Muse

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

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

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

I'm not trying to be disrespectful or anything, but I kind of feel like you're winging this and it's going bad.

stinky well all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a friday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live it feels wrong but it's oh so right

my name's luke burbank i am your host wait a minute who are you coming to you from

the arctic club hotel in rainy and yet still beautiful seattle washington Didn't know you like to get wet, though. So exciting to be back in my hometown of Seattle, safely and on time and under budget. I was a little nervous this week about being able to make it to the various places and stages where I needed to be standing and talking into microphones. And this is kind of the last phase of the whole thing. Did Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me last night in Phoenix? That was a blast. Tonight, we'll be doing Live Wire here in Seattle at Benaroya Hall.

I'm so excited about this show.

It's not too late to grab a ticket. Rick Steves, Lindy West, phenomenal night coming up. In the meantime, though, we've got a phenomenal episode of TBTL to present to you. It's episode 4,000. 613 in a collector's series. Let the fun begin. Flew up here from Phoenix this morning, and I will say that Alaska Airlines, I think they engaged in a slightly dangerous practice. Call Kenny Loggins because you're in the danger zone. I don't mean like that our safety was in danger. Everything was very safe. But it was something else that I think could really, really, really backfire on them with people like me. So we'll talk about that also. I had an insight. I had an epiphany maybe about air travel and the kind of air travel person that I might need to become. I know you thought, this guy's out of epiphanies related to air travel, but no, I still have them all the time. And I had one this morning, early this morning, that I want to talk about with my friend Andrew Walsh, the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Hey, Germano. He's joining me right now. Good morning, sir.

Good morning. I hate to do this to you, Luke, but I am about to break your heart. I'm about to break your heart into little pieces When we were getting ready To start recording the show I was typing I don't know why I was typing the date onto my show sheet or something December 5th And I thought

December 5th

There must be a song December 5th I googled it It doesn't seem to be a song But it got me thinking Yeah but there are a lot of songs with December in the title right i just feel like this i was like oh maybe long one i was well this is where your little heart is gonna be broken into little pieces i found a list 20 songs with december in the title written up in yard barker magazine which is where i go for my musical related listicles that's where i go for my yard barking it's one of the and related i would say one of the better places defined yard, but yeah, certainly. Yeah, yeah, three now. Yeah, since the Barking yard went down, I'll put this solid top three. It does not list. It does not list Long December. I am shook. I am shocked. I am shocked.

short it starts with december i'm considering a class action lawsuit it's it's it starts with december 4th by jay-z isn't that the first track maybe on the black it's like where his mom is talking about him exactly his mom's talking about him whatever um december by area ariana grande i can already tell you whoever made this list they haven't lived enough but it goes so you have something called back to december by somebody named taylor swift but they have my december by lincoln park you got an alicia keys december back to june what you got somebody named g easy oh g easy sure do you know palsy for a while are you okay you're joking right no i mean i'm

andrew i'm spitting facts here is this true are you serious you've heard of g easy before i have heard of g easy and i think g easy uh was a kind of a i don't know if flash in the pan would be the

way to describe it but g-easy had a moment well to that i say g-easy uh december by nora jones famously okay well except the nora jones in the mix good charlotte last december now is this a cover of last december no no long december is the is the uh yeah is the last december that's not the

wake me up dumb december is that good charlotte i never knew which one of those kinds of uh pop punk bands that was there's some kind of song that's like wake me up next december or last

december i'm gonna let yard barker do my bark and for me here it says while december usually brings joy to people during the holidays it can sometimes be a sad season that's what good charlotte iterates in their song last december the group doesn't mention the month at all in the lyrics but they reflect on how this time of year can be hard on people who are grieving for people they lost Is it Sarah Bareilles? Am I saying your last name right? She has a song called December, Cold December by Rod Wave. Rod Wave. No, I don't know Rod Wave. Hire Billy. Didn't he hire us? That was Rod Arquette. That was the Rod father. He fired you, I believe, yes. Hired and fired. Yes, you're focusing too much on the positive, and I'm here to keep you even-keeled. We're getting through these, though. I didn't plan on going through all these, but it is telling to take a moment. And here are all of these artists who got billing when Counting Crows did not. December by IDK. I don't know what that is. I'm not familiar. Who's Van Hunt? I don't even feel comfortable saying that, to be honest with you. Her December. In 2004, soul and R&B singer Van Hunt released a self-titled album. On the album, the track Her December, Hunt details how the month can be a change of pace for people between cold weather and a difference in emotions.

You know what I'll tell you, Andrew? Yep. It's just one more day up in the canyon. Just one more night in Hollywood.

See, you're representing.

If you think you should come to California, I wish you would. I wish you would. Remember December.

Demi Lovato. Collective Soul is represented in here. Miley Cyrus. Weezer. New Kids on the Block. So these aren't all like new. Michael Buble. Kylie Nogue. I think AI did this,

and I think it was hallucinating. Donny Osmond. I think an uncool AI program did this. Not like a cool one that knows about counting crows, but an uncool one who doesn't.

This was written by Maya Singleton. Maya Singleton, who may be an AI agent, but probably not. This is 2022. No, I'm looking. Maya Singleton is a real person here, I can tell.

Is she? Could a real person, would a real person leave out Long December? Speaking of them counting crows, I just saw somewhere on my internet feed, I think maybe last night, this morning. It's all blending together, Andrew. I'm really if I seem a little chaotic today, it's because I think I'm I'm starting to I'm at my limit this week of content creation and travel. But I saw that there's a new HBO doc out about Counting Crows specifically Adam Duritz, the lead singer. I think I mean, he's the centerpiece of the band. And so I think he's the centerpiece of this documentary. But it's the trailer, of course, is very much put, you know, put together in a way as to appeal to somebody like me who likes Counting Crows music and stuff. And yet I couldn't I was expect when I realized what was happening, which was, oh, this is a whole ass documentary about Counting Crows. I was like, oh, I would be really into that. And then the more of the trailer I watched, the less interested I became in the documentary, which is a weird experience.

I've had that before. I've had that before where you're like, oh, I'm. Oh, this sounds like something I'd be interested in. And you watch the documentary and you're like, I hate to be. I should be careful about this one because it's a small.

You're going to talk about the Trachtenberg family slideshow players.

There was a documentary that came out around 2001, 2003, 2005. No, you know, I guess I should be careful on this one because I would be surprised if somebody in our audience isn't connected to this. But a lot of people were recommending to me a local documentary. about Rainier beer and specifically, I think the Rainier beer commercials, the iconic, iconic commercials. And somebody said, oh, this would be right up your alley. You like commercials. You like local things. The history of these commercials is kind of interesting. But I watched like the, first of all, the trailer was too long. And when I was done watching the trailer, I'm like, yep, I got it all. Like I don't, it wasn't even a particularly well-made trailer. I didn't think I was like, well, you've exhausted my interest in this topic in this long trailer. I think I'm,

i think i'm done well not not everything is a full documentary which is one of the nice things i guess you could say about the way content has shifted we spend a lot of time i spend a lot of time talking about how i don't like the fractured media environment we're in but an eight minute documentary is just fine yeah you know like a that's probably what the rainier beer adds you know and the beer but also i think a little bit of it is probably related to if you grew up with it or not like i might have a a longer attention span for that stuff because i did grow up watching those commercials on tv i'm really fascinated with them but generally speaking like you don't and by the way pot kettle black here maybe the trachtenberg thing i made didn't need to be an hour and a half either like i you know sometimes something can be 10 minutes and that can be all the time we need for this the uh the crows uh thing seemed to center around And well, I was expecting it to it seems like what it's kind of getting into is the journey of Adam Duritz, the lead singer, and how he they became a very popular band, but a very kind of like maligned band. Like they got popular at a time where getting broadly popular was actually seen as uncool. So they were sort of branded as uncool, even though they had a lot of fans and a lot of people really love their music. But it was weird, though, because if I remember right, there's like there's one celebrity. I mean, Adam Duritz famously dated a string of celebrities himself. And I would imagine Counting Crows have a bunch of celebrity fans. There's one quasi celebrity that I see in the trailer, and it's the comedian and roast master Jeff Ross going, who the hell was Mr. Jones? It's like that was it. I thought maybe we'd get, you know, what would have been interesting was if you and maybe this is in the movie. i haven't watched it obviously if you went out and you found some people you know if noam chomsky was a crow's head you know or a marina abramovich or something like find me some interesting thoughtful unlikely people that like the counting crows and then get there you know or like i don't know if paris hilton liked counting crows and had thoughts on them that would be interesting to me right it's like jeff ross will show up to the opening of an envelope like getting him on your documentary about the about the about the the the majesty and the genius that is counting crows uh was weird to me the other thing was and i want to be careful with how i talk about this because i guess i don't know i think i know what adam duritz's um ethnic background is but we'll just say the locks the hairdo my sense of adam duritz and having locks and by the way i'm trying to be careful and not say dreadlocks because i think the idea is that you know dreadlocks was like these were dreaded these were like something that was considered to be unsightly so now there's been a certain move to try to call them locks i'm trying to do that right now the hairdo that adam

duritz was wearing i don't think i don't think he is a person of color um in the way we typically use that that term so it's like i think he was a white guy with with that hairdo and that was always something he got a little knocked for and what i can tell you having watched the trailer for this is i think that criticism was valid um there's so many different shots of his hair looking so unfortunate and like it never worked in any scenario and he had different sizes of locks and he there's so many different things that are going you see like 20 different varieties of this hair

choice from him and not one of them looks good you so you think you agree that it's just unfortunate

from an aesthetic standpoint i think it's very i'm not talking about appropriation or anything but just because that's not probably my department i'm just talking about from a looks because you know here's the thing about adam duritz he doesn't have that hairdo anymore he looks great and he he you know he's done a lot of interviews now where he's talked about kind of his journey and he is somebody who is on the record is talking about you know having mental health issues and things like that dealing with depression and stuff which i don't want to pile on for the guy but um he's definitely seems like he's kind of landed in a pretty good place and his hair is so much better looking in 2025 i want to go back i want a time machine to uh to To tell him, hey, buddy, you just go with whatever your hair is naturally doing, and that is going to work fine for you.

I bumped into him one time, I think. At least I told everybody.

What?

at Lollapalooza.

It was down at the New Amsterdam, right? Mr. Dirt strikes up a conversation with a brown-haired...

This is going to sound weird, but I want to live as cats. What does he say? Everybody want to live as cats? What is the line that I'm desperately trying?

I want to be a lion. Yeah, everybody wants to dress as cats. We all want to be big, big stars, but we've got some reason for that.

We've got different reasons for that. But yeah, no, everybody wants...

Believe in me, because I don't believe in anyone.

Is it everybody want to live as cats?

Everybody want to dress as cats.

Everybody want to dress as cats is really funny. It can't be that. Anyway, we can let that go. But I was at Lollapalooza. I was in high school. I know that the Counting Crows were playing that particular festival that I was at, and I swore I bumped into him in the crowd. Now, looking back, I mean, maybe there might have been people who looked like him. You know, it was some, I believe I remember a leather, like a, you know, like one of those, like in a suede leathery jackets, like he would wear.

That would very much fit with the image we have of Adam Duritz.

But it happened so quickly. And I mean, like the story doesn't really hold up. I remember even at the time being like, was that him? I feel like that was him. I was going around telling everybody, I think I just ran into the guy from Counting Crows. I literally ran into him, like bumped into him, and then we both kept moving. We didn't share words or anything like that. But I do remember I was – I believe I was on some weed-related mission, though, so it also makes me sort of –

As in you were going to get weed or you had weed in your system?

I feel like I was looking for weed or it might have been in my system at that point. I remember having this one-hitter at the time, too, and I just remember it being like, well, I think that was him, But also, can I trust my my own experience right now? I remember having I remember having that thought in the moment. Can I trust my experience right now? So I feel like I must have been a little bit buzzed.

And so if I also self-aware enough that you weren't just taking it as like, you know, the the the obvious truth. But you were you had a sort of a sense of introspection and questioning that could also mean you still had your head screwed on somewhat straight.

So I want to go back to this conversation about the modern documentaries really briefly, because there's something that's been on my mind, and this doesn't make any sense for me.

Jonathan Richmond in the modern documentaries?

What are you doing? I don't know. I told you I'm at my limit. You're at your limit. Okay. This isn't even really funny, but it's like how little things will stick in your head. And I unfollowed somebody on Blue Sky for the dumbest, dumbest, dumbest, dumbest reason the other day. But I still feel like it was the right thing to do. So I follow a bunch of people who I have no connection to other than our love of Mariners on Blue Sky. But keep in mind, and this is not a brag or a flex, and you'll be able to tell because it's not something to brag or flex about. But I was on Blue Sky looking for Mariners content long before the masses were there. It was a tiny group of people that were literally every now and then just being like, are there any other Mariners fans here? And we would follow each other. And there was somebody from those early days. And because of that, I'm like following people who I, you know, and feel like I'm like quasi Internet friends with a few folks who I would not know otherwise, you know. And so anyway, there is one woman on Blue Sky who I've been following for a long time. And there's not a lot that we have in common, I would say. I don't really have a strong opinion about her one way or the other, pretty anodyne account, would post rah-rah things for the Mariners during baseball season. But now that baseball season has gone away, especially as it kind of peaked with this heck of a playoff run and historic season we just had, now I'm just getting to know these people because we're not talking about baseball anymore. Right. And I've just seen their posts from their lives. Good point. And this woman, who's a baseball fan and seems like a smart person, posted like, oh, and not just a baseball fan, but a Mariners fan. And so the Mariner fan base especially has a kind of rocky relationship with Alex Rodriguez because he played here and then he left Seattle. This is before my time, so you can tell me if I'm wrong about this. But he left for a huge bag of money to go to the Yankees. And it just left the Mariner fan base feeling pretty raw about him, like while other people chose to stay here, while people like Felix chose to stay here. And it was, you know, basically just through some terrible, terrible seasons, but felt a loyalty to this fan base. So anyway, this person, this very nice person, I can't even remember her name, so I'm not worried about doxing her. But this very sweet baseball fan who I've been following for a long time just posted several weeks ago. Like, man.

I think Alex Rodriguez went to the Rangers and then went to.

Oh, did he bounce? But he the bag of money, I mean, he's described as like a sellout, right? It wasn't a huge amount of money. No, you're absolutely right.

I'm just trying to remember the chain of events.

No, that is right. He did. I didn't go directly to New York, so I was conflating those. And thank you, because that would have driven people bananas. All those people at the private university of Rutgers would be writing in to us. That way, there are still generations of people who haven't heard that mistake yet. The emails are going to continue.

We need to monetize my mistakes so that for a premium TBTL account, you can call me and yell at me about stuff like that.

Some sort of a Bitcoin thing, like this is now your mistake. Like, you own the Rutgers mistake of 2025. Oopsie coin? We sell oopsie coins. Oh, shit. How is our timing on this idea, by the way?

I think strong. I think perfectly timed, if I understand anything about the crypto market right now.

Okay, God. Hit me up if anybody wants to buy that particular oopsie coin. I mean, I'm really throwing you under the bus here, although I was totally complicit in that. No, I've been on a hot streak this week. Totally. If I'm not accused of The murder equivalent of that It's certainly manslaughter I was involved in that in some way And I'm not getting off scot-free But anyway, this nice person on Twitter Wrote something like, man, you know I always had a bad taste in my mouth About A-Rod, but after watching that HBO Documentary, like A-Rod What is Alex vs. A-Rod

Or whatever, I realized

How kind of complicated The situation was and blah blah blah and just like you know just a couple of very and again nice tweets saying hey I used to be kind of locked into my fandom and not liking this guy but now I realize there's nuance and it's an interesting story but it's like there was no acknowledgement that yeah because you just watched a two-hour press release written by A-Rod right everybody's making their own goddamn documentaries and then you have they have final cut yeah he's an executive producer on that thing like of course you read his own book and then you said and and again i think that's fine but but if you said something like boy i guess it was interesting to hear a rod's perspective on this but it didn't seem to be that it was kind of like boy this documentary really kind of uncut and i'm just like come on guys every professional sport sports you know kind of icon from that era is writing their they're writing their own kind of pre-obituaries here so they they're working

the refs they're hagiographies is that what the word is yeah hagiography just being a kind of like a very sort of like incredibly positive sort of biography about someone just a love letter so maybe it's their auto hagiography or something but yeah just like they're all sort of establishing their version of events and and and their side of the story and by the way you know what i would be fine with if if somebody puts out a documentary about themselves that they are the executive producer of and it starts with them looking into the camera and going hey i'm alex rodriguez this is my version of my story yeah this is what i think happened enjoy but of course they would never do that they present it like it's being made um you know by uh you know who made cheap fast and out of control it was the uh the famous documentarian who'd use that crazy camera, where he hides inside the camera and talks to his subjects.

Wait, I don't know Crazy Fast and Out of Control. I don't even know that documentary, to be honest with you.

He made the Fred Leuchter documentary, too.

Now I feel like I'm going to...

I'm not doing it, and I think you should leave. No, he made... Wasn't it like... I think it was Dr. Death talking about Fred Leuchter. You know, the... Oh, God. My internet

just went down, by the way. He's the super...

Oh, boy. Oh, boy. By the way, we're not talking about, I want to say, oopsie coin is just absolutely it's it is shattering, shattering the the ceiling of crypto right now. No, you know, the guy who he Errol Morris, Errol Morris. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Boy, I love it when I'm just trying to drop a documentary film reference. And then I just completely didn't he make. OK, can we can I if the Internet's back, did you just remember that?

No, no, I had to look at it. And the thing is, I knew in the back of it.

Did he make Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, and also something called Dr. Death about Fred Leuchter?

I don't, but who's Fred Leuchter? Dr. Death isn't.

He was this weird guy who Errol Morris made a documentary about that I, like, really loved in college or something.

I thought Dr. Death was about Kevorkian.

Kevorkian, well, that's why I'm, that's where you're hearing an even additional pause in my voice and my shaky memory is anything called Dr. Death would definitely sound like a thing about Jack Kevorkian. And in fact, there probably were many things made about him that had that title. I feel like Fred Leuchter, like maybe he designed electric chairs or he designed, he had a very weird, he was in a very weird niche of stuff that he did that I think had to do with the end of people's lives.

It says that it follows the name of, it follows the story of Dr. Christopher Dunsch, D-U-N-T-S-C-H. No, that's the podcast about Christopher Dench who was lying and saying he was a competent neurosurgeon. He was actually screwing people together with like screws from Home Depot. I do know about that guy. They made like an oxygen series off of like they bought the IP from Wondery and made something called Dr. Death.

Right. That's right. Yeah. Okay. Look, what was the name you were throwing out there?

Fred Leuchter.

Leuchter. You're absolutely right about Leuchter. And also there's a drama series called Dr. Death. Oh, that must be based on the podcast. Sorry, the SEO on that one was messed up. When I think of Errol Morris, and I wasn't getting any closer there. I was also trying to fix my internet. But I think of The Fog of War and The Thin Blue Line are two big ones that I saw. I didn't see either of the two that you just mentioned. So I didn't have those as Errol. Oh, I also watched Tabloid. Oh, I forgot about that one. Oh, I didn't know about that one. That was kind of a later one.

Here's what I think is kind of interesting about this, if we can, for one moment, get the nose up on this situation. Yeah, that's rough. is that in, you know, I would say the pioneer in this space of these documentaries about someone that they also have the final say on is Michael Jordan, of course. The big Michael Jordan doc that everybody was talking about. And yet I do think that he sort of fumbled his own bag with that one. Like considering that he was trying to make a movie or a documentary, quote-unquote documentary series that ultimately sort of glorified him and that he had final say on it, A lot of people finished watching that and thought, he cray. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's funny to me that he didn't do a better job of controlling the narrative around himself. That tells you he might be a little disconnected from reality because he was trying to basically put forward a story of triumph. And I think most normal people that watch that were like, ooh, Michael Jordan's got some mental problems.

Yeah, and also, like, and I never watched that, but also, like, there was, like, kind of like, boy, he's, like, gambling with, like, wasn't it, like, low-wage workers or whatever?

The United Center, yeah, like the security guy at the United Center, who's Saturday Night Live, did an amazing parody of this, where they had, because he was, the guy at the United Center was this sort of, I don't know, maybe 40s guy who had this, like, blonde, very curly, kind of long hair, like a really distinctive look and kind of vibe, and in the quote-unquote documentary, he's gambling with, like, Michael Jordan, you know, they're throwing dice and stuff, and it's also kind of stressful, because Michael Jordan has infinite resources, and this guy works at the United Center. and SNL had Heidi Gardner play the guy and she did such a funny version of this dude trying to be chill while he's losing everything he owns to Michael Jordan over a meaningless dice game

oh yeah that is a good point that like sometimes that's why I'm not even saying like let's make a lot of things by the way can I just also say while you and I were trying to figure out the Errol Morris thing I'm trying to get my internet up and running and the light went out in here for some reason one of you and i aren't even using our cameras now but i always have two ring lights on me even when the camera's off luke because i wanna be in pictures and uh while everything is going on this light just flicked off this light that i have on every single day flicked off on me and now it's like i just feel i feel so discombobulated and just all of this was happening all of my senses were going down my internet sense was going down i couldn't think of errol morris's name i couldn't think of any other documentary that he did but i had a feeling we're talking about the same person the light went out in here and it just sort of feels

very weird right now i feel very out of would it would it make you feel better if you learned that your old pal luke actually got a few of the fred leuchter details correct yes and i'm sorry that i

got i did not help you with that at all no i was like throwing you the movie is called mr death okay so it's not dr death why i was getting problems okay yeah i was giving you the wrong

search term uh he is a holocaust denier so uh if i had my bell here i would ding it that's not also ding that anyway he was uh not for that point of view but for the fact that uh that he exists i guess i don't know what i would be a good point uh he also um in this documentary he is um prior to the documentary's publication he was contracted by authorities of several u.s states to improve

the designs of instruments for capital punishment lights working again yeah so good guy good guy well he also did the one on um uh but up but up but up the the the secretary of defense rumsfeld right he did he did a rumsfeld one that i saw oh yeah i already mentioned that the fog of

war that was that one yeah yeah did you but do you know about and then i swear to god we got to get

off morris was fog of war him wait well hold on i'm taking a look here because he also did one called the the unknown known i think that was maybe that was him so was fog of war um i just wanted to see if it was uh robert s mcnamara was fog of war oh okay yeah and then he later on he did um he did the

Unknown Knowns or whatever that one was about Rumsfeld.

The thing that Rumsfeld famously said. We've got the fog.

Yes, that was Rumsfeld, yes.

So did you know, though, okay, because I've gotten so much wrong about Errol Morris already in this show, let's do one more thing. Doesn't he have this crazy device that he's built for interviewing his subjects so that they're, I don't know if it's that they're looking at themselves, but he has this whole box that's got a mirror in it that the camera is mounted in.

it's his interview machine this rings a bell and i never knew much about it i always knew errol morris is the guy his thing it seemed like for a while was you wouldn't see him but you would hear his questions off camera and off mic which was like really his style and i think i'm looking this up this is not me pretending i know this shit but i think this has to do with something he developed called the interatron which is amazing that's amazing that's what i was thinking of the interatron the interatron for conducting video interviews allowing interviewers and subjects to make eye contact with each other while looking directly at the camera lens so in other words they can have a realistic conversation with somebody but you're looking right at the camera

lens so it's the opposite of what i was describing what it is is errol morris is having a face-to-face conversation with the interview subject but it's actually being picked up on the camera because normally you'd like for instance when i'm doing interviews with people for cbs it's i'm doing the opposite i'm always saying to them just go ahead and ignore the camera and we'll just have a conversation and i'm trying to really maintain direct eye contact with the person because we're not looking into the camera but errol morris wanted to have the person who's being interviewed staring right into the camera but feeling like they're talking to a person talking which is when the interrotron the ominously named interrotron comes in that's it boys throw them in the

interrotron we'll get our answers it says it's achieved by uh taking a modified teleprompter setup that puts the interviewer's face displayed on a monitor right in front of the camera lens so the camera lens can shoot through it so you're looking right at a screen it looks like you're looking at a video prompt of the person's face who's interviewing you but you're actually when you're looking at the face you're looking at the camera and also it's reversed for the interviewer

as well it doesn't seem actually that hard to build now that i think about it because all it is is a teleprompter but instead of words on there it's somebody's face but that's exactly

what a teleprompter does yeah kind of reversed though yeah or no no no not not reversed actually yeah this is interesting i'm looking at diagrams of it here it's pretty cool so uh anyway we did good work here and the nice thing is um everybody's phones are nice and intact yes that's

our bitcoin we need to invest in we need to buy some sort of phone repair kiosk at a mall centrally relocated to our listeners. And then we've got to vertically integrate this, Andrew, so that when we cause them to break the phones, we then get paid to fix the phones. That's the billion dollar

idea right there. I feel like we can partner with Mint Mobile. I feel confident we can partner with

Mint Mobile on this. Sure. Absolutely. You know what Alaska Airlines did this morning, Andrew, that I have promoted already on the show and mentioned to you off air that I said was kind of dangerous was they moved up my flight my flight time this morning which i've never up that's a

moved up i was about to say that's a dangerous game and that's exactly what you've been saying

it's a dangerous game that is a very dangerous game you can't just do that i was shocked so my flight this morning from phoenix was leaving at 7 a.m phoenix time um 6 a.m seattle time and i I had my whole plan together down to the minute of, you know, I'm going to get up at exactly this time, which I'll just tell you. I was like, I have to be stepping out of bed at 630 because I have to be getting into the Uber at 650 because that will get me to Sky Harbor Airport at. No, sorry. I have to be getting up at 530 because I have to be getting into the cab at 550 because that will get me to Sky Harbor at six. exactly. I could check my bags. And, and then, so I wake up at when my alarm goes off, which is five 30. And I look at my phone to check what's going on with the flight thinking, well, maybe it's delayed and I get to sleep a little longer. And I'm looking at it and I go, this flight was never scheduled for six 55. It was always scheduled for seven. Like, am I crazy? Have I lost my mind? And luckily I wasn't, it wasn't one of those mornings where I was cutting it so close. I was planning on snoozing one time. My thing snoozes for seven minutes. I had decided that i was allowed to snooze it until 5 37 but i didn't avail myself of the snooze because all of a sudden i'm like oh shit 655 that's a different time than i was planning on even if only by five minutes so get up jump in the car get there everything is fine i wasn't in any kind of danger but when i get up to the gate i say to the agent i go wasn't this flight at seven he goes yeah it was kind of light so we moved it up to 655 try to get out of here early and i thought okay but that could have created a cascading series of events. Like if I was running super duper late to where, you know, and again, this would never be ideal, but if I was running late to where I need, I was running to the, to the gate and you closed the gate five minutes earlier than I was expecting or planning, that would be really bad. Like, I feel like that you, as much as I enjoyed, I guess, getting to Seattle five minutes earlier, I do think that they should not be allowed to make it earlier than they said it was going to be.

yeah that i mean they must have to if they do that they must have to sit on the tarmac and at least make sure that everybody has boarded the plane before yeah i guess you're right as long

as they do a head count and everyone who had a ticket is on i guess you know what that's a good point but but what i would say is if you do the head count and not everyone is on there you got to give them that five minutes like but you know of before you close the door so that wouldn't exactly be seven it would be you know 650 or whatever like once you establish with us the customers that there is a time that the plane is leaving yeah if you can get everybody on and all every ticketed passenger is ready to go great but i just i guess i i was it freaked me out because there have been so many times when that five minutes is absolutely the the life and death death difference in terms of me the life and death of this particular ticket and flight for me um and I could see myself just having a full-on meltdown, which kind of did happen to me when I was trying to get out to Minneapolis for Livewire a couple months ago, and was running from one flight to the next, and was looking on my phone, and the flight was still there, you know, ready to take off, but hadn't, and then all of a sudden was just, like, had pushed the door back, and I think that might have been the case, too, where they just kind of went a little bit rogue. This was the other thing that I learned when I got on the flight this morning and there was like 30 people on the plane and it was super chill and there was plenty of room to spread out and everybody was in a good mood I think I might become like a crazy early morning flight guy because that's what I've been having to do this week just to kind of like make sure that there's no funny business I have been taking the earliest flights available from whatever city I'm leaving so if there's a problem I've got some other options i can try to bump to the next flight etc and um it the the getting up is really no fun but it sucks for like 10 minutes and then the actual experience of being in the airport at 5 50 instead of 11 50 or 250 it is amazing like it's it's so much better flying crazy early in

the morning well that's kind of the reverse of what happened when i was flying out of cleveland you know whatever a month ago or whatever that was now it was a late night flight it was like not super late but it was like 8 p.m. and I couldn't I wasn't sure if it had to do with like kind of the the shutdown issues that were still happening at airports at the time or what it was but the airport was dead it felt like being in school after school hours and only you and a couple of other people or the summer or the summer or something along those lines I go in and there's literally two individuals like two people flying alone in front of me at at the TSA checkpoint in other words it wasn't even a line it was like so casual I just walked up behind the person in front of me and I was just like through in a second and by the way this is I I don't know if this is absolutely genius or diabolical, but do you know what Cleveland Airport has right as you go through at least this particular TSA checkpoint? As you kind of walk, you go through security, and you're kind of in the place now where you're not in any particular gate, but you can start shopping for things. They have an Auntie M's pretzels along with an Orange Julius. Those two are often hand-in-hand, right, at malls?

I mean, smells for days.

Dude, you just walk in, and they were kind of closing up shop right as I walked in, and I wouldn't go in for that anyway, but my God, the smell of that as you walk into the airport. It's like, how could anybody resist that if you're into that kind of thing?

I think Auntie Anne's or whatever it is.

Auntie Anne's. Yeah, did I say Auntie M's? That's something else.

I think we all knew what we were talking about here. I think that's one of the best smells in the world. And by the way, I don't really, I don't generally go get one, although maybe I should start, but it is, like, I turn into, like, Pepe Le Pew on a, like, cartoon floating on a smell. It is so, I don't even know if it tastes good, but golly, does it smell good.

I was like, what is Auntie M's? And there's, like, one small bakery in Utah called Auntie M's, but there's, somebody posted in the Mandela Effect subreddit. Did mall pretzels Were they ever called Auntie M's When I was a kid I remember that there was a chain of mall pretzel stores Called Auntie M's Pretzels Recently I was in a mall with a few friends, and all we saw was Auntie Anne's instead. Am I alone on this? And other people are saying Auntie Anne was Dorothy's aunt in The Wizard of Oz. I knew I was thinking of some sort of cultural character. So I wonder if it was just one of those things that a bunch of us idiots just accidentally confused in our brains, and then it stuck with me all these years.

Well, I don't know if it's idiocy, but isn't that... God, haven't I learned any lessons today about guessing at things? Isn't that also, you know, Dorothy's... Yeah, that's what the first person says. Ant's name in the Wizard of Oz?

Yeah, it says, Antiem was Dorothy's aunt in the Wizard of Oz. Yeah, that was the first thing I read there.

So I could see how, as a kid, you see an Auntie Anne's, and you've got Wizard of Oz on the brain. That would be pretty quick. What about Famous Amos? Did you have Famous Amos when you were growing up?

That rings a bell, but what is it?

He was a cookie guy, but he had some kind of a cool bootstrappy story where he, I feel like he, I don't know if it was later in life where he had just sort of had a bunch of different business ideas that hadn't panned out, but he was just like this dude who decided to make a cookie empire, and he started baking these cookies, and people loved him. And then I feel like you couldn't go in a mall without seeing a famous Amos. And he was like always, like he was very in the branding of the famous Amos cookie enterprise as well.

Wallace Wally Amos was his name.

I bought some cookies in South Beach the other night. Not on the TBTL card, on my own card, Andrew. It's okay. We can buy you a cookie. I was walking home from getting pizza with with listener Dan and his 11 and I was walking down South Beach and it was like everyone is just wilding out like by which I mean there's a million bars and like 24 hour restaurants. It seems to be the last bastion of stuff really popping off, maybe outside of Vegas. Like I feel like most big cities, even New York City, nothing's open after 11 anymore. It's just the pandemic just changed that for everybody. And the businesses realized, you know, well, you know, there are bars that are open past 11. But just energetically, I feel like we've never gone back to the pre pandemic energy in a lot of these cities. And South Beach seems to have really bucked to the trend. There's all kinds of stuff going on. There's young people out on the sidewalk. It's a warm night. People are partying. People are drinking. The smell of cannabis is thick in the air. And I'm walking through all of this with no interest in any of that debauchery But I do want a little sweet treat before I go to bed to get up at 5 in the morning to go to the airport Like I couldn't just go back to my hotel and get in bed and call it I needed a little reward And I'm walking by Insomnia Cookies So I went into Insomnia Cookies And I was like, am I allowed to buy, can I buy two cookies? And the lady was like, yeah, of course i was like okay because i have all these crazy packs of there's the i think there's kind of two cookie brands that are sort of vying for supremacy and one is called crumble cookies and one is

called insomnia cookies okay hold on one second i'm sorry i kind of lost the thread because i wasn't sure if you were being coy there for a second insomnia cookies this is just a regular

bakery or is this some sort of a weed bakery oh no no not a weed bakery okay i didn't think so

it didn't seem like that would be what you were into but when you said insomnia cookies i thought

that's just the name oh okay it's a chain they're all over okay and like they're yeah they're kind of everywhere in america now i get the sense that there may be a relatively affordable franchise to buy into the insomnia cookie people um and um and so but it's just weird like i guess it's not weird it's just you walk in and they have like all these different crazy variety packs of these cookies that you can buy, and, you know, the cookies are, some of them are really over the top with how they're made and stuff like that, and I just wanted two chocolate chip cookies. And I was like, am I allowed to just buy, like, I didn't know if it was a membership club or something, if I had to, like, if there was a minimum, if there was a mandatory minimum of how many cookies I needed to buy.

I wouldn't be surprised in this day and age. Well, you have to join our cookie club to buy the cookies. It's like the Adobe software of cookies. Yeah, right, yeah.

You can never own the cookies, Andrew, but you can join the cookie club.

Yes, you can rent the cookies.

I was, yeah, I was so, like, I have never gotten cookies from this place. And so I went in and I was like, am I allowed to buy two cookies? And the gal was like, yeah, of course. I buy two cookies. I get a thing of milk. And I want to say that was $20 plus. Yeah. Two cookies. And they weren't, by the way, they weren't enormous cookies. They were, you know, they were, like, they were decent size. But it wasn't like I was buying a wheel-sized cookie or something. It was two fairly standard cookies that were pretty yummy and some milk. I'll tell you what, though. You know who I still think rules the chocolate chip cookie game? And I will say this. I don't care who hears it.

Is this going to be a major store brand? Can I say? And I really hope we're in sync on this. I don't like fighting over.

people's taste in foods but i'm hoping you're like me and you like a cookie that is going to bend and not break so i'm hoping that you're thinking like soft batch or something along

those lines i am talking about the mcdonald's hamburger corporate oh i've never had one of theirs we've talked about this my god i have been known while driving home from live wire late on a thursday night listening to philosophy talk on opb to pop into the mcdonald's on the way back to my house and get a 13er of those cookies because they keep probably because they're full of some ungodly chemicals but upon first eating they are so delicious they are just like they have perfected that kind of ooey gooey soft delicious chocolate chip cookie thing but then what's amazing is because i don't eat 13 in a night i'll put the remainders the leftovers as it were i'll put those in like a ziploc bag i'll just leave them on the counter they don't go stale they are totally edible they get a little more firm but just just the right amount you could

just nibble on those for a whole week you know what i'm as i said soft batch i was thinking i remember i feel like i remember when soft batch cookies were sort of new they were like you know advertised as like they're just like soft and chewy out of the package like but as if they had just been made and i don't know like i struggle with these brands that i grew up with i don't know if they were just they seem better in my memory or if my palate changes or just my standards change but i also think we've talked about this on the show because there have been articles about how the products themselves also especially when it comes to food products they're just being made with cheaper less real stuff these days and i'll bet you if i i don't know the last time I had a soft batch cookie, but I'll bet you I don't like them as much as I think I do. I just feel like I have this recent memory of having a store-bought cookie like that, and it just seemed like it was made of...

Kind of chemically.

Chemically artificial cookie stuff. Not sugar and, you know...

McDonald's, probably because they still bake them there, you know, in the store. Granted, they come in some frozen puck of God knows what. But, like, that's my Ted Koppel impression. some kind of a frozen puck of god knows what yeah but like i know what you mean i got some uh where did i i had some cookies that i i'm can you tell that i've been on a sweet treat spree lately i feel like i've been eating cookies all over america recently and i forget where it was but i yeah i i had a cookie like i bought a cookie somewhere or some cookies and it was that same kind of thing like they were pre-made like in a package you know maybe it was at the little gift shop at the hotel or something somewhere and the thing was they tasted they had that chemical taste

yeah and feel right it's almost like it feels like it's made of crystals that's what i was trying to say before you don't it doesn't feel like it's made of like flour and sugar if it's like if you like you're like oh yeah this is chewy but it's like uh but what is this it seems

more like a chemical crystallized thing and yet i kept eating them and that was like i was like i would take a bite and i would go i don't really care for the taste of this then i would have

another bite just to make sure yeah right i don't know they were all gone yeah

all right let's thank some donors these amazing folks are donating dough to tbtl and that is the way this whole thing works it's a hundred percent listener supported it's the only way this can happen let me tell you thanks to folks like douglas del paggio in san francisco california

thank you douglas are you feeling better now that luke's back on the west coast

i think i i speak for everyone on the west coast uh when i say it's mixed it's a mixed feeling there's a certain relief and a certain terror that i may come to their house and try to talk

about fred loik dirt yeah while eating yeah well eating a cookie i'm not enjoying yeah yeah exactly

i left my heart in san francisco who does that song you turn me on to them it's okay i still

live in la oh the um the oh geez man the errol the errol morris's errol morris and the swingers it is it's like the only song i know by them so i need to do a little bit of searching that is a good song though yeah you can i dig kind of a trippy kind of almost like it almost feels like an old um feels sort of like a uh like a kind of a a a 60s song but it was made like what five years

ago or something right yeah i really like them i really like douglas del paggio as well thanks douglas thanks to morgan madison in seattle washington morgan you've done so much for the show i only ask one more thing do something for my other show come see us at live

where tonight or don't thank you very much thanks to susan rotschafer in st paul minnesota hey hey these are seattle and st paul these are hot zips very hot i mean honestly like forget hot ones forget eating chicken wings and getting real these are hot zips there um that guy the hot ones guy was one of the hosts of the macy's day parade this year oh you know what you just did

Sorry, I'm not trying to.

I called it the wrong thing.

The Macy's Day Parade. It was funny because I was writing a show description. It's a Thanksgiving Day Parade of Macy's or something? It's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. But when I was typing it out the other day for TBTL, I was like, you know, I think people call it the Macy's Day Parade. We've probably explored this on the show, but it's the Thanksgiving Day Parade. There isn't a thing as Macy's Day.

You're right. You're absolutely right. That guy from the Hot Ones was one of the, he was like the field correspondent for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. And somehow that felt to me like he had just, you know, that's like, that's peak acceptance of the Hot Ones franchise.

Yes. You know what I mean?

It's like, it's, I don't know, somehow it signifies that you've been fully embraced as one of the voices of a generation. Yes, you are. When it comes to interviewing people. You've made it. You've made it big time. And I'm jealous because I feel like, you know, in my various media jobs, we've tried, they had me playing ping pong with Mike Huckabee back in the day trying to go viral and get people out of the interview box and none of it worked.

They should have made a biopic about you called Wonder Boy or whatever that shit is called. I told you I saw the trailer for that movie. I thought it was a, I thought it was a parody. There is a movie out now that is a it's like a sports documentary about somebody playing table tennis and it is like Marty Supreme.

Yes. It's like Mr. Show. So excited about that movie.

You you are, but it's not a comedy, right? Like it's no, it's made by the safety.

It's made by Josh Safdie. You know, I'm a big Safdie head. I think I mean, listen, I don't know. I don't know if it'll be good or not, but I actually I have I have high hopes for it. It's basically the story of it's based on a real guy who was like there was this whole kind of ping pong scene in New York City in the like 60s. And there was a guy named Marty. I forget his last name wasn't Supreme, but something. And he was like the best ping pong player in the world. But nobody cares or cared. And so it's sort of based on him or whatever. I'm just a Chalamet guy. And also I like the Safdie brothers. So I'm I think I went into watching the trailer with a different set of eyes. Like, basically, it's corny, but I just trust them that it's corny, but something good is going to happen, as opposed to, like, if you told me it was made by Michael Bay, and I saw the same trailer, I would have been like, oh, we get it.

I didn't know that it was one of the Safdies, and I kind of can't keep them apart, right? I'm not as deep into that world. It's not both of them either, by the way. Yeah, because they don't do that together anymore.

I think it's the more direct—I'm confused on my Safdies as well.

Yeah, and I couldn't tell you which Cohen does which either at this point.

That was my safety school, Marty Supreme. That's pretty good.

But I will be honest with you. I ran out to get like – I remember I ran out of the theater for a second during the trailers to get some napkins or something that I had forgotten. And I come back in, and the trailer's already running, and I had no previous knowledge of this project. And I really can't explain it. But for people who watched Mr. Show, I hope you understand what I'm saying. It was like Bob and David were going to like, hey, let's take a parody with all of the usual tropes of a biopic. And you know me, like I'm I'm medically allergic to biopics and all the tropes in there. Like it is just so cringe to me. And you're right. Maybe in their hands it'll be better. Maybe this is just a bad trailer. But I come back into the theater and I'm watching this. It's like, you know, I I don't I have no idea what any of the lines were or anything, but it just sort of seemed like it was kind of like I'm going to show them. I've waited my life for this moment. but then they're playing ping pong and i'm like totally well played bob and dave well played i

agree with you that like the the trailer is weirdly like it definitely seems like they're trying to broadcast as much as they can like they are trying to create like the you know the holiday hit you know what i mean a family a movie for the whole family to enjoy and like it definitely there's nothing arch about it coming from the guys that made uncut gems or one of the guys or good times with robert pattinson which is an amazing and very edgy movie you would love that movie by the way yeah it's it's it's really really well done like it's it's pretty funny because you're right marty's now now let me say this and this is the last thing i'll say about marty supreme but gregory murdoch in kuna idaho has authorized me to have to do five more minutes of marty supreme content thank you what i do find what i've yeah thank you gregory thank you mostly for creating a

opening for me to keep going on this i actually was going to bring this up on the show what i will what i will give them credit for is they did a really clever bit of um i guess you'd say earned media or sort of like what they did was they released this kind of zoom meeting which involves a bunch of the producers of the film marty supreme and timothy chalamet you know you can obviously picture this it's your typical there's multiple boxes and people but what's funny about it is it's like maybe 18 20 minutes long and in it timothy chalamet is proposing the weirdest and dumbest ideas like it's obviously all kind of improvised like you saw the one where it's like tim robinson and uh john daly and they were like pitching uh the postal service yes yes new band

members or whatever it is that they're doing yes and they had the postal service folks there and

actually there yeah it was a little bit like that but it was but it was actually pretty funny like i think timothy chalamet is actually a pretty kind of funny interesting guy and he's talking about like this particular color of orange that he wants all the branding to be but it's like it's getting so insane with how he's talking about orange and he's got this one screen like this this square of orange that he's trying to find on his computer to show everyone who's obsessed with it and blimps he wants a lot of blimps and then after this thing drops like a week later there are marty supreme orange blimps over various american cities including la where it flew over addy's house and like and then like i'm not doing a good job describing it but what they they basically just took like a marketing thing and they actually executed it like in a in a pretty funny clever way where then it's just like chalamet is standing outside under one of the blimps and he's going like the blimp was a good idea like this the the tone of it i thought was was pretty funny and and i'm pretty well done so anyway well this is the first time that i realized it's a

safety project so i assume it can't be as corny as i thought it was in that i don't know but i don't i'm not that familiar with their catalog either like uncut gems i saw which is a it's a pretty light that's kind of like a rom-com i guess that was them sort of yeah playing around feel good a feel good hit do you consider do you consider uncut gems to be a holiday movie that's what i want to know um a dark holiday of the soul but like that was a movie that i mean i really liked that i'm really glad i saw it but i'll never watch it again because it gave it kind of a and again it's not that i didn't like it it's not that i am disrespecting it in a certain way that's me saying this movie was really really well made and it did its job so well that i can't go back into that heart of darkness and just like yeah and that and that rhythm of the movie that just constant cocaine-y rhythm of that movie is just like yes gets on top of literally and figuratively

I like to watch it because I think I have undiagnosed ADHD.

That's what your doctor prescribed.

It's either that or the cocaine. It calms me somehow, or I don't know, I really like, but I know what you mean. That movie is just so tense.

But it's not cliche. So that's my point there. So maybe I just did totally read that wrong. I don't know.

But also, you know, it's weird. It's like sometimes I think also filmmakers just hit a point where they just want to make a really like broadly appealing big hit movie, you know, like maybe whichever. I think this is Josh Safdie. I'm going to say I'm going to just I'm going to call it. It's either Josh Safdie or Fred Leuchter. I think it's Josh Safdie. Maybe he just wants to make his Forrest Gump. Yeah. Right. You know, like a big old predictable movie of triumph starring a likable person that like wins an Oscar and everyone enjoys it. You know what I mean? Like maybe he doesn't want to make uncut jobs all the time. So that could also be I don't want to vouch for this movie that I haven't seen yet, but I think I'm giving it more. I'm giving it way more slack before having seen it because of the people associated with it.

Well, I mean, I just typed in Marty Supreme Reviews, and IndieWire says I should, first of all, disable my ad blocker, but it has a real valentine of a headline. Marty Supreme Review, Timothee Chalamet's legendary performance anchors an exhilarating American epic about the true cost of greatness. So I don't know how much we trust IndieWire.

I'm going to ask my mom what it's getting on Rotten Tomatoes. What is it getting on Rotten Tomatoes? Then we'll know.

What does Susie think? Yes.

Yes. What does Rachel Wagner Marchetti of Ambridge, Pennsylvania think? Wow. Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

Is there any change? I mean, I don't want to disrespect that town. Is it possible that it's a Cambridge? Is it a Cambridge that lost its sea somewhere?

I don't think so, because the A is capitalized. I think it's an Ambridge.

I think, well, I don't, I hope they didn't take Ambridge to my suggestion that it's a typo. Love it. Goodness, love, love, love.

Rachel, have you ever thought of that joke, living in Ambridge, PA? Thank you, Rachel, very much. Appreciate you. And then Kevin Connolly is over there in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you, Kevin. You hear me trying to remember. What do we, what's it?

What's Cincinnati's nickname? It's not the Charm City. Sin City. No? Sin, ooh, boy. Do you think they were mad in Cincinnati when Vegas got Sin City like 200 years after Cincinnati was established? They actually should do... Be kind of mad about that.

Or they should call themselves Sin City with a C, though, right? Like, welcome to Sin City. They're famous for their chili, and I will say it's like served a specific way. And I heard some people, and I...

Skyline chili, right?

I think Skyline is maybe the chain that made it famous

The Queen City Oh, we've been down this road

It can't be bigger than Columbus though Is Cincinnati bigger than Columbus? Because that's what I always think the rule of thumb there is The Queen City is usually a nickname for a city that is larger than the state capital We've had this conversation recently

But what I know about Cincinnati is that Yes, they should start calling themselves Sin City That would be funny If they get a roller derby team, you know that's going to be the name. Ooh, yeah.

They probably do.

Dibs on that for them. And also, we know that Kevin Connolly lives there, which is a big plus for Cincinnati as well. Hey, thank you so much to all of our donors for making TBTL happen. We couldn't do this without you.

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, Andrew, do we have any V-mails or e-mails that we can enjoy before we head off? I was going to say slide on down that dinosaur, except I got a little more time in the quarry here doing live wire tonight. But then eventually I'll be sliding off that dinosaur into the weekend. What do we got in the voicemail department?

We have a voicemail here. This is a voice memo that was sent in to us. Actually, a lot of people sending in voice memos, which is cool. If you want to record something on your phone, email it to me. Don't send it as a text. It gets a little bit garbled via text. But you can email me, voicememosandrew at tbtl.net or call the voicemail line 206-414-TBTL. Talia called and left us this story, which I have not heard yet, Luke. I think you previewed this. Yes, I've heard this. And it was related to the fact that you had temporarily misplaced your headphones, right? Yes. Your AirPods. I always have to think about what they're called. They're not Air Buds. They're AirPods. You'd left them at a desk at a hotel. And when you went back to get them, the distrustful or mistrustful employee made you turn on your phone, show that they were connected, then play audio through them. It seemed very invasive to me, to be honest with you. And then I believe that is why Talia left us this voicemail.

Hey, guys. This is Talia in Sydney, Australia. And I was just listening to Luke's AirPod duplication investigation situation.

Nice call.

And it reminded me of an experience I recently had with TSA at LAX. So I was flying home from the U.S. a couple of months ago with my two little kids. And we were all very tired and very overwhelmed. And they are very cute, but they are very distracting. And they have so much stuff. oh my god kids have so much stuff and so we're trying to get through tsa and we're like you know those people that are holding up the line um which is not how i travel by myself please and thank you um and so i get everything through i get fold up the stroller i put that through i've sent the diaper bag through i got the carry-on through i take out the laptops i take out the ipad do the whole thing i'm carrying the baby through the metal detector and it's just beeping and beeping and beeping and we the the guy's like try again and i'm like oh my phone my phone is in my pocket i'm so sorry so i hand it over the little box to the woman who is manning the womaning the x-ray machine and she puts it in a bin and puts it on the x-ray or the conveyor belt and sends it through the x-ray machine and i walk down to the other end with the baby in my arms and obviously they have to pull the diaper bag aside because they have to you know investigate everything in my diaper bag and of course I forgot that I had a full bottle of water and the guy is like is this water for you or is it for the baby and I'm like oh it's definitely for the baby um so we get through all that he swabs everything blah blah blah gives me my stuff and he's like okay you're all good to I'm like, thanks very much. So we get the carry on and put the iPad and the laptop and everything back in the bag and get the stroller and unfold it and put the baby in the stroller. And we've moved over to like a separate area. And I'm like, okay, good. We made it. Let me get out my phone and find out what gate we're walking to. And my phone is not in my pocket. So I remember that I've just handed it to the TSA agents and I run back over to the line that we were in and I'm like, Oh.

I'm sorry. I left my iPhone. And the gentleman in a U S government uniform holds out my iPhone to me and says, unlock it. And my God, Luke talks about how fast your brain can go somewhere else inside of three seconds. I have a lot of what we would consider previously free speech on that phone. And I'm like, Oh my God, my kids are Australian and I'm American and I'm about to be detained and and i just look at the man and i say why and he says so i can make sure it's yours and i was like oh okay i unlock the phone and he's like have a great fight thanks man anyway

power out that was a good story i was on the edge of my seat i didn't know exactly where that was going and boy it's all so chilling exactly like the fact that talia when the when the you know

government official is like i need to see your phone the thought is so that they can go into my you know i don't know like my private messages to people or my instagram posts or you know they can basically thought police me yeah and take my children away and disappear me like that that's legitimately where her brain went in that moment of time instead of what was probably the more likely what turned out to be the scenario which was like just trying to make sure this is your phone like it is you're right it's chilling because i think all of our brains are going there in different ways and of course we're all in different levels of risk for this kind of stuff and exposure but the fact that that we have to be so we have to be worried when someone who's wearing a government uniform asks us for some kind of thing around our phone because we think that it might involve us being you know sent away it is uh yeah and some of us way more and just to state

the obvious some of us weigh more than others you know like that still doesn't affect me the way it affects a lot of other people uh most other people so um yeah that well i'll tell you i'm glad that

you made it home okay and um and that the kids made it back to australia that is that's ambitious because you and i have flown to australia as grown adults and i had three bathroom accidents on the plane yes it's true it's true you know um as a at that time 40 something year old so it's just like you know bringing those kids all the way to and from australia that is uh that's an undertaking

Yeah, I remember, it's so private, we shouldn't talk about it, but trying to balance you on that little diaper-changing shelf in the tiny little airplane bathroom when I was trying to clean you up, it was difficult. It was difficult. I'm not trying to make you feel bad about it, and we got it done.

Well, I'm in the 99th percentile for height and weight for being a baby. Yes. So they don't really design those. Is there a koala on those things? There's like a little animal in those things, I think, right? Yeah.

Is a koala a marsupial? I feel like whatever it is, it's a marsupial, but I could be wrong.

I've got, you know what? I've got this Errol Morris documentary about marsupials that I've been meaning to watch that I'll probably watch maybe on Sunday when I'm home, and I'll report back on Monday, okay? I'll have the whole thing figured out.

It's a marsupial. It's a marsupial. My God, what a great way to go out on a perfect Friday.

and do not say one more word no neither of us i have to say like five more words but that's it because we've got to end on a high note uh all right that's going to bring us to the end of this broadcast week thank you so much for spending the time with us we're going to be back here monday with more imaginary radio for all of you uh so please if you can join us for that in the meantime everyone have a really great weekend see some of you at live wire tonight benaroya hall For the rest of you, again, stay safe Take care of yourselves, go Seahawks And please remember, no mountain too tall And good luck to all

Power out