Muse

What are you guys doing here? Emergency band meeting. I'm working. This is my work. You're not working, you're just holding a sign. Yeah, well, I got the job because we didn't have any gigs. Well, how can I give you a gig if you've ever got this job? Yeah, but that's why I got the job. Because there were no gigs. Well, I can't get you a gig if you're going to always go and do a job. Yeah, but that's... I needed the job because there were no gigs. Well, I've got you a gig, so what's with the job? Yeah, but that's it. That's the thing. I got the job because there were no gigs, man. It's a chicken-egg situation. What do you mean? What's he mean, chicken? Well, you know, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Oh, that's irrelevant, isn't it? Or the other egg. Stupid. The chicken, obviously. Well, where did the chicken come from? Well, it came from the... Ah. You see, the egg. You're the egg. You're a bad egg.

T-B-T-L.

Guess what day it is. Guess what day it is.

It's Friday, Friday. I'm going to get down on Friday. Everybody's looking forward to the weekend. It's garbage. All I've been thinking about all week is garbage. I mean, I just can't stop thinking about it.

Allow me to introduce myself. Maybe you've heard of me. California Magazine just did a piece on me. With the exception of being misquoted several times, I thought it was a pretty good article.

I'm not trying to be disrespectful or anything, but I kind of feel like you're winging this and it's going bad. stinky well all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a friday edition of tbt all the show just might be too beautiful to live targets targets my name is luke burbank i am your host if you want to talk i've got two ears and they're tuned to the listening station coming to you from the madrona hill studio perched high above the mighty columbia where it's another just wet cold unpleasant day didn't know you like to get wet though spring is off to a questionable start it's that it's that thing of when it's really cold like your hands and extremities are going numb when you're outside but also it's raining it's usually one or the other like very cold but then okay it's dry we'll take that or it's raining but it's a little bit warmer and we're getting the worst of both worlds and yet my friends you've arrived at the best of both worlds And that is episode 4,428 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

Where we got some voicemails that have been voice mail. Is it like deer? Is the plural of voicemails still voicemail? I'll ask Andrew in a minute. Anyway, we've got some voicemail to clear out from the TBTL listener line. A 206-414-TBTL. 206-414. 8285. Also, we've got the TBTL community calendar. Folks getting up to things, and we want to tell other folks about those things. So we'll get into that as well. And we'll say hello to the aforementioned longest-running co-bro of the show. Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's the guy who brought the rock and roll edge to the chipmunks. And one other thing you should know about him... I like turtles! It's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning,

my friend. Good morning, Luke. You know what's not interesting? I was going to start by saying you know what's interesting, but then I realized what I'm about to say is actually not that interesting

Actually, that's good, you know, that's level setting Exactly Now that's interesting

Expectations are a really important part

It's like ego, ego is the killer but right behind that, the manslaughter is expectations

So earlier this week at some point, I don't remember exactly why we were sort of talking about language and like how some things that have been traditionally nouns sometimes are slangified and then turned into verbs. Yeah, saying this needs sorted. Well, there is that whole thing, but putting that aside for a second. Oh, that's what you're referring to. Well, it's the same conversation, but I'm talking about the thing where some words act as both nouns and verbs, and some are kind of traditional. Okay. I'm sort of kind of quoting a conversation that is now going on online on the same topic, but rain would be a good example, to borrow Corinne's example. Like you can say it's raining as a verb, but rain is also a noun. It's the stuff that falls from the sky. And so, you know, there is a obviously a long tradition of words being both nouns and verbs. But, you know, it is both. Somebody had asked me what a pet peeve of kind of a slangy pet peeve is. And I said adulting, like that idea of taking something that's traditionally a noun and turning it into a verb kind of irritated me a little bit. I also think I have other hangups about adulting and the cultural connotation. All of that is to say, Corinne pointed out in the chat that mail is, and I know I have trouble saying that word in ways that people in the Pacific Northwest like to hear, but I'm talking about the thing.

Are we talking M-A-L-E or M-A-I-L? M-A-I-L, mail. You can mail something, and also the object that you have is mail. Like, I have a stack of mail. That's a noun. And I can mail something. It's a verb. Same with email. You can email something, and also you can receive an email. It's a noun and a verb. You were talking about voicemails, and you got a little bit in your head there in the beginning. And voicemail breaks the tradition. I told you this is not interesting. But you can receive a voicemail, but you can't voicemail someone. You can leave a voicemail.

Asked and answered. I said in my opening, Andrew will know, and you were talking about it. I really appreciate this.

But, like, you can email me, you can mail me something, but you can't voicemail me. You can leave me a voicemail, and the only verb there is leave.

Can I de-mail you? I'd like to grow a pair sometime.

You used to be able to. I don't know if you can anymore. I'm not sure what's going on in the inbox.

You're right, though. You can't, I can't.

You can't voicemail me.

Or we make it. Well, the mummy used to voicemail me.

He would say that. I'm voicemailing you or I'm leaving you a voicemail? No, but he would do it.

And this is, he was one of the first people, you know, life finds a way. I'm sorry, sketchiness finds a way. And he was one of the first people to figure out that there was a thing you could do where you could send, you could basically call someone on their cellular phone and you could go right to their voicemail intentionally. You could go around the process of their phone ringing and them seeing that you were dialing. And by the way, this really speaks to what a different time i don't know 2000 whatever this was was because nowadays i would like more people to avail themselves of this service because i'm uh i'd like to not ever answer the phone again if possible but in those days the typical thing was because texting was not you know the default communication form basically what happened is like we'd have plans and and then he would be trying to get out of him at the last minute but he wouldn't want to call and say i can't uh and actually i wonder if this might not have even been cell phone this might have been landline he had figured out that there was a way that you could go you could go right around the actual call ringing and just go right to i left you a voicemail and that was his trick because he didn't want to have he didn't want me to pick up the phone and go all right i'll see you in 10 minutes and him say oh i uh you know insert bullshit and so he had figured out that you could just basically leave someone you could you could voicemail them i know this doesn't this isn't really that wouldn't be how you would describe it so i'm not actually trying to argue this point but it reminds me that he did figure out how to essentially send you a voicemail without ever having your phone ring so then he can be like ah i left you a message and it took me months to figure out i was like am i losing my mind here and then somebody else clarified no no there's a way to do that and

he just figured it out that's interesting when you first started talking or that i want to see Maybe I don't need to continue to try to categorize all of our remarks as interesting or not interesting. Maybe that way lies madness and insult. But no, I thought at first you were – I didn't realize that was going to take sort of a negative turn because one thing – I have a few friends. In fact, a friend just did this yesterday. I have a few friends who like to send kind of longish voice memos via text these days, and it's a sweet thing. Like it's kind of nice. I heard from my friend she wanted to weigh in on some TV shows that we've been watching lately, Severance and White Lotus, and just left me like a nice, I don't know, two or three minute like just voice memo as opposed to just texting it all out. And it was nice to hear her voice. And I got a few friends who do that. And I kind of like that. But that's not what you're talking about, a guy who's trying to like pull one over.

well yeah just trying to back out of something that they'd agreed to nay might have even instigated but then not wanting to have to deal with the conversation around the fact that they were bailing yeah right this was this was an early way as far as that recording voice memo thing and sending them i decided i don't know a year ago that i was going to start doing that with my siblings a lot more and i did it well i bart simpson did andrew i did it one time and then I threw it in the closet. But it was a fun one time. I don't know why. Why is that hard for me to stick with as a thing? Because there's something that's a little bit more personal about it. You know, I think I got it from like Becca and her friends. I think they use something

called Marco Polo. I remember you telling me about this. This was years ago. But like, I thought it

was really a cool thing. And I don't know how they were able to stick with it. And I'm not maybe it's because I do this all day. So I'm all talked out by the end of the day. But like, they would just leave each other these like pretty substantial pretty long just kind of like updates on whatever and i thought it was quite charming and a nice way to to feel close to your friends even when you're not maybe geographically right next to them and i again i endeavor i probably announced on the show uh with great fanfare that i was going to start doing that and then i did it like once or twice and i think my siblings so i sent it to her like oh my gosh this is so cool let's start doing this and then we never did it again you know i never did it

it on the reg i don't think but that's how you say regularly um i don't think i ever did on the reg but way back in the day before all of this newfangled technology and we're talking about cassette tapes here i'm pretty sure that because i was a pretty big letter writer like a lot of long letters too like a lot of my friends when i was in high school were a year older than me So a big, big what's it? So they could read. Exactly. So a big chunk of my high school friend group all went to college in the same year. You know, I mean, I still had some friends who were still in my in my grade that I hung out with. But a huge chunk of my social circle all kind of scattered across the United States as they went to various schools. And so we wrote letters. Boy, Luke, did we write letters. And boy, looking back on it, I kind of I guess I don't think about this that much. I mean, it got to the point I remember writing my friend Kathy a letter that was a spiral. I started on the outside of a piece of plain white paper and wrote in tiny letters a real letter. But I just kept spiraling the page until eventually I ended in the middle of it. Like we just got creative because we're just spending so much time. We didn't have the Internet to dink around with. There were no ticks. There were no talks. And so we would write letters. But I also am pretty sure me and my friend Dave occasionally would send each other a cassette tape with our thoughts, like which is like the very early version of sending a voice memo. Right. And I swear this American life is like sort of used. I think back in the 90s, I think people did that a lot more and it actually could lead to some good radio.

Right. And this also you've pointed this out that like this is kind of one neighborhood over, but also the like the mixtape or the burn CD as a sort of. as a sort of act of love as an act of thinking about someone i do think that in i i'm gonna stop myself right here because i can just hear myself and the audience aging it's like we went to that beach in the m night shavalan movie and we're all just getting older from me saying this but you know as things have gotten easier and easier in certain ways there's those i was never the greatest at those things like i just didn't have the follow so the good news is i'm consistent i've consistently been unable to follow through with things throughout my life but uh i am uh you know i was the recipient of some of those things from you know i don't know friends and maybe people

that there was a certain romantic interest there a little spark maybe maybe an unsaid spark at times

yeah and then like and just like you know the way that there are certainly songs that i will hear to this day that i will think about like oh the person who made me that you know that burn cd or that mixtape or whatever, it was a, I don't want to say it was a simpler time, but it was nice that we were doing those things. I don't know. I've got to figure out ways to re-engage with that a little bit. Or in my case, engage for the first time.

Well, yeah. I mean, to say something positive about you is that jacket looks nice. Boy, what a change. That jacket looks nice. And also, I think that technology, I feel nostalgia for old technology. It's just because I'm old and I'm a nostalgic person, but I don't want to lose sight of the fact that a lot of technologies do bring us closer together. And I am always very charmed by your conversations about your family text chain, the Hawk Squad, which started as a way, I mean, if I understand it correctly, it's called Hawk Squad because it was just a way for everybody to talk about the football games, the Seahawks games when they were on. But now it's just, like, a very loving way for, like, you, your many siblings, your daughter, your parents, like, three generations. My nieces and nephews. Your nieces and nephews. I'm sorry to leave them out. Like, we have three generations of people who are all on this big family text chain. And that is really sweet in the same way making somebody a mixtape is sweet. You're absolutely right.

Thank you for, thanks for reminding me of that because you're absolutely right. And in fact, you're getting emotional. It's surprisingly not about my family Not about the people who've loved me since My very first days on this planet That, I've got a complete emotional control I started talking about The artist formerly known as Prince Andrew On the day of his passing, forget it, game over But, no, but you're absolutely right I'm just scrolling back on Hawk Squad now And looking at just like all of the Just the ridiculous, it's like St. Paddy's Day Because, you know, my mom Is like

I just really barbaro'd you there, sorry about that

My mom is like obsessed with policing if people in our family have green on or not for St. Patrick's Day. So there's this whole, everybody checking in, like my brother David has got his beautiful, still new daughter, Gemma, and he's showing off that they're wearing green. And then my sister Liz is showing the corned beef that she's going to slow roast at her house. And my niece Maddie over at college is checking in And just like, it's a really sweet little nice way of communicating and being in touch that we would not do if we were using the Pony Express.

or we were sending postcards. And this is only because of one of our favorite topics on the show, Andrew, SMS technology.

That's right. Do you want me to give you a little background around that? Yeah, what do you got? Luke, I got this. Well, Andrew, speaking of what you got,

now that was a very, very natural segment. I could see where we were going there. I was like, all I got is this. I wish I could say that I was setting you up for that. I wasn't, but it was just a happy accident. Hey, any big weekend plans, my friend?

Well, you know what always happens with this segment is you always ask me, and then I talk too much, and we never hear about your weekend. That's all right. So I will try to keep this short. I will say, socially, I have nothing on my dance card right now, but you know that later on today, as soon as we're done here, I'm heading into KOW to be on the Bill Radke live show.

How are you feeling about that?

You know what, Luke? The reason I bring it up is I'm feeling pretty nervous, which is interesting. I know that it sounds like I'm making a joke because the first time I was on that show, I talked about it for weeks and months about how almost paralyzed I was with nervousness. I can't remember the last time I was that nervous. It felt like I was going in for a job interview live on the air. I just hadn't done live radio in so long. And it wasn't like my show. I didn't have any control over it. And I think very highly of the people who appear on KOW. This is a smart. This is a very smart audience with very smart guests and a smart radio station. I was very, very nervous, as long-time listeners of the show know, the first time I was on that program. And then I've been on, I don't know, like what, I don't know, five times or something now. And sometimes I just kind of, you know, I've gotten a little bit more used to it. I can picture what it's going to be like when I go in there. There aren't as many question marks. I think I'm not freaking out like I was the first time. But somehow, I don't know if it's been a while since I've been on. I don't know if it's just my brain chemistry today. I'm just sort of looking at the topics And maybe it's because the world has changed so much That's what I was wondering about And I feel like, you know, I think maybe Part of the anxiety comes from me really Wanting to feel like I'm presenting Maybe like I'm representing a point of view You know, because I'm going to be on with a political reporter K.O.W., great guy Actually listens to TB2, I believe, Scott And a woman who is a Republican Who ran for state senate I think maybe last time and runs sort of a business organization. And, you know, we're throwing around topics. And, like, I've told you this off air. I think maybe the first time I went on, I was really like, okay, this is going to be like a debate. I've got to be ready. And the thing is it's not a debate. I don't like debating. I really don't. I don't know if you find that hard to believe if you think I'm argumentative on this show, but I really don't like a debate format. That's not what I'm good at. I like chatting with people. And it's okay if we don't always see things the same way. after my first few experiences I found it really reassuring as far as like human nature is concerned that you can go on and have conversations and it's not I'm gonna win this conversation that's not the vibe over there uh-huh but I think like the moments before I go in there I feel like I really need to remind myself that I need to remind myself that like all of progressive Seattle is not putting their hopes on me you know what I mean which is I mean that that is the most pompous thing to even admit to that that would be a concern, but like that's kind of what's going

through my head. Sure. I totally get that. Um, Genevieve won't let you talk about this stuff at home. So where are you going to get it out of your system? Right. No, but I mean, in all seriousness, I, I think because the times when I used to be on that show, I didn't know really what I was talking about and I made no attempt to learn what I was talking about. I, I, I set the bar very low for myself which was like I'm gonna try to get a couple of decent jokes off and maybe say something in a way that's kind of coming in from the outsider perspective that might I don't know give a different perspective but in a very very kind of I don't know unserious way I guess you could say which it's it's shocking they don't have me back on that show anymore with that level of commitment but I can understand how you it's like the city you live in you you really live in the city too I was thinking about this I was listening to I told you Chris Hayes' show this week and he was talking to the guy who's in charge of basically like the I think it's the MTA it's the like all of the sort of public transportation in the city of New York which it turns out is a fairly large operation it is you know there was this was interesting he said on the subway now this is to believing the stats from the guy who's the head of the MTA if I'm using that right if that's what the thing he's running he said that uh serious crimes they average i think it was four to six serious crimes a day on the subway and they move four million people they move more people in new york city subway system or their transit system than the city of los angeles and what if the city of los angeles had four to six serious crimes a day for some perspective on the safety of the subway system

they're moving people

that is the equivalent of the entire population of L.A., not the people who are riding public transport in L.A. Yes, the entire population of Los Angeles essentially is riding the subways and public transportation in New York.

And so it's not, you know, they'd like it to be zero serious crimes, but let's imagine a city the size of Los Angeles that has four to six serious crimes a day. That'd be seen as you were doing a pretty good job with the crime. He was kind of pushing back on these like New York Post type narratives that the subway is a hellscape in New York City, et cetera, et cetera. All that is to say, in the interview, Chris was talking about how he takes the subway every single day, and I believe one of his kids now is old enough to take the subway to school. And so he was like, this is not something that I just have a kind of a theoretical or hypothetical thought about. This is my—I do this every single day. It also explains how he is listening to so much TBTL, because I think there's just some time where he just has no option other than to go into his phone and listen to something he's downloaded. This guy also announced that they're improving the Wi-Fi in the tunnels so you can do anything, and I was like, cut that off right now. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, sir. Pre-download a TBTL. So download it, put it in the library, listen to it. Load it onto your iPod. We don't need any competition down there, please.

Sync your iPod to your laptop. Thank you.

But here's my point in all that. When there are topics that come up potentially on the Week in Review on KUOW, it is your lived experience. You are not peace and love. You're not driving in from Issaquah. You're not a person who spends a minimal amount of time on the mean streets of Aurora and on the E-Line and at the baseball games and around town. Like, you really, so it's very, it makes sense that you, it means a lot to you, and again, you're living it every day, and so I could see you generating a bit of pressure on yourself to just say the exact right thing to kind of fix the problem, which is, of course, an impossible burden.

Yeah, and you know, maybe right now, looking at the show sheet, there aren't a lot of things that I have, like, personal stories about. Like, that's always a very, that's what I like to gravitate towards, and I don't, by the way, it sort of sounds like it's, I'm describing it like a crutch. I actually think it's also what I like to listen to when people are talking about, you know, policies or talking about anything. I want to hear I want to hear it told in kind of like a story. Well, this thing happened to me. I'm just sort of drawn to that kind of stuff. And I think that that's when I'm talking. That's what I do best. You know, on the show, the reason I can even do this show with you is because half of it is me just turning a topic into, well, this happened to me at the grocery store or this happened to me when I was taking my garbage bins out. Oh, shit. I got to go get my garbage bins. Can you hold on a sec? i did forget that they're out there um but um see real life weekend can't do that i can't do that on kow anyway i i'm looking at the topics i do think it's been a while since i've been on and again the world has changed and it seems like all of the conversation is going to be a little bit more like kind of um you know 30 000 foot level or whatever the stakes are higher and if you want to get do you want to get real real yes I do I don't like Bill no um I um one of the topics that we're going to talk about here and maybe this is good I'm I'm hesitating to even bring it up here but maybe this is good I can kind of get some yeah let's workshop yeah man well the thing is I workshopped it with Genevieve at lunch yesterday for a good hour like Vives and I we have serious conversations about the world a lot we're both two people who are relatively plugged in and care deeply about things that happen in our in our society and our culture uh usually we're pretty much in lockstep on everything since the election we have not been and we have been having an ongoing conversation to varying degrees of intensity never nasty now we don't we don't really fight or anything like that but like we have been having some very intense conversations regarding whether or not it's the democratic the democratic party's fault for going too lefty and too progressive and whether or not like it's all of this talk of preferred pronouns and land acknowledgements and everything else that maybe people who aren't maybe at the super far left find a little bit cringy or however they would describe it or a bit of an insult to them or a distraction. There's like plenty of evidence that some people just do not like that thing that we've seen sort of come up in our culture in the past, I don't know, decade or so, right? And I think a lot of people have this is one thing that I'm going to kind of say is I think almost everybody, even the most progressive amongst us, have had some sort of a conversation with somebody who has kind of like well actually you from the left about something or policed your language and it's left a really bad taste in your mouth, you know, and those are real things.

And I understand why that maybe could work on somebody's psyche when they go into the polling booth, the voting booth. But I don't think that that is a fundamental platform of the National Democratic Party. policing pronouns and stuff i think that that is a i think that that is a cultural thing that is bubbling up i think it's part of the zeitgeist but i don't think it i don't even think of that necessarily as politics and so anyway this conversation that is kind of going on and the hook for this on kow would be we're seeing this play out between two washington congress people both who represent parts of seattle representative jaya paul who's more progressive and i would consider myself more like kind of ideologically along her camp and then adam smith representative smith you know who and he wrote a big thing i haven't read his i haven't read the headline yeah and i've i read the seattle times breakdown of him and congressperson jayapal kind of meeting and talking about this but he wrote something i guess in the was it the new york times or new yorker magazine basically saying the left has gotten too obsessed with you know all of these kind of social issues like pronouns and language policing and and you know like taking down the the patriarchy and stuff and he was basically saying this is why we're losing and we need to back away from that and while i have two arguments about this one is i don't think a lot of those conversations are happening at the like kind of governmental level i think that's more of a cultural thing whether you like it or not and the other part of it is and this is really fundamentally where genevieve and i um we we are both at on the exact same page whereas we are freaking our s out s stands for shit we're freaking our shit about the state of the world right now but genevieve is more along the lines of adam smith here or like the atlantic and all of these things she's reading about how the democrats ate themselves basically and i am feeling the opposite i feel more radicalized than ever like i feel like i will i will cede nothing i will not meet these people in the middle because they they just keep going further and further and further to the extreme and with the with the rise of the far extreme right in this country i'll be damned if i start like saying well i guess we can back off the pronoun conversation a little bit like no i i'm but don't you want to win the football game aren't you

Aren't you running a quarterback out there who is not successful in the broader context of football games right now? I mean, I just don't think that those are winning issues, right? I don't think it's – here's what I would say.

I thought you were being sarcastic. Can you re-explain what you said? Because I was sort of laughing at it away.

Okay, here's what I mean. And I don't think—first of all, I totally agree with you that the Democrat Party, at least at this moment, is not at a high level pushing the left-of-center ideas in terms of trans acceptance and pronouns and so-called DEI stuff. At the highest levels of the Democrats, they've run away from that stuff.

Since the election, but would you say that that was a huge part of Kamala Harris's campaign? I mean, not the attack adds on her, but, like, do you think the Democrats were platforming that stuff?

No, I don't think—no, I'm saying I agree with you on this part. I don't think it's—I think you're right. I think it's more of, as they were called, the groups. The critique around it is that the Democrats allowed—like, the fact that Kamala Harris, when she was running for president, okay, like a while ago when she, of course, became vice president, there was a point at which I believe she had to—or not had to, maybe she believed this, But there was a point where it would have been within the Democrat Party politically kind of impossible for her to continue on. And there's a legit presidential candidate without affirming her support of gender affirming care for undocumented folks who are incarcerated. And that's held up. By the way, I bet you that's literally never happened. I bet you there's been zero times an undocumented person has actually received gender affirming care in a California prison. Or I think it might have been Texas, but, like, yes, in a prison. It's a totally ridiculous—

I thought it was when she was— My misunderstanding, it wasn't when she was AG, wasn't that the knock on her in California? That's why I said California.

Well, no, this is when she was running for president. So she's one of the—I think she's a senator at this point.

Yeah.

And she's running for president.

Well, she was a VP.

Well, she started out running for president, and she didn't become president. Oh, I'm sorry, Luke.

This is what I'm misunderstanding. I'm sorry. You're talking the previous cycle. Okay, sorry. And, by the way, I wasn't trying to argue with you. I was trying to keep it straight because I kept on hearing commercials in this latest one where I thought they were attacking her, something she did as AG in California that had to do with gender-affirming care. I wasn't trying to dismiss what you were saying. I was truly trying to understand.

Yeah, totally. And it is confusing because she ran for president but then became vice president but then ran for president. Yes, okay. And the attack ads are so – they were so misleading and horribly bad faith. It's like it's all a disaster. But all I'm trying to say with this is, is that I feel like I kind of see both sides. I am the most interesting person in this because I both hear what you're saying and hear what Genevieve is saying, and I don't know, I don't really understand, I don't have a clear opinion myself because, I mean,

me put this way when we after the most recent election happened i think i was the one saying the next day we don't let go of anybody's hand so that is that was a strong statement for we can't throw we can't throw folks out of this you know whatever metaphor you want to use we can't throw people over the side of this boat because uh you know and the other thing i would say is let's just say that that there had been no oh sorry the thing about the groups the groups was this idea that you had you had you know groups like political groups but although they were more like you know they were pushing for various forms of acceptance and equality and inclusion and that those groups kind of they didn't necessarily represent let's just say a huge swath they were and they were pretty they were pretty far to the edge of what the consensus would be but they were really getting in into the the heads of the the people that are running the party the democrat party and so the Democrats ended up getting themselves out there on some issues that were not in step with like the quote-unquote average American in other words supporting a particular thing like the Kamala Harris idea that I was saying about the undocumented folks that like that if you took a hundred Americans and asked them should we be doing that it'd be pretty it'd be pretty unpopular with a significant portion of them as an idea and that so it you're right it's not a political thing but that those groups of folks that were they were they all had one issue they were like we're working for trans acceptance we're working for this and they they got to drive some of the some of the way that the people in office talked about this stuff in a way that got them unintentionally out of step with like the quote-unquote average american whatever that means here's what i would say though let's say they didn't do that the republicans would have found something else to completely like like if if the democrats didn't maybe step in it and occasionally the republicans would find something else and they would put a bunch of coke money behind it and they would make it a thing like like that's like saying that john carry shouldn't have served in vietnam because they're going to swift boat him in other words if this idea is that if the democrats stop advocating for trans rights the republicans will go oh our bad and they'll just like back away is a total it's the silliest thing of all time they'll find something else they will just find something and then they will just hammer it they will feed it to fox news they will make a bunch of people believe it's a real thing so that's an argument on your side of things in my opinion which is like it's not about being overly progressive because even if all the progressives just like just said okay fine we'll just race right to the middle it doesn't mean the republicans stop doing what they're doing which is demonizing people and othering people and all that stuff so i guess i ultimately come down on your side of it but i but because i'm also freaking out i have this thought that creeps into my head sometimes which was like yeah did did the democrats leave an opening for the republicans by Kamala Harris at one time supporting this notion of gender-affirming care for undocumented people who are in jail.

Yeah, you know, you said something still pretty broadly, but that helps me understand, I think, what Genevieve is trying to explain to me, but I think that she doesn't have specific examples. But, like, it's almost boring the way I'm thinking about it for something that is really not boring. but i'm missing the argumentative link that i think you maybe just sort of explained a little bit between and the i'm not saying these are my words but like the quote-unquote annoying annoying gen z-er at work or something who's like who you feel like you just can't win with because you know if you whatever let's just call it like language policing in some way that sort of seems to be something and i think i've just heard stories about that from people who are like very very progressive just seeming like yeah but this one person like i just can't i can't work with them because like everything i do is triggering to them or or you know that and we've even seen some people sort of i do believe weaponize the the good faith of people who do care about identity and that type of thing so let's just say that you have a bad experience with that with somebody like at your workplace or in your life or just even you just see it in pop culture and you find it annoying i've just been saying yeah but i don't think that that's what the Democrats have been embracing like I didn't see that in Kamala's campaign I saw it sort of her past decisions and statements may be used against her during different times of her career and running for president I saw just so many of those Trump commercials that were like I thought like like I don't you know next door to hate speech practically like just like awful awful stuff yeah and that but what did I see Kamala Harris's campaign do saying things like well we're gonna to get liz cheney on our side and we're going to promise to appoint a republican to the we're gonna get tough at the border we're gonna get tough at the border we're gonna appoint a republican somewhere on the cabinet like making all these concessions which i you know i was fine with at the time like whatever i just wanted her to get into office and that all seems reasonable i wish we could be reasonable, but then you see...

a loss like that yeah and ironically i still think that racism and sexism had to do with that loss i still wonder if i think i asked you this one time i don't know if you agreed but i i can't help but wonder if all of the kamala harris stuff was exactly the same only was tim waltz if it was tim waltz who had once run before and lost but then got the vice presidency and then took over the campaign for biden near the end would tim waltz be in office and like part of me thinks yes because he was like a very relatable middle-aged white guy and so i do i mean the i the irony of this conversation is we're both like sort of talking about like well how much can the democrats survive while platforming things that are issues in our country that we need to deal with like sexism and racism but i also think that it was sexism and racism that sort of led potential you know at least partially to this particular loss i am obviously all over the place with this but i just kept on looking for that link between like the far left person that you kind of find annoying who's like you can't you know who's making you feel like you can't say anything anymore and how that connects to the campaign that lost the presidency and that's the missing link i'm looking for and i feel like i i have been acting and maybe this is why genevieve is frustrated with me is because i've been acting like that link doesn't exist and maybe it does and i'm just not

well read oh that's so funny because i had arrived at the exact opposite conclusion based on what you said i mean this really seriously like i think you're bringing up a pretty good point i think there is the world of i'm just going to call it wokeness yeah that's actually there's the world of wokeness and then there's the certainly kamala harris and you know i think for obvious reasons as a woman of color she was already you know like prejudged by a section of the american population as being some sort of a thing and had to in the way that like barack obama also had to be really really really careful about how he was coming off because he couldn't play into these horrible racist notions about a black man i think kamala harris was you know was was to the way to the right of like maybe not really what biden was saying but definitely like i don't think anybody could accuse kamala harris of running a woke campaign that yeah this is a good point i think that there and i and i i honestly think you might have also you might have also like really connected something in my brain which is like yeah when particularly if you're of a certain age as i am and you find yourself in a moment where you just kind of don't like you feel like you're trying to do the quote unquote right thing like in a conversation with someone who might be younger or uh you know different than you in some way and you think like i'm one of the good guys and you're trying you're trying your hardest and like you said it feels like you can't quite ever get it right and you're like you're somehow doing this wrong even though you think you're really trying your hardest that has a really big impact on you and how you think about things and i think there's a lot of people walking around with like a couple of bad experiences in their back pocket who think that like and then connect that to the idea of wokeness but you're right i actually think but despite that kamala harris thing i brought up i because again i don't know how many people that was even on their radio i don't it wasn't the people in my neighborhood who are pulling giant flags behind their trucks i promise you they don't know that that was kamala harris's opinion on that hyper specific thing in other words i think you i think you might have a good point and maybe this is a good way for you to talk about it on the on the uh show is like what you've been saying basically which is there's this there's this world of of progressive ideas that people are certainly advocating for and then there's what the vast majority of democrat uh you know candidates and politicians are saying and it's very down the middle in fact here's another thing you know who's very popular alexandra ocasio-cortez yeah she's pulling zero

punches that's what i was sort of saying to you know if it's a losing strategy how is she still elected that's and i don't know what her you know i don't know what her polling numbers look like and obviously she represents um is she brooklyn or the bronx i actually can't remember but i don't know if you know or if that's a dumb question but she represents a you know what i mean like she represents her constituency which is not very solidly blue just it's going to be a little bit different than like toledo i'm guessing or the area outside of toledo or whatever um so yeah but that's sort of what i said to genevieve i'm like i i thought i i kind of thought that like kind of progressives like us maybe like gesturing to her and me would be like thinking yeah this is like the aoc is the future of the party because like she's just like she's not she's not coding her language she's now she's not going around engaging in like maybe some of the um corrective you know like talk that i'm trying to describe of people who are maybe like again like kind of leaning into quote-unquote wokeness in a way that some people find unpalatable she's just a straight shooter you know she just is saying to me and i'm like maybe that i i was hoping that we would sort of bandy about this idea of look what happened when we tried to seed the middle or try to like just be so desperate to like just court how about we just court those of us who truly believe yeah I think one thing that now I'm getting a little bit too personal maybe and I shouldn't be bringing this up on the air but like I do think that I'm when I have the conversation with Genevieve I think I fall into a little bit of I think smugness is the wrong word but i think i probably sound like i'm taking a moral high ground because it's hard for me when i'm getting somewhat like emotional about it to not feel like i'm accusing her of selling out you know which is like a really caring really yeah that's a really insulting thing to say to somebody who is just saying i listen i will do anything to get the nazis out of office like she's just like i i will do anything and i think maybe that's what you were saying about the football game like well don't you want to win well right yeah yeah so like you want to win or

be right but again i don't know the answer to that question really and and i guess i just kind

of keep coming back to and again this can be a little bit obnoxious and i've probably said this too much to genevieve which is probably insulting but i just keep saying like my opinion on any of these things have not changed like they didn't change in november and they didn't change in january like i think that like i mean i don't want to i kind of don't want to challenge you to do this but I like I don't think that you and I have had a lot of off-air conversations that don't reflect my on-air personality too I mean there might be certain things that I'd say I would like to avoid this because I know that it's going to be very upsetting for some listeners or whatever but like I don't think that like I'm going about representing myself in one way and then when Adam Smith says we lost the I guess like and again this is such an immature way of looking at it but I I read this article, and Adam Smith is like, we're too woke. Not his quote, but I think that's a good summary. We're too woke. And be like, okay, Adam Smith, what do you want me, a voter in North Seattle, to do about that? You want me just to stop caring? You want me to start ignoring people's preferred pronouns? Like, what do you want from me? What am I? You know what I mean?

And also, and what is your strategy, Adam Smith, going forward? Is it we just go, you know, women shouldn't have bodily autonomy, and also we should make it illegal for someone to use the pronouns they would like? How do you—because, again, here's the thing. There's nothing that I can think of—there's nothing the Democrat Party can do to unwoke themselves that will then cause the Republicans to go, all right, good point. We're walking away. I mean, that's the thing. like the flawed premise of it to me is the idea that if the Democrats just take a hard look at themselves and if they just if they just stop you know like you said caring too much or or or like looking for ways to support people who are marginalized and if we just like if we just stop doing that then a bunch of people are going to flock to us because they're going to be like oh you know you guys are great because you're not like trying to help support you know marginalized folks or whatever but the problem is most people would never make that connection even if you were doing it you know like how's that word gonna spread and how are you how are you gonna get that message out I'll forget the moral question from a practical question how are you gonna get that out to the public so that they what suddenly start what I mean this is what I think about the votes first of all again I think your strongest point is like how'd that work for the presidential election based on Kamala Harris's first of all picking of tim waltz you think that wasn't a very like intentional like let's folks let's folksy this up and i was there i was you know i was drinking every bit of kool-aid they would give me but like a hunter an outdoorsman exactly i mean there was like people with the camo you know harris waltz hats i was here for all of it but like but like the the the problem with the argument that the democrats got too woke and that's why they lost is that if you like you said if you actually listen to anything kamala harris said at any of the stump speeches it was incredibly parsed so as to not be woke because the whole fear was it's going to be too woke so that's i mean you're to me your strongest argument is like basically that's what happened in this last presidential election and it didn't seem to work out so well you had somebody that was running very much to the center i mean her whole thing was like we got to get tough at the border i mean it's it sounded

it a lot of times like a republican playbook yeah yeah and that is well thanks you know that that that is my point and um and like i say like maybe kind of describing as that missing link between the woke culture and the actual democratic platform especially like on the federal level or the presidential level like i just don't see it and and again everything i'm saying is also coming from a place of just like just bottomless despair and fear and anger and that's what i think

that's the that's the the big challenge around this conversation for everybody is any of us that have a brain whatever

part of the spectrum we're in in the sort of like let's just say the democrat party or whatever we're terrified and that amps the whole thing up because it feels existential it doesn't just feel like well we disagree about like how we should fund the road construction or whatever it feels like the country might not exist or certainly american democracy might not exist pretty soon And so when that's going on When you're in the hold of a ship And ice cold water is pouring in And you're trying to figure out how to plug it up And two people have two different ideas About how to patch it up It's not a chill conversation They're like, we're going to die in here So that's adding to I think that's adding to everybody's Total brittleness

Yes, yes. And to answer your question, that's my... Big weekend.

Man, you son of a gun. That was my power out. I was going to say so. What I'm taking from this is you've got big weekend plans. Let's thank some donors who just paid for that.

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.

All right, let's thank some dazzling donors. Indeed. Who are making TBTL possible with their dazzling donation of dough. This is a, as the world burns around us, this is a minor miracle that there are people who are prioritizing, you know, TBTL as part of their monthly budget. And we so appreciate it. I like, I really like getting to do this for my job. I am not capable of anything else. So please, please, please let me keep doing this. Uh, our friend, Kristen Zucked, uh, oh, I guess the T is sound, I'm learning so much. So I guess it's like, it rhymes with book. So it's, oh, okay.

Kristen Zuck. What a good pronouncer. Sorry. And also, sorry for calling you by the wrong last name for 12 years. I've been doing that for years. Zuck.

Even though Kristen was one of a small, hearty crew of people that picked us up at the bus terminal in Kansas City. That's right.

I believe Red, led the charge on that, I believe.

Thank you, Kristen. We appreciate you. Kristen is, of course, in Kansas City, Missouri, and says, hi, friendos. It's me, long-time listener, one-time bus station picker-upperer, first-time dazzler. Kristen, in Kansas City, I do not have any deets to dazzle you with, so I just want to say thanks for helping cure global loneliness. What you do is so important. Thanks, Kristen. Now I feel bad about the fact that I was rooting for the Eagles.

You know, when I'm not rooting for the Mariners, I root for the Royals.

And I know Kristen is a Royals head I want to say This could be the Mandela effect Kristen get at me I think Kristen might have been wearing Like a Royals t-shirt or some such When we were picked up So that could be totally Like 100% an implanted memory But yeah For every bit of Mistrust Not mistrust For every bit of skepticism I had around the Kansas City Chiefs At the end of the football season And I put the exact opposite of that into the Kansas City Royals. We love them.

We do. In fact, I know they bedeviled the Mariners last year. They did. Do you remember when they came from—the Mariners got 10 runs on them in the first inning of a game, and the Mariners lost, and the Royals came back. But honestly, there are a few teams that I wouldn't be devastated by that happening to, and the Royals is one of them. We have a listener, Jamie, listener, Taylor. We have a lot of Royals fans in our audience, and it's really turning me a bit of a Royals head.

Yeah, and they've got a fun team, too. We love Bobby Witt Jr. I remember when Bobby Witt's dad was pitching in the majors. And then Salvador Perez just victimized us, I feel like.

He always has our number. I love that guy.

But I feel like he's got some kind of a—I feel like last year—sorry, Kristen. and I know this is not what you asked for, but I feel like—

Hey, you wore the hat. You wore the Royals hat, Chris.

Exactly. You did or did not wear something Royals-related when you picked us up from the bus station and then donated a bunch of money to us. That's right. I feel like Perez had some crazy stat last year where he was just like—it was a classic. He's a catcher, right? I think he's a catcher.

Well, he's a catcher, but you want to know my little secret of my draft is he also plays first base, and I drafted him as a first baseman. Clever. I have him in my 1B, 3B slot. Clever, go. People were wondering.

I can't remember. You know, it might have been somebody else. I might be misremembering. I feel like, yeah, because I guess he hit 271, which is actually deece.

Against the Mariners, or that's his average last year?

His 2024 stats where he hit 271. I'm thinking of somebody else, maybe with a similar last name. There was somebody else who last year, and probably not even a Royal, but was just like,

a catcher who i remember one of the announcers talking about what a tough year this person was

having and then i just feel like they just went off on america i remember i vaguely remember you

talking about this on the text chain it just killed me like and the thing i was about to go go off on or whatever the tangent i was going to go off on is that there's an interesting thing where if you're a good catcher like catcher is one of those positions it's so vital to the game like if you're good at game management if you're good at working with the pitchers you can get away with being pretty bad on offense for a pretty long time if they think your value as far as catching the game you know it makes it worth it it's one of the only positions like that where you can just be so good at catching that we kind of don't even expect you to hit very much that's why there are

very few like catchers who are like i would i would say um uh cal raleigh and uh real muto who is, I'm trying to remember, is he Braves? Maybe I'm getting that wrong. But he was actually a catcher who can steal bases. He's still playing. Oh, that's crazy. There's only a handful of catchers in the league who are stars, and those are the three that come to mind.

Yeah. Back in the day, it was Mike Piazza and Pudge Rodriguez, and you had a few catchers that were so good offensively that you actually knew their name. But generally, it's a very yeoman-like position. Kristen, thank you so much for supporting the show What you do is so important And we appreciate it Maestro?

On your mark Get set Now ready Everybody rattle, dazzle

It's Mike Duncan in Columbia, South Carolina Hey there business boys, Mike says It feels nice to be called a business boy I know, I like it Yeah, that's awesome It's time to dazzle again already What can I say? First, I'll just take a moment to say thanks for another year of quality shows. Nothing makes life more bearable than a daily dose of TBTL. Luke and Andrew are truly irreplaceable. I can't even say that word. It's so hard for me to wrap my mind around. We'll replace you with somebody who can. Thank you. Luke and Andrew are truly irreplaceable. Unless Genevieve is available or Nick Jaron or P. Fletch or Susie B. Oh, wow. Huh. All right. Okay. Interesting. Thanks, Mike. I can't argue with any of that, but it still hurts to hear. Yeah, I know.

I was hoping that mostly you were in the crosshairs there, but no, I didn't come out unscathed. Luke and Andrew were true. No, I mean, honestly, what I see is a path forward

involving Genevieve, Nick, P. Fletch, and my mom somehow doing a kind of four-person round table each day. I would listen. That'd be a good show. My mom would work for almost nothing. My mom would work for peanuts. If you matched, I don't know what she makes on buying, picking up knick-knacks at garage sales and then trying to return them to the real store saying she bought. I don't know how much she's making off of that hustle right now, but I bet you we could match that. That might even be the first topic of the show. Second, I'd like to give a shout-out to my ten friends, Pat and Maureen, and their wonderful new five, Georgia. Cute. Congratulations to your friends.

Ten friends.

Lastly, look at this, Andrew. Boy, this is, I don't know if you did this on purpose or what, but there is a real, there's a yin and a yang to this. A big congrats to the Super Bowl 59 champs, the Philadelphia Eagles, no birds.

I did not do that on purpose. I didn't even have a chance to look ahead on this.

Editor's note, I'm writing this two weeks before the Super Bowl, but hopefully it holds true.

Oh, my gosh.

Dag, Mike. Good. I hope you hammered that bet, bro. Yeah. You'd be paying for this dazzling donor thing on, you know, DraftKings money. cheers and much love from listener mike well thank you mike uh we really do appreciate you and uh hardy go birds well how long have you how long have you had this questionable lawn jockey in your family

and why are you bringing it here i was about to say that music can only mean one thing and it's that we couldn't afford the Antiques Roadshow official theme. We sat next to it and we studied it. This, as longtime listeners of the show know, is the theme song to the TBTL Community Calendar, where we share with you some of the things that TENS are organizing in the community that you might want to take part in. We have a note from Annie here, who organized a volunteer weekend a few weeks ago at Food Lifeline. Yes. But here, I'm going to read Annie's note because I guess it went so well that we're going to do it again. And Annie says, I'm hoping you can help spread the word to the tens about the next opportunity to volunteer at Food Lifeline. We had a blast doing it back in March, and the consensus was it would be a great thing to do. and are somewhat...

regular basis so come hang out with fellow tens and give back to the greater seattle community by volunteering at food lifeline in seattle's south park neighborhood on saturday may 31st mark that down saturday may 31st 9 to 11 a.m we're going to be sorting and repacking nutritious food to feed our neighbors who may be experiencing food insecurity back in march we had 19 tens and 11 show up to repack and sort over 2,600 pounds of rice in about an hour and a half. So you do have to sign up in advance so you can look for the Food Lifelines volunteer program. And instead of giving out this complicated URL, I'm just going to say email Annie for more details if you need them at tbtl10sgiveback at gmail.com. That's all one word, tbtl10s, spelled out T-E-N-S, tbtl10sgivebackatgmail.com, and find out how you can sign up. You do have to sign up in advance, but, man, you can't really ask for a more kind of solid mission there for something to do to give back to the community.

Now more than ever, and I really mean that. I'm sorry, Luke, I didn't mean to come up. No, please. I can't get enough of this. Nothing stops this music.

Nothing. I love it. I'm sorry. I thought I was hitting it the right time there. Okay, also, got this note from our friend Sierra in Cincinnati, who says, several months ago, I started a TENS shop small channel on the TBTL and Stens Slack page. I think people know about the Slack page. If you haven't engaged with that yet, you can find a link to it at tbtl.net. Go to the contact page, and you'll see all of our social stuff there. and Sierra said the TENS Helping TENS website isn't active anymore so I thought it would be awesome to start a new space where TENS can make posts about their small businesses and other TENS can support them. Right now I know a lot of us are searching for ways to help each other or help communities that are being negatively affected by the current administration and putting economic power behind each other's small businesses is a very practical way we can all make a difference. So Sierra has created this over at the slack page go ahead and look for tens shop small over on slack and certainly like if you have a little business if you're looking for attention this is a community that is really eager to support you yes if you're looking for attention thanks for putting that together and finally one last note here um this is by the tvtl book club uh the tvtl book club will meet again in may not mother's day weekend but details to come so we don't have an actual date yet i I didn't realize that before I put this in the community calendar. A big part of the community calendar is having a calendar date on it, I guess. Sorry. If you could alert the tens to our chosen book. Oh, that's why it's important to get it. Even if we don't have a date of a meeting yet, let's get a reading the book. I'm not sure I'm – wow. I should pre-read these. I'm not entirely sure I'm comfortable promoting this. But let's see. You might have heard of the book. It's called Siren's Call by TBTL Senior Bidet Correspondent Chris Hayes.

hasn't he gotten enough attention on this program I mean what is it going to be like New York Times international bestseller I mean what are the higher heights this book can soar to off of our off of our toiling our labor our fan base we give and we give

and we give you know so let's see here Chris Hayes perfect opportunity for the tends to come to the zoom and share what tbtl drop inspired inscriptions he wrote in their book so chris was signing copies of siren's call and uh if he knew somebody was a 10 he was putting like a drop an audio drop or tbtl inside joke um so anyway it does say thanks for the announcements that you guys shouted out about book club last week um because we did get a lot of new faces joining so um once again uh and you know what i i think it's i think and i'm embarrassed i think it's celia or cecilia i I can't remember, but I can put you in contact if I'm leaving anything out here. You can email me, andrew at tbtl.net, and I'll make sure that any questions get to the right place.

And my guess also is that if you have a question about any of this and one were to jump on the Stens page over there on Facebook or the Slack channel, just a quick post of saying, hey, does anybody know how to get to this volunteer opportunity or this book club or whatever, and I bet you somebody will get you routed instantaneously. Simultaneously. So if there's anything you need clarification on, head on over there. And that drives engagement, Andrew.

Engagement is about attention, and it's about the attention economy, Luke.

It sure is.

It is Cecilia, by the way. I feel bad about that. I don't want to clean that up. It's Cecilia is the person who's been organizing this.

Thank you. Well, thank you, Cecilia, for doing that. And thanks, you know, again, I don't want to keep having business boys meetings and then just airing out the business boys business on the show. But we are very, very aware of the fact that everybody's having to make tough decisions.

around um you know kind of how to support uh causes and things that are important now and that are being defunded that are under fire and are and i know not everything we just read is necessarily a particular social cause but just you know the idea that we can get out and volunteer and and and help you know the sort food or you know just try to take care of each other and that the tbgl community is doing that it really does my heart good and then the community part of it of like a book club where it's like just going to get together and see some friendly faces on the zoom and you're going to like get to talk about kind of how something struck you in a book and you're going to hear their thoughts on it like what a good thing and there's not enough good stuff happening so yeah i appreciate everybody for for helping out absolutely so

there you go that's the second installment of the i love it honestly it's like it's kind of

like the no point i'm sort of here for the theme music like i'll kind of like the blurs days i'm here for the theme music i mean seriously that's true i'm not tired of that song yet yeah okay listen i'm so i apologize i actually i want to apologize because we did not get to the voicemails that i promoted at the beginning of the show but the good news is uh we will play those very soon at some point and they're good ones we need to well i don't want to preview them because i don't want to give away any of the fun but we do need to play them sooner rather than later and we will do that but for today and for this broadcast week we have arrived at the end uh of the line so thank you so much for spending this time with us uh we're going to be back here on monday i will be in New York City so we will I'll be checking in from there I'm sure with lots of big weekend plans or big weekend events or something

be careful on that subway system oof I've heard stories yeah oh god pizza rat

all kinds of crazy stuff happening alright we'll see you Monday in the meantime have a great weekend take care of yourselves and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

power out