Muse

Excuse me. Hi. You're Casey Casey. You're unbelievable. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. No, no, no. Seriously, I'm telling you. You blow me away. Why, it's really nice of you to say that. No, no, no. I'm telling you what you do. It's really amazing. It's fabulous. Yes, well, can we get... No, no, no. I'm telling you. I'm telling you what you do. I really get it. I get what's going on with you. It's amazing. Really. Great stuff. Yes. No, no, no. Really. Tell me a favor. Say, coming in this week at number one, it's Lionel Richie. It's stuck on you. I really don't think I can do that. No, no, no. Come on. Do it. Seriously, do it. Come on. Do it. this week as lionel richie was stuck on you that's great all right through shaggy from scooby-doo

so maybe this isn't exactly the most polished radio broadcast you've ever heard it's not that bad

honestly it is but it's not i swear every time this guy talks all i hear is a turkey goblin huh The meat from the street sounds like a fun treat. I'm a poet and didn't even know I was rhyming those words.

That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works. All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of TBTL, the show. It just might be too beautiful to live. Happy New Year's Eve Day to all of you. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host right over there, my hard partying friend, the longest running co-bro of the show, Mr. Andrew Walsh. Hello.

Hello, Luke. I would put that drop we heard right there a moment ago near the top of my list of favorite jokes. The Brooklyn Nine-Nine drop? The Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I'm a poet and I didn't even realize I was rhyming those words. It's one of my favorite jokes that we play on this show.

And is that? That's Andre Brouwer, right?

Yes. Rest in peace. I know. I got to say, that bums me. Would it bring me down on New Year's Eve Day? Why would I bring that up? Why would I bring up a funny joke said by a fellow who's passed? He's so beloved. Let's honor him. And I do love that show. I love to drop in on that show. It's a good feel-good show. It makes you laugh. And the characters, and I believe the actors behind the characters, are truly, truly lovable. It's a very feel-goody show, sometimes to a fault, but mostly to a degree that I really enjoy. And something about Andre Brower especially is just so lovely, and it breaks my heart when I turn it on now, and he's making me laugh so ridiculously hard, and I remember that he's gone way, way, way too soon.

What a cool legacy, though. I mean, what a sad thing that he's gone too young. but what a nice i mean do you think andrew do you think anyone will ever listen to this when we're long gone and laugh and laugh and drop till their socks come off do you think we'll have the the impression and this we said this when we were memorializing andre brower and it's an obvious point but for him to be a performer who contains the ability to be the person that he was in serious roles like homicide and things like that and then be as great as he was on brooklyn 99 that's

some range you know that's a good reminder i really need to go back that's homicide life on the streets right isn't that yeah like david simon early stuff yeah i need to go back and

watch that you watched some of that right i did yeah i mean that was good before i don't think the wire was actually out yet um so that was some real gritty you know crime you know written from the perspective obviously david simon was a crime reporter for the baltimore sun so yeah had a pretty unique perspective on it and uh yeah i remember that was network television though like i believe that was that was you could watch that on i'm gonna say nbc yeah so that's my

understanding of it again you've seen it i haven't but that like it wasn't a breakout like the wire because it still fit the format and the mold of more of a network procedural because that's what came before right only you could knowing that knowing what would come later with things like the why are you look at that show as being like something that kind of stood out in the format in

the restraints of the format it it was it was i think for for being on network television it was really really kind of didn't pull its punches and didn't cheese it up it cheesed it up a lot less than a lot of the other things that were out there portraying like police and policing and i think it's kind of credited with in fact i'm looking at a story in the guardian homicide life on the street the show that led us to the golden age of television oh there was kind of like pressure it was yeah it was like okay this is this is good now if we leave network television we can start getting our our wires our sopranos our you know other kind of real hard-hitting shows like that it also featured yafit kodo one of the great hairdos i believe in network television and great name. I don't know that. name at all yeah he was just like one of the guys on the show but then also you had richard belzer oh also r.i.p the comedian who was uh kind of a deadpanning uh detective i believe now here's the thing though what is it that they call andre brower's character from brooklyn 99 down at the country club because he keeps suing them oh i furious george okay they call me oh wait hold

on let me let me just find that right now hold on you play that for me bell i'm i'm juggling so many ideas here. Belzer is a comedian. Richard Belzer

was a comedian long before he was on Homicide Life on the Street.

I never watched Homicide Life on the Street, but when I see his face, I just because he's a law and order guy too, right? Not that he was on the show Law and Order. He just truly believed in law and order.

He just thinks the criminals need to be shown who's boss, Andrew. He's a law and order guy.

So I just know him as Mr. Procedural. And keep in mind, I don't watch any procedural, so everything that goes and that sort of like Law & Order CSI whatever versus. Like, I'm very, I just have no context for it all. So I didn't know that he was a comedian.

That was his first actual thing. Well, first, I'm now on his Wikipedia page. Tenacious Ray.

I had to relax my brain for a second. As soon as I stopped thinking about it, I remembered they called me Tenacious Ray.

Furious George, I believe, is one of the, it's one of the, well, that, but he's also one of the monkeys that's in a monkey knife fight in international waters on The Simpsons. Really? Remember when they, yeah, where they're on a boat. There was an episode of The Simpsons where they're on a boat that goes out into international waters so the law doesn't apply. Yeah. So there's a monkey knife fight.

I remember the monkey knife fight, yeah.

And one of the monkeys is named Furious George.

I had no, I only knew that as George Kirby's nickname, the pitcher for the mariner, people call him Furious George because he's a bit tempestuous off the mound. I did not realize that that was a Simpsons reference.

I believe that's also the same episode where drederick tatum fights a horse also legal in international waters that sounds right tenacious ray because of how i keep suing them yes here let me see a great line can we play that

yeah sorry i started laughing it's new year's eve day let's celebrate wow you know when we wasn't it yesterday that we were going through all of the shows that have a strong representation on um in our dry opens brooklyn 99 did that come up in our conversation i don't think it did

and it should have probably because I'm thinking about the Backstreet Boys number. Yes, there's so many. The one that we played today, the Street Meat. Wait, is that the one we just played?

Yeah, but sometimes I do use that as a dry open as well. Speaking of, here is this one.

Okay, the computer is tabulating. Oh, you got category I9C3G6.

I9C3G6. Is that as good as it sounds?

You have a robust sense of self and are well-suited to leadership positions, characteristics, strength, determination, tenacity.

Yes, I suppose that's accurate. They do call me Tenacious Ray down at the country club because for the past 10 years I've been suing them for discrimination.

That is so good.

Oh, man. Brooklyn Nine-Nine only comes in as a 13 count over the past four years. That kind of surprises me, but we have a lot of them.

But we've treasured each one of those appearances. By the way, Richard Belzer was the warm-up comedian for Saturday Night Live for three seasons.

I know that yesterday I made such a joke of blowing off our main topic, but today I actually want to get to the main topic, but I also want to hear— Oh, I guess there wouldn't be probably a lot of tape of him doing the warm-up because that's not broadcast. That's like warming up the crowd, I should say.

Right, yeah. I mean, how many layers of this can we sort of do, Andrew? Like, so the plan was originally, hey, let's try to knock out some top stories that we promoted and never got to. And then yesterday we got totally distracted and then decided, ah, we might as well do this kind of word cloud today from a listener. And we're not even getting to that. We're talking about Richard Belzer.

And we are going to continue to talk about Richard Belzer because now I have found a clip from 1992 from A-list stand-up. And this was the era when I kind of first got cable. My family first got cable. And actually, this is, well, it's going to get a little bit sad, but this is when my parents got a divorce. I'm okay.

You were using comedy to cope with you.

I'm okay, yes. I was writing a lot of poetry. One of my favorite Onion headlines of all time is study shows children of divorce more likely to write bad poetry. My friend used to send that to me all the time because in college I fancied myself a writer. But anyway, during this time in 92, I was living with my dad in Lakewood, Ohio, by Lake Erie Screw, on the shores of Lake Erie Screw. And I was watching so much stand-up comedy We had just gotten cable So I was And this was like the heyday of like VH1 had a couple of comedy shows Comedy Central had a bunch of comedy shows hosted by Marc Maron, like one drink minima or two drink minima, or whatever that one was.

It was the golden era of people in front of brick walls.

It really was, and terrible tapestry, according to this clip we're going to play here of Richard Delser. But now that I see him as a young man on the stage in this outfit that he's wearing, it's not a uniform, I'm like, yes, I do remember this cat, and I call people cat now. Oops, okay, I'm going to stop playing the theme song from that, and I said I'm going to stop playing the theme song from that. Oh, my God. Where is this playing, Luke? We got it. Everybody calm down. Here's Richard Belzer, 1992.

Well, California is a good place to live because that's where all the ex-presidents come out here. You've got Gerald Ford in Palm Springs. You've got Ronald Reagan and Bill Air. Oh, no. Oh, yes. Mommy, do you have my depends on you? Because I'm going to be out for more than an hour. I don't want to. Reagan will not go away. He's like a science fiction creature, Reagan. you know he got elected in 1980 that wasn't scary enough then he got shot and he came back

then they took three feet out of his colon he came back then they took a piece off his nose and he came back then they drilled a hole in his head and he came back he's like jason from friday

the 13th wow strong uh dan campbell energy

if only he could have known he was describing a full-blown gambling you got Campbell it's great you know you wonder about material from that air like it sounds you know that sounds a little little hacky to me but the thing about Belzer was because he was also a frequent guest on the Howard Stern show for years I think like in the early days when maybe it was hard for them to get people on he was this is like before his you know homicide life on the streets and other you know law and order days he was i just think a stand-up comedian who was willing to go on stern so they loved him he was not a cheesy dude in fact he was very like he was very droll and very like what's the word i'm looking for just kind of like not in the slightest bit hacky or sentimental but that stand-up comedy sounds a

little hacky yeah certainly it's of an era and also he's probably trying to you know he's just trying to be successful at this thing and I think you have to put on a certain mask sometimes not everybody can go out there and be you know who's the incredible who's the incredibly droll guy rich you mean Stephen

Wright you mean right Stephen Wright on the Johnny Carson show around the same era actually this is 1982 I'm going to play this for you I

want to see earlier okay how good

and maybe not good I don't know what what I'm trying to find out here is how many times can we not get to what the plan is on the show um no what i'm trying to find out here is is all stand-up comedy of the early 90s bad because it was happening in or let's say the 80s because this is 1982 was there just something that meant that no one could achieve escape velocity from from just the comedy being lousy or were there people like steven wright that were somehow even all those years ago kind of doing something that was actually edgy and interesting we're going to listen to a little bit of steven right on the Johnny Carson he's got oh Steven Wright has a shocking amount of hair and yeah I believe that's how you know it's old thanks I'm already

laughing the stones I love the stones I can't believe they're still doing it after all these years by the way Andrew

40-plus years ago?

He's 13 years away from Steel Wheels coming out, I believe.

42 years ago? I can't do the math, but that's an insane thing to realize. In 1982, it was insane that the Rolling Stones were still touring.

It's not even 20 years yet. They probably got their start in the mid to late 60s, right?

Yeah, probably. Watch them whenever I can. Fred and Barney

That's a really good joke

It makes more sense too You're right We were only 20 years into it That's a really really good joke

Last summer I drove cross country With a friend of mine We split the drive And we switched every half mile The whole way across We only had one cassette tape To listen to I can't remember what it was. It was good, though. I liked it. We were in Salina, Utah, when we were arrested for not going through a green light. We pleaded, maybe. I was feeling good. I had just received my bachelor's degree in calcium anthropology, the study of milkmen. i was traveling with my friend george some people think george is weird because he has sideburns behind his ears i think he's weird because he has false teeth but he has braces on

them you know not a bad debut not not at all and true to himself like definitely true to his character you know even if not all of those totally land right it's all there he's not

cheesing it up yeah no you're absolutely right it's not like he started off with the sort of take my wife please or why don't they make the whole airplane out of the black box and then

got his voice over time like that's his voice that yes that's the joke that's the joke although his voice is his literal voice is a little bit higher there you can hear the youth in his voice

remember you so um vaguely all right so how about this can we at least try to knock out please i don't know a a word or two and can you remind us of what exactly the plan was and is for today

so here's the deal in this case i gotta say i don't remember the thing that listener kristin and thunder bay that's ontario right thunder bay ontario kristin wrote in and said last year a 10 sent in a list of words that you guys had used over i believe i met kristin by the way at the

after party at the get-together after the Philadelphia event. Oh, cool. We chatted, unless we've got two folks living in Thunder Bay, which seems like a lot for us.

Yeah, that does. I mean, it could be a hot thunderous zip for us. Hot thunderous zip. Sorry, everybody involved. But anyway, apparently, we must have talked about it on the show, a 10 sent in a list of words that we had said over a year of episodes. This year, Kristen says, I kept my own list of TVTL words, W-O-R-S. I'm sure there were others, but these are the ones that I caught and I put in my Google Keep folder. So I'm guessing that these are just kind of unusual words or slightly big words or dipping into that famous vocabulary of yours that just sort of stood out to Kristen. And there's a list of probably, I'm going to say about 20 here, and I don't know how many we can get through. But my idea was just to lay these on you, Luke, and you just freestyle it Robin Williams style. I want to know, like, I'm going to go in order. I'm not going to bounce around first.

You know, I do feel like talking about my big vocabulary is like talking about Kim Jong-un's big arsenal of weapons. The real question is, is he going to use them responsibly?

Yeah, right. You do have some anxiety about words.

I got plenty of words, but the question is, like, do I actually know how to operate them safely?

I saw a Farside cartoon the other day. This isn't going to pay off, and it's not even that funny, and we have other things to do, but I already started the sentence, so here we go. So on my page a day – oh, by the way, I already bought my – I'm all set for next year, my Farside off-the-wall calendar. I got it as a gift last year.

But this one is just the rap group, the Farside, right?

That's right, yeah. Who are touring, by the way. But anyway, I'm locked and loaded for tomorrow. Tomorrow's New Year's Day, of course, and I have my Farside off-the-wall calendar ready to go for 2025. five but um in the past couple of weeks i saw one uh a cartoon and it's a it's just a bunch of guys working in like a bomb factory and it looks like there's a there's a guy coming in like he's just starting his shift and they're like oh here he comes never makes a dud and i know that's a funny joke it's a pretty good joke steven wright take note okay so you're uncomfortable with this but i'm gonna lay some words down on you i gotta say some of these like the first word is select Celerity, C-E-L-E-R-I-T-Y. Now, I can say I've heard that word before, but I don't know off the top of my head what celerity is. I feel like you must have used this. I couldn't have.

I don't think I know that word. I think we must have read it in an article. Maybe. Celerity. And then, like, just either we stopped and talked about it and I'd forgotten it or we maybe didn't even. But I don't think I would have just used it, you know, kind of randomly in a sentence because I couldn't tell you one thing about – it's spelled with a C.

It looks like celery. It kind of makes you hungry.

Celerity.

Celerity. And now that I'm looking at the definition, I feel like I'm vaguely remembering talking about this. It is an archaic literary noun. So, in other words, it's not used in modern parlance. but it's swiftness of movement and I do feel like I remember having that conversation at some point where we realized that that's what I meant

what is alacrity to move with alacrity I think is also to move quickly

is that on this I'm looking at all the A words there are a lot of A words a lot of things we can't say on the radio here no alacrity is not on the list but hopefully that'll be

I guess it's brisk and cheerful readiness see that Andrew Wow.

Wow, you were very good.

I just fired a typo dong over the Kamchatka Peninsula, and I'm starting an international incident. That's totally, alacrity does not mean what I thought it meant. I thought it meant, like, to do something kind of quickly and briskly, but it means to do something, well, brisk and cheerful readiness. She accepted the invitation with?

Alacrity. Okay.

I was in the right city, but I was one neighborhood over. What about Rashomon? Oh, that's a go-to for old L.B.

And that's not just film, but that's a storytelling thing, right? Sometimes I get that confused. It's not the story within a story within a story. It's something else. That's a Matrushka doll. Matrushka is what I'm thinking of, yeah.

Rashomon is that film that's the same story as told from multiple different perspectives. I think it's a Japanese director. There's also a book by Nagib Mahfouz called Miramar, which follows the same principles. This idea of a story, one event being told from multiple perspectives, but Rashomon is kind of the most commonly cited thing and the kind that's really in my wheelhouse, i.e. I've never seen the movie. I just know that that's what happens in the movie. That's like most of the references I make.

and it's a type of storytelling you were talking before uh before we were talking like months ago about Todd Salons I don't remember why he came up on the show there was um an era where Todd Salons and another director that I confused the two of them who wrote uh Todd Haynes Todd Haynes I get those guys confused a little bit because Haynes is the one who will write the really kind of rough

kind of some real well I think Todd wait which one they I feel like they've which one is Welcome

to the dollhouse i wait i thought that was salons right that's salons and then haynes is like happiness right um yes exactly and there's one with men in the title i think yes in the company

of men that's actually what one is that was literally the but i believe that's neil labute right no oh shit i always do this i am only because no no i'm only because this is what we

did like when this came up on the show no no i don't labute and salons are the guys i'm familiar with haynes i'm less familiar with you introduced that haynes is a portland guy i believe i was nodding along with that but what did haynes do because i feel labuted in the company of men

he did far from heaven okay i don't know that he did that's oh that's a julianne moore film about sort of like suburban on we he did velvet gold mine okay i've never seen that that's the biopic

or kind of quasi-biopic about Mott the Hoople, I think, or David Bowie.

Yeah, one of those guys. Maybe it's an amalgam or something. I feel like that's – I'm scrolling through because I don't want to mess too much of this up. But, like, I feel like he's been doing – oh, God. Don't, Luke. Don't do it. Don't guess. Who's the director that did sort of a – is that Gus Van Sant who did sort of like a triptych of biopics? But they were – so I think it's Gus Van Sant because he did one called Elephant. which I think is kind of a Nirvana one then he did one that's kind of a Columbine one and then he did one that's called Jerry where it's like it's Matt Damon and Casey Affleck just walking and it's an incredible film

I didn't know these and I didn't know that they all work together because I like a lot of Gus Van Zandt's earlier stuff or maybe even mid-career stuff but I kind of missed this whole thing

i'd heard of elephant but that's all i knew i think that he did this this triptych of movies that were kind of like there was some there was a little kernel of a real event or real people but then he sort of um you know it took them and and then kind of like you know held you know ran that through the wash and then held it up behind a blurry lens you know what i mean it's not like a note for note thing but they're like this jerry story which by the way again incredible film i can't recommend it highly enough it's the only two people in the movie are matt damon and casey affleck and they're literally just walking in the movie and then they lose their minds and it was based on this real thing that happened when these two guys were road tripping from boston to california i believe from the east coast to the west coast and they stop in death valley to go on a hike and camp and they get lost and the one guy kills the other guy because the other guy said please kill me we're going to die out here and it turned out they were less than a mile from the trail and they'd been out there for 12 hours and when they tried the one dude the guy who did the killing the dead guy's family stood behind the killer because they knew that the dudes just lost their mind out there this guy didn't take go into the desert wanting to kill their son so the family of the victim actually was like a character reference for the guy who's being accused of

murder anyway that was what jerry then because that's what jerry was based on here's what i'm learning. Gus Van Zandt had, it was called

the death trilogy so this is okay so happy new year everybody the death trilogy had listen i'm

i'm getting feel like i'm getting a kind of a w on this i'm i'm vaguely in the neighborhood no

you're absolutely right jerry it must be the one that you just described elephant is the one that uh takes place in sort of a um a columbine but it takes place it looks like in oregon or something it's kind of just and then um last days was the final component of what he refers of the death trilogy and last days is the one is a fictionalized account of what happened to

kurt cobain right right right i mean like i i like i would say like if wow this is actually kind of this is interesting for the movie jerry the budget was three and a half million dollars which is shockingly high considering they shot it outside and they were walking around i don't know if that was you know just like if it was pay for the actors or what and it apparently did $254,000 at the box office How much? $254,000 so not a big money maker Not a money maker the movie Jerry but again I would recommend it's an intense and weird film but it's like I just remember thinking it was an incredible piece of filmmaking

So I want to go back though and just clear something up Nobody cares but just for me Todd Haynes is not somebody I'm familiar with I don't know that I've ever seen a Todd Haynes movie I was referring to the fact that sometimes I get Todd Salons and Neil Labute's movies confused a little bit because they're both rough in their own ways. And all of this comes back to the Todd Salons movie, and I'm looking at a list of these now. I think it might have been the movie literally called Storytelling, where I believe he either tells the same, to go back to the idea of Rashomon, he maybe tells the same story from three different perspectives, but with drastically different actors. I know he does something where there is a movie, and I remember seeing this film, It's a movie that is divided up into three different parts. And I don't know if it's the same story retold or if one part comes after the other comes after the other. But he just casts it with wildly different, all within one film, wildly, wildly different. I mean, from race to age to everything, just wildly, like I guess what you would sort of say, like blind casting. Is that what you call that? Colorblind casting. Yeah, just wildly different people playing the same characters, sort of. Does it work, if you remember? If I recall, I was not a big fan, and I think that might have been when I stopped watching his films. I did not care for the ending. Which makes me sad. Let me see here. Let me see if it was storytelling.

Well, I need to watch Rashomon, because I'm looking at it. That's Kurosawa, who, again, Kurosawa is one of those people that I just know, like, if you're a film person, And, you know, particularly if you're like a director, it's like you cut your teeth on Kurosawa films. I can't tell you one Kurosawa film I've ever seen. I should just take a day and watch a few of them so I can actually say something with any level of being informed.

You know why you and I both know storytelling as well? And I forgot about this part. This is the one that the Bell and Sebastian album storytelling was made for this movie. So this is 2001. Now, this is one where it's divided into two different stories. So it might have been another film I was thinking of where he he casts. Oh, here, the protagonist. Oh, yeah. In palindromes, a 13 year old girl named Aviva is played by eight different actors of different ages, races and genders during the course of the film, which features an array of secondary characters. So I was confusing storytelling with palindromes.

That sounds like hard for me to get through.

I remember it being a bit difficult to get through. I like a movie that doesn't follow the usual sort of conventions, so maybe I should watch it again. But I don't think I knew what I was getting into, and I'm not super smart. And it was a little bit hard to follow who was who, if I recall.

Well, as we've established on this show, I need my films spoon-fed to me, where the people are doing what I think a person would do in the situation logically, and where they don't keep changing ethnicities.

Yes, right.

That's going to pull me out of the realism, the naturalism of the experience.

Well, one thing that you'll really like about palindromes is the 13-year-old girl is a sports better, Luke. But none of it is realistic. I got you. That's a silver lining playbook reference, my friend. Well, yeah, anything that you know a lot about. That is true.

I'm insufferable that way. I really am. That's why I weep for the listeners of this show. i mean although they're pretty good about letting us know but it's like there's just nothing there's there's nothing rougher than listening you know i heard howard stern going on about this a while ago which was actually you know i've been trying to get i've been trying to like get a story on cbs sunday morning that somehow gets on the radar of that show i don't know why because i just want want to be, you know.

to touch the hem of their garment and um i uh but but in fact i heard them talking about a story from sunday morning howard stern talking about it and just kind of savaging it it was a mo rocca

story oh yeah and if that was your story i don't think i would be it would be difficult for me i'd be pretty bummed and i just if there's the one thing we learned from the chris fleming takedown of wait wait don't tell me in 2024 i have medically thick skin in fact i've been seeing

a some of the world's greatest dermatology minds and they can't they can't figure out how to solve

my the incredible thickness of my skin right exactly so are you now you sort of thinking like oh i don't know if i want them to talk about well yeah it's kind of like do i want yeah do i

want to get the attention of howard stern or not with one of these things and what he was talking about was a story that moe did uh where moe interviewed the um the the radio host elvis duran alvis duran duran has been a new york city morning radio guy forever and um and howard was basically saying like i hate these stories about radio guys because they just show the same things they show like the vu meter the lights going up and they show the microphone i was like oh man dude if i would have gotten that assignment that would have literally been what was in the piece well

what i was thinking the show it's radio and people who don't work in radio like seeing things i like

seeing things inside of a radio i know howard is just was just in a bad mood he also is he's all over the map with this because he's like you know he's like i never he's like that's why i don't do those interviews anymore because like they don't say anything interesting and then meanwhile he's like doing sit downs with like something called like dan's magazine on long island because they they print his paintings like any he was there was some betting website that found him one of the sexiest radio hosts he started the entire show talking about it like you're not media shy you just like to talk about things where you're you know feeling like you're being well received But anyway, he was just kind of going off on this piece and about how he hates any kind of profile of a radio host because they never say anything interesting about radio. And it's all these kind of, you know, tropes and stuff, which is a little bit true. But I guess my thought on that is that's how I am about a lot of things, including sports gambling and therapy. If you portray that in your film or your news story, and it's something that I have a little bit of knowledge about, I'm going to be so like needle nose, like you like to say, Andrew, about the details. And I'm sure for the listeners, all of whom have their areas of expertise and interest, we're constantly I'm probably constantly going into those territories and then just botching it.

Yeah, like I think that I I remember one time having this conversation and trying to brainstorm about things that I'm persnickety about in movies. I mean, I don't mean just about like the way I don't like cliche and stuff like that. But like, is there anything that when it's not realistic, it bothers me? And at first I thought, no. And then I remember like or maybe after having that conversation, I watched Gross Point Blank, which I don't know if you've ever seen that. But Minnie Driver, I believe, is not wearing headphones. Well, not only that, I don't think she's wearing headphones while she's like doing her job as like a radio host. But also John Cusack, who I think the story is he's coming back to his hometown. He's like a hitman now, but he's coming back to his hometown for a reunion. And he and Minnie Driver get into this big fight in the radio studio. and they're sort of like but they're broadcasting it but neither one of them is paying attention to where the microphones are at all and i just kept yelling like what does this sound like to your listeners it sounds like there are some people like way across the room and you're picking up a few words like you can't just be fighting like near microphones so no i hate that kind of stuff like mic placement is definitely one that when i see that in a movie i'm just like what that's not how that's not how that works how any of this works uh hank azaria also in there um and apparently there's a third cusack did you know there's an ann cusack what in addition to joan oh joan's in this as well this is a cusack family reunion i love me some joan cusack

one of my favorites who doesn't who doesn't what i feel like she's in a maybe i'm confusing her with my uh you know uh she's in a an open tape a piece of tape that we open with i think that right and it's of course it's not the duplication it's not the duplication investigation that's

holly hunter that's holly hunter but no no that's not holly hunter that's um and i'm sorry did i have to refer to her this way because it's a disrespectful way to refer to anybody but she is that former mrs stamos i think who's the woman who had a hyphenated last name and part of it It was Stamos for a while, right? Tiffany Amber Thiessen? No, she wasn't. No, no, no, no, no. Well, here I go. Oh, Rebecca Romijn Stamos. I think that's Rebecca Romijn in the movie. What? Toys? Hold on. Toys. No. Come on. Really? Hold on. Let me see. I get all these people confused.

I don't think Rebecca Romijn was a. No, no, no. Robin Wright. Robin Wright.

Who was Robin Wright? Penn. Sean Penn. I knew she was married.

William Penn.

I feel like I made that more disrespectful. That was Robin Wright in that. which that's all I know her from is the movie Toys.

Oh, she's Buttercup and the Princess Bride.

Oh, as you wish.

Yeah, I mean, that's Wesley, but that's who he's talking about.

Yeah, I know. But, oh, okay, so I do know her from other things.

And then she took over for Kevin Spacey in House of Cards.

Oh, did she really? They kept that going after his?

Yeah, when they had to pivot on him, then it became her show and I think had many successful seasons.

Did you hear that? What interview was he on? was it no it wouldn't have been stern uh kevin spacey kevin spacey was on some radio show i'm gonna say maybe like three or four months ago and he was like literally came to tears talking about how he has to sell his house in new orleans he had bought it like i think maybe i think i read i like a read a description of that or something cry me a river my dude cry me a river um all right what do we want to do here oh wait you were trying to think of a joan cusack vehicle and then we'll

move on um i was no well not a vehicle but i was trying to think of a a piece of audio tape that we play that has joan cusack in it that like at some point i asked you like hey who is that and you said that is joan cusack and i cannot remember yeah and and uh yeah i have this piece of tape it's

only four seconds long it's one of my favorite piece of tape that we don't use enough this is

not joan cusack this is from a listener named joanne okay oh my god your chlamydia is huge i remember that i can tell you the context of that what is the context of that there's a plant called clematis and i believe that was a story about somebody that this person knew who was confusing clematis and chlamydia and told someone was complimenting someone's plant but telling

their chlamydia was huge i don't luke i hope i'm wrong about this and i want to be proven wrong I don't think I have any Joan Cusack intro tape I feel like I would remember that I'm a big fan of hers yeah maybe so

maybe it was wishful thinking yeah I mean

maybe we should maybe that should be a goal for 2025 yeah

there's a movie where somebody's like a secret agent of some kind and Joan Cusack is their secretary but she's actually like kind of the brains of the operation she's kind of keeping the whole thing running powerful inspector gadget vibes in the sense that Penny was always really making it happen for Inspector Gadget I forget that film but I feel like that was a really good example of Joan Cusack being used really properly, Joan Cusack was essentially the co-lead of that film in my mind

Adam's Family Values, she absolutely kills it, that's one of Genevieve's favorite movies, she likes it way more than the original Adam's Family movie I believe, I'm kind of clicking through some Joan Cusack stuff here but she is a it's funny how far down Toys is she is a national treasure she is in toys and I think that that's maybe what you're thinking about

okay but that's Robin Wright that's Robin Wright and we don't have anything from toys that has Joan Cusack

in it I don't think I have I mean when you have the perfect tape from toys why would you ever pull more from toys let's see here well actually wait I do oh my god you would love this see I don't know that a lot of people know the back story on this But, like, this duplication investigation tape was something that you were not a huge fan of. But when I was pretty damn new working with you, I was just like, I loved it. And I just doubled down. Here are all the pieces of tape I have referring to the movie Toys. I have Toys duplication. I have Toys duplication compressed. I have Toys duplication short version one. And Toys duplication short version two. So, I mean, I could just chop and screw this any which way but loose. yeah and maybe um play them all at once over top of each other with one of them backwards

by the way i think that the joan cusack thing i'm thinking of is maybe gross point blank um she's playing marcella but i believe she's like my memory is she either is pressed into duty to do some kind of secret agent shit or she's on the phone with john cusack's character helping him be his hitman person or something i feel like that yes yes yes yes i think she's his

john john i haven't seen this in a long time but you're absolutely right john cusack goes back to his hometown for this high school reunion or whatever but he's still me i called him a hit man is he maybe like an actual maybe he's like an actual undercover spy or something like that like maybe no he's an assassin okay but she works for whatever organization yeah his assistant

marcella that's john cusack informs him that he has received an invitation to his high school

reunion etc etc interesting here's the only tape i have from that uh this is jeremy so uh

how's the family man oh you didn't know of course you don't know yeah parents are divorced

they got divorced yeah my dad's shacking up with this woman she's like 20 years younger than him she's like a biscuit older than me it's ugly my mom's making ceramic nightlights takes like the plain shells how's your sister did you ever marry that guy kenny kenny

Yeah, did that ever work out? Come on, man. He did three years at Joliet. They put one of those bracelets on him. Like a Lojack, you know? They know where he is at all times. I think he's at Pizza Hut right now. Let's not go there. No. Yeah, so you look good. You sound good. Thank you. You may have... Ten years, man! Ten years! Ten years! Ten! Ten years!

I don't think I use that tape very often. I think maybe I just pulled it for a ten-year anniversary or something. But that lives large in our collective memory here in the Has Walsh household because Vives and I can't say 10 years without screaming at each other in the style of Jeremy Piven.

Jeremy Piven, which it raises the question, like, where did it go so wrong for Jeremy Piven? Because he was like, you know, Jeremy Piven was on top of the world, at least as far as people like us who are comedy appreciators. He was great on Ellen's show He was great in the movie Singles He was like, I would say that people were generally pro-Piven And then, I remember us talking about how he dropped out of a production that he was supposed to be in Because he claimed mercury poisoning Because he had been eating too much sushi How was that enough, though, to move him into total villain status? I feel like most people now, of our ilk If you say, like, Jeremy Piven, they groan did he do a bunch of other like I don't think there's any allegation that he's you know been me tooing people or anything but it's just like somehow all of a sudden he went from being like a person who we liked seeing in things to a person that we all just think is kind of extremely cringe I'm just glad you brought

that up because like for Genevieve and I like Jeremy Piven has two like kind of touch points for us

there are two Pivens inside all of us

what's the buzzword I'm gonna I'm going to pivot towards Piven it's a pivot what do people say it's a pivot towards something is that what everybody was talking about making pivots I feel like somewhat recently but no like Vives and I always when we think of Jeremy Piven we think of how you and Jen just like hated Jeremy Piven over this because I always confuse it I always think that he was somehow connected to the Spider-Man enter the dark thing but that was just that was something else happening on Broadway That was more on Bono's hands than anyone's. Yeah, that was. And Julie Taymor. But it was around the same time. I think it was like 2008, 2009. And I feel like you and Jen were kind of obsessed with both stories. But when I think of Jeremy Piven, I think of you guys just crushing him for trying to get out of a Broadway play of some sort because of mercury poisoning. And I think he was already on, I could be wrong about this, but I feel like he was already on, not Succession, Entourage at that point. And I think that that's like people start. I mean, maybe there's too much of him in his entourage character, but I sort of feel like it just became a lot of a lot of douchebaggery.

I think I will mention that there was apparently there was an allegation made by someone that he had groped them. He denied it. According to Wikipedia, he voluntarily took a polygraph test and he said that he he apparently passed the polygraph test. I'm just reading off of the Wikipedia page. I didn't want to be alighting anything But I don't think that that that allegation because it's the first time even remembering that I don't even think that was really like on I don't think that You know kind of rose to the surface of like things that people think about Jeremy Piven I just feel he also did like he has the pivot didn't he have a pot didn't he do a podcast that we were really hard on him about To like yes, you and I've never been a couple of years ago. Yes. Yes. Yes It was the Jeremy Renner app of podcasts.

How you living, J. Piven? How you living, J. Piven? Wait, when's the last time they updated? I don't think they've updated it since we talked about it. The last one was published in July of 2022. The high watermark for celebrity podcasts, I would say. Oh, and guess who was on before that? Dear friends, but also you can't have a podcast without seeing an appearance from the Sklar brothers at some point. I see that. Yes.

I see that. How You Live in Jay Piven. I feel like that was, and really just the branding around How You Live in Jay Piven. The cigar. With the cigar and the, whoa, excuse me. I was not trying to play the trailer for How You Live in Jay Piven. it just this I think the problem was and again you don't know how much of this stuff becomes like you sort of it's become self-fulfilling in a way but like because we're already like this guy kind of sucks but it just it seems like this is the real Jeremy Piven who's been in there all along and now he's just in full bloom and it's like not a guy that we really want to be around and you know what

I love more than more than almost anything is um Two. We got to two words on this list of 25 words.

Well, you know what that leaves us? A lot of words to dig through tomorrow, Andrew. What do you think about that?

I am actually having a lot of fun with this. So honestly, I think that there's something special in the idea of never getting to any of the top stories that we were going to get to. I don't know. I don't want to paint us into a corner, but let's definitely at least continue this list tomorrow, if you don't mind.

Thank you for being a 10.

let's thank some donors before we wrap things up here on this new year's eve day these people are just absolutely incredible for so many reasons one of them though is that they're supporting tbtl financially which is how this can be a show that exists this is what's keeping us from going the way of how you live in jay piven that's right i mean that's what that's what felled that's what felled that tall timber was that they didn't have folks like jessica doppler of dunkirk new york

donating money thank you jessica do you remember when jessica used her own um private little boat

to go um help soldiers evacuate i was thinking more when jessica figured out why it was that a train sounded different from when it was far away to when it was next to you to when it was going

well you're focusing on the doppler i'm focusing on the dunkirk that's a classic doppler dunkirk

situation uh-huh it's another one of those also it's a different spelling than doppler in fact

it might be doppler oh we've only got one p in jessica's name okay anyway just however you spell

it however you say it however you joke it we appreciate you jessica we also appreciate jen cohen in cherry hill new jersey great thank you jen appreciate it yeah probably i mean i was gonna say not far from dunkirk new york but i actually don't really know yeah i don't know either i

I wonder if the drones are still buzzing around up there. Who knows?

Yeah, that was a wild time. Connie Evans couldn't see any of that from Stone Mountain, Georgia.

No, but she could see the laser show, which I have also seen.

Oh, right. That's a Stone Mountain thing.

It most certainly is, and it is culturally dubious at times. The South will potentially rise again, I believe, is maybe the lesson that we've talked about.

What she's doing is a carbon offset, much like when your beloved former Georgia resident eats at Chick-fil-A. She then donates that amount of money somewhere. That's what Connie is offsetting every ticket she buys to the Stone Mountain Georgia Laser Show. I've been there. By donating to TBTL. Thank you, Connie. Thanks, Matthew Scott of Honolulu, Hawaii. Matthew Scott. Thank you for the donation. Solid name, solid place to live. Matthew gets the show For three hours After everybody else

And it's more expensive That's why he has to Donate more

That's right And we appreciate you Stepping up Matthew Also thanks to Andrew Soth Of Madison Wisconsin This is

I mean I know we say it a lot But this is a great Distribution today It really is We have the American South We have Hawaii We have the Midwest

Georgia Hawaii Wisconsin Washington Kent Washington

Where Carla Beck is Kent, Washington, Carla Beck, thank you so much for keeping us going.

Thanks for rounding it out. Thanks for helping us continue to plant our flag here in Washington State, Carla. We couldn't do this without any of you. Thanks for supporting TBTL. We appreciate it, even on days when we only get to two of the words that our listener in Thunder Bay is wondering about. We'll get to a few more of them tomorrow, at least one. That's my problem. That's the Luke Burbank problem.

Are we doing a show tomorrow, or are we staying up all night tonight watching balls drop? We're going to be so frigging hungover tomorrow.

I'm going to try drinking for the first time.

Give it a shot.

I'm going to make sure that I do one pint of water for every pint of Guinness that I'm drinking.

That's exactly how you survive.

You know my New Year's Eve.

It's all Guinness. All Guinness, all water. I'm going to turn the bathtub water green.

Yes. All right. Thanks for listening, everybody. Have a great New Year's Eve. We will see you tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. In the meantime, please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all. Happy New Year.

Power out.