Muse

Okay, let me ask you a few questions. Let's talk about restaurants. Would you be willing to wait for a really good restaurant a half hour, or would you just eat somewhere kind of crappy, because you could get in right away? What do you think?

The look on people's faces when they wait in line is like, it's just, what are you going to eat or to stand quietly? Have you ever uttered the phrase, get off my lawn? No. Okay. I mean, yeah, I've said, but I didn't mean like, old man, like, get off my lawn. I meant more like, this is my property.

property so get off my lawn I'm not gonna sugarcoat this for you you have early onset grumpiness what early onset grumpiness EOG you're gonna begin to enjoy fewer and fewer things in your life you'd be saying things like who are these people who are those people that's the I mean it's a real question the only reason you leave the house is to see classical movies and even then you'll say it had some good parts but all in all it was fairly uneven you're very young to have eog your life is going to change forever is there anything i can do normally we try meds but you're too young for them i'm sorry i'll notify your family don't not notify my sister

she didn't pick up the phone half the time she gives people a hard time tbtl hey johnny oh hi danny what's wrong with mark he's cranky today all right let's toss the ball

around are you aware that other networks refer to us as the poland of broadcasting how did these

buff dudes escape my radar i thought i knew about every single buff dude look at the size of that boy's heat i'm not kidding it's like an orange on a toothpick you're gonna give the boy a complex well that's a huge noggin remember boys no points for second place well all right hello good morning

and welcome everyone to a monday edition of tbt all the show that just might be two beautiful

to live you don't like drama um you might want to put your phone away for this one my name is

luke burbank i am your host i happen to know a guy who's at his limit coming to you from the beautiful south waterfront of portland oregon where i am seriously at my limit with bubbles the cat who lives here at becca's apartment and who is just absolutely obsessed with the broadcast set up here on this Monday as we've arrived at episode 4604 in a collector series let the fun begin she's scraping the side of her face on the various corners of my laptop and then when she's not doing that she's walking across the keyboard of the laptop which will be activating sounds and or hanging up on the whole broadcast I'm sure at some point and then when she's not doing both of those things she's trying to chew through the headphone cable that i need uh to hear the show and what's going on so we are gonna do our very best uh working under extreme circumstances here at episode as i mentioned 4604 but i think we can do it uh i saw a movie last night so who needs a movie at the fabulous hollywood theater here in portland in 35 millimeter been a long time since I've seen a film, a film movie that when you leave the movie house, you see those big reels turning there in the projection booth. It was the movie J. Kelly starring George Clooney and Adam Sandler and Emily Mortimer, among others. It is a film made by Noah Baumbach about a guy in middle age who works in the entertainment business. and has made a bunch of decisions throughout his life related to those jobs in the entertainment business. And some of them have created adverse family effects. And he's trying to make sense of his whole life. So in other words...

I'm in a glass case of emotion!

I don't think you could make a movie that was more designed to cause me to have some real deep thoughts about my life and my decisions. So we'll talk about that. And if we have time, we'll talk about the latest in the world of Sky Jinx. Sky Jinx. The Secretary of Transportation would like the airline passengers of America to start, I don't know, being in his estimation nicer to each other and dressing better. As far as the airlines not often just completely screwing us over, no movement on that from the Department of Transportation. but uh he would like us dressing a little better on the flights we can talk about that too if we get to it we'll definitely get to this guy though he is the longest running co-bro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships hello he's andrew walsh and he's joining me right now good morning my friend good morning luke i received something that It absolutely delighted me when I went to the post office late last week. I think it was after we said goodbye on Friday. You know, Luke, how people will sometimes suggest audio drops for us to use during the show? And I love that. That's where a lot of our good audio comes from. But I got a whole setup here in my studio that allows me to grab tape pretty easily and in relatively high fidelity. Unfortunately, not every listener has that, right?

It's an oddly niche, like, skill set, equipment, experience. A lot of times people will send us drops, and it will be pretty clear that it's not something that they're doing on the regular.

Yeah, and that's fine because you don't have that set up. And so usually it'll, you know, maybe somebody will actually take out their phone and record a scene on the TV and say, Hey, this is from Veep Season 3, you know, this is the time code. And they're just saying, like, maybe you can go and grab this. or they'll flag it in different ways or just even just say that in an email. Like, oh, hey, I was watching this show in about the five-minute mark or something. I think there was a good drop you might want to use. Sometimes they'll include a link. There's various ways to get it to us. Some people actually send in very good high-fidelity audio. But this, Luke, this was a first. Do you hear that noise I'm making? I'm lettermanning it over here. I got a post. Oh, I see. I got a postcard. Let's see here. And the front of the postcard is a beautiful photo, like a waterfront. And it says it's the new Jekyll Island Fishing Pier in Jekyll Island, Georgia. But this postcard actually comes from Tacoma from listener Lydia, looks like. And it says, hi, guys. I love your show. And I listen all the time. I need to take off my glasses. That's a great way to start. I know. Any and all correspondences to the program. Exactly. But then it says, but I have some points I need to make, especially about Luke. to transition into the body of your message how dare you no it says uh hi guys i love your show and listen all the time thanks i love all the drops so much classic and new but i don't know how you find them i occasionally notice that uh great potential drops in the wild and i couldn't let this one get passed without alerting you on youtube the 1981 high school comedy square pegs episode three about 941 colon maybe we should do something to save him from becoming a human microchip was to me pure gold you may have already used it love lydia in tacoma washington also the next scene you are like beyond the valley of the lame and then a smiley face so that this is the first time i've ever received a drop suggestion in handwriting written down on the back of a post card and mailed to us using the u.s postal service and dropped right into my p.o box now as i was waiting for you to dial up i was only able to grab one of these drops i did not have

time to grab both of them but let's start with this an indication that the tv show square pegs

is available on youtube or something it is at least episode three is and again lydia did such a great job of pointing me directly to where this is and it was famously by the way that was the show

that launched um sarah jessica parker's career correct i this is stuff that i've learned in the

past two or three minutes as a matter of fact because i'd never heard of square pegs before and i was watching the beginning of this um were you was this on your radar it seems like you would have been a little bit young for a high school yeah no here's what i know about square

pegs it's where sarah jessica parker started out like many times when i've been like reading a bio of her listening to an interview it will be mentioned that she was on something called square pegs that's as far as mine i would believe anything you told me about the show that it's a show about humans that are square that are trying to fit into round holes of life they could be robots you know like a small wonder style but maybe their programming is square i will believe

anything you tell me about the program i don't know much about it other than i believe it was a teen sitcom with a laugh track i'm looking at it here it aired during the 82 83 uh season which means it might have only had one yeah looks like it only survived one season it was on cbs it does have sarah jessica parker and it's let's see here oh uh created by snl writer ann bates do we know an ann bates b-e-a-t-t-s okay not to my knowledge okay well it just looks like it's a i think it's just a comedy that takes place in high school and i've isolated these drops but now i'm wondering if that's actually even since you're unfamiliar with the show maybe i should play a little bit more of the scene here i've got it queued up now this is from an episode called pac-man fever keep in mind this is very early 80s the video game console is kind of new and novel and so

it looks like maybe oh it's not about the cincinnati bangles safety pac-man jones i think

I think they address it later. I think as a sort of a second, like kind of a second thought on this. Second reference. Yeah. Oh my goodness. I'm on YouTube and I'm just realizing now I'm getting Baldur's Gate video suggested to me. This is a new thing. This is brand new. I recognize Shadowheart though. That's growth. All right.

So you have early onset Baldur's Gate.

I certainly do.

Let me alert your family.

Look at the Baldur's Gate on this guy. Am I right? So here, let me play a little. So I think what's happening here is we have some kids in the classroom, and I guess I didn't realize one of these might be Sarah Jessica Parker. I kind of can't tell from this screen grab I'm on right now. But it looks like maybe one of their friends, who for some reason is in a sling, is getting too into video games, I think. I think the friends are a little bit worried. I'm going to go back to this. This comes in around 940. I'm going to start this right around 9. Oh, yeah. That is a young Sarah Jessica Parker. How cool is this?

I'm working for money. Big bucks. The Guinness Book of Records.

Well, in that case, you can pay for the movie Friday.

What movie?

Don't you remember? We were going to go see one of Woody Allen's funny movies. Oh, yeah. Well, I kind of spent my movie money this week. And your lunch money. And your college money. He's walking very goofily for some reason. I'm thinking that maybe he's imitating a robot or something Or maybe he's imitating Pac-Man He's sort of like scuffling about Taking very tiny steps

Is he being chased by any ghosts? Because that means probably Pac-Man

I don't see any Well there's some colored ghosts

Does he keep ducking into little doorways In the hallway of the high school But then emerging from other doorways

All of the ghosts just turn blue

Oh that's good, he needs to turn around Do that fast though

What are these cherries? Unless they have an asteroid scholarship I think we have a textbook case of video game abuse. And we're the ones who helped get him hooked. Yeah. Maybe we should do something to save him from becoming a human microchip. There it is, ladies and gentlemen. That's pretty good. That is the drop. And then I didn't have time to find the second one in the next scene where it says something about a case of the lamos or whatever. You are like beyond the valley of the lame.

I am very interested in one deet from the Square Peg's Wikipedia page, Uh, which is that the theme music was composed, well, uh, for the pilot, Paul Schaefer helped out as in Paul Schaefer from the world's most dangerous band and the world's most dangerous band, David Letterman, second reference today. But the theme music was composed by the waitresses and now the waitresses, of course, they, they are the waitresses, the same band that, uh, did, uh, you know, I know what boys like. And then Christmas Wrapping, which we are so close to me being able to break out Christmas Wrapping, one of my very favorite Christmas songs. So I'm curious what the Square Pegs theme song sounded like, if it was that classic Waitresses sound or not.

Interesting. Well, I can roll back here to the beginning of the episode. I'm sorry I jumped in there. I thought the Waitresses was an indie band. I think I was confusing them with the Walkman for a second. When you said the waitresses, I was thinking like, oh, early twee pop indie band that we like, maybe.

No, the waitresses are more, I know what boys like. Oh, okay, sure. Boys like me. And then Christmas rapping, you know, oh, damn, guess what I forgot. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, Christmas memory. I know for a fact you've heard Christmas rapping even by accident just in, you know, wandering through a mall at Christmas in the last 30 years. It's a great song, though. it's a it's honestly I think it's like top 10 Christmas song man you're not gonna like to hear

this I think I need to I think I need to update a driver or something I've noticed this not the computer I'm talking to you on but the computer that I used to play my friend you just turned into a human micro I really did like I didn't I don't want to talk about this but for the past like couple of weeks now I realized I'll be over here talking to you one computer's fine but this other computer the one that I use for all of my work and playing audio and all that stuff about i don't know usually a few minutes into the show i just lose internet and i have to like kind of like toggle my internet off and on and then it starts working again you know not not the internet itself just like the little the device on my computer like put into airplane mode and take it out but i've been doing that almost every day now and i was having trouble i was panicking there i'm glad that you went on that little um background around the waitresses because i was trying to get to the beginning of this show so i internet is back we're good here okay i will be looking at some driver updates maybe over the holiday weekend we'll see carol hold his calls yeah i just i don't even like to think about that i'm not even joking it's just if i start chasing that thanksgiving is

canceled your birthday is canceled everything you're just going into driver download mode i keep

forgetting about that this

my birthday week you should be nicer to me stop being so mean to me luke you've been mean to be all show all right let's take a listen to the beginning of square pegs uh this is uh episode three pac-man fever very beginning on youtube internet's working okay listen i've got this

whole high school thing psyched out it all breaks down into clicks clicks yeah you know clicks little

by the way while we're this is really interesting i'm not joking we're hearing this audio you all might be imagining these kids talking we're not seeing that scene we're seeing like quasi psychedelic shots of of the school we see the outside of the school and it kind of zooms in and now we're seeing some shots inside the school and classrooms but they're all very lonely looking photos like with like kind of dramatic light coming in through mini blinds we don't see any kids they're just dropping this tape over top of these images in a way that i really am into i'm not joking. All right, let me start this again. I'm assuming a beat is about to drop over top of this,

but we'll see. Listen, I've got this whole high school thing psyched out. It all breaks down into cliques. Cliques? Yeah, you know, cliques. Little in-groups of different kids. All we have to do is click with the right click and we can finally have a social life that's worthy of us. No way. Not even with cleavage. I told you. This year we're going to be popular. Yeah? Yeah. Even if it kills us.

SquarePix, SquarePix, SquarePix Oh, it's never quite right. SquarePix, SquarePix, SquarePix I'd like it if they like us, but I don't think they like us. SquarePix, SquarePix, SquarePix I don't want to wear my glasses, I have to wear my glasses. SquarePix, SquarePix, SquarePix SquarePix, SquarePix, SquarePix And we're blocked in Romania.

That is such an edgy opening theme package. I was watching it on mute while you were playing it, and you're totally right. It's all these kind of like still photos that are then being, I guess you could say, slightly animated.

I'm glad you were watching it because I think it's really good. It's like it's all empty classrooms. It's like kind of eerie, right?

I was totally expecting it to be like a theme song from, you know, Saved by the Bell, which, you know, basically, I always thought that Saved by the Bell theme song was just somebody ripped off the, when you're running around first and you feel something burst, diarrhea song. It's like when you wake up in the morning and you hear the alarm churning and you da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. It's just like a very like narrating the morning of a high school student. A little Rebecca Blackie. There you go. it's friday friday gotta get down on friday but like um but like that was so much more like what's the word artsy and with the starting with just like the vo and then it i do feel like it it could have eased into the waitresses a little bit more it sort of went from like spoken word to just like you know square peg square peg square peg but i you know i overall i really respect it i also understand why it was only on for one season it's not welcoming as

has an opening theme but i respect it yeah i'm not a huge fan of the song i mean that's the first i've heard it maybe it'll grow on me i plan on listening to it a lot later on today but yeah it jumps in pretty quickly but i mean i i mean it starts with cold open tape and then music like and i'm just like oh yeah like this is exactly how i produce things i'm actually really into that opening and also like the images start with like you literally see the outside of the school And then you see the inside of the school, but it's like it's a big hallway with like, you know, classic lockers on either side, but it's all empty. And you just see like a janitor's bucket in the middle. And then like these shots of like a classroom clearly after hours, like I mentioned, with like kind of dramatic lighting. And then little by little, you start to see some sort of like life come into these images as you see students sort of lining up for food in a cafeteria. But, like, what an interesting way. You start by showing the school empty and dark and then fill up. It's not bad, my friends.

Yeah, I mean, I don't like the way that they use the word psyched out. Only because where I grew up, that was not. There was two ways that we would ever use psych. One would be, like, I'm joking. Like, psych, that meant I'm pretending.

I tricked you, sort of. Yes, exactly. You're a psych.

And, yeah, like, that was the main way. And then I guess, I mean, maybe that was the only way. No, psyched out.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I see what you're saying. You could use it, though, as a verb or a noun, I think, is the two ways. You could say, like, well, maybe verb is the wrong. I psyched you out, right? Oh, yeah, I could psych you out. I was playing basketball. Well, no, let me not go into sports terms, especially a sport that I literally know nothing about. But, you know, I.

I told Tony we had a substitute teacher today, and he didn't have to do his homework, but if we actually have our regular teacher, I totally psyched him out. Exactly.

No, that works, but what we wouldn't have said where I grew up, and again, this was set in Norwalk, California at Excelsior High School, so maybe they just had a different, you know, lexicon there, a different lingo, but when the, it might even be the Sarah Jessica Parker character says, i've got this year all psyched out yeah i i take that to mean i've got it all figured out and i don't think where i grew up that's how we would have ever used the word psych

in that in that era of the 1980s me too i i had never heard in that context before i don't know if that's just weird writing on behalf of this or it's just like it's also kind of before my time this is 81 you know i'm like what five years old or something now and it's california talk but i gotta say and i'm saying this in all earnestness what a cool damn postcard thank you lydia i love the fact that you sent us a postcard with time stamps on it so that we could like you were you were watching the show and then clearly like watching it and writing at the same time because then parenthetically like under the address says oh there's another good drop in the next scene like you're just like i gotta get i gotta get this audio to the business boys what's the best way to do that well where are my postcards and my pen send a raven yes so that was awesome

thank you yeah thanks for all the free content at the top of the show lydia because otherwise we were going to be stuck with me talking about this cat andrew and i know that's not super compelling to sort of a cat that you can't see and the listeners can't see and the fact that it's making the broadcast hard but like bubbles is on one today like i've never seen in my whole time of knowing her, uh, in terms of climbing over the computer, climbing onto me, chewing on the cables. It's like, if you, I'm wondering if maybe that we had some kind of a freaky Friday thing where a human being, are you a human bubbles? Are you as Addy trapped in there? The cat is behaving like in a movie where a human gets put into some kind of thing that we don't think of as being human. And now they're trying to alert me that there a human inside there like i understand a little bit of curiosity from this cat but like this is a level of harassing me and bothering the broadcast she's just currently walking across the keyboard and now she's just stepped onto my lap which would be fine she could sit on my lap in fact that would feel amazing no now she's climbing off of my lap onto this bar cart then she's going to jump from that bar cart this is the loop she's doing back onto the table where i'm doing the show and then she's going to this cat becca has now emerged from her bedroom and is what thank you by the way for distracting her it is i've never seen my theory becca is that there's a human trapped inside of bubbles and she's trying to let us know that she's a human being because that's the only thing that would account for this level of anyway harassment well okay so now luckily um becca's out and about which means that now there'll be somebody else to distract bubbles so every day that i'm around this cat and i'm more jealous of your relationship with bingo is what it really comes down to he's a good guy let me let me he does none of this shit he just wants to watch birds on the laptop that's

not entirely true like while i was just talking and doing that amazing what i assume to be award winning segment about square pegs he did jump on my audio board at one point and if he just like he would be muting stuff i had to like scramble and pick him up off it and put him on the shelf behind me because he he also kind of gets in the way of the broadcast but all right that makes me

feel all right bubbles bingo also does things that are distracting and not great but man she's she is like really really really agitated this morning so anyway all right okay that's now actually that situation has has more or less calmed down because the bedroom door is open so she can go into the bedroom and think her thoughts now so we should be able to get on with things um i uh i saw a movie last night uh this new noah bambach film j kelly have you heard anything about this no literally never heard anything about it well it's it's interesting because I had I saw like a I think a New York Times review of it but I didn't read the review I just saw the headline that said it was really good and so I and I like Noah Baumbach and of course I like George Clooney and Adam Sandler so I kind of had it in my head like oh I'll be looking for that and then yesterday Becca and I were looking around for like oh is there a movie we'd like to see in Portland and in fact most of the movies were just absolute drivel it's like a we're in a I think it's maybe we're going into the holiday movie season which means a lot of like quote-unquote family films so it's just a lot of there was just we went through a run of about eight films where like i wouldn't see that if you paid me kind of thing and then we're looking at the hollywood in portland which is a great sort of first run movie theater that has a lot of like they can do stuff on film too um and they just had like two screenings of this jay kelly movie which i'd been hearing about and which has george clooney in it it's like you think this would be playing everywhere and then what i realized was it's going

going on netflix in like a week oh it's one of those dealios so i guess would you call that like a limited release it's like it's only for the weirdos like because you could watch this for free or for what you're already paying netflix in a week or you could go sit in a movie theater and

watch it right now and that's what we did which also has to do with awards right like i think that um guillermo del toro's frankenstein just came out i did i i don't know if i told you this I didn't even know about that damn movie, but I was hanging out with my parents when I was in Ohio, and one night my dad was just like, hey, do you want to watch that Frankenstein movie? I'm like, I don't know what Frankenstein movie you're talking about, and then he told me that there's a new Frankenstein movie, which again, it seems kind of similar. I think it hit theaters maybe for a week, if that, and then it was mostly directly to Netflix streaming, but I was kind of like, I don't know. i don't love scary movies but it's not really that scary there's a little you know it's it's a frank it's a modern frankenstein movie it's guillermo del toro so there's plenty of like prop work and

stuff you know there's going to be some i find that more scary like pan's labyrinth yeah well i've never seen more afraid of guillermo del toro's work than i am of like you know i don't

know a horror auteur well i gotta say i ended up like watching we did we didn't end up finishing it i think my dad fell asleep or something and so then i put on something else but um i figured we'd watch it you would finish it the next night we never did but i had nightmares luke nightmares i did that thing where i woke up in the middle of the night went to use the restroom or something and thought oh i was dreaming about something what was i dreaming about and then when i remembered what i was dreaming about i yelped i was like ah it was like very upsetting visual body horror that

Were you dreaming about somebody calling the monster Frankenstein? I was. Instead of Frankenstein's monster? I did.

Yeah.

I don't even want to. That's woken me up in a cold sweat a few times.

This wasn't even. We'll get back to your movie in a second. I just want to say that this is. I'm going to. A little trigger warning. Maybe even for you, Luke. If you want to go not listen to this part of the show. Okay.

Play the headphones on bubbles.

This was the least upsetting part of the dream as far as this like gross body stuff happening. And this is my dream. Not the movie. but inspired by the movie there was some sort of sick like i you know what you're gonna hate this so much in my dream there was somebody who was like a butcher at like a uh at like a serving station like a carving station but they were carving off of a live pig that they were keeping alive artificially like a frankenstein they had that is something like that in the movie i mean there's just a lot of like you know weird bio a lot of weird bio regenerating you know taking dead things making them alive keeping them alive it actually seemed pretty good i wouldn't mind going back and finish watching it but yeah i i didn't even as i started to describe that scene from my dream i feel like maybe this isn't even appropriate to say out loud but that is what happened in my head that night luke and yeah that's the worst of it that's uh that's horrifying

stuff i mean again i think guillermo del toro is undeniably a very talented filmmaker but it's almost like he's a little too talented when it comes to some or like the people he works with you know his team of folks that kind of like create these these these fantastical creatures and some of them are sort of upsettingly fantastical and things like that like he's really good with that which is actually a reason why i would consider seeing that frankenstein movie i think it's also got the actor mia goth in it who i really like what do you know her from yeah i feel like i'm seeing her everywhere pearl that you've seen those parts of it and let me

tell you it's also very upsetting that's the thing she seems so good and i saw a bunch of people dressing up like her character for halloween this year like suddenly just became a thing and that was a trio of movies that's actually several years old now right and now i'm seeing them all over the place and i'm compelled but i don't think i have the constitution to watch those kinds no i think

it'll be bad it'll be a bad dream night at black rock for old andy walsh after watching pearl just based on the parts of it i've seen i think it's um but she was good huh i got it i mean very i'll put it this way very compelling very very compelling um and acting none of the thankfully there was nothing upsetting about the movie jay kelly in fact you know it was it was kind of it was so interesting to me because it almost felt like a throwback like it felt like a movie that would have been made in the 1950s or something i was saying this to becca last night when we were leaving the theater i feel like for a lot of movies these days that are i guess you could say essentially a drama maybe a drama with some comedy woven in the goal is unless you're talking about like wes anderson right or someone who's hyper stylized who like makes a movie that's intentionally not naturalistic like that's just not what they do i would say that most of the films the thing that we look for in them is does it do the people when they talk and when they're doing things does it seem like the way people talk and are doing things in real life. Like When Harry Met Sally is a perfect example. I feel like When Harry Met Sally, the dialogue felt so honest and motivated, and it was about minutiae, but at that time, you know, we're pre-Seinfeld, nobody's talking about minutiae that way in movies maybe. Like, there was, I feel like we were in an era where, and I know When Harry Met Sally was a long time ago, but my point is, this movie felt like it was, it knew it was a film, and it knew it didn't have to be extremely realistic and the way people talked and interacted at all times. And I kind of liked that. So the premise of the movie is George Clooney is this actor. His name is Jay Kelly. He's basically George Clooney. He's a huge international movie star who is about the age that George Clooney currently is. And his agent slash manager, I think, is played by Adam Sandler. He's got this whole team of people around him. He's got this kind of complicated relationship with his adult daughters because he's been gone filming movies his whole life and also a complicated relationship with an old friend of his who was in acting school with him and played by Billy Crudup, who they both went on the same audition years and years and years previously when they were both in acting school and it changed both of their lives for different reasons. And so, anyway, throughout the movie he ends up, it felt like there's a bunch of scenes on these trains where he's interacting with Jay Kelly, the characters interacting with a whole train car of people who are fans of his who can't believe he's on this regular ass train in France and stuff and like none of it felt super realistic to me but I found it super entertaining like the analogy I used last night was like when Gene Kelly is dancing and singing in the rain it doesn't feel like that's a real thing someone would do but it's really entertaining and I feel like this movie had very and also by the way Noah bombach films i have found to also be really super intelligent like the squid and the whale

super well written and again pretty realistic like they don't get it like here's one thing they did in this movie jay kelly that i haven't seen in forever is like flashback scenes like in this way george clooney's character will be like somewhere he's george clooney right now he's 65 years old or however old he is and he'll be like walking through a door on a train and he'll enter into a memory and he'll just be watching it it's real scrooge shit going on it's real like you know ghost of christmas past where he's in the corner watching this thing that changed the course of his life but he's watching it kind of you know from the background now like and that's a move that i would generally think of as kind of corny like as we don't do that in movies anymore the movies that i watch we don't we just don't do a lot of that kind of stuff and they put put

all of it in this movie and it kind of worked for me that sounds cool I I just think it just depends on whose hands it's in you know what I mean that kind of thing and you know what I'm realizing here I I think you'll be surprised by this I don't think I've ever seen a Noah Baumbach directed film I know I've seen stuff that he's written on or produced or whatever but like it's the type of thing that years and years ago like when I first was dating Genevieve I know that the timeline doesn't work out here IRL but it would be those kinds of movies that I would be bringing to the relationship it seems like you know what I mean like serious because they're they tend to be kind of serious right tackling kind of life issues dramatic like you say like Greenberg has been on my list for 20 years or however long it's been out but like I never sit down to watch it because I think it's gonna break my heart and I like those kinds of movies but it's kind of like I just know I just like when am I gonna sit down to watch it I needed somebody to spring it on me I think or maybe have a maybe a a showing you know at a local theater sometimes they bring movies back because I don't know but anyway all the all of that is to say these types of movies sound great and they sounds like you're saying that these techniques could be corny or you'd think them corny but when they're in somebody's hands that you trust a filmmaker like I love that I think

that's a big part of it for me is that I respect his filmmaking a lot and so going into it I had already sort of agreed to the terms of whatever Noah Baumbach was setting out and so like you know if this is I've never heard of the director and it's not starring George Clooney it's a totally different movie and the main character keeps walking through doors into full acted out memories featuring by the way an actor playing a young version of him which is always real dangerous territory you know like I would have been much more skeptical but I think I was just like well I'm, I'm in good hands here with Noah Baumbach, uh, and, and his, you know, his sort of resume. Um, also you're talking about how, like, you know, you never are in the mood to just like sit down and watch Greenberg and you might have to catch it when it's being replayed somewhere or, you know, being re like at a movie theater where they've revived it or whatever you call that. That was the other thing that we were talking about.

becca and i leaving the movie because we're like well we could have watched this on netflix in a week and i was like i'm so glad we went and sat in that movie theater first of all it was freaking packed on a sunday night like that has probably something to do with the fact that it's 35 millimeter and there's a certain kind of film fan a certain sinest uh who is you know into that kind of stuff um and it was cool to see those like occasional little like lens flares and things kind of happening actually you know in the film but um but i was just glad because it was like if and becca said you know if we would have been watching on netflix you got you probably you know we'd have our phones out we're probably also low-key monitoring instagram or whatever else is i'm checking sunday night football to see if like the rams have decimated the bucks which they did um it's quite sadly like it's nice to kind of it was nice to force ourselves to sit in a movie theater and eat popcorn and milk duds by the way i've learned the exact number of milk duds i can eat safely anymore and i think it's four before you start coughing because i don't like before i start removing dental work okay like it was it's man these old teeth they are not up to the milk dud task anymore but like sitting in that movie theater fully focused on it because the movie is by the way over two hours long they're not every you know in to quote fred armison from the intro i would say parts of it were uneven but um but like i was i had to watch it and sit there and concentrate on it the whole time which was ultimately a very rewarding experience whereas if i was watching it on netflix i might be pausing it i might get bored and go check the sunday night football score i might be looking at my phone i just i kind of i feel like my takeaway from last night is i need to commit to going to more movies in the theater because i do think i experience it very differently than i do at home even though i have a whatever inch gigantic screen that you know for all intents and purposes should be like i'm in a movie theater but there's just something about being trapped with the content in a good way that i think is

is more uh interesting to me yeah and i feel like even though there's so many stories about like the death of the you know theaters especially kind of through the pandemic i mean maybe it's just me but I've been compelled to go to the movies so much over the past six months. I feel like there have been so many movies. I mean, obviously, One Battle After Another had everybody talking, but Weapons had everybody talking. I just saw Begonia. I wouldn't say everybody's been talking about Begonia, but it was definitely something that we really wanted to see that's up our alley. There was a time when I would just go to the movies and watch Schlock, and I will still go to the movie to watch some Schlock. I'm with you that there's some stuff that it's like, no, I wouldn't watch that with your eyes. Like, no way.

By the way, that's a scene in a Guillermo del Toro movie.

Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. And what's his name? A Yorgos Lanthimos movie as well, I believe. But I'm really hoping I got both names right there. Anyway, but I just feel like there's been a lot of good stuff. And again, if you want to go really far back to a couple of summers ago, just like even the Barbie and Oppenheimer.

By the way, co-written by Noah Bomba.

Yes, exactly. That's why I know I've seen things. I've seen things. I think he also maybe co-wrote maybe Fantastic Mr. Fox, which was...

He did, good memory, and also Madagascar 3, Europe's Most Wanted, which I know that you were a big fan of.

Unfamiliar with that, but yeah, I just feel like there's just been a lot of reasons to go to the movie theater lately. Like, there's been interesting films being made that people are talking about while they're in theaters.

I agree with you, but I also think our experience, the kind of movies that maybe we tend to go to... well I read one article I don't know a few weeks ago that said it was a shocking it was like a shocking statistic about the box office and it was I think it was in the times of course that's pretty much the only thing I read that and the daily news of Longview Washington and it was it was a list of all of these huge stars including Jennifer Lawrence who was in this this new movie something like um I would like to kill you or dead darling dead love of mine I forget the name like they went through this list of all of these movies that had come out in the last three months all with very kind of bankable stars in them all of which had lost money and not just a little bit had all just tanked and and i think i think the if i remember right the thrust of the article was like there is this layer of hollywood film that is just going away now and it's sort of like it's you know we've still there's still plenty of interest in um you know a predator five badlands or like um even wicked the new wicked movie that came out this weekend apparently smashed all of the expectations so like there are certain movies you know horror movies do really well um and like kids movies do really well animated movies but there's this layer of kind of like almost like this jay kelly movie probably which is probably why they're doing that thing that hadn't even I'm going to go back.

occurred to me that you pointed out andrew which is they're throwing it in some artsy movie theaters for a couple of weeks so that it can it can qualify for the academy awards and then they're sending it right to netflix because i actually think that those i think you and i and veeves and becca might be sort of going to those movies when they pass through but a lot of those movies that aren't taking that approach that are trying to actually like go hey we're still we're going to be in a theater for a long time or not you know for a typical run of a movie according to

one article i read they really are struggling and i don't know what the financials are here but i couldn't i felt like there was another buzzy movie that i couldn't think of so i looked up a list of number one films throughout this year so far and i forgot sinners was another one that was like between weapons and sinners and one battle after another like those are three movies and again i can't speak to whether or not they actually made money but they certainly like and again amongst yeah amongst our sort of viewing class whatever that may be our interests like it was just like everybody and also i think that's reflected a little bit in the pop culture of halloween and stuff too like how many people dressed up like the main character for for from weapons you know the woman with all the makeup i'm trying to avoid spoilers or um and i also can't remember that character's name um or how many of our friends who host

television shows dressed up as bob ferguson from one battle after another that was one thing i i

know so many people who dressed up in that in that uh outfit that wasn't that's right i forgot that chris did it but i feel like my timeline i know that um some other folks i know dressed up like that fell as well i think it was a pretty it's a pretty achievable costume that is also

in the zeitgeist you know what i mean i i saw i didn't read the article and i should have but i thought it was an interesting idea i gotta you know i feel like we kind of roast the seattle times a lot on this program mostly because they deserve it but um i think somebody in the seattle times went and saw one battle after another with governor bob ferguson yeah yeah i didn't read it but i saw that yeah i saw i mean the fact that they pulled that off that they got him to go see the movie and that the you know leo character's name bob ferguson and his name is bob ferguson i thought i was i give them credit for you know that's an ambitious stunt to get the governor of Washington spent three hours in that movie theater with you based mostly on the fact that the character in the movie has the same name. Shares your name.

I know. Well, it was one of those things, though, where I was like, oh, yeah, good for you. You got him to do it. But then I had absolutely no interest in what was ever in that article. Like, I didn't feel like it was going to. I don't know. Like, for some reason, I did not click on that. And even now, I'm still not all that curious about it. Hey, before this topic slips away too much, I just wanted to share two things with you related to, like, sort of this idea of, first of all, going out, going to the theater. And also something that I stumbled on late, late last night And these stories are somewhat related Because I will say And I don't want to say anything that would be insulting To a friend who might be listening to this But I was excited And I wrote about it in the newsletter That our friend, Snacks The funny bunny, who was on the show By the way, I looked it up, it was eight years ago By the way, that Snacks was on the show with us Stand-up comedian Slash rabbit, that most people know Was holding another one of their comedy nights at this place appropriately called the Rabbit Box Theater but that's kind of a coincidence but anyway, it's this small space that I know Snacks loves and does various projects at

I know the people that own that place, by the way

Oh, do you? Oh, that's cool, yeah And so anyway, I and Snacks was bringing the comedian Josh Fadham or, am I saying that right? Fadham? It's not Fadham?

I'm not sure how to say the last name, but I know the kind of

I think it's I know the legend of Josh yeah and the first thing I think of is uh he played Liz Lemon's like diminutive uh no manager that was what was so oh manager that was he was he was a talent manager but he was like a child right and he would say things that's where I remember him from he would say things like I've seen bras anyway um and like kind of a and he also was in Better Call Saul as one of the the young camera people or one young filmmaker like but he's also made a whole bunch of like viral videos which i didn't know about they played a bunch of them so basically snacks the funny bunny brought josh fadum if i'm saying that right uh to do um to do stand up at the this small venue in pike place market and uh i had on the calendar and i was looking forward to it but i will say i got a real case of the sundays not not in the not in the dreading monday but like a case of the sundays in i had a pretty it was a pretty it was a really really busy day at pop-up where i volunteer because it was our big thanksgiving meal so it was just like tons of volunteers and tons of people showing up for food and we had this pretty elaborate meal it was just like a long day and i thought that this show at the rabbit box theater which is you know you know maybe takes us a half hour to get there by bus or something and i was like okay it starts at seven and and so i came home and i got showered i was ready for it and then vives and i were like well should we catch a bus we'll get there pretty early if we leave now And then I looked and I was like oh my gosh It doesn't start until 8 and i was really on the precipice luke i was like i don't know that i can wait until because if it says show starts at 8 it actually starts at 8 30 which is the case and i know that that's kind of standard practice you want people to come in but i'm like so i'm going to be going down to pike place market for a show that starts at 8 30 on a sunday when i have this huge basket of laundry to fold i'm exhausted i just didn't i'd stayed up too late the night before like i i was very close to just being like i we we pre-bought our tickets and i was like so we supported our friend but maybe we can support our friend from afar and i kind of powered through sort of i said no no we're gonna go but i i was like i'm gonna this is a dangerous game i laid down for a second i'm like i'm just gonna maybe read a little bit and take a little bit of a nap but this is not me giving up i think that yeah if i just close my eyes for like a little bit for

like 40 minutes or something i don't love that term but i think it's accurate and i never do

that though because if i do that it takes me like an hour to remember my name like i i have trouble waking up from now but i would but but i was very intentional but i'm like i was but i gotta admit i was kind of grumpy i'm like oh this is it just added an extra hour to my night and i was already thinking about like how usually when i go out then it takes me a long time to kind of wind down once i get home and blah blah luke i had such a wonderful night and oh good it reminded me it would be funny if all of this was to say the show sucked snack sucked josh sucked and nobody should ever go out on sundays no it was awesome it was so so great and also the last time i had been at the rabbit box theater we had gotten there after the huge crowd was already there to see the show and i was like standing in the way way back and it was really hot not something that andrew's like No, I was getting constantly jostled because it was like super crowded, but they have wait staff and I'm – this is not last night. This was for a different show. And by the way, this is just my own thing, but it was when I still had all of my – rheumatoid arthritis was not being treated and I was like – in that one, I remember just being like – so I also had this thing in the back of my head of like, oh, this is going to be a pretty uncomfortable kind of venue too. But, no, we got there at a reasonable time. There was a table. We had a great seat sitting at the table. Table service, had a couple of beers. And Josh just went on. I mean, snacks was amazing. Josh did a really, really long set like nothing I'd seen before. And it reminded me of being in L.A. a little bit, like when you're just going to go, I don't know, go to the Largo or something like that and just see what's up. And as I left and I told Visa, I'm like, hey, I'm sorry I was grumpy about that. like absolutely so glad we came and it makes me want to remember that feeling something happened to me a while back i think in the past couple of years where i always my whole life had this feeling of well if i go out it's going to be it's going to be busy and it's going to i'm going to be jostling and i have all these reasons why i don't want to go and in the past couple of years what happened is my prediction started coming true like there were several like shows and various things i went to where i was like i want to be out of here so badly but when you have one of these like last night where everything just clicked perfectly and you're like oh this was a kind of a once in a lifetime for this a rabbit hosting a show introducing josh fadum to do this kind of to do that and then they played films that he had been working on that snacks had worked on it was just a an amazing night that i would not have had and it makes me want to remember this the next time i'm looking at a yes a ticket that says doors at 8 p.m or show at 8 p.m or whatever

you know so so good yeah you know like we we bought these tickets uh for it was a 6 30 showing for the movie and we bought the tickets at like noon and i was like oh boy this is i don't know how 6 30 p.m luke is going to be feeling you know particularly this time of year in the northwest when it's already been dark for an hour and a half and like it's deeply dark outside like it's like middle of the night kind of dark so like and uh again you did a you you you were on a bigger lift than i was um you know than we were as far as like you know doing something that starts at eight really 8 30 and it's going to be you know pretty in a way sort of um interactive i guess you know we're just going to sit and watch a movie but even so it was like there was some part of the back of my mind that kept reminding myself i was like okay we bought these movie tickets if we don't want to go we don't have to go like i was telling myself that i was like you know it's 28 bucks but it's going to a good cause the hollywood theater and like so i was trying to like in the back of my mind prepare for the idea of potentially not going and then of course like when we walk out of the theater after seeing the show i'm so so glad that i went and saw that movie in the theater even though there was a more convenient way to do it and i think we've sort of been weirdly enough talking about this a few different times of late andrew you and i about kind of like the the sort of the fact that the fact that everything feels like it kind of sucks kind of adds to this lack of wanting to go out and engage with the world and yet it feels to me

like going out and engaging with the world whether it's seeing a movie or going to a show or just going and grabbing dinner or I don't know taking a walk just it's like it's like going out and engaging with the world almost always makes me feel better than not and yet I feel like a lot of us have this kind of strong impulse not to um right now and so I don't know you know just here's here's two thumbs up from uh Walsh and Burbank on doing something on a Sunday night huh yeah and

again the problem with me was i think literally my whole life i've been like that like i i told you i have these this bag of old voicemails that people left me um on an actual physical tape back in the 90s when i was in college and like if i can ever finally play those i will hear voicemails from people being like andrew leave your apartment come out we're down at euro gyro or whatever you know like the band's about to start like people just saying get out and like i so i've i am true to that but like often in my life when i finally would go out i'd be like oh yeah that that was good but then i really unfortunately reality started lining up with my expectations you got your priors confirmed i just had a few a few things like even things i love i remember going to a spont kind of spontaneously going to a believe diggable planet show like five years ago like vives and i was having some pizza yeah and it was like literally like hey this is around the corner do you just want to go and i was like yeah it's kind of on the fence like yeah let's go and then I just remember being like I'm too old for this I'm jammed in here they're older than me I think but anyway I was just like I'm jammed in here I'm hot by the time the band played it was like you know 1030 or whatever it was and I was just kind of like this is why I don't go to shows and I love Diggable Planets you know and so I just unfortunately had a couple of things that reaffirmed my skepticism of going out and so that's why last night was special now while I'm holding forth I know we gotta to thank the donors i just want to run one quick thing by you that you might already know about

by the way don't worry double done i can't i can't see the donors names because there's a freaking cat parked fully in front of the laptop so you may have to do the donor okay that's fine

also i don't even know if i sent them to you so maybe i'm gatekeeping these daily donors today somebody gatekeeped me once so i i came home and as i kind of predicted though i genevieve went to bed and i was like i'm going to be up for a little bit here so i watched um the chair company the latest chair company and oddly enough that didn't relax me oh really oh you mean you mean david lynch

for burbanks that's what i've decided i'm one episode behind you but i just decided i was catching up on it the other day and i was like oh this is just david lynch except it's it's it's stylized just enough for somebody like me to be able to handle it there is something lynching

about the um about the fades he there's such a small thing but and again i think it's because they're both takes on neo-noir in a way and there's this neo-noir thing where it does a crossfade that we don't see in modern tv and movies all that much anymore instead of like a a hard clip from one scene to another like they'll just like fade out of one scene and fade in the other it does it's not every transition but when it happens it feels so noir-y and dark and lynching to me anyway i watched that it didn't put me to sleep so i i'm like i just need to watch something that is not like a heavy lift right now and i am i would not have been in the mood to watch curb your enthusiasm because that would have been kind of similar like cringe humor that would have gotten me too peaked but i saw something on hbo called it was just being suggested to me larry david colon curb your enthusiasm i'm like is this like a is this a look back at curb your enthusiasm what is this it turns out and i haven't even looked this up yet but it's quite clear what i was watching and i watched most of it before I eventually went to bed I think Curb Your Enthusiasm before it was started as a regular series I think it was a one-off mockumentary that had it's almost because it took this came out in 1999 this is still the 90s Curb Your Enthusiasm the show has not come out yet this is like an idea that Larry David has I think to like kind of do a bit of a mock Kind of a real documentary. You have Seinfeld in there. You have George Alexander. They're talking to the camera about Larry David, how he used to do stand up before Seinfeld and some of his jokes, which I want to tell you about in a second. But then you definitely have Jeff Garland playing Jeff Green. Right. And you have. oh okay you have you have Madame Maha herself you know playing Cheryl Hines is already playing his wife but it's clear that this was not supposed to be a series this was just like going to be a one-off hour-long mockumentary with the idea being like post-Seinfeld Larry David wants to go and do stand-up again and so it's almost like that documentary comedian a little bit and speaking of Largo you see him like kind of practicing his material at Largo and it's like both, it's 1999 so it's like peak reality tv slash mockumentary like it's pretty it's almost seems like it's vhs quality at times it's so cheap and it's amazing how cheap and crappy all of their offices look like was there something in the 90s where people just didn't put anything on their walls there was just like this just bare white like ugly offices but but it was like it was interesting to see what curb your enthusiasm was sort of based on and i think it was based on this one-off and they also I don't know if this is real or not but they're talking about Larry David's stand-up when he was a young man and assuming that this part was not made up that these are real jokes

it was so absolutely funny they said that I think this is maybe Jerry talking about he would come out and he still he was balding a little bit as a young man crazy hair crazy long hair yeah I've seen photos yes it's almost afro-ish sort of and he's still got these little round glasses but it's all dark hair back then he's a young man sometimes apparently he would just come out and just slowly look at the audience and just scan the audience from left to right as if you were judging them and then just put the microphone back in the stand and say never mind and walk off that's a great bit and then let me see there's one joke i gotta tell you i bark laughed i think i've got it queued up here but i don't know for sure i didn't pull this tape I just am playing this from HBO.

It was an episode pretty early on. George was doing something.

Oh, that's a different one. This is where Jason Alexander realizes that his George character is basically based on Larry David. So I can't find the actual joke, but I'll retell it to you. Apparently, when he was doing stand-up as a young man, he would come out looking as you and I just described him. And he'd say, I'll tell you something about good-looking people. were not well liked that's a great great joke a good joke and so i haven't finished watching this but i wasn't sure if you knew this is this common knowledge that curb your enthusiasm started as like a one-off like sort of 1999 reality tv mockumentary no i did not know the exact origin story of it

but it would also that would kind of track because i've been seeing weird clips of larry david popping up in my tiktok feed like him playing basketball not as part of like an episode of curb but like almost just kind of found footage because apparently he also loves pickup basketball and that era you're talking about where he has like he's bald on top but he is enthusiastically growing hair on the sides and he's just like dribbling the ball product the y in manhattan or something and it's like i've been seeing kind of archival larry david stuff popping up and so i'm wondering if maybe that whatever that is that pilot that proof of concept if it's kind of having a moment again for some reason because maybe it's i don't know if it's been re-released on hbo or what what i think is interesting too and then we should get to the donors um if we can is it sounds like you said you didn't really feel like watching curb your enthusiasm because you know there's there's a lot of tension in that show at all times but you did feel like watching something that said Larry David colon Curb Your Enthusiasm. I don't understand what, that colon was doing a lot of work. Like, how did that seem less anxiety? That's what my doctor said.

Now that's a pretty good spoof. Eat all that yellow jello.

It doesn't seem any less anxiety producing than the normal thing.

Here's the problem with me, is I just like, I find it so difficult to pick television to watch. Oh. Especially when I'm in that mood You're not alone I'm like I don't want to engage with something fully here Basically what happened was I sat down to watch The Chair Company I had a whole basket of laundry that needed to be folded I started folding it but I got too sucked into The Chair Company So when that ended I looked over and I still had a lot of laundry to fold And so I was like well I need something else And clearly something that is a little bit less engaging Something that I can kind of turn my brain off And HBO to your point was suggesting it to me It was like suggesting it as a tile And there was something about it being called larry david colon curb your enthusiasm and the tile showed him like sitting in a chair like he was being interviewed i thought it was some sort of new look back at it that was going to be like more not a documentary commentary or something more like people interviewing him about his run since i'm pretty sure that he has now said he's done with that show i thought it was going to be a look back at the life of larry david i thought it was going to be a real documentary and then when i hit play i'm like it just felt very 90s it felt very late 90s in a lot of ways i'm like this is not new and we see a very young jeff garland garland or garland garland right garland garland um and i was like what the hell am i watching and then i just kind of got sucked into it for a while and yeah luckily it wasn't quite as cringe like the the

improv that he's doing with people is a lot more like they just break a lot more and it's also just like it's it's like it's like they made an agreement like it's okay if it's not funny it's like very unpolished he's just kind of like that same agreement exactly and i signed it but you know what i mean like it was just like it was a very raw version of the show where he hadn't already defined that genre right kind of and and that totally makes sense too that like

what happens is it starts there what you're describing and then people what people respond to are the moments of like high drama and maybe drama is not even the right word but the basically the more extreme the response is the more suzy essman the better yeah where it just becomes it's sort of like the toxicity of the show yeah yeah kind of sort of ramps every season because that's what the viewers respond to and so eventually it's just all toxic yes and the veep did that

too which really bummed me out I always thought Veep was such a smart show and it was it was a brilliant show but by the end they started to amplify the characters that just swore rapid paced all the time and like that was always a small part of it but it became it just leaned on that so much that it became not an enjoyable watch for me in the last season and yeah Curb just gets so rough for me like even during the peak seasons I think I could watch maybe two in

a row before i'd have to tap out yeah i don't think i mean maybe you know at its high point or whatever or like i would say like once everyone started talking about oh you got to check out curb i probably watched a few seasons but there definitely became a point at which it feels like do i want to just do i want to spend some hours with the worst friends i've ever met yeah right or you know it's like no one's i'm never and i i understand objectively that a lot of it's really funny but it's it's one of those programs that like i'm rarely in the mood for that to you know laugh at the way people are treating each other in that show or whatever i know it's it's not relaxing which is why by the way back to that um you know the paralysis of of infinite choices with the all the tv and streaming we have that's why i'm so psyched about the chair company i'm so psyched about liking it because that's a decision i don't have to make on a sunday night I didn't get to watch it last night because we were watching Jay Kelly, but had I been home and turned on my TV, I wouldn't be like, God, what am I going to – I wouldn't be tortured about the decision to watch. I'd be like, oh, I'm watching The Chair Company because I'm excited because it comes out on Sunday night, and I like that.

Speaking of – we talked before the show. You're one behind on The Chair Company because it just dropped last night, and I'm one behind on Pluribus because it just dropped on Friday, and I didn't catch up on that. I'm caught up on Pluribus. so you're caught up you've watched all four episodes or you've watched all four there's

four pluribi now right and i've only i feel comfortable saying this um and because i don't think he'll hear it but i did end up having a conversation on a saturday night with a possibly high rick steves uh about the show pluribus um so they keep name checking him on the show

oh that's right oh yeah i was wondering where you're going with that i kind of forgot that's right she name checks him at least twice in that first episode and i texted i think it's not not

well maybe it's in the first two but i noticed it in the one where they well wait i want to make

sure this isn't oh no you're right it's the second one not to have you seen the one where they have

you this isn't giving anything away have you seen the ice one yeah yeah that was episode two i misspoke there yeah yeah okay yep so um i just want to make sure i wasn't spoiling something so i fired him a text um that said hey they keep talking about you on pluribus you know just kind of like ha ha that's cool like you know and then like hours go by and then it's like nine o'clock at night on saturday and i'm in bed and i'm getting a call from a very giggly rick steves who is telling me not only has he been mentioned on pluribus but he was a new york times crossword puzzle answer recently and he told me one other thing that's been going really

well for him and he called you though he's not texting called me yeah that's interesting nine

o'clock at night love that which is you know that's a that's a power move i mean there's there's a short list of people i would feel comfortable calling on a saturday night at 9 p.m you know uh so and maybe that's just generational or whatever but it was really it was very funny we had a conversation he was a total sweetheart but i was also knowing his his well-documented love of cannabis which i that's why i don't think i'm talking out school and the timing and how absolutely jazzed he seemed i wonder if i was getting a high dial

from rick steve maybe uh but i i want to watch i'll i'll try to watch episodes we've talked a lot about television and i want to talk about pluribus with you really back because i feel like i'm right on the fence right now and i have some thoughts about why i'm on the fence uh and whether or not i'm being pushed to my limit no i know a guy i've at his limit i've enjoyed it but I realized the show is a different show than I thought it was going to be after watching the first episode. So.

How about I watch episode four, and we thank the donors.

And I'll watch Chair Company tonight, and then tomorrow we can just talk endlessly about two shows that our listeners may or may not have any awareness of.

At this point, though, I feel like we can have some conversations about this with enough warning for listeners if they want to catch up, especially the Chair Company. We're one episode away from the finale. You know, the finale will be the next episode for this season, at least. So I think we've given people some chances to kind of get into it.

Oh, I was less worried about the spoilers and more worried about people not caring.

Oh, oh, oh, I've never let that get in my way.

We made a second agreement. Yeah. There's two agreements that we made years ago, and that's the second one.

Thank you, baby.

All right, let's thank those donors. This show would not exist if not for folks like these next few names I'm going to be reading who are voluntarily supporting tbtl with a donation of cash i was as i so often am was at a little tv shoot this morning here in portland before coming back to do this and i said okay i'm gonna have to step away for a couple of hours because i've got to go do this podcast said oh a podcast well how long you've been doing it how does it work and it's when i'm explaining tb trying to and by the way there was a point where the people i was talking to at the shoot had completely glazed over but that doesn't diminish my enthusiasm here there are these moments where i'm describing this show and its existence um and how it exists which is the donors that i'm just i am uh i remain amazed all these years later and it's it's all thanks to folks like jamal abdi who's in arlington virginia thank you jamal appreciate that i appreciate you beautiful arlington virginia we love it out there um mary donahue is in brooklyn new york another

place we love yes it reminds me that um josh fathom or maybe fathom uh played he never said

his last name because i've no he did i just forgot i've already i've never i've never been able to say his last name on site but i wondered does he open the show he should do a bit about

how no one knows how to say his name yeah he doesn't um it's a very it's his style of comedy is not straightforward at all really by the way but uh no of course snacks introduced him like i I heard, I just now on Monday, I forgot to double check it and I'm back in the land of the confusion. But he did a great, in the video that he played, an amazing Donahue impression. Phil Donahue. Oh, I love it. Which is amazing because like, it was so good and so well produced and such a good parody. And like, how many people remember Phil Donahue? Like somebody doing a Phil Donahue in 2025 is just so funny to me. Just the idea that he wanted to put work into that is amazing.

And that this guy, Josh, last name TBD Here's what we really need to do Is we need to get Josh to donate to TBTL Because there is a pronouncer There is a pronouncer section of the intake form And that's the only way we'll ever know how to say his last name He is considerably younger than us, too, I get the sense

No, that's something that he talks about He's 45, and he goes on this whole thing People always say, you look young for your age That's a good thing that he has this very rat-a-tat-tat way of of doing um stand-up that i can't imitate here he but it's very repetitive very adhd coded um so anyway but yeah he says that people are always saying how

young he looks when he's 45 so because donna was such an old pole donna he was like an old pole for me i was one of those strange kids who would like i'd go over to james demuth's house after school because there was he was a latchkey kid so it was a totally unsupervised television environment and i would like always be hoping we could watch donahue he'd want to watch silver hawks or some normal kid programming but i'd be like god but donahue's got the chippendales on this is we're about to see something and it's such a you're right it's it's such a weird like old timey now impression that only like i'm probably maybe me and you are the only target audience for a Donahue impression, but I'm just, I'm sad

that I missed it. It was so great, and it looks like it's not online, by the way, so I don't, so he made this film, I don't know if it just airs, or he just screens it when he's on tour, or what.

He did the glasses and the wig? Yes,

and it was long. It went on, it was probably like a ten minute short or something, or maybe, yeah, I feel like it was like a ten minute short or something, so he kind of closed out a show, and then played a new film, a new short film that he had made that was filmed in um seattle is talk about lynching very kind of dark and and funny at the same time but

was it about the tv show bergquist no what is that oh well that's jerome's last name he's our next guest uh our next donor i should say jerome bergquist of richfield minnesota because uh mary donahue is what reminded you of yes

In Brooklyn, New York. Did I talk over that part? No, no, no, you didn't. We got that all in. Mary in Brooklyn, thank you so much.

Thank you. And thank you, Jerome, as well. So much. Thanks to Alexis Loving in Melrose, Massachusetts. Am I insane, or have we had... I feel like we've got a couple people in Melrose, Massachusetts. Because my brain always wants to go to Melrose, California, but here's the thing. Melrose, California is not a city. It's just a neighborhood of Los Angeles, I believe. So, I feel like I have this memory of seeing Melrose, thinking L.A., and then seeing Massachusetts.

I'm looking this up because I'm not familiar with Melrose, Massachusetts. I don't think I've been there. And for a second there, I couldn't even remember if Melrose was a real place or if Melrose Place was just a place. But, yeah, there's a Melrose Inn in L.A., right? Absolutely.

It's a neighborhood that's got, like, I think that Supreme Store is in Melrose. It's got a lot of, like, kind of, like, apparel stuff going on. I don't know what they sell in Melrose, Massachusetts, but I know that Alexis Loving lives there and that makes me like Melrose, Massachusetts a whole lot. Also thanks to Jennifer Siemens who's in San Jose California. I've been

wearing my San Jose Giants hat lately. I love that. I have such fond memories of my single trip to San Jose. I gotta make it back down there.

It's a cool place. The last time I was there I was interviewing the guy who does a YouTube feed called Sandwiches of History where every day and this was a game recognized game. He does his five days a week he makes a sandwich that's from some old book or a new book and and then he um he tells you how to make it and he makes it he films and then he takes a bite and he tells you if it's good or not very simple concept but very watchable yeah like i've every time he pops up on my tiktok feed i'm like i want to see how this sandwich turns out i really like it um i really like jennifer siemens being in san jose as well thanks jennifer and then nancy heinrich is in olympia washington i'm gonna be driving through olympia washington on wednesday and uh we'll see how it goes it's going to be a apparently a especially uh packed traffic season for the holiday traffic

because people are flying less because of all the bs and i believe so that's what i heard this

morning that's what they said on ask jeeves which is my nickname for oregon public broadcasting That's what they said this morning on OPB Was that more people Maybe than ever are driving this holiday season And it's going to be especially bad More or less the route between where I live And where my parents live So we'll see My daughter's flying up from Los Angeles I'm driving from southern Washington We'll see which takes longer I think it might be the drive

Here I go once again With the email Every week I hope that it's from a female Oh man It's not from a female.

All right. Emails or V-mails before I roll on out of here back to my television shoot where I can try to re-explain to them the funding model of TBTL. See if they'll unglaze.

Yes, sounds good. Yes, in addition to that sweet postcard we got from Lydia, also got this voicemail on the voicemail line from Carolyn.

Hey, business boys. This is Carolyn calling from Colchester, Vermont. is monday morning i happen to wake up sometime early for me and i remembered it's a garbage day today we return my wife and i returned from a trip yesterday sunday and we weren't thinking about garbage and i look at the calendar it's just before 6 a.m and indeed it is trash and recycle pickup day and the cans aren't out but here's the thing even though i was so cozy in my bed it's dark out like a hero wrapped my robe went downstairs as i'm passing through the house i can see through the windows the trash truck is already coming down the road so i turned on all the lights outside so they know i'm here i'm opening the garage door to get out to where the cans are the truck pulls up and um the trash lady yes the trash lady was a woman she comes out and i say oh my gosh i'm so sorry i just remembered and she's like oh no problem no problem she's in great mood she's smiling big smile monday morning so early for me 6 a.m right just she came just at 6 a.m All right, so anyway, I get the bins out for her. I say, hey, what's your name? She says, Mary. Say, Mary, thank you. She gives me a big smile, says, oh, no problem. She gets back in her truck. I put the bins back where they belong. Done. Job done. I'm a freaking garbage hero. Give me a shirt that says garbage hero, boys. All right, anyway.

Garbage heroes wear shirts. Power out.

Should we get Carolyn a shirt that says Garbage Hero? You know, that's actually not a bad merch idea.

It really is.

Like, John's going to hear this. We're going to have another meeting on Wednesday about Garbage Hero shirts, but that's actually not a bad idea for a TBTL shirt.

But you've got to earn it. You can't just buy it. You've got to earn it by being a Garbage Hero like Carolyn. And no stealing it.

We don't want any stolen garbage, Valerie. No.

will not stand for that on this program we don't need any uh gronks oh yeah right he's always trying to become a navy you know what happened there i just assumed you would know what i was talking

about and i did but for a moment i thought wait do we mean grok right the chat gpt program then i was like okay gronk did he get and i'm like oh yeah he's always trying to get that navy federal credit union that's right insurance going in that's right i you know what move i've been on because I've been out of town so much lately is leaving my garbage can on the street which isn't in anyone's way or anything it's I have to wheel it up from my house up to like where the mailboxes are past where the county road ends and um like because I sometimes I forget if I'm going to be around or not on Wednesday evening I don't want to risk it I've started this this move of late where my garbage can lives out at the pickup spot and I take my bags of garbage to it so that I can never have a mess up where it's full of garbage and then not at the right place, if that makes sense.

Yeah, that's pretty good. And you don't have that issue of people dumping garbage in your garbage can. No, nobody comes down there. First of all, you don't care as much also.

A, I don't care as much, and B, there's no risk of that happening. I do feel very bad, though, about something involving a garbage bag, like a small plastic garbage bag of Gigi's poop, which was, I was walking her a few weeks ago when she was staying with me. It was in the morning and I was walking up my street and she decided to drop a deuce like two minutes into the walk, basically near my neighbor's yard. So I bagged up the poop, but then I tied the bag up and then I placed it carefully on the ground, kind of between the street and their yard. My plan being to come back and pick it up on the way back down, because we still had, you know, 20, 30 minutes of walking to do. And would you believe when we get back down to my house, I look for the bag and it's gone.

And this is outside somebody else's house or your own house?

Outside somebody else's house, my neighbor's house. So my fear is that my neighbor thought that I or someone else had just like carelessly discarded a bag of dog poop kind of near their yard and was not doing anything about it when in fact I was just leaving it there because I didn't want to carry it all around the neighborhood for the next half hour only to bring it back to my house where I was going to toss it in my garbage can. But in the time that we were walking around the rest of the neighborhood, somebody saw the bag and picked it up and disposed of it and may be mad at me about it. And I don't know what to do about that.

Well, the biggest concern would be if you think it's the people whose house might have a view of that, if it were them. And it's too late now. I could have seen myself being troubled by that and leaving a note on their door later because saying, hey, if you're the person who picked up that bag I left there, I promise you I was coming back to pick it up. The fact that you would go back to leave a note would be proof that you care. You know what I mean? That's probably what I would do. What color ink would you use? Probably for this one, this is like another thank you slash sorry. I'm probably starting with pink, but I'm going to get one of those pens with eight different colors on it that I'm seeing more and more.

All of the different pen heads out at the same time.

Did you notice that they're using that as a lot Maybe they always have, and I was just noticing it this season, but I was seeing a lot of guys in the dugout using those during Mariners games. And it must have something to do with, like—

The old-school, multicolor paint with different clickers.

Yeah, just the four one, you know, the classic one that's, like, shaped like a torpedo or whatever. And it must have to do with them—I don't think they're scoring the game. I think it was, like, pitching coaches and stuff, but they must be color-coding their notes in a way that I really appreciate. But anyway, that's something you could have done, but it could have been a total stranger just walking by, I suppose.

no it wouldn't have been a stranger it's there's no foot traffic down there so it would have only been my neighbor whose house you know this was and the thing is like i said it's like you've got the road then you've just got some kind of un you know it's not even a tree lawn as you would call it andrew it's just kind of um some grass and then then there's a fence which is like then past the fences into their yard so outside the fence on the grass that was between their fence and the and the road now that would be considered their property i guess it almost might be kind of community property like the way that like a gully you know next to a road like a like a little ditch next to a road might be kind of community property or something but regardless i just felt

bad because they probably care for it right like they mow it i'm sure they probably know you know

what i'll do next time i'd see them because you know I always do know them so that's what I wanted to see like I wasn't sure if there's a neighbor down the street that you'll know in theory I'm good with let's think I I think yeah I know all one

two three four five six seven I think I know like about eight neighbors up my road then it gets a little hazy then it's some you know people in these big McMansions that I don't really have a chance to talk too much but everybody in my immediate little neighborhood I know all of them on a first-name basis now so I I'm comfortable checking in with them my my one neighbor the other guy and i don't think this is the guy who picked up the dog poop because this is across the street from him but he's the guy that puts out like a 12 flag and then a seahawks flag these are different they're really big and there's nothing that makes me happier than walking out of my house on a sunday morning to do something and seeing the 12th seahawk flag then he takes them down like he treats them like the american flag uh-huh like he folds them with reverence it's like very respectful they only are out there while the games are happening that's but for some reason it makes me so happy. Does he fly him at like half

mast or half staff or half mast when somebody gets injured? I go back and forth between

those two. When Sam Darnold throws four interceptions, he has to fly it at half mast.

At half mast. That would be pretty funny.

That would actually be really funny. I'll suggest it next time. How about next time that the Seahawks defense decides to not wrap people up on tackles for an entire game against the Tennessee Titans, but thankfully we did emerge with the W on that one.

Yeah, I was barely watching. I was barely watching that. I kind of had it on, but I was doing my morning prep and stuff, so I wasn't watching play-by-play, but I was kind of like, boy, they should really have a more comfortable lead here. Well, that was it.

When I got to Becca's house, I was like, I don't even care about this game. And she was like, okay. And I was like, yeah, because they're going to win by a bunch. And then as they slowly allowed Tennessee to stay in the game, suddenly I was much more fixated on my phone. And she was like, I thought you didn't care about the game. I was like, that's when I thought they were going to win by 40.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Now, not – well, never mind. Sorry, we've got to wrap up the show. I was going to ask you a question about Cam Ward with the music playing. What am I doing? What was your Cam Ward question? Well, no, it's too big of a question for the – I was going to say, aside from the Seattle Seahawks of it all, generally speaking, do you think it's kind of – will it be interesting to watch Cam Ward sort of develop into a quarterback? because we saw some flashes yesterday of this young quarterback kind of, like, overcoming adversity. And I was kind of like, oh, aside from him playing the team I'm rooting for, it would be kind of cool to watch him develop.

Yeah, I thought he actually was pretty impressive given the circumstances, you know, and he's going up against a really good defense. And, you know, they're 1-9 or whatever. They were 1-8. It's like, you know, it would be very easy to just kind of, like, shut it down. And I thought you put a team around him, he could be pretty good with my take on the matter. So, all right, that is going to do it for today's episode of TBTL, but we will be right back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. In the meantime, y'all have a great Monday. Stay safe, and please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all. I think we have a textbook case of video game abuse. Maybe we should do something to save him from becoming a human microchip. Power out.