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All right. Hello. Good morning and welcome everyone to a Wednesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. podcasts are the future of show business my name is luke burbank i am your host this is malicious fecal distribution coming to you once again from lancaster pennsylvania where the furniture is amish the wegmans is thriving and um the podcasts are flowing here as we arrive at episode 4,306 in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

I will say that I was getting a sandwich at the Wegmans last night for a little dinner, and a guy, an older gentleman in line next to me, he noticed my order, which was, I'm going to be honest with you, kind of excessive. I tend to, when in doubt, order the large, because I have this fear of this artificial scarcity idea of like I'm going to want one more bite of the sandwich and there's not going to be enough so they have three sizes of sandwich small medium and large and it's just how much of the sandwich are they giving you and I got a large which is like a party sub essentially for probably multiple people and um you know I did fix it all up it was it was great too by the way cheese pepper spread of some kind uh veggies uh i don't do any meat in there but um when the woman was all done making it she said how many how many pieces would you like this sliced into it i totally did like a i had her cut it into four pieces like this was gonna be for me and my family back here at the residence inn even though it was gonna be for me and myself back here at the residence inn anyway the guy next to me older gentleman said boy i wish i could eat like that and still be trim like you are and when i tell you friends he said i'm skinny boy the wind that that put in my sails can't even can't even tell you i'm just walking on sunshine here on this wednesday edition of the program oh yeah i uh got to go hang out with the singer maggie rogers and check out this really crazy place called rock lit it's i hate to say it it was kind of cool that's where all these people come before they go out on their tour uh speaking of singers going out on tour frankie valley the singer went on the internet to clarify that no

one is forcing him to go out and perform i'm singing i'm in a store i'm singing

even though there are so many videos right now on the internet particularly on tiktok that make it seem like he's being held hostage or something on stage at the age of 90 so we'll talk about that And we'll talk to this guy, longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. What I love about him is he's not only very demure, but he's also very mindful. You just rarely get both of those qualities in the same person, but he's got them both. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. How are things out there in Pennsylvania? Are they still talking about the live show? Are they, like, is the state still buzzing? Yeah, they're buzzing.

it's the state is is a titter and a buzz you know what it is a buzz with though political signs oh yeah it's very interesting to be in a place and i'm out in a probably lancaster county i don't actually know the name of the county i'm in but i'm in lancaster pa and as i was driving out to this place this big sound stage where a bunch of these uh you know pop stars kind of hone their craft before they go on tour. I was driving on this

Lidditz Pike so basically the kind of like highway to get out there and it's just like one yard Harris Waltz the next yard Trump Vance and it exactly maps with what we were told about these elections about this election in particular that it's so close and usually I feel like I can kind of predict based on this is going to sound snarky and I don't mean it to be but I can usually predict by how many cars are parked in the yard what the signs are going to be and that does not that did not bear out here like there was it's a lot of you know this part of the country has just got a lot of like classic colonial homes and stuff and like a lot of american flags and people take pride i think in their in their yards and in their you know old you know well-maintained porches and things anyway it was like as soon as i thought oh man we got this in the bag i'm seeing harris waltz i would just see like a trump vance sign literally neighbor like house by house by house and and like people just i at the end of the drive i was like i think it's 50 50 like to the degree that this anecdotally indicates anything uh it indicates this is a very close race this reminds me of when

I was in Ohio, and I'm trying to figure out if it was just one year ago or was it two years ago. There was a very, very important abortion-related measure on the ballot. It was, I think, I think that, I think what was going on the ballot was a, if I'm right about this, a constitutional amendment that was enshrining and like kind of protecting women's health care, right? That was what was on the ballot. And I was there around this time. I think it might have been slightly later October. And as we're driving through various neighborhoods and I'm kind of in the backseat of my parents' car, I'm just sort of like counting the signs. I'm sort of noticing like, oh, a lot of people are anti in this neighborhood and pro in this neighborhood, maybe trying to draw some correlations to income level or whatever. But the one direct line I could draw between people who were pro health care rights was Halloween decorations in people's yards. If there were giant skeletons and like kind of a lot of fun, frivolous Halloween stuff, they were pro enshrining the rights in the Constitution. And it was like the yards that had they did not acknowledge Halloween at all were all like no anti.

Really? So it was, let's just, can we call it pro-choice and anti-choice?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think I was saying that's somewhat complicated. I'm really apologizing, by the way. I was a little bit out of it in yesterday's show, and I feel a little bit the same in today's show as well. I just need to apologize because I know that I'm not the brightest bulb in the tree, in the tree, the fact that I said in the tree, but I feel like I'm especially struggling, and I apologize for that, and also just want to give myself a little bit of cover these next couple of days.

Okay, I have a question about that. which is how is the Rona? How are you feeling, generally speaking? And your trip back, was that especially taxing? Have you been kind of feeling the effect of having tested positive?

No, I kind of don't know what's going on with me right now. I just feel like I have not had a lot of outward signs of the illness. I don't think I went into this too much on the show. but the one thing was i had major chills when i kind of came into philadelphia and so i got as opposed to being majorly chill i am not majorly chill but i had major chills and so i crawled into bed as soon as we got into philly and it's one of those things where again i just because maybe i'd never had uh covid i just wasn't making the connections and i was just like oh i'm just i just need to get under the covers and i did and i had a bit of a fever and that was really you know i felt a little bit spacey and everything but i never had like a major cough you know a little bit i felt a little bit grungy like i had a very very minor head cold at times but barely that and that's where i am now like i had a little bit of a coughing fit on yesterday's show i remember but aside from that like i'm not i'm not like coughing a lot i'm not super congested a little bit i guess the one thing was on the flight home landing in seattle my head felt like it was going to explode because of the pressure change and it took like hours and hours for my eardrum after landing for my for my right eardrum to unclog so that was concerning but again mostly like I I'm kind of happy that I haven't been hit with like a bunch of symptoms I guess though I've had the luxury of not having to think about what I'm saying into a microphone I guess I'm a little bit space here than I thought what if what if COVID has made me forever dumber Luke how are we going to handle

that on this show um that would be i think compared to other things the least bad case of long covid it's just really put a dent in his podcasting yeah well i

But like, but like, yeah, I was thinking about that the other day because like, I know you were really looking forward to Monday and Monday night football because the Seahawks were playing and because you would have the Croatia trip and Philadelphia in the rear view mirror, Philly live that we did. So it'd be kind of like, I just almost was like picturing you because I was still here in Lancaster. In fact, I will tell you this. You want to talk about being a bad football fan or just a very old, old person? No, I'm not going to do that anymore, Andrew. A very tired person. I'm not going to attribute it to my age. Remember I said I'm not going to speak that into existence. But Monday night, I was thinking about you because I know you were really looking forward to watching the game and you were looking forward to like having kind of, you know, a lot of a couple of things that were creating a lot of stress for you handled and done. And now the Seahawks are playing on national TV. And like, that's a really fun thing to look forward to. And you could watch it because on Sunday, you know, you've got your pop up that you do a lot of the time so you don't get to watch every game. And I was thinking of you because I was so jealous. First of all, I completely forgot you had COVID. so that shows you what a thoughtful friend I am I was like oh man Andrew's probably like at the Eagles it's probably like having some yummy bar food and like enjoying this game and I am in the residence in in Lancaster and when I tell you when Detroit like there was a period in the third quarter where it was almost 11 o'clock here and I was like I can't I don't think I can make it to the end of this game like I have never ever been like I can't make it to the end of this Seahawks game like but i was just like tired i was in my room the best place to sit was the bed so i was like in bed and i was just watching and i was i had a giant wegman sandwich i was like a cartoon character there was the outline of a submarine sandwich in my stomach it's still perfectly preserved and i was just like listen it i really wanted the seahawks to win and i thought that on certain levels they acquitted themselves pretty well like their defense obviously needs help but they were missing four key players and by the second half five five key players when you account for Jordan Love you go into Detroit a team with a good offense and you're missing five very important like you're four guys from your defensive line yeah you wonder why you have trouble stopping the run like that kind of makes sense to me and our offense looked totally competent like if there's a couple plays that go a little bit differently like we maybe even win that game so I was watching it i was like it was weird though because i wasn't like i usually live and die by these games and i get way too i feel too much about them but i was just in bed and i was watching and then there was just a point where i was like well okay if detroit scores here this game is likely out of reach and i just was like and then they did and it was like i was a little disappointed but i was mostly like all right well i can turn this off with seven minutes left and go to sleep which is exactly

what i did then i woke up to a text from our friend televisions chris hayes going i'll never understand that two-point conversion decision i'm like wait what yeah like did they come roaring back and i like and it was all and it turns out they didn't know but i was like did i go to sleep and then something truly unexpected happened i did think that that i i was very confused by that

two-point conversion um situation as well not that we need to dig into the game right now having said that it didn't end up being like a one point loss or anything like that so i guess it didn't really play into it at the end although it was very confounding your your instinct was right though i was even i was literally on the plane coming back with genevieve just saying like i've been looking forward to this so much i'm going let's go to the eagles to watch the game on it's monday night football i knew it like i'd forgotten that i wasn't you know i was messed up on the plane i didn't really have a choice i had to come back but like it didn't occur to me wait wait no i can't just go gallivanting around like this is me mr homebody who also enjoys watching football at home but i really did have this plan to like go to the eagles i was like oh i can't go to the eagles i still have this infection probably so um i but i but i stayed home still had a nice night i stayed home and i and i watched the game here and it was fine like i say generally speaking i'm fine it's just like these past couple of days talking to you and i realized just kind of like how how spacey i'm being so um all of that is to say yeah pro-choice people love halloween

decorations in their front yard there you go um and i was trying to i was trying to see and by the way i don't want to get into like i don't want to put my foot in my mouth or or say that you know there's a particular kind of uh i don't know like house or yard maintenance that indicates what your thing is because honestly it does you know you can always be surprised in there Unfortunately, in my mind, there are people of a whole wide range of spectrum of kind of whatever's going on with their residents who will have a sign out for like Donald Trump that will give me kind of almost like an instinctively bad feeling. That being said, there are certainly times where I'm driving through a certain part of the country.

even out where I live. And I'm just seeing a lot of evidence of a life that doesn't look like it's exactly firing on all cylinders. And again, I'm trying to be very careful with my language here. But what I will sometimes see is people that are living in what appears from the outside to be a pretty economically marginalized situation, and then they'll just have all this pro-Trump stuff. And I just kind of want to say, does it feel like your decision making has so far been working out well for you you know now i guess their argument would be oh everything would be better if we just had this guy back in office but i just i don't know it's like for instance i was babysitting becca's mom's dog gigi for a while and so i was taking gigi on these walks there's nothing that i love more than taking a dog on a walk it's pretty much i was about to say if only there was a job where you could walk dogs oh there is it's called dog walker maybe that's my my backup plan but I love taking dogs on walks and what I discovered was this neighborhood down in the town that I live near the town's called Longview Washington um that's like it's like this hidden oasis of people with Harris Waltz signs I think it's called I think it's called like West End and it's by this lake Lake Sacagawea that I really like and you just walk around and it's just like a lot of like homes where you know the it's you can see that kids live there they've got a soccer goal in the front yard but also you know it's like they're tending to their yard and it just looks like a lot of places that really seem like the kind of place you'd hope to live like people that are that are you know things are sort of working out and they all have harris waltz signs and then you get out in the rurals by where i am and it's just like a guy in a junkyard he's just flying nine trump flags it's like how how is this the like how how is it that this is as predictable as it seems to be to me you know i don't know i feel like i'm going into really weird territory but really what i want to say is it's a weird feeling to be in a state where every yard sign might actually matter because like you know the state of washington is going to go blue in terms of the presidency like the state of california is going to go blue like out here in pa particularly in this county in pa it's really hanging by a thread and it really matters

yeah you know i was gonna say i saw more political ads on television there but it just occurred to me i don't have television at home so you know what i'm watching i mean i guess you know like i i told you i streamed the year i mentioned that i watched the football game on monday here at home so i did i stream that kind of illegally uh i don't know if my actions are illegal but i find places that have illegal streams and i watch them and so there are some commercials tied up in there i don't think i saw any political ads but god knows what feed that is you know what what market i'm even seeing um but when i was in pa i didn't turn on the tv all that often but on the in the rare occasions that i did there were just like chock-a-block with with political ads and it's wild the one weird thing was i remember seeing a harris ad that at first i thought was an anti harris had just based on the tone of voice of the of the like voiceover artist it sounded so sarcastic at first like kamala harris says she's gonna help you she is like it wasn't quite like that but i was like oh i'm kamala harrison i support this ad i'm gonna help you uh but i just remember being like oh oh you're not being sarcastic it was almost like that old um kids in the hall sketch where the guy is earnest but he just has a voice that sounds sarcastic all the time i think i'm also it probably speaks to me being ready to to wince sort of i'm i'm always like ready to to kind of flinch at a at a disgusting trump ad definitely while i was

watching monday night football in the hotel room it's and i would actually oddly enough i watched the like abc news tonight leading into it which is very rare for me i just was like in the hotel room doing some other stuff on my computer and wanted to put the tv on and that's what was playing Also, I said this the other day about something else, but it's like, I'm just not ready to live in a world where Monday Night Football comes on at 8.15, like it starts at 8.15. So I was watching like over the air television and I'm just, it's just, it's absolutely shocking how much money is being spent on TV ads here for both sides. And you just wonder if it moves the needle even at all. And you also get a real sense of what the campaigns have assessed are the weak points for the other for the for the, you know, opposition like what they're. So it's like it is the big thing they're running constantly here. The pro Trump ads are basically saying that Kamala Harris wants to approve gender affirming care for incarcerated people. But of course, they don't use the terms I just used. And they like You know And then they take this like they do this like I don't know if this picture really occurred or not Or if it's literally like

like some cut-and-paste job, but they physically put Kamala Harris next to, I believe it was a Biden staffer who ended up getting in some amount of trouble. I don't know what they did, but they were a staffer who I think, I don't know, again, I can't even speculate. Was it the dog that bit everybody?

Was it Sergeant?

No, no, it wasn't. Kamala and Sergeant, I love it. kamala was supposed to keep this dog from biting people oh my god that would be amazing it was some other staffer but the thing about this staffer is that they're a person who kind of presents in a very sort of non-traditional way some gender or like you know in terms of the gender uh is not i guess you would say super clear to the untrained eye um and so it represents this idea of like we're i'm confused at what i'm looking at and this person is kamala by the way this person i believe was summarily dismissed i'm sorry i don't know any of the details i had forgotten this person even existed until they show up in this kamala ad it's just like the furthest reach of all time i mean it'd be like and lord knows trump does enough like trump actively associates with people like laura loomer you don't even have to stretch to do that but it'd be like trying to like i don't even know who you could find that would be five rings outside of the trump universe who's a person who's i guess you would say controversial in some way and then just putting a picture of them next to trump like you don't have to do that with trump because he's he's courting like the laura loomers of the world with kamala harris you do have to find someone who was technically in the administration and then got into some amount of trouble and then cut and paste them next to kamala harris anyway the whole thing is just making people in pennsylvania afraid that someone is going to i don't know pay for some gender affirming care for somebody who's

incarcerated it's just it was i think i saw that same ad and i gotta say i was you know i was watching i was like oh god all this stirring up of this kind of hateful politics but then at the end and i'm assuming we saw the same one uh if not it was another one taking the same tack although i'm pretty sure this was an official one because i think donald trump said i support this message at the end of it um but it said kamala harris is for they them trump is for you oh yes and i was like literally i was pretty clever literally shocked i was like wow like that and i'm just like i guess that's me in my bubble like i guess you're not i guess if you're the trump campaign And you're not losing any voters with that. But that's just God, it's just so hateful.

Yeah. Although, again, unfortunately, I think effective because I think it I think it and this is something that I really don't get into talking politics when I'm out and about in the country for this very for the reason that I just it's so it's so toxic and polarizing at this point. But I can tell you that there is a, for some reason, this idea of people wanting to use different pronouns, it just strikes, it's absolutely terrifying to some people. It's like the people that Becca and I ended up having our wine tasting with in Italy who were like, you know, they were so worried about the woke mind virus stopping them from saying whatever they wanted to say. It's like, it's weird. It's a I don't know why that's such a such a trigger for some folks like this idea that you just might take one second out of your day to use a pronoun that makes someone else's life less shitty, you know, like this is a I don't know who I'm convincing with this. this is a very weird serious place to take it but like when i was getting something at the front desk of the hotel um this morning i was talking to the person working in the front desk and they actually had a name tag on that indicated their pronouns were they them and what i noticed on this person's arms were the obvious evidence of someone having cut themselves and all i could think of was like this person's like this the life that this person has led up to this point you know and the obvious signs of somebody who's been trying to deal with um a really tough life and if like using their fucking pronoun that they prefer makes that life five percent better

it's like how could that be a threat to you yeah and all the and the idea that it's um it is upsetting it's really upsetting and and it doesn't surprise me that you're emotional about it and we should be emotional about it like the whole notion that this is just like some some put on for some folks like that we were doing this because we're doing this because why because you by by being somebody let's just say that you're a trans person you just think that this is made up because you're what would be the reason somebody would make their life so much harder and be treated by society so poorly if that wasn't their truth like what would be the ulterior motive there it's just so disgusting and then you're making it even harder and you're literally threatening people's lives by by by turning society on them it's yeah it's not great it's it's really it's

really not

great and um and and i think like i said being here in a place where i i don't know i'm i've been like a lot of people like probably i don't know if overly obsessed is the term but i've been quite obsessed with trying to consume an unhealthy amount of information about this election so as to understand it and then know what's going to happen and then calm the hell down about it and it's not working but like being here too in a place where it could come down to like 10 000 people spread out throughout the state of pennsylvania you know like it's weird it's it's a it's a weird experience to feel like i'm really at this kind of like i'm i'm at this ground level with it um where it really matters like what happens in this place what happens in places like lancaster and lidditz um will actually very it could very well be the difference between you know inclusion or an attempt at inclusion and then exclusion and making people's lives worse so it's it's very uh it's very front and center also the work of dua lipa is very front and center to me andrew because i contain multitudes and i keep track of um noted uh people of albanian descent and she is definitely one of them i was out at this this place today um called rock liditz and what it is is it's a series of these huge sound stages that are built to almost perfectly approximate what it's like to play an arena tour and i got to go in the elevator so i'm doing the story about the singer maggie rogers who's about to embark on one of these tours and i got to go in the elevator with her that's under the stage that when her show starts brings her up on stage it was actually amazingly cool and somehow made me nervous even though we were in an empty room it was like as we went up the stage together and like right at the front of this like runway so right in the middle imagine the show starting the crowd is going crazy it's sold out madison square garden and then the person who everyone's there to see maggie rogers comes up through the floor and like is like start singing this song you know and like i swear to god when we actually finished elevating and getting to the front of the stage there's like eight people in the room it's like sound techs and our cbs crew and i could feel my knees knocking like at the at the at how kind of intense this i would i could only imagine when you know when like maggie rogers is doing this for real it must just be like an overwhelming experience but i also found out that dua lipa was on the one one sound stage over and i legitimately andrew had the thought could i go over there and bro down on being Albanian with her and then I realized I don't think her security would love

that I mean what if you told security that you're also Albanian American I played that I ran that

tape in my mind and it sounded like a person who needs help like if I just showed up and I was like I know I know I know I know Dua Lipa hasn't met me I don't have any official business with her but if you could just explain to her that I'm also Albanian I think she'll understand like I was just i actually literally heard myself saying that to her security detail out loud and then just hearing the sound of police approaching and so i chose not to do that but i have to say this whole soundstage thing it's a very odd place to have it my guess is it has to be the confluence of um cheap land and relative closeness to new york city and also probably very favorable tax climate like there was I assume there was the rock and roll arena rehearsal tax credit that was created at some point in Liditz PA so as to attract this kind of a thing um but uh yeah it's wild I guess Sabrina Carpenter was just there last week Stevie Nicks it's like everybody comes out to Liditz

that's pretty amazing you said that you're doing this the story on Maggie Rogers but you're also going to probably end up doing a story just on the stage itself right or this yeah these stages

yeah i mean i think it's i know i i was surprised to find out that this is happening out in the sort of the middle of nowhere i was tempted to add by the way this maggie rogers um uh person is about as nice and thoughtful and just like really kind of borderline brilliant as you can imagine i've never interviewed a musician who has more interesting thoughts about the music they make and why they make that music. A lot of times, when you're interviewing a musician, you realize that there is the brain, there's the hemisphere in the brain that can make music, and then there's the hemisphere in the brain that can talk about things. And it's not usually, the same person doesn't usually have both of those hemispheres firing. Just like, I'm a pretty okay talker. I'm not a person who can make any music. And a lot of people can make music, but maybe talking about it isn't their favorite thing.

She's the best person I've ever talked to when it comes to both making the music and also having thoughts about the music and talking about it.

Yeah, I remember having that feeling a lot when I was in New Hampshire, specifically working on a show that we were trying to get, you know, basically various kinds of creators to talk about their art, you know, and sometimes it was music, sometimes it was poetry even. You'd think, well, that's still like kind of those are words, right? But no, like, somebody who's maybe somebody who's really good at poetry, that's a very different way of expressing yourself than talking into a microphone to a host about, like, whatever you would even ask them about. And, like, and it's so, and it makes sense. You know, I remember being a producer sometimes and just being so frustrated. Like, how can you not talk about your art? Like, you're ruining my show. But, like, it's, but it kind of makes a lot of sense, right? Like, because you communicate in different ways. so when you do find somebody who can can do both like that it is a real treasure yes seriously and

in fact she's so like already a better television correspondent than i am which is really not saying a lot she had this cup of coffee in her hand and i'm so trained now like when you know like the standard way of doing a tv interview is like okay can someone take this cup of coffee or it was a paper cup can someone take this paper cup of coffee and then we'll just be talking we won't be encumbered by that and i was like do you want someone to grab your coffee she goes no i feel like this is what i would be doing i'd be drinking this coffee i'm we're rehearsing and i was like it's a really good point yeah yeah it's a totally good point like it's not like you're on the game

of thrones set remember that whole thing weren't there like oh yeah water bottles or or even maybe even wasn't there like a um starbucks cup or something that was yeah exactly no you're totally

right like see you're back andrew hey it's all coming back baby yeah like it's like there's not any kind of i don't know sort of verisimilitude that's being violated by that in fact it's just more real and i i had this moment i talked to her about it later i was like i'm really glad you held on to that coffee cup because i've been i've been beaten down or i've sort of somehow internalized this sense of like there's the thing that happens on tv and then there's the rest of life but it's like no the tv is better if it represents the tv you're making is better if it represents the person in their most natural environment she said she said to me like off camera she goes yeah you know i i actually put mascara on today and then i thought would i have mascara on for rehearsal and i said no and i took it off i was like hell yeah dude like that's a really good thing for me to remember just generally like because when i started out doing this tv stuff I thought, you know, I'm going to be like Ira Glass of of this of television, except Ira Glass is the Ira Glass of television. So I don't know what I really mean by that. But I thought like I'm going to like everything's going to be real. I don't ever want to shake anyone's hand. I don't want a producer to ever have me enter a room and shake someone's hand on camera in a way that's like stage. I just want to shake their hand when I meet them and just let's be rolling on everything. it took me like three stories to learn that's not even just technically feasible the camera people need a lot of like heads up and they need to figure out the framing and the lighting and things have to be in focus and like you just can't run and gun that way you know you have to like unfortunately a lot of it ends up being kind of like formal and a little fakie to get the thing looking like the way you need it to look and i think i've internalized so much of that that i was like would you like to not be holding this cup of coffee and she's like no i would like to be holding a cup of coffee i'm like damn straight you should be i'm gonna ask you a question here

that's going to seem like a very well it's not going to seem like it is a very huge left turn in the conversation but it's sort of related to all of your travels you've been on the road for a long time now you briefly went back home for a quick wedding before heading back out to the east coast i mean your travels span weeks and weeks now um and you haven't spent any significant time back at home right more than a couple of days maybe a week ago yeah probably maybe maybe in

the last month a couple days well um the week that you were still in croatia i had a solid week at

home yeah that was when i was in croatia but that was a while back now so yeah anyway all i'm here's what i'm getting at with this because first of all i'm hoping that maybe after this trip you'll be able to spend some time at home if that's what you want maybe we don't want this i do want that and i am going to be doing the thing that made me think of it is i think you're going to be shocked at how different the lighting is here. Like I'm sitting here recording with you right now and we just get used to like the light. It is not like dark or depressing, but it's just like that. I'm already getting that like very drastic sort of the sun is lower in the sky and it's coming through my windows so much differently now. I like it. I like a nice little fall. It makes me feel kind of cozy. And I also, you know, I really am sort of enjoying that I don't have anything on the agenda going forward other than like doing my job And my regular weekly deadlines We don't have anything big hanging over our heads No trips, no out of town guests

I get to kind of cruise here for a little bit, and I'm enjoying that, but it is different. It's just so funny how it changes everything. I'm seeing dust on things that I didn't realize had dust on them just because the light is hitting everything different now.

Yeah, I'm actually, I don't want to make too much of this, and also this has been discussed to death, but the fact that it's going to get dark a lot earlier and that we're also going to exacerbate that by falling back is definitely a thing that does kind of give me a feeling uh a not great feeling like i don't know if it's a fully diagnosable situation or not but like and certainly for becca it's a really big it's a really big thing because she loves to be outdoors and walk everywhere she can but the the darker it gets earlier that makes you know some safety issues and things like that so it's like it really impacts her life and like i'm just hoping i'm putting a lot of stock andrew in this pellet stove that i got because it's cozy like it has a flame that burns and it's cozy and i just keep telling myself when it's dark at like 4 30 and i'm feeling low i'm going to just turn on the pellet stove and make a fire and i'm really hoping that that will kind of give me a little bit of um i don't know a cozy feeling that kind of uh counteracts the just pretty depressing getting dark at 4 30 or 5 o'clock thing but we're about to go into the teeth of it because i think it between now and i forget when i saw like a line in the seattle times that we're basically losing daylight at the most rapid pace now we're going to be which i didn't even realize that was a thing i thought it was all just kind of like i don't know i figured it had to be consistent but somehow it's like it's getting worse faster this time of year maybe that has to do with the falling back thing but it's basically gonna we're about to go into the teeth of it which which i'm not looking

forward to but I just picture you sitting there rocking in your chair dressed like Benjamin

Franklin I was thinking you know I'm doing wait wait don't tell me on Halloween like it doesn't air on Halloween but you know the Thursday night that we're recording it is Halloween and you know there's zero relevance to me dressing like Ben Franklin on there but I was like do I just get one more use of that outfit am I just randomly Ben Franklin out there for some reason I mean, it's not every day you're doing that show in front of a crowd and it's all it's literally Halloween.

Yeah, I don't know. It might be odd who the other people are dressed up as.

I believe nobody else other than me would be dressing up. This would probably be probably make the whole thing weird. I don't know.

Thank you for being a town.

All right. Let's thank some of our donors today. These are the generous folks that are voluntarily donating. They don't have to do it, but they're just good people who would like TBTL to continue existing. And so they are supporting us financially. Folks like Catherine Waltz of Buckner, Missouri.

Thank you, Catherine.

I assume named for the basketball great Quinn Buckner. Probably. Decent chance. I don't know if Quinn Buckner's probably not old enough to have a city in Missouri named after him, but that's where Catherine is. Orlando Berea is in Greenville, South Carolina. Orlando, hope that you're doing okay there in the Carolinas. Obviously, we've got a lot of listeners spread out in these areas that were hit really, really hard by Helene. So, hoping you guys are doing okay out there. I've been kind of actually reaching out to some folks. I had our guy, John, pull the names of everybody in the Carolinas, and I'm trying to get through that list just to check in on people. Because what I thought, Andrew, was if you're dealing with a lot, what you really need is a podcaster pestering you, trying to see if you're okay. That's one more thing on your to-do list. That's exactly what you need during these trying times.

No, that's really sweet. Have you heard back from people?

I just started doing it this morning if I'm keeping it 100. So I'll tell you if I hear back from folks. But anyway, we're thinking about everybody out there who's been affected by that and hope you're doing okay. Jane Durden is in Alexandria, Virginia. Thank you, Jane. Zachary Siren is in Seattle, Washington. Here, we're going to go on a run. Oh, wow. Look at all these Seattle people. This is like getting three eights if you're playing three-card poker. This pays. This is good. I think it's like 50 to one if you get a Zachary Siren in Seattle and then an Alicia Schaefer also in Seattle. And this is the hardest part. You can get a Zachary Siren and Alicia Schaefer, But if you can finish it off with a Rachel Smith, also in Seattle, that's really what ups the wind there. That's a trifecta.

Isn't Rachel Smith the head of the business association here in Seattle? What do you call it? The Chamber of Commerce? The Chamber of Commerce, yeah.

Isn't that Rachel Smith? I mean, is this the same Rachel Smith?

I'm not sure. I mean, I probably won't read the email address on the air, but it is Rachel at President of the Chamber of Commerce. Oh, okay. That sounds like. .biz. That sounds like the same person. I'm guessing. It's a different Rachel Smith.

There's a lot of, I don't want to say a lot of, But Rachel Smith is a I'm I'm just Googling the name and I'm getting a variety of people that are both in and out of the public eye that are named Rachel Smith. So what this is our favorite Rachel Smith of all of the Rachel Smith. That's a given. We know that much anyway. Thank you, Rachel. Thanks to all of our donors for making TBTL possible today. We couldn't do this without you. Hello and welcome to Top Story. There are top stories, Andrew, that when I look at them, I think this is off of Andrew's radar. And then there's ones that I'm like, I know this is off of Andrew's radar. Have you been up on the Frankie Valli discourse?

No, which is interesting because you'd think like maybe my Kixi connection. Yeah, Kixi. Because he's the Four Seasons guy, right? Yes, Jersey Boys. He ran Four Seasons landscaping out there in New Jersey. But, you know, I'm not a big Four Seasons person. I think Frankie Valli has maybe come up on the show somewhat recently. because yeah he's a he's an older gentleman who's still out there touring 90 yeah he's 90 and i saw

frankie valley at chateau saint michel some years ago and i remember that i remember it was a fun show i'm kind of wondering though now if because we were like not right up against the the front of the stage we were a ways back and i'm wondering if i mean and it doesn't really matter but i'm wondering if we were getting uh like if Frankie Valli was actually singing or maybe he was just lip-syncing because uh what is going around the internet and again the vagaries of TikTok and the algorithm and how I go from not attempting to closely follow any Frankie Valli related content to getting nothing but just cell phone video of Frankie Valli like very unconvincingly lip-syncing his songs is weird like why is that all any of us who are on tiktok now are getting for the last week is just people with phone evidence saying like frankie valley does not seem like he's fully committed to this project um here's what i'll say as far as 90 year olds go he looks great like he looks like he's healthy he um you know he like it seems like he's doing well for a 90 year old what he doesn't seem to be doing in these videos is trying very hard to match any movement from his face with the song that's playing is that important i it historically um because if you're not getting frankie valley singing which i guess at 90 we can understand that this is it's you know for him to sing the whole concert i think would probably be pretty taxing on him but if you're going to lip sync it seems to me like you gotta really kind of sell it Because we're buying tickets to come see Frankie Valli sing, probably not to just have him kind of stand on stage, which is kind of like what it appears is happening. In a statement shared exclusively with People Magazine on Monday, Andrew, Frankie Valli said, I know there has been a lot of stuff on the Internet about me lately, so I wanted to clear the air. I am blessed to be 90 years old and still be doing what I love to do, and as long as I am able and audiences want to come see me, I am going to be out there performing as I always. I absolutely love what I do, and I know we put on a great show because our fans are still coming out in force, and the show still rocks. He added, how do we do the show? The Four Seasons sound was always about layering vocals and instruments. We use our 60 years of experience, so we sound like the records I sing. I have singers who sing, great arrangements, everything. I get a chuckle from the comments wondering if someone is forcing me to go on stage. Nobody has ever made me do anything I didn't want to do. Now, what he has not said in there is, I am the person singing on stage.

No, he says we're using our 60 years of experience to create a sound. Yeah.

Which, you know, I think is a pretty clear indication. I mean, if you watch the video, it's like you would never mistake him for someone who's actually singing these songs. again I'm not trying to uh shade the poor guy and in all other capacity in all other facets there's like a picture with him and Lenny Kravitz in an airport like from the other day Lenny Kravitz like I just ran into Frankie Valli and there's like a picture of the two of them and like again if this was any of our like dad or granddad and he was 90 we'd be like stoked we'd be like he's doing great for 90 it's just that 90 is really a different age than 70 and tough to get out there on stage and kind of do the choreography and the singing. Now, this is not where I intended for us to take things.

and we should probably get an email or two before we get out of here today. But I would just say this. I was struck recently. I think Lenny Kravitz must have a new album or something he's promoting because I feel like I'm seeing him in more places. I was getting ready to go on, like, What Up Portland or something. How's It Hang in Rose City, one of those local TV shows recently. And I was in the green room, and because the show that I was going on comes on after, like, the ninth hour of the Today Show or whatever, like Lenny Kravitz was like playing you know like a live concert on the on that hour of the today show and I want to start by saying Lenny Kravitz is a intensely handsome person and uh I've been very successful in his life and he's probably a lovely dear human but I just had this weird thought watching him on tv which is like this guy is ridiculous he is actively ridiculous like he's got a feather boa on he's got these big dumb sunglasses he's like he's you know like I don't know he's got this like there's something about when you consider Lenny Kravitz's age it's a ridiculous vibe to be affecting on stage if you ask and for some reason it had never occurred to me that this is a thoroughly ridiculous way for like a 70 year old man to comport himself even if he looks like a 30 year old man like Lenny Kravitz is actively silly with his vibe i feel like i've never been a big lenny kravitz fan in fact i think

i've always leaned a little bit like kind of not anti him as a person like you say like i'm sure he's he's he seems like a good person right absolutely yeah so you know i have nothing against him as a person but like i remember even when he like first broke big in the 90s i was like nah that's not that's not really for me having said that i mean if i guess it's like kind have and again i would obviously not do this he's the opposite of me as far as that is concerned

well you've also wouldn't have worn a phantom of the opera outfit until recently until i started

watching until i started listening to lenny kravitz's music and then so i started watching lenny kravitz's music um i uh but also like the i guess it's one of those things i'm kind of like but he's leaning into being a rock star like yeah it is ridiculous but also like he's being a rock star and i just and i don't know maybe this is the snowflake in me but i get like a little bit um i get a little bit itchy about like like kind of making fun of men who dress in a way like that because like who's the i'm stalling here because it's driving me crazy who is the quarterback who i hate but is not aaron rogers i know i have such a long you gotta be more specific sir no the guy um the guy who um let's see here he is Joe Burrow he's a former quarterback now he's not a quarterback anymore he's a former quarterback Cam Newton exactly it's a good example and like everybody always kind of would make I would this Luke what I'm about to say is not a reflection of what you just said it's just me trying to react honestly in a space cadet-y kind of uh mode that I find myself in right now but like it's about living truthfully in imaginary times actually you know what let me leave Cam Newton off of this for a second but he would be a good example i walked into the eagles one time um and oh you know what it must have been uh was it a super bowl thing or maybe uh maybe it was uh some sort of an award ceremony it must have been an award ceremony and lady gaga was performing and i like walk up to the bar just to like refill my drink or whatever and i just like hear two not super intelligent men just sort of like talking about oh lady gaga how she dresses you know just and i'm just kind of like what like you are the last people on earth sorry I'm all over the place it was just so stereotypical I felt like it was more embarrassing of these two guys who like don't have let's just say as much going on in their lives as Lady Gaga does commenting on how Lady Gaga chooses to dress and I don't even mean this and in this particular case I don't even mean it in like sort of a feminist way I would apply the same to Cam Newton Like, I think Cam Newton is a kind of a bad person, honestly, from some things I've heard. And I certainly didn't did not like him as a sports figure. I've always been sort of anti Cam Newton. But like the making fun of his sort of like over the top way of dressing, especially when I would hear and I don't consider you to be just like a jabroni at the bar. But like when I would hear just like sort of like idiot guys thinking that they're better than him because they can make fun of the way they dress. I think I just now, for some reason, at age 47, get a little bit defensive about that. I kind of put you on the spot there. I'm sorry. I really did not mean to be argumentative about that or make you sound like you were saying something worse than you were.

No, no, I don't take it that way.

I think for me, what it is, is I've had like no, well, first of all, I think there's a Lenny Kravitz song that is like in my top, like 50 songs of all time. And of course, now I'm having trouble calling it back immediately. Oh, it ain't over till it's over. I think it ain't over till it's over is such a good song, such a good song. and uh you know yeah lenny kravitz is uh is somebody who i have just kind of had no thought about not no negative thoughts and no overly positive thoughts other than i think that it ain't over it's over it's just a complete banger and there was just something weird about sitting in this green room and again it could be very tied into my own whatever my own bullshit is like i just was sitting in this little room watching this kind of like the today show like jenna heger bush bush heger and hoda kotbe like being like and now here he is uh we've all got our crushes out it's lenny kravitz and he's just like there by the way probably it's also resentment that he literally looks unchanged from whenever he broke on the seat i mean the guy is it's something is up the guy is so handsome um and and and well preserved but like i don't know i just i realized he's considerably older than me and I just I think what I thought was and again this is not a reflection on Lenny Kravitz as much as a reflection on me it's like I was imagining myself even at 48 putting on like a denim vest with no shirt underneath and a feather boa and big giant sunglasses and bell bottom and platform boots and then just going out on stage to just be like a kind of quasi hippie rock god and how much I wouldn't be able to own that which is different than the question of how much is Lenny Kravitz able to own it but I just was like oh this guy is this guy this looks silly to me you know like that was the way that the thought went through my brain I think can

you just think about how long that conversation could have gone on when I asked you who's the quarterback I hate and you got it on the second guess how did you do that well I went with fashion

I know okay you knew that we're getting very eccentric yeah yeah I guess you did have that If you leave that hint out, we're still talking about it. Probably into tomorrow's show.

I knew it was a three-letter name with an A in the middle of it, but I knew it wasn't Dak Prescott, and I was just spinning. But anyway, thanks for the bail.

Anytime.

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, email or V-mail before we get done?

Yeah, we don't have tons of time here, but I was really struck by this voicemail that came in. I got to admit, some of the voicemails were stacking up on the voicemail line. Sorry about that, everybody. But it was really great to go through them today. And I got this voicemail from Laurel. And Laurel left this, I think when you were talking about kind of changing your attitude towards aging, Luke, which is something that you brought up earlier on today's show, just sort of like not talking about how old we are all the time. And that struck a chord with Laurel, and Laurel's voicemail really struck a chord with me.

Hey, Luke and Andrew, this is Laurel in Ferguson, North Carolina. I hope y'all are having a good day. I'm just calling because I was so excited yesterday to hear Luke saying he's going to be new Luke and not be talking about how old you guys are all the time. I'm 67, and I don't talk like that. I never say that. I never think that way. I was just thinking about as you go into your 50s, because you were talking about 50s can be good. When I was 53, I went to massage school. I changed my career. I went to massage school. I've been a massage therapist all this time. And now, gentlemen, I'm 20 years older than you, so I'm 67 years old, still practicing therapeutic massage and still pushing my mower over acres and acres in our little holler here. and I'm mowing cleats because I have to push mowers over banks and up banks and I don't want to slip. So I just am moving my mower around all the time. I'm weeding for hours on end and it just gets better. Not worse, you know. I'm very fortunate, I know, because I have good health, but I just wanted to let you know that the 40s are fabulous, 50s are great too. And so, yeah, just keep being new Luke. and andrew okay thanks guys i appreciate you love y'all so much uh power out great voicemail

right oh my gosh that's such a good voicemail um and and uh really inspiring like i don't want to say that in a patronizing way but that really is like encouraging and inspiring and laurel um i'm hoping you're doing okay down there in ferguson yeah

i don't know what the what the specifics are of of of your uh your exposure to the hurricane helene but i'm hoping that you're hoping you're doing okay and thank you for that voicemail i'm really going to think about that a lot yeah i've already cried once on today's show so we don't need i know

i was getting a little i was getting a little choked up too uh just what's men of a certain

age see well normally this is where i would joke about low t but i'm not doing that anymore My tea is too high. It's crazy. I'm just so virile and young and vigorous.

Laurel didn't say be crazy.

Okay, good point. All right. Thanks, Laurel. Thanks, everyone, for listening. We're going to be back here tomorrow. Hey, I will be home tomorrow. That'll be fun.

Oh, wow. All right.

The Madrona Hill Studio.

Safe travels.

Yeah, thanks. In the meantime, everybody have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. Power out.