Muse

We have a witness go on record saying that they saw you in the White House parking lot with Mr. Egan, Ms. Brookheimer, and Senator Pierce. That's correct. I ran into them by chance because I was merely getting something from my car. What were you getting? I was getting some medicine. What kind of medicine? um it's knee medicine knee medicine yeah knee medicine i have problems with my left knee um it hurts when i uh crouch what was the name of the medicine i want to say it's called uh crouch cream but that's not right um it's a white tube with a red label i'm sure an intern could research this it has a silhouette of a horse on it and i don't know why the horse is on there i guess horses probably have good knees so um but i think it's called uh neasy neasy cream i don't think that's it tbtm he hates these cans stay away from the cans this is genius this is genius work just Just because you like laying around your house in your underpants doesn't mean the United States of America has to see it. Is there, and I'm just guessing here, some kind of medication that you maybe need a lot of and have taken none of, or maybe too much of today?

I stand corrected. This is compelling radio. All right. Hello, good morning, and welcome to a Wednesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Sounds expensive. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

1-32-33-30.

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill Studio Purge, high above the mighty Columbia, where once again we're dealing with some inclement weather. Didn't know you like to get wet, though. Does inclement just mean any kind of not great weather, or does it have to have an element of snow? It's not snowing, I'm happy to report. As of October 16th, it's not snowing. But it is rainy and gross. but it's as we like to say warm and dry here inside the studio that's another thing by the way that i i just take as a given because here on this in the studio which is a converted garage and also my actual house here perched high above the mighty columbia a lot of stuff has been torn off of these buildings and then put back on often by me and my dad and i will be honest when it rains a lot. And I don't see water showing up anywhere. I don't see water intruding. I'm relieved. And so far, so good on that. Speaking of getting wet, though, I remain on my quest to drink a gallon of water a day and exercise and do the 75-heart-ish thing. But now featuring knee pain. Although this is the strange thing. And I was talking about this on yesterday's show. I'm having some kind of patellar issues. And when I looked it up on the Mayo Clinic's website and described the symptoms, they said, you have a case of old knee. You have a case of being a 48-year-old person who's trying to jog seven miles a day. The newest development is that the knee feels great going upstairs. it just feels not great going

downstairs. I'm not handling this well.

So, tell me what that means, Mayo Clinic. We're at episode 4,316 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. When we get done recording this episode, I am going to go off and do something that is not my typical. It involves airplane flight. That is a typical thing for me, as you know, as a listener of the show. But what I'm the exact plan for the next, I don't know, 15 hours for me is is a little bit of a question mark. And I don't know. I don't know how it's going to go. So I'm going to talk about it today and then I guess we'll find out on tomorrow's show when I'm in New York if I made the right decision or the wrong decision. Oh, and, you know, the TBTL 10s. what a group of folks they're always there for me when i need them including when i'm trying to remember a scene from a movie i saw as a kid there was a cinema mystery that i proposed past is history the future is a mystery they've solved it for me and uh i'll tell you uh what world war ii era movie involving clickers i was thinking about uh we're also going to talk to this guy longest running cobro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships he's also a soulful rocker from new hampshire he's andrew walsh and he's joining me right now good morning my friend good morning luke old friend

99 is up to his letterman up to his old antics on blue sky maybe also on blue sky maybe also on twitter i'm not sure what goes on on twitter these days but i will share this little um gem Nugget from Josh Letterman, who tweeted, or whatever we call it. I saw the Blair Witch. Skied. Who skied, who blew. Let's go with skied. I saw the Blair Witch Project way too young, and it made me afraid of projects. Anyway, that's all. Just a little. I'm afraid I just blew myself. A little grinner for the beginning of the show here. I like this guy. He makes me laugh.

Do you think, you know, I introduced you with the classic Andrew Walsh introduction of Soulful Rocker from New Hampshire. But I'm wondering, could I cut it in New Hampshire as a full-time resident? I keep, somehow my, two things are going on with my Instagram feed. One thing is, it's trash right now. Like, all of a sudden I'm getting a bunch of stuff that looks real AI generated. Do you ever experience this? Like, like stuff that just from a sort of the design standpoint, the way that the let me see if I log into if I if I log on to the net here and I'm looking at OK, I'm looking at Instagram and I'm scrolling and I'm seeing, you know, relatively normal stuff for me, you know, clothing products, some kind of Instagram from Steve Guttenberg, some posts from people that I follow and recognize. uh by the way uh one of the things that starts coming up in my feed this is the to the question of the new hampshire thing is i'm getting a lot of like weirdly affordable homes that are also on the water and i don't ever remember signing up for that but i'm not mad at that so one of the things that i now see are um like a lake house in new hampshire that's you know like a hundred and twelve thousand dollars and it's a real real rustic real cabiny but i looked at it this morning and i mean the irony is that i've spent so much time and money and energy and everything to work on the madrona hill studio and my little cabin here and to stare out at the mighty columbia i'm i'm doing the thing here that i say that i want to do and yet sometimes on instagram i'll see a little lake cabin that's all kind of naughty pine inside with a wood stove and it's just right literally you walk down the yard into the lake and i think maybe that's the life for me i love naughty pines i know well as we learned yesterday you know brassy sassy and gassy that's you that's right nobody rides for free as you said so um uh but but but putting a pin in the question of could i live

in new hampshire in a cabin i feel like a quick answer on that is i would i i would worry more about your interactions with the locals i feel like there's a there is they'd like me too much I feel like they would like you too much, exactly. I feel like they would be too warm and buttery towards you, and it would just drive you crazy how saccharine they're being all the time.

How welcoming, how just go with the flow, how anything that I did that signified that I'm sort of an out-of-towner would just be embraced.

Now, I will say this. I think that the sort of, let's say, what about Bob characterization of New Englanders or especially New Hampshire's, Granite Staters. Therapists in New Hampshire. But I don't think that people are outwardly rude there at all. I do not mean to give that impression. In fact, I really enjoyed my time there. But there is a bit of just like sort of down-to-earthness that I feel like would take some adjusting to you. I don't think people are going to be like, I don't, you know, this idea that you would walk into a diner or something and everybody's like, what's up with this guy? I don't do the accent. I don't do the accent. Yeah. Although, do you remember that time you were mad at me? Because I did. This was out of character for me, too. I made them ring a bell or something because you were the first it was your first time at the like red wheel diner or something like that who was that when we were there for the primary I'm glad you don't remember that I was mad at you no I can never it was a little it was a little bit like there was like some bell that was like for first timers or something which I don't even know if I noticed it but I kind of told him like this guy's a first time and it was really busy because we were there for the primary season anyway I don't really think it's the type of place where you're going to like walk in and it's kind of like oh what's with this everybody's going to turn and crane their neck and make fun of you in some way it's I mean, that's silly. Nobody acts like that in the real world. Having said that, you might not get a certain amount. You know what I mean? When you and I go out in public, we try to be very conscientious and polite to people, and then we expect that back. Whereas in New Hampshire, I can see you. Then we have a few beers and everything changes. And then we start fighting. We start pulling each other's hair for some reason. Donnybrook. It's a real Donnybrook. Anyway, yeah, so I do think that would be an adjustment

for you. Okay, so I'm gonna hit pause on moving to New Hampshire, but and you know what? The good news is, maybe through talking about it or thinking it might be a bit on the show, I managed to manifest this crap right off of my Instagram page, and by crap I mean these weird posts that would just be like usually celebrity based, but about celebrities i don't care about and i don't really follow many celebrities on instagram but it'd be i can't give you a good example other than to say the the border the frame of the instagram post would be like way too bright like some kind of kind of a red but not like even an in style color if that makes sense and then the same with the particular font that was chosen like something that just feels a little off and it would just be like some something about you know uh like again two celebrities who are maybe fighting or some fact about a celebrity this this select you know uh who's the guy that plays wolverine that would be jackman hugh jackman yes like it'll be like you know i wouldn't have been there like what hugh jackman says about his mom will have you crying like it was cruel it really was cruel i was right to hugh jackman that you just don't even know about. Who would treat their mother that way? Weird garbage celebrity news, but not the kind of garbage celebrity news that I normally get. You know what I mean? It felt like there was, and I believe it has passed, thankfully, the fever has broken, but it was like my Instagram page got like STI all of a sudden for reasons that I don't understand. Ideally, maybe with a real STI, once it had cropped up, it apparently my phone took some penicillin and it's now

gone away. Well that's good you gotta give it a shot right in the phone. Also you're proud

of me using STI so casually because that's the new nomenclature. We don't want other people that got you know junk on their junk. I'm an STD

guy and I always will be sorry I'm just not changing

on that one. I roll up in New Hampshire and I'm calling it an STI it's an STD around here sir I will do the accent.

I'm updating my blue sky profile to say I am an STD guy, always have been.

The STD guy has logged on.

Let me tell you about my Instagram, which is, and this is something that really annoys me about Instagram. Every three months, it'll start inserting posts from people and, I guess, brands and accounts that I don't follow. and i have to go in and say mute these for another three months instagram will not allow you to simply stop being fed stuff that you are not subscribed to and i hate it i'm getting more and more like i when i go on vacation like i went to croatia and i take a bunch of photos and i need a place to post them i like posting them to instagram because like you talk about with twitter back in the day you get a dopamine when somebody you know likes your little photo or whatever But I've never been a part of Instagram culture I don't use the stories to go on like rants Or let the world know how I feel about certain issues Or how I feel about two ways on NPR I'm a little embarrassed about how long I went on about that yesterday on the show But anyway

It did create an opening for one of my better orgy jokes

Well that is true No long blathering story from me No orgy joke from you So maybe we net positive at the end there But it really, there's something going on And, you know, it always reminds me when I talk about this aspect of Instagram, like, oh, yeah, of course, this is meta. The same people who run threads and Facebook, like they are just trying to foie gras us with with just posts down our throat. So that's kind of a gross metaphor there. And it drives me bananas. And you can't just say, hey, I don't want to see things that aren't in my feet. I have to do it every three months. And the moment I see my first post from somebody I don't follow, I go back in and I say, mute these for another three months, please, Zuckerberg. And then they're muted. So because I do stay on top of that because it irritates me so much, I don't see a lot of the kind of garbage you're talking about.

I have no idea how to do any of that kind of maintenance that you're describing.

This does raise something that I want to tell you about. And I've thought about this for, I guess it's been about 24 hours now. But I've been thinking about it more generally for about a year or so. I have an issue with Instagram where there are people that I've been following for a long, long time that I don't have like a real connection to anymore. And I kind of want to drop them. But I've been very reluctant to do that. And so the first thing I always do is like, and these are not people, by the way, who I have any issue with. And they're not people who are even posting things that I find in any way.

offensive or disagreeable or anything but it's like i'll just use one example of a woman that i worked with for i don't know a year or so when i worked for kcrw i believe she was a temporary employee we hit it off we were you know kind we were friendly we weren't even friends outside of work had a thing we did not have a thing um but uh i've been following her ever since then and it's we had a thing we had a croissant um but no she was just like somebody who i kind of knew and it made sense to follow her and it's been 10 years and i kind of realized as i was just like looking at photos like scrolling very quickly past a bunch of photos of her family whom she didn't have at the time i don't know these kids like i'm just like i'm following so many people that i just have no interest in but i'm scared to drop them yeah because it seems sort of personal there's something more personal about dropping somebody on instagram than dropping somebody on on twitter i think because twitter is just like i don't know it's a little bit more political it's I don't know, but there's something about Instagram. It's like, wait, why would you stop following this person? I'm just showing you photos of my beautiful family. And it's like, yeah, I don't know. It's just not what I need to see in my feed. And at a certain point, I should drop you. So the first thing I do is I go in and I see, is there any chance that they stop following me a while back? Because that would make the decision easy. And then when they haven't, I still sit on it for a while. But this is what I'm really getting at. I have a friend, and I don't think... I'm trying to figure out how many details to put here because I'm going to be pretty insulting. I will use all of them I have a friend he co-hosts this podcast with me he is difficult I have a friend I've known her for a long long time in fact a really long time friend of mine and she um I don't know maybe I think she maybe wasn't posting on on Instagram for a while and And then she kind of came back really strongly on Instagram as one of the people I follow who has really, really, really strong political opinions. And in many ways, they're not that far from mine. She's not somebody who is right of me. If anything, she's coming off as being even further left than me, depending on how you kind of want to define these things. But she's very, very progressive. Let me put it this way. When I say she's farther left than me, she posted an Instagram video the other day, which seemed incredibly long. I tried to watch it and like, I don't know, I made it, I don't even know if I made it 60 seconds. I'm like, you haven't even gotten, you're like, this is one of my stories. You haven't even gotten close to the thesis yet. But, you know, like she's somebody who is saying, I'm not going to just vote for the Democrats anymore. You know, it's probably tied to what's going on in Gaza. I didn't get quite to that part. But, you know, that is a reasonable argument a lot of people are making. when it's not a decision that I am making but I understand when you see what's going on in a different part of the world and you feel so gd helpless as you see atrocities going on and you're like I don't want to vote for somebody who hasn't spoken out enough against this like that's not

where I'm going but like I can I understand as a stress response the way you're describing I understand it as a stress response for the people who who are voting Jill Stein or or whatever you I mean, because this is kind of a thing, right?

Yeah, no, I agree. I understand it as a stress response because of feeling so heartbroken and overwhelmed by this unbelievable atrocity, apartheid state and human rights violation that is the current state of affairs over there. So I understand that. Also, the question is, and I know this is not why you brought this up, the question is, do you think Donald Trump will treat the Palestinians better? Of course. You know, that's what I, I, I'm unable to escape that sort of question at the end of that. But I do understand, I understand people feeling so overwhelmed that they're like, this is the number one issue that matters to me. And if we have to kind of burn it down for another four years to get closer to addressing that issue, I've made that decision. I understand people doing that. I hope they don't though.

Right. And, and, and that's where I am because like, so I follow a few people, I guess on Instagram, because that's my main social media place. And I follow some people who have those opinions and I don't agree with them, like I say, but their content is mixed up in other things that I enjoy, whether they're meme-ified or whatever. Like I'm thinking of one person in particular who I follow from Ohio. I've never met her before, but she's hilarious. I just like her whole style on Instagram, but is also one of the, I'd say handful of people I follow who feel like I'm either not gonna vote or whatever. I'm so I'm just so over this this appearance, this dichotomy of choice that that's lain before me or whatever. Yeah. So anyway, again, I'm not one of those folks, but I kind of understand. And I do understand, like I say, like I agree with you, Lucas, feels to me like it comes from a sense of feeling helpless in a helpless situation. And so this is your both. You can decide to feel this way at the ballot box. And also you're going to use social media to maybe convince people of your way of thinking or.

at least vent about it but i have a friend who will every now and then just go on instagram and talk down to whoever is watching her thing it's always from i know i am losing a lot of friends over this and i know i'm losing a lot of followers over this and like i don't think the person had a lot of followers to begin with sure but let me tell you babies how it is i used to be a one-way vote you know like and it's just like yeah it's always from that tone and again this is somebody i've known for a long time and like i yesterday kind of on a whim i was i was going through instagram and i was i unfriended a couple of people not out of any animus like i said this person i used to work with at kcrw lovely woman never gets into politics i was just like i don't think we need to follow each other anymore i did the same thing to this photographer i used to know yeah i don't really have anything in common with you like we don't need to be friends anymore. But then there's this person who literally, when I see a new post, it irritates me so much. Oh, let me tell you one more tidbit about this person. This is one of those people who is so radical, but they see everything through this sort of newly radicalized lens of theirs. One time Genevieve posted something about having to work or maybe taking half a day off. I don't know. I have no idea what it was. Genevieve just mentioned something about work. And this person i'm thinking of comment commented like yeah screw capitalism or something like that and i was like i wanted so badly to write genevieve works for the state genevieve works for the state like there's this idea of like kind of a newly i would say uninformed radical who believes if you're doing any work at all you're doing it in service of capitalism and all and then again i'm not a big fan of capitalism these days like i i understand where this frustration is coming from but i think people who like just automatically reply reply yeah screw capitalism they don't realize that that means that we all just stop working and we all just float down a lazy river and everything is just done like there's always going to be work to be done in some way or another and genevieve works for a state and she gets paid to help the the broader goals of public education you know what i mean that's not yeah i know capitalism is is sort of it infuses every single thing we do so but either way it's just like it's this uninformed but talking down to you radicalism that is coming from such a and i want to be careful with my words because there's a chance this person knows what i do for a living there's a chance they could hear this but it is it is just so embarrassing it's like watching like when when jerry lewis or woody allen would do something that like is purposefully cringy and you're just like oh god but the thing is of all of these nice people that i've decided to stop following i can't stop following this person because they'll take it as a victory

like i was too radical i'm losing well because it will satisfy the i know i'm gonna lose a lot of followers over this and then i'm in my own head about it but yes yes oh is why hasn't someone andrew and maybe they have and we don't know about it why hasn't somebody invented this is probably literally just a setting on instagram i guess you could just mute them right and they

wouldn't yeah you do that you mute you you or maybe that was on twitter on instagram i think

i don't know i think that was a pretty big twitter mute i don't again my my thing with instagram is that i've never i've never really understood it much i have i i will use it as an as to try to sometimes get back to the experience i had with twitter usually without success but i don't know how to do any of the mechanics of it i was gonna say i wonder if there's i mean i guess muting is really the answer here i was gonna say i wonder if because then you just don't have to see it and they don't know that you're not seeing it and then everybody just kind of goes on with their life i was gonna say i'm surprised somebody hasn't written a more sophisticated kind of app solution to this because it seems like a common issue in the world of social media and particularly instagram of oh shoot i'm following someone for whatever reason i started following them i desperately want out of this relationship but i can't because it's they're gonna notice that i'm unfollowing them and somehow just muting them doesn't quite feel that just feels like you're just kind of you've just rearranged the rug and put it over where the stain on the floor is yeah but you're not really getting at the stain like there should be there's got to be some kind of a thing where some sort of a a tech solution for this because that's always the solution andrew that somehow follows them in your stead, keeps track of what's going on, but you're not following them anymore, but they can't see you're not following them. But if they do try to directly at you, it tells you just like some sort of digital sentinel that just hangs out in this nightmare wasteland of unearned liberalism, but also kind of keeps track of what's up. So if you have to respond, you will seem like you're still following them.

I don't, by the way, muting is totally an option on Instagram. I thought it was. just double checked it and i've thought about that too i mean yesterday after seeing a post from this person i was thinking like i really should mute this person i should unfollow this person but i don't want to do that and again even if they if they notice it they'll they'll be like wow i'm too too real for walsh and that is not the case um and but for some reason muting feels i don't know i've never been a big muter i was trying to come up with a teenage muter ninja when you said something about something about being a big muter before it sounded like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles anyway like I don't like that because then it's kind of like there's an assumption that I maybe have seen it but I haven't I don't know I don't know why

I'm saying it's nerve wracking because now it's just going on outside of your

awareness which would be the same thing if I'm not following them but then I'm like well what if this person reaches out to me I don't know if this person still has my phone number they probably do but there's a chance they would reach out to me on Instagram would that mean that I don't that I don't see their their messages. But, you know, as I'm trying to describe this person, this isn't quite it exactly. But there are not a lot of instances in my life where I sort of think of an SNL sketch that didn't make tons of sense to me the first time I saw it. But then incrementally over the years, it makes more and more sense. The one I am thinking of is one that I know because you introduced it to me a long time ago. You were describing somebody and And you're like, she's like that Cecily Strong character on SNL who's always like the smartest person in the room, right?

I think that, yeah, the name for the character was the girl you don't want to get stuck talking to at a party.

Oh, is that what it was? Okay, yes. And it's like, oh, but it's like this very, let's just say undereducated person.

But overpatronizing.

But overly patronizing and overly confident, like kind of just like talking to you, like talking down to everyone when they're definitely not the smartest person in the room. The first time you play that for me.

When she says Seth Meyers' name, Seth, the way she's constantly talking to Seth is just like so perfect.

Well, it looks like you're trying to dial it up. I don't know if you're able to do it, but I will say-

I'm just waiting for this ad to end.

The first time you played it for me, I was like, oh, yeah, kind of. I kind of didn't get it. And it's like the older I get. It's not like all at once I got it. It's like the older I get, I meet more and more people like this.

Well, somebody who I used to be in a relationship with, I could say it. It's Carrie. Things are cool. We used to kind of have this running joke. She had been at a party or some kind of get together where there was somebody who said, no child left behind left every child behind. And while I think there's probably some really big issues with no child left behind, it struck her as like just a catch phrase or a catchy kind of a way to say this, that there wasn't a ton of, like, maybe research behind it or, like, lived experience with the U.S. educational system. It was just a thing to say. And we used to just always, not because either of us had any particularly strong opinion about No Child Left Behind, other than I assume it was generally bad for students, being that it was, I believe, a George W. Bush project. But just we would sometimes say, No Child Left...

Along with Ted Kennedy, who was a bipartisan project.

Don't forget Chappaquiddick Ted. i'm really i'm just saying that family's really taking a field turn for me right i mean rfk jr is like you know like really it's like we're running out of kennedy's that we can like right

yeah and i mean well yeah even mentioning chappaquiddick i mean ted kennedy was uh really running on a lot of um what would you call it political and social capital that has been built up burning through it i think at an unsustainable rate yes exactly and then it's like you just kind

to see like you know it's like wait why huh who are these people that we as liberals hold in some sort of high regard anyway um so yeah carrie and i used to just sometimes if we happened upon someone who had this kind of energy that i'm about to play from cecily strong and we would just shorthand it by no child left behind left every child behind which is so ironic because carrie is the person i'm talking about on instagram uh i know and i find it weird that the two of you follow each other still is the official name is the girl you wish you hadn't started a conversation with

at a party welcome back all right well thank you so are you excited about the holidays excited i'm repulsed seth all this mercilism around christmas it's an outrage it's a tragedy it's Like, what are we even doing? And, like, why? And, like, don't. No, you really seem like you're in the Christmas spirit. You mean the Christmas spirit? Oh, right. You don't care about Jesus because you worship Hallmark. Oh, boy. You need to wake up and smell the music, Seth.

As she goes to her phone.

There are homeless people out there who can't even pay their mortgages. is that what george washington had in mind we started america it's like read something sad learn a book read something andrew learn a book it is so close to what i'm seeing on the gram

okay so um let's do this let's let's thank some donors and then uh we i think we can fit it all in i i i want to i want to tell you about the thing that i'm genuinely anxious about maybe i shouldn't be but i genuinely am involving this trip i'm about to take i know that you you had a recent situation while getting your haircut that i wanted to hear more about and i want to close the loop on this um uh this movie thing that i was bringing up the other day that golly did the listeners ever deliver on that including with audio so uh let's do that after we thank some donors. All right, let's thank some of those donors who are making TBTL possible day in and day out thanks to their financial support. It's a unique business model and one that only a handful of shows have somehow happened into, and we're one of them. Thank goodness for folks like Michael

Guerrero in Jersey City New Jersey oh the city's so nice they had to name it twice sort of I will

be passing near to you nearer my drive to thee Michael as I uh land at uh um uh Newark I was I was struggling because the code for Newark which is in New Jersey is EWR there must have already been an NEW I don't know maybe New York got that one like New York got that somebody got and EW, because they're going with EWR, which feels very, very distant from Newark, New Jersey. But anyway, I'll be in the greater...

Do we have any idea what EW... Oh, just Newark?

I don't know. It's just the code. But I'm always nervous when... Well, first of all, when flying in and out of New York, I have a big paranoia that I will, because I don't know if I've actually... I've done this in Chicago. I haven't done it in New York, but that I will book, because there's three major airports. There's LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark, that I will book the ticket out of the wrong airport and then be racing to the wrong, or I'll book it out of one airport and be racing to a different airport. So I'm always triple checking. But anyway, Michael's in Jersey, and we appreciate Michael. We also appreciate Allie Leanna, who's in Seattle, Washington. Another place I'll be flying to on my way to EWR. A city

with so much fun time, they only had to name it

one time. Right. That's one of the main and most well-known things about Seattle, only named once, just Seattle. Exactly. Thanks to Minnie Lai, who's also in Seattle, Washington. I don't know if Minnie and Allie know each other. I would hang out with, I mean, Minnie and Allie sound like a couple of fun folks.

I've run into Minnie before, actually. What? In that Ballard sports bar. Oh, yeah, Rough and Tumble. Rough and Tumble, good memory. You've never been there. I've been there like five times, and you always remember the name of it, and I do not.

It looms large in my mind, though. I would love to take in a Seahawks game some sunday there that actually sounds like a dream we were talking you and i were talking at length the other day on the show about just kind of like not even somewhat football nostalgia somewhat nostalgia for the you know the men when the seahawks were really good and stuff that was so fun but also just kind of the like the friendship nostalgia the hang around and you're still getting to do that at the eagles and stuff but i i miss that out here like the best i can kind of hope for is i get a full sunday where i'm here at my place and there's nothing competing for my attention but that's still different than i'm getting together at rough and tumble or the eagles or some other place like that uh with all of y'all for a super meaningful seahawks game yeah

i missed that i missed that almost entirely last season but this season just because of my travels have kind of taken me and kind of away from my responsibilities here plus there's like some well-placed like monday night and thursday night games i think i've really lucked out with the schedule this year and got to have a little bit of that it's fun alex parl has been following

these developments closely from Edmonds, Washington, the lovely hamlet of Edmonds, Washington. And then Lexi Keogh is in Alexandria, Virginia, out there in northern Virginia. Thanks, Lexi. And, of course, no Wednesday afternoon list of donors would be complete until next week when this is not.

Yeah, as you say, well, actually, most Wednesday.

I would say all Wednesday donor thanks are complete

except for today's perfect that's how you say yes exactly yeah thank you you know say what you mean

say it clearly say it simply and the people will understand that today our final donor is taylor miller who's in overland park kansas thank you so much that where k-state is wow no they they out of manhattan they're out of manhattan kansas i think

Ooh, that reminds me. Golly, am I excited for this. Somebody somewhere is coming back.

I'm sorry. Taylor, that's my, you know, we're talking, I was just talking so much smack about Instagram and how some things are tough to follow.

And that's the person you're trying to ban?

No, Taylor is one of my KC-loving friends there on Instagram, and we talk all the time, and I'm sorry about your dear Royals. She was at the two last games of that series, Taylor was. Taylor's a great Instagram friend of mine. Taylor, thanks for supporting the show.

Please do not even... I have had to... This is not a conversation about sports, Andrew. This is a conversation about our friend Taylor and also me telling you where I'm at with the baseball stuff. And I know this kind of riles you up, so I'm not trying to light a fuse under you. But when the Mariners failed to make the postseason, once again, I just shifted out of kind of following it other than always hoping that it would be the Royals winning or the Tigers winning or anyone who's not the teams that are winning, winning. And it's just been, it just continued to be just massively depressing if you are a fan of teams like the Kansas City Royals, which are scrappy small market teams that have pieced it together with, you know, wise decisions as opposed to just frigging paint jobbing the baseball marketplace with money and then having the best players, which appears to be what will lead the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers to square off.

I know. And I know that the—and listen, well, yeah, it would be wonderful if the Guardians could make it. They did not have a good showing on the last game I saw, and it was mostly their fault. So I felt kind of bad about that, some real pitching problems. But even the Mets—like, I have a soft spot for the Mets. I don't know why. I guess maybe I haven't been a baseball fan long enough. But even they – so I guess between the Dodgers, the Yankees, and the Mets, those are like the three highest payrolls in baseball. And I always have a chip on my shoulder about the Dodgers and the Yankees like big time. So I'm rooting for the Mets in this one. But it's interesting because – But then you're going to get a Subway series. Yeah, well, yeah, I would still take that over.

Which is its whole own sort of narcissistic navel gaze.

I just sort of feel – we said before the season began when we saw the payroll and all the acquisitions, Oh, great. We can just skip ahead. I remember thinking, we can just skip the entire season and just go to the World Series between the Dodgers and the Yankees. And people who like that, which is a lot of people, can just enjoy their corporate little World Series. It's like watching Comcast play Amazon, as far as I'm concerned. But on the other hand, there's an argument that says we don't want one of the teams that doesn't spend to win. I heard this on local radio the other day, and I'm interested in your take on this. Because let's just say the Guardians somehow just really triumph against all odds the Guardians win. Then teams like the Mariners can say, see, we don't have to spend. The team that didn't spend as much still won. I was like, I don't know. i have to i have to bend over i have to twist myself up pretty hard to like kind of buy into

that mentality that's a very interesting theory and it does kind of give me pause a little bit but it also it it it actually sort of um it describes a world in which these owners have even one fucking scintilla of shame especially here in seattle or are you and are in any way having to even try to use market-based arguments for anything like yes if we lived in a if we lived in a world where there was real accountability around this then and they were saying we were saying to them you must spend money so that we can finally have some fun happen for us as a fan base and then and then we saw a small market team do well then they could come back to us and say uh well look they did it without the money but that again that would involve a dialogue with them that would involve them not having like a history of just being absolutely terrible terrible people yeah like i can't i guess i can't enter i can't enter a universe in which logic and and like things like that actually play a role because they haven't for so long in my life as a mariners fan but it is an interesting way to look at it and an interesting way to wrap up this thank you to our donors for making i promise you we are we're putting all of the resources of tbtl back into building a better team for next season okay if anything we're overspending on no

that's not great for me

hello and welcome to top story all right i'll be quick with this i am going to be flying to as i've already mentioned flying to the east coast tonight taking a red eye so first flying from portland to seattle then seattle back east and the reason that that's notable is is well a couple things. One, I've been toying with this idea of trying to become a red-eye guy because there's so much time that many times i have to travel and it's just like really inconvenient for trying to do this show with you and other things that i have going on i thought if i can just figure out how to sleep on the airplane and be comfortable and then just wake up the next morning and go about my day that might be that might really kind of be a life hack for me but what i've never done and what i will be trying tomorrow is flying to new york landing and then ideally going to my hotel and them letting me into the hotel at 7 a.m. but maybe not and then going basically from this event to a television shoot at the restaurant del monaco's i'm working on a story for the food episode of sunday morning um and i'm actually doing it's a three-part thing it's the history of teriyaki in seattle it's the it's the history of the baked alaska ice cream dessert made famous by del monaco's in new york and then it's about this guy who makes historical sandwiches in san jose anyway what i'm gonna try to do andrew for the first time ever is take the red eye basically directly to a shoot and i am really worried about it because i just have never i don't know what i'm i don't know how to preserve my hair i don't know how to i don't know how to pack for it i don't know what i'm gonna look like it's it's it's one thing to take a red eye and then just have to go to the hotel and crash out or go to the hotel and do this show with you it's another thing to then go try to be filmed for national television and i'm i'm i'm i'm feeling like it's it was a bad idea but there are literally i went today to try to see if i could find another flight there are

no other flights this is happening so the last time you did this um you took a red eye and then you remind me you went right to a hotel because you can't usually usually check in for a hotel is four you can maybe talk them into an hour or two early but not usually that early right not if you're bonvoy platinum you can get it because that's like when you think about it like this is that's a whole extra day that's like a whole extra day like you when you say i i rent a hotel for a day you you're not you're renting it for like basically they've really got a good situation going on you're paying like sure do like what 250 for like 12 hours essentially right if you were to spend one night there what would it what would be you can check in at four and checkouts at 11 So not even 12 hours.

Yeah, it's it's definitely kind of a racket if you have to abide by those rules. Now, the thing that you're thinking of was I had to interview Ryan Seacrest in Los Angeles and then take a red eye to Nashville. And the thing about the Nashville flight was I had, first of all, like three hours to kind of sleep it off when I got there. So that was big, a big help. and and also i didn't have to what i had to do was a bit like a day-long sound check in other words i had to like go on stage and i wasn't the real event i was not supposed to go perform i was supposed to go test the microphones talk about the plan have some meetings but like stuff that where i wasn't being thrust right into the quote unquote and i mean this in mega air quotes spotlight like so i what i haven't tried yet is going right off of this like questionable overnight airplane thing into i'm supposed to be like bright-eyed bushy-tailed i'm sitting down with the owner of delmonico's in a booth we're talking about the history of this thing then i'm doing a kind of a demonstration with their head chef their head chef is going to make one of these things it's like a baked ice cream trick i'm going to eat it with them it's like stuff where i'm hoping that i'll kind of see him awake and present part of me thinks you know for many years of my life i mean i operated under a cloud of being hung over in a way that was difficult to wrap your mind around so if i could do that i mean this is andrew if i'm being serious this is literally part of my logic i used to do so much so hung over that like maybe i didn't get the greatest night's sleep on the plane it can't be worse than other experiences that i've subjected myself to i guess we're gonna find out we're gonna test the theory what is worse you just get absolutely bombed on a night and sleep in your own bed but fitfully and not enough of it or or actually let's say it's a hotel i could have been traveling somewhere and getting bombed the night before a cbs shoot and then wake up and then try to like okay get it together focus take a shower get take some get some mouthwash whatever let's compare that to what i'm doing tonight which is i won't be drinking anything i'll just be getting kind of a bad night's sleep on the plane i guess it's kind of an interesting experiment for me what is worse for my performance on television i guess we'll

find out yeah i guess you'll find out i definitely think the the red eye is better there first of all like even just psychologically there's shame involved with one and that should have been not enough no no i mean the shame of getting on an airplane so late it's shameful no um no i mean there's sort of a shame like maybe you're maybe you're saying not enough shame but there is like probably in the morning a hint of shame or whatever there's definitely some low dopamine

the

there's some crashing exactly and probably like oh why am i like this and also like probably like you know i don't know you'll be surprised to hear this look but i've been hung over before there's that bit of that fire belly just that like that terrible i've made a huge mistake thing and you can kind of spiral a little bit especially on a day when it was supposed to be a big day and then you're like oh why'd i have to do that like you like i actually think you're right like this doesn't sound great and it's certain certainly not something that i i would i would want to do or would probably put myself in a position to do but no you're going to get as much sleep and the thing is you're not gonna have to like lie or even like yeah sort of i'm not worried if i if i have alcohol seeping out of my body yeah exactly just all of the trappings that go along with that it's just kind of like you can just like show up and be like hey hey sorry if i'm a little bit out of it i took the red eye here you know what i mean like you don't have to say hey sorry if i'm or you wouldn't even say sorry i'm a little bit out of it or maybe sorry i'm a little bit out of it i was um i was pounding johnny walker red in front of dateline nbc in my uh in my bonvoy last

night and flipping off keith morrison um i uh that's yeah that's a good point because the thing is if when there's been a drinking escapade and then having to film the next day not only is there all the physical stuff you're talking about of just like you feel horrible you can't focus everything kind of hurts you're also tired yeah like physically tired because you didn't sleep well so all this is is at worst it's the tiredness take away all of the other physical symptoms yeah I'm feeling, actually, I'm glad we had this talk I'm actually feeling better about it

I should be your sponsor, I've said it to you a million times You never listen

Hey, why didn't you pick up the other night? I don't know, I was at the Eagles doing jello shots Worst sponsor ever

I was passed out in the clown stall at the Eagles Which is sad that that's not a fake sentence

Okay, let's talk about what's going on with your hair You've actually been talking off air You mentioned something the other day you said, oh, I'm going to wear a hat today because I'm having a weird hair day. And I'm wondering if this was related to the thing you were going to tell me.

No, I think that was before I got my hair cut. So my hair is you know, I'm losing... Let me switch over to

visuals. Let me get eyes. Oh, you don't have eyes on me

right now? Oh my god. When I'm playing audio

like the top story sound effect, I have a different screen up and I don't see you. Now I

see you. You look nice. Thank you. I like that shirt. I'm giving you, I'm putting my arms up. He's flexing his muscles, people. Now my muscles are under a long sleeve shirt, but I am flexing them. Under a shirt that might be conservatively one to two sizes too long strong man poses over here um no you know like i i don't make any um whatever issue about this i'm losing a lot of hair i'm a balding man i have middle-aged balding hair and you know i'm not like you i'm not showing up on tv i want to look you're not

powdering your wig every night like a real normal boy i'm not leaving what did you mention the other

day little little piles of dust on the pillow on the they're not piles they're smears

how dare you it's it's static charged keratin fibers andrew they wouldn't pile up okay i don't

know why i'm thinking this this is such a bad idea for me just to try to quote an old simpsons joke on the show but for some reason you said something in this sort of same i don't know rhythmic patter yesterday that reminds me of one of my favorite jokes from the simpsons and i can even tell you i think it's from the episode where um john lovett uh guest stars as the critic it was a crossover episode remember the critic that camu can do do yeah that that is from that episode as well i love that episode and it's all about the springfield film festival and there's this one joke and i'm pretty sure one of the things that makes it funny is that it's uh what's the word i'm looking for a pisticle that's not the right word what do you call it i have so no i have such a problem

with the word, well, or yeah, like things that are epistemological or things that are like, I don't understand. Epistolary, I think here. Epistolary. I hear that word used and I never really understand it. What does that word mean?

It means in the form of letters, which is why like the, you know, it's a biblical word too, right? Because it's like Paul's letter to the Corinthians or whatever, which I just saw a stand-up bit the other day about like, who are these corinthians anyway i'm not going to go on that um jag but anyway it's epistolary in the way that marge simpson is writing a letter to the critic and asking him to come judge this film festival or something so we're hearing it in marge's voice and then suddenly as she's writing this letter please come visit our town you hear her say you hear homer break in and say something like marge is this a boil or a pimple and she's like oh look what you made me right and then later on in the episode this is such a dorky thing for me to try to recreate here later on in the episode the critic does come to town and he does meet homer and he says oh you're the one who wanted to know if it was a boil or a pimple and homer just says it was a gummy

bear and i don't know what you just said that made me think of that joke but honestly that joke is never that far from the front of my mind i think it all the time is this a pimple or a boil it was

a gummy bear that is beautiful there is you'll be happy to know the simpsons subreddit does have a entire post basically dedicated to this sorry for my coughing into the microphone there i don't know

how much i can clean that up but um so anyway i don't know what you said that got me on that simpsons jag but all of that is to say back to your hair my hair is it's not a complicated thing i just need it to be relatively short probably the other day when i said i need to put a hat on it's because i'm losing so much hair kind of in the front and on top that when my hair gets long and shaggy it's a really bad look like i grew up i had long hair i had shoulder length hair in high school and then you know when i was like a young adult in my 20s i would get a haircut maybe once every few months and then i let it grow big and shaggy and people you know like kind of like i'd look kind of crazy like einstein or something and then i get a cut back well i can't do that anymore because my hair is thinning so much and again that's fine it's not like a huge point of shame for me but i have been in this situation where i've been paying a lot of money to go to rudy's barbershop as we talk about a lot on the show i am a loyal customer of rudy's barbershop they have them you know so it's most people know of it it's a somewhat regional chain but they're I think sprinkled around the country it's a Utica thing it's a Utica thing and I went uh I started going there in 2009 when I first moved to Seattle my first barbershop was their original location there in Capitol Hill and then ever since I started going there I never switched it up even when I went down to LA they had them down there and I would stick with Rudy's and like I think maybe literally in the past 15 years you could count on one hand and have fingers left over how many times i went to a barber shop other than rudy's um but with you know prices are going up and my hair is going down you know like i'm paying is that a showtime prices are up hair is down i um i so so like i i do not begrudge the barbers i i i know that you have had before like kind of in the past some love hate relationship with barbers at at rudy's i love rudy's and i really enjoy almost every interaction i've had with the barbers there some of whom i've returned to several times in a row others i would just get you know catches catch cam but almost always i enjoy my conversation with them they're they're nice i like the vibe there i like the products i would buy there like the smell of the place but the thing is like some of these starting like just to get a short haircut the starting price is 57 on some of these whoa yeah i mean that's the upper limits but I think it's between like 42 and 57 or something and you're the one who pointed this out to me on the show I believe it was one of those instances where I was famously wrong I didn't realize that each barber was sort of setting their own prices depending on their experience and what they thought they could get and so when I'm booking an appointment now and you do have to book you I usually can book you know as close as one day in advance but it's very rare that I can just be a walk-in at Rudy's anymore that's sort of a thing of the past but like I would be like okay first available and if the first available barber is somebody who starts at 57 like that's a lot of money for a very short haircut for me not not very short in length but like

10 it takes on average 10 minutes to trim up my hair i always say just like use scissors clean up around the edges around my ears but don't don't use the you know the trimmers too much so that i look like you know like i'm joining the military i don't want a buzz cut just want a short cut and everybody always gets it don't make me look like an astronaut or good memory that's what i always say and then but it never make i don't think people know it i mean astronauts can have whatever hair they want can't they i don't know why i always said i mean and in

fact sometimes it's like when they're floating in the space station it's the hair can be real big yes in zero in zero gravity the days of the the days of the right stuff uh flat tops is uh i guess

it's kind of over now i'm so chuffed that you remember that though yeah i would always go in and say i just don't want to look like an astronaut and which always would i feel like

You mean a scientist who's worked their whole life to push the boundaries of human experience? You don't look like that.

Right. Okay. Yeah, exactly. But so all that is to say, I just, I, I, here's what happened. It was about three days ago, or I don't know, it was late last week. And I, my hair had been growing long for me, you know, longish to that point where I was like, oh, this is just like, this isn't great. That's probably, it was probably the same day I grabbed my hat. And later that afternoon, I had a few minutes and I was like, let me just see. Is there any chance that the Rudy's that's closest to me? Another factor here is the one that was closest to me closed. And so now I'm going to the one that was second to closest to me, whatever. But, like, my options have been limited. The haircuts are getting shorter. The prices are getting higher. And then, like, I went on. I'm like, can I just sneak in a haircut right now? And I went online, and there was nobody available until the next day at Finney Ridge. And I was like, you know, I can wait a day.

Like, I mean, I have a hole in my day, like right now. Like, what? Let me just literally just went on Google Maps. I'm just like, what's in my neighborhood? Haircut near me. Haircut near me. Now, I know there's one there's one barbershop that's, I believe, right next to the strip club. I mean, how many things can I say are right next to the strip club? There's a strip club around my heart. I know for a fact that the paint store shares a wall with them because when I'm on a Saturday morning,

Veeves and I were buying paint and having to yell above the din of the dance music that was shaking the wall that had all the samples on it. Amazing. So, yeah, I live in... In a way, that helps, though.

I mean, you don't have to put the paint on that shaker. It's pre-shook. Hi. Yeah, this is a semi-gloss. This is a taupe semi-gloss pre-shaken.

I remember when a mutual friend of ours texted in. And maybe it was like a year ago when I was talking about the pizza shop that's next to the strip club.

Is that a pizza mart or whatever?

No, that place I love. That's kind of closer to the U District. I don't know what the name of it is, but it's like the only place in Seattle where you can actually get bad pizza. And it's the place that's next to the strip club.

And we got a text from a friend who lives out of town that just said, I appreciate this very slow reveal that Andrew lives in the hood.

It's like, yeah, I don't live in the high income level zip code out here. But I do love my, but I, but contrarily though, I love my neighborhood. I love walking to places. They're about to open up a grocery store very close to me. They just took this, this old bar that had closed down. They reopened that as a sports bar. It's not perfect, but like little by little, there are more and more things of my interest. Grocery, cheap grocery stores, cheap drinks, and potentially hair cutteries that are in my neighborhood that I can walk to. And that, you know, you know that that, that's what motivates me, right? Like if I don't have to get into a car. That's what gets you out of bed in the morning. Yeah, if I don't have to get into a car and drive to Finney Ridge to get a $60 haircut before tip, and I can just do that here in my neighborhood, that would be good. So I go on Google Maps. I see the place that's next to the strip club and the pizza shop, and I'm like, I think I can do slightly better than that. But not far from there, in the same shopping center where your old Mandarin Gate used to be, is a little barbershop. and I looked it up and it seemed it had kind of a generic name but I was like reading the reviews of the barber there I think it was like Bamu or somebody was the barber and got like somebody I haven't was like

of Seville

somebody's like I haven't had a haircut this good since I left New York Bamu's the best or I think I might be messing up the name someone I'm like that seems like a very specific I find it hard to believe that this is the best haircut outside of New York like let's all cool our jets a little bit here but like let me just see So I call them up. I'm like, do you take walk ins or like, yeah, you can come by in about a half hour. I'm like, oh, great. Sounds good. So I like just put on my shoes. It literally it's a five to 10 minute walk from me. I walk on over there and I wasn't sure if it was just going to be a one chair barbershop or what. But it was like it looked like there were two there looked like there were three chairs in there and there were two barbers and they were working with their customers. And I kind of realized that like there was I don't know what language people were speaking, but like one barber and his customer speaking a different language. I got the impression that maybe this is kind of like an immigrant experience for maybe some of the barbers here and some of the maybe their regular customers. I'm not exactly sure, but I kind of walk in and I just sit down. And then another fella came in, kind of maybe an older guy than the other two barbers. I wasn't even sure, like, if he was the owner or what his deal was. But he just said, hey, you need a haircut? Comes into my chair. Like, I waited for maybe 45 seconds. He walks in. I sit down. I explain to him what I need. He gives me a scissor short haircut. And I think it was, was it 30? And I tipped, like, five or six or something. Yeah, I think, like, the total was, like, under $40 with tip, and it was so quick, and it was so easy, and I walked over there.

Let me ask you this. Yeah. Did he hit your neck with the talcum powder on the little kind of brush thing? No.

I don't think he did that, and there weren't a lot of – like, I told you I went to a barber at Rudy's for a while, and she actually had the heated shaving cream that she would put on the back of my neck and then used a straight razor and do a little cleanup. like that to me was the best um this guy was very conscientious like for whatever that's worth it wasn't like a it wasn't a curt cut um you know what i mean like he would say he would even say like hey i'm gonna blow off your neck now you know like hey watch your eye he even said at one point close your eyes like he's he was always looking after my experience yeah the reason i ask is

because i got a haircut like this in new york a while ago where it was the same as like i was going to i think i was going to record something at the cbs tv headquarters and my haircut was way overdue got up in the morning i was like i just need to get a haircut near me and i ended up at this place that was uh i think the guys in there were most of the guys cutting hair were from egypt because i noticed just like the kind of like um decorations around their workstations and stuff was very like you know had a lot of that going on and it was i felt so cared for because the guy it was just like you know kind of this throwback barbershop experience where it was like you know it was like if i would have asked for a shave they would have probably given me one and like you know just did this like standard haircut for like a probably a guy who works as a trader on wall street or some sort of business thing and then he he i remember that after he had like shaved the back of my neck or whatever he then dusted it off with like the talc so it wouldn't itch i know that i've never i've no one's ever done that for me before and i was like i have been really missing out on this egyptian american barber shops situation because it was great i was wondering if that was kind of what you were getting and i didn't get that and

i will say this like i've been even before i started going to rudy's i liked going to actual barber shops because when i was a kid my mom would take me to like a salon or whatever wherever she went um and then i got to a certain age i started looking after my own hair and i would go to barber shops or something you know me i'm i'd be transfixed by the traditional barber pole with the red and white and blue stripes or whatever and so like in new hampshire this was a good example in my small town in new hampshire i'd go to this barber shop that was run by two quebecois brothers like of kind of a certain age and they were like they were like real characters and it's like real It was almost a kitschy barbershop experience, except they didn't play it up. They were truly being their truth selves, I think. But it had more of that sort of, in this case, a sort of Americana, despite the fact that they were Quebecois, a small town barbershop. I don't want to overstate the sort of not just cutesiness or style of this place. This is a place that is literally next to a wing stop and a UPS store in a mall parking lot. And if you're listening and you're somebody who has needs for your hair because you still have hair and you're going for a certain look, I don't know how this would be for you. Maybe great, maybe not. Mileage may vary. But in my particular – I just hear myself now. We've been talking about this for a long time. I went to a different barbershop is the story at the end of the day. But I broke a routine that I've been in for 15 years, and it ties into the fact that now I can, on a whim, when I just look over at you into this computer screen and I see that my hair's too shaggy, instead of having to make a plan for it, I can probably put on my shoes and walk around the block and go get my hair cut fine for half the price of what I've been doing for a long, long time now. It feels like a big game changer in my life.

i think you have entered the same world that i weirdly entered recently of great clips you were saying are you still sticking with that dude i went to a i was passing through vancouver washington the other day and i was desperately in need of a haircut and i uh made an appointment or or checked the wait list and there was a great clips in some very forgettable strip mall somewhere in the greater hazel dell area popped in i've told you this before what's crazy about it is because i'm in their system now and i'll probably never go to this particular location again because unless i'm down there the woman had a printout of how i get my hair cut oh okay so they use a number four around the like they use a number four around the sides and then they just like maybe a quarter inch off the top and i was like yeah that'll be fine and like took the woman 10 minutes to cut my hair in fact because i didn't even have her mess with the top because i was like i'm okay with the length on top it's just that the back of my neck is growing out and stuff she charged me she just charged me for like a trim or the sides it was twelve dollars twelve dollars holy macaroons like it's like and you know again as you said the more complex one's hair is probably the more you want to think about who you're going to uh for this kind of stuff but But I have found that it's so much easier, assuming that you kind of know what you need to do for your haircut, which I now have a standard spiel, and assuming the person doing it has been trained to cut hair, again, when you're talking about my hair, I don't need a rocket surgeon to do it, and I don't need it to cost $60 at this point. I just tell them it's a number four around the sides, just round up the base of the neck, and then maybe take a tiny bit off the top or leave it alone. That's the standard thing for me. It takes literally 10 minutes. It costs me, at the most, literally $23. And it's been, it has made my life way easier.

Yeah, and honestly, I'm kind of surprised because, I mean, you have a lot more going on. All jokes about piles and streaks aside, you have more going on with your hair. You know what I mean? Whenever I see you in a photo, even looking at you now, Like you do have hair on top that you are you are styling in a very specific way. And I feel like the length between the top of your hair or the top of your head, I should say, the hair on the top of your head versus the. sides like there's a pretty significant difference there like you have a style of hair but i guess that you just tell them the basics and then you handle the rest i just it's so straightforward i

literally say okay number four on the sides and then just a little bit off the top and just blend it in and they don't ever take off too much at the top well i'm pretty i always say like i'm pretty much good with the length here's the other thing my hair on top doesn't actually grow that fast anymore because you know i'm a i'm kind of a 48 year old guy whose hair is thinning despite all my attempts maybe it's not thinning as fast as it would if i wasn't taking anti-baldness pills and laser blasting it sometimes by the way that was a i put a real banger up on instagram speaking of instagram the other night which was i was just sitting in a chair i had one of those moments where i was like sitting in a chair in my house like had a little time to kill before going to bed i thought why don't i throw that stupid laser balding helmet on which i do not use on the regular I don't even believe in it I just thought I don't know I have 20 minutes and then I thought well I also have this I have this like teeth whitening thing that I do now which I also don't really know if it works but supposed to apply a certain amount of like I don't know ultraviolet light or something to your teeth make your teeth a little less yellow and while I was sitting in the chair and I had this helmet going and this mouth guard in which is like illuminated I thought you know what would be really nice a foot massage and what do I have what are those foot massager little thingies so I'm sitting there and then I just realized the absolute titanic ridiculousness of this situation so i made a little video of it just to point out how silly i am had two people reach out on instagram friends of mine from like high school going hey does that actually work does that helmet actually helmet and i was like i don't know man like i i think it's a coping mechanism i think i throw it on there sometimes if i'm bored to think well maybe that left five more hairs up there than would otherwise be but all that is to say um i i have found that even with uh with whatever to whatever degree my hairdo is a complicated thing um a fierce and wonderful thing as they say in the bible i'm getting a totally fine result from good old great clips and and uh if you're if you're somebody who's paying a lot again i don't want to undercut we do actually have people who um who who cut hair for a living and are stylists and do a really good job and they probably don't charge 12 so i don't want to Looking at you, Farron, I don't want to like I don't want to steal food off the table of our of our of our folks that are doing really quality work. And, you know, if I had a person like that, if I had more hair and if I had, you know, like, for instance, Becca, it's a it's a you know, she's got a person she goes to a person who got out of the hair game. and only kept, like, one client, and it's like one of those heist films. She's Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast, and her hair cutter is Ray Winston. He's trying to get out of the game, and she's dragging them back into the game. She gets haircuts at this person's house now.

Genevieve had a couple of hairdressers who... Is hairdresser? That doesn't seem like the right word. I don't know. That just came out of my mouth, and it sounded like something my mom would have... It's Mrs. Hairdresser. Sounds like something my mom would have said in 1986. She goes to a stylist, or she's had a couple of stylists, but they kept on getting pregnant on her. I felt like she would lock in with somebody, and then they would get pregnant, and then they would take the time off and then never get back into hairstyling.

I think it's a real, I mean, first of all, I think the physicality of it kind of can't be overstated. Yes, true. You probably had these conversations while you're sitting in the chair, but, I mean, just think about it. You're standing all day. You're leaning over someone. Hair splinters, do you know about hair splinters?

Ever since I heard about this, I always talk to my barbers about this

I can't get it out of my head

Oh my god, apparently a lot of times you leave A barber will leave, or I assume any kind of stylist But the barbers will tell me that at the end of the day They have to go home and take off their shoes and everything They literally have other people's hairs sticking out of their skin That they have to clean out

And this, Andrew, is why I refuse to pay more than $12

Yes, exactly

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.

The other day on the show, I don't know how in the heck we got on the topic of, I guess it was, you know what it was? It was Hats on Sticks, my friend. It was Hats on Sticks. It was a young Andrew Walsh in Ohio playing kind of, you know, Army guy, or what would you call it? How would you think of it as Army guy?

I was always, like, I was telling you, I was on some flight of fancy talking about how as a kid I would just be outside with, like, an Intertech squirt gun or something, pretending, like, and with no friends, just by myself, pretending that I was always in battle or in a shootout with someone. It was probably from watching so many violent cartoons, right? I was always fighting imaginary enemies. I was trying to catch a roadrunner and running into, actually, I was always trying to strangle my son. I'd say, why, you little? But anyway, and I think I said to you, one of the things I loved seeing in cartoons or movies is when somebody would throw sound, distract to the person that was either chasing them or that they were chasing, and then putting a hat on a stick and raising it above a log so that people would shoot at an empty hat, and this type of fun, lighthearted trickery and war.

This kind of fun childhood war. Yes. Well, that reminded me of a scene that I had seen in a movie when I must have been a young kid and what I remembered about it was the people were sweaty and there were some I had it totally wrong by the way but it was somehow it was like the bad guy soldier was tricking the good guy soldier by playing this clicker that was somehow confusing the good guy soldier or it could have been the opposite I just knew that there was a war movie with clickers and it made an impression on me as a kid well we received much feedback and I want to thank gavin jordan and fred among others interesting andrew all dudes all dudes checking in with the deep world war ii knowledge and they all pointed out that this movie i was thinking of was the longest day a john wayne movie about world war ii paratroopers i've heard of this i think that's a famous movie it's very famous it's i'd say it's probably top 10 most famous war movies So it was not super obscure. I didn't know. My dad used to rent, and by rent, I mean check out all kinds of World War II movies from the Shoreline Public Library. And so I guess because they came from the library, I assumed they were obscure and or educational. But they weren't. This is not going to be. This is the audio from The Longest Day. And what is actually happening, as was explained to me by these helpful tens, is you have a U.S. service member who thinks that he's hearing this clicking sound, which is a call and response between the U.S. soldiers. And interestingly enough, this was literally only used for like this particular day of this battle because the thought was, well, the bad guys, the Germans, I guess in this case, will figure this out pretty fast. but uh he has this clicker that he's supposed to click and then there's supposed to be a response and when he clicks he's very scared he's very sweaty as i've already pointed out he's he's surrounded by potentially people that want to kill him but he clicks his clicker and then he hears the response click he's supposed to hear and you can see him visibly relax he starts to walk over to where his his uh his friend is and realizes oh no it's a german and it just so happens that the way that the germans were reloading their rifles made the same sound that's what you're going to hear the audio of here

so he's just been shot now and he's mad because he heard two clicks and then the german guy walks over to this guy's i meant to do a trigger warn there was going to be gunshots in this but i guess we all heard it together and then the german guy walks over and he mindlessly kind of reloads his rifle or i guess he ejects the shell and it makes the same sound so that's the rifle yeah now here's the thing there was the walsh elm scream in the background this is the thing i don't think that this would have happened in the real war it's kind of interesting the sort of creative license they took with this because it turns out there's a whole kind of story on this clicker i'll play you a little bit um i actually wrote this down and then managed to lose it it's a youtube video that gavin included in his email from this um this guy's like handle on youtube his his personal i think the show is called like our tools or our equipment his handle is like canadian macgyver or something but he is showing you this clicker that was used in this literally this one battle the the the u.s uh paratroopers were using this clicker one click

had to be answered by two clicks and this made it easy to tell if that soldier you saw in the distance or hiding behind a bush was friend or foe and in addition to the clicker paratroopers also used a number of call and response verbal identification codes so on the first day of the invasion, this was Flash. which had to be answered by thunder and on the second day this was changed to hustle answered by along the change in code being necessary to prevent the germans from catching on and using these codes against the allies and for this reason the clickers were only ever intended to be used on the first morning of the invasion after which they were ordered to be discarded and there were

seven thousand of these clickers that were ordered by this u.s general these clickers were actually used in music they were made by a whistle company in like birmingham alabama and their original intention was to keep time during a performance of uh you know like band music or something and so the the idea was uh yeah to to get these because there had been a previous battle somewhere where it was in the middle of the night and there was tremendous confusion for the u.s forces about like who was friend and who was foe and so this was this particular general's solution to the situation uh which brings me back first of all i definitely want to buy a replica of one of these clickers um there's uh they there's like a very very small number there's like maybe five or six of the originals that even exist at all because literally what the guys did was they just threw them on the ground after day one they're like well we're not using these anymore it's like what a cool artifact um but they do make replicas um and then the other thing is the chances that like these clickers that are made by this company in in birmingham alabama uh would click in a way that were made for again musical conductors that were going to click exactly the way that the german rifle would eject the casing just it it sort of it sort of seems unlikely and it's weird to me that they put it in The Longest Day because it's like, there's probably enough real drama going on. Maybe they were out of interesting scenes to have happen, but this one seems pretty fantastical, actually. It stuck with you? It sure did because it was

made up. Yeah, well, I mean, well, the clicker, I mean, they clearly wanted to work in this idea of the clicker, which was a real thing, and then took some

license. I guess it did make it more interesting.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, it stuck with you years and years and years later, so, yeah.

Yeah, and now it's re-stuck with me because now I'm going to be going on eBay to buy a replica of one of these clickers. I'm not even kidding. Okay. It's very satisfying. It's kind of like a Snapple lid. Yeah. I used to be able to pop a Snapple lid. Yeah, I'm looking at them online.

Did you call them?

I fought in the Snapple Wars, by the way. I was behind enemy lines.

But you learned so much trivia. I sure did. From underneath the lids. Also, by the way, this is sort of related while we're on an email segment here. I was following along with you looking at these emails that I was also copied on. But also, I don't know if you saw this, but we got an email from Mohamed Maroz saying, I might be pronouncing that last name incorrectly, hey there, Too Beautiful to Live is already a favorite for leisure seekers, but staying at the top means delivering content that's consistently entertaining and engaging. We specialize in SEO optimization, detailed show notes, distribution across platforms, et cetera. I'll look more into this. They want to hop on a call with us, but I did not realize that Too Beautiful to Live is already a favorite for leisure seekers. Did you know that?

Yeah.

We're number one in the leisure seeker market?

I mean, do you think that happens by accident? Everything that I've been doing on this show for now years has been laser focused on the leisure seeker community. Step one, learn how to say leisure seeker. Step two, laser focus upon them.

I've been trying to bring in, like, go-go 80s Reaganauts, and you're going for the Leisure Seekers.

Oh, you know who I've got for you? Dennis Quaid.

Oh, how so?

Oh, well, A, he played Reagan in a biopic that just came out, and he also just showed up at a MAGA rally.

Dennis Quaid, America's favorite A-list actor? Is a MAGA?

America's favorite A, he is deeply, unfortunately.

Oh, I did not know that. Genevieve and I always argue because I always because I apparently don't know what an A-list actor is. And I was referring to I one time referred to Dennis Quaid as an A-list actor. And she's like, do you have any idea what an A-list actor is? I'm like, he was in Inner Space with Martin Short. She's like, Martin Short. She's like, if he was ever even close to being an A-lister, it might have been then. But he's certainly not an A-lister now. But I always argue that he was an A-list actor. I'm like, come on, he can work a red carpet. Apparently, he can work a red hat. I did not know about this.

unfortunate he's literally wearing a maga hat as he does it i am stopping my uh dennis quaid for a lister campaign i'm officially out and the real problem is it means we're down to zero tolerable quads yeah i know because think about like randy quaid is up there in canada talking about star whackers oh my god how is he what is what was in the water in whatever part of texas those guys are from because what a bummer i think it also settles the question of if he's a lister because and i'm not just saying this because of my personal politics, but like, there are no examples.

of any somebody put this and we maybe this is when you bring the music andrew just to shut me up maybe this is when you put the shepherd's hook out on me but like like somebody put forward the idea that part of why the sort of conservative america always talks about being sort of under siege is if you will and like they feel so victimized even though they have like the entire supreme court and they get more senators than they should and all this stuff like how do you feel You had the presidency for four years with Trump. How could you feel so put upon? It's because pop culture, the broad, the popular pop culture, rejects them? And they get so mad about it?

Yeah, I was, I mean, I always think about this quote I heard from somebody on NPR a long time ago. And I think it was right before Trump got elected. Or it was right after. But it was something like, you know, like everybody in American politics feels like they're losing. And that is what kind of the problem is or anybody who has an opinion on that. And I remember that has always rattled around in my head ever since I heard that in like 2016 or whatever. And then I remember a couple of years later sitting with somebody in my family who's deeply, deeply like Fox News conservative. And I never bring up politics around them. But they brought him up to me because I had a few drinks and they couldn't stop themselves and started talking about how I'm living in a bubble and blah, blah. And like and I was just like, how are you so aggrieved? Like you you have the court, both chambers of Congress and you're doing it with less people. And we're doing it with less people.

Losing elections and you're losing presidential elections and getting to have the person be president.

But this person was still arguing that, like, basically, like they're on the losing end of everything because you just can't say anything or do anything anymore. I'm just like, who are you mad at? You're just mad at like, I guess like Robert De Niro and like the celebrities in Hollywood who were like, what stranglehold do you think my people have on this country as you control

everything? Well, it's, I think in a lot of cases, it literally comes down to Hollywood because the bigger the star, the more they are an actual A-lister, the less likely they are to show up at a MAGA rally. You cannot find, you know, you'll get a Scott Baio down there. You'll get several Scott Baios somehow. What do you call it? It's a Loblaw of Baios. What is it, a grouping of Scott? But, you know, like you'll get a Kevin Sorbo. You'll get a Dean Cain. Now you'll get a Dennis Quaid, but you won't get Harry Styles, and you won't get George Clooney, and you won't get Ryan Gosling. Taylor Swift you certainly won't get a Taylor Swift so I do think that that's my point is if there was a moment where Quaid might have been an A-lister I think showing up at a MAGA rally shows that he's not an A-lister anymore and frankly also not really sort of I don't know not really seeing the world as it is properly

the good news is Back to the Future star Leia Thompson is slamming Dennis Quaid She is. Oh, I didn't realize that they were. Because I'm like, why are we choosing Leia Thompson to speak out? I did not know that they were a couple.

Andrew, guess where that popped up?

Where?

My trash Instagram feed.

You got to call your feed.

Literally showed me a picture of Leia Thompson roasting him over this and two people that I don't follow or think about very much at all.

You guys don't even know how much Leia Thompson laid into her ex-fiancee, Dennis Quaid. I'm getting the music started here. Sorry.

I don't care. By the way, haters are going to hate. That's the other thing. You were talking about somebody talking about how they're always going to lose followers. My version of that is just somebody who's always clapping back at the haters. Yes. And I'm always like, I don't think there are any haters. In order for there to be haters, there would have to be noticers. They'd have to be paying attention.

Exactly.

Step one, get someone to pay attention. Step two, get them to hate you. All right. Thanks for listening, everybody. We're going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. So look forward to talking to you all then and my good friend Andrew Walsh. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves. Block out the haters. Please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. Power out.