← TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live
TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live
#4564 Man Chases Squirrel
01:08:04
Luke checks-in from the Twin Cities, where he’s going to farmers markets, alarming restaurant patrons, and writing strongly-worded letters to the editor.
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- [00:00]
A
I was watching a football game and I'm sitting on my couch and I was gonna get something to drink out of the refrigerator. Right When I get up, one guy, one team kicked off to the other team and before I could get back, the Guy ran a 100 yard kickoff return and I missed it. The guy ran 100 yards before I could get 3 to maybe 4 yards. That guy also had 11 people really trying not to let him run 100y. I didn't even have an ottoman in my way. It was wide open.
- [00:36]
B
TBTL alright, you ready? Yeah. Okay. Beagle, beagle, boggle, boggle, boogle, boogle. Okay, we ready to do it fast? Yes.
- [00:51]
C
Okay.
- [00:51]
A
Beagle, boggle, boogle, beagle, boggle.
- [00:55]
C
Um, maybe try one cooler and faster and loud and better and less insecure and more just cool. Wait a minute. I read a tweet about a New Yorker article about you. For the sake of customer service, try to chill out my mom.
- [01:16]
B
My dear, I don't know why you insisted on my doing this wretched broadcasting. Oh, well, it'll soon be over.
- [01:21]
C
I hope so. All right. Hello, good morning and welcome everyone, to a Monday edition of TBT all the show. It just might be too beautiful to live. Just study it out and you'll see. My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Intoxicating to some and a quote, fire taste to others. Coming to you from beautiful Minneapolis, Minnesota, where it is, I think maybe get to like 80 degrees today. I feel warm and I'm levitating. It's classically one of those Minneapolis fall days where it goes possibly north of 80 degrees. What a wonderful town, these Twin Cities. I was walking around near the state Capitol in St. Paul yesterday and I walked by a. It was a firefighters memorial. So I think a number of firefighters from around the state had all come in to gather together and honor their fallen firefighters and to support each other. There was a bunch of Dalmatians there, which was both very on brand but also very adorable. And I heard maybe the most Minnesota thing I'd ever heard, which was the fire chief woman addressing a crowd of people in their full fire regalia sitting in folding chairs on the lawn. Beautiful 80 degree day. And she said, you know, we carry around a lot of trauma from this job and it's okay to reach out and tell someone you're not okay. And I just thought, what a gift that I got to experience that here in the Twin Cities on a beautiful Sunday. It's a beautiful Monday. It's episode 4564 in a collector series.
- [02:59]
B
Let the fun begin.
- [03:01]
C
And we got a pretty good show for you. Well, a good show if you enjoy even more complaining by me about travel woes, I promise you. I know. Okay, Friday show. Andrew and Genevieve managed to turn out a real corker of a broadcast. Thanks so much to them for doing that. At the last minute, I couldn't be on the show because I was stuck in travel hell. But I did record a big, long complaint session and submit it for review. And so I know that was Friday show. I don't want to make that Monday show. But it was pretty crazy, actually, me trying to get to Livewire on Friday. It was literally a major disaster. So we will talk about that Also, time permitting, we'll talk about why my favorite thing in the New York Times is or my favorite thing that's part of the New York Times is not part of the New York Times really anymore. This is why I can't have nice things. And we're gonna talk to this guy. He is the longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He did save my bacon on Friday, and we really do appreciate it. And you're still doing a podcast. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.
- [04:06]
B
Good morning, Luke. We're just experiencing a little bit of cat difficulties here. Sorry. He decided to take Bingo the cat decided that very, very moment. I don't know if you lost my voice there for a moment. It went out in my headphones.
- [04:19]
C
It was nice. It was a theater of the mind. I could hear you moving around away from and then back toward the microphone.
- [04:25]
B
Bingo had decided at that very moment, as you said my name, to take a little stroll on the audio board. And so that's what happened there. But we are locked in and we're good to go. Do you live in Minnesota now?
- [04:37]
C
I mean, I said this to Becca a number of times in the last couple of days. Boy, are the Twin Cities trying to make me move here.
- [04:44]
B
Well, they do that anyway when we visit because they're such great cities.
- [04:48]
C
They. They are. I mean, default setting. Great cities with great people in them. Then you throw in this weather, which is just absolutely gorgeous. Went to the St Paul Farmers Market yesterday. So that was kind of actually a bit of a torture because it was one of the coolest farmer's markets I've ever been to. But you can't buy anything at a farmer's market when you're also flying home the next day. Like it makes no sense.
- [05:14]
B
It's exactly where my mind went when you said you went to a farmer's market. Because I was like, oh, I would be somewhat disappointed to go to one I actually had. In the split second before you followed up with your thought, I had this whole range of emotions that started with, oh, that sounds like a wonderful way to spend your Sunday. But also, it's like your hands are cuffed the whole time. It's like going to a garage sale when you're on vacation. You can't buy anything.
- [05:38]
C
It's like when I go to Jimmy John's and I get the free smells, and then I want a free sandwich, and they're like, no, no, no. You got to pay for the sandwich. But the smells are free.
- [05:45]
B
Yeah.
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C
Um, I love the layout that they do at the St. Paul. And by the way, I think the St. Paul's St. Paul Farmers Market, like, a lot of farmers markets now, they do this in Portland. It's kind of a brand. So there are multiple locations throughout the week. And it's all considered the St. Paul Farmers Market. Because later we were up walking around the Summit neighborhood, Summit Avenue, which is where these incredibly stately, beautiful homes are, and St. Paul's Cathedral. More on that later, Andrew, by the way, but. And we saw a different sign for the St. Paul's Farmers Market. And I was like, well, how can it be up here? And Becca politely explained that's what they do now so that the vendors can just get one sort of, like, pass that allows them to sell at all the different farmers markets. There's some consistency with branding, but anyway, I like the way that they put out the fruits and vegetables. They have a specific way of doing it. A lot of the vendors, where they put them all in these little containers. You would take Andrew, you would love it. It's almost a version of that kerning that we've been talking about so much on this program.
- [06:47]
B
Not kerning. That's. That's for fonts. What are we talking about? The Wes Andersonizing knolling starts with a.
- [06:55]
C
K. I was kerning when I meant to be knolling. My bad. But just like the. The. From a visual standpoint, it was really beautiful. Everything looked so fresh. It seemed reasonably priced. And this was the thing. I was considering moving to the Twin Cities so that then I could just be a person who buys these reasonably. They had salsa kits.
- [07:15]
B
Like, I'm gonna buy this salsa kit, but I can't take it home. So I'm moving. I'm a Twin Cities. Er, Now.
- [07:21]
C
And guess what's next, too, Andrew. Guess what's next to the St. Paul Farmer's Market.
- [07:26]
B
A church.
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C
Well, everything's next to a church. I mean, my goodness. Up there on Summit Avenue where we were walking around later, you honestly couldn't take two steps without hitting a church. It's unbelievable. But no. The St. Paul Saints Home field.
- [07:44]
B
Oh, nice.
- [07:46]
C
And, like, so I walked over there. I looked. The St. Paul Saints gift shop was closed because it was Sunday morning. I was like a freaking kid with his nose pressed up against the glass looking at all the cool St. Paul Saints merchant that I could buy if it were open. And then I went. I just stared longingly at the field. They do have the weirdest. They do have the weirdest Baseball hall of Fame I've ever seen. On the exterior of the St. Paul Saints Stadium. It is the Baseball Scouts hall of Fame.
- [08:18]
B
That's so great.
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C
And none of them are from the Twin Cities. It isn't like remembering great baseball scouts who happen to be from here.
- [08:27]
B
Right.
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C
It was just. It's. It's like the Baseball hall of Fame. It's got that sort of plaque with, you know, a. What would you call it? Like, a, you know, a picture of the person. It's kind of. Is that called in relief, maybe?
- [08:40]
B
Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about.
- [08:41]
C
Kind of three dimensional. Yeah. And it would be like. And you know me, I'm a. I've been pretty into baseball for most of my life. I feel like I have a decent working knowledge of the Sport. There's like, 20 of these scouts. I did not recognize one of their names. One of them was like, you know, Frank Vincent, recognized by most as the greatest baseball scout of all time. And then I was like, okay, well, let's see what he did. What are the big names? He might have been the guy who scouted Mickey Mantle. That's pretty big. But then the other five people they mentioned, I'd literally never heard of. It wasn't like he was like. He scouted Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle and the Yankee Clipper Joe DiMaggio. Like, it's like the most famous baseball scout of all time. Had only scouted one player I'd ever heard of.
- [09:31]
B
It was.
- [09:32]
C
I read through, like, half of the plaques. I mean, I was happy for these folks that it was happening, that they were memorialized here. But I thought, boy, this is a deep dive, even for me.
- [09:40]
B
I kind of like it. Here's why. Because these are folks who. First of all, I always have a strange relationship with I kind of. Award ceremonies now in sports. It makes a lot of sense, right? Accomplishments on the field translate to accolades. Like, that totally makes sense. But I remember when I was new in journalism and, like, being a pretty young person at these banquet halls where they were serving chicken corn on saloon.
- [10:03]
C
Professional journalist awards.
- [10:05]
B
Exactly. And you can picture exactly what. What was served there, right? Like, chicken cordon bleu with some, like, asparagus and, like, whatever. Like, it's just, like, just sitting in these halls and, like, everybody, like, celebrating each other. And I don't know, there's no way for me to finish this without just sounding like a jerk, because, yes, I guess people should celebrate each other and. And. And, you know, like, I guess celebrate. Accomplish. Also, up until that point, I had never worked a job where people in your own industry are getting together to celebrate you. Like, I never sat at, like, a telemarketers gathering where people were kind of like, yeah, like, most calls made.
- [10:42]
C
I promise you, there are the telly awards.
- [10:44]
B
Yeah, probably, but not at that level. And I felt a little. Maybe I had had a little even class warfare about it or something, because I was kind of like, I don't know, the jobs that I did and the jobs that people I knew did growing up don't sit around on the Friday after and, like, say, boy, great weld, Jimmy. You know, I got.
- [11:02]
C
Well, they have a great bit on the Howard Stern Show. It's not even a bit. It's just an observation where, you know, they'll do the. Because each. Each city has its own. I think it's actually called the Society of Professional Journalists SPJ Awards.
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B
Yeah.
- [11:17]
C
And it. And. And the. You know, so, of course, New York City has their share of those. And as you mentioned, Andrew, it's kind of a chance for the industry to get together and give out these awards that are celebrating other people in the industry. And, you know, people get really hyped about it. People like to win these awards, but the awards are given out for specific coverage of specific stories. And so it'll be like. And the winner is wabc. And the whole staff of WABC just rips up in riotous applause for six children die in plane crash.
- [11:51]
B
Shit. Yeah. Well, that's like, this is such a bad time for me to raise this take, by the way. I just want to say, like, this is how I felt when I was new in kind of public radio, sort of, and I had mixed emotions about it. I was also happy for my colleagues, and I was also felt very adult to go to these things. But then also, I'm sure you were.
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C
Digging around for your one passable colored shirt.
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B
Yes, exactly.
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C
And probably wearing a yarn or in a tie that, you know, like, I was really into wearing those like knitted ties that were kind of like a long rectangle.
- [12:18]
B
Yes. Blunt bottom or squared off bottom and a sport coat that's like the size of your dad. You look like your te kids dressed up and. But the thing is, I mean, I also enjoyed it. I liked it, but I think I just, you know, I'm Gen X. I was sarcastic about it. Now I'm bringing this take up in September of 2025 when there's a full on assault on the First Amendment. And I don't want to like say that like we shouldn't, you know, I said, hey, nice, nice weld, Jimmy. Not that we shouldn't celebrate all crafts and not that that's not important too for our infrastructure. Jimmy's got to weld those welds if we want to, you know, feel safe on the bridges or what have you. But there is a difference between like cracking open a newspaper and finding out that like somebody's been working for months to uncover some sort of graft or whatever, you know, that that holds people accountable and maybe even, you know, unseats some people in power who shouldn't be in power. Like, there is obviously a lot of value in that. I feel a little bit weird, like going after award ceremonies here, but when it's kind of like, you know, everybody's going crazy because man chases squirrel or whatever the kicker stor you're like, oh, this is a little gross.
- [13:23]
C
I think that we need to protect journalism as much as we can. I don't just say that because it's the industry that I sort of work in, or at least I'm adjacent to. But because it is obviously extremely important for a functioning society to have people documenting and describing what is going on, what those in power are trying to do to us. I think it's hugely important. I also don't think that a bunch of people getting together at the Radisson to pat each other on the back is super necessary to the protection of journalism. So I don't think. And by the way, Andrew, you're talking to a guy who got up this morning and one of the first orders of business I did here in the Twin Cities was write a letter to the editor of my local newspaper back home about a headline that I disagreed with. So you're talking to a real journalism knower right now.
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B
Wait a second. That Reminds me of something that you glossed over so quickly last week, and I don't think I ever followed up with you. I was like, do not let that one go. Did you say something like somebody in your local newspaper wrote a story that you like so much that you're now getting lunch with him?
- [14:27]
C
I said that to you off air, by the way, I believe.
- [14:29]
B
Oh, are you sure? Oh, sorry. I could have sworn that was on the show because I was like, I gotta follow up on that. But maybe that was just in our pre show.
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C
But that's not. Not because it was a prior. I don't feel sensitive about talking about it.
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B
But it's not live.
- [14:41]
C
No, I'll tell you, it's the same paper I become. All of a sudden, I'm the number one crank reaching out to the Columbian, the Daily Columbian newspaper, the newspaper of Clark county and Vancouver, Washington. So first thing was there was a really great article that was written by one of their journalists a couple of weeks ago about swimming in the Columbia River. And what this writer was saying was that he had like, maybe a couple of years ago. So there's this. Every summer there's this swim where they go out in this boat, this big old boat takes a bunch of people out to a certain point in the Columbia river and then everybody jumps out and swims to the shore. And he covered it as a journalist one year and everybody was saying to him, oh, you should just swim this next year. And he had a great line. He goes. It went from me going, oh, maybe I'll do that at the beginning of the day to being like, I'm in by the end of the day. Like, he had sort of gotten excited about the whole thing. So then he goes on to detail kind of his training process of trying to get ready to do this swim. And then he gets into. Actually, like, the river was very warm when he jumped in and explaining why that's happening. It has to do with damming of the river. So he folded in science, some personal reportage. It was a really nice story. And I wrote him an email saying I thought this was a great piece. And let me know if you ever want to grab a cup of coffee. I want to hear about. This was a different paper, by the way. Oh, you know what? I'm sorry. I'm mixing up my local newspapers that I subscribe to. That piece was in the Daily News. It was not in the Colombian. That was in the Daily News. So I said, hey, I'd love to grab a cup of coffee if you ever Want to talk about, you know, what's going on at the Daily News. I just want to hear how the paper's doing. Have not heard back, Andrew.
- [16:17]
B
Really? Okay.
- [16:18]
C
But here's my theory on that one. I think I sent it to the wrong email address. There was two different emails that I found for this person. I think I sent it to the wrong one. So I'm going to attribute that. Or he just was like, I don't get coffee with creeps who email me about my swimming stories. Okay, so from that little conversation that you and I had off air, no coffee date. Has.
- [16:38]
B
Sorry about that, by the way. Really doxed you there.
- [16:41]
C
Eagerly awaiting this guy to get back to me. As far as this morning goes, and this is. This is going to threaten to upend the entire conversation about how disappointed I am in Alaska Airlines, but I'm sure the listeners have had quite enough of that over the last couple of days. I got up this morning and I read this article in the Colombian, which is another paper that. That I subscribe to, and it was a story about a large church in the Vancouver, Washington area that was celebrating its 50th anniversary. And it's called Crossroads Community Church, I think, and the headline was 50 years of choosing Love. You know, crossroads Community Church celebrates a Half century or something to that effect. And I looked at that headline and I thought, well, that's interesting. Who's saying it's 50 years of choosing love? Is that a quote from somebody in the article? That's a. That's a statement of fact. Right. Like that. How is that unless there's quotation marks around it? Unless you're quoting someone in the piece who said, we've been choosing love for 50 years. And then you put that in quotes. Yeah, that's how you write that headline.
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B
Yeah.
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C
And so then I read the piece. I'll put aside the fact that the piece appeared to be a very, very, very puff piece about a church that I don't know the dogma of. I don't know. I don't know what the church actually stands for. So again, I'm not here to say anything about what the church does or does not stand for. What I know is that you cannot, as the newspaper, write a headline that says 50 years of choosing Love, because you just simply don't know that as a fact. It may be the case, it may not be the case, but that's not how headlines in newspapers should work. And so I immediately wrote a letter to the reporter and the editor and said, hi there. I'm a subscriber, and I really appreciate that we still have a functioning local newspaper in the area. That's rare in this day and age. I wanted to respond to the headline 50 Years of Choosing Love from the Sept. 27 piece about Crossroads Community Church Journalism 101 will tell us that that headline is wildly unprofessional. If it was a quote from a parishioner or church pastor and it read, quote, 50 years of, quote, choosing love, that would of course be fine because it's quoting someone directly and they have the right to characterize their church experience however they see fit. But the Columbian characterizing what the church and its parishioners are doing as, quote, choosing love is editorial malpractice. There's no way for your paper to know definitively if this church is choosing love. They might be, they might not be. But it's not something you can know factually. So why would you make it the headline? That's a statement of opinion, not fact, and really should not have been the first thing readers saw as it carries the papers imprimatur. Thanks Comma Luke.
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B
Now, is there a chance they will run that in the letters to the editor?
- [19:21]
C
I hope not. I sure hope not.
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B
Do you read the Letters of the editor column and is having before and.
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C
Probably won't start now?
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B
I don't know. I'll bet you. You got to now.
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C
I don't know. I don't want to be that crank. I just want them to have some editorial standards.
- [19:34]
B
Yeah.
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C
Like, I just want them. Which I think they probably generally do. And again, I've been. I'm really happy that that they that there is a local paper and that they are staffing it and that they're doing their best and I think they do good work generally speaking. But this one to me was just a big swing and a miss. Like, doesn't that. Am I crazy or is that like just a pretty obvious.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Well, the funny pretty obvious mess up.
- [19:56]
B
I'm with you. I agree with everything that you wrote there. I don't know if that would have stood out to me. And sadly it's because I think my expectations for local newspapers, especially the headlines of local newspapers, have, have dipped so precipitously. Like, it's just like I am. I've done the rant a million times. So I'm trying not to actively not to redo the rant here. But what's going on with the Seattle Times headlines is like I've gotten some emails from listeners who sort of joked about it or have Even said, hey, I know some people who are kind of in charge of that. And they have a cute little term for what they do when they give you not enough information in the headline and they have a cute. And I'm just like, by the way.
- [20:36]
C
The Oregonian has completely and totally adopted that model as well. And it makes me so angry.
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B
Yeah. And I'm not explaining it here, but instead of just give, like, a headline of a newspaper article should sort of give you some information so you know what that article is going on to say, and you're going to get more information. But somehow, in the age of clickbait, it has infected actual newspapers, actual journalism institutions to have headlines like, this small community outside of Seattle is dealing with a new kind of plague. You've never heard of it. Just like. How about. Like, that was a really weird headline that I went with there Also, Man, Chase's Squirrel wasn't great before, either. I might not even read newspapers, now that I think about it. I don't know what's in the newspapers these days.
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C
You tell me. I tell you this, Andrew. I see a headline, man Chases Squirrel. I'm clicking. I'm absolutely reading that.
- [21:26]
B
You know what? That's a good point. I was.
- [21:29]
C
And that's a show title, by the way.
- [21:30]
B
I know.
- [21:30]
C
I had the show, look Out, Man Bites Dog. Man Chases Squirrels.
- [21:35]
B
I had Kerning Sanders as a show title. Man Chase the Squirrel. You said that anybody would click on that.
- [21:41]
C
I am going kerning in their grave. Yeah, Edward R. Murrow is kerning in his grave at this whole conversation. His grave.
- [21:50]
B
I'm adding that one, too. We're going to have too many show titles anyway. You see what I'm saying? Like, a newspaper should not be hiding information. So then that you click it and then you find out whether or not the information is relevant to you. And that's what the Seattle Times is doing in order to get clicks. And it must have something to do with advertising dollars, because I don't get it. If we're paying a subscription to this newspaper, you're getting our subscription dollars. Like, why are you trying to trick me into clicking the headlines? I have decided with my pocketbook to support your kind of journalism. How about you give us information, not play coy with us like. Like there's some sort of zergnet.
- [22:25]
C
Right. It's because they're. It's all because they're. They have to monetize. And again, we're kind of talking. Well, I don't want to say you are, Andrew, but I'M I'm sort of talking out of both sides of my mouth because I also, I really worry about the state of local journalism and the lack of financial support for local journalism. So on the one hand, I understand that it's like you sort of got to do what you got to do to keep the lights on. And it's been decided that one of those things is to, like, the Oregonian loves to run these ones that are like this Hollywood A list actor turned 45 today.
- [22:55]
B
Right? Right.
- [22:57]
C
Just tell me that. Just tell me that Dennis Quaid is 45.
- [23:01]
B
A list actor. Yes.
- [23:02]
C
Let me have my, Let me have my info. Don't make me click through. But you know, on the one hand, it's like I sort of, I understand that in particular, local journalism is so underfunded now. And in fact, gosh, Andrew, just being here in the Twin Cities, I really am like having a weekend here where just everything about this place just seems to strike a note for me of just like positively positivity, I should say. Like, I don't know if it's an indication of what their ratings are, but there's a TV station, wcco here, and it's in downtown. And I walked by it. They have a great sign. They've got this huge enclosed glass studio that you can kind of look in on with this really cool public art sort of thing. In front of it down the street is, I think their radio operation, WCCO Radio, which has got this big, cool old school neon sign. And like, I don't know if these places are thriving or not, but it feels like they're. They're not as sort of diminished as these sorts of. These sorts of entities are in other places that I've been. Anyway, I'm having a strongly pro Twin Cities weekend. But all that is to say, on the one hand, I understand that they need to Zergnet or they've decided they need a Zergnet to keep the lights on. But I'm with you also that, like, journalism is also not like every other business. It's not every other widget. It's. You have a certain public responsibility as well. So whereas Chipotle has decided that they need to make their portions smaller because they're trying to keep food cost down. And I could say, well, I like having a Chipotle in my neighborhood, so they've got to cut their food down, you know, the size of their portions, that's going to allow them stay in business. Hey, it's business. What are you going to do? Not all those same exact rules apply to journalism because it is both a business, but it's also a public good. And so them withholding information from us is not the same as Chipotle withholding as much of the guac as I was used to getting.
- [24:48]
B
Exactly. And we would stand up as citizens and as voters would stand up for certain rights that journalists have as far as protecting sources and other things that are kind of are constitutionally protected and everything. And along with those protections come a certain amount of responsibility on your part, I think as well, not to play tricks with your, with your readers, by the way. This is, this is a pretty big aside, but it occurred to me it's kind of related to something I read in the newspaper. So we'll try to make this a transition. But generally I wanted to not talk about this on the show because it makes me sound like such a little cheap bastard. But it occurred to me that I'm not going to get through the week without telling you this. So let's just foam it off right now, as you like to say. Speaking of local newspapers, I saw in the Seattle Times, I believe, and the dates are important here, so I'm going to try to get this right. I believe that the Seattle Times ran a piece on Friday, 26th September, just this last Friday, saying that the regional sports network that provides the Mariners games is essentially going away. Now, that alone is a whole topic in and of itself, how people are going to see the game later, whatever, or next year or whatever. But the thing is, I knew that the baseball season was wrapping up, you know, the regular season was wrapping up at the end of September anyway, and the regional sports network was never going to carry the postseason games anyway. So I had a big email to myself. I'm looking at it right now in the subject line, all caps cancel root. I wanted to make sure to cancel my route sports subscription before the baseball season ends and they automatically renew it. And then I'm just paying for whatever October and then November content is. You know, it's like, oh, is that Luke Rayleigh and a third fishing boat with Jen Mueller? And we're just going to crank this.
- [26:36]
C
Stuff out for, like, rest in power.
- [26:39]
B
I'm sorry.
- [26:40]
C
Well, Jen Mueller is not being retained.
- [26:42]
B
Oh, oh, right, right. I'm sorry. I got scared there for a second. I was like, oh, sorry, that's a.
- [26:46]
C
Little, that was a little extreme. I apologize. I just meant, I meant I love Jen Mueller and I'm sad that she's not one of the folks that's carrying over to this whatever new nightmare incarnation of this broadcast is going to be.
- [26:57]
B
Yeah. And I don't even know what the broadcast. I haven't even gotten into the details of that until kind of. Maybe I'm avoiding it because it's going to bum me out. But aside from just even the nostalgia of our local broadcast crew and all of those things going away, I've been thinking, I need to cancel my route Sports. It's only 20. I got to be clear here. This is just the app, so it's only $20 a month. But I have this note. Hey, make sure you cancel this before it automatically renews and you pay for at least one extra month of non baseball content in October. I never got around to it. I got a push notification from the Seattle Times on Friday saying this is the end of the roots from sports. Yep, no more. Until I woke up on Saturday the 27th with a notification that my subscription was just renewed for another month. Not another year, I want to make it clear, but just another month. Literally it was. And then yesterday it was like, here's a look at how the last broadcast of Root Sports went. And I'm just like, those sons of guns charged me an extra month on the 27th and then rolled up the carpet on the 28th.
- [28:01]
C
That is so diabolical. You almost have to. What is Drill? What did drill famously say on Twitter many years ago? You absolutely do not under any circumstances have to give it to them.
- [28:13]
B
Right, Right.
- [28:16]
C
I mean, that is a level of forethought, malice, intent, whatever other gun aggravation. Like every aggravating circumstance you can have for that crime, that financial crime, gun enhancement that they just did on you and me by way of Fubo, probably. Although I'm just paying a kind of a blank.
- [28:34]
B
Yeah, that's part of your package.
- [28:35]
C
So I knew, by the way, I know we don't want to get into the nitty gritty of this, but I had no idea this was happening until I saw actually this morning, because as we'll talk about later, my Friday was kind of blown out for news gathering. I was dealing with some stuff. But I saw this morning, I saw that article and I was like, what? And then they're like firing all these people. And then I was like, oh, this explains something of as of about a week ago, Andrew, when you were watching the Mariners games on whatever Root sports, whatever they were still calling it, I don't know if you noted this, the weirdest thing started happening. They would go for these baseball updates.
- [29:09]
B
Yes, yes.
- [29:10]
C
That were like that were about as close to AI but still with allegedly a human being as they could.
- [29:17]
B
They must have hired like some sort of service that you can hire. And during the, like, like during mlb, it was MLB and they were just.
- [29:24]
C
Like it was mlb.
- [29:25]
B
But you could buy punch ins that were basically scoreboard watching. Right?
- [29:29]
C
And I don't think that they probably. My guess is they didn't even buy them. My guess is that MLB was like this is the beginning. The, the beginning of the quickening is happening. The changeover is happening because next year it'll all be handled by mlb. Now we will have some of the same folks. Aaron Goldsmith will be there. I believe Angie Mentink will be there. But they that it'll be coming through this, this, this, this. I don't, I don't understand the economics of it other than this idea of the teams having their own sports network has apparently. I don't know if MLB crushed that dream or if it just didn't work out for whatever reason. But I started seeing all of a sudden this like brightly lit like this woman, no offense, I mean working hard looks possibly like maybe third in line for White House press secretary just started showing up going, thanks guys. The Marlins are socking it to the Boston Red Sox like just like this incredibly generic, like a thing that had been recorded and then pumped out to. I don't know how many Major League baseball teams there are. But like the, it felt so completely not specific to the Mariners. It just felt like they were taking this incredibly generalized little one minute update on the scoreboard roundup. And I was like, that's really weird. Why are they all of a sudden doing that? Like I was just like my spidey sense started tingling like this isn't normal. This isn't what happened last week. He doesn't get out of the cockadoody car. And then sure enough, I see this article. Oh yeah, it's all switching over to MLB next year. And I like, oh, this was the camel's nose under the tent. I mean that isn't what precipitated it, but I think they just priced throwing it up there. I don't know, test it or something.
- [31:00]
B
That's interesting. I, I have no evidence to the contrary. So I'm not trying to make it.
- [31:06]
C
Sound like it used to be Brad. Adam.
- [31:08]
B
It used to be Brad. Yeah. I thought that this new thing even at the time I didn't know about the root sports news, of course, but even in hindsight, to me that still felt like, wow, the Mariners are sort of in this. In this playoff run situation, or these actually kind of started after they'd actually kind of locked in their playoff position. I think sort of, to me, it was more like the Mariners fans, kind of, for the first time in a long time, are deeply interested in what's going on around the league. So they were just like, hey, we can maybe buy this thing from MLB that, like, punches in four times a game. A quick, like, news update that. I just got the impression that almost any regional sports network could grab these things and then, like, just punch them in. But maybe you're right. Maybe the only reason I saw they.
- [31:55]
C
Used to do is they would come back, and it would be Brad Adam, or Jen Mueller doing the scoreboard. Watching. That would be a rejoin where this, like, the local person would say, okay, we're. And they would literally, like, show the scoreboard in the stadium and go, like, you know, the Red Sox are leading the whatever. Like, that used to be locally handled, and I didn't understand. And again, maybe these things are not connected, but it was just weird to me that suddenly it was that other thing.
- [32:18]
B
Yeah, the. And again, if you end up. If we get some information and, like, you end up being right about this, like, I just want to be very clear that everything you're saying makes sense to me, so I'm not, like, vociferously saying you're wrong. I don't want to be embarrassed, not.
- [32:32]
C
After what I went through on Friday, sir.
- [32:34]
B
That's right. We'll get. We'll get to that, too.
- [32:36]
C
I'm a survivor.
- [32:37]
B
But the only reason that doesn't quite square with me is because it doesn't seem like they're kicking the tires because it's still Root Sports who is doing those broadcasts. And it doesn't seem like the Root Sports production team needed to kick the tires on anything as they.
- [32:53]
C
Yeah, that part doesn't make. I agree with you. That part is illogical. It is illogical. Captain Odors cannot move through the vacuum of space. I just. It struck me as weird, and then it struck. And then when I read the thing later, that it's like, it's all gonna be MLB next year. I drew a connection, but I'm with you. That. That the connection doesn't really make sense, because you'd think, if anything, all these, like, 30 or 40 people that have been working on Root Sports, which was previously Prime Sports Northwest when I was just a young pup, like, there's no reason that they would stop Brad Adam from. Or, you know, or Tom Glasgow or whomever from saying the scores in the last like three days, they could do it. Like there would be no reason to do that. So I don't know what the explanation is, but I don't like it. Yeah, I'm not a fan.
- [33:37]
B
You're right that it definitely had that sort of like generic news thing because again, she's like, she the announcer person who's giving the scoreboard updates, kind of does a fake handoff or like, thanks guys. And it's kind of like, it's so generic that you. Man, we're going to come back to your travels in a second. I'm not going to get into the details of this, but we took these and I ended up. I'm not even joking. Vivs and I went to a party at probably the fanciest house I've ever been in in Seattle on this over this weekend. It was kind of an old and colleague of Genevieve's was celebrating a birthday and her partner is somebody who has done very well for himself and was throwing like this huge 90s themed birthday party out in Seward Park. And you know, just one of.
- [34:22]
C
We love Seward Park.
- [34:22]
B
Beautiful, beautiful, you know, homes overlooking water or whatever. Just like way, way outside of my income bracket, obviously. In fact, I don't think when you own houses like this, I doubt you have income brackets anymore. I think they've pretty much eliminated that. I had this kind of thought beat.
- [34:37]
C
The brackets off the entire. I'm just like, let's tax shimmy free to continue to reach the consciousness that is immeasurable.
- [34:45]
B
Well, it's just like, my God. Well, at least it's on the back of a great business. Anyway. All of that is to say Viva is like, well, we'll take that, we'll take a bus down there because it's, you know, Sewer park is so far away from. Well, it should. That's the thing. Viva is like, well, we're not in any hurry. Party starts at like 7. Let's just get on the bus. She's like, I actually see a route that makes sense. We'll just take the 40. Now, the E line is an express bus, but the 40 winds all the way through Ballard and then Fremont and then then downtown. Like, and like, Luke, we were literally on the bus to go to. And the reason I bring up the fanciness of this party is because of the irony of all of this. Vivs and I were on the bus for three hours. Well, I will say door to door, three hours. We left our house at 6, caught a bus at like 6, 10. Got to the. The bus stop. That would be close to this person's house, which is a half a mile away. We're like, finally, we're only half a mile away. It is now quarter to nine, and the half mile is up a huge, steep hill. It was like a comedy. And here we are bus draggled. That's a combination of bus and bedraggled.
- [35:53]
C
I think that is an amazing term.
- [35:55]
B
I just came up with that.
- [35:57]
C
We're like, we basically saw trademark that.
- [35:59]
B
And there's all these kind of fancy people there. People float, literally. Somebody flew in from Northern California. I'm like, oh, they had a shorter commute than us. Took us 90 minutes. And the reason I'm thinking about it is because for about 45 minutes, some man, some older man behind us on the bus was blasting whatever generic conspiratorial news station is on his phone. That was like, straight up, straight up headphones, straight up anti Semitic. Like, straight up. I mean, also including things like, well.
- [36:30]
C
Headphones are a Jewish plot show title.
- [36:34]
B
Luke, Would you advocate for that? Luke Burbank, who said that? But it was a little bit like, do I say something about this? Because that would have created more issues, I think. But it was like that generic almost AI voice that will come in and say, this green goo is what elder Americans are taking to live longer. They don't want you to know about it.
- [37:00]
C
If you're watching something on YouTube and you forget you're watching it on YouTube until suddenly an. An ad comes up and it's this weird animation of the human gut, and it's like 80% of people are eating this, but it's killing them.
- [37:12]
B
Right, Right, man. Wait.
- [37:15]
C
No, it's an. A kind of an AI voice. It's like, weirdly off.
- [37:19]
B
But then it gets into all this stuff about, like, this anti Israel. But it's not just anti Israel. It's. It's anti Semitic shit that this. It starts coming. But again in this, like, in this newsy voice. But then it goes on to some other Harvard University. Let's get.
- [37:36]
C
Yes, I had a conversation last night here in Minneapolis. I was at this reception. I'm sorry, I'll come right back. But no, no, I'm talking to somebody. And I was in line at. I'm here. Well, so what Was here for LiveWire? But then now Becca's got a work thing that involves a bunch of folks from Portland coming out here, and I was at this, like, reception for it. I was chatting with someone and I said, oh, hey, what do you do in Portland? And she said, oh, I work at Portland State University. I go, oh, really? What do you do over there? She goes, oh, I'm the president. Oh, cool. And then I was like, love that answer.
- [38:04]
B
I love that. Her first response was, I work for.
- [38:06]
C
Yeah. She said, this person seemed very chill. And I said, well, like, how's it been going over there? She goes, rough.
- [38:11]
B
Yeah.
- [38:11]
C
I didn't realize that, like, she slash the university was on that initial round of, like, this sort of, I think, very bad faith effort by the White House to, quote, unquote, root out anti Semitism, which is to say, just try to get every university in trouble so that they could defund them and stop, you know, people from learning critical thought or whatever. I didn't know Portland State was on that list, but it was like, I was like, I didn't, but I was like, can I give you a hug?
- [38:38]
B
Yeah.
- [38:39]
C
Like, because, you know, she was like this, this president, I guess, didn't end up getting pulled in front of Congress, but was pretty close. It was like, you know, just probably because Portland State isn't as high profile as, say, Columbia or Harvard or something, was the only reason that she wasn't sitting up there getting pilloried for. In my opinion, nothing.
- [38:55]
B
Hearing. Hearing the stuff coming from this phone is a good reminder because, boy, now we're in some real thick territory here. But obviously what we're seeing on the national level is a bad faith effort and apparently a successful effort to weaponize perceived anti Semitism in order to undermine public education, especially in liberal communities. Like, it is so obvious and is sickening. But it's also not to say that antisemitism isn't rampant. And being on the bus and listening to this guy, Vives and I were just like, looking at each other like, my God.
- [39:37]
C
And this, this, this, this brain poison is being pumped into the brains of a bunch of people.
- [39:42]
B
Yes, and you said it perfectly right. And again, all of this was. I was reminded of all of this because of the, because of what you were saying about kind of like the genericness of that MLB news moment. You know, this is an mlb.
- [39:57]
C
Yeah.
- [39:57]
B
But like, it was so generic. And basically hearing that come out of this phone, I felt. I know I say this a lot, but I felt like I was in a Frank Miller comic book. Here I am on public transportation on a Saturday night in a city, and people are just getting their information from these kind of wackadoo sources. And there's just this voice that is saying, take this green goo and Also, you know, and I'm not going to try to even riff on some of the things that I was hearing about the Jewish state or whatever, and then move on to another topic. But it's all brain poison. And it's all this sort of like generic, like, brain poison in a pill. And just like knowing Genevieve even said at one point, she's like, you just. There's so many people who are just like, just putting this directly into their brains in our society, and it's just. God, scary, man.
- [40:40]
C
Yeah. I mean, that's the thing to take it back to journalism and how I'm personally trying to save it by writing letters to the editor of the Columbian. Like, we're constantly. None of this has to do with thanking the donors, which I need to do, or leaving in 20 minutes, which I need to do, or to make my flight home, or talking about my troubled flight out here. But I guess that's the beauty of tbtl. Like, we're constantly asking ourselves, is this the worst it's ever been in this country in terms of polarization? And you can always say, well, no, we had a civil war, or, well, no, we had a period in the 60s where there was like a whole string of political assassinations back to back to back. You can point to these other times where things maybe were even more violent and fractious, but what none of those other times had was somebody on the E Line listening to their phone with no headphones to some absolute nightmare fuel of misinformation. That's, to me, the part of this whole story that we still can't fully understand, or maybe we're beginning to understand. But it's not just a question of is this the most polarized we've ever been? It's more like a question of is this the most confused we've ever been? And with a delivery system for the confusion that's never existed before.
- [41:53]
B
Is this the most lied to, the most distrustful effectively, too.
- [41:57]
C
It's like everybody in the world now, and particularly everybody in America, has a port that now can just immediately deliver the misinformation right into your system. And we didn't all have that 50 years ago. It was harder to get the misinformation. There was plenty of it out there. I was in a restaurant and I was at your favorite hotel, the St. Paul Hotel. Andrew. I don't stay there. I'm not a Rockefeller. But I was there having some lunch, and they have this whole. In the bar area, they have this whole series of photographs, I think, of notable Minnesotans. And one of them was Lindbergh, which I've been really reexamining my relationship with Charles Lindbergh because he was part of a pretty vociferous Nazi sympathizing community that existed in this country. Go listen to Rachel Maddow's podcast on the topic of Ultra if you're curious about that whole thing. But I was looking at it, and I was trying to make a funny video, and I was videotaping and I said something about potential Nazi. And then I realized there was two nice people that were sitting below the photo of Lindbergh who thought I was videotaping them saying potential Nazi, which must have been an upsetting thing for them.
- [43:01]
B
Oh. Because I kind of lost the thread there. They were saying some things and you.
- [43:07]
C
Nope. Oh, you were.
- [43:08]
B
Super word.
- [43:09]
C
I was trying to make. I'm going to tell you very quickly what the funny video was I was trying to make. And then we can thank the donors who may want to take their money back after they hear about my funny video. They had this whole wall of, like, I think, notable Minnesotans. Right. And they were just like. They were portraits or headshots. And it was like most of them were just people I'd never recognized or seen. Lindbergh happened to be one of them. But then right in the middle, there was a guy that looked exactly like the actor Steven Root and was making exactly the face that Steven Root would make, maybe as the program director of the radio station in newsradio.
- [43:45]
B
Okay, so, like Steven Root, when he's playing one of his characters who's on top of the world. Not in the basement. Yes.
- [43:51]
C
Not. He's not. He's not Milton in the basement of office space. He's. It's. It's an on top of the world Steven Root character who's. I'm going to send you a freeze frame of this. Of this guy, because it was staring at me the whole time, watching. I'm watching the Huskies lose to Ohio State. I'm having a salad, and I'm staring at this, what looks like a headshot of the actor Steven Root. Although I know it's not Steven Root, and I can't get over it. So I decide when I get up that I want to make a funny video that's like. Like basically like normal headshot. Normal headshot. Normal portrait. Don't mind if I do. It's Steven Root or something. But I couldn't have. I couldn't scan past the Lindbergh thing and elide the fact that Lindbergh I think, had some really, really bad political beliefs. So of course, I have to, like, vocalize that in case someone sees this video and thinks that I would just videotape a picture of Charles Lindbergh and not comment on his problematic politics.
- [44:40]
B
Hashtag money.
- [44:41]
C
But as I'm. As I. So as I'm vocalizing that for the video for posterity, I realize that there's just a nice couple just eating some, like, Minnesota rice soup, which is, by the way, really good. Cannot recommend highly enough. If you go to the St. Paul Hotel, get the rice soup, top notch. But I realized that these people just have a guy who walks up to very close to their booth because these pictures are all kind of like. Like they're on the wall, but there's booths in front of the pictures. People are sitting and eating, and a guy walks up, holds a cell phone camera up above their head, but they don't know this and then goes, potential Nazi. A cool guy, normal guy, cool guy. Don't mind if I do. When I get to the Steven Root photo and then I just walk out of the restaurant, like, those people must still be wondering what the hell just happened.
- [45:32]
B
Well, you've come a long way. We used to be scared to record ourselves in public.
- [45:36]
C
Yep. Yep. I'm brave. I'm a survivor.
- [45:48]
B
Thank you, baby.
- [45:50]
C
All right, let's thank some donors. I got to talk to so many awesome tens this weekend. Andrew, thank you to everyone who came out to Livewire on Friday night. And I was once again just reminded of. Of how cool the folks that listen to our show are and how lucky we are to have them supporting the show, keeping this thing going with their voluntary financial donations. 100% listener supported. Thanks to folks like Amber Mills of Beaverton, Oregon.
- [46:16]
B
Thank you, Amber.
- [46:18]
C
Thanks, Amber. Thanks to Christian Stanley out there in Hadley, Massachusetts.
- [46:23]
B
Hey, I don't know where that is, but I'll bet you it's. Nor do I right now. This is the.
- [46:27]
C
It's beautiful because that's right. The leaves are turning. And Christian Stanley is there listening to TBTL and supporting the program. Thanks, Christian. Thanks to Kelly Shannon, who's in Edmonds, Washington.
- [46:39]
B
Edmonds, now culturally and geographically.
- [46:44]
C
Edmonds, Washington, by the way, is more or less. Becca and I were talking about Rick Steves this weekend because I get now random text messages from Rick Steves. He's on a very strange text drug.
- [46:56]
B
It's called marijuana. Sure.
- [47:00]
C
He really is on that sticky icky icky. Because, like, while I was walking around the farmer's market, I get a Random text from him. And it was based on a text I had sent him two weeks ago, which was a response to a text I had sent. Like, he was on Livewire. We totally hit it off, got each other's numbers. I texted him like the next day, like, hey, thanks for coming on the show. That was so awesome. No response. Then I'm in London this summer and the Airbnb we're staying at has all these Rick Steves tour books in it. So I take a picture and I said, I'm like, hey, look at what they've got here in London. They know, you know, they know who to trust for their tour guide stuff. Crickets. And then like a month later, I just get out of the blue, text from him, like, hey, hope your trip to England was great and let me know when you're in Seattle. And then I respond, yeah, we'd love to have, you know, get dinner sometime together if we're in town. Town. Two more weeks ago. Yesterday, I'm at the farmer's market and I just get a text from him. Something. I forget what it was, but it's like, it's. I don't know what the schedule is, but I can only assume it's marijuana.
- [47:57]
B
Related or just like I. Or a very admirable relationship with his phone, you know, like, yes.
- [48:06]
C
Phone hygiene.
- [48:07]
B
Yes.
- [48:08]
C
As it were. That's. But, but because of that. And we were walking around St. Paul, I said to Becca, I go, you know, Edmonds, Washington is. It's very Scandinavian. It's sort of like you just kind of. You airlifted a bunch of folks from the Twin Cities and you moved them over to Edmonds and they told you it's okay to say I'm not okay. That's the kind of town that Edmonds, Washington is where our friend Kelly is. Also Julie Correll is in Keswick, Virginia. That's a new one for me. Keswick.
- [48:37]
B
I think so. Thank you. Keswick. Keswick. Maybe Keswick.
- [48:44]
C
I feel like if it was in England, I'd call it Keswick, you know, like Fezziwig or something. But in, in, in Virginia, I'm going to call it Keswick. I'm going to call it John Jacobs in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. I'm not going to make the joke that I made last year.
- [48:58]
B
Okay, good. I don't remember the joke he made last year. So if you want to, you could whisper it. Do you just want to whisper it to me or you want to tell me after the show Jingleheimer Schmidt? I thought it was an East Grand Rapids joke. I'm not even joking. I was like, wait. I was waiting. Then I did it again.
- [49:13]
C
Second year, maybe third year. The problem, Andrew, is the song that I'm doing involves whispering. I didn't know if you were in on the joke or not. Did you guys ever sing that song at camp?
- [49:23]
B
Oh, is it one of those where you go, really? They give you instructions on how to do it?
- [49:28]
C
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt that's my name too. Whenever I go out, the people always shout, There goes John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt that's my name, isn't it?
- [49:42]
B
His name is my name too.
- [49:44]
C
His name is my. I don't even. Even. Now you're correcting me. Jacob. Jacob Schmidt, sir. But the song involves whispering. So I was like, maybe this is a very high level, high level comedy bitcoin.
- [50:00]
B
Is it a high level comedy or low level idiot idiocy?
- [50:03]
C
I would never know.
- [50:04]
B
Well, you can usually have a pretty good.
- [50:06]
C
I think. I think Kelly Raber has a theory out there in Bellevue, Washington. Unfortunately, I think it's probably low level, but we appreciate Kelly supporting the show. Thank you so much. Thanks to all of our donors for keeping TBTL rolling. We really do appreciate you.
- [50:25]
B
Hello and welcome to Top Stories.
- [50:28]
C
The good news, Andrew, is I think I've got about 12 minutes to tell you this story, which is probably plenty of time because I know that Friday at least, my weird contribution to the show of this meandering stem winder recorded at the Doubletree hepped up on not one, but two free cookies that they gave me, which was pretty sweet, actually. They were very nice to me. They could tell that I'd been on Friday. Excuse me, Thursday night, I'd already been through it. And the front desk person at the Doubletree said, would you like a cookie? I said, I absolutely would. She said, would you like two? And I go, I would like to. Thank you very much.
- [51:03]
B
Boy, is it real. You give a Luke a cookie situation, huh?
- [51:06]
C
That's also a good show title. Dang it. We need to spread. This is like when The Mariners score 12 runs. It's like, can we parcel these out, please? So, okay, Thursday night I was recording those messages in my hotel room. Because on Thursday, what had happened was I was supposed to fly from Portland to Seattle and on to Minneapolis. And the flight from Seattle to Portland was delayed to the point where we missed the connecting flight. There were no more flights that evening on Alaska Airlines. So they gave us hotel vouchers and sent us there for the night to come back early in the morning for the first flight out. First flight out, I think was it maybe like 8 in the morning or something? And so we show back up for that flight and, and we board the plane and the plane is sitting for kind of a long time at the gate, but then eventually pushes back and we sort of go out. We're getting close to the Runway at SeaTac and then we pull over to the side and the pilot comes on and says we're getting an error light with our air conditioning system and it fixed itself, the light turned off. But because it came on, maintenance is advising that we go back to the gate. So we're not going to deplane, but we have to go back and then they're just going to like look at it and probably clear it and then we'll go be on our way. And I'm like, okay, now remember, there's a two hour time difference. I am supposed to be doing LiveWire at 7:30 at night in Minneapolis. At this point it's, let's just say it's. We've been delayed already a bit. Let's say it's maybe 9:30am Seattle time. So 11:30am Twin Cities time. This is annoying. I'm. I'm a bit annoyed because I'm still carrying over from the night before, which, by the way, I didn't shower from the night before because I knew that when I got to Minneapolis I was gonna get all ready. I was gonna iron my suit, I was gonna, in the hotel room get prepared for my show and I was gonna take a shower and shave and just kind of get put together. So on Friday morning I didn't feel like taking a shower before getting on the airplane. I thought that would be, you know, me and the two shower day. Whereas it's something you really like, it's something that I, for some bizarre reason intend to avoid. So I'm unshowered, I'm sitting on the plane, I'm a little annoyed. But it is what it is. You know, we're still going to get there by like at this point, maybe 1:30 or 2:00pm local time. That'll give me plenty of time to do my stuff. So we go back to the kind of general airport area. Some maintenance folks come, they get on the plane, they look at the thing, they run their tests. About an hour goes by, they fix it, we're excited. Plane turns around, goes back out, we get in line to start taking off. And this is, by the way, something very similar to this happened to me in Portland the day before on Alaska Airlines where we were getting in line to take off and then we got out of the line. Same thing. Now we get back out of the line and the pilot comes on and goes, y' all probably noticed that we did not continue on our way to take off. In fact, we got out of the line. That's because we're getting. That light is coming on again. And I just gotta tell you, we're probably not going to be able to use this plane. So now I'm freaking out because at this point it's already like now it's probably 11:30 Seattle time. So 1:30 Minnesota time. But more frighteningly, if we can't use this airplane and they can't get us another airplane, this flight is canceled. And I might not be able to. I'm checking all the other. I'm on my laptop, I'm using my phone as like a hot spot or something. And I'm trying to go, and I'm trying to buy a ticket on Delta Airlines. There's one ticket left on a flight on Delta Airlines that leaves from sea Tac at 1:30. Now that will deliver me unto Minneapolis at 7:08pm this is getting to the airport, landing at the airport at 7:08. Again, mind you, I'm supposed to be standing on the stage at 7:30 in front of a packed house at the Fine Line Theater on First Avenue. And I'm starting to kind of freak out because the pilot says we're not going to be able to use this plane. And he says something like, and so that means they'll have to get us another plane if they can get us another plane. And I actually had this moment because, you know, I've been doing Livewire for a long time. I've never missed a show and I've never missed a show. Well, I haven't missed a show ever and I've certainly never missed one. For this reason of not being able to, to get to the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. It's not a crazy thing to think that you could get, starting on a Thursday to Minneapolis, Minnesota from Portland by Friday night. It's. I'm not trying to get to, you know, I don't know, Bali or something. I'm not trying to. I'm not trying to cross the globe. I'm trying to make it a distance that I could have driven. If I would have started at the same time on Thursday, it would have sucked. But I could have driven there in about the same amount of time. I did the math.
- [55:59]
B
You'd still have A, you'd still have a stopover in a hotel, only you have access to your bags and you could have showered.
- [56:06]
C
I. I think I meant. I mentioned that in my rambling message. One of the crazy things was I couldn't. I didn't really realistically have access to my luggage because they don't just take it off. Even if you're. You miss your connecting flight, it doesn't mean they spit your bag out of the baggage carousel. I learned it just stays in some weird, you know, purgatory. Yeah. So I didn't have my luggage. Yeah. The driving would have been superior in a lot of ways. And now the problem is. Oh, so we're also sitting on the. He goes, we can't return to the gate for an hour because of something having to do with the gates being full or not having a person to tow us. So not only Andrew. So I'm sitting on an airplane that the pilot is telling us is probably not going to be fit for service. We may or may not get a replacement. And by the way, we can't even get back to the gate. I can't get on terra firma for like an hour. And now I'm looking at this, this Delta flight at 1:30. I'm wondering if I will be able to be off of this airplane by 1:30 to get to this other airline for this overpriced ticket that I've panic purchased because. And I really had this moment. I'm not saying this for, like, dramatic effect. I had a moment of thinking, am I in a stress dream right now? You know what I mean? Like, I legitimately thought, this feels like a stress dream to me. This is me watching in slow motion, me not getting to a taping of the show. And I actually really had the thought, is this really happening or am I imagining it? Am I, like, am I in a stress dream right now? And if so, can I wake myself up?
- [57:34]
B
I was going to say before, this sounds like you're having one of your stress dreams as you've described them on the show.
- [57:40]
C
It was the most that I've ever had real life feel like I was maybe in a stress dream. And I legitimately had the thought, am I in a dream and can I wake myself up from this? Because again, I was just like, you know, one of my. And I probably am taking this. Like, listen, the world would have kept on turning. Luckily, we had these great guests. We had Maria Bamford there who could just do the show. She could just do comedy for an hour and people would be Stoked. We had Brandi Brown there, who's a great, talented comedian in her own right and could have probably hosted. Elena, could have hosted. Like, I don't think I'm as pivotal to this whole thing as I make myself out to be in my own mind. But I've also never missed one of these. It's kind of like to me, like, worst case scenario is it's time for the show to start and somebody has to come out and go, yeah, no host of the show, Luke is not gonna be here again. That is probably my own narcissism that elevates that to this level of like, it's a tragedy. It's probably not, but like, it was sort of like I was just feeling like, wow, this is the worst. This is the worst thing I can think of related to me and the show. And it's happening and I'm powerless to change this. I mean, the end of the story is actually like less dramatic. What happened was we got off the plane. I did buy this ticket on Delta. We were able to get off the plane by like about noon and. And I was able to buy this ticket on Delta, but then they told us we got a new plane and that our flight was going to be leaving now at the same time as the Delta flight. So 1:30, we're leaving the West Coast. And I asked the person at the gate, I said, I know they're saying this plane is going to take off at 1:30, but is it really going to take off at 1:30? She goes, Absolutely, 100%. It's taken off at 1:30. Well, listener, when I got on the plane and we taxied around, nothing broke on the plane, but just all of the, I don't know what, moving the luggage and getting people back on, etc, we did not actually wheels up until probably like, I don't know, 2:30 we were taking off. Andrew and I'm seeing on the text chain for Livewire, everyone's showing up at the theater for soundcheck. Like, people are like, I'm here, I'm at the back door. Can someone let me in? Like, I'm watching this chatter of people who are at a place already in pre show mode and I'm leaving Seattle, Washington in an airplane. It was so stressful. We land at this point. I'd become like a mascot on the flight. Word had spread. They paged me at one point to say something about my ticket to me. And then people kind of. There was a couple people there that I guess are aware of, of LiveWire. And TBTL, by the way, there was a guy said XP goes like, oh yeah. He goes, I, I, I listened to. Wait, wait, so I heard about Livewire. He goes, I've listened to the your TBTL program as well.
- [60:23]
B
I was like, cool.
- [60:24]
C
Yes. So there was a little bit of one of the flight attendants when I got on, she goes, I'm sorry we're late. Are you going to talk about this on Wait, wait, don't tell me. And I was like, they ever let me back on? It's the first thing I'm going to talk about. But it was, there was a groundswell of support of me getting to the radio taping. We land at about 6:50, maybe 2. We taxi to the Runway. I'm the first person off the plane. They let me. I sprinting. I don't even get my luggage. I go, I'm running. I order the lift. While I'm running towards the ride share. I jump in, I get an awesome Lyft driver. This guy's like just like taking every shortcut and like really, he's really invested in the process. Although I'm dressed, Andrew, like a borderline hobo, I'm wearing like a T shirt and this little kind of jacket that goes over it. I'm wearing a red knit cap I bought at like Hudson News that morning because my hair was like crazy because have you ever.
- [61:21]
B
So I'm sorry if I missed this, but you had no clothes as you described on Friday's episode. You had no clothes in the hotel room that you stayed in here in Seattle and you still have not been reunited with your bags throughout all of this. So this is still the clothes that you left your home in.
- [61:38]
C
I'm wearing the clothes that I was wearing on Thursday when I left Southern Washington. Including underwear. Yeah.
- [61:45]
B
Okay.
- [61:46]
C
And I have, and I'm wearing this kind of weird knit cap that I don't normally wear. It was the, it was, I thought, the best hat option in that. I could have bought like a hat that said Seattle in the Frasier font.
- [62:00]
B
You know, you could have gotten. Did you get yourself a Sleepless in Seattle T shirt?
- [62:04]
C
Please tell me you got that oversized. Only the most oversized will do, Andrew. And so I like, I'm, I get in and I tell the driver, I'm like, hey. I go, you know, I'm really in a bit of a hurry. Thank you so much. If you can really try to get us there fast. I'm hosting this show at the fine line on First Avenue and it starts at 7:30 and right now by the way, it's like 7:10 or something. Something. And he goes, you look like a guitar player. Which I thought was kind of. You're like, kind of badass.
- [62:33]
B
Oh, my God. So there is a silver lining to all of this.
- [62:36]
C
I know. I was all right. Yeah, I can. I'm good. I'm kind of a cool guy.
- [62:39]
B
You're like, yeah, I'm kind of an Eddie Vedder. Have you heard of the Better Cup? Very guitar centered. Baseball Celebration.
- [62:48]
C
I taught Mike McCready everything he knows. I showed him a few tricks. Anyway, again, the end of the story is a little bit less dramatic because I get there. They've decided to hold the doors until 7, like 40. So I actually roll in at 7:25. I have a full. Whatever that is. Is that 20 minutes? I. 15 minutes. I had, like, I had enough time. I got there, said hi to everyone, got my script, kind of went and powdered my nose, went to the bathroom real quickly, and, like, was more or less in an okay state of mind when I got on stage, other than I looked ridiculous. And unlike my normal presentation I would do for one of these shows, I'll tell you this. I was energetically. I was vibrating when I went on stage because I didn't have the normal amount of time to pace around backstage and think about the show. It was kind of one of those things where it was like, I just kind of went right into it. And it ended up being a really fun show. The band that played was the Reasonable Doubts. It's a band that's made up of Minnesota State Supreme Court justices who decided to form a band because of their workplace stress. They played X's and O's by Elle King.
- [64:00]
B
Love that song.
- [64:00]
C
It was great. It was completely ridiculous and great. They were really into it. I loved it. They were on the show. I couldn't help shake the feeling of, like, these are people who sit in judgment of other people and could, you know, at the district court level, certainly they could be sentencing someone to serious jail time. Like they had. They hold someone's very future in their hands, potentially. And. And. And now they're singing X's and O's by L. King and playing the tambourine.
- [64:29]
B
With gusto, like, while the audience stands in judgment of them.
- [64:34]
C
I mean, boy, had that worm turned my friend. I really. You know, Andrew, I wish you'd been there because that was a very insightful observation that I did not make that night. But anyway, all's well that ends well, and I did make it in time, but it Was it was cutting it close and it was stressful and I sure hope that it doesn't happen again. And, and yeah, Alaska Airlines, you know, there are no amount they, by the way, I didn't do anything weird or public. I didn't go on blue ski. I didn't, I didn't like try to blow them up up. But certainly there something in their system was flagged. That said a bunch of people kind of got a pretty raw deal because I just started getting these messages from the airline as if it were like a, a sentient being. They would just have subject lines. Like it would be like an email subject line just being sorry. And then you'd go into be like, we really missed the mark this time. Please accept this hundred dollar travel voucher for future travel or whatever. And then I'd get a text version of it that was slightly different and then I get another one. Then I did fill out a survey. Alaska listens. And I was just explaining like how frustrated I was at the process. Not any of the people.
- [65:39]
B
Oh, you'll get, you'll get a voucher then, right?
- [65:42]
C
Yeah, no, I'm sure I will.
- [65:44]
B
I, I complained one time for something much less egregious and I got like a $50 voucher.
- [65:49]
C
I know, but what I really need from them is a time machine. I need to go back to Thursday and have this, have not happened this way more than like a hundred for me. A hundred dollar voucher for future travel on Alaska Airlines is a, is a, you know, it's, I have a lot of miles with them. Most of my travel is paid for by, by my work that is flying me places.
- [66:06]
B
I'm not saying it makes it right. I just mean you're, you're going to be getting a voucher.
- [66:10]
C
I am. Oh yeah, they're sending me. And it's funny because again it's a series of emails and messages that are like very, what's the word I'm looking for? Apologetic. Just like I'm expecting the next one for them to just be like, you know, what's it going to take? Yeah, we're just an, I'm just an airline standing in front of a passenger asking him to forgive me.
- [66:29]
B
Right, right, right.
- [66:30]
C
It's getting more cinematic by the moment. Speaking of airlines, I need to go to the airport right now, Andrew, and see if I can get on. I mean, I mean I have a ticket to see if my flight from Minneapolis St. Paul to Portland, Oregon takes off on time and lands on time. I have a feeling I used up all of my bad airport kind of experience for a while. I think I'm going to go back to things generally being pretty chill for the next while. I think this was a convergence, a collision of like a bunch of unlucky outcomes that I think now have gotten it out of my system. Looking forward to a tremendous flight on Alaska. Although they are doing a thing now with first class upgrades that is really grinding my gears that I could tell you about tomorrow if you want a tight 40 on that end.
- [67:14]
B
Absolutely. I think we need more airport talk here. You know, I gotta say, John and I, I felt a little bit bad for you. So when you head there to I think it's. Is it Bloomington, Minnesota. Oh, yeah.
- [67:26]
C
John's real big on that. Minneapolis.
- [67:29]
B
There's going to be a little surprise waiting for you, Luke. And it's. We got you a PJ that's going to take you directly. Directly. And we, we actually.
- [67:37]
C
My first time.
- [67:38]
B
Yeah. We also installed a landing strip outside your house. So it's going to take you door to door, my friend.
- [67:44]
C
You. Well, you guys are too good to be.
- [67:45]
B
Thank you.
- [67:46]
C
As are you, the TBTL listeners. Thanks for hanging out with us today. We will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. So please do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Monday. Take care of yourselves and please remember, no mountain too tall.
- [67:57]
B
And good luck to all. Power out.