Muse

Young polar bear comes home from school, true story. And he says, mother, am I really a polar bear? She says, of course you're a polar bear. Go to bed. He comes home the next day, he says, dad, are you really a polar bear? He says, of course I'm a polar bear. Good night. This goes on for weeks, for months. Were your parents' polar bears? Were their parents' polar bears? Am I, in fact, a purebred polar bear? The father finally says, enough. Why do you keep asking us these questions? He said, because I am freezing.

Good evening and welcome to the pre-taped call-in show Where we tape all our shows a week in advance I'm your host, Ken Doral And, uh, let's try it again Okay, so now we have two Catch-22 situations simultaneously Is there even a name for that?

How about Catch-44?

Ooh, daddy's gonna dish out some daddy discipline. As a fellow daddy, I approve. Stop saying daddy. You've got a papa bear. Hmm, I actually kinda like that one. A lot of energy, a lot of motion, a lot of fun, a lot of high-fiving, a lot of smiles.

You see what happens, Larry? You see what happens? You see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps? This way to the cafeteria.

All right, hello, good morning, And welcome, everyone, to a Wednesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Hello, everyone. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. You're like the Daniel Day-Lewis of only doing one thing. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio. Bring it back home, baby. Bring it back home. Perched high above the mighty Columbia, where we are once again looking at snow flurries. Woke up this morning in Seattle, where it was very snowy, actually, and jumped in the car and sped on down here to my house where I will spend the day in silent lucidity drinking clear broth. It tastes like soot and hot water. I'm hooked. That is all I am allowed to have between now and, like, I don't know, 4 or 5 p.m. tomorrow when my little procedure is done. We've got a procedure for you. that's not very good sort of branding we have an enjoyable experience for you it's called episode 4396 in a collector's series

let the fun begin

I woke up in Seattle this morning because last night of course was at town hall with our friend television's Chris Hayes and a bunch of tens it was an amazing night

well what did everybody think

talk about that today on the program also So I am flying to England, theoretically, on Sunday for a reporting trip. Gentlemen, Tibet, but we leave at 9.30. Ish. Ish. But I've been having a snafu with my immigration status. I've got an update on that that we'll share with you. And, of course, we'll talk to this guy. Longest-running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. The reviews are in, folks. As Jay would say, he's got flow. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning. I had a question for you about your commute this morning, but I'm also getting an email here from my old boss, Abby Goldstein.

Oh, okay. Well, that's also important.

Yeah, and she runs what used to be the PRPD, but now it's like they changed the name of it because why would you want to stick with a brand that everybody knows for years and years and years? But the subject line is help shape the future of public radio. And I got to be honest with you, while I'm excited to do the show with you today, as always, sort of feel like they need me to help shape the future of public radio here. And I don't want to miss my chance.

Aren't we doing enough by talking about public radio shows from 20 years ago? Yeah, right. Incessantly on this program. Incessantly. I just invented a word there. I split the difference between incessantly and insistently, which also I don't think is a word. And I just said incessantly, incessantly strong. I don't know what I was talking. I'm sorry. I'm a little. I was bragging this morning that I don't feel tired. But now that I'm talking, I realize I might be a little tired.

You know what? I have that effect on people. That's not on you. Okay. Sorry. I just wanted to see if you and I would be interested in changing the shape of public radio. But I can't tell what the action item is there.

I want to shape the future of commercial radio, Andrew, because I have gone from listening to very little commercial radio to in the last 24 hours listening to at least some amount of commercial radio and loving it, Jerry. Absolutely loving it. Yesterday when I was driving up to Seattle, I was rolling into town, you know, kind of in afternoon rush hour traffic in Seattle. Also, something I've really

realize about being out here perched high above the mighty columbia i am not used to dealing with traffic and you know sort of not just on interstate 5 but like the hotel that i was staying in which was the ac hotel which is kind of down in i don't even know what we call that part it's listed as downtown seattle but it's really not it's it's kind of where denny you know what it's right by andrew it's right by seattle's best karaoke oh yeah you want where you once life hacked some mixers for our drinks by going into your 24-hour fitness power aid that

you could mix with exactly some vodka sure yeah that's the denny denny triangle area is that what

they call it yes that you know what that's it does have a name and that's what the name is but um i was awaiting for the lift to come get me uh last night and i was running a little behind i was starting to feel a bit stressed wanting to come up to town hall where the thing was happening And it was one of those things where the lift is 800 feet from the front of the hotel, but because of the bizarreness of the traffic pattern there in the Denny Triangle, how you have all these, you have literal gridlock going on. And also it's like, you know, Amazon is...

I'll just say it. There's a very weird... Seattle is dying. Maybe Boston's weird too. Maybe I shouldn't make these hyperbolic changes.

Boston's the weirdest in my experience.

As far as not just traffic, but on-ramps and off-ramps being in places that are very strange, I guess Boston's weirder because they will have off-ramps where there are no on-ramps and on-ramps where there are no off-ramps. And then when you ask for instructions, they say, you can't get that from here. But I will say that Seattle has some weird-ass on-ramps tucked around the city, and that is one of them. And it was built during a time when traffic around here just was not as congested. And you're right, these small little roads outside the 24-hour fitness are not, they're just not built for this weird backup that will be going, like, up the hill. It's crazy.

Yeah, and so I'm watching on the app, I'm watching this, the, like, graphic of this lift just machinate. It's, like, kind of turning, but then stopping, but then it's going up. And it's just, I'm like, I literally could have walked to Town Hall. And this is no reflection on the driver who was really cool, actually. I really liked this dude. but it was just like i had this kind of this this thing flooded back into me which is the like the frustration of urban life um which is you know counteracted by a lot of great things about urban life um like we were able pizza slices is a big one that people cite often in their uh research on the topic but um i just had this moment of being like well i'm kind of a country mouse again like i don't i'm not used to this i'm not used to this packed city environment where I can see where the guy in the lift is, but he has to go roughly 74 blocks to get to me because of the weird street design.

All that is to say. I like the way that you did point out that the car's doing that thing that's frustrating. You're looking at the map and it's spinning around. It looks like it's spinning on its axis sort of like a broken watch or something. It is a very frustrating feeling. You're like, what is this car doing? Why is it spinning around like a top? Exactly.

And is he drunk? yeah because that doesn't seem that mean he's doing donuts what is going on right but all that is to say as i was cruising into seattle i had this again because i think maybe of my history with seattle and of the time of day and the the traffic i felt i was in a mood where i wanted to listen to seattle related sports talk radio i i think what i wanted to do was i wanted to travel to 20 years ago in my life or whatever it was when i just like lived in seattle full time And when, you know, most of the time when I'm in the car, I'm listening to local Seattle radio, whether it's Cairo, where maybe I worked, or whether it's the sports talk folks. I wanted to be, I wanted my life to have not taken all the twists and turns that it has. I really just wanted to be.

A young Matt Hasselbeck is still slinging the rock.

A young Matt Hasselbeck is being trained under the watchful eye of a Mike Holmgren. Like I just, I literally, there's something about being in the city of Seattle because again, I can't, I can't underscore this enough. It is where I grew up. It's also where I've spent a lot of my adult life. It's where most of my important sense memories have made. And if I'm being honest, it's where some of my best memories are because they're memories that I made when I was young. They are memories that I made when I was 25 years old and, you know, relatively newly married and my life felt untroubled. And I, you know, I just, you know, I felt like and I say this a lot. It felt like the airplane was taking off and that's not how it feels at 48. and that's okay i'm not trying to go to a dark place with it but i when i get into seattle i think i very much

I feel this desire to reconnect with a younger and more, if I'm being honest, optimistic part of my life. I don't think the current political scene is helping. It's probably driving me more towards this version of nostalgia.

You talk about the Sarah Nelson City Council? Because I'm with you. I thought we weren't allowed to have those conversations on the show.

I've asked you not to, but you continue to force them to shoehorn them in.

Danny's name will be erased.

I swear to God, if this is another Danny Westmeat takedown project from you, I'll not entertain it. You know, I'm, so I'm like, I'm basically passing like the Corson exit or something. You know, I'm on I-5, and the traffic's where traffic starts to build as you're coming into Seattle, coming north. And I flip on the afternoon sports talk show, Dave and Bob, or Bob and Dave, whatever they called over there on Seattle Sports Talk. And I'm just telling you, Andrew, first of all, the fact that that station is still on. Wyman and Bob. Wyman and Bob.

Took me a second, but that's what, I knew it was a combination of their names.

why so serious man and bob um no i uh i turned on that station and i just was flooded with dopamine i was flooded with good feelings because one that station is still on doing sports talk because you know you never know in this modern this fractured media uh landscape that station was still on the two people hosting it are the people that i remember hosting that show I love the broadcaster Dave Wyman The former Seattle Seahawk Dave Wyman I love the commercials They're trying to convince women That they should buy their female friends Galentine's jewelry They're talking about minimally invasive medical procedures They're talking about refinancing homes You're talking about Cyberknife? They're talking about What's the one that They're talking about There's one that Wyman's doing now that I think is a live read that's basically a non-surgical option if you have...

Cyberknife.

That's Cyberknife?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cyberknife. It just leaves a tiny little...

Aren't they a good Japanese band I used to listen to in the 90s?

I think so. And then you also have a whole host of commercials for men that is going to reinvigorate them. Thank you. But then they never – but the obvious boner pill aspect of it is always mentioned last as if it's an afterthought. It's always like I just – I have more vim. I have more vigor. I'm great on the golf course. And fellas, she'll like it too.

It's like you're in the liquor store, but you're just buying like Cheetos and a bunch of things. And at the last minute, you're like, I guess I'll take some liquor too. Yeah, you know what? Give me that. Can you get that bottle of – if you've got any. Do you have any vodka back there? Could you throw that in?

Give me five Magnus, please.

Like, it wasn't the reason you're there, right? I love it. But there was something that was just so warm and comforting about hearing this. And by the way, I apologize that the show has been so sports-heavy of late, but I just want to point this out. We could not be more in the doldrums of Seattle sports. Like, I'm listening to this. I'm surprised they don't just, like, hang a gone fishing sign for, like, two months of the year because there's nothing like none of our major teams are in maybe the Sounders are playing or something the Sounders are like always playing and they're always about to be eliminated from the playoffs but then they're in they're winning the Cup I don't understand how soccer works but anyway it's like I just love that it was like 5 20 it's getting dark outside and it's like these guys are just putting their nose to the grindstone there was also a genuinely funny moment I told you about last night off air which was they um were playing some tape of the former uh nfl receiver uh terrell owens and he was talking about something in football basically that the kansas city chiefs are are being uh sort of helped along by nfl refereeing but for some reason and this is one of those podcasts that every pro former pro athlete now has um and they're playing the audio from but for some reason there's beethoven's moonlight sonata is playing under him just talking about the kansas city chiefs and and uh dave and bob and their producer a guy named matt just start like kind of going off on like what a weird musical choice it is which i love you know i just love this kind of content and then bopping along i'm listening to some you know law tigers for men ads whatever and then they come back from the commercial break and they bump in with moonlight sonata and i just was like in the car i was like that's that's some good radio my friends and and then of course then this morning when i get up i uh i turn i'm it's still on seattle sports so i've got brock and sulk coming at me and like again i just it it just felt like a warm hug this all this content and i just started thinking is it too late for us to get our sports talk radio show off the ground somewhere andrew can we uh convince someone to give us a show because i just love it so much and i'm like I feel like maybe the The future of my broadcast career is on terrestrial radio, on a dying medium, in a sports town whose teams do poorly, generally speaking.

Well, you know, this kind of ties into something that I was thinking about during your conversation with Chris on stage last night. Which, by the way, was a really good conversation. And I'm not just saying that. You know I'm loathe to compliment you. That was a really good conversation.

Oh, thanks. I definitely felt, I don't want to hijack what your thought was, but I will just quickly get out of the way my anxiety, which I shared with you last night, which was after I talked a big game on yesterday's TBChill about how I wasn't nervous and about how the one thing I'm good at is chill conversations on stage, immediately ran into two pretty major snags. One, there was an audio snafu where there was this piano music playing while we were sitting on stage, which was an error with the backstage public address system. But people couldn't really hear it, but it was really loud for me and Chris. So we're, like, looking at each other and talking, but we have this, like, huge distraction going on. And I'm just furiously thinking, how do we fix this and make it not awkward? It got fixed. And then the other thing was, I meant to say—

Then you just shot the piano player. It's like, that's how we take care of it.

it's it's you got to do what you got to do when you're in that foxhole andrew um and then the other thing was that i had like a i misspoke something i was talking about i meant to mention chris writing at the nation magazine i wrote i said national review this is as the piano music

still playing public new republic national review would have been even funnier that would be a that

would have been hilarious that actually would have been great um but i uh but anyway so i had like and i don't usually do that anyway there was like a couple of like uh a couple of little quick moments of like not feeling a hundred percent on that stage right at the beginning i definitely think that thankfully chris is such a professional and so smart that we got the nose up and it ended up being a really a really fun event but it just it was the it was not lost on me in the first five minutes when there was a couple of little moments of turbulence that i was like i just i knew i was gonna jinx this today when i was actually acting confident for once in

my life it's just so funny because like you saying the wrong magazine that is like very much similar like kind of in the same vein yeah it just went by so quickly he just corrected you you made a quick little joke about it and you moved on like nobody in that room even i then you referenced it back later in the in the conversation i'm sure you were like oh he was that was really funny that mind was

working on that big fat problem for the intervening 40 minutes it was i will say you dropped it in a

way that was very funny but i also was like oh shit man he's been thinking about that i yeah nobody it just doesn't live in people's minds like i thought of you when i did that callback

i was like andrew if andrew didn't know that i was totally like hung up on that he now knows

that yeah right that might there are a couple of moments where i felt like i bark laughed when nobody else was laughing in the room and i was wondering if you could hear me in the back bark laughing for your support and you were saying last night as you were watching so this is i need to I kind of talk expansively here, and maybe you will kind of clean up some of the paraphrasing that I'm going to try to do from your conversation last night. But obviously, Chris's book is about the attention economy. We've been talking about it on this show. He's been doing a media blitz that has no comparison in media blitzes. I think it's been amazing to see and hear him all over the place talking about this. And he—

You're on the cover of Costco Connections at my drive home.

that was what he used to write for that's that's what it was it was like 15 years ago when we're first starting to get to know each other and you were writing for Costco connections

oh god that would have been such a funny joke it would have confused the crowd with it that

would have been a solid joke um but one of the things and this is where I need to like kind of slow down and try to recall this better because it was the only time I've heard Chris mention this in fact I mentioned this to him when we were chatting that like I just have not heard him repeat a lot of the same anecdotes like for as much I mean a little bit here and there because there's no way to not there's no way to do so much media without and talk about the same book without like you know kind of repeating yourself a little bit it's amazing how we're some of the

only people that are able to not do that yeah we never on this show I mean that's ever absolutely

our stories do you know I was bullied growing up um you know I uh so all that is to say he was talking about obviously again the attention economy and how we are like what i think you even asked like well what are the if we have all these people and companies that are competing for our attention what is the what is the new frontier of that where can we go next like once they've already mined us as much as they can for our attention it seems like a finite resource how are people trying to like split our attention even more and chris was talking about like well I saw my kid playing a video game, but also had a screen up in the corner where he was watching something on Twitch or something like that. And so two screen experiences are trying to steal our attention when we're sleeping. through podcasts or whatever and he's kind of giving these examples and while we were talking while you guys were talking about the two-screen experience he mentioned an anecdote and i don't think he attached any names to this but a story about an executive i believe a tv executive or streaming executive oh my gosh who actually kind of rejected somebody's script idea or production idea because it was too intriguing and it would suck the viewers in too much to the point where it wouldn't be a good show to split your distraction with that they were looking for lesser media that you can sort of just have on in the background so you can look up and sort of catch the drift but also go back down to your phone and scroll twitch or twitter what's the one that ever bite dance yes exactly what were you gonna say well i was gonna say i i i feel like

well i want you to complete your thought but i i feel like i kind of know where you're going with it because i was having this thought on stage please continue yeah so anyway the reason i'm

bringing up now in in context of this conversation you were having about kind of reengaging with like just local live am radio the reason i like and kind of came to it later in my life live am radio is because it is that they can make a decision on the fly during the commercial break it can be a little janky let's bump in with moon nights not somebody find that on youtube let's just play it we can take a call we can not take a call like that is so and growing up or coming of age in public radio where everything had to be planned out days in advance and be like well literally me getting into arguments with a host about whether a bump should be 15 seconds or 25 seconds you know what i mean like you can get into these and some of them are probably good conversations to have as a public radio producer but it can be a little bit stifling too you know and so to have this world where it's just like i don't know we go on the radio we do three hours of talk some people are going to remember some of it some are going to not remember some of it it's going to be a waterfall of us doing this and that's very much the tbtl model which is like why i like this job and why i was a fan of the show before i was a part of the show so to tie all of this up i'm sitting there listening to chris talk about the attention economy and how you don't want to have something that is like going to steal too much of your focus i'm kind of like chris has also said tbtl is the kind of perfect background thing yeah like not maybe he didn't say background but like you don't the beauty of what we do is you don't have to hear all of it you can leave the room you can come back in i'm still telling this story like you know what i mean like you don't have to catch every little thing like a like a an edition of like it's certainly something serialized like

serial or even well even when i was sure or if i listen to chris's podcast why is this happening Yeah, I find myself, you know, hitting like 15 seconds back a lot because I want to make sure that I understood what the person was saying, because everything is has meaning to it and everything is built on something that preceded it. But I was, yeah, that's exactly the thought that I was having last night, which was just to read for whatever reason to restate what you were saying, that that basically a studio executive was saying we're going to we're going to design shows that are not that interesting so that they don't get in the way of other screens or your real life. And like that seems like that would be anathema to making entertainment. And I wanted to say we we are so on the vanguard of that with TV. chill we have for years been making a podcast you can fall asleep to as many people report a podcast that you pay maybe one quarter of your attention to like we we really we're really groundbreaking in that space and with that kind of content and i think it's a high time we get

the credit that is due not just the credit but the the the financial um payoff reward reward for that as well like there maybe that's our executives out there who are saying we need something that is

more mid maybe that's the tbtl billboard more mid yeah if you missed yesterday's show we made an announcement which is that we are in fact going to be uh putting up a tbtl billboard like a real billboard somewhere in america somewhere that is more affordable than uh the place that that launched the idea which was near andrew's house that was out of our price range but we did find a place, maybe a slightly less trafficked area, where we're going to put this billboard up, but we would love some suggestions. If anyone has ideas for a new TBTL billboard, it's John, J-O-N, at tbtl.net. Hit up our guy, John Sklaroff, with your ideas. If you can do the graphic design, cool. If graphic design is not your passion, you can also just say, here's what would be on the billboard. We're collecting up all the ideas that we can get, just so we can help up with something cool for when we do this billboard uh all that is to say thank you uh thank you thank you to everybody who came out last night from the tb

TL community it did I didn't get a chance to actually I'll just tell you this Andrew my my mom and dad were really excited to meet Chris in particular my dad was really excited to meet Chris

did you see and I don't know why I'm tattling on them but after all this talk of your parents being excited for this and and like kind of asking you a million questions about when it starts and parking everything did you see them rolling hot like about like three minutes in my mom uh explained

to me that she was like i i guess i i missed the intro which i heard was great so my mom yes my parents who by the way i want to mention were in seattle all day yesterday i found out they were having they were having a leisurely lunch at my aunt mary lou's house they had nowhere to be other than town hall at 7 30 and managed to be seated after the program had begun

I mean, I saw them coming. I was like, that is so classic. By the way, put it on the poll. Are all lunches at Aunt Mary Lou's house leisurely?

By definition, without a doubt. So it was I have to say it was I've already made plenty out of this. And in fact, we've recorded a little conversation with Chris, which we're going to play tomorrow. And this may even come up then. I don't know. But it was very it was very charming for me to see how excited my parents were. In particular, my dad was to get to meet Chris. And last night after the show, you know, I go to talk to my folks and there was a line of people signing, looking to have Chris sign the book. I mean, it went around the interior of town hall. I mean, that was a crazy turnout.

That place was packed.

Yeah, it was. And it's a pretty sizable venue for a book event. And so I was talking to my folks and I was looking at this line and I was like, ooh, that's a long, you know, that's going to take like two hours or something. And I just said to my folks, I was like, you know, I think we missed our window to go talk and say hi to Chris for you guys to get to meet him. And I go, so maybe another time I go, or I guess we can wait. And I had barely finished the sentence where my dad said, we'll wait.

I love that.

Like it was so we went and we hung out. We went out and we sat in this tiny green room that Town Hall is the, see, I guess the thing about Town Hall, and this is where I guess I'm just going to get into the venue because that's definitely what people tuned in for. But you were back there with Genevieve before the show. It's interesting because for such a grand, I mean, it's an absolutely grand room and it's a very cool space. The green room leaves a lot to be desired. It's Spartan. And I guess it's because, and I've noted this when we do Livewire there, because when we do Livewire there, there's like 20 people from Livewire. Forget the guests, just the people that work on Livewire. There's almost not enough room. There's like two chairs. there's a tiny like uh like apartment size or motel room size refrigerator that sometimes will have people sign their release on like it's a very it's and i think it's because that place is not designed it's a church a it's its origins are as a church and then b it's usually like in conversation with it's usually like the person who wrote the book and then the person who's asking them questions like it's not it's not set up for some like you know Cirque du Soleil troupe to be you know getting ready in the back and people are doing their makeup and whatever like it's it's not that scene but anyway that back room is kind of funny to me because it's very spare considering the How grand the rest of the room is we go back there and I got my mom and dad and I say oh hey mom I think there's some leftover like nuts because they had two You saw those like there was like a thing of coffee and then two little white kind of bowls of like mixed nuts from maybe from Costco or something and I was like I guess mom there's some mixed nuts or something if you want them I'm just trying to kill time because I'm going to be back there with them for like an hour and my mom goes you know I love mixed nuts so I'm sure I give her the bowl and she's just like eating them and eating them and then people are coming in like town hall staffers and other people and finally Chris is done with this signing and I see him because the weird thing is there's a like you're looking at a monitor backstage where you can actually see what's happening on the stage but you're backstage and i see chris get up from the signing table and then making for the door and i'm like guess what in three two one chris is coming through that door and boom he comes through the door my dad's all excited to meet him and he's shaking his hand and my mom gives him a hug and then my dad and chris are chatting and i look over and my mom is just calmly unloading both of the bowls of nuts into a paper cup.

I was wondering, when you first mentioned your mom and the mixed nuts, I immediately had a picture of her just dumping them into her bag, or her purse, or whatever she would be carrying.

I think she took one of the paper cups that was meant for coffee to go, but it didn't have any in it, and she was just sliding. I feel like she said something to me like, I'm going to take the rest of these nuts. I'll tell you why in a minute. She never told me why.

Can I guess? To eat them. For eating? I think there were some, to her credit, I believe there were some craisins maybe. Yes, there were. In those mixed nuts as well. So, I mean, how could you keep your hands off that?

I'm actually texting her. Did you take the rest of those nuts last night? And I got to put a laughing emoji. so she doesn't think um she's in trouble i i promise you are not in trouble xo um that's that was just like suzy gonna suzy i just love i mean honestly like i kind of loved it i was like it i just i can set my watch by the fact that my mom's gonna be 15 minutes late and she's gonna be taking those costco uh craisins and nuts with her like i just i just know and by the way i was happy for it because first of all they were going to go to waste second of all i couldn't eat them yeah i know i saw you eyeing those nuts dude i would have gone ham on those nuts because uh being that i i i um am trying to eat more uh like not this week which is this colonoscopy thing but like generally speaking what i'm trying to do is if i'm hungry absolutely snack on something but Make it so that snack is something like some peanuts or some almonds or just things that are, you know, more identifiable as a food product rather than something that's super duper processed. That's kind of been my thing of late. And what it's meant is that I've been eating a lot of things like, you know, mixed nuts. And so I was hungry yesterday because I've been, you know, I've been kind of there's a bunch of foods I can't eat right now because of this thing on Thursday. And so I literally when I saw those nuts, I was like, damn, I would really love to just go hard on those. But I couldn't. But I was very glad that they were getting, I'm glad that somebody was using them. And I'm glad that my mom was, you know, did not disappoint in terms of being my mom.

I do think that, was it Rick, the security guard? Do you think that he had his eyes on the nuts, though? Do you think that that would be the one person who maybe.

That would be kind of a bummer. Yeah. Because he was a super sweetheart. That's another thing last night that was totally new to me. Yeah. Security. Yeah. In case I ever get confused about what a real celebrity's life is like. because I've done the show at Town Hall. I've been in events and done shows at Town Hall probably 15 to 20 times in my life, and I have never, ever, has there been backstage security until last night.

Well, you know, I didn't think about it at the time. I mean, I heard you mention that because we can say that I think this is good, right? Forward promo, we're not trying to not tell listeners that we recorded a little segment with Chris before the show last night in the green room, and um and you so you me and him went into this little dressing room area because it was like kind of the most convenient place to do it and then we come out we had left genevieve in one of those two chairs and then when we came out it was genevieve and a man kind of standing sort of officially but not in any kind of a uniform and they and it looked like he and genevieve were chatting a little bit and then he immediately introduced himself as like kind of the security detail sort of and he might have had an earpiece in or something and it felt very sort of official to me in the moment and Leslie I am what's that go for Leslie that's right and I do wonder uh I I wonder if it's also the kind of political you know given where we are in the country right like for example Nico Case is speaking at town hall tonight I saw which is pretty cool in conversation with Cheryl Waters Luke you didn't from KEXP yeah um but uh I changed Cheryl Waters tire once and I

always think of myself as the mouse who pulled a thorn out of a lion's paw like you owe me

at someday i'm going to cash that in you've interviewed nico case too huh i was i was

trying to i was going to try to get on livewire it was a weird episode it was at bumbershoot and that was back when i used to do this pretty extensive monologue to start each show and for whatever reason I decided to talk about an interaction I'd had with Adelaide at that Bumbershoot and in the moment of talking about this to a bunch of relative strangers I realized that she was in the audience like I had thought that she wasn't gonna come to the show and I got emotional on stage and then it was like right after I was like ladies and gentlemen Nico Case oh yeah

I'm sorry Adelaide was in the audience not Nico

Adelaide was in the audience Nico Case was a guest yes and it was just a very of all the shows she could have been on i mean honestly i say this with peace and love she's kind of a grade a weirdo so it probably worked for her she's probably like cool man they're getting real on this show but i was a little bit like of all the shows for me to like have a kind of overly intense emotional moment in front of everyone it's the one that nico case is

on but i couldn't have been ron funchez that's anyway i mean he would have vibed the only thing the only reason i bring that up is and maybe this is a not a very fun thing to talk about and maybe

Maybe I'm just totally off my nut on this, speaking of mixed nuts. But, you know, I do wonder if, like, does Nico Case have that security guard as well? Or is it the state of the country and what Chris's job is, aside from being an author of this book? But, you know, being on MSNBC, I wonder if they were thinking about that.

I have a clue. I have a clue to help us with this mystery. That security person said the last time I was here, I said to them, I said, oh, have I met you before? They looked kind of familiar. And then he said I don't think we have Were you here when it was Rachel Maddow? And I said no And he goes I was also hired for that So my guess is MSNBC probably has a corporate policy That when its hosts are doing This is my guess

Oh not a town hall policy

I have a feeling it's part of the overall I don't know if it falls under the rider or not But I have a feeling it's a corporate policy From MSNBC regarding public appearances by its on-air talent. Would it be my guess? I'm sure. If only we knew someone who worked there who we were getting dinner with last night that we could actually ask this up. Well, do you have an update?

Because I kicked Chris right in the nads.

Yeah, you do. Yeah, you did.

Nobody stopped me.

We do have a, let's see. Stop the show. An update in the question of the backstage nuts. I said, Mom, can I ask you a question? Did you take the rest of those nuts last night? I promise you you are not in trouble and I put a laugh crying emoji to really blunt things and she said we didn't take the rest of them but mainly I took some in a paper cup that was there to have your dad munch on them to stay awake on the dark ride home

oh that was the reason why

and then I said smart and then she said I even mentioned my reason to the gal cleaning up and she said great

they weren't going to reuse those Nika wasn't going to keep those

those things were going right into the trash I'm so happy that they were getting consumed by my parents but I just think it's just so it's like I'll tell you you know what we were again I don't think this is talking out of school we were we went and we got some dinner with Chris and Genevieve and you and and Chris had been at the Microsoft campus at talking about the book in the daytime and was just marveling at the the amount of free stuff that's available there if you work there we had a lot of listeners that work there they know this and Genevieve knows this having you know professionally associated with Microsoft um it's wild though like yeah when I'm there and we're filming these security things like it's any kind of soda that you can imagine it's any kind of sparkling water it's any kind of juice it's every kind of like string cheese snack like there is no end to these little it's an Avanti market but way better but with but without having to obscure your face from the camera when you're stealing downstairs at Kyra and you're stealing a beef jerky or whatever and peanut butter crackers and i was just all i could think uh when we were talking about that was like we could not turn my mom loose in that place it would be a situation it would be headline on

wednesday suzy burbank visits redmond headline on thursday microsoft files for bankruptcy yes

exactly microsoft disappoints in fourth quarter earning report like i mean there is something and and the thing is i've got it too i inherited it from my mother which is this this feeling and here's where it doesn't apply if there's if someone has put out like brownies at work or cookies or something you know in the and like an email goes around hey there's cake in the break room or even like, you know, Dick's driving brought in burgers or something. I always, I think just out of some kind of weird, uh, I don't know what the word for it is. I, I generally don't engage with that stuff very much. I'm usually kind of being like, I'm, I don't, you know, I don't need to run down there and elbow people out of the way to get my hands on a cookie or something. That being said, when there's like free stuff around, that's kind of like packaged that I could put in, like, for instance, this morning when I got up in my hotel room had two bottles of water like you know just that were free to take and I'll I'll be gosh darned if I didn't throw those in my bag and bring them with me like I am NOT gonna sleep on any portable packaged thing that I would otherwise maybe pay money for that I'm gonna get for free like I'm taking that like I regularly leave those Microsoft events with 30 to 40 seltzer cans of

seltzer in my bag like so what are those old-timey pants that are like are they clodhoppers or something like that where they like you're just filling your pockets you jodhpurs jodhpurs is that the way i don't know kind of like real poofy really poof you're just like

filling it with like water and snacks bubbly water like the mummy trying to sneak a a whalebone long island iced tea into the saddle ranch on sunset but you have to walk at a very particular gate so you're not spilling it or knocking on one time I don't know.

I've never heard that term, whalebone meaning that he put it.

Well, like, you know those long kind of novelty drinks that are plastic and they've got a very narrow, long middle part to them?

Oh, okay. I thought you were describing the way. I thought he slipped it in his pants in some way that was sling for a whalebone. No, no, no.

Whalebone is, I don't even think this is the real name for it, but in our friend group, what we always called any kind of those drinks that are, you know, like a novelty drink you might get in Vegas or on the Sunset Strip. New Orleans. New Orleans, it's going to be in some plastic thing Now they are insanely long But maybe let's just talk about something that's 3 feet Or whatever And I remember one night we were going out And per usual, the mummy had no money And decided, I think maybe had 20 bucks And decided that instead of Trying to buy like one drink at the Saddle Ranch Which by the way is the Kind of country western bar on Sunset That has a mechanical bowl in it And instead of trying to buy Two drinks in two different places he decided to get a long island iced tea to spend his entire alcohol budget for the night on a long island iced tea but then sneak it into each bar we were going into which involved sliding it into his sock so it roughly mirrored his uh shin bone and then walking like something out of a like keep on trucking so that it's like not spilling sneaking these things into and out of the various bars of

the sunset strip i feel like and i had friends like this i guess the term is like dirtbag i had friends like this in college who i swear like i love to drink i mean not to brag but early on i love to drink but i had friends who love to drink but were also like kind of broke ever since i was a ever since i was a kid i always knew i wanted to be an alcoholic i um ever since i was little kid reading andy cap over my cereal um no but like i do feel like there's a personality type that also like part of the fun is can i get away with this you know what i mean like i almost wonder and maybe this is wrong you you know him way better than i do obviously but like i almost wonder like even if he had more resources would he have done this anyway no you're shaking your

no i think i think that these were that these were desperate acts of a desperate person yeah i is is my is my experience with that uh being genuine um uh i'm not saying that i'm or wasn't above that like the idea of like yeah trying to get away with something or be a little bit sneaky or you know i don't know push the envelope but i think in this case it literally was like how do i get how do i get what i think is the most drunk for the twenty dollars i have We'll go Long Island, Long Island iced tea, which, boy, if you ever want to really reframe your relationship with alcohol, have like two Long Island iced teas and get back to me in the morning.

Yeah, or your relationship with sugar as well, right?

Right, and that's probably worse than the booze. Let's thank some donors. these wonderful people are donating to tbtl to keep this thing going and uh it's vital to the mission to make this uh commercial free podcasting we were we're talking with chris last night after dinner about he was he was gently inquiring how's how's tbtb are things i think it was at the part where our credit card was being declined and he was picking up the tab was i believe when he asked How's it going to TBTB?

It was strange because we're at an American-style bar, but a French waiter came out and cut your card in half. It was very interesting.

Unnecessary, I thought. Unnecessarily theatrical. But we were able to say to him, no, you know, it's like this thing, the center is holding. This is a real thing. And I'm really proud of that. And really excited that we can keep doing this for our job and for John Sklaroff's job. And it's thanks to folks like Howard Rosenman, of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Thank you, Howard. You know, I want to add one thing that sort of Chris said in that conversation, too, was, and I'm saying this now because it's relevant to the donors who are keeping this going, he said that, like, his experience in media, he's just witnessed so much boom and bust. Not even in the landscape, generally speaking, but just at a company. It's either, like, you're just going, like, you're high as can be, and then the next minute there's, like, layoffs or whatever. And the thing about TBTL is it's been really steady Eddie, and it's specifically – we don't have anybody named Eddie, do we? Oh, that would have been perfect donating today. But it's true. The reason why we're steady Howards is because of the listeners like Howard, that we can just kind of depend on this and just kind of keep this at a slow simmer. That's right.

That's all we're doing here is we're just like, we're not, we're not getting too, I believe the way Chris. described it was it's either we're having a six-figure christmas party where it's an open bar and i believe he maybe he mentioned some illegal drugs that might be there too or everybody is laid off right and uh we're just you know we're just kind of maintaining here we're like we're just simmering we're not getting crazy we're not boiling over i promise you our coffers are not boiling over with donations but um but it's not you know it's it's it's not uh something that's ice cold either it's it's a it's happening uh for us as a as a show as a project and it's thanks to folks like howard and also thanks to kurt pewterbaugh of shoreline washington my neighbor to the north yeah we love shoreline um also thanks to christine mince in santa fe new mexico wow two new mexico donors in the same day that's not a coincidence you don't think so you think that's

part of the plot you think the phones are listening to us i think the phones are listening to us santa My face sounds like a nice, warm place to be right now on a snowy day here in Seattle.

How's Seattle sound to you, Andrew? That's where Laura Peterson is.

Seattle sounds warm today. Laura might have taken the day off today. Might be working from home because it's a snow day. Unclear. It seems like I was hearing from a lot of friends who are like, I'm the only person in the office today.

What is the snow scene at your house? It is.

I'm looking out the window now. I can't see the ground because I'm below ground level, but I can see that the sun has come out now. It looks actually pretty bright out there, and I'm seeing some drippings. So I'm getting the impression that the snow might be starting to melt. But this morning, the past couple of days, it's been kind of coming down, kind of big wet flakes.

Yeah, I was really genuinely surprised at how snowy it was outside the hotel. Luckily, it was the powderiest snow I've ever encountered. it was so dry and so like so there was a huge amount on my car but literally turning on my

windshield wipers just went yeah it's gone well that you know what that was i started the show today by saying i have a question about your commute my question is somewhat simple i think once you got into your neck of the woods those roads are a little bit more country-ish a little bit more windy i was like actually wondering this morning will you dial up on time can you even get into your driveway there was no issues it was all plowed and clean it was there's no snow down here

when the show was starting when we started recording today some snowflakes were coming down but there's not any snow on the roads here and also I've got Andrew my snow socks with me

oh yes

they're for the vehicle they're basically chains but they're fabric and I got them maybe last year maybe two years ago but yeah I feel so confident with those things in the way back of my Mazda CX-5 I'm like get at me mother nature But as it happened, nothing happening down here in terms of inclement weather. Thanks also to Wayne Kirkendall of Mill Creek, Washington. I don't know what the scene in Mill Creek is. Probably snowy, which means, yeah, Wayne is probably by a cozy fire right now.

Yes, in Mill Creek. Mill Creek sounds like a place that would be like it would be snowy, but there's a fire in the hearth, and you're seeing the cottage from outside of it, and you can see the warm glow of Wayne kind of rubbing his hands together.

Absolutely. And there's, like, a bubbling brook that moves the mill, moves the water wheel on the mill. This is turning into a Thomas Kinkade painting.

I know. You know that. Genevieve really told me that it was a bad look after a while, and I had to take them down. But for a while there, I was collecting those little, like, those little dorky paintings of, like, kids fishing or playing around water wheels with, like, the balsa wood frames or whatever. i had in my early 20s i had a few of those on my wall in literally this really shitty wood panel department and genevieve's like you just don't look like somebody who's allowed to be near schools like you need to take those off the wall and so eventually i did were they like precious moments kind of like kind of like that real country kitsch of just like you can picture a kid is his uh like his cuffs are rolled up and he's got he might have a straw hat on maybe a straw hat and like You know, his sister is just, like, sitting on a rock while he's got an old-fashioned fishing pole.

Uh-huh. Yeah. I mean, that is the line between Kitsch and the police showing up is, you know, is a fine line. And you want to really stay on the proper side of it. Don't push it. Also, before we wrap this part of the show up, we have to thank Aaron Schultz in Shoreline, Washington. Andrew.

Another Shoreline. Love it.

Two people in Albuquerque, or two people in New Mexico today, two people in Shoreline.

This is good. Thank you, Aaron.

Thank you, Aaron, and thanks to all of our donors. We could not do this TBTL thing without you. Hello, and welcome to Top Story. Just another update, Andrew, on my immigration status, my ability... to travel to england on sunday by the way uh one quick plug uh i'm back in seattle on saturday night we are doing an event at the hotel crocodile i've never been there before but you have andrew

right yeah well the thing is like when the croc reopened i know that i've been to a couple of different shows there but in like one was in the like a big ballroom area one was in like kind of the the smaller club underneath so and i think they might have a couple like a few venues all in there, so I don't know if I can picture where you're going to be, but that is a great place, man.

I've never been in the new version of The Croc. I'm so excited. But it's just a little kind of intimate pop-up show we're doing. It's for Livewire. The singer Emmy Pop is going to be performing. I'll be there. There's going to be great food and drinks. You can get tickets at livewireradio.org if you would like to see even more of me this week. Maybe you didn't get your fill at Town Hall. That's Saturday night. Then I'm getting up first thing Sunday morning hustling down to SeaTac. and flying to england or so i thought now the problem is there is a new rule in the uk uh something called the eta which is like electronic travel

association i made this the show pick i made the infographic about the eta show pick the other day electronic travel authorization authorization yeah but it's called with an s because they're in the

uk author um and i've been describing and i look i don't care but i've been describing this as something that just feels like it's a tax on traveling which again it's twelve dollars but it what i don't understand is is is what um extra security it might be providing because of the fact that the security questions seemed less thorough than the ones you would have to answer for your passport which you also have to have a passport presumably if you're from the u.s and you're traveling through england so can i just mention one thing that somebody wanted to let you know

on this is apparently it does go both ways because i'm looking for the email right now i saw okay meredith uh wrote in to say because she's a i think a u.s expat who's living in the uk if i have that right and says that um basically there's a 21 cost to go from you know if you're somebody who's a british citizen coming to the united sure and i don't i don't in any way doubt

that the united states government has also availed themselves of the chance to soak visitors from other countries for an extra 21 bucks you know but like i just in filling out this application online i just was kind of like this just seems superfluous to me for some reason but anyways big announcement and um and as of you know whatever january something 2025 so i send through the application and you get this kind of auto-generated message that says um sometimes it takes up to three days to get your approval sometimes it takes longer and weeks a week goes by two weeks go by i haven't heard anything the trip is getting closer the trip is now on sunday and i like last week i was telling you andrew that i was trying to get some help with this from this like uk immigration website the official website and you go on there and well first of all there was one version where they were trying to charge me like per minute to talk on the phone with someone or per topic in an email i don't know if we've gotten any closer to understanding what 69 pence means oh yeah that

was also in that email uh basically a pence is a penny so there's a hundred so 69 cents a minute

was going to be the charge if i wanted to call them yeah like eight well in the u.s that'd be

like 80 i don't know what the conversion is 80 cents a minute 89 cents a minute or something

But so, yeah, just like I was I was running up and then I was I finally found like a free chat function with them. But it immediately said, these are the things we will not be helping you with the status of your application, a timeline on your application, basically any of the things you'd be wanting to know about your application. And then the line was really long. And then finally, I went I missed my window and then I tried to get online with them a different time. And they were closed because of the time difference between here and England. So yesterday morning, I got up bright and early and I jumped on the chat function with them and finally was able to get a hold of somebody who started to chat with someone. And what I will tell you is they absolutely will help you figure out what's going on with your ETA application. I had my whole, like, I was going to try to, like, warm the water up on the frog, if you know what I mean. Like, because it's very clearly written, like, we will not listen to your dreams. we are not saints or whatever she says didn't that close out yesterday yeah yeah i played a little drop yep we are not saying but like there are so many like things that they're like we will not do this so i was like i can't just come right in and go like hi i want to know the status of my eta application like i can't say that so what i'm gonna have to do is say i applied for this and i have not received confirmation should i reapply which i thought was going to trick them into giving me some information We'll be right back.

You know what I mean?

You're already playing games before you know what the game is.

Yeah, well, but that's why I'm so effective with these things because I'm, you know, I'm miles ahead of these folks. So the person jumps on the line on the chat, and I'm like, I've got my confirmation number, and I'm like, I applied for my ETA thing. This is my confirmation number. And it's like typing, typing, typing, typing. And they're like, okay, what's your name, address, whatever. I give them all this stuff. They're like, I'm not finding it. and then they're like do you have the confirmation number and i'm like oh you gotta be kidding me you guys are as bad as i thought and i was like i gave you the confirmation number and they're like that's the confirmation for your payment there's a different one that is a confirmation for your actual application and of course i go into my emails and it's like the second one down and i give it to them and they're like okay please hold let me take a look at this and they're like super helpful not a bot oh that's the other thing that i learned if you ever find yourself in the same predicament I was in and you're dealing with this chat function at this very specific United Kingdom website, all you have to do is tell the bot, I want to talk to a human, and then the bot will say, please rephrase the question, was this answer helpful, yes or no, and you tell it no, and then you do the same thing again, and then it says, was this answer helpful, and you say no, and then it lets you talk to a human. You just have to, you have to neg it twice. Okay, sounds good. So just, if you want to know, just tell it this was not a helpful answer two times and It shall let you pass on this bridge.

Anyway, the game, how to talk to a human being. Wasn't the game where the term, like, sort of negate? Wasn't that the, like, the, what's the word I'm looking for? Anti-woman is the sentiment I'm going for. Well, incel, the pickup artist. Yeah, yeah.

It was called the speed seduction community.

Is that really what it was called?

Well, the speed seduction community is what I think kind of started. It's, and I mean, it's just heavy duty. It's heavy duty incel energy But I think there was a guy named Ross Jeffries who Would teach these classes I'm sure these were Like happening on VHS tapes And at like a shady Like holiday inn by the airport Somewhere where basically you could come out And this person was going to teach you As a man how to You know hit on women Effectively and then from that There was this other you know Kind of break off shoot I think the Guy was named went by the name mystery who wrote who had this crew of guys that their whole thing was just going out and trying to hit on women basically and then i think his name is neil strauss is the rolling stone reporter who then lived with them and upped his game and then wrote a book called the game which they printed to look like the bible it came out on 9-11 did not make a splash and then was like re-released

months later and did make a splash i didn't know a lot of those details about the 9-11 release and

It showed up at my desk in L.A. when I was a booker for Day to Day. This thing that looks exactly like a King James Bible, but was The Game by Neil Strauss. Anyway, that's why I have a bizarre—and also I used it.

I think misogynistic is maybe the word I was looking for before. I think I was just looking—that whole thing happened because I couldn't think of the word misogynistic. Sorry about that.

But we all got to learn a little bit more about a truly terrible piece of literature.

About the TJ Mackification of America.

Nice. So, here's the end to this already too long story I'm talking to this very helpful person in England Who's so much more helpful and so much less of a bot And so, like, isn't doing any of the things that I was worried going in It's just being helpful And is talking me through it and being like Yeah, that's not the right one You need this other one I find the other one And then they're just like Have you checked your spam folder? Oh, no And I'm like, oh, come on Are you kidding me? Have I checked my As I'm going over to my junk folder What kind of guy that doesn't check his junk folder? Say that to a guy in a $5,000 suit Exactly, and of course There it is From two weeks ago My approval email that was generated Roughly One minute after I applied for it

Oh my god, it went through immediately

It was an auto-approve And it was just sitting there in my junk folder The whole time that I was being like Oh my god am i bar am i banned from it have they heard what i've been saying about their cooking like are they like really i start to start to rack my brain like i thought maybe it was because i don't have the same name on my birth certificate that i use in real life i was just like i was spinning out on this a little bit a little bit and then was just like uh oh no that was it's fine it's right

there you just should look in your junk folder you know first of all i want to give you a little cover on that i want to even though i give you a hard time about your your digital habits sometimes I would say that I don't think I would have checked my junk folder either maybe I would have at that point but I think that we're not necessarily in the habit of doing that

yeah we're out of practice with that I feel as a society because it so rarely is in the junk folder now the junk is in the junk folder

the junk is in the junk folder

I am looking for – do you want to talk about a customer – I wrote a bad review to some – I was worried about biting a hand that sort of feeds us, which is not, by the way, even accurate. I wrote a bad review about customer service to the people that we are customers of, which is this Riverside software that we're using right now to talk to each other. In the past, I have found this to be a pretty good company to work with when I have a question about the system. Now, this is a – I say software, but really it's kind of a web browser-based subscription service that allows you and I to do this, talk to each other down the line, record video of ourselves. It's a pretty powerful tool. It'll record isolated tracks of video and audio, and it really does make – I mean, it's become sort of a standard, I believe, in modern podcasting as well. They've become sort of the standard bear, and I think rightfully so. Now, they, as, you know, the podcasting world changes and needs change, like, they keep on updating, like, what the interface looks like and stuff. And for the most part, for the best, like, it still feels a little bit like something that was, like, created by engineers. And then it's sort of, like, they're trying to, like, sort of work backwards to make it a little bit more user-friendly in some things. There are just certain softwares that feel very engineering, like you could understand why. Well, we made it so that it could work this way, this way, this way. And it's like, yeah, but you're just not talking into a microphone, so you sort of don't understand why that's not working. So having said that, I give them mostly good marks as a service that we pay for. And when I do have questions, which I've written into them probably, I'm going to say maybe five or six times over the several years we've been doing this or a couple of years we've been using it. And I'm usually satisfied with the responses and they seem mostly human. But with as with a lot of things, we're getting more and more, even if you're in touch with a human being, those human beings, I think, are just like copying and pasting. I don't know. People say A.I. too much. I don't know if I can hang this on A.I., but it's certainly some sort of script where you're grabbing this and you're pasting it in. And when I'm talking to somebody, I had this with a financial institution recently, too, where I think I was asking for help via the chat function. And I think I told you this on the show. They promised it was a real person, but I'm like, real people don't talk like this. This is such a strange interaction, and that's what always makes me a little prickly.

Whether it's a bot or a person who's been stripped of their essential humanity, it's a non-important distinction.

Okay, so I'm going to try to explain this in a way without getting too corny, but then I do have to read to you their response and then what I wrote back when they asked for a review of the customer service that I helped because I was, as you would expect, painfully honest. And this has become a real tradition on the show, me writing something in the moment that I'm like, boy, I hope nobody ever actually reads this, and then me reading it myself on TBTL because I need to wash out the shame that I live with after I get tetchy with someone. We're happy to launder it for you here as a community. So this software that we use, Riverside, you and I have these recordings. As of today, we're generating a couple of different recordings, a video of you, an audio of you. Same thing on my side. When we do crossover episodes with, like, for example, our friends from Text Me Back or whatever, we'll do that all in our studio. So we'll have four videos because there's four of us or whatever. And then something that I've done many times in the past is there was a way to generate a link to what we call, like, kind of our studio dashboard. So I create a little virtual studio for you and me and Megan and Lindy, and then I can, at the end of the recording, send them a link and say, here, you have access to everything now. You can go in there and make edits. We all can kind of collaborate on this together, or we can all kind of clip our own clips or whatever, and it's a great way to kind of share your recording. And I was trying to do this this week with Hannah for the Spotless podcast. and I after this most recent redesign which is maybe a month or two old and for the most part an improvement I could not find the sharing of the dashboard link anywhere like the collaboration link and I am go I know and I'm like I just think they put it like some of the layout on this stuff is not super intuitive and so I spent so much time writing to customer service is a last resort for me but I spent so much time just trying to figure out why does why can't I get Hannah access to this stuff and so i basically write that i don't think i have to read my original email that's basically an explanation of and then i i'm always meticulous though because i don't want i feel like people who offer computer support are always going to say like we'll turn it off or turn it back on or it was right here like i take screen caps i open those

in Photoshop and add little notes and just to say, I'm not crazy. Don't tell me something is here that's not here, right? I feel like people, you can easily sort of feel gaslit in these situations. Yes. So I ask, where is this? I think I said, I'm pulling my hair out. I know it's in here somewhere. Where is it? I've used it a lot. Here's the response. Hi, Andrew. And this supposedly is coming from a real person named Alan. Hi, Andrew. Thanks for reaching out to Riverside FM Support. I'm happy to help you with this. If you want to share the recording files with someone after recording, you can follow the steps provided in this Help Center article. And it's a link to an article I already read that does not have the information in there. Please note that files can only be shared with a collaborator, and they will only be able now to download them directly from Riverside. If you want to have them access and edit the recording in Riverside, you need to add them as team members, which is only available in business plans. For more information on buying the business plan, fill out this form, and a member of our team will reach out to you. Now, I did that when we first were going independent. I reached out to them to ask how much a business plan is. And, Luke, and this is a fact here, it is a trillion dollars. It is a trillion dollars for the Riverside business plan. Roughly. Roughly. No, it was, like, staggeringly expensive. And I will say that what we subscribe to is pretty affordable. So it's kind of funny. there's this big gap between like we're on the pro plan or something but if you want to step up to the business plan it's it would be a significant chunk of our monthly budget and we're not we're

not doing that it feels to me like they established that price point at a time when the hog was high

for podcasting well the thing is it gives you a lot of control it would be more for like i'll bet you the levitard show uses it and you can control people's cameras from afar like it is you can be an intense like tv production with it and so it makes sense but like and i tried to tell them when i was talking to a salesperson i'm like we're a very small operation the only reason we might want the business plan would be more bandwidth or whatever it doesn't matter but all i know is

you don't understand we're gonna buy the cheapest billboard in america that's the kind of show we're

running here sir exactly so here let me get back to this now because i'm getting lost in the weeds but my point is this what i'm looking for here is a link that i have used many times when collaborating with our other podcast guests and hosts and co-hosts or what have you nowhere in alan's upsell to me does it say we've removed this functionality it just says if you want to do that you can download this here and there's something about here's a link to the help center like dude i've been to the help center alan i read the help center okay don't just send me this passive aggressive link secondly don't just tell me that oh it's only available for business plans and we can have a salesperson contact you about that and so then i write back hi there thanks for this response i'm still a bit confused is this a new policy i know for sure that i have invited people to access my full studio dashboard before it was our policy when collaborating with other podcasters thanks alw um and then i right get the response oh this isn't from alan oh okay we've been handed off to patrick patrick has entered the patrick discourse you're welcome i would like to inform you that this is indeed a new feature along with our projects feature rollout to more to know uh more about this kindly refer to the following help center article projects overview and then it's like since you want to do this we're going to have somebody reach out to you for a bit or click this link if you want somebody to reach out to you about the business plan and so i'm like never in your original response when i specifically say where is this thing that i've been using a human being should say yep we switch things around that's now only part of the business like acknowledge that i was using it and you guys changed something and now you want me to pay out the ass for it yes for the language i'm getting upset so do you want to know when they pinged me two days later to know how I would rate the customer support I receive. Would you like to hear what I said? I would love to hear what I said. I thought you might. All right. Let me scroll down

to this. Let me see. Oh, I hope. Let me just make sure I'm following too. They went from, you know, not acknowledging that they had removed something that they're basically now going to there. There is something that we used to have access to that they have now put behind a different sort of tier of payment but they're trying to act like they didn't or they're not acknowledging it so that

frustrates you. In my first one it wasn't just kind of like oh if you want to do this you have to get a business plan and not like I said I've used this before wouldn't a human being just say oh yeah we switched that we changed it you're lacking access to

it now? I wonder too if part of this for you I was on a different podcast a couple weeks ago and it was I know it's okay I was thinking of you the whole time

time but they they sent me they were like we use a program called riverside and then they sent me a really long like you know faq sheet slash you know here's how you do riverside and i was just i i a sort of a wave of of disdain coursed through because i was like i am one of the most power users of the riverside program in america literally five days a week my colleague and i get on this thing and create content that then goes out to apparently thousands of people at least enough that we can keep this thing going anyway i'm very like i'm extremely conceited about my familiarity with riverside because there there are lots of podcasts out there there's no one in america that i know of who is on riverside more times per week having said that though you

only use a tiny bit of the functionality like obviously there are people that power users are the people who are going in there and clipping things and adding you know well i guess that

comes that the question of yeah you're right i mean riverside is pretty powerful too with a lot of functionality okay maybe power user is the wrong term but what i mean is i'm not talking about am i using every bell and whistle on it what i'm talking about is five days a week do i log on to this with you and is it how we make our living yes and so anytime somebody wants to tell me about riverside i'm a little and if i were in your shoes and somebody at riverside somebody in the help the quote-unquote help department is kind of being like well here check out this here check out this help page or whatever i would want to be like you don't understand i'm not somebody who got a wild hair to start a podcast and i'm just like i'm not new to this i'm not somebody who's just kind of like blindly sort of you know poking around and asking questions of this thing because i want to start a classic car podcast with my friend which will put three episodes out and never do it again like i guess i would be extra mad because if i felt like i was being in any way kind of slightly um dismissed or talked down to by the help person i would just want to like explain to them like i know more about this than you do probably based on just using it so much i think

my attitude is slightly different in that it's the way i approach the original email like i am so defensive about somebody just coming back to me with like a here it's written in the help article that i have already read that i'm so meticulous i read all of those before i reach out and then also in my emails i write it in a way that i try to make it as absolutely clear as possible with the context they need but not too much information so that it's a glut of information so with screen caps to say like do not come back to me with just some like simple pat answer like i'm an idiot like clearly there's all this context here and again for me this goes back to like this upselling like nothing about hey we've changed our system sorry about that but by the way like here's how you can access it in the future and just it's like this copy pasta of bullshit that is both an upsell and it seems so unhuman to me whoever i'm talking to so anyway they're like okay how do you rate the the the you know what's how do you rate the service you were you received or whatever the support you received and apparently there's just a satisfied or an unsatisfied it's It's not like a one through five. Because I thought like I can just put like a three or whatever and a quick comment. But then it sends you to this other page. It's like dissatisfied. Why are you dissatisfied? And so what I wrote was this. We should really get music for a regular segment of Andrew reads his tetchy responses. Yeah, what would that sound like? Like a fax machine or like a modem dialing up in 1989. A screeching, irritating sound.

I mean, and I'm sorry.

Okay.

This is all I have in the... We'll work on it, okay?

Okay. I was really hoping it was going to be ACDC saying, are you ready for a good time? All right, here's what we got. I said I was dissatisfied. Then I said, why are you dissatisfied? Here's what I wrote. Which may be longer than my original email. My question was about not being able... Okay, what are you doing here? Moonlight Sonata? Ha-ha. That's Bob and Wyman's game.

Oh, wow. This takes me back. Right? okay this is when you're most in your element which is tilting at windmills this is when you

are your most gangster um okay so the i why are you not satisfied my question was about not being able to find a function that i'd used many times before your redesign your initial response didn't in any way acknowledge that there had been a change and that you were now charging more for that functionality instead of making that clear the copy and paste responses just tried to upsell me on your business plan without actually acknowledging my dilemma in a human clear way removing functionality and hiding it's it's always the last line here look this is the last line this is where i always like like like to punch him in the gut removing functionality and hiding it behind a much more expensive paywall is not a good look being a

evasive about it when customers are confused is even worse. ALW.

I think it's the ALW that gets it. It's like, am I corresponding with a British lord? And now, have you heard back? No, I didn't hear back. That's fine. I don't want to hear back. That's a well-crafted, that's not unhinged. Do you think so? Absolutely.

I feel like it might be a little bit. I mean, it's just hard to write something like that without being without having that tone of just being a problem. You know what I mean? Like, no, I don't hate the like I'm I felt like I needed to give them that feedback. But I also as I read that to you, I hate the person who wrote that. And that's me.

I don't think that that came off as I think it came off as very measured. And I mean, I would hope that it might land on someone's desk who's a real human who's, you know, authorized to give real human responses because I'd probably be kind of cathartic for you. but like uh yeah i think that that i think that that seemed actually very very reasonable and not crazy at all so i mean you could have gone yeah you could have gone way harder on them based on just the the fact that we're the number one power users of riverside in america at any time

of the day or night here i go once again with the email every week i hope that it's from a female Oh, man. It's not from a female.

Andrew, can we actually, can we skip the v-mails, the e-mails, and can we cut to a c-mail? A c-mail is...

Conventional mail? A conventional mail. Wait, hold on. Are you saying, is this something that came in a box?

This is my box. This is my box. I never travel without my box. Oh, what's in the box? In the first drawer, I keep my magic stones. Oh, what's in the box? Liquorice! Liquorice! Bloodsweet liquorice! Bloodsweet liquorice!

Have some. Yes, Andrew. It's what was in the box many years ago. It was a night just like this. Such a long journey to get to you. When listener Mike in, I believe, California, kindly thoughtfully and lovingly placed a basketball a wilson basketball into some kind of packaging and mailed it to us and unfortunately it got lost for like a long time right yeah i went

to the i i kind of didn't make much of this at the time but at one point about a year ago i went to our post office box and i had a slip of paper in there that said you have a package that is too big for your box so come up to the front of the uh you know come to the front we'll give it to you and then I handed it to a woman and she said there's nothing back there and I was like what do you mean there's nothing back there and she's like yeah there's nothing back there it must have been a mistake I didn't think much of it at the time because I'm a trusting person but then about I don't know two or three weeks after that I started to get these increasingly frantic emails from listener Mike saying like I sent you guys something where is it it said it arrived at the post office and and you haven't gotten it i'm like dude i don't know i don't have it it's not here cut to a year later around this holiday season i was there i handed them another pink slip and said hey there's something in the box waiting for me and they bring out this thing that is literally

postmarked from a year plus prior and it is a basketball signed by the seattle supersonics I believe this is sometime between 1991 and 94 Andrew I've been able to narrow that down because it is a time when both Ricky Pierce who signed this and Nate McMillan were both on the team and Ricky Pierce was a Seattle supersonic from 1991 to 1994 so we know that it's in that range and it's got Ricky Pierce like I mentioned Nate McMillan I believe I see a Vincent Askew aka the Fiddler on here um who gary payton they got the glove the glove signed it that's a big get um who else is on here some of the some of the number four was there a 44 some of the some of the writing is a little let's see here oh yeah dude michael cage are you kidding me the biggest shoulders in basketball michael cage had spectacular shoulders um as a stale supersonic and also maybe a milwaukee buck

Anyway, here, I got the note from Mike emailed me a while back. And when I told him, I'm like, dude, your package finally showed up like it was lost somewhere in the ether. Mike says, this is great. It is indeed a signed ball by the 1995 Seattle. Ninety five. So ninety five. If you like the backstory and how I procured it and why there are two Michael Cage signatures, hint, he's not a star. So there are two Michael Cage signatures on there. Well, Andrew.

No sooner have we gotten this amazing Have I received this amazing gift from Mike Which by the way thank you Mike and I appreciate it That we have to ask some hard questions About Mike's story because it's all over the place He emailed you that it's the 95 Sonics Well we know Ricky Pierce Wasn't a Sonic in 1995 His reign ended in 1994 And I now have a note from Mike I've got a note from Mike here That says dear Luke Please find enclosed a signed basketball It is from the 1993 to 94 Four Seattle Supersonics. That might have been a typo. Hold on. Which is it, Mike? Which is it?

The story's shifting. Okay.

Mike says, I have had this for several decades now, and I don't have any allegiance to them any longer. Okay, so I guess Mike was probably, like me, a Sonics fan, and then when they left, maybe that just broke his heart, which is understandable. I thought you would like this as you wax poetic every time you speak of those teams. I sure do. I don't know how poetic it is, but I'd be waxing. I don't think there is any value beyond a personal price. As I have no verification, these are real. I love it if somebody got like a fake Quentin Daly cue. A fake Quentin Daly signature on a basketball would be the most amazing thing to me. I have no verification of these. However, I think that No Fake would have a two number 44 Michael Cage signatures enjoy listener Mike Gulley. Now, I'll say this, Mike. You know who enjoys two Michael Cage signatures? This guy.

Guess who's got two thumbs and two Michael Cage signatures and is very happy about it. This guy.

Dude, I remember when Michael Cage, I'm going to find his back. I think Michael Cage was a Milwaukee Buck before he was a Seattle Supersonic. And what I remember is thinking that he was an incredible player with whatever team he was with before the Sonics. And let's see, oh, he was an L.A. Clipper. Sorry, he was a Cleveland Cavalier. Oh, look at that. After he left the Sonics and became a Cleveland Cavalier. So he must have been an L.A. Clipper when I was noting his massive shoulders and his ability to rebound. He was a rebounding expert.

Would he have played under Lenny Wilkins then in Cleveland? Because wasn't Lenny Wilkins a supersonic before he became the coach of Cleveland?

He was. He was a beloved supersonic and then a coach for the Sonics, but he is from Cleveland, I believe. Lenny Wilkins has the weirdest accent I've ever heard. It does not sound like what I think of as the Cleveland accent. It's amazing. It's beautiful. It is one of a kind.

Is it kind of reedy? I'm trying to remember what he sounds like.

I can't try and summon it off the top of my head, but I know it's like the emphasis, the vowel sounds, it's like a totally unique thing. But anyway, it's very possible that Michael Cage went and played under Lenny Wilkins I just remember when Michael Cage was an LA Clipper, I guess it was He was like, he might have been the rebounding champion of the NBA or something for a season or two Like I think you had really, really good stats And I remember when the Sonics acquired Michael Cage I was like, our ship just came in So what I'm saying to you, Mike, is I do want two Michael Cage signatures on this basketball Thank you I had a lot of thoughts about Michael Cage when he came to the Sonics And they were positive

Now, did he have a nickname? Because I feel like the name Cage. Not that I remember. Maybe that's the thing. With a name like Cage, you don't need a nickname.

Right, exactly.

If you called somebody The Cage on a basketball court, could that mean anything? Like The Cage. Oh, well, yeah.

I mean, sure, you're kind of putting them in a cage. You're kind of like maybe you're locking them down on defense. I'm actually going to look through. Okay, I'm going, oh, Rich King. That's who this other one is. I love it. Rich King, number 25, a center. A lightly used center from Nebraska, Rich King. I'm looking at this list of Sonics from this year. Let's see. This would be the—let me go to the actual 1994 Sonics roster. Okay, 1993, 1994, coached by George Carle, of course. Oh, and by the way, George Carle signed this ball. George Carle really ushered in a sort of—he was kind of the— I don't know if you'd call it the Lou Piniella of the Sonics era, or maybe, yeah, I guess Lou Piniella would probably be considered the most successful Mariners manager. George Carl came in and really, I think he had been, George Carl had been the coach of the Albany Patroons of the CBA.

That's not a real fig. You know what? Will you fact-check me on that? You tell me a lot of stories that I just believe. What did you say they're called?

Look up the Albany Patroons.

I'm not trying to be disrespectful but that sounds like something they made up on the Simpsons

he was the coach of the Albany Patroons and then got hired to be the Sonics head coach and I remember thinking like we're getting a Continental Basketball Association Albany Patroon Tunes, Coach? What is up, like, Tunes?

Well, it's an upstate New York thing. Yes, exactly.

Oh, my. So, let's see. I'm looking at the—what I'm trying to figure out is if this era of Sonics, how many of them had nicknames? And the answer is a decent amount of them. Now, I'm sorry. This is not going to be fun for anyone other than me and Mike and maybe a listener or two out there who cares about this. But this season of the Sonics We did have Vincent Askew He was a shooting guard And he was known as the Fiddler Vincent the Fiddler Askew I don't know where he got that That might have been I don't know if that was Kevin Calabro Gave him that nickname I don't know if he got that somewhere But he was called the Fiddler Then we had Michael Cage No nickname needed We had somebody named Alfonso Ford Who I actually don't have a strong memory of We have Kendall Gill Who I don't know if Kendall Gill's nickname was Mighty Mouse Or I just thought he had deltoids like Mighty Mouse

So that was your nickname.

I might have nicknamed Kendall Gill Mighty Mouse in my own mind. We had, get this, Andrew, we had a different guy named Irvin Johnson. He wasn't Magic Johnson. He was a guy named Irvin Johnson who played at the University of New Orleans. The story on our Irvin Johnson was he had been out of basketball after high school. He was bagging groceries in Louisiana, and somebody saw him bagging groceries. He was like, you're pretty tall. You should probably come play college basketball. and he worked his way up and I believe was maybe a first-round draft pick for the Seattle Supersaw.

And did you say that his name was like the Bagman or something? Did you say that at one point? Am I just making that up?

I think, no, there was a Seattle Seahawk who was known as the Sack Man. Michael, I forget his last name, but he was a defensive lineman. But I don't think Irvin Johnson was called the Bagman. We had Sean Kemp, the Rain Man. So that was a nickname. Chris King, again, not super familiar with him. Rich King. We had two different players named King, who I have no particular memory of. Then we had Nate McMillan, defensive specialist, who would go on to actually coach the Seattle Sonics for a while. This is when he was a player. Gary Payton, a.k.a. The Glove. Ricky Pierce, who I don't know if Ricky Pierce had a nickname, but gosh, did I ever love him. He was like a shooting guard, 6'4", out of Rice University. We had Detlef Schrempf. It's not really a nickname But Detlef Schrimpf was a German guy Who came and played at the University of Washington And then played for the Sonics And when he would hit a shot, Kevin Calabro would say Herr Schrimpf

Do you know, I was just looking at this last night Because I was texting a mutual friend of ours And the last time I had texted her Directly was Sending her this Photoshop that I made For some sort of TBTL reasons I believe At one point, which is, I don't know if you have your camera Or if you can see me I'm going to hold my phone up here. I made this amazing Photoshop of what I call Detlef Shrimp. Or Shrimp. I know it's an obvious joke, but there's something about that particular Photoshop that I'm enamored with. I'll make it today's show pick if you don't mind.

Then you had a guy named Steve Scheffler who did not have a nickname, but he was a fascinating case. He was a big, tall, white guy out of Purdue. and the thing about steve scheffler was he never ever ever got actually his nickname was chef like as in you know obviously but he was one of those guys who he he rarely got in a game like he was the end of the bench but when he got into a game at the very end the crowd would go bananas because like they when steve scheffler came in you know the song you knew the sonics had locked down that game you knew that the sonics had won it handily and now then it just became this building thing is steve scheffler going to get a point and if steve scheffler would get even the most kind of awkward looking layup the place would go absolutely crazy i'm talking about key arena of course back in the day now i've been kind of tap dancing here because i want to get to sam perkins six nine power forward out of unc played with michael jordan i believe uh he had two nicknames he had two amazing nicknames that Kevin Calabro would yell when he would do something good. And he did a lot of good stuff. One was Big Smooth and then at some point, Big Smooth became Big Paper Daddy. Why? When Sam Perkins would hit a shot, Kevin Calabro would say, Big Paper Daddy! Why?

Why paper?

You know, we may never know. Like me trying to figure out if it's Seth Meyer or Seth Meyers. We may never know, but that is a quick oral history of the nicknames of the 1994 Sonics, many of whom are on this basketball from Listener Mike.

You mentioned that the Sonics had their own Irving Johnson. Yeah. And that reminds me, I don't know if you saw this, I reposted this. on blue sky a couple of weeks ago and it is to this date the funniest joke that i've read on blue sky i said that uh i think i i i re-shared this and said this is one of those jokes that's gonna i'm gonna think of it several times a week for the rest of my life it's from a comedian named and i wonder if this is somebody you know of or maybe even have had on your show before ian carmel k-a-r-m-e-l you know of course he's a he's a friend is he an actual friend of yours

he's the he's he's he's from portland he's been on live wire a bunch he hosts a great podcast called all fantasy everything and he's the guy who when we were doing a live wire fundraiser show he showed up performed for free brought reggie watts with him and then both of them donated to

live i do think maybe i remember you mentioning that well i don't know that i was familiar with his work i am now maybe his number one fan or certainly his number one blue sky fan hilarious Listen to this. 13 days ago, he just posted this. It would be funny if there was a slightly worse actor named Scotty B. Pippin. That's a great Michael B. Jordan joke. Yes. And totally in the parlance of this conversation, dunking on Scotty Pippin in a way that like, you know, this would just fell Pippin. I don't know. That is just it is. It's just so economical. That joke is just so economical. It's so great. Tell him he's got a new fan because of his skeets.

That is a really, you're right. It took me a second to fully digest the joke. I mean, I kind of understood the broad strokes of it, but then, of course, the idea that Scottie Pippen was kind of second fiddle to Michael Jordan. So if there was a Scottie Pippen.

We have an actor named Michael B. Jordan. That's a, you know what, I'll text him right now. I'll text him up. Tell him it's been two weeks and I'm still cry laughing over it.

I'll tell him, if you listen 93 minutes into today's episode of TVTL, you'll hear an appreciation of your comedy stylings from Andrew Walsh.

And tell him to give me a follow, too, you know, trying to build a brand here.

Sure, absolutely. Smash that like button.

Sure, yeah.

All right, well, thanks, Mike, for that. And I will tell you, Mike, the basketball has taken a place of honor here in the TVTL. I love it. Kind of. It's just located right above the Chico's Pizza t-shirt now. I've replaced it. You know what? Actually, Mike may have really kind of helped change my life in a small way, which is I had this Wilson basketball that was in that spot just kind of collecting dust. And this is actually a pretty nice indoor Wilson basketball that I bought some years ago when I was playing more like league basketball and stuff. Why does it say 89 on it?

Where does it say 89? I thought it was marker or something. Oh, that says LB. Oh, LB. Sorry, it was moving fast. For Long Beach, where I stole it from. Just a little shout-out to Snoop Dogg. Yeah, that's right.

Cal Worthington. Worthington Ford in Long Beach. No, I have been meaning for a while to get on to the phone or the internet and check in with my local YMCA and see what their – kind of like if they've got open court basketball, open gym, or if they've got some little teams that get together and just kind of re-engage with that. I was doing that a lot in Bellingham and really enjoying it and to some degree in Portland, but I've really kind of fallen out of the habit and I'd like to add that into like a physical activity that I do. And I took down this basketball that was, that has no sentimentality to it or no sentimental value. And I put the cool basketball that listener Mike got me in its place. And now just in the holding of this ball, I feel something inside me kind of like activating of like, I need to get this i need to figure out if i can go play basketball with this ball against some other people that are uh equally elderly to me and uh have some fun so thanks mike you may have gotten

me off my duff on this literally have saved your life maybe it's very possible or cost me it if i have a cardiac event going up for a layup well more on that soon mike we'll find honestly i you

know i'm at this age there are worse ways to go like it's going like if i just i'm skying for a layup to win the game just and just like tip the ball off like it's a little finger roll it's a little george iceman girvin that's a great nickname too by the way the ice man if i just iceman girvin it in and then we win the game and i just like go down like a sack of potatoes and

that's my last memory honestly not the worst are you this is gonna get dark and so people who don't like dark conversations maybe we're wrapping up now anyway so maybe you want to duck out of this because I'm not backing down. Are you alive when the ball goes through the hoop, or is there a chance that it's almost like—

It's real uncut gems kind of a thing.

It's just like you've already—the moment is just coming off your fingertips. My soul has already left my body. Your soul has left the body, and so you're not alive for it. But the ball does go through the hoop, and then you land in a pile on the ground. Yes. In fact, my soul needed to leave my body in order for the ball to go through in this construction. For some reason, it was like, I don't know, maybe my, you know, there have been some studies about how much does a soul weigh. Didn't they make a whole movie about that with Sean Penn? I think I saw that in a theater.

I think I heard about this. I did not see it. It was a terrible movie, right? It was one of those movies.

I don't think it was terrible. I think it was a little self-important.

Yeah, I think maybe Genevieve hates it, and that's why I think it's terrible.

And maybe it was, I think, I don't know if that's, it's, it's, it's, what's it called? Like nine grams or something. That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a measurement of weight. And maybe that's actually what the heart, I think, I think what it's about is a heart transplant. So I think the, it's not the weight of the soul. It's the, it's like how much a heart weighs. And then, you know, you have like a bad person who's like a bad killer and they die. And then their heart goes in like a good person or some 21 grams, by the way, I'll correct

that for people who know it better. But yeah, I, I had heard that. It's how much cocaine they caught me with. That's why I'm looking at federal charges. I had heard that. I mean, maybe you like it. I saw it so long ago. I'll bet you it's not for me. Sean Penn. I mean, I do love Benicio Del Toro. I know Naomi Watts. I like those names. I kind of, if I never see a Sean Penn movie again, it'll be too soon, I think. I don't need that guy on my screen.

But, like, there have been some studies, and again, I don't think these are priced scientifically. I don't think they're peer-reviewed. but i remember there was a period of time where there was supposed to be being presented as evidence for the existence of a human soul was the fact that like when a person died there was some difference ever so slight in what they weighed and that you were right the first time the 21 grams refers to soul not heart oh they think the soul weighs 20 that's a heavy ass soul

the movie 21 grams is about the idea that a soul weighs 21 grams which comes from

an experiment by dr duncan mcdougall uh i mean have you ever seen 21 grams of something that's a significant i've been taught it was just a ghost a caspery thing right yeah that doesn't weigh no 21 grams but anyway so i feel like tell it to me in a weed i'm trying to figure out like how much well that's the problem all my references are a little a little more powdery but like but like uh in this version of this is like air bud meets heaven can wait meets hoosiers this is the pitch this is my pitch to netflix hey sharks this is my this is my sharks i've got an idea for a movie for you it's heaven can wait meets air bud meets uh hoosiers uh meets about schmidt a guy is on a pickup basketball team he's going up for the winning layup but he weighs too much to get off the ground until his soul leaves his body which weighs 21 grams which lightens him just enough to make the layup they win the game and he's off on his next his next journey and for that i'm out you're probably that bald shark kevin o'leary that's got terrible politics i've only seen that

Like, with closed captioning at the gym, like, that's my only exposure to it. But I think I've picked up from pop culture references that don't they say that? I think so. I've also never watched that show. I've never, yeah. So one ounce, by the way, is 28.3 grams. So it's slightly, they're saying the sole is slightly less than one ounce, which isn't very heavy.

Oh, grams are less than an ounce?

Oh, yeah, grams, there's, yeah, like 28 grams in an ounce.

Wait, okay, look, I'm holding this thing of C&H pure cane sugar, right? Yeah, okay, sure. And this says on the back that this is 3.53 grams, okay? So they're saying it's 21 grams?

21 grams, oh my God, we're doing this. So seven of these, one, two, three, four, five. Luke is reaching over and grabbing more sugar packets.

So they're trying to tell me this is a human soul. Try again, Dr. McDougal.

How many packs of sugar do you have there for the listening audience?

It's seven three-gram packs of sugar, which is 21.

Yeah, and you think that that's too heavy, seven packs of sugar? Wait, so have you weighed your soul lately? In the new year, I'm trying to not step on the soul scale. It's about soul health.

It's not about a number on a scale, Andrew. It's about strength, and it's about having a healthy soul. That's right. I just think this is just so much more volume and actual weight than I have imagined the human soul to have all these years.

You had it at, like, one gram?

I had it at a whisper of a fart. Like, almost no weight to it, no heft. No, you couldn't really measure it. It's a vapor of sorts, is how I feel it, in any way. All right, well, that seems like a good place to end. I wish I would have brought this up with Chris last night on stage. I think we could have had a really interesting...

conversation all right thanks for listening everybody uh we'll be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio oh i will be uh i will be a a man a podcaster who has only been consuming clear broth uh for the the intervening 24 hours so i tune in to see how that's oh and also i've taken a bunch of a bunch of pills to make me go to the bathroom and we'll be um listening to our

conversation with chris tomorrow too right oh that'll also be exciting for people people are They're like, oh, good, we can listen to Luke crap his pants.

Hey, you would be surprised. Some people pay extra for that.

That is true.

All right. Thanks for listening, folks. We'll see you tomorrow. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all. You're a nothing. Power out.