Muse

A message sent November 28th. Um, Daddy, I want to tell you a few things. Um, I just came back from ballet, and we're home right now, and, and Mommy, and when we were in the garage, um, I asked Reagan, did you poop? And he nodded his head, but he really did not poop. But, um, but that's funny because, um, um mommy checked and there was no poop so um why don't you call me back at seven o'clock

bye bye tvtl i don't know a lot about business but he did an internet and now the computers like

him and wall street is google please uh refrain from scolding us for our approach our approach is legitimate if i was going to go out and have a mexican dinner tonight an italian dinner tonight it's immaterial and you could twist it and turn it whichever way the press decides to do all right

i'm going to assume that's hypothetical right this is my sandbox i'm not allowed to go in the deep

end that's where i saw the leprechaun he told me to burn things well 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, and the adventure begins again. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Welcome to the Internet. Speaking of adventures beginning again, I was grabbing something right before it was my turn to talk. And I guess I was grabbing this little microphone that I'm going to throw in a bag and bring with me to Valley City, Ohio next week. because, of course, we're going to be doing the TV telethon from there. And I guess I need to maybe dust around here because when I went to grab this little microphone, I was covered in cobwebs. Some real great gardens energy, some real great expectations happening here in the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia. Oh, Ma, Pa, it's just beautiful. It is a beautiful Thursday here in southern Washington as we sidle on up to episode 4767 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. From where I'm sitting right now, I can look out the sliding glass doors of the studio and see this new boat that I took delivery of yesterday. Hey, Lloyd, do some... Delivery. I cut that drop off a little bit before he says the critical word. the point of playing this drop is so that um uh what is his name mike uh no sims dave sims says uh hey lloyd do some delivery but i decided to on the fly try to edit it so it's just him saying hey lloyd do some you can fill in the rest in your mind anyway i got a additional boat yesterday and i'm actually pretty excited about it uh speaking of deliveries pizza hut pizza is suffering in the pizza business because domino's is uh absolutely the leader in pizza delivery at least the most popular a pizza delivery option in america so pizza is trying

something kind of different it's cheesy it's delicious and kids go nuts for it hey speaking

of kids it's a thursday aka blurs day so do some blurs day messages and we'll say hello to this guy longest running co-bro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ship oh yeah I've been having a slightly frantic morning, getting this and that together and getting ready. I bet you he has as well. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now.

Good morning, my friend. Good morning, Luke. Speaking of getting ready for next week, I have to say this at the top of the show, because if I don't say this as the very first thing out of my mouth, we will get so distracted. We will tangent upon tangent like we did Monday through Wednesday of this week, and I'll never say this important announcement, which is this. tomorrow the tbtl newsletter will unveil for the first time wait do you want hold on do we want like a drum roll or something i mean i feel like it's we literally did the opposite of a drum roll by interrupting the announcement well i mean i'm just saying i think that needed a little bit more

energy i'm saying i'm trying to no all right sorry i apologize my bad i'll just just i'll back out of

your announcement now my fault back to what you were saying sir are those toms what kind of drum is, can you play that again? What kind of drum is that? Is that like a It's not a snare, I don't think

It's all about the tweeter, right? What does he say? No, it's We're doing too many different things Exactly, I think we're confusing

Hey look, we're tangenting I told you that was going to happen So we have mentioned this before but I just want to remind people that if you are interested, and I know you are in seeing what we are going to be

giving away as thank you gifts for this year's TBTL-a-thon, which is very exciting. We've put a lot of work into this. We've hired professionals. We've hired experts. And in putting together the website, which is not live yet last night, I was getting excited all over again to show people what we have for them. It's going to be great, but we're unveiling them in tomorrow's TBTL newsletter. So if you are not a TBTL newsletter subscriber, that gives you... Found it there. that's what this needed um the uh the newsletter just sign up for the damn newsletter tbtl.net is how you do that and then you can learn what the uh what the gifts are they're

really cool this year yes they are and you and john in particular have put in so much work on these thank you gifts one of them in particular i'm thinking of which i'll be honest with you when it was proposed as an idea it did not occur to me actually the the amount of detail back and forth thinking i'll i'll even say this i don't think i'm giving too much away artistic abilities

on your behalf and your particular behalf yeah um you know and also the one that we're kind of vaguely referring to here that we're very very excited about is one of those things that has been an idea that's been kicking around for i want to say close to 10 years now because i remember wandering around the halls of american public media our first year there and talking to one of our colleagues there about an idea that i had for a tbtl giveaway and not unlike the sound machine it just took a long time to come to fruition and i think that that time was necessary for it to come to this particular version of itself and so that's what we'll be unveiling tomorrow and you can sign up for the tbtl newsletter at tbtl.net i think you click on a little you know what i named the button newsletter newsletter oh that's smart yeah that's pretty good Keep them guessing.

Or just scroll to the bottom of the page, and you can do it there, too. If you are not currently signed up for the TBTL newsletter, or maybe if you did a long time ago, but now you've changed email addresses or changed your, I don't know, your spam protocols, make sure you're signed up for this thing, because, hey, it's just a fun read when it comes out, and it's got all kinds of great information about the show. And, yeah, I was thinking about the THON today when I got up, of course, and I was thinking about something that I'm kind of proud of about this show, and I don't use that term a lot related to me or anything I work on is that this fundraiser week that we're about to go into I was thinking if I'm a listener I'm actually really looking forward to this as opposed to you know your typical public radio fundraiser which can be I know I'll cop to this when I'm tuning into OPB and it turns out it's a fundraiser week I'm like oh okay well I guess I'll be hearing I'll be hearing you know a lot of the reasons why I should support OPB which i do by the way um but with our show it's like we're going to valley city ohio there's there's art that's been built for the website that's gonna like tell people how to stream the shows people can call in people can chat with their friends like this is gonna be actually i think like if i were a tbtl listener i would be getting a kind of really excited about next week because you and john and i are all gonna be in the same room we're gonna be having adventures we're gonna to be meeting people we're going to be we're going to have a frog cam it's just like all of this stuff going on and what I was thinking was the way that I like to get excited about things is I like to get excited about the thing even before the thing when I was in my 20s and we would go to Vegas me and my friends my favorite part of the whole trip would be meeting up at my apartment before we got in the taxi cab to go to the airport one because that meant there was the most amount of the trip still in the in the in the foreground versus the background all potential all potential there was just something about that and i remember like camaro kev and uh and jd other folks all showing up in my place and and uh and we're maybe you know having a couple of drinks or something kind of pre-funking and just like getting so excited about how excited i was before the thing had happened and this is what i'm going somewhere with this if you are signed up for the newsletter then tomorrow when the newsletter comes out you can be getting excited about a thing that's happening in the fun you can you it's pre-funking it's basically pre-funking for the fun you get to see uh what the thank you gifts are you get to know what you're all excited about if you are going to be somebody who donates in the following week uh about what's out there for you to have also you just admire it as um you know as a piece of art that just stands on its own

i already have the little photo picked out for the lucy of the day photo i took one yesterday that I'm excited to share with everybody. And, you know, you were starting to say something there that I know that I probably say this every year around this time, and it's very earnest, but it's very true. When I worked in public radio, as you know, Luke, I worked on various talk shows as a producer, but a big part of my job was also producing. parts of the fund drives and the membership drives or whatever they called it and i loved it i loved that work and one of the things that i always disliked about that work was when i would hear people not on our airwaves i'm proud to say but on other radio stations apologizing for their fundraising uh well you know what i'll call out names kow my beloved kow here in seattle does that all the time and it really bums me out they will start running promos before they even begin the fun drive or the membership drive kind of apologizing for it and saying we're going to try to make it as short as possible this year by calling your pledge now to make it short so we don't have to torture you for as long as we usually torture you and I've long, long before I was a part of TBTL I would say if you're apologizing for your programming, this sounds like such cheesy like public radio program director stuff but like if you're apologizing for your programming you've got to change your programming like there's got to be a way to do it That is good and listenable. And, you know, I know that the news format of a traditional public radio station has a difficult time sort of, you know, blending the news of the day, which sometimes can be grim. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but sometimes the news can be a little bit hard to listen to. And then parlaying that into a, you know, a fun pitch drive or pitch campaign or whatever where we're asking people to give money. But, you know, you look at stations like The Current there in Twin Cities, speaking of American public media, people love their fund drives because they create this amazing programming around it. And people tune in because they want to hear, you know, whatever the countdown is going to be, who's going to crown the countdown of the year or whatever. There are ways to make this stuff fun. And I would say that out of a lot of, again, you used the word pride a moment ago. I don't know if we should go that far, but one of the things that I do love the most about this job, aside from it being very unique and fun and, you know, it's mostly you and I laughing with each other five days a week, is we've actually achieved the dream of what you just said. Like, the time that we ask for money is arguably some of the most fun and adventurous times that we have on the show. And have. I would say arguably the only fun and adventurous times we have on this show. Shut up! Increasingly. No, I mean, honestly, you and I have a good time all the time, but it is nice to, like, it is so nice to actually achieve my sort of low-key public radio, you know, producer dream of creating fun drives that are, like, really fun. You know what, Luke? I'm going to say it. We're putting the drive in fun drive, right? We're putting the mem in membership drive.

Putting the burr in membership drive. We're putting the burr under the saddle in the membership drive. Anyway, true story, though. And I really am looking forward to it. This is going to be a really special one. And hearing from people back home who are like, oh, I heard you're coming to Valley City to do this show. So word is spreading. I mentioned we have Caprettas listening in now. So it's all happening.

Have you been checking the downloads? Have you seen a pretty big uptick since we were on the Valley City community Facebook page?

No, I don't check the downloads. And I certainly don't read the comments, except for the nice ones.

did you see that um maybe we can talk about this tomorrow we have john on also maybe it doesn't matter but um you know how i was it was pretty into that ai drawing of us uh of us broadcasting because that we looked really nice but then uh my friend spring heard that and threw in i guess some different parameters and made a different ai rendering of us doing the show where we're a

little more age appropriate but i and but it's still way i mean it still is way too flattering to me like right it doesn't you even though it's age appropriate you won't go with age

appropriate and flattering uh in other words the problem with the first one was not only was it overly flattering we were children in it now we're just like much handsomer versions of ourselves but more or less in the in the range like you've got a hat on so we're not oh this is that's right

i look like a ranger i'm dressed like a ranger which i actually think is very funny um you've got kind of gray hair in this which is i have my hair is more the color of my real hair yeah i i

I feel like it's getting closer.

It's definitely getting closer.

Will you never be happy until the renderings of us make us look as ugly as we really are?

I'm not even talking about you. I actually think this is good of you. Of me, it's just, you know, it's just, you gotta add some poundage there. Listen, I don't want to see that, but I'm just saying that it's, the image of me is very flattering. I just look like a handsome man with a beard, which is...

I look like, I look like a little bit like if Ira Glass maybe had grayer hair. Also, I don't usually wear glasses, and I'm wearing glasses in this one.

Oh, that, you know what, that helps. You always say that that's the thing about these, when either a real person or an artificial intelligence creates images of us, you always say that, like, my beard and glasses gives people more to work with as identifying badges. I agree.

You can be caricatured, I think, in a more interesting and fun way because you have some kind of, like, some things that can be keyed into, whereas I just have kind of...

Kind of a fairly standard, you know, kind of middle-aged kind of guy face with no glasses, no beard. Just kind of, I just kind of am what I am. And it doesn't really lend itself, I think, to, like, I look at this picture of you and I think, that's Andrew. Like, you look like Andrew to me in there. It's very Andrew to me.

Well, I am, okay, a couple of things I want to say about this. First of all, does Spring listen to TBTL or just get information from you?

No, here's what happens. Here's what happens. spring's husband scott um who's a truck driver listens to tbtl and then reports it back to her

okay good i do a lot of time in the truck drivers yeah truck drivers are great demos for us that's why i like that you have that satellite radio station called like what is it like it's like trucker radio or rural radio or something like that i think um we need to tap into that demo more yeah we do spring's husband if you could tell if you if you i don't know if you guys have

Scott, next time you're showering at the Loves, will you just kind of lean under the stall to the guy showering next to you and ask him if he's heard the good news? Yes, exactly.

Write TBTL with your finger in the steam of the mirror, if you don't mind. And then our phone number. Take the soap and write TBTL so that every time that mirror steams up, we'll see TBTL and then our phone number, of course. um and this so anyway i so i'm not i don't want to talk directly to spring here but i just want to say i don't want like like in my criticism not criticism but in my let's say analysis of my imagery here in this image i don't want spring going back and being like okay andrew wants more poundage like don't don't that's not a um that that's not a call to action is what i'm saying they're like this is nice this is beautiful just leave this be secondly i want to point out that I hope Andrew wants more poundage was in the clear. This is the first thing I thought of when I saw this, you know, updated AI image of us podcasting. And this is a direct insult to me, and there's no way you can convince me. I know what you're going to say. I find it hard to believe that you know what I'm going to say, but try it.

Okay.

Is it that you're working from an Apple computer? No, I didn't notice that, but it is computer related. I noticed your computer is plugged into the audio board and mine is not. why is spring taking away my ability to play sound on tvtl i didn't notice the apple on his

one kpi and we're taking it away from look at that oh yeah no you just give me a toy computer look andrew everyone knows i'm the tech guy your computer hasn't been plugged in for years it's like giving a kid a toy phone that would be the shamalaning of a lifetime if at the end of this whole movie called tbtl it turned out your computer had never been played at all you're just

like you're just keeping me happy just keeping me entertained oh god that would be that would that

would be a real uh a real plot twist at the end considering this entire thing as as has been uh sort of talked about at length and and as is in its most stark relief on weeks like this leading up to the thawne if it were up to me to do any of the technical stuff related to the show we it It would just, I mean, the show would just not happen. I mean, John could handle some of the posting and a couple of internet things, but like the audio, the very fact that this thing is, people are hearing my voice and your voice and it's coming through their phones. It is 100% because of you and your technical abilities. So thank you for your service. Salute. Hello and welcome to Top Story. I know this isn't really Top Story material, but i got a great night's sleep last night and yet i woke up this morning i did i went to bed early

uh slept all the way through the night i just i'm just laughing because we joke about how this show is maybe not for the younger generations now just like top story i got i got a lot of rest last

night well if you're not going to let me use the younger ai images of us then i'm going to fully lean into my age fair enough but despite getting an amazing night's sleep i slept i must have slept slightly funny because i've got a crook in my neck and i'm a little worried because i feel like um an athlete going into the big game here like i can't have can't have any problems i can't get sick i can't have a sore neck i've got to be operating at absolutely 100 when we hit the ground in valley city ohio um but that's actually not what i was going to talk about i was going to talk about the just kind of to close the loop on our conversation yesterday where i was kind of embarrassed about a couple of things one i was embarrassed that i was feeling a sense of embarrassment about my home environment i had a friend coming over who was going to be giving me this boat because he's gotten a new boat and uh and he asked if i wanted his old boat i kind of couldn't turn it down it was an offer too good to refuse but then i became very insecure about like you know he lives in a lovely home and and um and has been a very successful person in the world of business and things like that and For the last couple of years, one of our main topics, because I've been working on the house when we're at his lovely home, has been like, oh, how's it going with the house? And I'm talking about it. And Beck is hyping it up to his wife. And I was just feeling kind of, I was feeling a little like maybe it was going to be oversold. It was going to be overhyped or something. And then also, I was nervous about the listeners hearing about me getting a second boat. Oh, yeah. I've historically not done great with the maritime activities.

Did you get any feedback on that? I mean, I kind of don't think that the listeners, the listeners maybe get an eye roll or something, but it's like, is anybody really going to reach out and say, Luke, this is eerie strong?

Nobody, maybe because they sensed I was fragile. Nobody reached out and said, whatever, dude. And in fact, I don't think I expected anyone to reach out. I just expected them to roll their eyes a little bit. And maybe that did happen. Who knows? But the update on everything is we got the boat here. We met up at the marina. We took the boat out. It was so fun, Andrew. I found my cows, which people, if they're careful listeners, may remember that for the last couple of summers, when I'm driving on Interstate 5, kind of south of my house, there is this little island. It's called Martin Island. I thought it was called Deer Island for some reason, but I looked it up again. It's actually called Martin Island. And in the summertime, there would be cows living on this island. And it's, you know, it's a big grassy thing. it's like they've got lots of grass to graze on but then they could also on hot days just walk down to this sandy beach and just stand in the Columbia River and it like it just made me so happy for these cows I just thought like this is so great for them they get to cool off they get to drink river water they get to eat grass to their heart's delight nobody's hurting them rounding them up to anything they just seem like a great life for them and this year has been the first year that I've been out here that there were no cows on the island and like I was kind of bummed about it well we were out in the boat my friend and i um kind of uh just you know i was learning the ropes of this particular boat it's a sea ray ski boat it's also 20 feet my little runabout was like 17 feet so it's a little bit bigger it's a little more powerful there's some you know some some stuff about the boat that is new to me but still small like it's still a small manageable

little boat as opposed to the one that caused smaller than the criss craft yeah it's smaller

Yes, it's much more manageable than the Criss Craft. It's a ski boat, so you can picture it. But it's definitely got some get up and go. It's the kind of ski boat, which I will never utilize this, but this is like if you're a serious wakeboarder kind of boat. It has this whole aftermarket device that is a cruise control. If you're pulling someone on water skis or on a wakeboard, and you want to make sure that you're keeping your speed absolutely consistent, You can set it on whatever, and then you, the driver of the boat, can have full concentration on, like, I don't know. I've never pulled anybody on water skis or on an inner tube either, so that's going to be a learning curve for me and something I'm going to really ease into. That feels like a lot of pressure to me, dragging someone behind the boat on an inner tube. I don't know why. That stresses me out. I've never done that on any of my boats, but I'll work my way up to that.

I like the idea. If I got a, if I learned, this is a lot of ifs, but if I learned how to ski and got myself a mascot uniform, would you take me out? What would be a good mascot? I'm picturing myself as like a, for some reason I was picturing.

Well, a squirrel, because famously America's Got Talent had a water skiing squirrel. That's a good idea. So what if you were just like a human-sized squirrel? That could also water ski.

A man-sized squirrel. All right, book it.

Okay. I'll look into it. Well, you've now given me a reason to really kind of sort of bone up on my and improve my uh my skills of pulling people on water skis but so we're out cruising around i'm learning kind of how the boat works and we go across the columbia we're down kind of by actually the city of calama and we by the marina we go across the river and what do i see andrew my cows on a different beach i think whoever has been taking them out to martin island didn't want to take them out there or whatever they're on this different area of land that i can't see from the freeway that's across the columbia where they are guess what standing in the river eating their grass living their life i was so ecstatic to find my cows or another set

of cows that i'm going to pretend are my cows it's rural sprawl is what it is unfortunately right just kind of you don't have the density on the one side of the island everybody's spreading out everybody wants their sort of cow suburban lifestyles yeah you hate to see it but in this

case i love to see it i was very i took pictures i videotaped them and it's funny because on the on the video of me trying to film the cows you can hear jim going jim going my friend going oh um hey just so you know we're getting a little it's a little shallow like because because you're

you're taking photos but you're also piloting the boat i'm driving the boat but i'm also taking

trying to take video of my cow but i'm also forgetting oh and the adventure begins again

Yeah, right. Because this is the kind of boat, actually what's really fun about it is you can beach it. In fact, that's what we did last summer. So if there's a sandy, there's a little sandy area of beach, you can, you can drive the boat up there and you can, you know, get going not super fast, but enough that it just kind of settles up on the sand. You tie it off on the shore, you jump out and you're hanging out on the island and then you push the boat out when you're ready to go. the thing is it's got to be a kind of beach where the water is let's say four feet deep up until you get to the beach what we were dealing with my cows were on a beach that were we were we were 300 yards from the beach and the water was already one foot yeah so it was very shallow for a long time meaning there was a chance we would just get the boat stuck in the in the sand and we'd still be like 300 feet from the beach we'd just be in one foot of water yeah and that wouldn't be the end of the world you just have to jump out and push the boat but it would be sort of a hassle yeah and you gotta watch out for rocks of course yeah it's this is not really it's not really rock town out here what it is is log town that's the big deadheads they call them like you get a lot of logs that are just floating down the river and some of them are kind of under the water and hard to see that's that's i think there's a lot to be uh concerned about out there um but uh the thing i was concerned about also was will my friend um think that my home is a lovely palatial riverside estate or will he think it's a 1930s uh shack that i have remodeled with no particular architectural advice and we get the boat up here and uh he's we're kind of like putting the like backing the boat down the driveway getting it set up next to the other boat where it now lives for the moment and he jumps out of the truck he's like oh my gosh the place is great this is amazing i said oh yeah do you want to see the studio so we pop up here to the madrona hill studio which is a converted garage and i go so this is the kind of my studio this is the adu he goes oh i thought this was the house and i was like that's when i knew it was going to be fine yeah like you know the

converted and also though like what person comes to a house and says anything that wouldn't be like

oh yeah this is nice you know what i mean like well here's what i would say and this is going to sound defensive and i don't mean it this way it's like what person is reliving a conversation that you had with them 10 years ago and thinking Andrew said a bad thing, I don't think it's rational. You know what I mean?

Although I will say in my thing, I'm not worried about, well, maybe to a degree I'm worried about other people saying things, but it's that I remember. I'm mad at myself. It's not about other people remembering. So it's a little bit different.

I guess I just think that for me, I never thought this was rational. I don't think there's any chance that anyone's going to come over to my house and be like, oh, what a shithole. I'm just like, who knows? I was just in an anxiety about it. But that evaporated very quickly because, of course, my friend was like, yeah, this place is great and really was digging the studio, just thought it was super cool. And then we went in the house and was asking me lots of questions about my my design aesthetic, which I was explaining my my different, you know, inspirations and things like that. We signed the title for the boat over. I paid one dollar for it. We took a picture of me handing him the one dollar. oh nice shaking hands shaking hands um and uh and yeah so so that all that all went as well as it could go and now i'm very i'm actually very excited about being out there on the river it was a beautiful day just kind of cruising around seeing my cows i the the excitement the love of being on the water that had gone dormant for me for actually kind of a long time was re was reignited because the first boat that I had is the little one that I still have and that was so actually like low stress and low pressure like it didn't ever break down because it just had an outboard motor on it that worked really well it was very easy to steer it was like one person could handle it quite easily I never got into any trouble in that boat and that was remember yesterday I was saying

and I could be wrong here but I think the one trouble you got into the boat with the trailer because that's what we took out to watch the eclipse We did taco, yes.

We taco'd a planter at my old house with the trailer.

And I didn't mean that in a negative way. I've been meaning to sort of reminisce about that with you. I wasn't sure if you remember that that's the boat that we, I was pretty sure that that was the boat that we took out for the Eclipse. You, me, and Rude Dog, right? Yes, true.

So that was one little hiccup, but compared to the, because basically what happened, and like I was saying yesterday, sometimes I think I need a swimming pool and all I need is a stock tank. like i had this little wood motorboat that i loved and that i used all the time and that was just like it didn't provide any stress in my life it only provided happiness and then because i don't ever just kind of leave well enough alone at some point i decide no no what i really need is like a boat that i can sleep on and that i can have a kitchen and and this is you know i'm gonna i'm gonna be a whole new me who's gonna like cruise around in the puget sound and go to the san juan islands in my boat that i could just take off on you know at the drop of a hat i think i was even at that time like researching like hot spots like could i do tbtl from the boat for weeks on end you know just like weird i'm sure the fact that my marriage was in whatever state of crumbling that it was probably didn't help these these thoughts of like you know maybe i'll just live on the high seas and podcast or something god knows but like so then i get this other big larger boat which is sort of fun and everything but also is way more expensive and way more work and way easier to crash and you know comes with this whole new set of of stress and responsibility and then after that i was kind of like thinking about being on the water on a boat almost was sort of creating a feeling of anxiety for me because what i was attaching it to was all the things about that bigger boat that were just kind of i was just in over my head and then i'm back out on this boat that's just again it's just a ski boat it's just like something that's much more manageable it works really well my friend's taking really good care of it and i I was just like, oh, yeah, this is awesome. I love this. Like, this is really fun to be out on the water cruising around looking at all these big, giant industrial barges and things that are docked in the port of Kalama and that are coming down the river. And I was just like, oh, this is fun. So I'm back to feeling very excited about this whole proposition as opposed to feeling kind of anxiety around it.

You know, you and I both listened back to that really long epic tale that you told about the trouble you got into with the bigger boat when you had, like, Camaro Kev and some family aboard, some of his family aboard and everything. And that was a really long story, and we both listened to it somewhat recently because we kind of had to edit it down and put it out. You had to listen to it a lot. Yeah. Make it coherent and short. But it's really good. It was a good story. But, you know, I'm thinking about that now and I'm thinking about what you're saying about like how you had this kind of lingering bad feeling and kind of about that. And I'm realizing, yeah, you know, you describe that feeling of operating a boat, especially a bigger boat that you don't know was. What was that? That's like wind blowing. Sorry about that. Yeah, that was something popping up on the email. But it's almost like do you have any stress dreams about it? Because I feel like it's like the just the perfect the kind of the perfect allegory for like kind of a stress dream. Because you're driving this thing, and you can kind of control it, but you can't really control it. And you're used to driving things on land where you turn the wheel and it responds immediately, and that's not the case with boats. And you're floating out there, and it's like it's a lack of control, at least at your skill level with the boat that you had. Do you have stress dreams about being in a boat out of control? And if not, why not?

Well, I haven't yet.

Yeah. So thanks for that. Sure. Maybe they will replace a worse dream, though.

at least around the water yeah um you know it certainly seems yeah you're right it seems tailor-made for that because that was something i was remembering yesterday too because i was the one driving this boat and i was pulling it back onto the boat trailer and everything i also did all of the it was very in a way it was kind of like it was interesting because like jim and i are pretty much the same age but i was like very much almost like a kid being like okay well how do i do this and i was like taking notes of how to start the boat and also hey how do you like Like, how do you put the boat in? Like, what's your trick for, like, backing the trailer down into the water and pulling it out? These are all things I know how to do. These are things I've done many, many times. But I wanted to know how to do it with this boat. And so, basically, the thing was, I'm doing all of the stuff with the boat. I'm driving it. I'm backing the trailer. I'm re-trailer. I'm doing all, but all under the watchful eye of my friend, who's just kind of like, here's what I do with this. Here's, you know, where that button is. and um and so i was pulling it back in to the marina and i forgot that the thing with with boats are if you don't have any if you're not actually throttling forward or reversing you don't have very much steering if you're just floating in the water and you're turning the steering wheel there's just basically like you're angling the propeller but it's not spinning so it's not doing anything the way you're steering is by how you're angling the propeller which is either making you go left or right depending on the boat some boats have a rudder some boats have it's just the direction that the sort of propulsion is going but when you're and the the whole thing that got me in trouble with the other boat when i crashed it with camaro kev's parents on board was because i got out into this channel in the marina and was getting nervous and therefore didn't want to gun the engine but then realized i don't have any steering like there's a point where your boat is floating and you're just moving the steering wheel and nothing's happening And the only way to get steering is to start actively moving forward, which is very counterintuitive when you're freaking out. If you're too close to something, you don't want to, like, start going more towards it. But that's the only way that you can actually have control of the boat. So there's stuff like that that I've got to relearn and re-remember.

Yes. That's kind of the exact thing I was thinking of from that story of you trying to explain that. And it makes total sense. Now, this is such a boring place to take this. Because actually, I want to talk about one of the top stories today that I don't even know if you mentioned it today, but you mentioned it yesterday. And in your promo for one of the top stories yesterday, I was shocked.

your tone and i want to revisit that i was shocked we're gonna have some hot talk we're gonna have some debate podcasting here in a minute but um does the style of boat change that too like as an outboard motor you're not just moving the the rudder you actually are kind of moving the

whole the whole motor in the way it points right yes that's that's that's one of the ways so when you have an outboard well i mean if you have an outboard like my other boat does and it's hooked up to your steering wheel when you turn the steering wheel it just rotates the motor it rotates the whole motor so that the propeller yeah is either pointing to the left or to the right and therefore you go right or you go left that's going to feel a little bit more intuitive than just having the the rudder but but the you don't even see the right well i mean there are sailboats that you actually manually hold the right there's different versions of it but the point is if you're using a steering wheel pretty much on any kind of boat whatever the propulsion is The rule of thumb is if you're not putting any water out of the engine, so if you're not pushing water across that rudder or if you're not pushing water out of that propeller, you don't have any steering. If a boat is floating along and it's not, if it's a boat that has a motor on it, whether it's a jet drive, whether it's a propeller, whatever, you have to be kind of pushing some water to have more steering is basically what comes down.

Yeah, I mean, the same way that you could sit in a car and turn the steering wheel, But if it's not moving, you're not going away. The only difference is the land isn't pushing you around. The land isn't moving.

You're not sitting still in your car, but also somehow drifting towards another car in the Walmart parking lot.

Without movement, those wheels or those rudders don't do shit.

It's exactly. Now, I know the story that you want to talk about, Andrew. I think I do. But I think I was wondering if maybe we would get into that tomorrow because it's a little closer to the date in question. Oh, interesting. It's about a Saturday thing. This is kind of a legitimate question. I'm not even kidding. Do you think one night when we're in Valley City, Ohio, because we're actually staying in Cleveland, that's where our Airbnb is, and then we'll be heading over to Valley City each day to broadcast from the community center there. Do you think that one of the nights that we're in Cleveland could go to Pizza Hut for dinner?

uh if there is one around i mean i read this article i don't know if any of these so so let's set up this let's set up this story and then we'll kind of maybe see if we can problem solve that thing because the thing about pizza hut is for the longest time since before the pandemic but certainly after the pandemic especially accelerated it pizza hut was not the pizza hut of our youths the pizza hut is like mostly to go places in this day and age until this new

kind of effort that they're making right yeah because we uh you know are growing up years if as far as i remember pizza hut had the red roof i mean that was literally the logo had those kind of you know the like stained glass little i don't know what you call it lamp like tiffany lamps aren't those tiffany maybe yeah yeah um or maybe maybe that's not technically tiffany but anyway but people will know what you're talking about when you say that like um and uh you know with that said Pizza Hut and like the thing I'm so obsessed with those red like tumblers yeah the plastic cups just I bought those I bought those off of TikTok I have like 10 of those in my house I've never even used them but I just like them so much they're so nostalgic for me that's the kind of image of uh you know Pizza Hut that I remember from back in the day um meanwhile uh Over the years, like you said, because of the changing nature of like, I guess, you know, how people eat or what they want from a pizza place, it seems like the Pizza Huts had sort of evolved into more that kind of modern style of restaurant where it's a lot of pickup orders. It's kind of a lot of glass. It's I mean, famously, there's the there were the Pizza Hut Taco Bells. I'm at the Pizza Hut. I'm at the Taco Bell. i'm at the uh combination pizza hut taco bell and like they really kind of got away from that and i guess you know over the years pizza hut has been having some real trouble competing with like so domino's pizza has now officially become like the um the delivery uh the pizza delivery you know brand i guess when people think of delivered pizza they just think of domino's and that's actually true i don't i would never think to order from pizza hut for delivery it wouldn't even occur to me because again i think of pizza hut as a place that i go with my family to sit at a booth and eat

pizza and there's been a complaint of genevieve and i is for a while because we have such nostalgic feelings for pizza hut and i mean it was pizza hut was like the the cream of the crop of pizza places when i was a kid right especially pizza chains i guess we had some local ones we liked but um you know that's very much a generational thing in fact this article mentioned something about this.

dream of millennials or something i'm like man i feel like this is such a gen x thing but i mean i guess we can share but these and i every time we would move to a new place be it in los angeles or or here in seattle we'd be like oh maybe we can get pizza hut delivered now and never we always said that we lived in pizza hut deserts like we never were somehow within the scope of a pizza hut delivery service yeah and then and we would kind of joke you know quasi joke about it for years but then a couple of times like we would get it like we were traveling we'd be like well let's get one delivered to the hotel and i remember doing that and it just was not good like the one the first time we had a pizza pizza was like the first time in probably 20 years for both of us and we're like let's just do it up we'll get the stuffed crust and everything and it was just like so you know like the stuffed crust just felt like kind of icky it wasn't like gooey and melted you know it's just like everything was just and it just was another one of those things where it's like well you can't go back home but it's also not oh i've remembered this wrong it's just that things aren't as good as they used to be when it comes to this mass manufactured stuff that's the

problem too is as we often say the in shitification of everything yeah includes uh the sort of food of our youth because i'm sure the ingredients are cheaper because basically what's happening is pizza hut has been struggling because they they kind of don't really know what their brand is they're not the go-to for delivery stuff but you know the a modern pizza hut that you might see driving down the road is doesn't seem to be very inviting to me there was a and you're right there was a pizza hut in like one neighborhood over from me in portland i think pizza hut also as they kind of as their fortunes fell they started i think maybe try to become more and more of a like a discount brand or something and they were more and more kind of in you know like you said sort of zip codes and area codes that that maybe were kind of in more economically marginalized areas and stuff you know they were just trying to figure out like how can we sell cheaper pizza you know and and so i remember going and picking because i do have a real soft spot for like the pizza hut of my youth whether it's that stuffed crust stuff or like i said kind of sitting in a pizza hut and after soccer you know like a like a soccer banquet or something it's at the pizza hut or whatever so i remember going a couple times to get it just because i wanted a nostalgia hit and being like you said kind of let down kind of like ah this is they're not making this with the same ingredients they were making it with when i was a kid or maybe also my um my palate has changed over the years or something but it turns out that uh a lot of these or at least a good number of these pizza hut um franchisees people who own pizza hut locations are returning their pizza huts that they're the owners of back to these kind of classic style pizza that's with the red roof and the checkered tablecloths and the whole thing i was surprised to read they were in one this one article the one i sent you they were talking to a guy who owns a bunch of these um a bunch of these uh pizza huts and that he said like he was converting as many of them as were allowed by the um franchising agreement like i guess there's some kind of uh you know there's some kind of a limit on uh even if you if you're the if you're the owner on how many of these you can't just turn all of your Pizza Huts into classic Pizza Huts, but he said he was doing as many of them as he could. That's strange. That's a strange rule. Yeah, did you see that mentioned in the article?

No, maybe I didn't read this full article, but I know I started reading it.

Well, it was in the Washington Post, which we know you hate.

Oh, yeah, that's right. I know I read it because you jailbroke it for me. Yeah, so that is the one I looked at.

Um, but, uh, so yeah, apparently, uh, the, apparently these, uh, retro pizza huts, the ones that are sort of back to the, back to the old style are doing pretty well. And because it appears that they're creating, I mean, this is the thing we're always talking about looking for a third place, Andrew, if I were a parent of young kids, I think it would be a fun night if we're just looking for something to do or on our way back from wherever and we're all hungry to go to a pizza hut like and sit at the pizza not get the food not pick the pizza up and then run home and then everyone get on their screens as we all move to our different corners of the house eating our although this is going to make me so hungry for pizza by the end of this conversation exactly i'm definitely stopping at a pizza hut somewhere in woodland washington today but the idea of like getting a pizza and sitting around and yes it's not going to be the best pizza there's many more artisanal choices that you could probably go to in your town maybe that makes more sense maybe that's a better product but like I just think the idea of like going and sitting in the pizza parlor with with your family and eating pizza and and having a soda or something it's like that just sounds really fun and wholesome to me and I'm not shocked to hear that people are kind of searching for that or people are interested in that so a couple of things. Actually, I have three things. I'm going to start with a really quickie.

thing here to say that this nostalgia grab or whatever you would call it by Pizza Hut or certain franchisees makes a lot of sense because I felt like Pizza Hut the brand started this a while back in fact I'm looking this up and I'm seeing one from 2021 do you remember the Craig Robinson Pizza Hut commercials uh I remember them during football games yeah singing well he's like he's dressed in like in some like kind of red and white pizza hut swag right but also like he's in either it says i think these were well 2021 would have been the pandemic so maybe he's like in his own home but he's got it totally tricked out with all the hallmarks of nostalgia like it's got the tiffany lamps it's got the you know the kind of exposed brick that a lot of those those pizza huts had it's like he's playing miss pac-man or here let me just actually play the beginning of this one man me and pizza hut go way back see i've been playing this game since 82 see like they're they're trying you know they were already the national brand was already and i don't even know if it was the same ownership then was already realizing oh wait a second this is a this is a huge pizza hut's brand the nostalgia for my generation and maybe folks a little younger than me it that is like the biggest selling point of pizza hut yeah the um a company called yum

brands yeah that's i think they own taco bell as well just as a side note and k i was um i was reading this wall street journal article about the relationship between coca-cola and mcdonald's which is very fascinating yeah um mcdonald's is coke's number one client there's an entire enormous division of coke that is just dedicated to its relationship with mcdonald's and all the stories about like the the ingredients that you know mcdonald's uses to make their coke and their diet coke that people think it tastes better that's actually real they just mentioned in passing though about how like people also want to kind of like try other stuff they said that baja blast generates a billion dollars of revenue a year for taco bell oh wow baja blast because that's what Is that one of the ones you can only get at Taco Bell? Yes, it's an exclusive Taco Bell collab.

I've wanted to try that. I've never had it.

Yum Brands, well, $1 billion and $4 of profit for them.

Well, that's the thing. That's the problem. I see commercials for that. I'm like, ooh, I would try that soft drink. I like the occasional kind of wacky soft drink, but I never go to Taco Bell.

Yeah. You know, if you don't eat meat, Taco Bell is actually a weirdly, surprisingly good option. Every single thing on the menu can just be made like vegetarian and they just like use refried beans instead of whatever the meat is. Now, I can't speak for like if there's if the ingredients have commingled or something like that, but you can get a bunch of veggie items there. So what I was going to say is Yum! Brands sold Pizza Hut to a private equity firm called Long Range Capital. Nothing good has ever happened when a private equity firm called Long Range Capital buys up your chain. your chain this feels this has heavy uh um red lobster implications it would seem exactly or

joanne fabrics even worse you know what i mean and that's why i was like oh geez that's why i was kind of which works i'm on yum brands and they're still listing pizza hut as one of their

brands along with because they own pizza hut in china oh they didn't sell pizza hut china to yum

brands oh interesting so that was it is it so that they could still sort of keep it in their

portfolio well my guess is because pizza hut china is doing great for them there's this weird life of american food brands you know like kfc famously is considered very high eating in china people will go on like holiday like nice family outings to kfc in china so i might guess is maybe pizza hut is similar like it's it's probably doing well over there which is why yum brands did not want to part with that part of their portfolio there's one thing that i've been trying to unlock

for the past couple of days a memory and i apologize because i don't see any way me not remembering something it would make for a good podcasting story but i have to i just have to exercise it i don't know what to tell you i don't know what to tell you the listeners like hit fast forward a little bit and then donate on monday but before i feel like there was as much of a conversation about pizza hut nostalgia which it has been a conversation recently like i said pizza hut was trying to like kind of draft off it a little bit and again these commercials are going back to 2001 so that's five years ago i feel like just with tiktok and social media or whatever that you know i see plenty of people of my general age just like reminiscing about the book it program right like we'd even talk about that like the the idea of oh it's summertime i read a book and now i get a pizza or you know i read five books or whatever it was i get a pizza But it's like all of that is just tied up, I think, for people of our age who. had that experience of just like a kind of a wholesomeness of something to look forward to and um it's definitely something that has been noted at this point but i feel like and this is the memory that i just can't unlock and i feel like you are somehow connected to this memory because it feels like it would have been a tbtl trip of some sort where i was no longer with you it's almost as if we finished up our tbtl-a-thon or is there i mean you and i always stay so close Like, even if we're in a hotel, we're like a room apart or something like that. So I can't figure out how this happened. But like, I know I was on some weird road trip by myself and just had one night in some sort of like a just a random town and not like, you know, not like Chicago or like a random town. And I saw an old school pizza hut and I was like, I'm going to go there and get a pizza. But I think it was still maybe pandemic-y or maybe it just was the state of Pizza Hut at this point. I placed the order. I'm going to take it back to my hotel room. But it's like I go in and it's at the old school restaurant except the whole thing was shut down except for the front where they're making the pizzas and where I can pay for the pizza. And I remember sitting there. I think I even called my dad on the phone. I know it was a thon because I was updating him on the activities of the week. And I'm sitting in this old school booth and it should have been awesome, but it was instead like very depressing because it was like I was living the dream that I always wanted to live, which was back in an old pizza hut, except it was shut down and just really glum.

Were you driving home from the when we did the thon in Denver because you had driven out there solo?

I don't think so. I remember that that had its own complications. And also that one, that one I was very, yeah, in Baker City. And I was very sick. I had caught a really bad cold and it was still, that was like kind of the tail end of the pandemic as we think of it too. And I remember I took my first COVID test. I was like, oh no, I'm driving across the country with COVID. That's how terrible I felt. But I took a test and it turns out it wasn't COVID. It was just, I think it was just like all the, you know, stress of the week or whatever. And then as soon as our last event was over. So anyway, I know that it wasn't Denver. I'm quite sure. I won't say I know, but I'm quite sure it wasn't Denver. But the Delica trip, I wouldn't have ever taken. I never drove the Delica, so it's not like I would have zipped away somewhere in the Delica. I remember where I parked. I parked in the back parking lot of this Pizza Hut, just to add to the grimness of this story. So you think it was the pandemic? I feel like it was, yeah, they were like post-pandemic. Like they were open.

And it wasn't a thing where like when you and Veeves went down to like the Grand Canyon or something.

We did get a pizza hut on that trip, but we had it delivered. That was the stuffed crust one. That was the one where you had it delivered to a hotel where we were appalled because it was still like kind of pandemic-y. We thought a trip to the Grand Canyon would be like kind of a good way to social distance, but also celebrate our 20th anniversary. but then we were staying in some sort of like small like in a cheap you know like whatever hotel chain cheap hotel chain in Iowa no Idaho rather and we were appalled by the fact that some kids like some kids sports team like it was like we were in a state where they didn't they hadn't heard of the pandemic at all. You're pretty much

the second you left Seattle you were immediately in the part of the country that doesn't that didn't believe you're cutting through idaho you're going through kingman arizona you're in like yeah you are in absolute vaccine denier town oh my god yeah and some of the things that we saw

like on the backs of trucks like what literally white supremacist signs and stuff and arizona was quite shocking as well um that like upside like tail hitches or whatever with the upside down okay symbol or whatever like just like just like oh great this is america by the way that was days before January 6th or January 5th, as you like to call it. It was also days before January 5th. It was, actually. You know what? It was literally January 5th, I think, or January 4th that we saw that stuff. But anyway, yeah, like, I can remember all these various details. I remember talking to my dad on the phone in this booth of a sad but otherwise, like, structurally intact old Pizza Hut. And like I said, did this make for the best story on TVTL? Well, no, because nobody can answer this question

except for me. And maybe your dad. Maybe next week you can ask Bob He'll remember you calling him from a pizza hut You probably told him you were in a pizza hut Maybe I was wondering if you were trying to steal one of my memories Which was when I drove across the country Because I didn't have any ID And I drove from New York to Seattle that one time And I was sort of doing my half of the show From the road in different places i stayed in an airbnb in indiana i want to say it was called kendallville indiana um or maybe libertyville it was somethingville indiana

And I stayed in this little kind of in the little downtown area of this town, kind of like, you know, the main street where in the olden days there was always maybe like a JCPenney's and kind of like all that's that part of that part of small town America that's been in a lot of cases sort of hollowed out a little bit. I was in that part of this town in this little upstairs apartment that somebody was renting out as an Airbnb and I remember wandering around the town or driving around the town and noticing that they had an old school pizza hut and going to it because of... And I think I had an okay experience.

There were servers and you could actually sit. Like this place that I was in was to-go only at this point.

Right, and that's... This is my whole larger... And I'm sorry that I can't help you remember where that was. Although I do feel like it should be knowable because you're not on like a ton of solo trips. Was it like maybe in Arizona or something?

Like visiting my mom? Luke, I've explored that as well because I went to a different Pizza Hut takeout place one time visiting my mom in Arizona, but that was one of those small, practically it's like a window. It's just like a takeout place.

I was wondering if it was maybe when you and I were at the PRPD, but I think you had gotten your own hotel. Remember that hotel that was like-

Haunted. kind of haunted slash sketchy

except I didn't have my own car there and I think it was after that I was going to say that I think I would certainly be more than willing I've got the list of where they have classic pizza huts in Ohio right now tell me if any of these are anywhere near where we're going to be Waverly, Ohio

Waverly, is that near Valley City, is that the question? I'm asking you I don't think so, I've heard of Waverly Millersburg. I don't know. That doesn't ring a bell to me. Zanesville. I can't do that. What is that? I can't do that. I can't do that. Drive a bus. I can't do that. Pickerington. None of these towns ring a bell to me. Carrollton. No. Georgetown, Ohio. Ottawa, Ohio. Warren, Ohio. Warren I know of, but I don't know. Let's see where Warren, Ohio is.

Alliance, Ohio. Mount Gilead.

I feel like Alliance and Warren might be getting closer. Let's see here.

Those are all of the ones in Ohio.

Okay, Warren, Ohio is far east side. So it's not super close to us, but we could. Far east side of the state? No, no, far east side of Cleveland. Oh, it's in Cleveland? Well, it's Warren, but let me see. So you're saying one night we drive probably from the Airbnb in Cleveland to Warren, Ohio. Let's see if.

Or maybe on our way home from the, I guess that'd be kind of early for pizza, depending on how long we're going to be at our broadcast location.

Let me see here. Oh, let's see here. Oh, no, I'm looking up there. I think it's okay to say not to give up our coordinates, but we're staying in an area called Ohio City in Cleveland, right? Oh, is that true?

Yeah, I believe that we're technically in Ohio City, yeah. Oh, okay. I'll believe you on that. I didn't realize that was even a place. I just thought we were in Cleveland proper, but we're actually technically in Ohio City.

No, I think technically we are in Cleveland, but I think that's a neighborhood, and that's what I'm running into trouble here with. There's apparently another actual municipality called Ohio City further away, but I think the neighborhood of Cleveland we're staying in is Ohio City. That's where my old high school was, which is why I kind of know that, and that's where a lot of my old haunts were, although I think a lot of them are gone now, except for the Wendy's, where you, me, and John are going to get into a fight because that is where the boys would get into fights after school.

What did they call that? Battledome Wendy's or something? Dave Thomas Arena? Dave Thomas Arena. Pretty clever name. We're not condoning violence, but it's a pretty clever name.

Yeah, if I look up St. Ignatius. Anyway, a lot of things that I can't answer today.

We'll put John on the case, but I'm just saying, if it's convenient, if it's not super out of the way, and we're looking for something to do one of these nights, I would absolutely go for a Pizza Hut experience, Because what I'm trying to say is I have a feeling that if you're sitting in a classic pizza hut and they bring the pizza out and it's piping hot and you put it down on the table and you've got one of those plastic cups with the good ice in it and a root beer, that's going to be the best you're going to get with Pizza Hut.

Warren is unfortunately an hour outside of Cleveland. So when I said far east side, it's just east of Cleveland. It's not the east side. It reminds me of when I was, I referred to, it was in some sort of radio copy for KUOW. I referred to like Seattle's east side or something when I was new here. And Ross Reynolds had to be like, that is not Seattle's east side. That is the east side, but it is their own municipality. Like Bellevue is not Seattle's east side. There are none in Washington, by the way. There's There I've stops the w stop at uh well it goes wisconsin wyoming there's they don't even list they even list washington state someone in washington state needs to have the courage to step up and get a there's a pizza hut not that super far from me but it's just like a normal it's you know what it is i think it's in a gas station that has like a skippers which is if you're from yeah skippers That's an old school Seattle kind of, I think, Northwest kind of brand that's now relegated mostly to gas stations. Like someone just bought the license to the name.

Do you have a recollection of you and I hunkering down in, I think, I want to say a Long John Silver's during our hitchhiking trip? We were in some sort of fast food fish restaurant. I don't think I even got any food. And we were just looking to charge our phones and get off our feet for a little bit. Do you have any recollection of that? Do you remember what would that have been in like Missouri or something? I feel I don't I don't have the recall to know to even like remember like what state we are in for which adventure. But I do feel like this was the point where we were feeling like we were actually running into some trouble. Like I feel like we were there for a long time. I feel like maybe some weather was coming that we were concerned about. And eventually we got picked up by, I believe, our last driver, which was that chain-smoking woman who also ran a cleaning business and I was in the backseat.

And also, by the way, lied to us about her graphic design abilities. Do you remember that part?

We found out later when we were back home that she had used a stock image or something.

Yeah, she showed us her business card for her cleaning business. Yeah, right. And it was like, I was like, oh my God, this is incredible. I go, this is really a cool little logo. She goes, yeah, I drew it. and we were like i remember spending the rest of the ride being like why would you lie about that contains so much talent and that i think we were i was talking about it on the show or something or somehow either i don't know if it was you or a listener someone just googled what i was describing and it was like the first result of like stock clip art for if you were gonna want a logo for

your cleaning company and didn't she complain or something or no no she had her daughter on speaker phone the whole time and wasn't her daughter having car issues somewhere else or something like that or i just remember like she was kind of like in some cranky conversation with her daughter on speakerphone and i feel like that conversation also somehow involved cigarettes

but i could she picked us up and was like almost excuse me almost seemed at the beginning of the trip she almost seemed annoyed yeah that we were in the car and what i felt like saying was a thank you for the ride and also b you know that you picked us up yeah it wasn't mandatory get in yeah that was just driving kind of in a huff and it's just kind of like okay you didn't have to pick us up like thank you but also you didn't have to yeah if you're ever in shell knob missouri there's an iconic pizza hut perched on the scenic shores of table rock lake in shell knob missouri that sounds nice dude first of all i've been to table rock lake it's beautiful it's absolutely beautiful and this look this really does look like the platonic ideal whereas some of these classic pizza huts kind of look like they were they were retrofitted like they were yeah i was worried about that made into new pizza huts and now they weren't new enough so instead of by the one of the things they mentioned in that article then we got to move on to blurs days was it's a lot cheaper to turn let's say you have a pizza hut that was remodeled in 1995 you own a pizza hut somewhere and it's no longer like kind of the most up to date it seems out of date if you're gonna update it to like a new pizza hut with all this glass and steel and like industrial chic whatever that's like three hundred thousand dollars but you can make it a retro pizza hut for like ninety thousand dollars so it's actually cheaper to make it the retro pizza hut for obvious reasons the pizza hut in shell knob looks like it didn't go through any of the updates it's a barn find it's just been there being a classic pizza hut for yeah since it was that although the chair

so this is funny i just wanted to see what shell knob looked like so i was looking at google maps at shell knob and looking at how the river like kind of snakes its way through there and coincidentally on the map right by the water there was a pizza hut so i clicked on and i'm looking at the photos inside it's not exactly how i remember the seating inside but i think this might be a special kind of old school pizza hut because of its location on the water they also have like a deck and stuff like that but like oh really i'm oh wait oh there are some booths i don't know if i hit the z sound too hard on the word booth but uh but there's a lot there's fewer booths and more just like these kind of wooden chairs and a big open seating area and it's it's got a um what do you call that open ceiling it's like a pitched roof but then it's kind of open and you can see the beams. It's like a vaulted ceiling.

Yeah, it's a little bit more lodgy than I remember these things, but absolutely beautiful. It may not work out for this coming TBTL-a-thon, but at some point I'm going to keep my eyes out as I'm traveling the highways and byways of America, maybe for my TV job. I'm going to keep my eyes out for a classic Pizza Hut, and I'm going to go in there, and I'm going to do a food review on this show to see if my theory holds that maybe being in the classic Pizza Hut, drinking out of the classic Pizza Hut cup, will actually time travel me back to being a kid at a Pizza Hut.

Luke Burbank, do you know what this Shell Knob Pizza Hut has? Because it's literally on the water, you can drive your boat up and they have a little dock and on the dock they have a tiny, a little miniature red Pizza Hut roof protecting the boats. Are you kidding me?

Okay, hold on. I got to look at this. If I go out to Columbia, I go all the way out to the Pacific Ocean, and then I go around through the Panama Canal. Is there a way, can I get to Table Rock Lake in the Ozarks somehow from here in southern Washington? Is there, maybe I go up through the Great Lakes. Oh, you know what, I mean, I could take the Columbia the other direction and cut into the interior of America. Maybe at some point jump on the Colorado, I'll figure it out. Or I could just send you a picture.

There's a right way to rock and a wrong way to roll. You can just listen to your soul. Just remember that life is number one. You can be having so much fun. Just remember that life is much fun. You can be nothing but one.

All right, I'm double-checking. Oh, what's wrong?

Nothing's wrong. Nothing's wrong. Would it be okay? This is your segment. You're in charge of this, so I'm going to ask your permission. Would it be all right if I made the very quickest of announcements of non-Blur's Day-related content?

It's non-Blur's Day? If it was Blur's Day, I would let you do it somewhere in the middle of the Blur's Days, randomly, but it's a non-Blur's Day announcement. Or do you want me to do it at the end of the Blur's Days? Give me a color-coded system, John Ashcroft style. Okay. Oh, wait, no, it wasn't Ashcroft. Who came up with the color-coded terrorist alert system? Are we talking, is it red, yellow, green? How would you categorize this announcement as far as importance?

I think it's yellow. I don't think it's of the highest importance, but it's something that I had meant to mention closer to the top of the show, and then I forgot about it.

Well, let me just think about, no, just kidding. Go ahead, what is the announcement? I'm interested in the...

Very quickly, listener Kelly wanted to remind folks that the tbtl book club is meeting this sunday there's a zoom link that's going to be on the tbtl book club facebook group and the slack channel this is happening from 12 to 1 pacific time 4 p.m eastern and you don't have to have read the book to be part of the club but if you have or if you want to the book is for there you go see that's why this is the community calendar her music i know but i'm asking a lot i'm asking you to change the lursday music to this the book is frozen river and um you can like i said uh you can find out about it by way of the tbtl book club facebook the slack channel and uh maybe most importantly for this it would appear that my mother is actually going to be part of this book club because she actually read this book she told me i don't want to steal her thunder it's one of the best books she's ever read really and so my mom and dad are stopping off here at my house on sunday they're driving from my sister liz's house up to their place they're stopping here on their way home so my mom can have a good internet connection so she can join the tbtl book club how are we feeling about this is going to sound

very condescending and it's probably because it is although i don't mean to be uh you know rude about it but how do we feel about your mom's ability to connect with the rest of the group

I've been thinking about this all morning. I think because my mom is still my parent, and you know from being a kid, particularly being a teenager, sometimes anything your parents do feels a little cringe. It feels like... But then I think about my mom in Philly at the after party after the Philly show and the line of people waiting to talk to her and how much everyone was like, oh my God, I loved meeting your mom. I think I have to think about my mom as an independent person in the world, not as my mom. Therefore, I think that she's going to be a big hit. I think you've wildly misunderstood my question.

I meant literally, what are her chances of successfully, technically connecting with the group? I'd say zero. I didn't mean, your mom can connect with people. That is not the issue. Your mom is great at connecting with people. No, no, that's what's been keeping me up at night. I mean, how will she operate the Zoom? Will she be able to like.

kind of negotiate the linkage and the logins and everything that goes along with a Zoom connection.

That's between her and her God, who she's in constant contact with, by the way. I'm just more like, my mom is a free spirit. She's of an older generation than mine. She's of a generation where she will sometimes say things that you and I would definitely not say, but she goes, what? It's a compliment. It's that kind of energy. So to turn that loose in the book club, I'm not sure how that all is going to go, but I'm going to let go and let God. Because I'm going to be on an airplane heading out to Valley City when this is all happening.

Thank you for indulging me. You're going to let go and let frog. Yep, that's right. All right, let's switch gears here and go back to the Blur's Days. If you would like to celebrate somebody's birthday or your own birthday, you're a somebody. You can email me, andrew at tbtl.net is the email address, and please put Blur's Day or birthday in the subject line so I know to grab them here during the segment. And we have a message here from Caitlin in Eagle, Idaho, that says, Happy Blur's Day to Nicole in Worcester, Ohio. Oh, do they have a Pizza Hut? I don't think so. You didn't mention Worcester. I would have noticed that. I didn't see Worcester, so I saw Warren. Warren. My neighbor was just celebrating, I think, her 50th high school reunion or something in Worcester, Ohio, last weekend, but that's not relevant to Caitlin's message. Caitlin wants to wish a happy birthday to Nicole in Worcester. She got a warm and levitated when she found out y'all would be in Ohio for a late birthday gift. Here's hoping it's a great weekend of her Worcestershire miss you. Oh, I see. Here's hoping it's a great weekend for her in Worcestershire. miss you, but it's actually spelled the proper way. Two O's. Worcester. It's Worcester, but it's kind of Worcestershire. How do we say, do we say Worcestershire or Worcestershire? Worcester. The joke is the one in New England is also pronounced Worcester, but it's spelled W-O-R-C-E-S-T-E-R or something like that. That's also pronounced Worcester? Yeah, that's where the whole joke comes from. But in Ohio, they keep things simple and they spell their Worcesters like it looks. so happy blurs day nicole i hope your birthday didn't get lost in that mess of an examination of worcesters that's on me

should i read one from erica luke absolutely you sign off on this i not only do i co-sign i'll tell you my feelings about it it actually makes me emotional thinking about you reading

a blurs day message from erica erica says i would like to wish my five harmony a wonderful 11th birthday. That is great. I love the name Harmony. Mom is so proud of the person you are becoming. I love you, kiddo. Kids and fantasy. Indeed. That's the working title right now of the meetup we're doing next Wednesday, the Zoom meetup. John put together the invite and it says kids and fantasy at the top. We'll have more details on that tomorrow when John joins us on the show. Happy Thursday, John. I'd like to send a birthday shout out to Dr. Crispwell of Crispwell Industries, a.k.a. The Mushroom Doctor. She's been fighting the good fight for 41 years, and I wish her all the luck in the world to finally grow her own morels. Although her kids are like... I have a mushroom sound effect. Yeah. It's just here. It's the sound. This is like the sound of brain falling on a mushroom. Yeah, yeah.

You know, they thrive in kind of dark, moist conditions, dark, damp conditions.

And then here's the sound of them growing. Okay. It's actually very relaxing. It is. This is good. To fall asleep from this. God, I needed this. Okay. Anyway, I wish her all the luck in the world to finally grow her own morels. Genevieve found a morel one time, I believe, in our own backyard. Although her kids are likely her proudest achievement, I'm sure the morels would be a very close second. Happy birthday, Crisp, from an 11. Dear Megan, well, it's been another year, and I'm so glad to wish you a great one coming up. You're the best daughter anyone could ask for. Think of dinners at the Wedgwood Broiler, trudging home in snow while watching police argue over how to get their car out of the ditch. Fearless high dives at Meadowbrook. It's all good. Be your marvelous self. Much love, Mom. A 10. Okay, that's adorable.

And also, we love the Maple Leaf location check between Meadowbrook Pool, where I went many times as a kid, because they had a high dive. They didn't have a high dive at Evans Pool, which is the one at Green Lake. So if I could talk my mom into it, we'd go to Meadowbrook so I could jump off the high dive.

There is a restaurant called The Maple right there on Roosevelt and Maple Leaf. across the street from that Ace Hardware. My friends run that place. And I'm not just saying this because they're my friends. Literally the best fried eggs I may have ever had. They make them perfectly there. I think I got like a, I've only had breakfast there once because they're my friends. I don't want to support them too much. It looks, you know, it looks a little thirsty. But we went there for breakfast and it was, I think I got steak and eggs and it was so incredibly good. So if you're in that area, check out the maple.

You know, what's funny is I think that it used to be, Is it in that little converted house?

It's a little converted house, and they literally have a banana stand, a little frozen banana window on the side of it.

I think that used to be, back in the day, a restaurant called Raza Malaysia that my dad did signs for. Oh, really? I'm talking in the 80s, and they would just pay my dad in free Raza Malaysia food, and I remember on my parents' hot date nights, they would go to Raza Malaysia.

What kind of food is that? I think Malaysian. Yeah, no, I know. I mean, like, I'm just trying to picture the cuisine.

I remember being, like, noodles and stuff. But I just remember that always being, like, oh, we're going to go to Raza. They just called it Raza. It was either in that exact building or one very close to it because it was in a house on Roosevelt right there kind of by that Ace Hardware.

Ooh, aside from going to the Maple, I want to check out a Malaysian restaurant. I'm looking at, like, little pictures and videos. That stuff looks great. All of that is to say, happy Blurs Day, Megan. Lloyd and Katie say Happy actual Blur's Day to Isaac No joke So Isaac is a newborn Congratulations guys Oh come on No joke Isaac is here because of the TBTL community Two years ago another 10 Shared their little one's day of blurs And expressed how difficult the journey was Dealing with repeated loss yet never giving up And I can confirm what was said During that Blur's Day message Holding you in my arms for the first time. I told myself I wasn't going to get choked up. I read this this morning. I'm like, you can do this. You can do this. How could you not, man? Holding you in my arms for the first time made every hard day worth it. Oh, my goodness gracious.

That is, I'm tearing up hearing you tearing up, man. Well, that's the way it works. It's contagious.

I'll try not to hiccup, too, because that's also contagious. It says, thank you to whoever shared their story. It found us at a very difficult moment and gave us what we needed to try one last time with Grant.

Oh, my goodness. That is incredibly heartwarming, and I'm so happy for you and Isaac. Welcome to the rest of your life. I was going to say, welcome to this. I know. There's going to be a lot of this. It's going to be two guys getting increasingly old

and increasingly emotional at stories like this.

Talking about this and that and Pizza Hut. So this is going to be the sonic backdrop of a lot of your life.

Okay, listen. Get used to it, kid. Isaac, maybe you can help me with this. I know I was on a road trip. I feel like it was part of a TBTL-a-thon, but I was by myself for some reason. I can picture the booth I was sitting in.

Isaac, can you help me here? When you were in the Bardot, when you were in the liminal spirit world between being not fully alive and now being alive, When you were flying around in that spirit realm, did you ever observe Andrew at a pizza hut calling his dad?

And if you were above me, how big was my bald spot at that point? That's really sweet. Congratulations, guys. And again, happy Blur's Day and welcome to the world, Isaac. Also, happy Blur's Day to Megan and Edmonds from Annie in Seattle. I hope your day is filled with fun, excitement, and more commentary from Andrew about dirty dancing. Oh, I don't know if I got it in me today. Red Robin and the Husky Helmet Car Forever. Amen to that. Helmet, yeah. Dude, that thing. I love that helmet. I love that thing so much. It's by far my favorite thing about going to Husky games. I usually go to about one a year with Genevieve, and I'm always just looking at it.

That's one more a year than I go to, having graduated from that school and having been at some times obsessed with the football team.

Yeah. Well, they're having me do the Husky Corner for UW today now, I understand, now that Genevieve is. Oh, you're the Husky Corner right now. Yeah, exactly. Love it.

When's your latest column on Joe Jarzinka coming out? Googling that. That sounds like a guy you would have grown up with, actually. It does.

The name sounds very Ohio Polish. It's very Ohio Polish. That's a classic name from the days of you. That was just a guy.

For our Husky football fans out there, that was just a fun poll for them. We had a guy named Joe Jarzinka who was a kick returner. he was a kind of diminutive but very fast guy and if i remember right he had like a mullet or some kind of a rat tail that might stick out from under his helmet and he was just fun to watch nice but uh yeah so that was just for the huskies out there you can use that in your in your Husky Corner column. Thank you, appreciate it. I came up with that name myself while criticizing other more pedestrian names. All right, last one here. This is from our pal Maggie in Swarthmore who keeps me in Fig Newtons and Goldfish Crackers. Happy 58th Blursday to me. 58 is a weird number, I think. Too old to be young, too young to retire. My goal for this year is to live human scale, connecting with people, being friendly to strangers, hosting more dinner parties and outdoor movie nights on our porch oh that sounds great thank you tbtl friendos for being leaders in this continuing quest to cure global loneliness love ya we love you back maggie thank you and thank you for being such a kind friend all these years maggie is the person who also sent me a basketball a few years ago you'll be shocked to hear that my basketball career has not taken off the way i expected it to but there's still time isn't maggie the person who sent you the fig newtons yes i said she keeps me in fig newtons and goldfish oh okay sorry yeah yeah i missed that um but uh yeah also i think

that's a really good way to think about being 58 or being any age here's the thing after a certain point maybe i don't know what it is different for everybody look called 30 um for some people after a certain like when you're young you're not thinking about your age or that you're getting older particularly or that you know i don't know you're not thinking about life the same way and then there's some point where you just sort of start going oh wow i'm older than i expected to be well i didn't expect to be this old oh i never thought i was gonna that's kind of like becomes the thing every birthday it's like man i didn't think i was going to be 50 man i didn't think i was going to be 60 but what what maggie said about you know thinking about her 58th year and the things that she wants to do and kind of living at a human scale i think that's really lovely and something nice to think about um as again as we all age and and once we get into that era where we're like kind of have mixed feelings about it like you don't have mixed feelings about turning 18 you're psyched yeah it's like very cool to get and 21 and there's these milestones where it's just like it's just you're just so excited about it and then you get to this other phase where you're just like wow i did not expect myself to be a 50 year old well it's funny because

you spend a big chunk of your life just wanting to get older so much you want to leave so much behind now i don't know if this is maybe a specific to me to a degree or generational or maybe it is universal it's part of youth i'm not exactly sure i can't speak for everybody but But I just feel like when you're in grade school, you just cannot wait to get to high school. Just get me out of this place. Being in high school, cannot wait to get out of your house and go to college or whatever your post high school plans are. For me, it was college. Then I literally remember being like my fourth year of college, like sitting on the stoop of the student center with my friend Greg singing like, we got to get out of this place if it's the last thing we ever do. Just like we were done with it. we just wanted to, can we just move on to the fun adult parts of life? And then you get to a part of life, you're just saying, where did my youth go? But honestly, that sounds depressing, but I've said it before on the show, I love my life. I wouldn't go back in time if I were to be given the opportunity. And I'm lucky in a lot of ways. And also, as I do get older, I look at you. You're an older man, and you're still getting around really well, Luke, and you still seem to be living a pretty enjoyable life. On the outside, to the outside observer.

That's sort of what keeps me going. Yeah, I'm proof that you can live a full and rich life at 50. Exactly. All right, happy Blur's Day to everybody this week. I guess we should probably wrap it on up here today, Andrew, but guess what? This is five days a week, this program, so that means we're bringing another show at you tomorrow. We'll have John Sklaroff on. It'll be our final episode before we are checking in from Valley City, Ohio. So I'm sure we'll have much. I have slightly, I already have the show sheet written out for tomorrow's show. And kind of cheekily, kind of jokingly, I have the question big weekend plans. But I kind of feel like we already know what the big weekend plans are.

Yeah, well, I do, aside from some frog name updates from Sklaroff and some other THON-related things, I have a little THON twist I'm going to let everybody in on. A little tension for the weekend, potentially. I'll give you an update regarding our plans.

Okay, well, that's a good reason to tune in tomorrow to the show. By the way, if you're just tuning in, don't forget to sign up for the TBTL newsletter. Go to tbtl.net. Click on the button that says newsletter so that on Friday you will be among the first to see the TBTL-a-thon thank you gifts that we're going to be sending out to folks. So make sure you do that. And we will see you tomorrow for more Imaginary Radio. In the meantime, have a good Thursday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. Power out.