Muse

I got the idea from The Shawshank Redemption. Oh, my God, that's my favorite movie. No, it's my favorite movie, too. I've seen it, like, a hundred times. Melissa. It's just one of those movies, if you turn on the TV, and it happens to be on, you just have to finish it.

Melissa, Melissa, it's my favorite movie, too. Big Shank head here. Yeah, it's Tom Hanks at his finest, right?

Tom Hanks? What's your favorite part of Shawshankville?

You know, so many parts, so many parts to choose from and to pick from. Probably, you know, the part where the Shawshank is redeemed. It's like, you know, Hanks does some...

Well, I've never seen it. Well, you gotta see it, you know? As they say in the movie, get busy living or get busy...

Get busy dying. Dying.

Yep.

Truly was a Shawshank redemption.

TBTL That is totally absurd People ask me, were you, uh, you know, were you, you must have been the class clown And I say, uh, no, I wasn't But I sat beside the class clown and I, I studied him

I feel like I'm watching regional theater, you guys God, am I in the Cleveland Playhouse or something?

Are you taking my duplication investigation seriously? Or are you disrespecting my duplication investigation? Let's get to the jokes.

All right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. The vibes will be the illest, and the jams not ridic. My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Me, me! Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty and frigid Columbia. We've got snow everywhere here.

Check the death count from the killer storm bearing down on us like a shotgun full of snow.

It snowed overnight. The good news is that the roads appear to be passable, although maybe a bit icy. I will not let anything stand in the way of getting to Town Hall tonight. I'm so excited about this show. In Seattle, where we will all be gathering together with our pal, television's Chris Hayes, to do a little event there. Maybe we shall see some of you out there tonight. But we know for a fact that we'll be interacting with you by way of this program, which is episode 4,395 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. That's the episode of TBTL we're on. And we've got a cool project that we're embarking on.

Attention, everybody. Madames and Miss Woz.

I don't know why I said project like Christopher Walken. We've got some cool projects. like a person who'd only experienced Christopher Walken through other people doing impressions of him, maybe. That's more like what that was. Anyway, we've got an announcement coming up. And we've got this guy, longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ship. Got it. He's Andrew Walsh. He's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend. It truly was a Shawshank Redemption.

I haven't heard that in a while, man. That got me. I used to play that all the time. I'm over here cry-laughing at that intro.

I mean, that's, you know, a lot of ink has been spilled about the no-you-don't Oprah.

Yes.

And, like, what a great kind of the density, the layers of the comedy in that 30 Rock scene. But there are just, maybe it's not even that it's so layered, but there are just so many really great jokes in that intro that we played from Last Man on Earth. Which I always have to be very clear, is not the Tim Allen show, Last Man Standing. I know. Similar names, very different levels of comedy.

Exactly. And very different, I'm thinking, worldviews by the men behind those characters, I'm assuming.

I'm not a big fan. The only gig I've turned down for ethical reasons was they wanted me to do a TV profile of Tim Allen. I said, no thank you.

You could have taken him down, though. Is that what they try to do on CBS with those profiles? Like, just take him down?

Well, yeah, the way that 60 Minutes tried to take Trump down by airing an interview with Kamala Harris. Sure. Are you up on that?

I am not. I was going to ask you to explain, but I don't know if I want you to explain. Everything is pain.

Maybe John Sklaroff knows. He's TBTL employee numero uno. Call it friendo. And is also joining us today. Hello, my friend.

Hey, I can't explain anything like that. I'm sorry.

As our colleague and as the person in charge of Too Beautiful to Biz, how do you feel our official corporate policy should be on if we are asked to essentially apologize to the current administration over doing our jobs normally? Because that's what's happening to 60 Minutes.

What if it means that we will be allowed to combine with Skydance, with Larry Ellison's kids company, would you then consider us issuing an apology for no reason? Because that's also what's happening with CBS Paramount Redstone.

You know, I didn't expect to hate the world so much right now. None of us did. This is just making it way worse. So I'd rather, for professional and political reasons, I'd rather say no comment on what we would do.

The coward's way out. Sure. No, here's the short version of it is that CBS, or I should say the parent company, which is Paramount, which is owned by Sherry Redstone, the widow of Sumner Redstone. They want to merge with a company called Skydance, which is owned by Larry Ellison's kid, and they need federal approval for it. and right now the current administration is turning the screws on 60 minutes because they played an interview with then candidate kamala harris wherein they basically they were in a promo in a promo for the segment they played one answer from her uh to a question and then in the actual segment they they they i think i believe they allowed an extended version of that answer and this was seen by the current administration as somehow unjournalistic of them and they are demanding an apology and some sort of monetary thing and the thought is cbs and 60 minutes might be brought to bear to do this so that then this big deal will go through and you've got as you might imagine some pushback from the journalists at cbs luckily my stories are mostly about teriyaki so um i don't see any of my content as being in the crosshairs on this one i

I mean, is there a chance, and I never saw this coming. I want to be clear about that. I never saw this coming, and I don't even know if I want to wear this crown, to be honest with you. But what if it turns out, when all is said and done, that TBTL is the last remaining independent journalistic outfit in America? Are we calling this journalism? Well, I think we might have to do some more journalism.

I mean, here's what I will say. There are many times on this show when I say things with a level of honesty that I did not intend. And I wonder, huh, what are the repercussions beyond that? And the good news is, because we have such a limited number of listeners, it's usually nothing. But I will say, I will put our truth-telling on this show up against anyone else's, I mean, for what that's worth. Again, I'm not saying it's generally interesting, but we definitely are speaking our minds.

I like the idea of you guys going to testify in front of Congress. Like, Mr. Walsh goes to Washington or something like that, you know, and tells them what it is. Am I going to have to get a suit?

Yes, Andrew. I probably need a suit for the congressional hearings, huh? That's one of the major downsides. Or just a t-shirt that has a drawing of a suit on it.

Okay. A tuxedo? But not tuxedo. Too fancy.

That's what Zuckerberg would wear, right? And then put a hoodie over it? Yeah, with some kind of an ill-fitting t-shirt that's actually like $1,500. and then a chain would be Zuckerberg's way of signaling that he's a masculine man and is not going to take this wokeness anymore. What a start to the show.

No, here's how I'm going to turn things around. And by the way, I don't want you guys to take the bait on this and turn this into a sports conversation, but I do have a conversation for you about sports conversations, which is this. I dialed up today, and I dialed up, I thought, right on time. I thought I dialed up right at 10 o'clock sharp. You guys were already deep into a conversation about that NBA trade that we mentioned at the end of yesterday's show. And then I just sort of muted my mic and hung out for a while. I was sort of doing some other work and not really listening to you guys. How long do you guys think you did a pre-show show just based on that NBA trade? Were you talking for 40 minutes? What was it?

I would say maybe 10 minutes total. We both got here, I would say, a minute or two before. And, Andrew, as I say to you in every TBTL meeting and as you continue to ignore, early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable.

Can I ask you, why do you keep telling me that if I have time to lean, I have time to clean? How does that even play into the business model? Because it's true. That's what I'm confused about.

But probably 10 minutes, but it was a 10 minutes that really reminded me of how little I know about the NBA and how much John Sklaroff does know as a Knicks fan and a person who's plugged in. And, like, although, as I mentioned to John, I don't let my lack of knowledge about the NBA dampen how strident I am about my theories.

You did end yesterday's show by saying, I don't even know anything about this trade. I'm so in the dark about it. And then today I just hear you saying, like, this is how I see it.

Like, I'll tell you the progression is I couldn't have named four Lakers or four Mavs, you know, two days. ago whenever before this trade went down i mean i would have known that lebron and brawny were on the lakers and what i would i would have vaguely remembered the mavs have a european guy who's not yokich that would have been and uh this morning i texted our friend televisions chris hayes and asked him if we can move the event back by three and a half hours tonight because it coincides

with the laker game oh yeah you never miss him and i'm like i'm dying to see what that looks like

tonight so i will give the nba credit uh not that this is a league-wide thing uh in the and that You know, this is between a few teams, but it has certainly engaged me with the product for at least a week or two. Are you going to be watching with great anticipation out there in Minnesota, John?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. No, Luka's first appearance with the Lakers, assuming he's healthy, because I don't think he's played in a little bit in doubt.

Really, his body's a temple. How could he be injured?

Yeah, he and I both. He and I both. But I think it'll be interesting to see.

I was pleasantly surprised, so last night I jumped on my Fubo TV to see what NBA games were on, and in fact, the Lakers weren't playing. But I was very glad to see that as part of my Fubo package, I get NBA TV as well. I mean, I can't give these folks enough free plugs.

I gotta tell a story here, and I gotta hope that Genevieve doesn't overhear me, because I don't know. I don't think she's embarrassed about this, but this was such a Genevieve and Andrews story. So I did not know how I was going to be watching the Super Bowl this year. It's always a little bit of a sticky wicket with me because I do like Super Bowl parties, but I take the responsibility of doing the podcast about commercials pretty seriously. And I also like to see the game, which really presents a problem. Like when you're watching a football game, you can go use the restroom or get snacks during commercials. during the Super Bowl, if you want to see the game and the commercials and the halftime show, you're not left with a lot of options. So I'm getting something called Stadium Pale that I will be strapping to my leg.

Pal. He's trying to say pal, John.

How did I say it?

You said pale the way that you sometimes tend. John, the look of confusion on John's face told me that maybe the last part of that was a bit confusing.

Living in the Midwest now, I'm accustomed to a lot of different accents.

Yes. So you are considering getting a sort of a aftermarket catheter type device.

Right. No, I just threw that out there. But but I did not. I now realize I'm trying to skip. I'll skip ahead and say I now realize that I can get the game for free on Tubi. It's on Fox this year. Last year it was on CBS. So I was able to stream it on the Paramount Network or whatever the streaming Paramount service, which we have. So I was like, oh, that works out great. But this year I'm like, oh, we don't have some equivalent for Fox. because whatever Fox is selling, I ain't buying, except they're giving away 2B, and I'm like, oh, that's a Fox property. So the game will be streaming here in the home legally, so I will be able to watch it with commercials and all that. But before I realized that, I was like, you know what I'm going to do? You said it's about $80 a month for Fubo. I'm just going to get Fubo for a month maybe. I've never done that before. I don't usually fall for signing up for Apple just to watch one Mariners game that they take off of the local broadcast or whatever.

But didn't you hear Jerry DiPoto said we're going to be good this year?

Yeah. The reason I didn't respond to that text chain is because all I can do is draw comparisons between the Mariners' ownership and what's happening in the country right now. And what I was going to respond to the text chain was just even sadder. But it turns out I don't know how we're set because I always thought you needed to man second base. Maybe that's overrated. Maybe the Doge department has learned that you don't need a second baseman.

That's one of the main inefficiencies on a typical baseball team is having a second baseman. By the way, John, just to bring you in on this, I forwarded a little clip from the paper today to the sports chain. Despite quiet Mariners offseason, Jerry DiPoto confident, quote, we have a good team. Yeah, sure, Jerry. Least comforting thing I've ever heard.

Can I just say this not to make too much sports talk? But, Andrew, here's something to comfort you. We know in sports so often when so many teams zig, it's good to zag. so maybe if you don't man somebody at second base that's actually a benefit think about that way no

exactly you don't need a second baseman and you don't need a department of education these are

things right i'm learning this yeah those are two those two things are correlated yeah exactly so

okay moving off of all those things that gives me agita but um i was just going to say that i i thought you know what i'm just going to go ahead and maybe buy fubo for one month pay the 80 bucks or maybe it'll be a three month trial or something and so i mentioned this to genevieve who tends to be a little bit parsimonious, especially about certain things, you know what I mean? And for some reason, like cable-related stuff and paying, because we pay for a lot of streaming services, and I think a lot of households have a lot of frustration around that.

And I'm guessing also that the, again, I don't want to gender this, but the idea that, oh, I can watch, like you were like, I could maybe watch the Seahawks while that pop up. It's low on Genevieve's list of priorities.

Yeah, it wasn't even the, it was really about just having a way to watch the Super Bowl. But then I said to her, I'm like, hey, it's about 80 bucks a month. I'm probably just going to sign up for that. She's like, yeah, okay. And I'm like, yeah, maybe we could even have people over. Because I was like, oh, that was a pretty chill response there. She's like, oh, okay, yeah, that's, ooh, look at you. And then I was like, wow, you're so chill about that. And I mentioned it again later. I'm like, you know, if we end up liking this Fubo thing, maybe I'll just let it roll for a while. Like, maybe just kind of watch some baseball games this summer too. She's like, yeah, okay, that sounds good. I'm like, I'm just in the back of my head. And this is sort of a low-profile conversation. Were things quiet a little too quiet? I'm going to say maybe I raised it a week ago and then brought it up again just sort of casually, and she's so chill about it. I'm just like, who is this Genevieve who is so chill about adding $80 a month? And then I didn't underscore it, but I just sort of mentioned once again. I'm like, yeah, you know, I might keep it for the – let's just see how it goes. I'm going to go sign up downstairs. It's only $80 a month. And for some reason, that was the time Genevieve heard a month. I don't know what she thought it was, but her eyes got so big. She's back, baby. A month! A month! Are you crazy? A month? Like, turns out we are not getting FuboTV.

The good news is that your partner has not been replaced by some sort of extremely convincing AI product.

Yes. I did say to her later, I'm like, I was wondering, where did my Genevieve go and can she stay there? because she was so chill about the whole thing.

Let me see, Andrew, because you're sharing your high-network login with me, which I have yet to use. Me too. I don't know. How many Fubo logins can we have? If that's something I can – again, this is the show that is all about radical honesty and trademark and copyright violation and violating terms and conditions. If I can share it with you, I will. Oh, thanks.

I appreciate that. That's not a fair trade. I do like the idea of trading. The reason we have Paramount Plus, that's the word I was trying to look for before, or trying to find before, is because, and this was a side deal that Genevieve had with a friend of ours who will remain nameless, but she gave us her login for Paramount Plus, and she has our login for HBO. And I feel like that's a good, that's a pretty good trade. You know what we need? HCI Network for Fubo is not even, that's David and Goliath stuff right there.

Well, I don't know. I mean, I do like the Fubo, but I do like the on cinema, at the cinema. I will say, I see a future of, instead of those little free libraries out in front of people's houses, little free logins.

Yeah, little free logins.

A little cutesy, little gingerbread house that's just got various, you leave some, you take some.

I love it. Little free logins.

I only feel comfortable doing this because this show, as John knows better than anyone, no login required. Like, on the one hand, I don't want to be on the record encouraging people to not pay for content in this way. But on the other hand, we're already – the doors are already wide open to this thing. And we are so thankful that people donate, but we don't have – there aren't any kind of logins that are needed.

It should be – we should go on record, though, Luke, that your annual salary is higher than David Zaslav's, though. So I want people – that is part of our budget.

And that's – yeah, that's – I believe that the analysts described that as creating drag on the Too Beautiful 2 Biz. uh business model um hey speaking of too beautiful to biz and uh its ancillary company too beautiful to live um we have a kind of a fun project that we are going to be embarking on based on a conversation uh from i think a few months ago maybe around this uh billboard uh andrew that you were really fascinated by for the speaking of free plugs the seattle pizza um enterprise Spiro's, what was it, Spiro's Always in Love?

So there's a billboard that pops up occasionally very near my house that I pass when I'm just walking home from the store or something that says, is it in a relationship with Spiro's always? Is that what it said? Or did it say, yeah, I think that's what it said. So this is just a down-home, old-school Greek pizza shop. It's not even a pizza shop. It's like a restaurant. You would go there. The one time I went there, it seemed like the type of place you might take your grandparents and grandkids or something. You know what I mean? Family style little place. But it's not some huge conglomerate. And it just seemed like such a strange – it seemed strange for them even to buy billboards, like full-on billboards. But then this was a very strange minimalist approach to advertising pizza. There was no pizza in sight on the billboard. It was just a plain white background. And as a fan of minimalism, like I really I thought it was interesting, but deeply, deeply confusing. It said in a relationship with Spiros, always, I believe is what it said. Then it disappeared for a while. Then it popped back up again. And so this has been an ongoing conversation of me trying to understand what that.

billboard means and it got us thinking in one of our tbtb meetings wouldn't it be great and funny if we actually just went out and did something similar if maybe we rented that same space to do some sort of a funny tbtl thing and then uh john we put you on the case uh and and what did you find out about us renting a billboard near andrew's house financially it made no sense for

the business and uh it just would be a total major disaster i believe it was out of our price range

right like it was shockingly expensive i guess the pizza game's been good to spiro's because like i was i was absolutely shocked at what it actually cost to get a billboard in that part

of seattle here i am thinking print media is dead apparently billboard print media very much

alive and very expensive well i also as has been well documented on the show i live in a pretty

high cotton part of town too well that was i don't want to listen and you know what andrew that's kind of woven into this i don't want to um sound like i'm being uh in some way dismissive i feel like yesterday was a really bad show for me where i kept trying to declare which places had high culture people and which places had low culture people that always ends well but um i don't i will be honest with you and having grown up on aurora avenue myself i mean literally the street that i probably have spent the most time walking up and down to this point in my life even still i assumed that because there you know there is a certain rough and tumble aspect to that part of town i was you know it's one banana michael how much could it be i kind of assumed it would be on the more affordable side but really not like thousands and thousands of dollars to get one of

these billboards well it is i mean it's a very high traffic area you know i mean billboards

aren't more valuable just the police just the number of police officers you'll reach but the

You know what I mean? A billboard isn't going to be high value if it's tucked away in a beautiful neighborhood with great views. I got one in Worlehurst. When you have like four lanes of traffic whizzing by kind of near where a mall used to be in a lot of commerce, I guess that's where the billboards are. One thing, and I don't know if I'm getting ahead of us here, but one thing that I, in our attempts to, you know, temporarily purchase that billboard space, John was pricing it out and sort of accidentally solved one part of this mystery for me, which was, why does Spiros keep going back to that message and reposting that billboard? Like, it'll go away for a while, then it'll come back, like disappearing ink when you hold it over a candle. I don't know how disappearing ink works.

Did you ever try that with lemon juice as a kid? No. I bought special pens. Did you ever try that, John?

No.

Oh, that was like one of those, you could read about it in like a spy book for kids. You could write in lemon juice and then you couldn't see it on the page, but if you held it up to candlelight or something, you could see it.

But having said that.

We didn't have invisible ink money where I grew up in, which I'm trying to say. We weren't all rich.

The ones that I bought had the pen with the invisible ink, and then maybe it came with something that looked like a highlighter that also had something invisible in it. Oh, and it probably activated it. You activated it, yeah. It's all about chemicals, Luke. But all of that is to say, we now understand why that bill, I think we understand better, why that Spiro's billboard disappears and then comes back in between other people advertising things, which is we even tried to get that billboard at a major cut rate. But even the cut rate was too rich for our blood.

We offered to paint it ourselves. That's right.

You were going to tie a rope around me and hang me off it.

Like some Chick-fil-A cows. That's right.

You know, it was weird, though, that famous sign maker, Walt Burbank, was charging us more than the company we were trying to work with.

He was like, well, I do these billboards for the Annonsons sometimes.

Right, right.

I'm going to charge you $5 an hour more. Right. You know, my dad did paint this huge mural. Right when we moved to Seattle, and I was very young, he painted this huge mural downtown. It took a whole summer. He and his business partner, Jerry Lee, on the Warshall Sporting Goods. And it was a cool, abstract thing. I was very proud of it as a kid. It was like I would point it out as we would go by and be like, my dad did that. So we could have, I mean, we couldn't have used him for this billboard service. But if we do need big signs, I think Walt could do it for us.

But I did just want to say that the reason I now realize that the sign was disappearing and going away is there's a special deal you can get on these things. And again, it was still too expensive for us, even with our poor coffers. But basically, they're like, well, you can buy it, but then it was almost half price, not quite. But if somebody else comes along and wants to buy it at full price, we can bump you to a different part of town or just defer it and then bring you back later on that same billboard.

I believe they call this the Alexander Payne business model, a.k.a. the leftovers. You just, if there's a holdover.

Is there a movie called The Leftovers? There's a TV show called The Leftovers. The TV show, yeah.

Is that one made by Alexander Penn? I don't think so.

I don't think so. The joke was painful.

If that means anything to you, in more ways than one.

The Levens? Did you make a movie called The Levens? But anyway, yeah.

My point of all this is to say, I feel like we're in the billboard business, boys. Like, now I understand how the billboard business works a little bit more.

And what we have learned is that there is a billboard location that we can afford, that we are able to afford. It is somewhere in the United States It is not on Aurora Avenue In Seattle, Washington And so we are going to move forward With a plan to have a TBTL Billboard somewhere in these United States And we're not going to reveal exactly where that is Because that's going to be tied into some other fun stuff down the road But in the meantime We would love your suggestions I'm talking to you, the tens of listeners now For what should go on the TBTL Billboard We've got some ideas we've mocked a few things up but we know that the 10s are endlessly creative and so we would love to get some suggestions to sort of zero in on a fun thing to put on a TBTL billboard somewhere in this fine, fine country

Yeah, what do you guys think about this? I mean, I know that often when we talk about this kind of stuff, we get listeners who will just send us in fully made drawings or concepts and send them to us But other people might just have an idea that they just want to have us think about and then have somebody else do the kind of creative part of it. I'm not sure. Should we just have people – can we have people email John about this with any kind of ideas? Actually, John, how do you feel about that?

I'd be happy to as long as people email J-O-N and not J-O-H-N.

What happens if they type in J-O-H-N?

I assume it goes into the ether. It just doesn't hit me.

It goes right to Luka Doncic's agent.

So, yeah, so I would love to get people's submissions, J-O-N at tbtl.net.

And I actually, Andrew, that's really that's a good looking out and a good clarification because I am a non I am a non graphically inclined person.

I think it's a non email reader person.

I'm also that. But but the idea is like just a suggestion, just a hey, it could be this could actually be very useful. And then we could find somebody who could execute it. so yeah I like the fact that those of us who don't know how to do anything with graphic design are not left out of this process

potentially. Can I also just real quick for people that are graphically inclined who are interested if you're wondering the dimensions of this thing I feel like that could probably be helpful. It's 10 feet

It's a rhombus That's how we were able to afford it

Yeah, right

It's a parallelogram

It's 10 feet

Did Alexander Payne make a movie called

parallelogram it was really good it was black and white slow but like emotionally impactful

emotionally impactful uh yeah so it's the actual size is 10 feet and six inches by 22 feet and nine

inches oh i thought it was 10 inches by 22 inches so we're going for the bowl the full-size bill

we're going for like a real okay so one that you can see with the naked eye i see i thought it was

I don't want to know what you're wearing.

Well, that explains why it was expensive, actually.

Yeah, right. Sorry, John, I talked over that. So what is it, like 10?

No, so 10 and a half feet, basically, by 22 feet, nine inches. That's the width and the length, or the height and the... It's a rectangle. That's how dimensions work. Yeah, I think so. Sure.

So, you know, but again, I've already established that I am not a person who understands graphic design or geometry or the work of Alexander Payne. So I think the more information, the better probably. So, yeah, what do we think? Do we need to establish a timeline on this? It's just kind of an open call. We're just crowdsourcing here, folks. I mean, honestly, what we're doing is giving us all something to think about that isn't the news.

Yeah, put all of your energy into this.

And by the way, please, miss us with any political statements. Yes, yes. This is not the place we're trying to speak that truth to that power. Right. But, yeah, you know, like, I guess we'll just accept submissions until we get closer to an idea that we lock in on, I guess, is probably the plan for this.

You guys already rejected my idea of just a big billboard that says who's on second with the Mariner's logo.

Only because of copyright issues.

Right, sure, yeah. We can do Abbott and Costello, but not the spinach part. We can do Abbott and Costello, but not who's on third. Sure, yeah. Yeah, so that's the plan. That's the big announcement. TBTL Billboard coming to a place somewhere in America at some time. How is that for specifics? How is that for really whetting the appetites of the tens of listeners?

I'm excited. We've talked about this for a while, and now the wheels are in motion, my friends.

And I want to give you credit, John, for keeping this thing going.

Because what tends to happen is we tend to throw out a lot of ideas both on the air and off the air, maybe in our meetings, and then they tend to whiff right out of my brain or I move on to some other bright, shiny thing. And you really kept on this and kept doing research and stuff, and now it's going to be a real thing. So this is going to be awesome. Good work, man.

Thank you. yeah i know you guys talked we talked about uh off air and i know you guys talked about on air how you wanted to do this since you were with 8 p.m and it was something that got kicked around and just fizzled at that at that place yeah if there's one thing i'd like to do uh is keep reminding you guys how much better it is with just me and you guys than it was with apm i feel like that's throwing unnecessary dirt and shade maybe but um we're still in we're still in their lobby

television if you were still there john they you would have at least had the had the common sense to remove us from the slideshow in the lobby where we currently continue to reside can i do a little

uh behind the scenes on that please um so i know the person who's responsible for managing that thing and i won't say their name because please have them leave us are they leaving us in there intentionally well no they're not good at their job and so there was like they so you're close to this person well it's just somebody like i i worked in the same building as a few years or virtually because of covid or whatever but like um long after nor our friend nor mcinerney left apm ttfa was still up there like they would they would just leave things up there and i said to this individual multiple like once i found out who it was i would like slack them and be like hey uh this is it's weird that's there it's like an independent show and i think there was like another show or two that came and went in my time with apm and they never removed them and so i like would freaking be like hey i work with the fundraising like i fundraised for this show it's weird that's still there yeah and uh they were like oh yeah we'll take care of that and

clearly to this day um i mean who has the time to go into some kind of a deck and literally hit

delete yeah but might be more complicated than that because it is a four by four grid and they don't have new and now i'm getting into shade territory potentially but like what are they going to replace us with like i don't think that they're i could be wrong i don't think they're

creating a lot of new shows over there i think andrew at this point there's at least four shows

that are on there have left so they could just well i mean i will say this just one big picture of molly bloom and that's it that's actually that'd be a lot better as i as i like to often

brag i feel like i am an incredible ex-husband actual husband uh pretty low success rate ex-husband i am i'm phenomenal uh i am i am friendly you get you get all of the you get all of the fun text interactions and all of the and the warm wishes and everything minus any of the having to deal with me. And in the same way, I feel like I'm a great ex-employee, like horrible employee, great former podcaster at APM. And so I love that we're on, I wouldn't say good terms with them, but the fact that we're still in the lobby, it fills me with warm feelings. I like to be on reasonably good terms with both people and places after we've departed and after I've

departed. I know we're not allowed to say, but just like that Alexander Payne movie, The Departed. Just answer me this. Is our billboard going to be directly across the street from 8 p.m.?

Is that where we chose? There is a parking garage there. I can inquire if they are interested.

The thing is, we've actually already kind of really started the process of where we want to put this billboard. But, man, that's a good idea, Andrew. You would have been so funny. I can't believe I didn't think of that. That's a sick idea. It's not going to be there. Also, by the way, probably not cheap. Yeah. It'd be us and then whatever St. Paul's version of Spiros is rotating through the leftover stuff.

Two quick things. One, I still want to say we have some, I know, former colleagues that listen to the show still and donate to the show. And we love them. And there's some really good people there. So I don't want to shade on it too much. But we can't put a billboard across the street. But I am like seven minutes from that location. I could just like stand outside with a sign or something like that. You want me to just do that?

That would be amazing.

Something or other. Just screaming, it's both for some reason.

It is both. Honestly, the only people in our experience, I think, the only people at APM who kind of rubbed us the wrong way are long gone from APM. And might have even been long gone when we found out that they were kind of, let's just say, not bending over backwards to try to help the long-term success of this show. such as sending emails saying we're absolutely putting $0 into promoting TVTL which kind of stung to hear about but we also made some really great friends and when I see names on this

list uh of our list of donors who are people that we used to work with who are just voluntarily supporting this thing years later including our one-time boss el robo steve nelson our friend sally moog from the uh sales team and others annie uh yes annie like it's just such a it's it's such an incredibly kind and humbling thing so i have really good memories about apm honestly there were just like a couple of a couple of you know nerf herders who came through and wanted to try try to put their stamp on the show while doing nothing to help the show that I could take or leave.

Where are we on putting their names in the credits? I've added them to today's show. Okay, good. I'm looking forward to that. Yes.

Anyway, okay, so that's the plan. Operation TBTL Billboard. Also, we'll come up with a better name for the operation. But email john, that's J-O-N, at tbtl.net with your ideas for billboards. And I guess we'll just kind of, we'll check back here in the not-too-distant future when we've got a list of some things that are intriguing, right? Does that sound like a plan?

Yeah. And if you have ideas for better names than Operation Billboard, you can email Luke at TBTL.net. Yes.

That's L-U-K. That's L-U-C at TBTL. That's the French spelling. Hey, John, thanks, man. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it. All right, go Knicks.

Yeah, thanks. Thank you for being a 10.

All right. Speaking of listener-supported podcasting and how we're able to afford what is, I'm going to be honest with you, one of the cheaper billboard options available in the United States.

In America. I was going to say, that's what we should call our operation, the cheapest billboard in America.

If you want to understand the kind of the financial fortunes of TBTL, it's we have enough money in our ad budget for a billboard, but it has to be the cheapest billboard in America. That's kind of where we're at. So good news, bad news.

It does raise a question. Maybe I should have saved this conversation for when John, you know, maybe when John comes on again and kind of goes through some of the submissions for people's ideas for a billboard, we should have the conversation. What are we trying to achieve with this billboard? Are we trying to turn people into TBTL listeners? Are we just sort of like trying to spread the brand, generally speaking, brand reinforcement? Is it just to make us laugh?

I think these are all questions we should have asked before we embarked on this project. Probably.

Before we cut the checks.

Well, thanks to Danielle Robbins in SeaTac, Washington for supporting TBTL today. Thank you. I feel like I'm following Danielle on some kind of a social media somewhere. That name is so familiar.

Yeah, Danielle's a long-time listener and contributor and emails in quite a bit, I think.

Thanks, Danielle. Thanks also to Haley Detweiler McDonald, who's down there in Irvine. Beautiful Irvine, California.

Nice. Thank you very much, Haley. Gateway to Anaheim. True.

I feel like when I used to live in L.A., when I was going down south, if I was going to San Diego or anywhere down in the kind of south of L.A., I feel like I would often pass through Irvine, and Irvine is a very lovely town there. Made more lovely by Haley Detweiler McDonald being there. Thanks, Haley. Also thanks to Ian Webster, who's in Starkville, Mississippi.

Starkville. No frills in Starkville. Just straightforward. What you see is what you get. We're not going to candy coat it for you in Starkville.

that's right thank you giving it to you straight and honestly that's because we respect you ian webster we would not we're not gonna you know we're not gonna try to get too fancy with this we're gonna keep it starkville um and we're going to thank megan kelso our friend megan kelso in seattle washington at this thank you megan not just a place near my house but the last name of our friend megan the of course the fine artist and illustrator and again my mind was fully blown when I found out that Megan was part of that public art piece that's down at the Seattle Center. Yes. Very cool stuff.

It's very cool. I got to see Megan at a comic book show a couple of months ago. That was really cool. Thank you, Megan.

Did you know that there was a period of time, I know this from reading Chris Hayes' fine book, The Sirens Call, that kind of the way that we write about or the way that we maybe wring our hands about phones and children in particular and their digital life, that that was once how they talked about comic books and books themselves right well yes right like written word the written word at one point and then later you know many years later comic books as they related to children because all children were going to become so obsessed with comic books that they were going to socially withdraw um which seems very quaint there were

congressional hearings about the comic book epidemic i think in the 1940s or 50s or probably

early 50s right i think chris's and chris's point in the book is

Okay, that was a little overwrought, but you know what else that there were initially people were really worried about was smoking.

Right.

And that was legit. And that was legit, yeah. So the question is, are our phones, are we worried about them in the way we were worried about comic books, or are we worried about them in the way that we were rightfully worried about smoking? That's the thing we don't know yet. Here's what I'm going to do. Or maybe we do know.

I am going to start reading more comic books, and I'm going to start smoking again. That's where you've left me.

Honestly, that's the only logical approach.

It seems like it makes sense.

Yeah. I don't know how Elizabeth Tuckle of Seattle, Washington feels about that. Probably not great. We'll have to ask. But we do know Elizabeth is supporting the show. Thank you, Elizabeth. Thanks, Elizabeth. Appreciate you. And then it wouldn't be a Tuesday on TBTL if we weren't thanking Ross Smith of Dedham, Massachusetts. I feel like we've been getting a lot of Massachusetts folks.

Yeah, I agree. And that's a really good sign when it comes to East Coast.

It really is. It's a cool state full of cool, smart people. It's very far away from us, too. There's something about people being very far away from this but also listening to it that all these years later, all these thousands of episodes later kind of blows my mind.

You know what I'm feeling bad about right now while we're thanking people for donating to the show? This isn't a daily donor today, but we were listing a bunch of colleagues who still listen to TBTL, and I believe our former colleague Josh is a big listener to the show as well. Nice. And it just occurred to me that as we were listing all of our friends at 8 p.m., Josh was probably like, well, this is where they're going to mention me, and we didn't in the last segment. And it's breaking my damn heart. I'm sorry, Josh. We love you.

Thank you for being a Josh.

Thank you for being a Josh.

Is he still listening? Well, that's the thing.

He probably ditched us at the break.

Did he turn the radio dial with a snarl? And he didn't get to listen. We were talking about him.

We weren't. It turns out we weren't talking about him. Well, then later we did, but it was too late.

He'd already sworn off. Sorry, Josh. But thank you, and thank you to all of our donors for making TBTL possible today. Hello, and welcome to Top Story. Well, tonight's a big night. We're going to be getting together at Town Hall. My parents are coming, and I think I told you this off-air, but it's very cute to me how actually psyched my dad is about this. Because, you know, with my sort of job stuff, I feel like I get to do some pretty interesting things and have some fairly well-known people on Livewire or maybe go interview them. And I can't remember a time I've ever told my dad About a thing I'm doing Where he has seemed like stoked about it He's always like, oh, that should be fun or whatever First of all, my dad's not a pop culture dude So if I was interviewing someone who is notable in the pop culture There's a very good likelihood that he doesn't know who they are I've said on the show before He seemed unfamiliar with the work of Fleetwood Mac And I found out the other day Was unfamiliar with the work of Otis Redding Who's playing Otis Redding on the stereo and I was like, I love Otis Redding. He said, who's that? I said, this guy's singing right now. So when he heard that Chris Hayes was coming to town and that he wrote a book, and I said, well, if you and mom want to come, he was so stoked about it. It was actually very, very endearing.

And you said it's not because he watches a lot of MSNBC because they don't have cable.

They don't watch any of that at their, because they don't, they, I don't know what kind of cable, they have cable that's one step up from whatever the hell you have. like they get like i think they get the local channels they watch a lot of jeopardy is the is the main and then and then they get channel nine they get kcts the public television station in seattle and that's kind of their main go-tos how does your mom feel about this little house

on the prairie reboot oh i'll ask her tonight i don't know if she even knows is that on pbs no no i don't little house is never a pbs thing was it um oh that's a good point no i think that just broadcast television um i am uh i'm not sure what the what the network or the platform is but yeah there's a lot a lot of talk about a new little house on the prairie i wonder how this

laura ingalls wilder escaped my radar yeah i had i knew everything about that um uh but anyway so uh they're very excited and i know my dad's excited because well he did the thing last night that my parents always do and like it's it's fine but like they asked me what my dad texted me he's like well what time is the like what time is the event tomorrow night and i'm always like when people ask me stuff like that whether it's live wire or other things i'm like i don't know uh do the thing that i'm gonna do right now which is google it like oh is that what you were are you

thinking about the conversation i had with you right before the show where i said what time does Oh, I forgot. No, I wasn't having that thought. Was that in the back of your head?

No, it actually really wasn't. In fact, I probably wouldn't have framed it that way.

Because I didn't mean to Google it, but then we were all dialed up, so it was just easier to say what time is it at.

No, I actually forgot that we had the interaction. I didn't feel that way because you and I were talking about a specific thing, which is some other stuff we're doing in Seattle today. So that didn't feel the way to me that it felt last night. when my dad like put down his his iPad or maybe picked up his iPad but then texted me what time is the thing tomorrow night and I was you know I was like it's like 7 30 or whatever and then he said like what's the parking situation I said I don't know it is what it is and then he goes is it upstairs or downstairs at town hall and I picked up the phone and I called him and I go dad what are you going to do if you go downstairs at town hall and it's upstairs at town hall

That will sort itself out once you're there.

I was like, I feel like this is going to be something that you'll be able to solve on the floor. By the way, it's upstairs.

Does he have some social anxiety?

No. Not that I know of. I mean, you know, I guess I didn't think of it that way. Or, you know, I don't think so. I mean, that's a very, like, you know, how do I put this? That reminds me a little bit, you're right, of, like, how you talked about sometimes maybe Google street viewing something,

just so you kind of know what you're getting into yeah i mean i know that you're you're you know your folks are city folks you know before they they moved out formerly but but formerly but you know what i mean in other words yeah there are some people who like in fact there are some people in olympia there's some lawmakers in olympia who are like crotchety and i don't like to go to seattle because it's already too hard to drive it was actually part of some sort of like legislation a couple years ago which was ridiculous like i don't think you know i'm not going to group your parents in with that at all but you know there isn't i mean first like i'm taking a car tonight i don't think parking is that big of a problem you're more stressed than my dad is well we're doing some work there but um i uh you know what i mean like it's like i don't feel like i don't feel like even thinking about parking so i'm going to take a car that's easy enough but like um i could just sort of see somebody being like well i'm going in we don't go into the city that much it's a nighttime thing when we get there that like parking it's just sort sounds like a lot of questions of like i just want to sort of picture what i'm going into here when we when we arrive sort of it sort of sounds like a little bit of if not social anxiety it's a little bit of like well i'm going into a arena that i don't usually go into maybe on a tuesday night

although the thing that's so interesting about my parents and i think this is really driven by my mom they're in seattle all the time like they are so because my mom just has a kind of a bit of sort of a wanderlust combined with ennui so she just like always likes being somewhere else if that makes any sense and so like my you know my mom is constantly coming into seattle for this that or the other just because she likes doing things you know and my dad is often being dragged along he works in seattle a ton i'll call him about something and he'll be like oh i'm on a job site right now i'm putting up a parking sign in belltown or something so they're pretty just bring

his own parking signs tonight and just create parking spots. Oh my god. How has he not done that before?

I mean, only because he's also a person who is reporting to the IRS the money that I pay him to help me work on my house. My dad is the most, other than pirating content, my dad, there has never been a rule that my dad didn't follow to the letter of the law, and in fact beyond the letter of the law, but you're right. If he were even 5% sketchier and smart, he would just bring a sign around that he could just put up that would say, like, parking allowed. Because that's what you'd have to do. It would have to be a sign that would somehow sort of justify parking. Because a no parking sign isn't going to do you any good unless you go put it up in advance and then come take it down, which is also a whole

flex. He could make a sign that says Seahawks parking only and then just make sure he puts a Seahawks bumper sticker on his car. Oh, way ahead of you, brother.

That's currently up at their house.

Did he make it or is it a... Oh, yes.

No, I mean, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, they literally had a Seahawks parking only sign on the side of their house at some point. And they do have a Seahawks bumper. Well, it's on their old car, which I think they're not driving anymore. By the way, they got a Prius. Everything's coming up millhouse for my parents. It's not brand new, but it is the nicest car. It's like a gently used Prius of maybe, I don't know, six years or seven years old. But, like, they pulled up in that thing. I was like, who are these people driving a car that is from roughly this decade?

This is a really off topic, but I have been obsessed in the past week or two as the weather. I still know it's early February, but we're going to start to see nicer and nicer days. And I am so looking forward to a nice dry day where I can clean my car. I'm at that point of winter with not just the car, a couple of things around the house. like our little this is very weirdly specific but even like our little stairwell right outside of our basement door here it just like during the winter it accumulates all kind like there's a doormat there that is sopping wet from the constant rain and now snow and there's leaves and moss and it's like I need to take care of that but I don't feel like taking care of it when it's like just I'm looking outside now the sun just came out and it's beautiful and it's telling me to get to work but like I'm looking forward to like you get to a point in the winter where just Just sort of the cleanliness things start to build up a little bit, and I cannot wait to go outside with a bunch of spray bottles and a vacuum and clean the hell out of my car.

You want to, like, pressure wash your life. Yes. At a certain point, because I've got this huge, not huge, I've got this fairly substantial wood deck that I had built, which is great. But, like, yeah, just between the rain and the snow and the buildup, it's just kind of slippery and slimy and kind of unpleasant in a way to look at. And then the tree, so many of the trees, like I'm looking down the hill of my property and a lot of the trees, the deciduous trees anyway, are in that mode where there's, there are no leaves and they're just all covered in moss. Like the entire tree is just kind of mossy and like, you know, we're still kind of dealing with that low winter sun and a lot of gray days. And, yeah, my car is just, like, my car is basically a two-inch coat of dust with cutouts where the windshield wipers have been operating in the front and the back. Yeah. It's just kind of, like, a cruddy feeling. Like, I'm ready for, like, the first, we're still a ways out, but I'm ready for the first, like, nice, warm spring day to just scrub my life.

I know that we are known for being a mossy region because of all of the rain and everything. But, man, I think because we had, you know, kind of a standard winter with a lot of precipitation. But then we just are kind of about a week ago, we had, I think, like almost two solid weeks of very beautiful weather, like a lot of sun, a lot of clear skies and sun. It was a little bit chilly, but because of all of the moisture that had been building up, then combined with these really uncharacteristically sunny days, the moss is going berserker, Luke. I was walking somewhere near my house where the sidewalk was kind of outside of this fire station area where it's sort of a temporary sidewalk, and the sidewalk is actually made of more like asphalt. It's like that black asphalt. There was green growing on the asphalt and coming up through the tiny little cracks of the asphalt. Not even cracks, just texture of the asphalt. And I was just like, my God, life finds a way. Like, this moss wants to grow so bad. It's just growing on the sidewalks in Seattle now.

Yeah, and on me, unfortunately. And on you, yeah, moss back. That's what they call me. Trademark that. Until Canute stole it from me. So anyway, yeah, that's the plan for tonight, is we're going to be there at Town Hall with our friend Chris Hayes. You're going to be there. I think Veeves is coming down. It's going to be a fun night. I'm looking forward to it. I actually have to say, sometimes these kinds of things really stress me out. This is one that I am so not stressed out about, weirdly. Part of it is because Chris is just so good at talking that I don't feel, and also we're actual friends. Sometimes if I'm doing Livewire and I haven't met the person before, which is the typical thing, I'm like, will we vibe? Will it be like a thing where I'm kind of extracting answers from them? or, you know, will we connect on stage? And I feel like that is not an issue with our friend Chris Hayes.

What if your chemistry just sucks? What if the one time you're just totally confident, you're like, yeah, this is my buddy, our chemistry is great, and you go out there and he just is so cold?

First of all, thank you for that.

Short little answers.

You know, I can take you off the guest list.

It's not going to happen. It's fine.

I can have you removed from the guest list. you're sensitive no but um uh yeah i'm feeling excited about this i'm feeling happy about it as opposed to my normal like i woke up this morning thinking oh this is going to be cool where like normally i wake up on a morning of doing live wire or a variety of other things kind of like this and i go like oh god just get through it like i just think to myself there will be a point where you will be walking to your car after the show you will get in your car you will turn it on they'll probably be playing philosophy talk on opb and they will drive home and it will feel amazing that's literally how i get through too many things in my life still i'm trying to do this less you know i've been on this project of trying to say this is the good part but i don't have to do that today i don't have to trick myself into thinking it's a good part it does feel like the good part plus the book i found the book to be really really fascinating i did i i swapped between reading the book and listening to the book depending on what i was doing particularly driving and it's pretty funny because i've gotten to hear chris's impression of abraham lincoln

which is pretty deep the the the audiobook's out now or just from the it's inaudible i believe i

mean it is in comma when it sounded like i was saying it's not audible it's inaudible right it

is available via the audible app that's funny because i thought i looked for it have you been listening to it for the past couple of weeks or whatever because i looked for it about a week ago and I didn't see it and I thought it said coming soon and I was kind of surprised I was like oh I wasn't sure if you the audiobooks are supposed to be released at the same time as the print edition because that was a whole it doesn't matter what it was it was

There's a whole narrative in a different podcast I listen to about a different book. And I was like, oh, well, here's an example. Chris hasn't recorded the audio book yet. I'm looking forward to getting that. But it's already out there. I just missed that. I don't know how I missed this buff audio book, but I'm definitely going to listen to that. And Chris is pretty buff.

And you do get to hear him do kind of a quasi Abraham Lincoln impression.

It just slips into it just a little bit.

Well, he quotes so many people. And Chris's background is actually in theater and acting. So he's got some skills. so he's not just reading dispassionately like if he's reading something that somebody said in the 1920s he gets a little more maybe mid-Atlantic you know a little more like kinda how but he's not overdoing it it's not you know he's not like the man of a thousand voices but it's definitely like a little adjustment to his normal speaking voice but um

does he go to the really high pitched Abraham Lincoln a teeny bit

it's like it's a little Daniel it's like small A small nod to Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln.

It's funny how we've recalibrated our impressions. Totally from that movie. Because I feel like as a kid, if you were going to do an Abraham Lincoln impression,

you were going to stand up as tall as possible, and you're going to be low and booming underneath that hat. Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. No, man, it's not from a female.

All right, emails or V-mails?

Yeah, you know, I have a voicemail here from Mariah, who I believe is in Chicago.

Is our friend Mariah in Chicago? Sure.

I think so, yeah. And I'll be honest with you, I heard the beginning of this voicemail this morning. It caught my attention. It piqued my interest, as you might say. Nice. But I don't exactly know where the story goes, so Mariah, take it away.

Hey, dummies. It is Mariah calling from Chicago. the other week I went to pick up my son from his school and I was with my husband and we saw another dad picking up his son and my husband Greg said oh my god Raya look TBTL he in fact saw that the other father waiting in line was listening to TBTL on his phone like he has seen me listening to so I wish he was able to recognize the logo on the iPod catcher. Okay. So immediately I was pumped. I was like, oh, my God, I'm Mariah. I'm a 10. So shout out to Jonathan, also a 10. Oh, nice. We're having a great time. Yuck and a top for a few minutes. And I was just thrilled. I was vibrating from the excitement of me. Can you pause? Wow.

I was worried that where the story was going was that it was just a different podcast that, like, had a color similar or something. Like, the fact that this was actually somebody, it sounds like, named Jonathan, who was, in fact, listening to TBTL, I cannot tell you how exciting that is. Because, again, see previous comments about Massachusetts. Chicago is also very far away from us. Like, if this happened in Ballard, I don't want to diminish how I'm excited if anyone listens to this show anywhere. But this idea that in the Chicagoland area, somebody, two people that didn't know each other previously were both experiencing TBTL, that is amazing. Do you think it's John Hughes? Do you think that's the Jonathan?

Is that guy alive? I'm not sure. We'll look it up later.

I texted my sister, who's also a long-suffering listener. I was like, oh, my God, Leia. I met a 10 in the wild today. She was like, me too. I was like, are you kidding me? Leia lives in a really small town of South. And so I was like, what are the chances? Like, I was just like, the universe, what is happening? She's like, he was at the co-op. I was like, okay, cool. I was like, mine was at school. And then I, you know, I was kind of texting a little more. And I was like, how did you know he was a 10? And she was like, we made eye contact three times. he was with his daughter and i was like okay and i was like okay and i was like why and then i was like but like how did you know he was a 10 and she's like i saw him and anyway it turns out that she was saying he was like really hot like 10 out of 10 okay 10 out of 10 um the next day he was a wisconsin 10 like hi and she goes that was just such a crazy example of a coincidence i was like no that was an example of what an idiot you are so um shout out to jonathan shout out to leah we all see times in a different way i guess um i would love to see you guys in chicago i'm feeling the chicago live show i think it's time i think it's time summer 2025 oh my god this is like a

campaign thank you mariah this is like a campaign now yeah shout out to that hot guy in wisconsin

Can you imagine being so attractive that when some other person sees you in a store, they have to call their sister?

Yes, I can imagine. I assume it happens all the time. I'm not sure. But, I mean, I assume that as I stroll down the aisles of SARS Super Saver, a lot of people are getting on their phone. Being trailed by security. Yeah, exactly. Did I tell you that guy's not there anymore, by the way? Oh. Yeah, it's a pretty big development. Everything's coming up, Andrew. In my grocery store life. I'm going there all the time now. It turns out it's a really good store because it has, like, remember I told you before they opened, I was like, I just hope even if it's, you know, like a super saver style store, say that quickly, I want real brands. You know what I mean? I don't want to buy, like, some unknown brand of kitty litter, for example. I don't know why I'm always, like, using that example or, like, whatever brand detergent I use or whatever. I don't like off-brand stuff. But like the store is so huge. It's got a huge, you know, just like kind of what I would call like standard American grocery store section. But then all these other like more world sections as well, too. And it's not even about the taking the backpack in there anymore. It was just about like feeling like I had an enemy security guard who was watching me because of the backpack situation. and they've replaced him with two really poor photocopies of an image of a backpack with a line through it just taped to the window in the front. But it's like, you know how when you like black and white photocopy like a dark image and it just sort of looks like kind of a dark square? That's what they've replaced the security guard with.

So do you have an official confirmation that he no longer is employed there? You just haven't seen him when you've gone in?

um here's now there's this poster that's up he was usually there i would see him in the day times and afternoons um like sometimes i i think veves and i stopped in there on a weekend one time maybe around noon as she was there if i'm going to the store maybe it's around four or five o'clock and that was when i would encounter him in the past like four or five times i've gone there during that time period nobody has been there in the evening i think they bring a security guard around because i think they're right 10 or midnight which makes sense i'll bet you they realize and honestly this guy did not seem like a bad guy i just don't like the policy and he was the one who was enforcing it so i'm not i'm honestly not dancing on his career grave here but um or gig grave but they probably realized even if we're the cost of keeping a 24 hour i'm sorry Like every hour that we're open, having a security guard there is probably not worth the cost. Like people probably aren't stealing that much shit.

Right. Although, of course, is it because of the security guard? Yeah, it's hard to prove. Because you're going to start robbing that place stupid now. Oh, my God.

I got a salami in my pants right now.

Now, I want to say this. I'm glad that Mariah checked in with that story. I've already said how exciting it is to hear about tens in the wild. But, you know, Mariah said something in an email to us a while ago that's just been living in my head. It was from, like, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago about a couple of different topics. She said some follow-up, and there was something about shepherd's pie to you. And then she said, number two, Luke, your vaguely nonsensical commentary about how hard it once was to travel to Hawaii made me think of a great book I just listened to, Wide Wide Sea. I couldn't get enough. It's about Captain Cook's last voyage in search of the Northern Passage. A great deal takes place in Polynesia. Vaguely nonsensical commentary, Mariah?

You were talking about, I do remember, I know what she was talking about. You went on this thing about how, like, traveling by ship to a place that, there were several things in there. I was like, I'm not sure if that's factually accurate, but I didn't look it up. So I don't know if Mariah, having read this book, takes issue with your description.

I thought I was just trying to generally say it used to be, to get to, like, the Hawaiian Islands used to be something that could take, you know, if you obviously were not from there, could take you a really, really long time. Like, it's a very remote place, but because of air travel, we can now go there for, like, we did three days. And it struck me that, by the way, that turned out to be the perfect, I think maybe we said this on air, but that was, like, the perfect length of trip. It was really fun. I got some sun. And then it was nice to be home on, like, Saturday night and then have my Sunday. I may be coming around on this whole buffer day madness.

Well, it's interesting. There's sort of two things there. The buffer day is definitely nice. But then also the short trip is sort of something a little bit different too, right? Like, I wonder, like, there's the vacation. This is maybe hyperbolic. You might not go with me on this. But, like, when you're heading out on, like, a long vacation that's, like, a week or more, like, that's enough time to, like, sort of become someone else, like, to become your vacation self. You know what I mean? Not that your personality changes, but you're like, all right, you're here.

drop your bags and you you put all your clothes into drawers i know you usually do that when you travel anyway if you're there for more than a a night i think but um i don't usually do that i'm happy like kind of living out of a suitcase but when you sort of arrive like veves and i don't travel all that much but if we take like one vacation a year it's like oh we're taking a vacation we're probably staying in one place where i'm not a big like kind of hop around traveler which is a good conway twitty song by the way the hop along uh traveler um but uh you know what i mean you're sort of like i'm here and by the time i leave this condo in seven days or something it's gonna feel like i've been here forever whereas you were kind of like you kept it a work kind of half work half you know half like yeah fun kind of trip you didn't probably show up with the expectation of like i'm gonna grow a vacation beard or the yeah mental equivalent of that

and the other thing was i wasn't um holding this up as this sort of pot of relaxation gold at the end of the rainbow um or at the end of like a lot of times what i will do and i was just kind of talking about this in the micro which is sometimes if i'm feeling anxious about like a work thing particularly like an episode of live wire that we're recording i will as i'm pulling up and parking i'll just think to myself okay in five hours you will be getting back in this car and going home and that somehow kind of is a you know i don't know why that is relaxing to me But also sometimes if I have a lot of work going on, I think, well, yeah, but then I'm going to get a couple of weeks to go on vacation and I'm going to go somewhere and it's going to be so relaxing. I'm going to be sitting or maybe I'll just be home. But like this, I build it up to being almost like something that is going to allow me to get through the other hard part of my life. And I didn't do that with this. This was not that this was not like, OK, I know that I'm in I'm in the shit right now, but it's going to be worth it when I'm in Hawaii. It was kind of like, no, this is a few days I can carve out. I'm still going to be doing TBTL. and it worked great I didn't yeah because there definitely have been vacations I've come home from where I'm like pretty bummed on the last day or I'm pretty like oh it's got to go back to real life I didn't have that feeling with this because of the expectation you have now said

something twice I almost asked you a follow-up the first time but I didn't want to kind of get in your head but now that you've mentioned it again I need to ask I think maybe this is what i'm seeing is maybe a difference in how we approach these things but like you say like if you have a little bit of anxiety before doing a gig that makes you nervous you picture yourself in the car driving home and i thought what you were going to say there which is more of sort of how i on the on the occasion that i need to confront something that i'm nervous or anxious about if especially if it's work related um is when i get in the car or the train or the bus or whatever it is after this thing, how am I going to feel like I mentioned to you in passing sort of like I'm now at an age. It took a long time for me to get here. But like when I'm choosing a meal or a food or a snack or something, I'm not just thinking about how it's going to feel in the moment I'm eating it, but just like how it's going to affect the rest of my day. Right. Yeah. And so I'm trying to think of a good example with this. But maybe maybe when I was doing my nighttime radio show I would if I if I was maybe nervous about a guest coming on or something I might take kind of almost exactly what you said and picture myself driving home only there's a question mark above it and I'd sort of like mentally or emotionally ask myself how is that ride home going to be you know what I mean am I going to be is it going to be one of those damn Andrew beating myself up rides home or is it going to be like oh man you got through that and you grew a little bit because of it you know is there any of that or you're just sort of like well once I get to that once I get to that base of my car I can just relax you know I guess this is uh something

that I'm I I uh am grateful for is that I don't tend to maybe I should do this more I don't tend to like drive home and kind of like uh beat myself up over the how the show went like right but I I mean, like it's you'd think I would have a little bit more of a sort of, you know, a little bit more of a of a process of kind of going back through what worked and didn't work. But I will say this. It generally seems to go pretty well. And and yeah, my big thing is just wanting it to be done more than more than being worried that I'm going to be beating myself up on the way home. I really don't beat myself up over this. And maybe that's how I'm able to kind of juggle a number of these jobs where this kind of stuff happens. like yeah it's literally never occurred to me how am i going to feel about how the show went it's just i'm just going to be so psyched to be sitting in this car knowing that the pressure's off um but i but but i guess that's all predicated on the idea that it's going to go well or we'll have

gone well or we'll have gone okay no i think that's good i mean honestly i was going to say that you've talked and i want to be careful here because i don't know how many of these stories were off air on air, but you've definitely alluded to on.

the show and told me in confidence about some interviews that really just did not go well sure um and but the thing is i guess now that i think about that i don't hear you doing a lot of like kind of beating yourself up you're kind of like i think this person went bad because of the person this person was stoned or this person was like yeah you know didn't get that this was gonna be on the radio and was too like just absolutely foul-mouthed and didn't care about the medium or whatever but you are right i i don't remember you ever saying like god it was pretty good the guest was great, but I just was off my game or whatever. And I think maybe that's more how I navigate my

life, which is why I don't do things. Well, it's, yeah, it's strange because I didn't ever think about this until this very moment that you brought this up. And I am not generally, I think, an overly confident person, but I guess I will say, again, I'm really teeing it up for tonight to just be an absolute miserable failure. But I just, I guess I feel like the one thing that I feel pretty solid about my abilities is like being on a stage with someone and having a conversation and or being on this microphone with you and having a conversation or i that is the one thing that i really don't have low self-esteem about so i guess what that means is when it does go poorly and i yeah sometimes you and i i'll debrief with you off air about something that happened i'll be like you wouldn't believe this i'm never the bad guy in the story which is crazy because i'm like the bad guy and every other story in my own mind you ask me why my marriages didn't work out it's me you ask me why you know i've had trouble at places i've been employed it me the one thing where i kind of assume it's somebody else i guess has to do with these sort of the sorts of interview style conversations i think i would put my abilities to just make that a not weird situation i'd put them up against just about anybody's i guess which is a strange thing to say out loud because i am not generally a cocky person in that way but i guess that's how i feel about it it's funny because

Again, it's been a long time. It's weird that I'm going back to a radio show that I had now over 10 years ago, Luke. But I'm just trying to think of examples that would be somewhat relevant to this conversation. But when I think about the things that went poorly in that venue or other things that I've done, I think it's – I can think of like one time – there must be more. I can think of one time where I was like, well, that guest sucked. It's always like, well, I blew that. You know what I mean?

But I bet you you didn't – I bet you that the truth is much more in the middle for both of us. In other words, I am sure that – because I think if there's a poor interview, it's 100% of the time it's the guest's fault. And it sounds like in your case it was about 95% of the time you assumed it was your fault. Probably for both of us, the truth is much more in the middle. It's probably much more 50-50 in both directions.

I think in my last week on the air, I had a dream expert on. I think that went pretty well. I think we had a lot of laughs.

Yeah, did they talk about the whole, like, you know, when you go in the bathroom and all the toilets are overflowing?

Ooh, no, I don't know that one.

Oh, that used to be, I haven't had that one in a long time, but that was a strongly recurring dream for me for many years. Yeah, just like, you really have to go to the bathroom, but you're in a public bathroom, but each stall that you open, it's just the toilets are just beyond, like, disgusting and overflowing and a nightmare. And like one time I think I Googled that and like that's a, you know, that's in the top 10 of like recurring dreams that people report.

I swear this is the first time hearing about it. And you know me. I'm a dream expert. Yeah, well, I'm a dream expert. Dreaming, this is just like the AI overview response from Google. Dreaming of an overflowing toilet often symbolizes feeling overwhelmed, out of control, or unable to manage negative emotions or situations in your life. The toilet represents a place where you release waste And the overflow signifies That these issues are becoming too much To handle

I mean that's the kind of thing where Yes that does make logical sense But also I don't know if I believe it Does that make any sense Like that's a very Like if you asked me to analyze a dream Where a toilet's overflowing I would say well it's probably Yeah I would probably describe it exactly that way It's logical but then I don't know if that's really I just don't do Can we get that dream expert back on?

Yeah, I'll look him up.

I guess I feel like the whole question of dream interpretation, I just don't know how we are able to make the leap from if you dream that your teeth are falling out, it means you're probably feeling this way. Like that, you know, because if you ask me, what is your teeth falling out dream? What does that signify? I would say it probably means you're feeling like you're losing something very important to you. There's something that, there's somebody or something that you care about that you feel like is in danger or is going away in your life, and there's nothing you can do about it. Now, if we Google it, I bet you that's probably the definition, right? I bet you that's in there.

The tooth thing? Yeah, what is the tooth one? I've always heard it was loss of control. Loss of control. Yeah.

These just seem like the logical interpretation of what is sort of... happening in the dream you know as what it might represent but like has anybody like done a brain scan while someone's dreaming to somehow i guess i just wonder is that really what the brain is doing and is there a way for us to know that i mean as opposed to just going with the most logical

kind of explanation so many of these answers i mean this is again very very quick pat answer here uh loose teeth and dreams may symbol well this is says loose teeth which is different than teeth falling out symbolize feelings of anxiety stress or insecurity you said something on this very podcast once that i am still thinking about and dream talk is like i i can't explain it like i know it's kind of bullshit but i also am unironically interested in it if that makes sense um because it is it is a view into our psyches in some way it's really really hard to like kind of parse it and um you said you think that every now maybe you want to change the way I phrased this but you essentially said you think that every dream is a stress dream essentially you said every dream is our brain chewing on big fat problems or whatever the let me think if I still agree with that Rick and Morty quote is

big fat brain missing those big fat problems

chewing on big fat problems or something

do I still do I stand by that statement I mean I guess probably what I said whenever it was I said that the first time it was probably my theory was based on natural selection and the idea that most of the time when we do something kind of involuntarily, it's the result of many, many, many generations wherein that behavior was rewarded in some way, and so then more people were born with that tendency, etc. And maybe the people who worked their anxiety out while sleeping were less anxious in the daytime and therefore better able to hunt and gather. And, you know, I'm probably my thought is that there's a bigger there's a larger evolutionary advantage to working out your anxiety at sleep versus working out your joy. Like, so I guess I stand by that a little bit. What do you think?

I well, the problem is I've had nothing but bad dreams for the past like two months. But that's good.

That's that means your brain is working out that anxiety.

Yeah. But I feel like I have pleasant dreams from time to time that don't seem like stress dreams to me. I mean, obviously, I don't have romantic dreams a lot, but that's something that, you know, I think a lot of people can associate with. Obviously, we have romantic dreams. It would be hard for me to, like, fit that into a stress dream category. But the reason I bring it up is I don't bring it up because I'm trying to argue with you about it. So back off. I bring it up because it's one of those dreams.

Andrew, this is vaguely nonsensical what you're doing right now.

What I what I the reason it stuck with me is because now it's a big, fat problem that my big, fat brain is trying to chew on. Like, is there some truth in that? And the reason I bring it up is because I was looking up what is losing your teeth in a dream? Oh, or, you know, your teeth falling out. Well, it's stress and anxiety. And it's like, well, how many things if I look it up and it's like toilets, overflowing stress, anxiety, like how many answers for any of these things are just going to be stress and anxiety if you look it up and you get that quick Internet answer? I will say one thing that stuck with me when I interviewed that dream expert, which, by the way, I just did a search. I'm like, there is a chance that I still had an email to him or from him in my Gmail. Unfortunately, I cannot find out who that person was. I would love to know. But he did say to me, I said, I always dream about transportation in some way or another. Like, I'm always dreaming about, like, trying to catch a plane or getting or actually being on a plane or driving down the highway or being in a boat. Like my dreams are always travel related or often like a lot of the time. And he says, well, that's probably about change in your life. And I'm kind of like, and I always think about that. And I, it's like, I sort of just accept that, but I'm also kind of like, that could be just total bullshit. You know what I mean? Like, why is that about change? Lives are always sort of changing, you know?

Well, right. And I just looked up cause you bring up a good point, which is if you have like a, some sort of romantic dream or where you're falling in love with someone or whatever, like how would there be anxiety there? So I looked up another, what you think of as a positive dream, which is you won the lottery. That's one that I used to have sometimes. Really? Like, oh, you won all this money. And it says, this is, again, AI overview. It symbolizes a deep desire for significant positive change, a sudden windfall of luck, or a feeling of being deserving of success in your life. But that's currently reflecting feelings of inadequacy.

Yeah, right.

So in other words, even like you won the lottery is actually a negative dream, according to this. Now, Andrew, we have a much bigger development.

Yeah, okay, what's going on? I don't know how we got on this.

I'm loving it, but I don't know how we got on it. I was trying to locate, I was trying to see if I could locate that dream expert on your show. So I did a Google for the Andrew Walsh show and dream expert. And I did find an ex, I found a post on Twitter from your show back in the day, I think.

Oh, that account's still just like a...

zombie account but i started seeing the andrew walsh podcast in places the andrew walsh podcast mind body spirit welcome to the andrew walsh podcast your ultimate guide to unlocking the limitless potential of your mind body and spirit join us on a transformative journey um there is apparently a uh a sort of fairly well received podcast well actually i don't know if they're making it anymore there was at one time a fairly well-received podcast about mind body and spirit called the andrew walsh podcast and i just love the idea that you're at a barbecue or a get together and they say what do you do and you say well i'm a podcaster and then they look you up and they're like god this guy's got a mind body spirit podcast let me see here i can't imagine anything you'd be less inclined towards hosting just in terms of what your brand is wow so it looks like

yeah this was really first of all the the logo and i'm not i don't want to lash out at another

andrew walsh here and i don't need walsh on walsh violence today please i would say the logo and i

don't know if you're seeing that logo of a of a pretty buff andrew walsh on a plain like a fluorescent green background it's very graphic design is my passion um it looks like the last episode was in march of last year but it was very sporadic before that before that it was like October, and then June.

Well, he's working on his mind, body, spirit.

Exactly. But I will say that it lasted longer than I thought. It did start in April of 2020, and the last one was in March of 2024. And the way these are dropping, very sporadically, maybe it's not over yet. We'll see. The last episode is called Time Blocking, Master Your Schedule and Boost Productivity with Andrew Walsh. That sounds like a buffer day. Yeah, sure does.

This may be Andrew's aligning, Andrew Walsh's aligning on the topic of Buffer Day. All right, I'll sue. Okay, yeah, absolutely. We could use it. Honestly, it might get us an extra billboard, so if you could look into that. All right, thanks for listening, everyone. That's going to do it for today's episode, but we are coming right back at you tomorrow with another edition of TBTL, so we hope you'll be able to join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday. Maybe we'll see some of you tonight at Town Hall. Please remember, no mountain too tall And good luck to all So it was like my grandma's house But at the same time it was not totally my grandma's house We will not listen to your dreams We are not saints

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