#4587 Berry Me!

Summary

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TBTL Episode #4587: "Berry Me!"

Date: October 30, 2025
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

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Episode Overview

This Thursday episode of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live serves up quintessential Luke and Andrew banter, blending cozy autumn vibes, reminiscences about cereal and fruit, a hilariously earnest grocery price investigation, and a deconstruction of recent “bunk journalism” involving not one, but two Bill de Blasios in New York. The show also features the beloved "Blursday" segment, celebrating listeners’ birthdays in classic TBTL fashion.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Cozy Fall Vibes & Show Intro (01:17–03:20)

• The episode opens with Luke embracing “cozy time” as fall settles in, setting a laid-back tone:

  “It is cozy time, my friend. Let's snuggle up. There ain't nothing like soup. Let's snuggle up with an episode of TBTL.” — Luke (01:37)

• Andrew is introduced as the “longest running cobra of the show,” with Luke jokingly warning listeners he’s “spicy.”

  “When he walks into a room, they call him Mr. Unlimited. … He’s spicy.” — Luke (02:49)

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Blueberry and Grape Nuts Deep Dive (05:03–21:16)

This section is a masterclass in mundane obsessions, price gripes, and food nostalgia:

Andrew’s Breakfast Evolution

• Andrew describes a new habit: almond milk, grape nuts, and especially the pursuit of good blueberries for cereal.
• Initially inspired by a friend’s newsletter mention of grape nuts with Greek yogurt, Andrew diverges due to his aversion to dairy and Greek yogurt in particular:

  “I don't even like to be on the same airplane when somebody's eating Greek yogurt. I think this stuff ... it stinks.” — Andrew (06:46)

Grocery Store Price Adventures

• Andrew’s search for blueberries spans several stores (SARS Super Saver, Asian Family Market, Sprouts, QFC), with increasingly expensive and disappointing haul after haul:

  “They had a very shallow … plastic thing of blueberries. Not like a nice deep tub … It was like $10 for very few. And they didn’t look that good either.” — Andrew (11:17) “I see the thing of blueberries and they look okay. They were $12.99. For a tiny thing of blueberries. 12.99, my friend.” — Andrew (12:03)

Fermented Berries & Seasonal Woes

• A fateful purchase of out-of-season blueberries at Sprouts yields fruit “already fermenting”—ruining Andrew’s cereal and prompting speculation about global fruit supply, tariffs, and changing seasons:

  “They taste like they're already fermenting. … it ruined my cereal.” — Andrew (13:44)

Luke’s Blueberry Wisdom

• Luke reflects on childhood routines (grape nuts with honey only!), grocery shopping strategies (Trader Joe’s and Costco as reliable blueberry sources), and the volatility of blueberry pricing:

  “Blueberries are one of the most volatile … erratically priced products at the grocery store.” — Luke (15:56)

• The discussion spirals into cereal-eating rituals, with musings on bananas-in-cereal (“a mistake” from bygone days) and a love-hate relationship with various breakfast foods.

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Cereals & Food Rituals (21:16–27:43)

• Luke and Andrew riff on how childhood experiences with food—like bananas in grape nuts—become lifelong habits (or aversions).

  “It’s so weird how just, like, you get started on something … and then it just becomes a lifelong way of doing it.” — Luke (15:16)

• Fruit as a “photogenic” cereal topper dominates the chat—Andrew admits blueberries have “ruined” his grape nuts for now, while strawberries seem the only somewhat-reliable alternative:

  “Today might turn me off of that for a while. They were truly bad. They were truly bad.” — Andrew (26:35)

• The duo delight in old cereal jingles, including an impromptu recreation of the Crispix theme.

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Listener Donations & Tangents (28:10–32:57)

• Luke and Andrew thank financial supporters (“this is listener supported podcasting”) and riff on the lushness of Garden Grove, CA, bougainvillea, star jasmine, and even “pompous grass.”
• Witty botanically themed chat continues with

  “I don’t know. Pompous grass. ... It sounds like it’s a little bit big on itself.” — Andrew (33:48)

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Neighbor Relations & Country Life Anecdotes (35:46–41:16)

• Andrew plays a classic voicemail from Luke’s neighbor complaining about fire hazards and “tansy” (a weed) on his property, sparking a story about rural neighbor relations and how Luke eventually made peace by owning up and collaborating on maintenance.

  “For whatever reason, my response … was not to do my usual thing, which would be to feel criticized and be offended. I actually, like, called him right back.” — Luke (36:38)

• Brief but delightful explanation of cows standing in the nearby river for relief—Andrew puns:

  “These cows are not having a cow, man. They’re, like, so chill.” — Andrew (40:48)

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Top Story: Bill de Blasio Mistaken Identity Journalism Fiasco (41:51–57:42)

The Setup

• John Sklaroff, TBTL’s producer, sends in a news tip about the Times of London publishing an interview with “Bill de Blasio” critical of mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani—except the “de Blasio” they quoted was a wine merchant, not the former mayor.
• The wine merchant knew he wasn’t that Bill de Blasio, but gave his honest (albeit critical) views and admitted to leveraging the confusion (“used AI to help craft a response”).
• Discussion on who’s at fault: The journalists for not fact-checking, or the wine merchant for playing along?

Analysis & Snark

• Andrew blames the journalistic “sin” most, but also calls out the not-so-innocent, maybe even “impersonating” behavior of the wine merchant:

  “He knew that this was a mix up … and then he said, fine, if you’re going to reach out to me, I’m going to give you my opinion. … To me, that's a big part of this too.” — Andrew (47:57)

• Luke: amused at the limits to this mini-scandal, suggesting the wine merchant could have “messed with them so much more.” He also highlights a quirky detail about Italian surname capitalization:

  “Low class Italians use the little D. That's why I…” — Wine Merchant Bill de Blasio, as cited by Andrew (53:52)

• Both hosts poke fun at a supposed meeting between the two Bills at a Mets game, speculating on how stadium staff would even realize the name coincidence.

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Quotes & Notable Moments

On Cereal & Food

• “I don’t even like to be on the same airplane when somebody's eating Greek yogurt.”
  — Andrew (06:46)
• “Blueberries are one of the most volatile ... erratically priced products that you can get in the grocery store.”
  — Luke (15:56)
• “I feel like bananas are ... a big treat when we didn't have as good of stuff to eat.”
  — Luke (23:54)

On Bill de Blasio Fiasco

• “He was neither falsely claiming to be Mayor Bill de Blasio … nor was he a de Blasio impersonator… but this man knew that things—there was a mix up—and he didn’t care and leaned into it.”
  — Andrew (45:26)
• “His name is Bill de Blasio. … he goes, I wouldn’t really—I just don’t know if Mamdani’s policies are going to work unless we could see in 10 years how it goes.”
  — Luke (51:03)

On Listener Birthdays (Blursdays)

• “Maybe they're out of season like blueberries.”
  — Andrew (60:37)
• “I hope those blueberries—that's the kind of highly relevant content that we provide on this show.”
  — Luke (28:11)

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Noteworthy Timestamps

• 05:03 – Andrew’s quest for blueberries & cereal deep dive
• 13:44 – “fermenting” (bad) blueberries at Sprouts
• 21:16 – “Bananas in cereal” nostalgia and aversion
• 41:51 – Top Story: Bill de Blasio mistaken identity/journalism discussion
• 45:26 – Andrew on the responsibility in the identity mix-up
• 53:52 – Wine Merchant de Blasio’s “low class Italians” joke and the Mets anecdote
• 60:37 – Blursday segment (listener birthday shoutouts)

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Episode Tone and Style

• Relaxed, warm, and whimsical. The hosts exude easy chemistry, with banter that spans nostalgia, daily-life micro-obsessions, and self-aware tangents.
• Self-deprecating humor & gentle snark. Both Luke and Andrew make fun of their own quirks and gently rib each other and the newsmakers discussed.
• Affection for the audience. The Blursday segment is genuinely heartfelt and intertwined with TBTL’s classic in-jokes and inclusive nods.

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Takeaways for Listeners

• If you’re searching for affordable, fresh blueberries in late October—good luck.
• Childhood food routines stay with you, for better or for worse (bananas in cereal: still controversial).
• Even the most “bunk journalism” can lead to delightful, strange news stories—especially in the age of AI and identical names.
• Listener involvement remains a beloved part of TBTL—birthday wishes are as celebrated as any big breaking news.

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For fans of TBTL: This episode exemplifies what makes the show “Too Beautiful To Live”: warm, digressive, and sincerely odd, blending minutiae and genuine reflection with affectionate silliness.

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Transcript

[A]

I say, I say, wait up, dog. Let the fun begin. That's a tuna, bro.

[B]

This comes out to all the coffee.

[A]

Lovers of the world. I just love hot cheetos.

[B]

That's my wife.

[A]

Ooh la la. Go round jalapeno.

[B]

Get off my calls.

[A]

Don't miss the sausage fest. CO Brown TBTL.

[B]

If we wanted to, we could have our own business.

[A]

No, I agree. If we really wanted to, we could. It's just that. Do we wanna do that? Do we wanna have a website and.

[B]

A blog and be like, this is what we did today? No, it's too much work.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And too expensive. Wow, you're really good at puzzles.

[A]

I did them all the time as a kid.

[B]

As my mom used to say, when you're doing a puzzle, it's like having a thousand friends. You know, Johnny, I just don't know how you. A four hour show every morning just.

[A]

Talking to the mic and your voice goes out through the wires. And once a week, whether you need it or not, somebody comes in here and gives you a check for $38.

[B]

Have a good show, dummies. What you do is so important. Well, all right. Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

[A]

Are you sure?

[B]

That's what they said on Ask Jeeves. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

[A]

As Florence Machine says, the dog days are over.

[B]

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it is a dry. So far, anyway, fall day where you can really, really and truly. As I was retrieving the garbage can early this morning, you can really feel the weather is turning. It is. It is cozy time, my friend. Let's snuggle up. There ain't nothing like soup. Let's snuggle up with an episode of TBTL. Here it's episode 4587 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Let's snuggle up and talk about a bunk journalism report. I'd like to point out to anybody watching this is really bunk journalism. It's the story of a interview with a guy named Bill de Blasio, who may or may not be the Bill de Blasio that was once the mayor of New York City and all of the confusion surrounding it. We will talk about that also. It's a Thursday, meaning it's time for the Blurs days as well. We'll celebrate all of the folks in the TBTL world of listeners who were born in the recent Times of this week. Oh, and we're going to talk to this guy.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

He's the longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. In some certain quarters, though, when he walks into a room, they call him Mr. Unlimited. He is Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[A]

Is this one of those quarters?

[B]

It sure is.

[A]

Great.

[B]

Hey, it's Mr. Unlimited.

[A]

Hey, I love that. Thank you.

[B]

Sometimes I'll elbow a guy next to me at the bar. I'll go. Be careful, though.

[A]

He's spicy. That's right.

[B]

I just want everyone to know that Mr. Unlimited is here and he's spicy.

[A]

I love that. For me. Thank you very much. Ooh.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Just realized that I did not bring my water bottle in with me today. That's gonna be some rough stuff. I just gotta make it to the.

[B]

I wish I could send you some of this carbonated water down the line. By the way, are you mildly surprised that I'm actually doing this? That this project has actually worked? Cause I'm mildly surprised.

[A]

Mildly as well. Yes. Not to undercut you. I do want to talk about something that is close to your heart, though, and close to your mouth today. Well, it's kind of like your. I want to talk about your esophagus. Okay, I'll talk about your esophagus. By the way, nothing rhymes with esophagus, right? Maybe there's a dinosaur or something that maybe.

[B]

Yeah, Gus. How about. How about our friend P. Fletch's son, Gus?

[A]

Yeah, if you just elongate it.

[B]

By the way, Gus, I got a DM from Gus the other day. I'm sorry. I know. We want to talk about my things. Close to my heart. I got a DM from Gus of our friend Phyllis Fletcher. Well, literally, of our friend Phyllis Fletcher. I believe Gus emerged from the body of our friend P. Fletch. It's just a photo from one of Gus's high school classes where he goes, dude, they're playing a video of you in my marketing class.

[A]

Oh, really?

[B]

It was some CBS Sunday Morning piece. And then I said, oh, man. Did you tell the teacher that, like, that person has forced you to be on their podcast multiple times? And he said, no, maybe tomorrow.

[A]

Yeah, that's the night. I love that casual approach.

[B]

It's like, I mean, you'd be jumping.

[A]

Out of your seat, right? You'd be like, I know.

[B]

I know him.

[A]

I know him.

[B]

Exactly. It'd be like, be like Will Ferrell and Santa or In Elf. I know him. I know Gus was like, I don't know, maybe tomorrow.

[A]

He's got a lot going on. He's celebrity in his own right. All right, I want to talk to you about. I want to talk to you about blueberries. Luke. You eat a lot of blueberries lately. So I've been like. I often will have blueberries around, especially during the summertime, because I always have sort. Some sort of a fruit salad going at all times. I've described this to you before. Like, usually I'm cutting up a pineapple. I got strawberries. I got blueberries in there, other berries, whatever. I just kind of keep.

[B]

I'm afraid I just blew myself.

[A]

I have a bunch of those in the fridge that I kind of cycle through. But lately, I would say for the past two or three weeks, I have been eating grape nuts almost every day. Not every day, but I've really. I'm not usually a breakfast person at all, but it was our friend, actually, Matt Becker. I should give a shout out to Matt's newsletter. He writes a. He's a listener and a former colleague of ours. I think he's a listener. I don't actually know former colleague.

[B]

Matt, are you listening?

[A]

I consider him a friend and writes the. Writes a newsletter you can sign up for. It's a review of books that is so beautiful. And he's such an amazing writer. Called the Eleanor Avenue Review of Books. And I'll be honest with you, I read this every time it comes out. I've never followed up and read any of the books because I'm not good at reading. But I love.

[B]

Also, who needs to. If you've read an interesting review. I do that sometimes with the New York Times Review of Books. I'll read a review of a book that I have no intention of reading, but I like to read the review of it.

[A]

Yeah. And he's such a great writer. So anyway, he mentioned at some point, as an aside in one of his short little vignettes, something about how he eats grape nuts and Greek yogurt every day for.

[B]

Interesting move.

[A]

Now, I don't do Greek yogurt. I don't even like to be on the same airplane when somebody's eating Greek yogurt. I think this stuff.

[B]

Because of your longtime antipathy towards Greeks and.

[A]

Well, and Greek culture at large. Yes. No, I don't go in for that kind of stuff.

[B]

But democracy, souvlaki, these are all things you don't have time for.

[A]

That's right. What is the honey pastry, though? Everybody Loves that, you know, baklava.

[B]

Baklava. I hate baklava, by the way. I legit do not like.

[A]

It's very hard to eat. It's not as easy for me. Yeah, I agree with you. Now we really are going after Greek culture, which is not my point. I just don't like Greek yogurt because I don't like dairy things. And I think it's stinks. It stinks. But the idea of grape nuts got in my head. I love grape nuts. I. Well, I shouldn't say I love grape nuts. I love the idea of grape nuts. I will buy a box every, like, five years when somebody reminds me of grape nuts, and then I buy one.

[B]

And you'll have it for about four and a half.

[A]

Well, the thing is, I usually eat the box, and then I'm like, well, I'm. I just don't go back for it for a long time. But, like, I'm on my second box or third box maybe of grape nut, probably second. They're pretty dense, but they're the event.

[B]

Horizon of breakfast foods.

[A]

What does that mean?

[B]

I think an event horizon is something where it basically, like, it's an incredibly dense part of the universe where maybe black holes are actually being eaten by something that's somehow more dense than a black hole. I think that's what an event horizon is.

[A]

Well, anyway, we all know about grape nuts. What I've been doing is I also, because of my quasi aversion to dairy, I use almond milk. So I've been getting almond milk. I got my grape Nuts, and I realized I was eating them just like that for a while. But then one day, I dropped a couple of blueberries in there, and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Game changer. Like, talk about elevating a bowl of grape nuts. Blueberries, maybe some strawberries cut up, very small in there. Huge improvement on the entire experience, which it did. I already liked the experience. So now I've just been really into this thing. And because of that, I have been looking for blueberries just, like, as their own thing. In other words, not just, like, kind of buying a thing of mixed fruit that has some blueberries in it or maybe buying it alongside some other things for a fruit salad. Like, I want to have access to blueberries so that I can have my breakfast.

[B]

You want to be picking through all the rest of the stuff.

[A]

And so a couple of days ago, I was at sars, which. Don't forget sars, the full name, which I like. To use full government name is SARS Super Saver.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's a discount grocery store. But what I'm realizing in all of this, I'm not somebody who usually pays tons of attention to prices in the grocery store anyway because I'm both privileged and a lunkhead. But lately I've been sort of noticing a little bit more. I know it's great. Anybody want a loan? Anybody want a loan? But because, because it's called Super Saver, I think I'm more aware of prices there in a weird, almost perverse way. And what I've realized is, oh, some things might be super cheap, but other things are going to be expensive, in other words. And I don't know why I would know this, but I was doing some research and a bottle of Jim Beam is almost twice as much there than somewhere else.

[B]

I really was picturing you when you said doing some research. I was like, I swear to God, I had this picture of you, like looking at a computer screen. For some reason you had that like green visor kind of on and you were doing research. And that was. I legitimately thought that something had happened where you were doing some cross referencing of prices. And then I heard the words Jim Beam and then I, I understood that what had been said previously was a joke.

[A]

Well, so I, It's. I consider it research.

[B]

Yeah, it is.

[A]

You know, and so it's boots on.

[B]

The ground, shoe leather research.

[A]

I need to get back to blueberries here. So I'm there the other day and I'm like, oh, I'll pick up some blueberries. But the SARS produce is not my favorite part of that store. I think the produce is a little bit hit or miss there. And so I'm like, well, I'll just see what they have for blueberries. And they had a very shallow, one of those very shallow plastic things of blueberries. Not like a nice deep tub or something like you get at the farmer's market. Shallow one. It was like $10 for very few. And they didn't look that good either. And I was like, no thanks. I got some strawberries or something. Then I think I some really good blueberries at a grocery store after that probably qfc. Didn't pay much attention to it. But then yesterday I realized I'm out of blueberries again. And I find myself in the Asian grocery store. I think it's called Asian Family Market. It's kind of where you would know where the Kmart used to be off of Aurora in Seattle now.

[B]

And that you. And then after it was the Kmart, it was a sprouts. Right?

[A]

Well, okay, well, see, this is the same shopping center as the sprouts, essentially. Okay. The sprouts is kind of anchored over on the corner. Then you have this huge Asian grocery store kind of more in the middle of this entire complex. And I was making some stock yesterday. I wanted to boil down. I told you I used up all my chicken stock. So I was boiling down my stock bag, but I realized I needed probably some more chicken bones. So I ran to the. Ran to the Asian market to get some chicken feet, which are pretty upsetting things to put into a pot, by the way.

[B]

Does that improve the stock enough to counteract how kind of gross that is?

[A]

I gotta say, I really had to talk to myself. I'm like, listen, you eat chicken either.

[B]

What if you just put a little, A little cube of bullion in there? I mean, that umami. I feel like there's something less feet related.

[A]

They were pretty upsetting outcome. They were pretty upsetting putting them in. And I was like, well, they'll be pretty broken down when I take them out. They were upsetting going in and out. Stock looks good though. Stock looks really good. I'm going to give it one more skim this afternoon if possible. But. But I did. I just needed, you know, I had a little bit of chicken in there, is mostly vegetable stuff. And I was like, I just think I need a little bit more chicken. So I'm like, I'll go grab some. I thought, well, whatever. I thought I'd get some bones or like a piece of a carcass, which you can sometimes buy. All of that is to say I'm in this supermarket and while I'm in there, which I don't usually do kind of my regular shopping in there, but I'm like, oh, I'll just buy some fruit that I need. And I buy a thing of strawberries, like $8 for your usual size. I buy a pineapple, which is really good price. I think it's like three or four bucks. And then I see the thing of blueberries and they look okay. They were 1299. For a tiny thing of blueberries. 12.99, my friend. I said, well, I'm not getting those here. I'm gonna go across to Sprouts where the produce tends to be very good. And yeah, they have good prices on it. Again, I think stores are just choosing what their loss leaders are gonna be. So I'm like, well, I'll go to Sprouts. They have the Best produce in the city. And it's right next door, practically. So I go over there. I had to buy some cheesecloth anyway to strain my soup. Oh, yeah. No, I was making stock. And anyway, I see that they have blueberries. They're down to, like, $8.99 or something here. And I'm like, well, based on everything else I've seen, I'll grab these. And I know I can trust them because they're from sprouts, and sprouts have good produce. Luke. I brought these things home. They taste like they're already fermenting. I just had some in my cereal, and it ruined. Instead of raising up my cereal, it worsened my cereal. And I guess we're just.

[B]

On the plus side, you're drunk, though.

[A]

I'm getting drunk as we speak. Alcohol, they're continuing to ferment in my stomach. I wash them down with some of that Jim Beam that I'm just doing research. But anyway, so I know that we're at the end of summer fruit season, so that must have something to do with it. But does it also have to do. Are there other global forces? Are we talking tariffs? Are we talking something going on in the world? These were terrible blueberries.

[B]

I have. Andrew, so many thoughts on this. I'm so glad you brought this up. My first thought is, I don't like putting these or any of these kinds of things into grape nuts, because to me, grape nuts are only to be consumed one way. And this is the way I was raised, which is you put the milk in, it takes forever to break the grape nuts down to where you could actually chomp on them. And while they're kind of softening up, you hit them with a ton of honey. And then grape nuts and honey, which I bet you people out there listening to this think that's so weird. It probably is. It's just one of those things because we had a lot of grape nuts growing up. That was how my mom, I guess, showed me how to have grape nuts when I was probably five years old. And so till the day I die, that will be the only way that I think grape nuts can be consumed.

[A]

I will say, though, in my defense, on the box of grape Nuts, they do show it being served with blueberries and strawberries.

[B]

I think you're probably on the right side of this. And it. Well within the majority. I'm just. I guess my point in that is it's so weird how just, like, you get started on something.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And there's no rhyme or reason to it. Other Than it's what your parents were started on or what they decided, and then it just becomes a lifelong way of doing it.

[A]

It's like, then you. Then you enter a relationship and they do something different. I'm just having this memory now of, you know, I loved eating fruit growing up, and I clearly, I still do, but I am now just remembering when I first started dating Genevieve. I think we got some strawberries, and she was. I don't want to throw her under the bus. This might not have been her, but somebody said, well, don't you want to dip that in sugar? And so I remember dipping a strawberry in sugar, which, I mean, it's sugar. So I guess it was good. But, like, this is going back a ways. I'm trying to remember, and I feel like maybe I did that for a little bit, but it's like, you don't need to dip sugar in sugar.

[B]

Yeah, no, that seems like that would be extra, extra sweetening to something that's already pretty sweet. Okay, let's talk blueberries, please. Because, first of all, yes, I buy a lot of blueberries now, and in fact, I've got a container of them in my fridge. Actually, I probably have one here in the Madrona Hill fridge that they're probably past their prime. They're probably almost turned into Jim Beam. And then I've got some in the fridge in the main house. And what I've noticed is that blueberries are one of the most volatile. They're one of the most erratically priced products that you can get in the grocery store. And it is totally just based on, I think, like you said, what this particular store has decided to charge for this based on maybe their supply chain. So weirdly, a place where I have found them to be very reasonably priced is Trader Joe's. I know you're not a TJ guy, but in the other place, of course, and this is where this place really comes through, Costco. And what you could do is this could be. Be something that, you know, something that I know that Genevieve loves is going to Costco and also getting deals on things you could say, hey, next time you're at Costco, could you grab us some blueberries? Because that, you know, that's definitely one of the things that they come through on is, like, stuff like that. Now it would be a lot of blueberries.

[A]

Is it a lot of blueberries? I wasn't sure.

[B]

It's. It's. It being Costco. Yes.

[A]

Because, I mean, Costco, you can buy some produce there that isn't like, A swimming pool of lettuce, you know.

[B]

Yes. This is, if I remember right, definitely going to be. This would be the kind of thing where you'd either want to maybe freeze some of them or just enlist Genevieve on the project of getting through the blueberries.

[A]

Yeah, but I would say that.

[B]

Like, I would. Again, I don't think you're probably going to go to Trader Joe's just for this, but. But I've noticed that they seem to be. I mean, and it's weird because, yeah, some places a small little container will be $10, and then you go to another place and it'll be what looks like three times that amount of blueberries.

[A]

It'll be six bucks.

[B]

And again, there's no. And then I gotta be careful about.

[A]

Quality, though, now, too, because I was at SARS, where I was already skeptical of some of their produce. So I took a good look and I'm like, no, these aren't the blueberries for me, especially at that. At that price. But then, I mean, I really trust. This is why I'm so shocked. Like, I really.

[B]

It's in the name Sprouts.

[A]

I know and tell you we're the.

[B]

Place for this kind of organic material.

[A]

And I don't think that just fell for their marketing. Like, I remember I was only going in there every now and then for something very specific. I can't remember what it was. I can tell you it wasn't Jim Beam, because I don't think they sell it there. But little by little, I was like, well, I'm here. I'll pick up this, I'll pick up that. And I remember this was maybe last summer or something, coming home with a bunch of fruit or some sort of produce from Sprouts and being like, oh, this is markedly better. This is markedly better. And then I remember thinking, well, I'll bet you we're paying out the nose. And then it turns out that's not the case either. Like, they have really leaned into this idea of good.

[B]

Good.

[A]

Of good quality produce that is affordable. But I've never brought home blueberries from the store that tasted so bad right out of the canister.

[B]

Well, what's funny is, first of all, again, I just think it's totally hit and miss even within the same store. Like, you could go to, you know, blueberries, Andrew, at a store, it's like a river. You go and you. You put your hand into it for a few hours.

[A]

Into the blueberries, into the blue.

[B]

Speaking a witch of, by the way, which is a joke that Becca And I say to each other, except we made the joke too much. And so now sometimes I say speaking, which of which is. We know someone who says that. Like, they don't know that it's speaking of which.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so we say that kind of jokingly, except you, You. You wear the mask too long and then you forget that it's not speaking.

[A]

Which of like supposedly.

[B]

Supposedly expresso. But anyway, like, I have. So what I've noticed now from getting the blueberries at Trader Joe's that I've been getting is they have the opposite problem. They're too tart. It's like, I think maybe to try to counteract what you're dealing with, which is that they're. They're sort of almost like rotting when you get them. These ones are like, they're so tart that you bite into them and you kind of pucker.

[A]

Are they tiny? Are they small and tart?

[B]

No, they're big.

[A]

Really? Oh, I thought the bigger, the sweeter these are.

[B]

These are pretty large and pretty tart blueberries to where like when I got them home and took a handful and threw them in, it was like, you know that feeling you get kind of right at both of your jaw where like your mandible attaches to your skull.

[A]

Bunch of salivas release.

[B]

Yes, precisely. And so then it took like, I don't know, it took three or four days before these blueberries calmed down and were like, tasted like they were in. They were in the right range of doneness, I guess. So all of this is to say, and, and, and yes, I don't think we're probably in the. In the prime season for local blueberries at this point. So any, that any blueberries you see in the store are going to have been shipped here from Mars. And it might be time to just say, like, you might be time to retire from blueberries until, you know, basically late spring rolls around.

[A]

Yeah, I might have to do that. And then I don't know what I'm putting in my cereal because the strawberries. Well, strawberries are going to be around the same seasonal. I cut up some strawberries yesterday, which they're not like the blueberries, where I think they've gone bad, but they don't seem very ripe. I feel like we're just going to be in a pretty rough spot for any kind of fruits that aren't like oranges and apples, you know, for the next little bit. And, and I don't know, like, I. Like I said, I will still eat grape nuts without fruit and strawberries will still be there for me, and I assume we'll still keep shipping them.

[B]

What about a banana? Do you ever throw a banana into that washing we did when I was a kid?

[A]

When I was a kid, we did that. There are a few things in my life that I did eat as a kid, but I won't eat as an adult. Usually it's the opposite. Usually it's stuff I wouldn't eat for most of my life, but as I've gotten older and just somewhat lazier about ordering food, I'm just like, leave the mayonnaise on, who cares? But bananas is one thing that I remember the sensation of having them in cereal. When I say the sensation, I remember the mouth feel of it and everything. And now there's nothing that. Well, there are things that turn my stomach more, but the idea of eating a banana or a banana in cereal actually kind of makes my stomach turn.

[B]

It was a weird kind of mushy thing. I remember being a kid and we would get. Now, the reason we ate a lot of Grape Nuts, and I've mentioned this plenty of times, but we were on something called wic, which is like women, infants and children. We were on a thing, Andrew, that's probably going away for a lot of people this weekend, which is, I mean, just horrific to think about as a product of a lot of those systems. You know, I'm here today to some degree because of the social safety net, and it's. It just absolutely shatters my heart to think about that being reduced for people that need it. But so all the cereals that we would get had to be, like, kind of quote unquote healthy. They had been deemed healthy by, I guess, like the state of Washington or something. So we couldn't get any sugary cereal. So a lot of Grape Nuts, I think some. I don't even know if corn. I think probably we're allowed to do corn flakes, although I don't think we're really a big cornflake family. I just remember Mike putting, like, my mom being like, oh, put some bananas in it. It'll be better. And even as a kid being like, I don't think this texture works. It's like a mushy thing that's next to another thing that is going to be turning to mush too quickly, which is like a corn flake or maybe a bran flake or something. And like, you'd. Occasionally, you'd see that on the box of cereal, right? Would be bananas cut up and put in there. I feel like that was A holdover from a time when we didn't have as good of stuff to put in things. Yeah. We didn't have as we didn't probably you couldn't get blueberries year round or maybe not as cheaply or whatever. Like, I feel like bananas. And I'm, I'm saying I know this is controversial. I know we probably have some people out there who really, really love bananas. And I don't, you know, I'll have one now and then, but I feel like bananas are this. They were a big treat when we didn't have as good of stuff to eat. Is my personal take on bananas. Don't me people.

[A]

Well, it's funny because I don't think of them as a treat. I think of them as people who love them. Love them because of how both sturdy and nutritious they are. You know, like bananas. Really?

[B]

Yeah, Potassium.

[A]

They're very, very healthy. And also they're so easy. You throw them in your bag, you know, like, it's just like it provides. They're not like sugar.

[B]

They're going out of style, I'm sure.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What's going on?

[A]

They're not like, they're not as much of a sugar based fruit like everything that I've described so far. Right. But I just, I don't them. I'd probably be a better person if I did.

[B]

I want to, I mean, let me be. Back away, banana breath.

[A]

What the hell did you just eat a banana?

[B]

I want to be clear. I actually will eat a banana now and then. Like, it's not that I don't enjoy the experience, but I don't. I feel like it was a. We were misguided putting them in cereal. I think that was. I think that was a mistake. I think we all look back on that with some amount of regret as a nation.

[A]

I would like to know. And there's no way for me to sort of Google this on the fly. I don't think maybe ChatGPT could help. I mentioned that on the grape Nuts box, you see the bowl of cereal is presented with blueberries and strawberries. Interestingly, I was just looking kind of all pushed to one side, which I think is sort of interesting. And I think a lot of cereal boxes. Do you think that Kellogg's Corn Flakes. What do you think is on that box? Do they show the. More often than not, they're probably showing fruit in cereal. Right. And I'm wondering to what degree they're showing bananas. And I'm doubting these days at all. It looks like Corn flakes do maybe show strawberries in the modern strawberries.

[B]

I mean the thing also is strawberries probably photographed better, right?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

It's kind of a nice contrast. A banana doesn't really. Doesn't really, you know, stand out in the.

[A]

Do you know that the Cheerios box and I. But Cheerios would be the next thing that I buy actually more often. The Grape Nuts strawberries in the photo on the box, do you put something you.

[B]

Do you put fruit in your cheer? I feel like Cheerios for me were very bland. Like I wasn't. I was. I would put sugar on them or then occasionally we would get honey nut Cheerios, which I friggin loved. But regular Cheerios to me in the bowl, unless you're augmenting it always seemed kind of like it didn't taste very. It tasted kind of bland to me.

[A]

Yeah. Cheerios are not an exciting cereal, but they're a stamp. They're my banana of cereals. They're just like. They never let me down. And if I had.

[B]

But do you put something in them?

[A]

If it's not necessary. But if I. It's kind of the same rule as Grape Nuts. Like if I have it, I will throw it in there. Now I've kind of gotten obsessed with putting blueberries in my Grape Nuts. Although today might turn me off of that for a while. They were truly bad. They were truly bad.

[B]

I know that that's like.

[A]

It ruined my bowl of cereal. It tasted like fermentation. But by the way, Crispex. Crispex. Raspberries too. Raspberries on their box. I love that. Remember the Crispix jingle? I don't think so, but I'm interested. This is one of my favorite cereals, so I'm interested in hearing it. Let me see.

[B]

Kellogg's Crispix is crispy times two.

[A]

Here we go. I got it right here. No need to sing.

[B]

I'll never understand how they did this.

[A]

Kellogg's Crispix is crispy times two.

[B]

Maybe.

[A]

Then again, no.

[B]

Crispix is crispy times two. Only Crispix cereal holds the crunch of.

[A]

Corn on one side, the crackle of rice on the other. So good. Some wonderful way Kellogg's doubled what Crisp used to be.

[B]

Very clever, those. Kellogg's only Crispix is Crispy times too.

[A]

That's.

[B]

That is. I was pretty close, by the way.

[A]

Yeah. Very good on the jingle. I don't remember that jingle. I love Crispix. But now Crispix, that stuff you got to be on top of because that will start getting soft very, very quickly. Maybe the top of the list of things that turn soft and milk.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, definitely. You gotta. You gotta ride heard on that one. All right, let's thank some donors. These folks, Andrew, they may be. Depending on when they're listening to this episode, they could be sitting at the breakfast table. They could be enjoying some kind of a breakfast cereal even right now.

[A]

I hope those blueberries.

[B]

That's the kind of highly relevant content that we provide on this show to, to everybody, to all of our listeners, including the people who are donating to the show. That's how this thing can happen five days a week. This is listener supported podcasting. And we had a nice TBTB meeting yesterday with our friend and colleague John Sklaroff where we're cooking up some. Some fun stuff coming up for the tens of listeners. So watch the space for that. And we also want to thank Bonnie D. Padua today of Garden Grove, California.

[A]

Oh, beautiful garden.

[B]

Sounds lush.

[A]

Population of 171,949 people. Off the top of the dome, I'm guessing.

[B]

Wow. Garden Grove, huh? A growing. A growing little area. I was gonna say metropolis, but I don't know what the cutoff for Metropolis.

[A]

I don't know either. I don't know. Here's what.

[B]

When I. When I think of Garden Grove, California, I think of Bougainvillea.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Like the whole place is, is. Is just bursting with and covered in bougainvillea, which is one of the best things to be bursting with and covered in.

[A]

It certainly is. It's at the top of my list. Yeah.

[B]

Thanks also to Anne Marie Kugelman, who's in Seattle, Washington.

[A]

Beautiful. Seattle, Washington. I know where that is.

[B]

Groban Via in Seattle, Washington, is a question.

[A]

I feel like this has come up.

[B]

On the show before because of my star Jasmine thing.

[A]

What.

[B]

What growing zone? This is what I need to know. What growing zone does Bogan Villa thrive in?

[A]

How close did you get to spelling Bougainville correctly, by the way?

[B]

Not even a little bit close. I. I just. I let go and I let.

[A]

God, I just put a B and a V in there and hit go.

[B]

Actually, you know what? I might have just actually spelled it right.

[A]

Really well.

[B]

No, no, no, I was wrong.

[A]

Sorry.

[B]

I spelled it B O, U, G, A, N, V, I, L, L, A.

[A]

I think I actually was very close.

[B]

I was kind of close. I was. I was missing an I and then at the end I needed an E, so I was two letters.

[A]

Ou. You start with B O, U. I did not. So good for you.

[B]

Nine through 11. Okay. I'm in eight and a half here, Andrew, so I could. Oh, man. This is a new winter project for me which is researching bougainville. I've got that star jasmine going, which I'm very, very pleased with. It's still. Actually, I'm looking. It's still got flowers on it, Andrew.

[A]

Oh, nice. Yeah, that's what. That's fab. I was thinking about that the other day because I was thinking about my favorite smells and I was like, I don't think the star jasmine is an underrated smell. I think that is a properly rated smell.

[B]

And I don't know if bougainville has a smell. I just love it. It's got those beautiful red, you know, flowers on it. And again, it's. I mean, where I lived in la, I think I've told this story before, but our. There was this back alley, you know, that was obviously sort of, you know, the part of LA that I was living in, let's just say, was in transition. And, and. And so the alley was really nothing to write home about. A lot of graffiti, a lot of just kind of like people would just dump couches and stuff all the time, just random stuff, but also just a ton of bougainvillea. And the bougainvillea would eventually just like overtake the graffiti. If you left a couch there long enough, it would grow and it kind of became this beautiful. This beautiful thing. It was like a. It was just like a coverall. It was just like. You know what I mean? It was like putting. What does Chrissy Hines say in the. I'm not in love. It's like I hang a picture on the wall. It covers an ugly space that's lying there or something. Like, it's just kind of a nice little coverall. Oh, she's saying, I hang your picture on the wall to cover up something that's there. It's not because she's in love with it. I always thought that was such a. I always thought that was such a great line.

[A]

So bougainville. At the risk of salting to anybody, I think that I like bougainvillea in LA because of its LA ness. And this is going to be a little bit. You don't need to grow it here in southern Ohio. No, I think you can do whatever you want. But it does, like, star jasmine has an appeal to me here because I love the smell of it and what have you. But, like, this is where, like, I am not a huge fan of the. Of the flora, generally speaking, of the Desert, like, you know, like when we would go on the very occasional day hike or something like that, it did not fulfill me the way the very occasional day hike here in Seattle if we go to Wallace Falls or something. Lush and green guy, or just green, you know, and like, kind of the dusty landscape of the desert didn't do a lot for me in Bougainville. You would see it all over the place. And to me, like, it would represent, like, kind of. It was one of the things that seemed a little bit lush in a place where very few things were lush. And so I loved it because of that. But I don't feel like I need that in Seattle because of all the other lushness that goes on.

[B]

That's a good. I mean, I can. I understand that. Take, I think, what I. I think my weirdness. And this probably started at the Burbank Springs Broadcast center in Bellingham, Washington, which was an attempt to basically recreate Palm Springs about 30 miles from the Canadian border.

[A]

North of Seattle. Yes.

[B]

Well, north. I mean, you know, like practically Canada.

[A]

Two hours north of Seattle. Yes.

[B]

A traditional home for Xeriscape and the desert Southwest landscaping. But it was like, I mean, you know, Carrie and I were really, really loved Palm Springs. And the house happened to have a swimming pool. And so we kind of got off on this whole thing of like, you know, having like, you know, flaming, red hot flaming poker plants that were growing and. And a lot of other like, sort of pompous grass and what's your opinion on pompous grass, by the way?

[A]

I don't know. Pompous grass.

[B]

I bet you. If you.

[A]

If. But it sounds like it's a little bit big on itself, to be honest with you. I can tell you right now I don't like it. I think it needs to be taken down a level.

[B]

But like, we had a lot of stuff like that growing that was like, you know, to your point. It was not. I mean, it grew in the Northwest, but it was probably. It wasn't the kind of thing that was going to naturally grow everywhere if you let things kind of go to seed. It kind of represented an attempt to create one kind of a green environment inside of a larger context of a green.

[A]

Oh, I see. It's like a big fluffy kind of almost like a field. Field grass almost.

[B]

It grows like crazy around here. I really like it. I think it's really. I think it's a cool looking plant. And it's like.

[A]

It's. It's.

[B]

It's almost an invasive species out here. Where I am in Southern Washington, but I am also thinking of planting some of it next year because.

[A]

Oh, your neighbor's gonna love that. What's the other stuff?

[B]

Tandy.

[A]

Tan.

[B]

Tansy. But I think I've kind of like, listen, first of all, I gotta say thanks to Julie Taznady, who's in Salem, Oregon.

[A]

Thank you, Julie.

[B]

Appreciate you. And also Stacey Bryant, who's in Madison, Wisconsin. We love Madison.

[A]

And Stacy.

[B]

And Stacy. Those are two things we love. I think that I might have worn my neighbor down on that whole Tansy thing. I think that. I think that that whole story, Andrew, which came years ago on the show, which is. I wasn't even living up here. I remember. I remember pretty clearly. I was at my place in Portland, and I think we were about to dial up for this, or we had dialed up. We were about to start recording, and I believe you said to me, I think there's a voicemail on the TBTL line from your neighbor.

[A]

I played it that other house.

[B]

And I think he was like. And that was, of course, what he said.

[A]

Like, you have.

[B]

Your hill is a fire hazard. And also you have Tandy. Tansy or whatever it's called, growing, which is. Which is prohibited or something illegal. And so I, you know, and I think I'm gonna.

[A]

I'm gonna. I. I'll beep. I'm not gonna play the whole thing.

[B]

Wait, do you actually have the email thing?

[A]

I throw anything away?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Message for Luke Burbank. He's going to say his name here. Likely Luke. I will be.

[B]

Will you believe this?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, please do.

[B]

This is your next door neighbor. Say your property is growing a fire.

[A]

Hazard in the neighborhood and it needs.

[B]

To be mowed down.

[A]

Additionally, there are tansy growing that are ready to go to seed.

[B]

Those are yellow flowers out on your.

[A]

Property, and the wind will blow over on the mine and sprout there.

[B]

Cowlitz county requires landowners to take care.

[A]

Of Tansy and make sure it doesn't grow. You want to get back to me? Quoting local law is a move you have. Not even coming in hot. You've never said hello to this person at this point. You've never met at that point? Yes.

[B]

Not that point. I had not. But I mean, the good news is, for whatever reason, my response to this was not to do my usual thing, which would be to feel criticized and be offended. I actually, like, called him right back. I was like, hey, I'm really sorry about that. Why don't I come up to the property? We can kind of walk around and you can kind of let me know what you're talking about. And we did, and we had a really nice time. And now I'm actually good pals with. With them. But I think also that was coming because at that time I mostly was in Portland. This house was up here, but it was kind of uninhabited. And I think he probably was. I think that was coming from a.

[A]

Place of fear because future tripping about.

[B]

Like, what Little future tripping about like, oh, this guy. Oh, this hotshot podcaster bought this little cabin and is now just letting the place just kind of go Gray Gardens. And because this last year, Andrew, I didn't even brush hog the hill. I didn't even mow the hill, nor did I even pull. There actually isn't very much tansy. I might have pulled a little bit of it. I didn't hear a peep. In other words, I. I really wonder if my hill was being a fire hazard and. Or if the tansy was really that.

[A]

You know, he just sort of kind of dangerous. Yeah. Just sort of thinking like, okay, yeah, what's. We have a. We have an absentee exact owner. Basically.

[B]

That's kind of where I think that was coming from because now that I'm here all the time and. And they see me out, you know, day and night doing crap on the property, I think that it's. I think now every. The good news is I have a really great relationship with all of my neighbors who I feel really lucky. They are my neighbors because they're all chill, awesome people. But I think they needed. I think he needed to see that I was actually serious about the maintenance of this place. And then once that was established, I think everyone's anxiety went down a bit. I know that Noah Orner's anxiety went way down, all the way from Bethesda, Maryland. Noah was out there in Bethesda going like, God, how much tansy is actually growing there. And I know it's a ragwort. I know that it's toxic to livestock, but also how much livestock is on Luke's Hill. And the answer, Noah, as you now know, is zero.

[A]

Although you do have. Don't have any livestock cows in the river. I saw somebody had a question, because sometimes you explain why there are cows in the river and sometimes you don't. And we got a note from somebody yesterday who was confused about why there are cows in the river.

[B]

So there is an island near my house. Yeah, it's an island. There's an island not too far from my house that somebody owns. It's Just like in the Columbia river, but it also just happens to have a lot of, like, grass on it and some trees and stuff. And the people who own this island, I think, also own some cows. And what they do, I've learned, is they bring the cows out, like, on a boat or something at some point, and they just let them live on the island because there's plenty of grass for them to graze, but because it's also kind of in this, like, part of the. It's very near the shore. So it's. The river is. It's not like, in the middle of the river with, like, rushing water. The cows, particularly on summer days, but just randomly will just. They're just kind of eating grass, and then they're just standing in the river, like, knee deep in the river, drinking some water, eating some, I don't know, river river grass or something. And it's a thing that I had never seen before in my life because cows are usually out in a pasture in, you know, like, well, in the landlocked area. And so when I see the cows are in the river, it makes me happy because I feel like they're having a nice time again. This is particularly in the warm summer months. I just love that these cows can roam around this island, and then they can, like, kind of chill in the river again. They're never swimming. They're not, like, up to their, you know, chest or anything, but they'll just be up to their knees, and they're just kind of, like, having a time, and, like, it makes me happy for them.

[A]

So when I come. Island cows, they're an island time, bro.

[B]

It's all about. It's all about attitudes and latitudes for these cows. But, like, it seriously makes me happy when I see them. And so when I say the cows are in the river, I mean, it's a nice day. I mean, the cows are just kind of, like, chilling, standing on the beach, doing their thing. These cows seem like they're having a hell of a life, honestly.

[A]

I mean, the irony. You know, the irony is here.

[B]

What?

[A]

These cows are not having a cow, man. They're, like, so chill.

[B]

No, the fertility rates among these cows is actually troubling.

[A]

Yeah, that's kind of the sad side plummeting.

[B]

But, no, they are. You're absolutely right. These cows are not having a cow. They're just wandering around this big old island and they're chomping on grass, and then when they get a little warm or whatever, they're standing in the river, and like, then they just go like, it seems to me to be about as idyllic a life as you could.

[A]

Have as a cow.

[B]

And I'm really happy for the them.

[A]

As am I.

[B]

And as is Annie Hayward and our pal Annie Hayward in Seattle, Washington. What up, Annie?

[A]

How you doing, Annie? Our dear friend and former colleague. Yeah, current friend.

[B]

She was at our former colleague mentions today.

[A]

I know it's old homes day here on tbt.

[B]

Thank you, Annie. Thank you to all of our donors for making TBTL possible. Couldn't do this without you.

[A]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[B]

This is an interesting Top Story that is once again sent to us by our colleague and TVTL employee, numero uno. And now junior producer John Sklaroff. This is the second story in a couple of days that he forwarded to us and was like, you got to check this out. And he was, in my opinion, absolutely right. I had seen this headline a little bit bouncing around, but I hadn't really dug into the story much until. Until today, until John sent us the link. And basically, okay, in New York, if you don't know there's a race for mayor, they're voting on it next Tuesday, I'll be in New York City. It'll be kind of interesting to be in New York City on the election day when this big race between Zoran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo and I guess to some degree, Curtis Sliwa comes, comes to a head. Korzoran Mamdani is seen as a very progressive candidate and Cuomo is also a Democrat, but a much, much more middle of the road, much more sort of like funded by traditional, I guess, you know, interests kind of candidate.

[A]

And a good guy that we can kind of trust in office and trust with power.

[B]

Oh, absolutely. And comes from a family of good guys.

[A]

Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Comes from a family of unproblematic New York Democrat guys. And so, you know, the story went that basically the way that I found out about the story was that a newspaper, the Times of London, which I understand is owned by Rupert Murdoch. So that tells you, I think, what you need to know. The Times of London had run this article that said Bill de Blasio, Bill de Blasio, former mayor of New York City, had basically been critical of Zoran Mamdani. And that was a big story because it was sort of like Democrat on Democrat violence, I guess. And so that made the headlines until Bill de Blasio, former mayor of New York City, said, I absolutely did not do an interview with the Times of London criticizing this guy. Zoran Mamdani. I support him. And so then the story was, oh, wow, the Times of London got taken by a Bill de Blasio impersonator. That's, I believe, how the New York Times characterized it. But here's the real story. The Bill de Blasio that the Times of London reached out to via email. His name is Bill de Blasio. I think he's like a wine merchant in New York. And he basically got an email saying, what do you think about the mayoral race? And he gave his honest opinion, which is he thinks that Mamdani's policies are not realistic. And so he wasn't a Bill de Blasio impersonator. He's a guy named Bill de Blasio, who, it turns out, is kind of butthurt about how many times he's confused with the other Bill de Blasio and has, by his account, received many, many angry emails over the years to his email account people trying to reach out to the former mayor of New York, or maybe at the time, current mayor of New York, other Bill de Blasio. And so this is sort. I mean, now the thing is, we'll call him Bill de Blasio number two, which I'm sure he would love. Bill de Blasio, wine merchant, basically said, I knew that they thought they were reaching out to the other Bill de Blasio, and I did not correct them on this, but that's on them to fact check and figure out that I'm not that Bill de Blasio. They asked me, Bill de Blasio, my opinion on this guy, and I gave them my opinion on this guy. And so it's an interesting question of, like, he's not impersonating Bill de Blasio, but he is knowingly kind of misleading these people as to which Bill de Blasio he is. Who do you think. Who does the responsibility lie with here, in your opinion?

[A]

Well, I think there's a lot of kind of finger pointing to go around. I mean, the major sin here is on the journalists. Absolutely. There's no doubt about it. This is, as you like to say, Luke, bunk journalism. Actually, who says that this is bunk Journal?

[B]

I don't even know where this came from. I'd like to point out to anybody watching, this is really bunk journalism.

[A]

Oh, is that.

[B]

I feel like the origin of that clip is about something that has almost no meaning, which is part of why we thought it was funny, like some complete nonsense story where the people are calling it bunk journalism.

[A]

Anyway, I, you know, the. The Plot. The de Blasio, who is the wine merchant, even said, like, I thought, you know, after I gave my response via email, I thought a bunch of his. I think he said a bunch of. I thought a bunch of his reporter friends were going to come and make sure I was real or something. Which is like, which is a funny way of putting it. But yeah, fact checking is so important. And it's also probably the first thing that goes these days in newsrooms, you know, like, and again, you're talking about Times of London, so who knows what goes on in that newsroom. They got the quote that they wanted, right? And so you run with it. So I definitely think that the vast majority of fault of the story lies with the Times of London and journalism. I just. So this story that you're kind of quoting from, or at least the ones that I had seen bouncing around and that were in the show sheet today, were from this publication called Semaphore, which I didn't know about. Apparently you follow Semaphore more closely than I do, but an independent journalistic entity. Right? And the first graph, here's what got me. So I'd seen the story bouncing around, but when I finally sit down to read it, I read this latest update from Semaphore. And the first graph is essentially this. I'm going to sort of paraphrase the beginning of it, but it says the man at the heart of this high stakes mix up was neither falsely claiming to be Mayor Bill de Blasio, as the time suggested, or nor was he a de Blasio impersonator, as the New York Times wrote. And so it's sort of like the story begins with what feels to me like a sort of like sort of a snarky victory lap for Semaphore, saying, oh, look, you know, like, oh, this guy is neither an impersonator or was falsely claiming. And I don't, I don't know exactly how you characterized it or what words you should use, but this man knew that things there was a mix up and he didn't care and leaned into it and as the article says, says, used AI to help craft a response.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so to me, that's a big part of this too, because. Okay, I forgot about that part. Maybe he's not technically an impersonator or. And maybe he didn't falsely claim it because they approached him, which is his whole point. But this fella, he's. You know how they say sometimes the characteristics and other people that drive you the most crazy are the ones that Remind you of yourself maybe this guy being sort of like a little bit snarky, but like, right, right within the limits of what truth telling is when you know you're essentially lying and misleading. Like, he knew that this was a mix up and these people were approaching him and then he said, fine. And I think there's a quote in here that says like, fine, if you're going to reach out to me, I'm going to give you my opinion. So I turned to AI to crack craft a response. Now you're like, what was in that AI search? And I don't know. Now this is rank speculation on my part, but if you ask AI to write a opinion, not an opinion piece, but let's say an opinion that is negative towards mom, dummy. And you put it in the. Did he ask it to put it in the tone of former mayor Bill de Blasio? Because that's something AI can do and we've seen AI do that pretty well. Like, I don't think it says tone. No. And it doesn't. And that's why I said it's ranked speculation. But, but this newspaper is sort of like, this guy was neither an impersonator nor neither an impersonator nor somebody who is falsely claiming. And I would argue that he was sort of falsely misleading. I mean, maybe you're taking issue with the word claiming because they approached him, he didn't reach out to them, but he is falsely misleading and using digital tools to craft a response. I would say that he was purposely misleading. And maybe it's funny, but like, you know, like, don't, don't make it sound like this was just like a oh, shucks thing. It definitely was not an aw shucks thing.

[B]

Right? Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, it was, there was, it was more than just a simple mix up. And this guy was pretty complicit. I guess what I would say too is it's this guy's interesting to me. I'm talking about Bill de Blasio, the wine merchant. Because I actually think, look, I don't know, Mom. I'm not super read in on all of this. I mean, I think that my, my general default would be like, let's see how Mamdani does. Like, I definitely like him over Cuomo. I also don't live in New York City, so I feel like my opinion on the mayoral race there is, you know, not of huge value to people. I do, like, I do wonder about things like a rent freeze, like, which again, I just don't know Enough about the economics of the place. But what I think is kind of interesting is Bill de Blasio, number two, the wine merchant guy, in a weird way, it's like, I feel like he could have messed with them so much more than he did. Like, his basic take, it seems, was. And I'm not defending the guy because he is being kind of a little bit. He's being kind of a little. He's being a little stinker here. But his basic thing, it sounds like, was he goes, I think I'm kind of. You can tell me how close I'm getting to what he said. But it's something like. He goes, I wouldn't really. I just don't know if. If Mamdani's policies are going to work unless we could see in 10 years how it goes or something.

[A]

Yeah, that's what he says. And he does say that, like the. This. The response he sent does reflect his own personal views as a New Yorker, which is that. That Mamdani's platform is not something he could achieve.

[B]

But it wasn't. I guess what I mean is, like, he could have also just been so peace and love to our listeners on Staten Island. He could have been so Staten island with this. He just been like, the guy's a bum or like he's a communist. I feel like he kind of basically said, I just don't know if these policies are actually. If they're gonna have the desired effect. Which is, to me, a weirdly measured thing to say, actually.

[A]

Well, that's what he said. Just to be clear, this is what he said to SEMA for. We have no idea, unless you saw it in another page.

[B]

Oh. Cause they pulled down the Times of London.

[A]

I don't know what his quotes in the Times of London was. It says, the very last quote in the Semaphore article, I believe is a quote from de Blasio, the wine importer or wine merchant, as you said, to Semaphore, that says, to be honest, I don't think it's feasible unless you're going to be in office for 10 years. That's totally fine. But we don't really know what was actually in. Somebody was a screen captain. In fact, maybe I should have read that before starting this conversation. I don't know what was in the original. What fiery, potentially fiery quotes were in the original article.

[B]

Yeah, I'm trying to see if I could find a cached version of that article, but I don't think me finding that and trying to read it on the fly would be entertaining for anyone. The other thing I like about this story is unrelated to the politics of it, but there's a photograph of these two Bills de Blasio together, because one time Bill de Blasio, the wine merchant, was at a Mets game. I guess they're both Mets fans or they both attended a Mets game and Bill de Blasio, the mayor, was there. And according to Bill de Blasio, the wine merchant, some people that were working at the game were so struck by the fact that his name was Bill de Blasio, which, by the way, doesn't seem that crazy to me. In New York City, there's probably like eight people named Bill de Blasio. It's William, Italian last name.

[A]

Don't you think?

[B]

That's a pretty common last name and a pretty common thing in New York.

[A]

I was kind of surprised you didn't mention what I thought was the first real dazzling detail of the story. Clearly, wine merchant de Blasio is a real cut up. And also he'd been receiving emails, you know, errant emails to the other de Blasio for years and years. And he said it was all just like, just years of receiving, just hate mail, basically. But he also. The article in Semaphore points out that they spell their names slightly differently. Oh, yeah, and it says de Blasio, the wine merchant spells it capital D, E, capital B, L, A, S, I, O. And the politician is lowercase D with a space between D and blas. And it says here, in de Blasio's view, the wine merchant, low class Italians use the little D. That's why I.

[B]

Figured a guy who's saying that it would also just be like so much more scorching earth as opposed to like. Well, we just don't know. We don't have the benefit of time to understand if these policies will do what they're supposed to do. But this photo of them is kind of, is kind of funny to me because it seems like de Blasio the wine merchant is getting more of a kick out of it than de Blasio the politician. Yeah, like in the photo. And this is the other question that's raised for me, is when de Blasio the wine merchant shows up at a Mets game, does he tell everyone his name as he's being seated? When have you ever told an usher your name as you're getting seated at a Mariners game? At the maximum, you show them your ticket, which again, I don't remember to have my name on it. And they just tell You. It's down that way and take a right. How is the staff at Shea Stadium or whatever they call it now? Probably Citibank Field or some shit? Like, how are the staff at like, Citibank Park Field? How did they know that this wine merchant's name was Bill de Blasio and then put together that the other Bill de Blasio was there and then coordinate this meet? Cute. There's parts of that story that make no sense.

[A]

Yeah, I'd like to hear more about that story. Did you read directly from the. This is the very quick description of this from the semaphore story. De Blasio said he met de Blasio once at a 2016 New York Mets playoff game. He said he was asked by security guards who couldn't believe the coincidence, and they said, quote, hey, do you want to meet the real Bill de Blasio? And then he says, how bad is having the last the same last name as me? The politician asked him. He responded, dude, you're killing me. So this guy's funny? Actually, yes, pretty funny. And of course, he's smiling very big in the photo.

[B]

De Blasio, the wine merchant.

[A]

Yes, Wine. Wine. De Blasio, smiling huge. The politician, you know, looking game enough. Here's my one. Here's my one possibility, and I think it's a far fetched one. He might have one of those Mets jerseys that has his own last name on the back of it.

[B]

I'm seeing in this photo such a. That that theory has a lot of validity to.

[A]

That would be how you. The photo, though. He's wearing a number 57 Mets jersey, but I only see the front of it. And I don't know baseball or the Mets well enough to know Mets number 57. If that's like. Because if this is a very common jersey, Johan Santana, would that make sense? If that's the case, he's just wearing a Santana jersey.

[B]

And then they found the guy from Santana, they put him together.

[A]

You're so smooth.

[B]

That would be such a flex. Like, okay, that would be the main downside of your last name being de Blasio. And then also there's a mayor of New York that's de Blasio that everyone's got kind of a, you know, an ax to grind with. Because if you do want to do a personalized jersey, people are like, are you the world's number one fan of our current mayor?

[A]

Yeah. Right. You know what I mean?

[B]

Like, it would ruin it. Would it? Like, it would, like, ruin your ability to do That I would, I don't want to say weird thing, people can do whatever they want, but that thing of putting your own name on the back of a jersey of the baseball team you like because everyone thinks you're making a political statement. You're like, what? It's my name. And if you look closely, it's how high class Italians do.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. How low class Italians sounds like something he would do. What do you mean? It's my name. It's just, he's, he's just. Again, I don't mind.

[B]

I like this guy more than you do, I think.

[A]

No, again, I actually, I think my biggest issue here is with semaphore. And not that they're doing bad reporting, but I feel like the top graph is disingenuous. The top graph of the follow up story is kind of like, haha, he wasn't impersonating. And I actually take issue with that. I feel like he was impersonating at a certain point. He knew that there was a mix up of identity and he leaned into it and he used a computer program to help him lean into it. That feels like impersonating to me.

[B]

It's your opinion that a person can impersonate another person even if they have the same name as said person?

[A]

Yes. And if you're, you know, because of.

[B]

The misunderstanding that was in play.

[A]

Yeah, I mean there's a chance this could have played where somebody really was thinking. When I first saw this headline and the opening graph, I really thought the story was going to be like I'm getting. Lately I've been getting requests to fill out polls and stuff all the time regarding public transportation. I'm not kidding. I filled out a couple and now they're like sending me all the time. I think I'm on something called the Community Transportation Feedback Board or something. So anyway, I thought this story was going to be about a guy who has de Blasio's name but doesn't have this whole history of meeting him, of receiving his emails of all this stuff and just receiving some sort of a generic feedback thing that says, oh, what do you think about this candidate? There's tons of this going on in New York right now. Obviously, literally the world's attention is on this mayoral race. Right. And so like I could have seen somebody being like, oh, they want my opinion. And then there was a true mix up. But in this case it's immediately clear, no, this isn't a true mix up. This guy realizes somebody messed up and he's leaning into it and purposely Misleading them. I'm not saying that. I'm not even criticizing him for doing it. I'm just saying that the. The storyline of. Of him not being an impersonator is not. I've said the same thing a million times. I just don't think that that's genuine.

[B]

I also, again, I hope that. I hope that you take this in the spirit that it's intended. Andrew, I could see you potentially doing something a little bit like this because, like, you'd be like, maybe your thought would be, hey, if they're not going to do their journalism right, I'm not gonna make it easy on them.

[A]

Yeah. And if it's a publication that I don't like. Although in this case, it's really de Blasio, the politician who I didn't realize before reading this had already come out publicly in favor or with support for Mom Down Me, which is one of the reasons why this was such a bombshell, that he had publicly supported him, but then supposedly privately in an email said that I don't think that he's gonna achieve what he wants to achieve or something. That would be huge if it were coming from somebody who was publicly supporting this politician, but then leaking this via email. So by. I just want to be clear again, I'm not even saying that this guy, this wine merchant, is in the wrong here. I just think the way we tell the story is important.

[B]

There's a right way to rock and.

[A]

A wrong way to roll. You can't just listen to your song. Just remember that life is number one. You can be having so much fun. Just remember that life is much fun. You can be nothing but one day. We have a mere handful of birthdays today. Lou, blurs days today. Maybe they're out of season like blueberries.

[B]

Yeah, I've got some blurs days that honestly were. Some of them were too tart.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Some of them actually a little overripe, so.

[A]

Well, luckily, these are very, very sweet blurs days we have. You can send in your blurs day. Email me andrewbtl.net and put Blursday in the subject line. We might have to do blurs days a little bit early next week. Might have to do them on Wednesday or something because my travel plans might mess things up. So maybe get your blurs days in early next week. Andrewbtl.net and these are some of the blurs days we received recently. I got a note that says, hey, this is Dakota calling in a super special blurs day shout out to Amy. Her birthday is literally today. Thank You. Nice. All right. Happy birthday to Amy. You know we got a lot of Lloyds who listen to the show, Luke. And I don't know if you remember this, but we dubbed one of them Halloween Lloyd a couple of years ago. Because Halloween Lloyd celebrates his blurs day on Halloween. We got this note from Halloween Lloyd saying I wish myself a happy 85th Blurs Day.

[B]

Heck yeah, Lloyd. Lloyd, we love it. Happy blurs, man.

[A]

Absolutely. And finally our pal Sarah on Bainbridge says happy blurs day to me. Now I want to point out here, Sarah spells blurs day with a Z, which adds a little sizzle to the whole blurs day thing, don't you think?

[B]

Sounds like he's wearing sunglasses and being in a bad boys club.

[A]

You know what I realized yesterday and this is relevant and I'm sorry I didn't mention it earlier in the show. I finally got back digitizing a bunch of old commercials that I'm finding mostly from the 90s on VHS tapes. Went through tons of them yesterday and one of the commercials was from 1992, Luke, and it was for the GEO prism. And I didn't realize until I was saving the file that prism was spelled with a Z. Did you know that?

[B]

I had forgotten that.

[A]

I did not know that. The computer's like, don't you mean prism? And I was like, no I don't. It's like said, yes you do. And I was like son of a gun. I guess I do. It really adds some.

[B]

He's a prisoner of his own grievances. Some of the prisoner of his own grievances.

[A]

A little sizzle to it. Anyway, Sarah, this is what happens when we have so few blurs days. I get to tell stories about geop.

[B]

I like it. We get to tap dance.

[A]

We get to fill. Absolutely happy blursday to me. I turned 63 last week. And every stinking year I tell myself, Sarah, just write in you matter. Mother Superior. Mother Superior. I like that we can call you that. Just ask Eric on Bainbridge. No, don't do that. I've spent this year getting three joint replacements and I hope to act way more like a younger bodied person next year. Good luck to all. Love it. Yes. Hope those joints. Wow. That thing's got a little chirp to it.

[B]

It's. It's.

[A]

Wow. I love it.

[B]

Now it's my favorite sound effect on this board because it's. I don't think it's the battery because everything else like. Yeah, everything else works fine. It's something about the actual button. The thing that it does this whistle sound. It's turning into, like, a little bird chirp or something.

[A]

I love it. I love that.

[B]

Yeah, it's fun.

[A]

All right.

[B]

All right. Well, happy Blurs day to our short and very sweet list.

[A]

All right, that's gonna do it for.

[B]

Today'S episode of tbtl. But I have incredible news. We are going to be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. Please do join us for that as we wrap up the week. In the meantime, y' all have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves, stay safe, and please remember, no mountain too tall.

[A]

And good luck to all. Power out.