Muse

Do you want to exchange Christmas presents this year?

I would love to. Great. How about the most we can spend on each other's gifts is zero dollars?

Really? You want to exchange creative gifts? Oh, well, you are the one that's in trouble now, buddy, because creativity to me is just like... It's like a bird, like a friendly bird that embraces all ideas and just, like, shoots out of its eyes all kinds of beauty.

Wow, Lemon, this is like watching Hemingway ride. Mark Hemingway.

Yeah.

TBTL!

I'm so excited about this show. It is weird, it is beautiful, it has a plot that goes in fascinating directions.

It's so easy. All you do is point and click. But how does it work? All you need is a computer and a regular phone line. Oh, well, with all due respect, I mean, I hate to admit this, But, I mean, I don't think I've been online in, you know, a couple days or weeks or whatever. So, I mean, that's really not an important thing to me. My face, your face, instant face. Go talk to whoever you want that does that stuff. I don't know.

What's on the website probably isn't going to be where it's actually going to be. Okay. A lot of the times we will play like a Home Depot parking lot.

This is not your mama's podcast. This is too beautiful to live.

well all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a wednesday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live meet the next generation of podcast stars my name is luke burbank i am your host luke burbank in case you needed confirmation on that there we go coming to you from the madrona hill studio perched high above the mighty columbia where the stockings are hung with care here on Christmas Eve day morning.

Is Santa here? I know him. I know him.

And we've made it, folks, to episode 4,626 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Got another list for you today, submitted by one of the listeners from their real live...

We talk about you and your life, your hopes,

your ambitions, your dreams. Real life experiences. the top five walks that you can take you know the holidays christmas eve christmas day nothing like a nice little family walk get a little fresh air walk off some of those cookies uh we're gonna go through the list today with you and with this guy he is the longest running co-bro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships uh sometimes i call him the andy man sometimes i call him the miami meat tent he answers to all of them including Andrew Walsh, which is what we're going to use today. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. Listen to this. This is a good feeling. This is a good sound and a good feeling right here. You know what this is? This is the modern sound of what you do to a paper check after you digitally deposit it. Young generations will never understand that when you got a check in the mail. Well, young generations don't understand what a check in the mail means, but remember, you'd get a check in the mail, you'd have to find a bank, take it to a bank, stand in line talk to a teller who would fill out a deposit slip remember the with one of those pens that is chained to a desk and yeah figure out what your bank account number is now maybe go

through the drive-thru and get that yeah proxy pneumatic tube but i actually did that the other

day and what's wonderful they still have working pneumatic tubes down there in oregon uh well i'm

in southern Washington. Oh, yeah, what am I talking about? But, yeah, they do at the, at the, what is, which one was it? Oh, yeah, Bank of America in Longview.

Wow, that's worth the trip right there. That is worth the trip. Did you get a lollipop sent your way at the end? I don't think I did. I should go back. God, what is the point of the tube if it's not sending you a lollipop back?

Exactly, best candies, as we heard about.

But do you do what I do now, which is like, it's so easy to deposit checks now on the occasion that you find yourself receiving a paper check and maybe during the holiday season people are receiving uh paper checks uh you just take a photo of a few from my grandmother rest in power do you still have them do you have some that like you never catch i don't but i wonder what happens with you know

people that have got a hundred checks for five dollars from their grandmother and then maybe you know grandmother is no longer with us you better get those checks cashed real quick do you

uh hey once you deposit your checks using the mobile apps is there a period where you're too scared to throw away the check so you have to so what i just did was i just logged into bank of america i'm like did that check i deposited a couple of weeks ago did that clear and then i saw it cleared for 75 dollars i'm seven if i sound 75 dollars richer than i was yesterday it's because i am 75 dollars richer than i was yesterday i saw that it cleared so i was able to take that check off of my desk tear it up as you heard and throw it away and that feels like i did something It feels like I crossed something off my to-do list.

For many years after the advent of the, you know, taking a picture of your check and that was all good, I could never even rip up the checks. I would just keep them like forever because I just felt like, I don't know, I was going to need proof at some point. Yeah. And I think I've only recently now started actually ripping the checks up. Like it took me years to trust the hashtag process because it does feel it still feels crazy and new to me. And does seem on some level like it should be rife, rife with, I don't know, malfeasance, skullduggery. But, you know, I guess it works and it keeps people out of the bank. So, you know, we'll go for it.

You know, while we're talking about lists on the show recently, I feel like I should put together a top five list. I have two I can share with you right now, which are going to be retread, so I'll keep them quick. But I should put together a list of the top five episodes of sitcoms that I watched as a child that had an undue influence on the rest of my life. One of which would be something that came up on the show a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about Cheers and Robin Coldcourt, if I'm saying it, Coldcourt maybe, and the idea of a hidden money belt being somewhere. That was one weird episode of Cheers. I'd never heard the term money belt before, but the whole gang tears apart an apartment, I believe, and some other places looking for this supposed money belt filled with like a million dollars. And so ever since I saw that, I'll go around. Every time I'm in a hotel room, I'm looking around for a hidden money belt. The other one related to keeping checks and receipts forever was an episode of, okay, Mary Tyler Moore, where she's getting audited. And I'm sure we've talked about this before because I think about it a lot. Like, I didn't know what an audit was. I don't think I fully understood the idea of the IRS or taxes. All I knew from watching media like that was that if you don't do things right, somebody from the government could knock on your door unexpectedly and say, where's your shoebox full of receipts? And there's a little bit of me that still kind of has that paranoia in me, even though I don't think that's how it works.

Couldn't be less shocked to hear that that's a concern for you as a pretty detail-oriented archivist, as a person who loves archiving and record keeping and file management. It was funny, a couple weeks ago, Walt and I were down at Home Depot and buying some supplies for the project here, and I forget what it was, but you were buying an extra-tall wax seal for putting the toilet down.

Oh, I thought you meant like a model seal, like the animal, extra-tall wax. No, that would be pretty cool, actually. For the front yard.

You know, like a wax ring that sits. It's kind of wild to me that that's still the technology.

Have you ever installed a toilet? Oh, yeah, I have. In fact, I think I had to do it twice. You just put down a bunch of gloppy, like, waxy stuff, and then you buy that rubber seal, right? No, it's a circle. It's a wax ring. Oh, right, right, right, right. That's how it is. You place the toilet over it. Yes, yes, yes. Sorry. I have done that. I just misremembered. Yeah. I need you to check on your toilet immediately, sir. I'm very worried. But it is, like, I think there might be a rubber gasket that also, like, kind of. But you're right. I just remembered it being, like, it seems so. Like from the 1800s or something. Yeah, because you really are just taking, it is open wax, right? It is something that you could take your finger and scoop it out if you wanted to. But then you just, like, position the toilet on top of it, and the weight of the toilet just squishes into it. And you're like, job done. And then you just put it in a couple. And then two bolts, right? And that's it.

You know, yeah, like, it seems like the thing they did when they invented the first toilet. Yeah. Like a guy was like...

Or the second toilet, really, because the first toilet.

Right, thank you. First one, definitely a beta test, and let's just say there were issues. Yes. But so we put the wax ring down that came with the toilet. But I'm now, and I don't know, Andrew, if I should say proud owner of two crazy toilets now, two bidet toilets, built-in bidet toilets that have a heated seat and the whole deal. What I realized when I had my family over for that holiday get-together was, I think, who was it? It might have been my sister-in-law, Alicia, said, like, something to the effect of, you know, people are a little intimidated by using. I remodeled one of the bathrooms in the house, and I put in one of these fancy toilets that has a bidet built in. It's illuminated. It flushes for you and all this stuff. And what I didn't realize was I think people were kind of freaked out by it, so they were using the old, unremodeled bathroom because it just had a normal toilet. I would, probably, given the choice. Yeah, and I don't think I didn't do...

I didn't do my homework on this. I didn't do a sort of maybe a poll of the people likely to be at my house and to be maybe using it because I really like the fancy one. I know how to use it. And I just figured, well, let's give that gift to everyone. And my sister-in-law Alicia was like, oh, yeah, so that used to be the normal toilet, right? And I was like, yeah.

God bless Alicia.

There's a normal toilet upstairs if people really want to. And there's a normal toilet here.

Wait, you have three bathrooms?

You have three bathrooms in the main house, four counting the studio, which I hope I get some credit for when I sell this place because it was one bathroom when I bought it. It's now four bathrooms, although I don't know if you can call the upstairs one. It's not a full bath. It's just a toilet and a sink and stuff, so you can't shower up there. But there's three full bathrooms and one little kind of half bath upstairs now. And the upstairs half bath has a normal toilet, and the ADU here, the studio bathroom, is a normal toilet. But that's kind of a hassle. I guess I just assumed everyone would be stoked about getting to wash their hindquarters. It just feels to me like that's a superior system, but I know there is a little bit of a barrier to entry. And most people probably, if they're visiting someone, that's not going to be the first time that they try to wash their backside.

And it also just seems like, and I know I've said this before, and I guess it goes to my general misunderstanding of how these things work. But, like, that just is getting too close to somebody else's hoo-ha for me to be comfortable sharing that. You know what I mean? It's like if it's essentially like a little hose nozzle that comes out, that's getting—

Who are you calling a hose nozzle?

Yeah, I'm calling you a hose nozzle, you hose nozzle. I feel very much like a—

That seems like a Canadian insult from the 90s.

That's exactly what I was going to say. I was literally about to say I feel like I'm in Strange Brew or something like that. But I Yeah I don't know like I just don't That doesn't seem like a shareable thing to me

You'd be surprised again I don't feel like I'm going to convince you on this But you'd be surprised the hose nozzle is very Far away from your hindquarters From anyone's hindquarters

I just would be thinking the whole time this is the hose that Luke uses On his pooper and I'm using the same Hose on my pooper Oh by the way I should say Merry Christmas Eve to everybody

Merry Christmas Eve to everyone and to all Goodbye I had to all enjoy that episode of Comedy Bang Bang that you were going to switch to. But, I mean, if you think about it, you're sitting on a toilet seat that someone's, you know, butt cheeks also touched. I mean, that's a very personal one.

But those are the cheeks, though. I'm just saying. I mean, I don't know how much you want to talk about this.

There's a big difference between what my cheeks do. I'm not going to convince you on this. You're obviously highly sus. If you do come over here, I assume I will find you using the ADU bathroom. Yes, please. Rocking quietly in the ADU bathroom, hiding from.

I'm going to need an outhouse with a moon on the door

Yes, exactly So all that is to say We put the new toilet in And it's called the Casta Diva Which by the way is also just hilarious What a dumb name for a toilet It seems like it's a toilet that's going to be a lot

Is that the one that had that Over the top commercial That I think we talked about on the show We might have even had senior bidet correspondent Chris Hayes weighing in on this The commercial where it's like some luxury toilet On the roof of a building and some woman comes out in like a flowy, fancy party gown. I don't think so.

I think this is a, as my dad would say, Chinese bullshit. I don't think that whoever makes the Casta Diva is spending any money on commercials. They're spending money on SEO so that when you Google best affordable built-in bidet toilet, it comes up as the first one on like Amazon or something. But all that is to say we put it in using the wax ring that was sent to us from the Casta Diva Corporation And guess what? It was not thick enough. And we put the whole thing in, and everything was fine. And then the next day, to our horror, we noticed that the toilet was leaking from the base. Just a little bit. And luckily, no one had even used it. It was still the day before the get-together, and neither my dad nor I had actually even gone to the bathroom in the toilet. So it wasn't, like, gross. It was just like, oh, no. So we had to pull the toilet out. we had to go to Home Depot and get a new extra tall wax ring and this is all on the subject of audits and shoe boxes of receipts, we're buying the wax ring I don't know what it is, 10 bucks, 15 bucks in this economy, and I'm paying for it, and she goes, would you like your receipt, and I'm like, and my dad goes, well you're taking the receipt, right, I was like, no I'm gonna risk it on this one

you can't return it, like it's open wax, like if it doesn't seal up, you're not gonna bring that back and be like, here's your goo

exactly, and it's like But to my dad, it's like my dad keeps every single receipt in his life. Oh, no. In his life, I think, because he's like, well, I don't know. I might need to reference this later. So I told you about the whole situation with trying to put my sister's accurate address into the system. Yes. Cost him his place in line. that's just kind of how he's wired so if i don't want my dad to ever get audited but i do kind of i would love to see the look on the irs's face when they mess with the wrong guy sir could you prove this yeah exactly just like lights a cigar yeah he's like hope you got i've been waiting my

whole life for this now like you'll i mean you mentioned that it seems like on brand for me to do that now before the internet i did keep like a bunch of receipts in my wallet from like any debit card thing that you know any purchase of my debit card or atm withdrawal because then i would balance my checkbook and all that but in the digital age i am not like that i don't even keep and we talked about this i said one of the i've always said one of the the greatest things that the internet has provided is the you're no longer required to keep any kind of a manual any kind of an instruction manual also a big online it's like you don't need to throw them away i if i think there's any chance I'm going to need a receipt for maybe a larger purchase or a technological thing, I'll maybe fold it up and put it in my drawer for maybe a couple of weeks. But once everything is working I throw that away or I take a photo of it maybe if I'm concerned. But like I do not keep any... I used to have a filing cabinet where I'd keep this stuff. I don't keep anything anymore.

That was another debate me and my dad had which was he was like, what do you want to do with this? And I think it might have even literally been the manual for the new fancy toilet. And I said, I want to toss that right on out, Dad. He goes, well, and I go, it's all online. It's online. It's all online, friend. I went over, and I just put my hands on his shoulders, and I said, there, there, there. No one can hurt you now. And then I put my hand down, and I took the manual out of his hand, which was still kind of tightly gripping, and I just eased it out of his hand. And I said, you're safe now, Walt. You're safe. And then you said. But anyway, luckily, the new wax ring worked, by the way.

Oh, I'm glad to hear it. I'm glad to hear it. You know, I had the same experience. I remember having this conversation when I did have to reinstall the seal on my toilet. I think we might have even named the show, this goes back a couple of years, a load-bearing toilet or something. It was one of those moments that, especially as a new homeowner, I was reminded of quite a bit. My whole life, I just assumed that these things were part of the structure of the house. Like a toilet. You can't just unscrew a toilet and pick it up. That is so unsteady. That is so unstructured. Like, that doesn't make any sense to me. But then once you're like, oh, wait, you just unscrew these two bolts, you lift the toilet up, and that's it? I mean, you have to unhook a little bit of plumbing you have to unhook. But you know what I mean? It's so basic, and you're just like, how could this be? I always thought, and now, and honestly, when I see somebody, like, in a fight scene in a movie, let's say, and a sink breaks or a toilet cracks or something. It seems so much more believable to me now because I think there's a time when I'd be like, if the toilet breaks, it's like, well, then the whole house is going to collapse.

You want to know what the absolute most satisfying thing was? We took the old toilet to the dump. Oh, throw it over the edge. Those things are friggin' heavy by the way. A porcelain toilet. You got to carry it like a fireman's carry. Or not a fireman's, but in your arms. We both had our gloves on and we pulled it out of the back of the truck and we went, one, two and then on three we hoisted it and it flew through the air in slow motion into the place where you throw that at the dump and it was just like ultra satisfying

I had to because I didn't want mine to break because I was just replacing the seal on it but keeping the toilet I remember picking it up I think a fireman's carry is when you throw it over your shoulder right by the way bingo's in here now you can't see him but he's looking at you he wishes you were bird like could you flap your hands like this like their wings bingo look he's doing it he's doing it look okay he's leaving Chris is leaving the room But I remember having to Carefully pick up the toilet And I held it in my arms Like a big baby As I carried it Because I drained all the water out of it But I needed to set it somewhere So I was going to set it in my tub And I had to carry it gently to the tub And lay it down Like a big baby Jesus To keep it on the holiday tip today

I mean I guess This shows how I'm sort of profligate with my I should be a little more careful with money and I should, I don't know, I should think things through but like, I'm sort of of the opinion that if you're pulling a toilet off of the whole situation, maybe we're going with a new toilet, and I don't know why that is, like there's nothing wrong with your, well, there's nothing wrong with your toilet, you were just doing the floor or something, right?

The seal had broken or something but I'd already, but I mean, you fixed it One of the first things I did when I moved in, I'm sure was get a new toilet seat, I always do that I don't use toilet seats from previous owners.

Interesting. See, that never even occurred to me. Like that toilet that was in the original bathroom, the only bathroom at this house, I'd never even thought to change the toilet seat. And in fact, it was funny because when we were throwing it into the dump, I was thinking, what this toilet has. scene man because it's not even like i think it went back like multiple owners of the house so it isn't even just like the people before me it's like the people before them and the people that visited them it's like eek yeah i'm kind of ready to get this out of my life yeah yeah so no my

toilet i didn't want to buy a whole new toilet because i think it was relatively new um but i did need to fix that seal and oh i guess i was going to say not that it's super interesting is just like you it took two times like i don't know what i did wrong the first time that must Yeah, because then almost exactly like you said, the next morning you wake up and there's more leakage or whatever, and you're like, ah, damn it. But the second time took. And I do remember those seals being very affordable, too. That's the thing. But you're talking about keeping the receipt. I remember being shocked. I think they were like, when I bought mine, I think maybe because it wasn't extra tall, I think it was $5. It was under $10 for this. It's like this thing that is, it is the seal between toilet water going all over my floor. And madness. Yes.

It's a well-ordered life or absolute chaos.

It's $5.99. It's all on this wax ring. Exactly.

Thank you, baby.

All right, let's thank some donors. These are the folks keeping us in toilet wax money. That's right. Could not have afforded the extra tall toilet wax ring without the support of folks like Patty Berkenshaw out there in Lake Stevens, Washington, home of Tom Thumb Market.

Now, I should mention here that we're not actually using TBTL funds to buy you fancy toilet and toilet equipment, but it is what pays our paychecks, which allows us.

Yes, it's where we draw a salary for doing this, as does John Sklaroff. And then we, Andrew, we get to spend it on whatever we want, including toilets that nobody likes.

Yeah, I just want everybody to know though we're not using the TVTail credit card for that. You're getting some sketchy areas there. As far as you know. As far as, oh, that's a good point.

I've got a pro account going at Home Depot. I do have a pro account, which it doesn't cost you anything, and it's like, you know, you get some percentage back at the end of the year. And I really should have signed up for it, like, at the beginning of this project. You know, now I'm kind of at the end. I'm not really spending a lot of money at Home Depot. But I'll be like, oh, can I put in my pro number? I give them my number, and they're like, what's the name on the project? and then I'm scrambling. I need to say, job 3277 or something, and I'm just sounding like, house.

I didn't understand what you meant by pro. You literally, I thought it was just what they call the other, you're also a wizard with Avis, but you're not literally a wizard.

Yeah, no, I have a pro account at Home Depot.

Do you have to keep up appearances like you're actually somebody who's in the trade professionally?

I have to have a hammer hanging from one of those loops on my pants. You have to ride in on a jackhammer? like a pogo stick they've asked me to stop doing that it's bad on the wax floors yeah sure but um no it's just called a pro account i mean i think it's supposed to you know they're what they're trying to do is get trades people to want to come in and if they're buying a lot a lot of stuff but it doesn't cost anything there's no minimum order and it just does give you back some small percentage i don't know or you get some coupons in the mail i don't know i got talked into it at some point but the thing is if i was really a pro they'd say well what is this job they'd put it in so that I could keep the different jobs straight for billing later, like if I'm billing the people whose house I'm putting this toilet in. But it's all just my house. So all I always say is, house? Yes. House. Okay, what's the job name for this? House? My house? My house?

Our house? Not in our house?

Look who it is. It's Jake Rahr from Seattle, Washington. Our pal Jake for many, many, many, many years. Friend of the show. Supporter of the show. Jake. love you buddy also we love scotty houghton of everett washington scotty was keeping the fire burning for the weedist song uh teenage dirtbag yeah in the wilderness of that song's existence that song was popular when it came out and it had not yet re-entered the pop culture the way that it did and in those lean years those years when i don't know if the guys from weedist were getting any checks at all scotty was personally keeping that going by singing it at karaoke every

time we hung out i went to a baseball game with scotty one time uh because somebody i think uh had dropped out and he reached out to me he said andrew i've asked literally everybody i know i've asked all of my good i'm out of options all of my medium friends i asked all of my enemies and nobody was available to go with me would you go with me and i said i would and it was a really good time and i always i think i've told this story on the show i can remember the pitcher who started that game it was tommy the mariners yeah who remember we had a guy that we would bring up every now and then named Tommy. Do you have any idea who I'm talking about? Why would I start this sentence if I can't manage it?

Wait, but was he the guy that was also a bartender? No.

He wasn't, but he had only come up...

Because we had a Tom Wilhelmsen. Tommy Malone was his name. Yes, Tom Wilhelmsen was a little bit earlier than that. But for some reason... Tommy Malone sounds like he should have been under a baby carriage getting shot at by Elliot Ness.

It's because I remember, because our friend Durz always called him Mommy Talone, I think, or something like that. But anyway, yes.

See, why can't we do that, Andy? And then I can unblock you. Yes. Anyway. Thanks, Scotty. We love you. And then Tyler Nimi, check this out, Longview, Washington. home of the Monticello Convention, Andrew. What is that? That's how Washington State became a state. I learned this because I was looking at the park down there in Longview recently. They have a big, really cool, actually, like kind of historic marker. So many years ago, I want to say in the maybe 1850s, all of where I am and where Tyler is and where you are, actually, it was all Oregon territory. It went all the way up to, I don't know, British Columbia or whatever was going on up there. and it was all this was all Oregon territory and some folks down here in my area got together and they said dadgummit this is too large of a territory to have it all Salem Oregon is too far for us to take our wagons to to have business with the state or with the territory so they put together a plan to make this area into its own state and they wanted to call it Columbia because of the Columbia River, but they went back to D.C. and the people in D.C., Congress said, that's going to be too confusing because we have District of Columbia. So then they went with Washington, which, by the way, not less confusing.

Yeah, I was going to say.

That actually seems arguably more confusing, but that's what they went with, and they prevailed to get this declared a state, and that's called the Monticello Convention, and it happened in Longview, Washington.

But also, isn't Longview, Washington, where you can go to the bank and they'll use pneumatic tubes. Weren't you just saying that?

Yeah, there's a lot to love about Longview, Washington, including the fact that our friend Tyler is there. Thanks, Tyler. Emily Todd is in Torrance, California. California? Mm-hmm. California, California, here we come. Nice. Where do you come down on that Phantom Planet song? You like it, right?

That's Phantom Planet?

Yeah. We've been on the run, driving in the sun. Looking out for number one California, here we come With Jason Schwartzman on the drums

You know, you sing that song And I feel like I know it But I thought it was this I thought you were singing the theme song to the OC

I believe was

They used it as a theme song to the OC I never watched the OC But I know that song because I think some band Another indie band that we like covered it, I think And so anyway, that's why I know that song And yeah, no, I do like it I think that song is a pop gem.

Yeah. Absolute gem. Emily Todd loves it as well down there in Torrance. Emily Todd from Torrance, California.

Thank you, Mrs. Torrance. I'm sorry.

You know what's funny? I did such a bad Burt Reynolds impression that it sounded like I was doing The Shining. And then, of course, Torrance is relevant to that movie. I was trying to do Burt Reynolds in Boogie Nights when he goes, Eddie Adams from Torrance. Oh, I didn't remember that. Because he meets Mark Wahlberg's character, I believe, at a restaurant. And he says, Eddie Adams from Torrance. Before he becomes Chester Rockwell. Well, he became Dirk Diggler. Or Dirk Diggler, right, sorry. John C. Reilly became Chester Rockwell. Messed it all up. We need to, at some point, we need to revisit that, you know, the tapes. Do we have that as, is that intro tape when they're trying to get their masters back from the record label?

Sure, maybe next week, once we get through the holiday. Yeah, yeah, it's not very holiday appropriate. Probably not tomorrow's Christmas show.

there's a christmas movie for you yeah everyone hey kids gather around we're gonna watch albert molina in a drugged out state while a guy lights firecrackers behind him just like the most sweaty

cocaine-y intro tape we have start that use it on christmas day tomorrow just the highest of anxiety

radiating off of the television thanks also to seth allison who's in belchertown massachusetts now that's a name for you it certainly is thank you that's where bob and uh tina and the family are from, right? That's what I was just thinking, yeah. Presumably. Hey, thank you so much to our donors for making TBTL possible. We couldn't do this without you. Hello, and welcome to Top Story. All right, we're doing lists this week, and you've got a list. It's an email, I understand, right? Yeah, this is a list sent in from listener

Sarah. Again, these are people just sending. If you want to email me or call in a list, You can email me, andrew at tbtl.net, or leave us a voicemail at 206-414-8285. That's 206-414-TBTL. And people are putting together their own personal top five lists. And Sarah has the top five walks one can go. Yes. In fact, I'm realizing this is a list that goes one to five, but I should probably read this backwards, right? Start with five and end with one, I'm guessing. So I think that is what we want to do here. So I will do that. But I was thinking we needed some sort of audio spackle. Yesterday, or a couple of days ago, was a bit of a disaster when I tried to choose that Mama's Family Sounding Music. So I just went to the YouTube free audio library here of music we're allowed to use, and I put in holiday as a theme. So let's choose some. Do we like that, or is that a little bit dramatic? That's called Christmas Chores. We also have holidays. I like this better. This is holidays. It's got a little bit jaunty, didn't it? About Christmas Village. Oh, yeah, yeah. This is great. It's only 90 seconds.

This feels like you're taking a walk in a courier in Ives.

You're absolutely right. This is perfect. I mean, you might be in the back of a horse-drawn carriage, but this is very nice.

You've definitely got one of those muffs on that you slide both hands into. Yes. You don't see people using those anymore. I feel love technology has come a long way.

Football players.

Oh, yeah, around their waistband.

Yeah, that'd be nice.

Why don't any football players ever have their mouth guards in, Andrew?

Yeah, I guess during the plays, do they put them in and then spit them right back out?

No, in the plays, you'll see them running constantly, and their mouth guard is connected to their face mask with a little loop, and it's just going, just flopping around. It seems like it would make it so much harder to do your job. I think they are legally obligated to have the mouth guard, but they don't have to have it in, so most of them don't. You should wear them, folks.

If there are any NFL players listening right now, do you think there's ever been an NFL player who's listened to an episode of this? There has been.

John Moffat of the Seattle Seahawks.

Oh, right. Of course.

He kind of became pals. Actually, I guess he would have been an ex. He made a big splash when he walked away. So that's when he started listening to TBTL.

And then he got in trouble for selling drugs, which somebody very close in my life bought or at least received some mushrooms from him. I didn't know this part of the plot. A friend of somebody very close to me tripped with him and some friends. But then he got in trouble for it? He really became a man about town. But then but that was more fun. And it was like post it was right after he was a player and he was kind of like, you know, but then I think he might have you'd have to Google it. But I think we saw a headline after I had lost any kind of connection to him or my friends did. And I think he ended up actually maybe getting in legal trouble for messing around with something a little bit more serious than that. But if I'm but I'm not telling stories out of school there, if you can't find a newspaper article that backs that up, then I'm wrong about that because I thought I was, oh, this is just going to keep going. No, no lyrics. We're going to go back to Christmas Village. All right, here we go. Sarah has a top five walks. And also, by the way, through at the end of here, quickly, top five underrated smells as well.

Oh, geez, we could do that tomorrow.

Okay, but the more in-depth list here is number five, a walk to kill time with a good walking companion. A good conversation list and the same walking speed is important. Or the reverse of this, a walk with a chatty four-year-old, which is interesting. That's going to be a difference. So number five is a walk with a good companion or a chatty four-year-old. Huh. I've never had the chance to do that.

I could see the, oh, well, sure. I mean, I used to have a chatty four-year-old. I could see that being, you know, because it's nice because you're in motion, so the kid is probably kind of being slightly entertained by what's going on. A lot of questions come up. i personally loved be because i like feeling smart i loved the phase of my daughter's life where there was a lot of questions about how stuff works and why that is like that and so i some parents i think are exhausted by that i found it to be really fun um and then yeah the the pace thing the walking at the same pace is important becca and i walk we i i've learned that we actually walk a little faster than normal people so we're kind of going around folks a lot particularly when we've been on like trips to europe and stuff with other tourists but what i really hate is when someone is walking exactly the same pace as us but like four steps behind us yep i will stop and let them go in front of us i don't know what primal fear that is in my mind but it's like i don't like somebody being just a little behind us but constant it's gotta like i you know or when

usually i'm a little bit faster than the people on the sidewalk so that's it for me is i'm coming up on somebody and then i then i try to make a lot of noise so that they know that i'm behind them so i'm not scaring them especially if it's nighttime or something like that my feet if i'm jogging your feet or if i if i i'll jingle some keys casually something along those lines all right uh let's see here number four

the list is a walk in early spring when the trees start getting bright green and you get warm and you realize that maybe seasonal depression is a thing and that spring is a sign of things getting

better that sounds like a heck of a walk yeah it's beautiful incredible the smells too i know there is a smells list that we could address later but i i feel like that's the other thing about a nice spring walk i mean i have that exact same experience it's so basic of me but it's also true it's like when I'm walking around and things are now green and and it smells like life is coming back and it's a little warmer it is it it it it sort of fixes something inside me that gets broken about this time of year and continues to be broken until like I don't know we get that first nice week

in April or May I'm not one to say that this doesn't sound wonderful a spring walk is wonderful but the the one I'm drawn to is almost like on the opposite side of the calendar for me during the fall i can't not walk that's where i go on a lot of walks and i always collect like i think we've talked about this i always collect what i call a buckeye i think some people call them horse chestnuts they'll drop on the ground around that time kind of early fall and i'll always pick one up and then that'll be my walking companion for the rest of the fall and then i try to save them but i like to kind of go on the same route every day and like that that's it for me so all of that except for me it's in the fall uh go ahead sorry

well it's funny because this is something that becca and i talk about a lot because we take a lot of walks that there is a period of time in the fall believe it or not and a period of time in the spring when it's almost the exact same temperature and like i guess you could say sort of light levels except we find the fall walks much more depressing because it's the beginning of the dark whereas the spring walk is the beginning of the nice but it's like but fall it's a fall walk before the leaves have really turned and everything's dropping so you could kind of squint and think it was still spring and it's not the dead heat of the summer so you're kind of on those shoulders i guess you might call it but we always talk about like how much more fun we find a spring walk because we know that it's the beginning of this whole great thing instead of this whole great thing coming to an end you are not deterred by that no oh no i love i

Oh, there it is. This is pure winter here. No, I love a fall walk. Honestly, you can't keep me inside. Anyway, okay, so let's keep going down here. Number three on the list of top five walks is a walk when you think it's too cold outside, but you do it anyway, and it's not too cold in a few minutes, and you feel alive. What did you tell that man in the elevator? Dress for the second mile. Exactly. You get warm out there, don't you?

you do you work up a little bit of a sweat and uh you know yeah that is a nice feeling i'm i'm kind of bummed because we have not had any really cold weather so far this year because it's been it's been you know atmospheric rivers and it's been it's been wet and warmer than normal and i i'm excited for a cold day to take a walk and put a scarf on i got this scarf in england this summer that I bought at the gift shop of the Tate Museum and I haven't had a chance to wear it yet because we haven't gotten any nice crisp cold weather so looking forward to that I was just

thinking I need a better scarf I have a cheapo little scarf that I bought uh last at the end of last winter when I lost my other one and I was thinking I need to buy a scarf I'm just so I don't go anywhere anymore like I don't go shopping in stores that sell clothes unfortunately and maybe I just need to, and so that means I'm like, do I buy a scarf online? I know that sounds like an obvious thing, but I was literally thinking about this yesterday. I'm like, do people buy scarves online? And of course they do. People buy everything online, but for some reason buying a scarf online seems odd

to me. You need to put it around your neck and do a loop to give it a shot. And see how it's going to sit on you. Why don't you go down and support one of our department stores? Why don't you go down to Nordstrom or go down to Penny's? Go down to one of those stores and go to the scarf store. Where's our Penny's? Do they not have pennies anymore?

I mean, and I don't, I can't, I mean, I always think of pennies as like an anchor store for a mall, and they're in a lot of malls. I was sort of thinking, and this is my, whenever I think about going to a store like that, I think that probably U Village would be the place to go. Oh, sure. But then I think, like, just, I get hives just thinking about the parking situation at U Village. Like, they're just getting in and out of U Village. Like, did somebody, and this would be actually interesting, Did the person who kind of did the urban planning around you, Village, were they the first urban planner to plan an entire project while on acid? I cannot believe how unbelievably difficult. You know what I mean? How there are certain, like, at one point it's a four-lane road, but then two of the lanes split off into curly queues, and some of them go directly into the mall area.

Are you talking about when you're coming down 45th? I don't know which way I'm going.

road i'm on a pretzel i do think i'm thinking of 45th though yeah that's that's one of the places but then sometimes if you try to sneak around the back from 65th you kind of end up in the same thing and that's before you're even in the parking lot and then the parking lot is just filled with like people who will just like park their car for 15 minutes because they think somebody's coming out of a spot and they don't give a shit who's behind them it's just it is my worst nightmare when it

comes to like driving and parking well can i can i blow your mind yeah please this is something that i have done uh you know i did a few years ago and it has really served me well i have shifted my entire approach to parking which is i just go park in the far ass away part of the lot oh yeah i don't try to park close and i just tell myself a few more steps oh me too oh no i am i'm the last person

I've done that. I think that's probably a Bob Walsh philosophy, too. Like, no, no. You don't. The idea of fight. I mean, first of all, the idea of fighting, the only thing grosser than, like, kind of fighting or wrangling over a parking spot that is, like, 40 feet closer. The only thing grosser than that is fighting over inheritance, I think. Those are two things I will never do in my life. And I'll never have one, so problem solved. But for me. Thinking about that the other day. But for the U Village thing, it's not me trying to get the best spot. It's usually just like— There are like no spots. There are just no spots. I do think that—it took me a while to discover that there is a garage.

Yeah, but that garage is also confusing to me. Yeah, and it fills up. I think this has come up on the show before. I feel like the levels are all different like musical instruments, but I don't know— but I feel like in the elevator, the sort of key, if you will, the indicator, isn't very clear. So I'm just like, I don't know what floor drums are. Yeah, right. Are they confusing instruments? Can we have a number? Honey, are we parked on saxophone or drums?

Right. They should make them really weird. The harmonium. You're on the harmonium level.

The Portland airport has the same problem. They're trying to be clever. So there's like a green beaver and an orange salmon. And there's a moose, a moosing grace. But it's like, I'll just take a number, please.

I think they should name them all after obscure former Mariners pitchers like Tommy Malone. You've parked on the Tommy. Oh, I'd love to get a Tom Wilhelmson, a Tommy Malone, a Jim Beattie.

Make as many of them Toms as possible, too, to make it really complicated. Sure, get an Aaron Seeley in there. How about a Scott Bankhead, Sinkerball pitcher, Scott Bankhead?

Do I have two songs going at once now? Oh, man, this list is going great.

Are you redesigning the U Village parking structure right now on acid? Okay, here we go.

Oh, this is number two on Sarah's top five walks and top five underrated smells. A walk in a place you used to live 10 or more years ago, but you still don't need a map. Preferably you're doing this with someone you lived with at the time for nostalgia or someone you didn't live with at the time that you can bore with the details that mean absolutely nothing to them. That used to be a laundromat. Wow, crazy they didn't change that sign. Oh, my gosh.

I've literally said those words to people.

I'm walking here! I'm walking here!

Like, by the way, the fact that I didn't use that for a drop to start the show is an absolute travesty. That's how boring it is to be somewhere with me where I used to live or go to a lot. Not only will I comment extensively on what is different, I'll comment on what isn't different.

Yeah, right? I love that.

So boring. Yeah, that's what that used to be, and that remains that.

All right, are we ready for number one? Because I want to see if I can jam in these smells, too, because it's just a really quick list. But number one is a... I'm walking here! I'm walking here! Do you know that I think that isn't... Doesn't legend have it that that was... Improvised? Yeah, improvised. Were you the one telling me that? That that actually happened? No, but I... Like a car driver. I could absolutely see that. I could absolutely see that.

And he slams his... Dustin Hoffman, severely in the moment.

Number one on Sarah's top five walks. and Top 5 Underrated Smells is a walk in a place you've never been to, a new city, a new neighborhood, with a destination in mind, like a dumpling shop or good coffee or a bakery. That is the number one walk, a place you've never been to with a destination in mind. I do like, that is one thing, when I'm visiting a place, I remember this when I was visiting Boston for the first time. It was very important for me not to look like a tourist. I remember I always kept a brisk pace, had a globe under my arm or whatever. I didn't want people to think that I was a visitor, even though I was visiting. I mean, before I moved to the area.

Can I put in a number one with an asterisk? Yes. And it's kind of related to this one, which is, this always happens to me. If I'm going to be staying in a place, whether I'm working, I'm working here, or even if I'm just on vacation. If I'm in a new city or a city I'm not particularly familiar with.

the first day i'm totally confused by everything in terms of what's near the hotel or the airbnb everything feels kind of foreign to me i'm checking the maps on my phone a bunch and my favorite walk is like the day three walk when you now know everything about the neighborhood and you know about the hotel and you know the people at the front desk and you you know which floor the ice is on and you know which little like you know like bodega around the corner this happened to us when we were staying in london we rented a an airbnb and we ended up by the like last day there we're there maybe in london for four or five days we knew the neighborhood shops and we knew the one we liked and the one that was not as great and stuff i love that walk i love the walk of familiarity that you have in a place that you've been just for a short time but it kind of starts to feel a little bit like home to you and a little less confusing great call i love that that's a good

walk to me too all right i had one the other day that it wasn't like i was going on a walk it wasn't It was just, but I was literally walking. Maybe it was just like 10 blocks or something tops. But my God, did I have a sort of visceral moment. That's the wrong word there, but I'll just plow ahead. I got off the train and I was going to meet Genevieve and it was a winter day. I don't think it was actually drizzling, but, you know, it was a winter day in Seattle. So, you know, it was like a little bit chilly, scarf weather, you know, a little bit of moisture. Maybe it had just rained. I don't know. And I was walking to meet Genevieve specifically in a very cozy little under a little bar that has been there forever. Luke, you would know at the College Inn pub, right?

Oh, sure. Isn't that going away?

Well, it's been going away and then coming back a bunch of times. It's under new ownership again for the second time in like six years or something. And it's just been reopened maybe for a couple of months. But it's one of those. It's a bar that is subterranean. It's kind of in the basement. It's a classic college pub. A lot of wood and stuff in there Literally there's a fireplace in there And I just had been on this mission to go to cozy places this winter And so I was going to go there to read my book But it's around the corner from where Genevieve works So I'm like, hey, I'm going And she's like, yeah, I'd love to meet you there So getting off the train Walking down the Ave for somewhere between 5 and 10 blocks And it's winter and every place I passed had to smell

You're walking by Schultz's Sausages.

I walked by Schultz's, and there was a fireplace in the window of Schultz's. I passed the Solstice Cafe, which is like this very cozy-looking little coffee shop and cafe. I passed Bulldog News, which smelled like newspaper and a big—in Seattle especially, when you're walking past these places, these coffee shops that you just get these big whiffs of coffee being brewed, and you see people getting the coffee and the steam coming off of it. It was like I was in a storybook. I could not have been happier, and knowing that I was going to this cozy little bar to read a book with Genevieve, it was just like very, very, very nice little walk, so I'll add that as well.

So that kind of bridges us into the smells list, Andrew.

Yeah, it does, and this one is just, and she doesn't even list them, it's just like, just very, very quick, so I'll rattle them off in the way that Sarah presents them, and then we can discuss them as a whole if you'd like. Also, I like thinking about this. Top five underrated smells printer paper, pickles, ivory bar soap, apples, and I love this one, Luke. Irons getting hot. Like a clothes iron getting hot. How interesting. And you know what I really like about this list? This is in line with what I like. This isn't a list of top five best smells. There are better smells Coffee being brewed These are the underrated smells These are the smells that people aren't talking about But should be And I really I love this

I'll throw iron in there Because I'm often in a hotel And I'm like is the iron going to work And when you smell that you're like Okay this iron works So there's a relief factor there Very comforting right Printer paper that's interesting I've put these I've said this not that long ago on the show, but also low-key, I do like the smell of gasoline.

Yes, yes, especially a two-cycle like we were talking about.

And one cigarette being smoked far away from me but still outside. Not a cigarette being smoked in a room with me or in a car with me with the windows up, but just a little maybe outside, maybe it's a bar, and there's one cigarette being smoked. Just the smell of one cigarette I like. Yeah, I'm with you on that.

cigarette a day that's it i don't have a problem as uh just at night to relax i go about four blocks away from somebody smoking a cigarette as an ex-smoker like i'm with you i don't think when i was a smoker first of all like i i don't think i realized when i was a smoker how bad the smell of smoke clinging to somebody is like when i worked at cairo we worked with several people who would go out for cigarettes Let's do this.

and then come back in, and the smell of cigarettes on a person is so much worse than just a little bit of cigarette smoke in the air from far away. And now that people don't smoke that much, you can smell a cigarette from really far away. Our noses aren't as used to it.

I'm like a shark when there's a milliliter of blood, a tiny drop of blood in the ocean, and the shark can smell it from a mile away. That's me. If someone lit a cigarette right now in Tacoma, I would be able to smell it. Exactly, exactly. Sarah, I enjoyed both of your lists. I love them. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you very, very much. And may all your walks be wonderful and full of amazing smells this holiday season. That's right.

And is our business done here today on this Christmas of Eves?

Yes, it is. I've got sugar plums to stuff and other such. I'm trying to think. What else is in the song? Let's see here.

Sugar plums are dancing.

I've got to choreograph some dances for some sugar plum fairies and the like alright that is going to do it for today's episode of TBTL but we're going to be back here tomorrow on Christmas Day yes indeedy we'll tell you about it tomorrow we're doing something special tomorrow yeah exciting times so please make sure you tune in for that maybe you'll do some last second Christmas wrapping and listen to us and do the whole thing we will see you then in the meantime have a great Wednesday have a great Christmas Eve hopefully with the ones that you love and we'll see you tomorrow in the meantime please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all power out