Muse

Are you rolling? Is that how you say action? Do you say action?

You know what? We're having a conversation and ignore the cameras and it's just us having a conversation like we did a half an hour ago when we met.

Can you just, do you mind saying action just before you start? Just to, I've always wanted to be.

Okay. Action is usually reserved for film shoots when they do film because it actually syncs up the sound and the film and we're shooting video today. so we don't really need to do that but if you insist we could do that it's just one word if

you don't mind okay yeah what are you still on the nra mpr was it nra it's national public radio are you familiar do you get it down uh in the they play it out in the like college towns in north carolina npr and stuff and i i mean it's to me it's a bunch of junk tbtm Like on the George Lopez show, I saw the behind the scenes of George Lopez, and it was on Entertainment Tonight, and before he started talking, somebody was like, action. So if you, I mean, I'm not George Lopez or anything like that, but I, if you just do it, I think it might kick it in a little bit better.

My dream is to sail around the world on a catamaran with two members of every cat race. and share my love with cats for all the humans to see around the world.

Well, if it makes you feel better, I'd rather be up here with you than down there with those teenage people with their memes and their hashtags and Drake, Drakes.

You know, this is beginning to seriously undermine my self-esteem. Well, all right, hello, good morning, and welcome everybody to a Wednesday edition of TBTL, The show that just might be too beautiful to live.

This song goes out to all the coffee lovers of the world.

My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Welcome to my world. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where we are still dealing with this absolutely terrible, wet, windy weather. It's just... You know you like to get wet, though. The mighty Columbia is mighty brown right now. I think some of the local rivers, 13, 14 feet above their normal levels. I could see waterfalls that have formed across the river from me in the hills of Rainier, Oregon. Quite a time out here. Glad I'm inside podcasting to you all on episode 4,616 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. um the uh u.s state department has decided that they are going to change their official font because they think the one that they've been using is too woke there's a waste of time to do that woke fonts did not know that was a thing now i know it's a thing and i'm going to tell you about it also um the seattle seahawks are playing a game this sunday against the indianapolis colts and indianapolis is uh looks like they're going to be um uh starting a 44 year old quarterback oh my god that's so crazy why who is who's already had at least one retirement party and it's got me uh nervous i don't like it one bit i'll tell you why I'll probably also tell this guy why He is the longest running Cobra of the show Maybe best known for his depictions Of the tall ships I overheard some people talking about him at the Eagles the other day

Mmm mmm mmm I'm flying in hot for that hottie

He's Andrew Walsh and you're joining me right now Good morning my friend

Was that an actual eagle that said that about me? Is that why they're flying in? Yes, that makes total

Speaking of birds, Andrew

Oh, you're drinking from your pita mug So they didn't swap it out with the PETA hat that you wanted instead?

No, I was kind of hoping that they had heard that and they were going to send me the hat. Didn't you actually even request it?

So PETA reached out to you recently and said, hey, we heard that you've been using... And you've got a theory about this, by the way. Oh, yes, I do. Yes, I indeedly do. So you got a note from some PR person, some press person, I would say, at PETA, saying hey we heard that you have been employing those idioms that we changed to that involve animals but we made them less cruel on animals this is something we've been talking about for 10 years now i fell in love with this idea instead of uh what killing two birds with one stone the mug that you have says feeding two birds with one scone this was something that pita had encouraged us all to try beat a dead horse say feed a fed horse which i like feed a fed horse they didn't have that's my least favorite of them by the way i don't

I don't mind that one. They have not adopted my entry into the canon, which would be, I don't have a Doug on that flight. I think it's wonderful. Elite level. But anyway, so they reached out to you and said, hey, we heard you've been using this. We'd like to thank you. You've been using our terminology, so we're going to send you a mug that says, feed two birds with one scone. And you were telling me about this on the show a couple of weeks ago, and you said, the thing is, I've been looking at their gift shop and while the mug is fine, there's some other things in the gift shop I'd rather have right? Like there was a what did the hat say? Did it just say PETA on it that you wanted?

No, it did it say who let the dugs out?

That would be good

I forget now what was on, I don't think it was, I don't think it said PETA because one of the things that I pointed out was to actually wear a PETA hat around to me means I better have my uh you know i better be treating animals as ethically as possible i better not have leather on my shoes you know what i mean like that's really representing yourself as a as a in my mind a real champion of the uh of our non-human friends and so anyway whatever it was i just thought it was a cool i think it was an animal of some kind i just liked it oh it did have an animal

on it yes and uh and yeah and i don't know if a lot of people don't know this but PETA is a um somewhat controversial organization and I saw some listeners chattering about it saying oh I don't like PETA they have some really bad policies people don't know about you and I I've mostly stayed out of that but I did see one interesting thing in this conversation that people were having online about it which was apparently PETA also reached out to our friends over at Text me back. Text me back. I want to say that. By the way, the hat says Rat Pack. Oh, right. It's got a rat on top of it. And it's got a cute rat on it. Yes, yes. Sorry, I was blanking in. Text me back for a second. How insulting. Anyway, I was listening to that this weekend, by the way. But anyway, so apparently they also reached out to text me back.

They were on stage with me when you were at Vaughn's.

What are they like? Anyway. You know what? They're exactly the way you'd hope they would be. Oh, good. I'm so glad to hear it. But no, I do love them. But apparently if PETA reached out to them and also offered a mug or something, my guess is something that is related to something I've been seeing. Why do you have to take this away from me?

I thought I was the number one podcaster amongst extreme animal rights people.

You have the right to accuse me of sour grapes here because I have what they call sour grapes. Because I feel like I have been, of the two of us, I feel like I've been the larger champion. Like, PETA-ness aside, I just like the wordplay, and I feel like I've been a pretty big champion of using these new phrases, not out of any kind of radicalism, but just because it seems fun to me, and I like it. And I'm, like I said before, offering my own contributions to the new dictionary that we will all follow someday. But anyway, so obviously I'm over here burning, and I'm just looking for a way. I don't know if there's a word for that I'm looking for a way to take this joy away from you, Luke

And it's working, because what happened was And I can't log into my work email Because I hate Gmail so much I can't even tell you We have our at tbtl accounts But somehow I still have to use Gmail to get to my at tbtl account

Yeah, it's run through Gmail

It's locking me out Why is it locking you out, though? I don't know, because look When I go to gmail.com Which is how I get to my It says sign in. I click sign in. It says Luke at tbtl.net. Choose an account. I choose that account. Then it says enter your password, and it is supposed to be remembering my password from my fingerprint, but it doesn't remember my password. It's when I hit my fingerprint, whatever, and then I hit next, and then it says wrong password. Try again, or click forgot password for more options. This is a personal battle I have with Gmail. It's always trying to log me in under weird burner accounts and i usually i have issues with livewire because they use google docs and it's always like you don't have editing access but all that is to say what i was trying to check was the exact back and forth with me and this guy named wes because one of the things i did was asked him how did you get this number like how did you find out about tbtl mentioning it and he i said oh a listener must have tipped you off and he said no you have something like he goes no we've a few people here at peta that listen to your show mm-hmm that's what he said i remember that you texted

I was flattered by that. During the broadcast, I think, right? Exactly. You got a response right away.

Yeah, this show is a living, breathing organism, and things are happening all the time in real time. But I was sort of chuffed by that news. I like the idea of us having fans back there. But then your theory is that because they also sent a mug to Lindy and Megan and got a little earned media over there as well.

According to a listener, yeah, they addressed it on their show as well and were— And we're not into accepting the gift, apparently, because they are not big fans of PETA.

They're also anti-PETA.

What it got me thinking was we've been getting all these press releases recently. And these are the types of pitches we've gotten, of course, as media people our entire professional lives. But just saying, hey, I'm a big fan of fill-in-the-blank show that you work on. You know, I've been getting these as a producer of public radio shows or working on this show or what have you and my other podcasts. And for years, they've always tried to make it sound like they know more about your show than they actually do as sort of a way of getting in. And lately, we've been getting these like somewhat awkward, and I would say over the past year or so, these somewhat awkward emails are kind of like, hey, I really enjoyed your conversation about X, Y, or Z. And they like pick out one or two specific things as if in the opening graph, as if to say, we're real. We really listened to this show. now how about you have our guest on who has nothing literally i got one the other day that was something like we heard you mention animals kissing well how about you have our animal expert on or something along those lines although it's usually more of a stretch than that but what i realized was these podcasts that we do now which we used to just record an hour and a half of gibberish like this throw it out on the internet and somebody would have to listen to the whole thing to know what's inside of it. It's all being transcribed now automatically by, well, I'm sure these, you know, communications companies might have their own devices to do it, but also you can just, you can just log into Spotify and see a transcript. And also you can, I don't know if Spotify is transcribing it, but it's definitely dividing our show up into chapters, which some of which are just so hilarious. One of them the other day, somebody sent me with something like Luke and the Lonely Potato or something like that, which I don't even know how we got really onto that. But clearly what they're doing, and I'm guessing what PETA is doing, is just doing some sort of a search and scrubbing the internet for podcasts and other publications that are using their terminology and then maybe reaching out to those podcasts, podcasters like us or whatever, and saying, hey, we want to give you a mug. That's my guess. It could be that you have a lot of fans of PETA, Luke. I don't want to take that away from you, but maybe it's both.

Yeah, I'm texting right now with Lindy and Megan to find out if PETA is bad. They said they're beefing with PETA right now. They said, we mentioned that list of alternative sayings they put out. Oh, come on. Welcome to the party.

Yeah. Text me backers. Tell them about mine.

Okay.

No, don't, don't, don't, don't.

But yeah, so I think you're probably right. I think it was always unlikely that we had a huge fan base that back there that is probably more a very, a very, you know, again, I would say well constructed bit of earned media play from these folks. And that's something they're very good at. And look, I don't want to litigate this now because I don't know all the facts and I don't think you know all the facts. We know that some people don't like them. I would say generally that in my experience, the perfect being the enemy of the good is a problem. and I will give Pete a credit for at least injecting into the conversation at least a little bit more talk around like, hey, what's going on with the animals? And I think of that as a net positive. So that's kind of where I stand on this, admittedly somewhat under-informed, admittedly not a fan really of any of the design of this mug.

No, speaking of fonts, which we'll get into later. We're talking Garamond. They really blew out their font budget on that. I'm pretty interested, if you don't mind me, maybe you're already dead and I'm boring you back to death with this, but I did find the email that I sent you the other day that I just think is such a good example of clearly this is AI scanning or what they used to call it, kind of scraping the internet for certain keywords and then reaching out to us using an AI template. Like, clearly, I mean, everything we know about AI communication, in fact, I have a friend, a friend who listens to the show, so she will remain nameless, but she will also often send me screencaps of the fellas that she's talking to on the dating apps. And she's pretty familiar with the dating apps, but she's, like, identifying, she's like, look at this AI-generated stuff, and she's always calling them out. She's like, ah, you're using ChatGPT, and they're like, how did you know? and she's picking out stuff that i wouldn't have noticed i'm pretty unfamiliar with the the way people talk on those apps anyway because um as far as anybody knows i'm not on them but anyway this one to me is so so i got this email from i won't use her full name because i did google her and she does seem to be a real person um uh and it says hey andrew i could not stop smiling when you described your neighborhood's official coyote watch in the latest episode and the prairie dog's kissing photo was an absolute treat. And I'm like, what in the world are you talking about? And I'm Okay, well, I mean, I remembered the coyotes. There's a bunch of coyotes in the cemetery that I live by, and my neighbors are rightfully worried about that. That might have even been, well, no, I don't know how it came up. But it came up because our neighbors are freaking out about these coyotes. Then the prairie dog's kissing photo. I'm like, oh, later on in that show, we were talking about animals kissing, right, and the history of kissing.

Right, where they think it started.

And I actually was kind of bummed that day. I couldn't think of a good photo to use, nothing organic. came up in the conversation to use on our website. So I was like, let me find a rights-free photo of animals kissing. So I found prairie dogs. I don't even remember what it looks like. I vaguely remember cropping it and I'm making sure that we were allowed to use it. But this is such a weird sentence. I could not stop smiling when you described your neighborhood's official coyote watch in the last episode, comma, and the prairie dog's kissing photo was an absolute treat. It got me thinking about how much animals in our lives, whether wildlife or our own companions, shape our neighborhoods and daily adventures. You'll like this, Luke. I especially loved Luke's throwback to those 1990s awareness campaigns and how local critters seem to generate so many stories worth sharing.

Did I say that?

This is so clearly like, it's been kind of transcribed or summarized clearly by, that sounds like one of those Spotify chapters. 1990s awareness campaigns and how local critters seem to generate I'll bet you if we find that show on Spotify Spotify has called it the 1990s awareness campaigns chapter of our show or something I bet you you're right you know what's crazy? I was just going to say I won't even go in to pitch this person I don't want anybody specifically targeted here but then they're pitching an author no an executive producer at Animal Zone to come on the show and talk about his pit bull or something like that if you ever wanted to riff about coyote antics animal advocacy or even the art of keeping all those creatures creatures hydrated um this would make a memorable episode i'm just like wow that was really i believe chat gpt did almost all of the work there

and by the way did a vastly better job than most of the pr humans that i've dealt with in my life

from 1995 through 2000 i mean that is the crazy part is that that is actually if that's actually

a much better pitch than, wouldn't you say 95% of the pitches that we

get? That we used to get before all the AI was in there, you mean?

No, I mean, even now. Well, because here's what my inbox is full of. Again, I'm not able to access it, but it's incredibly general press releases and emails that are not even, like, the person and I've complained about this before, it's like, if you're going to send us an email trying to get your person on our show, take five minutes and listen to the show. And then you could reference specifically a couple things we said, or you could understand what kind of show we do it's amazing to me how little effort goes into these pitches most of the time and here we have somebody who's harnessed ai to go and scrape the internet for some detail about our show and to be honest with you that was i think a much better pitch than most of the ones that that land in my inbox anyway that are that are from a human being

who just hasn't bothered to listen to the show i'm unfortunately i can't find any more in because i guess i have my my trash empties uh too often so i can't find any more i do get a lot better i got a lot that are in that style now i don't know if i'm getting a lot of total generic ones i mean whatever i have three speaking of gmail i have three different gmail accounts for the different podcasts i work on and they're all getting spammed by this kind of stuff these days but there has been way more of a push at least that i've seen of like trying to make it sound like hey i know who you are i listened to the episode where you said lonely potatoes

Well, Andrew, I have some bad news for me Oh, no It sounds like you're exactly right Based on, I've been having a side conversation with Megan and Lindy And it sounds like exactly what happened to us happened to them I said, I think they are just scraping the transcripts of all the podcasts with AI to find mentions And Megan said, and I said, then pretending to listen to the show And Megan said, I think so, yes, ha, exactly I said, did someone named Wes say he was listening to Megan? in all caps yes for exclamation points and then megan says and he messaged us within like an hour of the episode coming out oh really and then megan said not very ethical in my opinion and i said effing wes and then i said people for the unethical treatment of podcasters oh i like now i am gonna beat a dead horse which i think that was over the line but um can we name our

show that people for the unethical treatment of podcasts sure why not but that's i mean i'm now wondering if west is even real andrew i will say that email that i read to you i i did do googling on the person who sent it whose name is in the signature and she has bopped around but in all of these very And I'm guessing that she will not hear this unless if I said her name, I'll bet you it could get back to her through some sort of scraping system. But she's somebody who has worked for a couple of different PR houses where all of the people sort of look alike. And just like very, very woman of a certain age working in PR and kind of writing articles that are press releases that get published in like very, very local kind of microblogs and stuff like that and works for a couple of firms here and there. But just sort of churns out kind of, well, I guess I would just say meaningless trash.

But I would just say the fact that Wes Was emailing them one hour After their show posted Either he is the world's biggest Text me back fan just going refresh refresh refresh Or Best case scenario he's getting An alert

Worst case scenario

He ain't even real He is also a bot that is programmed To send a very cordial email When he is alerted From some scraping system that PETA has been mentioned?

I don't want to call him. I don't think you've ever mentioned his full name on the show, but I do see somebody who works. So this is on LinkedIn. So unless people are going so far as to make fake LinkedIn for fake employees, which I don't think we're there yet in most, but I think Sports Illustrated might be doing that. But if this is that there is a Wes who works at PETA, who's a press officer with a last name begins with a B. I don't know if that. Good.

At least, I mean, again, I'm not able to access my email, because can the AI help me get back into my TBTL email account? Oh, I'm on Wes's Instagram page now, by the way.

It looks like a sweet guy.

Okay, good, good. I'm glad. Listen, I still think he lied to me by saying there are a lot of listeners to our show at PETA, which hurts. But I'm glad at least it was a human lying to me and not a sentient bot lying to me. Can you imagine the programming is, okay, it's all this sort of if-then propositions, and it's like, if the host says, how did you hear about it, then you say to them, oh, you have many listeners here at PETA. It's just taking me down this decision tree of responses from a bot, and I'm walking around 10 feet tall being like, we're the number one show at PETA.

Well, I don't know how self-conscious you feel about this. I don't even know how self-conscious I feel about this. But it seems now, if we're right about everything that we've said, if they're just scanning for mentions of PETA or getting alerts, like, I'm guessing this would pique Wes's interest, right? If Wes is getting an alert every time PETA is mentioned, and now he's getting PETA and Wes. And now we wait. And now we wait. We've laid our podcaster-y trap.

Will he hear it before we even posted the show?

That would be incredible.

Did we accept those cookies? That as this is being, is Riverside, Andrew, as we're talking to each other, is Riverside allowed to in real time transcribe this and sneak it out the back door to companies that would like to scrape this information for some sort of a financial benefit?

Do you remember that time I thought we were live? Because I didn't know how to use the Riverside.

I've never seen you more afraid of anything in your life.

We were practicing using Riverside to stream live for an upcoming live broadcast we were doing. I think that was our Tradio show. And we had never used our Riverside system in that way. We usually just use it to connect and record, to do these pre-taped shows that we do every day. Not pre-taped, but not live-streamed. And I was messing around with it, figuring out how it worked. But then by entering that world of live-streaming, apparently Riverside was defaulting to that. And you and I were doing a sound check. This is the last year, right? Or something like that. And all of a sudden it said, we're streaming live. And I freaked out. I hadn't freaked out like that probably since I worked in a radio station and thought I did something wrong.

You know what? I have to retract something that I said during a Hey Dummies video, which, by the way, I'll send you one of those this week. Oh, yeah. That'd be good. Tierra asked if we'd ever had a hot mic moment, and I said no, but I guess technically that was a hot mic moment, although I don't think anybody saw it or heard it.

I don't think – yeah, that is the one thing is I think it triggered it live, but I don't think it was actually – I think there was some other safety measure. I think it was stopped at the YouTube level or something like that. So I don't think anybody would have even been able to. But in that panicky moment, I had no idea. And I had just been talking so much crap about Tiara specifically. Remember, I was just unloading on you. You scorched the mic. It was not even hot, Mike. It was scorched.

It was melting in your hand.

It was so hot. And I'm just glad she didn't hear it.

Did I tell you that I am now sort of getting home delivery of the New York Times on Sunday because of a weird deal they were offering me?

Oh, my God. I think I took that deal years and years ago. You get, like, a good price on digital if you get the Sunday delivered?

Yes. I don't under— that business model at all but like i was well first of all i am now a hundred percent converted to the new york times cooking situation by the way i am i made this vegetable soup last night um that i got from there and uh and it's so convenient i mean i was a holdout for many years and you and televisions chris hayes were like what's wrong with you just pay two more

dollars and um i see why that's what you're a holdout i i didn't even realize that you that We had to pay more for the New York Times cooking app and all that stuff.

Yeah, that's the, like, you know, that's the premium account. That's the premium plus account includes texting. So I didn't have that. I was just, just give me the news and save all your games and your whatnot. But then I decided to upgrade because mostly I wanted the athletic. I wasn't getting that either, and I kept getting paywalled. So I upgraded. And now, by the way, that cooking app is phenomenal because you see something you want to make, and then you just hit save the recipe, and then it's in the app, and then you're at the grocery store, and you've got your whole list of ingredients, and you can favorite them, and you've got a whole list of things you want to make that's in one part of the app, and the things you have made, it's just very, very convenient. The next step for me is probably going to be to get a kitchen, a dedicated tablet computer in my kitchen for the purposes of recipes and cooking and things like that.

You know, I was thinking about that this weekend, if you don't mind me jumping in here, because I was cooking a couple of things this weekend that I needed to follow the recipe pretty closely. Even things I've made a million times, I'd like to have the recipe there, but I'm always using my phone for that. And I've just gotten used to it, I don't even think about it, because I'm usually using my phone in the kitchen to listen to a podcast through a Bluetooth speaker. The phone's there anyway, I'm scrolling through. This weekend, though, I was making something for a party, and it was something I'd never made before. Which, by the way, that is, like, my first rule of cooking is don't do that. Like, do not cook a recipe for the first time for others.

Yeah, that's rolling the dice.

Right. Really rolling the dice. And so, but I kind of cornered myself into doing this, and I tried it. It was these chicken satay skewers I wanted to take to this party. And they ended up being really, really good, by the way. It was so satisfying that everybody, but I had to make, like, a special peanut sauce that went along with it. And I had to kind of take some of the stuff over to the house to kind of finish the prep there or whatever. It was a whole thing. I had to wear a cooking shirt before at the very last minute changing into my party shirt. Luke, you would have been proud of my whole like. I love a good costume change. Oh, costume change right out the door wall with keeping the chicken hot as we leave. But all that is to say, for that chicken satay recipe, I was like, I better just print this thing out. I pulled a real Burbank. And I was like, you know, I have an iPad downstairs. I call him Dart Bot. I mostly just use it for recording podcasts with Genevieve and for scoring my dart games. But I remember that one of the selling points of an iPad for me way back in the day was, oh, I would see these photos of people in their nice kitchens just scrolling on their dedicated iPad for recipes. Why am I not using that instead of my phone? And I was really tempted. So anyway, I just wanted to say that I'm relating to this conversation, and you're going to move in that direction?

I'm tempted, Andrew, because, well, first of all, this is my current system. I print out a recipe, and then for some bizarre reason, I will tape it up to one of the cabinets in my kitchen, but I use that, like, blue kind of, like, painter's tape. Yeah, yeah. For some reason, I still have a roll of that in my junk drawer.

No, that's pretty good, though, right? Because it's pretty safe, too.

Yeah, it doesn't, like, stick to the cabinets or whatever, you know. It doesn't leave anything behind, but it's just this—if you were to happen into my kitchen when I'm mid-cooking project, you would just see me with, like, maybe multiple printouts painters taped up to the cabinets and then i pull them down and then it's like i kind of sort of save them but some of my throw out it's a very bad system so i think and and the reason i can't use my phone andrew is because the print is too small i can't see stuff on my phone now very well unless i'm wearing my glasses which um then i can't see stuff that's like seven feet away like if i have the glasses on i can read my phone but then i can't like i it impedes my vision for things that are a little further away right i need some kind of like i don't know if it's

trend bifocals or progressives like i have progressives or something so um that's just a

sad reality of my life right now is that is that i am now a person who's like if i don't have my glasses on i'm not really reading this phone real well so so i i wanted to do a tablet of some kind And I'm tempted to just get, like, a super cheapo, like, $100 job, you know, instead of, like, an official iPad, because I don't plan on taking this anywhere. I don't plan on it being how my movie experience works or anything. I just want to be able to basically look at recipes on there. But I am—they do have me trapped in the Apple-verse, and I kind of feel like I wonder if there's any kind of connectivity or if things will be easier.

I'm on the iOS app on my phone. Would it be easier to just have the iOS app on the tablet or something? I don't know.

I'm on Epicurious. You ever go to Epicurious, another wonderful food site? The best kitchen tablets for online recipes and all your digital needs. Thank you. I was going with what Wirecutter was telling me. What are they saying?

They're saying the iPad. But, like, iPads are expensive now. Like, I'm looking at ones that are just, like, I don't even need it to have cellular. I'm not planning on taking it. You can just live on the Wi-Fi at my house. It's like they won like $400 or $500.

Yeah, I'm seeing. Actually, again, this article is from 2021, I think. But it is basically saying, oh, yeah, an iPad. Thanks, Epicurious. What else have you got for me? Oh, the Fire HD tablet. Okay.

I have an iPad, but it's so old that when I tried to turn it on, first of all, I had to go on the Internet and buy the power plug-in for it. It's one of those weird, like.

The long, flat one. I had a Gen 1, too. It was a long, flat. Maybe I had a Gen 2, but yeah, I don't even think those things fit phones, right? Do they just fit iPads and iPods? Those are the same things we would drop our iPods onto on one of those speaker systems.

Yes, I had to buy one of those, which I now have, that input, and then I charged it up, and it was like I was going to need to perform some kind of factory reset. I don't know if it can really, like, kind of handle any of the new modern apps and stuff. like probably I could I can tell you who would make this work Walt my dad would 100% figure out how to like revive this thing oh my god a listener uh I think it was our friend uh Sarah um of magpie mouse uh fame on the show she sent me she dm'd me on Instagram a post that she had seen uh somewhere on the internet and it's somebody talking about their their parents by the way this guy I think his name might be dave mcnamee his his handle is 7-eleventruther which first of all it's a good handle i do think that's a great handle this is this is so a hundred percent my lived experience he said my parents are on streaming services you have never heard of my mom will call me and say we just watched the beef butter mysteries it's on pine cone tv beef butter mysteries 100 a dvd my mom would check out from the library and then be regaling

me with yes yes boy i am really disappointed in the internet right now like there's all like all these cooking sites are kind of like the best tablets for cooking and all they do is list the brands oh really you're saying i should get one from google amazon or uh apple oh thanks good Good thing I turned to you here, Dan. What a recommendation. Well, I was hoping that, like, I don't think I have to worry about Genevieve listening to this show, but, like, I wanted to get Genevieve a new e-reader for Christmas this year, which I have secured one now. But we aren't an Amazon household anymore. She'd always had Kindles before, but once you buy that, then you're buying from the Kindle store and you're continuing to support a company that we don't want to support. So I had to look around at various options. But, like, there are fewer options than you would think. It's all just, you know what I mean? I thought that there, I did find one that's going to be a little bit better, but also you don't want something so niche that it doesn't work broadly speaking. You know what I mean? You need something that can like, can interact with the world. Like, oh, I got this special iPad for you and, or e-reader for you. And it's, you know, it's not connected to any of these big companies, but the problem is you can only read about Mr. Toad. Like that's the way.

You can only watch the Beef Butter Mysteries.

I've only watched the Beef Butter Mysteries, season one and three.

Episode four from season one.

But it's sort of like the marketplace does not seem to have room or it's not financially – there's just – you can't work out the finances to create something that goes against these huge, huge companies. You can't find something that's more, I don't want to say bespoke because that's the wrong word there, but something that is not connected to Amazon or Microsoft or Apple or Google or any of those.

Yeah, exactly. It can't be artisanal. No, nobody can compete. It can't be from a small Portland startup. It's got to be broadly working within all these other systems. So anyway, well, I'm, you know, me, there's very little time between when I have the thought of wanting to acquire something, Andrew, this is a record for me, by the way, I've been wanting to get this tablet for the kitchen for probably almost a month now. So, you know, I kind of got a, I got an L on the whole PETA thing, finding out that I'm not their favorite podcaster. It's just that they're scraping the internet for mentions. But I think I'm getting a W on that I didn't literally buy an iPad on the day this occurred to me. I really am trying to be kind of, you know, smart about it and maybe not overpay. Maybe I don't, you know, maybe figure out if I need.

the whole, all of the robustness of like one of these iPads or something. So that's, that is a, that's a, that's, that's growth for me that it's been almost a month that I've been sitting with this idea and haven't acted on it.

I am like a guy talking to his friend who recently, I believe the premise of this show. I'm like a guy who's talking to his friend who recently stopped drinking and I'm going to dangle a beer in front of you right now, which is like the worst thing. But during this conversation, aside from the iPad itself, which you'll decide on and get, I'm wondering if you're going to find some sort of really fancy like sort of stand, not just a stand, but I was almost I could see it on some sort of like arm in your kitchen or like somehow like it kind of mounted. I'm looking at some of these photos of beautiful kitchens. They're sort of mounted on something that you can sort of adjust or something like that. I can see you going hog wild on that.

i've seen those stands uh that all kinds of different i mean i will probably just go with just the low-key triangular thing that you know allows it to be sort of upright and you just put it on your counter because my kitchen is very small actually um so i don't have room for like another because some of them are crazy some of them are like a full-on tv screen that's on like a narrow stand that just like sits in your kitchen i feel like it would just be that would be something

thing i'd be bumping into constantly um what about one of those little robots that follows you around with an ipad on top or a computer on top what happened to that i feel like that

came and went yeah like a couple of a couple of christmases ago it was like oogie meet oogie your new family friend and he was like had big eyes and was following people around in these like whatever it was amazon videos or some shit and then i feel like we don't even workplaces too

Like these things were going to be like buzzing around on wheels with a – like your boss's head was going to be on a laptop on top or something.

And I feel like that really fell off. Now we're just doing the Boston Dynamic dogs with Elon Musk's hyper-realistic face on it by Beeple. By the way, that is – Did you see that from Art Basel?

I don't think so. I know the dogs you're talking about and I think I can picture what you're talking about.

There was an art installation at Art Basel that was a bunch of those dogs, But they were, I think, painted flesh color, and their heads were hyper-realistic masks of, like, Bezos, Elon, and other billionaires. And maybe Peter Thiel was on there. And, like, I'm not saying it was incredibly high art, but it was weirdly effective for me. Like, I actually thought it kind of was interesting.

Does it say whether or not they get along with cats? Because Vives and I are still looking for a dog, and the number one thing is that it will get along with cats.

imagine someone comes over and you have one of those boston dynamic hell dogs hey this is elon head on it and it just like ambles over to them oh he's nice he's nice don't worry does your elon down does your elon he's just excited he's just excited right now by the way nothing is less reassuring than when your poorly behaved dog is is doing something to me and you're telling me he's just excited why so because you mean that it is in sexually excited or no i mean just generally like like and i'm somebody who's owned now or been well let me see wwpd what would p to do um well they'd lie and say that they listen to the show that's the first thing they would do um no but like i was gonna say dog ownership versus dog mentorship i've had dogs that are like we're the kind of dogs that would jump on people so i can't really talk on this but like I've had many experiences in my life where a dog is jumping up on me I come over to someone's house maybe I'm dressed semi-nicely maybe it's a dinner party maybe I've also done an outfit change and the dog is jumping up on me or something and the person instead of getting the dog off it's like oh he's just excited and or sometimes it's you know the dog might have kind of long claws or talons or fingernails and it's kind of like on you and it's not the most comfortable thing and people will say oh he's just excited it's like well that's not really helping me in this situation why don't you get the dog off it's like if somebody is

harassing you and it's like oh don't worry about him he's just drunk it's like well that doesn't

yeah yeah that doesn't solve the problem let's go ahead and get him off of me right now i that's great that he's excited but um but uh i would like him to not be on me

all right let's thank some donors

What you are listening to, my friends, is 100% listener-supported podcasting. That's how we pay for it. We don't have any big advertisers. We don't have any dark money behind us. It's a highly transparent organization that is supported by folks like Jamie Bever of Seattle, Washington.

Thank you, Jamie. Now, I did hear this is the...

John, I can't say for sure that this is true or not, but apparently Jamie did take a marker and color the money sent in, a very dark color. So there is a chance there is some dark money at play here, just a little bit. Yeah, sorry, not to undercut you.

I thought when you said took a marker, because I'm a degen, I thought that you meant went to the casino and got an advance from the cage, a.k.a. marker, And then won big And then donated the money to TVTL We'll also take that Also Lindsay Slaker Is in Madison, Wisconsin Beautiful Madison, Wisconsin Likely very cold right now Out there, hope you're staying warm Lindsay A place that is less cold Is Los Angeles, California Where we find Abigail Sherlock Checking in and donating And supporting the show Thanks Abigail, really nice of you As is it very kind of Melissa Schwartow, who's in Seattle, Washington. You know that place pretty well.

I know it pretty well. It's raining here right now, and it's going to be for the next several days.

It's actually, believe it or not, here perched high above the mighty Columbia. It has stopped raining for a moment, and I'm hoping I get another window like this after the show, because I am going to go full Clark Griswold and try to put up some Christmas lights today.

outside the house

if I don't put them up today if much more time goes by I will have put them up so that they could be on my house for like a week which feels like so much of a time investment for such a little R on my OI so I've got to get them up stat or else it will be totally not worth it

that is true so tomorrow we'll mark exactly two weeks away from

christmas yes and i feel like two weeks is enough enjoyment to get out of them but less than two

weeks and it's yeah almost not worth it you were right about thanksgiving being late this year it just had never occurred to me obviously i know thanksgiving kind of moves around because it's always on a thursday so the date itself changes i know this because of the proximity to my birthday and everything but it never occurred to me that like it swings so far that you we have at various times a week's difference between thanksgiving and christmas that had never ever occurred to me before maybe because these aren't especially you know these aren't top of mind things for me but vives and i are going to go get our christmas tree on saturday and that didn't occur to me that's less than two weeks of a tree oh before christmas you don't have your tree up yet no we've been we've been kind of waiting and i do think the late the late thanksgiving maybe played into this but

we are going to go on saturday afternoon i did get a gingerbread house that i'm going to be constructing at some i could build it on the air actually yeah are you um are you it's actual it's actual gingerbread and they make kits now it's a kit i got it at trader joe's nice that's fun um that's because i'm having my family over on sunday uh for a kind of a sort of low-key holiday get-together seahawk watching thing and so i've got to get everything kind of spick and span although boy i'll tell you walt is in there working on we're remodeling this um like little small bathroom that was the only bathroom in the house when i bought this place and man is it ever like the interior of the house right now is in no shape to be hosting anyone there's tile saws it looks like dexter is working in there because we basically like visqueen the entire entryway to the house so that my dad can be cutting tile and not ruining the house but i told him i was like i'm not encouraging you to murder anyone but if you're gonna do it this is the time this is the perfect environment for it but it's just like there's just stuff everywhere not to mention all of the weird dad food that's now in my refrigerator including strawberry applesauce

did you know that was a product no i haven't bought applesauce in a long time i ate so much

who has a kid i ate my dad is single-handedly keeping the moths corporation actually he doesn't eat moths that's that's name brand whatever fancy whatever woohoo applesauce he's eating The man loves applesauce, but not just regular applesauce. Strawberry applesauce? Well, did you eat a lot of applesauce as a kid? No, not really. I mean, occasionally, but it wasn't one of my go-tos.

I think we had it a lot as kids. I think because this is going to sound funny to you, I think, but I think it's because we ate a lot of, like, kielbasa. And I just remember, like, kielbasa and applesauce kind of going together. I remember, actually, this doesn't sound good to me right now as I remember this, but I remember as a kid, like, sort of, we would have kielbasa, we'd cut it up on our plate and then sort of drag a fork full of kielbasa through applesauce. A little salty and sweet. Yes, which is, yeah, maybe I was ahead of my time. Yeah, maybe German, yeah. And so I don't have a lot of cultural context for this other than the fact that... I did this as a kid a lot, and we ate a lot of applesauce. Anyway, my point is I remember average daily applesauce was yellow, but sometimes on special occasions we'd have red applesauce, and I think it was usually maybe homemade, and maybe that was because there was cinnamon in there. Does any of this ring a bell to you, like having special red cinnamon applesauce?

I don't think that ever made its way into our house, and I remember we had, you know, if we had applesauce, it was the big jar of it or something, and I don't remember really. it's not an unpleasant flavor to me but it wasn't something that i was particularly interested in my dad is big on these single serving applesauce containers that's what he always brings well the entire there's this you know i'm very particular about like the stuff that's in the house and the stuff that's in my kitchen and all of that and it's like the one of the cabinets that i had all set up remember i was on my whole clear plastic tub organizing oh yeah trip and i was really proud of that really happy with it well that this one of these cabinets or cupboards in particular has just been completely sacrificed to the to the weird foods of my dad it's got strawberry applesauce in there it's got vienna fingers it's got oots pretzels oh i like that okay that's good what kind like little sticks or rods no the not even rods the like pretz the classic oh little twists the twists okay yeah it's got that going on in there it's just a it's a disaster. It's just a bunch of processed food products that I would never let to darken the door. We're going to have to have an awkward conversation on Saturday because I'm going to have to say, Dad, I need to remove all of your food from where my siblings will see when they come over because I can't have them thinking I'm eating strawberry applesauce.

First of all, they know your dad. They're familiar, I believe. They've met a time or two. Okay, a couple of things. We haven't finished thinking of the donors. Like when his

spermazoa was making them? Oh, dear. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank some of our final donors today, including Alana Sweeney in Brooklyn, New York. That's not the first time Alana's heard that word, and it's medical, and it's okay, Andrew.

I was going to say, I don't like eating applesauce. I am not the Lunchables generation. I'm a little bit too old for that, I think.

By the way, that would have been a good way to describe that generation.

Yeah, like, just like eating.

Is that a term people use?

I don't know, but in other words, I think that some people have a real nostalgia for that. That's Addy's generation. But, like, eating out of the plastic to-go things, like the idea of Go-Gurt makes me sick. I mean, obviously, yogurt is not for me anyway. But the idea of, like, eating it out of a tube, like, all of that sort of, like—

Would you bring it to a fancy Easter meal, though, and then be mad that no one was eating marked-down Go-Gurt?

Only if it was a woo-hoo deal. But aside from that, and again, I don't want to get messing around with telling people how to eat their—or enjoy their foods. But I guess I'm surprised to hear that we're not keeping this applesauce in the refrigerator. And I don't mean that from a food safety standpoint. I just mean it from a pleasure standpoint. Like, I am somebody who really likes to eat my fruit cold. I don't like any warm fruit, like, you know, like room temperature fruit as much. And so just like taking a single serving applesauce out of a drawer and eating that directly does not appeal to me.

It was a very, you know, to each their own. Yeah. But my dad had gone to the Home Depot, or as he calls it, the Home Depot. And the Home Depot is just It shares a parking lot with a Walmart So he comes back and he's like Oh I got some food And it was just again The most random assortment of stuff It was the pretzels It was the strawberry applesauce It was I'm forgetting some of the other stuff in there But that's just what he'll you know I think there's some kind of a pre-flavored Like maple oatmeal kind of a situation going on That he has for breakfast sometimes It's a lot of seemingly to me random stuff that he sort of grabbed but yeah i would i would like the applesauce more if it was a bit chilled down but hey listen the guy is like 71 i don't know if he's 71 or 72 but he is somehow capable at his age of working like eight straight hours of manual labor and is basically fine like i would die after doing half of that so whatever he's doing whatever his Applesauce diet as it's working

Does he Does he do it like Popeye? Is he out there when he needs some strength And when he's working does he pop one of those open And throw it back and then he gets big muscles

He squeezes it It shoots up in the air but it stays Weirdly sort of connected But it kind of changes shape It undulates and it goes right in his mouth He is cutting down on his cigar smoking Which I'm very happy about In the summer I swear he was putting back like two or three a day and and last night I was like hey are you gonna have I was starting to time out dinner and I was like are you gonna have your cigar and he goes I'm not having one there's no it's too rainy outside I was like well that's a good sign if okay if he doesn't have one because there's it's too rainy outside that makes me think well his level of addiction is actually

fairly low. Yeah, like it's more environmental, like, oh, it's a nice night, this is what I do, I sit by the fire in the fall or whatever, but when it's rainy, it's like, yeah, I just don't need that. It's not like me when I was a cigarette smoker, and it's like, well, then I gotta go find a garage I can smoke in or something because I need my fix. Totally. Yeah, no, he

seems to be, yeah, it seems to be something that he could kind of take or leave. In fact, I don't know if he's even had one since he's been here, so we're happy about that because we'd like to keep old Walt around as long as we can. And we'd like to also keep Julie Upton around as long as Julie sees fit. Julie is our last donor today. Julie's in Lake Forest Park. Nice. And Julie, thank you so much. Thank you to all of our donors today for making TBTL happen. We would not be here without you. Hello and welcome to Top Story. I got a real education this morning, Andrew, on what sans serif font even means. I have been looking at that word or seeing that word for, you know, pretty much my entire life. And I never actually, I don't know what I thought it was, but now I kind of know. And it's related to the story from the New York Times at the State Department, a typeface falls victim in the war against woke. This was written by Michael Crowley and Hamid Al-Aziz. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Biden era move to the sans-serif typeface wasteful, casting the return to Times New Roman as part of a push to stamp out diversity efforts. I had no idea any of this was going on. I do appreciate the Times helpfully showing the difference between Times New Roman, which they're going back to, and Calibri, which is what I guess the State Department was using. Now, tell me, you know more about fonts than I do, Andrew. What is it? Knolling?

No, that's a photo thing. Oh, kerning, that's the space—that's how you space out characters, if you want to mess around with that. But the serif means it has a little flourish on the ends of the lines that make up the letters.

Like the T in Times New Roman has two little kind of things going off of the top of the T.

Right, and then on the bottom, almost like a little base or something. And those serifs can look like various things. And then sans serif, of course, means it's a font that doesn't have those. It's sans. It's without, without serif. So that's what sans serif means.

And Calibri, which they were using, doesn't have those serifs. And I guess there is a school of thought that when you have serifs, it can make the page busier and it can make it more difficult for people to read, and particularly people who are visually impaired in some way or people who are not maybe, who suffer with illiteracy or are only partially literate. I guess there was a movement at some point to try to go towards things that didn't have serifs, including this font called Calibri.

Because it's a cleaner, it's kind of a cleaner look. And I'll say, it never occurred to me the sort of accessibility aspect of this, but it kind of makes sense. I've always been drawn to sans serifs myself. And maybe it is because I don't have the best site. And maybe because, because like, I think, I didn't read the New York Times piece on this. I read the whatever was like reprinted in the Seattle Times, which I think was a piece by the Post or something like that. So I didn't have these visual guides. So I was sort of Googling along as they were mentioning the various things. But like Calibri is a very clean looking font that doesn't have little hooks on the ends of things. And it's funny. I am more drawn to that as opposed to the New York Times itself. If you know the font of the New York Times, if you're reading it like on the page and you're not using an e-reader where you've changed it, like that is a very – that's called New Times Roman, right? Isn't that what the New York Times uses, New Times Roman?

Yes, I think – and it says in this article I'm reading that that is actually – New Times Roman is actually – or Times New Roman is based on the Times of London.

Oh, okay. Oh, that's interesting.

That was where it got its start or something, but it definitely seems – I think it's also what the New York Times is using as well.

That's what I think. And so it looks like it. I mean, I don't want to jump ahead here. I found a piece. What I learned today in this story shocked me. But it's jumping ahead a little bit. Sure. Go for it. But it was. And now I need to remember what it was. I don't have the piece in front of me right now. But they were talking about how before the Biden administration made this change and specifically did make this change under some like kind of DEI guidance for accessibility. It said 20 for 20 years before that change, they were using New Times Roman. And I'm now at an age where I think 20 years, that's a blink of an eye. That's not some huge, long tradition. You know, when I was a kid, I was like, 20 years, you can't change that. It's the way it's always been. And by, like, 20 years, that was 2005, man. Like, that's not some, like, we don't, it's not etched in stone.

or something like that but what i was shocked was the font that came before time it's papyrus yes right it was papyrus no it wasn't it courier new it was courier new which that shocks me because courier new is such a basic font now i like it but basically courier new sort of looks like a typewriter font a typewriter font without and again that was yeah that's no no that has serifs but it has like blocky it's a slab serif a slab serif that's right Slab Serif. Your wife's new name is Slab Serif. I know we were riffing on different things there. But anyway, yes, I had never heard the term Slab Serif before, but it makes sense. It is a serif, but it's not like, it's not like sort of, it seems less ornamental than a New Times Roman.

Well, you know what it looks like? It looks like a State Department dispatch from 1945. Yeah. You know, 5, December, 1947, Cairo. yes right yeah rip and read i kind of like it for an you know accessibility aside i guess i actually like courier new as the official state department font because again it just looks state departmenty to me it looks like we're sending a red notice to interpol you know be on the lookout for you know whatever like i i think it's i think that's actually i like that the font is in keeping with how i perceive the state department a little bit you know but i agree

And I like that typewriter-y font. I used to – that used to kind of – I don't know if I had it as a default font on my programs, but I used to like to type in that because it felt old school. It felt typewriter-y. And I do like it, although Rubio's statement about changing things back to New Times Roman and everything, it's filled with so much anti-DEI, just bullshit that is based on discrimination. It's just so gross. The statement and everything is gross. I have to admit there was one thing that I sort of agreed, or I guess I kind of agreed with the way it was described, which is that these fonts without the serifs, these sans serif fonts, don't work well with the letterhead, which I actually could see that being an issue for my eye. I would say change the letterhead but I could see like sort of like okay we have this letterhead that's very kind of picture a New York Times headline or something like that that's very seraphy and then below it you have this very thin sans serif like kind of not blocky but very simplified style um and I could sort of see that being a bit of a clash I would say change the change the um the letterhead but I kind of I appreciate that little nod towards aesthetics

Yeah, I mean, here's what it comes down to for me, because there was another article that this one linked to. This was written by Daniel Victor. This was written a while ago, talking about—this was January of—this is Danuary of 2023. Janule? The laugh that Nora erupted, because that was the intro tape when I was doing the show at the Hyatt with Nora. It was very gratifying. Oh, good.

But I had that muted during that part of the show, so I'm glad to hear it.

So this was kind of back in 2023. Daniel Victor was writing about it, and this is where he was, I believe, maybe interviewing the chief diversity officer at the State Department, a person named Gina Abercrombie Winstanley, was being interviewed by the Times and was saying that this change of this font, Calibri, was going to make it more inclusive. And there was just something that was in the article, which I can't find right in front of me, But basically what the research was, was for people who have difficulty with, you know, with reading for whatever possible reason, the sans serif seemed to be easier for them. And it did not seem to in any way be harder for people that didn't have those issues. And it's just to me, that's just broadly speaking how all this stuff kind of goes. It's like it's not harder for me to read Calibri and maybe it makes it easier for someone else. So let's just do it. it's like you know that has to do with terminology that we use and pronouns and all kinds of things in this world it's like guess what it doesn't impact me negatively and it might impact someone positively why not and here's the other thing i mean the and and these knuckle draggers don't

give a shit about fonts they're just in the same way pete is out there scraping the internet for any reference to their name they're just scraping their archives for anything that had dei attached to it and then suddenly caring about it it's wild to me that they even noticed the font was different well they didn't they probably were just like scouting like literally searching dei what were the d what were the changes that were made that were linked to dei and it's all trolling they don't care they just want me to be mad this i mean what we can assume from this is that they've

literally rolled every this had to be the last DEI thing they got to

Because this is really, I mean, you want to talk about the back of the cupboard of stuff, the font.

Yeah. I'm desperately trying to think of something that is even lower level than this and failing as we speak. But you're right. Like, what could be kind of less or it's like, well, let's see. You know, I want to list all the terrible things.

No, let's not. You want to talk about DEI aimed at trying to be inclusive around age. the Indianapolis Colts have signed Philip Rivers 44 okay you know there's like football old and then there's like in real life old and it'll be like oh my god how long has Justin Herbert been the QB for the Chargers and it's like Justin Herbert is 27

but he seems really old to me

okay 44 is also real life pretty old to be doing anything

that's very dangerous work

I say this as a 49 year old person 44 in the real world is if you're lucky that's middle age that presumes you're going to get to 88 which none of us are promised

so let me put this in context how old and I'm asking you this I don't know if you know off the top of your head but do you know how old Aaron Rodgers is he's in his early 40s is he 42 my guess would be

Aaron Rodgers is 41 maybe he's 42

But he's right now probably the oldest player in the league, I would guess.

Well, the ayahuasca does reverse aging. That is true.

How old is Aaron Rodgers?

Let's see here. 42. Good guess. 42. Okay, yeah.

And so Phillip Rivers is going to come in here two years older than that. And Aaron Rodgers, as much as I kind of have my distaste for him, he's mostly stayed in the game, barring some major season-ending injuries that happened a couple of seasons ago. But he has stayed in the game. This idea that somebody who's 44 is coming off the couch, as they say. And was coaching high school football. This is scary.

I was laughing because the internet, here's what I will give the internet in this GDAI stuff. It's up to date. Is Aaron Rodgers the oldest player in the NFL? The title now belongs to 44-year-old quarterback Phillip Rivers. There you go. So, I mean, and yeah, Aaron Rodgers, say what you want about him. I get the sense he's like a pretty fit, you know, certainly a very fit 42-year-old and he's still semi-mobile. I mean, that was also kind of one of his things always was he kind of moved around in the pocket and whatever, whatever. Like I saw a picture of Phillip Rivers from sort of recently and he looks like a guy who's been coaching high school football for the last few years. I mean, Aaron or Phillip Rivers rather was always, he was always just kind of this gunslinger. Like he was always a guy that would just like, you know, just would throw a lot of passes. He'd fit the ball into a lot of tight windows. He had a strong arm, was not a guy who was known for his mobility, like when he was playing. And I don't here's what I don't like about it. It's I feel like it's a movie starring Dennis Quaid. And in the movie where Dennis Quaid is the 44 year old quarterback who's literally like stepping off of the couch, moving off of their couch into a real NFL game. He's going to throw for 360 yards and the Seahawks are going to lose. I don't like this narrative. Well, let me put it this way. If I'm anyone else, if I'm a non-Seahawk fan, I am so rooting for Philip Rivers to have the game of his life. That is such a more interesting plot line than 44-year-old quarterback looks every bit of 44 out there as, you know, DeMarcus Lawrence strip-sacks him for the third time.

Well, that's a thing, too, not to get too much into it. And I can't get too much into it because I don't know the team that well. But I do know that Seattle has a staunch defense, too. I mean, you shouldn't put any 44-year-old up against any NFL defense.

Unsafe at any speed.

Unsafe at any rivers, for sure. There you go. It is. But Seattle especially could put – honestly, when you – I was – I didn't know where you were going with that analogy. I thought you were going to say this, like, so you have Dennis Quaid, and he's the starting QB, but he's rickety and old, and he gets hurt. And then they put in Randy Quaid. I thought that – I honestly thought – I don't know if the two Quaid – That would be amazing. I don't know if the Quades have ever acted together before, but I can't ungroup them in my head. And that would be amazing. Blue, 42, Starwhacker. Starwhacker. Starwhacker, 64. Starwhacker, 64.

Oh, my God. Now, that is a movie I would watch.

Oh, most certainly. Most certainly.

You go from a Dennis Quaid, who sort of semi-plausibly could play the sport, to a Randy Quaid, who is cousin eddie from christmas vacation right and it's just out there in an ill-fitting sweater just but of course he's also got that uh he's got that that hat that he wears i think and maybe um what's the uh what's the flaps is what are the ear flaps that

But that's more, doesn't he wear that when he's like in, what's the movie, Independence Day, where he's some kind of crazy fighter pilot or something?

Because I don't think I've seen Independence Day. I've never watched any of those three main disaster movies that are all sort of similar. I've never watched those all the way through. But it's funny because I was picturing him in that hat, but in the Christmas movie. But you're right. That is, he plays as sort of a.

Yeah, I think he's kind of like a, I'm guessing he's some sort of a crop duster. Okay. Literally and figuratively, I could definitely see Randy Quaid doing some crop dusting.

On an airplane.

I'm looking at a photo of him. He's got the old-timey leather helmet on, and he might even be standing next to an old-timey airplane. I do love that plot twist of Philip Rivers even less ready for NFL brother having to come in and cover for him. Here's the narrative around the Indianapolis Colts that I kind of love, and I'm a little bummed that they've fallen off. I sort of assumed that they would. And by the way, I don't know. Yeah, we're in the Badlands. I think I can talk just a little bit of football if I. So remember that the owner of the Indianapolis Colts passed away. His name is Jim Ursay. He was a he was a lot. We talked about him on the show. He was in the mold of the owner of the New York Knicks, James, whatever his name is, who's got his band, The Straight Shooters. And he always wants to, like, perform at halftime of the Knicks show, of the Knicks games. And I was talking to somebody who had worked at the Knicks, and he was telling me that when he worked at the Knicks, the main job was keeping the owner of the Knicks from having his band be the halftime entertainment.

Oh, yeah. You mentioned in the text chain one time. And I was sort of wondering, like, maybe, but could that potentially be a draw, though? James Dolan, by the way. Dolan, yeah, I only know the name through the stories that you tell.

He basically got, he inherited Cable Town from his dad, I think.

Right. But, like, could it be, like, could that band playing on the court actually be some sort of a draw or at least a social media sensation?

Probably. I mean, you know, you got that, like, Chinese lady on the really tall unicycle. I think her name is Red Panda. Oh, I don't know about any of this. Who, like, flips bowls and catches them. This is on the basketball court? Yeah, it's a big halftime activity. And you've got the, like, a chihuahua that makes baskets that I saw at the Portland Trailblazers game. Phenomenal, by the way. Phenomenal halftime show. And then it seems like it drops off pretty quick. James Dolan and the straight shooters could probably, just for, like, kind of unfortunate reasons, be something that went, quote-unquote, viral. But anyway, Jim Ursay was the same kind of dude. He, I think, inherited, I forget what his dad's company was, but his dad made a bunch of money and bought the Indianapolis Colts back in the day, and then Ursae inherited them, and Ursae was also a guy who really loved music and really loved being involved in music, and I think his dreams of his music career exceeded his natural talent, so he used to pay a bunch of guys to play with him, a bunch of real, actual musicians, and then he would also, the story went, pay a bunch of people to come to his shows. Remember that song that he sung standing by a tree, I think, at the Washington Monument or something? I believe we played that on the show.

Oh, shoot. Is this somehow related to those photos he took with his wife in D.C. as well, like sitting awkwardly on a picnic table, and she's sort of like sitting in his crotch sort of? I don't know if that was— Maybe I'm thinking of something else.

The song was Blowing in the Wind by the Jim Irsay band, and it's him—I'm just looking at a still shot. This would be a pretty good baby show pick today He is standing He's leaning against a tree With the Washington Monument behind him Oh, and maybe he's doing Is he doing the Bob Dylan tune? Unless he wrote his own song called

I mean, if you write your own song called That's what I was going to do You blew my mind for a second You're just like By the Jim Irsay band Blown in the Wind I'm like, guys, I think that ground Might have been covered already, famously

Yeah, I'm looking at this now I think it's on Instagram. I don't know if it's going to let me play this, but this is from Jim Ursae. By the way, Jim Ursae's official Instagram is still absolutely. Let's see what this is. Let's see if I can make this play. This is something. Intuitively, I had a hold of Larry Hall, our CEO. This is Jim Ursae talking about, I think, acquiring Kurt Cobain's guitar. But this is also billed as, I think, him eventually, maybe he's going to perform. Blowing in the wind. Let's just see where this goes.

The counsel I take is through prayer and meditation. You have to be prepared to open yourself up for that. If your ego is blocking it, if you're angry or resentful, the good stuff can't come in.

That was it. That was really unhelpful. Do not—SEO, you let me down on that one. There's—this is—this is hashtag—

blown in the wind hashtag nirvana hashtag teen spirit hashtag nirvana fans those are the hashtags that jim ursay official was used he got his instagram point being worked he passed away and his daughters have taken over the indianapolis cults and one of his daughters in particular is like so interesting to me and i don't have her name off the top of my head but i don't know if you've seen this or if you were still listening to like the lebertard universe at the beginning of of the season the Indianapolis Colts got up to a really really hot start yeah they're undefeated for a long time using a quarterback named Daniel Jones who much like Sam Darnold had been written off by the league and had had this kind of amazing turnabout in Indianapolis he's unfortunately hurt that's why they're out there signing Philip Rivers but one of Jim Irsay's daughters who's now one of the owners of the team I should figure out because she's not just Jim Irsay's daughter she is a person in the world um who uh is running the team it would seem I think her name is Carly Ursa Gordon. She's the one who's on the sidelines? She's the one who's on the sidelines and I freaking

love this! I am so hope because I saw her on the sidelines you know like the other day maybe I was watching Red Zone or something like that and I had heard that she's very hands on but I kind of didn't know much of the back story and I was like man I just really hope that she's not a problematic person because it is so badass seeing her on the sidelines. It is the most badass thing I have ever seen. Is she not awesome looking there? I mean she's like

she is locked in She is so locked in with the headset. She's listening to all of the, I'm going to send you this one picture in particular. Yeah, she has become kind of famous for now standing on the sidelines with a headset on. She's not one of the coaches officially, but she's listening to everything the coaches are talking about. And I don't, as far as I understand, I don't think she's in on any play calling. I don't think she's second, she's not, you know, in game telling them do something different. But somebody asked her about this and she said, basically, like, if I'm going to own this company and if I'm going to make really important decisions around payroll and coaching, et cetera, I need to know what's going on. And it is like that is an amazingly interesting approach. Again, I don't know if it would be great if, you know, you had her trying to in the game tell the coaches do this, not that. that might get things a little muddied but as far as just like her understanding deeply and and and on a granular level this product that they're putting out and what's working and not working and the fact that they got off to that hot start i was loving it that's cool i just loved it as a narrative and she is she's like she seems to me to sort of be like the reverse of uh bill belichick's partner who seems to be meddling in a lot of things and making most things worse that she's

associated with this um well but it's also because this is her responsibility yeah she owns the team this is this isn't like somebody who it has no experience in this field and is glomming on to a you know vastly or is doing adult cheerleading competition that's right and

you see those pictures yes you want to talk about a hostage video oh my god bill belichick at an

adult cheerleading competition jordan um what's her name we got to give her hudson jordan hudson

yeah that his uh his partner jordan hudson is performing an adult cheerleading yeah that's

that's a those are some remarkable photos he's just sitting there in this like auditorium just looking grumpy as hell on like a folding chair amongst the other default setting amongst the

other dads basically yeah anyway i am so so this um this carly ursay gordon plotline i really want the i really want the colts to be good first of all they're a likable franchise um and uh and you know i just love the idea that you know because there's just i would say that you know generally people who maybe inherit an nfl franchise you know first of all i'm jealous of them that their parents gave them a franchise or that their parents left them a franchise and who knows just what it's like to grow up with that amount of wealth and that amount of privilege etc and you could just be somebody who phones it in you could just kind of cash the checks or whatever but the idea that carly ursay gordon is like taking this so seriously and that they were winning i just i love the idea that she could be the new model for like what nfl ownership looks like and again i know nothing about her politics so i don't know if she supports pita or not don't don't come for me listen you know what do come for me i can't even check my tbtl email people

yeah huh for some reason i can't get into my email i you know i can't hurt me i'm already dead i need you to explain something to me because there's these conversations i i i kind of fumble my way through because i can't remember all of these team owners that you know these quirky team owners you said the one was from the knicks oh by the way i looked it up good news red panda is back red panda fell this summer got hurt during a wnba game but just returned it looks like during a so that's cool i was unfamiliar with red panda until you know out red panda a moment ago um but we heard that you were talking about animals on your show we would have red panda and i'd have red panda i would totally have red panda on this whole time you're talking about jim ursey um you were mentioning the owner of the knicks is that right what's james dolan james dolan i thought that ursay maybe it's dolan do one of these guys because i just looked up jim ursay and he doesn't look like what i i was picturing him the guy with

the weird bangs no that's al davis's son mark davis mark who's mark davis he owns the raiders

see i can't he of the bowl cut the bowl oh yes okay mark davis i can't keep any of these quirky owners except for balmer because i know him through other means i can't keep them straight

yeah it's like i mean mark davis is just another well i understand why you wouldn't be able to keep him straight because mark davis is another one of these nepo babies uh-huh he just he he inherited the team from his dad al davis and you know has done an absolutely terrible job of running the team other than moving them to las vegas getting this brand new stadium built and just cashing checks absolutely cashing checks because these pro sports franchises you can't go wrong with them even if you're bad at it as far as the on-field product i mean the raiders are abysmal under mark davis and have been the whole time he's owned the team they've been lousy and yet you know he continues to be allowed to have that haircut and to become phenomenally wealthy

and didn't does uh tom brady own part of that team now he owns part of some team and so he's a part owner and of course they now have both our former quarterback and our former coach and it's going great and just doing terribly it's one of those things where i don't root against Gino Smith or Pete Carroll like I would want both of them to be a level of success not a level of success that they end up doing better than the Seahawks you know what I mean like generally speaking like but I like both those guys I guess you know Gino leaving a little bit like Russell Wilson thinking like hey you guys aren't respecting me enough I'm not going to entertain any offers I can do better somewhere else and then having him fail a little bit you're kind of like well we were we liked you here we wish you had stayed like i guess there's a little like not schadenfreude but a tiny bit of like okay but generally speaking i like geno smith i like the fact that he kind of had a late career comeback i think he's a good guy pete carroll i think well of and it is a little bit weird to see them both just it's pretty embarrassing i heard there's some defenestrated yes i heard there's rumors that pete carroll's job might he might not make it through the season I don't want that for him

they're abysmal and you just see these headlines like Geno Smith flipping off the fans

which I zapruder'd that did you see that? I zapruder'd it if he did that it was so so fast and casual he was trying not to be seen almost

I did not watch it I just kind of could picture it in my mind probably a very frustrated Geno Smith as that season just continues to unravel for them you know it's just you know it's it's not a good scene and then meanwhile it's like for our for our beloved Seahawks or for my beloved Seahawks it's just wild that like you know they're like the most power rankings have them at the worst as the third best team in the national football wow I did not have that on my bingo card for this year I mean I'm always you know smoking the hopium on the Seahawks and thinking of a way that they might be better than people expect but like I didn't have them as like considered one of the best teams in the league and if they managed to beat the rams here in a in a week or two uh i think it would probably be probably be a shoe into will they be a number one seed and they'd also be presumed to be probably maybe the best

team in the nf of l that's going to be a tough one right that makes no sense the national foot league of league the national football league i do you know that that's one of my um pet peeves i have a lot of weird pet peeves that don't make sense you don't do not feel any i don't know if you would anyway but don't feel any pressure to go along with me on this but i really hate it when announcers or just even commentators on the radio or television refer to it as the national football league because it always to me just feels like that way of making it sound like you're saying more than you are like we all know what the nfl stands for you don't we it stands for hats it's exactly you know what i mean literally random there's always a type of person who says in the national football league you can't get away with that in the national football league You know what I mean? To me, that signifies something about the person who's talking, which is the type of person, and maybe I am this kind of person, but who just wants to make it sound like they're... There's no whining in football, but every August, football comes to wine country. That's a man I love.

I do love him, by the way. Yes. There was one of those... I'm sure I talked about this when it happened, but that's Liev Schreiber. Slunk Jeep. That's Slunk Jeep himself. And they actually eventually pulled the curtain. back on you know hard knock and they had liab shriver come um to camp and i think it might have even been speaking of mark davis it might have even been the raiders i think might have been the team that season and like so it's this kind of weird thing where you've got this like sort of voice of god announcer guy who's now just like palling around with the players and there's like two things one dude live shriver he big he was not usually what you notice when a normal person is standing next to an nfl player is like how small normal people are they're just dwarfed by the size of these players he looked like he could have suited up which i was like damn dude and then also he was so likable he was self-deprecating he was funny and this was all just him chatting with the players and stuff you know they had him mic'd up but it wasn't scripted

it was like i was like i have a huge crush on liev shriver i think yeah well watch uh is it mixed nuts i i've i don't know did we have this conversation recently on the air like my

yeah you were talking about holiday movies that you were looking to engage with yes nuts is one

of them i hadn't watched that until i maybe i saw it like five years ago somebody had recommended it and it's like a 1990s movie with like steve martin and i want to say lily tomlin and it's based on a suicide rita wilson oh is it rita wilson i'm sorry i yeah she's like the secretary

or something or the other therapist she works in the office

they're running a suicide hotline so my point here is like this and Liev Schreiber's character is a crossdresser and I don't think there's any this is the mid 90's they don't use the same language we did or that we do so I don't think he's trans I think he's a crossdresser but when you describe this movie hey do you want to watch a wacky comedy called Mixed Nuts from the 90's about people who answer calls it a suicide hotline and there's a cross-dresser it sounds like a real man field it sounds like it would be such a minefield but i only watched it one time and i was shocked at how i thought it was such a tender movie and i again like as a cis guy maybe i'm not maybe maybe i'm watching it through eyes that aren't seeing maybe microaggressions that are there but i my takeaway was everybody like really treats him with a lot of respect and i don't remember it ever being the butt of a joke that he's a cross-dressing man it's just really sweet oh oh and adam sandler's in it add a layer to that and his relation we just played maybe we played it recently um a clip of adam sandler and him talking about how adam sandler is a writer who writes bumper stickers or something but their relationship is so let me see if i can play this it's just so sweet and i i love the fact that it doesn't seem to be homophobic in anyway let me see are you a professional ukulele player oh no i'm a writer what do you write

t-shirts really i wrote save the dolphins excuse me what do you mean you wrote it i wasn't the first person to say it i was the first person to put it on a t-shirt did you do life as a beach oh i wish i just find them so charming together that's amazing i always think that's jeffrey tambor because he sounds a little jeffrey tambor yes his voice is very deep that way yeah but um you know i i don't know if it was because you mentioned it to me you know i the trailer for mixed nuts popped up on my feed somewhere the other day unannounced and i watched it that's how i knew rita wilson was in it oh yeah and it was like oh i think this actually does look like a movie that I would watch. I also want to just mention we are, I think we're entering the, like, what we call Sandler-sance, the renaissance of not that Adam Sandler, you know, ever needed rescuing or reviving in terms of his career. It's always been very successful but, like, I think we're entering the Adam Sandler is one of the greatest actors of his generation discourse. Timothy Chalamet shouted him out the other day. I think it was for his Punch Drunk Love performance. He's getting a lot of love about this Jay Kelly movie that he's in Where he's really sort of the emotional core of the film I went and watched the Punch Drunk Love trailer yesterday I really need to re-watch that movie I bet you as a grown up I think when I watched it Because my memory is it came after Boogie Nights And Boogie Nights was such a followable film for me It's a very traditional film It's the story of Eddie Adams from Torrance And he becomes a porn star And then his life falls apart I just I loved Boogie Nights so much as a movie that I think then I went to see Punch Drunk Love thinking, oh, it's going to be like that. And it's a much different film. It's, you know, it's a it's a lot sort of less predictable, which I think I would like now. I think at the time when I was 23 or something, I was like, oh, I want there just to be like predictable things that happen to these characters.

It's a very tense movie, Punch Drunk Love. I remember seeing it twice. I loved it. And I'm not saying this to sound snobby, but it's. That's like our taste, or at least our taste back then, how different it was. Like my problem with Boogie Nights, everybody loved Boogie Nights so much. And I clearly liked it. I mean, there's some great performances and it's funny and it's good. But my problem with it was it just fell into that pattern of just the most predictable rise to fame, then corruption, and then fall. It was like every – it was the narrative arc of every single VH1 behind the musics, right? Only it was interesting and funny that it was –

It's behind the music.

behind the music because it was based on pornography instead of music behind the pornography the h1's behind the pornography and i remember like even seeing it the first time and being like i just really didn't like the format of that because it seemed so predictable to me and punch drunk love way more along the lines of things i like and i know i re-watched it but it's been decades and i i really hope it holds up because back to your point of sandler like he makes all these goofy movies himself but then he will appear in like well i mean you're uncut gems right like he right every decade he's good for like a really stirring shocking performance i think that was

chalamet's point was that like you know a lot of people think of him as happy gilmore or whatever but he's clearly got more going on you know uh in his head than uh than just uh you know some of those really really broad characters but um i feel like oh i'm sorry go ahead no that's it

Well, this is very, very vague, but maybe it's look-up-able, but he was accepting an award for something.

I think that's where this whole thing came from.

Okay, I'm thinking of something that I heard on Levitard like a year ago or something. Maybe it's resurfacing, but he was accepting some award, and I think the bit was he asked his children to write his acceptance speech for him. Oh, I didn't know about that. And so he unfolded a piece of paper. What were you thinking of? Because I might be bastardizing reality there.

I'm just, Andrew, I'm just a guy who looks at TikTok on his phone or other things and has no idea what the origin source of anything is anymore. Yeah, yeah. You know, I just see a headline that Timothee Chalamet said that Adam Sandler is one of the greatest actors of his generation. And then I'm looking at a clip of that, and then next thing you know, it's suggesting the Punch Drunk Love trailer, which now I'm watching that.

You're watching that right now, or you're watching that as one thing leads to another?

That was how I experienced this information. So I don't know anything about the actual award that was being given or like when it happened or, you know, I don't know any of the other details other than what I just told you. But it'll be interesting to see if Adam Sandler gets nominated for an Oscar for this Jay Kelly movie, which they, again, they put in theaters, I think, just so that it could get nominated.

And you said you did see that or you didn't? I did see it. I loved it. Yeah, see, I don't think I heard about it until you mentioned it. And then it whipped right back out of my mind. And when you said Jay Kelly, I thought you were talking about the ping pong movie again, but that's Burt Wonder – or what's the ping pong movie?

You're thinking of Burt Wonderstone.

I'm thinking of Burt Wonderstone. It's Marty Supreme, which, by the way, is getting –

Good reviews? Yeah, it's getting a lot of – oh, my God. What did my mom – what came up the other day? There was a movie, Andrew. I've got to write these things down because my memory is Swiss cheese these days. But, like, there was some movie that I was mentioning to my parents or that came up. And what do you think my mom's very first thing she said was? She said, oh, you know what? Maybe it was Train Dreams or something. She said, that got 98% on Rotten Tomatoes.

I know it, right.

It is the lens through which my mom sees her entire world. I wish Rotten Tomatoes applied to everything, like food purchases, how long you can eat unrefrigerated beef stroganoff.

Well, I was going to say I wanted to make a joke, but I want to be careful.

I mean, the irony that Rotten's right there in the name.

Yes, Rotten Tomatoes might be a woohoo deal, honestly. Oh, by the way, I just want to say, yeah, Adam Sandler back in 2022, apparently it got a lot of play. His daughters wrote his Gotham Awards speech, and apparently it was quite charming and funny. Oh, nice. And I guess there were 14 and 16 at the time or something, so they're like, thank you for giving our daddy this really important speech he's the best or this award he's the best or something like that so that's pretty seems to have a really pretty pretty

solid life with yeah and he seems to be a remark it's just weird that one it's it's interesting that he would i don't know just have such a great career and be so broadly popular but also be pretty good acting but also have been a breakout star on snl but also be a pickup basketball player and just like a seemingly pretty normal dude i think i did hear tim kirkshin

talking about the time he played pickup basketball with Adam Sandler.

I wonder how Kirkshin does down in the post.

I don't know what that means, but it sounds like he plays a lot for a very, very short man.

That's what I was going to say. He's not a tall guy, so I wonder what his game is like. I wonder if he's an outside shooter. When you're playing pickup ball, if you just know your footwork, you can post guys up even if you're smaller than them just by having good footwork and stuff. I would love to see. In fact, you know what, after we're done here today, which we're... by the way getting to the end of the show yeah he's gonna say bingo just walked in here which means bingo things we've been going on for too long and that's right he wants his birds i'm what

i'm gonna do after the show is google tim kirkchen playing basketball and see if i can find some

video yeah i would love to see that i also want to know you okay i have no experience in in this realm at all but you've often described the sweaty older guy who's always playing i'm wondering if he's that guy who's making too much contact and sweating all over you.

Oh, look at this. YouTube, Adam Sandler and Tim Kirkjian basketball game.

Should we play this? Is there any good audio?

Oh, no, he's talking about it. You've already heard this audio. I thought it was actually footage from the game.

Yeah, I don't know if I've heard that particularly. He probably has a handful of stories he returns to, but I did hear about it at one point.

Yeah. All right. Thanks for listening, everybody. We are all done for today. but we're going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you all. So please, if you can join us for that in the meantime, have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves again. Stay dry. You're in the Pacific Northwest and please remember no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. Power out.