Muse

So what do you do?

I'm actually hoping someday to break into the music business as a singer-songwriter.

No way. Way. What's your favorite kind of music?

Country-Western. Oh. Yeah. Do you like Shania Twain?

Yeah.

Yeah. The best thing about singing at Christmas is the cocoa caroling and fine. You know that one? Whoa-oh-oh, go totally Yuletide. They got a sleigh ride. Good. Santa shirts, ranger skirts. Whoa-oh-oh, watchin' the windows park, drinkin' some eggnog. That's good. Whoa-oh-oh. Fill up a stocking, spray on some flocking. Oh. Put up a tree, sports on TV. I want to be free to feel the way I feel. Eh, eh, eh, eh, man, I feel like some Christmas, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh do, and if you're the kind of man that can't support a woman's ambition, then I don't think there's any reason to continue this day.

TBTL! There's a crazy rumor going around that you folks like milk and cookies. Ah, fragile. It must be Italian. I think that's just fragile. You know that little ice rink across from Santa's Village? The rinky dink.

Know it? I named it. I named

it after my dink. It's very rinky. I just feel like I'm excited and I feel relaxed and I'm ready to party with the best of them. A new holiday was born. A festivus for the rest of us.

well all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a wednesday edition of tbtl the show that was turned away at the inn there was no place for this show to go and then away in a manger no radio station for a bed the little tbtl laid down its i promised i wasn't gonna get emotion emotional but sweet head i always get emotional when i say sweet head i am i've never had a more apoplectic look on the riverside program than i am getting from my dear friend the longest running co-bro of the show mr andrew walsh hello merry christmas

how are you good i i'm not apoplectic i'm just i'm a little confused as to what happened there Were you, did, do you really get emotional when you think about that song or did you just have a stutter and then you were covering it up? Stutter, it was a dramatic effect. It was a dramatic effect. You were, okay, because we were talking a couple of weeks ago on the show about smelling babies' heads. I wasn't. You were, so I wasn't sure if you were having like a real emotional moment or something with that song.

I am broadcasting from inside a prison right now, but because the baby head smelling thing did not end well.

Hey, it got you in the papers. It sure did. No bad publicity. Sure. Just sort of tried that.

Look out, wet bandits. I'm the new cover of the New York newspaper for crime doing.

Merry Christmas, by the way. You said it's a Wednesday edition. Nay, my friend. Nay. Hey, I'm neighing like a horse in a manger. Nay. I'm confused. It is a Christmas edition, not a Wednesday edition.

Christmas doesn't have a date. Christmas has no weekday. Yes. No, it doesn't. And I reposted something somebody wrote on Blue Sky. They wrote, wow, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. This is so great. My wife's boyfriend's baby is going to love it. Thank you so much.

It's pretty good.

I don't even really understand it. I know.

I'm trying to figure that out, too. It's like, obviously, we're talking about my wife's boyfriend's baby.

So it's like Joseph is like Joseph is it's like a throuple. and Joseph's in it, but he's also having a... But, of course, he and Mary, as the story goes, they had never really, you know, had a conjugal visit. Yeah, sure. Well, let's... Can we break this down first? Well, Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays.

Yeah, we really just got into the... That's the show. Thank you. Yes, just really... I mean, we're off to a hot start, I would say. You know, talking about whether Mary and Joseph did the nasty. I think we're really in the...

Christmas spirit right now. Merry Christmas, everybody. Gold, I'm familiar with. Frankincense, is that like incense, only an old-timey way of saying it? Frankincense?

It's like incense that doesn't mince words.

That's right. It's like... I'm sorry, I'm just a straight shooter. I'm frankincense. I'm frankincense, exactly. Yeah, I was... And then, so myrrh.

That leaves myrrh. I feel like that's also a spice or something? gold frankincense and myrrh a lot of a lot of smelly things i like smelly things sure well if you're in that manger it's you know probably a little ripe would you say if if if you're if

you're setting up this sort of tableau of tbtl being sort of like a manger scene a crush if you

will yeah would you say that i am oh dude that's a great use of use of crush yeah i crushed it

you really crushed it oh my god we are crushing it oh my god we are crushing it no because you

My dad and I watch a lot of this show called Shetland, and it's set in the UK, but it's actually kind of in between England and Norway. Everyone's going to Bergen all the time when it's like, that's the big town, that's up in Norway. And they're always talking about things happening at the creche. They use creche a lot. Creche is kind of their term for farm.

I've only heard it in the context of specifically the nativity scene.

i didn't know that it was a generic term at all uh it was they use it there's often the thing about this place this place shetland this town larrick which is on shetland and i probably said this before but it's very very strong cabot cove vibes it's like wow this is a violent place sure there's a murder a week and it's often happening up at the creche oh no you know what maybe i'm confusing Kresch and Kroft. I'm sorry, Andrew. I think Kroft is the thing I'm thinking of. They're always talking about something being at the Kroft, which I believe is their kind of, that's what that means

like the farm. I see. I did not look it up, but I looked it up briefly to make sure that Kresch was what I thought it was, which was a manger scene, but I thought it was also maybe broadened out. But no, I guess we're... Anyway, my question for you is... There's also a Kansas State

representative named Chris Kroft, which I feel like if he's not making the Kansas State legislator jump jump i don't know who is oh i thought you're going with that i was chris croft will make you jump jump the daddy mac will make you jump jump i was so confused by that i first

of all i think i miss nick i i feel like i'm off my game today without having nick here i uh apologize for that but i thought you were going to make a chris craft joke because you're so into chris craft boats that i was geared up old loop and then you said jump jump and i was like my brain was so scrambled there because i was like are you jumping from the boat in the legislature i was making i was trying to explain a joke that you didn't say uh-huh i was making a joke about the

band chris cross sure because the guy's named chris croft um but anyway it's christmas here we are we're the only podcast i listen i'm not i'm not trying to brag on us but like you mentioned this before we started recording we are dolphin at lee for sharks the only five day a week podcast that is putting out a brand new episode on christmas day albeit not our best work it's clearly evident but we but it is happening people and that's what matters the sad thing is is what

if this is my best work what if this is what if this is the high point the high i mean you know

You never know when it's the high watermark. This is something that gambling has taught me. You know, the dream is that you know exactly when to step off the merry-go-round because you realize, oh, this is the high point. It doesn't get better than this. But, of course, most people don't see the work of both Aaron Rodgers and Mike Tyson. It's hard to know when you've hit the high point. And maybe this is the high point for you. Maybe this is your final show.

this is i don't like the way that sounded threatening um this is the perfect show to do this i've been meaning to ask you this for a long time first of all it's very very timely right now and also i can't think of a better time to ask this question than here on christmas morning um did tyson throw that fight was that rigged was the rig in i didn't watch it so i can't

i can't give a particularly informed opinion i i do i have heard rumblings that netflix had some sort of rules around basically how actually hard they could go because you know netflix is not a boxing network i mean nor is hbo but the thing is if you get the fight on hbo or DAZN. One of these other places you're paying for the fight probably and so you know you presume presumably everybody watching kind of is familiar with it being a very Violent sport there's some speculation that it wasn't so much that Tyson threw the fight It was that both fighters were instructed to not actually like really like hurt each other in a way that was going to be grotesque to America In fact if anything there's a fair amount of speculation that Jake Paul who just seems to be like a noted bad person just just a horrible horrible person not that tyson is a walk in the park but that in fact it was jake paul who kind of let up on tyson in the end because he was you know a lot younger and is actually fairly decent boxer for someone who started off lighting couches on fires and swimming pools as part of a hype house on youtube and that in fact jake paul could have maybe could have hurt mike tyson in the later rounds because mike tyson just didn't really have his legs he just you know being 60 years old is really different than being 26 years old it's funny

that you mentioned legs because that's what i heard somebody said like you know like i think i probably heard this on the levitard show or something along those lines somebody said like if you watch tyson's legs at the beginning like it's even before he's like tired out it's just didn't look like the same tyson as far as how he uses his legs which that seemed to be a tell but i think i'm digging pretty deep into some conspiracy theories now i wanted to apologize I said there was the rig in and I knew that was the fix in a great phrase I love the phrase the fix is in and I'm mad at myself for messing that up especially

I didn't even notice it Andrew it's Christmas morning I'm on my third to fourth eggnog is that spiked or are you still with us? no you know one time in my life I'm just on the regular stuff these days actually wait can we talk about that for a second eggnog you and eggnog tell me about your relationship with eggnog love it you do okay sure grew up here's the thing though again it was a it was a it was something that was very very special to the the christmas holiday like we did not have it before thanksgiving and if we and in fact when we had it my mom would water it down with two percent no you've told me this that hurts my soul but the thing is that means to this day i can't drink uncut eggnog it seems too sweet to me so i uh to i will i will also kind of uh you know thin out my eggnog a bit because that's how i was raised but i wish i wasn't i wish i was beam you know i'll say this even in my more rip roaring days i never really was into the idea of alcohol in a dairy product like that i did have a I had a brief dance with white Russians. Did I ever tell you about the time that I met? Oh, this would have been so much funnier. You were trying to think of a white Russian? Of the famous ballet dancer, Baryshnikov. Baryshnikov. Just pretend. Okay, let's just, like, everyone forget the last 20 seconds. Okay, I already did. I did have a brief dance with the white Russian. Did I ever tell you about the time I met Baryshnikov, Andrew? it's right there just like uh no you know i think it was probably post like the dennis miller of podcasting hey babe like uh that's my dennis miller that paid off um i uh i did i'm sure honestly i'm sure it was inspired by the big lebowski i had a little moment of like thinking that the white russian was was my drink except it's so so sweet and like you just if you have more than one of those you're just in a world of of of pain from like the headache all that is to say the idea of an eggnog with booze in it was never really it seemed weird to me to have like a whiskey in a like a dairy product like that well okay this is interesting a lot of people

are surprised when they hear that i like eggnog because growing up i had an aversion to cheese and i don't like yogurt and various like kind of dairy products but i really do like um eggnog i grew up drinking it i liked it and now this is where things get a little controversial because there's somebody who's listening to the show right now presumably who is going to disagree with the story or the details of the story i'm about to tell um and i'll explain why in a second although it's just his word versus mine but i believe the reason i drink when i'm drinking whiskey when i'm drinking hard alcohol my kind of go-to is jim beam and it hasn't been that way my entire life when I was a young kid around 10 I was more of a Jameson kid no um like I don't know I aged into the Jim Beam yeah no I do think that like when like I was hanging out with you used to drink a lot of Jameson so I was probably drinking more Jameson then and then at one point um when it came to brown alcohol I really locked in to Jim Beam and I've been drinking Jim Beam kind of on the reg.

um for i don't know maybe five or ten years now and the reason i am convinced that this happened was because i like you usually drank eggnog straight no well i didn't i didn't put the two percent in there and i also didn't put booze there i just drank it um but then my brother-in-law zachary genevieve's brother uh came over to spend the holidays with us one time and came over i swear with a thing of eggnog and a thing of Jim Beam and we started pouring the eggnog into the Jim Beam and I was like oh wow this Jim Beam and it was kind of it really complimented it because it was it's a sweeter it's sort of a sweeter whiskey certainly than like a yes and that's

why or something I'm a little bit in if I were to be drinking whiskey I would go more Jameson than Jim Beam because of that sweetness of Jim Beam is is a little bit less preferred by me but I could see how it would work much better with the eggnog yeah and well and the thing is and I like

it but um but i understand why it wouldn't be for everybody's tapes taste it's not like jim beam is some sort of celebrated old school whiskey or something like that um but uh i mean zachary now claims he would never bring jim beam to our house because he doesn't like jim beam but i just remember oh i see so this is where the stories diverge yeah maybe he brought over maker's mark which is similar but not quite as sweet made by the same company i think um but i remember it jim beam and basically pouring myself a thing of eggnog with a little bit of jim beam in there and then like maybe as maybe not just the night went on but maybe as the weeks went on realizing that the jim beam was so sweet that i was putting less and less eggnog in i was just sipping jim beam i'm like actually jim beam's pretty sweet on its own and then you can just sort of skip the whole eggnog middle man yeah um and and and that's how i ended up drinking so much kind of like jim beam or like again if i if i am drinking a whiskey that's how it became my regular whiskey Zachary claims that that is not a true story because he would never bring Jim Beam to our house all I'm saying is and I'm saying this on Christmas he is a dirty dirty liar and I don't know why he's lying and I don't know what he's covering up but I will get to the bottom of it

Interesante Sort of So are you I actually got what I got into when I lived in LA on Christmas Morn was a mimosa situation because the weather in LA was so nice and that was a big moment for me of realizing i really really loved that town i've probably talked about this before but you know when you move from the northwest down to like california as you also did with genevieve i feel like when i moved down there and i would come back home to visit addy or to see people there would be a lot of like well don't you miss the seasons don't you miss you know christmas day and it's cold maybe it's snowed and i kind of wondered if i would and then i remember like the first christmas i was there was 75 degrees i walked outside we had an orange tree in our yard picked an orange uh may also that was the beginning of me drinking in the morning on christmas like in my life like i don't think i had i don't think that had been a thing that i had really ever integrated into the experience and let me tell you it was great i remember just being like day drunk on mimosas at about 11 a.m at my house in la with my my first ex-wife and just thinking i don't miss shit i didn't rig shit um just being like oh this is the greatest and then so for many years then after that it was a thing where uh i would have uh i'd have some some drinks like the thing i'd be looking forward to would be the drinking on christmas morning But again, much more in the direction of the mimosas than the eggnog spiked. Now, there's one epic picture of me as a kid where I could have used some booze, I think. There is a family picture from Christmas morning when we finally started celebrating Christmas that gives your birthday party plugging your ears photo a real run for its money. Really? It's like we're all sitting on the floor because that was like the Christmas tradition. Again, we didn't have a tree for a long time, but we would do presents in the stocking. For some reason, that was allowed. But we'd all be sitting around on the carpet in the living room, and all my sisters are just beaming. And obviously, something has happened because I have the biggest scowl on my face. I'm so mad.

It's probably just the click of the camera, though, right? Or do you think it really was you were having some sort of an issue?

I was having some kind of meltdown. I was probably, I don't know, 10 or 11. I just looked pissed. Who knows what had gone down? But that's, you know, they should have slipped me a drink. I probably would have been in a much better mood.

Yeah, you said your sisters were beaming. Maybe you should have been Jim beaming. Exactly.

Didn't you have a story about Christmas that you wanted to share?

Well, I don't know if I did want to share it. That's kind of the thing. Like, I had something ready to go if we needed something. Well, I've got a Christmas miracle to talk about. All right, well, let me talk about your Christmas miracle. Then we'll decide if we need to get into my sordid Christmas past.

Well, I was concerned, Andrew. that i was tonight as of a few days ago i was i was worried that i would not worried i thought it was a probably a um unavoidable that i was going to be once again as i did last year andrew on christmas night so tonight going to sea tack airport to get on an airplane to fly to frankfurt germany for one day and fly back to get my dingus airline miles that i so crave because this year if you'll believe it i'm actually approaching i'm getting close to having flown a hundred thousand miles which is the highest level you can be at old alaska airlines they used to 75k used to be the top and then they made 100k the top and now now i can't i you know i can't be a second class citizen of those 100k people since i'm at like 91k for the year so i was like doing all of this research and i was in close consultation with our friend broadcast barry who is the absolute oracle on these things and i was going on all these different websites and i was trying to find basically an airline that associates itself with alaska airlines i.e i get the miles that i could fly somewhere really far away but for not that much money and ideally in first class because if i'm going to do a crazy trip like this the only way that it's survivable is if at least i'm in a really comfortable seat where i can like lay down or something because essentially you're not booking

a trip you're booking well i mean i guess you're booking yeah you're booking basically like 20 to 30 hours on an airplane with maybe punctuated by a seven hour break on the ground precisely it's

it's referred to in the industry and by industry i mean people like me who sacrificed all level of their personal life to have airline status uh it's called a mileage run and people do it all the time i've been on planes with people that are doing it i'm like oh hey what are you doing in new york nothing turning around the other i'm getting off and i'm walking to a different uh you know terminal and i'm getting on a different flight and i'm flying home hey i'm flying here that's

That's what they say.

It's like, again, it's a very, very sad state of affairs. But also, I will say I don't regret doing it last year because it was the reason that I was able to be at this. I was gold 75K last year, which was still enough that I get to pick what seat I'm going to be in and I don't have to pay for bags and things like that. Here's the thing. If you go to 100K, you can bestow MVP gold status on one other person. what a what kind of a weird wait wait demented are you giving up your situation has alaska

rot are you i'm sorry to cut you off are you giving up yours or no you're you're just like you you get one and then you get one to give away you but you're not giving away the same level so

if you get to one here are the things you get if you get to this again if you are willing to basically abandon uh everything that's important in life so as to be mostly in airports and on airplanes and you get to this number of 100 000 miles flown in a year you are 100k you're like the highest thing that you can be with alaska airlines it means you're gonna very likely get upgraded if there are any available seats on the plane like in the first class but you also get a like a magic wand i don't know if it's really a wand of mvp gold status now what that is is like not the top but it's better than nothing it's it's it gets you free luggage it gets you a free bag you know check and all that and it gets you maybe some upgrades here and there it's it's a it's a it's a lot better than not having it and they give you one to bestow on any other person

that you want well i mean i was just gonna say that i think you've been very fun lately and yeah and you actually like it really catches in your throat doesn't it kind of handsome too i mean you've been looking good your eye thing is cleared up we haven't talked about that in a while so like yeah i mean so you're probably thinking like where uh where would i bestow this i'm i am of

course bestowing it upon becca if i get it if i if this whole thing works out but so i was going back and forth because again it's it's when you say it out loud it's it just as my friend tom bodette used to say it really sounds like what it is which is a ridiculous thing to fly to another continent and then back just so you can board the airplane first leg for the next calendar year And I thought, why don't I just give them a ring over there at old Alaska Airlines? And I found out that I can just pay some money for the last 9,000 miles. Oh, I think I've heard of this, yes. And just round it up. They're called EQMs. Or I can even use miles that I have, like in my account. I can pay for it with my—this is where it gets complicated. I have airline miles. I can use them to... buy these other special kind of miles. And what that does is gets me to this number that I want to get to, which is 100K. You also get a free lounge membership all year, which is like 500 bucks. That's a pretty good deal. So I called up and the woman was very helpful and she said, oh yeah, you know, you can just buy these miles. And it's much less than like a ticket to Germany and I don't have to go on an airplane to Germany. And it's a steal of a deal, Andrew. It's a christmas miracle i don't have to i don't have to fly anywhere tonight i'm gonna be able to get

to get to my goal i am pretty sure obviously i don't play around these spaces i am pretty sure i've heard of eqm though isn't bell biv devoe playing at the eqm casino i think maybe the biggest and best in the northwest here's one thing about the eqc casino thank you for bringing it up that drives me crazy in their commercials they do brand themselves as the biggest and best in the northwest right but they have some commercials i don't know which ones they advertise a lot on sports radio of course about upcoming events happening at the eqc or if you just want to you know they also have ads that are just like about going and spending a weekend there come uh play stay and play come play and stay um but uh they they've now switched to saying come and find out why they call it the biggest and best in the northwest i'm like they don't dude you do they call it that because you sat down it's like saying it's like giving yourself a nickname and then being like that's why they call me the fisher cat they don't call you the fisher cat andrew you decided to start calling yourself the fisher cat so that's my uh that's my holiday beef andrew if you knew

that tom segura was coming to the eqc uh uh or even that did you i mean would you be talking this way if you knew that danny vernon was coming to the eqc with the illusion of elvis you can celebrate Elvis's birthday with Danny version's illusion of Elvis tribute show at the EQC event center is that actually magic and Elvis

impersonation well that's where I think

it doesn't say anything about magic which is kind of I think you shouldn't put illusion in there unless you're going to be doing I don't think it says experience all three iconic eras of Elvis the 50s hillbilly cat the 60s movie years and the legendary 70s jumpsuit era at no point does it actually describe him doing magic tricks though which again i think illusion of elvis is a misleading name for your act i would be expecting to see

somebody get cut in half would you believe that i have danny vernon's uh cell phone number right now it is prominent on his website we could call him on christmas that might be a little bit rude but on the website you can contact him via a cell you can call or text directly to book him And I am seeing nothing related to magic as well. It does say that he wanted to he wanted to celebrate the various stages of Elvis's career. So you can like kind of choose, as I believe you were just saying a moment ago, like which which which version of Elvis. Do you remember the big Elvis stamp like debate of the early 90s?

Yeah, I listened to actually a really great episode of I want to say 99 percent indivisible about that, about the whole story. on that which was pretty wild um it was coming down to the particular elvis that they chose and what the the very very strong feelings about which depiction of elvis was going to be chosen for it

i had i had not heard that i just have memories of it from the time i think they went with a younger elvis right i think it was a brilliant tell me you know you if you heard that recently you'll have more info on this this is just my like sort of vague foggy memory of this but like First of all, I feel like kind of an early example of really in this in this case, it was kind of the government because it was the U.S. Postal Service, but still like of a company really getting great engagement from people before the Internet. You know, like, I mean, I don't know how many stories like that exist before the Internet. You know, like, I feel like so many brands have tried to recreate that, like, to varying degrees of absurdity, like left twix and right twix or like whatever, like trying to create this sort of false dichotomy. But in this case, or I think Monopoly would do that a lot over the years. Like, you know, we're going to get rid of one Monopoly piece. What are you going to vote off the island? And what should we vote in? Of course, it's a cat. Like, but the U.S. Postal Service nailed that back and again. I'm going to say kind of early 90s and 92 and they went with the I believe they went with what they were calling the young Elvis.

Right. Yeah. It was considered kind of controversial at the time because commemorative stamps had never been used on like pop culture figures. Oh. And also Elvis, you know, had, you know, battled drug issues and things like that. So there were some people that thought it wasn't.

fitting to put him on a stamp and then there was just the question of like which version of elvis are we going to depict and you're right they went with young elvis i'm in a subreddit about this whole thing right now and somebody called no bread fruit 1849 says this explains the line in futurama if they put me on a stamp tell them to use the young bender that's only funny like

if you know bender like you know bender yeah there's just i didn't know that was ending with bender that i that reminds me i was at the post office recently and it was leading up to the holiday times i'm going to say this was maybe early december and um i was doing tbtl business there i do a lot of my business out of the post office these days and uh i heard somebody up at the counter in front of me it's pretty long line this day and i heard a fella say yes i'd like a book of stamps do you have any betty white stamps and the woman said no we're all out and he was seems so disappointed he's like i don't know then give me whatever yeah i think i i you know we should double check that i'm pretty sure i heard him say betty white stamps i believe it i mean

listen the demo of people who love betty white and who are still mailing mail you know that needs a stamp it's probably a fairly big overlap by the way it was 99 invisible the episode was you ain't nothing but a postmark oh that's a good name that's really great oh that's really good by the

I highly recommend folks check that out if you want to know more about the Elvis stamp. Apparently, the Betty White stamps are not coming out until 2025. I thought that that was a pretty quick turnaround because she passed away not all that long ago. But I see that NPR wrote about this in mid to late November that they're going to have this Betty White stamp. So this person probably heard about the Betty White stamp on the radio or in the news somewhere and was excited about it but didn't get the details that they weren't released yet.

Well, maybe they can bide their time by seeing the Giggly Squad live at the EQC on Thursday, March 6th. Laugh along with Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo as they bring their hit podcast to the stage at the EQC Event Center, Andrew. From relationships and horoscopes to TV and personal stories, these two keep it real, raw and hilarious. Have we ever been described as real, raw, or hilarious? Have any of those words ever been used to describe our podcast?

People have described my nerves as being raw before, but I think that's about it for me.

I mean, the fact that there is a podcast I've never heard of that is successful enough that it can play what I assume is a fairly large rub at the EQC. And that that will never be us is, you know, it's a lot to take in here on Christmas Day, Andrew.

Well, do you think they ever played the Friends Center in Philadelphia? Probably not. I think we have our own special thing going on.

We sure do. And that was a wonderful, wonderful night that I'll never forget. So, yeah, take that, Club Giggly.

Thank you for being a 10.

Talk about a gift, Andrew. Talk about something under the tree. these folks uh whose names i'm about to read are they're giving tbtl their hard-earned money every month or maybe in a lump sum at the beginning of the year they are supporting the show and uh and it's uh it's it's an amazing thing and it's uh the only way that we could do this uh day in and day out including here on this actual christmas day we're talking about aaron irkenswick of las vegas nevada nice christmas in vegas love it i'm gonna be down there in the springtime in like the month of may to go probably right i think so yeah i've already got i've already got my uh my stuff booked it's the it's around my birthday but it's actually like um becca's sister-in-law's birthday so everybody's getting together down there maybe we'll bump into aaron uh are you thinking already

about how i mean your life has changed a lot probably since the last time you went to vegas to really party hardy with the party hardy gang and we know that you have you know gone pretty hard in vegas before are you thinking about like going there with kind of a different group of people with different expectations of what a vegas weekend looks like yeah but you know i've

actually been to vegas with these folks um in the last like maybe seven eight months oh i didn't you know it was it was really interesting because i had a lot of fun and i didn't go crazy i didn't you know like do my my previous thing which would be to just literally drink and gamble you know for a basically like a three-day bender practically uh have them use the young bender when they're depicting me on the stamp um but uh but it was it was really fun like it was a you know becca and i went for some runs in the morning morning, which is kind of anathema, it would seem, to Vegas life, but I actually really enjoyed my time there in a way that I didn't expect to, because I kind of thought, well, if I'm going to be here and I'm not just, like, loaded the whole time, what even is the point? But it was fun.

It's how I feel about church, yeah.

Right? Mm-hmm. Father, his eggnog smells funny. Please confiscate that. He's trying to transubstantiate that into something. Christmas math.

Sir Eggnog cannot be transubstantiated.

but no I mean I actually had a I had a fun time and it was nice to keep things kind of like within reason like getting some sleep at night and I mean I did have a few drinks it wasn't like I was you know completely on the wagon but it just was not it wasn't the way it was in my 20s with the with Toon and the mummy and I this has just got to be part of you know the aging process I guess but it was really fun and it was kind of nice to it was nice to like we you know Beck and I going and getting, you know, some breakfast or whatever, having some brunch at, like, 10 in the morning and feeling, like, pretty good. Like, that was an unthinkable thing in my previous Vegas trips. Aaron knows what I'm talking about. Yeah. Thank you, Aaron.

We do appreciate it.

Thanks to Lauren Realberg of Philadelphia, PA.

I'm going to punctuate everybody's name with this slightly too long jingle bells.

Oh, this is great. Let's get in the mood here. Keeping it real, Berg, in Philadelphia, PA. It's Lauren. We thank you. Hey, speaking of Philly. Thank you, Lauren. Yeah. Speaking of the Friends Center. That's right. Has the Giggle Squad been to Philly lately? I don't think so. Doubt it. Thanks to Luke Waters of Seattle, Washington. What a name. Waters. Waters.

What a name. Like Roger. Thanks, Luke. I've heard that Roger Waters. Well, you've got to wait for the bells to end before we think. I'm sorry. I'm just, I have a lot to learn. I'm not going to compare Luke to Roger Waters because I've learned very recently that Roger Waters is a problematic person. Didn't realize that. Luke is not, though. The only problem with Luke is that his family found out he's donating to TBTL. But we'll get around that, Luke, I promise.

Nobody has to know. It can be our little secret, Luke. You know, I work with a cameraman for CBS in L.A. He is a guy named Luke, and he's an Aussie, and he is devastatingly handsome. And every time I see him, because we're on a lot of shoots together, I'm always like, hey, cute Luke. He's like, he should be the correspondent. There's two guys that fit this bill. There's a producer named Richard Budenhagen who looks like James Brolin. Oh, wow. I mean, when I'm out on a shoot with him, it's like he's 6'4 and looks like James Brolin. And then I'm like, hello? It's like, who is the camera supposed to be pointing at right now? And then the other one is Cute Luke, the Aussie. So, anyway. Wait a second.

I think I'm confusing Josh Brolin with James Brolin. James Brolin's the dad. Oh, I didn't know that he had a dad. I mean, everybody's got a dad, but I... He has a dad who is a famous actor. Oh, I see. Okay, yeah, now I'm seeing that.

But a real silver fox. I think he might be married to... Or he's in a relationship with Barbra Streisand, and I'm going to tell you something that you don't care about, Andrew, but this is a Christmas gift to some of the listeners who do care about it. You know the Aerosmith song? I don't know what the name of the song is, but it's the I don't want to close my eyes, don't want to fall asleep because I miss you, babe, because I don't want to miss a thing.

I don't want to miss a thing.

At first I had no idea what you were talking about

Until that last line

Even when I dream of you The sweetest dreams will never do I still, okay, so anyway I think that might have been in the movie One of those movies where they're going to a space rock To save humanity Might have been That song Is written about something James Brolin Said to Barbra Streisand Barbra Streisand Was doing an interview somewhere with some TV network, and she was talking about how in love with James Brolin she was and how he had said to her, I don't want to fall asleep because I'm going to miss you when I'm asleep.

Oh, how romantic.

And the writer Diane Warren, the writer of songs Diane Warren, saw this interview and then wrote that song that Aerosmith ended up performing.

Really? Yeah.

Thank you. And you know who really loves that story? Malia Maddock of Everett, Washington.

Thank you, Malia, for donating and for giving Luke a better response to that story than I gave him. I think you have mentioned that to me before, but I never remember the details.

Also, thanks to Kamian Geyer of Belfair, Washington. Bell? Fair? I got some fair bells right here. Belfair's beautiful. That's near where my sister Hannah lives. Nice. Well, thank you, Kamian. Thanks, Kamian. And then thanks, oh, come on. You're pale. Leah Chiarelli, Shoreline, Washington, one-time Haller Lake Christian Preschool, co-classmate of mine, my dear friend Leah Chiarelli. Leah thank you I love seeing your name on this list it's really appreciated

yes thank you to everybody and say hi to your

is anybody from your preschool donating Andrew

um I don't let me see you should have been a little cooler in preschool you know what I should have been a lot cooler in preschool

dude I must have been the most uncool kid in that preschool like when I think about the get ups that my mom was probably putting me in which I probably didn't have the wherewithal to push back on I mean 100% hand-me-down. I'm sure 100% kooky. I had crazy hair that my dad cut. I didn't get to go to a like a professional cut haircutter. I had like a bowl cut, I think, because that was the kind of haircut my dad knew how to do. But you went to preschool, though. Not first grade, but you did go to preschool. Well, I think this Howler Lake thing was even like, yeah, it was like, it was preschool, so it wasn't even kindergarten yet. And I did, I did kindergarten, but I did it at a weird kindergarten called Pillar of Fire then I didn't do first grade. The fact that you call it

Pillar of Fire makes me know that this is a weird kindergarten. Exactly. It was a hell of a place. But anyway.

I didn't do preschool. You didn't do preschool? No, it's probably why you're more educated than me. That's why you use those big words. Do you see that? That's a, that's one of the questions on the hay dummies. You know what, I think I might even, we have a list of questions from listeners that we answer for our hey dummies video series and one of them sometimes they're just thrown out to both of us sometimes they're specifically for one of us and this one was hey luke can you tell us it's on the list maybe you'll answer it i'm paraphrasing hey luke can you tell us how you develop such a big vocabulary or such a large vocabulary i needed i haven't checked the list lately but i am liking that question yeah i was hoping you'd use a bigger word there than like Andrew, I've assessed that that is a very good question. But I just thought it was really interesting that that one was not, like, thrown to both of us, but just you. So just you and your big-ass vocab. Merry Christmas.

Thank you, yes, and a Happy New Year. Thank you to all of our donors today for making the show possible. And thank you to everyone for listening on this Christmas Day. I hope wherever you are, if you're catching this on actual Christmas Day, you're having a nice time. You're getting to spend it with some folks that you love and that you're feeling good on this 25th of December. We are going to be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. What I was thinking we should do, Andrew, is and we'll talk about this on the show tomorrow. But like as we are kind of rounding the corner towards the end of 2024 and going into the new year, there's a lot of top stories that we didn't get to in 2024. for. People know this. If you've listened to the show, it's almost a bit now. So we should revisit some of those top stories that we didn't get to and get to them. Yes, we should. And I also have

a question because I'm the one who always saves our old show sheets. And so I shared a document with you. I've been going through it. And I want to know what that experience has been like and if

I'm in trouble. We'll talk about it on the show tomorrow. So we'll see all of you for that. In the meantime have a great uh holiday um enjoy yourself is that what they say and please remember

no mountain too tall and enjoy yourself to all power out