Episode #961

Summary

Podcast Summary: TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live – Episode #961

Release Date: November 28, 2011

Hosts: Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh

Description: In Episode #961 of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live, hosts Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh dive into a lively discussion covering Thanksgiving anecdotes, movie reviews, music explorations, Broadway tribulations, and personal stories shared through listener emails. Their trademark humor and camaraderie make for an engaging episode that offers both laughter and thoughtful commentary.

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1. Welcome and Opening Banter (00:00 - 02:20)

The episode kicks off with Luke and Andrew engaging in their usual playful banter, establishing their dynamic chemistry. Luke humorously assigns nicknames to Andrew, calling him "the Doubter," while teasing about not knowing each other’s identities outside of the show.

Notable Quote:

Luke (00:32): "Hey, I called dibs on being nicknamed the Bull. Always thought of you, Jen, as the doubter."

2. Thanksgiving Reflections (02:20 - 14:56)

The hosts recount their Thanksgiving experiences, sharing both humorous and heartfelt moments. Luke talks about his parents' notoriously unpredictable shower temperature, leading to lighthearted complaints about the inconsistent water settings.

Notable Quote:

Luke (03:49): "The shower has two settings. Scald your penis off or freeze your penis off. Short version of events. Bad day for penises."

Andrew shares his feelings about maintaining appropriateness during the holidays, culminating in posting an "inappropriate video" to lighten the mood.

Notable Quote:

Andrew (05:41): "I just felt like I needed to get that out a little bit."

The discussion transitions into their family's film nights, where technical issues with DVDs lead to humorous frustrations.

3. Movie Reviews and Media Commentary (06:12 - 15:20)

Luke and Andrew review several films, starting with Michael Mann's Public Enemies. They critique the movie's plot coherence and digital shooting style, with Luke expressing disappointment despite an all-star cast.

Notable Quote:

Luke (06:31): "I just didn't even like the actual film look of it, let alone."

They move on to Fantastic Mr. Fox, sharing their mixed feelings about the scratched DVD, and conclude with a positive note on watching White Christmas, which received unanimous approval.

4. Personal Projects and Media Experiences (08:00 - 10:03)

Luke narrates his experience with a self-made documentary about the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players. Despite initial excitement, technical glitches result in a disappointing viewing experience limited to a small, non-responsive audience.

Notable Quote:

Luke (09:58): "This last night I sent it to your in-laws. For some reason, they decided to pass on it."

5. Music Segment: Pandora and Song Reviews (15:20 - 30:08)

The hosts embark on a deep dive into music via Pandora, exploring artists like Steve Winwood and Don Henley. They humorously critique song selections and share personal attachments to tracks like Freedom Over Spill by Steve Winwood and Boys of Summer by Don Henley.

Notable Quote:

Andrew (18:44): "He's back in the high life." Luke (19:03): "He was in some famous band in the 60s."

Their exploration includes playful jabs at the limitations of Pandora’s automated playlists and the endless loop of Henley songs.

6. Sponsorship and Broadway Discussion (30:08 - 40:45)

The episode transitions to a sponsorship segment promoting Chateau St. Michel, the show’s official wine sponsor. Luke enthusiastically describes the winery’s upcoming New Year's Eve event and encourages listeners to join the Vintage Reserve Club for exclusive wine selections.

Notable Quote:

Luke (34:30): "Chateau St. Michel, Woodinville, Washington. Our I would say more than any podcast that's not actually about Broadway, we've probably documented the trials and travails of Turn Off the Dark more than any other."

Following the sponsorship, the hosts delve into an in-depth discussion about the troubled Broadway production Turn Off the Dark. They analyze its massive budget, production issues, and mixed reception, debating whether the show can sustain its financial demands and public interest.

Notable Quote:

Andrew (35:32): "People falling great distances, breaking ribs, people quitting the show. Who doesn't love a good spectacle?"

7. Granny Time: Personal Stories and Listener Emails (42:20 - 66:32)

In the "Granny Time" segment, Andrew shares a poignant story about American students arrested in Cairo during protests, focusing on one student's conspicuous Def Leppard T-shirt. The discussion highlights the unexpected popularity of 80s bands among younger generations and the global distribution of branded apparel.

Notable Quote:

Andrew (42:20): "It's like, Def Leppard could be an ironic idea of a band to them."

Luke and Andrew also tackle sensitive topics such as the portrayal of anxiety in the media and the misleading narratives around positive thinking and cancer survival. They express solidarity with listeners facing similar struggles, emphasizing empathy over simplistic solutions.

Notable Quote:

Andrew (49:46): "I don't think you could affect it in these kinds of ways. It sets up this idea where you can think your way out of it."

Listener Miles writes about Andrew Jackson's physique, sparking a humorous and self-deprecating exchange about body image and aging between the hosts.

Notable Quote:

Luke (61:55): "He goes on to say, I think I look pretty damn good right now. I would be happy to send photographic evidence your way."

The segment concludes with memorable anecdotes from their own lives, reinforcing the show’s blend of humor and heartfelt conversation.

8. Closing Remarks (66:05 - End)

Luke and Andrew wrap up the episode with final humorous exchanges about their dietary habits and personal quirks. They express gratitude to their listeners for tuning in and tease upcoming content, maintaining their signature lighthearted tone.

Notable Quote:

Andrew (66:05): "I did, too." Luke (66:32): "Until then, no mountain too tall."

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Key Takeaways:

• Humorous Storytelling: Luke and Andrew effectively use personal anecdotes and witty exchanges to engage listeners.

• Diverse Topics: The episode navigates through various subjects, from family traditions and movie critiques to music analysis and serious discussions on mental health.

• Listener Interaction: Incorporating listener emails adds a relatable and interactive dimension to the show.

• Emotional Depth: Beyond humor, the hosts address meaningful issues, offering empathy and support to their audience.

• Camaraderie and Chemistry: The natural rapport between Luke and Andrew enhances the listening experience, making complex topics approachable and entertaining.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Luke (00:32): "Hey, I called dibs on being nicknamed the Bull. Always thought of you, Jen, as the doubter."

• Luke (03:49): "The shower has two settings. Scald your penis off or freeze your penis off. Short version of events. Bad day for penises."

• Andrew (05:41): "I just felt like I needed to get that out a little bit."

• Luke (09:58): "This last night I sent it to your in-laws. For some reason, they decided to pass on it."

• Andrew (42:20): "It's like, Def Leppard could be an ironic idea of a band to them."

• Andrew (49:46): "I don't think you could affect it in these kinds of ways. It sets up this idea where you can think your way out of it."

• Luke (61:55): "He goes on to say, I think I look pretty damn good right now. I would be happy to send photographic evidence your way."

This episode of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live exemplifies the hosts' ability to blend humor, personal stories, and insightful discussions, offering listeners a multifaceted and enjoyable experience.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

They're elite corps commandos, nameless and faceless in a hundred newsreels and dispatches. Now you'll know them and you'll know there are as many different kinds of curry as there are names. Colonel Mike Kirby, the pro. Beckwourth the doubter. Sergeant Muldoon the Bull. Doc Magee, the dependable. You know them all in the green parade.

[Jen Andrews]

Tbt.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, I called dibs on being nicknamed the Bull. Always thought of you, Jen, as the doubter. Hi, everybody. Welcome to a Monday afternoon edition of tbtl. We're back and very excited to be here, even if some of you maybe aren't.

[Jen Andrews]

They've turned the radio dial with a snarl. Then one day they tell me they suddenly realized I was talking to them.

[Luke Burbank]

This is tbtl, the show that might be too beautiful to live. And it's episode 961 in a collector's series. We've got days and days of stories and observations that we're excited to share with you.

[Jen Andrews]

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

[Luke Burbank]

So turn off the dark on Broadway. The most jinxed, what we thought ill conceived project in the history of. Of the theater is, wait, making money. Yeah, apparently. Also, if you've got a hankering for some kind of terrible music, there's apparently an entire channel for you. We're gonna play it for you. Although even just that preview, even just that small thomasing that we just suffered is really. It's gonna be hard for me to get over if I'm a little off for the next 10 to 12 minutes of the show. It's just because I'm recovering from how smooth things got there for a moment. It's Monday, so that means Jen will check in with some granny time. It's granny time. And a ton of other fun, interesting stuff. Speaking of Jen, I love Jesus, but I drink a little flash. Andrews, longtime producer of the program, located just steps to my left. Hi, Jen.

[Jen Andrews]

Hi.

[Luke Burbank]

Welcome back.

[Jen Andrews]

Thank you. Same to you.

[Luke Burbank]

I know it's like the most. It's right next to TGIF on this. On this sort of like spectrum of unoriginal, uninteresting things you can say when you're back at work. When you're at work. But boy, that went fast, didn't it?

[Jen Andrews]

Yep. I must have said four times today. Mondays are hard.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. It's in between saying, boy, that weekend, that was too short. That's in between. Somebody's got a case of the Mondays and TGIF on the spectrum of lameness and yet totally True. God, that was just like blew by. We blinked and it was over. How was your big. Your big feast? How was the family times? How did it all go?

[Jen Andrews]

It went really well. I have to say that I'm overwhelmed by how clearly I feel like I can now picture your parents shower just from following on Twitter. I kept thinking to his. My parents know that. Do they laugh as well at these things?

[Luke Burbank]

They don't know there's a thing called Twitter. Thankfully, I forgot you follow me on Twitter. I'm very sorry you had to read a tweet about my man parts. That's not usually the sort of thing we discuss, whether in person or via the world wide web.

[Jen Andrews]

Well, you're tweeting over Thanksgiving. I think probably. I think a lot of people felt a kinship with you because between your little sister condescending to you and your parents water heater being a little wacky.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I think what I said for those who aren't following me on Twitter, and if you're not, you're missing out on these sorts of gems. My parents have this shower in the basement that is. It's freezing cold. And then if you try to turn it to being a little more warm, it goes into being totally scalding. There's no middle ground. And you just spend. Any shower is like an hour long shower because you're always. If you're me and I'm kind of. I'm delicate, I'm always like, oh, that's too cold. Okay, hold on a sec. I got too hot. And I'm not ever actually standing in the shower. I'm standing next to the shower trying to get the thing. So I said that my parents have. The shower has two settings. Scald your penis off or freeze your penis off. Short version of events. Bad day for penises. Which was true also. And I tweeted this as well. I am pretty sure that the bottle of Head and shoulders that is in that shower is the same one they had when I was a kid.

[Jen Andrews]

They just keep adding water.

[Luke Burbank]

It seemed very diluted. It was so enormous that when they got it back in the 80s, it seemed like there's no way we're ever gonna get through all that. Head and shoulders. There aren't enough people in my family with dandruff. That's the thing. Well, it's.

[Jen Andrews]

Cause they've been using the head and shoulder. Well, the watered down head and shoulders.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. So I was definitely. Hopefully, anyway, I was able to give voice to the shared experience that many of us had of going somewhere. I Thought Gawker did an amazing write up of why to not drunk drive on Thanksgiving. As if you need an excuse. But they sketched out this scene. They said everyone goes back to the suburban town where their parents live. Maybe it's where you're from. And you go to some crappy sports bar that you would never go to the other 364 days out of the year because you want to see who got fat, you know, and who got divorced.

[Jen Andrews]

And.

[Luke Burbank]

And it's like all over the country people were doing some version of this in their hometown. And, you know, I don't know, at least the fact that we were all in it together, I kind of appreciated.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah, my thing was just being utterly appropriate. Like, being utterly appropriate every minute of every day for four days is where you strain. So that's why this morning I put up an inappropriate video on my website, because I just felt like I needed to get that out a little bit.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a hilarious commercial too, by the.

[Jen Andrews]

Way, [e-mail] and then in our proud history on this show of reviewing films that are not in the theater any longer and often not even available, may.

[Luke Burbank]

Have actually been before theaters were invented. It may not be in the Odeon anymore.

[Jen Andrews]

The first family film night was Michael Mann's not Masterpiece Public Enemies, where he just took Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard and Johnny Depp, every great actor in the world, and just threw him in a movie and hoped it worked out and it didn't.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what really bothers me about that movie? Not just the lack of coherent plot or the. Whatever, it's that he shot it digitally. And I felt like just the look of the film. Now my buddy Kamaro Kev from Stack of Dimes, who's obsessed with this kind of thing, tells me, no, no, no, no, you had to see it in a theater with the right kind of projection. Da da da. Like, my lack of enjoyment was because I was watching it on a big screen and it wasn't the right something. But I just didn't even like. I didn't even like the actual film look of it, let alone. And I love all of those people you mentioned, and I love gangster flick. Like, it should have worked, right?

[Jen Andrews]

I thought the main problem with it was he was trying. He hinted at this idea that John Dillinger was like America's bank robber. Like America was behind him and loved him. But he never in any way showed why that would be or it just didn't make any sense. Everybody booed and hated it. So that was a big flop. And then Second family film night, which was Thanksgiving night, we watched the Fantastic Mr. Fox, which is wonderful except that they had checked it out from the library in the last 15 minutes. It just scratched out and we. So I don't know how it ends. And so not fantastically. Oh, really?

[Luke Burbank]

No, that's not true. It's great. So it was like a DVD and it was scratched.

[Jen Andrews]

It was a DVD that was scratched. And so right at the end, like the last 50 minutes, it just, we couldn't. It started skipping around and that's the worst. Oh, it was so frustrating. And so then everybody booed again, but not because we didn't like it, because we loved it. And so then Friday night, you guys.

[Luke Burbank]

Are really a tough crowd.

[Jen Andrews]

Friday night we just went safe and went with White Christmas. And as always, you know, White Christmas is always ahead and everybody loved it.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah. It's funny, like I'm trying to think of. I'm not saying this to sound fancy, but I'm trying to think of the last time I actually watched a DVD anymore because of all of the Netflixery and the undemandedness and you know, if like HBO just DVRING stuff, it's getting rarer.

[Jen Andrews]

I mean, it's time. It's probably time to start getting sad about it.

[Luke Burbank]

You know. One of the worst ending to a film ever in terms of just anti climax would be I made this documentary about this family band called the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players. And I was very excited because I just made it myself. I didn't know what I was doing. And I got. It got into this like music and film festival called CMJ in New York. And it played in Times Square and it played at the lows in Times Square. And I was like, I couldn't believe my luck. I thought, well, my film career has officially arrived. What I didn't realize was it was playing at 2 o'clock in times Square, which meant no one could get there, nor did they want to go there. So the audience was me, my sister Liz, the Trachtenbergs, my friend Robert Smith, who came over from Brooklyn. So we're sitting in there, but okay, fine, whatever. Small. We're small but scrappy. As a film audience. It gets to the last 10 minutes. This is the emotional real, the sort of emotional crux of this film. Get to the last 10 minutes and somehow it was on video. But somehow the sound and the picture go out of sync. So it turns into basically like a martial arts film that's been poorly redubbed And I'm just sitting there and I'm looking over at the Trachtenbergs who also I think were like, wow, well, this is going to be, you know, someone made a movie about us and it's playing in Times Square. This is like, you know, I guess we just have to decide on the color our limo is going to be because we're obviously now we're moving into and just, we're just writing a limo all the time. We've moved into a totally different bracket. Financially, fame wise, it's happening. And what it really was was we're sitting in the basement of the Lowes theater there. There's like nobody there and the sound is out of sync.

[Jen Andrews]

I'm surprised we didn't view that on Saturday night at my family film festival.

[Luke Burbank]

This last night I sent it to your in laws. For some reason they decided to pass on it. Our thing that happened this year, which has been building for a few years. And again, I can talk about this because my family doesn't know what you do. My family does not know what I do for a living. You can call this a living.

[Jen Andrews]

And I actually know that to be true. I mean, it's kind of amazing how they call during showtime.

[Luke Burbank]

Very commonly. Very commonly. So here's the thing. My brother in law is an amazing chef. Charcuterie, food, whatever. He works at this place Toro Bravo in Portland, which is perennially. I just got a text and I was like, I bet you that's my mom. It is perennially one of the most popular restaurants in Portland. It's an amazing place. He's so good at cooking everything and anything. There's nothing that he doesn't know how to cook. And when he cooks it, it's better than when anyone else tries to cook it. So he shows up on Wednesday night and he's got like, he makes the brine for the turkey and he's got the, you know, he's making the. He's making like five apple pies. He's brining a turkey, he's doing the potatoes. He's got this whole thing going. And the next day we get up and you know, he. And certainly my sisters helped out and stuff. But mostly it was him and my sisters just crank this thing up. It's amazing. Like, it's the best turkey we've ever had in the history of Thanksgiving. Moist, delicious. So come Friday morning when everyone's mostly gone, my mom is sitting around the kitchen glumly and she's saying that she was like wishing that she Got to make more of the stuff because she likes doing that, which I respect. But the thing is, and this isn't a criticism of her cooking as much as we have a guy who could be like, on Top Chef, right?

[Jen Andrews]

Why would you waste that?

[Luke Burbank]

Why do we not take advantage of that? But then the question, the question is, though, is Thanksgiving, is it about having the amateurs make the stuff to a passable degree or have Iron Chef Marimoto just like, create this amazing. And my brother in law, Josh, to his credit, he's not pushy. He's just, you know, he's not like, I've got, it's my way or the highway. He's just doing it because kind of like no one else is doing it because everyone knows he's better at it. So my question is, what is the true meaning of Thanksgiving, Jennifer? Is it to have an awesome, delicious meal, which we did have, or is it to let the four year old make the thing? Because isn't that cute? Yeah, but it tastes like shit.

[Jen Andrews]

I am a fan of kind of deconstructing the whole thing, honestly, because I think that the holiday has become awful and nightmarish.

[Luke Burbank]

We did have gravy foam.

[Jen Andrews]

And I think one of the reasons is all of these traditions and all of these ideas that the generations have about what it should be, and we cling to them in a way that makes it more and more awkward and anxiety ridden. And I think it would be so much better if it's like, oh, you're great at doing that.

[Luke Burbank]

Great.

[Jen Andrews]

You do that. Oh, you guys want to watch a movie? Let's do that. Like, I just think it's so much better if you kind of throw out all of that. But that's the way it's always been, right? Well, the way it's always been isn't always great. So I think I say you kind of deconstruct the whole thing and break it down to its parts and then figure out how it's going to work best for your family.

[Luke Burbank]

It's hard, though, because with Thanksgiving in particular, part of the whole fun is the nostalgia and is the we always make this kind of a thing. Why do you think, why is that so comforting to us as human beings? The idea of like, this is we. I mean, because I was going on and on last week about how one of my jobs is like, the music. I don't know if anyone actually asked me to do that job. It might just be that I'm pushier than anyone else. But, like, and a big thing is I always I get the Christmas playlist going right after the meal's done because then I feel like it's okay to do. And I like to always do it the same way because that's what I've. It goes, Vince Guaraldi, Little Charlie Brown Christmas for you. There's something very comforting about doing something the way we've always done it. And I don't know why it is that we. I don't know why that is such a big thing to us humans.

[Jen Andrews]

And I think it's striking a balance because I agree with you. There are things that are just the way you've always done it and it is comforting. But then there's other things that are causing anxiety and why do something that causes anxiety if there's an easier way to do it?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, well, it was. All in all, I have to say, our Thanksgiving was a big fun blast. I did go to. I accidentally ended up at the Best Buy on Black Friday, but I didn't, like I wasn't there at two in the morning or anything. I went in the.

[Jen Andrews]

You didn't trample anyone while you were there?

[Luke Burbank]

No. Although I'm planning on e trampling some people today because today's Cyber Monday. So I'm going to email some pepper spray to someone if they're trying to get my waffle iron or whatever the.

[Jen Andrews]

Hell the $2 waffle iron.

[Luke Burbank]

Jeez Louise. But my dad wanted to get something there and I was like, okay, fine. So I go into town with him and we end up going to the Best Buy. A nun. What I couldn't believe. And I don't, I don't know what the larger point of this is, but how many monster energy drink based baseball caps do you think you would see in a 30 minute period anywhere that wasn't a monster energy drink contest or convention or some kind of sponsored event?

[Jen Andrews]

None.

[Luke Burbank]

Would you believe four? Would you believe four? Three in the Best Buy and one dude just walking across the road not with that group. And by the way, none of them were together and these were not. Somebody said to me, oh, was it like Camel Bucks was like, you got this thing free for. I don't think so. I think they paid money for these hats because some of them were like fitted. You know, Monster energy drink has the, the logo is like three slashes like a, like a radioactive tiger.

[Jen Andrews]

Like a monster.

[Luke Burbank]

Even a monster was like, give me that energy drink, I'm slashing your hat. Or this can or whatever. I could not believe I saw four people in the span of 25 minutes, again, not even together. That seemed like a lot.

[Jen Andrews]

It's interesting, too, because now I felt like what happened on Wednesday with our interview with Marc Maron is he gave me the verbiage. So now I know that basically all men, there's three categories, and it's dude dudes, and then it's sensitive dudes, and then it's nerd dudes. And so apparently all men fall from what I was getting from him. All men fall on that trajectory somewhere. And so those guys would be all the way to the very end of dude dudes. They probably don't have any crossover to sensitive dudes or nerd dudes.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Jen Andrews]

And they see. And so there's. I'm just saying that what. What I'm getting from this is there's a high concentration of dude dudes in Silverdale.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Maybe that's. I. I guess it felt manly as I think about it. It felt like a very manly place to me, just out of all the hats, but all right. For some reason. Well, one more thing, just very quickly, on the subject of Silverdale. Did somebody email me this or tweet this to me? I'm trying to find. Well, anyway, somebody said to me, it must have been on Twitter, my friend is a plumber and he got called out to Silverdale on Thursday for an emergency toilet situation. He goes, and my first thought was Luke, so that's hurtful. How dare you. All right. My love for Counting Crows has been well documented on this show. I'm going to Chicago on Wednesday night, and I will be. As the plane takes off, I'll be listening to. It's always a toss up. I either go with recovering the satellites. Sometimes I like to go with Rain King.

[Jen Andrews]

Wow.

[Luke Burbank]

So just whatever mood I'm in, what I like to say about Counting Crows is give me a city name and a weather pattern, and I've got you a Counting Crow song. It's always raining in Baltimore. Something's always snowy in Philadelphia Canyon. Yeah. It's just one more night in Hollywood where, by the way, it was cloudy with a 40% chance of anyway. But that doesn't stop me from loving Counting Crows. But it's certainly something I think I should take great embarrassment in. And the listeners know this about me. And so a listener, Kate, said the subject was to replace your Counting Crows. Guilty pleasure. Listening. Four words. Steve Winwood, Pandora Station. So I thought it would be fun if we went to Pandora and we decided to see.

[Jen Andrews]

He's back in the high life.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. This is apparently a song called Freedom Over Spill by Steve Winwood. It's from back in the high Life.

[Jen Andrews]

Do your parents, like. My parents call him Little Stevie Winwood?

[Luke Burbank]

No.

[Jen Andrews]

Apparently, that's what he was in some famous band in the 60s.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah. Traffic.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah. And he went. His official name back then was Little Stevie Winwood, and my parents insist on calling him that. I'm like, I don't think anyone calls him that anymore.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it's also confusing because Steve Van Zant is Little Stevie, the guy from the E Street Band. So, I mean. But. But I do like that your parents at least have that much rock history in their brains. Because unless you're talking about second chapter of Acts, or Paul Clark or Phil Keggy, my parents are not going to be able to throw down.

[Jen Andrews]

I am feeling a freedom overfill with this one.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Let's see what else is happening, what I'm gonna do. Oh, yeah. So everybody knows the deal with Pandora, right? Does it need any explanation? You don't get to pick the song. They just say, what? What? Like, if you like Steve Winwood, what else would you really like? And apparently they think it'd be some Henley.

[Jen Andrews]

This is the song that I told you about that I misunderstood the lyrics.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Deadhead sticker.

[Jen Andrews]

I thought he said it was a dead head sticking out of a Cadillac. Don't look back, you can never look back.

[Luke Burbank]

I wouldn't really terrify. Nailed the post on that, by the way. Good job.

[Jen Andrews]

The sun was out of reach Empty.

[Luke Burbank]

Lake, empty streets the sun goes down alone. This is really an awesome song.

[Jen Andrews]

I love that. Also, just the term Boys of Summer has a melancholy to it somehow.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Is it Henley's voice? What is it?

[Jen Andrews]

Always makes me feel kind of sad.

[Luke Burbank]

This is a sad song. I mean, it is. In the lyric, after the boys of summer have gone, you figure out that, like, all the, you know, the tanned, beautiful. Some of them do have dead heads sitting in their Cadillac, which someone should call the police. But they're. You know, they're all here. They're all. They're all way cooler than Henley. But even when they're gone, Henley's still gonna be there for you. Henley's always been codependent that way. All right, let's hear what's next. Oh. Oh, this is the police. I always think this is John Wayt missing you. I always hope it's John Wayne Missing youg, which I think of as.

[Jen Andrews]

I always think it's Puffy.

[Luke Burbank]

I would say that the John Waite song is vastly superior to this song. I really kind of Hate this song, actually. Just keep it going. It's. This is an Eric Clapton song, I guess, called no Alibis. But you know what it sounds like? It sounds like a slower version of Wilson Phillips.

[Jen Andrews]

Hold on.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. All right. Oh, we're back to Wynwood. We're looking at little Stevie Winwood. Steve Wynwood covering Give Me Some Loving. I don't know if anybody needs that. Or is this actually him? There's no way he did this song originally.

[Jen Andrews]

We'll know in a minute when the singing starts.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think so. Spencer Davis Group did it originally, by the way. No offense, Steve Winwood. You had a long and storied career and should, I think, be lauded for that. But if this is off of the Best of Steve Winwood and it's you just covering someone who did it more famously, I don't know if I'd put that on my best of.

[Jen Andrews]

He wasn't in the Spencer Davis Group.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't believe. I can't be sure of anything. Okay, it's possible. Let's see what's next. Wow. Just all Henley. All Henley all the time.

[Jen Andrews]

I love this song.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Am I realizing right now, Jen, is this happening? Am I realizing that I found your station number one? Yes. Although, why don't we eliminate the middleman and just go to the Don Henley Pandora station? Let's see what that sounds like. Is it all Steve Winwood? I love that song so much. Okay, now we're looking. All she wants to do is dance. Wait, this was Don Henley and make romance. Forget it. Feel the beat coming off the street I'm sold. She wants to party she wants to get down. This is amazing. I had no idea how rad Henley was, by the way. Why isn't this also just what we do every day on the show? Just cycle through tracks and just talk about how much we like or don't like them.

[Jen Andrews]

All right, I remember this was a scary video because it was kind of post apocalyptic. It was like a scary dance club. It was like an underground dance club. And everybody looked like they were wearing rags. Scared me. Steve Winwood was in the Spencer Davis Group. He left in 67 to form traffic. I don't know when he was little. Stevie.

[Luke Burbank]

Which. Okay, well, we are corrected. I'm sure that, you know, were we to not correct that we'd be getting emails from our music fan listeners. All right, this is what I was hoping it would be.

[Jen Andrews]

This is what we needed. Was the Don Henley Pandora set.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right. There'll be just Enough Windwood. The other one was over winwooded. It's a common problem when you're putting a pan. I mean, Kate, thank you for the suggestion. I'm not.

[Jen Andrews]

You led us where we needed to go.

[Luke Burbank]

Is it just me? I'm open to the idea that it's just me. I think the song is so good.

[Jen Andrews]

I agree. I actually. I asked Sachafara Jones, when we had him on before it went bad, if this was.

[Luke Burbank]

Was there any point before it went bad?

[Jen Andrews]

Well, I tried to. One of the questions I had written down was. Is Missing youg one of the great pop songs of all time? Because that thing had just come out about how it was. Rich Girl by Hallow Notes was, like, the greatest pop song of all time. And I've always thought Missing you rivals it.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. I mean, I just think. I never get tired of it, even just musically. You know Those songs from the 80s that you're nostalgic for them because you're like, oh, yeah, I remember that. But you couldn't listen to it, like, once a week anymore. It would just be. Oh, no, no. But this song, I feel like it's actually really good.

[Jen Andrews]

I agree. I think it's great. Now, remember that night that I was confused about? About he. His earlier band or his later band, I don't know, had this song that we loved. What was his next band?

[Luke Burbank]

Bad English.

[Jen Andrews]

Bad English. It had some really great songs. I love him.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I could just listen to this all day, but I won't. I won't belabor it, but some Eagles.

[Jen Andrews]

Oh, yeah. When I see you smile goes it.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, were you talking about his other big song?

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah, and that was.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a good song, that is. Maybe it'll come up next. Okay. Eagle schmeagles. Sorry. Don Henley.

[Jen Andrews]

I've heard enough of you.

[Luke Burbank]

Whoa, Journey. Is this the Arnel Pineda version or the little.

[Jen Andrews]

They sound the same.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's see what's next. I love that song, but, you know, I could just let any of these songs run for the whole time. Okay, now this is a. Henley, I don't. I don't know anything about the Last Worthless Evening.

[Jen Andrews]

I don't know that one either, but.

[Luke Burbank]

It'S off of the End of the Innocence. Oh, which is.

[Jen Andrews]

That was the big album.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Which is a pretty great track on its own. You two keep it moving. Nothing to hear here. Foreigner would like to know what love is.

[Jen Andrews]

It's always good.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, anyway, I don't know what the point of that was, except for that was really fun. To listen to all that music. Thanks for the heads up, Kate. I. I forget about Pandora. You know, Pandora, sort of like old reliable. I remember it was a huge thing when it came out some years ago. Now there's lots of other things and I've. Like atrax.com I'm really a fan of, but it's just. It's just been there, plugging along with a Don Henley station just waiting to be tapped into. So anyway, I don't know what. I really don't know what the point of any of that was. Let's see the next. Oh, no. That's the maximum number of tracks I'm allowed to skip through.

[Jen Andrews]

Oh, wow.

[Luke Burbank]

But here's what we're doing.

[Jen Andrews]

They put together a playlist and they would like you to listen to it.

[Luke Burbank]

That's reasonable. Okay. Now I'm checking out what a Foreigner playlist sounds like. Wants to start me off with Waiting for a girl like you. We're gonna see what else. Ooh, sticks. I never knew what this was.

[Jen Andrews]

You know, I was watching the sticks behind the music, and it was really interesting because basically the whole band turned on Dennis DeYoung, the lead singer, because he was getting more and more kind of weird.

[Luke Burbank]

Uh, yeah.

[Jen Andrews]

Have you listened to Michelle? We just wanted to be a rock band, and I thought that was so sad for the rest of that band. I thought they wanted to be a regular rock band because they lost that battle.

[Luke Burbank]

This, by the way, shows you something like. Something like. Oh, did it just. Did it just, like, lock me out? Oh, Pandora, you bastard. Now wants me to register.

[Jen Andrews]

Oh, I don't know. Well, we had it.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, yeah, it was good. We had a good run. I was gonna say this is the. This is the unintended consequence of something like Girl Talk. The dj, who I'm a big fan of, I never knew what that was, but he uses it in one of his songs.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah. And consistently reminds you. Oh, yeah, that was a jam. I love that song.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. All right, listen, thanks for humoring us, by the way, Kate. Great suggestion. That although obviously you are wrong. The best channel is the Don Henley station. Let's take a quick music break and then we'll come back and we've got granny time to talk about and some of your emails to read. And also this, I would say, quite surprising story about spider Man. Turn off the dark, which we had all. At least Jen and I think had kind of declared for dead. All right, this is Bachelorette doing I want to be your girlfriend. Back with more TBTL in a Moment.

[Jen Andrews]

I want to be your girlfriend. I want to stay up all night talking. We could keep breakfast in the morning. We could go on missions. Why don't we hang out? Don't we hang out? House? I want me right now. I want to be a girlfriend. I want to hear about your childhood. We can make record things recorded to record better. We could make out on the mixing, dancing.

[Luke Burbank]

Welcome back to tbtl. This is the show that's probably too beautiful to live. And as you know, if you are a faithful listener to the show, we get big time support around here from Chateau St Michel. They are the official wine sponsor of this program and they're throwing a big old New Year's Eve wingding out there at the winery. I do believe I'm kind of going off of the commercial I heard on Cairo, so bear with me. But I know that there's big Chateau St. Michel related doings on New Year's Eve and I can tell you that having been out to the facility there a few times this summer, it is beautiful and fun and would look gorgeous all lit up for New Year's Eve. So that may be something you want to look into. Also have listeners tweeting that they've, after our long prompting, finally decided to join the vrc, the Vintage Reserve Club, which is a thing you can do. If you go to tbtl.net and go to the right side of the page, there's a link to Chateau St. Michel and the VRC. It's a thing you sign up for, you pay them a little quarterly payment and then they will mail you wine. They will actually just mail wine to your house or your work and it will be of an interesting variety. It'll be new stuff they're trying or old stuff that they just found that's of like a great quality. So that might be another way that you could show a little bit of the love back to Chateau St. Michel because they've been our sponsor for so long. Chateau St. Michel, Woodinville, Washington. Our I would say more than any podcast that's not actually about Broadway, we've probably documented the trials and travails of Turn off the Dark more than any other, wouldn't you say? Yes, I think we've been. I don't know why. What happened was there was like, as always, there was like one New York Times story about how it was kind of a troubled production. And then there was finally the reviews of what the how bad. And I mean, you know, like Ben Brantley writing just the really the meanest review I've ever read in the New York Times.

[Jen Andrews]

I think that's really what captured our imagination was just the epic.

[Luke Burbank]

The hatred for it was just intense.

[Jen Andrews]

It seemed like it was failing on such a huge level because of the amount of money that went into it and U2 being involved and Julie Taymor. And then when you started throwing in, like, really bad injuries, right?

[Luke Burbank]

People falling great distances, breaking ribs, people quitting the show. It. I mean, let's be honest, who doesn't love a good spectacle? And it was. And remained so. It was. It's about the price tag, I guess, is like $75 million. Now, an average Broadway show costs like $5 million. Just to give you a sense for how out of whack that is in terms of what they normally cost. And somewhere it was written that for Spider man to ever recoup, it was going to have to make a million dollars a week. Well, would you believe. Who's that an impression of? It's a bad one. Like all of them. Would you believe. Missed it by that much. Does anybody in Stick Amland know who that is? Take a guess.

[Jen Andrews]

Bob Euchre.

[Luke Burbank]

No. No, not John Belushi. 99. That's a giveaway. That's a dead giveaway. Yes. Thank you. Peahands and Drew McFrizz. Maxwell Smart. I'm not saying it was a good impression. Don Adams, get Smart.

[Jen Andrews]

Now I get it.

[Luke Burbank]

Missed it by that much. I'm just gonna keep. Was he also. He was also Inspector Gadget, wasn't he?

[Jen Andrews]

I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, he was. I think he was the voice of the Inspector Gadget cartoon, if I remember right. But I digress. And thank you, people in there who are telling me. Telling me how terrible my impression was. I understand that. That's what makes it more interesting. It's like the joke.

[Jen Andrews]

It was a perfect impression. Everyone would.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. It's like the joke where the guy says to his friend, what's. What's green and sings and hangs on a wall? And he goes, I don't know. And he goes, a salmon. He goes, what are you talking about? He goes, a salmon's. You know, a salmon's not on the wall. He goes, it is if you hang it there. And he goes, a salmon's not green. And he goes, it is if you paint it. And he goes, a salmon can't sing. He goes, I just threw that in to make it hard. That is how my impressions work on this show. Okay. Anyway, would you believe that the. The latest estimates are that at least right now, anyway, Spider man is actually grossing over a million dollars a week. They have Pre sales in 12, $12 million of advanced ticket sales. They're basically making like $300,000 a week of profit above their. Now it should be pointed out that at this rate they are going to have to have a five year run, which is longer than a lot of musicals get. If you have a boffo sacco hit, you get five years. So they still have to. This thing has to grow into being super popular. But they're not hemorrhaging money anymore. They're actually making it back little by little.

[Jen Andrews]

And they're not selling tickets because they're a disaster. That's what I thought was untenable was this idea that people were buying tickets to go to that show because they wanted to see someone fall out of the sky and hurt themselves.

[Luke Burbank]

Right.

[Jen Andrews]

You know, and now it's like the show just is, is being a regular old show that doesn't have a disaster every night. So that actually could last. People are buying tickets because they actually think it's a good show.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. I have to say they're doing some interesting things. One is they have been flying in journalists from all of these other countries to review it and talk about it because they want to become kind of like the Lion King, like the musical that you can come watch if you don't need to have a really great command of English. So you just become a stop. Although I have to say, the Lion King is one thing. It's a lot. I, I don't know, it's. I guess there's a lot of dialogue in the Lion King. The Lion King seems to me to be more about the music and the like incredible gazelle hats or whatever they wear. This though is actually supposed to be still like if you've basically set the bar that low for the plot and you don't even need English and the script of your musical. I do. I don't know if it's totally, you know, if that's such a great reflection, but the point is they're trying to do that. And then the other thing that they're talking about doing is adding a song every year, a new song. So it's like a comic book. And of course then try to get people to buy tickets every year so they can get repeat customers. But I haven't heard of anyone trying to do that. And it's actually kind of a brilliant idea.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah, change it up a little bit.

[Luke Burbank]

Change it up a little bit. Try to get the same people to come back in and buy a couple of tickets over the course of the thing. So whatever. I don't know. It still needs. You know, it's basically like. It seems to me, as a longtime Broadway watcher, it seems to me like. You know what? I almost called it the Great White Way. Is that Broadway or is that in. Is that like in London? The Great White Way.

[Jen Andrews]

Oh, the Great White Way is Broadway.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, I was gonna say that in the intro. And then my brain was going, wait, is that London or is that over here? But anyway, I was gonna say as a longtime watcher of the Great White Way Wide way or White Way. White Way as the great. That sounds racist. I was gonna say it's basically like. It seems like they were in. They were in critical. They've been upgraded to critical, but stable conditions.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

The immediate danger of their life ending has passed, but they're not out of the woods yet, so.

[Jen Andrews]

Well, it's better. I mean, honestly, I was wrong because I really thought it was not. It was gonna fold in. Utter disgrace. Bankruptcy.

[Luke Burbank]

I was totally wrong.

[Jen Andrews]

The listener, Spider man, the listener.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what? Another thing, the guy who had the worst fall back in the production, really, the guy who was hospitalized with the broken ribs, he fell like 20ft onto cement. I'm surprised, impressed that he actually agreed to work there again, because every time you had to do whatever that move was that he did, the one that one time led to a 20 foot fall into concrete, my sphincter would clench up a little bit if I were him. So good for him and good for everybody working on it. I do think that the thing that we sort of realized towards the end was because, remember, we had a guy on who was like the understudy for one of the people in it who.

[Jen Andrews]

Desperately wanted it to work.

[Luke Burbank]

And he said, you know, we're having fun and we like this and we like going to work on a Broadway show. And there's all the Julie Taymor U2 stuff. And then there's just like the people who are working, actors and actresses going in and just doing their job. So for them, we're very happy. Let's get into. Ladies and gentlemen, she's in the house. It's granny time. Yes, it is. This is the segment where Jen just lets us know what's been bothering her in the way that only a person of her young age could be bothered because of the fact that inside there, a grandmother. What's. What's on your mind this week, Jennifer?

[Jen Andrews]

Well, there's a couple things happening in terms of apparel and the first thing, okay, so there was these three students who were studying at. In Cairo, and they're Americans, and they were arrested for allegedly throwing stuff off the building. This college is. Is right on Tahrir Square where there's this huge protest going on against the military that is cracking down on. On Egyptian people.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Jen Andrews]

So they. They got arrested, they got released over the weekend. Great. They're all flying home to their homes now. One of them is Derek Sweeney. And I was watching Derek Sweeney walk through the airport of his hometown. I think it was maybe in Pennsylvania. And this was the T shirt that he was wearing. It was a circa 1983 def Leppard t shirt. And I kind of have become obsessed with it because he's 19 years old. He was not alive when Def Leppard had their heyday.

[Luke Burbank]

He was not alive when Nicole Radford made me. Wrote a mixtape and attached a note to it, said, you know that song? What's the Def Leppard song? The Love Bites. You know that song Love Bites? It's about us and it's mass true. And then I went home and listened to it, and I was like, when you make love, do you look in the mirror? I thought, what are you talking about? That's not about us.

[Jen Andrews]

No. No, it wasn't.

[Luke Burbank]

He wasn't even alive when that song came out.

[Jen Andrews]

No. And all I sort. I immediately became obsessed about it. I almost turned it into a TV show as mystery solvers over the weekend. Because this is what I've decided in my mind. You know, he got arrested. He's wearing whatever's the shirt on his back. They were in custody for a number of days. One of them is claiming that they were even beaten up.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Jen Andrews]

So then they're like, they get freed and they just want out of that country immediately. But so they're not going to go back to their dorm and get their stuff. But he desperately wants to take the T shirt off that he's been wearing for days and got. And maybe has blood on it or whatever. And is that. Is it possible that Def Leppard, much like you learned that Bon Jovi is still very popular in Croatia.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. That.

[Jen Andrews]

Is it possible that Def Leppard, like, are they selling Def Leppard T shirts at the Cairo airport, perhaps? Like, where did he get this Def Leppard T shirt? And what.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, is it a T shirt or a sweatshirt? I think it looks like a shirt.

[Jen Andrews]

It's like a long sleeved T shirt or sweatshirt. Yeah. I mean, it is from the 80s there's no doubt about it. I remember.

[Luke Burbank]

I think it's pyromania. Right? Yeah.

[Jen Andrews]

Yes, I remember this sweatshirt. How did he get it? Why is he wearing it? I can't figure out why a 19 year old kid is wearing the Steph Leopard T shirt.

[Luke Burbank]

It's also possible that there's an Urban Outfitters near Tahrir Square.

[Jen Andrews]

That's ironic.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, yeah, because, you know, Addie's always wearing. I mean, Addie wears a T shirt that has Lebowski on it, and she. I don't. She's gonna get mad at me if she hears this, but she's probably seen the Big Lebowski. But it's like kids these days, you know what I mean? Like, Def Leppard could be an ironic idea of a band to them.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah, that's right.

[Luke Burbank]

That's.

[Jen Andrews]

I know. I mean, all I want is your photograph. I loved that song. Oh, I loved. I mean, I understand if he. If he has somehow, like, discovered a love for Def Leppard and has been buying Def Leppard gear on ebay or something and he took it with him to Cairo. I mean, maybe there's some explanation like that.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you know what's sad is that I don't mean sad for this kid, but sad for us in terms of aging is that, like, we think, how could you ever even know about Def Leppard? But think about it, when we were that age, it was Led Zeppelin to us. Like, I loved in high school, I loved. I loved nothing more than to get the lead out on a Sunday, a couple of hours of just Led Zeppelin tracks on kisw.

[Jen Andrews]

That's so funny, because what I was doing was listening. I actually had, like, an old album of James Taylor. And I thought I was so hip listening to my James Taylor.

[Luke Burbank]

But so our music, the music that was popular when we were kids, the kids, if they do know about it, it's in this kind of like. They're like the weird kind of kid who's listening to the oldies, basically, the old music that is Def Leppard. Yeah.

[Jen Andrews]

Well, if anybody out there knows Derek Sweeney or has any way to find out why he's wearing this Def Leppard T shirt, please, please find out and let me know, because I'm obsessed about it. And a side note about apparel in the Mideast. So the other thing that's going on is that these soldiers in Syria have started the Syrian Freedom army and they are fighting against Assad, their president. So we're watching this big, long news story about it on Sunday on cbs and they're showing. They keep showing this, like, super hot looking guy with, like, his, like, sniper up on a roof, like, looking really awesome. He's in the Syrian Freedom Army. You know what he's wearing?

[Luke Burbank]

A warrant T shirt.

[Jen Andrews]

No, a Seattle Mariner's cap.

[Luke Burbank]

What?

[Jen Andrews]

And not a baseball cap, but one of those, like, warm winter caps that just has the S logo on the front. And first of all, it made him look even hotter. He was super hot. Like, just. He just had that, like, warrior, don't mess with me, I'm a badass kind of thing. Well, the word that you coined last week that I've now been using, non stop badassery. He was an example of badassery. And then he's wearing the Seattle Mariners hat. And so I'm thinking to myself, I don't really know everything that's going on over there, but I feel like I'm on his side. And then Jason said, it's probably just that it looks. It's cool. It's an S. And maybe they're just wearing it for, like, Syria.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Jen Andrews]

And I thought, well, that seems like a long way to go. I mean, are they calling here to the Mariner store and ordering Mariner caps to be sent over there to stand for Syria? Like, it seems like you could. There'd be an easier way to get an S on your hat than going with the Seattle Mariner.

[Luke Burbank]

And you're sure it was that? You sure it wasn't just similar looking? It looked.

[Jen Andrews]

It was very. I mean, it was similar enough that we both were like, Mariners. I mean, it was the S logo. The Seattle Mariners S logo on his head.

[Luke Burbank]

Or it was maybe like. Yeah. Was it just in a secondhand store somewhere in Syria? And he was like, I live in Syria, and that's also an S. And he was drawn to it. I wonder if that's their official. If that is an official thing, if those have been passed out. And also, I'm happy to hear that there's at least somewhere that the Mariners will sell merchandise because they're not very good at baseball right now. And I don't think anyone could have imagined that a huge revenue stream would just be countries that are in revolt that happen to start with S. I know.

[Jen Andrews]

So that is an upside for the local economy here.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. We're hoping something else happens in Mongolia. Sell a lot of those M hats. Or the state of Maryland, I guess they have their own hats there. Wow, that's very surprising. Very surprising. You know that there's A whole. Did you see that 60 Minutes about the like, what do you call it? The sort of clothing, the downstream movement of clothing throughout the globe. There's like A clothing, B grade, C grade, and like degrade. And then there's clothing that they just, they just wrap it up into a giant square and compress and just like air drop it into like third world countries. And a lot of times those shirts will be like, you know, dallas Cowboys, super bowl champs, except they didn't win.

[Jen Andrews]

Those shirts were already printed.

[Luke Burbank]

It was the ones they printed, you know, before, like the game and creates these alternate realities.

[Jen Andrews]

They were the champions.

[Luke Burbank]

And you see these kids walking around in the sedan wearing this oversized shirt that says like a Super bowl champ. That didn't happen. All right, what else?

[Jen Andrews]

Okay, this really drives me crazy. So there was this big special about, okay, there's this guy named Mark Herzlich and he was a huge star at Boston College and he was heading for the NFL. And then he got cancer and they said he would never. I mean, he might die, he might not ever walk again.

[Luke Burbank]

They had to replace his leg with titanium.

[Jen Andrews]

Right. There's a right. And certainly would never play football again. So anyway, spoiler alert. He plays for the Giants.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Jen Andrews]

So there's been, I've now seen three specials about this and they all cast it under this thing about how the power of positive thinking.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Jen Andrews]

And it really bugs me and I want to tell you why. First of all, I'm not a doctor and I do know that there's lots of medical studies about the power of positive thinking and that possibly that does have some sort of effect on your body. I don't know. I don't really believe it. I'm very skeptical about that. I think that like, your days are numbered. And if the certain medical thing that you undergo works well with your body, that's great. But I don't think you could affect it in these kinds of ways. But even setting that aside, and I know there's a lot of doctors who really believe in the power of positive thinking. And so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but what really bothers me is this media fueled idea that if you have positive thinking, you can beat cancer. Because it's like, and I'm gonna use a bad word, cause I feel passionately about it. It's like shitting on all the people who died as if somehow they weren't. You know, when people say, well, she's a fighter, well, that person wasn't a fighter.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely.

[Jen Andrews]

That person didn't have positive thinking like it, it, it sets up this idea where you can think your way out of if you're just a better, stronger pluckier, if you're just plucky about it, you can beat cancer. And then it just like for all the people that I'm sure fought and wanted to live and didn't want to die and didn't want to leave their kids, those people somehow just weren't plucky enough. You know, it just really bugs me.

[Luke Burbank]

I could not agree more with you on this. I, I for all of the exact same reasons. Because it's like. Well, I mean you just said it, you said it really well. And I know a lot of people who have lost and I myself have had really close friends pass away from cancer really young. And I can tell you it was not because they weren't fighters. So I agree with you. I don't anyway. And you know what? I have to say part of it also goes to the cancer fighting industry when they're all talking about kicking cancer's butt. And you messed with cancer, you messed with the wrong person. And I guess I understand to a degree why they want to empower people. They want to enlist people in what they think of as a fight. And the way in which I guess I could see the positive attitude, positive thinking affecting you is if you are able to, if you're lucky enough to sort of maintain your positivity, then you're probably more likely to do the treatments to their full. If you're supposed to do physical therapy, you probably do it 10% harder than you might otherwise. I mean there are probably a lot of ways that just being less bummed out just helps you in the day to day existence model.

[Jen Andrews]

It certainly helps the people around you. I mean you're being a much easier patient and it's easier for your family and all that kind of stuff. I'm not saying anything against being positive. I just don't like the link that somehow being positive saves some people from cancer and not other people.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm totally with you and I don't like that dynamic at all. And I wish there was a way to empower people and help them, encourage them in the sort of, in their trying to overcome or just survive really the cancer without it being a thing where it's like, well, the ones who are just better at surviving, they win. And the ones if you died, you must have just really not for the record, this is a little bit deep, a little heavy, but I'm not kidding you. When I say my working theory right now. If I were to get. You know, this guy died in Hawaii recently. He was famous for being in the movie Porky's. Actually, he was in all three of the Porky's films. And he had had leukemia, and it had gone into remission when in like, 2000. It came back recently, and he lived in Hawaii. And what he did was he went out to some beautiful part of Hawaii that he loved because he'd already been through this whole thing once, and it was horrible. He went to this beautiful place away from everybody else, and he took his own life. And I don't think that that sounds like the dumbest thing that a person could do. And I don't think that makes that guy not a fighter.

[Jen Andrews]

It sounds understandable if you're being a human being.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think I want my last days on this earth to be. And I'm not judging anybody else's decisions, but I don't personally want my last days on this earth to be in my most diminished. Of course nobody wants that. But my point is, I don't want to hold onto life badly enough that if it's obvious, if the writing is totally on the wall, if there's clearly nothing that can be done, I don't want to just cling. I don't want to cling to the side of the cliff that is life to the point where I'm just. My last days and weeks and months are just miserable. I don't want that. I'd rather go to a bluff somewhere and look out on something beautiful while I can still take in breaths of air on my own and maybe decide that's the end of my being alive on this planet. So I don't think that would make me not a fighter either.

[Jen Andrews]

Right. It might not make you the poster child for the power of positive thinking. You're somewhere in the middle.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm gonna probably. If I ever find myself in that predicament, I think I may have the power of negative thinking. I'm not kidding. I think I'll probably be like, really? Let's be realistic about this. So, anyway, I'm with you. I'm glad you pointed that out, though. Just because. And we have listeners that are sick with cancer even as we speak, and I've gotten emails from some of them, and it's like, we're with you. And I guess I would say go through this, however feels right for you.

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But you're not bad at beating, at fighting, at kicking cancer's butt. Just because your last scan didn't go well. That's not you.

[Jen Andrews]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Jen Andrews]

And then finally, Time magazine this week has this big cover story that's kind of controversial, I guess, because it's about anxiety, which is a huge problem in this country, as we all know, and certainly as our listeners know, and I suffer from really high levels of anxiety. And I know a lot of our listeners suffer from really high levels of anxiety. And this Time magazine article is basically saying that we have this idea that anxiety is bad because it makes your heart beat faster and it robs you of your sleep. And there's all these things that it does. But there are basic ideas that we need to turn around our thinking about anxiety. Because anxiety is actually fuel and it makes you work harder.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Jen Andrews]

And all this stuff. And I. And so, you know, I was reading that and thinking, you know what? That would certainly. If I could somehow turn it around. And when I'm starting, when my heart starts beating really fast and I start feeling really freaked out, if I could be like, I'm gonna go out and climb a mountain, if you could just.

[Luke Burbank]

Power your cell phone from the anxiety.

[Jen Andrews]

Would it be amazing if I could somehow make it this fuel for my life? You know? And anyway, it just made me think about this whole situation with the Sky QR Markham, who wrote this book, and it was a spy novel and it got released and immediately every single person who read it, because people who read spy novels read lots of spy novels. And so unfortunately, everybody who read it was like, oh, this entire chapter was lifted from this James Bond movie or book. I mean, like the whole book was piecemeal passages from other spy novels. And immediately everybody knew. And he's like publicly just had to try to explain. And he's explanation is, I think, something that all of us who suffer from anxiety would totally understand, which is that he got this book deal, he got this money, he wrote the book, he turned it in, the publisher basically sent back to him notes of all the things he had to change and a deadline. And he looked at all the notes and he knew there was no way he could do it under that deadline. And he had taken the money. And the anxiety started and it built and built and built. And he panicked because he knew there was no way he could do all the rewrites that they were requesting by the deadline. And he panicked and he did something totally stupid. And that's basically what he said. He goes, I just did something that was so stupid because I was so anxiety ridden and freaked out. And I think when you read that it was a really, really stupid thing to do because he immediately got caught. But it's also, like, understandable.

[Luke Burbank]

You can't help but feel a little empathy for the guy.

[Jen Andrews]

Really can. I was just like, oh, man. And now, much like James Fry, I suppose, lying in a memoir now this guy is forever going to be famous for basically stitching together 10 different James Bond novels into a new one.

[Luke Burbank]

Couldn't he have picked something less famous? Like when I was in the Snow King Kiwanis Club Stars of Tomorrow talent show. I've told the story many times, and you had to write down what your talent was going to be. And I decided stand up comedy. I'd never done comedy. I'd never written jokes that way, but I thought I could probably do that. What I learned was it's really actually pretty hard. And so I wrote out some hacky jokes about the food at a.m. p.m. Being overpriced and something about Elizabeth Taylor being married a lot. And then my friend Joe Dolan said, I've got this tape of this guy Steven Wright. And I thought, nobody's ever heard of that guy. And so I just ripped off like 10 minutes of Steven Wright material verbatim. And it was good stuff because Steven Wright's really funny. So it's me and my hacky jokes, you know, oh, you could just use that hot dog for a hammer to nail that because the food's not good at a.m. p. M. And then I shifted. My voice even changes, and I go, I had a pony. He was injured in an electrolysis accident. All of his hair was removed except for his tail. Now I just rent him out to Hare Krishna birthday parties. Apparently somebody. I didn't hear this, but somebody yelled from the audience, what are you, Stephen Wright? Have you ever done anything like that?

[Jen Andrews]

Oh, oh, yes. Yes, I have.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you feel comfortable sharing?

[Jen Andrews]

Well, most of my things were, like, panicking because there's no way I could finish the paper in time. And so I did things like trying to count pictures that I took out of a magazine as my, you know, picture aids.

[Luke Burbank]

Mm.

[Jen Andrews]

You know, I just did a lot of that kind of stuff under pressure.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I'm probably also told the story of the time. A really proud history of just absolutely just ripping shit off when I was a kid, which is funny because I always get mad. In the early days, people would say that we try to say that we steal stuff on this show. And I'd be like, really? Have you listened to this show? If we were gonna steal stuff when we steal some Better stuff than this. That always made me annoyed because I was like, we really like it or don't like what we do on the show. It is completely out of our own brains. But I had to write a humor column for the Jesus Creek student paper, and I just didn't ever do it. And so I just typed out or wrote out verbatim a freaking Dave Barry column. And I don't know why I was so shocked that my advisor, my teacher, who's like a golf playing white guy in his mid-40s, I was shocked he knew about Dave Barry. I couldn't believe. Oh, my God, I can't believe you're reading Dave Barry too. The most widely recognized humorist in America.

[Jen Andrews]

When I was in fifth grade, I was supposed to bring. It was like my week to bring a snack. We had like this one day a week where we got to break early and have a snack, and it was my week to bring it. And there was these candies called after eights. They were dinner mints and they came in little sleeves.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, I remember those well.

[Jen Andrews]

So I took them out of all their little sleeves and I put them on the, on the plate. And I wanted it to seem extra special. And so when I presented them, I said that I had ordered them from France. And of course the teacher was like, these are after eight dinner mints. So I did.

[Luke Burbank]

I did cross plus, it was before 8. You're not even supposed to be eating them then.

[Jen Andrews]

Breaking all the rules right there.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's just, let's see. Let's do one more email before we get out of here. Every week.

[Jen Andrews]

I hope that it's from a female.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, man.

[Jen Andrews]

It's not from a female.

[Luke Burbank]

We got this email from Miles. We were talking about Andrew Jackson because Jason, Jen's husband, is reading and Andrew Jackson biography, and there are all kinds of interesting factoids in there, including that.

[Jen Andrews]

He was 64 and weighed 140 pounds.

[Luke Burbank]

That seems very. And I pointed out, I think I made a joke, a few jokes about him being, you know, that sounds really skinny to me.

[Jen Andrews]

Well, to me, it was so shocking because you and Jason are, you know, about 6'1 6'two and the idea of you guys being 40 pounds lighter than.

[Luke Burbank]

What you are on a good day, let's call what is 50 pounds for me?

[Jen Andrews]

That seems emaciated and then go two inches up. Yeah. I mean, because I'm used to you guys how you look. And that seems healthy and normal to me. And so the thought of taking that much weight off to me seemed like an Emaciated person.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, Miles wanted to clarify a few things. He says, I'm just now listening to the Tuesday show with your shock at Andrew Jackson, who was awesome. Let's make that clear here. He had several bullets in his chest from duels engaged in before his presidency. And I think that's pretty badass. I'm six two and I weigh 145. Yeah. My hope is that now as a real tall and lanky dude at 24, I will finally start to fill out when I'm 45 or so. So provided I have some hair left, then I'll be the man at 50. That's a great point. That's actually a really good point.

[Jen Andrews]

My dad and a great way to look towards aging.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. My dad is. My dad was. I realize now he was a really skinny dude even in his 20s. We were looking at all these family photo albums when I was home for Thanksgiving and he was a. He was a really, really skinny dude, you know, throughout. And he still is very fit. But it's like. Because only now he's like, he's caught up to. He looks like a guy who spent his whole life eating right and exercising, which he hasn't. It's just that he only now is. Even if he. If he's carrying three extra pounds, I'd be surprised, like he's in better shape than I am. Which is not saying anything. But for a person who's never one time thought, what am I eating? And who is like almost 60. So that's a really good way to look at it, Miles. He goes on to say, I think I look pretty damn good right now. I would be happy to send photographic evidence your way. That said, my stepbrother has 4 inches on me and weighs at least 20 pounds less. And that looks kind of weird. So he's saying his stepbrother is 6, 8 and 125. Is he?

[Jen Andrews]

No, he wasn't that tall.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I see. So he's 6, 6 and 125. Is he Christian Bale in the Machinist?

[Jen Andrews]

Yeah. See, maybe I do need photographic evidence.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Would you mind, Miles?

[Jen Andrews]

Really thin.

[Luke Burbank]

Miles, send something in, please. I do like the. This is actually the beginning of the next paragraph. But I actually like the way that Miles constructs. He goes enough about Andrew Jackson and the self esteem of my fellow wraiths. I do like a good Ringwraith reference. Miles, you know what? I'm sure you're totally right. I apologize if we seemed like we were being dismissive of people who happen to be.

[Jen Andrews]

Or just agog.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Or. Yeah, maybe that would be more accurate. I mean, I'm sure for me, part of it is just. And this is like, look, everybody is fighting their own battle, right? So it's like for the people that are 10 pounds too heavy, you look at the person who's 10 pounds too light, and you just think, you lucky SOB. And maybe that's, you know, for the people that can't keep weight on if they try.

[Jen Andrews]

I just eat and eat.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I know it's really hard to feel bad for that person, but I have. You know what? Like, everybody. Everybody's dealing with their own thing, whatever it is. And I think probably if I sounded a gog or if I sounded dismissive, it's just because if you ask me right now, I feel like I would take that. Yeah, I will take it in a minute. As somebody who's, you know. What did I have today? I had a Clif Bar. Worst breakfast ever. For the record. I had some peppermint tea. I had a salad for lunch. Not even an awesome salad. Just some mixed greens, some vinaigrette on there. That's what I do to be basically 10 pounds overweight at a minimum, maybe more. So when I hear what I hear from Miles, I get a little jealous. Plus, Miles looks like he went to Yale or he works there. He has a Yale email address, so he'll be able to invent some kind of. Some kind of a protein shake that adds £10.

[Jen Andrews]

Miles, you have a lot going for you.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, stop bragging. Geez Louise, what a jerk. What a ringwraithy jerk. That's not true, Miles. Although your stepbrother is kind of a dick. All right, I think that's going to. That's gonna do it here on this Monday. It's very exciting to be back. Thank you to all of you for tuning in today and putting up with me just playing Pandora for, like, 25 minutes. But I enjoyed it.

[Jen Andrews]

I did, too.

[Luke Burbank]

Now I'm gonna go home and eat, like, 75 handfuls of those almonds that Jen turned me onto. Do you see them on my desk from here on my new desk? I have a tin of them on there. And one of the main things I was excited about about getting my desk was now I have a place to keep my almonds. Although, unlike you, you eat one serving of them. I eat the entire can. And I think health food. All right, we'll be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. Until then, no mountain too tall.

[Jen Andrews]

And good luck to all indeed.