#4735 Good Charlatan

Summary

Podcast Summary: TBTL #4735 “Good Charlatan” (May 26, 2026)

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Episode Overview

In this Tuesday episode, hosts Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh gather once again for what they call “a collector's series” of daily life and comedy. The episode features playful banter about sodas and retro advertising, deep dives into college journalism legends, thoughtful contemplation on neighborly etiquette, stories from listeners, and—star of the show—an increasingly epic legal saga involving recurring guest, Genevieve. The tone is characteristically witty, self-deprecating, and deeply embedded in personal storytelling and running podcast in-jokes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Retro Sodas, Nostalgia, and Campus Legends (02:29—08:41)

• Luke reminisces about discontinued sodas like Surge, Jones, and OK Soda, linking them to early-90s college newspaper ads.
• They connect OK Soda's ad campaigns to the local Seattle art and music scene, particularly the band Harvey Danger, who were connected to the arts journalism crew at UW’s The Glass Onion.
• Andrew admits his “OK Soda nostalgia” is second-hand, learned later as an adult, dubbing himself a “charlatan” (08:08).

Quote:
"I feel like I'm a charlatan...I don't actually remember it from back in the day. I'm a bit of a charlatan." – Andrew (08:08)

2. Genevieve Joins: The Continuing Legal Drama (26:36—49:32)

• Genevieve returns, recounting how she received a traffic camera ticket for going 33 in a 25 mph zone (in a school zone) in Lake Forest Park while on an OfferUp quest for a cheap dog bed.
• The trio dissect the ticket in detail, delving into the “cash grab” tactics of municipalities, confusing photos, low thresholds for camera detection, and the ethics and options of ticket contestation.
• Luke urges Genevieve to use the “Shaggy Defense” (i.e., “It wasn’t me”), suggesting she demand calibration records and challenge the system outright.

Memorable banter:

• “This was for a $20 dog bed. That is now an $85 dog bed." – Genevieve (37:06)
• "I'm considering taking an extreme legal position—round one—to see what their response is...the worst case scenario is they just charge you the $145." – Luke (45:09)
• “That's not killing me.” – Andrew, on the true cost of thrifty purchases (37:04)

3. Small Town Problems: Noise Ordinances in La Conner (49:33—57:41)

• Andrew recounts a Seattle Times story about La Conner, WA reducing allowable downtown music levels to 55 decibels—quieter than a normal conversation—in response to complaints, and reflects on the hazards of amateur lawmaking.
• Luke connects this to personal experience with noise complaints at a family member’s bar in Portland, referencing an ultimately fruitless lawsuit that went to the state Supreme Court.

Quote:
"There's occasionally people who have an unrealistic expectation of how quiet life needs to be in a city at all times. And then there are people that have a reasonable [expectation]..." – Luke (56:45)

4. Listener Story: The Thomas Quick Serial Killer Non-Case (63:31—70:18)

• Swedish correspondent Eric calls in with a dazzling story: he bought used books at a thrift store, later discovering they were signed by the notorious (and since exonerated) Swedish “serial killer” Thomas Quick.
• The hosts riff on false confessions and the strange artifacts of fame/criminal infamy.

Quote:
"So I picked up the serial killer's old used books...and as a sort of epilogue to this story, about fifteen years later, this guy Thomas Quick was acquitted. He hadn't done anything. He just made the whole thing up and he hadn't killed anyone. So: case closed. Parrot land the show. Bye." – Eric (66:34)

5. Tobinolowski, Richard Karn, and Synchronicity (70:21—83:39)

• An email from Jack Taylor reveals a small-world Hollywood connection: Richard Karn (TV's Al Borland) only got his Home Improvement break after attending traffic school—taking over a part originally offered to Stephen Tobolowski, who is more famous as Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day.
• The hosts marvel at the recurring themes: legal run-ins leading to unexpected opportunities, and the endless loops of character roles and podcast coincidence.

Quote:
"Richard Karn got his big break because of traffic school. If Genevieve goes to traffic school to deal with this ticket she just got, it's probably going to mean her ticket to the big time." – Luke (74:00)

6. How Early Is Too Early For Lawn Mowing? (58:03—62:59)

• Spawned by Luke’s neighbor mowing at 7:45 am, the duo debate the unwritten rules of suburban noise.
• Andrew advocates for 8:00 am as fair, Luke suggests 9:00 am, and both reflect on change-of-life schedules and construction industry realities.

Quote:
"The earliest you can run a lawnmower in a residential situation is 9:00am." – Luke (59:17)
"I would put it at eight at the latest and probably...at the latest. I think that 8 o'clock is totally reasonable." – Andrew (60:18)

7. Meta Moments, In-Jokes, and Podcast Family Connections

• Ongoing running jokes about “dazzling donors,” Mariners’ sports metaphors, AI hosting replacements, and Andrew’s peanut butter-and-jelly night snacking habits.
• Notable tribute to the TBTL extended family, particularly the impact of the show on younger listeners (Owen’s favorite: “bathroom emergencies”).

Quote:
"If we want to reach the younger demo, we need more bathroom stories." – Luke (11:41)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “Houston, we have a boner.” – Andrew (00:55)
• “Your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus.” – Luke (02:09)
• “Don't do it, Cuz. There wasn't, unlike Steve Malcolm, I do not want to fact checking, Cuz.” – Luke (07:00)
• "I'm a bit of a charlatan." – Andrew (08:08)
• “The only good thing that happens on this show about every three months is when Genevieve joins us. You're like the coolest person I've ever met.” – Luke (26:41)
• "This was for a $20 dog bed. That is now a $85 dog bed." – Genevieve (37:06)
• “I look at this picture and I think, it wasn't me. I mean, I know it was me.” – Genevieve (48:23)
• “That's a clear Brady violation. You can't be both Genevieve's partner and prosecuting her!” – Luke (46:56)
• "They're just hoping that most people just settle or pay the bill. I don't think they have a good system in place when someone finally, like Spartacus, stands up to them." – Luke (49:02)
• “Small town politics: they had a city council come up with this legislation, but then they installed cameras that take photos that look like big black squares.” – Andrew (52:23)
• “I was assigned to do a couple of stories about a Swedish serial killer who had been convicted about ten years prior... Turns out... he just made the whole thing up and he hadn't killed anyone.” – Eric (64:06)
• “Richard Karn got his big break because of traffic school.” – Luke (74:00)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | Content | |------------|--------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:29 | Soda Nostalgia | Surge, Jones Soda, OK Soda, retro ads | | 08:41 | Good Charlatan | Andrew confesses his “faux” nostalgia | | 26:36 | Genevieve’s Legal Drama | New traffic ticket saga begins | | 37:06 | True Cost of Thriftiness | $20 dog bed turns $85 via ticket | | 45:09 | The “It Wasn’t Me” Defence | Luke urges contesting ticket using “prove it” tactics | | 49:33 | La Conner Noise Ordinances | Small town acoustic battles | | 63:31 | Listener Eric’s Serial Killer Story | The Thomas Quick “non-mystery” | | 70:21 | Richard Karn vs. Tobolowski | Email about Home Improvement casting | | 74:00 | Traffic School Serendipity | Karn’s big break from traffic school | | 58:03 | Lawn Mowing Etiquette | Neighborhood noise boundaries | | 79:01 | Groundhog Day & Ned Ryerson Story | How Stephen Tobolowski landed the iconic role |

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BONUS: Podcast Language, Culture & Inside References

• “Dazzling donors”: Listener-shoutouts intertwined with long digressions.
• “Parrot land the show. Bye.”: A playful TBTL sign-off referencing podcast lore (66:34).
• Riff about AI models, hypothetical podcast replacements—a recurring anxiety/fantasy.
• “Shaggy Defense”: Naming their bad legal advice after the pop song “It Wasn’t Me”.

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Summary in One Sentence

Tuesday's TBTL has the hosts reliving soda-soaked campus nostalgia, strategizing small town speed trap defenses, bonding over podcast community, and—true to form—finding delicious connections in daily quirks, all filtered through a lens of self-aware, meandering, and deeply funny storytelling.

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Transcript

[Genevieve]

You got a big heart, Jackie.

[Andrew]

Everyone in this town knows that.

[Genevieve]

I just wish I understood you. You're such a mystery. You say you're from Tucson, but you

[Andrew]

talk all fancy and Europe like this

[Eric]

is the way we talk in Tucson, Arizona.

[Andrew]

Tbtl. You're here to make friends. Making Friends is the name of this show.

[Luke Burbank]

That's my dream job. I'm gonna take it. I don't care what he is, and I already knew he was bat crazy from our conversations at Walmart. I'm doing. I'm baby stepping. I'm not a slacker.

[Genevieve]

You guys think I'm some kind of wimp, but I'm not. I am tough and I'm strong and

[Luke Burbank]

I love to splash around in chilly water.

[Eric]

With him out of the way, I think we're just gonna be 360 spins

[Luke Burbank]

and slam dunk pointers. All right. Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone to a Tuesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

[Andrew]

Houston, we have a boner.

[Luke Burbank]

My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

[Genevieve]

My hobbies include leaving mean, unsolicited comments on Internet videos and rushing to be person off the plane, even if I'm in the back.

[Luke Burbank]

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it's. Well, you know what? It's not torrentially raining like it was yesterday, so we're going to designate this a beautiful day.

[Genevieve]

Oh, my.

[Luke Burbank]

Just for that. Huh?

[Genevieve]

It's just beautiful.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm sort of trying to manifest that because we're alternating between clouds and beautiful blue skies. We're simpsoning, as I like to say around here. And hopefully by this afternoon, we'll just settle into a nice, beautiful weather pattern as we bring you episode 4735 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. How early on a Tuesday morning is too early to start mowing your lawn?

[Andrew]

Is it too early to get a fish sandwich?

[Luke Burbank]

Asking for a friend. That friend is my neighbor who's mowing their lawn kind of early today. Also a friend of the show, Genevieve. And by a friend of the show, I mean life partner of Andrew, friend of mine, friend in remodeling and all things house design related. Genevieve is once again sideways with the traffic cameras of the Pacific Northwest.

[Andrew]

It's literally illegal.

[Luke Burbank]

We're going to get eyes on the whole situation and plot a strategy, a legally questionable strategy going forward for her coming up. And we're also going to say hi to this guy, longest running co bro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus. He is the aforementioned Andrew Walsh and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew]

Good morning, Luke. I know this is not the case. I know in a million alternate universes this would never be the case. But for a brief moment as the intro tape was playing and I looked over at my computer and I saw your smiling face, you cracked open a can and I thought you were taking a big guzzle of surge soda. And I'll be honest with you, it made me want a surge. What are you working with over there?

[Luke Burbank]

You know what? Okay, I'll tell you in a minute, but that's really got me thinking. I need to just get a collection of Jurassic sodas of discontinued like sodas from many years ago that would crack you up. And then just each day I just. I just open one and just take a big slice.

[Andrew]

Oh, it looks like you get an orange.

[Luke Burbank]

This is a Sprite. It's just a good old fashioned Sprite, but it's a zero sugar Sprite. Zero sugar.

[Andrew]

So it's kind of going to. I kind of like that packaging. I will say it's decent design, actually.

[Luke Burbank]

I'll give them credit on that. But oh man, I wish it was a surge.

[Andrew]

Or like Surge was like mountain blue. Right?

[Luke Burbank]

That's what I sort of remember. There's also. What else is on the list? I just mentioned Jones, but Jones was more.

[Andrew]

That was more for the. That was more fancy.

[Luke Burbank]

That was more.

[Andrew]

Right. That was like the glass bottles.

[Luke Burbank]

Right?

[Andrew]

That was like taking it up a notch.

[Luke Burbank]

Was it? It might have been.

[Andrew]

I remember the advertisement cans as well.

[Luke Burbank]

What about okay soda? Remember we've talked.

[Andrew]

Oh yeah, that like the, the Gen

[Luke Burbank]

X, the ultimate hipster soda.

[Andrew]

Okay, Soda. There's a special phone line you could call. Do you remember the okay Soda phone

[Luke Burbank]

line the last time we talked about this? I'm sure I said this exact same thing, but I remember OK Soda. Being a major sponsor of the arts insert in my college newspaper which was called the Glass Onion. I mean, what a time. Maybe. I don't know what UW Daily is doing this day these days. I hope it's thriving. But man, when I was working there again covering important tertiary sports beats such as track and swimming, I looked longingly across the newsroom at the thriving arts section of the paper and its whole own ass thing. Classic glass onion. And it was good.

[Andrew]

Just classic sports reporter looking longingly over at the liberal arts side and just

[Luke Burbank]

Saying what can I say?

[Andrew]

I contain multitudes, Andrew.

[Luke Burbank]

That's why, that's why I've been a successful entertainer life casting all these years because I both live and die by the Mariners but also have opinions about, let's say the Vetter Cub. It's that, it's that range of interests that I think makes me so fascinating. But all that is to say OK Soda. I remember they would take out these big full page ads and it would be like, you know, the Glass Onion sponsored by OK Soda. And for me, I mean it actually worked exactly as they intended. Which is, I was like, well if you're associated with this cool thing called the Glass Onion, which I've also mentioned this a million times. Two of the writers for the Glass Onion were the guys in the band Harvey Danger. They were flagpole sitting as they were collecting that sweet, sweet, okay, soda money and writing about other bands.

[Andrew]

Is that what, you know, I assume that that newspaper was named after the Beatles song. Is that it? Probably.

[Luke Burbank]

I, I, it was named that when I got there. So, so I, but that would make sense. Probably. But yeah, I mean there was, my mind was, was, was exploded when I was, I'm going to say, I don't know, maybe a sophomore or something because I'm like writing for the school paper. Danny o' Neill is my editor and the dudes that are writing the arts thing also have the number one song on mtv. It was like how, oh, I don't

[Andrew]

think I realized that they were blowing up at that exact moment.

[Luke Burbank]

Now this could be the Mandela effect. And I, I ask you not to cross reference this with the actual facts because maybe it was like maybe I was just out of college and maybe I know that they, I know on the local scene, Harvey Danger was really starting to hit. They were playing the Hub, they were playing different places, they were getting some heat and I was like the guys that, the guys from the paper are in a band and people like the band. It was mind blowing to me. I think actually this is even more connected, Andrew, to your and my experience or at least our friend group. I think it was Kroc. I think it might have even been our pal Bean Baxter and the Kevin and Bean folks that, that really broke that song wide open. I think Kroc kind of put it on the radar.

[Andrew]

Oh, no kidding. It is all full circle here. Yeah, I was trying to figure out, I was trying to figure out, I was trying to fact check several things.

[Luke Burbank]

Don't do it, cuz.

[Andrew]

Please don't.

[Luke Burbank]

There wasn't unlike Steve Malcolm, I do not want to fact checking, cuz.

[Andrew]

No, no, no, I wasn't actually fact checking your story. That would. That would mean that I would have to be less sel. For a moment. I wanted to make sure that there was an okay so to phone line, which there was always one, 800 active one, 800, I feel. Okay, I doubt it's still active, although I could probably find audio online. It says that according to the AI overview, it says the toll free number was an interactive marketing gimmick. Gimmick, gimmick where callers could listen to bizarre, surreal and meandering messages, leave their own rambling voicemails, or take automated quizzes inspired by personality tests. That actually sounds up my alley. I have a confession to make though, Luke. All of this talk of OK Soda is not actually a nostalgia trip for me. It is not a memory for me so much as something that I've learned as an adult because of working on after these messages, the podcast. I think our friend Leni was way into this and I feel like she's the one who told me about OK Soda. I don't actually remember it from back in the day. I'm a bit of a charlatan.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I would say that I'm a part time charlatan because I'm looking at when Flagpole Cita was released. It was in 1997, so I graduated high school in 94, so my freshman year would have been 95. So I would have been a junior. I don't remember if I was still writing for the student paper as a junior. I think I had moved on to bigger and better things like announcing the traffic on the radio. So I can't say that I was actually writing the Swimming Beat when they were the number one band on mtv. But let's just say during my college experience that thing really blew up and it was like. It was. It was crazy for me to observe.

[Andrew]

I also was a big fan of the band Good Charlatan, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh yeah, the Madden twins. Love them. Can't get enough of Good Charlatan.

[Andrew]

All right, that was blowing up when I was writing my poetry chap book, huh? Sure.

[Luke Burbank]

We've got to kind of go to break early here. And by break I mean no one will notice it unless years from now AI has sold ads on this podcast, which it's acquired and then started just performing as you and me, but as you and I. Call it a break, which is to say we transfer and transition to the dazzling donors. We should do that early because we got a special guest today, and unlike us, she has a real job and needs to get to it. So let's do some donors, and then let's bring Genevieve onto the program if we can. We was hoping for some razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle dazzle.

[Andrew]

On your mark.

[Luke Burbank]

On your mark.

[Andrew]

Get set, get set now. Ready, ready, go, everybody.

[Luke Burbank]

Razzle dazzle.

[Andrew]

All right.

[Luke Burbank]

Was that a good break for everybody, man?

[Andrew]

I feel refreshed. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

God, to smoke a cigarette. We're at the part of the show where we thank some of the dazzling donors. These folks are donating a dazzling amount of dough. This is 100% listener supported podcasting that you're hearing right here. And we're not the AI replacements yet. Although, honestly, if we were, we wouldn't tell you.

[Andrew]

I wonder if we're the one show that would be improved if you replaced us with AI or replaced me with AI Possibly improved.

[Luke Burbank]

And I'm gonna apply that to both of us, but not replicable. Does that make sense? Like, I don't think there's a large language model that could if it started playing you on the show, Andrew. No. To ask me if I just took a big drink of surge soda. That is so. That is. There is not a language model large enough to predict that. And that's why I think this show is so safe. Is it good? No. Is it safe? Yes.

[Andrew]

I. For a. I'm really glad you went there. I thought you were going for a fat joke. You know how you're often, you know, telling fat jokes against me?

[Luke Burbank]

Mostly off air.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I mean, it's just like a real. And it's just very. It's part of your brand, as everybody knows. And so I thought you were going to say something like, there's just not a large language model large enough for you over there. Sorry, I'm still working on some bullying that I went through as a kid. Luke. Sorry, I didn't mean to put that on you.

[Luke Burbank]

Anything I can do to help process and anything Sarah golden and Matt Phillips can do in Ann Arbor, Michigan, because they are the first two fine folks we're thanking today. Sarah says and Matt say there are two of us. Two of us. Sarah golden and Matt Phillips in Ann Arbor. Hello, business boys. I missed submitting our message last year, but I didn't want another year to go by without sharing how much joy and comfort our family gets from tbtl. Our oldest five, Owen, listens on the way home from baseball practices. His favorite stories generally include bathroom emergencies See, Andrew, I've said it over and over again. If we want to reach the younger demo, we need more bathroom stories.

[Andrew]

I'm doing my part. My diet is a wreck. I'm just doing everything I can to create the content.

[Luke Burbank]

For the long term survival of this project, little brother Evan has been singing along with the dazzling donor music this year. We're all looking forward to another summer.

[Andrew]

I want we should give it to him. Little dancing, singing, I guess.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Are we dancing too?

[Luke Burbank]

We got Melly dancing out.

[Andrew]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

In New York. We've got Evan singing along in the car.

[Andrew]

Get it, Evan.

[Luke Burbank]

Somehow, Andrew, what's the line in Sound of Music? You're my go to on these things.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Good. You've come to the right place.

[Luke Burbank]

Somewhere in my wicked childhood I must have done something good somewhere. We got lucky because how is this the one piece of music that doesn't seem to trigger the rights issues, robots? Or does it?

[Andrew]

It does. We just talk over it sometimes it gets flagged.

[Luke Burbank]

Ah, okay, okay, I see. Because I love this music and for the many. The many pieces of music that we. We've lost and we try not to play too much copywritten music just because you never know the implications. So we're just talking on this one a lot. That's what saves us occasionally. All right, well, back to more talking then. We are all looking forward to another summer of baseball between the Tigers, Owens Little League games and keeping up with the Mariners during the Badlands. It's all baseball all the time around here. Let's have another epic AL D S series. Oh my gosh. I just realized this is coming from the. The Phillips family and Owen and Evan. This is a. This is an act of true generosity. Not just the financial support, but being. Having so much Bonhami about. Or maybe it's equanimity. Whatever it is, there's a lot of it related to the fact that we beat the Tigers in a very painful series for the Tigers last year.

[Andrew]

That was going to be painful for whoever lost.

[Luke Burbank]

Somebody was going to be hurt.

[Andrew]

They went to seven games. It was a very competitive series. It was edge of your seat baseball when. You know, I got to admit when you were reading earlier in the message, it said Tigers, Owens, Little League games. For some reason I thought the Tigers were the name of his little league team. But no, of course we're. This kind of dropped an arbor.

[Luke Burbank]

I dropped a comma there too. So that's a little bit on me.

[Andrew]

And that makes a lot of sense. So. All right. Yeah, no I mean, a very. Listen, I. I consider the Tigers to be. And the Tigers fan base to be a very rootable team and lovable. Absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, that's one of the problems is I feel that we've been losing a lot lately. Two teams that otherwise I would have a real soft spot for. The Kansas City Royals. We talk about a lot now on this program. Even the Oakland A's, although we did beat them last night.

[Eric]

The.

[Luke Burbank]

Who else am I thinking of? They're just these other kind of the brewers, these hard luck teams that I. I'm my. My deep. Them Twins, whoever it is. It's just like, you know, I. I want us to. Let's beat the Astros, let's beat the. The San Diego Padres. Let's dominate in the veterans. Let's just move on. But if we're going to lose, let's lose to likable teams like the Tigers. The end of this message. Let's have another epic ALDS series, maybe a different out. Can it be our turn? Hey, honestly. Honestly, if we find ourselves in the alds, I feel like my heart will be full based on what's going on right now. That does not feel like a given at all. So I know that, you know, talk to me in five months or something, you know, like, as of right now, I would take an A. I would take a. A shattering ALDS loss in seven games because that means we got there.

[Andrew]

We got there.

[Luke Burbank]

We do not seem like a team.

[Andrew]

We're still favored to take the division, but it's just hard to. It's hard to sort of see that right now, but we'll see.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it's because we trail only the Flying Chicken Nuggets in the American League West.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

What about the.

[Andrew]

What was the other team racking my brain yesterday? Who did we play in the playoffs as the Junior Sluggers? I can't recall.

[Luke Burbank]

I can double check. Anyway, thank you so much to Sarah and Matt and Owen and Evan checking in there from Ann Arbor. We really appreciate you. Maestro, on your mark. On your mark.

[Andrew]

Get set. Was it another food thing like milkshakes or. It was. No.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, you know what? We're going on Wednesday. We're gonna be playing like the Stay Chill ice cream.

[Andrew]

That's what I was thinking of the state. That's what I was thinking of. Yes. Stay Chill ice creams or something. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Now I just had a realization. I wonder if. Is it possible they're sponsored by an ice cream shop called Stay Chill?

[Andrew]

That's what I was wondering when you said it Yesterday because none of the other teams seem to be named after businesses. But that sounds like it, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And if so, I'm a little hurt because I thought our team being called like the TBTL Junior Sluggers, the TBTL Jalapenos, that would. That was the coolest corporate tie in that any team could have in the league. But if this.

[Andrew]

Oh, it is super chill. And I think that's super, super chill. PDX.com super chill ice cream. Looks like we have some new enemies. And it's an ice cream shop in Portland. How perfect is that?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, looks like I just became Waktose Intolerant. Andrew, I can't take credit for that joke. Oh, there was somebody. Is it? There was. There was somebody who I used to follow online somewhere whose handle was Wactose Intolerant.

[Andrew]

That's pretty good. It also looks like it's mostly like ice cream carts around Portland. Like, I love the fact that these are our sworn enemies now. Like, that is not a cuter, more community oriented operation.

[Luke Burbank]

How's that for 2026? I don't know if we're gonna call it late stage capitalism or what, but it's the podcast team versus the pop up ice cream.

[Andrew]

Like, I don't shop team. And this ice cream shop, every single photo on their website has. It's like kids run. This might be run by children. Actually, it says checks out. Importantly, we are brothers, William and Daniel. We always wanted to start a family business. We would spend so many evenings talking to our parents and thinking of ideas big and small. One day it finally clicked. We tried it. We liked it. Yeah, we are going after a Portland based ice cream shop and ice cream bike run by children. And you know what? I'm going scorched earth.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely no mercy.

[Andrew]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, our second donor, it's Steve Ellington, pronounced Worcester.

[Andrew]

Nice.

[Luke Burbank]

Over there in Alexandria, Virginia. I think this is our root bound podcast.

[Andrew]

I was about to remember. Hey, that sounds right to me.

[Luke Burbank]

Steve says thank you for making what may be the longest running daily podcast in recorded history. You know, Steve, thank you. That's an interesting question and one we're currently trying to run down. So watch this space. This really deserves to be hyped more. You should at least be in the Guinness Book next to those motorcycle twins. I can't believe I've been listening to the podcast for over 16 years. I've had so many joyful moments while listening. One of my favorite personal TBT moments was on a work trip to Glasgow. I had the night off and was Wandering the ancient streets while listening to the show and eating a pizza crunch, a local late night delicacy. That is a frozen pizza deep fried in fish and chips batter. God, that sounds good. As long as you don't get too much. Well, is it.

[Andrew]

Does it have fish? Does it.

[Luke Burbank]

That would be the thing. I wouldn't like it if it was picking up the fish flavor. But here's the thing. When you eat the chips, if you get fish and chips and you eat the chips, they don't taste like fish in my experience. I'm also dousing them in vinegar because I'm in the UK and I'm trying to do as the locals do.

[Andrew]

But you've also just eaten a lot of fish, so nothing is gonna taste as fishy after that.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, you're right. I like the idea of deep frying a frozen pizza just to see what happens. But if it takes on the fish flavor, I'm not sure if that's for me or not. Yeah, Steve says plug time. Oh, there's some kind of a.

[Andrew]

There's.

[Luke Burbank]

There literally some kind of a pizza cone place or. No, I'm sorry, it's not a pizza cone place. It's like an pizza in a cup. It's not pizza related. It's like an ice cream donut place that opened up down in Vancouver, Washington that you can't even. You can't even get in. There's a line around the block because they somehow figured out how to like make a donut, but it's got ice cream in it and it's all the rage.

[Andrew]

I mean, it sounds good, but I'm not a wait around the block kind of guy.

[Luke Burbank]

No, I know it's not for you.

[Andrew]

I did actually imagine waiting around the block for anything. For literally anything except for tbtl.

[Luke Burbank]

You don't understand, Andrew. This is how a significant portion of the population, particularly the suburban population, is charting their days. And I say this because the, the, the ice cream donut place is not very far from the new In n Out. And these are both places where the lines are incredible. And it really, I do think, is giving folks. And I'm not saying this, by the way, I'm not saying this dismissively.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Because I'm. I fill my life with many other probably worse pursuits. It's like there are. There, there are a lot of folks who are just like, you know what we're going to do today? We're gonna go wait in line for the ice cream donut and we're gonna have a nice chat in the line and we're gonna anticipate and we're gonna have fun, and then we're gonna get the ice cream donut, and then we're gonna try it and it's gonna be really yummy or it's gonna underwhelm, but we'll have made an afternoon of it. And I'm being totally serious when I say I don't think that's the worst thing.

[Andrew]

You think that that is a healthier approach than me wanting something nice and sweet, but then just giving up on everything and then at midnight, just cracking open a jar of jelly and a jar of peanut butter, sticking a spoon in one, then the same spoon in the other, and then eating. Think that the waiting in line and meeting your neighbors is better?

[Luke Burbank]

I actually would pay a lot of money to see a video.

[Andrew]

No, you would. This I. They call it Hasselhoffing. This dance macabre. Nobody.

[Luke Burbank]

This dance macabre that you're doing at about 11:45 or, you know, Andrew me laying down serious bread on the Mariners on a Sunday.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Only. Only to see. Only to see them disappoint again. I would have been better served waiting in line with my. With my neighbors and anticipating my ice cream donut. Anyway, back to Steve's message, please. Plug time. I too am one of those middle aged dad types with a podcast. Mine is root bound. It's all about plants. I make it every week for two years. I made it every week for two years. It's on hiatus right now, but I tried to make it the kind of show you can still drop into anytime if you want. I've included a clip from my cinnamon episode about cinnamon. The Cinnamon Toast Crunch conspiracy. I've got this right here. Should I give this a play from my side?

[Andrew]

Sure, yeah. I got it here, too. Now it looks a little bit.

[Luke Burbank]

I trust you.

[Andrew]

Yeah, let me. Let me play it here. It's a little bit long. I don't know if we can play the whole thing because we're on a little bit of a tight deadline, but let's give it a sample. Oh, my God. Did you know that this is what it was?

[Steve Ellington]

Cat rolling you. So if you've made it this far, there really is a clip from my podcast here.

[Andrew]

For a second I was like, well, that's at least pretty fatty.

[Steve Ellington]

Have the goodwill to play it. Sorry.

[Andrew]

Oh, no, we're out of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Let's make more. Okay, I'll bake up a bunch.

[Luke Burbank]

I'll shake on cinnamon and sugar. I'll give it Crunch with my.

[Genevieve]

My.

[Luke Burbank]

Whoop.

[Andrew]

Whoa. Tastes just like cinnamon toast with a crunch.

[Luke Burbank]

It's part of this complete breakfast.

[Andrew]

It takes me, me and me to

[Eric]

make Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

[Steve Ellington]

How many bakers does it really take to make Cinnamon Toast Crunch? From its debut in 1983, Cinnamon Toast Crunch featured three bakers as mascots. But less than a decade later, in 1991, only a baker named Wendell remained. But what happened to the other bakers? Were they fired? Did they leave on their own accord, or is there something more sinister at play?

[Andrew]

They went to Larrimah from rootbound Productions.

[Steve Ellington]

And this botanical life. I'm Steve Ellington. And this.

[Luke Burbank]

That's funny. This botanical life.

[Steve Ellington]

I'm just kidding. But that is actually a real thing. There used to be three bakers, and then only Wendell did remain. This is true. And I remember, like, back in. Way back in high school, like, talking about this. And it was really fun to think of the conspiracies and maybe the foul play that happened because the other bakers mysteriously disappeared. And also, coincidentally, after a storyline in the commercials where Wendell went mad for Cinnamon Toast Crunch. So, anyway, I thought I would share that with you. And I couldn't help but make the cereal pun.

[Andrew]

Check with the meat lady.

[Luke Burbank]

I like that Steve was, like, as a. I'm guessing, you know, teenager or whatever, was clocking the number of Cinnamon Toast Crunch bakers because I. That he. That has to put him on a very short list. I was a pretty observant kid of weird stuff at that age, but at no time did I notice that they were down to one cartoon baker. I do remember exactly the guys he's talking about from.

[Andrew]

Were they in the box? I know we gotta.

[Luke Burbank]

They were in the. They were in the ad. No, they were on the box, too.

[Andrew]

I found. Okay, I found a classic box with all three of them.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

You know what they're giving? They're giving snap, crackle, and pop a little bit.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. But I feel in a. In a more pleasantly plump way. Yeah, they were just kind of. Yeah, kind of.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And like, maybe, like, they look like they might be in their 30s or 40s or something.

[Andrew]

Maybe one of them does. Yeah, one of them has half bifocals. I'm looking at the box. This is a classic box. You know what else is cool about it? The box itself looks like it's ruled paper, like you would have in class, with, like, blue lines and then Cinnamon Toast Crunches written, like, sort of like in a somewhat jaunty font, as if somebody had gone up and handed this in as their homework.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, well, listen, everybody give a listen.

[Andrew]

Sorry.

[Luke Burbank]

No, no, I'm wrapping up.

[Andrew]

That was the right response.

[Luke Burbank]

That was not. That was. That was not. I was not counting crows. You counting crozing, you. I had. Here's what it is. I have now, like 100 different Internet image search results for the Cinnamon Toast Crunch bakers. And I had this moment of thinking we could go down a whole sort of journey with this. But also, we've got to finish thanking Steve and we've also got to get to our special guest today, Genevieve. So everybody go check out rootbound, Steve's podcast, which takes an expansive approach to plant based podcasting, in that he selected an episode about Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

[Andrew]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, I guess cinnamon grows in the ground, so it is technically a plant.

[Andrew]

Does it grow in the ground?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I mean, from the ground.

[Andrew]

I don't know. I can't picture now. I don't know how it grows.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, let's welcome over to the show. Let's be honest with you. The only good thing that happens on this show about every three months is when Genevieve joins us. You're like the coolest person I've ever met. Usually because she's in trouble with the lawman. It's Genevieve has. Welcome back to the program, Genevieve.

[Genevieve]

Hi. I'm so embarrassed to be back for the same dumb reason.

[Luke Burbank]

Another, another day, another victory for the

[Andrew]

OG the problem is, and you don't, you don't see this Luke because you only see me on the camera, not Genevieve. But she's sitting across this table for me. You know what she's wearing? She's wearing one of those old fashioned prison uniforms with the white and black stripes going horizontal. And she's got the hat to the little pillbox hat.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know why they went with cuffs both on the ankles and the. On the wrist. That seems extreme. I don't think she's a flight risk. But so, Veeves, last time that we had you on the show, it was involving you and Andrew on this mad dash to retrieve your cell phone from a bus, a metro bus. And you did it successfully. It was such a cool story. But then unfortunately, you. You all traveled accidentally into the, like kind of bus. Only Lane got a ticket for that, appealed it, and if I remember right, it was reduced by roughly 50%.

[Genevieve]

Yes, I think it was more than 50% because it was a $75 ticket. And I think that it. The judge knocked it down to $30. So very successful. In my opinion, that was my goal was to get it cut in half. And I achieved that plus a little bit. So it was very successful. And I did an in zoom but like live mitigation hearing with the judge.

[Luke Burbank]

You did not, as I encouraged you to do, blow up photographs of the bus driver giving you a thumbs up, which I thought would have been exhibit A. But that's fine. It's your life. It was your case to try as you saw fit. Now here's the thing. The other day Andrew and I were doing whatever we do on this show, just kind of shooting the breeze. And all of a sudden he said, I'm getting an update from Genevieve asking about my whereabouts on a particular Friday. And because there was an allegation, I could say an accusation that somebody driving your family vehicle had been speeding, had been going a little faster than is allowed in a school zone somewhere. Andrew thought it was probably him. We, we, we double checked his whereabouts. He had finished up his grocery run, which was way earlier than the time of the ticket. And so we thought, well, this is a case of mistaken identity. But over the course of that episode, what became clear was there was some indication that very possibly you had been in the vehicle going to get something. Lucy related. Yeah. What's the latest on this?

[Genevieve]

So yes, it was, as Andrew may have already said on, on the show, I don't know, I've been on sort of like a, like a crusade, an obsessive crusade to get dog supplies, but like as cheaply as possible.

[Andrew]

So I'm like your exact quote as you were muttering it in the kitchen the other day was buying new stuff for dogs is a suckers game.

[Genevieve]

It is like there's so much dog stuff out there because there are so many people with dogs and the dogs either, you know, get bigger or pass away or there's just a lot of dog stuff in the world. You don't need to be buying anything that I would say that's like a, like, it's like a durable good for a dog. Like a dog bed or a dog crate or suppository. Yeah, anything that's not consumable, there is, it's out there just like they're just giving it away. People just want it out of their garage.

[Luke Burbank]

And as I mentioned the first time this came up, Veeves, the dogs don't know the difference.

[Genevieve]

No, they do know they're the perfect,

[Luke Burbank]

they're like the perfect, you know, group of individuals, if you will, to give secondhand stuff to because they don't care.

[Andrew]

They might even prefer a little Dog stand. Yeah, I'm not even joking.

[Luke Burbank]

For real.

[Genevieve]

Well, I found this amazing dog bed that was really. It's a really nice one. It's by Casper, you know, makers of the Casper mattress. And it's really durable. It's really sort of. It's famous. It's like whole selling point is that it cannot be destroyed. And I will say Lucy has destroyed at least one dog bed already and she cannot destroy this one. This one really is indestructible. And I got it for. It's like a $60 item. I got it for $20 on offer up but I was driving.

[Andrew]

It's the Brooklinen sheets that we have on it. They're really taking a beating.

[Luke Burbank]

I think that was the use promo code TBTL Use promo code Lucy.

[Genevieve]

And so I had to go go pick it up. And I forget what neighborhood it was in, but it was like it was kind of over like a little northeast of here like Bothell or something like that. I don't remember now exactly where. And I was. And I. So I, you know, I sort of went back through my phone and looked and see what to see. What was I do when I see this ticket? I'm like, what was I doing that day? I can't imagine. I wasn't in. Why would I have been going to Lake Forest Park? But then when I plugged in the location of the ticket with as like on with the mapping to where I was going that day, I see how maybe like my, my Google Maps might have routed me through there to avoid some traffic on the highway or something. And of course it routed me through a speed trap which Lake Forest park is like notorious. Which I didn't know this is notorious. They have. So Lake Forest park has reduced all of their surface street speed limits to 25 miles an hour. Just period. That's like the fastest you can go.

[Luke Burbank]

So this wasn't even necessarily a school zone. Well, it is what they're doing. But. But even if it hadn't been, yeah,

[Genevieve]

it would have been 25. And so I, I was in a school zone. And that's why there's a camera there. And I was. And it was. This was taken at 5:30 at night. And I thought, well why would I, you know, why would I ever think that I had to obey a school zone? A posted school zone speed at 5:30 at night when clearly kids aren't. Aren't an issue.

[Andrew]

5:39. I don't know why the 9 matters

[Luke Burbank]

matter, but I feel like it matters.

[Andrew]

Pushing it's 6 by the time. So close to 6, that's how I feel. Like 5:35, you're close to 5, 35, 39. That's practically 6 o'. Clock.

[Genevieve]

Well, either way, I took a closer look at the ticket and the reason I got photographed in that, on that at that time is because I was in a school zone. But the speed for which I was, the speed I was over was actually the 25 mile an hour. So I only. It was an 8 miles and I was clocked at 33 miles per hour. I have read now extensively and there's a lot of like Reddit forums about this. Anything. If I had been going 31, I probably wouldn't have gotten. I think there's like a six mile sort of like grace period, grace amount or tolerance or whatever. But I was just over that. And they didn't get me for going over the 20 mile an hour in a school zone. They got me for going over the 25 mile an hour, which is just the municipal, you know, speed limit. And the only reason that the school zone part of it matters is because that's where you're gonna get photographed. Like where there's gonna be cameras.

[Luke Burbank]

Now I'd have to imagine though, are you comfortable with me mentioning or did you want to mention what the cost of this ticket is?

[Genevieve]

Because it's $145, which I think is a lot of money. Lake Forest park is absolutely. I mean, and I also found this out something like 12. Only 12% of tickets in that municipality go to residents. It's. It's a classic speed trap. It's for people like me who don't realize that you've driven into the slowest possible place you can drive a car.

[Luke Burbank]

Also, that $145 seems like that has to be related to the school zone. Is it like finds double zones or something?

[Genevieve]

Anywhere.

[Andrew]

Just what it is.

[Genevieve]

That's. That's how they're raising the money for whatever services they would like to provide to their citizenry.

[Luke Burbank]

I remember back in the, the. I think maybe the Ross and Burbank days, they had one of these set up on like Greenwood. Yeah, There was one of these up near where the wing dome on Greenwood is.

[Genevieve]

Yeah, I know.

[Luke Burbank]

And it was one of those things where it was. There was like a, you know, an uprising of the citizenry just saying we want kids to be safe. But this is bullshit. This is some bullshit purely to generate. This doesn't affect behaviors. It does not provably keep kids safer. This is just an income generator for the local whatever.

[Genevieve]

In 2025, Lake Forest park reduced all of its. Basically passed this ordinance or municipal law that a reduced all of their city street speed limits to 25 miles an hour. Also, it's supposed to be, quote, a no racing law. And one of the rules is no drifting. So I don't, I don't know how.

[Luke Burbank]

Were you also Tokyo drifting?

[Andrew]

You were late. Forest park drifting.

[Luke Burbank]

The fact that you buried that lead, I think is starting to cause me to doubt your entire story. Like, yeah, by the way, I think a no racing ordinance is a great idea. I don't think that 20 miles an hour or 25 miles an hour is where you're busting the people racing.

[Genevieve]

That is correct.

[Andrew]

In our VW Golf, our 2017 hatchback.

[Genevieve]

Yeah. It's just infuriating because it is just such an old school speed trap. Right. Like, you're coming. I'm coming from a zone where I'm sure the speed limit was 35 miles an hour, which is a normal amount of like, normal limit to have on a arterial, you know, and I wasn't in some like, tiny neighborhood. Keep in mind, like, I'm going somewhere. Like, I'm not routing through like little tiny neighborhood streets. I'm driving on an arterial through a municipality where any person, any reasonable person would assume that the posted speed limit is going to be 35 miles an hour. And they know that. And that's the whole point. And that's why these tickets are so they also, when they pay, when they pass their no racing law, they upped the fine, the baseline fine for any speeding ticket from 130 to 145.

[Luke Burbank]

Geez.

[Genevieve]

So it's just a cash grab, which is what I want to tell them in my mitigation, But I won't do that.

[Luke Burbank]

I should have gotten the rights to Mr. Cash Grabber.

[Andrew]

The animation.

[Genevieve]

Got to keep the animation rights.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I mean, at a certain point you got to think about increasing the cost of the dog bed though, don't you?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, let's not.

[Genevieve]

I know. That's what's killing me.

[Luke Burbank]

That's not killing me.

[Andrew]

I've had experiences like that.

[Genevieve]

This was for a $20 dog bed. That is now a $85 dog bed.

[Luke Burbank]

Let me just say I've occasionally played some of the. The games of chance, thinking, hey, wouldn't it be cool if I turned a hundred dollars into a few hundred dollars and then I bought that thing I've been eyeing?

[Genevieve]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And then instead I've donated a few hundred dollars and now that thing I've been eyeing is going to be twice as much.

[Andrew]

You're still gonna buy it anyway.

[Luke Burbank]

Probably. I mean, it's a very. And those are different decision processes, by the way. But just the idea that this has made the dog bed actually more expensive. I don't. I don't want you to carry that weight around with you, Genevieve. But.

[Andrew]

But can I offer this one counterpoint? And this is. I'm doing it to the wrong. To the wrong people here. And obviously, I have a vested financial interest in this as well, and Genevieve is going to challenge it and try to mitigate it a little bit. But while we do talk about this being a cash grab and the fact that these are. I understand that there's, like, I think believe a private company that installs and maintains these about to be.

[Genevieve]

Won't somebody think of the children. You can just get the hell out.

[Luke Burbank]

If this is the same. Run by the same people that do the private prisons, Andrew, you don't have.

[Genevieve]

By the way, it is a private contractor who runs this whole thing.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's my understanding as well, which is really gross. Having said that, I do think that it will affect behavior because I think certainly us. And anytime anybody else who hears this is driving through this area, they're going to be more vigilant and drive slower.

[Genevieve]

Yeah. Obviously, the next time I'm ever near Lake Forest Park, I'll be more mindful. But it is unreasonable on an arterial road in a normal city. I wasn't driving 45 miles an hour. I was going less than 10 over the posted limit. And that is a speed trap. I mean, in other words, clearly I was driving safely, is my point.

[Luke Burbank]

Can we, though, get to the heart of the matter? As far as I'm concerned, which, Genevieve, I agree with you. This is a miscarriage of justice. Is it such a miscarriage of justice that you are willing to finally listen to me when it comes to lying to the people who issued you the ticket?

[Genevieve]

First of all, I would gladly lie, but I don't think I can. I mean, I sent you the pictures that they sent you.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm looking at them right now. It is very dark, but they do not have a picture of your face. They cannot tell who was operating the vehicle.

[Genevieve]

Doesn't matter. It's the same deal as with the other one.

[Luke Burbank]

Same deal as the last one.

[Genevieve]

This says here right on the ticket, this infraction will not be a part of your driving record and will be processed as a parking infraction. And I think they legally have to do that.

[Andrew]

Because of the camera.

[Genevieve]

Because of the camera, Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Do they ask you in the ticket if you were driving?

[Genevieve]

No, they don't care.

[Luke Burbank]

It does not matter. Okay, well, then they've. They've closed the one loophole that. That I knew about that I used in years past, I think even in la, where I just said I wasn't driving. And then actually this happened. This was a ticket I got in Linwood by the Alderwood Mall. Maybe it was technically Alderwood, where it was not coming to a complete stop on a red light turn because the camera could assess my speed, apparently, and I did not come to zero miles per hour. And my answer to them was I was not driving. And then it said, if you weren't driving, who was? And I wrote, I'm not comfortable telling you that. And they just let it go. So that's my big. You know, if it doesn't fit, you must acquit. But it sounds like they've closed that loophole.

[Andrew]

I don't understand what's going on with these cameras, because this wasn't that long ago that it would be that dark at night. This was 5:39, as we said, but it was just a few weeks ago, so it's still been pretty daylight at the time. Yet these cameras are so jacked up. I mean, there are three photos. I guess I can't make this the show pick because there's probably too much personal information. I don't know, maybe we can do some red.

[Genevieve]

I mean, just. Just paint. But post a picture of a black square. That's what.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's like three black squares on this. As we're. Like we caught you on camera. It's like, well, maybe use some of this money you're extracting from us and get yourself some new cameras. Or don't. Maybe. But it's. I don't understand how this is evidence. It just looks like. What do they say in arrest development? Like a brown area with points.

[Luke Burbank]

With points.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

A brownish area with points.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. Well, I'm sorry that I'm so hung up on this, but I'm wondering, Genevieve, and you know so much more about this than I do. Now, if you were to challenge us, if you were to say I was not driving the vehicle.

[Genevieve]

That's not my vehicle. I thought about it. It's so, so hard.

[Andrew]

You would actually. Wait, you're saying different things. You're saying, that's not my vehicle. Clearly it is.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, what if.

[Andrew]

Oh, because you're saying the photo of the license plate is too obscured.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. What if you said. What if you put the system on trial and said, that is not my vehicle. I was not driving either either. My vehicle was stolen and then returned to where they stole it from. Again, we can't prove that didn't happen. Or, I mean, if you. What if you just. What if you just said, I'm sorry, I was not driving my car through this area. You have the wrong information. Your license plate reader is incorrect. Show me the calibrate. Show me the receipts. What is the calibration on this? To what end? Why would Xi Jinping want to flip my basement and rust my Bowflex? Like. Like, could you just. Could you just. Because this is such an unjust prosecution, could you just say it wasn't me, prove that it was and just see what that does to their system?

[Genevieve]

I did think about that. Although I've now gone onto a public podcast and basically said it was being.

[Andrew]

Have you seen our numbers?

[Luke Burbank]

Let me just tell you what. Let me just tell you what. Considering the things I've said about the Columbia Broadcasting System, a place where I am actively receiving paychecks from, if this thing was having any kind of impact, we would know.

[Genevieve]

All right, So I did. I did plug into chat. GPT. Don't at me like, hey, write me a. Write me a letter requesting leniency for this set of circumstances. And that was one thing it did suggest. It said, I respectfully request leniency regarding the above reference camera generated citation. It says, I acknowledge the citation, but wish to explain this was an isolated, uncharacteristic incident. Not exactly true. Since I've been doing this twice now. I have a clean. I feel like you were driving the other one.

[Andrew]

And also, it was a bus lane violation. We weren't driving. We weren't. We weren't. We weren't racing.

[Genevieve]

I have a clean driving record. True. With no prior violations or accidents. And the recorded speed represented a minimal.

[Luke Burbank]

Nobody knows about that brick wall in Georgia.

[Genevieve]

No one knows about that brick wall in Georgia represented a minimal overage of 8 mph. And then it says, I respectfully request consideration of a reduced penalty. Or. And then I also request that the court order production of the camera's calibration and maintenance records for the date in question to confirm measurement accuracy, which I think that would be like a pretty big swing that's coming in with some bde. Big time.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Genevieve]

By the way, what's. By the way, how, like, what's your, like, perspective on all of this court

[Andrew]

what do you mean?

[Genevieve]

Like, like, if I come in and be like. And by the way, like, I don't even know if I trust your measurements. So why don't you get your system locked down?

[Andrew]

Have you.

[Luke Burbank]

Have you already submitt whatever it was you were going to submit?

[Genevieve]

I have. I have, like, three more days to do it, and I'm. I can. So I can. I thought I would, like, talk to you guys before I submitted my statement.

[Andrew]

So I just. And again, don't at me, but I just typed this into ChatGPT and it said. I was needle dropping it. I was really hoping to get to that.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. But I'm taking this to mean, Andrew, that you are going for the Shaggy defense.

[Andrew]

I'm just saying that it's an option and I wanted my joke to land. Can we get to it? Wow. This is a steamy video, my friends.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah. Have you ever listened to the lyrics?

[Andrew]

Well, I know the.

[Genevieve]

They're doing it everywhere they are going.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, you do not shine a black light in this after Shaggy is done doing what Shaggy's gonna do at all. Andrew, I love, though, that you're on team. It wasn't me. Because this is what I'm saying. It's $145. I think if you go with the it wasn't me defense, prove it. I'd like to see the calibration of your cameras. I mean, this is a very. This is a very, very extreme position that you're staking out. The worst case scenario is they just charge you the $145. The court says we. We don't have to do that. We find your argument, you know, unconvincing.

[Andrew]

Well, and they throw in jail for

[Luke Burbank]

contempt, and then you. You're out $145. If you ask for leniency, I think they may take 20 bucks off, but you're out. I just think it's so worth rolling the dice.

[Genevieve]

Yeah. On, like, make.

[Luke Burbank]

On the make.

[Genevieve]

Approve it.

[Andrew]

Like you said Sunday with the Mariners, and it works.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly, exactly. Boy, that was more than 145 bucks. So.

[Andrew]

But.

[Eric]

But.

[Luke Burbank]

Because the other thing, if I understand right, Genevieve, is if you were to file that. That brief. I love this. Just brings up big lawyer energy for me. Except I don't really know the terms, so I'm just, like, saying things like, michael Brief, I know you're a habeas. Just. I'm just yelling habeas corpus.

[Genevieve]

I'm just singing. You're a crook, Captain Hook.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, but. So, like, I guess here's what I'm saying I think you could just. From a paperwork perspective before. I understand. You don't want to go in front of another magistrate on zoom and look them in the eye and lie to them. That's, like, an intense thing. But I think round one, you could do this from a paperwork perspective. You could just say, I want to know the calibration on your cameras. I know you got to go really fast. I want. And that's how you got this ticket in the first place. Going really fast. I think you go with. I want to see the calibration. Show me the receipts. It wasn't me. Prove it in the shaggy V. It wasn't me.

[Genevieve]

And if it was me, you were. You had the wrong numbers. Wrong.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. And just see what their response is to that.

[Genevieve]

That's. That is. Those are. That's like, this. This food is terrible. And the portions are so small, though. I mean, like. Like, okay, great. Also, by the way, and if I was.

[Luke Burbank]

Submit that into evidence, the case of. The case of soup is bad and portions too small v. Mel's Diner.

[Andrew]

Now, Genevieve, I know you need to go, but me, as the prosecutor would respond with this.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a clear Brady violation. You can't be both. You know, Genevieve's partner and prosecuting her. Yeah, I know Brady is evidentiary, but I just was trying to throw out another legal term. Vivs. Will you at least consider. I'm considering taking an extreme legal position. Round one, to see what their response is Again, as long as you. You don't have to appear. You're just saying for the sake of, like, what, you're filing with them. It was not me. You can't prove it was me. Show me the receipts. I. I would love to hear the outcome.

[Genevieve]

I mean, it is. That's the bigger swing. I don't think I get a second bite at the apple if I can test it.

[Luke Burbank]

No. And they say rolling the dice on 145.

[Genevieve]

They say contesting. Contested contestation denied. That will be then.

[Luke Burbank]

You're stuck.

[Genevieve]

Then I'm stuck, and I have to pay the money.

[Andrew]

Mitigation could knock it down by, like, half.

[Genevieve]

And mitigation couldn't. I feel like. Like, I'm so different from you, Luke. Like, you're definitely, like, all or nothing. Like, let's just go for. Go for the gold. And if you get away with it, great. And if you don't, you just take your lumps. I love a compromise. I love a half measure. Like, fine.

[Andrew]

That's how we ended up together. Yeah.

[Genevieve]

I made Mistakes. You've made mistakes. We've all made some mistakes. Lake Forest Park. Let's just agree that I owe you $75.

[Luke Burbank]

75 bucks.

[Genevieve]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, Veebs, if that is, for you, a satisfactory outcome, then I'm not trying to talk you out of that.

[Genevieve]

I gotta think about it, though.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Genevieve]

I look at this picture and I'm

[Luke Burbank]

like, we have one to three twisted T's and think about it.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Because that's how I make most important financial decisions.

[Genevieve]

I look at this picture and I think, it wasn't me. I mean, I know it was me.

[Luke Burbank]

It was so great.

[Genevieve]

But it's like, did they. Do they have the ability to, like, enhance. Enhance, or is this.

[Andrew]

No, they can't. They don't even have the ability to take a clear photo.

[Genevieve]

Is this as good as their technology?

[Luke Burbank]

They are in a bigger swing here.

[Genevieve]

I think they're taking a big swing

[Luke Burbank]

and they're trying to play the lar. The law of large numbers. Yes, they are. Like, they're one of these, you know, ambulance chasers or one of these, you know, kind of fly by night outfits that's just. And by the way, it's a private company. They literally are fly by night outfit that's spamming people with these tickets and just hoping that most people just settle or pay the bill. I don't think they have a good system in place when someone finally, like Spartacus stands up to them. Them.

[Genevieve]

Yeah. Okay, well, I gotta think about my options here. I gotta either Spartacus feel really good about that speech.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Genevieve]

Or.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, that's right.

[Andrew]

Genevieve.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Genevieve]

All right. I think that's a good note for me to go out on. Thanks for letting you.

[Luke Burbank]

Gotta go make that hundred and forty five dollars.

[Genevieve]

Yeah. Thank you for letting me once again describe my legal troubles.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. Well, we look forward to hearing how it all goes. And by the way, you decide on whatever your heart tells you, and. And we'll be rooting for you no matter what.

[Genevieve]

Okay, thanks.

[Andrew]

Hope these things don't keep escalating. Have a good meeting. Hey, Luke. I would like to transition here because this conversation reminded me of a story that I saw in the Seattle Times. I didn't run this by you, but I thought you might be interested in just the dazzling detail off the top of it, which is about a place called Laconor, Washington, a small town that actually. Did you see this?

[Luke Burbank]

I read the headline. I didn't. I didn't read into the full piece, so please, I, like, give us the scoop.

[Andrew]

The reporter Joseph o'. Sullivan. I like his approach to this because actually here I'm just, it's all the good stuff is near the top. So I'm just going to read this. Okay. When Gloria Holst began planning this year's live music program for the town of Laconor's weekly summer series, she had a lot of ideas. La Connor Live, a nonprofit organization, has for years brought music to the town's Gilkey Square, including jazz, blues and rock. I'll bet you sometimes it's blues, rock too. This summer, the group was looking to add both tribal dance and Latino dance. I this, this struck me as the other day too. Wouldn't it just be Latin dance, but they have Latino dance to the roster. That was the plan until they received an addendum in their contract with the town that would restrict the music to 55 decibels. The town cited its local noise ordinance along with a chapter of state law that if applied evenly, could make running a lawnmower or even talking in a normal voice potentially unlawful. This is where it gets interesting.

[Luke Burbank]

Check out Bob, my neighbor who's running his lawnmower.

[Andrew]

Oh yeah, this is a perfect transition actually, because I don't want to steal that story and this is basically my point here, but what I like is what the Seattle Times did here. They went out to find out what 55 decibels is. Gas powered lawnmowers and power tools come in at 90 decibels. Live music comes in at 110 decibels. I guess that's amplified. I mean, live music sounds like all different kinds of things. 55 decibels is a little louder than moderate rainfall, according to the Academy. I thought it also had what, like the. Let's hear. Oh, here it is. The noise level of a normal conversation is 60 decibels and is also the running of a Dishwasher is about 60 decibels. And they lowered it to 55 decibels. And I'm unclear exactly what prompted this in the town, but this is. It just sort of reminded me of Genevieve story. Like they had an area where people were driving too fast or whatever or wanted to make some income for Lake Forest Park. And so they, they had a city council come up with this legislation, but then they installed cameras that take photos that look like big black squares. And I'm just like, at some point somebody on a city or town council in LA Connor was irritated by some noise. They passed some law. They said 55 decibels without looking into it and didn't realize that 55 decibels is the sound of a running dishwasher.

[Luke Burbank]

It seems like they must have had in the past year, for this thing, a particular band that was turning their amps up too much and playing kind of loudly. Because it says, up until last year, this is Laconor Mayor Marna Hanneman. Up until last year, there were no complaints. We didn't have any problems. Sid Hanneman. But the music got really loud and we had a lot of complaints, not only from the merchants, but residents further down in a residential area. So that kind of makes me think that actually the people complaining weren't like insane. Like, I am both very sensitive to loud noises that are a surprise to me. So like a loud motorcycle going by or just something that's. I'm not expecting, I'm probably a little less sensitive about. Like if it's the Laconor Music Festival and you're walking by and some dads are jamming out with hot, hot summer blues, that's not going to bug me as much. I also. How do I say this without speaking of legal cases? Let's just say somebody I'm close to in my life owns a bar in Portland and they're very careful. There's an outdoor area of the bar and they're very careful about making sure that when the people are outside and it's nighttime, there's not like amplified music. There's nothing going on that would bother the local residents. They found themselves sideways on a particular local resident who just was, I would say, unhinged and was. Tried to sue them for hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars over what had to be 50 decibel conversations just happening in a fenced off outdoor area behind a bar where there was just picnic tables and it was completely legal for people to be outside having a beer and talking. Right. That case went to the state Supreme Court of Oregon. Whoa. And was shot down in a blaze of glory because it was a. It was, it was an absolutely ridiculous. I read the entire.

[Andrew]

How did you prove this, this person that you don't know, or. I don't know how we're masking it, but how did they prove how loud they were being in the past?

[Luke Burbank]

I. I think what they. I think their evidence. Well, what it was was that the plaintiff, the person who lived in the apartment who complained that not only was the noise too loud, but that it was part of a pattern of behavior intended to, like, intimidate them and ruin their life effectively. And again, I, I remember this thing happened. This initial lawsuit came around like, three years ago. And I, like, immediately read the lawsuit and I was like, this is, like, in. This is really nuts. Like, this is. First of all, you can't prove any of this. There's. I mean, not only is there no evidence, you don't have any audio recordings, you don't have any video recordings, you don't have any uncovered, you know, I don't know, secret emails of this conspiracy, but it just sounds like a person who's kind of dealing with some, like, possible mental health issues.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And then because they were so dogged about it, and I guess maybe they were willing to keep paying an attorney to run it up the. Up the ladder, up the flag pole, as we say around here. Yes. It just kept going and go and it kept losing at every level. Like, it kept.

[Andrew]

I'm kind of surprised that they kept going up, though.

[Luke Burbank]

I did, too. I was like, boy, this is. You know, every time, like, they wouldn't show up for court or they would be late in their filings, a judge would kind of like, say, yeah, there's no there. There's. But if somebody is willing to keep going with a case, I guess you can just. Eventually they brought it to the. To the state supreme court, which decided to hear it and said, no, there's no there there. And the whole thing was shot down. My point of that whole story is there are occasionally people who are, again, have an unrealistic expectation of how quiet life needs to be in a city at all times. Then there are people that have a reasonable, like, hey, that was kind of too loud. This LeConnor thing sounds like there might have been a band that was plugged in that was playing it. It a little bit too loud. But it also sounds like everyone agrees that having people play music for the little festival adds to the general ambiance of the town. And by the way, La Connor is an absolutely beautiful little town up there in the Skagit Valley. I love LA Connor. So I get. I bet you that they'll get this worked out. I'm happy to. I'm actually happy to read that it was multiple people that were complaining about the music being too loud, because that makes me think, okay, the music got too loud. Multiple people noticed. They're gonna do something to fix it. They're gonna turn it down a little bit, but they're gonna get to keep having the music. It wasn't something like where one crank just decided to try to ruin the live music for everybody.

[Andrew]

But here's my. Here's my broader point with the Thing is, because I'm somebody, I don't love loud music, and I certainly wouldn't want it intruding in on my life. I really, I actually find that to be pretty disruptive, actually. If it's loud music coming from like across the street town or across a park, it doesn't bother me as much as, like, in the many times I've, like, shared walls with other renters music, like, that's a real triggering thing for me. I really dislike it. So my point is not to say that there shouldn't be noise ordinances or that people shouldn't respect, but that you then have a group of amateur lawmakers, you know, who get together and then like, how do you, how do you decide on 55 without understanding what 55 decibels is? You know what I mean? That's what bothers me.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that definitely. And by the way, great. I'm gonna, like you already said this, but that's a very good piece of reporting from Joseph o'. Sullivan. I also think it's interesting that he is listed as a Seattle Times breaking news reporter.

[Andrew]

And this is the breaking news.

[Luke Burbank]

I love that this was the breaking news that they assigned Joseph to. They were like, get out to laconor right now and report on this and figure out how loud. 55 decibels.

[Andrew]

Yeah, we're giving you that big thing, fake VU meter that is out in the outfield of t mobile park, and we're gonna. Yeah, you plug that in real, don't you?

[Luke Burbank]

You know why?

[Andrew]

You know it's not real? Because one of the funniest things I ever saw was that thing going crazy during the COVID year when there was nobody in the Nobody mud cardboard cutouts. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Speaking of loud sounds, I, I so the other day I really wanted to finish mowing my lawn. And it was early, it was, you know, like seven in the morning. And I thought, well, I'm not going to be mowing my lawn at 7 in the morning. I'll wait until a little bit later in the day, which I did this morning. I was having my coffee and just kind of getting going with my day. I must have been like, I want to say 7:45, and my neighbor was out on his riding mower. Now I'll say this. It actually, it's not, it's not like a, it's not an awful sound to me. I like the sound of a lawnmower going. It feels just like, you know, growth and spring and baseball and all the things I like. It's also not like A crazy loud riding lawnmower. I was also, I'd also already been awake for an hour. The thing that was funny was I heard the noise, I looked at my window. I was like, wow, okay, 7:45. You said 7:45am I think in my mind, I think the earliest you can run a lawnmower in a residential situation is 9:00am oh, wow.

[Andrew]

I'm surprised to hear that from you as an early riser.

[Luke Burbank]

But that's because I don't think, just because I happen to already be up, I don't assume other people are. I don't know what people's work schedules are. Maybe they have babies, maybe they have a baby dog and they got up at 5 with the baby dog and now they got to go back to sleep at seven. I, for some reason, I think to me, nine is when like most banks and other places open. I feel like 9am is the beginning of the, of the awake time of life on a weekday that no one can be mad about construction noise, lawns being mowed, life being lived. But for some reason, in my mind, that's 9:00am Even though, yes, I'm generally up. Well, before that.

[Andrew]

You know what people love about tbtl, Luke, and what our secret is to keeping it going for almost 20 years now is we are still both so full of surprises because I would put it at eight at the latest and probably. I'm sorry, eight at the early. No, you know, at the latest. I think that 8 o' clock is, I think 8 o' clock is totally

[Luke Burbank]

reasonable, like well within the bounds. And I mean somebody who's swinging a

[Andrew]

hammer, like if, if I am. I mean, again, as long as it's like, right? Not like, I mean, you can't, you can't. Well, I guess you can and people try as. And so you can't put rules on everything. I mean, I think there's got to be some sort of reasonable expectations as well. Right? Like if you have a neighbor who is, you know, doing something that literally almost touches your property or something like that. Yeah, I mean that, that is, that's excessive. But I think reasonable average lawn mowing in a neighborhood. And you know, I'm in a pretty tight knit neighborhood here, I will hear my, my neighbor's lawnmower on the occasion that they mow. And you know, if I heard that at 8:00am and you know me, I'm a sloth now, Lucy's got us out of bed early these days, but, but I know I wouldn't. I, you know, but, but I still am who I am. And I, given my druthers I would still sleep late. But even if I was somebody who's like sleeping until 11 or you know, and I understand like some people, like some people sleep late not just because they're lazy sloths like me. That's why they actually have a nighttime job and they finally got to bed at six in the morning or something. I guess I sort of understand that. But also if you're that out of sync, there's not a huge difference between 8am versus 9am so you know what I mean? So I mean I'm not trying to dismiss that. My heart goes out to you. I've had swing shifts like that before where I used to get to work at 3 in the morning and I know that there, there are considerations and there's trade offs and stuff like that. So. But I don't know, 8:00am Seems like yeah, people are up, people are. I mean I honestly think the construction industry would be kind of hard pressed if you couldn't start working on things until 9. It seems a little to me and I'm.

[Luke Burbank]

That's real. And you know, for. In fact they're building a house like two kind of. It's. My neighborhood is so weird because I kind of live in a cul de sac and also there are like three houses over is a quarter mile from me. It's a strange, it's hard to describe the geography of the area but like they're building a new house near me and those guys are up on that roof at probably 7am it's far enough away that I don't really hear it again. I'm generally well awake by that time. And I know that like for a lot of these projects the way that you get a house built and it doesn't take three years is people are swinging hammers at seven in the morning.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Until sometimes seven at night. So I get that and I don't really begrudge those people that. And again I. Part of this whole thing for me is it's funny that I thought like all right, 7:45, okay, we're going for it here. Even though it wasn't disrupting me in any way and I actually would benefit from that on the occasion that I need to mow my lawn at 7:45. We now know that that's an acceptable

[Andrew]

hour of the day to be doing

[Luke Burbank]

that in this, in this neighborhood. But that did, I guess what I was really interrogating in myself was what my particular hour of the morning is. And it Seems like nine. Although you're very right, the construction industry could not have a 9am start time and get very much stuff done, you know, because of just how, how time consuming it is.

[Andrew]

Here I go once again with the email. Every week I hope that it's from a female. Oh man, it's not from a female.

[Luke Burbank]

Alrighty, how about an email or V mail?

[Andrew]

Yeah, I'm really trying to choose between these two. I have two longish stories here. One inspired by Twisted Tea, the other involving a serial killer in Stockholm. And I, I mean, I'm gonna go with the. I'm gonna. This is Eric and Stockholm, our traveling storyteller who likes to tell his stories as he's out on walks or riding bicycles, as I believe he is in this one. Let's start with this one. But I'm telling you, the only thing that could beat out Twisted Tea was a serial killer story.

[Eric]

Hi, this is Eric and suck'. Em. I'm out to my On Earth sort of evening bike. It's a Wednesday evening bike ride and I got a story for you. I was a young reporter, about 25 years old, so sorry, I'm a bit short of breath. I was assigned to do a couple of stories about a Swedish serial killer who had been convicted about 10 years prior. And the guy's name was Thomas Quick, or his. That was not his real name, but he changed his name to Thomas Quick. So I did the stories. Then a couple years later I was second hand shopping or like thrift store shopping in the countryside in Sweden, pretty close to in sailor style where this Thomas Quick guy was incarcerated. And my wife and I, we got back from, from the garage sale and I was sifting through her books that she'd picked up. One was by, or actually three, I think by Solzhenitsyn, the Soviet or Russian author. It was a series called the Gulag Archipelago and it's about Solzhenitsyn being incarcerated in Soviet Russia. And there was an inscription in the book and it read Stura Barival. And I was thinking that name sort of rings a bell. So I picked up the other copy in the series and the same name was there. It was printed letters in charcoal. And then it hit me. Oh, Jesus. Shit. Stood up very well. That's the, the real name of Thomas Quick, the convicted serial killer. Kind of dazzling, I say. I'd say. So I picked up the serial killer's old used books and as a sort of epilogue to this story is that about 15 years later, this guy Thomas K. Was acquitted. He hadn't done anything. He just made the whole thing up and he hadn't killed any, anyone. So case closed. Parrot land the show. Bye.

[Andrew]

Dropping a case close. First of all, I didn't realize Eric was such a long time listener. That is old school TBTL vernacular there. So the Thomas Quick was making up his own crimes.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that happens a lot, actually. I mean, somebody admitting to having done a crime, particularly a very serious crime, should not necessarily be for the investigators, a 100 indication that they did the crime. I mean, they're like there are people that have, you know, are suffering with mental health issues and will sometimes come either literally think they did it and they didn't, or will have some kind of a, you know, condition, a situation where they want the attention or who knows? But let's just take a moment to go back to the fact that our listener had bought these used Solzhenitschen books that had been previously owned by Thomas Quick, by the guy, whatever the real

[Andrew]

name was, and likely was read in prison because they were signed in some sort of charcoal.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, right. How did they get out? There's there a program in which books that are being read, books leave prison in Swedish prison, then go to the secondhand stores.

[Andrew]

I might have that detail wrong, but I thought that that's what the implication was there.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, either way, like the very fact that like, it's Eric, right? Yes, that Eric, our Swedish correspondent, had these books that were. That were in one time in the possession of this person who had admitted to being the serial killer who turned out to not be the serial killer. Also the fact that that guy was reading these Solzhenitsyn books because, I mean, again, famously, if I have this right, yeah, he was in the Gulag and he was. I think he was put there for political reasons. I believe it was very sort of Navalny esque. Like, you know, I think he was essentially like a political prisoner of sorts. The fact that this guy. I am very curious as to at what timeline the guy who had admitted to the serial killing that he didn't do was reading these books. Like, was he reading them before he went in? Was he reading them when he was in. Was the reading of them while he was in part of why he later said, maybe I didn't do it. How did they figure out that he didn't do it? Actually, this could be found out by me. Gorgling Thomas Quick murders. This is a really good.

[Andrew]

Oh, you know what?

[Luke Burbank]

This is good prep for when I go to CrimeCon in Las Vegas in a couple of weeks.

[Andrew]

Andrew, you know what I'm thinking? And now I'm actually. I don't know if we'd have to edit the show or what. But you said that sometimes people make up these crimes for attention. I just realized we just had a woman on our podcast who was like, literally on the podcast because of a supposed crime she committed.

[Luke Burbank]

Second time in a couple of weeks.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And it's kind of like, oh, now Genevieve realizes, oh, I get. I get air time if I tell the boys that I'm guilty of.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a really perverse incentive structure. It's actually sick. In the words of Larry King, sick. Well, I can tell you this. Stuur Burgwal, also known as Thomas Quick, is a Swedish man previously believed to have been a serial killer. Having confessed to more than 30 murders while detained in a mental institution for personality disorders between 1994 and 2001, Quick was convicted of eight of these murders. However, he withdrew all of his confessions in 2008. As a result, his murder convictions were quashed, the final one in July 13, and he was released from the hospital. The episode raised issues about how murder convictions could have been obtained on such weak evidence and has been called the largest miscarriage of justice justice in Swedish history. Let's see here.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I'm looking at the same article

[Luke Burbank]

on which checking out.

[Andrew]

And I gotta say the. I did not. I don't know what I expected the accused murderer of looking like, but less Tobalowski vibes than what I'm seeing in front of me. Like, he. You know what I mean? Like, this isn't what I expected him to look like.

[Luke Burbank]

You mean. Well, you know what he looks like really is like. He looks like Timber.

[Andrew]

That's the other Jeffrey Tambor.

[Luke Burbank]

Like a combo. How do we do that? Jablowski Tamborlowski. He looks like Jeffrey Tamberlowski. Yeah, he's a total combo of the two. Someone's been touching my karaoke machine, by the way.

[Andrew]

Only work. We're not really badlandsing in here. We're just sort of producing on the fly. But there's something related to Jeffrey Tambor that is also in our inbox that I wanted to share with you. We got a note today from our friend Jack, Jack Taylor, who used to work at the winery and has.

[Luke Burbank]

I've got. You know what? I'm looking at some of Jack's work that I just uncovered the other day, which is some of his cool little felt. I don't know if you'd call it puppets or stick characters. I've cut the one from Olive the kitten who's busting out of a can of olives.

[Andrew]

Oh, that's right.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely adorable.

[Andrew]

I had those sticking out of my plants, and then eventually the rain did get to them, but. Okay, so I'm gonna read this as Jack wrote it, because he kind of writes it as a story. I cannot speak to Richard Karn's commencement speech at Roosevelt High 30 years ago, but I can talk about his high school days. Hollywood's Richard Karn did not attend Roosevelt High School. Seattle's Rick Wilson did. During his years at Roosevelt, Rick played football and appeared in various drama productions, including the lead role of Henry Higgins in Roosevelt's production of My Fair Lady.

[Luke Burbank]

It must have been Roosevelt then, by the way. That would make sense, right? Like they'd have him back as an alum.

[Andrew]

A few years after graduation, I saw him on television in a national beer commercial and thought he had made the big time. And he includes some. Some photos here of Richard Karn and as Rick Wilson. High school photos of him as well. My late wife Kathy and I, 10 years before we were married, were freshmen working on that same production of My Fair Lady. Kathy played in the pit orchestra while I worked backstage in the makeup department. Kathy, whose autograph book contains one of the earliest signatures of Rick Wilson. Later, Richard Karn went on to perform in orchestras for dozens of musicals over the next 30 years. Let's see. At age 40, I returned to backstage work in. In 1991, I saw Rick again when the television show Home Improvement debuted, because another actor was already using the name Rick Wilson, he changed his professional name to Richard Karn. Go ahead. What were you gonna say?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, nothing. Just Rick Wilson is a pretty good name, too. And I was wondering why you would change it. But I also figured there's probably a couple of Rick Wilson's working.

[Andrew]

Okay, here's where. Here's where it comes back to Tobolowski. By the way, I think I said Jeffrey Tambor before I meant Tobolowski. Shortly before Home Improvement began production, Richard. Richard Karn received a traffic citation. Instead of simply paying the fine, he chose to attend a Saturday traffic school class to reduce it. At that class, Karn met a producer connected to the new Home Improvement series starring Tim Allen. The role Karn would eventually play had already been cast, but the original actor was unavailable for the pilot. Karn impressed the producer so much during filming that he was hired as Al Borland for the show's eight run, eight season run. Who lost the part? Stephen Tobolowski. All Because Luke, he went to traffic school after getting a traffic citation.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you know what that means. If Veeves go to goes to traffic school to deal with this ticket she just got, it's probably going to mean her ticket to the big time.

[Andrew]

That's what I'm thinking. And then the question is, is that good for me because it benefits us as a family? Or Genevieve gets a taste of that sweet, sweet fame, starts meeting people even more interesting than me, and I find myself out. Well, that's. That's where the story starts to fall apart a little bit.

[Luke Burbank]

I want to be very clear, too, by the way. I think Richard Karn is probably like an awesome dude. And like, you know, I don't have any. I have no animus against the man. And in fact, he's a UW graduate, as am I. There's a lot for me to like about this guy. I just was blown away by how incoherent the speech appeared to me.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. I kind of forgot that aspect. I don't want to say that it was a terrible speech. Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't want this to be seen. I don't want us to be on the record as an anti Richard Karn podcast. Because again, he's a Seattle guy, he's a Roosevelt guy, he's a UW guy. He went to the PATP program, the professional actors training program at the U Dub. The other thing is that that was some real karmic comeuppance for Tobo, for Tobolowski, because have you heard the story of how he got Needlenose Ned Ryerson?

[Andrew]

I feel like I have, but I can't recall.

[Luke Burbank]

I just saw this the other day somewhere. I saw Toobo talking about this, and it was, everybody knows Stephen Tobolowski as Ned Needlenose Ryerson from Groundhog Day. And he was, the story goes, and I think told by him, actually. He was working on a film somewhere, I want to say maybe Texas. And he was one of the co stars of the film, had been cast as Ned Ryerson. And Tobolowski said he was talking to this guy. I forget the guy's name, but when I saw the picture of the other actor, I also recognized him as kind of a character actor from many things. And Tobolaski said, hey, so what are you up to after this? After we're done with this shoot? And the guy said, well, I'm gonna be in this. I think it's. Was that an Ivan Reitman film? I'm gonna be in this movie called Groundhog Day. I'm playing this guy, Ned Ryerson.

[Andrew]

Wasn't it directed by the guy who played Egon? What's his name? You know who I'm talking about. A famous.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that Ivan Reitman?

[Andrew]

Is that Ivan Reitman, ego actor? Because who directs?

[Luke Burbank]

Harold Ramis, maybe?

[Andrew]

Wasn't it Harold Ramis?

[Luke Burbank]

It's Harold Ramis.

[Andrew]

Okay. I thought it might have been. I'll look it up.

[Luke Burbank]

You could be right about that. So Tobolowski somehow. So this guy's been cast. This friend of his has been cast as Ned Neal knows Ryerson, but they haven't filmed the movie yet. And there must have been something where the producers were leaving their options open to some degree, where they were still taking auditions because Tobolowski's agent says, you should go try out for this Ned Ryerson role. And so behind his friend and co stars, or behind the back of this guy who's also in this other movie with him, Tobolowski goes and auditions for Ned Ryerson and apparently just like nails the audition. And sorry, we're getting. Somebody's getting a delivery around here.

[Andrew]

This is another tiny book of poetry that is being delivered by a huge truck backing up to your house, I'm hoping.

[Luke Burbank]

No, you know who it is? As if he didn't already interrupt my revelry at night at 7:45 this morning. This is Bob now backing up some kind of huge ass truck trailer thing.

[Andrew]

He's driving it himself. Your neighbor has a truck so big it beeps.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, he's got this situ. I don't know, he does some sort of like construction stuff where he does a lot of like, debris removal and different things. And so he's got a couple of different sort of larger trucks that he can. He can thread into what is not a particularly giant parking like spot on his property, if that makes sense. But it often involves kind of threading the needle and kind of a lot of like backing up and backing out and backing in. And it's always nice when the backup sound is going for that. All of this is to stay. All of this to say. Tobolowski books the role of Ned Ryerson and he still hasn't told the other guy that now he's gonna be Ned Ryerson. So the other guy, of course, eventually finds out. And this was the story that Tobolowski told. The movie is now premiering somewhere. And the other guy says, I'm gonna go to the premiere with you. I'm gonna sit right next to you. So they watch the Groundhog Day premiere together. Tobolowski and the guy that he effectively stole the role from.

[Andrew]

And so, I mean, he. This guy probably wasn't invited. Tobolowski just let him be his plus one.

[Luke Burbank]

I think this guy was, you know, I guess, enough of a Hollywood type, enough of a movie type that he could probably get a seat at the premiere of this movie or the local premiere or whatever it was. And so, again, I keep saying, as Tobolowski told it, because Stephen Tobolowski is a great storyteller. We know this from the Files. So I'm also sort of positioning this as Tobolowski's memory of everything.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

If that makes any sense.

[Andrew]

Yeah, no, that's totally. That. That's how I am as well.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. He says the guy sits next to him at the. The premiere and he watches the movie. And he says at the end of the film, he says, yeah, well, I'm still mad that you stole that role from me, but at least you absolutely nailed it.

[Andrew]

Nice.

[Luke Burbank]

At least I had that role stolen from me by somebody who really, really turned in a great performance.

[Andrew]

That's nice.

[Luke Burbank]

And that was. That was apparently how that went down. So think about the irony of Richard Karn stealing the role of Al Borland from Stephen Tobolowski.

[Andrew]

Yeah, good. Good point. Like, it's all. It all comes around. What goes around comes around, as the Beastie Boys once said. By the way, I just want to circle back around to Harold Ramis. He did direct Groundhog Day, because I remember that there was a. You've probably heard this, that there was, like, tension. There's, I think, sort of famous tension between the vision of the movie between him and Bill Murray. Because I think the original script was

[Luke Burbank]

actually Ramis and Bill Murray.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And I think the original script was a little bit darker and stuff. It wasn't written by either one of them, I don't think. And then Ramis is like, oh, I'm going to turn this into a comedy. Like, didn't Remus maybe do Stripes or something, too? Like, he wanted to do a straight 90s comedy about this. And I think Bill Murray was like, no, no, no, no, no. There's, like, philosophy here. There's. There's, like. There's more to explore here than just doing it. Like a straight up. Like, try to make him laugh as much as possible. And I think there was some tension, but I don't know if it ended up. I almost want to say that it affected their relationship. I'm not sure if that part is true or not, but I think that the movie is Good. Because of probably the creative tension between the two.

[Luke Burbank]

There's also some theories that Ned Ryerson is the devil and has imprisoned Phil Connors in the movie. Do you know about this whole thing?

[Andrew]

No, Never heard of this.

[Luke Burbank]

When Phil first encounters Ned, he insults him. Immediately after the insult, Phil steps into a puddle and Ned remarks, ha, ha, watch out. That first step, it's a doozy. The first step Ned refers to, literally, the first step Phil takes after being placed into the time loop. And Ned is laughing at the irony that Phil's first step was so unpleasant. It's a cruel irony that only Ned is able to enjoy. So the idea is maybe that's sort of original sin or who knows? Anyway, Barton Finky.

[Andrew]

I know that's what you mean.

[Luke Burbank]

You mean brain donors.

[Andrew]

Mean brain Donors. Did you end up. I know that we always say this. You used to get those two movies confused. They're very different movies. But did you ever end up seeing Barton Fink? Have you seen that film?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Oh, I saw and hated Barton Fink.

[Andrew]

Okay. Yeah. I was gonna say, I've never seen

[Luke Burbank]

Brain Donors or Brain Candy.

[Andrew]

Aren't there Brain Candy is the Kids in the hall and Brain Donors is the other John Turturro, the other Turturro film.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, exactly. So it's why I've always thought that Barton Fink, which has Turturro in it, is actually Brain Candy by Kids in the hall because of the movie Brain Donors that Turturro is also in. I have never seen Brain Candy or Brain Donors, but I've seen Barton Fink, and I was really not ready for that film. I might actually enjoy it now.

[Andrew]

It is a very dark movie, but if you think you're going into Brain Donors in the Spartan Fink, you're gonna have a very different tone on your hands.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, and I think I was really going into what I was. What I was really excited about, thought I was going into was like another Coen Brothers. Another enjoyable Coen Brothers movie I must have seen. Again, I think this is all because of Raising Arizona. I think for me, Original sin with the. With the Coen Brothers was Raising Arizona. Because I liked it so much that any of their movies after that. Does it. Did it have. Is Nancy Marchand. Is that Lydia. Brain Donors also featured?

[Andrew]

Who's Nancy Marshawn? I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

She plays. She plays Tony Soprano's mom.

[Andrew]

Oh, oh, oh, okay. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm looking at the cast of the movie.

[Andrew]

She's in Brain Donors.

[Luke Burbank]

She's in Brain Donors.

[Andrew]

We have not seen Brain Donors. You've never seen it, and I definitely have never seen it. We should.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, maybe. So maybe that's the. Maybe that's the love child of Brain Candy and whatever else I'm thinking of. So. And Barton Fink. Maybe brain.

[Andrew]

Maybe Brain donors is right down the middle.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe Barton Fink walked so that Brain Candy could run. No. So the brain donors could run.

[Andrew]

I swear, you and I have watched the trailer of Brain Donors on oh, probably multiple times. Yes, I think multiple times.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, you've probably subjected the listeners to this very conversation, you know, possibly tens of times on the program, which is probably a sign we should wrap it up.

[Andrew]

Definitely trying to wrap it up. But also, though, let's not sleep on the fact that, like, Jack's email kind of combined, like our conversation veers towards the Tobolowski. Then he kind of. We have an email that brings all together. And then it turns out Richard Karn got his big break because of traffic school. I didn't even bring that up because of that. But, like, I mean, I'm pretty. I mean, Synchron, Synchronicity, something or other.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm with you. Like these, the stories today and topics really dovetailed. Yeah, Pretty nicely just to kind of. Yeah, just a sort of a bit of synchronicity for us here, which is nice to have on a Tuesday.

[Andrew]

Tell your friends. Let's get some new listeners. Tell your friends. How synchronistic.

[Luke Burbank]

Please, will you and I would say submit this program for the next Webby Awards, for the next Golden Globes. Anytime we get Genevieve on the show, Andrew, it's usually a good program.

[Andrew]

That's what I'm thinking.

[Luke Burbank]

Other than me being distracted, my problem today was I was doing a jog in here, and then I was worried that it was going to be a little too gymnasium smell. So I. I left open the front door of the Madrona Hill studio and a window. So every intrusive sound of every vehicle, every helicopter flying over has. It's felt like it's going right into the microphone. So I've been a little stressed about that.

[Andrew]

I mean, I could hear the beeping once you pointed it out. I wouldn't have noticed it beforehand. And I don't think any of our listeners will be able to hear it unless they're listening in, like a. Like a complete vacuum.

[Luke Burbank]

That was the only part of today's episode that I regret. Everything else, I kind of stand by, which is unusual. So. All right, thanks for listening, everybody.

[Andrew]

We are going to be right back

[Luke Burbank]

here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for all of you. So please check in for that. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourselves. Be safe. Go, Mariners. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew]

And good luck to all.

[Luke Burbank]

I've invented a pill that gives worms to ex girlfriends.

[Steve Ellington]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

And what's positive about that?

[Genevieve]

Well, it's a pill that gives worms to ex girlfriends.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, could it also give worms to ex boyfriends? This is a drug for the world

[Genevieve]

to give worms to ex girlfriends.

[Andrew]

Well, great. Thanks for stopping by. You just don't get it here.

[Genevieve]

Power out.