Muse

In the lee of a picturesque ridge lies a small, unpretentious winery, one that pampers its fruit like its own babies. Hi, I'm Moira Rose, and if you love fruit wine as much as I do, then you'll appreciate the craftsmanship and quality of a local vintner who brings the muskmelon goodness to his oak chardonnay and the dazzling peach crud bat pull to his Riesling Rioja. Come taste the difference good fruit can make in your wine. You'll remember the experience and you'll remember the name. Herb Erflinger, Bert Herngreif. Erf, Herb, Linger. Bing, Livehanger. Liveling, Bert Herkern. Bingo, Linger.

T-B-T-L Guess what day it is Guess what day it is

It's Friday, Friday Gonna get down on Friday Everybody's looking forward to the weekend

What about music? You have any music? Uh, yeah

I should have said so

I warned you I was lonely But you didn't seem to care, no, no, no But you didn't seem to care, no, no, no But you didn't seem to care, no, no But you didn't seem to care, no, no But you didn't seem to care, no, no But you didn't seem to care, no, no But you didn't seem to care, no, no But you didn't seem to care, no, no But you didn't seem to care, no, no But you didn't seem to care, no, no But you didn't seem to care, no, no But you didn't seem to care, no, no But you didn't seem to care, no, no But you didn't seem to care, no But you didn't seem to care, no But you didn't seem to care, no But you didn't seem to care, no All I know is this violates every canon of respectable broadcasting.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Friday edition of TBT, all the show that just might be. Too beautiful to live. This whole conversation bothers me. My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

He's got riz. Like, he just does.

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia on a rainy Friday here in the Pacific Northwest. Didn't know you like to get wet, though. Well, we've made it, folks. We've made it to the end of the week, and we've made it to episode 4,653 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. As you probably already know, or maybe got some indication from our intro package, But Catherine O'Hara has passed away at the age of 71. That's the saddest thing I've ever heard. Just an absolute, I would say national treasure, but I believe that she may have been from Canada, a continental treasure. Catherine O'Hara, just so funny and in so many great things. And such a kind of a part of this show by way of the audio drops that we've used over the years. So we'll talk about her life a little bit. Plus, my plans for watching the Super Bowl, which involves some folks down in Salem, Oregon, having to do basically an IT check on a barn to try to make my football watching dreams come true. More on that. And of course, a conversation with this guy who is joining me right now from inside an active construction zone.

Hey, want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?

He is the longest-running Cobra of the program, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. I just want you to be normal, and clearly you're not. He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend. Good afternoon, Luke Burbank.

Ah, yes. Okay, by 16 minutes. Yes, we're getting off to a little bit of a later start today, which means I have no excuse if I am not performing at top levels today, because I did not just roll out of bed. I am not still fuzzy-minded from whatever disturbing dreams I had. If I can't perform today, Luke, I don't think there's any hope for me.

Yeah. The offensive line is healthy. You have your full complement of receivers. At this point, there are no more excuses. This is make or break. I mean, I have an oblique. I have a little bit of an oblique.

I don't know how much it's kind of oblique.

That I'm an obtuse man, so I'll be oblique Another, by the way Another Onyx Blackman reference this week The The way that you described that I don't know if you were doing that intentionally or not And that has nothing to do with where we want to start the show But it makes me endlessly Annoyed that the This sort of parlance of talking about Football injuries has now become He's dealing with an oblique He's dealing with an ankle He's dealing with a shoulder And we've just totally decided we don't need to add in the like He's dealing with a shoulder injury What about not even dealing with You're actually giving them He has a shoulder

He has a knee. They'll say that on sports radio. It'll be like, well, we're hoping that he'll play, but he has a knee. It's like, well, I hope he has two.

Yeah, two would be even better.

Two would be better for a running back.

I don't understand that. I was driving home from, by the way, we got a late start today because I was down in Portland doing a local TV hit on Hello, Rose City, promoting Livewire. and i was driving back and i was following one of those um like a kind of a manufactured home like part of a manufactured home it's on the huge trailer and they've got pilot cars they got a car in front of it and a car behind it and the signs on the on both the part of the manufactured home and then the cars behind it and probably in front of it it said oversize load and i i spent the next 30 miles shadowboxing with that. Is that correct? Should it be oversized load? Seems like it, right? I guess if you broke it down, you said the load is over the size that is typical so you need to be careful. It's an oversized load, but I feel like it should be oversized. Size is too much. It is oversized.

I agree. As an adjective, I feel like it should be sized. I'm wondering though, as the son of a sign maker, how much does a d cost i mean maybe the thing is they're just trying to get the point across

without spending extra money on extra letters yeah i mean i i that's that's that's a possibility maybe they wanted it to be as big as possible so that you could see it easily but then making it that large meant that the d was gonna you have to start a new you have to hit return and start a New column for the D. A carriage return. Oversized carriage return D.

Well, the original sign was, dear sirs and madams, please use caution when navigating your vehicle around this truck. It is a rather oversized load. That was the original. I believe that was the original sign, and then they just started pairing back.

They were blaring Handel's water music off of speakers as you read that, Just to fully create the maximum experience of language and auditory. So, okay, yeah, let's see. We can't get caught up in grammar. We can't get caught up in an oblique. We've got to talk about the very sad news that Catherine O'Hara has passed away. She was 71 years old. It sure seems, Andrew, that the older that I get, the younger that people are when they pass away. And 71 is not old at all. That's just about barely 20 years ahead of me. And, of course, certainly I don't know anything about the circumstances of her passing. I certainly didn't hear anything leading up to it about her being in ill health. You know, I know that sort of with Diane Keaton, I guess what happened was that she had fallen into ill health, but she wanted to keep that private, which I think is totally reasonable. So it is one of those things where when someone doesn't seem like they're particularly elderly and you don't know that they're sick, and then you just hear that they have passed away, it can feel pretty sudden, and it's a real bummer because Catherine O'Hara was still making all kinds of great stuff, and her career was so long, and it involved so many different phases, like SCTV, which was the kind of Canadian Saturday Night Live. She was on that, and she was great. That could have been a career for someone. She was in Waiting for Government. And she played Sheila Albertson, a phenomenal character. She's married to Fred Willard. They are travel agents who have never been outside of Missouri, which Fred Willard's character comments on. People think it's ironical that we've never been out of Missouri. And I believe they cut to him on the phone with someone where he goes, Montezuma's revenge is nothing but good old-fashioned diarrhea. The emergency room shouldn't even enter the conversation. And, like, they're really into being in the local theater scene. And Fred Willard is just so absolutely, he's just so mean to Sheila and he's just, he crushes her dreams constantly to the degree that the only time she can really actually express herself is when she gets very drunk at a Chinese restaurant and is talking to Eugene Levy and his wife.

About a very personal operation, a procedure that one of them either had or was considering.

A penis reduction surgery for her husband, Ron, which I always wonder about that scene because I wonder because it's improvised, presumably, you know, I'm sure they have sort of a structure for what they want to do. But I wonder if when she said, well, because the way that it comes about is that they say they've they've only been out of Blaine one time and it was for the procedure and he doesn't want to talk about the procedure.

That's how they get into it. That's how they get into it.

it's a discussion of like the other time that they've left blaine missouri and it was they went up to wherever it was for and and it was like for for your procedure and then ron albertson says uh i had you know whatever guy would dream about. So like, I don't know if that was just Fred Willard in the moment pivoting to, I didn't have an enlargement surgery. I had a reduction surgery, but then she rolls with it beautifully. Anyway. It's funnier that way, that's for sure. Sure is. And then of course, Beetlejuice, which is a whole other kind of audience, right? Like, you know, because there's the comedy nerds who are real down in the like Guffman lore and then SCTV and things like that. But then you've got Catherine O'Hara in this hugely financially successful movie that's super popular with probably a slightly different viewing crowd.

But also weird, but also kind of a weird, dark thing. Tim Burton. Yeah, good point. Good point. And then, sorry to cut you off, but then, of course, then Home Alone, right? Yes.

Oh, I forgot about, how do you forget about one of the biggest movie franchises?

Oh, see, I thought that's what you were building to. That's why I was saying like. No, I'm glad you reminded me. Beetlejuice was big and, you know, a hit, but still like kind of a dark, you know, very dark comedy and something that you'd still call like a cult classic, even though it was successful. But then Home Alone is just straight up mainstream, mainstream, huge hit. I mean, huge impact on the culture and indelibly or indelible on the culture. You know, as far as I can tell, like going forward, it is like a Christmas classic. And so I'm going to say something. Something has been on my mind all day, and I hope people take it in the spirit in which it's intended, because it's kind of a it's kind of a maybe a harsh thing to say when somebody just passed away. But Genevieve has this expression sometimes when we're talking about, I don't know, a famous person. And sometimes we'll say, like, what will be their what will be the first line of their obituary when they die? You know, it's kind of in a it's kind of a I guess kind of a harsh way of saying what is the first thing somebody will be remembered for? And honestly, I remember having that conversation with Genevieve at one point, not all that long ago, saying, like, what is her most memorable thing to the mainstream culture? Because I think you're right.

It's yelling Kevin in the airport.

Yeah. In our circles, we're going to think the Guthman-verse, right, first? Oh, right, right. All of those kinds of things. But then, like, but for most Americans, if you just one word, like, who is Catherine O'Hara, if you need to remind somebody, I think most people would be, oh, the Home Alone lady, right? And, like, that, and for you and I, that's not even, that's not what ranks so much, you know? And somebody said on Blue Sky today, much more eloquently than the tribute I'm trying to offer here, something along the lines of, I think there's, do you know who Maura Quint is? I think she's a writer of some sort, and I follow her on Blue Sky. And she said, Catherine O'Hara was so talented and special that the problem is I forgot she was mortal. And I think that is kind of it. That's why you're right. Like 71 is just too young anyway. But also, you never really thought about it. But when you put it that way, you're like, yeah, how could this happen? You know what I mean? She doesn't seem like somebody who could pass away because she just contained so many multitudes and was just so beloved too.

And then had what would probably be, I would say, you know, this is very generational, but if you go down to maybe a younger generation, Moira, her character from Schitt's Creek, that might be how a lot of people know her because that is such an iconic character. And when Schitt's Creek kind of blew up in the U.S. when they started, I think it was they put it on Netflix and suddenly it was in everybody's home. And America fell in love with this really great show from Canada. And like, I mean, it's just incredible that you that you throw that on there, too. Like, you know, at what we now learn was getting towards the end of her career. But like, I mean, that character is so I mean, I was just listening to that intro.

Her scatting. I know that's not even all of it, by the way.

What is the original? Someone put that on that log. it could have been me or something should have been you should have been you like like that is like when she says live link when she's trying to do the burt her flinger at one point she says live link like that is that is that is comedy being being practiced at the highest possible level in my opinion by a person who's had so many different versions of her career and been so great in so many different things and was not slowing down as far as i can in fact i just heard This is totally random, but I heard Brian Cranston yesterday. I saw some clip of an interview with him talking about how he and Catherine O'Hara were working on a project with Seth Rogen. I don't even know if this is out yet, but that they were all in Las Vegas and they were going to go to the sphere in Las Vegas with Seth Rogen. And that Brian Cranston's not somebody who's done any drugs in his life and nor was Catherine O'Hara. But they basically agreed to eat mushrooms with Seth Rogen to go to this. I don't know if it was one of those dead in co shows or what was happening in the sphere. And, um, and so, and then I guess the story was that Brian Cranston ate the mushrooms and then Catherine O'Hara chickened out and didn't eat the mushrooms. And that also.

the mushrooms did nothing to him they didn't have enough of them but i mean my point in that is that i mean whatever that project was that was the sphere was in las vegas we're talking about something that was being filmed fairly recently like i think i might have an answer to that unless

they were working on other things but i saw that i think one of her last credits or one of her last roles was in the studio and oh okay that would make sense yeah that's his show oh yeah yeah she

was no of course i mean i can't take that out she plays a huge role in that show she plays basically like the person who used to be the head of the studio i believe i think she was the head of the studio who gets fired which is why seth rogan is able to then ascend but he has this relationship with her because he sort of owes her she kind of gave him uh uh his career and he respects her opinion so she sort of comes back to the studio but in a more sort of like as a consultant role and they have a lot of really great scenes i mean i forgot you she's amazing in that this is what i'm saying yeah she's been so good in so many things that like i can't even remember all the things

that she's been in of late yeah and i i think yes shits i do think that depending on kind of um i don't know how you navigate the culture and your age range like i do think that like home alone schitt's creek beetlejuice and and the guffman movies i mean anybody would take any one of those and i don't even mean as far as work is concerned i mean as far as legacy is concerned and talent and i was just well i mean now we're in that phase where everybody on blue sky and social media is sharing so much just amazing moments and little clips i mean there's a i i watched best in show maybe once or twice but it's not a movie i i remember all that well other than enjoying it but somebody just posted the scene of her tripping she trips over nothing basically but then starts blaming people who put something down that i would trip over and then she gets up and she's saying i'm fine i'm fine it's just my knee it's just my knee and then she just goes into the funniest walk i have seen this side of monty python she's wearing these high heels and she's saying her knee is fine and she's walking around and she clearly can't walk and it is it is it's amazing i also have this i want to play this clip for you this is a schitt's creek which is you know she she's showing her i'm watching the tripping scene oh are you watching i forgot I forgot how they do her hair for this movie, too. Yeah, that's right. It's kind of like a bird's nest. It's so ridiculous.

It looks like Phil Spector taking a mug shot.

I might end up using this as... She's doing a stanky leg. Yeah, she is. Her leg is stank. She has a stank. Hold on. She has a stank leg. Hold on, stanky leg. So I might use this as intro tape on Monday as well, but I don't think you can have too much Catherine O'Hara these days. So here was a little clip that I had not seen before from Schitt's Creek where she's, you know, showing her son, her adult son, David, a family recipe. But they're both clearly useless in the kitchen and they get to this instruction that confounds them.

Is this not your mother's recipe? Yes, and now I'm passing it on to you. So try to keep up. Oh, next step is to fold in the cheese. What does that mean? What does fold in the cheese mean? He folds it in. I understand that, but how do you fold it? Do you fold it in half like a piece of paper and drop it in the pot, or what do you do? David, I cannot show you everything. Okay, well, can you show me one thing? You just, here's what you do. You just fold it in. Okay, I don't know how to fold broken cheese like that. And I don't know how to be any clearer. You take that thing that's in your hand, and you... If you say fold in one more time... It says fold it in! This is your recipe. You fooled in the cheese then. Don't you dare. You fooled it in. David! David! David!

I mean, I feel like we've had a conversation at some point. Maybe in an interview, she talked about the accent. She talked about whatever her decisions were around Moira's.

What is it? Is it just like a rich person? It's insane.

I mean, it's insane. It's kind of like a person who watched a Katharine Hepburn movie 20 years ago. and is trying to it's like a person who's in a movie about a person who is pretending to be rich but doesn't really know how to talk like a rich person like it's so it's so perfectly weird and i mean it really comes out in that that uh that intro tape that we were playing where she's doing the the ads and stuff but it's just like just the accent alone is legendary yeah yeah it's amazing amazing career in person yeah so rest in peace catherine o'hara we uh we are fans and uh and And you were incredible. You were amazing. All right. Well, with that being addressed and discussed, I have a follow-up Friday question for you, sir, which is do you—

Okay, do you want to just slow it down a second? I don't want you to rush this question.

I want to think about the question.

Now, whenever you're ready to ask the question, I'm ready to answer it now. But I just want to make sure that you're making the same.

Do you have big weekend— construction plans. Although you actually said before the show, they're not, this particular

crew that's doing construction, they're not working through the weekend. They're taking

Friday, you know, Friday's the quitting time. Yes, I believe so. So today, so the construction started on this little basement kitchenette area that we have, which is a very, we feel very lucky to have kind of this little area in the basement that has a kitchen sink and a little hot plate that kind of works, but it's just the grossest materials installed just as terribly as you can imagine.

Because your house, at one time, your basement was being used as sort of another living area, sort of an ADU, so there was a bit of a kind of a kitchen kind of situation down there so that somebody could live there, right?

Yeah, I think, honestly, I love this house, And it worked out well for us to live here as one family unit and use the upstairs and downstairs. But I think it's literally criminal that they rented out the bottom half. But what they did was to turn this into a quasi-living space for somebody and to put in this tiny little kitchenette. But, like, I took a video of it or I took some photos of it before they tore everything out just to, like, remember how awful it was. Like, the counter was like this, you know, that fake marble stuff. It's like the ugliest fake marble you could possibly imagine. but then it was just like glued in just dirty brown it was supposed to be like kind of clear epoxy or something but it was just like globs of it turning brown all over the place you know already on this kind of gross surface I mean everything about it was just really rough and it had always been my and you know some of the particle board of the of the very cheap cupboards beneath were swelling up and exposed. It was just like, it was as rough as somebody who, I was about to say as rough as you can imagine, but I mean, that's not true. But we're lucky that we are able to improve it and be picky about these things. But Genevieve and I had been talking about, you know, putting some flooring down here and doing some improvements. And then I think something just hit me. I'm like, well, what if we just sort of dream big? Like before we put a floor down, And, like, this kitchenette at some point has to be redone. Like, it was really – it was hurting my soul. Like, to look at it was hurting – almost worse than not having a functioning sink. It was just like – it just seems so, like, kind of – just – I don't know. Remember we were talking about getting in our cars in the middle of winter when you haven't cleaned it in a long time, and you just look at all the upholstery stains and the floors, and it just kind of gives you that bad feeling? I was just getting a bad feeling about that part of the house. And so we are now kind of doing something we have never done before, which is like pulling, you know, we hired somebody to pull it all out. And then also the folks we hired are helping us sort of conceive of what to do there. And I didn't know, I don't know if this, I still don't know if this is a normal way of doing it or not. But I told you before the show, we're sort of building the airplane in the sky a little bit because they wanted to kind of tear everything out to sort of see what we can work with. as they continue to help us like kind of decide what kind of cabinetry to build or shelving if it's open shelving or and lighting decisions but this is also leading to the fact that we have some pretty major electrical issues so we're getting a whole new breaker box put in which will be part of this which is um you know something that also has been bothering me for a long time knowing that whenever anybody looks at the the electrical you know the work in this house they're always It's like, oh, this shouldn't be scotch taped together, and this shouldn't be charring black here on these wires. So having somebody just sort of come in.

I've never had somebody who's working on a project at a place that I've lived who's opened a wall and ever said anything good about any of the prior workmanship.

Yeah, that is true.

I'm not saying it's not true. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My point in that is not that you're getting flim flammed. It's just that it's the ritual. And by the way, it's probably because I've also mostly had really old homes that somebody did some really crazy stuff in. But it's just always like that moment where the person is looking and they're going, I don't know. I don't know what they were thinking when they did this.

I know that if you're installing something, I know that you're going to at some point need shims or something to steady something or level something out. And then, you know, you build around it and it disappears into it. But I was gone most of the day yesterday. And so when I left, they were just starting to like kind of disconnect the sink. But then at some point midday, Genevieve sent me a little video of their progress, and everything had been pulled off and gone.

I'm surprised you guys didn't do the demo yourselves to keep the cost down.

Yeah, I think, well, we had talked about that or maybe helping with that, but I think they're going to carry it away, too. I don't know. But anyway, Genevieve sent me this video, and it was just amazing.

amazing how many shims there were and they were just like the cabinet a whole bunch of them like then like uh i'll show them to you later like taped together with blue masking tape i mean the floor was just littered with all it was all put together and i guess they were like these

cabinets were wildly not level and just a little shimming like you said particularly if you're installing a door you have to shim out a door these are normal things but then there's like we have a two by fours width of shim that we've just jammed under there all taped together yes It's so massively out of level.

Yeah, I think one of the shims also had somebody's sole of their boot taped up into it to make it a little bit wider. Great band, by the way, the shims. Oh, I do like the shims, yeah. Anyway, so I'm pretty excited, but the thing that we're kind of doing is so they're tearing everything out, but we don't have decisions yet about everything that will replace it. Genevieve just ran out today to buy a new sink, so we're going to have a nice new sink in there, and Genevieve actually got one.

You going undermount?

I don't know what that means.

You know how a lot of the sinks now, if you have, do you know what you're going to go with for the counter? Oh, you're doing butcher block. We're doing butcher block, yeah. I've also been texting with Genevieve about this. So an undermount sink is where the sink is mounted underneath the countertop.

Oh, well, that's sweet, but no, it's not that fancy, no.

Okay, I mean, it's actually, you know, if you're buying a new sink, it's not, I mean, you said fancy, it's just that they just screw it to the bottom of the countertop instead of screwing it or gluing it to the top. It's not necessarily a more expensive thing. And if you're starting over, you could always do that. But is she going to the Lowe's to get a sink for y'all?

No, we have it now. So this is what's kind of cool is we're sort of all just sort of in this together. So our designer, the guy who's working with us, and I'm a designer and worker, and he's doing everything. Adrian is his name. He just texted us this thing. He's like, this is at Costco right now, and this is a steel. It was a steel at its original, like this whole sink. plus like you know the um what do you call those those faucets that are kind of like almost an industrial sink faucet with the spring around it or yeah i don't know what that's called but that

is what i have too that is like kind of the way to go these days yeah which is interesting because

we were just fielding some questions on the spotless podcast about how to keep that springy thing clean once it starts oh sure i have some thoughts on that but anyway yeah so we got the sink with that faucet and like basically at a really really good price and it's really important for me to have that functionality down in the basement sink for like because I'm cleaning like these big thermoses sometimes and I need to be able to do that so I'm very excited about that but we're sort of just sort of like making these decisions kind of as we go along. Now this is

going to be so you're eventually you're going to replace the cabinets you're going to do uppers and

lowers yes and for the uppers we're not sure if they're going to be like cabinets slash cupboards or open shelving and are you do you know where you're going to get the cabinets from no because it kind of depends on what we end up deciding it should look like or what style we want i would say

don't sleep on ikea ikea's got actually good stuff that's that that can be reasonably priced i think it's a step up stylistically from like what you'd get it at home depot or lowe's i mean they've got the stuff too but like you don't have to overspend on the cabinets you can you know the like i said the i that's what i did my both the adu kitchen and the kitchen in my my little house is i was pretty happy with uh with the stuff that i got from them just as a thought but here's my main question to you because you know this is my whole i'm mr coat hook fantasy um moment whereas like on one of these projects or stuff i've been doing at my house i'm always like and then the moment's gonna come when it's all done and i'm gonna have this experience do you have a moment like that in your mind like that you're dreaming of that you're excited about whether it's getting ready for pop-up or whether it's fixing yourself a little snack at night between dart throws like what do you what's your dream use for this space when it's all done and nice so and i don't know

if i'll be able to do this you don't want to build up to it too much because then if it doesn't feel as satisfying in the moment it'll be a disappointment but i am just find a new thing to obsess over i've been doing it for years but i cannot wait for my first sponge bath in this in the new sink because I can get up on the counter.

Will you have Genevieve videotape that? Oh, yeah. It's just so adorable. You in the sink.

Very excited. I say goo-goo-ga-ga a lot while I'm doing it. No, I guess to the degree is just like I'm just picturing the moment that it's all clean and nice and as I pass through it. It's funny. It's not like I'm picturing like, oh, when we boil water on the new hot plate or whatever it is. It's just like it's this area that I'm constantly passing through and it's where our refrigerator is as well. It's like my things are a little bit more practical. I just can't wait to have a little bit of stability around some of this electrical work. It's all felt very insecure to me for a long time. Is it knob and tube? I think the upstairs. We're not even getting into, we're not rewiring.

Don't even open that.

But definitely what they did to this basement was they just brought in workers who were just constantly – yeah, exactly. We literally – we had an electrician out here years ago who said, okay, well, I fixed this one thing, but I would not plug your microwave into this thing here.

I wouldn't turn on anything in the house ever again if I were you.

Yeah, to have plugs in your house that you're like, oh, you probably shouldn't use that. Like, it'll just be really nice to say, okay, no, we're having responsible people install. He's putting in a couple of extra circuits. Like, he's going to install it properly so that when we see a plug, we can use a plug. You know, just, like, stuff like that is going to feel so good to me. And then as far as, like, just the design, like, I told you that it just was giving me a really – there was just one part of the cupboard. I know I'm obsessed with it, but it was kind of like whatever veneer was on this cheap cupboard below the sink had peeled away. And maybe Bingo would scratch at it sometimes, although it looks like that, although I don't see him do it that much. But it was just like the white, the cheap white veneer had peeled away. So all of the particle board was just swelling and falling apart. Sawdust that's been reconstituted. Yeah, and just like falling apart and like peeling away. And so like I just picture like when we have – this is the first time that we've ever just been able to say like, well, we're investing in this. this is our forever project we do it we do it to what makes us feel good we make that decision and then we're not just like we're not formatting our lives around other people's decisions about lighting or whatever it may be knowing that it's like our decision and we're going to set it up the way we want and then when i pass by it to grab a fresca out of the fridge or whatever just be like looking around like the the area where our refrigerator is down here is just like it's not even particle board i don't know how to describe what they they made this little cut out in the wall that sort of separates it from where our hot water heater and stuff is on the other side but it's just like this it's very thin it's better than cardboard but not wood just very thin white some sort of material that is just like was screwed in place with huge gaps and everything so you can like look through it to see the litter box or it's just like it was never it was never like what would you call like built out essentially with an actual drywall and whatever and so like we're just going to get that taken care of and it's just going to seem more like a a real space like a real space that has some intentionality to it so i'm just looking forward to just like feeling like oh there's a there's a finality here there's a like there's something that actually makes me feel good when i look the opposite of what i was feeling when it was giving me the bad

feeling somebody's got some good staring in their future exactly and i'm very excited i still do that around here you know and and in fact this the madrona hill studio is not even done yet um like i need to this spring walt and i need to actually install speaking of undermount sinks there's this kind of kitchen island thing behind me that you and john were we were all utilizing when we were doing the thon from here and that is still exactly like it was when you guys were here it's like still uh that needs to have a hole cut in it first of all it needs to be sanded and then like stained so that it's waterproof then it needs a hole cut in it so that the sink can be undermounted but all that is to say even with things not fully done here i still to this day i'm like we'll just go sit in the corner of my little living room and stare at some other part of the house and just remember how it used to be yeah right it's very satisfying it's a very satisfying feeling and i'm glad to hear for you and vives because you guys both work really hard and and and you guys totally i've more than earned the experience of like making your house that you love kind of the way you want it to be not making uh like well let's just try to figure out something that's the least expensive option to make this tolerable for a little bit longer, but rather to just say, yeah, we live here. We look at this every day. We've saved the money. Let's actually do this in a way that makes us really happy.

I'm sending you pictures right now via text of just like the things that I've been describing to you, like close-ups of just like where it's just like this nasty brown glue that was supposed to be clear at some point that's keeping the old sink in place or what have you.

How long are they, and this is the other thing too, you know. I mean, this project seems like it's pretty fairly contained, but what's the timeline you're being given? I don't know. And my experience almost always goes longer than the thing it's supposed to take.

Honestly, I don't know, and I think that that's because, again, I don't know that we approach this the way most other people would, but I'm glad that we found somebody who's willing to work with us in this way. It's a little bit like jazz, Luke, and when they say when you're doing a home reno, you should just improvise a lot, And it should be a lot like, well, like Moira scatting. It should have been you. Who put that sink underneath? It could have been you. So it's a little bit unclear what, again, like what kind. Oh, well, another huge part of this is we have these two like kind of deep, I guess you would call them cupboards, but they're basically just big.

holes in the wall now because we've torn the they've torn the cupboard doors off and everything but it's this like very weird deep storage space that is in this area as well kind of on the other wall on the outer wall of the house and it's just like we throw tons of stuff in there and they're big air they're big spaces like I could I could physically crawl up in there if I took everything out I couldn't stand in there but it's like smaller than a closet bigger than a cupboard which is a game I used to like to play at camp. And so anyway, Adrian's also looking at just like he's still like sort of looking at various options of things that we can either buy or that they can sort of build in their shop that will be sort of like an appliance cabinet. Or when you open one door, a bunch of other stuff will sort of swing open so we can – so like some shelving can kind of swing out and we can kind of take advantage of all of the space and stuff.

Are these things you're describing – because I'm looking at the photos now. Are they to the left of the sink or what was the sink?

Yeah, these things I'm describing now.

By the, blocked by the cabinets, one of the doors being blocked by the cabinets that are above the sink, that's when you know, that's when you're dealing with really forward-thinking, thought-out craftsmanship, when people just like, oh, we need some cabinets above the sink, so we'll put them in, even though they technically block a different cabinet-type door to open, like, that's, like, that is really, that's, that's, that's, that's, I'm glad you're getting rid of that.

Yes, exactly. And I I'm looking for photos on my phone that if I if I if I kind of took any details of that particular situation, but you're describing it perfectly like everything was just thrown in there so that you couldn't open the cupboards because it would slam into other cupboards. They just didn't care. I cannot stress enough how little they whoever put this stuff in just did not care. I doubt that the person who owned the property was even here. I'll bet you they were just hiring people and just saying, I want this, I want that, and maybe had somebody overseeing it. And here's how much I'm willing to pay for it. And that was zero, probably.

Yes. Well, I'm really stoked for you. You know, obviously, this is a subject near and dear to my heart, and I'm very excited for Veeves and Roden and I have already, we've been on a side channel, on a signal chat.

You need to name that chat. because of that text chat, like, because I'm not, it's just you, Roden, and Viv's doing, sharing home stuff, right?

Yes, exactly. But that satisfaction, like, Viv sent along that picture of basically, like, the space all, like, now demoed, so that it's all kind of scoured, like, everything's gone. Now you're just looking at the kind of, like, the bare walls, and now you're going to start over again with that. Like, that is, that's, like, so, just having the stuff out of there must be, like, a great feeling.

It is. I thought it was going to be a bad feeling, to be honest with you, because I'm not somebody who likes in-between times. like I really wanted to like I'm like well why would you tear everything out before we know what we're going to be putting in there and they were like well it does help to sort of get a better sense of the space and if that and I was like okay that's fine if there's an answer to it but I was like I don't want to just make this part of the house unfunctional because even though I'm complaining about the bad feeling like we had a working sink down there that I used a lot you know and like you know a lot several times a day and so I was like well I don't want to get rid of the functionality until we're ready to put something there you know but i guess it made sense to do it this way and it does seem to make sense now that i'm sort of living through it but i've never done anything like this before um so i can't remember exactly what you said that led me to to that oh well i one thing i also just sort of like is oh what were you gonna say oh no i was

just reminding what i was saying was that having all of the old kind of funky cabinets and everything out of there is a good feeling and you were saying you weren't sure how you were going to feel about

it when you saw it yeah but then when vive sent me that video i was like oh this is nice to see it and these guys are just like they're so meticulous like this is a very small thing but like part of my you know just kind of apprehension about anything like this is like well you know how much i love my living space right luke like even if it's yeah like that's one of my problems generally speaking is i like nice living spaces but i'm also just deeply lazy about doing it we're talking with cassie earlier this week and you two were sort of like me thinking you wake up in the middle of the night and you're thinking about drapery or whatever the next thing it's like i'm not like that like i want to be in a nice space but i don't like shopping i'm pretty lazy about these things and at the end of the day i don't want my little dart routine to be messed up i want to listen to my podcast and play darts you know like i don't i don't usually do well with sort of change or certainly like kind of transition if there's a difference between those two um and also just the the chaos of it messiness or whatever but then people in your house yeah but when i came in yesterday and i sort of saw this from the photos genevieve sent me too but when i got back last night maybe around six o'clock or something like that to come downstairs and see it's all torn out but also like really clean like this is my kind it speaks so clean much in luke this is the thing there's just a few there was like a shop vac they're using our shop back. and there was a hammer, a crowbar, and some other long tool like that, and then some little tool box that has an all-purpose tool in it. What do you call those things? What is that all-purpose tool that everybody talks about? A Leatherman?

Not like that. All-purpose tool. What are some of the purposes?

Is it prying things?

Is it hammering things?

It's a—I don't even know. I know that Genevieve wanted one for a while. It's a power tool of some sort, but it's in a little briefcase-y thing. is it just called a multi-tool is there a chance that there's something of that generic name it doesn't really matter my point of this is there were like four one little case and four tools on the ground and they were all lined up neatly like we talk about knolling sometimes they were all laid parallel next to each other the way I would leave it you know what I mean that's a great feeling I wouldn't have thought of that as a signifier but it was like oh wow

these are our people. Totally because sometimes when you have folks working on your house that's not their system they're just like it's just going to get dirty again we're just like it's a construction zone and then there are the folks that like the last 20 minutes of every day is like now we're doing now we're cleaning now we're sweeping now we're putting stuff away now we're leaving this so that it's you know going to be a good place to start tomorrow and that's like definitely the preferred I have had over the course of the years with doing a lot of work here and mostly it being me and my dad but also hiring some of it out a variety of experiences with that and it's definitely like a lot better when the folks like to clean their job site the

job site before they're done for the day yeah it's such a yeah it says i like it in both practice and what it signifies and i guess right thing i was trying and sorry again i know nothing about tools but yeah i am talking about something called a multi-tool and i know genevieve wanted one of these i think she even got one it's like if you look a cordless multi-tool it's some sort of like

Like an oscillating, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what it does. Like an oscillating multi-tool. Well, what it does is it has this blade on it, and what you can do is you can put, it's basically a way of cutting around things and, like, getting behind things. So, for instance, if the cabinets weren't, like, coming off of the wall because there's some, let's say there was a screw that was holding the cabinets on the wall, but that screw itself, like, it's stripped out, the head of it is stripped out, and you can't actually use a screwdriver to unscrew it. You could use the multi-tool to just go behind the cabinet, potentially, and literally cut through the screw. It's just got this kind of vibrating, oscillating little blade thing that's just very handy to cut into various things and cut into weird areas with. Not to be confused with a Sawzall, which also will work for that, too, by the way, like a Milwaukee Sawzall, which is basically just like a thing that has a long blade on it, and you can use that for cutting around things and cutting things up.

But anyway, what was in that case didn't really matter. My point was just sort of the good feeling that I got, like, walking into this little job site when I got home last night. I was like, oh, man, this is really good.

So obviously through next week and maybe the week after, you said you don't know the timeline. I mean, you must have some sense. This isn't a month-long job. This is probably a week-long job, right?

No, I think it'll be longer than that, especially depending—because they're doing other jobs, too.

Oh, are you doing can lighting? Like, what's the lighting going to be like?

So I think we're maybe – we're just having a conversation about that. Like there was already – there's just like all this random can lighting up in the ceiling on different switches that makes no sense. Oh, nice. And so we just got this – there's one up there now. And so Veeves and I actually just got into a disagreement in front of them. That's the one problem about trying to like figure this out on the fly is also you're then having some pretty tense conversations.

Why do you think that I did this whole home project as a divorcee?

Yeah, right.

Because the previous home project I did was not, as a married person, that, boy, there were some stressful times, intense times.

So there's this one light, this terrible ceiling fixture with just terrible lighting that they sort of, it stuck down. Instead of being flush with the ceiling, it stuck down from the ceiling by about an inch and a half or something like that, which blocked a cupboard. Are you kidding me? You would open a cupboard and it would go, donk, donk. You could only open the cupboard about three quarters of the way or something like that. And anyway, so he's going to totally remove that and then, yeah, put another can up there. And then he was saying, and probably put another one over here, right? I'm like, yes, for symmetry, like basically just two of them above us. And then Vives and I are thinking also, potentially, depending on what our cabinetry is, some lighting underneath the cupboards, kind of above the sink and everything. And Genevieve's like, no, no, just one light is fine. The one that's already there, just put basically a can light up there. And I'm like, well, we want two, one on the other side. And she just couldn't understand why we would want that. And I think that the workers were like, yeah, they weren't weighing in too much.

Because otherwise you're going to have part of this kitchen area that doesn't have any overhead light.

Well, it's a very small area. So I think Genevieve's point was like, well, how much light do you need in here? It's going to be... be super bright and i and i was saying well i would like it to be on a dimmer too like two lights on a dimmer and she's like well why are we why are we doing that if if one light will do and i and at one point adrian just said i think it's symmetry symmetry and i was like yeah it's just like because we're doing it and so that's where maybe some of the tension is like i don't want to just say yes to everything as if money has no meaning but we're only going to do this once in our life and yeah i don't want to look at like why didn't i just do it it's definitely the time this

is this is how these projects by the way i can see both of your perspectives on this because like this is also how like projects like this or you know what i mean home improvement stuff when you're hiring people how it can kind of get like out of hand because there is a mentality of going like well the wall's already gonna be open the ceiling's already gonna be open let's we might

as well do it now you might as well put in that gold toilet exactly like i mean we'd look you

know we've already got the plumbing we're already digging you know let's just do the gold toilet like you can get into a mindset where it's like and and that's as you would imagine more my tendency is like well we might as well you know completely redo the whatever because we've got the wall open and when are we gonna have the wall open again and you got to be careful that that doesn't just cause the scope of the project to go wildly crazy but on the other hand there is something to that when are you going to have have somebody there who's going to cut into the ceiling and put a can light in and you know like you might as well that can light is going to cost you an extra i would probably for the labor and the parts and whatever it's going to cost you three to four hundred dollars exactly what i was thinking you know and and you will forget about that three to four hundred dollars but for years to come when you turn the light on it will just be a little

bit better and i'm it's kind of my theory and i love the idea that we were talking about and i was the one who threw it out there because me and adrian were just talking about lighting and i was like you know what i can't remember what he said and i was like you know what i am weird about lighting because he was like talking because what we have in there right now is just really really garish and it's like three different switches for three different things that are uh anyway it just doesn't whoever installed this stuff they did it without any rhyme or reason yeah but you know how much i talk about lighting and so like you do it's a big deal to you so as i'm having this conversation i'm like yeah lighting is important to me and so you were asking me before about like what what is maybe like a coat hook moment for me or something like once i sort of realized like oh yeah adrian let's put a dimmer switch there and like i can come in here and we can like my favorite time of a kitchen is like after dinner like nine or ten o'clock at night now this is our kitchen now we're not actually doing real cooking down here anyway but then you just turn on like the the little overhead light on the stove exactly on the hood lamp or whatever and it just has that little glow. The kitchen is all clean. You can still smell chili a little bit, but like that's in the news.

Occasional ice depositing into the ice maker.

Oh, that's right.

I wish I had, yeah, I wish I had that, but yeah. The rumble of the ice maker.

I love the idea of like coming down here, going around the corner, playing darts, coming around the corner to grab a beer or a soda or something and like just having this nice warm glow with these fadable lights, like that to me stirs something. Oh, it stirs. I'm going to, I'll be there today.

I'll be there for the ribbon cutting. I'll be there day one, man. I'm excited. I've run out of projects. And Alexander wept. And Burbixander wept because there were no more rooms to remodel. Now I've got a new project. It's yours.

You know what's interesting? And this is something that came up. Because Vives and I, we want it to be modern and simple. You kind of know our tastes. And the basement has a little bit of an industrial feel to it anyway. And usually I lean into kind of industrial-ness of design, sort of. I don't know if it's industrial, but I put those little lockers in my basement bathroom that I kind of like. It's a little – but we were looking at photos of like kind of open shelving sort of. But one of the things that we were looking at was also that kind of open shelving that's made of actual like physical pipes. You can actually see the pipe fittings sort of, you know, which is a look.

And then it's got like wood kind of shelves that rest on the kind of like – yeah, that piping. I know that look.

And I think I'm changing a little because there is a time that I think I would have really wanted that. I really like simple but quasi-industrial. I could see that really working for me. But I don't know. I don't know if it's because it feels, as somebody who pays way more attention to this stuff, who pays any attention to this stuff compared to me, everybody is an expert. But that sort of feels like of a different, it seems like that was very popular a while back. And now it seems a little bit past. And it feels like I don't want that. I don't want that sort of like rough-hewn piping where you can, you know, you might have an elbow joint there or whatever. It feels a little, it feels a little Qdoba-y, or not Qdoba.

Or even like if you went to a brewery.

Yeah, yeah, a little bit like a brewery or like, why can't I think of, what is the Chipotle, not Qdoba. What is it with my brain that I'm going to Qdoba before Chipotle? Well, I mean, they're in the same neighborhood. Yeah, but you know how.

standpoint but chipotle has that really industrial they usually have that galvanized metal in there you know and all of that stuff and it just felt a little bit like that to me i i think you're so

i think you're so right and again i don't want to like i don't want to start weighing in on design decisions um because you guys obviously can do that for yourself but one thing that i when i was doing stuff around my place and i guess i'll find out in 10 years if i was successful or not was i was trying to be really aware of like what is very in style right now and what is going to be very obviously something from 10, 15, 20 years ago. Yeah. In 10, 15, 20 years, there's a lot of really popular, really elaborate tiling schemes that people do now. And I, and I, you know, they look great right now, but they're very, um, like something I just was trying to make it so that if you, ideally, if you walked into my place in 10 years, you wouldn't have that moment that we've all had. We're like, Oh, so this was remodeled in 2023. Like, Oh, I remember when that was the most you know popular way to do that and now we're not doing that anymore and it's very much of a time i was trying to kind of like just keep it nice and general yes it were just like something that's gonna hopefully you know jeans and a white t-shirt right right of finishes like so you know you know with a few different things that i feel like i can swap out later like the cabinets that i put in i could paint them they're like a kind of a faux wood that i like right now but i think they will look out of style in a while but i also can just paint them a solid color so all that is to say I think you're smart to avoid anything that's like really really in style in the moment because it just means it's going to and then of course if you can wait 30 years it will go back in style but it's like you know do you want to have to be constantly waiting for the pendulum to swing

back but and also I just don't know if it's my style anymore or for what I'm picturing for this and it's just I don't know this is probably just boring as I sort of think about this out loud but like kind of growing up not just growing up like in the rust belt but also being of the rust belt you know what i mean my dad in cleveland ohio ran a metal fabrication shop and so i always had an appreciation for like what he could would sort of do or have the guys in the shop do as he would say like i had the guys in the shop bend this up and i have this shelf now or whatever and he could do some pretty cool things that was a sort of like industrial designy look that i like but i there's something about and this is where i'm going to get a little bit rude towards artists which is really a lane that i want to be in but there's something about a lot of public art in Seattle that is that metal industry it seems to be born of that sort of metal industrial look like and I've said this before like a lot of the obviously not talking about our dear friend Megan Kelso like public art or um you know like I love that I don't know if you've seen it or or how well it's holding up now but when they opened up I think it was the capitol hill light rail they had ellen forney who also was a tv tale guest at one point i remember yeah um i love her style and they did a whole wall of her bright she did this huge mural in that so i love some of that public art but a lot of public art around seattle is this metal kind of industrial look where you can sort of see the welds or you emphasize like

those like sort of it's something that will likely does develop a patina as it sort of rusts maybe maybe oh no you're thinking more okay i know what you're i know what you're describing

not exactly what i was saying like picture when you're at the ballard locks and they have those sort of they look they're supposed to make you think of waves sort of but they're like you can see the rivets of the metal and honestly look at a lumen field when you see that main you know the main view of lumen field when you're coming down from the south and you it has like three or four different colors of metal and it looks very 90s it looks very 90s industrial sort of grunge like a little bit of this and a little bit of that and then we're going to weld it together and it's just kind of like i i don't know if seeing too much of that style of stuff around seattle has turned me off of bringing it into my own home well i'm glad i mean i'm glad

you're thinking about this in advance as opposed to just kind of like i don't know going with that flow or or not thinking about it in advance and then having it in your house and kind of wondering years from now if like that was the right call i think i think it's you're going at in a smart way. I'm just very excited for that moment for you when you walk into that little kitchenette area and you grab your beer and the light is just right and you're really showing DartBot who's boss and Bingo is cuddled up somewhere and like everything is everything is right for at least a few minutes. That's a good feeling. They've come to

calling Bingo the foreman or the supervisor I believe because Bingo is just and I keep saying like do you want me to put Bingo upstairs like we have so many ways of he can have the whole upstairs half of the house right But they're like, no, absolutely. I asked one of the workers, and he's like, no, Adrian, be mad. That's his supervisor. Like, bingo is part of this project.

all right let's thank some donors these folks are making tbtl possible with their donation and um we are sure grateful i'll tell you what andrew let me also while we're on the subject if this is okay let me remind folks that if you are someone who is what we call a dazzling donor if that's the donation amount that you've been donating at uh we sent out an email a little while ago, um, uh, sort of giving folks the opportunity to, um, fill out a little form. Basically as a dazzling donor, we will happily read a message from you about just about any topic you want. And, um, and we have, we're very blessed that we have a pretty decent list of dazzling donors, but if I understand right, we haven't, we've heard back from, from a handful of folks, but there's still some people out there that I, the main thing is we want to make sure that everybody who wants to put a message in can put a message. And I think we're sending out another

one today or send one out today that doesn't have any links in it. We're having some issues with our email, but I sent out the newsletter earlier today, and it looks like it went into people's inboxes. So we are definitely on the upswing here. But yeah, check your inbox if you're somebody who is a Dazzling Donor, and we're going to start reading those messages on the air. And if I recall, when we read those messages on the air, you're the one who reads them, Luke, right? I do blurs days, you do Dazzling Donors. So I would say Dazzling Donors make it dirty. I mean, just as filthy as possible so that we can hear Luke read your filthy, filthy words.

But so if you would like to, if you are a person who's doing a dazzling donation and you're wondering why you haven't received this, hopefully this next one will get to you. And the other thing is if you're somebody who's donating and you're like, but I also don't want a homework project, that is also totally fine. But we just want to make sure that everybody who wants to post a message or have us read a message, however filthy, is able to do that. So look for that in your inbox, please, if you're a Dazzling Donor. Meanwhile, if you're an Angela Anderson of Seattle, Washington, we want to thank you. Angela. Angela is one of our supporters today. Thanks, Angela. Thank you.

I hope I did not offend you with my conversation about some Seattle public art projects as a Seattleite.

Angela is a known, she loves nothing more than a giant piece of sheet metal that looks like someone went absolutely nuts with an angle grinder on it.

Yes. You know what I'm talking about.

That kind of, like, chrome, but then it's been sanded with one of those round sanders. Remember on the David Letterman, like, will it blend, will it float, those segments that he would do?

Sort of. I think I know of them more than actually seeing them myself.

It's just, like, the levels of comedy and weirdness to them. They do these, like, this little game, like, will something, could you blend something in, like, a super high-power blender, or will it float if you throw it into water? but when they would announce that that's the little project they were going to do he would have these two kind of almost rocket style models come out these women in kind of like a dress and eventually and they kept adding to the flair for these women and eventually I remember one of them one of the women had an angle grinder she was wearing a cod piece of metal and then she would just run this angle grinder on it and it would just shoot sparks I remember I know nothing of this I remember there was like they just kept adding adding what was going on with these two kind of women like sort of showcase models and I just remember Letterman just spending the entire segment talking about the grinder that she had that she could grind on this like piece of metal she was wearing so as to create sparks it's so great I'll tell you what else is great Kami Suzuki down there in Pasadena

California hey pass the donuts that's right thanks Kami that's something I came up with a while back you can use it if you want

you also invented south of queso and pass the donuts

I did, of course.

Thank you, Kimmy. We really appreciate you. Thanks also to Dane Royer, who's in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

Hey, thank you, Dane. I appreciate that.

You can get Wisconsin 106 out there in Stevens Point.

Yeah. Well, everybody can listen online if you're willing to stream it.

If there's a question that you'd like to ponder. That's right. They'll get to it, I promise. Thanks, Dane. Thanks to Joyce Robertson in Seattle, Washington. A lovely, lovely place to be from. Absolutely.

We know Joyce, and we've met Joyce at the picnics and everything. Good to see your name here, Joyce. Thanks.

Speaking of Seattle, I'm considering, I'm going to talk after the donors just briefly. I know we're already getting long in the tooth here, and we're posting late today, but I want to tell you about my football-watching plans for the Super Bowl, but I'm also thinking about breaking my long-running no gear, no wearing Seahawks stuff to watch the Seahawks, because I've been seeing so many cool vintage Seattle T-shirts, and then some that are not even vintage they're they're made new but they're like in the style of vintage t-shirts yes so it's like this is where the algorithm has really figured me out it's like he loves this football team but he isn't just going to wear like a ken walker jersey He likes something that looks like it was in 1987 when we were rooting for the Seahawks.

There is some super clean-looking retro Seahawks stuff that I see. When I was getting on the plane, I think leaving Vegas, but heading back to Seattle, so you have a lot of Seahawks fans on the plane, I saw somebody— you know how you get a great view of people's hats when you're boarding the plane? You're usually first class, so you don't see as many hats as I do, but I'm walking down.

I've been coaching it up lately, that's for sure.

But somebody just had on that really sweet blue hat, not royal, just like Seahawks blue hat, and it just says in plain text, Seattle Seahawks, and nothing more than that, just the text. Yes, that's Chuck Knox. What is that? It was Chuck Knox.

Chuck Knox was our coach, and he used to wear, that was the hat he would wear, it just said Seattle Seahawks.

It was so cool. I don't think I've ever worn football gear. I guess I had some Browns t-shirts, but I'd usually wear those under my other shirts anyway. It just kept kept the Browns closer to my heart. But, you know, like I'm not somebody who's ever like worn a baseball cap with a Browns or Seahawks logo on it. I'm just generally not into football designs. But I feel like the Seahawks are really locking it in on some of this retro stuff.

Yeah, they've got me figured out. And then the algorithms have found me. So anyway, all that was on the subject of Joyce being in Seattle. I don't know what my thoughts are on wearing Nittany Lions gear, but I know that Shannon Kennan is in State College, Pennsylvania, out there in Happy Valley.

Do you know that I did have a Nittany Lions hat, coincidentally? I think it was a hat because my cousin got married there in State College when I was in college myself, or maybe I was a senior in high school or something. I still don't understand what a nittany lion is, and I thought that they were teasing me. That's a great question.

I've never taken a moment to actually ask myself, what makes that lion nittany?

I don't know. It doesn't sound fiercer, that's for sure, and I'm glad that they've decided to specify.

Well, thank you so much, Shannon, for supporting the show. And then look who it is. It's Lucian Banning there in Olympia, Washington. Just a hop, skip, and a jump from where I am right now. Nice. Thank you very much, Lucien. And thank you to all of our donors for making TBTL possible. It's a minor miracle that we are here all these years later, and it's because of you generous folks. So thank you very much. Hello and welcome to Top Story. um i was uh talking on i know at some point a while ago on the show about how if the seahawks were to make the super bowl that would create a bit of an issue for me potentially because i am the kind of person who instead of thinking oh a super bowl watching party with a bunch of people that will be even more fun when my team is in the super bowl it's kind of the opposite i go into this really hyper anxious state of needing to like just have total focus for myself on the game and i just know that if i'm in a group setting there's just going to be a lot of people in the group setting who are what do they call them normal and just like hey it's a football game hey we're having some we're having some snacks hey i just watch it for the commercials like i know that that that's the more healthy and normal response i also know that that could make me lose my damn mind if somebody says the wrong thing to me in a in a sensitive moment so uh so i was like well i i maybe i'll watch you know if the c i didn't think the cx were going to go to the super bowl first of all but i was like well if they go maybe i'll just watch it at my house or something but that's of course very anti-social and there's the very fact that like becca's brother and his wife have for the whole time that i've known them they always have a super bowl party and particularly darcy who's becca's sister-in-law she loves putting the super bowl party on she bakes a bunch of great snacks and gets it all ready and the bar is stocked and it's like a it's a kind of a yearly highlight for them and she and i are really friendly and we you know talk she i give her betting tips on like she was there when harrison butker did that doink that won me a bunch of money and that was what i think piqued her interest in sports gambling but anyway so i i had said at some point if the sea house gets in the super bowl i can't come to this watching party because it's like i i'm too crazy i'm too weird about this but then i also realized like what have i lost in my humanity if like when this team that i love is going to be in this biggest of games i have to be watching it by myself like howard hughes i have to be peeing into a jar and growing up my fingernails and and here in my house alone pacing does that indicate that this is a positive in my life that that's how i have to enjoy it or experience it so i was like what if instead of doing that i just learned and by the way uh watching the nfc championship game in florida with becca that was great for me

because it forced me to watch the game and feel my feelings but also not become a complete freakazoid but you were still pacing you're still watching through a window which you know in a crowded room gets a little bit harder totally yes i was pacing i was watching from the balcony i was doing a lot of weird things but what i wasn't doing was yelling profanities or being like i wasn't i wasn't when a bad thing happened i wasn't going to a dark place that's like upsetting to be around if you're like you know with that person but you don't you know so much care about the game which is what i'm concerned about in this viewing party is that if something bad happens i'll be so mad i'll want to go like punch a wall or something yeah but but what i can do and what i experienced with the nsu championship game is i can experience the highs and it doesn't i think i've i i've been of the opinion that in order to enjoy the highs of these games i have to also experience the lows and that the the feelings have to be so negative when it's bad so that then when it's positive i'm even you know and what i want on the nfc thankfully there weren't i mean there were some lows like in the nfc championship game certainly when uh they went ahead at the end of the first half and they threw that little like touchdown pass i think to williams and he was uncovered and he kind of scooted into the end zone and all of a sudden we're like losing i think 13 to 10 and there's a minute and something left and i'm like i'm i'm like i felt bad about it But what I didn't do is I didn't start swearing. I didn't start. I did text you guys that they should take Rick Willen's helmet, but I didn't say that to Becca. I didn't say that to Becca. That was important. I didn't go like, I didn't like start screaming at her about the fact that Rick Willen had more taunting penalties than any other player in the league. All that is to say, I decided I'm going to watch the game at Jeff and Darcy's house with everyone, but I'm going to set up a separate viewing area near their house. So they live on this big property. That's actually the property that Becca grew up on. There's like the house that she grew up in where her parents lived for many years. And then this is in Salem in the Willamette Valley. Then down the hill, there's another home. That's where Jeff and Darcy live. And then in between them, there are these couple of barns. One of them is called the White Barn. Her mom is a phenomenal painter. And one of the barns is where her painting studio is. Her mom kind of goes back and forth now between like living in sort of a retirement home situation in Portland and then staying sometime back on the property in Salem. But she's still got this barn, the White Barn. And I realized the White Barn is a two-minute walk from Jeff and Darcy's house. So what I'm going to do is, I think we're literally going to go down there Saturday night and stay over so that Sunday morning I can get up. I'm going to bring my projector from here. I'm going to bring my laptop. I'm going to bring my YouTube TV account. And I'm going to set up an area where the game is playing, where I'm projecting it in the barn right by their house so I can go out there if I need to stim. If I need to go and do my thing, I can go and do my thing and then I can go back into the house. I've got options.

I guess Jeff is actually, maybe even today, going to check the Wi-Fi. I didn't ask him to do this. It's very nice. He's going to go out there and basically get eyes on everything and make sure that the Wi-Fi works sufficiently out there and that there's a good setup for me. I feel like this is fairly Solomonic. We'll find out together.

but like i predict that if you end up in in the white barn with no wi-fi i have a feeling that if you did was better if you end up in the in the white barn it's i have a feel no no i think it's going to be fine but you're not going to be there alone somebody is going to come with you that's one thing that is somebody else who cares about football unless you have like some sort of plans to uh barricade the door or something i was thinking about writing no girls but like with One of my favorite jokes from the Simpsons is they have a Homer is a child. It's a flashback. And there is a sign that says no homers allowed or something. He's like, but you have the other Homer there. And it says no homers as in no, you can't have more than one Homer. Anyway, I have a feeling that in the same way that like the back of the Eagles last week became the pacing parlor. like I needed to be away from everybody and so I started pacing but then other people and again I'm not saying that they were coming to talk to me but I think other people were just like oh good there's a pacing corner yes and you just sort of end up pacing back and forth and like I can see somebody but it's going to be anybody who follows you back to the white barn is the only way I can say it is going to be invested in the game

100%

in a similar way as you

Yes, if someone's got that same energy and they need to go be in the, you know, in the in the weird pacing viewing area, that's totally fine. All are welcome. But what I want to mostly do is make sure that, like, if my energy and anxiety levels go to some sort of place that I'm having a difficult time managing, I'm not going to be ruining the party for people or like overly. tense about it i've got somewhere i've got a pressure release i can go somewhere else and watch it and and do whatever i need to do in terms of pacing and stuff now the other thing i was going to say is what sort of helped me watching the nfc championship game is other than that moment where the seahawks were losing uh where they went down in the the the first half they they led throughout the game i mean they came back and scored a touchdown to end the first half and then they never relinquished that lead and now it was very scary it was very stressful there were so many times where it was like by the way did you see that there's this analysis that uh the one of the plays that not that not the i think it might have been the fourth down play when the rams were about they were on like the four or five yard line that basically there was these two plays that uh that devin witherspoon broke up the last the third down pass on the fourth down pass i think it might have been i don't know if it was a third or the fourth down pass but there was a play where demarcus lawrence actually messed up his coverage but it saved the game for us it saved that down i've been when i tell you andrew that i have spent the last couple of days just deep deep into the schematics of the scheming of these games and cover high shell and like somehow what tiktok has decided to give me is dudes who are breaking down the seahawks game like with the you know with the telestrator to a totally unbelievably specific degree like i probably have there's there's probably not a game that i have more understanding of the scheming of the game and what worked and didn't work than that last game because all i've been getting on and i'm just watching it i'm endlessly fascinated so there was a play where demarcus lawrence is supposed to blitz but either because he wisely saw that this running back was about to get past the cornerback and basically get open in the end zone for whatever reason demarcus lawrence breaks off his blitz and starts running back into pass coverage and effectively double covers this guy which means that matt stafford can't go there and stafford has to end up going to this other guy in the back of the end zone and it's an incomplete pass but like like and then you see mike mcdonald on the sideline like yelling line line like he's mad that demarcus lawrence isn't blitzing but then he's like so happy when of course the the coverage ends up working but okay so all that is to say i think what helped me watching the nfc championship game was that the seahawks were in scary but okay position throughout what will be the real test of the new luke of luke who can roll with it of luke who can can keep a better perspective on these things will be how this game goes how the super bowl goes for the seahawks if the seahawks managed to come out to a pretty strong start i mean i think the seahawks on paper are the vastly superior team to the patriots i

don't think that that ensures us a victory at all but i i would rather be us than them and what i would love nothing more you know the other thing i've been re-watching last night i re-watched all of the highlights of the super bowl against the broncos oh the oh yeah yeah what a weird thing

to do what they started with the ball did they fumble right away what was the first they had a

safety they i think it's the second play of the game they snap it over peyton manning yeah it goes out the back of the end zone so it was like like they we kicked off to them they had a they and They had a safety, so we were leading 2-0 like a minute into the game.

Yes, I remember.

And didn't let off from there.

You know where I think I was? This is just for you, by the way, not the audience. I think I was at Colin Campbell's house in Los Angeles watching that. I remember because I don't think anybody there were really Broncos fans or Seahawks fans, but I was living in Seattle. Wait a second. Could that possibly be true? Hold on, Luke. This doesn't matter, but help me out here. i was in la for both of the seahawks most recent superbowls yeah there's no way i was at collins house for that sorry it doesn't really matter because the because you were involved in in both of them in some way or another you weren't in la with me but the first one that we won was the one where i got too drunk to finish the show you and i were checking in via phone and recording ourselves and then and i was holding that table for everybody and whatever that bar was called not the backstage, the one in Koreatown that was a Seahawks bar. And I got too drunk to finish the final segment with you. I said, you've got to do this yourself. No judgment. And that was the one we won. So I was definitely not. That was the one we won, and then we went the following year.

Did we do a show on the one we lost?

You and I did not do a show. We weren't checking in like every quarter like we were for that one. But I have a very distinct memory of that second one, watching it at my friend's house. and they were the two hosts the women who uh you know were living there and hosting the party were legit Seahawks fans and legit um football fans at least one of them especially and so they were the opposite of like why is everybody so sad mode like they were they were devastated too and I remember you and I must I don't remember taking my recorder there but I remember being on the phone with you after that game were both trying to console each other and i'm drunk and i'm outside in their bushes i want to have a memory of this i have a vague memory of being in their bushes and then they come and i'm record i swear i'm recording with you we must have brought our recorders just in case like wherever you were and me at their house because then i remember them coming in and like kind of crashing the recording and just being like what happened what happened what's the energy i needed to be around

I was at this viewing party at a loft on Capitol Hill where I had been the previous year. So it worked out year one, but then year two. And by the way, you know, the design scheme in that loft, Andrew, a lot of pipes.

Yeah, I've been there. I watched a game with you there one time.

Yeah. So but anyway, the true test for me will be how do I handle it? When if the Seahawks maybe don't get off to the hottest start or if there are some points in the game where there's a call that I violently disagree with or whatever. That's where I'm going to try to, particularly if I'm in the house with the normals watching the game, I'm going to try to just remember it is, in fact, a game. It is only a game, and it'll be all right. But the idea that I have a refuge I can run to and get all my wiggles out, that's making me feel... I'm feeling good about this. I'm feeling like this might be the perfect solution to this because I can be around people that I like, but I also can go be by myself if I need to.

I think it's going to end up being the kitchen of a house party. You know how everybody gravitates toward the kitchen? At first, it's just like the shy. There's like one Andrew in the kitchen with the cat or something, and then another shy person comes in, and you're both talking about the cat. And I keep on making it sound like people gravitate towards me. I don't mean it that way. I just mean that people are always kind of like, oh, this is a chiller room in here or whatever. And then it ends up being, oh, now everybody's in the kitchen.

Totally. Can you imagine, fourth quarter, all 25 people are in the barn. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. There's no one in the house.

Except for the host who's mad.

No, no, Darcy's in there, too. Everyone's, for some reason, we've all relocated the entire thing to this other place. That would be actually kind of hilarious.

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

All right, a couple of emails or V-mails before we head on out of here for the weekend. I'm doing my favorite thing ever, Andrew, which is I'm logging into my TV Teal account, which, by the way, has been actually pretty – it's worked well for me of all my belly aching.

It's really funny to be – we had our first experience where I really am the email administrator. Like, I'm the Zach at Cairo or whatever. You were having issues, and you couldn't log in. Have you been vaping so much? It said, I got a new rig. You got to see it. It's about the size of a small Toyota.

For those who don't know, this guy that we used to do IT at the radio station was the most intense vapor. But his vape, not pen, what would you call it? It was literally like the size of a small vehicle.

Yeah, it was. I believe they called it the Tercel of vaping. Yes. But anyway, it was funny. You couldn't get into your email, and you got a note back that said, well, you have to contact your administrator. And I guess I am the email administrator for tbtl.net. So there you go. Did you find what you're looking for?

I did. Thank you. I mentioned this email earlier in the week. It's been a really tough time for people in this country and for our friends in Minnesota in particular right now who are experiencing this government action in a really acute way. But for the rest of us, it's also just been so sort of like it's a feeling of powerlessness and it's a feeling of being terrified for what this means for our country. And then also having moments of of fun, like the Seahawks winning the NFC championship. And it's like, is it OK to enjoy your silly football team doing a thing at the same time when we have such awful things happening nationally? And we started the show. I think it was Monday talking about because I was in Florida. i was in beautiful warm florida in the afterglow of the seahawks winning and i just kind of didn't know if that was irresponsible of me to also be experiencing those kind of good feelings as well and we you and i both talked about that at the beginning of the show sarah said hey fellas i appreciated your opening uh today about podcasting our beloved inane podcast to us all even when so much terrible shit is going on i felt very much seen uh when you talk about the murders in minneapolis so thank you i get it i think we all get it and i will defend to the death your right to podcast. I've just bought another package of ice whistles. Link at the bottom if you're interested. And I don't think you, Luke and Becca, needed to go to Minnesota to care. All are true. This shit is hard. Thank God for TBTL. And thank you guys. It's okay to feel joy even if the government is so goddamn bad. This was the part of Sarah's email that I really liked. She said,

Some mountains feel too tall, but they're not if we're climbing together. Oh, wow. Which I was like, wow, that's really, really, really well stated, Sarah. And, you know, it works in a little TBTL lingo there as well. So, Sarah, thank you for that email. That meant a lot to me. And, you know, that will not cure my crippling self-doubt about what our tone should be on a given week. But I appreciated getting that from you, Sarah. Thanks so much.

And I wanted to follow up with an email that I had referenced, I believe, on yesterday's show. that I can't believe I have not written back to Molly yet, by the way. Molly sent this in three days ago, and I was so excited to get this email. I'm not joking. You sent it to me. I was so excited to get this email that I did not feel like I should respond right away because I wanted to think about, I wanted to write a proper email response. But the problem with that is now it's three days later, and I never wrote back at all. And this is literally, I can't rank every email I've gotten through the TBTL account since I started on this show with you, Luke, back in 2012, But this is certainly top five, if not the most, the email that has filled me with the most delight. And it is referencing this tape that I was playing for you earlier this week. I found this on an old VHS tape that I got at a garage sale. I was digitizing commercials like I like to do as my hobby. And for the first time ever, I grabbed the tape that was minimally labeled. It just somebody had written Bubbles Easter on it, and it did not involve your cat Bubbles. And I put it in, and it was about 15 minutes of what we would call kind of home video, only it didn't take place in the home. It seemed to take place in the Bitter Lake Community Center. And it was a woman clearly behind the camera who was, you know, I can picture it, even though obviously you never see the camera. It's probably up on her shoulder, right? And she's interviewing all of these kids who are getting ready for their big Easter egg hunt and then later on to make these big bubbles outside on Easter. and it sounded like her name because all these kids are coming up to her and saying hi and it sounds like they're calling her Derry D-E which was R-R-Y

a name I'd never heard before

me neither and I thought maybe they're saying Terry but it's just like it's just this is I'm going to see I'm going to hit play on this again just to reset the scene this is inside like a gymnasium I think in the Bitter Lake Community Center 1994 I should say Hi Terry Hi Terry Hi Terry these little kids are waving at her with their easter egg baskets or whatever saying hi dairy hi dairy and i played this on the show because i wanted to see you know with our very seattle-based audience a lot of these folks being around our age who would have been kids around this time like does anybody know does anybody know any of the people in this do you know who dairy or terry is i got this email from listener molly the subject line is dairy with the d at bitter lake was the best double exclamation point uh molly says i was delighted by your segment about the bitter lake community center's 1994 easter egg hunt with dairy i went to the elementary school adjoining bitter lake community center and i attended aftercare and summer camp with dairy If you do decide to upload to YouTube, let me know. To brag, I did win the All-American Girl Award from Bitter Lake Camp one summer. And while I don't know if Derry was the one who picked the winners, I'm going to pretend that she had something to do with the selection. So, anyway. Oh, I love this. At one point, Derry walks in front of the camera, and I got eyes on her. And I was sort of describing her. She was wearing a button-down kind of oversized. You know, it's 1994. so it's like this kind of oversized button down shirt with kind of big polka dots on it like big and at one point she got close to the camera and I could see that inside the big polka dots was another design like a kind of a design within the design but I couldn't tell what was inside and I need to go back to that tape and enhance enhance because Molly says by any chance was the polka dot over shirt that you described her wearing a Mickey or Minnie Mouse themed shirt it's been a while and I would have been about seven or eight years old when I was at Bitter late camp, but my memory is that she loved Disneyland and often wore Disney-themed attire. Thinking back on it, though, perhaps she wore Disney-related things because she was working with kids. But anyway, so I need to take a better look at that. I forgot to check that before reading this email, but my goodness Molly, I cannot put into words... I do all of this digitizing and it gives me a feeling when I'm doing it. It feels special to me all the time. I feel like I'm stumbling on something that is truly, truly unique. Like, nobody else has this videocassette tape, right? Like, this is gone. Unless they happen to digitize it before they just loaded it into a box and, you know, put it up for sale at a garage sale. I think this was a box that I even asked. I'm like, do you have any home videotapes? You know, like, because I digitize commercials. They're like, yeah, just take the box. So, like, I don't think anybody has seen this since probably 1994 or 1996. I doubt there's any other digital.

copies of it and I kind of maybe take it too seriously I feel like it's really history and so I feel special to find this stuff but then to be able to come on the show and hear somebody say oh yeah I know that person like that I literally you said yesterday something about maybe the Germans have a word for it maybe the Germans have a word for it because I don't know how to describe the emotion it gives me but it's it's good and it's delightful and it's some sort of joy that feels even bigger than that to me. So thank you, Molly.

It's like a connection. Also, that's got to be the first time, right, that somebody associated with one of the things that you've digitized has actually made contact, right?

Yeah, I mean, certainly, because usually what I digitize are TV commercials. So actually, that's not entirely true. I have heard from people. In fact, we even had one fella on our show on After These Messages because I digitized a McDonald's commercial from the 90s that included a kid's choir. They were singing, or I think it was a, doesn't matter, I think it was a Pizza Hut commercial because it was about deep dish pizza and all these kids are singing in these high angelic voices. Then one of them takes a bite of the deep dish pizza and he starts singing really low like this. Well, somebody wrote to me and said, I've been looking for this for a long time. I'm one of the kids in the choir. And we had him on the show and he was one of the best guests we have ever had. He was amazing and he recently got back into acting, although he was invited into this set because of his involvement in his school choir. But all of that is to say that has happened several times where people are like, I've been looking for this. I was in this commercial and that's really special too.

Yeah, well it was Molly was the name of the person. Molly, yep. Now do we have to then, Molly, can you give us more information on Derry? I mean, is that the next, I mean, we don't have to turn it into this but I mean, are we trying to interview Derry about her experience Or are we just enjoying the fact that Derry was obviously an awesome teacher and person, or whatever her exact job was, that Derry was just really great at this, and that can be enough?

I would love to. So here's the deal. So I keep on talking about all these tapes that I find at garage sales, right? But the truth is, it's all a lie. None of this is real. It's all kayfabe. No, I've only actually acquired VHS tapes from two sources, not counting some listeners who have sent me one or two here and there. But it was two different garage sales, and they were both in the – is it the Bitter Lake area? Because there's this neighborhood that has a neighborhood-wide garage sale day every summer. And Vives and I went two years, not quite in a row. But it's kind of – I want to describe it to you as where somebody who we both know lives, but that would dox them. Anyway, it's kind of a nicer area. And I think when I picked up each of these boxes about two years apart, I think I made a note somewhere of the address of the house because I think I told both parties, like, if I find anything that seems like special home movies or anything, I will get it back to you or I will digitize it and get it to you. And I am trying to figure out where I would have written that information down, and I want to look into that because I don't have any contact information like a phone number or an email address, but I was literally the other day thinking, if I can track down where I got this tape from, should I knock on the door and just say, hey, listen, I did find something that seems sort of personal and not intimate or anything, but something that you guys might want, and I've digitized it. Can I get it to you in some way? And I was sort of wondering about that, but maybe you're right. Maybe if Molly can help, it would be a lot less creepy than knocking on somebody's door, I'll tell you that much. And then I wasn't thinking about having Derry on the show, but that would be amazing if we were able to do that.

Well, maybe we can just reach out via the imaginary radio and say, Molly, if you're hearing this and you have any more information, or if you want to reach out to Derry, let us know. Because maybe that would be, I bet you, again, I don't want to assume anything. We also don't know if Derry's still with us or not. We don't know anything about this. But I could imagine hearing from one of her sort of old students or kids that were participating in this program. I bet you she'd love to hear from you. And maybe that would smooth the way for us having her on and finding out what was going on with all that adult Disney behavior back in the day.

Yes, absolutely. You're ahead of the curve on that, Derry, if you're listening. Yeah. Anyway, really special times. Molly, thank you so much for that.

i'm just delighted yeah fun way to end the week a week that's otherwise got lots of unfun things going on so again thank you everyone for spending this time with us uh that is going to do it for this broadcast week but we are going to be right back here on monday with more imaginary radio for all of you so please come on by for that in the meantime everybody

Have a great Friday. Have a great weekend as well. Stay safe, stay warm, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

It's only a game. Why do you have to be mad? Power out.