#4787 Jangin' With Mr. Jooper

Summary

TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live

Episode #4787: Jangin' With Mr. Jooper

Date: August 6, 2026
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

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Episode Overview

On this Thursday “Blursday” edition of TBTL, Luke and Andrew tackle their signature blend of playful banter and pop culture obsession. They begin with a comically tangential discussion fueled by a spoof “This American Life” intro, segueing into a battle with the hardest-to-spell words, and roll through a deep dive into baseball retaliation etiquette, quirky sitcom recollections, and a hilariously convoluted quiz about presidentially-pardoned turkeys. Later, they dig into a Vermont community theater scandal, the Hunter Biden “reclamation project,” and close with the beloved Blursday birthday segment. Throughout, the themes are friendship, the joy of mundane obsessions, and an all-encompassing sense of comic relatability.

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Main Discussion Points & Highlights

1. Opening and Themes (00:50 – 03:39)

• Spoof “This American Life” intro featuring Ira Glass and a faux-diarrhea episode (00:00).
• Luke and Andrew banter on the beauty, weirdness, and unpredictable plots of their favorite shows. (“It’s scary at times, but also a lot of romance and really well-made.” – Andrew, 01:16)
• Air quality report from Luke’s Madrona Hill Studio: “It appears that most of the smoke has blown on through and now we’re looking at reasonable visibility. An absolutely splendid day to bring you episode 4787…” (Luke, 02:12).

2. The “Diarrhea” Spelling Saga (03:30 – 06:52)

• Extended riff on the challenges of spelling “diarrhea” – between puppy troubles and viral outbreaks, Andrew’s been typing it a lot.
• “There's an H running around in there somewhere... and a couple loose Rs.” – Luke (04:53)
• Suggestions for euphemisms: “Could you just, I don’t know, throw in splooch or something?” – Luke (06:34)
• Discussion of adapting language for digital assistants and tech.

3. T-Shirt Tangents and “The Detroiters” (07:57 – 09:08)

• Chat about a bad-yet-iconic “D2ROIT” shirt from the show Detroiters, and Google misunderstanding the reference.
• “That show...just does not disappoint at all.” – Luke (09:14)

4. Deep Dive: Mariners, Baseball Etiquette, and Broadcasting (09:14 – 23:43)

• In-depth conversation about a Mariners vs. Detroit game and a retaliatory “plunking” incident.
• Luke confused by the unwritten rules around beanballs and the sequence of events.
• Booth dynamics: Ex-players Jay Buhner (“the Bone”) and Ryan Rowland-Smith vs. play-by-play guy Aaron Goldsmith’s perspectives.
  • “[Goldsmith] was like, that's why I don't think you should do that.” – Luke, about Goldsmith’s reaction after the retaliation backfires (16:26)
• Andrew muses on emotional sparks these moments provide a slumping team, and confesses to liking a good baseball beef ("A little controversy gets the blood up." – Andrew, 14:29)
• Both hosts riff on the sometimes silly, sometimes fraught nature of on-field fights: “Not to correct your language, but in true baseball parlance, they call that a bench-clearing conversation.” – Andrew (17:07)
• Differences between joyful and aggressive celebratory behavior on the field, referencing both Mariners pitcher Brian Wu and Mets pitcher Jeffrey Yahn’s viral post-strikeout celebration.
  • “The yawn thing seems so joyful. I don’t know if it would make me as mad as when the guy’s just flexing his muscles and swearing.” – Luke (21:56)

5. Nostalgic Sitcoms Alphabet Game (25:22 – 28:35)

• Andrew tries to name a sitcom for every letter of the alphabet as a go-to sleep tactic, skewing heavily toward shows from the ‘70s-’80s: “Every single sitcom... is at most, the latest, from 1986.” (25:27)
• Luke and Andrew joke about the abundance of teacher-focused sitcoms: “We Americans couldn’t get enough sitcoms about teachers... Head of the Class, Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper...” – Luke (26:47)
• Podcast episode title is coined in jest: “Jangin’ with Mr. Jooper.” (28:16)

6. Top Story: Rocky Horror Community Theater Sabotage (29:14 – 33:55)

• Odd news: Vermont community theater’s Rocky Horror production was sabotaged by its own director, who sent himself fake threats to cancel the show.
  • “He allegedly admitted to creating a fake account... so he could step away from the show instead of dealing with what he described as difficulties with the cast and crew." – Luke (29:41)
• Speculation about how the ruse was discovered.
  • “Who suspected that he was up to no good?” – Luke (31:02)
• Both reflect on the intensity and bonds of community theater: "That’s a lot of work and emotion you’re putting into a project." – Andrew (32:28)

7. Movie Memories: Licorice Pizza & Philip Seymour Hoffman (34:10 – 38:29)

• Extended reflection on the film “Licorice Pizza,” starring Cooper Hoffman, and how unforgettable-yet-impossible-to-summarize it is (“...it’s just like a fever dream, the two of them just running amok.” – Luke, 37:17)
• Tangent on missing Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cooper’s father: “The Philip Seymour Hoffman stuff really gets to me... just such a loss.” – Luke (37:49)

8. Ben Affleck on Celebrity Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (39:02 – 49:11)

• Viral moment: Ben Affleck wins $1 million for charity, but it’s Jeopardy champ Jamie Ding who does the heavy lifting.
  • “Notice a theme there? That’s not Ben Affleck giving the answer, it’s Jamie Ding.” – Luke (40:44)
• Luke quizzes Andrew on actual million-dollar turkey-pardoning question: which duo—Peanut Butter & Jelly, Tater & Tot, Mac & Cheese, Spaghetti & Meatball—never served as names for pardoned turkeys? Andrew guesses “Mac & Cheese,” but the correct answer is “Spaghetti & Meatball.” (49:01)

9. Food Fads and Turkey Name Trends (51:22 – 54:43)

• Discussion on the food trends that drive turkey duo names—mac & cheese, tater tots, possibly “uncrustables.”
  • “They sell these devices now where you can make your own uncrustables...” – Luke (53:43)

10. Hunter Biden “Reclamation Project” (54:43 – 58:11)

• Observations on Hunter Biden making media rounds—defending his father, critiquing George Clooney and Jake Tapper, and Andrew’s bemusement: “...I have no problem with him just being like, someone who’s got my life together now and I’m going to quietly live out my life...” – Andrew (57:48)

11. Podcasts They Recommend (58:11 – 61:52)

• Andrew’s renewed appreciation for “Slate Political Gabfest” and “On the Media.”
  • “They remind me of...a kind of three-legged stool of listening. And anyway, there’s something about these three people.” – Andrew (61:51)
• Praises for John Dickerson’s style and how network news lost a great one.

12. Listener Emails, Spam & Blursday Segment (64:47 – End)

• Emails about podcast SEO spam and promotional offers.
• Andrew’s irritation at spammy, “negging” sales tactics in podcasting: “There are more companies trying to draft off of podcasts than there are actual podcasts...” (65:24)
• Blursday messages (68:05 – 74:38):
  • Shout-outs to listeners’ birthdays, inside jokes, and ongoing community engagement.
  • Recap of running birthday gags, affectionate ribbing, and gratitude for the community: “If you could just get into a beef with every listener, think about the level of engagement...” – Luke (69:09)
  • Family and international listeners mentioned, e.g., Ivan and Rachel in Amsterdam, a birthday trip to Paris, and listeners in Tooele, Utah.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “There's an H running around in there somewhere... and a couple loose Rs.” – Luke (04:53)
• “This is not how it's supposed to be. Can't wait to watch him get lit up, and then that'll shut his ass up or whatever. But how can you not see this jump... smile from ear to ear when you see this leap?” – Andrew on Mets reliever Jeffrey Yahn (20:22)
• “If you could just get into a beef with every listener, think about the level of engagement...” – Luke (69:09)
• “You can just listen to this episode if you need to fall asleep.” – Luke (28:35)
• “That’s the thing, I don’t think everybody signed off on this particular move. I don’t think Cal Raleigh was hit out of spite... the pitch got away from the guy.” – Luke (17:15)
• “A right way to rock and a wrong way to roll. You can just listen to your song…” – Episode’s closing song (63:09)

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Memorable Moments

• The “diarrhea spelling bee” contest and its classical origins riff.
• Luke’s confusion over the intricacies of pitcher retaliation in baseball.
• Alphabet sitcom game, skewering ‘80s classroom-comedy saturation.
• The Rocky Horror “self-sabotage” story, analyzed with heartfelt theater kid energy.
• Extended turkey-naming quiz and speculation on next trendy food pairings.
• Ben Affleck gets ‘carried’ by a Jeopardy champ—celebrity quiz show dynamics.

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Useful Timestamps

• 00:00 – Spoof “This American Life” intro (Ira Glass parody)
• 03:30 – The Great Spelling of “Diarrhea”
• 09:14 – Mariners revenge pitch discussion
• 23:43 – Celebrations, masculinity, and baseball emotion
• 25:22 – Sitcom Alphabet Game
• 29:14 – Vermont Rocky Horror sabotage story
• 34:10 – Licorice Pizza tangent / Boogie Nights anecdotes
• 39:02 – Ben Affleck Millionaire / Turkey pardoning quiz
• 54:43 – Hunter Biden “reclamation project” discussion
• 58:11 – Podcast recommendations (Political Gabfest, On the Media)
• 68:05 – Listener Blursday messages

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Tone and Style

As always, TBTL brings a meandering yet vibrant mix of personal anecdotes, pop culture riffing, and affectionate roasting, all with a comic, self-aware, and gently irreverent tone. The vibe is warm, nerdy, and reminiscent of conversations with your favorite ironically nostalgic friends—those who love both deep dives and dumb jokes in equal measure.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Ira Glass]

WBEG Chicago. This is American Life from Hourglass. In the wake of the current diarrhea outbreak plaguing America, we started thinking about an old episode from 2004. This entire episode was about diarrhea. Who gets it, why? And we thought, why not? Let's bring it out of the vault, put it back onto the podcast app. Some of the ideas in the episode are a little bit regressive, knowing what we know now about diarrhea, but I think the spirit of it stands true. We'll just go ahead and jump right into Act 1. See ya. Wouldn't want a diarrhea in which the entire staff does a contest to see who can go the longest without getting diarrhea. And it might not be who you think. Okay, let's try the show.

[Andrew Walsh]

TBTL. I am so excited about this show. It is weird, it is beautiful.

[Luke Burbank]

It has a plot that goes in fascinating directions and it's romantic and it's

[Andrew Walsh]

full of these sort of situations which

[Luke Burbank]

turns out to be that's very interesting, very

[Andrew Walsh]

scary at times, but also a lot of romance and really well made.

[Luke Burbank]

So I recommend good soundtrack.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good soundtrack. I don't know what exactly the attachment is. I think they're cute, but kind of funny looking.

[Luke Burbank]

I consider myself to be an absolutely

[Andrew Walsh]

dead center, normal, average American.

[Luke Burbank]

Between your no nonsense approach and my the regular amount of nonsense approach, we

[Andrew Walsh]

make a pretty good team.

[Luke Burbank]

I could really use a win here.

[Ira Glass]

All right.

[Luke Burbank]

Hello, good morning and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

[Andrew Walsh]

Carol, hold my.

[Luke Burbank]

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. It's just a generic job that the writers of this made up for this. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where actually, you know what? We can activate this sound effect. Oh, ma Pa.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's just beautiful.

[Luke Burbank]

It appears that most of the smoke has blown on through and now we're looking at reasonable visibility. And just an absolutely splendid day to bring you episode 4786. 4787 in a collector's series.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let the fun begin.

[Luke Burbank]

So many shows for so few of them to be listenable. That's gonna change today though. Oh, speaking of shows, they were going to put on a production of the Rocky Horror Picture show at a local community theater.

[Andrew Walsh]

A beautifully wrapped, glossy, sweet smelling show.

[Luke Burbank]

Then they started getting threats of violence against the production and you'll never believe who was sending the threats. We'll talk about that. Also, it's a Thursday AKA blursday. Today, do the blursday messages. And of course, we'll say hi to this guy. He's the longest running co bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's been doing a lot of therapy and I think, honestly, I think it's working. Quick to fight, faster to forgive. He's Andrew Walsh and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning, Luke. I loved that intro tape. You sent it to me. It's from a TikToker called Mr. Big Bucks with an S. Oh, thank you

[Luke Burbank]

for crediting that person.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Doing a bad job at that lately.

[Andrew Walsh]

We've used his stuff before, his imitations of Ira Glass, I think, talking about minions. But as I was putting that together, you know how when I'm saving audio, I slug it or I give the files names that I should be able to find it easily later. And I realized that I have had to spell the word diarrhea a lot lately. Whether it was from conversations about the virus that was going on when we were in the Midwest a couple of weeks ago or some personal issues I was having not with myself, but with my little puppy dog who was having some, you know, gastrointestinal distress a few weeks ago. And so we. We're feeding her a lot of pumpkin now. Things have seemed to level out, but my God, there is not a more difficult word to spell. Listen, there are more difficult words to spell, but for a word that should be so easy to spell off the top of your dome, can you spell it without looking it up?

[Luke Burbank]

D. Can I get the country of origin?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Can you use it in a sentence?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. I just countryed of origin all over my pants. Does that help?

[Luke Burbank]

Diarrhea. D, I, A, P, P, P, Q, R, Q, Q. Seven. Okay. DIA Good. Is that correct so far?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yep. You get it.

[Luke Burbank]

There's. The problem is there's an H running around in there somewhere.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And there's a couple of loose Rs.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is exactly that. That's the problem.

[Luke Burbank]

So, okay. D, I, A, H. No, no. D, I, A, R, R, D, R,

[Andrew Walsh]

R, E, A, H. No. But you got close. Closer than I think I've gotten. Again, I've had to write it a lot, whether it's text messages to Genevieve about whether or not the firming things up or what have you. It's Dia, then a couple of double Rs. D, I, A, R, R, then the H. Oh, Diar. Hiya, Diar. Hia. Like, I guess that's How I gotta remember it if I'm gonna ever spell it right off the dome. But I guess I just let the computer fix it for me. But why? I mean, I'm sure there's a reason. I actually don't want to know why. I'm sure it just goes back to, like, again. Is it the Greek, the Latin? Who knows? But, man, it's overly.

[Luke Burbank]

I believe it was Seneca.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Who said? You guys go on ahead. I've got. I'm about to go on my own personal odyssey.

[Andrew Walsh]

What if diarrhea was a Greek God? What a terrible straw to pull. They.

[Luke Burbank]

They cut him out of the Odyssey.

[Andrew Walsh]

They really did. Yeah. That's gonna be its own movie. I think it's gonna be its own breakout.

[Luke Burbank]

Now, could. Is there. Since it's a tough word to spell, and it's just to let, you know, Genevieve know what's going on with Lucy's number twos. I mean, is there another. Could you just, you know, I don't know, just throw in splooch or something? I mean, could you come up with a different cutesy term within your family structure that would serve the same informational purpose?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I mean, I suppose so. I mean, I like that reminds me a little bit. Maybe this isn't a very clean analogy, but it's. It feels a little bit like giving up. Like, when the. Like, you know, Genevieve's last name. It's the way it's spelled. People think it's pronounced Haas, right? H, A, A, S. But it's actually pronounced has in her family for reasons I don't know or understand or care to get to the bottom of. But it's has. That's how we've always said it. But when I'm talking to the machine in my car and I say, okay, Gorgol. I'm trying to say that. Quite. My phone lit up as soon as I said that.

[Luke Burbank]

Really? Even Gorgon.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, Gorgo. Got it. Yeah. Anyway, I have to say, text Genevieve Haas, and I don't even think about it anymore. Like, I've changed my language for the machines Now. Now, what you're suggesting is that I change my language for my own purposes and for our family's purposes, which is a little bit different. But. But, yeah. Does she have the D? That doesn't actually sound any better. April and the D. April and the D. Genevieve has that detouroid shirt. I think I told you.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm so jealous. That's the kind of thing that, like, it's so graphic. Design is my passion. Like, it's such a bad shirt. But it's.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I mean, it's not. I mean it's. It's not a super loud. So we're talking about a T shirt that is the punchline of a joke in the show. The Detroiters, they just have this idea of marketing the kind of branding of Detroit as D2ROIT for some reason, even though it doesn't make any sense, but the design itself, it's not like a Dan Flashes. Like it's like a pretty simple white on black thing. It's just a concept is so dumb, right? Is it that bad?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it's. They're trying to make it a thing. They decide Tim Robinson and what's his pal's name, Sam Richardson. They're trying to make D2ROIT a thing, but it doesn't quite work. Don't they go on like a local? They go on like kind of a local, like, you know, Good Morning Detroit or whatever. Sort of one of those shows to try to pitch it.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't even remember that scene, to be honest with you.

[Luke Burbank]

So it's D. It's. It's like the word Detroit, but then there's like a two in it.

[Andrew Walsh]

For some reason, the stupid Google. I'm trying to search it up, Luke, and stupid Google just keeps autocorrecting D2 Roy to. You mean Detroit? I'm like, no, I literally mean D2 Roy.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean April and the D. I

[Andrew Walsh]

mean, what part of April and the D don't you understand, Google?

[Luke Burbank]

That show. That show just. I've been reintegrating with it, rewatching it, and it just does not disappoint at all. Did you. I know that there's been too much baseball talk on the show lately, but this isn't a conversation about baseball, Andrew. This is a conversation about hitting people with a baseball. Did you follow any of the shenanigans last night?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you. Would you want to lay it out?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I was honestly. And you saw me. That was one of those nights where I felt like I was the only one texting and I needed to calm down because I looked up and no one was responding. I was just sending these, like epic. These epic.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sometimes that's what the text chain is there for, though. Like it's just there for you, for one. I mean, to just like foam it off. Whether I actually sort of like that about the chain. Like, sometimes it's just like one person yelling at themselves. And that's fine. That's what we're here for.

[Luke Burbank]

So I was kind of. I think I was a little confused because I didn't realize that. Okay, so what happened was our guy, Cal Raleigh, our catcher. I'm sorry, Bal. Collie.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know. Don't.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe that guy. Yeah, yeah, that guy in Cal Raleigh, our catcher, was in and got hit in the, like, rib cage.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Like, right in the belly.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, if that happened to me, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my God.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, certain death.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, the stretcher.

[Luke Burbank]

Certain immediate death.

[Andrew Walsh]

There would be a stretcher on the field immediately. They'd have to pull the ambulance onto the field.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. They would have to dig a grave right next to home plate and put. And lower me into it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like that.

[Ira Glass]

It would be.

[Luke Burbank]

I would die from that. Cal Raleigh didn't die from that. He just kind of winced, like, ooh, that didn't feel good. And he gets up and he trots to first base. Now, I don't think that the other team. I don't think D2 Roy was trying to hit Cal Raleigh there. I don't. Because they're not mad at him. There wasn't. There isn't. Hasn't been an issue. I don't think there's any bad blood left between these teams. I mean, we played them in the playoffs last year, but that just seemed like a accidental thing where they hit Cal Raleigh. And then what was weird to me was like, we. The Mariners come, you know, get. We're pitching in the. I guess, the next inning. And it's sometimes if a guy gets hit, if there's a sort of simmering beef. Oh, now I'm hungry for simmered beef. If there is a, you know, something going on between two teams, you and somebody gets hit, oftentimes it's like the next batter for the other team gets hit. Like, when the next inning starts, the first guy, you plunk him. That's not what the Mariners did. It was like two. Like, there was like, two outs. The Guy Spires had been pitching to multiple D2 right players and got.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then got them both out. You're right.

[Luke Burbank]

And then randomly, clearly starts trying to hit this other dude, Glaber Torres, who I thought, was he the catcher? I looked him up. He's not even the catcher. Why was Glaber Torres of D2 Roy the target of Spire's ire?

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a really good question. Because that was my first assumption, too. I was like, why is he going after this guy? Because I kind. So here's the deal. You had three people were, you Watching the TV broadcast or were you watching.

[Luke Burbank]

I was watching the TV broadcast, which I actually want to talk about that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So did you. You heard all the commentary going around it, right?

[Luke Burbank]

That's. Yeah, that's what I found actually the most interesting.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought it was really interesting. I'm not the biggest fan of that setup in the booth, but yesterday during that moment, I was really glad to hear it. So you have.

[Luke Burbank]

And tell them the bones.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. Got the bone in there. Jay Buhner, and you have Ryan, Roland Smith. Now, both of those guys are ex ballplayers, one of which is a pitcher, one of which was, you know, an outfielder. And you describe him as a slugger, right? As before my era. But Buhner, he was making fun of. He was making fun of himself, too.

[Ira Glass]

He's.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sometimes he's just way too much for me in the booth. But at some point in the game, too, he was talking about, like, yeah, when. I mean, you wait for someone like me to get up there, I'm just standing up there in like a softball stance. Like, I'm an easy out. Like, he was like.

[Luke Burbank]

He was talking the other day about how the. The only thing people know him for is being mentioned on Seinfeld. That's so funny. He's kind of growing on me as an announcer.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think he's. But I also. He's growing on me too, because I think he's bringing some. A little bit of better stuff. I think his energy is different day to day. So. But anyway, back to your point of this particular thing, and maybe I'm jumping ahead in the conversation, but you have two ballplayers, and they're both just like, yes, Spires. Going for this, like, kind of revenge pitch thing. Like, this is what you kind of. This is what you want to do here. But then you have Aaron Goldsmith, who is, you know, not an ex boy player that I know of, but, you know, he's more of. He comes. He's a broadcaster, right? And he's the guy who calls the games. And he's like the lead voice in the booth. And he's just like almost beside himself. And he's not like somebody who gets all worked up, but he's a little bit beside himself with the logic of this. He's like, but why are you. Why are you doing it to this batter after two guys are out and the next two guys in the lineup are the biggest home run hitters of. Of the Detroit team? And it did play out that after he.

[Luke Burbank]

That guy hit a home run.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, he hit a Guy gave him the base benches cleared for no particular reason. Just kind of lame. And then. And then the next guy does hit a home run because he's the number one home run hitter for the Tigers. And then it was just like.

[Luke Burbank]

Which at the moment made the game frighteningly close.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

The Mariners have been playing. I was like, I thought this is how we're going to lose this game.

[Andrew Walsh]

So my emotion was kind of like, yeah, I kind of like a revenge pitch. You don't see it all that often. I think that might be becoming a less and less popular opinion, but I sort of liked it because here's the deal. And God, I hate to admit this, but also it's one of those things where the Mariners are slumping now the Mariner, just generally speaking, the Mariners are in a pretty morbid place. And then you have, now they're up three nothing. There's a little bit of a spark, a three nothing that comes off of the bat of Julio in a three run home run. And suddenly the vibes are just feeling a little bit better. And then if you, if you do this and you kind of get a revenge pitch in there, I sort of feel like you're sort of like adding this spark to your team a little bit. A little controversy gets the blood up. That's kind of a, that's kind of the thought on these things. I really hate it. Like the Angels have done that to us deliberately before as try to create a spark on their own team. They've gone after our players heads and stuff, which I just hate them so much and I hate that. But I do think Spire, I think that Spire was acting alone. I think he was just like really pissed off. I still don't know why he waited for the third battery faced though.

[Luke Burbank]

I know, you know, if he was pissed off, hit the first guy who by the count would have been the number like 7 hitter or 8 hitter. Hit, hit a guy and then bring up two lousy hitters behind him. Don't hit the number 9 guy or whatever the exact order of D2ROIT was. Don't. You know. And then what was interesting about it was it was one of those rare instances where, I mean, I think that Aaron Goldsmith was actually kind of sort of digging his heels in a little bit, you know. And obviously the, the way that the roles play out in a baseball broadcast is, you know, you have the, you have the announcer who kind of defers to the ex players on all things baseball when, whether it's, you know, how to think about an at Bat or, you know, if retribution is called for or not. But in this case, I think he was like, why did you hit him? And then when they hit the 200 home run, two run, home run, he was like, that's why I don't think you should do that. And then when they came back from the commercial break, they were still talking about it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And I, I believe Jay Bu even said, I like seeing you get all worked up like this, Goldie. Like, I don't get to see that all that often. It was a really great moment for the broadcast. I will say, however you feel about this sort of retribution and what have you, which, I mean, there's a lot of arguments against it now.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that enough? I am such an absolute delusional psychopath. So first it was after the All Star break, the Mariners are going to get it together. Then it was the season starts after the trade deadline, then we lose eight, nothing. And then it was like, well, we got that out of our system. Now my new theory is we just needed a bench clearing brawl to get

[Andrew Walsh]

our mojo, or I guess any universe

[Luke Burbank]

in which that could be a thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not to correct your language, but in true baseball parlance, they call that a bench clearing conversation.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. There was not. It was. Nobody's heart was really fully in it. Because that's the thing. I don't think everybody signed off on this particular move. I don't think Cal Raleigh was hit out of spite. I think it was just the pitch got away from the guy. In fact, that was another thing. Right. When the pitcher, when the pitcher threw that pitch and it hit Cal Raleigh, I saw the pitcher do something they'd always do, which is he like winced, like he obviously felt bad.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, you don't need to hit Cal Raleigh.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no, no. Fine. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Doing just fine. Eliminating himself from at bats, you know,

[Andrew Walsh]

and that's why, that's why they knew Spires was intentional. Because first of all, it took two pitches to get the job done. The first one came really in and then. And then the second one guy. And then what was interesting was Torres did not go after the pitcher. He did not look at Spire and come towards the mound. He looks at Cal like, why are you calling this pitch? I think he did that after both. He's like, what's going on here? Cal claims that he's not calling that pitch, or at least it seems that way. It seems like Spire is just sort of taking this upon himself to get revenge on Cal's behalf. But the thing is, I guess, and I Didn't see this. I don't think they showed it. But they definitely mentioned on the broadcast that while the Detroit pitcher was apologetic after accidentally hitting Caleb, Fire just like, looked straight ahead just like, yep, that's what I'm doing here. Like, there's. And then there's. Then he gets ejected right away. And some people online were like, why are you ejecting him? Give him at least a warning. And I think the thing is, it was like it took you two pitches to do it. And then you stare them down like, let's face. This is not a war.

[Luke Burbank]

There must be bad blood between him and Glaber.

[Andrew Walsh]

Taurus maybe. Yeah. Oh, that'll be random some day. Two stuff. Listen, while we're here, I was gonna not actually do this because there's also. There's a chance that we're in baseball talk now. You did this, Luke. But I'm worried that you haven't seen

[Luke Burbank]

this about grown men processing their anger in a healthy way.

[Andrew Walsh]

In a healthy way or in an unhealthy way? Have you been following the Jeffrey Yan?

[Luke Burbank]

It's about a male loneliness epidemic. That's what we're talking about.

[Andrew Walsh]

Have you been following the Jeffrey Yan discourse online? Do you know that?

[Luke Burbank]

No, I don't even know. I don't even know.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can you just quickly, can you google this right now? It's all the talk of the town today. When I say the talk of the town, I mean the talk of the baseball loving public. Jeffrey spelled it J. E. Jeffrey D. The celebration guy. Yeah, yeah, he's the pitcher.

[Luke Burbank]

He's like hadoukening when he strikes a guy out. I love it.

[Andrew Walsh]

So this is a pitcher who's. I think he maybe had a couple. He's like a relief pitcher, I believe. I believe. Relief, right. He's gotta be, um. I don't know too much about him. I had not have heard of him before yesterday. Apparently he had maybe gotten a cup of coffee or something in the league at some point as a younger man, but then just like really stuck with it. I think in the minors, I think he played in Japan a little bit. And now he's playing back in the major leagues at age, I want to say 30 years old for the Mets. And he stands out because this is, I mean, I was gonna say very unusual. I would say completely unprecedented. Right. Like after he gets a strikeout, the pitcher jumps for joy, leaps in the air, and lands in this sort of funky leg kicking.

[Luke Burbank]

He looks like a video game character.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, in a video game. In like backyard baseball. Like some sort of like, cartoonish version of the game. You never see this behavior from a pitcher in baseball. And so of course you have, who are just kind of like, this is not how it's supposed to be, and can't wait to watch him get lit up and then that'll shut his ass up or whatever. But, like, how can you not see this jump of. I mean, I listen, I guess if he. If he strikes out a Mariner and then we lose the game and he does that. I guess I really dislike this guy. But generally speaking, as somebody who likes baseball, how can you not just smile from ear to ear when you see this leap?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I mean, it's. To me, it's joyful, so I think I don't mind it. What I actually really don't like and, you know, I don't like the way that baseball has all these unwritten rules and you're not supposed to, like, if you hit a home run, you're not supposed to, like, watch it happen. And. Yeah, and that's how people get, you know, that's why people are getting beaned, is because they, like, disrespected the pitcher by looking at their hitters. I hate all that stuff. That being said, I really hate it when a pitcher, like, strikes out a Mariner and like, is like, maybe it's the third out of the inning and then they're just like, like, like the pitchers just like swearing and like screaming and you didn't even know how torqued up they were while they were pitching. They're just like throwing the ball. They're being a major league pitcher. And then finally, it's usually when Bal Raleigh is up there, you know, bases loaded or some kind of high leverage situation they call it. But basically, like, it bothers me for some reason when an opposing pitcher gets a Mariner out for the third out and then just like strikes him out and then just goes into this, like, who do you think?

[Andrew Walsh]

Who do you think you are?

[Luke Burbank]

I am.

[Andrew Walsh]

Real aggro thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Real Pete Weber energy. So that's me sort of policing someone's behavior that I guess I don't like it when other people do that. But the yawn thing seems so joyful. Like, I would still be bummed that Cal Raleigh struck out, but I don't know if it would make me as mad as, like, when the guy's just like flexing his muscles and swearing and screaming as he walks off the mound like that. For some reason, that really bothers me,

[Andrew Walsh]

although it was weird. Did you see Wu Sort of scream into his glove after his final strikeout or at least his final out yesterday. I do feel though that there.

[Luke Burbank]

Can we do.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's a difference between directing it towards somebody and like, for him, that was a major accomplishment of an. Of an outing. Right. Like he.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Was it a full seven innings of shutout baseball? Do I have that right? Anyway, it was a hell of an outing and also a couple of just amazing saves by his defense to give him that. And like, so, yeah, Randy or Rosarena.

[Luke Burbank]

Who knew?

[Andrew Walsh]

So our pitcher who's like, I mean, that's looks maxing, right? Like Brian Wu is a looks maxer. Like he.

[Luke Burbank]

In fact, I think somebody might have done a tick tock at some point about who the most looks maxed players were. And he's on there. He has like an incredible jawline.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean.

[Ira Glass]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

And cheekbones or whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe it's a cheekbones.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, just really incredible looking guy. But then he's walking off the mound and they show him. They show a replay of him and he's like, he's buried his. He's kind of got longish kind of black hair, straight black hair, maybe down to his ears or something. Do I have that right? Anyway, you just suddenly see him put his whole face in his mitt and just scream something. And I was like, oh, man. You kind of forget because the camera isn't on him at all times. You forget, forget about the intensity there. And I sort of loved that. But I also love the fact that he wasn't doing that towards somebody. You know what I mean? That flexing thing that you're talking about. I don't know, maybe it's because he's on my team, but also there are little, little signifiers of like, is this guy being a dick or is this guy just celebrating his own accomplishments?

[Luke Burbank]

We need to do something with Brian Wu where we trick him into thinking he's always pitching at T Mobile.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what I mean? Like, like, you know, like glasses, horses with blinders.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Or what about. Do they have something with those meta glasses or something where it can be augmented reality? You remember, augmented reality was going to be the big deal for a long time.

[Luke Burbank]

Something we need. Because for people that don't know this guy Brian Wu, who's the pitcher, he is so incredibly good at home. I mean, he. It's almost unhittable when he pitches at our home park and he is very hittable when he pitches other places. He cannot win a game in. In a, you know, opposing stadium. But he's. He's like a Cy Young winner when he's pitching at T Mobile. We just need to figure out a way to trick. It needs to be like a Ba Baracas. You know, they used to give him milk on the A team so he would fall asleep because he hated flying.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, by the way, somebody wrote in to correct on that. They said that you're thinking of one episode and what they're doing is they're drugging him, but they're putting the drugs in the milk.

[Luke Burbank]

So milk did not make him fall asleep. It just happened to be the drug was in the milk.

[Andrew Walsh]

I am not claiming that that is a note that we got from a listener I didn't watch that.

[Luke Burbank]

I would believe. I would believe a listener has the benefit of the Internet, whereas I'm just out here raw, dogging life. I'm just. I'm just saying things as they come into my head. And I was probably wrong about that.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm just saying we need to do something with Brian Wu where we trick him. I don't know. Something out of I Dream of Genie. Something out of a 1970s sitcom.

[Andrew Walsh]

It has to be from the 70s. Did I tell you?

[Luke Burbank]

It has to be. It has to be Freaky Friday. There needs to be some magical moment where he gets bonked by a coconut and he thinks everywhere he pitches is his T mobile park or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

I know that I slip us into this type of conversation too often. We don't have to do the whole game. But something stood out to me. One of the ways I've been. You know that game I play where I try to alphabetize things or think of things along the arc of the Alphabet to put myself to sleep? And the game I've been playing lately, I've really dumbed it down for myself. I think I was playing two difficult versions of this. Now I'm just like, think of a sitcom. And just any sitcom that begins with every letter of the Alphabet. And then eventually I fall asleep by the time I hit L or K or something. But I. But I realized that literally every single sitcom I meant that I think of is like, at most, the latest from 1986. Like, it's like I'm going to be. I'm going to feel too much pressure on the radio. But I know I start with Alex is the A, and then, oh, how am I already blanking on B? Oh, that's so embarrassing. What's your B, Benson? That's my B. Yes, yes, that's my B. Thank you. But he has his elf, Benson. Cheers, then this is Bananas Drexel's class. Wow. Is that Dabney? Is that. We always do this, but, like, I don't know why that. I can't think what is there. It's got to be a better D, right?

[Luke Burbank]

That was why. That was at a time when we Americans couldn't get enough sitcoms about teachers, I believe, and high schoolers. Because it was like, Head of the class.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yep.

[Luke Burbank]

There was hanging with Mr. Cooper.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm putting Coach in that as well.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

Didn't Coach feel like. Because that was a high school.

[Luke Burbank]

He was a college. It wasn't like a small Midwestern college.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, you're right. You're right. No, you're right. It was maybe just a vibe. And then, of course, you have the sweat hogs and everything. Sure. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Welcome back, Potter.

[Andrew Walsh]

Earlier than that. So that's my D. Then E is empty nest. And then, well, F. I gotta say, I think I usually go Friends. So that is. That's 90s. But, I mean, there's probably other Fs.

[Luke Burbank]

But Frasier.

[Andrew Walsh]

Frasier. Same era, though, so that's pretty good. And then what about G? G is. I know it all the way, like, up to N, and now I can't even think about G. Oh, Golden Girls. Golden Girls. Or Girl Pants. Yeah. Yeah. I knew it was an obvious one. I think I go with Golden Girls. And then H. I know that I is I Love Lucy. Oh, good one. So H is another. I feel like it's another 80s one that I'm not thinking of.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, you could do Head of the Class.

[Andrew Walsh]

There you go. See, that would be. This would be a game Genevieve would play. List TV or movies that take place in a classroom or something. Like, she would have put together a more challenging, you know, assignment for herself. But I'm just like, I need to fall asleep. Jay is. I can't think of it off the top of my head. H, I, J.

[Luke Burbank]

J is Jang.

[Andrew Walsh]

And with Mr. Hooper.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. That's Mr. Jper.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's. Well, that's a show title for us. And then. Oh, you know what? That's what listeners could do to fall asleep. They could try to alphabetize our show title. I assume everybody has all of our show titles memorized. Right. And then you can just say.

[Luke Burbank]

Or you know what else they could do? They could just listen to this episode

[Andrew Walsh]

if they need to fall asleep. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like it would really do the trick.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Or if they're just like. If they're using too much data on their phone. They could just listen this episode and decide they're done with podcasts forever.

[Luke Burbank]

Hello and welcome to top story Dayliness, Vermont. Andrew, where a this is from the. Let's see. Mynbc5.com I'm not sure. Oh, I guess it's the Burlington, Vermont station. Michael Cucinelli, writing for their website. He's a digital content manager there. A planned production of the cult classic play the Rocky Horror. Well, come on guys. They call it a planned production of the cult classic play the Rocky Horror Show.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, come on.

[Luke Burbank]

Leaving out picture.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wait, is there any chance that they're doing that because the. Because the stage performance is not a picture show?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, is there a different name?

[Andrew Walsh]

I wonder if they slightly changed it for Stage because Picture show implies. I'm totally guessing here. I didn't even notice that in the article.

[Luke Burbank]

The Rocky Horror I'm going to call Picture show was sabotaged by the play's own director, according to police. They say that Kenneth Grenier, who was the musical director for the Essex Community Players production of the hit 70s play that became a cult classic film, sent himself threatening text messages from a subscriber based cell phone app in order to get the play canceled. Police said they first began investigating after Grenier, age 26, of Hyde park, reported receiving a series of harassing and threatening texts on April 7 from an unknown person. Those threats eventually led to theater company to shut down production of the play due to safety concerns. Investigators later learned that the threatening messages were coming from an IP address registered to Grenier's home. When confronted by police, he allegedly admitted to creating a fake account and sending the messages to himself so he could step away from the show instead of dealing with what he described as difficulties with the cast and crew.

[Andrew Walsh]

This reminds me of that episode of 30 Rock where Liz, doesn't she meet somebody, possibly while doing jury duty? And the woman is just like, she meets some woman who's like so psychotic. But Liz ends up sort of like taking on the psychosis of the woman. Like I'm reading this article, I'm like, I could do this. This would get me out of a few jams. Just like.

[Luke Burbank]

What I find so interesting is that there was a further investigation. So you've got this, I'm gonna say kid because he's 26. You got this young person directing Rocky Horror Picture show and suddenly they're, they're getting threats. Which I mean again is just odd. It would just be very. Be very odd for someone to care that much about the production of this, of this Play. Although I guess, you know, it's a little campy. It's a little racy. You know, maybe. I guess you could see a world in which some. Some sort of, like, you know, family values nut job had like, oh, they're gonna have a, you know, Dr. Frank N. Furter. There's gonna be a. And I'm using the word advisedly here. Transsexual, they call it in the play. Like, I could see somebody maybe getting riled up about, like, in, you know, in my hometown theater, we're gonna be putting on the rocky horror picture show. But even so, like, he says he gets these threats, they shut it down. Who suspected that he was up to no good, who then went to the cops and go, you should really check on the IP address of where the threats came from. That's the part of the story that's really interesting to me, is that everybody just didn't, like, pack up their fishnets and go home. You know what I mean? It's like, all right, well, we're not doing Rocky horror picture show. The world will continue spinning. We'll all just go do our next community theater project. But no, somebody was like, why don't we figure out where those threats were coming from? Like, for a. What I assume is a probably slightly overwhelmed essex, Vermont police department. Was there, like, a Francis mcdormand type a la Fargo who just wouldn't let it go? Was there a Marge?

[Andrew Walsh]

Or was there somebody on the. Somebody on the cast? Because, I mean, I don't want to diminish. Actually, I think. I don't know where they were in the production, but assuming that they were well along in the production, like, that's just like, a lot of. This is, like, a lot of work and, you know, and emotion that you're putting into a project. And so I do feel bad for the people who disaffected the cast members and everything. I mean, I saw waiting for guffman. I know how all this stuff goes. And so could it be that somebody in the cast, you know, suspected him?

[Luke Burbank]

That's what I'm thinking, too. There must have been a cast member who. And yes, listen, you know, I haven't been in really many community theater projects, but I was in plenty of high school productions and things like that. And it's a lot of work, and you get really excited about it. And, yeah, it would be a bummer for this thing to be canceled for no good reason. So my heart goes out to those folks. But also, yeah, definitely somebody in the cast, I bet, was Just like this doesn't add up.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's something funny going on here.

[Luke Burbank]

I have told you probably too many times on the show. The story of me seeing the Rocky Horror Picture show at the Neptune Theater and just being absolutely scandalized. Not as scandalized as I was when I saw Boogie Nights at the Neptune Theater and there was a child in the first row. I'm talking like a six year old, which was when Dirk Diggler's member is unfurled.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my gosh.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, who brings a six year old to Boogie Nights?

[Andrew Walsh]

Doesn't somebody have that prosthetic? Didn't an actor, like, save that dong for a better word? Yeah, I feel like that is a. I feel like that is somebody's prized possession from the set. Somebody who worked on the film.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what? I think this is kind of a tangent, but what I think is pretty interesting is that Philip Seymour Hoffman's son Cooper, appears to be a really good actor in his own right. I mean, he was in.

[Andrew Walsh]

He was in Licorice Pizza. Yeah. Great in that. I haven't seen him anything since, though.

[Luke Burbank]

He's. I see him doing the rounds. I think he's in a couple of new things. He's in this new movie with Olivia Wilde and he's getting really good reviews. It's like, I guess that stuff is genetic, huh?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I guess so. I loved seeing him in Licorice Pizza for real. And just the. The. I can't remember her name. What's the name of the. The singer actor who is.

[Luke Burbank]

It's one of the Heim sisters.

[Andrew Walsh]

The Heim sisters? Yeah. I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know which one is which.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, I need to go back and rewatch Licorice Pizza. I remember. See, here's the thing with me. I mostly see movies in the theater and I like watching movies in the theater so much that when I leave the theater, I almost always like the movie. And then later I'll be thinking about it. I'm like, well, that doesn't hold up. Like, what? Why? It's just because, like, watching a movie in the theater is such a sort of. It can be sort of like this overwhelming in a good way experience that I think, like, oh. And then later on you're like, did I actually like that movie? And, you know, I like P.T. anderson, obviously, I like most of his work, so I think it would hold up. But I've been thinking about that movie and how little I remember about the actual plot and how bonkers it is sometimes and how much you have to suspend your disbelief. Like, when's it. Did you. Have you seen that movie since it came out?

[Luke Burbank]

I saw it with Addie on Christmas Day and then we walked and got Chinese food.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. In the theater.

[Luke Burbank]

About an experience. Yes, in the theater. We went and saw it in the theater on day and then went and got Chinese food. So I have a very positive memory of that movie. But it's exactly what you're describing. It's just because we saw it at the Hollywood Theater in Portland. I was having a lovely Christmas day with my daughter. You know what I mean? So it's like the whole thing was just great. But actually, going back, I don't. I can't tell you one thing about the movie. Don't they meet at, like, a career fair or something? A law enforcement conference?

[Andrew Walsh]

They meet at a career career fair at his high school. But is she. She's a recent high school grad, I think. And he's a kid. He just has tons and tons of confidence, and he's like kind of an actor. A child actor, I guess, not aspiring actor. He's landing some roles, but he's working his butt off. His mom is his manager or something like that. But he just acts older than his dad.

[Luke Burbank]

Way too much unearned confidence.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

In a way that's kind of charming.

[Andrew Walsh]

And he has a huge crush on her, and so he just kind of keeps on. He gets her to go on a date, and then he just keeps on kind of charming her, and she kind of keeps on saying, were mostly friends or whatever. So it's all very, very charming about that. But remember, it also involves, like, a heist where they're. Do they steal a van at one point?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Remember, like, a worker's van or something, or a contractor's van or something. They're being chased. At one point, you're like, wait, how do they find themselves in all these situations? He's, like, trying to sell hot tubs at some sort of a hot tub fair.

[Luke Burbank]

Honestly, it's like if I said, you know, and I've been known to exaggerate a bit here and there about purchasing bowling alleys and the like. But it's the kind of thing where, like, if somebody said, have you seen licorice pizza? And I was like, yeah, I've seen it. And they're like, tell me one thing about it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, like, that's what I mean.

[Luke Burbank]

Totally sound like I hadn't seen the movie, and I swear to God I saw the movie. But it's like, it's just Like a fever dream. The two of them just running amok.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. And just being. And just totally charming the heck out of us. But now, as I try to describe it to you, I'm like, yeah, I don't even know, like, how does it end? What is the. I know that, like, so does he.

[Luke Burbank]

Do they eat a licorice pizza?

[Andrew Walsh]

Do they eat a licorice pizza? Oh, and that is. Licorice pizza. Is what. That slang for a record, I think, is that. That's never mentioned in the movie, but I think I heard later. Licorice. Oh, that would be a 70s slang for a vinyl record or something. Like a black round thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Ah, a licorice pizza. Yeah. I'm happy for him that he's. That he is a talented actor and that he's, you know, making his way in the world. So sad about. I mean, Philip Seymour Hoffman stuff really gets to me, like, to this day, like, when I see him in something, or I think about how senseless the end of his life was. It's just like. I mean, you know, it's sad when anybody dies, but it just. In his case, it was so unbelievably unnecessary and avoidable. And when I see him in a movie, he's just. I mean, it's obviously just such a phenomenal actor, and it's just like, man, what a. What a loss. What a. What a bummer that we don't get to have more Philip Seymour Hoffman. But I guess it's kind of cool that we. That we get Cooper Hoffman in the mix.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly. Because imagine the trauma that he went through as well. The fact that I feel traumatized by his dad's death. You know what I mean? By the way, speaking of actors that I put in a different category, it's Mark Wahlberg still. I thought it was somebody else on set who kept the prosthetic penis, but it's actually. Wahlberg still keeps it in his house 25 years later, as was written.

[Luke Burbank]

He wakes up at one in the morning every day to go look at it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Why is that not in the schedule?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, there's.

[Andrew Walsh]

Make sure nobody.

[Luke Burbank]

Prosthetic admiration time built in, or just

[Andrew Walsh]

making sure nobody has broken in in the middle of the night and stolen it.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, exactly. Speaking of actors from Boston, have you. I don't know if you saw this clip, but Ben Affleck was on. They've kind of rebooted who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And the story that was going around the other day was like, ben Affleck wins a Million dollars, I believe, for his charity. I'm assuming, you know, by going on who wants to be a Millionaire? This is this incredible thing. But here's the thing. What they're leaving out or what they were not leading with is Ben Affleck was teamed up with a Jeopardy Champion named Jamie Ding. And my sense of it is Ben Affleck was the eye candy and Jamie Ding was the brain candy. He was like, I mean, I'm not. I don't think Ben Affleck is a dumb person. And by the way, I actually like Ben Affleck despite his regrettable back tattoo. But I think every time I hear him interviewed, I actually think he seems like a pretty thoughtful, kind of interesting dude. So I'm not anti Ben Affleck per se, but I felt like the, the headlines were a little bit misleading. That actor Ben Affleck wins a million dollars on who wants to be a Millionaire. Let me play you a little bit of this, this news story here tonight. It's the moment everyone's talking about.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oscar winner Ben Affleck with the Jeopardy Champ and the million dollar question.

[Luke Burbank]

It was a stunning moment last night

[Andrew Walsh]

on a celebrity edition of who wants to be a Millionaire. We are here with super Jeopardy champion

[Luke Burbank]

Jamie Ding and not.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not super Jeopardy champion Ben Affleck playing for Ben's non profit Eastern Congo initiative. Their couple's name is bending from here on out. 15 questions to win $1 million. Our final answer is C sleeping swan.

[Ira Glass]

Final answer.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hot ones.

[Ira Glass]

Final answer.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is right.

[Luke Burbank]

They were. Get you notice a theme there that's not Ben Affleck. Given the answer. It's, it's Jamie. Dig. Like, you know, in close. I had a nightmare last night that

[Andrew Walsh]

I was going to get asked like

[Luke Burbank]

a really obvious question on this show and like who played Batman? Yeah, something like that. For all the marbles.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then the final question.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, I'm going to see if I can. Oh, shoot. Finally tonight, I hate trying to play things from TikTok and Instagram. I was going to try to actually give you the final question, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay.

[Luke Burbank]

And see if you like what your guess would be. I mean, I'm trying to scrub through here.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, cool. That was a really good joke, by the way. Like, who played Batman?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. This was the million dollar question in an annual Thanksgiving tradition all but which of these have been the names of turkeys that were pardoned by a US President? So this is four.

[Andrew Walsh]

Three of them have been the names. Three of them is a lie.

[Luke Burbank]

One of them is made up.

[Andrew Walsh]

Three truths And a lie.

[Luke Burbank]

This is really hard to read too, because. Let's see here. Sorry. It's all this. So all this graphics on the screen that's stopping me from. I'm trying to read through this. Okay, so Peanut Butter and Jelly.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Tater Tot, Mac and cheese, or Spaghetti and Meatball. Three of these are real names of turkeys that were pardoned by US President. One of them is made up. Is it Peanut butter and Jelly? Is the made up.

[Andrew Walsh]

And by the way, it's Peanut Butter and Jelly. Is one turkey or two?

[Luke Burbank]

It's.

[Andrew Walsh]

I guess one turkey.

[Luke Burbank]

It's listed as one Peanut butter and Jelly. I mean, I really teed this up for you. I'm asking you a question about pardoned turkeys. I have no. Somebody went.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, this is why it bothers me that you disrespect this drop so much. Somebody put together an entire recording kit, went out into the wild to find a turkey, and isolated this sound, which is definitely a real turkey.

[Luke Burbank]

I would just like to know, what would it sound like if that turkey was really horny?

[Andrew Walsh]

I was gonna say, can you get the horny Ribbit. Let's see if these two get along.

[Luke Burbank]

I wonder if that guy knows how famous. Now, that audio dropped.

[Andrew Walsh]

I know the person rivet. All right, so Peanut butter and Jelly, Mac and jelly, Cheese, Tater Tot, Cheese

[Luke Burbank]

and spaghetti, and Meatball. One of those.

[Andrew Walsh]

Why are. Why are three of them two names for one being. That's like, if my name were.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, they're all. All of them. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I. I was being confused. Tater and Tot. Tater Ampersand Tot.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh. So I'm gonna assume that these are all two turkeys.

[Luke Burbank]

These are all.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, these are witches.

[Luke Burbank]

Each one of these would have been the names of turkeys. No, you're absolutely right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Okay. Well, that was throwing me because I

[Luke Burbank]

was never gonna get the gig of hosting celebrity who Wants to be a Millionaire. I've ruined this. Let me just.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let's just back up a tater and tot. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

That's in an annual Thanksgiving tradition.

[Andrew Walsh]

All.

[Luke Burbank]

But which of these have been the names of turkeys pardoned by a US President? Probably the tradition is, you may be like, it's a male and a female, and they get pardoned, and then the idea is that they are allowed to

[Andrew Walsh]

go make sweet love to each other one last time.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, no, because they're being pardoned.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, they're the pardoned ones. You're right. They go to they go to Turkey Love Island. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Nothing but ribbit.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm worried that they're just there for the zip lines, to be honest.

[Luke Burbank]

So there are two. Mina Kaim is really, really stealing my thunder with her respectability bookshelf. And it's killing me because everyone's gonna think I ripped her off. This is what she has behind her on her. She's, of course, the football analyst that we adore and are big fans of. She has. She has a pavement record, like a vinyl record.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, she's always had that. She's had that for forever.

[Luke Burbank]

And she's got her Emmy award, like, the one that I have up there, and she's got the Christmas ornament. I think you're just here for the zipline that I also have of Tim. Tim Robinson on the zip line. She has.

[Andrew Walsh]

You don't have that behind you, though, do you? You just.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't have it behind, but I did at one point.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ah, interesting. I didn't notice that. I haven't seen her backdrop in a while, but. Wowie zawi. I don't know, like, probably from the pandemic when we all started, like, having, you know, the. The zoom calls or whatever. Yeah. I remember she. She's just like. Like, there's like. She is a human being who seems like she was built in a lab to be just, like, the coolest person in the world. She's so cool. She's so funny. She's like. She can. She just, like, understands the tone of every medium she's on. Sort of. She can just sort of dominate, whether it's tv, social media. I used to listen to her, of course, on the Lebatard show all the time. Like, she's just such a. She's just cool and a genius at

[Luke Burbank]

the same time and, like, understands meme culture.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

In a way that I never will because of. Just like. So I see. You know, I see her on Tick Tock and stuff, and she's always doing some meme that I'd never heard of before. But you understand it to be like, the cool. A cool, funny, funky meme. She's also, you know, she's a mother.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah. She's. Yeah. She's got a kid.

[Luke Burbank]

She's got a kid that, you know, she's mothering. She's got 8 million jobs. It's like, how does she find time to know about the cool TikTok meme and then actually do a good job with it?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, she'll just be doing shit with her dog. That'll just be like again, a funny tick tock meme that I have been unfamiliar with previously. But it's like, of course Mina knows about that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, Lenny, her dog Lenny. The Mina Kaim show with Lenny is the name of her podcast. I love that so much. Okay, so, okay, okay, here's the deal.

[Luke Burbank]

Here's our sexed up turkey couples that are being, that are being released back into the wild.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay? So here's what I'm gonna. I'm gonna tell you.

[Luke Burbank]

One of them is a made up set of names. One of these is fake.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, to give you my process here. I think that peanut butter and jelly are definitely one. I could see somebody doing that. I think Tater and Tot is definitely one that leaves Mac and cheese. And because I could see, hey, that, that turkey's name is Tater. That turkey's name is Tot. It stands alone. They stand alone as names a little bit. Peanut butter and jelly sort of as well. But also I just sort of see they can. Peanut butter and jelly, spaghetti and meatballs. I think we should look up peanut butter and jelly. I have a weird feeling that that is the Reagan administration. I want to get extra points because

[Luke Burbank]

he like jelly beans.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's probably why. I don't know why. I can just see him up there talking about peanut butter and jelly. And then, and then like you said, spaghetti and meatballs. I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say Mac and cheese is the made up one.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, I'm googling. Um, let's see. Let's. Okay. Peanut butter and jelly are the official national Thanksgiving turkeys who were pardoned by President Joe Biden.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, damn. Okay, well, we did it, Joe. A modern day Reagan.

[Luke Burbank]

November of 2021. The two white male turkeys were raised in Jasper, Indiana. Yeah, Andrew. Two male turkeys can love each other.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Oh, they're gonna say, yeah, white male turkeys can make it to the White House.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, haven't we had enough white male turkeys in the job over the years?

[Andrew Walsh]

So peanut butter, jelly. I was right in knowing. So peanut butter and jelly is one. And I said that our Tater and Tot. Because I'm saying, I'm saying the made up one is Mac and cheese. Can you tell me what can. Let's go through these. What can you tell me about Tater and Tot?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, here's. I think what we should do is play the answer and then we should

[Andrew Walsh]

do a little back research on the

[Luke Burbank]

two other ones that were real duos, if that makes sense. So you're officially saying. And I like your logic. I don't know the answer. Mac and cheese, I think, because, yeah, cheese would be a weird name for some reason.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I mean, meatballs is too. But let's see here.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so here we go. Let's see what they're going to say. Oh, God. Finally, tonight, it's the most. Stop it.

[Andrew Walsh]

For all the marbles. And then the final question.

[Luke Burbank]

You must be kidding me. Yeah. Guessing the answer.

[Andrew Walsh]

Answer D, spaghetti and meatball. Final answer.

[Luke Burbank]

I have such a stomachache right now.

[Andrew Walsh]

Computer, please reveal the correct answer. The suspense.

[Luke Burbank]

And it was spaghetti and meat ball was made up.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was that or Mac and cheese. For me, those were my.

[Luke Burbank]

I think that was a pretty logical guess. Okay, so let's see.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, tell me about Tater and Tot. I'm more bummed about that than I

[Luke Burbank]

expected to be pardoned. I'm going to tell you. Tater and Tot is going to be probably from, like, the Obama era. I feel like with Tater Tots, we're really having a moment. Wow. God. When I'm right, I'm right. Tater and Tot were the two national Thanksgiving turkeys pardoned by President Barack Obama.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, good.

[Luke Burbank]

November 23, 2016, during his. His final turkey pardon ceremony at the White House.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm done with pardoning turkeys, by the way. I don't like the whole thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Pardoned enough white turkeys of late?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, no. I mean, I don't know. The whole thing just is gruesome to me because it just reminds me of the rest of the.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, listen. Who are you talking to? You know, I mean, two birds, one scone. Like, I find. I find the whole thing kind of a little bit grim because it's like, hey, we're gonna. We're gonna, you know, end the lives of. And consume the flesh of millions of these things. But here's two that we're gonna just not do that too. And it's kind of a funny little joke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And it sort of mirrors what we do to human beings, some of whom are in death row. Like, it's just every. Everything that it makes me think of does not make me happy.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so did we. We did peanut butter and jelly, right? That was the. That was.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yep, that was the one. Yeah. And then. So who were Mac and cheese? See, that was. Can I just say that that was. The other thing that, like, kind of got me is like, I knew it was gonna be spaghetti or I had a feeling it was gonna be spaghetti and meatball or Mac And Cheese. And I thought Mac and cheese is the worst of the names and maybe it's cause it's the one food on the list I wouldn't eat. But.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, cottage cheese was taken.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, Cottage and cheese, yeah. But the thing is Mac and cheese, not unlike what you said about Tater Tots. It seems like it was so trendy there for a while. You'd go to some restaurant, they'd have some sort of like upserved Mac and cheese or elevated Mac and cheese and everybody was talking about Mac and cheese and had the Mac and cheese at this place and they just say. And so I should have gone with spaghetti and meatball because this was probably. I'm going to say Mac and cheese was also. Let's see. I'm going to say the. Can I, can I take a guess on this? I'm just desperately trying to get any points here possible as I get ready for my Friday. I'm going to say that Mac and Cheese was around like 2012. Wait, that would be. That would be the.

[Luke Burbank]

You're close.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, very close. Okay, I'm just going to leave it there then. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Actually 2014, another Obama pardon. Mac and cheese were two 20 week old 48 pound twin turkeys raised in Ohio and pardoned by President Barack Obama. November of 2014, Cheese won an online public vote to become the official national Thanksgiving turkey while Mac served as the spared alternate. Again, what kind of grim in a way.

[Andrew Walsh]

An alternate. Why do we need an alternate? An alternate for what?

[Luke Burbank]

In case we accidentally kill the main

[Andrew Walsh]

one in case Cheese blows out her rotator cuff.

[Luke Burbank]

Was Turkey McTurk face not taking? You let people vote on anything and you're going to get Turkey McTurk face.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I should go with spaghetti and meatball. It makes sense now. Spaghetti and meatballs hasn't been super trendy yet. Although comfort food was trendy kind of for a while there. Maybe around that same time I would actually put that Mac and cheese in it. But you weren't going to restaurants and people, you know, you weren't going to a burger place and people be like yeah, but they have this appetizer of spaghetti, spaghetti and meatballs that you gotta try.

[Luke Burbank]

It's so what's like Brussels and sprouts?

[Andrew Walsh]

Brussels sprouts.

[Luke Burbank]

What are the other. That actually be kind of a funny name turkeys. Like something that. What do you think the food would be now? That's what is like the super trendy food.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like.

[Luke Burbank]

I know what you mean. Mac and cheese had a moment, Tater Tots had A moment.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I didn't even know about this. But you were shocked that I didn't know about. What is it, olive oil cake or something now?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah. I mean, miss me with that, by the way. But, yes, I. I have.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know if that's. That's almost. Maybe two.

[Luke Burbank]

Too.

[Andrew Walsh]

Too trendy. It's not like.

[Ira Glass]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

It needs to be more middle American. I mean, I say this with peace and love to the middle part of the country, but it's like. Yeah, that's. That's. That's. That's like. That's sort of coastal elite behavior. It's got to be something that's like, you know, it's like maybe they're gonna. Well, this is also just a variation on peanut butter and jelly, but it's like uncrustables are a thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the millennial. I didn't grow up with uncrustables, did you? That wasn't no goddamn thing for me.

[Luke Burbank]

And I don't know. Killed for an uncrustable.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I don't know how the timeline lines up. Like, maybe they had them when we. But it wasn't as sort of fetishized. But I sort of feel like the millennial generation really grew up with them as kids. And now that they're adults, there's that nostalgia play about, like. Because people are making sort of elevated versions of that and stuff, too. Right? Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

They sell these devices now where you can make your own uncrustables. It's like a little thing that actually crimps down the bread and gets rid of the crust or whatever. But I feel like those are kind of having a moment. I'm trying to think of what else. What are we naming the turkeys that are going to be pardoned this year?

[Andrew Walsh]

Unencrustable would be pretty funny. Although that was thinking pretty avant garde as well, I would suppose.

[Luke Burbank]

God knows what the current administration will be doing. Oh, yeah?

[Andrew Walsh]

Who gets to name them?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it sounds like one of these was named by the public.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I thought it was voted on after it was named Cheese was.

[Luke Burbank]

Cheese won an online public vote.

[Andrew Walsh]

Vote.

[Luke Burbank]

How hard do you think that was to explain to Cheese what was going on?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, Cheese, you're in the lead.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not unlike Biden, actually, before he dropped out, to be honest with you.

[Luke Burbank]

He also won an online poll to let him be president.

[Andrew Walsh]

Cheese actually had a better understanding of what was going on, if I understand it correctly.

[Luke Burbank]

Have you been witnessing the kind of Hunter Biden reclamation project that's been going on.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I haven't. But I'm very interested in their first record. What is going on under Biden Reclamation.

[Luke Burbank]

I've had a couple of friends mentioned. Like, I've been really. So. Hunter Biden has been on some sort of a media blitz for some reason, and he's just been showing up on a lot of the podcasts and things that I kind of see clips of on TikTok. And, like, I don't know if he's promoting something or if he's just sort of trying to change the narrative around him. But, you know, he's been sober for a long time now, which I salute him. That's not easy to do. And he does seem like a. You know, he was an attorney and stuff. Like, I didn't know very much about him, you know, other than he kept doing drugs and. And ruining things for his dad in certain ways. But, you know, he was a. He was an attorney, and I. You know, he's not an idiot or anything, but, like, I also think he's just kind of. I don't know. I'm not. I am. I am not. Again, I don't want him to go to jail or anything, but it's like the people that are like, oh, but have you heard Hunter Biden talk? It's like, the problem with. When I hear him talking is that he is unable to see how diminished his father actually was because he loves his dad. Which, I mean, that's not a bad thing, that he loves his dad. But it seems to me to really cloud his reality around it. Like, he thinks the problem is George Clooney and Jake Tapper.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, geez.

[Luke Burbank]

He's like, I effing hate George Clooney for what he did to my dad. It's like, dude, you think that George Clooney, who donated millions and millions of dollars trying to get your dad elected over the years, do you think he wanted to write an article about how he was really concerned? I mean, no.

[Andrew Walsh]

After meeting him in person and realizing, I mean, yeah, that's. He didn't want.

[Luke Burbank]

And he's, like, trying to, like, he's just. It's. Again, I guess this is what you would want your child to do. I would hope that Addie would be this protective of me, but I. I find it, generally speaking, kind of. Kind of unconvincing. I mean, it just seems like a guy who is, you know, I mean, and I.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, what he did, his burisma thing is not even a one on the scale of what's going on with the current Nepo babies of the current president and all of the graft and money and stuff that they're getting. I mean, it's just unbelievable levels of corruption. But still, that was still a loser move of him to get $800,000 or whatever to be on the board of some Russian gas company or whatever was just because. And he's always like, well, I didn't do anything about foreign. I didn't do anything with policy with my dad related to that. I was like, well, no, but they didn't just put you on the board for all that money because your last name wasn't Biden.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, but now. So I'm not trying to. Maybe you just said reclamation project is kind of a funny way of putting it. But, like, why. What is going on with him? Is he like, why don't. This is such a dumb question. But, like, why are we hearing from him? Like, I don't know. I have no problem with him just being like, somebody who's like, I've got my life together now, and I'm going to quietly live out my life. Like, we're not looking to. This is certainly not some sort of a legacy program. Hunter Biden will not be in the political mix anytime during his lifetime. So why, like, is he just doing a talk?

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know why. I don't know if he has. Yeah, I can't. I haven't heard him specifically promoting anything, so I don't know why. I think he just, you know, maybe he has PR handlers, and they just decided to call up a bunch of these. Like, he's on. He was on Barstool Sports. He was on. He's on a lot of the. Kind of, like, the political ones, too. And, yeah, I don't know what he's pitching, but he's somehow all over my TikTok feed now.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, the other day you were mentioning that, and I don't know why it came up, but you said that you were in this. Maybe we're talking about this American Life, which has been coming up on the show a lot lately, but you had said that you were kind of at the end of your subscriptions as far as your weekly listening of political podcasts. Like, you had already listened to Chris's show and all the other ones you listed. I was just curious. Would you ever give. Give Slate's political gabfest a shot? You know, I used to listen to that all the time, like, religiously, and then I really dropped out from listening about any political thing or in my off time, you know what I mean? Like, I listen to podcasts as kind of a. As a recreational endeavor. And so I was so distraught for so long that I just did not want to invite more talk of the state of the world into my ear holes when I'm just trying to decompress, you know. But lately going on walks with Lucy or whatever, I'm like, yeah, I don't. Well, let me just dip my toes back into this world a little bit. Same with. On the media a little bit too. And I've really been enjoying both of those. And they both feel a little bit like homecomings to me. A little bit. And I know you like John Dickerson. Like, I. I like all three of the guys, but like John Dickerson, Emily Bazelon. Yeah. And. And who? Jesus.

[Luke Burbank]

Is it Josh Levine?

[Andrew Walsh]

No. Oh, my goodness. This is really embarrassing. It's peanut. I think it's peanut butter and ch.

[Luke Burbank]

No, it's tater and tot.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's tater.

[Luke Burbank]

It's unencrustable.

[Andrew Walsh]

But anyway, as I this up, but boy, that's really embarrassing.

[Luke Burbank]

To answer your question, I would absolutely.

[Andrew Walsh]

David Plot. David Plot. David Plotz. You know, one of those Slate guys like Josh Levine who, like, I think were at Slate at the same time. So that's why when you said that, I was like, yes. No, no, yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Josh is like more Sports guy.

[Andrew Walsh]

If I remember right, I used to

[Luke Burbank]

book him on some stuff when I was the booker on Day to Day.

[Andrew Walsh]

Didn't he. Didn't he host a Slate podcast? Sports podcast with Mike with Pesca. I bet they did Plots and Pesca had a sports Slate podcast, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

But my answer to your question is I don't subscribe to Slate, so I

[Andrew Walsh]

guess neither do I anymore. I think they have still get it. I think they have some bonus segment at the end or something that when I used to subscribe to Slate, but then they like, they really jacked up the price. I subscribe to a lot of things and even some things that you don't have to pay for just because I like to support them. This isn't me being cheap, but Slate one time just said, okay, we're renewing your thing and it's going up. Like, we went up like 100%. It was like really crazy year over year what they were jacking the price up to. And maybe that's just the cost of doing business, but I was like, I don't get enough out of this service to pay that much. So I'm just.

[Luke Burbank]

But you can still listen to most of it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. The regular show, the hour.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I'll add that to my list.

[Andrew Walsh]

John is like. Again, I like all of these folks and I like the fact that they're different, like all three of these people. It reminds me of that sports show that I used to listen to in the afternoon where like none of that. Well, with the exception of Danny, like, none of the hosts I would probably listen to on their own, but combined, like they covered each other's weaknesses. The fact that they were imperfect sort of like just made them this like kind of three legged stool of listening. And anyway, and so there's something about these three people. They bring different, you know, Emily with her more legal perspective on things and John with his more historical perspective on things. But also their personalities are very different. And John is just like one of those people who is just like. He just seems like one of. He's like just one of those special people in the world, you know, like, kind of like we're talking about Mina, although in a different way. But like he just comes off as incredibly smart and incredibly humble and incredibly loving and incredibly lovable, you know, and just all of those things. He's. He's a special one.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it's great that CBS ran him out. Good stuff. Because he was the, you know, he was the nightly news guy.

[Andrew Walsh]

I kind of. I forgot that he is. So he, he left too. Was that part of the. The fallout with the.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, yeah, they tried an experiment where they had him and another guy sort of co hosting the news. And I don't think it was a ratings juggernaut. I don't think that the Tony decouple thing is actually charting higher than that. Like, I think everything that, pretty much everything that CBS has done of late with those slots has. Has gone poorly and has had, you know, like, has had a worse result than they were going for.

[Andrew Walsh]

Last week's TBTL newsletter was a list of the top 20 worst jelly belly flavors of all time. And I had a lot of fun with that one. But the one that, like, I kept. I kept going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And the one that kept going in but then finally got cut out of the final draft was Whiskey Fridays with Tony Coppola.

[Luke Burbank]

Why'd you cut it out? I don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

I had other things because it was just too similar to another joke I had in there. I felt like I couldn't have both that and Odyssey discourse. They were both too, I don't know Cerebral. So I took that one out.

[Luke Burbank]

That's pretty good joke. That's a pretty good spoof. There's a right way to rock and

[Andrew Walsh]

a wrong way to roll. You can just listen to your song. Just remember that life is number one. You can be having so much fun. Just remember that life is much fun. You can be nothing but number one. Okay. Oh, there we go.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm trying to. You know, I was really into playing that dog sound effect, but then people were telling me it's making their dogs crazy. So I'm not doing that. But I'm assuming we're safe playing a goat sound, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I think so. Somebody was mad about the, the siren sound you played the other day.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I, I, I was, Yes. I, I forget exactly who said that. My initial response was, as you might imagine, Andrew. Sensitive. I'm a sensitive boy. And I was like, listen, we got to play sound effects. We got to live our life. That's what we do here. And then I remembered, yeah, sometimes, like, if I'm listening to a rap song and they have a siren in it and I'm in the car, I'm like, wait, that got me. So I will try to not, try not to play the siren.

[Andrew Walsh]

That was your mental.

[Luke Burbank]

That was my mental journey was first being put off that somebody was saying, don't play a siren sound effect. It bothers me. It bothers me. And then I thought about it a little bit longer and I thought, yeah, I can kind of see that a lot of people are in their car, you know, driving around, and if you hear a siren on our show coming through your speakers, it could be a little disorienting. So just playing that.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's a bike. Look out. There's a cyclist. I am looking in my spam folder like I like to do before we start reading people's birthday messages just to make sure that an over aggressive of spam filter didn't grab any legitimate blurs day messages. Like, well, you see the word blurs day. How could you possibly think that's spam? But I am seeing some interesting subject lines in here. How about how TBTL's logo looks on neoprene sleeves? Should I open this one? Our logo is more of a painting of or like a digital drawing of. It's not even a logo. Can you imagine our little drawing of us in the boat on a neoprene cream sleeve?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I would love that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm gonna delete that one forever. I like this one too. So I probably get between the three different podcasts that I have emails for like, probably 10 emails a day from some sort of like marketing company or platform company that says we can. You can do better numbers with us. Like, people are always like, saying, hey, how about collabing with us in this way or that way? And so it's just always. It's just like they're just cranking them out. I don't even know how there's enough. There are more companies trying to draft off of podcasts than there are actual podcasts, which is really saying something.

[Luke Burbank]

But yeah, that's like that whole kind of like sort of ancillary industry now of people emailing us, going like, we've put on these live shows for the Giggle Giggle Squad and we'll do it for you and all this stuff. And I'm like, my friend, my brother in Christ, you're gonna find that if we're outside of the Seattle area, there is a limited awareness of what we're doing.

[Andrew Walsh]

And what I don't like, though, is that they get a little neggy sometimes. Cause lots of times we'll be like, you can do better in the SEO or we can help you do that, you know, and here I see that. Let's see. On August 1st, I got an email from somebody supposedly named Kelly that's clearly spam, but the subject line is 5663 episodes a year and still not ranking. And they're like, basically. And that number must be what our total number of files are or was on August 1st, when you count all of the extra stuff in our archives. Because what are we on today?

[Luke Burbank]

4000TBTL787.

[Andrew Walsh]

But probably when you count all of the no point conversion breakout episodes, we did all of the. A game of. What was it? A game of Mistakes and spoilers or whatever.

[Ira Glass]

We.

[Luke Burbank]

Song of Ice and Spoilers.

[Andrew Walsh]

But what do we call our. As ice and Spoilers.

[Luke Burbank]

A Song of Ice and Spoilers.

[Andrew Walsh]

That was it. Just a Song of Ice and Spoilers. I thought that the ice was replaced by something. Anyway, when you compile, when you combine all of those things, maybe it looks like we have 500 and. Or 5,600.

[Luke Burbank]

But think about this. That person, if they are a person, as opposed to like AI or whatever who sent that, it is their understanding that we're doing 5,000 episodes a year.

[Andrew Walsh]

Also, this is why it's so clearly like some sort of, you know, bot generated AI. But I just mean, like, think about. They say a year that's almost killed

[Luke Burbank]

us to do 5,000 episodes over the course of 20 years.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, no, that's what I mean. That's a typo. Cause the first line of the email is. Well, the first line is, what's up? What's up, homies? It's J Mo T mobile store. It says TBTL 5663 episodes, latest June 30th. Should be a search driven engine. Instead, it's barely discoverable. Well, you know what, Kelly? Delete forever. And luckily no blurs days were such a up in the spam machine.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, good.

[Andrew Walsh]

Glad we started there though. The first rule of blurs days is give people what they want, and that's what they want. What they also want to know is how they can submit a birthday message for themselves or their friends and loved ones. You can email me. My address is andrewbtl.net and just make sure you put blurs day in the subject line. And make sure you sign that baby so we know who it's coming from. We got this note from our pal Lydia saying, happy blurs day to incredible mother, an amazing grandmother, Rinny, a loyal friend and 10 and proud knower of all words like pshaw. You inspire me daily and I am so thankful you're my mom. Have the most amazing year. It doesn't say it explicitly, but clearly we're talking about our dear friend Corinne, who I got into a knockout drag out fight with on tbtl just a few weeks.

[Luke Burbank]

Although we decided that that was really good. Hashtag engagement.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's what you said. I gotta say, I felt I was saying in the car a little bit later, I'm like, I felt like I went a little bit too cranky. A little bit too cranky. Yandy on that.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought it was good. I thought it was. It was real. It was theater. No, I liked it. And then later we were like, man, if you could just get into a beef with every listener, think about. Think about the level of engagement that that would create.

[Andrew Walsh]

I did throw some barbs towards Max in Seattle when we were in. When we were in Cleveland. We could do that. Let's see who else who got Max in Brooklyn. Maybe I should just take out the Max.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, just kind of an anti Max.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's a tough name, right? So it sort of feels like we

[Luke Burbank]

should have a lot of.

[Andrew Walsh]

It does.

[Luke Burbank]

It does. And also the Max in Ohio who I was talking to at the airport. Very tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Very tall. Yeah, he's tall. Maxing. I don't know if you want to mess with him, but we have a lot of listeners named Max now that I Think about it. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Speaking of friendos, our friendo Rachel in Amsterdam. Right, Luke? And my friend who I used to work with at Kow says Rachel says, Happy Blursday, Ivan. Today you are 36, which is a very mathematically exciting birthday. Obviously it's the square of 36, but did you also know that it's a triangular number, which means it's the sum of the first eight non zero positive integers.

[Luke Burbank]

So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

[Andrew Walsh]

If you add those together, 1, 2, 3, 4,. 5, 6. Let me start that over. 1 plus 2 plus 3 plus 4 plus 5 plus 6 plus 7 plus 8 equals 36. And maybe the most thrilling or terrifying thing of all, if you add up every number between 1 and 36, you get 666, the number of the beast. All that is to say, I believe, happy Blurs day to Ivan. Love you guys.

[Luke Burbank]

That's because they live in Amsterdam and people ride bikes there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, the bike. The bell. Yeah, big bike. Culture Flash says happy Blurs day to my sweet English rose, Juliet. She remains the guiding light of my life. A brilliant comment. Combination of elegance, endless knowledge and unmatched patience. Having your love, charm and considered opinions on my life is the greatest gift I could ever ask for. Endless love, hopeless devotion, and the happiest of blursdays. To my lovely Juliet. That is the most romantic thing anybody's ever written about somebody named Juliet in history. Marshall says I'd like to wish I. Oh, Ivan. More shout outs. Marshall says I'd like to give Ivan in Amsterdam the happiest of blursdays. It's great to have a fellow 10 as my colleague and friend in this faraway land.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know if I knew they worked together.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think it's come up before. We just went out on a boat in the canals of Amsterdam.

[Luke Burbank]

I saw a picture of that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was gonna say this sounds like this is it. Sounds like something that make you kind of jealous, Luke. You probably want to be in a boat in the canals of Amsterdam. We're gonna head to the Tuscany of the Netherlands next weekend. Proust. Love that. Case says it's one year later and it's Molly's birthday again. How can we possibly top last year's Blurs Day announcement?

[Luke Burbank]

Which we still remember.

[Andrew Walsh]

Which we all remember.

[Luke Burbank]

What was that? Birthday announcement, Andrew?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh my God. I mean, if I don't want to get in. Spoil it, dude. If I even get into it, I'll never shut up. But I will say happy Blurs day to Molly from Case and your pals. Over here at tbtl, Corbin and Denver say. I don't know why I wrote say instead of says on my notes but Corbin and Denver say say Happy Blurs day to my dear friend Toby. You are the greatest and we are blessed with the good fortune to have you in our lives. We're looking forward to having dinner and ice cream with you this weekend and discussing some tea PBTL related topics such as garbage, vigilance, backyard horse tanks and Wesley Willis. We love you, Toby.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow, another Wesley Willis reference.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I mean they must rock and roll.

[Luke Burbank]

McDonald's.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Very up to. When did we bring up Wesley Willis? Earlier this week on the show. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

We are in that mode where we've been doing some pre records and my brain is completely incapable of. Of remembering in what time stream what which conversations have happened.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, there's a reference to. Yeah. So we're going to talk about this week. Vernon in Tuilla. These are Tuilla 10. Happy birthday to my. This is from Vernon. Happy birthday to my wife Josephine. Here's to another wonderful trip around the sun together. Full of joy and surprises. I love you tons. And. And Luke, you know the kids want to get in on this. This is to Joe from the kids in Tooele. Tuille. Tuilla. Tooele. Sorry. Happy 59th Blursday, Mama. We hope that this year is filled with petting cats, reading good books and a trip to Paris. Pretty please. We love you so much. Love Ally, Cassie and Maddie. Love that family. When we were talking about listenership on the show the other day, Luke, I was going to suggest that maybe we just need our friends in Tooele to keep on having kids so that we can keep on growing our listener base. That's my. That is my plan for the future of tbtl.

[Luke Burbank]

I think it's a solid plan. Be fruitful and multiply.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. Because that's right now our growth strategy.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And we're going to need. It's like you haven't seen it's wonderful Life or if you have it was a long time ago. But they get down to $2 when they've. They've paid out all the money. There's a run on the bank and they give out all the money they have and they have two dollars left. And George Bailey says to mama dollar and papa dollar, oh, and if you want this building and loan to stick around, you better have a lot of babies. And they put them in the safe. The one, the two single dollars.

[Andrew Walsh]

But whose money is it?

[Luke Burbank]

It's not. You don't understand. It's not. It's not here. It's in Joe's house and your house and.

[Andrew Walsh]

God, I love that. That's what I was asking.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. Those are the Blurs days.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Happy Blurs day, everybody.

[Luke Burbank]

Happy Blurs day, everybody. Thanks for listening. We are gonna be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you as we're sliding on into the weekend. So please, if you can join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Again, happy Blurs to everybody. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck, everybody, to two zero. Power out.