Muse

Did you know that you're strong? Did you know that you're very, very strong? We as people have enough iron in our blood to build a nail. Did you know that? Nobody's taking us down. Unless you're anemic like I am. In which case, take an iron supplement. It really helps.

TBTL!

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I can't contain my joy, though. This is hell of a toy.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBT, all the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

Carol, hold my calls.

My name? My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. I'm an activist and house party enthusiast. Coming to you from the shores of Lake Michigan here in beautiful, yet frigid, Chicago, Illinois.

I made a questionable decision when traveling out here to Chicago.

I did not want to have to deal with a big, large, bulky coat on the airplane. And so I did not bring one. And I am absolutely regretting that decision because it is freaking freezing here. The good news is I'm inside the hotel room and things are nice and warm as we bring you episode 4,642. in a collector's series.

Let the fun begin.

You know, they've discontinued the penny. But before you, I don't know, toss them out or spend them wantonly, double check, you might have an $800,000 penny in your collection.

That cash could really get me out of a couple of jams.

We will tell you what to look for coming up on the show today. Also, it's a Thursday, a.k.a. a Blur's Day, so we'll do some Blur's Day messages for the tens of listeners. And we will also chat with this guy. He's the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's known in some quarters as Mr. Unlimited. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I have a question for you that, for me, it's something that excites me, but I'm worried that if I ask you the question, you're going to take it as a criticism, but it's not. It's not a criticism. You sound wonderful. I mean, you sound smarter than ever. Thank you. You sound like really sharp, like quick-witted, like really good. But are you using a new Rode microphone? Because the microphone sounds different. I meant to ask you that yesterday.

I am. And by the way, it's very...

Oh, we're losing you here. I'm going to turn off the echo cancellation. Come back, baby. Come back.

We're having this problem yesterday. There you go. Hopefully, we'll be able to make it through without this technical glitch. Yeah, there's something called echo cancellation in the Riverside program that we use. And for some weird reason, it wants to turn on. And it thinks it's helping, but it's actually hurting. It's making the broadcast sound worse. So I will keep an eye on that. I apologize. But yes, you are right. I'm using a different microphone. What I've realized is for the longest time, I mean, for like years and years, I used a Shure SM7 microphone. It's kind of the standard. If you see any podcast, you know, that's like where they're videotaping it as well. Everyone's always talking into one of these microphones. It's kind of the sort of default microphone for a lot of podcasters. And I swore by it, and I thought it had a nice kind of focused pattern. So if I was in a hotel room and there was noise happening, you wouldn't hear a lot of the other noise happening on the street or out in whatever the hotel room. But I also had to hunch over like it had a mic stand that it sat on. And what I realized was it was kind of uncomfortable. The feng shui was not great, or the, what's the word I'm looking for? The ergonomics of it were not ideal. And so then I just started, I would use that microphone, and I would just like hold the microphone, hold the entire apparatus, including the microphone stand, so that I could kind of sit up and be comfortable. And then I realized, well, why don't I just use this other kind of microphone? It's a Sennheiser that I'm using, and it's, you know, it's designed to be held in my hand, And you can't see me because the camera's off because we're in kind of a low connectivity thing here. But yeah, I'm sitting very comfortably holding this microphone that is designed...

to be held in the human hand and talked into and it feels great so hopefully it sounds okay you know

how i'm picturing you right now and it sounds fine i'm picturing you as a um a mid-1980s era california raisin i don't know if there are other eras for the california raisins like there may or may not be i just want to say that i'm familiar with the one that i had the little painter's cap that had the california raisins kind of dancing around the edge of it and they would hold these These handheld mics, and then they have these, like, I don't know, wind protectors on top. They were kind of poofy and colored on top, right? Do you have a colored, poofy wind protector on yours? I do.

It's green. It's poofy, and it's protecting me from the wind. I'm in the Windy City. And, yeah, it's protecting the microphone from all manner of pee-popping and bad sounds. There is a little bit of handling noise, which I'm trying to. You know, did the California Raisins wear gloves? Yeah, they did. White gloves. I know this because I dressed up like one. That's what I need, too, because you can hear this. There's a little bit of handling noise. I need a white glove so that we can eliminate that.

And also, what is going on with the sunglasses you're wearing? Are you wearing big plastic sunglasses like a California raisin?

Yes, exactly. Like indoors, I'm wearing the sunglasses. I mean, we've talked about it before, but the California raisins, that was a phenomenon in my life as a kid. Huge. I don't know if there's any analog for that nowadays as far as like, you know, sort of a character that is created to sell a product, in this case, California raisins, that took over the culture the way that the California raisins did.

Yeah, what are the, now this is different because you're actually buying that product where in this case, because I had a lot of California Raisins collectibles, and so in this case you create something to sell one product, in this case produce, but you have people buying the advertising slogans and mascots and everything, and like I said, I had a California Raisins hat, I had California Raisins toys, I had California Raisin buttons that I would put on the cap and wear out. Like I was fully and you know that I won first place. You were a California Raisin, right? And I was a California Raisin. Actually, I think I won second place. But that's because I think the music teacher didn't like me and my fellow raisins for personal reasons. We had never mind. I'm not going to make jokes about insurrections today. But anyway. So, yeah, you're right that we went all in now today. What are the little this is different because I think the product is the advertising. In other words, it's not like advertising something else. But what are the little dolls that everybody, the little plushies that everybody has attached to their bags? I know that that— La Boo Boo's? Yeah, those have kind of crested a little bit now, right?

Yes, and they're not selling something.

They're selling themselves, right?

They're selling themselves. And, yeah, those are just like a phenomenon of their own. But they, you know, they're a—I don't know if you call them a stuffed animal or not. But they're a thing that was created so that people would buy that thing. Whereas the California raisins were a thing that was created. So I guess what, when our moms went to the store, they only requested raisins from California.

Yeah, that's interesting, too. Like, you know, it was really just selling raisins, right?

But from California, like, as the consumer, what were we supposed to do with that information? You know what I mean? Like, we were supposed to, like, go into the store and say, sir, bring me your, can you please bring me your finest raisins only from California? Those are the only ones that will do.

Well, it's like avocados from Mexico. That was a big advertising campaign. And they often will have like one Super Bowl commercial near the beginning, although I don't know if they're doing that this year or not. But right. And here's what here's my theory on that, though, is that if you go to your standard grocery store, probably most, if not all of the raisins, like the mass marketed raisins that you'd be buying, especially in the 80s, are probably from California anyway. you're probably not making that choice but it was generally an advertisement just like beef it's what's for dinner like by the beef council you know what i mean they just want to raise they want to raise awareness and awareness of this as a snack beef was my preferred snack as a child

uh that was i think how i was introduced to the music of is it aaron copeland what's the what was the iconic like it's not it's not fanfare for the common man but there was an iconic song like like like Shenandoah sunrise or something that was the musical backdrop to the beef it's what

for dinner commercials I am gonna look that do you remember this no well I mean I just I was just digitizing tapes the other day and I came across one of those beef commercials but I didn't notice it was that was more about a busy mom who had to cook something quickly and then at the end It's like, cook beef for dinner. I'm like, how does that save time? What did you just sell us? Like, you're so busy, beef is going to be easier to cook than what? Pork? I didn't really get to sell.

But anyway, I don't know. It cooks faster.

Yeah, which is not true.

Let's see. What's for dinner? I'm going to call up one of these commercials, not the one that I found the other day.

Yeah, try to find one from the 80s or 90s. It has that. Yeah, how about this? It's like a Virginia reel or something. You know what I mean? It's like one of those classic. It's like a fiddle piece.

What does that mean? Oh, a reel. Oh, yeah. I see what you're saying. Yeah, okay. Let's take a listen. Yes. Oh, yeah. i think this was the background music of the busy mom when i was watching the other day by the way what we're seeing for a visual is we're just seeing a bunch of people ordering steak at dinner and taking glasses of water and just pouring water all over the steaks and it looks like it looks like one of them is saying slop them up if i watch i'm not a i'm not a lip reader but it looks like he's saying slop them up boys so i don't know you think this is pushed back you think this is slicked back this is pushed back luke i am worried that the baby thinks people

can't change i'm worried that we have become two people who can only communicate via things from the television show i think you should leave by the way i was watching some detroiters last night

in the hotel room absolutely holds up i just love them so much i can't think of a show so the detroiters i think as most people know is the uh project of tim robinson and sam richardson sam richardson and like by the way because i was clicking through the detroiters the other day too i didn't get deep into it but um i think i just watched one just to get a little bit of a fix just to calm me down to stop the shakes a little bit yeah and uh i'm trying to think where that fits into veep because i knew sam richardson first as a character on veep which was kind of net exactly split net dot net um so and i'm kind of wondering like what if it sort of seemed like the detroiters was more of a smaller like slightly more boutique thing that was going on at the same time while he was doing this kind of premiere hbo show that was like kind of a critics darling i'm not exactly sure but there is something i mean obviously we love all the tim robinson projects and their weirdness and their darkness or whatever. But Detroiters is a ray of light. Yes, it's weird, but the love of these two men and basically just the love that is put into the show just comes out of the television set.

And the love for the city of Detroit. Yes, yes. You might have been the one who told me this, but so if you haven't seen it, Detroiters is this show where they're running this little ad agency in Detroit and they're doing all these kind of... I have the, and it's always Bargain Time at Farmer Zacks. That's been, I woke up with that song in my head. The commercials that they're making in the show are based on real commercials from Detroit. Yes. Like the Devereux wig commercial.

Yes, that's very, yeah. It was.

His fur coat, right? Yeah, it was like a fur coat outfit in Detroit. And the farmer, that Farmer Zacks was, Farmer Jacks, it was a real thing. So I was watching Detroit and then I was spending a bunch of time looking up the real commercials that the Detroiters commercials are based on, which is so fun.

I mean, this is not a this is not a slight towards the city of Detroit. I grew up in Cleveland, but never have I been like, oh, I'm jealous of people who grew up in Detroit in the 80s and 90s, you know, just because like growing up in Cleveland, you don't often think, boy, if only I was growing up in Detroit instead. but it makes me jealous like as we'll hear from people like some or like sometimes i don't know this topic comes up on after these messages are here on tbtl and we'll hear from people who grew up in detroit and they're like oh yeah that's here's a bunch of commercials that this is spoofing or at least a composite of or something like that and you're just like man i i feel that way about seattle too and i know i've said this too before but the fact that seattle has a lot of i feel like i grew up and lived in a lot of places where people are either transplants or waiting to transplant themselves somewhere else like kind of I don't know a lot of transplant list yes and I do think like a lot of people of maybe of my generation and education or something we grew up in Ohio in the Cleveland area and then it was just sort of expected that we would move away either for college or after college right and sort of and then on the east coast I just feel like there's a lot of moving around and stuff and I've always liked that it sort of seems like I come to Seattle I meet all these friends who grew up here and stayed here or at least stayed in the region and have all these like shared cultural markers you know which i have a little bit of when i go back to cleveland but you know my brain luke i mean it atrophies it's it just it cannot hold all of these memories and i think they slip away easier when you're no longer there and you're

not sharing that anymore totally you're not like you know sitting around having a drink reminiscing about jack roberts linwood home appliance right exactly and but but this raises the question along the lines of the California raisins.

This raisins the question. Are we like, have we moved into an era where we don't have as many weird local commercials anymore? Because our viewing habits are sort of different now. Like, you know, I feel like people are not watching as much local television. I mean, they still have commercials. It's still happening. But like, I wonder if there's a downstream effect where we have, there's just, you know, the guy, you know, the guy who's got the appliance place or the electronic shop or whatever. if they're if they're not spending money on their they're kind of like weird intentionally strange ads that were you know sort of fixed in all of our brains from growing up with them first of all i

believe it's uh baggling the question show title thank you no i already wrote the show title it's just raisin questions um i uh uh yeah you know what i mean i think they changed i think that Well, there are some that are still weird on purpose, but it's almost like with the birth of the internet, what weirdness means has changed a little bit. I feel like they used to be legit low-budget ways to get attention of the local market. Like, come on down, look at me, I'm standing in a used car lot with my monkey friend or whatever the bit would be, right? Cal Worthington. Was that Cal Worthington? Did they have a monkey? Yes, Worthington Ford and Federal Way, the only way. Yeah, so I knew there was a monkey involved. and uh and but it was still for a local audience whereas now i sort of feel like it's like i'm a lawyer or some like weird kind of shit that is supposed to catch the wave of the internet and then get like kind of that and i don't know i just you know me i'm always kind of turned off when it when somebody produces something that looks like it's trying to go quote unquote viral

no i mean the charm of the the commercials that we grew up with or that i grew up with were that the people who were making them were not really in on the joke. I mean, Jack Roberts kind of was. I mean, he was being, so his whole thing was, I won't be undersold. It would always be him and his wife. He would always be, you know, trying to cut a refrigerator in half with a chainsaw because he was half off or something. And then his wife was always just like staring at him in horror at whatever it was he was getting up to. So, I mean, he was a little bit in on the joke, but again, yeah, the charm of a lot of these local commercials was that in fact, the people were not really in on the joke and now yeah they because of the internet because everything were like you know so steeped in irony the people now who are making the commercials that are supposed to be intentionally bad so that they go viral it's not the same it's not fun yeah that's kind

of that's kind of how i feel about it but it is one of the reasons i think i enjoy am radio because i do feel like am radio is still the bastion of that right like i think that i could see you and i we're we're on they take us out to the podcaster's farm somewhere where we're supposed to live out the rest of our days we can't they don't they give us microphones they're not plugged in anymore and you and i we're sitting in a fake little podcast studio outside it's got a great is that how this

ends for us you and me talking into microphones that aren't hooked up to anything when the nurse

comes i'll take it did you listen to our show today yes sweetie it was a good one oh it was really good no it was really really good it was really you were you were really sharp really quick-witted are you using a new microphone um i uh but but anyway will we be talking about the you'll be sorry if you don't go to video only you know what i mean there's still some of that is

alive on the radio i feel like yes although it feels to me like am radio is just law tigers for men yeah and male enhancement for men yeah there is a lot and hey guys she'll like it too what's that one for that's just a testosterone replacement situation yeah most of the most of

the kind of like we'll just call them boner pill style commercials that i hear on the radio are not actually for like a viagra or something that's always some process it always starts with them saying, aren't you sick of these side effects with those pills, or those pills don't last, or I don't know what the argument against them is, and then they say, that's why you should come in here, and we're going to put radiation, it's not radiation, but it's like we're going to put sound waves through your veins, and it's going to make you feel younger again, and guys, she'll like it too. It's just sort of implied always. It is not really sound waves, but it is, it's like hormone stuff, it's testosterone stuff, and I do I feel like there's something that involves – I'm going to listen more closely. It's amazing how I've heard these things literally thousands upon thousands of times, but my brain is also just sort of half turned off, so I can't remember exactly the details I'm talking about. I'll try to grab a few for you, I mean for professional and personal reasons.

Well, not to get into my bedroom situation, which everything is fine despite what you may have heard or read, people, okay? Everything is great. But you know me, I'm constantly looks.

maxing and the idea of doing at some point like testosterone replacement just because yeah as you get older and you lose your testosterone that i mean that is part of the aging process excuse me but it's it's it's mildly appealing to me except well a rfk jr uh he's that's a horror show and that's i think the result of him doing a lot of testosterone replacement but also i think the fact that I haven't been in a bar fight in 15 years is directly related to the fact that my testosterone is going away and it's been good for me. So on the one hand, I don't like that my body is changing and that I'm, you know, like it would be almost impossible for me to really, really build muscle mass at this point. And, you know, there's all these things that happen because we're aging and we have less testosterone. And the idea of replacing it is tempting to me, but the issue in my life has always been that I get too angry. And I do think it's been kind of good for me to

have less tea. Well, I mean, it is interesting. Our bodies progress across an arc for a reason, right? Yes, exactly. So yeah, but also there are certain things that people do to maintain certain energy levels and stuff. So I don't want to make it sound like I'm just like, once you're 50, life is over, just lay on the couch and don't try to be vibrant or anything like that but also yeah you're right that there are probably reasons why we have why we're jacked full of emotions or uh hormones at some points of our life and emotions at some points of our lives nature is like selecting away

from horned up 74 year old guys doing pull-up contests with pete hegsack yeah right like nature does not want that to happen yeah all right let's thank some donors these folks are the uh kind generous wonderful people who are supporting tbtl with a donation and it's how this can happen five days a week this is 100 percent listener supported podcasting someday maybe we will be doing this at a retirement home for nobody but for now we're doing it for folks like thomas seagrove of spring texas oh thank you thomas uh thanks also to andy jasky who's in gloucester massachusetts i think that's right gloucester sounds right to me the the way that well if hopefully i'm pronouncing it correctly i believe that that that town plays a significant role in the movie captain's courageous which is a really really good old black and white film highly recommended it's um uh it's a spencer tracy and he's basically like a fisherman who is they fish out of gloucester with the captain disco is kind of a weird name obviously this was before the era of disco music yeah so the uh the the guy lionel barrymore plays the the captain of the ship captain disco and his son is played by Mickey Rooney, and they're out fishing off of Gloucester when Freddy Bartholomew, who is a spoiled rich kid, falls off of the cruise liner he's on and has to live on this fishing boat because they're not going to come in because they're out fishing when the fish are running and they can't afford to come in and drop him off. And he undergoes a real personality change while working on the boat.

While working on the boat. So he becomes a fisherman.

Yeah, he becomes basically a non-piece of shit People can change, Andrew And Freddie Bartholomew changes in the movie Captain's Christ But it is just an absolutely wonderful film Would recommend It does have a bit of a It's a depressing ending Let's just say things don't go great for Spencer Tracy at the end of the movie But it is, otherwise, it's a lovely film

It is amazing If you were just to walk up to somebody and say Imagine what Captain Disco looks like Nobody is picturing Lionel Barrymore And he was the first to play it, right? Like, literally nobody is picturing it. When you picture Captain Disco, you picture more like Disco Stew from The Simpsons.

Exactly. If I said there's a character named Captain Disco, you're not thinking of Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life.

You most certainly are not. I'm really hoping, I don't know, I just had a thought that popped into my head that's not related to this conversation or anything we've talked about so far in the show, but something I wanted to tell you about. But it's Vegas related. So let's keep on thanking these donors and hope that there's somebody in Nevada on the list.

The closest that we're going to get is California, because that's where Annie Seacrest is, who's in SLO, San Luis Obispo, California. Thanks, Annie. Longtime friend of the show. Thanks also to Sharon Sprout, who's in Chilliwack, B.C. Nice. Let's see my story. It's a cool name, Chilliwack. It really is. And Sharon. Thanks, Sharon. And thanks also to Beth Middlehoven, who's in Renton, Washington, and then Abel.

Ang is in Aberdeen, Washington. Oh, wow. Representing Washington State. Absolutely. So the closest that we could get to Nevada was California. By the way, thank you to our donors. We couldn't do this without you. What was the Vegas-related thing that came to mind?

I just wanted to tell you that I noticed something interesting in Vegas that I'm wondering if you already knew about. But Genevieve and I were wandering around a lot, and we saw some of those Zooks. Z-O-O-Z-O-S-X. Is that how you say it? No, no, no, no, it's a Zouk, you're right. Doesn't it end in an X, Z? I don't know for sure, by the way.

Zouk was this running, this clothing brand of running clothes, and I used to work with this commercial director, and he really loved this, like, Zouk brand, and he would wear, like, a Zouk hat, a Zouk sweatshirt, Zouk pants, and I think maybe even his shoes, and I remember thinking, okay, that's enough of that. You're overdoing it on the Zouk.

I got to say, this is a huge tangent away from what I was getting at, but I don't like the Under Armour logo. It's totally inoffensive. It's not like it's a problem for me, but it just lays there, and it's so popular.

Listen, Andrew, I'm still digging out from under the emails of people that are mad at me because I criticized back-end parking as Republican-coded. But Under Armour, as a company, is known to be Republican-coded.

Oh, okay. Well, there you go.

And I'm with you. I don't know if it was when I learned that about the company or just my kind of natural reaction to it, but I have never liked the Under Armour logo. I feel like it's, I don't know, it's unimaginative in some way. And now every time I see it, I just think of like, oh, that company donates to MAGA.

Yeah, I did not realize that. I'm looking at it now and actually analyzing it for the first time. I do see how it's, oh, it's a U that intersects with an upside down U, so the upside down U looks like an A, so that's where you get the U-A. but there's something about it that I don't know it's symmetrical I like things that are symmetrical I don't but there it just it it I saw somebody walking with a hat and it was just like I don't know middle-aged lady with an under a black Under Armour hat with a white logo on it totally inoffensive like just totally could fly under the radar you probably don't even notice it but there's something about the almost invisibility of it that I don't care for so anyway walking around Las Vegas I saw one of those a self-driving vehicle called a Zooks I believe Z-O-O-X and And they're more like little – they're like little squares. They're like little rectangles, little sticks of butter, basically. If you go to the store and you can buy one of those short squat sticks of butter instead of the long ones our parents used to buy, that's what a Zoox looks like on wheels. And it's self-driving. And I thought that was interesting because I don't know if I've been in a city before where I've seen a full-on autonomous vehicle. And so Viv and I are like, oh, that's interesting. I had a brief thought of ordering one and then let that thought pass. but then we're driving in a in a you know an actual lift with a driver and we pass a waymo and he's just like oh i think that one is a waymo and the guy's like yeah but the waymo have to drive with with human beings behind the wheel here we're like what and i'm like there's nobody in that car and then i looked and there was there was like somebody in the driver's seat of a waymo did you know about this there's some local law where they're not allowing waymo to be fully self-driving

even though the zooks apparently are i didn't know that that there was a difference there but in other cities like for instance in san francisco there's always a beta phase where they're like so the waymos had to have people in them for some period of time and i always thought that just seems like that would be i don't know it seemed like that would be such a boring job to be the person who sits there and watches the the steer i mean first of all there's not even a real reason why a Waymo should have a steering wheel anymore, if you think about it. Like, it's just for comfort, I think. And they have a big sign on it, because I take a lot of Waymos now when I'm in L.A., because they're fully autonomous, there's nobody in there. But it still has a steering wheel, but then the steering wheel has a sign on it that says, please don't touch the steering wheel. Because I guess people might instinctively want to mess with it, but it's like, you actually don't even need a steering wheel anymore. Because the car could just be driving itself internally. That's there for a human. And you're right, those Zooks, they're really leaning into the idea that, like, once a car is fully autonomous, there's so much about the design of a car that is no longer relevant.

Yeah, like you don't need a place for, yeah, well, I mean, it's still, you need, you know, whatever it runs on, whatever mechanism it runs on, it doesn't have to be all under a front hood, for example.

Totally, and like a windshield is unnecessary now. You don't actually, I mean, you probably kind of want to see where you're going just out of curiosity, but, like, the orientation of the seats, you know, really, I mean, it will at some, probably someday we'll be, we'll all be taking, like, you know, Zouk type of things everywhere, and, you know, like, yeah, well, the seats could be facing each other. I guess people might get a little carsick from that, but, like, there's just so much about the design of a car that we currently think about because it's meant for a human to be driving, and once that's not part of the, of the calculation. regulation everything is up for you know changing which i like as somebody who's car blind and like

all cars look alike to me and i feel like they're all the same color these days they're all like somewhere between like silver and silvery beige i know that's scientifically untrue but that's just how it feels walking around the world with my eyes and i'm looking at a little video of these zooks now by the way they're uh it's not a car they say it's a robo taxi designed around you And they stand out, and they're so fun. Now, I did not go on the inside of one of these.

This is why I'm surprised you and Veeves didn't, while in Vegas, download the app and go for a ride in one. That seemed like that would be a fun adventure. Well, maybe we did, and it just stayed in Vegas.

Yeah, we're thinking of that.

I've heard about that.

I've heard about things happening there. If that Zooks could talk, and it probably can, and it's probably actually hosting a podcast right now. But, yeah, these things are really, really cute, and I love it, And I love the idea of shaking up what vehicles look like because, like you say, why not?

Yeah. And, you know, actually, our friend Chris Hayes' podcast a couple of weeks ago was sort of an update on where self-driving cars are. And one of the things they were talking about was just, well, first of all, the idea that eventually we maybe don't need to own cars, right? I mean, you would love this because if a car is now eventually basically like a Zook, if it's just a little rectangle of butter that can just drive itself around and go pick you up and take you to work or whatever, you don't need to own that car. Like there could just be a bunch of cars that are just kind of in the population and that are just taking people where they need to go when they need to go there. And also I was thinking about it in terms of, you know, one of the big things that happens when folks get older, for some reason, this is the show, Andrew, where we contemplate our later years together. But, you know, one of the big things that really impacts people's life as they get older is lack of ability to drive and, you know, lack of ability to go places and stuff. And that can be really, really bad for somebody's kind of state of mind and emotional health. And I think it's pretty cool that by the time you and I are probably too old to be driving, there will be a solution for that, which will be the robo-taxi.

Yeah, I agree. I always, whenever I talk about this kind of stuff, I always think about, like, my time in New Hampshire because I just think about, like, yeah, of course, because I plan on getting old in a place like Seattle where, you know, hopefully Seattle will be one of the cities on the cutting edge of having these self-driving vehicles that can drive my old ass around or whatever. But then I think about the people who are, like, living, like, you know, practically in the White Mountains. You know what I mean? And I just remember I was a young man living in New Hampshire, but also like sort of like learning a little bit about the worlds and the struggles people face. And the idea of being like so isolated in a rural part of the country like that and like that technology is not going to come to you for such a long time makes me very happy. One of the reasons why like I'm almost scared to leave the city.

You know what is I don't want to say sad, but again, this is a show where we're really, really talking about the aging process. I have made a calculation, which is that my house, you know, out at the Madrona Hill studio that I've been working on, it is, there are two floors, there's an upstairs, but I could conceivably live out my days just on the main floor, like it's got, you know, the bathroom and the kitchen and the deck and all of the stuff that I, and the bedroom, everything I would need is on one floor, and actually there is, now I have a little sort of driveway that goes down to, I don't have to even go down the stairs to go from where I park, I mean I do, like right now I park my car, I go down stairs and i enter the house but someday if i wasn't able to take stairs there would be a way for me to have the robo taxi just drop me off basically at the at the edge of the patio and like the fact that i mean i'm 49 years old i'm definitely not old yet but i'm already doing the calculation of like could i live my days out here is is um is uh is not something that i expected to be doing at this point in my life but i guess that's uh that's what happens hello and welcome to top story all right let's talk about pennies uh this was a kind of an interesting story in the new york post by the way i need to stop reading the new york post like i'm like the the problem is such it's such a rag and it is so like particularly around what's been going on with ice and everything like it is so infuriating to read because like i don't watch fox news i don't i don't not one of those people that feels like i need to know what the opposition is doing all the time it just makes me feel over overall sad the thing is the new york post they do have sometimes like interesting weird stories because they have almost no journalistic standards and they'll print anything and sometimes that aligns with us finding a good story for tbtl but the rest of the time it's just like it's like what if what what what does the inside of donald trump's brain look like you know as far as all of these world events and national events but just through this kind of filter of you know the the ice person who murdered that woman you know he like oh he was actually someone else hit him with the car a few months ago or he's a vet or you know what I mean just like it's just like it just

makes me so enraged when I read it it's funny because I so I'm not as deep in that world I'm not over there as much as you are and I think you know like you say though sometimes it also just has good topics for our show but um I happen to have a fleeting thought that is similar to the one you're having yesterday because this kind of gets a little bit close to where you live so I'll be a little bit careful here but i saw everybody on blue sky dunking on this idea of whiskey fridays what oh okay so you don't know about this yet no okay so i'm going to tell this the best i can and as accurately as i can but apparently some photos leaked that looks like a set from cbs is it cbs nightly news or cbs whatever is it tony de copel is that how you say oh yeah tony de Coppola yeah yeah and he's of course he's uh his debut is getting slammed at least by the by the people that I follow right on Blue Sky or whatever and apparently some images leaked that appears to be a set like a tv quasi news set or like maybe even a sports desk looking set only it says Whiskey Fridays and like behind the desk and everything it looks like very well first of all there's a big um not Jim Beam but Jack Daniels branding on one side and it looks like there's a fake bar with like all kinds of bottles of liquor behind it or whatever and it's so everybody was assuming that it looks like cbs is partnering up with jack daniels for some sort of a whiskey fridays with tony de copel thing but it's unconfirmed and then one article i was reading said that they call jack daniels and jack daniels says we know nothing about this we haven't seen it but there's the photo so there's like now this idea that maybe they created the set first to try to sell the marketing concept a proof of concept or whatever so all of this is conjecture right now by the way but all of this comes back to the post in that i just wanted to know what everybody was talking about with the whiskey fridays jokes and i just i don't know if you're like that you're more plugged in than me but sometimes i'm just like after i see somebody reference something like three or four times on blue sky i'm like i gotta figure out what the hell people are talking about So I start Googling. But every article I Googled was doing that thing where it would give me one or two graphs and then the text would start getting fading out more and more and more until it said you have to subscribe to read the rest of this article. And I was seriously, Luke, on like source number five. I was finally like, oh, I got a live one here. And then the text would get. And then I couldn't read the text. getting gatecapped. Yeah, I was getting gatecapped. And the only institution that didn't gatekeep me was the post. And the post said to me, though, I can see that you're using an ad blocker. This is kind of common. I have an ad blocker that I mostly just use for the ability to play YouTube videos without having to wait during a live podcast. But some sites are like, hey, we see you're using an ad blocker. Just turn that off and the rest of this is free for you. And so,

of course, I always turn it off. But I was like, oh, I'm buddying up to the post. I'm turning off my ad blocker for the post because the post is the only institution that will tell me what's really going on with whiskey fridays on cbs but knowing the post the headline would be like if

everyone is dunking on cbs launching something called whiskey fridays the post would it'd be like andrea paiser writing a column about how whiskey friday is exactly what america needs i

know i can't remember exactly what it was i feel like it was a little bit just like straight up these are the facts but i'll see if i can find that but we're pretty far away from what you were

trying to talk about which was pennies and the fact that because they have discontinued they've stopped making pennies the last the 2025 pennies if they're called the omega penny are potentially worth a lot of money and in fact there was a there was an auction of the like i guess kind of some of the final batch of pennies that were ever going to be made and uh this uh this this trove of these pennies sold for 16.76 million dollars at a special auction uh to um i guess it was on behalf of the u.s mint so they were selling these off to make all this money to support the project i guess of the u.s mint but um there are a couple of different pennies that you want to be looking for if you've got them around um the like i mentioned the omega penny that's there's an omega symbol like the greek symbol over lincoln's shoulder okay um so take a look for that if you get anything from the class of 2025 you might actually have something there's also uh if you see an s on a penny that denotes that was created at the san francisco mint and there are some valuable key dates from the san francisco minting of pennies 1931 and also 2021 for some reason if you get an s penny from those years they could be worth something and then there's something called the magnet test if you have a 1943 pen

This is a little confusing, but bear with me. If you have a 1943 penny and you put it on a magnet, if it sticks to the magnet, that means it's made out of regular steel. And it's actually worth 10 cents. But if it doesn't stick to the magnet, so you have a 1943 penny that won't stick to the magnet, that means it's copper and it could be worth $100,000.

So here's the deal, Luke. And I sincerely apologize because I've done this completely back-ass words. I saw this on the show sheet today, but I didn't dig into the article, but I did think, oh, well, I do have a big jar of coins upstairs. Like, Veeves and I, on the off chance that we come home with change in our pocket, we dump it into this jar, just like a big-ass mason jar. And Genevieve, I know, actually had a rolling party the other day, which sounds more fun than it is. A rolling party sounds like either it's like molly or weed is involved. In this case, it was just spare change, but she rolled up a bunch of coins, and I don't know where they are right now, but I know we also have a bunch of loose change, too, and I am very tempted to go through it. Maybe, and I don't know if you'll put up with this because maybe it'll make me too distracted, but, like, maybe at the beginning of tomorrow's show, I can maybe shuffle through some of those and grab myself a magnet and just take a quick look-see as to whether or not I have – I mean, I would be shocked if I did, but it would be fun to find out.

so if it's 1943 and it is not magnetized if it won't stick to the magnet that's good now if it's 1944 yeah and it sticks to the magnet that's also good that would could be part of a um a like a minting of of pennies that was a a rare steel error um so there was some kind of a mistake where they were making pennies in 1944 accidentally out of some kind of steel they're steel wheat pennies and one of them sold for four hundred and eight thousand dollars whoa whoa now i was in the local grocery store near my house the other day and i was chatting with the guy as i was checking out um because i think i was paying in cash which is actually kind of rare for me and they had one of those signs that was something like you know if you have pennies we need them and i said what are you going to do with the prices yeah when there are no more pennies yeah and he goes yeah we don't know yet i was like that doesn't sound like a very a very good system yeah like he doesn't know what they're gonna do when there are no pennies i don't feel like this was well thought

out as you know you kind of belatedly broke the news to me like i did not know this was happening until like it was in the news like for nine or ten months or whatever you brought it up late last year on the show and i was really shocked to hear this and then you and i got into that exact conversation well is ever how are you gonna how are you gonna factor in taxes you know what i mean like you can maybe price everything so that it ends you know either you know in increments of five you know either five or zero but with the tax calculated in you know all the different taxes and all the different areas there's no way to guarantee it's not going to end in a you know a one or a two and so how are you going to handle that i guess you're always going to round up or down to fives but where's the conversation about that over the course of like a big grocery store

at the end of the day, if you're either rounding up or rounding down, that's a big difference in

your bottom line. I think so. For real. Now, it's a big difference in your bottom line if a lot of people are paying with cash. But I don't think a lot of people are paying with cash. I guess you're right. But if you have to, well, though, and I'm talking myself out of that, but if you have to institute the policy, it seems like you'd have to institute the policy across the board, right? The pricing policy. You can't have it different for somebody paying with a card than somebody paying with cash maybe i'm wrong about that but i don't know again my point is i just feel like we should have had this conversation before we just decided to kill the penny right because i mean

well we you know the penny was apparently costing more than one cent to make so it was you know it was an expensive thing but yeah nobody we don't seem to have a standard sort of um plan in place for going forward for when you know something is in between five cents so i don't know i mean i'm shocked to hear that this administration didn't think something through yeah uh long term you know that doesn't seem like their move they seem like planners they seem like very careful

considerers of things yeah it does well i mentioned this to these because i'm clearly a little bit more emotional about this and then i guess i need to be or yeah you were bummed when i told you i am and i still am and now i'm getting a little bit angry about it like well how how are you going to handle this i don't know like i'm seeing those signs at my grocery stores too that say like hey we need pennies it's like well then we shouldn't have gotten rid of it then like i don't know i'm getting a little bit i'm getting a little bit cranky yandy over this whole thing and i'm sure it'll all work out in the end um i am excited to know though if i'm a millionaire i think that you said millions all i heard was millions when you were talking about hundreds of thousands but here's the thing that i like about potentially stumbling on a very expensive penny in my penny And...

jar is i would sell it in a heartbeat because i'm not a collector you know it's like one of those things where if i found out some record on my shelf that i bought and i didn't realize it was like a first edition of something and it had a i don't know an upside down plane flying on the back that was supposed to have two incredibly handsome men on the cover yeah right of the album exactly rendered in the style of air supply but i just realized oh my god this is a collector's item and this is actually worth you know like let's just say some significant amount of money I don't know how much the most expensive collector's item record would be. But let's just say that it was something that could have an impact on my life. But I would be like, I don't know, though. It's part of my record collection. There would be some thrill in keeping it as well and keeping it safe and showing people. I don't give a shit about this. I'm not collecting pennies. So if I stumble on a penny that's worth $400,000, I am selling that thing immediately Antiques Roadshow style.

And what are you doing with the $400,000? Are you saving it? Are you going on a trip to the Bahamas? What are you doing with the money?

Have you heard about these side bets you can place when you're in Vegas playing blackjack?

Speaking of, did you see this whole thing about the college basketball point-shaving scandal now that's been blowing up today?

No. Is this brand new? No, I don't know about this.

Yeah, it's just another—basically, they've got a couple of people that they think were running this pretty big ring. of they started out in Chinese basketball they figured out that they could actually like impact the score of a Chinese basketball game because there was like an American player who was playing over in China who they allegedly sort of had in their pocket and so then they moved the operation to the NCAA and I can't remember the number of players but it's something like 14 or 20 players that are alleged to have been involved in you know controlling the scores of these games oh wow so that the people betting on them could you know make their money then there's the the whole baseball like jonathan class a like pitching it in the dirt to start the inning and um he was texting there was people that were texting about this but they were using these codes that involved like horses and roosters because this guy jonathan class a also owns a cockfighting ring

in his home country which is legal is this a manual class a or jonathan yes no sorry yeah manual class yeah the guardians player who and i think that that pitch happened against the mariners i think oh really as a just a quick little aside there i'm pretty sure i think he threw two bunk pitches on purpose and i think one of them maybe the first one was in seattle i think but you know

take that with a grain of salt they have to get rid of the prop bets you i mean you because generally speaking i think it's hard to control the actual score of a game because you gotta have a lot of people cooperating on that one but whether or not class a throws the first ball in the dirt or throws it under a certain, you know, like throws it like less than 80 miles an hour or whatever it is. Like the fact that you can bet on that stuff, that's insane to me. That is just a recipe for, for basically, you know, people cheating. And, and the other thing that I saw that was, that was like, made me crazy was in the, um, like, you know, the, the poly market or whatever they call that, where you can just bet on anything. Somebody had bet that, um, the, uh, venezuelan guy somebody made four hundred thousand dollars betting on the fact that that venezuelan guy was going to get arrested or he was not going to be in office as of a certain date okay yeah i had seen some headlines about that yeah and like i mean like i don't know that just seems it's just it's just we're in a very dark timeline that some some crypto bro somewhere made four hundred thousand dollars correctly betting when the u.s would illegally intervene in the business of

another country yeah absolutely and who probably had information from one of the tech bro d-bags

i'm sure he was at a he was at a a chin-up session with pete hegseth hours before this happened

whatever i think of hegseth now somebody posted on social media that it's just a simple post that lives in my brain that just says i just can't rectify the fact that our secretary of war is a funny socks guy and that's sort of like i think so and that sort of lives in my head a little bit like the of everything that i sort of just like hate about that guy and the fact that he's like probably sporting funny socks at any given moment i don't even know if it's true i'm just taking it at face value and it's just adding a layer of irritation to my hatred yeah because you know in his mind he thinks he's being wacky if we're even right about that but i'm 100 like i'm 100 percent willing just to like say this is true i don't i don't assume i don't assume worst intention i don't yeah exactly exactly with your i don't know with spongebob socks

there's a right way to rock and a wrong way to roll you can't just listen to your soul just remember that life is number one you can be having so much fun Just remember that life is much fun. You can be not the number one. All right, Lucas. We have a... Oh, how do you feel about Lucas, by the way? I know we've gone over the Luke, I am your father thing. But people have probably called you Lucas your whole life, and that is not your name. It's not. My name on my birth certificate is just Luke. It's not Lucas. So how do you feel when somebody like me says that in sort of a jovial way? It's just a little eye rolling.

I'm good with it. No, no, I'm good with it. It's, you know, it's nice. I like it. I like the fact that you feel comfortable calling me a name that is not my name.

I was also trying to do some math. I was trying to figure out what's going on with our listenership in the month of May. Because apparently, well, I guess our listenership's parents in the month of May. Because people were not feeling very amorous nine months ago. We have a very tidy, short little Blur's Day segment for you today.

I see people in America, and I guess all over the world, but it'd be over multiple years because these people are all different ages. What you're saying is nobody is humping in May.

I would say that nobody who has the genes that would produce a child who would grow up to enjoy this particular podcast is humping in May. Gotcha. That's what I'm saying. But for those whose parents did hump in May, this one's for you. And if you would like to send in a Blur's Day message just to shut me up, do it by emailing me andrew at tbtl.net. Put Blur's Day in the subject line. We have this sweet Blur's Day from Brett and Amy. Wishing our sweet 18-year-old cat, crazy, smart, and funny five Rockwell a happy Blur's Day. We know Rockwell well. 18 years old now, Rockwell. Let's see here. He's long enjoyed the show, especially when he's contributed his rendition of the Murder, She Wrote theme on piano, his fever dream of a tomato, bacon, turkey, and lettuce, or TBTL sandwich. And there's no telling what he'll get up to with his latest electric guitar pedals. Oh, nice. Oh, you know what? This is directly related to your guys' interests. because Brett and Amy are our U District 10s, as they identify themselves, which is very close, as you know, Luke, to the Roosevelt neighborhood where I used to live and where there used to be a beloved used music equipment store called the Trading Musician. And that place was around for over three decades, and it closed somewhat recently, maybe about a year ago. and four of the employees and former employees did open up a new music store in its image a few blocks away, very close to where I used to live.

Oh, it's not in the same building?

No, because the building, it was like the decision by the owner to actually sell the building, I believe. So they had to find a new place and they took over that little kind of deli thing that was by Cowan Park, Luke, if you know it well. Oh, yeah. Right at the corner of what would that be? I guess Ravenna and 12th or something. I'm kind of freelancing here. And it's called reanimation music, I want to say, because it's like—

Yeah, there was a big article in the Seattle Times about them today, right?

I was just—yeah, I was reading that today, and I had passed it a couple of times. And I know that some of our friends were heartbroken when the trading musicians shut down. Like, it truly was, I think, a very special place. It wasn't just a place. It was like a—it was a cultural sort of center. And so it's back, and it's very close to where young musician Rockwell is rocking out. Very convenient. Enjoy that.

That is where I once saw a huge coyote. I was jogging near Cowan Park and just standing right in the road right by that little, what was a grocery store, was a giant coyote.

And that was probably when you were visiting me, right? You were probably doing the show because I vaguely remember that. Yeah, I didn't live in Seattle at the time. Yeah, yeah.

I was very happy to see that, by the way, that the trading musician has been, the spirit has been continued. And by the way, the guys that own it, they look exactly like four dudes who would own a used musical instrument store.

Yeah, I said on either this show or maybe after these messages recently how much I love Guitar Center because the service has been really good to me and as places close like the trading musician, it's nice to have that there. But then I'm kind of surprised I didn't get any kind of angry email about it, kind of saying, yeah, but it's because of chains like Guitar Center that maybe it's harder for places like these smaller operations to stay in business. I think there's an argument there. But one thing I am going to do is, like, when I need something like just cables or something, like XLR cables or any of the mic cables or that kind of stuff, I'm going to try to go to reanimation.

animated music first before going to Guitar Center all the time, see if we can support them. All right, how about this? A very blessed Blur's Day to Graham and Ian, both of Superior, Wisconsin. Okay. My TBTL daddy and granddaddy, respectively, from Justice in the Thunder Bay City. Oh, sure, Justice. Absolutely. So it's Graham and who's the Blur's? Ian. It's Graham and Ian. and they both live in Superior, Wisconsin. And so I take it, let's see here. If I got this right, then you have Ian must have turned Graham on to TBTL, and Graham turned Justice on to TBTL. Got it. And we turned Justice on its head. I don't know what I'm doing, man. We've got to get out of this show. Brian in Auburn, Washington, says January 15th, today is my big Blur's Day, number 50. That also makes it a golden Blur's Day, by the way. Brian says, am I too old or not old enough to go in search of some birthday discounts and free desserts at local dining establishments? Suggestions are welcome. I don't know, man. What can Brian get in Auburn on his birthday?

I am definitely guessing he can get a sombrero and some kind of a free dessert if he goes to a local Mexican joint. Okay. I'm thinking if there's a Cold Stone Creamery, hit that place up. Nice. I like this. Probably the bakery, maybe at the grocery store. They might give you something.

Do people get free drinks on their birthday, or is that only when you turn 21? I don't know if Brian's a drinker. I'm just reminiscing. It was such a big deal. When you turn 21, your friends are like, we've got to take you out to get your free drinks. Did you do a 21 run of some kind? Kind of, but, I mean, as you would guess, like, somewhat reluctantly, like, I don't care about, you know, like, I just, like, I don't care about, like, chasing that as much. I remember – because I might have already had a little – I don't think I actually did – I definitely never had, like, a fake ID or anything. So I was not spending time in bars before I was 21. But when I did turn 21, I remember thinking, like, I just want to go to a bar and sit for a while. And they're like – I remember friends being frustrated because they wanted to go around and get free drinks and everything. I'm like, but I don't want to go traipsing all over town. Like, that's not my – Luke, I've been me my whole life is my point.

You had your copy of Ham Sandwich? Isn't that Bukowski?

You're very close. Ham on rye, I think. That one? You had your Bukowski book? I think I know what he's talking about. But yeah, I was probably toting around ham on rye and maybe even a ham on rye.

I did have a 21 run. My girlfriend at the time, Francesca Severini, and her sister, Nina Severini, they took me out. And it was the second time I'd ever been drunk in my life. And oh, my gosh, did I get drunk. And boy, was I feeling it the next day. And my job in college when I turned 21 was I was one of the like a traffic reporter on metro traffic. But on Fridays, my job wasn't to be on the air. My job was to sit there at this computer and basically like monitor all of the traffic. I had a headset on. I would talk to the guy in the plane. I would call all the local like police departments and the sheriff to get like this was kind of when the Internet wasn't as robust as it is now. So basically, I had to sit there with a head made of glass and, like, talk to people about traffic problems. And it was, you would have thought that would have cured me of drinking because it was so brutal. You would have thought I would have said never again.

I was going to say, and he never drank again.

Never again except for 10,000 more times.

Just to make sure.

All right. And finally, KJ says, happy birthday to Julie on this, your Golden Blurs Day. I don't know if you're celebrating at home in Salem, Oregon, or while you're gallivanting around the country with your new man. Nice. But either way, I hope you are celebrated like the queen you are. Cheers. Happy Blur's Day, Blur's Day. Did I say Jule? Do I say Jule funny? Yes, you do. Happy Blur's Day to Jule and everybody who's celebrating a birthday today.

That was fun. Absolutely. All right, my friend. And, well, we should probably—you know, I've got to write this—people don't like it when I spoil things on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. So I'm not going to say if I have the real story that I need to gussy up or I have a pretend story that I have to make up. One of those two things needs to happen this afternoon before I go off to be part of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me tonight. So I should get on towards that, which would bring us to the end of this episode of TBTL. But the amazing news is we are going to be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for all of you. So please check in for that if you can. In the meantime, everybody have a great Thursday. Take care of yourself. Stay safe out there. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

I think I am ready. to go so all right i will be watching the echo cancellation yeah it doesn't kick back on whatever's happening is i feel like it is triggered by some i could be total i'll take this back later maybe but i feel like it only happens when you're talking and so i'm wondering if it's like an audio cue or something but i can't figure i mean i'm not saying that to like luke don't make the s sound like if you could just do today's show without making a sound and and some absolutely

power out