#4380 Hacking The Koosh

Summary

Podcast Summary: TBTL Episode #4380 – "Hacking The Koosh"

Episode Details:

• Title: Hacking The Koosh
• Podcast: TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live
• Hosts: Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh
• Release Date: January 14, 2025

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1. Introduction and Lighthearted Banter (00:00 - 01:59)

The episode kicks off with the hosts, Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh, engaging in their signature playful banter. Luke attempts to inject humor with "Captain's jokes," which Andrew counters with practical remarks about flying without getting high. This sets a relaxed and jovial tone for the show.

Notable Quotes:

• Luke (00:00): "Captain, cabin's ready and doors are closed. All right, gentlemen, it's time to get high and also fly this old bird."
• Andrew (00:08): "I never get high when I'm flying."

2. Listener Engagement and Bob Dylan Controversy (02:01 - 10:00)

Luke introduces a pressing topic received from listener Ryan—a controversial figure who has been scrutinizing Bob Dylan by searching through his trash. This segment promises a deep dive into the complexities of fandom, privacy, and criticism within the music industry. Additionally, Andrew discusses his attempts to balance social media usage, particularly focusing on Instagram and its implications on personal and professional life.

Notable Quotes:

• Luke (02:34): "I didn't know he existed until like six days ago. And now I'm borderline obsessed with him."
• Andrew (10:20): "I do not want this to become the headline on the New York Post."

3. Social Media Reflections and Platform Critique (10:00 - 21:11)

The hosts delve into their personal experiences with social media platforms, notably Instagram. Andrew shares his struggles with maintaining his Instagram account amidst growing frustrations with platform policies and personal disinterest. Luke offers a contrasting perspective, expressing a detached yet appreciative view of Instagram’s visual aspects.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew (16:25): "I'm kind of withholding. I want to totally clean slate it and just delete Instagram."
• Luke (18:42): "I could go months and not think about [Instagram]."

4. Donor Appreciation Segment (22:04 - 27:00)

Luke and Andrew take a moment to thank their generous donors, highlighting the essential role donations play in sustaining the podcast. They humorously introduce their new catchphrase, "No Donations, no show, no money. No honey," underscoring the importance of listener support.

Notable Quotes:

• Luke (22:34): "No Donations, no show, no money. No honey. It's my new catchphrase."

5. Military Aircraft Gazing and Personal Interests (28:00 - 45:14)

From the confines of a San Diego hotel, Luke shares his fascination with the constant parade of military ships and aircraft visible from his window. The discussion touches on the aesthetics and operational aspects of these vehicles, revealing Luke's deep-seated passion for military machinery juxtaposed with cultural critiques.

Notable Quotes:

• Luke (40:06): "I cannot underline enough how into these military vehicles I am."
• Andrew (46:31): "It's funny how much you love the machinery but hate the culture."

6. Local Business Spotlight: Moose McGillicuddies Closure and Reviews (45:14 - 55:36)

The hosts reflect on the closure of Moose McGillicuddies, a beloved local pub, analyzing its decline through Yelp reviews. They humorously dissect negative reviews, debating the fairness and accuracy of patrons' experiences, and reminisce about personal memories associated with the establishment.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew (49:51): "Went here during my bachelorette party in the Gas Lamp. Even though I was drunk, I thought this place was dirty."
• Luke (50:00): "What I don't remember about it. I don't like it."

7. Nostalgia for Koosh Balls and Childhood Memories (55:36 - 72:57)

Luke nostalgically recounts his childhood obsession with koosh balls, intertwining stories of hacky sack and memorable events like jumping the koosh ball off the Astoria Column. Andrew shares his own memories, highlighting the sentimental value and simple joys associated with these toys.

Notable Quotes:

• Luke (60:07): "I was really into like basically hacking the koosh."
• Andrew (59:54): "Do you remember discovering that there were little loops in there?"

8. Listener Voicemail: Garbage Bin Etiquette (66:04 - 73:15)

The episode features a voicemail from listener Brian, who recounts his frustrating encounter with a Metro employee at a bus stop trash bin. The discussion emphasizes the importance of public trash bin usage and the miscommunication that can arise when misinterpreting intended use.

Voicemail Transcript:

"This is Brian from Keppel Hill, Seattle. I ... Do you have to be a customer to drop dog waste in the bin at the bus stop?"

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew (68:03): "No. No, you do not. Those are public trash cans that are taxpayers."
• Luke (72:32): "We have your back on this, Brian. It's rare that Andrew and I are in lock step on something, but we are on this one."

9. Closing Remarks and Teasers for Future Episodes (73:15 - 74:09)

As the episode winds down, Luke hints at future discussions, including a deeper exploration of the Bob Dylan controversy and fellow listener voicemails. The hosts express their intent to address personal grievances, like Luke's issues with Alaska Airlines, in upcoming episodes, maintaining their commitment to engaging and relatable content.

Notable Quotes:

• Luke (74:09): "And please remember, no mountain too tall."
• Andrew (73:31): "You were in the right to be a little annoyed at that."

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Key Takeaways:

• Engaging Host Dynamics: Luke and Andrew maintain a friendly and humorous rapport, making complex topics accessible.

• Listener Interaction: The episode underscores the importance of listener contributions in shaping the podcast's content.

• Personal Reflections: Both hosts share personal anecdotes and opinions, offering authenticity and relatability.

• Community Focus: Discussions extend beyond entertainment to address community issues, such as public amenities and local businesses.

Conclusion:

Episode #4380 of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live encapsulates a blend of humor, personal stories, and thoughtful discussions on social media, local businesses, and listener experiences. Luke and Andrew successfully navigate diverse topics, maintaining their unique style while providing insightful commentary and fostering a sense of community among their listeners.

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For more episodes and updates, visit tbtl.net.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Captain, cabin's ready and doors are closed. All right, gentlemen, it's time to get high and also fly this old bird. Just a little captain's joke.

[Andrew Walsh]

I never get high when I'm flying.

[Luke Burbank]

Unless I mistime the edible. Another captain's joke. You really think that's a good use of everyone's time? If I can't have some fun with.

[Andrew Walsh]

My passengers, why am I here? To fly the plane.

[Luke Burbank]

Go do that.

[Andrew Walsh]

TBTL.

[Luke Burbank]

All good.

[Andrew Walsh]

Here we all are together again.

[Luke Burbank]

Can I throw something on you, see if it feels good?

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, this is what I would do. I would start with a joke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Joke.

[Luke Burbank]

Vince Vaughn quote, obviously.

[Andrew Walsh]

Swingers or crashers.

[Luke Burbank]

Fred Floss. What are you doing now? I'm trying to get some butter.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're supposed to sop up gravy with your biscuit.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't want to use my biscuit to sop up some gravy. I got other plans for my biscuit and they involve butter.

[Andrew Walsh]

The only thing that's nice about this.

[Luke Burbank]

Is even though it's a Tuesday, it feels kind of like it's a Friday.

[Andrew Walsh]

I believe that what's about to follow.

[Luke Burbank]

Is really going to amaze. So I suggest you sit back and enjoy your front row seat. All right. Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?

[Luke Burbank]

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. It is our turn. Coming to you once again from beautiful, and I mean this. And I cannot overstate this beautiful San Diego, California. California got sunshine. Just an absolutely spectacular day. I could read you the surf report, but you already know it. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous day down here, looking out over the bay and over to Point Loma and the whole thing. And gosh, I am sad that I've got to fly back to the Pacific Northwest later this afternoon. But, you know, all things must happen in their time. Like this, which is episode 4380 in a collector series.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let the fun begin.

[Luke Burbank]

We talked about this yesterday. Did not get to it. And now it actually was fortunate because we then got an email from listener Ryan with a link to some audio tape of the very people involved in the story we were going to talk about, which the people being Bob Dylan and a guy who's been going through Bob Dylan's trash for many, many years and trying to sort of get Dylan. I don't want to say canceled, but basically this guy has been sort of hating on Bob Dylan for Years did.

[Andrew Walsh]

I just hate you and I hate your ass face.

[Luke Burbank]

And I had no idea he existed as of like, six days ago. And now I'm borderline obsessed with him. But we'll talk about it coming up. And we're gonna talk to this guy. Longest running cobra of the show. Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's not only very demure, but. And get this, I hope you're sitting down. He's also very mindful. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning, Luke. How is the military industrial complex treating you this morning? You left us. I mean, visually, you left us hanging yesterday at the end of the show saying that you're gonna move to San Diego and it's because of the military, which I hope you already got one of those tattoos that a sailor gets with, like an anchor and a heart.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you know that I actually posted and then deleted something from the ascendant social media platform Bluesky yesterday related to the sort of military slash Punisher industrial complex from here in San Diego.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, no. What did you post? I did not know that.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, let me. By the way, don't let me forget to tell you how freaking cool the boats and planes are, but I was. I was wrapping up a little jog yesterday out on the Embarcadero, and I was walking back past the train station, which is so cool here in San Diego, has this giant Santa Fe, you know, like, as in the railway line, the Santa Fe sign on it. And anyway, I was wandering back to the hotel and I went past a place. I'm doing this from memory now because I've deleted the Blue sky post, but I think it's called, like, Protector Brewing. And it's got, like one of those. Some kind of a. I don't even know what you call it, like a. Like a mask that probably they think maybe, you know, Roman soldiers wore or something. I'm sure as popularized in some sort of Jerry Butler film. And it just was. And what the. I took a picture. It was just like.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm sorry, what was the. How was this displayed? I sort of lost that. You said it was a bumper in the back of a car or is a stove.

[Luke Burbank]

No, it was a. It's a store. It's a brick and mortar.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, it's a store. It is the store. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a brewery. It's a. It's a place that you can go and get beer. It's called, like, Protector Brewery.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Sorry. I don't know how I missed that? Okay, gotcha. It's the name of the brewery and it's kind of got this whole theme, this tough guy theme.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, all it has is a sign that says protector and then like their logo is like a, like a copper face shield with like a big dent in it. Like you took a sword to the face, but you're still protecting everyone's beer. It just was like. It just gave me a terrible feeling. The endorphins I was. That were coursing through my brain after my jog were immediately buzz. Immediately killed by this, by this logo and the vibe. And I took a picture of it and I think my. My post was something like, what in the red pilled crossfit adjacent bullshit is this? And I said that with. With no knowledge of what the backstory was of this place, but I didn't need it. I knew it was some ex military bull ass shit and it was. And I, when I, you know, got. I posted that and then some people were responding and there is a thing. Our friend Chris The. The. Chris O'Leary, the. The beer guy, the guy who's had sampled every beer known to man, was like, oh, you might be surprised to know this is all vegan. And I was. It is surprising that it is a vegan thing. But that is. That is the one surprising thing about it. Everything else remains unsurprising, which is started by a veteran who wanted beer in Afghanistan, had to make his own and decided to punish her. Every hop in sight or whatever. Exactly.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sustainably crafted. We only use pure organic ingredients in every batch, Luke.

[Luke Burbank]

Sustainably crafted through profiling people of color.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what, that's what, that's what sustains this brand. But anyway, the reason I took it down was because it was starting to get a lot of activity and you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Got scared of the smoke.

[Luke Burbank]

I really didn't want the smoke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I genuinely did.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was like, that's what's good about us. We don't want the smoke.

[Luke Burbank]

Sometimes that I want the smoke. This was not the smoke. This smoke didn't matter enough to me. Like, I was like, this is going to get back to this guy and his, you know, and his, his friends who think it was okay that somebody ran into somebody on their way to Marjorie Taylor Greene's swatting. And I just don't want to be part of that discourse. And I don't want them coming for me because I just, I had a. I had a spidey sense that it was going to get out of Control fast.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was wondering if you were hearing from the CrossFit people who were just like, wait, how did we take a. How do we catch a. CrossFit is.

[Luke Burbank]

So, so fricking red pill coated. Do you know this? No.

[Andrew Walsh]

Because, you know, my. My kind of knowledge or journey of learning about CrossFit goes way back to kind of when I first moved to Seattle. So we're talking like 2009, 2010. And I had a friend who was really, really into it, but it wasn't. It wasn't quite as popular then because I think she was even. I don't know if she gave one or she pitched the idea of doing like, some sort of one of those local TED talks about, like, how I got involved in this cult and it was like sort of tongue in cheek, but she really, truly loved it. But I don't think it. What maybe it's become now. So my point is, like, I have a friend who doesn't fit into whatever stereotype you're about to describe. She's like the opposite of all of that. So that's not what I think of first when I think of CrossFit.

[Luke Burbank]

And I want to say too, we have a lot of listeners who love CrossFit. And if it's good for you and your body, awesome. And there are so many. They're called boxes, Andrew. Please use the right term. There are so many CrossFit boxes. Although, actually, I don't know if you can legally call it a box if you are not paying dues to CrossFit Inc. Sure. But no, there are. I mean, I did CrossFit in Port Townsend, and I promise you there were no. There were zero guys bringing in some kind of German shepherd, decommissioned German shepherd named, you know, named Trump or whatever. Like, it's not. It's not in every CrossFit gym, is it? A. A very weird, like, sort of law enforcement thing. But there's a heavy component of that in the CrossFit culture now, which is not to say that everyone who does CrossFit is part of that, but it's very like, I promise you, the guy who started Protector Brewing has, at some point done CrossFit. I will. I'd put my entire fortune, Andrew, which right now I think clocks in at around $8,000. I'd put my entire fortune up on the bet that the people that love this Protector Brewery are also many of them interested in CrossFit. But anyway, all that is to say I posted it, it started to get a decent amount of interaction, and then I just got scared. I just was like, I don't, I don't want, I don't want this to become the. I don't want the headline on the New York Post to be CBS Sunday Morning correspondent fired over brewery comments.

[Andrew Walsh]

So instead, you just air it here on dbtl where nobody can.

[Luke Burbank]

This is where no one can. This is honestly where I hide all of my secrets.

[Andrew Walsh]

We're like the smokeless ashtray of podcasts. We just suck up all the smoke and make it desert.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right. Zero smoke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Listen, I literally, for the last 18 hours or so, I have literally debated about whether or not I want to talk about this on the show kind of as a thing, or at least at this.

[Luke Burbank]

If you're worried about this, your comments gaining attention, this is the place.

[Andrew Walsh]

Great. But because you brought it to social media, I feel like maybe that's the universe saying, yeah, let's, let's talk about this for a second. And I know we want to talk about planes and boats in a little bit, too. I'm not trying to steal that away from you conversationally, but for the past, like I say, like the past day or so. Actually, no, I would actually say for the past week or so, ever since I heard that report on NPR about Mark Zuckerberg, like, kind of rolling back, fact checking and everything. I brought it up on the show last week. It just absolutely sort of turns my stomach. I'm seeing in a bunch of different examples like CEOs sort of lapping up. Like, I use this analogy the other day and I don't know if it really works, but I sort of feel like I'm seeing examples of CEOs kind of, almost like, come I'm going to use words that how I think they see the world, not how I see it. Almost like coming up for air and after holding their breath for four years of wokeness or what have you or whatever it's been, I'm just sort of seeing like policies being rolled back from Starbucks, policies that were started because of racial incidents. About five years ago, the Starbucks mentioned they're going to kind of roll back their, their open door policy.

[Luke Burbank]

You have to buy coffee to be. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Which again, like, I don't even want to get into the details of the actual things that these CEOs are doing because maybe some of them are fine on their face. But like, what I'm seeing here, though, in Zuckerberg saying, oh, we went way too far for woke culture and now we're not fact checking anymore because facts are woke or like, what Like, I'm just like. And I'm sort of spinning here on a lot of different levels, but certainly seeing. And then let's not even get into the Bezos shit and the Washington Post shit. And so, like, I'm just, like, kind of in a bad place. And one thing that I think I mentioned here on the show is, like, as far as me engaging with these companies, Starbucks is an easy one for me. I've never been a Starbucks guy, so that's fine. Amazon has been very difficult for me to break alliances with because it's something that I use both for shopping and for watching Super Wildcard games on Super Wild Card Weekend.

[Luke Burbank]

Juice is wild.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm not saying that I'm right in that, but that one's a difficult for one for me. And these I keep on talking about when and if we're going to cancel our prime subscription, but one that should be very easy is just getting off of Instagram. Like, it's not anything I need. I mean, the only. The only aspect in which Instagram is sort of a tool and not a toy for me would be regarding tbtl. Like, John handles almost all of our, like, Instagram posting on behalf of the show. But, you know, we get tagged in things we're supposed to if we no longer want to be the smokeless ashtray of. Of podcasts. Like, I should be probably using social media to trumpet our show more. Like, if I delete my Instagram, I guess I'm. I'm sort of eliminating that tool, sort of. But aside from that, like, mostly it's just a dumb thing that I can post some photos and then get, like an adrenaline jolt when a bunch of people thumbs up it, you know, Like, I don't need that. And so I've been trying. I'm basically. I'm definitely stepping back from Instagram, as if I need to make an announcement. I keep on thinking about that guy, everybody. I am leaving Facebook, I'm leaving this. And I realize I'm being that guy. I'm not. I just. I'm telling you here because I'm struggling with the right way to do it. What I want to do is just totally delete my account, right? And then I was looking. I think there is a way that I can, like, sort of download everything, like a history. Because, I mean, I think I've been using it for about 10 years now. And, you know, like, I. If I scroll back in my Instagram, it's a trip for me. Like, seeing my shots of things I was taking in LA when I first moved down there and was having whatever feelings I was having as a. As a transplant in la and like, it's. It's like a diary in a certain way for me to go back through my Instagram. So I kind of want to say that I also think about connections that I have that are only. That only exist via Instagram now because I'm not on Facebook. And there are people. I can't explain it. A friend of mine who I'm just like, maybe every 10 years we check in somebody that I met at a conference, at a public radio conference a long time ago. That young lady that we gave a ride or. No, she gave us a ride when we were hitchhiking in Denver, Iowa. Denver, Iowa. Weird connections that I have to people that if I delete my account, I will just lose these connections. They're not necessarily like daily connections or strong connections, but they're connections that exist only on this app. And so anyway, what I've done right now is I've taken the. The shortcut off of my phone. I'm probably going to delete the app off of my phone. I'm wondering, like, do I put a little note up there? Like, hey, I want to stay in touch, but I'm not here anymore. Like, here's where you can find me. Here's my TBTL email address and my bluesky account. Just gonna keep on go. Here's my. Here's my Ello account where you can. What about your good conscious?

[Luke Burbank]

What's the new one? Like, red something? Have you heard about this?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, the TikTok replacement, is it red line? It's that. It's like straight read something.

[Luke Burbank]

It's literally owned by China, like actively by the Chinese government.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. And I mean, it isn't the interface, like, doesn't it use, like, Chinese characters?

[Luke Burbank]

I haven't downloaded yet. But, you know, depending on what happens on January 19th with my beloved TikTok, I might give it a shot.

[Andrew Walsh]

Anyway, all of that is to say, like, I feel so extra doing this. It's. I actually did reach out to a couple of people who I'm only friends with on there, but we chat on there a lot and I've said, hey, like, just so you know, like, here's how you can get a hold of me, because I think I'm gonna be. And again, I feel so self conscious. I don't want to be like, everybody, I'm leaving. But I really do want people to. If they go to my Instagram to contact me, I want them to know that I'm not seeing messages there, for starters. And secondly, you're not holding. Yeah. And where they can reach.

[Luke Burbank]

Not more than normal.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right. I'm kind of with holding. So anyway, that's. That's where I am. Maybe it's not worth talking about on the show. Do you have any thoughts on that? What should I do? Should I delete the whole thing? That would feel great, man. It would feel so great just to be like, I'm done. I have no Zuck in my life.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't have my mute button. So try not to say anything else funny for the rest of the show. Always still on the edge of a cough. You know, I. I go back and forth on that because. Whereas when I jumped off of Twitter, that was purely a place where I was going to try to get a certain kind of experience of people approving of me, I don't feel like that is your Instagram feed. I think your Instagram feed is really lovely, and it has a lot of just, like, cool photographs. And it's not political. It's not. I mean, maybe you're going there for the same reason I was going to Twitter, which is you want people to say, good job, space ghosting that Pink Panther episode. But no, I mean, I think your Instagram feed is really nice. And it's like, this is always the issue with things like that, which is, if you delete it, does that meaningfully impact any part of Mark Zuckerberg's life? And the answer is obviously no. But I guess if it gives you a feeling of you've taken back some. I mean, I don't regret the decision to get off of Twitter. So I guess if you use that example, then I'd say go for it. But I would be a little sad if your Instagram feed didn't exist because. And you know what's really weird? Because I have such a. My relationship with Instagram is, you know, as I've said before, it's like my relationship with marijuana. I could go months and not think about it. So therefore, it never even occurs to me to delete Instagram because of Zuckerberg's bullshit, because I just don't. It's not. Whereas with. With musk and Twitter, I, like, I had to delete it because Twitter was, like, critical to my daily feelings about myself. So, you know what I mean? Like, just Instagram doesn't matter enough to me for it to be a political statement for me. But. But. But I will tell you that I did feel good when I got rid of Twitter. So maybe you'll have the same experience, but you should, you should do whatever it. Is that where you can archive it because there's some great photos on there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, thanks. And you know, it's like the, it's. Believe it or not, the photo posting of it is the thing I struggle with the least because, like, this is silly, but the first social media site I think I was ever a part of was Flickr, which is a photo sharing website. And because that's where all of my archives are, I've been paying for a Flickr Pro plan for Flickr Pro. Yeah, it's hard to say.

[Luke Burbank]

You said no more funny things.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, you have to pay for it, otherwise you don't get to keep all your archives. You know, it's been in existence for so long and that's where I was posting things when I was first getting into photography back in, I don't know, 2001 or two. I mean it goes way back. And so like I now I think I'm paying like 80 bucks a year or something for that. Like, why not start?

[Luke Burbank]

It's actually a.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's cracked up, man. It's been because I used to be like, I don't know, I don't know, 20 bucks a year back in.

[Luke Burbank]

Is it possible you're the only person paying for Flickr Pro? They just have to keep jacking the price up. They're like, we can, we need to get 10 more bucks off a Walsh.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I did see that. Like, so it's funny, the community that I built there is talk about a remnant. I mean, it's, er. Is that. That's not the word I'm looking for. I'm sorry, but a remnant of the past maybe is what I was supposed to say there. I'm not sure what I was going for. But like looking back at that is like I had a whole community of people I didn't know. I mean, social media was so new back then and like if I go back, I see these people, I'm like, oh my gosh, that's right. We used to interact just talking photos all the time and you would know if this person didn't like your photo and this person did or whatever and like now it's sort of like proof that, oh yeah, you move on from these things and it's not really that life changing. And also I have a site that I'm paying for where I can still work on my photos and post them and actually maybe even have it be more in a photographer sort of Community. There's also that Cara website, I believe it is. I downloaded that a while back. Some artists put together. I'm looking it up. Yes. C A R A I was telling you about. I have that on my phone as sort of was an Instagram alternative for people who wanted to, I think, move away from Instagram maybe about a year ago or something. And I. I still haven't posted to that, but I feel like, you know, there are other places where I can sort of like build community even more directly related to what I'm doing, which is sharing photos. Like, Instagram isn't really about sharing photos anymore. It's about showing off your life, I feel like, and staying in touch with people. And I don't really use.

[Luke Burbank]

It's about not fact checking.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's about not fact checking. Like, I don't even really use Instagram the way it's supposed to be used. So anyway, all of that is to say I'm kind of fine moving away from that. Like, I don't have as many friends or followers over there. So, yeah, I'll lose some of that dopamine of posting a photo and literally, like, maybe one person liking it or something, but that's fine. To me, it's just like that what I want to do is just totally clean slate it and just delete Instagram and pretend like I had never been there. But for me, it's just kind of like, yeah, but what about that? What about that person that I'm not even thinking of right now, who I will just see post something maybe three months from now on Instagram and be like, oh, yeah, that's right, I know this person. If I delete that, that relationship I feel like totally disappears.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, this is an official statement with peace and love that if you have been interacting with Andrew on Instagram and suddenly he goes radio silent, it's not you, it's Zuckerberg.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's Zuckerberg. And you can email me at andrewtbtl.net send me all of his split.net all of the photos of your family. Ew. Weird talk about planes and boats.

[Luke Burbank]

Why are you deciding to be the most funny?

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm not on episode. The thing is, I'm. You're not. It's better when you laugh with me. I feel like a lot of this is laughing at me, but that's okay. Thank you for being a Tam.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, let's thank some donors. These are the wonderful, generous people who are making TBTL happen with their donation and we very much appreciate it. No Donations, no show, no money. No honey. It's my new catchphrase.

[Andrew Walsh]

I like that. Just come up with that now.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought we broke up there for a minute. I didn't get the peels of laughter I was expecting.

[Andrew Walsh]

You thought we broke up as podcasting partners or just you thought the line broke up?

[Luke Burbank]

All of it. I thought the line broke up and our friendship and our business relationship had all crumbled under the weight of that joke by me. Thankfully, Brian J. Kirk of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania loves it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, thank you, Brian. Appreciate us talking about your fair city yesterday evening with a friend and how great it is and how great Brian is, too.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, he's really the kind of one of the number one draws of Philadelphia. There was something. Yeah, there was something the other day. Well, first I told you, I listened to it's not Philadelphia. And in fact, you know, folks in other parts of Pennsylvania will tell you that there's sort of like, there's Philly and then there's like kind of everything else in Pennsylvania. But yeah, we listen to that Concrete City podcast, which is in Donora, Pennsylvania, which, again, if you're somebody who just really needs to hear a brutal, like, western Pennsylvania, everywhere outside of Philly accent, Delaware County, Delco county, mayor of Easttown accent. If you need that in your life, listen to Concrete City. It's amazing. But there was something else the other day that was deeply Philadelphia centric. Oh, you know what it was? It was this Pushkin podcast that I'm listening to, hosted by Jake Halpern. It's called Deep Cover, and it was about an unsolved crime in Philadelphia. There was a lot of good Philly references going on. Now, here's if I can ask you this, Andrew. Jake Halpern, who I looked him up. He went to, like, Yale. He's a very, you know, classy individual, very smart person. By the way, I think there's a Zumwalt class naval ship coming in right now, and it is incredible. It's breathtaking, Andrew. Absolutely breathtaking.

[Andrew Walsh]

You have a view of the water there.

[Luke Burbank]

I do. I have a view of. This is what I wanted to tell you about yesterday and today, but we got sidetracked on Zuck Talk on the de Zuck ification of Andrew's life. Anyway, Jake Halperin is a very smart person, but he said it's impossible. He was talking about something in his script in this podcast, and he said it's impossible to underscore the importance of this. And I spent the rest of my drive trying to figure out is that. That seems wrong to me. Right. It's impossible to underscore, isn't it? It's impossible to overstate. Like, he was trying to make the point that something was very important or something was very. It was a real thing. And you sort of. You can't overstate how real of a thing this is. He said, it's impossible to underscore how hurtful this was for the family or whatever.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't like that.

[Luke Burbank]

What does that mean? I don't either. How did it make it through Jake Halpern's Yale educated brain and through the editors at Pushkin and past Malcolm Gladwell apparently hasn't done 10,000 hours on reading sentences.

[Andrew Walsh]

I like him editing the script of every podcast that leaves Pushkin. And literally, they're typewritten pages, and he's got a pencil and a red pen.

[Luke Burbank]

I would honestly believe it if that was. That's how mythical Gladwell is at this point. But then it made it through Gladwell and it made it onto the podcast and through the Aux cable, into my stereo, in my car, and into my ears, and it made me mad. Yeah. So is there a universe in which I cannot underscore? He was saying, basically, I cannot emphasize enough.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I think you could say you cannot underscore enough. I still don't love that. But if the word enough is in there, then it's exactly like what you just said. Underscoring. Underscoring.

[Luke Burbank]

Underscoring means underlying. Underlining.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it's like emphasizing it, like, because I think that that's something that I say a lot. Like, I really want to underscore this here. I do not get Flickr for free. I am a Flickr pro subscriber. I really want to underscore that point.

[Luke Burbank]

One piece of content you don't pirate.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right? Exactly. I pay $80 for a website I.

[Luke Burbank]

Don'T use yearly from the NFL Network to pay James Flicker.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

How great would it be if Flickr was actually a family name and they just dropped the E at Ellis island and then.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then that set the stage for every single Internet company to follow. There's like, oh, I guess we're dropping vowels now. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Even though it's just. It was just an old family name.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right, Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Anyway, I. You know what? I think part of the problem here is, is I don't think until this conversation that I really fully grasped that underscore just means underline, or it means what I think of as underline, because.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I think that's. I think Emphasize.

[Luke Burbank]

So to emphasize. But I think the word under has been confus me for many years.

[Andrew Walsh]

So now are we swinging? Like, I feel like the way you said that sentence, at first I didn't like the way they were using underscore, but if they said enough, well, then I'm on. I'm back on board with Pushkin. I can't underscore enough how important this conversation is not.

[Luke Burbank]

The problem is I'm paraphrasing, I'm doing, I'm doing this from memory, so I can't say with any certitude if he said enough in the sentence and I'm good. You know what I'm going to go with, I'm gonna go with Jake Halperin and his Yale education and assume that he and Gladwell, you know, pouring over the scripts to all of the Pushkin podcasts, the typed out scripts. I'm gonna go with. They probably know what they're saying and it's probably the fact that I just, I really don't think I ever understood that underscore just means underline. If they, if people would just say underline instead of underscore, then, then I would, I'd probably have a better understanding of what was going on.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a good point. I've never used it in that way. I can't underline enough. That seems like it lacks some gravitas.

[Luke Burbank]

Andrew, I have to tell you something insane. I'm not saying that I'm distracted while we're doing the podcast, but I will tell you that before we started, I was signing up for some new bullshit that you need to go to England if you are from a country that doesn't need a visa.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's right. Because you're, you're heading over there for work in the next month or so.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, for actually a story related to what I was doing here in San Diego night. But I had started that process. Then I stopped because we were doing the show and then I just looked down and realized by some bizarre thing, it was in a mode, this application for England, like the nation or the United Kingdom or whatever. It was in a mode where it was just voice to texting. So everything I've been saying to you for the last 30 minutes was just going into my application for my temporary visa to visit England.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can you just randomly read some of it? Can you just go into the middle?

[Luke Burbank]

Because I stupidly, I. I stupidly paged away from it and now it's, it's. Now it's not doing it anymore.

[Andrew Walsh]

Doing It. I'm sorry, Brian. Brian Kirk. I know, Brian.

[Luke Burbank]

This was going to be one of the best donor segments ever. Yeah, the, the thing is called UK ETA is the. The is the, the thing that I have to do. Anyway, thanks, Brian. We really appreciate you. Thanks also to Amber Scrint in Cairo, Michigan.

[Andrew Walsh]

C A R O. So close. Speaking of web names, what was that app I just mentioned, Kara? C A R A. This is different though. This is Caro, Michigan.

[Luke Burbank]

It is beautiful. Not to be confused with Care. Care, Illinois. Right. There's a Cairo, Illinois that I believe is. Is spelled like Cairo, like the, the place in Egypt.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, but it's pronounced Cairo. I did not go with Cairo.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, man. Got some huge. I think those are Huey's coming in.

[Andrew Walsh]

Those are airplanes.

[Luke Burbank]

Those are helicopters.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, helicopters, sure. I should have known that.

[Luke Burbank]

Big old. Come on, Andrew. Big old Huey. I cannot underline enough how into these military vehicles I am.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can I ask you a question? Would you be able to fly in a helic and have your legs hanging out the side of it like in those Vietnam movies? We were just watching Thunder the other day and I was like, I wouldn't be able to do that either. Either as an army man or as a movie man, I would not be able to do that.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, it's one of those things that if you ask me as I'm sitting here in the safety of my hotel room, I would say absolutely, but I haven't actually tried to do it. And I was thinking about this the other day because I was watching there's, you know, on TikTok on the descendant social media platform TikTok, there was somebody who was doing these like BASE jumping things, but like somebody in like, you know, Arizona or whatever who you can go, you can pay them and then you will tandem based BASE jump with them. So you, you know, are attached to them. You don't have to know anything about BASE jumping. You just have to walk to the edge of this like insane canyon. And then the guy who's got of course, like a selfie stick, the guy who's in charge of the BASE jump has a whole patter that he does about like, you know, you know, okay, just breathe and relax and like you got this and whatever. And then they jump and then, you know, he throws the parachute. He's. Apparently everyone survived because these videos are going onto the Internet. So I assume that this is. So far it's working. But what's interesting about it is you get a really, really sort of front row seat to what? Absolutely. Paralyzing human fear looks like. Because most of the videos of people base jumping and skydiving and doing all these sort of quote unquote, adrenaline junkie kind of things, it's from the perspective of a person who's done it a million times, and they're pretty hyped about it. And they're usually wearing a camera that's facing out from their helmet like a GoPro. This is a camera that's pointing back. This is a souvenir. This is a memento of the experience for a guy who is very possibly evacuating his bladder.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Out of, like, what. What the. What the basic thing is, is every person who gets to the edge, you can see on their face that if the guy doing the tandem bass jump offered them the opportunity to not do this at double the price they've already.

[Andrew Walsh]

Paid to do it. That's a business model, man.

[Luke Burbank]

That's. Honestly, that's like, you know, like a Frisbee. You sell them the invisible string, you sell them the BASE jump, and then for double, you sell them the not doing the bass jump. Because everyone. It's all fun and games until you're standing on the edge of that canyon. And. And again, you're not an adrenaline junkie. You're. You're an aspiring adrenaline junkie. You're not some guy who's jumping off of the, you know, whatever Burj Khalifa towers in Dubai or something, you know, who climbed up the side of it and then jumped off and spent most.

[Andrew Walsh]

Of your life sort of probably like, elevating up the challenges, Right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, exactly. You are a civilian who probably had two glasses of wine and decided to radically change your life, went online and signed up for some sort of tandem base jumping. And it is so apparent what the difference is between those folks and the people who, like, get off on this kind of stuff is. And anyway, so it's really changed my opinion of myself, actually, and kind of like how I think about my. My. My ability to do things. I now think about it when it's like a mascot at an NFL game is bungee jumping off of the edge of Lincoln, whatever field and back to Philadelphia. What up, Brian J. Kirk? Like, there was a thing the other day that was like, the mascot for the Eagles, I think, or something. Just like, not just repelling, but, like, doing a crazy, you know, like a. Not. How do I describe this? Basically, like, with a climbing rope on the roof of the, like, football field, jumping, and then the climbing rope just catching him and him kind of swinging or whatever. And it was like, I've seen this kind of stuff a million times. It never occurred to me until I started watching these TikTok videos of the space jumping how terrified that eagle might have been. Like, he probably said, yeah, I'll do that. That'll be a cool photo op. And then there must have been a moment when he got up there and he was like, I don't, I can't, I don't. Please can I go down? How much? I'll pay you double. What are you paying me $8 an hour to be this eagle? I'll pay you $16 an hour for me to not do this. Like, I have a new appreciation for how scary shit really is. By which I mean I don't know if I could hang my feet out of the helicopter or not.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I am petrified of height. So there's not even a part of me that sort of things like, oh, maybe I could get through this. Like, I think of quick aside, I think of that story you did. You have to climb the world's tallest tree. I'm totally wrong about that. But you were way, way, way up in a tree.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, like a probably 300 foot tree or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And so, I mean that's something that you did in the past couple of years. And so like you were able to confront that.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not saying terrifying.

[Andrew Walsh]

You were terrified, but you were able to do it. And my guess is if they told you you need to do it again, you would. Whereas that would just be a non starter for me. The thing about my fear of heights. And we'll get back to the donors in just a second.

[Luke Burbank]

Everybody, just Janice Bowers of Tucson, Arizona. Thank you, Janice holding horses.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you for your patience with me. One of the things that triggers my fear of heights is the mundane details that are associated with the heights. Let me try to explain. I'm going to give you one example that I'm going to ask you to. And the listeners could do this as well. And this is a good way for us to bump up our website numbers. I don't really know what website numbers are, but if you go to tbtl.net and look, I am asking you to do this unless you think it will destroy our, our Internet connection that we're talking down. If you go to tbtl.net and you look at our recent episodes and you're gonna have to click back, you're gonna go back to last week, you're gonna look at the episode from January 6th and it's called A Steamboat Popeye which wasn't my best work. We had already used a steamboat joke in a headline not all that long ago, my ap. But if you look at the show picture for that day, it was the scene that I was trying to describe for you. From the Pop Tart.

[Luke Burbank]

Of the Pop Tart.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. And so what you're seeing in that photo, this is like a still image that I clipped from a video off of like Twitter or something. You see like kind of a massacred looking pop Tart mascot with a real human being in there. But they are standing on top of what I believe to be the jumbotron. You don't really see the jumbotron, you just see the great.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, interesting that. Never think about the jumbotron being as wide as that.

[Andrew Walsh]

As wide as that. And what you're not seeing there, because I had to crop it to fit the website, is you can sort of see that there's a cable attached to that mascot. And right outside of the frame that you can't see, there is a person who's sort of crouching and sort of minding the mascot up there, who's also strapped in, but then also holding the mascot's strap. And you can see far, far, far below the football field and the fans who just ants, you know. And this photo makes my hands sweat. And there's something about. There's something about like the seeing of the other person up there. It's like seeing the straps up there, the mundane details of just seeing the straps up there that makes it so real to me. Do you remember you and I were at a Mariners game years ago? We were there doing work. We were interviewing people about hot dogs. And then we got.

[Luke Burbank]

We were roaming the stands.

[Andrew Walsh]

We got sick of interviewing people. So we said, how about we just eat hot dogs way, way up in the. So you and I went up to like the, like whatever the highest level is, way out by right field, I believe. And we were sitting next to the right field pole. And I don't know if you remember, but I had a little. Maybe I kept it to myself, although that's not really my style. I had a little minor freak out of heights up there. And part of it wasn't looking down at the field, it was looking up at the top of the foul pole and how close we were to it. It was like, I know this thing is way up in the sky and I can see the of it and now I'm evacuating my bowels. And that was just at a. That was at a. In a seat at A baseball game. Like, there's something about, like, seeing the. I don't know, the. The small details of things that, like, freak me out and really trigger my fear of heights.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it's funny because at first when I saw. I'm looking at this photo, Steamboat Popeye, and I'm thinking, like, do we really need. Do we really need, like, a safety line on this pop tart? And then I'm like. Like, we do. We're sending a person up to a. A height that they would die if they fell off of, and then we're putting them inside of a foam costume with limited.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't even see eye holes. I don't even know where they're looking at.

[Luke Burbank]

If there's anybody who needs to be tethered, it's this person who's playing this pop Tart. That's actually. That's a. That's an extra layer of terror, is that you're not just up there, but you're up there in a suit that you can't see out of.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I don't know what's going on with those shoes that they're wearing, but those look like a tripping hazard.

[Luke Burbank]

Mm. It looks like. Oh, I see. Just because of the photo. I thought they had one legging on, but not the other. But that's just the lighting. Yeah, the lighting got yellow legging on. Anyway, this is all stuff that Janice Bowers of Tucson, Arizona, can't get enough of. As can't. I'm the grammar police when it comes to Jake Halpern, but I like to make. I like to make up sentences. I go along. This is Janice Bowers. Can't get enough of this. As can't. Kelly Kilburn, my friend Kelly Kilburn.

[Andrew Walsh]

How do you know Kelly?

[Luke Burbank]

Longtime friend. Wonderful person. Mother. Friend to my daughter. Quasi mother to my daughter. Good old Kelly Kilburn. Thanks, Kelly. Really appreciate you. Nice to see you on this list as it is, as well as there once was Bobby Smolinski of Seattle. As also is Bobby. And also with you, Andrew, I can't.

[Andrew Walsh]

Boldface enough how much your support means to us. Bobby Smolinski, Another. Another familiar name. Longtime donor of the show. Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

Appreciate you, Bob and Rachel Criswell of Mount Vernon. And me means Maine, right? Maine.

[Andrew Walsh]

Me means Maine. Yes. Or it means that you won an award for your work on television. That's another thing that Emmy means.

[Luke Burbank]

Or it means. Well, I was about to give away too much information about my email address, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, let me just say, be careful there.

[Luke Burbank]

Let Me just. Let me just say that I have a personal email address that is related to a particular service that rebranded itself as me at some point. And I've always hated that. I did not sign up to be me. But what happens is when people receive my email address, my emails from my other account, it'll just come in as the address and then.me or.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I thought the whole me thing, because I don't use that address for you. I don't know what it looks like when you get it. I thought the whole me thing was some service that was created a long time ago where if you had several different email addresses, you could input them all into me and they all come in through kind of one hose or something like that. Although as I say it out loud, I'm not exactly sure what the benefit is. Oh, I think it's because you might have a bunch of stray email addresses, but you can get all of your email in one place.

[Luke Burbank]

This is an Apple product, unfortunately. So, like, I signed up in the days of Mac and. And at some point they decided to try to do this kind of global thing of me. So I think somehow cloud related, I don't know, but it feels extremely braggadocious. I don't. I don't like my email address. That email address ending in me. Yeah, letters me. But. But like, for instance, on this shoot that we were doing last night, the producer was putting together the call sheet of all the people associated with this. That would be the camera person, the sound person, and then they were listing all the emails and contact info. And it was like my particular email address.me. and it just, it sent a shudder through my system. But it's because when I've emailed with this producer, that's what they're seeing in their inbox. And I don't like it at all. And I'm always trying to change it, but it's actually led to some problems in the past because sometimes if that gets logged in as the thing, if that gets somehow inputted or imputed into the system as my email address, I'll be like, trying to sign into something. I'll be like, why is this being so crazy? And it's like, because I'm not using the me version of my email address.

[Andrew Walsh]

So. Podcast Daddy420podcast. Oh, that's why you're not getting my emails resend you?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, among other reasons, yes. Thank you to all of our donors for making TBTL happen. We really do appreciate you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, I'll Just say it quickly because I'm not going to be in San Diego much longer. But Andrew, the view that I have from this hotel, which by the way is pitched as in the Gas lamp, which is kind of like the district that has a lot of bars. And like, we used to go to a place called Moose McGillicuddies down here back in the day when my buddy JJ would come to San Diego a lot. It's kind of the like party district of San Diego that's allegedly where this hotel is. But really, at least if you're on the floor that I am, you have an incredible view of the bay and the naval installation and Point Loma and what is going on as I sit here and try to co host this podcast with you, you is just a cavalcade of the coolest both naval ships and also naval aircraft. I'm talking like Harrier jump jet style things. Stuff where it's not actually a Harrier jump jet, but some other propeller aircraft where the propellers rotate, if that makes any sense. Like the propellers are on the wing. So this is something that can take off.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, I know from like a.

[Luke Burbank]

Sitting position it can go. It's. It's got rotors like a helicopter, but it's an airplane.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I don't think I had it, but somebody had a GI Joe toy like that, I think, in my life growing up.

[Luke Burbank]

And they're just like landing left and right, plus all of these like, insane. Not just like your standard, you know, think about a naval ship, whether it's an aircraft carrier or whatever. It's like these small, super fast. I mean, relatively super small, super fast. Like, I don't know what they are. Some kind of a thing that, like, if the Navy had to like get somewhere really quick but also shoot people, they would take this boat. These things are just racing around in this bay in front of me, as behind them, these crazy airplanes that have rotating propellers are just landing left and right. As I'm looking right now at a Chinook helicopter, another helicopter reference, a Chinook helicopter that's just cruising through. It's all of the stuff that, like, I would go to like an air show or. They don't really do naval water shows, do they? Anyway, I would go watch this stuff. I would go pay money to just like sit around and like geek out on this. And it's just constantly happening in front of me. And all I can think is, if I lived here, I'd be home now.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's funny how much you love the machinery but hate the culture Like, I don't know if they're. I mean, I'm. I'm exactly the one that almost caught.

[Luke Burbank]

The smoke over protecting.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, I love, I love that stuff as well. I mean, I'm. I share your feelings on both sides of that, but yours are so intense on both sides of that. I wonder if you're the person in the universe who, who most loves one aspect of military culture. I might hate the other. The extremes.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not a history guy per se. Like, I don't geek out on like, you know, World War II documentaries or whatever. Like I couldn't tell you the name clearly of any of these things like that. My fan, my sort of, what's the word I'm looking for. My interest in them does not go deep enough that I can tell you anything about them other than when I see them in action. I am reduced to being a five year old child. And it's just a constant. Like, you know, where I live there, for some reason, maybe they just want to follow the Columbia river or something. There's like a lot of military helicopters that fly by, I'd say every day. There are probably at least four big, like, I don't know if they're Hueys or Chinooks, but big military helicopters. And every time I hear them in the distance, unless we're doing the show, I run out onto my porch and I stare at them. And I will do that until the day I die. It's like me with the Blue Angels. Like I. But that's just like a couple times a day. And it's just those helicopters. If I lived here, Andrew, and I could just watch these crazy rotating propeller airplanes. And also everything's landing at a crazy angle too, because I think maybe there's not a ton of Runway or something. So they're kind of like dive bombing in, which is even more exciting. And then again with the boats and they're racing around. I feel like this is what the Columbia river needs more of. And if we can get a military installation in Calama, I think I could bring together all of my interests, which includes staring at military stuff.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, we have a new governor coming in. Maybe Ferguson can make some significant changes.

[Luke Burbank]

I didn't know he was a chess prodigy. Did you know that until today, sir?

[Andrew Walsh]

I did know that, only recently. This is how I talk now too, as I try to think. Somebody just told me that recently, before today, but in the recent past. I want to give you some good news and some worse news here though, regarding something we were just talking about. It has to do with Moose McGillicuddy's Pub and Cafe there. First of all, it is closed. That is the bad news. It's permanently closed. The worst news is the reviews. And this is going to be a ride. So first of all, two stars on Yelp to achieve a two star. Like to be a place, by the.

[Luke Burbank]

Way, as a place that caters to college students who literally won't remember they were there.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is the very top comment. I don't know how it floated to the top. And this is gonna use some language that we were just talking about earlier this week or late last week on the show about language that I try not to use anymore. But this is. Somebody in Pasadena posted this. Somebody who goes by the name C. T wrote.

[Luke Burbank]

But they go down to this is the Moose McGillicuddies and the gas Lamp in San Diego.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. So I'm assuming this person was visiting and they wrote more like Douchebag McNasties. It was probably a mistake.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, they saw me there.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was probably a mistake to do anything other than drink Mooses. But it was late and food was needed. Too bad. They brought us nasty meat between two pieces of bread. Apparently the place turns into a dance club on Wednesday nights for the kids. They offer $1 drafts of domestics, which really brings all the girlies with their tramp stamps or Alabama license plates, if you prefer. I don't know if that is. Is that a slang term?

[Luke Burbank]

I've never heard that before. I hope to never hear it again now.

[Andrew Walsh]

I feel like I'm in very dangerous waters here reading these cold. Nicole wrote way back in 2008 when here. Two stars for Nicole, by the way. Not one star. Two stars. Went here during my bachelorette party in the Gas Lamp. Even though I was drunk, I thought this place was dirty. A friend of mine likes to go dancing here. Let's see. This is exactly what you just said. Tony P. Says Tony with an I. By the way, I do not remember much of this place. I was at Bourbon street before I came, but not a fan. I had been drinking Gino.

[Luke Burbank]

What I don't remember about it. I don't like it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Looks like a lot of people are complaining about sort of like shifty servers who would like bring extra. Let's see here. Wes wrote way back in 2008. Yes. I actually went to a place called Moose McGillicuddies. I'm usually the last guy in the group who wants to go to a cheesy sports pub. But we had nothing to do on a Saturday afternoon. I think that's interesting. And they had 22 glasses of Guinness or whatever. The waitress tried to pull a fast one on us when we asked for the check. She brought us one last round of drinks claiming we had asked for them. Them. Anyway, so it goes on from there. But yes, it's lasting legacy is a two star rating as it is just a ghost frigate here on Yelp, if I'm remembering right.

[Luke Burbank]

And I could be, I could be mixing things up because. So this was my buddy JJ who I met in college at the University of Washington. He was a year ahead of me, but he was from San Diego originally. And so when he graduated he moved back to like La Jolla or something. And so I came down to visit him a couple of times. And if I remember right, there was something you could buy at Moose McGillicuddies called a boomba, which really seems on brand. And a boomba was like, it was like a mug that held like three beers worth of beer. And I think it was, you know, it was all about ROI at that. I mean, this was the same guy that I drove. We drove to Vegas once with no hotel room booked and no money for a hotel room. We drove, drove to Vegas in his car and then just played two dollar blackjack at O'Shea's for like a day and a half and then got back in the car and drove back to. I think at that time he was living in Pasadena. But anyway, I. So we never had a lot of money in those days. And so I think the draw of Moose McGillicuddies was the Boomba, which was like three beers for the price of one or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

Portea T from Oakland really wanted to give it two stars, but couldn't quite do that. Here's the first line of one and a half. Gross. I was just going to give this place two stars since the service was good and my appetizer was okay. But the sickness me and the partner felt all night after the meal demotes it down to a one star review.

[Luke Burbank]

Huh? I mean, listen, I don't want to blame the victim, but I'm just saying you're going. I'm trying to understand the sort of person who goes to a place called Moose McGillicuddies and then is let down by the experience. What were you thinking it was going to be like? I mean, you know, the server, if a server is trying. Although by the way, I side with the server on that other one. If they had 22 Guinnesses. And then their point is that the server tried to wait.

[Andrew Walsh]

The server Tried to, I think. I'm sorry, that's on me. I was reading. I was scanning two different reviews. I don't think that was the same review. And I. I think they were talking about how many Guinnesses that they were marketing or something like that. I don't think that somebody said they had.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I see, 20 wrong about that Guinness or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

Although I don't know that that makes sense. Whatever. That was me misspeaking, I believe.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, but the point of that review was the server tried to pull a fast one by bringing us an extra round that we didn't order. Sir, do you understand how bartending and serving works? So this person, what, did the work of bringing you extra drinks to possibly catch, what, an extra tip from 20% of the round that they had to carry out to you? Like, they're not paid on volume. Like, that person's entire story is falling apart for me. Like, there are a million scams you could run as a server, bringing out an extra round and then arguing with the possibly drunk people who said, we didn't order that. Like the worst scam ever. Because you have done the work of serving, of carrying the beers to these people. It's like the worst way to get extra money off of them.

[Andrew Walsh]

I would. I would maybe agree with you if that was an outlier. But like, all of, like every review is just terrible service. Either couldn't get their attention or their. The kind of similar stories of some sort of chicanery. I do like this one. And this will be the last one. This is not. Not. This is not reflective of the. Of the servers, so you don't have to defend them. This is from Denise B. Who says, if you want to meet a Marine, then this is your place. Other than that, I would avoid the place packed full of Marines. Nothing against them, they protect us. But a whole place packed with them and not much else. Marines and their groupies. Since I'm neither, you will hopefully never find me here. Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

I'll be at Protector Brewing, coincidentally, just down the street. All I'm trying to say, Andrew, is I really, really, really like looking at these. I may go. If they ever reanimate Moose McGillicuddies, I may go to it to meet some Marines to ask me if. To ask them if they'll let me ride on one of these cool helicopter planes that I keep watching. I'm just.

[Andrew Walsh]

What you need to do is you need to start. And I know that. I think Kucinich wanted to do this. Well, he wanted to start a. He wanted to start a department of peace. What I was gonna say was, you need to create something. You need to pitch this a peace force. Something that lets you fly around in these airplane. Helicopter things, but for moral reasons that are not. That are. That are not the spread peace military. Yeah, you got to spread peace, but you have to spread peace using ships and planes and maintenance.

[Luke Burbank]

The problem is Those helicopters are $1,000aminute it. To operate.

[Andrew Walsh]

They are.

[Luke Burbank]

And there's no money in peace.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's very little. There is very little money in peace. That is true.

[Luke Burbank]

That's. I mean, because, you know, because it's a theme of the week so far. Not to get overly serious, but it's like, you know, they're doing this confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth, and, I mean, the guy is very clearly unfit for the job of secretary of defense. Very unfit for the job job. But part of his whole. I get allegedly, whatever his pitch or something is, like, I'm going to come in and I'm going to, like, I'm going to trim spending and bring. I mean, the problem is every organization that he's ever been in charge of has gone into bankruptcy, and he also appears to have an alcohol problem and also is a sex pest. We'll just use a cute term for it. Guy's got a lot of problems. But I don't actually disagree with the idea of slashing the military budget. You know, like, slap. Cut it in half, and then, you know what, Use a quarter of the money that you just saved for benefits for veterans. Like, let's. Let's. Let's fire half of them, and let's give them all good health care to deal with their ptsd, you know, but, like, I'm just watching. I mean, I'm both obsessed with this stuff, as you can hear in my voice, and I cannot stop thinking about the dollar signs. I mean, what I'm watching are people just learning how to, like, fly these. These things and. And run these ships and all this. And it's probably in the hour that we've been doing the show, I have probably observed, I want to say, $100,000 of just, like, fuel and, you know, man hours and you name it. Like, I just. I just watched 100. Maybe that's low, too. Like $100,000 of training for us, you know, to. I don't know what. But it's like. So it's weird because I do not think that guy Pete Hegseth has any business getting anywhere near this confirmation, but give me a different dude who wants to Go in and slash the budget. I'm kind of all for it.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm trying to think what my peace tank would shoot and I all I'm getting stuck on rainbows. I maybe kush them because that's just too. I think rainbows is just an idea. I don't. I mean, do they just literally shoot light? I like koosh balls though. Also would be a boon to the failing kooshball industry.

[Luke Burbank]

Finally. Honestly, it's been. The koosh ball industry has been looking for a lifeline for years. I think about this would bring back the koosh belt. Hollowed out parts of Phoenix, Arizona.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, the thing about the koosh belt was it was always hard to define because it would sort of stretch. Did you remember because did you have a koosh ball or is it, you know, don't give me one of these, like. Well, my parents had to buy me an off brand koosh ball and a kirsch ball. I had a kersch ball.

[Luke Burbank]

I had a legit Andrew. I had a legit koosh ball and it was a big thing in my life.

[Andrew Walsh]

Do you remember discovering that there were little loops in there? Because I remember seeing a koosh ball and just thought, oh, it's like this, like rubber ball. But then remember there were little loops that you could find and you could hang it off your finger almost like a yo, yo.

[Luke Burbank]

I do remember, I think delving into the, into the, the gutty works of the koosh ball. What?

[Andrew Walsh]

What?

[Luke Burbank]

When I got into the koosh ball was around the same time that I was making a real attempt at hacky sacking.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really?

[Luke Burbank]

I had a friend. Yeah, I had a friend named Ben McGow who was really into hacky sack. Actually, you know, I had a couple friends and like, listen, hacky sack is.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's.

[Luke Burbank]

It's come in for a lot of, you know, a lot of criticism and a lot of people making fun of it. And it is kind of silly looking, but it's also actually, it's so fun. If you're into it. I could do like, I could really do some hacky sack moves. You. I could catch it and then kind of squat down and then jump up and it falls between your legs and then you kind of thwack it with your foot behind your other leg. I was like, pretty into it. And at the same time there was a kind of a community of people that were doing hacky sack moves, but with a koosh ball.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

And so I was really into like basically hacking the koosh. That's not A. Okay, we have a. That was not the phrase as I said it. I could hear it going onto the Internet. But. But my big thing, and I know I've told this story many times on the show, was we went to Astoria, Oregon, once as a family when I was in my real intense Koosh ball obsession. It also helped that they were like six bucks or something. Like, it was. It was very attainable. I did not need a kirsch ball. I could go out and with my own money, buy a legitimate koosh ball. But I had my. I think it was my sister Liz. I had her go up to the top of the Astoria column, which is this. I mean, it's pro. I don't know. It's probably like 150ft high. It seemed very tall at the time. And there was an observation deck at the top of this thing, the Astoria column. And I had her throw my koosh ball off of the Astoria column. And then when it came down, I hackied it. Oh. And it was actually perfect for that because it was extremely non aerodynamic. Like, I do not think a koosh ball can achieve terminal velocity. Like, a koosh ball's terminal velocity is like four miles an hour. Like, you could. You could drop a kooshball off of the space station, and by the time it lands in Tampa, it's going maybe four miles an hour, tops. But I remember being so excited, and I think there's even a photo of me hacky sacking this koosh ball.

[Andrew Walsh]

That was my question. I mean, if you did that today, of course somebody would be filming it on their camera or on their phone, I should say. And now. But this was the 90s. You just did it for the thrill.

[Luke Burbank]

I do think Walt might have documented it, because I have a specific memory of the outfit that I was wearing. I was very into this, like, Zebra Club sweatshirt, and then these red gym shorts that were actually. They were like the gym shorts you had to wear when you went to Jesus Creek for gym class. But I just liked them, and they matched my Zebra Club sweatshirt. And then I was wearing some Adidas Torsion tennis shoes. I don't know if you remember this, but there was a period of time where Adidas big play. They were like, okay, Nike has air and Reebok has the pump. But what we're gonna have is a plastic bar that's embedded in the kind of like the sole of the shoe. So it kind of runs from the top of your foot to the base of your foot.

[Andrew Walsh]

We're gonna have nails. We're have Nails that come up through the rubber sole of the shoe. Shoe.

[Luke Burbank]

And this is. We're going to call this the Torsion bar. And this is going to somehow make this shoe superior for athletic endeavors. And what I remember about that was they sold them at Chubby and Tubby. They must have been cheaper than the Nikes, because I got the Adidas Torsion bar shoes. And there is a picture of me somewhere. I can ask Walt if, because he is the keeper of all the photos, if he's not putting up a parking sign in a mall in Bellevue right now. I can see if I can get him to send me this photo because I can remember it vividly. But I believe. Anyway, I'm wearing these Adidas Torsion shoes, a Zebra Club sweatshirt, these red, like, sweatshirts. And I'm. I'm hacky sacking a Koosh at the Astoria column.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm looking for my old Koosh. I know I had a purple and blue Koosh. I think I got it for Christmas one year. I found one online that looks exactly like it, but it looks like this is a Koosh middle. And there was nothing. Not to sound braggadocious myself, but there was nothing mini about my Koosh. Boy, these shoes are really terrible. I know. In such small torsions. I'm working on. I'm working.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that another review of Mushmagillicities?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know what I'm doing there.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought you were actually looking up the Adidas Torsion.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I was trying to like, take that. Is it an old Woody Allen joke or something? The food?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it's like, you know, it's like the. Yeah, the. The. Yeah, the soup is bad.

[Andrew Walsh]

I heard Torsion. I wanted to do something with it.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, your mind went to portion.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Don't know that I made the right programming decision there.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm busy texting my dad about these photos. I'm good.

[Andrew Walsh]

You do that. And if we have time, I don't know what else we have to cover. Oh, we never even.

[Luke Burbank]

We didn't get to.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can we.

[Luke Burbank]

Can we do Bob Dylan tomorrow? Actually, you know what? I want to actually, I want to port the audio over to my real system at home. It'll be better. And I'm going to. I also want to listen to. So listener Ryan hipped us to some audio tape of Bob Dylan and this guy that we were going to tell you about. And one of the. One of the recordings is 41 minutes long. And I'm going to be honest with you. I listened to like 15 minutes of it, and I was riveted. And then I had to stop and come do the show with you. So I actually want to listen to the entire 41 minutes and try to pick out some choice bits.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's good. I'll try to do that too. Yeah, I saw that email come in, and I forgot to listen yesterday. I did want to ask you this. I don't know what your time is like today because it's a travel day for you. We could save this for tomorrow as well if you want, But I do have a voicemail that I'm very eager to play for you. Do we have time today, or do we hold that?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, no, we got time today.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm stalling for Walt to send me these photos anyway.

[Andrew Walsh]

Great. Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man.

[Luke Burbank]

It's not from a female.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right, here's a voicemail for you, Luke. And I know this is. This is an email that speaks to one of my obsessions, which, of course, is garbage and people throwing dog poop in my empty garbage bins on garbage day or whatever, and how I have a problem with that. This, though I am fascinated by this interaction that listener Brian had with somebody who was emptying the garbage at a bus stop.

[C]

This is Brian from Keppel Hill, Seattle. I know there's been a lot of talk about how nice it is to have your bin cleaned and not have anybody dropping their dog waste in it. I walk my dog in the morning, and this morning, I went past a bus stop, and there was a metro employee cleaning the bus stop, and I dropped my dog's waste in the garbage there. The metro employee that was at the bus stop said, are you a customer? And I suddenly turned into, like, Seinfeld doing a bid. I'm like, I'm not a customer today. He said, garbage is for customers only. And I said, I might be a customer tomorrow. And then he said, are you a customer? And I responded, again, I'm not a customer today. But I was wondering what your take on this would be. Do you have to be a customer to drop dog waste in the bin at the bus stop?

[Andrew Walsh]

No. No, you do not. Those are public trash cans that are taxpayers.

[Luke Burbank]

I know.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was just gonna sort of understand it from the perspective maybe, of the guy who's emptying that. Like, I could maybe see a sense of ownership. But no, this is. You are. I'm hoping. I'm hoping that this person was joking. It sounds like they weren't and Brian would have picked up on that. But that is ridiculous. We pay for those trash cans to be maintained, and we should. If anything, we should have more of. Of them.

[Luke Burbank]

And again, I hate this sort of like, I pay your salary.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Rant like, I don't want to go there. But it is a public good. The bus system that we. Well, I don't, because I don't live there, but that we all pay for. And yeah, like, the answer is not icing people out of the experience of interacting with the bus system in whatever way. It's having a more robust bus system, having more people to empty the garbage. Having more garbage. Everybody wins with more garbage, theoretically. I mean, I don't know what the budget looks like, but you know what I mean? Like, it's not. This is for us, and you're not one of us right now. That is not helping with people's perception of Metro.

[Andrew Walsh]

It got me thinking. All the different kinds of trash cans or trash bins that I see at bus stops, because there are different kinds. Like, there's one at the bus stop on 65th underneath the five, where it's like a big modern. One of those big city trash cans that only has a kind of a small hole cut into it. And you put garbage kind of in the side of it. And it has a bunch of, I think, signage on there that's kind of like keep our waters clean or whatever. Like, it's one of those things that's kind of like reminding you, just throw garbage in here, recycle your other stuff sort of. I don't know if you can kind of picture those sort of city trash cans kind of like got a PSA on the side of it or whatever. And also controlling. It's making sure you can't, like, just do dump all of your. You can't just bring a garbage bag there and dump it in, which. I've seen that before. See, that's where I sort of feel like if we want to explore this at all, there is maybe a little bit of a spectrum when it comes to how we treat city garbage cans, whether or not it's connected to a bus stop or not. I remember being walking through the park one time kind of on the outskirts of Ravenna park, and I remember seeing a car pull up. I was walking, but a car pulled up, up outside of. Outside of a city trash bin there at the outskirts of the park where we need trash bins so that people aren't littering all over the park. And they took out like two Bags of household trash and put it into that city. And I'm like, well, that, you know, I didn't say anything. It's not my business, too. But I remember clocking that. I still remember it years later. Like, remember clocking that and being like, that's not what those garbage bins are for. So we. I think most reasonable people can say, okay, that's probably not. Not proper behavior for living in a city. But if I'm holding, let's say, the other side of that spectrum, a tiny little bag with a little bit of poop in it, and you throw that in there, it seems like that is what it's for. And whether. And then you have to get into, okay, well, is it connected to a bus stop or not? Some bus stops have tiny little baskets that are actually attached to the bus stop itself.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And they have kind of a slot, I think, to kind of control not putting in your household garbage.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And I could sort of see, like, maybe that guy, you know, the person who's like you, you know, emptying the trash and cleaning up the bus stop, maybe having some feelings about that. Like, if he's like, oh, here comes somebody who's not using the bus, but they're happy to use the. Happy to use the bus trash can or whatever. The bus stop trash can. I could sort of see maybe taking a sense of ownership. But. But you also got to acknowledge that you're just wrong about that. You're just too close to your work. You know what I mean? Like, I'm persnickety to see myself having feelings about it, but knowing that I would be in the wrong. That, like, I'm just glad that people are using public trash cans.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. And also that strikes me as a person who doesn't like their job.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, that's true.

[Luke Burbank]

They're kind of. They kind of don't. They're not in it for the love of the game if they're policing. And again, you're right. And it's just like the. It's the sort of reasonable test. Right. We all understand that you should not roll up to a city garbage can of any kind and throw out your house, like, bags of your household garbage. That's not what they're for. Anyone could tell you that. But, yeah, a bag of dog poop is totally fine. And this seems like a person who's just like. Kind of like this whole thing is on their last nerve anyway. The fact that they're maybe in charge of dealing with the garbage at the bus stops and. And they're gonna. They're gonna make it listener. Was it Brian? Listen to Brian's problem.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And maybe Brian maybe also having some feelings about it being dog poop. Like maybe they're thinking, hey, listen, I have to empty these things. Things. Emptying poop is more disgusting than just emptying waste paper or whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

And definitely the worst thing, if you don't like your job of emptying the garbage, the last thing you ever want to see going in there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, except for liquids. I think liquids would be the worst. Right. Because then you pick up the bag.

[Luke Burbank]

And so like dog pee.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

You scoop your dog pee, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

You always got.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I live in a society.

[Andrew Walsh]

I do scoop my cat's pee because it's sort of the litter sort of makes it scoopable. Yeah, but what a weird place to end the show. But anyway, I just wanted to. I wanted to air Brian's voicemail because I do think that Brian was somewhat wronged emotionally here. So let's. Let's try to give him.

[Luke Burbank]

We have your back on this, Brian. It's rare that Andrew and I are in lock step on something, but we are on this one.

[Andrew Walsh]

You.

[Luke Burbank]

You were in the right to be a little annoyed at that.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I hope you'll remember this conversation when we ask you to donate in the next tbt. L A thon.

[Luke Burbank]

That's all.

[Andrew Walsh]

We were here for you, Brian. That's all you've got.

[Luke Burbank]

You've got to donate. It's like Calico. Calico Cut club. You donate? Do you donate?

[Andrew Walsh]

Right, right, right.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. Well, I don't. Oh, by the way, I still haven't told you why I'm mad at Alaska Airlines either.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought about that after the show yesterday and I was like, I don't know if I want. I was like, I almost reached out to you. I'm like, what happened with Alaska? That I was like, I might not want to know based on how you set that up yesterday.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, tomorrow I will. I'll try to remember to get to that. So we got a lot for tomorrow's show. We hope you can all join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourself. Stay safe wherever you might be. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to you all. Power out.