Muse

Hey friendos this is Gillian and Sammamish and I'm so grateful for you guys for doing your episode post-election and I really appreciate you doing it and play the play the music I'm not gonna cry but um but I wanted to to add um you know you're talking about you know be of service to others and um you know to help yourself along and coincidentally I'll be helping with a fundraiser at my son's school tomorrow for his elementary, and I will be working for dollars and dressed up in a hot dog costume. So, you know, when times get tough, you just got to get up the next day, I guess, and put on your hot dog costume and get back to work. So thank you guys so much for everything you do. Yeah, love you guys. Bye.

tbtl

sometimes you just gotta you know grit your teeth and look life right in the face and you say stop it you know please stop please why are you doing this to me i haven't even done anything to please stop and boom goes the dynamite was my underwear showing when i was climbing down the

tree i wore my thursdays because my saturdays had a case of the mondays if you know what i mean Hey Lloyd, do some delivery for the truck to the airport.

Can't you say anything in a normal way? The answer, sadly, is not yes.

Hey, you sound like you might be a little bit jealous, babe. No, and I know a little something about being jealous because people have been jealous of me my entire life. What do you do?

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. Gotta do it again, right now. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

Hello, everyone!

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it's an absolutely gorgeous day. Oh, ma, pa, it's just beautiful. In the weather department. In the emotional department, I think we're all still sort of digging out. But I have to say, here on this Thursday, I feel like there is a path forward. For me, that involves jogging around Lake Sacagawea, back on my 75 hard-ish. Yesterday was for lying around in bed, and today is for returning to life and looking down the road and seeing what's coming our way. Here's what's coming your way, episode 4,332 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. Something that helped me this morning was watching Jimmy Kimmel's monologue from last night.

Ready to laugh and drop until your socks come off?

Turns out Andrew and I weren't the only major media figures crying on the air yesterday. It was also Jimmy Kimmel. But it was a nice balance, his monologue, of comedy and seriousness. And I don't know, there was something about hearing it that just kind of helped lift me out of maybe, you know, the malaise that i think a lot of us are in so we're going to play that today and also it's a thursday aka blurs day the blurs days do not stop just because we've got a big long road ahead of us so we will celebrate those we're considering them protest birthdays they were spooky birthdays on halloween now they're protest birthdays just being born as an act of protest in this country my friends and some people did it and we're going to celebrate them today on the show and we're going to talk to this guy longest running co-bro of the program maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ship sometimes there's a little confusion around what's happening at the top of the show they suddenly realized i was talking to them but today he knows exactly what is going on he's andrew walsh and he's joining me right now good morning my friend would you say we're

speaking blurs to power today is that what we're doing i didn't realize that in fact today you you know that i dialed up very late today came racing into my office pretty um late and um today was one of those days where i was reminded that it's a blurs day as we were doing sound check and you played the little kid saying it's my birthday i'm like oh yeah yeah i gotta get these blurs days in

order like i totally understand that because uh i you know for obvious reasons my timing this week has been totally off and here's something that you'll appreciate and this is relevant to your interest garbage talk this morning I was I realized that the garbage in my kitchen was full and so I was bagging it up and I kind of have this move where if I don't feel like going all the way out to the garbage can I'll bag up the the garbage and I'll take the it has two receptacles I'll take the two bags and I'll kind of place them out in the front of the house so that when I come out to do the show or go on my jog or whatever I will

take them up up the hill all the way to the garbage can and i looked up and i realized oh snap my neighbor's garbage can is out it is thursday oh and i had completely forgot i was so i was wallowing in so much grief for this country yesterday that i forgot it was wednesday my wednesdays had a case of the forgetting it was wednesday and uh but it was a miracle i mean it was i guess it was maybe 7 a.m but sometimes they come even earlier than that so i like jumped into my Birkenstocks. Yes, Andrew, I wear Birkenstocks now sometimes, and that's okay.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This didn't even come up in the Teva conversation. And the fact that I just said

Teva... It was post... We live in a post-Teva world,

Andrew. I'm really... I know this is incredibly obstinate, but I hate myself for calling them Tevas. And I know that that is... I have now learned in the past several months, since the topic came up on the show, that they're not called Tevas. But I called them Tevas my whole life. I don't have a lot of respect for Tevas. No offense to Tevas, but they're not a product that demands my respect. And therefore, when I got these angry emails from people saying, please pronounce it right, it's Teva, I was thinking to myself, I will never call them Tevas. I am standing blurs to power. But here I am. You know me. I always have to say everything right. I always have to pronounce everything absolutely perfectly, Luke.

I guess when push comes to shove. You know, Andrew, when people tell you who they are, believe them.

Yeah.

And I guess we can believe that you're a person who, even though it absolutely rankles you to call it Teva, when push comes to shove, you're going to go with the proper pronunciation, even though it kills you inside just a little bit.

But you are a Birkenstock boy now, huh?

I am a Birkenstock boy. so um what i need here at the madrona hill studio and down at my little house is a um i need footwear that i can slip into uh and then because there's a lot of like i again it's an i have to go outside to go between this converted garage i'm in and the house and so but i don't necessarily always want to like tie like sit down and put a pair of shoes on and tie them so i wanted something i could slip into and i got some uh some burks and i asked becca if that was acceptable she said absolutely and i've also noticed i've seen people wearing them so those kind of like leather clog kind of birkenstocks i have oh so you're you're not peeping the toes no no this is sorry i yeah i you're you're thinking of the classic i am thinking of the classic kind of uh jesus style i assume jesus wore birkenstocks first girl i ever kissed wore those kinds of birkenstocks by the way i think i would guess that the the first person that many people kissed if they're our age was wearing those birkenstocks because they were so popular in kind of um high school college grad school depending on when you bloom i love that yeah

post postgraduate work like well let's see it wouldn't be grade school for andrew wouldn't first job second second job first manager position that's what a lot of people were wearing in their mid 40s yeah but how are you feeling by the way i'm sorry i actually feel better than i sound

okay if that's any consolation earlier i do i do seem a little raspy i think somebody reposted um on the onion yesterday uh they had written uh tense nation asks obama if they can bomb 380 cigarettes yeah something to that effect i sound like i smoked 380 cigarettes i didn't I'm still a little under the weather, but I'm feeling a lot better than I did yesterday for a variety of reasons. Anyway, I jumped in my Birkenstocks, and I ran up to the garbage, and I wheeled it up the hill to the spot that it goes. And not a minute too soon, because I turned around and was doing something else and then looked out the porthole, literally, in my door, and the garbage can was empty. So, whew, that was just by the skin of my teeth.

Well, you know, it's funny that you brought that up because I have a little bit of a, and I really, I swear, I made a conscious decision not to bring up garbage with you today because I didn't want to get into it because I know I can sort of derail the show with my bullshit. There's nothing huge going on with, oh, I did think of something that I wanted to run by you that is not garbage related, but something that I witnessed last night that I immediately, in the moment, I don't usually say this, but in the moment I said to these, I'm like, well, I got something to talk about on TV tomorrow. But it is a big, big, big garbage day here in the Walsh-Has household. Sorry, Has-Walsh household. I think Genevieve deserves first billing, and I think most people would agree with that. The Halsh household, the Waz household. Ooh, we're getting further. Have you portmentoed it? But today is what I call big garbage day, which means all three bins go out. Recycling is only every other week, so that's why it's big garbage day. um but uh but it's big big big big garbage day today because it is if you'll look at your calendars and probably a lot of

people didn't notice this but we're in the month of november we're in the first week of november right now just like any other week a lot of people don't notice the calendar this time of year but we are in november and november in in in this country only means one thing and that is free yard waste pickup with up to 10 happy yard waste month to all who celebrate exactly they'll never take that from me luke um but music in the shawshank redemption they let you take your bags of leaves down there no i had them in here luke and in here um i uh but anyway yeah so in seattle you know we have a small little green yard waste slash food waste bin uh that is usually it's probably maybe five gallons or something but it looks like a tiny little boy out there and that's usually fine for us but as you know luke during the usually mid-summer we do a huge yard work project around here where we trim all of our hedges which are formidable all the way around our property and we end up with like well i can tell you we did most of the hedges this year not even all of them and i ended up with eight of those brown yard waste bags you know they're like triple ply yard waste bags and um they uh we we filled those things up and i put in my garage And then what I should do is drive them to the dump right away. There's some fee. I don't know. It's maybe 30 bucks or something for that much yard waste. But in the back of my head, I'm always like, yeah, this is where I'm such a cheapskate. I'm like, yeah. But, like, come November, there's that free yard waste pickup. Like, every pickup day in November, they'll pick up up to 10 extra bags. And like, so for the past, I don't know what, three or four months, I've had these brown, those big, tall brown bags filled with hedge trimmings in my garage. And what happens, Luke, and this is where things get a little bit gross. And again, just pay the 30 bucks to get rid of them right away. Right. Although they come to me this way, the yard collectors do or the garbage collectors do. They sit in these brown bags in my garage for so long that they start to decompose. You know, all the leaves and everything in there, they're brand new, fresh green when I trim them. Then they go in these bags and the bags are full when I fill them up. But over the course of months, the bags sort of seem less and less full because, you know, they're they're drying out. They're losing the moisture in a way. They're decomposing. And then when you go to pick up the brown bags underneath, you can see you can feel that they're getting wet underneath. And it's not from moisture in the garage. It's just from the, you know, the decomposition process. So anyway, I'm carefully picking up these bags, hoping that none of them will break when I pick them up yesterday as I as I skirt them out of my.

So there must be grass clippings in there too, right? Because I feel like your hedge – I'm surprised to hear that the hedge stuff has actually generated some sort of moisture. It seems like it's become a dry bunch of sticks.

Well, as they dry, though, that moisture goes somewhere. So if you think about a compost pile, I'm basically making – these eight bags are like eight little compost bins in my garage where it is drying out on top, which is, again, one of the reasons why it seems less full as time goes on. but the stuff at the bottom the stuff that's compacted at the bottom and it is just the it's just the the hedge trimmings it's those waxy what is it is a boxwood that we have i can't remember i've been told like a million times i can never remember i'm obsessed with these hedges and i don't know what they are but either way i've said too much i've created these little compost bins in my garage and right around november i'm just like we cannot wait anymore and so i pulled them all out of the garage i say they all left these little ghostly shapes on the ground where they had been like sort of decomposing and i'm just praying that the yard waste collectors today can pick those up without the bags busting open and get them out of my life forever could you take

them would they charge you if you took them to the the recycling station yeah like i said like

about 30 bucks or something it's not too bad but maybe maybe for maybe it's like 30 for for recycling maybe it's like 18 for yard waste but it's also a matter of just like i don't have a truck i can fit all of these in the back of our car but it's not the most convenient thing in the

world either you know i love nothing more in fact i've now because uh the the sort of home improving has revved up again in a certain way oh by the way i had just a just an absolute nightmare scenario unfold last night regarding me and some ikea furniture andrew i was i was gonna say i've got like three huge kind of like those you know sort of hefty cans that are just full of like construction waste now oh yeah that I need to um uh I need to take down to the dump I do there's nothing I enjoy more than going to the dump even though my car is very poorly designed for it I have a Mazda CX-5 oh that's right you don't have that little recline all the seats in and like do this crazy put this I don't even have a proper tarp you know what I have is like a weird blanket that you can zip into it zips into its own package if that makes sense it's only a pouch and then you unzip becca's brother scott got it in a race like he ran a race they're very big running family and like they gave him this is like what you got for participating in the race and he made the mistake of leaving it in my car and now it's become my official

dump blanket so sorry scott but um are you sure he wasn't just looting an rei and then running away from it and you thought it was a race i mean with him you never know i mean we're talking this

guy is like a you know like sub three hour marathoner it's totally ridiculous like i had a i'm sorry this sounds like a humble brag on my part but there was a saturday a couple of saturdays ago where i ran 10 miles and i had and we all got together oh this was um uh for the the pet halloween costume contest i had run 10 miles and i had run the least of anyone in the family it's like what the hell like that should be a flex in most situations and it was like Becca had done 17, Scott and Tiffany had done God knows what, and I'm just like, I can't believe that I am, I'm the one phoning it in with 10 miles in this group, but all that is to say, I love, even though it's basically taking years off the life of my car to take these big, dumpy garbage cans down to the waste station, it really fills me with such joy that, you know, I would recommend it to anyone.

I know that we should just move on. Are they on their side?

That's where it gets tricky. So they have to be on their side. So what I have to do is bungee cord them. Yeah, okay. So phase one is I have to kind of make sure there's no water has collected in them. They have lids, but the lids always blow off at some point. And then the rain accumulates. So first I have to kind of like dump them out, but also kind of use the lid. It's like you're straining a thing, a pasta or something, except the pasta is a bunch of weird odds and ends of electrical cords and shit you know so we have to kind of like dump it all out try to get it down to where it's not wet then i put the lid back on then i bungee cord it like crazy i do this like three of these things i spread out the blanket i stole from scott and then i place these things i can fit three of them kind of side by side and then i drive it down to the dump and then they go wait a minute you live in oregon because i still have the oregon plates on my car i've never fixed that and then i go well i go back and forth and then they go if they're being a stickler they charge me like ten dollars and if they're being chill they charge me seven dollars and 77 cents which i feel like is a lucky number yeah it is lucky number seven like man if this was i was playing three card poker

this would be amazing you still have a an oregon license too yes okay i was gonna say because i

I haven't changed any of my stuff, which is so silly. I need to just do it. But I've been like, because for a while I was legitimately living in both places. And I just kind of never really fixed that. But I should do that soon. Anyway, all that is to say, Andrew, I have been getting some work done around here. As I mentioned, I now have kind of moved the sleeping operation downstairs into this room that was like, I guess you would call it maybe the dining room or something. when i bought the house like this little room that was off the kitchen and i've been kind of sprucing it up and i uh kind of you know making it was very very sterile when i moved my bed in there just like white freshly painted walls hardwood floor echoey just kind of like you know very inhospitable so now i have a little rug that i got that i put under the bed and um and i I ordered this like a drawer or dresser thing from Ikea. And the interior of the closet is 63 inches, okay? So the width of the closet is 63 inches from end to end. And the idea is this thing was gonna go inside the closet and beneath where I have the clothing hanger where I hang my shirts and stuff like that. And I intentionally bought one that was like 61 inches, it's smaller than the interior space it's going in, but it'll be a nice, you know, it'll fill it out pretty closely to the parameters of the closet. Well, last night, so I was kind of sick yesterday. I slept for a few hours in the afternoon, then I woke up, and then I just thought, you know, let me just try at least to do something. Also, by the way, Roden, the text chain that you're dying to get on between Roden and Genevieve and I, Roden has been doing some great stuff at his house in his kid's bedroom putting in these very nice like built-in closet things so i was feeling inspired to get my ikea assembly on because they had delivered this thing this malm dresser in its three boxes so i was like i'll just do this and if i get tired or whatever i'll stop so i kind of got into it i was listening to coast to coast with art bell from 1997 where the oj jury had just been had just gone into deliberation. wow that was a blast from the past yeah you know i need i can't follow today's news i need something to relax i'm gonna listen to a coast to coast it was it was not it was hilarious because it wasn't

even specifically about that it was like yeah of course because it's coast to coast it was about aliens but it was like in other news the the jury in the oj simpson case has begun deliberations i love that i love that i mean honestly it was i want to talk about this actually in a moment more formally but there is something that has become very apparent to me in the last i guess what 48 hours as a result of the election and then my sort of media consumption that i really want to talk to you about but quickly the story on this malm thing is i get it all put together pretty much and then i realize first of all it's almost impossible to get it into the closet because the closet the back of the closet the interior of it is 63 inches but there is a frame around the outside of the closet where the doors go right they have like these two kind of sliding doors that uh jingle all the way uh that my dad and i um stained and installed and the problem is to get past this frame where the doors are that is actually like maybe 60 inches so this thing's like an inch too big and because of its shape you can't just kind of like i thought i would just be able to shimmy it in kind of like angle it in and then you know what i mean i had to like take all the clothes out take the rack out stand it up on its end i'm doing this by myself in birkenstocks still kind of sick right but this is how i get with stuff like i just become like obsessed i get it finally in position it's placed in there and i realized into that because of the frame because of the exterior of this closet the drawers won't open won't open i was before you said it i thought yes yes so this took me like easily four hours of my night last night getting this thing all together and then realizing nope this ain't gonna work

because they're hitting because when you go to open the drawer yeah what's it very outer edge

of the drawers are hitting the inside of the closet i measured the wrong thing you thought

you could should have measured the opening okay yeah yeah yeah yeah and i was just sitting there

like i mean again this pales in comparison with like the future of democracy but let's just say

it wasn't what i needed it's a strong number two it's a strong number two which by the way have you had one of those yet too like we're all just i haven't stopped you have one of those this morning yet um that is so what's the status of this thing well just gonna set fire to it out of the closet what's that just gonna set fire to it in the closet well andrew i did have a hammer

because you have to nail these like ikea things are sort of like there's usually some particle board backing to the situation that you actually nail down um so i had this hammer and i was tempted to just absolutely turn my bedroom into a rage room i was tempted to really process some feelings with that hammer vis-a-vis this piece of furniture but i did not i sort of extricated it and i called ikea this morning and i explained it to them and i said am i allowed to return this And the lady said, yeah, absolutely.

In its completed form, in its built form? Yes. Assembled is the word I was looking for there. What's that? I just couldn't think of the word assembled. Assembled is the word I was looking for.

I was shocked. She said, yeah, you just have to be there when they come pick it up, but that's fine. I was like, oh, my gosh, that's amazing. So silver lining alert. I mean, I'm no closer to having a proper dresser set up in the closet, but I didn't lose the like, at least as of right now. I kept asking her I was like is this is and I want to just say this on the subject of like chatbots and chat and AI and whatnot and my whole approach to life which is like the reason that that stuff is so bothersome to me like when I was checking into that Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in LA recently and there was a tablet that the poor guy at the front desk had to watch me enter my information into and it bothered me because I know that this is just getting us used to the tablet and then eventually the guy is not there. i am so much better at talking to humans than i am at talking to chatbots or chatting with someone because i started off in the chat function on ikea and the person was like i was like yeah this is not the right size or whatever and he was like what's the order number and i give the order and he's like well what part of it doesn't fit and i was like well the whole thing and he goes do you have an item number or like i'm like where's the item i was like i guess the top part doesn't fit he's like what's the item number i was like i i don't no here's the order he goes it's on the box so i'm like looking around for the you know it was just like confusing and we weren't getting anywhere with it and then i just like called this 800 number and i get this very nice woman who's like okay yeah just uh let me schedule the pickup for november 11th and i was like but it's i go i just want to be clear it's assembled she goes yeah that's fine i'll just list it as not in the box it's like so they're gonna show up and they're going to pick this up and they're just going to take it somewhere and I'm going to get my money back? She goes, yeah. I was like, all right. I mean, I was shocked that that was the policy.

What do you think they do with them, then?

I mean, nothing.

Do they take them out to a farm where they can run around with other dressers? They do. They do.

I mean, there's absolutely no use for this. And I'm going to be totally honest with you. In extricating it from the closet,

it did jack it up a little bit. I had a feeling.

This thing is made out of sawdust and Swedish ingenuity. It's sawdust and Swedish meatballs, my friend. The whole deal with IKEA stuff is if you assemble it perfectly, exactly as they direct, and you leave it right where you initially place it, and you never try to move it or change it, it's okay. but any kind of variation from that and this thing is starting to really show it's you know it's the seams of this whole thing so I don't know I guess you know we've built in yet another plot line for the show when the guys come to pick this up are they going to look at me like I'm crazy or are they just going to like take it away and this is on Monday this coming Monday so I guess we'll all find out together what the deal is yeah

do I have time here just for a second to tell you this yeah i think i can make this quick i tell you a quick thing that happened last night that i think you would be interested in as a sort of uh i guess maybe a conundrum i told you i went to see that band dead oh right i thought of you last night how was it was great it was a wonderful wonderful show it was at uh the neptune theater where you and i have done shows before ran into some friends who also listened to the show while we were there too that was cool um but um it was uh it was it It was a great show. Usually when I see a show there, I am kind of like more in the front area where it's kind of a pack, kind of a mass of people, you know, like kind of getting close to the stage. But as you well know, and a lot of our listeners know because they've seen us do shows there, is there's a bar area in the back. If you're over 21, you can get a little wristband. You can be in this bar area. I'm not usually back there because it's kind of noisy. People are talking at the bar and what have you. But Genevieve's like, I might want a beer later. Let's go in here and just get a wristband for later. I was eating popcorn, by the way. I'd never eaten popcorn at a rock and roll show, but when you walk in and you see popcorn.

That's a phase of life, I guess.

Oh, God, I just can't say no to popcorn.

I want to just quickly clarify, if you missed yesterday's show, this is not a Grateful Dead project, a cover band. This is the band Dead. It's D-E-H-D.

Yes, and do you know why they're called that? I looked this up earlier this summer.

You think I would, having interviewed them, but no, I don't do a lot of research. Please explain.

It is both Who are the Jason and Emily I believe are the lead vocalists In the band and it's a three person band I believe the drummer's name is Eric I could be wrong about that Anyway they're just so cool Luke I kept thinking like if I was going to Interview them what would I ask them other than Will you be my best friend And I couldn't think of any questions after that But anyway I was very very very excited About the show Dead stands for It's a it's a um combination of the initials of two different projects that jason and emily were working on so dead was originally a side project so and the d's both stand for dream luke how about that for a guy who likes this band and likes dream talk it was like something that maybe you it looks like maybe you're looking it up while i'm talking one of them was like um it's not dream elevator and heavenly dream or something like that but it's something like that that's why they're called dead uh it was a great show but here's where i think things get interesting from a sort of societal standpoint we're back in this bar area there's very little seating like this is you know the whole show is mostly standing room only um and uh but back in the bar area and i didn't even realize this there are a few stools that one can sit on and face the stage it's actually like it's amazing seating if you can grab them but of course you can never grab them because they would always be taken there's like we go up to this area and there are five stools okay that's it this one little area faces the stage you can grab a beer turn around and grab one of these stools if one were available but of course it's a busy place it's a rock and roll show everybody's always using those stools in this particular case and we weren't even there especially early of these five stools two of them were taken there was a woman all the way to the right and there was a fellow

who was not with her all the way to the left with three stools in between them. And I got to be honest with you, not to play the not to play the rheumatoid arthritis card, which is I don't know, is that a card people play? My I wasn't my foot was aching a little bit and I was thinking, hmm, I wonder what it's going to be like standing for, you know, like two bands, you know, for for this entire show. I haven't really had to do this since since I kind of contracted this. And so I was kind of thinking about that. And then I saw these stools. I was like, oh, my God, is there a chance I could actually sit down? even if not for the whole show maybe just to like kind of recharge my leg a little bit so yeah so I can kind of get off it um and anyway so I'm and I sort of see the way these people are sitting on these stools the one man on the one end and the woman on the other end and I'm like I'm of course they're saving them for somebody right so Genevieve goes up to the the woman on the right and says uh can we sit here or whatever and she said I'm saving these two and I'm just kind of like this is a crowded bar you're one person you don't have coats draped on or anything you're saving these too okay fine and then i so i probably i didn't really say anything i probably gave her a look i don't know just my usual grumpy face but i do turn to the guy i'm like is this one taken he's like no you can sit here and he kind of even made the joke like you know it's a little close for comfort or whatever it's like sit down get to know me or something or i warmed it up for you or something he was jolly enough and i said viz do you want to sit down she's like no no sit down i don't care so now picture this me and my new friend bearded guy are sitting to the left there are now two empty stools to my right Genevieve is just standing next to one of them talking to me and then this other woman who's saving them is still all the way to the right and I'm sure Genevieve could have sat on one temporarily with the you know caveat that she would have gotten up but she didn't even want to sit so we're just we're I'm sitting she's standing we're talking then and this is what this just blew my goddamn mind the woman who did not let us sit in these seats

i'm already furious i don't even know what you're gonna say you have no idea like i am preemptively

furious about and i will tell you like there's not there wasn't any real life drama about this this wasn't a drama in real life because i got to sit down genitive didn't really care that much but yeah but maybe we're standing there for five ten minutes we're chatting veves and i and again veves is standing because the stools are reserved for people who are not there for elisha yes exactly exactly a ghost runner a zombie runner this woman turns to genevieve and says my friends are here can you save these seats for me i have to go oh my good my eyes get wide as saucers and i look over as genevieve says oh yeah sure of course and the woman gets off her stool and now genevieve the woman who was not allowed to sit down because this woman was saving these other seats for her friends now Genevieve is saving three stools for somebody she's never met and who wouldn't allow us to sit in those stools and she's like well I guess I'll sit down in the middle one while I wait for this woman and I'm like are you kidding me are you are you she's like well what was I supposed to say I was like no I'm like I would have looked her in the eye when I said no way

josey see i don't blame genevieve because i think well it depend on how much alcohol i had consumed but i think in the moment i would have i would have had a unless i was really bucking for a confrontation which that would have started before the ask if you know what i mean like if i was in a confrontational mood when she said i'm saving these i think i would have been like really are the people here is your entire party here miss you know like i would have i would have already made it so unpleasant that she would have never thought to ask me to save the stools. And I probably

had a flash of that emotion on my face like I probably had a grumpy look at her probably gave her a little side eye but didn't really say any

of that stuff. But then if I would have been in maybe a better mood or I didn't feel like sitting or whatever and let's just say I'm at that point where Genevieve was where you're just kind of standing there and then she's oh could you save these for me and my friends like I think I would have instinctively said yes to although then I would have been furious. I think what I would have done is said yes I know that feeling. And then been like what? And then when she left, I would have taken all three stools. I would have found, and I know the Neptune very well, having performed there many times. There's a door that goes out to the alley, and I would have thrown the stools into the alley.

Fresh Prince of Bel-Air style. Just come back and been like, I don't know what happened.

I would have thrown him into the alley. And that alley is mostly dumpsters, rotting Chinese food, and rats, by the way. It's like a real Batman origin story, that alley. i would have thrown the stools into the alley and then i would have integrated into the crowd that was just standing in the standing room only part and just been like figure it out lady you would

have thrown the stools out there and then in a slow motion shot of pearls hitting the pavement

yep exactly like no but i mean that is and that is an ask but then as soon i mean keep in mind And I want to stress, these are awesome seats. Of course, as soon as this girl got up, I say girl. She was a young woman. As soon as she got up, she came up to Genevieve and said, hey, is anybody sitting there? And Genevieve is like, yeah, sorry. Genevieve's like, oh, she's just going to be back in a minute. She's just going to be back in a minute. I'm just like, are you a saint who walks? How are you not grinding your teeth through this? you are like what some context here one of my least favorite things in the world is saving seats for people me and Camaro Kev that that's the one thing we have in common you know the predator meme of the two the two hands class being that's me Camaro Kev and in the middle is well savings the hatred of saving I will I will I will say not to bring up a painful memory

but this is why you were unable to complete our Super Bowl recording one time because I blame

seat saving anxiety no no no i mean no it was the alcohol i uh yes but i believe you were trying to

drink for six so as to sort of as to ameliorate the fact that you were taking up six spots at a seahawk bar on the super bowl you said well at the least i will consume the amount that all these people would be consuming so this barkeep is not losing out this was the first of the of the recent

era this was the first super this was 2014 right and i am in one of the only two seahawks bars in los angeles and this is one of them the seahawks are playing and i come into this place and i sit down at a banquet style table last supper style and i believe it's just me and genevieve and like you know six seats on either side of us and we're trying to we're trying to like bat off the crowd anyway i hate saving seats i don't like when somebody tells me a seat is taken i always get grumpy face about it i don't know what the solution there is we live in a society we should be kind to each other nothing no drama came of this Genevieve did bat away a couple of people and then it sort of just solved itself because our friend Kate kind of came up to us and started chatting and then I think people just assumed that we were all using those stools so it didn't become a thing this woman ends up coming back with like one friend and then Genevieve took the other stool anyway we ended up sitting throughout the whole show that wasn't the plan but that's a good outcome it was yeah I mean I got even even my old bones though at some points were kind of like it seems a little bit weird like i should be standing i want to be maybe jiving a little bit more to this to this music but um but like especially given that standing for long periods of time isn't great on my ankles these days and i had a direct i'm right behind the sound guy just a direct shot of the stage from the bar area so we just perched up there the whole night there nothing bad happened i don't want to make it sound like we're the victims of rude social behavior but i just could not imagine the cojones on somebody to in one moment say you cannot sit in these two seats I'm saving them have those people stand around those seats uncomfortably for five or ten minutes and then say hey could you save all three of these seats I'm gonna go let my friend in and by the way she was gone like did the five minutes Luke it was not 30 seconds that was the one thing that Genevieve got a little bit she was like what is she just gone like she's just been gone forever

Is it possible that she needed first aid because she had stepped on her enormous balls and that she was being attended to? That is a possibility. That's why it took so long because that is some enormous, enormous balls.

It took her a while to get a wheelbarrow. Right, exactly.

It was some real Autumn of the Patriarch shit going on. Wow. But here's the other question. So she was saving two stools. She came back with one friend The second friend never materialized

Who's looking for the Dufresnes

What happened to the second friend They had a ticket They just didn't show up That's a whole mystery unto itself Also I'm going to say something That's very uncharitable here Because there are plenty of people Our age Andrew And people who are older than us Who can be very entitled But I'm not shocked to hear That this person it sounds like was younger than you. I don't want to, again, I don't want to generalize. Lord knows, we need to add some younger people into the TBTL listening audience. This is not a way to increase our younger demo. But that doesn't, let me just say, somebody said the other day that they've never been surprised to find out someone was homeschooled. Which I think is a great line, as a person who was homeschooled considerably in my childhood. I was not surprised to hear that this was a person I'm guessing in their 20s I don't know if a person in their 40s Would have the stones to make that ass

I feel like, I don't know man I've met some people like our age Or maybe one generation older than us Who live in Wallingford Who have that exact sort of I think

What they would have done is I feel like they would have shown up At 4pm they would have been waiting outside Yes.

Then they would have gone in and they would have placed like something on all five of the stools.

Yes, exactly. They're like their special stool saver blanket that probably says, yeah, it says Chateau San Michel.

They bought it at the Wallingford Worst Festival from somebody who weaves things or something, right? Right. But yeah, no, definitely that, you know, being presumptuous is something that we can all do, Andrew, at any age. Yeah, that's right. I'm glad to hear, though, that you were able to sit and enjoy the show and take a load off. Was the show, was there mention of the election? Was it a political night in a way?

No, and neither from the, Gustav was the first band. Do you know them? Because that's a band name that I've heard of, but I was unfamiliar with their music. I really like them. I want to now listen to their albums, their studio recordings. It was a really good show. They're like kind of an art punk band from kind of very kind of new wavy. Like you could even hear some early B-52s influence from them. Oh, well, that's right up your alley. But, you know, edgier than that, certainly. And they were really they were really great. Actually, I really can't wait to kind of learn more about them and listen to more of their stuff. And, you know, I kind of thought, you know, with with these types of folks and this type of crowd, somebody would say something. Nobody mentioned anything. I will say this is just an aside. Unfortunately, Emily, kind of the main vocalist of Dead, was really sick. That was the, she, I could not believe.

I think something's going around, by the way. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Like, for real, because everybody that I've been talking to with other job stuff about, like, I'm under the weather, like, oh, I just got over that, or I'm also not feeling well. Like, there must have been some sort of cold that, like, rocketed through the population.

I couldn't believe that, because the vocals of this band, I mean, vocals are going to be difficult if you are sick, no matter what but this is certainly a band where you can't play super sloppy with the vocals there's a lot of harmonizing between i mean there's a lot of harmonizing and kind of precision between the two um vocalists and so i was so impressed because she would like finish a song and and pretty much nail it and then like be like i'm so sick and then like cough off mike and i i was like are they gonna they did speed up we were talking with uber jen who was also there afterwards because they definitely sped up some of their songs like noticeably and we weren't sure if it was just because like these are our live versions and we want to get people a bopping or if it was because they were really trying to shave some time off i felt terrible like i've well even when we were in philadelphia you know and my role was nowhere near having to do like kind of complicated vocals on stage we had to scrap all of our harmony numbers we really did those were gonna rock too but like just you know that the head fogginess you get and like i cannot i could not believe she was up there doing a full show they did not cut it short um uh but regarding the the did not become a sort of like de facto vigil nobody mentioned anything and it's been hard for me to not even as quick like we know it's you know we're here to there wasn't anything either like continue the fight there wasn't a we know it's there was no reference anything in the outside world and it's got me thinking it's the wrong time in the show to do this but you did ask like I've been thinking about that a lot I've been thinking maybe we'll talk about this more after the break as you talk about your media habits and me too but there's something very different going on in 2024 than 2016 and I think that last night the fact that nobody mentioned it and even me like I mentioned we saw Uber Jen there we saw our friend Kate there I maybe to one of them we sort of acknowledged like yeah we were chatting a little bit about like for a moment did we all want to come to the show or not but for the most part it wasn't addressed i'm not fine i'm i'm feeling like people are are slipping into a quicker malaise this time i feel like there was more anger and outrage and because of the shockingness the shocking quality of it in 2016 and i feel like i feel like people are just immediately exhausted and processing it in a quieter more depressing way i think right

because we did four years of pushing back on it and then we thought that we were done with it and it is like i think uh you know it's it's it's it's really difficult to consider four more years of fighting this at every turn and, and particularly with the new agenda that is going to be, uh, in place. And also it would appear, unfortunately, the ability to do a lot of it because of what's going to go on in, in the house and the Senate and the Supreme court. And if you think about that too long, uh, it can be pretty depressing. So I understand, I think that's a mode that a lot of us are in. A lot of people are in is kind of just like numbness and sort of disbelief, numbness and retreating into ourselves, I don't think that's going to be the purpose.

state of being i think it's probably where things are at right now i think i think that you know as things come up i mean you know as there is a chance to organize and fight things and try to call attention to stuff you know specific issues specific pieces of legislation etc i think people are going to re-energize i just think this is probably not the week people are feeling very

energetic yeah probably i gotta say because vives and i did note that before and after i'm like i I wonder if they'll say anything. And then afterwards I mentioned, you know, that nothing was said by either band and it just, and I said, you know, I'm kind of glad. I think that maybe that maybe right now what we needed was just like, keep that asshole out of the room.

Like, let's not let, you know, there was pain in the world, but not in this room. Yeah.

And there was nothing any of us could do like right there in that night. And it was just like, you know what? Let's, let's, let's like, let, let's not let, let's not let that person into every single room we're in when he

doesn't need to be you know and i think that's going to be the move going forward um you know you you mentioned this yesterday on the show the question of like how what is speaking of media consumption like what's our media consumption going to be going forward and how do we take care of ourselves and our anxiety and stuff you know for the next four years and i think it's going to be kind of an a la carte thing more so than it was in in the first four years where it was just every single day constantly obsessing over every single decision this person was making so as to try to thwart him and i think this time around it's going to have to be much more like all right do we need to pay attention to this let's check in let's do what we got to do let's try our best and then other times we're just like it's noise and we're just not going to listen to it because we don't need that in i'm going to keep using it this room on this particular day but actually yeah i do want to talk about that first we should thank some donors right let's go ahead and thank some people who are making today's episode of tbtl possible with their donation thank you so much rachel wagner marchetti or marchetti in ambridge pennsylvania

for a second i thought oh is this a typo is this cambridge mass but no it's Ambridge, pa.

I take Ambridge, Andrew, at you thinking that Rachel was in Massachusetts when she's in Pennsylvania. Rachel, thank you so much.

Ambridge sounds right. Did you say Ambridge? I think that's probably how you do that. I said Ambridge.

Yeah, good job. The Marchetti or Marchetti part, I'm not. I'm going Marchetti. I don't know why. Yeah, for sure. I'm feeling hopeful today. Max Wolkowitz is in Brooklyn, New York. It's our friend Max, the fine, fine actor who I've started following Max on Instagram. And I will say this. I don't know if he's going for a record. I don't think there's a person who experiences more live theater than our friend, Max Wolkowicz. Every, I swear, every single day he's at a different show. And I'm just like, I'm in bed looking at this on Instagram going like, wow, man. I'm glad someone's out there doing it because I don't have the energy.

If he's not on stage, he's in the audience. And if he's not in the audience, he's making our live in Philadelphia poster. Thank you for that as well, Max. I mean, what can't the guy do?

Thanks, Max. Appreciate you. Timothy Milligan is in Woodinville, Washington.

Hey, second reference.

I was near Woodinville the other day. I was in Mill Creek on Election Day at Toshi's Teriyaki, interviewing Toshi himself, the guy credited with inventing the Seattle style of teriyaki. He was incredibly sweet.

He's in Mill Creek. I always thought he was still in Seattle somewhere.

Well, there are a number of places that are called Toshis, but those are franchises. Interesting. um and uh they're now run independently i think i don't even think there's really a business relationship anymore so there are a lot of toshis around but the toshis that toshi still works at dude is 75 years old andrew and i promise you all of his levels are better than yours and mine whatever like if they took blood and they were checking you know uh whatever it is that doctors are looking for as far as markers of of whatnot teriyaki sauce he does have high teriyaki sauce

levels but i i am giving him a run for the money that is he um i know that you would have seen him on a day that he was you know specifically there to do uh interview with you so it wouldn't be a normal day but is he still in the kitchen or is he just running the business no he just my guy

gets in there every morning well he works he actually is only open four days a week now at 75 i feel like you get to do that comes in setting the place up he's marinating the chicken nice he's grilling he's making the rice he's doing all of it i mean he has for 48 years like you know you and i i think i wouldn't say struggle but we we've noted that we're both firmly in middle age i'm trying to not you know take that so hard but it made me feel quite you

to know that in the year i was born 1976 this guy started making this stuff in seattle yeah and it's actually kind of an interesting story because he had this little tiny shop in lower queen anne on roy street and he was just making this you know he's cooking this chicken and this beef and he was glazing it with this sauce that he kind of made up and and then uh john hinterberger who was a kind of long-time food critic in Seattle for, I want to say, the Seattle Times or the P.I. came in. And by the way, this was unusual at the time. Usually the Seattle Times or the P.I., these food critics didn't review this kind of food. And he did, and he said it was really good. And then they're just like, it was a sensation. There was lines like down the street. I love that. For weeks.

Because it's truly like it's an invention. You know what I mean? It's like literally creating a new kind of food. Like we talk about teriyaki joint. I always call them joints. i don't know if that's really i call them that is it no i think that's accurate we'll say but we will get emails from people like can you just explain teriyaki joints and pull tabs to me and sometimes we kind of forget that like some of these things are not everywhere main seattle

exports yeah although the thing is it hasn't been exported that's also kind of a weird part of it like you if you grew up in seattle like i did you just think well this is just like a standard lunch food that is made you know anywhere and then you go other places and you're like hey where's all the teriyaki like what are you talking about like it's a real Seattle thing but anyway Woodinville that's near Mill Creek that's where Timothy is thanks Timothy thanks to Kevin Connolly who's in Cincinnati Ohio

now they have a specific food too of course they do Skyline Chili

right isn't it the Cincinnati thing

yeah and people always ask they say you're from Ohio what's Skyline Chili and what's all because it's like the it's prepped on noodles or something the thing is i've never had it i was not a i didn't grow up in cincinnati um and that is and even though a lot of people up in the cleveland area know about it somehow i was always um i don't know maybe my parents protected me from it they were very protective parents and they thought i wasn't old enough to have skyline chili i don't know what it was but isn't it like i want to i want to noodles i want to be really careful because

we're thanking kevin connelly uh and i don't want to cast any aspersions but i'm wondering of skyline chili is the kind of thing that you sort of need to grow up eating um because looking at it as a 48 year old who's never had it it does not strike me as the number one thing i'd be

ordering when i went into a restaurant and what is it again is it the noodles is that what sets

it apart yeah you described it i think kind of perfectly it looks i mean i'm just looking at a

picture of it uh oh that was a sneeze ah we hear just the very beginning not a sneeze a cough oh

And one that really got down to the core of my being. I apologize. We got to get you out of here. This Skyline chili, it looks like noodles, some kind of hamburger sauce, and then a bunch of cheese on top of it.

I see. Yeah, that's not for me. Probably one of the reasons I was not a huge Skyline person, too, is because me and my sister didn't eat cheese growing up. This just wouldn't have been something. Oh, I thought that was just you. This was you and your sibling. I believe it's because she was an older sister, And so I think a lot of my food stuff, which in some ways, I have gotten over a lot of the food stuff that we both shared. But I think it was probably me taking cues from her as a little kid. I'm not trying to blame her for anything. I'm an adult now. I can make my own decisions. But the reason I think I think certain foods are, quote, unquote, gross or whatever is probably because as a kid, it was just like sort of suggested to me that cheese is gross.

Yeah. once you make a call on that like it's me and mushrooms i don't know why i never i never cotton to him as a kid and in my adulthood and considering that i generally try not to eat a lot of meat it's a real yeah it's a it's a really bad food for me to not include because it's often used in lieu of meat but what can we do we live in an imperfect world andrew but it's a little better because of libby lewis who's in des moines iowa exactly thank you libby thanks libby and then Jocelyn Hanlon is in Norwood Massachusetts knew we'd get a

Massachusetts in there I knew if we tried and we kept our eyes on the prize

we could get a message and we did we did thank you Jocelyn thanks to all of our donors for making TBTL possible today hello and welcome to top story one of the many surprises to put it lightly that have come out of the election on tuesday uh andrew is the realization by me that i was i think i'm not i'm not saying this for effect i think on some level i was literally addicted to reading about and listening to political discourse like actually addicted to it like actually getting some sort of a

Thank you.

serotonin dopamine something from it that was soothing me or making me feel a certain way because once it became clear on tuesday night that things were not going to go our way i did not i immediately lost the desire to engage with content that was reinforcing this reality i.e reading the new york times listening to the daily listening to other podcasts that tend to be politically based and what i've found myself in the last 48 hours doing is going like well what do my eye what are my eyes supposed to look at if not that like i i keep picking up my phone and i keep thinking well i should go look at the new york times i should go check out the latest 538 blog i should go download pod save america i should listen to our buddy chris's show i'm like all this information that i've been consuming obsessively now i don't really want to engage with it right now because it makes me feel sad and and i and it's only in the absence of of that or it's only in not not wanting to look at that i realize how addicted i got in the last like six months it was it was actually like the main thing other than this with you it was like the main thing i was doing every day was just obsessing and obsessively consuming this information and so in in lieu of that something kind of weirdly beautiful has happened which is i like have just been listening to bob james music the guy that wrote the theme song to taxi i've been like reading like i'm actually don't worry i'm still engaging with the chris hayes empire i'm just back to reading his amazing book siren's call but like i've had this moment last night i told you i was listening to art bell like where i was just kind of like i don't really know what to do with myself or i don't know how to entertain myself outside of obsessing over this presidential race and now all the places that i used to look with some kind of great anticipation and enjoyment in a weird sort of way now aren't providing me with that well what am i supposed to do what am i supposed to listen to and it's like well how about i read a book that's not specifically about the the presidential race or how about I listen to some music I think I had stopped listening to music largely because I was I had this this sort of um routine of of things I was listening to that were talk based and they were almost all related to some aspect of the election and I was like listening to some I was in our bell last night which was really fun and weird and then I was listening to music this morning I didn't listen to morning edition this morning which is like really really unusual for me I was just listening to some jazzy Bob James and I was making my coffee and I was you know calling ikea to see if i could return my mom and i was just like this is also a way i could be in the world you know like it felt kind of good it felt it felt nice to sort of step away from i mean first it was scary because i was again i was like what do i do with my eyes if i can't just look at

the new york times and it's like look at something else or what do i do with my ears it's like i don't know listen to some music drink some coffee stare at the river it's a beautiful day like it There was something about sort of untangling from that or pulling back from that that has already just in a few hours opened up an entirely different world for me of like not obsessing over it.

Yeah, you know, first of all, I didn't have the addiction as you describe it to following every beat of that and that difference between our consumption, you know, it's kind of obvious in the past several months. I did not check out of it. I was following the news, but much more casually in the the broad stroke headlines of what was going on in the national race. And I'm I'm probably a little bit more dialed into like kind of Seattle politics. So I kind of refresh the Seattle Times a lot. I'll I think I mentioned this to you, like I'll watch headlines change throughout the day for the same story, sort of. So maybe that that has become the thing that I kind of refresh a lot. But, you know, in the morning, I listen to the little morning edition of podcast, blah, blah, blah. And I would say that I know I can't keep my head in the sand forever, but, you know, right now people are sort of talking about like, hey, you know, indulge yourself, whatever you need for self-care in these kind of trying moments after the election. And the thing that I think I'm being most indulgent about is like just putting my head in the sand. Like I'm not I just can't listen. I just can't listen right now. I know at some point I struggle with this. It feels like I'm being a bad citizen if I'm not following the news, because I think the important thing is to be informed. I think not being informed and believing the wrong things leads the country to where it is today. But I'm trying to find a balance between that and realizing what do I need to do and what are the, you know, in what ways do I need to stay informed and in what ways do I need to watch the slow motion crash that makes me feel. just i mean literally sick and it doesn't matter who's speaking but like i was thinking that this election night two nights ago was the first time i think i've ever watched election coverage as an adult and didn't watch like no matter how much it hurt didn't watch the acceptance speech and the and then the and then the um concession speech and of course kamala harris gave her well on election night itself i turned off the coverage pretty early when it became pretty obvious and even then i don't think we talked about this on yesterday's show there were early signs how this race was shaping up on tuesday so i wasn't even glued to coverage all night and it sounds like other people were like this too almost doing the equivalent of sort of watching it between your fingers a little bit i dip into a little like audio only msnbc coverage i'd listen for a little bit then i'd be like this is giving me the bad feeling and then i literally just put on music on like in my headphones on on on Tuesday night Genevieve was downstairs playing her her birds game there's a video game version of the birds game and it's like kind of like just grounding herself with that and like looking over but like we didn't have MSNBC on in the house we didn't have like the big map up like we were and I was just sort of like dipping in and out as I saw

how things were going and now you know on Thursday morning Genevieve got up I was still in bed sort scrolling on my phone but like scrolling instagram and shit that doesn't matter and then i heard genevieve turn on the you know her shower radio and i heard by i guess i heard it live you know i knew that biden was going to be addressing the nation from the rose garden and i heard a little bit of it through the wall and i was just like you know i heard what i heard but like i wasn't seeking it out i didn't care i almost was trying to block it out i didn't want to hear his voice i didn't i didn't watch kamala harris's speech yesterday i none of it does me any good right now and i when i finally got my ass out of bed and took a shower i turned on yesterday's levitard show like and i don't know how long this is going to last i don't think it's maybe good for me i don't think it's good for me as a citizen it's probably not good for tbtl if i'm just listening if i go to a steady diet of just sports radio even more than i already have been checking out from everything else but as of right now i'm kind of with you like i'm not um or maybe maybe i shouldn't say i'm with you because maybe we're sort of describing different things but like You're kind of weaning yourself off an addiction. I'm going a little bit media dark, I think, for a little bit, and I just need to do that to breathe.

Well, I think that there's something in between having no idea what's happening in the world or, like, what the candidates represent or, you know, I'm sure you'll find out the broad strokes. You know what I mean? You're not, just because you're not obsessively reading, you know, every page of the new york times or the washington post or whatever on this i don't think that means you have no idea that trump is a threat to america and i think that as he comes up with specific plans and proposes pieces of legislation you'll hear about it like that's kind of where i feel like i'm at with it right now too which is i'll i i know the i know the basics of this story right now and i i know that i'll find out when there's something specifically i need to do and and by the way through things like instagram and stuff if there's going to be a rally somewhere we need to go to or a mutual aid opportunity or you know i i feel like i feel like it's okay to uh to not obsessively follow it and and that doesn't mean that you're in a complete you know you're the lowest of low information voters you know and but for me it's just like it really it really did sort of lay bare how addicted i had become to this particular kind of programming over the last like six months it was all i was listening to like other than live wire assignments like i haven't read anything that's not you know uh atlantic piece from tim alberta about how the trump campaign is in disarray like i haven't read anything that isn't about the election other than my assigned stuff and like last night i was like sitting in my chair i was like hey let me pick chris's book back up by the way very good book would recommend um and i was like this is

nice isn't that also kind of an ironic book that you're reading isn't it about um what's about the attention economy the attention economy yeah like this i because i mean this you talking about this break from this kind of constant refreshing of election news is not significantly different than you breaking your twitter cycle five years ago or four years no it wasn't that long ago two or three years ago now because like you just get into and they're both sort of digital consumption which is how we consume most things these days but like this idea of sort of like refreshing and feeling like I can't get enough I can't get enough you know a little bit different because with Twitter you were also putting stuff out there and then getting a little bit addicted to how people were interacting with it this is a little bit of a more traditional like sort of one way kind of consumption of media but it's not it's not terribly different as far as like Like your kind of almost physiological connection to it. And like, what do I do with my eyes and my ears now?

Yeah. I mean, I think like a lot of people, subconsciously my thought was if I can know every single thing there is to know about this, I can then somehow understand it and predict it. And in a way, almost control it, which makes no sense. But I think that's the feeling. but as much as it really sucks and i want to i want to stress like i woke up this morning and i felt deeply bummed about this like i think i think we're all going to be in a in a mode for a while where every morning when we wake up it's going to kind of hit us brand new that this is the reality of life um so i'm not like you know i'm not in feeling great or anything but i am kind of feeling encouraged by this idea that it is also a universe that exists that i could listen to music on a thursday morning while making my coffee and kind of getting ready for my day like i had totally disassociated from that reality or that possibility and i'm re-engaging with it and i'm like i could sit i mean today is a again a weirdly beautiful day which it almost feels like the weather didn't get the memo that we are living in a hellscape because it's just about as beautiful of a day as you could imagine here in southern washington where by the way uh marie glusing camp perez continues to hang on to a tiny lead is it still something like 12 000 votes or something like that it is but there's 75 000 votes in clark county which is a stronghold for her to be counted so i take that as an encouragement but um uh but yeah like i'm still pretty plugged in see

look at you you knew the number 12 000 votes exactly um i do i do feel panicky sometimes where i'm kind of like i don't want to be adult you know what i mean like i'm not i mean that's

the thing there's really no danger and i'm assuming with our listeners too i guess i would just say if you're somebody who was super duper duper obsessively following it and you need to take a step back i don't think you're going to revert to just like cletus the slack-jawed yokel

Some folk will never eat a toe And then again some folk There is an in-between thing

There is a thing where you do know what's going on Enough that you can be of service And that you can stand up when you need to And also You're listening to Bob James My favorite thing about listening to that Pandora station Is how many songs come up That I like from hip hop It's like so much MF doom I'm like oh that's where you got that from I am like Andrew i am really leaning into my like i guess you'd call it maybe late 70s early 80s kind of like smooth jazz or something like i'm really enjoying i'm loving the living tweedle out of it so uh again uh i don't have a lot more to add to it the conversation other than just to say it's been an experience for me to literally like i keep picking up my phone to do this thing that was that has just become muscle memory and reflex pick up my phone i and also tick tock by the way because my tick tock obsession as the election got closer and as that stupid algorithm started to really just like figure out more and more about what i was my time spent watching was delivering me more and more of the stuff that i was watching and that stuff was people with no expertise sitting in their house saying why kamala harris was going to win in a landslide And I wanted to I wanted that to be the case. And so I just would let that stuff play and then it would deliver me more of that stuff. And like I haven't even been back to tick tock really since this election went down because I just don't really want to engage because I associate that with that kind of content.

So one thing I want to say, well, a couple of things I want to say, one broad, one specific. The broad thing I want to say is I enjoyed doing TBTL with you yesterday. It was another very dark day, but it was a show that I enjoyed doing with you and I felt better after doing it. Having said that, as a man with a lot of self-doubt, I did worry a little bit that maybe, you know, as some people were feeling on the edge of catastrophe, that maybe I was like maybe not calling out enough of the of the issues. I don't know. I felt like, oh, did I did I play it too lightly yesterday on the show? You know, hey, we'll get all through this, whatever. But then I you know, throughout the day, I just want to mention we got and I don't I don't know how many of these were both copied on or if you get different ones than me or what. But we got dozens of emails yesterday from from the people who are listening to us right now just thanking us for the show. Some short, some very long, passionate emails. We've heard from all kinds of listeners, not just demographically, but demographically as well, via the text line as well. And I know you don't see those, Luke. I got emails and text messages from people.

I think we got one maybe this morning from somebody who said, I'll be honest with you, I sort of kind of dropped out of daily TBTL listening a couple of years ago, but I came back yesterday and it was exactly what I needed from you guys. I'm not trying to be self-aggrandizing here, but I just wanted – I realize I'm not going to be able to respond to every single person. We heard from somebody, and I'm sorry that I don't have her name in front of me right now. it might be uh maddie or something but um somebody said i'm a i'm a 20 year old woman who's new to listening to tbtl which also i don't know how we're getting the 20 year old i'm sorry for the stuff i said about the lady at the bar i was actually sort of thinking about that i'd like

to retract that statement formally maddie and i don't name and i could actually look that up i

don't know an 80 chance the person is named a man let's see here yeah it is it is maddie um i had that right and um you know i don't i don't know how 20 year olds are becoming new tbtl listeners especially as i worry as i get older that being less and less relevant to younger people maybe that's not as true as i fear but that meant for yourself i'm like a fine wine no no you're

i'm just getting more interesting to the people you're also just impossibly childish and i think

that is where you really keep some of it so all i wanted to say was thank you everybody for reaching out to us i'm hope you're all doing okay um it means a lot that the show meant a lot to you it means a lot to me that the community is there um kind of supporting each other but i also wanted to say that there are some people who are a little bit more action oriented and one of those people is um let's see here i think it's uh milo uh and milo is an eight-year-old i'm sorry winston is the name i'm looking for here and winston is the eight-year-old grandchild of um some of our listeners they didn't leave their name they're calling from the 360 so maybe from the east side of seattle and they they left us a text message um with a screen cap from something that winston's teacher sent to the family and apparently winston is working on time travel and says that in three years, he's going to have enough control of his time travel powers to send Donald Trump back to the time of the dinosaurs and possibly directly into a T-Rex's stomach. I'm not calling for violence against the president-elect, but I will just say the idea of time travel. He says three years, Winston, in three years. So Winston will be, what, 11 in three years? Time travel powers will be polished enough by that point to send Donald Trump back in time to the age of the dinosaurs.

I keep saying it, I said it a lot yesterday, the future is not written. And also, if Winston has his way, the past is not written. It's all up for debate. Winston, good luck with the project. Also, while you're traveling through the 80s and 90s, I've got a couple errands I was hoping you could run in my life. actually you know what just starting in 1976 just check in each year i've got i'm gonna make a list of things i'd like you to tell past me to do or not to do based on how things have always turned out let me just play you a little bit of this this was jimmy kimmel uh last night um and uh i i i you know i'm a big fan of his and also i mean i hadn't really thought about like you know he uh but he really openly antagonized and has taken trump on in a way that's just been very very adversarial when he's hosting the oscars he's making fun of him and like i kind of started to think like protect jimmy kimmel at all costs honestly because like you know he's got to be near the top of the list of media people that trump has a particular vengeance for because he just roasts the guy so much and um anyway this is a little bit of uh kimmel's monologue from uh from last night so this would have been, you know, the day after the election.

He had the choice between a prosecutor and a criminal, and we chose the criminal to be president of the United States.

By the way, I'll mention that, like, I don't know if I was overanalyzing this, but he looked like he had, he was already had some, like, tears in his eyes. Like, his eyes seemed just a little bit glassy, and I assume it wasn't from drinking. Like, I wonder if he was kind of holding back emotion the entire time.

It states more than half of this country voted for the criminal who's planning to pardon himself for his crimes i guess this election wasn't rigged that's weird though right i mean he said it would be rigged he said it was being rigged while people were in line voting isn't it remarkable that this time the fix wasn't in last time the democrats cheated this time we chose not to i guess i don't know i will say like look it's cold comfort

but it's like that's a really good point it's like what happened to all the stop the steal people and like okay so you think you you think we didn't cheat this time

can you at least give us that you don't think we cheated this time you a-holes well he literally

posted on his stupid ass social media sites on tuesday night massive you know he didn't i don't think he knows the word irregularities but whatever like massive fraud going on in philadelphia right now massive massive fraud going on and i and i heard an interview with the person who's in charge of the polls there who obviously said no everything's actually been running really really smoothly um but like wait you were saying that that night does that mean that wait a second by your own by your own measurements philly maybe those aren't your votes but wait oh no suddenly it wasn't it wasn't rigged it's i mean but again you this is what i'm trying to avoid you start arguing with just something you literally can't argue with yeah this donald trump he's like is

like the emperor from star wars he's old he's evil and he keeps coming back with no reasonable explanation whatsoever just when they finally scrubbed the last of the ketchup off those white house walls i'm still trying to figure out what happened babe be honest last week did you guys send that monologue to a republican like i asked you to those of you who are hate watching this show right now uh wanting to watch me suffer you will be happy to know that there was no joy in mudville last night i was all over the place one minute i'm watching these long lines in every city and i think oh that's beautiful democracy in action next minute there's a reporter chatting with some bro at arizona state who said he voted for trump because kamala didn't go on joe rogan's podcast and i'm like where did i leave my passport my kids were very upset um you know every once in a while when something bad happens, we let our kids curse for 30 seconds. We tell them they have 30 seconds to say any word they want and all the words they choose are curses. So at breakfast this morning, my wife tells our daughter, Jane, who's upset. She said, you know, you can do it. And just as she starts the cursing, our seven-year-old Billy comes down the stairs. He's wearing a black Adidas tracksuit and high tops and a pair of Ray-Bans. He looks like the fourth member of Run DMC. And he just hears the tail end. He says, what's going on? And my wife says, well, Donald Trump won. And he goes, f**k. Almost made losing the election worth it. I got a lot of texts yesterday, all day and night, from anxious friends and family and coworkers. and I have to say a lot of them involved diarrhea diarrhea was at an all-time high in America yesterday which made me wonder what is it about me that makes others so comfortable sharing that information like I'm princess diarrhea or something here but President Biden uh watched the action from the White House last night he was squinting at the TV and trying to change the channel with an old calculator he thinks is a remote but I was thinking about him it must have weird for him to watch that it was supposed to be him on the ballot it's like that um movie final destination where the guy has a premonition and gets off his flight and then watches from the gate as the plane that you're supposed to be on explodes it was like that but with diarrhea president biden called donald trump today to congratulate him and to invite him to the white house to discuss the transition and maybe watch a little matlock starring kathy bates Kamala Harris called Trump today, too. She conceded and then explained what the word conceded means. Trump's like...

Trump said, that means you're stuck up, right? Conceded? And she did it because that's how it's supposed to be done in America. There's an election and then they count the votes. And if the Democrat loses, they call to congratulate the winner. Harris also gave a concession speech at her alma mater, Howard University. She said, it's going to be OK. The light of America's promise will always burn bright. And she's right. You know, the reason America is the greatest country in the world is that even a simple garbage man and fry cook from McDonald's can one day be president of the United States two different times. And I think that's inspiring. Poor Tim Walls right now is in his backyard playing a very solemn game of cornhole by himself. In Nevada, they had a problem with ballots from thousands of young voters whose signatures didn't match the ballot because they don't know how to sign their names.

I want to apologize to...

maddie for this joke well they did tell us not to give our kids ipads and we didn't listen but at least they tried i do want to say thank you to everyone who voted even if you just did it to get a bottle of water from paul rudd thank you for voting and it's very important if you're in line stay in line do not leave the line overall the voting itself went relatively smoothly despite a number of bomb threats that were called and emailed into heavily democratic precincts in Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan. Authorities say they seem to have originated in Russia. You could tell the Russians are running out of ideas when they're trying to disrupt our elections now using the same tricks kids in the 80s used to get out of P.E. But the rest was not great. Let's be honest, it was a terrible night last night. It was a terrible night for women, for children, for the hundreds of thousands of hardworking immigrants who make this country go. for health care, for climate, for science, for journalism, for justice, for free speech. It was a terrible night for poor people, for the middle class, for seniors who rely on social security, for our allies in Ukraine.

This is what he needed. That's right. Nobody told him about Stan Getz. anyway that was uh i i again it is a of course a very sad scary time um but somehow the idea of tim walls playing a solemn game of cornhole in his backyard kind of made me laugh and is somehow cathartic i don't know i was just hoping for our listeners it might also provide you know a little bit of catharsis i do i do think you know and i don't want to be accused of of whistling past the graveyard because you know it's gonna be a graveyard but i do think maintaining some sense of humor about some parts of it is going to be important as well you know it like we're talking yesterday about sort of after 9-11 and the question of like is this the end of comedy it's like it can't be because there are going to be times where comedy is what gets us through yeah you know um

well i as we continue to talk throughout the weeks you're more of a tony hinchcliffe guy I don't even know exactly what that means

he's the guy who made the Puerto Rico joke

that we thought was going to cost him

the election which would have been just so beautiful

yeah no I was going to move on to ask you kind of a theoretical question about the election or maybe but I don't want to do that let's just end it there as you were saying we're trying to find some laughs today and I was going to say you know as you and I and the rest of the country and the rest of our listeners continue to process the conversation is not over you and i will continue to revisit this questions we have about the election about election night about the future about the past these things will continue to trickle into our conversation about pardon me about winston's progress on the time machine i do hope that winston will please give us updates i don't want to get in the way of the scientific process and i don't want it to be one of those things where like by measuring the progress we're affecting it in a negative way certainly right and also Winston

don't just use it for getting more candy

no no no

we need you to do there's some important stuff you need to do before you you know get candy

well he seems to have his eye on the prize as far as his Jurassic plans are concerned so I'll I'll stay optimistic about that

Life is number one. You can be having so much fun. Just remember that life is much fun. You can be not number one.

We got some Blur's Days here for everybody. The way you send any Blur's Day messages, you email me. Andrew at tbtl.net and you have a blurs day in the subject line that's what our pal Sam and St. Peter Sam getting a shout out I believe Sam and Kim shout outs two days in a row put it on the bingo card

yeah they reached out to us checking in on us so now they're rewarded with a blurs day

message and Sam says happy I don't know if I mentioned these are our friends in Florida St. Petersburg Sam says happy slightly belated blurs day to my amazing wife Kim, you do so much to keep our little family together and Griffin and I would be lost without you I love you so much This was sent in before the election and there is another line about a great Blursday gift nationally speaking, but I'm going to leave that one out

Can you tell that I'm on the preloaded sample sound effects page of my little audio system here? Oh, nice. So I've got every possible Blur's Day. Does the next Blur's Day message involve swords? Because I've got that.

That's very loud. Roslyn says, I'm a former 11, turned 10, and I'm wanting to wish my amazing sister, Avala. Oh, did I? I think that's Avalon, and I think I made a typo. I don't like messing up Blur's days. They're sacred. I'm pretty sure this was Avalon. Sorry for the typo. I want to wish my amazing sister Avalon a happy Blur's day. Every year she writes in a happy Blur's day message for herself because nobody else in our family listens to the show. But this year, as a brand new 10, I'm doing it. So, Rosalyn, another new 10. She took me to a live TVTL show when I was 19 years old. Now, 13 years later, I'm hooked. It's a slow burn, man. It is a slow burn. I want to thank my sister for showing me everything in life that was cool, including our sword fighting classes.

Oh, my God, that's so perfect.

Thank you for the second message here, by the way. Avalon, or the second mention, so it is, Avalon, you are my best friend, and I'm honored to submit your Blur's Day message for you this year. Happy Blur's Day, Avalon. And welcome to the family, Rosalind, the TBTL family. Dakota says, happy Blurs Day to my friend, Amy. No, I'm sorry. Dakota says, happy Blurs Day to our friend, Amy, in Memphis. Dakota, I believe, is Amy's 11. I accidentally missed her golden Blurs Day last week. Can you please add her to today's Blurs Day list? She's just taken up sword fighting. Oh, my gosh. This is incredible. Has she taken up any robot studies? Oh, I'm sorry. It said robot studies.

Has she been fighting anything that's described apparently as a monster lately? Let's hear that. I don't know. Yeah.

Now we need more level. It's too low. Can we hear that again? More level on the monster. You want more monster? Yeah, I do. All right, that's good. More monster in my headphones. Got Eric here. I would like to, that was a terrible imitation. Let's just move on. Eric says, I would like to. Was that Jay-Z? No.

Would you say that Jay-Z might be the goat of rapping?

Would you say Eric might be the goat of Blur's Day messages? Eric says, I would like the TBTL-iverse to know that my wonderful wife, Wendy, is turning 60. Wendy has been my wife for 29 years, though we've been together for 35. It took me a while to convince her to marry me, but I did it. Wendy, thank you for all the amazing memories we've made and all the adventures yet to come. You have a huge heart. Let's hope it holds up for another 60 years because we're living on a goat farm, and that's what it's going to take. Exactly. I want people to know I'm making

up some of these facts today tell me that the next blurs day involves a gift of a helicopter ride

doesn't look doesn't look promising but i'll see jessica says maybe a train ride i'm so excited to wish a very happy 50th blurs day to mark my amazing 11 and husband of almost 20 years mark is a funny handsome english helicopter pilot who is excellent who is excellent at maths physics. When you say maths, it's so hard for me to say. Maths, physics, and home economics, and he's probably the kindest person I've ever met during a sword fight on a train. He even came with me to Philly for the live show Happy 50th Mark.

I'm surprised. Actually, you know what? This is on me. I was going to say, fee, I was going to say fee upon the audio software that none of these are at the same level, but I realize I have them all set at different levels. That was too loud. I'm the opposite of the... Whatever the opposite of the goat is of playing these drops. I'm the rooster of these audio levels. I apologize.

Marshall says, happy Blur's Day to KDH. You're the best 10 an 11 could ever have. Love you and have a fantastic birthday. on the chicken farm

cute

there it is Josh Josh says happy blurs day to my longtime friend scott when times are weird it's friends and community that are most important and i'm grateful that we've been friends and in community for so long happy blurs day thanks for turning me on to tbtl and i hope you hear this good memory way to not forget that

blurs day like an elephant that's kind of a stretch i feel like there's a lot of talk of

Like, kind of new listeners or converted listeners or people coming back to the fold. It's feeling good.

Yeah, like, you know, anecdotally, it seems like this might be, I mean, it's a weird niche. It's a weird niche for us to be, hey, we're the show you come back to when you have real questions about the future of this country. That's right. But we'll take it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's kind of a long list today, but we're kind of wrapping up here. I got this one. Happy birthday all the way across the country to my little brother, the freakishly large Aaron from your big brother. I'm sorry, from your brother Doug in Bothell for a lifetime. Aaron, happy Blur's Day. I didn't call you freakishly large. I just read it. Doug said that. That's your brother. What up, dog? And finally, and this one's a little cheaty. I'm not even going to lie to you. This one's a little cheaty, but Jake in Portland wants to wish a very belated first Blur's Day to my 5 August. Now, we met Jake in August at our bead making party.

Yes, I did.

I'm glad your mom, Stephanie, gave you a Blur's Day shout-out last week, but I wanted to get one in, too, because you are the sweetest little man, and we love you so, ooh, explicit much. We are excited to watch you grow and be excited when you learn new tricks. I don't know I just read what's in front of me Luke like anchor man happy blurs day again to August and everyone thanks for writing in thanks for being there for each other and thanks for

listening yeah to uh today's episode of TBTL uh we are gonna be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you so uh please come hang out with us uh for that one as well uh because again this has been uh yesterday and today and i'm sure tomorrow andrew it has also been helping uh my spirit and that's really what this is about is helping me feel better in the world so uh we'll see you all tomorrow in the meantime have a as best a thursday as we can have under these conditions take care of each other take care of yourselves and uh please remember no mountain too tall and

Good luck to all.

Some folk will never eat a scut, but then again, some folk will not clean us the slack-jawed yokel. Hey, what's going on on this side? Hey, Brandine, you might could wear these to your job interview.

And scuff up the topless dancing runway? Nah, you best bring them back where from you got them.

Okay. Back you go. To wait for a woman or less discriminating tastes. Most folk will never lose a door And then again some vocal Like Cletus the slack-jawed yokel Hey, you know what? I could call my ma while I'm up here. Hey, ma! Get off the dang roof! Power out.