Muse

Uh, would you like to enter our raffle? Win dinner with a real astronaut? Okay, I like space. Ever since I was a child, I was always fascinated by Major Tony Nelson's failed space flight, his capsule crash landing on a desert island, knocking over a genie ball to releasing Barbara Eden. Thank you, NASA. She was his slave. TBTL!

I can't hear you. That's not true, of course. But cheer louder. Yeah. Look, I get it. I'm not always fun to be around. I can be loud and abrasive. My breath. The doctors say I have incurable stink tongue.

So tired of you getting angry and yelling all the time. It's exhausting. I feel like I'm partners with the Hulk.

Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good. Oh my god, man, we are seeing some s**t we ain't never seen before.

Well, alright, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show. It just might be too beautiful to live.

I heard about that thing on the AM radio.

My name's Luke Burbank, I'm your host. I'm an activist and house party enthusiast. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where we're looking at another nice day.

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

blue skies the cows are in the river it's uh it's pretty idyllic here except for the fact that i saw not one but two large flocks of geese once again flying north there's something about the soul of a bird i don't know what is going on with that but i am a bit worried for them uh i'll do some research later and figure out why the geese seem to be flying north for the winter which I mean, listen, everything is topsy-turvy in this world, so maybe that's just, that's another norm being violated. The thing, we thought there was a law around them having to fly south. It was just because nobody wanted to violate the norm of southern flight, and now they figured out, well, we can just fly north and see what happens. It's a crazy world, folks. We're going to try to make it a little better, make a little more sense here on episode 4,577 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

I don't know if you heard, there was a Mariners baseball game last night against the Toronto Blue Jays, and it didn't go great. It could be worse, but I'm not sure how. That's a good old-fashioned drubbing. Again, I know that my brand as guy who cares about baseball too much is strong because people were reaching out to me last night. Lots of people. Again, as I mentioned, I think maybe last week, kind of in the sort of wellness check category, Are you sort of like, are you okay, Luke, right now? I am okay, and I'll tell you why coming up. Also, if you need to, I don't know, feel better about the Mariner's loss or you want to take the edge off, you maybe could visit one of the portable saunas that are popping up around Seattle now.

I feel warm, and I'm levitating.

Also known as the number one place you will never find my friend Andrew Walsh. Pop-up sauna on Lake Washington or Lake Union. Hey, it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day, so we'll celebrate all the folks who were born around this time. And, of course, speaking of my dear friend Andrew Walsh, the longest-running co-bro of the show, he is maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships and his aversion to going shirtless around people he doesn't know at 7 in the morning. Your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus. He's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Oh, it's okay, Luke. They offer conversational topics on cards. I wondered if you were going to lock in on that desk and deep. Imagine a story about saunas, and my biggest issue with it isn't taking my shirt off in public.

That tells you something. That really tells you something.

I don't know if you really wanted to. Why not? That's okay. Should we just jump into that right now? I read that article, and I thought, hey, everybody can like what they like. This feels a little bit forced to me, but it's not for me. Maybe it'll be a successful venture. I'll let you set it up in a second. But then I got to this line about like, and we just really want people to be social. So we're going to be creating conversation topics that people can take into the sauna. And I was like, yeah, this is another example of extroverts being confused why other people aren't extroverts and really trying to shove it on people.

or even people who are not extroverts but who have sort of built up a scaffolding an exoskeleton of socializing around themselves so that they then come off as being somebody who's extra in other words it doesn't come natural but if you if you if you just sort of force yourself to enough groups on

situations with enough little laminated cards that are conversation starters you can kind of will yourself into that and by the way i'm with you like everyone should like what they like people seem like they're having a lot of fun with this it's called a tule lodge there was an article in the seattle times today from nicole pasia um who by the way has a great title there at the seattle times and i really hope i mean this seriously seattle times features engagement reporter hmm wait a second i thought that was a cool title because i thought well first of all it's just kind of it sounds almost like um it just sounds like a fun beat and it sounds like a newspaper that's actually not doing the absolute minimum you know what i mean like you've got to have your like person who covers city hall you've got to have your person who covers the seahawks and the mariners but if you've got like a new features reporter that's kind of cool but then i get worried with that word engagement features engagement reporter is this an ad andrew am i reading? No, I think you're right.

I'm looking at Nicole's little bio here on the Seattle Times, and it says features engagement reporter for the Seattle Times. She writes about the unique ways people find and build community in greater Seattle. So it's a very specific kind of features that Nicole is writing. Kind of like getting out there. It reminds me of what Natalie Graham has been doing for The Stranger and other outlets around Seattle. I think other outlets, maybe just The Stranger, for years now, which is going out and people are Or whether they're playing, this is a dated one, but adult dodgeball or, you know, wall climbing clubs or that type of thing. I think that people like reading about how people are getting out, especially in a city that has a reputation for being sort of antisocial.

Well, that's one of the things that comes up in this piece. So this sort of social sauna is on a trailer and they can wheel it around and they set it up at like 7 in the morning and folks come out. this one this stop was near the ship canal in seattle and you sit in this sauna which is kind of like a tiny home that's on a trailer like i mentioned and then there's like a kind of a cold plunge little kind of thing next to it um and you can kind of alternate between the the sauna and the cold plunge there's no alcohol there um because it's early in the morning and because they don't need the people to be both scantily clad and drunk and uh a lot of the people who were interviewed and who were taking part in the scene that they're having a great time i am happy for them that they are having a great time it is definitely not for me but not even because of the reasons you might imagine although i'm not exactly wild about the idea of being shirtless around strangers i don't want to be a shirtless around people that i know um it's that i have never

understood personally the appeal of feeling too hot like this surprises me i thought you were going to have a total opposite take on this i thought you were going to love sweating i'm not joking i thought that this was going to be something because and i should have let you finish your thought before i told you before i told you what i was predicting you were going to say but thank you for allowing me the interruption what i was reading and i was thinking like oh i could see why uh a sauna experience maybe not this social sauna experience that they're trying to um promote here but just generally speaking you seem like somebody who really appreciates the sort of um i don't know transformative nature or or not i don't want to say healing and i don't want to say transformative but sort of i know especially after a night of drinking back in the day you would like a jog for you is really important and i felt like one thing that you would say a lot is i feel like i'm sweating out the toxins so i always thought that you sort of leaned into that feeling of like being able to like sort of express that literally express that

out of your pores well the thing about the jogs after a night of too much drinking uh is that i hate the jog i hate the experience i just you love the jogger exactly and i and it's just like you know i would be non-functional without somehow you know fast processing the stuff through my system so that would that was really a means to an end not something that i found to be kind of like spiritually restorative or anything it was just literally like a practical a somewhat practical solution to a bigger problem called my relationship with alcohol but um i have steam room sauna miss me with all of that stuff it first of all in those steam rooms i feel like i'm gonna suffocate you know those are the ones where it's like the humidity is one thousand percent you're inside somehow you're inside of an active water situation i've never been in one of those i've

been in a regular sauna before at some point in my life i can i can i remember the sensation of

that but i don't think i've been in a steam one yeah they are you know one's dry and one is wet and both for me are absolutely stultifying like i i cannot get out of those things quickly enough And the thing is, you know, I've gone like with Becca and stuff to, you know, these kind of upscale spas. And that's always, you know, a big part of the sales pitch is like, oh, we've got this, you know, really luxurious sauna or steam room or dry sauna or whatever. And I always feel like, well, I'm paying for this. I might as well. Maybe I've missed something about this. And then I sit in there, and then I just am, like, counting the seconds until I can be out of there. Like, again, you know, particularly in Scandinavian culture and stuff, there's this whole idea. I'm sure we're going to have some listeners. I'm sure we have listeners who are bigly into this stuff. And, again, if you enjoy this, by all means, continue enjoying it. People will probably email in and explain the physical benefits of it and all that. And, you know, I believe that to be the case. It's just, for me, I feel like people also just enjoy it. Like, it's one of their favorite things in the world. I know people who, like, their favorite thing, if they could do anything, it would be sitting in a sauna or a steam room. That's their happy place. And for me, it's just I can't get out of there quick enough.

I don't think I would have exactly the same reaction. Again, I'm not saying that I feel like I need a sauna in my life or even if I had one if I was on vacation or something and a resort had one. I'm not saying that I'm racing to get in there. But I wouldn't be totally against it. And I actually – here's the thing. This is going to be such a dumb analogy, but maybe you'll go with me here. Like sometimes on a really, really hot summer day – I haven't done this in a long time. I would, like, get in my car and not turn on the air or roll down the windows for as long as I could possibly go and just, like, get real sweaty. This was more – I think I remember doing this more in, like, New Hampshire. I don't think I've done this in a really, really long time. But I would – when I was, like, kind of a young man in college or right after college, I would, like, do this thing. I'd get in my car, really hot, but just stifle in there for as long as I could possibly go. And this is when I had more of a commute to work or something like that. And then at some point when I couldn't take it anymore, I'd roll down all the windows. Yeah, because I don't think I had air conditioning at this time. But I would roll down all the windows, and it would feel so good when finally the air was hitting my sweaty, hot body.

First of all, I love the idea that you were doing this on your way to work. I don't even want to imagine what you look like.

Well, probably on the way home. Okay, that makes more sense. I'm not doing that.

I'm still Andrew. This explains also what the – so the appeal of it was not so much the being uncomfortably hot. It was the relief of that cool air blowing on you.

I think it's that, but I also do think that – and this is what I thought maybe you would be a little bit more into. I think – well, this also might just fit into my pattern in life of liking to feel like I'm accomplishing something without actually doing anything. And that's also what a sauna experience could do. I can just sit there as opposed to going on a jog like you would and actually do something difficult. I can sit on my ass and just sweat, but then also feel like I've like I've kind of done something. I've again, I keep using that word, but literally expressed something. It can feel and I don't know if it's all in my head or not, but it can feel healthful to me or at least just like a restorative in a certain way. And I kind of like that. So let me put it this way. If I'm on vacation and there's like a pool and a hot tub and a sauna or something, the sauna is the thing I'm least likely to go into. Having said that, if there was some situation where – and actually let's just fantasize about this for a second. Let's say that for some reason some incredibly rich person, I mean like just massively wealthy person has me house sit in their mansion.

But you have to take the E line to their house and it takes 72 hours.

Yes, and there's a big hill at the very end. I have the house at a very, very beautiful place, but I have very little responsibility other than just to use their facilities for, let's say, I have this place for a month. And so I've already been there for a week or two. I've played with their, what do rich people have, Xbox? I don't even know. I can't even fantasize about being rich. I've played with all of their- I cannot believe that was the number one rich thing you came up with.

I don't know what they're doing over there. That most 14-year-olds have.

Yeah, I know, but rich 14-year-olds. No, I don't know. I just feel like I would, like, exhaust whatever, you know, little, you know, if they have some sort of-

Who's playing you in this movie? Because this is powerful, like Adam Sandler vibes or something.

Well, that depends. Am I getting into trouble here or is somebody invading the mansion and I have to defend it? What do you think is going to be kind of the plot or the tension?

I think your very rich aunt, who's always thought that you were a little bit of a basket case, for some reason allows you – she basically says, like, if you can take care of this mansion while I'm away in Moldova. But it's haunted. um if you can if if you can take care of this mansion and if it is in good condition when i come home i will uh i will give you the mansion or i will give you uh you know i will give you a sum of riches beyond your wildest imagination but then yes the mansion is actually haunted and also yes she wanted you to destroy it because she actually is herself a charlatan and .

and could not pay for the mansion. In fact, the mansion had been mortgaged to the absolute eyeballs, and she was hoping you would destroy the mansion, because then she could claim it as an insurance loss. That's what always happens in those movies. Well, it's Lebowski, right? It's classic Lebowski. So that's what I think is happening in this movie. You are tasked with taking care of this mansion, and things go absolutely haywire at the mansion. But you do unlock a love for sauna. Also, by the way, I realize that you're basically, what you were doing in new hampshire was like a a poor man's sauna and then cold plunge yeah you were so far ahead of this curve i'm telling you man i just were you also eating um raw meat like liver king i feel like you're on the bleeding edge of a lot of like kind of health trends as

eating the raw meat during the sweating phase not during the um windows down phase uh glenn that was on your way to work just a little raw meat glenn powell to answer your question is playing me in this and oh so if i i mean that seems a big upgrade but okay for him is that what you mean i just i've seen any it's funny i thought you were i thought that was the obvious choice they're gonna make fun of me because yeah glenn powell obviously everybody's gonna associate me with glenn powell have you seen these clips of chad powers i've seen clips yeah i know nothing about it i kind of don't want to i don't want to know but i i sort of like want to watch it it seems very weird what do you know you can tell me i'm not worried about spoilers like what do you

know about it it feels like a throwback to me it feels like a show so it's it's got glenn powell aka andrew walsh and the poor man's andrew walsh and he i think my sense of the show is that he was a uh football quarterback who kind of washed out and now wants to go back and kind of have a do-over yes that's right i saw a trailer yes maybe he's out of eligibility or whatever maybe he's going to a smaller college but he basically sort of um uh you know he puts like a prosthetic nose and these teeth on and then he's like i i think he's really really good compared to the people that he's playing with for some reason i don't know if he's gone to a much smaller college i know they don't let him go to a high school because that's now been made illegal i know that that can't be the premise you know people are getting arrested left and right for going back

to high school when they're adults are you being serious you know about this right no i don't know

you're referencing this is a real thing that happens and unfortunately sometimes with a very bad outcome but like there has been a rash the last few years of adults like entering high school again just so they can be the coolest person at the high school and then unfortunately sometimes having relationships with people at the high school which is illegal because they are these folks are in their 20s and the high schoolers are high schoolers but about every i don't know month through two you'll see a story about somebody who got busted for pretending to be a high school

student you know what Luke this isn't probably part of the recent trend that you're talking about but I have a vague recollection of that being a top story like years and years ago like I think when I was living in Roosevelt or something like that I remember there was a top story about somebody who went back to high school I don't think there was any kind of uh inappropriateness I don't even remember if it was a man or a woman honestly and I don't think there was any inappropriate romantic relationship in that particular story i think it was like actually quite confusing what this person's motivation was i'm just vaguely remembering that now and you're saying that this is happening more often now is it well it happens i don't know if it's

trending up or down and by the way not everybody who does this is yeah like um doing something with the uh other students that they shouldn't be i always wanted to do this because there was a period of time where i felt like i would be the chad powers of the high school basketball team basketball probably in my mid in my mid-20s i think i could have gone back and played high school basketball and been like a lot better than a lot of the high school athletes probably not all of them now it's to the point where can you imagine me trying to hello fellow students but like now i would be worse than anyone literally at the high school whether or not they even played basketball on the team i would be worse than them this is because of my age but um i always sort of fantasized about going back to high school but it was strictly because i wanted to be better at high school basketball than i had been when i really played high school basketball but anyway chad powers just seems to be slightly a version of that again i assume he's at a college

looks like he was somehow disgraced on the field as a star quarterback in a major college program but after ruining his reputation holiday undergoes a physical transformation with the help of prosthetics and a wig to disguise his identity in order to join the floundering football team at a small school under the name of Chad Powers. So he still wants to play, and so he transfers schools. And that's why he looks so doofy in the ads. He's got this kind of honking nose that does. And I think it's funny because it doesn't look real. That's what sort of strikes me about it. And what makes me laugh is how funny the image is of him running around.

Now, the other thing I'm realizing, because I'm now looking this up as well, i'm sort of seeing this little i don't know rapid clip from hulu of him

putting on his prosthetic, and it's showing him Chad Powers driving down, I don't know if it's maybe sunset in Los Angeles, and he's looking at one of the studio lots, you know what I mean, like the big kind of movie studio lots, and he sees a giant poster for Mrs. Doubtfire.

Oh, yes, that's right. I know I've seen this trailer.

And that's where he's getting the prosthetic idea. That's actually pretty clever.

Because there's a line in it or something. He says, I'm going to Doubtfire myself. That's a pretty good line. Yeah, I don't even think I'm doing it justice, to be honest with you.

But, yeah. I find it unlikely that one of the major Hollywood studios is still promoting Mrs. Doubtfire on a side of their building. I feel like they've probably got, you know, the Matlock reboot up there or something.

That actually, you're right. That's what makes it even funnier, huh? Like, why would there be? Mrs. Doubtfire. Yeah, I wonder if there's even an extra.

Posturing up half of the Warner Brothers.

I hope this is totally absurdist in that way. I hope they don't come up with a good reason for it, you know? It would be funnier to me if it's just there. And if that's the tone of this where nothing really makes sense and it's just an absolute lark, I'm into that.

Oh, wow. Andrew, I'm getting more and more into this as we're delving in Chad Powers is an American sports comedy television series created by Glenn Powell and Michael Waldron.

Created by Glenn Powell.

Starring Powell in the titular role developed from an Omaha Productions skit by Eli Manning. That sort of comes together Right, so I think that this is based on a skit That the Manning brothers did That's funny I love their company is called Omaha Productions Yeah, me too Did Eli Manning also yell that? Or was that just Peyton? I associate it with Peyton Manning a lot

I only think of Peyton, but I wouldn't know You'd know better than me

But that's a pretty I mean, if anybody is for some reason curious about The Manning family And in particular Arch Manning who is the kind of, sort of, what would you call it, the anointed one at Texas, although he's having a tough season. I read this article in Texas Monthly about their family that was, I might have mentioned this on the show. Actually, it was when my vacation was wrapping up, so I probably didn't. I read this Texas Monthly article about the Manning family that made me love them so much. And I didn't get the sense that this reporter was just, like, hired by the Manning family to write a puff piece. Like, Texas Monthly is a really good publication with really good journalists who work there. they just seem like for all of their fame and all of their whatever to actually be like some

pretty likable folks they really i'm glad to hear that they actually are because that is definitely

their brand and it they exude likability yeah and and i'm with you like my suspicion would be that like that's a front like you can't be this rich and this famous and have this many super bowls under your belt and have your dad was a famous quarterback as well and then you know the story of Cooper Manning is an interesting one as well he is I believe the oldest of the three Manning brothers and he was considered the best athlete of the three of them he was a receiver and he went to Ole Miss and like it was like you know he was on his way to the NFL it turns out he had spinal stenosis and if he were to play any more football and he were to be tackled wrong he would be paralyzed so his football dreams ended that day and in this Texas Monthly article it talks about him going cooper manning who's the dad by the way of um of arch manning the the kid that plays at texas this think about being this kid cooper manning like your whole life is football it's this whole identity for you and he goes to he goes home after learning this and he tells peyton manning who's in high school i'm putting he's like i'm gonna live my football dreams through watching you and it doesn't sound like he says it and i'm putting pressure on you eight he says it in a way that's just like this isn't going to happen for me but it's going to happen for you and i'm so excited to see it happen and i thought wow what a like what a what a good way to deal with that and then um and cooper manning then goes on to have this whole career in like finance and stuff and like makes a a great life for himself with his family but also turns out to be like weirdly funny and is now you know um you know does all kinds of like i don't watch you know espn 9 or whatever hell channel the manning brothers are always on watching monday night football and talking about it but i like that it exists and cooper manning is like the practically the star of the show he's considered like the funniest one of the three of them and like you know is always doing these sketches and things that are actually like pretty clever and so anyway and it's an

article they've done a lot of commercials of course i mean this omaha productions thing we've never seen the like is sort of in media they really created sort of a new path that i think only a family with this much power and success could in this particular industry but it works out well Because like you say, I'm glad these are the folks who've been able to do this because they seem like good folks and they do it well. And when you see them like commercials with the various Manning brothers, I love the fact that Cooper is totally ready just to play the butt of all the jokes, just like the worst man. I didn't know that thing about injury or did you say it was injury or was it it was I believe it

was spinal stenosis which is something a narrowing of the spine I see so not a narrowing I think of the like part of your boy this is I'm getting but it's not an injury something that happened on the it's not an injury it's a I think it's a condition and what it meant was that he was in real danger of of becoming grievously injured if he were to be tackled and nobody knew he had this so I was

doing a little bit of googling while you were chatting and i now i always say i have vague recollections of things but that is true i have vague recollections of things i don't know if we talked about this on tbtl or not but i think you're going to remember this as well what chad powers is based on was a sort of like prank that eli manning did when he went undercover as yes i remember and he named himself chad powers at penn state and he put on a big doofy nose you remember this now right this is all coming yeah you have a vague recollection too yes how do i know about

this i remember the guy was named chad powers i forgot that i knew it it's now hitting me like

it's new information what is wrong with me let's see when was this when did this i think this was so it was 22 it was 2022 i should say um is a better way of putting that and so they they created it looks like a little 15 minute short where they show him getting into his prosthetics and then actually going out. I don't know from my quick viewing here how much the team was in on it, but it looks like they're trying to make you believe that he truly was pranking them, that really the team and the coaches were not in on this. It was like an undercover operation.

I'm just reeling at the fact that, like, I didn't put this all together earlier, that, like, we had this much of a conversation about Chad Powers before I remembered that, or you reminded me that it was, this, of course, was this whole Eli Manning thing. well yeah i mean i had to look it up i'm i'm just realizing it now too the last thing i'll say about this uh this article on texas monthly which obviously made a big impact on me about the manning family is the texas monthly reporter is trying to do an interview i think with arch manning over the phone and the story on this kid is he is unusually and unnaturally and in a way that is hard to believe down to earth for the fact that he is the scion of the manning quarterback family and again before he got to texas and he's having a rough season but before this season started there was talk of him winning the heisman there's talk of him being the greatest manning of all time and in the midst of all of this he appears to be so incredibly down to earth including the fact that when the texas monthly reporter is calling him he says okay i have like about 15 or 20 minutes to talk i'm at dave and buster's with my nieces i'm babysitting but i gave them a bunch of quarters so i think they're good for like 15 or 20 arch manning is babysitting great had like dave and busters like i love how deeply normal that is yeah me too i love that i wonder

if he would give me some quarters if i were if he were watching over me unfortunately may be

working at dave and busters pretty soon because in the it is and that was the i read this article like right before the season started and i was as you can tell all in on the arch manning thing i just really wanted him to do well and to be rewarded for what it sounds like is a really good approach to life and and he who knows he may he may still get there but it was it's been

really tough yeah i said i didn't know that i haven't been hearing anything about that i remember hearing the name a lot in the run-up to the season but then i don't know if i i probably baseball has just taken over most of my like kind of media listening well and again i think part of

i can't believe that this we ended up talking about arch manning this much on the day that the mariners will be playing in what is it game four of the alcs but one other thing that i got the sense in the article that like if arch manning ends up not you know becoming the football player that there's all this pressure on him to become he's in the right family for that too because they were even kind of addressing that in the article they were just kind of saying like Like, if there's any group of people who know how fickle the fans can be and the media can be and how, like, just what it's going to be like when you have a bad game or a series of bad games, it's this family. And so it sounded like he was actually—his head was screwed on very, very straight so that, you know, whatever happens to him, he'll probably be all right.

I'm glad to hear that. I like that, especially because as likable as that family is and they've developed that reputation, you could just sort of see, like, with each generation— I do feel that with each generation of being in that family with that kind of attention on you, it gets harder and harder to be normal, I think. Exactly. And so I'm really glad. And everything that you just said about Cooper and everything, it just sort of sounds like he has been, I don't know, man. It just sounds like maybe he's been supported in the right ways that he can, you know, either bounce back from this or absorb it. and not let it break him and move on to other things. But it's still pretty early in his career to be calling it a game.

Yes, and based on a very, very preliminary internet search, it looks like Arch Manning is doing better, Andrew. Here are the four headlines that come up when you put Arch Manning, Texas, into the internet. After big win, Arch shrugs off earlier criticism two days ago. Nice. Three plays that show how much Arch Manning has grown this season four hours ago. Nice. Arch Manning, a new American hero and charming comeback kid at Texas one day ago, USA Today. And then from the Houston Chronicle, quote, freedom of speech, Longhorn's star QB paying no mind to critics two days ago. I'm guessing he said, well, they have freedom of speech.

I was a little confused by that headline. So maybe he's turning it around already. Now, free Shador, right? Like, isn't Shador just stuck in, like, still the third spot in Cleveland?

Flacco hell?

Yeah, and, like, not, because now Flacco isn't even, Flacco is now the backup. And, no, no, no, no, no, they cut Flacco, right? Yeah. Cleveland cut Flacco, and then they promoted that rookie. This is the first time, like, I've looked it up a few times, and I know I should know his name. I've heard it. I'm not saying I've never heard of this guy's name, but this is the first time I can think of in 20 years that I literally, in conversation with you right now, cannot tell you who the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns is. I know he's a rookie who is drafted. He's actually kind of got some flash.

His name is Rick Thunder. It's weird. His nose doesn't totally look right to me. This is Omaha a lot.

I don't think they're doing that anymore. Right, right. But yeah, no, I'm pretty sure that they're starting a rookie there, and then they brought up somebody from the practice squad to slip into the number two slot, and they're keeping Shador at number three, so I don't know what's going on right there. but maybe he should get a chance, like Arch.

Yeah, Comeback of the Year, Shadour Sanders. Hey, let's thank some donors. These folks are keeping TBTL in business with their voluntary donation of their own hard-earned money. This is a 100% listener-supported thing we're doing here. We have not yet been hired by ESPN Even though I think we had Some incredibly insightful takes on the Arch Manning story Including me learning that he's doing better In real time On the air That's the kind of sports insight that people come to TBTL for Me learning along with them How Arch Manning is doing at Texas

It sort of sounds like He had one good game But the media and people like us Want him to do well so much That everybody's just like coming out with these headlines Don't worry everybody Arch is still the future of the NFL.

That's right. We want to thank Sally Jenkins in Redmond, Washington.

That's the second time I've confused college football in the NFL. My apologies to everybody who's throwing their phone right now. My apologies to Sally for interrupting her. Thank you.

He could also be the future of the NFL. He first has to be the future of college.

I just always feel like he was talked about as the future, as the person who holds the... What carries the torch for the family? No, if you carry a torch, you have a crush on somebody. Is that right? Yes. What do you carry? Don't you carry something? The mantle? Yeah, maybe it's like carrying the mantle.

When they say that, though, what do they mean, the mantle? Larry.

Larry mantle. They mean you hoist Larry mantle up on your shoulders and you parade through the streets of Los Angeles.

That's right. And you say, this is air talk. But seriously, when they say the mantle, because when I was growing up, the mantle, that's the thing over the fireplace. We called that the mantle, and you would put pictures on the mantle.

Yeah.

But how could you carry the mantle for the Manning family?

It looks like it might have a biblical origin. What do you think of that? Unsurprised. When Elijah was taken to heaven, his mantle fell to the ground, and Elijah picked it up to become his successor. But what was the mantle? No, I don't know. I'm trying to figure that out. All I know is that he was going up to heaven and it fell. Was it a cloak?

Mantle. Well, because Elijah and Elisha.

It's Elisha. Okay. Boy, I'm messing everything up today. No, no, no. Does Elisha play for the NFL or is Elisha still in college football?

Elisha is currently backing up Matthew Stafford in L.A. No, but there's an Elijah and an Elisha, and this is confusing. So this is not on you. Elisha versus Elijah. And let's see here. It says when Elijah was taken to heaven, his mantle fell to the ground,

and Elisha picked it up to become his successor.

Inheriting his...

his double portion of spirit to continue God's work. I'm looking at a woodcut of this, and I think mantle in this case is like your robe, your blanket, the thing you're wearing.

Oh, okay, interesting.

And so I guess you would take up the mantle. It'd be sort of like picking up someone else's robe or coat and then putting it on and kind of now you're going to be representing whatever it was they were doing.

Interesting. I thought it was going to be more like a crown or something than a cloak. So does that mean mantle over a fireplace? Uh-oh, I'm getting into Quora now. I don't know if I trust these fools.

Quora's the New York Times compared to the other S on the internet. What are you talking about? Okay, so mantle is still a thing. Like a wood mantle over a fireplace. That's also, I guess, just one of those words that there's a couple of different meanings for it. Sally Jenkins has this all written down somewhere. Thank you very much. Thanks also to Kirk Eldred, who's in Woodinville, Washington. That's not super far from Redmond. That's what I was going to say.

That's what I was going to say. I think that maybe they hang out at the wineries all the time.

And maybe they pick up along the way Chris Rupp from Shoreline, Washington.

Hey, yeah. That's kind of maybe Chris and I can meet up at the dump. When they finally get that light rail running from the west side over here to the east side over there,

Yeah, you don't even have to drive your car to throw away your rotted shrimp. You can get right on the light rail and go do that in Shoreline. I don't know what you're talking about. Annette Sakab Tan is in Livonia, Michigan.

Now, I don't think the light rail goes to Livonia, Michigan. However, the E-Line might.

I bet you. And I bet you it would actually be shorter than when you tried to go down to Seward Park. Maybe. That wasn't the E-Line, though. I don't want to besmirch the E-Line.

No, we should have taken the E-line. The problem was Genevieve wanted to go on an adventure. She wanted to take the 40, and that was a mistake. Oh, yeah. You should have brought a 40 on the E-line, and then you would have had an adventure. Yes, we should have. Hey, you want to hear about growth? You want to hear about growth? I do. I have a 24-ounce twisted tea in the refrigerator that has been sitting there for probably a week and a half, and it's been untouched, Luke. I don't even know if that's really growth or just the changing of the seasons, but I remember thinking I was done. The changing of the seasons? The Changing of the Teasons. Is that the show title? Show title. I already wrote one down. Oh, I had Hate the Jog, Love the Jogger. I like the Changing of the Teasons. Yeah. But yeah, I remember at the end of summer buying what I thought was my last Twisted Tea. And then I think we might have had a couple of warm days after that that convinced me maybe Twisted Tea season isn't over yet. And I bought one and I put it in the fridge and I never cracked it. And now it's quite cold outside. It seemed weird to drink a Twisted Tea in this weather. So this for you is seasonal. Yeah, definitely. I never have the hankering. It's because, and this is not why you should drink alcohol to slake your thirst, but there's definitely something associated with like, oh, it's a hot day. And it sounds very refreshing right now. Right.

Yeah, it's definitely a different vibe. Although we keep, you know, like I'm looking around, I keep getting ready to retire the Oh Ma Paw, it's beautiful drop, but we have really had a pretty spectacular October. Yes, we have. The weather has really held. And I keep looking at the 10-day forecast and going, all right, well, here comes the lousy weather, and then it just hasn't really materialized. So I will absolutely take this. I will absolutely also say thank you to our friend Cecilia Hanley, who's in Atlanta, GA, a suburb of Dunwoody, Georgia, where Ryan Seacrest is from. Oh, is that true? It's a suburb of tiny Dunwoody, Georgia. We had a donor in Dunwoody recently And I was recounting the time When I did that TV story About Ryan Seacrest I wanted to make the point that he was sort of like He'd come out to Los Angeles In his Honda Prelude With a dream, which was true, he did drive a Honda Prelude Which I find to be a dazzling detail But he just had a dream of making it In Hollywood and in the entertainment business And I knew he grew up In Dunwoody, Georgia And so I wrote this line that he grew up But Hollywood was a long way away from tiny Dunwoody, Georgia. And then somebody got a hold of me at CBS after this aired. I think maybe on the YouTube channel or somebody emailed me and said, you know, Dunwoody is just a suburb of Atlanta. He's from Atlanta, Georgia.

Oh, I see. You were trying to make it sound like it was a very small town with maybe a general store run by a guy named Pop.

That's how I pictured it.

Yeah, but instead it's just kind of like—

A literal Cracker Barrel. Yeah. The guys would sit around and whatever. I mean, I didn't, first of all, I did not knowingly mislead the television viewers of America. It wasn't like I knew that Dunwoody was essentially part of the Atlanta Metroplex, and I lied. I didn't know it was part of the Atlanta Metroplex.

Well, that kind of misreporting will not happen under Barry Weiss. I'll tell you that much right now. Absolutely not. I told you I got an email. You told me off-air that you got an email.

I mean, I was on a group.

Yeah. It wasn't like to me.

saw some you're talking about yeah i think we can say this leaked yeah it was in the media that day that this email had gone out from the new from what is her official title chief of editor maybe yeah maybe head editor um saying that like everybody is going to get an email saying you know just send us in an email telling us uh what you do every day describe your job or whatever And I saw some tens who were wondering, speculating out loud on social media whether or not you had received that email.

To be honest with you, I didn't receive it directly. Like I don't have a CBS email. It was forwarded to me by people I work with.

I see. So you don't think – because I was like – I thought with your role there – and again, I don't know much about it. I'm not trying to tell your story here. But I was a little surprised you got it as sort of a contractor who does the types of work you do. I was like, oh, even you have to fill one of those out. But you didn't get it as a as marching orders sent to me.

OK, if I had a CBS email, I think it probably would have been sent to me. But you'll be incredibly shocked to hear, Andrew, that I have yet to write up. I've yet to write up my job description and what I've been working on that I feel really excited about lately. I get to submit that information. Well, it also sounds like they didn't specifically tell you to do it. So, right. But let me put it this way. Even if they had, I wouldn't know, obviously. And not out of any particular moral stand, but because that's how lazy I am. I mean, you know, there's a long and well-documented history of me not filling out forms at jobs, even when it's a completely appropriate ask. Thankfully, Joseph Shin in Boston, Massachusetts, filled out this form. That's right. So that we could thank him for his donation. Yes. Joseph, appreciate you. Thank you so much to all of our donors for making TVTL happen today on this Thursday. We appreciate you. hello and welcome to top story do you ever like say something on the show andrew and then you spend the rest of your day kind of reflecting on it or thinking about how the listeners are

thinking about what you said no i just say things and i let it go luke i try not to live in my head i live in the moment right off a duck's bat that's right no of course obviously i spend every afternoon just absolutely regretting everything i said in the morning the reason that i really

wanted the mariners to win last night was a because i wanted them to win i would like them to be 3-0 and ever closer to the world series but b because i said at the end of our show yesterday i just have a feeling they're gonna win by a lot and let me tell you when julio hit that home run i wondered if maybe that was gonna come true but that as we were getting just absolutely tormented by the Toronto Blue Jays I realized oh yeah not only are we not going to win by a lot we're not going to win at all and for some reason it was the fact that I had called it that was one of the main things living in my head as opposed to the more real issue of like oh we let Toronto back into the series or whatever

you had asked me for a prediction on the show and I didn't give you one and it's not because I'm a it's not because I'm a coward it's because I really A new TV show. What did you say? Fat Coward?

No, Chad Coward.

Oh, Chad Coward. I was like, wow, I don't mind, but that was... Well, that would be an intense statement. That isn't how we talk on this show.

I just thought it'd be funny if there was a show called Chad Powers and then a show called Chad Coward.

Yes.

He has a real different vibe.

No, every now and then, I can't think of an example. It'll be tedious for me to think of one. I just have a gut feeling about some of these Mariners games, even during the regular season. And I remember just telling you, like, I just feel like it's going to be this way. And for me, my predictions are usually totally vibe based, honestly. I just but if I'm not getting that and also I don't have a very good track record, I would say maybe at best it's 50 50 because it's just vibe based. When you asked me at the end of yesterday's show, if I had a prediction, I just truly didn't. I didn't have a feeling. The only thing I truly believed was that the Mariners, whatever happens, I don't have a strong feeling the Mariners are going to win or lose this series. The one thing that I thought for sure is the Mariners are not going to sweep this series. And so I thought I was just so I was so sanguine going into yesterday's game. And even during yesterday's game, I thought, well, we're not going to win them all. And this one was a total blowout. But it was also listen. It was also theater. No, it was it was a blowout. Our starting pitcher got banged up. Kirby got, you know, he got blew up like it happens. but the rest of those runs it doesn't matter like yesterday was yesterday was such a not I think a lot of people see the score and they're like oh my god the boys are going to be so bummed today this was like the least bummer loss of the postseason for me because what happened is once the game got out of hand we just put in basically the equivalent of Thank you. third stringers i mean we shouldn't have in our famous position player yes turd ferguson ferguson who did exactly what you expect him to do give up a three-run home run to a person who may not be able to go on certain rides at disneyland alejandro kirk

and well i was gonna try to think of a joke never mind i uh and also and then and luke jackson who has this magical ability to totally erase himself from my memory like every time we have a person

named luke jackson on our baseball team wait isn't that who closed out the eighth and ninth it's possible i was at that point paying minimal attention yeah no you're experiencing what

everybody experiences every seven games when somebody named luke jackson comes out of the bullpen i think i'd be tracking him we have the same first name i i remember i was at a game that my buddy brent was also at and brent like works for 710 he knows the mariners very very very well and i texted him i was like when luke jackson came out of the bullpen i texted him i'm like who's luke jackson and i believe his response was you don't want to know and then after luke jackson gave up a certain number of runs in that game i texted him back i'm like you know baseball i don't want to know and the beauty of it is we all forget that he exists in between his outings. And with this facial hair? It's rough. He looks

like the fourth musketeer. Like, that is a Van Dyke, if I've ever seen one. Like, this guy has my same first name, has a ludicrous facial hair, is on the active roster, and I didn't know any of this was happening.

His facial hair is interesting because he has both mustache and flavor saver and goatee as three different parts that are not connected it's interesting but i don't want to make fun of somebody's appearance so much as their inability to do the job that they were assigned to do so i don't know where luke jackson came from i became aware of him skywalker by the way in the second half of the season but all of this is to say yesterday's game is probably less of a bummer than maybe some people would think because again i didn't expect to win every game and i'm not happy that george kirby got lit up but that's the story of the game like maybe the the five that five run inning is the story of a game and that's a huge bummer but what happened was we said well we're not going to waste any of our other players that we need down the line so just put in ferguson and jackson they're terrible i wish we didn't have terrible players in our bullpen i wish our floor was higher than these two players but either way they are who we have and there's no point in putting luke jackson or I literally can't, is it Colin Ferguson? I've called him turd for so long, I can't, Caleb. And we put Caleb Ferguson in the-

I also forgot his first name. I didn't know Ferguson had a first name.

Like Columbo. Yeah. But anyway, we have who we have, and the only place to play these two guys is when you're definitely losing the game anyway, or you're up by 100 points, or runs, I should say. And so anyway, it is what it is. that final score does not to me indicate the future of the mariners it's just okay we save

some leverage arms for what our next battle yes i agree 100 and and we were texting with televisions chris hayes about this this morning as well which is because you cannot carry the runs over in baseball you don't get to apply any of those 14 runs to any of the other games it's like get it out of your system you know go for like that's fine like that doesn't we don't lose by more because they got 14 runs and and i'd rather the pressure would be off i mean they call the term that's arisen in the last i don't know five ten years is like high leverage situations that's become the kind of like industry term for or high leverage pitches basically just like super pressure-packed moments where everybody is stressing and in particular the pitcher is just like it's it's like the pitcher's life battery energy is going down by one percent whichever with every pitch they throw and what would have really sucked yesterday would have been if the Mariners were like leading the game for six innings. And then the blue Jays came back and sniped us by like a run. And then we had all these super high leverage situations where like our pitchers are getting worn down and then we still lose the game because then things are exactly where they are right now. We're ahead two games to one. I'm with you. I didn't think we were going to sweep the series. We were going to lose a game at some point. this one somehow was way easier to handle than one that would have been like in extra innings or in the ninth inning or just like particularly gutting um it just kind of became i i will say and this doesn't really like i don't actually believe exactly what i'm saying but i do feel like like because george kirby just got hit so hard that i just don't think it would have probably mattered but some part of me

wonders so after Julio hits this home run in the first the first thing was it was weird I was stoked he hit that home run and then I my next thought was we need to score more runs like right now while this guy is shaky and then you get Polanco gets a double and now Polanco is on second base with one out and we've already got two runs and my thought is like if we pour it on here we chase this guy Shane Bieber and we get into their bullpen really early and then that's just chaos ball and of course unfortunately i don't think nail i don't think nailer popped out or something i don't josh nailer can do no wrong in my book but then our guy gino suarez just did his normal thing which is just came up and had a totally unproductive at bat that ended in an out and and we're running back to the dugout and we're ahead 2-0 and i should be feeling exuberant like hey that's great we already have two runs in the bank this is a great start and all i could think was that was a real missed opportunity and i could very much see this guy shane biebert just locking in dialing because that's yeah that's what good pitchers do and in fact it's really crazy think about bryce miller in that uh first game in toronto like he just locked in like didn't didn't he start off he started off pretty shaky gave up a home run to george springer on

the first swing and then he gets like two guys on a 12 pitch walk which really was it should have been a strikeout it was a bad call but still a 12 pitch what he like yeah he'd load did he load the bases or two men on then the 12 pitch walk yeah yeah it was not good and then what did he

do he got it together he locked it in and then he was sort of fine and like i feel like that's weirdly what happens to a lot of pitchers it's almost like it's such a psychological thing that like if they're on the ropes early and they manage to sort of like survive it a lot of times they'll really kind of solidify from there and i just had this weird feeling it was like yeah i know we just went up to nothing but we didn't knock bieber out and they also just didn't think we were going to whole i think i even said this yesterday i didn't think we were going to keep vlad guerrero jr you know over the whole series you know and of course we didn't so like yeah it was a it was a little bit embarrassing it's embarrassing to see that number 14 up there but it's just like i don't know i somehow was not overly destroyed by this game and in fact if anything i'm feeling pretty okay about today because this game is just so fluky and momentumy in one game like for instance if you play a football team and you lost 45 to 7 you might have some real concerns that you would ever be able to beat that football team you know it's or same for basketball like in those sports if one team just thumps the other team it is probably an indication of a asymmetric sort of issue going on with the talent on the two teams for some reason baseball is not that way like the Mariners could win 14 to 3 today or they could win 2 to 1 or the Blue Jays could win 2 to 1 what I know it's not going to be is 14 to 3 Blue Jays yeah let's just keep your predictions at bay for now here's what I don't understand why did we start Kirby instead of Castillo I was under the impression it was going to be Castillo all along I was wrong about that was it just a rest thing you know I'm not sure now that you say that I think I at one point was under the impression

it was going to be Castillo as well and then I think I just stopped examining that when it was Kirby I think I don't know Luke it must I wasn't following that closely it must have been a rest thing but everything you just said I think really applies one of the things that I don't think I fully was aware of until maybe this season was that sort of I'm going to say bell curve although might not actually be accurate but the sort of bell curve nature of starting pitching that it's interesting that you want to get to a pitcher kind of early on because he it might be shaky at the beginning but then settles in before he started starts to come back down with fatigue and, you know, however many innings he can go.

And also facing him a third time. And facing him a third time, yeah.

Then it's kind of hitter advantage again. And you can sort of, you kind of get a little bit more of a book on him as fatigue sets in and speeds and velocities come down and everything. I think that's really, really interesting. I never kind of realized that until I remember this season being like, oh yeah, you can, and I think about that with Castillo. I think that he's a real prime example of that. And so everything that you just said, I think we really need to remember tonight. Like, it's weird how sanguine I am And I feel like being sanguine about last night's game is just going to, you know, I always worry about everything I say and do, jinxing it. But I just think that given the given the two run, I'm sorry, the two game advantage we had going into this game, this was the least important game of the series so far. Now, tonight's game, if we lose tonight's game, things get real itchy for Uncle Andy over here. like tonight i will yesterday i was not on pins and needles i was like oh this is rough but i was also kind of to see that well it's out of hand we're not gonna like we already said we're not gonna exhaust our bullpen on this this is the loss if it says 14 or actually it was 13 i think but you know whether it's 13 runs or or two we lose the game and so it kind of doesn't matter actually does stuff like that matter in soccer luke like a blowout like literally the points kind of do carry over depending

on maybe how the league is set up and some of the many things i'll never understand about soccer yeah i feel like i'm always hearing that the sounders are losing and then it's always like but they also just won their division. I do think that that is a sport where the amount that you win by helps your overall standing.

Which is interesting. Maybe that's one of the reasons people like that game is because it's unique in that way.

I mean, it's proportional representation if you think about it.

Yeah, I don't follow any sports where that matters. But yeah, so tonight let's watch Castillo. If he gets into a little bit of trouble in the first and second inning, I'm not going to freak out yet unless it becomes immediately insurmountable. I'm really worried about saying this on the show and then it becoming insurmountable and everybody's like, oh, Andrew said don't worry about the first two innings. Nobody's coming at me like that except my own psyche. But I think that tonight's game is super important. And just to state the obvious, a 3-1 series is so much different than a 2-2 series. So I think tonight's game is by far the most important game of the series so far, and last night's game was by far the least important game of the series.

Yeah, here's what I keep telling myself. I feel very confident about the Mariners' ability to win two out of the next four games. That's all they have to do, two out of the next four games. And so when you look at it like that, I think we do still have a really big structural advantage. And when you look at, you know, not every team that goes up 2-0 on the road ends up winning the series, but most of the time they do. And by the way, I'm sure that most of the time it's not a sweep. So it's just, I think it's kind of the law of big numbers. Like, I just think you put yourself in an advantage position by going up 2-0 on the road that has proven historically difficult for the other team to overcome. And again, that other team does get wins in there somewhere. I mean, probably for me, actually, the best loss we could have taken would have been after winning yesterday and then losing today. So, like, you're on the verge of a sweep and then you give them a game 3-1. You're still not really in danger from them. That would be, for me, the only—that would be the most relaxing loss if there can be one. But I just keep telling myself we need to win two out of four games. Two out of four games. And as long as we do that in any combination of the different games, I mean, I'd sure love it to be tonight and Friday, but I'm just, that's how I'm kind of self-soothing so that if, you know, if like they, uh, by the way, did I tell you, I got into it with a guy on Blue Ski, uh, about the Toronto Blue Jays home run jacket. no that thing is hideous though it's so silly looking and i know listen peace and love to our blue jays fans i know that just sounds like i know it just sounds like i'm kind of you know being a sore loser because so every team now in pretty much every sport actually i don't think they do it in basketball they're too busy actually playing in basketball i think nobody has time for this nonsense right but in every other sport it seems like now there's some sort of totemic item that you get to interact with if you hit a home run. Or in football, there are teams that if you get an interception, there's a necklace you put on.

Oh, yeah. I was going to say, I didn't know that this was going on in football.

It might have literally, this whole thing might have started with Florida State. Oh, interesting. I think maybe. Anyway, point is, in baseball now, when there's a home run hit, you get a thing. The Mariners have this, I can never say it right, it's a tritin or trident. Trident. It's a trident. and um of course you know because of the story that it was possibly purchased on amazon and because it's my team i think it's kind of fun i could understand someone else thinking it's kind of silly or whatever i think objectively speaking the jacket that they make the blue jays hitters wear after they hit a home run is corny as hell it is like it is it's got all this writing on it which is like you know i'm assume related to i don't i don't even know what the writing is obviously blue jays related probably something to do with i don't know games they've won or then when they won the world series back a million years ago or something i don't know what the writing on is but it's also it's it's too tailored like it looks like i mean literally the cut of the jacket i don't love it's got again it's got all this loud writing on it anyway i said i wrote online i wrote on blue sky i think i said uh something the effect of let me see i can find

that i have it in front of me too okay need help but it's your word so i'll give you i'm just buying you some time if you want to find it or I said

Is it possible the Blue Jays' bats went quiet for the first two games because no one wanted to wear that corny-ass jacket? And then I just see a response a little bit later, unlikely, and it is from an obviously very, very, very dyed-in-the-wool Canada sports fan, and so Blue Jays sports fan, and all things Canada sports, because this guy's icon.

I know for a fact that this avatar triggered the hell out of you.

It's quite something. It's like the Punisher flag that we all know and love that's now very just like MAGA, law enforcement, coded, whatever.

Sort of. It's not really the Punisher logo. It's like a spray-painted-looking, drippy skull. And the Punisher logo is a skull, but this isn't the Punisher skull, though.

Well, I guess what I mean is it's very much in the style of it.

Yeah, it kind of evokes that a bit, but it's not the Punisher logo.

It's a dripping, spray-painted skull that is the Canadian flag colors with a maple leaf right between the eyes. Yeah, it's very intimidating. And the guy who was saying unlikely, his last name was Hackett. And so then my extremely mature response, now remember, my first text or my first WS guy was corny ass jacket. and this person by the last name of Hackett says unlikely and I said my bad I meant corny ass Hackett and then corny ass Hackett responds that's better which I thought was pretty funny actually

and then I said well played they're just teasing I felt like that resolved itself

in a pretty okay way

were you posting this you were posting this in a moment of frustration probably were you sort of looking because you don't post on Blue Sky very much were you sort of looking for a little a little online fight to get your yeah yes out a

bit no because i if i was i would have liked it hashtag blue jays oh sure sure i i of course i was annoyed because we had you know i think it was in that inning that he gave up five runs so yes definitely i was coming from a place of of of frustration but then also i really do i i mean putting aside the moment or the specific moment of that game i really do think the jacket is silly looking and i really do think it's like i'm glad that that's not how the mariners are celebrating like every time they don't run someone has to like and then there was someone trying to help i forget who had it on one was a guy from the blue days i'm not particularly familiar with um so it's not george springer who also hit a home run or anybody like that but what i noticed was it was like the guy couldn't get the jacket off quickly enough oh i think i might have noticed that too just he like had to put it on because it's the celebration but then like immediately but then he couldn't get it off because it was kind of like ill-fitting so another guy was trying to help him get the jacket off but i just thought i just had this thought that like and again i will be totally up front i my my my butt was hurt over the fact that the mariners were not playing well and so that was probably part of where that was coming from but i i don't think i i put that on there to try to get mariners fans that's why i did hashtag mariners i wanted to have mariners fans pick me up on their shoulders figuratively on blue ski and carry me around the stadium and say this man has written a blue sky post that has value and it is roasting the Toronto Blue Jays home run jacket I did not you wanted them to Larry mantle you that's exactly right

forevermore that will be known as a mantle here on TV carrying the mantle okay can I go back to baseball talk for a second here sure um another thing two two things that I and again I'm being very Pollyanna-ish about this, and we'll see if I regret it, but there are two other things I want to point out. If this series allows another start by George Kirby, he's going to be amazing. Not this series, but I believe if the postseason allows another start by George Kirby, because I don't think we would see him in... I can't do the math on this, but I don't think we would see him in this series again one way or the other, but he is going to be locked in if he has another chance to play in the postseason. And secondly, And this is so maybe just wishful thinking, but even though it was an absolute garbage time home run, I loved seeing Randy get a garbage time home run. Randy, maybe, maybe that's the beginning of Randy waking up at the plate a little bit and getting more home runs. Not that he hasn't been productive on the on the base paths or whatever, but like he needed that home run, even if it was totally useless. And also, I don't know anything about their bullpen. They might have had their own turd Ferguson out there when he hit that thing. I have no idea. I didn't have the sound on the bar.

Right, they definitely weren't going to be using their highest leverage arms either.

Yeah, they might have had a position player out there as far as I know. I don't know. So anyway, but still, Randy getting a home run, feeling a home run again. I'm excited to see now what he's going to do with that.

Maybe build up a little bit of momentum, and we'll see what happens tonight. But I will say that if we end up just with a tied series when we get on the show tomorrow and it's 2-2, I'm going to be way less sanguine about all this.

now the one thing is if we do unfortunately find ourselves 2-2 just remember like I feel like this game is such a there's just so much luck to it and the ball bouncing just your way or not bouncing your way and to me it's like in a way we used up a little bit of our luck when we went to Toronto and got two games like the ball bounced our way you know we got we obviously played well and pitched well but it's just like there's just such a an element of randomness and luck to it as well and it's like flipping a coin i feel and then you know they got a lot of it went their way last night and then if more of it goes their way tonight i feel like that means also there will be some coming back our way at some point i just feel like these things tend to even out so i'm not going to feel great if we're 2-2 believe you me but i also think that the i don't think the mariners are done for if it's 2-2 because i think that the again i think that there's some luck involved with this stuff and it's like if one team has a really lucky night it seems to me that that increases the chances that that luck will

swing over to the other team at some point i assume the answer to this is no but is tonight's game important enough that if it's close enough we could even see a starter come out of the bullpen We're not in that stage of the seven-game series yet, I'm guessing.

I don't get that sense. I'm not really a scholar on this particular topic, but I feel like that's real game seven energy. Yeah, six and seven, maybe. Or maybe elimination game energy.

Yeah, elimination game energy. Yeah, yeah, or, yeah. So, anyway, it'll be interesting to see. But just remember, Bizardo did not touch the ball yesterday, and he's been so good for us. Spire has not been good in the postseason, and it makes me nervous.

Has he been actually bad?

Yeah. I know he had a bad outing. The last two outings. Two outings, okay. The one, I think, wasn't he the one who had the really bad inning in Detroit? And also then when they put him in, he gave up a run on the 15-inning game on Friday night. They put him in. When they finally pulled our starter, They put him in, and I was pretty against it. Wasn't that not his fault because there was already somebody on base? I thought he gave up a solo home run. He definitely let a run in. Maybe it wasn't an earned run. He definitely let a run in. I thought it was a solo home run. Or not a solo home run. I don't know. I'm getting confused. But I know that they put him in, and I was expecting to see a starter out of the bullpen. But instead, they put in Spire. And I remember kind of freaking out and saying, Spire's coming off of a terrible outing. Do not go to him right now. Go do one of your starters. I thought they were going to put Castillo in there and they put him in and he definitely gave up at least one run. And again, this is all blurring together for me. But I sort of feel like Spire has, I think, had two bad outings in a row and one incredibly short. But I don't think that's who he is. And so if he can bounce back and kind of shake that off, we still have him. We still have Bazzardo, who's fresh as a daisy and can go at least two innings. Vargas has been kind of the real bummer of this postseason, huh? Vargas has become completely unreliable, which is a real bummer. We don't have that much depth in our bullpen anymore.

Yeah, Vargas has been disappointing, which is a bummer because he had really locked it in during the season. Yeah. But my question to you is, and then we should do the Blurs days, but is there a point where you just stop sending Gino Suarez up for at-bats when he is as horrendous as he has been? He's hitting 152 in the postseason. He has one home run, which was back on the seventh against Detroit. That was the 8-4 game, the one that we won kind of going away. And other than that, he's done absolutely nothing. has no hits no uh that's not true I guess he got a hit last night but it's just like he's just and two nights ago he got I guess you're right I guess he got that almost home run where he got

stranded it was a double um I would not because first of all defensively there's nobody else I trust at third base Ben Williamson is no longer on the active roster I don't think I think that they they brought somebody I think they bounced him so I don't know who I mean and despite that error last night i know that he's not like is lockdown the right term there i don't think it's a football term lockdown corner i know that he's not a lockdown i'm the corner third baseman but he's pretty damn good and when we brought him over the first time i remember hearing that his defense was going to be a bit of a liability but he won us over

Thank you.

he won me over I think he had a his first time with Seattle I thought he was a really good third baseman way better than we expected this time you know this short sample that we've been seeing the small sample we've been seeing last night's error like that almost killed me although it didn't end up I think affecting the actual run total at all anyway so it doesn't matter but without Ben Williamson you putting Polanco back at third like I don't know what you do there I

Yeah, I guess you're right. It's just so frustrating to watch him go up there and just not do anything that would appear to be trying to modify his swing or learn from mistakes. It's just like, you know, I think this is actually incorrect, of course, for people who've always said doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity. I think that's actually incorrect for some reason, but we just have said it a lot. But it is the definition of Gino Suarez right now, which is just like, go up there, just like, I don't know, take these gigantic swings, always get yourself in O2 counts, and then almost always have a really bad outcome. I just don't understand how Edgar Martinez or Kevin Seitzer, somebody isn't taking him aside and go, let's try something new.

I felt like yesterday he actually worked a count once, and I was like, oh, wow, look at him working a count. I could be wrong about that, by the way. I just thought I saw him maybe not get into a full count, but at least get it up 2-2 or something. But even if we had another option for third base, as far as defenses speaking, would you replace him with Ben Williamson, let's say, if that were an option? I don't know that I would. And I consider this almost a Burbankian outlook I have on it because I just do think that these things are streaky. we know he's a man who can hit home runs the reason we brought him over was because of what he was doing in Arizona and we all know that the weather in Arizona is exactly like the weather

here in Seattle so I precisely here's the the most important part of this whole story I think is that and why last night was critical I mean it sucked that we lost but it was good that we didn't lose by a very close amount Andrew I don't know if you can see this I don't have any fingernails oh no i haven't had any fingernails left since i think the 15 inning game and so i haven't been biting i mean i haven't been biting my fingernails because i you don't have any they're at a critical level right now and they're not regenerating fast enough for me to bite them tonight so we need to win in a laugher tonight and like at least last night my fingernails survived because it wasn't one of those you know as they say nail biter games but is there anything

else you could do that would sort of like scratch that itch even partially? Sunflower seeds? Cigarettes?

I could smoke sunflower seeds.

That's right. Yeah, absolutely. Give that a shot. No, but for real, is there any, do you find yourself, like, because when I was a smoker and I would go home to visit my parents or whatever and I couldn't have cigarettes, like, I would find myself probably eating a lot of, like, mixed nuts or whatever. You know what I mean? There are just certain things that I would sort of

substitute the oral fixation with. Yeah, maybe I could do the sunflower seeds thing. Mostly now I'm just pacing and yelling things that I'm hoping the Alexa is not recording. Yeah, well, it is. I need to unplug that thing before Mariners games because when I'm here by myself, it gets intense. I wish some very bad things upon people who are just doing their best at baseball.

But also, 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.

I always feel so bad when this happens, Luke. I accidentally skipped somebody's Blur's Day last week. So we have to do a makeup, a heartfelt apology and a makeup to Danielle, who wrote in to me, Andrew, at tbtl.net. She put Blur's Day in the subject line, just like you will for future Blur's Days. Danielle says, happy Blur's Day to Stevie, my husband and truly my better half. October 10th No, that's in the past, unfortunately He turns 40 and wants nothing more Than to hear you say his name Oh, okay Stevie Stevie He probably wants you to hear He wants to hear you do it, too

Hey, Stevie Hun, come in here That's my Jan and Wayne Schuyler impression When they're talking to Steve Kool

Oh, nice

They call him Stevie

I don't remember that

Well, no, it's just like I think that Uh,

The Jan character is calling him, I can't see, hon. He's trying to talk to them, and they're in the studio. Oh, what is that? I can't see it, hon. There's just some reason that when Heidecker says that, it makes me laugh so much. I love it. Let's see here.

Danielle says, I plan on playing the TBTL tambourine and yelling happy birthday at him to show him how much I love him. Aw, man. Happy Blursday, Stevie. Stephanie says, happy belated birthday to Gregory. I forgot to get in this birthday request on time, and that's on me, but sending Gregory, an individual who, bless him, has no background in music, a melodica, a tambourine, and a harmonica is squarely on you. As a hostage 11, I think I'm owed an apology. I've been loving seeing people send in.

I didn't even think about that. Yeah, we have sent a whole bunch of people a whole bunch of music-making equipment that they may or may not have the natural talent for.

I'm seeing a lot of videos on Instagram of either, what do we call, fives, I guess, the children of tens, just totally commandeering all of the musical instruments and taking them over. We basically got—

Including my niece, Gemma, holding a tambourine.

Oh, nice. And also, I've been really enjoying seeing all the pet reactions, cats and dogs reacting to their owners playing a melodica and a harmonica has been very interesting. But all of that is to say, happy Blurze to Gregory. Play louder. Play louder.

Yes.

Michael says, happy Blurze to Justin, a.k.a. Joe Baby. You're a great friend and father And I'm glad that you've stuck around with TBTL Since I introduced you to it A dozen years ago Plus you're an incredible entrepreneur Love Mike, Lauren, Langley, and Puddle You know Can I be honest with you It's like just signed Mike, Lauren, Langley, and Puddle And I said love So if the love was a little bit too much If Joe Baby's over there being like Love? Is that our relationship? Just know that that's on me I love you Joe Baby So explain that. This is Laura in Kenoki, Michigan, wishing my husband Ron a happy Blur's Day today on the 16th. Oh, it's a golden blurs. Our first trip together after we met in 2017 happened when I said, hey, I'm going to see a podcast in Austin. It's a long story. Want to go with my wife? He said yes and has put up with my TBTL habit ever since. Love you and happy blurs. That's awesome. Not first date, but first kind of trip. Wow. From Michigan all the way down to Austin.

That was a fun show.

Didn't we have shaky graves there?

Indeed.

Indeed.

I stumbled. I tripped on stage. That was the same trip that brought us the miracle on dirt. Yes, it was. Which we thought might have been the highlight of Mariners baseball for the rest of our natural lives until this year.

Still up there. Stephanie. This is our pal Stephanie. Stephanie's in Portland, right? Stephanie and Jake and baby Augie, they're all in Portland. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've got to be honest with you. Until you said baby Augie, I wasn't locked in. Yeah, sorry. Now we've got that little baby. I know exactly who you're talking about.

So I thought Portland. Stephanie says, happy birthday to my amazing, wonderful, perfect cutie pie. August, I can't believe you exited my womb two years ago. Keep being the best, but maybe start eating more than just French fries, ketchup, and pizza. Thank you. Please love mama. But Stephanie's not done. Stephanie says also future blurs to the father of perfect baby, August. Aw. Jake. Wow. I think you're getting close to 40. I'm too lazy to figure it out. Thanks for being such a wonderful dad and husband. Fingers crossed for an amazing year. Love your fox. Aw. Very sweet. Very nice. I have a little Like a little stuffed fox That's an ornament on the Christmas tree It's probably my favorite ornament Genevieve randomly got it for me Years and years ago

Do you get excited for the Christmas tree?

No I don't get excited for it But once it's up I enjoy it I always see it Let me put it this way And first of all I've come a long way on this I don't feel like dealing with it I'm game, I help Genevieve We go together, we pick out a tree. I know that it's one of Genevieve's absolute favorite traditions, so I really do try to be there for her. I think even last year, you know, often, like, she's very picky about her trees as well, which I find endearing. And so I, you know, drove her to several different places. And so I'm not, I don't want you to think that I'm over here, like, with my arms crossed, tapping my foot. But if I live...

alone i certainly wouldn't do it if i lived alone i'd have a like a little like you know like i'd have like a tabletop tree probably that just like lived in a closet and i'd pull it out and i'd put it in one window and i'd hang like five ornaments on it uh and you know whatever and you know so i would do a little something festive but like i will say that when it becomes christmas tree time i'm like okay we gotta go out we gotta go find a tree probably in the rain put it in the car clean up all the needles cleaning up needles for the next you know however many weeks cleaning out the car after we like all of that always sounds like a pain in the ass to me at first but we do it every year and i'm still here and once that thing is up and then genevieve always decorates it she does all the hard work i'll help out if she needs it but uh you know it's a nice thing to have

yeah i'm such a fan of the smell although i do that aluminum christmas tree now and have for the last 10 years or so so then i got to bring in the smell i got to get that fraser fur diffuser going but like i cannot wait like i will be the weekend after thanksgiving i will be here i will be blasting my vince garaldi i'll be setting my tree here's the thing about the traditional christmas tree in my experience you're right it is a bit of work and it does drop those needles and what it's kind of ends up being a for me it's almost like a treat two times the first is when you put it up and it looks all nice and it smells great and you're happy it's christmas time and then by the end it's like kind of dying a little bit the needles are everywhere and then when you like take all the ornaments off you get that thing out of your house you sweep up all the needles, and they're gone, and you get that real estate back in your living room, that almost feels like a win.

Mm-hmm.

You know? It's almost like a little, a nice little sweet treat in the otherwise depressing month of, like, January. Because now, all of a sudden, you realize, oh, it's nice to not have that friggin' tree taking up all that space.

It really opens the place up. They always say. It kind of does. The two happiest days of a Christmas tree owner's life are the day they get the tree and the day that they win the lottery. Brandon on Vashon Island says Happy Blur's Day to my five Stellan Thunder who is about to turn 13 Holy moly that's a name It is, I'm assuming that's a nickname Because I don't use last names So I'm including Thunder here Because I'm assuming that that is a Nickname of sorts Happy Blur's Day to my five Stellan Thunder who is about to turn 13 Here's to another year of fun soccer matches Dungeons and Dragons with friends and reading books next to Waffles, the cat. That's a good name for a cat.

See, it was good that I had my sword to play. Yeah. Sound effect. This is D&D.

It is.

Yeah.

I've always been tempted to play Dungeons & Dragons, but then I remember that it's a very social game. You have to tell stories and kind of come up, and I don't know that I would like to do that kind of thing. On your off time. Yeah, I would do it like if it was just for money. You do it for me and a computer. Like here. Oh, sure, absolutely. Oh, tell stories, yeah. No, but I mean, make up fanciful stories about, like, you're in the woods and you've met a troll. I think I'm being disrespectful to Dungeons and Dragons. You're in the woods and you met Josh Naylor.

I can't not call him Brian Naylor.

Oh, Brian Naylor. No, actually, I like that. I like that. You're in the woods and you meet Brian Naylor. You meet Brian Naylor. He's got some questions. All right, let's see. I haven't finished Brandon's Blur's Day message to Stellan yet. Behind a tree, is that Corva Coleman?

can't wait to see what you make with legos next we love you tons and tons happy blurs day to stellen from brandon and the fam i love that can i say one quick thing about brandon there

i'm out yes i like that brandon said legos i don't want to like i don't want to light up the internet with this hot take but i know that it is i know that the the company is called lego and I think purists, people that really, really like to do stuff with what I will call Legos, they call it like Lego. Oh, I was going to build something out of Lego. I don't like that. I like Legos. Only because that's what I grew up calling them. You have multiple of them and so they are Legos, not Lego. Oh, hey, do you want to play Lego? Or I'm making something with Lego. I didn't know that. I haven't heard that.

It is interesting because I guess somebody like me, who a real Lego fan would call I am assuming a noob, and the O's are spelled with zeros, maybe? I don't know anything about Lego, is what I'm talking about here. Lego or Legos, but I call them Legos, but I'm guessing that if you put a big pile of Legos in front of me, I'd say, hey, thanks for the big pile of Legos, whereas I think a real Lego aficionado would say, thanks for the big pile of bricks. I don't think they call the objects Legos the way I do.

Guess what, Andrew? You're right, it's Lego brick, but also this is another one of those, this is a real old-fashioned hooked loop technology situation oh here's what ai says the term is lego not legos because lego is a registered trade

for a brand of toys to refer to multiple Lego items you should say Lego bricks or Lego sets or simply use Lego as a mass noun using Lego correctly helps protect the brand's trademark and avoid genericization like they were trying to do with velcro they wanted you to call everything they wanted you to call it hook and loop technology instead of calling all of it velcro because that was seen to be denigrating their brand and they made a whole dancey song

video called don't say velcro where a bunch of people either claim to be or really were the um i guess the the legal team for the velcro brands we're a company that's so successful

that everywhere you go you see the scratchy hairy fastener and you say hey that's velcro But even though we invented this stuff, our patent lapsed 40 years ago, now no matter who else makes it, you still want to call it Velcro. You think it's awesome for us, we're famous, but we're lawyers and it's causing us grief. Cause there are trademark laws being broken, it's all here in this short legal brief. And we know that this is confusing, because Velcro Brand is who we are. What if you call it all, Velcro? We're going to lose our circle, guys.

We're going to lose our circle. It's funny. I usually hate this kind of stuff when brands try to be funny. They did such a good job with this. How many years ago? This was eight years ago.

And by the way, unlike Chad Powers and its origins, I remembered hook and loop technology.

Yes, I still refer to it all the time. Like, it really worked. They literally, I mean, I still would, in casual conversation, say Velcro. But I always think, oh, it's actually hook and loop, the way Kleenex is a brand and tissues are the product.

Yep. So good job, Velcro. Yeah. And a rant to all those hook and loop technology companies that are trying to grift off of the Velcro identity. And happy birthday to everybody.

Yeah, happy Blur's Day. After reading that description, though, of the Lego situation, Luke, has it changed your opinion at all? because I'll tell you what, it makes me want to say Legos even more because why do I give a shit about protecting their brand?

Well, that's the thing. And yet the Velcro people kind of got me because they were funny about it. But generally speaking, I am not overly concerned about the Lego company's brand being protected. Me neither. For me to weirdly say Lego instead of Legos. I was playing with Legos. Somebody left all these Legos around.

Do you want to play with Legos? I haven't played with Legos in a long, long time.

I was so impatient. I was the kid I think we've talked about one of your friends doing something like this too If I couldn't find the right brick For the job I never had a new set of Legos It was all a bunch of hand-me-down shit I would absolutely snip a Lego To make the brick fit I would pound it on there with a hammer It was a disaster

Donald Morrow took me out to the barn With a Lego piece that didn't fit Didn't he use like an axe or something? He used a hatchet

I would have liked that kid

Yeah probably Anyway. Chaos ball. You know me. Happy Blurzy, everybody. Go Mariners.

Thank you for listening. That's right. We'll be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Maybe I'll see somebody at Livewire tonight. If you decide you also want to not know what's going on with the Mariners game. That's right. You're not even going to be able to watch it. Okay. Yeah, it's going to be. Everybody send the Mariners a lot of positive vibes because I'm not going to be able to do it. So we'll be down one fan tonight. But anyway, see you tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.