Muse

Can I have the room for a minute? Everybody out! My empire is struggling! All right, everyone back in? TBTL!

Good afternoon and welcome to Judgment City. You've just had quite a little journey, so for now, relax and enjoy the ride.

Dude, you got the best barrels ever, dude. Just like, you pull in, and you just get spit right out of them. And you just drop in and just smack the lip. Hoopah! Drop down. Ah! Snap. And then after that, you just drop in, just ride the barrel and get pitted. So pitted like that. Eh, tomato, tomato.

It's tomato, tomato. You say tomato, tomato. I say tomato, tomato. How can they say this about me? I don't believe it.

I show them. I record everything. Hello. All right. Good morning and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. This might be my favorite podcast, and I've never heard it before. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. You're like the Daniel Day-Lewis of only doing one thing. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia. It's not the greatest of weather days here on this Thursday, but it's not the worst. It's not torrentially raining sideways at 38 degrees, which is an actual thing we've experienced recently. So we will take it as we arrive together at episode 4,442 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

Apparently, the youth of America are packing the movie theaters and absolutely losing their minds when Jack Black's character in the Minecraft movie says this. Chicken jockey. We will investigate the chicken jockey phenomenon coming up. Also, speaking of kids and fantasy, it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day.

Blur's Day today.

We'll do the Blur's Day messages, and we will say hello to this young man, longest-running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships, although of late, this other activity of his has been getting a lot of attention.

The man who brought the rock and roll edge to the Eagles.

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

Good morning, Luke. Happy, hopefully, new audio board day to those who celebrate.

Ah, to all who celebrate. Are you using your new audio board?

You know, I said that because I didn't know what to say, and I was looking at the radio board. I think it's coming in today. I ordered the audio board through Guitar Center. It's a little audio concern called Guitar Center.

Well, that's how you learn to bring the rock and roll edge to the Eagles.

The man who brought the rock and roll edge to the Eagles.

All that time you spend jamming out at Guitar Center.

By the way, in all seriousness, I try really hard not to be the old man who goes into Guitar Center and asks too many questions. But I've had to buy some equipment over the course of the past. Honestly, since we went independent, I've had to buy more equipment of my own as opposed to being handed it. Eric, the Viking Strom's dad. Exactly. I owe that guy a phone call. Anyway, and they are so helpful there. The guitar center that I go to in Roosevelt, my old neighborhood, and it's on Roosevelt, I think, by the, well, it's in the Polite Car District, actually. Yes, I consider it the high-end audio district, at least it used to be. That's right, yes. You have definitive audio right there.

You have a Magnolia hi-fi there, things like that.

So anyway, I they I'll go in with a bunch of specific questions, some of which they can answer, some of which they can't, but they entertain them all. And they're always very patient with me. And I sort of realized, like, oh, I could just really take advantage of this. Like, these people are listening to me. I'm just talking about audio stuff and geeking out.

And and again, I don't think that they are become a social connection for you, a much needed social connection.

Exactly. And again, I don't they're not like overly friendly. They're not like, hey, sit down, let's talk about this. But they just entertain me. I don't mean entertain me like they are doing things to entertain me. I just mean they entertain my bottomless pit of questions very patiently, and I appreciate that. But anyway, for some reason, I was ordering my audio board. I'm like, I'm going to have it shipped to the store there instead of home. It just seemed like, I don't know, it's an expensive piece of equipment. Why not just have it delivered, you know, from store to store or from factory to store? So I think.

I haven't gotten the email yet, but I think I'm supposed to march on over there, or maybe I'll drive this afternoon, and hopefully my new audio board will be there. Maybe I'll have it hooked up in time for tomorrow. I don't know. I guess that's something everybody can tune in and find out.

I want to say this in a way that doesn't sound like I'm slightly roasting you, but today I was going to ask you when we were dialing up and we were kind of chatting before the show if you had your new audio board, but I realized you hadn't mentioned it and there would be zero chance of it going unmentioned if we were operating on that board.

You'll see the tattoo first, the new audio board tattoo first.

The new audio boards are here. The new audio boards are here. That's right. That's why I failed to wish you the customary happy audio board arrival day. I forgot to do that.

Well, you see what's happening is I'm one of those people who turns my audio board day into audio board week and then audio board month. It's new audio board month for you. At first, I got to tell you I ordered it, and then today I said happy audio board day, but it's not even here yet.

And we found out that you don't even trust the U.S. mail system to safely get it to your home, so you're having it delivered to first the office of PricewaterhouseCoopers where they will handcuff themselves to it and then take it to the garage, excuse me, the Guitar Center. You know how this works.

While I'm in there, I might have to grab some quarter-inch cables, maybe some, I don't know, RCA to minis. I don't know just wander around a little bit see what they got and uh it's I just like that place

it's a happy I do too I have a I get a very good feeling from going to Guitar Center although the one that I went when we in fact it isn't that we had gone independent it's just that I had sort of up and moved and landed in Portland and needed to kind of like you know redo some things and I started going to the Guitar Center that was near me and I have to say the folks were generally nice enough but it was a it was a real uh audio board uh information desert i was thinking about that

like i think we have very different uh guitar center experiences i wonder if it also has to

do with the rise of podcasting because like what i noticed when i would go into the one near my house was i mean if i would have asked them like uh what kind of strings should i put on this rickenbacker i think that there would have been a line of long-haired fellows waiting to tell me that guitar strings guitar strings guitar strings like i i think that there's some stuff that's really in their wheelhouse my sense is it's a lot of musicians who work at guitar center to fund their lifestyle of being musicians um but not a lot of podcasters who are working at guitar center to fund their podcasting habit and so when i would ask them things about that they would kind of point me in the direction of the audio boards or the cables and they would try to be helpful but it felt like it was out of their area of expertise either you've just there's a more thorough training process at the Guitar Center that's near you or just there now are so many podcasters coming into Guitar Center it may be an emerging business for them that they just need to know about well let

me I'll put myself directly on front street here this is kind of embarrassing but I'll be honest with you so here here was my um here was my journey with this I've had I've had a uh I've had on my to-do list for a long time now to look into getting a new audio board because my other one is it's functional but it's just getting old and it's getting a little bit like dust gets in the it's not a super expensive one and dust gets in there and i think this thing must be it's probably like 15 years old and maybe even more and so it's just starting to show it's starting to you could hear some wear and tear on it a little bit but it's still usable i'm going to use it for like a road kit but i was like kind of dragging my feet about like well am i going to research a new board like i don't know i sometimes i just kind of get locked up on these things because I don't know that much about it. Then I think, well, am I going to spend a whole day researching or am I going to spend a bunch of money and then regret what I got because it might be missing some sort of functionality? And then something kind – I don't think I've told you this whole story, but what happened was last weekend or a couple of weekends ago, the people at the Fraternal Order of Eagles, Mother Aerie No. 1, decided to have a big cleaning day. Now, I could not attend them. I had something else on my dance card. Wow. I thought a bunch of— Yeah, I missed out. I know. I was going to bump.

You're sort of LeBron James of doing that kind of— You did—I believe you went—you made an executive decision to do some cleaning of some stairs there once that was not part of a formal cleaning day.

They still—yes. They still treat me like C-3PO when I walk in there and carry me around like the— They're not hobbits. They're Ewoks. Remember we had a whole—yub-nub. Oh, yeah. They yub my nub every time I go in there. They're so— Wait, I'm sorry. No, that came out wrong. Listen, let's move on. point is i wasn't able to join um that party but genevieve from that cleaning party and by the way would you like to like spend some time unpacking the idea that genevieve goes to other places to

clean like she's not a huge cleaner here between you and your side you know what i'm saying like that's that's something for you to deal with in the home environment i do not want to weigh in on

I need to have a recovery.

conversation with our friend Katie and as to how Katie got Genevieve to clean this was it like the free pizza because I can offer pizza uh anyway so I I'm at my thing Genevieve is cleaning out the Eagles with a bunch of other volunteers and she sends me a photo of an audio board that I was familiar with this I think I'd even maybe used it once or twice at the Eagles she's like they're gonna throw this away do you want it I'm like throw it away that looks like a working audio board and so she brought it home and I took a look at it and like this was not one of those things where it's like oh one of the you know like one of the pots is taped down and don't use

this knob like there's nothing pots for the non-podcast in the audience would be the little sliding thing that increases the amount of sound that's going through a particular channel i was

talking about the drug in that case i mean i appreciate okay i apologize that's what i get for trying to clarify on your behalf i should have said sliders but um in other words this does not look like something that fell off the back of a truck or that i you know what i mean like it's a totally working board and so it took me a while to like kind of it's a little bit of a project to tear everything out of the old board and plug this one in but i did it this saturday possibly while there was a guy uh trying to sell us trying to do a hard sell on uh flooring for us here salesperson i told you about that yesterday anyway i'm in my studio i'm putting this thing together everything is nice i like the way this board is in many ways better than my other board but it's lacking a very specific functionality and this is where i'm going with this this is really i guess what i was kind of avoiding the details of before when i tell you these people are putting up with a lot of my questions and even if they don't know the answers still treating me as if i'm a sane person which i getting more and more questionable because i'm now i put this board together and i'm like i cannot figure out this one thing it just i could not find this one button that would enable me to kind of route my audio out of this board in the various ways it needs to be routed out of this board and it's a little bit complicated like you and i are doing it's worth saying a live call-in show on youtube next saturday not this coming saturday but saturday the 19th at 10 a.m pacific time a little tbtl tradeo more on that later but anyway there's a lot of ins lots of outs about what goes into this board and how it comes out of this board and i spent about an hour maybe two hours everything is set up everything is great but there's just this one piece of functionality and i cannot figure it out and so i start doing some more research and i'm like literally on pdf files like reading i know once you're into the pdf and and i just sort of realized oh i think this thing is just hardwired in a different way than my other one was i think there was a button that allowed me to do something on my old board and in this one it's hardwired in a certain way i'm like you know what i'm gonna do screw this let me look at the newest version of the board i've been using for 15 years let me just see what the latest generation of that thing is i look it up there it is it's not the most expensive board in the world but there it is it's brand new it has all the same buttons and functionality of the one i've been using for a long time now only it's going to be new it's going to be clean it's going to be slightly updated i should just buy this thing from guitar center do i go online like an adult and buy it from guitar center no i call guitar center and i say hey do you have this and do you have this in stock because if they did i was already knee deep in cable can we get the guy

from the commercials that teaches people how to not be old yes exactly no this is dr rick territory can we get dr rick on the case so you don't need to call the guitar center sir that's a really good

that's a really good example because i'm just gearing up to the real dr rickiness of this like that's the first joke in the dr rick commercial but then it amplifies and you are dead on with this so i'm like i call them up i'm like hey do you have this particular audio board in stock i can't remember the actual model number it doesn't really matter I'm like do you have this particular audio board in stock they're like you know what no we don't carry a lot of those in the house but you know you can order it online I'm like should I order it through you or should I go online and do it and like you can either way I'm like I guess I'll just order it through you I'm like you know while I got you on the phone I'm like do you know much about these audio boards and like kind of the ins and outs of things and the guy's like you know I know the basics but I mean I don't really know I'm like hey let me just run something by you here let me just run something by you and if you know you know and if not I'll just go ahead and buy this board I'm like I have I have this Behringer board that I just hooked up and it seems like for the two auxiliaries they're hardwired so that they're both one of them is pre-fade and one of them is post-fade but I just need a button that'll make them both post-fade would they actually make a board that you can't make that choice yourself that is hardwired to be pre-fader you know i don't really know the boards that well i'm like you know what let's just pull the trigger on this new board and bring this baby home i'm like i'll just order it through you have it delivered to the to the store and i'll be there along with dr rick on thursday afternoon to pick it up i don't want to this is i'm not

playing this because i want to hurt your feelings but i do think it'd be funny if today's show

title was this is so boarding and forever taking yes no that is so boring and forever taking it is it is perfect but yeah i just there's this one thing i just need i need both of my auxiliaries to be post fader well and one of them is and one of them isn't and you can't control it and so there

you go i want to be clear about something first of all all of this you know trying to see if you could make this other audio board work it's all in the service of the tbtl budget i should say the tbtb budget i really appreciate you putting in the time to try to see if if that could be a solution and also just how careful you are with the tbtb money and and and the equipment and you take it really seriously and i appreciate that that's a benefit to all of us it's a benefit to me and john as your business boys and to the listeners who will i presume anyway hope that this show continues so i appreciate you doing that i would also say what we do on this show is uh is actually not the it's not the least complex thing that goes on with podcasting because of our remote status you know for many many years we've been doing the show from different locations and and then all the audio that we play and the show sounds really good when it hits the pod catchers and other places because of all the mixing and work that you put in so you got a lot going on over there i don't want to sleep on that can i say one thing earnestly

here and it's not earnest about you and i or our relationship or about the human condition it's just one more earnest thing about this board and i'll let it go but it is quite serious because there was a lesson in here for me and maybe there's maybe you can take this lesson and and make it more broad and apply it to your life but this is probably just still about me but um i told you that I was in the market for a while now to do some research on a board and then buy a new one and I would have been tempted to kind of cast the net pretty wide and not just buy the newest generation of the one I've been using forever then this used board kind of fell on my lap and I was really hesitant Luke I was telling the I vacillated in like the two or three days that it just sat on top of my record player I was like I don't know like one day I'm like these I'm gonna plug it in and see if i can get it to work then other days i'm like i'm not gonna i don't feel like messing with this i just want to buy a new one we have the budget we've budgeted for it like i don't feel like doing a test run on a used piece of equipment yeah if it doesn't work then i gotta you know do all of this i'm gonna say horse hockey again you have really been foul mouth i really i'll beep it i'll beep it but anyway the truth is when i plugged all this in and then spent a long time trying to figure out that pre fader post fader output issue i was really disappointed i was like i cannot believe this is not an option on this board i just i couldn't get my head around it but i did more research and apparently sometimes just hardwire these things this way but then it occurred to me if i hadn't done this whole experiment on this used board i could have gone out and just bought a board without even thinking about that functionality just with the assumption that all boards worked like my old one like i almost needed to do this to realize oh i when i'm buying a new piece of equipment i have to zoom in and make sure this very specific need is fulfilled i would have never done it without going on this process which was kind of a pain in the ass but i think at the end of the day i mean if i had just bought a brand new board luke and it didn't have this functionality imagine imagine the co-host you'd be dealing with today on board day one oh my goodness i mean we'd have to block out most of next week we are already

that's true we will be dealing with a new audio board in the near future which will then of course give us another spin of this wheel andrew if you find that you in all this uh you know commerce that you come up four dollars 98 cents short i would be happy to loan that to you and it would be a loan because i have received four dollars and 98 cents from the better help.com Class Action Settlement You got the check in hand? They PayPal'd me You want to talk about something that looks like a major Scam, it's from PayPal, but it says That my Money from the BetterHelp.com Settlement has been Deposited into my PayPal account And it's $4.98 And I said Well, you know, I looked at the the email from paypal and it is really from paypal it's not from some weird string of numbers and letters that then they've masked so it says paypal it's actually from the paypal folks and uh i looked it up and i i guess the reason that betterhelp.com had to pay me four dollars and ninety eight because i was using them for therapy for a while uh was because i looked this up uh they were apparently sharing my personal information and my medical data etc with facebook and other third party folks

Yeah, I heard about this thing on the AM radio. Yes, I heard about this. story a while back and uh so that's apparently worth four dollars and 98 cents the fact that mark zuckerberg knows what i was telling my online therapist is worth uh the overall settlement looks like it was about seven and a half million dollars and i do like the fact that at no time did i fill out any paperwork or do anything related to this other than use betterhelp.com and then um i guess i was in somebody's system somewhere and they just refunded me four dollars and 98 cents that's such weird amount of money for something that is so profoundly violating if it goes wrong i mean on the one hand it's like i just don't care that much anymore i've been totally sort of i don't know what the word is i've just been inured to the fact that so much of my personal information is is already in the hands of of bad actors but um if like for them sharing potentially what i've said

to my therapist with very edible very with the likes of mark zuckerberg like the uh you know the

the like if that really happened to me it is worth so much more than four dollars and 98 cents what do i do with the four dollars and 98 cents that makes me emotionally whole from that event that

makes you well i guess you get a new therapist i mean what how much is one of those 99 bananas

It's one of those little weird, like, is that vodka or something? You see those sometimes at the checkout of the store. They're like, it's some kind of a very weird alcohol drink that's called, like, 99 Bananas, but I think it's really cheap but really strong.

Is it a rum? When I think of bananas, I think of rum. I've never heard of this before.

I think the kids, 99 Bananas, I think the kids were into them for a while. It's a liqueur, and it's $0.99. So I guess I could get almost five $0.99 bananas of the little airplane bottles.

Yeah, if you want to make it an even five, I'll give you the extra $0.02. Oh, so now you're loaning me $0.02. Now I'm loaning you the $0.02. I'm giving you my $0.02.

I don't know what the Ford 98 really gets me, but I do like the fact that I didn't have to do anything other than, again, have my personal information shared with Mark Zuckerberg. But it's nice that they just sent it right back to me. that's how more of these deals should work right because yeah generally speaking you know i mean i don't we were talking about this the other day like you and i tend to not opt into these things when you occasionally see an email because it's like well what am i gonna really get from this

yeah i remember like in the past i see there must be different systems because i feel like in the past as a you know maybe a a young man like literally like you know in my early 20s or something like randomly getting a check that would be some sort of a class action thing but it was like minuscule like less than that it would be like literally a dollar 90 or something like that if that and being sort of confused but also being like all right great this is a pack of cigarettes i was probably a smoker back then um and that hasn't happened to me in a while this is one

loose cigarette that i've now yeah right right become the uh proud owner of but now i don't get

That's so much as I will get a little postcard in the mail that says, like, hey, you know, if you were the victim of this thing or you were the victim of this thing, you know, check this box, sign this postcard and mail it back. And I just got one. I was telling you, I got one of those the other day from the Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center or something about my medical data. I've never even had dealings with them directly, but they must have my data through some other partnership or something. and I was like well do I I think we just had this conversation I'm like should I fill this out it'll take me a minute and then send it back but it's like what then I wait a year or two years and then I randomly get a two dollar check in the mail like I don't need well why don't just for the you know

why don't you just do it for the for the story yeah for the for the like see the act of listen I don't know how I would how I would respond if I got something in the mail like that but the act of throwing it away seems like it's almost as much work as the act of filling it out and throwing it into the mailbox. I mean, I guess the filling it out is kind of a hassle. Yeah, the print

is very small. There's something about a lot of very small, dense print. I'm just like, I'm out for that. I'm out.

But you will read the fine print of a PDF file about a Behringer audio board. Hardwired?

You're going to hardwire the aux to be pre-fader?

Yeah, why would you not want to give people the option? It's all about more options, not less. I mean, you've been saying that for years. I have.

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 the reason that too beautiful to biz is able to purchase replacement audio equipment when necessary audio equipment that allows you to decide if you're going to be pre-fade or post-fade It's not hardwired.

Who would hardwire it so that it's pre-fade, Andrew? I like to think I'm pre-fade right now. As soon as we can do it with the show, I will be post-fade. That's my hope. So hurry up. Read the Dazzlers.

Got to get your 99 bananas.

That's right.

We are so fortunate to have these supporters during these wild and woolly financial times that are very stressful and anxious for all of us. It's very stressful when you do a podcast that is 100% listener-supported like this. And so we're so thankful for folks like Christina Homer, who is dazzling us with her donation of dough all the way from San Francisco, California. I'm going to be in the—well, I'm going to be in San Rafael, but I'm going to be landing in San Francisco, California on Sunday, and then I'm going to be interviewing Metallica, Andrew. Oh, that's right. I somehow did not completely and absolutely poison the well of that story when I stormed off of the black carpet.

Well, Metallica doesn't know that you did that.

They do not. They do not. It was more between me and the crew who should have been underwhelmed with my antics. But it did not get back to Lars Ulrich that I was being a petulant baby.

Now, if you're stealing music off of Napster, that will definitely go directly to his Ulrich cave. He'll get an alert.

He's got a Google alert.

I just want to say, speaking of Christina, a longtime supporter of the show and friend of the show, checking in from San Francisco here, I know that what happened as far as the results of the Mariners, three baseball games against the San Francisco Giants, it didn't go the way the Mariners would hope, but my goodness, was it a beautiful series to watch right there? Is it Oracle Park? Is that what it's a beautiful park? Is that what they renamed it? yeah i think so was that old candlestick back in the day or well i think a candlestick yes i i

think candlestick was is that built on the on the remains of candlestick or it might be a slightly

different area i'm not sure on that one but generally speaking it was sunny i know that there's a tradition where giants have their home opener during the day instead of the evening and boy it was just it was sun drenched it was probably brisk but it was sun drenched it was beautiful there were people out in kayaks trying to catch yeah and home runs and foul balls

McCovey Cove oh yeah yeah yeah yeah that's a great I mean what a great location for a stadium and yeah I mean we got love for the Giants because we don't play them that much they're not you know um our natural rivals so um you know like yeah Christina if you if you took joy in the the Giants playing well and the demise of the Mariners we we're okay with

that yeah with that and I mean I didn't even yes from a baseball perspective pardon me from a baseball perspective certainly but just also just it just seemed like the city it just reminded me how beautiful san francisco is especially this time of year yeah a phenomenal place where a

phenomenal person christina is residing christina says i definitely struggled with what to say this year because of the day-to-day uh the day-to-day seems the opposite of dazzling but as i listen to luke and andrew each day and hear all of the great things the tens community is doing it does give me hope that there are great people out there who want to do the right thing and care about their fellow humans i am an infectious diseases doctor and researcher often tasked with taking care of the most vulnerable people in our society we are rallying to continue to advocate for these groups to advocate for science-based treatments that we know are life-saving including vaccines to preserve data that the current administration is attempting to permanently delete from the scientific record are you kidding this is bottomless are you kidding me the cruelty is the point, somebody said some years ago, and I think that that's been borne out, and to treat people as people instead of marginalizing groups based on their identity. I invite you to join us by calling your representatives, speaking out on social media and within your social circles, and not self-censoring, power out. Well, Christina, thank you so much for that work that you're doing. It sounds like it's almost as important as us podcasting here um you know uh it sounds like it's definitely up there in terms of important jobs yeah i actually

have a lot to say on this topic but i'm gonna hold off oh really you don't want to weigh in on this you don't want to step into this i'm just doing a little self-censoring as christine asked us not

you know honestly though i will be i listen we don't self-censor anything on this show because frankly not that many people are going to hear it but i do and i don't i don't feel like i self-censor myself in with any concern about the the government coming after me i just don't think i'm a important enough commentator in the world but i i will say that you know probably there are probably times where i don't know i don't feel like i'm self-censoring but i want to be very very mindful if I am doing it and not realizing it, because Christine is exactly right. The only way, I mean, this is an analogy that somebody used on one of the many other shows that I listened to or some book I was reading, that basically what's happening right now is you have, you know, Elon Musk and Donald Trump walking into a room of 500 people with two handguns and saying, stick them up. And it only works because the 500 people are afraid, not because they're out, we are out outnumbering them. And we are outnumbering the bad people in the world and the bad people making these decisions. But when we're cowed by them, which is a very natural thing to have happen, and I've even felt it in my own life, when we are afraid of them, they get the power. And when you see stuff going on like what was going on during the hands-off protests and marches, I mean, it's just so unbelievably inspiring. And it's like you are reminded of the fact that there really are more of us than there are of them. Because I don't consider every person who voted for trump to be a doge enthusiast i think a lot of people voted unfortunately because they just weren't informed on the matter but as far as the people that are really really the tip of this spear there's more of us than there are of them there are more of us than there are elon musks in the world thankfully and i think it's it's good for us to remember that because it's easy to feel frightened and to feel cowed by the by the by the threat of all of it because it feels so

intense yeah i think when i could be wrong here but when christina says you know don't self-censor I think there's maybe sometimes you and I will we'll get into a political conversation, then apologize for it or will actively say, well, let's not get into that. And there are a couple of different reasons for that. None. The reasons are never that we're worried about blowback about what we say, because first of all, like you say, like the megaphone isn't big enough. And also there's nothing I wouldn't say. I mean, this stuff is really, really important. I think it's it's like how much of an appetite is there for that? And for me personally, it's just that I, while my convictions are strong, my articulation is, well, it's like a pre-fade or post-fade kind of situation. Actually, maybe some self-censorship. Would it be a consideration? I think that because the topic is so important, like more important than my adventures at Guitar Center, I tend to be even less articulate about them. And I want to be as articulate as possible so I get in my head about things. So, you know, whenever we're kind of like, well, I'm not going to get into that on the occasion that we do that. But again, I don't think we have even I think that gives us too much, too many points for self-control there, honestly. Anyway, it's more of me just not trusting myself, not that I'm worried about how my feelings on these matters will like come back to haunt me in any way.

Also, I mean, we are trying to balance. I love that we're Christina was so kind is so kind of donate to the show and to give us this really great message. and now i'm turning it into sort of like a one-way conversation with the idea of how much we talk about politics the other thing that we're trying to balance always is um what people are coming to this show for obviously you know and and because we have all the same feelings that everyone else has but we also hear a lot from folks that what they like about listening to tbtl is it is a break from the larger news of the day so we also have to sort of make sure that this is a place that i was listening um i was listening to morning edition today and there was a story about f scott fitzgerald and some folks that are maintaining i think like an f scott fitzgerald museum or something it's like the anniversary of i don't know of um great gatsby or something

f scott kill sorry you just you brought that up the other day i had forgotten about your f scott fitz kill i had forgotten about your f murray kill joke which is and you said the other day you brought it up you're like that was one of the best jokes of my life and i'm like it was i can't believe i forgot about i was in the grocery store yesterday never forget andrew thinking about how you had to remind me about one of the best jokes never forget okay sorry i wanted to give

that no but i i was just listening to that on morning edition and i was just like it was like water in the desert man i was like a flipping story on public radio about f scott fitzgerald hell yes put it in my veins because it's not about the fact that you know everyone's 401k has been cut in half or uh teachers there's a story the other story that preceded it was about a teacher in oregon who had a poster in her classroom and the poster was a depiction of different sets of hands of different uh races of people and the writing on the poster said everyone is welcome here and she was told by her administration to take it down because it was a political poster and i just wanted to i just wanted to walk directly into the columbia river with heavy rocks in my pocket you know it was just like so it's like that's what most of the news that i'm hearing unfortunately still is and then i just get a nice little hey did you know that um great gatsby wasn't a big commercial success when he wrote it and i was like i didn't know that tell me more now i do this is i'll be essentially a This. not a meaningless story but this story is not does not have a world impact but i love that i'm getting to hear it right now and so i guess i feel like that's also something we hope to provide on this show which is a little break from from the real world out there that can be pretty overwhelming

at times so anyway yeah and um yeah you just even telling that story made my my stomach sink i was reading it doesn't even really matter i'm like reading this story in the seattle times of day about uh joe kent's confirmation hearing and i'm just like i was thinking god you know this is a guy who's ran for congress twice now in in washington and has lost in your district i believe luca now he's the cover of the new yorker this weekend oh i didn't know that i mean it's just so anyway point is like the detail i don't even have to i'm not going to tell you all the millions of appalling things and and um that are tied into this story but i was just sort of moping around this morning and just thinking like just this story alone 15 years ago would be a political scandal just him sitting in front of congress kind of quote-unquote applying for this job and this is why i don't like to talk about these things i say you apply for these jobs but anyway and it's just so easy to pull at a tiny little thread and just feel absolute hopelessness like every i feel like every morning i have to like i have to literally distract myself like just like when you're when you try to sing loudly over a score so that you don't have the game spoiled for you or something i don't think that's a relatable analogy but anyway having said all of that what i'm going to do right now to sing loudly over the despair that i'm feeling is i am going to go back to great jokes that luke burbank said at one point that stick in my head so i had forgotten about f murray kill um but i will i will never forget that again never forget uh number two the one i think about a lot is stop remembering that when you what was the the setup on that was You saw some guy wearing, like, kind of a quasi-Italian.

It was at the International Pizza Exposition in Las Vegas. And it was, like, it was something like, you know, Italian Louie's, Italian pizza. But it was, I believe it was in, like, you know, Lincoln, Nebraska or something.

Oh, right.

And it just said, forget about it on the T-shirt. And just, like, of course, there are Italian-Americans that live in Lincoln, Nebraska. But it doesn't scream.

Yeah, Sopranos.

Italian Vinny's Italian pizza.

Yeah. Right. Right. So you're like, stop remembering that. Yeah. And then the other one, I don't even think you meant it to be as funny as it was. And I have no idea what the topic was. But at one point you were talking about something and somebody was being rude to you. Somebody, I can't remember the details at all. And in the midst of your, I'll just say rant, although that's too strong of a word. In the midst of your rant, you just said, excuse you. And I had not heard somebody say, excuse you, in so long. I told Genevieve about it later. This is like years ago. We laughed about it. I still think about how great of a small little bar to say to somebody. And then yesterday, Luke, okay, here's another little. I'm in the grocery store buying asparagus and noodles, by the way. You had a huge impact on my dinner last night. Got you thinking. Penne. But anyway, I was shopping. i was looking for some spice and i could hear a woman talking to her it was a real dune situation i was looking for some place and i could hear a woman talking to her very young child in the aisle next to mine so i didn't have eyes on them i could just hear her in the in the kid kept saying peekaboo peekaboo or something like that the kid was playing some sort of game and giggling and making themselves laugh really loudly and then um i don't know what the kid said or did but the the mom who was also you know having a good time with the kid suddenly says excuse you to the child this is just yesterday and i was like it's still in the vernacular it's still in the vernacular i think excuse you we got to bring the if maybe it never went away i feel like i don't hear it

enough i don't think i can hear it enough i think it has gone away but i love that we're going to try to bring it back i also andrea thank you that was very flattering i appreciate you uh being the official archivist of the four good jokes that i've told well that was three you're already turning it into four how did that happen grade inflation i have an a plus plus of a 5.0 gpa but also i would like to give you a w that uh that oracle park is built in the spot where candlestick park oh i didn't say that though you said that but no no you said that and i said well i don't know about that i wasn't sure you said isn't it built where candles is it did it replace You posed the question, but you were right. Your suspicion was right. So it was the same place, huh? It is the same spot, according to Wikipedia. So we're all getting some pretty big Ws today. Fantastic. Thank you, Christina. Thank you, Dr. Homer. We appreciate you. Maestro?

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Look who it is. It's Ann Bost in Newton, Massachusetts. I think this is going to be a Newton, not a Newtown. I think this is going to be a Newton. You've got a Newton. Ann says, hey, friendos, so nice to be here for another dazzling-ish message. As I ponder what to write while sipping tea out of my TBTL mug, dressed in my Tonight Pants and my Little Sluggers shirt. And I don't know if you're just doing this If you're doing this for effect If this was really the state of affairs When you were writing this But I just love to imagine you fully decked out In TBTL stuff Amazing It is clear to me that you and the TBTL community Have become an Here it is again Andrew Integral part of my life It's integral Which one did we decide on

I think it's both Whatever you say I will always say the opposite

I'll guarantee you that. Good. I love it. That's your first good joke that you've done. Yeah, keep track. Many years. At least the part of my life where it's appropriate to wear tonight pants, Anne says. I struggle to express how meaningful it is to me to be able to laugh along with your silliness, to worry about your health outcomes, and then to want to come through the phone at you when you say something I disagree with. To be fair, this occurs mostly when Luke has some customer service complaint. Oh, interesting, Anne. Okay. I'm open to feedback. I'm here to listen. I've got two ears, and they're turned to the listening station.

I wonder if Ann works at Guitar Center, because they have customer service really locked in there.

Your consistency and kindness to one another is an example of friendship that I think is sorely needed these days. I'll tell you this. If you want to really build a bridge with one of your friends, just tell them about the three funny jokes.

Just tell them about the six funniest jokes they've ever told.

This is our version of a Mitch album book, The Three Funny Jokes You Meet in Heaven. The world may be on fire, but for an hour or so each weekday, your conversation is a relief from it. Keep on doing what you're doing. You might not have cured global loneliness yet, but you certainly helped me. And that's just such a kind thing to say. More on that, on that global loneliness cure this summer. Big things planned. Yes. Big things planned. So tune in for that. Again, Anne, thanks for your support. Anything that's positive about this show is only possible because of people like you and your generosity. So thanks for letting us do this. We really appreciate you. Hello and welcome to Top Story. All right, Andrew. This story has everything. Movie theaters. Minecraft. Popcorn throwing. Kids screaming. It is apparently the phenomenon that is chicken jockey, which I did not know was a thing until I was reading the New York Times today. Oh, by the way, another thing that I've realized, I think this might be, is this the aging process? I realized this morning I cannot read the New York Times online and listen to Morning Edition at the same time. uh which i used to be my you know my my typical morning would be read in on all the news and listen to all the news on npr and what i'm finding is if i'm reading any kind of complicated story not that this chicken jockey story is overly complicated but if i'm reading a complicated story i'm going back i have to keep restarting sentences if i have audio content going in the background that's also commanding my attention i think that's always been true for me i think

I mean, to varying degrees. I mean, my job has called for me to have sort of be able to like kind of take inputs from different sources at the same time. But like I remember working at Cairo. I always use this example. But back then you were sort of somebody described the job of being the desk editor as like being kind of a goalie in hockey. I don't know why hockey, but basically a bunch of stuff is kind of coming at you all the time and you kind of got to deal with it. And, um, you know, like we literally had the squawker on the police, the police, what do you call it? Why am I scanner? The police scanner, the, the, all the emergency scanners. Plus like they're like monitor these Twitter things. Like, you know, the police released their, uh, you know, arrests on this thing on whatever it is. And just like a million different things that you got to be kind of like looking at the same time. And I got to say, that's never been a strength of mine.

See, that was something I was kind of proud of. I felt like my brain was pretty good at taking in a bunch of different, you know, uh, information from different streams and sort of synthesizing it or whatever. But I think it's getting less good at that because now we're down to, I'm like listening to morning edition. And then I'm like reading in on a really complicated story actually about ankle monitors being deployed as a mean of means of home confinement. And I have to keep going back and rereading the article until I just pause.

morning edition so i it's like i got to do one or the other anyway uh great article in the new york times today by esther zuckerman uh chicken jockey how a crazy catchphrase took over multiplexes so apparently uh this new minecraft movie called a minecraft movie starring jack black uh there is a scene where his character i guess he is steve now this is the thing andrew do you know so much more about this world than i do this world of minecraft this is the first that i learned that the default skin in minecraft is someone named steve i'm learning that right now

i didn't know that i read part of this story as you sent it today but like i don't know anything about minecraft culture it's just like a game where i go in and i build things and i don't

play with i assume you knew all of this stuff from all your time in there no i really don't

and in fact i thought it i haven't really been following this minecraft are you a minecraft hermit very closely yeah yeah i mean for real like it's kind of the i think one of the reasons i like that game is because it is kind of whatever you want it to be it's mostly like kind of a well can you build this thing or figure out how to build this thing like um i like the idea of other

people in in your minecraft world just like seeing you on this hill building that's old man walsh

no there's nobody i mean that's kind of the thing like there's no there's no inner the way i play the game there is nobody else like i know that you're just making a joke sort of but just for the record it's not like i think it can be like that old game second life or something where you're kind of playing with other people i think you can create worlds where it's just you and your friends i think you can create i think there are open worlds where you can wander around i don't mess around with that stuff it's just like kind of it's just yeah it's usually a kind of a late night i'm going to put my mind at ease by just sort of like digging a cave and looking for diamonds or whatever and avoiding like these creatures that can hurt you but like honestly everything that you're about to say about this story about this what is it again chicken uh jockey this was all this was all news to me i was a little bit confused about how they were going to turn minecraft into a movie because it doesn't have a plot it doesn't really have characters i'm just learning that the i guess skin is called steve i didn't know that but i was like how are they going to do this and i thought that people were sort of ridiculing this idea but i will tell you this i was in the grocery store we're all good things we're all my good stories originate and there were I think they were both employees probably young men I'm gonna say in their two kind of scruffy looking men who were working like the butch in the butcher area or something like that who are maybe in their mid-20s or something I just heard one of them shout to the other one hey are you going to see the Minecraft movie tonight and I think it was the Thursday night it was opening and the other one's like I can't go tonight I gotta work tonight he's like well are you gonna see it this weekend or what and these two like kind of just like I don't i don't even know how to describe it like totally like without any kind of um affectation or anything these two grown men just talking about well are you gonna go see the minecraft or not and it occurred to me like this is maybe a cultural phenomenon for young people who grew up with this game i did not do that i was an adult who started toying around with this as a lark 10

years ago yes i i'll play this clip for you so there's a scene where so jason momoa is i don't want to get I don't want to get distracted with this but I would just tell you my journey with the idea of a Minecraft movie is as soon as I started seeing like bus shelter ads for it when I was in Los Angeles because you know when you're in LA that's when you really find out what movies are are in the offing because there's just so much movie promotion down there every billboard every bus shelter it's like I just started seeing these these these photos for the movie it's like a Minecraft movie it's like of course it's Jason Momoa and Jack Black and like whomever else and it's just like it filled me with a deep sadness like we really are out of ideas for movies now or that's not even true we have lots of ideas but we're not funding those ideas because the only way to make money with a movie is to use something that's already popular existing intellectual property like emojis or minecraft and then just reverse engineer a movie into it so that's kind of what i've been carrying around related to this movie is just this feeling of like this is just another sign of like how messed up the world is because of economic forces and then i realized it's directed by jared hess who made napoleon dynamite and probably for certainly for these teens that are going into the theater and like with their friends and having a shared experience where they're basically turning it into as the article says their version of the rocky horror picture show where they're like hanging out in the theater and just waiting for jack black's character to say chicken jockey so this is the actual line from the movie chicken jockey it's like they're in a they're in like a boxing ring and Jason Momoa's character who I believe is trying to get a certain something so that he can go back to the human world Jack Black's character lives in Minecraft he's Steve he's the Minecraft dude and this he's Jason Momoa is gonna fight this chicken which looks pretty unassuming and then this little like Frank

Frankenstein baby drops onto the chicken and looks very cute and cuddly and then it snarls and it's terrifying and that's called chicken jockey and it's something to be very feared and what's happening now is the the young people are going to the theater packing the theater and they're waiting for that scene and then they're going off here's an actual recording in a theater I Yes, and they're throwing popcorn and they're they're having such a great time together That I really had to kind of like check myself on this like just because I don't play Minecraft or know much about it And just because I felt like well, this is the end of you know of Western civilization or whatever I'm so stoked for these kids that are getting to have this fun again shared experience probably a lot of kids who are the age where like they had part of their middle school totally interrupted by the pandemic and didn't get to do things like this like i just think i've i've gone from thinking the minecraft movie was the worst thing that could be happening to us to thinking wow this is actually kind of great i thought jared hess had a funny like uh comment at the end of the article uh where the reporter for the new york times was like what do you think about all the popcorn throwing and he said no one's ever died from being hit by popcorn which i also thought

some good perspective like you know more people have died from choking on popcorn oh without a

doubt yeah the main danger of throwing popcorns it might go down your throat and lodge in your throat that's where the danger is it's not throwing popcorn around in the theater oh i think he said something at the end of the article this is from jared he said oh and as far as the popcorn throwing he's not bothered no one's gonna get hurt from popcorn he said look when i go to the movies with my kids it's like a popcorn massacre that happens and they're not throwing any anything but it ends up on the on the ground regardless so i think it's a good point like you know because it's the new york times you've got to say but on the other hand or but some people see the popcorn uh you know the popcorn detritus as a real slipping hat like you've got to kind of get serious about it he's just like look we go to the i go to the regular movies with my kids in the freaking popcorn massacre okay it's it's it's part of the deal but some people acknowledge the messiness

of popcorn but they don't believe it's man-made uh-huh that's right the new york times well exactly but others but others disagree yeah right exactly but yeah this is something we can see with

our own two eyes but others deny its existence so i am i'm very i'm very pro uh chicken jockey and i'm very pro i guess the other thing too i maybe i'm sort of just repeating myself but it's like it was interesting for me to consider the idea that this movie would be really fundamental to somebody's experience who's younger than me probably likely or maybe just somebody who's really into minecraft but like this is their star wars or something i mean it could be or this is their you know as napoleon dynamite was to me like so and i was pretty old when it came out you know i was in probably post-college but like movies that i was really into that really kind of had an impact on me this could be this could be that for them and i think that's a really good thing like you know who cares that it doesn't it doesn't appeal to me necessarily like i'm glad it appeals

to someone i really liked your point about and i don't know if this was something that you read or this was just you sort of sort of well forming this idea on your own which if so like congratulations I did that once with an idea but this idea that like also putting in the context of this generation had like a couple of years where they couldn't even go to the theater and so therefore might just not have the same sort of memories or connections to going to the theater that I do now I'm going to say something here that is going to sound like really really sort of selfish when you consider everything that's going out going on in the world and the implications of it like there is so much like we're talking earlier during the dazzling donors i can't even begin to talk about the depths of evil depravity like whatever the word is what is going on in this country right now the last thing i have to worry about probably is whether or not i will be able to go to an amc or regal theater in the future having said that you know that i love that experience and i love going to the movies and i do believe there will always be people making movies in some way or another and there will be places where i can see them but there's something about also just going to a generic chain theater that has been part of my life that i may have to say goodbye to at some point yeah but i thought we might be saying goodbye to them earlier because of the pandemic but somehow there's been closures and some you know shrinkage in the industry but for the most part like there's still a lot of amcs a lot of regals whatever the other ones are you can still have that sort of suburban experience of just going you know driving parking going in buying too much popcorn and a giant thing of cola that you could swim in if you wanted to um i love that experience and i was just sort of you know i'd heard some people sort of con kind of like thinking out loud about the implications of the tariffs with china and how like china's threatening i I don't know if they're...

I don't know if they've actually you would know better than me if they're actually doing this or just threatening to not show American, you know, Hollywood films in China anymore.

And that is like I didn't know about that.

But if you think about the implications of that, that is where the money is coming from for Hollywood now, you know, and you can make it all the things to worry about. Are we worrying about Hollywood? And it's not top on my list. I promise you that. But if they do that, it's kind of like my point here is any story about a phenomenon that is getting a bunch of people into theaters to have an experience is a win in my column. Like I have no intention of seeing the Minecraft movie. I think this one is a little bit more interesting maybe than just taking like another another video game that maybe has some sort of a storyline. Even Mario Brothers or Super Mario Brothers has a princess that's trying to be saved. There are castles, there are dungeons. I sort of feel like there's still even a slightly more narrative structure, whereas Minecraft is, well, you just start off with just a guy punching trees so he can build a tool out of wood, and then you take it from there. How do you develop a story about that? I didn't realize that it was directed by the Napoleon Dynamite person. And so it sort of feels like the blank canvas of this and the impossibility of turning this into a narrative sort of makes it more interesting to me. Like, at least there could do something creative there. Having said that, I still have no interest in going to see that movie. But any time I hear about a bunch of people, especially this age, going and packing theaters and doing this kind of thing, I don't necessarily want to be there. But it might mean that another a real pain or whatever that movie was. Yeah. You and I love can come out or something like I. I just want people to keep the theaters in business.

Yeah, that's a really good way to look at it. Long-winded, though. God damn.

Did anybody time that? All I wanted to say was, let's go to the theater.

I think it's the top of my brain because this morning I was listening to the Ezra Klein show, and he was interviewing this researcher. I don't know what his actual title is. He teaches at NYU, but his name is Jonathan Haidt. And he wrote this book called The Anxious Generation, which is, you know, really looks into sort of the way that like screen time and stuff and just a lot of the things about life these days is not maybe setting the next generations up for like the most emotional well-being. And a lot of that has to do with not getting to be together in the way that like we used to be able to be together in our childhoods and just in social situations, just getting, you know, because of it sounds so cliche, but because of like kind of what phones have done to us and stuff. And so, it's a pretty compelling case That this person is making And so I was thinking about that And then I was, look, doing the, you know Reading this morning, the paper And then I saw these clips of these kids Having the opposite experience, you know Getting to be in this theater together And getting, like, all geeked up about it It just reminded me of the dumb stuff We would do as kids It wasn't exactly like this in the movie theater But just, like, I was very, very I guess what I was feeling this morning, too Was a lot of gratitude about the era of life That I got to grow up in You know First of all The politics Politics probably weren't great But it wasn't like now It wasn't like every single day The headline was Somebody's trying to basically end life as we know it That's got to trickle down a little bit To the young people And their sense of just kind of doom And then just I was really lucky that I grew up in a city Where I could just ride my bike to anything That was super lucky I didn't even realize that was happening I was focusing on the fact that I couldn't afford Jordans or that i had to you know i was embarrassed that we had a shitty car that we prayed before our meals but like i was getting so lucky with the childhood that i was having as far as just like having lots of friends and and having lots of fun good wholesome things to do and uh and just seeing these kids in the movie theater just waiting waiting waiting for chicken jockey before they throw popcorn everywhere and wild out i was just like god this is this is great i love that this

is happening yeah yeah that childhood that you describe is like that's what i that's very much what i wanted as a kid i'm very jealous of it like i just wanted to have a more of an an urban or even like even even maybe suburban but like i grew up out in the country like we were just so spread out and i would watch movies even like this is not urban this is very suburban but like et would be the perfect example of that just a bunch of little kids yeah at least living close enough together and having streets safe enough and i'm not talking about cleaning up these streets i'm talking about not having like country roads that stroads no i well i grew up in the country so it's just like these windy hilly roads without any markings on them that some like drunk yahoo is going to be trying to open up his say say a type of a muscle car here luke i don't know uh gto his gto on and then you know making the streets dangerous for for you to ride your bike anywhere so all of that is to say like i grew up just looking at like oh look at these kids all like with a bit of freedom and riding around and going to the movies or or doing whatever they do playing street hockey or whatever that was yeah did you play a lot of street hockey constantly yeah car alternate between stick ball

and street what we did though we played we literally played you know wiffle ball or touch football with like four we would come up with these crazy rules that would allow you to play like an entire baseball game with three people or four people yeah so many ghost runners and that if you hit it over that fence it's an out even though that should be a home run by rights But it's because the woman who owns that yard is mean, right? We don't want to get the ball from her yard like and one of the things that this guy was talking about in the interview was Something that's really useful for development in young people is Actually spending time with different age groups particularly older kids So the ways that we sort of figure stuff out as kids at least we used to and the way we're wired to is You know it's believe it or not. This is just one guy's opinion And I guess this book was, you know, there were some detractors. A lot of people really embraced it. Other people kind of detracted or didn't really buy everything. But his theory is, like, what you need as a kid is you need your parents to be your anchor. You need to feel, they're your attachment. And you need to, like, feel safe and loved by them. But then you also need to be able to go out and do stuff with other people. You can't have all of every piece of information you're getting and your whole experience be with your parents. It's actually not really how it's designed in that, you know, a lot of people like me got lucky that we could grow up in an environment where you spent a lot of time out of the house with people that were different ages. And so you were kind of developing your sense of the world through this diversity of age groups, which actually is really important. Instead of being maybe at home with your parent, typically it falls to the mother, where that's like your whole day. another i'll stop right after this but this was really shocking to me or just surprising i guess that even though parents work more and there are many more households that now have you know both parents are in the workforce parents are now spending more time with their children than they ever did in the 1950s including the mothers because of the and again some of this gets into some mayberry and who knows what was really going on i don't want to like overly i don't want to like do a wipe where everything goes black and white and we're in Pleasantville or something. But the theory seems to be that, you know, particularly like in the parents would, you know, to get the kids breakfast and get them dressed. And then the kids would kind of, if it was the summertime, they'd be off on their life, whatever that was. And if it was wintertime, they'd be off at school. Like there was just a lot more things going on outside of the house where the kids were pretty unsupervised. And it actually meant less time of parents spending with kids than they're spending now, even though now we definitely think the number one way to be a good parent is to spend a ton of time with your kids. And he would say that there's maybe some downside to that Anyway, two people that don't have young children Speculating on parenting is a good place To go with this program today, I think And a really strong lead into the Blur's days Wouldn't you agree?

Will you or will you not explain the birds and the bees to me? That's all I want to know

I did it yesterday, Andrew I said when a tree loves another tree very much

There's a right way to rock And a wrong way to roll You can't just listen to your soul Just remember that life is number one You can be having so much fun Just remember that life is much fun You can be number one

Luke, Andrew, I know you want to do the Blur's Days. I want to do the Blur's Days, too, but I want to tell you about a special little email that I got just about two minutes ago. Oh, wow. Okay. It says, your order is ready. It's from a little friend of mine named Guitar Center. So this is kind of, this is almost like a birthday for you. This is a happy Blur's Day to the new audio board. This audio board is just birthed into the world. It says, your order is ready for pickup. I can go pick it up today, and then I'm going to pick up Genevieve after work, and I'm going to show her the audio board. It's all working out. My whole afternoon is really setting up nicely here. I'm very excited about this. Now, back to this idea of Blur's Days. If you'd like to wish somebody or even yourself a happy Blur's Day, you can email me, andrew, at tbtl.net. Put Blur's Day in the subject line like Lisa did. Oh, for our good friend Farron. Lisa says, happy golden Blur's Day to our friend Farron. To save time, it was a They Might Be Giants show. She is still an amazing civic leader. Shout out to her work with the Ocean Beach Women's Club. And still an amazing hair goddess. I'm excited to see her and get my hair done when I'm in San Diego next month. I had San Francisco on my mind for some reason. When I'm in San Diego next month, I hope you're doing something fun today and hope we can toast to your birthday in a few weeks.

Happy Blurs, Farron.

Yeah.

I love that we just TLDR that They Might Be Giants thing now. Yeah, exactly.

It's like every year I bring it up, the origin story of those two fine folks meeting.

Was it a cake show? Grace in Ithaca, New York, says, I'd like to wish Diane in Bo's Arts a very happy Blur's Day. Oh, I love that place. Oh, that's nice. What is that?

Yeah, it's just something called Charmed on my sample sound effect list. Oh, I found it calming. Yeah, it kind of made me think of Bo's Arts Village, a very calming, nice place.

Well, that's where Diane is, and she is always there for me, and the best mom slash TBTL daddy I could ask for. That's from Grace in Ithaca. Happy Blurs. Jew wrote in to say happy Blurs to Spencer, the person who first introduced me to TBTL back in 2008 when we became office mates. And by introduced, I mean, quote, mention that he was obsessed with this radio show. It took me years, but now I'm the obsessed one. Spencer was the best office mate and has been a great friend since. He's smart, funny, kind, and I wish we could hang out more often. Happy Blurs Day to Spencer. Happy Blurs. Thanks for spreading the word, Spence. Indeed. Yeah, indeed. Everybody do that. Be more like Spencer. Brandon says, happy 17th Blurs Day to Aiden. We're proud of the young man that you're becoming from working to being an honor student to rowing crew, developing brilliant comedic timing. Aiden now listens to TBTL on his own, and with so many abhorrent people pumping out content, I'm comforted that he's spending time with his West Coast friendos.

I love that. First of all, amazing news to hear that we have a young listener who's voluntarily engaging with this content as opposed to being subjected to it in the car or whatever. Love that. Also love that we can be an answer to the manosphere.

Yeah, right.

I kind of, that's what I took from that message that there's a lot of, there are a lot of Nelk boys out there. There are a lot of, not that, I don't know if they're strictly Manosphere, but just like there's a lot of guys with microphones that are now podcasting to a lot of, you know, a lot of people who are still developing their thoughts about the world. And hopefully we can help turn out some, a few more Namby Pamby snowflakes.

That's right.

We're outnumbered right now, majorly, but we're doing what we can.

I like the friend zone. It's very friendly.

The name of our podcast, Friend Zone.

Brian in Portland says, Big Blur's a shout-out to my long-running co-bro, Nate, in Tacoma. I hope we can get together in person soon, but until then, we'll just continue to text each other in TBTL drops. Love it. That's a tuna, bro. Sorry, I don't have the drop. That was a terrible one, though.

That wasn't that bad. I'm finding it right now. Hold on. Yeah, that's a... That's a tuna, bro.

Yeah, that's better. It's better than mine. Happy Blurs to Nate. You know the drop it wanted to auto-fire after that?

Yeah.

That's a tuna, bro.

The unfortunate side effect is that it makes most movies look like they were shot at high school.

Happy Blurs to Nate, and thank you to TBTL for bringing awesome friends like him into my life. Absolutely. Happy Blurs to Nate from Brian and from us. We love Brian. Indeed we do. And we love Nate. And we love all of those movies. Yeah. It's not a zero-sum game. It's Nate's Blur's Day. Rhoda says, happy Blur's Day to my longest-running co-worker bro, Julie. You make everyone's days brighter. I see another chance for you to play a drop here, Luke, if you want to play along. Let's see here. You make everyone's days brighter and better with your humor, knowledge, and patience, including mine. I don't know what I would do without you.

What? I don't know if it's video games or... Until it stops. What? Will you please stop?

You know what's crazy? I don't think I have video games or what. I just have this...

It's so unfair to, after something like this, have blame people in the backseat or say they deserved it.

To, after something like this, somebody wrote in today and said... I can never stop laughing. It's just, it's so, so, I think you should leave, the way that language is constructed. I love it. I thought I had, or what in here? Oh, here. Could this be it? Oh, no. My audio is going to be a mess, Luke. Stand by here. Okay. No, that's not it. How about Scott? How about this? Come on, Scott.

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 of the city.

It's so good, and I got there so smoothly. That's the important thing. We have a lot going on. And also, that board is hardwired to pre-fade. Yes. It's ridiculous. Exactly. Anyway, Rhoda says, I don't know what I would do without you. Having a fellow 10 in the workplace is special. It is special. Please have a great birthday.

Julie, from your friend-o, Rhoda. Love it. And one more here. Sally says, this is a complicated Blur's Day message to myself. Last April 9th, I was rushed to the hospital, incoherent, and without control of my body. I was in septic shock due to a massive bacterial infection. I was given a 10% chance to survive. Gosh. I had eight surgeries. I was in the ICU for weeks. And when I finally got home, I started my big backlog of TBTL, and some days it made me laugh, some days it made me cry, and some days it just made me forget about my condition. I consider today, April 10th, my new birthday. I still have some healing to do, but this is where I start to come back. So, Sally, we're glad you're here with us. That was a journey. I condensed that a little bit, but what Sally has gone through is just breathtaking.

My goodness. Well, happy new birthday, Sally, out there in North Bend. And we'll be thinking about you I'm so sorry to hear that you've been going through that I also wonder what the medical professionals said When they asked you about your plans when you returned home And you said, well, I've got to catch up on this podcast I wonder if they thought that was a useful medical decision for you

I thought you were going to say that the medical professionals looked down and said I don't know if it's video games or what is going on with you I don't know if it's podcasting or what Exactly, but yeah, that sounds like a very harrowing journey man 10 chance of survival wow well we are i mean we're so glad that you beat the odds sally

and so so stoked to have you continuing on as part of our uh our listener community and wishing you the best indeed a happy blursday to everybody um i feel like julio rodriguez had a rebirth yesterday

at least according to matt caulkins today oh really oh suddenly you're calling this could be

well when his takes and mine align i'm very pro maybe maybe so i mean that was that was quite something that game yesterday i had no idea andrew again luckily this is buried at the end of the show but like my journey with that baseball game yesterday was i was so frustrated at our ineptitude and also i had a lot of work to do getting ready for a live wire tomorrow night in seattle at benaroy hall that i just had checked out of the game i was doing my reading and some other stuff and then i see a text that you had put on the chain about the fact that my brother dftb was at the baseball game with his beautiful daughter and his wife her first baseball game yes and and so i turned the game off when it was five nothing to focus on other things i see a text from you saying something to the effect of what an awesome game for your daughter's first game or something and i thought there's no way andrew is that sarcastic like like seriously this was the journey i went on i was like that would be such a kind of weirdly like even if you're frustrated about the game you would never bring Gemma into this. Yeah, right. So I saw it and I was like, the only explanation for this is that the Mariners are doing something unexpected. And I booted up my Fubo. I pulled the shades. You weren't in public, were you? I pulled all of the shades, Andrew, and I booted up my Fubo.

Oh, geez. What a fun, sexy time for you.

I was like, oh my, it was six to six. I was like, this is incredible. But I would have missed that whole thing if not for your text to the group, basically saying this is a cool thing for my niece's first baseball game. So thank you for sending that because I would have just missed the,

and it ended up being a very exciting end. It was, I mean, this was a team that was down five to nothing, I think going into the eighth, I want to say. And then a grand slam later, and it's close to being tied. And then like you said, a two run RBI from Julio. Like, I mean, Julio's gotten a few dingers this year, but not usually in clutch positions or situations or when somebody is on base. And so, yeah, like suddenly this team just coming to life at the end of this game. And now, Luke, and now they rest. I've had today, this is how weird I am. I have had their off day circled mentally on my calendar for a while. On their behalf? This team needs to rest. I know that it hasn't been like an arduous road trip or anything. It's been mostly all at home. But this team needs to take a breather, see if they can like clone any of their injured players. or something and get healthy and then be back again on Friday.

But, I mean, talk about a difference in how the day felt to go from we haven't won a series and we're just looking absolutely pathetic against our hated rivals, the Astros, to, oh, we actually won a series. Oh, and maybe Julio is getting off the schneid with runners in scoring position. And, yeah, enjoy that day off. There's nothing like a day off after something good has happened.

Exactly. And then I guess they're staying at home for this Rangers series. Are they ever going to go on the road again?

I hope not. Maybe not. All right. Well, listen, thanks, everybody, for listening. Thanks for indulging that little bit of sport talk at the end of the show. We'll be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for all of you. Please do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care. yourselves and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

power out