Muse

Thanks for the coffee. Yeah. Tomorrow I'm gonna get you a venti, which is two sizes

bigger than this one. Twice as generous. Well next day I'll get you a cuarenta.

Oh will you? Yeah it's a 40 ounce. Then the next day I'll get you a ciento. You can get

here on Friday I'll have picked you up a guguplexia. Oh good, because on next

Monday, I'm going to buy you an infantitia. Damn. TBTL.

Rolling out of bed with one thing on my mind. How does it feel like? I'm serious. How does it feel like? I've only seen one person ever have it as much as you currently do.

First, I want you two to turn and look at each other. Oh, now that's nice. Just stare deeply into each other's eyes Yeah Good, now say the first thing that pops into your brain I don't want to touch sandpaper I like the whiz It is evolutional, it is anthropological It is biological

Well, I'll tell you one thing I'm not eating the Taco John's That's spicy stuff

Tacos, hot tacos here

Let's get one thing straight I'm the funny guy around here Alright, hello, good morning And welcome everyone to a Monday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live scat man's world my name is luke burbank i

am your host things are going to start happening to me now coming to you from the madrona hill

studio perched high above the mighty columbia where it is calm out there my friends it's not raining there are some clouds but kind of cool looking clouds and the water the river is so Oh, still, it looks like a mirror out there. Oh, Ma, Pa, it's just beautiful. It's like some kind of a fall painting you might see. We've got an audio painting for you called Episode 4355 in a collector series. Coming your way today. Let the fun begin. And on Friday's show, I was very, very, I guess you could say excited, relieved, mildly apprehensive, but mostly excited to go to the doctor to get this situation with my eye remedied finally after i think it was two unnecessary doctor's appointments i was finally having a necessary doctor's appointment to get this all sorted and i got there and right away when i looked around i

knew something was wrong look at it's plain and simple it's bullshit as i said on the show sheet

today my annoyance with kaiser feels permanente on this monday edition of the show i'm very mad at them we will talk about it we will also talk to a good friend of ours broadcast barry of the broadcast coffee concern who is like many of us a huge fan of the show somebody somewhere set in manhattan kansas a beautiful program about friendship and connections and life here to

make friends making friends is the name of this show and barry made some friends in manhattan

kansas this weekend the cast of somebody somewhere he sent me a photo that i immediately started sending to other friends of mine who love the show as a way of trying to sort of catch some sort of reflective uh i don't know what credit from barry's life anyway we'll get into that and we're going to talk to this dude longest running cobro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships i've been trying to learn some piano chords and he has been working on his singing and it is going really well it's an actual recording of him from this weekend he's andrew walsh and he's joining me right now

good morning my friend good morning you ever see that cartoon oh i can't think of the name of the fella who wrote it or drew it or composed any of the characters any of the characters any the names or really the point. It was like a New Yorker cartoonist who has a cartoon that I think went pretty viral. You see somebody sitting in a plane seat and the caption is clearly the captain's voice in quotes. It says, this is your captain speaking and this is your captain singing. That's a good spoof. It's such a good spoof. It's well done to be able to capture, to be captured in like kind of non-audio form in one square in a sentence. You know what I mean?

Absolutely. That is high level comedy and very efficient. Andrew, can you do me a fave? Can you scooch over so that I can see your name tag right now? The microphone is obscuring it. I want to take a photo of us.

No, yeah, it says Andy.

Say cheese.

Perfect. I realized that today. Oh, I love it. Thank you for holding up a coffee. No, that's right.

You're dressed in a coat.

You look like someone I hired to come work at my mansion.

You're dressed in a spore coat with a, what do you call the little hanky coming out? A little ascot? Not an ascot. A pocket square? A little designer pocket square coming out. And I happen to be wearing this shirt that I wore doing some chores and stuff yesterday, which is a little Cintas work shirt. I love it, by the way. This is an actual work shirt from either high school or college. I dig it, dude. This was my uniform when I worked for my dad out in the shop. It's like one of those kind of, what did you say, slate blue sort of Cintas work shirts. And my dad called me Andy, so all of the name tags on it said Andy instead of Andrew.

I absolutely love that shirt. When I worked at the plumbing company, I was obsessed with getting one of those shirts with my name on it. Because they were very in style at the time. This would have been the, you know, early 1990s, 1992 maybe, 93. And it was, at least in Seattle, it was a whole look Yeah, yeah, yeah I worked at a place where you, like, they weren't going to really give them to us Because we were just kind of summer, you know, employees It wasn't worth whatever the $10 to have a patch, you know, sort of ironed on to a shirt But I think I bugged them, or maybe I even paid for it out of my own money, who knows But I was so into that shirt The funny thing is, today, after we're done, I have to record a couple of videos including a little acknowledgement of the career of our friend Dave Ross who is going to be retiring

from radio. You want to do that together? I got to do that. I mean I have the opportunity to do that

as well. Oh let's do it. That actually sounds fun. Do you want to? I don't need to crash

yours. I was brainstorming what I was. We should do it dressed like

this. Well so this is the thing. I this morning was like I need Dave Ross and whoever watches as a Cairo to know it's going okay for Luke Burbank despite having some medical issues with my eye and so i thought well i'll just throw a little like uh sport coat on and i didn't realize that this is a sport coat that just this thing was in the pocket right like i wasn't in there no it's just oh no no it's just sitting in there but i did not select this for like the the pocket square seems over the top like i just thought i'll try to wear something that looks a little nice that's a little flattering on me and and just again try to project the image that everything's going very well for lb and i didn't realize until i was was looking at myself in the screen here with Riverside, the program we use, that it does have a pocket square and that it actually looks pretty formal. It's got some real thirst and howl of the third vibes. And it just happens to be the day that you're wearing your working man Andy shirt. We look like we have really come from different sides of the tracks today.

But we've been brought together to do a podcast.

Through a crazy set of circumstances.

First of all, as far as your pocket square is concerned, do you think that Paul F. Tompkins would give it even a second thought about being you look good don't worry about it no but i'm square on a monday is fine time in my

life where i was a dandy and that time has that time has passed like oh that jacket's from your dandy days this is one click north you know where i got this jacket actually was italy this summer now if you say like oh i got this jacket in italy that sounds real real highfalutin as my friend brand would say really sounds like you're farting through silk but actually stuff was way cheap over there like much cheaper than you could get the same thing in the u.s for like this jacket i'm wearing i think it might have been 30 bucks 40 bucks it's nice italian wool it it you can just throw it in the old suitcase it doesn't get wrinkled that was my whole thing becca was like hard eye rolling because i just kept acquiring these like forty dollar generally blue or navy blue wool blazers everywhere and i was like this is the last one i'm getting this one but then i kept seeing another one and i thought but what if i need a fifth one um because my thought my whole look this uh winter it's actually kind of become the case if i have to go do something formal it's grab a collared shirt throw one of these little blazers that don't get wrinkled very easily into the suitcase and then we're kind of good to go i have a question for you it's not related to

any of this at all but it is an important question yes the toilet was like that uh that's why i

called you that's why it just does not i don't know i came home and it was like that and i that's that's why you're here sir this is bathroom related no more direct eye contact please

this is uh bathroom related it is not i think you should leave related and it's not toilet related it is um it's not a joke toilet with a little fart hole in it it is a it is a shower question do you ever find yourself i was almost late for work today because i found myself cleaning my bottle cap in the shower and i even had the conscious decision because i'm in the shower i don't know exactly on your shampoo i don't know exactly what time it is in the shower and i'm like i'll bet you i'm a little bit late here but once i started on this project i was i was just like that I'm going to be late. And by the way, I wasn't. No, I was late. You were here when I got here.

I think we both dialed up around the right time. But I have a thing of shampoo in there. I use shampoo maybe every two or three days. I have a bottle of conditioner in there. I use the conditioner maybe once a week. But honestly, I'm not super great with it. I should use it more. I don't even know why. I like the way it smells. I have very little hair. But I use it maybe. You've got a good amount of hair on the sides.

Over on the sides, back, and parts of the top.

Parts of the top. But hey, my ears are doing great for themselves and the hair.

As far as a total situation, your head has as much hair as mine does. It's just distributed a lot of it on the lower part of the head, i.e. your face.

The comb over I'm doing with my nose hair is really something to behold.

Honestly, from certain angles, you would not know. Now, from other angles, you really know.

From other angles. It's like my eye.

Some people have turned to stone. It's like my stye. It's like from some angles, it's like, oh, everything's okay.

And then from another angle, it's like, oh, God, from another angle, it looks like you've been lying.

And it looks like I was caught there. Looks like I was caught lying. Well, if his eye grew, I guess.

Yes, exactly. So anyway, but yeah, I don't use the conditioner all that often. And so I went to squeeze some into the palm of my hand, as you're supposed to do. And it just like I had to like it just like squeezed out. Like it was like the whole opening was clogged with old, you know, kind of dried conditioner. and so i was like so i did so i fine i you know it was already in my hand i conditioned i am conditioned right now but then as i was sitting the conditions were perfect the conditions were well i would say imperfect in this case because it didn't come out properly so as it's in my hair you're supposed to let it sit for a moment and i'm like you know what this will not stand and so then i take the lid off and i kind of put the shower on a harder stream i'm kind of like shooting water through it this is all i've done this many times you could blow into it Yes, did it. That's how it all was. That's the sequence.

Uh-huh. Like, this is a, I think you should leave reference. Like, who's one of the guys that would have blown, played that with the kink, the horn with the kink in it?

Oh, something shorterly, I think. Certainly. Donk.

I've got it right here.

Roy Donk. Like a Roy Donk. Paul Bufano.

A Marcus the Hick, Marcus the Worm Hicks.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He could hit that high note.

Who would have also accepted. and, of course, Mookie Kramer and the eight balls.

Right, right. But, yeah, so the sequence is always, well, I'm just going to shoot some water into this thing, see if I can clear it out a little bit. At this point, you don't realize you're obsessed. Then you're like, I got to do some mouth-to-mouth on this thing. And you're like, okay, I know that I'm going to end up with, like, shampoo mouth, shampoo lips, but you're, like, blowing through it, both coming and going. And you're like, well, this isn't quite working. Then there was the dangerous part of the shower where I reach far out of the shower. all the way into the far side of the drawer underneath my sink. And I grab, I have like a tiny little kit that has like two different sets of fingernail clippers, some facial like scissors, you know, for like ears and nose and stuff. So it's got several things in there. And one of them is like kind of a metal pointy nail file that I don't really use for much. And so I reach all the way out of the shower. I grab that thing. now I've got my surgical tools. Now I'm going to town. This is where the adventure should have begun. Like now I'm scraping this clump out. It's not hard and crusty, but it's not liquid. It's somewhere in between. It's gelatol. It's like the inside of my eye cyst. More on that coming up. And actually, yeah, maybe this is good foreshadowing. This was very satisfying. I hope your cyst, it sounds like it wasn't, but I hope it was as satisfying as this because it did, we got clean corners on this thing. the lid is very it's sparkling clean right now i might take a shower after the show

just to use that conditioner again just to enjoy the free and easy access to your conditioner now

unimpeded real story you ever find yourself in that situation you ever find yourself cleaning

something in the shower well uh yeah i don't know if i've gone to the point of of um using a tool from outside of the shower while the shower is still going but i have very very often in my life done the thing you described where first you're trying to squeeze it and you're hoping that the pressure of the shampoo or the conditioner and you're right it is always a conditioner problem because shampoo most of us use it on the daily or at least I use shampoo every time that I take a shower but the conditioner I don't use as frequently so that one has more time to get kind of gunked up and you start by going I'm going to squeeze this so hard and it's going to like pop pop and that's very satisfying but you then also get like way more conditioner than you need if it works even if it works best case scenario you're wasting conditioner now you have a giant giant palm

full of conditioner much more than you need with one little hard clump in it if you were successful

yeah that's and that's best case scenario a booger of condition i used to say to such a terrible place to take this but i i have some i have friends who were quite uh they were they were big fans of going to the adult dance club at a certain point in the night at a certain point in the drinking this was in our much younger days i was always a fan of going to the casino myself because one of the things i said was this whole enterprise this thing of going to this adult dance club if i read it correctly the best case scenario is you've got a situation that you're now dealing with like if you were to if if this were to if this were to be this sort of work out as good as well as you hoped it would in terms of your level of excitement here in this in this particular environment i think then you've got a new problem that you're dealing with and anything short of that feels like what are we even doing here so anyway back to shampoo and conditioner i use a very kind of expensive maybe it's not expensive by some people's standards but it seems expensive to me uh this shampoo that i'm using that has nioxin in it it's a you know it was one of my many like anxiety buys it's supposed to be better for stimulating hair growth i guess this chemical nioxin is you know helps maybe i think maybe either keeps your hair from falling out at as fast of a rate or maybe it supposedly helps regrow it but here's what i like about it you're supposed to leave it in for five minutes so the first thing that i do when i get in the shower once i'm kind of rinsed off is i put the shampoo and i leave it there and i then spend five minutes you know doing my thing with the soap and i feel like oh i'm really doing my scalp a real service with this But I also have conditioner that is made by the same company and is supposed to be doing the same thing. But by the time I'm rinsing my hair off, I'm done doing everything, and I don't want to sit in the shower for five more minutes just waiting for the conditioner to do its thing. So then I just never use the conditioner. I have had one bottle of this conditioner for the last five years, and I've come through, like, five bottles of the shampoo.

Yeah, you're supposed to leave the conditioner in there. Now, I don't have a problem taking a long shower. I often get lost in my thoughts in the shower. So if anything, my problem is the other side. I stay in there for much too long. But, you know, much like a carbon credit, I'm glad to know that you're on the other side of the state. Absolutely. Maybe not the other side, the southern side of the state, though, you know, like kind of preserving that water so that I can take my longer showers. But between the two of us, we are taking an average shower every day. And, yeah, I just remember being told growing up, well, you're supposed to put the shampoo in, rinse it out, but then conditioner. You've got to leave that in there for a while. I don't even know what a while is, but I don't know if I've ever even read that or confirmed that that's what you're supposed to do. Can you confirm you leave the conditioner in for a while while you do some other shower business?

I don't know. Well, see, the stuff I'm using is kind of a unique scenario because it's allegedly dousing my scalp in some sort of chemicals that make my scalp more likely to grow hair. I don't know with a regular conditioner that's not promising to do that. I don't know what the rules are in leaving it in. I do know that there is an actual leave-in conditioner that they make where you put it in your hair, and I believe you just leave it in. It just stays in your hair forever, maybe. Maybe it hydrates your hair. There's also now dry shampoo. That's a big thing, particularly for women, I think. I know Becca has used it before, and that one I don't understand at all, but I don't think that even involves getting into the shower. It does. Genevieve uses it.

She goes in the bathroom. She's going to wash her hair. I hear the sound of a bunch of snakes hissing for a while, and then her hair is clean. You just hear a bunch of sandpaper? What? Yeah, it's just, I don't understand the science of spraying an aerosol into your hair and saying that has made it cleaner. But I guess, you know, it probably has to do with cells, proteins, keratin. Keratin, Andrew. It's all about keratin. Things attaching to other things, probably.

I look like a guy, Andrew, who would corner you at a party and say, it's all about keratin.

I look like a guy that you wouldn't approach at a party.

I would, and I would say, sir, that toilet downstairs is still clogged.

And why are you here? It's 8 p.m. The ice machine is still not working.

It's really messed up how easily I lead into this rich D-bag persona. It feels right. It feels right that I'm being unnecessarily dismissive of you, Andrew.

Meanwhile, I'm over here managing expectations, everybody's expectations towards me. Hey, I went back into that grocery store with my backpack late at night on a Friday. Oh, wow. That would be a time. Yeah. Really be asking for trouble late at night. I know. And I was ready to go in and say so actually, though, it was the dream of the neighborhood grocery store. I shouldn't admit this. I admitted this to somebody else this weekend. I'm only telling you and her this. You're the only people to know. But Friday I was.

Work on the newsletter, kind of late-ish into the afternoon, early evening. Then there's always, like, I send that thing off, and there's always a bit of a relief. I always think, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do a newsletter this week. And then there's always this sort of mental relief. I laid down on the couch around, oh, you know what? It wasn't that late. It was like 5.30. I laid down on the couch around 5.30 or 6 or something. Slept until 8 o'clock at night. Oh, wow. Is that even a nap? Can you wake up from a nap at 8 p.m.? It's called a small sleep. It's called, I took a small, it's called a little sleep.

Yeah, you definitely have gone past the bounds of napping

Ugh, waking up, and that messed me up And I think I've been on a bad schedule I stayed up late, like, actually all of last week I was staying up well past one in the morning

That was it, your body was, your body is starving for hot dogs

It's starving itself, yeah, it's eating itself

Yeah, your body was neat, I mean, because you're not generally a napper If I have this right, so if that happened to you Your body was telling you something

Fridays are weird for me, though, because I kind of lull about I kick around the house I'm such a weird person on Fridays I'm kicking around the house Usually a Friday Genevieve works from home on Friday So it usually begins with me asking her Like kind of jokingly I guess mostly jokingly But mostly annoyingly Like 17 times So what are you going to write about In the newsletter this week Genevieve Don't you want to write I'm like I'll write your little speeches For the president I think I can handle that Why don't you write the newsletter That was funny probably once in 2022 But that's how the Fridays begin Then I do the show with you Then I'm like okay I'm not going to get a big lunch because I should just keep on rolling on the newsletter stuff. But then I get hungry, and I say, Vives, I'm going out to get a big lunch. What should we get? We combine our resources. I come back with too much food. Then it's the afternoon. I'm like, ready to write the newsletter? No, ready to nap because I've eaten too much food, and I probably stayed up too late on a Thursday.

So this nap was the newsletter hadn't gone out yet.

No, luckily I had some discipline this Friday. So then with a big belly full of teriyaki, I'm like writing the newsletter. but then I'm like I was like bouncing jokes off of Genevieve I'm just like I'm just like I kick around the house just like like a sullen cat knocking things off of the shelf trying to figure out like what I'm going to write about the newsletter until finally I squeeze one out sorry sorry to everybody who read the newsletter that I squeezed out and then I'm just like oh did it did it did another week and then I lay down on the couch around like I say maybe six o'clock and uh and then I'm like I'll just rest my eyes for a second and then uh next thing I know I'm waking up eight o'clock at night on a, on a Friday, not my favorite move. And I was like, I, and I had this overwhelming urge for cranberry juice. I was like, I want cranberry juice. And I don't know. And I was like, uh, and then I was like, you know what? UTI going. Yeah. Not great. Um, and so I, uh, so then I'm like, well, I guess I'll go to the grocery store, but then I'm picturing myself getting in the car and I'm like, son of a gun. I can walk to the SARS super saver. And I'm like, should I take the backpack or not? will they will they chastise me again at the door if so you know can i handle my shit and just say okay fine you hang on to this for me whatever they apparently have a bag check policy without anybody actually checking the bags but i showed up it was so dead around 8 30 on a friday night the security guard barely looked at me different person didn't care nobody cared about anything i wandered around the store got myself some then i'm in there i'm like hey maybe they have a frozen food section that is like pizzas and stuff my god do they ever like i came home with some stouffer's french bread pizzas and some cranberry juice it was great so it sounds like my theory that that

that was sort of a day one maybe even like an hour one kind of a situation where the security guards were on their absolute best behavior and most kind of careful behavior my guess is that going forward and i think you would actually sort of theorize this that once they know you and see you a lot and you're in there all the time i have a feeling that that no one will ever talk about your backpack again which is amazing because it means you're back to your fantasy life of like tootling around the neighborhood doing this and that and the other and then just grabbing something from your neighborhood grocer and then heading on home like without a care in the world it really

was great and i my guess is it i will it probably depends on the time it probably depends on who's working security if you know if i'm going there as frequently as i expect i am guessing that there will be times where i will be asked to not wear my backpack and if so i'm just going to really kind of measure myself if the um kind of customer service area is open i will take it over there this time of night i learned because i was ready for them to tell me i couldn't take my bag in there so i looked over to customer service all closed up at that time of night you know they're

on skeleton crew or what have you but here's the move ask the security guard to wear it yes could you wear this for me could you come around with me wear this for me while i'm um so we know it's safe how about you wear it and i'll come find you when i've got my groceries or you wear it and come

around the store with me and i keep loading it up with things make them my accomplice while i just clean the place out. Will you, Bonnie, my Clyde?

I do want to know about your eye, though. I've now gone on some various lines of frivolity, but do we have time before we get Barry on the show? We do, we do.

I knew this exact thing would happen, Andrew. Why do you think I'm the corporate titan that I am, and you'll never get that dirt out from under your fingernails? It's because I'm thinking ahead, Andrew. It's because I told Broadcast Barry we would not be calling him until 11 a.m.

Oh, I saw the note. I've been looking at the clock. I'm surrounded by, I can't tell you that I'm conscientious of the clock because I get chastised.

Well, it's just that I have so many clocks here. Sure, I know. It's insulting to my very character if you think I don't know what time it is. Although, actually, I'm a little worried that, I guess it is, I have this wall clock that it's the weirdest thing I'm looking at it. And it is indicating that as you and I are speaking to each other, it is the 1042, basically. And I don't know how to explain this Other than to say the clock says 1042 But if you look at it quickly It somehow doesn't read as 1042

It feels more like a 1046

It feels culturally more like 1038 I know that makes no sense But like looking over it I was like we got all the time in the world For this I story And then I looked and I was like well actually we have about 15 minutes

Yeah a little bit more than 15 minutes Is that enough time?

That's plenty

I think I have some gas in my tank

on this because we've been hearing i've heard from a few people saying i'm really sorry about your eye but i found it to be a pretty decent tv tale storyline and usually if i hear that like three times which is like three out of i don't know many actually kind of a surprisingly large number of people thousands of people and maybe the thousands and thousands of people who heard it and were bored by it or grossed out are are you know that's the majority but if i hear if i get three texts from actual friends going i'm pretty riveted by this i like i've had a couple people go can you send me a picture of the eye well calm down thurston powell wait till they hear

the conditioner story you know hey honestly hyper hyper relatable okay so um last week i was talking

a lot about this for some reason i'm really resistant to calling it a sty even though that's exactly what it is i think because when i was growing up i had never seen a sty but my imagination of it was that it was a weird infection almost of the eyeball itself and something that was almost conjunctive in its itis and kind of pink eye like it just if I heard oh a stye it made it felt it gave me a kind of a yucky feeling and what I've learned from having a stye in my eye is what it actually is is just the inside of your eyelid gets infected for some reason or in this case a duct gets blocked up and then you get this swelling and uh and so you know the i have this red bump on my eyelid which this is the weird part andrew that i've learned is actually that's sort of the base of the volcano if you will it's the actual the the cauldron the the caldera rather the place where we throw the virgins in to please the gods i'm just really leaning into this volcano thing is inside my it's apparently in the interior of my eyelid i can't see it or get to it i keep thinking about this as being a a problem with a red dot kind of like a cranberry cranberry sized dot on my eyelid like a bump but that's actually the bottom of the situation this is really

interesting so in other words not that you would want to do this or not that you'd even want a picture doing this and so i apologize to you and everybody who's going to hear this but like If you were to think, oh, this is something I could pop, like a pimple, you're looking at the bottom of the pimple. You'd need to be popping this from inside the eye cavity.

Yeah, and so last week, to go back a couple of weeks, this thing was not getting better and was kind of unsightly, and I decided, okay, this is not going to remedy itself. I'd been doing a hot compress constantly, and it wasn't making any difference. so I got on the website for my healthcare Kaiser Permanente and I they said well like what do you need and they listed a few different possibilities of course there's dental there's optometry there's general practitioner I was like well I know it's not optometry because what I know about optometry is that is the science of how our vision works it is not the science of cutting into your eyelid or putting a needle in there to drain something I just knew that instinctively with almost no training in the field i just was like this is not an optometry call i thought it's if anything it's ophthalmology which they don't let you make an appointment for but if it's not if i can't get to ophthalmology then it's probably a general practitioner thing it's a doctor thing they have scalpels they could do something so i make an appointment with the general practitioner i go in he is taking pictures of my eye and sending it to the eye specialist

who is telling him, put him on an antibiotic. I now, by the way, Andrew, having had three appointments for this and a fourth scheduled for tomorrow morning, I now have figured out that the American health care system is bullshit. This has not been discussed in the news lately at all. Very few people have this take, Andrew, but I am here to tell you it's, in the words of Jenny McCarthy, and this is the only words of Jenny McCarthy that I'll agree with when it comes to medicine. Look it, it's plain and simple. It's bullshit. So I go to the first GP.

You and Jenny McCarthy So just let me get this right You guys are on the same page Medically Medically very very aligned Just wanted to get that right for the pull quote I'm going to put on Instagram later

So the first GP says We'll put you on this antibiotic And I remember thinking I feel like you're kind of Like we'll see if this works But this seems like a real broad approach To a pretty specific problem I got this stye in my eye We're going to try to anti the biotics of my whole body and hope that that just catches this eye situation. Like, you know, like it just catches that as kind of like a, you know, sort of an ancillary issue. Like it just feels like a kind of take two aspirin and see me in the morning kind of approach. Which is, I'm sure what they're trained to do because they don't want me to, this is what I'm learning, Andrew. They don't want me to see the ophthalmologist because there are not that many ophthalmologists. It's a specialty. and they would really like to just delay deny and depose me with antibiotics so i take the antibiotics for a week guess what no improvement in my situation at this point are they sending me to the ophthalmologist no they're sending me to another general practitioner who was very nice and was advocating for me she sure was but guess what she told me to do based on what the eye specialist a different eye specialist told her different course of antibiotics do you see the continued application of a cure that will probably not work that will be less expensive for Kaiser Permanente to deal with it's less Luke getting to see the person who can actually potentially fix this so I'm on the phone with the 800 number with the doctor the other day and she's like okay and they make me an appointment for the eye doctor and the only time I can get is Friday in the afternoon now I was supposed to be in LA Friday afternoon or at least flying back but I rearranged my schedule i come back really early we do tbtl i am driving oh other side note on this if i were if i were kaiser permanente i would simply not have two buildings that are i don't know eight blocks apart one that's called the kaiser medical office and the other one that's called the kaiser medical center or something like they've got these two buildings that are the names are almost indistinguishable from each other oh it's called the salmon creek sorry one's called the salmon creek medical office and one's called the salmon creek medical center and i feel like you're asking for confusion yes i feel like if i had to guess the office is where

they are filing the paperwork and by the way people are filing paperwork in 2024 i picture i'm sure they are i picture metal desks and tall filing cabinets in the office and the medical center that's where people with stethoscopes are checking people's pulses well you're you're mostly

right although here's what added to the confusion i of course went first to the office because uh that's where ways was trying to take me and i went inside and guess what they do have there andrew an eye center which was confusing to me not the eye center i was trying to go to but it's

now it's a lowercase i center they just make it as complicated no no you need the eye facility in the medical center not the eye center in the medical office come on yeah i mean sir is this your first is this in fact your first rodeo excuse me mr burns why are you dressed like that and secondly how is this so complicated for you so god i would have killed for whatever those

needles they use to shoot burns up with yeah just put that literally put it in my eye no one's ever said that except me because that's how much i want this thing gone so i'm at the wrong place and i then am running to by by which i mean jumping in my car and speeding over to the other place and now i'm in danger of actually missing my appointment which i am someone who's not had a lot of medical appointments which i'm grateful for i wasn't sure if it's like the airplane do they close the door 10 minutes early and they are not like because i could see a world in which if you're running something that's on tight a schedule as one of these you know medical offices and people are always showing up five ten minutes late it's like that could just throw everything off constantly like you might need to have like a really hard and fast policy it's like i'm sorry if you're not here at the time of your appointment we're rescheduling you right yeah can

i actually jump in here really quickly with a quick anecdote of my own related to this because as you know like i'm somebody who for anything i like to be a bit early what is the old expression if you're if you're on time you're late or what have you

like i like to be somewhere lynn hall my choir teacher would say um uh he would say uh early is on time on time is late and late is unacceptable there you go and that's how i live my life i feel

like there was also wasn't it like a coach that said that i think there's a famous coach like maybe who was that um i don't know football basketball one of the balls somebody oh john

wooden probably that's who i was thinking of yes probably part of the pyramid of success i was

gonna say the wood guy i can't think of his name i always think of our friend i followed the pyramid

of success that's how i ended up here on monday wearing a pocket square do you remember talking

down to you now my anecdote is spinning into other anecdotes but do you remember when i discovered the pyramid of success and i'd never heard of it before but it was hanging in a studio at kcrw and then you would explain to me who what's his name again what's john wooden john wooden i'd never heard of him before and i remember our friend mike frizell just being like every time i can't believe what this guy doesn't know he just i mean like how does he not know i don't

john would fear by the way rest in power but i don't i'm not with i'm not with him on that i think it'd be very easy to not know about the pyramid of success i think it was the john

wooden thing and he wasn't being cruel or anything i want to make that very clear i just remember it stood out in my mind i'm like i guess i should really know who this guy is um okay having said all of that uh i am very nervous about being late anywhere but especially the doctor's office not unlike this belief that you're supposed to leave conditioner in your hair for like five minutes i'm sorry i'm late i was conditioning yes and i've been conditioned to believe that if you show up late for a doctor's appointment you're in trouble like you have to rebook it or what have you even

i felt that and you know me i'm a noted time optimist that's why i thought it'd be worth

kind of throwing this in there and i'll tell you what the other day i had a doctor's appointment and I don't have an excuse for being late. I was going to leave at a time where I was going to get there like 15 minutes early and they want you there 15 minutes before your appointment. I was going to be there probably a half hour before my appointment, but I said, I'm going to start this one task. I had to write this thing. And I was like, well, let me start. But then once I started that task, I was behind my desk and I'm looking at the clock and I started having Luke mind when it came to the clock. I started looking at it and seeing one thing, but like kind of interpreting it as something else. Until I realized I'm running out the door 10 minutes before my appointment starts. And it's a 15-minute drive. And this is before my appointment starts, not, like, before they want me to get there. And so, like, I'm just screwed. I'm just rolling in five minutes late, which is exactly what I did. Joel Otto from the Calgary Flames. That's right. I'm, like, you know, I'm tapping in, like, you pay for parking via your phone. So I'm, like, tapping it in while I'm running in. And then I get up there and I'm breathlessly. I'm, like, okay, I'm a little bit late. I'm here for the 3 o'clock with Dr. So-and-so. And then they're like, okay, have a seat right over there. They don't say anything. Then the physician's assistant comes out to kind of, you know, take my weight and get me prepped or whatever. And he says, hey, sorry, we're running a little bit behind today. I'm like, perfect crime. And this is what I think I shouldn't say this to you. I apologize to any doctor who ever has to deal with you in the future. But this person said to me, hey, sorry, we're running late today. And I said, actually, I was running late. I got here a few minutes late. He's like, ah, and he gestures towards the front desk people, but out of earshot of them says they care about that way more than we do. So the doctors are you put your evil inside me. Yes. But it's the people at the front desk who I and I understand that that actually must be a pretty thankless job probably when you're sort of stuck between the two. But anyway, I thought that was interesting.

well so i and if i can belabor this even more i find somebody in the first office who says uh you know this is not the building well first again i have the kaiser app open on my phone and i'm clicking on the appointment because all it says is medic salmon creek medic that's it like it doesn't finish the word like it's not displaying on my phone this is part of why there was confusion Now it is a link So I'm mashing the link And guess what the Kaiser app is doing in this very moment It's just spinning I just need like four more letters To know if it's like the office or the building And so I go inside And I Talk to a person at the front desk She's very nice and I go I don't know where I'm supposed to be She goes what's your Kaiser number She might as well have just said Can you recite pi To the one trillionth digit

She might have asked, what's your blood type? I assume you don't know your blood type either.

I also don't know my blood type. So I was like, a root beer? So I was like, I don't know. And I go, can we look it up on my birth date? You know, that's a big thing. And she goes, yeah, hold on. Just the system just crashed. It's rebooting. So now the system on her computer is like slowly coming back to life. The phone is still not giving me the critical five extra letters that I need to solve this riddle. Finally, it's like she sees my thing. She's like, oh yeah, you're in the other one. I'm like, okay, I run out.

now it's like my appointment is starting now at the other place and i am five minutes away which again not a lot of time but in this case if it's enough that they're going to be like i'm sorry you lost your spot i'm going to be so bummed because i changed my whole trap my plane ticket for this and i get out into traffic and i'm behind a minivan and we're at a red light the main big road that connects the one office to the other like that we need to i need to drive like a half a mile on if that and this woman will not take a red on a right uh right on a red and definitely

definitely is taking a right has the blinker on has the blinker on is sitting there there's no one

around and she's and i'm like and i'm i'm proud of this generally speaking i am not a road ragey person i really i just it's not for some reason a thing that generally gets me all angry but in this case I was feeling so much anxiety and I was seeing my whole I was like it's amazing how quickly you can spiral on these things because here's what was going through my mind I'm gonna get there they're gonna say sorry sir you missed your appointment the next one isn't for three weeks I'm gonna go to these I was going to a holiday party that night with Becca's family I'm gonna have to go to this with a big giant weird unsightly thing on my eye next week I'm doing live wire on thursday night at the rev hall by the way come see us i'll be doing that with a i just started thinking everything in my life is going to be me embarrassed about this giant growth on my eye in public and it's all going to happen because this woman won't take a right on a red like and then sure enough so i give her i didn't i didn't lay on the horn i just gave it kind of a little like kind of like a a nice like hey just so you know we can take a right on a red in the state of washington and i also was very careful i looked to make sure because occasionally there will be a sign that says no turn on red yeah so i was double checking i was craning and i wasn't seeing that sign so i gave a little did not move totally did not make any difference in this person's life they just stayed there and then this is why this is what turned me into a little road ragey was so now finally the light the turn arrow turns on we now turn and for the next four lights and i'm on a road that's about equivalent to like aurora avenue Andrew, in terms of its arterial nature, if you will.

Yeah, so it's like multi-lane, two lanes going in the same direction, probably a turn lane in the middle, a lot of businesses.

Yeah, a pretty large, it's not even an arterial, it might even be technically a highway, I don't know. But anyway, and there's like four pretty substantial lights between where we were and where I need to get, and we get caught at every light.

But you can't go around despite the multi-lane situation?

I can go around her, but the problem is now the timing is off. Yeah, right. In other words, unless I want to run these red lights or, like, really heavily speed, the rate at which we're traveling has now set us up. And now I keep – I'm in the, like, left lane. There's two lanes. I'm in the left lane. She's in the right lane. And every time we pull up to another stoplight and we're waiting, I want to look at her and go, are you happy? None of this would have – I wouldn't be going to a Christmas party with an embarrassing eye situation tonight. If you would have taken a right on that red, I didn't do any of it. I literally didn't even look at this woman because I was worried that I would mouth something rude to her. But it just, it was funny because it happened like three times. She and I arrived at a new red light that I felt like was totally her fault that we were at this red light. Okay, so I get there. I run in. The people are very nice. I'm apologetic. They say, it's no problem. they send me over to their go wait over in like waiting room whatever and andrew that is when when i sauntered into that waiting area when i knew something had gone horribly wrong because what i saw were tons and tons of eyeglasses what i saw was very obviously the optometry department yeah the thing i swerved on three appointments ago because i knew optometry was not where i needed to be and a very nice optometry uh assistant I don't know what you call the the PA of optometry but that person she brought me in and I said I started instinctively taking my jacket off like

you're gonna do my blood pressure she goes no we don't need that taking your pants off like sir

but like because I've been going to these general practitioners and every time it's like okay we're gonna do your blood pressure like you go through this little thing even though you did it six days ago so i was like do i she's like no no you don't have to do that here this is optometry i was like oh okay great well and then she asked me some optometry questions she does a quick little test of the pressure on my eyes and i'm looking at the letter e in various orientations you know the thing we all know about with optometry

And I start to get this very bad feeling. She goes, well, the doctor will be. And I go, is this a doctor who is allowed to deal with my eyeball? And she goes, no, that's ophthalmology. And I was like, yeah, don't say.

So you got here through insurance, your insurance, not through a recommendation of your other doctor.

OK, well, through my doctor. But the problem is no one gets to see the wizard, i.e. ophthalmology, without going to optometry. What should have happened was day one, when I went in and saw the first doctor, he should have said, you're going to need to go to ophthalmology. And unfortunately, this sucks, but you've got to go to optometry first. Let's make you an appointment for optometry. Let's go check that off the list. And then you can go actually have someone help you with this.

So it's a necessary step. So this isn't a totally necessary step. This is what was explained to me. Yeah, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the poor optometry assistant and also the optometrist, both of them were incredibly nice. I was so mad at them. It was totally not their fault. But I had one expectation and hope going into this appointment, which was that I would leave it in a much better situation, in a much better state of affairs. And instead it was, no, you're going to leave it in exactly the same state of affairs until we can get you on a calendar to go somewhere and have someone actually try to do a procedure on you. which was my whole thing that I was worried about. In fact, I should have been able to zoom with the optometrist. Like the first thing they should have said was when they saw me the first time was, okay, listen, this is not something we handle. This is not something optometry handles, but that you got to talk to them. It's annoying, but you got to talk to them. And then they'll, then they'll let you go see ophthalmology. Let me just, let's get you on zoom with an eye person. And then they'll just rubber stamp this through to ophthalmology. This never happened. I kept going and seeing people. They kept giving me antibiotics and other unhelpful stuff so that I can finally now get to the final boss of my eye embarrassment tomorrow in Clackamas, Oregon, where I will at 8 a.m. actually be seeing allegedly an ophthalmologist who will, I hope, Andrew, and I've never, I never thought these were words that I would say. My truest hope is that tomorrow This ophthalmologist will pry my eyelid Away from my eye I'm sorry everyone, this is going to get graphic I now know the procedure The optometrist did brief me on the procedure That she's not doing Pull my eyelid away from my eyeball Contort my eyelid In such a way that she can get access To the actual Clog, the blockage The top of the mountain

The top of the mountain

likely with a some kind of a sterile scalpel cut it open and then scoop out the contents of this stye which i have learned andrew is pus but has now hardened likely into the consistency

of a chickpea do you think you need to call nikki glazer and let her know that it is indeed pus

It's on my list of things to discuss with her next time I see her Because I was very proud that it was not pus It turns out it is likely pus that is no longer in a liquid form The optometrist explained to me that it's the consistency of a chickpea And she knows this because in eye doctor school They had them do this on chickpeas That's the teaching model for this And I wanted to say, well you've done it before You know your way around a hardened pus chickpea could you do me a fave and just get this while we're here tomorrow?

I see you taking like an exacto blade and a lemon baller with you and just like, cause they're like, if they say, if they say, no, we're going to put this off again. Like you're just gonna say, listen,

I'm just going to say, it's going to be dog day afternoon, man. I'm going to be just freaking, I'm going to be pacing like a maniac in the waiting room of this hospital screaming Attica if they will not. And again, this is the underlying all this, Andrew is that this sounds more and more like a gruesome procedure like it is I think the actual experience is going to be miserable for me yeah you're gonna be awake for that she said they sometimes they use she goes sometimes they'll actually shoot you up with like an anesthetic I

said sometimes yeah and about all the time sometimes you're a bad boy sometimes you're

just a naughty naughty child and we don't use the sometimes i was like i assume that's that's like step one of this and by the way that shot is gonna hurt yeah like if you've ever gotten like if you've ever gotten a numbing agent shot into a part of your body that they need to have numb for a procedure that's also uncomfortable like there's no getting ahead of this there is no point there's no doing this without at some point something sharp being jabbed into the inside of my eyelid. That was the other thing

I asked her, I go, is this something This was on Friday when I was desperate Is this something I can just do myself She goes, um You know, there's a lot of really delicate stuff in your eye This is when I thought I could This is when I thought I could just lance it On the outside And she was like But here's the crazy thing She wasn't a hard no

Yeah, right I expect her to be like

If you continue down this Line of reasoning I'm a mandatory reporter, sir. I am legally required to 5150 you if you're going to do this eye surgery. She was like, I probably wouldn't. That was basically her take on it. And that was before I understood this is inside my eyelid. I just meant, can I sterilize a needle and try to just drain this from the outside? But what she was saying, I probably wouldn't, was I probably wouldn't pry my own eyelid away from my eyeball, and then somehow using some series of mirrors probably laid out in the movie brazil like do a surgery inside my own eyelid like uh no thank you

i will not be trying that but but if you try that we will sell you some glasses to help cover it up

yes if you we have all kinds of glasses eye patches other things you might need other things a person might need for the uh visuals of this whole situation as opposed to the um you know surgical intervention because yes i was in optometry and i was not happy about it so tomorrow morning i am going to be heading on down to this place where i am under the impression and i am praying that they will actually and then also who knows what this will look like afterwards like i have this dream scenario where it's like problem solved but i mean there could be some bruising there could be some you know like after effects i might look a lot worse for a while i will feel a lot better even if i'm looking worse the idea that this thing is out of my eyelid no longer in my eyelid that is that's that that represents such relief for me that i think i am i'm actually looking forward to this again otherwise very gruesome procedure i can imagine

and we really should probably get um get moving on here but listen there's nothing happening in manhattan kansas barry can chill i'm texting with him over here he's like it's i'm like we're still hearing about luke's eye he's like it's always about luke um it's the bear i told him yesterday

i said i'll text andrew but sometimes he doesn't text me back on sundays he goes his work-life boundaries are spectacular and then he texted me back immediately yeah um the uh i was gonna say

though like you're because i've done this with much lesser things but like you're picturing you're picturing you you've probably given a personality to this thing in your eye now but

you're picturing it in a way too right like well i called it krang right you're picturing like an

upside down like you're picturing the relief so much in the same way that like sometimes i'll get one of those subterranean pimples where it's you can't really see it it's just a little bit of a little red bump but it's so painful for some reason it's like way under there and like you're just kind of messing with it but you're picturing it right you're like i can see you you're like a pimple under the surface and you're ready to be expressed and yes like now you want now i know

it's a chickpea yeah now you really want that out of there i have an incredibly vivid idea of what this thing is like in there and i i do i would like to take it home with me yes if it's not completely destroyed by the procedure i would like to uh i'd like to keep it as a keepsake i want it

You have to clink when they put it into a glass jar like buckshot. Like a BB, like buckshot. Yes, exactly.

Exactly. I feel like if I leave it in long enough, it might get to that level of calcification. But, yeah, so that's the latest on that. I have been, again, suffering through this. I don't think anyone else is as bothered by it as I am, which is how a lot of these things go, right? Like my dad, I've been here with my dad for the last couple of days, and I'm not even putting on my makeup when I see him. I'm just out there.

Wait, you're not putting on your makeup when you see your dad on the work site?

Andrew, have you met me? It's conceivable I would. That's the kind of vanity and insecurity that we are dealing with on this rig. I am, by the way, getting a call from Kaiser Permanente as we speak. It's going to voicemail. So here's what we should do. Let's thank some donors. Let's get in touch with our dear friend, Barry, and find out how Manhattan, Kansas is. And maybe I'll, I'll listen to this voicemail too, to see if they're canceling my appointment or something.

Thank you for being a 10.

All right. Let's thank some donors who are making TBTL happen with their generosity. We are here doing this thing five days a week because of folks like Christine Zuzula of Johnston, Rhode Island. Thank you, Christine. I appreciate it.

Rhode Island, a Quahogger.

That's right. Beautiful there. Beautiful Rhode Island.

You know what happens there?

The waves crash upon rocks.

It stays there? No, wait.

Yeah. I was just picturing, Rhode Island, you just picture waves crashing upon bluffs and rocks, right? That's all that happens. It's their main export.

It's their main export, yes. Salty, briny waves crashing against the craggy rocks. That's right. And Christine Zozula. Those are the two main things. Those are the two big things that Rhode Island is known for. Connie Pearson is in Westminster, Colorado. Nice. I love your dog shows. The dog show. Exactly. That's how you know that that was a very, very low level of humor. We both made the same obvious joke. We also want to thank Sumathi Raghavan of Seattle, Washington. Hey.

Thank you, Sumathi.

Didn't you run into Sumathi on the streets of Seattle years ago?

Yes, and I believe she and Genevieve have maybe possibly had some lunch dates or something. They might be like, oh, colleagues from another ball league or something. I'm not exactly, that didn't, ball league isn't really a word, but I came close.

Colleagues from another, yeah, nothing rhymes with colleague, does it? You're trying to say brothers from another mother. Yeah, I learned it the hard way. Or sisters from another mister. Yes. Colleagues from another fantasy football leagues. Don't, oh, that's not bad.

Yes, very good.

That was slick. Try to be quiet, Barry. I know you're laughing. In the background. Mute the line. Mute the line. Laura Evans is in Dallas, Texas. Laura is checking in from beautiful Dallas, Texas. Thank you so much. Sabrina Richter is in Spokane, Washington. Hey. The Inland Empire. And then Colin Richard. We've got a Sabrina Richter and then a Colin Richard. Colin is in University City, Missouri.

That's right. Now, you and I have talked about... We call it Missouri. We've talked about University City, Washington before, but have we ever talked about University Place? Oh, you're right, you're right, you're right.

And you know what I learned recently, Andrew? I'm supposed to be doing this story about the band Metallica, and I, of course, because I'm a serious journalist who does his research, I had no idea what the exact angle was. They just said, well, you go to L.A. and talk to Metallica. They are ripping off TBTL. I think of University Place when I think of this. they have a contest that is bands, marching bands, learning Metallica songs and performing them. And that's what I'm going to, because it's all a big, giant fundraiser for Metallica's incredibly generous charitable arm. Turns out Metallica is, you know, first of all, they're basically a corporation at this point. You know, they are a very, very profitable business, but they also are very, very charitable, and they donate tons and tons of money every year to great causes, and one of the ways they raise a bunch of money is this marching band competition which like the university place high school marching band i believe either won or was one of the finalists of the tbtl theme

marching band contest when you're interviewing metallica will you mention to them that i heard unforgiven on satellite radio this weekend yes i'm leading with that tell them that your friend I'm entering Sandman. I believe it was on Ozzy's Boneyard radio station on Satellite. So just let them know that. Just let them know that their work is still out there.

Somebody's got another free trial.

And being appreciated. No, I'm still paying the $5 a month level, I believe. $5.99.

Honestly, I've got to study your ways and emulate them. I'm paying a lot more.

Well, after this, I have a thing on my calendar that literally, like some date, six months from now, I'm going to get a calendar notification telling me that my sweet, sweet, serious subscription low level is about to expire. And I'm going to have to either just cancel it or get on the line and be like, I'm sorry, my wife, she's saying we need to make cuts somewhere. I have no choice. I either have to say goodbye to you or you have to continue this $5.99 deal and then see if I can get it extended that way.

Andrew, I'm going to be honest with you. And this is a terrible negotiating tactic. I will pay whatever amount of money I need to pay every year to hear Mehmet trying to usurp Gary Delabicchio and basically criticizing all of the staff when they did the meet and greet, including like, you know, Ronnie, the limo driver, not being hyped enough on the FaceTime call and J.D. Harmeyer having his feet up on the wall. I need to hear that sweet, sweet content, whatever it costs.

I didn't think that the complaint of Ronnie was going to be not hyped enough, honestly. I thought at a meet and greet with the public, this is a meet and greet.

Well, he was on Zoom. He was on FaceTime, so he was in Vegas.

So he wasn't feeling the connection.

He wasn't. And then, I mean, this is the genius of that show. Then they have a guy on the staff who does a dead-on Ronnie impression now. so they have the ronnie puppet coming on to do an impression of the real ronnie saying ronnie's whole thing is he just yells very crass things it's kind of what he's known for and he's basically saying you didn't give me enough heads up for coming on the the facetime and yelling crass

things i need a half hour i need a half hour to get myself ready to gear up 69 picture him in the in the mirror screaming profane and they literally have the the guy doing an impression of ronnie a

dead-on impression of Ronnie, where he's hyping himself up to yell, and I won't say the words on this show, but just to yell really, really dirty stuff. It's like the layers to that thing are really quite something. But anyway, you don't have to do any of that to listen to TBTL. You can just turn it on five days a week, but boy, do we ever appreciate folks like Christine, Connie, Sumathi, Laura, Sabrina, and Colin because they are voluntarily supporting this. I'm only doing it with Sirius because they won't let me listen otherwise that's not the method here the method is wonderful people like i've just named are supporting the show and that's how we're able to do that so thank you very very much hello and welcome to top story speaking of wonderful people who support the

show song goes out to all the coffee lovers of the world we of course are dear friends with

are Barry of Broadcast Coffee, known here as Broadcast Barry, who this weekend, rather, sent me a photograph that absolutely took over my day. I was so taken with this photograph in Manhattan, Kansas, of the entire cast of the HBO show Somebody Somewhere just sitting in a diner getting breakfast. I wanted to call Barry up in Kansas to find out how this all came together and what is going on with this. Ahoy, ahoy. And he's joining us right now. Hello, Barry.

Hey, guys. How's it going today? Pretty good. How do you think we did with the donors today? How was that segment? I mean, because you're a daily listener.

Were you inspired to up your donation beyond money and a lot of coffee?

I mean, listen. Like, Christine and Connie and Sumita and Laura and Sabina and Colin are all so lucky that you guys did them well. you guys told me to like not mute my or you guys couldn't put me on mute no we didn't have the technical ability but I I had to mute my phone because you guys are pretty funny

when we said like you know Westminster, Colorado where they do the dog show were the people in Manhattan, Kansas looking at you like is this guy okay

I know right I'm on the streets here and uh yeah they um they are wondering about me right now who is this guy what is he doing here

and who is he talking to okay so you um i you sent me this photo this weekend of the cast of this great show just having like a regular look like breakfast and you said i'm in manhattan kansas and i was like i was excited for you but also worried i was like is barry okay why is he in manhattan kansas and also how crazy is it that he just like do they just hang out there all the time and then you explained no actually this weekend was the season finale of this season of some somebody somewhere someone somewhere rather and that there was a watch party in manhattan kansas that you went to first of all where do you fly into to get to manhattan kansas okay so yeah there's um

so well not only is this the season finale like this is it like oh no did not pick up a season four so like the only reason why i came out all this way was because like you know i usually don't do things like this i don't like to put myself out there i just like am a fan from afar and but i'm like you know i saw that bridget everett posted um this this event and i'm just like i you know i turned to sam and i'm like do you want to go with me and he's like have fun um you know he hasn't watched the show and it was a long flight it was it was it was it took a while to get here it was it was a nine hours in total because i flew because i'm in boise right now I mean, I'm living in Boise for this month, and then I flew from Boise to Dallas, had a four-hour layover in Dallas, and then I actually flew into the Manhattan airport, which is a lovely airport. I kid you not, I was off the plane in my Uber in 90 seconds. It was really nice. So great. Yeah, so I flew into Manhattan.

And so this watch party was at like a you sent me a photo of like a movie theater in town or a theater theater in town. So was it like was it was.

Was the whole town full of people who had come to watch this episode who loved the show?

Actually, it wasn't. Because when I got to my hotel, they were like, oh, what brings you in? And I'm like, oh, I'm here to watch the Somebody Somewhere finale. And they were like, huh, okay. Have you heard of it? And the front desk guy was like, no, I haven't. I'm like, well, it's a show on HBO that takes place here. Yeah, I know. I was like, okay, well, maybe there's less people there or fans than I had thought. Whoa, I would have thought they would have named the airport after this show.

I mean, seriously, that's wild to me.

Yeah, I mean, not a lot of people here know about the show, it seems. Wow.

That is, I am totally shocked by that. Now, so you're just walking down, I assume, Main Street in Manhattan, Kansas, and you look into the window of a diner, and there's, like, the cast of the show having breakfast?

so um because i came out here alone i kind of put together this facebook group uh like uh like um somebody somewhere run walk 5k or something like that and like one of the details was like um you know we're gonna meet at this place called the chef which is a restaurant that is featured a lot in the show and i'm like okay we'll meet here at nine and we'll do a little fun walk run jog or whatever and then we'll come back to the chef and we'll eat um but right at nine o'clock um you know

as we're there to meet the cast shows up um and everybody they know about did they know about what

you had been organizing they they didn't um but everybody who was there turned to me and like did you set this up and i'm like i wish that i could uh but no it was just happened like they just came to the chef to eat um breakfast that that day so it just this coincided it was it was

just luck can i and i hate to retread something here but something we're we're all kind of amazed a moment ago that this town kind of didn't realize that it is the namesake for this for you know a version of itself in in the picture right on the small i believe the the real location where a ton of this is that's what i'm now realizing if they're visiting this diner that means so much to them in the show they were filming on location this town is about 50 000 people like i lived in a town with about 45 000 people i feel like i would have known if a show was filming on location in like the city center this is kind of amazing it's even more amazing now so they did a lot of

you know what they call the biz b-roll here um but it was actually filmed south of chicago i forgot to tell me it was filmed in um and i asked i asked the show creators like why they filmed there and not here and it's because um it's a very low budget film and they had more resources outside of chicago than they did sure i'm sure you need a lot of production

folks and a lot of stuff that isn't in manhattan kansas and if you're near chicago you just it just probably makes sense but the scales have fallen from my eyes very sadly the cyst has not fallen from my eye yet that could have been good news have been handled like because of course i don't know what manhattan kansas really looks like anyway so when i see them like you know going to various places that are doubling for manhattan kansas it totally checks out for me

but you're saying that's actually somewhere else it is somewhere else but um like you know like inside the chef like the colors are the same the tables are the same um they use like the same cups and the same ramekins um that they do on the show so um they do a pretty good job

so what was the actual viewing event like at the theater oh gosh it was it was so cool so um i

i bought a um i i bought a vip pass so i was able to um get there a little early and then um and then they uh the cast comes and like we everybody who was there there was like 16 vip guests so it was actually quite small and and nice but the cast comes and we all have drinks together like teeny martinis or whatever they they name their drinks on the show um and just have like a like a little chit chat um like for about an hour um and uh yeah i got was there

anyone you were as extra special was like jeff hiller the person you're most excited to meet or bridget or the um whoever it is who plays um fred so um yeah i mean bridget i mean i was excited

to meet them all like I think that the the the whole uh chemistry between Bridget and Jeff are amazing that Sam and Joel on the show show i think that's what kind of like is the foundation of for me the foundation of the show like their friendship is just super solid and um during the the show you'll see it things ebb and flow and grow and all that stuff and then like the the the rest of the cast like uh murray hill who plays fred and um trisha is played by mary katham like and uh joel's love interest and boyfriend brad um is played by a guy named tim like i was really excited to meet all of them but like yeah like uh bridget and jeff are like the foundation and like everybody else is like um just the the home that is built on on top i think it's like something that um like really sits great with within me and i think within the the uh fans of the show much like tbtl like i think it's like a it's like you know you gotta say it's it's like a boutique but it's boutique but it has like it has like a tremendous impact can i ask you a question i now i have to

admit i haven't seen the show myself but you know luke speaks so fondly of it and i've read things about it and i was reading that um you know it was a it was a revelation to you luke that the show hasn't been renewed that the third season is its final season and um one thing i read was the cast and you know the creators didn't know that either so when they were filming their final episode they didn't realize it was their final episode and it sort of sounds like they're in a little bit of denial about it now so i'm wondering if this event which would have been very special anyway had a certain even i don't know more amplified sense of importance to it because was this sort of the closure that maybe these folks didn't get to have on the set did you

feel any of that um i really felt that after the show after they showed it like so one of the luckiest things that I felt like while I was there was I was um sitting watching the show like watching the big screen and then the cast including Bridget Everett was just 20 feet to the left of me like I can see Bridget Everett on the big screen and then I can look at her watching herself on on the screen and just like watching them watch themselves and like taking it all in I think was like super special um and then once the show was done um you know Bridget got up and gave a really heartfelt emotional speech and I think that it was um it was maybe a closure that like maybe she was looking for I don't know but also like um maybe a hopeful that

it gets picked up again by someone else or yeah yeah because like i i feel it maybe i'm extra tuned into it because i really have liked the show although i haven't watched this season yet i've been saving it like i've been waiting for to get a little time off and i have this whole plan honestly which involves getting like making a fire while really turning on the pellet stove in my house and getting like really cozy and then just like watching the whole season probably on one Saturday like I'm this is one of the things I'm most excited about about my holiday break but so I don't I'm not up to speed on it that being said I am pretty obsessed with the show and maybe I'm just noticing when like Bridget Everett is doing press for it or Jeff Hiller or people are talking about it feels to me like this show has gotten so much buzz like it went from being kind of obscure to being like maybe one of the buzziest shows on HBO so the idea that that wasn't enough to get them another season is really surprising to me yeah i just think that

it's kind of late to the game like um because like i i've been watching it um since it came out like i was i was um i don't remember where i was flying to but i was i was flying out of somewhere and i had a pretty long flight and i didn't have any movies downloaded to my ipad so i'm just like well i'll just see what's on the what the airplane has to show and i'm like oh i saw this show like maybe I'll give it a try and see if I liked it. And then I ended up loving it, of course. And I think that that's true for a lot of folks who haven't watched the show yet or haven't even heard of it. But I've recommended it to a lot of friends and family. And they're just now getting around to watching it. And their feedback to me is like, this is just an awesome show. It's like voyeurism into these people's lives. And everything feels so real. And I think that it's because the whole chemistry between the cast, like they have a history of themselves, like they've been working together for a very long time in like New York on various projects and whatnot. And I think that you can feel the whole connection with the cast. And I think that's why it works so great. And that's why I think that people who watch it love it.

Yeah, because these were all mostly friends in the kind of New York.

kind of cabaret scene and and like they were all like my senses most of them were like waiting tables and just like doing it for the love of the game for years and years and years and and then all of a sudden this show gets greenlit and and then bridget ever kind of brings them all along to to do this tv show that is as we've already established like so beloved but there is a like a connection for all of the people um that seems to go back to way before this show so i'm i literally just found out today in the last five minutes that it's not being renewed so i'm like extra jealous barry that you were actually there with them all kind of experiencing what is very possibly the end of it i was i was um sending that picture that you took to everyone i know who loves that show including our friend katie beck and she was like i want barry's life and i

was like you and me both uh you know it's you know i have i have i'm very lucky but also like you know it's it's a lot of work of what i do i think that you guys know that like you know you I guess seem like your jobs are pretty easy, but.

Well, that's actually is true, but that doesn't always apply. But I think, uh, but no, you, you definitely, you definitely are the, maybe the most prolific person I know when it comes to like business ideas and starting things and maintaining stuff. And even when you're going to Manhattan, Kansas, you're still producing something. It's like a fun walk, leaving out from the chef restaurant. How many people showed up for your, your walk run?

It was boutique. Let me just say that. it was very small it was me and an ipod we're so lucky what was that i said it was you and an ipod mini and we were both so lucky um everyone's but uh because we got to meet the cast the jokes on everybody else who didn't show up yeah dude seriously but um but yeah so one thing that i learned like um when talking to the cast like i don't like you know i don't know how to talk to people that well and it's like I get really shy so and I just like to talk about like various things so when when uh when Bridget came in and started talking to me um I just asked her like you know um what her travel plans were like where she's going next and she's like oh well you know we got to fly to LA after this and I'm like oh are you flying out of Manhattan airport and she He goes, no, no, no, we're going to go fly out of the Kansas City airport to L.A. because I'm trying to get my diamond status. I'm like, oh, we're all chasing the status.

And just like that, you found common ground. That's right.

So, you know, yeah, you know, these guys, you know, they have to chase status too, Luke.

So, you know. If you want to start a group chat with you and me and Bridget on just, like, how we can get to – You're already at 100K. I mean, I can't believe that. Like, I've got to find 8,000 miles in December or I'm going to be languished with the gold 75ers of the world.

Hey, Barry, can I jump in here? I wanted to ask you before we let you go, obviously, I want to promote all of your wonderful businesses, broadcast coffee here in Seattle, Black Moon Pizza there in not technically Boise, right, in the city inside of Boise. What is it called again?

Yeah, Garden City. Garden City, which is kind of a city surrounded by Boise.

But I have a question for you as well, because I'm not just the president of Broadcast Coffee. I'm also a customer. And you know I love the cafe that's up north here in my old neighborhood of the Roosevelt neighborhood. And I saw recently, in fact, I was just there on Thursday doing some work. And I was surprised. I think I texted you about this. I was surprised to see that it had a different name now. It's not Broadcast Coffee. I wasn't even sure if it was still your shop. It's now called Fred. you said it is still your shop and so i want to encourage people if they see fred you're still supporting our friend broadcast berry by going in there can you explain um why broadcast coffee

is now called fred at least in that location yeah so that one we we kind of want to change the concept to do um something that broadcast doesn't do like we wanted to do uh coffee and then uh wine pours and then like small plates and then um so i thought that um you know with the exit of that uh atlanta crossing um and some other businesses around there like a place for the nighttime um just wasn't around there was maybe a need for something in the area so um nice since uh since that stuff is outside the broadcast brand i just um i split the name to fred which has been confusing for folks um we get a lot of emails like is this still broadcast and yeah yeah we we we need to put up um up a sign that says fred by broadcast um so people know because like yeah i got a comment like somebody said i thought this was like a veterinarian place

because our logo is a dog yeah that little wiener dog is a logo well it's still a it's a great space people should continue to um support it for sure and it's called fred and broadcast is still around town as well so just wanted to make sure we got that in there yeah um well barry safe travels back

from kansas um and uh thank you thank you as always for all of your help with the show and just on a personal level for making sure that i am absolutely maximizing my airline experience at all times like uh it means a lot to me so thank you for that of course thank you guys for all that you do all right man see you later bye barry that is our friend broadcast barry from uh oh i love

that sound too it's a good time and now that we know that barry's not on the line let's talk about this is some sort of tax shelter thing right the whole fred thing like like something something's going on with this guy and his business changing names middle of the year i don't know what's i

I mean, honestly, he was one of the people who coached us up on how to run TBTB. Yeah, and we're running it like... To beautiful to biz. So I'm hoping that he's... I think he's flying right, because otherwise, all of our business practices are just ripped off from Barry. Yeah, that's why I've been skimming off the top since day one. That's why you've been overly generous, sending free TBTL to people. That's right. Like the way that Barry is nice enough to send us coffee. Exactly. Which literally every morning, Walt and I, we enjoy a robust pot of broadcast coffee. So thanks to Barry.

It's the best.

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, quick email or V-mail before we wrap it up on this Monday.

That's exactly what I got for you right here. This is from listener April talking. We're talking about how in the 1980s when you and I were children, we had a weird sort of knowledge of adult news stories of the day and would even like like share like jokes about national and international news stories that were sometimes inappropriate. And we're talking about the Exxon Valdez and how we learned what a fifth of whiskey was because of the joke. How many drivers does it take to pilot an Exxon tanker? And the answer was one in a fifth. And that brought up some memories for listener April here.

Hey, listen, Andrew. This is April in Maine. I'm time-banding a bit, so I am – that's the one where you guys were talking about the Exxon Valdez disaster. And it reminded me that in my school Christmas recital in Christmas 1989 when I was 10 years old, I recited a poem that I had written about the Exxon Valdez disaster. And sadly, it has been lost to time, but I do remember that one of the lines was something like, oil spills bring tears, but the cause is really too many tears. Power out.

Merry Christmas.

I just found out that this is our final episode. Much like somebody somewhere. There's going to be a listening party later.

Right, yeah.

This is our final episode.

At 10 years old, April is like officially reading a holiday poem that is like not unlike some of our favorite late night shows, incorporating the headlines of the year and rhymes tears with beers. Beers. Yeah. In regards to the crash.

We never really, we didn't answer the question.

You know, I was saying Valdez, wasn't I? And I forgot. Everybody says Valdez. Why is it Valdez, not Valdez? Deez Nuts. Okay, glad I asked.

I said it's our final show, Andrew.

You're just getting them all out while you can. You're like, oh. Yeah. What the hell?

I'm trying to make the most of these last few moments we have together, my friend.

Well, good luck. I am not going to talk to you on this show until after, I guess, you have your appointment tomorrow, which has now been bumped back a little bit.

Yes, and I mean, hopefully. Yeah, by the way, that voicemail was them pushing the appointment back in a very cavalier way, I want to say. I could play the voicemail for people. I don't think it's violating any HIPAA stuff. It's just them saying, hi, it's so-and-so from the office. I'll just play it here over the music. Are you doing this? Okay. Just take a listen. Let's see here if I can make this work. We'll try.

Okay. Hey, Luke, this is Megan from Kaiser Ophthalmology. I'm calling regarding your appointment tomorrow morning. I have to reschedule it. It's the same day, tomorrow, Tuesday, December 10th, but it's at 9.30.

Which I was saying to you during our little...

It's not a question, is it? It's just a telling you, like, what if you're not available at 9.30?

And it also necessitates...

it's me i mean i'm gonna just go at 9 30 i guess we'll have to record a little late but i do feel like it's hard for me to explain sometimes to people whether it's a doctor's office or even a delivery or something where it's like no no 10 a.m is really bad for me like like i don't know move your meeting it's like no it's my whole job is talking to this dude at 10 a.m every day you know i'm this dude you are this dude and it's known known in some quarters as this dude known

is this dude it'd be funny so by the next time you see unless you have a podcast tomorrow we're moving your appointment to 9 30 yeah so i won't uh probably talk to you um but the next time we hear from you on this show will be after that appointment we're hope you're hoping to be

bandaged up and possibly still leaking all of those things and maybe on some manner of drug i don't know what they yeah good point probably not it's a it's a topical i think or i should say you know whatever an injection but anyway yeah that'll be tomorrow we'll have a lot to catch

up on so finally have a topical show you know what i mean oh where's the rim shot all right

see you tomorrow everyone thanks for listening please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

power out