Muse

The boy's on YouTube so much, he knows more about YouTube ads than his own schoolwork. Okay, that's not true. Yeah, what's 5 times 5? I have no idea. What's Trulicity? Trulicity is not insulin. See what I mean? You don't hate it. Trulicity is a once-week injectable medication to improve blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. What can you tell me about George Washington? Not a single thing. What can you tell me about Gold Bond Men's Lotion? You talking about Gold Bond Men's Lotion with skin-strengthening protein and 7-intensive moisturizers to make dry skin look healthy? Tell me about Benjamin Franklin. I can't. Tell me about Wayfair. They offer free two-day shipping on thousands of products. Recite the beginning of the Declaration of Independence. You know I can't do that. Recite the beginning of a Sky Rizzy ad. I have moderate to severe Crohn disease, but now they're Sky Rizzy. See, and you're just moving up. You have significant symptom relief with Sky Rizzy, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements at four weeks. I don't get your point. You don't get my point? My point is you should pay more attention in school than you do on YouTube. I pay attention in school. No, you don't. And I barely watch YouTube. Okay, when is Independence Day? Okay, nobody knows that. And when shouldn't you take Cialis? How would I know that? Okay, still, you get my point. I'm kidding. Do not take Cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, because it could cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. TBTL!

I don't know what this is, but Jay says it's a f***ing big sea turtle. For one thing, I have no shame before another mortal. All my shame is between myself and Christ. I'll never drop my eyes to another human being. You're drunk. I'm not. You are too. Prove it. Name all the states in America in alphabetical order. Alabama, Alaska, Arizona. Reverse order. Wyoming, Wisconsin. Australian accent. West Virginia. In the style of Anthony Hopkins in Legends of the Fall. Virginia Vermont. Whistle.

That's the voice of the youth of America. We have all the facts on this we need. We don't need any more facts. In the land of truth, my friend, the man with one fact is the king. Let's blow some tiny minds. Alright, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Monday edition of TBT All The Show. It just might be too beautiful to live. Spock, sabotage the system. My name is Luke Bermank. I'm your host. Oh, wow. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where everything is A-OK after what was reported to be some kind of an earthquake here in the state of Washington.

I was shaking. My tummy was shaking. My head was shaking. My arms were shaking. My legs. My feet, too.

I did not notice any effects from the earthquake. I think I'm bad at sensing earthquakes. I believe I was doing the show with Andrew. I was in Los Angeles, I don't know, a year ago, and there was an earthquake that I didn't notice while we were doing the show. I feel like that's happened a couple of times. Also, we might just be doing too much show. It might be the case that if there is an earthquake, there's like a 60% chance we're doing the show because there's so much TV to give every week. Speaking of which, here we are, episode 4,414 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. The Oscars were last night. I guess the Academy Awards is probably what the... So who needs a movie? The real name is, hosted by our favorite, Conan O'Brien. You want showmanship? You got it! I love me the Conan O'Brien, and I'm so glad that he was hosting the Oscars. I did at some point, though, kind of find myself a little bored. I found myself poking around for other content to watch. So we'll get into that. And also, apparently, something has gone missing from Andrew's neighborhood. Everybody be cool, this is a robbery! And he's going to tell us about it coming up. Speaking of Andrew Walsh, the longest running co-bro of the show, may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Two bros, bro hit it up! He's joining me right now, good morning my friend. I didn't take it, I'm just gonna say the thing that was stolen from the neighborhood, we'll get into it later, but I am innocent. Well first of all, the often times, the thief returns to the scene of the crime so the very fact that you're the one reporting this on TVTL immediately casts you in a suspicious light if i'm being honest and i watch a lot of true crime andrew including something i watched yesterday the most random thing to watch in the lieu of the academy awards which was a netflix show about the unfortunate demise of one-time tennessee titan and alcorn state player steve air mcnair yeah is this a new is this a new production well it actually is this great show on netflix and i believe it is called untold oh okay i think it's made the executive producers are those guys mclean and chapman way who uh made the battered bastards of baseball which which I really love, and then that Wild Wild Country.

that docu-series about the Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh in Antelope, Oregon. So they've got a real good eye for storytelling. I'll just, if I can, I'm sorry I'm coming in hot today. No, do it. I've got a lot of coffee. I've been doing my weightlifting, so I cannot lift my arms, but I can move my mouth, and I'm going to do so rapidly.

I'm going to tell you, at some point, though, I am going to have to take a break to rehydrate. I think I'm going to have to give blood later today, and so I want to stay very hydrated. And sometimes I don't even touch this water bottle next to me. You see, we're starting the show, and I'm down to an eighth or a sixteenth of my water. So I will be rehydrating during the show, possibly during your Oscars recap.

I was going to say, I can motor mouth this if you need me to. I can tap dance. I can buy you five minutes with nail polish. Okay, sweet, sweet. So I spent the weekend with Becca, had a lovely time, and got back here to the Madrona Hill studio by about the time that the Oscars were starting. And in fact, I had kind of forgotten that was yesterday and realized, oh, this might be the first year that I had not seen any of the films nominated for Best Picture. Not a one of them, because I didn't see The Brutalist yet. You saw Dune 2, did you not? Oh, it was Dune 2. Okay, I'd seen one.

I think Dune 2 was one of the...

Even Doonier?

Even Doonier. What are you, Doonier? We've already done this whole thing,

and I'm not going to Dune this again, buddy. Okay, if Dune 2 was on the list and I had seen one of them. Let me double check that. I thought it was. I felt so out of the loop and so sort of disconnected from all of the films that were in the best picture category. My main connection to the whole thing was the fact that I... In a stunning development, for the one and only time I chose life over work in the work-life balance was when I declined to do a profile of Kieran Culkin, which ensured he would then win an Oscar, which he did. So I can't put Oscar winner. I can't put daytime Emmy Award winner and one-time Oscar nominee interviewer on my resume.

You're not the victim there. Becca is the victim there, because you will never, ever put life before work again after missing out on that interview.

Actually, I honestly don't think she minds it. That's a good point.

Actually, that's a good point.

No, she was like, you know what, hon? Go ahead and pursue your passion I'll be getting a good night's sleep Without a snore monster

My passion is doing Wordle

Alone, quietly Becca really princessed in the peed me this weekend Which is This has nothing to do with the Oscars But I was staying over at her place And she had gotten a new Kind of mattress top thing For the bed So that it would be a little less jostly When there's two of us one person's maybe moving around but she didn't tell me because she did not want to impact she didn't tell me until the next morning she's like how'd you sleep i was like actually really well

she goes i put a new thing on the bed because if you had had it in your head maybe you'd be in your

head about it schrodinger's mattress burbdinger's mattress um i thought that was very clever and it worked because i didn't go in with any preconceived ideas about how my sleep was going to be affected so anyway i get home i realize the oscars are about to start i've been i was thinking about you a lot yesterday andrew because the good the arc the arc of my life with the oscars and the arc of this show with the oscars if you remember in the academy awards is it used to be a big part of this show yeah we used to make entire fanciful meals around the uh pictures that had been nominated and the themes that were raised in those films this was because of course the producer emeritus of the show jen flash andrews really really loves the academy awards and uh was really uh you know sort of vital and pivotal in creating a lot of fun bits around the oscars and i really enjoyed doing those bits what i found over time and i don't know if this is just you putting your evil inside me but it's like every year that goes on i'm just like i used to watch the red carpet i you couldn't pay me enough to watch the oscars red carpet now like in fact i got home and i I looked and I was under the impression that the Oscars started at 5 p.m. West Coast, right? So it's like 4.30, I'm in my house, and I'm like, there's no way I'm turning this on if they're still on the red carpet. Something about that conversation would be just like a dagger to my heart for some reason. I don't know, it just makes me, I used to be able to watch that and now I cannot watch it. I realized the Oscars were already underway because the New York Times pinged my phone to tell me Kieran Culkin had just won Best Supporting Actor. And so I was like, oh, I guess it's happening now. So then I turned it on and I watched some of it. And I, you know, again, I love Conan O'Brien. I'm really glad that he was tapped to host it. And he's getting great reviews. Everybody thinks it was a really good show.

Seems like a good fit.

Yeah. I mean, I think that the general, I've kind of been rotten tomatoing the reviews. That is to say I've been surging.

Surveying the reviews because I didn't get all the way through the program So I feel like I'm a little under-informed and the general thought was he brought kind of a loopy style to it That was welcomed in these turbulent times and that it had a lot of silliness for silliness sake including things where he He said he sang an entire song about how he's not gonna waste everyone's time But of course the song was very long and he brought out like a dancing version of the character Deadpool who it's not nominated for anything just doing like it's a capoeira out there or something and had one of the sandworms from dune playing chopsticks on the piano it was a real masturbating bear territory if you remember from the old conan days so like i'm thumbs up on all of that the problem for me was i i basically i turned it on at about the time that they were doing best um outfit or i'm sorry best costume you should call you know so uh which is a very hard job and something that's very impressive the what folks are able to create but there was something about the way that this whole thing went down so they brought one actor out from each of the nominated films right and i don't think i'm not going to try to do this i am going to try to do this off the top of my head it was like lily rose depp who was in i think maybe gladiator or something and then it was like uh l fanning it was one of of the fannings, and then it was Bowen Yang from Wicked, who was representing Wicked, and then John Lithgow was representing Conclave. And this bit of these four folks coming out, who all seemed, or five, whatever it was, they all seemed like very lovely people, but the writing was so unbelievably, first of all, it was so treacly, it was like each person was honoring the costume designer from their film. like one of them would just be like words do not begin to describe the magic that is terry o'reilly that's actually the name of an actor why did i pick no is that terry o'quinn why did i pick the

name of a real person from patriot that's such a bad fake name wait so terry o'quinn is a real

person yes but even o'reilly's too close to that i don't know the names of any of these costume designers i just was trying to grab basically you had like a person from the film go up there and And just in the most, I don't know, it just felt like they were talking about this, like this was the cure for cancer. And it was like, they were like, queen and goddess does not even begin to describe the majesty that is fill in the blank. And then they cut to the person and the person's, you know, sitting there kind of excited and having their moment. Again, it's great. They're having their moment, but it was such, it was so reverential in this way over something that I just couldn't, I couldn't make myself believe the fantasy that this matters this much. Maybe it's what's going on in the world. It just felt like so, so much sound and excitement signifying so little of importance in, I guess, the world that it just kind of was a turnoff. Also, the jokes they were writing were so tame. At one point, John Lithgow is celebrating the person who did the outfits for Conclave. He says, and again, we love John Lithgow. He's a national hero. Harry and the Hendersons, game changer for cryptozoology.

He was kind of rude to the Sasquatch near the end of that. I didn't see the full end end, but I just remember him being very rude. Very rude.

Talk about, I mean, Raising Cain.

Oh, I haven't seen that. He was a scary, scary guy in Raising Cain. That's why the book's still out on him.

Yeah. So he goes, like, he's up there for Conclave. And literally, like, the line they've written. Now, think about this. These people are writing the Academy Awards, and they're writing for Conan O'Brien. So presumably they're, like, some of the funniest writers in Hollywood, you would assume. and maybe they are but like for like lithgow they write this like he's setting up the costume thing for conclave and he goes like how do you costume 160 cardinals and everyone's kind of laughing that's not just the setup for a joke that's the real challenge that terry o'quinn had to do with

costume and there are no and there that there was no joke that was just like it's not just the setup

for a joke i'm like first of all most people don't know what a cardinal is as it relates to the the catholic church so that's not a joke if i went down to the past time in rainer oregon i swear no one's at the end of the bar going how do you costume 160 cardinals it's not a joke it's not even a setup for a joke it's not a thing you're saying also people also don't they wear the same thing pretty much except maybe different colors these popey guys i feel like they're all in a version of a kind of a cassock i learned it was called here's how i learned it was called a cassock

oh yeah i used to wear a cassock so then lithgow goes and i also have to thank as an altar boy by the way not as a creep i don't know i could have seen you have the cassock phase post-college pre-meeting genevieve no i literally did used to we wore a cassock underneath and then we had to put like the white thing on over top of the cat the casket was the long black robe that would snap down the front and then we would put on the

white thing on top of that and then you have your altar boy outfit complete so at one point they

have written for john lithgow and also thank you to again fill in the blank of the person who did the costuming for uh for this movie and i and i want to thank you because those cassocks were so forgiving i didn't have any problem having a second helping of lunch they were just so forgiving and applause break the room falls apart over that joke the joke was thank you for making these outfits kind of flowy so that i could have a second helping of lunch and i swear to god it was like literally he had to wait for the the laughter and applause to die down and that was when i just said what's on netflix and i switched over to untold that it was air mcnair which is a crazy story of steve mcnair's life which came to a very violent and tragic end unfortunately but who lived a pretty fascinating life leading up to that and my takeaway from that is jeff fisher the one-time coach of the Tennessee Titans, who I always just thought was kind of a goofball with the mullet, is a very emotionally empathetic and touch, a very emotionally connected guy for being an NFL coach. The way he talked about his former player, Steve McNair, was truly touching. And it really made me like this guy, Jeff Fisher. So that's all unfolding as over on ABC, see they're apparently adrian brody is giving a speech that's so long that hulu ran out of bandwidth couldn't show the end of the oscars like so that's kind of oh yeah i heard about that

it just stopped on people before they got the best picture i think they get it back going again

was it a glitch or did it just end i i i've only read about it briefly like in headlines and my sense of it is that they didn't they missed like the last two awards like those are the biggies Then there was other people that were mad because they were DVRing it in some form or fashion, and the DVRs cut off because Adrian Brody's speech was so long that the DVRs of America didn't understand that the Oscars wasn't over yet.

Wow, I wasn't paying attention to any of this as it was happening live, but I did sort of scroll through. It's kind of a fun thing. I scrolled through Blue Sky afterwards. Maybe it was this morning. At some point, I would just scroll through Blue Sky just to see everybody's kind of live reactions after the fact. And boy, the worm has turned on Adrian Brody, huh? With him, I guess, kind of filibustering and being like, hey, listen, I've been here before. I can ignore the music. And then all of a sudden, all of the skeletons came out of the closet. and everybody's, like, bashing him for other things? Did you pick up on any of this?

No. Well, all I saw, I didn't see the speech. All I saw was, like you said, people being like, get over yourself, Adrian Brody. But I didn't know there was, like, specific skeletons being raised, et cetera.

So I'm going to look this up on the fly here. Andy Richter posted.

Okay, let's talk about that for a second.

Okay, so you know what I'm talking about here because he wasn't the only one who was posting this, the Rasta imitation.

No, no, no, no. I saw a different Andy Richter post, and i thought it was it was interesting because it was something that was first of all andy richter has never showed up in my blue sky before yesterday and suddenly i'm seeing him a bunch and i wonder if it's because conan was hosting the oscars and they're very associated but andy richter wrote something like you must kiss these people's asses otherwise they just they don't get complimented enough he was basically kind of like negging the oscars and i thought oh that's a little close to close to homey like yeah you got conan hosting the oscars and one of the things everyone was saying was the reviews of conan's performance were that he genuinely loves movies he was excited

to be there it wasn't the sort of jimmy kimmel ball bustery you cleaned it up his actual yeah what did he say was this blowing smoke up every nominated ass is so necessary these poor people never get flattered i love it he's over there he's bitter i know except like imagine imagine

you're hosting the oscars and i'm over here negging the oscars wouldn't you feel a little Wouldn't you be like, wouldn't you feel slightly criticized by, I guess, is Conan being sub-Blue Skied there?

And then he posted this. He said, talking about Adrian Brody, he just wrote, he went on a little long here, too. Did you see this? This is Adrian Brody in, I don't, I mean, definitely dreads. And it seems like his skin is a little bronzed. I don't know for sure. And no, this is from SNL. He's introducing Sean Paul.

i want to be very clear here this is adrian brody and he's like very and this is in the

from the pianist right yes exactly this is him on snl this is two-time holocaust survivor adrian brody and this is him just introducing the musical artist i just want everybody to know

Okay, so this is not a sketch even. This is like they're coming back from the commercial where the host is about to say, ladies and gentlemen, Dido. Right, exactly. And he's the, but he's wearing. Ladies and gentlemen, Terry O'Quinn. But he's wearing a long Rastafarian wig. He's wearing like a sleeveless kind of dirty-looking T-shirt. He's going full Rasta and like gesticulating all over the place. He's introducing Sean Paul, who he introduces as Sean John. Spoiler there.

Your man, your man, your man, your man, your man, your man, Jamaica, man, you know, Rastafari, you know. You got the whole family in the house, you know. You know, we got Sean Peter, you know, we got Sean Paul, we got Sean Mary, we got Sean John. You know, we all in the house now, man. You know, respect all our spec. You know, me respect, me next spec, me next spec, me next spec, me next spec. You know, we got a great show, you know. We got a Kingston massive, you know. Bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo. What do you got? We got a kid about it. Kid about the boy. Yeah, man. Yeah, man. We got the whole cool now, you know. I got to give a big up, enough respect, and dance all the players, you know. And I shun, John. Bro, kid about it.

And then Andy Richards tweeted that out or whatever, posted that and said he went on a little long here, too. And then I don't know.

That was my entertainment weekly. Adrian Brody says he wasn't banned from SNL after Notorious Jamaican Accent.

Somebody was involved here. Somebody was playing the air horn, unless that was the band. And like somebody helped him dress up like this. Somebody helped him with the costuming. Like, I don't know, man. Anyway, it was just sort of funny. I sort of felt like he – and again, it's so funny me trying to weigh in on this. I didn't watch any of this. I'm just seeing everybody react, and it just sort of seems like we went into this thinking, oh, yeah, The Brutalist was an interesting film. Not perfect, but an interesting film. He's a serious actor and an actor of our age, and now everybody's just like, done with this guy.

Yeah, that is a very – what's interesting about it to me is that I didn't watch the thing live, and I don't like to think of myself as somebody who is just a total sheeple. but now i just have a worse well really it's the snl thing i'll be honest with you i didn't have strong feelings one way or the other about the his speech if he went too long because i didn't know what was on there but adrian brody is now forever tainted from the thing you just played me right i would have i just had no idea that had ever happened me neither that is that is like that should be a kind of a career ender maybe a you don't get another oscar or something i don't know

I don't know. Did you say you had a date on that article? I don't know if you still have it in front of you.

It was January of 2025, the Entertainment Weekly article saying that Adrian Brody was clarifying he's in fact not banned from SNL.

I see. So it's a new article, but I'm curious as to when he actually went on stage and did that whole thing.

Yeah, that's crazy. There is a kind of a fun little... I'm not going to be able to give you any specific examples, so that that's where this entertainment ends if in fact we were being entertaining but like there was this kind of thing going around the internet particularly tick tock for a while which was just like people that you forgot ever hosted snl introducing bands you forgot were ever on snl that's pretty great and it's just like kind of such a fun like trip down memory lane i'm totally making this up but it'd just be like billy bob thornton being like ladies and gentlemen toad the wet sprocket yeah yeah like just just a kind of a collision of two folks you probably have

terry o'quinn ladies and gentlemen the archies

alvin and the chipmunks anyway uh so yeah that's um i don't i don't have a particular uh overarching take on the oscars other than i'm very glad that conan is getting good reviews I'm glad people liked it. It felt a little tame to me, or I don't know, a little something or other, such that I ended up watching Well, I did go watch Anora, though, afterwards. After I saw that it won a bunch of awards, I was like, alright, let me Because I really like The Florida Project, which was the other movie that this filmmaker made um and uh i i was watching anora for like the first 30 minutes i was like why did this get any oscars what is even going on with this and then i thought it actually kind of came together ended up being a pretty interesting film although it's billed as a comedy which is i think they i think that that was low-keyed if i was just like wake you up out of a sleep two weeks ago and go that movie anora about the you know the the exotic dancer would you have thought it was a comedy

are you asking me i didn't even i'd never heard of it until yesterday oh it was getting a lot of i've never heard of the florida project either no i was embarrassed i kind of didn't want to

admit that because dude the florida project is so great it's willem defoe oh i love him and it's this um it's this young uh mom who's uh living in this motel in florida i'm fascinated with the in the making of that movie because they had no money for the movie so like next to the hotel there was a helicopter company that wouldn't stop flying the helicopter so they had to just kind of make it part of the thing that these helicopters are flying through the whole film

you know I said I had never heard of that I did I saw the trailer for that a couple of times

names I don't know the year that would have come out I feel like it was like maybe were we just coming out of the the pandemic or going into it I don't know but I remember being in the theater and seeing the trailer for the Florida project and it was exactly my style of cinematography like the colors the yeah the angles 2017 okay 20 okay so still a ways before the the pandemic I don't know why I brought that into it but it's how I measure everything these days but um yes I remember seeing that and being like that looks bleak as hell but holy shit that looks up my alley And then I totally whiffed out the window of my mind.

I think if you're, you know, some night, if you're, if you're, if you're clicking around, it might be worth checking out.

I mean, it's not a boxed right now.

Not a perfect film, but certainly an interesting one. And, and yeah, Nora, I, I, I, I, I enjoyed it. I definitely, I had, if it was a half or it was a marathon, I would say it had reverse splits, which when you're running and you run the second half of the race faster than the first half, it had a reverse split. it got better for me as the movie went on it also had a 7-10 split it had a lot so much sex and do to do and i'm not i'm not a prude like but i was i haven't watched a movie that depicts that much sex in a long time and in fact i you know my take on sex in films generally speaking is i know i know about the drugs and the clubs andrew i know about the sex i understand it to some degree Whatever you've heard whatever mixed reviews you've heard about my understanding of sex. Those are lies. Those are dirty dirty lies I understand how it all works and I generally don't need to see it in a film because I there's to me There's more interesting things than two people pretending to have sex in a movie, you know So generally speaking, it's got to really serve the plot I would say I think it does serve the plot in this movie because it kind of It's sort of it helps explain the dynamic of one particular relationship in the film, but boy Boy, I swear, every time you turn around, people have it very, very graphic. So anyway, that's just a heads up. If you're somebody who's sensitive about that kind of stuff or put off by it, and you think I'm recommending Anora to you, it's definitely a pretty racy movie.

One thing you don't need to see is Larry David pretending to have sex with Cheryl Hines in season five of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Yesterday, we also didn't watch the Oscars. I didn't really have any interest in it. I was really, I was thinking like, oh, this is a big stage and this is like, you know, famously lefty Hollywood. At least somebody will take advantage of this large stage to say something just very, maybe devastating or powerful about the state of the world. And it sounds like nobody took advantage of the platform.

The one, I mean, joke that I saw from Conan that was even just vaguely related to the events of the world. So, Anora, the plot is that this girl who's a, you know, like a stripper in Long Island, ends up marrying this Russian oligarch who comes into the strip club. And then a bunch of stuff happens after that, right? And it involves her and his family and all these things. conan's joke was after an or had won two oscars he said people just love to see someone finally stand up to a russian uh-huh or something like that something to that effect that was about one of the only then there was a couple of folks who won awards who who said you know basically they

did ukraine some okay ukraine specific but at least i think daryl hannah actually was presenting

and and said something about standing with ukraine and then there were some filmmakers who I believe had their film was about something going on with the Palestinian scene in Gaza. Oh, yeah, the documentary. Yes, sure, yes. And they made a very strong political statement. But it wasn't like Conan didn't come out of the gate and make a bunch of jokes. Like Kimmel, let me put it this way. Kimmel would have been a Trump evisceration. That's interesting. And that was not what Conan was doing.

I was going to say, just to make my comments clear, I wasn't even expecting it to be the role of the person hosting because that is, you're, like, hired to do that job. But the people accept, you know, I said this to Genevieve a few days ago. I'm like, I hope somebody will say something. She's like, yeah, where's, oh, geez, I'm now blanking on his name. Why would I start this sentence if I? Terry O'Quinn. Terry O'Quinn is exactly what I was thinking of there. From Lost and then later on Patriot. I think first credit, first line of the obituary will be Patriot. Marlon Brando is the name I was looking for. Yes. Genevieve's like, yeah, like, I hate to say it, but, like, where's Marlon Brando?

Where's Sashin Littlefeather?

Right. Yes, exactly.

Who I believe turned out to not be native.

Oh, is that true? Okay. Bad example on my part. But either way, I just expect, like, the people who are accepting the awards to say what we're seeing in our country and what we're seeing in the world is beyond words. We must stand together. We must fight oppression. Like, I just can't believe nobody is. And, again, I don't know what the hell I'm doing, so I always want to caveat it with that. But G

Jesus Christ, Hollywood, live up to your leftist name. Everybody's scared. Everybody is so goddamn scared of their funding.

I think you're right because I was, I mean, yeah, that was where, yeah, I was like, we turn to you for being a little bit unhinged and left. And, like, this is the one thing we have anymore. We don't have any of the levers of power in the government. I mean, this is, of course, the thing that's one of the things that's alleged to make, you know, ultra right-wing people so insane is that no matter how much power they get they still have to watch jim caviezel movies if they want to see their there's something with did he say anything when he accepted his awards his many many awards yeah exactly like they're forced to watch kevin sorbo tv's hercules in whatever shit he's in now like and so the you know the big thing is like they don't get the cool pop culture and and and they're mad about it and it makes it gives them Confused sense of their lack of power in the world. They have a ton of power They have too much power in my opinion, but because they're not seeing themselves portrayed on the silver screen They that's supposed to be the whole thing that goes on but boy, I'll tell you yeah last night it not many political statements There was one other thing that I thought was kind of funny, which was kind of like a fake commercial where Conan was Trying to sell people on the idea of something called cinema streams which was a place where they take like 4,000 cell phones and put them all together on a screen and you sit in a darkened room and watch the streaming. This is basically a movie theater ad. But the person was like, they're in the theater, they're like, well, how do I hold it? And he's like, you don't have to, we hold it for you. It was a pretty funny kind of subtle, what would you say, sort of like advertisement for people going back to the movies. I mean, that's another thing about this that's interesting is, you know, Netflix really does seem to want to, if they can, run the movie theater business out of business, you know? That would be good for their business model if they would have even less competition from theaters. And yet they're nominated in certain categories. I know that they've hired, Netflix hired Harvey Weinstein's Oscar, you know, strategist person because Miramax was so famous for like these very effective oscar campaigns you know and that's like a whole division of like a studio is is the for your consideration part of it you know so they had hired uh that person of netflix has so they really want to win these oscars and they really want to put movie theaters out of business um but they're also paying they're they're also some of the only people that are like you know funding films right now so like what do you do if you're a filmmaker you're kind of you know you're sort of if you go make a movie for netflix and it does well you've just put one

more small nail in the coffin of movie theater yeah it's a good point i mean did we talk about this on the show the old the the theater that's been amc for a while now but it was the old sundance theater on 45th near the u district or kind of in the u district i would say yeah that was the metro in my youth yeah that's closing again amc yeah i don't know if anybody will buy it i mean i don't know what you do with that space other than tear it down unless you can put another theater there but yeah i hope yeah i i don't know you should have gone there and eaten more

lasagna while watching film they tried that had they tried that business model yet or was it

still pretty much a standard movie no no they i think because they were sundance they were pretty early on in the um like serving wine i don't know like yeah no they would have like kind of almost like plated meals i think they'd like this lounge i hope you're happy andrew well i used to go there all the time because we lived in wallingford and we would walk there quite a bit actually so we We were supporters of it. And actually, I think when we lived in Roosevelt, too, we had two apartments where that was sort of in the center of it. So we did our part. Maybe that's the thing. We stopped going. Yeah, we moved out of that neighborhood.

Did you get waylaid by the Seattle Go Center there by the Blue Moon Tavern?

The Go Center? What is that?

Did you ever play that game Go when you were a kid?

No, the little black and white tiles?

Yeah, the little black and white tiles that you turn over. I don't know how to play it. It's kind of check. I used to know how to play this back when I had brain cells, which was a long time ago. the listeners will tell you but yeah i've always been fascinated as you're on you know that that the blue moon tavern oh yeah that you go past on the way to that movie theater you're describing or movie plex right before the blue moon tavern there's always i don't know if it's still there but there was always this like little upstairs apartment thing that was like the seattle go center like it's like for the most hardcore go players so you're talking let's just do this

because people love it when we do this they do you're traveling west to east you're heading towards the u district on 45th so therefore blue moon's going to be on your left now what i think is right on that corner is a brewery oh good so it might um i don't think it's a i don't think it's a place to actually drink beer i think it's literally just a brewery but i could be wrong

about that but uh i'm really happy to see oh they've moved the seattle ghost center is now looks like it's on finney that makes but they but they look like they are still in business okay the learn to play the ancient game of glow of go lessons are free that is a game that

i probably should know isn't it like that's a that's a game of high intelligence right isn't it like that and chess are the two kind of standard bears for if you're i definitely think

it's it's a it's yeah i think it is um yeah something that you that people at a very very high level of intellect tend to do well at yeah somehow i was playing it as a kid there were somebody at like my church or something who was into go and you know when you're a kid or at least this is how i was any adult that would play any kind of like board game card game i was always just like yeah okay i'm in like yeah you're gonna you're gonna take an hour out of your

day and play go fish with me hell yeah i spent my childhood begging people to play that's why i like my grandma so much the only reason i like my grandma honestly awful person but she would play games with me just kidding obviously she was awesome okay i don't know no no no i don't know your life no no she was great but um i actually she was a really cool woman but um no she would but she would also play games with me i was like love when grandma would come over she would always play games i'm like why wouldn't my parents play games with me now i know like i still i don't know if i had kids i think i'd play games but the thing is like i also assume the appetite for games when you're a kid especially like in the pre-digital era it's you're insatiable you know it's a

bottomless pit of want i mean i think you've just described children yes and and yeah it's like

it's you got to be careful you've got to manage jenny has described me as a bottomless bit of

want before you've already got one of those people living in the house you don't need another one

yeah takeaway we was hoping for some razzle dazzle razzle dazzle that's right man razzle Dazzle.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready.

Ready.

Go. Everybody rattle, dazzle.

All right. Let's thank some dazzling donors. These incredibly generous, supportive, wonderful people are voluntarily donating a dazzling amount of dough to keep TBTL happening. We're talking about folks like Julie Bellon, who's in Vermont, France.

Which makes me wonder, are we saying the last name properly? Bion, maybe? Julie Bion? Bed, Bath, and Bion? I feel like I've made that joke before, so I don't know if we've already... I don't know if this is a well-worn path in our thinking of Julie.

I mean, the way that women can be in that store forever, that's beyond me.

Is that a Yakov Smirnoff joke? That's a Yakov Smirnoff. Is it literally Yakov Smirnoff? I don't know how I knew that. Maybe you've played it for me before.

I used to, yeah. That's why I think they call those places Bad Bath and Beyond, because how a woman can spend so much money on Bad and Bath is beyond any man.

I wonder how it's going for Yakub Smirnoff, because he's from Ukraine, but he plays Branson, where I'm sure it's like a heavy-duty MAGA contingent.

Yeah. Also, does he have a cabinet position?

Well, no, because he's from Ukraine. Yeah, not if he's from Ukraine. You know? Yeah. All right. Back to Julie, who is supporting us from all the way over in France. Incredible. By the way, I've become a big—try a new thing where I'm a big France guy now, Andrew.

Oh, good. I look forward to this. I look forward to more.

I had so much—how dare you, sir? How dare you? I had such a fun time in Paris last summer, which, again, I kind of tacked on— we were flying home, and we were able to do a thing where we landed— You know, we basically had a layover in Paris that we extended for multiple days. So it didn't really, like, increase the price of the airplane ticket very much. And it was kind of just because, you know, I thought Becca would really enjoy it. But I just freaking loved Paris. Like, it was my second time there, but I just had such a great time. So anyway.

Can I interrupt for one second? And this does not have to be said at all. But I want you to know something that's going on in my life right now, which maybe you can just see the tip of her ears. But our poor Professor Bananas has been going through some health stuff recently. Oh, I'm sorry. We took her to the vet. We were concerned she stopped eating again last week. We had to take her to the vet. It's always very upsetting. And so we have this medicine we give her now, and we put it in her ear. You rub it in the tip of her ear, if you can believe it, and it makes her hungry. We took her to the vet, got the medicine, gave it to her once. Somebody's been putting that in my ear. Yeah, I know. And we gave the medicine to her once, and she regained her appetite immediately and has been great for the past four or five days. And then yesterday stopped eating again And so we've been very very concerned about her But she just did something That has really raised my hopes Which is she must have She turned off the music She said I don't want Luke talking about France anymore No she just pushed my door open and is in here Sort of nosing about which makes me think she might be She might be hung

I might even give her a churru.

Do you want to go food and water? Give her some food and you get some water?

I'll tell you what. After the Dazzling Donors, before Top Stories, I'm going to run and get a churru. You ever mess around with these things? They're like little tubes of food paste.

I've seen them. I've seen them before. I love them. I've not deployed one on Bubbles or Holly, but I've definitely seen them out in the world.

Cats love them so much. It's the one thing they always eat. So, yeah, if you don't mind, I'm going to take a little break and give her some food, and I'll let you know how she does.

Okay, but not before we thank Julie in France, who says, honestly, I don't understand why out of the more than 40 podcasts that I regularly listen to, TVTL is such a big place in my heart. How do you have time? Let's face it. It's not really what you talk about. I guess it must be the way you seem to genuinely love each other's company and the way you are honest about your quirks and occasional pettiness.

I wouldn't call it pettiness, Julie.

How do you like that? How do you like that? It's great. It's so endearing. If I am a dazzling donor, it's because truly, truly what you do is so important. Thanks. Signed, Julie. Wow, Julie, that is 40 podcasts. That's a lot. That's a healthy amount of podcasts over there in France.

Certainly putting us in the mix. I don't know if Julie's a daily listener. I mean, she's a dazzling donor, so to indicate that she's well invested, um both with her time and finances here but uh hello bananas and franks and franks but yeah i mean one thing that you and i have been talking about is maybe our pitch for people to listen to us is like hey we're we might not be your favorite podcast but we're the podcast that is produced every day in between episodes yes your favorite podcast and features a cat yeah can you see

bananas wandering through the shot no you're absolutely right that's our that's that's our uh you know that's our entire sort of pitch is you know if you can't be with the podcast you love love the one you're with we're here my friends we are here five days a week whether you like it or not and when all those other podcasts are what producing compelling content having editorial meetings doing doing all the things that that take weeks and weeks and weeks to complete we're just over here petting our cat and talking down the line five days a week look at this little girl tbtl thank you julie maestro on your mark on your mark get set get set now ready ready go

Hey, look who it is.

It's our dear friend, long-time TBTL supporterer, Ryan Honick.

Now, have you ever met Ryan in person?

I believe I have.

Yeah, because Ryan lives out in D.C., or I see the D.C. area.

Although, we've also Skyped with Ryan a bunch.

Yes, yes.

So, I could be confusing and conflating our virtual screen time with Ryan with IRL.

Yeah, yeah. Ryan's in Alexandria.

Because we haven't done an official TV show event in D.C., have we?

No, and I'm sorry to put you on the spot there because I know that you can't remember every interaction ever. But I just wasn't sure because I feel like you are in the greater D.C. area from time to time for your other stuff, whether it was a Livewire thing or something like that. That's why I asked.

Ryan's out there in Alexandria and says, Hi, fellow tens. A huge thanks to Olivia, my longtime college friend-o. And the reason I'm still listening to this pod all these years later. Oh, Olivia. Sounds like Olivia turned Ryan on to the show. Thanks, Olivia. Appreciate that. Thanks, Ryan, for sticking with us. Shout out to Steve, Jen, and Kelly for being perpetually awesome. Y'all make this community something special. Now, here's the thing. If Ryan is shouting out to Steve and Jen and Kelly, I think those are some D.C. area tens.

Exactly. Or erstwhile D.C. tens. I believe Kelly's up in New York now. Thank you. I'd love to pull that one out.

God, did this whole thing a setup for you to use the word erstwhile correctly?

That's why I picked this dazzling donor today. Smart.

Very smart. Yeah, Steve and Jen were the ones who famously crashed a Livewire party bus. Yes, right. Which, again, you know, game recognized game. Ryan says, now, I'm not making any Super Bowl predictions this year. I've learned my lesson. But good luck to Luke on whatever bets may be brewing. Ryan, you probably know if you're up to speed on your TBTL that I did, in fact, bet the Eagles. I hammered that Eagles bet during my, like, one hour of being on terra firma on that Sunday. And I was very happy about it. I do think that sports betting is my healthiest betting relationship, Andrew. Because you don't get obsessed. You have fun. And I also can't even do it here. It's not legal in the state of Washington. So that's why It's legal in New York apparently It's legal in Oregon But I can't, unless I were to go down to

the local casino and lay a bet which i wouldn't do for sports i can't get on my phone and sports bet here so it's just it's like a treat it's like birthday cake it's like if i'm somewhere where i'm able to do it and there's a game that i'm interested in i'll do it but then there's long stretches where i literally can't even access it's actually kind of the perfect relationship so

it's like it's the only thing that's not problematic for you because it's not legally problematic for you or legally it can't be problematic no it has nothing to do with my

willpower any kind of good decision making no this is honestly this is the tyrannical rule of

the state great modifying a behavior of mine hey honestly no joke like i came around on smoking laws like yeah you would have met me like yeah maybe 20 years before you met me or 10 when i was a college age or post-college smoker in coffee shops like what in the world you're not gonna let me smoke and drink coffee at the same time in a coffee shop what kind of tyrannical world is this And like now I look back, I'm just like, man, that got me to cut back big time, which then helped me quit when it became time for me to quit. And I'm like, oh, yeah, sometimes these laws really do look out for us.

Yeah. Even as a nonsmoker, because I was regrettably probably a self-identified libertarian at the time when I was, you know, in my early 20s or whatever, I was like, well, if people don't want to go in a restaurant where they're smoking, they just won't go in there. Yeah, right. And they were like, what about the people that work there? Well, they'll just have to work somewhere else. The market will fix this.

That's exactly what I used to say.

And it has been tremendously effective at helping a bunch of people not do something that just absolutely terrorizes your body. In fact, the other day I was walking somewhere. I was walking near Becca's place, and I saw what I thought was a cigarette butt on the ground. It wasn't, Andrew. It was a broken pencil. It was the only other thing as anachronistic as a cigarette butt in the ground. It was like a broken number two pencil kind of thing. but when i thought it was a cigarette but i thought to myself when's the last time i just saw a cigarette butt on the ground you know like uh it's amazing how effective that's been as a you know as a way of helping modify behavior and i would say for the good there's a time when i

would have tried to smoke that pencil too there's a time when i would try to pencil fight you with

that pencil but i was did that did that make its way out to ohio pencil fighting oh we've talked

about it before yeah yeah that's kind of um i don't i think i remember seeing it it's not something i partook in like i wasn't good at it at all i remember paper football contests yeah thumb wrestling i think there was a couple others in there i don't think i really partook in the couldn't afford a lot of pencils luke i didn't grow up all yeah you didn't grow up with ticonderoga

money sure wasn't that written on some of the pencils i know that's a fort but wasn't there also a pencil that was called a ticonderoga i'm pretty sure that's where they go at the end of

Shawshank Redemption. Yes, they do.

Truly was a Shawshank Redemption. Ryan says, I'm about three weeks behind on episodes, so if I'm missing any big developments, I'll catch up soon. Before I go, a rare moment of self-promotion. I'm a disability advocate and speaker partnering with organizations to build more equitable workplaces. If this sounds interesting, check out ryanhonick.com. I'm going to spell Ryan's name. It's R-Y-A-N last name H-O-N-I-C-K dot com. ryanhonick.com if you would like Ryan to help your business or organization work for a more equitable workplace. What a cool idea. Thanks again to everyone who keeps this ship afloat. You're all dazzling. Power out. That's from listener Ryan out there in Alexandria. Thanks, Ryan.

Wow, it's a nice looking website. I didn't know that Ryan had sort of kind of professionalized this, for lack of a better word, and I'm looking. He's got a whole bunch of press clippings here, presumably that he is quoted in or appears in in some way. This is good. Yeah, please check this out. Ryan is doing good work out there.

Yeah, what a cool resume here. Also, you know, Ryan's dog is the absolute best. Giving me powerful Rudy memories, although thank goodness Ryan got the dog that Ryan got and not Rudy, because that would be, Rudy would be no help. I just saw a clip of Rudy the other day. By the way, for those who are scoring at home, Rudy's doing great. Good. Pushing, I don't know, 11 or 12 now, but still getting around and doing fine. But man, that would have been a hopeless, hopeless service dog. So I'm glad Ryan got the dog that he got. And Ryan, we're glad we got you. Thanks, buddy. Hello and welcome to Top Story. All right. The Top Story today comes from your neighborhood, Andrew. And I know very little about it other than at the top of the show before we were recording, you said to me, hey, a Liberty Bell has been stolen from my neighborhood.

The Liberty Bell has been stolen. I mean, I'm intrigued. What the heck is going on? I mean, you might even be surprised by the term a Liberty Bell. That implies the existence of more than one Liberty Bell.

Well, right. And I'm familiar with the one in Philadelphia, famously. I did not know that there was one in the sort of North Seattle area where you are.

I consider the one in Philadelphia to be a lesser Liberty Bell. In fact, I think most people think of North Seattle when they think of the Liberty Bell. I could be wrong. And the cool thing is I know we don't have any listeners from that neck of the woods who would take offense to that.

I believe Paul Revere took the E-Line.

I believe so. On his famous ride. I believe he did.

There is a person on the E-Line who thinks they're Paul Revere.

I think so. The person who asked me if I was a bounty hunter. The bounty hunters are coming. The bounty hunters are coming. That's right. So I live near a very large inter-urban cemetery, and you know this well, right? Evergreen Wachelle, it's called. It's been there for a really long time.

I'm 48 years old. I still don't know how to say the name of it.

I think I got it there, although I could be wrong. But it's a really big swath of land that is up here in North Seattle. And it's interesting because, like, we actually have – Seattle's pretty good about having green spaces and parks. And we have a couple of parks around us. But honestly, this cemetery is one of the biggest pieces of green space. And I think I even mentioned to you the other day that I kind of took this thing called the Interurban Trail for a long walk that sort of skirts along the east side or the west side of it and whatever. So, like, sometimes people will stroll through it, take their dogs on a walk, stuff like that. And when we moved into this neighborhood, I was doing things exactly like that, although no dog in tow for me. But I noticed that there was this area where it's kind of fenced off and there's a bunch of, like, kind of equipment that they need to, you know, maybe there were some sort of tractors and trucks and various things just for upkeep and maintenance of this huge cemetery, right? That kind of area. I don't know what you call that, an operations area or something like that. Yeah. And one of the things I noticed was, I'm trying to think if maybe even Genevieve tipped me off to this, was there's a replica of the Liberty Bell. I mean, it looks like the Liberty Bell. I don't think it has the crack in it, but other than that, it might even be a full size.

I'm looking at a photo of it right now. It has an inscription on it. It says, I believe it says Pennsylvania on it. I mean, this is like a life-size replica.

I was so curious about this thing, Luke, that I did something very unusual for me, which is I just came home and I called the cemetery.

Like I got a I got a after you walked by this Liberty Bell the other day.

What the hell? And then I saw it a couple of times or something. This is like years ago when we first moved in. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to call. So I call and then I get like an automated voicemail system. And it's kind of like, who do you want to talk to? Press this for this person, this for this person. And I'm like, I don't know. I was waiting for somebody to say, if you have questions about the Liberty Bell, press nine. But that never came up. So I think I just chose whoever's title was closest to ground maintenance or something like that. And I left him a voicemail. I'm like, hey, new to the neighborhood, just curious. What's with the Liberty Bell? I never heard back anything.

You're definitely on a watch list now. Yeah, exactly. We got a call about the Liberty Bell, and now it's gone missing.

And now it's gone. Luckily, that was a few years ago now. Oh, OK. And now the headline that I woke up to this morning on King 5, the TV station around here, ABC affiliate, I believe. NBC. Oh, King 5 is NBC, right. Priceless Liberty Bell replica stolen from Seattle Cemetery. Seattle police are investigating Andrew Walsh, a popular, and then it strikes through popular podcaster.

Who is asking a lot of questions about the value of a Liberty Bell.

I'm just asking questions. And so I'm going to read you. It's a pretty relatively short story from King 5. They have a massive piece of history has been stolen from a Seattle cemetery. The police department said a replica of the iconic Liberty Bell, weighing more than 2,000 pounds, valued over $100,000, Luke, was stolen on Saturday morning. Now, listen, I talk about the neighborhood I live in as being a somewhat high crime area, at least compared to the rest of Seattle. That is true. Like North Aurora sort of has a reputation. But this is not the kind of crime that you think about. This is a heist. This is a heist, you know?

Like, yeah, no, this is, by the way, shout out to Bridget Chavez, who was writing about this at king5.com, a little local reporting there. But, yeah, this is, oh, you have to be organized. This thing weighs 2,000 pounds. That's a ton.

Yeah, this isn't somebody who's, like, just looking to get some extra scratch so they can take care of an addiction or something like that.

No, this is not pulling the copper out of a construction site wall. This is—you had to—if you asked me, Andrew, like, if we were legally allowed to move something that weighed 2,000 pounds, I wouldn't know where to start.

I wouldn't know where to begin, although that may be something we should think about for this year's— Backup plan. TV telethon. Yeah, can we steal?

Too beautiful, too bell.

Oh, I love it. Okay, so Seattle Police say the cemetery employees briefly left to get gas. So in this area where I'm picturing, like, they have these, you know—

Maintenance shed, essentially.

Yeah, kind of a maintenance area with that chain link kind of fencing. I thought, oh, did they leave it unlocked? It says, no, when they returned, when the employees returned, they found the locks cut, the alarm tripped, and the bell missing. So that answers my question, too. Is there an alarm? And it turns out there is. I'm glad I didn't test that myself.

If someone's robbing the cemetery, you have to run and ring the Liberty Bell. They hadn't thought of what happens when the bell is stolen.

By the way, I'm pretty sure, and I'm not sure if this story will get into this or not. It doesn't get into the history of the bell, I think, or why it is at Wachali. But I think it is used, this particular cemetery has a really, really big chunk of land dedicated to people who served in wars. Yes. Going back a long ways, and so it's kind of got, I've taken a lot of photos of it as probably anybody who's walked by with a camera, but it's one of those really iconic looking like sort of military cemetery areas with a bunch, you know, just very, very perfectly lined up white rounded stones for those who served and in war specifically. And so I think the bell was brought out during Memorial Day services, I want to say, or maybe other things along those lines. And, yeah, and it looks like somebody broke in. And then apparently, did you see this? There's a guy who runs a website called Tom Loves the Liberty Bell dedicated to tracking Liberty Bell replicas across the country. I'm at the website. It's amazing. Tell me what you know, because I have not been on that website yet.

Well, okay, in the King 5 story, it said something like it's one of 20 replica Liberty Bells, but on TomLovesTheLibertyBell.com, there's one of the links you can click on that says the 57 U.S. Treasury Liberty Bells. so it looks like and then he's got all of the locations of so apparently uh let's see here the 57 u.s treasury liberty bell replicas in 1950 the u.s department of the treasury commissioned at least 57 liberty bell replicas as promotional tools for a savings bond drive this is their story and andrew i'm looking at the map of where all 57 are and i'm guessing the one there's a pin in seattle washington which was probably the liberty bell in question there's one uh down in portland there's one in san francisco uh looks like you've got one in arizona they're kind of spread out all around the country so that i'm guessing would that be the origin of this liberty

bell maybe that sounds as right to me as anything else it says um another liberty bell replica was lost during a washington dc construction project no no one six when i i'm sorry when i click on

the link in the northwest, it actually goes to Tacoma. Tacoma, Washington, Liberty Bell Replica, located at 1717 Pacific Avenue. So, that's maybe not the story of this one that somebody stole.

Well, the weird thing about this, I don't know how far down in the story you got, is this person who reached out to Tom, this is the Tom of TomLovesTheLibertyBell.com

Yes.

I can't say .com sometimes without thinking. I'mOscar.com Do you remember that from Arrested Development? No. Okay, we don't have to get into it now. But all of that is to say, people are speculating that this might have to do with scrap metal because this tipster called Tom, not the authorities apparently, but called Tom or pinged him on his website.

Honestly, Tom's the guy for this job. That's right. You know, not some beat cop who doesn't know a Liberty Bell from a Blue Bell ice cream. You've got to get Tom who loves Liberty Bells on the case.

And this person was not like, hey, I was driving by the cemetery and I noticed it was missing. Instead, they wrote, hey, do you know of any missing Liberty Bells? Because I saw one on a trailer in my neighborhood. And I guess this person like woke up, took a walk in the morning. It was like 745 in the morning. And they noticed a trailer with mostly junk and construction debris and a blue tarp. But behind the blue tarp, they saw what looked like a Liberty Bell. So then the police get involved. And, of course, I'm sure with Shelly Evergreen, with Shelly reports it or whatever. And so the cops are looking for this. But like if it's just like on the back of a trailer somewhere with a bunch of other junk, I mean, I guess maybe somebody is looking to just like turn this into scrap metal. I have no idea. Maybe that's conjecture. But like this is bananas. This is a like you say, this is not something you just put in your pocket and run out of target.

No, you had to like bring bolt cutters. Yes. You know, you had to like wait until the maintenance folks went to get gas.

Have a trailer and either something large enough to pick this thing up off its current trailer or enough people to lift it. But wait, wait, no. How much was it again? That's not a 2,000 pounds. No, no, no. That's not happening.

But then also, do you have a forklift? Is there like, what's the like, what's the illicit Liberty Bell market? How do you read? Yeah. How do you fence this thing? That's what also makes it just seem like maybe it's just the metal. But then I mean, yeah. I mean, I guess what do you then cut it up into pieces and like melt it down? because you also just can't bring this bell to like a scrapyard right no but they were they're gonna know that you know that there's something you can't do what i did it played against sports in alderwood once when i had nicked a basketball like a very fancy indoor leather basketball from

somewhere that I'd been playing and it had the name of the school written on it and Peter Williams and I were desperate for Pizza Hut money and we took this basketball up to see if they would buy it. The guy said, it's a nice ball yeah, I'll give you 30 bucks for it except why does it say the name of this school on it? And I said because I was the MVP of the tournament and they gave me this as a reward. He said, alright, checks out

and then bought the basketball. He looked you up and down like, huh.

It was like, I don't know, but I don't feel like arguing with this weird

kid. MVP. Do you mind?

Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, please. I'm just saying you can't. I don't think that would work with this Liberty Bell to a scrapyard going.

I found this somewhere. Now, my understanding of how the Internet works and how these news stories on the Internet works is we've told you all the information that's going to be in this piece. But I would like to hear the audio of this. Let's take a listen to this. Oh, nice. King five news story.

A valuable piece of history gone from a local cemetery tonight. Seattle police want to find out who stole a replica of the iconic Liberty Bell. It's believed this bell is worth more than $100,000. King 5's Bridget Chavez has the latest on the investigation.

They're really leaning into the bell sound, by the way, and I am here for it. It feels like an ACDC song is about to start. For those about to steal, we salute you. Show title.

Gone, leaving many wondering how does something this big just disappear?

You know, it's not unlike stealing a public sculpture. It's not easy to do, but it's clearly not impossible.

Seattle police say the replica bell was stolen from the Evergreen Wachelle Cemetery Saturday morning. Employees told police they left to get gas, and when they came back, the lock on the doors were cut, the alarm had been tripped, and the bell was missing.

I got a comment on the website yesterday morning that said, Hey, do you know of any missing Liberty Bells?

Can I imagine, by the way, when I said this is Tom before, I just assumed because I read the story so far in the video of this. He has not been identified yet. He's just a guy in his home office with glasses saying that he got a comment on the website. Are we going to identify Tom?

I saw one on a trailer in my neighborhood.

Tom Campbell runs a website tracking Liberty Bell replicas across the country. He says the tip seemed unusual at first.

Andrew, yes. Let's play a little game. What are the chances that we will hear the Liberty Bell dong one more time before the story is over?

One more time, definitely one more time.

You think, because, I mean, it makes sense to kind of establish at the top of the piece. I feel like if we get one on the way out, it's just gratuitous.

Yeah. But I love it. I love it, too. I think you need one. I think you need punctuation at the end. Okay. All right. What are you? Are you saying yes?

I think, you know, it's like you like to say, give a mouse a cookie.

Yeah, I don't—

Give a news producer a bell that's tolling. I think we're going to hear it again.

Yeah, I don't want to speak ill of this reporter. No, I love this piece. And it's a good story, but I will say this, and I will say this for myself, too, during my time of writing news stories in commercial radio, restraint is not the leading value. It's not rewarded by the marketplace. No, it really is not.

usual at first. It took a little bit of digging, but I connected it to a comment from, I believe, the 22nd of February about someone who noticed the bell in a storage area

outside of the cemetery. Campbell says the tipster shared these photos of the trailer and what they believed was the missing bell. They went out for a walk in their neighborhood about

7.45. I noticed this trailer with mostly junk, like construction debris, and a blue tarp. Behind the blue tarp, they saw it look like a Liberty Bell. SPD says that person called to

report the stolen bell, but the trailer was gone within a couple of hours. Campbell says another replica was lost during a construction project in Washington, D.C., back in 1976. My strong

suspicion is that it was that it was scrapped i think the current scrap weight for a ton of bronze is probably about three thousand dollars so it's you know it's kind of a mother load i would say

we got about 30 seconds left in the story we haven't heard the bell yet but it will be near

the end yes here we go well hopes that seattle's replica bell is found before meeting a similar

fate hopefully getting the word out a bit will maybe make them a little gun shy about trying to try to unload it and that might give police some more opportunity to to find it in seattle bridget

chavez king 5 news missed opportunity not just for a final uh donging of the bell but also for some regrettable kind of wordplay at the end of the story something like um yeah you know uh and And for, you know, people are hoping for this to be returned. People who have loved ones buried in Evergreen Washeli, who are veterans, would like this bell to be returned for the loved ones for whom it tolls or something.

There's just a lot of... And it's got a lot of people in North Seattle asking, what the bell is going on? No. Bong.

Then the bong. You made me spit on my good computer, the one that we just taught each other. This is a crazy story, though. like i'm kind of bummed about this i gotta say i'm really bummed if it got scrapped i'm really

really bummed about that yeah because yeah like that's irreplaceable and actually at first i was like i mean again it's still it's still a hell of a heist i still would use the word heist for this but i was thinking like i'd call it more of a hoist kind of a prank hoist like i'm not a prank but you know how like do you know i don't know i'm all over the place do you know what a bob's big boy is yes okay they have those out here uh no but i'm aware of them in the culture they've

got that kind of like iconic kind of cartoon guy right yeah exactly doing something restaurants i

mean i knew of them in the midwest growing up in the i think they made a lot they made their way into various films you know over the years and they they weren't i mean they were bob's big boy when we were growing up with them i think they originally started with somebody else's big boy and then today i don't think they're called bob's big boy anymore either i think like the naming right sort of change whatever but it's a chain of restaurants and they have this iconic kind of cartoon character of this 50s looking like in a boy holding up like a i believe a tray of hamburgers

i think it's been a long time you're describing it correctly and sometimes these things as you'd

expect to get stolen you have these suburban kids up to no good on a friday night their friend's got a their friend's cousin has a pickup he just got out of the clink like let's go steal a big boy right um and so i thought it maybe at first would be like that but then having talked this through with you and getting the more details of this story and also really seeing this on this bed or like supposedly seeing this on this like truck bed with a bunch of other shit on there it really does make me seem like it maybe it is just like a cash grab somehow with somebody with some heavy machinery that sucks man i thought for sure this thing was going to come back now i don't

know also i i wonder how this works like if you walked into a bank and stole a hundred thousand dollars you would be in a lot of trouble like that they'd be looking for you they'd have pictures of you you know and i guess maybe the argument would be that this there was less violence associated with this but i mean still if you stole something that's worth a hundred thousand dollars it's a pretty big deal like the the fact that the cops were like someone saw it on a trailer but then the trailer was gone within two hours it's like okay well maybe go over there within two hours Like, somebody, hey, I just saw this Liberty Bell on a trailer, it seems like it probably shouldn't be there I don't know, maybe swangle through, Beat Cop, whoever you are Second use of Beat Cop on the show today, which is very odd But anyway, you know what I mean? Like, I really would like them to get this thing before it gets cut up into pieces and scrapped Because, yeah, it's not one of a kind, but it's certainly fairly rare and has a cool backstory And what a bummer if it was just turned into melted bronze.

And where is the Seattle Times on this? There's no reporting yet from the Seattle Times. Maybe they're doing a more in-depth sort of investigative report.

I'm telling you, their silence on this is deafening, Andrew.

That's exactly how I feel.

Get Eric Lissetus on the case, or one of my other favorite longtime reporters over there.

I don't know that byline. Is that still a—

That comes up on the show semi-regularly.

I probably always say the same thing.

he uh eric lucidis uh writes a lot of the kind of like profiles of uh of just very northwest things and people okay and i think maybe even once when maybe when like something about dave i think the last time i interacted with him might have been oh he he i was maybe something about dave ross leaving no that wasn't that sorry that was uh somebody else wrote that piece but over the years, when I've seen a really great, very kind of what's the word I'm looking for? A real Northwest piece. A piece that's really very like...

About the character of the Northwest. About the character of the Northwest

and the people and the kind of like interesting things that make this kind of part of the world interesting. They're very often written by the writer Eric Lissetus in the Seattle Times. It seems right up his

alley. I see. Well then, yeah, maybe Eric is working on this now, and I hope so. Because, yeah, that is a real bummer. It's funny, like you You just heard about this thing for the first time 10 minutes ago. Now you will die for it. Are you kidding me?

This is my talk of the town pitch.

That's right. 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.

All right. Emails or emails?

Yeah, I got an email, actually. I got an email from a friend of the show who will remain nameless here.

Oh, okay.

Uh,

Thank you.

And it's got a piece of audio attached to it. And I'm going to drag this audio into my system here.

Have you previewed this audio? Do you know what this audio is?

I previewed it just the first couple of seconds of it when it came in over the weekend. And I'll tell you what. It's relevant to our conversations recently. Do you recall that recently on the show we've brought up Alvin and the Chipmunks? That rings a bell. It was a glancing reference. They could have done that. They could have done that at the end of the news story. If anybody sees anything or if this story rings a bell, call the tip line. I don't know. It needs some work. But anyway, it turns out you have actually dabbled in the, I guess, chipmunk verse yourself because I think this is an uncovered recording of you recording with the band maybe some years back.

You never know that you're my hero. everything i wish i could be this is me singing it is wow it's very emotional

wow it's an emotional dismount there what who well is there any context offered was this a bit

we did on the show let's see i'm attaching a copy of luke singing wind beneath my wings that has had the audio pitched up by 15 semitones. You probably noticed it was 15 semitones. Sure.

I thought it might have been 16, but okay, I'll take Lynn's word for it.

Yeah, I heard like 14.5, but, you know, whatever. Yeah, so anyway, that was you singing, but it looks like way back in 2009. This was on the radio. Now, I have a question for you.

So just so I understand this, it's me singing from a long time ago, but then Lynn chipmunk-tized it? He just chipmunked it up a bit. Oh, okay, okay. I just didn't know if we had done a whole bit where we chipmunked our voices back in the day.

No, I introduced that in probably the most confusing way possible. No, no, no. But what I wanted to see here is you and I got into a knockout-dragout fight one time. And I don't know if you remember this. That's how I got my busted lip. I'm looking for this here. There was a time where I was building an intro for the show, right? A little audio montage. And I think this is around the time that we started working for American public media. So this is about 10 years ago. And I was officially like full time with with TBTL now. So I was taking over various production responsibilities, kind of taking some things off of your plate. And you gave me the password to what you'll always regret. You gave me the password to the TBTL phone line. And I was like, holy crap, there are voicemails going back years and years and years. all the way back to 2009 I think and I was excited to randomly clicking on some of these and I think I found a piece of tape of somebody singing that on a voicemail line it sounded like phone tape of somebody singing I thought it was Wind Beneath My Wings and I played it for you on the show and you said, this was on the show you said, why are you playing me singing Wind Beneath My Wings and I said, no that's not you that was from the voicemail line And you're like, I know my voice. That's me. I'm like, I really don't think it's you. And then we went back and we played it again. And sure as hell, it was you. And I still don't know if we ever had an answer for why you were calling the voicemail line and singing Wind Beneath My Wings. But I think that might be the tape. Maybe. I'm looking for it.

That sounds like something I would do when very drunk. But it's hard for me to analyze how drunk I am in that tape because it's entered the monk verse, I believe you said the other day. Yes. Which still has been living with me all weekend. But, yeah, that's a very weird thing.

Oh, here it is. Okay, good. Finally, I thought I was filibustering there. I'm sorry. I can stop this. I'll tell you what. What's our safe word? It's 31 seconds. I don't have to play the whole thing. I'm going to play a little bit of this, but the safe word, though, Luke, is bell. When you scream bell, it means you can't take any more of this.

A message from King County Jail.

This is a message from Luke Burbank.

Did you ever know that you're my hero? You're everything I wish I could be. I could fly higher than an eagle.

You are the wind beneath my wings.

The end is what always gets me about that song.

I have to be drunk. No, you know what it is? I'll bet you a million bucks I have to have been inebriated I'll bet you that was on the show not through a phone I'll bet you some drunk listener

we know that intoxication played a role in some part of this event Either on mine or the listener's part. The voicemail line used to be way more chock-a-block with drunk listeners. It was a lot of drunk people for many years. A lot of drunk people, a lot of meta people. Yeah, right. But I'll bet you you sang that on the show for maybe a bit or for whatever reason way back on the radio days. As you described it earlier, when the show was still fun and had life and a good producer named Jen. I think that's how you said it before. I didn't say it, but I'm glad you picked up on the subtext. No, but anyway, I'll bet you some listener then took this and then played the radio, you know, like played the podcast back onto the voicemail line or something like that. So and then years later, I get it. And then years later, Lin Pham probably uses the original audio to I like it better as I like it better.

monkified honestly because my my concern the reason that makes me cringe so much is because i don't know i don't i don't know where the joke starts and where the where the where reality starts and the joke ends does that make sense i feel like i don't i don't like me being that committed to something because am i in my drunk brain am i half am i halfway thinking i'm nailing that song there i don't like that kind of vulnerability i only like to do things in a self-aware way where i'm making fun of myself versus trying to flex and i'm worried that that was an attempt at a flex it makes me feel deeply uncomfortable well i'll just say one more time

if my theory is right and you did that actually during the broadcast you were only like half

drunk depending on if it was the eight to nine o'clock hour or the nine to ten it could have

been really something all right well anyway lynn thanks for sending that thanks lynn that was fun

actually and and i mean it's amazing like i guess whatever one's voice sounds like when you speed it up i mean that you if you would have told me that was you know whoever was behind alvin and the chipmunks i would have believed it you know what i mean like it seems to have a way of making everyone's voice sound kind of the same right oh yeah not to

be pedantic there but this reminds me of something else i do want to be pedantic about lynn even mentioned like he didn't speed it up he just pitched it up which is kind of interesting oh okay that's kind of cool so it's not like it's not faster it's not faster it's just higher It's just pitched up. But that reminds me of some pedancy. Is that the right word? Is that a word?

Really close to another word that we're trying to not be associated with on this show.

That I jumped on this weekend. Thanks to TBTL. Luke, you know that I play the game Wordle. We've talked about Wordle. We've talked about the game Connections on the show before. Another New York Times puzzle. I don't really mess around with that one anymore.

Becca said she had some trouble on Connections this weekend.

Generally, we've had some trouble on Connections. But I don't mess around with that. I think those people are disingenuous, the people or the person who writes that. I really dislike Connections. I don't mind a mental challenge, but I just think that they're not playing fair on that one. So I don't play that one too often. But there's another one that is just like pure brain candy. It's very, very simple. It's just something to do when I'm done with Wordle and I'm still eating my sandwich at lunchtime, and it's called Strands. And essentially, it's just a grid of letters, and it's a word find game. It's sort of an updated version of like a word finder, like you would play as a kid where you circle a word. Only it doesn't tell you what the words are. It just gives you a theme, and then you've got to kind of figure out what the words are. And then there's going to be one that kind of, they call it a spangram that kind of crosses all the way through. So anyway, you're just like looking for words. And this weekend, one of the themes was fasteners. so you're looking around you're like oh there's zipper okay yeah there's uh there's snap and then you're looking for these words and oh the theme is they're all going to be like fasteners on clothes and one of them luke velcro oh now it's my understanding that these new york times puzzle games all play by the rules of scrabble which is no proper nouns and velcro loop technology Hook and loop technology Which we learned from that video of them saying Hey we're going to lose our copyright if you guys keep calling Everything Velcro Please call it hook and loop technology And just call the brand name Velcro Otherwise we're going to lose Not our copyright, our trademark I think So anyway I was like that New York Times, I was wagging my finger Those New York Times puzzle makers

This weekend Luke And so I thought the end of that story was going to be Then you researched it like it had fallen into the public domain or something. No, they just messed up. They just straight up messed up.

As far as I know, they messed up. I went, I looked to see if the New York Times strands had a subreddit, and they did, and I wanted to see. Anybody else bring this up? And I wanted to see, because they'll have like a day-by-day thread for each puzzle, right, with people reacting to it or sharing their scores, and I scanned it, and I saw somebody say, I believe Velcro is a proper noun, and I wrote, came here to say that, friendo.

Very satisfying. Yes. There are dozens of us.

Dozens. Dozens of us. Let's find that bell, everybody. Yeah, seriously. TVKL Mystery Solvers, mount up, find the bell, but be safe.

This is our most, honestly, our most important mission ever, I think, as a hive mind. But yeah, if you get eyes on that bell, just call the police immediately. That's right. Don't try to be a hero. Don't try to get in there and extricate it yourself. Also, if you run a scrapyard and someone brings a Liberty Bell in, it's probably the one that we're looking for. Yes. So I would say I would what I would do is I would accept it. Like I would stall them, you know, pretend that you're like going to take it, but then like trip the silent alarm or something.

Like Steve Martin, when that car is trying to steal gas in the jerk. I don't think you have the jerk memorized.

I mean, I remember this guy hits cans happening at that gas station.

The same gas station. Somebody comes in with, I think, a stolen car, certainly a bunch of stolen credit cards. And so then he's like, okay, he's filling up their tank with gas. But then he thinks he's being clever by attaching their car via a big hook and rope to a church next door. Like to a pipe or something. And then they're like, let's get out of here. We're sick of waiting for this free gift this doofus says he's going to give us. He's like trying to slow walk some free gift. And they drive away pulling the entire church behind him. And then he calls the cops and gives a description of the car and then says, but also it's pulling a small church.

Do you remember who plays Mr. Hartoonian?

Oh, my gosh. This was something I didn't even know. I watched this so much as a kid, and I didn't know who he was. And then you told me he's a famous, old-timey comedian. Almost borscht-belt-y. Very borscht-belt. Yeah, who is it?

Jackie Mason.

Jackie Mason, right. Mr. Hartoonian. That just cracked me up as a last name.

All right. thank you everyone for listening we will be back here tomorrow as we've said we are the podcast that will be here whenever you need us when you're done listening to your other good podcasts we will be here to like we're like podcast spackle we will fill in any unsightly cracks and we hope that you will utilize the show for that and other things we'll be back here tomorrow in the meantime have a great Monday take care of yourselves and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all Power out.