Muse

Is that it? Just that one word? Yeah. OK.

Yes! Hey, Stephen, that was really good. Feeling is here that you could be a bit more positive.

More positive?

Yeah. You know, really go for it.

You want me to go for it? Yeah. All right.

Yes! Very, very good. Let's just try without the script. Mine just loosened you up a little bit. What is it, one word? You don't really need it, do you?

I probably don't need the script. It's just a word.

Yeah. OK, let's do it again.

Yes! Is that it? Yes.

Right.

Hi, Stephen. Yes. This is Clem Fandango. Yes. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you, Clem Fandango. Honestly, this is going so great, but I just think there was a little loss of energy in that last take. Maybe try one more.

Are you ready to go? What?

Yep. Yes! T!

T! T!

T! T! B! T! T! T! T!

T! T!

T!

T! T! T! T! T! T!

T! T! T! T! T! T! T! T!

T! T! T! T! T! T! T! T! ruined her iPhone. You have to pay for that. It's as simple as that. So isn't that rocket science? What is rocket science? Rocket science is when the scientists find out things about space. Ah, gazpacho soup just burned my lips. A 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. And boom goes the dynamite.

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

Exactly what America wants.

My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

Oh, my God. You made it.

Coming to you once again from Oneyala Beach on the island of Maui. I feel warm, and I'm levitating. Our last day here. Partying is such sweet sorrow with this tropical paradise. We are going whale watching later, which I've never done before.

Is it too early to get a fish sandwich?

Super excited for that. Full report on Monday. Let's focus, though, on the important stuff, which is episode 4388 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Yeah, which is where we find ourselves on this Friday. Now, we have basically kind of like one famous friend here on the show. It's television's Chris Hayes. And he has been out promoting his latest book, The Siren's Call. And he was on a show that we really love called The Dan Lebitard Show. And it is Andrew's theory that he, our friend Chris Hayes, did something on the Dan Levitard show that was very TVTL adjacent. And that makes us feel like we have value. Because someone we know did something related to us on a show that we like. So we're going to play that tape and analyze it painstakingly, I believe. That will probably not leave us time for this story, but if we do find ourselves with a little bit of time left, I want to talk about this 11-year-old kid who pulled the—and by pulled, I mean, like, bought a pack of cards and found the most valuable baseball card out there right now. Kids and fantasy. It's a crazy story, and we'll try to get to it if we can. We'll definitely get to this guy. He's the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. I'm not the only one living a tropical fantasy out here in Hawaii. Yes, he's in Seattle, but he's often called the— The Miami Meat Tent. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend. Good morning, Luke. I have one short... I've got to start with a question, though, Andrew. Got any big weekend plans? Oh, shit. Why didn't you tell me that we were doing that? Do I have music? Oh, of course I have big weekend plans. Big weekend. The biggest one I've ever had. Big weekend. Nice pull on that, by the way. That was really fast. Why'd you try to trick me? I could have had that set up. I'm going to be honest with you. I forgot there was a theme song, which is insane, which is insane, Andrew, because that's why we're the best back. It's the best part of the whole thing. And I here's what my broken brain did. It was like, it'll be funny if I ask Andrew, if I make a big deal out of it and ask him weekend plans. And then he's like, I'm going to be puttering around the house. But at no time did I remember that we.

I have an incredible theme song, and I'm sorry, I did not mean to button hook you there.

Did we ever give credit to Rod Rodgers and the Swingin' Strings? And later we went calling and had a nice time. It is a wonderful song called Big Weekend. And that's by way of your friend Pauly, right? That's right. He sent it to me and Hauser on a Friday morning and just said, Big Weekend.

I want to say this, Andrew. I think it's already working because since we started playing that audio, you purchased tickets to go see the 20th anniversary reissue of the movie Dig. You've at least contemplated the idea of seeing G-Love and Special Sauce in Seattle when they pass through before I see them in Portland. I think this song has changed you fundamentally. You are a guy who now is at least open to big weekend plans.

Well, neither of those things are happening on the weekend, though, I don't think.

okay don't listen don't let the facts get in the way of a good analysis by me um let's see this

weekend i know you have well first of all i did want to say we should get genevieve on the show on monday maybe if she's available because she and i have done a lot of whale watching in our lifetime and it's all due to her wherever we go on vacation whale watching is always on the menu

i was gonna get your tips and tricks i mean i'm i don't know what there is to do other than uh Bring some sunglasses and sit on the boat while they drive us around. But, like, I know this is something you have done before. Is it a fun experience? Have you generally gotten to see whales? Yes. Yes.

I can hear you, Clem Fandango. Yes. I'm really working on my math barrier. I was working on it before the show. The listeners couldn't hear it. I think I need, well, to speak of Levitard Show, we need to do, I think I need to find my Matthew Barry voice in what they call, what do they call it, a limited fake? They call it a limited fake. You're just like the shortest imitation of a famous person.

I feel like this has become a big thing. I can't remember this comedian's name, but there is a comedian who I've, of course, seen on TikTok. I was talking to Scott and Tiffany the other night, Becca's brother and his wife, And I said, listen, when I say the internet, I mean TikTok I've been saying the internet because it sounds like slightly more highbrow Like, oh, I saw this on the internet But it just means I saw it on TikTok, at least historically Although I haven't looked at TikTok at all while I've been out here There has, of course, been the Pacific Ocean to admire They have that on TikTok I'm sure that there's actually like a relaxing Pacific Ocean live stream That I could watch that would be very satisfying But basically, there are a number of comedians who have really dialed in this thing you described, which is basically like one second impressions. And it's amazing how much, right? Like now I, well, I also have context, but like that sounds like Matt Barry to me. Like sometimes the key to an impression is, you know, don't get carried away. One word is sufficient.

Well, also, this is my trick, which Genevieve loves. the key to a good impression is telling people what the impression is ahead of time and then repeating it immediately afterwards and then saying wasn't that good wasn't that good wasn't that good didn't it sound just like him that's and Genevieve just lives for that she gets and she lives amongst that constantly yeah constantly

often on a in a small dinghy while whale watching with complete strangers

well that is one thing that I'm really interested in hearing about and I don't know if you have an answer to this yet but like the type of boat because we've been on all kinds and I feel like when we were first going we were more on like almost like boats where you're high above the water almost like ferries like small very very very small ferries sort of but then like now when we go we're like usually in one of those little rubber ones

you're in like a sea shepherd dinghy out there with Paul Shepard just in the zodiac

we have these signs that say stop whale hunting we tack them to the side of these big hunting ships we throw paint on them I don't really know you know what I was talking about

you're mixing your animal liberation metaphors but I'm here for all of it

so anyway all of that is to say nowadays we go on the smallest boats possible probably last time we were on it was maybe like a group of this would have been in Mexico I think maybe there were a total of 10 people on the boat so you know that's really great although when it's a small group like that and you don't like somebody on the boat that's not so great There was a couple on the boat I wasn't the biggest fan of. I did not like the way he talked. I did not like the vibe of their relationship.

Oof, yeah, that's stressful. I don't know because we didn't actually book this. Tiffany booked it. So, but I do know that it is. Beck and I were laughing because when we were in Europe this summer, every tour that we did ended up, there is a company called Viator that has just absolutely flooded the zone. They are, I mean, I get the sense that. They're like the they're almost sort of like the Uber of of of tours, which is I don't even think they do the tours, but they are just now the dispatch. They are when you Google like whale watching Maui, it's like the first the SEO game is tight with these guys. And this happened to us when we took a tour of like the Vatican. We were like we bought a Vatican tour from Viator and we went to the place and they were like, oh, this is you got to go four doors down to this other tour company that didn't even say Viator. We had just been like we had bought these tickets through Viator who had then basically sold our business to some, you know, random guy with a flag walking around the Vatican that we followed. You know, it's anyway. So we were looking at whale watching stuff on the plane coming out here. And we said, look, who's look, who's taken over. Look, who's pushed out the competition here in Maui. It's old Viator. And sure enough, when Tiffany booked the tickets and sent us the link, it was Viator. So I don't know what it's going to be like. What I can tell you is from our little rental here, I've seen whale watching boats going around on this side of the island, and they are exactly what you described, kind of on the larger side. But then sometimes they seem to have like a kind of a small, smaller boat with them. Like I'm wondering if maybe the big boat goes out there and then they put like 10 people at a time on the little one and let it go over near the whales. Because what I was watching yesterday from from our perch here was I actually saw whales, you know, what do you call it when they when they when they're blowing off steam, when they breach and breach and then they do that big, you know, breach and blow, a classic breach and blow. And what I what I noted was the the boat seemed very far away from where the breach and blow was happening. And I'm sure a lot of that has to do with, you know, sort of the rules and regulations. like i don't think we want these big boats right up on top of the whales um but i was like am i closer to the whale right now than the people who are out there in that boat yeah we've had all

different kinds of experiences the first time we went out we were i think we were up in like we took sort of a not ill-fated nothing bad happened it wasn't a gilligan's island situation but sort of i think it was genevieve's birthday which is in march and we went up to like somewhere and like would it be victoria or something around that time to take a whale watching yeah and that was not that that did not work out it was a big boat it was the wrong time of year we basically just sort of enjoyed a few hours on a chilly day a damp chilly day in the pacific northwest you know um and so and then but we've been in other ones and there are all kinds of rules and regulations around like you know how close you're supposed to get but then also it depends on where you are and i hate to say this but like when we were in mexico i don't know like every boat we've been on it feels like it's being run by responsible people who care deeply and that's the truth although yes i do believe that um i do believe that they're there's sort of ways to skirt it like on the smaller boats if you like kill your engine you're floating out there and then the whales come close to you that's okay but you're not supposed to get too close to them and i have wondered at times because we've gotten the i'm pretty sure it was the last time uh in we're in mexico we were so inside a whale i mean i was they call that jonah ing i was jonah ing that's an upcharge hard i had a little candle i i lit in there and you could see like the walls of the ribcage you're like drop me off at nineveh that's exactly what i said and um anyway yeah so it's

it's interesting yeah i'll be i have a feeling this is going to be very above board in a good way like you know look if i if i and i'm they were we've seen from here again not like super close up but but a lot of a lot of breach and blows going on out in the water so i have a feeling this is a good time of year for it and I have a feeling we will see something cool I don't need to be right on top of the whale for this to be a satisfying experience and if the rules and regulations being followed in any way makes the lives of these whales a little less stressful I'll happily be further away that's kind of my kind of my take on the situation it's also just

beautiful being out there and there are other animals I have a wonderful photo if I can dig it up maybe I'll make it a show pick since we don't have any from your tour yet of like Genevieve just like kind of like kind of reaching out to some dolphins that are just like swimming right alongside our little boat this was i don't know years ago or something so yeah i mean that's the thing like i enjoy being out there and it's i mean it's incredible to see the whales but there have been plenty of times where i've had the thought if we don't see a whale this is fine it's just a really fun boat trip like you're just out in beautiful waters one thing that i thought was

funny about i was reading the uh like instructions on the digital ticket and it's you know here's where you meet us and this is you know what you need to bring and these are the rules etc and then they were like cocktails are available i think it's like three dollars for alcohol and five dollars for dramamine i was like it's more for the motion sickness than the than the than

the booze oh that's beers there oh yeah this okay this is a bigger boat then there's Okay, yeah, what I was picturing...

Yeah, you're right. If they're selling alcohol, it's not a Zodiac. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just solved that mystery. Yeah. But I just thought it was funny that they will sell you Dramamine, but I think there was something... $3 sounds really cheap for booze, so maybe I'll double check it.

They're probably super, like, you know how... I mean, you've been on... Actually, you tell me this. When you're on, like, a Caribbean cruise line or whatever, I don't know if you've been on that particularly, but when you're on a cruise, I always assume when you get, like, drink packages or whatever i don't know why i assume this but i always assume it's just like the most sort of like kind of stepped on drinks like i for some reason i always picture like a um like a whiskey ginger that is mostly like ginger i don't even drink whiskey gingers i don't know why i picture myself ordering that on a boat but like for some reason i just always feel like i don't know you get a screwdriver and it's just like you know just a tiny tiny drop of vodka and then some really shitty orange juice i always picture that that's what drink tickets get you but i have no

experience i remember um when i was sort of newly 21 i remember going to tijuana actually no i wasn't newly 21 i was underage but you know you can drink in tijuana if you're like over the age of 18 or something and me and my buddies joe and ben went to tj and i remember going into a bar and it was like two dollars to get and it was like all you could drink but it was just these folding tables full of just like shitty plastic cups that it had already had whatever the drink was poured into them. And I remember having a few of these and just thinking like, holy, I can really hold my alcohol. I've had like three of these. I'm also, by the way, dancing like a maniac. I'm sweating out whatever miniscule amount of alcohol is at these things. But I remember thinking like, man, I can really handle my booze. I've had three of these and I don't feel it. And it's like, yeah, no shit. There's probably no alcohol in these things. Let me just read from the ticket. This is pretty crazy. We meet at Boss Frogs Ma'alea Harbor The duration of the cruise is two hours Also available, alcoholic beverages Are available to purchase for $3 each Dramamine is available for purchase For $5 T-shirts are available to purchase for $20 So the alcohol is the cheapest Part of the excursion which is a little surprising

I took Dramamine Recreationally one time It was pretty weird I would not recommend it I just took them as pills, I believe. This is a true story.

Oh, my gosh. You serious? Yeah, no. Did somebody tell you that was going to give you some kind of high? I mean, it did take us out of our gourds.

Did it just make you sleepy? No, it didn't just make us sleepy. It was a very, very strange night. I don't have any comp to it. There was a lot of marijuana involved as well.

But I just remember like. It's hard to figure out what was actually doing the lifting.

Well, I kind of understood the effects of one pretty clearly, and adding the new one to the equation was definitely different. I mean, it wasn't something that I necessarily enjoyed. I remember coming after, like, hanging out with my friends, whoever I took it with, and then spending the night with them and, like, kind of hanging out. I finally, my favorite part would be to come back to my, like, my little hovel, right, and, like, write in my notebook or something like that. I was a real beat poet, as you know. Quite famously.

podcast and then cross it out yeah i'm pretty sure what even is a podcast probably familiar

with some of my greatest uh works but anyway um that is what i like to do at the time but i just remember i i finally threw away those notepads because i was like if i die i don't want anybody to find my sophomore notepads from with druggie scribblings from college but i remember the page from that night was like all shaky like i couldn't i remember sitting like trying to write and like whatever was whatever was going on with me and I don't think there was booze involved although there might have been um I like I remember being like oh I can't even like scribble in my notebook because it's all just coming out as like these like jagged shaky like lines yeah that sounds

that sounds kind of like less fun and more like I don't know unsettling or something it wasn't

tons of fun I mean it was okay it was a weird night I have um I remember well I'll just tell the story i've already told the worst part of it i was a freshman in high school i was like you know whatever not high school i'm sorry i was a freshman in college and um i was still very shy and inexperienced with with in the ways of love still am um but at this point i don't even think it's never too late i may have just kissed my first girl around this time or something because i know i didn't kiss anybody until college so anyway or i haven't yet but one of the things is like I just remember being very disoriented and like being out of my damn mind and having a good time but then one of these young women that I was hanging out with at the time and for me I had crushes on a lot of people but this wasn't even somebody that I really thought about in that way necessarily um she gave I remember her and her friend who we knew came up to me and they gave me something and i was like oh okay and i was like really really out of it this story is just getting so seedy i apologize what a friday um and then the next day i realized she gave me a condom and i was like i oh and then the next day her friend on like like these two girls who i brought this over one of them like i remember like but again this was like a scene that's a real

do you want to date me check yes or no but like the adult version yes and like all of it even as

i say this now it um it all is very this was the dramamine night yes have you seen have you seen the movie the doors directed by oliver stone you know how like i sure have they try to make the those really cliche sort of drug induced scenes where maybe somebody's walking down the hallway but the but the camera's all askew in this in this oliver stone way on like biopics is this

why you refused to see a complete unknown because you watched Oliver Stone's The Doors because I

would actually understand that I loved that movie I loved The Doors and I loved that movie but anyway like those scenes of like walking down a hallway where everything is a sort of disoriented it's such a like a a cliche in the film but it all or just movies and writ large but that's the best way I can describe this feeling of walking down this hallway and these two girls who I was friends with coming up to me one of them giving me something and we're kind of like laughing and I But I was just like out of my head. I was literally like Andy Warhol saying, here's a golden phone.

Or something from like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Right, exactly. It wasn't quite like, I wasn't getting visuals necessarily.

One of the women was not a lizard.

They were both lizards.

You're like, which one is interested in me? Because if it's the lizard, I'm going to pass.

But I had a lot of, not a lot, but I had experiences like that in college where I was just like, again, I was so, so shy. I mean, also, I was just out of my gourd, so I didn't know what was going on in that moment. The next day being like, but then it never came up again. Like, we never dated, we never flirted. I don't even know. I can't remember that person's name.

Did you rue that you had missed your window of opportunity?

Yeah, I've done a lot of rueing. I've done a lot of rueing in my life. I could tell you stories that would make your ears bleed about, like, I think of this one time a girl that I actually did sort of have a crush on came over and essentially, looking back, like base throwing herself at me is the wrong word but like I don't even want to get into it but I mean I remember literally having just gone through like um uh orientation and just being like I don't think I just and by the way nothing I just remember being like so obsessed with the idea of maybe doing something wrong or just unable to grasp the fact that a girl would actually have a crush on me it was so far out of my like kind of realm outside the realm of possibility for me that i just remember like just shutting stuff down all the time because i was like well this isn't really happening or this is a trap i don't know what i was thinking but i just remember you're

probably thinking if there is even a 0.0001 chance that i'm misreading this it will be a mortification that i will never recover exactly yes so let's not even like there's like this person could it could be like the movie Carrie where they dump chicken blood on her except it's a pot full of condoms and you would still be like but there's a chance that they don't that this is not where they're going with it my Dramamine story is much more innocent but much stinkier I've told this one before but the one and only time I took Dramamine I was um like I want to say maybe in like seventh or eighth grade and we were going out to Nia Bay um to the Native American reservation on near bay where my friend ben's uncle was a teacher so i was with his family in like a very small i don't know toyota of some kind and the drive out there was very windy and i was i was a pretty carsick kid and so i remember feeling very poorly on the way out and so i don't know if it was like his parents or whatever said oh if you want we'll get you some dramamine for the drive home and i was a small reedy type of boy so maybe the dramamine just hit me extra hard but all it did was knock me out so that when we got to like a stop to gas up and use the restroom or whatever at the kind of the beginning of the drive back home I didn't get out of the car and then a little bit later when I started to come to a little bit more I realized that my stomach was in great discomfort I love that we ended yesterday's show with this kind of discussion and we're picking right back up when we left off and the whole it was so bad that I was and this is Ben his sister both of his parents and a giant german shepherd named zorba who was riding in the way back of this tiny toyota and i was just ripping farts like uncontrollably and trying to blame it on the dog and um but then but pretending to be asleep ripping terrible just horrible my body was my body was digesting itself and

Thank you.

then waking up long enough, pretend waking up long enough to go, Zorba, and then going back to sleep. And that was the one and only time I've taken Dramamine, and I never will again because

of that experience. Don't take it today. Or if you take it today, I would recommend taking the entire package and then just seeing if the ladies just come flocking.

Just robo-tripping around that boat.

As I'm trying to piece together this story, I told you I can't remember. I remember, I can sort of picture these two girls that we were friends with. I don't remember their names, but you know what probably happened was that was probably her shooting her shot. I mean, yes, some way. And I'm just, you know, Andy Warholing out of my mind. Right. And so and I probably just took it and kind of smiled and laughed and then went on my merry way. And that might have been kind of like really embarrassed. That was probably really embarrassing for her. And then again, I wasn't being cruel.

She had the experience you were working. She had the experience you were working so hard to avoid. Right. And I wouldn't be surprised herself out there.

We probably didn't hang out much after that. And I was just like, and again, this wasn't one of those things where it's like, oh, I did something wrong to him. I was just like literally just completely unaware of what was going on in the moment. I mean, I couldn't have even, it might have been the coolest I've ever been. That's what I was going to say. If I was sober, I would have been like, just like, I would have been like the, I don't know, the cat whose eyes pop out of his head and then I would have fainted. But instead I was just like, nice, and I just walked on like McConaughey.

Exactly. Like imagine a cat with a ball or a ball of yarn. That would be you with the condom if you were sober. dropping it but instead you were just like another day another victory for the og

that's right then i just keep sauntering down the hall i've never sauntered in my life

i love you are probably to this day that person probably was like i went to college at kent state with this complete mac like this guy i i this guy gave zero f's he had a he had a bench from a van that was in his apartment I once handed him a condom and he just kept on trucking

and this guy never got motion sickness like ever he had that shit on lock that's awesome thank you for being a tan

alright let's thank some donors these are the wonderful generous thoughtful beautiful handsome chill people who are donating to tbtl and making i was trying to think of every kind of every sort of complimentary thing i could say i there there are compliments you know that haven't even been invented yet andrew that we need to be we need to be on the cutting edge of compliment inventions to try to describe these folks and just how amazing it is that they're keeping tbtl going

did you see you said generous of course i said generous that's the main one then i got weirded

that when I started saying beautiful and handsome like I didn't want to you know I didn't want to get into describing people's looks although we know this to be the case yes of course this is a given uh when you're talking about Stephen Kitschpanich who's in Tacoma Washington yes you're you're you're playing a dangerous game Dano that's a little foreshadowing you're setting

up a you're gonna have to Matt Barry each and every one of these I was literally thinking And they're like, what are you doing?

What do you got for Catherine Dennett of St. Louis, Missouri?

You know this. That's good. I'm getting closer, but I'm out of lines. I'm out of lines.

Who can you say? Get off that bounce bounce. That's a bad Matt Berry, but I think I'm remembering the line. I'm feeding you the lines. I'll tell you who knows. Every has written on the tablet of her heart everything that Matt Berry has ever said. And that's Laura Grace Linsky of Raleigh, excuse me, Raleigh, North Carolina.

Get off the bounce, bounce. I'm stretching too far. No, no. I love this, Andrew. I'll take another Dramamine. I'm dying out of it. Laura Grace, I think Laura Grace joined us for our Zoom calls. Yes. Yes.

Mine is a little more. Mine is more Marv Albert, the longtime NBA on NBC announcer. Yes, Jordan, able to connect. Like, I'm getting further away from Matt Berry. You're getting closer to Matt Berry.

Sort of. You know what? I'm going to end that experiment there. I can hear the confidence leaking out of me, and that just goes really off the tracks.

I appreciate that you trotted it out for Stephen and Catherine and Laura Grace. And I think Vicky Foggin of Hertzville, New South Wales, Australia, will understand, Andrew, that you pushed your personal envelope, and you also knew your boundaries. and we appreciate that about you. We appreciate that Vicky is checking in from Australia. I said to Becca when we got here, because the day that we got here, it was actually like raining and kind of cold. It was a really, it was an odd thing. We got here hours ago.

before we were allowed to check into the Airbnb and it was just like the first place we kind of couldn't we didn't know what to do with ourselves for a few hours because it was like raining and like we just wanted to get our stuff into the Airbnb we didn't really you know that like just weird uncomfortable or just unuseful amount of time between things where it was we ended up at this like very depressing kind of like mall that had seen better days just sitting in the parking lot trying to decide what to do next yes we had a we had a flight out of hawaii

this is years ago now but it was like a nighttime flight but we had to be out of our like hotel room or whatever at 11 a.m and we had just an unprecedented amount of time we went to a like sugar museum like a tiny sugar museum that was like an old house or something um and we we went to like we ended up going to an arcade that was connected to a mall and getting a bunch of like tickets that we trade in for like toys like we have marbles somewhere in this house like toy marbles that i still when i see them i'm like that's the time we had to kill like eight hours

before our red eye flight home it was rough because a it was becca's birthday and b we had come all this way in search of tropical weather and the kind of you know the things you associate with this part of the planet and it's like that was like well let's get some coffee so we put it like let's find a coffee shop it's like there's a starbucks okay fine we'll go to a starbucks it's like the most rundown Starbucks in the most rundown mall amidst like a bunch of abandoned buildings and things and Becca kind of dryly joked her mom was like send me some pictures of Hawaii we were joking about the thing the photos we would send her because it was like these were depressing things wherever you put them in America but all that is to say I said well should we see if we can go back on the plane and just fly to Australia because we know it's warm there because they are in the summertime vicky is enjoying a warm i don't know what the temperature is i can't do that conversion between fahrenheit and celsius but i think vicky is probably uh living that summer lifestyle there in hertzville new south wales australia so vicky thank you for the support thanks also to kayla harris in stockton hey california kayla long time

stockton we've been through stockton and kayla and our kiddo have joined us on various zooms as well while I'm focusing on the Zoom interaction. Indeed. Hope you're doing well, Kayla. Thanks for the donation.

We appreciate the support. We know that we really do appreciate coming from you and hope you and the fam are doing well. Thanks also to Kelsey Bannon in Woodinville, Washington.

Yeah, I've been through Woodinville a time or two.

You sure have. If you've been to Chateau Saint-Michel, my friend. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. You know, free. Enjoy it. Enjoy the free press, Chateau Saint-Michel.

First time I ever had what used to be called a Mexi fry at taco time was in the backseat of your car on the way to Chateau Saint-Michel, yes. And I remember, like, it was not, I mean, now I know it's sort of, I realize it's sort of a cliche joke, but I remember, like, hearing about these things for years and then pulling them out and literally saying, these are tater tots. Not that that's a bad thing. I love tater tots, but I was just shocked. I thought they were going to be, like, I don't know, some sort of curly fries with like you know hot like uh powder on them or something i just pictured them being way more blazing and flavor blasty they were good i was just really shocked

at what they actually were i remember rudy was riding in the way back yep that's very true and i kept pretending to be asleep and ripping farts and going rudy do you want to know the truth i've

never told you this because i don't want to hurt your feelings and i want to hurt rudy's feelings because you know I love Rudy I never told you this there was a moment I think it was on the way back I think it was that night and I was in the back seat and Rudy was in the backpack and I was just like loving on her and we're having a good time and she did something where she wanted to crawl onto my lap or something I don't know what it was she tore totally accidentally and not acting aggressive obviously at all she's not an aggressive dog but just in her loving scramble to get on my lap she ripped the shit out of my back with her claws this in ways that I often think of that.

You had some splainin' to do with Genevieve?

Viva's like, oh, huh. Well, never mind. I was going to make a dirty joke that we don't need to get into. But yeah, she really ripped my back. Oh, I'm sorry. But that's okay. I mean, believe it or not, I don't raise that to make you feel bad. It was a total accident. It was me playing around with the dog, and we were in this kind of weird situation. I think she was just crawling over the seat or something and kind of got stuck and maybe like panicked for a second. Sounds like her mood, honestly. It's not a reflection. It was not a reflection on her or her behavior or her loveliness at all. And truly, I love that dog. And I never told you that because I didn't want you to feel guilty because I was the one who was kind of playing with her. And it's a fond memory, honestly. I love that dog.

Yeah, that dog was and is. She's still with us, thankfully.

She's still.

doing well but uh yeah it was a bad when uh you know mother nature evolved that yellow lab to have those talons bad combo because she when she would get excited she would want to climb up on you or anybody or whatever but then had these like these fingernails or whatever that were like very very destructive um i remember once when we had the burbank springs place and i was for some reason initially I was really obsessed with that this idea of her swimming in the pool which turned out to be a terrible idea because the one time I got her in there like there was fur in that swimming pool for like months afterwards so I had this idea that like in the dog hot days of summer like she was just gonna like swim around in the pool and and and love it she hated that swimming pool she was it was her bet noir like she would just run around on the edge of the pool barking at anyone who was in the pool she thought they were about to die but once in the early days before i figured this out i tempted her into the swimming pool with i think it was some like turkey lunch meat or something what the trainers would call a high value treat and it was so high value that she did deign to get into the swimming pool but the second she'd eaten the turkey she was on a mission to get out of the pool and the way that she could do that was to climb up my body like a jungle gym at a gymboree. And when I tell you to this day I still have scars from that incident, it was wild, the damage that she did. Because also, I'm not wearing a shirt at this moment. So anyway, I feel your pain, and I apologize on behalf of Rudy.

Literally no apologies. No apologies necessary. I don't know why I felt like breaking that out today. I just remember that was just part of that. It was just part of that whole experience when we did an event at Chateau Saint-Michel.

In Woodinville. That was what started this whole thing. Thank you to all of our donors. Thanks for making TBTL possible. Hello, and welcome to Top Story. All right. I am very—you sent me a message yesterday, Andrew, where it was a list— So at the end of yesterday's show, we were talking about the fact that or at some point yesterday's show, we were talking about the fact that television's Chris Hayes was on the Dan Lebitard show. And Andrew, you promoted this piece of tape where you said, if you know, you know, if you're a TBTL head, you can hear some of the influence of TBTL or some kind of element of the show, our show, in a certain maybe answer that Chris gives to Dan Lebitard.

It's Chris's reaction to something. I've really I've spent the past 24 hours regretting how I set this up. I really want everybody's expectations to be very, very tempered.

Tempered, okay, consider them tempered. But then yesterday you sent me a screen cap of a listener who said, I'm on the edge of my seat, and I was like, me too. But then I realized they were on the edge of their seat about the show pick, which was the guy named Fluff, who was Tiger Woods' caddy. And I was like, this poor person has no idea what a minor role Fluff is going to play in the show today.

that's right i think i scrolled back and i did find that listener's name because i try to um when people text into the text line by the way 206-414-8285 206-414-TBTL i'm usually monitoring i can't respond to every text message that comes in but um i this was a chris in evert as you would say luke and nice and yeah so yesterday after the show i'm like oh well luke's in hawaii we spent all day talking about your travels out to hawaii probably snapped a photo or two of something we can use as a show pick and so i say hey you have any uh any you know anything on your camera roll that can make a good show pick you're like well here's a sign of the area we're staying in i can't remember the other one was a turtle a sea turtle which you mentioned briefly and the other one in between was just a really grainy photo of a super zoomed in photo of fluff a guy who looks like the janitor on um futurama essentially and you just like screen capped it and i just did that to make you laugh and it made me laugh a visual joke and I was like of course that has to be the show pick now and so like as just again kind of as a joke between us I'm like well we'll make it we'll make fluff and again I love that it's so grainy and like just stepped on and that's his official wikipedia photo I believe but it's so crazy but it's like a photo of him and another golfer from sort of across the way and you just zoomed in on his face and cut it out it's so jank and then I love i love that like four hours later i get this text message from chris and ever who says i'm literally on the edge of my seat waiting for context about today's show pick it appears to be fluff mcgowan a notable quite recognizable golf caddy and this one's for you chris all right

chris well hopefully we added a little bit of nutritional value to the fluff conversation by re-referencing. it today but let's get to also while i'm in the text messages nigel wants you to know that um nate burleson was also a seahawk i didn't remember you know our friend um larry from the school of

visual concepts said you remember this right and you know what's funny i didn't which is strange because i'm an obsessed seahawk fan i i don't know if it was that nate had his more kind of like the the his his more productive years were as a minnesota viking for some reason he's an essentially a viking in my mind and not a seahawk even though he spent i think as many if not more

years as a seattle seahawk there you go well it was all new to me and i just know him as

mr hollywood squares yes okay so uh let's hear this tape that everyone has now tempered their expectations around of our friend chris hayes on the dan lebitard show and the thing that makes

us feel kind of validated or at least in the moment that i was listening to this and as you mentioned i'm going to reset this up for those who didn't hear yesterday's show but like the relationship i have with the dan levitard show is um very uh deep and complicated at this point if you want to talk about parasocial relationships like dating squiggy from like dating exactly she is difficult um i uh when they went on break during like this is my relationship with that show when they went on break for the holidays which was a huge sports like they went they went dark for basically two weeks and essentially played reruns or greatest hits and that is such a huge time for football playoffs and and college football and so much that we would turn to them for and i was like at i was during that two week time listening to other podcasts and thinking i'm mad at the levitard show for not posting anything i'm not going to listen to them anymore and but then constantly checking to see if there is any new material in there like me i'm just like constantly like kind of either frustrated with them or frustrated with dan the you know the the main host of the show but it's a show that has a whole at this point a big cast of characters on their various producers and people swinging in and you know i love some of them and i kind of dislike some of them and i would never say on the show i'm not going to try to like sub tweet anybody here um but uh but it's just so funny how like if i were to play something especially even you You're the one who was listening to Levitard well before I was. But even now, I would be kind of embarrassed if you listen to it because it's changed so much and you think it's one thing. Every now and then I'll clip out something that seems like old school Levitard, like the Stugatz's weekend update or whatever. And I'll send you that because it's like the purest version of the show. But it's really – it's changed a lot. They don't work for ESPN anymore, which means they can't be in a constant battle with ESPN, which was a huge part of that show. Like it just sort of it's just evolved a lot. And I do love it. But also, I kind of didn't realize it like, oh, yeah, it feels like I have a personal relationship with these people. I don't think about it that way. But I'm pumping their voices into my ears, like directly into my head for years and years and years now, hours upon hours a day.

Yeah, and I've made this comparison a million times, it's an obvious one, but this is where you are probably having the closest experience to a person who's been a TBTL listener for many years, right? in that this uh you know parasocial sounds a little bit pejorative like there's something you know bad about it but just this idea that you if you if you listen to a group of people or in this case two people you and i enough over the years you really do start to have this intense relationship with them and sometimes it's great and sometimes you're mad at them and it's a it's an odd thing but you can kind of identify with it because of your relationship with levitard yes

absolutely and i think you can to a degree with probably with stern right stern is my version of that yeah like i paused you wouldn't want me just to like randomly jump into stern probably like you'd probably want to set it up for me in some way like okay well here's the deal like you got to know this about this guy and it's a little bit cringe but if you can get past the cringe part like right you would very much want to like kind of present it to somebody who was not from that you respected let's assume you respect me um that you would want to present it to them in a way about the drama that sort of protected your reputation because of your love of the show

the other day i was driving and i was listening to stern and i paused it to go on about a seven minute out loud discourse to no one about how i was upset at howard stern yes this is a real thing that happened it was completely unhinged i literally just hit pause and then i just talked out loud about my feelings about what was going on to absolutely no one yes dude that's it like

Genevieve could tell you, we really should just get her on the show at some point soon. Just do a wrap up. Yes. Because I know that she would tell you that she just hears me because often I will be listening with my headphones on and I'm sure she just hears. me like just i'm quietly in the corner doing something to her the room is quiet right because she's not hearing it as well although she does sometimes we put on the speaker and we'll listen together while we play darts or something so she's pretty familiar with the show now but she's also very familiar with just having a quiet room with when suddenly the silence is broken by me saying yeah right dan oh yeah because you know you know funny dan like it's like what are we doing so anyway okay now i've set that up because i do think our listeners probably say things like oh whatever andrew or yeah whatever luke but you're still listening to the show well maybe the first one um so as i set up this tape just understand that that is my mindset when our friend our famous friend chris hayes i find out from you via a screen cap of somebody else's like instagram

I think it's the PR person for maybe his, you know, the publisher of his book or maybe they're a PR person for NBC. But there's somebody who's like taking pictures of Chris's incredibly successful media tour for his new book and his various high profile appearances.

And so you just saw this while scrolling.

I just saw that on Instagram and I just recognized the logo and I was like, oh, Andrew needs to see this.

And it was I think it was a like it was a behind the scenes photo, too. Right. It was just sort of, but you're like, that's Chris, and you recognize the sort of the logo on the wall, so you send it to me. I immediately text Chris. I don't know if you did prior to texting me, but I'm like, dude, you're in Levitard, and you didn't tell us? Like, how did you not tell us you're going to be on Levitard? This is like two of my interests intersecting, right? And so anyway. It's all about intersectionality. It really is. So I will tell you this. I actually even thought of you making fun of me about something I almost did, which is Chris. Yeah, that's how much you're in my head, dude. uh chris was an hour two but like they released the show daily they released five different files and this is all part of a way of getting more downloads and serving their advertisers and boy one of the episodes had four minutes of commercials before you got to the actual content the other day that was to start the show like they are packing that that's no way to drive someone happy it was like it's it's getting a little bit rough but whatever like you know that's how they make their money i'm i can skip ads pretty easily so but i saw that chris wasn't on until like what they call hour two but that's like actually the fourth file in the day's show and i love listening to things in order and i almost like held off i almost delayed uh gratification by like i was going to listen in order until i got to his part but then i couldn't take it anymore i just skipped ahead and i did miss a couple of references apparently at one point before chris was on there talking about deep dish deep dish pizza and chris being from chicago they run that by him what his attitudes about that is um but i'm very excited i put on my headphones i'm listening to chris hayes this is interesting and like i mentioned to you guys in in a text like can i

ask you one one like uh question leading into this did you as i sometimes do when i'm listening to chris do something did you think is there a chance he will somehow mention tbtl well i sort

of wondered i didn't think he would but i did sort of wonder because and this is a this is a little bit of a spoiler but it was spoiled for me as well so i think this is i'll take you and the listeners on my personal journey of this when i texted chris earlier in the day and said dude you're on levitard he's like yeah i even i even got a dangerous game dano in there and so that is something that like stu gotts the co-host will often say to dan levitard like if dan levitard let me put this in context usually you would use that phrase if like lebitard like back in the day he called um tom brady's career like basically winding down and then he goes on to win like three more super bowls so that would be a moment where it's kind of like saying i think he's wrapping up and be like don't count him out that's a dangerous game dano like that would be sort of the context in which one would say dangerous game dano but you and i will quote that on the show from time to time and so chris told us via text message he's like i got a dangerous game dano in there. And then he said in the text, I don't even know what that means. And I think that sets up this tape kind of well, because that is what I mean. When I play this for you, it's going to probably be a little bit anticlimactic, but I told you it felt like we were in the room when something happened. And it's hard to explain why. It's not a reference to us in any way. I'm not trying to trying to make our non-involvement in this you know more than it is but um here let's start with this tape they're talking kind of earnestly here the beginning of the interview is pretty earnest this speaks well to the segment when it was over I'm like I can't believe they only gave him 10 minutes and then yesterday went into the tape and he was on for like 20 or something or 20 or more so I was like well it just zipped on by and there this was the day after the inauguration um so there was just like a lot of serious talk about what was going on in the news chris is

I mean, as you know, and as our listeners know, he's just such a calming presence in talking about those things because he's very straightforward about it, but not, you know, what's the word? Hyperbolic in any way. I find him to be very calming in talking about these things. And then the conversation shifts to talk about Chris's book and the attention economy, as Chris calls it, and talking about the piece that he wrote for the for the New York Times regarding that. And so Chris is talking about that. And and here's here's him, I think, kind of quoting from the book and probably something he says often in interviews when discussing it.

I mean, I think, I don't know if you guys are this way. We walk around all day with podcasts in your ears. If you leave your phone in the car and you stop and double park and you run to a Starbucks and you're getting a cup of coffee and you reach for the phone and it's not there, then you have this moment of panic. You're like, oh, what's that moment of panic? Like, why has it become harder and harder to live with our own thoughts, to be alone with ourselves? And the reason is we are being conditioned away from it. And the more we're conditioned away from it, the more difficult it is to be with our own thoughts. But being with our own thoughts is the stuff of life. It's all we got. We don't get to outrun our own head.

So I don't know if you've heard Chris say that before. I don't know if you've finished the book. I think that's just one of those amazing, great examples that you should use in interviews to really get people to understand what you're talking about. And really relatable. We all know that feeling of realizing we left our phone behind. And again, Chris said.

Being with our own thoughts is the stuff of life. It's all we got. We don't get to outrun our own head.

And then the conversation goes a little bit off the rails because Dan asked some really long, confusing, confusing question.

Which I'm sure filled you with embarrassment.

Kind of. I was honestly just confused. I was like, he literally, we could try to play the long form of this if you cared. He like called Chris a whore, I think. Whoa! There was like this confusion about what, Dan's a real weirdo. And I swear getting weirder. And it was unclear what he was saying. Everybody's sort of laughing at Dan at this point. They're like, Dan, where was the comma in that? And did you just call Chris a whore? And everybody's sort of laughing. I've cut that part out because it was confusing. And then this.

Put it on the poll at Levitard Show, Juju. Being with your own thoughts. Is it the stuff of life? No, I think he's... He's... He's... I think the reason... Put it on the poll. Dangerous game, Dano.

So, then when I say, I felt like I was in the room. That is Chris, who, as far as I know, his only exposure to the levitard show is you and i quoting dangerous game dano and put it and put it on the pole juju or put it on the pole guillermo as it used to be and so the laugh because the whole thing is fun like i mean they're talking about some serious stuff but there's laughter but again i want to play this for you again listen to chris's almost uncontrollable laughter when he hears put it on the pole he recognizes that and he can't help himself and just in and i say this with all love dangerous game dano makes zero sense there like it doesn't make any sense he's just saying it because he was elated by getting on the pole i feel like and he just blurts out

a dangerous game put it on the pole at levitard show juju being with your own thoughts is it the stuff of life uh no i think he's he's he's i i think the reason dangerous game dano i don't know

love it it just i again i don't know if i set that up right but that just delights me hold on i'm updating my linkedin

top line i'm kind of friends with a person who was on levitard who kind of did a thing that he probably picked up from listening to our show i believe chris also used the term show off demon in this conversation i didn't really which i which i i feel like uh i feel like has some tbtl dna in it did he tell

you that or did you hear it or did some i heard it oh you did you so you listen to this whole thing you knew what i was setting up there um i didn't know which part of it you were isolating so okay but you so did you well this is interesting though because i thought that you had not heard it did you have at all the same thought in that moment like when you hear chris erupt with laughter there like i was kind of like he's laughing because he's hearing something

that he's heard on tbtl a lot i didn't put it together that way because i i don't talk about levitard like that's your that's your lane on the show so i didn't put that all together but then once you set it up that way i was like oh of course yeah exactly yeah yes um and and uh yeah but like uh you're right though that dan is getting kind of weird i don't we don't need to like we don't need to spill any more uh you know podcast ink on on the levitard show or dan's weirdness but he i feel like he's getting weirder and and like but again i also don't listen to that show nearly as much as you do is it do you feel like that do you feel like what is it about the

show that still draws you in i guess is my question well that's a really good question

and like would i and i ask that no one asked themselves that question related to Right, right. Just continue.

Continue listening and downloading, please.

Well, it's I mean, it's very much habitual for me. And like I really I mean, there are moments where I I set this up like where I'm just grumping about the show and I make it sound just like an addiction that I don't want. And that's not true. Like it brings me joy. Like there are times where I am laughing my ass off. There are also times where I'm maybe skipping a little bit ahead or there are times where maybe I'm yelling. I don't skip ahead all that much. I'm kind of a completist. There are just some parts. Dan Levitard explaining comedy is just one of the most painful things you can listen to. And he does it a lot. So I've gotten into like just sort of skipping those parts a little bit instead of complaining about it. And I really don't want to like sometimes I will make fun of people who will, I don't know, be cruel about TBTL or something that I perceive as being cruel to TBTL. I'm like, couldn't you have just like kept that thought in your head and maybe just skipped that part or whatever? So I'm not trying to use my podcast to air my grievances of this other podcast. I can keep them in my head as well. But obviously, I'm a huge fan. It does bring me joy. It also is just so habitual at this point, though. And one thing about me is I don't want to pull out my podcast app and start scrolling and scrolling and be like, what am I in the mood for? This is a real problem for me in general when it comes to content. Like I don't watch a lot of like TV because I'll just like one of the reasons is I turn on the TV and it's just I end up just clicking through all of the apps looking for the perfect vibe for 45 minutes until I just turn on Veep again. Like I just I can never like I don't know, like kind of, well, I don't want to get into something new. I don't want to pay tons of attention. And Chris has said this about TBTL before. I remember him saying it's the type of show you don't have to pay attention to every single word. It can just be there. You know, your companion, I mean, my words, you're going to want to pay attention to because my words, I'm a man of few words, but those words count. I knew you were going towards Harvey Dent. Yes, exactly. Is that Harvey Dent? It was. Yeah, yeah. Good, good call. So anyway, all of that is to say it does bring me joy, but it is also very habitual. And like I said, when it wasn't there, because I didn't listen to the recaps or whatever they did during the holidays, I truly missed it. I was like irritated that they weren't there. And that is like I used to have this relationship with on the media. I was this is years and years ago but I was so into on the media that when I would hear a story like on a Monday that was a media related story I was like I couldn't wait to get to Thursday or Friday when that show dropped so I could hear Brooks take on that media story you know and that is definitely something I have with various sports things now like I don't follow the NBA at all so I hear about it from them exclusively but if I'm if I watched an NFL game I definitely like after that round of like playoff games where there was some you know pretty spectacular games i really wanted to hear the gang weigh in on it whatever they had to say you know yeah you know i was

thinking about my podcast kind of listening habits and things and like i am also in some pretty pretty solid routines although when the election went sideways it really messed with my routines because a lot of my stuff was related to politics and everything and i was like well what do i do now and i also realized that like this is why i think i wanted tiktok to go away for longer why why when it when it briefly did the complete you know manufactured shutdown uh that was purely a tactic to try to make donald trump like them uh when it did that i really and truly felt kind of like some shackles had i'd been unshackled in a way because i was like what i like the time that you're listening to levitard and puttering around i'm probably if if i'm you know done with work for the day like when i'm i'll be watching tiktok when i cook like i'm walking let luke cook i'll i'll be wandering around my house like the the way that tiktok had and i feel like being out here again maybe it's because i'm in one of the most beautiful places on earth maybe it's because i'm spending all this time with becca i have not really looked at tiktok hardly at all out here and it feels good it feels good to it feels like it feels like i was addicted to a drug and i'm kind of kicking it right now and i'm past the worst of it like i'm i'm past the kind of shakes and the dt's of it or whatever and i'm really gonna try to carry this home with me uh you know and and have it be much more limited into my life because it had moved into a place where i'd be walking from the living room to the bathroom and i would be scrolling tiktok and then i'd be in the bathroom looking at tiktok i stopped short of having it on in the car but almost any other time if i wasn't engaged in like work stuff if i'm in my house and i'm wandering around i'm just scrolling it and it started to feel actually really not good for me and and um and so anyway i'm gonna really i'm gonna try to uh i'm gonna try to limit it in my life actively because i mean i could just delete the app i guess that'd be one way to do it and maybe that's what i should do

but you don't have to like you don't have to get rid of your account you can

Thank you.

delete the app i just off of your phone i've had what about my one video that's still doing numbers of me putting up an aluminum christmas tree oh nice numbers um because at first i believe you were disappointed in the engagement on that one but actually i don't think it's got that much engagement i uh i'm sort of going through something similar with instagram i i did deactivate that account so i kept like the app on my phones for tbtl related stuff because tbtl is still on Instagram but I was just feeling really gross about just like Zuckerberg and the oligarchy and just everything I'm just like I just don't need to for my personal fun times be engaged with Zuckerberg anymore so I I did actually deactivate my account I was sort of I don't know kind of like worrying about the right way to go like do I just leave it up and just ignore it from now on but that just felt I changed my bio to say like I'm not here anymore but you can reach me in these places but it just seemed weird people don't look at your bio and I didn't want people send that's right somebody kind of was sending me jokes or something I'm like people just still think I'm here and think this is a way of communicating with me and that feels bad like to have a phone number but you just never check the voicemail line or something I don't know it just felt it felt like I shouldn't have this out here so I was just like feeling frustrated and I just deactivated my account I don't know if that means it's going to be deleted after a while or what i didn't overthink it but like i don't you know i'm not engaged with instagram the way you are with tiktok like to that degree yeah but like it it was like a constant scrolling thing for me like any downtime open up the app scroll through some people's stories mostly stories but all and the thing is we talk about parasocial relationships and it's like they don't always have to be like between podcasters and listeners you know what i mean like i realize i and and whether or not there's a negative connotation to this like i had parasocial relationships with like designers like there's this this designer who works for adobe who's coincidentally out of miami um who has published a new children's book i just really loved her style and i like realized i've been following her for like a year and just like i know when she gets new glasses you know what i mean and now i'm right i'm being creepy like it's not creepy she's just really cool i've never met her before in my life i just started following her because i started following more designers and illustrators and stuff on the app and I really enjoyed that and I just had and then with some listeners I had some you know like that that was during Mariners games where I would chat up certain listeners you know when we would bust chops or whatever and so I don't know I felt a little bit weird getting rid of it and I'm still going through a little bit of withdrawal not in the down moments not like oh I need something to do with my with my browsing thumb you know it's more like every now and then I'll think oh man that's right I don't know what's going on in that stranger's life

anymore yeah yeah that's a really good that's an interesting way to describe it and um yeah we'll see i i am the king of uh of of sort of trying to reinvent myself and change my ways and whatever but like i i think it'd be really interesting if because what everyone has said about the tiktok ban which they've said this accurately is that it was bs like i already said meant to promote donald trump and also um was not very long it was just a matter of hours it would be amazing if that was still enough time to break my addiction because it might have been i feel fundamentally different about it than i did whatever that saturday night was at 7 30 something when it went dark it there was something about the the intervening 14 hours might have actually shifted something inside me now again maybe it's just because i'm not in my real life right now i'm on vacation and whatever but like there's been a couple times where i've been tempted to break it out here and then I've been like why in the world would I poison my brain with this bullshit when I can look out at you know incredible natural beauty and splendor and like why the choice is so clear between the two things that I'm hoping that like a new groove is being worn in my brain there's actually there's two things that are happening to me out here Andrew and we probably need to start getting towards wrapping the show up today because I got whale watching to do But two things have happened. One, I think I'm seeing just how unhelpful or how un, how, how unnutritious TikTok is for me when juxtaposed with this beauty of this place. And the other thing that I've learned in the last few days is that the amount of wealth that is sort of consolidated within the 1% is truly sickening, truly sickening. We are staying in this we're renting a condo through Airbnb right and these condos themselves I'm guessing even though they're nothing to write home about because of where they are because they're on Maui are the ones we're staying in I'm guessing would be a million dollars if you wanted to buy it and again that's not because this is in any way fancy but then across from where we're staying basically what happened was last night Becca and I broke into this like super exclusive. community that's adjacent to us so what they are is these standalone insane like 15 to 18 million dollar homes that are right on the beach we just wanted to walk around in this cul-de-sac and then the gate was locked and then there was no one in the guard tower and then we realized that we could actually if we got on our bellies we could slide under the security gate so we did just to poke around just to poke around because basically you can see from from where we are if you look over this kind of undeveloped little patch of land you can then see over to these like insane villas and what really what it was was I wanted to see if one of these insane villas had what I thought it had which was like an infinity pool I couldn't quite tell from our vantage point but I was just

staring at it all day yesterday kind of like curious about it so we were walking around and we ended up at the entrance to this ultra exclusive community and again because there was nobody in the guard tower and there didn't appear to be any security cameras i talked becca into us just basically breaking in like we literally shimmied army crawl style underneath the security gate and then uh and then walked around and this is the thing that struck me there are i think maybe nine of these villas they're all numbered that's how i know there's not one person andrew in any of them these are places that if you have enough money to own one of them you're at your house and Aspen right now like it is insane like and these like there are like I said maybe eight or nine of these villas and we walked around it was a ghost town somebody there are people who own these places who have probably come here twice in the last five years I mean other than the people coming out to like mow the lawn or whatever they have you know maintain it or something keep the you know pipes from bursting although that i guess wouldn't happen in maui like these are just like these places should not exist they or they should have unhoused people living in them like it is honestly disgusting to me that this development has these unbelievably valuable and unbelievably uh beautiful beachfront homes where nobody is right now because they're at their other places i mean i don't know why that's the reaction i'm having but it was really striking me last night like that should be illegal to have that much wealth as far as i'm concerned like it's just if you were looking at a colony of ants and five of the ants had all of the resources and then there was like 20 000 other ants with no resources you'd be like these are some messed up ants and it's like i don't know there's something about being here and then the thing i was saying to becca that was also kind of blowing my mind was we were now standing in this totally abandoned ultra wealthy development where there were no people and we were looking over at our condos and we were thinking you know the people who own these condos that we're staying in are wealthy almost beyond belief themselves they own a million dollar condo in maui and yet if you're over in the ultra community and you look at this way we look like this place looks like uh you know one of my parents timeshares and leavenworth yeah they probably complain about it they probably complain exactly like there was a balcony here in this condo complex we're in there was a balcony that had a blue coleman cooler on the balcony and i just thought look at those peasants yeah right look look at those look at those poor unfortunate souls who like they what they brought a coleman cooler here i mean give me a brook like kind of an eyesore and and and yet to have a condo in this community we're in also represents an amount of wealth that also you probably shouldn't have in

your life like considering what's going on for other people in the world like I don't know so I'm I mean I'm really enjoying being here but I'm also really struggling with thinking about the ways that wealth is consolidated amongst small and sadly smaller groups of people and then there are so many people that are are really hurting what a great way what a great way to end the week Andrew what a what a super super upbeat note to end this week's TV TL but anyway that's just

what i'm kind of experiencing out here yes how about that how about that to get us out of here god way to get the nose up matt yeah well i did i did my best well that was that was actually me doing that one luke that wasn't a that wasn't the tape yeah no that was that was actually me oh i hear you clem fandango i really i gotta say um oh i'm sorry that i don't have the person's name in front of me but the tape that i've been obsessed with all morning was sent in by a listener and it really makes me want to watch the show toast of london which i believe that is that is from but thanks for that and uh you've watched more of that than i have right or just clips on

just in clips yeah just on all just on just on the descendant social media platform tiktok yeah right exactly hopefully all right okay everyone thanks for uh listening that will bring us to the end of this broadcast week can you believe it it really flew by um but we We'll be right back here on Monday with more imagination. I'll give you a full report, Andrew, on how much Dramamine and $3 alcohol I consumed on the Whale Watch.

Sounds good. Chances are you'll get heartburn before you get drunk, so just watch out for that.

That's BN48, I think. All right, thanks for listening, everybody. We'll see you on Monday. In the meantime, have a great weekend. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.