Luke Burbank talks about Mitt Romney, and flip-flopping, and why it's not such a bad thing after all

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

Luke Burbank, talk show host, and star of the wonderful podcast Too Beautiful To Live, weighs in with a great opinion piece on Mitt Romney, and why flip-flopping and changing your mind is what makes us different from the beasts in the field. . .

---o0o---

Ben Lee performs Catch My Disease live at an awards show

Ben Lee performs his great tune Catch My Disease live. This tune is also the theme song of the great radio show and podcast [imaginary radio show] TBTL by Luke Burbank...


---o0o---

TBTL Lives!

click to enlarge


TBTL roared back to life as a Podcast after being cancelled as a terrestrial radio show in Seattle. The show was always one of the lowest rated in Seattle, but it has fans around the world and its podcast was always extremely popular. The parent company decide to fund Too Beautiful To Live as a podcast for an unspecified period of time. This is my favorite radio show of all time.


Subscribe! Go to the iTunes Podcast page to subscribe or download shows, or go to http://www.tbtl.net/



Tom Tangney, a Seattle movie critic, wrote the following moving tribute last week, when TBTL's cancellation was announced:


TBTL - Why it mattered
By Tom Tangney


The KIRO radio show TOO BEAUTIFUL TO LIVE has attained its own apotheosis. The show whose very title dared to foretell its demise has now completed its mission. TOO BEAUTIFUL TO LIVE has indeed died.

I am not here to bury TBTL however, but to praise it. Its 396 shows now constitute the complete "TBTL Collector's Series" of programs and, in retrospect, the most compelling question may not be "Why is it suddenly gone?" but rather "How did it last as long as it did?" I'd like to believe we live in a world in which something like TBTL could survive but the evidence points to the contrary. So instead, I'll just appreciate the fact it existed at all.

TBTL was the most original, innovative, and intelligently off-the-wall show I've ever heard on radio. Where else are you going to hear butchered impromptu readings of famous movie scenes, regular visits from a grammarian, an in-house a capella re-enactment of a modern opera, an Oscar show in which food from a nominated film is cooked and consumed live on air, a week's worth of Spanish and Latin lessons, a spontaneous dance-off to music designated as impossible to dance to, in-studio imitations of Bob Dylan singing Christmas songs, and hundreds of other wacky ideas. And who else but TBTL would organize a listeners' prom, a roller skating party, and nights out at the Opera AND a Mariners game?

Often described as the radio equivalent of the TV series SEINFELD, TBTL really was a show about nothing. And in its seemingly haphazard investigation of "nothing," it proved to be, more often than not, about "everything." The genius of TBTL was that it recognized the profundity of the mundane. We all have to live in the mundane world, of course, but articulate dissections of our mundane lives can actually produce clever and entertaining insights. The personal stories shared each night by host Luke Burbank, producer Jen Andrews, and board-op Sean De Tore were more humorous than earth-shattering but the point was they were always very human - the kind of daily victories and embarrassments that make up our everyday lives.

TBTL often hurtled headlong into the inane preoccupations of pop culture as well. Their WHY IT MATTERS segments would debate everything from the silly to the sublime (e.g. an early show took on the significance of those Karate Kid movies, a late show examined the brilliance of Quentin Tarantino.) But no matter how deep it dove into the superficial, it would always, or almost always, emerge with a smile and a wink. After all, this was a show run by smart and culturally savvy people. Burbank is an especially quick and literate host who can drop off-the-cuff references to Tenzing Norgay, Soren Kierkegaard, and Jeff Koons as readily as he can to Zooey Deschanel and Jemaine Clement and he often does so in a single conversation. And Andrews was always more apt to cull material for the show from, say, THE NEW YORKER than she was from TMZ. For me and much of the TBTListan nation, I suspect, it's that high art/low art tension that best defines the show's appeal.

TBTL always reminded me of a slice of lemon meringue pie. At its best, it was the perfect combination of sugar-spun fluff and tart flavor. When taking a bite out of TBTL, you had to make sure you tasted both the meringue and the lemon, or you'd miss the point. Too many people, I'm afraid, couldn't get past the meringue in the show to taste the lemon. But if you stuck with the show long enough, the lemon would always out.

Rawr.
---o0o---

Dave Wakeling and Nat Love perform Save It For Later on Luke Burbank's TBTL

It's kind of cool when your heroes meet.

While Dave Wakeling and the English Beat were in town for an awesome show at The Showbox, they dropped by Seattle's (and now, the world's) Luke Burbank's TBTL (Too Beautiful To Live - KIRO 97.3 FM and 710 AM). They play two songs, including one of their greatest, Save It For Later. I have seen The English Beat twice now, but have never seen Dave without his pink Danelectro. They're playing unplugged.

Check out this video on YouTube (or down below) and download the TBTL podcast with songs and interview at the TBTL website. or at the iTunes podast site.


---o0o---

TBTL - Too Beautiful To Live headlines iTunes podcast page

click to enlarge

My favorite radio show, Luke Burbank's TBTL is headlining the podcast page on iTunes. Download some shows there, stream it live from http://mynorthwest.com/ , or even listen to it live on KIRO 97.3 FM, if you live in the Seattle area, from 7-10 Pacific Time Monday-Friday, with a best of on Saturdays...

---o0o---

TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live: Give it a listen

I keep bringing this up, but you need to listen to Luke Burbank and Jen Andrews on TBTL (Too Beautiful To Live). I am not going to go into any details--if you live in Seattle, tune in Kiro 710 AM from 7-10 Weekdays (with a best of on Saturday), or go to iTunes, or to TBTL.net. These people are reinventing radio.
---o0o---

Is Bill Clinton, as Luke Burbank said on TBTL, on "a one-way ticket to Crunktown?"

Luke Burbank pegged it on Too Beautiful To Live (TBTL). He called the tale appearing in Vanity Fair, about which Bill Clinton is apparently livid, "A one-way ticket to Crunktown."

The fast-paced, depressing, and pretty danged interesting story with the subtitles "Bubba Trouble" and "The Comeback Id" appears here."

After reading this story, I just want to give a shout out to Scooter, a long time reader. It's almost a crime you didn't write this VF story! You've been ranting about this for years now, most of it, as it turns out, depressingly spot on. I don't know how much a smear piece the Vanity Fair piece is. . .or if it is 100% verifiable, but. . .whew! Party on Mister President!

At least Dick Nixon went on to write eight books, advise every single President who followed him, and for one thing, in office, helped pry open the doors to China and Russia. Dick Nixon helped our world get just a little bit closer even in "retirement", and you waded into your wife's ill-fated Presidential campaign with anger and racially coded messages, and angry outbursts all along the campaign trail, from cocktail parties, to rally to $5,000 a plate dinners, and apparently some extremely "fast company."
---o0o---

TBTL Lives! Too beautiful to live? Not yet.

Luke and Jen

Blatherwatch has just reported on Too Beautiful To Live's beating the odds. This is possibly my favorite radio show of all time; a show without T & A, or people ranting about gasoline and taxes, and it miraculously survives. This show is all over the map, from tedious to sublime, and it's the best "talk" radio I've ever heard, except for Jean Shepherd's sublime run of shows for 20 years on WOR in New York City.

"TBTL: it lives!
Everyone wants to know: Is KIRO's show Too Beautiful to Live?

Seems the KIRO suits were high-fiving each other Monday: "We're the highest rated show on the station in the 18-34 demo," says Luke Burbank, the host of the new low-concept show (m-f, 7-10p). "

Read the full article here.


---o0o---