Muse

Your son has clearly been brainwashed by the evil and charismatic Mr. Burns. Are you sure you can get him back for us? Absolutely. I'm the one who successfully deprogrammed Jane Fonda, you know. What about Peter Fonda? Oh, that was a heartbreaker. But I did get Paul McCartney out of wings. You idiot! He was the most talented one! T-B-T-L

Guess what day it is! Guess what day it is.

It's Friday, Friday. Gonna get down on Friday. Everybody's looking forward to the weekend. Um, it's, uh, people who identify as nerdy, rapping about the things they love. Video games, science fiction, having a hard time meeting romantic partners.

Losers, in other words. Well, who keeps putting Twizzlers in the fridge? I told, is it Sarah? Crystal. Crystal does it? She likes some food like that. Okay, well, Crystal, you and I are gonna have another Twizzler talk. Why don't we go get a beer? I'll give you some advice, and we can have what the kids are calling a sausage mess.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Friday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Do you need an extra little bit of lovin'? My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. The word that comes to mind is ludicrous. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where, surprise, surprise, surprise, it's a beautiful day. actually california got sunshine we deserve it after the atmospheric river and the wind and all kinds of stuff it's a nice day today it's going to be a nice episode of tbtl i can tell you that it's episode 4 623 in a collector series and uh let the fun begin there was quite the football game last night holy catfish uh you probably know that already well if you're from seattle you probably know that um we're going to talk about that a bit also i've got an update on the david sedaris situation when he was uh bitten by a dog in portland which he's been writing about can you can you verify can you give me some 411 and uh i've also got an update on this guy he's the longest running cobro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ship you face who are you facing he's andrew walsh and he's joining me right now good morning my

friend good morning luke the good news is i will no longer be eating cheerios in your ear as i did throughout the sound test today however i did forget to bring my water in here so things are going to get a little dry as the show goes on just be prepared for that okay if you if you need to go

grab your water i see bingo is right behind you we could just have bingo that is a good point pop

You can just see like a quarter inch of his tail entering the frame every two seconds.

Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think it'd be maybe a welcome change of pace for the listeners to finally hear from Bingo on the show.

Oh, you know, I'm sorry. I wasn't listening to you closely. I thought you were suggesting getting Bingo to bring me my water. You're saying I should go get the water. Have you trained him to do that? No, but I also haven't trained him to podcast. So I'm trying to figure out what's easier, bringing me water or podcasting? I guess podcasting. Yeah. I mean, you don't need you don't need thumbs for podcasting. No. Have you taught him any tricks? Well, Genevieve. Yeah. Genevieve makes him sit before she gives him treats sometimes. And he does do that. He sits. I don't do that. I always say it's undignified. Don't make him work for it. Like he deserves treats. He should just have treats. But it is cute.

So, I mean, that's a but that's a true belief that you hold. You feel that it is. It's it's insulting to his essential decency as a cat. to make him perform for food?

Well, I don't have an issue with Genevieve doing it.

I mean, you're also not a fan of potty training cats.

Or humans, honestly. So, yeah, I'm more of a just free spirit when it comes to all that stuff. No, I don't have a problem with it, and it does show off his intelligence. I mean, the fact that Genevieve can teach a cat to sit before getting a treat is impressive. But sometimes I'll give him a little crunchy or something, and Genevieve says, Make him sit. And I'm like, no, I'm not going to make him sit. That's not our relationship. That's your relationship. My relationship is my bro wants a snack. I'm going to help my bro have a snack.

There would be not a chance in hell of getting bubbles to do any kind of performance, any kind of trick. Because, I mean, this was the deal when I had Rudy, the Yellow Lab, where we would take Rudy to training. we took her to two different, I think, trainers. And both of them said the same thing. Well, she should be trainable. And both of them quit. Yeah, both of them walked out. Exasperated. Well, the thing was, they always said, well, she should be really easy to train because she's very food motivated. And that's apparently the thing you need in an animal like a dog or a cat.

get them to do stuff is that you got to have something they want and the thing with bubbles is nobody has anything that bubbles wants except maybe the the southbound end of a northbound holly cat seems to be her only interest is tossing salad but um as far as like trying to yeah reward her with something just doesn't care just has absolutely no interest in any of that stuff what is she like around food she uh her move is um she will eat it uh very quickly and then throw it up oh shoot yeah it's pretty regular occurrence for her yeah cats do that um a lot it

has to be like a pretty you know regular occurrence i think for it to rise to the level of having to

be worried about something but that is gross i've got an update in the david sedaris department for remember yesterday i was very perplexed by something which was that he has written this essay about portland and and how portland is kind of it is kind of a portland is dying kind of essay but it it centers around him being bitten by a dog that some folks that were you know probably homeless or certainly on the margins had i think in a baby stroller maybe always a look the dog in the baby stroller but um and that that there was no concern for his well-being it was just like more concern for the dog and he takes it as a kind of a symbol of of the again the the deterioration of portland well what i people in portland have been responding to the essay most of them not super psyched because uh you know they want to defend their city um but i was having this weird memory of like didn't this happen like years ago to david sedaris because i don't know why i just i had a memory of him either either in an interview or writing about it somewhere or i But I've also been taking so many L's this week in the memory department. I have been just loud wrong about a lot of things, including how Peter Krause's last name is pronounced, which I'll never live down. I actually think he might be mispronouncing it, but I don't want to get into that right now.

That's so funny. It's funny that you count that amongst your L's this week because I didn't even remember that. Well, I said Krause. Yeah, but it's not like you and I were like, it's Krause, it's Krause. You know what I mean? We're both like, oh, yeah, maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. We both just made assumptions about it. You know what I mean? Like, I just, that shouldn't, stuff like that shouldn't live with you.

I would have bet, before Susan Stanberg uttered the name Krause, I would have bet $1,000 it was Krause. I don't know why. I just had that feeling. I've been having the feeling this week a lot of being very convinced of my rightness with something in my own mind and then being told unequivocally that I'm wrong. And that hurts LB. So anyway, I was searching around yesterday trying to figure out when the dog bite incident happened It doesn't specify in the story, and I emailed David Sedaris And I did, who I don't email with on a regular basis I don't think he knows who I am, even though I have interviewed him on this show I've met him a handful of times, but I do not assume that he has any sense of who I am But I emailed him to ask when the dog bite was And you pointed out, I think, rightfully that my subject line was kind of poorly thought out.

I didn't put it that. Those are not my words, I want to just say.

Okay, I regretted the way the subject line, because what I was trying to do was make sure that he didn't think I was trying to bust him in a lie or an exaggeration or somehow use the timeline to disprove his theories. And your subject line was,

how dare you even say that to me? no yours was just it just used the word timeline right like yeah very quick question about dog bite timeline and i just thought that like maybe that does sort of sound like hey i'm trying to sleuth something if he's just going through email quickly and he let's assume he gets tons of them and he happens to see one maybe he doesn't recognize your name and i don't know whether or not he does but presumably does and then he just says question about timeline i could just see that as being another one that is maybe easily skipped in the moment because it sounds like somebody's questioning something but i i don't think it was a terrible headline or anything

like that or regrettable or no but i thought it could lead to him just deleting the message or not responding or being a little annoyed sure and therefore not even reading it but no david sedaris he is nothing if not punctual and polite responded within an hour and a half oh dear luke it happened in may and i read the essay all fall so maybe you heard it then sincerely david sent from my ipad that's great that detail i mean he has not taken off the sent from my ipad

watermark i mean that really supports everybody's theory or everybody who's like maybe like slightly unhappy with what's coming from his pen these days feeling like he might be aging a bit just a cranky cranky crankier essays and got by the way as a cranky old man like i love that that's coming from an ipad that's not a dig sent from my ipad

Pardon me for coughing into the microphone, but does that sort of – I mean, I know you said years, but does this sort of – does this split the difference of you feeling like you're not gaslit? Like, oh, yeah, I probably heard the essay somewhere.

Well, I have – here's the problem. I haven't seen him perform live that I remember in a while, and unless I heard him on – unless he – he didn't do this as – well, it would have shown up. He didn't do this as an essay on CBS Sunday morning, did he? I know that I haven't been to any of his readings since May.

And you're saying this would have to have been broadcast in some way, like This American Life, CBS Sunday Morning.

Yeah, something, because I haven't seen him since May, so I wouldn't have been at a reading. So it's like it doesn't really explain. It makes me think that I'm just having another sort of, you know, I don't know, weird mental moment where I'm kind of Mandela-ing something into my own mind. Because unless he publicly, like again, like you said, on This American Life or CBS Sunday Morning, which I feel like he would have mentioned if I said – because my email also said – I have this weird memory of hearing you discuss this a while ago somewhere.

And you mentioned that you guys know each other or that you both share a CBS connection. Yes, I was trying to curry some credibility. So he might have said, oh, yeah, well, this was on a CBS thing or something.

Right. So in other words, I guess that wasn't the case. And so, yeah, I don't feel like this explains where I got my theory from. I think my theory was just kind of wrong. That's interesting.

You know, the way this was set up, even when I saw that, okay, so half an L. Okay, I was going to say, are you really adding this to your full list of L's? Because, I mean, I guess it's not satisfying in your brain. You know what it's like, Andrew?

It's like a baseball game. If you're going to lose 1-0, you might as well lose 15-0. Tire out the Texas Rangers.

Sure, yeah, right.

I don't even care at this point. This is my week of losing. And run the score up on me In my theory, that's fewer losses for me next week You're trying to tire out reality's bullpen I just have to get to the objective fact-based universe's middle relief

If you want that as a book title When you write your eventual book That's honestly one of your best jokes of 2025 Tiring out reality's bullpen

That's such a good joke That is such a good joke.

Well, anyway, that's interesting. I really thought, especially because you had it in the show sheet, I'm like, well, there must be some update. So if the update was he never responded to my email, I don't think it would have been on the show sheet. It might have just come up casually. And the way you sort of set the story up, I really thought you were gearing. I thought you were really winding us up for a finally, you know, Luke gets the W on something. You don't see it that way. But it's not, I don't know. I guess it's not satisfying to you. But I do sort of feel like, well, the timeline is he did, you could have heard it somewhere. Like, you just could have. Like, I don't know. Is he ever on podcasts?

Well, I heard him on Conan's podcast a long time ago. And that was when he famously, in my mind, said that the drugs they give you when you get a colonoscopy are the best drugs you'll ever get. And so that actually really did encourage me. that made me think it shows you what what i need as motivation in my life um but that was that kind of had me that and just the absolute un sort of relenting browbeating from our friend phyllis fletcher had me thinking about my oh yeah about the colonoscopy yeah had me finally getting down to business and scheduling it all of that um but also the fact that david sedara said he kind of likes his colonoscopy because they give him some really good drugs i also didn't know until i read his essay about Portland that he's sober.

Oh, I don't think I knew that. I really lost track of him. So, I mean, I remember, you know, back in the day, I also don't listen to This American Life anymore. I don't know if that's still a main outlet for him, but, like, so much has changed in my life. I mean, there was a time when if you were to cut me open, This American Life commentators would come out. You know what I mean? Like, I was so obsessed with, like, just that universe.

Margie Rocklin would crawl out of your femoral artery.

I should laugh along with that just to, if nothing else. I was trying to pick an especially obscure This American Life contributor. Yeah, that one doesn't ring a bell to me. I should laugh along. We'll call this an L for Andrew. I know, I'm undermining my own thesis there. How about a Starley Kine? Oh, of course a Starley Kine. Absolutely. But anyway, I've just sort of fallen out of that universe completely. And so I kind of don't know what his deal is. But it's just like, man, back in the day, like we would read every book. We would know when new books were coming out. We would buy the book and the audio book on CD, if possible, and listen to it on road trips, you know, like.

I know we had both the hardcover and the audio of Naked. The audiobook of Naked is one of the biggest pieces of pop culture for me of the early 2000s. Did I miss anything else?

Well, of his kind of era?

No, I just mean of the early 2000s. As far as I know, that's the only thing that the millennials cared about was David Sparris'—

What, was it like the sacred tomes? It was Naked.

i feel like the music of the shins yes and the writing of david sedaris and flash mobs i believe

that was what was running the culture then uh yeah oh my god i saw something on tick tock the other day that it would have absolutely sent you running it was a a was a i believe it was a wife who was her husband was turning 50 and he had said please don't do anything over the top i guess you know she is one of those people who likes to kind of do big showy gestures and she somehow they were on an airplane flying somewhere now i think the sad end of the story is this guy ended up passing away and the point of this one's post was kind of like treasure the time you have with people which is a very nice sentiment and i think one that we should all think about and i am really trying to think about that particularly as it relates to my parents because they are around all the time not this very day but soon again they will be here and um but i love them and i and I'm really actively appreciating being with them because that will likely not always be the case. But anyway, what this wife had done was somehow gotten everyone boarding the plane to wear these bizarre... You can get these things made now where you send a picture into the internet of someone, and then they'll make a hyper-realistic mask. Not hyper-realistic, but they'll just make a mask with that person's face on it. Like a photo-realistic mask? Kind of a photo-realistic mask. of, and it's, you know, it's like, I think it's almost kind of like a sort of a, like a nylons that you pull on kind of a thing, you know what I mean?

Oh, that's really creepy, yeah. But it's

the person's face. But it pulls all the way

over your head, front and back, like son, you got a panty on your head style? Exactly. Is that a Raising Arizona reference? Raising Arizona, yeah, when he's robbing the store for some diapers. I should watch

that movie again. God, that is such a phenomenal movie. but anyway um but the long story short she got up like 30 people that were boarding this plane to be to wear masks of her husband and him his response was i i felt like i was watching this guy go through like what what i what i what i noted is in her write-up of it she said he asked me not to do anything over the top for his 50th and then that's pretty over the top and he was kind of laughing at it and i mean he was trying to handle it i think you know as a good sport but I kind of couldn't shake the feeling that he would have been fine without a bunch of people boarding the plane wearing masks of him. I certainly know that if somebody does that for my 50th, I will open the emergency exit door and slide out the slide.

You get to go down the slide. The good news is you get to go down the slide. The bad news is it's the last slide you go on for quite some time.

Yes, the last time you're allowed on an airplane.

Yes, which would probably affect your lifestyle somewhat. I mean, I blame her. I blame the people who agreed to it. But I wonder about the conversations.

See, I don't blame the people who agreed to it because now you would have no problem turning this person down. These are exactly the kind of boundaries that you have.

I would turn this person in to the TSA and ice if they were white. Only if they were white.

Boy, those are a couple of really—you whizzed a couple of smokers today. We might just have to call it on the show. We didn't get to talk about the football game from last night, which was intense and crazy. And I am going to take some credit for us winning, Andrew, because I was so torqued up about the game here by myself, pacing around, sending long texts to the text chain about Sam Darnold not learning from his mistakes, which is how I was really feeling at one point.

Which is fair.

you know like it's weird with him i don't want to get two x's and o's but it's like i think what you want in a quarterback for your football team is somebody who does not uh get bummed out when they do something that's when they do something suboptimal like you need them to kind of have basically a sort of unrealistic confidence um and you don't need them to be overly self-reflective and kind of like beating themselves up that won't do anyone any good but there's something about sam darnold just like throwing a really dumb interception and then just kind of sitting on the bench staring into the middle distance i don't know what i want him to be doing but that in the moment didn't seem like he was adjusting his behaviors now he

ultimately did so that was good but can i ask you a question when you look at his beard do you have to ask yourself whether or not it's an instagram filter of a beard it does not look like it's permanently attached to his face. It looks like one of those things that you see it sometimes.

A filter that just puts a beard on you.

Yeah, because it's close-cropped, and it's just kind of perfect. You know what I mean? But not even perfect in an attractive way, although I'm not saying he's unattractive either. It just looks fake. It looks virtually created.

I, at some point, was so wound up about the game and was just pacing around my house like a total maniac that I decided that I needed to change up the mojo by putting by muting the announcers and playing the black album by jay-z okay thinking that it would somehow it would both give me swag and the seahawks who as far as i've been told didn't hear it coming back through the television into the stadium like in my mind we needed to get some swagger and let me tell you when i did that was right when ken walker busted that long run to start the second half which puts some uh some energy back into us and then at some point i turned it off and that was when we started that was when the game seemed really over when we were losing i think like 30 to 14. i turned the music off uh and then i turned it back on right before the she he kick return so i think the music was affecting the play of the seahawks and the problem now is i have to listen to the black album by jay-z during every football game when they it's It's like my version of the Hawk Bomb that our friend Camaro Kev used to have to do. And I put have to in quotes. I don't think he minded. But he would have to go to the Pinehurst Pub and do this horrendous mixed drink shot because we had decided it somehow fixed the mojo for the Seahawks.

What happened during the game during track one, which is just Jay-Z's mom sort of talking about the day Jay-Z was born? Did that bring the mojo up? That's such a weird vibe. Or do you skip track one?

Well, I actually skipped. I think you're thinking of track two, December 4th. Oh, what's track one? Track one is called Interlude, and I did skip that because I don't think I've ever listened to Interlude. I don't think I even know. It doesn't begin with the December 4th thing, huh? You want to get pulled down in Romania and parts of Brooklyn.

I'm trying to give you a W here, but you need one. I haven't listened to that in so long.

I think that December 4th is track two, and that's the one that starts with his mom talking about him and how he was a special child.

It is funny. I guess I've never given him enough credit for starting an album with a track called Interlude, which is a pretty funny joke. Literally, the definition of an interlude is something that comes between things. So to begin with interlude.

Well, it comes between you putting the CD in the CD player. And listening to December 4th, the second track on the record

So does he actually rap on this? I don't know because like Okay, so I think I just probably used to listen to this You probably just go right, go to December 4th I want to hear a little bit more of this Let's hear how that blends into December 4th What we're listening to right now is interlude Which is only about, it's less than 90 seconds long And we're about 40 seconds into it Okay, so now I'm going to skip maybe to the end of this track and hear how it goes into December 4th. Okay, so it just fades out. Okay, I can see why I forgot about that. December 4th comes in with a flourish. Is he a ho? Sean Carter was born... Yeah, this takes me back. Takes me back to those hard streets of Concord, New Hampshire, where I was on a treadmill listening to this album and really connecting with it. That is interesting. So you would begin with maybe track three to bring the vibe up, or did you begin with December 4th?

I began with December 4th. I love that song because as soon as Jay-Z's mom stops talking, he gets into his flow, and it's really good. Well, listen, I don't— But it was a vibe, and, I mean, it helped that the Seahawks were doing well on television while it was happening, but you— I was about to say you should have seen me, but, Andrew, you shouldn't have seen me. But I was just strutting around my house listening to Jay-Z pumping my fists and just screaming maniacally as good things would happen in the game. And then when bad things were happening, it did also kind of take the edge off a little bit. Also, I was just annoyed with the announcers. You know how that is.

Well, my God, they're toast. I was about to say, referring to our quarterback as Sam Bradford at least once. Who's Al Michaels?

Is it Menifee? It's Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit.

Herbstreit, not Menifee. I get those guys confused. Herbstreit called him Sam Bradford at least once. He referred to the Seahawks as the Rams a couple of times.

So funny because Sam Bradford was, you know, a long time ago in the NFL world. It's been Sam Darnold's league for so much longer, more recently than it was Sam Bradford's league.

But I will say this. That game was incredible. I mean, first of all, I was telling you that Thursday night football games just tend to be bad. Just like cross the league. They tend to be bad. There are some reasons for it because of, you know, it's a short week for both teams that are playing, assuming that they played on the previous Sunday.

And it's just and maybe it's just a, you know, maybe it's just sort of like a sharpshooter's theory where it just sort of seems like those games end up being bad.

And when you're expecting, I think part of it has to do with I think they don't have first pick. Yeah. I think Monday Night Football gets first or maybe Sunday Night Football gets first pick and then Monday Night Football. So they're really getting the dregs.

Which really gives you an insight into how, like, the NFL or at least the media outlets bidding on the NFL looked at the NFC West way back before the season began for this interdivisional matchup to be on Thursday Night Football. And it being, like, the—I mean, this—I was going to say, and I actually said during the game yesterday, I'm like, this is maybe not the best football game I've ever seen, but the best Thursday Night Football game I've ever seen, which is untrue, of course. because, obviously, when the Browns broke their losing streak against the Jets. Obviously, the best Thursday night football game of all time.

Was that a game that Sam Darnold was out for?

Mononucleosis. That was when, I mean, that was a Thursday night game, and it was one of the highlights of my sports fandom. I mean, it's sad that it happened on an injury, but Tyrod Taylor, the Browns quarterback, got injured, and Baker Mayfield finally got his debut and took over for the Browns and won their first game in, like, a season, like, I don't know, over a season. It was incredible. That's what people remember most when they think of Thursday Night Football. This will be a very close number two. This was insanity last night.

Well, it was the first time two 11-win teams have ever played on Thursday Night Football. So there you go. There you go. I don't know if one 11-win team has ever played on Thursday Night Football.

And then for it to go into overtime, for a kicker, you could hear Al Michaels saying when, I'm trying to remember where it was in the game, but I can't remember their kicker's name, the Thicker Kicker they call him, right? Yeah. He was perfect coming into this game and kicked two or maybe three field goals or, yeah, I think field goals slash extra points. And then you could hear Al Michaels say, he has been, and he misses it. Like he was getting ready for the he has been perfect call. I don't know if you heard that or if Jay-Z's mom was talking at that point. It was during an interlude. But, I mean, the things that had to happen, and I know you don't want to get too much into it, but the casual picking up of a football for a two-point conversion for the ages was insane. Anybody who has him as your fantasy running back, I mean, God love you. Charbonnet, when he just casually picks up that ball, always pick up the ball, right? That's why the players are always going after the ball after the play is dead, because you just never know.

I mean, for that to be totally critical in this football game, and for people that didn't watch or whatever, there was a play where the Seahawks were trying to tie the game with a two-point conversion. And our guy, Sam, don't call me Bradford Darnold, threw a pass that was actually blocked. It was actually knocked back or knocked away by a Los Angeles Ram. but because he was technically like this was not an intentional thing he just happened to be throwing the ball kind of slightly backwards which means it's not actually a pass and and so because of that it wasn't a pass it was just like it was basically a fumble of sorts and then now somebody was pointing out if you want to just get into the weeds and I think they were wrong about this that the team that does the fumble can't advance it but on the other hand isn't that a rule or is it the person who fumbles can't be the first person to touch it? No, a fumble ruski is amazing and I would

love to see a fumble. I thought that was a purposeful fumble that advances the ball.

A fumble ruski am I going to get my second

I've been wrong about this before and you've explained it to me. That's how I always remember it but I'm remembering it wrong

clearly. Growing up what I thought the fumble ruski was was where the quarterback actually leaves the ball on the ground intentionally. Everybody Somebody runs one direction, and then a running back goes and picks the ball up and goes the other way. Oh, okay. That's what I heard was the fumble ruski as a kid. I could be wrong about that. But there is a rule about, like, if you fumble the ball, I don't think you can advance it. But on the other hand, it also, it hit, like, it hit a Los Angeles ram. So, in other words, it would be this, that the play was indistinguishable from if Sam Darnold was dropping back on a pass and a ram came in and tackled him and he fumbled the ball and then a different seahawk picked up the ball and ran with it so i think that would have been i just it was i saw a very angry rams fan on tick tock last night which i didn't even know and i want to say this with absolute peace and love if we have listeners that are diehard rams fans the existence of la rams fans is such a it's not a strange thing to me but it's like that team is just around so much and like went you know it was like they were the st louis rams and then didn't they become the the were they the los angeles rams and then they went back to being the st louis rams or something i feel like they've had a very weird existence and uh in fact last night chris pratt did you watch the pregame show at all no because you were able to watch this on your on your over

no in fact i wasn't by the way for some reason because we our tv is in the basement and maybe I did not realize this because I just haven't been watching the over-the-air TV that much since we got this antenna, but we basically got it, or Genevieve picked it up for, you know, like $10 or something like that, and wanted to watch football games over the air, but for some reason it doesn't pick up Fox 13. It picks up Fox 13 Plus, which was playing local news, but I could not get the channel Fox 13. It just did my television and antenna rejected it. So I ended up having to plug in my computer anyway. But it was a really, I mean, it was a perfect stream. I didn't have any issues last night, but I did not start the game early. In fact, I think I missed the first five minutes messing around with that.

I was making broccoli salad and I was watching the Amazon pregame, which, by the way, And she's a Seattleite, and so I'm rooting for her. But Carissa Thompson was also, like, she was having trouble. She kept saying, you know, kind of like when she meant to say the Seahawks are going to do this, she would say the Rams, and then she kept switching which team she was talking about.

Oh, I didn't hear her do that. I don't know that I clocked a lot of her stuff.

She wasn't in the broadcast.

Yeah, she's a side. I saw they were teasing her about her leather hat and fur coat at one point. I kind of heard that. But I definitely heard, again, I'm going to say Herbstreet. yeah herb street right yeah i heard him him flip around the ram seahawks a couple of times i didn't

hear her do it but anyway yeah she did it in the pre-game and she got called out by marshawn lynch which was interesting so first of all they've got marshawn lynch as some kind of like the amazon the the they had like a bunch of people on the like pre-show so it's carissa thompson uh ryan fitzpatrick aka fitzmagic uh tony gonzalez was on there richard sherman and then And the guy that actually used to be on the line for the Rams, Witt, whatever his name is. I can't get you out of that one. I don't know. But Wittfield. Stillman? Yes. Witt Stillman.

The director of Metropolis.

Wouldn't that be a... They just like to mix it up. No, no, Metropolitan. Metropolitan. Metropolitan.

Yes. Metropolis. That would be incredible. They just pull out a ghost. Anyway, go ahead.

So they also then... So that's like the crew. And then they're bringing in Marshawn Lynch. And it was truly wild because so first, Carissa Thompson is talking to him and she's saying something like, what do the she's trying to say, like, what do the Seahawks need to do to stop the Rams on defense? But she says, like, what are the Rams need to do? And he goes, you mean the Seahawks? When usually what broadcasters do is they know what the other person is talking about. Yeah, they let it go. They just keep going.

Or they correct it themselves in repeating the question. They'll casually fix it. You do that for me sometimes. I notice.

then uh then so which that's not the end of the world but because he was actually was like well he's listening so that's good like honestly i was like well that's active listening he wants clarification on what she's actually talking about but then they had to bleep his entire answer really and then everyone's kind of laughing on like on the set and then he just keeps every time somebody would say something like the the guy from the rams whose name i can't remember off the top my head he um he was saying something about what the teams needed to do and then marshawn lynch was like no that's totally wrong and then they had to bleep marshawn lynch for another like 12 seconds i had no idea what he said on the broadcast because he didn't say anything that was unbleeped

that's funny it was truly bizarre they must have had a bit of a delay and also were probably really ready they must have known oh this guy's going to be a wild card maybe maybe it's also funny

Because, you know, it's not an over-the-air broadcast.

No, but they still want families watching. They don't want to. Oh, did you hear the hot mic moment? I think it was from last night's Flyers game or maybe two nights ago. I just saw it for the first time. Somebody made an inappropriate joke. I don't even know if it's worth bringing up. It wasn't one of those things where somebody was saying something actually hateful, like with Tom Brennan or whatever that guy's name was for the Reds. But a guy made a very inappropriate joke. apparently he thought he was in commercial break this is the long time like 30 year announcer of the flyers uh thought they were in a commercial break and you hear him going do do do do do and then suddenly you just hear him say i'm gonna by the way earmuffs we like this to be a family show too but i'm just gonna say he just says while you're down there could you blow me whoa yes and it's clearly a joke now who he's joking with the gender of the person the relationship he

has with the person if that's another like if it's a guy he's been doing broadcasts with for 30 years and they have that relationship it's inappropriate to go out over the air but it's not workplace harassment necessarily if it's somebody else if there's a power dynamic there i don't know any of the details of it but he clearly said it in like a a brock myery like he's making a joke you know and then but it goes out and he's of course issued an apology and the team has suspended him or maybe the league has suspended him for uh for two games so uh let's here. Oh, I was just going to say... Can I just play... Can I play this

Marshawn Lynch thing for you at some point? Yeah, no,

go ahead, go ahead, because I was going to give you a hot take on Marshawn Lynch, if you want. Okay, I still want that,

by the way. I know, man, and I get to be here, but I don't hold you. I've been feeling kind of you know, like this. What do you mean? Because I don't see a lot of two-folds in the stands.

But we ain't playing no way.

By the way, why would Sports Illustrated have a headline, Amazon Prime Thursday Night Football pregame show had to censor Marshawn Lynch so much. And then they link to a piece of footage where he's not being bleeped at all. Here it is. So I guess what happened is, okay, it's unclear exactly what he was saying, but Amazon clearly decided that it was something that the impressionable young children tuned into the pregame show did not need to hear. Here he is getting bleeped while looking for someone wearing his jersey in the crowd. And here he is when he thought Andrew Whitworth, by the way, that's the guy I couldn't remember. Here he is when he thought Andrew Whitworth asked him if he had any memories of a robbery instead of the Rams-Seahawks rivalry. So let me see if this one, Marshawn Lynch got on the podium, was censored 80% of the segment. Let's see if this one is. Let me ask you, were you a robbery guy? You got a robbery game memory? You said a rivalry or a robbery? Yeah, I was.

I was kidding. I was kidding. I was kidding.

Anyway, that audio is not particularly helpful. But it was kind of, it was interesting. It didn't, I mean, you know, it's the typical thing with Marshawn Lynch where it's entertaining, but I don't know really how much nutritional value sort of was there. What's your hot take on Marshawn Lynch?

Well, I don't think anybody's going to like this, but I'll just put it out there to say that I spit my truths, Luke, no matter where my fandom lies. I feel that the charm and character. Andrew Walsh was born on November 28th. I feel like the charm and kind of character of Marshawn Lynch is and has been for a while now vastly, vastly overrated, vastly overrated. Like when he was younger and a little less known and he went to that, was it the Applebee's when he was playing for the Bills or Giants? My apologies. I get those confused. I shouldn't. But yeah, he was playing for the Bills. And so like and he was new to town. Right. And he was like, oh, I can find fun things to do. And he goes to some chain restaurant. Like, that was so charming. What was that? Was that 15 years ago or more at this point? And so, like, I'm not a total hater when it comes to him. And I loved him, loved him as a Seahawk, both as a person on the podium as a Seahawk and, of course, on the field as a Seahawk. I'm not saying that he is not an entertaining, smart guy, but and also incredibly, you know, talented athlete. But the idea that as soon as he was done playing football, he was just like almost every single TV show wanted – did he do something on Brooklyn Nine-Nine? I know he did something in that improv show that was actually like a mystery show. And everybody was always gaga over it, and I was just always like, I just don't think he's as talented. I think we love seeing somebody who has this personality, which is a little bit cantankerous, and also he holds his own. Like, I'm just here so I don't get fined. I love that. I love that stuff. but we kind of confused that with acting talent and like how well he can actually perform on the screen and it always felt a little bit like a novelty to me but certainly not something that to the degree that everybody celebrated him I'm just like I don't know man I got over that a long time ago

yeah I mean of course you know when he was in full sort of beast mode Seahawk it was at peak Seahawk time of course I was in the Skittles and all that I was absolutely in the back room But that was all more him as a player. I mean, I've always just, you know, I loved what he did on the field for our team. I was always a little less, like, I was fine with it. But I can't remember watching something he did in the kind of belly laughing because of something that Marshawn Lynch did. Yeah, I feel like it was a bit of a novelty. Now, quickly back, I just want to clear up what I was saying about the Rams, about the Rams fan base, which actually Chris Pratt alluded to on the pregame show. Chris Pratt's from Seattle. He's actually from Lake Stevens. i believe he went to high school with our buddies jd and thunder um but uh but like they were asking chris pratt like it was like the duh well it was the dumbest question because it was like carissa thompson was asking him you know you're a big seahawks fan So if the Seahawks beat the Rams, what's it going to be like for you walking around Los Angeles? And I was like, you know the answer to that, Carissa. You also live in L.A. Yeah, right. The answer is nothing. No one gives a flip about the Rams in L.A. because the Rams were the L.A. Rams in the, like, Eric Dickerson era when I was a kid in the 80s. And then they moved to St. Louis, and they became the greatest show on turf. And the city of St. Louis embraced them and loved them. And then Stan Kroenke, their owner, who I believe married into a rich family and then got the money to buy the team, just did a total bullshit move to move them to Los Angeles to make more money with his team and take them away from the good people of St. Louis.

And then immediately, and then they build the world's biggest TV studio around them, and then they win their first Super Bowl, right? Didn't they win the first Super Bowl since moving back to L.A.? Oh, really? Isn't that where you get, maybe I'm probably wrong about this, I thought maybe that's where you get Rob, what's his name with the NFL hat in the stands, but I think I'm conflating those two stories. Oh, sure, no, that Rob Lowe. Rob Lowe, I might be conflating those stories. But I just remember like, oh, it's a Super Bowl, and then they won that Super Bowl, and it's just kind of like, oh, yeah, of course, the rich people decided, wouldn't it be great? I mean, I'm not really a conspiracy theorist when it comes to this stuff, but it was all planned, but it just seemed so gross to me. It's like, oh, we're going to rip this team away, take it to L.A., where people aren't really that into football. I'm not saying that there aren't football fans in L.A., but I remember fans who were of an age, literally a guy i worked with who had been a fan of theirs back in the day but when they moved to st louis i think he stopped caring and then he's like i'm not going to start caring again 20 years later or however long they were in st louis to come back it just all felt so astroturfed and then you just have all these celebrities who probably don't really care about football just packed into the la stadium because wasn't it the first time also that yeah how did all of these thing am i making this up did they win their first super bowl as uh the when the after moving back to la and did they get to play on their own field for the super bowl for like the first time

ever i'm trying to do this on the fly in 2016 uh the let's see uh it well in 2016 uh they they played their first regular season game since returning to los angeles and that season their coach jeff fisher was fired after a four and nine season okay so yeah so sean mcveigh got there in 2017 okay so i would say that they did have one year they did have one at least one off or one year where they were in la and not like uh you know going to the playoffs in the super but they got there really fast after sean mcveigh got there and i do believe because they were building sofi stadium so i think they were i think you're right about the fact that they were the first team maybe the first team ever to get to play the Super Bowl on their home field because SoFi was just where the Super Bowl was and they actually qualified for it but like I guess what I want to be clear about is I feel bad for the folks of St. Louis who had a team and loved them and supported them and then just had them kind of just sort of callously ripped away and moved to Los Angeles where you just basically get Rob Lowe sitting in the stands wearing a hat that says NFL and that was kind of like Chris Pratt said to her he goes he was you could tell that he was trying to be very diplomatic but he was trying to say basically nobody there are no like real like there are no rams fans in la there are plenty of rich people who go to the games but there are lots of people from the it's sort of like going to a game in vegas um which is to say if you go to a raiders game in vegas it will be 50 the other team particularly if it's you know steelers or green bay or dallas or something but these are these kind of weird new football towns where there's almost no there's not like a real hardcore deep love for the team per se there's just an appreciation of going to things that are loud and have a spectacle to them and and where you

want to be seen i guess yeah i was so loud wrong i mean they did play it so fi they did play the super bowl on their home turf and it was it did irk me that it was like this seemed like this this just like you know hollywood celebrity film were you in la at the time no i was i was in la because I'm thinking about my colleague at KCRW when this news broke that they were moving. But you're right. I was way wrong that their first season was 2016. I was living in L.A. 2014, 2015. So I was there for the news breaking but not there probably for their first season. So it took them several years, six years or whatever it was, to end up in the Super Bowl and then win the Super Bowl. But the whole thing did just sort of feel a little bit gross. I mean, could that have been – I don't know why I'm digging deeper into this. Could it have been the first year Stafford went there from Detroit? That I don't know. Why am I just making up more things to be wrong about? One thing that I was definitely right about, not to be an I told you so, but I told you, I've been saying this, I don't know if I told you, but I have been saying this for months, that Eric Saubert is going to carry the Seahawks to the Super Bowl on his back. I have to give you that much. Thank you. I have to give you that much. By the way, who's Eric Saubert? News to me. By the way, like, that was a truly shocking development. Here's what I'll just say, and again, I'm sorry that this has descended into football talk, but this is more just about the human experience now. We're bringing it back to a relatable side of this, which is, I mean, I'm obviously, like, over the moon that the Seahawks somehow won that game through just the most improbable. I mean, the statistics on it were, it was under, to the degree that these things can be believed, this like you know game cast whatever statistics of them winning at a certain point was less than three percent there was a less than three percent chance of them coming back to win that game and they did and it was through a bunch of fluky stuff and also some good playing on their part but like i'm both totally psyched about it and i also feel like we really stole one like i don't feel like we were the better team at all like and it's crazy because it's a hugely important game it sets up all this other stuff and it could be like the Seahawks could end up going to the Super Bowl because of what happened in this game because of the ball bouncing off that Los Angeles Ram and then Charbonnet picking it up and walking it into the end zone but I actually think we were the vast the vastly inferior team in that game and I don't usually say that about my Seahawks but like we were not better than them but we some we somehow got the win and I will take it but I I don't know. I kind of mixed feelings about the whole thing.

I was going, there's no need to do this. It would just be mean. I was just going to say, I was going to read to you all of the texts from somebody on the chain who you have muted because it's the exact reason you have that person muted, which was like, you know, in the second quarter, just like calling the end of the season, saying we're not making the playoffs. Like, it's just like, not calling, not just calling the game, but saying we're not making the playoffs and like, and just like whatever. And I was like, well, I mean, and I did have this strange feeling. like i don't know like last night i'm not saying that i was when we were down by 16 in the third even wait we went in the fourth quarter down by 16 right so at that point i remember like i remember

truly believing that the game was over too at that point we threw the interception at like near our

own goal line with a huge guy picked it up and didn't even know it was like well that's it because

if we would have gone in and scored there i would have been like okay we're in this but instead we throw this interception that felt to me like okay this game is now probably out of reach and because

it was another darnold's slash um bradford interception and that that's the that's the story on him darn darnold it's like it really did feel like oh this is just the way it is and like i mean i was sitting there saying to veves i'm like well clearly that answers your question like i remember saying right there like oh that answers your question darnold is just a bridge for us we got to start really looking at young uh you know young talent like for the future like because there's that question like is he here for a couple of years or is he here for a decade because you know if things break the right way he could be like a long-term quarterback or like joe biden

will he stay on as our quarterback for so long that the next quarterback doesn't have enough time to run an effective campaign right that's when we were told he was going to be a bridge

quarterback that is weirdly i was hoping that condolisa rice would replace him although she's does have a football connection exactly but anyway um wasn't she actually on the nfl board for a while or something yes she was she was involved in the nfl there was a lot of talk about her becoming the commissioner of football yes yes that's right yeah so all of that is to say like i'm not trying to make it sound like i was above all of that however the game did feel like before it even began like i just had this you know this is just my own personal experience and maybe wishful thinking for what ended up coming true but it felt like a pre-playoff playoff game like the stakes of this game i mean people who are not following this stuff closely and hear us talking yes it was an incredible game but it was an incredible game on an incredibly important night like everything that was set up for these two teams for a tying record best in football you You know, fighting for playoff chances, facing each other, already like for the, you know, already face each other once. Like there's just all this narrative going into this game already. It's so important. And then for it to be a Thursday night game so that it's the only game that's on. It's not like just buried in the early window of Sundays. You know what I mean? Like there was just so much about this game that even when we were down 16, there was still a little bit of me that's kind of like, well, I mean, I also remember talking to Veeves about like, well, let's see if they score a touchdown do you just go for two right away and of course you do but like so there was always a bit of me thinking like there is a way to win this game if you if you grew up playing it was a two score game yeah yeah and so and then when they and then they do get the first two-point conversion you're like oh this is now a an eight-point game and then that miracle of Charbonnet just casually picking up that ball because man again just remember your training right like that I'm just so like just like always grab the ball just always grab the and he just casually picks it up, doesn't even know that he's essentially saving.

their maybe the season maybe i was gonna say season i didn't want to be too hyperbolic but like honestly a season saving casual pickup of a ball that's laying on the ground just

incredible like magic absolutely magic yeah yeah but again a weird feeling where we won but i feel like we got away with something but we got away with it like definitely the rams are a better

football team than we are oh and okay but compare but but i mean this is i don't know as long as we

gonna have to play the rams again right which like somebody else takes them out in the playoffs i think we might be better than almost all the other teams in football but i don't think we're

better than the los angeles rams but there's something about this game this team this year's team that feels a little bit like like kind of pete carroll era a little bit and in some ways like well not better not better than the super bowl year but like they've always been a frustrating in the first half of games like even the best Seahawks teams I feel like maybe not every single game you could prove me wrong on that but there is often this sort of like you know wasn't always Pete Carroll saying well you can only win in the fourth quarter or whatever like they're never winning the easy ways but somehow winning like I was telling Veeves last night I'm like I don't know if I felt this way since Beastquake like it just it just felt like such a damn moment and this team which struggled to beat the Rams yesterday beat the Rams yesterday they also struggled to beat a 44-year-old quarterback who just came off the couch the week before, but they still won. You know what I mean? They are winning. I was going to say finding a way to win, but it sounds so cliche because it sounds like the people I just listen to on sports radio all the time, but I don't know. They somehow meet the moment. In the National Football League. But I mean, that's kind of it, right? They're finding ways to win against vastly different teams with vastly different talent levels.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I'm, you know, I'm walking on a certain amount of sunshine this morning. I'm mostly walking on sunshine, and I'm pretty happy. And I'm also, I'm relieved that I didn't, that I remembered to block our friend on the text chain. Because I had unblocked our friend.

Oh, you would have remembered very quickly. And I love him. You know I love him. And I usually defend him, by the way, even on the text chain. But it was just, like, calling the season over and the playoff chances over in, like, the second quarter of a football game was just kind of like, come on, man.

I had such a lovely, very brief but lovely chat with our friend the other day when I was doing, like, a radio recording or a podcast recording. And he literally just came in, wasn't even working on it particularly, but came in just to say hi because he heard I was going to be part of it. And we had such a nice chat. That's the thing. I love this person so much. There is just this one thing that happens to them when watching sports where it really does a number on them and then, by extension, a number on me.

Well, it's weird to have this conversation publicly about him, assuming that he's not listening, but knowing that there's a chance he is. We're talking about my brother David, by the way. And we're talking, of course, about your niece, Emma. Yes. But I actually felt— Gemma. Gemma, sorry. Gemma Bradford. I was trying to protect.

Were you doing your Kirk Herbstreit impression?

I was. Thank you for the cover there. I it's weird to have this conversation now but honestly when I was thinking about it this because I was thinking about him this morning I was like oh but then once everything turned and everybody was celebrating like that I didn't I don't think I heard from him at all and I kind of feel bad like I know he doesn't want to be miserable during football games yeah it's processing it and it's how he processes it and and you know automatically assuming the worst and catastrophizing and everything is not it's not he doesn't want to be that way but he is and he can't stop it so he does it and what made me think of it was kind of nobody was really biting on the negativity uh little bait that he was putting out there on the text chain and then i then i'm over on blue sky and i see that he's kind of reposting some of his same thoughts over on blue sky to get people like he's just like he's but he's miserable in this moment he's watching his favorite team collapse you know and it's just like and but then when things do turn around and a miracle happens I mean, I think that he shared joy, but I was wondering, like, why is he quiet here? And I was partially wondering, like, does he feel like maybe he can't share in the joy because he was so negative? And if that's the case, I feel bad about that because he should share the joy way more than me, who's been a casual fan this whole time, you know, this whole season, certainly. So anyway, I actually I'm not I didn't even mean it to be dunking, but it is it is something that I sort of can't stop being fascinated by.

right right because that's also a real bummer if it's because i don't think any of us would say that our friend is not allowed to celebrate the the w's yeah of course because they were because he was processing you know what i mean like like that's a that's unfortunate that's a kind of a double bummer if that if it if you don't get to enjoy the the wins as well um and as somebody who's been taking a lot of l's this week i know just how important a w can be here and there nobody's looking up the definition of Fumble Ruski.

All right, let's thank some of our donors. These are the generous, supportive people who are voluntarily sending in their hard-earned money to TBTB so that we can do this for our job, five days a week, 52 weeks a year. This 100% listener-supported podcasting, supported by our friend Brian Dast in Portland, Oregon. Hey, Brian. Phenomenal musician Phenomenal producer of music And just all around awesome person A Blur's Day giver And a Blur's Day getter Exactly And deserving of all of the love and affection From all of us Brian's the best Thanks Brian, appreciate you Thanks also to Rachel Potesta In Lawton, Michigan

Thank you Rachel I don't know if we've had the pleasure of meeting But you are as esteemed a listener as Brian

Yes absolutely it's the listeners and you are like our children we love all of them equally and the same

and sometimes i spank them yes and i tell you that that is actually illegal yeah that was um 8 p.m shut that down real fast actually yeah that was actually and that was a good thing and we've

carried that legacy over now to too beautiful to biz which is a strict no spanking the list which

is weird because that's the reason i wanted to start our own company i'm like hey you guys hear about this no spanking policy over at 8 p.m. I think we can do, I said, I believe my quote was, I think we can do better. Let's start our own company.

You chafed under the anti-spanking policy. There was a lot of chafing.

Weirdly, other people were chafing under the pro-spanking policy, so I guess turnabout is fair play. But I was really shocked when you and John then, in our first meeting, discussing the bylaws, decided to outlaw the anti-p.

Actually, it was when we were imagineering this whole move to independence, where we met secretively in Portland and borrowed Becca's fancy work conference room when you walked in, written on the whiteboard in, I would say, maybe 170-point font was just no spanking.

Yeah, I didn't like that.

For John and I, that was the animating principle

of the entire new business. And it bummed me out because I had snuck in there the night before and written the word spanking. And you guys just simply added a no. Yes. Which I didn't like. And then we outvoted you. So all that is to say thank you, both Rachel and Brian.

And Alexa Rader, who's in Everett, Washington.

Thank you, Alexa. I think I have met Alexa before, I think, at a TBTL live show post-drinks at Teddy's. Do I have the right, Alexa? I think I do.

Let's say I do. Thanks, Alexa. Thanks to Douglas Jansen, who's in Fall River, Massachusetts. Thank you, Douglas. I wonder if you go by Douglas or Doug. Is the river named Fall? Is there a Fall River, I wonder? Or was the river just running in the fall? I also, by the way, would have 100% thought it was Falls River.

I'm confused about your question about Falls. Oh, you're wondering if it actually has waterfalls as opposed to something related to the season.

Well, no, I'm wondering if the river, Fall River, if that's named for like, if you had a town called Columbia River, Washington, you'd be like, well, the river that's called Columbia River.

Oh, I see. Does a river named Fall run through this town called Fall River?

Fall River, it's a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts Let's see It's located on the eastern shore of Mount Hope Bay At the mouth of the Taunton River

That doesn't seem to line up

It's known for the Lizzie Borden case The Fall River cult murders Portuguese culture And it's numerous textile mills

Genevieve dressed up as Lizzie Borden For Halloween when we were living in New England and we're living in New Hampshire, in fact. Very regionally appropriate.

Yeah, indeed it was. Thanks to Sarah Reinfaller, who's out there in Brooklyn, New York. There is a river in Brooklyn, but, well, it's a canal, the Gowanus. It's not the Brooklyn Canal? Not the Brooklyn Canal that I know of. I read an article in the New York Times every seven years about how the Gowanus Canal is cleaned up and amazing now, and everybody loves it. But the fact that they keep writing the article makes me think there may be some hits and misses there on the old Gowanus Canal. The canal doth protest too much? I think the times doth keep hyping it up a little too much. Aaron, Erkenswick is in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hey, hey, I'm heading your way soon, Aaron. Yeah, you are. You sure are. I've got that on my calendar, by the way. I was just looking at my calendar because I've been agreeing to do all kinds of things in the months of January and February, and realized I had not put down any of the LiveWire dates. Like, they send them out, but I hadn't done the thing where I go in and place them on the dates in question, and I got really scared this morning that I had double booked myself. But amazingly, I hadn't. But while I was doing all that, I noted that you are going to be in last.

Las Vegas. I call it lost wages.

Because people go there, they spend their money on gambling. Do you think, though, for real, that you will? I mean, you like to pull a few tabs. Will you throw $100 at the slot machines or something? I don't see you doing blackjack, because I think that might be a little stressful for you.

Well, that's the one that I might. See, here's the deal. It's not about I'm thinking about it, but I need to practice first. Because you remember years and years and years ago when you took me to Goldie's for the first time, or maybe the first time that I was actually planning on gambling. I might have been in there before just hanging out, eating some Kung Pao chicken or something like that.

So good.

But I did go into Goldie's twice and play blackjack, and I was practicing on my iPad. Me and Sedaris were practicing on our iPads because I wanted to get into a rhythm of it and know what my own rules were. Because it has to be a little bit muscle memory. It has to be a little second nature, right? but then I was intimidated the second time because some guy groused at me another player groused at me and said that I had messed up his hand I was so mad at that guy yeah it was like this is the last person

you should grouse at

and honestly it ended up it did have the cooling effect on me not in the traditional Las Vegas cooling effect but in that I didn't play anymore but it's really not about the money for me it's about that it's about embarrassing moments or looking like I don't know what I'm doing but everybody tells me that in Vegas it's a little bit different if you're going to play blackjack on Aurora Avenue in South Shoreline on a Wednesday evening, chances are you're playing with somebody who is a frequent flyer, has a, you know, really is not just there as a bubble gummer who's just kind of like, hey, I'm in from Ohio. And I say that as somebody from Ohio. Whereas, you know, Vegas has to deal with a whole bunch of people who are just like, I don't know, I'm here to party and gamble for the first time. What should I do with my chips? you know like if i can hide behind that and like just be somewhat you know somewhat competent then that sounds fun i love playing the video poker like i love playing jacks jacks are better uh and stuff like that because i can just sit and like kind of have a cocktail and and just basically play on an ipad only win you know pennies on the dollar or something like that and and while away sometime i love being in a casino it's just that i'm always afraid of looking like a fool if i actually play a game where I have to interact with other people.

Well, I think the people who are telling you that about Vegas are totally right. It is a lot more fun and a lot less... Now, not that plenty of people don't lose way too much money and make very terrible decisions financially and personally in Las Vegas, but certainly it's a different vibe than Goldie's. Like you said, on a Wednesday night, it's a lot of people that are tourists and a lot of people who have kind of brought in some money that they're planning on losing and a lot of people who are learning how to play blackjack for the first time so the energy is very different i think you'll find it much more welcoming it's also there are tons of those video poker machines at every bar and as long as you're playing it's also free drinks which is you know not nothing in vegas too and and and make sure that you uh you you can order like make sure that when you're ordering your free drinks you find out what their top shelf stuff is because it's usually fairly decent oh

Oh, really?

So, yeah, you don't have to just do gin and tonic. You could do, like, you know, Bombay and tonic or something.

I also have been working on this little pocket buzzer thing that I put in my pocket. And then I sit across the room, but I watch Genevieve play poker, and I can see the hands of the other players. And I tap this little thing in my pocket. I've seen the movie.

She's going to play in that game with Chauncey Billups, right?

Oh, was that the big gambling scam?

That was the game where allegedly they had the crazy table that could read the cards and they were telling people in earpieces.

But was Chauncey the coach that you were like, I just think you need better bait?

Well, yeah. Chauncey was like one of the faces, they were called. One of the people in the game who, if you're like a rich but not famous guy, you would be attracted to play in this high-stakes poker game that was rigged against you because you could have the honor of sitting near Chauncey Billups. So I was like, you've got to get a slightly more magnetizing celebrity for me to want to go and lose all my money. But, no, I'm very excited for you to go to Vegas. I think it'll be really fun. And I'm also very appreciative of our supporters who keep TBTL going.

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 uh this is not exactly a a v-mail or email but it is something that i saw on tiktok the other day and it just made me feel extremely seen it's a i don't know i i don't know what the line is between someone who's just posted something on tiktok and someone who's a content creator i guess it depends how seriously they're taking it so this person's handle is Orly Lewitz. Lewitz!

Louis but um they uh let's see did I actually oh my goodness gracious I might have even accidentally deleted this file because I put it in yesterday but I can just drag it over from another screen I do believe they had this person had an interesting idea which is what if your refrigerator did a Spotify wrapped style wrap up at the end of the year about the things that you've been eating

and this is what this person said oh you had quite the year you ate so much sliced cheese right out of the package you had a lot of options this year but there was one that kept calling it was sliced cheese this year you had a total of 678 pieces of sliced cheese that puts you in the top 0.01 percent of people who eat sliced cheese which is not good we are worried about you we have

called your parents oh you had quite the year uh sorry um i cannot tell you how much that mirrors is my experience if my refrigerator did a wrapped it would just tell me that i have eaten too much sliced cheese it is the one thing in my and in fact it saved me last night andrew because i wanted to do this broccoli salad and uh i had all the fixings for it it's actually not well i didn't have bacon but it's basically mayo do you ever make broccoli salad do you like no especially if it's mayo based oh duh of course but um i realized that i um i had all the fixings again it's broccoli it's uh mayo it's a white wine vinegar it's some sunflower seeds if you got cranberries you can throw those in i'm not really a fan of that and then bacon if you eat that stuff like dried cranberries like craisins yeah something like that yeah definitely i had almost all of the stuff but i didn't have the sharp cheddar cheese you need to you can buy like shredded sharp cheddar cheese or i guess regular sharp cheddar cheese and shred it yourself but what i did have was four of those weird slices of sharp cheddar cheese still in i buy a lot of those packs of pre-sliced cheese and uh in the bottom of my uh my my cheese drawer i found it it was still good and have mold on and i chopped that up and put it in there and it was amazing but yeah i buy one of those things a week and just eat it by myself one of those selection of i don't know what my problem is with slicing cheese like that's too much work for me but that pre-sliced cheese is uh is the thing that i probably consume the most of during any given week of my life and then i also saw a story in the new york times that said well it's like every health story in the new york times the headline was if you like to eat full fat cheese it could lower your risk of dementia based on a study that they did like in switzerland or something but they had they basically tracked people who were eating a lot of cheese and a lot of full fat dairy. And those people had a slightly lower occurrence of, of dementia. But then they went on to say that you also could then just die of heart failure, heart congestion. And by the end of the article, it just said, basically you could eat like one piece of cheese a day, but mostly you should just be eating fresh fruits and vegetables. Like what we already know. It's like at the end of the day, you should, we should all just be eating a lot of fruits and vegetables. That's really what

we should be doing it was odd that it ended with the shrugging emoji i mean that's it was the it

was the it was the equivalent of a giant i saw the headline and i thought well that would be interesting for us because i do like to eat a lot of full fat cheese a lot of sliced cheese maybe i'm doing myself some good but then immediately upon reading the article it was just a shrug emoji it was like it might help you a little but then also heart you know congestion and so just stick to the fresh fruits and vegetables. I'm like, we already knew that. We're not doing it, but we already knew that.

We got it, Michelle Obama. We heard you the first time. Did you have a voicemail about pennies? Yes. Whether or not they're from heaven remains to be seen. You and I were talking about, and I'm still a little bit both shocked by the news, But also even more shocked that I had not heard the news until like literally 10 months late that the U.S. is outlawing, not outlawing, but like getting rid of the penny. Like I. Oh, yeah. I'm still really just surprised by that. Anyway, when you were telling me that story on the show a few weeks ago, I think you were maybe one of us was pondering about how currency like pennies end up getting pulled from circulation. And I thought this was an interesting perspective from Andrew in North Carolina.

Ahoy, ahoy, gentlemen. This is listener Andrew calling from Hickory, North Carolina. Nice. I am listening to Penny Talk on the podcast and staring at four pennies here in my cup holder of my car. And thought I would pass on some interesting information from one of my previous jobs. I was previously a bank teller. And when you train to be a vet teller, one of the things they train you to do is to look at your vet.

look for worn out currency. And you're trained to know or to recognize what a bad coin or bad piece of paper money, like if it's torn or something like that, what that looks like. And you're supposed to take it out of circulation. So you were asking on the podcast, how do we end up getting pennies out of circulation? Well, I'm sure there's many ways, but one of those ways is your local bank teller finds a bad penny and pulls it out of circulation. And then the bank branch itself hangs on to all of that bad money, and they're supposed to return it to the local reserve bank, the Federal Reserve Bank. But the problem is that you can only return a certain dollar amount of bad currency to your local Federal Reserve. So, like, for $1 bills, I believe you had to have $500 in $1 bills that you could return to the Federal Reserve. So he had to save up $500 worth at the bank branch. So I imagine, at least at my bank branch, what we did is we had safety deposit boxes that were storing a bunch of old, broken-down money. And I would imagine that your local bank branch, if it has a safe deposit box area, is doing the same thing, has safe deposit boxes full of old, broken-down pennies and dimes and stuff like that, and they're saving them up until they get enough to send back to the Federal Reserve, and then at which point, I guess the Federal Reserve melts them down. I have no idea what happens after that, but I thought that was interesting, thought I would pass it along, power out.

Turns them into plowshares, I believe. Uh-huh, yes.

You know, I've been seeing signs at multiple locations, like grocery stores and the like, like a printed out laminated thing that just basically said, like, we need pennies. Really?

Recently?

Yeah. And they'll say, because of the stop in production of pennies, we need them. Please bring us your pennies. I've seen this in more than one place.

Well, what are they going to do when there's no more pennies?

Aren't they supposed to be getting used to it? But what does used to it mean? Because think about this. Your Safeway, somebody comes in and they buy something with cash, and their change is 19 cents.

Well, the stores need to stop selling things that aren't at intervals of five cents, I guess, right? Like, literally, we have to.

How do you do that, though, with the tax? I mean, I guess you'd have to make sure that nothing, that the tax added to it didn't ever take it into a middle range. Did they think about this? Well, we didn't even talk about this when we initially talked about them. I mean, obviously, someone has, well, with this administration, it's possible they didn't think of this. but i mean the funny thing is that like it's been this is like one of the few things this administration done that's actually sort of non-political i think it's been a known thing for a long time that pennies cost us more to produce and deal with than their value you know like it was something that didn't make sense for the country for a long time but but i still don't actually know what is the yeah what is the answer to that everything will have to be either a five or 10 cent how do you make it so that every product i buy in any combination of products yeah always ends in five or 10 cents because then what about if it's a taxable product like because i know food isn't taxed but probably candy is right and if i'm what if i'm buying detergent at safeway how do you control all of that so nobody needs pennies yeah maybe maybe

there's you just round up or round down to the five and i mean the thing is also this is happening against the backdrop of just like the vast majority of people paying for things digitally in some way. I pay for everything with my phone now or if my phone isn't working for some reason with the little, you know, POS machine, then I'll use my card. But I don't even use my card anymore. Using my card feels somewhat antiquated. Right. And I'm somebody who actually likes to carry around cash. Like, I actually really like cash. I like the feeling of having cash. And so, you know, and also like, so I was shopping at SARS yesterday, which is kind of the discount grocery store by my house, but it's also huge. And it has, you know, I've talked about SARS a lot. I really like SARS. And there were two fellas in front of me, and it looked like they had just gotten off of work at some construction job or something. You know what I mean? Kind of dirt under the fingernails kind of guys. And they had a huge cart of groceries. And I happened to be stuck behind them. It was one of those things, by the way, where I was waiting to see if somebody was going to come and call me, like open up a new line and call me over because i was the first one behind these guys and it's like i've got like two things the person behind me has one thing and these guys have a cart like that looks like a costco cart in front of them and i was waiting i'm like i know if i hold off on putting my groceries down on the belt somebody will call me over finally i gave up i put my groceries down on the belt and immediately they opened up another register for the people behind me to go use but anyway i was sitting there thinking boy this this cashier is doing a great job of bringing all this stuff up quickly but then the guys paid with cash and i'm like oh well probably because they maybe in the work they do it makes more sense for them to get paid in cash for a whole bunch of reasons, you know? But they were buying so many groceries that the woman took at least $200 bills from them, right? And held them up to the light, which always kind of bums me out when people are inspecting money in front of the people, whether it's me or not, and I've been on that. I'm always proud. I'm always

like, you're about to find out that this is not

counterfeit. What I like to do is I like to take a gold coin, bite it a little bit and then flip it with my thumb right into there sometimes i'll deploy a sick joke like i just it should be fine i just made it oh that's pretty good like be careful don't smudge it um anyway but i'm just kind of like thinking like wow these guys just bought tons of groceries and are paying in cash you know or at least partially in cash with two hundred dollar bills or whatever so it's like there are people and i sort of i bring all that up to say that like there are a lot of people who don't have for various reasons access or as easy access or as much access to digital payment methods right yeah and how does this affect them i do sort of feel like this rule goes through with just this idea of like we don't need pennies we're all just paying with our

iphones anyway but that's not true of everybody no it's not at all i was listening to one of the many newsy podcasts i listened to the other day and they were talking about that same thing that just basically like there are not as it related to pennies but something else which is that a lot of folks oh you know is about the um it was basically about the uh the the subsidies for the aca and the fact that a lot of the people at the very at the the lowest income level who were not on medicaid or medicare but were now getting free coverage through the aca through the expanded benefits during the um the pandemic that's that's some of the stuff that's slated to go away and that republicans have said well they people need to pay something for their health care it's not fair if they don't and it's like a lot of people don't even have bank accounts like so how are you going to go pay your how are you going to figure out what you're supposed to pay for the ACA based on your income and then how are you supposed to even send that to the federal government

when you don't even have a bank account yeah this is so much less important than where this conversation has gone but while i was listening to that voicemail i was also thinking this is so unimportant in the grand scheme of things but it's it's funny to think that potentially in my lifetime but certainly a lot of people's lifetimes like people will be having kids and they will hear phrases like a bad penny because i was thinking about that voicemail being about bad pennies and like these just idioms aren't going to make sense anymore you know what i mean like i'm trying to think of a and you might understand it from context the way we understand maybe the the the buggy whip analogy or something we sort of understand it basically even though we've never held a buggy whip or maybe maybe you have i don't it's okay you were married at the

time so i am it was i am firmly on the no spanking side of things and i think i've been very clear

about that this episode sir if anyone has a buggy whip it's your weird ass that is that is fair enough um but you know what i mean there will just be like this whole sort of part of language that'll just be like oh i don't know a pet like when we say penny farthing or something a penny

for your thoughts or any of those things yeah you're right it's it's uh that's i just thought i was going to be the first person who didn't get old and didn't have the things that i was used to become antiquated yeah i just i thought that was what happened to other people but i was going to be part of the first generation where everything stayed exactly the same way forever and um and i don't like it i don't like that that i'm it turns out a normal human being who's seeing the exact

process that every other human being has seen well and also keep in mind i have just discovered myrna lloy i was i was talking about myrna lloy who is yeah or not the postman in um uh the thin man a movie that i'd never seen a movie that came out again i believe mid 1930s mid to late 1930s putting it very damn near 100 years old right like 90 years old ish and i just was absolutely smitten by the woman who plays Nora and I mentioned in the show and then somebody else was blue skying me yesterday just saying oh great now I'm on a Myrna Loy rabbit hole here I'm just like listen I didn't expect to go on the 2025 holidays falling in love with a woman who was born in 1905 either but we don't choose these things I know why did you make Myrna Loy your hall pass. Bert O'Loy's my hall pass. Absolutely. Oh, man.

All right. Feels good to laugh. All right, folks. That's going to do it for our broadcast week. Thank you so much for spending the time with us. Hey, we'll see some of you tonight for the big TBTL holiday hootenanny hangout, 5 p.m. West Coast. It's still not too late to get your free ticket, which is just to say invite. Go to tbtl.net and click on the big button, especially if you are my mother, who texted me out of- the blue yesterday. Luke, what time is the event tonight, and can you send me the invite?

John, if you're listening, can you just

send Luke's mom the invite, please? I told her it is a Friday night, and you can go to tbtl.net and click on the button. So, that's going to be happening tonight. We will see all of you there. I've got the eggnog chilling in the fridge. Do you mess with eggnog? Yes, I'm going to go

get some nice eggnog for tonight. I think we've been drinking, like, whatever's in the carton, but I'm going to go get myself a nice glass. Do you get the nice glass thing of eggnog?

The glass. Oh, you know what? Yeah, I'm going to do it up tonight. It's going to be classy

stuff. I might add a little something to mine. We'll see

hopefully a bunch of you tonight for your holiday traditions. And for the rest of you, thanks again for listening. Have a great weekend. We'll see you on Monday. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

I'm coming to you, Myrna. I'm coming to you, Myrna.

I'm coming to you, Myrna.

Power out