Muse

Oh, sweetie, you got a little Mars cocktail on your beautiful gray dress there. Can we get that for free? What? The Mars cocktail. Can we get one of those for free? Because she spilled a little bit on her dress. Sure. Great, because if you said no, I would have gone home and got on Yelp and said that I found a Lego head in my corner. I've done that to a lot of places. It works. TBTL!

I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary to me.

Objection on the grounds that I'm like, what? You know, people think I'm fancy, but I like nothing more than to end the day with one of these fine hamburger sandwiches from the good people at the McDonald's.

You think you're too cool for school, but I got a news flash for you, Walter Cronkite. You aren't.

Well, I've got to run. I can hear the blender crying. Coming, baby.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Tuesday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. I got the time if you got the diapers.

My name's Luke Burbank. I am your host. I'd rather check myself before I wreck myself.

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where The rain appears to have abated, at least around here. So that's good. We are drying out. We did not have any hot tub covers take flight this morning, which is kind of a W. We're going to try to harness that positive energy and roll right on into episode 4620 in a collector series.

Let the fun begin.

Last night I couldn't decide which Rob Reiner film to watch, so I watched The Princess Bride and Spinal Tap. And let me just tell you, those are a couple of good films. I need you to understand something so good. Check it out. I noticed a bunch of stuff, too, that I hadn't noticed in previous viewings of those movies. Maybe we'll talk about that. Also, the Roomba company has declared bankruptcy.

Does this sound like a musical robot?

What does this mean for Randy the Roomba, who lives in my house and who I still use to this day? He's still, he's on a schedule. He's out there. He's vacuuming. And he's doing his best. Me, that's your mama's forehead. Will he be bricked soon? We'll talk about that. And we're going to talk to this guy, longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He came in with a ton of energy on this Tuesday morning, which I was appreciative of. Okay, let's do it. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Apparently, I'm also a British rocker on an airplane. In the movie Free Jack. Is that an airplane noise I hear in the background? I know it's Mick Jagger.

I think it's maybe an F1 car.

Oh, really? That's even cooler.

I think the premise of Freejack is you can jump around either, I think, in time maybe or in space. I feel like, is it Emilio Estevez?

I feel like we got obsessed with that drop for a while there, but I don't remember exactly why. I don't remember why it entered our universe.

Well, I just always thought, you know, do you know why it entered our universe? because when I was a kid, my friend John DeYoung thought that that was the corniest thing ever when Mick Jagger goes, all right, let's do it. Let's do it. All right, let's do it. And he used to just say that to me as just like a joke all the time. All right, let's do it. Okay. And so he kind of lived in my head for many years. And then, I don't know, at some point I just thought, oh, I'll go grab that. I was looking for a drop. The plot of Freejack is in 2009, the super wealthy achieved immortality by hiring bone jackers.

In what year is this, by the way? What futuristic year is this?

It's the year of... Slabjacking. It's 2009. I love that. I love that. Good point. That just went right by me. In the year 2009, the economy will slump. The wealthy will hire bonejackers. Mercenaries equipped with time travel devices to snatch people from the past just prior to the moment of their death for use as substitute bodies. Those who escape are known as freejacks and are considered less than human under the law. It's actually kind of a good plot for a movie, I'm not going to lie. Kind of interesting. Think about it, right? So I think Emilio Estevez's character is, like, he's an F1, he's a Formula One racer who's about to die. So they go back in time and they bonejack him out of the car. now i don't i don't think mick jagger's in the car so i don't know what's happening in the background what that noise is you heard but i mean i i'm sure that the execution leaves something to be desired with this movie but as a plot as a sure because think about it the person was going to be dead anyway so at that point you know are we you know is it is it ethically okay to grab someone and to bonejack someone.

and to harvest their parts when they were going to be dead anyway just get consent certainly that's an important part of bone jacking two movies that i saw as a kid that are made for children that had huge sort of i would say kind of emotional impact or at least like really wowed me in some way or another one you'll probably have gone on this ride with me um but the last starfighter i remember when i saw that just that that whole premise blew my mind that you could just kid right yeah is so

good at a video game yeah that they need him to be i i'm gonna be honest with you i don't think

i've ever seen the last starfighter but it was big in the culture it's got the music man in it too and i was already familiar with the music man it's not i'm sorry just to be very clear not it's not the same universe as the music man although i'm sure somebody has put together that theory which would be very interesting we got aliens aliens right here in river city with a and i think i got a lot of things wrong there um but yeah and the kid is not playing video games at home for some reason this is very important to me or an important detail he i geez i haven't seen it since i think i was a kid and i think i've only seen it once but i just remember he's playing like gattaca or one of the galaga one of those games you know i never knew what that game was

called because the script was so confusing yeah it is on the game of galaga is it galaxy is it

is it Galaxica? He was playing something like that, but it had like an arcade-style game, like outside. I remember it must be like, it must take place in California or some sort of like kind of milder weather state because I feel like the, what do you call it? You were talking about these recently. You did a story on them. What do you call like a single standalone arcade-style machine? You call it a cabinet? Is that what the collectors call it or whatever? And so it's just like one of those standing up like outside of some sort of a convenience smart and the kid is just playing late into the night. Yeah, it's called Starfighter according to the internet. And that would be the game he's playing and he does such a good job that the music man comes down. Only the music man isn't the music man. He's an alien and he says, we need somebody with your spaceship fighting skills to save the universe.

We got trouble up in Space City.

That's right. That's what they should have called it. The other one though, and I hesitate to go here because I don't think you're going to, I'm guessing you don't know about this and then it's really going to be up to me to describe the movie. But it's the color purple. Exactly. No, it was called Cloak and Dagger. Did you see a movie made for kids? But it's dark AF, and that means afraid of Frankenstein. Nice. Michael John Higgins? Yes. Or Angry Frankenstein, what was he saying? But anyway, does Cloak and Dagger ring any kind of a bell to you?

It does, but sort of in the same way as The Last Starfighter. You've got to remember, in those days, in the early 80s, I was very much prohibited from watching movies that were seen as, well, worldly in any way, which would just be like anything that wasn't, I don't know, from the 1950s, I guess. So I knew about Cloak and Dagger because I heard kids talking about it. I was afraid of the movie Cloak and Dagger because it sounded scary. I had somebody in a cloak holding a dagger. That was my perception of the movie. When kids were talking about Cloak and Dagger, I just pictured a guy in a cloak with a dagger. I was like, I want no part of it.

You know what I'm just realizing? So, okay, the third movie that I really liked as a kid that hit me was a movie called The Robe. Did you see that? I did. Okay, good. Now that one I saw. I'm trying to get it back into your wheelhouse. Thank you for bringing it back to my... You know, I'm just realizing, so Cloak and Dagger, like, I sort of remember people talking about the last Starfighter. Cloak and Dagger, for whatever reason, I'm not saying my memory is accurate here, it feels more like an individual memory for me. I don't have social or cultural context for it. I just remember seeing it as a kid. I don't know. I picked it out in the store, and I brought it home. I don't remember hearing other kids talk about it. But I'm now just realizing a through line between the two of them. I think Cloak & Dagger might also be the name of a video game in the movie Cloak & Dagger because the kids, basically, there's a kid who ends up having to do spycraft, and there's a secret message or important documents or something that is sealed inside of like an NES style or Atari style cartridge. And so the kid has this cartridge and he has to get it into the right hands and keep it out of the wrong hands, even more importantly. And he's on this little mission. But like there are some really dark scenes where like he's in the back seat with like kind of a creepy older couple that remind me of the old people in Mulholland Drive, which would come out years later. And one of them takes off her glove and she's like kind of missing some fingers, which is kind of a shock scare sort of, or something like, and there's just like, So it's not mythical like cloak and dagger, but it's more like cloak and dagger, like spy craft. But I remember it like really, really affecting me. And I think I went back and watched it a few years ago and was like, oh, yeah, that shit's scary. Like, I think I think as an adult, you're like, oh, yeah, that would scare me as a child. would have been absolutely terrified because i was so sheltered i never i didn't see anything that was even remotely scary so i'm i'm and and in this particular case i'm grateful that they uh my parents wouldn't let me see something like cloak and dagger but there was a lot of stuff like that when i was a kid that i would hear about i heard about the movie porkies no i've never seen that yeah i was like i can't wait until i'm a grown-up so i can watch porkies yeah seeking all the candy you want and watch porkies that was really my plan for adulthood and um It hasn't come together the way I expected, but one day I'll go down and rent it. Also, something that we've talked about on the show a lot and that I kind of mentioned in passing yesterday is the way that as a kid, if you grew up in our generation, you had a sense of all these movies that you would never actually see but because you would see the VHS covers constantly at the video store. I guess the modern equivalent of that would be the Netflix tile in a way, but it's like those things rotate so much.

I'm laughing because I think I put this on my BlueSky account, which means you'll probably put it on your BlueSky account pretty soon, too.

Two less effect.

I don't think you can be less than three hearts on BlueSky. But you remember the story that I'm sure we talked about on this show. I found it very interesting, years ago now, the psychology or like maybe the AI psychology, if you will, and you probably shouldn't, about the decisions that what is going to appear on those tiles based on the person using the app. So in other words, like HBO might serve up like a scene of two characters for me from a movie, but they might serve up a scene of two different characters for you on the little advertising tile. actual based on the things that you like and i was flipping through hbo the other day looking for movies and they had a tile for the movie get out and on the tile was katherine keener and the in her husband the guy from the west wing whitford and i took a photo of it like i am pretty sure i am getting this tile because i am a white because that that's incredible right like they are not the leads of the movie at all they are no that is although we do we were quoting bradley

whitford's character from that movie even this morning before sound check we were oh yes right of course he's trying to bro down and he's like i would have voted for obama three times yes a third time possible yeah the perfect synopsis of like a certain kind of well-meaning but cringy white person but it's cringy but they're not the stars of the movie no they are not they should not be

the tile unless netflix so white i mean maybe is it what's what's her name is it allison williams i'm blanking on her name the the other lead who is yeah anyway like maybe it was her and her boyfriend or whatever like right but it's just like those two characters are like oh well this man is middle-aged he this man is definitely middle-aged and white like we see that he

they show you the one scene where bradley whitford is playing dart yeah right there's a scene where

Bradley Whitford is watching Columbo. And that's what they showed me, him watching Columbo. They're like, this will draw you in. Did it work? No, it didn't. Although I like that movie. I don't really like scary movies, so it takes a lot for me to see a movie twice. I do think I watched that one another time because it gets kind of confusing. I remember liking it the first time I watched it, but then a year or so later being like, wait, what happens in the basement again? So I think I went back to rewatch it. But I'm probably – I rewatched Weapons, too, by the way. Weapons as well, I should say.

I haven't seen it, but that is intense. You know what I think that speaks to? Just that ant lady with the glasses is enough to send a shiver down my spine.

Well, because that movie – and I cannot remember the director's name. You probably have it right at your fingertips. It's okay if not. He's from that show The Whitest Kids You Know. He was a team of comedy. Oh, sure. I don't know his name, but yeah. But, like, I think that that is interesting because I told you that, and I don't want to spoil it because that movie is kind of a special viewing experience. Zach Krager. Oh, right, yeah. That movie gets so, so, so intense that kind of by the end when everything sort of, I'll just say, culminates, you're almost laughing. Like, you're just like, this is so crazy and we just got through. Not in a campy way. You just find – I've just never had that experience before. We're watching a horror movie and then in the last couple of scenes, just like laughing out of a sort of sense of relief and everything that's going on in the movie. It's just kind of a spectacle. And I think that – and that is where I'm like, oh, that's right. This kind of came from somebody who came up through the comedy world in a way. And I think that speaks to it.

Because Get Out is obviously, you know, Jordan created that.

Yeah, which is maybe why I'm thinking about them together in this way. And like – and that's what made it rewatchable for me. I'm talking about weapons here, is that once I sat through the really scary parts of the movie, it's a type of movie.

that like oh that can't hurt me anymore sort of there are some movies that will always be scary because they're disturbing like the kid eating spaghetti out of a bathtub and gum oh no but like there are just some images that are just always going to be uncomfortable to watch I didn't find weapons to be like that I felt like weapons once you get through the horror of it the first time then you're just like oh I can just appreciate this as like a well shot well crafted movie that really does have humor in it you know and so I kind of read I kind of enjoyed it on a rewatch

i like the idea that i'm flipping through netflix and it finds the scene in gummo where someone's playing poker for me right what's the part of julian donkey boy that will appeal to luke burbank still not allowed to watch it speaking of movies man i watched the princess bride and spinal tap last night yeah and let's just start with the princess bride if you've got a moment like that is a phenomenal film like i watched it because i wanted to honor rob reiner and because i had said i was going to on our show i thought you know i should i should do that because then i'll talk about it tomorrow so i went into it being like well i said i was going to do this so i might as well and within 30 seconds i was fully locked in on the film like as a viewer like this wasn't you know in any way me sort of doing my homework or creating content for the show i was just totally and completely and i've seen that movie 20 times or something right we did a we did a watch along right oh right yeah i mean i have seen that movie so many times and i was absolutely and totally entertained by the film from start to finish i mean one of the things and i was watching it a little bit more like i was taking notes which is odd but i just wanted to try to remember some of the thoughts i was having and like so i was i was having a slightly more i guess academic approach to it but one of the things i was really impressed by is how efficient the storytelling is they've got to get so much done in the first like 40 minutes of the film they've got to like set up the fred savage and the grandpa character they've got to explain that buttercup and wesley have fallen in love but then they've been separated there's this dread pirate robert guy and there's this prince humperdinck and like they have to establish and then there's these kind of burnouts who uh you know wallace sean's character vasiti is taking around to places like you just by 39 minutes into the film wesley has been reunited with buttercup they're in the fire swamp and we know who everyone is and now we get to just like enjoy the rest of the film uh-huh like it's just from a filmmaking standpoint it's a real or i guess a storytelling standpoint it's just really really clever what they're doing they just jump right in like for instance they don't do anything they we they just they go like we're gonna tell you that there was this farm boy and this princess and that they were in love and we don't need to give you hardly any backstory on it or evidence of it we're just jumping right in you know like they're just like that has to be the the jumping off point we don't have 20 minutes to show you their thing or whatever like but then also i thought it was really smart the set design like when they're doing the like there's the cliffs of despair where they're climbing up and everything and then they have that big sword fight scene mandy patenkin and carrie else and like it's very like a it's almost like a stage play like and i could tell that they didn't even really try to make it hyper realistic they they almost tried to make it like i feel like they realized we're not going to be able to actually shoot this on the cliffs of dover or whatever and and like go you know to ireland or england or wherever that

is and like so let's just kind of make it almost dreamlike and and storybook and kind of not fairy tale and not and like make that a feature not a bug which really works actually you know in the film like it's just very smart like they they didn't try to do too much they didn't try to make it like a super duper realistic scene out there like yeah it's a fairy tale and that's okay and And we're going to kind of, we're going to, we're going to go with that. Wallace Shawn, Andrew, was 43 years old when he played Vassini. He was six years younger than us. I looked it up and it's shocking. Would you say that that's inconceivable? I would say it's difficult for me to conceive of Wallace Shawn as Vassini in The Princess Bride being six years younger than we are. It's the George. A mere babe. If I was still.

George Costanza problem, right? Like George Costanza was in his 30s, I believe, like well in my rearview mirror when he was definitely the male pattern baldness is doing a lot of work there in terms of the aging process.

But but I mean, even so, I also looked up Peter Falk in that movie. The grandpa he was, they think it was like 59 or 60.

Well, that scans that scans about for me. Yeah, it's like.

But that's also 10 years older than I am now. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So it's just like it's like a decade, a mere 10 years older than I am right now is how old Peter Falk was when he made that movie. Also, Miracle Max has braces.

Oh, yeah, I can I can sort of picture.

I have never noted. He has like adult braces. Yeah. Yeah. I've never noticed it. I've never watched The Princess Bride. Well, I guess if we did. watch along maybe i have but i i don't remember watching it on a screen as big as the tv screen i

have do you remember we we projected it on the wall of my studio oh yeah you don't have any memory of this because you were coming off of some sort of work thing where you had not slept

in like a long time like i gotta say we've done i think i was maybe shooting some microsoft stuff

yeah that's right because you were here in seattle and you had just got that's right you were burnt out you and i have done four tbtl as like kind of bonus gifts we've done several watch-alongs of movies, including Fellowship of the Ring and some other things. I will say, and I don't, just out of honesty, I do feel like that was not our best one. Probably not. I mean, you were totally burned out. I didn't have a lot to say. It was such a good movie, and none of us were really an expert on it. There was you, me, and Genevieve, and we projected it on the wall of my studio. I think we had just moved in here. And a lot of the watch-along was us being like great movie yeah great great great movie and then me lightly dozing off like trump in a oval office meeting it's a small little snoring the one thing i can't remember is there

is there marriage in the princess marriage is what brings us together today as you were watching it

were there just a million things you're just like oh yeah i say this in my like daily vernacular

yes I mean that's the thing there are I'm gonna say there are at least 10 scenes that are amongst the top 100 iconic scenes in movie history the like the you know when he and Wallace Shawn are sitting down at the table and he has the Iocane powder and you know you know clearly I cannot pick the glass in front of me I mean that's incredible the marriage scene I believe that that guy is credited as the incredible vicar or something there's a there's like a weird name for the guy who says marriage funny like that scene um the miracle max you know uh true love is the greatest thing except a nice mlt mutton lettuce and tomato when the lettuce is uh crisp and the mutton is that is so perky i love that like just the miracle max scene alone could have like made that movie you know what i

mean and like it's yeah it's i can't think of the word liar without thinking the woman who only has carol kane oh wait is that carol kane i know that carol kane plays miracle max's wife but like is she also the person oh no you're the woman yelling boo oh boo not liar i'm sorry you're a carol kane yells liar i'm thinking of boo upstairs yeah boo i meant to look up how old that lady was yeah she was she was 29 the woman in the town square you mean not carol kane right Right. No, I actually looked that way. I should have looked that way. Boo!

Boo! Boo!

You will find me booing at Mariners games like that. I'm not joking.

Just a little Louis Prima. Brooklyn boogie, the next thing. Played by Marjorie Mason. The booing woman in The Princess Bride is the ancient booer. played by actress Marjorie Mason. I don't know, it's going to be too hard to figure out how old she was in that scene, but probably 23. You're right, probably well younger than us.

Let's see here. Wait, no, this can't be the right person. Years active, 1927 to 2006, if so. If this is her, then she actually, she was not in her 20s or 30s at that time, I'll tell you that much.

um uh also there the um the hat that uh rob reiner is wearing when he is marty de berge the director of the spinal tap movie uh-huh is in fred savage's room oh that's so fun that's great yeah i've never noticed that before until the the very end of princess bride last night which is nice little detail and i was really thinking at when when this wrapped up last night That I think it's the perfect film Not just to re-litigate Our watch party we did with it But I really don't think there's anything About that film that I would change And I think Based on the comedy in it The sort of The sort of heartfelt nature of the film The way that it describes I guess you would call it unconditional love And just all of it I think it has to be one of the best movies of all time Mm hmm. Like I just really think it might be kind of the perfect film. So I'm going to have to put it in. I don't know what else is in the top five, but like it's got to be in the top five of movies that were ever made. I mean, maybe even higher. Maybe it's one of the best. Maybe it's the best movie ever made in history. I don't know.

Well, you know, and I think I say this every time the topic comes up, I don't think this is one of the questions anymore. But for our 10 of the week form for the weekly newsletter for TBT.

we ask listeners like a series of questions and one of the questions used to be and by the way if you want to be a 10 of the week go to tbchel.net and click on the newsletter and you can learn how to do that uh but um one of the questions used to be if you could make the world watch one movie what would it be and i liked that question because it wasn't like what's your favorite movie it's a different question and as i came up with that question i remember thinking well if i were to answer this it would be the princess bride i never said that publicly at the time so many of the responses from our listenership was the princess bride if you could if you if you had to make somebody or make the world watch one movie the princess bride it just checks a lot of boxes you know it's it's good for people of all ages but it doesn't talk down to anybody yeah by the way the ancient booer was played by marjorie mason who was born in 1913 whoa she looks good yeah in that

movie for being born in 1913 right because like i thought well they've done a lot of makeup on this I was assuming, again, this is just where I'm at in my life now I'm assuming everyone is younger than I think they are And we're just heavily In prosthetics But she, so that would mean That movie was, what was Princess Bride? Like 90? 87 87? Yeah, so she would have been 70-something Right? She looks pretty good, honestly For being her age So shout out to her Anyway, yeah, just a phenomenal film Which is something we all know, but it was nice to go back And reconfirm that, then I watched Spinal Tap Which absolutely absolutely holds up just like i mean is so so funny and and and just amazing that it came from the brain of rob reiner and that also it was one of his you were talking about his his sort of um filmography yesterday i know that he had directed like when he got done with all in the family i think he directed like a tv movie that didn't wasn't of particular note but then is it possible that Spinal Tap was the first big movie he directed? Let me take a look again. I had this list up yesterday. I'm wondering where Spinal Tap falls. I mean, I know it's early. It's very early.

Let me see here. I think it could have been the second one. Sorry. The first one was Stand... This can't be right. Stand By Me? No. I'm looking at the wrong list. Go ahead. I just think for how early

in his career it was, particularly if it was

one of his first big movies. Yeah, it was his first. First full film. I mean, that is a

crazy come out role right because this is an edgy movie i don't i don't think there were they weren't making my like i don't think mockumentaries were really a thing at the time like i think that they i mean someone will go find i don't know something that somebody did in the 1940s or something but i i kind of feel like spinal tap sort of invented the genre and so it's and it's it's so perfect the way that they nail this kind of decaying kind of world of this british heavy metal band and all of this is like the subtlety of as their tour is falling apart as they're continuing to get bad news from fran drescher and then bad news from their manager and he's this one time because boston is canceled it's all right though it's not a college town it's like just such a great just like a throwaway line just like it's not a call like it was i'm sure there was a bunch of people that were like i don't know what this movie is about we've never seen a movie where first of all people are making up the dialogue mostly and where people are pretending to be very serious but it's a joke but it's a documentary style like it was a comedically I think a big risk to put this out and it's so so expertly done that like I mean it's just phenomenal that this is the same guy that did you know like the Princess Bride and did you know a few good men and did all these you know misery and stuff like it's just crazy how versatile

this guy was I had to look it up because I thought you were right because I was thinking of another like music mockumentary that I love that is a take on the Beatles called The Ruttles and I thought oh that must have come out in the 80s too but that actually started in the mid 70s but it was sort of like but you know what I'm thinking and I could be wrong about this but I wonder if that style of sort of mockumentary and maybe they weren't even using that term then it does feel sort of British doesn't it it kind of feels like that because that you know that was an Eric Idle project with along with I don't know at what point he got involved I don't mean to make this about a Ruttles we don't have to have another ruttles conversation right now um but i think that um you know the guy from saturday night live um lorne michaels had something to do with that eventually as well yeah so anyway so the the you know yeah the the the format it was out there but now that i think about it i i can't think of an american mockumentary that would rival this is spinal tap before this is spinal tap i i've never

got i bet i would have liked the ruttles i never got into it because i didn't like the name the

ruttles uh-huh and also like the thing about the ruttles is like i loved it because i when i watched the ruttles i was in deep like there i felt like some of the joke even though it's an incredibly broad i mean there's some just flat slapsticky, you know, just sort of Monty Python, almost silly walkie kind of humor in there. It's also really making fun of very specific things in Beatles lore that I just couldn't believe, because I do remember there was some, and again, Andrew, stop talking about the Ruttles. There was some very famous real documentary called The Complete Beatles, complete spelled L-E-A-T, that I had on VHS, and it used to be like the kind of Beatles documentary. and The Ruttles was like a parody of that before it came out, I feel like. Like The Ruttles hit all of the beats of The Beatles' sort of storyline and sort of story arc and it just always blew my mind at what a, not so much prescient but very specific and detailed look at The Beatles it was but also in a very kind of campy way. I actually haven't seen that in so long. I don't know if it holds up as much as it as much as i loved it when i was a kid but uh that's all i got on the ruddles

thankfully on january 21st 1959 the ruddle story began at 43 egg lane liverpool where ron nasty and dirk mcquickley first bumped into each other of course they literally bump into each other in the movie i love it i will also say about spinal tap that the songs are pretty catchy like the the The music, the musicality of it is actually pretty good. Like, I was vibing to some of the songs.

What's the early Beatles one that they do before they become sort of the hair metal thing? I think it's like Listen to the Flowers or something. Okay. There wasn't one about money or something, too. Like, I need to.

Oh, give me some money. Yeah, right. Yes. Hey, speaking of give me some money. Hey. All right, let's thank some donors. These people have been giving us money. And we are very grateful because without the donations of the tens of listeners, from the tens of listeners, there would be no TVTL, this 100% listener-supported podcasting that is going on right now. And we want to thank Julie Tosh, who's in Edmonds, Washington. Thank you, Julie. Say hi to Rick Steves when you see him out there. My homie, did I tell you that I got, stood up is not the right term for it. An Irish good, what do you call it when someone agrees to come out to a second location, but then they don't materialize at the second location?

Like you did to John, not John Roderick. You didn't, didn't you, weren't you saying on air, I hope I'm not outing you here. Weren't you saying that you did this just the other day You were after Livewire You were supposed to meet somebody Was this a private conversation? I think you said it on the show

Yeah I did I was talking about how basically There was an after party after Livewire And I was like I was almost home You're 30 to 40 minutes away from the location And people were texting me like hey are you coming downstairs for the party Not only am I not I'm in bed And somebody did this to you though? yeah rick steves my point julie out there in edmunds and steves land so the story goes the first time that we had rick on the show on live wire uh two years ago it was in seattle and we had a great time and he and i it was kind of it was funny because we were all hanging out after the show and he was kind of lingering and he was taking pictures with us and he was chatting and he was in a very friendly mood and becca's brother scott and his wife tiff were with us and they're big rick steves fans and finally we all kind of went our not our separate ways but me and and and becca and scott and tiff and addy all went to get some dinner or something and scott was like dude rick steves absolutely wanted to come have a beer with us and i was like really he was like yeah how did you fumble that i was like i don't know i didn't even realize that was going on so this year i asked him on stage hey last year did you want to go have a beer with us and he said yes i absolutely did yeah so then i was like at the end of the interview as i'm always searching for a kind of a i don't know if we can call it a power out but some sort of button at the end of the interview i said well can we go get that beer he said yeah okay and so then after the show um we uh we made plans to go we went to the rabbit box by the way what a great place in pike place market but we um as we as we got there and and uh it was the lindy and megan came along and and my sister Hannah was there, and her husband, and some other folks, and we were all gathered around, and Lindy said, what do you think the chances are of Rick Steves showing up? I said, a thousand percent. It's like, he is a good Lutheran man from Edmonds, and he said he would be here, and he would never not show up. And then I get this apologetic message from him. Basically, I think it took him like an hour to get his car out of the parking at Beneroy Hall. Yes. And... Thank you. And he was just very politely saying, you know, we're a little burned out and we realize how late it is. So we're going to go home or something. So anyway, I blame Julie Tosh for being from it. I don't blame Julie. The embarrassment that I suffered in front of people. Yeah, I think you're trying to be a big shot and have Rick Steve show up. Anyway, thanks, Julie. Thanks to Jordan Mobley, who's in Chicago, Illinois. Hey, hey. Thank you, Jordan. Going back to Chicago, to my sweet home, Chicago, on the 15th. I'm doing wait, wait there. January 15th. So maybe I'll see you there, Jordan. Cheryl Axel's in Bellevue, Washington. Hey, another town known for the blues. That's right. Hot blues and cold brews. That's right. Bellevue, Washington. That's right. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you, Cheryl. I'm looking forward to hot blues and cold brews season, which is to say the summertime. I saw some little, basically some headline. I didn't even read the headline, but it was like,

it was a Seattle Times headline about the off-season moves the Mariners were making. or what was happening in the winter meetings, like things happening in the winter meetings that were important to the Mariners and Mariners fans. And I was just like, oh, it's like a summer day, even just a late spring day. We're talking late May, early June. The lawn is mowed. The Mariners are pulling ahead in the AL West, Andrew. I mean, I'm looking forward to it. Jorge Polanco is a Met. We never processed that.

Farewell and thank you. Rango is gone? yeah no yeah am i confusing how are we not polanco polanco like a week ago how did we not talk about this rango i don't know jorge polanco uh let's see here following signing yeah mets yeah the mess you scared me your reaction here made me think that i wasn't well i just can't believe

a i didn't i didn't know that had happened yeah and b it wasn't discussed more on unless it was being discussed by ders it wasn't being more discussed on the yeah on the text chain i feel

come up on the text chain yeah but this was uh this was news maybe uh let's see here i feel like it's at least a week old at this point but there wasn't tons of news about it because i think they well we don't have to get into this now they get the mets gave them a pretty you know pretty generous i would say two-year contract of like i think 40 million i think it's like 20 million a year and i think most mariners fans are like we love this guy but that's a pretty high price tag for somebody who's injury prone and just de-aging at this point and again love the guy but it wasn't it wasn't like it would have been if we had lost josh naylor or something like that i think that we always kind of had a feeling that polanco is probably not coming back and i'm guessing the

same thing with suarez as well well yeah god bless him for that grand slam yeah gino and the good vibes but i i kind of feel like that was other than that not the greatest roi for us like he He did kind of, and also with Polanco, with Rango, other than I just liked typing Rango in all caps into the text chain when he did good stuff, I wouldn't be shocked if he fell off in production. Yeah, I think. Because, like you said, the injury stuff, it felt like he kind of had a magical season. It's literally the word I was about to use. I think we had a magical year with him, yeah. Yeah. Stephen Baugh is in Portland, Oregon. Speaking of magic. Yes. Thank you, Stephen. And is supporting the program. Thank you, Stephen. Thanks also to David Gabala of San Francisco. california look at this portland san francisco bellevue we have the west coast the best coast

being represented and of course wait i just called sam did i just call san francisco the pacific

northwest sorry i was just sort of thinking northern west coast i mean someday from your lips to god's ears let's form some kind of a cascadia situation please i always thought that was craziness and now i feel like i'd be down for survival yes yes exactly and then christopher borgia is in seattle washington hey definitely pacific northwest yeah definitely thank you so much uh to all of our donors today for making tbtl possible we absolutely could not do this without you hello and welcome to top story is it rude andrew that um i am even as we are recording this I've got to be careful I guess there's a non-zero chance that some of the people involved could hear about this but even as we're recording this I think there might be an expectation that I'm sitting in a conference room or will be arriving soon at a conference room in Portland, Oregon to be part of a listening session at the local public radio station and I didn't ever throw my hat in the ring I didn't ever agree to be part of it I think that they're debuting some new programming and they wanted to get folks together to listen and give feedback but like i was just suddenly on this list a pretty short list of people that were like looking forward to you know having you be part of this thing and then i got one yesterday that was like like lunch will be at noon in this room or whatever and i was like i never agreed to any of this but now if i email

in and say, sorry, I'm not going to be there, I feel like I'm putting myself more on their radar. I kind of want to try to play the card of like, I didn't know. All of this, of course, belies that, what I'm saying to you right now. Wait, walk this

back a little bit, though. So when did you, so you said that you and I had a little conversation about this off-air yesterday because you told me you'd just gotten another email. You're like, wait, I think somebody's expecting me somewhere tomorrow that I'm not going. But tell me how this unfolded. When did you first start getting emails from, And this is not from your producers at LiveWire or anything. No, they would have definitely told me. Yeah, this is just from the public radio station in Oregon where your show is carried. So that's sort of a dynamic there as well. Hugely important station to our world. But you say you never got an email that said, hey, would you like to join us for a listening session and give us feedback about new projects or something along those lines, I'm assuming here. We're assembling some folks whose ears we want to bend with some new stuff. Is that close enough? Is that ballpark of what they want? give us some feedback on these things and we'll sort of make it a thing and you're you're a big uh wheel down at the the radio cracker factory or whatever they call it um why does it sound racist when i said it anyway um so you can call me a cracker i think it would be funny if we started anyway um so when did you first get an email that said hey looking forward to seeing you because you say you never got an email that said would you like to join us that's the that's the critical

thing i nobody emailed me and said hey would you do you have the time or would you be interested in being part of this listening group to which i probably would have said yes out of a sense of one wanting to be helpful and two uh you know that is a very important relationship for our radio show live wire and so i'd like to you know be helpful where i can i probably would have said yes out of guilt and now it would be ruining ruining that decision but you would have gone because you would have made the commitment and exactly but i no one ever asked me i just got on this email of like we're so glad you're going to be part of this about when did you get that

first three months ago three months ago oh and you've been getting little updates trickling in

from time to time since then no maybe one maybe one other email but then yesterday the email of laying out where for some reason the fact that lunch is served i don't know why that really brought it home for me but i had already missed the window of time i felt where i could have said oh i'm not sure you know how i ended up on this list i probably why i didn't reach out back then was because if i reached out and said i'm not sure how i made it on this list they would have said oh okay well would you like to be part of it and then i would have had to say yes or no which i guess i never really wanted to have to answer in the affirmative and so i just kind of played it like you know i don't know what i thought i was like that's

future luke just kind of it doesn't look like anything to me kind of situation exactly there

before just a single tear running down from my the corner of my uh eye and uh and so then yesterday the email comes out like can't wait to see you all tomorrow lunch will be served at noon etc etc and then i was like well now i now i'm really stuck like now if i chime in and go hey i'm i'm sorry i don't know how i got on this list but i'm not coming tomorrow somehow that felt worse to me than just no call, no show, which is what I'm currently doing.

I don't know. Yesterday, I feel like you should have yesterday. I'm worried there are nameplates. If I can should all over you. Yeah, there's going to be a nameplate and it's going to be empty and they're going to do that thing where they tip the chair a little bit, but it's a desk chair, so it's going to be a little bit awkward

where they're going to tip the chair. Be careful sitting in those desk chairs. Yeah, you've got

to be careful. Maybe that's the whole

thing. A series of unexpected events can really cascade from that one precipitating incident don't worry luke we don't think that

you set this whole thing up just so that you can look up somebody's skirt um so yeah i i feel like probably if you weren't getting a lot of emails from these folks i understand the instinct to not respond to them when it's like months away be like what is this i don't know what this is like just move on but then when it's like hey lunch is gonna be served i probably would have yesterday been like hey i i think there's been some confusion here i don't i'm not exactly sure what this is referring to i don't remember uh signing up for this uh and i and you at this point it's like the day before in the holiday season you have total plausible i don't know

if deniability is the right word you feel like this conversation is undermining my plausible do you want me to beep this all out it's like an attorney will say to their client do not discuss your case all you're doing is giving the prosecution ammo that's exactly what i'm doing here this is why you don't do this yeah i i woke up this morning with a fear in my heart that there are somehow not only name tags but like i said that little yeah what do you call that little triangular like a triangular piece of paper that's sitting in front of a chair in a conference room that says luke burbank yeah and that is going to really highlight my absence yeah yeah i'm trying

to think other lukes that they could maybe let's swap in there like just like cross out the last Luke Russert would be a good one, sure. Uh-huh. There's another Luke on NPR now, too. Is there? Forget his last name, but he's like a congressional reporter. Do you want me to take care of him?

Do you want me to take care of him?

No, no, that's fine. You know what? Honestly, at this point, if he could just show up at OPB right now and cover for me, he's aces by me. The other story that I—well—

But wait, what are you going to do? We don't have—I need some closure on that.

I'm doing nothing. You're just going to let it go.

We're just going to find out. What am I going to—I mean, it's happening. they've already noted my absence oh god this is making me feel bad it's giving me a bad feeling I don't like thinking about it what you're witnessing is a bad feeling from Luke yeah I know I'm sorry to circle back to it I didn't handle this well we haven't handled this conversation well either because now I just have this feeling of just like I've put my evil inside you yeah just like this sort of like very loose thread that is just dangling in our day now you've pulled me into this

here's what I would say is a positive I haven't received Like a where are you email So I'm feeling like The you know They've emotionally processed my absence And are all moving on And are doing just fine without me Thank you very much Like if I got it And I didn't get a message from anyone at Livewire Saying hey did you know about this thing So I feel like I'm through the worst of it Well let us know if there are any updates tomorrow Do you want to talk about Roomba Or the slightly i don't want to say unhinged but the slightly dramatic email that i or survey response that i filled out for this heating company that i bought these um infrared heaters from that caused them to call me on my phone and leave a message here's the message from the guy he sounds

panicked like uh okay so just can i oh you're gonna play it now can i can i um maybe get a little bit of clarification here so you've been having some issues with your mini split which it sounds like you bought one that is broken this is unrelated that these are the infrared heaters that you were singing the praises of to me recently right and i and i continue to sing the praises

of the heaters themselves the heaters themselves are are pretty great i've got one in my kind of living room area and then one in in both of the bathrooms on the main floor and they work very well the thing that doesn't work at all is this thermostat that i purchased that is supposed to control them and believe it or not the mini split in my house which is not from the same company the whole sales pitch is you put this thermostat in and it controls all of your infrared heaters and it controls even mini splits you just do some kind of a program with it and it'll just basically control everything in your house you can walk in and it's on the wall part of my fear is that if someone's coming over and they don't have the app on their phone to control the heat in my house on these heaters then what are they going to do right and and most people probably wouldn't have this app so i wanted there to be an easier way for somebody who's maybe house sitting or just visiting and just wants it to be warmer or colder in the house to just go up to like more or less a traditional thermostat and turn it up or down right that makes sense that's what this thing is supposed to be but it's it's it's a you know how smart is that it's a smart car it's too smart it's so it's like this aluminum circle that is of course it doesn't have any tactile real buttons on it right it's it's just like it's totally blank unless you touch it in exactly the right spot at which point it illuminates and then you're supposed to be able to set the temperature or scroll through some different options well one i cannot for the life of me get it to talk to the mini split or even the other heaters really i can i guess control that allegedly control the temperature inside the house but i can't specifically get it i can't say like hey turn the bathroom off but leave the living room on like it doesn't seem to be an option on this thing and also it just doesn't turn on most of the time i don't know if it doesn't charge properly it has to be plugged in all the time and when i walk over to it and poke it first of all you have because it goes blank right you never know where you're supposed to be touching it to turn it on it's not one of those things where anywhere on the face will wake it up it's you have to hit this specific button which is invisible when it's off you know does

it look like a mirror when it's off my google home are you looking at this no but that's what my google home um thermostat is it's actually it looks nice but it's yeah i don't have the same issue with it you do mine wakes up right away if you if you touch the side of it um and by the way is there any chance that you're supposed to touch the side of it that's one thing with my google home that you wouldn't know it's like to you you actually there are no buttons or anything but you kind of slide your hand gently along the curve on the right-hand side

of the circle. I could try that. I haven't

tried gently caressing the item. Yeah, it's got invisible buttons and sliders there that literally do not exist except they recognize your fingerprint. I wonder if that's it.

I don't remember that in the manual, but that could be because I'll tell you what I've been doing.

does not seem to work and i also think that there's some issue with how it is powered up it's this whole it's this weird special three little metallic circle thing you know that's maybe proprietary to them and it's magnetized so it's supposed to stick to the back of this thing but it never seems to be quite properly seated the power cord the power cord doesn't seem to really be connected so sometimes i'll have to take the whole thing off the wall and i'll manually reattach the power and then it seems to come on but when it's in its little harness on the wall it doesn't, there's something off about the whole thing and by the way it was like a hundred bucks so the heaters are fine but this thing is not particularly satisfying and then Boulder, the company is called Boulder by the way they made the mistake of emailing me and asking me how I like my thermostat and it wasn't just an email, I think it was like they were like hey would you like to post on our website about how much you like our product and i was like well i'd like to do the opposite actually so they basically sent me an email that was like prompting me to go on their website and talk about my experience you know give it one to five stars and talk about how great the product was i'd take lunch be served sir we have a name played out for you right now so i was like uh actually uh i will be filling this survey slash public comment out and i will be giving it one star and i will be saying this is really lousy and what i did put in my comment to try to make myself not sound insane was i said i've actually the the infrared heaters that i bought are called a kelvin because everything is super clever right so it's like boulder b-o-l-d-r but then their heaters are called kelvin with with like k-e-l-v-n because i think you know a kelvin is a unit of heat but of course these companies these companies never want to use all the vowels that god intended so i was like i have three kelvins and i like them just fine but this thermostat thing is a bunch of hooey so then i like i'm getting a call i didn't

want to sound crazy so i said the thermostat is a bunch of hooey yeah i wanted to sound relatable yes i wanted to sound relatable to anybody who would have worn an onion on their belt because it was the fashion at the time so then i get this call i don't know if i'll even be able to play

This is Zach calling you from Boulder customer support, and it just posted your email, and it said you're having some troubles with your thermostat that you purchased with a Kelvin heater. So I was just calling the troubleshoot. I'd really appreciate it if you could please give us a call at AAA.

I have not gotten— Okay, that's good. Okay, I was geared up to be irritated. They're not saying, hey, hey, we need to talk about this review you left. This is making us look bad. They're saying, hey, we can help you out with this, which is—that's a good response.

I've never—it's some sort of white-glove service. I think it has to do with the fact that this is not a huge company, and also that they were horrified at my one-star review. But it's usually the opposite, right? It's like you have a problem with something, and then you're trying to get through the help menu, and you're trying to get a human being to talk to you. So I guess my takeaway from this is just write very lousy reviews of these companies, and then they will come to you.

I went to the dentist the other day, and you're wondering, where is this going? You know how you have pointed out that I've been filling out a lot of customer service, or I'm sorry, customer, yeah, customer service surveys recently or whatever. Mostly for the e-line? Mostly for the e-line. I have nothing but love for my e-line. I'm looking to see how I can find this because I think it's part of Google Maps. You know, I am somebody who has a Yelp account, right? We've talked about that before, my Yelp reviews. You're a verified Yelp. I'm a verified Yelp reviewer. and I every now and then though I visit a company and they will for some reason encourage me to leave a Google review of something and you know I don't do this very often like every every maybe like once a year I'll leave a Yelp review and I try to make sure that they're not all negative you know and for some reason I can't find my archive here I didn't know I was gonna be talking about this and they're making it difficult to find but I went to the dentist the other day. Luke, do you know that I've been going to the same dentist for like 15 years or something now? Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, I'll even give him a shout out here, because I do really like my dentist. Simply Dental is the name of the place. It's down at the very bottom of Denny Hill. Denny and Dexter, people know it well, right across the street from that weird little skate shop. Remember that weird little skate shop that was like a obelisk or something?

Well, that's right. Yeah, well, that's where the elephant car wash used to be when I was a kid.

Exactly, so if you were standing waiting for the 8 right outside.

That's also where Razzmatazz was, the first strip club that I ever went to. Oh, really? Because you could be 18. Really, right down there?

Oh, interesting.

I wonder if that's where my dental office is. services now because the i will say the masks that they wear skimpy very skimpy anyway it is true that like i had not for some reason i had fallen out of going to the dentist before i moved to seattle or maybe it was when i moved to seattle but i didn't have insurance for a long time or something and so by the time i went to get my and i've always had good teeth i've never had a cavity

or anything you do have very nice teeth i'd like the listeners the guy's got a great smile great

chompers um but anyway so i remember there was a long period of time that i had not gone to the dentist and then i finally went to this place simply dental and they were like oh yeah wow you you know you don't have any cavities but you haven't gone to the dentist in a long time your gums are very swollen etc etc things that happen when you don't go to the dentist so they put me on a pretty kind of aggressive just like coming in every like three months or something to get cleanings and get everything back in shape and they did and since then they're like why don't just come in every three months so i go to the dentist more often than most people but i'm really scared of getting i would rather go in four times a year for some you know cleanings that i don't love than go in a couple of times a year but then have to have some actual major surgery or minor you know yeah you've been through with that mouth of yours yeah with the with the the other thing that i had going on so anyway point is i go there quite a bit and i when i moved down to la a couple of you know back 10 years ago or whatever i was down there for about two years and i never went to the dentist when i was down there again and i tell people this this is a true story when genevieve told me that she just got accepted for a job back up here in seattle and i realized i was going to be moving back to seattle literally the first people i told were simply dental i

remember i remember she told me this i was trying to do the math like how could you have the same dentist for 15 years it's because you returned to care yes exactly and all of this is to say

I remember being in LA being like we're moving back good I really need to go to the dentist and so I called them and then I think I called Nick my friend and said hey friend I'm moving back anyway the other day I went to the dentist for one of my you know multi times a year check ins and cleanings and the guy oh and by the way when I was leaving I asked the dental hygienist I said hey do you have any extra toothbrushes and toothpaste I can give out to people who need them who might not you know might be living on the streets or whatever and he's like yeah just tell him that Simply Dental sent you, and he just took this little white bag and just started shoving tons of toothbrushes and toothpaste in there and everything, which was like, you know, they probably get it free anyway, but I really, really appreciated it because I had asked people in the past and had gotten just blank stares. So anyway, I'm on the bus later that night, and I get a text message that says, hey, did you enjoy your time at Simply Dental or whatever? Would you leave us a Google review? And basically, I left a review telling that story. I was like, I hadn't gone to the dentist. No, I think I kept it kind of short. I just said, I love this place. Been going here for 15 years. When I lived in LA for two years, I didn't get another dentist. And then the first call I made when I realized I was moving back was to my dentist to make an appointment. And I noticed that they are very active with that. Like the owner, whoever is listed as the owner of the account wrote back, like, thank you for your loyalty or whatever. Like, these companies are really, really pushing for feedback, and then I do think if I had written something like, I don't know, man, they're not treating my teeth right or something, I have a feeling they would have tried to make it right, which is the difference between that. I don't have any problem with that. I have a problem with the companies that are kind of like, oh, you gave us a four instead of a five star. What can we do to change that because it's all just public facing? They don't really care about the service, some of these companies. they just care about what you say about the service you know what I mean but it sounds like in your case they were really interested in making sure that you're getting the most out of this thing and I'll bet you there might be

a misunderstanding it might be something like that I wouldn't be surprised I probably is I shouldn't have told them that there was a Lego in my corn I think that was me being untruthful no you know what I had to say this company has been pretty responsive because the other thing that happened was when I was out of town and my dad was here they one of these heaters was damaged when like fedex like delivered it to the house and so then my dad like sent it back or the fedex guy actually to his credit noted that the box was damaged and said okay we're just going to take this back and then i was like oh well i'm glad that i guess you know i don't have this damaged heater but i was also like what does that even mean now who who's fixing this for me is it fedex is it the heater people like what is the story with this thing and um i did my new my normal thing which is procrastinated and then i just got this email from them from boulder the company and they said and it just said like we've sent out your your new heater and it was like it gave me the price for the new heater and then it just said discount and it was the total price of the new heater so it was just like basically we're sending you the same heater that you bought before that showed up damaged we're sending it to you for no cost and Mm-hmm.

And sure enough, it showed up a few days later. So that was actually pretty good of them, too. Like, I didn't have to jump through any hoops. They just somehow, they worked it out with FedEx and just sent me a new one. Oh, that's great. So I have to say, they've been pretty responsive. And the technology is pretty cool with these infrared heaters. I'm pretty stoked about them. So I should give them a chance. It's like the Jedi mind trick you're explaining to me. It's like you're not warmer, you just feel warmer. Somebody emailed me and explained Somebody emailed me to explain How it was What I was saying was wrong And I got too confused Thank you for sending the email My small brain couldn't contain it Somebody else sent a voice memo God, this is so I shouldn't be copying to this But somebody sent a voice memo Trying to explain to me Why the heaters here in the studio Were throwing the breaker

Oh yeah, I think I heard that

And I also didn't listen to that, because who has three minutes? So maybe I can get AI to transcribe or something. If you left me a voicemail, if you left me a voice memo. I saw that. I think I listened to it. Oh, you did? Well, could you transcribe it for me?

Yes, I'll trip. Yeah, that'll be my new job, is transcribing voice memos. No, I like people leaving voice memos, because voice memos are usually more usable on the show. We're an audio medium, so I do like that. But explaining why a breaker got tripped is probably not. it was probably just more informational based for you. Yeah, and

I don't think there's much I can do about it because this place is wired the way it's wired. By the way, I'm using that heater right now. It's not tripping the breaker. I just have to, you know what I did, Andrew? I purchased a handsome extension cord. Oh, nice. Another braided one, yeah. So I'm, it is, I am plugged into the outlet that's across the room, but it doesn't look quite as bad to my eye, so. Good. That's the solution.

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

All right. Emails or females? Yeah. I have a voicemail here from Ian in Tacoma, and I can't remember the exact details of this other than I remember I was entertained. To answer that age-old question, are you not entertained?

Yeah. I was. Do, do, do, do, do, do. Ah, ah. That's December 4th, the Jay-Z song. Doesn't he start that way?

Oh. Are you not entertained? Oh, yes. Actually, I had no idea why you were doing that. But yeah, actually, that does fit. Again, that's the Black Album, right? I think that came up recently. Yeah, that was my first Jay-Z record. And so I have fond memories of being on a Peloton type of thing at the YMCA in Concord, New Hampshire, listening to the Black Album over and over again, as Jay-Z intended when he released that record. I want a white guy in his 30s just like on some sort of an elliptical machine in Concord, New Hampshire at the YMCA to be listening to this over and over again. Anyway, I mentioned to you a while back on the show, just it was a quick little mention that I was like I was renting one of those lime bikes and then I was parking it on the street on Aurora. I don't know, a while back. And there was a working girl there and she had she kind of propositioned me or something. It said something, and then I was like, no, thanks, and we joked around for a second or something. I think that's what prompted this voicemail from Ian, which I'm thinking, you know, because we are talking about a topic here that is adult in nature. I have this flagged as a voicemail that is good for TBTL. Let's hope I'm right.

Hey, Cobras. Ian's in a coma. Andrew's story being propositioned by a woman of the night reminds me of something that happened to me a few months ago. A few months ago, some friends and I went and did a golf trip, a casino trip out in Squim, and we called an Uber, and she let us know that there weren't very many Uber drivers out in Squim, and that she just gave us her phone number, so we could just give her a call and schedule a ride directly. Later that night, I reach out to her, and she says she's busy, but text tomorrow if we need a ride. Next day comes, we have a not-needed ride, everything's fine. Around 10.30, 11 o'clock at night, she sends me a text and says, hey, just checking in to see if you need a ride. And if you don't, just so you know, I do some kinky stuff on the side as well. Whoa. And I have never been so baffled and embarrassed. It was such a strange feeling. Anyway, I immediately blocked the number and let my friends know that apparently our Uber driver was also a prostitute. So, yeah, just an interesting little anecdote. Love the show. Thanks. Bye.

Yeah, I don't know. I would feel awkward. I don't know if I would block the number. I would feel flattered. Yeah, I know. I sort of, yeah, exactly.

Like, honestly, like, okay.

okay, that person is, you know, this is, they're engaging in sex work. They at least deemed me not so gross that they weren't going to tell me about their side hustle.

You and I are very similar. I mean, no thank you, but flattered. Yes, exactly. So there is a price. I mean, yes, it's going to cost me. I'm guessing there are other customers that this person chose to not reveal that side of their financial life to.

And Ian and Ian's friends apparently passed the cut on that. So, you know, I take that as a I'll choose to take that as a compliment.

Remember, it made me think, although there's friendship. Yes. I want to say that there's no sex work involved here as far as we know. But, yes, I was thinking about our time in Friendship, Wisconsin and how we had those more rural areas because Lyft is not such a kind of thriving concern there. If you're able to get some sort of a ride share or some sort of a taxi service, often they'll just say, hey, here's my direct number. Call me directly. But, man, we ended up getting abandoned in the small downtown area at its 5 o'clock somewhere tavern, right?

We went there to watch the Mariners play the Milwaukee Brewers and get, by the way, destroyed. Yes. And we managed to get a ride from our Airbnb to the tavern, and we were very friendly with the driver who said—and maybe it was a taxi, actually. It wasn't an Uber. That was the thing. It was a taxi service because there was no Uber or Lyft out there. and and we were very like insistent like okay well are we going to be able to get in fact i believe did i call the service in the first place and i think i asked the dispatch person which again in the olden days taxi dispatch was like maybe someone at an office like in the tv show taxi it was danny devito behind some chain yeah chain cashier's cage type of situation or whatever this is just somebody's cell phone at their house and they're just the person either who's going to come get you or they're going to tell the one driver go over to this place but talking to the dispatch person i was like it's very important that we're able to get a ride home because if we can't get a ride from the bar back to our our airbnb we just can't even take this trip yeah it's too it's too risky because it was pretty far from where we were staying and she was oh yeah no problem no problem so then we're checking in with the driver like and remember the driver was like i sleep one hour a day or something like she was drinking like monster energy drink or something like that she was like you know yeah just call me i'll come get you you know and i never sleep and whatever and then of course we're ready to leave the bar and i had that manic energy

right is that how you describe her kind of like yeah yeah but the other side of that manic coin

is the crash apparently she had crashed because when we called we're time to go home no one's answering she's asleep the person who allegedly sleeps one hour a day and who just drives 23 hours and is always ready to go is dead asleep and like we were in and then there was one of those signs at the tavern i don't know i'm calling it a tavern at the bar that was like a really good idea actually and i i don't know if this is outside of the state of wisconsin how uh typical this is i don't know if i'd ever seen this before but basically they have a service that says if you're too inebriated to drive we will make sure that somebody gets you home which is a great idea honestly and we called that number and it didn't work and i believe the bartender said oh yeah that number hasn't worked for years that's right i'm trying to think i thought he suggested it but then

maybe he suggested it but then you called it and it was out of sir it was literally just like out

of service yeah and somebody was like oh yeah that hasn't worked in a long time yeah yeah so then we're back to plan a which is monster energy driver and then on the like 30th call i'm just war dialing this person now i get the dispatcher again i believe who says oh yeah okay i'll send her and i'm like are you really going to send her like you're our lifeline or something yeah i'll send her and then i don't know another 20 minutes goes by and then the minivan rolls up and there's our driver who was dead asleep when we were trying to call and get our ride home was she wearing

pajama pants or am i making that part up i might have been wearing pajama pants i was in the back seat so maybe i didn't even see her pants but like i just sort of feel like it definitely had pajama pants energy and i was kind of like is this woman even okay to drive at that and i felt bad

i felt bad rousting her to drive our dumb dumb selves back to the thing except i had been very clear about what the i guess you would say expectations were like i was very up front of what we needed otherwise i would not have been bothering this poor person to get a ride home yeah yeah anyway anyway well in all of that including pajama pants at no time where we offered any extra services no at least apparently that is how homely we are at least you and i you and i weren't i don't i don't know i don't know what i don't know what goes on with scarf he was spitting game that whole trip he was talking to our that's right server about their twitch accounts at the uh at that polish place we went to her banned twitch accounts banned from for

yelling at children over the headset right i was like the last starfighter yeah anyway all right

that's going to do it for today's episode of tbtl but we will be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio

all of you. So please, if you can, tune in for that. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.