transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] A little BG on me. I do HR, that means human resources. Here at TAC, my name is Eric Rossdale.

Speaker 2:
[00:08] Some people call me Cool Eric.

Speaker 3:
[00:09] They called me that once. Some young people too. Some young, some one young person did that. I love people, to say that another way.

Speaker 1:
[00:17] I love people.

Speaker 2:
[00:19] That one's got a little more fun to it, doesn't it?

Speaker 1:
[00:21] TBTL.

Speaker 3:
[00:29] I thought I was shame-eating in private. What is shame-eating?

Speaker 1:
[00:33] I don't think we have enough time for that tonight.

Speaker 2:
[00:35] As I tried to explain before, you cannot get honey from a hornet's nest. I just don't think there's any science to support that, buddy. There's some very basic science out there supporting that.

Speaker 3:
[00:44] Trust me, pal.

Speaker 2:
[00:45] What a fun, terrifying joke.

Speaker 3:
[00:47] That's science. These are facts. It's science. We call that a hypothesis. You find something to back it up and we can talk. Now, if you'll excuse me, I was watching Mama's Family.

Speaker 2:
[00:56] This will be blown way out of proportion. You have my word up.

Speaker 3:
[01:03] Well, all right. Hello. Good morning, everyone. And welcome to a Monday 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'm your host. You're still doing a pod cart? Coming to you from the Madrona Hill Studio perched high above the mighty Columbia. I'm trying to multitask here, which is a bad idea. I'm grabbing little packets of Splenda or a little packet of Splenda, but it's been sitting here on the broadcast console for so long that it may have sort of ossified into a solid block of Splenda that cannot be then dispersed into the coffee cup. And so I had to grab another one. But thankfully, we've averted that disaster. And we are... the other... Andrew's not going to like this, but this half and half I'm using was kind of on the line. Kind of on the line. And I'm now in real time right here in front of your steaming eyeballs, as David Lee Roth used to say during his short time on K-Rock in New York. Live and direct in front of your steaming eyeballs, I'm going to take a sip of this coffee and figure out if I made the right call by including some of this half-and-half in it or not that was on the line. Here we go.

Speaker 1:
[02:20] There ain't nothing like soup.

Speaker 3:
[02:22] It's good. It's good, people. I'm happy to report the half-and-half is not spoiled, and we are okay, and we are ready to bring you episode 4,709 in a collector's series.

Speaker 2:
[02:33] Let the fun begin.

Speaker 3:
[02:35] That could have been a disaster. It wasn't, but I'll tell you what was a bit of a disaster. It was a US military parachute show at a Virginia Tech spring football game.

Speaker 1:
[02:47] It was literally a major disaster.

Speaker 3:
[02:50] But it also was kind of funny, if I'm being honest.

Speaker 2:
[02:53] How funny is that? That's pretty funny.

Speaker 3:
[02:55] Nobody was injured, so that's the good news. It led me this morning down a very long, deep rabbit hole about hype music for athletic events and involved me maybe even writing my own hype music for an athletic event. Also, we've got some new TBTL merch in the merch store.

Speaker 2:
[03:18] The new phone book's here!

Speaker 3:
[03:20] So we'll tell you about that as well. Some new t-shirts for all of you to enjoy at tbtl.net based on some content that we stumbled upon a couple of months ago. So anyway, we'll do all of that, and we'll say hello to this guy, longest running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships.

Speaker 2:
[03:38] A highly paranoid, very large individual, talking a bunch of nonsense.

Speaker 3:
[03:42] He's Andrew Walsh and he's joining him right now. Good morning, my friend.

Speaker 1:
[03:45] Good morning, Luke. Can I get something off my chest before we launch into the new merch conversation? Thank you. I was about as furious as I've ever been at my car this weekend. I want to tell you, maybe at my phone or maybe at the universe. I don't know. So you and I have a friend. Her name is Katie. We don't usually use last names on this show, but I think it's okay to use the last name. Katie Beck is her name. She's a dear friend of ours. She used to connect me with Kixie Window Kling. She even connected one of our listeners with a Kixie Window Kling. Poppy's mom. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 3:
[04:25] She's the second person I know who has a small living thing in their house named Poppy. She has a dog named Poppy and my friend Laura has a child named Poppy. Poppy renamed herself at two or three years old and it stuck.

Speaker 1:
[04:40] Really? Good for her.

Speaker 3:
[04:42] I was actually talking to Poppy's grandmother last night by coincidence and she mentioned casually something about Poppy and I thought, wow, you've got to have a lot of swag as a two or three year old to just go, I'm going with Poppy and then the adults go, okay, and it worked.

Speaker 1:
[04:56] You don't forget about it after a day or a breakfast.

Speaker 3:
[04:59] Precisely. That's what I would do even now.

Speaker 1:
[05:03] I know somebody who has a cat named Poppy as well and this is something that you don't know about me is, and I think I'm finally over it because Poppy, before we brought Lucy into our house, because Poppy was the most prominent dog in my life and you know me, I love Poppy, Katie's dog, Poppy, I mean, just love her to death.

Speaker 3:
[05:20] Kind of same coloring a little bit as Lucy, right?

Speaker 1:
[05:22] Kind of similar coloring, although Lucy's snout is getting darker and darker. Also, she's growing in front of my eyes, Luke. For real, she stuck her head through a fence post and I was like, you're growing so fast, you better not do that, you might not be able to pull it back.

Speaker 3:
[05:35] That dog is barking and it's not my dog.

Speaker 1:
[05:38] We've had her, it'll be two weeks this Wednesday, in a week and a half and I look at photos of the day we brought her home and she already looks small in those photos, but this isn't about Poppy. I've been getting so many emails from people saying, stop talking about Poppy, we don't want to hear about Poppy anymore.

Speaker 3:
[05:52] You mean Lucy?

Speaker 1:
[05:52] Lucy. That's what I was going to say. I keep calling Lucy Poppy. I thought I was over it until I made the mistake right now. The first week, I was just like, where's Poppy? I mean Lucy.

Speaker 3:
[06:03] Is Veep getting mad?

Speaker 1:
[06:05] She didn't love it, but also when we brought Bingo home, I called him Theo a million times. I just heard something about new pets. But yeah, I do that with wives. That's really, really doesn't go over well. Go over super well.

Speaker 3:
[06:20] Yeah. I've called all of my new wives Poppy.

Speaker 1:
[06:22] Yeah. Understood.

Speaker 3:
[06:24] Hi, Poppy. Well, I think that's a comment, Andrew, on how connected you are with your pets that you've had through the years and with Poppy, the Katie's dog that you connected with. I think that's a compliment to the other pets and not in any way a comment on how you feel about the current pets.

Speaker 1:
[06:44] That's how I feel too. And of course, anyway, I truly do love Poppy and to a lesser extent, I love her mom Katie, our friend. Again, I'm saying her full name here because it applies to the story. Katie Beck is her name. And this is an issue that I have had with Katie for a while. No, this is an issue that I've had with my phone for a while. I plug my phone into my car and I'm driving along and it gives me a map and it routes everything through the console or whatever. It's a pretty good system and it uses Android Auto or whatever. So it's like all the Google services integrate with our car pretty well. And when I'm driving, I can easily text you, for example, and say, I'm going to trigger people. I won't say what the triggering phrase is, but it's not the Alexa one. It's a different one for Google. And I say that and then the radio stops and I hear a little bloop. And it says, what would you like? And I say, I say, text Luke Burbank. And then the robot says, texting Luke Burbank. What is the message? And I say, hey, Luke, get off my lawn. And then she says, hey, Luke, get off my lawn. Is that what you want to say? And I say, yes. And then it's sent. And I do this a million times, a car ride for various friends.

Speaker 3:
[07:51] Because one day I will be on your lawn and you want me off of it.

Speaker 1:
[07:54] Exactly. And I want you off of it.

Speaker 3:
[07:55] It's a standing rule. One day that will be what you need to tell me.

Speaker 1:
[07:57] It's a standing rule that you just can't get through. As my mom used to say, you're a thick skull.

Speaker 3:
[08:04] There was a medical condition though, I feel like she should have given you a little bit more grace on it.

Speaker 1:
[08:08] I got to give her credit on that though.

Speaker 3:
[08:10] It suffers from thick skull.

Speaker 1:
[08:11] She's like, get it through, thick skull. I was like, all right, mom. Anyway, but there's something that is going on with my goddamn system where it will not recognize Katie's name. By the way, I don't think there's a way I get through this story without swearing because I'm already getting hearing about this. And I will say, OK, Google, text... Oh, I shouldn't have said that. Sorry, everybody. I say, OK, machine.

Speaker 3:
[08:33] Nobody else is on Android.

Speaker 1:
[08:35] Text Katie Beck. It will say, Texting Katie, which Katie... Oh, no, it always goes to a different Katie that's in my phone. Somebody who I don't even know who it is. It might have been somebody I met and worked with at KOW years ago. It always wants to go to a different Katie. And then it will be Katie Sewell, speaking of KOW. I have a million Katie's in my phone and they're all spelled a different way. But Katie, our friend Katie, and again, I hope it's OK. With a C.

Speaker 2:
[08:59] I'm not doxing her.

Speaker 1:
[09:00] But it's a C, right? And everybody else is a K. And the machine will... Oh, no. My phone is lit. Did you hear my phone?

Speaker 3:
[09:09] The phone thinks you're talking to it right now....

Speaker 1:
[09:11] sister or best friend to the Katie you actually know or simply use her phone. My phone in my pocket started doing that because I said the trigger word and then it heard whatever I was saying to you afterwards. So the machines are clearly listening, right? And all we hear about, all we hear about is how great AI is. And all of these amazing things AI can do, like, you know, start wars, plan wars, like just all of these huge, huge things. I mean, big, big stuff. Yeah, big, important stuff. You would think that just the easiest thing for a phone to do is know that some people named Katie spell their name with a C. That's not that rare, right?

Speaker 3:
[09:50] Yeah, because phonetically it should be able to, it's making a list of Katie's. It's checking it twice. But, yeah, it should just be, you're not asking a lot for the, and we've now arrived at the edge of my understanding of how this kind of stuff works, but whatever algorithm, whatever system it's using to go through your contacts and find things that look like Katie, it just needs to add C to the list. That's all you need to do is just fit, could also be with C.

Speaker 1:
[10:19] And so this is an issue I've been having for a long time. And so what I always end up doing is just texting Katie when I get home. I cannot text her from the car while I'm driving. And I was driving down Aurora and you could change your name to Beatty Beck. Well, that's the thing. I was like, well, there are ways I actually thought that something like you're praising the machine. Exactly. I could change it to I could change her spelling in the phone. You know, the phone already has me trained to say Genevieve Haas instead of Genevieve has, even though she pronounces it has, which I kind of resent a little bit. But that was that was that that goes back to when this technology was all brand new. In this day and age, where we are just like just, you know, just laying off massive amounts of human beings so that we can give their jobs to these computers. And everybody's talking about how great these computers are, but they can't do the most basic thing. And I resent having to change my behavior so that the machines can train me. Like, that's not supposed to be how this works. That's not the promise that they're making. And like Katie with a C is not that complicated. So I'm driving. I'm like, I'm going to just I'm going to figure this out right now. So I say, OK, machine, text Katie. And then it'll say, it'll give me the same things. It's like, which Katie do you want? And is any of these? I'm like, no. And then I start spelling it out. And I'm watching on the screen. I'm both hands around the wheel, but I can see I set spell out C-A-T. And I'm watching it, spell it out. And the machine just says, I don't know what that means. I'm just like, how are you? How can you not just understand speech to text? It's one of the most basic things. And so I'm doing all these things. I'm talking to it, and I'm not touching my phone at all. I'm driving. And I'm so frustrated, because I was like, I'm just going to fix this. I say, text Katayi Beck. Oh, and it keeps on going. That's right. I have somebody named Katie Bell. And I don't know who that is. It's somebody I worked with or volunteers at some point. It keeps trying to text Katie Bell. And I'm like, I can't let some strange person...

Speaker 3:
[12:08] I'm not trying to blame the victim, but as the king of file management, do you think you might want to delete Katie Bell from the context?

Speaker 1:
[12:14] Yeah, I guess so, because I don't know who she is.

Speaker 3:
[12:15] But again, that doesn't make this your fault. This is not your fault.

Speaker 1:
[12:18] And then I even said, back, and I even did that, and it worked, sort of, but it couldn't find it, because it kept spelling it with a K. So I'm getting more and more frustrated, and Luke, here's what I... And I said something to the machine, and this is embarrassing, but I'm driving, and I just said, you know what? Go F yourself. And I didn't say F though, I said the word, right? I said, you know what? Go F yourself.

Speaker 3:
[12:43] Is that why it called me?

Speaker 1:
[12:44] Luke, do you want to know what the machine said to me?

Speaker 3:
[12:48] What?

Speaker 1:
[12:48] The machine said this to me, Luke, and I about lost it. The machine said to me, I am a virtual assistant, but your words are real. Please keep it respectful.

Speaker 3:
[13:01] Oh my God.

Speaker 1:
[13:04] What happened next was a torrent of words that could only be paralleled by the final season of Veep. I was screaming invectives at this goddamn machine. You're telling me that this robot, this non-existent personality is reprimanding me in my car because I tell it, not her, not him, not them, it, that it's a bad machine and it doesn't do its goddamn job, and it's telling me how to speak. I seriously, well, you can hear it in my voice now. You know what, if you want to imagine it, it was a lot like this. I'm still furious.

Speaker 3:
[13:47] I actually have tape of it. That's got to be.

Speaker 2:
[13:54] Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Speaker 1:
[13:56] Oh man, I wonder what that guy's up to these days.

Speaker 3:
[13:59] Yeah, that is so incredibly sort of dismissive and also like misunderstanding by the programmers deeply what the human experience, what the UX is on this whole thing.

Speaker 1:
[14:13] You're going to have this thing. Tell me how I can speak to like then program and not to let freelance that. Yeah, no, no.

Speaker 3:
[14:19] It did that because it was programmed. They haven't quite jumped to the sentient shark yet, which I know I'm mixing my metaphors there because that's a bad thing when you jump to shark. But they haven't quite fully become sentient yet. So it didn't decide to do that. It was programmed because somebody somewhere was like, well, maybe we can train the humans to not curse words at this thing. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[14:39] Which why do they care? They only care because they're... Exactly. Yeah. I just couldn't believe I was being reprimanded in my own car by this piece of s. I mean, am I saying piece of that? Have I swore enough on this show to... Do I need to watch what I say anymore? Did we just open up the gates? Can we just swear on this episode next? It's going to be explicit anyway. Why am I saying piece of s?

Speaker 3:
[14:59] Because our relationship with swearing is very complicated. I've done the same thing many times where I'll say something that's on the line of being inappropriate, and then after that I'll be spelling S-H-I-T for some reason. There's no consistency there.

Speaker 1:
[15:12] Exactly. Anyway, thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

Speaker 3:
[15:14] What is your... I mean, you're just going to continue to fight this battle, I guess, because of...

Speaker 1:
[15:20] Well, it doesn't matter anymore because there's a big fist-sized hole in the middle of my console. Now, I just text-write, pull over.

Speaker 3:
[15:28] You could, and again, I know that this is the machine training you, and this is also essentially disrespecting how our friend Katie's parents chose to spell her name, but you could also change it to a K.

Speaker 1:
[15:42] I thought about that.

Speaker 3:
[15:43] Which again, I don't like that either because that's the machine training us, and that's the machine not letting us use our real names, etc. I'm not saying that that is a good outcome, but it would solve the problem, but a little bit of your humanity would die, as would our friend Katie's.

Speaker 1:
[16:02] Let me just wrap this up by saying this. I know Katie listens to this show. So let me just ask her now what I was trying to text her this weekend, which I never ended up doing, which is, Katie, are we still on for record store day this Saturday? Get at me.

Speaker 3:
[16:16] Okay, there you go. Turning this into the Mukluk Telegram out here. This is, if you have any other messages you'd like, if you're trying to buy or sell anything, this is, as we say, it is Tradio as well. There's anything you need to have passed across to about, I don't know, however many thousand people tune into this, this is the place for it.

Speaker 1:
[16:38] So. Buy, sell and trade. It's Tradio. Hey, that's a perfect transition into buying things, Luke.

Speaker 3:
[16:45] It sure is, Andrew, because we have some sweet, sweet new merch over at tbtl.net. If you click on the shop button there at the top of the page. You know, I actually grabbed the shorter drum roll. I'm not trying to just do a bit here, but then I clicked on the wrong longer drum roll. So here we are. We're getting close though. Only 20 more seconds. We have shirts and hoodies that say what, Andrew?

Speaker 1:
[17:18] There's a little depiction of a United States Postal Service truck just trucking down a road and it says, boxes, deliveries, stamps, mail. Boxes, deliveries, stamps, mail. That is based on something that you said on the show, Luke, because if you take the letters of those words, you get BDSM.

Speaker 3:
[17:41] We were having a conversation, as we do, five days a week, and my memory of things is that somehow there had been some sort of reference, some passing reference to maybe a certain kind of, you know, how do we say this in a way that won't be too much for the younger listeners to absorb? I feel like there had been some kind of a reference to some kind of sexual play.

Speaker 1:
[18:06] Well, what it was, was you were talking, you know, I have the audio here on Instagram. I might as well just play it, right? Yeah. But I don't know if it's set up well. But basically what happened was you were talking about how you sometimes get gifts for Becca sent directly to Becca's home. And so you had this complicated system of like, you had to say, I had something shipped to you, but I don't want you to open it. So when I get there, you got to give me the key and I'm going to run down and I'm going to unlock your box or whatever. And I was like, oh, that's what it sounds like. Because you know, some sort of like intimacy play, you know, like you kind of like, yeah, you got some keys, you got locks, you got that. And then I think this is where you came out into your mailbox.

Speaker 3:
[18:42] Give me the key and then I'm going to retrieve your Valentine's present out of your mailbox on Saturday. So that's the plan. How's that?

Speaker 1:
[18:50] Yeah, I mean, well, you're slipping a little bit into some dom sub stuff there. It sounds like a little bit like you must give me the key. I will control the unlocking of the box situation.

Speaker 3:
[19:02] I'll learn how to keep your relationship fresh, Andrew.

Speaker 1:
[19:07] I will give the remainder of my time to the gentleman from southern Washington.

Speaker 3:
[19:11] Like for you, it's still PO Box related, BDSM. For you, BDSM stands for boxes, deliveries, mail, boxes, delivery, stamps and mail.

Speaker 1:
[19:29] There it is. That was a fantastic. You were very quick on your feet there, Luke.

Speaker 3:
[19:32] I was proud that I actually was able to mostly get the letters in order, although I did screw up stamps and mail.

Speaker 1:
[19:39] But you cleaned it up better than I would. We got back there.

Speaker 3:
[19:43] That ended up being a bit on the show. I think we put the clip out on the Internet and people seem to engage with it. And so we do like to put some stuff over at the merch store when we can. And so you and John, I can take no credit for this, but you and John collabed on this idea and you kind of designed this little mail truck, which I think is adorable.

Speaker 1:
[20:04] It's kind of cute. Can I just say something about this? I am learning how to use this graphic design program. And I know that we live in an age where it is. I mean, yeah, the truck is a little bit graphic designer. It's my passion. But I would like to say something about it in my defense, even though nobody's attacking me. There are a lot of services you can use like Canva that basically provide you with clip art these days, or you can certainly use AI tools. We were just talking about that. There's a million AI tools that could have made maybe a slightly more professional looking little mail truck. But I refuse to give into that. I really wanted to use Adobe Illustrator. I'm learning how to be a graphic designer, Luke. It is my passion. And while hopefully someday I will look back at this little truck and say, oh, I could have maybe done that a little bit better. It was important for me to do it by myself. So I think it'll look good. It looks great on the gold hoodie, by the way. I love that contrast in color.

Speaker 3:
[20:57] The mail truck looks sporty, which I love.

Speaker 1:
[21:00] It's kind of just funny.

Speaker 3:
[21:03] And you had a good piece of feedback because I, of course, I'm Chief Lily Gilder of the tribe overdoing it. And so I was like, well, why don't we put periods? Because it's in boxes, delivery, stamps, and mail. Like if you're wearing this t-shirt or hoodie out in public, the average person who sees it will give it minimal thought. They certainly won't probably read it as a BDSM joke. But I was like, well, we must make it so clear what the joke is. And let's put a period after everything. And you very gently talked me off of that. And I'm glad you did because what I love about this shirt is, and the hoodie is, if you know, you know, if you're like a TBTL listener, and you just want to have a nice looking t-shirt that's kind of funny and makes you chuckle, you got this. But it's also, you're not in the world wearing a shirt that's like saying too much. You know how like there are too many, there are too many shirts right now that we're wearing to tell each other things. And sometimes it's oversharing or it's either aggressive or maybe a bit sexual or God knows what. I was getting some gas yesterday and I pulled up next to a car. I know this isn't a t-shirt thing, but just like, it was one of those vehicles that just had so many stickers on it, like telling me that the person didn't give any bleeps and that the person was not interested in my opinion and that the, you know what I mean? It was just like, I just wanted to say like, who hurt you? Like, what's, are you all right? What's going on here that this is, you've got to tell the world in this many different ways that you don't care about us thinking you're not doing it right or whatever. Anyway, this shirt, I think this shirt is...

Speaker 1:
[22:36] Did they have any statements about participation trophies? Was that kind of the unhinged...

Speaker 3:
[22:40] You know what? Here, it was, it, it, it... Oddly enough, it didn't quite skew political, and I do consider participation trophies political.

Speaker 1:
[22:48] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[22:49] You know what I mean? In the way that they're talked about. I mean, who would ever give someone a participation trophy from, like, FIFA for being the best at whatever that award they gave Trump was? Remember, like, FIFA gave Trump an award when he was mad about the Nobel Peace Prize? They gave him a participation award for the people who think that participation awards are what are bringing down America.

Speaker 1:
[23:13] I just say when, like, the day that the Iran War stuff broke, somebody immediately posted on Blue Sky, I expect more from a FIFA World Peace Residue. Or something like... No, you know what it was? It was, does the FIFA World Peace Prize mean nothing anymore?

Speaker 3:
[23:30] Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[23:30] That's what it was. It was so great.

Speaker 3:
[23:32] Thank you. That is a solid spoof. And again, what we always say on the show is you've got to remember the joke is on there. It is not on the people of the person who is destroying their lives and who is holding this participation award. All that is to say this shirt, I think is so cool because it's I think it's well designed. I really like what you did here. It's an inside joke that a very, very, very small number of people will get. But everybody else will just think you're wearing a cute shirt with the USPS on it. And also that is unless they zoom in on the handcuffs that are on the handle of the mail truck. You got to enhance, enhance, enhance. There is a little, a little in joke there with a pair of handcuffs that are hanging off of the truck, which I love. It's so subtle. But it's just a cute kind of fun shirt to wear. That is a fun joke between you and fellow tens. But you're not putting your business on blast with random people at the gas station, as was the case yesterday when I pulled up next to that truck.

Speaker 1:
[24:28] And I want to say, we always say this, and I'm only saying it because it's true, this is not a fundraiser for us. We will...

Speaker 3:
[24:36] It's a fund loser. Yeah, it's a fund lowerer.

Speaker 1:
[24:39] We don't lose money on these, but we don't make money on these at all. We're literally selling them to you for what it costs us to make them. So we're putting them out there if you want them, and if you want to spread the word of TBTL and your love of boxes, deliveries, stamps and mail. But don't do whatever that means to you. Yes, we will be asking for your support of TBTL very soon. And we're, oh my God, the things that we are working on right now is thank you gifts for people who support the show, which will happen this summer. We'll be telling you more about that in coming weeks and months. I'm so excited about that. We're excited about these shirts too, but these shirts are just for fun. They're just if you want something, but it's not a way of supporting the show necessarily. But they're there for you if you want them.

Speaker 3:
[25:17] I also have to say, I don't spend enough time in the TBTL shop, but like this Badlands shirt is also... I know, I'm really into that one.

Speaker 1:
[25:24] Which I will give myself credit on that one. That one I also made.

Speaker 3:
[25:28] But it turned out really well.

Speaker 1:
[25:29] Like we've got good merch.

Speaker 3:
[25:31] Yeah, we've got good merch over there. But like you said, Andrew, really, the idea of the merch is it's a way to, it's a conversation starter about this little podcast called TBTL. So if you want to get an Alvin and the Chipmunks shirt, which is me and Sean and Andrew.

Speaker 1:
[25:46] Shout out to Max. Now that's a graphic designer. Yes, exactly. That was made by a professional graphic designer and a listener of the show Max.

Speaker 3:
[25:54] Slash Richard Dreyfus impersonator.

Speaker 1:
[25:56] That's right.

Speaker 3:
[25:57] Yeah, no, the stuff on there is, I really like the stuff that's in the merch store. So good job to you and John because you are definitely spearheading this. I'm zero help. But look, when I go over here, I'm proud of this stuff. I think it's cool. We've also, you guys are careful about paring it down. There's not like 80 billion things in there.

Speaker 1:
[26:15] So yeah, give credit to John for all of that.

Speaker 3:
[26:17] If you want to grab some of this stuff and wear it and tell people about TBTL, that is awesome. But yeah, like you said, we're going to be coming back to you this summer for the actual fundraiser of this show. And that'll be an important time for us to all, as they say, lock in. So, but anyway, nice job on this. Thanks, John, for rolling this rock up the hill. And yeah, everybody go check it out, tbtl.net, and then click on the little button that says Shop. Right there, it's in the kind of far upper right corner of the website, and check it out.

Speaker 1:
[26:48] We also have shirts that say wine is basically fruit salad.

Speaker 3:
[26:54] We was hoping for some razzle dazzle.

Speaker 1:
[26:57] Razzle dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle dazzle.

Speaker 3:
[26:59] On your mark. On your mark. Get set.

Speaker 1:
[27:02] Now ready. Ready.

Speaker 3:
[27:08] Speaking of the actual fundraising model of the program, here it is right here. It's called Our Dazzling Donors.

Speaker 1:
[27:17] These people bought 10,000 t-shirts off of our merch store.

Speaker 3:
[27:21] Per month.

Speaker 1:
[27:23] That's how we're able to do it. No, that's not at all how it works.

Speaker 3:
[27:27] What we've got going here is 100% listener supported podcasting, which means, and I mentioned this on Friday at the end of the show that I was jumping off to have a call with somebody that we know in the podcasting universe who was checking in on kind of how we do TBTL with this stuff because they're kind of talking about shifting some of their business model stuff. And as I was explaining it out loud, I was, and for the, I don't know, 80,000th time in my life, Andrew, I was, my mind was blown anew. Whenever I try to explain this thing to somebody as to how it works and why it works and they were like, right, but they don't have to pay. I was like, no, that's the thing. This is, this is because people who could be not paying, could just be listening are like, yeah, but I feel called as we used to say in the church. I feel like if I don't do it, who will? And if nobody does it, there won't be a show. I mean, it is a miracle that folks like Gillian Lamont of the Mamish Washington are donating a dazzling amount of dough. Gillian says, it's like Gilly from SNL. That is very helpful, Gillian. Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[28:33] Super helpful. I would have, I would have thought maybe a softer G there if it were left up to my own devices.

Speaker 3:
[28:38] Well, there's some other, you know, there's some Gillians in the culture. There's, you know, Gillian Welch. Well, actually it's Gillian Welch. So maybe that's, maybe that's good to know.

Speaker 1:
[28:47] But I never remember that though.

Speaker 3:
[28:49] But it's Gillian Anderson from the X-Files, I believe. So she's a high-ranking Gillian. So Gillian, thank you for supporting the show and thanks for the helpful indication on how we say your name. Gillian says, last year I talked about how I have a little list of things I know to be good, which includes TBTL near the top. Aw, nice to be on the list. This year I want to mention a phenomenon that I have been keeping track of, also in list form on my phone. Sounds like, Gillian, you sound like you and I cut from the same cloth. Beck and I were hanging out yesterday. Were we in bed? Maybe, that's fine. Get your boxes, deliveries, stamps, and mail out of the gutter, people. But I was texting myself.

Speaker 1:
[29:31] She was handing you a little key.

Speaker 3:
[29:33] I was texting myself some kind of a reminder for something. She was like, who are you texting? And it wasn't in a suspicious way, but it also was in a like, do you really need to be texting someone right now way? And I was like, myself, a reminder, this is my system. Sounds like Gillian's got a system going too. This is also in list form on my phone, Gillian writes. It points to my sincere belief that TBTL is a mystical force for good in this world. Here's my list of things that were mentioned on TBTL and in my life on the same day. Andrew? Wow, I sound nuts.

Speaker 1:
[30:13] I'll get an email from a listener every now and then that says, you're not going to believe this, but you guys just randomly went on a 20 minute conversation about, I don't know, that Ethiopian restaurant in Pinehurst or something.

Speaker 3:
[30:27] By the way, I saw that on TikTok a week later. It's supposed to be the best Ethiopian restaurant in Seattle, according to some.

Speaker 1:
[30:33] Oh, really? The one in Pinehurst? Oh, cool.

Speaker 3:
[30:35] The one you went to and told me about. I saw a TikTok where a guy who his thing is, he goes and tries a little restaurant. He went and tried it and let me tell you. So he's filming the food and eating it. It looked so freaking good.

Speaker 1:
[30:49] I didn't know that it was buzzy at all. It's a very humble little place. I just had passed it a couple of times and I thought, oh, I haven't had Ethiopian in a long time. So we got it. But anyway, the phenomenon that I was trying to illustrate here was this idea that you and I might just randomly go on a conversation about that or find ourselves. Talking about that and then somebody will be like, you will not believe it. But I literally was in that restaurant when you started talking about it or somebody was literally telling me about that later in the day or so. There's this weird phenomenon that happens where people's lives somehow match up with what we've talked about.

Speaker 3:
[31:18] We are the human embodiment of your cell phone doing something where you're like, was it listening?

Speaker 1:
[31:24] We're always listening.

Speaker 3:
[31:26] Now, this is a crazy list though, Andrew. I mean, this is wild. So these are things that Gillian heard about on TBTL and also experienced some mention of in the same day or experienced a mention of it and then we talked about it on TBTL. This is same day stuff. Folks, here comes the list. Finger traps. Like where you put your finger in the bamboo, a kind of like woven thing and it gets stuck.

Speaker 1:
[31:54] I wonder why we were talking about that. I don't like those. They freak me out. I've never liked them even as a kid.

Speaker 3:
[32:00] Yeah, I was never, I didn't really understand the appeal as a kid. Oh, cool. So now I can't get my fingers out. I mean, I guess they were kind of interesting from a whatever. But yeah, I wasn't like that. Wasn't if I had a little money at the magic store or something in Pike Place Market, I was not going towards the finger traps. No, I was going towards the little red slidey box that you could put something in and then it would make it look like it disappeared.

Speaker 1:
[32:25] A penny. I forgot about those. You can make pennies disappear.

Speaker 3:
[32:29] Yeah, I was really into that.

Speaker 1:
[32:30] Luke, I totally forgot about it. He had a wooden one.

Speaker 3:
[32:34] Gillian just heard about that the other day. She's heard about that.

Speaker 1:
[32:37] Whatever day she was in. She'll hear about it later today.

Speaker 3:
[32:39] Yep, yep. Exactly. Brain surgery, where the person is awake.

Speaker 1:
[32:44] I don't remember talking about that.

Speaker 3:
[32:46] I don't either. I'm rarely awake during this show. A little brain surgery, but okay. The movie Blackfish. That's going back in the archives, I believe. Yeah. That was that documentary about how the orca are treated, I believe, at places like Sea World. Yeah. Pretty intense film, by the way. I think if you watch that movie, it'll be pretty hard to not feel a certain way about the captivity of orcas. The name Sabrina. I don't know if we were talking about Teenage Witches.

Speaker 1:
[33:20] No idea.

Speaker 3:
[33:21] It's just the reboot of the movie with Greg Kinnear and Rebecca Ormond. No, Julie Ormond.

Speaker 1:
[33:30] This list reminds me of when people say, well, how do you find enough to talk about to do a show? It's like, well, have you examined the name Sabrina for 45 minutes recently?

Speaker 3:
[33:39] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[33:39] We have.

Speaker 3:
[33:39] Yeah. Saying ass over tea kettle.

Speaker 1:
[33:44] I love that expression. I say that, but I think that I got it from you.

Speaker 3:
[33:48] I don't know where I got that from. Maybe, maybe Camaro Kev. Because I know I didn't get it from my home environment growing up. We would have never said ass, but I know that Dale and Pat can't stop saying it. They would say literally, to you enter every room saying ass. Yeah, exactly. I want to start saying ass over teapot dome scandal. To try to keep it show title. Can we put A-S-S in the show title?

Speaker 1:
[34:15] How about Tushy over Teapot?

Speaker 3:
[34:18] Tushy over Teapot Dome Scandal. I don't even know what that is. I just know that it's like some kind of a historical political scandal that happened.

Speaker 1:
[34:29] I know that Gillian is going to hear about that later today as well.

Speaker 3:
[34:32] Yes, I know. That's the thing. We're just creating so many other. Gillian, will you tell us if anything that is said on today's show, whether it's in this part of the show or elsewhere, is also referenced in your regular life? That would be pretty intense. The Little Rascals. I've almost worn out my bell on this segment.

Speaker 1:
[34:51] Your bell sounded weird in the intro, by the way. I almost started the show by asking you, but it sounds normal now. You had the low tone in the bell. Maybe it's just the Mondays. Does your bell have the Mondays?

Speaker 3:
[35:01] You know what it is. This is an old bell. I think somebody sent this to me or did I find it? I forget the story. But because it's older, it doesn't... It's sort of... This thing is gravity-based, I guess, or it's physics-based, so that the plunger on it... I'm holding this up here. The plunger on it sometimes will be lower, and so it's not going to make much of a ding, because it's only going this far. Also, my hand is holding it.

Speaker 1:
[35:28] It's not full on.

Speaker 3:
[35:30] But it's not full on, Andrew, and I want to be full on. So sometimes when it is full on, when there's a lot of space, it rings out clearly. Sometimes it's like down here and it's not quite as good. So I think that's what was happening. Hummingbirds are that. Here's that word again. Yeah, assholes. Is it possible Gillian is hanging out somewhere where people say ASS a lot? Sounds like two of the things on this list. Well, yeah, of course, that's how we get all the downloads is hot talk. But how is it that we keep now hummingbirds? I don't know what season we're in right now, Andrew, but I've got I went to the store and I bought Genevieve Wood would be, I guess, I don't know. I don't think Genevieve really cares what I do with my money, but Genevieve who makes hummingbird nectar and stuff would say this is a waste of money. I went down to old tractor supply where I like to hang out because I live in the rural's and I bought, first of all, I bought a bunch of bird seed for my bird feeder over here that has the camera in it so that I can kind of...

Speaker 1:
[36:35] Oh, if you have that kind of bird feeder, you probably don't have to worry about squirrels. They do a pretty good job of locking that up. But Genevieve for the other feeders gets like stuff that is covered in hot sauce because birds, it doesn't bother the birds, but the squirrels won't eat it.

Speaker 3:
[36:47] That's incredible. I did not know that. Yes, this one, this camera one that I have, it's mounted on the side of the Madrona Hill Studio in a way that only birds can get to it. There's no surface area, there's no pole, there's nothing that the squirrels can climb up. But then when I was there, I noticed they also had a jug of Hummingbird feeder because I've been kind of eyeballing it and I'm worried people were telling me don't give them too much sugar. It's bad for them because I was always like, don't they want more sugar? Don't they want more fuel? But anyway, so I bought this, what I consider to be fancy, store-bought Hummingbird juice and I put it in there and I'm getting no action on this thing. Now, I think it might not really be Hummingbird season right now. They might be, I mean, they're not hibernating obviously, but they don't, you know what it is? There's probably more flowers for them to eat right now. There's probably more naturally occurring stuff. I'm thinking the fall and winter is when they're really relying on the kindness of strangers like me to come around because they are, to Gillian's point, pretty aggressive with each other when it's like major Hummingbird season out here. And of course, I think of them as these beautiful physics-defying little sprites. But if you do any reading on them, they're actually very aggressive and mean to each other. Yeah, they're very territorial. They have the hearts of gold that I think of.

Speaker 1:
[38:12] Yeah, I just like to put a big gulp. I just hammer a big gulp to the side of my house and just let them go to town. Mostly with Mr. Pibb and Mellow Yellow.

Speaker 3:
[38:21] Do the graveyard.

Speaker 1:
[38:22] Yeah. I love it.

Speaker 3:
[38:24] You know what? I'll tell you, Andrew, like I have... As I'm sitting here, there are so many Swifts that are flying around. Like this is bird freaking central out here and I love it. The pelicans are back. I know I've been talking about it a lot. I won't belabor this, but these American pelicans, which are these fairly large white pelicans with black tips on their wings. There's like a couple of weeks where I don't know, it's something migratory, like they're on their way from here to there and they stop over and they stay in the river, not in the main big part of the river where there's all the ships, but there's these little kind of side areas where the water is not moving very quickly. And they just come here for a couple of weeks and they are hanging out and I can see them about five, ten of them at a time. They'll just be sitting around in the water in a little group and then occasionally they'll decide to fly up in the air and they fly in this, I guess it's called a murmuration when you have a lot of birds flying together. I don't know if this gets to the level of a murmuration when it's like eight or ten of them, but they're the most elegant flying animals I've ever seen in my life. There's something about the more so than any other bird I've seen. And the fact that it's like they're like the shamrock shake. They're like a limited time offer. And I was mowing my lawn the other day and I was listening to my music. And if you think I didn't tear up a little bit, looking out and just seeing these pelicans doing their thing. So also we think of, I think of pelicans as a kind of an ungainly bird a little bit. They got that weird, they've basically got what I'm developing now. He's got a big pouch of big waddle.

Speaker 1:
[39:59] Yeah, is a waddle or a good? Yeah, I can't think of the right word.

Speaker 3:
[40:01] They've got, they've got powerful Mitch McConnell energy and, and I don't know their politics, but I just mean visually. And so I've always thought of pelicans as kind of goofy, kind of goofy birds, but when you see them flying, man, they're at least these ones are so incredibly beautiful. It just makes me so happy.

Speaker 1:
[40:19] So I just want you to look at them, though, the next time you see them and just think that they're the reason Merrick Garland is not sitting on the bench right now. That's what I want you to think.

Speaker 3:
[40:26] It's the only thing I can think of. That's why I was crying. It's exactly what you thought. It was tears of joy.

Speaker 1:
[40:31] Andrew?

Speaker 3:
[40:32] No, no, no, no, sir. No, no, no. Yeah. Another thing, by the way, the list ain't done. No, here's the rest of Gillian's list. Me building a kid bed while Luke is talking about building a kid bed.

Speaker 1:
[40:46] Do you have any idea about why you would be building it, why you would be talking about building a kid bed?

Speaker 3:
[40:49] That's well, maybe building Addy's bed years ago. I don't think, I mean, I must have been, you know, how I get with the reminiscing, because I don't, I haven't built, I haven't built a kid bed here or even at my old house that I can remember. But you know, back in the day, I do remember building something for Addy. Maybe that's what it was. Zoltar from the movie Big.

Speaker 1:
[41:12] Oh, sure.

Speaker 3:
[41:13] Now, I'm sure I said this last time. I don't think I've ever seen the movie Big, but it is so, it was so popular. I've seen so many clips of it. I know that Tom Hanks and Robert Loja dance on a big piano and they play the song Hearts and Souls.

Speaker 1:
[41:31] No, you're thinking of Patriot.

Speaker 3:
[41:34] Do they do that in Patriot?

Speaker 1:
[41:35] Not Hearts and Souls, but remember they do roll out a big, a huge piano thing. And they sort of recreate that scene a little bit. You don't remember that. Yeah, I think it's, I need to rewatch that show. Somebody has brain damage maybe. And they're maybe using it as a recovery thing.

Speaker 3:
[41:51] No, it's the guy. It's the guy that John assaults to get the job at Macmillan. Yeah, there's some, and part of his recovery process is doing some kind of musical therapy.

Speaker 1:
[42:02] I think so. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 3:
[42:05] God, that show. I need to rewatch. Now that you and I were just, you and I just did an entire episode of Thunder Boys off here, our new DTF St. Louis podcast that we're not doing. And it's really got me in a Stephen Conrad state of mind.

Speaker 1:
[42:17] Me too.

Speaker 3:
[42:19] All right. Seeing the book Anna Karenina at the bookstore and then a listener talking about her cat called Anna Karenina.

Speaker 1:
[42:28] That's right. Oh, I wish I could remember the listener. I know you're out there. I'm just blanking on which listener, the cat name that I'm trying to have you read Anna Karenina, by the way?

Speaker 3:
[42:38] No, I haven't.

Speaker 1:
[42:39] I should read. I have in between books.

Speaker 3:
[42:41] First, I'm going to see big. Then I'm going to read. I mean, no, I really I'm a fan. You know, I haven't read Anna Karenina, but what I have read is the George Saunders book Swim in a Pond in the Rain, which is his course. He teaches on Russian literature at Syracuse.

Speaker 1:
[42:55] Oh, OK.

Speaker 3:
[42:56] And it is phenomenal because what he does is he takes a number of stories of like sort of short and medium length Russian stories, and then he breaks down what is so phenomenal about the story or why it's interesting. And it is like it's like taking the class, but in the most non boring way. And I took a Russian lit class in college from a guy named Willis Connick at the Udub, and he was a real dead poet society kind of dude. I know I've talked about him before. He literally was a like a stand up on the desk kind of guy. And his big thing was Russian. And it was like, everybody was like, you gotta take Connick's class. You gotta take Connick's class. And it was so great. I mean, it was, I remember one time he came into class and he was like in character, like he wasn't being the professor. He came in and he like sits down in a chair. He's like pretend smoking a cigarette. I think this is the kind of shit that would have really bothered you, Andrew. Yeah, I think that I loved it. I loved it because it was just so much more interesting than the other ways that this could have been taught. But he came in and he sat down and he was like pretend smoking. I think he might have had like a real cigarette, but it wasn't lit and he's talking. He's just in the character of somebody who's in one of these books and he's doing this for like 30 minutes. And by then, of course, he sort of steps out of the character and kind of elaborates on what this all meant and everything. What I know is that I loved that class. And I really did. I can't say that I've read a lot of Russian literature. We'd have to read like The Death of Ivan Ilyich and we had to read. I don't know if we read Crime and Punishment. We read a couple of the biggies of the heavy hitters. And I really liked it. And I really, because Russian literature sounds very imposing, but they were good writers and they're real page turners.

Speaker 1:
[44:37] Yeah, that's I'm trying to remember. I read a little bit of Tolstoy. I can't remember what it was, but just hearing, just having this conversation with you makes me want to pick this book up because I have been floundering a little bit about my next book. I kind of like, I started one and then I stopped reading it. And I have this thing where I get books from the library and Libby, but then it starts a countdown right away. Like back in the day, if you rented a book from the library, you could keep renewing it. Or if you didn't, you could hang on to it for as long as you wanted and pay the nickel fee a day or whatever it was. Now they just yank it back. If somebody is waiting for your, basically, if somebody else is like, I want this book, I'm going to put a hold on it, you can't renew it anymore. So I never know if I'm going to end up being able to finish the book I'm reading. It causes stress in my life and it's impacting.

Speaker 3:
[45:22] That is a fascinating, I guess you might say, unintended consequence of our move to digital life. I never thought about that because yes, if you rent a physical book from the library, yes, you are supposed to bring it back and yes, they do fine you, but the fine is so minimal that it's not hanging over your head as this sort of Damocles. You're like, I'll give them 25 cents if I need a few more days. But when they have the ability to whiff it back out of your e-reader, it suddenly becomes at a countdown. That's stressful. You can tell I don't use Libby. But wow, that's crazy. I hadn't thought about that.

Speaker 1:
[46:01] You keep on renewing it as much as you want until somebody else is waiting. And so then you'll get a notification that says, somebody's waiting on this book. You're like, son of a gun. And then it's like you're having trouble peeing and you think there's somebody waiting for you behind you at the stadium urinal or something like that. I don't know why you're having trouble peeing.

Speaker 3:
[46:18] It happened to me at opening day at T-Mobile. I'm not a shy bladder guy. In fact, one time at the Kingdom, my bowels weren't shy enough, Andrew. I don't know if I told that story on the show.

Speaker 1:
[46:28] Yeah, we should someday. I'd like to hear more.

Speaker 3:
[46:32] I'm happy to say because I was actually interviewing Adam Gopnik, the New Yorker writer and the writer of really great books. He wrote a big essay in one of his books that I was interviewing him about, about his battle with, and so he's public about this, so I feel comfortable talking about his battle with having what we would call shy bladder, a real difficulty mictrating or mictriating, however you say that word, peeing in places that are not his home environment.

Speaker 1:
[47:04] Interesting.

Speaker 3:
[47:05] That it was actually really life-affecting for him. I mean, he had an extreme case. He was invited to go to certain book conferences and things, but if it was in other countries, he couldn't fly to those places because he could not pee on the plane, and he could not do an 18-hour flight or a 12-hour flight. So he hires a coach to try to help him. This isn't in the, I'm going to pretend to be a conservative for 24 months bull crap way. He literally was at his wit's end, and it involved riding his bike around Central Park with this guy.

Speaker 1:
[47:40] Not that anybody specific has ever written that particular book.

Speaker 3:
[47:43] No one comes to mind, Andrew.

Speaker 1:
[47:44] That's not the broad side in any way.

Speaker 3:
[47:47] Not that anybody comes to mind who occasionally pops up in my Instagram. Do you want to follow? Absolutely not. But I'm going to be a conservative. I'm going to eat beef jerky. But anyway, but it was crazy to read about this and to really, I mean, you know, again, to have some empathy for that being a thing that we kind of joke about or, oh, I've got a shy bladder or whatever. Anyway, I'm grateful that that's not something that I'm beset by. But I did have a moment, probably because I wasn't drinking enough beer at the game, because that's the one that will really, like if you're having a few beers, in my experience, that really pushes it right through. That really pushes everything through the system pretty quickly. I've had more than one guy remarked to me at the urinal, at a baseball game, you don't buy the beer, you just rent it.

Speaker 1:
[48:32] Oh God, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[48:34] Love that move. And, oh dude, I heard about a bit, that I feel like you wouldn't like it Andrew, but I'm really tempted to start doing this, if I find myself without maybe having a few drinks with, and then in the bathroom, using the urinals with my male friends. I don't know who invented this bit, but I saw a couple of comedians that I like talking about this online. So there's some friend of theirs, some comedian friend of theirs, who if you and I went into the bathroom, like at the bar, and the urinals got the divider between it, we're both kind of using it, and I just lean over and I knock on the divider and I go, don't you hate these?

Speaker 1:
[49:28] It's better if you say it to a stranger.

Speaker 2:
[49:31] Well, that's the thing.

Speaker 3:
[49:32] So these comedians were comparing notes because they had started doing this to their male friends, and then one of them had tried to take it, one of them had tried to take it to another level by doing it to a stranger, and it had been received poorly.

Speaker 1:
[49:46] That is amazing.

Speaker 3:
[49:48] But that is an incredible joke, right?

Speaker 1:
[49:50] It's so good.

Speaker 3:
[49:52] I can't take it for it. I can't remember who invented it, but that's one of the funniest jokes that I've heard in years.

Speaker 1:
[50:00] Just casually throw it out there.

Speaker 3:
[50:05] To a complete stranger. Like, oh my God, I want to... Anyway, all right. Back to Gillian's list. There's one more, Andrew, and it is, this is a thing, in case anyone's lost the thread. In case you need a reminder, these are things that we have mentioned on the show on the same day that Gillian has heard them in real life. Wendy's Square Hamburger Patties. You call Wendy's steamed hams? Yeah, those are, man. I'll tell ya, this is when you know that you live, Andrew, kind of in the middle of nowhere. They are putting up a new Wendy's in the town one over from me. And when I was driving down Interstate 5 and I saw it, I got excited. I don't even really eat at Wendy's, but it's like, again, this tells you how little is going on out here. I was like, oh, we got a Wendy's.

Speaker 1:
[50:59] So you say you don't eat at Wendy's, and this is fine. And I'm not trying to be judgmental here. But if you were in just some situation where there is a Wendy's and McDonald's that are right next to each other, you're going to the McDonald's.

Speaker 3:
[51:12] I'd probably go to the Wendy's.

Speaker 1:
[51:13] In fact, you know what?

Speaker 3:
[51:14] This is near a McDonald's. This is near a McDonald's. Yeah. No, I think Wendy's is superior to McDonald's. I like their whole deal better. And again, I'm not strictly a vegetarian. I don't eat a ton of that stuff. But if I needed to grab something and that was the option, I would absolutely go to Wendy's over McDonald's. No question about it. Maybe that was part of my excitement. I think of Wendy's as a superior fast food experience to McDonald's. But it's also just my generalized sense of like anything that's new that gets built. I think part of my fear on some level is that I moved out to like a dying area of the country. Cause I've just never lived, I've always just lived in cities. And in my experience, cities always grow and get better and the housing stock gets more expensive. I'm not saying that's a good thing. Just saying it's my experience. And then I decide to buy a weird 1930s little cottage out in the middle of nowhere. And I wonder sometimes, was that a good call? And then also, is this contracting or expanding out here? Like they're building. I rode my bike the other day, like four blocks over to visit a house, their building that I can see from my house. That's what we do out here. Like it's cool, by the way, it was like a really cool house they're building. And I'm like, great, we're building too, so it's near this other nice house they build. And I'm just like, good. And my other neighbor was like, well, it's going to property taxes. I'm like, fine. I don't care. Let's build more houses out here, please. More housing. Let's build more Wendy's. Let's grow. Let's not contract, please. And again, I don't know how much that really matters. But like when I see... I pulled over the other day to congratulate a different person on the house that he and his partner were building because it's a cool Victorian house. And I was like, is this your place? And he goes, yeah. And I go, thank you.

Speaker 1:
[53:04] They're building in building this new Victorian.

Speaker 3:
[53:07] Yeah, it's got a widow's walk.

Speaker 1:
[53:09] Oh, wow. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[53:10] Which is like a balcony. So they're down the hill for me, but I can see the top of their house from here. So it's like, it's not a convene. I can't walk directly to them because it's like the woods. But when I'm down on the main road, I can see their house. It's kind of complicated to explain. But basically, I've been watching them. And this is a different house. I rode my bike to one house that is being built. That's gonna be a cool house. This was, I was in my car and the guy, the house that I'm talking about, which is kind of a cool, newly built kind of Victorian style house that has this amazing view and all this stuff.

Speaker 1:
[53:44] In a cupola? Is that another word for a widow's walk? Are they different?

Speaker 3:
[53:48] Well, I think it has a cupola above the widow's walk. I think the widow's walk is the name for the balcony.

Speaker 1:
[53:53] Oh, the balcony that's off the side and the cupola is on top of the...

Speaker 3:
[53:57] Yes, but it has a cupola on top and then this widow's walk. I've been watching them build it and it makes me so happy when someone is building in this neighborhood and when they're building something that's architecturally interesting, they're not just building a big McMansion box or whatever. I've been having this parasocial relationship with the folks that are doing the cupola house. I was driving the other day up this major highway called Old Highway 99, which used to be literally the only road between Portland and Seattle. I see the guy, he's down because their house is set back up on this driveway. I see he's down at the road level because he's working on something. I just pull over my car. I put on my hazards. Traffic is backing up behind me. People are annoyed. It's also weird. For some reason, two Jeep Willys were behind me, Andrew. I don't think they knew each other, but it was the strangest thing. So I pull over, I put on my hazard, I rolled over the window, I'm like, is this your place? He goes, yeah. I go, it's awesome. I'm so glad you built it and that it's such a cool site. He goes, oh, thanks. We got this architecture firm in town and we told them we really wanted a widow's walk. It was like, and we're having this conversation. I almost wanted to give him my number, but can we be friends? You have a cool house. But then the Jeeps are getting impatient behind me. And here's the thing, I was pulled over.

Speaker 1:
[55:17] Yeah, why don't you just go around? You don't stop in the middle of the street, right?

Speaker 3:
[55:20] You're driving a jeep is a symbol to the world that you are a person of action.

Speaker 1:
[55:25] Oh my God. Do you ever see a bumper sticker that says it's a jeep thing you wouldn't understand? I always flick it off if I see it.

Speaker 3:
[55:31] No, but I have seen the one where it's like, it's like, they'll sometimes put on the spare tire on the back of the jeep or it can be a bumper sticker. And it basically like, it's written upside down. Like if you can read this, roll over. Like the joke being that like, this jeep is so friggin four by four ish that like you might come upon it and it's rolled over because of it. And that means like it's on its top.

Speaker 1:
[55:55] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[55:55] And now you need to roll it back over, right? Because it's on the wrong side.

Speaker 1:
[55:59] But it's like the goddamn wing stop and it's backed in to the back into the wings. And by the way, I think I know this house you're talking. I could be wrong about this, but I believe it or not, I think that you can tell me if I'm wrong, but I think that the people who own it, the main guy's name is Ford, and his partner's name is Francis, right? And it's the Francis Ford Cupola House.

Speaker 3:
[56:20] Yep, it is.

Speaker 1:
[56:21] That was worth interrupting you for, by the way. I'm hearing from the listeners right now.

Speaker 3:
[56:25] Wait till Gillian hears about the movie, what is it, Cosmopolitan today? What was his last crazy movie he made?

Speaker 1:
[56:33] It wasn't Metropolis, and it's not Metropolis.

Speaker 3:
[56:35] Metropolis, Metropolitans is the Whit Stillman one, right? Is it Metropolis?

Speaker 1:
[56:40] Yeah, but Metropolis, isn't that the name of the really, really old silent film? Yeah, anyway.

Speaker 3:
[56:45] Yeah, anyway. All that is to say, I'm pulled over Megalopolis.

Speaker 1:
[56:49] Oh, okay.

Speaker 3:
[56:51] So I'm pulled over. I'm way on the side of the road. There's so much room to go around me. There's also no traffic coming towards me. So it's like I've created an ample amount of room for people to go around me without having to cross the center line. And instead, and I put my hazards on and they can see I'm talking to this guy. And instead, not one, but two jeeps are... I can't blame the jeep in the back because it was, you know what I mean? The bottleneck is the jeep that's directly behind me.

Speaker 1:
[57:21] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[57:22] But the jeep that's directly behind me is so timid. They refuse to go around me, but I can see that they're getting frustrated. I can see they're just like, they're kind of getting like, oh gosh. And I'm just like, don't drive a jeep. And then be afraid to go around me when I'm just trying to talk to my neighbor, please. Like, you know, there are cars.

Speaker 1:
[57:41] You didn't do the hand out the window, like go around symbol.

Speaker 3:
[57:44] No, I just, I got...

Speaker 1:
[57:46] Then you're freaking out the guy named Ford that you're talking to.

Speaker 3:
[57:50] Exactly. And I also didn't want to come on too strong with him. Like I didn't want to be like, we're going to be here for a minute, Francis.

Speaker 1:
[57:56] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[57:56] You know, like I wanted to keep it chill. But I basically was just like, the house looks great. I was going, I live kind of up the hill. I've been watching you build it. I just think it's so cool. And he's like, Oh, thanks, man. Thanks. And then I said, I'm looking like I shook his hand. And then I just like gunned it to get out of there because the jeeps were too timid to drive around me. But anyway, anyway, we got a new Wendy's. And that's the point of that.

Speaker 1:
[58:15] This is the longest dazzling donor message ever done. And not because Gillian's message is too long. There's, you know, I think we've got a lot of conversation started.

Speaker 3:
[58:26] I mean, this could have been a summer games.

Speaker 1:
[58:28] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[58:29] Just to respond to all of Gillian stuff. Anyway, thank you, Gillian. We appreciate you. Maestro?

Speaker 1:
[58:35] There is one more line in her thing, which is why I was quite ready. Oh, yes.

Speaker 3:
[58:38] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Maestro, thank you for holding me accountable.

Speaker 1:
[58:42] Yes. Thanks for calling me in.

Speaker 3:
[58:45] Thank you for calling me in on that, Andrew. And I hear you and I appreciate you. Gillian says, I know other tens experience this, and I think it just means the universe is telling me that what you do is so important. I promise I'm not nuts. Keep up the good work. Well, you keep up the good work as well, Gillian, and we'll look forward to this list next year as well. Maestro? On your mark. Now ready. Yeah. You know what? You know what Danielle Goodrow of Nashua, New Hampshire has put? A list of everything she's heard that wasn't referenced. That day on TBTL, and it is, it's long. It's long, everybody buckle up. By the way, Danielle, thank you for that. Actually, very fun way to remember how to say your last name.

Speaker 1:
[59:34] It's a great pronouncer.

Speaker 3:
[59:36] Goodrow, parenthetically, as opposed to bad paddle.

Speaker 1:
[59:40] That's right. Because Goodrow is spelled, you know, in what I would guess is maybe French. Yeah, styling. So you wouldn't exactly necessarily know instinctively how to pronounce it. Goodrow is a perfect pronouncer for that. Thank you.

Speaker 3:
[59:54] It's the opposite of a bad paddle. That's what we all hope for when we go canoeing is a good row. Thank you, Danielle. Danielle's in Nashua, as I mentioned. And Danielle says, Hi, friendos. Thanks for another year of content. I just want to remind the tens to do their loved ones a favor and make sure their estate plans are in order. Sometime with an elder law attorney can prevent headaches later on. I'm wondering that. Oh, Danielle. This is one of our Danny's.

Speaker 1:
[60:20] Of course. Yes, this is a Danny's.

Speaker 3:
[60:22] Yes, an estate planning Danny. Danny says, Keep up the good pod carding and take care. Very good reminder. Danny, I was thinking about that the other day. Not even for I need to do a lot of stuff in that department. But at the very least, I was like, was in the basement of the house just like, Oh God, please never let Adelaide have to sort through this.

Speaker 1:
[60:44] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[60:44] Becca, nothing untoward down there. Can a thing be untoward? Can an object be untoward? It's nothing weird down there. It's just junk. And a lot of it is TBTL related. What to do with an accordion, Andrew, that someone once mailed me? Like a toy accordion that's too cool to get rid of, but also I don't have a use for it. It's just down there. There's just a lot of stuff like that. So I need to get on it.

Speaker 1:
[61:10] And it's probably worth mentioning here too. Danny is absolutely right. You should be thinking about your estate planning. And I would just say, please consider TBTL in your estate planning. Why not throw it out there?

Speaker 3:
[61:19] Yeah, that's all we ask. Once you're done donating to the Slowdown, consider writing TBTL into your... Danny, thank you so much. We appreciate you. We love you. Thank you for all of the help over the years. You're the best. Yeah, baby.

Speaker 1:
[61:39] Hello and welcome to Top Story.

Speaker 3:
[61:42] We're over the river, baby, and we're in the Badlands.

Speaker 1:
[61:45] I don't even remember the river.

Speaker 3:
[62:01] It's actually apropos.

Speaker 1:
[62:02] Since it is the Badlands, can I just say one thing? We don't have to get into it now. Yeah. But I don't know what you plan on doing. I'll follow your lead. But it is amazing to me that the true, true, true top story of the weekend did not make your top story list today.

Speaker 3:
[62:17] What did I leave out? What did I forget?

Speaker 1:
[62:19] The Seattle Times piece that 100% vindicated me, I sent it to you. It's literally all about these erroneous fees that the garbage department here in Seattle is putting on customers' bills. And it's exactly the rant that I've been ranting for years and years. They finally wrote it up in the Seattle Times, and they did not reach out to me for a quote.

Speaker 3:
[62:43] Do you want to?

Speaker 1:
[62:43] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[62:44] Well, let's just do that.

Speaker 1:
[62:45] I think that's all we need to know. The Seattle Times did the story that we have been presenting on this podcast for years now.

Speaker 3:
[62:53] Well, tell me about it. Slunk fees? Is it about like when you tried to put that poll, you tried to throw away that, was it like a set of blinds or something? Yeah. That was making your can, the lid stick up too much, and that was a fee? Like, take me through this. We'll talk parachute tomorrow.

Speaker 1:
[63:06] Well, I'm going to do this really, really quickly, because again, listeners have heard me say it so much. But basically, yes, there is a rule, as I've learned, that if you have so much garbage in your garbage bin, that the lid of your bin doesn't close and it's open more than, I was told three inches, the article this weekend said six inches. But if the lid is propped up because you have too much garbage in there, or if you put a second bag of garbage next to your bin or whatever, they will charge you $13. It's either $12.99 or $13.99 on your bill for an extra pickup fee. So again, you might not know this, but if you, and it's also, as The Times correctly says, it's buried way back in the bill. It's on the backside of a page that has no information on it, basically, that is just boilerplate every time. It's like, and the problem is not only do a lot of people not know that rule that, like, if your lid isn't closed, you're going to be charged extra, they are doing it to lids that are closed. You're just randomly getting the, and this is why, this is literally why...

Speaker 3:
[64:03] I did not read this article, obviously.

Speaker 1:
[64:05] This is literally why I have my special Blue Sky account called Garbage Anxiety, or is it called Andrew's Garbage Anxiety, that I literally take photos of my garbage bins every week and save them with a time stamp on this Blue Sky account I have, because I have had to call the city many times and say, you are claiming that I had extra garbage. I did not. And they're like, well, the garbage collector said you did. And I'm like, well, I want my money back. And they'll return it. The article got into everything I've said on the show. They'll...

Speaker 3:
[64:35] But you only get so many challenges. You're like a major league catcher.

Speaker 1:
[64:39] Exactly. They'll return your fee twice. But then even if you're right on those two, then they say, well, the third time, we're going to have to open an investigation into this because they like act like you've done something wrong.

Speaker 3:
[64:48] Have you considered videotaping yourself tapping the top of your head?

Speaker 1:
[64:52] Yes. Well, that's what... But I mean, the people in this article, like it was a woman. I think it was a... I think somebody who worked in law. I think she was a lawyer who, like, was noticing this like me and was on a tear and started telling all of her friends, like, check page three of your bill and see if there's extra garbage fees on there. People are like, no, like, I had no extra garbage and they're charging me $13 just randomly. And I think the article I don't have in front of me said something like, the department collected something like, I want to say $8 million or $7 million or $8 million in a row. No, sorry, not erroneous, but that line item, the city raised $9 million and I think at least half of them are totally bunk.

Speaker 3:
[65:34] That is really, really annoying. By the way, I'm also sad. I'm not sad. I guess it's again, ego death, which we're always, I'm always seeking. But basically what this means is that Elizabeth Forsyth, who is the person who I think started this conversation with a neighborhood listserv, has clearly more reach with her neighborhood listserv than this podcast. Well, you have been banging this drum for years now, or at least a year, and got no traction with Seattle Public Utilities. Elizabeth Forsyth gets on the listserv of her Capitol Hill neighborhood and it's David Gutman is writing about on the front page.

Speaker 1:
[66:14] And don't forget, Luke, who tipped off the Seattle Times originally. I'm looking at this now. I had to look it up. On May 9th of 2024, that was two years ago, a young man named Andrew Walsh wrote this rant into the Rants and Raves. Rant to the garbage collectors who keep adding unexplained extra garbage charges to my bill each month. Rant to the person at Seattle Public Utilities who says they can't reverse the charges anymore because I've challenged them too many times. Rave to my new social media account where I'm now documenting my bins to prove that I'm not breaking any rules on Pickup Day. Double check your invoices, folks. You might be paying extra fees too. That was the rant. That was rejected by the Seattle Times two years before they went out and actually did this. I am the tipster who started all this. Did the reporter reach out to me? The answer sadly is not. Yes.

Speaker 3:
[67:05] Andrew, are you familiar with the Two Spider-Man meme?

Speaker 1:
[67:09] I am.

Speaker 3:
[67:10] The two Spider-Mens pointing at each other.

Speaker 1:
[67:12] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[67:12] This is you and Seattle attorney Elizabeth Forsythe.

Speaker 1:
[67:16] Right.

Speaker 3:
[67:17] Because if you read further into the piece, she's talking about all the junk fees. She says, we are fastidious about not doing those things. I installed a ring doorbell camera on my garbage, so I have proved that it's such an Andrew move.

Speaker 1:
[67:31] Of course, and that's the only use I would have for, I've thought about it a lot. I don't have any of those security cameras around my house, but I thought, well, the nice thing would be, I can show them that they're liars. But I will say since I started keeping my Blue Sky account, which really doesn't prove much, it proves what I put out there the nights of. But as this article addresses, if anybody just dumps more garbage, you're responsible for it, which I think is a terrible system. You could basically, if you have extra garbage right now, just go dump it next to your neighbor's garbage cans and let them pay the fee. It's basically what they're saying because the homeowner is responsible, even if a stranger just dumps garbage next to your bin.

Speaker 3:
[68:10] Well next to or in your bin?

Speaker 1:
[68:12] Or next to because they'll charge you, because right now, if I have too much garbage, I can just put a garbage bag next to my bin and the city will pick it up and they'll charge me $14. But that also means that if some rando walks down the street and dumps a bag next to my bin, then I also have to pay that $14.

Speaker 3:
[68:31] Well Andrew, Christopher Ruiz, Code and Contracts Compliance Manager for Seattle Public Utilities has some useful advice. The advice that we give is to just limit the opportunity for people to confuse carts or place garbage in containers that don't necessarily belong to them. Don't leave your containers out there all the time. Which, I mean, I've never met a person, until I heard of the tale of Elizabeth Forsythe, I've never heard of a person, Andrew, who is more on the ball when it comes to... When we do the show sometimes and your bins are out there and you know they've been cleared, I can tell that we are on a ticking clock.

Speaker 1:
[69:03] Yes, that's right.

Speaker 3:
[69:04] You're getting those bins back in, sir.

Speaker 1:
[69:05] Well that's a little bit different. That's because I don't want them to collect more garbage that I have to live with for a week. But I do. I take them out at night. I don't take them out so they're out there for 24 hours. I take them out at night. I take three handsome photos of them from different angles to prove that the lid is not up at all.

Speaker 3:
[69:23] They're nice pictures from a photography standpoint.

Speaker 1:
[69:26] You can watch the seasons pass. Do you ever go through...

Speaker 3:
[69:28] It's very calming.

Speaker 1:
[69:29] What is that? Let me just shout it out. I don't even know the name of my own Blue Sky account because I really only do use it as, oh, Blue Sky is down again. You guys got to figure this shit out. Blue Sky has been down off and on basically all weekend. Yeah. Wow. Bad news, Blue Sky.

Speaker 3:
[69:45] Well, I'll tell you, the photos, I have seen them and they're lovely. Like the composition is nice. Yeah, you get to watch the seasons go by. Like it's a very calming and pleasant experience to see, other than the fact that I know the underlying angst and rage that's just below the surface of all the photos. But as far as photos go, they're very lovely.

Speaker 1:
[70:07] I guess my feed is called garbage-anxiety.bluesky.social. And it's got a little image of Oscar the Grouch in a garbage can, which is really perfect.

Speaker 3:
[70:16] Everybody smash the like and follow button on that account because it's very... And don't let Elizabeth Forsythe steal all of the glory on this. Andrew was... And by the way, in the article, it sounds like one of her neighbors found out that they had been overcharged by $350.

Speaker 1:
[70:32] Yeah, right?

Speaker 3:
[70:32] For this stuff. Hey, that's not nothing.

Speaker 1:
[70:35] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[70:35] That is a significant amount of money.

Speaker 1:
[70:36] I'm telling you. And yeah, there's something fishy going on. I am glad that the Seattle Times finally addressed it, but I guess I would have liked a little bit of a hat tip for actually breaking the story.

Speaker 3:
[70:47] Again, the fact that you sent in Rant and Rave, which was a good Rant and Rave, they didn't post. I mean, I've been seeing some real duds lately. I go check the Rant and Rave on the occasion because it's nice content for us, and sometimes there's a good conversation starter. Some of the ones I've been seeing lately have been pretty lousy. I also am not really into the graphic. Listen, peace and love because the person who drew it, their name is on there, so I don't want to be mean. But isn't it like a pig that's ranting and raving?

Speaker 1:
[71:19] Don't they change it every time? Oh, does it change? But they change it every time.

Speaker 3:
[71:22] It's a bear.

Speaker 1:
[71:23] But sometimes it's a different animal. Sometimes it's a... And I think it doesn't relate to one of the... Isn't it a bespoke illustration that relates to one of the complaints or compliments?

Speaker 3:
[71:34] Oh, is it? Maybe. Well, if that's the case, I just saw one that was like a bear standing on a soapbox with a megaphone. And I was like, I guess what it is is... I guess they probably decided on an animal, because if you start drawing humans, it gets complicated, because what are you saying about the...

Speaker 1:
[71:50] You're right. And what it is is a bunch of different animals that they cycle through now. I think this has changed, but it's... I'm seeing a squid with two megaphones. I'm seeing a bear with one megaphone. I'm seeing a bird with a megaphone, a cat with a megaphone, and so the... and a dog. So they just like swap it out, I guess.

Speaker 3:
[72:06] I bet you what they decided was, we're not going to draw human figures, because if we do, it gets complicated with what are we saying? What is the ethnicity of the person we're drawing? What is the vibe? What is the gender? And if we put that next to somebody ranting about something, are we saying that is quote unquote the kind of person who rants? I bet you they wanted to depersonalize it as much as possible. But it just looks like we have a circus bear that's escaped and is sharing his feelings.

Speaker 1:
[72:31] Rant to all the escaped circus bears that are terrorizing the neighborhood.

Speaker 3:
[72:36] No, it'd be like rant to all the circus people that are trying to catch me.

Speaker 1:
[72:39] Good point, actually. I'm on the bear side.

Speaker 3:
[72:42] Who won't let me? The bear is ranting. The bear has the megaphone.

Speaker 1:
[72:45] Right, good point.

Speaker 3:
[72:47] Anyway, Andrew, I'm sorry, dude. That's frustrating. We need to write this wrong. We need David Gutman to write a follow-up story that's giving credit where credit is due. You've been on this for a long time, and you really led the way on this. I want to honor that and tip my cap to you. Thank you. Well, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1:
[73:06] What do you want to do?

Speaker 3:
[73:08] I want to go ahead and let's wrap it up on this Monday. The good news is, here's the thing. The Parachute Story, tomorrow, I'm going to make sure to have a lot of backup content because I don't know. It's an audio adventure that I just don't know if it's going to pay off, even though I spent a good hour working on it this morning.

Speaker 1:
[73:29] Oh, shoot, and I just ramrodded it with my little...

Speaker 3:
[73:33] No, that's why I'm glad. We'll give it enough time tomorrow, but then I also could see it fizzling. I'm trying to transmit a somewhat complicated visual concept through audio, and I just don't know if it's going to work, but we'll give it a shot tomorrow.

Speaker 1:
[73:47] Sounds good.

Speaker 3:
[73:48] But anyway, okay, so that's the plan. In the meantime, thanks for listening, everybody. Thanks for hanging out with us on this Monday. We will be back here tomorrow with more Imaginary Radio for all of you, so please do join us for that in the meantime. Have a good Monday, stay safe, take care of yourselves, take pictures of those garbage cans. You can't trust them, people. You can't, in the words of NWA, can't trust it. And also go Mariners. That worked for the weekend.

Speaker 1:
[74:13] And also, 411 is a joke.

Speaker 3:
[74:16] No, that's the show title. That's the show title, Andrew. I'm sorry. Late breaking news, TBTL breaking news. 411 is a joke. That is so superior. That is so good, man. 411 is a joke. Please remember, no mountain too tall.

Speaker 1:
[74:32] And good luck to all.

Speaker 3:
[74:39] Power out.