Muse

So, what is this new project you guys have for Sally?

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Okay, so, um, this new project we have, it's called The New Medusas, and we think it could really use the Sally Reed touch. So, it's a show about three women who run a salon in Soho, who are just trying to get by, and they have snakes for hair, and they turn dudes into stone. Okay. So, right now, the show, it's a little, I don't know, hmm? And I think that you, Sally Reed, could bring to it more of a hmm. I don't know what you mean. So, right now, the show, it's more, yeah. And you could bring it to more of a, yeah.

I think I know what you're saying. I have a client right now that's bringing to a Fox show that before was just, hey. So we're looking for less and more. That actually wasn't in the email.

TBTL.

Dear TBTL, you're so amazing. And I know you're gonna do better.

Luckily for me, I've processed all my feelings. And I've gone through the five stages of grief. Denial, anger, internet commenting, cat adoption, African dance, Kat returning to the adoption place, watching all the episodes of Murphy Brown, and not giving a flying fart.

Whoa, watch out, says that bird. Ew, it's got a snake. Oh, it's chasing a jackal. Oh my gosh. That's the voice of the youth of America.

Have a good show, dummies. What you do is so important.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. And boom goes the dynamite. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. You want showmanship? You got it. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it is, didn't know you like to get damp, though. It's not actively raining, but it's not actively nice out either. It's actively November 18th is what I think we're dealing with, which brings us, let me Check the calendar to one, two, three, four days until I'm done with this 75 hard ish thing that I've been doing, which emphasis on the ish. Boy, time flies when you're contemplating the existential threat to America day in and day out, moment by moment. Start to forget that you're drinking a gallon of water a day and trying to shake a leg more than you used to. Anyway, this, speaking of numerology, is episode 4339 in A Collector's Series.

Let the fun begin.

I spent the weekend over on a blue sky. Welcome to the internet. I'm loving it, Jerry. I really am. And I know that blue sky has actually sort of filled the Twitter-shaped hole in my heart because I'm back to posting poorly thought-out dumb posts and then deleting them, which is my whole that was my whole move on twitter tweeting and deleting since 2013 or whatever well now i'm skeeting and deleting over there on uh on blue sky we can talk about that speaking of internet things the tbtl.net website has some interesting and exciting internet related

news the new phone box here the new phone box here uh which we can get into uh and we can talk

to this guy longest running cobro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships we recently did one of those kind of um like personality tests to try to figure out how to play to our strengths as a business uh andrew and tbtl employee numero uno john sklaroff and this was the exact and actual designation that andrew got a good boy eager to please his humans a jokester he is andrew walsh and he's joining me right now good morning my friend you know luke

Listening to that intro montage of Drops, I had a thought. Good morning, by the way. Good morning. We play Drops from TikTok, new stuff that you send me, but we play old stuff. We play stuff from Columbo. Every now and then a Murder, She Wrote drop will sneak its way in.

We play to the old and new Drops.

I mean, there's a WKRP in Cincinnati intro floating around somewhere. Featuring Lonnie Anderson? I don't think that one. Actually, it does feature Lonnie Anderson. Yes, we were talking before the show about how Lonnie Anderson remains, I believe, my Uncle Frank's number one go-to sort of attractive lady reference point. Honestly, I find that really charming.

I'm glad he's not updating.

I've got to say, we haven't had a con. I would say the last time I heard him.

Like Addison Rae?

I just remember.

He'd be like, calm it down, sir.

Being like a teenager in the 90s and him being like, oh, she's a real Lonnie Anderson type. And I would say, shh, shh, shh, shh, go back to bed, Uncle Frank. No, but I was just thinking as I was listening to that intro that there's a Honey Badger drop that made its way into that montage I just heard. And somehow that feels more out.

You mean Honey Badger, the original tape that spurred it, Honey Badger Don't Care, Honey Badger Don't Give a Shit one? or was it a reference to the football player who got the nickname the Honey Badger?

After the virus. No, no, we just heard, and I don't have the isolated tape here, but at some point I had that isolated Honey Badger. Honey Badger don't care, and we heard a little bit of that. What a time that was. That's what I mean. I enjoyed hearing it, but my point, if I have one, is that somehow Honey Badger, maybe because things speed up so quickly in the Internet age or whatever, Somehow the honey badger seemed more dated than even possibly a WKRP in Cincinnati drop. Like, there was something about a honey badger that was like, God, remember the honey badger year?

The year of the honey badger. We're coming out of the year of the monkey, right? Are we entering the year of the honey badger?

Ooh, maybe. I am, by the way.

I can see him on the Chinese Zodiac.

What is your Chinese Zodiac? How have we never talked about this?

Oh, I can barely tell you what my, you know, astrological sign is. I am the absolute worst at knowing those kinds of things. I did used to have a joke that I stole from Almost Live that I thought was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen at the time. But it's both a very old joke, and it also refers to a sort of financial technology that we don't use anymore. But it's like, it's been the year of the rat for six months, but I'm still writing year of the monkey on my checks. That was a solid joke in 1993.

three i uh i don't know what i don't know what the symbols mean but i will say that for some reason i'm very i'm weirdly proud even though i don't believe in astrology i believe in astronomy mostly but i don't believe in astrology necessarily um but i like the fact that i'm a sagittarius and i like the fact that i was born in the the year of the dragon both of them seem that's a pretty good year to be born in they just seem cool to me you know what i mean like that's That's all I need to know.

Wait, well, but you were born in 77? 76.

76, so that means we're both Year of the Dragon. I believe so. I mean... Oh, hell yeah, dude. We used to... It's pretty good. Welcome aboard.

I'm feeling 10 feet tall.

I'm also Year of the Dragon? But you were born in May, right? So what's your astrological sign? You must know.

Taurus the Bull. I do know. I know that much. I'm not pleading complete ignorance. I just... I'm pleading complete skepticism. Yeah, no. On the whole... I mean, I've said this probably recently on the show, but I'm so not moved by questions of astrology or by, you know, well, he's being such a Pisces right now that if I if I were if I were to meet someone, let's say I was single and I meet someone and I'm extremely interested in them romantically and they are one click north of of of just basically where I'm at with astrology, which is like I will allow them to know what their sign is. But if they go one click north, if they attribute, and if they seriously attribute any behaviors by anyone on their signs or on something rising somewhere or the cusp of something, I would have a really, it'd be like somebody who voted for Trump because of the price of eggs. I would just be like, this is such a fundamental break in the kind of person I am from the kind of person you appear to be that I don't think we can recover from this.

I voted for Trump because I'm a Sagittarius.

I am not trying to conflate the two, by the way.

By the way, it was my Sagittarius that led me to the polls to drop my ballot in and vote for Trump. I got to give it to you, though. Taurus money horoscope today. I mean, I was going to give you your do you want your love horoscope, your career horoscope or your money horoscope?

Which is the best one of the three.

I mean, they're probably all pretty cool. I don't I never read this stuff, so I really don't know. Let's give you you know what? You want me to read yours? Yeah, sure. Look up.

It's only fair. So I'm looking up Sagittarius

Sagittarius, yeah, the first one popped up for me I just googled like tourist today And it just, I'm on the Hindustan Times Oh, of course, I get home delivery

I'm also on the Hindustan Times We'll read this one off the internet I will be honest with you, when I see a story on the Hindustan Times I do feel Slightly erudite Like I'm keeping up on the comings and goings Of the Hindustan people But then I also wonder if it isn't like a front For the Moonies if it isn't like the epoch times which is like the the moonies newspaper that they still have billboards for somehow in portland which is insane other than shen yun it's the only crazier thing like there's still money for billboards about the moonies newspaper and that's the i remember that the moonies had a newspaper well they have the

washington times the what that's what i'm thinking of the washington times okay yeah yeah yeah i can't

say that word for some reason how do you say the word e-p-o-c i don't know i've never heard it

pronounced before honestly i'm not even joking i've seen it i have no idea how to say it i mean

like an like an epoch like a kind of like an air a period of time right like we're in an epoch right now and i think we're actually i think the epoch that we're in or epoch is what's the um the oh phooey it's the it's the the john green had a great podcast about it that i really loved basically the human we're in the human centered epoch epoch epic i would never have i love it of all the ways i said it the right way wasn't one of them it's so weird 35 different ways and somehow missed can you play that again epic it's almost like epic like this is an epic story epic only right and i think um uh let me try to find the anthropocene we are in the anthropocene right now andrew which means we're in the epic that humans have shaped more than let's say the jurassic period or other periods of the existence of living things on this planet we're in the

anthropocene i see or and it can be more macro or micro as well it could be the victorian epic

it says here um let's see moonies i don't think they're called the moonies anymore but uh yeah how the conspiracy fueled epic times went mainstream oh it's it's foul it's also falun gong so i think it's also shen yun i think epic times is just the newspaper version of Shen Yun which is different than the Washington

Times which is that's the Mooney's right yes yes okay okay so some separation there we cleared all that up

and by the way if any of that's mentioned in my horoscope today Andrew I am officially

a believer well here's I don't know why it starts with this I don't even this is so this is also new to me but it just says daily horoscope prediction says your valor speaks your personality keep the love affair subtle and cool today i love this ensure you both spend more time happily be careful to meet the professional requirements health is also good luke how are you saying that this is bullshit health is also good i mean i honestly can't disagree with anything you've read me read to me resolve the tremors with the lover and ensure you spend more time together perform the best uh perform the best at the workplace while there will also be major monetary issues, but handle wealth carefully. Health is also good today.

Oh, Andrew, I'll tell you what. The overlap between the Taurus experience today and the Sagittarius experience is pretty surprising in that there's a lot of it. Your daily horoscope prediction, also according to the Hindustan Times, says you love challenges. and then underneath some kind of a ZergNet ad for a Lava Storm 5G, which is something you can apparently buy on Amazon. It says, handle relationship issues with responsibility. Your attitude is crucial in the job. Keep the clients happy. Read me. I'm the client here, Andrew. Handle wealth carefully while health will be normal. So bad news on the health. It's going to be normal.

Yeah, which... Oh, dear. I was really hoping we were going to go up a little bit.

Oh, wow. Oh, oh, God. I am so excited to read you your love horoscope today, Andrew. Did you say horoscope because I'm worried that that's what it is? It sort of is. Horoscope. Horoscope. Do I say horoscope weird? Despite your sincerity, the lover may not agree with you and the ruckus can last for a day or two. I have a shitty one today.

Why is yours so good?

No, Andrew, the fact that you, at your age, can still create a ruckus in the bedroom. Honestly, dude, a major, major prop.

I am impressed. If your love horoscope was rather broad today, I will say your money horoscope is very specific in that it breaks down the day into halves. It says, financially, you are good. Financially, you are good. And from a text I saw from you this weekend, after a little bit of sports gambling, I take it that that is...

You know, I honestly, I'm not, I was not mad at that. I was down, I was at Becca's house on Saturday, which put me in the state of Oregon. where I am allowed to make little bets on my phone, which I just, I don't think I'd even hacked into that account in like better part of six months or something because I just kind of out of sight, out of mind. But I thought, oh, you know, the Seahawks are playing tomorrow. I'm actually going to be home on a Sunday without any, you know, anything I really had to do. I was like, oh, this is going to be so fun. So I made a big old thing of vegetarian chili. Andrew, I really cozied up and I watched a lot of football. And I had a bet that was that the Seahawks would cover. They were six-and-a-half-point dogs. which I kind of get, honestly.

Oh, yeah, on the road in San Francisco. At San Francisco.

It was not, yeah, there was not a reason for optimism. But, again, that's just, I'm overly optimistic about many things and remain so. So it was Seahawks win. Ken Walker scores a touchdown. And then this was the part that pushed it into plus 1100 territory. Geno Smith scores a rushing touchdown.

I didn't even realize that happened. I didn't get to see the second half of the game, and that must have happened in the second half, right?

It happened with 13 seconds left. Oh, that's how the Seahawks won the game. That was the final touchdown was a rush. Maybe not 13 seconds, but a very, very small amount of time. Yeah, yeah. Game almost over. Geno Smith on like a, on a long quarterback scramble into the end zone where he then did the Steph Curry, I'm putting you to sleep hand sign, which really ticked the locals off because of course he's a Bay Area guy. So that was hype. And then last night, all I was doing on TikTok was watching TikToks of 49ers fans watching the end of the game. Oh, wow. Their tears were like water in the desert for me, Andrew.

I didn't get to see that. I was volunteering and the folks who pick, it's kind of a little bit complicated, but at the end of us giving out food, somebody's got to come and pick up all the tables and chairs and supplies and take them away. I used to do that. I don't do that anymore. And the folks who were volunteering to do that yesterday are huge Seahawks fans. And I felt terrible. I was sort of like following the score on my phone but not really knowing what the ins and outs were and these guys like they watch every second of the Seahawks games or a married couple and I'm looking at my at my score and my watch and I see oh wow like we're getting really close to the end of the game and we are making these poor folks leave their home to come pick up these tables and everything return them back to the storage area and I felt really bad about that but there's not a lot I could do so they show up and they open up their car doors and they they like are kind of blasting the radio as loud as possible so they can hear the end of the game and we're all trying to hurry up and load their car up and then i sort of but i'm out of it i'm like talking to people about this and who's taking the spoons to wash them and all of a sudden i hear start hearing screaming from across the parking lot and when you're just like you know when you spend a couple of hours every sunday underneath a bridge like and you hear screaming in the parking lot usually it's like i have a little bit of a i never want to feel like i did that day just it's a bad it's just sort of a what what's going on you know you're a little bit you know you're you're a little bit on alert like why are people screaming you know and then you realize oh my god okay the football game is over and that that is those are screams of happiness that is not somebody who is having an episode that i need to get involved off cigarette screams of happiness about a seahawk game now that's that's a name i haven't heard in a while so i was very very excited that they got to hear it, but it was also I had no idea exactly what went down other than I knew that it was down to, and I was also wrong because I thought they needed a touchdown to tie the game and send it into extra innings, or extra innings into extra quarters as I like to say. Penalty time. Penalty time, and so I was a little bit surprised they were that excited but I'm like, yeah, it gives them a shot at it, but I didn't realize that that sealed the game, so good for you, good for them. I'm sorry to susan and david that i peeled you away from your from your beloved seahawks but that gives us no more closer to luke's taurus money horoscope yes um which again is very specific and also calls out your siblings in a way that i'm thinking interesting i'm thinking hannah might be on

alert here today is my niece marian's sweet 16 birthday that is my sister hannah's daughter

that would make sense because listen to this financially you are good in the second part of the day we'll see you gaining good returns from stock and speculative business so that's pretty good the second half of the day you're gonna have a good stock return but then it says a sibling will need financial assistance for a health or legal problem and i'm wondering wait usually

that's i'm the sibling who needs assistance for a health or legal problem i know that's very off

brand for my sister exactly i mean really any of my sibs yeah but i'm thinking that hannah might come a knocking um i'm not exactly sure you may also provide money for charity in the second half of the day i'm dubious of that those who have children studying abroad will need money do you have children studying abroad i don't think so um i've asked adi to stop referring to women that

way yeah it is i think she's i think she's done with that um you know i'm not saying that i'm not i'm not saying i am the most charitable person but i have recently andrew been donating a dollar to the turkey fund when i met they hit you up with the turkey fund yet where would who is who is they when you're checking out of the grocery store oh either at the self-check or or in the line like if you go to safeway which i don't know if you're really a safeway man but like they are they come up to you they go do you want to donate a dollar to uh thank you know thanksgiving turkey for a needy family and it's weird because i always say yes and i donate a dollar i don't even really right now fully

believe in the turkey industrial complex i i listened to the new york times interview a few weekends ago with peter singer the kind of noted um animal rights activist and and and i guess uh what philosopher you might call him and he wrote a book called consider the turkey and it's really just about how like how messed up the how messed up the kind of like the it's it's it's not really it's not good for the turkeys that every american kitchen can have a giant ass turkey in it for a reasonable price on thanksgiving you know like the way that that is achieved is through very poor conditions for the turkeys and i had just gotten back to eating turkey a couple of thanksgivings ago i just said you know i'm gonna i love the tradition and everything and now i'm back off of it this year which kind of sucks because i listen to that but i'm meanwhile i'm donating money to buy more turkeys for people and i don't even agree with the concept okay two things in

this number one i love the fact that everything's coming back to david foster wallace this or this oh yeah consider the lobster this epic um that we're going through this tv your favorite word um but also did you see because i watched i came home last night i watched some sunday night football and i'm i saw commercial air several times i think during that um that must have also aired during the seahawks game as a tv commercial luke so if you can picture that it's like a tv right i mean okay okay tv and an advertorial message on a television yes and so they're they're pushing a message no i'll uh i'll skip to the point here it's a beautiful commercial that makes you feel really good until the end and you realize it's for the washington cattlemen's association or something like that i have not seen that have you it's just like this beautiful it like shows you know like a cowboy on a horse and his name oh my god it is such a it is such a name of a modern cowboy i wish to it's something like cowboy bucket hat or something like his name is this is a real person though yeah i mean supposedly yeah he's like a farmer right and it like his name is probably colton right yeah maybe it is colton colton jackson

or something colton leather band or something like that there's an entire like generation of coltons that are god bless by the way if your name is colton but there's like you get outside of the you get outside of the cities and it's just there everybody's getting named jackson or colton

I'm looking to see if I could find this commercial. But anyway, it's beautiful. It's got a cowboy and a horse and a single cow just grazing this pasture. And he's making the point as he's sort of like, you know, it's kind of documentary style or whatever. And he's kind of talking to the camera, a little bit of voiceover. And just the most beautiful scenery you can imagine. And a single cow out there enjoying its time as it's like. And he's talking about how you need a lot of different kinds of plants in a prairie to make it like both the both literally the soil and earth sort of sustainable and also it's good and then at the end you're just like this is so great this is so wonderful and then at the end it's like Washington Cattlemen's Association I'm just like are you kidding me I know how you're treating those cows that is not one I thought of you I was like if you see this you're you're gonna have steam coming out of your ears because it's just like yes the idea of this commercial is so wonderful I mean it's so beautiful but then oh my god you don't have to go to PETA to see really the conditions that these cows are in and by the way i'm not on a high horse here i'm not a vegetarian like i am absolutely complicit but like i just found this to be and i don't know like why would i find that to be galling like it's a commercial that's the point you because you felt baited and switched yeah i did and it's just kind of like and it's just like it's so far from the truth like can you just say hamburger good like can you not lie hamburgers are good you know well

Well, I mean, you see the versions of that commercial, too, where it's, like, an appropriately, like, diverse and thoughtful-sounding group of employees that are on the cutting edge of science, and they also happen to work for Exxon. Right, right, right, exactly. And you're, like, it takes you a long time to figure it. It's, like, people in lab coats, and they're, like, you know, pipettes and stuff. Yeah. And then they're like that. It's like and that's why we're working for Monsanto to provide you the best. It's just like, shut up. Like you said, just say hamburger tasty. And we all we all know we all we all we've all basically signed up for that deal. There are some cows. I've I've talked about these cows at length on the show, but I'm obsessed with a particular herd of cows. I call them the island cows. And it's weird because I both I love them. I would die for them, and also I would be fine if they became a hamburger that I'm eating, Andrew. They live, I don't know, five to ten miles down Interstate 5 from me. And they are, if you're driving south on I-5, and you are a little bit north of, like, the town of La Center, Washington, and you look to your right, you're going right along the Columbia River, and then there's this little island, and there are these cows that live on the island, and they are the free range.

of cows you've ever seen they are just chilling in the summertime they're just standing in the river they're like you know kind of like halfway up there they're like i don't think they have elbows but whatever you call it they're elbow deep in the water they're eating seaweed they're drinking water they're chilling they're cavorting they have the best life i've ever seen for a cow and my thought is like first of all i love these cows so much like i just i'm so happy for them that this is their life and conversely I wouldn't feel terrible if these cows humanely met their ending to become food because I would think well they had a pretty good time on this planet they have a life that I think I would actually take if given the opportunity right exactly and I guess

it's the humanely part of that like I'm somebody who I do eat meat and so like what I have to do is sort of not think about it too much I had like I had almost like Luke you know what I had I just like went on my little rant about this and I'm sorry I can't find the commercial I'll give it up now because i'll be too distracted if i keep looking but i just wish i could remember this cowboy's name actually isn't that a song i wish i could remember that cowboy's name um i think it's kelsey ballerini i had i had an opposite uh feeling when i was again watching sunday night football and it wasn't even a commercial you know like the the game last night was taking place in los angeles so all the cutaways or the kind of bump ins will show something that reflects the the food culture of the area in some way and i just saw i saw somebody making like some of the most delicious looking pork tacos and i'll every now and then still have a carnitas taco like if i'm by myself but like you know genevieve doesn't eat pork so there's not a lot of pork in my life these days which is fine um but like sort of seeing it as kind of like oh my god that looks like the best like i wanted to i wanted to get up out of my seat and just go find pork tacos somewhere i literally did sort of an assessment of like oh god would uh el camion be open right now it was like 10 o'clock at night i'm like no it wouldn't be uh and i and then i had this thought of kind of like man i really did i even thought yeah but those were pigs so you know just like being i mean i'm not saying how much it influences my behavior but just being around people like you or genevieve who think about these things does impact even in small ways the way we think about them you know i probably would have eaten a pig yesterday if it wasn't so late at night but at

least i'm thinking about it there you go and again i don't i sure as heck hope that i don't sound like i'm judging anyone else or moralizing because i'm really not and because i'm not even a vegetarian myself i just generally don't eat a lot of meat which is sort of like being you know a little bit pregnant it's like is it important to me or is it not because i'm not really i don't have i'm very fluid with my personal boundaries around a lot of this stuff but well i mean is

that i don't know i don't i mean i guess i don't know i'm interrupting you but in your defense i know that you're feeling a little bit like sheepish about looking like you're standing up for something that maybe you don't want to stand up for or be the face of.

If somebody sees me pulling out of the Arby's drive-thru, I don't want them to be crushed. Right.

Oh, God, I haven't had Arby's in so long. And I don't even think that's really animal. Like, come on. Something died for that, but I don't think it was an animal that we have to worry about.

It reminds me of, I've been, for some reason, like little 30 Rock clips have been re-emerging in my TikTok feed. and when Jack Donaghy is finally trying to finalize his divorce with Isabella Rossellini's character and they're dividing up all of their stuff or at least he's, I think what he's trying to do is he doesn't actually really want the divorce to be settled because then they really will be out of each other's lives.

I forgot that that was even a subplot. I forgot that she was part of the show because he's still, they're divorcing but he still really loves her, right?

Yes, and he's kind of addicted to the sort of intense dynamic of their relationship um and and so he makes these totally unreasonable demands about the division of the assets thinking that it will contain you know she's there with her lawyer and he's demanding all this stuff which which i think in his mind it's like this is going to keep this going for another 20 years because there's no way they're going to go for this he's sort of asking for the world and they go for all of it and it really crushes him ultimately i think but he's just listing the different things and first of all just the assets in their marriage or it's just a bunch of jokes you know written in but one of them is and the arby's franchises we own i think in like wyoming and she goes jack you know i love my jack you know i love my beef and cheddar or something it was like isabella rosalini saying jack you jack you know i love my beef and cheddar it's just like the funniest thing to me and that yeah and they as a power

couple represent everything that would be the opposite of an arby's in middle america somewhere But I would just say that I don't know that it's like, say, I don't I don't agree with your assessment that it's all or nothing. Like every little thing you do. Right. Like every every dollar you give, every little thing you do is magic. I mean, I feel like every decision that you make that you're not eating an animal. Well, then that's that's one fewer animal that had to give itself to your plate that day, you know. And yet I'm donating money so that it can happen for people that can't. afford a turkey because i guess i feel worse for a person a family that couldn't afford a thanksgiving dinner than i feel for the turkey but let me ask you about this um when you say

they come you you kind of mentioned they come up to you i wasn't sure if you're speaking uh like do people actually come up to you like and say will you donate will you throw a dollar in this tin or is it like at the checkout where it's at the checkout they have a little like laminated

you know card that's got a barcode on it so it's one of the people that works for the store yeah It's the person who's running the self-check.

I forget that you don't... Okay, so you're still doing self-check in the...

Well, the Safeway that I go to has one human working now. So it's not even a possibility. I mean, it is, but there's never not a line for the human being. I mean, they've really, really... Much like a cattle, much like a cow in a kill shoot, they've really routed us into this self-checkout world. Eventually, all of those lanes will go away. I have never in my life seen more than one human operating a check. And in fact, and I don't know how it is where you are in Seattle, but I think this is pretty standard now. Like, can you remember maybe on like Thanksgiving Day itself or Christmas Day, like maybe on whatever the Super Bowl of grocery stores is. But other than that, can you remember a time when you have seen two lanes open, two checkout lanes with human beings actually taking the, you know, scanning the stuff?

I don't really pay much attention, but I'm pretty sure the Holman Road always has two human lines and then they have two on either end big banks of four self-checkout. But honestly, like I'm so not interested in having humans do it because I would like to pack my groceries my own way. They always do it wrong and wrong. You know, I just I just don't I don't want anybody else messing with my groceries. So I that but but I guess I one thing I want to say about that is and I think I have this on good authority, but I wouldn't I mean, listen, maybe I'm wrong about this, but I wouldn't donate through a grocery store.

Those big and, you know, like, I mean, I'm sure that it's yeah, it's just a big tax write off for them.

It's like they can count it as their donation. So it becomes a huge because you're like, look at all this money we raised. So, like, it just basically helps their bottom line and profits. I think you can do so much better good by giving that dollar to somebody else. But, Andrew, think of the Kroger's. Yeah, right, exactly.

Think about the poor, poor Kroger's.

I know that's so preachy sounding or whatever, but, like, even now with self-checkout, all I have to do is tell a computer no. But even if it's a human, I'm just like, no. Like, I'm doing other shit.

The way they get you is you are buying a bunch of food for yourself. you are you are taking a bountiful harvest of uh if my dad's over nutty buddies uh dinty more chili and one bruised peach no i don't whatever random food my parents bring over but like it's from an optic standpoint and from it's it's one of the it's one of the things that i am uh i have the hardest time turning down i'm okay at at you know saying no thank you to certain charity opportunities. But it's, if I've got a big basket full of food that I'm buying pretty much for myself to consume, and they're saying, sir, could you spare a farthing for a family that doesn't have a turkey this Christmas? There's something about the juxtaposition of the food I'm buying for myself, the amount I'm spending on it, the small amount that one dollar is to go towards a turkey, that it really, I have a hard time looking that person in the eye and saying no. But I think you're right i don't think it is the most efficient way or effective way rather to try to move money

from the people who have it to the people who need it so there is a store i go to a lot this is regarding nutty buddies by the way you've finally gotten there do you they used to have a different name i think they were called cash and carries back in the day and now they're oh sure i love those stores yes and there's one near kind of near my house and i go there all the time to stock up on supplies for our you know for our food operation on sundays and so i'm often there buying cups or like um clamshell containers for food or whatever and so i'm in there usually about once a week and the way the line is set up and by the way there's no self-check out there anything again it's like this is a place where usually the person in front of me is clearly running like a small restaurant they got like two 20 pound bags of beans on a cart you know and like a thing of lard that you could like jump into or whatever it's just like um it's a fun place like a frozen yogurt place

yeah exactly i was trying to think of what restaurant would be least likely to be purchasing two huge things of beans and a thing of lard it's a flower shop it's a minchi so anyway um and i'm

just in there usually buying my my few things usually a paper product actually veves and i went there to buy a bunch of fruit for a fruit salad recently but all of that is to say um the line sort of and there's no self-checkout um but um the line is it's sort of it it snakes its way sort of a strange way sort of perpendicular to the to the checkout stand as opposed to um just like like having a straight line. So you're sort of looking at products. It feels like a more industrial place. It's not like your Safeway or a regular grocery store. But they do have some products sort of set up, and I guess they're supposed to be impulse buys. And one of them, Luke, is – and this is not usually a – you're buying things more kind of in bulk quantity here, so impulse buys sort of a strange thing. These are impulse buys for like a restaurateur. Right, except they have – and I don't know if it's the same one or if they keep resupplying it. but there is like one box not of nutty buddies but of those oatmeal sandwiches with the cream inside oh that i used to eat as a kid and it's a box that's open like i could just take one and buy one and eat it in the car oh i see okay and every time i'm in that line like they caught me again like i am sitting there staring i'm like is today that because i think i was there on are they little debbies whatever the brand i think it's the real brand yeah probably and like i i don't think i've had one of the i i literally don't think i've had one of those since i was a child it's been forever but like i can feel the i can feel the texture of it in my mouth for that first bite like i remember loving those very soft right so soft and so good and i will stand there and like i swear the other day i was almost reaching to grab one when they said okay next in line i was like zoink okay good you saved me because like don't delay joy and get some gd oatmeal cream pie here's here here are the two things that honestly stopped me from doing that

number one the cost who has a penny farthing these days no um sir can you please buy oatmeal

cream pies for a needy family obviously like i am not somebody who treats my body like a temple last night i ate a half a thing of gummy bears well you do it's a temple of doom it is a temple

of doom yes you can pull your beating heart out of your chest but any moment that i can

any moment that I can stop myself from having a moment just like eating a little Debbie in the middle of the day in my car I just have this feeling that like when I'm done with it I'm not going to be like that was worth it I just feel like no matter what it's going to be set up for disappointment I'm going to feel a little bit like kind of gross about doing that and secondly because I haven't had one since I'm since I was a kid I think it's going to seem really small and insignificant and not as good to me I mean literally my mouth is bigger you know what i mean like i just don't think it's going to be the same sensation i don't think it's going to be worth it i think it's better in my head interesting you're probably

right there's probably some shrinkflation going on in that they're actually probably getting smaller you definitely have grown my mouth is bigger your mouth is bigger and it's also you're not a kid like i don't know at your dad's you know fab shop like you know what i mean i associate a lot of that kind of stuff because you know my dad's a sign painter and i grew up you know going and doing stuff at the shop and then sometimes going up to Chubby and Tubby and getting, like, I was big on the iced molasses, old-fashioned cookies, you know, like, two large, I think those might have been, like, called Grandmas or something that was, like, the brand, but they would be two big cookies. They seemed huge to me at the time. And sometimes my dad would get one and we would each have a cookie. They had chocolate chip.

Okay.

They had chocolate chip. They had, like, a peanut butter one, and then they had, like, an iced molasses one that was really soft. I was a nice molasses guy if I had my choice. But so much of that stuff I associate with being 13 years old and also being on a job with my dad. We're going somewhere. He was big on, I've talked about this before, something called Violet Crumble, which is like an Australian candy bar delicacy that my family is still obsessed with, which is kind of weird.

Sounds very Narnian, for sure.

It was pretty Narnian. Yeah. But yeah, like that kind of stuff. I don't know if eating a Violet Crumble would bring me great joy today, but it brought me great joy at age 11 same with those grandma's old-fashioned cookies for some

reason i think of these these um these i i don't even know why i'm like i have this vague sensation of associating the oatmeal cream sandwiches that i'm talking about more to like a maybe a um a field trip in school or something like that like because i know they weren't packed in my lunch on the reg but i do have an association of eating them as a special treat on certain lunch things However, that feeling of, like, eating a special sweet snack that you associate with, like, some sort of industry, I had the same feeling in that same store. But I was there with Genevieve, and we were in the back of the U.S. Chef's Store, and they had, I don't know what they're called, but they're, like, little pies. But they're almost like little turnover pies. And then they were coated in some sort of very, very thin icing and then packaged up in like white bags with like bright colors, almost white waxy bags. Yeah, of course. Can you picture what I'm talking about?

Yes, I totally can. So it's like a fruit pie, but it doesn't always have to have fruit. It could have like pudding in it.

Yes, yes, yes.

It could have lemon, like a real lemony kind of tang thing.

And I swear to God, this was probably a week ago. Avivs and I were standing in the...

back of the story and i was like look we should get those i remember those from my youth and then we were both immediately were like no like they even in the even when we were kids they weren't that good i was just having a total they were so bad they were so there were so much of the crusty

crumbly like crust right yes and also they were like three for a dollar yeah so what used to happen was i remember vividly speaking of safeway i remember i don't i think it's actually still there but you know there's that safeway that's at like roosevelt and 75th no it's it's it's up it's oh gosh i'm so bad with with geography and now seattle geography i want to say like 85th it goes up and crosses i5 and then kind of bends around and then gets over near where the the ravenna kind of area where where the where the um what's the what's it called the uh where the Reservoir is. Reservoir, thank you.

Yeah, no, that's 75th. That's my store. That is 75th. That's my main store. Yeah, yeah. Or 70th or 75th, yeah.

So that, this family that we used to go to our church, the Stevenson's, used to live in this kind of rental house that was along 75th, right where the road kind of bends before it straightens out and shoots over towards where that Safeway is.

Yeah, and then you get into the Lake City Way area, yeah.

Yeah, and that Safeway is now, I consider that a new Safeway. the one that you go in is like a fancy new version even though it's probably 20 years old but it was like an OG Safeway in the day like you know a big kind of round Quonset hut style building with the big letters and we I remember we like me and Jesse we like somehow you know dug around on the couch cushions to uh to get some change we really wanted something that was a treat and I think we might have had like two dollars or something total collected and we walked to that Safeway, because I was spending over at their house, we walked to that Safeway, and those pies were like three, they might have even been like four for a dollar, and I was like, this is amazing, we can get like 15 of these, or whatever, like we can get, so we just bought so many of them, because that felt like maximizing our money, and I remember getting back to their house and being all ready to eat my like six of these pies that were like allotted to me, and just biting into the first one, and getting two bites in, and just being like, okay, well that's enough of that. Right, especially

I mean, I could see, and again, I haven't had one of these. For some reason, my grandfather drove a Lance truck, which I don't think is a brand around here, but Lance was a, and still is, I believe, in the Midwest and in Ohio, it was the type of snack food where he would drive around to places like my dad's shops and reload vending machines with peanut butter crackers and cheese crackers and these kinds of pies and that kind of shit.

Yeah, they called it Schwan. Well, a version of that that just went out of business in the Northwest was Schwan's.

Okay, yeah. And I mean, I think when I go back to Cleveland, I will see that Lance logo, which is not a special logo. I think it just says Lance in a certain font. But anyway, all of that is to say that maybe if you bought seven of those pies you're talking about and took one big bite out of the middle of it, like the part where you can get maximized the fruit filling or whatever, and then throw the rest away like Ramona Quimby, like maybe that would be satisfying. But I just remember that hardened crust all the way around that was sort of pressed. Like, oh, my God, no thank you.

Yeah, it was so much of that outer, oh, man, I'm looking at probably the exact kind. We probably bought them from Franz out here, F-R-A-N-Z, which is, I believe, actually a local company to the Northwest. And I think that might have been the brand that we were buying Hostess. we weren't fancy but in fact we might have even been buying the generic brand that's probably why we could get so many of them because we probably they were like not even probably friends and definitely not hostess some kind of uh some kind of generic knockoff thing but yeah those those things were uh much better in theory than they were in practice man i'm trying to figure out i

wanted to use a photo of of these um for the show pick today do you think it's franz is like sort of The most generic-looking one?

I would say if we have a majority of listeners in the Northwest, that might be what looks most familiar to them. But, you know, I'm looking at one of these. Oh, look at somebody. If you go on thewalmart.com, they're, like, giving you helpful instructions on how to enjoy your France Blackberry featuring natural and artificial flavorings. and it's like it's on the left side there's just like some little thumbnail shots and one is just actually this is the picture andrew i'm going to send it to you it's just like this exact sad ass pie you're talking about that's mostly crust just with a big scoop of ice cream on it oh sure yeah yeah like they're like here's a thing you can do with this it's like yeah thanks for the help uh walmart crumble it up break it up scoop out the fruit pie throw the rest of it away and put it on top of a better

pie. Right. Thank you for being a tell. Sir, would you like to donate $1 to a needy

podcast? Yes. Now that I will always say yes to.

And guess who else said yes? Our donors today, Andrew. These folks are supporting TBTL with a monthly gift, and it is very big for us. It's how the show is able to occur five days a week. Folks like Richard Lohmeyer in Monroeville, Pennsylvania.

Oh, that's a good work in town. Sure is. I don't know for sure. Monroeville. Sounds like it, yeah. Thank you, Richard.

Thanks, Richard. John Pelletier is in Phoenix, Arizona, another work in town.

Definitely. We've been to Phoenix together.

Hard-working folks down there in Phoenix.

Jeremy Jewell is in Leawood, Kansas. Nice. Never been there, but Jeremy. Jeremy's there, so that's a reason to go. Thank you, Jeremy. Indeed.

Bettina Mackey is in Bothell, Washington. Don't say it. think it but don't say it okay thanks uh bettina thanks to laura hahn in kenokee michigan how do

you think i did on that pronunciation i'll bet you you did well because you're more right about these things than i am but i will say when i saw it i was saying kenokee epic early epoch epoch epic uh kenokee could it be kenokee michigan it's probably kenokee i think i was

I'm thinking of Cancany, which is a different place and which took me years to learn how to say, and I'm trying to apply that to Kenoki. I bet you it's Kenoki, Michigan. Thanks, Laura. Thanks also to Jamie Bever in, how do I say this one? Seattle, Washington?

Seattle. Seattle? Seattle. I think. I don't know for sure, but I think it's Seattle.

Seattle, Washington is where Jamie is.

Thank you, Jamie.

Thank you so much, donors. Thanks for making TBTL happen. We couldn't do this without you. hello and welcome to top story oh hey you know what our top story some exciting news andrew that the tbtl merch shop has been uh rejuvenated refresh we have refreshed that's the word i'm looking for uh revivified i'm not saying it was dead i'm just saying it's it's got a lot of new cool stuff on there that you can purchase for yourself or someone you love. What do we want to tell folks about the merch store

refresh? Well, first I want to start with the personal loop because you get to the universal through the personal. Did you see my brain lock up for a second when I mentioned font? We were talking about Lance cookies and I said, Lance, their logo. I can remember their logo. Oh, it was just a font. And then all of a sudden, I don't know if you saw me freeze up for a second. I was like, oh yeah, we got to talk about the merch store. I just wasn't sure if you had noticed that. I didn't. Since we can basically read each other's minds at this point. But yeah, it's been a lot of fun. John Sklaroff, TBTL, numero employee uno, as we famously say on the show. Yep, number employee one. Exactly. Worked hard over the weekend to make sure that this would be ready for today. And so thanks to John for doing this. But we did. We added some new merch to the merch store. And the reason we did this is because the holidays are coming up. and a lot of people like to buy things either for other 10s in their lives or sometimes I will get emails, often I'll get emails from 11s or 5s and saying, hey, you know, somebody in my family is a listener. I don't know what the hell's going on with you guys over there, but how can I get them something special for the holidays? And so we wanted to make sure that there was some new stuff up there and we refreshed. We took down some of the older stuff, left some stuff up, added some new stuff and actually rebuilt the webpage. It's got a new look. So if you want to get a t-shirt or a hoodie and do you want to talk a little bit about like the the water bottle is a fun addition as well luke we have a drinking vessel uh inspired by your own personal journey i believe this was

maybe your idea or maybe john's idea um but it was a very smart one which is because i've been on this uh 75 hard ish kind of journey and one of the things is drinking a gallon of water a day and i've had this silly water bottle which of course today of all days i left it in the house But so and we've never I don't think we've that I remember had a water bottle like for sale. So we've got a TBTL water bottle that just says ish ish on it ish ish on it. And then it says tbtl.net down at the bottom in case you ever forget what the website is. That's I mean, water bottles are useful. You've got to carry a you know, you probably you know, you live in 2024 of America. You probably carry a water bottle here and there. Why not carry one that says ish?

It's a cute little bottle too. It's a sleek one. It doesn't carry a half a gallon like yours does. No, it's not a gallon size one like that. But it's a nice little metal bottle with the type of cap that you kind of unscrew, take your swig, put it back in your bag, and go on your very...

your merry way and think of tbtl think of your pals at tbtl um ish and the fact that uh you know and also just use it as a i would say use it as a motivation to try things but also to not be too hard on yourself if you only have to do the thing like trying something that's good being mean to yourself because maybe you didn't do the thing exactly the way you had intended whether it's a some sort of workout plan or special new diet or god knows what like be nice to yourself basically now of all times that we should be nice to ourselves i think right now is a time so uh the ishification of life i think is sort of okay right now the ishification we have

a tall ship shirt now just says yes i love this tall ship on it it's beautiful this is a handsome shirt andrew handsome and then well john found that picture of the tall ship and then um tbtl and this is something that um had been kind of an idea for a while i think it was yours or john's to have a shirt that just says a TBTL 10, TBTL 5, or TBTL 11 so that you can, as a family, you can go out. You can all buy one and identify yourselves. Or if you want to get, like, I think we have, like, youth size TBTL 5 shirts as well as adult sizes, I believe. You can see all the different options and hoodies and everything. So you can proudly declare yourself a TBTL 10 or an 11 or an a 5. And I would like to be clear here. We don't really make very much money on any of this. I'm glad you brought that up. I wanted to talk about that, too. Yeah.

This is a lot of work for John. This is a lot of work for you, Andrew. This, per usual, is the least amount of work for me. But it's like if we wanted this to actually be like a significant moneymaker for the show, we would need to charge double what everything is on there. And we're not because this is not how we're trying to support the show. This is just because we know that the 10s, particularly around the holidays, and again, the people who love the 10s, they would like to get a T-shirt that says something about TBTL. This is we are not getting rich off of this. In fact, we are barely I think we make a little bit of money, but hardly anything, because we just want people to have TBTL stuff if they're so inclined.

Exactly. I'm glad you said that, because as I'm talking about this and I want to know, you know, I want to let people know everything that's on the site. I sound a little feverish, like I'm like I'm pitching something or or like it's the TBTL-a-thon. And so I do want to make that very clear, like this stuff is there for you guys if you want it. And we we we want to keep on keeping it refreshed. In fact, we have a couple of fun ideas, too, that we'll hopefully add again. And we want to just keep it kind of a fun place where you can check out stuff and maybe get some TBTL gear. But this is not the fun drive, and we're not doing this to make money. So please don't, like, kind of do it as a – I mean, I don't know if this sounds like a weird thing to say, Luke. But, like, we are so earnest when we come to you one week a year and say, please, like, we really need your support here. This we're doing as an option for you if you want it. This is not how we're paying our bills. So don't do it for us. But if you want it, like it's there for you and we love and we love making this stuff.

Absolutely. And it's very fun to think that there will be folks walking around wearing like a hoodie that says TBTL 10 or has a tall ship on it. And maybe it spurs a conversation. Oh, hey, I like that tall ship on your shirt. What is that? Oh, well, OK. One of the guys on the show used to be a producer in New Hampshire Public Radio. He worked for a show Where they used to sometimes have a guest on Who was known for his depictions Of the tall ships And then they look over And the person they're talking to Has passed out with two X's over their eyes And their feet are flying up in the air Like a little Abner cartoon I was watching them as a skeleton

Still wearing the clothes That they were wearing at the beginning of the conversation

That is also a thing that has happened When you try to explain TBTL to people But yeah Yeah, I'm really, and again, Andrew, thank you for the work that you put on this, and he'll hear this, but to our friend and colleague, John, thanks, John. I'm really stoked about this. Like, I really like all of these designs, and I really like all of this stuff that I'm looking at on the merch shop. So go check it out if you're inclined towards TBTL merch. I am inclined towards, I was inclined, Andrew, towards two things this weekend. One, I do feel like I have actually made some sort of emotional connection. Again, may not be a good thing. I've made some sort of connection with Blue Sky that feels like it could be permanent. Whereas with Threads, I was all excited about it at first, and then I was like, this is going to be my new thing. And then two days later, I forgot it ever existed. That has not been the case with me and Blue Sky. I am thinking about, like, when I have a minute, again, this is why I'm not even saying it's a good thing. But what it is is a thing that my brain thinks about going to when I have some downtime or I'm standing there waiting for my soup in the microwave or what have you. Like, and I've been posting on it and I've been deleting posts, which is always a good sign. It means I'm very engaged with the discourse there. I'm loving it. Have you been messing with Blue Sky lately? I mean, do you feel like Blue Sky is something that you're...

going to actually spend a decent amount of time on i mean again like i i haven't i've been on it for a couple of years now i think and so i haven't really not much has changed for you does it feel energetically different yes definitely as a as a reader of it and i think i mentioned this last week i really love that there's more content there now and it's it is it it's a little bit of a weird feeling because now now i'm following all these people that i used to follow who are like big names you know like again i think i threw out mina kimes i'm chris hayes by the way has been there since the beginning too by the way and did a good job of updating that but for a lot because blue sky was so niche for so long like you would just you i was desperate to find anybody with similar interests usually around the mariners so i started following these people that i don't really know that well and they were the only people in my timeline and they're sort of like strangers who now i feel like i sort of know online and now that there's such a flood because i've been signing up for more accounts now there's such a flood of content in my feed i feel like oh those people that i this little band of explorers that we had early on or start we're starting to kind of disband a little bit and sort of like float further and further away from each other but still it's fine i prefer it this way because there's so much more content there i saw finally a headline in the seattle times today which was like how to join blue sky you know and and so the more people there the better now you i i'm not on there all the time it's not still my like you know maybe once a day I'll check it or something I'm still not like checking it like I did Twitter all the time and I think that's good by the way I'm hoping not to get back into all bad Twitter habits on Blue Sky it's it's been kind of nice to be able to like sort of take a bit of a step back but know that it's there if you need it having said that and I don't want to start an argument with you but I am I am very curious about something that you posted this weekend and I saw it you happened to post it like 33 seconds before I opened Blue Sky so it was there at the top of my feed and you mentioned at the beginning of the show today that you've been kind of like i really don't want to repeat it but skeeting and deleting which actually maybe that is the show title like maybe i changed my bio my blue sky bio maybe i can't deny it my blue sky bio is really weird by the way and i don't remember i think i heard a commercial one time i don't remember i went back and looked at my profile this weekend and i have no recollection of writing this as my profile here's my profile andrew waltz and blue sky a results driven blank with the proven track record of blank i have no idea like i must that sounds like you had just heard an npr underwriter i think that must have been it and i was just like oh yeah hallucination

free ai scalable for your business i think i need to change that now that people are actually on the

site but um anyway so i don't know if this is something that you skied and deleted or had other thoughts about but i'm really interested in your and again this brings us back to snack food i'm not interested in your tweet so much as your skeet your post uh so much as i'm actually interested in your thoughts on a snack food that i i really like and it's gardetto's i believe you had posted something like and you had taken out i think you're referring to the little um the little guys did like there's um there's little rye chips in there and then there's what are the dark ones pumpernickel chips in there and you said you want a cereal episode or a cereal season all about those and i wasn't sure exactly why do you not like those no i well first of all i've got cereal

on the brain as in the season as in the show because i listened to all of the new cereal this

weekend oh and what is the what is that it's about keiko the killer whale oh i didn't i totally

missed all this yeah it's really i quite compelling it's not it doesn't feel like it's as long like there's five episodes and they seem to average around 30 minutes it's not quite as as as involved as like the Adnan Syed season or whatever some of the other ones so you can kind of if you're like for instance if you're painting a room Andrew you can really get through the whole thing but so I think I had first of all I think I had the idea of serial the the kind of deep dive investigation in my brain and then I guess what I meant by that more generally was just I I find this to be fascinating as a thing. And I guess I was just trying to make a statement about how like I could have, I could listen to a lot of discourse around the topic of these little, are they the rye crisps? Is that what I have a picture of on the internet?

I don't, is it still up there? I don't remember. I wasn't, I thought you maybe had a pumpernickel one.

This is one of the skeets I stand by.

I wasn't sure you had a pumpernickel one, but I wasn't in, and again, like I love talking about snack food with you. And we just did that for like an hour. One thing I don't like is when people pretend to be, like, angry about their, oh, you're wrong about what you like as a snack food. You know what I mean? You know how the discourse can sort of slip into that? And I think that's very, kind of just tired.

Is Gardetto's a sandwich?

Is Gardetto's a hot dog? Exactly. That's a better joke. Is Gardetto's a hot dog? But I am, without being judgy and having my own strong feelings about it, I'm curious, was that sort of... I love them. You do love them. Okay, I wasn't sure if you were like these.

or a crime against humanity.

No, no, no, no. I like them a lot. And that was what I was, I don't know what I was trying to say. Like, you're right. When, when, by invoking the term serial or any of these other, like, you know, investigative sort of things, it sounds like I want this to be looked into further because I have some problem with it. And really what I was trying to say was I would listen to a long, long, long celebration.

A celebration, okay, yes.

So maybe, yeah, maybe that, maybe that's a skeet that I'll delete at some point.

I'm not trying to get your, I was just legit curious because I was like, If you don't like those, I was like, I think you'd be on the outside because they're the only ones that have been isolated and sold as their own bags, right?

Which someone explained to me on Blue Sky. Oh, really? You can just buy, which I don't trust myself with that. No, that's the thing.

And I feel like it will devalue it on your taste buds a little bit. Like, this is something that I struggle with every time I'm in, like, a 7-Eleven snack section on a road trip because that's, like, my main Gardettos. And, by the way, terrible. Like, you should not be eating them when you're trapped in a car and your fingers are getting super greasy and the whole car just smells. But that's when I want them the most.

I don't even know where that – I think Walt might have brought a bag of Gardettos over. They're so good. Which, first of all, is amazing that he went and named Bran, that it's not like Gardontos. It's not Gardontos. You know?

Yeah.

But, yeah, I was like – the other night I was feeling a Mike Peckish, and I found this bag of Gardettos in the cabinet. And I was like, all right. And then I was like, oh, my God, the little toast chip thing is just so incredible. But, yeah, I think that was unclear what I was saying.

Mike Peckish hosts the gist, right? Mike Peckish. Do I have that right? Yes. You're just dropping these references.

Friend of the show, a friend of mine, Mike Peckish.

Just you drop these references, and it's hard for me to keep up with them. But, yeah, I just – and maybe we've had this conversation before, but as much as I consider those little chips to be the treasure inside the bag of Gartano's, I don't want just the treasure. Like, I don't want to buy just the bag of them because I just sort of feel like the joy is having to get through a couple of just regular pretzels in order to get to one of those things, you know?

What I am trying to do, and I know this is like way more conversation around Blue Sky than anybody really wants or needs, but I'm actually trying to not force myself, but just actually do a lot of whatever we call it, posting on the site. whether or not the posts are good because I want to get into the habit of it which again is a strange thing because before Twitter became completely toxic politically my relationship with it was kind of not super free and easy because I think a lot of it for me was you know going on there to try to post a tweet so that then the right people would notice it and retweet it and then I would feel some sort of happiness which is not a good relationship to have with social media and yet I'm actively trying to get myself back into that relationship with Blue Sky like because whereas with I guess I technically have a lot of posts on threads but that's only because it auto posts my Instagram stuff to threads like I have I have I don't I can't remember going to threads and intentionally putting something on there well you probably did way back when it was brand new maybe in the like my first week of being excited about I probably posted like three threads intentionally and then anything else that's on there is just because my my Instagram does it automatically and then for a long time I've been trying to use Instagram the way that I used to use Twitter. And that also kind of never quite worked for whatever reason. But now I find myself being like, I want to get in the habit of posting on Blue Sky. And not every post has to be particularly good or light the world on fire. It's just getting in the habit of, and it's also generating enough content that the people who are following me become used to me posting content and engage with the content. And I guess I'm trying to will this into being a real thing, But it's kind of a weird feeling because, again, if I'm successful at it and if I end up with sort of what for me was a lot of followers on like Twitter and the relationship I had with it, I don't know if that's a good outcome or not. But I'm trying to kind of get that I'm trying to get that old magic back.

I'm I'm kind of enjoying and I don't I really ship to the Twitter website in this type of stuff is very different anyway, I think, or, you know, different, if not very different. And so maybe we're starting from different points, but I actually kind of like not feeling a lot of pressure to do it, like having like maybe saying, hey, this is a refresh, like Twitter a couple of times in my relationship with it got to a point where I was like, what is this doing to me? Like this is making me in some way agitated in a way that I don't like. And I'll always remember being this was so weird on a beach, literally on a beach on New Year's Day saying I'm going to get the people I follow on Twitter down to like under 100 and try to keep it there. Because like I am just seeing an echo chamber of a I'm sure it was during the first Trump administration. I hate saying first. And it's just I have a lisp. So the S is hard. But I remember.

just thinking like i just don't need everybody i follow yelling the same thing into the void and i need and so like i kind of went through a refresh then but then it kind of built up again and it's kind of like and one thing i sort of like right now is like oh this is like i love a clean slate i mean this is what for very specifically this is such a micro thing but very specifically my generation which is an older generation now when it comes to technology what we went through was sort of a refresh of social media every year or so when social media was new for me I started on Flickr which was a photo site so that's a little bit different but then you had Friendster I think I can't remember if it was Friendster that was first then um oh god MySpace my exactly then MySpace then I can't remember if there was something in between that and Facebook but I remember thinking oh well and Facebook is just going to be here for another year or two too and until we move on to the next thing. But then the next thing you know, Facebook just did not go away and started impacting world politics. You know what I mean? It was kind of like, and then that became such, I just hated what Facebook felt like after a while. And so I just got rid of it, but I didn't have the next thing to go to. And listeners of the show will know, I have gone on a lot of, I've been looking for that second vine or that fifth vine for a long time now, going back to remember our conversations about Elo back in the day when I was in Los Angeles. Did you say Elo? to like just all these to the to the people that recreated myspace remember somebody recreated myspace a few years ago and it act it acted exactly like the original myspace did and I got a bunch of tends to follow me over there until we all just or at least I just gave up on it after a week or whatever there was just like no momentum and so it's really fun to to see something new start here but also just a refresh of everything like I don't have to follow all the same people I used to follow and I don't have to slip back into the old habits I probably eventually will but i don't feel a need to like sort of uh prime the pump on it as um the person who tweets under

the name norm charlatan oh yeah who's a somebody that our friend the stew bot by the way i'm following the stew bot on there although the stew bot already has like thousands of blue sky

followers he's been on for a long time too by the way he's been oh okay i didn't realize that

because i only recently got there andrew i i assume it only like i breathed life into it like it was just it was the void before i got there there's no way anyone was on blue sky predating me, but Norm Charlton said something to the effect of his post on Blue Sky was like, if you're somebody that I was following over on the other place and I haven't followed you yet, please know that I'm just working on rebuilding my list. If you're someone that was following me on the other place and you're not following me now, I will hunt you down.

He's the best. He must loom large in your Mariner's

memories, no? Well, I very much remember, you mean the pitcher

norm you mean the sheriff this is him this is him he and stew butter buddies yeah but it's not he's not norm charlton the pitcher yeah i mean stew is friends with him and he's a hilarious twitter

follow wait a minute the former pitcher norm charlton yeah one of the nasty boys from the cincinnati reds along with rob dibble and others who then came to seattle and was called the sheriff and pitched for us is also norm charlatan i didn't know that he changed his name on that but i know

that he's a really funny twitter follow and that he's kind of buds with stew bot to a degree that they they know each other and can hang sometimes and also because when i posted a video of him closing out one of the games in the 95 series and i digitized it and posted it like stew bot shared

it with him but we that is if that is really the baseball player i thought that was just a funny i thought that was a fellow like midwest baseball commenter person who was doing a funny play on the name norm charlton i did not think that was the baseball player norm charlton if that is my mind is exploded out of my brain and i need you to host the rest of the podcast i'm just going to be a slumped over shell unless i'm because stubat is 61 year old from fort polk louisiana has that level of sense of humor that is incredible he's amazing that's insane yes i mean unless i'm unless i'm

missing some sort of layered upon layered upon layered joke because stubat has even mentioned him on the text chain before he has watched viking seahawks games with norm before i believe

i i don't think it's the pitcher nor i don't think that guy lives in minnesota i think he does I'm really the norm to the sheriff moved to Minnesota and became friends with the stew bot and it's not just like a different rando sports commentator who is using a funny name is it I

mean can I just call the stew bot right now and see if you pick will you can is there a way like

I want this to be true so badly because I I I want this to be the case I mean seriously seriously because I never even there was no universe in which I considered this a possibility I need to

What I need to do is. I need you to buy me some time, because I need to tell the stew about I'm calling him from a strange number, but I need him to pick up, okay? Okay. I'll read you some other stats about Norm Charlton, the baseball player. He was the bullpen coach in 2007 for the Mariners. His contract was not renewed when they hired Don Wakamatsu to be their field manager in 2008. I guess the field manager gets to pick some of the position coaches, and Don Wakamatsu was apparently not a Norm Charlton fan. He graduated from Rice University. He was a political science major, but he also majored in religion and physical education while at Rice, where he played baseball. He had an ERA of 2.25 and an 11-win season. His dad was also a Rice alum, so you could say he was a legacy person there. um let's see some other interesting things you're doing great by the way thank you as i leave you

while you're i do think that i do think that stew bot is going to pick up here because okay yeah i texted me responded right away oh i love it hello this is stew hey how you doing buddy you're on tbtl

am i on live you are yes you are oh yeah oh yeah buddy oh this is great oh man this is the best

Oh, what's going on?

Old friend, old friend 98.

So good to hear from you. We're having a blue sky related conversation and your name came up as it related to the person who posts on places. I was trying to quote somebody that you follow and repost a lot on various places who goes under, is it Norm Charlatan or Norm Charlton? Yes, Norm Charlatan. Yes, Norm Charlatan. and he had said something very funny about the migration of blue sky and how basically like if he's not following you back he's he'll get to it and if you're not following him from the other platforms he will hunt you down or something yes to the ends of the earth but but but what we're trying to understand is is that person actually the one-time nasty boy norm charlton or is that a uh an indoor kid sports poster who's using the funny name norm charlatan um the latter he is

That's Rollway Washington.

Yeah, okay.

I'm sorry. I argue. So are you not friends with the original picture? Did I totally have that wrong?

No. I'm only friends with Rob Dibble and Ken Falk.

Luke, I apologize. Hey, Stu.

Rob Dibble has been name-checked in this episode. That is second Rob Dibble mention.

I am absolutely embarrassed and absolutely mind-blown. I had a whole scenario where you were friends with him because I one time digitized a piece of tape with the actual picture in it, like from some 95 game, and I thought you shared it with him, and I thought, I was like, wow, I am like one degree of separation away from this legendary closer, and I am not, and I am literally blushing right now. I am so embarrassed. God damn it.

Andrew, I'm sorry.

I wasn't trying to set this up to embarrass you.

No, I'm glad to know. I mean, damn it. I wish we could go. I wish we had a time machine. I mean, for a lot of reasons. But I wish we could go back to before this conversation so Andrew could continue thinking that Rice University graduate Norm Charlton is also a hugely funny sports poster. I mean, that would just make my year.

I can't. Oh, boy, that's amazing that Andrew thought that. I am. Oh, Stu.

So when you were – didn't you one time text to the text chain that you were watching a Seahawks-Vikings game with a former pitcher, or were you just hanging out with this internet nerd? Oh, God, come on now, my turn. I'm sorry. Watch that. Watch that, Stupa.

I was just hanging out with the internet nerd.

Well, I love this internet nerd, but boy, do I have egg on my face. I was just arguing so vociferously with Luke before you got out of the line.

i was so ready to be wrong i wanted i've i am i'm i'm typically wrong and i've never wanted to be wrong more than in this than in this case it's just i think part of it andrew this just has to do with if you had like lived in seattle in the 90s and you'd ever watched norm charlton walk to or from the mound you know you would know that this is a person with bad takes

okay oh that's a bummer he's the physical manifestation of a bad take oh man i you know what i gotta stop i think i just started following him on blue sky i'm gonna take a little break i'm unfollowing him now not because of and because i actually think your friend is absolutely hilarious nothing he's hilarious but every if i follow him every time a little tweet from him comes up i will remember this conversation and be re-embarrassed so i need to take a break from this. I need to maybe take a break from both of you. of you guys as well and come back in a year it's gonna be a quiet week in tbcl land i'm so embarrassed luke i sincerely apologize for yelling at you no you didn't yell at me at all you merely stood

your ground for once which is a reasonable thing never do that never do that stew how are you yeah right god bless the broken road that led us to our friend the stew bot hey buddy how's it going fellas not great very little has changed since the last time we had you on the

program no oh my god i that's that is so great though i'm going i'm going to talk to norm

charlatan offline after this yeah well you can point him towards the exact moment on this show that uh his his his nom de internet is invoked and he can listen to that probably with great delight that he became such a topic on today's show oh god he will because yeah he's like as

i mentioned he's a native of the pn dub and uh yeah he'll think this is this is a hoot

um uh congratulations by the way on the vikings school you guys look real good

oh man yeah yesterday was just fantastic he got that got a tough dub against uh tennessee got a geno smith just bananas game ender against the niners i mean great great day for this little

crew here indeed i was in fact that was part of my whole uh blue sky thing which i just joined a few days ago and now i've been seeing you on there and other folks and andrew and you have been on there for quite some time i guess but yesterday just felt to me like the perfect day to have a new way to connect on social media around the sports that i love because it was a good day to be a seahawk which we can't say very often um and uh and also i like this trend on blue sky it's like five percent corny but i kind of go for it which is posting pictures of the actual blue sky and i posted a picture of the actual blue sky where i live as the seahawks were embarking on their final drive and a big part of me said this is a this is a terrible terrible jinx burbs that you're putting out there because like usually when I get overconfident um the recent election comes to mind I'm proven disastrously wrong and so I posted that I said you know this blue sky is dedicated to uh Nick Bosa feeling emotional pain and physical pain and then we ended up actually pulling it out with that Gino scramble so yeah it was a good day all around for for the you know for for people who love justice and the American way and the Seahawks uh climbing out of the basement of the nfc west do you think stew that the uh what were you saying i was gonna say

der's only sound like six negative texts in the unloving criminal it doesn't sound like anything

you still have him blocked uh i do i don't know if stew does yeah no i don't think stew blocks

no i you know he still comes through yes oh no it's um uh do you i mean i want to i don't want to get you i don't want to force you into a corner or make you make a prediction that uh that might be some sort of a jinx but i mean you got to be feeling pretty pretty good about these vikes like

you know um super bowl material yeah um nice honestly i the lions look so good man if they can get who knew kneecap biting was such a path to victory jesus but yeah they're just rock solid vikings are good very good they'll make the playoffs what'll be a fun game and i'm sure you both have this circled on your calendar is 12 23 at whatever you call the stadium in seattle this year um it's it's seahawks vikings um the two days before christmas oh i didn't realize

that wow that's gonna be big i'm i'm i'm you know i still haven't forgiven my city for the blair walsh situation in uh stew like and uh as much as i would i i enjoyed that at the time i uh i hated that it had to come against my good friend uh stew and also the city of minnesota that i love So I'm hoping – it's like I want the Seahawks to win, but also if we've managed to fall out of contention by then, I won't be that sad if the Vikes win. Because I feel like the Vikings have more upside than the Seahawks do this year. And we owe you after those Blair Walsh kicks.

Yeah, it feels that way this year, but, man, I don't – I mean, I think that game's going to – I'm fairly bullish on the Seahawks this year. I think they've got a they've got a chance to, like, you know, be a little be a little frisky here towards the end and maybe sneak into the sneak into, like, the six or seven spot. And who knows? Chip in the chair, guys. You get in the playoffs.

We're the Daniel Negreanu of football. I love that all the Seattle sports writers who four days ago were writing the Seahawks off are now like, this is exactly the defense that Mike McDonald had planned all along. Now we're good.

all of a sudden.

Wait, is this all of them or is this one in particular who I know gets under your skin? Coltake Calkins? Yeah.

I'm honestly like, I'm with most of them at least of a week ago saying that the Seahawks seemed like they were a bit adrift. I don't think one win fixes it for them, but it was. And again, critically to my bank account, I had the coveted Geno Smith rushes for a touchdown bet laid. So that wasn't the worst thing to happen on a Sunday.

Do you mess around with betting, Stubat? Can you do that where you are?

Nope, we still can't. We got weed last year from the state ledge, and I think we get sports betting either this 2025 or 2026. I think that was the agreement from what I've heard from my sources at the Capitol.

Do you think that will affect you? Would you go in for that, or are you more reserved when it comes to stuff? Oh, hell yeah. Yeah?

Oh, no, I'd have a blast doing it. I'd have to be careful, obviously, because I think we know that when you have the ability to bet on the Vikings under on your phone from your couch.

Yeah, I have I think I have the advantage. It's not legal in Washington yet where I live technically. So I can only do this if I have the forethought to lay some bets while I'm in Oregon, which I generally don't. So it's kind of a good like it's a good control mechanism on the whole thing.

Yeah, are you kind of glad of that, Luke? I was going to ask you that earlier. Like, do you – like, I know if you could flip a switch and make it legal in Washington, I think you would. But is part of you glad that you can't –

I have a weird – I have a weirdly unproblematic relationship with specifically sports betting, which is strange. Like, it's just – I have had the same, I don't know, $200 to $500 in DraftKings ever since I set the account up. I don't know why. It's just – I just don't know enough about sports. I don't think about it enough. like it's not something that i think i would get crazy with well like because when i lived in oregon i had it on my phone and it wasn't something i got particularly crazy with which is funny because other other forms of betting have been something that i've needed to sort of be careful around but for whatever reason this it's like me and marijuana like i've enjoyed it at times in my life it's not something that i think about hardly at all when i'm not in the midst of engaging with it and i can't explain why that is because all of the you know all of the indicators point towards i should have a sports gambling problem but i don't absolutely the same here yeah do you have a heggies problem is the real question when's the last time you had a heggies blessing um i had it um they have them in grocery stores

now so i had one like last month oh wow so it was nice delightful the it was the inferno it's one that has jalapeno peppers on it oh let me tell you brother i'm at the age where i have to

really strategically plan out when i eat something with jalapenos yeah oh i have to plan out all kinds

of food now i have to think about that i'm kind of like well i mean i don't want to get into this but here i am but like there are times where i'm like okay i got a bunch of errands to run and one of those things is to eat lunch and then i think you know what maybe we make lunch last on the stops because afterwards i don't know where i'm going to be and maybe i don't want to be in line at the post office as i uh you know like a half hour after eating these were never thoughts i had

to consider before i remember being at the at the the legion on phelan after we did that live event and just absolutely just deeply disrespecting a heggie's pizza by tearing all of the top i believe you described it as a flayed man andrew yes it was in my dark days that was in my all carbs no gas phase of life that has long since departed me but well listen stew thank you for picking up thank you for um settling this disagreement um please only answer these things when i will be the one who has proven right um if it's an andrew thing and he's going to be right just do not disturb that call if you would if you wouldn't mind i can do that

i'm so embarrassed but honestly thank you for clearing it up like honestly this is the type of thing i'm going to think about a lot especially when i'm online no but it's just like i it's not even it's not even this moment of being so wrong so loudly so wrong so publicly but it's also just the world that i've lived in for three i don't know when you started like kind of retweeting and posting and i started following him i mean his the fact that it's charlatan and i never even noticed that it was right there in front of me the whole time it's just like waking up from a dream or something where the reality that i thought like i really thought you were friends with an

ex-mariner baseball player sadly no i apologize i'm trying to think honestly if there is a mariner who is an ex-mariner that would have the highest kind of like i mean of like legendary status not of like cup of coffee status Mm-hmm.

I want to say, believe it or not, even though he's he's real salt of the earth guy, but it's a it's a gopher state alum. It's a land of a thousand lakes alum, I should say, really. And maybe Dan Wilson, maybe current head coach Dan Wilson, just because I've seen him. I've seen him eating at various cool restaurants in Seattle, which is you think he's a little plugged in? That's possible. I mean, anybody.

I mean, I'm running through old Mariners in my head right now. This is going to distract me for a half hour.

Probably not Mark Langston, probably not, let's see, probably not Spike Owen. Yeah, Edgar, no. Edgar, maybe in his, yeah, I'm trying to think. Is there a Minnesota twin? What about Joey Cora? Maybe little Joey. Is there a Minnesota twin who you think actually could be like a funny Twitter presence? Do you guys have any historic oddballs? Ken Herbeck?

Oh, God, Herbeck was, yeah, he posted a picture of his guacamole once. Oh, man. Herbeck would post every once in a while, and it's a picture of his wife's just whole appetizer spreads that she would make. I can get down with that. She made this guacamole that looked like the toilet and train splotting. So that's how I got blocked by Kent Herbeck on the old page.

One too many Irving Welsh references that she blocked. Anyway. All right. Well, this is what you do, man. It's good to catch up with you. Give our love to the fam, okay?

You know I will. Thanks for calling, guys. Take care. Bye. Adios. Later, skaters. Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. No, man. It's not from a female.

All right. D-mails or V-mails?

Yes. We got a voicemail that I wanted to share with you. This was in regards to something we talked about on last week's show, a headline, a somewhat somewhat dubious headline from The New York Times.

It said that the viewers were leaving MSNBC and flocking to Fox as if it was the same people.

Exactly. But basically, the story was that viewership numbers are down from MSNBC after the election and viewership numbers for Fox News are up because. Yeah. What's our I'm sorry. I don't mean to stop you

remember how when we were just done talking to the stew bot about a Kent Herbeck post where he mentioned Trainspotting and I said a little too much Irving Welsh that's the guy who wrote the book Trainspotting and now you're setting this you're setting this voicemail up regarding that New York Times thing and I just glanced out on my phone and I just get like a blue skies you know they're pushing I haven't had the discipline to turn off whatever their push notification stuff is yet and it just shows me a push notification from Irving Welsh. Good morning, Mr. and Ms. Blue Skies. Why did you have to hide away for so long? Okay, we got an ELL reference. Deadline today on submission of my novel to be published next year, so see you all later. The post is from the writer Irving Welsh.

So that's, first of all, I've never gotten like pushed tweets from people I don't follow before.

Well, it wasn't a push. It was just like something went up on my phone. I kind of tapped it instinctively. I think it was just, yeah, I somehow engaged with Blue Sky. and it's a it's the first thing that i see is a post from the is the scottish i'm not sure yeah i think so it's i haven't mentioned that guy's name probably in my life and here it is and here it is and i i mean whatever i guess it's just a coincidence but that's a really strange coincidence

you know what's even a bigger coincidence is the stew bot is personal friends with irving welsh did Do you know that they watch games together, dude? I swear to God, there were text messages about it.

I apologize for totally destroying our flow there.

No, it's OK.

I just thought that was really strange. Keep going.

Anyway, just in regards to the fact that MSNBC numbers, viewership numbers might be down in the wake of the election because we don't want to. Because a lot of people who voted reminded. Yeah. For Kamala Harris are not really interested in following the news cycle these days because it's just so, so, so depressing. We got this voicemail from somebody who is actually almost showed up in your horoscope today. One of your siblings. Rob Dibble. This is, of course, David from the basement. Oh, I know that kid. Yeah, let's open up the basement door.

Hey, Luke and Andrew, CFTV. Well, I just wanted to call after, you know, a couple tough weeks here, especially working in news media. I called because I wanted to address, Luke, you had talked about MSNBC ratings going down in my own kind of private protests here at... A news station, which leans a bit right, certainly away from my sensibilities. I have been changing every single television station all around the newsroom to MSNBC. Both a protest and also to help out our friends over there. And it gives me a little bit of joy to know that certain conservative talk hosts come into their studio to find the station on MSNBC instead of Fox News. And that gives me a little bit of happiness. All right. Anyways, love you both.

Power out. I know that we need to get out of here, Luke. Love the petty. I'm so here for it. I don't know if you are – I think you were aware of this maybe slightly, but maybe – I don't know if it's something you would remember. But when we worked together at Cairo Radio, which I have no idea where David from the basement works, but you and I worked together at Cairo Radio. From Anonymous Radio Station. Yeah. Yeah. And you had the show. Let's see. I produced it. It was you and Dave Ross, 9 a.m. to noon. Right. And then Dory Monson would come on after that, the conservative guy. And I remember like we would have MSN because so many of the studios around there would just have Fox News on because so many of the people were like kind of Fox leaning, especially Dory, of course. But we would always have on like CNN, MSNBC, I think, and then maybe a local on the third station. I just remember like Dory and his producers or news people coming in and like just trying to change it off of MSNBC as fast as possible and get it back on to get it. And I even remember your feelings, Andrew, your feelings. I literally remember because I was pretty new out of public radio at the time. I remember Dory coming in, seeing a woman on MSNBC. And I think she was a presenter. Like I think she was anchoring something and him and his like news person at the time being like, oh, look at her. she would never be allowed to be on fox news just based fully on her like sex appeal like i was just i remember just being like are you where am i working like what is this by the way that was

probably the good old days i mean like that was that was i unfortunately as again and we're talking about different radio stations of course as dftb is referring to i'm guessing that there's just generally been a a rightward drift if you look at the programming lineup i mean dory's obviously no longer on this planet but like you know those were there was probably some amount of at least centrist pushback happening in those days um maybe me doing some of that i don't know but like yeah that's um those are the kinds of conversations and the kind of thoughts of like somebody dismissing an msnbc a host out of hand because of how they physically appear to that person yeah it's like that's the kind of thing that still that sends me spiraling because those people right now are winning i don't think they're gonna win forever but they're winning right now and every bit of news just feels more and more like they're winning the worst people are winning right now the people with the worst instincts and the you know but i i do just say what i keep saying i did it's i know i say this too much but the future is not written but also just like I right now I'm almost taking it as like like I'll give you an example yesterday when the Chicago Bears and we have lots of listeners in Wisconsin and lots of listeners outside of Wisconsin who love the Packers you know peace and love I'm not trying to be mean but it's like I feel like I'm rooting for the Chicago Bears because our friend Chris Hayes is a big fan and because the Bears have just been beleaguered would you say peace and Jordan love I would I would absolutely say that and and like yesterday you know and also the fact that the Bears have this guy named Rome Odunze who's a former UW Husky and he was taken in the first round along with Caleb Williams their quarterback and I sort of like both of them as people as far as I can assess and the idea of like them being a dynamic duo and Chicago you know getting some love after they've just been really really bad for a long time and they're playing the Packers who always bedevil them and i'm texting with our friend chris hayes and the bears drive the field and they like are actually have a game-winning field goal and it's reasonably close by field goal standards not like a 60 yarder and of course it gets blocked and it just feels like is are we ever going to get a w anywhere on any level be it sports be it you know politics i don't know like it and i almost laughed when that when they missed that i just thought you know i'm i feel like we're entering into the like can you make it rain harder territory sometimes like famously prince when he was performing at the super bowl halftime show it started raining and everyone was fretting and then he supposedly who knows if it's real or not said can you make it rain harder i'm kind of trying to lean into that a little bit like can you make it rain harder universe like i don't mean i want more bad things to happen or more people to have fewer protections but it's almost just like is that all you got universe and it seems like it's applying to this weird wide variety of things, whether it's like a stupid football game or Matt game.

you know it's just like can you like it just feels like ever all the bad people are getting all the W's right now but I don't think that is how life is going to be permanently it feels like it right now I just don't think that's what's gonna happen I don't know when it's gonna break I don't know what's gonna change but I just don't think it's always gonna be like this at least

that's what I keep telling myself and you know I certainly don't have the answers and I don't mean to say something here that's gonna sound like I'm trying to be wizened or or or talk down to you in anyway but i would maybe suggest avoiding the instinct of grouping it all together not that i'm not doing it myself i'm just saying like if i can sit here now and kind of pull myself away from it a little bit and like i think we'd be doing ourselves a favor if we don't associate a field goal with and i know it sounds like i mean the fact that the right the fact that the

that the Packers had studied the kicking trajectory of the Bears' place kicker or field kicker and realized he had a low trajectory and therefore were expecting to block a kick. Don't conflate that with Matt Gaetz being the highest law enforcement officer in the country.

Right, or a Fox News host leading the Pentagon, which just saying those words just gives me heart palpitations. But no, I mean, I do think that, like, I know what you mean, and I'm not trying to dismiss that, that, you know, like, it kind of comes in waves for me And there were some times this weekend where I was just like, you know, like, whatever, like, literally, like, I don't know, somebody cuts you off in traffic or is rude to you in the grocery store or whatever.

Steals your spot at Costco, as happened to me this weekend.

And you can like. In a Tesla. And I see it. You can like start to and then you can like build a whole narrative around them and how it fits into the geopolitical or the national landscape or whatever. And it's like, OK, that's not healthy. That's not healthy. This person cutting me off doesn't have to do with the Department of Defense right now. I guess you're right. It sounds preachy. I'm not saying that I don't slip into it, but maybe that's something we've got to remind ourselves. Like, okay, let's at least not make it harder on ourselves.

Something I was struggling with yesterday as the Seahawk game was going on was, and this is sort of related to this stuff, I guess, there have been times in my life where I'm getting really, really worked up about a football game, and then I remind myself, it's not life and death. It's like the wider world. Let's just say the Seahawks are playing, but barack obama is president okay and it's like i'm super stressed about the game and then i can tell myself it's just a football game it's not like you know fascism is on the rise and you know like i could fall back on the real world being a better place than you know it might otherwise be and use it as comfort against something meaningless like football if that makes any sense like i could just think like you know you're really upset about this luke but it's not like the nazis are marching in the streets in ohio you know i mean i really would think thoughts like that and i don't know that's probably not a particularly good way to kind of like um you know manage one's feelings about football by going well it's not the real world the real world is sort of okay right now instead now it just magnifies it it's like okay it's not the real world but the real world is really messed up and like i i guess it's in moments like that that i realize how how messed up the world is that we're about to go into and how it sort of doesn't leave me anything to fall back on for comfort i guess in in those moments and then i have better moments and worse

moments but it's like and try to kind of try to think of your own personal life though too like and i'm sorry i shouldn't tell you what to do or how to think no i'm all i'll just tell you what i do is because even even recently i've been i've been thinking this and again not to like say oh well you know like i'm okay so i don't have to worry about the rest of the world that's obviously not the lesson here but when you're in a moment where you're like everything seems really dark or especially if it's something like a football game or whatever something silly like that or something more important like for me like the sort of like counting my blessings or whatever you want to call it is just thinking like man still pretty healthy like still with the the woman i'm deeply in love with have a cute little house in seattle like none of this stuff is perfect trust me genevieve cats genevieve is not perfect the house is perfect genevieve no you know what i mean like even thinking last week and like you talking about all the stuff around around your house and how how beautiful it is and i sort of think like yeah i really should have done more with this basement or whatever i'm like you know what it's a cute little house up in north seattle and it is what it is and like i'm so happy like veves and i will honestly just out of the blue sometimes just say to each other like she'll just say god i just love our little house here you You know, and so sometimes it's helpful to say not that not that we have to give up on the people that that need us to be strong now, but also that, like, there are there are a lot of personal blessings in our lives, too.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think we can take a moment to appreciate those. And I don't think that that's us turning our backs on anybody who needs our, you know, support. I was on that little I was on a jog with Becca. on saturday and was saying how like we were just talking about where we're at in life and our ages and stuff and i was like you know we are going to look back on this someday and just be like can you remember when i was 48 you know like i will look back on this someday you know i was having i had coffee with somebody on friday my buddy marshall who's older than me and i was talking to him just about various things in life and he was like well how old are you i was like 48 he was like oh you got it made dude and i was like so hard to think about that that like i will look back on this and just be like when i was 48 and my body was allowed me to get out and go on runs and do these things like it's such a privilege you know yeah and it's easy to lose sight of it in the moment and it's easy to be overwhelmed by the um the kind of uh larger political news but i also have to within this moment of my life be really grateful about the things that are going on in my life and uh so yeah that's i think that's a that balance is going to be the thing that we're all going to have to kind of like figure out i mean i listened to the daily this morning on my run i listened to an entire conversation about matt gates i don't know what that means either of like i'm re-engaging with the content or i'm exposure therapy exposure therapy slash uh self-harm i don't know but i was really waiting for the part where the uh new york Times reporters and say here's why the Senate Republicans will not approve this yeah never quite got that answer yeah for sure but that's what I was looking for that's what my brain was looking for was some piece of news that said uh yeah this is why this may not actually happen and then I can spin that into like well then that creates dissension in the ranks and now this whole thing's the wheel start to come off for this guy you know um this guy being Trump but didn't help by the way that there was so much celebration this weekend that was people doing trump dances

oh i see i i'm not exposed to that i and luckily don't be yeah some nfl guy did it it's just this

normalization of his there's this meme going around because basically trump is as he is with everything he's a horrible dancer he's a horrible person horrible dancer horrible everything but his horrible dance has now become like him basically on stage listening to some music when he's having a mental breakdown like he was and wherever that was him dancing awkwardly has now become its own meme and people doing it like the guy john jones who's a ufc fighter won something this weekend and i think the whole thing and then he does the dance and guess who's in the fucking crowd trump it's just like this normalization i mean that's when it just feels I was like, it's like, universe, could you stop kicking me in my heart's Ballsack? You know? And I do mean the poet, Ballsack.

Yeah, no. So we don't have to bleep that. Yeah, I know.

That's a reference to Ballsack, okay?

I'm going to, okay, so we've gone really long here. And so I'm purposely burying this at the end of the show. I blame David from the basement. I blame you for falling for an internet prank. And then we had to call the stew bot to sort things out. That was fun, by the way. It was. No, it was great radio. That's the one thing. First of all, it's great to hear from the StewBot again.

It makes you mad that it was great radio. No, no, no.

It saves me that it was great radio. I'm so embarrassed right now, but I just got to remember to everybody else, that was hilarious. So that's good. And it was hilarious to me too. I just also feel like I don't know what's real anymore. But having said all of that, this is a really weird thing to say. And I'm almost sort of embarrassed to say it if my prediction is right. But one thing that I love talking about in my dreams, right? And I've told you on the show before that I have a lot of, like, kind of not recurring, like everything is the same, but very thematic recurring dreams almost my entire adult life as far as I can remember. Travel is always a big thing, packing, cleaning, stuff like that. And I have now had in – and I believe all of these have happened since the election, although I'm not for sure. I'm in the last like I don't know couple of weeks I have had three dreams that all fit a pattern that I've never had before which is like being somewhere on the street somewhere and like three or four tough guys kind of start chasing me like you know like they're they're thugs or toughs or what a street street toughs you know or whatever and like I remember in one they're chasing me and I finally get behind a door and they're pushing on the door and I'm trying to keep them out and another one I have a bicycle that's how you know it's a dream like i take my bicycle i try to fight him off with my bicycle i can't remember what happens in the third one um but like but the fact is that that people are trying that like people people are trying to actively beat the shit out of me this is not a dream i've ever had before and you know as a kid who was bullied and everything that just was not a dream that i i didn't have to dream it um no but like the idea of like how your brain processed several this particular anxiety is several adult men trying to chase me down to beat me up and the dream never gets to the point where like you know punches are thrown and I was just like

thinking about it on something I'm like that's really weird that I'm suddenly having this recurring dream that I've never had before and then I thought could it be and this is maybe ridiculous but I'm just like could it be that I just sort of feel like the bullies won that the thugs won yeah and is that what it is and they're just like trying to punch me in my dreams I don't know that's why I waited until two hours into the show to throw that I actually think that's

very interesting um that there's new dreams that are being integrated into your dreamscape at at your age and it is it has to be related to a generalized feeling of like the bad guys won they did it they won it feels and it makes no sense that they won because it's like it goes against the interest of many of the people who voted for them you know right like it's like this feeling of of and you know like i i made the mistake of like i haven't read the new york post since the election i was already kind of souring on i mean the thing i always say about the new post is like they have some funny headlines they would sometimes kind of like find a weird story that worked for us because they don't have any journalistic standards and are just a trolling institution but sometimes it would it would they would they would have a story that I thought was kind of entertaining a non-political story but I haven't been able to go there because I'm like I don't want them gloating well it's worse than I thought you know when you go to the New York Post but it was just so thorough the gloating today and ever like we used to be there'd be like two two annoying editorials about like why Trump is better than Kamala Harris or something, and I would just skip past those. The whole newspaper is just basically a victory dance right now. It made me feel so, and it really felt like the bullies won. The bad people won. We lost. I thought of it because they were describing, apparently Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski had a meeting. They went to Mar-a-Lago and had a meeting with Trump that they talked about. I haven't read what they said, back to MSNBC talk, but my guess would be they said look like it or not this guy is going to be the president and it's better for us as a society and us as a movement to the degree that joe scarborough is a lefty i mean the guy's a republican congressman it's better for us to engage with this person than to not engage with him which i think is there's probably an argument for that you know like um but it was like i swear the headline in the post was something like defeated dem commentators or something yeah it's just like it's like we're in the part of the movie where like we're all you know we're in the part of the movie where the bad guys seemingly have won and we're all subjugated or you know we're chained up in the basement of the castle or we're whatever we're in the bad we're in the part of the movie where it looks like there's no hope and life is not a movie that's the thing life is real life and movies are movies but it's like it feels like we're in that part of the movie and what I'm hoping is that this is this is the worst of it and that we also move into the part of the movie that nobody sees coming where we actually figure out some way to prevail you know or some way to get some amount of our power back I will remain hopeful till the day I die that we get that power back somehow that we get that agency back I don't know if we will but I'm going to remain hopeful that we do because I don't know what the alternative is

for me you know what we need to do luke is take the mattresses away from the bottom of the ramp remember the movie rad do you remember

the big lesson in the movie you know for uh you know andrew for a guy who was pretty obsessed with like bmx bike tricks and stuff i don't know if i've ever watched rad i've heard the uh trailer to rad i think wasn't that a um yes intro drop maybe i'll use it maybe i'll use that tomorrow

i think i still have that but um so i don't remember much about it i remember seeing it in the 80s or maybe even in the early 90s past its peak but um i for me the one thing i remember and maybe i'm totally wrong about this as well like not nothing i mean trust nothing that i say obviously but i think there's a big part in it where like the hero he's like practicing these you know he's jumping off a ramp i don't know the terminology for he's riding his bicycle and he's going off this ramp and he's trying to land it but he can't land it but then he meets another psych, do they call them cyclists? I don't know. And I think it's a girl who probably becomes a love interest as well. And I sort of feel like she teaches him like, listen, you're scared that you're going to hurt yourself. So you have all these mattresses, you know, so you're landing on mattresses. You're never going to be able to land it. If you have mattresses down here, you have to remove the mattresses and then land it on the concrete. And that's what we're going

to do eventually that's right get the mattresses out of here and then we can gleam that cube and then we can leave the cube i have no idea if anything i just said is right like we gotta get out of here well again andrew i don't want you to feel i don't want you to feel uh embarrassment or or be hard on yourself about our our norm charlton conversation because it led to us getting to say hi to our friend and what's more important than reconnecting with

With our friends and our community. What's more important than that right now? I can't think of anything. That's right.

Well, thanks again to the StewBot for picking up, by the way. That was really good. It was, you're right, it was a broken road that led us back to friendship.

I believe that's a Rascal Flatts song. I don't want to steal valor from the boys of Rascal Flatts.

Okay, duly noted.

Oh, there's my music for your weekend, early. Good. Write it up. Yep. All right, thanks for listening, everybody. We're going to be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for you. so please join us for that in the meantime have a good monday take care of yourselves stay dry and warm and safe and please remember no mountain too tall good luck to all

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