Episode #1039

Summary

Podcast Summary: TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live – Episode #1039

Release Date: March 16, 2012
Hosts: Luke Burbank and Jen Andrews

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Introduction

In Episode #1039 of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live, hosts Luke Burbank and Jen Andrews delve into a myriad of topics with their characteristic humor and insightful commentary. From unexpected broadcast mishaps to controversial media narratives, the duo navigates through stories that blend personal anecdotes with broader societal observations.

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Ann Curry’s Wardrobe Malfunction

The episode kicks off with a discussion about a notable incident involving Ann Curry on the NBC Today Show. Jen recalls witnessing Curry's skirt malfunction during an interview:

Jen Andrews [03:14]: "Her whole leg was completely bare for the entire interview. And I was able to figure out how to do a screenshot, which I'd never done before. And I tweeted it, and it was by far my most popular tweet I've ever done."

Luke humorously speculates whether Curry intended the reveal:

Luke Burbank [03:56]: "Are you sure she wasn't going Jolie on it?"

The hosts express their preference for the fourth hour of the Today Show, appreciating its departure from traditional news reporting:

Jen Andrews [06:08]: "I would rather that hour, they're just saying we're drunk and talking about stuff that's more real."

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Mike Daisy and the “This American Life” Controversy

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to discussing Mike Daisy, a monologist whose work was recently retracted by This American Life. Luke provides a detailed account of the situation:

Luke Burbank [05:56]: "This American Life has pulled the episode when Mike Daisy... lied to me and to this American Life producer Brian Reed during the fact-checking we did."

Jen offers her perspective on Daisy's storytelling approach:

Jen Andrews [13:42]: "I have never gotten the impression that he was saying that it was an eyewitness account. I thought it was, like, a dramatized story."

The hosts debate the fine line between journalism and theatrical storytelling, questioning the ethical implications of blurring these boundaries:

Luke Burbank [15:36]: "I think this American Life would say that they do journalism, but they also tell stories... I don't think that they think those are strictly journalists."

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The Laughing Patient: A Post-Surgery Case Study

Another intriguing topic is the case of a man named Hugo Boss (not to be confused with the fashion brand), who has been unable to stop laughing following hip surgery. Jen describes the unsettling nature of his condition:

Jen Andrews [20:08]: "He is brain damaged in this odd way... he just finds everything delightful."

Luke elaborates on the challenges faced by Hugo's family:

Luke Burbank [22:38]: "There's one thing that apparently will stop him from laughing. This is serious. If his family needs a break from his constant giggling fits, there is one antidote: playing the national anthem."

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Mass Effect 3: Gamers React to a Downbeat Ending

The conversation shifts to the gaming community's reaction to the controversial ending of Mass Effect 3. Jen admits her limited knowledge about the game:

Jen Andrews [24:07]: "Apparently it's a video game of some sort and it just came out. And I don't understand these things..."

Luke explains the general discontent among gamers regarding the game's conclusion:

Luke Burbank [24:30]: "The ending is very downbeat and they don't like that, which I find adorable."

Jen critiques the fanbase's demand for happy endings:

Jen Andrews [25:20]: "You can't force them to change their ending... the creator gets to say the ending."

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Bobbi Kristina Houston’s Alleged Relationship

Jen and Luke discuss the sensitive topic of Bobbi Kristina Houston's alleged relationship with a young man. Jen expresses frustration with media narratives:

Jen Andrews [29:59]: "Everybody on the news keeps repeating this, that he was led by the spirit. And sometimes they've said the angel, sometimes they've said the ghost of Barry White and Olivia Newton John."

Luke questions the validity and sensitivity of such claims:

Luke Burbank [30:18]: "I have to say, and this is with knowing your painful history of Jorm Stomp and other Hammertoe."

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Youngest Spelling Bee Champion Sparks Racial Debate

The episode touches on the achievement of a six-year-old girl winning the Scripps Howard Spelling Bee, sparking a discussion on cultural expectations and racial biases:

Jen Andrews [32:48]: "It's an issue of deciding this is important. And I'm gonna drill you on it every single day."

Luke contemplates the diversity within academic competitions:

Luke Burbank [33:02]: "I just feel like I understand if a woman doesn't want to wear high heels."

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High Heels vs. Foot Binding: A Cultural Analysis

A heated debate emerges around a letter to the editor comparing high heels to the oppressive practice of foot binding in China. Jen vehemently disagrees with this analogy:

Jen Andrews [37:55]: "I wear high heels because they're beautiful... They make me feel tall and strong and powerful."

Luke adds to the discussion, highlighting the autonomy in choosing to wear heels:

Luke Burbank [38:07]: "They make me have better posture. They make my legs and my butt look better."

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Olivia Newton John and Spirited Defense in a Trial

The hosts address a peculiar defense used in a trial where the defendant claims that Olivia Newton John influenced his actions. Jen clarifies Olivia's status:

Jen Andrews [41:08]: "Olivia Newton John is still alive... She just announced she's doing a concert in Jakarta."

Luke and Jen discuss the boundaries of attributing actions to living individuals versus those who have passed:

Jen Andrews [44:03]: "Media needs to stop lumping her in with dead people."

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Updates on the TBTL Pen Pal Club

Towards the episode's end, Jen provides updates on the TBTL Pen Pal Club, informing listeners about the successful pairing of participants and encouraging those who missed out to apply again:

Jen Andrews [47:55]: "Everybody should have their pen pal match... we'll do a round two, probably in a couple months."

Luke adds practical advice for new pen pals:

Luke Burbank [48:30]: "Would you do me a favor and check your spam folder and just make sure..."

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Final Thoughts and Closing

In the closing segments, the hosts briefly touch upon movies like "Young Adult" and "Bad Teacher", sharing their opinions and highlighting character development nuances. They wrap up with a light-hearted exchange about the show's dynamics and upcoming content.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Jen Andrews [03:14]: "Her whole leg was completely bare for the entire interview."
• Luke Burbank [05:56]: "This American Life has pulled the episode when Mike Daisy... lied to me..."
• Jen Andrews [13:42]: "I have never gotten the impression that he was saying that it was an eyewitness account."
• Jen Andrews [20:08]: "He is brain damaged in this odd way..."
• Luke Burbank [24:30]: "The ending is very downbeat and they don't like that, which I find adorable."
• Jen Andrews [37:55]: "I wear high heels because they're beautiful... They make me feel tall and strong and powerful."
• Jen Andrews [44:03]: "Media needs to stop lumping her in with dead people."
• Jen Andrews [47:55]: "Everybody should have their pen pal match..."

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Conclusion

Episode #1039 of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live offers a blend of humor, personal insights, and critical discussions on contemporary issues. Luke and Jen's dynamic conversation provides listeners with both entertainment and thoughtful analysis, making it a memorable installment in the TBTL series.

Transcript

[Jen Andrews]

Desserts are what I call desserts, tray trays or entrees.

[Luke Burbank]

I call sandwiches sammies, sanduzzles or Adam sandlers. Air conditioners are cool blasters with a.

[Jen Andrews]

Z. I don't know where that came from. I call cakes big old cookies. I call noodles long ass rice. Fried chicken is fry fry chicky chick.

[Luke Burbank]

Chicken parm is chicky chicky parm parm, chicken cacciatore chicky catch. I call eggs pre birds or future birds.

[Jen Andrews]

Root beer is super water tortillas are bean blankies.

[Luke Burbank]

And I call forks food rakes.

[Jen Andrews]

Tbtm.

[Luke Burbank]

Every single item on that list appeared in my fever dream last night where I actually get to eat the foods I'd like to eat instead of all of this low carbery that I've been involved in. But that's alright. We're here. We're about to have some real fun on this Friday afternoon edition of tbtl. It's the show that's probably too beautiful to live. I'm Learnding it's episode 1039 in a collector series. Oh yeah, this is good. I'm weighing in 189 pounds. So there's that and there's also this. We've got a fun filled show ready to go for you.

[Jen Andrews]

Hi, this is Luke's mom, Suzy coming tonight on tbtl.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's say that your husband of many years had a surgery and when he came out of the surgery, it turns out something had gone wrong and it left him in such a state that no matter what was going on, no matter what you said to him or did to him, this was his response. Savanger. No, that is actual tape of an actual guy in Holland who laughs at everything. We'll tell you his story. We'll also tell you the story of a dear friend of the show. That's right, Jen. Flash Andrews. I love Jesus, but I drink a little. Who is back here in the Cairo broadcast closet? Must have been the pure power of prayer that brought you back. What other explanation is there? The prayers of the listeners who've missed you so much. Hi.

[Jen Andrews]

Hi.

[Luke Burbank]

How are you doing?

[Jen Andrews]

I'm doing great.

[Luke Burbank]

Welcome back.

[Jen Andrews]

Thank you. It's very nice to be here.

[Luke Burbank]

It's been like, it's been almost two weeks. It feels like it's been an eternity. Did you miss us?

[Jen Andrews]

I did. Although I've heard from people a lot so I felt like I was still very involved.

[Luke Burbank]

That's kind of like saying I can't start missing you until you've left. You're like, I would, I would like to miss you, but you're still all up in my business all the time. Welcome back to rainy, horrible Seattle.

[Jen Andrews]

Thank you. I know I was in eastern Washington where it was cold, but it was perfectly sunny every single day.

[Luke Burbank]

Have you felt the need to just go up to strangers on the street and just tell them all of your thoughts on something or the crazy thing that happened to you that day? Like, is there. Did you find out? Have you been finding out because you've not been on TBTL as much, that there's. That it's somehow cathartic for you, that it's somehow. It's releasing a pressure valve somewhere.

[Jen Andrews]

I've never tweeted so much.

[Luke Burbank]

I actually noticed that you have been on the tweet, tweeting about opening day, tweeting about your hair.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah, I did. I even did it my very first screenshot yesterday. I had never done one.

[Luke Burbank]

I missed that.

[Jen Andrews]

I was watching the Today show, which I know I bowed and never watch it again, but morning news is my shaky cheese. And so. And Ann Curry's dress came open, and it was her entire leg for the whole interview. And so I screamed, screenshot it, and tweeted it.

[Luke Burbank]

Are you sure she wasn't going jolie on it? Well, was one leg out to the side in a very sassy fashion?

[Jen Andrews]

Well, that's how I would have known she meant it. I'm absolutely positive she did not realize her skirt had come open. So her whole leg was completely bare for the entire interview. And I was able to figure out how to do a screenshot, which I'd never done before. And I tweeted it, and it was by far my most popular tweet I've ever done.

[Luke Burbank]

Really?

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah. But it was mostly due to the. Who's crazier, me or Ann Curry? Most of the people were, like, retweeting it with that kind of.

[Luke Burbank]

I got it. Today we have in the radio studio now these giant televisions that are on all the time. It's actually quite distracting and disturbing to be in there because they have cameras on us all the time now. And those cameras have monitors that are huge. So you see your own face. Imagine you're just talking, and you're actually holding a mirror, which some people have said is my perfect expression of this show. Just me talking into a mirror. But it's actually really unsettling to see your teeth and your mouth moving with every word you're saying. But they also have these giant televisions that are just playing, you know, CNN and whatever. And for some reason, the one was on NBC Today. So I watched the entire fourth hour of the Today show muted. And I just want to ask. And I'm sorry, get your earmuffs out for the kids. What the fuck is happening on the fourth hour of the Today show with Kathie Lee and Hoda? Because today is the Friday before St. Patrick's Day. They were going crazy. It was Irish dancing. They were drinking green beer. I think they were doing shots at one point.

[Jen Andrews]

Just. Just a week early. That's the ramp up.

[Luke Burbank]

No, it's Saturday tomorrow.

[Jen Andrews]

Oh, it's tomorrow.

[Luke Burbank]

You've lost track of time because you've just been sunning yourself and tweeting.

[Jen Andrews]

Were already to St. Patrick's Day.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a great. By the way, you know who you share that in common with now? The mummy who does not know what we went to. We were somewhere and he said, oh, we went roller skating. And he was like, this is the last Friday night we went to Skate King in Bellevue. And he was like, oh, man. He's like, Thursdays are great here. Adult roller skate. And we were like, it's Friday. He was like, is it? He had no idea. He had for, like, two weeks not known what day it was.

[Jen Andrews]

That is actually the best part of vacation, is not wearing a watch and not knowing what day it is. I would actually say to you, though, that the fourth hour is the true hour because they're not attempting to be news people.

[Luke Burbank]

Ah, yes.

[Jen Andrews]

I would rather that. That hour, to me, is much more understandable. This is Ann's leg, by the way. I just wanted you to be able to see it.

[Luke Burbank]

Whoa.

[Jen Andrews]

That was a lot. All the way up to her head.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a lot of leg.

[Jen Andrews]

So I would actually prefer the fourth hour where they're not pretending to be news people. They're just saying we're drunk and talking about stuff that's more real.

[Luke Burbank]

Here's what I wondered, though. Do they. Because they have the glasses of wine. That's just the typical. Today was green beer, by the way. Green beer, overrated. I'm not the first person to say this, but regular beer, green food coloring, right?

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, that's just in case people were wondering. That's what that is. But with the wine and stuff, do they actually drink the wine? Because they're very made up. They have a lot of lipstick on. And what I thought I noticed was the wine. Again, I'm only half paying attention because mostly I'm staring at the monitor with my face in it.

[Jen Andrews]

Sure.

[Luke Burbank]

But do they drink the Wine, or is it just a prop?

[Jen Andrews]

I think it is a prop, but depending on what the show is, like on a Friday, on something like a St. Patrick's Day, a lot of times they'll give into it more than normal, but they do way more of the making drinks and all that. So then I think if it's a part of the segment, they drink. But I think it's also mostly at this point, props. Although at the beginning they were really drinking it quite a bit, really, which is why it's become what it's known for. And I don't think there was ever any. Like, there was no staff meeting at the beginning where somebody said, why don't we have them have a glass of wine every morning? That just kind of grew out of the fact that they were drinking every morning.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you ever hear the tape when one of the reporters here at the radio station, Tim Hake.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah, we played it on the show.

[Luke Burbank]

I was just trying to find it. It was so brilliant. He. He is just doing an airport story about people trapped, I believe, by the snow or by a storm. And somehow one of the people there is Kathie Lee Gifford. And he has no. He's just not the kind of guy who watches the fourth hour of the Today show.

[Jen Andrews]

Although now with the big screens.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Now he would know exactly who it was. But it's so funny because he's talking to her just like she's, you know, heading off to Cleveland or something to. To go back to her job at it or something. And she's so clearly trying to impress upon him that she's a really big deal. She wasn't really rude about it.

[Jen Andrews]

No, she just kind of kept dropping hints.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. It was so crazy to her that this person who works in the media did not realize she was Kathie Lee.

[Jen Andrews]

Well, and for her, I mean, he did come through the airline. There's thousands of people there through the airport. And he did come up to her and start interviewing her.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, by the way, we gotta just take a quick. We gotta take a quick moment here and get in on some TBTL breaking news. TVTL Breaking news. I doubt you've heard about this. This American Life has pulled the episode from a little while ago when Mike Daisy, who has been on the radio show, I believe we replayed part of that conversation, I would imagine, here on TBTL as well. He's the monologist. He's from Seattle. He was around Seattle for a long time. Well, not originally, but he lived in Seattle for a long time. Now he's in New York. He's a big star out there on Broadway, does these monologues. His latest one is the Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. And it's been a huge, huge success, this model. And in fact, it's caused a lot of people to really question Apple's labor practices in China with this factory called Foxconn. Anyway, this American Life played an episode that featured him talking about it. They have now retracted that. And they say this weekend's episode is going to be, I think, either completely or at least largely dedicated to talking about what went wrong. Because now this is the quote from Mr. Ira Glass. He says, daisy lied to me and to this American Life producer Brian Reed during the fact checking we did on the story before it was broadcast. That doesn't excuse the fact that we never should have put this on the air. In the end, this was our mistake. So they're calling Mike Daisy out as a liar. The way that this was uncovered was that a reporter for the radio show Marketplace, public radio show named Rob Schmitz, he's based in Beijing, I believe, or he's based in China. And he was listening to parts of Daisy's story and was. Was thinking they didn't really add up based on what he knew about because he had done reporting on Foxconn as well. And so he looked up Daisy's translator, who apparently was really easy to find. Doesn't that seem like the hardest thing you could ever try to do, which would be to find a specific Chinese person in China?

[Jen Andrews]

Well, I really think that.

[Luke Burbank]

I know that. I'm just saying, like, just kind of like your first reaction is those last names sound fairly similar.

[Jen Andrews]

How did he find him?

[Luke Burbank]

He just looked the translator up who. Who was in the phone book called the translator. And the translator basically kind of contradicted stuff that Mike Daisy said. There were basically these two really riveting parts of Mike Daisy's monologue of his story, which is interviewing a worker who had his hand crushed in a machine while making an iPad, I believe. And the other was interviewing these workers who were poisoned. And according to Rob Schmitz, and now apparently this American Life believes him to. There's no way he could have interviewed these people because of distance. And when these. Actually, Apple has records of this poisoning, but it was at a different plant. It was not at the one where he was at. It didn't happen while he was in China or in country, as he likes to say. So this is a big deal in TBTL land because it's, you know, it's sort of these worlds that we're interested in colliding. But here's my question, Jen, to you, about this whole thing. It's kind of like the Kony thing. Nobody is saying, no one's argument is that the working conditions in China are great. No one's saying, oh, Mike, Daisy made this up. If you go to the factory, everyone's, you know, just playing Ring around the Rosie and sitting on beanbag chairs. Like, everyone agrees the working conditions in China are pretty bad.

[Jen Andrews]

And probably someone did get their hand crushed at some point at Foxconn.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, the events that Daisy describes are seen as real, but just maybe he didn't witness them or actually talk to the people. And what Daisy says is, he says, what I do is not journalism. This is his website. The tools of the theater are not the same as the tools of journalism. For this reason, I regret that I allowed this American Life to air an excerpt from my monologue. This American Life is essentially a journalistic, not a theatrical enterprise. And as such, it operates under a different set of rules and expectations. But this is my only regret. I'm proud of my work and that it seemed to have sparked a growing storm of attention and concern over the often appalling conditions under which people work in China. Okay, so two questions. One, is it such a big deal when he is ultimately drawing attention? Like I said with the Kony thing, there were, like, people saying, well, technically, he's not in the region you're describing anymore. They were sharp shooting that video, but everyone agreed Kony's a bad dude, and it would be good if he wasn't operating anymore. So in that case, I was like, I ultimately think the video is a good thing because it's raising awareness. Do we give the same latitude to Mike, Daisy?

[Jen Andrews]

Well, you know, everybody keeps saying that this is the Ira. Ira. Mike is. This is the new Oprah James Frye moment, you know, and I do think that he. I have never gotten the impression that he was saying that it was an eyewitness account. I thought it was, like, a dramatized story. I always thought it was a monologue. And I watched, like, probably 15 minutes of it online, and it was super over the top dramatic, and I thought, kind of corny in parts and a little ridiculous. Like, I thought it was so obviously super theatrical that I'm kind of confused as to why this American Life would air it as journalism.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I guess that's a good question. I mean, I think that. Well, see, here's the thing. I think this American Life would Say that they do journalism, but they also tell stories because they have things. Sedaris will write things or others actually will write fictional things that are presented as, this is a piece of fiction. So it's like, I don't think that they think those are strictly journalists.

[Jen Andrews]

And do you think when Sedaris tells a story like the time he went to Anne Frank's house, that whole story, do you think they fact check that, or is he given license?

[Luke Burbank]

That's a really interesting question. I know that there's been some pushback against Sedaris before about his books, and he's basically said the same thing. He said, look, I'm just trying to entertain people here. I'm writing a funny account, essentially. I'm not held to the same standards.

[Jen Andrews]

And that's the same as the guy that wrote Running with Scissors, August Burrows. Yeah, he said the same thing. You know, you can't. Because people started going through those books and his relatives particularly, and he said, you know, this isn't strictly a memoir. It's entertainment.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. I guess with Daisy, it's. I will say, a part of what really packs the punch is that. Is that you feel like he saw this with his own eyes. And he really does. You know, I mean, his whole sort of starting point for the monologues are that he's an Apple devotee, you know, and he's kind of torn because of his relationship with this stuff. And so to a degree, it really adds to. It adds to me to the kind of impact of it, thinking, oh, well, this is all stuff Mike Daisy, really. And, you know, he came in here and I don't think Dave maybe knew about him. Dave Ross of the. My Radio Cohort. And I was like, oh, I know this guy. He'll be. You know, he'll be good. And. And Dave was blown away. I mean, he's pretty riveting just to talk to in person. He's got these interesting stories, and I believe he did the story. Talked about the story of the hand crushing. Anyway, I guess. I guess I still. I mean, here's. Here's.

[Jen Andrews]

You can't possibly be upset with Mike, Daisy. That's. He just did a monologue.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, here's the one thing, though, that I. He did. I think. Here's the thing that he did that I think got Ira really hacked off. And by the way, I'm gonna email Ira and see if he wants to come on and talk about it. I would be surprised if he did.

[Jen Andrews]

Because he probably before Saturday.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I don't think we're gonna be getting the scoop here. But apparently when they asked. This is what I read in one account. When they asked Mike Daisy to put them in touch with the translator, he said he couldn't get a hold of them. And then the guy from Marketplace just, like, looked him up in the phone book, so.

[Jen Andrews]

And once you're being fact checked, it seems like you would say, why are you fact checking me? This is a dramatic interpretation, right?

[Luke Burbank]

I think. I think that. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think Mike Daisy is some sort of awful human at all. And again, he's raising awareness of a thing that's real, but I do. Well, I mean, look, when we had him on the radio show, the stranger had already written a piece called Questioning the Factuality. Is that a word, factuality?

[Jen Andrews]

I'll go with that.

[Luke Burbank]

You take the good, you take the bad. That's the factuality would be questioning the veracity. Ooh, I'll just use a fancier word.

[Jen Andrews]

There we go.

[Luke Burbank]

Questioning the veracity of this whole sort of deal. Because, you know, the other thing, I will say this about Daisy, and now it sounds like I'm going, I saw it all along and I didn't. And I'm not claiming that he's a liar, but I did know people that worked at Amazon when he worked at Amazon, and his. His sort of breakout production was his account of working at Amazon. And I knew people that worked there, and they were like, yeah, that wasn't how I remember it. Like any good storyteller. Right. If you ask anybody. My own parents have called me out. I mean, gently, because they're nice people, but they'll say things like just offhandedly talking about how they hear me on the radio show. They don't listen to this. They don't have Internet connections and things at their house. But. But they'll be like, oh, you, You. You told that story in a way as. So as to make it more. More gripping and more fun, you know, even though maybe you. You either change the facts or not change the facts, but just played flat, fast and loose. And I'm sure I do that all the time. I'm not even conscious of. If you asked me if I ever consciously spun something, I would say no, but I know it's happened. And I mean, it. It seems bizarre maybe to think that you could actually tell a story and you could kind of get parts of it wrong and not even realize you were doing it. But it is totally possible because I'm sure I've done it bunch of times. So maybe that's part of what's going on, too.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah, well, my experience with storytelling is that every time you tell a story, you learn the good. You learn the hot spots, you learn the moments, you learn better how to pause, you learn better how to. And every single time you tell it at a dinner party or with friends or whatever, you tweak it even better because you keep learning from the audience how to make the story better. And so over the course of five years of telling a story, it has gotten different because you're responding to your audience and you're learning how to tell the story.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Jen Andrews]

And I think that if I was to sit down and write out my story and I knew it was going to be fact checked by somebody, I would get a little nervous because over the course of five years, the story has changed and I can't exactly remember anymore where the changes happened.

[Luke Burbank]

Right, right. Eventually, yeah, eventually. You can't even really remember what the, what the, you know, sort of exact facts of the case are. Well, anyway, it'll be interesting to listen this weekend to that and, you know, just to kind of see, see if it. This Daisy's play is a huge hit. And I kind of wonder if. I wonder if it'll have an effect. I don't know. And I wonder if it, if it should have an effect, you know?

[Jen Andrews]

Well, as you said, too, the good has already been done. You know, Foxconn is changing their policies. Apple's holding their feet to the like. The good has been done. So hopefully that won't be forgotten.

[Luke Burbank]

I played you a little tape of this guy named Hugo Boss. His name is almost Hugo Boss. In fact, it's like one letter off. It's H U U G B O S S E. I get the sense that he is from the Netherlands and he had hip surgery three years ago. And for whatever reason, when he came to from the anesthesia, he has not been able to stop laughing. And there's this interview, this video interview that was linked through to by, like, Jezebel, where he's sitting there holding an Ernie doll from, like, Bert and Ernie. He's not retarded, right? He's not. He's not. He just finds everything delightful. Like, he loves Sesame street so much now.

[Jen Andrews]

So he is brain damaged in this odd way.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I'll just read you this. He's annoying everyone around him, but he doesn't care. Everything is amusing to him. Of his wife, who seems highly irritated by his new personality, which I can, having watched the video. The video is all in Dutch. That's why I'm not playing all it for you, because it just would be, you know, unintelligible. You can see there, Jen, the Ernie doll that he's holding.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah. So it's not that he's trapped inside this laughing being. He genuinely thinks everything is funny.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Of his wife, who seems highly irritated by his new personality, he says laughingly, she actually doesn't love me, but oh, well. Hahaha. No.

[Jen Andrews]

What has this been that since he came? This has been for three years.

[Luke Burbank]

Three years.

[Jen Andrews]

Getting worse. It's just all for three years.

[Luke Burbank]

Three years. He's just delighted by everything. But first of all, that doesn't sound a lot different than Tom Tangney, who may have had a hip surgery. No, I'm kidding. People. Well, here's what I was going to say. People who are delighted by things as Tom is, are delightful to be around. Wouldn't this be a fun guy to hang around with, somebody who just took delight in things?

[Jen Andrews]

No, because I don't think he's genuinely even. He can't possibly. Not everything is delightful. I think that would be really. I think I would lose my mind over that. And you know, I live with somebody who is totally a Pollyanna. I mean, Jason refuses to ever see the bad side of things, but, you know, if it's something that's genuinely sad, he can actually acknowledge that's really sad. And the thing I think would be so frustrating for the wife is a lot of times when you live with someone, you need to say, this behavior that you're doing is frustrating to me. And we need to figure out a way to live together with this behavior. Or else you need to change this behavior. Like you want to have a serious conversation. And if your partner is laughing while you're trying to tell them something that.

[Luke Burbank]

Really bothers you, let's do a little TBTL theater. You say something like that, this wife might say to this husband, and then we'll give. We'll just kind of hear what this would sound like unfolding in real time.

[Jen Andrews]

It really bothers me that you continually clean the floors before you've cleaned the counters.

[Luke Burbank]

Savanger.

[Jen Andrews]

No, no, it's not funny. And this isn't even something that's like, I made up. Like, everybody knows you clean from the top down.

[Luke Burbank]

You don't start.

[Jen Andrews]

No, no, Hugh, this isn't funny. It's not a joke. You're doing it wrong. And you have to. And then I have to redo all the work.

[Luke Burbank]

That does actually seem like kind of annoying. But there's one thing. There's one thing that apparently will stop him from laughing. This is serious. This is in the article. If his family needs a break from his constant giggling fits, there is one antidote. Playing the national anthem, which apparently moves him so much, he starts crying instantly. Okay, now he does sound like a basket case.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah, I mean, that's. There's brain damage going on here, clearly.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe. Well, okay.

[Jen Andrews]

Good luck to the bosses. That's rough.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah, that's. I thought you meant like the supervisors. I forgot their. I already forgot their last name. You know, Avenger.

[Jen Andrews]

All right.

[Luke Burbank]

One of the things. One of the things of not having Jen on the show very much of late is that there is a major. Ladies and gentlemen of granny time in the house. It's granny time. It's almost. It's like a blockage of granny of granniness that could threaten to break loose and go up to your heart or brain and just cause a huge medical.

[Jen Andrews]

Problems from an aneurysm.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank God we're gonna be able to get some of these things taken care of right here. Okay, so I actually have to say, Flash, I had to look this first thing up that you put on the list. Mass Effect 3, which I was able to deduce through a little Internet sleuthing, is a role online multi person game.

[Jen Andrews]

Well, I wouldn't know about that. Apparently it's a video game of some sort and it just came out. And I don't understand these things where people say that they put in headphones and they play a Call of Duty with, like kids across the country. Country. I don't understand any of that. So I don't understand how this works. But Apparently Mass Effect 3 has an ending like you fight through. I am assuming it's some kind of global warming flood. Oh, I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

Mass Effect. Right.

[Jen Andrews]

I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

Someone will email.

[Jen Andrews]

In my mind, you are like, dealing with this flooding from global warming and that's caused a mass effect. And then you get to the end. So there's an ending. And the gamers are infuriated. They hate the ending. And this is kind of a side note and kind of cute. Apparently the ending is very downbeat and they don't like that, which I find adorable. That gamers want a happy ending. I think that's great.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, so it's a sad ending.

[Jen Andrews]

Sad ending, apparently.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's. I mean, as. As anyone who won Super Mario Brothers, or in my case, watched your friend James DeMuth win Super Mario Brothers over and over. Again, there is a real excitement. Or, you know, Mike Tyson's Punch out. You'll notice, listeners, that all of my video game references are squarely in Nintendo circa 1988.

[Jen Andrews]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

That's kind of the sweet spot for me.

[Jen Andrews]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

So to have to get to the end of a game and then have.

[Jen Andrews]

It just be sad, it's sad. And I understand being mad about that. And I mean, I hate. There's a lot of endings. I actually had a little list I wrote down. There's a lot of endings I don't like. But what they have done is take it a step further, which I think is the problem. They have created this massive.

[Luke Burbank]

Like a mass effect, really a mass.

[Jen Andrews]

Effect, like a third one, demanding that the makers of the game change the ending.

[Luke Burbank]

What?

[Jen Andrews]

And I. That's where you go too far. The creator gets to say the ending. Whether it's a book or a song or a movie or the. Whoever is the artist, they get to say the ending. And you can hate it all you want and rant about it, and I say you should, but you can't force them to change their ending. And I actually, Kumail Najiani had tweeted a link to a magazine called Badass Digest, which I didn't know existed and is an interesting.

[Luke Burbank]

It's actually for irritable bowel sufferers.

[Jen Andrews]

Well, I grew up, of course, with the Reader's Digest, so the Badass Digest, it's taken some turns since I read it, but I read this great article which basically said, if you're a part of this protest movement, if you're signing all these petitions and all this stuff, you're no better than Annie Wilkes. I mean, you might as well. Are you going to kidnap the game makers and take them to a.

[Luke Burbank]

Who's that one?

[Jen Andrews]

That's Kathy Bates in Missouri.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jen Andrews]

You're going to take her to. Take the game makers to the. To the Dirty Bird.

[Luke Burbank]

Dirty bird.

[Jen Andrews]

He didn't get in the cockadoody car. You know, it's. You just. The thing about hating an ending is you. You hold on to that bitterness and you share it and you tell people about it. Every time you see it, you hate it. But I don't think you can. I don't want to live in a world where we demand that artists change their work because we don't like it.

[Luke Burbank]

I agree with you, but I find it fascinating from a. Because these, you know, video games, as we've all heard now many times, the video game industry is more profitable than the film industry. And the music industry combined, it's crazy how much money is made. So you have to assume there's plenty of market testing and all kinds of things that go on. They must have known that people. There's a certain kind of any people don't like. I mean, they would have to know this. I think it's interesting from a business standpoint that they would choose this kind of sad ending that would. That would make people mad.

[Jen Andrews]

The other thing that's kind of funny as a total side note is that the game just came out and so it's created this weird haves and have not situation because most people haven't finished a game and don't plan to finish it for a long time. They're not good enough. But there's these, like, super smart, really good gamers who finished it really quick. So now there's the people who don't know how it ends and the people who do know how it ends, and they're ruining how it ends.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it was like when I was watching Ice Loves Coco the other day. Surprisingly likable couple. I'm not shitting you. Have you watched it at all? Ice T is great. He's really pleasant. He seems like a good dude. And Coco is so much. I mean, for a person who I perceive to be essentially a human cartoon, she's very down to earth. I would be friends with them now.

[Jen Andrews]

The only thing I know about that show is that she claims to be in her 20s, which.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, does.

[Jen Andrews]

She is hysterically funny.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Because she keeps talking about having a baby. Well, she's got to do it by 30, I guess. Well, that was the thing I was thinking. Well, she kept talking about. Because the plot of one episode I was watching was they were looking for a house and she kept wanting one that had a baby area in it, and he kept not wanting it to have that or whatever. And I kept thinking, boy, she's. The clock might be ticking Cokes. But she. Anyway, my point is he was playing some video game that he had won already. And she was like, didn't you already win that? And he was like, yeah, but now I'm playing it on a harder setting. So there are people who win games and then just ratchet up the hardness.

[Jen Andrews]

That is beyond my understanding.

[Luke Burbank]

I can't believe it. This is something that has been beyond a lot of people's understandings. And I was saying we could call this part of the show. Is it incest? Whitney Houston's daughter Bobbi Kristina is dating, apparently this young man who was a troubled Youth or having family problems somehow was sort of adopted by Whitney Houston, taken in as a, you know, as a sort of another child or something. Because clearly Whitney Houston was firing on all cylinders. She just had so much parental wisdom to share with that Bobbi Kristina. That was not going to be enough. She needed someone else to bestow this on anyway. And so now she's. What's her name? Bobbi Kristina is dating this guy. And apparently Whitney Houston's mom is calling it incest. She described as. What's going on as incest. Jen, you're annoyed at the terminology that's being used.

[Jen Andrews]

I'm very annoyed. Every single news story about this, which, first of all, nobody even knows if she's dating him, and nobody even knows if Sissy Houston said that. I mean, all of this is being generated by tmz. All of it. I mean, if you look at any of the sources, it always goes back to tmz. Not to say that they're not fact checking, but I'm just saying we don't even know if this is.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I mean, there's no Mike Daisy.

[Jen Andrews]

So what really bothers me is every single news story says Bobbi Kristina is dating her, quote, adopted brother, unquote. Well, the fact is, once you put quotes about it around it, what you're saying is this isn't actually a real statement. The quotes mean this isn't real. He is not her adopted brother. He was not adopted into the family. If he stayed with the family for a number of years or whatever, that's. That's fine. But he's not adopted and he is not her brother. Yeah, they do not have a genetic repelling. You know, that whole idea that you are repulsed by your genetic.

[Luke Burbank]

They're also not Hawaiian royalty, which I learned when I read that Sarah Vowell book that in the olden, olden days, in the most, like, the most powerful descendants from the Hawaiian royalty would be the product of incest of brother and sister. But what happened was then they would. They would. They just kept dying so fast. So you'd be basically like the character that Paul Rubens played on 30 Rock when he had, like, it feels good to laugh again. That was going on in Hawaii. Basically, these people who were so pure because they were the product of this incest would then just not live very long because they were, you know. It's not good for you.

[Jen Andrews]

Exactly. And that is completely not what's going on here. And by the way, you take two teenagers and you put them in a house together and they're Fairly attractive. It's not surprising that then when tragedy strikes, they're gonna, you know, turn to one another. I don't understand why everybody's freaking out about this if it even is true. There's not one thing like unexpected about this story. You put two good looking teenagers in a house together for a couple years while they're coming of age, I think they're going to hook up.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, that was. Is this incest? And now we're going to play a round of is this racist? I'll explain not with the Bobbi Kristina story, but with the next story on the granny time list which is that the youngest person ever has been has won their way into the Scripps Howard spelling bee. It's a six year old, A six year old girl. The reason I say is it racist of me? Is because I was blown away to see that she did not have a name that indicated she was probably her parents or her grandparents originally from India. Because those kids who are the product we all saw from spellbound, those kids who are the product of oftentimes Indian parents are crazy good with the spelling because of a lot of cultural importance put on drilling and learning is not a racist issue.

[Jen Andrews]

It's an issue of deciding this is important. And I'm gonna drill you on it every single day.

[Luke Burbank]

I can't believe that apparently a white kid's parents, who is a white kid who's 6 years old, their parents were on them enough to. She got into the friggin thing.

[Jen Andrews]

I know.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that racist of me?

[Jen Andrews]

I don't think so.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean the fact I expected, I expected her, you know, her name to be Priya.

[Jen Andrews]

We don't expect a lot of good spelling from our white peers.

[Luke Burbank]

That's why maybe it's racist against my peoples. What did you want to say about this?

[Jen Andrews]

This is the final straw for me really. I can't watch the show anymore. These kids are under so much pressure. They're sitting there in their folded chairs, they're biting their nails, they're so worried. And then when they get up there and they get the word and you can, the nerves take over and they're so worried and there's so much on the line and it's like I can't bear it. And now they've got a first grader. I mean, you know, she's not in a grade cause she's homeschooled, but she would be in first grade and that is. I can't watch her. She should be at home like doing a sticker collection Maybe worrying about having to eat green beans for dinner. That is what she should be worrying about. And I can't watch it anymore. That's too much.

[Luke Burbank]

I'll tell you what was racist when this kid got this question. This is Andrew Leigh, age 20, from North Carolina.

[Jen Andrews]

Negus.

[Luke Burbank]

Negus. What is the language of origin? Ethiopian to Amharic. What is the definition? A king. It's used as a title of the sovereign of Ethiopia.

[Jen Andrews]

Negus. Negus.

[Luke Burbank]

Could you use it in a sentence? The negus ruled Ethiopia until the coup of 1974. Negus. The look on this little kid's face. He's terrified for about 11 reasons right now. There's the not spelling it right. There's also probably the. Wait a minute. What am I supposed to spell? Could you repeat the definition? A king. It's used as a title of the sovereign of Ethiopia.

[Jen Andrews]

Negus.

[Luke Burbank]

He's doing that little thing where he tries to spell it out on the back of his sign that he wears.

[Jen Andrews]

Negus. And Andrew, would you say the word loudly for the judges?

[Luke Burbank]

Negus.

[Jen Andrews]

One more time. Negus. Nigus. Negus.

[Luke Burbank]

N, E, G, U S. Negus. Oh, here's your. Oh, and by the way, the other thing, the other thing I want to say. This came up because we did a spelling bee on the radio show the other day. Here's the other thing I want to say to the spelling bee. People don't use a bell for when they get it wrong.

[Jen Andrews]

Right? Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Why did you just decide. How about a buzzer?

[Jen Andrews]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

That's the most disorienting. You're going against thousands of years of game show reward sound effects.

[Jen Andrews]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Every. We all know belding means good job. And now you, because your script's Howard, are just going to, like, try to flip the whole system to where belding means. That really bugs me.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah, I agree. I hadn't even thought of that. Well, this little Lorianne, this was the crazy thing is that her word was vaquero, which is a Spanish translation for cowboy. And it turned out that that was just a word that she just kept getting wrong. So they had just been drilling her. Her mom was like, no way. We had been drilling her on that because she just couldn't get it right because she's six. Anyway. Wow. So I. I'm wishing the best for all these kids, but I'm not gonna watch because that's a little six year old. I can't. I can't take it.

[Luke Burbank]

Yikes. Yeah. That is really stressful. Has somebody been saying that high heels are the Same as foot binding, because you've got that on the list.

[Jen Andrews]

Did you read the New York Times profile of Stella McCartney?

[Luke Burbank]

I didn't yet. I have it sitting at my house. It's awaiting reading. Reading.

[Jen Andrews]

So this was two weeks ago. She. She seems to be like a super hard working, very nice, good person. She's also very, very good at not revealing very much, which is my way of saying it's kind of boring because she's very good at not actually saying anything in this big profile.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Jen Andrews]

But one of the pictures is her at work and she's, like, working on a hemline at Stella McCartney Designs. And she's wearing high heels. So the next week, the letter to the editor was from this woman whose name was Deborah, who basically said, you know, why does any strong, powerful woman put herself in high heels? It is the equivalent of Chinese beat binding. And I take exception to that.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I.

[Jen Andrews]

And I just read a book that had a lot. It's actually called Wild Swans, and it's the history of three generations living under Mao. And it went really deeply into the.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought that. I was told that was the sequel to Wild Hogs. And I noticed a disturbing lack of Tim Allen in that book. And now a lot of stuff is starting to make sense to me.

[Jen Andrews]

So they went into the history of feet binding and this idea that when a woman is just about to topple over, it makes her look frail and subservient. And it was more attractive to men a thousand years ago. And what it did to their feet and the horrendous. It's torture. It's awful. So I think about that in terms of why women in America wear high heels. And I can only answer for myself, but I wear high heels because they're beautiful.

[Luke Burbank]

They.

[Jen Andrews]

They make me have better posture. They make my legs and my butt look better. And totally going against Deborah's point, they make me feel tall and strong and powerful. It's exactly the opposite of taking away my power. It makes me feel more like I'm on equal footing with all the tall men around me and I can go, you know, head to head.

[Luke Burbank]

And it's voluntary. Yes. That's a huge.

[Jen Andrews]

My mother didn't do it to me.

[Luke Burbank]

Huge difference between foot binding and.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

That's. Wow. Well, hopefully this week will be full of people writing letters. You should write a letter.

[Jen Andrews]

I should. Well, that was just such a funny thing.

[Luke Burbank]

We'll submit the transcript. Will someone please transcribe this conversation? Take me out of it, because I'll just be weird in the letter form and just take what Jen said and submit it. Jennifer Andrews, Seattle, Washington.

[Jen Andrews]

Well, that's the thing that was cracking me up about how the Stella McCartney interview itself was kind of boring, is that that's what somebody came up with to write in about, was that she was wearing high heels in a picture. Because there wasn't really anything to say about the. The content of the article.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I just feel like I understand if a woman doesn't want to wear high heels. I completely understand it. But I will say this, and I don't want to sound misogynistic or whatever, but heels are really attractive. They are. They do a thing to the female leg that is. I'm sorry. They work. I'm not saying you have to wear them. I'm not saying you will be unattractive if you don't wear them. But I have to be honest and say, and this is with knowing your painful history of Jorm Stomp and other Hammertoe.

[Jen Andrews]

I can admit that it hasn't actually been good for my feet.

[Luke Burbank]

Stop Hammertoe. But I like the fact, Jen, that you've also thought of it, because I think you're absolutely right. It puts you just from a height standpoint at a level where you feel even more.

[Jen Andrews]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Powerful as a woman, which you should. Okay. And then speaking of powerful women. Well, I don't know about powerful, but fit. You wanted to take a moment here to mention that Olivia Newton John is alive. Now, I thought maybe that was a reference to one of those Twitter rumors went around on her or something.

[Jen Andrews]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

Why do you feel the need to re. Establish with everyone that I tend to think of her as the former Ms. Matt Lattanzi?

[Jen Andrews]

Sure.

[Luke Burbank]

That's. That's the way that.

[Jen Andrews]

Is that Chloe's mom?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. But why do you want to tell everyone that she's still alive?

[Jen Andrews]

Okay, there's this trial. It's this horrible trial of this man that. That gunned down his romantic rival. And I put that in quotes because I don't think there was any actual rivalry. But he thought he was gonna take this guy's wife.

[Luke Burbank]

So he's mentally ill?

[Jen Andrews]

Well, I don't know. He was. Nobody can tell. Was he dating the woman or not? Nobody knows. She says they weren't dating. He says they were dating, and he decided to gun down her husband as he. He had just dropped off his kids at daycare. He got him down and killed him. So he just did this trial. So he's trying, of course, to go for an insanity plea. And what he is claiming is that he was led to do this by the spirit of Barry White and Olivia Newton John. And everybody on the news keeps repeating this, that he was led by the spirit. And sometimes they've said the angel, sometimes they've said the ghost of Barry White and Olivia Newton John. And I just want to clarify. Barry White has passed, but Olivia is quite still with us. In fact, she just announced she's doing a concert in Jakarta. She's very much still alive.

[Luke Burbank]

So you feel like it's not like there's. It's not okay to say that the spirit of someone who is still alive came to you and told you to do something. Your basic point is when we're alive, we are in control of. And we are allowed to say when our spirit flies off and touches someone else. And when it doesn't.

[Jen Andrews]

Well, I guess clarifying the spirit world rules is maybe what this is coming down to, because I think that we.

[Luke Burbank]

Do have a call into Jay Z. Knight. So we're going to try to get Ramtha kind of to give us sort of a little bit of insight.

[Jen Andrews]

But we don't really have like our, you know, we have back to the future to give us the rules of time travel. But we don't really have. We have ghost, I suppose we don't really have.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's teach us the rules of pottery.

[Jen Andrews]

And you know, Patrick Swayze in that is. Is dead.

[Luke Burbank]

So for instance, different. And like right now we could. Patrick Swayze's spirit could come down and touch us, but three years ago it couldn't because now he has passed.

[Jen Andrews]

Right. I think that should be a rule. That's what I'm saying. I think the rule should be that I don't want my spirit to do any message delivering at all until I'm dead, and then fine.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a great point. Although I don't even know if I feel great about it in the afterlife.

[Jen Andrews]

I would prefer not. I mean, I would prefer that my spirit just sticks with me.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. And maybe like Jason, maybe like your immediate family.

[Jen Andrews]

Sure. Like in ghost can go deliver messages of love and that kind of thing.

[Luke Burbank]

I think you're right, though. At the very least, we should all just recognize that as a very bright line. When you're alive, you can't say, the spirit of Barack Obama came to me and caused me to do this thing because he needs that spirit for himself.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

That's really what it comes down to.

[Jen Andrews]

Then he's just sitting there, like, empty. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Some people would argue he has done that and that is another discussion. But you're right. I mean, that's what it really probably comes down to is that we all need as much of our own soul and spirit as we can get just to be in our physical bodies and doing okay in this world. We can't be loaning it out.

[Jen Andrews]

Right. I really. I had two points. You're right. My first point was stop lumping Olivia Newton John in with very white news media. Because they keep saying that and then they don't say the next sentence, which is, Olivia Newton John is still alive. They keep calling her a ghost and a spirit and an angel. And yeah, maybe Barry White is all those things.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe her. Maybe her career has all those things, but not her human form.

[Jen Andrews]

So that was my first point. Media needs to stop lumping her in with dead people. And then my second point is to this man who is using this as his defense. I don't feel good about that. As a spirit world rule.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, absolutely not. I'm with you. Apropos of nothing, can I ask, have you seen the movie Young Adult?

[Jen Andrews]

No, but it's out on DVD this week. I'm gonna get it this weekend.

[Luke Burbank]

I just watched it on Demand and it was great. Now I don't wanna. Now I'm overselling it now. You'll probably be like. But I already talked about it on the show this week, so. Sorry to bore everyone again, but this is the first time I've seen Jen in a while. It's really good. I highly recommend it.

[Jen Andrews]

Now, if we talk about. For one more minute, please. Okay, so I saw the movie Bad Teacher and that was the same kind of idea was like, this unredeemable. Like, this isn't one of those movies where she gets redeemed. She's bad in the beginning and she's bad in. I just. I did not like it at all.

[Luke Burbank]

I did not see Bad Teacher, but I'm going to talk about it as if I did.

[Jen Andrews]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

I think that Charlize Theron is a really good actor. And I think that Diablo Cody, who wrote this movie, did a really good job writing this character. And so whereas the Cameron Diaz character in Bad Teacher is just like, she's drunk while she's teaching and she doesn't give a rip. And, like, she's wearing sunglasses because she's hungover.

[Jen Andrews]

Like, were you the voiceover guy?

[Luke Burbank]

I was on the trailer. I was. That's how I got that Cadillac I've been driving. So what it. That struck me as a movie where they just try to, like, plug Cameron Diaz into a role that might be played by a guy, and they thought they were being really interesting and breaking all these stereotypes of being like, she's a lady, but she's, you know, but she's really lame. And I assume at some point the song Bad to the Bone was played. She came in somewhere da na na na na na. Like, okay, we get it. This is a. So much more nuanced. I would say I'd be really curious to get your thoughts on it, but this, to me, was so much more nuanced. And this is exactly what I've already said on the show. So I'm sorry for being so repetitive, but the Charlize Theron character, I know this woman. I know about 10 girls who are maybe not as extreme, but are a version of this woman, which is a really. It was a type of woman or a type of character that I hadn't ever really thought of as a type of character. And it is. She's that girl who was pretty and smart and got the hell out of her kind of podunk town and went to the big city and, you know, has, like, a lot of success on one side of her life and isn't like all the girls back home who just got married and got pregnant and let themselves go and whatever. But she's also totally missed out on the ability to actually make connections because there's something about. Not like we all have to move back home and. And. And have three kids and whatever, but it's like she somehow missed the ability or doesn't have the ability because she's been just doing exactly what she's wanted for the 15 years as an adult of just, like, drinking with her friends, having a good job, making money, being kind of having this glam sex in the city kind of life that she. Sorry to use that as a term because I know you like that show that it's left her at the end actually incapable of really making connections with people, which is an interesting idea for a character. Much more interesting to me than just, man, that teacher was so drunk.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's. And that's exactly why I'm interested in seeing it, because the bad teacher failed so much at that idea. Kind of an unredeemable person.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. You also have an update on the TBTL pen pal club?

[Jen Andrews]

I do. All of the matches were sent out this week, so I would just say that if you did not receive your match, would you do. Before you write in, would you do me a favor and check your spam folder and just make sure but if you didn't receive your match, please write to tbtlpenpalsmail.com because something went wrong because all the, all the matches have been mailed out by this morning.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow.

[Jen Andrews]

Everybody should have their pen pal match. And there were some people that sent in that didn't get their questionnaires in before we did the match. So we will do a round two, probably in a couple months.

[Luke Burbank]

I see.

[Jen Andrews]

So you know, if you didn't make it in this time, we'll get you in the next time.

[Luke Burbank]

Are there rules about how many letters, how many letters these pen pals need to write to each other?

[Jen Andrews]

Well, one of the questionnaire questions was how much are you interested in like once a month or once a quarter or just whenever you feel the spirit, move kind of thing, not of living in John, but your own.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. We've already established that it wouldn't even be possible.

[Jen Andrews]

So yeah, hopefully people are matched up with someone who wants to write about the same amount of time. So I think we will have another round if you didn't get in. But hopefully everybody will get into it this time around. I would just say that maybe your first letter, it would be good to just write kind of an introduction about yourself because people don't know anything about you. We kept all the questionnaire questions private. And so it's not like we sent your pen pal your information. They don't know anything about you. So I would start with something pretty basic.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you think it was looking back on it a bad idea to pair up Mike Daisy and Ira Glass? I feel like there is now tension.

[Jen Andrews]

It's so obvious. That would be great.

[Luke Burbank]

That was, that was. Yeah. I mean on paper it was, it was a real no brainer. But it's turned out to be really tension filled.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, we're gonna go out with a song here, Jen, that you sent along to me today. I had no idea that Scout Willis, is she the. I'm just gonna sound like a dad here. Is she the really rebellious one or is it the other one?

[Jen Andrews]

Well, what happened is. So Scout Willis is the middle one and she's at Brown and she, she's.

[Luke Burbank]

The rebellious one, but it wasn't real.

[Jen Andrews]

You know, she set up a fake Twitter with her class, had to do this assignment and it was the. And so she set up a fake Twitter where she was tweeting all this like really awful stuff about her parents, drugs, all this stuff. And then, and then it was at the end. It was a big hoax.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh really?

[Jen Andrews]

It was a story on like how celebrity. How you can track celebrity on Twitter and how you can, like, how quickly you can change the image of your family.

[Luke Burbank]

I am glad it threw her whole.

[Jen Andrews]

Family under the bus.

[Luke Burbank]

I am so glad that you clarified this for me, because all I read was the tweets and I was like, oh, my God. She is to, you know, pull the title from Drew Barrymore, Little Girl Lost. Oh, my God, that's fascinating. Okay, well. Okay, well, I like her again, but this, it's interesting. So is this her boyfriend? Does it matter?

[Jen Andrews]

No. This is Gus Wenner, who's Jan Wenner's son, the founder of Rolling Stone, and they're both at Brown. As I wrote today on my blog, I was like, somehow the spirits or the gods decided that they didn't have spirits. I know. That's why it's changed. They're really, really rich. They grew up their whole life around really famous people. They're at an Ivy League school, and now you throw in that they're actually pretty talented. I think it's a pretty good song. They have kind of a cool vibe. So.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so this, this is. And they're playing live, too. So, you know, it's just. This is a kind of a one off. So this is Scout and Gus. This has been a TBTL for this week. Thank you so much for listening. We really do appreciate it. Thanks, Flash.

[Jen Andrews]

Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

It was really fun to see you. Don't be a stranger, please. We'll see you back here very soon, I'm sure. To all of you who've been emailing me how much you hate the show without Jen, you're welcome. Have a great weekend, everybody. Until we see you again, no mountain.

[Jen Andrews]

Too tall and good luck to all.

[Luke Burbank]

Indeed.

[Jen Andrews]

He told me I could cry.

[Luke Burbank]

That he be on my side I.

[Jen Andrews]

Told him that I wanted to be free.

[Luke Burbank]

I asked him for his name.

[Jen Andrews]

He turned away in shame and said they called him J He thought his name was Ben I ran from mom and dad Our parents our all to blame Me and James got our own thing going Me and J got it all worked out LE and J got our own thing going we don't need nobody to tell us what it's all about.

[Luke Burbank]

We walked along the road until the night turned cold had to find a place to rest our head Spend the night in the state and we.

[Jen Andrews]

Will give you to some place As.

[Luke Burbank]

I laid down that night while I.

[Jen Andrews]

Slept I saw this life My family came to me in a, a dream they took me by the hand Listen, we understand you've got to go and be free.