Muse

Your Honor, this guy has been making bootleg Simpsons merchandise. Bart Scampson. He is quite a scamp.

Scampson.

Bart Scampson.

Ska? Like the music? Ska? Ska. Ska. I can start with scamp misspelled. You don't know ska? In all your education, you've got to go to law school and everything and judge school or whatever it is you go to and you don't know the word ska? Welcome to America, friend.

I do not have a problem in general with bootleg Simpsons merchandise, but this is the worst pun ever. It's a thinker. You've got to think about it.

TBTL. For the next little while, it's going to be you and me together alone. I want you to lock the door and turn the phone off and really concentrate on what we're going to do. Who do you see when you look in the mirror? Daffy Duck. I have a picture of him taped in my mirror. Okay, what do you see next to Daffy Duck? Ryan Gosling. Hey, Lloyd! Do some delivery for the truck to the airport!

I'm sorry, but when I hear an undeserved compliment, it makes my ears want to throw up. Oh, your ears are always throwing up about something.

We'll walk that fine line between cutting-edge irreverence and trouble with the Federal Communications Commission.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Wednesday edition of TBTL. The show just might be too beautiful to live. Got to do it again, right now. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Yeah, everyone's got a podcast. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it's absolutely spectacular today. Oh, ma, pa, it's just beautiful. Well, we've had a couple of gorgeous afternoons, which is always a welcome thing, here in December. I also cannot believe it is already December. I mean, we're dealing with a fixed... Oh, no. Why am I starting this this early? I was going to say, we're dealing with a fixed number of days in the year, right? It's 365 days. Although on leap year, is it 366 on leap year? Do we have... I'm 48. I should know this. Do we get, because on Leap Day, we get an extra day. I mean, we're all familiar with Leap Day William. So that means sometimes it's 366 days. My point is, there is something about December 1st falling on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, which seems early to me for it to be December. That's got me just completely discombobulated. You can already tell here on episode 4351 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Maybe my discombobulation is because of all the antibiotics that I'm on, a new course of antibiotics they put me on. That's what's so fun as a listener of a podcast co-hosted by two guys in their pretty late 40s is that we tend to get a lot of medical issues.

I get dizzy spells, nausea, cold sweats, hot sweats, involuntary trembling, dead hands, numb lips, fingernail sensitivity, pelvic discomfort.

And we will be discussing all of them in excruciating detail today, me and Andrew. Plus, there is some actual news out there. We were trying to talk about it yesterday. We've got lots of news. And we didn't get to it. I don't know if we're going to get to it today. Can we all be honest? The news is a little overrated in this life. What you need to hear about is my eye infection. Oh, and you also need to hear from this guy, longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's here to bring one thing to the program.

Intelligence for your life.

He's Andrew Welsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. Let's talk about years. Let's talk about dates. Let's talk about cycle. What is the story on that? Do we have 366 every four years? I think so, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we have an extra day there, February 29th, so it's 366. But here's what I find interesting. Although, well, I was going to say inexplicable, but that's not true. There's a way to explain this. I just didn't read the details. It's explicable, sir.

It's highly explicable.

This is explicable. I just didn't read it, so I won't be splicking it. But I mentioned on the show last week that my birthday will fall directly on Thanksgiving next year. And I didn't say that because I want everybody to send me gifts. I just noted it. And I said, you know, it seems like growing up, my birthday fell on Thanksgiving a lot more than it falls on Thanksgiving as an adult. But obviously, I said, that can't be true. Like, except for the leap year thing, it seems like there are seven days in a week. So it seems like every seven years or so, my birthday would fall on Thanksgiving. But it is not that simple. And I don't know how much the leap years have to do with this. But our friend Phyllis P. Fletch Fletcher looked this up and sent me a chart. I don't know if you were copied on this one that says all of the years that my birthday, November 27th, fall. Did you hear me stutter there? I used to not tell my birthday. And I actually, for a split second, my brain wanted to protect that.

date, but I will say it. I want to say that you have definitely chilled out around that a lot, or you've just kind of relaxed that policy. And I appreciate that. I think that's healthy for you. I don't think you don't have to be obsessed with your birthday. You don't have to be like, it's my birthday month. But also, there was a period of time where you were protecting your actual birth date the way someone would protect their password for their bank account.

Yeah, I have mixed emotions about it. I mean, the thing is, it got too difficult to do, and it felt obnoxious and it felt like an affectation. I mean, that's how I took it. Having said that, I don't like a million people telling me happy birthday. I was pretty grumpy this birthday, and this is a terrible thing to say. Oh, I'm sorry I started the show by saying.

I think I said HBD, though. Does that make it better?

Oh, no, that's fine. And it's such a terrible thing to do. It's such a terrible thing to say. So many tens reached out and texted happy birthday, and it always comes from a very nice place. But I don't know what it is. I just want that. It's like I had my platonic ideal. I always wanted that day to be totally invisible on that date. That was always my goal. And then I got that when I first moved to Los Angeles. I moved down there a few days before my birthday. Nobody knew me. Literally, I think maybe my mom called me. And aside from that, it was like nobody knew it was my birthday. And I kind of liked that. I just navigated the world normally. But then as we talked about my birthday more and more on the show, I started to feel guilty trying to protect the date so much. and it just seemed, like I said, somewhat obnoxious. But I kind of miss the old days when nobody knew what my birthday was. You miss the old Kanye? I just found myself sort of grumpy all day and just like, okay, all right. Is it because? Here's one thing that I've noticed, and this doesn't have to do with somebody just saying happy birthday to you, but generally speaking, like I've had birthdays in the recent past where I felt like, okay, you say this is my birthday. I can do whatever I want on my birthday. And what I want to do is avoid people and just in this one birthday, I went on a long walk and, and it was just kind of like, and then I found out that there were people who were disappointed that I didn't spend more time with them on my birthday. I'm like, but this happened in your life. Yes. Somewhat recently. I'm just like, if the whole thing is, it's my birthday. Can't I choose? Like, why am I, why are other people? It's after 9 PM. We can say whatever we want. Why are people put off that I'm not spending my birthday with them? So that, you know what I mean? I don't like to be celebrated. I don't like, even if it's a, even if it's like super, super, to other people what would seem subtle or or or it's just like to me I don't I don't like I don't like awkward moments where I got to sit around and be like yes hi it's my birthday

thank you so is it the responding that was kind of my question if somebody fires you a text like hey happy birthday dude is it that you then have to say thanks or and that feels forced to you is that the part of it that that is kind of uncomfortable a text message I don't think

i returned any text messages honestly um uh yeah i don't think i did i don't know especially in person i think it makes me uncomfortable and i don't mean like a quick hey happy birthday i just sort of mean that like there's this dichotomy between people who say it's your birthday you can do whatever you want but that's not true what you need to do is be the birthday monkey for other people i sort of feel like now most people don't put that on me in like a birthday dance but like Like I just – there seems to be this huge disconnect between what people say they want for your birthday. But it sort of feels like my birthday is more for other people. And that's not how the other people feel, and I understand that. But it's just – I don't know.

So the idea is like, it's your birthday. You can do whatever you want. But most people assume that means going –

And it's like, yeah, you know what I want to do? I want to not be here right now. But then that's not a proper answer because that's mean to other people.

Because most people assume it's going down a slide into a giant ice cream sundae pit that your friends are already bobbing in. Right. That's like anything you want, but you're like, I would just like to, I would just like to disappear if I can on this day. Exactly. If possible.

Anyway, all of that is to say, math, how does it work? Nobody knows. Because back in when I was a youth, according to these charts that Phyllis sent, my birthday did fall on Thanksgiving, both in 19, remember I was born in 1976. So 1980, when I was just four years old or whatever that is. uh 1980 and then it happened again in 1986 like you know that was the year you had they made your whole birthday cake out of turkey right and that was i think that might have been the beginning

and i think that kind of disappointment and confusion really started this kind of anti-birthday

thing for you they made me sit outside in a turkey coop with a cake that was made in the shape of a turkey honestly i think that my issues are deeper than so you're related you'd give turkey coops about a b i guess i guess i give turkey coops about a b uh and then we skipped 10 years so there it was it was like six years past that is weird how irregular it is yeah and i feel like a 10 let's see in 1986 was i turning 9 or 10 if i was born in 76 i guess i was turning um 10 right I'm so bad at doing that. But anyway, that's a pretty significant birthday. That's like the prime age for like celebrating birthdays or whatever. So I could understand why that would stand out in my head as being like, my birthday is on Thanksgiving. Yeah. Then we have to skip 10 years to 1997. I'm out of high school at this point. I'm in college. I'm probably starting my new tradition of not telling anybody it's my birthday. Then it was 2003, 2008. Now there's just five. Like, what is the it seems so random than 2014.

TBTL is a mere, in 2008, wait, November of 2008, I guess TBTL is a couple months away from being canceled.

Wait, I thought you, when did you start again? We started in 2008. You started in January of 2008. January. Yeah, right, so this is, yeah, this is like 11 months in.

So now we've almost got a year under our belt, we're cruising along, nothing can hurt us until Rod Arquette calls us into his office to explain some programming changes.

And those programming changes, where they were just going to rearrange the schedule a little bit,

In such a way that T.B. Chell was no longer part of it

Was that spring of 2009? Like, did you make it more than a year on the radio?

We made it more than a year I want to say we made it into the spring Okay I think

I feel that, that's what my bones tell me

Yeah, it was definitely not two years, which was the contract

Oh, you had a contract, oh, interesting

In fact, you know what, it might have been longer than the spring Maybe it got to, I don't, you know, who can remember? It's probably on the Wikipedia page but like what i know is that when they fired us they still had to pay me for a while because i had a contract with them and that was great because that was how i was able to keep doing tbtl in the very very early days like literally the the monday after we got fired it was only because i still had my income and so i figured i'll just do this for the the 90 days that they have to pay me out actually that was the contract they didn't have to pay me all two years but they had to pay me For 90 days after firing me, which I have no idea why they agreed to put that in the contract. It makes no sense.

You did make it well past the spring. You were pretty close to two years, not quite. Maybe a year and three quarters because you made it to September 11th, 2009, which is a pretty insensitive date to be fired.

A day that will live in infamy.

That's right.

Finally, a reason to remember 9-11.

Not to just like awkwardly quote other podcasts on this show, but I just want to give some credit for that. I was just telling some friends this weekend that one of my favorite jokes from Comedy Bang Bang wasn't even so much a joke or a riff. It was just Scott Aukerman, the host, asking some guest either when their birthday was or maybe when their kid was born. And they said September 11th. And he said, that's kind of insensitive. And the conversation just moved on. And I think about that joke, kind of insensitive, don't you think? And then I think about that all the time. So So anyway, apparently I have some more Thanksgiving birthdays in the future, both next year and then a few years after that.

Because if your greatest birthday wish is to be invisible and to just be basically kind of out of the mix and out of the general population, Thanksgiving is a terrible day for that. Now, on the plus side, there's a lot going on.

Yeah, it takes a lot of attention off of you.

sure so that's the plus side but the idea of you just kind of going out and sitting on a craggy outcropping looking at the as the ocean you know breaks against us how i'm in a cable net sweater when will my husband return from sea that's how i imagined you would like to spend your birthday uh-huh uh like that was that what was that meme i think it was like a dog that looked very much like a kind of wizened new england fish wife that's the meme that's actually not even the

little trouble right isn't that the meme that that's the meme that got you into a little bit of well i trouble is too strong of a word but remember it was you you posted some version of why am i bringing this up what a weird way to start the show today we have so much to talk about but remember i always associate that meme with the birth of the um how did you refer to somebody and now it's a tagline for a certain section of our audience uh middle-aged podcast middle-aged mom type you had posted a version of that meme that was a joke like whatever you know like whatever your iteration of that was and then somebody posted a comment on it that was missing the point not getting the joke maybe critical in some way I don't remember and in your description of this on the show you describe that person based on like their profile as a middle-aged mom type I cannot separate those two realities out so when I think about that that's the origin of that I'm pretty sure like sometimes I say these things and then you know maybe i'm getting some of the details wrong but i'm pretty sure that was it yeah well i mean

honestly i'm i'm happy for it god bless the broken road that brought us to that terminology because even though it damaged my personal brand deeply uh it the it created more lore for the show and more um ways that some of our listeners can describe themselves as a shortcut and they've taking the power back on that, on that.

you know way of describing someone and the cool thing is like you and i still remain very young and hip and with it um so how did it go the doctors yesterday yeah would i mean honestly

would an old person be on yet another course of antibiotics andrew what's going on with your damn eye old man um i it's it is again i want to be i want to preface this by saying i've been very very privileged in my life that i have had pretty good health and i um i'm thankful for that it's interesting to be i i can't remember the last time i went to the doctor two times in six days yeah like you know what i mean like i went from not going to the doctor for you know probably two three years uh to being like oh i know i know exactly what waiting room i'm going for at the kaiser permanente facility yeah that i'm now like i know all the ins and outs of you know um but uh i went down and got i had a different doctor this time which was actually kind of fine because i love this doctor so much uh she was very very um she was a great advocate for me like she came in she took she like came and took a look she was like oh yeah yeah that's not getting better all right let me try to let's see what we're doing here and she starts like basically dming the eye specialist who's just down the hall so it turns out there's like there's a bunch of things going on at this medical center right it's not a hospital per se but it's like so i'm just getting a checkup Or I'm getting a whatever But then down the hall There is a whole eye center Where it's like The appointments are maybe a few weeks out But she's like I love this system Because if he sees this message He can't pretend he didn't see the message She's telling me all this She's got the screen Like swiveled around so that I can see it So she's totally doing like He's got her on red receipts She's like I'll know if he gets on there

She's actually acknowledging that red receipts She's telling me all of this

She's like hilarious So basically the last time that I went in They said take some antibiotics We'll see what happens And I guess that they had recommended me To go to the eye person Who could potentially Cut this thing out Or drain it or do something else But it was not listed in the system As urgent So she wanted me to call them And then she was going to tell them We're putting this on like stat And she actually used the term stat And I was like I've watched ER I know exactly what that means so she has me call the like 1-800 number while she's sitting there with me and I get this person and they were actually kind of unhelpful I mean eventually we got there but they were a little suspicious which is weird because I have to be honest every other interaction I've had had with KP phone people has been great like it's a very helpful group of folks and when I hang up she's like basically why are they so rude I hate that that's why I have people call with me in here so I can tell them what to say like she was so

team burbank and she was basically you were calling a place that's basically in the same

building you were just calling a different i was calling like the 1-800 number to try to get them to schedule me not i wasn't calling the same building but i was trying to get on the schedule for an eye person to look at this thing and potentially do some kind of more like a surgical remedy to it i asked her if she could do that she said you don't want me doing that

is this a general practitioner or is this okay gotcha i didn't realize and and um she was just

like she was a hoot though so she was like she's she's like let me take a picture and then she's like sending it to the the so now the eye guy who's in the building has like started responding but you can tell that he kind of doesn't really want to deal with like what she's trying to do is like slide me in like just be like hey do you have like 10 minutes you could come do a minor eye surgery or whatever so she's like yeah sometimes i'll do this move where like there's a specialist and they're busy but then i'll like take i'll be like i'll take your noon and your 12 30 off your hand so you can just like help this person like she's just she's just like totally playing the angles and she's like and she's like hyping it up she's like i'm writing in all caps it's not getting better to this because he's going uh does he have a fever does he have vision problems does you have MRSA no and uh and she's like and she's kind of disappointed like you don't have a fever do you I was like no she goes you having vision problems I'm like no she goes okay because basically like the decision and it makes sense is like if someone's I'm not in medical distress over this I'm just in it's it's my vanity is the only thing that's really hurt by this whole thing and so I really shouldn't be jumping the line over people that are in real medical need or having you know extreme vision problems so so she's trying to but she's trying to also like make the case for me and then eventually unfortunately uh the the eye guy was unpersuaded but what i was able to do is get an appointment for friday afternoon to see the actual eye person and i don't know what that means i don't know if like they're just going to look at it and then say come back in two weeks and if it's not better then we'll you know do some kind of intervention with

it what what the recommendation from the other doc the eye guy who didn't want to see me was to just put me on a different antibiotic um for something he's like i kept trying to understand well what is this antibiotic and she said it's for things that are antibiotic proof i was like oh okay well then i guess they're not by definition if this antibiotic works on them but um so anyway that's

kind of where it's so you're on this you're on this super antibiotic now i'm on an antibiotic

that is supposed to potentially work on things that are antibiotic proof nice and it seems to have made uh kind of a no difference that i can tell um i'm still gonna have to uh tomorrow when i'm filming in la i'm gonna have to be quite artful with my makeup job um so that it's you know hopefully not too noticeable on uh on television and then friday after tbtl i'm gonna i'm gonna go to la and then i'm gonna come back bright and early on friday do the show from here again and And then head down to, it's actually a totally different clinic, and get my, get this eye thing looked at by a person who is apparently authorized to take evasive action if need be.

First of all, I've got to ask you a question that is not related to your health. But are you, do you have the video on on your screen right now? Can you see me?

Yes.

Are we reversed? It's been driving me crazy. You and I have been using this video technology to record the show every day for over a year now. I think since we started Independence, so like a year and a half, two years now, I am always on the left. And when I look at the camera, I see myself. For some reason, I am on the right today. And if I look at myself, I'm looking way off camera. Are we looking normal to you? We look exactly normal. And you can't move these around. It's not like something I can move.

My view is always, from here, is that I'm on the left, you're on the right, and that's not just Riverside, that's politically.

Yeah, no, that's how we make the magic. I found it. That's the dynamism. I found the little grabber button. I don't know how it got reversed, but I just found the little grabber button at the top. You can move these things around. I always thought it was the dumbest thing that you couldn't change.

By the way, I have the cartoon rights for Mr. Grabber Button.

I should have kept the animation rights for Mr. Grabber. That's another thing that Vives and I say all the time. I don't think we can, I mean, well, we have a cat named Bananas, so maybe not every time we say Bananas, but we always say, oh, should I kept the animation rights to Mr. Banana Grabber. Okay, so I'm glad to hear about your eye. We did not talk about this yesterday as far as you being in front of the cameras. You've talked about, like, how you might, you know, try to use some more makeup, talk to your camera person. Can you, like, sort of favor the other side of my face? We didn't talk about you creating a secondary or tertiary disaster on your face that takes all the attention away from the eye. You know what I mean? What about using makeup to make it look like you have a little bit of blood coming, right? Just a little bit coming down your nose like in one of those Stephen King books when somebody used telekinesis.

I didn't even think about that. Just some sort of oozing wound on my opposite cheek?

On the opposite cheek, yes. A little worm coming in.

Draw the eye away, away from the... That's what I'm saying.

I'm just saying, try it. I don't know how good you are with the makeup brushes.

I'm getting better by the day as I continue to have to do my... I mean, this is the other thing. It's like tomorrow when I'm in L.A., it is going to be like of the... Like, for instance, I was out in the Finger Lakes region of New York a while ago and kind of wandering around the, like, you know, maple sap groves with a hard-working salt-of-the-earth, and I do mean that, I use that advisedly, Andrew, salt-of-the-earth kind of guy who distills maple sap into liquor. That's one where I could have had a little, you know, kind of little weird thing on my eye and maybe put some concealer on it and no one's going to know. Tomorrow, it's like I'm talking to somebody who is noted for their physical attractiveness who will have a glam team, a glam squad.

Who is it again? Oh, it's Nicky Glazer. Nicky Glazer. Yeah, right, yeah, yeah.

You know who else I'm interviewing next week? This is kind of funny. This is another one where I could have a wound and no one would care. I guess I'm interviewing Metallica.

No, Lars Ulrich.

A week from tomorrow is the plan or something.

Is it Ulrich or Ulrich? I'll ask him. Ask him, yeah.

You know, weirdly, I've met him because there was a summer where they did wait wait from uh in san francisco for the whole summer because the chase bank auditorium was being renovated and um and uh i i did it there and you know those guys are from the bay area or at least that's where they lived and lars came and was like an in-person not my job guest and he was

a complete delight as you've probably heard oh yeah lars is the charismatic drummer right yes That's right. I'm sorry. James Hetfield is the lead singer. Yes, yes. Are you going to ask them about their anti.

piracy crusade of the early 2000s i'm gonna start with a long conversation about lime wire yeah that sounds good because that is now that you've taken down napster have you considered rooting out other

services such as kazah you could say listen i shouldn't tell you this but i got a friend who watches football games on the dark web okay now that yes now that you've now that you've

managed to shore things up in the music department when will you be expanding to the illegal football streaming that's right i've got a friend who's getting away with absolute murder dear lars i

have a friend who's watching football on an illegal internet stream what should i do signed um problematic in portland yes no you're not and that's how i'm often described here's my question

to you andrew yesterday at the end of the program you said oh hey you had a trouble to the tri

cities are you in the tri cities i mean i could be to make the name work i know we don't say the I don't think we say the name of the town you're in, but what are we usually— Bedeviled in Bellingham, getting back to the bees, getting back to yesterday's Killer Bees segment. That's right. Sorry. Go ahead.

My question to you is, should we—we're about 25 minutes into the show. Should we thank some donors, and then you can tell me about standing up for yourself?

I guess. We could also skip that. I saw that on the show sheet today.

No, I mean, I have a whole segment called Health Talk.

Okay, well, Health Talk now. Look at the show sheet sometimes. I did. I saw that on the show sheet this morning. I was like, oh, I don't know if we really need to get into my thing. It's probably not that. It's honestly not. There's not a lot there, honestly. So we could also move on.

Why don't you just throw it at me? Throw it at me. Let's see.

Okay, now are we going to do it after the- Throw it out on the porch.

See if the cat licks it up.

Throw it over the fence. Let Arby's take care of it. Yeah.

You know I love my Arby's. You know I love my big beef and cheddar, Andrew.

Whenever I say Arby's, Genevieve quotes that from The Simpsons.

Let's do that. Let's thank some donors. And the good news, Andrew, is we have a shitload of stuff we didn't get to from yesterday in terms of quasi-news events. So no pressure on you to spin this doctor's thing up into too big of a thing. But I do want to hear about how you advocated for yourself. Because that was literally one of the things the doctor kept saying to me yesterday, which I appreciated. She kept saying, you know, you really got to stick up for yourself. Not that I wasn't, but that is a real thing. And I'm glad to hear you're doing it. So let's talk about that in a sec. all right today's donors these are the people who are supporting tbtl with a financial donation um and that's how this can be a thing that's how we can do this sometimes up to 366

days that's right we never take it we don't take the skip day we don't take the no we don't we

No, we don't. We're working hard for folks like Sarah and Phil Roilence of Seattle, Washington. Hey, beautiful Seattle. Thanks, Roilences.

I wonder where you live on the parody map that I was looking at yesterday. Oh, God, I hope it's not in Nope. I was about to say I hope you don't live in Nope, but you know what? No, I hope we are neighbors. Nope is a lovely place to be. I love my neighborhood. I love my Nope-er-hood.

The irony, Andrew, is on your birthday, you do want to live in Nope. You want to just completely disappear. Also, Kathy Walquist is in Rockland, California. I don't know if I've heard of Rockland, California.

I don't know. You said I might want to find myself a craggy rock to look out into the sea. If it was the Pacific, that would be maybe in Rockland.

I think of Rockland County. That's Maryland, I think. Okay. But Kathy's out there in California. Thank you, Kathy. Thanks to Nicole Spahich of Worcester, Ohio.

Oh, yeah, right. Nicole is in the original Worcester. It's not the original, I don't think.

Is that close to, relatively close to where you grew up?

Yeah, I always say the same thing here, but this is where sometimes we'd go out and do recordings for the Ohio Light Opera there in Worcester, Ohio.

My favorite kind of opera. Yes, exactly. I can't handle the heavy stuff. I know.

At this age, I'll feel it for days afterwards. Can I say something? I made a point of not saying this to you, but I'm going to say this to you. I have been listening to Money Jungle a lot lately, you know, one of my favorite jazz records.

I was listening to Herb Ellis this morning, thanks to you, by the way. You've made a major impact on the culture around here.

But something has, and I've been listening to a lot of jazz because I've been getting records and I enjoy my record player. I listen to it when Genevieve's gone. She doesn't like it. She calls it brainer. Brain a brainer. But I was listening to Money Jungle and maybe it's because I've been listening to more jazz and more different types of jazz. I'm like, now I hear why people, Like the first time I played Money Jungle for you, I remember we were at the undisclosed location, I think, raising money. And you were like, so this is relaxing to you. Or you said something. I was like, yeah, no, this is. just like normal this is like down this this is like down the center jazz and i'm i were like oh no this is you know it's pretty hard that that first track which i absolutely love i'm not denouncing it i absolutely love it but i understand why that's not maybe where what you lead with for somebody who's not like fully into that era of jazz because it is a little it's a it's a little because the reason i was thinking about it was because i got it i was at this record show at the at the elks club don't tell the eagles a few weeks ago and i got this sunny hot zip that's right i got this sunny rollins record that i absolutely loved and i remember i used to listen to it in new hampshire and i remember my buddy who was really into jazz being like yeah a lot of people don't that's not like one of their favorite sunny rollins records i'm like are you kidding me i love this and i remember playing that for you too i think when we were in australia and like the side one is one track that is like 25 minutes long that's the one that has david burman on a lot of the well it was probably that yeah it's that same road trip it's like and then it's just like that like about a million times over like just variations on that theme at one point i think he takes his mouthpiece off of his saxophone and i was listening to that i'm like yeah this is like one of my favorites jazz and i still love that it's called these uh what is it called uh east broadway rundown but um it's called how far can we push it i do understand like to me i was just like yeah this is jazz why wouldn't you like this and now i hear that i'm like oh yeah i was pushing on you and genevieve some of the more like kind of let's say just like less relaxing um sort of flavors of bop i would say so anyway but i was listening to money jungle yesterday thinking of you and thinking oh yeah now i understand how this would have hit your ears as we were trying to relax and like out on the porch in that undisclosed location well i mean i first of all

here's the thing, you've learned from your mistakes and you're recommending things like Herb Ellis

no no no, I'm saying like this is all we can do

we can't be perfect Andrew but we can take in information and then we can kind of adjust our behaviors going forward and you've done that with your recommendations because that Herb Ellis thing is hitting for me, I listen to like a playlist or I should say kind of an algorithm or whatever you call it on like Pandora, yes I am the last known pandora subscription no you and my dad my dad subscribes still too well listen bob is not crazy i love me that i mean honestly here's what it is when before spotify had like a algorithm that i knew of anyway before spotify was kind of doing the same thing i had all these pandora stations that i had made and like i didn't want to i didn't want to um have to create them and they're literally it's like putting in a song it's like walking on a dream empire of the sun radio that's it that's all i have to do you could recreate that yeah but i fear that i won't be able to remember the songs yeah so there's something that's just kind of reassuring about pandora like i go over their old friend i think it's also like five dollars a year or something i think it's quite quite affordable but um but yeah so i've been enjoying that stuff and you know what else like when i was in new york last time i went to birdland now which is like i mean now listen the thing about birdland is that it's become it's so iconic as a place that it's kind of like how do i put this it's there i've been to other jazz events i went to i went to like a two in the morning like jazz set this would have been like maybe three or four times ago when i went to new york i was out with some friends and they were like oh you want to go to this thing and it's like totally like a just a door it's like in chinatown you go down you sit in this little room with these chairs and then it's just like a kind of a free-for-all people are going up it's almost like an open mic but with this like running soundtrack it was so cool it's so fun and even birdland which is you know kind of like dinner theater jazz at this point because it's proximity to broadway and because most people even if they don't know

jazz they've heard of birdland i always thought that was a studio i remember you saying you went birdland and for some reason i was thinking that was this a studio it's a well i also went to electric lady that okay that's when i'm conflating i think yeah um but um uh but i just i love

listening to jazz in the live environment and i don't care how weird ass it gets you know what i mean like there's something about the live experience where i'm just so totally kind of like i'm i'm bought in and i've signed off and i'm ready for this i think some of that probably doesn't translate as well to the recorded experience for me but if you put me in a in a in a smoky jazz club in berlin i don't know why i place this in berlin i'm totally down for you

money jungle it up for all i care well would you know okay we got to get back to the donors but

let's just talk about jones of portland oregon has been waiting all morning for their appreciation thank you mckenna well mckenna can maybe be in on this with

us if you want because you know me luke um like i'm just really leaning into all of my andrew quirks that make me generally unlikable unlikable and unrelatable but like i'm not a bucket list person like i'm always like i want to do this before i die and i'm like i i don't know probably throw some more darts i don't know my expectations and life are i just don't even expectations it's like i'm not super motivated to like kind of do anything crazy what going up in a hot air balloon you can have it um but i was listening again i'm just i guess i'm just hitting

that that age that white man for yourself i'm young and cool i wear funny sweatshirts that say

gulls just want to have fun oh i want to talk i want to talk to you about that too in a second he is wearing a cute little sweater that says gulls just want to have fun i want to that reminds me of something i need to talk to you about get off my chest but um i'm just hitting that sort of like white middle-aged man uh jazz age i guess which is just like so annoying i i when i was a younger person i knew men like this and they were pretty um you know not super fun to be around but i i genevieve was gone one day this weekend you know it's a long weekend and i was like down in the basement like blasting music that she wouldn't otherwise like and i was listening to um bill evans's famous recording at the village vanguard and then i started looking up like the village vanguard i'm like i've always known of this place where all this stuff has been recorded but like is it still around like what what's going on with it and i started watching like youtube videos of it and um it's like you know what that's one thing i should go to the village vanguard before i die see and whoever's playing it doesn't even matter let's just go to the village vanguard if you want in on this luke it could be you me mckenzie mckenna rather sorry i didn't mean mckenzie mckenna and maybe even jordan mobley of chicago illinois maybe we all about cheryl axel though

of Bellevue, Washington. Cheryl's invited. McKenna, Jordan, and Cheryl. Actually, let's get everybody on today's list. Sarah, Phil, Kathy, Nicole, McKenna, Jordan, and then Cheryl. You're all invited to the Village Vanguard or Village Vanguard with us. Oh, am I not

supposed to say the Village Vanguard?

Oh, no, I don't think you were. I think I misstated it. First of all, the first I'm learning, there's something called Village Vanguard.

Which really speaks to New York. I'm being serious about this, Luke. Right up your alley. Bill Evans. I'm looking at pictures. Bill Evans, Sunday at the Village Vanguard. That's your record.

I'm looking at pictures, my friend, of the Village Vanguard.

Is it not the Village? What is the name of Bill Evans' record? It's The Eagles. No way, it's The Eagles. The Eagles. Okay, yeah, it's Sunday at the Village Vanguard. So you can say the. I guess that's why I'm putting the article there. But you would love that record, by the way.

Oh, and also I'm thinking I might love this physical space. Yeah, right?

See, I was taking YouTube tours of it. Some of which were recorded during the pandemic, which was a weird vibe.

This is crazy though. It's on 7th Avenue in Greenwich Village. I lived off of 7th Avenue. I lived between 6th and 7th on Carmine. And I didn't know this was there. This would have been like around the corner from where I was living for a while when I was in New York. And I think it speaks to my cultural illiteracy and also how much shit is going on in New York.

Yeah, right. And what you were into in your age, I mean, I don't think that's a shameful admission.

That looks very fun, though, Andrew, and I would be honored to go visit Village Vanguard with you and listen to some atonal bebopping.

I can already taste the gin and tonic. I believe I will be drinking a gin and tonic, by the way.

All right. Just so you know. I'll allow it. It's your birthday. I'll allow it.

Thank you.

Everybody better remember it. Hello, and welcome to Top Story. All right, a quick update on you at the doctor advocating for yourself.

The doctor said I shouldn't be drinking so many gin and tonics, and I said, no, I'm standing up for my right.

You said, get real, daddy-o.

That's exactly what I said.

All the hepcats are draining the G&Ts.

So that's my story. No, the problem with this story is I feel like it's actually a less interesting story of one that I've already told. It's sort of maybe a quick follow-up to something that happened that I already gave in a lot of detail.

Can I ask a question in advance of this, which is, did you get the physician's assistant? You had a couple times ago, you had a real battle axe. You had a real grump. And I know you were not really a fan of their way of taking.

This is in the blood lab, yes. Not a PA, but like a blood technician down in the blood lab.

A phlebotomist, potentially.

Yes. And so, yeah, that is where – so basically what happens is now that I'm on various medications for my rheumatoid arthritis, I guess I'm on a schedule where I go in and I check.

in with my doctor my rheumatologist every three months or so so he can check in with me like kind of how am i doing how am i progressing and part of that also is to take um a blood test and that's sort of it's not interesting or maybe not even important but it's like kind of a it's a different part of the medical establishment like you i go to a big medical building that is in ballard but it's attached to the hospital my doctor is not in the hospital but then after your appointment And he's like, you got to go down one floor, take the skybridge to the hospital, then go up another floor, then down another floor. Then you meet a troll. The troll's going to ask you some questions. Be nice to the troll. Then eventually you get to the blood lab. I had the same thought you did the other day, Luke. I'm like, now I'm at that age where I know where I'm going in this labyrinth. I'm kind of like, these are my people now. But anyway, so you go to this blood lab. And so I went to see my doctor. He's like, OK. And by the way, for the record, feeling great. I'm about like, oh, I'm getting like I'm taking two different medications now and they're they're all this all coming together. It's all working. I'm a little big pharma. Yeah. I'm a little creakier than I was when all this started. And my doc thinks that some of that will still come back. Like it's not even what I'm feeling right now as far as like a little little bit of like, you know, inflexibility or whatever is actually probably still just my joints and stuff healing from the rheumatoid arthritis. Like I'm sort of past the first big flare up or whatever. And so anyway, he was happy to hear that. But they need to keep on checking my blood, both for rheumatoid indicators, but also I think possibly even more importantly, to know that these medications are not destroying my gutty works, essentially, you know. and so um and so ever since this began uh which began back in may like so it's been going on for a while now every time i go to see a doctor i have to go get my blood tested and um and i don't love needles i'm always a little you know i'm trying to be better about it get out of my head a little bit but if i if i get you know if they poke me too many times or if i think about it too much i will definitely get lightheaded and one time um i went down to get my blood taken and i was feeling like a real big boy uh because they had done this several times in you know in a row and i was you know proud of myself for keeping my shit together but then i went in and like you said i got this phlebotomist who was just like kind of grumpy and just like you could just tell he's not great with people which not everybody is great with people i mean look at but maybe not a job where you're

sticking a sharp implement into their bodies a thing that a lot of people kind of have a little bit of a discomfort around that's not maybe the job for you yeah so anyway um so this one time he

couldn't find a vein and then he calls in his colleague and then she couldn't find a vein or something and i left and i because oh that's right i left i literally almost passed out like the thing where my whole face went cold cold sweat had to put my face down and then the next time i went in there and i told you this story on the show i went in and i got him again i think it was the next time it doesn't really matter and then it was the same thing he's like huh do they always do this arm let me see your other arm and just like he starts the second they start telling me that they're having issues like the second my head starts swimming you know and I'm just like you know what you couldn't find it last time I'll just come back tomorrow and I got up and this was a while back and I got up and I walked out of the blood lab and then I remember I walked all the way outside towards my car and I remember thinking I can't come back tomorrow I got other shit to do and he should be better at his job I'm gonna go back in there And I went back in there, and I said to the woman at the front desk, I'm like, listen, I said I'm going to come back because he couldn't find a vein. But honestly, I don't think I said you can always find a vein, but I said because the woman at the front desk also has taken my blood before and is a really chill person, and I like her, very chatty. She was the first person to diagnose me with rheumatoid arthritis when my doctor kept telling me.

Oh, right, like within five seconds of talking to you, right?

She's like, oh, it looks like you got arthritis, too. I have that, too. I'm just like, yeah, my doctor still thinks I just have carpal tunnel. I'm still mad at my original doctor.

As well you should be, sir.

So anyway, so I marched back in there that time and told her, I'm like, I can't come back tomorrow. This guy can never find a vein in me. I can't remember how I put it. I didn't put it rudely. She's like, oh, she's like, I can do that. She was like, it's simple. It was like she knew that this guy is not great at his job.

So it sounds like he's not a people person, and he's also not good at vein finding. At vein finding, right? Which is the main core competency of being someone who draws points. Oh, that's just, that's Rick. He can never find a vein.

But he makes up for it with a rotten personality.

Can we put Rick onto some sort of performance improvement plan?

Well, we might. I might have seen that happen recently. So that day, this woman took my blood, and she said, by the way, you can always ask. She said, you can always just ask for somebody with more experience. And I thought that that was sort of a code.

get around rick we're calling him rick yeah um and that was the last time i'd blood drawn maybe four months ago or something and then i went back in there today and my pal wasn't there the woman that i usually see who usually takes my blood who's like it was another person at the front desk and i she she looked really busy and you're not even really the process isn't to say hi i'm here for my appointment you're really supposed to just take a slip of paper right in front of her fill it out and put it in this little thing and then she takes it i still go talk to a person

Because I'm worried that the system won't work So when you go into the My Place I could theoretically just go down to the waiting area And wait for them to say my name But I somehow still think it won't work So I go to the check-in and I go Hi, I'm here to see someone And then they go, date of birth And then I put it in, you're in whatever waiting area It's like, the system is designed for me Just to walk in, sit down, and get my name hollered But I don't trust the system

I saw a comic I should say more of a cartoon A New Yorker style cartoon like years ago or no no it wasn't years ago because it was right while i was going through all this stuff it was very relevant to my interest it showed like some sort of medical professional just said i went through six years of school so i could ask people what their birthday is like when you're in this system you have to say your birthday like um what 17 times per visit now

i this is my thing what i think about now is the combinatorics of birth dates in other words how many different combinations can there be it must be the i mean they usually ask a follow-up question but it seems like date of birth is the first that's the starting point before name i always think it's name and date of birth and i swear with kaiser my experience is it starts with date of birth and i always think well how many people might have been born on may 8th well maybe if

they have two people in their system with the same one they'd then clarify are you right but i mean

of the whole system which is thousands and thousands of people what are the chances that somebody else in that system is 48 years old and was born on like my college not my actual roommate but the guy like one room over dan gaitian he and i had the exact same birth date and year and we're both born in northern california now i don't know if he's in the kaiser system now but i just i think

you and barry too say you're born on the same exact very day that's right don't steal my eye

medicine barry yeah for me yeah uh don't go down there misusing your birthday to get my new course of antibiotics weird how greedy you are with your eye medicine by the way i just realized something too i know we're hearing your story but just interstitially so speaking of feeling a little light-headed and whatnot i think this antibiotic makes me feel a little loopy like the doctor said take it with food if you want to but you know i don't i'm not a big breakfast person and uh and i so i'm i apologize if i seem a little spacey today but then i also just realized oh i gotta finish even on friday i'm gonna go in and maybe they'll do something you know kind of surgical to my eye i guess i still have to take the antibiotic because of the thing that we had talked about like you gotta finish that course yeah right so in other words like next into next week even if they've you know even if this has been solved in some way i'm still gonna be taking this stupid antibiotic that kind of makes me feel a little

weird and loopy but anyway you like it you should or you might just like love to learn i might start

I might start crushing them up and doing lines of this antibiotic.

Learn to love the high is what I meant to say there.

Okay, so you go in. It's a new front desk person.

That was all last time, yeah. And then this time I'm coming in and I'm sort of practicing in my head. I'm going to say, hey, by the way, I've been told that I could ask for somebody with more experience. I'm like, how am I going to – what is this coded language I'm going to use? And I'm just expecting that it's going to be the same woman at the front desk who often will take my blood too. But I go in and it's a different person and I say, hi. And she doesn't really look up. She looks pretty intent on her screen. I'm like, oh, should I just fill out a slip? She's like, yeah. So I'm filling out the slip. I'm like, this isn't how the plan was supposed to go. I had lines I had to deliver. I can't write it on the slip. But then I said to her, so I fill out the slip, my name, date of birth, time I came into the office, put it in her little slip basket. And then I said, hey, can I interrupt you for just a second? She's like, yeah. And she looks up. And she's like, not rude, but also not like, you know, she's just like down the middle doing her job, whatever. But I'm just like, a little sheepishly, I'm like, hey, can I interrupt you? She's like, yeah. And I'm like, hey, and I, so do voce here. I'm kind of like, you know, sometimes I get a fella who, and so I specifically wanted to sort of identify that. I'm like, sometimes I get a fella who has problems finding my veins, and then I get a little passy-outy, if you know what I mean. I actually said that. I love. I'm like, I get a little passy-outy.

I love how not coded the language is, but how sort of like it's fella. Yeah. It's passy-outy. It's all these kind of things. It's very gentle. It's like me back in my steak eating days trying to order a medium well steak without saying medium well. Right. Could you do medium plus, but then just like maybe scooch it up a bit and then leave it in there a little bit longer? Ask the fella back there to just kind of, I don't know, nudge it up. He's doing great.

Just tell him to nudge it up a bit. So, yeah, I did definitely say that. I'm like, hey, you know, there's a fella. You can't find my vein. Sometimes I get a little passy-outy. So I was told that I should maybe ask for somebody with more experience. She's like, oh, yeah.

No problem. And I'm like, great. And then I sit down in my seat, and it's a very quiet day. It's a very – I should have started this way. It was a very quiet day at the blood lab. There's very few people in the waiting area. And then a door opens from one of the labs, and an elderly woman comes out, and she's sort of joking around with our guy, the fella. Oh, no, Rick. Rick. And I'm also thinking, like, well, she seemed to have done fine. And I can see he's holding, like, two vials of her blood in his hands. By the way, he's a vampire. Did I mention that?

Yeah, what a weird. He's wearing them as earrings.

He was wearing her skin. It was very strange. Ew. No, but I did first. It wasn't until later, I think, that I was thinking, like, huh, he does fine with her. Like, what is it with me?

Oh, God, Andrew, there is no situation in which you can't make yourself somehow to blame.

But I was, you know, I spent that morning trying to drink as much water as possible. I made sure I didn't go in on an empty stomach, like kind of things that I learned from the time that I did get Passiati. And so but I'm like, oh, shit, he is the tech on duty today. But I know that I had mentioned to the woman at the front desk that, you know, I think I think she understood. I think she picked up what I was laying down, Daddy-O. And so he comes out and he comes into the main area and I hear I hear her say something to him. And I didn't hear what it was, but I hear him say, oh, yeah, I can take care of that for you. And then I'm like, I don't know what that means. And I'm like, am I it? Am I what he's going to take care of? And then I see him go like back into his lab or whatever, his little room. And then he starts like wiping. So he starts wiping things down or something. Sterilizing. Yeah. And then she comes. She's like, OK, Andrew. I'm like, yeah. And she takes me into the room across the way. And this is a very small little area. But I think what she did was she said, hey, Rick, could you, you know, sterilize lab B and I'll take care of this guy? I think that she gave him an assignment so that he would not be available to not take my blood. That's actually very cagey of her. I think that these people have the game has really slowed down for her. I think they know about Rick. Now, Rick can clearly get it done with other patients. So, like, I don't know what's going on. I don't I'm not trying to beat myself up, but I'm also I don't want to throw Rick totally under the bus. I mean, Rick, clearly he's it's working for others. I don't know what's going on with me, but but because he's he just starts talking and he starts grumbling too soon about not being able to find veins. Then I start thinking about my veins and I start thinking about blood. Then I start feeling things poking around and hearing. Nope. And I'm like, that's my neighborhood. And anyway, so I so anyway, I again, I extended this too much, mostly just retelling the story I told from three months ago. But now I guess I just have to go in and say, like, I don't know how long I can keep this up. If I'm a regular customer, they're going in there four times a year. How many tasks they can give Rick to keep occupied. But it did it did work. But I also feel I feel like I'm eventually I'm going to have to face my demons in there. Maybe. I don't know.

Yeah, we've got to come up with some other things for Rick to do in the environment I was actually surprised Yesterday after I had my time with the doctor She was like, okay, I'm going to print out your paperwork Because I also got like Every time I go in now, I'm getting not a full checkup But they'll take my blood pressure and stuff or whatever So she was like, okay, I have your instructions for taking the antibiotics And also blood pressure numbers and all this stuff So she goes to the printer. She's right in the middle of the, like, office. And I'm like, do I just follow you? She's like, yeah, come on over here. So I'm, like, standing at the printer. But it's, like, everyone's desks. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like, I feel like I'm kind of in their world.

I'm like, am I, like, allowed back here? What's going on? And then it turns out that she's apparently a big Wicked fan. And as is another, like, medical tech or some guy rolls in who clearly works there. And she's like, hey, what's up? And he's like, hey. she's like can you do the wicked dance and she starts like remember i played that tape of the guy for the rams i think it's kobe turner doing this like dance well anyway she like breaks into the dance and well first of all she goes have you seen wicked and the guy goes i've seen it twice i love this woman by the way and then she's like okay i've been learning the dance and she's like trying to do the dance and then he's laughing he's like i don't do choreography and then i look in the back of the room and there's this other person who works there who's probably more of like an admin person. And she's just like cracking up at these two people talking about their wicked dance. Yeah, right. And I was like, I feel I'm liking the vibes. I'm liking the vibes here. Like, you know, this seems like a so maybe we can get Rick transferred down there. Maybe that would be a change of change of scenery. Maybe they can kind of coach him up.

I'm willing to bring your doctor on the Village Vanguard Express too.

Oh, she'd love it. If she wants to come along. Dr. Svoboda.

Yeah. Is she by the...

the way i picture her when you were describing her as picturing her as a as maybe a bit of a younger at least younger than us because i was thinking about it in regards to her relationship with communication via computers like using this system that seems like a text-based system and sometimes using all caps you said to say that like the problem persists or whatever she used or like keeping keeping her on read and her navigating that i was sort of thinking like oh this is probably somebody who's like you know grew up more comfortable with this kind of communication than maybe us or a doctor 10 years older than us she's actually older than me really

okay um grew up in taiwan and was explaining to me that she looks she had a mask on so i couldn't verify any of this but she was i was talking about my eye and i said you know i go i actually do a job where you know i get filmed sometimes and so this is a particularly um kind of not great thing for me to have and then she goes well don't then she goes you're on tv and i go yeah she goes don't have any plastic surgery i was like okay uh a point taken note just because she doesn't

like plastic surgery or she doesn't like plastic surgery she thinks that people get too much

plastic surgery i agree and she was like she was like you look fine and i was like okay thanks i go um and she goes and she goes i look so much younger than my age again i couldn't verify any of this she goes that's being asian she was like i hated it when i was a kid or i hated when i was my 20s because everyone thought i looked like a little kid but now thanks to my ancestors so she was she was uh very very oh and the other thing she was telling me was she used to be a doctor um i think on maui and was the only doctor she was i was the only doctor on the volcano i was like well that seems unlikely it's a pretty substantial island but she was like it was so crazy like the workload that she and she was a doctor in rural kansas also where again there were not many doctors and so she was like eventually i was just like i cannot deal with this so she's like i'm we moved here where the cost of living is much lower me and my husband and my daughter and now i just work like two days a week here that's all i do and she goes and that gives me more time to like really try to help people like you and i love it oh that's great hell yeah dude yeah i'm i'm here for it um so so anyway i don't know how any of that relates to

rick other than to say um i'm we gotta keep him busy i gotta bring like maybe like a like some sort of a i don't know like i can give him my key ring to play with or something i don't know laser pointer yeah i can bring bingo oh i just figured it out rick is a cat is that the problem Did I not say that? I mean, honestly. He's like a grumpy orange cat. He's especially grumpy on Mondays. Oh, yeah.

Okay, this is making so much more sense now.

Did I seriously not mention that? I'm so sorry. No, that's critical. Can I start over?

Yeah, can I? I mean, I'm teaching a storytelling workshop online later this week.

Uh-huh, master class.

And step one is if your phlebotomist is a cat, you need to give that information to the listener early on so they can understand the contours of the story. It just seemed obvious.

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. As suspected, we didn't get to any of the top stories, but I find our medical stories to be top of the pops, Andrew.

Any emails or V-mails before we wrap things up today? Yeah. This is from our friend Kelly who sent this in, and i don't know exactly what i'm going to play for you here but i've been wanting to play it for you since i saw this um do you remember luke this would have been sometime last week so i see this email is already six days old i just very you i don't know why one of us was telling a story and we said hey wait up or something and we're like we don't ever say that anymore as adults hey wait up as a kid we spent so much time saying hey wait up now if anything we're just like slow down you know and it seemed and it was an observation that i believe i made and then you were on board with and then i got this email from kelly that says hey dear friendos when i was in college my friends and i listened to a particular seinfeld comedy album a lot like totally normal and cool 18 year olds you're my kind these are my people by the way the comedy records at 18 you better believe it i had like two steve martin records memorized by that age uh anyway kelly says your brief conversation about up about up down kid adult talk I missed that loose into this bit from the back of my brain I don't understand what that sentence means so I'm going to move in up down kid adult talk yeah slow down maybe is that like wait up slow down I'm assuming that up down means wait up slow down kid versus how kids and adults gotcha gotcha sorry I didn't pre-read this but

But anyway, it loosened this bit from the back of my brain. I loved this comedy record so much back then. I'm not sure it's all that funny when viewed from a 2024 perspective. But in 2004, it sure made us giggle. Anyway, here's Jerry Seinfeld realizing the same thing 25 years ago. So this makes me nervous because I'm wondering, like, I don't think I've ever heard a Jerry Seinfeld like full special before. but that observation I made I'm a little bit mortified to think that I was just like doing a Jerry Seinfeld bit and like is there a chance that at some point in my life this has come across you know my eyeballs or ear holes and I just internalized it and then regurgitated this I have not listened to this yet it's 42 seconds long

I will tell you one thing and I say this with peace and love but your what's the deal with the airline food riff that you do that one's definitely

lifted from sight do you know when you started that sentence my heart started beating a pitter patter because i thought you're going to raise the fact that i did yesterday on the show think i was riffing but i said daddy's home do you remember that and i'm like oh that didn't i was trying to come up with like a fake a fake like um cbs or fox um like sitcom kind of thing that

would be all that is just football but then i was all that is just a movie with mark walberg and um Adam Sandler? No, I think it's Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. Oh, I see. Daddy's home.

But the thing is, we play tape where the punchline is Daddy's home, too. And so me trying to riff was me just realizing five minutes later that I just kind of said something that lives in my mind because it was somebody else's joke. But anyway, here's Jerry Seinfeld ripping off my joke. Yes. 20 years ago.

Hey, wait up! Wait up! That's what kids say. They don't say, wait. They say, wait up. Hey, wait up. Because when you're little, your life is up. The future is up. Everything you want is up. Wait up. Hold up. Shut up. Mom, I'll clean up. Let me stay up. Parents, of course, are just the opposite. Everything is down. Just calm down. Slow down. Come down here. Sit down. Put that down.

i see applause break applause break exactly this is the thing that i think about when i hear seinfeld's comedy and by the way i really like comedians in cars getting coffee um i just as a show i thought it's really entertaining i hope they make more seasons of it um i think jerry seinfeld has kind of walked back his statement about like woke culture and comedy which i actually

really kind of respect very thoughtful about the whole thing yeah you can tell i'm just kind of

processing yeah yeah right and so um kind of like your thoughts on jazz and recommending terrible things to me that permanently scarred my mind we're going out with east broadway rundown today i just decided i'm a uh i'm a but but so you know i i like jerry seinfeld and and one thing is for me like when i catch an old episode of seinfeld or when i have caught it it doesn't quite hit for me anymore like it was just a real moment in time and by the way when moment was happening i was all in on it like i was you know it was must-see tv for me as as you might imagine but all that is to say i feel like jerry seinfeld is is fascinating to me and he might even he might even like say this himself it's like it's less that he is a funny person and more that he is a person who has analyzed the principles of comedy and created a sort of a a theorem for what equals a joke, and it's this plus this, you know, plus this, minus this, and then you get this output? Like, he has figured it out, because, like, the jokes, like, there's a joke that, like, a Ron Funchess will tell, that's just, or I'll give you a better example, I was just, like, reading this article about Cat Williams, the comedian. Cat Williams had a joke, at some point he was like, this was during the iraq war i think he was like um he said can any of you describe the iraqi military uniform he goes i'll give you a minute he's like you can't because they don't have them they're out there in flip-flops and a t-shirt and a cowboy hat fighting us and his larger point was we're not fighting an army we're fighting a group of people and maybe that's obviously that's also very political but like that has stuck with me as like a devastatingly funny statement that's something about cowboy hat made me laugh really hard and no one will ever ever talk about anything that Seinfeld does any of Seinfeld stand-up comedy as being meaningful or to me there are people who just say things that are funny and then are there people who say funny things and then people who say things funny and Seinfeld is almost like in a different category

where he, I mean, up and down. He just noticed that people say, wait up. And then he sort of says, then he does this logical leap to like, because when you're a kid, you know, you have a lot of potential. And then he just finds other examples of where you say up. And then he's like, well, what's the opposite of that? It's so kind of, it's so logical. It's such a, it's such a math problem of a joke as opposed to just a feeling, you know, a vibe or something that I think it's interesting. I guess my question is, is Seinfeld actually a funny person or not? I don't know.

And in what contexts as well, right? Like we're talking about stand up here and that particular joke. Honestly, that kind of makes me feel better because I don't think I've ever heard that before. And also where he was taking it. I thought it was going to be 45 seconds of him saying exactly what you and I said, which is why don't we essentially why don't we say wait up anymore? you know um but i see he did he did make that what i would describe as a somewhat dubious leap to the idea that's because your whole life is ahead of you everything is up like i don't well by the way he's not wrong about that well he's wrong about if anything that

language though that bit makes me wistful yeah yeah i don't know but anyway it does make me feel

more confident that my whatever i said was not influenced by possibly seeing that uh or hearing

that in the past but um but when you tell me to calm down on the show luke what i usually say is that is when i know you're ripping off jerry i usually say it in a much i say calm your some

things but i say it in a much more sort of um that that's i don't say up or down in that case

hey luke andrew up calm up luke all i can tell you is gulls just want to have fun dude oh yeah

okay let me just get this off my chest and then we can wrap up the show if you don't mind you're wearing that cute shirt says gulls just want to have fun and that is a is that a bellinghamster shirt no a ballard shirt um and it shows a gull i like that because sure there are seagulls in ballard but maybe you know what maybe that's the answer to this question that's been bothering me lately um we talked recently as as we creep ever further into middle age how you and i are very slow drivers now especially around um around like uh like neighborhoods like i drive through this specific neighborhood you know several times a week to get from where i live to like the Roosevelt area and it's like you know all residential little traffic circles to slow you down and everything and I just I drive very very slowly because there are a lot of kids there are a lot of pets there are things they could dart out in front of you and I'm happy to do so they have little signs reminding people that they should go slow in these areas I've always been a fan of 20 is plenty 20 is plenty and these are like signs that are like professionally made and And I think neighborhoods are just like people can apply to the city to probably get one and put it in their traffic circle or put it outside their yard or something. And so 20 is plenty is kind of a classic one. And that one speaks to me. Ones I don't like are the ones that say slow down. Because I'm like, you don't know how fast I'm going. Like you can advise me to drive slowly.

Like if you were going 10 miles an hour, it might be unsafe for you to slow down. Because I'm practically blocking the road.

I'm practically going 10 miles an hour anyway. I don't need a sign telling me to slow down. That sign doesn't know how fast I'm going. I'm a little irritated by those. But then there are these cutesy ones that will just have a bird on it, like a cartoon bird. Not unlike the illustration on your shirt, but even more basic than that. Just like a bird standing on the ground, and it just says, slow the flock down. Yes, I've seen these. You've seen these. And this gets really into the territory of bad almost puns on salons, on salon signs or whatever.

Main attraction.

main attraction there slow the flock down first of all we're not in a particularly birdy area it would be one thing if you had if you were visiting a a nature preserve right and um and there were a bunch of you're in the bird section and so they made these special signs that's cute but you're just like in some random neighborhood of seattle there's by the way one bird depicted on the sign it's not a flock whale and yeah and it's probably a quail it's not even a flock of birds it's a single bird the pun why am i slowing the flock down that's not a pun well it's because flock is standing in for the f-word i know but why that why not um i just don't understand it like somebody just said i don't know flock i like birds like what right i mean i agree with you connection to

this neighborhood it doesn't make any sense well i mean i think why not fudge i think that the i think that they they were so excited about the i mean flock sounds a lot like the real f word and i think that that's that that was as far as they got with the sort of like the the conceptual consistency of the idea so like they basically it doesn't offend you though

like we're just like deconstructing like seinfeld like this is just it makes no sense and it's not funny and it's not cute and it makes me want to speed up i have a different reaction to it one

And I remember seeing that and going, ooh, that's kind of edgy.

slow the flock down and then i thought you know after i have seen that sign i am thinking about the word slow the flock down like a lot like it's not it is not it's not background visual like background noise to me like it causes me to i don't know if it causes me to slow down but it causes me to think about the concept of slowing down so in that way i feel like it's kind of effective i had never thought about the how kind of not logical it is which you're totally right about like it doesn't it doesn't actually it's the entire joke is that they're saying something that sounds like the f-word but they're not but not saying the f-word yeah that's it that's the whole joke that's the joke but you're right after that it doesn't make any sense like there's a um

there's a pho place i sometimes go to on the av and i actually really dislike punny pho names but it's called pho shizzle pho yeah yeah and i'm not a big shizzle fan no of course not you know But at least it makes logical sense. It's like it's a phrase. Phuh is something that you're serving there. There's just no reason, like flock and bird, other than, like you said, they just stop thinking. They're like, I don't know, what sounds like the F word? Flock, fudge, flock. Let's go with flock and we'll make it bird themed. Oh, should we show a flock? No, just show one bird. That'll be good enough. What are you doing?

You know what's funny is that I've definitely, this is Mandela to me, though, because I would say that I think there is a small flock of birds on the sign. That's what my imagination of it is. Maybe I'm wrong. But by the way, I can't confirm that, but because of the word flock, my thought on it is it's a mama quail, and then there's little smaller birds with it. But I could have very well totally hallucinated that just because it has the word flock.

I might be wrong about this. Let's see here. Well. Well. these okay here it is okay okay here it is here it is show pick there's gonna be event we can order some of these by the way there's plenty of uh i'll get you some 20 is plenty look out for each other slow down drive like you live here i like drive like you live here i like that but i don't like the slow down drive like you live here you don't know how fast i'm going sign there are various versions of slow the flock down some have multiple birds and some have well Well, actually, this one has a single bird standing on a speed limit sign. And there are shadows of other birds behind it, like in the way background. And if you count that, I would say there's one with two birds. I don't know if two birds make a flock. There's one with four birds. That does make a flock. And there's one with a duck and a duckling crossing the row. And so maybe I'm a little bit wrong. I swear I've seen another one with a quail-ish looking bird standing on the ground.

That's the one that I'm familiar with. I think they've got him down in town, like kind of where I'll go down for my little jog, and I swear to God, I'm not even saying this is on the sign, but what my brain has done is created a version of the sign where there's like a mama quail, and then her little quail babies are behind her, and it says slow the flock down. But the problem with that, too, is the issue is not flocks of people driving too fast. So the flock does not need to be slowed down. It's not, you know, it's not, you know what I mean? Like, it's not a car. It's not a minivan with, like, multiple children in it that's tearing through the neighborhood. So, again, the inconsistency intellectually continues.

Well, I will say that I can't find one as I was picturing it with just one single bird on it. And none of these look like the ones I see in this little neighborhood. So flock my life, man. I don't even know. Now that's a show title. Flock my life. Love it. All right. Let's get to here.

What do you say? Oh, man. I just blown through nap time. Blown. It's weird, man. I got so much sleep last night. I swear to God, these antibiotics are-

There's something so funny about you just like stretching and being like, oh, I guess we're just done here. I mean, it's weird. I slept.

I got so much sleep last night. And actually, I was not bedeviled by midnight mictration too much. I mean, maybe one, maybe not even one. I woke up this morning and felt quite rested. But apparently, a hard day of podcasting has now got me back into sleep mode. So I'll rest up before tomorrow. I'm going to be in Los Angeles checking in from down there from Hollyweird. Actually, you know what? I'm staying close to where I was last time. We'll see if that Jesus is still roaming Hollywood Boulevard.

Oh, yeah. Now you can get a photo with him this time.

Yeah, maybe so. So anyway, we'll see you for that. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday, everyone. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. Power out.