Muse

Before we say goodnight, I just want to take a moment to address any perceptions out there regarding bias in my reporting. In divided times such as these, I'm reminded of one of my great heroes, Walter Cronkite. Because of him, I have the integrity to stay firmly impartial. He gave me a gift I can never repay, a $25 gift card to coconuts. If only I had used it before all their locations closed. TBTL!

I've seen it coming for years. I've worried about it. I hoped with all my heart I wouldn't experience it. I wouldn't see it. But it's now here.

What's even the point in this freaking podcast? It doesn't even make sense. Why would anybody listen to it?

I yell at you because I love you. You listen to me because you love me. Is this a weird dynamic? Yeah, sure, from the outside.

You know what, dude? We can make a lot of money on this. If you're making these out of thin air, I mean, there's no overhead.

we're gonna be rich oh my god one hundo a day both of us five hundo a week that's rich

well all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a wednesday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live it's a kind of magic my name is luke burbank i am your host welcome to the internet coming to you from the madrona hill studio perched high above the

mighty colombia on a foggy day before thanksgiving we don't really say thanksgiving eve it's christmas

eve is the only is the only day before something that gets the eve treatment we don't say 4th of july eve it's a special designation for december 24th today is november 27th i believe and we are bringing you episode 4346 in a collector series i also believe let the fun begin i had one job yesterday it was at the very top of the show sheet and it was asked andrew about the extension cord situation can you can you verify can you give me some 411 on and i absolutely failed at that one job yesterday i went the whole show and never asked him so we will follow up on that today also i have received a piece of comedy performance easily from 10 different people this one particular piece of stand-up comedy please welcome god's one and only voice of comedy and i will be honest with you i have complicated feelings around the whole thing. We'll play you the piece of comedy, and then we'll talk about it. Speaking of God's one true voice of comedy, look who it is. It's the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ship. Oh, he's hilarious, dog. Who is... He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend, and also HBD. Thank you. Work from home. HBD stands for... Get that out of the way right here, right now. It's your birthday. Happy birthday.

I have a conundrum here on my birthday. I heard from a friend, my friend Gretchen, who we hung out in Los Angeles quite a bit, but we're not in touch all that frequently, but she checks in from time to time. On my birthday, she sent me a happy birthday text today. Now, Gretchen is a lifelong Oakland A's fan, a very long-time baseball fan her whole life, A's fan.

That's a tough draw.

Yes, I think goes to like just games like like me, I think would get there like two hours early, just sit in the stands by yourself for like hours before the game would begin on a sunny day. And so I said, hey, man, I'm sorry to hear about your A's. Like, how are you doing? And she said, you know, I haven't decided who my new team will be. I hope it's OK. This is a private conversation, but I think it's OK to share it here. She said, I've been a casual Dodgers fan for years, but I'm such a foul weather fan. I'm not sure I can get back with them post World Series. How are you doing? And now I'm not going to answer how I'm doing because that's irrelevant now. What I need to do is convince her not to be a Dodgers fan in any way possible.

Tell her that her birthday present to you is not becoming a Dodger fan.

That was the originally what I was going to reply, but instead I wrote, and this is where I could use your help because I think I went with the wrong name here. I wrote, oh, no, please don't go to the Dodgers. How many Dylan Moore jerseys do I have to buy you to bring you over to the Mariners? Demo. I'm trying to figure out, like, what would be. How many Josh Rojas jerseys do I have to have? I don't know. The timing on that one might not be great, my friend. Really? Why? I'm trying to figure out who is the funniest Mariner. Uh-huh. I could say Vogelbach, but I don't think to a non-Mariner-specific baseball fan, you associate Vogelbach with the M.

probably right like did we're no and it's been a it's been a while the thing about vogelbach is his presence is noted on every team he's on exactly his unusual uh dimensions for a pro athlete and so uh yeah he's kind of the property of whatever fan base has him at the moment um

whereas like i don't know if i don't it doesn't have to be current i kind of like the fact that it's antiquated but i i don't uh but i'm with you that vogelbach is not well imprinted to the

mariners in the way that i mean we could go with the the old standby ryan court how many ryan court

how many signed or no i don't have a signed ball like let's how many actual ryan court foul balls

do i have to offer you to sweeten this deal that's right i have let's see here actually what i have

I have one actual Ryan Court foul ball, and I have this that I found at a flea market. I believe maybe that antique store in Bellingham, a Collector's American League West Mariners Championship 1995, a collector's baseball here. Kind of the hard kind that you wouldn't play with because it's like a collectible one.

Yeah, I think that is, so 95, that was the amazing comeback year.

Yes, that's where they actually broke the division tie to actually go to the playoffs.

Yeah, we had a play-in game against the Angels. The California Angels at the time. The good old California Angels.

I believe I have that on a VHS tape and on YouTube now because I digitized it. And that's where I learned that YouTube, if you digitize an entire classic baseball game and upload it, YouTube will find the memorable moments and say, oh, there's a copyright here where so-and-so stole this home run at the wall.

We've only copywritten the good parts, though. There's a lot of 2-2 fastballs that were just off the plate that ran it to a full count that were not put—no one's enforcing the copyright on.

I could look this up, but do you know who I think was a reliever in that exact play-in game?

In the play-in game, who was a reliever? Stubat's best friend hanging out watching Seahawks.

watching Seahawks game. Absolutely.

Well, that would have been, I mean, that was the prime Norm Charlton era. Andrew, because it's your birthday, I thought my present to you is let's just briefly talk about the Mariners here at the top of the show. Yeah, you're just allowing it.

I'm like, wow, we're really, he's really allowing this. Okay.

You want to talk about Cold Stove League? November 27th is about as irrelevant as baseball can be. but our beloved seattle mariners are are i don't know i just i it just feels like you know the brakes are beating the boys uh just about everywhere you look these days whether it's politics whether it's the media uh entities that are flourishing versus the ones that are struggling you know all of it it's just and i'll throw the mariners on the list it's like of course the mariners you know are once again going into the offseason without being ready to spend any real money and the poor seattle times they're trying to you know they're trying to make things feel sort of uh you know important and uh and meaningful i get this email from the seattle times breaking mariners mariners ready to hire new hitting coach oh yeah i saw that wasn't it's

not gonna be edgar edgar has a new title that is basically like hitting coach who doesn't have to leave home did you see that he did basically edgar doesn't have to go on the road it's like

ichiro ichiro's assistant yeah whatever assistant to the two yeah assistant to the guy we still let suit up and shag fly balls for some reason before the game but like it wasn't even the mariners are hiring a new hitting coach which by the way a hitting coach in baseball is a very important job it's you know can be very important in terms of how your hitters perform so it is a thing but it's like i don't know every team has a hitting coach it's not the manager it's sort of like it's a little squishy to me as to as to how important the hitting coach can be and then this isn't even saying we know who it is it's just saying basically the mariners are right on on on november 24th in the year of our lord 2024 we are breaking into your email feed to let you know that the mariners are emotionally at the point where they're ready to hire a new hitting coach and it's just like this is the lowest level of news you could be giving me here's how i want you to think about

this as i believe you are uh i am a huge fan of ryan divish and i'm also a fan of adam jude who writes for um the the times about the mariners and yes it's november 27th right now like let's keep these guys employed like if they want to write if they want to write about like the mariners are considering a new brand of sunflower seed for the duck actually that would be a really interesting story uh but anyway whatever the like button on that just like let's keep these guys writing let's keep the page HX coming in because it is, we are, they are like just, you know, what do you do to the dregs? They are scouring the dregs of November non-news to try to justify their jobs as Mariners beat writers. Absolutely.

And if they, you're right, if they go away, all I'm going to have to listen to is Tidon Gonzalez. Yeah. Whatever the hell that show is that I hear endlessly advertised on Sirius Satellite while

i'm trying to listen to the mariners games you don't i i listened to that podcast locked on

mariners and um not to be confused with locked on sports which we actually played a selection

from yesterday the david lock show oh that's right which is a little bit different but yeah the locked on mariners is part of the locked on sports network but a different locked it didn't occur to me that we have some some copyright infringement or at least some trademark confusion there maybe is a better way of putting that but um anyway i sometimes i listen to that i just think I need to protect Luke from this because the show is his two hosts. And one is, you know, a pretty, a pretty go along, get along guy. They both know baseball really well. The other guy is a little bit more of a savant. Like he really knows baseball. He really, he knows who these players are from the, from the moment they apparently leave the womb. You know what I mean?

As soon as they become a twinkle in someone's eye in Venezuela.

Exactly. Like he really does know baseball and he really does know baseball players, but he is the grumpiest, most unfun person, and they've tried to sort of turn it into a character. I have him locked on the text chain.

Yeah, you certainly would. You know, I ran into some, well, I don't know if it's trouble or not, but I noticed during the Seahawks game on Sunday that, so this was the second Sunday in a row where I found myself at home able to give the game my full attention, and I've been kind of, I've been patting myself on the back this football season. This is your second birthday This is actually your early Christmas present Now we can talk about the Seahawks But like I've been patting myself on the back a lot This year about the Seahawks Saying that I've had a pretty I have not let the fact that there's a game Dominate my Sunday Like if Becca and I have plans Or if we're just hanging out I'm not going to turn the whole Sunday Into sort of like a Seahawks obsession Kind of thing And I've been proud of myself over that Because I do think it's been good for my relationship It's been good for my relationship with the team but by happenstance the last two Sundays I've actually just been home with nothing specific other than various home improvement duties nothing specific on the calendar other than the Seahawks and I'm realizing that it takes me no time to just absolutely lock back in on my obsession and what I realized was a lockdown obsession that that could be that's my that's my podcast yeah contribution from the lockdown network it's Luke locked on obsessing over the from the locked on mental health podcast from the locked in as he's on a 51 50 from the locked up so like what i realized was you were probably doing your pop-up um i know my brothers were at the game uh david and his wife alicia were at the game and my brother sammy and my mother were at the game so so my sibs were sort of out of the mix because they were enjoying the game in IRL.

As was Durs. I don't know if you know that.

Oh, well, I don't because Durs is muted.

Because you believe you have a block, but he was at the game as well.

All I know is that I think it was Stu popped in to say something funny about Durs' level of chicken littling, like the sky was falling, and I think Stu said something. The first peep on our fun-loving criminals thing on Sunday for a hugely important Seahawks game that I see is Stu kind of laughing at the fact that he sees all these panicked texts from Durs and then he looks at the score and realizes the Seahawks are in okay shape right now. And then I throw in my Westworld Evan Rachel Wood little meme. I'm trying to bring that back, by the way, and I've actually been really enjoying, in my personal relationships, throwing good old-fashioned GIFs into the mix. Or GIFs. I feel like that has gone very out of fashion, but I'm ready for it to come.

I've been making GIFs. I'm just getting it. Well, no, no, no. Just like, come on. By the way, dude, those are the Pink Panther GIFs last night. I mean, yeah. I was actually thinking of the newsletter. But yeah, that's right. I stayed up until like three in the morning making Pink Panther GIFs again last night.

Time well spent. How are you dealing with the post-election? I'm dealing with it by enjoying your Pink Panther GIFs. No, those were really good, man. But in my own life, I think I've just subbed in like a laugh-crying emoji. That's just how I punctuate everything now, which is, I'm sure, loads of fun for people I text with. But I've kind of gone back to throwing in a little gif here and there, and it's a little nostalgia hit. I enjoy it. But all that is to say, on Sunday, there was a point that I realized, again, I'm not seeing what Durz is posting. So maybe for you there.

There was a little more activity in there, but I had posted five posts in a row. Like, I was yelling into a void on Sunday, and at some point I was like, this is a bad look. I need to stop doing this.

Yeah, I wasn't following along. I usually, when I get done with pop-up, I look down and I see, oh, there's been a whole bunch of activity. But, you know, I kind of try to keep an eye on the score when I'm there, but I'm not following the ins and outs. I always say I always have this fantasy of like, well, if the Seahawks win, I'll maybe come home and see if there's a if there's a version online that I can find and sort of rewatch. But then I kind of never do it. Sunday night football's on, you know, like that's what I end up seeing more of. Yeah. So I just saw I just saw a whole bunch of text messages that I have to then kind of reconstruct into time.

Sure. I know. Is there any other than a fruit fly? Is there something with a shorter lifespan in the moment?

Yeah, an emotional text in the moment. I will say, though, I think about this a lot, like almost exactly what you describe with the Seahawks. But I remember, and this was probably a couple of seasons ago, like the text chain was rocking during a Mariners game that, if I'm being honest, probably didn't matter that much because it was a baseball game. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, it has to happen at a very specific time of year for it to be important. So chances are there are no unimportant.

How many times, Andrew, what I always say to you on Cold Stove League is there are no unimportant baseball games.

That's right. I have 168 fingers, and I wouldn't cut any of them off. Thank you. Do I have that right? That sounded wrong.

No, it's 162.

162. Well, you haven't heard my ideas about the expanded season, my friend. Which is what I want to talk about after the donors. Hey, you know what? It's your birthday, Andrew. Anything goes. I do like the fact. Like, this is a freewheeling Bob Dylan right here.

I've officially petitioned Rob Manfred to add six games in honor of your birthday.

I'll be honest with you. I woke up a little bit grumpy today, so I appreciate you just letting us do what we got to do here at the top of the show to help me find my smile. But there was a game where we were all on the thread, and for some reason, it just felt like life or death. And we were just so, you know, you're just always so mad at the Mariners. You love the Mariners, but you're always so mad at them. because even if maybe the game wasn't maybe it was in June or something and maybe there wasn't a lot on the line it's still you see trends, there are frustrations I don't have to explain this to you dashed expectations there was one time where we were just like so mad and negative and toxic and going back and forth and back and forth and then Stubat who's like you know in a time zone, two time zones away like wakes up in the morning and looks at the text message he's like you guys won 14-2 like what are you even He's like, there's nothing like following the Seattle sports thread. Easy for you to say when you got Byron Buxton. Oh.

Stu.

Do they still have Byron Buxton? Oh, maybe he left. I can't follow that.

I meant in those days. Like, it was just me trying to. Yeah, no, no, true. I'm constantly seeing. I'm always counting everyone else's money in sports. Like, well, yeah, you don't get to be mad because you have. You went to the World Series 10 years ago or something.

I did wake up this morning. maybe one of the reasons I'm grumpy is I wanted to send Stu about some sort of a Daniel Jones tweet but I just couldn't figure out or text but I couldn't figure out what the joke was and so I was just mad at myself and I took a frustrated shower

I took a cold shower I feel like if you could get into the interior of some of those Pink Panther characters which don't have voices one of them who's grumpy it's because he couldn't think of a good Daniel Jones joke to send

his friend and buxton is definitely with still with the twins i don't know why i don't know why

i think he's on the market maybe oh okay i thought i saw something the other day that that was like there was but i could be i could be hallucinating all that is to say andrew what is going on with your extension cord oh right and extension cord yeah yeah can i guess yeah you said it's neighbor related yeah hood related or neighbor related both both but mostly neighbor related okay is the Does the extension cord – is the extension cord on your property or a neighbor's property?

Our property.

I mean, is it an animal, a mineral, or – wait, that's not how this game works.

It's the extension cord. Oh, yeah. We're already – No, keep going. Actually, this is – because I was – because when I told you I wanted to tell you about this, there have been some updates that I think take a little bit of the steam out of the story, maybe a little bit. But I'm actually enjoying this guessing game. I don't know if the listener is. You have a theory. So I told you I have a somewhat you can guess that it's probably a somewhat maybe frustrating or slightly tetchy, slightly tetchy story about an extension cord related to my neighbors. That's all you knew coming in. What other questions do you have?

Well, OK, I'll make a guess. Are they are they using your extension cord without asking? No. Oh, close.

But they're using something of ours. Oh, but it's not your extension cord. Is it something that plugs into an extension cord? What does an extension cord carry? Electricity? Electricity. Excuse me, electricity? No, it's actually not about the electricity usage, but here's the deal. I'll tell you the story, and it's not a huge deal, but so we have a neighbor named Seth. I guess I'll name and hope that he doesn't hear this, although, again, nothing's really wrong here, But we have a neighbor named Seth, who is a really he's been like kind of a little a little he's been like a contractor for little jobs for us. Like he's the one who installed the human door on the garage. He's great to work with your porch and stuff. He were he extended our porch out like, honestly, nothing but nothing but praise for this guy. In fact, we've tried to hook him up with other friends who have projects going on. And and so anyway, and he lives just down the street from us. And I'm glad to know him as a neighbor. We've got to know each other better. Oh, he's a big fan of Bingo the Cat. we got to know each other who isn't who isn't right um and so anyway he texted me a while back and just or actually you know what i had a missed phone call from him i think like maybe during an episode of tbtl or something i'm like a missed phone call from seth and there was a voicemail that went along with it but for some reason this has never happened before the voicemail would not play there was some there was some glitch in the system and my machine just kept trying to play it and say my machine my phone which is a machine uh like my visual voicemail or whatever it's called on my on my phone um would not uh play it just like corrupted file or whatever i'm like okay i'm like this is but like we're not working with seth right now like this is probably just a pocket dial right and um eventually i'm like well i'll text him i text him i'm just like hey and this is like again actually yeah this this the original voicemail came in at like 10 a.m and then probably like two o'clock in the afternoon or something i text him like hey did you actually try to call me before was that a pocket dial or whatever he's like yeah you know i'm doing work on your neighbor's house next door and i'm just wondering if i can plug uh if i can use your outdoor electrical socket and i'm like oh yeah yeah we have one right at our we have one at our front door you would know where it is because it's the one he used when he was working on the deck so you know so yeah do you have a and i even said you have a cord long enough i have a really long cord if you need to add to yours in our garage he's like no nope i got a very long cord it's great so he plugs it in Now, keep in mind, so this is, if you want to picture our house, you're staring at our front door, okay? It's yellow now, by the way. Yep. Genevieve painted it. Oh, cool. So you're staring at our front door. The power cable would be to the right of the door, down by your feet, sort of, you know, down low. Yep, yep. But the neighbor's house is to the left, right? So in other words, he plugs in his cable and then carefully strings it kind of across our, not across our doorway, but across like the steps and the walkway, you know, so we do have to step over it. And then it goes kind of around our house, over the neighbor's fence, and then to their front yard where he's working on things.

And I do sort of wonder, like, well, you're working on their thing. Do they not have power? They must not have outdoor power. You would think you would just like crack a door and plug it inside, but maybe nobody was home or whatever. Not a big deal. I'm like, yes, literally, I'm happy to do this for a neighbor. It is literally nothing. I don't do anything for my neighbors. Of course you can use our power. So he strings it across, and then it stays there that night, and then Genevieve's like, what's with the cord? They're running a hydroponic grow operation, aren't they? Yes, exactly. There's a lot of empty – it's not Advil. What do they used to make meth with? A lot of Robitussin bottles. I don't even know. I can't even make good drug jokes anymore. I'm too old. anyway um so he runs and then Genevieve's like what's with the power cable I'm like oh you know Seth is just using and she's like okay so then I'm like oh this must be a two-day job or whatever and then it just stays there and it just stays there and then and this is where I'm thinking to myself I think Genevieve maybe is more conscious of it than me like maybe she steps over it a little bit more it's not I kind of stress it's not in the way it's not causing anything but you know eventually the conversation is kind of like well how Andrew how long is Seth using that for i'm like i don't know like i thought it was just a day and then and this is why i brought it up to you i think maybe i told you on friday or monday oh we should talk about this because i looked out at my phone and i i was just like how long has that been there and the day that i told you that i wanted to talk about this it was day number 20 because i think wait today's the 27th i think it was like the third he reached out and maybe i told you on the 23rd or maybe it was like so i was kind of like in my head because it kind of in my head i'm in like wow this what i thought was just one day has been one week and i'm like wait i know we've had two weekends now and then i looked at my thing i was like he texted me on whatever day it is now that day plus 20 that's kind of a long time given that the original text message was hey can i use your power like you know what i mean on a random wednesday or whatever it wasn't like hey i'm working on this project for a while can i run a cable for a few days even and then a few days become more than that like i I'm going to go ahead. just literally thought you're using power for a couple of hours and then and then this is where it sort of resolves itself I'm like well we're having people over for Thanksgiving I mean obviously I could just unplug it and throw it over the fence but Genevieve just texted him and just said hey um you know can you move that like we have people coming over for Thanksgiving and he's like oh my god I totally forgot I'm in Connecticut he's like I was supposed to come back and like

clean up this thing or whatever back from Connecticut and right he said throw it over

the fence you know he said no you get yourself on a flight and come over here no i mean listen that's why i say i complain about neighborly things so much this is not a big problem it's not i'm not mad it's it's it's totally fine and again i am completely happy to do the neighbors the lowest lowest favor like this it makes you know it makes me feel good like i'm doing something when i'm doing absolutely nothing but and again like to be honest like and it's zero concern about electricity usage because what he's using it to power a saw that he uses you know for 10 seconds every 15 minutes or something um but i do think from a communication standpoint just saying to somebody hey can i use some power i'm working next door to 20 days later no recognition that this cable has been strung across you know our walkway for that whole time yeah this is my

question though has how many days was the work going on apparently still is like that's what i

I don't know.

I mean, he was like he was an ambitious project for some renters.

Well, it's he's building. It looks like some sort of a like a rocket ship. And there's two cows in it. And they have signs that say, eat more chicken. I don't know.

It's taking forever because the cow's tools are so rudimentary.

I was about to say that. He's plugging them in, but they're just making this glump glump sound. Yeah, they look really effective. That's the sound that an electric tool going into one of those cow tools. But anyway, yeah. So not, you know, not a huge deal, but you would be, I mean, I heard your reaction when I told you that I looked it up and it was like, oh, 20 days like that. That's insane, though. That's, that's, we just need better communication around these types of things, I feel like.

Right, but my question is, is each day, like before I went to Connecticut, would there be the occasional sound of like a power saw, sawing? Has this been going on? Like it's been, this is an ongoing project. Did you say what the actual project is?

I just told you, he's building a rocket ship. There's two cows. Improver in me really once they have Signs that say eat more chicken Yeah he's redoing Their front porch I think it's a smallish little front porch

That's a 20 day project

Well that's the I don't know I don't know if he's squeezing this project in between other There were some times where he was out there all day He's replacing the wood with that What's that fake wood that's plastic Yeah exactly and so he's cutting that Stuff up and like you know which makes Sense for a rental unit I think And the house next door is a nice little house, by the way. But if you if you weren't living on, say, you probably want something that's kind of sturdy and it doesn't matter to you if it's real wood. So he's installing that stuff again. Really like this guy when he was working over there the other day, like when it was day one or two or whatever, I walked over and said hello. And we chatted for a while. But, yeah, so at some point, I'm sure the work became lesser and lesser. I haven't heard in a while, but I guess he's in Connecticut. So, yeah, I'm not exactly sure. I'm not exactly sure what. now I'm thinking I don't want to say too much I do think he's kind of a forgetful guy like when he finished our door project he had to like remove a bunch of cable like wiring, he had to move wiring that had gone straight across our garage wall but now there's a door there so he had to sort of reroute it and put some extenders in there those junction boxes or whatever they're called but then when we went out there those, are they junction boxes? whatever, the little boxes that hide a bunch of wires when they're connected was kind of just left open and so i'm like okay well i guess we'll sort of shove these wires back in there you know it's like wires that are can he extended them by connecting a couple of wires then using one of those little plastic screw things to connect a cap to connect them um and so i pushed some of them in but it seemed a little unsafe and then genevieve's like well i'll push these in and then got a spark so bad because one of them must not have been capped like the metal it created blackness on her hand and a black stain like it was a big ass spark and then i just like texted i'm like seth can you get over here and like put these back like i thought maybe there was an expectation that we should put this stuff back he's like oh yeah i forgot i meant seems like he he gets close to finishing a project and then maybe it's like oh moves on to the next thing last mile problem forgets the the sort of cleanup and again nicest guy in the world when we said that he came over he fixed it up he got everything right but it sort of seems like maybe yeah he's probably a busy guy he's got a lot going on but at some point he just sort of felt like well job done ish and then he

sort of forgot about the cleanup have i told you uh about i think i have that my dad there is a and i say i'll say kid because this person is like 22 years old um but there's a young a young man uh named uh jayden who has done some electrical stuff here at the house

My dad knows how to do electrical, but it sort of takes him a while, and it's, like, not his favorite part of the home improving project. I mean, he really knows his stuff. That's the insane part. But he just, like, you know, sometimes it goes faster if I hire this guy, Jaden, who is a—this is, like, side work for him. Like, he works for a big electrical, you know, contractor, but he'll come out sometimes. And, like, it's very clear that this is the kid that my dad wished he would have had. this is the son that he never because this this kid first of all is like married with two kids already is like built has built his own house in the country and has wired it himself obviously not to do that and my dad when i when i hired this guy to come in and run all this wire and and uh you know do all this electrical stuff that i don't even understand when he was done i swear to god for a week my dad would not stop talking about this kid's technique for for instance putting those wires into those junction boxes oh yeah what is the technique well it's just i mean i don't know other than to say he it's worked really clean everything is just done perfectly and like you know it's it's obviously very safe um and it's like he can he can get a whole bunch of different you know wires that are sort of connecting up into a small space but in this way that's just like he's just like somebody who's really good at his job but i swear it was like a week later and i'd just be like standing in the house my dad would just go like god that kid's work

is good just petting a junction box just just gently brushing a junction box out of the blue

like apropos of nothing whenever there'd be a lull in the conversation my dad would just be like

god that kid's work is really great it's like so we turn on that you turn on the garbage disposal he's like listen to that just the power going through that i'm like beautiful i'm like i'm

like queuing up my cbs sunday morning stories on youtube to try to like demonstrate my value you're showing him your scripts and he's just like yeah i'm showing him rundowns from tbtl and he's just like god that's that i can't believe that kid's work that's just amazing that just he did the technique um so uh anyway i'm that's if you need some dad i punched up a coors light commercial on spec do you want to see my notes did i tell you though that this was actually and remains a slight bump in the road of of of not our relationship but sort of like there was a an actually almost tense moment with me and my dad related to this electrician kid jayden so well no one who's involved in any of this will hear this thankfully but basically there are these folks that my dad was doing a ton of like handyman work for for like a long time kind of near where my parents live and i was always sort of joking about how they were my they were my like competition my nemesis because for a long time i'd be like hey dad can i hire you to come down for like these weeks and he'd be like i'm working on the annonsons and

and didn't he give them a better deal or something too um there was a period of time where he was

charging them less than me which really hurt but uh but so i and the other thing about that whole relationship that really ticked me off is you know my dad is in his 70s now he's an insanely fit 70 year old who has never once asked himself what am i putting into my body right now have i gotten my steps in today there's no awareness of any of that and yet is like you know can work so much harder and longer than me it's really something to behold that being said he's not 40 yeah and he's regularly like he'll be like oh yeah my rotator cuff's been really bugging me i was like why he's like well i uh you know i hung like 400 square feet of sheet rock on the ceiling of the anninson's basement i'm like dad or he's like yeah i broke up a patio of theirs and carried all the rock all the you know concrete out by hand and i'm like what are you doing why are you like doing the hardest physical labor that somebody your age should not be doing uh you know for for these folks can you please tell them here's the stuff i will do and here's the stuff that i won't do um because sometimes we'd be doing a project here and he'd be like well that's going to be a real bear and i would always say well dad let's hire someone to do that stuff like if there's something that's just physically punishing let's not have you do that or i don't even want to do it let's hire someone you know i'm always that's always my answer to things like someone who's not us um but he's over at the anninson's like just like literally like jack hammering up an entire patio and then carrying out multiple like you know tons of concrete or

something now i think i know the answer to this but just to be very clear when you're having when just a quick moment where he's like oh my back hurts because of that work over there my guess is he's not saying that in any way like i shouldn't be doing this work or i wish they had didn't ask me to do that he's just kind of like a hard day now my back you know it's usually like

yeah i've got to take some magnesium that's just it'll be like his leg will literally just like cramp up like we're watching brit box his leg will totally cramp up and it'll be like Yeah.

ah, I got to take some magnesium. Then he hobbles over to his bedroom, get some magnesium. He was like, yeah, well, I was, you know, up and down the ladder all day at the Annons since yesterday. So when you say something from a complaining

standpoint, so when you say something like, you know, you shouldn't be doing that work. Let's tell them, let's, you know, let's build some boundaries or, you know, some personal boundaries around this for you. That's not like you trying to help him with something that he wishes to happen. It's something that you wish to have.

Well, I wonder if he wishes it to happen. I mean, this is my dad, and this is how we are so different as people. He's just a worker. He just doesn't complain. He just does it. In fact, when he's doing something really around here that's also kind of taxing, and I was like, Dad, I'm sorry. That looks like that really sucked. He goes, Ah, it's what we do. That's his, like, stock answer. So what I think of is he's like a video game character, and he only has so much power. And unless he finds some kind of giant mushroom that comes out of a box somewhere, I feel like he's got X amount of power left in his life and I would like it this has nothing to do with my project I don't want him to use up his power on my project either I want him to do stuff that is somewhat interesting in terms of home improving that taps into his expertise but that doesn't unnecessarily wear down the battery on the rest of his life whether it's here or whether it's at their house and so that's really what my desire is it doesn't have anything to do with I want him here doing that I want him breaking up the patio here and not there. I want him breaking up zero patios for the rest of his life.

Well, I want to give you one quick warning, though. If he does eat a star, all the music is going to start moving way faster. Don't be alarmed. It only lasts for about 15, 20 seconds.

I will say the first time that happened, it was kind of upsetting. Yeah, I understand that. He started springing. It was like a feral cat that I tried to bring into the house. He's just bouncing around the living room.

Yeah. um yeah but uh i've seen it happen i've seen it happen to the best minds of my generation

i mean i i look easy ginsburg i looked at him the other night and it was weird he had run over to the neighbor's yard and he had jumped right up to the top of the flagpole and then down the chimney for some reason yeah it was strange but here's where this is where we have legitimately had a kind of a I think an impasse was so at the point where I was hiring this kid uh Jaden it was at a moment where I think it was still I don't know how close we were to the pandemics kind of what we consider to be sort of the end or at least things changing related to the pandemic but what I remember was there was a period of time where it was near impossible to get anyone to come work on anything particularly very highly skilled highly specialized things like electricians right and so i had because the guy who did the spray foam insulation here this kid jaden is his son right so he had said my son does electrical and i was like oh and i needed someone to do electrical like really badly to do like a lot of stuff before that we could like put up the sheet rock before the project could move forward and he said yeah i'll give you my kid's number and i'd gotten a hold of this this guy and he had come out and for a shockingly reasonable price he had done an insane amount of work here like it just absolutely saved my life and this felt like an absolute ace in the hole for me right like i've got i had now have access to a highly skilled reasonably priced very responsive electrician and this is this is in the words of rod blagojevich this thing is gold

Yeah, I was going to say, if he moves to Seattle, let me know.

This thing is, well, Andrew, for you on your birthday, I would share his information. But here's what my dad had the chutzpah to suggest. He was like, the Annonsons have a daughter down in Portland.

Please tell me this is going in the direction of an arranged marriage to keep Jaden in the family.

They've got this daughter down in Portland, and she's been having some—she's got this house. I think they may have even bought it for her. I'm not sure, but she's got this place, and she's been having some trouble with the electrical there. And can you—I wanted to go ahead and give them Jaden's number to go down there and work on her house. And I was like, absolutely not. I was like, over my dead body. So, first of all, these folks are going to run down the power, the battery life on your life. And now, now I'm going to be farming Jaden out to their daughter. Like I get like two asks every six months of this Jaden person. Like in other words, because this is the thing too, when you have about two opportunities to have him come. I feel like I get to ask him about two times every six months. Hey man, uh, if you, and, and, and this remains the case, like, uh, when you are trying to get somebody to come out to work on your house, and maybe this isn't the relationship. you and seth but out here it is like you are trying to ask someone on a date or something

or like a big favor like it not you're hiring somebody for money but like hey could you do me

a hey i need a miracle it is absolutely it is the most that i psych myself up to send a text message is to one of the people that i'm paying good money you're reading the tone of it like how does this this come off how does this come i mean seriously i'm running it by various trusted and trusted allies because it's like so it always has to be like hey man i know uh hey man hope you had a good holiday i know things are crazy but if you get an afternoon that you could swing by it's like

it's always that kind of level of communication or not like whatever things are cool over here too like i'm just chilling but you know this is beck is this too thirsty is this thirsty enough like You got to, like, somehow, like, you know, make it seem casual, but also necessary.

I'm trying to find, by the way, this is one I recently sent to Richard Swanson, who's been doing some stuff. I said, yeah, okay, I get it. If you and Miles could do this for $4,000, including putting the shower pan in and the hardy backer, etc., and can start pretty soon, I'd be happy with that deal. And if not, no pressure. I just need to make a call to keep things moving. Thanks, exclamation point.

I should really – every time I write it, I am very sincere about it, but I should seriously just get, like, a tattoo that says no pressure. I write no pressure in emails and texts more than any human being alive. I would challenge anybody. I will go toe-to-toe with you. I will open up my email archives for the presidential library of Andrew Walsh so that we can see how many times I've written no pressure. Usually I write it twice. I will sometimes write no pressure at the beginning, and then later on, again, no pressure to varying degrees of capitalization.

I love if we go into the presidential library or the official papers of Andrew Walsh. You go into that room, and it's just a bunch of emails that say no pressure. Ding, ding, ding, diddling, ding. That's the totality of Andrew Walsh's papers. It's just a bunch of emails. But, like, so that's how the interactions tend to go. So in other words, what I'm trying to say is every time I ask for this person who, by the way, again, has two young children, a family, a very kind of like time consuming job and lives kind of far away from me. Like every time I ask this person to now, granted, I am paying money, I'm paying good money for this, but it's still like it's an ask. And I'm like, you think I'm going to use up effectively one of my asks on some person in Portland I've never met who's the child of the people who are making you demo a patio? You, sir, are sadly mistaken. And so he would bring it up, and then I would flip out, and then we wouldn't talk about it for a couple weeks. And then he would bring it up, and I would flip out. And now the conversation has just not been brought up. So I don't know if he – I don't know what happened with it, but I think he's finally realized that this is where I draw the line.

When you say flip out, what does that actually mean? Are you exaggerating a little bit? Are these 45-second interactions where you're just like, hell no, and then you sort of just like let it go? Or have you like gotten into it?

Not into it. My dad and I have an extremely cordial relationship, and we're not ball busty. like we don't like kind of faux argue about things or like that's just like not our dynamic shave together over zoom hey a game changer they're still using those commercials by the way which i just saw one the other day and it made me feel like i definitely think that dad at least voted for trump probably both of them like yeah probably i don't they just had they had strong massachusetts trump energy and i was like this is year two of these commercials so in other words they did well enough that like you wanted to bring them back but anyway that is not the dynamic at all so when there's even a little bit of a like you got to be kidding me or like absolutely no way like even that feels kind of tense between us because that's just not the nature of how we tend to communicate so it would be like 30 seconds would be me going like dad are you kidding me like you think like you you want to use up one of our favors from this kid on the daughter of these other people and then they'll go all right all right and then that's the end of like that's that's the conversation yeah and then like a few weeks later oh hey if you wanted to get me you know if you want to get me that info and then i kind of like i'm i'm sort of playing it off a little bit playing it up a little bit like being kind of pretend mad but as you like to say andrew kidding on the square so i'm pretending to be irate i'm not as irate as i'm pretending to be but i'm low-key a little bit irate yeah yeah i don't know if that makes sense especially the

connection to this family that you've already sort of like put in your... Yes, exactly.

If it was like one of my siblings

If he was like, hey, Liz needs some help out in Willard, I'd be like, get him the number.

Well, you'd still probably be a little itchy about that.

No, I wouldn't. That's how much I love my siblings. Like if Sarah and Josh, if anybody in my immediate family needed this golden ticket, I would absolutely share it with them. Not Sammy. Even Sammy. Really? Even Sammy. Wow. Okay. You are a good guy. But, like, it's just the fact that it is a rando who I will never meet who is the offspring of the people who are already on my last nerve.

Yeah.

So, anyway, that's the good news is that's the highest level of tension between me and my dad. It's that. So that's actually pretty decent.

I love the way earlier when you were describing this situation, of course, you had already set up what your sort of thesis was. So I knew in context what you were talking about. But if somebody were to just overhear you talking, you're like, listen, this guy, he's working with his hands. He's got a family. He's got two kids. Of course I'm not going to recommend him for a job. Interesting turn at the end of that sentiment.

I saw the most, well, I don't want to say it's the most interesting tweet, but it was a blue sky. I saw an interesting blue sky post that was, I saw a bloke that was responded to by our friend television's Chris Hayes. And what the Blue Sky Post was, the original one, was this idea of how we think of working class. This is on the subject of if Jaden needs side gigs or not. And what the person was basically saying was, we have this certain idea of what sort of working class means. And yet, an electrician is making probably so much more than an adjunct professor in this day and age. Really? Like, oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, a lot of these, you know, skilled trades, you're making 60 bucks an hour, 80 bucks an hour. And a lot of these other, you know, jobs that are in academia and certainly in public education and stuff like that, things that we don't think of as kind of, quote unquote, working class jobs are making so much less than people who are doing skilled trades right now. Because there aren't enough people doing electricity and there are a lot of people who want to be adjunct professors. And I hadn't thought of it that way, because when you think about, quote-unquote, working-class jobs, you should picture a certain person. But if we're going strictly on what jobs pay, I think that there has been a subtle shift around what the sort of compensation is. I mean, granted, going to college is generally a predictor of making sort of a higher income, but I think there are some really strong exceptions to that. My point being, this kid Jaden has built himself, he showed me these pictures, an absolutely beautiful house that he and his wife and their two children live in on his, you know, the money that he earns as an electrician. Like, I think things are going pretty well for him.

Speaking of television's Chris Hayes or the literary world's Chris Hayes, maybe more appropriately, I did see some dates for his book tour. And since we have a lot, I mean, I don't think Chris Hayes needs me promoting his Seattle stop on the book tour. I'm pretty sure that he and Hatchet, who I don't know who's imprint is, probably have that under control. But I will mention that I was excited to see February 4th here at Town Hall Seattle. Chris Hayes will be coming to read from and talk about his book, The Siren's Fall.

Would you find it more or less appealing if I was the person he is in conversation with at Town Hall? I was going to ask, is that you? I think gears are turning in that direction. I don't know if it will happen or not. But I wonder if that actually will. I was going to say, here's the thing that's so funny about our relationship. It's weird that he would ask you and not me. That's so weird. What literally happened was I texted him and I said, if I'm not in conversation with you there, I will be hurt. Literally, I said to him.

If it's Paul Constance, you're going to be a little bit bummed.

And he was like, oh, I was thinking of asking, but I didn't know if you were too busy. And then I was like, I'll make time for this. He was like, okay, great. I'll get that set up. So it wasn't like he said, would you do me the honor of doing this? I said to him, if you don't pick me for this, I'm going to be really offended. That's how that came together.

By the way, Paul Constance's daughter needs an electrician. Now I'm in my head, I can't say that word.

i've really appreciated the work of paul constant over the years andrew so so i only bring up wouldn't

he be the wouldn't he be the your your main competitor in a town hall seattle in conversation i mean i don't even know lindy doesn't do a lot of those anymore i don't think well uh i mean paul paul is paul still at the stranger i don't think so i don't think he has been for a while but i think he's still like i think a big thing that he does is he's i often i think i could be confusing my former stranger literati. Literary. Yeah.

but i'm pretty sure that i'm pretty sure that he's like somebody who often does those types of things um i i don't know who my competition is i do know that a while ago remember i did that thing with amy sedaris in seattle that was really fun and she's she's the best and then uh i noticed that she was coming through portland and i was like beck and i were like oh i wonder if they'll call you and um the answer was no they called courtney hameister the former host of liveware And they must have had an amazing time because Amy Sedaris herself Instagrammed like a hundred pictures and was like, this was amazing. And I was like, well, that's that's how, you know, Amy Sedaris enjoyed the event. Now, as far as the event she did with me, media blackout. I was going to say, did you go back?

Did you go back and count? No, I did not.

No, I did not. But I also can tell you that I think it was less rapturous. Yeah. I don't know.

I remember it being a good time.

The only thing it was a really fun time, but all thanks to her.

You know, and I don't know if any of the people listening right now were the people who asked questions in the Q&A. My only thing is it's like Q&As with audiences are a very dangerous game. Obviously not with the TBTL10s. You guys are perfect. But, like, I just remember, like, you know, Amy Sedaris is such a, I mean, she's been involved in so many projects that you would say would have, like, a cult following. I mean, I mean, Vives and I are like I said, we literally can't say the word Fandango without referencing a joke that she made in 1999 on Comedy Central, you know, so there was so much adoration and pent up adoration for her that sometimes people would ask questions that were not necessarily questions, just like almost Chris Farley ask of remember that time you said this or parroting back. And I always think that, like, you have to be a very, you have to be very gracious to be Amy Sedaris in a situation like that. Because I don't know if I would have the, I don't know how I would handle that. If people, if I spent my life with people, like, throwing lines at me, lines that I literally have forgotten because I've moved on to other projects. Right.

Like, yeah, because she's had multiple different things, like she did, you know, At Home with Amy Sedaris, which was great, which kind of, like, I feel like launched Cole Escala a bit. At least that was where I first saw him, and then he really, it's like, he's a big deal now, like with that O'Mary show on Broadway and everything.

Still playing with the Twins?

Just in my head about Byron Buxton. Go ahead. He had a cup of coffee. Cola Scala playing, like, third base for the Minnesota Twins would be a sight to behold. I would love that so much. all right let's thank some of our donors who are supporting tbtl uh with a financial donation which is uh how this thing can happen five days a week including the day before thanksgiving and including tomorrow on thanksgiving it's thanks to folks like julie kumasaka in marysville washington thank you julie appreciate you julie also alice weemers and gabe claire of davidson

north carolina okay all right i'm listening david you know what i always what i always bring up when

the subject of davidson north carolina uh is raised is uh steph curry who i believe went to

davidson i bet you i make the same noise every year because i don't remember that but okay gotcha

oh you know what tomorrow on the well I don't know if it's a Thanksgiving if it's a particularly germane topic to Thanksgiving but something I'm thankful for this is on the subject of basketball is this kid who plays for the Philadelphia 76ers who I'm like currently obsessed with I'm wondering if this has come up on Lebitard yet what's the name that's the thing I don't I don't think I've heard any of the moves I think his last name is like mclean i want to uh his name is jared mccain no this doesn't bring any bells to me well maybe we'll talk about it tomorrow or or in a future show but anyway uh we stan jared mccain for reasons that will be explained at some point or not you know who's fine with that alan bartels of

rancho cordova california alan's very goes the flow type of approach exactly alan's heard the

show he's like a lot of times they promote things they never get to them like he's just like this is just you buy the ticket you take the ride yes and well speaking of levitardists do about would say lazy river dano that's right david alsop is in narrabeen new south wales australia i thought that stood for not safe work uh narrabeen i should have when i saw the word narrabeen that's when i should have known we're dealing with an Australian

situation. David knows how to play Knifey Spoonie. Let's just put it that way. He sure does. I see he's played Knifey Spoonie before. Thanks, David. Thanks to Kerry Maloney of Seattle, Washington, United States. Nice. And then, hey, it's Jaron Schneider, also of Seattle, Washington, United States. I don't know if Kerry and Jaron know each other, but they're both in Seattle. It's a hot zip for us.

Sure, yeah.

Thank you to both of them for the support. Thanks to all of our donors for making TBTL happen today. hello and welcome to top story there was a moment i think maybe two days ago andrew where i i can't remember if it was right before we started recording or if it was like during a break but i was might have been right before we started recording but i was sort of like casually scrolling my instagram like dms or whatever you call it you know just kind of in that mindless way that you kind of can tend to do. And I was struck by the fact that in a matter of like five minutes, I had had maybe three different people send me a link to a stand-up comedy bit by the comedian Chris Fleming. Now, Chris Fleming is actually somebody who has been featured on this show in the last two weeks. That donut intro that we were playing is the comedian. very funny Chris Fleming is a very funny person and as we always feel I think compelled to mention he is also I don't know what pronouns is Chris I think I've looked this up his comedy video was a directed comedy video his comedy VHS was directed by our friend Kat Sullivan

that's right yeah his actual I think it was a Peacock special I might be wrong about that but yeah his full length feature-length comedy special was directed by Kat.

So a bunch of people, including both of my brothers, sent me this. And then, furthermore, in my email, I've gotten this from many people. I've probably gotten it, like I said at the top of the show, at least 10 times. And at first I thought, maybe he mentions TBTL, which would be really weird. I feel like if he knew about this show, we would be aware. Or maybe he mentions, I don't know, like a Sunday morning. Before watching the actual clip, I was trying to figure out how does this connect to me specifically because i must be like literally name checked in this for so many people to send it to me and i wasn't but what was name checked in it or what was referenced is the uh the show wait wait don't tell me um which i work on and uh the audio is a little dodgy when you watch the video andrew it has subtitles which is also a phase of life that

i've entered uh which is on on tv you mean not on tv a lot of times it's like oh but i also don't

don't mind it on a tick tock or an Instagram pretty much up for the subtitles being featured or or in place just about every time it's always making my experience better now but anyway this is Chris Fleming talking about wait wait don't tell me

wait wait don't tell me the Pantheon Notre Dame I have never heard a louder more reverb-y space is just teeming with 70-year-olds losing their minds at jokes about tariffs. Wei Wei Don't Tell Me is getting live at the Apollo reactions from rows upon rows of Jane Goodall look-alikes. Any man in that crowd could stand up and claim to be the CEO of Patagonia.

That's a very good joke, by the way. any man in the crowd at wait wait could stand up and claim to be the ceo of patagonia that's solid

these elder neoliberals are just

can you pause it for a second luke yeah this is my only and maybe it's more of a question and i i'm the ignorant one here but would you describe these folks as neoliberals that's not what neoliberal means right i think he just means liberals that's the one little that's the one

think about this yeah he says these elder neoliberals which what even does neoliberal

mean i've always been i've always been confused by it but i thought of like people and you know i was introduced to the phrase probably during the george w bush administration which probably makes me a late bloomer but like you describe people that he surrounded himself with as

neoliberals right uh favoring policies that promote free market capitalism deregulation and reduction in government spending. Yeah, I would definitely, I've met these people, Andrew, and they're not neoliberals by that definition.

I think neoliberal sounds more fun, and I think he's just mistaken about what it means. I think it just means crunchy liberals, right?

Yeah, right.

You tune into NPR and you're like, wait, are they replaying Live Aid right now?

oh no it's just a bunch of 70 year olds gnashing their teeth at paula poundstone doing a spoonerism

on tipper oris names i love that remind me of what a spoonerism is i think it's when you i could be wrong and i'm not going to look it up i'm just going to be bold here and say i'm pretty sure a spoonerism is when you take the you swap the first letters of two words so it would be like pipper tour or i i don't know gipper tour or something i think that's what a spoonerism would be

it's pretty physical here too he's kind of rolling around on the floor he's basically like performing the idea of like somebody of a neoliberal having like laughing so hard at wait wait don't tell me that they're almost losing their shit basically that one actually is pretty on point i could definitely hear mo doing a word play on embargo

go-go dancer that is a ball poundstone word those slayed me the first time i heard well okay but

more, more in a moment.

She actually throws her back chicks with somersaults behind her, landing on an identical husband behind her, reverse cow-gall style, and she and the guy just go home for the rest of their days together. They're like, Chris, why did you say reverse cow-gall style? The Pokemon evolution of woman goes girl, woman, 70, and up, gal.

that joke is too young for me or too online or too pokemon for me i don't yeah i don't know but it obviously this crowd which by the way is great and young and not 70 and not neoliberal can you hear the can you hear the hurt in my voice right now this crowd this crowd is loving

chris fleming's jokes gal is the charizard to woman's charmeer by the way pokemon jokes are

just the Spooner-isms of a different generation, bitch.

What are they doing to these crowds in the lobby to juice them up like that? Are they hooking up each of these people to their own personal Hitachi that Terry Gross is operating? I forgot it goes blue.

This is a pretty funny riff. I forgot it goes blue.

From a sensory deprivation tank in Philly? okay so i'm going to put full tilt on the mezzanine's hitachi site are you on your goddamn mind

these people are in their 70s they need a refractory period

for that if that was a little muddled it's uh terry gross is controlling sex toys that the crowd is amping themselves up on, but she has the power to turn it to 11 and choose it to.

And she's in a sensory deprivation tank somewhere. In Philly. In Philly, which is so great. Of course, I love Fresh Air. I haven't heard it in a long time, but describing her as being in a sensory deprivation tank is exactly the vibe of that show.

Yeah, there is some very, very good comedy in there. Here's what I would say, though. It is hard for me to listen to that and not feel slightly personally dissed by the entire thing. Whereas when I go work on Wait, Wait and stuff, I'm keenly aware of the fact that a lot of times what's happening on stage is, as my friend Robert Smith used to say, funny for public radio, which is to say not in the marketplace of funniness, it's not going to be succeeding. But in the world of public radio, in the kind of protected you know uh land of like things not ever being super duper funny it it'll sort of it'll pass it'll uh it'll it'll do so even though i am like keenly aware of all the sort of like things about about wait wait that are a little mockable it is i will be honest hard for me to hear someone basically describing the entire audience as old and and out of touch And the jokes that are made on the show As being dumb and not funny It is legitimately hard for me to listen to that Without feeling a little bit protective And I find it interesting that so many people Watched it and thought Luke would love this You know Like Two things One, Chris Fleming is very funny And by the way I spent a good portion of a show the other day Just roasting the guy who plays Roasting the Capitol Steps Lord of the Fries and the guy who plays the piano and does comedy you know political comedy the captain on the poop ship of political comedy that one so all it is is the and lord knows i'm 48 i'm not exactly i mean

poop deck sorry did i say poop ship i say poop ship funny do i say poop ship funny sorry like

all it is is me at again the tender age of 48 thinking the the kind of the the capital steps and the stuff that was, like, considered funny when I was 20 or whatever, it's me roasting that as kind of, like, way too tame and not funny. But then feeling a little defensive when the next generation comes along and says, hey, what you're doing is kind of tame and not too funny.

Mm-hmm.

You know? Like, it's weird. It's like I am totally aware of all of those things. Well, first of all, here's where my brain went watching it. One, I was like, the people are not 70. There are some 70 year olds Again, I know this is This is not the point I'm taking you on my mental journey And I understand that this is Defensive and to the side of the point And just being a no fun But the first thing I started doing Was picking apart The factualness of this riff Which by the way Least fun way to go after Or to start interpreting a stand up comedy riff

Did you know that that arrow wasn't actually Through Steve Martin's head it was like a fake it was a fake arrow it was like a headband that made it seem like an arrow was going through his head look it up let me google that of course I've been wrong before let's get the stew bot on the line

no I know this like this is this is what I'm saying to you I should be careful but this is what I'm saying to you Andrew I should be careful

why am I poking a bear with a short stick here

no no no but you're absolutely right it's like the point of comedy is not to be literal it doesn't matter but this is where my brain went immediately was like well there's a lot of not 70 year olds in the audience okay Like, I'm, my brain is looking for ways, upon hearing this, looking for, and I'm also like, Paula doesn't really do spoonerisms. That's not, like, if you want, like, if you want to break down what Paula Poundstone's general kind of comedic vibe is, I can definitely break it down for you, having been on the show with her a million times. It's not really spoonerisms. I do think the Moe thing is actually pretty on point, the thing he might say. But again, the very fact that where my brain.

But you didn't know what a spoonerism was when you came into this conversation. Well, I kind of did, actually.

I wanted to, well, I did. i just wanted clarification like uh you know i i knew that it was basically like doing a play on words doing a and that's just not that's just not what paul poundstone does she doesn't do puns like she does this other thing which is she's basically super suspicious of the premise of the question and also and then she'll come back to it over and over and over again throughout the show but here's the thing the very fact that what i wanted to do was figure out the logical flaws in the stand-up comedy so as to negate it just proves how defensive it made me feel you know and and it's just it's it's an interesting experience for me who i spend so much time on this show deploying what i think of as some kind of comedy and also making fun of so many other things that when suddenly it's like a thing that i'm kind of part of and by the way less and less like i'm probably on that show like twice a year now it's not even like it's it's not even like a a hugely big part of my my life and my job anymore but it's i'm just calling myself in on the fact

that it did make me feel defensive yeah would you feel better or worse if you were name checked in

it that's an interesting question better and that's what makes no sense i wondered about that

i think it was not only not only i disagree though i think that like you would then really be like well that's not what my humor is like if you're defensive about a paula poundstone spoonerism and again probably not unlike neo-liberalism like i think you know one of the things of one of the reasons chris fleming is funny is because of his not just poetic but like you know colorful his choice of words are so are so yeah absolutely and somehow i want to say like perfumey and poetic or something like he but because of that he will sometimes just use words like i say neo-liberal not the right word there but somehow it sounds funnier than liberal you know and that's probably where you end up with the spoonerism which literally did make me laugh whether or not it's accurate but i i feel like i believe you when you say you think you'd be less offended if you were name checked although if you were name checked in a way that you did not agree

with i think that would really be under well yeah it's hard to know because it's it didn't happen i part of me feels like if he said me by name i'd be like um i'd be like uh you know well at least uh i've made that much of an impression on the culture but also it could be really hurtful if he like if if he very accurately describes some kind of go-to for me or some kind of you know unfunny thing that i tend to say or you know what i mean i i can't i couldn't tell you unless i was really experiencing it um if that would be a good or a bad thing but it's also funny because it's like so many people have sent me this i guess what i i guess if i can if i can make this a positive about me for a moment on your birthday andrew i guess the good news is everyone assumes i have a pretty thick skin about stuff because no nobody ever listened to this and thought oh this is it's sort of like when i was telling ethan hawk about a puppet show that i once saw dedicated to him being performed by matt walsh in new york and where they were reading the open like the forward of a book he had written and as i described it to him he goes boy it really sounds like they were kind of roasting me right and i was like well you know if you and i was like i kind of i guess i have to take it as a positive that nobody who watched this and sent it to me thought oh this is kind of them roasting something that you're part of like everybody assumes that i would just be having fun with it like they were which i guess means i don't come off as overly uptight about these things or they're not paying attention but um uh yeah so i guess that's that's the full that's the i i can wreck i definitely recognize the humor and i definitely understand why this is a great trying to think when i used to do i don't think i ever i don't think when i was doing my very brief foray into stand-up i don't know if i ever did anything about about public radio but i do think it's a very rich topic for someone like chris fleming because you heard the laughter there from his audience everyone who's going to a chris fleming show is also deeply aware of public radio you know that's a big venn diagram overlap so it's a it's a rich topic because he's basically like roasting this thing that everyone has a shared experience with and and and and you know kind of you know pointing out again the all the things about wait wait that are a little like a little less than like the cutting edge of comedy but i will again i've already said it it like nine times i will admit it's it stings a little bit i will say that what stings is when

you always quote robert smith talking about public radio humor because i feel like um vives and i remember when i was first dating vives and this was like when i was as deeply in love with public radio as possibly could be i had just graduated college where i'd gotten my first taste of working for public radio now i was working in it for my first all talk station as a producer i mean i just I was totally, I was as deep into the public radio culture as possible. I just remember always saying to Vee, if there's a reason why they call it public radio humor, like there's just like there's humor and there's public radio humor. It's always been thus.

So you're mad that I should be attributing that to you?

I just sort of feel like I could get an associate producer credit on that. As my friend Andrew Walsh has always said. As my friend Andrew Walsh always said, Robert Smith once said it's called public radio humor for a reason.

All right, so on that note, Andrew, and again, I want to be clear here and say that I'm an American hero because I'm admitting to the least fun interpretation of that tape. It does not make me look good. It makes me look like a brittle, sad, old, increasingly irrelevant broadcaster. But it's how I feel, and I hope that will be relatable.

I think it's relatable. I think anybody who maybe, like, you know, I mean, no matter what it is, if you sell candles at a farmer's market and you show up every day and you look around and you're just like, you know, our farmer's market is not as good as the Ballard one. We really need to spiff this thing up a little bit and get more foot traffic and, like, whatever. But then you hear somebody else say, oh, man, I really don't like the North Seattle farmer's market. You're like, what the hell? Right. It's my farmer's market. I sell candles there.

You can talk shit about your mom, but nobody else can talk shit about your mom.

Perfect comparison by me, by the way. From a Chris Fleming take on public radio to selling candles at a farmer's market, how does he do it so seamlessly?

What I will say to Chris Fleming is you just wait, my friend. You're flying high now. You just wait 20 years when an AI program is roasting your crowds.

I thought you were going to say when they're begging you to come out, wait, wait, don't tell. When you're begging to be out, wait, don't tell.

Low-key, low-key, like seriously, dude, that would be, it's like 8 million people hear that. It'd be probably good for the brand. Okay, that's it. That's all. No being salty. Tomorrow, actually, tomorrow might be salty because it's Thanksgiving Day show, and I like to over-salt everything. So please join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. Power out.