andrew, and it's now exactly the kind of thing that's permeating my Instagram.

Yep, and you're going to have to work. You should search for some.

other things it is all connected i'm not smart enough to explain it or understand it but i remember reading that and i think we talked about on the show a very kind of in-depth article maybe five years ago that talked about how like yeah even when you go to your parents house like you let's say you're an adult but you're visiting your parents and you're on their wi-fi you might start getting the targeted ads that they for products that they were searching for like it's all intermingled i think the last time i said this on the show somebody argued that it has nothing to do with the Wi-Fi in your home, but I think that's not true. In fact, I can often tell via Instagram what Genevieve is shopping for. I saw a face care product pop up, and I happened to be in the same room with her. I'm like, were you shopping for this recently? She's like, oh yeah, that's my face product. I just bought some, and I don't know where she bought it from, but it certainly wasn't Instagram.

Your home Wi-Fi or your home internet is also part of the memory of this whole thing.

I believe that's part of it. I'm still not totally convinced that there are listening devices some people say oh the phones are listening i don't think they're actually listening to the audio of you speaking i think there's like yeah i think technological reasons why that isn't true but they are quote unquote listening in a very in a very futuristic way like getting even more detail than just the things you say your deepest darkest desires

i mean a hundred percent the um alexa device in my in my kitchen is doing that and she's getting I know, like, talking about these devices is not exactly cutting-edge stand-up comedy material, but she's getting—she's really trying to establish a relationship with me that I'm really not trying to have. So what I use that product for in my kitchen is purely as a timer, and it's very effective for that. I mean, some people would say, well, why—figure out some way that you don't have to install a listening device that Jeff Bezos is monitoring just so you can, say, put five minutes on the timer, but gosh darn, it's convenient for that. the hands-free part of that is that's it yeah if somebody made one they probably do but if somebody made something just like that except it was not internet connected it was just a voice controlled kitchen timer maybe i'd sign up for that because that's all i use it for is that but now and so and you know i am out of town so much that there'll be weeks that will go by we were talking on the show yesterday about did your cats miss you when i like will come home and i'll just be like hey I'll say the name of the device could you put a timer on for 10 minutes or whatever and then she'll say a timer set for 10 minutes by the way Luke and then she'll just trying to get into her personal life and I'm like no I don't want more hashtag engagement between us you know they're programming it to try to engage me so that I'll become somehow more entangled with it and then ultimately some kind of product that they sell but I'm like just the timer please we don't need to talk about don't tell me that you can play music for me oh that was the other thing she told me the other day was like so and so has just released an album would you like to hear it and i was like absolutely not and also don't do an ad in my kitchen yeah right oh yeah yeah yeah i don't

like that either yeah yeah did you see the movie her i did i tell you i finally watched that that i think i might have said this on the show because it's like this is a movie that people have been recommending to me since i lived in la i think it came out it must have come out in 2013 or 2014 because i remember it was new at that time and it seemed to like kind of ticket i think i think spike jones directed it it just like ticked a lot of boxes of things that i would like and i just remember a couple of friends saying like have you watched it yet have you watched yet and i kept thinking like i'm going to watch it and i finally watched it 10 years later in 2024 on the airplane

and it was pretty good well i'll tell you it's also pretty prescient right you have these like kindroid and these other things that are you know kind of like companionship uh sort of ai programs that are designed to do exactly what that sort of Scarlett Johansson character. This is the thing I always say about that movie is, if I understand right, the actor Samantha Morton had been the voice of the whatever program it is that Joaquin Phoenix kind of developed this intense relationship with. They recorded the whole movie with her and then didn't like the voice or decided to go in another direction and then re-recorded it with Scarlett Johansson.

Should I know the name Samantha Orton?

Samantha Orton is an actress I want to say she might be She's either British or Irish She was in Minority Report She was one of the precogs She's been in a bunch of things That's just the thing I remember her from off the top of my head Just thought, man, it would suck to do a whole movie And then to find out later we're going It was like when I almost became the voice of car toys, Andrew It's very similar

Is that true? Is that from back in the early days?

It was yeah it was um it here's what i know we had been fired from cairo oh okay so it was post 2008 but it was my at the time i had an agent and he said car toys the company there and actually i don't know where they're based i assume seattle but they're kind of around the west they're looking for a new like spokes dude and they

Thank you.

kept i don't know why but they kept referencing the fact that they wanted him to be a van wilder type which is i like a character played by ryan reynolds where he's in i've never even seen the movie i'm guessing he's like a cool party animal smart like a me too i've never seen it

but i'm guessing like smarmy like party animal guy yeah yeah and i don't know why they wanted

it just kept coming up they really want a van wilder type and i was like okay but then they They had me audition for it, and I guess I was Van Wild enough for them because they offered me the gig. And let me tell you this, Andrew, and this is a lot of commercials. They're the kind of company that's cutting new ads every week. If my memory serves, it was going to pay $70,000 a year to be the Van Wilder of the Car Toys ads. And I was like, holy crap, that's a full-on job. That's amazing. The pressure is off.

For how much work a week, do you think? If they're like kind of refreshing ads and stuff. Probably a few hours.

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, certainly like something that I could fit into the rest of my life. And like, I was like, this is amazing. So the day comes for me to go sign the contract. I'm literally like about to leave and go sign this deal with whoever the car toys people are. And I get like a text from my agent that says, like, I need to talk to you. And he's like, and I'm like, yeah, what's the address? Where am I going for this? And he goes, well, I have some bad news.

they're going in another direction and i was like what you show up and scarlett johansson is there

and you're like you again with this we're going to have a vanna wilder character again with this

um but by the way how do you feel about the tagline car toys a better way to go hey that was pretty good by the way thank you i appreciate it i didn't come up with it just so the listeners know that is their actual jingle and i gotta say when well i asked you what you

thought of it i i'll i'll respond to your opinion i guess i've never i've i've never um considered it to whether it's good or bad i mean i find not just out of sour grapes because they did pass me they i think what happened was they hired a guy in north carolina this is no joke they hired a guy in north carolina who would do it for half the price and had his own home studio and i was like okay well i can't really compete with that but um not just because of the fact that they passed me over for this thing but i've always thought of their ads as being kind of terrible anyway so i mean the whole energy around it it's just like it's too excited for me you know it's like so i i would say i i don't love car toys a better way to go what do you think uh you know when i first hear

a better way to go there's something about ending your catchphrase with the word go that sort of

seems weak yeah don't end on that's not a preposition is it but doesn't know are you Can you end a sentence on go?

Yeah, yeah. But it just, I don't know. At first, it strikes me as like, I don't know. It just sort of doesn't stick the landing. But the more I think about it, it's one of those where I'm like, actually, I think it's really good. A better way to go because you're going in your car. Now, not to get into the manscaping conversation that we had yesterday, but you could also imagine a scenario where it's for like a bidet or something. It's like Andrew's bidets. A better way to go. that that would also be sort of clever in its own way but i do think a better way to go when you're talking about like making your automobile a more fun place to be while you're trying to get from point a to point b is good how do you feel about the roofing jingle and i don't i can't get the

tune in my head roofing no i love to roof roof roof we love to roof roof no there's one and i

can't i can't get the the tune in my head right now but the the tagline is uh excellence is on the house and i think that's really good i think that's really good um let's see excellence is on the house in other words we throw in the excellence the excellence is on the house but it's the roof the roof is also on the house luke that's the wordplay i saw i i think i texted did

i text this to myself i saw a salon somewhere the other day andrew in my travels that had a really great sort of lame pun that did not make sense. I didn't text him. I wanted to remember to tell you about it because it was a new one. It was one we haven't encountered before. You know where it was? It was as I was driving out. If anybody is driving between Rochester, New York and Naples, New York, keep an eye out in one of those small in-between towns for a hair salon that has a weird name and then get back to me on that, please.

It's a great scavenger hunt. I'm looking for it. I can't, it's some local roof roofing company excellence is on the house. Um, anyway, uh, but, oh, I did want to, I did, I did want to mention we got it. And I'm not, I'm not living up to this, but we've got to keep things a little bit tight today because in about 40 minutes, I have a cat sitter who's coming to, um, uh, get the lay of the land and pick up the key. And I promised I would be ready for her when she. gets here, so we've got to be tight. Well, I've got my own situation, which I have a guy coming over to look at some home project stuff about pouring some concrete, and I actually know this guy. He and his crew have worked on the house extensively. We're buddies. He's Cool Richard. He's Cool Richard? That's his name? What's that? His name is Cool Richard? I would call him Pretty Cool Richard. Pretty Cool Richard's on the way over. I love that. That's a good nickname. I love his almanac pretty cool Richard's almanac this is where when you're texting with somebody who's sort of considerably older and also not a text based life form not a person who does all their communicating through texts you get these little you know he and I are supposed to meet up at about the same time probably that you and the cat sitter are meeting up but I've been originally we're going to meet earlier today but we're doing some you and I are doing some recording out of sync because we're you know going to be going to philly etc so i was trying to update him i was trying to make sure he doesn't show up while we're still recording today's edition of the show and i texted him the timing and i said i'll be recording until this time just fyi and his response is just fine which i know this guy he is that's not there's no subtext to that yes it's brutal the subtext is the guy's pouring concrete somewhere In Cowlitz County right now And he's probably standing ankle deep In concrete that's setting up As he floats it And it's not that he's like Sending me a message But I'm of the generation where Again, if you were to text me that If I was like, okay, we're going to do this Or I'll see you at the Friends Center in Philadelphia At this time If you were to ever respond just the word fine to me Our friendship would be over

Is there a period? That would be the really devastating

No, although If there was one, this would be only because of autocomplete.

Right, yeah.

But no, there's no period.

Sometimes, I don't know about your phone, but my phone on the Android system, it will offer automatic responses. So if you send me a text that says, hey, I'm running 15 minutes late, my phone will suggest three responses. One might be, like, fine. One might be, ugh. And the other one might be, I sit with it. But my phone does do that. Do you have that on yours as well?

I know that's probably a setting. I'm sure anything that can be done on your phone can be done on my phone and vice versa. Here's my question to you. Would you consider me paying for you and Genevieve to switch over to iPhones? No, I don't really care for iPhones that much. You actually actively don't care for them because here's the thing. When I am texting with someone like my daughter or Becca, who also has an iPhone and I send a text and there's an error in it like it auto-completes a word wrong I can now edit the text and I love it so much it's my favorite feature it is such a gift to just be able to say oh that's not what I wanted to say let me just fix that word I love it and it says Luke edited this post that's fine I can't do that with your phone and it kills me and I can't even do it on our group text chain because everyone except you is on an iPhone but you're not on an iPhone. I mean that in our sports guy chain. So I can't edit anything that your eyes are ever going to see because we're on different systems, and that is really bugging me.

I am not willing to switch the phones. I'm pretty dedicated to the Android. In fact, I am thinking about getting a Pixel. I need a new phone. This thing is getting kind of old, and it's getting little chips in the glass. But I'm thinking about doing a Pixel. Is that a Google thing? Yeah, I think Google is. The reason I've been sticking with Samsung's all this time because it was the last holdout that would actually have a mini-to-mini output in case. And this is kind of a bummer for me. Like, I have been using it more and more for reasons that we don't need to get into in my studio right now. I've been having to plug my auxiliary cable into my phone so I can play audio for after these messages and spotless because of the way my setup is here. um and you know i guess i can still maybe do that by getting some sort of a dongle but it's a real bummer i don't think you can get any phones that are on the market right now that actually have a mini output anymore like a headphone jack that bums me out what harm is the headphone jack doing what did it ever do to you yeah you mean there's phone makers yeah yeah it's like it's not there

are i understand getting rid of certain things because they're they take up space or they're You know, they're like a there's some reason to. But I feel like the like headphone out thing can just exist peacefully there, you know, just on the edge of the phone. No one even has to notice it or use it if they don't want to. I wonder why they've eliminated it.

Because it's not like I have my one computer, which is my traveling computer, which, by the way, I'm still. I've been going back and forth and back and forth on which computer to take on this trip. I want to take my traveling computer because it's so much more convenient. But I'm like, can it do the job? I know it can get the job, in the words of Dan Hedaya, but can it do the job in Philadelphia? But that's a little mini guy, and that does not have, like, your classic USB ports on it. It's only got a whole bunch of USB-C ports, and I know that you have computers like this as well. And, you know, that was a workaround, but that was a clear exchange that I made. I was getting an ultra-thin, very portable laptop, so therefore it doesn't have room. It literally does not have physical room for a thicker, wider USB port, so that's a trade-off. But I don't think that is—I could be wrong here, but I don't think that is the case for a simple headphone jack. I don't think there are any phones that are thinner than a headphone jack, right?

Right, exactly. I don't think that's what I'm saying. It's not, I mean, maybe it's just one more piece of circuitry that the phone has to deal with. And if you eliminate, then you can have, you can swap out a different piece of circuitry or something. Or it's, you know, maybe it's an intrusion point, like water could get in there or something, or pocket lint. I don't know. But yeah, it's, I like the idea that I could still, I guess I can still plug something into my phone. I still have a, you know, but it's this different kind of port now. By the way, let me just say this. The whole time I was in Europe, and I'll say this about, like, airplanes, a lot of them anyway, the reports of the large switch over to USB-C have been greatly overstated. I found it ironic in Europe, by the way, because the whole reason we're going to USB-C is because some European, you know, like, council voted on this or said we're not going to accept USB anymore. And so all these companies have, I mean, USB-C is supposed to be the standard, right? The whole time I was in Europe.

I don't think you have that quite right. It's not that they were outlawing USB. They were saying all the stuff that was specific to Apple, like the little Thunderbolt stuff. Like, I can't charge my phone with whatever you used to charge your iPhone with. USB and USB-C are both kind of universal to all products.

so in other words the but they were making apple apple get on board with everyone else right yes

exactly which is usbc which is usbc but here's the thing i was thinking about this on my trip too because i was gladly you know i brought a couple of converters for the kind of european outlets but mostly i didn't need them too much because over there when i was in croatia most places i stayed had you know both power outlets and just usb outlets in the wall but those are all classic usb i think mostly the change has been the devices have usb c so because you had mentioned something about like driving in the car and you'd said i thought all cars were supposed to have usb c now that has not been my experience it's still like usually big old-fashioned usb on one end and then usb c for the device on the other end okay yeah you're right so that's where no no i think you're

right that's been my misunderstanding is thinking that everything has to be usb c it just means that at the sort of tip of the spear as it were it needs to be but i guess what i'm i guess what i'm thinking is like i now because i because i was unclear on this and because i i just have been collecting up a lot of usbc to usbc cables like i have tons of them and i'm like i'm ready for the future and then everywhere i show up it's like still just usb out yeah and i'm like what

the hell you might be right that it's going in that direction i'm not sure because you said something and this goes to show you luke that i listen to you and i retain it and i turn it over my head thank you that shows me that you care and i shadow box and i wake up in the middle of the night and i say he's a fool no um i feel like when you tell me if i'm wrong about this when you were kind of you know at the more beginning stages of redesigning your house and renovating your house you said that you were putting in outlets that also had like kind of standard usb right and did you say at that time though you had a choice of making it usb or usbc like is there a chance that in the future we are going to be looking at usbc on both ends and also i'm just hearing this conversation like this is i'm just hearing well i'd say let's get it out of our system before philly yeah that's true at least we're not i mean that's gonna be i mean i'm i have let's talk about

this for a minute okay we're gonna be in philadelphia tomorrow night looking very forward to it but also there's a lot of there are a lot of unknowns and question marks i my sense is your stress about tomorrow night is based on the largely on the technical side my stress about it is largely on the content side and the fact that i may have a lot of extended family there who i love and appreciate but i like this tbtl thing is a lot if you don't really know what's going on like i'm i'm a little worried that they'll show up and think like we heard things were going okay for luke but now we see him playing sound effects and talking about usbcs with his friend what is this you know so anyway how are you feeling about about the tbtl live in philly tomorrow night

i would take issue or umbridge whichever one is a lighter touch um to know i i am also stressed out about the content i mean the truth is you're stressed about both yeah no i'm stressed about

both because i am not stressed about the technical side i'm light i'm free and easy also you should

be stressed about the technical side but i just i am i'm anxious about your evil inside me like i

just you get to be stressed about what you're stressed about and i get to be stressed about

what i'm stressed about that's the division of labor but um but yeah no as somebody who's quasi responsible for both we definitely need to have like you know it's kind of a a difficult travel week here but i i know that you and i really need to put our heads together and sort of figure out the flow of the show and you know what we're going to be doing when we're on stage That is compounded by the the fact that I'm making, you know, like I have not put eyes on this place. It's literally across the country from me. And so I'm making some assumptions based on conversations I've had with the people who work at the friend center that my plan will work. But I'm going to rent a bunch of equipment that isn't even mine and then bring it into a space that I'm unfamiliar with. And I'm making a lot of assumptions about how this is going to work. So I am spinning on that quite a bit. i'm spinning on whether or not my flight is going to get me there on time because there are so few options that i'm worried that if the airline screw me um that could really throw us off i'm screw you screw you for what for my money and my time uh so anyway yeah so i've got a lot of i got a lot of stuff that's spinning i'm trying to do what you said i think maybe late last week which is focusing on the fact that this is fun like let me let me put it this way i said this to you and john in a meeting oh this wasn't this wasn't on the you're right this wasn't on the show like i really need to remember that like this is a fun job and we're going to a place where people like what we do even if what we do is talk about usbcs for far far far too long like for some reason we have a cadre of people who appreciate that enough to travel and buy tickets and see us do that and so you know i my brain will sort of hook on to like what is the worst case scenario of all of this and frankly i don't know what the worst case scenario is i guess the worst case scenario is we literally just have uh an unamplified unrecorded meeting the way the quakers designed it exactly okay and maybe it'll just be an intimate special thing that we just have with those folks because none of our equipment works and there's no drops i don't know maybe that's but they're one way or another yesterday on the show or the day before you were even talking about like the disaster um at uh bush gardens when it was kind of over packed and like listen i'm not saying that we shouldn't be we shouldn't be good producers and plan for the best show possible or whatever but i also need to remember that sometimes disasters become part of the lore as well we always make it work in some way or another we want to be there we want to um you know however how whatever the event ends up looking like we want to make sure and we have the ability to make it a special evening one way or the other. And, you know, it's one of those things, maybe you don't want it to be too memorable because that means somebody ended up with a broken nose, but, um, I'm just trying to stay

focused on that. I, that's a really good, I think that's a good thing for you to remember and for me to remember, because like I said, my, I, again, this is the, this is the luxury of me not being the tech person on the show. I assume it'll all work, but that assuming that you'll be able to make it all work from the recording it side and amplifying it side and whatever but for me it's more just like i really want everyone to have a really good time at the show again i you know i think i'm gonna have a lot of family and extended family and maybe even my biological father's side of the people like somehow word got out in philly that i'm doing this and not through any attempt by me to promote it to this group of people right but now they're possibly going to be there and and And I just, I don't know. I feel like I really want the show to go well and be entertaining. And also I'm a little concerned about what people I haven't seen in 15 years might make of it, which is here. How do I put this? Very, very gingerly. I was saying this to my mom. I was like, mom, I'm really nervous about the family aspect of this. And she said, you come from a very loving, very forgiving family. And the example she gave was that her, her my my mom's side of the family some collection of them tried out to be on family feud they went to a mall in like king of prussia or something like what like the the most initial intake for this so you go to a mall and you play a pretend round of family feud and if your family is kind of entertaining and good at it then you maybe move on to where they videotape you and then you know you may someday end up on family feud apparently uh there was

some people or persons who really locked up, who really locked up while trying up for Family Feud. And my mom said, and everyone was so great about it, and everyone just was loving and supportive, and nobody was upset. So that was her evidence to me that even if I lock up on Saturday night, my family will forgive me for this, and they'll be fine with it.

I'm not trying to I don't know, bite your anxiety rhyme. Because it's a different scenario, but i am up against something i don't want to overstate how much um concern this is causing me but it is like a little bit of an itchy thing as well which is we i have some really good friends like really close friends from my time in new hampshire who um live in philadelphia and i love them dearly and i was hoping to get together with them um like for dinner with them um when i get into town but my plan was just to tell them i'm in town for a work thing and like not really get into too much detail about it hopefully because i don't even know if they know what i do like i just feel like when i knew them my life was so much different and you know tbtl was not a part of it and like i just feel a little bit weird about them being in the audience but genevieve immediately was kind of like are you coming to andrew's show like here we go we're comping your tickets. Genevieve does not sort of take no

for an answer for that. Andrew, how do we have this job where we're going to go to this thing a bunch of people, many of whom will have traveled across the country themselves, are all going to get together in a room and be stoked about this. And there's merch. And there's a get-together afterwards at the place which is named the Mulberry. I think we're going to be meeting at the Mulberry.

We're going to be all around the Mulberry Yeah, yeah There's going to be monkeys, there's going to be weasels

It's going to be It's going to be a night To remember But like, it's so funny that I'm talking about all this anxiety that I'm having You're talking about not even wanting your friends To know it's happening And yet, there's a different way to look at Which is like, what an amazing thing that we Get to do this show and that people are excited about And that it will be fun And that it is, honestly like by the standards of a lot of things that get started kind of successful like we're doing this for our job we we three people make a living off of this you me and john we have this incredible support from the tens uh you know like there's a lot of ways to look at this like if i'm being honest it's much more successful than a lot of similar projects that friends of mine have launched and if i were to go to their live taping and it were to resemble what we're going to do in Philadelphia be like hey this is really cool for them I'm stoked particularly let's imagine you don't even work in like quote-unquote entertainment let's imagine you have a maybe a job in in software or some sort of sales position or whatever like you have a job that's not doing this kind of thing and you show up at your friends I don't know what your friends in Philadelphia do but I'm guessing do they work in radio also the journalism journalism okay so maybe there maybe this wouldn't be that dazzling to them but just imagine that they like my family that I'm all nervous about them coming. I think they have very standard kind of, I don't want to say standard, like that's dismissive, but they just have the kind of jobs that most people have in the world. So probably they'll be impressed by this. But my big fear is they'll come to it and think like, what is Luke doing with his life? So it's just weird that you and I, who are both so weird about all this and feel so unsuccessful at it, are flying across the country using the finances that we've raised through ticket sales and are going business to do this show for a couple hundred people who are going to be very excited about it and yet feel like abject failures.

I just don't want to explain slabjacking, you know? I think it's like, at the end of the day, it's actually quite simple.

Try doing it to your dead biological father's sister who you've seen three times in your life. Let's explain slabjacking to Patsy, Andrew.

Let's play a game called Explaining Slabjacking to Patsy. Thank you for being a 10.

We would not be here talking USBCs and slabjacking without the support of our daily donors who are providing financial support, who are making this a real thing, Andrew. And I don't care what you and I say. This is a real thing.

That's true.

Despite what I've told you, Andrew, this is a real thing.

Don't listen to us. Listen to the people who support the show.

Yeah, this is a real thing. Thanks to Jenna Munoz. Thank you, Jenna. Singapore. Wow. Jenna. How's it going in Singapore? Yeah, what's the... What time is it over there? What's going to happen in the future? Tell me, how does the conversation... Are they using USB-C? I was going to say, does the conversation about USB-C slap as much as Singapore as it does here in the States?

Thanks, Jenna. Thanks to Lexi Janicek as well, who's in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

Minnesota, twist. Didn't see that one. I always get thrown. Yep, yep.

Thanks, Lexi. Jamal Abdi is in Arlington, Virginia. Nice. You've spent some time there, I know. I sure have. Sure have. They're a little just outside of D.C. in northern Virginia. Mary Donahue is in Brooklyn, New York, another place I've spent some time. I've been to Brooklyn, New York.

I was there with you one time. When did you go to Brooklyn, New York? With you to do a show in Brooklyn for TBTL when nobody I knew was in the audience. That was fun.

You know we sold one walk-up ticket that night?

I do. I was going through because we were doing some research on ticket sales for this coming show.

There was a good showing. It's just all the tickets were purchased in advance, and then one person walking by saw the marquee and thought,

all right, I'll take a flyer on this. I believe, according to the notes that I was looking at a couple of months ago as we were in the planning stages, I think it said capacity was 150. Was it we sold 149 and one of them was a walk-up? Was that right? Or 148 and one of them was a walk-up? I wonder.

I think, yeah, we were pretty close to capacity there. I was talking to my mom about this show, this show in Philly, And I said, yeah, we've sold this many tickets And this is about how many people I figure are going to be coming out And she goes, well, and then the people who will probably buy tickets on the day of And I said, you don't understand how TVTL works We announce a thing Anyone and everyone who wants to go to that thing Buy their tickets within 47 seconds And then zero tickets sell Nobody's like, huh, what's this? I'll try it It's like you're either in Or you have no interest in what's going on

Although, don't forget my neighbor, and this is a listener who I ran into on my way to the train station, I believe, last summer. So it's been a year, and so I'm pretty sure—

Was this the one you kind of were weird to? Well, I'm kind of weird to everybody, but I don't think I was especially weird in this case. Maybe that was somebody who came by your yard or something. I felt like you had an interaction with a listener that you later were trying to kind of like sort of clarify on the air or something. I don't know. I can't remember that. Maybe I'm thinking of me and Patsy.

Or maybe I just buried it so deep and you're bringing it up. But anyway, the only reason I'm hesitating is because I think his name is Mark, but it's been a year. And my apologies. I know we emailed back and forth. He even offered to let me borrow his truck to take some hedge trimmings to the dump, which I appreciate and still may take you up on someday. But anyway, I believe Mark, who's been listening for years now, first heard about the show because of, I think, the 3,000th episode. literally I think saw the marquee and said what is this and walked in with I think was it with his wife or was he solo and his wife still doesn't get it and I was just like and it worked he's like

yeah I thought it was pretty fun that's amazing okay well hopefully I don't know what kind of marquee the Friends Center has I'm guessing pretty probably small it's probably against the Quaker way to trumpet your event yeah you know in a way Andrew we really are embracing the kind of Quaker humility by saying that we're embarrassed that the show exists. I mean, at least we're kind of on brand with that. Anyway, thanks, Mary. Thanks also to Christopher Sherrill, who's in Madison, Wisconsin. Another lovely, lovely town. And then Jules Foster is in Eugene, Oregon. I've heard that's my kind of town.

I haven't been there yet.

I really like Eugene. I will say that every time I go there, recently, the last few times, I'm usually going with Becca, who's a University of Oregon graduate and her whole family is and they even have like every single part of Eugene is imbued with memories for her of how great her life was before she met me so it's a tough town for me to visit

right and also it's imbued with memories of your team being sort of dominated by that team for a long time

well for me but then we flipped the script last year and then I didn't know how to handle that either So I didn't know how to handle the years where Oregon was just thumping us. And then last year we beat Oregon in the regular season and we beat them for the last ever Pac-12 championship. And that was a whole scene because I was at a party with Becca and her brother and his wife at their lovely home where I was the only Washington fan. and I was hiding in a room upstairs watching it while everyone else was downstairs getting tuned up and angry about the outcome of the game. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

I remember that story. You had to kind of play it cool. Weren't you, like, quietly fist-pumping?

Yes, silently. Be like, yeah, I'm coming. So. Anyway, all right. Thank you to our donors for making TBTL possible. We really would not be able to do this without you.

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

Do you feel bad, Andrew? I feel great, Luke. Do you feel bad that you didn't do enough to keep Coca-Cola spiced on the shelves?

Yes, I do feel bad. I'm just hearing about this, too. I believe you played the perfect drop after this. I don't know what that is, and I don't care to find out. Is this like something you would mix rum into? Why is it Coca-Cola spiced?

I think you've really nailed it when you said you're just hearing about this, because I believe everyone is just hearing about this thing that Coca-Cola has pulled the plug on after six months. Coca-Cola is discontinuing the production of its new spiced flavor just six months after the soda hit shelves, marking the end of a disappointing attempt to attract younger drinkers. The company said in a statement that Coca-Cola is, quote, always looking at what our customers like and adjusting. As part of this strategy, we're planning to phase out Coca-Cola Spiced. This was like when they canceled TBTL from Cairo.

Well, no, you had a longer run.

I just mean the speech that the Rodfather gave me where he said, we're adjusting some things in the lineup. And I said, like what? He said, we're taking TBTL off the air. And I said, well, what else is being adjusted? He said, nothing. He wasn't lying. In our continuing strategy to respond to the Coca-Cola drinkers' tastes, we are ending Coca-Cola Spiced. The short lifespan, by the way, this is from CNN, Jordan Walensky, writing about this. The short lifespan of Spiced is surprising because the company promoted it as a permanent flavor. Why would you come out of the box? So when they rolled this thing out in a way that none of us knew about, they were declaring this to be a permanent flavor, though they didn't provide a specific reason for axing Coca-Cola spiced. Lack of awareness of the new offering and confusion about its flavor. It wasn't actually spicy, Andrew. Probably contributed to lackluster sales. So what did it taste like? Do we know? It apparently had raspberry notes.

Oh, when I think of raspberries, I always think of spiciness.

Don't you? You think of, like, in, like, Christmas time, gathering around a piping hot raspberry, cup of raspberry spiced. Yeah, it was supposed to be apparently kind of raspberry flavored. It blended traditional Coke flavor with raspberry notes. Spiced was also what was kratom taken? No, Coca-Cola kratom.

Which I still don't understand what that is.

Isn't spice like some kind of a, oh, I don't know what, I don't know what, is it, I don't even know if I'm saying it right.

I don't know either. I always say kratom, but I don't think that's right. I just see it, and I see those words like outside of a vape store, and I don't know, and I don't know exactly. I mean, I've asked some people, I guess it's like some sort of like legal, some sort of legal chemical that you can ingest that will supposedly give you some sort of a high. But from the very limited conversations I've had about this, I've heard it's very disappointing.

I have heard that it can be actually really hard to kick. So, like, think long and hard before you get heavy. Seriously? Yeah, yeah, yeah, really. Like, the reason I made that really sensitive joke about Kratom or Kratom is because isn't spice also like a thing that goes, like, people use or something? Is it a drug name?

I mean, I think in the movie, well, in the movie Dune.

In the movie Blow starring Johnny Depp?

Yeah, no, the movie Dune wasn't. Oh, yes, sure.

But, yeah, I didn't know that. Kratom, I've heard, or Kratom, yeah, is like a, I don't think it's actually an opioid, but it's something synthetic that can sort of mirror the effects of some sort of opioids. Oh, interesting. And that there are some people who report having a very strong reaction to it in terms of it really adjusting kind of their, let's just say, mental state or whatever. But then it also could be very, very hard to get off of once you're on it. That's what I have heard and read in some places. I didn't realize it was that effective, so that's kind of interesting. Well, yeah, I have limited—I learned about it—the mummy was really into it for a while. Oh, ahead of the curve. And was calling it kratom and was mixing it into tea when the mummy didn't have enough money to buy alcohol at places we were all together. So sometimes would be mixing his own kratom tea.

Did you notice any behavioral differences in him after he would have some kratom in his tea? No.

Same shady. He was the same shady lady before and after.

Let's talk about Coca-Cola spice here for a second. First of all, the term spice, I see that and I'm not interested. If it said Coca-Cola raspberry and it was just hints of raspberry, I would be much more tempted to be like, well, let's just try a little. bit of it because there is a soda um you know how certain fast food restaurants often your kfc's or your tacos bell will um have like a special so like they'll partner up with mountain dew or something for like there was one of those chains that had like a spicy meal and it came with a spicy soda do you remember this this would have been maybe like early in the baseball season

And I would say, if you're giving me a spicy meal, I don't want a spicy soda. That's my personal take.

I totally agree. It sounded terrible to me looking at fast food.

I understand.

And I looked it up, and it was a McDonald's spicy Sprite. I'm looking this up now.

First of all, McDonald's Sprite is spicy enough.

Because of the carbonation?

The carbonation. There's something about Sprite. You cannot chug Sprite. It is very hard. It seems spicier than other sodas just in its natural state.

I'm actually seeing if I'm wrong about this. I'm seeing something. I might be being fooled by the internet. It might not have been a, yeah, no, it is. Shoot, I don't know. I might be being fooled by the internet. It might not have been McDonald's. It might have been somebody else. But I looked it up. I'm like, is it actually spicy or are they just calling it spicy? Are they just like putting red food dye in there and horns on the packaging or something? But apparently there was actually something in this soda that would give it a spicy aftertaste, which sounds terrible to me. And I mean, like maybe I mean, you can't bank sales on somebody challenging each other because that's just going to be a trend. And in this case, they unveiled it, as you just said, as a permanent addition to their lineup. I don't understand why you'd even borrow that. Like, why would you borrow that trouble?

Why do you announce that it's permanent?

It's like it's like announcing that you're going to get married on your first date or something like. And also this article that you sent me from CNN mentions these other ambiguously flavored limited time Cokes, including Dream World. I've seen that before. Have you seen the Dream World cans? No. They're actually somewhat appealing. And that's like the power of marketing. Like I know that like in my AM, PM down the street, they had Dream World for a while. And it was like this like kind of cleverly cutesy designed can that was like sort of a baby blue color with some sort of like attractive design on it. And I had no idea what Dream World tasted like, but I was sort of attracted to the packaging. So, like, I just feel like spicy Coke was such a mistake of marketing. Probably it tasted fine.

I bet it did. Tell me it's raspberry Coke. I'll give that a day in court. Sure. Continuing with this article, Coca-Cola has been updating its lineup with limited-time offerings, such as Oreo-flavored soda. Oof. It has also released some, like you said, ambiguously flavored limited-time Cokes. You mentioned Dream World, Starlight, Bite. And then it partnered with DJ Marshmello on a flavor that did not taste like marshmallow.

Do you know DJ Marshmello?

I think I've seen pictures of DJ Marshmello. I think DJ Marshmello wears a head that looks like a marshmallow, kind of in the way that, who's the DJ that would wear the little Mickey Mouse ears, who's very well-known. I'm sorry I can't help you on that one That rings a vague bell You probably vibed to this person's music Oh my gosh, it's going to make me crazy There's a DJ who famously Nobody knows what they look like And they wear a little Deadmau5

I'm pretty unfamiliar with that world I know that, of course I've seen that name Everywhere, but I actually don't know much about it

This is what I don't understand About all of this one-time stuff And maybe this is just Because I am a bit set in my ways Not in an old way Andrew Because I'm not old, I'm only 48 In that young way of being set in your ways But yeah, in a cool, like a kind of a cool hip way Of being extremely locked in To whatever I'm comfortable with I am not the kind of person who walks into a store And goes like, hey what's a thing I've never tried before here That I could try I am a person who walks into a store and says What are the things that I have tried that I've enjoyed And how do I get those again like i don't understand the business model of rolling out like oreo flavored soda and dj marshmallow flavored coca-cola and like the person who walks in and goes i mean other than maybe like purely as a gag like hey i bought this oreo soda just because i wanted to like bring it to a party and we could all marvel at it like i'm surprised just first of all you're not able to use kind of economies of scale like if you're making coca-cola right you've got the right size can with the right label on it with the right mixture and like there's all these systems in place i feel like every time i guess the amount doesn't change but the label on the can changes the mixing of the flavor changes like you're kind of you're to some degree reinventing some part of this wheel every time you do some new flavor that you roll out and i'm just surprised that these things

sell enough that they think that i mean clearly this didn't work but that they must have some history of this working for them to be rolling out like turkey gravy soda or whatever the hell they're doing um and it you know it's selling enough that it justifies its existence i will

say that i think i'm a little bit more tempted to try goofy flavored sodas than you are because well you're younger than me by six months i'm younger than you and i'm just like i'm kind of a free spirit is how people describe me kind of a go with the flow like what's the next adventure kind of guy um no i think it's because i like i think there was a period of time am i wrong about this were you kind of a big diet coke drinker like in as a kind of a regular yeah so as part of your kind of regular routine i don't think i've ever had a regular routine that involved soda like coffee for sure you know whatever back when i was working for my dad big jugs of dairyman's iced tea or whatever shout out to cleveland folks um but uh like i i don't think i ever was like oh at least three times a day, I have a Diet Coke or whatever. So for me, when I go into, again, like literally the AM PM, it is sort of an adventure. I'm kind of like, what should I try? In fact, I'm not even joking. Yesterday I had to record a podcast with Genevieve in the early evening and I was getting a little bit of the midday doldrums. And so I walked down, I was like, I'm going to get something to pep me up, some soda from the AM PM. So I walked down there and I grabbed two bottles, and one of them was a Fanta pineapple, and the other one was, I think, just a Fanta orange, neither of which I ended up drinking, by the way. It turns out I just needed the wok, which is probably a lesson in here. They're both in the fridge right now. Don't underestimate the power of taking a wok for changing the whole day. Exactly. I did get it. I think I had a little Gatorade on the way back. I was there. I was like, well, I'm here to buy soda, but honestly, I just want a little Gatorade to slake my thirst here a bit. But all of that is to say, I do sort of lean into the adventure of it, and sort of the same with chips unfortunately i have a pretty narrow palette so i'm not going like i'm not going to get anything that is like like kind of um sour cream and vinegar flavored or whatever but if there's kind of like a a different kind of barbecue chip or something that is like a pickle flavored chips or ketchup or something i'm kind of like oh i don't buy chips that much so i actually will lean into the weird a little bit so i guess i sort of get that a little bit more but i think you have to also explain what you're selling i don't understand why dreamland and then a spicy soda that isn't spicy and you're calling it that like what are they trying to do here well this is

the thing uh they said that according to cnn article that part of how they landed on this raspberry flavor was because raspberry was selected more than five million times on one of these freestyle drink machines oh yeah yeah you know when you kind of make your own soda yeah um which the company says they often use for inspiration for new flavors that's great you know what the people weren't selecting on the freestyle machine? Spice. Spice. Yes, or Dreams. They were selecting Raspberry. Right. What a foolish mistake. Why give it a weird

vague name that no one understands, like TBTL? Right, exactly. Oh, but once you say that it stands for Too Beautiful to Live, that sort of explains everything.

Here I go once again with the email. Every week I hope that it's from a female. No, man. It's not from a female.

All right. emails of emails?

Yes, we are up against it here clockwise, but I have two voicemails I'd love to squeeze in if we have time. Just play them both at the same time. Okay, that sounds very team-yelling. Run them concurrently. That is what we'll be bringing this, that kind of energy that we'll be bringing to the stage on Saturday evening.

We're trying to make the brown note, play all of the voice, play seven voicemails at once.

We're trying to play the yellow note here, because I have two voicemails that both involve peeing.

Don't say yellow note, because I do legitimately have

to peace oh then this might actually this might be tough for you by the way these two voicemails maybe we won't get through them both uh let me choose here uh this one is from rachel this was inspired by the conversation we were having a couple of days ago about uh how frustrating it can be when you go to use a restroom at a gas station or something you're a legitimate customer but then they'll say oh the restroom is out of order and you're very dubious about that it's like the restroom is probably not out of order you probably just don't want me using it yes

This is listener Rachel from Pittsburgh. And I wanted to chime in on your stories about peeing places a few days behind. But you guys were talking about going to the grocery store and having the door closed. And I just, Andrew, you had said, like, what would you do if I just pee on the floor?

I didn't quite say that. I thought, like, what if I go outside your establishment and pee in the bushes or the wall, just so you know. I've never threatened to pee on the floor of a store, but go ahead, Rachel.

The door closed sign. And there was one time when I was driving with my daughter, who was two. And we were in the city of Pittsburgh, an area I knew quite well, but it's kind of much more residential. and I had one

done like an after school program there i know that there's a gas station and all of a sudden my back my little two-year-old had to go to the bathroom and she didn't have a diaper on we're in the middle of potty training it was an emergency immediately and so i i stopped off at this this gas station again with like not much around it like houses and um i uh for listeners in pittsburgh it's in south oakland and the woman there behind the uh the desk said outside there's no bathrooms here but when I worked there six years ago there was uh and I said oh yeah you guys do have a bathroom it's right over here it used to be open to the public and she said well it's not open to the public anymore and I said uh like I'll buy something can I please use your bathroom though and I'm like looking at my two-year-old trying to show her this is for a child and uh the woman refused again and I said okay well I guess we'll just have to go here and And I looked at my two-year-old and I said, you can pee in here. And the woman looked at me aghast and was like, are you kidding me? And I said, well, this is up to you. You can let us use the bathroom. And she said, I'm not supposed to. And I said, okay, go ahead. Pee on the floor, kiddo. And the woman gave me the keys. So that's the time I played chicken with someone at a gas station.

All right, power out. That is one way to win that. You pulled the pin on that grenade. Right? That is shocking.

I know, I'm not, you know, I'm not, listen, I love listening to Rachel, I love it when Rachel checks in from Pittsburgh, and hopefully we'll see Rachel, hopefully Rachel will make the trip over to Philly, even though I know there's a little, you know, eastern-western Pennsylvania rivalry, Steelers-Eagles, but that's a, I have to say, that's a bold move. I mean, I, I will say this. I don't like it when a person says we don't have a bathroom because you do have a bathroom. You don't have one that is available for public use, but that's different. Like, I don't like, we don't have a bathroom. Really? Do you go in a bucket outside? No, you have a bathroom. You're just saying, you don't want me to use it. Yeah. That being said to just fully just, you know, to just like, again, tell the kid just go for it right here, man, you are really, that's a, that's a hell of a, that's a hell of a threat.

I know this must be torture for you Luke but since we do have the time here I'm going to play one more voicemail that I sort of feel like fits this theme if you can keep your legs crossed over there Luke and I already went sounds good this person did not leave their name I'm going to diaper double around

Hi Lucky B and Andrew Dubs I have a story for you that relates to all of this urination conversation I have two stories actually the first one is I was on a winery tour with a group of friends in Walla Walla about 25 years ago and we were young and kind of stupid and kind of drunk and we got to a winery and two of us really had to pee so we went into the tiny bathroom and we couldn't use the toilet so we peed in the sink and it was really funny and we came out and we walked out the door laughing and the owner says next time do not pee in my sink and we were horrified it turns out our other friends who were out in the winery could hear every single thing we were saying in that tiny tiny bathroom and then the other story is have you googled around luke about all that water is that even safe and the reason i ask is because that same friend who was in the bathroom with me in walla walla drank way too much water at the bottom of the Grand Canyon trying to heed all of the stay hydrated signs and she got so over hydrated and the symptoms are the same as dehydration by the way that she had to be helicoptered out of the bottom of the Grand Canyon for drinking too much water so just make sure that a gallon a day

is actually safe all right keep it up love you guys bye the first part of that I'm not sure why Was the toilet broken or something in the winery? So it was a broken toilet. I wonder. That's why they used the sink. And then secondly, yeah, what do you make of the overwater situation? I'm sure this is not the first listener to warn you about the dangers of overwatering a Lukey. It's called hyperhydration.

And I actually did look this up because the guy who made up the 75 hard thing is not a doctor. He's just a wingnut. In fact, I think he did something wing nutty lately. Like, he was in the news the other day. I should find what he did. I think he said something. He was on this podcast, and he said something really lame about, like, not, to paraphrase, basically, like, him thinking that he had certain kind of treatment when he was dealing with a police officer who happened to be a woman versus a police officer who happened to be a male. This is the guy who invented this dumb 75 hard thing. And I texted Becca. I said, does this mean I can stop doing this?

because i'm an ally so when he had some sort of reaction to being like pulled over or something

by a woman i think he said i don't know if it was about a specific incident or him just kind of saying like again i'm paraphrasing that basically like when he has been pulled over by a female police officer he has found the experience to be more unpleasant than if he's pulled over by a male police officer which is the weirdest thing to say and like who knows i don't even want to begin to try to unpack that. All of that is to say, I did actually check about, um, basically like if it was safe to drink a gallon of water a day, because I wouldn't assume this guy really knows what he's talking about. And it turns out that probably if you're my size, um, it's fine. I think if you're have, if you have a smaller body, particularly if you're a woman, then there could be some reason for concern. But I think the biggest issue for me at my size and my age and my whatever is just peeing all the time which is absolutely true you know my buddy evan has been not fully doing this with me but he's drinking water and he and i just trading stories now constantly about times that we almost peed our pants um and uh i think i mentioned it on the show the other day but that included me i was driving to see becca uh i we were actually on that saturday when we went to that wedding that i flew home for basically and i had to i got off the freeway a block from her house and I had to pull over and in this parking lot that is the parking lot of the if you're in the Portland firefighters union which I would assume is all of the firefighters this is their office and I had to pee way in the back corner of that parking lot because I wasn't going to make it the extra block to her house so that's the bigger danger to me I think more so than hyper hydration is just hyper embarrassment of I'm always needing to pee real badly or hyper getting your ass kicked by a bunch of firemen honestly i think they would be sexy about it though yeah what a way to go honestly now that i think about it a bunch of just like sexy buff mustachioed firefighters just cuddling me to death because i peed in their parking lot just boxing you around the ears yeah but like in a sexy way yeah i could die from that i mean is an earboxing ever not sexy not in my experience there's going to be a lot of earboxing tomorrow night on stage do we have a stage? I guess we'll find out whatever it looks like at the Friends Center in Philadelphia that's where we'll be tomorrow night and we'll see some of you there, can't wait for the rest of you, we'll be back on Monday with more imaginary radio for you so please do join us for that in the meantime, have a great weekend take care of yourselves and please remember, no mountain too tall and good luck to all

Power out.