Muse

Hi.

Hi. Where's Stevie? Um, I don't know, but she will be back in 15 minutes.

What are you doing?

I'm checking the mail. Did you know that you can still get mail?

Yes, I know about mail.

No, but I'm talking about, like, mail mail. Like a little man in a uniform with his satchel full of letters traveling door to door.

Um, that's a mailman. And he comes to your house, you pay him, and he gives you your stuff. i think it's free delivery i don't think how far into the 15 minutes do you think we are

the faces may not look familiar but the voices this zany radio team have developed a unique

style of frolicking on the airwaves basically i just like coming in and having fun yeah it's a

great way to make a living. Do you have any music, Carl? I have the internet radio. I love internet radio. You've come to the right place, because I have that. Where am I right now? I don't

even remember. Who are you? Who's that handsome hunk of a clam holding those flowers? Are those

for me? Oh, I can't stay mad at you, Goldie. Oh my god, man, we are seeing some shit we ain't never seen before. All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Tuesday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live oh and the adventure begins again my name's luke burbank i'm your host hey cheer up it's taco tuesday coming to you from the madrona hill studio perched high above the mighty columbia where we are seeing some rain and some uh didn't know you like to get wet though some wetness but that's to be expected this time of year we are i've noticed that uh it is staying light a little bit longer the other day was the first time that i was like Oh, you know what? It's like after five, and it's not pitch black out, and that feels real good. Real good. Sort of like arriving at episode 4,670 in a collector series also feels real good.

Let the fun begin.

All right, I know we're a little... They had the closing ceremonies of the Olympics, which is usually an indication that we've now moved on. but i can't move on from the story of this one american ice skater who i honestly was just unbelievably impressed by not just her her skating but her whole je ne sais quoi so we're going to talk i mean i figured he had to be in sport but he wasn't in sport we'll talk winter olympics two days after the uh closing ceremonies uh and also um i had a chilling run-in with someone that I work with using

AI. Does this sound like a musical robot? AI did not

like it, my friends. We'll talk about that. And we're going to say hello to this guy, longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Hey there, Fireball. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend. Good morning,

Luke. I'm playing a dangerous game over here today. Uh-oh. What's that? This is exactly the time of day when Bingo beelines it out of my office to go hang out in the rest of the house because he does not like the sound of me podcasting, which is fine. It's not for everybody. No. Having said that, we do. It's not for most people. It's not for most people, unfortunately. We have workers here today, and I will say, the workers, there's nobody who cares about bingo, not just as safety, but as happiness.

That's nice.

I mean, more than these workers. I mean, maybe they're tied with us. Did I tell you I came out of my office the other day and Adrian, the contractor, was here and he thought I was going to be in my office for a while and I came out and he was doing a little selfie video with Bingo the cat. Did I tell you that? No. Yeah, he's like the cat is on his shoulder and he's walking around the basement narrating some sort of

a... Carry it on his shoulder a Siamese cat.

Yeah, so in other words I mean, he has brought all of his family members over here at some point or another to meet bingo so i know that like they are really looking out for bingo but i figured hey the door is open they're tearing some walls out like maybe it would just be best if bingo stayed in here with me today but what he's doing right now is he doesn't like this he doesn't like the sound he's hearing right now he's pacing by the door and he wants to get out of my studio but i feel safer with him in here but i don't know how long this is going to last until he realizes oh well to get andrew's attention i'm going to start walking on the audio board and start punching all those buttons that mess up the recording he is basically having the experience of

many and 11 of listeners yes he's trapped trapped in a room with this nonsense exactly he can't get away from it and it's bothering him i'm gonna turn you into a 10 bingo uh you know if we could get if we could just get some of the pets in the i mean you know what we never thought about that's maybe some potential audience

for us we've had trouble with humans uh-huh with growing the human audience but if we could get some of the pets donating okay let me try some of the some of the pets just go get your parents

who's a good boy debit card or credit card yeah who's a good boy with access to a debit card or a

credit card who's who's a good boy who remembers the three number code on the back of the card

It's woof, woof, bark.

Do you remember any of that stuff by memory, like the security code on your cards? Do you have to get them out of your wallet every single time?

Well, I now have, like, several systems on my computer. I went from doing the oldest mannest move, which is every time I ordered something online, getting my George Costanza wallet, pulling out my credit card, and filling out all the information. But now I've got an actual password keeper thing. I think we use Dashlane, not Dashlane. What's the one? LastPass, which has all my information in it. I use Google.

I know you and Hayes are on me to do one of these things.

Yeah, he's him more than me, really. In the famous words of my mom, the loving words of my mom, I don't care what you do, which is something Jeff and I say to each other quite a bit. Rest in peace. And so I got that. I got my Google Wallet going on. i've got like uh chrome now remembers some bits of information so when i'm at checkout it's sort of a mad scramble of technology of which one of these services is going to auto complete for me

and some of them remember the last three and some of them don't it's total happenstance for me when it's going to remember it or not and i'm always so happy when it does because i never know where my wallet is i'm you know i'm like in bed or something on my laptop buying something and I have to get up and go find the wallet, dig the card out, figure out what the little three-digit code is. I wanted to talk to you a little bit, Andrew, about a truly chilling event the other day when I was working with someone.

Yes, by your tease at the beginning, I want to hear about this.

It was a minor, it was a quick moment, but it's still, I want to be a little bit vague. Let's just say I was working with someone in the capacity of my television job, and we were going through a script, and we were kind of trying to brainstorm the kind of beginning of this script and we were kind of saying like if someone you know if this is if such and such is this then such and such is that and we were trying to kind of finish finish the sentence um of this sort of comparing if you know comparing this thing to that thing and that would mean this for this other thing i'm sorry it's so vague but if i'm more specific than everyone will be able to figure out what and who i'm talking about and the person that i was working with he was like couldn't figure out how to end this sentence and he goes and he goes okay and he's like he goes let's just we're putting it into chat gpt he plugged in the beginning of our sentence into chat gpt so that it could finish the sentence for us and what was crazy to me was the casualness with which he did this like

how did he do it i mean on his phone is he using speech to text we're i don't know he was in new

york and i was here okay so you're and we were on the telephone together so i don't know what his I assume maybe his laptop but it was like what I thought was oh this guy's been doing this he didn't even go hey get a load of this I'm going to use chat GPT it was just like let me look this up in the dictionary it was second nature already which tells me are we doing that now are we writing our TV scripts are we using chat GPT to finish our sandwiches we finish each other's sandwiches

I was like

it chilled me to my core I felt like that was we're really giving our jobs away to the robots if we do that, right? And again, I'm not trying to shame my friend who I work with, but I found that to be shocking behavior. Is that shocking behavior to you?

Well, unfortunately, no. I mean, it's sort of shocking because you and I, well, me especially, because I don't even have these side gigs, but we're kind of in our own little bubble on this stuff. And I think if we had real jobs where we, you know, a little man comes and delivers the mail, David. And you pay him. Yes. But if we walked to our little jobs, you know, but if we were like having the kinds of meetings that Genevieve has and whatever, I think you'd be surprised at how much people are using these tools. Something struck me. You're familiar with the show Stranger Things on Netflix, right? It had its series finale a while back, and it was mostly, I think, well regarded, right? As far as I know. Actually, I heard a lot of mixed reviews, mostly from my nieces. Yeah, sorry. I was kind of pausing there to cough a little bit. But things were covering for me. But anyway, so Stranger Things came out, but there was a lot of buzz around it, as you know. It was quite a cultural moment, right? And after, or maybe consecutively with the, that's not the word I'm looking for. What's the word? When two things happen at the same time, they released a documentary about the making. Concurrently? Currently is exactly the word I was looking for. And they released a little documentary, a little behind-the-scenes doc, if you'll recall. I don't know if you do recall. But there was a little bit of a backlash because the fan base of this show is so, like, kind of intense and focused, right? That they were breaking down the documentary and doing a lot of pausing and looking at what's in the background. And apparently somebody had a chat. I think one of the show creators was being interviewed, and eagle-eyed fans noticed that he had ChatGPT on in the background. Do you remember this, or are you hearing about this? I don't. This is the first I'm hearing of it. I'm pretty sure it was one of the creators, and so people were like, what? To what degree was ChatGPT used to create this show? And somebody later on is now interviewing one of the showrunners or showmakers about this and the online backlash. And he's like, no, we're not using, you know, ChatGPT to write the show. But, like, who amongst us doesn't have ChatGPT open at all times to help us, you know, finish a sandwich? And that was the general tone of it. And the reason I saw it, because I saw a bunch of people on Blue Sky saying, I'm raising my hand. I do not have ChatGPT open at all times. I do not have ChatGPT.

I literally wouldn't know where to get ChatGPT from.

But I do. I think it might be a generational thing. Like, I'm actually put off by the idea of AI, right? Other people just don't know much about it or aren't necessarily using it. But then I think there are just a lot of people who are just like, yeah, it's just their new Google. Like, what we use Google or used to use Google for. People are just ChatGPTing all kinds of stuff all the time. Like, I know that Genevieve will use it sometimes, you know, in her job as a writer. But she will use it very specifically to generate ideas or an outline or something that she can then fill in as a writer. I don't want to make it sound like the president of the university is reading ChatGPT stuff. But when Genevieve does it, she's doing it in a very like, OK, maybe for this project, I'll turn to this device or this technology to kind of help me see the outline of this. And then I'll do the writing on it or something. But it's still like a deliberate thing, right? Whereas I think other people are just like, yeah, no, it's just, of course, it's the new Google. It's just open all the time, and it's finishing our sentences.

Well, to me, it feels like it depends on what your job is and how you think about your job. So, for instance, if I am somebody who works in sales, and I have to write a certain number of emails or whatever just to kind of, I don't know, let people know what's going on or to pitch something or whatever, but I don't think of my job as really writing. i think of my job as selling then i feel like yeah go for it have chat gpt write your next whatever you know deck or your pitch to a client or i don't know you know just to me it's like for me the only thing i have to offer in my tv job really is these phenomenal good looks but second to that is uh is my writing of these scripts like i take that sort of pretty personally And I also feel like that is, you know, when the robots replace me, it's going to be because they're writing the scripts, too. And then, you know, they'll just have some other voice. You know, there'll be some generated voice that records the voiceover that I do. I feel like if I give away the writing part of this, there's very little that I'm even doing anymore. So that's why it was galling to me. You know, you never, ever, ever used ChatGPT.

Who? Genie Moose.

are you tired of napping using a cap or a sleeve to block out the light the snazzy way to sleep while you travel move over snuggy the blanket that has sleeves the snazzy nappers the new

blanket on the block okay we were randomly texting about genie moo the other day Is it Moose or is it S silent? I don't remember. I think maybe it's not silent. Maybe it's Moose. She probably said, does she say her name at any time in the piece? Let me see if she socks out at the end here.

Does she sock out with it? Let's see. Okay, I hate to skip the entire snazzy napper segment. Well, I mean, how long could it be, a minute? Go for it. It's two and a half minutes. They used to really, yeah, no, no, you're coming from CBS. This is CNN 15 years ago.

But only when I'm covering a snazzy napper or it's covering me. Hello, Jeannie Moose, CNN. You kind of swallowed it.

Jeannie Moose? Jeannie Moose? Anyway. Jeannie Moose? Yeah, so at some point on this very podcast several weeks ago, I did something that I had not done for the first time. Like, this happened several times where I tried to tell you about some sort of TV commentator who sort of lives in my head, and I can never remember her name. Oh, right. And I have no idea why, but this weekend I sat down on the couch for a second. I'm putting on my shoes. The television is on, but it has nothing to do with CNN or commentary or anything, and suddenly the name Jeannie just popped. in my head and i'm like that's the woman that's the i always thought she was with cbs or nbc which is one of the reasons i had trouble finding oh that was yes okay that was who you were trying to remember this is the person that i try to remember yeah you had the wrong network i think that was why i was confused and technically she's a feature reporter not a commentator like but i mean when it's about the snazzy napper i mean there's a pretty fine line between and she would just use tons and tons of like i think it came up because you were talking about like the b-roll somebody was using. Wait, was this an on-air conversation? Who can remember? I don't want to sell out you and your colleagues for the second time during this episode.

I've already spilled the beans that CBS Sunday Morning is using ChatGPT

to write its scripts. Now that I think about this, this might not have even been on this very podcast as I said, but you and I were having a conversation about a piece you were working on, and I will try to be gentle here and I can beep it all out if you want, where some of the B-roll that was being chosen for your commentary was not exactly oh yeah in line with what you had expected or what you pictured while writing it and so i was thinking about like people who would jam in because she genie moose would just if i'm saying her name correctly we'll never know 132 33 30 she would just like her pieces were just jam-packed with just like any like if if a cultural reference came anywhere even near her topic they'd just be bringing it in like this snazzy or i was watching something that she had put together about some sort of new technology one thirty two thirty three thirty supposed to make it easier for ketchup to come out of bottles so like she has to include like the clip of tony soprano getting mad at a ketchup bottle and like everybody who's ever gotten mad at a ketchup bottle in pop culture but it's just like just jam just jammed in there and it's just like rat-a-tat-tat puns and it was Just a type of a type of television that I don't go in for.

Well, it was a whole vibe there for a while, though. That was when I feel like CNN was at the height of its powers. And and like, yeah, Jeannie was definitely the color. She's not there anymore. I'm on her Wikipedia page. But she was sort of the yeah, she would do those kind of, you know, fun. Like they were basically humor pieces. But I mean, I just remember that like CNN, CNN would be on in every like newsroom or bullpen that I was working in. And a couple of times a day, yeah, you'd look up and you'd see Jeannie doing some kind of a funny piece that was full of wordplay. I think that I've worn down the producers of CBS Sunday Morning at this point through just constantly shooting down their ideas for wordplay that now nobody even suggested. I think I've sort of won that battle through just being annoying, I guess, or being a no-but. But because when I first got there, I swear to God, the number – if we were doing a story that didn't have a lot of – that wasn't a super serious story, I felt like the suggestions from the producers when it came to the script almost always involved punnery. And I was just like, I can't – I cannot put my – I can't co-sign that. I cannot – I can't put my name and my voice on that. And so over time, I've noticed that they've suggested fewer and fewer puns. We're almost down to no puns being suggested now.

Good. Well, that brings up Chekhov's boss.

But I think the viewers probably like it. Like, Mo Rocca is not above a pun, and everyone loves him. And it's funny when he does it. I just would die inside if I were doing it.

Well, let's get back to this original story. How did AI do in finishing this sentence?

It did something that would have been passable, but I ended up going back and, again, rewriting it and making it different than what the AI did.

serious question if you just received that edit back and you weren't you hadn't been on the phone with the producer at the time and you didn't know that it was ai is there a chance that that line would have just been fined by you but it you were drawn to rewrite it because you knew its origin

well that's impossible for me to know i guess but i think i would have still tried to rewrite it because it wasn't saying what i was hoping to say at the top of the story you know so it was it was uh yeah and also this well whatever nobody cares this is that dana white story i've been working

on okay so it's very so i'm very very exists huh it not only does it exist but i'm going on tv next

really okay interesting and um i've you know i've talked about it here on the show that i just it's the story has kind of given me fits because i don't want i want to be fair and journalistic and i want to be i want to be accurate about this guy dana white who is both a very interesting influential character and also somebody that's got a lot of baggage and a lot of problems and so figuring out how to like you know present that sort of accurately and fairly like of all the stories that i've done in a while this is one where i really really really want the language to be right at least as right as they'll let it be and so i don't think i would have i know what you mean i'm sure there are other lines and other stories that if you use chat gpt and you just sent it to me as a revision i wouldn't bat an eye but this is one where i'm really like I'm really, really sweating the deets on this because I really hope that the story comes out, again, interesting and fair and accurate.

Yeah, this story is more fraught, and I don't even know if you want to talk about this, but this story is more fraught now than it was when you first started working on it. And it was pretty fraught then as far as what's going on with CBS and the administration. What is the news peg for it now? Because I asked you that last time, and the peg I thought was the event, but that event is long, long past now.

Because I have absolutely no, what's the word, judgment around talking about the inner workings of my other job, I'll lay it on you. Originally, the idea was we're going to do a story about this person who's a kind of, again, pretty important person in sports and you could even say political culture to some degree because he's friends with Trump. and that was the summer we were filming it and then there was a conversation with 60 Minutes where they really wanted to do a profile of him and they literally asked can we do ours first even though we'd already filmed ours and I thought that might mean that our story was going to um you know we were slowly putting a pillow over our story which again I was sort of okay with not wanting all the smoke then the apparently that was not the case there were still many people that were curious about the the story of you know what we had filmed in las vegas and what was the sort of status of that piece so then i thought well if we're going to do this we should attach it to the fact that there's going to be a ufc fight on the front lawn of the white house this summer because that to me is i mean let me i think the listeners of this show will would know what i think about that but at least it's a it's a news event even if it's like a holy shit can we believe

this is happening you know what i mean yeah yeah yeah i'd forgotten i'd i'd forgotten that that's supposed to happen that's actually a really good peg yeah because it just gives us a way into the

story like we now live in we live in a version of this we're in the timeline where when america is turning 250 they're having a ufc fight on the front line and oh by the way they actually moved it to june 19th which happens to be donald trump's birthday so anyway that was going to be the news peg um and then i got a call recently that was like no actually they want it for next week um because there was pressure bring brought to bear from somewhere not even maybe within my own show having to do with the fact that paramount is now the new home of the ufc andrew so when we filmed this story that certainly we did not know that nobody told us that that was not something my bosses knew now it is a reality and so we're it's it's unclear to me why the story has exactly been moved up but it has been moved up and it's going out next week i believe unless it gets dropped for some reason and what i will definitely say is it is it will be the most parsed story that i've ever done on the network like it's going to go through a lot of standards and practice it's going to go through a lot of lawyers who knows who else is going to get eyes on it but it's it's a different world for me compared to um well for instance when we're done recording today i'm getting on an airplane and flying to kansas to do a story about bingo not the cat the thing that people like to do that's my lane that's that's where i thrive stories about mayonnaise and bingo stories with very very low impact on the on the wider world i realize that and again at any point

this isn't live we can cut this out but i'm going to keep on pushing with these questions why are you not doing a story about bingo the cat because apparently your contractor has already

flooded the zone with tiktok content the story's over and that's the thing in this fractured media landscape he's getting more views than i am working for a major network it's about being

on site luke this is the deal you know what i mean he's here that counts for more right now but

don't forget bingo want that relatability factor bingo i can tell he's getting restless but he's

he's now cleaning himself uh and so he might hop up here at any moment if he does i'm happy to give him the cans, and you can ask him a few questions or anything if it would help your story. I'm sure he's willing to talk. Couldn't hurt.

Couldn't hurt. Just like, we're talking, this is like Dana White, he's in his dojo of an office with all his samurai swords, and then just cut to bingo.

Just looking, kind of tilting his head a little bit, like questioning a little bit. I did, Andrew,

you'll be happy to know this, I did win the man cave argument. Oh,

oh, what? Did somebody want to put man cave? Like, you're watching UFC in your man cave or something? Well, no, it's like,

We were in this guy Dana White's office in Las Vegas, which is, you know, this insane sort of glass, you know, structure with millions of dollars of like art and artifacts in it, you know, paintings and weaponry and like just everything you would sort of expect a guy like Dana White to have. Like, I think there's like a machine gun that's shooting money because war is really about money. It's some real deep art, you know, it's some real.

And like a Kalashnikov that's shooting a $100 bill or something I don't know But one of the people I was working on the shoot with Kept coming up to me and kind of trying to feed me the line Is this the ultimate man cave Somebody wanted me to keep Somebody kept wanting me to ask Dana White Is this the ultimate man cave

And you kept scratching it out writing she shed And they kept writing man cave You kept writing she shed

And I turned to the person and I said I'm not saying the word man cave on television

Good for you

And the person was like Okay, okay, and then like literally like two days later, we're still shooting and the person comes to me goes just I'm just curious Why the pushback on man cave? Mm-hmm, and I was like I was I said I just think it's really overused and I and I know that if I even say it this is the one thing I've learned I guess working in television Andrew is I'm now and maybe this is like a diva behavior on my part I never I will I now refuse to say anything on camera That I'm not willing to That I would die if it was in the story Because what used to happen is They would say well just try it Just do it as a take And we won't even use it We'll just say it But once you've committed it to celluloid Then there's a possibility that you'll get overruled And it'll end up on TV So what I've learned now is Don't even say it Do not even give them the footage of you saying man cave But I was worried it was going to get reintroduced In the script somewhere But I'm happy to say that Here on this Tuesday as this is being aired, Man Cave is nowhere near that script, so I at least won that battle.

Nice. Well, congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. I mean, there's a lot of reasons I don't have the jobs that you have. I mean, talent being somewhere near the top of the list. But also, it would just be all of that. I'd be like, no, I won't say that. No, I won't say that. No, I won't eat that. No, I won't eat that. No, I won't say that. No, I won't do that. No, I won't do that. I won't say that, do that, or eat that.

I don't want to eat anything that's bought, sold, or processed, or cooked, or uncooked. It is weird also how much of this job does involve me eating things.

And meat sometimes, too, which is something like, you know.

Meat a lot of times. And as I've said before on the show, I'm so poorly cast in the role of person who eats things on camera because I don't have a good vocabulary for describing what it is I'm tasting. like if I'm out with Becca and we're eating something or having a glass of wine it's like incredible her the way that she like her palate works and the way she interprets like oh it's this and then it's this and then I'm getting a hit of this and stuff and I'm just like I'm not getting any of that and so I just have to constantly go like oh my god that's really good that's my look for that if you see me eating something on television that's really good that's my signature take on food Andrew

Well, I mean, I got this tape of you. I think you were doing a piece on rice.

The rice, you have really outdone yourself. The rice is great. Oh, thanks, man. You know what? That means a lot to me. Dad, the rice is perfect. I mean, it's moist. It's perfectly cooked. You timed it right. So tender. But it's not mushy. It yields to the bite. But not without a little struggle. I mean, you've got to still open your mouth and chew it. It's not that it just goes right in. Well, it's not going to bite itself. I know what you're saying.

So anyway, good job on that piece. I thought that was a really interesting piece, one of your best.

We was hoping for some razzle-dazzle. Razzle-dazzle. That's right, man, razzle-dazzle.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody razzle-dazzle.

All right, let's thank some dazzling donors. These wonderful folks are dazzling us with their donation of dough. And it's how this show can continue. Five days a week, 52 weeks a year, every single day, except weekends, we bring you a new TBTL episode. And it's thanks to folks like Paul Pope, who's in Crownsville, Maryland. Hey, hey. Paul says, time for my annual dazzling donor check-in. So last year I broke my ankle, and I was so focused on that and slagging on y'all, calling you dummies, that I forgot to mention that I was at the live show in Philly. I was the guy in the fedora behind Luke's Uncle Chuck. I got a shout-out from Luke doing that show. That was episode 4304 at timestamp 2201, which will be my TBTL claim to fame forevermore. I really enjoyed the show and hope you're planning to hit the East Coast again soon. Okay, that's my dazzling donor message for the year. I hope you guys can keep doing what you're doing for years and years because I love your show. I love what you do, and what you do is so important. I pledge to continue to donate so you're able to keep it up and encourage anyone listening to support our biz boys to no mountain too tall and power out that is signed listener Paul in Crownsville, Maryland. Well, Paul, thank you so very much. I always forget when we're kind of approaching the dazzling donor section of the year, Andrew, about what a racket this is for us because it basically involves these.

wonderful people like Paul who donate to the show, then sending us a note that says how much they like the show and like us. I mean, nobody should be this lucky as we are to get these messages.

I am using ChatGPT right now to write an official statement from the two beautiful 2Biz headquarters saying that we are not a racket. We are legally non-designated as a racket.

You and John went with S-Corp. I kept saying racket.

You kept going racket.

I was going with Fly by Night. You wanted to call it Fly by Night podcasting. I was going with Flim Flam. I was going with Racket. And you all decided to lawyer up, make us.

Are we an S-Corp? We are an S-Corp. Here, let's take a quick listen to, I'm going to try to needle drop this episode. Nice. 4304, TBTL Live in Philadelphia. Now I'm, let's see here. Paul says, I'm going to back this up by about like, I don't know, 45 seconds or something so we can lead up to it here.

Wait, oh, that music that we're hearing

was the end of the Razzle Dazzle song. Sorry. What weird timing. Back to the live show.

That ship sailed. Where's my bell? Yeah.

Oh, that's right. This is where Genevieve hosted for me because I was sick and you liked her more.

All right, other famous Quakers. Dave Matthews of the band. now I was reading this fun fact during the sound check and rehearsal and yes we had a rehearsal don't act surprised we're getting close every word I'm saying has been pre-planned for months enough in the fedora there it is hey Paul I was reading that Dave Matthews enough in the fedora enough in the fedora nice you can get a tattoo of that Paul enough in the fedora paul thank you so much for supporting the show we really do appreciate you and uh thanks for coming out to the uh to that live show in philly that was really fun you know it's weird hearing the tape of that because i did not listen back to that episode and i it actually sounds like we were having fun but my head was just spinning the whole time you know how that is on those live shows it's like we want it to go well it's it's not our typical thing it's kind of I'm sort of in a fugue state the whole time you know what I mean like I don't really know how it's going because I'm just kind of tap dancing pretty hard and pretty fast so to hear it later like oh that sounds fun that sounds like people were enjoying themselves sounds like it was okay I'm sure

Veeves was good and for me my head was spinning as well because I was under the weather now I felt fine by the performance time but I was worried I had caught COVID it was the only time I had COVID and so when I landed in Philly I didn't know what was going on with me until I finally took my temperature and some some tests so i it's such a weird period for me sometimes i think about the setup for that show because i got in a day before you and john because i had to pick up a bunch of rental equipment and set up our our situation and then i think i realized i had covid before the setup so we had this idea of building a audio desk for me with all of the like mixing boards and everything up in the rafters which was a good idea to keep me socially distanced but was a more difficult setup and i just remember being masked up trying to social distance away from everybody at the friend center but not wanting to tell them that i had tested positive but trying to respect them but then walking up oh and i think now i'm just like now i'm just sounding like a sad sack this is as my ankles were swollen too and i don't think i was on any medicine for it at that point i didn't know that i had uh and you were going up and down those stairs millions of times for the setup and i just remember going up and down and up and down and up and down and like slinging these cables up to the balcony where i'd be sitting by the time the show started i was feeling so much better but i just have these flashbacks sometimes of the day before of setting all of that stuff up and being like what was i doing sorry that turned into a really self-aggrandizing story that was not my point but uh anyway sometimes i just look i thought when

When you came out of your little balcony perch out onto the upper area of the Friends Center in Philadelphia, it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life. I'm wearing a Phantom of the Opera mask and a cape. Your glasses were fogging. Oh, they were on top of the mask. I was trying to wear the glasses on top of the mask, I think. I think because you were, you know, there was a lot going on. I think if I remember it, you were saying that, like, your glasses were fogging. You kind of couldn't see. you had a cape on. I was so proud of you that you did that bit. Yeah, I didn't. Coming out like the Phantom of the Opera. It was the funniest thing. Are there photos of that? If you're a listener and you got a photo of Andrew's entrance at the Philly show, would you please send it to me, luke at tbtl.net? Because it just lives in my memory now, but I would love to see it.

some photographic evidence of that and it seems like because of this social distancing thing you and Genevieve and John and all the listeners were down below now you and Genevieve and John were backstage whatever your backstage was but I also remember like I was dressed as Ben Franklin dressed as Ben Franklin but I felt like I was upstairs in my backstage area which was just like this area where I had to keep this one door wedged open because I could have locked myself out and you would have started the show and i wouldn't have been there of course i don't know how you would have since i had to fire the audio i think no john fired the audio from down below

that's right yeah like but then the screen yeah i remember john coming in i'm in like the nursery of like the church dressed as ben franklin i believe john comes in as like what's how do i your computer has locked me out like how do i what's the code to get into your computer or

Right, and it had fallen asleep. But I just remember you guys were downstairs waiting to go out on stage, and I'm sort of sequestered up by myself in this area that just seemed like an eternity. I have these windows. You know that meme? Every time I say this, you say you don't know the meme. You've got to know this meme. Of the horse looking out the window, and it just says, soon. You know this. Horse window meme. I'm pretty sure that when we joined American Public Media, the StewBots sent that out the day before we launched or something. Well, because let me just describe the photo for people.

It's a horse in what looks like an office building looking out the window.

Yeah, but it's an actual horse. It's not a cartoon. It's not an illustration. It's a photo.

It's like, how did this horse get in this business environment?

Right, exactly. And so I was basically that horse because I had an eye on the room. Like, I could go to this one place in my cape and kind of look out my second floor window down outside, but then through another window where the TBTL10s were gathering for the live show. And I kept on – it very much was like Phantom of the Opera. I kept on, like, sneaking through the window because I didn't want anybody to see me, but I would be looking down at the people gathering. What a fun little trip down memory night.

And, and it was a fun night and also a continued lesson, which is that when, when life gives us lemons, it always seems like the lemonade is pretty good when it comes to like TBTL stuff. Like, I think it was arguably funnier that you were up there and your weird perch in your, in your cape than if we were just sitting, you know, doing the normal thing. Whenever, whenever there's a hiccup, even the fact that we ended up at the Quaker Center was because the Friends Center was because we were having a heck of a time finding a venue. Yeah, that's right. Everything was booked for some reason in Philly, or at least everything that was roughly the size that we were looking for. And finally, as a kind of a Hail Mary, we reached out to the Quakers in Philly. But that ended up being actually, I thought, the best place we could have had it. Yeah.

My only regret is the house sound was really bad. And the person who set it up for us was not on site and just said, it'll be easy to figure it out. So it was kind of distorted and stuff. It sounds good on the – I think I just closed that tab. But it sounded pretty good on the tape. I thought the recording was good. But I know the house sound was pretty rough

And critically, my mom was able to just absolutely flex on my Aunt Kathy Like, just a full-on, just John Cena Just giving her the, like, because everybody was so excited to meet my mom My mom, there was, I believe, a line of people at one point waiting for my mom's autograph And her sister, my Aunt Kathy, was also there And so that just blew my Aunt Kathy's mind, I think, to see her sister Susie with a huge fan base.

Does Kathy have any kids? Do you have cousins?

Yes, and they were there. My cousin Mike.

Are they starting their own podcasts now so that they can put their mom in the same position as Susie someday?

See, I love, listen, I love my Aunt Kathy. Love her to death. But she's a little too normal. I mean, all of her great stories just involve her being mad at my mom. My mom is still the central character in the story. Like when they were girls growing up in Philly and they had to share a bedroom and my mom would always steal my Aunt Kathy's mohair sweaters and then get B.O. on them. And then my Aunt Kathy would yell, Sue, you're stinking on my sweaters. So all of my Aunt Kathy's good stories were usually just about something insane my mom was doing.

Uh-huh, right. You know, otherwise it's just like her living a nice life.

Meanwhile, my cousin Tim did write a book. My cousin Tim, who is an incredibly successful electrical engineer, like, he is responsible for fixing the power grids of literal countries. Whoa. Like, he flies to, like, other parts of the world to help them get their power grids working. He's this, like, highly intelligent individual. And then he just, like, is also writing books on the side.

About that topic or related to his field? No, kids' books. Really?

Or, like, young... kind of a young, like a, kind of a YA book. Oh yeah. Like my first electrode or anything like

that? No, no, it's totally, it's a completely unrelated topic, but so maybe, I don't know, maybe Tim will start a podcast. Um, Mike could start a podcast about when, when Mike was, when my cousin Mike was young, he worked for the wooder department and it was so funny him spelling out his day for me. He was like, yeah. So get in at nine and I immediately go to Wawa and they get My coffee and my whatever. And then I listened to Stern for two hours in the truck. And then I parked the truck somewhere and I hide for the next three hours. He was breaking his day down. Now, by the way, I think he's like in management somewhere now. I'm sure he's a very productive individual. But when we were like 23 and 24, he was taking me through his whole day of how he could do the least amount of work possible.

I thought you were going to say that the whole day was just stereotypical Philly. Just that first I go to Wawa.

Well, it did involve Wawa, and it involved listening to Stern, which is a pretty Philly type of deal. Hey, Paul, thanks for allowing us to go down memory lane. That was really fun, and thank you for the donation. Maestro, I saw you were dealing with Bingo.

Thank you. Bingo was—I knew you were trying to save me there. Bingo was just starting to walk on the board right as you were about to say Maestro. I didn't know that you had your screen open that you could see me, so I was just trying to dust him out of the way as I hit there.

That was very slick. You handled that with aplomb. Let's thank Angela Barrera, who's there in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Hey, Angela.

Yippee-ki-yay, Mr. Falcon.

Oh, yes. That is the cleaned up. Good one. That is the TV cleaned up version of the diehard phrase.

Thank you, business boys, for the audio companionship for years and years. These days are rough. A chuckle. A cat story. The perfect drop at the moment. Spread chi. Means a lot. Truly. A few small requests. Drop rapid fire. Drop rapid fire. It's always a favorite of mine. Oh. Kwapla? What do we know about Kwapla?

I don't know. Is that Klingon? That's how Angela signs.

Let's check this out. That is. It's Klingon. It is Klingon. Do you realize how racist that was going to be if it wasn't Klingon Angelo? I mean, is that the idea that I would think that just because it's a language that I don't recognize or a word I don't recognize, then I'm just assuming it's a made-up alien language? I won't lie. In the back of my head when you said that, I thought, I hope so.

Yeah, right? Just a tiny, tiny, tiny bit. And by the way, I want to apologize. I don't think you would have heard anything. There's a chance that our recording got a little bit haywire for a very split second as Bingo made a second attempt to get on my audio board. So apologies to the listeners for that when things got really loud there for a second, if it indeed did. But good on you. And so it means success, by the way. It means success. Angela and Corpus Christi. What a great way of signing off.

Absolutely. And I don't know if I'm saying that right or not. It looks like co-op law to me. But thank you, Angela. We really appreciate it. This is when the subject of Corpus Christi comes up, Andrew. I've got my go-to Corpus Christi story, which is I was dispatched there many years ago when Dick Cheney shot someone in the face. Oh, yeah. Because someone was convalescing at a hospital in Corpus Christi. And I spent a whole week there just eating Whataburger and waiting for this guy to say something. And he never did. And then I went home.

Because he didn't have a face.

Because snitches get stitches, apparently.

And things only went downhill for the party from there. I know, right?

Who knew that Dick Cheney would be a paragon of respectability when he actually opposed the second election of Trump?

I want to let everybody know it's a total coincidence that—so yesterday on the show, I don't think our Dazzling Donor asked for a drop rapid-fire situation. I think they just asked for—they just said that they really like the drops. So I said, hey, could you play a drop for them? And then we ended up doing rapid-fire drops yesterday. And it's a total coincidence that this is Angela's request today because these, of course, came in a little while ago. But do you have some fresh ones you can offer Angela?

I sure do. I'm trying to pick the right length. I have these organized by their timing. So let's just do this. We're going to start with, again, I'm trying to preview. I cannot be responsible if a weird drop comes up, okay, everybody? but this is for our friend Angela in Corpus Christi.

That's just absolute stupidity.

If all you do is get busy? Are you going to finish that croissant?

Are you sure? Mm-hmm. Okay.

Everyone knows the only thing we should be ashamed of is our bodies. Beautiful purple balls.

Really?

I'm trying to build my beef castle. Believe it or not, I'm a complete catch. Acoutrema? What is that ? Trucks, trucks, and trucktober.

That dog is barking. That is not my dog.

California guy. Hold on. Can somebody tell me what the hell is going on? Carol, hold my car. That's the classic. A cab is an angel that poops in a bar. I mean, that's your mama's forehead. I'm David Pumpkins. There you go. When I think of David Pumpkins, I really, you know, that was a cultural phenomenon that I had totally missed. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Because I missed it because I was watching too much Comer Pyle, apparently. Yeah, exactly. Golly, Sergeant Carter. I don't know what David S. Bumpkins is, but I can certainly bring out my, not Jim Varney. Pastor, Pastor, Pastor. Who is it? Is Jim Neighbors? Jim Neighbors. Jim Neighbors, of course. But, oh, here, let me just add one last drop here. Yippee-ki-yay, Mr. Falcon. That is for Angela.

Thanks, Angela. We really appreciate you. hello and welcome to top story uh you know last week or at some point in the not too distant past i was talking about the olympics and how it's a little hard for me to relate to some of the events because they're just things i've had no experience with i didn't you know grow up figure skating or skiing with any proficiency or stuff like that um and and i i will admit that i was kind of, my schedule was out of sync with these, those last winter Olympics. I just wasn't like sitting down at night and kind of, you know, dialing them up on my TV and following the various plot lines, except for this, uh, incredible thing involving this figure skater named, uh, Alyssa Liu, who's from Oakland and who, I mean, everybody knows who I'm talking about now. She won the gold medal, um, you know, for the women's figure skating. And like, I kept hearing about like being like, well, after everything she's been through or whatever, and I was like, what are they – like, they always say that, you know, for every Olympic athlete. They're trying to make some narrative. But I thought her story was so interesting and cool, actually. So her dad – do you know this whole thing probably from listening to sports radio? Have they been going off about this?

No, and I haven't heard hardly any Olympic talk on sports radio, but I've been picking up some of it on social media. So I saw it when she won the gold. I saw that, like, wonderful clip of her skating and saying, that's what I'm effing talking about and kind of like – so I saw this outpouring of love on social media, but I don't really know the back story.

So her father came to the U.S. from China. He grew up in rural China in what was described as sort of extreme poverty. So he comes to the U.S. and then he becomes an attorney. And through, I'm not sure the exact circumstance, but he ends up being a single dad. He's raising Alyssa and her siblings, I guess sort of by himself. And she goes to take an ice skating lesson. And the teacher says, she's really good. This is when she's like nine or something. And says, she's really good. Do you want to get her lessons? And the dad's like, OK. And I guess throughout the course of her kind of young career, the dad spends between like a half a million and a million dollars just on her ice skating, on like her training and coaches and all of this stuff. But he is apparently like very, very intense, as would I be if I was spending a million dollars on Addy's volleyball. I'd probably be at every practice making sure it was going OK. And he was apparently really hard on her coaches. He was pretty hard on her, but she was phenomenal at, I think she might've won, like she might've been the U S champion when she was in her teens, which she was like a very young person to have won the U S national championship. Um, and then she went to the Olympics one winter Olympics ago. And I don't know if she did particularly well. I think that the stress got to her and basically she just decided one day, I don't want to do this. Like, this is way too stressful. Um, and so she quit. She, and her dad found out she announced on Instagram that she was quitting ice skating which is how he found out and so uh she goes to UCLA and a couple of years go by and then she realizes one day wow I really miss this I miss ice skating uh and so she calls her coaches up and she says I'm thinking about ice skating again uh but only if I get to pick my music and my choreography and if I'm in charge of this whole thing and they were like um okay and so then she goes to her dad and she's like I love you dad but you are fired from being in charge of this and apparently it really hurt his feelings but he you know kind of rolled with it and so she comes back now after two years off like skating to her own music she gets this like smile piercing which is like looks incredibly painful i know that's like the most old man read on someone's piercing but it it i would i really wish someone would have asked her how much did that hurt just because i'm curious like and that just i just seemed like that would be super duper painful but she has a a piercing that kind of goes through her gut. gums so that when she smiles you see these two little kind of you know i don't know what they are diamonds or something it's actually kind of a cool look uh-huh yeah but not one that i there's

something about her and again i've only seen little clips with this just like i think it's because she could make anything cool too like she just has an air about her and this is a totally

new thing for so her hair is you know she dyes her hair in this really kind of interesting way where it's like brown and then it has these sections of i guess you'd say blonde and then brown and she calls that her rings like maybe the i don't know i think the brown hair is her natural hair color so she dyes it blonde and then it grows out and then when the brown part grows out then she dyes it blonde again oh i see like rings of a tree that's cool yeah and and she's got this piercing and she's just perpetually happy out there because she's like just you know skating literally to her own music also i love that she addie was pointing this out to me the other night we were texting that she skated to a donna summer song macarthur park which is a reference to i believe macarthur park in los angeles just felt sort of i don't know how cosmically like a pushback on everything that's going on with ice and stuff i mean i'm reading a lot into that but this was a cool song and she's just she goes into the final skate of the women's skate and i believe she was in third place maybe and the thought was hey if she gets a medal at all that's going to be really incredible because she's sort of come back as her own person instead of being totally like locked into the mold of what a figure skater is supposed to look like and skate like she just coming back with her hair and her piercing and her whatever. um, And, her final performance was so incredible and she skated with such just like kind of joy and like kind of de gaff energy, just not, she just didn't look even a little bit stressed out out there. It's just like she was totally enjoying it, which later she said she was, And this all sort of lined up for her to end up actually winning the gold medal. And when she finishes this program and she knows that she has skated like the routine of her lifetime and they cut to her dad in the audience clapping for her. And it made me so emotional. It was just like, like, cause I, I kind of understand the dad's perspective too. Like this guy comes over here, he works his ass off. he spends a million dollars on this ice skating and then he gets told you're not you're not invited to be the coach of this anymore and i could totally see a version of this where the dad like just like all right man this now this is your thing and you know like i could just see him kind of detaching from the whole thing but but just the fact that like their relationship obviously i have a big like father daughter kind of like trigger anything anything that's like dads and daughters really obviously hits me in an emotional place but i just i just thought it was the coolest story and she just seems like everything that's good about this world and her whole story and her family story and like the fact that her dad was there just like crying and clapping for her it was just like it really was like the kind of like they're trying to create those moments in the olympics all the time and usually it's probably hype that doesn't quite actually like measure up to the this one shining moment they're trying to create but this was one shining moment this was a miracle on ice forget the us the hockey team from the 1980s do you

believe in miracles alissa liu's dad not being mad at her about firing him that was the miracle

i was looking for yeah and also i think she was speaking out like was it weren't some of her and her skaters sort of like speaking a little bit of truth to power i think in some pre absolutely skating press conferences and stuff um yeah you had a lot of the u.s athletes actually

you know using their using their time to talk about the ideals of america that we're not living up to and then of course you've got trump like you know yelling at them on truth social or whatever which is a good look you should definitely have the president criticizing u.s athletes yeah i don't

know if you saw the latest one from and i don't even know why like i just i need to stop feeding the trolls with my with my tears but like listen andrew i'll do the crying around here yeah apparently like trump was also like sort of i think it was like trump made a joke with the men's hockey team something like oh yeah and now because he was already he already met with them

or something i think yesterday monday and well i saw cash patel apparently cash patel was partying

in the locker room with the team after his uh spokespeople said that he was not in italy for that event that he was there for work it was literally the taxpayers paid for him to go there and you know drink champagne with the hockey team but apparently the hockey team also i think was meeting with trump yesterday i want to say and and trump said well now i guess i gotta meet with the women too or something like that they all laughed along with them or whatever like this is the president of the united states talking about gold medal winning women and disparaging them i mean there's no point in me even bringing it up here there's just so much anger to go around but like i just sorry i'm so dumb i'm I said I'm so dumb.

I meant I'm so done, but I guess I'm both. That women's hockey game, that gold medal game, was ridiculous.

Did you watch any of this live? No.

No, I just, I mean, I watched it, you know, I heard that they won the gold medal and that it was crazy. And then I went back and I watched the last, like, maybe five minutes of the game and then the overtime. But, like, they were down 2-1 with, like, under two minutes left. I mean, and they pulled their goalie. That's just like, that's the absolute, I mean, that's the Hail Mary of hockey. And it worked. They got a goal to go to overtime, and then they won. I have to say, though, like, if I'm Canada, first of all, that just kind of sucks to be that close to winning and then to not win. But also it's like, now, none of this is on the U.S. hockey players.

Yeah, but they won the World Series last year. Oh, wait. Oh, shoot.

None of this is like, none of this is the fault of any of the American athletes at all. But I also feel like if I was in Canada, I'd be like, are you kidding me right now? It's like if the U.S. lost to Russia back in the day. Like, we are Russia now. I mean, if I'm in Canada, I'm like, I don't like America. America is the enemy to the south. And they just bested us at hockey. Like, it would feel extra bad to me. But do you know, did you hear about probably the craziest Olympics press conference moment? It happened early on, actually. Sorry that, again, we're doing this post-mort days after the closing ceremonies. Whatever. If you're listening to this three weeks later, it doesn't matter to you. It's all in a weird time span anyway. But did you hear about the – I don't even know what his event was, and I can't remember exactly which Scandinavian country he came from. I think he was doing a skiing event.

Oh, this asshole. Yeah.

Oh, that's – okay, that's your read.

I think that's the world's read on this. This guy who tries to apologize for being unfaithful to his girlfriend. Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't know why I just totally stole your setup of that story. No, no, no, please. Yeah, but no, I mean, everybody's kind of like, why would you do that to her? He didn't say her name, but he basically, and I think it was his post-game press conference.

I think he might have gotten like a bronze medal or something for whatever his event was.

And he says, well, maybe, you know, he didn't use her name, but he said, you know, I did lose somebody who I met not all that long ago. They've been dating for like months, I think, right? But I was unfaithful to her. And now I'm hoping maybe I can use this platform to let her know how sorry I am or whatever. And immediately, I think the backlash was like, you're doing what to this woman right now? You're making her, when you do that to somebody, you're making them answer to a world stage. That is so, that is, I would break up with him again if I could.

this is back to the i won't go there i won't eat that i won't like the idea of like boundaries and stuff that hadn't even occurred to me i guess you're right i guess you're right i thought it was i mean it didn't work but i guess i thought of it as being like well we know this guy i think i saw it as a desperate but not well how am i how would i put this i didn't i didn't really see it the terms that you're describing it as which which I get I get like he didn't use her name but I guess in a way it's dragging her into a conversation that she didn't ask to be a part of so I guess that is kind of disrespectful I saw it as a desperate act that even though it didn't work I don't know it was a it was a good try or something but I guess I guess

I'm I was misreading it I mean I guess it could be this I mean my initial reaction when when I saw that which was you know I think commentary free was just like oh you gotta be shitting me in the same way like unless you have an agreement with somebody that you know you're going to get married and you make some sort of huge public, um, uh, proposal to them, I vote, you know, I mean, since we've been working together, I always complained about that kind of stuff because you're putting in, usually it's the woman who's being put on the spot and maybe they're not ready to have this be a public conversation, you know, like putting, putting yourself for the moment in front of the, the thought, you know, being thoughtful towards your partner and how it might impact them. But I guess I might just be reading the responses from my specific little bubble. Your section of Blue Sky. Yeah, but I mean, it seemed universally, and she did finally, anonymously, still never gave her name. One publication was able to speak with her, I think, and she just said, like, that was just so deeply inappropriate.

I don't know if that's what she said. Did she not? No, I think what she said was something to the effect, unless, by the way, I didn't read the original, the source material. I just saw her, like, a pull quote, and I think she basically said something to the effect of, I'm not interested in talking about this. You know, we've already established that we're not together or whatever. Like, she shut it down, but I didn't remember her saying that it was inappropriate.

I will, I'll look. I'm not saying that you're wrong, by the way, because I would just like to know because I guess I shouldn't be making shit up. I do know that a lot of people said that it was inappropriate, and I thought she said something with, I mean, not, it wasn't long, but I thought there was something that had a little.

bit more of an edge it's very possible because i didn't read the original source material i'll see

if i can find it just again not not because i think you're wrong about this but just because i threw something out there that might not be true i'd like maybe a little bit more clarification

on that so my apologies i guess to me it was sort of like it was a charmingly or not charming it was like i guess what i saw in this was a guy who really really really didn't know how to fix this and thought maybe, like, maybe this would fix it. And, I mean, it's an insane thing to think would fix it. But it's like, I guess what I know is that he genuinely, genuinely really, really, really wanted to get back together with this person. Because that's, like, an embarrassing thing to admit in your Olympics press conference is that you cheated on someone and it was the dumbest thing you'd ever done. Like, that's a very embarrassing thing to admit to. And so it just tells me that he was very genuine in him, his desire to mend the relationship now again it didn't work and and and there is the reasonable perspective that it's dragging her into something that she didn't ask to be a part of but i guess there was something about the sheer desperation of it that kind of sort of charmed me a little bit have you gotten eyes on the um yeah here it was it is hard this

is um the woman who wants to remain anonymous wrote to the norwegian paper vg it is hard to forgive even after such a public declaration of love in front of the whole world i have not asked to be put in this position and it is hard to be there we have had contact and he knows my feelings about this so i mean it's i have not been asked to be put in this position and it is hard to be there i overstated it but that's what i was remembering like she i think that is clear that she's saying like i have now i have somebody who's already been let's just say victimized or you know like on the wrong end of something she did not cheat she didn't do anything wrong yeah But now the person that wronged her has now put her in this position where she has, you know, like clearly she's staying anonymous, but people have tracked her down. Like it became the story, like a global story, not even U.S., you know, a global story. And so people, I'm sure she just was being flooded with people saying, hey, I know you're the person. Will you respond? Will you respond? Finally, she responds like she was put in a position to suddenly have to answer to stuff that she should not have to answer to. She didn't do anything wrong.

Yeah, that's fair.

Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. No, man, it's not from a female.

All right, email or email?

Yes, I'm going to give you a choice. I have three voicemails that I'm looking at. Some of them are getting quite dusty, by the way, but they're good, so I'm saving them, and they will air someday. But I'm going to not tell you the names of these people because almost all of them, I think, are folks that we recognize. I'm just going to tell you the topic, and you choose the topic that you would like to hear about, okay? They're all around the same length, too, about a minute and a half. So do you want to hear about a delivery mistake by somebody who ordered something online?

Okay.

An explanation of restaurateur and why it is spelled and pronounced that way? Or somebody eating some really, really, really old food?

God, those are all compelling, Andrew. That's why I've saved them.

let's go with old food old food all right this is from listener peter hey guys this is peter

calling from the department of licensing district of shoreline oh by the way i so i don't know if i

was hosting when you were gone or if it was just a hey dummies or whatever but when i had to get my license renewed because i needed the official uh the one you have real i with the real id uh i went to the licensing department that's up there in Shoreline. I've been going up to Shoreline a lot lately. You know that one little shopping center area has a Chipotle town and country grocery store, which I still haven't gone into, a licensing center, and there's this giant building that is abandoned, and it looks like a movie set. I asked Phyllis what it used to be. I guess it used to be a Sears. Did you used to go to a Sears up there when you were a kid?

I bought jeans at that Sears when I was a kid.

Was it just a Sears, or was that an anchor store for a mall it was just a sears just a big ass sears because it's this big building with all

these like a cross from a chaise restaurant right is still there i don't think on the other side of

aurora i oh may oh on the other side of aurora maybe it's all the way up on 160th or 165th i believe so anyway so that is why p this is where peter is calling from hey guys this is peter

calling from the department of licensing district of shoreline and recently you were talking about mary lou henner and her recall of dates and i had a interesting date related story to tell you the date i'm referring to is june 22nd of 2015 and mary lou henner would know that

That was a Monday. And she may also know a little bit of tragedy here that that's the day that James Horner, the musical composer of both Titanic and Avatar, passed away in a single fatality airplane crash. But the reason I'm reflecting on that date is because I recently made a pot of macaroni and cheese, and when I was making it, I looked at the box, and that is the best buy date that was marked on the box. So I made a pot of macaroni and cheese that was 3,000, about 3,850 days past its best buy date. i did make it i did eat it i did survive the cheese powder instead of kind of the sunny bright yellow color it had it was a little bit more brownish and the taste was not it was a little off but i again i did survive so all is well thank you have a good day bye now i will say

We have not heard from Peter Since he sent us that voice memo So he was okay in the moment

Exactly, sometimes that could be kind of a Depth charge, a delayed Release I'm interested in Peter Kind of going through it I mean it sounds like, was he doing it more for The science experiment factor of it Because if How do I say this in a nice way If Peter is down to his last box of mac and cheese I can send you some I can send you some updated I can send you some Goodles. That's what I'm eating these days, Andrew. You know about Goodles? No. It's just kind of an updated mac and cheese thing. It's a new brand out there called Goodles. It's supposed to be, I guess, a teeny bit healthier. But I'm just imagining Peter like a cartoon mouse going to his cupboard and opening, and then there's one box of mac and cheese that's 3,000 days. That would make it like 10 years plus.

Well, he said June 2015.

Yeah, so like a 10-year-old box of mac and cheese, and then he's taking it out and the cheese is brown, the cheese powder is brown, and he's just eating it, crying.

I knew before he said it, I knew he was going to say brown. Like he said, usually it's a bright color. And keep in mind, I don't eat this stuff, so I'm not personally familiar with it.

Oh, you're not a mac and cheese guy.

I'm not a cheese guy, yeah.

Well, you kind of are, though, that's the thing, occasionally.

I guess I never know when it will pop in or out. I don't think I eat any orange cheese or anything. I know that sounds weird, but mozzarella Swiss world, provolone, as long as it's all nice and melted. That stuff is all kind of similar. But anyway, no, I don't mess around with this. And Bingo, if you mute this board, I swear to you, we're so close to the end, buddy. He's been giving me the Manson lamps. I know he wants this to be over. But anyway, I knew-

The Manson lamps?

Never heard of that. Really? I'm surprised I haven't said it before. That's a Genevieve saying when somebody's giving you crazy eyes. The Manson lamps. And Genevieve refers to them as Manson lamps. Oh, I think that's from The Sopranos. Well, I think she was saying it before The Sopranos. I think it might be an expression, because I guess The Sopranos was out when we were first dating. I could ask her if she grew up with that phrase.

Manson Lamps is a memorable phrase from The Sopranos, Season 2, Episode 5, House Arrest, where Tony Soprano tells Richie April to stop giving him a Manson Lamps look.

I'll ask her if she got it from that, because, I mean, is that an AI overview? or whoever wrote that probably thinks that it came from The Sopranos because The Sopranos used it, but it doesn't mean that it originated with The Sopranos necessarily, does it?

No, it does not mean it originated. It's just something that was set on The Sopranos.

Yeah, I could ask Genevieve if... Because I got the impression of something maybe she grew up with, but I could be wrong. All of that is to say, Bingo wants me to get out of here, and I just knew somehow that that powder was going to be moving towards brown. I knew it wasn't getting lighter. You know what I mean?

Right, it's not getting more orange. Because the orange is like, that's just, that's total fakery to make this thing look what we think of as like cheesy, cheddar-y, cheesy. So that's going to start to, that's going to degrade. The radioactive half-life on that orange is what we found out. It's 10 years.

But it's not going to fade. You know what I mean? Like, why did I know it was going to get darker and browner, not like lighter and just like, you know, less colorized? Things just love to go brown. Ketchup. Yes. You know, I had this little collector's bottle of ketchup. It wasn't a collector's bottle. I just collected it. It was a little mini ketchup bottle, glass bottle that I got when I was a kid, and I thought it was so cute. I kept it on my dresser. I mean, I kept it for years and years and years, and when I finally left for college, I realized, oh, this ketchup is straight up brown inside this bottle now, and I think I finally threw it away.

Also happens to mustard. I was at the Mustard Museum in Wisconsin, and a lot of the old mustard could become very, very brown.

Yeah, yeah. You know what I had for lunch yesterday? Yesterday was a sandwich, Luke, and I put your favorite mustard on it. I introduced you to some Coleman's English mustard at one of our TBTL-athons. I don't know. Are you still buying that stuff? I highly recommend it.

Well, here's the thing. I got a crapload of mustard at the Mustard Museum. I bought it in the gift shop, and then they gave me a bunch of mustard that they had special CBS Sunday morning labels made for. So I'm just trying to dig out. I've got a whole thing of Gorman Thomas, Gorman Gorman's mustard.

I was about to say that.

I'm trying to work my way through.

More and more Gorman Thomas references. Is it just because now I know who he is, I recognize the references? Are people kind of always low-key mentioning him in one way or another to get a laugh or a smile?

It is a go-to, I think, and certainly in me and Stubot's and probably maybe Durs' lexicon a little bit. Old GT, Gorman Thomas.

Yeah, I saw somebody made a fake baseball card for him or something. I have a real baseball card. Or was it, I don't want to misrepresent who sent it to me. I think it was Nigel, maybe, or Levi sent me a Gorman-Thomas baseball card, which you can just barely see over my shoulder. It's right up there somewhere. But anyway, I think I've run out of things to say, Luke.

I think the show is turning a little brown.

You know what, I think I'm responsible for that. My apologies.

No, not at all. It's been a fun one, but aren't they all? All right, that is going to do it for today's show. but we will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio i will be checking in from kansas actually i'll be in the missouri side of kansas so kansas city mo oh yeah and did you hear

now the the royals just moved back to the kansas side of kansas did you hear this oh they did i

heard that they were moving to a hammond indiana everybody's moving to hammond yeah i wrote to some

of our friends who root for the Royals. I thought that was going to bum them out, but it seems everybody's pretty cool with it. So, good for them. Well, I'll get some eyes

on that tomorrow, and I'll report back. Hey, thanks for listening, everybody. We will be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.