Muse

Hi, Kathy Mitchell here in the kitchen with a brand new exciting product called the Griddleman. And I have a friend to help me introduce it to you from Channel 5 News, Dr. Steve Bruhl. Have you ever bought a panini at a restaurant? What's a panini? A panini is a sandwich.

Why did you call it a panini?

Well, panini is Italian, I think. It means grilled in Italian. What's Italian? That's a country in Europe. It looks like a boot Kind of shape

Like a cowboy boot

Kind of Let's make your sandwich You want to hand me One of those spatulas Over there How about some meat Do you like turkey

Who are you calling turkey

And then you can add Whatever you like Your own little touches Do you like pickles Or Yeah Okay very good Let's put some pickles There you go Very good Very good And now we're ready to go We'll just lay that sandwich Right on there Do you like sandwiches Have you had a panini before

And a cowboy boot TBTL problem is i thought the show was going to be entertaining and interesting the fact is just plain boring it worked it worked what worked our little plan you see first we get your attention with the boring stuff then we hit you with the excitement bam bam what did you have to do you

did you do anything to spare your touche at all i mean was it just hard swing and keep moving Nah, I'd have made bring me a kiwifruit pillow a few hours in, eh? I don't use foul language, and I don't like to hear anyone else use it either.

Uh-oh. He's starting that funny talk again.

Well, all right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. What is this? Only my favorite podcast of all time. My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host. they just want you to be normal and clearly you're not coming to you from the madrona hill studio perched high above the mighty columbia where it's intermittently snowing here snow snow and more snow and then also with sun breaks it's that classic snow showers with sun breaks that you've been hearing so much about in various meteorological circles we're experiencing it today on this monday as we arrive at episode 4,394 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. I had a fun weekend spending time with my daughter, celebrating her birthday a little bit early, and also unexpectedly unlocking a childhood pizza-related memory. Sometimes you've got to stop and smell the pizza. We'll get into that. Also, we'll get into this Monday's Seattle Times Rants and Raves column. i'd like to point out to anybody watching this is really bunk journalism i'm a little confused as to um how i feel about one of the raves in the ransom raves and i want to run this by my the number one ransom raves observer in the podcasting community this guy also known as the longest running cobro of the show also maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships he's just got his ear to the ground in so many different areas and he has a lot of tea to spill on this monday morning i hate to be a gossip just kidding i love it he's andrew walsh and he's

joining me right now good morning my friend good morning luke i'm i'm frantically searching all over the place for that uh little piece of tape we heard a moment ago from the canadian broadcasting company about somebody's touche did you were you able to protect your touche i feel like we're gonna have a lot of touche talk later on in the week with your upcoming colonoscopy so i feel like you should have the touche tape ready to go but i can't i don't know what i saved it under i've looked up cbc canadian i've looked up both tush and touche i'm finding nothing in my library

yeah we need to be carefully saving and preserving all backside related drops for, really, there's going to be a build starting on Wednesday when I'm going on an all-liquid diet and not even like, oh, well, you can drink a milkshake. Clear liquid diet, Andrew, starting Wednesday. And then rolling right into Thursday's show, which is going to be an adventure because I would like to talk to you on Thursday. I'd like to check in, tell you how I'm doing. That's the day of my procedure. But I'm increasingly hearing from folks both in and out of the medical profession and folks who've just been through it that it may not be possible for me to sit here at this microphone for up to 15 minutes talking to you come Thursday morning, depending on what that thing is, what that thang is doing to my body.

Yeah, it's almost like when we had a plan to go hitchhiking and we were flooded with emails, concerned voicemails and emails and all kinds of communications from listeners saying, please, you don't understand what it's like out there. Don't do this. Well, we mostly went ahead.

with the hitchhiking plan. I mean, we did hitchhike. We had to bail ourselves out a little bit at the end there. Yeah, we kind of cheated. But a lot of people are like, hey, listen, I've taken this roller coaster ride called a colonoscopy before. By the way, that'd be a terrible roller coaster ride. Oh, are you kidding? Or wouldn't it as a theme? Actually, wait, maybe it's really good. Think about just the tunnel implications. I know. Well, that's what I was thinking.

I mean, the entire thing is essentially, it's made to be an amusement ride.

As I was saying it, I realized, actually, it would be the perfect roller coaster ride, wouldn't it? But anyway, yeah, people are very concerned about you maybe not realizing just how intense and frequent, potentially, the need to be on the throne may be. Speaking of thrones, by the way, I do have one other. I've been watching it. This is from, remember during the Game of Thrones days, there was a YouTube discussion show called Gay of Thrones. Do you remember this? No. This has tushy in here, too. Is this usable for you later this week? Can we talk about your tushy? She's like alabaster, tushy fierceness. It's like, you can talk about my tushy, but it ain't my tushy. Oh my God, that was a body bubble? It's a stunt tushy, baby. Okay, I don't think that that's maybe the best tape. I did find... What did you have to do? Did you do anything to spare your tush at all? Did you do anything? That was from As It Happens, and it's apparently...

Oh my goodness. The jazz flute billboard, to end all jazz flute billboards, including the Andrew Will Show.

I know. No, I bow to it. I mean, mine was more of an homage, honestly. um i have that is saved as news dash kiwi dash swinger dash as it happens i believe this person was it was a news story about a guy in new zealand who was trying to break a record for how many hours or days i guess he was swinging and i don't mean that in the adult like on a swing i mean on

a swing he's wondering about his touche his touche as she says yes exactly that's funny though that

must be we got so much to talk about and i don't know how we're going to go down and as it happens rabbit hole a cbc show that i'm guessing still exists yeah in canada i assume here i think it's i think it's carried still okay but we are paying 25 more to listen to it now yes exactly but uh Oh, it's still on? Okay. See, you know what? That's interesting. My listening patterns have shifted to OPB down here, because I'm close to Portland. And so I guess I assumed that it had maybe gone off the air in the U.S., but that's just because I've listened to a different radio station. But we love that show. We stan that show. It represents a certain kind of public radio that is not getting made very much anymore, where you're talking about real things, but also you're talking about people that are just on a swing for days, and potentially on the telephone with them. And that show, to me, very much was carried on the shoulders of the hosts. Like, it was a vibe more than it was about the information, or is, I should say, because it's not done yet. And that's the kind of stuff I like. That's the kind of show we're making here. Like, what we're actually doing, the content that we're talking about is immaterial. You've got to buy in on Andrew and Luke. And there used to be a lot more public radio shows that kind of followed that principle, and I feel like that doesn't happen anymore.

Well, that is the one thing you may have heard as it happens in a while, but it might sound different because Barbara Budd is no longer a part of it. It's Carol Off and a fella whose name I oh, here it is. Jeff Douglas, I think so. And I don't even know. I mean, and I wonder, do you think the theme song has survived? Because that's one of those things.

Is this something that we can find out? Like, do they do they include that? Now, for people who are just tuning in today for the first time, maybe you were at Town Hall tomorrow night, which now in your estimation is last night, and you were like, oh, what is this thing, this TBTL? This is what it is. It's us talking about CBC shows and trying to figure out if we can play what's called the billboard. So, the billboard in public radio parlance is that thing, that first minute of the show where they're setting up what is going to happen on the program today, and then they usually say something to the effect of, stay with us, it all gets started right after this, and then you hear Lakshmi Singh, or, you know, one of many, Windsor Johnson, or some public radio newscaster at the network, and they do their news for five minutes or whatever, and now we're back to the show. That little first minute is called in the industry the billboard, and we loved the As It Happens billboard music, which was edgy for public radio probably at the time and a whole vibe. But I don't know if they would include that billboard in the podcast version of As It Happens.

That's what I'm trying to figure out as well. And here's – you know what my struggle is right now. They make their audio very available on their website. I am just looking for a main topic that is not absolutely soul crushing on this. I mean, it is just so brutal if it's not about the politics of.

dealing with that awful country just south of the border of Canada or just all of the tragedies that have taken place lately. I'm just looking for something that is hopefully not here. Oh, here, TikTok, how about this? How about TikTok, we can handle this. This is from January 17th, we'll see here.

Hello, I'm Nick Oksal.

Good evening, I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

Oh, God damn it. Oh, it is there. It's happening.

Oh, it is happening. Oh, OK. Come on. Tonight. Dance exactly like nobody's watching. The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the federal ban on TikTok, leaving Americans who rely on that app for their livelihoods at a loss.

Unhousing crisis. Some people who lost their homes. If we get lucky, Andrew, they're going to come up about five seconds short on the coffee and we're going to get more jazz for the fight against homelessness.

Read all over. Our guest tells us the case against Red Dye No. 3 is more nuanced than recent headlines suggest. But he says that does not mean food dyes deserve a place on our plates.

The arias of her expertise. The woman behind the world premiere of the earliest known opera by an African-American composer. Amazing word play. Dispel the myth that opera isn't a part of black culture.

Less ooze, more awes, all of Canada mourns, or at least some of Canada notices, when Hershey announces the historic adequate candy known as the cherry blossom is leaving shelves forever.

And arch enemies, if you know the unique pain of stepping on a piece of Lego, then you'll be stunned by a New Zealand woman's 100 meter barefoot sprint over thousands of pieces of the most painful toy ever made. As it happens, the Friday edition. Here we go. Radio knows it must have been soul-crushing.

How did they get all of that in one minute? We're up to minute 40 now. This must be... I mean, I'm here for it. Honestly, I want to listen to that entire episode right now. That is exactly the kind of hard-hitting Canadian public broadcasting content that I need in my life right now. I need to hear about people running over Legos intentionally. I need to hear about black opera. I need to hear about a million things that aren't the drumbeat of news

in this country. I'm trying to figure out if both of those hosts might be the regular hosts. Now, I wonder if I was reading old information that had Carol Off still there as well. I know Barbara Budd is gone, but anyway, yeah, but they still maintained the spirit of the show, so I'll give both of those new even though i am very old and very reluctant to accept change in my life i will say the spirit of that show is strong and i was fooled at first i didn't remember the music having a almost a quasi electronic almost little feel or a little bit of a i don't even know how to describe it but before that flute kicked in i thought they changed the i thought they changed the music on us and that would have been a real tough pill to swallow on a monday morning i don't see this is

I don't want to generalize here, but this is I think why Canadians are better than Americans Mm-hmm. I just I knew instinctively they hadn't changed the song because they're not because here's the thing They're not probably talking about defunding the CBC Therefore the shows on the CBC are not probably always going like how do we how do we drive the ratings? How do we sweep more quarter hours and then they're not bringing in some consultant? Who's going well a new theme song could really engage Gen Z? you know i just feel like those are not conversations that they're making them have and i love that for them like this you know i mean i will say this the the quote-unquote new morning edition theme which i think has now been out for five to ten years or whatever remember it being a big story when when it uh when it was first launched yeah i'm very used to it now so it's you know it's like anything you change something and then eventually it just becomes the regular thing and it doesn't feel uh it doesn't feel nouveau or whatever but like i love that kind of kitschy kind of corny ass theme song of as it happens i loved hearing that i don't know what time does it play on kuow like i don't know like 10 o'clock at night or something i don't think

it's that late because it would be very rare for me to find that um i'm looking to see time here i don't know if it says on the page i'm at i'm thinking it's probably more like seven ish but

i don't know i yeah i i have a memory of it maybe it was the time of year but i have a memory of hearing it at a late hour like i'm driving home from something by late i mean like you know it's dark outside which again in the winter could be 7 p.m and just being you're closer than i am 9 p.m 9 p.m okay 9 p.m what's i would call that right in the middle but like i just like the idea of hearing that theme song at 9 p.m as i'm just like driving from someplace to some other place and just finding out about these things that are both meaningless but also give meaning to our lives like why would i really do want to understand why this woman would run over those legos it does seem very, incredibly painful. Like, I immediately started telling her, does she have a callus? Has she developed a callus? on her feet that the only answer i can think of that is so intense that she does not feel these effects because you know that is a that's a sing and you you know you not having young children maybe have never have you been through this have you stepped on a lego in bare feet i

mean i didn't pale moonlight i know i know that it's uh i know that it's a well-worn sort of trope of that thing and so i feel i i feel like i have experienced that sensation at some point But probably for me, it was more as a child than an adult.

Sure. But it is. Yeah, it's a singular experience. And it is a horrible, horrible feeling. And the idea of somehow being able to tolerate a whole lot of that. Like, I mean, I have real questions. I may at some point today, Andrew, go back and try to find that. Can you send me the link to that episode, please?

Yes, I will try. I might listen to that tonight.

That might be some tonight listening for me. Now that I've wrapped up Chris Hayes' fine, fine book, The Sirens Call, which we'll be at Town Hall tomorrow night talking about, which I'm very excited to be doing. Probably this will come up tomorrow on the show a lot, Andrew, because we'll be much closer to the event. But it is going to be challenging for me to low-key the TBTL aspect of our relationship. because what's interesting is that this whole book is about our attention and where we direct our attention and how we make those choices or how those choices are taken away from us in a way by these companies. And it's like we are this weird thing that mostly talks about CBC radio shows that has commanded way too much attention of this person named Chris Hayes. And Lord knows we're not meta. We don't have the world's greatest science minds trying to figure out how to endlessly scroll this thing. Like, we're the opposite of these companies that are commoditizing our attention and selling it and harvesting it. It's just you and me and a CBC theme song. That's the model. And how in the heck is this working on anyone, let alone television's Chris Hayes?

Are you going to start the Q&A with the As It Happens theme song? I am, well, legally I can't. Are you walking out? Can you guys walk out to that? That would be pretty sweet.

I don't think they have any walkout music there at Town Hall. Okay, picture this.

At least they haven't. Picture this. It's me. I have a boom box. It's not even plugged in. I got eight D batteries in there. I have a cassette tape with the original Morning Edition theme song and the As It Happens theme song. Two cassettes. It's a double-decker.

I love it. You have a boom box. Also, for some reason, you're carrying me, and I'm the Martin Short character from Arrested Development.

Or what's his name when he has the hair transplant and it rejects it? Tobias? Tobias. Yeah, I couldn't think of Tobias' name. I feel like Tobias is also carried around like a Muppet in that show quite a bit. I'm sure at some point.

Oh, you know, I don't know if we're going to have – this week is already shot for us, Andrew. You and I were talking before we came on air about the schedule. This week is going to be a busy one between Chris Hayes stopping by, hopefully, and colonoscopies and other announcements that we're making. It's like this week is already packed. But a story that I did want to see about getting to is the fact that the Blue Man Group is retiring its act in New York City, which is where it was actually started. But what I thought was really funny was, I guess maybe I'm just kind of doing the article now. Maybe this is just as well. But they talk in this New York Times piece about Arrested Development using Blue Man Group. and i don't know if you had a chance to read the article yet but i saw that teased sort of at the

top of it but i did not so it seemed like a pretty big part of the article that they mentioned it

right away yeah well one thing was i didn't realize i assumed blue man group were like czechoslovakian or something there was something about the like they don't speak it reminds me of this thing i've mentioned before called like mummenschance which was this like eastern european or maybe french or i don't know belgium i think it might have been it's anyway some european real out there theater thing that I used to see like ads for in various coffee shops in the U district when I was an aspiring young lefty or whatever um I always assumed that the blue man group was like literally from some other country and part of the not talking was because like they didn't speak English no there's like three dudes in New York who just were like kind of like into outsider punk art and came up with this weird thing and one of the things they noticed was that if you had a single blue man it was really weird to people but if you had a group of them people responded better like because for a while it was just one of them was doing it like this was literally part of some it was not like thought of as like this is our big thing it was like well let's just do weird shit including one of us just dresses up like a kind of a blue guy and goes around doing stuff and people responded really poorly to it in public and then they started doing it as a

trio and then people were like well i guess there's three of them there must be some sort of a some sort of coherent thing happening here but anyway to the to the rest development stuff mitch uh what's his name herwitz yeah the creator of the show went to the blue man group because he wanted tobias to become a blue man and the creators of the blue man group said we can't allow this because the blue men don't speak and Tobias speaks and we can't have breaking of that, whatever that is, that conceit. And so that's why they decided that he was going to be an understudy for the blue men group, which Mitch Hurwitz said is actually funnier to him anyway. And I thought, I love that. I've talked about this a lot as it relates to something Stephen Colbert said about creativity and really not just create, maybe creativity in terms of like various creative projects, but maybe just in how we think about how our lives are going, which is like Stephen Colbert said that the times when he feels like he's his most creative is when he's getting put into a box, like when they're trying to do a bit on his show and they can't do the bit the way he wanted for some reason. The celebrity can't make it, or it's too expensive to use that piece of film or whatever. And that's when you have to get creative and make a, and he said, usually that's when you get, the good creativity comes out of that. And I was like, also imagine being Mitch Hurwitz and you have this really funny idea that tobias is going to become a blue man and you're thinking the blue man group must be psyched about this attention and then they're like no blue men don't talk and that's when my brain just goes and i'm going to use a swear who the fuck do you think you are blue men like i just would i would just i would as the kids say i would crash out in that moment i'd just be so mad instead they were like well what if he's an intern and they're like well that would work and he's like that's actually funnier to me anyway like what a good solution to what was a no but from the blue men you would have just immediately turned to stomp yeah you know what does anybody have an oversized push

broom and two garbage can lids you know what blue men you don't you don't want the uh arrested development treatment we got stomp waiting right around the corner i gotta say those two i you know

Savion Glover, line two.

I don't know who that is. Is that similar?

He had another famous Broadway dance show. I'm just working through Broadway hits of that era.

For some reason, Stomp and Blue Men Group very much take up the same space in my brain. Absolutely. I've seen this article on the horizon on the show sheets for a while, and I've been sort of struggling because it's definitely not for me, and kind of capital NFM on that. Although I have seen the Blue Man Group perform live before. Have you been in the theater?

No, but in reading it, it kind of made me more interested in the whole thing. Because, yeah, I came to the idea of the Blue Man Group when it was already becoming kind of a parody of itself, right? And so I'll be honest with you, I've always sort of filed it under kind of a corny thing that I wouldn't really get much enjoyment from. But in reading about its actual history, you know, and the fact that famously Fred Armisen was a member of the Blue Man Group in Chicago. He's part of the Chicago, you know, group of because, you know, that's the thing. They're going away from New York City. They're not going away from their various other places. They're still very much in Vegas. And to me, that's also that's a sort of a that's like a wind speed reading on what relatively cultured people care about versus. let's just be blunt maybe less cultured people i don't know that's a weird way to put it my point is the people that are going to vegas will never ever tire of the idea of the blue man group and the people going to new york to uh wherever in like midtown manhattan this is at some point they just tired of it i i want to but i want to take that back even as i've just said it because i have spent a lot of time in times square recently and it is not an overly cultured population this is i guess i guess i just mean it's interesting that the place where it was founded can no longer support it from a business model from an attendance model but it's thriving apparently in las vegas and probably you know i don't want to start naming cities because that'll indicate places that i think are of low culture but you know what i mean that it's not that the blue man group is going away it's just not going to be at this kind of weird very actually small little funky theater where it was founded in new york city i can tell you exactly when i saw the

blue man group luke because it was during the orange revolution wow the fall of 2004 do you would you like to know why i know i saw the blue man group were you there were you protesting were

you in i was in which square which was which was the which was the square in question no i believe

i saw it in boston it must have been boston yeah but you actually saw this you saw them that's what i said earlier yeah no i was in the room i was i i was in the theater i saw the blue man group and And it was exactly what I thought it was going to be, which was NFM, not for me.

as we say to try to preserve people's feelings when they like things that we dislike but this is where the just ultimate gen xer in me raises its gnarly head and and just sort of sort of like spits sarcasm voice exactly like i am not i never thought i was going to be into it but the reason we went was because as so i worked for new hampshire public radio at the time and my boss It's a friend of mine and mentor, Mike Arnold, who I've talked about a lot on the show, whom you've met, Luke. He was part of some sort of like kind of a cultural educational exchange with journalists in other parts of the world. And I don't exactly know what, you know, organization this was part of. And I know that he went overseas. I believe he visited maybe like the BBC a couple of times. I don't think he went over to Ukraine himself. I don't think he might have in his travels. But we definitely hosted, I believe it was two young journalists from Ukraine who visited us because it was all like in the in the plans for them to visit the United States in the fall of 2004. And so they came over here and I was relatively young myself at the time, but they came over during the Orange Revolution, which was astounding because we had a lot of questions for them. But the primary question was, why are you not in Ukraine? Yes, exactly. And they were young. And I'm sure that they just felt like I'm sure it must have been a moment where it was hard to pass up either an opportunity to go to the United States that had probably been on the books for them for maybe even a year or so. Who knows? But then also watching their countries uprising like this and covering this as young journalists for, I believe, some sort of independent outlet. It was during the early days of sort of like news organizations trying to kind of figure out exactly how to use new what we call then new media as well and stuff. So, you know, it's 2004. So I think like they ran some sort of a news website that had various components to it and stuff. So it was a very fascinating time writ large, but it really was odd that we were hosting these two young Ukrainian journalists. But we also had to introduce them to American culture while they were here. And various people at the station volunteered to, like, take them out on certain nights or whatever. And I don't know how the hell this happened, but Vives and I got roped into the thing that we are least prepared to do, which is go see the blue man group with these Ukrainians in Boston. And, you know, like I said, it was not it wasn't one of those things where I was like, well, I'm going in here cynically. But then it opened my eyes to the art of the experience. It was when they were like flinging toilet paper, like rolls of toilet paper come streaming down at some point to end the show. i remember just wanting to get the living hell out of there imagine now those young ukrainian

journalists are now presumably more like middle-aged ukrainian journalists and they're you know they're they're they're sort of having dinner and they've got their teenagers and they're saying uh dad where were you what was it like what are your memories of the orange revolution he says like i don't know but i went to a legal seafood one time well i thought you were gonna say boston

We call it, me and my business partner call it the blue revolution, actually, because we associate the orange revolution with the blue man group.

We associate it more with banging on these PVC pipes to create different tones. Right. And getting a lot of paint on us. That's where I was when it happened. Oh, so had you been, did you have to escape Ukraine because it was unsafe for you? No, no, no, it was totally voluntary.

No, I mean, we did have to dodge some toilet paper at one point.

No, I mean, it was my memory of the revolution was there was toilet paper everywhere.

Right. Yeah. I'm trying to see if there's any like online footprint of anything that could back up the story I'm telling you. But like this was not something that I think we had an on air component for. And also 2004 is too early of a time for for us to trust that whatever we you know, whatever coverage NHPR did at the time would be online and available right now. But I really wish I could get you some more information on who these folks were or what the organization was. But it was a it's one of those just bizarre times in my life that I can timestamp something so specifically because it's just none of it still doesn't make sense to me.

I really missed out in my in my time in public radio, which I say that like, I guess I still actually host a public radio show. But I really missed out on that whole kind of and I'm going to make it sound like a grift and it's not. but like there were definitely many people I worked with who had their jobs in public radio and then their other job was signing up for fellowships in other places like it was a big rotation it was about half of half of the the time it seemed per year for them was being some in some other country or some other place on a fellowship and I was always envious of that I never had the organizational skills to get it together for myself to apply for these things It was a it was a big

Part of the lifestyle is always going off to Germany for these. There was some series of like ones in Germany that everybody was going to.

Our mutual friend who works at KOW just came back from Germany. I'm going to say like in the past year or so from that. Seriously. I didn't know that. I don't know that I'd heard of the Germany one before. So maybe that was maybe it's even specifically a relationship that KOW has. I'm not sure. But, yeah, somebody that we both know is telling me how great it was.

um andrew speaking of the cutting edge of media uh do you like my new hat here oh like oh astoria oh yeah astoria oregon which i uh was visiting yesterday with addy we had been out in seaside oregon at this place called souwester which is this kind of like little collection of cabins and like airstreams and stuff that is very sort of cooperative and community run they basically have this like very well-stocked store that's like you take whatever you want just write down what you took and just settle up with us at the end it was we were celebrating eddie's birthday a little bit early and it was really fun this place is really really cool a little i will say this it's definitely on the more cooperative crunchy side than i usually go for just in terms of the stuff i'm drawn to but it was really fun and i actually very much enjoyed it there was a a concert in the lodge on saturday night that we went to this guy playing music under the name lake laconic and it was just wonderful guy and his guitar and he had his brother come up and he had his his girlfriend and his sister-in-law and they were just kind of doing some tunes and just like a really supportive little crowd in the room like uh and then you know getting up in the morning the next morning and going and getting coffee in this kind of communal area and stuff I mean, I really, really enjoyed it. But when we were walking around on the beach on a Saturday, I realized something, Andrew, which was I saw this big sign going out to the beach that said Seaview, and that unlocked a memory for me, which I just talked about actually on the Hey Dummies video, which is when I was in high school, I always wore this red T-shirt from this pizza place called Chico's Pizza, Seaview, Washington. and it had a little guy on it and he was saying seven days without pizza make one week it's my favorite t-shirt i think at some point i mean this has come up on the show a bunch of times i think at some point we googled it to see if the place still existed but i was like i don't know if this place is still here but we got to go see and i got on the google map and i said if this is within a mile we're going to walk to it adelaide she said okay and it turned out it was within a block turns out cv cv washington is a fairly compact little area and so i'll be darned if cv pizza uh chico's pizza of cv washington wasn't right there and thriving and still selling those

t-shirts andrew oh wow did you get one when you when i was listening to the hey dummies i was like man it'd be cool to get get our hands on one of those t-shirts oh that's so is that exactly the same style it used to be as well and then oh that's great i love that font it's a very frivolous chunky font seven days without pizza makes one week on the back that's really i'm so glad you got that when you were describing in the video i was like oh man that'd be so cool to get a new

one of those much like the intro music on the cbc this is unchanged by time andrew i and and now here was the thing though i was that's exactly something they would say at the beginning of

as it happens seven days without pizza pizza one week sorry to interrupt you but i just realized

the the synchronicity here i was being such a weirdo though in this pizza place because i walked in and i was like you're still here and they were like we believe i mean everybody i want to say was so nice at this place but they were like yeah uh yeah we're here and i was like do you have the t-shirts and they're like you mean this one i was like are i go does he say seven days without pizza make what they're like yeah he does like you have no idea how big this is to be like i was freaking out on these very nice employees at chico's pizza were the employees young or were they well interestingly enough there was there was um a couple of employees who were very young you know everybody looks very young to me now but i would say probably teens maybe one in their early 20s and then an employee who was older than me um and maybe a woman like maybe in her mid 60s or something and i assumed she was the manager slash owner slash something she had started there a week ago oh okay so she wasn't your institutional she was training and doing a great job by the way but she was the one that was in training and so anyway but i was like i i was like i just have to tell you when i was in high school i had this i had that t-shirt and i used to wear it and i'd never even been here i didn't even know if it was still a place. I just wore this t-shirt all the time. And so anyway, me and my daughter were at Southwest or I was like, again, a much longer.

They were like, it wasn't like they were trying to hustle me along, but I do think my level of enthusiasm was a surprise to these very nice employees at Chico's Pizza.

Did you stick around and have pizza there? Are there a few tables? Yes. Or is it a full restaurant?

Oh, and by the way, the pizza absolutely slapped.

What did you get on the pizza?

Well, I did half and half because I don't really eat meat, so I did a, well, first of all, I wanted to get a slice, which shows you how, like, I don't know. I mean, I guess here's the thing. I didn't realize until the moment that I tried to order a slice from this place how inculcated into urban life I am. This idea of a pizza slice is something, that is to say, a slice that you buy to eat that slice is a deeply urban phenomenon. You will not find a place. There is probably a way to map voting habits with the amount of pizza you're allowed to buy at one time and take out of the store. Because if you get to suburban and ex-urban America, generally speaking, they would never have a slice of pizza for you. It would be insane. So I walked in. I was like, can we get a couple of slices? They were like, oh, we don't really do like a slice.

Well, it's also just a very different kind of place. Like here in Seattle, there are tons of places that would not. I'm going to call it my beloved Spiro's Pizza. I don't think you go in there and get a slice because it's more of the sit-down Greek pizza-style place. That's a good point. But, you know, obviously, if I want a slice, there are places I can go for that, too. There's Big Mario's. There's a place in the U District. But so I always think there's a dichotomy between the type of pizza place it is. But you are probably right.

Maybe it's less geographic.

But I don't think you're totally wrong in that I think it's going to be harder to find a place that slings slices outside of a city.

Right. It's two different slices down by the seaside.

Oh, by the way, this is a very this is. Is that a show title, by the way? Oh, sorry about that.

She slings slices down by Seaside. It's perfect.

Did you see The Brutalist yet? Because he's practicing his English.

Yeah, I saw it this weekend. Did you trick Genevieve? Did you dig a hole around the movie theater and cover it with leaves so that she fell into watching The Brutalist?

I guess she wasn't as against it as I thought. So what happened was there's another new movie out that is intriguing, and I can't think of the name of it right now. But our friends texted us. The Cuddlist. it's really in conversation with the brutalist yeah the massages the hey hermano is the hug the hug list um but no our friends uh invited us to see a movie on friday night and i couldn't make it but i said i am planning on seeing um they invite us to see this other movie i can't recall the name of it and i said i i am planning on going to see um the brutalist tomorrow if you guys are interested and whatever one of our friends was interested and i think maybe that you know became kind of a thing genevive was in i think genevive would have gone with me anyway but it is very very long but one thing i've realized about it and we won't go into detail here because i think you'll eventually see it but yeah one thing i started to realize is not to make this quick aside more complicated but um these friends who i was talking about going to see the movie with um are a married couple and one of them had already seen it and he's a big film buff anyway he's even a filmmaker I think so he's like he's got a keen eye to film but he didn't want to see it again because it's so long but he wanted to meet up with us afterwards just to talk about it because he had seen in the past couple I love that and I feel like every but like and then our friend Nick Jarin I texted him something about seeing the brutalist he's like we got to get on the phone and talk about it and I had this same thing with at least one other person where everybody who sees the movie isn't exactly sure how to feel about it and they just need to talk about it now I ended up blowing off after movie drinks because I wanted to get home. It was a very long movie, and I just sort of wanted to have my – I just wanted to sit with my own thoughts about it for a little bit. So I did not end up having the sort of the roundtable discussion of The Brutalist. So now it's sort of leaking. Now that I've had like 48 hours to sort of have it like kind of settle in, now I do want to – I have all these questions about it. And I don't want to say too much to you because I think that I would like you to go in with not too much knowledge about it. But I will say one thing that you might find interesting, although maybe not, maybe I give myself too much credit. You know, on the show recently, I mentioned that I don't know anything about architecture, but I do like the idea of people building in shadow or considering shadow and light play when they're built. I think it came up because I was at that Icelandic airport, which was just astounding as the sun set. It cast these shadows. We had really different experiences in that airport, I'll tell you. Yeah, we did. It was designed so beautifully, and they had this thing where the sun was setting while we were there, and there was some sort of skywalk of travelers walking across, and I don't even know where the travelers were, but it cast this shadow. across this beautiful building it was so cool and i'm always like i don't know anything about making buildings but i love the idea of having to consider how will the sun interplay with this

that is a huge part of this movie and even a big reveal we know that shadow is going to play a role in this building that he's he's uh constructing and it's kind of teased throughout like how will the shadow be cast and i was like oh this is very specifically up my hand yeah thing now i've

noticed i just was googling it as you were talking it is playing down the hill from me i will give credit to this movie theater that's down in the town near me that's the movie theater close to where you and john sklaroff were staying like listen peace and love but an unremarkable town with an unremarkable movie theater in an surrounded by unremarkable parking lot and yet they're playing the brutalist yes i don't it's like i don't know who the i might be and again i don't know why i'm being so kind of like uh sort of highfalutin today and talking about high and low culture and thinking i somehow embody high culture i might be the only person who will go see the movie the brutalist at that theater i cannot i again i i live and shop amongst the denizens of the areas around here and i've never i've never observed a person who who and i say this really without judgment i've never seen a person in any of the places i've shopped who looks like a person who

would go see the brutalist do you know what was playing there when we were staying there and i almost went because i really wanted to see this movie and i did end up seeing it after the tv telethon but um uh kinds of kindness was playing okay and that makes the brutalist even though the brutalist is very long and i guess brutal in some parts kinds of kindness is a i mean i really liked it but i don't know if you've seen it yet it is i haven't seen a rough watch like there are some rough scenes in this weird ass movie and again i loved it but i was like man this little

theater in this was there anyone seems but you didn't go you but you didn't see it at that theater i'm curious i mean i guess that i guess this is how it works with movies you know what is ever left of the theater industrial complex you make a deal with regal and regal is not um you know as we used to say in the bible not a respecter of persons regal is not going well who's the demo here for the brutalist they're just going it's on x number of screens and this is a regal screen and here we go now this is the bummer for me andrew if we can bring it back to my experience this week um i i this is the whole journey my brain went on when i realized it's playing just down the hill for me i thought you know what if i get ahead if i get all my stuff done today and i'm feeling pretty good about tomorrow night's event at town hall and and the the rest of my week um maybe i'll reward myself by going down and watching the brutalist night and uh by myself and i'll get some popcorn yeah and then i realized i can't eat popcorn oh you're already in the window the window started last freaking thursday dude oh i don't think i fully

realized that oh i didn't either listen as your attorney i will tell you now i mean i think you have slightly different attitudes towards this no i mean i want the popcorn i can't sit in a movie theater i can't go in that theater and smell the popcorn and know i'm going to be sitting down for an epic three and a half hour movie with an intermission luke i don't know if you realize that like this is a long movie like i don't think you can do it without popcorn and that's not a reflection of the movie it's just a reflection of willpower yes i know and like that's i will be i'm

not probably as dialed into popcorn as you are but it definitely would be half of the appeal for me for this like okay this movie's going to have its highs and its lows it's going to be really long and but i will be eating delicious popcorn like that was part of my calculation and yeah i can't eat anything with seeds and nuts and as a person who doesn't eat a lot of meat it turns out i exist on a lot of things that are seeds and nuts yeah that's like that's like a lot of the vegetables i like that's cucumber off the list um tomatoes off the list um fruits that have seeds in them which is you know how fruits propagate generally off the list so even i mean only edible

seeds in other words like you could eat an apple an apple has seeds in it you can eat the apple you just can't have seeds in your system right correct so i could eat an apple which i will be

um and just making sure that i'm not accidentally eating the seeds which pretty avoidable an apple

it is but most not strawberries like you say cucumbers like no i mean the seeds are part of

the deal and I also really like peanuts these days I've been trying to get more protein and eat more things that are just like minimally processed and you know like a handful of salted peanuts is a pretty minimally processed thing that's off the list I did kind of cheat I was so I this was the weirdest thing so on Thursday I was driving down to Beaverton to do live wire and I had just actually gone through and read the paperwork from the colonoscopy thing And I'm a little bit surprised that anybody actually gets through this prep because it's rigorous. And one of the things that was on there was like no seeds or nuts. But I had already gotten in my mind that I really wanted some peanuts. And I was driving down to get gas on my way down to Beaverton. And I stopped and I got gas and I went into the mini mart and I was looking around. And I just said like, I don't give a rat's patootie. I don't give a rat's touche, Andrew.

I'll beep it. I'll beep it.

I'm going to, you know what I'm getting? i'm getting me a sleeve of them planters peanuts and i'm eating you know it's thursday night am i technically within the seven day window of this procedure yes am i going to trust the universe that it's going to be okay also yes and that felt like the biggest act of defiance i felt like a political statement again as we've pointed out a lot of things feel political now that probably shouldn't i was just like i am not going to allow the people at the pacific surgery clinic of long view washington tell me that i can't eat these peanuts as i'm driving down to do long a live wire even though i am technically seven days before the procedure and so i did and they were delicious they were almost more delicious because of the fact that they were somehow you know

illicit yes you know i mean all i understand is i think the day before you're just supposed to eat as many beets as possible right is that exactly recommendations for the call absolutely just to

just to make sure that you get a completely clean bill of health well the other thing i i ended up talking about this uh with the audience at the theater in beaverton before we started i do this all the time and it's so dumb of me of all the people that should understand the implications of this me the host of livewire um should understand this by the way speaking of livewire we got an event on saturday night at the hotel crocodile in seattle which i would be so fun if we saw some It's with the singer Emmy pop and it's gonna be Saturday night at the it's early six to eight It's just a chill hangout with food and drinks. Please come see us. But anyway, I should know this when I Talk to the audience before the show starts about some embarrassing weird thing The guests of the radio show do not understand that what I was doing is not the radio show You know what I mean? Yeah, it becomes not that every single guest referenced colonoscopies for the rest of the night during the radio recording because nobody except me and our producers understand what is and is

not the radio show so and this is a good opportunity for all of our listeners to employ what they learned at the beginning of today's show will you have to reference it in the billboard luke in order for the references to make sense or are they just going to cut them all out

they'll cut around it because i was constant i was furiously resetting and reframing because like so So the first guest comes out, and she made actually a very funny joke about it, and then I am listening for a new endpoint to the interview, and I basically just like, I think I kind of got us out of it. Whenever it came up, I then intentionally said something that probably sounded slightly non sequitur, but it was effectively resetting the conversation, so I was making it all cutoutable, I think, anyway, I hope. But yeah, I should know better than to talk about something that has no business being in the radio show, because then everyone wants to reference it for the rest of the night.

Especially if it's something that is sort of like funny or interesting like that, that everybody's going to have some sort of.

Yeah, that kind of sticks out in your mind. But again, as this gets closer, so yeah, no popcorn for me, which also means no watching The Brutalist by myself. Although if it's there, well, no, I'm going to England then for a week. So I don't know. It may not be showing anymore when I get home. But I could also see it in England.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know what your schedule is going to be like.

They call it Cheerio The Brutalist there, right?

I believe that's true. I'm not going to riff on that. I have the same two jokes I make over and over again. But I yeah, you know, it is one that and I say this about most films because I definitely don't have the you know, I've lost whatever patience it takes to like actually sit down and watch a serious movie at home, especially three and a half hours worth of it. You know, it's such a theater going experience for me. Yeah, I mean, even the credits at the end, the way it's sort of, they slant across, this sounds so cheesy, but they slant across the screen in a way that sort of reflects the sort of... The lines? Well, sort of, yes, the lines. I mean, yeah, honestly, just like the creation of the beginning and end credits are really cool. And I also think that the weird sort of skewed look at the credits has something to do with the movie will sometimes go into this sort of handheld effect that has some really... Again, I'm trying to hold myself back of talking about specific shots, but, like, I don't know. I really – I think, honestly, though, I don't want to build up your expectations too much to come back to this for one second because one of the reasons I think I really enjoyed it was I started to hear more people grumbling about it right when I went in. Both Genevieve and Libby, our buddy who we went with, were both saying, you know, I've read reviews that say it kind of misses the mark in some way. and so I started my expectations going in were lowered in the like 48 hours before I hit the theater which is good which is good but now here I am sort of boosting it up and I kind of want you to like it I don't know why I care but like I want you to well I at least want you to enjoy the theater going experience so I want to keep your expectations in check some people find it a frustrating movie for reasons that I understand as well so anyway I do god damn I just want I I don't want you to watch it on your phone. That's for damn sure. Promise me that.

Oh, I have a new app. I can watch it on my Apple Watch.

Yeah, right. I was sitting next to somebody at the Eagles the other day, and I had texted her something. This isn't somebody I know super well, but kind of a buddy of mine there. And I had texted her something, and then a few minutes later, she got the buzz on her phone, or I'm sorry, on her watch, rather. And she's like, oh, I got your text message. And I was like, slow down, Inspector Gadget. And then I was like, it's 2025. Like, I'm wearing this analog watch. Like, nobody—it's not even—Apple watches aren't even slightly exotic anymore. Like, they're the most common thing in the world. I just am not familiar with that world.

Let's thank some donors. These folks are keeping TBTL in business with their donations. and this would not be possible without folks like Megan Dahl, who's there in Winthrop, Washington. Oh, the big egg.

The big egg, right? No?

No, that's Winlock.

Winlock.

Damn, I'm sorry. Winthrop is the blues festival and the half marathon that I once ran and then our friend Broadcast Barry was there and I thought I did pretty well at this half marathon. I was feeling good and I asked Barry how he did and he said very sheepishly, Well, I won. I finished first place. But Winthrop is just a really cool town there in, I guess we'll call it, not quite central Washington, but maybe southern central Washington. Anyway, Megan Dahl is there, and that's the most important part of Winthrop, Washington.

I know I got the wrong town, but I am thinking now, what do you think the skyrocketing price of eggs? How has that affected the winlock? affecting yes that that is now the world's most expensive egg too i must yeah well it only stands

to reason if you think about the size of the egg and then the increase in cost yes uh we also want to thank aaron uh zenert of mead washington nice thank you aaron mead washington i don't know i don't have anything on mead i'm trying to think of mead washington i know there's uh let me let me get eyes on this uh it's uh it's in washington state okay we know that it's in washington state and we know i'm zooming out i'm i'm de-enhancing andrew de-enhance un-enhance oh you know what well it's a it's a it's in the outskirts of spokane washington and that would make sense there was very famously a high school in spokane called mead that is a powerhouse in many sports oh really but i don't think i knew that mead was itself its own kind of suburb or designation i I just thought that was the name of a high school in Spokane. So that's where Aaron is. Thanks, Aaron.

Do you think Aaron is wearing like a singlet? Like, is Aaron a wrestler? Aaron could be a wrestler.

Also, Aaron could have gone to Shadle Park, which is the other big high school out there that also has huge success in the arena of sports. We just don't know. What we know about Aaron is that they're donating to TBTL, and we are thankful. Also thankful for Nicole Newton in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Oh, you know, I was somewhere recently that had burgers on the menu. I don't know where I was, and I don't think I was ordering a burger myself, but I noticed that here in Seattle, Washington, somebody is offering up a Juicy Lucy these days.

It's made the jump, huh?

It's made the jump. I saw a Juicy Lucy, something with cheese inside and outside.

Oh, we love the Juicy Lucy, and we love Nicole Newton. Thank you. Also, Jeff Dooley is in Mansfield, Massachusetts.

Massachusetts. Mansfield feels like a town that has a lot of, like, there's a lot of Mansfields, I feel like, sprinkled around the country. I could be wrong about that.

That does sound, that is a fairly common, well, it's a last name for blonde bombshells from the 50s. Sure. And for towns. Your Janes. It's about the only Mansfield I can think of.

Jeff, though, is singular in his support and generosity.

Thanks, Jeff. Thanks to Annette Streak of Brampton, Ontario, Canada.

Nice. We were saying nice things about Canada before. I'm glad we were.

We were. And I mean, it's long overdue and it's a welcome change because the U.S. for years, we've I think without meaning to we've we've treated Canada kind of maybe like a younger sibling or something like we we think we're the big international power. We've got it all figured out. And Canada is a fun place to visit and they've got their, you know, exports. including Rick Moranis and John Candy and Drake. He's a hilarious dog. Uh-huh. And then, but now what we've realized is that Canada all along was the ones with their shit together. That's right. For the ups and downs in Canada, they've never done the kind of shit that we've recently done as a country.

I need a toque, by the way. Is that how you say that? I learned that that's like... A hat, right? But I think it's just, I don't, I'm trying to figure out, Is there a difference between a toque and just like any kind of knit hat that we would wear here in the States that covers our ears and maybe has a tassel on top or maybe not?

See, I don't know. And it's confusing because when she's talking about toques on as it happens, she's talking about your backside.

Oh, that was a touche. Touche. That was a touche. A touche is not a touche. Yeah.

Do they make a touche for your touche?

A butt hat? You tell me. Ask the doctors. Anyway, in all seriousness, thank you, Annette.

Yeah, thanks, Annette. Also, thanks to Jill Rosenberg in Madison, Wisconsin.

Wow.

What a wonderful place Madison, Wisconsin is.

I don't know why I said wow. I think I said wow for a second because I thought we had two Madisons, but one was Mansfield and the other is Madison. And in different states. And in very different states. Thank you very much, Jill. I'm sorry I did that to your town.

Thanks to all of our donors today for making TB Chill possible. Couldn't do it without you. hello and welcome to top story um i was cruising around for information this morning and i landed on the uh seattle times uh rants and raves column this has been a uh a recurring topic here on this show of course uh andrew submitted a rant and rave unsuccessfully i i still i don't want to relitigate that but i still find it shocking like that they didn't publish that like i can't i I refuse to believe that they had rants and raves that were better than your rant and rave.

Mine was a little unhinged. I wish I, I mean, I could give another go at it. They might have been nervous about me taking direct aim at the city and like basically accusing them of, I'm going to say not the city, but the city's contractors adding illegal charges to, I am strongly in the belief that these extra garbage fee things are a willful act. on behalf of these garbage collection companies because once I brought that up to people, a lot of people are checking their bills and they see they have these errant $13.50 just randomly thrown onto their bill when they're like, we had no extra trash and people aren't looking at their bills that much. But I think it kind of, that accusation opens up kind of, I don't know if the Seattle Times was willing to take that smoke. Possibly, I don't know. And also the way I wrote it was crazy.

suddenly the Seattle Times the actual garbage outside of the Seattle Times is just piling up and piling up and you've got these waste management folks that are like yeah it's a real shame we just keep finding ourselves with other things to pick up sorry like you're saying that that's the smoke that they might be

worried about that is exactly what they're worried about you don't go up against big garbage I'm willing to do it but the Times they don't have the cojones that I do

you're really the sort of you know what is it Upton Sinclair of the industry you're willing to push back well the rants and raves today the first one we've got a rave and a rant which again is I think the model that you it was the idea that you put forward although you included you raved did you rave to yourself

I ranted at the city garbage collection then I raved myself but rave to me for creating a new social media

account where i can keep everybody honest yeah um there's a rave and a rant here rave to the medical professionals and all the hard work they do you're truly appreciated rant to making an appointment to see them don't tell me my appointment is at 10 15 but that i should be there by 10 if you want me there by 10 then just tell me my appointment is at 10 wouldn't that be easier and make more sense um this is not even actually the thing i really want to get into andrew i just felt like out of respect out of respect for our listeners and my sense of completism i felt like i needed to read this one um i don't have a strong opinion on that it was the next one though that i thought was let's just say complicated and it's interesting to me that the seattle times co-signed this because and i don't think that i genuinely have not made up my mind on this but let's just read it rave to a man at costco who saw an older woman giving out samples of food she had no takers and looked rather sad he went over she smiled he took a sample and went on his way to finish his shopping on his way to checkout he picked up 12 roses for his wife he then went over to the sample lady and gave her a rose quote for your lovely smile said she touched his hand they both teared up as she took the rose the wife got 11 roses that day signed mitch album no like this is fucking bananas had you read this before i sent it to you

not before you sent it to me but i read it before just it's been in my head all show i was really glad to get to it today um i i mean i have so many questions i don't want to steal the ball here if you want to go somewhere right away but first of all just like how does one person who supposedly doesn't know this man i mean aside from let's just talk about the behavior in this little story yet how who what was the perspective that the writer to the seattle times had on this person was this person just wandering around following this guy and seeing this this and first of all the the the person looks sad because nobody's taking their samples at Costco i don't think that's a thing i don't your mom would know better because i think she did she was in this business for a while i don't think you feel personally affronted or by any chance my mom might have but she

but she tends to get a little sideways on things because somebody isn't taking your little pork

skewer like i that doesn't make sense and what this has this style of to me that we were talking about how um the uh the about town it's not called about town in the new york talk of the town talk of the town and the new yorker how it's always got that sort of like this is the parade magazine version but it's got that removed like this one reporter noticed like this feels like one reporter noticed because how in the world would a stranger have all of this story unless they were following

this man or they were the man or the man self-raving and is the man is the if this is a man who self-raved himself but in the third person i think we need bolo we need to be on the lookout for this person because they are a an absolute danger to society at large i mean you did this and then wrote about yourself glowingly and then some what one or two things happened here either this is a complete fiction like not even getting into the gender politics of it of like here's a rose for your beautiful smile touched his hand and they both teared up how did you watched all of this how long were you standing by the liquid IV display at the Costco writer like how like back to your point how did somebody observe this entire arc so in other words this person was posted up in this part of the Costco for the entirety of this first of all watching this poor little this the tuppence for birds this poor little bird woman and her sadness around knowing one of her samples and then a man taking her sample and her smiling and then that man finishing his shopping at costco then him buying his roses for his wife did you ask him if they were for his

wife yeah that's the other thing how do you know who these roses are for and this idea that the wife the wife by the way the wife or the husband is one of my least favorite constructions but the wife got 11 roses how do you know that these roses for the wife and not not a partner or the

gal who does his massage at the sketchy massage parlor exactly that she received 11 roses that they like we're talking to you maybe justin tucker wrote this exactly um i um aria of expertise for justin tucker it turns out massage a questionable massage behavior um he's also an opera singer that's why i tried to make it into that i was wondering that used to be the before this recent article came out the thing about justin tucker used to be amazing kicker and sings opera and now we're adding uh something else to the list but anyway all that is to say only when i read this out loud to you and you did i realize how preposterous this is as an event that somebody witnessed there is no way somebody watched this happen the way that it is described here maybe some maybe one part of it happened and they then just kind of like fan ficked the rest of it out maybe none of it happened again a distant third possibility is that this is this i'm this is some guy who thinks he's quite the hero and was so chuffed with his behavior that he then needed to make sure the world knew about it but then had to pretend like he was a person observing himself again if so um big if true because that person is really messed up but the seattle times publishing it yeah to me is like have they full have they fully surrendered this to some sort of a like ai program did a human being read this and think a this is what well in a way it is what we needed because we're getting content out of it but thought that the reading public of seattle needed this

obviously complete bullshit story this is yeah i mean first of all it is notable that there are only two rants and raves in this one i do think that they publish this every single day and so and sometimes they'll have up to five or six i think and was this today's or yesterday's that this is today's as i uh yeah it is today so maybe they were a little bit light on it also i'm really confused about

the art illustration yeah the illustration a greyhound with a megaphone doesn't scream

weird gendered costco interaction on a soapbox i don't understand what maybe they just swapped it this is by and i'm gonna miss gabriel campaniero is that his name and he does like the sketchbook in the seattle times or whatever i don't want to i don't want to specifically uh take aim at him because i actually kind of generally like his stuff i think or at least i like him i like a newspaper having this role uh however this is a bizarre illustration for this particular ransom

that they're just that was like we need something to put here well this dog has a megaphone so i

guess you could say it's raving yeah and there are a bunch of balloons and confetti around it so anyway that's kind of but i will say this rave i mean i want to read it again like it stinks to high heaven it just every part of this and i'm gonna say it again stinks to high heaven for your lovely smile he said she touched his hand they both teared up as she took the rose the wife got

11 roses that day bullshit straight to jail i mean straight to jail like again i i mean i just what i i just don't think this happened no i think that i think somebody somebody wants wanted to

write a schmaltzy story wow you went further with that i know i just kept committing over and over

again even to my own astonishment uh but like i i really like it's crazy i feel like some sort of some sort of weirdo wanted to get into the pages of the seattle times and they then they wrote this up like wouldn't it be amazing if this had happened and it worked and it got past the editors the very editors who thwarted your attempts at a self-rave exactly found this i mean ultimately what this is really andrew is a in it's an injury to you as a writer it's an affront to me it's a rejection it's a rejection at the most primal level of your ranting and

raving that this got through and yours didn't hey i have an idea this is an idea that i'm just having right now because i was i was started i was searching my own mail to see if i could pull up the rant and rave that i sent in but honestly i can't find it and i'm kind of glad of that i think maybe i don't want to revisit that it pains me every time to realize that i wrote this um but you know what i'd love to do for the newsletter this week is let's publish our own tbtl 10s rants and raves i'm not promising every single one that is sent in gets published What a great idea. But like everybody, Andrew at tbtl.net, send in rants, send in raves, maybe send in a rant and rave combo. Keep it to about the length of a Seattle Times rant and rave. You heard the one we just read. It's about that.

But unlike the Seattle Times, keep it to actual events, please, and real thoughts.

Don't go pranking me. I don't like to be pranked. Give us some real. And of course, we have listener Mary, who's kind of like the queen of rants and raves. she writes into the Seattle Times all the time and has given us advice on getting published on the Rants and Raves so I really expect to hear from her on this but yeah send us a rant and a rave and I'll see if I can make that I mean shit man this is honestly I love the rant and rave thing I've told you like when I had my old radio show I tried to do a radio version called What's Your Damage right and people would call in that didn't take off it turns out people didn't listen to the show but but I rant rant

the people not calling in for what's your damage

but anyway I could see this if we get enough of these I could see it being a regular you know once a month thing or whatever TBTL should we can we riff right now or maybe that sets us up for failure but I wonder what we should call it I'll think on that a little bit because it can't be rants and raves it should be something TBTL related we do something on after these messages called ad collates and admonishment which is very specific to that show obviously but uh

I'm actually um I'm sorry if I sound distracted I'm composing a I'm composing a rave to the Seattle Times rave to the man I saw selling his pocket watch in order to buy combs for his wife

how about just what if I just write in rave to the Seattle Times editorial desk for just publishing this bat shit story without even thinking twice about it.

I mean, how about, okay, but how about a rant? Yeah. How about a rant that, I mean, this is, now we're really, really sort of like pushing, I don't know if it's the fourth wall or the envelope, I don't know what's being pushed here, but like, what if it was rant of the Seattle Times for publishing a story about some roses in a Costco that what it lacked in terms of nuance about how genders interact, it made up for in just sheer unbelief.

Unbelievably, like the just like from a practical standpoint, there's no way somebody watched this entire thing unfold unless they were posted up for, what, 45 minutes in the same spot and just on the what on the hopes the guy would circle back with one of his 12 roses.

And I am rereading now the rant that I sent in. And while I this was from May 9th of last year, boy, time just keeps marching on. I and while I'm still not proud of this, it actually seems less cringe compared to what they just published. Right. In the young gray lady. I don't know what we call the Seattle Times. The young green lady. Oh, that's right. We just talked about that. Rant to the garbage collectors who keep adding unexplained extra garbage charges on my bill each month. rant to the person at the seattle public utility says they they can't reverse the charges anymore because i've challenged them too many times that really makes me so uh uh rave to my new social media account where i am now documenting my bins to prove that i'm not breaking any rules on pickup day double check your invoices folks you might be paying extra fees too i mean rereading it now it's

not as cringy as i remember it's not that cringe and it is an important message like it actually contains some sort of nutritional value if you live in seattle and you know the city is picking up your garbage which would be pretty much everybody there might be some junk fees on there right like that's there was a lot a lot to like about that post none of which by the way exists in this uh costco story which and i don't think this is how it works but i would be unsurprised to find that this becomes not just because of the tbtl attention the the white hot laser of attention we're focusing on it but i could also see if there was a comment section for ransom is there a comment section andrew uh there is not unfortunately okay i could i could see this being

the most popular rave in years that's mine not the cost no one the costco costco one because it

could create such a no because it's schmaltz and people love schmaltz i'm saying you're saying unironically it could end up unironically i'm saying if there was a if there was a sort of an upvote on this my guess is there will be there would have been like a huge upvote for it my guess would be that the that the average seattle times reader who sees this particularly sometimes read over a certain age would just go like oh isn't that nice i think it unironically would probably be one of the more popular raves that they've seen in a while would i be popular with

joanie balter if i email this to her with my list of complaints and asked her how in the world she thinks this got into the pages of the Seattle Times. I'm considering

that she hasn't worked there for a long time. And I'm sure

never went anywhere near the rant

and rave. I'd send it to Tim Egan and then ask if he can print it out and hand it to Joni Balter.

Did Danny Westneat write this, in fact? I'm wondering. Maybe he's

the man of Costco. Listen, I will tolerate no Danny Westneat criticism on this show. He's an old friend

of mine. Well, you better get used to it. That's for

your other shows mister right all right all right we better uh we better wrap this up before we before we tear we tear our friendship apart uh here on the pain the pages of tbtl um i feel like i really want to i don't have i don't understand anything about it but i really need to talk to you about the luca duncich trade dude like i don't get i don't understand basketball dude i don't know anything about basketball but what i know is that it is it is it has exploded my social

media feeds luke i okay so we're in extra times here i killed the music i'm not because what i'm about to do is not talk about sports in fact i've been thinking about our listeners who don't like us talking about sports um because i found my experience with this was fascinating to me and i was thinking about it all day sunday because here's what happened i was up late on saturday i told you i went to go see that movie and then i peeled off my friends went to like hattie's hat or something, and I took a bus home. Actually, that's not true. I waited for a bus. It was going to take forever, so I ended up calling a car. Sorry to almost lie there. That's what they call virtue signaling there. So I took a car home, and I had some Andy times by myself. And that is not as dirty as it sounds. And at one point, I look at my phone. It's pretty late on Saturday night. And I follow a lot of people who are into sports because I like their chatter about baseball and football. And if there's basketball talk I just don't usually pay attention to it my timeline is suddenly just exploding with people losing their shit about an NBA trade and I'm familiar with the names involved but I don't understand any I don't know any of the dynamics I have no context for it all I know is people are flipping out people are saying that my mind is blown the world will never be the same again How could this happen? I see our friend Nick.

Jarn eventually is in there. Oh man, he is the target demo for this. He's the target demo. He tweets, or blue skies, he posts I have never heard from so many people I haven't heard from in a long time texting me tonight to talk about this trade. I'm reading all of this stuff but I'm not reading any articles and never once does anybody indicate in any way why it's so significant or what it is. I forget about it i go to bed for the night i wake up the next morning i turn on like sports radio it's all the national shows the national shows are their heads are spinning they're like this could be the biggest trade in nba history certainly in the last hundred years they are freaking out but still nobody is saying why nobody is like is it a good trade for one a bad trade for another like everybody is apparently the person who broke it shams or whatever like everybody thought his his account was hacked when this news was breaking like professionals thought that so it's just like it's so funny to see the world of basketball just shaking at its core and me just being like i don't know what the hell's going on i don't really care i'm just really enjoying people

freaking their shit out this is brian windhorst okay he's like a one of the top basketball uh sort of a journalist and he's one of the folks who gets the the tips and the and the and the whatever the news before the rest of us get it and this is him talking about it on talking to big cat from barstool and this was the thing that really like this is a guy who's actually a pretty he's a good journalist he's not overly hyperbolic he's a smart person and this is how he's described

windy bat phone basically was like hey can you please come on for 10 minutes to tell us what's

going on you have not slept you're all the way in la now uh what the hell's going on cat in my career uh never have i had my phone go crazy like this i'm talking about players head coaches assistant coaches executives referees uh agents lawyers workout guys you know and they all had the exact same question we don't understand what don't we understand what what's going on and i don't have a great answer this was this is one of the most shocking transactions i've and i i mean i can't speak to the nhl or whatever it's one of the most shocking transactions in american sports history um for the magnitude and the way it came out of the blue i mean but i still don't you know

I mean, it's this guy, Luka Doncic, who was a Dallas Maverick and a really, really good player, and he gets traded to the Lakers for, well, there was a bunch of, I think there was maybe three teams involved, but he ends up as a Laker. Yeah, the Jazz was kind of a bank shot. And then the Lakers end up losing their center, Anthony Davis, who's a really good player in his own right, but is older than Luka Doncic. Luka Doncic is 25 years old, considered to be in the prime of his career, and just a really, really kind of, like, you know, generational talent who's always apparently loved LeBron James' game and emulated him. There's this huge mutual respect and appreciation between the two of them. It's also Los Angeles. It's, you know, kind of other than maybe the Knicks. It's obviously the biggest basketball market. So I still, I mean, to me it's like, yeah, okay, you just had basically one of the best players in the NBA, Luka Doncic, just get shipped by his team. It made no sense based in the way that these kind of blockbuster things usually unfold, which is that the player is unhappy. They're asking to go somewhere or it just it came so out of the blue. But again, the way that the sports media world that I tend to engage with is response. It's just extra surreal to me because unlike if this was a football trade, I would have at least they wouldn't be good thoughts, but I would have some thoughts. I would understand instinctively that, like, oh, like, if the Kansas City Chiefs traded for Josh Allen, but they still had Patrick Mahomes, I would be like, well, okay, why? You have a good quarterback. I don't even know that. Like, I don't know what the need in the backcourt is of Luka Doncic for the Lakers. In other words, I don't I don't know the X's and O's of this. What I know is that people like Brian Windhorst are saying it's the biggest trade in the history of America of American sports now.

Yeah. And so though and you probably have sussed this out at this point, because I just turned on the AM radio yesterday while I was like making the coffee and hot chocolate for my volunteer gig. And that's where it was weird yesterday. Like when baseball season ends and I don't have a morning baseball game to listen to on Sunday mornings, that's always a very weird feeling. but it slips into football games pretty quickly after that. Yesterday was a very weird day where I had no football or baseball to watch or listen to while I kind of did my morning Sunday routine.

I'm just listening to AM Sports Radio. And I was telling Veeves exactly what I told you. I'm just like, everybody is freaking out, and I don't really know why yet. And Veeves would come in, and she's like, I still can't get over that trade. We're just, like, riffing about it all morning. We don't know shit about it. But finally, I did sort of hear that. I guess if you're looking at it from a winners or losers standpoint, I guess it's, like, Mavs fans that are going to be pretty miffed if this doesn't work out. Because basically the age difference, even though apparently Luca was not like super motivated or taking care of himself physically in a way that the team wanted, he's still a younger, I guess, sort of phenomenal player for them. And then shipping them off to the Lakers, shipping him off to the Lakers for an older player, it sort of sounds like the Mavs are the ones who are taking a really, really big risk here. So that's about all.

That was the that was the thought that I had, which was, you know, again, just in the very, very sort of 30,000 foot view of this, which is based on Nick Wright saying things online or whatever. But like, yeah, is that I mean, also the Mavs fans are just devastated because they had this generational talent who's 25 years old and then the team just said, all right, well, we'll see you later. That was some of the speculation is that he was not popular for whatever reason with the organization. Maybe not the other players, but with the like, you know, the front office, they must have, you know, there must have been things about him that they that they thought were going to become issues. And yeah, that is his conditioning isn't great. I mean, I don't know. The guy scored 70 points in a game last year. So whatever he's doing, it seems to be kind of working. It was my thought. And I love how I went from saying I have no thoughts on this. I don't know basketball. and I still don't, to going like, wither Bronny James. Because think about this, Donchich, he's a guard. And I feel like I've just started to see this kind of Bronny James slept on narrative is starting to emerge, which is like, if Bronny James does anything good in a game now, it immediately blows up on TikTok.

So he's out of the G League now, he's playing with the NBA again?

I believe he's been playing with the real team. I think he played the entire fourth quarter in a game recently. I don't know if he's going back and forth Into the G League and the pros But it's like I'll just see these clips Like Bronny James and one And it's just like Bronny James Getting fouled and making the layup And then cut to LeBron who's in street clothes Which by the way LeBron orchestrated this So I guess I don't feel that bad for him But on the other hand it also must just be annoying That your kid's out there in public And then it's like he does a thing And then the camera just goes right on you In your street clothes

just being like is LeBron senior not playing is he I mean he I think he's I think he's hurt or

something again what I know is these clips I these 30 second clips I see where it's like you know or like Bronny played the whole fourth quarter of this game it's like it's feel like there's this burbling thing up burbling up thing which is like well maybe Bronny James isn't so bad whereas like the big fun the fun thing was to just shit on Bronny James at the beginning like he's so bad now I feel like there's a few Bronny James stands that are emerging like it's just a more interesting story if he's actually kind of competent yeah i mean the the counter

narrative always sort of emerges and becomes more fun anyway exactly right so whatever the narrative

is it's only a matter of time before the counter narrative emerges and what i was thinking though is like if bonnie james was getting any minutes with the lakers i can't imagine the addition of luka donch just gonna help that that can only like it only cost him whatever minuscule minutes he's I feel like it's a quick trip back to the G League for old Bronny.

I see. That's interesting for the kid. Whereas, you know, people were saying this sort of adds to because LeBron is, you know, getting pretty old now, right? He's only a couple of years younger than us, right? Or is he five years younger than us?

I would say he's lived very differently than we have. So I don't know if those numbers, the relevance of those numbers.

That doesn't track for me. But I haven't had a nightshade in a decade.

I haven't had one for four days.

Yeah, that is true. You really haven't. I'm dying. You really haven't. But anyway, yeah, I guess the people were saying this sort of extends. It was like kind of unclear, like kind of how he's going to continue to perform over the next couple of seasons. But it sort of sounds like, well, if you pair him up with Doncic. Doncic or Doncic? I don't know. I thought it was Doncic. I don't know. Now that I'm saying it out loud, I just sound a fool either way. But it's sort of like somehow this gives a little bit more life to the to the waning days of his career, of LeBron's career, because pairing those two up together will be not an unstoppable force, but certainly a better situation than he had with A.D. apparently. But again, I don't even know what positions are in basketball. So I don't know.

Some websites are saying that they think it will have a minimal impact on Bronny's minutes.

On Bronny.

Because Bronny doesn't really get to play in the important parts of the game anyway, generally speaking. So his garbage time will remain, you know, available to him because they're not going to be playing Luka in those moments. But, yeah, well, I'm glad we got that out of our system, Andrew. Yeah, I really did.

Boy, I kind of...

forgot about that yesterday i almost texted you i'm like i not unlike the brutalist i need to talk about this with somebody and not the details of the trade but just how bizarre it was to see the

world just so shooken and me just not having under any understanding why at all not to mention

it is good to see the city of los angeles and one of their pro sports team finally get a high value player to come to town exactly oh goodness all right uh that's gonna do it for today's show but uh i have uh some incredible news uh we'll be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio and we sure hope you can join us for that in the meantime have a great monday take care of yourselves and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

you should be banned from talking basketball power out