Muse

All right, here are some more slang words you can use to sound cool. All right, first up, we have crim, short for criminal. The way you're eating that burrito is crim. All right, next up, we have straunt. Yo, babe, I just heard about this new Italian straunt down the street. We should go check it out. Next up, we have liquid laugh. This is Australian slang for boofing. Where's Will? He's out back having a liquid laugh. Then we have valdemode. It's a diabolical state of being. You went valdemode last night and got us kicked out of the bar. Finally, we have yondi. Far as hell. I'm not picking you up. You live yondi. T-B-T-L.

Guess what day it is. Guess what day it is.

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

You don't have to make rude noises.

That's all right. I don't mind. Laughter, a sure sign of a good time.

Hey, everybody stand by. Here we go again.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Friday edition of TVTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live here we go again my name is luke burbank i am your host oh my god he admitted coming to you from the beautiful south waterfront of portland oregon where it is cold my friends the temperature has dropped in a case gone cold could a podcast bring the heat But it is still beautiful looking out at the Willamette River here and bringing you episode 4,393 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. I started my morning here before we got to the show learning something. And I would say it's sort of a good news, bad news situation. I guess the good news, if you live in the U.S., is that, you know, and you think we have the absolute worst customer service levels that we lead the world in bad customer service we don't we're we're at best number two because i have been trying to interface with the customs people and the i don't even know what their exact uh sort of title is but the people that are trying to charge me twelve dollars to enter england next week and boy they have really raced to the front of the line in terms of absolutely brutally bad customer service

You've got to be kidding me.

We'll talk about that probably. We're also going to talk to this guy, longest running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships.

Isn't he the best?

He sure is. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. Do you know how you know you're part of a young, vibrant community? When you get letters sent in the mail to you, physical notes that say, From the Fraternal Order of Eagles Dear Andrew As a Fraternal Order of Eagles member You have dedicated your time to improving And celebrating the lives of others In appreciation of that commitment The Fraternal Order of Eagles Has partnered with the Neptune Society The nation's largest provider Of cremation services To give members an affordable alternative It bummed me out To read this this morning I didn't want to be thinking about my own cremation this morning i'm not scared of death but it just seemed like down from the is this coming down from

the head well also is your eagles which i'm also technically a member of although more on that in a minute is is this coming down from the head office or is this something that the seattle eagles decided was a good thing to remind their members of that the end is nigh i uh this is some

sort of national thing my guess is there's some sort of like you know financial arrangement and So they send these out. Use the promo code. Exactly, yeah.

Use the promo code Eagles to get 10% off your Neptune Society. I mean, literally, this is the kind of stuff that, this is the kind of synergy that sounds good to somebody, some bean counter, Andrew, to use your favorite phrase, some bean counter in God knows where, who's like approached by the Neptune Society, and they're saying like, you know what, this is a way that your organization could generate an extra, you know, fifty thousand dollars this year by sending out this mailer and by signing people up and we'll kick you back x percentage and you know i mean this is how business works it's just when the business is related to the end of our life it just feels a little more macabre and it's the kind of thing that honestly like it whoever approved that

whatever office did not for a minute or did not properly think through how he was going to make an Andrew feel on a Friday. On a Friday morning. To be offered a swim when he's a guy who we know

has big weekend plans. Big weekend. The biggest one I've ever had. Big weekend. And I want to say it came in a cute little envelope too. I think that's what got me. It wasn't like a business envelope it was like a cute little wedding cardboard coffin it was a little wedding it looked like a wedding invite you know and i opened up i'm like oh checking in from the eagles and it just and not that there's anything wrong with talking about death we should de-stigmatize these conversations i'm big on it honestly yeah absolutely it just hit me it just wasn't the joy that i was looking for this morning as i look forward to my big weekend yeah my weekend plans are a little bit in question because you've got to spend some time crying about your own Well, first of all, they've changed significantly in the last 15 minutes. Something came up. Yeah, so I'm going to be thinking about my own incineration. But I yelled to Genevieve through my office door yesterday, hey, we're going to go see The Brew List this weekend, or do you want to do that? I just assumed it would be an obvious yes. And she was just like, I mean, she was like, I don't really want to see that. And I was very surprised. We just like to go see any movies. I didn't know that. It sounds like she might go with me after all. It's playing at that nice Ballard cinema. I could see taking a bus out there. The Majestic Bay. The Majestic Bay, maybe going to the Ballard Smokehouse afterwards. I think I can bring her along, but I was a little shocked by that. I thought we were all excited for that movie. I guess not.

I am very excited for that movie. In fact, it was one of the things I was discussing with the world's most annoying waiter when we were in Hawaii. I was telling you about this offline. we had this waiter who just like he was he was he was he was cordial but he was it was as if like he had the comedy of stephen wright minus any of the punchlines he just threw hundreds of non sequiturs at us uh but but then they didn't close the loop on any of them with a funny observation you just saying just a rat-a-tat but saying it in kind of a genial way that uncareful listeners would think like oh this guy's got great banter but careful listeners like me andrew were like what are you trying to even say here among other things he was kind of letting on that he felt okay about the election of the current president because his quote and i'm talking about the waiter was saying well my 401k is doing better and i was just like what a cynical cynical interpretation of of this world we're living in but then at some point somehow the brutalist came up oh he also was standing at our table for i would say at the end when he brought the check back he's holding it though right so he has in his hand the little what do we call that it's it's not an envelope it's that little oh yeah you mean not not the

card into but just the little yeah the little holder for the bill yeah a little whatever that

thing is called he's holding it well he's holding it hostage and he's just because if i had it i would have just filled it out and put it on the table and been like well anyway we better hit that dusty trail but i didn't have that little thing he had it and he was just uh just just in this weird like feedback loop with various people at our table saying nothing uh as i played a drop the other day flapping them gums telling them lies just nothing happening and it was maddening to me but somewhere in all of that the brutalist came up and i was like are you an architecture guy and he was like yeah and then we started talking about the brutalist and i said i'm really excited to see that and i forget what he said something that made me think oh you're not going to see that movie and you probably this is not even a thing you're interested in oh you felt like he

was you know i don't want to try to recreate the conversation we had off air about this but i am still I remain astounded at the level of engagement of this waiter and I when I say engagement I don't mean like that he was slinging the apps on time I mean that like I don't you've mentioned to me in our previous conversation all of the things you guys talked about or that he just inserted himself on from politics to his as you said financial situation to now the brutalist Like, I just don't understand how this – did he have any other tables?

No. It was a pretty quiet night at old Cane and Canoe. We were, I think, the only table. The other thing that happened that was actually kind of funny later was we were there. We were having some sort of serious conversations. It was me and Becca and her brother and his wife. And we were – I mean, we had a whole range of conversations, but some of them were kind of family stuff and things where just the conversation was, again, serious. Not in a bad way, but in a way that's necessary.

inside of families talking about your sty i swear to god no we never mentioned that oh sorry sorry sorry sorry we never mentioned that but like i swear to god there was this there was like four times in a row where right as the conversation was reaching a point of real like real real deep honesty and truth and maybe even a little bit of emotion again not in a bad way Just in a real way Somebody would show up at the table Like Mar Brad Like just imagine Cue the dramatic music And it's like you know I've always felt like it's been difficult for me To really express this to you In a way that is meaningful That I have always felt Are we doing Is it tasting good? Is everything tasting good?

How's that first bite?

How's that first bite? Like, but it was like it happened four times in a row. I was like, does anyone who works here have any ability to read the room?

It's so funny because I happen to be on a Reddit thread the other day and like in the Seattle subreddit and somebody was complaining about customer service, specifically in restaurants here in Seattle. They'd moved from somewhere else. They're like, I just can't seem to get it right. Like either the service is just straight up bad, cold, you know, kind of just like as far as the vibe is concerned or it's way too intense. If you're at like a nicer restaurant, they'll come over and like right away be like, how was that first bite or whatever it was, which I got to say, I haven't experienced that. And it's funny because you're sort of echoing that now, like kind of reading the room, like when to come over. I don't know that I've experienced it, but it's sort of funny, like this guy sounds, I mean, boorish the way he's just interjecting himself or injecting himself in your conversation and laying down truths about the broader world that you guys might not agree with. Like that's very uncomfortable.

that's the thing that I'm doing such a bad job explaining it because he he was just he just said so many unrelated weird things with no kind of like exact point or even opinion uh sort of woven into them that by just by the sheer volume of of random one-liners he was saying and again none of them stuck in my brain except the ones that made me mad we just kept ending up in these little kind of you know areas that I was like why are we talking about this with the server but it It was just because of the volume of different topics that were being introduced by him. But again, with no cohesive or coherent thought behind them, the other thing that was weird is that it wasn't like they were checking up on us all the time. They were, because, you know, this was actually a pretty fancy restaurant, and I think that one of the things they do try to train you at a fancy restaurant is like, as long as, you know, folks' food is out there and they're having a nice conversation, you don't have to be going up and talking to them all the time. but it was just like it also didn't help that and i don't want to i don't want to profile any of our surfers listeners our listeners who love to hang ten i don't know if it helped that this seemed

like mostly guys who had tens if we had a hang ten if we had a contingent of listeners who surf they'd be the hang listen listeners learn to surf we get on it we need a subset of listeners called

the hang tens it seemed like a number of the people that were working there were guys who had spent a considerable part of their younger life surfing which is great for them bad for a sort of worldliness that you might want when they're now in their 30s and 40s one guy the guy who kept interrupting us about bread was also explaining he's a real estate agent on the side that's not even the main server it was a different guy who was like i guess you know assisting him and but he somehow managed to let us know that that he was also selling real estate on the side when he

wasn't checking on our bread that's strong like uber driver vibes there you know i've got a whole

thing going with an uber driver right now that i i made a real pickle for myself and i better read

a screenplay what how did you do you're not reading this you know you're never reading that

screenplay i have downloaded the pdf which is my commitment wow that's more than i would have thought um next time i'm on the next time i'm on an uh an airplane or something i will try to read i don't i wouldn't be surprised to to read that the screenplay is pretty good actually i was coming i was in san diego and i was um getting picked up from this uh shoot that we were doing for cbs and i was going back to the hotel and i started chatting with the driver who was a really interesting like really really smart dude and we started talking about he asked what i'd been doing i said oh i i worked uh for cbs we were filming something and he said oh i'm a filmmaker actually and he was like really he goes yeah and i've got this screenplay and we started he started telling me that the plot, it was an interesting plot. Like this, you know, and, and I kind of had this moment of thinking like, you never know, uh, where you might meet someone on their journey. I mean, somebody walked into a video store in like, I don't know, uh, you know, Manhattan beach, California.

and a kid named Quentin was just slinging VHS tapes at one point. And if he would have said, yeah, I'm writing a movie, you would have been like, simmer down, Stu. So, you know, you just never know with folks. Quiet down, Quentin. Oh, even better. Boy, you're really, I feel like what's happening is I'm kind of swinging for the fences and you're done coming in behind me and really cleaning up a lot of this stuff and really focusing the energy, and I appreciate it.

Did you turn off your camera, by the way, on purpose? I did. I'm just curious. Is it because, did I look distracted? I was just getting the daily donuts.

No, no, I was starting to get, you were starting to freeze up for me a little bit. We were starting to have some connectivity, and I just felt like we're on such a roll with me talking about something that happened two weeks ago.

I'm interested.

I didn't want to interrupt our flow. This was an intentional choice by me. But anyway.

It's such a bizarre dinner, though. It really is. It just sounds like, the more you describe it, the more weird it sounds. Oh, sorry. You were also talking about the screenplay, too. Sorry about that.

Well, but, and yet, by the way, back to the dinner, and yet, it was a wonderful time. You know what I mean? Like, it was, it's, every time I try to describe it to you, somehow one other odd element emerges and it makes it sound like it was dinner for schmucks.

Right, right.

Oh, and did I mention that the chef was a chimp?

Did I not mention that part? Wow, cane and canoe.

No, it was, I mean, the entire thing was lovely. There was this one weird thing, which was this server who, again, my main frustration was that I wasn't quietly writing down what he was saying because it's impossible for me to recreate his energy because it wasn't any one thing. It wasn't like he was a conspiracy theorist. It wasn't like he was in some way a sort of grumpy towards us. There was no overriding characteristic other than this is a person. i would say he was about 30 he probably was about 35 uh had like a hipster mustache um actually very kind of nice looking kind of hipstery guy which was part of why when we started i think while we were sitting there someone's phone chirped and it said vince vaughn went to the inauguration and we all said well shit now we don't like vince vaughn anymore and then he was like oh we we don't like him uh well we we don't like him because they didn't go to the inauguration we said no no we don't like them because they went to the inauguration and then that kind of opened a door for us to sort of not try but for him to start throwing in his little weird comments but again he seemed like a person and again I blame the surfing I blame maybe being hit in the head by a surfboard at some point but like he was a person that thought words don't really have that much meaning in other words having a conversation with a group of people at a restaurant is mostly about just generating audible sounds with your mouth that they hear uh is this something that's coherent does this really express your worldview is there a point to this none of those were considerations this guy made it was just him just kind of riffing but riffing in such an unfocused and again i guess because maybe to some degree our job is riffing which what a job but we stay focused though exactly and that's why we're talking about a dinner i had two weeks ago and

also um the other thing that i've already forgotten in our big weekend plans segment

we're talking about weekend weekend i mean oh the screenplay so i'm in the i'm in the lift and i start talking to the driver his name is dragon he's from he's actually uh from croatia and uh and and we're telling me the plot of this movie and it sounds pretty intriguing and i had this moment of just, you know, thinking, I said, look, I'm just a humble radio guy and like a little TV reporter. So I have no, I have no sway with anyone anywhere regarding this stuff. But if you want to send it to me, I I'll take a look at it. And he said, sure. And so, you know, we traded numbers and he sent it to me. And, um, and I'm, you know, I, I feel like I'm still within the range of, it's not impolite yet. It's been two weeks or something. Um, but I will take a look at it. I I think I read the first like five pages and I thought it was pretty entertaining. So I don't, unfortunately, I don't have, there isn't, I have no pull in this, in that world. So there's nothing I can do other than say, this is pretty good, man.

Reading scripts is also fun. It's just a fun format to read, I think.

Totally like I-N-T, Andrew.

Right? Right. That just tells you you're reading a screenplay. Right, exactly. I don't, you know, as I say this, I don't even know if I want to talk about this, but I told you, like, in college, like, I didn't have the internet, right? Like, the internet existed, but it would mean I'd have to go to the library and check my email on some, you know, antiquated machine, and certainly a very antiquated, at the time it wasn't antiquated, but just, like, the clunkiest kind of email software, right? And so it just wasn't, so what did I do with my extra time? like, well, I would, as I mentioned, mentioned somewhat recently go to the library and pick up like the two uh cassette tapes of Twin Peaks and watch about six hours of that but then like what I did to occupy myself was write I just wrote all the time not for anybody I mean I wrote for some classes and whatnot but just also for myself I was constantly writing whether it was on my old 486 computer or in actual notebooks and I would like sometimes I loved writing dialogue so sometimes basically I was just writing that any you know like basically just writing scripts anyway I remember sometimes being like why am I even fleshing the rest of this out but it was never for anything I never had like I was never I never sat down to write and thought like someday this will come out of actors mouths or even someday this will be published although I'm sure maybe in the back of my mind at some point I thought maybe I would be a writer at some point um I am not but anyway

yeah it's just you mentioning you write the newsletter and I don't mean that that's not that's not a sarcastic comment for me like i always am like i'm i will complain to becca that my dreams of being a writer died and she goes you do write a lot of stuff that you have to read it's just not what you thought you were going to be writing at some point i think that applies to

you as well you we don't have we're not we're not we don't have pipes in our mouth and we're not

and that was what really why i was trying to get into the game i told you about my i told you my my failed pipe pipe smoking weekend of writing of writing the next great american novel your pipe dreams quite literally literally and by the way the other problem because I have not been a heavy tobacco user in my life I was so buzzed and sick from this tobacco pipe like I didn't feel good from it I felt very unwell you know I tried to turn the conversation back I don't want to put

you on the spot but we were talking about big weekends and I sort of lamely said I'm gonna go to see a movie by myself or with another person but did you what's going on with you well I've

got a big friday leading into my big weekend the big friday is uh it ends here andrew i'm finally taking my car into ron tonkin mazda so you're talking about cremation again i was like i've

got it well in partnership with the neptune society i'm having my car cremated at ron tonkin

mazda because i have driven it for i would say roughly 5 000 miles past uh the check-in i mean actually i don't know if that's true it's a little bit confusing because when i go to the website to schedule the service. They don't seem to know that I did the 45,000 mile checkup, but my car is definitely at like 51,000. I don't think I've driven it for 6,000. I don't think I've driven it across America and back a couple of times. I think it has to do with their organization over there. But point being, I have definitely been driving it for too long while this light has been on saying service due. It's not the engine light, right? And if they were smart, if they knew the background of my driving life they would know that if they need to get me in there just throw that check engine light on the thing that's actually an outline of the motor that works for you you're not a just put black tape over a kind of guy no that was or check oil light like you throw on some of those bad boys because those meant certain death when i was driving my various shit boxes back in the day like those were not to be ignored that check engine that check engine light came on and it was about probably maybe 30 minutes before that car was on the side of the road smoky exactly exactly they're they're they're treating me like far too upstanding and sort of um posh of an individual by saying um service in 500 miles and then service in 100 miles and then service do now and then service overdue and i'm like get back to me when this car is about to blow yeah

I want to start shaking like a dog, you know what.

Yep, yep. So that's actually why I'm here. I'm at Becca's place today because we did Live Wire in Beaverton last night. By the way, thank you to everyone who came out. That was a super fun show. We did something in that show, Andrew, that we've actually never done before that it went really well, which was we had a guest on named Ira Madison III, who is a writer and a podcaster, has a podcast on Crooked Media called Keep It that's about pop culture. But he also writes in this book of his that's out that his whole kind of mind, his mind was blown when he, as a college student, read the Chuck Klosterman book, Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs. And it just taught him, he said, that there was a way to write about pop culture that was, you know, kind of from a sort of intelligent perspective in, you know, pop culture matters, I guess. It was something he felt like he learned from that book.

compared to like the growing up and just thinking of pop culture as like the the purview of us

magazine or that type of thing yes i think that was it i think he was an intelligent guy who also loved pop culture and had never seen other intelligent people applying that kind of brain power to something like coco puffs you know like taking something that seems meaningless but then really kind of getting into why it might be meaningful and so uh what he didn't know what Byron Madison III. didn't know was that we had gotten chuck klosterman to come hang out on the side stage and then go surprise and do a surprise guest thing and it was pretty fun because we basically at the end of the show or at the end of the the segment with ira we we said well and he had already referenced chuck klosterman and that book like two or three times in the interview unprompted like this basically like this book changed my life and then we said well uh chuck klosterman once made the mistake Of giving us his cell phone number And we kept it And we called him and here he is And when he came out on stage I have never had a guest It was like a this was your life moment

I was about to say this is your life It has strong vibes

It was like this guy I imagine he went kind of quiet And he just looked at me and he was like Kind of put his hand over his heart It was just kind of like He was flummoxed by it Almost to the degree where I was like Oh wait maybe this is too much for a person like you know what I mean like I guess that would be for me like if you brought Jeff Tweedy out to surprise me somewhere although I've even had a chance to talk to him so I don't know it it just be like I kind of had an I hadn't thought of the fact that it might actually be overwhelming for a person to have someone who is that much of their hero just like walk out and like shake their hand and do a segment with them but anyway that was a fun moment this is a very very different type of

scenario obviously but I think you'll understand why I am thinking of it one of the most relatable moments in my adult life that I've had with my dad and by the way there's been a lot of them like I feel like we're very similar in a lot of ways but um god I can't believe this was oh my god I think this was his 60th birthday so this was 20 years ago now which is hard to imagine but like I think I had somewhat recently moved out to I can't remember where I was 20 years ago Seattle or New Hampshire, I guess New Hampshire, but he was turning 60 back home in Ohio, and my stepmom and I created some sort of a plan for me to surprise them, like to secretly fly into Cleveland and then surprise them for his 60th birthday.

I'm kind of surprised you agreed to that.

It might have been my idea, yeah, I know, and that's the thing, too, and I'm not a big surprise person, but it wasn't like, it's a surprise party, and balloon is still very low-key, and it's still a very low-key approach to surprising somebody but maybe it was probably my stepmom's idea i don't know but either way i was i was down with it i don't remember feeling any um uh tension about the plan it was just like sort of the logistics of like and so i had to fly i couldn't fly into cleveland airport for some reason so i had to fly into akron canton airport i think it is and which is a small regional airport that i had no familiarity with but all of this is to say to make this happen my stepmom joyce takes my dad to some restaurants down in akron or something which was kind of like why i think he was already a little bit grumpy like why do we have to go to this particular you know that's the thing with surprises right it's always like the person is always grumpy because they're like i don't want to do this thing right you're like a story about that but anyway so they're sitting at this restaurant somewhere um in akron or that general area. I don't know exactly where it was. And then I surprise him in the restaurant. Like they're sitting at a four top or something. I just kind of come in. I'm like, hey, dad. And he looks up at me and he looks so angry. He looks so grumpy and angry. And then when he realized what was going on, he was like, oh, you know, he's very sentimental and got a, I don't know if he got choked up or not. I'd like to think he did. I'm a pretty special boy. But, you know, of course he was not cranky to see me. He wasn't angry to see me. Confused. He was just so confused and confusion manifests itself that way for a lot of people, myself included. If you surprise me with something, it's one of the reasons why I don't I kind of don't love opening gifts in front of people, even people I love and the people I'm closest to, because I just feel like there's all this pressure to like sort of be a certain way. And like, I think it's some of us, it's harder for us to control our facial expressions a little bit or or give people what they want in that moment. And I just remember looking at my dad like, hey, dad, happy birthday. And while he tried to figure out why he's in Akron, Ohio, and his son, who's supposed to be in New Hampshire, is approaching him. And he's like, wait, does this have something to do with that cremation thing I filled out? Yeah, exactly. Am I in heaven? Yes, I want to get the deal. What is going on? Yes. And he looked so, so, so grumpy and almost angry at me. And it's like, well, that's kind of the element of surprise is you really can't control your emotions. And so anyway, I'm thinking about your guest. It's like, obviously, this is a great moment, but in front of all these people, how do you respond to that when your brain is just trying to connect all these things that don't make sense?

Yeah, that's a really good point. And again, I think I'd underestimated what an intense moment it could be in real time for someone. And you're right with that, you know, with a whole crowd and you're on a stage, it's already just like a weird environment. And now they're bringing out this person who's literally name checked in page one of your book as being the most. He literally had said something like, I think of this book as being kind of in conversation with the Chuck Klosterman book. And it was like the lead into us going, well, guess who's here? So, yeah, surprise parties obviously can be pretty dicey. I think I've told this story before on the show, but I have a pretty strong memory of being a Boston Celtic in a double overtime game. And I just want to try to keep reminding people how friggin' spot on I was with that. No, I have a memory of being a pretty young kid. I'm going to say maybe I was 10 or 11. And the plan was to have a surprise party for my, I don't believe he was my uncle Mike at the time. He was a guy named Mike who went to our church. He would later marry my aunt Mary Lou. He remains my uncle Mike now. Um, this is, you know, 30, 40 years ago. Um, but, uh, the idea was there was a surprise party for him that was being planned at some location. I think it's somebody's house. And we were trying to get him. I was in the backseat of the car. I'm a little kid. In the passenger seat, I believe, or maybe driving the car, was a guy who went to our church named Kelly Potts and then my future Uncle Mike. And I just remember all my Uncle Mike wanted to do was to go to Black Angus on Aurora. And actually, by the way, a Black Angus you would have walked very close to when you were on the Interurban Trail the other day.

Well, I was going to say, I think I've heard this story before only because it's usually in the context of, isn't that the place that's now the 125th Street Grill? I believe so. Yes, yes. I've darkened the door a few times.

And we were just driving. I remember this thing where my Uncle Mike was so mystified and angry that he, on his birthday, was being outvoted about us going to Black Angus.

Uh-huh. It's my birthday.

It's like, what? like what and it's like eventually kelly potts like pulling the car over and going we have a surprise party for you at maureen pearson's okay like and i just went in the back seat just like realizing oh this is why this shit is complicated yes you better like you better move the surprise to where the person the person said they want to go to great wolf lodge we're having the surprise party at great wolf lodge we're not trying to take them to a location they don't want to go to and therefore borderline ruining the night before it even gets started it's funny

I think it's OK to say this. I don't want to tell too many tales out of school, but I was talking to my dad earlier this week and we're just sort of reminiscing about a whole bunch of stuff. And coincidentally, the topic of surprise parties came up because he was telling me about a surprise party that me and Joyce. Apparently, me and Joyce really get up to some surprise party stuff because I don't even remember this one. I think I was still in high school for this. And I think they were more recently married. Well, obviously, they were more recently married because this was 30 years ago. But I think they were somewhat recently married at this point, dad and my stepmom. And I guess there was a surprise party, maybe his 50th. I don't know what birthday this would have been. But he's like, don't you remember, like, we had to, like, I guess Joyce came up with some sort of MacGuffin regarding me and, like, me, Andrew. In other words, like, we have to take, they call me Andy. We have to take Andy boy to whatever. Not practice. I don't know what it would have been, but apparently I was, I, Andrew, was the MacGuffin that gets him out of the house.

Yeah, you were the story, if you will, or you were the, I can't think of the term, yeah, MacGuffin might be it, but you were basically the bait.

I was the bait, and Dad said, don't you remember that? I was kind of crabby, I was like, why can't he just do it himself or whatever? And I'm like, Dad, honestly, I don't, I'm sorry, I don't even remember that party, and I don't remember you being crabby, but what that, now I've told two stories in a row where I make my father sound like a crab ass. But my point here is what I found the point is Joyce needs to basically get a clue.

How many times are you going to anger Bob Walsh in the service of a surprise, Joyce?

You know, the funny thing is, is my dad is much like me. He's not a big, like kind of surprise party guy. My uncle, his brother is the complete opposite. He was telling me the last time I was home or at some point we were reminiscing. And apparently Uncle Frank one time showed that he had his speech written and in his pocket because he was expecting a surprise. Like my uncle is the I love Uncle Frank's the best. But like he I mean, it's not even just a bit like he related to my mom. He literally had like something prepared in case something was a surprise party. Like there are those of us who are avoiding surprises at all costs. And then the others that are expecting at any moment for people to yell surprise. But anyway, one thing I just wanted to say, and I didn't say this to my dad, but I've been thinking about it, is how he remembered what he remembers. He said, don't you remember that? I was all crabby in the car. And it's funny. And I was like, you know, what's relatable about that story is that's your first memory of it is that you were he probably he feels chagrined, you know, like when you're crabby and it's like, oh, you were being crabby.

people were doing something nice for you well that's a bad feeling and his memory of that is forever sort of i don't think he's losing any sleep over it i'm not trying to make this over dramatic um but when he said that i was like yeah because another surprise party there was a surprise party i believe for my uncle frank that was being held at their workplace or something and it was my job at walsh manufacturing in the shop it was like a weird thing i don't this was years and years and years ago but i was old enough to drive and i remember it was my job to pick up my grandma and grandfather and i was also there with this woman who i was hanging out with who was my close friend but i was head over heels um you know with this this woman and it was me and her and my two grandparents and my grandmother was the and it was my job to like kind of shepherd them all to the to the party you know and my grandmother was like she's like a stereotypical little white lady like if you can like literally blue hair like hair so white that it was blue and just like cute as you could possibly imagine just like a quintessential little grandma right that was grandma walsh and i remember after driving them you know to the party my friend julie said to me um you know just be uh when you're driving older people you should maybe just try to take it easy a little bit or something along those lines and i remember thinking i was driving very slowly and very carefully but clearly i wasn't and i think maybe she was in the back seat with my grandma so and my grandma was such a nervous person my grandma was just she was scared of water like she was just so nervous about everything so i'm sure she might have been maybe a little bit clutching something but i remember i don't know what i said to my friend julie when she sort of gent so so gently just said hey if you're driving your grandma around just be a little bit more gentle i remember like having some sort of defensive reaction to that i don't know what it was but like that is the key thing that I remember from a surprise party like I don't remember Uncle Frank walking in and everybody yelling surprise I don't remember anything except for somebody just so gently chastising me not even just so gently trying to correct me but me acting like I've been chastised and acting like a little brat about it and that's all I remember do you have things like that where like the only memory you have is your some small into like uh behavior that you didn't appreciate about yourself and it clouds

everything i have i have things that i'm you know embarrassed about there are certainly things that the interactions i can remember or like mostly just things i did that were not responses to other people that were just but just like stupid things or embarrassing things that stuff that i i still remember but i don't have the thing that you're describing that is very obviously kind of um you know sort of a generational trait because your dad remembering your dad your dad describing that other thing as being when i was crabby and you describing this other thing as being when i responded poorly to gentle criticism yes is so clearly your inheritance

yeah yeah not a generational thing so much as a genetic thing maybe well that's what i mean i mean

going down from generation to generation yeah and and and i mean i i definitely can say just knowing you as long as i have and as many conversations we have it is that's not that when you described your dad talking about that party uh that didn't sound dissimilar to ways you've described things to me that have happened in the past where you're like even just things within tbtl like oh that was where i i kind of got a little shirty with that person or whatever Where, like, you definitely, it seems like your brain holds on to the part about those interactions that you don't feel great about. And I wish I could just, like, I wish we could, I wish I could go in and we could do that kind of a brain surgery where you're still awake. I know you would love this, too, because one of the things you love is being awake during surgery.

Okay, no, you had me at surgery while I'm awake. Go ahead.

You know how they'll do the thing where they're putting stimulation in your brain and you're saying the alphabet and then you start forgetting, like, T through Z. And they're like, okay, not that part. and they can kind of figure out what parts of it.

Oh, no, I didn't know about this.

You're not familiar with this? No. Yeah, it makes your tongue surgery sound like a walk in the park. Oh, my goodness gracious. Yeah, it's really, I mean, it's pretty insane. They open up your skull. Sorry, this is kind of gross, but they open up your skull. They can go in, and they can basically kind of press on different parts of your brain and have you, you're awake and talking, and they can figure out where things in your brain, where information and pathways are, and that way they don't ideally they don't um injure the the parts that you need and they're able to take out you know things in your brain maybe it's a tumor maybe it's something else maybe it's parkinson's tremors they can kind of isolate it and focus it where they need to focus it we need to find the lobe for you that's doing this remembering that's that's just remembering the thing you don't feel great about from stuff where i am so sure like much like your dad and that surprise party where he said it was the one where i was a little crabby i bet you that was such a

fun day i bet you everyone had such a good time sure oh yeah yeah yeah and no one on earth is remembering it as a thing where your dad was a little crabby and i'm sure that your friend julie uh has absolutely no memory of you being what you felt was overly defensive about your drive which i

might not have even been the more i think about it i almost wonder if maybe i was just maybe i didn't get defensive maybe i just felt really embarrassed because it was coming from from her somebody who i wanted to impress so badly i don't remember what it was but like that's by the way You almost described a Farside cartoon from like the 80s. Do you remember the Farside cartoon where somebody – it's like a bunch of surgeons around somebody that they're operating on. And it's like you see that the person on the table, their leg is kicking in the air. And the one surgeon is like, ooh, that's a good one. Put your finger right where mine is on the brain or whatever. Oh, my God.

Do you not know that? I mean, yeah, basically, a less frat house version of that is, I believe, what now goes on in some of the greatest medical centers in the world.

Yeah, well, honestly, this is what you described is also what you want to do to me and potentially my dad, although maybe leave him out of this, is eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, you know?

But only just that one part.

Very razor sharp.

Yeah, just but only, yeah, but not the, you know, I don't want to erase Genevieve. I certainly don't want to erase the part of your brain that knows how to upload the show because I have nothing we need to keep the important parts of your brain intact and they involve loving your girlfriend and posting the show

let's make that part bigger the staying up all night thing let's make that part smaller we can shrink that down

we can shrink down Andy times if we need to

thank you for being a 10

alright let's thank some of our donors who are supporting tbtl um and it's uh it's critical to the mission there would be no show if not for these folks this is listener supported podcasting talking about kathleen jones who's there in seattle washington thank you kathleen also thanks to meredith gibbons who's in farnborough england andrew which brings me to a thing i mentioned in the intro of the show i am the nation of england is on my list right now oh just make sure you're not on their list because that will well i'm trying to get i don't know if i'm trying to get on the list or off the list i don't know what list i'm on i'll tell you about it after this but meredith i i've said this i think recently because we had another listener in the uk but i may need you to come pick me up at heath i don't know if they're going to let me out of there based on the current paperwork situation so thank you for your donations but your your contribution to tbtl may only be beginning Also, thanks to Joan Wheeler of Baraboo, Wisconsin

Hey, thank you, Joan Good to see you on the list once again

I never feel more powerful than when I pronounce Baraboo, Wisconsin correctly, Andrew

Oh, was there an incident?

Well, I think that kind of looks like Baraboo

Or Baraboo But you know, you're saying this

I know because it was one of those towns that briefly hosted that call-in show on NPR okay yeah filling in where i'm just looking at the list i mean that's how long ago it was andrew that public radio was still doing call-in shows like i'm looking at the phone screening software

are they not doing that at mpr anymore that was sort of a long-standing tradition i hope they're

still doing that yeah i know carrie miller has stepped away to do um a more of a book focused i think you know more monthly type of show i don't know i don't think i don't know if public public radio stations are really doing that thing anymore where they just kind of like put out a topic and take calls. What about Larry Mantle?

He's still doing it, isn't he? AirTalk? Isn't AirTalk with Larry Mantle

still going? I remember staring at all of these calls coming in in Minnesota and realizing, oh, there are a lot of towns in this network that I am not familiar with. Shakopee comes to mind, Baraboo comes to mind, and others. Anyway, that's where Joan is. Thanks, Joan. Thanks also to Denise

stock who's an export pennsylvania there you go does pennsylvania lead the country in cities that are named after industry and have we already said that on the show before we probably have

well it's it's i think it leads the nation in cities that are named for a verb oh you've got intercourse pennsylvania that's not a verb that's a thing that's a thing one engages in but isn't it also a verb in that it's an action can you intercourse me um i thought you'd never

i swear to god if i ever hear that tape again i'm making my own list nobody touch that nobody

got him he fell right into our trap okay so export is a verb because you can export you can export something certainly but inter god this kent state english tutoring program yeah well i don't know if you know this but i was right i was a peer writing assistant

Thank you.

there for a while. Oh, I do. You'll never let me forget it.

The problem is I had no peers as a peer writing assistant.

Thanks also to Catherine Bradford, who's in Spokane,

Washington. Now, that's another town that is often mispronounced by people who aren't

from here, right? Uh-huh. They'll say Spokane. Spokane, yeah. You've not done your time in the Northwest yet. You are unfamiliar with the Inland Empire, and also the birthplace of the actress Sydney Sweeney. from white lotus oh really from spokane washington which is it's it's a it's a it's an interesting thing to have a person who is so big in the con in the cultural conversation as sydney

sweeney is be from spokane washington are how are you i know we have one more donor to thank but white lotus three yeah how are you feeling about white lotus three i don't i enjoyed the ride of white lotus two but it was done i was like i didn't love the ending and i was like i might be

done I yeah I mean I will I think I'll probably watch I'll give this one a go I'll give it a a day in court as Camaro Kev says but I definitely feel like I mean the first season was spectacular this is just the case so often with with these kinds of shows it's like the first season was just amazing second season was sort of fine kind of losing a little steam for me as well as it got towards the end yep and so I would be shocked if the third season comes in stronger than the first My guess is that it will continue to be a little bit ebbing for me, you know, waning as it were. But who knows?

I mean, they could come back. I mean, the promos are really strong, you know, and they always give you that sense of place. Like, why not just be in a beautiful place for an hour on a Sunday?

That's precisely what I was about to say, which is just like, even if I'm not buying everything that's happening, I am wanting, particularly like in the month of, let's say, February in the Pacific Northwest, I'm wanting to be in whatever locale they're in. It just is a nice feast for the eyes for an hour, if nothing else. Also, I do like, I think that this one includes, I think it's following the story of the woman from season two who was trying to open the wellness spa, who Jennifer Coolidge kind of has the complicated relationship with, you know, the one I'm talking about.

Yeah, I do.

She's in these trailers, so I think it's like we follow her to a new location or something. Is that kind of what you get the sense of?

You know, I wasn't paying close enough attention and I didn't recognize her because it's been a really long time since I saw that and face blindness. Boy, what was I watching with the Vives the other day? I was like, I could not tell who was who. But anyway, I did not realize that. I kind of liked that. And also, as I'm thinking back to like the second season, like there were moments like I really liked the young woman who was Jennifer Coolidge's. Yes. What is the word? Attaché? That's not the right word, right? Like companion. Sure. Assistant. I guess she was just an assistant. why am I looking for a more complicated word but I really I'm thinking about a couple of moments with her I was like oh yeah I really did like her there were definitely like moments where I loved being in that world but when I think of season 2 I only think of like the last two episodes or whatever and I was like I don't know man I don't know if I'm on board with all that

can I ask an incredibly dumb question that will both spoil season 2 of White Lotus so sorry if you're just getting to it and also show you how what a sort of sieve my brain is. You're going to embarrass

both of us because I'm not going to... I already know I don't know the answer to this question.

Jennifer Coolidge's character is 100% dead, right? That was like... Yeah, I mean, that's the way

it's played. Well, because she falls

off the boat and she's bonking around like Goldie Hawn in Overboard. Yeah, she won't take those shoes off. But I was wondering if they were trying to do a... Because, I mean, she is... She's the breakout star of that show, essentially. Like, this is, you know... It seems to be the case that she The more they put Jennifer Coolidge in this The more viewers they would get presumably So it seems like a bad thing to kill her off Obviously she seemed very dead Also they may have pulled This is the part I'm forgetting She falls off the boat You're like well she's definitely dead But then do we see her On the rolling stretcher Being zipped up in the body bag Do we get a final Do we get a final shot of her Like this is definitely over Or could it be a stunt thing where she somehow emerges and we find out that, you know, she was just knocked out or something.

I, well, here's the deal. My memory on that is about as good as yours. I took her for dead. I mean, I remember that last scene. I took her for dead.

I took them for maybe being shady.

Now, they were also getting so broad by the end of that season, though. Could they just lean even more into their over-the-top, like, so-popper-iness?

Oh, you mean the Bacchanal where all kinds of fabulous people were doing fabulous drugs and dancing around

in a Roman orgy. Yeah, well, that and then everything that happens on the boat, I thought was just so over the top, too. Oh, right. Everything leading up to it with the ropes and the... It was just so... But, let me tell you this. I am...

looking at an article here in people.com that i guess it's okay for me to say this jennifer coolidge says she's not in the new season now they could be doing a really deep kayfabe on us and have her surprise us at some point i kind of don't see her having that in her do you think

jennifer coolidge could keep a secret like that i mean the human being not the character i mean um yeah you're right jennifer coolidge today.com jennifer coolidge explains why tanya had to die with white lotus variety white lotus ending jennifer coolidge on tanya's death colon gay memes uh etc etc so yeah all right that's been settled i if we if we didn't get uh clarification on the internet i was going to ask uh kristin arntson in thunder bay ontario thank you kristin

now kristin i am pretty sure now i have been guilty of mixing up some of our kristins in the past including this particular kristin but i am more confident than i am in my memory of the ending of white lotus that kristin is the person who put together that words list that we were going through over the holidays remember that and i believe i was talking to kristin after uh the tbtl event in philadelphia well i hope you i hope you kept it clean i know you have a foul mouth sometimes i don't want you scaring well you get a couple of you get a couple of

athletic brewing na's in me and it's just we just don't know yeah and and so anyway i want to apologize to anyone who was at that after party in philly uh the real takeaway from that after party in philly was that uh the attention from the tens is oxygen and my mom needs it to breathe she had so much fun at that after party talking to everyone and what was so great about it was her two sisters were there my aunt mary lou and my aunt kathy and my two cousins her two nephews tim and mike were there actually as was my cousin kellyanne all of these people who you know uh it was very awesome for my mom to get to look like a big wheel at the cracker factory in front of all of these people like i mean as in her actual family and sibs so it was a beautiful wonderful night and i want to thank everyone who came out and i want to thank everyone who's been supporting

tbtl and making this possible couldn't do this without you hello and welcome to top story uh the

top story is, Andrew, my issues with the UK Visas and Immigration Home Office. Okay, be careful here. Who are allegedly processing my ETA.

What's that? I just said, be careful with this conversation. I don't want this to land you in some sort of international prison somewhere. You don't want me

to become a cause celeb for the left? Free Burbank. I could see the t-shirts. I'd be down for

that. That could help the brand. Now I'm actually sort of into that. Yeah, now that could be good for us. So

the UK recently rolled out this thing i guess it was maybe as of 2025 or something that uh if you're going to be traveling uh through through the united kingdom you have to apply for this thing called an eta and as far as i can tell it is just a it's a way to charge 12 to everyone who comes through it's probably just revenue generation because there isn't anything i did the application and there isn't anything on there that you don't have to do when you're getting a passport which i have i don't it's it's you know what i mean i don't really get what it is trying to solve for i mean someone probably there's probably an explanation somewhere but i guess i just kind of don't believe it but when i'm going to england uh next week for a job and people were getting at me as was becca saying you better fill this thing out or they might not let you in and so i went online and i actually went to the app i downloaded the app i put in all the information and i sent it in and it said and i sent in the $12 and it said this usually takes three days it takes three days for us to process this sometimes it takes longer well that was the 20th so now of January so it's been 11 days which feels like a lot longer than three and I just want to make sure that there's not a hang-up because at some point they sent me an email that said dear Christian which is my middle name we're processing your thing which I thought oh no do they this has happened before with flights where they think my name is Christian Luke Burbank or Christian Burbank and isn't there a reason for that is it

because it's listed in the wrong order on a document or something it might be also my name

isn't actually Luke Christian Burbank on my birth certificate it's Luke Christian Kelly which I've just used Burbank for so long that it's technically my name but there was never the formal process so there's a little there's a little gray area around my name so this morning I thought well I should try to I should try to um get ahead of this I don't want to be standing in Heathrow being I don't be turned away at Heathrow over this $12 fee. Um, and so I went to the, uh, the, the app and, uh, and basically was trying to use the help function. And they were like, first it was like, uh, this is, uh, on the, again, on the app that I downloaded, they were, you go to the help thing and they were saying like, uh, here's what we, here's what we.

cannot help you with we cannot tell you what the status of your eta application is we can't not give you a schedule of when your eta application will be through like they basically were saying these are things that we cannot do any of the things that you would want to know any of the things you would be trying to get in touch with us but if you'd like if you'd like a robot voice

to read information to you that is available on our website or just tell you to go to our website

we can do that on a loop oh andrew have you been to this app i've been in the world what they did they were like we have all the answers here on this link and i'm like dudes i've been to that link i've been to that then this was the part that i thought was really over the top andrew they were like if you want to call if you want to call in for help it's this number and it's i don't maybe i can find this again it was like a 1 900 number but to the government of the uk not like um let me let me just try to you mean it was literally you'd have to pay for the call not you'd have to pay per minute per minute and i was like am i on a sexy voice i was like am i on a scam website that like is is sort of you know um what's the word i'm looking for am i on a am i on a scam website that is pretending to be this thing and is actually just trying to like get my personal information and it was like no i'm not i'm in the app um and uh let's see i'm trying to get to the function it literally was like it's gonna okay i'm going to help in contact let's see uh did it contact uk visa and immigration the other problem andrew was i didn't understand the amount of money they were going to charge me per minute it was an amount of money that i don't like i'm not familiar with like uh let's see here i'm going with uh something else next step i don't know if it was like farthings it was like eight farthings a minute or something oh you would wear an onion on your belt as was the as was the farthing at the time I was like okay let's see next step I want to get to this because English okay go with me it was telling me that okay here we go to contact them uh well first of all by phone you can get help on the phone with English by speaking to staff call costs 69 pence per minute on top of your standard network charges how much is 69

I don't know, let's Google that I love the idea of calling though Because it's like paid by the minute Like hello big boy You're looking for help with your ETA

I mean yeah, will it be both helpful and sexy Like I have not I've not called a phone line That was charging me per minute In most of my life Other than when I was a little kid And called a phone sex line Not understanding what it was I don't know the last time I called something That said this is going to cost you 69 pence per minute

Oh, 69. I was trying to figure, because I wrote in six pence. I'm like, there's no way. That's a band. Let's see here. How much is 69 pence in U.S. dollars? Let me see here. I have no idea, because it's kind of like, oh, well, it's, like you said, the original thing was like, oh, it's one fortieth of a pound or half a shilling. Okay, that's not helping me. Okay, let's see. That was six pence, though. None the richer. I know. That's what I've been trying to get out of my head. I guess that's three. It's about three and a half dollars, I guess. That's more than I thought.

No, no, no, no, no. 69 pence is $3.50? That's what it looks like. They're trying to charge me $3.50 per minute?

I could be very wrong about this. I'm on websites. I thought this would be an easier... I don't know what a pence is. I'm so confused.

Okay, well, the other thing is, I thought, well, maybe I'll just do some online chatting with them. Through this app, contact UKVI online. Queries cost 2.74 pounds. you will not be charged for any follow-up emails about the same inquiry so in other words it's with converting it's like three dollars a question if you email it but if you're asking about the initial question they won't recharge you three dollars what madness is this i don't know i'm so

confused i gotta stop looking at pens because i'm feeling dumber and dumber as i try to figure this out i how is this so complicated isn't there like a conversion table yes that's what i mean like it You know what I found? Okay, this is a huge right turn here. Really quickly, we'll come back to your woes in a moment. But speaking of the value of money, again, I was telling you, my dad and I were chatting the other day, and we were just kind of, much like this show, we were just kind of all over the place talking about stuff, and he was telling me about something that he bought when he was young. He spent $5 for it in 1957, and his dad was mad that he spent so much money. He's like, what do you think that would be in today's dollars? I'm like, I don't know, like $25? He's like, no, way more than that. I'm like, no way. How much, Luke, do you think $5 in 1957 is worth in today's dollars?

$5, $19.57, $30. I'm doing this on...

off the top of my head but I looked it up a couple of days ago I think it was $56 jeez so my dad in 1957 as a well he'd been about 10 years old there so like he goes into a store spends $5 I'm like $5 is not that much it's like the equivalent of spending $56 or $57 or something like that that I was shocked like I'm familiar with the idea of inflation and etc but like I was just so shocked that that is how much $5 it really did make me think of grandpa simpson and like wearing a onion on your belt i'm like that doesn't even make sense

to me um by the way i'm getting no closer to figuring out what 69 pence thank you like i'm

like it keeps on converting it to pounds right then it's telling you oh 69 pounds are is like 86 or something 85 i'm like i'm not trying to do pounds i'm trying to do pence so then i i went to

the website and amazingly was able to find a non pay to play way to contact them. Um, but then I said, uh, so in other words, I found a chat screen, which of course was a bot and it was like, hi, what can I help you with? And I was like, um, well, I haven't gotten my ETA thing back. And they were like, I don't know how to answer that. I need you to rephrase the question. I was like, really you need me to be better at question asking how about you be better at ai-ing me um so then i wrote the question then i wrote the question as a statement i want a human and then it said i don't understand that was this answer helpful yes or no and i was like no and then it said i need you to rephrase the question i was like i want to talk to a human and then i told it for like the fourth time that the question their answer was not helpful and then it said let me put you in contact with a human i was like all right sweet so then i'm now on i'm in the queue and i'm using that term advisedly for a human being and it's like you're number 25 in the queue and then i'm like uh so i'm waiting i'm waiting like 10 minutes go by 15 minutes now it says you're number 24 in the queue and it's doing one of those things where it's constantly chirping into the chat function just tell me the same thing over and over again which really messes with your emotions because you just keep thinking oh something's happening so i was like okay it's been 15 minutes i've gone from number 25 to number 24 i am going to go on my jog and then come back and i bet you i will be you know number 10 in the queue based on how long it took me to move one position so i go do my little jog i come back and then it's like i have just been number one in the queue somebody named mary was trying to talk to me i wasn't there they hung up they said log back in if you need help andrew i log back in it says our customer service hours are over because it is england it is a friday of course it's that i mean it makes sense but i was like boy my luck so i did read in all of this that you are allowed to travel to the uk if you have an application pending with this i am not going to push it this far i'm going to try to get this completely sorted before i get there but i am pretty confident that if i show up there with my passport and my application has been has been filed unquestionably i got a confirmation from i have a confirmation number i have a feel and i've paid for it they've taken the money i have a feeling that if i were to show up there with all of this information they will allow me along my way i think there's some kind of a glitch going on i don't think it's because i'm

on an international no-fly list that i know of so i'm gonna raise some this is so i think coincidental or maybe not maybe there's a very logical reason why this is all sort of coming up in these conversations but um by the way i don't have any emails or voicemails today so i'm gonna tell you this quick story that is just fresh off the fresh off the um the headlines delays me going to ron tonkin i'm here for it you don't want to be hollered at uh no i'm just amazed at sort of the the parallels here earlier when we were talking about kind of cringe moments that we remember like or that i remember you know like how things will be sort of overshadowed i've had this little bit of cringe over something that i did yesterday regarding customer service that has been living in my that's literally been in my belly just a little bit all morning while we've been having these conversations um and i mentioned the other day actually related to your ron tonkin thing you were talking about how you're delayed and getting your car serviced there and i told you that like i have been sort of hiding from my financial advisor because i had this work to do of like sort of trying to consolidate like these various random retirement accounts that i've accumulated through my various jobs over the years and i'm just trying to like kind of get them all under one roof and just sort of like be done with all these just a million different logins I've had you know and anyway one of the larger ones I guess the one I'm working on now is from our time at American Public Media which we you know spent some time there so I'm trying to roll over all of my retirement accumulations from our time with APM.

into something else and so i'm working with the bank that handled that you know or the the financial institution that handles apm's retirement accounts and i got the ball rolling in order to like kind of get that money out of their hands and then into a different bank you know you have to be very careful there's all kinds of systems that they have in place you have to do they are

so worried like i'm i'm sure when you and veeves bought your house the escrow process is yeah bananas because they are constantly telling you like are you being scammed right now we're not a scam but we might be do you think we're a scam are you a scam if anyone's scamming you you're not getting your money back and i'm like you guys i have to at some point transfer this money to you but like the i guess because if it's gone it's gone and they don't want to be on the hook for

it but boy that is a hassle if yeah this one is it's not quite i do remember that very clearly they're like the second this with with house sales or property sales because it's a matter of public record they they told us that like you have to like be very careful because the fact that you're engaging in this business with us is somewhat public so therefore there are unscrupulous actors who will kind of you know like kind of follow these things and then try to get you to you know they'll try to get your money away for separate you from your money through some sort of wire fraud by pretending that you're the institution this isn't quite like that I think this is a little bit of like first of all these institutions don't want you to divest from them Obviously, their whole point is to have as many accounts as they can, these retirement accounts. But also, it's just a, you know, I really do think that they haven't been paranoid. It's just the process. And part of that process is getting things notarized. Like, there's, you know, whatever. I had to go get this thing notarized at the UPS store yesterday. And, like, there's all these things. But then I have this paperwork. I'm very proud of myself for finally picking this up. I had let it linger too long and I thought my my chance to blow had expired, if you will. And it turns out it didn't expire. I still have like a week to get this done. So I'm like, great. So I print out the paperwork. I get it signed. I go to the UPS store to get it kind of notarized or whatever. But now it's time to send the paperwork back. And then once I send this paperwork back, then they'll literally cut a check from my retirement account and then send it to me. so I go I read on the paper it's like you can upload this through our portal I'm like great so I come back home I take photos of it to scan it and then I am all over the website looking where I can upload it I'm like I'm not seeing it I'm not seeing it I look more closely at the paperwork and it says via our mobile app and I'm like well if you can upload documents securely via a mobile app obviously I will be able to do this via a desktop computer you know like that's even more secure and you must have the same thing on your website so I'm looking all over the website and I'm like do they not allow secure uploads of documents on the website I'm like I'm here I'm ready to do this and I've been on the phone with these people like twice now and they're so great on the phone the last time I was on the phone with this woman a couple of days ago she was so delightful and helpful and kind. And I have such a good feeling about this company. But when I looked for some help yesterday regarding this uploading thing, I'm like, I'm not going to call them. I'll just use the in-person chat function like you were just mentioning, right? Like there's a real, supposedly a real person on the other end. It's not AI. And so I'm like, I need help with something. It's like, hi, my name is Joanna or whatever. And I'm here to help you today. How can I help you? And I'm like, is it true that I have to upload this via one of your apps, which I don't want

to, in the back of my head, I'm like, I'm saying goodbye to this institution. I don't want to download their app just so that I can say goodbye to them, which is so stupid. I could delete it in a second, but I don't know. I'm just old and I was just feeling cranky. But the responses from the supposedly real life person on the other end of this chat were so robotic that i started i'm like there's either no way this is a real person or this is a person who's just like firing pre-written things you know because i said can i do this via the website or does it have to be via the app and then the response is i'm so glad you came to me with this and i'm like there's no human being that is so glad i came to them with a question about whether or not I can do this on a website or an app like I'm like is this an auto reply or a button

that a real human pushes or you know I visited a tarot reader a couple of weeks ago and they said something incredible was going to happen for me and I had just put it out of my mind but now I

realize how right they were yes I just I don't I was so mad because I thought I was talking to a robot instead of a person but they were clearly specifically said it was a real person and so So anyway, I'm on hold. She's like, I'm going to look into this for you.

I'm like, you're going to look in this for me. Like, if you're a person, you should just know this. This is uploading documents to your company, right? So I kind of sit there waiting for a response for like five minutes. And then she, I'm kind of putting that in quotes because I still don't know if it's a person or not, comes back and says, I see that you can only upload things via the app. And I'm just like, I guess I already had that information. I didn't need to come here and get cranky just to have a robot pretend to be a person to tell me that. but it really pissed me off and then she's like do you have any other questions for me and i wrote well i guess i'd like to know why i can't do this via the website but i assume you can't answer that and then i just like hung up or whatever you do on a chat yeah and i was pretty sure that i was talking to a robot which is what made me mad but i'm it was so petulant It's a question of if it might be a human and it's still bedeviling you. And Luke, this is insanity, what I'm about to say. I have been wondering, like, I can't even put words to it because this is the first I'm talking about it. It's just like a lingering feeling I've had for like about 12 hours now, which is like, they were so nice to me over there. They were so nice to me and I had such a pleasant conversation. And like, I feel like I'm like, am I blacklisted now? Is there a mark next to my name about this guy being an a-hole to a customer representative via chat or something? I feel like so guilty about being so rude and just old man-ish about this. And it's been living with me all morning.

I could totally identify with that feeling. And I think they're a victim of their own training. Because if everyone would have been sort of rude, who you dealt with who were humans, then you would have been like, well this is definitely a bot but they were so nice to you the humans were so nice that it lives in your mind as a possibility that this this they could this person could just be like a sweet kind of a grandma walsh type which is like oh i'm so excited you came to me with that question i

assume that's exactly how you know me fresh from uh ireland is that what you were doing yes yes i

don't even know i was channeling that when you were describing your grandma i was picturing the grandma on the bag of grandma's cookies yeah that's pretty good yeah but um no I know what you mean like if if they hadn't been so cool in other ways that you wouldn't be so worried that maybe this is they were just being nice and you were just being you know being uh stampy with them you were telling them it's not right it's not right well I mean I guess you'll never know because you've now completely disentangled from this company right well I'm I'm in the process

of doing it I don't know maybe they won't let me have my money anymore because I was so rude but I just think that like whatever i was mad at like i do think it was a bot but if it wasn't a bot that i was talking to well then i really think that they should train the i what they're trying to do if there is a human being on the other side of that is eliminate any chance for you know a mistake or you know so it's all scripts and just we'll click this button this is a standard response like what i know is this person didn't by hand type in man i'm so glad you came to me with this That's just not a human response to that. If they really are humans on the other end, they should give them the leeway to talk like humans. Like if the response had been, huh, I think it's only available via the app, but let me look into that for you to confirm. Like I would have been like, that's a human being on the other end. You know what I mean? But it was so robotic. It was so robotic that it really made me mad. And just like outsourcing all this stuff to AI kind of pisses me off. And so anyway, I guess that's what I'll reach out. I'm going to call them later today and just kind of see where we are as far as my relationship is concerned. And if they can track down who that person is, I'll send them an apology note and maybe even some Sherry's Berries.

What about a Vermont teddy bear?

We'll see what we can do.

What about sending them four foot two pile of awesome?

That's right.

All right. That's going to do it for today's episode and going to bring us to the end of our broadcast week. What fun we've had. And the fun's just getting started, my friends, because we're going to be right back here on Monday with more imaginary radio for you. Please do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great weekend. Take care of yourself. Stay safe. Stay mentally safe. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all. Power out.