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- [00:00]
Andrew Walsh
Hey, dummies, I know that a listener
- [00:03]
Luke Burbank
is a 10, a partner of a listener is an 11, and the child of a listener is a 5.
- [00:10]
Andrew Walsh
But we need to come up with
- [00:12]
Luke Burbank
a new term for reluctant PBTL listeners.
- [00:17]
Andrew Walsh
For example, Ryan Knapp. I know you are listening and you will not admit it. Power out, guys. TBTL.
- [00:30]
Luke Burbank
I don't even soul, but I got. That's an intergalactic space greeting that means, hello, space brothers.
- [00:37]
Andrew Walsh
So maybe this isn't exactly the most polished radio broadcast you've ever heard.
- [00:42]
Luke Burbank
They sound un freaking
- [00:47]
Andrew Walsh
incredible together. Listening to public radio without donating is
- [00:51]
Dan
like eating a dinner at an exquisite
- [00:54]
Luke Burbank
gourmet restaurant and then not paying the bill, just walking right on out of there.
- [00:58]
Andrew Walsh
It's exactly like that. Instead of stealing food, though, you're stealing
- [01:02]
Luke Burbank
our words and our thoughts.
- [01:03]
Andrew Walsh
And please don't play this on the radio.
- [01:08]
Luke Burbank
All right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Wednesday edition of TBT all, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Here we go again. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. If you want to talk, I've got two ears, and they're tuned to the listening station coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia on a beautiful May 26th. California. Got sunshine, absolutely spectacular blue skies. The river is placid and blue. And we are ready to go, my friends, with episode 4736 in a collector series, Let the fun begin. Something called the Enhanced Games happened in Las Vegas last weekend, also known as the Steroid Olympics.
- [01:51]
Andrew Walsh
The world needs to see the madness that is my upper torso. Okay?
- [01:55]
Luke Burbank
And it didn't go great, actually. It was literally a major disaster. We'll dig into that. We'll talk about some other stuff. We'll do some emails and V mails, and we'll say hi to this guy. He actually was trying to get into the Steroid Games, the Miami meat tent, but got a medical deferment. But he's here with us today, and that's what matters. He's the longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.
- [02:24]
Andrew Walsh
Good morning, Luke. I'm sorry, were you stalling on my behalf? Did you notice that I had gotten up for a second? It seemed like maybe you were giving me some extra time to back up. You know what happened?
- [02:32]
Luke Burbank
I took a giant glug of Fresca right as it was time for me to talk I didn't realize it was going to be time for me to talk. And it was in that sort of terrible middle moment of, do I need to, as our friend Shonda Torre would say, do I have the repeats? Do I need to let. Let some of this carbonation and effervescence reemerge into the atmosphere? Or can I just push it down? Or can I maleniate? And I weighed all of those options and I decided to just push forward and I.
- [03:05]
Andrew Walsh
So you just tried to get through the intro as fast as you could? Is that how the burp plays into this? Because I didn't. Actually, I got up for a split second basically because I realized I left the basement door locked and I needed to unlock it for our contractor. And so I thought. And then I came racing back in here and it sounded like you were doing sort of a. A slower build up to my intro drop or something because you were maybe buying. You saw on the screen that I was gone and you were stalling for me. That is not the case, apparently. But how did your burp fit into it? Your burp made you.
- [03:37]
Luke Burbank
The burp never happened. It went away.
- [03:38]
Andrew Walsh
Well, the. The.
- [03:39]
Luke Burbank
And I don't know where the threat
- [03:40]
Andrew Walsh
of the burp, I mean, that made it just. You just powered through. Okay, so powered through like a professional.
- [03:46]
Luke Burbank
Look it up in the book.
- [03:47]
Andrew Walsh
Okay, I will. Where's that book? Where's that book?
- [03:50]
Luke Burbank
I'm gonna look that up.
- [03:52]
Andrew Walsh
Where's the book finding book? You know what?
- [03:55]
Luke Burbank
I'm gonna study those lyrics.
- [03:56]
Andrew Walsh
I'm gonna go home and study those lyrics. I know they were. I don't think you mentioned this in your intro, but again, I did have to leave for about 5 to 10 seconds, but. Scary times. Kind of in your neck of the woods, huh?
- [04:07]
Luke Burbank
It's been a really weird 24 hours. As many people have probably heard, there was this huge, really, really awful industrial accident kind of down the hill in town. And actually an area of Longview, Washington, that you can see from here, although there actually, you know, wasn't too much like in the atmosphere or anything. But yesterday morning, what it was was there's a pulp mill down there. And unfortunately, there was an implosion of a huge tank of this very toxic chemical. And one person is confirmed to have died. And there are nine people who are unaccounted for. And all indications would seem to be that they've also lost their lives. I have this app. I don't even remember signing up for this app, but I'm on some kind of an app that, like when there's a sort of an emergency call or a kind of a 911 event in the area, I'll sometimes get an update on my phone. Oh, there was a traffic accident. I5 or the police were called out to this place for whatever. And we live in such a technologically advanced age that this little app will even somehow it will grab the dispatch call. It'll grab part of the audio of, I guess, the 911 call, because I guess that's public record. It'll also somehow sometimes grab a Google map image of just wherever the locator that's referenced is. It just says, well, what's that look like on Street View? Just gives you kind of a lot of this information. And occasionally I'll get that little notification on my phone. Maybe I'll. I'll listen to the call if I'm feeling slightly morbid and curious. And one of the things I've always been struck by is 911 dispatchers. EMT first responders are incredibly calm. You might even say blase, typically. You know what I mean?
- [05:50]
Andrew Walsh
That's your job. Yeah, I know. It's.
- [05:51]
Luke Burbank
That's their job.
- [05:51]
Andrew Walsh
There's like a disconnect when you're. Because I listen to some scanners too, sometimes, and you realize they're good at their jobs when they aren't bringing a lot of emotion to what would otherwise be an emotional situation because they have to do it. But it can feel like a disconnect when you're worked up and listening to it.
- [06:09]
Luke Burbank
And I had never heard any of these. And I maybe listen to like four or five of these calls in my life. I'd never heard any of the first responders sound like these ones did. Oh, it was very clear something awful had happened.
- [06:25]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, I see.
- [06:25]
Luke Burbank
And, yeah, so it stood out in contrast. And I was like, I don't know what this is. And there was a lot of kind of lack of information early on, but I was like, by the sound of the voice of the person who. I don't know if they were a firefighter or an EMT or what they were doing exactly, but they were calling ahead to the hospital. They were saying, get everybody in the hospital out in front of the emergency room. Get the hazmat stuff going. They were getting the life flights. I was like, this is going to be a pretty serious thing based on how upset this person sounds or just how serious it sounded in their voice. But then it was just kind of a news blackout, and it wasn't clear if this was something where you had, you know, a couple of injuries or if people had lost their lives. And then I. So that was kind of most of the day. It was. It was undetermined. Then I went down to get my haircut in town, and I realized, first of all, I was, like, four blocks, maybe five blocks away from where this thing happened. And also, the woman cutting my hair lived, like, a block from it. And the other woman who was cutting the hair, her boyfriend worked there. And it was like the whole salon was just calling people they knew, who knew people that worked there. Everyone was trying to check on, like, who's. You know, who's there, who is accounted for, who is unaccounted for.
- [07:44]
Andrew Walsh
Did you feel weird being there? Did you? Were you like, maybe we should get this haircut another time? Or.
- [07:49]
Luke Burbank
You know, to be honest with you, when I walked in, I had sort of forgotten about this, believe it or not, because, again, it wasn't. There wasn't a ton of reporting yet. And so we. We did tbtl. I did some other stuff. I made an appointment. I went down there. I just didn't think about it a lot until I walked in there. And it was just like, what everybody was talking about. But also, it didn't seem like, you know, there was nobody in there who seemed to be mourning a loved one. If that was the case, you know, I definitely would have tried to give everybody their space. But it was also so weird, this sort of information vacuum. Somebody was on the phone with somebody who was saying, there's this thing in California because, you know, there's this other toxic sort of tank in, I think, Garden Grove, California, that there was some concern that it was going to rupture and put toxic chemicals in the air. The woman who's cutting my hair, who was originally from Bellingham, she's cut my hair a few times. She was like, oh, yeah, I heard that Cherry Point, which is the refinery in Bellingham. I heard there was a leak there today, like, which didn't happen, by the way I looked it up. There was all this speculation of how many lives had been lost at this Nippon pulp mill, essentially. And it was just this weird thing where everyone was hearing bits and pieces of information from somebody who knew somebody, where, you know, somebody who maybe worked there or used to work there, had kind of a friend. And so then, as the day went on and it became clear that this was a very, very serious thing and that, you know, it's probably one of the more unfortunately sort of major industrial accents I can think of in A long time, you know, for 10 people potentially to have lost their lives. And then I was talking to my. The guy, the contractor who's done some of the work on the house, some of the stu. That was a little bit too burly for me and Walter to do, because I knew that his brother, who also worked on the house, used to work down there. And I said, hey, does, you know. Does Jason know people there? And he just gives me this, like, list of, like, four people. And I was like, oh, they're people that, you know, Are they okay? And he said, no, they all passed away.
- [09:42]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, my God.
- [09:43]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, it's like. It's really. And I'm not trying to center myself in this story at all, but I guess I've never been in a small town. It's 40,000 people that live in Longview, and I don't actually technically live there, but, like, it's. It's really a strange experience. And again, I want to be really careful. Like, this is not my story, not the story of my experience with it. This is a really sad thing involving a bunch of innocent people. But the amount of contact between. If 10 people lose their lives in Longview, Washington, at the town factory, essentially, it's going to touch so many people in the community. And it's just. My heart's just really broken for this town. This town that. By the way, most of the time I'm like, can we get one good restaurant? Can we have one cool coffee shop? But it's like, I guess I feel a little more connected to Longview, Washington than, like, I would have expected, I guess, just because, you know, again, the people that I know and that I like are grieving and are, you know, have lost loved ones in this thing. It's a really big blow for this town.
- [10:46]
Andrew Walsh
I was trying to put this in some sort of context based on a conversation that you and I had years ago when you were first moving in. Or maybe you had moved in, but you were still pretty new in that house, and you had mentioned that you had bought the house. I won't say on a whim, but maybe more on a whim than. Than I would purchase an Xbox.
- [11:03]
Luke Burbank
Oh, it was whimmy. It was Victor Wimbyyamba.
- [11:09]
Andrew Walsh
I've always said you have a winning personality.
- [11:11]
Luke Burbank
Yes, it was very wimmy.
- [11:14]
Andrew Walsh
I remember you said you had bought the house, and then after you had already signed the papers or whatever, you had realized, oh, there's this news story about a mill or whatever. Is that related in any way or is that some New mill that was proposed and then didn't go through. I was just trying to remember.
- [11:30]
Luke Burbank
It was, if I understand right, it was a methane capture facility.
- [11:34]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, okay. Totally unrelated.
- [11:35]
Luke Burbank
That was actually going to be on the mighty Columbia, literally down the hill from my house.
- [11:40]
Andrew Walsh
Okay.
- [11:40]
Luke Burbank
That's when I bought this house. I had no idea that this plan had been in the offing for years and years and years and had been fought by environmentalists and even not environmentalists, just people that said, this is really bad for the river. First of all, it's very dangerous, and if there was a leak, it could be really deadly for people living in the area. It's also, I think one of the pushbacks was that it could actually raise the temperature of the river in the immediate area, which would be bad for fish and things like that. But I had no idea that this battle had been going on for years and years. And like, three or four days after I signed the final paperwork on this place, like, there's no getting out of it. Like, you cannot get the earnest money back. I heard on opb, oh, they finally nixed that methane capture plant that was gonna be. And they gave the coordinates, and I was, like, looking out the window like, oh, my God, Bullet dodged. Serious. It could have just as easily been, they've come to a final agreement on breaking ground for the methane capture plant. I believe somebody actually who heard me mention that back in the day emailed me this whole website and again, shout out to the environmentally conscious people. And just again, the residents of the area who were like, no, thanks on that, because y' all did me a big old favor.
- [12:54]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. The other. Maybe the reason I was thinking about that was maybe we haven't talked about this. I don't know if this has come up in conversation before, this particular plant that had the implosion. But in. When I was first reading about. I think I saw maybe a news update yesterday day. You know, like, something headline passed across my phone. But a lot of those headlines sometimes are not. You know, you can literally get a quote unquote breaking news update from the Seattle Times that just sort of says, our food reviewers love this bun. You know what I mean? Like, you just. You just never know what. What to really to pay attention to. And then later on in the day, I'm like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is a. This is a huge story. This is a. This is a really big deal what happened there in Longview. And then I'm reading a Seattle Times article, and I'm trying to get. I'm like trying to get the. The immediate news. But the article that I was reading that I can't find right now actually also went into this long rap sheet of all of these prior issues, prior issues and breaking of rules and regulations by this particular mill. And I was looking for it. Now I don't have it in front of me, but I'm sure you did more reading on this, especially since it hits literally closer to home for you. But I'm struggling here to put what I'm feeling into words, but I sort of feel like, okay, so I live here in Seattle and we have our issues and I am focused on the issues that affect me the most and my community the most that I really love. I love my community here in Seattle. And so I'm familiar with that. And then you look at a place like Longview that is not far from where I live, but is very, very different. And it's even more like a kind of a place I grew up, although I don't know how much of that kind of industry was in the rural part of the world that I grew in. But when you're like, okay, this huge tragic event happened there, and I'm reading the details and there's still a lot of unknowns and it's scary as hell. But then also the back half of the article Is, and in 2015 they were cited for this, and in 2025 they were cited for this. And there was a leak here, and there was a spill here. And it sort of seemed like it was just like a breaking of a regulation after a breaking of a regulation after a breaking of a regulation. And maybe there's just not as much focus on that, first of all, up here where I live, because it doesn't affect me direct. But also I guess I was just sort of thinking like there are rural communities all over this country who are living around these kinds of facilities, all kinds of facilities that deal with toxic ingredients and stuff. And I am a beneficiary of that. We need these things in our lives to buy the products that we buy and to live the lives that we live. But I don't have to spend much time thinking about the communities whose rivers are suddenly destroyed or literally in this case, lives are directly taken or whatever when these kinds disasters happen. And I guess I was just sort of looking at this list of grievances, for lack of a better word, and broken regulations. And just thinking like, this shouldn't have ever gotten to where it was with all of these millions of seemingly millions of red flags leading up to this, but nobody's really paying attention because it's a job. You need the jobs in the community and you do have some people paying attention. There's probably tons of people banging on drums trying to raise the awareness of this kind of stuff. But it's never until an event like this that people actually start to pay attention. I laid a lot on you there and I don't know if any of it was coherent.
- [16:22]
Luke Burbank
Well, it's definitely. There's a number of these kinds of places down there in this kind of area of town. It's kind of pretty close to the river on Industrial Way. And it's funny because it definitely is probably the big economic engine of the town to the degree that when I'm listening to some of my weird like New York Times podcast or whatever, occasionally I'll get one of those geo fenced ads that'll just drop in. And you know, the New York Times did not put this ad in my feed. It's whoever, maybe it's Pablo Torre finds out. It's just one of those things where you hear a hyper local ad.
- [16:58]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
- [16:58]
Luke Burbank
That airs before a podcast and it'll be, hey, the fiber plant is hiring. It'll be like, come on down to, you know, and you as an electrical such and such. You can start at $33 an hour. You know, like they're trying to, they're trying to get more people down. And I don't know if that's literally the Nippon one or one of the other ones, but it's a big economic driver. I don't know, I should probably living here, but I don't really know the whole history about the safety violations other than just kind of reading it sort of briefly in the paper. You know, I guess what I would say is that typically corporations are going to do whatever they can do to get around the rules. Also, big, huge, giant facilities are probably rife with and ripe for things to, you know, break down and be out of compliance. I'm not saying that to excuse anything, but you know, you know, one of the weirdest part about this as far as again, my sort of experience with the information. So I go in, said I'm getting my hair cut and the very nice person who's cutting my hair is kind of telling me what she thinks she knows about this. And she's saying to me that seven people have lost their lives. And I'm like, wow, I didn't see that anywhere. And you know me, Andrew, I'm kind of proud of my like news. What news? Knows news instincts, kind of like not getting got too often on stories and like made up stories and rumors. I tend to just be sort of a semi old school journalist who will double check things. And so this woman was giving me a number of lives lost that I said, if that's true, that would make this an extremely significant industrial accident in the state of Washington. Like this is one, you know, for the ages. And I don't mean that in a good way. And then she said something about this other refinery that in fact I looked that up later when I got to the car and it was. That was not the case. I couldn't. I couldn't verify that at all. But I got into this whole weird thing where I start texting Becca and I'm like, you just won't believe people have no idea what they're talking about. Like, I was somehow like, I felt like it was in. I was at the sort of tip of the spear of misinformation and rumors and people who kind of didn't really know what was going on. And I don't know if it was that I was feeling like I'm a superior journalist or like somehow this was connecting to the general way that we don't have an agreed upon set of facts in the world, which I find really hard for some reason. It really lit me up this idea that this person was saying something to me that was incorrect because she wasn't. Didn't take the time to really look it up and cross reference it. And then by the time it was night, it was worse than she said it was. And I felt then retroactively really bad about judging her and about making her the centerpiece of this whole weird shadow box I was having about how people just don't ever verify anything. It was like, I don't know, it was just a weird way for the information to be disseminated and for me to be like kind of judging this woman for thinking she didn't know what she was talking about. And in fact she was underselling it
- [19:52]
Andrew Walsh
because she was speaking. This is getting really dark. But she was speaking of lives lost, right? And right now I think she was
- [20:01]
Luke Burbank
confusing the number of injured at that point. There was, at that point seven people had been taken to the hospital with injuries. And she said seven people had passed away. And I thought she had just switched that, which maybe she even had, who knows? But it was just weird because it like I was just like texting away with Becca, like, I can't believe that this person was just. And then this refinery. And then there's these conspiracy theories. They think the California thing. And it somehow just felt like I was in the middle of a rumor mill. And I guess I just. Because those things, when you apply them to politics and real things in the world, I think are kind of so dangerous. I just got all on some weird high horse. And then as the terrible news unfolded the rest of the day, not only was it terrible news, but then I was like, where did I get off thinking I know something that these people in the salon didn't know? Because in fact, it was, as she said, if not worse.
- [20:51]
Andrew Walsh
Well, I don't know.
- [20:52]
Luke Burbank
I mean, a weird 24 hours around here.
- [20:54]
Andrew Walsh
Just to clarify, to make sure that I have it straight, there has only been one confirmed fatality, but nine feet, but nine missing. And that's not. Yeah.
- [21:05]
Luke Burbank
And at this point, there would be lines. Yeah, it would be really difficult to think of a scenario where those missing people would be somewhere safe and just not contacted. Because it was a tremendous, you know, implosion. I mean, it just sounds like it was just truly awful. I mean, you know, it was also. By the time I was driving to get. Actually, it was post haircut, but on my way to Safe Safeway, and there was already that Longview Church of the Nazarene on its digital reader board was Pray for the Nippon oh wow. Plant.
- [21:37]
Andrew Walsh
Wow.
- [21:38]
Luke Burbank
Like, by like one in the afternoon, it was already hitting the town. There were vigils last night. It's like, it is again, it is a really, really big and tragic thing here in this town, you know, which again, my heart just really goes out to these folks again, folks who I mostly don't like as a general default. No, that's not true. But I just, like. I don't. I guess what I'm trying to say is, like, I'm always telling you about how I'm behind. I'm kind of behind enemy lines in red America. And I'm always driving around and looking at lifted trucks going through Dutch brothers and just going like, what even is this? And now all of a sudden, I'm just like, man, I want to give everybody in that town a hug.
- [22:11]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, yeah, I feel you.
- [22:14]
Luke Burbank
So anyway, yeah, that's. That's the latest from old Longview, Washington, my new favorite place in the world.
- [22:20]
Andrew Walsh
Were you hearing from. Were you hearing from a lot of people? Because obviously when I started to realize, oh, my God, this is a huge story that's happening down there, I did think, oh, wow, Longview, that's your backyard, basically.
- [22:30]
Luke Burbank
Yeah.
- [22:30]
Andrew Walsh
But also I. As you know, I didn't text you or anything because I'm kind of like,
- [22:33]
Luke Burbank
well, well, Genevieve did, so someone in your household and Lucy did.
- [22:36]
Andrew Walsh
Wait, did. Did Genevieve? Really? Yeah, literally. Well, because I was thinking, like, I know this. I feel like I don't want to open my mouth too much, but, like, I see Longview, and there's a huge story and a scary story coming from there. But I also know you well enough to be like, well, this doesn't touch your life, and I didn't want to be. People have really good instincts to reach out to people when they hear about it. Big news story, especially one that has a tragedy attached to it, to reach out to friends. You see it a lot, even within our TBTL community. Hey, friends in Minneapolis. Hope you're doing okay. Or if there's more of even a natural disaster, something that is more, like, immediate, people will reach out. Whether it's a big winter storm coming or whatever it is, people are concerned, and they think about the people in that part of the world. But I wasn't going to text you and be like, luke, you weren't at the factory today. Right. Like, I knew that you knew I wasn't at the factory. I wasn't.
- [23:35]
Luke Burbank
Physical danger.
- [23:35]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. So the only reason I was thinking of you was because the head. Because of the. What would you call it? The date line. Right. Or the. Is the date line. Does that include location? Or is that dateline? Literally just the time it's posted?
- [23:47]
Luke Burbank
You know, I don't think I've ever actually taken a moment to consider that.
- [23:50]
Andrew Walsh
Whatever. I'm glad I took it to the interesting, important part of the story on this Wednesday morning. But anyway, all that is to say, I did have an instinct to text you, but then I was like, why would I text him? I don't think that this would have affected him based on everything that I know about Luke and that he doesn't work at the Nippon Paper Mill.
- [24:05]
Luke Burbank
Yes, your instincts were absolutely right. I didn't. Again, as much as I've somehow made this about me, this was not a story of me being in danger, of me losing someone, you know, who I was close to. So I didn't need any condolences or, like, checking in on me. So your instincts were 100% right. Genevieve just said, holy moly. I just read. It's okay if I read this. Holy moly. I just read about the chemical plant explosion in Longview. Everything good where you are. So I guess that was. Yeah, that was a nice thing, but. But also I didn't. I wasn't getting up this morning going, like, when are people gonna check in on me? Kind of.
- [24:39]
Andrew Walsh
But did you end up hearing from a lot of people? And what did you respond back to Genevieve, and why is she texting you without telling me?
- [24:46]
Luke Burbank
I said, basically what I just said to you. I said, yeah, I can actually see that part of town from my house, but I'm pretty far away. It's weird, though, being in a small town, because there are multiple people that I've talked to who know people who died, the lady who cut my hair yesterday, the guys who worked on my house. It's pretty intense down here. So I workshopped the top of the show with Genevieve, and then I was able to present it to you in a clear, concise fashion.
- [25:08]
Andrew Walsh
So, actually, that was another question I had when you. I didn't want to interrupt before, but. So when you were talking to that guy who has done some work around your house, he was talking about this event. And again, everybody in the town is refer. Even though journalistically, you can't say it in the Seattle Times or even us on this podcast, people are speaking of the missing as lost.
- [25:31]
Luke Burbank
That's been my experience in the two conversations that I've had with people. One was a text people, but, yeah, and that was also so, like, you know, I was just checking in because, again, I kind of became. I became really friendly with these. These guys that would work on my house a lot, you know, before we got Walt out here, before we got the Walt and Susie show going here. And. And so I knew that, like, they had worked there at one time or their dads had, or just, like, you know, it had been in their, you know, family life to be there. And so, yeah, he. He sort of listed a number of people, and I. I was like. I was like, oh, he must just be telling me the people that they know that work there, but that they're okay. And then I was like, they're all okay. And he said, no, they're among the dead.
- [26:16]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, my God.
- [26:17]
Luke Burbank
Like, yeah, it's really, like. It's. It's a really. It's a really intense thing down there. Like I said, I don't know. I don't know what else to say about it, but, you know, I just feel really bad for these folks because I. Again, if you are, like, from this place or particularly down from Longview, you grew up there, it's probably hitting pretty close to somebody that you knew, you know?
- [26:37]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
- [26:37]
Luke Burbank
Anyway, I don't even know. I mean, how do you wrap that up? What? Thoughts and prayers. I mean, words fail, right? Because it's like people lost their lives, but absolutely.
- [26:47]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. And I want to, you know, make. Well, I had some questions about it and wanted to talk to you about it. I definitely don't want to. I sound glib about it because I'm not feeling glib about it, but I do have a tendency on the show to keep the needles moving, slip into sarcastic mode, so I will avoid doing that. But maybe suggesting we thank some dazzling donors.
- [27:04]
Luke Burbank
I think that would be a great thing to do. We was hoping for some razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle dazzle.
- [27:13]
Andrew Walsh
On your mark.
- [27:14]
Luke Burbank
On your mark.
- [27:14]
Andrew Walsh
Get set, get set now. Ready, ready, go.
- [27:18]
Luke Burbank
Everybody, razzle. All right, let's thank some dazzling donors. Of course, this is 100% listener supported podcasting. We could not do this without the financial support of the tens of listeners. And we're gonna thank a dear friend of the program, Susan Thaler out there in Shrub Oak, New York. Did I tell you that I drove past the exit for Shrub Oak, New York?
- [27:44]
Andrew Walsh
No. Last summer, did you think of the failures? I sure did.
- [27:48]
Luke Burbank
We were on our way. Bex and I were on our way up to spend some time in the Hudson Valley with television's Chris Hayes and his wonderful family, and we went by the exit for Shrub Oak, and I said, hey, that's where the failers are. So no, Susan and company that you all are, you know, live large in my mind, Susan says, hey, biz boys. I realized I was getting anxious every time I heard the word maestro followed by the razzle dazzle song.
- [28:16]
Andrew Walsh
Feel anxious. We don't want people.
- [28:17]
Luke Burbank
I know. We do not. We do not want this to be something that is stressful when you're already donating money to this show. But I think that's just kind of the wiring of a lot of our listeners. I think we've got a lot of folks who were good at school and are good at, you know, turning in assignments and being smart. What they like about this show I'll never understand, but I think this brings up powerful homework energy for them. I guess it's time to stop procrastinating and submit this dang thing. I'm happy to support my favorite POD and by extension, this wonderful community. We need each other now more than ever to make it through this scary time. A shout out to all of the wonderful tens I've met in real life and those who are still imaginary friendos. Extra love to our hometown Hero and tb. TB employee Numero uno. John Sklaroff, hometown hero. Because John hails from Scarsdale. No, he's not from Scarsdale. I said that before, and he was like, not that bougie.
- [29:15]
Andrew Walsh
Okay. All right.
- [29:17]
Luke Burbank
He's from Westchester. He's from somewhere in Westchester. I think he'll tell us during the meeting.
- [29:22]
Andrew Walsh
Was he the burp king of Westchester? There was a show. Okay, let me explain this, please. Let me see if I can explain this. We're going back. We're gonna. The references are gonna be weird. Do you remember a Geico commercial from 15 years ago that had a kid in it who was playing Peter Pan? And it was like, Peter Pan's. Maybe you can Google this while I'm talking about it. The.
- [29:51]
Luke Burbank
I was texting John to ask what part of New York.
- [29:53]
Andrew Walsh
This is more. Now. Now this is way more important. We have to untangle why. I said the burp King of Westchester. There was this kid who was playing Peter Pan in a GEICO commercials, and I believe that the was. It was like, you go to your. You go to your high school reunion, but Peter Pan was one of your classmates, and you all got old, and Peter Pan didn't. It was just one of those dumb GEICO commercials. That was pretty bonkers. Are you finding anything like this?
- [30:21]
Luke Burbank
And the kid burp king of Westchester is a popular line spoken by actor Thomas Barbuska.
- [30:28]
Andrew Walsh
Barbuska. Barbusa. Yes, him.
- [30:29]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, yeah.
- [30:30]
Andrew Walsh
Go ahead.
- [30:30]
Luke Burbank
In his role as the bratty, wise cracking Peter Pan in the classic 2015 Geico it's what you do commercial.
- [30:37]
Andrew Walsh
That's AI messing up big time, buddy boy. What this was. But it's funny that, because you must have been typing in all the. This is what AI Does. It takes your confusion and it confirms it, because what happens was he was in that commercial, and Genevieve loved his performance in the commercial. Had nothing to do with burping at all. It was just, Peter Pan is in your high school reunion, and it's weird. And he was like kind of a. He played a little bit of a bully, sort of. He was making. I think in the commercial, he was making fun of all of his classmates for getting old. Be wrong about the premise of the commercial. All I know is Genevieve loved his performance so much that in the early days of. After these messages, she started tracking his career. Then he showed up in a sitcom that she liked, and he played a pretty prominent role in a sitcom that I believe took place maybe in a summer camp or something like that.
- [31:25]
Luke Burbank
Wet, hot American summer.
- [31:27]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, he was in Wet Hot American Summer, and he claims in that character's role to be the Burp King.
- [31:34]
Luke Burbank
Would you like to hear a little bit of this? Yes. I think this is exactly what.
- [31:39]
Andrew Walsh
Take Me to Church.
- [31:40]
Luke Burbank
Hot American Summer. What is it about? Well, it's the prequel to the. Oh, I'm sorry. He's doing an interview about Wet Hot American Summer.
- [31:47]
Andrew Walsh
But we did get there. He ended up being in one of the reboots of the. You know.
- [31:50]
Luke Burbank
Thanks, David Wayne. Why would you. Oh, here we go. Here we go. Burp, talk, fight. Just stop. What are you running from?
- [31:58]
Dan
I don't want to be here.
- [31:59]
Luke Burbank
Is this. This doesn't look like the same kid. Wet Hot American Summer. Cooper Berg. Burp fight. Pep talk. Looks like it has.
- [32:08]
Andrew Walsh
I believe that there's like. Yeah, now I'm remembering Michael Showalter in it.
- [32:12]
Luke Burbank
Terrible wig.
- [32:13]
Andrew Walsh
They're like. There's a kid who's not popular at camp, and he's sort of getting, I believe, kind of bullied or beat up upon or something. And one of the bad kids is Barboska, or however you say his name. And he's really good at burping in this burp contest. And then he reveals that he was.
- [32:27]
Luke Burbank
Amazingly, I can't seem to find this video, which, again, what up, David Wayne? Why do you have this on lockdown? I assume he's in charge of all things Wet, Hot and American Summer.
- [32:37]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, yeah.
- [32:37]
Luke Burbank
But anyway. Yes, you had a lot of that, right? That was.
- [32:40]
Andrew Walsh
Well, sort of. But, I mean, Chester, that was a mess, man. That was a real mess that I just took you down. But anyway, we did at least confirm why I said the Burp King. And is. Is John there? And does that mean that John is not. No.
- [32:51]
Luke Burbank
And honestly, like, listen, you know, I'm not the kind of supervisor who's like, you know, should you be at your desk at 1pm Minnesota time?
- [33:01]
Andrew Walsh
I'm trying to figure out you're the
- [33:03]
Luke Burbank
burp king of Westchester.
- [33:04]
Andrew Walsh
You know, I did get an email from him. He said he was doing something. Maybe he was on a walk with the dogs or something like that, and that he had to get back with me later. So that's. That's what's going on over there with the hometown hero.
- [33:15]
Luke Burbank
What I can say is that you and John are both doing so much more work than I am in advance of the Thawne. And I apologize. I will, like, look at my phone, and there will be an absolute flurry of messages that you all are sending back and forth, getting things dialed in making important decisions, suggesting things. And I'm just like, well, the adults have it handled, so thank you to both of you.
- [33:37]
Andrew Walsh
Well, you know, can we just take a moment in the middle of Susan's message just to say that, like, you know, we're reading these dazzling donor messages and we still have a few more. We have probably a few more weeks of these, by the way, before we. I'm sort of saying that if anybody has is really last minute on this and wants to get their dazzling donor in before we wrap up. But the reason we read these, of course, is because once a year we hold a TV telethon and we ask people to support the show. And people have. And people like Susan have been supporting the show for years and years and years and years and doing so so generously. And one of the things I think that we do owe our listeners is a hell of a time during the TBTL a thon. And we have hinted at this for a while, but like, we are in. We haven't really given many details about it, but we are getting very close to this year's TBTLathon a little bit more than a month away, maybe what, six weeks away or something like that. We will start talking about how we can let the listeners in on what our adventures are this year. But also we're planning some gifts for listeners who donate that. I know we say it every year.
- [34:45]
Luke Burbank
I heard we're sending out gifs, sending
- [34:47]
Andrew Walsh
out peanut butter, but we're very, very excited about them.
- [34:51]
Luke Burbank
The Six Flags guy doing the running man.
- [34:53]
Andrew Walsh
One of these ideas for something that we want to thank people with this year is something that was an idea that we've been kicking around for 10 years now. I remember being at 8pm talking about it. And so we have some really, really exciting stuff that we are working on furiously. Like, I would like to use your duck analogy above the water, you and I are just doing TBTL every day, just talking about whatever, but below the surface, our little webbed feet are kicking like speed.
- [35:20]
Luke Burbank
Well, because there's a particular thing that again, you're really taking the lead on and I appreciate it. And John's been. Hugh, John. I've been minimally involved. I'm so excited for the listeners to get to see and experience this. But it's one of those things that's just like a great idea. And then you realize, oh, it is a ton of work and coordination for the scope of what we're trying to do with this one particular, I guess, thank you gift that we're gonna be offering. So anyway, it's gonna be exciting. It's gonna be a tbtlethon to remember if I can remember which one we're on.
- [35:51]
Andrew Walsh
What is it? I don't remember.
- [35:52]
Luke Burbank
18, 19, 17. Anyway, Susan probably knows. Susan says, as in previous years, I'm gonna use this platform to promote the amazing work of my 11, the owner and proprietor of Moonlight Marine. Dan creates wooden kayaks, canoes and stand up paddleboards that are truly works of art. He also does repairs on all kinds of human powered watercraft. Check out his beautiful work@moonlightmarine.net that is moonlightmarine.net and get out on the water. And Luke, next time you're on the taconic parkway and you see the sign for shrub oak, stop by and get a tour of the boat cave. Oh, that sounds so fun.
- [36:33]
Andrew Walsh
So you must have told Susan about
- [36:35]
Luke Burbank
this because I might have mentioned it on.
- [36:37]
Andrew Walsh
There's no way she already heard the beginning of this desk. Dazzling donor message. That would be.
- [36:40]
Luke Burbank
Oh, you didn't know? I've got her on speakerphone.
- [36:42]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, hey, Susan.
- [36:43]
Luke Burbank
I do that each day with the dazzling donors. Haven't told you.
- [36:45]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, no. That's interesting. I feel exposed.
- [36:48]
Luke Burbank
Yeah. Susan, thank you so much, Dan as well. And of course Ruby. We are big fans of the whole Thaler clan. Maestro.
- [36:56]
Andrew Walsh
On your mark, on your mark. Get set, get set now. Ready? Ready. Go.
- [37:02]
Luke Burbank
Everybody. Rattles Speaking of boat caves and places where wooden boats are a big part of the culture, Port Townsend, Washington, the small maritime village of is where we will find our friend Jeff Bettenall. Golly, do I miss that place. Tell you what, I've been listening to and reading Lindy West's book Adult Braces this week in preparation for the interview on Friday night. We're going to be at the Reeser, by the way, doing livewire on Friday night. If you're W. Kamau, Bell will be there. And she lives. I don't want to give away too much, but she lives kind of up or has a place anyway up not too far from Port Townsend. And so there's all these mentions of that part of the world and it just makes me miss it so much. Jeff says, ahoy hoy. I've been an avid listener since the early days on Cairo. As a child of immigrants and an immigrant myself, the Cobros provide much needed daily respite. Respite. I have trouble with that word. Respite. Much needed daily respite in today's hectic world. In 2012, my wife and I became owners of a Historic cabin resort called Chevy Chase Beach Cabins. Andrew. I've stayed there.
- [38:14]
Andrew Walsh
Really?
- [38:15]
Luke Burbank
They're incredible. Established in 1897, located 10 minutes outside of Port Townsend, Washington, we became the third family since 1850 to own and operate it. We offer a quintessential Pacific Northwest getaway with private beach access, glorious views of the Olympic mountains and Discovery Bay, a heated pool, seasonally yard games and pickleball basketball sport court for all of the dog lovers of the world. We are dog friendly, Andrew. We went and stayed there before we lived in Port Townsend and it was part of why I wanted to move to Port Townsend where these Chevy Chase Beach Cabins they are.
- [38:56]
Andrew Walsh
Stayed there before or after 2012?
- [38:59]
Luke Burbank
It would have been after 2012, I think.
- [39:03]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
- [39:04]
Luke Burbank
I'm guessing that Jeff was the owner.
- [39:07]
Andrew Walsh
Jen were already owning it.
- [39:08]
Luke Burbank
Jeff and Jen were already owning it. They were already owning it when we were staying there and had absolutely no idea. It is. I cannot overstate this. It is the coolest place. Definitely worth visiting. Staying there, I mean, just. I fell in love. It was one of those moments that I tend to do, Andrew, where I was like, well, now we live here. Now we're moving to Port Townsend because this is just. This is too much.
- [39:32]
Andrew Walsh
I'm looking at the website. I mean it's. I mean it's absolutely beautiful. It'd be up anybody's alley, but I can see why it'd be especially up your alley, Andrew.
- [39:39]
Luke Burbank
Remember how I have a strict policy about not reading ahead in these messages? I may need to relax that policy because so much would be revealed if I pre read any of these. I do have a slight confession. In the early days of our stewardship, I met Luke and the pod dog as they checked in.
- [39:56]
Andrew Walsh
There you go.
- [39:57]
Luke Burbank
I didn't want to seem like a deranged fanboy so I didn't claim my 10 in the wild status. Apologies, Luke. Well, we've solved the mystery as to if Jeff and Jen were running it in the day. They were.
- [40:09]
Andrew Walsh
There you go. And I'm by the way, now I'm stalking them because I'm on their website and I'm looking at the meet the owners page and there's a couple of photos of their pooch as well. Which I don't know dogs that well for real breeds and whatever. But I'm wondering if this is a lab because like a yellow lab maybe because the ears seem Rudy esque.
- [40:35]
Luke Burbank
I'm getting eyes on this right now and I do want to say to Jeff, no, like I don't want to put this on You. But if you would have. When I was checking in with my ex wife but then my wife acted really starstruck and impressed. I don't know. Could have kept the marriage going for another.
- [40:55]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. Wow. You're putting the divorce on him.
- [40:57]
Luke Burbank
I'm saying. No, the divorce was inevitable. I'm saying could have bought me a couple of years.
- [41:01]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, okay. I see.
- [41:03]
Luke Burbank
That's all. Yeah, hold on, I'm getting down. Oh yeah, that looks like a lab. That, that looks like that could be Rudy.
- [41:09]
Andrew Walsh
Like that's what I thought. The photo standing in front of the house. Is that what you're seeing on the red brick pathway? That's where I was like.
- [41:14]
Luke Burbank
Well actually I'd scrolled right past that. That's definitely not Rudy. But it is a lab. But I'd scrolled all the way down to the bottom where there is a dog. I'm assuming it's their dog. But from the side angle.
- [41:24]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, I see on the green lawn.
- [41:27]
Luke Burbank
Maybe on her more fit days. In her more fit days. But I think she's a bit on the pleasantly plump size these days. But I almost thought that could have been a picture of Rudy running around.
- [41:36]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, the one on the red brick path. That's where I was like whoa, Rudy esque. But every single one of these photos. For the listeners who are not scrolling along with us right now, literally every single one of these photos looks like. Like a version of paradise. It's so beautiful.
- [41:49]
Luke Burbank
Absolutely. And the pictures, I mean they do it justice but it's one of those places that when you get there it's nicer than the pictures. It's just phenomenal. Back to the message. How did you know I was going to be off script, Jeff? And how did you write back to the message mention you're a fellow 10 to receive a 10% discount on a two night stay excluding peak season.
- [42:08]
Andrew Walsh
Do you think you got that? I mean you didn't mention TBTL but. But you embodied TBTL when you were there.
- [42:17]
Luke Burbank
It was more reasonably priced than I was expecting. Maybe I was getting the special friends and family discount and didn't even realize.
- [42:24]
Andrew Walsh
There's no way Jeff didn't give you a discount.
- [42:26]
Luke Burbank
Here is the website. Chevychase Beach Cabins.com Chevychase Beach Cabins.Com or at Chevychase Beach Cabins on the various social media places. Thanks to the biz boys for nurturing this beautifully odd pod. Power out. Signed Jeff Bethany, like retinol and my 11 Jen Dickey who is his wife.
- [42:51]
Andrew Walsh
That's very sweet.
- [42:53]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, that was going to be even Cooler if I had the audio up.
- [42:55]
Andrew Walsh
My wife. Oh, I was wondering what was going on there. I thought you were burping again.
- [42:59]
Luke Burbank
No, no, I'm past that now, thankfully. Jeff and Jen, thank you so much and definitely, everybody go check out the Chevy Chase beach cabins. You will not be disappointed. It.
- [43:13]
Andrew Walsh
Hello and welcome to Top Story.
- [43:15]
Luke Burbank
Did you hear on any of your sports radio listening or other things about the enhanced Games over the weekend? No.
- [43:22]
Andrew Walsh
I almost said this at the beginning of the show, but I don't. Didn't want to get in the topic too early, but rare sort of feeling today as I was reading into them. I had never heard of these before. And then I'm reading more and more, and of course, Peter Thiel is connected.
- [43:37]
Luke Burbank
Of course.
- [43:38]
Andrew Walsh
And I'm like.
- [43:38]
Luke Burbank
And that other guy who's trying to reverse aging.
- [43:41]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
- [43:42]
Luke Burbank
Who was under a UV umbrella, and
- [43:45]
Andrew Walsh
together they funded the downfall of Gawker. And. And I was reading this and I was just like, you know what, Luke? Screw you for making me learn about this. I was just like.
- [43:56]
Luke Burbank
It really was.
- [43:57]
Andrew Walsh
I was just like. I hated everything about this.
- [44:00]
Luke Burbank
But, Andrew, it was a big flop.
- [44:02]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, no, that's good.
- [44:03]
Luke Burbank
At least that's the kind of. That's. I'm with you. Every sentence I read made me feel worse about the world. It's in Vegas. It's, you know, billed as the. Well, they. They were the. The people sort of running it were. They would seem to go back and forth on if they were calling it the Steroid Olympics or not. They were trying to frame it as some sort of, like, human potential maximizing sort of body maxing. I don't know if clavicular was there or not. I feel like he should have been the grand marshal. He should have been, like, wearing a sash and, like, riding at the front of the parade. But this is. Yeah. A bunch of these tech weirdos who were trying to sort of like, say that when used carefully and responsibly, you know, all of these PEDs, performance enhancing products and things that are, you know, frowned upon in, like, the real Olympics and stuff, that we can actually use them and we can be superhuman. And then, of course, they live forever.
- [45:00]
Andrew Walsh
They. I mean, literally the state. The stated objective is immortality.
- [45:05]
Luke Burbank
Yeah. This one guy, I'm gonna say his name is Brian Johnson, but like.
- [45:09]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, that's who you're thinking of. I'm thinking of the fella who has the. Who shares a name with another unlikable fella. D'. Souza. D'. Souza. Aaron d'. Souzas. Who was Iowa.
- [45:23]
Luke Burbank
He was the guy. Not Dinesh.
- [45:25]
Andrew Walsh
No, not. Yeah, exactly.
- [45:27]
Luke Burbank
This d' Souza is a different d', Souza, but he's kind of helping run this whole thing.
- [45:33]
Andrew Walsh
Souza.
- [45:34]
Luke Burbank
I don't know if I got the name of the guy who's trying to like, reverse the aging process. Right or not, but he. He was part of it. Like you said, Peter Thiel was part of it. And this was like, again, billed as this. Like, we're gonna prove that humans can. They don't have to age or, or, you know, humans can run a four minute mile when they're 80. There's no reason we need to be limited by these meat sacks we're in. And of course, there were almost no records set. There was one guy who set a record and he basically just kind of barely broke his own record in swimming. So he swam a little faster than he did before, but everything else was a giant fail in many of the events. So it was like track and field, weightlifting and swimming.
- [46:20]
Andrew Walsh
And they had non ped people competing as well. Right.
- [46:24]
Luke Burbank
Many of whom won.
- [46:26]
Andrew Walsh
So what is the. That's what I was a little confused about. And I'll be honest with you, I didn't quite make it to the end of this before.
- [46:31]
Luke Burbank
It was a long article, by the way. Shout out. I want to give credit to Gabe Fernandez writing at. I always get this wrong. It's SF Gate, right? That's what we call it.
- [46:39]
Andrew Walsh
It is SF Gate. Yep, yep.
- [46:41]
Luke Burbank
Great. Very thorough article from Gabe, who I think, without putting his thumb too much on the scale, I think accurately describes this as the flop that it was.
- [46:50]
Andrew Walsh
Although the headline is not subtle, Vegas's Enhanced Games were an abject failure.
- [46:55]
Luke Burbank
That's a statement of fact. That's a statement of fact, my friend.
- [46:58]
Andrew Walsh
My question for you, and I'm not sure if the article addresses this or not, but I did read the one line that said that the non ped. The people who are. I was gonna say performing, but actually the word would be the people who are competing without access or without choosing to take these PEDs actually won in a lot of these. Do they specifically invite non ped athletes in here as a way of almost like, so that they can prove their point? Like, are they. Almost like, are they supposed to be the betas? Or does everybody just want to compete in this?
- [47:35]
Luke Burbank
Well, one thing was that because there was all this Silicon Valley money pumped into this for a number of the athletes, they were like, this is just more money than I can make swimming normally.
- [47:46]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, I see.
- [47:48]
Luke Burbank
Or, you know, lifting weights or Running tracks. So they, they basically had this whole like tiered system for. Let's see, let me get to that page. They basically were paying out kind of a lot of money, you know, to people that would certainly finish first. But even people that were finishing, you know, in third place were getting a bigger paycheck than you would get for getting third place in some swim meet. Here was the breakdown of what the pay was for every four person competition. First place received $250,000, second got $125,000, third got $75,000 and fourth got $50,000. So if you finished last, you got $50,000 and everybody participated in two events. So you're looking at getting $100,000 even if you finished last, as did one of the guys. I think he was an Australian who's like pretty famous and was very roided up and got last, which is pretty funny. But this really was also turning into, as Gabe Fernandez writes in the article, was like a way to try to move all kinds of questionable supplements and peds and things like that. So this company that was like running this whole thing, if you went to their website, apparently for these Enhanced Games, it was just a giant marketplace for selling their crap. And they actually are a publicly traded company that was trying to use this, I guess as proof of concept that if you buy their weird, you know, serums and God knows what, you will body max yourself and you'll be able to set the world record in these events. Except none of the roided up people were able to do it. And here was the great part, Andrew. The company lost half of its value on Wall street in the days after the Enhanced games. And that, my friend, that's why you
- [49:34]
Andrew Walsh
read the story, that's why you get to the end.
- [49:37]
Luke Burbank
This is their comeuppance. This went about as badly also just the way that he writes again, this guy, Gabe Fernandez, about just kind of how sort of checked out the audience was. This was like, at this, like, I don't know if it was hastily assembled, but this temporary sort of stadium at Resorts World in Vegas. And like it was in the people that got there early were just getting broiled by the sun. And like, and let's be honest, like most people that are randomly in Vegas are not swim fans or track and field fans.
- [50:07]
Andrew Walsh
I don't know. I think there's a lot of swim fans out there there these days because I mean, elections have turned on the, the high school swim meets. I mean, I don't know if you know this, the number one important Issue in America the past five years or so have been the integrity of high school swim meets. I mean, America has cared about swim meets more than anything, I think for generations. Now.
- [50:31]
Luke Burbank
The, the other thing that was again, kind of pathetic about it was there was these weightlifters. And of course, I mean, I almost was gonna call you today and say, hey, do we want to start with the intro tape of that Saturday Night Live sketch from like 100 years ago? No. Well, I think it was the all steroids game.
- [50:50]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, that's different.
- [50:51]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Phil Hartman just literally rips his own arms like he's, he's doing some sort of clean and jerk or something where the, the, the dumbbell is on. It's a dumb. I can never remember if it's dumbbell or barbell. I think barbell is the biggest.
- [51:04]
Andrew Walsh
What's the difference? Oh, interesting.
- [51:06]
Luke Burbank
The, I think dumbbells are smaller. Like you hold, you know, you do curls with maybe the smaller ones. And then the barbell is on, has a long, longer bar. Maybe got. Our, our weightlifting friends are throwing their phones and they're throwing them far because
- [51:21]
Andrew Walsh
they're very strong exercises. Loading into the wall. I'm just gonna play this. I think it's probably a bad idea, but I'm gonna play it. It's only two minutes long.
- [51:29]
Luke Burbank
I have it right. Is it, is it Phil Hartman? Is the announcer or is Kevin Neal in the announcer?
- [51:33]
Andrew Walsh
Kevin looks. So it's a weekend update. So you have what's his name Babe is hosting.
- [51:40]
Luke Burbank
Oh, Dennis Miller.
- [51:41]
Andrew Walsh
Dennis Miller. As I said, that's a nice, that's
- [51:44]
Luke Burbank
a one second impression and it worked.
- [51:46]
Andrew Walsh
And then it looks like Kevin Nealon is going to be the sports announcer that he tosses it to in response to what its sponsors claim is an idea whose time has come. The first all Drug Olympics open today in Bogota, Columbia. Athletes are allowed to take any substance whatsoever before, after and even during the competition. Holy shit, you're right. This is the Enhanced Games. This is what they were doing. They watched this and they're like, oh yeah, that's a good idea. They sat there stone faced and was like, oh yeah, why aren't we doing this?
- [52:13]
Luke Burbank
That's why they have Toon's the driving cat running all the wayos. Everything in Silicon Valley is just something they saw in snl. Kevin Dennis getting ready to lift now is Sergey Akmutov of the Soviet Union. His trainer has told me that he's taken anabolic steroids, Novocaine, Nyquil, Darvon and some sort of fish paralyzer. Also, I believe he's had several cocktails within the last hour or so. All of this of course, is perfectly legal at the all Drug Olympics.
- [52:41]
Andrew Walsh
In fact, his tranquilizer really got me.
- [52:43]
Luke Burbank
Punov is getting set now. He's going for a clean and jerk of over 1500 pounds, which would triple the existing world record. That's an awful lot of weight, Dennis. And here he goes.
- [52:53]
Andrew Walsh
This is Phil Hartman, I think, as you've described. He tries to lift the dumbbell or the barbell and his arms come off.
- [53:05]
Luke Burbank
His arms stay connected to the weight. It's so heavy. And they come off at the shoulder, if I remember right.
- [53:09]
Andrew Walsh
Yes, he's bleeding profusely from his shoulders.
- [53:12]
Luke Burbank
Back to you.
- [53:14]
Andrew Walsh
Thank you, Kevin.
- [53:16]
Luke Burbank
So luckily I didn't read about anybody getting injured to that degree, but they were trying to do this weightlifting thing. And I mean, if there's one like event that would really demonstrate, you know, that you'd been using PEDs and that your body was able to do things that previously unheard of. Neither of the weightlifters could set a record and in fact they gave them both a fourth try. Oh my God.
- [53:40]
Andrew Walsh
It's like they did their finger on
- [53:42]
Luke Burbank
the scale so much. It was like, okay, try one more. Like that would never happen in a sanctioned event of any kind. But they were like, like they didn't get the record in three. So they're like, okay, try. And both guys just, they were gassed, obviously. Just completely failed in their fourth attempt.
- [53:57]
Andrew Walsh
Oh my God.
- [53:58]
Luke Burbank
So it just seemed like it was kind of an allaround. And then like again, this one dude broke his own record, which again does not have any standing anywhere. And then all of these tech bros were like, history was made. We've got like, we've done what we set out to do. And they were being all triumphal, triumphant off of this one thing. And then I love it like two days later, the entire thing is like loses half its value on walls.
- [54:26]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, nice. Well, happy endings.
- [54:28]
Luke Burbank
All's well that ends well.
- [54:30]
Dan
Here I go once again with the email.
- [54:32]
Luke Burbank
Every week I hope that it's from a female. Oh man, it's not from a female. Alrightly emails are V mails.
- [54:43]
Andrew Walsh
On this Wednesday, I have a voicemail here from listener Dan. In fact, I think I might have mentioned this to you yesterday when we were trying to choose which voicemail to play. This is a story. Well, let me just put it this way. I have it slugged this audio file as Dan Dash Twisted T inspired story. Oh boy, do you love a Story that's inspired by twisted T. Absolutely. We live for it.
- [55:10]
Dan
Hey, Luke and Andrew. I heard you guys talking about twisted teas going into water bottles pre iced. And it made me have a memory that I really kind of liked.
- [55:20]
Andrew Walsh
Should we maybe explain what I was talking about? I think I was going into great detail with you about how I enjoy my twisted teas. And I enjoy my twisted teas the way anybody would by taking my own personal water bottle on a walk with me. But I already have ice cubes in there because I know where I'm walking. I'm walking to SARS super saver and I'm getting myself one of those 24 hours.
- [55:43]
Luke Burbank
Nobody wants to do that sober.
- [55:45]
Andrew Walsh
Nobody. Well, you gotta walk there sober. And then you go into SARS and you get one of the twisted teas and you go outside and you open that thing up and you pour the can of twisted tea into the water bottle that you've pre iced. And that's what Dan means when he says a pre iced twisted tea.
- [56:00]
Luke Burbank
Well, because you were encouraging me after mowing my lawn to sit back with the twisted tea, the Arnold Palmer variety, and admire it. Now I forgot to get the twisted tea, but I did do the whole lawn using the push mower. And you know what I did just for the white glove service for myself?
- [56:17]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
- [56:18]
Luke Burbank
I used the bagger I had.
- [56:20]
Andrew Walsh
How did I know you were gonna say that?
- [56:21]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, because usually, like with the riding mower and the other ones, I would just kind of mulch, but the lawn had gotten so long.
- [56:28]
Andrew Walsh
Oh, yeah. Which means you had to empty that thing a lot.
- [56:30]
Luke Burbank
Probably so much. It was. It would. This was like definitely the most labor intensive this job will ever be because it had been well over a week. It's prime growing season, and it was. I just wanted to get it right. So I got two big, you know, like hefty cans and then I would. I would empty the lawnmower bag into those Hefty cans and then I would go dump them, you know, down the hill somewhere or whatever. But boy, Andrew, when it was done and looking out there, it's twisted tee able.
- [56:59]
Andrew Walsh
It is beautiful.
- [57:01]
Luke Burbank
My lawn right now.
- [57:02]
Andrew Walsh
Love that. Yeah. And I don't mind mulching up the lawn, but yeah, you had been tracking that stuff in and out.
- [57:07]
Luke Burbank
I would do it now because of the length. So now I'm going to just. I'll. I'll mow it and mulch it from here on out, but I got to not let it get as long as it had gotten. That was we were at DEFCON 5.
- [57:17]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. Cuz then you'll end up, it'll mulch it, but then you'll get those big like pads of it sort of that dry up in the sun.
- [57:22]
Dan
Andrew. I heard you guys talking about twisted teas going into water bottles pre iced. And it made me have a memory that I really kind of liked. It's. And you know every pandemic memory is a little bit of a weird one, but I was teaching an art class during the pandemic at a local art college. I won't say the name of it, just in case it, you know, incriminates me in any way, but I was teaching a hands on bookbinding class to students remotely. And so I had this whole setup where I would use my phone and my computer, have two Zoom things going and broadcast my hands in one window and myself in another window to 12 students sitting in their dorm rooms being like shell shocked and depressed because they were in art school. But doing it over zoom during the pandemic. And what ended up happening was I, you know, I recorded each lesson, I would do this demo, I had pre made kits, they had all their, had all their materials to do the projects. And then if anyone happened to miss class, I was recording too. So I had a full recording of the demonstration that happened just in the Zoom, you know, app. And so at the end of teaching class for three hours, I would say goodbye to everybody and I would push stop on the Zoom meeting and it would say, okay, now I've got to process your video. And it would take like 45 minutes to process the video file it had made. During the course of recording the class, this like small progress bar just crept slowly across the screen. So when I figured that out, what I started doing, oh, and I should mention I was going down to teach from my lab at school. So I was alone in the room, but I was doing it at school, not at home. So I would, while that progress bar processed the video, I would little like insulated mug that I had put one of the big frozen ice cube, like the big cocktail cubes that I have those silicon trays to make. And the ice cube would still be completely frozen because the insulated mugs are just a miracle. And then I would pour in a nice big helping of a cocktail, either a Negroni or an Old Fashioned or a Manhattan. And I'd sit there and just like sip my cocktail and wait for the video to finish processing. And then I would post it when it was done. And then by that point my cocktail would be gone. And I was, like, such a nice memory to come back to after Andrew talking about pouring twisted tea over ice
- [59:53]
Luke Burbank
in his water bottle.
- [59:54]
Dan
I just think that is one of life's great pleasures, pre icing something and pouring something delicious over it. So thanks for the memory power out.
- [60:02]
Andrew Walsh
Nice.
- [60:03]
Luke Burbank
You earned it, buddy.
- [60:04]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, and I can relate to that, too. I mean, even just having the little. The thing to look forward to after your workday and the processes that go around it. I love that.
- [60:15]
Luke Burbank
Well, and it was so draining to try to do so much performative or teaching sort of educational stuff over zoom and things like that. Like, we can all relate to that, whether it was just an. A big meeting where you had to do a presentation or even you and I, Andrew, doing, you know, stuff for TBTL on a zoom thing. It's like when you would, like, turn that off, it would just be like, oh, my God, that was exhausting. You know, and again, we. We love doing that, and it's a way for us to get to connect to 10, so, you know, it's well worth it. But something about that time of life where I just had so many memories of just like. Like, and this is mostly. I think I was in Bellingham. I was also in Portland for this. But just, like, turning my computer off or putting my computer down, just being, like, drained from whatever online situation I just been involved in.
- [61:03]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. Yeah.
- [61:04]
Luke Burbank
I feel that I can. I can relate. I usually would start the drinking before the.
- [61:09]
Andrew Walsh
Sure. Yeah.
- [61:10]
Luke Burbank
That would. Became a problem.
- [61:11]
Andrew Walsh
That became a problem. Yeah. Like. Like your radio show that you used to have. Hey, I. I had a dream last night. By the way, you look like a dream catcher came to life. This isn't related to anything we're talking about. I just realized we're. You could do.
- [61:24]
Luke Burbank
You could do them however much you could do. Anything you wanted.
- [61:28]
Andrew Walsh
I should remix that into this somehow. But I had a dream that I fell in with a bunch of nihilists last night, and I don't know. Or it was actually more like this morning. I think it's standing out to me
- [61:39]
Luke Burbank
because the nihilists from Big Lebowski.
- [61:42]
Andrew Walsh
No, they were way preppier than that and younger. And I think this stood out to me because I don't think I've been having a lot of dreams lately. I think since we had Lucy, my sleep schedule had been off for a long time. And also because there was so little sleep, maybe I was sleeping deeper. I think I dream more or remember my dreams more when I'm kind of like, I've already woken up a little bit, but then I go back to bed for an hour or something. Like that's the real fertile ground for it. Yeah. Anyway, I went to bed pretty early last night, like before 11, I think, which is pretty early for me, but I need to start doing that. And anyway, because of that, I think I had some dreams this morning. And the dream was very simple and not unlike a lot of dreams I have where I find myself kind of hanging out in a house with a bunch of people. But in this case, they tended to be younger, slightly cooler people than us, but not super cool.
- [62:29]
Luke Burbank
Just like, you know, speak for yourself. Who's younger and cooler than me?
- [62:33]
Andrew Walsh
Well, no, no, that's true. I meant younger and cooler than me. And I think Genevieve. That's right. And Genevieve was involved. So it's kind of like we had fallen in with these group of, you know, kind of, I don't know, people in their 20s, maybe early 30s or whatever. And we're just kind of like, they were just kind of nice, and we're hanging out with them, I don't know, working. We went outside and we're working on some project. And then one of the young women who was like kind of part of our gang just kind of drove her car into Genevieve and just kind of.
- [63:00]
Luke Burbank
It wasn't gruesome. Well, you don't mean like, we are nihilists. We don't believe in anything. You're talking about violent.
- [63:05]
Andrew Walsh
We were all having criminals. Well, we were all having a good time. But I mean, that's the weird thing about it. It wasn't gruesome or like, you know, scary. Like the way some of these, you know, people are. You know, some of the terrible things you hear about people doing to protesters or whatever, it wasn't like that. It was just like she just kind of hit her with her car. And Genevieve and a bunch of people were just sitting on the ground cross legged. And this girl's just like, ah. She just kind of decided, I'm gonna drive my car into you guys. And everybody was just laughing about it. They're all just laughing and like.
- [63:33]
Luke Burbank
So it wasn't like a scary.
- [63:34]
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, it wasn't scary and it wasn't gruesome. It was just sort of like a lark. But I remember standing up, I said, oh. And I had this revelation. I said, you guys are all just nihilists. And they all started laughing. They were just like, yeah. And the reason I. I think I'm sort of thinking about it now is because I'm thinking about this. I'm just thinking about the state of the world. You know, you mentioned before the, the, the looks, maxing kid, clavicular. I have trouble saying that. And kind of like even how that sort of. You read about these enhanced games and it has like kind of the smack of that as well. And I just sort of think about the genera. There must be something going on with me, the fact that these were younger people. I think it, maybe it was maybe, yeah, maybe me processing the world that some of these young adults are coming up into. And I don't mean that in an accusatory way about them, but like. And I think maybe thinking about the pandemic maybe got me thinking about this here at the end of the show. But just like the younger people than us who live through the pandemic and are still trying to make sense of the world as they enter the workforce. And you and I have been talking a lot about the graduation speeches and everything. It's just like, what a world to come into. And I do think we're seeing more nihilism, generally speaking. And just kind of like, yeah, what is the point of anything? Why don't I just. Just bump you with the bumper of my V dub?
- [64:51]
Luke Burbank
Of course we can't encourage that behavior, but it is understandable how the younger generations would have a certain amount of frustration and despair when it comes to like, not being able to buy a house and, you know, having so many things that were part of the quote, unquote, American dream. And by the way, buying a house isn't the be all, end all of adult life, but just kind of like there's just so many things that were so much more easily achieved in my lifetime. I mean, like even going to the University of Washington. Thank God I went there when they would just let anybody in. Like, I applied the day the application was due, I filled it out by hand. I drove it over in my parents Ford Fairmont and said, can I go to college here, please?
- [65:34]
Andrew Walsh
I put a $10 bill with a
- [65:37]
Luke Burbank
paper, you know, like just, you know. And you know, my first ex wife and I, we bought our first house. It was $160,000. You know, we put down $5,000 that she had saved up waitressing at Cafe Lago and got an FHA loan on our $160,000 house. I mean, it was just, it was just life was set up in a way that it was much easier to do some of these things. And I just really. I feel for Addie. I feel for or even generations Coming after her, it's just like, it's tough out there. Doesn't mean you should hit someone with your car.
- [66:14]
Andrew Walsh
No, no. And again, I want to say it was like done. It was a dream. So it was like this weird playfulness, but it was. And again, these kids were all like, sort of impressive, you know what I mean? They weren't like burnouts or whatever. And so to add to what you're saying though, about the state of the world is also. I feel like there is. When I graduated college and I was entering the workforce, there was a lot of concerns about the economy at the time. And that's cyclical, that kind of comes and go, things like that. But you didn't have the uncertainty of the technology of the time and the technological breakthroughs. And again, I don't know why I'm having trouble kind of being articulate and engaging today for some reason. And maybe it's because of the stream or whatever, but you look at what,
- [67:00]
Luke Burbank
you haven't had enough twisted teeth?
- [67:02]
Andrew Walsh
Maybe I've had too much. Maybe I had too much.
- [67:03]
Luke Burbank
That'll loosen the tongue.
- [67:04]
Andrew Walsh
We'll figure it out. I do think I don't like doing the show drunk or tip. There might be an argument for like doing a show. There might be an argument for you and I doing a show with some twisted teas in hand at some point this summer. Like, I just feel like all roads are.
- [67:21]
Luke Burbank
Could we make it a twisted tbt? L A thon Twisted tbt brought to you by twisted tea.
- [67:28]
Andrew Walsh
Should I use that as today's show title or save it for this glorious day where we have twisted tb?
- [67:34]
Luke Burbank
Let's save it. Oh my God, we gotta do that.
- [67:38]
Andrew Walsh
That's. Well, John, okay, whatever all of that is to say. Technology was still at the forefront of a lot of conversations because the Internet was still relatively new and it was changing things, but there was a positivity about it. Maybe this is also on my mind because of the show that we did yesterday. And after these messages, I saw a commercial for a camera. It's like a camera app company, but it's specifically anti AI. It's a 30 second TV spot that I saw during a baseball game a couple of times. And it's kind of like AI doesn't care about waiting for the perfect light. AI doesn't care about this. And it was like the first time I'd ever seen a commercial that like truly took a broadside against emerging technology. In fact, I think their tagline at the end was choose a side. We choose photography.
- [68:30]
Luke Burbank
Wow.
- [68:30]
Andrew Walsh
Something. It was like it was there with the drawing a line. Yes, Right. And so that got me thinking. And so what I did for the show yesterday was I was looking for a bunch of other commercials throughout time where there would be some interest advertising against an emerging technology. It was kind of hard to find, to be honest with you. But I did find one that was like an anti cable television commercial from the 1960s or 70s. Like they're gonna start making you pay
- [68:58]
Luke Burbank
for TV in your home from the
- [69:00]
Andrew Walsh
networks, I think it was from.
- [69:02]
Luke Burbank
Or the over the air broadcasters, I
- [69:04]
Andrew Walsh
think it might have been. And Genevieve put her finger on this. We tried to do a little digging on it. It might have been the advertising interests of the time. But anyway, so it was like the free TV movement or whatever and that kind of got me thinking about things, but I couldn't find. What I was looking for was a commercial where somebody was like, stay away from the Internet, read real books or buy Encyclopedia Britannica. And I couldn't find anything like that. And I think the reason is because. Because we've always embraced technology. It's always been a promise of a better future. And this is the first time that I can remember there's always some concerns about technology. I mean literally going back to the automobile. Right. Like the dangers and the risks or whatever. But for the most part society embraces it because it's a sign of better things ahead. And I feel like AI is the first time where it's kind of like the young people who are graduating are. They don't know what it's going to look like and what it's going to do. It's not just a tool that people can use. It seems like something that is replacing people and in ways that we don't even know yet and is taking over parts of life that we don't want taken over. And maybe part of that is kind of on my mind too as the uncertainty of the world. There's always uncertainty in the world. And I think every graduating class probably feels a bit of that uncertainty, but this feels really uncertain to me.
- [70:26]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, it's the first technology that's sort of stated purpose has been to replace human labor. When you have like, you know, the car comes along and replaces the horse and buggy. Well, now there are new jobs working with cars and the Internet comes along and all of a sudden there are, there are fewer jobs, maybe like printing things out and stapling them together. But there are more jobs related to the Internet. You know, you have these big technological advances and the nature of work changes because the old technology isn't that relevant. But there are new jobs with the new technology. This is, I think, described as like, not a difference of degree, a difference of kind. It's not just kind of like more of something. It's a whole new animal. And it's. Yeah, it is a big question mark. And, you know, I just thought. I didn't think I was going to live long enough to see most of this stuff. Andrew, in the words of Kanye, we wasn't supposed to make it past 25. Jokes on you. Jokes on me. I'm still alive and I have to think about things like AI. You know, who are not nihilists, though, Andrew. The TBT Junior Sluggers.
- [71:32]
Andrew Walsh
Oh.
- [71:33]
Luke Burbank
Who are playing the Stay Chill ice cream or whatever it's called. Yeah, Super Chill ice cream or something tonight in Portland. I'm going.
- [71:43]
Andrew Walsh
Are you going? Nice.
- [71:44]
Luke Burbank
I'm going to have a full report tomorrow. I'm going to get eyes on these kids.
- [71:49]
Andrew Walsh
You know what if they do well? Get them a bunch of twisted tees.
- [71:55]
Luke Burbank
That'll get us drummed right out of the league as the sponsors.
- [71:58]
Andrew Walsh
I mean, they earned it. What is Coach Ben give him power pins or put up pins?
- [72:05]
Luke Burbank
We give hustle pins.
- [72:07]
Andrew Walsh
Hustle pins. Yeah. Yeah.
- [72:09]
Luke Burbank
And it seems like frozen yogurt as well. And I think Gatorade. He's been bribing them with Gatorade he mentioned earlier in the season. So, yeah, I am very excited to watch the Sluggers play the super chill ice cream or whatever the place is called.
- [72:24]
Andrew Walsh
Have fun tonight. Looking forward to hearing about that.
- [72:26]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, it's going to be the final,
- [72:27]
Andrew Walsh
final game of the Post.
- [72:29]
Luke Burbank
I don't know if it is. It's unclear, but this is the first game that's been happening when I've been in town and available or close to in town. So I'm going to head on down there and watch the game.
- [72:39]
Andrew Walsh
Have a hot dog or don't eat.
- [72:41]
Luke Burbank
Full report for tomorrow. Who knows, maybe I'll treat myself. That's gonna do it for today's tbtl. But we will be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for all of you. Please do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves. Go Sluggers or Go Jalapenos, whatever you prefer. And please remember, no mountain too tall.
- [73:00]
Andrew Walsh
And good luck to all.
- [73:09]
Luke Burbank
Power out.