Muse

If you can see, the numbers all go to 11. Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder? Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not 10. You see, most blokes are going to be playing at 10. You're on 10 on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where? I don't know. Nowhere, exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? Put it up to 11. 11, exactly. One louder. Why don't you just make ten louder, and make ten be the top number, and make that a little louder? These go to eleven.

TBTL! I'd like the chef's salad, please, with the oil and vinegar on the side, and the apple pie a la mode. But I'd like the pie heated, and I don't want the ice cream on top. I want it on the side, and I'd like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it. If not, then no ice cream, just whipped cream, but only if it's real. If it's out of a can, then nothing.

Where am I?

The bit of despair. Don't even think about it.

Don't even think about trying to escape.

Did you ever run into a musical group, works out of Kansas City, calls themselves Four Jacks and a Jill? They've been at a Ramada Inn there for about 18 months. If you're ever in Kansas City and you want to hear some good music, you might want to drop by. I can't compete with you physically, and you're no match for my brain. I'll have what she's having.

all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a monday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live i thought they smelled bad on the outside my name is luke

burbank i'm your host you're about to see some serious voices coming to you from the madrona

studio perched high above the mighty columbia where it is a dark stormy ah rainy windy day don't stay in my house if you're dork-sided we had an incident this morning where the wind blew the cover off of the hot tub and deposited it two neighbors over to wander through my neighbor's yards trying to find the cover to the hot tub situation. It's now got a cinder block, a very attractive cinder block sitting on top of it to try to keep it down to see if we can keep the wind from doing its thing. Luckily, things are not as windy here inside the Madrona Hill studio as we bring you episode 4,619 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. We will remember the career and life of Rob Reiner today.

Isn't he the best?

And I, you know, wasn't really thinking, I guess, of Rob Reiner a whole lot over the past months off the top of my head. But as I've been considering his life and career this morning, as a lot of people have, I don't know if there's a director who has been involved in more different film projects that have had a bigger impact on me. Talking about Princess Bride.

Marriage is what brings us together today.

Talking about, you know, of course, When Harry Met Sally. Spinal Tap. As you heard at the intro to the show, Misery was a movie he directed.

This isn't what happened last week. Have you all got amnesia?

I was walking around not thinking about how important Rob Reiner was to my actual life until today. And I want to talk about that a little bit. And I want to also mention that as I was discussing this with my parents, because of course my parents were also here this morning because I guess they live with me. And I was just trying to talk about some of the scenes from like The Princess Bride. and I couldn't stop getting choked up. I'm not crying, it's just been raining on my face So I've actually got the TBTL crying music ready if I need to just pop this in or something. I can if it comes down to that. Anyway, we're going to talk about Rob Reiner today and we're going to talk to this guy, longest running Cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. I know what he wants to talk about, his fancy new microphone stand. You've got to eat that microphone. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Looking good, my friend.

Thank you. You also might need some sneeze music. This is the first time I can remember fighting a sneeze at the very beginning of the show. So my apologies if I go dark on you.

I think the crying music will also work as sneezing music.

Really? That's what's so great about it. It'll kind of confuse the listeners, though. They won't know.

You don't want them to think you're crying when really all you're doing is sneezing.

Right, exactly. I was excited. I even wrote in the newsletter on Friday because I was waiting for my new mic stand to show up on Friday afternoon. And I had this weird thing. I had this note from FedEx. You know, you can track your packages these days, Luke, because the Internet. Yeah. And I'm on the FedEx page specific to my order.

It had been, maybe I ordered it a week and a half earlier. You know, it's the holidays. Things are getting here slowly. This was not an Amazon purchase where it arrives before you buy it or anything like that. So I'm watching the FedEx page on Friday. Very excited. I'm like, it's going to get here any moment now, any moment now. But the FedEx page was doing something silly, Luke, which was it was saying that it was going to arrive before 5 p.m. And I'm, you know, like sitting here and it's like 4 o'clock, 4.15, 4.30. But it's also saying it's in some town or suburb called New Haven, Indiana. And yeah, it's outside Fort Wayne, I want to say. Where you live. Right. And so it says that the last update is Fort Wayne, Indiana or wherever New Haven is. I think it's somewhere in that area. But it also says it's going to be here in a half hour. And I'm like, one of these things is not right. Yeah. And then eventually it said, you know what? It's not going to get there today. We don't know. FedEx basically said, we don't know when it's going to get there. It's still in our system, but we don't know what's going on with this anymore. And I was like, well, that's a real bummer. And then I kind of forgot about it. Then yesterday evening around 530 at night, I'm coming home. I pull into my little driveway area and I see a box sitting there waiting for me, Luke. So my Sunday night was installing this bad boy. And now I feel like a professional broadcaster.

It looks great, and honestly, it puts some pressure on me to really up my game. You look like you're now in a professional radio studio with that, because that is the setup. The thing you're using is what is in almost all of the professional radio studios that I remember that I've worked in. And now I feel like I'm a little underdressed. And we both have the classic headphones, though. I feel like a corn dog at a hot dog party.

What are these Sony headphones that everybody uses? Did you leave? And, of course, you still have the sticker on. I've never been in a studio that doesn't use these Sony headphones.

And this is the move. Show me a pair of these Sony headphones, and I will show you the sticker that has never been removed from them. Oh, wait. I did. I'm on this side.

That's funny. First of all.

The sticker that says professional.

That's always on these things.

Not true. For some reason. Oh, you took yours off.

I always take it off. In fact, I was a little bit disappointed.

You hit it with a little goof off or something to get the glue off of there?

If need be. Yeah, I was going to say, I see that you peeled one of yours off, but the real sin there is you left goo on underneath it. I can't believe that.

Andrew, I'm a nervous wreck, and I can tell you about this, not to jump ahead in the plot, but, you know, there was that football game yesterday. The Seahawks played the Colts, and, of course, the guy Phillip Rivers is very old. He was playing against us.

My whole family. What's that? For folks who weren't following, the old guy was playing against us on the other team.

Against us. And as the week went on, I started seeing more commentary that was like, this is actually incredibly dangerous, what is happening to Philip Rivers, and very irresponsible of everybody involved. Like, we're going to need, after Philip Rivers dies on the field, we're going to need, essentially, some kind of an inquiry as to who was responsible for this happening. That was the tone.

It was a rare situation where they were considering starting with the blue tent on the field. It was actually the blue tent was going to be behind center.

My brother-in-law, Josh, by the way, was the first person that I heard coin this, Old Man Rivers.

Oh, yeah, nice. Pretty good spoof. It was right there.

I mean, I did like your—I liked atmospheric rivers that you came up with. That was very topical. But I thought, I'm surprised we haven't been throwing Old Man Rivers around. Maybe the fact that it was sung by a black man in Carousel, maybe that complicates things. So my family was over for kind of a holiday get-together, which I told everyone who wasn't into football, which is really actually a small subset of my family. It'd be basically my sister Liz and her husband and her sons. And they're not like anti-football people. That's not like their personality, but they just don't like make it an event every Sunday to watch the game. But I told Liz, I was like, the game's going to be on in the background. There won't even be any sound. We're just going to be having a holiday party. Some people may be checking in on the game occasionally.

And you're picturing it. It's going to be like 35 to 3 at half. It's going to be a laugher.

Yeah. And, you know, so because, you know, I wanted this to be a fun holiday party. I didn't want it to be a sort of obsessive football event Again, for the people that just don't care about that much I'm more into having the holidays with my family Than I am into watching the Seahawks, believe it or not But when I tell you, Andrew That we were locked in as a group You know, there was, I don't know, 16, 17 people in the house Just like obsessing over this game Hyper fixated To the point where I thought Well, if we manage to win this It might be a funny piece of video To show my whole family I mean, my house was packed. I think I've learned what the capacity of my little house is, and it's about 16 people.

So would you say your house has a limit?

I would say there's a maximum number of people that can be in my house. Oh, okay, that's how you'd say that. We achieved that. You achieved the max. I know a guy who's achieved that. So I set up my cell phone camera on like a shelf kind of by the TV and was and had it. So it was filming us so that when if we had a triumphant moment of like salting the game away, if we had a big touchdown or something at towards the end, like you could. I thought it might be a funny video of us all being celebratory or something. And the game was, you know, we didn't there sort of wasn't that exact moment. I mean, there was the field goal that we, I don't know how closely you watched the game.

I'll tell you this. I was working, but then I got in the car just to hear that final field goal. And the radio call was so confusing to me because Rabel, the announcer, got so excited, but I couldn't tell if it was anger or happiness. And it was just freaking out. And so I couldn't tell if it had actually gone through or not.

We won on this last second field goal, but actually there were a few seconds left. There were still 18 seconds left in the game, and it was just such a weird game that I, you know, I went from jubilation that we made this field goal to, like, being just freaked out that some kind of weird, you know, sort of exogenous event was going to happen with Phillip Rivers throwing a 60-yard pass or something. It didn't happen. The Seahawks ended up amazingly winning the game. But I went back to look at the video later in the night because I wanted to see if there was that sort of classic moment. And there kind of was. It wasn't the greatest framing. The video did not have the greatest framing Because it was just my cell phone I kind of hastily put it up there But what I observed, Andrew Was a full-on maniac named Luke Burbank Who was chewing down on his nails Like a cartoon beaver on a log Now, I know that I chew my nails Because I don't clip them So I know that it happens But I'm not conscious of doing it If that makes any sense And what I was watching It was almost like CCTV of me pacing, biting my nails, quaffing my hair in a – my hair didn't need quaffing. It was a nervous tick that I was doing. It was the strangest thing to observe myself in this state because even though I set the camera up, I quickly forgot the camera was on. And then the camera was on for like 10 minutes or something. So pretty soon I'm now just – I'm not behaving as if I'm being filmed. I'm behaving the way that I guess I normally would. and it's a big old ball of stress i'm standing with my arms crossed and i'm pacing and then i'm i'm like you know i don't know if you know who this guy is but there's a guy from the barstool sports universe named frank the tank and he's like a mets fan and a miami dolphins fan and he gets really mad when his teams lose but it's kind of he's kind of lovable but he's got this and he may be neurodivergent in some way he's got a little like he wears this string around his neck with a little kind of plastic thing on a disc that he bites when he's getting really upset. And it's not for effect. It's not like his signature move. He has like emotions and feelings that are so strong that he has to get them out. And so he kind of grabs this thing and kind of bites on it and then he yells about the dolphins and he bites on it again or he yells about the Mets. I was just stopping just short of Frank the Tank. I'm chewing my nails without realizing I'm doing it. I would do this whole like loop. I would stand like this. arms crossed and then i chew my nails and then i take my other hand and i pat the top of my hair

oh you can do both at the same time but you want you're doing a circle on your hair but up and

down chewing bubble gum patting my tummy it was just this uh sort of unconscious loop of behaviors that i did not know that i do and i was like i mean first of all thank goodness they won because because it would have been kind of a somber day around here we were then so invested in the silly game that it would have been such a shame if like something that happened on this football field had like dampened our like family fun of our dinner and the white elephant thing and then some uh uh there was some karaoke that happened after that so like i was getting nervous i was nervous about the game but i was nervous about the game then having a negative impact on this thing that i think of as much more important which is spending time with my family who i love so So I was really, like, my relief at them winning the game. There is also part of the video, Andrew, where I re-enter the frame doing the gritty. So that's the kind of afternoon it was.

What is the gritty again? I remember it. What is the gritty? How do you describe it?

It was a dance that was very popular. I want to say hit the gritty is a thing the kids would say. Now, I don't think it was related to the Flyers mascot gritty. I don't think it was related. I think they just share a name. I think the gritty, I'm guessing it was in a song or something. But in fact, the Minnesota Vikings quarterback yesterday, J.J. McCarthy, hit the gritty as he ran into the end zone as he was scoring on the Cowboys yesterday.

Oh, I see. It is spelled differently. Gritty, the mascot, is with T's. Gritty is a dance. Oh, it's gritty. yeah okay so no i've never seen it spell but i know how to hit it when the uh when the seahawks finally salt the game away but um yeah it was a it was a kind of an odd experience to to see myself in that kind of um very i don't it's not so much vulnerable but just unguarded state that i didn't again i was the one who set up the camera you think i would remember but i i forgot very quickly and then i was just being very much how i guess i am when i'm just in the

world but seeing myself it was strange you know i just am remembering a moment that i had yesterday when that ball did split the uprights as they say luke i mentioned to you that i was in my car in the national football league um now that i have this microphone i have to say in the national

football league as yeah you had to sign i think a release when you got the microphone stand that Yes, they only say in the National Football League.

But I don't know why I need to tell you the details of this, but I will say it for my edification, possibly for your amusement, and for the specific location tracking that some listeners like. But I was driving south on Roosevelt, Luke, in an area that is usually a... It's like I'm there with you. Yes, and it's a two-lane road, right? And you're going through kind of the edge of the university district, just about to cross over the East Lake Bridge before I take a right. I take a right because I don't want to go on the bridge. I want to take a right and go into Wallingford for where I was going. But all that is to say, there is a place where they're doing construction on Roosevelt, so this two-lane, one-way road becomes a one-lane road, right? And so there's these cones that kind of push you over. And I kind of accidentally didn't realize that last week when I was doing this. Can I ask an annoying question? Oh, no, I love that you have more details. You're driving south on Roosevelt?

Yeah, yeah. You're driving south on Roosevelt, okay. Yeah, south on Roosevelt. Right before you get to the East Lake Bridge.

Oh, God, I love that you're eating.

So you're doing that kind of loop. You take a right and it loops you back under and puts you on, like, College Way or something?

Not quite. You want to even get crazier? Let's get crazy here. Yes, we do. No, so I'm driving south on Roosevelt. I've just gone through 45th, right? Gas station is on my right, a donut shop, and a weed store called The Joint are on my left, right? And so I'm going straight. But then you continue to go south, and then that old classic hardware store is on my left. It's still an abandoned building. What's that place? People used to love it. Kind of a sprawling.

Yeah, I forget the name of it, but I know it. It was like Owls or something. And you're right before you hit the Portage Bay Cafe, my friend. Yes, I think so. The Portage Bay Cafe is going to be on your left.

Yes, and I think I've now passed the Portage Bay Cafe, and now you're getting real dang close to the bridge. but there's one last turnoff. It's almost like a secret little Batman turnoff. It's by the dry cleaners, right? Is the dry cleaners on your left? I think the dry cleaners will be on the left, but I'm taking a right. I'm taking a right to sneak into this area. I'm basically heading towards the Dunn Lumber District, Luke, or the Ivers on the docks or whatever that area is. There's a tiny house village. It pays to pay cash at Dunn. Actually, I just thought of a more adventurous thing that happened to me. So I'm going to this tiny house village that is right there between Dunn and Ivers. And I was going to tell you about this moment that happened on Roosevelt, but let me skip ahead a little bit. I'm getting very close to the actual Tiny House Village. I'm about to take my right, but there's some kind of Yahoo-y guy on his. When I say Yahoo, he's acting a little bit like a Yahoo. He's on a rental bike, one of those self-powered or somewhat-powered city bike things. And he's, I think, somewhat obstinately or ostentatiously, somewhere that begins with an O, riding right in the middle of the lane. This is where now I'm just on a normal road, two lane, you know, different directions. And he's in front of me, and it's not really a big deal to me because I'm about to take a right anyway, but it's clear that this guy's kind of like, he's having a good time and is basically thinking, I don't give a shit about cars behind me. He's not trying to move over to the right. He's not like bicycle rights, bicycle rights guy. He's just some guy who rented a car and, or I'm sorry, rented a bicycle and might even have had a little bit of beer during the game or something. I don't know what it is. He's just kind of like having a good time on his line bike, and I'm like, okay, whatever. I'm just waiting for him to clear so I can take a right. But then right as I'm about to take a right, and he's going fast, by the way, his hat flies off. He's got some black baseball cap on, and I didn't even see it on him, but all of a sudden it's off and it's in front of my car. So I pull over, and I roll down my windows. I yell, hey, man, your hat. But he is zooming, and then I have to wait for like three or four cars to kind of pass me before i can get out of my car and grab the hat off of the street now i've got this guy's hat which is interesting because it's something like it's a black hat that says in black embossed thread something like hustle hustle win or something i'm like boy this is just such a non-hustle win situation i've got your hat man um but now is there if the hat said

1776? Like, is there a A kind of hat that you would not have returned to its owner? Yeah, I mean, obviously a MAGA hat or something like that. Certainly, yeah. You take that home and you hang it like a pelt.

Got one! That's right. No, so now I've got this guy's hat and I'm like, should I even do this? But also, I had to wait probably 15, 20 seconds for the traffic to pass me.

I don't think I'm giving this guy his hat back, by the way, if I'm me.

No, you would probably just have been what any normal human would have done and been like, well, that dude lost his hat. And you would have gone on with your day. This dude is already a teensy bit on my nerves. He's already a teensy bit. In the middle of the street. Yes, he's a bit on my nerves as well. And I can just tell, like, he's definitely got a, I don't care. I'm having a good time. I'm just going to be kind of taking up this entire lane on my bicycle.

Not thinking about where he is in space, which is one of your favorite things.

Though in this case, I would say, and I could be wrong about this, but this didn't seem like the usual Pacific Northwest sort of like, oh, I'm in my own little world. This felt more deliberate. This felt like, yeah, I'm having a good time riding this bicycle in this lane, and I kind of know that I'm being a pain in the ass, and I kind of don't care. So it's actually a little bit of a tick above that. However, when I see this hacko flying off his head, I'm like, I got to do this. So I wait. I grab the hat. And now I'm in my car. But now I don't see him anymore. and he was cruising using like the the automatic you know speed clearly that those bikes uh can offer and so now i'm driving kind of through um kind of where the burke gilman trail is there luke kind of by where all the boats are docked or whatever and i'm kind of driving i'm like where is this guy and i'm looking at all the side roads did he take a left did he take a right and then finally i see him way up ahead of me so i kind of gun it a little bit and then i then i i i can't pull up next to him in my lane because he's taking up the entire lane for a car so i dangerously drive completely into oncoming traffic and i roll down my window i'm like hey man i have your hat and i think i could be wrong about this i think that if he heard me yell the first time like a quarter of a mile down or whatever i think he thought people were yelling at him because he was being a bit of a loon on his bicycle yeah right and so i think he thought i was going to be giving him grief but i was like i have your hat he's like oh my god and then he like totally like he's like oh so he pulls over he's like throw it to me he's not like coming up to my window to grab it he's like throw it to me and i'm like i can't from here so then i throw it it's the weakest little throw it just like falls like very far away from him but he was very very excited to have the hat and he was very um and now we're getting married luke did he seem like your

suspicion was that maybe he'd had a few small beers maybe a little bit the internet the How does he not notice that he used to have a hat and then he didn't have a hat? I feel like that's an event that I would notice on a bicycle.

This fellow looked like he'd had a few small beers, I think. I don't know for sure, but he was definitely like, la-da-da. He embodied the attitude of la-da-da, la-da-da, only going pretty fast on this bicycle because it's got that built-in little motor, right? So that was my good deed. before I got to this adventure though I will say I'm in this little area where the traffic has to get congested because of construction this is before all the hat action I'm just driving and I have to sort of cut off this I don't really cut off the car but there's a car behind me and I'm like I just have enough time to sort of get over to the left in front of that car before this construction makes me totally stop and it wasn't even close and I'm pretty the older I get the more I'm like very conscientious of not cutting people off or whatever but it's just in my head a little bit that this person behind me might be like huh that person could have waited to go behind me instead of cutting me off a little bit but I'm listening to the radio and then Rabel has that call with the you know points to win the game and the field goal to win the game and I look just as I'm realizing that we won not lost in that moment I look in my rear view mirror and this person the car behind me is freaking out I just see a silhouette of somebody like putting the fist pumping and clapping and so then But I, because I figured they can probably see me too, I start clapping in my car to kind of have this moment. I realize, oh, we're both listening to Seahawks radio. It was this little moment of, I love moments when we're both in our individual cars, but it's very clear that we're listening, that we're sharing a moment. I sometimes have dreams of like rolling up to a car and we're both listening to like the same Eddie Money song or something like that. That's going to be a tougher one to achieve. But me and this car behind me, we're both celebrating the Seahawks victory together in our own little worlds.

I could see myself being that guy on that bike. And I mean, not that that's not what I would do, generally speaking. In other words, like I don't really like to ride in the middle of the road like that. But I could see myself thinking I was in trouble and then having someone like kind of beeping at me or rolling down the window and then just letting loose just a string of invective at them. Because you don't know. Learning they were doing me a favor.

That I'm helping him out. He seemed very happy to learn that I had to turn around and kind of do a U-turny kind of thing later and pass him again, like, I don't know, 30 seconds later. And I sort of rolled down my window and kind of gave him a wave or whatever. And he was like yelling, oh, thanks. So he seemed very happy. That hat would have just been gone. That hat would have just been because it got a little rainy last night.

Well, he clearly, yeah, and also he clearly wasn't going back for it. He didn't even know it had left his dome. He would have had no idea.

And it is kind of funny that it was like something hustle win. And I was kind of like, what a loser move for somebody wearing this hat.

Yeah, I don't think you're rising and grinding very effectively, sir, now that you've lost your hat and you have no idea where it is. I've said this many times on the show before, but I do feel like the aspiration that many of us feature on our clothing is not met with the lives we're living.

Yes, yes. You know what? I have a shirt that just says, I couldn't run with the big dogs. I enjoy it on the porch.

Your shirt says, if you need me on New Year's Eve, I'll be home with my shoes on.

That's right. You know, I have a shirt that says, co-ed fully clothed holiday partying. Mustache rides.

Remarkably expensive. Don't even ask. And morally questionable, depending on the circumstances. The irony after our whole kind of shoes off conversation of last week was I wasn't asking that it would be a shoes off situation at my house for this get together on Sunday. But I was trying to kind of lead by example because so the if you go into the kind of the main floor of my house, it's it's hardwood floor. And so that's just, you know, wear your shoes or whatever. but I, for some reason, I don't know why they didn't try to talk me out of this at the carpet place, but I put new carpet in some stairs going up into the upstairs of my house where there's a couple of little small bedrooms and a teeny tiny little bathroom. Those are the sort of guest rooms. And, um, it was pretty funky up there when I got the house and there was old kind of grody carpet. And so I ripped all that out. Um, but then the hardwood floors themselves were pretty beat up and had paint on them and they weren't great either. So I thought, well, I'm going to put new carpet down and no one said to me at the carpet place you might want to go with something that's not white like i guess it's sort of beige it's like a beige berber but like they knew where it was i guess i would have i would have i wouldn't have minded a little bit of um professional advice on the matter going you might want to try to go with something else because what's happened is the carpet is not dirty per se like people are not it's it's almost like when you walk on it it kind of moves the carpet in a way that it's almost like the shadows you know what i mean it just looks a little dingy and I'm you know I'm kind of bummed about that uh so I try to vacuum it and keep it nice but basically it's like if it's been walked on it's going to look kind of a little weird a little messed up so I was taking stuff upstairs for my brother and his wife and child were staying upstairs and I had some slip-on shoes and I had their stuff and then I was in my I jumped out of my slip-on shoes and I was just in my socks carrying things upstairs and I have to admit part of my mind was I hope people notice that I've left my shoes at the base of these stairs and intuit that maybe the upstairs is shoes off. Maybe that's the plan. So I'm here, you know, insulting the essential human decency of people that are doing shoes off, even as I'm low-key kind of hoping part of my house is shoes off.

I am really, really bad at tracking modern comedians, and I think you're going to laugh because I think the bit I want to play for you here is from five years ago, so it's not even like cutting edge, But where do you stand on Sebastian Manischalco? Manischalco. Manischalco.

Well, we've got an interesting relationship with him on this program, Andrew, which is when he was not famous yet, he was featured in a documentary that I want to say was like called like Vince Vaughn's Wild West standup review or something. I think there was some stand-up movie that featured, I think, some kind of, at the time, you could say maybe Ascendant comics, but not household names. And one of them was Sebastian Maniscalco. And what I remember from it was he does this bit about Ross dressed for less. Oh, that was him. That's Maniscalco. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, yeah, we've played that a lot. I have that. A bunch.

That was a thing we played on the show all the time because I just thought it was so funny. So I was kind of into the idea of Maniscalco Then he became like He's in the top five Most profitable touring comedians He does these huge arenas And for my money The material has gotten less funny For me personally As his star has risen As he's become bigger and bigger It's a little more For me Because he's got kind of a shtick The way he talks And the way he moves on stage It's very particular to him And it's what his fans really love And that's great But as he's become bigger And

bigger and he's playing these you know arenas i feel like that part of it the shtick has gotten

bigger and it's almost sort of clouded out the material for me that's because i want to play a bit for you here that i that i watched because i was like oh i should have played this when we were talking about the the shoes off house thing before i'm like oh but i watch again i'm like i don't even know how funny i think this is i was like i can't get a read i'm not deep into his material right and he does have this real physicality that isn't something that really strikes me right away as my kind of humor but let me just see if i i have to kind of needle drop this but i think i may be

close to so i see the guy right away he's got a t-shirt hashtag dad okay so he's talking about

going to somebody's house i'm going to skip ahead a little bit he i think he's about to enter like a dinner party or something with some folks he doesn't know

shoes don't come off my shoes come on once a night that's it i know some of you aren't even feeling this right now because you do this to people don't do this do not do this to grown people all right you're sitting there going what's wrong with that we have people take their shoes off all the time we have white carpet why you got white carpet

why good point that's why why i got white carpet is my question this him describing meeting people

with your shoes off the shoe thing she taps me she's like just take them off take them off these are nice people so now i'm gonna remove my shoes in front of two people i just met try and hold a conversation it's strange you're like so how long have you lived here

okay so he's imitating like trying to take his shoes off while he's standing up

so i dropped my shoes in the shoe farm

that's the other thing I hate too

now I'm walking around a stranger's house in my socks meeting other grown men in their socks

just shaking hands they all gesturing towards the fact that they're not wearing shoes and then I think he basically comes in and talks about there's four guys

in a sock circle

some guy comes in He's not even wearing socks, and it makes him ill, and it goes on from there. But, like, that is, although it's very physical there, like, that is it. It's like you're standing around meeting people for the first time, and you're all wearing socks. It just feels so wrong to me.

I just, like, ugh. Because the socks feel to a degree like an undergarment when they're out of the shoe. Yes. Now, the amount of your sock that you're used to the world seeing, which would be from the top of your foot up to, like, you know, your mid-shin, That's the part of the sock That I'm not embarrassed if people see I'm used to people seeing that If I'm hosting Livewire or something And I'm on stage and my pants of my suit Are kind of riding up a little bit People will see my socks I'm not worried about it People like to wear fun, frivolous socks Because they like people seeing That they've got their laser cat socks on Or whatever But the foot part of the socks That feels personal That's for me at home With my special person You know what I mean? Yes, absolutely. Like sometimes one sock will say dry fit and the other won't, even though they're both black and from Nike.

And also, yeah, I mean, one thing is, yeah, also I almost exclusively wear Argyle socks. So I'm sort of like, oh, and I'm, you know, I'm always like, well, if I have to take my shoes off, at least I have Argyle socks on. The idea of like chilling in like athletic socks. and you know my friend jessica uh this goes way back to when we were i guess kind of post-college early 20s you know i remember going to some party like i think it was holiday time some boston like kind of walk-up party or whatever and she's like she's dressed and like she's got these boots on and the boots are part of the outfit and then it's like shoes off and she's like i gotta like i'm wearing this dress that or a skirt or whatever it was the weekend that goes down to the knee or whatever it goes down to and then the boot makes up the rest i mean there's a reason why and then all of a sudden she's like i gotta take off my boots and now i've got these little socks on underneath like it's it's embarrassing that was something that becca brought up over the weekend

and she is exactly in the world that you and she of course doesn't listen to tbtl because that's a phase of of dating me or being married to me is it starts with like huh what's this guy doing five days a week in there and then eventually you're like i think i get the idea and uh so we went through this conversation i said yeah it's funny we were talking about well i was telling the story of me sort of putting my foot in my mouth so to speak around the topic of of of you know shoes off households and she said kind of exactly what we're saying she goes i understand that it's much cleaner and more hygienic i totally like intellectually understand it but i feel really kind of funny with taking my shoes off and also a lot of times my shoes are a very intentional part of my outfit yes i hadn't thought about that aspect of the whole i remember my friend jessica

Just being like, it's part of the outfit She was outraged Outraged

You've been to this Ross Dress Ross for less

Thank you baby

Alright, let's thank some donors These folks are supporting TBTL With a donation of dough 100% listener-supported podcasting. That's what's happening right here, right now, in front of your very ears. You're about to hear some serious voices, people, and some serious donations.

You're about to see some serious voices.

What's that from? That's SomeGuyMark. Oh, that is SomeGuyMark as well on TikTok and Instagram. That guy's great. I'd like to see him. Well, you know what's funny, Andrew? I don't want to digress, but that's a comedian that we found out about. I think I saw him on TikTok. I don't know where you saw him, Andrew, but he does a lot of, he's just a kind of unassuming guy, but he does a lot of really funny bits and also some dark bits, one where it's like Fred Flintstone is telling Barney how bad his life is going, but it's just really dark, but he has to keep working in the kind of like geologic jokes of the Flintstones.

That's right, yes.

You know how everything was Mr. Slateroff.

In fact, I'll use that tomorrow. I had that scheduled for some point in the near future.

so that guy i think his handle is some guy mark and he also does the funny like he really did some great send-ups of this kind of sort of quasi uh intellectual kind of sort of life maximizing podcast that's that's gotten very popular where people are blowing your mind yeah like information except his information is all just like there's no video of abraham lincoln and then he has this big we're always talking he's talking about the producer leaving this chris is leaving the studio um because that's another thing that type of thing that happens a lot anyway he's very very funny but the thought i had andrew was about to say he was like boy i sure hope he gets a tv show or something but it's like do i because he's probably doing great on tiktok and youtube like that shows you how sort of how outdated my mindset is like if there's somebody who's funny on these other platforms like tiktok and instagram and wherever my thought is well like maybe someday they'll get like a cbs they'll get a like a multi-camera cbs sitcom that they can be in like i don't think that's what people are aspiring for anymore well maybe

not that style but i mean some sort of project that with a streamer or something like i don't i i'm sure you i mean i know that people mark edwards appears to be this guy okay i know people monetize their social media but do you think that like he's do you think that he is in a financial position with what he's doing on social media that he's not actually using it to hopefully leverage something bigger i would guess like how is he making money off of tiktok i don't understand

how the internet works andrew and i just assume that if somebody has andrew well for one thing he's got merch i would you like me to get you a can i blow your mind right now unisex t-shirt what is the design on it it's kind of out there it looks almost like it would be the cover of a sun raw record okay alien implications and some kind of a i see okay it's got a pyramid on there kind of mind blowy i see it's a mind it's basically like the pyramid from a dollar with the eye in it

yeah yeah right okay yeah no no i don't want that shirt thank you i mean it's actually very hip it's

the kind of thing i could see adelaide wearing down there in los angeles when she's being all hip but um no you know what you're right it's like i don't on the one hand i just i don't know how people monetize having a lot of like traffic on a place like tick tock i just assume that it happens after a certain i mean they do have this thing called a creator fund where if you and there's all these rules around it which i don't really understand as somebody who doesn't post on tick tock but it has to do with like you have to create content that's a certain length of time and then people have to watch your content for over a certain amount of time for you to get credit and then you when you're in the creator fund you are sharing in some of the profits from tick tock based on time spent watching, et cetera. But yeah, I don't know the answer. I sort of said that maybe he doesn't want that, but I guess I don't know what people want anymore.

Yeah, I know, and it's very evident around the holidays. How do we, though, this is the question, how do we monetize what we do?

I'll tell you what I can't be trusted with, Andrew. The New York Times gift guide.

Wow, I set you up to come back to the donors, and you just ignored that.

Oh, yeah, the donors, like Danny Crawford in New York, New York?

I said, how do we monetize what we do? And you just... Andrew, I said, how do I act so well? You just whiffed right by. It was like the baseball hat flying off your head, and you didn't even realize it. No, sorry, go ahead. Nope, I didn't. And then you drove, you terrified, you menaced me, like in the movie Duel.

What if in the movie Duel, the guy was trying to give Dennis Weaver his hat back? The guy in the scary, greasy truck. We've never even thought about that. That guy might have been trying to return a hat the whole movie.

Our old heads will appreciate that reference Danny Crawford might I don't think of Danny as an old head I think of him as an amazing head Out there in New York City With his acting and sailing And twins having And all the stuff that Danny does He's one of our It's FBI right Wasn't that the show That Danny was on That's my understanding of it Thank you Danny Can you get some guy Mark a job on there Yeah come on I wonder if that happens to Danny I wonder if that happens When you get on a network show People start saying Oh you should have my brother-in-law on He's crazy He just says anything

Yeah People say that When you find out If you say you're on the radio People are always like Oh I should be on the radio I got so much to say People say that to me a lot And I just When people say that I think you're the last person Who should probably be on the radio Absolute last person on earth We should be giving a radio show to Sounds very dangerous Whatever ideas you have They're dangerous

You know what This sounds like It's dangerously spicy This is sounds like I'm really trying to pat myself on the back, but I really don't mean it this way. But you know, I think people say this to me a lot because they just don't know what else to say and it seems like it's germane to the topic of radio, but if we end up talking about the fact that I do a radio show people will say, oh you've got a really great voice. And it's funny because I don't think I have a particularly great voice, I think I have an extremely normal sounding voice. I'm definitely not a Dave Ross, par excellence But I think that people just say that because they feel like that's a compliment. It's sort of like saying, you know, what do you do? I run track. You look really fast. They're just trying to say, it seems like you're good at the thing that we assume you need to be good at for this job.

That's interesting. You know, this is something that I've been hearing my entire professional career as well. And I think people would even say that when I was a producer. I'd say I work in radio and people would say, oh, you have a great voice for it. And I'd say, well, I'm a producer. I'm not really on the radio. And I started to believe it at some point. Like, I've never liked the sound of my own voice. You wouldn't know that for as much as I subject you to it. But I've always said, like, I feel like I sound sort of like a Muppet. I don't think that I have a good broadcasting voice. Like, you know. Nor do I. The, you know, the Dave Rosses of the world or what have you. And I definitely don't have that. But I do wonder if, like, sometimes on the phone. And I wonder if it's the way I talk maybe. When I'm in like a, you know, if I'm on a phone call and somebody's like, okay, you know, let's say I have to call somebody regarding my, I don't know why I'm using this as an example. But let's say I'm calling somebody because I got a, it's health insurance related or something, you know, with my, this medication I take. Sometimes I got to get on the horn and talk to these folks. And I think that I might like have a professional way of like giving my information out, if that makes sense. Like when they ask for my birth date and phone number and stuff. And then if they find out I'm in radio, that's awful. They're like, oh, that makes so much sense. You sound like you're on the radio. And I wonder if it's less about the actual vocal cords.

I feel like I was getting my hair cut the other day, and it was on Saturday. It was kind of an emergency haircut before the family got together. I go to a place now down in town. It's nothing fancy, but it's just, you know, I've been going there for a while. It's $20. Oh, wow. And the people are nice, but I couldn't. The schedule didn't work out for me to go down there, so I went to Great Clips, and the woman who was cutting my hair was asking me about, she was talking about how she isn't an extrovert. She thought she was an extrovert, but when she goes home, she doesn't wanna be social, she just wants to hang out with her dog because she feels she has to be extroverted at work. I said, yeah, I kinda get that. I work in a kind of a, sort of an extroverted industry. I was trying to be vague, but also kind of commiserate with her. She goes, well, what do you do? And then I was just like, I'm trying to pick which one of my three jobs. I don't know. I just get uncomfortable talking about any of this stuff with strangers. So I think I went with a TV person. I said, oh, I do TV stories. And she goes, it was so funny. She goes, well, you're really rolling the dice having me cut your hair. Did you have a person? Which I thought was a great response. I like this lady. Oh, I forgot. Here's the first thing she did. She goes, you know, she comes over to the thing. She's like, Luke? Because I'm on the, like, little waiting list. And I go, yeah. And she goes, I'm, um, she got it totally wrong. She goes, I'm Padma. And I go, oh, okay, hi, I'm Luke. And she goes, isn't that Luke Skywalker's mother's name? And I go, maybe? I go, I kind of lost the thread on those movies. She goes, you did? And I'm thinking, as did you. You're unclear on if this is, she was, she was, no, my name's Jennifer. I see.

She was, okay.

She was making a Luke Skywalker joke with me. But she couldn't fully, she'd be great on this show, by the way. She'd fit right in Just like getting shit wrong She was trying to make A Luke Skywalker joke But she couldn't actually Remember the name Of Luke Skywalker's mother And what

You know You

Not always But you From Thank you. time to time we'll mention that growing up with a name like luke you hear that a lot you're the generation for that as well but i guess i never truly understood how deep it goes that somebody sees a luke on the waiting list and comes up with like actually prepares a star wars related joke

i mean prepares is being generous i think this was in the moment this was impulsive because she didn't know the name that's why I said she'd fit in on TBTL because she didn't actually know the she didn't know the name of Luke Skywalker's mom she should have just gone with Leia

yeah right yeah I'm Leia

hi I'm Yoda and then I think I would have gotten that immediately but she went with Luke Skywalker's mother but then she couldn't remember the actual name and I don't really I think it's like Padwa Padma Padma? Amidala? Amidala? Padma Amidala? So she had it kind of wrong, but then she was like, no, it's Jennifer. And then there was another point in the haircut.

Wait, is there a chance that she was right and you were wrong? Because it says Padma, but she said what to you? She didn't say Padma. Okay, she didn't say Padma. We got to Padma later.

Oh, okay. Because I thought of it as like, I know that name from Padma Lakshmi, the TV host and chef. But then later, there was a lot in this haircut. I mean, it got to the whole question of her saying, oh, you look like someone who could be on TV, which I was like, I don't think I do, actually. I think she was kind of doing the equivalent of, like, you have a good voice for radio now that I know you work in radio. But she also said, she said something like, you look like you could be on TV. And I said, you know, I'm really lucky. Oh, because she said, she goes, don't you have someone who does this? This is like an important thing, your hair. And I was like, you'd be surprised. I go, being a male and being my age, they're not putting me on there because of how I appear at all. It doesn't matter what I look like At my advanced age And she goes, you're advanced age What are you, mid-50s? I was like, god damn it No, I'm 49 You're not even there You're trying to call me

Your age, what are you, 67? I got the opposite recently Somebody said, I can't remember I think I might have been a Lyft driver in Arizona And he's like, what? Because I dropped it in my late 40s

Was he the same one that was on his way home to light up his fans?

No, no, that was in ohio but um i remember this guy this is a young kid and he was like what i would have had you in like your early 30s i was like dude i'm wearing a hat like if i take off my hat there's no way anybody's mistaken me for a for somebody younger than me i just feel like for all of us and this

is me included if you're ever going to guess at someone's age think what do i think their age is and then just knock 10 years she did no one's going to be mad at you she did that's the sad chain oh padma also laura o'neill dunn of durham north carolina thank you laura is there a laura

in the star wars universe probably hey you know who i heard is is a star trekker now somebody who's in a star trek movie or tv show or a project is uh is uh is is is my is my guy i could really use a win here giamatti g paul giamatti i saw him all in like star trek makeup and alien that'll be fun i would watch that i don't know where that's coming from though i mean that is a fascinating

thing that he's been able to achieve that like paul i will watch something because paul giamatti is in it yeah not a lot of actors that i can say that about i mean yeah obviously tim robinson probably at this point but i'm not somebody who you know there's lots of actors i like i like the actor ryan gosling i think he's very talented but maybe he's also on that list but it's i don't think it's a hugely long list and it's odd that giamatti is one of them like if you put giamatti in something like yeah yeah i will watch that because i think he's going to do something

interesting i am trying to okay so can i listen to this or is it text only nadev kwap vloh That's his name? That is, I could really use a win here in Klingon. Love it.

It doesn't play, though? It doesn't do an audio version?

No, and I don't think I got any one. We'll have to ask Doug Rademacher in St. Louis, Missouri. I think he's probably up on Klingon. He speaks Klingon. Doug, thank you for the donation, Doug. Now could you do me a solid and translate that for me? Andrew could really use a win here in Klingon, please.

Thank you, Doug. Thanks to Sean Moss of Seattle, Washington. Thank you, Sean. I appreciate you, Sean. Thanks to Amber Doherty of Baltimore, Maryland. I was just in Baltimore, Maryland. And Amber didn't say hello? I didn't know that Amber was there. And if I did, I would have popped by. I would have invited Amber over for a crab feast at Nick's there on the water. Nick's is where we went. And we filmed me opening some crabs, like shelling some crabs with this device called the Shell.

that was invented by a woman in Baltimore. That was part of a TV story. I couldn't believe how expensive the crab was. I didn't pay for it, but they had a bunch of crab, maybe, I don't know, five or six crabs for us to break open and eat. And I learned later it was like $200 worth of crab on CBS's dime. Nice. Yeah. Thank you so much, Amber. And then thanks to Sarah and Phil Roilence of Seattle, Washington. Also here in Seattle.

We had a... I know that we're in the middle of these storms, these atmospheric rivers, but I don't know what it was like in your neck of the woods. But Saturday was one of the most beautiful days. Did you have a beautiful day on Saturday? Oh, yeah, Saturday was sunny. Saturday was a nice little break. Dry, we went for a walk. I was like, this is the middle of December. I'm like, razz and veez. I'm like, man, these Pacific Northwest winters, so rough. Did you say, where's your global warming now? I did say that, and it didn't make sense.

Huh. Huh. Global warming, huh? When it's been cold. Interesting. And now it's sunny. I like global warming. Look at this. This isn't so bad.

I was going to say, I do think that warm, sunny days in the middle of winter wouldn't go against the idea of global warming.

No, I guess they wouldn't. But I just feel like the people that don't want to believe it will just find any reason. Either it's actually cold out and they're like, oh, where's the global warming now? Or it's nice out and they're like, I can deal with this.

Yeah, exactly. What's the problem?

yeah holy smokes yeah it was my house was shaking from the wind this morning at about 4 a.m and uh and then yeah then i was like getting uh i'd already gotten up but i went back into my little bedroom to grab something and i hear a and i look over andrew and at least 20 feet in the air is the cover to the hot tub flying like in the wizard of oz over past bob's yard and into a ravine oh my god go get it out of the ravine and bring it back wow i didn't know that you saw it

when you told that little story at the beginning of the show i thought you just like you got a

phone call like i think i got your tarp over here no i saw it happen thankfully because i don't know when i would have noticed it and my other thought was what if i wasn't here yes like i could have been on a work trip but it could have just been like a good point you know and that hot tub you would just be running up the energy bills without the cover on it, because that's its big job, is to keep it contained, the heat and everything. I thought, oh, I've got to work on it. See, this is very boring, but basically the hot tub is flush with the deck. So you can put the lid on it, the cover, and basically most of the time the wind doesn't actually want to move the cover, because it's sort of going over the cover because it's so close to the deck. It'd have to be, like it was this morning, just a totally unusual wind event for it to happen. But it did, and, yeah, it was crazy around here. Saturday was pretty nice, though. Saturday was a nice day. Yeah, I took a walk as well. It was nice out there. Anyway, thanks to all of our donors. Thanks for making TBTL possible. We would not be here without you. hello and welcome to top story uh rob reiner has died at the age of 78 his wife has also died um in a a pretty sounds like a pretty horrific kind of last note to their life but you said something and we were texting about this last night you and i andrew and you said something like i think hey i hope this doesn't really just doesn't define them and doesn't define rob reiner because everything that rob reiner did with his life professionally and it would seem sort of politically and even personally just seemed like it was kind of incredible and i hadn't given it much thought until this morning which i guess kind of happens when people die but like i said at the top of the show i would say pound for pound rob reiner probably made more content that is more fundamental to my, like first of all just being entertained by movies and then movies that I quote, movies that I think about if you take for me the holy trinity of Rob Reiner movies, this is for me personally The Princess Bride, Spinal Tap and When Harry Met Sally those are movies that I probably don't go a day without thinking of at least one of those movies or a line from one of them

when I think of Spinal Tap now I think of you and of course I knew about Spinal Tap before I met you and I always thought oh yeah I love that movie that's fun but I probably have seen it once all the way through and then clips a bunch of times but like you seem to whenever that movie comes up you seem to know it forward and backwards. That was one

like in the early days of like getting DVDs but then getting into the director's commentary of DVDs that was one that I had on DVD so I watched it a bunch and then I watched the director's commentary a bunch and I mean it's like yeah I don't need to, you know, say anything here that's particularly provocative about Spinal Tap. I think it's one of the greatest movies of all time in terms of comedies. It's just, and it totally holds up. I mean, you were playing that audio of just Fred Willard. I mean, I just quoted, I misquoted all the time on the show, but when he's at the, I think it's Air Force Base, where they're finally, where Spinal Tap is playing as their career continues to plummet, and he's talking about Four Jacks and a Jill, and like, it just, I was just dying laughing as you were queuing that tape up this morning. Like, I've heard it a thousand times in my life. It never ceases to be funny. Also, you know, When Harry Met Sally, to my mind, really seems to hold up as a movie. And they had so many, and I guess the origin of that I've now learned was, so it was written by Nora Ephron. And it was written because her friend, Rob Reiner, was single. He had been married to Penny Marshall, and then they got divorced, and then he was single. and he was dealing with this kind of thing of being a single person in the world and having friends who were women and trying to kind of think about what do those friendships look like and that was apparently the beginning of the thought in Nora Ephron's head of writing this movie about men and women and friendships and romantic relationships, etc. And then this is the crazy part. So his wife of, I think, I'm going to say 39 years, who he was married to until the day they passed away, he met her on that film. he was making the film and she was a photographer and she was somehow associated with the production or I don't know, maybe she was taking production stills or something and he saw her kind of across the room and he just fell for her, they started dating and they were married seven months later and because of his love for her he changed the ending of When Harry Met Sally

I couldn't believe I read that little anecdote and I couldn't figure out the timing and I'm like, how could you have met somebody on this set and then have time to change How could you fall so in love and then get married during this time? But I guess they just got married really quickly.

They got married after seven months, and maybe it was one of those things where they were dating. The first month of their dating was while the movie was still in production. I mean, according to the stories and according to the quote from him, that the end of that movie, Harry and Sally were not going to end up together. But he then basically said effectively, like, I get it now. I get being in love in that kind of way and uh and so you know he changed the end of the movie and I was trying to like quote the movie to my parents today was kind of it was very embarrassing because I don't know this has been hitting me emotionally like way harder than I expected Andrew and I don't know again maybe it's because he was also such a like and I say this in the best possible way he was such a social justice warrior like he was just a guy who just like he he lived his principles. And I remember when I was living in LA and he was hugely influential in overturning Prop 8 or, you know, like basically he was really committed to creating laws that would allow for gay marriage in this country. He was very big on preschool for all. He just wanted every kid in California, regardless of what their economic status was, to be able to have an opportunity to go to preschool because there's a lot of evidence that that predicts good things for their overall kind of school career, et cetera. He was just a guy who was just out there doing good stuff and making amazing content. And the idea that he's gone now, and again, I guess the importance that a lot of the stuff he created really has for me, and The Princess Bride. Like, I think I've choked up on this show trying to talk about this whole movie within a movie, I guess, or story within a story of that movie, because it's so easy to forget that it starts with Peter Falk and Fred Savage. It's a, you know, it's a granddad, you know, and his grandson in such a beautiful relationship.

Ironically, this is the part that Fred Savage's character wouldn't want to hear. The overly sentimental part.

The overly, I'll tell you, that music really cures it. Just, yeah, what does he say? The mushy stuff or something? He doesn't want any more of the mushy stuff. but just like that relationship because you know you think about it as like the Wesley and Buttercup and all that stuff and everything and then it's like but then just like the as you wish from Peter Falk at the end of the movie is just so perfect so perfect and so anyway it's just yeah I'm really sad about this and I'm really more sad about it than I

expected to be yeah and I know I'm the one who said what I said yesterday about like it's not fair that this ending ends up being part of and I maybe Maybe legacy is the wrong word there, but I think of Gene Hackman as well. We're a huge Gene Hackman family, mostly because of Genevieve's just unadulterated love of everything Gene Hackman. She's always been a Gene Hackman. Yeah, she loves him. She always refers to him as...

hack head over here yeah total um she thought the tv show hacks was going to be about him she's very she always calls him the fighting priest from um what's the upside down ship movie oh oh uh the beside the side thank you for bailing me out there yeah as always but anyway so bailed out those passengers you know and again that without getting into the details of it just like both with with hackman and here with with both reiners and you're just kind of like they were of a generation where we are, you know, sadly, and I'm not trying to be flip about it, we are saying goodbye to a lot of people of that generation. That is life, that is aging, and that is part of the process when we say goodbye to people that we admire. But for this, for both of those particular folks, or I guess all of these folks involved here, it's just, it's really, it's especially sad that that has to be how we're saying goodbye. And then, I mean, Not to get super negative, but then to have the president of the United States mocking him on the day that he died. We shouldn't be talking about this, but it's where my brain is.

I did not think that I could still be shocked by the behavior of that guy. I would have said, this morning when I got up, I would have said, nothing would surprise me from that guy. But that actually surprised me. I don't know, is that a good thing?

Just say nothing. Well, just like the movie. You know what I mean? Like, you don't have to go out of your way to make fun of somebody who's died in this way.

I mean, from a group of people who are extremely sensitive about how people talk about Charlie Kirk, it's interesting to me. And I know the circumstances of their passing are different, but still, I just, I'm fine with a detente around anyone dying.

Sure.

And us just not, just us trying to, I guess, tread somewhat lightly around people dying. Like, no, I know it's very complicated. Everything is very complicated. but like i think as human beings certainly let's say walker tech let's say you know i'm who dean kane who's like a trying to think of somebody scott baio a like republican associated uh it's funny too because you got to go pretty far down the list before you start getting to like you know who who could i think of scott baio and dean kane what about what about mel gibson mel gibson okay Great example. Great example. Mel Gibson. Although, what Mel Gibson did in his actual life while being arrested for DUI and stuff is so different. It's so beyond politics. Yeah. Yeah, I see what you're saying. You're not trying to. But that's a good example. Or that's an example of an A-lister who is definitely Republican. My point is that if you have somebody who was a Republican, like their thing was they were in Hollywood, they were also Republican, and they die. I don't personally think I would feel the need to try to like dance on their grave. Like I think I could leave it alone. So, yeah, that was a pretty shocking part of this whole thing as well, was the response from the current president. But just like, yeah, I mean, and also Rob Reiner was 78 years old. It's not super young, but Carl Reiner was 98 years old. We had a lot more Rob Reiner to hang out with in our life. And that's also really, really, a really sad part of this whole thing. He was still he I guess had like a long phone call with Eric Idle on Sunday. I guess it would be Saturday night. Eric Idle of the Monty Python stuff. And they just had a long conversation about like projects and life and family and things. And like, you know, he was he seemed to be a person who was still I mean, they just made. Now I feel like I sort of have to go watch Spinal Tap 2.

Oh, yeah. Oh, I totally I'm sorry to call you out. Totally coincidentally, because I was telling you on the show that like Spinal Tap 2, I saw the trailer for it. And I was just like, wow, this does not look like it's for me like at all. but totally coincidentally I think on Saturday evening I got a text from a listener and I don't think I have them saved in our system so I don't know who it was but they just said hey just so you know I'm watching Spinal Tap 2 and there are tons of good drops in here you guys should

watch it yeah yeah I'm actually to be honest with you before this news about Rob Reiner I actually had the thought weirdly like in the last week you know what I might go and watch spinal tap too i had the same reaction to the trailer that you did which was i like i i because i hold the original movie in such high regard and then i was like this just doesn't look as strong to me it's it's sort of trying to be too current it's trying to meet the moment as it were but then i for some reason i'm trying to remember even what it was but i was just like i had this thought go through my mind recently like you know what i bet you if i sit down with that movie for an hour and a half there will be five things that make me laugh pretty hard which yeah honestly is that's

pretty that's a pretty good roi for me yeah i mean i almost i think of um that movie uh mascots right and a lot of people are like i don't know man like you go from waiting for guffman and and then mascots just a lot of people were just sort of saying that like it just um it sort of tarnished the legacy of now i'm blanking on who who does whose movies am i talking about now Delicious.

guest but just like generally christopher guest just wowed our generation with this style of mockumentary and made several of them and then the complaint and i'm not even necessarily saying this but the complaint is that the movies just kind of got lesser and lesser uh to many people's tastes as they go on but like in mascots i'm pretty sure was like kind of the last of that christopher guest style but some of my favorite tape that we play on the show a moosing grace Did he yip or did he yiff? Like, that's all from mascots. It's like those movies, like, in the right hands, there's always something good in there.

Exactly. So I may, I mean, the biggest conundrum I'm having is I'm going to watch a Rob Reiner film tonight. Oh, by the way, I don't know if she'll be okay with me mentioning this or not, but, like, I had the funniest text exchange with Becca this morning. because she is so dialed in on her trivia and her facts and her figures and like when she corrects me on something goes i don't think it was that she's always right and it really bothers me because like even though i get a lot of stuff wrong on this show in normal life compared to a lot of people i am sort of a person who tends to maybe carry around a little bit more like pop culture or movie knowledge than a lot of people who just don't care about that stuff and yet when it's me and Becca and she's like I think you might be thinking of this person I'm like no and then she's always right and it's very frustrating but this morning she was like there are these Rob Reiner movies that like I've never seen but they were always in the video store when I was going in as a kid so they live large in my mind and she sent Mixed Nuts and Postcards from the Edge neither of which are Rob Reiner films

I was going to say Mixed Nuts we've been talking so much about that I had no idea that was Rob Reiner but it's not Rob Reiner now I need to I never thought that before, but now I'm scared that this conversation is going to plant the seed of misinformation, even though you're telling me that it's not true.

Cut to one year from now when we're talking about the movie that Rob Reiner directed called Mixed Nuts.

My favorite Rob Reiner joint, Mixed Nuts.

A Rob Reiner joint. But when she sent that to me, I did have the thought, oh, I do need to watch Mixed Nuts. But all that is to say, I'm debating tonight between The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, or Spinal Tarp. and I can't, I don't know. I guess I'll just see how I'm feeling when I'm making dinner.

Misery was a shocker to me.

Well, yeah, don't sleep on Misery.

I remember seeing Misery. I don't know if I saw it in the theater, but I saw it, if I didn't see it in the theater, I saw it probably early on in its VHS release or whatever and it having a huge impact on me. This might have been around the time I was just starting to be allowed to read Stephen King books too because I think I maybe read it after seeing it and it never occurred to me, hey, who directed that movie? you know like I haven't seen that in forever and then when I saw his name that he directed Misery now I'm like I don't think I want to watch Misery during the holiday season like it is pretty brutal uh but I'm like oh yeah I mean there is humor like Kathy Bates's character like he he did bring out not not that it's a funny movie it's a horror movie but like oh yeah you can see that he had an eye towards this and that there is humor in her performance absolutely I mean that

was the thing like he was incredibly varied in the styles of movies that he could make and they were all I mean a few he made a few good men oh I'm not like I'm not you know particularly obsessed with that movie but I mean that was a prestige film hugely quoted

I've never seen that but talk about a movie that had a huge impact on the culture you can't handle the truth right that's that movie like that is indelible on her culture now

that phrase yeah stand by me yes another one that was you know when i was a kid that was i i saw that the oak tree i saw that the oak tree movie cinema right by your beloved sars oh yeah that's still where i go see movies isn't it still uh so um yeah i am i i i am going yeah i'm well i'll figure this out for myself and i'll report back tomorrow which one i'm gonna watch but anyway that guy did some really cool stuff and uh and uh and i'm gonna remember him fondly and his wife as well who was a photographer, and had her whole... That's the other thing that gets complicated about these things, is because I wasn't as familiar with her, I can't give you chapter and verse on her outside of their relationship, but obviously that wasn't the only defining thing in her life as well.

But I also love that relationship. I love that they met that way, got married so quickly, which is often if your friend were going to be marrying somebody that they just met on set, and the movie's not even done yet, you might say, hey, just slow down, move in first. You know what I mean? But no, they got married and then stayed together for so long. I love successful relationships in Hollywood because I think it's difficult.

I need to do that because when you get divorced, but then you get married and you stay married for a long time, it proves the other person was the problem. I've never been able to successfully do that. I might be the problem, Andrew. That is why you do it. I am relying on AI Overview here, so I'm a little bit nervous. But you were listing a bunch of movies, but I don't know if we specifically pointed out, unless you did, that we're also talking about movies in a row. People were talking, and I think I have the proper list here, but like his first seven movies. So the only thing in the first seven movies, if this list is correct, that I don't know is The Sure Thing in 1985. But if this list is correct. The Sure Thing with John Cusack, right? Is that true? I don't know. That's the only one I have no context for. But it goes, this is Spinal Tap, The Sure Thing, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men. If that is accurate, there's not even, it's not like, oh, this is a collection of great films that he made. There's no fat in between. There's no, you know what I mean? It's just incredible.

Those are, yeah, that's crazy. I mean, there are, in a way, if we think about the, when we say great directors, you know, the directors who have directed films that have been very successful, I guess you'd think of Scorsese. Although, I don't think, is every Scorsese film a hit? I mean, they're usually pretty well regarded by the critics. But, like, you'd have Scorsese up there. You'd have Spielberg, obviously. Who else? Who am I leaving? I mean, you'd have to put Rob Reiner's sort of IMDb page up against almost anybody else's, right? Yeah. Just in those movies?

I think so, but I don't think that he's, like, kind of in that conversation the same way of the, like, really heavy hitter, you know, I almost wonder if, like, some people put Lucas in that, too, because he was sort of of that generation, and who wrote When Harry Met Sally? You just mentioned it before. Or Efron. Would Efron be in that conversation? Probably not, also, because we met her nuts.

She, by the way, I believe, did write Mixed Nuts. True story.

Oh, yeah. I do think you're right about that. Yeah. You know, usually it's men of that generation that we're talking about here. But, yeah.

Or Efron had the greatest title of a book ever, which is, as she was, also aging and kind of grappling with that. And let me get it. I want to get it just right. Oh, she wrote so many books now. I can't get to the right one. Keep talking and I'll find the name of this book and tell you because I thought it was a very smart title for a book.

Anyway, well, I was just sort of saying what you were saying, but when you name directors, though, I don't think Reiner is considered, like, he's not often mentioned, I think, I could be wrong, but in, like, casual pop culture conversations, if you're listing your Scorseses and Spielbergos and whatever, like, Reiner is not usually there, but then you look at this list, and now I have confirmed those seven that I mentioned, and, of course, his career went on. And I'm just saying those are the first seven, you know, but it's not it's sort of like maybe because he was what was his nickname on All in the Family? Meathead. Meathead. I almost said jackass, but I knew that wasn't right. You know, like maybe maybe he's just sort of not taken as seriously, maybe because some of these are comedies.

Maybe. I'm not sure. And maybe just because he didn't he wasn't he didn't seem like a person who is obsessed with his own, quote unquote, prestige. Yeah. And so he wasn't trying to make one style of movie. You know, every Martin Scorsese film is like a real prestige effort, whether it's like Gangs of New York. That was him, right? I think so. Or like, you know, Wolf of Wall Street. And by the way, good movies. I'm not trying to nag Martin Scorsese. But I don't think that there was – you didn't get the sense from – I mean, I'm just going to call him Marty DeBerge, which is the name of his character in Spinal Tap.

Oh, that's what – this is so does not work for radio. But one clip that was going around yesterday was just so funny. They were like, how is this one little gesture so funny? And, you know, you love talking about gestures on TBTL, Luke, but it's him. What is it? Marty DeBerge? Is that his name? Yeah, Marty DeBerge. And he's introducing the film or something, and he's talking, and he just kind of casually goes. He's talking directly to the camera, and it's kind of a full-body shot or maybe waist-high shot or something.

He's on, like, a director's chair.

Yeah, so do you know the gesture I'm going to say? He goes to cross his arms, but then just feels so uncomfortable and then uncrosses them in the moment and never stops talking about this band Spinal Tap. And it's just this uncomfortable, like, clearly he's the director, right? He's playing the director of the documentary, or he's playing the documentarian. And it's just a tiny moment of it's so clear how uncomfortable this character is being on camera. And he goes to cross his arms and then realizes it's awkward in the middle of it and just drops his arms in this very awkward way that is just like such a small little gesture. It just moves on super quickly But it's so funny

Oh man, I loved him By the way, the Nora Ephron book is I Feel Bad About My Neck And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman I just always thought that was the best I feel like I'm walking around these days Feeling bad about my neck About 80% of the time It's the number one thing I see now when I'm in a TV story It's like, did they have to have the camera To the side of me? I'm looking more like Alfred Hitchcock Thank you. Every single day.

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

All right, Andrew. All the weekend, along with biting my nails nervously and patting the top of my head, I was also looking forward to the email and V-mail segment today because you said that you've got a V-mail that had you on the edge of... I know a guy who's on the edge of his seat. I'm so glad that you're infected with that as well.

I can't get through one conversation without saying something in that tone. Listeners might remember about two or three weeks ago on this very program, my cat Bingo came in to say hello to me during the end of the podcast. Usually he stays out there until he hears I'm done slap rapping with you, Luke, in the words of Guns N' Roses. But we must have been going along or something. He was sick of waiting, so he comes barging into my studio. And since I wasn't ready for him to be in here, I had a little candle sitting on my table, the table I use as a desk. And he has a big, big, floofy tail. And he turned around. He turned his back to the candle and went to jump off of the desk. He did not realize that as he was getting ready to jump, his tail was hanging over the candle. And very quickly, in almost like a quick flash, some of his hair got singed. And I freaked out. I was actually worried about the listener's mental health hearing me kind of freak out in real time on the show, but apparently nobody had any issues with it. But I freaked out. I'm like, bingo, and you could hear me just absolutely lose my mind. He didn't catch fire, but he definitely singed his tail, and I got up, and I made sure he was okay. The only thing that really bothered him was me freaking out. He didn't even know how close he was to danger. Well, that little event that happened during our podcast led to this voice memo from Tiffany.

Greetings, boys. I wanted to share a story about my late cat, Anna Karenina. When I was about 25 years old, I was living in Austria, teaching in a place that was a significant drive from Vienna over snowy roads. One winter, I went back home for Christmas to the U.S. and when I got back to Vienna was jet-lagged like crazy and just wanted to go to sleep. I had a candle lit on the coffee table. Anna was not allowed on any surfaces where food was and at this point she was maybe 10 years old so there was absolutely no mistake that she obeyed those rules. So I was lying on the sofa with the candle lit, with a cup of tea, closed my eyes, just relaxing, getting ready to crash. And through my eyelids, I saw some sort of bright light. And when I opened my eyes, Anna was standing on the coffee table with her tail on fire from the candle. But she didn't realize that her tail was on fire because it hadn't reached her skin yet so I screamed Anna and she ran into my bedroom under the bed with her tail fully on fire the bed was like a futon so it was really low to the ground so I tried to get under you can imagine the panic trying to slide under and I was much thinner then and I could not get to her so I'm throwing the bed out of the way which scares her even more so she runs back into the living room I finally got a hold of her from behind the couch by the scruff of the neck and ran to the kitchen and opened water onto her tail. It was an absolute nightmare. She shredded my arm completely, which is understandable because I was very aggressive with her. I was very scared. And she had some pretty severe burns on her tail. It was a long healing process. and she never had the hair grow back onto the bottom part of her tail again so that's my story

it was a nightmare wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy power out i saw somebody this is unrelated somebody um posted on social media this weekend like what do you mean you wouldn't wish it on You're worse than me. That's what.

enemies are for like have some fun like wish things on your worst enemy but that boy just thinking about how close bingo came to that and that idea of you're doing something to save the life or health of an animal that you care about but they don't understand it and they just think that you're in that moment they just think that you're being abusive or or just awful is a terrible terrible feeling but you got to do what you got to do all i can also all i can think about is how

long it must have felt like that was taking yes yes i bet you the whole thing was 30 seconds of like from the moment to going to throwing the bed out of the way to grabbing to the water i bet you that felt like an hour yeah i mean because your brain is already thinking about all the scenarios of where this is going to go yeah exactly like it's it's like you're probably I mean our brains are pretty crazy in what they can do in the moment you're A terrified for your pet you're trying to help them but you're also thinking about like is this the end of their life what will my life look like in five years without them here if this is the end of their life are they going to be injured grievously what is that going to cost can we you know there's like 80,000 thoughts are banging through your head in that moment and it's probably making everything feel like this is taking forever like the second the cat goes under the bed you're just probably like the cat's I'm not going to survive this, you know? Mm-hmm. Oh, man. Well, I'm glad that Anna Karenina was able to live longer, and even minus a little bit of tail hair. Yeah. Gosh, that's scary, though. I'm glad you didn't have to go through that, Andrew.

No, I know. I mean, I was thinking about that. I'm obviously, you know, because I consider myself very careful with candles, for whatever it's worth. Like, I'm not somebody who's just like, I don't light them all the time, and when I do, like, I'm very aware of where they are. I don't think I'm paranoid, but I just know that, well, especially when I've lived with usually two cats for the past couple of decades. You've got to be careful. Cats jump up on things, you know. So I'm always very aware of it. And so for that to happen, I don't know if that was a lesson I needed to learn, but it certainly reinforced it. And I'm never going to put the candle there again, you know. And so maybe other people who are listening to my story and to Tiffany's story, hopefully maybe you don't have to live through it. There you go. And just even think like, hey, you know what? I know that I think this is safe here, but maybe I could make it a little bit safer if I move it on a different ledge. See, we are doing some good here, Andrew.

We are providing a service for the listeners. Also, babies. Be careful with babies and candles because I had a Christmas candle out and my niece, Gemma, was obsessed with trying to get to it. And then I moved it to another part of the little table thing and it's kind of this table that's up against the back of the couch. And I'm just not used to having a small child here. Although, by the way, I did learn apparently this morning that bubbles still is my cat because becca texted me when your cat takes uh a shit it makes my eyes water and i was like oh it's my cat again it's yeah of course she's doing that it's my cat okay

oh man you got a real wild you got a real wild one she is i mean that's what i've always said

about bubbles the problem is she has not i think she's like one generation from having lived in the like wilds of sumatra or something like there needed to be about 10 generations and there's been about one so she's still always trying to get back there but all right uh that's going to do it for today's episode but we are going to be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for all of you so please if you can join us for that in the meantime have a great monday take care of yourselves uh stay dry and stay uh stay warm batten down those hatches including those hot tub covers and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

Haha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this! Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!

Power out.