Muse

We have to get our story out before Graham runs her version.

Now, I know it's a lot to ask. If we take down the woman who runs the network, we could potentially lose our jobs.

But why did we become journalists if not to uncover the truth and use it to change the world?

You know what? I'm in. You know what? I'm in, too. Graham is mean AF. That's a Twitter term, which I can only assume stands for mean as Frankenstein. There is another term, DTF, don't touch Frankenstein, to which I usually just reply, WTF, won't touch Frankenstein. Right, so we're all in. TBTL. Guess what day it is? Guess what day it is?

It's Friday, Friday. Gonna get down on Friday. Everybody's looking forward to the weekend. What are you guys doing? Is this a hose job where you're hosing me down? Dude, you hose yourself down. You hose yourself up and down. Oh, now I hose down. Come on, what do you want me to do? I don't care. Yeah, get a job. Oh, get a job? Yeah. Just get a job? Why don't I strap on my job helmet and squeeze down into a job cannon and fire off into job land where jobs grow on jobbies.

That was really, really, really terrible, but everyone does that kind of stuff sometimes. It happens like once, or twice, or three times in every life, or twice. I mean one, or once.

Let's get to the jokes.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Friday edition of TBT, all the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Give me that. My name's Luke Burbank. I am your host. I'm joking. I'm joking. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where we are looking at a wet and windy day. Didn't know you like to get wet, though. All of the leaves are blowing off of the trees here at the property, and I am debating dealing with them or just letting them turn into nature's fertilizer. My guess is it'll be door number two. We are at door number 4,598 in a collector series on this Friday. Let the fun begin. On Wednesday, the last ever penny in the United States was minted in Philadelphia. They are not making pennies anymore.

So you got my money?

I feel oddly nostalgic about it, even though I honestly do everything in my power to avoid having pennies come into my life. And yet I'm somehow sad that they're going away. Life's complicated that way, isn't it? Some kids in New Jersey broke into an amusement park and stole, like, all of the stuffed animals that you could win. That would explain why we have so many drunk kids here. There was one dazzling detail from the story that I thought was kind of interesting. I'll share with you. Just as soon as we've said hello to this guy, he's the longest-running co-bro of the show. Oh, yeah, buddy. Possibly best known for his love of the tall ships. He's Andrew Walsh, and he is joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I'm having trouble not just jumping straight ahead to the top stories. Let's make a commitment to getting to the top stories today. How do you feel about that? At least the penny one.

Well, I feel good about committing to it. I can't tell you if it's going to happen. Oh.

What do you know about commitment? Well, I think my track record speaks for itself. I'm not leaving. Oh, he went there. Oh, he went there. I was trying to be careful on your behalf.

What's the guy say about the shirt? What's the guy say about the shirt?

Oh, he's at his limit. I know somebody who's at the limit.

I think I'm at the limit of how many more divorces I'm allowed to get.

Okay, listen, maybe I can just clear the path for something here because I literally, so we talked a lot about the TV show, The Chair Company, yesterday. I don't mean to reopen that.

Apologies to anyone who hasn't seen the show or doesn't care about the show because it really is sort of taking over TBTL this week.

And there is a scene that you know has been living very much in my head because I think every day since I've been back from my trip from Cleveland, And we have talked about it before the show in some way or another, either me talking in a bad imitation of the voice of the guy who works at the shirt store in the chair company. And twice now, both the first time I watched that episode and then a couple of days ago when I got a wild hair again, I actually rolled a piece of tape from that show into my system and started editing it, thinking there's got to be some intro tape in here somewhere. Can I just make it work? and twice I tried and twice I failed because I keep thinking it's just too weird for people who don't know what it is it's not full of jokes it's just weird and then it ends on kind of a funny joke at the very end and I keep thinking there's no way our listeners will put up with this they won't know what it is it's just too obscure and also kind of haunting sounding

but if you introduce it here it'd be

It becomes canon, and then you can play it. You've sort of laundered it in a way.

So, well, I mean, do you mean play it here, or just, I was just setting it up here. I could go, I could log into my HBO Go. I could, HBO Go? I thought you pulled the audio. I did, and then I keep deleting it, because I keep thinking it's not going to work. I keep thinking, no, this is too.

That's so funny that you delete it if you decide it's not going to work. You and the file management. I'm insane. I was like, what am I going to do with this? If you saw my desktop on my laptop here, you would break out. You would immediately contract shingles. it would make you so anxious so there is something to your system while you're trying to locate the audio and by the way if you don't have it and it's a hassle

no I'm actually I just opened up I opened up that episode and it's right at the end of the scene

there's actually a groove that is worn in the internet that's right hbo.com he's getting the rubber ball out so basically Tim Robinson's character is trying to solve this mystery of what's going on with this this chair company and he's had a run-in with someone and in the run-in he has grabbed the guy by the shirt and the guy has run away and the shirt ripped off of him so he's he sees the tag where the shirt is from and he's now at the place that sells at the clothing store because he's trying to figure out sort of who this guy is and what's going on and that's when he encounters the guy the clerk at the shirt store who has a very unusual way of talking exactly and i i want to point out i don't

think that the chair company is trying too hard to sort of echo jokes from tim robinson's other project i think you should leave having said that i think it's notable that this shirt has a complicated pattern on it right like dan flashes it's not a it's not a illusion to dan flashes i would say so he runs into this he runs into the shirt store and and it's trying to figure out is there any way the person who sold him the shirt can get him closer to the person who abducted him or not abducted him, assaulted him in a parking lot.

Hi, how are you? Good. Hey, I found this shirt, and I'm trying to find the guy who lost it. Do you think he might have bought it here, or you would have a record of that? Let me take a look. Sure. Let me take a look.

Now, he's a tall white man with a totally shaved head, and he's looking a little bit like a little incredulous.

Oh, he definitely got this here, and it's definitely well loved. You could see on the back, there's dirt, some kind of white dust. He got great use out of this shirt. Look at these buttons. The buttons are pulling. They're starting to strain. Look at this. Okay, now he reaches. Okay, this is the piece de resistance, in my opinion.

Whoever wrote this into the seat is a frigging genius.

So he's pointing out that the buttons had been kind of stretched probably from a belly that was pushing out of the shirt. So he reaches underneath his counter and comes up with a classic red dodgeball-looking rubber ball.

Yeah, like we would play kickball with that when I was in grade school. Exactly. And so he says, yes, look at this.

Look at these buttons. The buttons are pulling. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They're starting to strain. Look at this. you see it's like a big belly and someone's belly is pushing up into the buttons he's about at his limit i happen to know a guy who's at his limit he's one of our members that's it for me by the

way that's what i that's what i can't stop saying is i know somebody who's at his limit i can't get

out of my head that's the perfect kind of like tim robinson zach canan kind of world of dialogue yeah yeah it's just such a strange thing to have him say that he knows somebody who's i mean i guess it's a bridge into we don't have to play the whole thing but he he's trying to get this

guy to sign up for some sort of weird no i think we have to play the whole thing okay all right i happen to know a guy who's at his limit he's one of our members you have members it's our membership program we got going here. Members Night is coming up. I'm sure you'll see him there. All the members come. Great. When is that? You have to be a member. Sign up, become a member, and you'll get notified about when the night is. You're positive you know him. I'm positive he's at his limit. Awesome. Thank you $65 that's cheap sign up for the membership you'll get the texts and the emails regarding members night

you definitely know mm-hmm come the shirt back You don't know him, do you? Nah. Now here's where I think the story gets even more interesting. Because after that scene, I was like, this guy's a comedic genius, and yet I'd never seen him in anything before. I was like, it's odd to me that he's just been lurking somewhere, you know, off of my radar. How did this funny guy escape my radar? So I Google, well, first of all, I go to that episode, and I get the name of this guy who plays the store clerk. and i look him up and his only credit is the chair company which is totally weird and so then i'm googling around on this guy's name and i find an article i want to say in like vanity fair or something or maybe variety or something i don't know there's an article where someone does an interview with this guy because he is not an actor he runs the clothing store in real life that they filmed as the clothing store where tim robinson's character brings the t-shirt and they were at the store like location scouting and they just started talking to this guy and they thought he is a character we should make him the clerk for the store and then somewhere in i think in that article or somewhere else there's a link to this guy being interviewed in real life by like a local tv outlet not about the uh i think you should leave but or the chair company but just

about like his clothing store yeah i think it was actually from this i think it was a government youtube page from the small town that he lives in i think they just highlight a store and there's this five minute video i didn't know about this until you sent me it is a variety article that you sent me and yeah it was recorded a long time ago and he's just like in the store talking you

play a little bit of him in the store in his real life when he's not acting yeah i'm scrolling to

open it now i think it's interesting that well let me just say one thing before i play this video So I am trying to get through an ad here, but also there's a sentence in this sort of profile of this guy that I'm trying to interpret.

What's his name again?

His name is, I don't know his name, Craig Waterman. Nope, that's the name of the character that Tim Robinson plays in Friendship. I'm looking, so the name of the store is Tamblaze, which is again somehow perfect. Perfect. The actor is Jared Lindner, and he's the real-life co-proprietor of Suitman, a small business that his father started, and they still run it together in Mount Vernon, New York. Now, as you mentioned, I'm going to read this here, Tim Robinson and his crew, an aside that you mentioned to me off-air, and I don't think you just said it again, is that it's interesting that Tim Robinson is actually part of the scouting crew for these things. It's very, very hands on. I wouldn't think that he'd be out looking at the clothing store location. He'd leave that to his location people. But apparently they didn't have somebody for the role yet. They were just scouting locations. And then they go in to scout this location. But then it says Lindner did not recognize the Saturday Night Live alumni, but struck up a rapport with the crew. Quote, they started to chuckle because I'm pretty easygoing and a somewhat young guy. And I'm just sort of like. I mean, that's one way to put it. Exactly. Like, that's kind of one of those things where it's like, I'm not, I don't like to think that I'm laughing at him while I'm watching this clip, while I'm watching the show. But I got to say, they probably weren't laughing because you're easygoing and young. It's because of your affectation, which I adore. Yeah, your quirkiness

But I love that that's how he reads it I love that he self-reports as a pretty low-key guy Who's, you know, sort of like I like that he feels like this is a normal If not a little bit low-key way to be in the world Whereas it's like, no dude, your affectation is so odd We're putting you in pictures Because it's completely unusual

So this is from CMVNYTV which is the city of Mount Vernon, New York, TV on YouTube. I almost got that job hosting that channel. He's going to be, well, hang on to it. You don't know what the future holds for any of us in this game. So there's going to be a little introduction here by the person who hosts these videos. How you doing, guys? My name is Ja. We're back with another episode of Envy Gems. And this week, we're at 17 Grammiden visiting the Superman store.

Now, can you pause real quick, Andrew? When I jumped on the line with you today You were already here And I just heard this jazz music playing

Yeah, you didn't know what I was listening to

I didn't know what you were doing But I was like, I like that that's how this guy And by this guy, I mean you, Andrew I like this is how this guy gets in the zone Before I get here, he's just like jazzing out Getting mentally ready for an episode of TBTL

I was being mentally ready for this My name is Jared

I'm here at Suitman 17 Grammerton Avenue, Mount Vernon. uh we're here going on 17 years on the corner of grammerton avenue and prospect we offer things you can't get at other spots so we just appreciate the community's support

and doing our thing so i want to point out anybody who's at his limit we have shirts for you I know somebody who's at his limit. He's a very svelte guy.

He's wearing what looks like maybe an untucket style shirt or something. It's a sharp little shirt where you can kind of see the pattern on the inside when he folds up his sleeves. But what I find curious is that he's wearing a Colorado Rockies ball cap, which, first of all, I just didn't have him as a ball cap kind of guy. But certainly Mount Vernon, New York, I didn't expect it to be the Colorado Rockies, but I'm guessing he likes the colors.

yeah that's an interesting if he could be one of those people who's just completely decoupled from his fandom from his hat wearing you know because it would be weird it would be surprising if he was a Rockies fan but again could anything from this low key guy surprise us at this point Andrew?

wait I was going to say I think it would be funny if every it looks like they're going to cut to the host every now and then to ask a question and I thought it was going to be funny if every time they cut back to our guy Lindner if he was wearing a different hat of a mid-market baseball team, but actually I'm scrubbing through here and it's...

Tampa Bay Rays. Yes! Who's on this list? The Rockies?

The Rays? I would put the Diamondbacks on there. Diamondbacks are definitely on there. But it does look about halfway through. We do get a costume change from our hero here. So Bruce, I hear that you're the mastermind behind the plan. Oh, this is going to be his dad, I think. Oh, okay. But his dad also wears a baseball hat. I want to hear

how the dad talks.

What made you come and settle in Mount Vernon to start your business?

Being in the industry for a long time, I was...

Mid-market baseball team, guess it. The dad is wearing a baseball hat. No. Well, it's not any of them that we met. Kansas City Royals? I think mid-market, yeah, mid-market. It looks like a Cincinnati Reds hat.

Oh, that's perfect.

On the wholesale end for a bit. That's perfect. And always solicited...

Dad also wearing an untucked shirt, but not as sharp. Like, it doesn't look like it's a shirt made by the brand Untuck It. And the dad looks like the shirt. He's a little bit more dressed like me. The shirt is about a size or two, maybe too big. So it's hanging off him. It's wrinkled. But also, just like his son, sleeves rolled up to, like, mid forearm and baseball cap. So they sort of maybe have sort of a uniform. Sorry, though. I cut this off. We wanted to hear his voice some more.

Well, I've probably got enough. Worth Avenue. And every time I came to visit the customer, it took me an hour to park.

Okay. So one other thing I want to mention, though. So we're talking about this guy's affectation, the son, the guy who's in the TV show. But the thing, I was talking about this with Genevieve last night because I told her you sent me that article about him just, like, running the store and he's not an actual actor. Given that, there's real acting involved here that I would not be able to do. You've heard me try to portray a goldfish in a radio play.

First of all, that's not fair because they were asking you to play – were you also a goldfish?

No, I guess I was a different kind of fish that was married to a goldfish.

No, no, no, but no, that's not the nature of my question. You were in – listen, you didn't have a chance at that. I came running in from the outside. They were asking you to play a slightly over-the-top character. I assume there was no one actually there sort of directing you or coaching you. So you're just like floating in space. And I think you could play like a quirky guy co-hosting a podcast.

Maybe, but I do think, I just, I want to give credit to the fact that, like, you can, because this gets into a little bit of what we talked about yesterday, about whether or not this show, The Chair Company, is sort of doing this Tim and Erickie thing where you're collecting a whole gang of oddballs, exactly what I was going to say, you know?

Why didn't Hillary use that terminology?

I think she could have won in 2016.

It's not as catchy. You don't identify as an oddball.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point, too. Nobody says I'm an oddball anyway. But, you know, people who are maybe the Tim and Eric thing, they were grabbing people from like local community, like cable broadcasts and people who sometimes seem like they may or may not have total like full, you know, mental health. Yes, exactly. And it's a little questionable. Yeah. And although I've heard, you know, people have asked this question for a long time. that shows pretty old now and it sounds like actually it sounds like everybody was treated really well and that people weren't like the butts of jokes necessarily but if you're starting to see these types of folks in the chair company i gotta say the acting is still there though like this guy to just have no acting background that we

know of and i didn't read the whole interview maybe maybe he acted no he had no acting background he says that in the interview no he never played santa in the uh fifth grade play or whatever like i did but i i was one of the santas by the way they broke the role up into three parts luke so that not one person can get all the acclaim but they told me i was the best santa that's a true story i believe that you already had the beard i already had the beard and the attitude honestly I was so mad I pulled up there was nowhere to park I left a pink note on some kid's car anyway I just think that him doing like oh he's at his limit like and then at the end when he has to shut it down and kind of be like I'm not interested in you anymore like there's some real acting involved here it's not just him being his quirky self I think and I just want to give a little credit to that I love that scene it lives in my

head and credit I think to Tim Robinson and the other people with the show because one of the things he says in the article is that they were so incredibly easy to work with and they just made him feel really comfortable and he it was also funny because at the time of the interview he hadn't seen the episode i think because he doesn't have hbo max so or so like like i'm i'm like who is this guy he's amazing i'm googling him he's being interviewed by variety magazine he's never seen

the scene in question he didn't he didn't like sign up for a free trial to see himself on hbo So I want to –

He already done a free trial a month ago, and he was at his limit.

He was literally at his limit. I know somebody who's at his limit. I have another question for you because I'm worried that this conversation is going to slip away. Why don't I bring up Cal Raleigh? This is something that I've been wanting to ask you for weeks now. Since the, I believe, first or second episode of this show dropped, The Chair Company, this isn't about the show at all. So if we're losing listeners, I promise you this is a question about technology. because the show is weird it has all kinds of weird stuff in it that isn't fully explained or whatever but also it is just about a guy who has access to all of the technology that we have in 2025 he's googling things constantly and it's actually google it's not one of those fake googles and he's using his cell phone and blah blah blah just all this stuff that we're familiar with but then there's one time where he has i believe a photo on his phone i think it's a photo and he takes his phone this is tim robinson's character rod he's sitting at his desk at work and he takes the phone and he just taps it on top of his keyboard or on top of his laptop screen to transfer the file do you remember this move no and is that something you can do with macintosh computers not that i know of just tap your phone on the top of your screen to transfer a file down i think it's just a goofy photo i'm pretty sure he's transferring a file into his computer just by tapping his phone i'm trying it right now this would be a great prank it's not

working i literally you have me banging my phone yeah with a photo up you have a photo up yes and i'm i'm banging and it's as an apple iphone and i'm banging it into a apple macbook pro and nothing

is happening do you not have any photos that aren't filthy i caught a glimpse of that that is

that is you know what this is this is very cute actually each day if i remember so becca and i have a little thing if if we're looking at our phone at 11 11 we take a little screen grab and send it to each other like it's just like a little weird it's it's no uh you know post-it note on the coffee but it's did you freak out on tuesday yes i did i said happy 11 this is as 11 11 as it gets unless it was 2011 i missed it i i sent her a picture at 11 11 on 11 11 that is so

great thinking of you i missed i missed it by one minute i was on blue sky or somebody and somebody had posted it a minute earlier 11 11 on 11 11 i look i i shook genevieve but it was already 11 12

at that moment so anyway i'm happy i have an alarm set for 11 11 but it's i have it on silent because obviously i don't want to interrupt the show we're typically doing oh yeah right so then i i never notice that it's going off. But it's our little game that we play just to kind of let each other know that we're thinking of each other. But that is the photo. That's the photo that just is the most recent photo here. This is Thursday, November 13th. I see. So you take a screen I take a screen cap of my phone saying 11-11 and then this picture is my wallpaper

on my phone. Which is a photo of you and Becca posing it looks like somewhere maybe at an event or something Italy I believe. Oh nice. Yes, you look nice. I see. So I was wondering why that 11 11 was behind you like i thought you guys were at some sort of a you know how they sort of have those fun quote-unquote fun step and repeats at parties and stuff and i thought that that was you're at some sort of an 11 11 party you i can see it like it's gonna descend into swinging very fast for some reason i don't know in 11 11 well it is a is veterans day always

on the 11th or is it always that's tuesday i think it's that was the weirdest what was that about i I mean, I guess it's always this.

That was the weirdest Tuesday of all time. To have a holiday on a Tuesday?

Genevieve, I was traveling, so to me everything felt messed up. But Genevieve, who had a regular work week, was saying similar things on Tuesday. She's like, it feels like a Sunday, but I just had my Sunday.

It's like, just make it whatever it is. The second Monday in November is Veterans Day, and I feel that the veterans will feel honored by that.

not having it just be a floater that it could be a floater that can be randomly a tuesday so it's

like yeah you go to work on monday and then all of a sudden it's like tuesdays all like becca had tuesday off it was just a strange it was a kind of a strange day uh holiday to have kind of plop down it sort of at the beginning of the week but not the very beginning of the week but also not

the end of the week it was it was odd yeah i could definitely again my whole week was sort of all uh messed up because of that and so somewhat random uh and of course you were able to because Because you did your TBTL chores over the weekend, right? So you were able to take Tuesday off, or at least off from TBTL?

It was mostly pre-produced. I think I recorded the wraparound, as it were, maybe on Tuesday morning. So I was still doing a little bit of work. But mostly John Sklaroff was posting the show. So I did have sort of a lighter day than normal, but I've also got some TV stuff going on in the background that's always kind of my constant companion.

That reminds me. You've got to be a little bit careful asking John to do extra work like that, because he is at his limit.

Yes. He's at his limit of having Aaron Judge win the MVP. Now, listen, this is a little bit of a baseball talk, but I do think we have enough people that got swept up in Mariners fever that we could talk a little bit about Cal Raleigh not getting the most valuable player award that went to Aaron Judge of the Yankees. Now, I know that it sounds like it's impossible for me to be sort of neutral about this, but I fundamentally don't think I understand what most valuable means because I really can't see a player who was more most valuable to their team than Cal Raleigh in that he was the catcher, which is a really hard job. every time there was a good pitching performance that he was the catcher he was part of that which is not how it was for Aaron Judge and then he hit a million home runs and he and you know and also helped the Mariners and I know probably the postseason doesn't technically count but he literally helped the Mariners get past the Detroit Tigers with a timely home run hitting to tie one of the games um so I know again of course I'm I'm I'm wanting it to be Cal Raleigh because I'm a fan of his but i also just don't understand how the argument could be that aaron judge was more valuable is it more valuable to the yankees than cal raleigh was more valuable to the mariners what is the what is the exact metric for this i don't know the exact metric the metric is are you

a yankee first of all there's no doubt in my mind that if cal raleigh it had the same exact season the same exact season and he was doing all of that for the Yankees and the Yankees still they would have elected him mayor of New York on the spot if they had ended their season exactly where they did you know pretty early in the postseason or whatever Kel Raleigh would have been a national story he already was a bit of a national story he would have been a huge national story and of course he would have won MVP it would have been all and I was flipping through the radio yesterday and i found myself on a sports station that i don't usually listen to because they usually carry more national sports it's like kjr in the afternoons and i just heard the two most like yankees fan sounding guys in the world this is before the like maybe an hour or two before the announcement of who won and they're just like talking about how it's gotta be judged like it's got what cal raleigh you're not gonna remember him three times in a row is gonna make history And you're going to it's like all of their arguments for it was like, what is the best headline for Rob Manfred? And like three literally there was saying, Rob, Rob knows how to work headlines like three times in a row is more important. It's like, wait, you're waiting this. You're saying that he deserves it so that they can say this Yankee got it three years in a row. I want to be careful about one thing, though, because this conversation did begin with me mentioning John Scaroff. And you use that to sort of pivot into this. I will say there was a period of time yesterday from hearing these two jack holes on the radio and then, you know, an hour or two later, you know, hearing that Cal Raleigh did indeed lose to Aaron Judge, where I was really spinning out of control with my hatred of the Yankees and generally speaking, that kind of Yankees fan. but i want to say i did remember and because i i mean i honestly think to myself sometimes and this is going to be really really rude to both john and a bunch of our listening audience i think to myself how could you root for that like what is the fun of that just like always getting always getting this you know what I mean it just seems so unfun and uninteresting but the thing is John is not like those Yankees fans who are just kind of and he said like I don't know if you remember this in a text chain like months ago he said like you know I'm a Yankees fan but no this is Cal Raleigh's to lose like it's I mean he straight up was saying like Cal Raleigh should win this based on so like I don't want John to feel like I'm sweeping him up in this sort of stereotype that i have but there is a stereotype of the yankees fan base that is just so annoying and so just it seems bereft of anything interesting we have to take you to

a yankee game andrew yeah that you that's what it's restorative justice yeah it really helped me it for some reason and i was sitting with those yankee bros and i ended up liking them and they were just you know 20 something guys who grew up in the greater new york city area and it's like well of course you're a yankee fan you know you grew up they're they're the they're the team they're iconic they you know they've had very memorable players and like it makes there was something about being at that game with those guys it really humanized them for me i mean that seriously it's it's it's helped me not have as much weird impotent rage as i have typically carried around at that fan base but yeah i just again i i really and i i think i can say this if cal raleigh played on a different team and put up the same numbers this season i feel like i would say well that guy's obviously the most valuable player like like i said probably for an 80 to 90 of the season every single pitch that was thrown passes through cal raleigh i'm talking not just the starters the middle relief the munoz pitches like it's it's like he could almost in my mind you could almost win it well first of all it should probably be a catcher every single year if you think about it because like think about the pressure on a catcher and just like think about the little things like Cal Raleigh blocking a Munoz pitch in the dirt which doesn't allow a runner to advance and then that runner ends up stranded at third base on you know there's a two out fly ball that's caught and that runner doesn't score whereas he could have gotten to third base if that ball gets by Cal Raleigh and we don't even talk about that that's just like one micro moment of the game where he was incredibly valuable to the game i'm gonna be really pedantic

here but are you talking about something in the postseason because supposedly the postseason does

not get i'm not even talking about a specific oh you're just generally speaking kind of like a just like a hypothetical i'm just saying there's these little this the thing of being the catcher is just like so incredibly hard just like the guy would get like it was almost comical at points in the season where he'd get like hit in the throat with the ball and then he'd come up and hit a home wrong yeah right like he would have something happen to him that would literally kill me if it ever happened one time and my thought would be like ah he's he's fine he'll be fine like he almost became non-human to me at some point because he's so tough you remember i think it

was last season or maybe two i think it was two seasons ago he he played all season with like a broken thumb like that position remember i don't know if it was broken but like a really jacked up thumb that they didn't really tell us the they didn't really reveal the details of until after the season was over it was one of them that we did not go to the postseason i think or by the

way i also want to say i actually like aaron judge every interview i've heard with him he seems like a really sweet dude like i'm i'm really not anti-aaron judge per se i just i just think it and i guess it's the it's probably the baseball writers right is that who decides on this yeah i think so i don't think so genevieve looks at aaron judge i'll be honest with you um i uh i I, you know, and I don't think that the baseball writers are, you know, in collusion with Rob Manfred. I mean, I think there's some what there is is some statistical element to this that I don't really follow. But they need to change the name of it then or something, because I just think most valuable player sounds to me a whole lot like what Cal Raleigh did last year.

I unfollowed somebody who wasn't even they weren't even like it's not it's I have followed this guy. I don't remember his name. I already I've already forgotten him. His name is Aaron something, and I don't know how he got swept up into my algorithm, but he's a guy who's a huge athletics fan. And so you want to talk about, you know, just like the most trampled upon fan base. I will forever feel empathy and anger.

Oh, the uncle of that suit guy was wearing an A's hat.

Yeah, right. Yes, he was. He walks through the video at the end wearing an A's hat. There's just a long line of family members walking by with different hats on. But anyway, like, you know. So that's why, so I started following this guy. He has such a good, he was just generally speaking like a, just kind of a good poster. It was one of those like real parasocial relationships. This guy has no idea who I am. I don't know who he is. We didn't interact at all, but I ended up kind of like following the beats of his life a little bit, but mostly he just got swept up into my.

algorithm because he's a baseball guy right and uh and an interesting guy and i've always liked his posts and and his love his undying love of baseball and the athletics despite you know what the team has done to him but then yesterday he just you know like i'm furious at this news i am furious at this mvp news my timeline is going crazy it's mostly mariners fans freaking their shit and then i just see he posts like with those asterisks whispers quietly they made the right choice and i was like that was he didn't even have to say what he was talking about i was just like this guy i'm not following this guy right now he has plenty of followers he doesn't need me and

that's that's where i was emotionally over well this is the thing i believe it or not i try i'm i'm saying there is some part of this that i don't understand there's some explanation a statistical thing having to do with something about what Aaron Judge did that caused these baseball writers to say he was the most valuable player. Like, I don't think that Buster Olney is out to get me or, you know, the Mariners. Buster Olney is under your bed right now. Mommy, can I sleep with the light on? Buster Olney is under my bed.

I mean, I don't have the stats, but Aaron Judge had a hell of a season.

I mean, he had an incredible season and he was injured for like, you know. It was comical like his batting average and his power numbers were just totally like absolutely ridiculous in this way. That was like a statistical it was anomalous, you know, but so weirdly enough, I'm not even saying they're wrong. I'm saying they're not the story is not being explained to me properly of what the what the metric is for most valuable player.

Well, I think the metric really does have to do with the popularity of America's team or whatever, you know, like again, like is there any doubt in your I was not. being sarcastic or even exaggerating when I said there's literally no doubt in my mind that if Kel Raleigh was wearing a Yankees uniform this year he would have won. It's very hard for me to imagine

a universe in which he doesn't get the MVP as a Yankee because of just the sort of osmosis of it all. Right. The sort of ubiquity of it all because we would, like you said, we would have never ever ever stopped hearing about it in the baseball media and to some degree even the national media. it would just be, and it would have this effect over time, this drumbeat of kind of almost making it, you know, sort of manifesting. Yes, exactly, well put. Making it a fait accompli, but, you know, I, what, pitchers and catchers, what, like probably 50 days or something? We'll probably, pretty soon we'll be a month out from pitchers and catchers.

I know, it will be, it is, I know, the winter, I know, can sometimes feel long, but then sometimes you do the math, and you're like, man, We're going to be potentially painting a wall, doing some spring renovations or cleaning, listening to spring training.

I've got some MVPs for you, Andrew, some most valuable peoples. These are the donors who are supporting TBTL voluntarily. We read a lot of names throughout the year, and sometimes it can sort of fly by, and then sometimes it just hits me like, wow, these are all people in various parts of the country and even the world who are sending money in every month to this show so that this can be a thing. This is 100% listener supported, and I just really, really appreciate it. We've been on this Livewire fundraising kick, and so it's kind of had me thinking about funding models for these kinds of things and just how remarkable this whole TBTL thing is. and it's thanks to folks like Keith Brewster, who's in Chardon, Ohio. Is that out in Geauga? That's in Geauga County.

It is, yeah. That's pretty far east, I think, because I was a west sider. You know what I like about Keith, by the way, as far as his donations are concerned? He's not at his limit. He's still doing it monthly. Yes. And I love that.

He has not hit his limit of tolerating TVTL and deciding to donate. Exactly. I went to a surprise wedding in Chardon, Ohio. That's why I know it's in Geauga County.

Oh, that's the story. I knew you did a story on the east side of Cleveland a few years back.

Thank you, Keith. Thanks also to Rob Peacock, who's in Portland, Oregon.

Hey, thanks, Rob. That reminds me. We might be getting Peacock, the streaming service Peacock, in this family. Really? What's the show? There isn't one. I am still on a free trial of Apple. That's why I've been able to watch. What is it? Is it Pluribus that's on Apple? Pluribus is on Apple. Yeah.

I just had to re-sign up for it to get Pluribus.

Yeah, and so my free trial is about to end. I think I got like a full six months or something through my T-Mobile account or whatever. But now it's time to pay the piper, Luke. And Genevieve and I are looking at it, and she said, you know, you pay like three extra bucks a month, and you get Apple and Peacock. I'm like, oh, that would be fun, get Peacock. I don't know what's on there, but I like the colors. I think Peacock is a big money loser, but it's losing less money every year.

I was reading.

some article about it, like, they only lost $400 million last year or whatever.

Now, Peacock is obviously associated with NBC, but there's no chance I get the cable NBC. Well, now MS Now won't even be part of NBC. I was wondering, is there any chance I get Chris's show on Peacock, but probably not, huh? You gotta use that Fubo login.

Either keep using J-Dogs

or you can borrow mine. Yeah, I think J-Dogs is about to sunset,

so maybe I'll be sniffing around your door. Yeah, you can absolutely use mine. Or maybe you can use Laura Steiger's account. Laura is in Bellingham, Washington. You know what, Laura? You're doing enough for me. You don't have to share your Fubo account with them.

That's what I was about to say. Thank you, Laura. What if everybody who we thank here either donates to the show directly or shares their passwords with us for various streaming services?

Or both. Or both. Thanks also to Michelle and Larry Little in Port Angeles, Washington. Nice.

Do you think that they have a login to the Criterion channel? That would be a good one. Oh, yeah.

Sometimes I'll see on my social media feed, they've got the Criterion collection, and they will bring in actors and people to go through the library and pick out free movies. Yeah. I would love to do that, but I would feel a lot of pressure to pick cool movies. Yes. Yes. It's like, what does it say about you, what you picked? Exactly. Bill Hader went through there And he's like He's a super duper cinephile I didn't realize that Really really knows a lot about movies I'm not sure What Matt McGillan in Oak Park, Illinois Relationship is with The Criterion Collection or being a cinephile But I know that he's a TBTL-ophile Because here he is donating to the show Thanks Matt Appreciate you out there in Oak Park And then Chris Anderson is checking in from Everett, Washington No, this was sweet.

Chris offered me his Tubi login. Now, I already have a Tubi login, but it was still, it was like the, you know what I mean? It was just a kind of gesture, which I appreciate. Yeah, it was sweet. How about his Mubi login?

I'm surprised Mubi is like a big hit.

What's going on with Mubi? I don't think I know about Mubi.

Mubi is this, let me see here. You know why? Oh, this is the Mubi one. Yes. It's a, let's see, it's a British streaming platform. it produces and theatrically distributes films by emerging and established filmmakers I was reading an article about it a while ago it was founded by this Turkish guy who I think was just a big movie fan and I don't know it just seems like there's so many streaming services and there's so much noise out there that it's always interesting when one kind of sort of seems to be succeeding kind of figured it out the other thing was my friend Rico Galliano once of the Dinner Party Download podcast he hosts It's like a Mubi podcast show.

Oh, really?

So that was the first I started seeing Mubi out there, but then I was reading articles about it, and it seems like they've actually kind of, they've sort of figured, I think it's also kind of aimed towards cinephiles. It's sort of streaming, but like with really good content.

Also, speaking of those guys from the Dinner Party download, I looked at the, I didn't download, I signed up for the Paris Review podcast, like years and years and years ago. and then it went I think it went dormant for a long time and maybe you told me this and I'd forgotten but the other day I was just looking for something to put on and I'm like is there any chance there's new Paris review and there is they they rebooted that baby back up and maybe it's been up for a while are you a regular connoisseur I'm I'm not super regular with it but is Brendan hosting it I think so I did not I I think I got distracted I'm not sure if I listened to the whole episode or not I think I put it on for a second and then saw something shiny but I want to get more into it i remember very much liking it and i'm pretty sure um that he is still hosting i just

can't uh tell you for sure right now well thank you very much to our donors for keeping tbtl in business we couldn't do this without you hello and welcome to top story r.i.p to the penny andrew Headline in the New York Times The penny dies at 232 years old This is an incredible, I think, piece of writing By Victor Mather in the Times The American penny died on Wednesday in Philadelphia It was 232 The cause was irrelevance and expensiveness The Treasury Department said Nothing could be bought anymore with a penny Not even penny candy Moreover, the cost to mint the penny Had risen to more than 3 cents a financial absurdity that doomed the coin. In its heyday, the penny had immense cultural impact. It was the going rate for thoughts. It was a symbol of frugality, saved and or earned. It could sometimes be pretty and other times arrive from heaven. And how many ideas would never have come to light?

without a penny dropping. When picked up, it was said to bring good luck for a 24-hour period, an assertion commonly made, but one that was never proven by any scientific double-blind studies. On the darker side, a penny could undoubtedly be bad, especially when turning up. It found its way into films and songs, a foray into footwear, specifically loafers, was a huge success for many decades, and the shoe remains readily available today. In comparison, about the best the nickel could do was to be wooden.

or buffalo it is really good writing i was reading this earlier this morning before we started the show and it is good writing i like the way that it's written like an obituary um the loafer thing

stuck out to me i i bought some penny loafers recently by the way but i've not put pennies in

them i had penny loafers when it was part of my school uniform in eighth grade i believe i mean i don't think they had to be penny loafers but that's what everybody was basically wearing And yeah, so no more pennies in the penny loafers, I guess

Well, I mean, until we run Well, when we run out of the existing supply of pennies, I guess, right? I didn't actually get all the way to the end of the piece Did they talk about what the process is? I mean, they're not making them anymore But I guess they'll just stay around as long as they sort of naturally do

This piece was more poetic in its sort of reflections on the penny and but there are some links to you know the actual news story and i did not realize this or if i did i had assumed it was just one of those things that people say but it didn't actually happen but it goes back to february apparently trump signed it because i was honestly like i'm reading this i'm like so pissed off and i'm like it could have been a biden thing though i don't even really know who did it uh i don't know that it needs to necessarily be partisan but the fact that it did come from trump makes me even more angry about it he also he cast a deciding vote

on the MLB MVP. Yeah, right.

He probably did tweet about it. I'm sorry. He probably did truth social about it. I don't know why this bums me out, man. I don't, you know, I still like paying for things with cash. I still carry a decent amount of cash with me. I just love saying that so that people know that they should, they should assault me if they see me. Just bonk me on my head and take my wallet, my George Costanza-esque wallet. Or maybe just do kind of a more

of a like theatrical pickpocketing.

Oh, yeah.

that's a yoinking if you will kind of like when bart and homer each pickpocket each other

or how about that thing that everybody did in the 80s on tv shows i think i saw this a lot in 80s sitcoms probably because they didn't there's something scary about maybe showing something that looks like a real gun but how many times did you see somebody in a 70s or 80s show like mug somebody but they just have their finger in their pocket right you never actually see the gun That was a real thing, right? It was like, oh, they're always poking through their jacket or their hoodie or whatever.

Yes, absolutely.

Anyway.

By the way, just to quickly update that I'm seeing in the article, even after death, the penny will not vanish for a while longer. There are some 250 billion pennies in circulation. They will be out there gathering dust or maybe very, very rarely being used to pay for something. So there's not like a process of trying to go turn in your pennies or something. I guess it's just they'll just wait until I guess they're destroyed and then I'm guessing that in the olden days if you had a penny and you cared to you could send it somewhere and get a replacement penny if yours was like destroyed and now probably there's just no more replacement it'll just I mean that is a weird question though it's like will they just melt into the earth like what will really what will physically happen to them yeah eventually will they start not recalling them but just sort of collecting them and like keeping them out of circulation if they pass through like

various levels of government or something like that you know like i don't know dmv i don't know who's paying for anything in a government outpost with change and that's what i was starting to say like i do like cash i don't necessarily like change i don't what i don't like change in any sense of the word as you well know but like i don't you know i don't have some sort of fascination with pocket change or something like that i think quarters would bum me out if they disappeared forever pennies less so but i don't know man i'm i don't know i just have emotions about this that are not rational at all but it's bumming me out because it just feels like something from your

childhood something from your whole life generally is going away permanently is that kind of where

you think the feelings are coming i guess so but well beyond my life you know as this piece points out like it's just and it just seems so permanent you know like yeah there's and there's no going back nobody's going to decide let's let's hope that we don't get to a place in society where we need to downgrade to pennies again you know so again it's it's absurd how i'm feeling but i'm not i'm not like just saying this for something to say it's just you're actually feeling it i'm feeling a little something about it and i can't rationalize it see i think my initial thought was

the same same, which was, ah, that's a bummer. That's just, you know, again, it feels like the sort of fabric of my entire life, a part of the fabric of my entire life. And all of the pop culture references and all of the, see a penny, pick it up all the day, you'll have good luck. And then, but then I thought about it a little more deeply and I was like, I do everything in my power to avoid getting pennies in my life. Like the number one thing that a place can do if I'm paying with cash is ask me, do I want to round up for the children? A hundred percent. Yes. Like that's the number one way to get me to donate uh pocket change to whatever the organization is do you want to round up do you want to not get this change back you want to not get this like 18 cents back and it's like i absolutely don't want that in my life so it's a little bit of a bummer but on the other hand it's not like i was enjoying a lifestyle where i was carrying a lot of pennies around and also i mean it is crazy to think that you there is nothing for sale for one penny right like there's not even penny candy as they say in the article like when we were i'm wondering when i was a kid could

you buy something for a penny i could it was like those little chiclet little chiclet gums out of a

vending machine at the hardware store oh right right right right right right because no you're absolutely right there would be those vending machines or whatever you call them and there would be the ones that took quarters the ones that took nickels and dimes and then there was

the penny one yeah you could get a gumball yeah one little gumball or little chiclets there maybe a couple of chiclets would come out you know what really did get me and i'm just thinking about this now and it's not super relatable if you weren't in that part of the country but i was in new hampshire when they went there's a lot of toll booths in new hampshire a lot of like just toll highways or whatever and it's not for long stretches it's just like you're kind of constantly it seemed like maybe it's just because i was going back and forth between new hampshire and massachusetts a lot whatever it was they had these very classic toll booths set up where you would have your um there were special tokens that you would buy so it was like a roll of quarters i don't remember where you'd buy them i think you'd buy them you could when you're coming up to the toll booth area in your car you could choose to actually interact with somebody like a toll booth operator um just like uh adam sandler style and i think you could buy willy exactly i think you could buy rolls of these tokens from them but then also pay with cash if you didn't have any tokens but then once you had these tokens in your car there were the other booths you could roll through and they had those big baskets i'm sure that you had experienced this at some point in your life luke there it was like you'd roll through you'd roll down your window you grab three of those specific tokens and you would toss them into this basket as you drove by then you should stop but you could also do it at a very slow roll right and at some point when i was in new hampshire they stopped using those tokens and those tokens were just like they were everywhere they're just reaching the back seat of your car go in the crevices you'll find them you know go in the backyard turn over some earth you'll find some of these tokens and then at some point they were completely irrelevant because it was way more convenient just to like create the technology where you stick a sticker to your windshield and just drive through and there's no arguing that it's better this way for traffic flow for getting people for not having huge backups all

these things but it really sucked i missed those tokens i was always too nervous to not come to a complete stop to toss them in uh-huh yeah i always wanted to be that cool northeasterner who's driving down the turnpike and you just like fire the change out you know and it hits the thing and i always thought it's gonna bounce out and then they're gonna take a picture of my license plate and then they're gonna put out a warrant for my arrest yeah you'll hear the whoop and then the

lights start flashing behind you like we've been waiting for somebody to screw this up uh speaking

of new jersey three youth have been arrested for breaking into the playland park which is actually in rye new york it i guess is featured in the movie big the tom hanks movie i think that's maybe where he does the like zoltar machine or whatever um these kids though who were arrested uh these three kids in their 20s who were arrested were all from new jersey they were arrested for um stealing a boat drive they stole a boat from a connecticut boat club then they drove it to the amusement park they parked it at the amusement park they jumped the fence of the amusement park in the middle of the night and uh did 57 000 worth of damage um of of basically vandalism i mean this thing is it's not it's not a super cute story because the kids were just being kind of a-holes and they they like um like uh let's see they tried to oh my god this one guy is jacked i know he's not wearing a shirt in one of these security photo of the three kids like it looks like maybe they're on a like they're walking in something that's maybe a ride like you know what it looks like like it's one of those floating rides but it doesn't have any water in it yeah they're running where the water would

usually be there there's some area where they're not supposed to be walking clearly one of them is barefoot and wet and leaving like wet footprints on the ground the other two have shoes on but one of them is shirtless and i would

be too if i mean he is so i immediately noticed that photo like this kid's in a lot of trouble like they've all been arrested now but also i believe he has a huge number of admirers because he looks so jacked and effortlessly so he's wearing sweats and sneakers and then no shirt and then yeah the guy in the middle the guy that's walking in the kind of um you know the area where the water would normally be for like a water ride he is wearing shorts no shoes no socks no shirt

but then like a windbreaker yeah he looks a little he's kind of got a little bit of lifeguard energy

because is he wearing majorly he's got some lanyard around his neck too then the guy on the left is in a virginia tech hoodie pulled up with sunglasses he's the only one who seems to realize maybe i should try to obscure myself a little bit he's got he's kind of got unabomber vibes

Yes, he's wearing sunglasses, he's got the hoodie pulled up, and I think a hat. Now, it's interesting, like, don't you...

And sensible pants. He's the only one who's really dressed for the job.

I want, well, it's like they all had different roles, sort of, maybe the one kid knew he had to get wet because there's a wet part of this. Now, I want to say, it really, I had not read this one in advance, I'm looking at it now, and it bums me out. I wish they had done all of this just, like, in the effort of some sort of prank that was maybe, like, you know, if they had just stolen all of the teddy bears.

Yeah, the way I set that up made it sound a little more cutesy than it was.

Yeah, like they show up to work one day and all the teddy bears are arranged around a fountain or something funny like that. You know what I mean? That would be funny. But the fact that they did tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage actually makes me feel bad about this story. Having said that, this photo of these three characters, doesn't it make you feel like you can sort of fill in their personalities within the friend group? Sort of like the middle guy, the guy who's like barefoot and wet. I think he's holding a flashlight, by the way. Oh, that's what that is. Yes, absolutely. He's like the funny one, right? He's like the wild card. Yes, I think this whole thing was his idea. No, he's in the middle, so I don't know if we're just falling for that. But it was his idea. His other friend takes it really seriously, the one who's wearing the sunglasses and the hoodie or whatever.

Yeah, that guy is like, okay, we're here to do some vandalism and then hopefully not get caught. So again, he's the one who's actually slightly incognito.

And then the other guy is just like a go-along-get-along. He's just handsome. He's allergic to shirts. He's allergic to shirts. And whatever anybody says, he says, yeah, okay, that sounds good to me.

It's also kind of crazy to think that this was recent. In other words, it was fall in Rye, New York. What do these guys wear? The ones that are underclothed. I don't think they, if I've got the timing right, they didn't do this in July. They did this the other day, which is kind of crazy to me. Now here is the part that jumped out at me And I've done a terrible job of setting this story up Because I believe I used the word, the number 2,000 Which is totally wrong They did not steal 2,000 plush toys They stole 200 plush animal toys Like the kind that you win from, you know Knocking over the milk jugs or whatever And so, you know, they're charged with like doing Like I said, about $57,000 worth of damage $38,000 of the damage was electrical They basically messed up this electrical room. The total value of the 200 stuffed animal toys was $280. Doesn't that seem low? Well, they're really cheap, man.

Those types of stuff. They sure are. And I appreciate the fair grounds or the amusement park. Admitting. I mean, that's what I think.

This is a business problem for Playland because they're confirming what any adult could tell you, is that those things are stuffed with Chinese newspapers. and are made out of whatever the cheapest thing you could possibly... The fact that they stole over 200 of them and they were valued at $280, it's basically a dollar per toy.

Yeah, exactly, just over a dollar per toy. Also, this bums me out and says, okay, well, a couple of things. First of all, this part is interesting. This is the last graph of the story. After hopping the fence back onto the beach, this is after all of the vandalism and everything, officials said the men set off again in the boat, returning it to the club they had taken it from. It was unclear what had become of the stolen toys. Now, I guess we don't know the origins of that boat, right? I've been assuming that they sort of stole this boat. And if so, it's interesting that they decided to return it to its proper slip, it sounds like. Unless somebody, it doesn't say it for sure, right?

I guess this boat, somebody's dad's boat.

This could have been somebody's dad, somebody's, yeah, exactly.

They definitely, it has the vibe of being a, we don't want to get in trouble with somebody's dad.

It says they took the vessel, which has been taken without its owner's permission from a Connecticut boat club. So that sounds to me like they're being careful there with their writing, right? Not stolen, but somebody took it without permission, which would explain why they probably carefully returned.

Because there's a connection to it. They don't seem to hold like property in super higher other people's property.

Right. Exactly. They're just destroying stuff left and right at the at the park. But this feels like they knew the person who owned that boat was known to them and they knew they would be in trouble if they messed that boat.

Yeah, it might be Jacked Kid's dad. Imagine what that guy looks like. You don't want to mess with his boat. They also, it says they broke into an attraction called the Old Mill and sprayed 40 stuffed animals with a fire extinguisher and then damaged three frog figures from an attraction called the Frog Room.

I know. I don't like that at all. Me neither. That's just vandalism for vandalism's sake. Yeah. It is really funny to me how much my life when I was a kid revolved around obsessively wanting to get those stuffed animals. and now as an adult you could not pay me enough like becca and i went to the um the state fair the oregon state fair this summer and like i wanted to do one of those like you know you can do this like basketball shot that's kind of like a free throw but the rim is very very small like it's you can't tell from the ground but like you have to shoot basically the most perfect arc shot that drops essentially straight down through the rim it's shaped like an egg yeah precisely so i wanted to i actually i did that game once and actually won it i think when i was with carrie and it was the coolest i've ever felt in my life and i really wanted to impress becca by doing the same game but i thought if i win i literally don't want one of the stuffed animals i don't want to carry that around all day i don't want to have it in my life i don't i want no part of that but man when i was a kid the i was obsessed i told you i had that spuds mckenzie Like a huge Spuds McKenzie Stuffed toy From a fair From like Wild Waves Which had a little game midway thing

I just saw you get distracted For a second and I looked at the clock 11-11 I know what you're doing I see what you're doing

I had this huge Spuds McKenzie Dog that I had won at Wild Waves And was so proud of and I had it in my room And it was a prized possession

Was that a basketball win as well?

No, it was actually it was kind of cheating in a way because what they had there was like you could win a game that was like easier to win and then you would get kind of like a smaller prize. But then if you had like two small prizes, you could trade them for like a medium sized prize. And then if you had like three mediums, you could trade. So basically, I just throughout the day was playing all these games and I was just kind of trading up slowly but surely.

But you were carrying them around. I'm surprised they would take back something that you've carried around the park for an hour or two.

It was the 80s. It was wild waves in the 80s.

Can I trade in two of these plushes

for a carton of cigarettes? I'm sure that one of the carnies would have given it to me. One of the guys at the game where you could win a mirror that said Motley Crue on it.

Yes, exactly. I had a Trans Am mirror, no joke. I know we've talked about it a lot, but not only the painted-on mirror that was a perfect square, but you can picture the cardboard frame around it. It was like the white frame with like the gold lines or whatever to keep it classy.

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

All right, we got an email from a listener, Evan, who is going to be volunteering at a local low-power FM station in, I believe it's California somewhere. and I'll just read you Evan's email. When DJing and hosting, my hosts when I was a producer, let's see here, I'm trying to, I, when DJing slash hosting, and my hosts when I was a producer, I've all done these things, and it feels disappointing to be told that I shouldn't be engaging in these habits that I've always leaned on, that you have taught me to respect and love as a 10. And what Evan is referring to is basically the manual for this low-power FM station, if you're going to be one of their DJs, what not to do on air. Words to avoid when talking on the air And it's funny because reading through this It just sounds like exactly the road map For everything we do on TBTL, Andrew Like everything that we love and enjoy in broadcasting Is what the people at this low power FM station Are being told to avoid at all costs

Okay, so this is chapter 9.4 Words to avoid when talking in the air

Repetitive uses of the words before That, actually, and uh, etc Everyone has his or her pesky pet words and phrases they don't realize they're saying much, record your show on tape or CDR and take a listen to discover your annoying repetitive pet phrases. It's the best way to begin the process of eliminating the habit of repeating those words. To be honest with you, I don't think that's the worst piece of advice I've ever heard.

Oh, no, no, the most beautiful part of this, the most beautiful. The CDR. Yes, because if you said tape,

I wouldn't have even thought about it. We use tape generically, even when it means like we're actually recording it. The voice memo function on our phone. Yeah, exactly, whatever it is. But CDR puts this right specifically in time, doesn't it? That was a short period where people were using CDRs to air check themselves.

References to my show, as in we've got one hour left in my show, followed 20 minutes later by we've got 40 minutes left for my show. this sounds very selfish and unprofessional when you must be self-referential try to acknowledge the following host or programmer or other i'll just say programmers i don't know you don't want to use the name of i don't know i don't know if i would get them any shade um so for example you'd say we got 40 minutes left in my show and after that you'll be hearing this week in science what happened that one i don't know you know again i i could see that one both ways i don't like it when a waiter says, my soup tonight is. I was going to ask about that, yeah. So, I guess, maybe I'll give this one a 50-50, but then, now we get to point number three, and this is where I can no longer go along with what they're saying. Please, no references, I'm just going to say the name of the station, no references to KDRT internal affairs, shop talk, and radio jargon. Avoid explaining any condition that is not noticeable to the listener. Can you imagine, Andrew, if we followed that rule, the show would end tomorrow.

I've got nothing to say about.

Any condition that is not noticeable to the listener. For example, your headphones are working only in one channel. The hallway floor is slippery and wet, etc. By the way, that is the content that I tune in to radio shows and podcasts for. I want to hear that the hallway is slippery. And I want to hear that one of the headphones is not working, one side of the headphones.

I want to hear. I love turning on sports radio. And instead of hearing sports, hearing people arguing about who stole something out of the company refrigerator or who's been cooking food in the microwave or any of the inner office stuff. I will always lean in way more to that than whether or not this, you know, another like another conversation about some minutia with the Seahawks.

I mean, it's the thing about the Howard Stern Show, which I'm still a regular listener to, but mostly what I have to do now is while I'm listening, I have to start a side texting channel with Phyllis where I complain about it to her.

I have not been in the habit of listening to that show, even though I've had satellite radio for a while. And just the last two days I was in the car, I've been trying to figure out if I want to talk to you about this or not. So yesterday, Howard talking about how AI isn't good to make music and art and how he's reading the biography of Kenny Chesney right now. He's both like he's critiquing what AI is doing to the arts, but also kind of talking about all the various biographies of musicians that he's read lately and sort of like reviewing them. And then also saying how he was playing guitar for some people this morning and he really appreciated it when people said, hey, you're getting better at guitar. And I thought about how you would react to Howard Stern playing guitar in like the lobby of wherever. I don't know where he does his show. I guess he's just I don't know where he's playing guitar for people, but I know he's on the Zoom. And then the other thing that I heard was and I need to be very careful here. And I got to say, I listened closer to this. He was just going through emails, which I didn't realize they did on that show, but that's my kind of content like we are doing right now. But he has somebody who is on the staff of his show, or at least works on the show in some capacity, who is a woman, and I don't know her name.

Probably Samantha is probably talking about a certain sexual practice.

A certain sexual practice that a listener was not convinced that she actually participated in based on how she described the positioning of the bodies, and she had to defend herself. did you hear that conversation no i didn't but i mean i've been hearing that that's been a rolling conversation for the last week or so i gotta say i leaned in it was well that's the thing

that show for me it's like you know he'll have on these famous people and they get all excited about it and it's like i do not care about jennifer lopez being on the howard stern show i care about if like you know if mike perlman did in fact mess with ronnie the limo driver's bagel or not which is literally something that has been discussed on the show for about 10 years ronnie the limo driver is convinced that about 10 years ago a staffer named mike perlman messed with his bagel when he was not in the room and this has been an enduring mystery of

the show and i am not tired of hearing about it it wasn't even like an ongoing spade of bagel

no and mike perlman says he did not mess with his bagel i understand i have been listening to this

conversation for 10 years and i'm not bored of it yet i love you know yes i love it which is like

Which is like what I'd like to say to the folks Whoever wrote this manual for KDRT Your listeners Oh, here's another thing Please

please never call PSAs or recorded announcements carts. Your listeners might think you're talking about a tray on wheels.

That's an old radio term for the literal, they look like eight track tape sort of, these cartridges that you would punch in to a machine and hit play, and it only had one message per cart. So you'd have like three carts lined up, and there might be a PSA on one, a commercial on another, and then an ID on another. And so we would always call them carts. But again, that puts this, what a funny thing to show to somebody in 2025. Nobody would call those carts anymore

I also love calling them carts

Yes it makes me want to Yes did you ever at the radio station Were you ever bulking carts Oh god that was literally my first job My first radio job ever was going in the WKSU Newsroom going into Studio C I think it was Studio C No Studio E I didn't want to be caught in a lie there And plugging in the magnet Of that bulky race cart And just taking a box of carts And then rubbing the cart on it And then it would be erased just through the magnetism.

Yeah, because it was a magnetic tape that you would... Yeah, bulking it meant you were erasing it so that it could be used again. And this was because we didn't have all this fancy technology that we do now. So the only way to just play something on demand and only that thing was to record it onto one of these carts. So every radio station had hundreds and hundreds of these things because all the commercials used to be on carts. Everything used to be on carts.

Like, you'd be like, Luke Burbank has more, and then you'd toss to the tape, and that would be you on a cart, right?

Yes. And there was something, somehow it was designed so that you could hit a button and it would go back to the beginning of the cart.

Yep, it had tones. It had secondary and tertiary tones. I think that's where I learned the term tertiary, Luke. I like what else is in it. I had not read this before, but I like what comes up next in the same bullet point.

Yes. Also, never crack jokes that no one's listening, or maybe five people are listening. KDRT doesn't stand to benefit from a pathetic self-image even if it's just a joke well sir 17 years in it's been working for us

literally they say don't say five people are listening and since the very beginning of TBTL you've called them the tens of listeners

it is the foundational principle of this show is talking about how nobody listens and then lastly do speak as an expert about the music you are playing but do not talk to the listeners like they are stupid therefore do not say of course at the wrong time when you say of course you might as well say like you should know if only you were as cool as me can you imagine working for the person who wrote this I'm guessing that the person with this manual is not even there anymore probably just a holdover but like let me just say I would have I feel I would have clashed with the person not just because of the fact that most of the stuff on here is stuff that I think makes radio more interesting but it's also just like the tone of the person writing this manual my guess would be that it's this is a personality type and it's a personality type i would sort of do poorly with i think and also especially that

last bullet point it feels personal it feels like the person who's writing this is specifically thinking about a jazz host that they had to work with that they did not enjoy working with

uh-huh yeah i mean i was about to say this was a this was a person that would have probably told me that my desk needed to stay exactly the way it was even though it meant i couldn't talk to

ross reynolds but i mean this person didn't like the the host who would like talk down to the audience and it's like oh my god ray finally retired and god i hated the way ray would talk about max roach i don't know like there's just something and so like this last bullet point It feels very much like, don't be like Ray. Uh-huh, like it's a specific policy. It's the Ray policy. Yeah, it feels like this person just didn't like a host.

Would you say it's a shame about Ray? I would say it's a shame about Ray. I saw a clip of the Lemonheads the other day, and the clip was like, that was a Lemonheads record, wasn't it?

Yeah, a shame about Ray. I'm pretty sure, yeah, it's a shame. Or wait, wait, wait. Yeah, I think so. I've never had it, but yeah, Lemonheads, 92.

i remember uh i saw this clip and it was like uh something like rough it was like a rough outing for the lemon heads on tour or something and it was like i hope they get you know i hope they get this figured out or something and it was them playing and i couldn't figure out what was wrong with what they were playing i mean they didn't sound it sounded a little disjointed and whatever but it just seemed like the like you know the evan dondo of the lemon heads it's kind of famously known i think for his like sort of messiness and drug use and things like that it just sounded like evan dondo playing a lemonhead song to me i couldn't figure out what they had done wrong in the performance that had this person highlighting the clip is this wrong and it might be wrong so

i'm asking you before i do it and we don't have to do it but would it be invasive to evan if we just if i just potted up the kdrt kdrt stream that i have going right now just to hear what's going on over there let's do it Let's hear what they're up to. Classical. I need to listen to more classical music. It is so soothing for my savage soul. And when I remember to do it, it immediately improves my day. And yet I don't generally remember to do it.

Every now and then I'll land on a classical station in the car. And I'll put windows up, volume up, certainly. Yes. I'm trying to think how I can break all the rules here. I wish I knew more about classical music. So, one, I could talk down to you about this music that you're hearing right now, and that we could wrap up my show after I tell you about something that happened to me on the way into the studio today. Yeah, I slipped in the hallway, by the way. I have a card of you slipping, I think.

Well, Evan, good luck on your shift. Send us a sample of what your show sounds like, and I would like you to work in as many cart references and also station politics as you can. Please. Because you hear us doing it over here, and it's working great. So, all right. Hey, that's going to do it for today's episode of TBTL and for this broadcast week. Thank you so much, everyone, for spending the time with us. We are going to be back here on Monday with more imaginary radio. So please, if you can, join us for that. In the meantime, have a great weekend. Everybody stay safe. Take care of yourselves. Go Seahawks. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

morning this is kathleen munz in bloomington minnesota home of the msp airport um i was just driving to work and i had to call and tell you this with all the blueberry talk lately my uh work is right by a pie factory and so some days when the wind's just right and they're cooking the right thing it smells like blueberry pie as you drive into work like outside like you walk out the door and you smell blueberry pie it is confusing but super lovely um and i just thought you boys would find that interesting. So power out. Power out.