Muse

What I like to do is first lay down a kind of syncopated beat that isn't so much about what it is altogether. It's more about the modulation and what it is once it starts. It's a little bit of a groove more than it is a rock beat. I do a flam rest, flam rest, flam rest, followed by sort of kind of an intricate African thing on the low drums. So it goes like so. The pattern is you ride on this tom here. Hopefully you've got the 17 toms. And it goes something like this.

TBTL.

In the next hour, we will present information that's both shocking and enlightening.

Oh, boy. Who keeps putting Twizzlers in the fridge? I told, is it Sarah? Crystal.

Crystal does it? She likes some food. Okay, well, Crystal, you and I are going to have another Twizzler talk. I cannot believe this stuff is on the radio.

this is what our youth is being subjected to that was great that was good you went for it

i appreciate that oh my god oh my god oh my god this is a whole new level of nerd that's not how it works that's not how any of this works

well all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a monday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live. It's electric, and there's no turning back. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. I just want you to be normal, and clearly you're not. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, on another rainy Monday, where we've made it, friends, to episode 4,624 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. It's beginning to look a lot like listmas. That's right. We've got a list today that we're going to talk about of the best situations in which one can be eating candy. Here's my sweet stash. Let's freaking party. Something that I've been doing weirdly more of late. I don't know what is going on. I don't know if it's the aging process, but I am developed more of a sweet tooth. And so this list comes at exactly the right time for me because I need to make sure that I know when and where is the best times to eat candy, as I'm sure all of you do. As I'm sure this guy does. Mostly right now he's focused on trying to further monetize TBTL. I gotta figure out how to make money on this thing. It's simply too good. Of course you know him as the longest running co-bro of the program. Possibly best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's Andrew Walsh and he's joining me right now. Good morning my friend. Good morning Luke. This is working out well. Do you hear this? You know what that is? I thought it was the beginning of 60 Minutes.

yeah i'm andrew walsh i'm luke burbank i love it this is a little uh bowl i have that has candy in it and this candy came from an unexpected place last week i haven't gone through all of it yet i've had a little bit of it but um you know how i was all excited last week about my new microphone oh yeah slash arm one thing i didn't mention to you is i bought it from a company called Sweetwater. You've probably come across Sweetwater before. They sell all kinds of audio and radio equipment, right?

Any kind of guitar stuff you might need, cables. They've really got the market corners. Also, the name of the band of my former next-door neighbor who would never actually cut his trees the way he should have.

Really? So this is adulthood. This is when you were in Mount Baker. I don't know how much you want to talk about it.

Yeah, the band that I made, I mocked mercilessly on the show one day reading their website, because I knew that my neighbor had written it all, but kind of in the third person. Oh, yes. And then did you get in trouble for this? No. Nobody heard it? No. A, nobody heard it, and B, he didn't. He was conflict averse. He was conflict slash being a good neighbor averse. Yes.

Well, that's why you moved out. But anyway, Sweetwater did something pretty sweet that I was not expecting. True to their name, they included two little bags of candy. That said, you know, like, thank you for being a sweet. You've ordered. This was my first sweet water experience.

Howard Stern buys stuff from them and talks about how they cook candy in there.

Oh, this I'm biting Howard Stern's bit. Well, I didn't want to do that. But actually, speaking of biting.

Well, can you play a really shitty version of Blackbird while we're talking? Because then I'd really be stealing. Can you play Dust in the Wind by Kansas? But about every second note is the wrong one.

I want to tell you what's in this. So it was a it was a kind of a grab bag of various candies, but like kind of like, you know, you know, it's not none of it's chocolate. That wouldn't travel well. They're just like they pre make these bags and they throw it in your order at the last minute. So it's got to be somewhat hardy. So you got these. I would put these on the sort of and again, the list we're going to hear later from your brother, David, from the.

Oh, nice. It's DFTB. Yeah, it's going to be the top five, I believe, candy eating experiences, not actually top five candies. So I think I'm in my right to do this. Oops, one of these is actually open. I'm going to have to throw that away. But it's got these two things. You know, the little peppermint and then the green one. Yeah, the red ones and the green ones. I prefer the green ones. Unfortunately, this is the one that's already compromised. So I'm going to throw that away because you don't want me eating on the air. But these are the things that are in the little bowl at the front desk of a restaurant. and you can grab them, right?

I want to be nice about this. I think that those peppermints are, I don't even dislike them, but I think of them as the lowest form of candy.

That's what I was going to say. That's why I'm not trying to do my own list here, but they are. And I actually, I think I do dislike them a little bit because you suck on them. I was trying to avoid the word suck, but here we go. You suck on them for a while, but eventually you're going to bite into them, but then they're super sticky. Oh, God. Then they're super sticky and they get caught in your teeth and stuff. They kind of break apart, too.

Sometimes there's a sharp—basically a crevasse opens up sometimes in them, which you kind of catch your tongue on, potentially.

I know what you're talking about. Oh, look, there's an orange one, too. I've experienced a red and green before, but never orange. But then—now, I'm excited about these. I haven't had these in forever. Oh, boy. Dad's root beer in the shape of a little barrel.

Now, that's elite candy in my mind. Especially for a second candy. The dad's root beer in the barrel shape. A heart candy. That's a treat. That's an absolute treat. In fact, I'm actually jealous that you have a dad's root beer.

I can save one of these for you. I got two of them, actually. And then you get into the chewies, and this is where things get interesting. There's a Laffy Taffy. This is a lot of candy they gave you for free. Yeah, I know. Let's see, a Laffy Taffy, cherry-flavored Laffy Taffy. I've never been a huge Laffy Taffy person. What's that? Oh, is that a song, Shake That Laffy Taffy?

Shake that Laffy Taffy, that Laffy Taffy, shake that Laffy Taffy. I never saw you out in Da Clubs. No, you didn't. That's probably why you didn't hear. Lappy Tappy. I got a double bubble. A classic, like, just one double bubble. Double bubble, I think the misleading, the sort of, how do I phrase this? It's a misleading name, double bubble, because I would say the flavor lasts maybe half of what a normal thing of gum. Not only is it not double, I know they're probably talking about the size of the bubble. I think they are, yeah. But the flavor with Double Bubble was always a disappointment. It starts low, and then it goes low. No, it starts high.

Does it start high? I mean, it starts with that classic bubblegum flavor, whatever generic pink bubblegum flavor is. The thing, though, is, and this is what I've been building towards here, was, and this was the last one, Bitto Honey. Bitto Honey, something I don't even remember that much from my youth other than it seemed so much from my youth. Like a grandpa kind of thing. But for some reason, when I saw that two Biddo honeys came with my microphone stand, I was like, that was the first thing that really caught my eye. I'm like, I want this Biddo honey. I even said to Genevieve, I'm like, hey, the radio people sent us some candy. Help yourself. But if you don't mind, just don't eat the Biddo honey. I went there. She's like, yeah, not a problem. I'm not going after your Biddo honey. I had one last night. It was good. What's people's problem with Biddo honey?

Well, I remember being a kid and thinking, miss me with any candy that's honey-flavored. We have honey at home.

We have honey at home. Yeah, I could see that.

What we don't have at home is we don't have Reese's Cups. Yeah. We don't have Snickers. We don't have Nugget. Do you have three Musketeers? We had two Musketeers. We weren't rich enough for three.

We have three Musketeers at home. We had D'Artagnan? And then you get home with just two Musketeers.

And other guy. Yes. But, you know, like, I just remember being in the store and being like, don't, like, a bit of honey seems, I say this a lot, but it seems like a candy that was invented when they didn't have as good of candy. When people didn't have honey in their cupboard, like, as a normal thing. So if you're a kid, you're like, ooh, this is a sweet treat. But then at some point it became the default that everyone's going to have honey at their house. Therefore, I'm not going to the store to buy something that tastes like something we already have in the cupboard at home. I'm buying chocolate.

Now, my memory of it, and I ate it last night. I'm trying to think. It almost tasted, this is going to open up a whole other argument front on us, but I almost feel like it had a maple-y taste. Could that possibly be true? It tasted less like honey and a little bit more like a little bit of a syrup.

It's a honey-flavored taffy with almonds.

With almonds. That must have been what kind of, maybe that's what I was thinking. But I really enjoyed it. And so far, it's the only one that I've eaten out of the whole bunch. And I've got one more here that I'm saving that Genevieve cannot have. Keep your hands off my Biddo Honey, honey, is what I said.

Between the mid and late 1970s, a chocolate-flavored version called Biddo Chocolate. Boy, that is creative naming.

Well, I mean, you have a brand you want to play on.

Yeah, that's a good point. You know what's not creative naming? We need to get to the actual list. This is going to be one of those. One of those weeks where it's like, well, this list could last us for four days because I need to tell you about blue ski posts that I put up.

I saw a couple. I saw this Buc-ee's one.

I thought this Buc-ee's one was so funny. Speaking of what I think of as maybe less than creative naming of things, the story is, you know, somebody had a baby at a Buc-ee's. That kind of thing happens. Buc-ee's is big. They call it the world's largest gas station. And I did this whole story premised on that, so I guess I'm complicit in this. But it's sort of a Costco with a lot more hot food being made at different stations that has gas pumps, you know what I mean? As big as a Costco, really? Well, maybe not quite as big, but my point is that it's pitched as, it's the world's biggest gas station. It's like, well, no, it's a huge store that has gas pumps. Yes, yes. And I like Buc-ee's, don't get me wrong. And I had my Buc-ee's hat on back last weekend when I did the family get-together. And I was speaking of David from the basement I think I was talking to David and his wife Alicia About Buc-ee's We all love Buc-ee's Buc-ee's is a fun place I'm not anti-Buc-ee's But this baby was born at a Buc-ee's This is the Today Show Mom gives birth And they got a little picture of the baby Who's just as adorable as can be And the Buc-ee's sign Mom gives birth in a Buc-ee's parking lot And her baby girl gets a fitting nickname Little Buc-ee I think my tweet was Or my post was Incredible creativity with the nickname there Like what was Little Baby Born in Car at Bucky's Taken. I feel like that nickname is not very creative at all. I mean, I guess these people just had a baby. They've got a lot going on. Maybe their strong suit isn't creative nicknaming of the baby. They just seem a little on the nose.

Luke, I'm sorry. I'm serious. My mind is so flipping blown right now. I'm looking at your Blue Sky account. By the way, I liked a Blue Sky post you posted the other day. I don't know if you noticed that. I gave it a heart.

Oh, thank you.

That's rare from you.

I appreciate that.

We're about to tear. This is the one about my mom becoming a Swiffer. Yeah, that was funny. But I'm about to tear our entire relationship apart.

Oh, no.

I need you. Okay, before I tell you to do anything, I want to tell you a little story.

Okay.

I'm going to withhold certain parts of this for starters.

Starting tomorrow, five best candy situations. No, we'll get to it.

We'll get to it today. But a few weeks, I don't know, like a month and a half ago, whenever I took a trip to Cleveland, Ohio sometime earlier this winter, fall, I tweeted something or I blue skied something that for the first time in my life actually went quasi viral. Emily Nussbaum, if I'm saying her name correctly. I love her. Of course, yes. And I was not following.

Cue the Sun. She wrote an incredible book about the history of reality television.

And I never followed her. I followed her on Twitter back in the day. I did not know she was on Blue Sky, so I wasn't following her. But I posted something, and then I was on the airplane, and I had Wi-Fi, so I was looking at things. And then suddenly, I was looking at Blue Sky, and then out of the blue, suddenly it says, you have 30 new notifications. I was like, what? And then I looked again. It was like, you have 30 new notifications. I'm like, what the heck is going on? Emily Nussbaum reposted something that I posted. And once she did that, I had that thing that happens every maybe once in a lifetime for me.

I remember it well from the couple of times it's happened to me.

Which is you're just like, oh, another hundred people, another hundred. It always limits it to 30 notifications. But then over the course of the next few days, I would watch it go across from like West Coast time. And eventually I went to bed one night and then I woke up the next morning and a whole bunch of people from Europe had liked it and retweeted it. It eventually got into the furry community, and then a day later, a whole bunch of furry accounts were retweeting it. The tweet had nothing, or the post had nothing to do with furries or anything. It was just interesting to watch this thing go viral and sort of move. And it wasn't, it was one, it was 1,300. They stopped counting individual likes after a while.

Wait, this is a post on Blue Sky that you did?

This is a Blue Sky, and it got 1.3 thousand.

Where is it? I'm like, I'm on your account, I want to see this.

Well, it's the exact same one that I posted the exact same photo that I'm realizing a few weeks later or a couple of months later, you have posted the exact same photo from SeaTac Airport that I posted.

Oh, seriously? The leaning guy?

It's a guy leaning on a barrier, and it's like the big, as you call it, the Ghostbusters symbol, like no leaning, and it says do not lean on barrier, but it's funny because the black and white image, the guy who's leaning looks so chill. he's like so cool and i wrote i didn't even want to lean on this barrier until i saw this cool guy doing it oh my god and that's the only time i've ever gone viral and now i see that about 15 days ago you took the same exact in this i can tell it's the same sign based oh wait no actually the staple are going a different way, so it must have been a different part of Seattle Airport. Well, there was a lot of them, if you noticed. They had stapled up like 50 of this do not lean on barriers. You literally made the same joke I did. You wrote, and miss a chance to look this cool? No dice law, man. Basically saying, look how cool this guy is who's leaning on this barrier. You saw me go viral, and you got jealous, and you thought, I'm going to steal the same exact joke, and I'm going to post it, and I'm going to draft. Once again, I am going to draft off of Andrew's popularity.

And, Andrew, I was karmically rewarded with a total failure because it only has 22 likes. And so, you know, the hive mind realized that I was trying to just get a little more mileage out of your joke. And they decided they were not going to reward me. Now, I can't believe it.

I'm just, like, looking because you were talking about the Buc-ee thing. That's pretty crazy, though, right? I mean, we made the same joke about the same exact sign. And I remember passing it, too. And I remember thinking, I don't have time. I've got to catch my plane. But I was like, that's that's funny. And I got to the airport plenty of time. I'm like, I remember like kind of passing and then taking a step back and being like, I got to take a photo of this thing, but not really thinking that much of it. And then again, it's blue sky. Like some people liked it. It's not the big of a deal. It's not life changing. But it is a fun thing as you watch this post get appreciated. Right. And so it's just so funny that here I am. I'm scrolling through your thing months later. And I see that. And I thought you I was going to thank you for retweeting my thing. But then I realized, oh, no, can you check? Oh, well, this was definitely yours that I saw.

No, but I'm saying here's here's this is a possibility, Andrew. It's possible that I did see your post, even maybe retweeted and literally men in black it from my own brain, because obviously, I mean, all joking aside, you know, that if I remembered that you had done a post, I would never do the same post unless it was like, actually, that would be a really funny bit of trolling. I just keep redoing your post but obviously I wouldn't do that intentionally so that would mean you could probably look at the receipts and if I liked or retweeted your post it means very obviously I saw it and then completely erased it from my own brain saw these signs hastily assembled signs at CTAC had the same thought process you did and then posted my own loser version of yours I don't see an easy way to tell out of all of these. Why don't I see this on your feed, by the way? That's what I don't understand. I'm on Andrew Walsh. Are you sure it's the right Andrew Walsh?

It's my little logo thing? Yeah, it's got the little... What's the latest? So do you see, not the latest, but the Sony Walkman I posted? Yeah, yeah, I see that. Okay, then a little

update on my thing. I see Mr. Matt. I see some... Oh, okay.

That's not Mr. Matt. That's a snowman, by the way. But okay, yeah, some radios. Oh, you know, I see it. Oh, nice. Look, you can even tell

the wall is the same like you said there's a whole bunch of them it was that it's some temporary you know they're doing some construction obviously at sea tech yeah and they're oh by the way i had a i had a moment speaking of the sea tech construction this is right before i took my photo my less successful photo andrew i had a i had an interesting interaction with the guy working at the alaska airlines like bag check because i because of i guess they're redoing the Alaska Airlines bag check area at SeaTac that's part of this huge construction project and so I I had to I was checking bags so this was back when I was on that pretty long trip from Miami to other places so I had different climates I was going to be in and shows and so I had kind of a lot of luggage and so I just checked it and um you go up to the thing I'm just a little I'm kind of spoiled because I mostly fly Alaska and I have enough status that I just what i do is i go and i wait in the line for the fancy people and then a very nice alaska airlines person you they greet you and you hand them your suitcases and they put a sticker on it and they put it on the conveyor belt and it's out of your life but if you don't have that status there's a other kind of hoi polloi option which is like print out your own thing and then bring it to some kind of a like conveyor belt that you have to put it on and like do a whole thing i don't know if that's the last time you flew if that's what it was like for you but basically i go i end up going over to I follow the signs and even though I'm in the like fancy line I go up to this very nice guy he's working at the desk Alaska Airlines but I can't just give him my bags I have to like enter all my information into this screen it's kind of like when I was checking to that hotel in LA and they made me use an iPad even though the guy was just standing at the counter I'm like I know what this is they are freaking training us to start doing this ourself they're trying to get rid of the guy who works here and like i think his name was armando and uh so i was like is that

the name of the guy from white lotus is that no i think i must be wrong season one didn't he have

a name something like armando maybe i'm wrong so this thing i've got to type in a lot of information on my own and then i have to put Thank you.

my own bags on this thing, which are actually heavier than I realized. And I was like, man, I feel bad for these employees I'm having do this all the time. But there's an outline on the conveyor belt. You have to kind of put it on there and make sure it's in the outline and then hit something else. And I just realized, oh, they're just training me to do all of this stuff. And I said, Armando, what's up with this? I go, like, they're having us do the whole thing that normally the Alaska employees would do. He goes, yeah, but, you know, the good news is that, like, when they redo all this remodeling, That the first class entry There'll be someone there to help you I go yeah but this is them trying to get everyone Who's not in the mileage club or whatever To just start They're going to have the robots replacing us And he goes yeah I don't know We need more Armandos and less robots And he goes hell yeah man and we fist bumped And I was like me and Armando had a moment there

You radicalized him By the way Armand was the name of the hotel clerk And I thought you were talking about the hotel clerk before When you said Armando Which is why I interrupted All that is to say that's the construction

in question it's these barriers and they're kind of like they're sort of sound barriers slash they're mostly just visual i guess but then they're kind of flimsy they don't want people leaning on them so that somebody printed out and laminated i'd say like 10 to 15 of these signs and and stapled

them up all over that place now i will say i'm not mad at you here because obviously i agree with you there's no way you wouldn't want to post something that i already posted like that that's lame and you wouldn't go for that but let's talk about our friend and longtime listener and supporter cinder cinder is yes um i see that cinder gave you the only comment you got on this was from listener cinder who um has a uh has a big uh laughy emoji with tears coming out nice i didn't get anything from cinder i didn't get anything from cinder on my post and even though

i got fewer fewer interactions i got zero nuss bomb yeah retweeting on me i got that coveted Conlon Laffey emoji, which honestly, you can't put a number on that. To me, that's worth 1,300 retweets. So there is somebody I'm mad at, but it's not. As long as you're mad at somebody.

Thank you, baby.

Alright, let's thank some donors. These folks are supporting TBTL financially. In these turbulent times in these fractured media landscapes. Here we are doing this thing five days a week, 52 weeks a year. There's not a weekday that goes by without a new original TBTL episode. And it's thanks to folks like Malia Maddock, who's out there in Everett, Washington. Thank you, Malia. Thanks, Malia. Thanks to Brad Zwierink of Springfield, Missouri.

Oh, when you say Springfield, it's always a cliffhanger. We don't know what state it's going to be. We've been to Springfield, Missouri, Andrew. Oh, yeah.

Did we go through that when we were hitchhiking? We did. I don't know if we stayed in it, but didn't we try to stay in the Bass Pro Shop Hotel, but it was sold out or something?

Oh, I don't know if we tried to stay in the hotel, but we were near there. I remember. Oh, we stayed across the street. That was when the woman who was chain smoking dropped us off across the street from that place, right?

Yes. And we also, I think we went to a wonderful seafood buffet, or at least we considered it. Who knew? Springfield, Missouri. So much seafood buffet.

That's right. Wait, I might be confusing my two different cities there. But that's right. That was the seafood buffet place that we ended up swerving on. I think so. I think we felt a little landlocked for that for us. Yes, exactly. We went somewhere else. Oh, you know what? We ended up having a nice Italian, a succulent Italian meal. I'm now remembering where we are. A succulent Italian meal. Is there any chance you remember where we ended up? It was kind of a nicer place that had, I just remember it was like, yeah, it was nice and cozy in there. And I feel like maybe we had some wine.

I don't know. That sounds about right. That seems like a thing that could have happened on that trip. Thanks to Lisa Curry, who's in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.

Oh, well, we've broadcasted from Lisa's driveway or parking lot before, right? In Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Well, that was when she was living in Southern California.

Oh, that's our Lisa. Yes. Oh, my gosh. I don't even, unless she's wearing a Green Bay Packers jersey and standing in a sort of parking area in Oceanside, California. I have no context for our families.

Of course. And I said Southern. Oceanside is Northern, isn't it? Southern. No, it is Southern. Okay, got it.

Yeah, it's San Diego. I'm losing confidence.

I'm losing, I'm just draining confidence here.

No, no, no, no. You're right. Don't let me not remembering Lisa's last name drain your confidence, sir. You were right. I was wrong.

Of course, we saw Lisa, too, in Wisconsin when we were hanging out.

We were hanging at the after party after the party at, what was that place that we liked? It's 5 o'clock somewhere. It's 5 o'clock somewhere.

Thanks, Lisa. We really appreciate you. Go pack. Thanks, Natasia Brusewitz, who's in Moses Lake, Washington. Hey, all right. I was telling you on the show a week ago, Andrew, about the haircut I got where the person cutting my hair said, Wow, what are you doing getting your hair cut by me if you're a TV star? That woman was from Moses Lake, Washington. I don't know if she knew Natasia, but that's what I think of now when I think of Moses Lake. I mean, now I'll think of Natasia being there. Thanks, Natasia. Appreciate you. Thanks to Catherine Poe, who's in Elkins, West Virginia.

Now, you know what I'm doing here. I'm trying to see how close is Elkins to Wheeling, because I spent a lot of time in Wheeling when I was a kid, Luke.

Were that where the Chuchas were?

That's where the Chuchas were in my bop sheet. Exactly. Exactly.

This is wild, Andrew. We've got Catherine Poe, who's in Elkins, West Virginia, and then right down the road in Martinsburg, West Virginia, that's where Chelsea Davis is. Oh. Chelsea Davis and Catherine Poe. They're both in West Virginia, and they're both donors today. That's amazing.

Thank you. For a second, by the way, my map was telling me it is literally impossible. There is no way to get from Elkins to Wheeling or vice versa, and that's because I was trying to do it via public transportation. There is a way to drive.

I get that a lot, and it freaks my chili, Andrew. By the way, thank you to all of our donors. Yes, thank you. Couldn't do this without you. I am a lot of times I'll be you know somewhere for a tv story and it's always a bit of a you know it's a it's a touch and go thing for me because I'm often doing tbtl with you so I'm trying to get the producer to schedule our shoot you know in a way that I can do this sometimes I'm trying to do live wire from the hotel room there's a lot going on and there have been more there's been more than one time where I'm putting it in ways to just see like okay we wrap tbtl my guess is it's a half hour let me double check and I put it in and because the map thing is on walk or public transportation, it'll be like, it's six hours away, and I'm like, oh my God, I'm in the wrong state. I went to the wrong state. And then I switch over to the car, and it's like, oh no, it's 20 minutes. Okay. Very terrifying.

You know what I like to do sometimes? This is a joke I came up with a long time ago, so I'm going to set it up like that. I'm trying to think, maybe I even tweeted this or something in the old days. I just remember a long time ago, I think it was funny to tell your Google map on your phone that you're walking somewhere, but then get in the car instead and just, like, really impress it. Just, like, look how fast I am. Like a speed walker.

Well, listen, now that your Blue Sky career is taking off, you don't need to get your validation in these weird computerized ways like you do.

Hey, Emily, I got another one.

Hello, and welcome to Top Story. Our Top Story, Andrew, we've mismanaged our time by being so entertaining. I know. By being so entertaining.

I know. It's just that I struggle with this. I'm too entertaining all. Just ask Genevieve. She's like, you're too entertaining all the time.

Exactly. And because of that, we're running a little long, and today we're going to be trying to keep things kind of to time, meaning we are going to, what, carry over? We're going to move over our voicemail list from my brother about candy, And we're going to dig into something that is maybe we can do in a little more economical fashion. So this is we're switching. Omaha, Omaha, Omaha, Omaha. I'm people can't see this because this is audio, but I'm I'm clearing the play. I'm audible. I'm up at the line. I see what that I'm going to take what the defense is giving me. And I'm going to audible us into an RPO. And and here it is. Who are we going to who are we going to hear from? What are we going to read here?

So what we're going to do here is without disrespecting the list that we're switching to. So we didn't really set this up at the beginning of the show, but a while back, we started to get into this idea of top five lists. It's it's we're the only podcast ever do this. If you've heard that this is something that they did on the Levitard show. I don't know what you're talking about. That's crazy talk. But listener Bobby, I think, sent in a top five list kind of in that style a while back. And it was fun. And so listeners started sending in their top five kind of experiences covering all kinds of aspects of life. And that's why your brother sent in a whole bunch, including the candy one that you mentioned. It was like top five candy experiences, which we're going to hold off on that one because it's a long voicemail. But I did get an email here that's a bit of a shorter one. And this is from Aaron in Olympia. And I think that you and I can do this economically, Luke, because we are famously illiterate. And Aaron's list is top five movies that are better than the book. Aaron says I asked my five this question because he loves lists and he immediately thought of top five movies that are better than the book now the chance of you and I each having read and watched all of these is almost nil I guess they would say a non-zero chance, but it's close to zero as it gets.

In this case, it's about zero. I feel, though, because this is an email, we need some sort of audio spackle. Do you have anything there? I could play the TVTL calendar music.

Ooh, is this listy enough for you? I mean, this definitely makes me want to show you an old Confederate flag. Yes, how much is this worth? My great uncle gave me. And they said, sir, this was made in the 1980s. Your uncle's just a racist.

So this was made in China.

Sir, this was made in China last year. This was bought on Amazon. Your uncle bought a Confederate flag on Amazon last week. You need to have a talk.

This shouldn't have even come here. All right. Let's see here. So, Aaron, I'm going to need you to either Google or fill in the blanks on some of these for me. What about a walk to remember? Aaron says that was my contribution to this list. number five is a walk to remember movie better than the book what do we know about this this story i don't a lot i don't know well i know that it's mandy moore because i'm looking the movie is

mandy moore oh okay for some reason i thought mandy patinkin i'm oh god more excited about i mean there isn't anything that isn't improved by mandy patinkin although funnily enough i do i wouldn't saying i know mandy moore would be an overstatement i did interview her for tv she was oh yeah right corresponded since then really quite nice person uh it's a nicholas sparks oh of course my friend okay which i just learned uh recently a lot of those books are set in the area of north carolina where my granddad farnum burbank lived out his days down there in newburn

that music a walk to remember i cannot do that music anymore man it was killing me i'll go with We use this for Hey Dummies. This is better. I feel so much more relaxed with this. That music was putting me on edge. Did it make it feel like you needed to wax your mustache more? Something. It was just like, oh, it was so frenetic. It was like, am I watching Mama's Family or am I doing a top five list here? Okay, so there you go. A walk to remember. Number five was a walk to remember. That was Aaron's contribution.

Which is interesting because I don't want to sound, I haven't read the book or seen the movie, and I don't want to sound like I'm being dismissive of Nicholas Sparks' work Because, by the way, it's very popular And people seem to love it But I get the sense that a Nicholas Sparks book Is written almost like a movie Like it's kind of cinematic

And is Nicholas Sparks young adult literature? Am I wrong about that?

I don't know if it would be Originally, it's like he did the notebook Which was actually about The notebook was about I think it's a beautiful story Of a couple And then they have There's an auto accident And I think that the wife, maybe the wife loses her memory. And so the husband is like, basically reenacts their whole life together. He has this notebook that he's, this is awful. I can't believe I'm trying to guess at the plot of the notebook. Has something to do with him, basically. Like, she doesn't remember all of their special moments. And he sort of recreates all their special moments or something like that.

Okay.

But they're adults.

You know what the funny thing is? This must have come up on the show somewhat recently. because I just typed in Nicholas Sparks and it auto-completed from my history Nicholas Sparks movies. I forgot, Nicholas Sparks also writes for the screen as well as these things.

Yes, also I was loud wrong about the notebook. It's not a car accident. It's a mill worker and a wealthy woman in the 1940s South Carolina. Also, by the way, Walt, what are you talking about saying that's where the... South Carolina is not North Carolina. My dad gave me some bad intel on the Nicholas Sparks books. Anyway. Anyway. They have an on-again, off-again relationship. It's framed by an elderly Noah reading their passionate love story from a notebook to Allie, who has Alzheimer's. So he is reading the story of their love to her because she's now forgotten about it. And then I believe we see the younger actors reenacting what happened to them. Point being, it feels like stuff that is almost written for the screen as it's being written as a book.

Because he is a screenwriter as well. And I'm looking at a list of all of his movies or books that immediately became movies. But yeah, and I know of The Notebook because that's what really got, I mean, I know Ryan Gosling was famous before that, but I think for a while that was like, you know, the guy from The Notebook. Okay, that was number five, Walk to Remember. And number four, movie better than the book. The only one on this list that I've seen both the movie and read the book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Stieg Larsson. Stieg Larsson.

Why do I know that having not? You Stieg'd it. Nice. Having not seen the movie or read the book. Because you steeged the landing is what I meant to say.

Steeged the landing. It's good. Possible show title. Yes.

Sorry, go ahead. I cut you off twice now. I'm looking at it here. Oh, Daniel Craig in the movie version. And, like, is that Rooney Mara? Is that a Rooney Mara?

It's one of the Maras, and I believe it's Rooney. It's Rooney.

I've got it. You've got it in front of you, yeah.

Now, it's been a while for both of these from me. They're very upsetting, the story of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. And I read all three, I believe, or at least the first three when it was a trilogy. I'll bet you there's more now because it was so successful. But I do believe I read the original series of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. And the thing I remember from the books is it's like, you know, gets in some really salacious and gritty stuff. but it's also written from a sense of it feels very removed it feels like the perspective and the narration is very removed and everybody's very calm and the thing I remember most is Luke you would like this as a young hit person they drink coffee all the time middle of the night getting ready to go to bed there's always busy work and it's like he always has them making coffee, drinking coffee preparing the next day's coffee And I always think about that. I'm like, it would just be so nice if I just could handle that much coffee in the day. But you hear how fast I talk after one cup.

Yeah, I'm good for maybe one and a half cups total in the day. Maybe sometimes an afternoon little pick-me-up. But yeah, not like it sounds like they're doing in this book. It's also, this is neither here nor there, but I'm on the Wikipedia page for the film. And they're doing something sort of creative with the imagery on the movie poster. and it's Rooney Mara in profile and then it's also, I guess, Daniel Craig. But the whole thing, they have Rooney Mara's character looking exactly like Yolande Visser from that weird South African Zeph band or whatever.

Oh, geez louise. D'Antward. Oh, D'Antward, yes, wow.

She looks like half of D'Antward in the poster for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Oh, wow. Anyway, just to...

So this next one on the list, number three, movie better than the book is Casino Royale Speaking of Daniel Craig although and I got I assume that we're talking here about the remake of Casino Royale not the 1967 sort of rompy because somebody took that James Bond book Casino Royale but then turned it into one of those kind of I think horny romp comedy movies of the late 1960s right the kind that you would often find a Peter Sellers or

kind of what the Austin Powers movies are sort of a parody of.

That's my understanding of it, although I've never seen it. Let's see. Yeah, John Huston directed it. Oh, so this would have been kind of near the ending of it. Oh, look at this. Starring Peter Sellers. It is Peter Sellers. Oh, and Woody Allen. I must have saw this way back in the day. Okay, I'll bet you I watched this in college, because when I said Peter Sellers type, I really didn't think he was in it. Music by Burt Bacharach. Yeah, this is a vibe. That's the original one, but my guess is Aaron's talking about the 2000s Casino Royale, which was very serious and had Daniel Craig, and I've never watched it because I heard there's a torture scene that is really rough.

I have watched it, and I thought it was really good. I saw that in a theater. People loved it. Although I do, if I remember right, and I'm sure this came up on the show many years ago, i kind of feel like there's a big it opens with a big kind of casino card scene that doesn't really make the whole sense because you know casino card rooms or i'm fair i know a fair amount and you know kind of like how these games tend to go and it's like of course they don't want the they they don't want the the actual way that let's just say poker or i because i feel like it's a card game they're playing they don't want to let the rules of the game get in the way of some it's like everyone's turning over like five aces and then someone has like six aces you know something like that. It's like my vague memory is that it's like, I don't think that's how that works, but okay.

Oh, that's funny. Okay, number two on the list. Number two movie better than the book is The Prestige. What do we know about The Prestige?

It's about magic, right? Does it have... That's what I think. Oh, is it Christopher Norton in it? I'm looking it up here. No, it's Christian Bale and... Hugh Jackman. Hugh Jackman. Michael Caine. You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.

It's inevitable. It's inevitable. People of our taste and age cannot say Michael Caine without slipping into that. And you don't do the broken voice. Scarlett Johansson is in this. Oh, ScarJo. How do you feel? My dad laid something on me when I was visiting him a couple of months ago. He just said, I don't like her. She appeared in a commercial. Or maybe she appeared in a commercial for a movie that she's in or something. He was like, I don't like her. I'm like, huh, like, I've never heard anybody have a strong opinion on her. Generally speaking, I just thought that people like her in movies.

I have not heard about, I've not heard any, yeah, the same thing. I've not heard anybody who has a problem with Scarlett Johansson's work, and I remain a big fan. Now, here's what's interesting, Andrew. The movie poster for The Prestige looks a ton like the movie poster for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, except it's just different peoples on there. Oh, really? But it's like the same thing where you've got, in this case, it's three different people, whereas The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is two people, and they're all kind of in profile and overlapped with each other.

Oh, wow.

It must be a thing they were doing around this time.

One was 2006, one was 2011, so I'm going to call that the same kind of era. That's interesting. Kind of the way book covers all looked alike a few years ago. They were all like— Oh, my gosh.

They were all that cartoonish, that kind of where you're at, Bernadette.

Yes, exactly.

Or where'd you go, Bernadette, kind of like cover art at every single Hudson News bookseller.

I felt like they were almost like candy, sort of. Like you would see them and you'd want—the covers really were—they did draw you to it, I feel like. All right. Are you ready for the number one? Yes. I'm so ready. Movie.

I should have gotten a drum roll ready for this if I knew we were going to.

Oh, and we're out of jazz music, apparently. But that's okay. We're almost out of energy, too. The number one movie that is better than the book, according to Erin, and her five, is. I can skip ahead. We done? Or is there going to be a. That was just. Okay. Okay. Fight. That was good, though. I'm glad we did that. Fight Club! No, it's good that paid off. Yeah, no. Wow.

Fight Club. Okay, movie better than book. That is the point. Movie better than book. Now, have you read the book? I have not read the book. I've seen the book. No, I might have read the book. I think I might have read Fight Club. It seems like something you might have. It came out long enough ago that I was back when I still read books for fun, not just as an assignment from my other job. Because it's Chuck, how do you say his last name? Palahniuk. Palahniuk, yes. Who I was at the Mazda dealership with some time back, about a year ago. We were both waiting to have our cars serviced, and I was going to say to him, hey, I'm that radio host who interviewed you once on stage when you were on an Ambien and Red Wine, and you were totally insane the whole time. And then I thought, I'll leave that alone.

Yes, because he probably didn't remember if he was in that state anyway. So there you go. I can't weigh in on it because I've only seen the movie. I liked the movie. I wasn't as obsessed with it as some people were, like Genevieve. Genevieve was obsessed with Fight Club when I met her. Yeah, that would have come out before we met, and she was obsessed with it. I really liked that movie, though.

I liked it. And you know what? I don't think I read that book because I remember being pretty shocked at the end of the movie and what the twist of it is. And then I think what's so genius about it is it goes right from, I think, anyway, my memory is it goes from that kind of moment of realization to where is my mind? Yes. Is the song that plays under the closing credits, and it's just like perfect time. I remember watching this on a Netflix DVD, Andrew, that I had rented, that Netflix had mailed to my house in that little envelope, and I was in my basement where the Cryin' Tree is, my first house there on Beacon Hill, and I remember going from just a moment of like, holy crap, to the opening notes of Where's My Mind, and just being like, that is a killer song to end this movie with.

Yes, and I can picture that last scene, at least how my mind remembers it. And I remember also thinking, this is interesting because a lot of people, this is going to be their introduction to, like the younger generations, this will be their introduction to the Pixies.

Honestly, it might have been mine a little bit. I've never been a Pixies guy. I mean, I probably had heard, you know, this monkey's gone to heaven or something. I don't think I knew that song, though, to be honest with you, until that movie.

I feel like now I'm looking at it here on Spotify and it's got huge numbers I would guess it might be one of their most famous songs but I can't tell you if it would have always been one of their most famous songs before this movie but it certainly is now I feel like it would have been but maybe not but yeah that was a really arresting way to end the movie

yeah oh I've got one can I throw in a last little nominee

but I haven't read the book oh but you haven't read it but you're going to say that the movie's better

I'm not going to let that stop me, Andrew. A person of more limited imagination would let that stop me, but I'm not that person. I think The Shining, I love the movie The Shining, and I know Stephen King was very mad because Kubrick took out some of his hedge monsters. Kubrick kind of made it, I think, you know, there was more kind of weird magic in the book than there was in the, and then, of course, they made a TV version of it, TV movie version that was more to Stephen King's liking, and I thought it was a lot worse.

Oh, it was terrible. It was with Stephen Webber, and Stephen King was like, I like this one. And the thing he really didn't like is that they removed the idea of Tony being actually, is carporeal the right word? I feel like I throw that out a lot. In other words. Oh, so Tony was a real person. and not just a little man who lived in Danny's voice.

I read, it's funny you brought this one up because I have read the book and seen the good movie, the theatrical release, and I'm pretty sure that, yeah, maybe Tony did manifest actually as a being in the book because I feel like that was Stephen King's complaint and then they returned that in the made-for-TV one, whatever it was, with Stephen Webber, right? That's the right, the guy from Wings, yeah. and it's just like it's so I know we've had this conversation a lot because I think I've grabbed the screen grab of like of Stephen Weber like talking under a tree or something to Danny is that the kid's name Danny but it just seems so cheesy and it's sort of one of those things where it's like boy Stephen King nobody can deny that he can write an amazing story right but he also has kind of bad taste

well that's why I'm confident saying having not read The Shining that I think the Kubrick version of The Shining is probably better than the original Stephen King

book. You know, I'm going to say a book that was better than the movie and this is going to hit a little bit close to home for you because you used to play poker. The greatest story ever told, called Gangster Squad, which was directed by a friend of yours who I usually like. I remember liking the movie. I thought it was. Yeah, yeah, Reuben Fleischer. Because I was a fan of Reuben Fleischer and some of his really early work. And I remember reading Gangster Squad. He did Zombieland, right? He did Zombieland, which I've never seen all the way through, believe it or not. And I know that that's really celebrated. Yeah, I think that's a great movie from everything I hear. But I remember being excited. I'm like, I happen to have read Gangster Squad. I don't know why. Again, I'm sort of drawn to that kind of noir-y kind of crime stuff. And so then I went to see the movie and I was like, oh my God, this doesn't live up. So that would be my list of one book that was better than the movie.

Okay, I'm not going to tell Ruben that when I don't see him again. Yeah, you haven't seen him in probably 30 years. Haven't seen him in a while. But if I do see him, I'll low-key that part of the movie. Okay, good. You ready to get out of here? I am so ready, as are the listeners probably, but I have amazing news. We're going to be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio, and we will get to our candy list, okay? Yes. if we do one thing tomorrow we'll be getting to the candy list so if you can tune in for that in the meantime everybody have a great Monday hope all your nice really good nice pivot my friend you know my Wilco cover band we played this song did the crowds love it we never played for anyone when I say played this song we practiced we had zero gigs alright we'll see you tomorrow please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all power out