#4392 Points On The Front End

Summary

Podcast Summary: TBTL Episode #4392 – "Points On The Front End"

Release Date: January 30, 2025

In episode #4392 of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live, hosts Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh delve into a multitude of engaging topics, blending humor with thoughtful discussions. This episode, titled "Points On The Front End," offers listeners a mix of nostalgia, pop culture analysis, personal anecdotes, and community engagement. Below is a comprehensive breakdown of the key sections, enriched with notable quotes and timestamps.

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1. Opening Banter and the Columbia House Music Club

The episode kicks off with Luke and Andrew humorously reenacting a failed shopping experience at Best Buy, setting a light-hearted tone. Their antics quickly transition to reminiscing about the Columbia House Music Club.

• Luke Burbank (00:43): "Beware of things that cost $1.99. Those are the membership dues for this club that I joined, the Columbia House Music Club."

Andrew reflects on his positive experience with Columbia House, highlighting its unexpected benefits despite being a profit-driven venture.

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2. Game Time: Remembering "The Lonely Guy"

The hosts introduce a game segment where Luke tests Andrew's memory of a specific scene from the 1980s film "The Lonely Guy" starring Steve Martin and Charles Grodin.

• Luke Burbank (03:03): "The game is how well does Luke remember a specific scene from the Steve Martin Charles Grodin classic the Lonely Guy?"

Andrew humorously struggles with recalling the scene but engages earnestly in the challenge, earning points for accurate recollections.

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3. Astoria, Oregon in Cinema

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to discussing Astoria, Oregon, a popular setting for several iconic films.

• Andrew Walsh (03:35): "Who is my daddy and what does he do?" (Reference to "Kindergarten Cop")

The hosts analyze a Washington Post article questioning whether Astoria is truly the "single parent capital of America," inspired by its portrayal in movies like "The Goonies" and "Kindergarten Cop."

• Luke Burbank (23:57): "Astoria has a fascinating story. It was the first city...funded...to move beaver pelts."

They explore how cinematic fame, particularly from "The Goonies," has revitalized Astoria, transforming it into a thriving hub with burgeoning businesses and cultural landmarks.

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4. Uber Eats Commercials Featuring Matthew McConaughey and Jerry Rice

Luke and Andrew transition to a critique of recent Uber Eats commercials starring Matthew McConaughey and Jerry Rice, praising their creativity and humor.

• Andrew Walsh (12:27): "It's Christian McCaffrey of the 49ers sitting on a couch watching a football game...have something there."

They laud the commercials for balancing star power with clever writing, contrasting them with previous, less imaginative ads.

• Andrew Walsh (15:21): "It's really the physical comedy in there that really makes me laugh."

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5. Personal Anecdotes: Napping and Meal Choices

The conversation shifts to personal routines, with Andrew sharing his struggles with naps and dietary choices.

• Andrew Walsh (25:46): "One thing I'm really realizing in my life is I gotta resist those urges...the rice gets you."

Luke offers supportive commentary, relating to the challenges of maintaining energy levels and making mindful food decisions.

• Luke Burbank (31:36): "We could be gyros."

Their exchange highlights everyday challenges and the humor in trying to stay healthy while indulging in favorite foods.

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6. Listener Messages and Donor Shout-Outs

A heartfelt segment recognizing the podcast's listeners and donors underscores the community aspect of TBTL.

• Luke Burbank (44:52): "We love Chad. Happy blurs day, Christina."

• Andrew Walsh (46:59): "To Kristen Kelly. Love it...to Lara...to Amy."

They express gratitude towards longtime supporters like Carissa Carpenter and new listeners from diverse locations, fostering a sense of belonging and appreciation.

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7. Minnesota Public Radio Connection

The hosts touch upon their ongoing relationship with Minnesota Public Radio, reminiscing about past interactions and potential future collaborations.

• Andrew Walsh (77:50): "He's been giving us money, and that's almost as important as these arbitrarily decided upon points."

Luke muses about their inadvertent presence on MPR's promotional slides, blending nostalgia with amusement.

• Luke Burbank (78:04): "How do we feel about that? My initial thought is sweet, we'll take any extra promo."

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8. Pop Culture Commentary: Sylvester Stallone vs. Arnold Schwarzenegger

In a humorous critique, Andrew contrasts Sylvester Stallone's recent statements on toughness with Arnold Schwarzenegger's positive public persona.

• Andrew Walsh (66:43): "But he's such a moron... he's walking around with these thoughts that like, you've got to make life harder on yourself."

Luke counters by praising Schwarzenegger's activism and down-to-earth lifestyle, highlighting the divergence in their public images.

• Luke Burbank (73:18): "But it's not when we force ourselves into tough situations. That's what the human creature is supposed to do."

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9. Closing Remarks and Upcoming Content

As the episode wraps up, Luke and Andrew tease upcoming shows and encourage listeners to join their live events.

• Luke Burbank (79:45): "What a way to wrap up this Thursday episode. Guess what? We've still got more TBTL coming your way this week, tomorrow morning."

They sign off with a blend of humor and warmth, reinforcing their commitment to delivering engaging content daily.

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Notable Quotes:

• Luke Burbank (00:43): "Beware of things that cost $1.99. Those are the membership dues for this club that I joined, the Columbia House Music Club."

• Andrew Walsh (03:35): "Who is my daddy and what does he do?" (Referring to "Kindergarten Cop")

• Andrew Walsh (15:21): "It's really the physical comedy in there that really makes me laugh."

• Andrew Walsh (66:43): "But he's such a moron... he's walking around with these thoughts that like, you've got to make life harder on yourself."

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Conclusion: Episode #4392 of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live offers a blend of nostalgia, humor, and insightful discussions. From dissecting classic movie scenes and exploring the cultural impact of Astoria, Oregon, to analyzing modern commercials and sharing personal life hacks, Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh deliver a rich and engaging listening experience. Their interaction with listeners and acknowledgment of supporters further enriches the community feel of the show, making it a must-listen for both regulars and newcomers alike.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, did you find everything you were looking for today? Yes, I did, Kevin. Great. Now, will this be cash or card? I will not be paying for anything today. Got it. No charge. Now, will you be wanting the extended warranty coverage?

[Andrew Walsh]

I won't be talked into any extended warranty.

[Luke Burbank]

Got it. Now, if you just punch in your.

[Andrew Walsh]

Email, nor will I be punching in my email address. I won't be talked into any kind.

[Luke Burbank]

Of Best Buy membership card or.

[Andrew Walsh]

Or charge card.

[Luke Burbank]

Right, but we really do need your email to keep you up to date about promotion or for the Geek Squad. Geek Squad. Not a problem at all. Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Tbtl.

[Luke Burbank]

Ace.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ace.

[Luke Burbank]

Wait up, dog. Let the fun begin. That's a tuna, bro. This comes out to all the coffee lovers of the world. Beware of things that cost $1.99. Those are the membership dues for this club that I joined, the Columbia House Music Club. Turns out that wasn't really even a club. It was just a business for making money. Although it is how I found my favorite band. Various artists of the 80s. Whatcha listening to? College music.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ever heard it?

[Luke Burbank]

What is this guy trying to do?

[Andrew Walsh]

Is this supposed to be what Bozo's thinking or saying?

[Luke Burbank]

What guy is Bozo?

[Andrew Walsh]

Bozo did it. Bozo did what?

[Luke Burbank]

Bozo did the dub. How'd it go?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, he's gonna acknowledge me on Instagram, so guess you could say it was one of the best conversations of my entire life.

[Luke Burbank]

Please clap. All right. Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. I hate podcasting. It's just ruined my life. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. I've got friends, something to say coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where we have moved back into cold, foggy territory. Cloud fog. We had a great run there. Of beautiful days. Now the snow is on the horizon, potentially for this weekend. Tonight, on the horizon, if you're in the state of Oregon or even near the state of Oregon like I am, how about you come on down to Beaverton where we're doing livewire at the Reeser Center. Ricky Lindholm from Garfunkel and Oates will be there. Ira Madison iii, Paisley Recdal. It's going to be a great night. Reeser. Please come see us tonight. Steel tickets available. In fact, you just bought a ticket, my friend, for this experience you're about to have, which is episode 4932. Wait, 4392, let the fun begin. In a collector series, it's very important to read the numbers in order. If you say them out of order, it changes a lot about what you're trying to say. We are going to play a little game today on the show. You play to win the game. The game is how well does Luke remember a specific scene from the Steve Martin Charles Grodin classic the Lonely Guy?

[Andrew Walsh]

Memories are made in your mouth.

[Luke Burbank]

Andrew and I had a long conversation off air yesterday about that movie and now we're gonna bring it on air today and see what's going on with that. Also, speaking of movies, if we have time for this, I thought fascinating article in the Washington Post about a couple of things. One, the fact that in the 80s there seemed to be an inordinate number of movies that were set like big successful films that were set in the tiny town of Astoria, Oregon, including the Goonies and of course Kindergarten Cop.

[Andrew Walsh]

Who is my daddy and what does he do?

[Luke Burbank]

This article in the Washington Post takes one specific statement from the movie Kindergarten Cop and tries to find out if it is in fact true or ever was true about the city of Astoria, Oregon. So we'll again, time permitting, we'll talk about that. We will definitely make time for the Blurs days.

[Andrew Walsh]

My birthday today.

[Luke Burbank]

It's Andrew's favorite part of the week and we would never skip that. Speaking of my good friend Andrew Walsh, longest running co bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's also an innocent champion of honesty. He's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning, Luke. In the immortal words of Mandy Patinkin.

[Luke Burbank]

Uh huh.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let me explain. No, there's too much. Let me sum up.

[Luke Burbank]

Please let it be Mandy Patinkin's character from Criminal Minds or whatever. Wasn't he eventually on one of those like procedurals?

[Andrew Walsh]

He. I do feel like I saw his beautiful beard in some promos during football games. I know he was in a show in the early 2000s that was a show called I want to say Dead Like Me where he sort of had that. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Were the people dead in the show? Yeah, I think the COVID art looks like he was. By the way, he was on Criminal Minds. He was on Chicago Hope.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then.

[Luke Burbank]

He was on a show called Brilliant Minds, which is really. Brilliant Minds and Criminal Minds have to be from the same minds franchise. Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Or they cancel each other out.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. Normal minds. That's where you find yourself between criminal and brilliant. I just love the idea of like, because my guess is when you're gonna say Mandy Patinkin. You're going to be. It's gonna be Inigo Montoya territory.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. That is the quote.

[Luke Burbank]

Princess, eminently quotable character from the movie Princess Bride. But it would just be great if you instead loved a very, very forgettable Mandy Patinkin quote from. From Criminal Minds, where he's just like, obviously the guy was hiding in plain sight or whatever they say on shows like that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. This. This is gonna take us all night, boys. I don't know. I don't know what they say.

[Luke Burbank]

Put on another pot of coffee. We're gonna be here for a while.

[Andrew Walsh]

Literally, I don't think I've ever seen one of those.

[Luke Burbank]

To quote the great Mandy Patinkin, we need to really secure this crime scene here.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is what I was going for. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. But do you remember that from the Princess Bride?

[Luke Burbank]

Of course.

[Andrew Walsh]

Of course you do.

[Luke Burbank]

He's trying to catch Miracle Max up on why they've brought Wesley there in a catatonic state. Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I would say I've done a great job of both explaining and summing up so far. So far, all we've done is dissected this quote from Mandy Patinkin's character. Yes. But I do believe that is the. I believe you have the scene correct. That's my loose memory of it. We did a watch along. Remember that?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I love that movie. I mean, that's not a. That's not a hot take. But that. That movie really holds up for me.

[Andrew Walsh]

I have to say, for a while, when, you know, we have that 10 of the week section of our weekly newsletter, and we asked tens to fill out little questionnaires, fun little questionnaires, so we get to know our listeners better and they get to know each other. And that list of questions has changed over the years to freshen things up a bit. But the inaugural list or the first version of that list included a question. What movie would you make the rest of the world watch if you could. If you could only make them watch one movie? So that's different than what's your favorite movie? It's like, yeah, what can you watch with your parents? What can you watch with your friends? You know what I mean? Like, what, what? And when I wrote that question, I remember this was way back in 2015. I remember thinking, well, for me, it's the Princess Bride. And what do you think is the number one with a sword? What do you think was the number one answer from our listeners The Princess Bride, it's such a universal joy.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I mean, works for kids, works for adults, is somehow again, very family friendly, but without being boring or without feeling kind of, you know, I don't know, sort of pedantic in a way or.

[Andrew Walsh]

It doesn't talk down to you.

[Luke Burbank]

It also, I'm sure I said this when we did the Watch along or at many other points in the history of this program, but the thing that also is easy to forget until you're watching it again is the relationship between Peter Falk's character, the grandfather, and Fred Savage's character, the kid is so unbelievably sweet and is almost like a different, it's like a different movie. Right. You kind of have two movies happening at the same time. And when we think of that film, obviously you're thinking of it in the sort of the, the Middle Earth part of it or the Middle Ages, the, all of the, you know, the fire swamp and all the amazing quotes within the film. But it's, it's, it's sort of bookended by this beautiful relationship between a kid and his granddad.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, let me ask you this, and I, I'm assuming I'm right on this. I'm not looking it up right now, but let's start with this little quiz question. What sports team is Fred Savage's character a fan of?

[Luke Burbank]

Based on Chicago Bears.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, have you have a bear? Is he wearing a bears? Is he wearing something bears? Or you have a bear's bedspread. It's prominent.

[Andrew Walsh]

Very prominent. Yeah. In fact, that sort ties into the little quiz I'm going to give you right now, which is a one question quiz, sort of. And we'll set this up in just a second. We're still summing up, but really quickly, another aside. Have you seen the.

[Luke Burbank]

We're still securing the crime scene. In the words of Mandy patinkin, the.

[Andrew Walsh]

Matthew McConaughey Uber Eats commercial. I think it's a teaser for the Super Bowl. It's the first super bowl teaser where he's doing Mike Ditka in front of the mirror.

[Luke Burbank]

No, but here's what I know about it. I know that there's a new podcast that I absolutely want to start watching slash listening to. I think it's called Casuals and it's hosted by. Oh yeah, Katie Nolan.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And I believe, I don't know if he is a permanent co host or just was on this one time, but I believe her partner, her life partner is the comedian Dan Soder, who I also Am a huge fan of really, really funny comedian. And she is talking on this clip that I saw about this McConaughey commercial. And her basic point is, I don't need to see a teaser of your television commercial. But that's all I know about it. I didn't even know there was Ditka involved.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, well, Katie, I mean, they've been doing teasers for super bowl commercials for years. In fact, we'll be covering the first group of teasers and this next week's after these messages, of course. But this particular one for. First of all, I will say this. We and you and I have talked about this on the show a while back to Uber Eats for a while there, I'm going to say maybe four or five years ago, was dumping so much money into landing celebrity guests for their commercials, but then spending absolutely no money on good creative writing because they were just wasting people like Mark Hamill.

[Luke Burbank]

And, well, Jean Luc Picard.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's exactly I was trying to think of it, sir.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm sorry. Jeffrey. I believe he played Jeffrey in a movie called Jeffrey. As Patrick Stewart famously said in the movie Jeffrey, we need to change these costumes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Jeffrey.

[Luke Burbank]

I believe he was in an indie film called Jeffrey Patrick Stewart. And it was a big thing because it was at the height of the Jean Luc Picard character, but it was him in a totally different light. I think he's playing maybe like a theater director. It's a very queer film. I just remember that was making the rounds in public radio. The promotion of the film Jeffrey starring Patrick Stewart was. It loomed fairly large in the world of public radio because, like, he was being promoted on. They were, you know, making him available for interviews. They figured the public radio was going to be a big part of their crowd. I remember the. The soundtrack. I had the CD soundtrack to the movie Jeffrey.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow. I don't. I don't know anything about that. That totally, totally missed me. Let me. Let me back up here. We are so far away from what we need to be doing today. We're just. This is not Tune in to people. Tune in for efficiency. Getting to the point. In and out. Tbtl. Five minutes, you're done.

[Luke Burbank]

And rodents of unusual sizes, I don't believe they exist. By the way, Patrick Stewart was not Jeffrey in the movie. He was Sterling. Stephen Weber was Jeffrey.

[Andrew Walsh]

Stephen. Oh, Stephen. Oh, my goodness. And from the remake of Stephen King's the Shining.

[Luke Burbank]

Huh? The bad one. The one where the hedge monsters come to life.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, so let me back up here for a second, though. I'm Going to give you some background on this Uber Eats thing. So they were dumping tons of money on huge names, but the writing was just terrible. We just couldn't believe how bad those Uber Eats commercials were. Let's say maybe three, four, five years ago. Well, about, I don't know, maybe let's say the middle or beginning of this football season. There was a commercial that I really, really liked. I think Genevieve showed it to me. It's Christian McCaffrey of the 49ers sitting on a couch watching a football game at some sort of football party. And Matthew McConaughey happens to be there, too. There's an Uber Eats bag and a bunch of food on the table in front of them. Have you this commercial, Luke? Do you know what I'm setting up here?

[Luke Burbank]

I think I might have seen it with the sound off.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. It's actually quite good. It plays into. Because like, okay, they landed these big names, but can they do anything with the writing? I think it's really funny and it leans into McConaughey's sort of conspiracy minded characters a bit. So there's something there. And I will mention. This is a long one. This is a. This is a minute long at the end. Jerry Rice, we learn, is also at this party and sits down next to McConaughey. That's going to be key to the joke at the end. Take a listen to this.

[Luke Burbank]

Why am I still hungry? Because you're watching football. The whole game is basically an elaborate scheme to make you buy more food. And it's working. What are you talking about? Think about it. Turnovers, pancake blocks, scrambles. Oh, I just scored. Feed me more. Come on, McConaughey. Come on, McCaffrey. Julius Peppers, man. C.J.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ham.

[Luke Burbank]

Slather on some Girard mayo and you got yourself a sandwich. Refrigerator Perry was not his real name. You're being serious? Yeah. They got you where they want you. I don't think football's trying to sell you food. Really?

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. We see the TV in one of the pretty.

[Luke Burbank]

That Refrigerator Perry line got me now.

[Andrew Walsh]

He says he just points at the TV and somebody just scored. And he's doing the like, feed me, feed me thing as more evidence. And now I think Jerry Rice is gonna walk. Walk in. Come on, man.

[Luke Burbank]

Can you. Food. I really don't. And what are you eating? Jerry Rice. Jerry's eating rice, huh?

[Andrew Walsh]

His performance is so good at that.

[Luke Burbank]

That's really good. That's very funny. And you, you love hearing him in on the joke of his Persona a little bit Exactly.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now, this next one isn't quite as long, and I apologize. It's very visual. But I'm just playing this for you, Luke. This is just you and I here, a couple of guys cutting it up. This one, again, this is clearly a teaser, something up for the Super Bowl. But in this one, we just see McConaughey in apparently his own home or somewhere, standing in front of a mirror, and he's dressed head to toe like Mike Ditka and just does this.

[Luke Burbank]

The Bears. Sounds good, but not the man. The Bears. Here we go. The bears. The bears.

[Andrew Walsh]

The bears.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, getting close.

[Andrew Walsh]

The bears.

[Luke Burbank]

No, no, no, no. The bears. Dubbears.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's an incredibly visual joke, so I apologize. I just want to give you a taste of it. Keep an eye out. If you see. If you're watching TV on mute and you see that, try to unmute it, because it's worth. It's worth the whole experience. I feel like.

[Luke Burbank]

I also like that debar's Mike Ditka as filtered through the Saturday Night Live kind of treatment of Mike Ditka. It's a very easy impression to do. It's almost harder to come up with 10 ways to say duh Bears wrong.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what I mean? Like, what syllable are you putting the emphasis on in order to get. Like, they might. That's actually a hard job. You know how, like, creating true randomness is actually kind of difficult at times.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Because things naturally sort of fall back into a pattern of sorts. It's hard to say debears as wrong as many times as Makan. I mean, I get that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I get it.

[Luke Burbank]

That's the joke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And again, that's very. It's really the physical comedy in there that really makes me laugh. So it doesn't work here. And also, I don't know that I stop on that commercial. I don't know that I take up 10 minutes of TBTL to tell you about that commercial if it isn't for the commercial that we previewed first. Like, they Uber Eats won me over with McConaughey's role in these things. So that makes me perk up for this one. And it also sort of gives me the halo effect for this one as well. You know what I mean? Like, I. You and I live through an era where, like, the idea of saying Da Bears was so hacky just because of the popularity of that SNL sketch. I never thought I'd laugh at somebody saying the Bears again. But, you know, time was it. Time plus distance equals comedy. Time plus Tragedy equals comedy.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

So there you go. All right. Should we get into what we were supposed to get into today?

[Luke Burbank]

We sure should. So do we need a little setup on.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. Let me.

[Luke Burbank]

Why in the world.

[Andrew Walsh]

Back to the beginning. Let me explain. Wait, no, too much. Let me sum up. A couple of weeks ago on the show, I mentioned how hard it is for me to wake up from naps. Why I don't like taking naps is because even if I only nap for like a half hour or something, I wake up and I just feel like I'm so disoriented. I'm disoriented for like an hour. It's just such a terrible feeling waking up from a nap. And you mentioned, plus, who wants to wake up twice? Like, with all the bad news of the world, like, who wants to wake up twice in the same day and have to like, kind of of make that realization of the world you're waking up into? And so somebody. And I searched high and low in my email this morning. I cannot figure out who sent me this, and maybe they sent it in some other fashion than email, but one of our listeners says, oh, wow, that's. That's just like this clip from a 1984 movie called the Lonely Guy with Charles Grodin and Steve Martin. And they sent me the tape, but unfortunately the tape was like somebody filming their TV with their camera. It wasn't really usable for our purposes. So I told you off air the other day that I spent. I spent hours and hours trying to bootleg the movie, which. And then I'm just like, wow, how is this not streaming on any of the platforms I pay for? And then eventually I'm like, you know What? You have $4 and 40 cents. Just rent the damn movie and grab the damn 20 second audio clip. And so that's what I did the other morning. You might have turned on TBTL and heard this as the intro tape. This is Charles Grodin and Steve Martin sitting on a bench. They're both down and out, quarter to four.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm gonna take a nap or something. I don't like to take naps. I don't like to wake up more than once a day because when I first wake up, I get that shock of who I am and everything. I really don't like to do that more than once a day.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's it. That cost us $4.40, although now it cost us $2.20 each time I play it.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it's all about amortization, my friend, and roi.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I was telling you that little story off air. Like, hey, Luke, I grabbed this piece of tape. It's a little confusing, but this is it. I was just telling you how I rented it. And then you told me that you've actually seen this movie before. I was telling you I couldn't believe I'd never heard of it. I love Charles Gordon. I love Steve Martin. Like this, it's a mid-80s. Like, it's so up my alley I'd never even heard of it before. But you told me you've actually seen this.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I had a weird way into this movie, which was when I was a kid. I was definitely not going to be allowed to watch, you know, a Steve Martin movie or anything. But my dad's sign shop was like two or three doors down on Aurora from a place called Erickson Appliance, which later became a Jack Roberts Linwood home appliance, and which later and now became like an aikido center or something where they would do.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, there's like two. I believe I know exactly the building you're talking about that right now is two different martial arts studios owned by the same person right next to each other with different disciplines.

[Luke Burbank]

Right next to each other at 77th in Aurora. But that, like when I was a kid, now literally 40 years ago, it was, it was called Erickson Appliance, by the way, when it became the aikido place, there was, I remember this like weird moment where I was walking by the. You know, the store had these big windows. And I remember, I think I. I was being. Eventually I was shooed away by an adult who was there because what they were doing at the Aikido center was a self defense training where the person teaching the class was, I presume a man. But he was wearing crazy padding, like all over his like head, arms. He had on this, like. Do you know who that. Oh, forget it. Whatever. There's like a. There's a DJ Marshmallow or something. There's a DJ who's popular, who wears kind of in the way that that other one DJ who you never saw dead Mouse, you know, you never saw deadmau5. He was wearing that Disney thing. I remember this guy was wearing like a DJ Marshmallow weird head thing. And his job was, the exercise was for him to put these. The people taking the class were women. Put them into a position that they might find themselves in in the real world where they have to defend themselves. And their training was to use every like claw, scratch, elbow, go for sensitive parts of the body gouge out eyes, like, do whatever. And I think also in the midst of it, either they were screaming expletives or maybe the person kind of threatening them was, was saying some things that were like upsetting. I just remember somebody telling me, this is not for kids to watch.

[Andrew Walsh]

You were walking by or you were.

[Luke Burbank]

I was walking by and I think, and I think I just, I have this distinct memory of somehow it being, it being sort of made known to me by some adult in the situation that this was not a thing for me to watch because this is adults developing these, you know, self defense skills. But it's gonna get, it's gonna get messy and you're gonna hear some stuff, man, that maybe is not for your ears. Okay, but long before that it did stick with you.

[Andrew Walsh]

I gotta say, but I gotta say, when adult says like, turn away from this.

[Luke Burbank]

I get it.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're already seeing something weird laser focused. I always think the movie Quick Change where like they see like two men in a back alley bicycle, I believe, and they're just like, just turn away. This is just two men working some things out. And like, it's just like Bill Murray.

[Luke Burbank]

Is a, is a clown.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, he's dressed as a clown to rob a bank. It's a heist movie, but it has. Who was like the most problematic actor before a lot of guys turn problematic? The guy, the star whacker guy.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, oh, Randy Quaid.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's Randy Quaid. He's like, what are they doing? And Bill Murray's like, just turn away. It's just two men solving their own problems or something like that. And there's something about that like it just will live with you. Like you were already seeing something so surreal and violent and weird. And then somebody said, turn away. This isn't for kids. Of course you're going to remember that.

[Luke Burbank]

It's interesting that this physical location was where I observed two things, probably before my time, based on age and maturation. Because the other thing was the movie the Lonely Guy starring Steve Martin and Charles Crowdon. And that was because when it was Ericsson appliance was like your, it was your standard like 1980s appliance store. They sold, they sold dishwashers, they sold stoves, they sold microwaves, sold all of it, including laserdisc players. And I remember that you could buy a TV there, you could buy a laserdisc, the whole thing. And I remember they had laserdisc, the sleeve, you know that a laserdisc would go in. They had them lining kind of an up like an upper part of the wall of the whole appliance store. And so a lot of my theories about movies that I'd never seen were based on the laserdisc sleeve cover of that movie. Because I used to go down and hang out there was. They had two kids that were roughly my age. The people that ran Erickson's, people that owned it. And I would hang out with those kids. They were like neighborhood kids, even though they lived far away, but they would come to work with their parents and like, for instance, the Clint Eastwood movie Escape from Alcatraz. I remember vividly the laserdisc cover for that film. It's like, Clint Eastwood, he's holding up, like, an improvised tunneling device or something. I didn't know what the movie was about. It seemed scary to me, based on the laserdisc cover. Anyway, they had in the back room somewhere, like, a couch and, like, a laserdisc player and a tv. I don't know if it was, like, proof of concept. In fact, you know what I'm at. The more that I'm thinking about it, Andrew, I think we might have been. I told you this the other day, that we were. I thought we were watching this in the back room. I think we might have been sitting in the middle of the showroom.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. To watch this thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Because they had a. They had a laser display or set up. They had TVs. I think that they used to let us on, like, a slow afternoon or something. We just watch. This is also the place where I watched the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, which I was pumped for, until I found out that it's really kind of more of a musical. And there's not actually very much. You know, there's not as. There was not nearly as much risque behavior as I was, like, very much looking for. But I think we might have been watching it, like, literally in the showroom, because I remember a different time. We watched a Cheech and Chong movie. Movie. I don't know if it was, like, up in smoke or. I don't remember which one it was. It was a Cheech and Chong movie where there is some moment where two of the characters are. Are known to be having sex, but they do not show the characters. They show a string of things that are similar to sex. Like an oil derrick going up and down, like a rocket taking off. All of these things. That was the joke. And I remember, yes, train into tunnel. All of it. And I think I remember looking around and thinking, we're going to get kind of in Trouble for watching this on the showroom floor of Erickson Home Appliance. So somewhere in that building, whether it was on the showroom or in a back room, I watched. And I would have never picked this movie at the time. It just was the laserdisc we had access to and it was the Lonely Guy starring Steve Martin. And because it was probably up to that point, maybe one of the few Steve Martin movies I'd gotten to seen, gotten to see, it really made an impression on me. I thought it was a really great film. And now is this where I tell you the scene that I think I remember and we're going to play it?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, yeah, let me, let me, let me, me do this. First of all, I do want to give you early points for describing properly the Escape from Alcatraz laserdisc cover. It is. It's Clint Eastwood, like, kind of looking through a crack of block, almost like, here's Johnny style from like the Shining second shining reference. And he is holding like a little pick thing in his. In his hand. He clearly has, like, cracked through this thing. So early points given for that right there. That. And I will say that when you were telling me when you were recalling this childhood memory of watching the Lonely Guy you did tell me about once, I think you said the only thing.

[Luke Burbank]

I actually can tell you about this film, by the way, and I will.

[Andrew Walsh]

Say it's a. I watched it last night. It's a pretty horny film. It's like, it's. The tone is very different than I thought it was going to be. It's. It's slapsticky almost to the level of. Well, it's like a Mel. It's almost like a Mel Brooks movie. It's very broad. It is so broad. I thought it was gonna be a little bit more mature. Like. Well, the Jerk is very broad in its own way, too. But there's something about, like, Almost Airplane or Mel Brooks where it is. It is ridiculous. Like, it is just totally slapstick ridiculous. Then it kind of gets caught up in its own plot a little bit too much. And it does change tone a little bit, but it's very much about this guy whose, you know, girlfriend leaves him or his partner leaves him or whatever. Now he's a lonely guy and he's trying to meet women.

[Luke Burbank]

And so there's a lot of proto incel culture.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I did say that. Genevieve. I'm like, this launched a million mgtows. But anyway, so I'm just saying that. So, like, as you're describing, sort of watching this movie as a kid who is pretty sheltered anyway, like it begins with a, with his, his lover in bed with a new lover and she's wearing like basically see through negligee. So like it was like right off the bat, like it's a pretty ooh la la situation.

[Luke Burbank]

In the words of Mandy Patinkin in the Cisco Morris biopic. Ooh la la.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh la la. Oh my God, Mandy Patinkin.

[Luke Burbank]

He can do it. He could do it.

[Andrew Walsh]

First of all, he can do anything, Luke. He can literally do anything. But that would just be the best. So what was the one scene recount for me again? The one scene that you think you remember from the lonely guy?

[Luke Burbank]

This scene has stuck in my head for whenever this movie came out. Well, whenever I saw it, I honestly think I might have been eight or nine years old, if that. So 40 years. 40 decades. I have remembered a scene where he. Because also in this movie he talks to the camera directly. Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

I did learn that. I was not expecting that. It begins with. This is how broad it is. It begins with a different narrator voiceover. Like since the dawn of time, there have been lonely guys. Like, it's like, starts off like a fake documentary. And then at some point when Steve Martin's character's introduced, he actually says, I'll take the narration from here. So like that's how I fourth Wally. It is. Yes. So he does. And by the way, so far, yes, he's talking to the camera here. He's talking to us directly.

[Luke Burbank]

And I. He's standing on a street. This is my memory of it. He is standing on a street and he is about to go into an establishment. In my mind it's a bar, but it's some kind of a place where he thinks he might be able to meet some women and impress them. And he is wearing like a kind of a running outfit because he wants it to seem like he's just been exercised. And that's where he says that's where sweat in a can comes in. And he's got like a, you know, like a spray can, like a, you know, Aquanet or whatever, but it's got sweat in it. And he's going to spray himself down with it so that he gives the impression that he is virile and exercises a lot and has been working out. And this is the part that I think anyway really jumped out at me or really stuck in my brain. But I could be so wrong about this. I could be so loud. Wrong. My memory is that he says something to the effect of they got this sweat from the Boston Celtics after a double overtime game. And then he sprays it on himself. And then I guess he goes into the bar. I don't remember anything else. That's what I. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. I pulled this tape yesterday. I need you to realize that I cannot offer any more context than the 20 seconds that I pulled because my rental has expired.

[Luke Burbank]

But you did watch it. I did watch the film.

[Andrew Walsh]

I watched the whole film last night with Genevieve.

[Luke Burbank]

So you've watched it more. You've watched it more recently than. Yes, in that You've watched it in the last 40 years.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I told you, when you described that scene to me, I said, well, I'm gonna try to watch this movie.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you and for your commitment.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure. Well, I mean, I honestly veeves and I actually had a rare evening last night where I brought takeout home for dinner. Very rare. But what happened was. Here's what happened yesterday. I'm gonna just try to make this show as long as possible today. I don't know if this happens to you too, but I have my little lunch routine. Usually I go up in the kitchen after tbt. I'll make a salad or maybe a sandwich or something like that and go on with my day. But every now and then, I'm tempted to go get some teriyaki or something. But one thing I'm really realizing in my life is I gotta resist those urges. Not just for health purposes, but because if I eat a big thing of teriyaki, the rest of my afternoon is so low g. You know what I mean? It's just like the rice gets you. It's the rice that's just so heavy. It's just like, I just. I lose energy, I lose creativity. I lose the momentum of my day if I eat too much at lunch. So yesterday I was just getting done with the show. I was just going upstairs to make a salad, and then some nincompoop on blue sky posted a photo of a delicious looking rotating gyro. And I said, I mean, literally, second.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's not teriyaki, though.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, it's not. But a year. I love a gyro, and I saw it.

[Luke Burbank]

And Are you allowed to eat gyros at lunch?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I'm just saying, any food like that, I traditionally do, like, eat stuff like that for lunch. But just like I am now at an age where I'm starting to realize how food is affecting me, not just while I'm eating it. You know what I mean digestively, energy wise, whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

We could be gyros.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm making it just for one day. I feel like I'm making this more of a theory. I'm actually saying this out loud for the first time. I think this is not something that I talk about a lot lot. It's just something I'm sort of realizing sort of now that in the past, I don't know, maybe year or so, I've sort of.

[Luke Burbank]

Your blood sugar slash overall experience is impacted very much by what you're putting in your body at any time.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it probably always has. And I just am noticing it more. I don't know. But I just like, I think as I stay up late that I run the risk of like eating a big lunch and then thinking I'm gonna go down to the office and get more work done and then I'm gonna be like so Logan, so tired and just trying not to take a nap or whatever, you know. And I'm just like, I don't like that feeling and it's unlike me to try to be responsible about of intake. So whatever. I'm making too big of a deal of that. But point is, I get up, I'm just like, ah, I'm going to go get a, I'm going to go get a euro right now, aren't I? Like you can't, you can't put a picture of a euro in front of me when I'm hungry. Internet.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I leave my office and I. And she's working at her desk and I say, viv, I just saw a picture of a Euro. What I'm going to do. She's like, oh, I'd love a euro. And I was like, how about this? How about I don't get it now. How about I just go have like a moderate lunch but then I bring us home gyros for dinner tonight. And she said, good. And that's. There's something so cozy about bringing home takeout and I so rarely do it. Like I used to get delivery quite a bit but now that's actually quite expensive. I don't do that lately. You know, if I'm having Andy Times, I just buy a bunch of frozen crap in the, you know, like pizza related snacks or whatever and I cook it up in the air fryer. It's so rare that I'm just like, I'm gonna run out and grab some, I don't know, Indian food, Chinese food, Euro food, whatever, bring it home in a greasy bag.

[Luke Burbank]

And can I just mention something real Quick about this. I want to be very careful about getting into talking about right or wrong decisions around food or good, you know, good job doing this versus bad job doing that. But I have to say, I think what you've described here is a pretty great solution to the situation, which was maybe we don't have a euro for lunch, but we have a euro for dinner.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And it gave me something to look forward to.

[Luke Burbank]

You look forward to it. You got to sort of scratch that itch. You. You ended up having a. You said a reasonable lunch. Like, it's. Maybe it's not. You know, it's not zero tolerance on everything. It's not. Maybe it's like we're never having another euro, but we're not having it for lunch, we're having it for dinner. I mean, that's a pretty good solution and kind of a middle. A middle road. That. That is a good one to follow that I have struggled with in my life because I am very binary. I am very like, either I'm only drinking water for the next two months, or I'm. I'm. I'm just consuming every single thing that appeals to me. It's like, I need to. That's a really good solution to the. To the sort of feelings you were having, I think.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And I mean, I think our goals are different, too. Like, I'm not. I'm not in some sort of mode where I'm trying to shed pounds or lose weight or anything like that. I'm not trying to overblow this.

[Luke Burbank]

You're saying I need to lose. We know.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm just saying that I'm trying to stay awake. Like, Luke, I didn't want to say this part, but I'll just say this part for the first time ever. The other day, this was maybe about two weeks ago, for the first time ever, I fell asleep in my chair editing tbtl. I had lunch before. Like, I think I. We stopped recording. I don't know what I had that day, but I'm. I stay up way, way, way too late anyway. But I came down, and then I'm gonna get the show posted, and my. My hand is on my mouse, and I have the audio file in front of.

[Luke Burbank]

Probably warm.

[Andrew Walsh]

Especially warm in my studio, where it's like kind of like the heat kind of gets trapped in here. And the next thing I, like. Airplane. Slept for a while. Probably like for 10 minutes or something. I just. So airplane slap. That is not a great feeling. And so anyway, it is.

[Luke Burbank]

There is something very, I would say, apt about the fact that this show that puts so many people to sleep when they listen to it was also putting you to sleep as we distributed it.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was a weird thing. I think the reason was I was looking for it like usually if I'm I do very little editing on the show like just yet you can tell honestly could use more proof is in the pudding. But I think I maybe was like oh there was something in here I want to listen back to and I think so like kind of hit play on it and I think I was listening for a while and sure as hell we do put people to sleep even ourselves. So yeah all of that is to say yesterday I come home with a greasy bag of gyros.

[Luke Burbank]

Yum. And I side of fries.

[Andrew Walsh]

We got one side of fries got to and they're pretty good there that euro place on the dude honestly I.

[Luke Burbank]

Think fries at Euro places is very slept on. It's also one of the things cuz I don't eat a ton of meat anymore. You can do a veggie euro with the fries that is like available often in late night greasy situations. That's on my like approved list of, of fast food kind of stuff I can eat. So I put down, I put down a significant amount of that every year and I will tell you that the fries are always a delight.

[Andrew Walsh]

And do you ever go for falafel? Because that's vegetarian right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I don't like, I'm not crazy about the consistency of falafel. I'm not a big chickpea head. Like I don't love hummus so they're fine. I'll, I'll if they, if that's what they have I'll take it but like sometimes I'll just get everything in the euro except for the meat part which believe it or not is not terrible because for me it's really, I, I really really want the falafel. I really want the lettuce and the tomato and I really want the tzatziki sauce. Like you get that going and, and I'm it's 80% of the way there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Anyway I skipped the tzatziki sauce actually. I, I yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

You don't like that white sauce stuff?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I, I used to get it. I don't mind a little bit on a euro but I feel like they're putting too much on these days which.

[Luke Burbank]

Is you know I bought a tub of that at Costco.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I think recent trip and it is really coming in handy anything I'm meeting that's like, you know, what would really, you know, would kick this up a notch would be a little tzatziki sauce. Oh, it's a. Would recommend, but okay. So your last night, you're sitting down to watch the Only Guy, and these.

[Andrew Walsh]

Bag of Euros is like, what do you want to watch? I'm like, I don't know. I turn on my TV and I do love these smart TVs. It's like, do you want to continue watching the Lonely Guy? You have, like, 15 hours left on your rental. I'm like, oh, my God. It remembered that I downloaded that on my computer and I grabbed a piece of tape from it. But then my TV in the other room was like, hey, don't you want to finish watching this thing? I kind of love that side of modern technology. So I'm like, these. Let's watch the Lonely Guy. She's like, all right. And so we watch it immediately. The tone is different than what we thought it was going to be. As you mentioned, like, he's talking to the camera, times he's doing the voiceover. It's incredibly broad comedy, generally speaking. I liked it. I'm glad I watched it. I think I'm a better person for it.

[Luke Burbank]

But then we are a better podcast for it because we get all this content out of it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Keep in mind, I still have not seen any scene involving fake sweat. I had only pulled the naps audio, and so I was like, okay, you know, is this going to be. There was a chance you were thinking of a completely different movie.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, I mean, you could have been. It would not have shocked me. It would not have shocked me.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I'm like, telling V. It's like, look for a scene that maybe involves fake sweat. And Luke was very specific. I think I had something to do with overtime in the Celtics. And she's like, all right, okay. And again, I don't know if she was really listening to me. And then. And then we get to this scene. He is having trouble, as you say, meeting people. And then he sees an attractive woman jogging by in the park. And so he and Grodin look at each other and they're like, hey, they. Without saying it, they sort of exchange this look that says, maybe if we jog, we'll, like, meet more women. And so the next thing you see is Steve Martin, and he is jogging, and he jogs up to the camera outside of a cafe.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not really jogging. I only ran about 50 yards. This is not real sweat either. I sprayed it on. They sell this at sporting goods stores. It's made from the actual sweat of professional athletes. This was taken from a Boston celtics basketball player immediately after a double overtime game. Oh, my God. I am so proud of myself. What?

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow.

[Luke Burbank]

All I can say is really impressed.

[Andrew Walsh]

Double overtime, Celtics. I mean, I was trying to.

[Luke Burbank]

To.

[Andrew Walsh]

I want to give you as many points as possible, which wasn't even supposed to be part of the game. You said he goes into a bar. It's actually. I'm giving you a half a point on that because it's like a. A cafe that he stops in and he sees a woman in there.

[Luke Burbank]

Because it would be weird to go in. I mean, honestly, it'd be weird to go into either one post workout. I mean, that was. Looking back on it. That's kind of where. That's where the scene slightly has a misstep or a bit of a stumble. That's for Phyllis. Which is that. Would you really want to stink like you'd been working out when you're going into a social environment? It almost would have made more sense if he did that, you know, as he was coming into the gym or jogging.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Somewhere where you know. But all that is to say what. You know, what's also pretty. Why I think my brain sort of stored that as one. Because long term or like long term memory is an interesting thing. You know, one of the things we know when people do go through, through, you know, memory problems and things is that oftentimes it's their oldest memories that are. That are still around. Newer memories can be more difficult. I also think, because it's sports adjacent. Like, because I had a sense of the Boston Celtics as a kid. It's. This is basically more of a sports. It's more of a data point of sports than it is a Steve Martin scene. Because if you asked me to try to recount, like, the part in the movie the jerk where he markets that thing that keeps your glasses from sliding down your nose.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, the opti grab. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm sure that if you asked me to try to recount specifics about the optigrab, I'd be just wildly off and wrong, but maybe because this involved double overtime in the Boston Celtics. My. My kid brain that was also obsessed with sports kind of somehow filed it away in a place where I was able to recall it many years ago.

[Andrew Walsh]

Definitely. Yeah. I think that. I mean, because of your connection to sports or your love of sports. I mean, obviously, that's the reason it st with you. I will say that. And I'm sorry I don't have the tape of this. I considered grabbing more, but I had a like half eaten burrito in the other room or Euro in the other room. Yeah, but it is funny because she. He goes in and he kind of sits at the diner stool sort of in this cafe next to this woman who's like reading her book. One of my least favorite things. He's like, oh, what are you reading? I've seen so many guys do that to women in bars. It drives me crazy, but.

[Luke Burbank]

And yet no one's ever asked you what you're reading in the bar?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, unfortunately, they sometimes do. And the second if somebody asks you that, you know, you don't want to talk to them, I can't explain it. But like, anyway, so he's sort of like, hey, what are you reading? And she's just like. She immediately identifies that it's not real sweat. She's like, that's not real sweat. She's. He's like, how? How do you know? He's like, you're right. How do you know? She's like, well, I was married to a lonely guy for a while and so I. She's like, I know, I know where all of the. I know where you can get that at the lonely guy store. It's actually. The movie is better than I thought when I realized, oh, this is going to be a movie about a guy trying to get laid. Usually that's not my favorite in the 80s. I mean, there's going to be a lot of problematic stuff. There was not. It was not given all the context I just said, yeah, like, honestly, the thing about the movie that is like you would never see today is how much suicide talk is in it for. Played for laughs. Because they're constantly.

[Luke Burbank]

You're so depressed that you want to.

[Andrew Walsh]

End your life, they're constantly jumping off of. What would it be? The George Washington Bridge? No, what would be like a big bridge in New York City?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, the Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn Bridge.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think it's the Brooklyn Bridge. Like, there's all these scenes and like guys, while one of the characters is inevitably like trying to stand on the ledge, you see other lonely guys, like falling from.

[Luke Burbank]

In line.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I'm sorry to laugh at this. I know that this is like triggering for folks in 2025, but it's just like I'm watching. I'm just like, they're just playing suicide for hugely broad laughs and coming back to it again. And again I'm like, you would never do that. The sexism is actually much more the.

[Luke Burbank]

Issue than the way they're talking about mental health.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. But anyway, I actually did sort of, I did enjoy. But let's go back to this. So Alcatraz point bar. I'm giving you a half a point on it was a cafe. Talking to the camera is a good detail. I'm giving you a full point on that can of sweat. Obviously you got that Celtics point. Double overtime point. Am I missing anything here? That's at least 1, 2, 3, 5 points.

[Luke Burbank]

Being generous, giving me a half point on the cafe because I did think it was a bar. But I mean, again, I'm, I usually take the road of self deprecation, but I have no choice here but to admit that I freaking rule. I mean, I want to say something funny here that is, you know, full of humility, but I'm like, you're really setting me up for failure tonight on Livewire because I've never gone into that show with more confidence. I feel 10ft tall right now, my friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're going to be going in there like, do you guys all remember that scene from the Jerk I've been looking for?

[Luke Burbank]

What I'm going to talk about with the crowd tonight to warm them up there at the reaser? Maybe it'll be like, yeah, it'll be how I just got a huge W today on this. So thank you, Andrew. Thanks for, thanks for making my Thursday.

[Andrew Walsh]

That was fun.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you for being a T. Let's thank some donors who are keeping TBTL rolling. I actually just literally before the show today had a Instagram message, a DM from an old, old friend of the show. Remember, I don't know if you were listening very regularly in these times, but we had a pal named Nikki with two Ks.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, of course.

[Luke Burbank]

Who, who I did like a push up contest against Sean Dottore, Japan's number one mixer. And, and you know, was I ran that marathon with me and that guy, John de la Retto. Anyway, a really kind of fun and engaged character on the show in the early days and literally got a text or a DM that said, hey, it's Nikki with two Ks here. She had seen, I guess a clip of us doing the show, right. Because now that's one of the things we do on social. Sometimes John will identify a piece of tape. He will send it to us and say, is this okay? You and I will both die a little inside when we realize how we look. And then we will say, sure, works for me. And then it will go out on the Internet. The Internet. And I Guess Nikki saw this and she said something like, it was so fun to find you on here and see that TBTL is still cruising along.

[Andrew Walsh]

Indeedly do.

[Luke Burbank]

And it's like, yeah, because of folks like Carissa Carpenter of Denver, Colorado. I mean, this is. It must be a kind of a. A crazy experience for somebody who used to be on the show and listen to the show, you know, 12, 13 years ago to kind of look up and realize, oh, no, it still has happening five days a week. Here it is.

[Andrew Walsh]

But also looked at me and said, God, Jen looks terrible. What is going on there?

[Luke Burbank]

We don't like to talk about bodies on this show, but Jen, we need to. Let's cut back on the Euro consumption, please. No, this show is still here because we have donors and these are people who like this enough, who tolerate this enough that they know the only way it can happen five days a week as our job is for it to be an actual living that we make. And that's because of folks like Carissa Carpenter in Denver, folks like Christopher Gay in Halifax, Massachusetts.

[Andrew Walsh]

So we have.

[Luke Burbank]

I do this last year when we got to Halifax, Massachusetts. I listen, I can remember details from the lonely guy. I don't know if I remember that there's a Halifax, Massachusetts.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't recall either because that would be. You're thinking Nova Scotia, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that's. That's where. That's where Halifax usually resides in my mental map.

[Andrew Walsh]

That makes sense to me. I also, like, so far we have a Carissa Charista fur. Can we keep this going?

[Luke Burbank]

We can. To Kristen Kelly. Love it. Who's in Willoughby, New South Wales. All the way over there in Australia.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is our Australia contingent growing? I feel like I used to name all of the buff dudes in Australia who listen to our show, but I feel like we might be.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like. Yeah, one. I think, I think we note it. We note it because we have a little bit, a very now ever more distant connection to Australia and that we went there. I had a dream the other night. Night that I was explaining our trip in Australia to somebody. And, and, and. And I was so proud of. Of the fact that we actually got it together to go to Australia and drive to the freaking Pink Panther pub in the Northern Territory. And in my dreams, as I was explaining where in Australia was, this person who was a native Australian was cracking up. Like, you went up the Stewart Highway. You went to the Northern Territory. I was like, yes, we did. So anyway, I think we note when we have someone checking in from Australia, I'm guessing It's more than 5, but less than 10. Does that sound about right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's probably about right.

[Luke Burbank]

Also, this is a very knowable thing. I believe. I believe we have this in a spreadsheet. Right?

[Andrew Walsh]

I have a. Yeah, I have a. I have a friend, a good friend of mine who I knew from New Hampshire, who lives in Australia and has lived there for, I think, maybe 20 years now or something. Wow, how time goes by quickly. But she's a really good friend of mine. I've mentioned her on the show before. Also a broadcaster, Beverly Wang. And I think I'm just starting to realize now that she was texting me maybe around like New Year, saying happy New Year's or whatever, and she's like, when are you coming to visit us? She's like, maybe this time don't stop in Cooper Pedy for so long. Or Coober Pedy. And I kind of realized, oh, you know what, the ocean capital of the world. I spent too much time in Coober Pedia, not enough time visiting her. And I think, no, not Sydney. What's the other really big city? Anyway, I'm rooting this. Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

Melbourne.

[Andrew Walsh]

Melbourne. She's in Melbourne.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Andrew, how could you expect. How could anyone expect us to short shrift the Opal capital of the world, where we were staying in an actual underground hotel in those cave rooms, which were pretty dope.

[Andrew Walsh]

And we. And we met a spaceship.

[Luke Burbank]

We sure did. I believe it was a prop from the movie Chronicles of Riddick.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you. I was. I was Googling it. I was over here Googling it so quickly I could not remember. You know what? You just got another point.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm. God, I'm on a hot stream.

[Andrew Walsh]

You now got six and a half points.

[Luke Burbank]

Incredible. Let's give a point to Eric Orvik in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Fly, Eagles, fly.

[Andrew Walsh]

Are you cool giving Eric one of your points?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. You know what?

[Andrew Walsh]

You're down to five.

[Luke Burbank]

I will. I will happily give Eric a point. Eric is. Eric's been giving us money, and that's almost as important as these arbitrarily decided upon points.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's been giving us points on the back end, so.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Giving him a point on the front, front end.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely nobody deserves it more. Except for maybe Pat Rowe, who's in Seattle, Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, I know that place.

[Luke Burbank]

I like this distribution. Colorado, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New South Wales, Seattle, Washington. And then Scott Decay in a place in Washington that I don't know if I've ever heard of.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, are you suggesting that Scott has made this up because Scott doesn't want us to know where he lives.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm, I am, I am Clayton, Washington. I am just surprised to reuse the the workaholics format you just did that. This buff dude escaped my radar. I thought I knew all the towns in Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's an unincorporated community so it must be very.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought I knew all the unincorporated communities.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, you know, it's Stevens County.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what it's. Yeah, it's, it's. It's up there in the far northeast corner of Washington. Well, not the far northeast, but right on the Oregon, Idaho border. And I will tell you that this, this is a bit of a blind spot for me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh.

[Luke Burbank]

Although know it's near Chewela and Colville. Oh, well, please. I know Chihuila. I've spent, I've wild away more than a few hours at the Chihuahua casino.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ooh, I'm looking at that now. I would never have known that's how you pronounce that. I would have said Chihuahua for a.

[Luke Burbank]

Couple of summers now. Years ago I was, I got into this mode of renting a lake cabin and doing the show from there sometimes. Boy, the technology was not as good as it is now for this and, and you know, getting the family out there and having Addy there and everything and would always go to this general area of Washington state because that was where we would go and stay. We had some friends who had a cabin and so we would go, our huge ass family would go stay with his people at this cabin that like one bedroom in Deer at Deer Lake outside of Spokane. And so that imprinted on me that that's where you go in the summer, summertime to enjoy lake live in.

[Andrew Walsh]

And did you ever go to Monica's Buttermilk Kitchen which is.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think I have. I don't think I've been there. But I do remember going into town into the big town of Chihuila and there was outside of Chihuahua. On the way there or somewhere nearby there was also a, a casino which I did roll up on a time or two. So you know, anyway, all that is to thank you very much Scott out there in Clayton, Washington, appreciate you and appreciate all of our donors today for making TBTL happen. Hello and welcome to Top Story. I thought this was a really well written piece in the Washington Post recently by Andrew Van Dam. You know what I have to do generally, Andrew, is I log on to these websites like the Washington Post and the New York Times and then I have to scroll very quickly down below the digital Fold. I got to get right past the top eight stories because. Oh yeah, right, they caused me great, great mental unwellness. And then I get down to the really important stories, like this one headline. The real single parent capital of America. And I believe Andrew Van Dam is part of some sort of data department at the Washington Post. Maybe he's a little like the Gene Bulk.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm getting Gene. I'm getting major Gene Bulk vibes.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, because he starts the piece by writing here at the department. We just can't turn off the overactive swath of gray matter that sees data stories everywhere. Even in situations where no self respecting gray matter really should be activated, such as re Watching Kindergarten Cop. The rickety Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle from 1990 is a goofy film from tip to tail. But one of the most questionable moments in our eyes came when the young and buff Arnold, playing police detective John Kimball, admits in front of a parent at Oregon's Astoria elementary that he's not married. Welcome to Astoria. The Arnold addled mother responds breathily. The single parent capital of America. Now I have to say, I don't know if I've ever watched the movie Kindergarten Cop, Andrew, but it was such a big deal in the culture and there were so many quotable moments such as it's not a 2 humor and of course, who is my daddy and what does he do?

[Andrew Walsh]

We're gonna play a little game called who is my daddy.

[Luke Burbank]

There's so many moments in the movie that became quoted and became kind of part of the pop culture that like, I feel like I've watched the film, although I've never watched the film. I had no idea it was set in Astoria, Oregon. And I feel like Astoria, Oregon is such a odd place to set both the Goonies and Kindergarten Cop and for me to catch a koosh ball that my sister threw off the Astoria collar. A lot of play for Astoria on the show of late. And in this article, Andrew Van Dam goes in to explore this question of if Astoria is in fact the single parent capital of America or was. And even he said it's notable that that's in the trailer. That line is in the trailer for the film. They felt it was that critical to the plot. Plot. And of course I believe it's being played in the film based on context from this article as a kind of maybe this woman's hitting on Arnold Schwarzenegger.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm wondering is that I. I saw this movie probably not in the theater, but probably around the time that it came out on vhs. You know, I Saw this movie on cassette when I was a kid at some point. And so I don't remember a lot of the details, but I wonder if that's a big side plot because he is obviously a very. Well, is he a trap? Attractive?

[Luke Burbank]

Is I? You'd have to. You know, it's in the eyes of the beholder. Yeah, I think probably for some people he's as attractive as it gets, and for some people not so much.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I was gonna say it must be like a side plot of the movie that maybe some of these single moms are really into this really well built new teacher in town.

[Luke Burbank]

Right? Slash cop. Wait, he's a cop though? Does he have to teach?

[Andrew Walsh]

I believe he's a kindergarten cop. Okay, here's what I think I know about the movie. Movie. I've always wanted to.

[Luke Burbank]

It is called Kindergarten Cop.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm pretty sure that he goes, how did.

[Luke Burbank]

I think he wasn't a teacher? What is he undercover?

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought he's like kind of undercover as a kid.

[Luke Burbank]

That would make sense.

[Andrew Walsh]

Teacher. That's. That's my.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean it's called Kindergarten Cop. If he's not a kindergarten teaching cop, then, then I don't know. I don't know what this world is coming to. But also I haven't watched the movie, so I guess it never occurred to me that that's what they're referring to.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think that that's the case. I know, I believe, believe that the sus. Okay, here's what. I'm kind of piecing this together just from context, but like when I hear the tape, we're gonna play a game called who's your daddy? And what does he do?

[Luke Burbank]

Who's my daddy? Oh, he's trying to figure out like.

[Andrew Walsh]

Where the bad guys are. I think he's maybe thinking that maybe it's the parent of one of these kids is the person he's searching for. Maybe.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that totally makes sense. You know what's crazy? Having not seen this movie, but having known that there's famously scenes where he's melting down and front of a classroom of kids, it's still never. And it's named Kindergarten Cop. And it never occurred to me that like, oh, he's an undercover cop who has to teach a kindergarten class which is just like a perfect 80s, you know, fish out of water.

[Andrew Walsh]

His.

[Luke Burbank]

This, this hard boiled cop is gonna have nothing in common with these young children.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what I always thought about the comedy of, you know, he's such a large man around all these very little kids. Who probably hang off of him at some point.

[Luke Burbank]

I believe they do. I believe it might be the COVID of the movie, of the dvd.

[Andrew Walsh]

Don't like your points. Do you want to bet? Do you want to. Do you want me to look this up?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm will, I'm willing to say there are kids hanging off him on the COVID of. I don't know a lot about movies, but I know a lot about movie covers.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, I'm gonna look it up.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like there are children hanging off him in kindergarten. And Kindergarten cop is written in kind of like, kind of, you know, little kid crayon font.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, you're definitely right about the font. And he's definitely surrounded by kids. Yeah, they're. They're pulling them down. I'm giving you. They're hanging off.

[Luke Burbank]

Can we count? Pulling him down.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's a bunch of them. There's about 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 or 5, 6, 7 kids. Like some of them are pulling his shirt, some are pulling his jacket. He's holding a couple. I'm giving it to you. I'm giving you another. You're back up to six and a half. Scott is holding strong at one point.

[Luke Burbank]

You're welcome. You're welcome. Happy birthday. But the crazy thing is, Andrew, in my mind this whole time I have just thought this was all from a scene where it was like bring your dad to work day. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is. His kid is in the class and he is just there telling him that he's a cop. That is. My brain constructed that scene out of nothing. Out of, out of, out of. Out of whole cloth, as they say, because I've never seen the movie. Anyway, in this article they go on to investigate the question of if Astoria, Oregon is or ever was the single parent capital of America. And turns out, no, not at all. In fact, it has pretty. Has pretty strong stats about two parent households. What they end up finding out is that, you know, single parent households strongly track along with other economic indicators having to do with education and poverty and things like that. And for whatever reason they decided to use this line in the movie, but they can't figure out who actually wrote the line. He goes on to interview one of the screenwriters or one of the producers who says it was already on the script when we got the script. One of the screenwriters has passed away way. Also, this movie was originally written to be in another city altogether. It was not supposed to be set in Astoria.

[Andrew Walsh]

Why is it in Astoria? Do we ever. Because I didn't read this article. Do they, do we ever figure that out?

[Luke Burbank]

Like why they never get a. They never get like a. Because again, too many of the people that were associated with those decisions have since passed. They can never really nail it down to why Astoria. But let's see. Here's what he says in the article. There's talking about this. One of the writers of it, whose last name was Salem, says it's possible that Salem wrote the script with another city in mind. He reportedly was inspired by a kindergarten teacher at his 20 year high school reunion in a declining Rust Belt town in Ohio. And this is another producer named Medjuk confirms the original script may not have been set in Astoria. So it's possible that this was written about a totally other place and then just moved to Astoria at the last second. For whatever reason, I do think there must have been some sort of tax benefits that the state of Oregon was offering at the city of Astoria. It also appears in this article that the movie the Goonies legitimately helped revive the city of Astoria.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now that doesn't surprise me. And it also that, that even though Astoria may seem somewhat random, the fact that the Goonies takes place. I don't know if I knew this before now, but the fact that a story like the Goonies take place in the Pacific Northwest, the sort of, like that sort of makes sense to me because there's more of a, kind of a darkness and like, what's the word I'm looking for? Is there magic in the Goonies? Like it just seems like, you know, kind of setting in a place where weird things happen. Not unlike Twin Peaks or something. That makes sense. Kindergarten Cop seems really random, to put it right. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. Almost like maybe with the success of Goonies, I. Because Goonies was made first, right? The Goonies was made first. I would assume maybe with that, maybe with that success there was some sort of a. A move to try to attract more of that kind of business. Because here's where he goes into the article. He interviews some old timers from Astoria. First of all, Astoria has a fascinating story. You know, it is the. It was the first city, I think. I mean, it's named for John Jacob Astor and I believe John Jacob Aster, or at least this, this outpost of Astoria, Oregon, which is at the mouth of the Pacific Ocean. Ocean was I think to some degree funded and paid for by the John Jacob Astor Co. Because it was a way to move beaver pelts. Yeah, which was how he made a lot of his money early on, before he got into owning like Manhattan, he was A beaver guy, he figured out how to hunt beaver and he popped. Helped popularize, like, beaver hats for men and stuff. So he needed. But they were starting to kill all the beavers that were near the, like, East Coast. So they had to come out here to get them, and they had to figure out how to get them back to the East Coast. And somehow this outpost of Astoria, Oregon, was critical in that. So it kind of was one of these. It was one of these places. There are many places on the West Coast. In fact, I've lived in a number of them. Astor, I haven't lived in Astoria, but certainly Port Townsend is one of them. There are these. Tacoma is one of them. I haven't lived in Tacoma. But, like, there are a lot of stories along the. A lot of places along the Pacific Ocean that the story is this was supposed to be the next big place, and it ended up being San Francisco. Like, there are, you know, like Port Townsend was supposed to be the San Francisco before San Francisco became it, you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Know, and Tacoma was supposed to be Seattle until before the train.

[Luke Burbank]

The story goes that the train line went to Seattle. So then it, you know, Tacoma didn't quite flourish. There are lots of towns up and down the west coast that all, for a period of time, were supposed to be the next big thing. And Astoria certainly was one of them. The interviews, folks who have been in Astoria for a long time, including the woman at the Clatsop County Historical Society. Her name's Lisa Penner. She's the archivist. And she says, I believe I remember many empty stores that were here in the 1970s and 80s. For a long time, it appeared Astoria was just going to fold up and blow away. It's so different now. The younger generation has found all kinds of ways to bring businesses to Astoria in and the county. And this seems to actually be borne out by the data in terms of Astoria, Oregon was very close to kind of going away after, like, the, you know, decline in the timber business and the fishing industry. It was one of those places that there wasn't very much happening there. And then they made this movie, the Goonies there, and people started coming out to, like, look at where the scenes were shot. And then also thinking of it the. The town differently. And I can tell you from personal experience, Astoria is kind of booming right now. They have very cool little hotels. They've got lots of breweries and lots of interesting restaurants opening. A lot of young people, like, it is a weirdly thriving place, which seems like it needed something to get it through the kind of like 80s and 90s. And it seems to have been the Goonies and to whatever degree, maybe on a much smaller level, Kindergarten Cop.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what's really cute? Cute. I'm on the Oregon subreddit right now and somebody posted. That's it. And somebody posted the question. I recently rewatched the Kindergarten Cop. After many years, I completely forgot it took place in Astoria. My question is, are there any Astoria locals that were extras in the movie? Did you get to see the Terminator? This was posted a year ago. And this is filled with a bunch of people who are or were local sharing their memories. The first response is so adorable. Horrible. It says, I was in this movie along with my brother and cousin. I was seven at the time. We had about three days of work. It was pretty neat. They had a few big tents with all sorts of food. Once or twice I remember Arnold coming out to the. Coming out of the tents with a big old cigar and letting the kids climb on him like a jungle gym. Yeah, what the hell? I'm in a generous mood.

[Luke Burbank]

God, you're really in a good mood today.

[Andrew Walsh]

During the scene where they march on the playground, I got. And then there's a. This person, like, took a little. Just taking a photo of their phone, you know, of their TV with their phone. Just the most adorable little kid wearing an overcoat. I guess that's the person who posted this. And all these people are like, oh, I think my uncle was in a band scene at the end of that. My dad was at a. Was working at the grocery store and got to see Arnold. It's like all these people sharing little memories of just like when. When Arnold came to town and when the movie. And so many of these kids were actually just like locals.

[Luke Burbank]

It looks like, you know, this actually might be enough to motivate me to finally watch the movie Kindergarten Cop. Because I'm. I'm. I'm not. I'm not super similar to you, Andrew, in that I will watch movies. Well, I don't want to put words in your mouth or describe your experience, but I have the sense that a lot of times you'll watch an older movie just because you're kind of like. And by older, I mean 80s or 90s. Because the look of the film or the vibe is just kind of comforting to you. Is that. Is that a fair statement?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, Yeah. I was hoping you weren't going to say the. That I like to. And we just talked about this recently. I don't like to watch purposely bad movies to make fun of Them I don't like to cringe. I'm not like in the camp or just like that kind of thing. But I do love an 80s or 90s movie that maybe isn't like the best made film in the world, but it just sort of connects me to youth. Even if I haven't seen the movie before, it can give me sort of a nostalgia for. For that time. It's very comforting for me at a certain time. And sometimes I just put them on in the background anyway.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. And so now that I know that this is also in Astoria, now that I also know that Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to be one of the few people of his age cohort to be on the right side of history.

[Andrew Walsh]

Who.

[Luke Burbank]

Who to thunk now when he.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was leading, I was. After we get done with the Astoria talk, I wanted to play a piece of tape for you that I heard on Lebatard yesterday regarding the other muscle bound action movie star of the time, Sylvester Stallone, which seems to kind of go in the other direction.

[Luke Burbank]

Sure does.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I didn't realize he was that. I didn't realize that that's his that I didn't realize that Stallone is problematic. I've only heard this tape, which is ridiculous. It's basically him talking about how people aren't tough enough these days, which is just so stupid. But he's such a. He says the most accidentally, ridiculously funny thing in this. And so it makes me mad that guys like him are walking around with these thoughts that like, you got to make life harder on yourself. It's just like such a stupid philosophy. But one of the quotes he says in this piece of tape I want to play for you is it just exposes him as the biggest idiot in the world.

[Luke Burbank]

What I mean, what an interesting thing. The divergence of these two guys to where, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger is just living with donkeys. Literally. He has these like donkeys that run around his house putting up these videos and has become and is and is regularly releasing videos that really do push back on the Trump agenda, like hard. I mean, the guy was a Republican. He was the Republican governor of California. I mean he was like the guy who was famous for driving a Hummer around. Like, I'm not. He's not pure as the driven snow, but my God, he's at least able to look at this current version of our politics kind of for what they are. And, and to have Stallone. Because the funny thing is the knock on Arnold would be this guy's kind of a Meathead. And the story on Stallone was he wrote rock. They were going to pay him all this money for it, but they weren't going to let him play Rocky. But then he just held on. And like I always had this narrative of Stallone has actually kind of actually got more on the ball mentally than people give him credit for, because he was. Apparently when he was born, I think he had a. He was oxygen deprived. So part of his face is paralyzed, which people kind of read for some sort of him not being intelligent. But it was more just physiological. Like, I was going around with this narrative that like, boy, Sylvester Stallone's got more on the ball than you thought. And that's really evaporated in the last five years based on his turn. Can we hear the tape? Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

You want me just do this now? So, again, like, because this is coming from the perspective of somebody being like, yeah, you know, we're all too soft these days, obviously, I hate that and I don't want to bring that toxicity into the show. But also, he's just such a moron. Okay, I'm going to do my best not to just re quote what they said on Levitard after this tape, but take a listen to this. So he's. I don't know why he's doing this for some sort of social media thing, but by the way, the camera angle is so bad, whoever. Whoever is taping him here has done that thing where they're holding the phone, you know, up and downsies as you do, but they're centering his head right in the middle. So there's just so much head space above him. I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

Nobody hates negative headspace. What are we doing?

[Andrew Walsh]

Why. Why are we. Why do we need all that headspace? We don't need to see your drop ceiling in this case. We see his office. He's holding a pair of gloves that were. I don't know, I think they were probably used in the Rocky movie. But they're boxing gloves. Yeah. And apparent, like, these are not the type of gloves you're allowed to use legally in the ring these days. Take a listen.

[Luke Burbank]

They don't even allow these today because they're so dangerous. But that's what they used when I did the film. They're barely six ounces. They're Reyes. And they're literally lethal. So I still have them because it's a time when people were tougher. Sorry.

[Andrew Walsh]

They were.

[Luke Burbank]

Life is just getting a little easier and easier and easier. Oh, that's great.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's wonderful.

[Luke Burbank]

But it's not when we force ourselves into tough situations. That's what the human creature is supposed to do. They're not supposed to have wheels on their suitcases.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's a. Like I wanted to say, as somebody said, of all the things that are.

[Luke Burbank]

Taking America down, suitcases with the wheels.

[Andrew Walsh]

Really gone astray there, right? Like, like, man, how did, how did. How did wheels with suitcases get involved?

[Luke Burbank]

You know what's funny about that specific statement is I have had on more than one occasion the actual thought. I am so glad I have wheels on this suitcase. Like, I literally have had the thought, like, this is one of the biggest advances in human evolution and technology. Because I. Like, the first time I ever went to Europe, it would have been in 2000. And the suitcases that we had. The suitcase I had were some just hand me downs from my parents. So they were. They were suitcases. They were like big vinyl, like, probably didn't. Zippers probably didn't quite work well. Definitely didn't have functioning wheels on them. And I just remember that that whole trip, it was a struggle to get anywhere because I always had all this heavy. And I just went to Europe last summer with my bags, that wheel. And there were so many times where I was like, this is so much better. Like, this is the. Where. Where was this, you know, all my life? Like, this is a game changer. And the idea that he would think that's the issue. It's really one of the. One of the best improvements we've made to modern life.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I mean, his whole. I know, I'm. We're not done with the tape. We're not even to the best part yet. But I just think that is so funny because he's saying the human creature, I believe, as he describes humanity, is built to force themselves into tough situations. Like, do you drive anywhere? Does he drive anywhere? Because if so, that's the easy way out. Why would he not just walk or run anywhere? Like, of course, the human condition is like, we're not trying to force ourselves into needlessly tough situations.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, no, we actually, we. In fact, we seek the opposite.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. Now some people push themselves to find solutions to the world's problems. Or maybe I think he's confusing, like a drive to be better versus like making life harder.

[Luke Burbank]

Like an evolutionary or natural selection kind of. Such an idiot tendency.

[Andrew Walsh]

So anyway, so I'm sorry, suitcases you're taking astray here. Oh, that's great. It's wonderful.

[Luke Burbank]

But it's not. When we force ourselves into tough Situations. That's what the human creature is supposed to do. They're not supposed to have wheels on their suitcases. It's a convenience, though. Question. But it just makes things easier. Now with AI, you can literally put.

[Andrew Walsh]

Your brain in a pickle jar and have that machine do it. So, okay, I want to, I want to read that quote in case you couldn't hear it. The actual quote is you can. With AI you can literally put your brain in the pickle jar and have that machine do it. Okay, so literally, I don't think that holds up. You're losing the. Sylvester Stallone is losing a point for that. And second.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, yeah, because the idea is if. The idea is AI is if AI is replacing your brain function. That's what he's saying. Right. But then also I think he's conflating a couple of things, which is this idea that we could like kind of live forever because our brains could be separated from our body, stored some somewhere like in the Steve Martin movie the man with Two Brains, where he takes a brain on a romantic, I believe, boat ride in like Central Park.

[Andrew Walsh]

I haven't seen all of that, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

He's like, I remember him like rowing a boat. Why is today all Steve Martin memories for me? But anyway, like, I think he's, he's blending together various like, you know, like future. What do you call that? Like, futurism of like you're. You won't need a body anymore because we can save your brain and then we can build some sort of a simulation that your brain gets to live in in that. But that's different than AI which, which the argument would be AI could replace brains because AI, it becomes itself sentient. And, and in that case, your brain in a jar working with AI would kind of make no sense.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is so, I mean, even trying, I mean, you're giving him so much credit even trying to make that make sense, I feel like. But what I love about it is like people of his generation and his outlook on the world, like A.I. yeah, he's. He's talking at us like, he's talking down to us, like, and telling us what the world is like while just put stupidity on full display. But having strong opinions about AI which he believes means you can literally put your brain in a pickle jar and have AI do it, whatever it is. Yet he's going to have a cabinet position by the time we're done recording today.

[Luke Burbank]

There's a right way to rock and.

[Andrew Walsh]

A wrong way to roll. You can't just Listen to your soul.

[Luke Burbank]

Just remember that life is number one.

[Andrew Walsh]

One you can be having so much fun. Just remember that life is much fun. You can be nothing but one. It is time to blurs. If you'd like to wish somebody a happy birthday or blurs day, email me. AndrewBtl put blurs day in the subject line. Here's a note we got from Alex who says, I'm very excited to wish a happy blurs day, actual blurs day this year on January 30th. That's today. To my partner and co listener Christina. I hope this message finds you way. I hope this message finds you well. Wait, this is not chat GPT. So I hope this message brings you a bit of joy when it feels like it can be hard to find. I love you. Happy blurs day, Christina.

[Luke Burbank]

Golly, man, their brain's in a jar, man.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it's literally AIs doing it. Amy in Minnesota, this is our friend Amy, the pandrumic drummer. Happy blurs day to my husband Chad. Oh, Chad.

[Luke Burbank]

We love Chad.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wolf whistle away. They're happily married. Luke, don't get fresh. Amy says happy birthday to Chad. Today is his actual blurs day. Look at that. Two actual blurses. This is going to be a big year. Chad graduates from seminary in April and will be a university minister. I'm so proud of him. Especially now when we really need people committed to creating new, inclusive, loving and just communities. I love you, Chad. I hope we'll have a slightly more. I hope. I'm sorry, I am really ruining these today, Chad. I hope we'll soon have slightly more time together to watch our geeky TV shows. That's from Amy. Too bad I got in the way there.

[Luke Burbank]

That makes me long for us going back to the Minnesota State Fair because, and we've. We've talked to Amy and Chad in I think in a few different locations and moments. But I remember specifically at the state fair talking to them and like, yep, that was really fun. Do you think is our bridge so thoroughly burned with Minnesota Public Radio that that they would never, never host us again?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I have a little intel on that that I can tell you is that we or I got a text message from our friend Amy Wu, who was visiting the old mothership recently and sent me a photo from inside the lobby where our cartoon visages remain on the big screen TV advertising our podcast as an APM product that.

[Luke Burbank]

How do we feel about that? My initial, my initial thought is sweet, we'll take any extra promo. Sure. And we love that. I wouldn't say that we're so fondly remembered there, but that no one remembered to take us off of the slideshow.

[Andrew Walsh]

We were so unremembered that they don't even see it. It looks like nothing to them.

[Luke Burbank]

They don't even know we're gone. That's kind of cool. On the other hand, if they're monetizing us in some way, if there's a parallel dimension where there's a Carvana ad playing on TBTL right now, I don't know how I feel about that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think it's that. I think they don't have as many. Many podcasts they used to have. Well, maybe staffers, and they certainly don't have as many podcasts as they used to have. So if they need us to fluff up the slideshow a little bit, why not?

[Luke Burbank]

What I've got to be. I gotta actually gotta watch myself here because I just remembered you trying to.

[Andrew Walsh]

Get livewire on there.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, we're in discussions of doing livewire in the Twin Cities this fall because we are on Minnesota Public Radio. So in a roundabout way, I guess I still sort of work there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I don't give a.

[Luke Burbank]

All right.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm not. I don't have any projects. I'm trying to get on Minnesota Public Radio. William says Happy Blurs day to listener Lara. A decade ago, when you first told me about tbtl, I had no idea that I'd become a full fledged 10 myself. Listening every day while driving Quinton to daycare. We love you. Happy Blurs day, Laura. That is it for the Blurs days this week.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a good amount. That's not like one. One is a. You know, one is a. Is a lonely number, but it's not like 600, which is a crowd.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. And anything in between is sweet.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. And we just hit that perfect sweet 586.

[Andrew Walsh]

Fine. Three. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I think that was. That was the. In a good zone for us. What a way to wrap up this Thursday episode. Guess what? What though? We've still got more TBTL coming your way this week, tomorrow morning.

[Andrew Walsh]

Are we doing this? Really?

[Luke Burbank]

We are.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought we kind of. We kind of nailed it today.

[Luke Burbank]

Heck or high water. I do think today was a good show, but mostly cuz I scored eight points.

[Andrew Walsh]

You?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I'm currently leading.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I think you're seven and a half. You can't round up.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I'll take it. Hey, seriously, if you're. If you're looking for something to do, come down to Beaverton tonight and watch us do Livewire. Please. If you're looking for something to listen do tomorrow, tune on back in for tbtl. We will be here with more imaginary radio for you. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves and please remember, no mountain too tall and good luck to all. Wow. Wow.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow. All I can say is wow. Power out.