Muse

One thing about me is when I was like 12 the family needed a Christmas tree. My dad thought they were too expensive and they were so he told my brother and his friend to go to the neighbor's house. My brother was like eight. He gave him a saw and his friend who was 10 years old at the very most they cut that tree down and we were like what the is going on my dad was totally pleased he got a kick out of it then we were putting up the tree and moving on next thing you know the cops showed up it was terrifying and traumatic and they told my dad that's illegal you don't cut Christmas trees down from the neighbor's house. To my dad's credit it was on the property line but still just get a freaking treat.

T-B-T-L. Guess what day it is. Guess what day it is.

It's Friday, Friday. Gonna get down on Friday. Everybody's looking forward to the weekend. Ooh, ah, this gazpacho soup just burned my lips. The gazpacho? Yeah, it's been sitting out. It warmed up. It warmed up so much that it burned your lip. Let me explain something to you. If you're expecting something ice cold and you bring it up to your lips and it's room temp, it's going to feel like your mouth's on fire. It's going to feel like your body's on fire.

See? This is exactly the problem with lamestream media. Leave half of what you see and just a little bit of what you hear, and monkey see, monkey do. It could be all over you.

And boom goes the dynamite.

Have a good show, dummy. It's what you do is so important.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Friday edition of TVTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

Let the great experiment begin!

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Oh, hey, y'all said my name. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it is Friday the 13th. Ooh, scary. I'm more scared by the fact that it's raining and gross. And the, uh... Didn't know you like to get wet, though. The rapid shelter that I erected yesterday may or may not survive the wind. It's also apparently, right now, it's being used to protect a radio. One of those construction site radios that's playing the classic rock station out of Longview, Washington. It may have set the whole thing up for that, but, you know, what are you going to do? Here we are. It's episode 4358 in a collector's series.

And let the fun begin.

By the time you're hearing this, I'm going to, I'll have jetted off to the warm environment that is Los Angeles, California. So whatever has happened up here in Washington State, it's not my problem. It's not my problem until Saturday when I come home. Oh, the tape you heard at the beginning of the show, that is a friend of the program who you even heard here before. That's our friend Cassie talking about a Christmas tree. Trees. They're all around us, but who gives a s***? And we recently noted on Cassie's Instagram feed that her father had somehow involved her in a tree theft scheme that seemed pretty over the line. We're going to have her on the show in a little bit to expand on that, explain what exactly was going on. And we're going to talk to this guy. He is the longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships.

Also, your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus.

He's Andrew Walsh. He's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Hey, good morning, Luke. I have a, um, have you heard about this? I apparently have a Yoda in my yard. Um, as in the Jedi Master who trains Luke in the ways of the Force? That's my understanding. I'm sending you a couple of photos here. I went outside today to bring in my garbage bins. By the way, great bill of health there. They were all emptied properly. Nobody threw their dog poop in my clean bin. dude mine my garbage can is is we're just trying to make it comfortable

end of life choices the just literally just happened i was i was retrieving it this morning now you know there's a little metal handle that's it's like a pipe that's actually kind of like it's it's embedded in the plastic at least the kind that i have kind of further down on the big

bins they have that yeah yeah that thing is gone i mean I'm

It's not gone, it's lying in the road. It was coming loose, and then I would kind of straighten down and fix it, and then just gave up the ghost today.

Do you use that a lot? Because for me, it's pretty far down. Okay, you just would notice.

No, I just feel like I'm paying good money for this garbage service. I would like to have a garbage can. It's also just the whole thing is just beat to heck. It's like Dan Campbell got after it.

We'll take another hunk out of you. No kneecaps. There's a hunk taken out. I wonder what. I do wonder what that pipe is for. It does seem like an extra handle, like in case you need to, like, real manhandle that thing or Danhandle that thing. But maybe Danhandling. I wonder if that has something to do with the machine that picks those things up. Because it's only on the really big ones, you know. I got a little tiny, tiny little bin for my yard weights. I got a medium-sized one for my garbage. But then my big old recycle bin, that's got that metal pole kind of halfway down. it as you said sort of embedded in i don't i don't know what that thing does it's amazing we don't have more garbage collectors listening to this show for as much as we talk about garbage collection how do we not yeah why don't we have an expert in the field but anyway i went to take

out because of your pitched battle against the industry where you that is true guy out a picture of your of your garbage every week because of how deep your suspicions run at their motives

yesterday's were pretty nice by the way you can follow garbage anxiety on blue sky if you want to see those photos they turned out pretty nice yesterday because it's been getting dark here so early that the photos lately of my garbage bins i have to keep a record of these things um uh they they've been in the dark and it's been like backlit and kind of nasty yesterday i took it out probably around 4 15 4 30 right as the sun was setting but you could still see some some red in the sky it was pretty nice it's nice when the photos come out red skies at night andrew's delight that's Right, garbage collector's delight. Anyway, just a little bit ago, though, I bring these bins in, these freshly emptied bins, and I see, and I have not gone to, I wasn't wearing proper shoes to sort of tromp through my wet grass, so I just left it there, but do you see these photos? I do. It looks like somebody maybe tossed, doesn't that, I'm looking at this thing, you don't think, it's face down in the grass, we're looking at the bottom of its feet, but it's got huge, it's green, it's got long wing ears coming. Is it a baby Yoda?

it has three, I mean, we can rule out Yoda or rule in Yoda by Googling how many fingers does Yoda have? Because I can see this has three fingers. On each hand, not a total. Yeah, on each hand, which I mean, maybe, Yoda's hand was definitely not human-like, so maybe he only had three fingers. But you know what it kind of, and also, you know, you're right, the baby Yoda character, or the child, as it was known in the mandadorian right yes exactly thank you for saying it properly

i'm trying to see if i could find this is funny i was typing in how many fingers does and google wants to complete it how many fingers does a locksmith have i guess it depends on the

locksmith wow and their history yeah sure what they've been through i don't think this is what we're looking for but this is the enormity of of their flat i was trying to find werner herzog discussing the child and his emotional response to the child when they were filming the Mandadorian.

But that tape you started to play is also really good. That's him talking about chickens. Yes. You think I get an aversion to the garbage collectors when they overcharge me?

Here's his full 39 seconds on chickens.

The enormity of their flat brain, the enormity of their stupidity is just overwhelming. You have to do yourself a favor when you're out in the countryside and you see chicken. Try to look a chicken in the eye with great intensity. And the intensity of stupidity that is looking back at you is just amazing. By the way, it's very easy to hypnotize a chicken. They're very prone to hypnosis. And in one or two films, I've actually shown that.

even one or two films i've never i didn't remember both incidents if i was him i don't mean like how is it that you've worked this into two different films i didn't remember the hypnosis part of that

at all i think my version of that cuts off after the stupidity um yeah he uh again i doesn't bring us any closer to answering the question of what's in your yard have you figured out how many yeah

three according to the internet yoda yeah if these ears belonged to anything but a yoda i would be shocked, or it was a rip-off.

He looks kind of buff. He does sort of. It's a weird perspective. He looks like a real Bart Harley Jarvis.

It looks like he's playing baby Yoda. He's a buff baby Yoda. I'll use this as the show pick. I haven't gone out there. Again, I... I didn't want to get my shoes all. I'm wearing these very light, like, kind of Kansas shoes right now that I mostly wear around the house. No, you always ask me that. Hey, you always ask me that. You know what hey dudes are, right? Only from you telling me about them.

And what you're wearing is not what you're wearing. Can you take the shoe off and hold it up to the camera, please? Seriously?

Yes. All right, let me do this. We've done this before. These are these, they're top-siders.

Okay, they're more like what we would have called a boat shoe. Oh, they're more like vans to me. Like, I used to have vans that were very similar to that. But, yes, okay, that's not what I was thinking of. It's a Sperry top-sider. You don't think that those Sperry top-siders, with their rubber sole, as it were, are fit for walking out in your yard and solving this mystery once and for all. I feel like those shoes are totally up to the task.

Well, I feel like they're up to the task of doing that, but then what I would like to do is continue to wear these shoes in the house for the rest of the afternoon, and I don't want to get them all wet and wet leaves get tracked in and everything. These are like my indoor shoes, but I wore them outdoors very briefly to empty, but I was mostly on pavement as I emptied the, or as I brought the bins in. I didn't want to go tromping through the wet grass. I'll go out later. I'll figure it out. But like, then what do I do with this? Why do you think this is in my yard, this Yoda? Was it a dog toy? Do you think a dog threw it over there?

Well, or someone was throwing it for a dog. It doesn't look chewed up though. And again, it's got to be some updated Yoda Because old Yoda, think about Like the Yoda that we know from the Star Wars movies I mean, that Yoda was pretty jacked up Like that Yoda had seen things This is like a kind of like fit I mean, it's actually got a pretty nice tuchus It looks kind of, it looks like pretty athletic Which makes me think it's got to be from some updated Yoda-verse The thing I was going to say, Andrew, when you said inside shoes is it just was another it was another indication of of the aging process that you and i are both experiencing um because that's a real that's real mr rogers energy that you you've got like i'm not going to wear my inside shoes outside because then they'll be sullied and i have found myself partially because my house doesn't really have sufficient hvac yet like it's got this mini split but there's definitely depending on what part of my house you're in the difference in temperature ranges wildly and i have different sweaters for different rooms i'm in i find myself changing sweaters inside my house two to three times a day which also feels like very powerful

fred rogers energy oh interesting yeah i don't have an equivalent of that well i mean i have something kind of close but it's not it what happens um kind of once a day i do play with an imaginary tiger i do play with an imaginary tiger i'm trying to figure out why you said that because mr rogers when he would go to the land of make-believe would talk to daniel tiger he did have a daniel tiger right and mr mcfeely well he was a real man he was a real man but then you had the princess with the weird there was something about her cheeks that always made me a little

bit uncomfortable yeah that was uh that was crazy because there was i think there was lady aberlin and then lady elaine fairchild oh i get them confused one of them i think it was one of them lived in a museum go around and i believe would say boomerang tumerang sumerang wow you know more about this than i told you i pbs is the only reason that i can read as an adult it's because i watched so much channel nine as a kid so much kcts i was watching chips that's not true i was not i was not why you're a badass motorcycle cop now i was a podcasting nerd i will say i i don't

know our parents were both strict it sounds like in different ways but like my parents like i could not watch chips i could not watch dukes of hazard like to to my folks these shows were red flags big time they were very it's a red line good god knows what they'd be talking about on them but um once when i get done with everything for the day i sort of ease into my evening and like right now i'm wearing like kind of a short sleeve collared shirt right and i'm wearing these jeans that i wear most days a pair of just like kind of regular gray jeans and a belt and all that stuff and then there's some point where i will be done with work for the day and assuming i'm not going out i'm just staying home then i will maybe like start i don't know maybe let's say i i'll maybe put on the podcast start putting around and then maybe throw a dart or two and there's some moment there's some moment where it's like oh it is evening time now these are my times now and then it's like i make this decision and it's like tonight pants time and that means i'm not going out anymore i'm not running any errands i'm not even running to the grocery store quickly or anything like that and so that's when i go and that's my mr rogers moment and then i usually will take off this shirt like whatever shirt i'm wearing and just wear like a downgraded one i have this really oversized short sleeve shirt that is sort of like cut like a bowling shirt sort of but it's just a dreadful beige color with a hula woman on the back of it this is how this is this is the

secret to keeping all of that sexual energy a lot.

between you and Genevieve. That's exactly it. I'm hearing a person who has not given up. I say, can I slip into something more appalling? And she says, I know you're going to anyway. Can I slip?

What was the other one you said yesterday?

Oh, yeah. You'll be pleasantly disturbed. Pleasantly appalled, I believe. Same word, yeah. So as we're buying booze for a vacation. That's a word that's showing up. The word cloud of your relationship involves the word appalling too much, my friend.

And more than just literally, too. Just, like, that's the definite spirit of the relationship these days. So, anyway, later on I might go out and grab that. It's clearly a Yoda, but, like, I don't know. Do I want to touch that Yoda with my hands? Should I get some gloves? Like, God knows where that Yoda's been.

Well, you could always kick it over and just take a photo so we can see what we're dealing with. You know what I thought it might have been for a moment, but I'm wrong. You're right. The ears are totally distinctive. i thought maybe it would be i think somewhere in one of these is it the toy story movies there's one of them where suddenly aliens got involved like these green aliens kind of showed up and and and now they're on you know all of these like pixar movies are on the uh like you know 15th uh film in the franchise to where like it starts out being like i know this isn't pixar But it starts out being like, you know, a despicable me. And it's a movie about a guy named Gru. But then everyone thinks the Minions are funny.

I always forget about that, that it didn't start as a Minions movie.

It's like the Minions were the breakout stars. And now there's like 8,000 Minions movies. And then probably something else from Minions that the kids latched onto will also be a thing. So I feel like there was one of these movies, and I forget which one it was. Maybe when we bring our friend Cassian in a few minutes, she'll tell us. But there was one where there's this little alien. It's like a toy, though. It's like a little squeaky doll alien thing. But then it's multiplying in some way. And then I think they might have their own movie now or something.

Oh, okay. Do you know I've never seen a Toy Story movie? I haven't seen the first one or the one that makes everybody cry.

The third one. I probably should watch the third one. I haven't seen it. But, yeah, the word on the street was that it was, like, deeply emotionally resonant and impactful for people. And I think we can all agree that anything you need, anything we need in our lives more right now, it's really intense emotional experiences that cause us to cry.

Yeah, exactly. I'll stop watching Schindler's List on a loop and just check that out momentarily.

Yeah, I would say lighten it up a little bit by watching the Toy Story that has people emotionally gutted. Exactly. All right. I'll report back on the Yoda in the yard. Okay, thank you. You know, my footwear thing is out here at the Madrona Hill studio. I have become a Birkenstock man. And it's not just I have a pair of Birkenstocks, and then I have a pair of knockoff Birkenstocks made by a company called CV. And I keep one pair. One pair is here in the Madrona Hill studio, and one pair is down in the house. And the other thing I have, I have an umbrella that's hanging here in the Madrona Hill studio, and I have the same umbrella hanging in the house. So if I'm ever going from one to the other, I can slip into these clogs, and I can have my umbrella if it's raining, and I never have to get trapped without my stuff that I need. But that's just the kind of guy you're dealing with. A guy that went from owning zero pairs of clogs four months ago to owning two pairs of clogs.

The only thing more surprising than you being a Birkenstock guy is you being a knockoff Birkenstock guy. I never thought you were a knockoff.

I said knockoff, but it's just a different company spin on the same concept. but they're not, it's not like the tough skins, uh, to the Levi's company. It's more just like, I mean, it's also a fairly stylish brand. In fact, I don't know, the CVs might've been more, I forget what they cost, but it's like, I, I am at this point where, and it happens a lot actually throughout the day, I need to go outside and do something. I don't feel like tying my shoes. I slip into these clogs. And every time that that happens, I feel like this was good planning. Like, i feel really i feel really validated in my decisions by these things and i know we need

we probably need to wrap this up because we have a guest waiting on the line now but um but i'm not gonna wrap it up we're gonna go probably another half hour 45 minutes on this um no i i do want to know i do want to know if you have to be thoughtful about where you're leaving the shoes and the umbrellas you go back and forth because it's like a real chicken old light switch problem right if you have two light switches operating the same bulb which one is in the up which one's in the down like there's you could easily find yourself on the wrong side of the river with both umbrellas

and both Birkenstocks yeah it's a real chicken and fox and and whatever is a scorpion that bag of grain yeah kind of a thing with the river yeah you know what this involves me doing sometimes Andrew is just carrying the clogs around yes because you're right if I wear them from one place to the next well for instance uh sometimes I'll come out here in the morning and Thank you. I'm actually coming out to do my little jog on the treadmill. So I might come out in the clogs, then I put on the running shoes that are out here, and then I run in them. But then I'm wearing the running shoes, and then I go back inside, and now I'm stranded. The clogs are stranded in the studio. So yes, it is a complicated system that I'm still working on that does involve me just carrying shoes around most of the day out of what I think is convenience.

I'm glad I got you a clog carrier for Christmas. So that's all working out well.

Wait, I sold my clogs to get you a—I would say once every three months I attempt to make a gift of the Magi reference on the show, and they have literally never worked out.

It always stalled.

It's a complicated story. Yeah, anyway. All right, let's thank some donors.

Thank you for being a 10.

All right, let's thank some donors who are supporting the program and, you know, making this a thing. Without these names that we're about to read, there would be no TBTL. Well, maybe without these specific names, there might still be TBTL.

Well, what do you mean if other people took their place and their financial role in all of this?

I think we have it built into the finances of the show that we could survive a reduction by six donors, but not seven. That does not pencil out for me, and I don't even like raising it. If we lose seven donors, if the next TBTL-a-thon comes in at seven fewer donors, it's over. It's curtains. If it comes in at six fewer donors, we might be able to ride it out by reducing your salary, Andrew, and basically tightening up the sales.

I'm not willing to make that. And also, I will be so emotionally damaged by the lack of those five or six donors that I will not have the energy to move on.

And that's a death spiral. That is a death spiral. You're depressed because we're having fewer donors. The show is worse. Then fewer people listen. and fewer donors. That's it.

Yep.

That's why every single person is critical. Including Jake Rahr of Seattle, Washington. Jake and I go way back. Jake, a fixture in Seattle music scene, and I believe was a big part of us doing TBTL Live at the Columbia City Theater. Lo, those many years ago. I think Jake was part of that project. Nice. Jake, great to see your name on this list once again. Appreciate you. Becky Callahan is in, could it be that there's a place called Elk, Washington?

Oh, interesting. Or is that the beginning of a town, and we have a typo, you're wondering. Let me look here.

I'm not familiar with Elk, Washington. It's an unincorporated community in Washington State. There you go. And it's where Becky Callahan is. Thanks, Becky. Jane and Ross Johnson are in Everett, Washington. Hey, thank you. We know that that's a place, because it's also where Scotty Houghton is from.

Scotty the Hotties in Everett. I thought Scotty was a Seattle boy. He might have moved up north. He's a Ramblin' man. That's right. He can't hang a sign. Is that it? You can't hang a sign on him? Is that what they say when somebody's moving around a lot?

They say a rolling stone gathers no moss. They definitely say that. They say a watched pot never boils. Papa was a rolling stone. I think there's a line. Isn't there an arcade fire line that's like, they say a watched pot never boils. Can't make a baby with motor oils? Oh, man. I feel like that was off of their big record. And I've never understood that line. I mean, I know that Watch Pod. I think I understand it. I think they're looking for something to rhyme. I know, but I feel like Wynn Butler is better than that generally from a music standpoint. Scott, thank you. We really appreciate you. And also Jeff Stewart of Bainbridge Island, Washington. What a lovely, lovely film. If you can swing it, Bainbridge Island is close enough to Seattle to do all the fun Seattle stuff, But also just unbelievably bucolic And also it has Jeff Stewart And then down here near me In Portland, Oregon We've got Kevin Wilson Now this is interesting, Andrew The new mayor of Portland, Oregon Is named Keith Wilson Is it possible Keith and Kevin are brothers They come from one of those families Where everyone gets a K name

Here's what I'm going to propose What if they're the same person But Keith is going a little undercover Because you know You get in these you know i don't know not actual misconduct but just the appearance of misconduct by donating to a podcast using city of portland funds to support tbtl we need to look at the envelope the donation came in you know i'm not going to examine that because i appreciate the donation so much i'm not exactly but thank you for serving and i voted for you thank you keith kevin wilson of portland

Thank you to all of our donors for making TBTL possible here on this Friday edition of the show. We couldn't do this without you. Hello and welcome to Top Story. As you heard at the very beginning of the show, we had some audio of somebody talking. about some truly questionable parenting. And that, you know, that's coming from a guy who was raised with some truly questionable parents himself. So I know from bad parenting, and yet this has got me beat, I think. That is our dear friend, Cassie Chatelain, who is joining us right now to expand on the story. Hi, Cass.

Hi, guys. Good to see you both.

So great to see you. You look very festive. Andrew mentioned, did you have to duck out

of like a work holiday party or something i did i and and i have a second party coming up and this is one of those problems where i'm like oh this gold is too heavy in my pockets you know it's a good problem to have you know i spent the day at work parties um but i'll say my my holiday spirit is running thin because i was the one kind of putting together the catering and this and that and then the caterer got lost and he was kind of telling me well you gave me the wrong address and I said, no, I didn't. And then I said, I actually said to this guy, you know, for all I care, you can go fly a kite. And I'm like, maybe I shouldn't be the person helping put on these events because I can flip pretty quickly. And it's like, I'm real cool until I'm not. And I'm like, oops, sorry.

What happened? What was the response? How does somebody respond? I feel like I would have a hard time being mad at somebody who told me to go fly a kite.

I know. It was kind of funny. Honestly, it kind of leveled out the conversation because we were both having like a moment. And then I think he leveled with me. And he's like, I said, I'm pretty – my Christmas beard is wearing thin. And he goes, you know what? Me too. And I said, oh, okay, cool. Then we're kind of – it felt like we were now on the same page. So it was nice in the end.

Did the stuff get to where it needed to go eventually?

Yes, thank God it did. But, oh, my God. across now we have mulled wine and karaoke and it's going to be awesome but i'm like i'm kind of at that point where i'm like i'm ready for my nap well that's what i was wondering about

because i'm a follower of yours on instagram and i saw that you posted i like maybe that you had gotten like a hotel room or something oh yeah you were like i believe you wrote something like the shows that i will be binging and the cheeseburgers i will be eating in this bed Y'all, absolutely. Was that, are you still coming off of that? Did that reset everything for you?

I wish it did. I really wish it did. But I did go to bed last night at like 7 p.m. And it was awesome. And I did, in fact, eat cheeseburgers in bed.

Did you order them from the hotel or DoorDash or make them in the room?

I did DoorDash. I did DoorDash. And they forgot my fries. But I said, hey, I didn't tell anybody to fly a kite on that one. I just sucked it up. but um this this kind of ties into the depressing shows you guys were talking about watching who have i been on a binge watching shows about north korea what they exist are these docs or are these like uh dramas that are set in a bunch of docs so it's like any youtube doc that's out there on north korea you can bet i've i've watched it what have you what have you learned about this secretive nation oh my god it's unbelievable probably the the most alarming one was did you guys you guys probably knew about that guy auto something oh yeah worm worm burner something like

that yeah yeah that was a messed up one right that was super messed up college kid you know

goes to north korea goes out and um i think kind of got drunk and then started tearing down allegedly tearing down posters of kim jong-un um and that was you know that's a major major offense there and then came back like in a coma and like good grief yeah he was a pretty he was

in a he was in a really really really bad way and then i think passed away eventually but like you know they it would appear that he was sort of beaten close to death by the authorities there exactly um and yeah like it's i will occasionally on my tiktok feed and again who how this is for me i don't know but i'll just get like somebody with footage of just like north korea at night and just maybe when there's a curfew or whatever and just the what feels like the desolation of it is just like hard to even imagine and yet people are also living there they're going to places they're making soup they're like yeah they're having a life it's very hard to conceive

of what that life looks like that's it it's so inconceivable to me that that's why i find it weirdly you know very fascinating as i'm sure a lot of people do um but it makes for a weird moment like last night like me just sitting on this king bed by myself eating cheeseburgers and

watching north korea documentaries when you're in a hotel room like that watching north korea documentaries are you um are you plugging your computer into the tv are you sitting there just

with your laptop on the bed just with my laptop on the bed i'm not advanced enough to do like any of the like the other tonic yeah um if you haven't already seen it um cas uh there's a book called nothing to envy which is a it was bizarrely a tbtl obsession many years ago because jen flash andrews read it and was captivated and it's basically a book about north korea i think we had the author on the show no

i've got to re-listen to this freaking episode i can't remember if we we talked about the book a

lot but it's called nothing to envy and it's it's um it's been a long time since i read it but it's a very very interesting book about north korea if you ever want to good i'm gonna put that on my

list i'm gonna put that on my list before before we change the subject can i can i also one other thing you guys were talking about um mr rogers and i also have a lady lane fairchild puppet it's amazing it is truly amazing and i used to have an airbnb in seattle and i would put my lady elaine fairchild on the shelf and whenever i came back to the apartment she'd be facing the wall

because it creeped your guests were so creeped out by it that they just always made her face

the other way it's i mean lady elaine fairchild was uh bringing together every upsetting element of puppetry she's she's got you know she's sort of like elaine stritch meets pinocchio meets Pagliacci the clown.

Somebody who has really bad rosacea for some reason. Yes.

There's nothing about her appearance that if you're just a little kid and you look at it, there's nothing welcoming about it at all. I guess that maybe that was because if there is such a thing as a bad guy in that world, I guess it would be her.

Oh, really? I didn't remember that. Well, first of all, was she a drinker? Is that her?

She certainly got a gin blossom happening. I mean here's the thing Nobody was This is the land of make believe Nobody was going to be like deviously bad She was just more like a little selfish A little proud She just had embodied characteristics That were not really the greatest But she wasn't like you know Plotting a terrorist event At Owl's Tree

She's opinionated And this is according to the official MrRogers.org She's opinionated eccentric and often stirs up trouble but she's also the one who stands up to king friday the eighth's unreasonable demand so you also have a you have the king friday the eighth he's also

somewhat troublesome yeah he was honestly he was honestly he was kind of an asshole there's no doubt about it and lady lane fairchild dare we say she was a karen before the yes word karen rolled

out yeah yeah i keep getting things on tiktok lady elaine fairchild totally owned over parking dispute entitled lady elaine fairchild right messes with the wrong no-nonsense cop lady elaine would like to speak to the manager yeah um but then the other thing about that show that was for me as a young child was a little bit confusing is then there's a different there's a human

character named lady aberlin yes yeah why was she the only i think she was the only human character

who got to got to walk around in the land of make-believe yeah um but her name so i was like lady elaine fairchild lady aberlin they're very close together in terms of uh you know how they're described then you've got daniel the owl no you got you got you got wise old owl daniel the tiger uh the king henrietta pussycat henrietta pussycat all of them if i remember voiced by fred rogers

right all of them yes yes god bless him yeah um well uh it was nice for you to join us thank you very much yeah this has been our time together we'll see you later um okay let's talk a little

bit about about this situation that uh we found out about by way of your instagram page so So how old were you when this went down? And where were you living? What part of the country are we talking about?

I was living in eastern Washington in a very rural town and community. The population of the town that I grew up in and stayed until I graduated high school was population 500 people. Wow. What's it called? It's called Garfield.

Garfield. Okay, I've heard of that just because it's such a unique name, but that would probably be the only reason.

Yeah. It's like 25 minutes from Pullman. So like when we would go to get groceries, it'd be like, oh, we're going to town. We're going to go to town to get milk. This is a big deal.

So Garfield, Washington, population 500, that's where you grow up.

Yes, that's where I grew up.

And were you on a piece? So then presumably you were living on a fairly rural piece of property?

Exactly. It's very rural. It's very rural. but we did have a neighbor and um my dad called him my dad actually called him satchel he had a name he had a name

His name is, his name is Greg, but I didn't know that he had a name until I was like 20. My dad called him Satchel because he seemed, you guys know what a Satchel is. It's like a bag where you keep your papers. Yeah, sure. So Satchel, my dad was like, oh, he's a know-it-all. He knows everything. It's like he's got a Satchel with all the answers right there next to me.

That's a really creative nickname to give him.

It's a weird one, isn't it? And so we, I swear I got it until I was like 20. I didn't, I was like, oh yeah, what about Satchel?

he's like you know his name's not satchel by the way but what's confusing is that is also a name like satchel page right you can be forgiven yeah i mean that's the only person named satchel i can think of but it is a real human name i think okay so and how does this fit into and maybe as you

tell this story more we'll get a fuller picture of your dad but anyway satchel page's name was Leroy. Oh, that was just a nickname. He probably also was a know-it-all. Hitch-it-all. Was this, like, in character of your dad to give out, like, nicknames and stuff like that? Was your dad a bit of a

character? Absolutely a character. In fact, so much of a character that, not to make, say, a grim statement, but he passed away, like, three years ago. And one of the things that I, honest to God, miss the most is going, God, I wish I could tell my dad what an asshole this person is. I'm like, he would love to hear what a prick I dealt with today.

That was a way that you guys really, that was a love language?

That was our love language, just bonding like, hey, get a load of this. And then just going nuts on the person. Of course, they're not in the room to defend themselves, but oh, how we loved it.

I feel like, oh, I'm sorry. I feel like Becca and I can fall into that a little bit. It's a very bonding experience when you, when you and someone else agree how much a different person sucks and like sometimes I'll just be on a hot streak and we'll just be agreeing up a storm. And then she'll just go like, thank God we're the only people who are perfect in the world. It's just like nice little reminder that like, Oh yeah, I'm just shitting on everyone. Yeah. Like a sprinkler.

It's such a bonding experience. Nothing bonds people like a mutual hatred of somebody.

hate to say. I was gonna say, I think you both have probably heard this story too many times, but it endears me to my dad so much that like, he went through a phase when we were living together, I was in high school, and we had just moved to Lakewood, Ohio, and he was trying to be a better person and not like kind of call people assholes and everything all the time. And instead, he was turning to his faith and thinking like, listen, this person, he's a brother in the Lord. And so like, he started like referring like, nope, nope, that person cut me off. That's okay. That's a brother in the Lord. But it did not take very long for a brother in the Lord just to become a stand-in for asshole.

So then you're just kind of like, look at this brother in the Lord over here. Who do you think he is?

It's so much better than asshole. I mean, honestly. It really is.

Oh, God, I love that. I've got to steal that. Andrew, if I can take a page from your dad's book, I would love to.

Please do. Yeah. Please do. So, okay. So, so the broad strokes of the story seem to be that your dad sent you guys, you kids over to Satchel's property. Yeah. Yes. When I, when I heard it was about stealing a Christmas tree, I thought, I think as Andrew said, oh, you got to, did you see that story that Cassie put up about a stealing a Christmas tree? And I was assuming it was, you guys went to a Christmas tree lot and stole the tree. This was a live, this was a live tree that was growing in Satchel's yard.

This is like part of somebody's landscaping in front of their home.

oh wow okay yeah so it's not like a thick it's not like a small thicket of trees this is what i was trying to picture this is like a deliberate specific yeah this is like an evergreen tree that's seven feet tall or something like that it fits inside your house i know it's the most

oh my god i just yes that's exactly what happened so how did how did he present this idea to to was

it you and one of your siblings it was actually my little brother who i was 12 at the time so my brother my little brother would have been eight okay and that's very young and so of course as

an eight-year-old very young for a crime for a property crime yeah you probably don't want to

start your criminal record just yet like till 13 or 14 yes but young enough that it is expunged

young enough that they can't prosecute you as an adult there's a real sweet spot yeah but exactly

it's like that's when i know why don't i hand my eight-year-old a saw a giant saw so it was my brother and his friend who was probably about 10 years old and he just gave him a saw and said hey go cut that tree down and bring it up you know to the house of course they did you know they think nothing of it and uh the boys i'm sure the boys were tickled pink with themselves you know that's

a fun thing for a little bit to do yeah it's real charlie brown christmas vibes you're like you're dragging this tree back you've gone you've harvested this thing it smells

smells great. Christmas is here kind of thing. Yeah. Like, look at you. You get to demonstrate

your might and bring it up to the house, all this. So we did. And then, God. And then

they brought it in. And are you feeling weird at this point, though? Are you kind of like, this doesn't seem right? Or are you kind of just minding your own at this point?

I'm like, this doesn't seem right. This is weird. And of course, my dad, being the character that he is, is like getting an enormous kick out of it. He's like, oh, this is a riot.

That's what I was, because I'm guessing in Garfield, Washington, or, you know, incorporated in Garfield County. Is it Garfield County as well?

It's actually Whitman County.

In Whitman County. Didn't you guys have some trees on your property?

We did. We absolutely did. As a matter of fact, we have kind of a lot of them. But the truth is that this one was, like, particularly beautiful. Like, it was just perfect.

It looked like a Christmas tree.

Yeah, this one was absolutely stunningly perfect for a Christmas tree, whereas ours might have been a little too bushy, you know, that sort of thing.

But this is part of Satchel's, again, just so I understand this, this is a tree that Satchel is going to, that Greg is going to really notice.

Oh my God, yeah, because it was at like the tip of, it was like where our driveway met his yard, but it was in fact his yard, you know what I mean? And it was very much part of the landscaping. Like it was quite, there's no way you could miss it. My God. And so I cringed to think Satchel looking out the window and going, what in God's name is this eight-year-old doing sawing down my tree?

So do you think he observed this while it was happening or just when he came home at some point?

I think he had to have been observing it because how else would he have known it was us in a way? I mean, I guess he could have probably pieced it together and goes, oh, my God, there's my weird neighbors again.

Wait, wait. Okay. So I assume that there was a confrontation at some point. There was never a confrontation?

That's what made it even creepier. Not creepy. Just weirder is that there was absolutely no confrontation. We were all upstairs decorating the tree. you're putting on the lights the ornaments you know my folks had put it in the stand i mean at this point it is our christmas treats in our living room i don't recall we had to have had christmas music on we most likely would have of course but um and then uh knock at the door

hey it's the sheriff oh okay so there was a confrontation but just not directly with greg not directly with law enforcement yeah i thought i thought greg just let the whole thing go but no

no no he was he escalated it to tier two yeah he sure escalated it and and rightly so you know rightly so but it is just so traumatic as a kid to go you know here we are i i don't know i imagine we were in nightgowns or something we may not have been but i just feel like we would have been um decorating the tree and here comes the cops and my dad is like downstairs like in the foyer and we're all just at the top of the stairs just like hearts in our throat what the hell and it's humiliating for the cop who has to go so sir um maybe don't steal christmas trees from the neighbor

so who answered the door do you think it was your dad or was it one of you kids i think it was my

mom because that seems like my dad would have just been like oh who cares you know it wouldn't

have been his thing and then was your dad somebody who had was was he a known entity to the local law enforcement that's a good question had contacts with the law enforcement absolutely i'll say this

that he he wasn't somebody who like you know did other than this one like did crimes as as eccentric and weird as my parents were and are quite honestly they were never like they never broke the law they never really did they really didn't um but they were like they were weirdos i mean and that's why i i was thinking about this talk this before i was going to meet you guys and i said my child was really just a series of humiliations yeah so because of that i feel like i'm extremely resilient now like it takes a lot to embarrass me you know um i think i'm the

opposite i also felt yeah i felt like i was a very embarrassed kid i mean i think probably most kids you know feel obviously insecurity and stuff but because we were this huge family and we were we prayed before dinner like in public and like i didn't have stylish clothing because we didn't buy everything was secondhand i carried around all this embarrassment all the time yeah and the thing though in adult life the way that's manifested is if i feel embarrassed in adult life i lose my shit oh is that as opposed to like i'm not

more, I'm not more comfortable in that space. I'm, I'm more triggered by it, you know, than maybe somebody else. So you've definitely, I think you healed in the proper, you grew in the right

direction over this thing, Cassie. I did not. Oh, gosh. But you know what? Game recognized game. You know, we were raised, raised in a family. It was kind of like, oh, we're, we're kind of, we're a little out there, aren't we? We're a little out there. It does tend to, yeah i i like to think you you can probably relate to this too luke which is like i'd like i hope you can relate i have the just the right amount of trauma to not be hopefully insane but

to hopefully be funny you know that's my i i was talking about this with my mom a while ago um which was yeah i think basically i feel like i have a um i have this unearned confidence that I can do things and it'll work out from my mom who has an unearned confidence that like everything is probably easier than you think it is. And no sense of ever being like, oh, am I cut out for this? Or am I good at this? No, you're probably good at it. I got that from her, thankfully. And I got, there was enough trauma in my childhood, yeah, to have a lot of stories, but not the kind of trauma that some people go through, which caused them to have to shut down. Like I got just, just, I got lucky. I got, I got enough for some good stories, um, and a mid-level media career, um, but not, not, not enough that I have to be

institutionalized. Right. Exactly. God, well, I will say all that to, first of all, bless your mom. That's such an extraordinary quality. And I love that in people. I love that in people,

but um all that to say i am medicated i am medicated sure absolutely um now here is uh what i was wondering about uh did the police confiscate the tree no thank god you got to

keep the tree i think it was so damn pitiful i think the cop just said dear god this is so freaking pitiful look at these damn kids did he tell one of your brothers to get a crutch full tiny tim oh my god let it go he said he said screw it but he said you know like please don't do this again and i'll tell the neighbor to you know your apologies or what have you and maybe one of these days i can come back for a different holiday because i have a different story of your dad oh god like a different holiday related item let me put it this way my mom when i after i did that video i was kind of cracking up and i was like mom I was thinking of this story from Christmas one of the dad's stories a story about dad from Christmas her response just this oh god which one

well your mom you mentioned you describe her also as a character and sometimes I do see her as well featured on your Instagram feed in very very charming ways I think I told you last time you were on the show I don't know if envious is the right word but I have a lot of respect for and maybe I'm a bit envious of the relationship that you seem to have with your mom you guys seem very close and have tons of fun together I'm sure it's all an act when the camera goes down the real the real life begins but like was your mom a character in the in this in a similar way as your dad meaning that were they sort of partners in crime on this or when your mom answers the door and there's a police officer there would you refer to in your in your song like as pretty traumatic and I don't know if you just said that because it rhymes with dramatic or if it truly was trauma but um like was she kind of like oh lord what have you done this time or was she like oh yeah no we're gonna go cut that tree because no her shit together is god no she yeah she know

the shot definitely this the one who's like oh because i can't tell you my dad's name is scott and she's like oh scott you know like oh my god what she what what was it some of the phrases she would say like um like get a grip or that kind of thing so you know it was a lot of her eye rolling and oh my god you know and he's really lucky because she has the patience of a saint she could kind of deal with a lot of this where i think most people would just be like pulling their hair out that said my mom is extremely eccentric and unique and marches to the beat marches to the beat of her own drum in a totally different way like a totally different way

um what was the relationship like with greg aka satchel going forward oh man extremely weird like was that a turning point like you could you measure things before and after

the tree incident god it was the kind of thing where i i felt like such a a a pang of embarrassment and shame if god forbid i did see him you know yeah i know my dad my dad just wasn't a fan of the guy and so it's like um so i mean that's so that's i guess the other question which you can't

know because you weren't inside your dad's head but like was your dad just trying to kind of troll the guy do you think or he thought that no one would ever figure it out or he had impulse control

issues or yeah no i think my dad was just outright did not like this guy and i think because they got in a dispute like when my folks first moved in he not to get too far into the boring details but

i don't know if you've heard tbtl before but that's kind of our bread and butter hurry up

Because I need to describe a spreadsheet to Luke really quickly.

Well, when my folks first moved in, my mom was pregnant with my brother, like nine months pregnant. And Satchel had like, we had gone to the Renaissance Fair in Moscow, Idaho. Fabulous time. And we pulled back up home. And our driveway was like, there was like caution tape around it. Like, don't, you know, like you can't get in. and so of course my dad was like what in the hell is this and he had to speak to satchel and satchel had done that because he's like your driveway is you know four feet over on my property line so we had to like bulldoze down like a part of our yard to like rebuild a different driveway so that my dad is i think i get this from my dad where it's like i'm real cool and then if you if you go there I will dismantle you like yeah actually Luke I remember I remember this episode years ago on um the mental illness happy hour and I could relate to this yeah you said you said like to some guy like you have fucked with the wrong mother oh yeah yeah it's always my it was sadly my catchphrase for about a decade yeah I relate to it I must say and I think my dad is a lot like that and so i think he just had it out for satchel and so it was kind of like a

trolling it was vindictive it was vindictive um uh do you do you uh do you do a christmas tree

these days cassie yeah you know what i haven't got one yet and i want so badly to but um you know

what guys they're kind of spendy maybe i ought to find some in the bay area right yeah imagine oh

god i just go up to some millionaire's house multi multi-millionaires and just start cutting

down you know um honestly as andrew's been saying we're in a real eat the rich moment yeah we are you might be you might become the next folk hero just harvesting your own christmas tree

from laureen powell jobs's house yeah we have a new tradition in our house it's a couple of years old now now Genevieve is like very much a live tree like Christmas tree person like I'm somebody who when I was living by myself I remember my parents got me a small little like tabletop fake Christmas tree and that was fine for me like I put on a you know you put a couple of ornaments

up Andrew that's just I like that you even set that up I would could have seen a like a 23 year old Andrew just like you know having no patience for that kind of thing even a little tabletop

thing yeah um i'm trying to think what would be a punk like i'd have like a just a ashtray no no

i'm not trying to say that you were like i just mean i could see it staying in the box and you being like i don't know i live by myself and yeah what am i gonna put presents a tiny presents under

the tiny tree but it was like i remember it feeling kind of cozy in my first little apartment or my very very very humble little apartment have a little tree but then when jenna even i started living together like she's like no no i am a i'm a christmas tree person we're gonna get a christmas tree and she's very like i don't do fake christmas trees like we get a real christmas tree she's just traditional about that and so so that's fine that's been our tradition for a while even a couple of times or at least once in la i surprised her with a christmas tree she came home to one and that meant a lot to her i think um but what started happening a couple of years ago now is there's a christmas tree farm that we go to in wedgwood every year and i'm blanking on the name of it hunter farms or something like that huntington farms um and that's where we've been getting our christmas trees but then last year genevieve wanted to try a new place and then this year somebody gave her a coupon for a new place so the new tradition is we go to a new place and then genevieve gets appalled by the prices of the christmas trees there and then we stamp out of there and then we go back to the same place in wedgwood where we've been going so genevieve got a coupon for 25 off this place like in the south side of the city so just the other day we got in the car and we probably drove 20 25 minutes to go to this christmas tree farm probably off of

off of 99 or something i can't remember exactly farm are these trees in the ground and you cut

them no they're they call it a farm but no no it's just a christmas tree place where the farm is somewhere else and yeah they brought them in bring them in yeah so um but in this particular case genevieve has this 25 off coupon and she's so excited about it but then she the very first tree she looks at i'm slow getting out of the car these days so i'm not getting out of the car and She's already in there and she's like, she's already like.

like whispering loudly to me this tiny tree is 185 like she's looking at one that's like you know be like several feet taller she's like this place is not for us like we hadn't even barely set foot in it then we did a quick courtesy so she's like oh of course you're gonna give me a 25 coupon if you're gonna raise everything by 75 so i was like okay i mean i'll happily i think i even said on the way there i think i said if we end up going down here and none of these trees are for you i'm happy to go to another place for you with you but not today like can we can we like keep it to like one christmas tree experience per day and then we'll go to wedgewood you'd never

make it in a hallmark movie andrew no i don't be on christmas tree farm number six before the sun

was down well loving it i don't know you don't think i could make it in a hot frosty movie that

i saw with the original the other day i you know that i i i am not sure what a real christmas tree costs because i haven't had a real one for a long time because i have this aluminum one from the 1950s which i had a different one of the same kind ever gleam and then i got divorced and then that one stayed at the old house and then i wanted to get another one and i had to go on ebay and it was really expensive like in the hundreds and hundreds of dollars but what i'm realizing is it's basically like five five christmases of a of a real of a live tree and this is the thing i bet you what genevieve loves about that live christmas tree is the smell i have this frazier fur diffuser that's it's like mainlining the smell of a freshly cut christmas tree so it might be worth thinking about in years to come buy a really really convincing artificial tree and then just get dial in your your potions and your smell she's got that i mean i think inspired by you

she's had that for several years she just brought it out last night in fact our entire upstairs we don't have the tree yet but our entire upstairs smells very evergreeny right now i love that you

know you can also do what i do which is i don't have a fireplace but i do get like little palo santo um uh incense or whatever it smells just like a wood-burning fireplace it's smart yes what

kind of incense is that is it like just a stick of incense or is it burned in a different way like

we used to do a stick of incense it's kind of like a bunch of wood chips mushed together and And then, yeah, it smells just like a fireplace. It's phenomenal.

It's the hot, it's not even new anymore, but it's the hot smell, Andrew, to have. There's a certain kind of store that you go into that's usually got a concrete floor. They sell one T-shirt and it smells like this thing. You know that you're in a place where they're familiar with the music of M.J. Lenderman if you smell enough Palo Santo. So basically I'm describing my daughter's entire aesthetic, but I love that smell now. And it's a good smell. I'm not trying to.

No, I know what you mean though. Like this is the kind of thing where like they would sell crystals as well, you know?

Yeah. I guess what I mean too, is just like, there's also a kind of, um, I don't even know if you'd call it a perfume, but there's a kind of a gloss. Is it? No, a glossier is what Becca wears. There's this other kind. I forget. I was at a party and everyone, a number of women I was talking to were comparing notes on smells. And one of them was the same thing my daughter wears, which is not an incense thing, but it's something that every girl her age on Capitol Hill wears. And, like, so when I smell this kind of a smell, I feel like I know already I know all about this person. I know that they will likely part their hair in the middle. They will likely have jeans that are frayed at the bottom. Like, there's a whole lifestyle that comes with this particular scent. Yes. Because you all got the memo on this smell. One thing, one last thing on Christmas trees, which, Cassie, you used to live on Capitol Hill, right?

Oh, yes, did I ever, yes.

Did you ever get your Christmas tree from the Chicken Soup Brigade spot that was up there on, like, John? So that was, Addie and I, every year we would go to the Chicken Soup, which was, like, a charity that raised money for folks that were dealing with HIV and AIDS.

Yeah, we used to go there, yeah.

We would buy, it was our, like, you know, from when she was two until she was however old, you know, we would always go, even when we lived down in, like, Mount Baker, we'd go up to this Chicken Soup Brigade. And it was always a rip-off, but I was like, it's kind of for a good cause. But maybe Christmas trees are just way too expensive these days. I was just figuring I'm overpaying for this because it's a donation, but it sounds like they're pretty expensive everywhere now.

I'm on the Hunter Farm website here because I know that Genevieve looked it up. She's like, yeah, no, these are way overpriced. Whatever they're selling them for at Hunter Farms is fine for her. So we're driving back from this place just the other day that is deemed way too expensive. And on the way back, you know, it might have been on 15th, not 99. On 15th, we pass another Christmas tree place, right? And I'm like, and I say to her, I'm like, well, there's one. And I wouldn't have mind stopping here. I just didn't want to drive all the way to Wedgwood. But I said, well, there's another place there. Like, they're selling trees. Like, do you want to check it out? And I'm like, oh, look, and it's the Scouts. Because I'm like, hey, I don't even know what kind of Scouts. But I'm like, hey, it's the Scouts. And Genevieve.

says, well, if they're not putting their prices on the outside, they don't want me to know what the prices are. I'm not stopping.

I'm like, all right, Wedgewood it is. Oh, she's coming out swinging. Yeah, Genevieve was busting skulls when it comes to these twigs. She missed her.

Listen, I know a lot has been said, a lot of ink has been spilled about old Seattle, but boy, Genevieve really missed out on Chubby and Tubby. That was the home of the $5 Christmas tree. Really? Oh, yeah. The Chubby and Tubby on Aurora, which I believe is now like a RADA paint. at, like, 85th and Aurora there, right by Bagley Elementary School. That, I think it's a paint store. That used to be Chubby and Tubby. My dad and I painted the Chubby and Tubby on there. Awesome! Awesome. But they were famous in Seattle when I was growing up for $5 Christmas trees.

Were they good, though? No. Because Genevieve won't stand by... See, Genevieve wouldn't get a cheap tree if it wasn't good.

She's got champagne taste

and a ginger ale budget. Yeah. Exactly. She's got very high standards. She goes around. Watching her at a tree farm is a whole thing. Like, she's going around, like, she's talking to you, but she's feeling the trees. She's checking the teeth on the trees, looking behind their ears. Yeah, she's kind of, like, feeling this and feeling that, and it's like you're just watching her brain do a whole bunch of different things at once. It's really quite something.

So, but you now haven't gotten another tree. That was an unsuccessful tree run. What do you think you'll end up shelling out for this tree? Because I don't think you can get a really, really nice, full kind of, you know, sort of handsome Christmas tree, but then pay 20 bucks for it.

No, I mean, I think that, I think when, and that's why I'm mad I can't find this here, but I'm glad you could join us for this, Cassie, by the way. Sorry, we've really stolen the- This is all related to Cassie's story. It really is. But I think Veeves looked it up and I think she said, yes, 20 bucks a foot seems about right. So if we get like a seven foot tree, that's 140 bucks. Like, I think that is the range. Like, Genevieve was looking at a tree at this other place that was shorter than me. So it was probably like a, maybe, you know, it was a very cute little five foot tree, but a small guy marked it like 185 or something. like that and that's where v and that's where v's was like this is not our place she's that's where she got appalled by this 25 coupon she's like this is this is too expensive even with the

coupon now i think she was insulted one last question for you andrew and castie if you have a thought on this but do you i had back when i was doing live christmas trees i had a a sort of a an inflection point if you will i had a moment where i when when i was first buying christmas trees i was buying the like the kind that were bushy kind of bushy and uh you know a kind of a triangle that was bushy and then i i had you know accumulated these ornaments over the years and i was like the ornaments look like shit on this and that was when i shifted into is it noble fur what are the kind where it's like bread to have space between so it's like it's like a less it's a it's a less husky tree a less bushy tree it looks more sparse could that be blue spruce

i forget what i think frazier fur is what we usually go okay okay well the kind that i started

getting eventually was the kind that it's it's very shapely um in the like the shape of it is is very sort of i don't know what you call it has nice lines to it but it's not a very full christmas tree but it's like bread so that you can hang an ornament from it and it won't hit the next level of branch it's almost got like tears i know the tree ones you're talking about

andrew you know the ones too i don't know the name of them but i i know what you're talking about because we all have those ornaments where it's like grandma embroidered you this massively heavy ornament and and yeah it just drags down the whole damn tree i think it's a noble fur by

the way i'm looking okay noble is the kind that you got with the more space so we do like a we don't like to see too much space in the tree oh big news while we're here veves went you know we've been kind of doing that thing. A lot of families do where you're kind of, you pull out the Christmas lights and which strings are still working and which aren't. And then you're crabby and like in the middle of dressing the tree, you have to run to target or something to get two more strands or all of that. Well, this time Genevieve's like, no, no, we're going to start over. We're going to the store. I did take her to Fred Meyer. She said at some point this week, this on the way back from our failed attempt at getting a Christmas tree. She's like, okay, at some point this week, I'm going to go to Fred Meyer and I'll look to see if they have, she'd already had like one really disappointing attempt at getting lights this year and it didn't work out for her so this is where i get to be in the hallmark movie again is on the way home i take a turn at one point and she doesn't realize until later she's like where are we going i said my dear i'm taking you to fred meyer so you can buy these christmas tree lights that you want and she said oh good the plan this year is to get all white lights this year as opposed to which i don't i know that that's a nice kind of classy look i usually go for more of a I like the different color lights it gives me a very nostalgic sort of warm cozy feeling but this year we were kind of just kind of getting rid of all the old lights and we're bringing in five boxes of new white lights and we're starting fresh this year yeah the white

lights are extremely elegant and I know a lot of people go that route too but Andrew I'm kind of with you, you know the ones I miss is

like the the larger bulbs yes the colorful larger ones that we all had growing up you know yeah you

could cook an egg on it they're the kind they're basically the kind that are in that corona commercial where there's like a scraggly string of lights on a palm tree this commercial has been in rotation for longer than i just saw it this year during the are they still doing it they're still doing it it's just a little like you know key west beach with like a palm tree and then a little hut or you know a little cabin and then someone's whistling oh christmas tree and then somebody just hits something and you get just this little multi-colored but kind of like almost like a little bit um sparse string of lights around a palm tree that's the whole commercial i think it's

a classic yeah they're still rolling with it a if it works great absolutely i haven't stopped

drinking corona since i saw the commercial i'm lit right now also a problem um cassie before we let you go let me let's just wrap up your christmas tree story how did the rest of the holidays feel to your memory and i'm not trying to like put too much too much on this if it's not there but without getting into too much detail because this could really derail us i haven't even told luke about this because i don't want to talk about it but i got into another little confrontation with the security guard at the grocery store the other day oh no we'll save that for another time but let me just say this i it was still over whether or not i could take a back at peter sarsgaard grocery that's right it was once again it was about whether or not i could take my backpack in i thought i was going to be cooler about it i was demonstrably not um and i said some things that i regret and um anyway the point is it was just a quick trip to the grocery store and i came back with like i think a loaf of bread some fruit and some salami but i came back And I was in a terrible, terrible mood, not even about the security guard or the store, more about my behavior. And I was so mad. And I still have not eaten the salami. And every time I open up that little drawer and I see this thing of salami, I am reminded of my behavior at the grocery store the other day. And it gives me a really bad feeling. And I'm just wondering how this – was this tree at all like my salami is my question.

Oh, my God. And I know we don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole, but, my God, can I relate, Andrew? I can so relate I try to reel myself in but I have those who doesn't have those moments and you just it's like why did I go there yeah I know I've been there but the phrase don't touch me

again came in came out of my mind I mean so let's just let's just recap this store has been open for less than a week and you've yelled it's not right don't touch me again wow at different moments This is under seven days of operation for this crush.

Yeah, Andrew, if you went back, that's impressive. We're taking them down. I'm not pleased. I'm not pleased.

I actually love this. You know, Cassie, you mentioned you're effing with the wrong. I've now, I've aged out of your messing with the wrong mother effer phase, and Andrew's aging right into it, which is great, because we're always going to have something to talk about.

It's always futile and impotent, and my timing is always off, And it's just, the point is, I was just feeling really, really bad. And now I just wonder, now I just have what I call sad salami in my refrigerator, which is also something you've been. You have to slay that sad salami, Andrew. You have to. Weren't you diagnosed with sad salami a few years ago? Take that, take that. That's not the medical term for it, actually. Yeah. Do you guys, do you, were your, was your family sort of quirky enough just to be like, well, this is just another, this is just another story. Or were you.

We were pretty resilient even back then where it's like, oh, God, another Wednesday night. I mean, that was a big one. It was really messed up. But we were able to brush it off even back then. Like, okay, let's put on the Christmas record and try and move on. My mom was cool with that. That's why my parents really balanced each other out because my mom was the person like, okay, let's have some hot cocoa and try it.

So you had a fun Christmas and when you were, you know, grabbing presents from under that tree or whatever, there was no taint of like, you know, you weren't imagining Greg just like sharpening a knife on the palm of his hand just on his side of the property line.

No, exactly. Sharpening the knife. And then like that scene from Dennis the Menace where he like eats an apple with the knife, like just like. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

By the way, the most menacing way to eat an apple.

Oh, absolutely. And I won't do it. This is on one of my life goals is like eat an apple like that, like a like a real villain would, you know, yes, that's like, yeah, there's nothing.

There's very, very few things that are more unsettling in cinema than the person eating and eating an apple with a knife who's telling you something being faux casual. But, you know, it's only a matter of time before shit gets real.

Totally. Oh, my God. The perfect person for this. You guys know John Voight in Anaconda. He's this kind of guy, you know, just like Mr. Cool Guy, but like.

I'm wielding a machete. Yeah, that kind of thing.

Yeah. The ice cube classic anaconda. I'm glad that your Christmas was not ruined by this. It was not.

I have bounced back, and I do love, love, love Christmas so much. And I'm heading to Garfield in, like, two, whatever, whenever Christmas is. So, yay.

So, is your mom still on the property?

She sure is, yeah.

Is Greg still on his property? She sure is.

Yeah.

Well, this is a plot twist no one saw coming. What's their relationship like these days?

I don't think they see much of each other. Thank God.

OMG. I mean, you know what you have to do this year, Cassie? You have to plant a small tree on Craig's property. Some real John Denver Arbor Day vibrations.

What an incredibly good idea, actually, because we have plenty of pine cones. I can just take a seed and you know what? I might do it. I mean, even though it's not spring, maybe now's not the time. I don't care. I might do it.

It's symbolic more than anything. Yeah. And then maybe you can tell us how it goes.

I will. And what if he, you know, this is the time I get shot. Get the hell off my lawn.

Yeah. You can tell us how it goes as you pull Buckshot out of your ass.

Garfield, Washington, a guy named Satchel was standing his ground.

I can't say I'd blame the guy. Poor Satchel.

All right. Well, Cassie, listen, thank you for taking time in between your busy social calendar. yes talk to us uh we really appreciate you it's fun having you on the show thanks for doing it

you guys are terrific i just i just worship the ground you guys walk on i love tv chel forever okay bye you guys all right happy holidays bye bye there she goes our friend cassie uh a natural

an absolute like the we were talking about the guy who rode his bike to the scrabble tournament and won it and rode his bike home that's basically cassie riding her bike to a podcasting tournament

That's right. To take your first place. And you know what? I forgot to get permission. She is such a, like, so much of the content on the show, more and more is being spawned by things that she posted on Instagram. But I'm not sure if she has kind of a public account or not. Let's find out over the weekend. And if she wants some TBTL friendos following her, we can let everybody know how to do that on Monday.

Yeah. Okay. That's a good idea. That is going to do it for this week of TBTL. Well, thank you, everyone, for spending the time with us. We really do appreciate it. We are going to be back here on Monday with more imaginary radio for you. So we'll see you then. In the meantime, have a great weekend. Go Seahawks. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.