#1836: Potato Deniers

Summary

Podcast Summary: TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live – Episode #1836: "Potato Deniers"

Hosted by Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh

Release Date: April 10, 2015
Duration: Approximately 74 minutes
Location: Partially recorded from the Hotel Deluxe in Portland, Oregon

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1. Introduction and Initial Banter (00:00 - 02:12)

The episode kicks off with a playful discussion about rap music, blending humor and casual conversation. Luke Burbank introduces Cindy and Rick, two passionate Browns (Cleveland Browns) fans, delving into their differing opinions on football players. This segment sets a light-hearted tone for the show.

Notable Quote:
Luke Burbank (00:54): "He taught me how to fish, skip stones, whittle. He was like my best and my worst enemy. You ought to be on the radio with me."

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2. El Ropo's Facebook Outreach (03:00 - 18:00)

A significant portion of the episode revolves around El Ropo, a magician known to the hosts as Phil Van T. Luke and Andrew discuss an unexpected interaction when El Ropo reached out to them via their podcast’s Facebook page. They express excitement and nervousness over this contact, speculating whether El Ropo intends to join them on the show.

Notable Quotes:
Andrew Walsh (03:02): "California got sunshine today."
Luke Burbank (04:35): "I am getting quite a bit of coming back at me, which is one of the reasons I'm a little distracted."

As they unravel El Ropo's message, they reflect on their admiration for him, recounting a recent visit to the Magic Castle where they met him. They ponder the possibility of featuring him on their podcast and navigating the newfound connection without overstepping boundaries.

Notable Quote:
Luke Burbank (10:11): "He wrote... 'Andrew and Luke, thank you for featuring my legend on the in-depth soul searching portion of your March 11 podcast episode.'"

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3. Magic Castle's Internal Disputes (21:00 - 26:00)

The hosts transition to discussing the Magic Castle, an iconic venue run by the Academy of Magical Arts (AMA). They delve into recent disputes involving the co-founder’s niece and the board, focusing on financial disagreements over revenue shares from food and beverage sales.

Notable Quote:
Luke Burbank (22:00): "He gets like five and a half percent royalty from annual food and beverage sales, which apparently for a long time wasn't very much."

They express hope that these internal conflicts will be resolved to preserve the Magic Castle's legacy and maintain its unique blend of magic and community.

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4. Deep Dive into John Oliver's Interview with Ed Snowden (26:00 - 43:00)

Andrew and Luke offer their analysis of John Oliver's interview with Edward Snowden, highlighting its depth and significance. They commend Oliver for tackling critical issues like the NSA's surveillance practices and the implications of the Patriot Act, emphasizing the interview's blend of humor and serious discourse.

Notable Quote:
Luke Burbank (27:39): "John Oliver... felt like that level of going in depth on something that is both hilarious and informative and important at the same time."

The conversation naturally segues into a segment on cybersecurity, where Rick and Cindy discuss the importance of strong passwords. They provide practical advice, debunking common misconceptions and emphasizing the use of passphrases over simple, easily guessable passwords.

Notable Quotes:
Rick (29:34): "Bad passwords are one of the easiest ways to compromise a system."
Cindy (30:05): "My password is five characters. That's not a joke. That's bad, right?"

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5. "Potato Deniers" Story (43:00 - 49:00)

The episode features an entertaining narrative likely sourced from Reddit, titled "Potato Deniers." Andrew recounts a story of someone attempting to impress their girlfriend's parents by pretending not to know what a potato is, which disastrously backfires.

Notable Quotes:
Andrew Walsh (44:29): "But they're kind of overdoing it. They're gilding the lily a little bit."
Luke Burbank (46:29): "No, this was on Reddit. This is written clearly by somebody who doesn't speak English as..."

The hosts analyze the story's humor and the awkwardness of getting stuck in a comedic bit, sharing their own experiences of overcommitting to jokes and the resulting social faux pas.

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6. Listener Emails and Corrections (59:00 - 66:00)

Engaging with their audience, Luke and Andrew read and respond to listener emails. One notable correction involves the "kummel weck" sandwich, clarifying its ingredients and proper pronunciation. Another discusses the comparison between contra dancing and sea shanty singing, prompting a detailed explanation of contra dancing's cultural roots and modern iterations.

Notable Quotes:
Luke Burbank (65:00): "It's a bad story."
Andrew Walsh (65:15): "I don't like that word kummelwek."

These segments showcase the hosts' commitment to accurate information and their ability to handle listener feedback with humor and humility.

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7. Technical Adjustments and Show Dynamics (70:00 - 74:00)

Towards the end of the episode, Luke and Andrew discuss their new portable setup, which allows them to broadcast from different locations seamlessly. They acknowledge minor technical issues but remain optimistic about the improvement.

Notable Quote:
Andrew Walsh (70:05): "Well, you know, post more on the show a little bit. It started off with a pretty good signal, but then at the end, it kind of started breaking up a little bit."

They wrap up the episode by reflecting on their discussions, teasing future interactions with El Ropo, and signing off with their trademark humor and camaraderie.

Notable Quote:
Andrew Walsh (73:57): "Rise above, Rise above, Rise above."

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Conclusion

Episode #1836 of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live titled "Potato Deniers" offers a blend of humor, insightful commentary, and genuine connection with listeners. From unexpected interactions with magicians to deep dives into cybersecurity and relatable personal anecdotes, Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh create an engaging and entertaining listening experience. Notable moments, such as the heartfelt discussion with El Ropo and the humorous yet educational segments on passwords and social mishaps, highlight the hosts' ability to balance light-hearted banter with meaningful content.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Rap music. It's all beat and all talk. It tells you a story and makes you want to dance. Steve Fox examines an overnight phenomenon rapping to the beat. Well, there have been talking blues and things like concertos for drums, but right now, all around us and so compelling, you never miss the fact there's no melody. Is a music that is all beat and talk. It's rap music and it sounds like this. Tbtf. You should be on the radio. You got everything it takes. Good looks, a nice speaking voice, and what a personality. We're here with Cindy and Rick, two Browns fans. And, Rick, as I understand it, you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Haven'T spoken to your fiance, Cindy, since what?

[Luke Burbank]

Since draft day. Why?

[Andrew Walsh]

She wants Brian Hoyer to be the starter. I want Johnny Manziel. No, no, no, no.

[Luke Burbank]

Why are you Browns fans? He taught me how to fish, Skip Stones, Whittle. He was like my best and my worst enemy. You ought to be on the radio with me. I get you places. You'll be a big star.

[Andrew Walsh]

Get your places. Like the Hotel Deluxe here in Portland, Oregon, where part of today's show originates from. Anyway. Hey, everybody. Welcome to a Friday afternoon edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live or la la. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Haven't weighed myself in, I don't know, three, four days, which is. Well, I'll tell you what. It's the coward's way out. I am courageous. The opposite of courageous right now. I don't know what that health meter scale is gonna tell me. If I had to guess, I would say it's probably in the neighborhood of 194 or 195 starting on Monday, back on my grind. And I'll happily report my progress to all of you out there in imaginary radio land. By the way, this is episode1836 in the Collector series, Let the fun begin. John Oliver traveled to Russia to hang out with Ed Snowden, and they discussed passwords.

[Cindy]

Okay. Limp Bizkit forever with Limp Bizkit, spelled properly, but forever not.

[Rick]

That's also not gonna help you.

[Cindy]

Really?

[Andrew Walsh]

That will not help you because I already have that password, so it's already taken. Hey, you know the Magic Castle, that thing that we're kind of obsessed with on this program that Joe Bluth showed up at in Arrested Development? I should be in this poof. Well, there is a family dispute going on. Well, it's a dispute involving the family that's been instrumental in the creation of the Magic Castle. So we'll take a look at that with one of the number one fans of the Magic Castle. He's located down in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. His name is Andrew Walsh. Walshki. How you doing on this Friday?

[Luke Burbank]

Pretty good, Luke. I would say that California got sunshine today.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's nice. Let me ask you to quickly stop the show. Stop the show because we have basically what I'm told is some breaking news that the one, the only, and the actual El Ro is writing things on the TBTL Facebook page.

[Luke Burbank]

This is the only thing I want to talk about today. I think that we should probably just cancel the rest of the show. I am hoping to have development throughout the show, but unfortunately. Yeah, okay. Contact has been made.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Just try to keep it together in El Ropo. But I would like to point out that while in the past we thought that there would be a concern about a listener reaching out to El Robo in this case, unless prompted by a listener that I don't know about. El Robo has reached out to us.

[Andrew Walsh]

And what is he saying? I have not seen the message. I got an all caps text from you earlier today as I was driving down here to Portland and you just said El Ropo has made contact.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, here's what it says. Well, I'll tell you where it is. So this is on the official Facebook page that we have the show page. And a while back, I don't even think. Yeah, no, I think I posted a link to the El Ropo video that advertises his DVD set that is marketed towards musicians and.

[Andrew Walsh]

You mean magicians?

[Luke Burbank]

Would I say musicians?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Sorry, I'm a little bit. I'm a little excited. I'm gonna go ahead of myself. Not ahead of myself. There are no musicians in this story at all. I'm just a little flummoxed. Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's perfectly normal. When a magician reaches out to you on the Facebook page of the podcast that you co host, that is a very normal reaction.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, if there's any chance somebody is listening for the first time, don't worry, I'm not gonna tell the whole story. But this is a magician that we are obsessed with. I saw him at the Magic Castle recently. It was my only time to Magic Castle. I thought he was great. We talked about him. You've started calling me El Ropo. El Ropo has become one of my nicknames.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Even though we knew that, like. But there's this dude who's wandering around the same city as me who's the real El Robert Finds out about this.

[Andrew Walsh]

It joins Boom Boom and. And Hodor. In the pantheon of nicknames you have that are actually someone else's name or nickname.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right. I would even say it really. It really holds the nicknames together.

[Andrew Walsh]

We could add the dude to the list of names that we're calling you by that again, also belong to someone else. Okay. So El Ropo.

[Luke Burbank]

So anyway, so we. One of the days was still pretty early on with our obsession. We talked about him and whether or not a bunch of things came up, whether or not we should reach out to him. We played his DVD commercial, which is where we got that drop from that you just played, the El Ropo drop.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

And that one El Ro. And of course, I don't think I have to remind anybody that listeners have sent in versions of that for Burbank. We have Burbank ones. We have all kinds of ones. And so anyway, I was never sure if he was going to listen to that episode. I am getting. I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm getting quite a bit of coming back at me, which is one of the reasons I'm a little distracted. If you could turn on your headphones a tiny bit. How's that for tearing down the fourth wall?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, let me tear it down further. I don't actually know how to turn my headphones down. I think this is going to be a little better for you. Yeah, we're trying something, by the way. We were trying to do it yesterday, but we had some big problems in the Internet department when the Internet went down on Capitol Hill, that neighborhood of Seattle. So today is our maiden voyage of using this fancy sort of portable setup we have where I'm sitting in the Hotel Deluxe in Portland. Andrew, you are at your house, but we can talk to each other. It sounds more or less like we're in the same room. And most importantly, we can play these little sound effects for each other. And you can hear what I'm playing, and I can hear what you're playing. But it's all a little new. And, Andrew, nothing puts you on edge like a new audio situation because you really want the recording to be recorded properly. You want everything to sound good, which is good, which is one of the things I like about you. But it's definitely today's show. If there are some little issues or. Like a minute ago, Andrew, when you said the headphones were too loud, I turned you down. So there's going to be a lot of that kind of stuff that happens. By the way, did I fix the Problem for you?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I think so. I don't hear myself coming back anymore.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's good.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it's definitely good. That's a lot better. I'm going to play this. And just for fun, just as usual, we have a lot to cover, so.

[Cindy]

If you pay careful attention, you'll have nothing to worry about.

[Luke Burbank]

And that was a lot longer than I thought it was gonna be. But hey, you know what? I'm new to playing drops too. All right, anyway, back to Elopo. Back to El Ropo. Sorry about all the confusion, but I feel much better now. We're in a much cleaner, safer space. So, anyway, so El Ropo, I posted a. This is. Let's say a month ago, I posted something to our Facebook page that linked to his video, his promo video. And we said all of your El Ropo questions answered, and then there wasn't much comments on there. I do know that the official Infinite guest page commented something like, oh, we thought this El Ropo thing was just a. Turns out, is hauntingly true. And then underneath that comment, just today, a month later, we got a long note from none other than the actual El Robo. He. I don't know if some listener contacted him and said, hey, by the way, these dudes are talking about you a lot. I don't know if. If it happened more organically. I have no idea how he found out about us, but his real name, by the way, is Phil Van T. Right. Plays a character. That was you, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's. But that's how you pronounce his name.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, good. I just.

[Andrew Walsh]

His name is. It's spelled Phil Van T, but it's pronounced.

[Luke Burbank]

So he wrote on our Facebook page.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm nervous about this. I'm genuinely nervous because. And we've been around this with a number of people who we've become mildly obsessed with. I think, of course, of K Dude and Lil Hoagie, the kids who have did the Seahawk rap song that we use all the time on the show. When we talk about somebody and we become mildly obsessed with them, I never know how somebody is going to take it. And I want to make sure, or at least my fear is that El Ro would think we were making fun of him or we were not laughing with him, but at him in some way. And I just want to make sure that we don't ever send out the wrong message. So I'm a wee bit nervous about what he said when he reached out.

[Luke Burbank]

Will you tell me exactly what he said? So he. He wrote. And that's exactly why I'm nervous. Andrew and Luke, thank you for featuring my legend on the in on the in depth soul searching portion of your March 11 podcast episode wherein you try to understand your own mixed feelings about the blurred lines of character versus reality re El Ropo Wow, that's a strong.

[Andrew Walsh]

Opening line because it should be mentioned that you really liked El Robo when you met or when you observed him at the Magic Castle. But then when we saw the DVD video, the one that has like this kind of going on, El Robo, you felt that it was a little. Maybe it was more Joe Bluth, a little more showy, a little like he's got some hot babes and like he's tying a knot. Magically tying a knot in front of them or whatever it is. Like, wasn't that if you felt like it was a little glitzy or a little more glam than you were totally comfortable with?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Or going for like a much more kind of. Yeah, a bit more of a clowny presentation where what we liked about him, we saw him at the Castle was he's a very demure kind of like low talking, sarcastic kind of dry humor y kind of guy. And so I was going and I also was struggling with how he was being presented on this show because we are legitimate fans. But I felt like some of the if he were to happen, if he was to happen, to listen to it, would it sound like we're making fun of him. And I wanted it to be clear that I'm an actual legitimate fan. And anyway, I'm gonna continue reading his story here. So he said, you made me feel so much more important than just another freakishly tall wannabe cowboy working his dog and pony show in a distant corner of the Magic Castle. I have thus far cleverly eluded fame for over four decades, but this one episode could well push me over the top, whatever the hell that means. Cue versions of Precipice Reached and subsequent tumble into the abyss. Kudos to you for very accurately summing up the dilemma of a laconic former stand up comic and circus clown Ringling Brothers Clown College class of 74, who is now thoroughly enjoying playing in his sandbox each night at the Castle, and who, in a wish to share his own moderately original ideas and twists on classic old magic routines, opted to partner up with an up and coming producer of magic instructional DVDs, which eventually led to the product that you were kind enough to dissect and advertise, albeit to non magicians on your fun podcast, that is I'M sorry for being. Not reading that clearly. That is one sentence. That is a seven line, one sentence.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's very well written. He seems.

[Luke Burbank]

It is.

[Andrew Walsh]

He seems like a person we would totally want to be friends with.

[Luke Burbank]

I. We're getting to that.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I'm still nervous. I'm still nervous because now he's sort of going into. I feel like we're gonna get an explanation of how the DVD trailer came together.

[Luke Burbank]

He does not go into it. That's the most that he's given us about that saying that he too. So I guess that he. He partnered up with an upcoming producer. So he. It sounds like he knew he was partnering up maybe with somebody who didn't necessarily share exactly his background or maybe aesthetic. He says while I am not certain who originally guested you into the castle, he doesn't know that we actually had to get a hotel room just to get invited into the castle. Please know that if you ever wish to return, I hope that you will contact me. And this goes for you too, dear Infinite Guest. And I will do my level best to assist in any. Best to assist in your easy entry for yet another thoroughly scintillating and mystical experience. By the way, to further cement your deep understanding of the myth and the man, please note that Phil Van T is my Clark Kent name, while my superhero name, El Ropo is old school American slang for a big stinky cigar or a sizable cannabis cigarette. Onward and upward, gentlemen. Best always signed, er.

[Andrew Walsh]

El Robo. Wow. Okay. There's a lot. There's a lot to unpack there, my friend.

[Luke Burbank]

There's also a small update.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

So I clicked on that and I found myself on his Facebook page. Phil Van T's Facebook page. And he posted our podcast to his own Facebook page.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

With the. And he wrote strange take on the myth, the man suggest you fast Forward to about 3:30 into the show.

[Andrew Walsh]

How dare you.

[Luke Burbank]

We hit it pretty early. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

How dare he not want the random Facebook people who don't know anything about our show to listen to the majesty that is the first three and a half minutes.

[Luke Burbank]

Usually that's where the magic happens. So he posts that and then now I'm on his Facebook site. Right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And I'm just like, you know what, let's just friend request it because. Let's just do this. Because I was sitting there, I got this message while I was eating a burrito down the street and I was thinking like, this settles it for me. We talked about whether or not we should have him on the show, and I Had said, hey, listen, we have these kind of walls between these people that we kind of celebrate on the show, but we don't always have to get so close to them. You know what I mean? You brought up the example of Lil Hoagie the rapper. What is it? K, dude, Lil Hoagie. Yeah. And we didn't want to reach out to them, and I kind of felt the same way about it. But now that he reached out to us, invited us to reach out to him, if we ever want to get into the Magic Castle again, which, if you're listening, Philerdo and I want to go as your guest, and I want to hang out, and I kind of want to be best friends, but don't be too weirded out by that.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, that's good. Anyway, I think what you've done there is you've played it cool.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that's exactly what I've known.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, you've just dangled the bait ever so gingerly.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm pretty cool. So, anyway, I sent him a Facebook request. I was just like, you're sitting on somebody's page who you admire, who's reached out to you. How do you not just quickly send the request? Sure, why not? Within moments. Within moments, he accepted my request and shot me a note that said, hey, Andrew, regarding those T shirts, Ready when you are. Smiley face. I think we had talked about having TBTL El Robo T shirts made, and then we said, oh, but wait a second. We can't really just steal another dude's thing and make merch out of it. So here's where I definitely wasn't cool. So I wrote back to him immediately. I was so excited. And I wrote back, phil, thanks for accepting my friend request. I'm so excited to chat with you. As I guess you figured out, we became a little obsessed with you after I saw you at the Castle a few weeks ago. I don't remember exactly what we said in that podcast you listened to, but I hope it was all flattering because I truly am a fan. Do you think there's any chance you'd like to join us on the show sometime to talk about your work? Now, I know I reached out and invited somebody on the show without checking with you, Luke, but I just felt like at this point, we should just hear from him. He knows that, you know, he knows that he's a person who we talk about on the show. So let's. Let's hear from the man. The only thing is, even though he originally responded to me immediately, it's been like, radio silence for, like, 45 minutes. Nothing. Didn't respond.

[Andrew Walsh]

He might have gone to the gym, maybe. Or he might be like, a normal person, and he might be walking around outside, breathing the air and not looking at his phone.

[Luke Burbank]

No, you just scare him off. No, I think I came on too strong. I think I came on too strong and. Or maybe he's just playing it cool like I. Like I am.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's working, though. He's got you thinking.

[Luke Burbank]

He's got me thinking. So, anyway, so that's where we are. So that's where I did invite him on. I don't know if he'll take us up on that. I am going to see if I can take him up on the invite to revisit the castle someday, because I would love to do that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I feel like this is an elaborate scam for you to just have much more easy access to the Magic Castle.

[Luke Burbank]

A scam? You think that I'm scamming him or scamming the Castle?

[Andrew Walsh]

I think. I think that you. I think that certainly an upside of this whole thing for you is that now that you have a hookup at the Castle, now that you are on El Robo's friend list, you can pretty much go to the Castle whenever you want, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I don't know. I guess it depends if he starts returning my messages. But no, no, it's certainly not a scam. Like, I. I don't know. I think, like, no, it's a very weird feeling. I think this is where my nervous energy is coming from. First of all, he is kind of a legend in the show already. He really was my very favorite part of the Magic Castle. And there were a lot of different things that we did that that night and saw a lot of good shows, but he was my favorite part. And I am also, like, very. I mean, he clearly listened to that podcast and reached out to us. Like, clearly there was nothing in there that. That I. We should feel bad about, but I. It's just a very weird feeling knowing that you were kind of talking about somebody who. In kind of a voice that you assume that they would never hear it for them to go back and hear it. It's almost like you ever find yourself kind of, like, talking on the phone really loudly or something, and then you walk out of the room and you realize there are a bunch of people out there or something like that. You kind of. You. You start to think to yourself, wait, what did I say? And how did I sound and how did I come off? Because that whole Thing, Like, I wasn't really. I wasn't listening with an outsider's ears. You know what I mean?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, absolutely. No, that's why I said I was nervous to hear what he wrote. But it sounds like he took everything in the spirit it was intended. Sounds like you've made and then lost a new friend. So that's exciting. So that's cool. That's great. And also, if he does come on the show, if we do hit it off. How many podcasts have an official magician?

[Luke Burbank]

I can't think of any.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not that I know of. So, I mean, that's, that's also kind of a. Kind of a cool little element of this whole thing.

[Luke Burbank]

There's got to be a lot of like, don't you know, there's got to be a magician who has a podcast.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I know Penn and Teller. Whichever one is the one who talks, he has one, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, does he?

[Andrew Walsh]

Actually, you know what? I think they both talk on the podcast. Maybe on the podcast. I know. I think Penn Jillette has one and he. Pen is the tall one, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Penn is the tall one with a beard. Yeah, yeah, there are, there's a, there's a handful of magician pod out there. But for a non magician podcast to have an official magician of the podcast, I'd be very excited about that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, you know what, we might as well, since we're talking about it. Actually, you know what? First, let's do this.

[Luke Burbank]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is going to basically be all Magic Castle magic all the time here as we get into our top stories. You sent this to me. I assume you have a Google alert now for the Magic Castle or anything related to the black arts. Is that right, Walsh?

[Luke Burbank]

I just have a Google alert for black arts. Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm going to try to understand what's going on. The founder of the Magic Castle and his niece, they are in a fight with. Is it the board of the Magic Castle?

[Luke Burbank]

I believe that the niece and the co founder are on opposite ends of this arc.

[Andrew Walsh]

I get it.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. I believe I read this this morning. I hope that I'm doing it justice and if not, it'll be a great correction segment that we can do next week. But my understanding is. So the Magic Castle, which is run by the ama, which is the. I can't think of it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Academy of Magical Arts.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what it is, the Academy of Magical Arts. It was run as a nonprofit, but he was a co founder. He and his brother founded this thing. He's in his 80s now. His brother has died. It's his brother's daughter who's now running the place.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I see.

[Luke Burbank]

And his deal is he got a certain cut of drinks.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, he gets like five and a half percent royalty from annual food and beverage sales, which apparently for a long time wasn't very much. But now the Magic Castle, I'm sure largely through the discussions that we've had about it on this very podcast, I assume.

[Luke Burbank]

Where's our cut?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, thank you. Has. Has become very profitable, apparently. And so he's getting this cut and so I guess it's his. His niece wants to renegotiate this or something.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I understand that it's. And it also involves the board as well. I guess I didn't realize that there was a Neil Patrick Harris connection either. Like, I guess nph, I knew that he was a musician or had some sort of appreciation of the dark arts, as you said. Sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, it was your classic. It was your classic nph ama.

[Luke Burbank]

Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Co, you know, mingling really.

[Luke Burbank]

So over the past several years when I think maybe NPH was maybe the head of the board or something like that, I think from 2011 to 2014, they really turned it around. I guess the Castle was really struggling financially for a while, but then they, through some sort of efforts, I don't know what was able to kind of turn it around, start attracting a lot more people like me, you know, non magicians, which I guess it got so popular that they've now had to institute a you can't be a member unless you're a magician policy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Or. Did you see this? You have to be. You either have to be a magician or what's called a proven hobbyist.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah, I did see that. Like, yeah, you have to have some sort of interest in performing magic, not just gawking at it like me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. And they're actually, it looks like they're. They have five. There are more than 5,000 members. So the. I mean, that's. That's crazy to me. I didn't realize that there was that much interest in this whole thing.

[Luke Burbank]

And I'm. And of course, now that I'm one, you know, I'm what you would call just kind of one generation away or not one generation away. One degree of separation. One Kevin Bacon away, one Phil Van Tee away.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, you were for about an hour this afternoon.

[Luke Burbank]

Just refresh, refresh, refresh. Nothing yet? Nothing yet. So, yeah, I have a vested interest in this as well. And of course, now that I sort of feel like I'm, you know, I'M basically besties with El Ropo. I kind of agree that we should keep the outsiders out. You know, it's funny how you're that's weird. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're like. You're basically. You want to be the last. You want to be the last immigrant into the country, as it were.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. So as far as the financial stuff is going. Yeah, they're kind of fighting over that now that they're suddenly, like, making a lot of money off of the. You know, the invoices from the bar. He's pulling in something like $400,000.

[Andrew Walsh]

$400,000 a year? Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Which is good money, but I guess they don't want. They feel like that's too big of a cut, which, to me, it's kind of like it' percentage. I don't get it.

[Andrew Walsh]

I asked you this last time because when you went there, you guys had dinner. That was part of the deal. And you said the food was, like, fine. I mean, is that, like, is the building nice, too? Because apparently the building was remodeled at some point. See, I've never been into this place, but I've always assumed it's kind of. Don't take this the wrong way. Any AMA people listening? I assume now every magician, alive or dead, is listening to the show, including Houdini and Ricky J.

[Luke Burbank]

We have a new rule, actually. You cannot be a 10 unless you're a magician or a very. Or you can prove that you're a serious hobbyist.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think that my sense has always been this place is kind of like a cool idea, but it kind of smells like mildew and is, like, kind of supposed to be really, really nice and posh, but is actually kind of run down. That was my guess. But is that not what it's like inside?

[Luke Burbank]

No, it's pretty nice. I mean, it is, you know, literally an old kind of mansion y kind of place that was converted, so it's divided up into kind of a mazy network of rooms and stuff. So it's kind of hard to get a good sense of the place as a whole. But it. I mean, it was a nice enough place. The food was better than I expected, because it has. I. I had heard that what you do is you have to buy dinner. If you go there, at least in the way we got there, you're kind of forced to buy this dinner, which is very expensive, or, you know, I mean, it's.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was like $400,000.

[Luke Burbank]

It was about $400,000. That was just for the drinks.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Now, I mean, you know, it's you're paying fancy ass restaurant prices for the food and people were like, it's not that good. But actually everybody at our table was very happy with their meals. If there was no magic happening, would I tell all of my friends to rush out and go get dinner at this place? Not necessarily. But I also wouldn't tell anybody that it's a waste of money.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, here's hoping that they work this thing out because based on your description, it sounds like a weird, unique, kind of awesome thing that hopefully will be around for a long time to come. Next up on the list of top stories on this Friday, this tape from John Oliver in his interview with Ed Snowden. I didn't watch this. Everybody is in love with the John Oliver show. And I also like it, but I don't love it as much as everybody else, which is not because of any lack of enjoyment of John Oliver on my case, But I just don't, I don't know. To me, it feels sort of like the Daily Show. Who is, were we on the air the other day, somebody was saying why they're so obsessed with the show is because he actually makes a difference. I think it was my friend Alex Falcone who works on Livewire. I think he was saying that John Oliver will take on something like net neutrality. He'll really do, as we now all say, he'll do a deep dive on, on a topic that otherwise wouldn't be getting a bunch of attention. Is that part of the appeal for you? You seem much more into John Oliver than I am.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I, and I don't watch it all the time, but when I do watch it, I'm always very pleasantly surprised. I think that is, I think that if you look at this generation of, of, I guess not generation, but this type of thing that the Daily show is spawned, right? Like the Daily show spawns the Colbert Report. And then we've talked about this in all the shows and Oliver is an extension of that as well. You know, Colbert was always my favorite because of the way, because he's basically a genius, and the way he would research these topics and then present them in a much more, I feel like, satisfying way than Stewart would. And sometimes in a more complete way. Like I think of when Colbert did his super PAC thing, he didn't just go on the air and make jokes about super PACs. He started his own super PAC. Like, it was just like his whole coverage of super PACs that took over an entire season was amazing. And this first episode of season two of the Oliver show of whatever it's called last week, tonight felt like that. It felt like that level of going in depth on something that is both hilarious and informative and important at the same time. And the first episode back was full half hour that talked about nothing but the NSA and the Snowden thing. And like, the first 15 minutes of the show is him just kind of talking about why it still matters, why there's this vote coming up that will renew a huge part of the Patriot act, and why, you know, what's going on with that. And then 15 minutes in, he's like, yeah, somebody should talk to Snowden about that. That's why I flew to Russia to talk to him. And then it gets even better from there. And it was by far the best interview. I mean, putting comedy aside, it ends up being probably the best interview with Snowden that I'd seen here was them talking about passwords.

[Rick]

Bad passwords are one of the easiest ways to compromise a system. For somebody who has a very common eight character password, it can literally take less than a second for a computer to go through the possibilities and pull that password out.

[Cindy]

For an eight character password.

[Luke Burbank]

Right, right, right.

[Cindy]

My password is five characters. That's not a joke. That's bad, right?

[Rick]

That's really bad.

[Cindy]

Okay, so which of these seem like good options? Password. But spelt W, E, R, D. This.

[Rick]

Is a joke, right?

[Cindy]

Uh, no. Yes.

[Rick]

That would be within the normal password dictionaries, permutations of common words.

[Cindy]

But it's misspelled, though, so that was the kind of tripwire on it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right.

[Rick]

It's still eight characters, even if it's not within your password dictionary, which would mean it would be fairly fair.

[Cindy]

Okay. It's about. It's a bad one. That's why I got some more. 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Rick]

But spelt out, that's not gonna help you.

[Cindy]

Okay. Limp Bizkit forever. With Limp Bizkit spelled properly. But forever, not.

[Rick]

That's also not gonna help you.

[Cindy]

Okay. Really?

[Rick]

I think the best. The best advice here is to shift your thinking from past words to pass phrases. Think about a common phrase that works for you, that's too long to brute force and also make them unlikely to be in the dictionary.

[Cindy]

Admiral Alonzo. Ghost penis, 420 yolo.

[Rick]

That's pretty good, right? It's memorable too, right?

[Cindy]

It's memorable. It's got all the other things you like, like characters and numbers. Yolo, capital letters. Obviously I shouldn't say, now I can't use it.

[Rick]

It can actually be a lot harder to Remember, a password that they tell you has to be 13 characters long or something like that. It has to have exclamation points. It has to have numbers. It has to have uppercase and lowercase letters and things like that than it is to remember a simple phrase like, Margaret Thatcher is 110% sexy.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow.

[Cindy]

That is a password that not even a computer would guess. Now. You're right. Okay, I get it. I get how important it is. I fully understand that. The problem is I'm not gonna do it because it seems hard, even though I know it isn't.

[Rick]

You're killing me.

[Cindy]

Sorry.

[Andrew Walsh]

I have to say, I am 100% in John Oliver's camp. I don't want someone to get some encryption thingy and try to go crack my various logins, but I have to have a password that I can remember, and that's relatively easy, even though it exposes me to danger, because otherwise I seriously spend at least two hours a week changing passwords because I can't remember them anymore. You know what I mean? Like, I'm always type. I have, like, three or four kind of common go to's that I'm always trying to remember which one of my common go to's it is.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Have you noticed, by the way, how weirdly embarrassing it is to share any password with, even if it's not dirty or it feels like you're having unprotected sex with someone you just met?

[Luke Burbank]

Like when we were doing the Skype thing of the day and you needed my logon and I told you that it was. I love it when you call me El Ropo.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And, you know, having to share that with you is. You know, I stand by it, but it's.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's a weirdly personal thing. Like, I was doing this job in Seattle yesterday, and I needed the. Well, there ultimately was no wifi because the Internet was down, but I was getting the password for the WI fi. And, like, the guy I was getting it from, he didn't want to just. Who runs the place? He didn't want to just yell it to me across the room, even though it was a completely innocuous thing. He came over and told me, here's what it is. Just because it's very. It's. I don't know. It's weirdly personal, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Mm, it is. Yeah. And it's kind of an insight, I think, into a personality. Depending on what it is, it can be an insight into your. Well, it is. It's an insight into how your brain works, and what's more intimate than that?

[Andrew Walsh]

Do you, like, take this kind of advice seriously from a person like Edward Snowden? Like, are you. Would you consider changing your passwords or making them harder than they are? Or are you like me? You're just like, look, if somebody wants to break into my Netflix account, I guess they're just going to be able to do it.

[Luke Burbank]

I take it seriously. I'm a little bit like Oliver, though. How much am I actually going to do to change it? I just got a new computer two days ago. So my life has basically been setting up a new computer. Like, these days you get a new computer whether it's a Mac or. I almost said a Mac or an Apple. Whether it's a Mac or some sort of Microsoft based system. I guess PC is the word I'm looking for. Do you call a laptop a PC or does a PC only refer to, like a big computer? That.

[Andrew Walsh]

To me, a PC is any computer that's not an Apple computer.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

A personal computer.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Okay. So anyway, so I got my PC, but like, you know, to sign up for anything, it's kind of like, well, first you have to sign. What is your. What is your Microsoft login password for the Microsoft cloud system? I'm just like, I don't know. I never really signed up for that shit because I don't want to be. I don't want to set up a Hotmail account. Sorry, Luke, I know that you're one of the spokespeople for Hotmail, but I just kind of don't want to. I just want to get my computer working. I shouldn't have to log into a cloud so that you can follow me around everywhere or whatever it is you want to do. But like, you can only fight that for so long until you just basically have to say, fine, I'll set up a GD Microsoft account. And then everything has to run through that. And so in doing this and taking two days to set up my computer and get all the software I need and get everything running the way I want. Like, I've been having to revisit a lot of passwords and I want to be a better person. A few months ago, I made a concerted effort to kind of change some of my most common passwords. But if you're trying to keep things as unique as possible, it's really like I have passwords for at least 20 different services that I use on a daily basis, mostly to get this show posted. Everything from the, you know, the several systems behind the scenes that are related to the upload of the show and the blog posting. Just getting into my Gmail, getting into the several different Gmail accounts I need for this show. The various social media. I got like four or five different. Like, there's no way we're gonna have different passwords for every single one of those things.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it's too. It's just too complicated. I don't know if there's a better way, like, if we can get to the point where it can be like a retinal scan or something, but I'm totally into any of that biometric stuff because I just. I really can't remember. And the other thing that is really frustrating to me is it seems like the less actually valuable whatever information is that's being protected, the more complicated the protecting of that information is. You know what I mean? Like, again, I don't think anyone's going to try to break into my. My Netflix account or I'm trying to think of something that's even less important than that. And when you have to do the password, that's like uppercase and then letter and a number, and then it's changing every, like, three months. It's just like, give me a fucking break. Like, I just don't care that much about protecting that information. Even with the money stuff, I don't want someone to clean out my account. But I have to say, and I'm a very trusting person, I just assume that I would call the bank and I would say, hey, you know how I had some money in there and then it all got moved to Romania? That wasn't me. Can I have my money back, please? And I just assumed that would work out. Now people have all kinds of horrible stories about having their identity stolen and, you know, probably having their digital life and their bank account drained and all that. I'm sure it would be a total nightmare, but I don't know. Honestly, I just would rather not be hassled, even though it means that probably at some point they will, you know, all of my past. But the other thing is, I don't think anyone gives that much of a shit about other than maybe trying to get my money, which is not a lot of money. I don't know if you know this about podcasting, but it's not, you know, it's not champagne wishes and caviar dreams all the time, but, oh, they must.

[Luke Burbank]

Be paying you less than they're paying me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really? Who's your agent? El Ropo.

[Luke Burbank]

Wait, are you. Are you saying. Who is your agent, Comma. El Robo? Or are you saying who is your agent? Is it El Ropo? Because they're. That name is almost universal at this point.

[Andrew Walsh]

It really is. I just mean that, like, I don't think I have anything going on that's interesting enough for the hacker cartel to try to hack into.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. On the other hand, and this is not related to passwords, I want to make it very clear. I'm not saying that this happened to me because of passwords and our money was recovered. But it is such a bad feeling when you log into your bank account and you see that your card or your account number has been, has been somehow stolen.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And compromise, I guess is the word I was looking for. Because it's happened to me twice in the past couple of years. Once very recently. We're just about to go live with the old show I worked on and all of a sudden I look at my bank account. Like 400 bucks was spent at like a Home Depot in Florida. It's always Florida. It's always, always Florida. But I think it was a Home Depot or a gas station. And then there was another like a withdrawal from an atm. And so I called the bank right away. They're like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's, that's effed up. They credited me the money right away. But of course then they have to cancel your card and then you have to wait to get a new card and everything like that. But I actually like bank of America. I think that they do a really good job of just being like cleaning that stuff up and protecting you and saying, okay, we lost $600. You did. But it's not so much about the chance of never seeing that money again. It's also just like this really creepy feeling of just being like, who was this person? How did they get my number or my card or whatever it is. How did they. You just start picturing.

[Andrew Walsh]

And how did their station and how did their deck project turn out exactly?

[Luke Burbank]

And like, what kind of water seal did they get? Because if you don't get the good water seal.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh man.

[Luke Burbank]

Then you're really just wasting money.

[Andrew Walsh]

Don't even get me started. If you don't do the flashing, right? I mean, it's just, you're just asking for water intrusion, especially in Florida. Yep, absolutely. Yeah. That is, I mean, that is not. I agree. That's not a great feeling. That happened to Kerry. The other day or a few weeks ago, somebody booked like a thousand dollar plane ticket to like some part of the world where it's well known for the Internet scams happening. And I was kind of like, we should call them and tell them that wasn't us. And she did and same thing. Like they just kind of fixed it right away. I just. My whole thing in life is just conven above all that would be if my family crest, what was the Walsh family crest? Sorry.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I think that's it. Yeah, sorry.

[Andrew Walsh]

Mine would be convenience above all. That's all I really care about. Here's the other thing that isn't this weird though, that Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are both just kind of pulling it off in terms of the, you know, being outside the reach of the law. I mean, boy, did Ed Snowden play it right. He's got all of Russia to wander around. Assange is just in the embassy of. What is it again? Like where is Portugal? Ecuador. I think he's in the Ecuador. Yes, but he's not in Ecuador, you know, he's in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, yes, yes, that is right.

[Andrew Walsh]

So he can't like. And there was a lot of talk about, you know, what was what is considered to be the footprint of the sort of diplomatic protection. Like if he got into a car that was driven by somebody from Ecuador, would he. Would you know, one of the diplomats, would it extend to that car? Because I mean, he is just friggin trapped in like a pretty small apartment that he can never leave.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. What were we even saying that like I thought there had been a story that you and I had talked about maybe here, maybe on the radio about how the car would be protected. The actual building he's in is protected, but the walk from the building into the car wouldn't be. So they're saying basically if you could jump out of a window and land in the convertible, that would be fine as a crazy example. But the rules of that are nuts, I will say about this Snowden thing. So this particular clip that we played today about the passwords was not a part of the original broadcast of this really good. What I consider to be a really, really good episode of last week. Tonight. I just want to say that because I spent a lot of time saying how awesome that episode was and I actually. That this little clip we played is interesting, but I actually don't. It's not that great. The rest of the interview is really where Oliver kind of drills down with him and because you're saying how like Snowden really kind of did it, right? And now he's over there and you know, he's. He's fine.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, What I mean is, if you're. If. If you're gonna do something that has the United States hot on your trail, usually they get their man. So the fact that he. That he did this and he is basically, you know, has a girlfriend and is able to move freely about Russia and do interviews with John Oliver, it's a fairly. It's a fairly amazing thing that he's actually made this work.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, I couldn't agree more. It is really crazy. Anyway, and I'd also recommend people. People watch that episode.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right, should we do have time to talk about this baked potato situation or should we. I feel like it's kind of gonna launch into a. Should I just read it?

[Luke Burbank]

We could do that. Yeah. You know what? Let's do it. We have some time here. We don't have to get to all the emails today. There are a couple I really feel like we should get to, but I think we have time. Do you want to play the potato music?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, absolutely, we do. We actually. We have some potato music that we carefully set up. See, this is the beauty, Andrew, of the system we're using where I'm in Oregon and you're in California and we're talking just like it ain't no thang. This came from Reddit and it's, you know, the Gawker reposted it and everyone's saying it's probably made up, but it still kind of raises an interesting question about sticking to the bit. We'll just read it to you. Let me tell you that I have made a bad mistake this evening. My girlfriend, who let me tell you, is only my second girlfriend of all time, said I'm invited to dinner with her and her parents. I was very aghast, nervous, and bashful to be invited to such a situation, but I knew it must be done. By the way, I already feel, Andrew, like this person. English is not their first language.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I agree. Or certainly not their strongest.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's not their strongest language. It's a writing in a way where they sound like they're trying to be really formal and fancy.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

But they're kind of overdoing it. They're gilding the lily a little bit.

[Luke Burbank]

The misuse of the word aghast is a tip off. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it continues. I met them nicely, I should tell you. And it started off in a good way. The idea slapped my mind that I should do a comic bit to make a good impression and become known to them as a person who is amusing. When I saw that baked potatoes were served, I Got the idea that it would be a very good if I pretended I did not know what potatoes was. That would be funny. Well, let me tell you, backfired on my face. I'll tell you how. Oh, this was written by Yakov Smirnoff. So when the potato became on my plate, I acted very interesting. I showed an expression on my face so as to seem that I was confused, astounded, but in a restrained way, curious and interested. They did notice and seemed confused, but did not remark. So I asked, this looks very interesting. What is this? They stared at me and the mother said, it's a baked potato. And I was saying, oh, interesting. A baked. What is it again? And she was like a potato and I was like a potato. Oh, interesting. Never heard of a potato. Looks pretty good. And then they didn't see I was clowning, but thought I really did not know what is a potato. So I knew I would be very shamed, humiliated, depressed and disgusted if I admitted to making a bad joke. So what I did was to act as if it was not a joke. But I committed to the act of pretending I didn't know what a potato is. They asked me, very incredulous, did I really not know what a potato is that I never heard of a potato? I went in, went with it and told them, yes, I did not ever hear of a potato. Not only had I never eaten a potato, I had never heard the word potato. Restarting our potato music here. This is not the same if we don't have a potato music, buddy.

[Luke Burbank]

No, this went on for a bit.

[Andrew Walsh]

And my girlfriend was acting very confused and embarrassed by my quote up antics. And then the more insistent I was about not knowing what a potato is was when them parents started thinking I did know what a potato was. Well, let me tell you, I had to commit 100% at this point when I would not admit to knowing what a potato was, the father especially began to get annoyed. At one point he said something like, enough is enough, you're fucking with us, admit it. And I said, sir, before today I never heard of a potato. I still don't know what a potato is other than some kind of food. I don't know what to tell you. Well, let me tell you, he got very annoyed. I decided to take a bite of the potato and when I did, I made a high pitched noise and said, tastes very strange. That is when the father started yelling at me and the mother kept saying, what are you doing? And my girlfriend went to some other room. Finally the father said I should get the fuck out of this house. And I said it was irrational to treat me like this just because I've never heard of a potato before. Well, let me tell you, he didn't take that kindly. Now in text messages I have been telling my girlfriend, I really don't know what a potato is. The only way I can ever get out of this is for them to buy that I don't know what a potato is. I wish I never started it, but I can't go back. I think she will break up with me anyway.

[Luke Burbank]

All that meat and no potatoes just ain't right like green tomatoes.

[Andrew Walsh]

There is no possible way that this is real, right? This was on Reddit. This is written clearly by somebody who doesn't speak English as. I don't know why. I assume because they don't speak English as their first language, they're lying.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that doesn't, I mean in a certain, in a certain way. I wonder if this person doesn't speak English as a first language. Well then maybe they do have an accent. And it's kind of funny you reading it the second time because I read it quietly myself. I was picturing it, oh, maybe this is somebody who has a bit of an accent or, you know, comes from a different country. And how does that kind of color the scene? I agree with Gawker to be dubious about it. There are little things though that are like, kind of like I was talking to my girlfriend about it. I've been talking to my girlfriend about via text message. Like that's one of those small little details that make a lie not seem like a lie, you know what I mean? Like, oh, you know, just like the sending saying that you were talking about it via text message. I can go either way on this one, whether or not it actually happened.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's a weird thing to make up. Like I decided to play a joke on them by pretending I don't know what a potato is. Like, it's. It's just weird enough that it makes me think it could possibly be true, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yet on the other hand, the reactions.

[Andrew Walsh]

Are a little extreme.

[Luke Burbank]

People react.

[Andrew Walsh]

Get the fuck out of my house, you potato denier. I am to potatoes as Mel Gibson is to the Holocaust.

[Luke Burbank]

When they came for the potatoes, no one spoke up. So, I mean, have you ever found yourself though, in a position? I'm racking my brain trying to think of one too, where I'm just over committed to either a joke or a bit or maybe even just maybe a white lie or something like that because I feel like I know this feeling, but I can't think of a specific example of getting in over my head.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I mean, in my friend group, the most well known one of me having to be committed to the bit, and this will not endear me to the listeners, but you've spent a good week showing what a truly terrible person you are, Andrew, so I thought I'd just take the heat off you for a minute. Thank you. The original instance of what we now call Burbanking the joke was when we were out. It was me and my friend Cotter and my friend Jessica, and we were out for dinner and there was a pizza on the menu called White Lightning. And I said, for some stupid reason, I think I ordered the White Lightning. Or I commented to the waiter, I was like, oh, that was my nickname in high school and. Which is a dumb go to joke that I used for years and by itself is really not great.

[Luke Burbank]

But I made just that blankety blank. Oh, that was.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Anytime I hear like a weird, you know.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah, like just a.

[Andrew Walsh]

Some kind of weird collection of words, I would say, that's when I came in high school. Well, so then. Because I can't stick with the bit, because I wanted to try to, like, I wanted to say. No, actually, it was, you know, it was. Whatever it was. It was Pizza face. Or it was. I was trying to come up with something in the moment that was like what my real nickname was, which was something that was so much less cool in my mind than White Lightning. And for whatever reason. Do you know this story?

[Luke Burbank]

No.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're gonna really rethink. You and Alropa will have a good time doing your podcast together years from now.

[Luke Burbank]

I wish months from now, for whatever reason.

[Andrew Walsh]

So again, the setup is. I said White Lightning. That was my nickname in high school. No, actually it was. And again, I wish I could have said like, you know, it was. It was pencil neck. It was, you know, whatever. Instead I said it was. And then I said the F word and not the F, U, C, K word, the F word. That is a gay Slurpee. And I don't even know where I think. I mean, honestly, this is a bad thing. I think I. In my mind, it was. I was trying to think of a thing you would never want to be called in high school. You know, the opposite of like a cool white lightning. But even so, it was way over the line. It was way too weird. The waiter was mortified. My friends were mortified. I don't know where that word. I'm not even exaggerating that's probably the only time I've ever spoken that word out loud in my life. I think it a lot incessantly. No, but you know what I mean. I don't throw that word around at all. And I wasn't a person who would. I didn't call people that as a pejorative. It just isn't a word that was really in my mind, and for whatever reason, it came out of the back recess of my brain. So then my friends were, like. They were so mortified and horrified, and I was horrified and embarrassed. And then I said I didn't know what a potato was. And then it got really.

[Luke Burbank]

No.

[Andrew Walsh]

So then for, like, the rest of the day, I kept just sort of inserting the word. This is a really a bad story.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, no. I kept going with it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not to people in public, but, like, to my friends. I kept just sort of sliding that word in to try to get them to laugh, basically.

[Luke Burbank]

Because you've already explained to them how mortified you are.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, now you're just kind of like, now you're trying to joke on.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm trying to.

[Luke Burbank]

Obsessed with it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. I'm totally obsessed with it. And I'm trying to now, like, somehow get out of the doghouse with them and get them to laugh somehow at my use of the word, which, again, as I think about it now, isn't really redeeming anything other than just continuing the mistake.

[Luke Burbank]

Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I just was so locked in this thing where I wasn't gonna quit until one of them cracked at least a smile. And I think finally, you know, I, like, later that night, we were all well into our cups, and somehow I slid it into some comment that they. They basically threw me a bone and. And, like, sort of smiled. So just to get me to stop. Just to get me to stop. But I couldn't leave it alone because I was so embarrassed. I felt like I've got to somehow redeem this. I've got to Burbank this joke.

[Luke Burbank]

You got to keep. You got to keep picking that scab. Picking that scab.

[Andrew Walsh]

I couldn't stop picking at it. I felt so horrible. Again, as I describe it now. And by the way, this was years ago. As I describe it now, I realize I was just making it worse. Like, if you do something stupid like that, just leave it alone. Don't then further use a term that's really hurtful and not okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, when you and Michael Richards are.

[Andrew Walsh]

Doing your podcast together, oh, man, it is really racing up the charts of the Neo Nazi podcast network, Stormfront. Me and Michael Richards podcast. Anyway, so that's an example kind of of getting stuck in a moment and in the words of U2, not being able to get out.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Or at least not choosing the right path out. How about you?

[Luke Burbank]

Right. Yeah, That's a. That's a painful story. I can't.

[Andrew Walsh]

After we cut that out, what story are we gonna use from you?

[Luke Burbank]

Nothing. I'm just gonna play the potato song there. Actually, what your story reminded me of. And I don't know if I'm gonna be able to get. Yeah, I won't try to talk and look it up at the same time, but we were talking the other day about my friend Tony, my weird, tortured relationship with this guy Tony, the high school. More grade school friend of mine, who I now am in a strange texting relationship with. You know, we grew up in the country in a pretty unworldly part of the state. And I felt like while I grew up from grade school, kind of both emotionally and as far as maturity is concerned, it also saw a little bit more of the world. And I feel like I have a little bit more of an evolved view of the world than I did at that time. He kind of got a bit of a case of arrested development. And I had mentioned that, like, he would still, like, via text message, I mean, now, within the past year or something, like, make a joke at the expense of, like, this really heavy girl who was in our grade school class who like, wet her chair one time, wet her pants in the chair in the middle of class. But he still, like. To me, that story just breaks my heart. Cause I picture what it must have felt like for this little kid to have to go through that. Whereas he's still just kind of like, remember the time Joanie pissed herself? And I don't respond to those text messages, you know, like, I'll try to respond to the nicer one. Sometimes you'll just get on a texting jack. But if you send me something that is just kind of like borderline homophobic or just incredibly immature being funny. Joni. I remember the Joni example because, like, he sent one and then I didn't respond. And then he's like, you know, four hours later, you get it because she's fat. No respond. And then it's kind of like because she's fat and she pissed herself. Like, you know, like, you can feel him being uncomfortable on the other.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, he was burbanking the joke.

[Luke Burbank]

He's just burbanking it because he knows that he hit me with something that I did not feel like. And I'm not trying to engage with him on these things. I'm just like, I will let that one go. The next time he wants to text me about ACD scene, we can have a funny text back and forth on that. Fine. But I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna try to correct him, but nor am I gonna lower myself to be making fun of some girl who Peter sells.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's what I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

1985.

[Andrew Walsh]

Here's what I don't totally understand. You decided to correct this guy when he said grocery getter. Yeah, that's in reference to your girlfriend's car or a car that your girlfriend, you know, car saying, oh, your girlfriend could use this as a grocery getter. But he's like, harshing on and being mean to the memory of this person who is just trying to live their life. And that one, you don't say, hey, dude, that was a long time ago. Get it together.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, here's the deal. You know, we talked about the grocery getter one and how that struck me as sounding sexist. And then on the show, when I was discussing it again, I was like, yeah, why did I think sexist? I've heard that term other times since. But you know what? He didn't send me a photo of this hot rod station wagon and said, hey, if you need a grocery getter, you should look into this. He sent it and said, if your girlfriend needs a grocery getter. So I actually still stand by the fact that there was some sexism tinged in his text. He isn't often writing to me about my girlfriend. You know what I mean?

[Andrew Walsh]

It's just interesting that that was where you decided to plant your.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's.

[Andrew Walsh]

That.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, that's more of a social. You know, that was a social thing that just rankled me. And I think it. Because it involved Genevieve, maybe it got my hackles up even a little bit more. But, like, you know, him talking about Joni does not necessarily hurt Joni. If he's just sending that to me via text message. It's so. And I just didn't want to engage or get into a conversation with him about why, like, making fun of a girl over something that happened a really long time ago doesn't really. Doesn't land well with me. It just seemed like there was no way to explain that via text message there. It wasn't worth the effort.

[Andrew Walsh]

So you're talking about him being. Basically him being committed to the bit Him Burbanking it. Him trying to like get you to react in the way he wants you to react.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, oh, exactly.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's awkward. I've been on both sides of that, so I know for a fact just how awkward that is.

[Luke Burbank]

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

[Andrew Walsh]

It is time for some emails. We mentioned contra dancing this week. Do you have these emails in front of you, by the way, walshkey, can you lay them on me?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I can.

[Andrew Walsh]

What's the story? I hope this whole show is basically about me hoping that when I said something previously, whether it was about El Ropo or contra dancing or a terrible, hurtful, anti gay Slurpee, my hope is that in all of those cases I wasn't being as mean as I possibly could have been. In other words, I hope we didn't talk. I haven't read the email about contra dancing. I think I kind of probably said it seems like a weird thing to me. And I'm sure we have contra dancers in the audience and their probably feelings were hurt. And so anyway, what did they say?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, let me put it this way though. After the story you just told, I will say this. We have some really good emails today. But I'm really looking forward to the emails now week, if you know what I'm saying. But it was at the end of the show a couple of days ago. I'm blanking on the listener's name, but somebody had written into specifically you asking your feelings about whether or not given her personality she might like.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh yeah, Port Townsend.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And she had mentioned that, you know, she likes. She doesn't mind living in a small town as long as it feels like there's something going on there. And when she had visited recently, she went to the coffee shop, what's called Better Living through Coffee. And they were like singing sea shanties. There was somebody there singing sea shanties.

[Andrew Walsh]

She said, down by the seashore.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. And there are some seashells involved. But she liked the idea of just that. Even if it's just sea shanty singing, like at least some. There was some, you know, vibrancy there. And you had compared sea shantying to contra dancing. I think it was just kind of a quick association. And this listener, Bob wrote in. Bob writes in from time to time time, as a matter of fact. And he had written about something else and I saw at the bottom of his email that he signs off as environmental educator in contra square dance musician. So I wrote back to him. I'm like, dude, you're commenting on something earlier in the show, but wait till you get the contra dancing conversation because you're gonna have a lot to say about that. And I was right. He wrote back to us. He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't be comparing contra dancers to sea shanty singers. Okay, so far, how are you feeling? Is your gut all tightened up? Are you?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I'm nervous. No, I've already. At this point, I've released desire on any of the listeners liking me.

[Luke Burbank]

What about your co host?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that was years ago.

[Luke Burbank]

Sea shanty singers are overweight old white guys who wear their pewter beer mugs on their belts. And contra dancers are overweight old white guys who wear Patagonia vests. Seriously, you are right. Contra dancing is mainly for old white people. I am one of them. As Andrew said, it started in New England by old New England white people in the 17 and 1800s, and it was then taken over by white hippie baby boomers in the late 1960s and early 70s, spreading around the country like a venereal disease. Wow. Surprisingly, it is now attracting younger white people in their 20s, etc. To both play the music and dance. Occasionally, a black or brown person will show up at the dances. Also, younger musicians are working in other genres of music too, like techno and hip hop into the mix as they gain ascendancy and us older musicians fall prey to arthritis and old man woman crankiness. I am somewhat of a traditionalist as I. As I play the. Yes, I admit this accordion, which doesn't lend itself to Rihanna and Beyonce songs. Or maybe I'm just too white for that. Actually, Seattle is a hotbed of such music and dance, and there's a Fiddle Tunes Dance festival in Port Townsend every June, I believe. Anyway, I can go on and on and on about contra dance tropes since I have played and danced this stuff since the early bronze Age. Truthfully, it's really a fun activity and you do meet great people. I met my wife contra dancing, which is a good thing. If it weren't for her, I would be homeless and playing the accordion for spare change in the streets of Philip.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm playing you a little bit of crowfoot in Tacoma, Washington, and I'm watching a contra dance. It looks super fun, actually. It just. It's just basically like square dancing. I did see a couple Utila kilts, which I don't feel great about, but otherwise it seems like a nice, nice, fun activity for people. So there you go. I'm sorry. Sorry if I was harsh about contra dancing. Anything else that we need to wear?

[Luke Burbank]

Too harsh? Yeah, I also wanted, you know, I promised that we would have more corrections on my correction about what a weck is. A weck sandwich, it's the. That sandwich of beef and on a special roll that is popular in upstate western New York. And I tried to explain it twice on the show, but not really well. Bobby writes in hey dummies. Just to clarify your correction on yesterday's show, as you expected, the kummelwek roll is indeed Kaiser esque, but its defining characteristic is the caraway seeds on top. In German, kummel or kummel equals caraway and weck equals roll, more or less. Without caraway seeds and kosher salt, it's just another roast beef sandwich. Not bad on the pronunciation of kummelwek, by the way. Which, by the way, I don't know what he.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't like that word.

[Luke Burbank]

I say it seven different ways, that word.

[Andrew Walsh]

God, there. I'm still watching this video. I think that the majority of the men are in utila kilts.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know if. I don't know if it was like, if that's. If this is like a, like a utility society that also happens to have contra dancing. I'm not totally sure, but I'm glad that it worked out for listener Bob.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm sorry, what about the Tevas? I mean, what would you say the Teva raid is in that country?

[Andrew Walsh]

I'll look here I went. Gonna lean in Sheryl Stanberg style on this video.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what she meant. That's what she was talking about.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. I'm not seeing too many Tevas. I'm seeing a lot of those like, like Dansko clogs. Kind of real comfy.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, that makes sense.

[Andrew Walsh]

Kind of comfy shoes and anyway, okay, so sorry, back to, back to what you were saying.

[Luke Burbank]

So that, that's basically it. He said that in New York they pronounce it kimmel weck, like Jimmy Kimmelwak. You nailed the pronunciation of Celeron, the town in New York, where that story came from. And that's from Bobby, who says that he is glad to share his western New York slash edge of the Frisbee belt knowledge.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't like that word kummelwek.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it's rubbing you the wrong way.

[Andrew Walsh]

But just sounds like it sounds dirty. Like really think about it. What are the. I mean, it Has a lot of elements that sound like they could be referencing something else. Kummel weck.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely not a pretty word, but I don't really expect that. Sorry. From the German language. No. No offense. Can I get. Do you think that. Will you allow me? And maybe it'll even be better with some music. I don't know if I'm a very good reader, but can I just read to you one more email that came in yesterday?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

That I think is super interesting. It's got a visual component. I'll post this to our website today. It'll be the. Maybe the image for the show. But we did a lot of talking and agonizing over my whole situation in my apartment here. I live upstairs. My landlord lives downstairs and across the way. But he doesn't want me smoking anymore because he says the smoke still gets to his apartment even though he keeps all his windows closed and it's annoying. And he keeps on telling me that there's this weird downward draft, that there's some strange weather pattern that blows the smoke down instead of up, which is how we all think of smoke going.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I just found, by the way, the drop that I totally should have played when we talked about this last time.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm ready to smoke the world with the rock and roll. That's pretty good.

[Andrew Walsh]

That would have been great. That's all right. I'm about four days late on that.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, no problem. Anyway, so Jeremy Polton, he says, I don't know exactly what that means. P u, l, l 10.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, probably Pullman, Washington, I would guess.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, Pullman, Pullman, Washington. He's a poleten. Okay. He wrote to me and he said, hey, do you have a. Like a water fixture or what do you call it? What do you call the water feature? You know, like a little water. He said, yeah, do you have a water feature in the middle of your. In the middle of your little courtyard? And I said, well, we do have one. There's no actual water in it, though. It's an old one that's now just kind of like a planter. And I'm like, why do you ask? Like, would the water affect the way that smoke blows or something? Listen to this answer. And he sent me, like I say, an image. I'll share it with you guys. He says, the way that housing complexes and courtyards are constructed create a natural air conditioning system. Courtyards, especially those with water features, stay cooler than the buildings surrounding them because of the laws of thermal buoyancy. Cool air will remain Closer to the ground, while hot air will rise above. If windows are located right, the buildings around the courtyard can harness the cool air to keep themselves cool. Courtyards also create. Dig this. Courtyards also create a low pressure zone around them to pull in warmer air from above and thus generate a constant breeze. Depending on how the winds are blowing in Koreatown, it's entirely possible that wind will move from your balcony directly into your building manager's unit. I've attached a diagram with lots of colorful arrows that will hopefully help you make this. Hopefully make this clear to you. I'm better at communicating in pictures than words. Of course, this is all assuming your building was constructed in such a way that harnesses these natural forces, which isn't a sure thing. On the other hand, the building manager does seem to be overreacting a bit anyway. And then again, that's Jeremy A. Poltin.

[Andrew Walsh]

He must be in the construction management program there or something. Or architecture something. The guy sounds like he knows what he's talking about.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And where do you see this? I'm gonna send this to you and I'll. I'll post on the thing too. A little hand drawn. He wrote. He drew a little. Mr. Building Manager. He drew a little Andrew smoking on the balcony. This is great.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow. Well, thank you everybody for writing in this week. Thanks also for listening to the show.

[Luke Burbank]

What would you.

[Andrew Walsh]

What should we call this one?

[Luke Burbank]

I didn't write down tons today. I had my mind on other things. El Robo.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, should we just. I mean, should we just mention the fact that El Ropo, you know, reached out or something?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, an El Ropo response. We could do that. El Ropo response. We also had a Convenience above all backfired on my face or potato deniers.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, man. Actually, I think those last two are pretty good too. What do you. What's your favorite favorite?

[Luke Burbank]

I would probably go with potato deniers.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Potato deniers it is. All right, that. That wraps up this week of TBTL broadcasting. How do you feel about our maiden voyage with this new little setup?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you know, post more on the show a little bit. It started off with a pretty good signal, but then at the end, it kind of started breaking up a little bit. So we'll see how much we can clean that up.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right. Got a little. Got a little dodgy art. Well, it'll be a work in progress. Okay, have a great weekend, everybody. We will be back here on Monday with more imaginary radio for you. Until then, please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Luke Burbank]

And good luck to all. And we are tired of your.

[Andrew Walsh]

Society Think they smart? I find satisfaction in what the.

[Luke Burbank]

And.

[Andrew Walsh]

I.

[Luke Burbank]

Have my.

[Andrew Walsh]

Rise above Rise above.

[Luke Burbank]

Rise above Rise above Rise above Rise above Rise above Rise Ra.