Muse

Can I blow your mind right now? Chris is laughing because he knows where I'm going with this. Okay, there's not a single video of Abraham Lincoln. I'm serious. Look it up. Go on YouTube. Okay, think about that. He's one of the most famous Americans in history. He's the first president. He made slavery illegal. And there's no video. You can look it up. There's no videos of Abraham Lincoln. And every time I say that, someone goes, no, no, no, no, there's got to be. is he's abraham lincoln none so then you start to ask yourself and if you really want to go down this rabbit hole with me here just bear with me who's controlling what we get to see a video of and what there is no video of right because there's no videos of abraham lincoln but i can go on youtube right now i can go on youtube right now and you can do it and you can watch behind the scenes footage of paul giamatti recording his lines for the ant bully right but there's no videos of Joan of Arc.

Beware of things that cost $1.99. Those are the membership dues for this club that I joined, the Columbia House Music Club. Turns out that wasn't really even a club. It was just a business for making money. Although it is how I found my favorite band, various artists of the 80s.

E-ha, e-ha, e-ha, e-ha, e-ha, e-ha, e-ha, e-ha, e-ha, e-ha, e-ha.

It's embarrassing and it's gross, but at least it's kind of funny.

Be careful, though.

It's spicy. Have a good show, dummies. What you do is so important.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

Just a desperate urge to produce content that not a soul is begging for.

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host, coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio. Oh, yeah. Perched high above the mighty Columbia, where I can't tell. I keep saying it's going to be terrible out, but as of right now, it's...

Oh, ma, pa, it's just beautiful.

Got blue skies. The clouds are holding off. It's helping me because it was extra dark this morning. That's, of course, the effect of springing ahead, which, of course, we did this weekend. And I will say that the whole effect of losing an hour of sleep, I usually like to brag about how that doesn't do anything to me. But this, for whatever reason, this time around, I'm feeling the effect. We're just blowing through nap time, aren't we? That loss of sleep. So I'm going to try to get it together. I'm on my third or fourth cup of coffee here and feel ready to bring you episode 4,419 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. I might also just be feeling a little tired because I had a busy, busy weekend.

I like to party. Do you like to party?

I'm at that age where doing two events in the same weekend, two different nights is a real lift. Went and saw Casey Rockett perform comedy on Friday night at Helium. And then G-Love and Special Sauce play at Rev Hall on Saturday night. And then Sunday, I started off watching The White Lotus, my new favorite television show. I don't know if you've heard much about it. And then shifted over after that, because of one of the characters in White Lotus, to watching a very intense and serious movie that was phenomenally made. Zone of interest. So who needs a movie? A weird, weird Sunday night that also involved me eating maybe the best homemade pizza recipe ever. Sometimes you've got to stop and smell the pizza. I'd also like to share with all of you if you care to listen. But not before we say hello to this young man, longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He told me that starting this Monday morning, he's going to try out this new catchphrase.

Oh yeah, in your face.

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

I have a cryptic note that I left myself on Friday.

Oh, I know about those notes.

I mean, I think it applied to something I was doing with the newsletter because it says newsletter. But the note says 178 blue sky before newsletter. And I don't know what I know what blue sky is.

It's not 187, right? Because I think that's a isn't that the like murder call for LAPD?

I believe I learned that in the 90s on the radio. Yes, as did we all. No, it's 178 Blue Sky Before Newsletter. I don't know what that means, but I assume that was something.

Well, they say Blue Sky Before Newsletter, never better.

They certainly do. They say Letter Before Blue Sky, oh my. Blues Before Whose is what I grew up. That's what I grew up saying.

They used to say in Ohio. So anyway, you're talking to a guy who's a little bit drowsy here on a Monday.

Are you feeling the effect of that loss of an hour of sleep as well?

Well, a little bit. I also, you're talking to a man, Luke. You're talking to a 48-year-old man.

I'm learning something every day.

Who went to Capitol Hill on a Saturday night. Oh, I see. Okay, gotcha. Weird flex, but okay.

I've got my story of partying down this weekend, but you're saying you also were partying.

It is like, so it was Genevieve's birthday over the weekend. Shoot, I meant to text her. We got a little group of friends together. Genevieve's like, I want to do, she's like, I don't want to make a big deal of it. I don't want to have a whole party or something.

I don't want to put on a horse mask and lift people.

Yeah, no, she always wants to do that. We save that for waffle parties. But anyway, she's like, I don't want to make a big deal of it. don't have a big birthday bash but she's like i would like to get together with some folks and do something a little bit different and i think it was her idea she's like what about that place that i believe you would know or at least know of rinehouse down on capitol hill it's like a big german kind of beer hall kind of place that turns into a dance club at 10 o'clock but okay the killer app of it and i think the reason genevieve wanted to meet there is it's got a lot of space but also it's got like four bocce courts built right in the middle of it do you remember i know what sex

means and is i know about the clubs and drugs do you know this place have you been there no i had

that's i think that must have come around after my time in seattle or i didn't know about it but i did see a photo i liked i smashed that like button on a photo of someone playing bocce and

now now i understand what that was all about yeah no ryan house has been around since i've been here because i know that it was one of the first place because i had some friends who were way no joke who were way into bocce when i first moved here um so anyway it's been around forever it's right next to like the chieftain there on 12th in in sort of on the slightly southern side of cap hill which wasn't like that's not like the main drag that you maybe think of when you think of like

the pike pine corridor so well except it's it's very near the old capitol hill taco time i think maybe or near ish to the old capitol hill taco time uh on madison uh which r.i.p rest in power And also, is it kind of near, this is, we're playing this game this early in the week.

And this is an area I don't remember that well anymore. Well, this will be great for everyone.

I'll stop now. I'm street hopping around. I do recognize the area. I've never been to that Ryan house. I've never darkened that door. Also, I'm not a German brew house guy. Like, it doesn't, it's mostly over-indexed on things that I don't really mess with, which is lots of beers. I'm sure they have everything but I just mean when I think about it it's like beers, lederhosen, and pretzels there's three things that I will tolerate but I'm not drawn towards them

yeah, and sausage you're not a meat person, you're not a carbs person they don't have any yeah, they don't have any kale there, I guess I'll take it

I love that this is now this is the image that I'm cultivating

you're like, they have fun they have beer No, but anyway, no, I know that you're not into that kind of thing either.

It's about people and places, Andrew, okay? You're not supporting me on my journey.

It does sort of like, I know that that's not your type of thing, and technically it's not my kind of thing either.

I would have gone if I was invited, by the way. I'm a little hurt that I wasn't invited, honestly.

It's like a place where we could have a decent amount of people gather, like, I don't know, maybe there are eight of us or something, seven of us even. But the funny thing was, it's just a bunch of us old. I'm really just speaking about my perception of it. I'm not trying to be rude to my younger, sexier friends, but it's for me, I was just sort of like, let's just like take this crew of a bunch of like people in their mid to late 40s who mostly hang out at dive bars north of the cut. And let's all get our walkers and our canes. Let's all hobble on down.

It's a mobility slam.

Let's go see what's going down in Capitol Hill, you know, where I used to live and where, you know, my first landing spot in Seattle that I loved so much. But I really did feel like there I felt like I was inside of like and this is more like before we even went, not my experience there. But I felt like I was in a far side cartoon of like we were going to be like these explorers heading back into this place where like we don't belong.

You're in the like you're in that like archaic diving suit.

Oh, that's funny. I was picturing more like the pith helmet and the... Oh, I see.

You're like Dr. Stanley, I presume. Yes. Somewhere in the darkest jungle. Well, hold on, Andrew. If I can pause your story for a minute, because I'm a young guy. Let me just open this fresca.

Ooh, a morning fresca.

That's how young I am. I can have a morning fresca. It doesn't even affect me.

Well, look how young I am. I'm having a morning vodka. So we're both doing great.

Yes. Well, good for you for going. I mean, I guess this was one you weren't going to there was no not being part of this one, being that it was Viva's birthday.

But did you have fun? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it also is one of those things where I saw Genevieve. Genevieve didn't. It was kind of up to me to sort of plan it. And also, like, I'm somebody I'm like, well, can we reserve a table? and it was like there was no reserving a table at 8pm and I was like oh no is this place going to be a zoo by the time we already get there and I was just already and Genevieve had some anxiety about it too and Vives and I are just really tightly wound these days right like I'm always pretty tightly wound all the world events is just like it's just like a kind of a constant we're passing each other reading newspaper articles and just like between a heavy sigh and a quiet weeping and we have a bunch of stuff going on with our cat she's okay I don't want to worry the listener but it's been tough and like we're just like balls of anxiety and i knew that genevieve like she wanted to do something but she didn't want to plan it you know what i mean i could just tell she didn't feel like getting involved planning your own birthday get together is kind of a little bit well she like threw herself like a 40th birthday party and that's kind of like you know anyway it was just somewhere in between there she didn't want to make a big deal of it we're like okay she's like she just sort of made it known that she wanted to try this place and i'm like okay i can reserve a table on friday but not on saturday so what does that what does that mean about saturday like are we going to go down there and it's just going to be pink pony club and you know like not keep on dancing not old baldy club for me and i was just like i had so much anxiety about like we're going to go down there we're not going to have a table and it's going to be a crush

of young people who are just going so you could not reserve a table i could not i got you got you

got so that was like kind of this whole thing i was just like what are we going into like i like to know what are we going into like i don't want to just like roll the dice on a saturday night at at a at a place in Capitol Hill but I was also like but it's a German place in Capitol Hill like I don't think that it'll be efficient it'll be it'll be efficient I don't think it's like the number one hot spot for the young people that's a number one Haas yeah exactly it was gonna be the number one dance Haas it was gonna be really the Haas of blues if I couldn't get a table so anyway um we did end up getting a table it was really nice and also first of all I gotta remember like eight o'clock is not like when things are popping off on Capitol Hill like So Visa and I got there at like 7.15. We're like, we'll reserve a table. And we go, and it's like, okay, this is not going to be a problem. It was a bit of a problem reserving a bocce court because apparently the people who work there don't know how to reserve bocce courts. They literally, and they were all very nice, by the way. I liked the bartenders. But you would ask them about how can we reserve one of these bocce lanes, and they would be like, well, what is bocce? And be like, well, it's like the main thing that you have going on in your establishment. see those giant see those pits of sand well they're clearly clearly you're not a golfer but

okay but either way like they're indoor dirt based installations like i feel like you would

have thought about it's not dirt based but what's in there what's it's just like there's like long

you know uh green turfed um oh well that's not the tradition of bocce ever i mean have you i mean bocce is i'm i'm just saying generally speaking bocce is played on like a sort of a clay-like surface are like a sand or like a dirt if you go to if you go to italy if you go to union hall in brooklyn you don't roll the balls that's you don't roll you throw the ball and then you hope to stop near a smaller ball but like what i'm presuming you're playing bocce they just had turf there but like the turf that's i mean that's the only bocce course the only bocce thing i've ever heard of

having turf they're almost always dirt well if you type in if you type in bocce the first four picks up come up one is on a brown surface the other four are green that i'm looking at here well i don't i mean i'm not saying that you're wrong that it's not sometimes played that way but i'm saying that i don't think that it has to go to the bocce wikipedia page and tell me what they're standing in um okay but are you also looking at other for like are you seeing the hundreds of photos of people playing on greens like i'm seeing that as well i'm not saying that you're wrong that that is not a way and maybe the original way but i also don't think it's like super outside the box when I've played bocce I've played at parks on green

oh interesting yeah I think that I think that the way that I found out about it was a place Union Hall in Brooklyn had it and it was kind of weird because it was like indoors also but it's all dirt or it was all dirt and so I associated with that and then if you are in Italy or like Becca and I were at this winery recently called Ponzi and the Oregon Hills and they had a really cool bocce and it's all like kind of compacted dirt and sand so that's the only version i've seen but i'm this is not the this is not the bocce court i want to die on

anyway yeah so i see that yeah i'm seeing your style as well but again like i just this idea that it's not played on the green would be i i think also a falsehood at least in some versions of it or or the majority

that i'm seeing online now although i can see that maybe not the original and probably not the original but either way the cool one the good one right of course um so anyway we were just it was kind of they didn't know how to reserve there wasn't a system it's kind of like this place has been here for like forever and like they don't have a city we would go up and again i really liked the bartender he was a very nice fella though the one i mostly dealt with and who was like serving us drinks and food but like then where i was like well how do you i asked our friend right and i'm like can you go deal with the bocce thing he's like no it's your girlfriend's birthday i'm like okay fine like i'm just like i don't and he's wow you know honestly we go together that's a fair response we just called ourselves the beta boys we're just like let's just go together and just figure this out and so we go but like there's no rodent has the power to

shut down a multi-million dollar construction project you think he'd be used to telling people

that they need to do something differently he definitely um he definitely broke that out he's I said, do you know who I am? But anyway, it was really funny. We're both kind of like these shy – I don't think of Rodan as a shy guy, but he definitely did not feel like just like dealing with this, right? Yeah. And so we go up to the bartender, and he's like, yeah, well, mm, ah, let's see, mm, ah, mm. And he mm's and ah's a lot, and then he looks at the computer screen, making me think that there's some sort of system, because you do have to pay to play. In fact, we paid for two hours, although I don't even think they played for a full hour, so I don't know what's up with that. I don't even care about that but it was just like this indecision on the part of the bartenders he's like well I guess I got one party that is maybe supposed to wrap up pretty soon you're going to want to hover so there were people on the courts yeah like the four lanes

and that's when you were trying to put your quarter down as it were

yeah but the four lanes were being used and that was fine but then and again I don't even even if he had said like he's like whoa brother I like being called brother if he just said whoa brother like it's just going to be tough tonight it's really busy probably not going to happen like okay that's definitive but it was more like oh yeah well gee

i got this you didn't want to be in the position of having to just kind of like sit there until the second that the one group was done and then like elbow in in front of another group you don't

want to be negotiating that you wanted it to be a clear decided it wasn't even it wasn't even that clear is what i'm saying he just said well yeah i um well you you're kind of want to hover i guess it's supposed to wrap up maybe around 15 10 15 minutes i'm like okay so like hover here or like hover over by the bocce courts and he's like well you're gonna want to kind of like you know i guess be kind of by us i guess i'm like so like by the bar and he's like yeah yeah that's good yeah yeah and so then it's like okay so then me and the the beta boys go back to hang out with our friends and then like 10 15 minutes later i look at rodent i'll make sure we go back and then we kind of like we kind of like slink back there and we're like back by the bar area now and he's like oh yeah the bocce like he just everything just seemed like very confusing to him and then it turns out he's like yeah like somebody swooped in we're like what does that mean somebody swooped in and we ended up getting a bocce lane it was fine but it was just it was just astounding and i wasn't even i promise you this is not a story about me being mad or anything again like everybody was nice and i sort of found it charming in a certain way but just astounding that you can have the central piece of your establishment yeah oh and then when we finally got when you do have to pay you get like the main tar you pay to get the white target ball that people right right and so that's you know it's like maybe getting the the cue ball if you're renting a pool table or something and uh and then genevieve got that from another guy because i'm like look there's an open lane and genevieve's like i'll get the ball you guys get the lane or whatever so we do that and then Genevieve, I see her talking to this guy for like 10 minutes. Apparently she's explaining bocce to him.

And why the ball, like why that white ball is like the critical piece.

It was a very astounding example of people not kind of understanding what their services were there for. But it ended up being a really, really good night. But that and the time change, all of that is to say, yeah, I'm coming in a little bit groggy today.

i becca was saying something to me over the weekend about how she had heard like on on probably on npr uh something about how like oh here's what you're supposed to do for the you know spring ahead uh daylight saving weekend which is on saturday or maybe on friday you're supposed to get up 15 minutes earlier than normal and then on saturday 45 minutes earlier so you've now adjusted your clock to like one hour you know what i mean so that when sunday happens you're like and I kind of like scoffed at that idea I was like yeah it's one hour I was like it's an hour what could it cost Michael it's one hour like and literally and then she goes well you know they keep saying that like people actually are affected by this like there's more car accidents I go where did you read that she goes I heard it on NPRs I go all right I'll have to I'll have to I'll have to allow it and then of course this morning a I was exhausted and b Windsor Johnson is reading a piece about how car accidents are. This is like the day for everyone to crash their car. So maybe I should start doing whatever that policy is.

I'm also also Becca, like in the TV show early edition, is she hearing morning edition stories or is she hearing NPR stories before they're actually airing?

They deliver the NPR newscast one day earlier and then she has to then she has to solve a murder just to stop a murder before a murder of my sleep.

Yeah, she has to get somebody to make sure they have enough sleep so that they don't crash the car.

That's actually a really good premise for a show. As you like to delve into, I get the feeling you like old shows that have maybe a little more humor in them like A Monk or maybe more unintentional humor like A Murder, She Wrote. Would you ever go watch Early Edition? Because that show was a pretty big hit.

You know, I wouldn't because I have no connection to it. Like, last night we were watching a Columbo, which I don't know where that fits, because it's not really funny, and it's not really laughable. I just like Columbo. Yeah. But I do think I like Columbo. Well, I mean, because it is a – I wouldn't say it's a sui generis show. It follows, you know, like it's a procedural, I guess. But, you know, a lot of people like Columbo. That's not a mystery. But my point is, like, but it also is a connection to my –

Who did it is the real mystery.

But it has a connection to my youth. so like the idea of early edition like it's i don't get into new procedurals or things that i

wasn't already into to answer your question um so i i think also maybe i'm dragging a little bit because we did uh do a lot of uh socializing and hanging out which was really fun but again probably like two nights in a row for me is is now starting to push it a bit i will say this is going to sound so on friday night we went out we saw this guy casey rocket perform at helium and it was really it was really interesting because he is a you want to talk about sui generis this guy is a like i made a joke that i thought was pretty funny at the end of the night but i don't know if if our friends got it i said this is like a funny robin williams like because he's it's total a hyper active one like he spent his entire hour picking up and moving the stool from one part of of the stage to the other while talking and moving the mic stand he never stopped moving shit around on stage as he was just like delivering these like like basically kind of like one-liners like so little of the material was connected to anything else except this one very long story about how it was the story of him marrying the guy from six flags who does the like i don't know if you were ever living in a part of the country where they were carpet bombing you with six flag ads where that what got bald guy is doing the running man yeah i never liked him oh really much energy yeah oh really you yeah like a uncanny undead guy doing the running man to do that never really clicked for you didn't speak to me for some reason his whole story was like about marrying like he had a wedding photo of him marrying that guy um and and like their life together but then eventually the guy was called up for uh to go on a mission to kill bin laden seal team six flags it was the payoff like it was i mean it's so and then he was like i know we don't have six flags here but it's 20 minutes of the material so i just figured i would do it i got like no reaction last night by the way five sold out shows for this oh wow like it's it's a it's a very like very hard to describe brand of comedy and like so little of it worked but then the parts that would work were really really funny to me so anyway and you know it's just fun just nice to be outdoors again and by that i mean going outside before going inside to a place

but um you definitely have piqued my interest it sounds i mean it sounds up my alley i think you

would find it i think you would find it interesting again it's it's not it is and what was in what was interesting was that there was three opening acts or three opening comedians and they got progressively better now first of all to be the first comic out is an absolute suicide mission like you you are never ever going to be particularly well received when you're the first comic it is like a very thankless job and it's like something you do when you're getting you know kind of getting your start uh you just have to do your time it's just part of the you know part of the ritual so the first comic was very much like uh you know got any weed smokers where my weed smokers at make some noise you know and just kept doing these things to try to kind of get the audience engaged second comedian a little more funny third comedian probably the most funny but all three of them were following typical stand-up comedy yeah you know sort of like the typical stand-up comedy thing format thank you that's the word and this was a total format buster like it was just like what the hell is going on up here but then you were just kind of you were kind of drawn along with it and stuff and and again just just that it wasn't the format that i'm used to made it interesting yeah so Yeah, I'm definitely intrigued. By the way, this is such an aside. I'm not trying to interrupt your story too much of your flow, but I just want to say there is something about parents on podcasts that is so good. You're talking about seeing live comedy, and I was thinking, yeah, I haven't seen a show in a while, and I think the last one I saw was maybe Fortune Feimster, and that was probably six months ago at the very least, but I was just thinking of it because I was in the car the other day, and I still have said light radio because I'm kind of like what they call the one percent and um uh and mostly these days i'm just listening to like fantasy sports talk or whatever baseball talk i can get my hands on but i somehow accidentally landed on you on baseball the doggies got the netflix channel for a second netflix is a joke yes and i think fortune theme ster really dominates that space because whenever i land on it i'm hearing her but it's not her stand-up necessarily she has some sort of a show that is you know i don't know if it's it's probably made for netflix is a joke or satellite it might be for i don't know i have a feeling serious is

creating a lot of original content none of which i'm listening to outside of stern but like they're doing it i think i think she does a show with tom papa yeah it's like a morning show or something

i didn't know it was a morning show because i think i stumble on it when you know they'll just kind of replay it whenever and so but i think i've stumbled on that before and i like it and it's very you know kind of podcasty and the whole point of this is just i landed on it the other day as she was wrapping up a conversation they were on site somewhere they were on a cruise ship or some sort of they're on some sort of vacation and it was her mom and you know fortune's got like a very like kind of deadpan delivery and her mom is just so full of energy and so proud of her little girl and and that's right now that i think about it she talks about her mom a lot in some of the stand-up i've seen and it was just radio gold for like the two minutes that i heard and like okay we got to get going there's a dance tonight so mom is already taking a nap because she wants to make sure that the dance party starts at 11 on the cruise ship or wherever it was and like it was just like there was such good energy there anyway i just want to share that with you as a as a fellow uh broadcaster or microcaster who enjoys putting parents on the radio i will say

that like so when i we did that kind of a limited series uh for livewire and prx called damp january oh yeah and like the first episode was just me talking to my mom and it's something that if you're like a tbtl listener you're probably pretty familiar with which is like my mom's energy but it was pretty funny to like have a bunch of people that aren't tbtl listeners just be like reaching out to me you know because this was promoted through like prx's network and stuff like that just being like oh my god that episode was like so great and i thought well you don't realize it's just like putting a microphone in front of my mom is kind of kind of shooting fish in a barrel

really makes you ask the question what am i doing here like i know honestly it's like well no no

but like but like it's like i wish they're like this is my oldest party trick is just insert my mom into the conversation or bring her into the conversation and something probably funny is going to happen or interesting but um so that was a friday night that was really fun and then saturday night we went and we saw g love and special sauce a kind of a throwback thing but before that and And this is going to sound like I am trying to pat myself on the back or whatever. But we started out, we got some dinner at a place in Portland called Noble Rot. And it was me and Becca's two brothers and their wives. And I love this place. Oh, you and I, we've been to Noble Rot. I went there once.

I really enjoyed that meal.

Really good, right? Yeah. And it was pretty close to the venue and stuff. So we went, lovely dinner. But this was like almost out of like a cheesy movie or something. So we're like, you know, we're, uh, having our dinner or whatever. And there's a legion of servers, you know, there's someone who's our primary server. There are people that are busting the tables, like a really, really good service. Like everyone's super professional. And this one busser comes over and is trying to clear some of the stuff and knocks a water glass over that then like spills onto my lap. And, uh, which I couldn't possibly care less about. It's just water. You know what I mean? It's fine. and but also i think i probably i have a like a a very strong feeling of like empathy in those moments i don't want the person to feel bad at all you know what i mean like because they they shouldn't and i would rather die than add to there so i made some joke i was like you know i was i forget what i said something like oh you know what i actually had spilled mustard on there and that got it off this is actually like thank you so much and i'm making some little jokes and whatever you know uh i think you know hopefully being pretty chill about the whole thing and making it not a weird situation and we finally uh are settling up and doing the bill the our other server comes over and says oh by the way uh we took a round of drinks off of your bill because that person who spilled the water on you is the owner and i really appreciated that you were chill about that and i was like oh henry yeah this is a this i'm like you know this is Like a movie plot Where it's like Oh the busser Was the owner Yeah And you And you

And you

You were nice to the, you were nice to the humblest of the Luther. Is that what God says? Maybe Jesus says somewhere. I don't know. I felt like I was like, I was, I'm being honest when I say I walked out of there feeling pretty good, pretty good that I was, I was nice to somebody that I didn't realize had the sort of standing with, and then I was going out and we ended up talking to the owner, the person who spilled the water on me, thanking her for, uh, for the round and everything and just like having a nice chat. But that was a kind of a, that was a funny moment where I was saying to everyone, I was Like, that's the best case scenario with that, right?

And also, that's a freebie because for the next, like, 40 minutes, you can pee your pants and nobody's going to know it. And I was. Yes. See, right there. So, actually, I'm spilling water on my pants all the time. Do you know that, again, now I feel like I'm just like everything that you're saying. So, Vives and I also had a birthday dinner at an Italian joint on Sunday. That was last night. Let me guess.

They spilled the water.

I spilled water all over myself, and I was so magnanimous about it. And they said, we're giving you both a round of drinks and a dessert. No, but the idea of apologizing when it's not something that you did. So there were two different kind of pasta-related dishes I was interested in. And one of them, I can't remember. I knew they were going to sprinkle Parmesan on one of them. I just had a feeling. And then this other one had some other cheese. Oh, and that's a no for you, dog? Yeah, I don't like Parmesan. And I generally just sort of avoid cheese, which is, you know, kind of like, you know, what's the word? Declasse. Declasse is the word I'm looking for. Thank you. But my point was I had had a couple of conversations with our server. I was like, okay, if they take the cheese out of this one, is that like sort of fundamental to what this dish is? Because I'm bouncing between these two. And if you think that without the cheese, it sort of ruins this one. But it sounds like it was both – for both cases, it was going to be a sprinkled on last kind of deal. So whatever. And so we had a couple of conversations about this because I order it. And then I say, yeah, of course, no cheese. She's like, and she remembers that. And she's the one who's like kind of engaging with me on the whole no cheese thing. And then we order and then my pasta comes out and it's just nailed with Parmesan on top. Oh, no. And like, I can't explain it to you. I don't I don't want to send it back. I already feel like a child. You know what I mean? And I already feel like a child asking for this special dispensation or whatever. Like I just feel –

Parmesan cheese, a universally recognized benefit to the dish.

Right, exactly. I don't want to – can you cut the crust off my Parmesan cheese? I just feel like a fool. And so then it comes out and Genevieve looks at me. And I know that Genevieve can see on my face. Again, she's the birthday girl, right? But she's – everybody's always babysitting me. She sees my face, and I'm honestly trying to think, well, can I just sort of push it around or just ball up or whatever? I don't know. Can I just make this happen? Because I really don't want to send it back exactly like my sister hiding the peas in her napkin. I never thought my sister was a magician more than the time that my mom caught her hiding peas. And I was like, I'm sitting next to her mom. She is not hiding peas. What are you talking about? then she pulls up a napkin full of peas i'm like how did you do that i mean you got caught but still anyway um so genevieve sees my face and the server comes up almost immediately be like how is everything and genevieve like jumps and she's like first i don't mean how's everything tasting right and actually it was i'm glad she did check in early because genevieve i could see there must have been something on my face that was like will i say something or not it was like both a combination of major disappointment because the food that i was really looking forward to was not as appealing to me but also not wanting to speak up for myself so veves is like you know and then the server didn't even she looked down at my plate and she immediately realized she's like oh i'm so sorry i'm like no it's okay and then like i'm yelling i'm sorry to her as she's carrying my plate she's like no i'm gonna have this chef redo it right now i'm like i'm so sorry and i like i realized she's like why are you apologizing you know i mean like i ordered something very specifically we had conversations about it but luke i couldn't stop apologizing for being the guy at the restaurant who had to send his plate back because the crusts weren't cut off i can't remember there was something

like that a while ago where i i asked for something without something oh no it wasn't it wasn't actually that it was we ordered a salad uh becca and i went to this place in portland and uh ordered the salad and it came out the first bite that i took it was so salty and i like everything over salted like that'll probably be what what gets me um and uh and and uh or they round up the podcasters and put us somewhere like red dawn that might be what gets me i don't know but like i love everything overly salted but like i took one bite of this salad and i was like like it was like they had been it had been so drowned in the dressing which was like so salty was it like a sardine i don't know why i'm asking this was it like a sardini thing or

any reason why it was so salty i it was it might have been something that was billed as slightly caesary okay by the way they're opening on the van's warped tour slightly caesar i think they're playing with jack johnson um and so like uh i've for whatever reason i was also really looking forward to the salad because it had a bunch of you know ingredients in it that i was looking forward to having but it was like the first bite i was like i can't even actually get this down and i am also very very loath to send things back yeah i just don't like that move generally speaking i can count on one hand the number of times over the course of like the last five years that i'll send something back and the person came out and i was like i am like so sorry but this is really really salty and and and and what i wanted to say was like you don't understand how much salt i put on yeah i'm a person who's been observed salting pizza i have a salt lick next to my bed exactly Like, this is not me, this is you, is what I wanted to say to the restaurant. Like, you actually need to talk to somebody in the kitchen about this being the amount of dressing that they're putting on this. That's another thing, by the way. I like a lot of dressing on stuff. Like, if you go to a kind of a more upscale restaurant, usually it's always a lighter touch. It's a lighter touch and a smaller portion. That's the guiding principle of most kind of nicer places.

And often won't even put salt on the table necessarily. Oh, no, no, no. That's a whole ask.

And then depending on how they bring it out, that tells you how mad they are. If it comes out in two cute little dishes, it's like they knew this was going to happen. If it comes out and it's just like a sort of an unattractive salt shaker, like a McCormick's hand grinder. Just a Cisco on it.

Totally, like a Cisco.

I've had that happen before where it's clearly just salt they have in the kitchen.

Yeah, they're just like, here you go. They pull it out in a wheelbarrow. Like, here you go.

Yeah, all right. I'll try to find something. like you know that's when the chef is like let's not encourage this behavior but anyway so this was the thing though and this is how i'm just so i'm so sensitive the guy was like the guy was a little much this server anyway he did that thing where he was like tonight i have it

was everything was i have that i have thing i hate it's like we have just say we there's a lot of people in on this yeah why do they do the eye i really it sets my teeth on edge it just feels

my vegetables are whatever it's like okay so and then this is what he said though that kind of killed me he said oh and he wasn't like rude about it but he just said something like i did not explain to him that i generally like things too salty which means if this is too salty for me yeah a i don't like sending things back b i like things too salty so if i'm sending this back because it's too salty like do the math this is like this is not being prepared well like and other people probably have the same reaction and he said something like oh yeah well i can have them he goes oh yeah sure i'll have one bring out a little underdressed or something he used a term i don't know if it was underdressed yeah but it was like oh if you would like light dressing or something like as if it was me as if it was like oh if you have like a allergy to good food yeah right yeah like oh i can have them do the not proper amount of this dressing of this salad if that's if sir if you'd like a under if you'd like an underdressed salad that's something we can do yeah i don't want an underdressed salad i want a salad that is not going to send me into a cardiac

event i that's what i was trying to like kind of joke about when i said like if you ask for salt and they bring it out and like some sort of a wheelbarrow or something just like this idea of just like oh we didn't realize we were dealing with you oh sorry here would you like some crocs and sweatpants to be more comfortable as you just now i'm being like classist also those are very in style yeah and they're in style but still like you know maybe like in a certain way it's kind of like oh oh sorry i didn't realize we were dealing with somebody so boorish oh if you'd like your

salad underdressed that's a service we provide it's like no no that's this is i promise you i

am not the problem here there is a meal that i still think about not not in any kind of a fancy place at all more in like kind of a uh and i'm oh no i can think of the name of the place i'm not going to name it though because i actually like it a lot and it's one of the rare places in seattle that still has the vibe that i like which is rarer and rarer in places that i feel like i can go to which is like this sort of like seattle diner slash bar kind of culture thing and there's only a few of them around town that sort of fit my standards but the ones as we've talked about on the show that i used to like to go to are owned by some fellow who i who i won't support and so anyway there's one place in south seattle that i'll still go to sometimes that sort of fits the bill and i remember it was right at you know what this was the very first meal i had in a restaurant after the height of the pandemic i remember okay we it was the very i remember how strange it was vives and i we it was outdoor seating only at this time and it wasn't like the height of summertime either i think it was like kind of spring but we were so excited that this place finally reopened they'd been closed obviously during the pandemic they had a few seats outside we sat outside we were masked the whole thing and i'm ordering

one of my favorite like just general kind of breakfast brunchy vein cloggers which is chicken fried steak and I'm like you Luke like I like salt too much in fact I'm actively trying to back off of salt now like I really like like for me literally the hardest thing to give up because

I can eat stuff that's not actually calorically that dense or that interesting give me a piece of celery with a shitload of salt on it and I'll I'll I'll lift anything if you give me a piece of celery in a place to stand i'm like salt to meaties um that's an archimedes joke but like i could eat like like or like a chopped up cucumber with a bunch of salt on it i'm so stoked yeah but

you got you have to give me the salt yeah do you like so hard too i love it oh yeah i mean although

although no one's telling me less pepper yeah no yes i do i love pepper on everything me too like

anyway so i ordered the chicken fried steak and maybe this had to do with the fact that it was pandemic but it was like it came out so salty and i don't know if it was just like the grave if it was just like this over salted ingredient was just the gravy or if it was actually i feel like it was also maybe cooked into maybe the breading or the chicken itself i don't know what went on but it was salty to the point where something was wrong you know what i mean and

like i yeah yeah like somebody had knocked something into the the mix yes and i didn't

say anything but and i wouldn't have sent it back anyway but i just really struggled with like should i just say something because something clearly went wrong back there they didn't taste it like something something spilled or they they mistook the sugar for flour or the salt for flour or something like that like there was something going on and i didn't say anything but i oh i do sometimes wonder like did somebody else ever say anything because this was not normal uh-huh so you didn't ultimately I didn't because I wasn't going to send it and again this was yeah I wonder when I started the story I forgot how close that was to the pandemic so I certainly didn't want to

make a fuss at that time and I wonder also if like it could have even been the case that somebody in the kitchen was like relatively new uh-huh as in like you know the place may have shut down over the pandemic or had a super super modified and then it's like how do you how do you get this sort of uh you know this this operation up and running again and you're grabbing folks in who maybe don't have a lot of experience like becca and i like started dating kind of during a lot of the like most shutdown of the pandemic and we always think about the early days of dating and just kind of like we'll go by a place we go oh remember when we waited for an hour to sit outside that place and the one table and it was 30 degrees you know or like it's it's you know i'm not saying a whole lot but you just kind of forget i saw something oh i just saw something on tiktok the other day that was just um these photos these like eerie photos from the pandemic you know it's set with this kind of weird this was like a little slide show you could kind of go through set to this very eerie music actually but it was like time square literally empty with a sign on one of the marquees saying like stay home and be safe yeah yeah and just like you know imagine you're flipping through that with just it was somebody visiting their elderly loved one but like through a window you know because like it was just it's it's uh it was a people uh it was like an orchestra or something playing music outside of a health care facility in Georgia all of that stuff that went on

it happened so much changed so absolutely quickly and then you know while it seemed like it was going to last forever while we were in the heart of it you look back and it was like a couple of years of our lives which again well we don't have to like relive all if you're a younger person that's a huge chunk of your life you know yeah yeah but like and we don't have to go over all the ins and outs of why the pandemic and the shutdown was just such a mind f but like but uh i mean i still think about it because something reminded me of it the other day too i mean i might even come up in the car yesterday talking to genevieve something about like the pandemic you just think about like my god we just lived through something that was almost a flash in a certain way in history but it upended everything so quickly i literally i mean obviously I don't live in Times Square, but I lived on a very busy two-lane road that was always busy. And I remember just standing in the middle of that road talking to my mom on the phone just because you did not have to worry about traffic. There was just nobody out. And it's like, wow, that wasn't that long ago.

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 razzle-dazzle.

Oh, Kerr, let's thank some dazzling donors. These folks are supporting TBTL with a dazzling donation of dough, a significant outlay, and it is not lost on us. You know, that this is how the show can even happen.

If these folks, if folks like this, these names I'm about to read, just chose to vote with their feet or their dollars and go elsewhere, we would be out of business. But here we are, thanks to folks like Lisa Blum in Bellingham, Washington. Hey, it's our pal Lisa. It's our pal Lisa from the pickleball district. That's right. That's right. Ahead of its curve, that district. Ahead of its time. I noted it was the pickleball district Because there were two different homes I think that had pickleball courts And that was so unusual at the time It's why it was notable And now it's like You can't I don't know, you can't turn around I didn't want to say swing a dead cat Because why would you do that?

No, I've never liked that expression

Yeah, even before I became some kind of a simp For the animals I never really understood that one Anyway, Lisa says I don't really have a whole lot to say other than I so appreciate the guys keeping me company during good times and sane during rough ones. I started listening on prom night when the Mariners were rained out and I needed something to fill my ear holes while making Blackberry Jam.

Wow.

So, like.

Did you do a radio version of the prom? You had a special prom.

We must have done the show from the venue of the prom, I'm thinking, probably. That sounds possible. Or maybe we did the show and then we went to the prom. we had a like a prom like a i guess you call an adult prom on capitol hill in the early days of the show man we're ambitious back in the olden days like that was a that was a hootenanny that

we threw that night if you want to do a tbtl meetup at rinehouse man i can hook us up but just

don't ask you to be in charge of the bocce of anything yes uh needless to say i was hooked i've enjoyed being a small part of the show and luke uh read my email blasting him for getting the plot of To Kill a Mockingbird messed up and later referring to me as Lisa from the Pickleball District when he first moved to Bellingham. My Eleven is used to me talking in drops and occasionally asked me to put the show on during long car rides. Hey, we'll take occasionally. That's not nothing. When there's nothing good on sports radio. Anyway, it's just a privilege to help support something that brings a bunch of people from around the world together. Power out. And I'll say something else about lisa i hope this is okay but there was something that i i had somebody reach out to me looking for some help uh for something going on in bellingham actually kind of between the u.s canada border and this is a real thing somebody basically said uh i have a friend who needs help with something that's real important like a medical situation do you know anybody in bellingham and i reached out to lisa and lisa totally took care of this person really and like Like, yeah, and I heard back from... Did she give an organ? Not yet, but I'm asking her to save that for me.

Yeah, we need that.

In case I shift back into hard-living mode. But no, just like, I guess I just say that not to blow up Lisa's spot, but just to say that Lisa is an incredible, incredible person. And like, just like when I, when somebody asked me, do you know anybody in Bellingham who would be reliable to do something really selfless? I was like, talk to my friend in the pickleball district. So thanks, Lisa.

It's such an amazing way to learn that Lisa's a drug mule. I'll be honest with you.

I was intentionally trying to move away from that so you wouldn't say something exactly like that and make something nice.

Lisa knows that I'm a kidder, and I kid because I love.

Okay. Well, thank you, Lisa. I thought you were going to go on longward. That's why I could slake down some fresca there. You caught me in a fresca break. Sorry. Thank you, Lisa. We appreciate you. Maestro.

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

Man, I'm getting strafed by a Cessna here. Oh, yeah? Yeah, man. That's a low-flying Cessna. I used slake and strafe within one minute of each other. Those are two weird S words. I also misused slake. I said I was trying to take a slake of Fresca. You don't do that. You slake your thirst. You slake your thirst, yeah. A slug of Fresca would slake your thirst.

I use strafe a lot in relation to my cat, Bingo, because Bingo has this thing, and so Bingo has a really good ability to communicate in various ways. I know that that sounds like everybody's proud of their cats. My cat is an honor student, but it is really amazing. Like, he will come up to me sometimes and just tap me on the shoulder, and then I will bend down a little bit, and he's like, okay, thank you, and you'll use me as a stepping stone to get to something. Like, he just has ways of communicating. And I noticed that when he gets so jealous, when he gets I'll tap you on the shoulder

someday, which you had half of Bingo's communication ability.

No, I meant for bubbles. But anyway, I was going to say one way that he lets me know he's hungry is he knows to suck up to me. Like, I don't know how Genevieve got the the short end of the stick.

But, like, to get Genevieve's attention, he'll just, like, go up to her and start knocking shit off of her table or whatever and, like, stare at her until she gets mad and feeds him. For me, he gets real lovey-dovey or, as I say, squirmy-wormy. And he'll come up to me and he's just – I don't know if I'm using it right, but I feel like he strafes me. I'm like, oh, you're straight – the squirmy-wormy is strafing me. Like, does that mean sort of come in and sort of, like, rub up against me like the killer whales in that movie?

Well, I think of strafing as more like a bombing run. So when you were to strafe, you'd be like a bomber in World War II, and you would go down and you would just strafe a military position. You would just drop a bunch of bombs on it, like a strafing run is how I think of it. But I don't think it's far off. He's just strafing you with more cuddles. Well, here's what I'm wondering. What does the Internet say about strafe?

I don't know. Yeah, could you look this up while I ask you my question? Because here's my question. And this is such a dark place to take this, and I wish now that I hadn't even brought this up at all. I think the reason I say strafe, and I may be confusing it with a different word, but do you remember the documentary that was really sad about the way the orcas were being treated in captivity in SeaWorld? And this was around 2014, 2015. Blackfish or something? Yes, and the documentary was very, you know, it was very much watched and talked about in our culture. It was very popular, I guess, for lack of a better word. And I feel like part of the things that was affecting these orcas, I think, where they had some sort of injury on the side of them because they kept strafing. I thought they said they kept strafing each other and rubbing up against each other, but maybe they weren't using the word strafe. Maybe they were using something else. I don't know. Did they scritch or did they skitch us? Rolf. I said Rolf.

Okay, I said Rolf. I'm Stan. Yes. Strafing is the military practice of attacking ground targets from low-flying aircraft using aircraft-mounted automatic weapons.

Yeah.

So maybe not a bomber, but like, you know, an airplane with some guns on it or something.

Yeah, and that makes sense. As soon as you said that, I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's what strafe means. I can picture that from like an old World War II movie. But I'm wondering what the word was in Blackfish. Anyway, that's not—we're already out of the music, the dazzling donor music, which is— Maestro? Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready, go! Everybody rattle, dattle.

Hold on, I was trying to slake down some fresco.

Trying to strafe down some fresco.

Trying to strafe down some fresco. Look who it is. It's Danielle Goodrow.

Hey, one of our Dannys.

That's right, in Nashua, New Hampshire? Question mark. Hi, dummies and John. And hi, tens. I want to use this to once again remind everyone to make sure their estate plans are in order. Boy, as soon as I get an estate, Danny, I'm going to plan it That's what I'm talking about I say this as an elder law attorney Who has not done her own Danny, I love this about you Who has not done her own, but hopes to do so in 2025 Now this, I think, is very relatable And I like that Danny is calling herself in on this, right? Like, that's one of those things that everybody should do But it's not a particularly fun topic to sort of contemplate and it's just like nobody gets up on a particular morning goes this is the day that i'm putting my estate plan together you know but it's of course something that could make the life a lot better for a lot of people around you if uh if you do kind of uh you know do this unpleasant thing uh i want to make sure my furry dependents will be taken care of if something happens to me uh you can see pictures of bear and rider over on the pod pets channel on slack and see so many other adorable critters being raised by tens let's be friends i'm at danny underscore corinne or corinne c-o-r-r-i-n-e on slack at danny h esquire on blue sky and at danny n-h oh i'm sorry danny n-h esquire so danny new hampshire esquire on blue sky and danny n-h on discord do you know Andrew that I have never successfully logged

On to discord I'm on Discord now but I don't there is a tbtl Discord page and I think that's The one that Danny is talking about here Danny D-A-N-I by the way And I don't spend enough time There it is it is a Intimidating world to me for Some reason as far as I feel like it's like

Discord is just mostly people talking about Fugazi but maybe that's discog I don't know I feel like discord seems Like it's a kind of a I don't know, like more intense than Reddit. This is, Andrew, this is my theory based on having never logged into Discord. I think the background

of Discord is it came out of the gaming community. Oh, okay, okay. Another reason

why I wouldn't have very good intel on it. Danny says, once again, thanks to the business boys for keeping TBTL going, and I respectfully request longer shows. Oh, Danny, that would put you in the minority.

I think for sanity's sake. I am no longer binging all of the political and news content I can find and I need the distraction Okay, that's all I have. Can't wait to cringe when I hear this message read on the show Nothing cringeworthy at all Danny the above message was sent for informational entertainment purposes only That's pretty good pretty good earning that Esquire. Yes. Thank you Danny. Appreciate you. Thanks for making TV chill happen hello and welcome to top story um i uh i forget and we have talked about this and yet i still forget andrew are you up on the white lotus or are you just considering being i know you're up

on severance yeah and by the way you you i assume have you given up on severance i haven't given up

but i want to tell you about what happened to me last night okay because it may indicate something

okay sounds good i will say i watched the latest severance last night and i whole i really liked it which is okay good everybody's complaining about it and it's like i saw somebody say it's

like 48 minutes on my least favorite character or something yeah which i don't even know what that means like which character it could be my most favorite character yeah i don't know if you

it's one of my it's literally one of my favorite characters i loved it so i might just be out of step with what people like about that show it was also a shorter episode but that's not we're here to talk about um the um white lotus white lotus i've watched the first episode and i liked it in fact i even i think i went back and watched it a second time because the first time i was playing cards and i was like i want to go back and actually watch it watch it um but that's where i am so i'm at least three episodes behind but i plan on watching it i have definitely and this is

like the character that parker posey is playing in the show but she's pretending she's acting uh but i'm not pretending i'm just kind of a basic b andrew and i just think right now the white lotus is what my intellect can handle versus versus severance so last night i uh i am Already I'm excited by the way I made this and by made I mean Becca made me this pizza dough you know how I've been on this journey of trying to eat whatever it is I want but try to make sure that if possible it's not overly processed that's been my thing for 2025 like if I want to have a pizza have a pizza but maybe make it at home like make make the dough fresh or buy as I did buy pre-made dough you know at like Safeway or whatever but like i went for whole wheat at that point and try to just like use use ingredients that i could recognize cheese i know what that is tomato sauce you know stuff like that so i i had this uh i bought this whole wheat dough at the safeway that i was really pretty happy with but i said to becca like do you have something that's like even simpler than this and she was like uh hold my uh hold my baking powder she made me this ball oh dough that is i want to give out the recipe it's two to one all-purpose flour to plain greek yogurt so greek yogurt mixed with all-purpose flour two to one and then a teaspoon of baking powder a little bit of salt and then she threw in some italian herbs and some garlic powder very simple sent me home with this ball of this dough and i made a pizza with it last night it's one of the best homemade pizzas i've ever had it might have been the best homemade pizza i've ever had off of this dough that's just Greek yogurt and flour and some salt? I mean, I may start eating pizza seven nights a week. I've still got half of the dough ball left. I might have to go ham on that tonight. I don't know. Anyway, so I'm making my little pizza. I'm watching my White Lotus. And I had seen somewhere that I would imagine you don't remember this character. But there is a character on this season of the White Lotus who is kind of like maybe the number two in charge of the hotel. he's a white guy with brown hair and he seems very kind of sycophantic to the woman who's the co-owner like she does a performance you know she's some kind of singer and she's singing and he's very like obsessed with her you would kind of think

I haven't seen her performance yet but I think he's the same guy so there's also the woman from last season who is visiting this location of the White Lotus Hotel and she's like there on a business trip and he was in because I've only seen episode one But I think he's the one who's sort of showing her around and showing her like the altar. No, not.

Well, maybe. No, I think that's a local guy who's also a masseur. By the way, I learned the word masseur today instead of masseuse. I always thought it was masseuse.

Then what's a masseuse? Nothing?

Well, it's not Rolling Stone approved. I was listening to a story about the unfortunate demise of Liam Payne from One Direction. And it was an article on tape and they said something about a masseur. And I was like, oh, I've never, I always have used masseuse.

Madames and masseuses. Thank you. Boy, that's a good question. I don't want to derail us again. But yeah, then is there a difference between a masseur and a masseuse? I don't know.

Well, this person that I'm thinking of is kind of more like. how do I describe him he's he's he's just like again I think he's like the general manager okay

I don't think I've but maybe I haven't met him or I don't remember yeah he is he doesn't do a lot

in the first episode that's that's particularly noteworthy in the second episode he gets a little more interesting because he's just kind of but he's very like I would say he's the definition of like sort of obsequious like he's just a little bit like being very kind of like um sort of you know like attending to everyone but in a way like you feel like there's something going on behind the scenes for this guy if that makes sense uh-huh well i just was like looking at tiktok and some kind of film person that i follow or that come came up on my for you page said like oh man i can't believe like who this i knew i recognized this guy from white lotus this kind of like odd kind of side character it's like he's the guy from zone of interest and i had heard that this movie zone of interest is really pretty phenomenal so when i finished white lotus i was like well i should probably watch severance now and i was like i just don't know if i have it in me so i was like why don't i look up some light fare like zone of interest a movie about auschwitz andrew and what i will say is it is a phenomenal piece of filmmaking in my opinion it is like you remember how we've talked about the scene in a real pain where they actually visit that particular you know um concentration camp and how sort of quiet it is and how for me anyway it was like it was a way of of of considering that experience of those people that were taken there that i hadn't ever experienced it that way because my way into most of this is is like schindler's list it's like spielbergian it's like people are giving impassioned speeches or are saying things it's like it's it's very much explained to you as a viewer that this is horrific and it's in the moment whereas the a real pain

thing i mean that was just the way they did that was just phenomenal but it was also through the lens of history you're seeing modern people sort of trying to absorb it while you're trying to

absorb it like you know 60 years later i would say what i realized watching zone of interest is uh jesse eisenberg very much watched zone of interest yeah and i don't say that as any kind of a critique or whatever but like that that that moment uh from a real pain it's like it's sort of the entirety of this film in a way like I could not look away even though it's it's obviously such a absolutely horrific uh subject matter it's basically following this guy who's kind of the the person in charge of Auschwitz and that guy who plays the person in charge of Auschwitz is the weird creepy general manager from White Lotus and like character wise you couldn't get much different you know the the the manager general manager seems like kind of like a beta cuck just kind of like very and then for him to go from that to being like the guy running this unbelievable the scene of unbelievable horror but the way the story is told is it's all his life with his family in this kind of beautiful home with a garden that shares a wall with Auschwitz and the way that you experience the horror of Auschwitz is the sound of Auschwitz as he's having like a birthday lunch for his kid it is it's so it's so ominous and yet so subtle like it's just i mean it is again it's such a hard topic and i'm like it's weird recommending a film that will just put you in like a pretty dark place it is the it's it's it's the it's the most again i'll just say along with a real pain but even more it is just it's somehow connected me to the horror of this in a way that i had previously not even with a real pain now i remember because you've

been saying zone of interest and when i even saw it on the show sheet today i'm like why why do i feel like somebody was telling me about this or and i remember it's sort of like i i also associated this with a real pain but i didn't know why whether somebody was recommending it and now i recall what it was and it wasn't long after seeing a real pain my smart tv just recommended this to me and i didn't know anything about it but it was like a very beautiful tile on my screen but i knew nothing about it so i hit play on it i think and i can't even remember what

the opening was but i was like family down at the river and i was but it was beautiful i remember

like i could tell this was a movie that i wanted to give all of my attention to and that it was going to be both beautiful but incredibly painful and i remember thinking like not not for right now we're not for right now and then i think maybe after our conversation about the eisenberg movie i think i saw some people recommending this on the tbtl slack movie page or something like kind of talking about but again recommending it i don't know if that's too strong of a word but like definitely saying like it wasn't they felt like they experienced something by watching this so thank you for reminding me why this was on my radar i could not quite remember it but your description of it got me there and now i'm like yes i do need to well it took me how many it took me 25 years to finally watch Schindler's list so I guess

I don't know how long it's going to take me to, like, gear up to sit down to watch this.

For the TBTL 50th anniversary, we'll get you a review. I mean, yeah, it's made by, it's written and directed by the guy that made Sexy Beast.

Oh, my God, I didn't know that. Oh, God, I love the visuals.

And, I mean, it couldn't be more different as a show goes, but it's, like, from, like, I mean, I don't know, me just, like, me just describing moments from a movie about Auschwitz that has been out for five years that I just watched. it's not probably particularly useful but it's like there are these little touches like oh the other thing is you know i'm had to watch it with the subtitles on because it's in it's in german but the problem was it also had that meant that like some of the subtitles because of how it's designed obviously for somebody who's hearing impaired it's also telling you what's going on in the background if you know what i mean i just wanted the closed cat i just wanted the words Maybe there was another setting I couldn't figure out on my smart TV.

How smart is that? What if you turned off all of the settings? Usually a foreign film is going to have its own subtitle, so it doesn't need the EAS version. Maybe that was my problem. Maybe you should have turned them off in the film. Maybe I should have.

You probably had them baked in, I'll bet. That's a good point. Yeah, because I was probably using the TV version, which had a little bit more information than I wanted all the time. I was like, indistinct chatter. Indistinct chatter. you know like but i didn't know how to turn it off but like there are these little bits like you know again it's just this movie where the the it's so on one level it's just so spare and so kind of like subtle and then there's these little things baked in like they have this very nice home and this very nice garden that his wife you know they have all these kids and his wife has spent all this time really beautifying this this piece of land they're on and like but then there's just like the baby never stops crying they have this new baby they have like you know i don't know five kids or something and it just just like it's just this thing that's never particularly addressed but it's just always like the i forget the baby's name it's you know something german it's like so and so crying so and so crying and then they have this dog that's kind of unruly and everyone's always just shooing the dog and the dog is always just kind of like in the background doing something it's never a big part of the plot but it's it's it's always there like there are just these subtle touches that are just incredible writing and, and, and filmmaking. Like I just, again, for a movie that is horrific in what it, it, it sort of considers or talk, you know, talks about, I can't recommend it highly enough. It is a brilliant piece of filmmaking.

And I think it's on HBO, right? It's on something that I have access. Yes, it is.

It is. And just a little side note, Andrew, so you feel a little bit more, you feel like you have an ally in your content stealing ways. i learned that becca can borrow my hbo thing and we can both be watching oh yeah yeah and like low-key how have they not figured that out i signed it in at her house this weekend because she wanted to watch white lotus and then i was like okay i'm gonna start watching white lotus here tell me if it kicks you off and she's like doing just fine with white lotus down there so i'm not saying that we should share our password but it turns out it might work for that one well

Well, we have, I don't know, I have no problem saying this, but like, you know, like we share our HBO with a couple of people. And I know that one of those people then kicks us back a Paramount Plus. I think those are good relationships.

I do, too. And I don't I don't feel bad for those companies. I mean, that's a slippery slope. Is it like how bad do I feel? That's when I decide if I'm going to pay for something or not. I just hope people continue to feel very bad for TBTL.

Well, the thing about DBTL is you don't have to pay anything at all. You can listen to it for free. You don't have to.

You and your friend can both listen to it at the same time in different places.

It won't stop you. You don't need a VPN. You don't need to mask your IP address. We are putting it out there and just hoping that people realize if you do like this to keep it going. So it's a different standard, and I kind of don't mind that. To me, I don't know if this just sounds like absolutely batshit, But like, I don't know. I think there's something wholesome about like having a relationship with a friend or something or like, OK, I'll share a HBO. You share a Paramount Plus. And then maybe it's like communal living. Exactly. Because I don't have Apple and I don't want to do this with the listeners. I don't be very clear about that. But I just mean like, you know, people like that, that I know IRL that like I don't have Disney or Apple, but I would absolutely happy. i'd be happy to toss like you know a close friend of mine a little a little hbo if they wanted to a little hey want a little netflix give me a little disney sure why not it's fun yeah well

it's like i said like a little free library but of streaming passwords yeah yeah and and you and

you know somebody is paying you're not totally going around that's it that's why i think it's

kind of again i i just have so i have so little sympathy for these like mega corporations that are constantly being absorbed by even larger entities to where like

If they're getting a little bit less subscriber money, but a group of friends are kind of sharing and it's working. Like, I was just surprised it worked because I would think that would be an incredibly knowable thing for HBO. Like, how many people are using this Luke Burbank account right now in different places? Like, you just think it would be like, you can use it here or there, but not here and there.

Well, remember, there was a story we talked about on the show a while back that Netflix was tamping down on that. And I don't use Netflix a lot outside of the house. But, I mean, I do have it on various devices sometimes. Oh, you know what? I think Vives and I did maybe butt up against that at one point because I think I was watching something on Netflix downstairs on the TV. And then I came upstairs to probably eat some ramen noodles or something. I'm like, well, I'll just continue it on my phone up here for a second. But then I couldn't because Genevieve was watching it on a different TV or something. I was like, oh, okay. So there's your two devices system working. which also i don't blame them necessarily for i don't i don't feel like that's a low blow like in a certain way okay we're paying you know we're paying for this content like i i don't know i will say this and not to be rude but like i we talk a lot about me like kind of getting skirting around some of the rules about like maybe watching a mariners game on a streaming service or the nfl

which is or the nfl or whatever evil organization anyway and every now and then i get emails or

messages from people who want advice on that i will say that while i don't mind talking about this on the show like i draw a very strong line between giving people advice in the listening audience about how to let's just say pirate things like that is i that is for some reason with the intent to distribute like you can figure it out everybody like i'm not i'm not here to help

you steal stuff and i don't mean to i joke about that with you i don't mean to uh i thought you were going to say that there are listeners giving you grief about it which i don't know no no no I don't mean to throw you under any bus there.

People usually want help, and I'm like, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to. I just, I don't, there's something about that where it's kind of like, oh, yeah, you hear about this podcaster who gives out advice on how to steal content.

Let's not have that be our niche, if possible.

Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. No, man, it's not from a female.

All right, emails or V-mails. Yes, last week we got pretty obsessed with a commercial that actually it turns out the world was obsessed with maybe about a decade ago, but it was new to us, which is this lawyer in one of the Dakotas named Scott Hoy. And this commercial went viral years ago because it was so confusing.

Do you actually have one car accidents recently involving rollovers and serious injuries to passengers? I don't know if it's video games or what But it's so unfair To after something like this To blame people in the backseat Or say they deserved it I don't like consoling these parents About what's happened But I'll do it until it stops Will you please stop

I'm Scott White

There's so much about that That is funny and confusing And his speech pattern is funny Now I've read interviews Because he was made fun of by Fallon i think and so then he had to do like local interviews being like well i guess he sent a note to his no no the advertising agency that he hired sent him an apology note when this went uh viral i always kind of wonder about that when you do something earnestly and then it becomes viral for being bad like how does that play out for everybody but you and i aside from just laughing at it we're also just sort of confused like why are we talking about the people in the back seat

why are they talking about video games who's his who's his potential client here usually one of these personal injury attorneys will say like have you been injured in an accident i'll fight for you

i couldn't figure out who he was trying to fight for here so um we got a note from a listener let's see am i allowed to use his name i think so this is from somebody named james but identifying as a danny in this case because of course all of our lawyers are named danny like we heard during the dazzling donor message uh james says i'm a danny in colorado i don't like personal injury law but i've done it to help people out if you're a passenger hurt in a one car accident and scott does say a one car accident you have to sue the driver this actually means suing their insurance company a common defense is that the passenger contributed to their injury by causing the accident or making the injury worse by for instance distracting the driver or not wearing a seat belt or something like that it gets more confusing because the insurance company uh sucks as they all do and you might then enlist the driver as another plaintiff in pursuing the insurance company for bad faith dealings meaning not protecting the driver anyway as a lawyer i'm begging you once again to stop confessing to crimes on the airwaves that's what jumped out

at me from that email have we been other than creative content creative content collaborating have we committed to or admitted to any uh any

Thank you.

illegal activities i hope not i don't think i don't do a lot of illegal things on and i do a

lot of them but i don't talk about it on the show is my approach yeah um okay so that makes some sense so in other words it would it would appear that what scott hoy who scott hoy is appealing to is the person in the back seat the person who's been injured in a one car accident um and who is facing an insurance company that is working on behalf of the driver that is trying to say that the person in the backseat contributed to the crash. Therefore, the insurance company doesn't have to pay out the other injured party. And that's what he doesn't like. And then it gets a little bit more confusing when he's talking about the families and the parents because maybe he just means he doesn't like to have to explain to parents that the people in the backseat did, to some degree, create the conditions for the crash. I mean, that's where it kind of loses me again. But it sounds like the issue, as explained well by James, a.k.a. Danny, is that if you and I were riding in a car together, Andrew, and I crashed it and you were seriously injured or even not seriously injured, but you were owed some money for the event, you'd have to sue me because I was doing something kind of, you know, that was unsafe or whatever. And then my insurance company would be trying to prove that you were doing something to distract me, that this was actually somehow your fault. And where James Hoyt.

It destroys relationships.

I mean, it can't be great for it. And where James Hoyt comes in, I guess, is defending you against the scurrilous rumors of the insurance company, my insurance company, that says that you are distracting me. It could be that I'm playing a video game. He doesn't know. Or what?

Or what? I also like and I know that this is just kind of bad writing or I don't know if it's how much it's writing or off the cuff, but he really implies at the end that like his efforts to console actually have an impact on stopping this kind of behavior, which is not a causal relationship at all. But that's another funny thing. I'll keep consoling it in these people until this stops. And it sort of sounds like he's saying my consolations will stop this. But that's not obviously what he means.

yeah and also i don't really know how scott hoy uh protecting or defending the rights of somebody injured as a passenger in a one car accident i don't know how that is going to bring it to a halt exactly right yeah that's nothing there's nothing about his defense of those people that would in any way change the conditions of these one car crashes it might be video games we don't

know we don't know it might be video game that part i think is it's kind of like this idea of one car crash. He's thinking about a young... Oh, no, I don't think distracted by video games. My thought on that is... Oh, playing video games. He's probably thinking about young people behind the wheel. Yes, thinking it's a video game. They're driving too quickly down the neighborhood. Thinking they're playing Spy Hunter. Yeah, and then they hit a flower... I don't know. They hit a big brick flower pot outside of a nursing home. I went more current with

a Spy Hunter reference. I don't know if you ever... Did you play Spy Hunter as a kid?

No, but I often drop tacks out the back of my car when somebody is... Okay, so you're familiar with No, no, I played Spy Hunter. I loved Spy Hunter. I didn't have it. I think Tim had it. Some friend of mine had it. I loved playing Spy Hunter.

I don't think anyone I knew had it, but it was like at the 7-Eleven or whatever, at the pizza place. It was just like, oh, man, that game was so fun. We dropped some oil on someone.

Dropped some oil, dropped some nails or tacks. And I think, could you blow smoke, too, to distract the people behind you, the drivers behind you?

I think you could. I think you could. We would see that, unfortunately, now come to life when people are rolling coal on people. Right. Art imitating life, imitating art, imitating bad politics. I believe it's free speech. I believe rolling coal is now protected by free speech. It's the only protected free speech. Yes. It's the, anyway, okay. That's a good place for us to end this before we go to Negative Town. So that's where we're going to end it. But we're going to start up with Negative Town first thing tomorrow when we come back with more Imaginary Radio. So we will see you then. In the meantime, everyone, have a great Monday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.