Muse

Over the years, Michael's voice has come down several octaves. Let me finish. And all of the cigars and the brandy, don't let me finish, can now be heard. I've not f***ing finished. Right, so, Michael Caine's voice now in the Batman movies and in Harry Brown. I can't go fast because Michael Caine talks very, very slowly.

Right, this is how Michael Caine speaks. Michael Caine speaks to his nose like that. He gets very, very specific. When he gets loudly, it gets very loud indeed. It gets very specific. It's not quite nasal enough the way you're doing it, all right? You're not doing it the way he speaks. You're not doing it with the kind of... And you don't do the broken voice when he gets very emotional. When he gets very emotional indeed. She was only 16 years old. She was only 16... You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off! That's Michael Caine TBTL

Now if you haven't heard of these young men Then you must be the wrong age Because they're rock and roll specialists

No one enjoys James Bond more than I do They're all great movies There has not been a James Bond movie That's not a 10 out of 10

You proud of that? You proud of that sentence you just said?

Yo, you said we was gonna be dancing You said we was gonna be partying You said we was gonna be doing what we do

Everyone says great things about you. The posture, the haircut, the tiny feet. It's amazing they hold you up, but they do. Ha, ha. Ah, they do.

All right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Oh, when the adventure begins again. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

First things first, I love my job.

Coming to you from the Madrona Hills studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it's a gray day. It is apparently, it's the part of the week where temperatures are going to start dropping. The rain is going to be coming out here in the next day or two, unfortunately. But so far, still dry. We're trying an experiment with the poodles today. We are leaving them outside. They are tethered. And I can see them. We're having class outside today for Gigi and DJ. Partially because I think they need some more outside time. They were being salty on the morning walk today. They were getting into it with other dogs that were like behind some fences and just barking at each other like very aggressively. I think they were like maybe had sensed there was a cat hiding somewhere. They were just being unruly. They were being ungovernable today. So I'm leaving them outside. Oh, DJ actually somehow managed to pull on her little collar so that the clip that she was attached to the tether earlier in the morning, she bent the little ring so that she escaped. We had a jailbreak earlier. It's been an active morning around here. Thank God. Now I can focus on episode 4,757 in a collector's series instead of all that mayhem associated with the poodles today. I've had some spicy hot takes that I've been trying to deploy on the show for days, if not weeks.

Opinions vary.

And I'll attempt to deploy them once again today, or I won't. Who knows? Also, if you're playing Wordle on hard mode... Oh, shit. Things are hard. Maybe it's not as hard as you thought, at least according to the New York Times. I don't know a lot about that, but thankfully somebody else who works on the show does, and we're going to be talking to him in a moment. I'll mention it's Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day, so...

I don't think today.

So we'll do the Blur's Day messages. And then speaking of that guy, he's sort of like, I consider him the godfather of Wordle. Who is my daddy and what does he do? He's also the longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's Andrew Walsh and he is joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. Thanks for the reminder of the Blur's Days. I'm going to get these into shape right now during the show. We're going to get them prepared. We're going to hope that people signed their messages so that I don't get in trouble for referring to them as their email address. All right, Luke, listen, I told you before the show that I have a little audio gift for you, but that might be stealing a certain amount of valor from our listeners, specifically listener Marissa, who sent this to me via text message yesterday. She sent a link, I believe, I believe without a comment. I wasn't sure what I was clicking on. Let me put it that way. And I clicked on it. And you're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to just click on links Marissa sends you because you don't know what she's getting up to or whether or not it's a phishing scam or what. But I did it, and this is what I heard as soon as we stopped this music over here. This is what I heard when I clicked on the link. Phoenix Books presents Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville. This performance by Burt Reynolds is copyright 2014 Phoenix Books.

digitally remastered from the original 1996 Dove Audio Sound Recording.

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago, never mind how long precisely, having little or no money in my purse and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. Whenever it's damp, drizzly November in my soul, whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet, well then, I accounted high time to get to see as soon as I can. If they but knew it, almost all men, in their degree, sometime or other, cherries very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

There now is your voice. I know that the reason...

Your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus.

I know the reason I'm playing this for you today is because you were talking on the show yesterday that you had heard that it was an interesting performance by one Burt Reynolds. But I couldn't remember why it was humorous. I thought he just wasn't up to the task as a book reader. I didn't realize or I didn't remember or I didn't put it all together that he was going into a full character that I don't I've never read Moby Dick because, you know, me. I don't know how to read, but Ishmael is a feels a little more chipper than I was expecting. I'll tell you that much. I'd say more Irish, which I don't know.

I don't know if that's maybe the backstory of that. character i've also not read moby dick the closest i've gotten to it is speaking of people who are kind of turning it into a book on tape john hodgman friend of the show uh has this uh he has a newsletter a substat called a secret society and one of the things he does on that is he reads a chapter of moby dick in his best main accent oh okay and that is awesome whereas what burt reynolds is doing there is to me a little confusing and distracting so the most moby dick i've read Is listening to John Hodgman narrate A few chapters of it but So I don't know the backstory I don't know if Ishmael actually like came Over from County Cork but Like it's a you know this is set In the northeast of America Yeah if I understand right And it seems like an Interesting choice it also so I had heard about this By listening to John Lovett Of Pod Save America Interviewing David Sedaris and what John Lovett's Critique of this was was that Burt Reynolds apparently starts out very committed to the accent as we just heard there but then kind of would lose interest towards the end of the chapter i remember what i'd really like to hear and i don't want to give marissa even more homework and thank you by the way marissa for that but um what i really like to hear is the end of one of the chapters yeah i believe that's when if if if the description that i've heard is correct that's when we start to have like you know cannonball run era burt Reynolds maybe sort of worked his way back into, or maybe Evening Shade. Wait, is that a Burt? No, that's not Burt Reynolds. That's Gerald McCraney.

I don't think I know what Evening Shade is.

Evening Shade was a, was that Delta Burke Evening Shade? What was the, oh, no, that's Burt Reynolds. Evening Shade.

This is a movie or a TV show?

It's a, let's see, it's a TV show. Okay. Former professional football player Woodrow Wood Newton retires. Do you feel like this whole week, Andrew, it's me reading synopsises of things to you? This is like at least the third time this week where I'm just reading you the synopsis of something that we vaguely remember from our earlier lives.

And speaking of this is what got us on this type of thing yesterday, all started, you said vaguely remembered. I misattributed the movie that I was trying to reference at the beginning of yesterday's show. So we played a clip of tape in our intro package of Diane Weiss saying, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, don't, don't speak, don't speak. And I attributed that to the movie The Purple Rose of Cairo, which got us on the whole Danny Aiello thing. Got us on the Aiello whole Aiello trip. Exactly. But our friend Phyllis Fletcher pointed out, that is not the Purple Rose of Cairo, that is Bullets Over Broadway. I was, speaking of wood or woody.

They're sitting on the park bench.

Oh, are they on the park bench in that scene? Yes, they're sitting on a park bench. I think maybe they keep coming back To her doing that to him Because I can picture them I think on a boulevard too With her doing that I could be wrong I've already lost all credibility in this space But yeah not Purple Rose They're both Woody Allen films I'm guessing From around the same period if that gives me any I loved Bullets Over Broadway

I think isn't it like somehow He's got a direct it's this rich Gangster wants to put on a Broadway show and have his very I think Untalented wife in it And that's the thing too like

I don't think Diane Weiss is the, she can't be the untalented wife. But anyway, I really liked that movie when it came out. I think I might have even seen it in a theater. But that's, now I was wrong. I said it was Madeline. I said it was Madeline Kahn, which makes no sense. But I don't think I've ever even seen Purple Rose of Cairo.

And also, by the way, Bullets Over Broadway, 1994, Purple Rose of Cairo, 1985. So not even really the same period, as I said. But once again, I'm faced with this, how many times can I be surprised by this Danny Aiello shots that they're using on Google for him. Well, it shocked

me this morning, Andrew, when I went to check what episode number that we were on. Oh, by the way, just to close the loop on this, former professional football player Woodrow Wood Newton retires to his hometown of Evening Shade, Arkansas, and settles into a new job as coach of a high school football team with a long losing streak. So that was Burt Reynolds' sitcom, first episode

1990. Okay, 1990. That's why I was looking up. I was curious about that. Yeah. So the height of his powers are the mid to late 80s. Is this correct?

Well, let's think. What is he? Okay. Because I think this is kind of, I'm seeing this evening shade as Burt Reynolds is kind of cashing in.

He's coming back. He's retired. He's on the, even his character is in like the kind of, not last chapter.

He's beginning his initial descent, as I like to say on the show a lot. Yeah. But what is peak Burt Reynolds? What is his like, so I always cite the Cannonball Run movies. We mentioned Deliverance the other day. What did he do? Am I forgetting something?

Am I forgetting a major TV piece? Was he BJ and the Bear? No. He was the Bear. I think this always comes up, and I always mess this up. Was that him? And I don't even know if that was a TV show or a movie. No, he has nothing to do with that at all. But why do I? I'm so sorry. I'm just putting us in this loop. But isn't he? BJ and the Bear is a guy driving a truck with a monkey, right? Isn't that, doesn't Burt Reynolds have a monkey friend?

Maybe. Well, are you thinking of Every Which Way But Loose, which is Clint Eastwood in an orangutan?

This is where we always go. I think at times I do think of that.

Can you believe that you just said, this is where we always go? You trying to name a show with a guy and a monkey or a movie and me saying Every Which Way But Loose. And this being not the first time it's come up, but in fact, where we always go?

Yes. And it's like a rut that I can't get out of. It's almost dreamlike It's kind of like I know where this is going And I want to stop it But I can't, I can't stop myself You're right, when I type in Burt Reynolds' ape I just get every which way but loose Which he is not in Anyway You know what else he was in though

And how he became a very Smoky and the Bandit

I think is what I was thinking of

Oh I think I said Cannonball Run Which again is not even It's Smoky and the Bandit I said Cannonball Run, which is incorrect.

But is he not in Cannonball Run? Let me see. I thought he was in both because I thought him and Dom DeLuise were both in that.

Maybe they were. Here was the movie that Burt Reynolds was in that really attached him kind of to my sort of view of the world, which he was in with Dolly Parton a movie called The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Okay. which i think maybe was actually like a broadway musical they decided to make a movie about or something i remember i had a vague notion at age whenever that came out i had a vague notion that that whore was a bad word or was something that was very like um you know sort of a very sexual term and i remember thinking like how are they even allowed to make that the name of a movie I still kind of think that when you say it. 1982. Okay, so I'm six years old, and I mean, I probably didn't see it. I certainly didn't see it in a theater. I think I saw it. In fact, I know exactly where I saw it. I had those friends, these kids that were roughly my age, that I think it's an Aikido studio now, Andrew, at 77th and Aurora. Oh, yep. On the north side of 77th. um but it uh was a it was an appliance store and so they sold laser disc players and tvs and washers and dryers and and so they had some amount of laser discs around and um i remember these kids that i hung out with they were fairly unsupervised and somehow i um uh they had the the laser disc for the best little whorehouse in texas and i was like so i'm gonna guess it's maybe i'm 10 years at this point and i just thought like we're about to watch straight up extreme extreme pornography you're about to become a man um and it turns out it is very campy very silly there is almost no nudity i think there might be the briefest very very very briefest moment of of nudity that would would not even get you in trouble on a european beach like it's just it's actually it's like the name made my childhood brain think that this was uh you know i again i can't believe they can call this movie this they can sell this movie they can rent it it's children can hold the laser disc and then i remember watching it and being kind of let down that it was i bet you anything if i was a little older i might even enjoy it more because oh by the way dom de louise also in best little horror house with burt reynolds with with burt reynolds

and they are in cannonball run by the way i can confirm that when you look at their when you look at his uh kind of greatest hits you got smoking the bandit the longest yard uh-huh oh yeah that was a big one that's that's about a prison football team maybe i think it says a sadistic warren asks a former pro quarterback boy not unlike did i say warren i meant you said warren

oh only because that because i i was trying to figure out if he was in jail or not and the

warden thing was i was a sadistic warden asks a former pro quarterback now serving time in his prison to put together a team of inmates to take on and get pummeled by the guards now this is the second time he plays a former football player right because you didn't evening shade get us on

this yeah so this would be the i think the first time the longest yard well the second time in my in my personal narrative in andrew times yes second time but yeah that seemed to be uh that well you know because he i think he was a real football star in real life i think i think he was a college football player was was the actual right what you know burt reddles by the way and

also deliverance which we talked about yesterday in our weird meandering is there a football overlap in that one too yes i believe he plays a current retiring football captain no i don't think oh okay that's why they're on that boat trip that's right he just wants to he wants to take some me time for himself then of course this list lists boogie nights which is kind of the resurgence of him that's 1997 you know but that that's not unlike travolta in pulp fiction that is like a kind of a breakout return if that makes any sense like it's yeah which is right so you're wait so

you're saying it's to you burt reynolds in boogie nights is the different and that was of course paul thomas anderson but do you think that was different for him than john travolta getting

cast in pulp fiction no i feel like it's a very similar thing in that both of these guys had their heyday in the 80s or 70s or whatever and then not like they had totally retired or anything or left in disgrace but just kind of their careers just sort of you know got quiet for a while i'm sure they were both working but we weren't paying attention and then suddenly two very very i would say pretty popular movies but also kind of critically acclaimed movies yes have these guys come back in roles you're just like oh wow this guy's got some acting chops totally and it was

both in both cases these like kind of young directors young auteurs who kind of decided let's do i don't yeah a reclamation project would be overstating it but kind of like let's do a little like reputational repair on these guys by putting them in kind of what are seen as more interesting highbrow movies speaking of travolta have you did you see what he was doing at con

the con film festival recently tell me because i knew he was really excited he got a he got an award he got a lifetime achievement award and was like really humbled by it right that part i don't

know about what i know about is that i think he directed a film i think the story is that he or maybe he's playing a director he had a film at con where either god i'm short on details oh by the way best of the horror house in texas was an off-broadway show which makes so much sense because it's like it's campy it's over the top it's a seemingly racy but it's actually at its core kind of just a sort of you know silly musical camp um he was either in a movie or directed a movie where he's he's he's a director he showed let me just tell you what he did he showed up at con wearing a beret and glasses oh yeah i saw that outfit that was something and and that was all he was wearing at every event in every interview and he said it was because that's how the great

directors used to dress oh i didn't know that i never got the explanation yeah that that photo of him is incredible and he also is like, his hair like there's something, I'm reaching back

in my memory. Well he doesn't have a lot of hair on his head anymore but he wears a lot of hair pieces in his filming and stuff I think. Okay

because I thought that that photo also had like something that looked very fake to me like either a lot of hair dye or something but maybe

I'm misremembering. Oh no because he grew a little like almost like a Van Dyke goatee but it's dyed very dark. That's

what I remember, yes. Not even a Van Dyke

it's like what I would call a chin strap it's like kind of like that sort of beard that gives you a kind of a more defined jawline although to be honest with you he looks quite fit anyway but it's a weird looking uh piece of facial hair that's also dyed really brown

now i got eyes on it again yeah that's what i was looking at it's that beard that i was like oh wow that's interesting it almost looks like it's drawn on with grease pencil in a certain way Now that you're reminding me that he directed a new film, maybe I was wrong about saying he was honored with a lifetime achievement. All I know is, I think maybe his new film was, I think, maybe roundly praised at the festival or something. Either way, I know he got some sort of accolades that he seemed in like whatever passing little clips I was reading about this. And so maybe my whole story falls apart. It's he seemed like he was legitimately like legitimately honored as in like, yes, I know I'm a Hollywood movie star, but do I really have the respect of the film elite? And the fact that either through some sort of acknowledgement of his career or of his new film, he was really humbly blown away by the reception, which really, if anything I'm saying is accurate, warms my heart.

There is a photo because, you know, the other thing about John Travolta is famously he can fly his own plane and he doesn't just like, you know, fly like a your standard, you know, like small private, you know, jet 10 person passenger. he in his collection has like i think a couple of 747s that he like pilot do you know this about

john travolta the the pilot thing sort of rang a bell or at least it fits with what i know flies

like his own 747 and what's what's a what's incredible is in this people magazine article about his beret which just to give you the the uh the kind of update on that he said the old school directors wore berets and the glasses and i thought that's what i'm going to do big day big Ignite in Cannes, stay tuned, he captioned an Instagram video as he arrived piloting his own plane to the premiere of Propeller One-Way Night Coach on Friday along with his daughter, who stars as a flight attendant in the film. There is a picture of John Travolta flying his plane in the beret, and it's really something else.

Now, this plane that you're looking at, this is a, did you say what kind of plane?

This might be a more normal-sized plane, but he also has, I'm only looking in the cockpit of this plane, And I'm not a plane expert. But I can tell you is that he does. I've seen interviews with him where he takes the interviewer out in his like full on like commercial airliner sized airplane that he likes to fly around. But him if him piloting his own plane to France with the beret on the beard, it's just so silly.

That is great. That is great. But it kind of from what I'm hearing, little whiffs of this, he sounds like he's acting kind of childlike in a way that I sort of appreciate, you know, not. not necessarily big on himself or or or flying in like he thinks he's like gonna own the place

like joel otto calgary flames i mean i mean travolta is travolta is an interesting one because he had obviously like so so much fame at different times and then yes was considered quote-unquote washed up and then you know came back with um with the pulp fiction and then did a lot of work you know after that was in a lot of different you know movies and stuff and like is famously very much a Scientologist. He also lost his wife to cancer, which must have been, and a son to cancer, or not to cancer, excuse me, he lost a son, I believe that they had a child who had some developmental disabilities who lived into adulthood but passed away. Like, the guy's really kind of been through it. Also, there were some weird allegations from, like, massage providers saying that, you know, he was maybe being, I mean, there's just been a lot around the guy. I don't have, I just haven't spent a lot of time, I guess thinking pro or con John Travolta in my life but what I would say is if he is you know humbly delighted by you know his honors he's getting or just his film career I know his daughter I think is in the film too so that was I think a big deal for him to you know get to share that moment with her so and again I believe I believe anyway if I have the whole family structure right that that would maybe be a kid that he had with his late wife Kelly Preston so anyway I'm glad to hear that you know John Travolta is enjoying con yes in his weirdo get up I mean so much better than

again if I'm reading this if I'm reading this correctly it's so much better than being self serious right or taking yourself too seriously that's the kind of thing that just sets my teeth on edge yes absolutely hey do you I don't have to make a big deal of this but just to close the loop on one thing you know we talked a lot about my adventure of getting my car to the garage yesterday limping it along and uh we were hoping that maybe the problem with the car which was kind of shuddering and it seemed like it kind of wanted to choke out during acceleration and stuff like that uh we were hoping that maybe it was the result of some mistake that the garage had made that the dealership uh service center had made the previous friday when they were changing our oil but i guess it was not their fault it was apparently a coincidence and they quoted us nearly four thousand dollars to get this thing fixed excuse you apparently the Lipstick went down way into the engine. Yeah, it pushed it right on through the engine block. I don't know. Wait, what? Apparently, apparently, one of, so I don't know anything about cars. So caveat there. Our car experts, this is going to drive you a little bit batty. At first, you're going to be like, oh, I know what he's talking about. And then I'm going to start getting things wrong. And you're going to be mad. You're going to throw your phone. I don't want to hear about it. But apparently, the fuel injector for one of the cylinders is bad. But there are four cylinders, I believe. And so they recommend replacing them all. They say, like, labor... You probably have to take the head off anyway. Well, I've talked to some other people who said it's not actually a super inaccessible fix anyway, as far as that's concerned. But the dealership definitely put it to us this way. They said, you know, like, we don't charge for the labor of replacing the extra three. That would basically be the same as one or all four or whatever. So we're like, okay, well, then can you quote us what it would be with just replacing the one? And they're like, we don't recommend doing that, but we can give you a quote on that. And it was significantly less. It was $4. That's so interesting. No, no. It was $4. That's it. It was still, you know, it's still like real money. It was still almost about $2,300. So going from about $3,800 down to $2,300. So I was exaggerating a little bit on the 4K. But, you know, so anyway, from going down from about $3,800 to $2,300 if I just get the one repaired. But now, like I've been, we don't drive this car a lot. It's a low mileage car, as I mentioned to you. Which I was talking to our buddy Hauser, who knows from cars and car repair. And he said that that could, sorry, perfect. Because he's a J-Dog. J-Dog. It took me a second. he said actually it sort of could make sense because you don't drive it all that much like maybe the gasoline could be or the fuel could be gunking up a little bit

which makes sense but it's not like you know it's a low mileage car but it's not a low mileage car where it sits totally idle for months on end and then we take it on a long trip you know what I mean it's like we drive it you know a few times a week here and there for a couple of miles or something so it gets we take it out for its walks or whatever But anyway, so now what we're doing is Hauser recommended a garage that is a non-dealership garage in the area that he really, really loves. I've left them a couple of voicemails and have not heard back at all, which makes me think that maybe they're just too busy to get back. And then Genevieve is getting a quote now from another garage that is nearby. So we're about to find out for the first time the difference between dealership prices and other garage prices. But this other garage said we won't even do just one. Like, it's like a Lay's potato chip. You can't have just one or whatever they used to say. Like, they say, we will only replace all four, and we're waiting to hear back what that quote is. My hope is the quote from the garage that will only replace all four is maybe more in line with the quote from the dealership to replace one. I don't know if that's asking too much, but I just, I don't know. I'm in a bit of a bind, but it was the first time I've ever been like, well, I told the dealership, we'll think about it. And then I just never got back with them. And our little car is just over there in Ballard right now, just hanging out with the other V-dubs, just sick and coughing into a handkerchief.

How long do you have use of Kevin and Anita's car for?

Well, they're the sweetest people in the world. They're out of town for a few more days. So we're in pretty good shape. I'm assuming that we will pull the trigger on one of these solutions by the end of day-to-day, and maybe work can be done tomorrow. So we should have the car in plenty of time. We're going to give it back to them this weekend. But also got a note from Anita that said, hey, listen, I'm also going to be working from home a lot when we're back home. And so just keep the car as long as you need it, basically. So that's really, really sweet, yeah.

Yeah, that's really interesting because, yeah, I mean, you don't drive the car a ton. but also like you said it's not parked in a barn somewhere yeah yeah weeds growing around it like it seems like actually it's probably gets about the ideal amount of usage like not a ton of wear and tear but also it gets used every few days presumably yeah and um yeah that's a um that's i am a little proud that because i know nothing about cars but when you describe what it was doing i think i may have even used the word that sounds like a fuel injection problem and i know that's not the moral of the story but like I don't think I've ever been even in the neighborhood of

right about what's been broken on a car but the idea of it's kind of shaking because if you got four things that are powering this thing and one of them isn't working right then it's just gonna

everything is gonna be off balance yeah maybe it's kind of misfiring a little bit because again now this is where I'm always like I'm about maybe five percent right on something and then I try to reach for being ten percent right and then I I go the other direction but you know i'm guessing that that has something to do with where the fuel is is is missed you know it's sort of sprayed into the little combustion chamber where it's lit by the spark plug and it blows up and that drives it and if one of those things isn't firing right yeah you're going to have this thing is going to be and when you press the gas it's going to all be sort of out of whack that's yeah that's too bad also yes dealerships are always going to be more expensive um i remember growing up and well first of all when i was growing up you know my dad not one of our vehicles ever saw the inside of a repair bay of any kind of professional nature my dad fixed all of our cars all the time including i think swapping engines out and all kinds of stuff um well i can't remember

if i already said this to you yesterday and my apologies if i did maybe i said this to genevieve but here was my thought on this so the quote is obviously the estimate is way higher than we were expecting for either of whatever we choose, but I was wondering, remember how I described to you the snack tray that they had with all kinds of snacks in it? They had some goldfish and some cookies, and they had this whole thing of free little soccer shaped stress balls you can squeeze. They should give those to you right before they tell you it's $3,800. Yeah, right? Well, I'm just wondering how many of those

They had free leather belts to bite down

on when they tell you how much the fix is. Why does that sign on the wall say, thank you, Daddy, can I have another? I was wondering. I was going more Civil War. I know. Strop. I didn't know the Strop thing. And then I took it too far. My apologies. That's the worst little whorehouse in Texas. I'm just feeling a little randy today. Could that be our show title or is that too much? See, I'm so prudish, I still don't want to name that our show title.

I'm sorry if I said that word. No, no.

I mean, it's the name of a movie. Like you say, it's a campy old thing. I'm with you. It's a little on the line, though. I'm like, when you like, I actually think the worst little warehouse in Texas is a great show title, but I've had to like, I don't know if I can say that it's 2026 and it's a podcast.

Listen, you know what? Here's why I would say let's not. I would say let's not as we're about to roll into Valley City, Ohio for a week.

Yeah, good call.

And we've got, maybe we're making some new friends. Maybe it's a family friendly event and we're getting a few more eyes on the show and someone

rolls back three weeks and they see we're talking about whore homes let's make this whore house a whore home uh anyway so yeah i'm trying to figure out how many goldfish and little mini cookies i need to eat to offset the cost of going to the dealership as opposed to one of these garages

that's a really good idea you just post up there 7 a.m to 7 p.m i'm leaving the shop my pants look

like joggers because i got so many stress balls i'm saying you just literally post up in the

waiting area and you just spend all day eating those snacks. Is it a... Until they either kick you out or they reduce the price of the repair. Or they put

up a little sign that says snacks now 50 cents or just anything to get me to stop doing that. Who's the cartoon character that just basically unhinges his jaw and just can pour things right down his gullet? I feel like that's a... Is that a Scooby-Doo type of situation?

I don't think... I think the thing about scooby-doo is for being for being uh you know a show about ghosts and zombies and scary things it was all very i also had a semi-talking dog so i guess that would be where you can't say it's rooted in reality but like semi-talking you are right but scoob also i do i don't know if he ever unhinged his job maybe he did to put a salami like a big sandwich in

maybe i think i splooch the turtle i don't know that's definitely who you're thinking of so i

the thing the thing about uh having your car repaired at the dealership is it's always i mean generally speaking i think it's going to be a higher quality of work it's going to be guaranteed they're going to do it right they're going to have the right parts probably be able to do it on a relatively quick turnaround time it's just you're just like let me put it this way the last three cars i've had i've only ever just had them i've never knock wood i've never had any major stuff like this happen so mostly it's been maintenance but i've always just had the dealership deal with it even though it's a little more expensive but i think that's one of those reactions again to my my childhood and my and my you know my 20s of of always having cars that were breaking down of like always watching my dad fix our broken down cars of trying to find someone to help me fix a thing on a car like like never even taking it to like a serve you know any kind of a garage because that was just so expensive let alone the dealership so so now i'm kind of like now i think i've the pendulum has swung the other way for me which is just like if it's broken they tell me how much it is to fix it and i get it fixed and like i don't know there's something about having a car that is broken and knowing that the what you need to do to fix it is an amount of money you might not have now i know you and genevieve have the money to do this but it's like that goes to a very like i don't want to say young place for me but it was a

Thank you.

It feels like between having a kid at 17 and driving cars that were always breaking down and having no money, I would swear like 30% of my anxiety from age 17 to 27 was, is the car going to start? And if it isn't, or if it's making a weird noise, or if it's doing something weird, is this a repair that I literally do not have the finances for?

It's very stressful. Or am I going to get where I need to go? How long is my trip? What kind of roads am I on? Am I going on the highway? Where will I break down? I broke down so many times in my little 1986 Dodge Caravan when I was in high school and college, and you just kind of rolled with it. And I'm absolutely with you, Luke. Like, I consider the dealership thing, this is the only time, we had bought a used car from a dealership one time, but this is the first new car we ever bought. And I think it's the first time we've ever, like, returned to the dealership and just kept our care under one roof. And, again, it's because it hasn't needed a lot of work because it was new. at first it was just the easiest path to go and there is something it's like a luxury to me like it is like i know i could probably save money by shopping around and going to this garage or that garage but there's something that's kind of nice about them sending you emails every now and then saying hey we're still keeping an eye on your car and it looks like you're about in need for this and of course it's a marketing thing and you can choose that or not but like i don't know they sent me a little video of the underneath of my car yesterday while they were giving it the old inspection before they actually looked at the thing and like did that do me any good at all know but it did sort of feel like this little service that is like totally um hello what was that sorry about that oh that was not a thing that i didn't get that was just no no that was not a drop that was just the internet started playing a sound effect okay um but anyway yeah it definitely feels like a luxury and a little bit of a treat yourself thing by staying with the dealership and a little bit of adulthood again as i'm as i'm 49 and um and and i don't have to sweat every little repair it just felt like a little kind of treat but this may be breaking that and i think genevieve and you know that genevieve is well yeah really keeping an eye on the bottom line she's just kind of like yeah i don't think that we're dealership people anymore at least with this car that's going on 10 years old i would say uh there's a 50 50 chance that

you're going to come outside and she'll have the thing up on blocks yes right she'll have youtube going on uh on her phone and we'll have half of the uh you know crankshaft removed right and for

some reason camshaft crankshaft i'm not sure the uh what do they call the um full full chain warranty no what is drive drive drive chain drive train drive train right that's what i want to do

when i grow up drive train i actually might you know the thing is i might uh stop i could stop taking my car to the dealership now for maintenance because i just got past all of the like the the Basically, I prepaid all of the maintenance on it for, I think, like five years or something. And I just, because I was leasing this car, and then when my lease was up, I just took the option to sort of buy it, you know, to just continue to. But instead of leasing it, I now own the car, which I'm still making payments on it. But anyway, it's like I'm buying the car, I guess. And as part of that, I had like, I don't know, five years of maintenance, which I kind of like. I don't even know if that's a good deal or not. but i just like they fold it into the payment and then you never even like they just never charge you anything you just bring it in they do all the stuff i mean i did have new tires put on and stuff like that but just as far as like regular maintenance goes they just cover it and this last time i took it in it was literally the final i think it was my last free maintenance or something so from here on out it's like i don't know what it is 200 bucks for an oil change something that's like again way more expensive than if i took it to jiffy lube yeah and so and also my i live up here in southern washington and i bought the car in portland because i lived there at the time so it's a little bit of a schlep so i may actually become a i may find a local place here and start taking it to them but again what i like what i like about going to the dealership is i feel like nobody there unless you're like over on the sales side of things things i feel like the pressure is lower to like get things that don't need to be fixed fixed because it's hard to explain people think of car dealerships as high pressure situations and they certainly are if you're looking to buy a car but my experience with taking my car in for maintenance at the couple of different dealerships that i've bought cars from the last few times i feel like you go in there there's somebody really nice sitting at a computer they're friendly they like know everything about your car because that's where you bought the car from and they're like it's coming up on this and this i don't know i mean you could probably get away with not doing this or whatever and like it doesn't like i think this this is actually really what i was meaning to say is like i think as i grew up in a family where like my dad just fixed all of the cars and never took the car in anywhere i have an amazingly high level of suspicion about people like about like a an auto repair place that you don't really know the people it's just like it's like jim's auto repair and you go in there and you don't really know what jim's motives are and you don't really know if if what you're being quoted or told is actually the thing or if it's just if it's the up sale of the thing like and i'm not even accusing this hypothetical jim of doing this i'm just saying it's like it's like the back the hairs on the back of my neck are just like up the whole time it's like can i trust this person or not and

And you've probably had some bad experiences, as have I, you know, like when we broke down on the GW Bridge and stuff.

And again, not even knowing, like I remember, like not even knowing if I had a bad experience. I bought this Subaru Outback off of eBay. I've told this story many times. I had ridden in someone's Subaru Outback at some point, Subaru Outback, I think Legacy. And I just thought it was so nice and so like luxurious. luxurious it had leather seats and it just felt comfy and i was like this is an amazing car and i got in my mind that i really wanted to buy one um but of course i didn't really have the money or the credit or the whatever to go to like a normal dealership and and and maybe i even could have you know what i mean this is like my brain was so malformed around a lot of normal adult behaviors because i grew up so poor and with so like we just never did you it would never you'd never go to a car dealership and say let me look at some cars let's run my credit let's see what i qualify for like that was just never how cars were acquired and in my family it was like you met some guy in a parking lot and you brought the five hundred dollars you're willing to pay him and that kind of a thing so i where do i turn i turn to ebay where i find this subaru outback legacy in stormville new york and uh it's you know maybe the retail on it at a car lot would be 10 000 and and maybe I get it for $7,500, but then I've got to pay $1,000 to truck it across the country. I didn't have the money. I cashed out my first KUOW 401k to get the money to buy this Outback. It gets trucked all the way out to Seattle. I get it off the truck. I drive it. I'm actually driving it to Bellevue. I think maybe at a Microsoft gig or something. This is day two of me owning it. And it starts doing exactly what you're describing. It starts bucking. It's an automatic. It starts bucking when I'm driving it on 520, and I limp it into a Midas muffler place, which is, again, not even like, that's not a place I'm bringing my car for a major, like a major auto repair. Like, that just seems like where you go to get your oil changed or something, or maybe your muffler, as is in the name.

But I'm with you, though, like, that's, you know, they can do, you assume they can do a few things, but also you're like, well, I know nothing about this, But those people are wearing overalls, and they can at least—it's a good place to begin right now.

It's like getting your family Thanksgiving dinner from Chipotle. It's like, they sell this thing, but it's kind of not where you go for this. It is poultry, yes. Massive engine overall. So I limp it in, and this is the Midas on Rainier Avenue, right by that bowling alley that we used to like to go to. And then for me to occasionally fight the manager at.

And then become best friends with the manager at.

and this guy goes the guy who runs the midas or whatever is like yeah it's you know same thing he's like the engine is blown it's three thousand dollars this like seven thousand dollar car i bought on ebay ebay i drive for 1.5 days before the engine blows oh my god and it's like i mean this is exactly why you don't buy a car on ebay and have it shipped across the country and i mean i was to tell you that i was devastated in this moment andrew i mean that was like i now have this car that doesn't operate that i'm out seven thousand dollars on and i don't really have the three thousand dollars to fix it i mean i really don't like i cashed out a 401k to get this car and i i like emailed the guy because this dude was like selling cars on ebay he kind of had like a little almost like online auto lot going you know he had different he had different vehicles for sale and i don't even think i don't even know if i was threatening or if i started with you know a sort of more pleasant approach but i just basically said look this car blew up when i got it and like you got to pay for this and insanely he said yes and i i remember sending him the bill and he refunded me the amount of money it might have been his online reputation if he had more cars to sell you know i think it was i think in a bizarre way that ended up actually saving me because if it was a regular if it was just like an aurora avenue kind of slightly crummy used car lot that like sold me a lemon what am i going to stand out in front of

them with a sign you know what by the way i want your take on something it didn't occur to me to have you weigh in on this but you would know this well because you know the part of aurora that i live on and near and traverse and you know that it's always fascinated me as as a business but i guess it's just a used car lot on the right on the corner of aurora the eastern corner of aurora and 135th. Those are just what it... been for you where the Kmart used to be right and what is now the Sprouts I know exactly I know exactly what you're talking about you know the car dealership that's a big the building is a big round building it's physically just a big round like that's been there my entire that was there

my entire life that big round yes thing with cars parked it's kind of interesting right and I was

yeah I was design I was uh trying taking a left hand turn on Aurora uh kind of sitting right next to that building yesterday which is to my left and I had realized like oh yeah they've kind of closed up shop and have like maybe six months ago or something i it's got maybe i'm exaggerating on the timeline there but the past several months i think it's been sitting empty and they but it hasn't gone to seed like they kind of have put some like plastic over those giant windows that you're talking about there are no cars visible but i'm sitting there thinking like boy what a fascinating building and who whoever decided to build this you know and sometimes i think back to like before aurora became what it is today which is known kind of for like you know crime and some seediness and stuff around that area. It was like a version of the Route 66, right? It was this idea of, oh, the automobile and these highways and byways are bringing the country together. And so Aurora was kind of part of that with hotels along the way and probably a lot of cool neon and whatever. And this was probably one of those buildings that harkens back to that time. And now I'm sitting there looking at it, and I'm like, well, if nobody buys it to sell cars, could they raise this building? Because it's kind of cool.

they don't yeah yeah my whole childhood growing up if you were driving up or down aurora at that thing you'd look you know that was that big round glass kind of auto showroom was cool i mean because the the history of of aurora avenue of course is that it was there long before i-5 it was it was highway 99 and it was the one way through seattle so you had all of those motels just thriving in the i don't i don't know the exact era i don't know when i-5 was completed but yeah then the story on it was once they put i5 in all of a sudden 99 really slid down the list of sort of like relevance and a lot of those a lot of those motels kind of fell into disrepair and this but yeah there was a i want to say i don't know go go 1950s or whatever kind of where you had a lot of cool stuff along aurora because again it was how you got through town so i sure hope they don't

tear that down me too man i mean you don't thon is coming up i mean is there any chance we relocate the TBTL HQ to the big round building on the corner of Aurora and 130th?

That would be much like doing the show from Liverpool Elementary School in Valley City, Ohio. That would be, for me, other than moving it down, other than us taking over that Aikido building where I once saw the best little whorehouse in Texas. Or the chocolate building

where your dad's sign shop used to be.

Chocolati, where it used to be SignWorks. If we start broadcasting from Aurora Avenue, it's going to be a pretty big nostalgia hit for me. I wouldn't rule it out.

Well, I've gotten us pretty close. You have to get us to the finish line, but I've gotten us pretty close to broadcasting from Aurora. Is that car toys still across the street? Car toys, a better way to go.

I believe it is. I believe it is. I used to take my, the couple of times that I actually, like, did some kind of a stereo upgrade, I think I went to that little car toys on Aurora there, too. So a lot of good memories from that part of North Seattle, and a lot of bad ones, because that is Kitty Corner from the Burger King where I peed my pants. hello and welcome to top story all right uh just quickly so we can clear this off the list i don't know a week or two ago we got on the subject of that subway takes show um i think because the guy who hosts it has a new show and he's been doing a lot of press and i was just kind of seeing him in the media i was talking about him a little bit um but then you asked me what my subway take was and i couldn't remember one and then i made a joke about bread and tearing the bread out and then we and that joke was continually made for another few days and then the other day i remembered like two things that i think i don't i don't think they would even work on subway takes because i don't have them fleshed out enough but i just thought i would throw these on you my two two of my subway takes two of my hot takes one is i think that when someone is taking a photo of either just you as a person or maybe a group of people when someone's kind of taking a picture like hey everybody look over here or like whatever when someone's taking a picture i think the least interesting thing you can do is give a middle finger to the camera i think it's one of the most boring it's it's it's so it's to me it's the height of irony because it's obviously offered as an edgy as an edgy move as a like get out of my face move or as a like i'm over this move or as a like it's just and yet there's nothing less edgy or less interesting it's such a i would rather you absent yourself from the photograph i would rather you just say uh no don't take a picture of me or you let's say it's a group photo and you just like maybe you just go stand slightly outside the frame i think flipping off the camera is the boringest thing you can possibly

do in a photo i actually i would agree with you except i would change the adjective i would say

cringiest maybe not boring you know what and maybe that you know this topic is somewhat come up on

the show before and and by the way i think that something happened where there was a time people did that i don't know if that was like a rock and roll thing in the 80s or maybe like a you know a gen x thing in the 90s i feel like it went away for a long time but then kind of had a resurgence a few years ago where people were kind of and maybe when so you agree with that i don't have any data on that but i will repeat a story and i'll try to keep it short um but it one of my cringiest moments or not i i can't list them all like i can't even rank them but but one of the things that when i think about like i just wince at my behavior is i was taking a trip with a bunch of friends it was me and jenna even some of our close friends from new hampshire we were going down to north carolina i believe somebody's family somebody's family had a house there and we were going to take it over and um i had never really traveled with friends before it was fun like my memory a storm actually ended up kind of rolling in and it was one of those things where it was a trip where we had a lot of fun but also you know it's kind of bonding sometimes when you have to like give up one of your days of vacation just to all stay inside and like kind of figure out how to cook everything in the house because a big you know like uh hurricane level storm is rolling in off the coast or it was just like a so many like happy memories of that trip um one of the people who we were going with and it might even been her family's place is a fantastic photographer a photo journalist who i knew and really looked up to i mean she was probably my age uh but i she was just such a role model for me in the photography um world because she was doing it as a professional i was a hobbyist and she's so good she goes on to win a pulitzer prize in fact and she was a very very close friend of mine at the time and um and she has the i always loved how she could just take the best photos sometimes just from her hip even because like her camera was like an extension of herself and she took this photo of all of us we had some travel issues because like the planes weren't running on time and we missed our connecting flight and all this stuff and there's this photo of us all running through the airport and she's not in it because she took it and she had the wherewithal she runs ahead of us and just kind of spins around she's kind of got her camera at her at her hip or whatever and kind of fires fires off the shot and it is such an amazing photo and i don't know where this came from but i flicked off the camera and oh i remember seeing it you know it's digital so i saw it immediately and just being like what did i do what did i do what did i do now i've never even seen that photo since i don't know if she circulated it this is you know facebook was around it's pretty new yeah facebook was around but it's pretty new at this time or whatever but like i still think about that photo i'm not in touch with this friend anymore which also sort of breaks my heart and i blame myself for that but it's like you flipped her off yeah exactly and i just ruined like this amazing photo by a friend of mine who's like my favorite photographer in the world and here i am in one of her photos and i'm flipping off the camera i think i said flick before i can never remember well i can't ever

decide if i think i guess i'm going with flipped because you think about flipping it open yeah yeah But certainly, we used to say flicked off, too, when I was a kid. I think those were interchangeable.

You flick boogers, you flip birds.

I can definitely identify, though, with just impulsively doing something like that. It's not even your personality. No. Certainly, you as I know you at this point, and have known you now very well for many years, my friend, that's so not your energy. but i also can i i also can identify with that just like just in the moment for no reason that can be explained later is doing something impulsive like that and then being like oh man yeah um my second hot take which i've also which i've talked about on the show before but it was it was brought back to my mind recently for some reason which is unless the announcement is we've lost all of our engines and the plane is going down i do not think there's any reason for there to be any announcements over the pa of the airplane there is no useful information that is being transmitted that people do not already know now i do think if you're in the exit row the you know the the flight attendants should come up to you as they do now and kind of check in is everybody comfortable opening that door if we need to here's the instructions of how to do it i do i have and Now, granted, I obviously fly a lot, so I'm pretty, I'm pretty aware of the spiel, but I do not think there's anything that they're saying to you, because here's the thing, it is so loud, because I think of, because probably FAA regulation, and the concern that if there is, like, first of all, everyone has headphones on now, people are talking, they're distracted, so there's, I think that there is some minimal, minimum decibel.

level that like legally the announcements have to be at so people can hear it and also if it's an emergency it's so loud it is like you can't sleep through it if you're listening to something on the headphones you have to pause what you're listening to and it is first of all so much of it is now advertisement so much of it is now about your um signing up for the credit card program i was going

to joke i was going to jump in and say luke this is where i disagree with you because if they don't spend at least 10 minutes yelling in my ear when i'm not allowed to go anywhere about the atmos rewards card where else am i going to get that information it is so annoying noxious you're not allowed to leave seat belt light is on and now we're going to blast this at high decibel just so that we can sell you something when you're already on a on an airplane that you feel like you've probably already been ripped off seven times just getting into that seat exactly and i

do feel like the amount of spawn con now the amount of of of getting on the microphone and and and sort of trying to get us to somehow spend more money on this or get this credit card or whatever it feels to me like it's it's creeping into more and more of what happens when they crack that microphone the other part that's tough and again on the one hand i understand this because i have the show off demon i think the reason this came up in my mind again the other day is because i think we had a flight attendant who was the person sort of deputized to operate the announcements right and she was very clearly a person who just liked being on the microphone and said everything because there's you know there's the stuff that they are reading you know there's obviously the script and that has to do with the safety procedures and things like that but there and that is what it is but there were so many other things where you could just tell that this person enjoyed much in the way that i have enjoyed hosting radio shows in my life and enjoy doing this show with you and i'm here i am talking into a microphone right now sort of like you could just every once in a while you get either a pilot or a kind of head flight attendant who just likes being on the mic and when i when when i identify that as the scenario at the beginning of a flight i know i'm in for a long long journey yeah because it's not just again it's not just the federally mandated announcements that has to happen, which I would argue we know. You know what they're not announcing anymore? Did they just stop doing this? In the event of a water landing, your seat cushion will act as a flotation. They don't say that?

They don't say that anymore. Really? I didn't notice that. It's just slowly, quietly backed into the hedges like Homer? They just got rid of

that. I don't know if that's in the safety like if it's on the safety card and maybe that they now feel like you can just say look at the safety card for your also it's possible Andrew that I've just completely left. Yes you might just be zoned. I've zoned out so hard. I'd be interested

I feel like we would have heard about it. I doubt

you'll remember this because you'll have a lot on your mind but let's listen for when you're flying to Ohio see if they say it. I'm curious because I feel like and also we're flying over land mostly so that might also impact it. Maybe it has to do with If we're flying, if we're going to spend a significant amount of time over water or not, I feel like that has really gotten low keyed of late, if not erased altogether. But I guess I would just say I try to put myself in the mind of a person who's never been on an airplane before. So and I'm an adult. So like say I'm 25, I'm on my first airplane flight of the things that they're saying over the loudspeaker. How many of those things are actually important for me to know? And I would say very, very little, very, very, almost none of that content is that important to me.

I'm with you. I mean, I do, again, with the caveat that they legally have to say some stuff. Fine. Okay. I'm not going to argue that. I'm not arguing that with you. But I'm trying to think of anything else that I want. I know. Oh, okay. End of the flight. I need to know, especially if it's one of those things where the flight was delayed and I'm one of the people who's making a connecting flight. Any pertinent, important information about where that connecting flight is or if I need to find my bags. If there are people in the back of the plane who need to deboard first because they need to make their connecting flight, I will be the first to stand up and salute them from my seat and let them off the plane. So we need to know that. That's the only thing I can think of.

Totally. I think that's a reasonable use of the PA system. I've even had I've been on early morning flights Or at least one that I can remember Where it was like It was either an early morning flight I feel like very early Or it might have been like a red eye It was something where The person in charge of the PA system said I know it's really early And a lot of you are trying to catch up on sleep So we're going to keep the announcements to a minimum And when I tell you, of course That I was just like I I was in love with that person immediately. And guess what? They barely cracked the microphone the whole flight. And everybody was able to get kind of some restful sleep. And like, that was when I learned that we don't need to hear hardly nearly as much as we're hearing right now.

Like I thought they made that announcement in the middle of a long silence, like just every like 10 minutes, just a reminder, we're not going to be interrupting you. We're going to be low.

Hey, just so you know, the last 10 minutes, you weren't hearing us talk that was because um no it was like they just they they literally said we know that a lot of people are trying to sleep so we're going to keep the announcements to a minimum and it was like it was amazing it was it was beautiful and what it told me was 90 of what we're hearing over the pa system is not federally mandated um or specified and we could get it down to 10 i would just like us to get down to only the only the 10 that we absolutely have to do and i think we'll all just we'll all enjoy the flight a little bit more i also just realized yesterday i was walking the dogs around the lake and somebody drove by in a loud car and like you were talking about um a bunch of guys tarps off chanting usa and how that was like that just that emotional reaction you have yeah my emotional reaction to loud noises is is truly on it's it's it's it's unhinged like it makes me it fills me with a level of anger that it feels so personal to me those noise intrusions and things like that so like when when i'm trapped in my seat and i'm seat belted in because i have to be and then that speaker is right on top of me and then this person is just talking and talking and talking yeah and then you think they're done yeah and then they're talking and talking and talking it's it's like it makes me and i'll admit it makes me irrationally upset like my reaction to it is more i feel more upset about that than i should so some of this is

me in fairness well i don't have that reaction to a lot of things the way you do like the loud cars allowed motorcycles and stuff um but it does bother me i mean the the the whole you were trapping you and go i mean i feel like the longest thing they do now is the credit card commercial and i don't think that's just a perceived thing that feels like they're just talking and talking and they keep going on and on and on and it's so loud like i sit there and i fume because it's so intrusive it is so intrusive even with your headphones on it's intrusive and you're completely trapped so i i'm with you on that absolutely i have a question for you about your loud noise stuff by the way yeah uh first of all do you think it's getting worse and if so has the okay i had a feeling that was the answer to that so has your feeling about fireworks changed as well because you and i i know that probably a lot i would guess that the majority of our listeners are more on the side of like i'm over with fireworks they disturb my dog you we don't need them and they're just they're just noisy and intrusive and i have a lot of friends who feel that way too i don't argue the point with them that is a totally valid point but i just still like them like i just if they're going off i get excited because there's something in me has that changed for you because i know you used to love i used to used to like to do a little roundup of fireworks

yourself right and go blow those babies off yeah you know here's where i'm at with fireworks i i be and you know like told you that the first night that dj and gigi were here there were some kind of a loud like you know firework that went off and dj just kind of like calmly and slightly meekly walked into the bedroom just like stood next to me of course that made me feel very sad for her and a lot of empathy for her um and so in that case like i guess here's what i think i don't really like i don't think i like fireworks in tight in fairly tightly or like i don't like fireworks in neighborhoods anymore i think like i don't think that the neighborhood is the place to set off your fireworks i don't know if you can go somewhere that's away from all of that you know what i do still really like are like municipal fireworks so from my house um because we're looking out on the mighty columbia i can look down the river there's a big fireworks show that goes off down in the town and i can actually see it from here and i remember like i don't know if it was last year or a couple of years ago uh we had some people out here and i just remember sitting out on the deck at night and watching the big city fireworks going off over the river and that is really fun that i really still like and i feel like if you can you know or like the gas works do they still do the gas works park fireworks down

there you know i know that the company that used to sponsor all the time pulled out like 10 years ago then other people kind of filled in the gaps and so i don't know where it is right now i want to say yes i don't know if they ended up skipping any years clearly during the pandemic i'm sure they they went away maybe or maybe they did it remotely and gave everybody a show from their homes but my guess is in some version it's still going on i i think what i like are municipal fireworks because It's a controlled environment. People can get together. I like people getting together and sitting on that hill at Gasworks Park and watching the fireworks and oohing and aahing. I also think it gives people with sensitive pets a chance to maybe take their sensitive pets somewhere else that night, which, again, I know puts the onus. I know this is a very fraught topic for our listeners, so please don't come at me. I'm sure someone's going to say, oh, I used to live near the fireworks in Seattle, and I don't have the ability to take my cat somewhere. So I, I, I understand all of that, but like what I, what I'm kind of less of a fan now of is just somebody like, I would never light off fireworks here at my house anymore because even though I live kind of out in the middle of nowhere, I also have neighbors, you know, like a hundred feet in either direction and they've got pets and I wouldn't want to stress their pets out. this actually Andrew gets me into a topic that I've been debating if I want to bring up or not I think there is a I think I have a growing sense that one of my neighbors is kind of is kind of on my last nerve and I'm trying to really stay it's not my buddy Bob with the starter fluid

it's not starter fluid but I don't want to start but you've mentioned some other neighbors as well Including one who you just mentioned Very favorably the other day With her dog I don't want to put you on the spot Oh gay, I love gay I didn't want to put you on the spot Of process of elimination And then you out this person It's not that hard to

Let's just say For people that have listened to the show a lot And have heard me mention the various neighbors It's not super hard to figure out Who's who I have a neighbor Who's pretty like kind of by the by the numbers and by the book and and you know has in years past when i wasn't living up here you know called and and left a message on the on the voicemail line yeah about my about the hill and about this this thing called tansy and stuff like that and we kind of got through that you know i came up to the place i pulled out the tansy i had the the hill mode or as it's called brush hogged but by the way that cost like a thousand dollars to do that right and i don't legally have to do that i just you know it is i guess technically you know you you could say that it's there's more fuel like i you know i have i'm on like i think it's maybe like two acres or like a little under two acres and but most of the property is this kind of rolling hill that has very tall grass on it and then some trees down at the bottom of it and well if you want to know really where this all started andrew and this is why i'm sort of like i'm i'm hesitant to bring it up but also who cares i noticed that this one particular neighbor like it seems like he only reaches out to me when he's like trying to like tell me to do something or ask me to do something like so keep an eye on your hose that's the other neighbor and he was trying to be helpful

oh really that's the other neighbor i pictured it being this fellow okay no that's the other

neighbor and he just thought that i was trying to fill up my little stock tank pool and that my hose has gone crazy yeah yeah so that was totally meant from a place of like let me give you an example this other neighbor who the literally the first time that we ever interacted was please mow your hill and you have illegal tansy growing and again i was the one who fielded that

first phone call because it was left on the he must have googled you and the somehow the first thing he saw was the tbtl voicemail line which that's an interesting move i had to send that to

good seo for on our part yeah i guess so so and that was years and years ago again i came up i remedied the situation i we hung out a little bit again these are people that have a no kings sign like i'm down with them being my neighbors and i'm down with them in the world generally speaking we have what are essentially minimal interactions they're not negative they're not positive um there's the occasional wave um and again they're i actually i think i generally speaking i kind of like them but what i feel like over time is somehow it's developed to this thing where this guy only reaches out when so the basement of my house is kind of still very much in flux it's like unfinished it's just full of like tools and stuff it's very disorganized and the lighting in there is kind of lousy so i have this like like this lamp in there which is one of those things it's kind of a big flat circle that's on top of a metal pole that you can kind of move

the circle around i literally oh okay it's adjustable i it's not i was picturing one of the stick lamps of the 90s that you and i will sometimes it's essentially that except the top

is different but it's basically that and it's not even like it's not meant for the basement i was literally like i don't know where it was it was somewhere else in the house and i was like i'm gonna throw this out wait i'll use it in the basement because i can never see anything in there because it's not lit very well so that was down there i guess i turned it on to do something and then the basement door which doesn't shut very well because it's all swollen from water intrusion i guess the basement door blew open

And that torch lamp, or whatever you want to call it, lamp was still on. And because of how the top rotates, the circle, I guess, was pointed in the direction of their house. So if you can imagine this, it's like from their house, they look over towards my place. Under my deck, there's this basement door that opens. And then way in the interior of the basement is this light. And I forget where I was. I had no idea this was going on. But I get an email from him or a text from him saying, this is like, can you please turn that light off? it's shining directly into our house and i'm like okay i can but like i would be shocked if that light was really actually impacting you that much it's like again i don't even understand like the sort of like photo whatever the the the photo optics of it the light movement of it the whatever you want to call it like i don't know how that was bothering you but i was like oh my gosh

i'm so sorry because it's not a spotlight right that i i will admit it's not a spotlight this is on me that I kind of can't quite picture the kind of lamp this is at the top. But just to be very clear, it's not a super focused light that you would be using for work purposes or anything like that that would be considered a spotlight that is misdirected. Like I have some security lights on the outside of my garage that I actually am cognizant that if I aim it, and we used to have an ugly one on the front of the house when we bought this place, and I knew that it bothered our neighbor across the street, and that was totally reasonable to me, but this is not reasonable. I don't

think, I mean, yes, this is not a spotlight. It's not a security light. It's literally like a lamp you would have in your living room, and again, it's like a torch lamp, except the top of it, instead of being that thing that we're picturing, Yeah, why? Kind of that point to the ceiling. It's like a flat disc. It's a flat disc that's all the lamp. It's all the illumination, and you can move it around.

Oh, okay, yeah, I can sort of picture that. Yeah, I know

what you mean. It's on a swivel, so the light itself is on a swivel and again it's just little things like that like and i turned it off immediately also i'm glad that i learned i was wasting energy down there like i don't want to leave it on but i also feel like i can't imagine this was really that upsetting but it's like okay fine and i and i'm like oh my god i'm so sorry and i run down and turn it off you know and then it's like when's the next time that he reaches out it's like it's you know oh i you know i saw him and he had a big um like a big brace on his arm like he'd maybe had a surgery or something and i texted him hey it looks like you had a maybe an arm surgery on him everything all right you good you need help with anything everything all right and his response is just yep i was like okay well i thought that was neighborly of me to inquire and then and then uh i said oh hey by the way just so you know um oh you know what it was i was i i wanted to hire he had some guys working at his house and those were the guys that i wanted to hire someone to do some weed whacking around here so i texted him hey do you could i get the number of the people working on your house and he just sends me the number and then i said by the way i'm gonna um try to get my hill brush hogged uh when i can find someone to do it or something his response is glad to hear it

and i'm just like you're giving me nothing here bro that may be a text thing though he's not i'm guessing that he's not sending you other texts that are super verbose as well like he might just be, that might just be his style of texting. I think it's also his style of talking.

He's like a serious guy who's just from an older generation than I'm from. He's not nearly as verbose as me, but I think you're right. I think some of it is just texting energy. It's not that

he's necessarily irritated, it's just that he's a person who doesn't see the need to waste extra words. I mean, it sounds like a very New England-y thing to me, having lived there in a while. Totally. Dude.

And it's like, he's just like, he's like, you know, he's older than me, but he's just like, he's like a big guy still. He's like six, probably like six, four, very upright posture like like i think maybe former military i think airline pilot like it's kind of

like a imposing dude who's wears a beret glasses wears a beret glasses has sort of this flies his own plane yes okay yeah no i you know what i'm starting to picture this guy but so then um so

then yesterday i had the guys come out and they did the weed whacking project that i that i was hiring them for and i don't know if this is what sort of like inspired him or not but then like I just get a message from him so I've already told him I'm going to try to get this big hill of mine that's all this tall grass I'm going to try to get this thing dealt with. You volunteered this too

he wasn't writing you about it? I volunteered that

a while ago and he said glad to hear it or something but he then says he goes and I'd actually like you to interpret this message because I think I'm kind of being I think I'm being sensitive because I didn't get more I didn't get the response I wanted about the arm surgery So I think I'm kind of being overly sensitive.

It's like everything is now sort of being tinted or colored because of the collection.

I feel like I'm trying to be Mr. Nice Guy. And then I feel like, you know, the responses are very curt. And then the responses are often feels like him telling me that I need to do something. You know what I mean? Here's what he said yesterday. Apologies if you think I'm overly sensitive about fire danger. But your neighbor, oh, this is the other thing. He doesn't like the guy who lives on the other side of me.

Oh, God, now you're literally in the middle of them. Wait a second, though.

I'm literally in the middle of these two things.

This text message is interesting because I said, oh, maybe he's just the type of guy who is not verbose. This is starting pretty verbose. I mean, it's starting with a dependent clause. Like, what are we doing here? So this guy does sometimes lay it on. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. And that's why, as I'm reading it here, I'm kind of questioning, I'm interrogating my own feelings about this, because I think I got my feelings, I felt a little rejected, like, five messages ago, and I think it's just been simmering. I think I've just been kind of, oh, oh, here's the other thing. There we go. So, I was, my friend Spring was over, and I was telling her about this old road that runs at the base of my property and my neighbor's property. It used to be, it was called Old Military Road. It was the only way you could get from Portland to Seattle. The only way to get down to that road area, I can't get to it from my property. There's a very steep drop off. So I have to text my neighbor and ask him, is it okay if I cut through your driveway to go down and walk around on this road? Now, by the way, he showed me this road. Yeah, he maintains it sort of, right? Yeah, he maintains it. But, like, yeah, so I was like, and, you know, I was like, so on whatever day it was, the other day after we floated the river, I texted him and I said, hey, can I walk down to that road? Would it be okay if I go down your driveway to show my friend that road down there? And this was his response. Okay, but leave the dog behind. Really interesting. Like, okay, but don't, he also doesn't realize that there's two poodles. Yeah.

But this is interesting.

Okay, but leave the dog behind.

That, I don't like that. And also because have you guys had any conversations about these dogs? Has he met the dogs in person? Or this is just like, oh, I'm just doing my neighborly stuff and I see you have a dog. I've never said anything about the dog. I've never petted that dog. But just leave the dog behind. I don't like that.

I've never texted you about the dog. We've had no interactions. Okay, but leave the dog behind.

Okay. And knowing that, he also sends texts that begin with, apologies if I seem overly sensitive.

apologies is i messed up the timeline here so okay so i think i i think that the text that has me in my feelings about this was okay but leave the dog behind which was on tuesday but my point

is i now know that he is a man who has the ability and it's sometimes the inclination to text something that can be softened a little bit and is is aware of tone and so knowing that about him knowing that he's capable of that makes me hate this leave the dog behind even more because he could have said no problem but if you don't mind i don't really like dogs down there because xyz you know what i mean and i think that this is a tone thing you and i i mean i feel like going back to the first time i was on this show with you we talked about how you and i are very sensitive to

tone and i will say i don't like this tone yeah me neither because like it's such a non it's such a non-imposition on him I feel like I'm I'm highly respectful like I would never ever walk down his driveway um down to this spot without asking him and and I've you know I've been down I've taken a handful of people down there to kind of check it out and stuff and I always text him and say is it okay if I cut through your driveway and so I try to be really really like again respectful about that stuff and he's got read receipts because he's from a different generation and so it was like when i said hey it would be okay if i if i went down and showed my friend the the road and cut through your driveway it's like i can see that it's red and then like 10 minutes go by and it's like a pretty much a yes or no answer it's like pretty straightforward and then it's like the three dots are going doodaloo doodaloo doodaloo and that's when okay but leave the dog behind comes down which also i was mad because i wanted to take the dogs down there yeah because they would enjoy it like it would be a nice walk for them and so i was like and you know but you know what i said to it i said okay gotcha and that's what i did didn't take the dog down just walked down there looked around a little bit came back but that was kind of living in the back of my head that was i think the one that set me off and then yesterday that's when i get apologies if you think i'm overly sensitive about fire danger but your neighbor lights fireworks soon and you've got a gas can in the hot sun so my neighbor so in other words the guy who lives on the other side of

me whose name he should presumably

know they know each other they lived here long before I did like and what I've gotten from the other neighbor from Bob who I like is that oh by the way here's how Bob rolls the other day I just get this kind of picture and Bob's like hey ever wonder what your house looks like from the river so he was down on the river with somebody and he like took a picture of the house he was like hey here's what it looks like I was like oh cool thanks man like that's how he rolls he's like down on one knees spraying starting fluid into my cat you know my lawn mower.

i i don't know if he if he regularly does fireworks or whatever but my other neighbor now it's like your neighbor yeah exactly not the guy that we both know the name exactly it's like when your

parent says i'm like well your sister got into the cookie jar whatever my sister that's your

daughter just call it exactly yeah exactly like i don't really i don't like the energy of this i don't like this energy your neighbor lights fireworks soon and you've got a gas can in the hot sun there's no fire hydrant up here prevention is our only protection and it's like okay let's well first of all my guy the grass is still green like you know i mean it's not the grass is green up here we are not in the mode where all of the grass is dried out and dead if you there's a smoky is it smoky the bear or smoky bear that's come up before too is it smoky bandit or smoky And the bandit. I think it's Cannonball.

It's Burt Reynolds is the one who said only you can prevent fire force. The fact that I said Cannonball means I can't finish that joke. All right, go ahead.

It's like there's a Smokey Bear fire watch sign at the base of the hill. Like when you roll into the neighborhood, there's literally like Smokey the Bear, and it's one of those things that has an arrow. I remember seeing that. Yeah, like the fire danger. It goes from like what the fire danger is. it's right now it's at moderate because everything is still green and wet the trees are green the grass is still green it's you know transitioning but it's we are far from the driest dog days of july and august when we might have a we might have an actual you know tinder box on our hands and so it's like now here's the thing too that that i find a little bit interesting about this is like he is applying pressure on me to do something that cost me a thousand dollars and is kind of like a i'm like i mean what i could say is do you want to pay for half of it

can you know and i'm worried about it i apologize for this but at first when you said you have a gas can or whatever in your yard i thought that he was being allegorical but then as you continue to tell the story i thought literally because you now have a gas powered mower he meant you are literally you literally have a gas can in your backyard that you've been neglecting and he was concerned about that no he is just using colorful language to say like take care of these weeds again it's a fire hazard he's not actually concerned about an actual gas can no there

is an actual gas can but it's in the basement okay yeah yeah i i thought because i was like oh

whatever i i understood what you were saying and then i talked myself out of it and now i understand he is talking about the thing oh well then okay do you know okay before you tell me what your response was this is what I think your response should have been that's it yes leave him leave him on read I should just turn on reader seats only for him do not did you respond at all I did respond I would have not responded I would have just been like I'm done with you well see that's

the thing though this guy is my neighbor and like I'm gonna have him as a neighbor for presumably a long time and it's one of those things where I don't he's not it's right up on the line of I mean, this is a person who has, you know, again, generally leaves me alone, is not like, is sort of like, he's not like anywhere near the worst neighbor that I could have. And so I don't want to inflame, so to speak, inflame the situation. I don't, my tendency when I feel criticized is towards being like, I will end you. This is where you're effing with the wrong mother effer comes from. And so believe you me, I've played through a bunch of scenarios where I'm like, well, I mean, would you like to pay for would you like to pay the thousand dollars to have this hill mode? Or would you like to mow it for me? Or like, hey, this is my property and legally I don't have to do shit like I've.

And I don't recommend that. Yeah, no, I don't recommend that. I don't think that that is it. But I also don't think that you owe him a response or I don't think you owe him a response more than like a thumbs up reaction to his message. Like, okay, thumbs up.

I said, yeah, I'm working on it. Finding someone to brush hog that hill is more challenging than you might think. Which is totally true. The guy that, remember the guy Jerry that I used to call? He's not picking up this year. I think he has, I don't know if he's still in the business. He has a voicemail line and it is full. So we're having trouble locating Jerry. And then he, my neighbor, said, Leo, that's the guy that's been doing the weed whacking. Leo has a mower, you might ask him about it He said it can handle steep slopes And that's where things are at right now Now here's the thing that's Underlying all of this, or as part of all this Is that it's probably Not the worst idea for me To get the hill mowed, that's the thing He's, I feel Both very resistant to doing it Because of my neighbor telling me to Because again It's like, I'm not out here telling him Anything that he needs to do that costs him A thousand dollars No, he got. You're the new neighbor. He came in right away with this alpha move about the tansy, and now he thinks you're his little boy, and he's the one who's calling the shots. He thinks he's the mayor of the hill, and he's not.

And the thing is, though, also, it's probably not the worst idea because I also, I spend time thinking about, well, what would I do if a fire started ripping up this hill? Because it is at the end of the day and come, you know, come the drier months of July and August, it really is a big, giant fuel load, as they would say. It's a big hill of long, dry grass that if something got into it, you know, could be a problem. And so, again, I'm both peeved that I feel like I'm being lectured to and I'm being more or less told to do something that, again, I don't legally have any responsibility to do. But also it's probably not a bad idea. So I'm really in the middle. And I also want to be kind of like I want to kind of let him know that I'm not going to take his bullshit. But I also don't want to escalate things for kind of for no reason, because generally speaking, I think just I'm just I'm just better off, you know, I'm better off being on good terms with my neighbors as much as I can be. You know, there's no reason for me to escalate this. Although, again, a lot of me was wanted to be like, hey, buddy, why don't you worry about your property and I'll worry about mine? Like, that's kind of what I want to do. But I also just there's just no need for me to make things more tense than they need.

No, I don't think you should make things more tense, but I just also, I guess, I'm just sort of getting some echoes of a relationship I'm in, say a business relationship that I'm in right now where I was like sort of letting somebody guide me for a while and now I'm done with that. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm paying you. And I think I'm going to stop just assuming that everything you say is the way things are going to go. And like, I don't, but it's also in my best interest to keep the relationship, you know, friendly, you know, in the same way it is for you. So I am not suggesting that you say, hey, listen here, bub. I don't think you should ever start a text message to any of your neighbors and say, listen here, bub. But I also worry about you letting him in on the negotiating of the problem at this point like maybe it's good maybe Steve or Jerry or whoever it is um who's got the weed eater also has a mower on a hill maybe that's information you could use but I think my hackles are up a little bit in this yeah in this conversation but like I also think it's totally acceptable especially for a guy who sometimes texts things leave the dog or yup I think it's totally fine and totally acceptable by the way if you were to text me tomorrow morning actually don't do this tomorrow morning because we have a guest on but if you were to text me let's say this morning and you said hey i gotta cut something for cbs i need an extra 15 minutes to dial up do you know what i think is a completely acceptable response for me a thumbs up from me to you on that message that is modern communication that is saying i got this i have nothing to say on the matter that's totally fine you know it's fine i got it it also could mean uh i'm waiting around on your ass again it doesn't in this hypothetical by the anyway but like you know you know me well enough and just like got it like red red like that's it that's that's all you need and so with him i'm just sort of like i am maybe now more worked up than you about this because i didn't like that dog comment and again i want to be very clear his property if he's saying i don't want dogs on my property there's a completely there could be a completely reasonable explanation for that or or unreasonable he could at least just say this is why i kind of have a thing with dog it could literally be if you don't mind leave no dogs please because i have you know what i mean but it was said so rudely i think and if that's the if that's the level of discourse that he's offering you i think it's fine just be like thumbs up and you got a you got a gas can in your backyard thumbs up red understood he's trying to

yeah exactly and you're right too because when he was yeah he he he is trying to get me to fast track this project in other words not only not only does he want me to spend a thousand dollars to get this hill mode which is a third of what uh i think volt Volkswagen repair is going for these days sure yeah not only does he want me to do it but he wants me to try to get it done before next week because he thinks that my neighbor is going to be shooting off fireworks yeah and that's going to uh you know make this hill so in other words but what i mean by that is he now needs something for me because he can't legally make me do this so that's where he comes in with the apologies if i'm being a lot about this you know what i mean although even the way he phrases that he doesn't say apologies if i'm paranoid about the hill he says apologies if you think i'm overly sensitive oh yeah in other words apologies if you have a thought about me yeah i'm sorry if I'm sorry if you were offended by what I said.

Not like, I'm sorry that this is something I get a little worked up about or something. I'm not sorry that if, I'm sorry, you know.

Has he brought anything to the relationship? I mean, he showed you the road, but that was a little self-interest because he is proud of it. He lets you have access to the old logging road, which is, that's kind of cool. But aside from that, like, has he helped you start your lawnmower, like Bob or whatever his name is?

No, but I've never asked him for anything. You know where I think things took a little bit – long ago, things branched off from we're going to be like kind of friendly neighbors who wave at each other and, I don't know, have like – are sort of on a friendly basis was after we walked to the road. And so I came up here, explained what the tansy was. We talked about the hill. He took me for a tour of the property, showed me the road, and we really – we kind of hit it off. and then after that i think he invited me over one time maybe a couple of times to like have a beer with him and his wife and i think i had some scheduling conflict i think i was either out of town or i had something going on and so basically like he i think he invited me over a time or two and i couldn't do it and i think after that and he's never invited me over again i think i think he just felt like okay well that was my attempt at being social or being uh friendly and And that's not, you know, I wonder if he almost felt a little rejected after that. Maybe. And so after that, like, and, you know, one time he did text me. He said something like, hey, you know, you're doing some cool projects over there. Keep at it. You know, so it's not like all of our texts have been kind of cursed.

So he does occasionally just text you something nice and neighborly? I appreciate that. Well, that was like years ago. I will say, like, the very first time you knew this person existed or the very first interaction was him googling you and finding and i'm not and again we have it on our website the phone number but for somebody who doesn't even know what a tbtl is and i'm making maybe some assumptions about his you know digital literacy or whatever but the fact that he spent some amount of time trying to figure out okay well my neighbor's name is this if i google them i find this and then i go to this page the contact and about page boy that sure is a tiny yaris his co-host is standing next to in that one photo oh here's the phone number bar is tiny or is the co-host exactly the answer my it is both but and that's the very first interaction is that voicemail which we've played i believe on the show before which i consider to be fair game i think we even say in the outgoing message like if you're leaving a voicemail here it is ready for air but that is the best like he's a neighbor couldn't you maybe leave a note on the door and and just say hey i'm i'm your new neighbor welcome to town hey i did have something i wanted to talk to you about regarding kind of a fire hazard back here could we chat about it here's my number something that that seems to be like a more reasonable thing if i had something to take up with my neighbor or a new neighbor who moved in i don't think i'd start by finding out the neighbor's name googling them and then leaving a voicemail on their podcast's voicemail line.

Yeah, how about can I get an email for this guy, Luke? I'm his neighbor or something like that. Yeah, right? Yeah, definitely. And, you know, part of it, I'm just so petty. You shouldn't have brought this up.

I'm spreading gas on this.

When he said that, like, your neighbor shoots off fireworks, I really wanted to be like, do you know that no one around here likes you? I don't even know if that's true. I just wanted him to think that.

I think about saying that to my across-the-street neighbor all the time.

Well, that's actually kind of true. Well, except I don't know.

Like, because people do stand and talk to him all the time, but he's a time thief. He's a conversation bandit. You know, he'll just like, he'll steal. Actually, I'm the conversation bandit. I got a little. Conversation bandit is great. Maybe that's the show title. I got a little cape and a little mask and I go around forcing people to have conversations with me. But that is what he's like, you know, like he's somebody who is, who will trap you and not read at all any kind of urgency on your part. You could be holding 10 grocery bags and have a dog nipping at your heels. Melting ice cream. And he's telling you about, you know, the long version of a story that the short version is also too long. So anyway, I didn't like that calling the voicemail line thing as an introduction.

Yeah. And I think when I was kind of spinning out a little bit about it and again, feeling like I wanted to just like, because for some reason, I guess I feel weirdly protective of my other neighbor because my other neighbor and I like our friendship, if you would call it that, has kind of been growing like you know he and I chat in the yard a couple times a week and like you know uh he was at that fund I told you he was at that fundraiser thing that I was emceeing and

like oh I don't know that I I if you said that I think I didn't remember it or connect it or whatever um that's interesting the one that was for vets yeah uh no that was a it was the one

that was for uh unhoused people down in town down in Longview oh I I forgot that little detail.

Both of these things involve people that are struggling with housing instability. Okay. So, yeah, as my kind of casual friendship with my one neighbor is growing, I've got this other guy on the other side of me where I feel like our relationship is slightly deteriorating, and he's being like, your neighbor. And I'm like, my neighbor has a name. That's right, yeah. I literally wanted to—I even asked the neighbor that I like. I was like, hey, what's the deal with the other guy? And he goes, I don't know, man. And he goes, like, my sister was house-sitting for me, and I think her dog ran over to their yard, and they yelled at her dog, and there was, like, words or something, you know?

Oh, he's got a dog thing.

Which is crazy, because they have dogs. Oh! They have two very yappy chihuahuas.

Maybe that's the thing. Maybe dogs set his dogs off. I think dogs set his dogs off.

I see.

Again, that's reasonable. It's his property. If he says, yeah, come on by, but don't bring your dog, that's fine. But I think tone is important.

Yes, I think tone matters, and you're right. When he wants something from me expedited, like he wants me to get the hill mode before the 4th of July, he's able to break out the apologies, basically, apologies if you think I'm being too much on this. But that's his attempt at diplomacy, but with a goal in mind, which is the goal is for me. But again, at the end of all of it, it's also probably not the worst idea.

So that's where, and it's also not, and also I'm all worked up, but also none of this is really bad neighbor. So if you, in fact, it's funny, you said that because of maybe because of that documentary series on HBO called neighbors about toxic relationships. And then you kind of got into that. And now you're being, you mentioned being served all these clips on, on Tik TOK that are just like, yeah. And you know what, like in a certain way, let that serve as a good reminder. And, and for me as somebody who's unfortunately pouring gas on, on this guy, I'm over here. gas can in that basement yeah exactly i'm i'm you know i i feel like i'm throwing few on the fire here uh of your relationship and maybe i need to back off a bit because okay i'm getting a little upset i'm getting a little defensive on your behalf oh i tone but you're right that in the grand scheme of things like this is nothing this is little tonal things and you guys are all doing

fine out there i want to keep things on the right side uh i want to keep things on the positive because anytime you have a neighbor and you get into some sort of pitched battle with them, I mean, it can be life-ruining. And there's so many people that have dealt with versions of this that are just like, I would give anything to just have a normal or a non-relationship with this person as opposed to him, I don't know, phoning the county to find out if my deck is exactly 100% up to code, everything like that. He could really be a giant pain, as anybody could be to any of their neighbors. You could be annoying to people, as annoying as you want to be, and right now things are basically fine. I don't see any reason to push it into the negative other than my petty hurt feelings and not liking, feeling like I'm being told what to do or judged as a 50-year-old homeowner who's, I think, also, by the way, a pretty good neighbor. Like, that's the thing. I don't like, I don't have any wild parties out here. I don't like, I don't know, I don't block the driveway. I don't like I feel like I'm I'm just out here podcasting like quietly podcasting in this studio and then mostly watching the Mariners disappoint me inside on my television occasionally sitting in the hot tub like I feel like I'm a pretty low impact neighbor I don't whatever the things are that neighbors do that that gets on people's nerves I feel like I do none of that I don't play loud music just like I'm just a very like again I'm a very I'm gone half the time so I feel like i'm an exemplary neighbor and i kind of want credit for that so when i'm only getting feedback that's telling me i'm doing it wrong it kind of it kind of sets my sets my my whatever on edge but at the end of all of it i think it's better to kind of i think it's better to keep things on the

peaceful side of town absolutely and also like keep it i think about this sometimes too like i think about how i act around my neighbors and obviously i've run into some little tensions here and there with various neighbors but i also think about like oh but all of my neighbors are none of them have are playing loud music like you say you know there's like a neighbor kind of across the street who i think they have band practice night once every couple of weeks whatever and i can kind of hear the the sound of them probably in a basement or something like kind of wafting up and it's kind of loud but it's not that big of a deal but aside from that like i don't have like what if what if this guy moved or you know whatever and then somebody who was a motorcycle enthusiast moved in next door to you luke like think about it from that perspective too like you're pretty lucky with the kind of the noise and the upkeep and everything around you and not to mention

the fact that they have a no king sign yeah is so heartening to me i mean because i think god if they moved out and some like super maga do

moved in or somebody maybe it's you know a group of like i don't know some bunch of guys in their 20s somebody buys the house but then they rent it out and just like a bunch of dudes in their 20s who are always just like playing music super loud and like like you said working on their motorcycles outside or want to park a bunch of non-running cars everywhere like there's i'm very lucky that out here in the county where i am where it is real hit and miss with the kind of neighbors you get all of the neighbors are fine people take care of their yards people are it's it's i'm very lucky in that way and so i'm trying to kind of i'm trying to keep keep my eyes on that

prize as well there's a right way to rock and a wrong way to roll you can just listen to your So just remember that life is number one. You can be having so much fun. Just remember that life is much fun. You can be number one.

All right, Luke, let's get into some Blur's Days here. Quick reminder, if anybody would like to wish themselves or somebody else a happy birthday, you just email me, andrew at tbtl.net is the email address, and put Blur's Day in the subject line. All right, let's start off today, Luke, if you'll allow it, from our friend Larry. Larry says... Is it our pal Larry Asher? It certainly is. He even put his last name in there, but I just tend to erase last names from these. I don't know why. This is a policy I set up when we started doing these. I take out last names. It's more folksy this way. I consider myself sort of the modern-day Garrison Keillor, but only in the creepy ways. That's kind of what I assumed. I've got a limerick here I'd like you to put eyes on. Larry sends Blur's Day salutations to Morgan, a future dad. Larry's future son-in-law. Yes, those two things are out of order. Oh, well, no shame. future air-cooled German car co-restorer and present-day good human being, loyal partner, and smoked meat aficionado. All right. Happy Blurzey, Morgan, and congratulations. And also, what's this about you working on German cars? Yes. What do you know about fuel injection? Now, it says it's an air-cooled. Ooh, is that from your Farago? Carhorn.

This is the, let's see, I've got this, too, if you need this.

Wait, is it called Farago? If you need to get your train fixed. I like that. Like I said, when I grew up, I want to drive trains. Is it called Farago? No. Farago is a travel. Good memory. What is the travel? What's the travel site? Concur? There was a guy who was kind of a guy in his, the spoke. Trivago. Trivago. That's what I was thinking. Travago. Remember the spokesperson was sort of like a... Yeah. He had zaddy energy. Bye, John. We liked your movie. This is fun.

Why are they not telling me about the flotation devices?

Listen, new idea for the podcast. I think it speaks to our strengths, especially mine. You play sound effects, and I improv a scene around the sound effects. How does that sound, okay? Okay. Okay, here we go. Mom. Stop making those eggs. No, you don't, Oprah. No, you don't, Oprah. Anyway, I've had too much fun. Too much fun. Anyway, happy Blur's Day, Morgan, again. Congrats. Arlen says, I'd like to offer my heartfelt Blur's Day wishes to KM. That's my wife who recently turned the big 6'5". She worked at UW Medical Center for over 25 years as an RN on the swing shift. She has earned her retirement and is enjoying it fully. We now have fun traveling, hosting family and friends, going to botanical gardens, meeting up at the local tap house, and working on our Whidbey Island cabin. Ah, love it, Arlen. I think Arlen also had some broken bones recently, right, from that bike fall? I don't think I'm confusing my Blur's Dayers. I hope you're healing up well, Arlen. And happy Blur's Day to KM. Sheila in Ithaca says, Happy Blur's Day. Oh, Luke, you know what I just thought of as I was twirling this music? That song we played yesterday, the mood lighting theme, got us pulled off of YouTube in Belarus. Big outro, folks. I took a screen cap. I almost sent it to you. That's amazing. But it's always Belarus. Only Belarus. Sheila in Ithaca says, Bye-bye. I heard that place is gorgeous. Happy Blurs Day to Cindy in Aurora today. It's your Golden Blurs Day. Hey, hey, hey. Love that. I hope you have a great day of good wine, sunny skies, and warm Seneca Lake water. I miss you and hope we can connect this summer. I'm pretty much wide open. Happy birthday, friendo. I love that kind of message, too. Like, hey, just let me know. I'm pretty much wide open. What does your schedule look like? Maybe we'll hear from Cindy. She'll send a message to Sheila that I've got to read next week and kind of figuring out our calendar and where we're going to get them together at Lake Seneca. Ethan says, wishing a very happy Blur's Day to my daughter, Natalie. You bring such joy to our lives. The past year has been so much fun, from watching you nail your serves in volleyball to your blossoming love of all things Pokemon. I can't believe you're eight years old. Happy Blur's Day, Natalie. I don't want to go into detail here because I don't want to be a bummer about Natalie if she's playing Pokemon Go, but I'll just ask you, did you see that article about the information that has been gathered from Pokemon Go and what its applications have been in the real world? Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

Are they... So it's like, are they... Is it all being shared with Securitas or something?

Yeah. I mean, not Securitas. Palantir using it? It's Palantir-esque, I would say. Do you know that gets back to the plot of, you know, we talk about duplication investigation on the show a lot from the movie Toys. That was the plot of Toys. Basically, it's like this, it's this wacky toy company that Robin Williams' father ran. But when he dies, Robin Williams becomes in charge, but he shares responsibility with some other like co-owners or somebody who has some sort of like authority over the toy company. And they want to make the toys as little weapons so that they can invade other countries using toys. It's about the intersection of childhood glee and the military industrial complex. Coming up on KOW, a story about the intersection of childhood glee and the military-industrial complex. Allen in Green... Nope, this is Allie. That was a typo on my part. Sorry about that, Allie. Allie in Greenville says, it's Jamie's Blurs Day. It's our friend Jamie. Happy Blurs to one of my heroes, Jamie N. She's the best. She most certainly is the best. Yes, we love her. Yes, absolutely. Happy Blur's Day, Jamie. Hope things are going well there down in Columbia.

Sunstroke House Studio.

Yeah, hope the docket is full. Cheryl in Corvallis and family want to wish a very happy Golden Blur's Day to Julian, who is turning 15 years old today. Are you kidding me? That is a Golden Blur's Day. I can't believe these young people are growing up. It's like time marches on word. There are so many reasons for us to be proud of you. You're smart, funny, a caring friend, and have a really great heart. I love that we can share interests like collecting Pokemon and playing Fortnite together. You're an awesome young man, and we love you so much, Jaybird. Happy birthday. Andrew, I don't know if you've heard about the Pokemon stuff. Don't! Do not be ruining. Why would you even bring that up? I really have a problem. I just have this problem. Thoughts pop into my head, and I can't not say them, even though I know it's not the appropriate time to say them. I just want to know if you had read the article. It's interesting.

Listen, the thing about this job, Andrew, is for us to do this five days a week, all year round, we have to just go with the things that come into our brain. People almost always, when I describe what the show is to people, like, oh, it's a podcast I do with my buddy. It used to be a radio show. We do it five days a week. they go what do you talk about how do you fill up those hours and i go i don't know we just do somehow it's like the job requires us to have almost no filter to have almost no like sort of like control over what we talk about that isn't how you can do this as much as we do it but then the downside of it is we also have no control over what we're talking about having said that

in the middle of blurs days can i tell you a story that honestly in some ways could have been like a leading the show neighbor sort of drama story that I'm going to tell a very abbreviated version of and we can come back if you want to explore other aspects of this we have the rest of our lives to do it but let me tell you the most abbreviated version there are some neighbors down the street from us who I've known sort of casually they have a dog named Bruno this is a couple that's you know a bit older than me I'm going to say no that's Edna May like

How could you possibly confuse Bruno and Emma? Come on, Luke. No, this is a little, I don't think I've ever brought these folks up on the show before, but I like them. Like I say, kind of an older couple, at least than me, right? And they walk Bruno around. And we have not had a lot of interactions, but since Lucy came home, we've had a lot more interactions. And they were excited to meet Lucy, and so Bruno has met Lucy. They don't go on puppy dates or anything like that, but it's like this, one of many kind of new neighborly relationships that I have now that I really enjoy. And cherish is a word I use to describe my relationship with Frank and Diane. But I really do like them. And they live a few doors down. And they always kind of go around the neighborhood and kind of check in on people. They know where all the dogs are and everything. And I really enjoy them. Lucy has this thing around dogs. When she meets a new dog, she's actually really great with them. And she sort of reads the room and follows their energy sort of. But once Lucy knows a dog, she considers that dog to be her friend. And that's where we get into some puppy energy level issues. And the other day I heard Lucy, she was in the front yard and she started barking. She was on a lead. And I'm like, what's she barking at? That's not like her. And I go out there and I see that Bruno and Diane are kind of outside of our house, just kind of she's taking Bruno for a walk. And so I'm like, oh, they'll say a quick hello. I put Lucy on a leash, take her outside the gate. And Lucy is just like too much energy. She wants to jump on Bruno and I'm holding her back. And they're just kind of like and it's not it's not aggressive, but it's too much energy and it's puppy energy. And she's a lot bigger than Bruno. And so I'm just trying to hold her back. And I'm kind of apologizing. I'm like, I'm sorry. She's not usually like this. I think she just likes Bruno now and really wants to play. And it was just Lucy was sort of being a turd in the punch bowl of neighborliness a little bit there with her enthusiasm. But Diane, who knows dogs and has never made me feel bad for any of Lucy's behavior, does kind of like go to calm Lucy down a little bit. And Lucy has really sharp nails We've taken her We get her nails cut every few weeks Or a couple of weeks or something now But she has puppy fingernails And she got Diane And Diane has kind of frail skin And she's on blood thinners And so she got Diane And Diane's like, ooh, ooh, yeah And Diane is very nice And she's like, oh, no, no, it's my fault I know better, I've been around dogs I shouldn't have done that But she's bleeding And I'm feeling terrible She lives a few doors down Do you just want to go home and take care of that? or can I get you anything? She's like, no, no, I'm fine. And then I'm still sort of awkwardly talking about Lucy and her behavior while this woman is bleeding a little bit. And then I realize, oh my God, I can see blood coming through her white shirt. It's on her forearm. I don't know if I said that. I'm sort of indicating that. And again, Diane is being super chill about it. She's being, well, super chill, but also saying things like, this is a bad one. You know what I mean? Like kind of being a little bit frank, but also being very sweet and saying, this is my fault. I know dogs, and I know that she had that energy, and I shouldn't have been near her. But I'm like, okay, get out of here.

Go take care of yourself. And I'm just now remembering why I brought this up. So anyway, that was a week ago or something like that, right? And I have felt so, so terrible about it. And I've been meaning to go to the pet store, maybe find some gifts for Bruno, their dog, and give him a little gift basket or something to apologize. And I finally got around to doing that the other day. And I found what I thought was a good little gift. I wanted a dog toy that was somewhat thematic. and I couldn't find any, I almost gave up. And then right at the checkout of the PetSmart I was in, is it PetSmart? There was a chew toy of the little character from the Operation game. You know, the guy's where he's got a thermometer in his mouth, he's got bandages or whatever, and it's not a squeaker, it's more of a soft toy that makes a crunchy sound or whatever. So I'm like, oh, this is a good gift. I'll put this in the gift bag with them, and then one of these little cookies, one of these frosted dog cookies that look like a shape of a donut or something like that. I found a little, went next door, got a card in the shape of a dog, wrote a note from Lucy to Diane apologizing, walked it over to them and gave it to them. And Diane really appreciated it and reiterated that everything was all good with us. Yesterday, these neighbors are walking by my house and I apologize again. And Diane and Frank are both there with Bruno. And I don't know if Lucy, what Lucy's doing. I think she's being relatively calm. But this is where all of this starts. It's about being too frank and not being able to keep things inside. They're starting to walk away, and then Diane says, oh, by the way, Bruno loves that toy that you gave him. Oh, my God, it's so cute, and he loves it. He won't stop playing with it. I'm like, oh, that's so great. Then her husband, Frank, says, didn't like the cookie, though. Won't eat the cookie. I was just kind of like, I'm like, oh, I'm sorry. I want them all. And then he just goes on to say, well, she's a picky eater, doesn't like this. And I just sort of shift the conversation to like, well, what is Bruno like and what is Bruno not like? But I loved that he said that. such an unnecessary thing to say and could be considered like almost like rude like oh yeah our dog didn't like that gift you got him but i know that he didn't mean anything but he was just like a thought came into his head and he spat it out of his mouth and that's what i do all the time and i loved being in a position to give somebody else grace for saying something like that in a situation it felt like it gave me cover so for so many dumb unnecessary not that frank was dumb but You know what I mean? For so many unnecessary things that I've said in my life, I'd love that Frank said, yeah, I hated the cookie.

That's the end of my story. It would have been funny if Frank was like, yeah, I didn't like that cookie. Bruno loved it. I thought it tasted like gross.

Yeah, it was gross.

I took one bite and said, no, thank you.

But the dog was really into it. The dog was into it. But I've really been enjoying playing with that doll. All right, last one. Thanks for putting up with that. Marty says, by the way, I think that little story I threw in there is going to get us to the two-hour mark. So you're welcome, everybody. Marty says, happy Blurzay to my wife, Jewels in Eugene. She's a huge fan of the show and has even stalked. Met Luke on a couple occasions when he was in Eugene doing Livewire. She has been a 10 for so long, I can't remember when she hasn't listened to the show every day. And as such, I, too, have become a big fan. So happy birthday, sweetie. Sweet love to you. And I'm sorry, let me read this again. So happy birthday, sweetie. Happy birthday, sweetie, sweet. I see. Happy birthday, sweetie, sweet. Love you to the stars and back.

Oh, that's sweet.

Sweetie, sweet. All right. Happy Blur's Day, everybody. Happy Blur's Day to Jules and everybody on the list.

Did we almost get to two hours today? I'm not keeping track of these things.

Well, I could be off a little bit, but I am coming in at right now at about 1.59.30, Luke. 1.59.30 is what we need to do. Well, I guess we're going to run a little music, so that could be the last 30 seconds. We're going to run a little bit of music. I'll get that going here. Also, I have to protect this file we're recording because for some reason my backup died on me. It's not accepting. See, we can just, oh, we're going to go to three hours. It's not accepting. It's plugged in, but it's on battery power, and the battery's died at some point during the show. So if I don't save this quickly and carefully, we're going to go from two hours to no show.

Okay, well, let's try to preserve as much of the show as we can today because, well, we've got to come back here tomorrow and do this whole thing all over again. So let's call this good for today's episode. But, yeah, hopefully we'll see you all tomorrow for the big Friday wrap-up. Oh, yeah, we've got a special guest.

That's right. Frog expert.

A listener who is also a frog expert is going to jump on the line and give us some info and advice.

He's going to jump on the line. Oh, I love it.

I didn't even think of it.

You're a professional. Look it up in the book. Pretty good.

So we'll see you all then in the meantime. Thank you for listening. Have a great Thursday, everybody. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. Power out.