Muse

I say, I say, what up, dawg? Let the fun begin. That's a tuna, bro. This comes out to all the coffee lovers of the world. I just love hot Cheetos! That's my wife. Ooh la la! Go Browns. Jalapenya!

Ba-ding!

Uh-uh. Get off my call. Don't miss the Slash's Fest.

if we wanted to we could have our own business no i agree if we really wanted to we could it's

just that do we want to do that do we want to have a website and a blog and be like this is what we did today no it's too much work yeah and too expensive wow you're really good at puzzles i did them all the time as a kid as my mom used to say when you're doing a puzzle it's like having

a thousand friends you know johnny i just don't know how you do it do what a four-hour show every

morning just uh talking to the mic and your voice goes out through the wires and once a week whether you need it or not somebody comes in here and gives you a check for 38 dollars have a good

show dummy it's what you do is so important well all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a thursday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live here we go again my name is luke burbank i am your host this show is a joke you are a joke coming to you from the corner of hollywood boulevard and orange avenue california got sunshine at the roosevelt hotel perched high above man's chinese theater where i got here last night and got checked into the room and looked out the window and boy if it wasn't just the most uh holly weird of scenes it was the red carpet the step and repeat outside of man's theater just like flash bulbs a poppin i think it's the american film institute's festival there must have been some pretty fancy folks coming in because it was like limousines down hollywood boulevard it was the whole thing it looked like the oscars or something and i looked at it for about 20 seconds and then i pulled the curtain shut and decided to stare at tiktok because i can no longer exist in the real world i have to mostly spend my time in the virtual world uh so anyway things are going pretty well here um let the fun begin as we arrive at episode 4322 in a collector series of course i don't live here in los angeles which you know if you listen to the show i live in southern washington so to get here i had to travel when i travel there are sky jinx that i love to report here on the program today though a special treat not just sky jinx travel jinx i'm not just annoyed at the uh somebody on the airplane i was also really annoyed at something that happened here at the roosevelt hotel but i was also annoyed about something

that happened on the airplane so you know i feel like a bird showing over these haters you feel me

though uh everything old is new i will be complaining about each element of my travel down here um i think to your great interest and delight also it's a thursday aka blursday so do some blursday messages and we're gonna talk to this guy longest running cobro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships he's also known in some locales as mr Unlimited. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Well, we're playing a dangerous game here, Luke. While you were doing your introduction, I heard a garbage truck go by and empty one of my bins. The best we can do right now is hope that they emptied the recycle bin. Because no matter how big of an animal you might be, you're probably not going to throw your dog poop in my recycle bin. But I know if my garbage bin, my vulnerable, sweet, beautiful, virginal, virginal garbage bin is out there, people are going to be pure as the driven snow. I wash it.

So in other words, hold on. Let me let me understand this. So so basically the truck came by and did something and something out there.

I heard it.

And so you don't know if it was the recycling bin or if it was the garbage bin. But if it was the garbage bin, your anxiety is going to go sky high because that is now open season for people to throw their dog poop bags in.

But, I mean, as far as the anxiety is concerned, it's sort of a Schrodinger's bin situation because I don't know which one it was. And so the anxiety is high anyway. Here's the deal, though. It's my belief. And this is just a belief. This is just a theory at this time. This has not gone through the whole scientific process.

But it's my belief. Peer review. It has not been peer reviewed. I'm hoping that you can be my peer and you can review this theory.

I'm your fact checking, cuz.

I think that the recycling bin is the loudest bin. It's hard to say which bin they empty.

It's not made of a different material? I mean, it's made of a different material?

It's not. But think about the elements within. And this is important for all of us. Always think about the elements within. The glass. What I heard sounded like.

In the words of Hans Gruber, dump the glass.

That's right. What I heard, it's hard to say exactly what it was, but it sounded like about 1,700 Jim Beam bottles crashing into the back of the truck.

Okay, well, that would definitely put us in a direction of which container it was.

That's right. It was yard waste. I hide them in the yard waste so that Genevieve doesn't know.

Yes, very smart.

No, but that is true. Because of the elements within our glass, metal, that type of thing, I believe that's the louder dump. Whereas when you're looking at what's in the actual garbage, it's what we in the industry, I'm not really in the industry, it's what we enthusiasts call soft material. You know, you have bags of cat litter in there that's not very noisy. You have used Kleenexes. You have the emptying of a vacuum cleaner chamber in there. None of those make noise.

No, they call it the quiet way. They do. In the business. Now, have I told you, by the way, about the fairly active beef between me and whoever occasionally picks up the garbage at my house, Andrew? No. Have I been hiding my sugar on the shelf about this whole thing?

No, but I hate this already. These are the worst beefs. They're unwinnable.

They kind of are. So apparently, I might have told you about this like months ago, but it continues because I now have a scarlet letter of sorts on my garbage can. so i must have at some point when i put my garbage i don't know if i did it or one of my neighbors did it but one of us apparently put the our garbage can too close to the other person's garbage can and i guess that's a whole thing where i live because i came back from probably some trip and both garbage cans had in like white very and i'll take a picture when i get home and send this to you in extremely large handwriting with a like a white i want to say grease pencil but i want to be clear it's pretty permanent right somebody drew like a big line i mean the garbage person drew a big line with arrows on each side indicating like distance right and then wrote three feet and then on my can and on their can and when i say can it's a big plastic thing with lid right but and to let us both know that our cans and this i'm sure has to do with the grabber device and i guess if they're too close together this person has to oh i'm sorry get out of the truck for eight seconds and i know if you had to do that at every single place that might make your day longer and harder i don't i'm not trying to be sort of uncaring about folks doing a hard job but like i guess probably the pinchers couldn't grab one of our garbage cans or either of them because they were too close and so instead of just getting out and moving them and maybe making a note uh maybe having the people call us or email us or something he just defaced both of our garbage receptacles with three f t big arrow i i'm not as upset as you over this one because uh well because it's not your beautiful virginal i'm just going to keep trying to really push that weird narrative if this was on your can andrew this would keep you up at night because you would then feel like whenever anybody drove by your garbage they would see that you had at one time

violated some sacred principle that's not what gets me then what gets me is my anxiety is built around other people misusing my garbage cans when they're out there vulnerable by the curb like i was at our friend i'm gonna i'm gonna name so i can just write anything i want on your garbage can it won't bother you no you're not you know that's not what i'm saying hold on i'm gonna name booking my flight naming and blaming here okay one time i was flying right to seattle i was facing your car i was at our friend rodent's house and he's got his bins lined up new member of the fun loving criminals yes it has added a fun new energy too by the way i like it dude a great

energy because within four hours of being on the chain he was telling durst to cut it with the

negativity which by the way really quickly so we have some and it kind of worked like it kind of snapped Durs out of his negativity train there a little bit and I think I think and I could be wrong here so like Durs was like posting some negative things about the defense as he always

does or whatever I'm unaware of such things because he's on his he's on his yearly he's in

timeout on my text chain but what I think um what I think Rodin wrote was a quote from one of like the inspirational things they put on the back of people's helmets to remind people not to be racist or whatever he said like it might have been a commercial was it a commercial but it was

definitely because i texted him i d i unilaterally reached out to rodin and i said dude what

Welcome to the text chain. I have no idea what you're talking about because I love Durst, but I block him during football season now. And he said, oh, just like the perfect commercial for that. And I don't know what that meant, but I took that to mean there was something in a commercial.

I'm guessing, though, that it was actually like one of those NFL PSAs. Sure, like a PSA for the NFL. Because it was something like it takes all of us, but it wasn't it takes all of us. It was something like don't be the hate you want to see in the world. That's not it because people don't want to see hate in the world.

That's what I say to my garbage man now.

Well, but let's back up here. So I was at Rodin's at one point, and this is years ago, but I remember it because it's important stuff. And I saw that somebody had written on, I believe, his yard waste bin with that wax white crayon. That is the tool of the garbage collectors. They have limited ways to communicate, and that is the way they have to communicate. And what they had written on the top of his was no sawdust. So I think it's kind of common.

That's the most Roden thing you can check on a can. Yes, exactly. The guy's always doing some home woodworking project.

Oh, here it is. And let's see. Durs had written, I've never in my life seen a worse tackling team than the 2024 Seahawks. It's simply astounding. And then Roden just wrote, take a timeout on hate, Durs. And I could just tell that take a timeout on hate was pretty good. So anyway, Roden, welcome to the club. But anyway, so I do think that like that is not uncommon to have them write something on your bin. And I'm not saying that I would I would love it, but it would be like, oh, now I know it has to be three feet away. The things that drive me crazy, the things that cause me anxiety is when they lie to me about not picking up my garbage and claiming it wasn't at the curb when I know it was when they put extra fees on my bill, when there's no reason for those fees. And I now have documented photographic evidence like that gives me anxiety. honestly using their white marker on my bins if it's truly telling me about a thing i didn't know about like i'm i'm not i'm honestly not that upset about that the problem is it's permanent

i mean it might be theoretically temporary but it for all intents and let me tell you this every time my garbage can is out and my neighbors is out they both now just say three ft like no one's scrubbing that off rodents probably still says no sawdust like i feel like You make one innocent mistake, and now you're branded for life.

I mean, I know you said you're not going to scrub it off, but if it truly bothered me, I would go out there. You know what I would start with, by the way, is I'd start – well, never mind. I almost went on a tangent about these things. I'll save it for spotless. But I would go out there with an SOS pad or a Brillo pad, and I bet you that would make quick work of it.

I could do that. i could use a a scrub baby which i think is the smallest of the scrub scrub family what i love about staying at a a residence in these days is you know they come with a kitchen i've said it before and i'll say it again i stand by residence in particularly if it's a new build being one of the greatest hotel values in america like they're just nice and they're clean and they've got a flipping kitchen which i've never even used but i like that it's there like if you're ever kind of like scanning for sort of like pretty reasonably priced non-fancy hotels in an area and you see a residence in my recommendation would be to go for that but the other thing is there's always a brand new in the bag like whatever the smallest of the scrub it's not a scrub daddy or a scrub mommy which so i am only left to think it's a scrub baby and i remember you telling me about this

at hotels i looked for these things so that i was seeing if they sold them like to just consumers as opposed to like hotel chains because i was going to surprise you with them but i didn't we didn't we like find out on the show that the scrub babies are not available to the mere mortal man it's an

exclusive deal for residents in i feel like it was something like that we could go back and because that totally makes sense because i gotta anyway i'm lousy with the things i've got a ton of them because i steal them every time i go to her i don't i never use them i never take them out of the bag i just throw them like i never take them out of the packaging i just throw them in my bag

and bring them home you're like the you're like that whale at the beginning of casino i watched casino recently have you you must have seen that right it seems like a movie you would like a lot

my relationship with casino well yes i have seen it but the move that i pulled i've talked about on the show before which 22 year old luke thought this was pretty damn funny i made a short film um for the uh stranger had a film festival back in the day maybe they still do but it was like a short film fest and i made a film and uh our friends uh john and kamaro kev helped me with this i shot it in the basement of kuaw part of it because of course i have poor work boundaries and uh the idea was it was called forbidden love and the whole joke was i set it up like i'm a director of some sort of like art film i'm talking about forbidden love and then you cuts into the movie and the movie is just my dog at the time flea who had a thing of humping people's leg anytime a vacuum was being operated. And then the movie is just flea humping people's leg set to the music of Who Let the Dogs Out. It's, you know, again, not the comedy I would bring to the world at age 48, but at age 22, I thought it was pretty deece. And what I did, though, was, so this whole movie is like 80 seconds long. I then took the credits from Casino, and I transcribed them and made them the credits for my movie. The credits for Casino are easily nine minutes long. and uh i that was i thought a third joke for the bit which was this silly movie have like you know like the uh you know the catering was four minutes of the credits for this movie so then that's what i know about i can tell you a lot about the credits of casino not a lot about the

film itself it's a beautiful film i mean beautiful there's some you know there's some grotesque violence in there of course as well but um it is a beautifully shot film and uh there is a scene near the beginning where they're they're so um there's a kind of a voiceover i'm trying to think it's kind of a dual voiceover between two different characters i think and um uh the voiceover is sort of explaining how the how the whole casino thing was working back in the late 70s and early 80s and they they do that um why am i blanking on the name of the director i'm stuttering they're doing this very scorsese thing where it's sort of a a montage of you you see somebody like kind of going about their day or whatever and they're explaining you know what's what's going on there and what they're saying is is it's guys like this who are like the biggest danger to casinos because he can just roll in spend a night at your tables and essentially like kind of clear you out because he's just yes you bet so big and so what they do in this case is they uh he's he like kind of comes into whatever casino they're running and he does exactly that But then in order to kind of get their money back, they somehow – I don't know if they actually do something to his private jet or the jet that he's flying on, or maybe they just pretend something is wrong with it. And then they mess up any kind of backup plans he has at the airport, so he's forced to come back to the casino and spend the night there. But because he's a gambler, he kind of can't help himself. He starts betting small again, but eventually they get all their money back. But the point of it is not only is this guy, this whale, like super, super, super rich, but he also they show him in the hotel room and his like servants are, you know, whatever his hired staff or whatever, are bringing him the towels and just putting them all directly in his suitcases. And they're like, not only will he like totally clear you out at the tables, he also will go into into the suites and just like steal anything that isn't nailed down, or at least as far as as far as robes and towels are concerned.

That's an interesting kind of angle. The idea being these people are rich, but they're also kind of scumbags and also kind of, you know, parsimonious with certain things.

Yeah. They even say something like the classic rich, cheap person sort of.

I am, Andrew, this is not related to rich cheapdom, but it is it's related to the kingdom of heaven.

Oh, I thought you meant the movie.

Which is I'm looking out on Hollywood Boulevard. And Hollywood Boulevard, like a lot of boulevards of this kind or places where lots of tourists now go in America, including Las Vegas, by the way. Speaking of the movie Casino, the Las Vegas Boulevard has this. The Times Square has this. You know, there are lots of people now who come out and they dress up as like Spider-Man or Wolverine or, you know, a minion. And they stand around and the hope is that someone will take a picture with them. And then they will kind of the picture is sort of free, but then there's a they try to get a tip out of the deal or something. And I'm seeing a guy on Hollywood Boulevard who I have never seen before. He's just fully dressed as Jesus Christ, which is a new wrinkle to the whole kind of thing. Like, I guess he is playing on the fact either he just had long hair and a beard and figured, I don't know, notable character from history. um or he thought maybe this is an underserved photography population um i just it's i feel

like he belongs on venice beach he should be on rollerblades on venice i mean you're absolutely

right he definitely he he belongs in a different part of los angeles um where he could probably honestly start a harem like by like 11 p.m today uh or even 11 a.m he could probably have a couple of Manson-style girlfriends and just have a whole thing going. But no, he's here on Hollywood Boulevard. He's standing in front of the Mann's Chinese Theater, and he has made the bet that dressing as Jesus Christ will get him enough photographs today that he will be able to get a little walking around money.

That is an interesting thing. Sweetie, go get a photo with Jesus of Nazareth. Right. Or maybe it's more like bros being ironic. Maybe it's like young adults being more ironic, do you think?

You know, there is that like ironic Jesus thing that went around a while ago. where he was kind of doing a big, I feel like, thumbs up and being kind of bro-y. You're right. Maybe that's what he said. Honey, go take a picture with that carpenter. Go take a picture with that long-haired man with a lot of crazy ideas.

Well, you said you're going to send me some photos for show pics. You get yourself a photo with Jesus. I'll put it online.

If I have time, Andrew. I am on my way to a place after this called The Green Room, where I'm going to once again, the amount of travel and research and interviewing that I have now done related to the ice cream confection known as the Baked Alaska is pretty intense. Consider it's going to be three minutes of television. But I'm going to this place in Burbank, California. oh this will be a good uh chance for me to you know find out if people fully appreciate the weirdness that my name is burbank when i'm in burbank you know i feel like you're always

setting yourself up for disappointment there i am i just don't want to see i'm not trying to be no but i just don't want to see you hurt yourself no i hear you no oprah no it's not oprah genevieve and i were just deconstructing about once or once every couple of months genevieve and i will quote that a little bit and then just deconstruct its its majesty again i believe i

when this came up a few months ago i said this exact thing so i apologize for being repetitive but somebody on um on tiktok like was breaking down all the different like how many jokes are happening in that moment and it's a lot it's a very the jpms are just off the charts and you and

i got it into it one time too because i was trying to explain to you that the third layer of joke that you couldn't in the moment quite grasp your, put your brain around, which is not how people talk, which is not only is it funny because it's incredibly no but, and not only is it funny because the Jane Krasinski character thinks that that is what Oprah sounds like. That's what Oprah sounds like versus Sling Blade. But when she says, no, it's not Oprah, that is her imitation of Sling Blade too. The fact that no, it's not Oprah is the best Sling Blade she can muster. It's her being slinged late. God, you're right. I sure do love them French fried potatoes. No, you don't, Oprah. It's just like there is so much packed into two lines of dialogue. It's so great.

Okay, we've got a new character on the strip, Andrew, and I'm going to need some help on this. He is – if I describe this to you, can you gorgle this and see if we can get to who this is? he is a guy in he's got a okay he's got a red umbrella he's wearing a red kind of longish coat and then a black top hat and someone's already taken a picture with this dude and he he looks like he's off of the boddington's vegan mayo um packaging which i know is a hyper specific reference but like i don't know if he is the penguin but like a classy the penguin or if he is a he's not a beef eater because he doesn't have that kind of like furry hat that they wear but like he is jesus is getting zero play right now but this guy in a black top hat a red uh longish coat with tails and then a red umbrella i mean i'm getting it let's see here man i'm just what

is that coming back i'm just just getting a bunch of generic stuff although i mean i feel like i know i feel like i i can picture this very well like a thing to me but i don't know who it is oh could it be johnny depp as um as the candy man as um you know what i'm talking about jeez louise what am i talking about willy willy willy wonka oh is it like no no no no steampunk willy

wonka no no no i would i'd believe i'd recognize that from 30 paces it's it's like a all i can say is he looks like the guy on the the by the way truly awful it's not boddington's boddington's is like a beer it's a there's a there's some kind of a like a vegan mayo that's got like a real british name and uh it's horrible i cannot highly enough tell you not to buy it if somebody is in the market for vegan mayo anyway he looks like the guy on the vegan mayo that i can't remember

the exact name of oh here is it it's probably this guy here notice me senpai notice me is that

onyx the fortuitous sure all right let's thank some donors notice me donors notice me um these are the wonderful generous people that are not spending their money taking a picture with jesus christ on hollywood boulevard but are um uh sending it to tbtl every month and it is how honestly it's how andrew and i are doing this show not standing on Hollywood Boulevard dressed as Minions.

Although I am open to some supplemental income. I could do that. How long would I last as a Minion out there on Sunset Boulevard?

Honey, take a picture with that enormous Minion.

Wait, aren't the, oh, that's right. The Minions, they're not like just scaled up. Like they tend to be small people.

No, no, they're small. And in fact, they're often, they appear to be, because I've seen them with their heads off a lot in Vegas. And in Times Square They appear to often be played by Women from Central America Who tend to be shorter anyway So I think that's a real intersection Of like I guess biology And Disneyology

Coming up on Morning Edition Oh that's what I was There was something I was going to tell you at the beginning of the show And I'm going to say it now I'm going to throw our friends over at National Public Radio I don't think it's actually called that anymore I think it's just simply NPR now I'm going to throw them under the bus here.

Give me a break. It's national. Pelosi radio? People used to call it something that was, you know, whatever. Propaganda. National propaganda radio.

But I understand that everything old is new again. There are no new ideas is maybe what I'm thinking. And in a certain way, we're all borrowing from some sort of oral tradition, I suppose. But do you know where Morning Edition did their show from today? Do you know about this? they did some sort of live broadcast from philadelphia like are you no shitting me are you

really kidding me were they at the friend center i don't think they were at the friend center i

think they realized okay that's too on the nose if i'm gonna rip off tbtl but they're essentially doing the exact same thing that we did steve inskeep came out i believe as the phantom of the opera i'm not exactly sure of that but i assume but yeah like what the heck npr i mean have a like a little bit of dignity right yeah for your for your own sake honestly ever since

i left that place honestly they've been like more or less stalking me npr yeah and just generally i can see who's checking my my the tbtl instagram yeah like it's just basically um steve inskeep just hitting refresh on the tbtl instagram feed hundreds of times a day it honestly has me

concerned for him does norah roberts have nothing else to do it's so embarrassing i have to tell

you andrew and i know we want to thank the donors folks like um isa webb of balwin missouri um thanks uh isa thanks also to melissa davis who's in milwaukee wait for it andrew oregon

norah roberts isn't who am i thinking of sorry i'm distracted now i said norah rom oh norah Nora Roberts is an author. Sorry about that. Thanks for trying to give me the cover there, but it was in my head, and I was like, that's not right. I dropped a big egg there.

I feel like, I think it's Nora, is it Nora Rom and Franco Ordonez both have names that kind of run together, and both of them have had to really make their sock out, as we used to call it, their standard out cue. They have to make their sock really over the top so that people don't think, like, don't think his name is Franco Dornes.

Oh, sure, yeah, yeah.

Or Nora Om. So I think her name is Noram, and I think, and then I definitely know that Franco Ordonez is his name, because it's like, they're like not about having their name confused, although I clearly haven't gotten the memo on Nora Rom's name.

No, Nora is Nora. It's Nora Rom.

Rom. Okay. Maybe she's not doing, maybe she's not being clear enough. Cause I definitely know that Franco Ordonez is a Franco Ordonez. It is a Frank. It is Franco. Yes. Okay. I am really stressed for Jesus right now, Andrew. Like it's weird. Like it's, it's one thing if you've got a kind of a mini mouse or a whatever hanging out, just kind of being like, you know, maybe not getting or a spider-man a dirty spider-man not getting maybe the pictures but when you see the son of god just out there hustling in front of the tcl theater trying to get a picture it's it's beneath the station of being the son of god you think so though i mean humility is part of the whole thing you know good point honestly thank you for bringing it back to that andrew because and i don't want to get i've been getting far too political far too often on the show of late uh and you know who doesn't love that flora cotties of portland oregon is a little she's like yeah okay luke i donate to the show i'm supporting you but maybe don't get so political all the time but i do appreciate you bringing it back to that andrew because i find it so weird that there are people and not our listeners but there are other people who identify as being people of faith particularly people who are Christians, and then also embrace this idea of Donald Trump when even a cursory reading of Jesus, Jesus was a goddamn communist, okay? And I mean that in the best way. Like, this guy was throwing...

There were money changers. I mean, you saw how he reacted to the money changers.

Exactly. This guy was, like, hanging out with the prostitutes. He was throwing the money changers out of the temple. He was, like, friggin' palling around with all kinds of, you know, marginalized people. the dude's whole vibe was basically he was like rage against the machine as a person but he probably

did teach a lot of like kind of hateful teachings like to not accept people if they if they love someone of the same gender and stuff like that so like literally never brought it up really but

but literally never had zero time for dividing people uh generally speaking unless they were you know messing with the temple or something but like he was not like he was he was i honestly like if you saw jesus today he would be flipping aoc or something like the idea that it's been turned into a way to uh you know sort of separate people and harm people and tell people they're not okay and it's it's it's so wild to me because it's again it's like have you even looked at a bible once person who professes to know what christ's deal was and we're definitely talking about the

same Jesus right there's not like a was it Michael Knight who had a persona like in the show the Knight Rider wasn't there an evil Michael Knight who had a mustache or something like that is there

a chance that there's there was because and I think I know about this because there's a drop that you play where Michael Knight is very confused I believe David Hasselhoff is confused and I assume that is he's confused because he's confronting evil Michael Knight oh maybe I don't

even know you might be adding you might be adding that context i'm not sure where or why i pulled

this are you all right no no i'm confused nothing makes sense to me anymore this face is not my face my whole world has disappeared and and now i'm talking to a car let's oh that

must just be right when he becomes michael knight because of course he's injured in some horrible wreck and they give him a new face which happens to look like David Hasselhoff.

Can we just go ahead and empty

the file? I'd tell you to get this through your head but you're a machine so run this through your data processor. Get

lost. So harsh and then I think he yells at him here. I hope you're not taking

that aluminum box seriously.

Oh that sounds like Kit is getting jealous of another piece of

technology. I'm going to say this okay and you're not going to like this Andrew but I stand by it. Kit gay coded. 100%.

I mean, certainly C-3PO-coded, like a little uptight. Okay, fine.

I'll take that. C-3PO-coded. Take that for whatever it means. Tiffany Peterson in South Orange, New Jersey. Thank you for the support. I don't know if you stand by my read on kit, but okay. Too late. You're donating, and we appreciate it. Too late.

You're donating. We're going to work on softening some of this. I just want to speak to the donors really quickly, Luke. Just take a breath. I just want to tell the donors that we're going to work on softening some of our messaging before the next TBT Elephant.

Can you have John put that on next week's TBTV agenda, softening Luke's pitch myth?

We don't care if you like what we're doing. Too late you donated, thank you. It's too late. No.

Thanks also to Amber Mills of Beaverton, Oregon. A lot of awesome Oregon spots checking in on this Thursday, and we love it so much. And then thanks also to Jennifer Horner, who's in Seattle, Washington.

I think, are they calling it Washington still? They're going back to Washington, yeah.

Okay. Well, thank you to all of our donors today for making TBTL possible. Couldn't do it without you. Hello and welcome to Top Story. All right. Two quick things in the travel jinx department, Andrew. The first thing is I think that the airlines have, in a way, created a monster. And here's what I mean. You've probably had this experience where you're on a flight that is going somewhere, but there are people with connections, you know, people on that flight who this is not their final destination. They are then going to try to go get to another airplane and go where they're going. And because of the vagaries of air travel these days and because of, I think, a lot of larger economic forces, i.e. the airlines just wanting to make more money, you know, like it's a cool move where Congress bails them out every eight years and then they go back to just printing money. And their new favorite way to print money is to have fewer flights and to put more people on every flight and and also to create a situation where flights are they feel it feels anyway like flights are late more often, particularly these kind of small regional little, you know. shuttlejumper planes. And so oftentimes now when I'm on a plane and it's landing, they will make an announcement over the intercom that says, we have people with very tight connections, or we have people who are, you know, trying to get to their flight. So could you please stay in your seat and allow those people to just go down the aisle? Have you had that happen ever on a

flight? Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, that's one of the moments where I'm actually kind of proud of humanity. I feel like people do a pretty good job of realizing, hey, we're all in this together. I might want to stretch my legs a little bit and stand in the aisle, but it makes a lot more sense to get these folks off the plane. Let's all help them. I agree. I do think it is a

nice moment of humanity that is a good thing. And as a person who's occasionally been that person who's very late for a connecting flight, I've appreciated the kindness. Now, here's what happened yesterday when I was flying from San Jose down here to Los Angeles. So we were filming in san jose yesterday and then came down here and uh it's a pretty short flight and i was actually pretty stoked uh because the flight took off on time and it was uh you know a quick hop down here we land i'm in like row six or something i was on delta by the way uh our friend p fletch and i were texting because we were both on delta flights yesterday and that's not either of our where we have any status and it's uh you know it's it's tough out there if you're used to a certain level of being coddled and then you're on an airplane that you don't have any status with so i was in coach i'm sitting there and the plane lands it gets to the gate and bing you know we all kind of stand up and this woman comes barreling down the aisle with her big rolling suitcase and she's like i'm sorry i'm late for my flight i'm sorry i'm sorry and she's just like goes past everyone all the way up to the front now this is the thing andrew and i looked at my seatmate i looked around we all kind of laughed because guess what our flight landed 25 minutes early i've never even been on a flight that landed 25 minutes early it must have been some weird we just got this window at lax where we could land like they must have booked they must have blocked the flight out to be whatever an hour and a half the flight was 45 minutes and there's no way this person was late for their connecting flight we were 25 minutes early with the door open of the airplane this person has just learned that you can pretend you're late for your connector and bomb down the aisle and get off the flight first but her story fell apart because we were there early

there was no way she was late for her flight do you think though in all seriousness do you think that she's just a super anxious person and just think like in other words to a more seasoned traveler you guys are all more chill about it she wasn't actually trying to deceive you just in her head she was feeling stressed and late is there any chance yes that's possible i mean one

thing i will say is and this doesn't um this doesn't invalidate what you were saying um certainly when you're on an airline if you're if you're flying and which is what most people do most of the time you're if you have a connecting flight it's the same airline you know like we're on delta the great likelihood would be her next flight is also on delta i have occasionally out of pure desperation booked a flight to like chicago on one airline and then changed airlines in chicago which is a real dangerous game dano because like airline number two has absolutely zero responsibility to airline number one you know about getting you to the the flight um but presuming that this woman was on the same airline they literally won't let you book a flight that's too tight because they don't want you to miss your connecting and then it's on their you know it's on them so i know that doesn't really address your question you're just saying what if her anxiety is just completely not reality based and she just wanted to get off the plane i mean i guess if she was having a meltdown or something whatever but i just thought it was it was funny because it was like she was saying to everyone i'm sorry my flight i'm late for my flight i'm late for my flight who was some real like i'm late i'm late for a very important date energy and uh we all looked at each other we all laughed i mean actually honestly she she blessed our afternoon because we got to spend a moment laughing together at how preposterous this idea was

because of how early our flight landed what was her i want to profile this person because i hear That's something good to do with people

C-3PO coded Was she like kind of

Like um Did she have a bunch of Did she look like somebody who travels a lot Or did she look like she was kind of sort of chaotic Like she's holding like a neck pillow And she's got all these things And she's got a plastic bag as a carry on Nope

She had a rolling suitcase She didn't have any other bags that I noticed I actually observed her Before the flight just because we happened to be standing near each other and she didn't, whatever being anxious looks like, Like, she didn't appear to be overly anxious. She didn't look like a true road warrior, which you can really spot. First of all, they usually have to me luggage. And then usually they'll have some sort of, like, luggage tag that indicates the amount of miles that they've flown on that airplane or on that airline, rather, in the last year. Like a branded Alaska Airlines gold 75K, whatever. I can always spot a hardcore traveler. This person did not appear to be a hardcore traveler, but also did not appear, did not appear to be like the first time they'd been on an airplane in, you know, 10 years or something. But anyway, so I'm just, I guess what I'm saying is if anyone does want to get off the airplane, there's a new hack, which is just bomb down the aisle and tell everyone that you're late for your connector and you'll be able to get off the airplane. The other thing that happened when I got here to Los Angeles, I'm staying in this Roosevelt Hotel, which is not my usual. Sorry, they're vacuuming the hallway here. I don't know if that's coming through on the microphone, but I am we're filming in Burbank, California. And so and for timing reasons, I needed to be closer to that area because we're going to you and I are going to finish up here and I need to go kind of right to this shoot. So I'm staying at a hotel I don't usually stay at. I have been here before. this is also where i interviewed that actor austin butler the guy uh the elvis guy um and uh so i've been in this hotel it's a kind of a legendary hollywood hotel pretty cool place actually but andrew when i have as i'm about to say this i already can feel that you're not going to be as you're not going to take the umbrage that i'm taking over this whole thing they took a lobby

they took a wax pen and wrote on your luggage they did i was like come on ft

um well first of all it's interesting this hotel is interesting to me because it's it's very legendary in hollywood and it was clearly built back when there were fewer lawsuits and by that i mean when you enter the hotel you're at this kind of one level like you think you're oh i'm at the lobby level i'm walking into the hotel and it's all spanish tile it's actually a very beautiful spanish tile but it's hard to wheel your suitcase on whatever but then the beautiful spanish tile at some point just drops by like three feet into a stairwell down to the lobby but where you actually check in but there's no like you know guardrail it's all the same color which you forget about how much these little kind of like visual indicators of like modern building kind of do a job if that makes any sense like all of the spanish tile is this kind of greenish it's actually again it's very beautiful I would love to have it like in my house but it's totally imperceptible where you're now going down pretty sizable stairs like maybe a set of like three or four stairs and like I'm like how many people just eat shit off of this every day as I walked in the um Bellman outside a very nice guy uh looked like kind of Patrick Swayze point break era patrick swayze and i thought this is a dude i'm gonna see in something some years from now like right now he's the bell guy at the hollywood roosevelt hotel but uh someday he'll tell the story of when this was his job as he's starring in the you know point break reboot reboot or whatever um but he said welcome in and then he said and by the way be careful there are steps there and i was like this guy has to tell everyone this because there have been various problems with this staircase that's not what had me annoyed it was just an observation but i get to the front desk and a really nice dude there's three people like un who are not engaged we're not occupied there are three people working at the front desk they're all standing behind their workstation they have computers people have been to hotels we know what this looks like okay i don't have to over describe it but they're all there i walk up and i say uh checking in and the guy says okay great uh can i get your id and i said sure and he goes okay and then i'll just have you log in there on the ipad and i realized that there is on a stand in front of me an ipad and in fact this ipad is at each like workstation where you would come to check in and i was like um okay i go uh what do i uh what do i need to do and he goes oh you just you just log in on the ipad i was like okay um so uh he goes yeah it's called canary and i was like all right so i start trying to log in on this thing and first of all i just want to say ipads are a nightmare to try to type into right like any tablety thing it's not going to be as easy as like a good old-fashioned you know

brick and mortar keypad or a keyboard uh this login that i had to do andrew while this poor man had to watch me do it was so involved it was my full name it was my address it was my phone number in two places it was My country of origin. Did they just put U.S. at the top? Nope. Azerbaijan. It was scroll down to the U's. Oh, have you hit Toga and Tobago? Keep going. Actually, is that how the alphabet works? L-M-N-P-Q-R-S-T-U. Yes. Keep going to the U's. And then every time I would hit done on it, it would take me back to a field that I had not entered the information. it was one of the more infuriating experiences i have ever had in my life and i don't put any of it on this guy working at the front desk this poor young man i'm sure is getting i said how i said how long have they had this go and he goes about a week oh and i go i go i bet it's

really popular he goes you have no idea this poor that must have felt good because you're like kind to get a little cranky anchors i mean i don't know if you're like me i you know when i'm feeling angry in a situation like that or put out or something like that i also have to kind of ask myself like yeah but am i also just sort of old is this just the way things go i stamped out of a wing stop one time because they said that i could just place an order at the counter i had to place it online first but i could go out in the parking lot and place the order on my phone and i was just like what in the hell are you you want me to walk away from you go on my phone outside place an order and then wait around like i and again that's not the the person making minimum wage behind this crappy wing stop that's not his fault but i was just like not today satan um pardon me as i clear my throat which if you got the veggie wings they might have been made

from satan so that would have been extremely relevant do we have a show title not today

satan because we do now we do now um but anyway you know when i'm in a mode like that i'm like but is it me am i not changing with the times is this just the way it is but it must have felt so good to have the validation of this guy being like you have no idea and also to know that it's a brand new system that maybe will uh be short-lived i sure hope oh yeah and by the way

i mean definitely you're in the best emotional state for this after a flight and then a one hour and 30 minute lift ride from lax to hollywood on a on a wednesday afternoon right so it's like it's also like the last place well one of the last places where people are in a good mood to do this thing which is again not easy because it's everything was a like required field and again it's some bs system called canary and as i was standing there i was like i'm now by the way i don't necessarily think that this this actually i don't want to say that i was going to say i don't necessarily know if this young person wants to have the same job in 10 years but that sounds like i'm kind of saying it's not a good job and i don't mean it that way but what i felt like i was doing as i entered information into this tablet was i was erasing this kid like marty mcfly in back to the future like why in the living flip would i have to do this annoying thing while a guy is watching me do it a guy who could be entering the same information into his system

why am i doing this with a regular keyboard tip it tip tap tap tap that's one with a regular keyboard that's one of the i mean there's something about you mentioned that you can be really like bedraggled and in a bad mood after a long day of flying in a hotel lobby when you first arrive but also i think of it um as like it's also like such a calming like you've you've made it you you woke up super early wherever you arrive from you made it through stupid tsa you know what i mean like for me i think i told you this before like you're always like kind of counting down okay then we got to do this i gotta gotta connect one more play and then do that and there's something about when you walk into a hotel lobby hopefully a lot of that is just sloughing off of you because you smell that like whatever that like sort of like clean lobby air freshenery smell is you're like okay i'm here that it feels good maybe it's hot outside but the air conditioner is on in the lobby like this should be your nice little like your cloud-like pillow landing i will tell you

that there well i'll tell you about the good elements of this hotel in a second but what i will say about the the last thing i'll say about this ipad was the only reason for this to exist is to wear us down as customers and acclimate us to this so that someday when i come back to the hollywood roosevelt hotel there will not be a human being standing there there will be this ipad and i will fully have to check myself in and do the whole thing and i've said this before on the show what i don't like about this is that i'm the king of weaseling and i don't think i can weasel the iPad the way I can weasel a human like hey can I get something on a higher floor oh hey do you I'm in a room with a queen bed any chance you got any rooms with a king bed still you know like stuff like that I feel like my wiggle room is diminished now that's like sort of a personal

problem but i just in in tap tap tapping into this ipad i just felt like i was watching this kid disappear or at least this job disappear like i knew what they were doing to me with this stupid ipad i weaseled an ipad once it was upsetting it was difficult now i will tell you a couple things about the hollywood roosevelt hotel that i think are great and it's not something that i'm actually availing myself of this trip but i i think it's a great idea i'm in this room um and i'm in you know it's a typical hotel room which is to say you you open the door into the hotel room immediately to your right is the bathroom you go down a kind of a very short narrow hallway and then you're in this main area where there's a bed and everything obviously but what they have in this hotel room andrew is a you're familiar with like kind of what's called like a barn door like a door that's on you know it's it doesn't it doesn't open on hinges but it slides on kind of some wheels so that you don't take up as much room so it's got a barn door here in the bedroom area that serves no purpose other than to create one more barrier between you and the bathroom the bathroom has its own door but this also has a barn door that you can slide i thought it was the closet when i got in here i was like all right and then i closed it and i realized nope it is just here to create more barriers between this bed area and the bathroom and i was like god bless america yeah

this is almost made up for the ipad yeah you know you you the the line broke up for a second so i was a little confused you sounded angry there you were speaking with with such passion luke you're I'm a passionate man like all of us Greeks. Fiery, passionate Albanian. Yes. And I was confused because I thought you were angry at this extra door. And I was thinking, dude, this is what you want. You want extra barriers. I thought you would put in five doors if you could.

I'm so happy about this door that I'm angry.

You're angry that there aren't more doors in the world. Exactly.

Thank you. That's exactly what's happening. I am so I am so in love with this door concept that I'm now furious that other hotels haven't gotten haven't hopped on this. It's it is a totally I won't I won't call it superfluous. It's very perfluous. It has a perfluous like all of us. We're all God's creations and we all have a perfluous, Andrew. And this door's perfluous is to be closed so people don't hear you throwing a real paint job down in the bathroom. And I absolutely love it.

It's the right way to rock and the wrong way to roll. You can just listen to your soul. Just remember that life is number one. You can be having so much fun. Just remember that life is much fun. You can be number one.

All right, let's do some Blursdays here. Luke, do you know, Luke, if you wanted to submit a Blursday to somebody, do you even know how you would do it?

Mm-hmm.

How would you do it?

I would send an email to andrew at tbtl.net. I would put Blursday in the subject line.

Yes, you would. Yes, you would.

And then I would just glue myself to my cell phone or computer or however I listen to podcasts.

And then would you download the show several times just to see, like, just to make sure that we're getting good ratings on iTunes? Mm-hmm. Just add that in there as an instruction. Right. That's exactly what you do. You send me an email, andrewatvtell.net. You have a Blursday in the subject line. That's how you get your Blursdays read on the show. That's what Jessica did. And Jessica wrote, I want to wish a very happy Blur's Day to my adorable five, Gus. Gus turns 12 on Saturday, and we have fun remembering his arrival, along with Hurricane Sandy, when this time of year comes around. However, unlike that hurricane, Gus is a kind, caring, funny, generous kid, amazing pet parent to cats, cookie and cream, and daily dog walker of Bogart. We love you, Gus. Happy Blurs Day, Gus. You're 12 now. Nice. We've got a lot of Gus's. We do. Yeah, I think it's a big Gus generation. It is. This one, I was going to write anonymous, but I guess it was actually signed, Your Flippery Tiger. So Your Flippery Tiger says, and I've got to say, this is one that just let folks know that sometimes I have to edit these things down. So this was part of a much longer, very, very romantic note that maybe Flippery Tiger can share with Shelly. But here's part of it. I want to wish a very happy Blur's Day to my love, Shelly. Living with you this past year-ish.

It has been the best time of my life. I'm so grateful for you and all you do, preparing food for me, sometimes dancing while you do so, expanding my culinary ability, speaking your mind to me, organizing home projects, getting my goats and saying, oh, getting goats. I love getting people's goats. Getting my goats and saying. You're a big goat getter. I am. I am a big goat getter. Not so much a go-getter, but really a goat getter. No, it's a very, when they were handing out go-getters, I thought they said goat getters. You thought they said goat getters and asked for a twin. Let's see here. I'll back up speaking your mind to me, organizing home projects, getting my goats and saying, I heard that in the morning. Anyway, happy Blurze to Shelly from your Flippery Tiger and your friends at TBTL.

Cute.

And Lloyd says, I'd like to. This is Lloyd who likes to email me. Lloyd is always keeping an eye on the website. If there's any issues with the audio on the website, Lloyd is my go to guy. And Lloyd says, I'd like to wish myself a happy 84th Blur's Day. Hell yeah, Lloyd. My bracelet says, I'm a junior slugger. I'm also known as Halloween Lloyd. Happy Blur's Day, Halloween Lloyd. Thanks for being our friend.

Hell yeah, Lloyd.

Hell yeah. And those are our Blur's Day for today.

I was listening to The Daily this morning on my little jog, and I thought it was very funny because it was a roundtable, various political reporters and they were all joking about how michael barbaro says hmm too much yeah on the show they were like i'll give that a michael barbaro hmm like they were all just kind of roasting him i really like it i know you don't so much love the like um npr style now of kind of faux jocularity um i i personally feel like the daily kind of has it down like so there's this running theme right now that they got new daily branded coffee cups that everybody that comes in to be interviewed is like oh coffee cups can i have one and michael boris i was like no we don't have enough of them that's great and this morning one of the reporters was like i'm just he was like welcome to the show and she was like i'm just here for the coffee cups can i have one and he goes no and he just goes right into his next thing that's like they didn't even hang out

on it i love that you know i have not listened to the daily in a long time i have always found the hmms and haze in fact i feel sort of seen because that was an early sort of i was like wow that's so distracting the the hmm having said that i've always been a fan and again i have not heard the show in a minute wait no i have heard the show it's been a minute it's been a minute right now it's all confused where's sam sanders all right anyway where's britney loose britney loose is that the so that show has it's been a minute and they've kept the name it's been a

minute so okay i believe so i think i remember when he left there's i thought there was gonna

be some question about that that's a tough thing right because you got name like it's been a minute It seemed so indelible to the Sam Sanders brand. It seemed to be an extension of him, that show. But then if he leaves for other pastures, I was going to say greener, but I don't want to put judgment value on it. If he leaves for other pastures.

Brown ass pastures can be good, too.

But you're NPR. You're like, well, we have this product with name, you know, with name recognizability. What is the word I'm looking for? Good Lord.

Recognition?

Recognition. I'm going to get some sleep before tomorrow's show.

Well, I want to mention, too, to the listeners that they won't know this the way you are, but because I'm in an ancient and historic Hollywood hotel, they've apparently used the Wi-Fi that Steve McQueen used to use.

It's literally the ghost of Steve McQueen.

Warren Beatty is doing the IT here, and he's not good. So anyway, I know that what I'm saying is very garbled for what Andrew is hearing. It'll get fixed in post to some degree. But anyway, I appreciate you being a trooper today, Andrew.

Do not go on a boat with the ghost of Warren Beatty. I'll just say that.

No, I think you're thinking of a different... Oh, no, did I just make him a murderer? Yeah, I think you're thinking of Robert Wagner.

Okay, everybody just pretend I didn't say that. You know what? I didn't say that. The line is breaking up. Exactly.

The line is very garbled, and it's causing Andrew to besmirch Warren Beatty.

Don't go backstage to a Madonna concert with the ghost of Warren Beatty. There, I nailed it. I got my cultural references.

Got the nose up, and now we're getting out. I'm going to go down there, and I'm going to take a goddamn picture with Jesus so he at least makes some money this morning.

Man, if you actually did that, that would be a hell of a show pick, but I don't think you're going to.

You know what? Let me see. I'm going to get sort of packed up here and on my way to the shoot. If I've got an extra five minutes, I will attempt to do that, okay, Andrew? But I am charging the $5 tip to the TBTV account, okay?

You absolutely should use your card. Wait, I guess your card doesn't work, but yeah, no, you should be reimbursed for that. that would be a show expense if we commissioned this photo well then we're paying for it okay i'm

gonna i will no promises i get you know this is one of those moments where the listeners know more about the future than i do

I'll tell you what, if you want to go on a second date with Jesus, we'll pay for it. Okay.

What if we're driving and I'm trying to take a sweater off? Can I have him take the wheel?

Yes, you can. Is he your co-pilot? Is that what you'd say?

He sure is. He sure is. Okay. Thanks, everybody, for listening. We're going to be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for you. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all. I'm sorry, Warren Beatty.

I believe it's time for a strategic withdrawal, Michael.

Power out.