#4396 Talk Of The Town Hall

Summary

TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live - Episode #4396: Talk Of The Town Hall

Release Date: February 5, 2025

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1. Introduction and Playful Banter

The episode kicks off with Luke Burbank sharing a whimsical polar bear joke, setting a lighthearted tone. Andrew Walsh engages in humorous exchanges, reminiscing about fatherly titles and playful interactions, such as calling Andrew "papa bear" and referencing the animated show "Stranger in the Alps." This friendly back-and-forth establishes the show's signature blend of humor and camaraderie.

Notable Quote:

• Andrew Walsh [00:47]: "How about catch 44? Ooh, daddy's gonna dish out some daddy discipline. As a fellow daddy, I approve."

2. Live Town Hall Event Recap

Luke and Andrew reflect on an exhilarating Town Hall event featuring their friend, Chris Hayes. They express gratitude towards the attendees, especially Andrew's parents, who attended the event and interacted warmly with Chris. The hosts share anecdotes about the event's venue, highlighting the contrast between the grand auditorium and the modest green room where interactions took place.

Notable Quote:

• Andrew Walsh [24:00]: "All that is to say thank you, thank you, thank you to everybody who came out last night from the TBTL community."

3. Immigration and Upcoming Travel Challenges

Andrew discusses his planned reporting trip to England, scheduled for the upcoming Sunday. However, he encounters complications with his Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA), causing delays and uncertainty about his departure. Luke offers supportive humor as Andrew navigates the bureaucratic hurdles, sharing tips on bypassing automated chat systems to reach human support.

Notable Quote:

• Andrew Walsh [50:11]: "And then there's a procedure for you. Ooh, that's not very good sort of branding."

4. Nostalgia and the Allure of Sports Talk Radio

The duo delves into a nostalgic appreciation for Seattle's sports talk radio scene. Andrew expresses a longing to reconnect with his younger, more optimistic self through local sports broadcasts, reminiscing about beloved shows like "Dave and Bob." They contemplate launching their own sports talk segment, inspired by the enduring charm and community of Seattle's sports discourse.

Notable Quote:

• Andrew Walsh [15:09]: "I just love that it's still on Seattle Sports. So maybe the future of my broadcast career is on terrestrial radio on a dying medium in a sports town with whose teams do poorly."

5. Public Radio, Attention Economy, and TBTL’s Unique Position

Luke and Andrew discuss Chris Hayes's insights from his book on the attention economy, exploring how media competes for limited human attention spans. They appreciate TBTL's role as a podcast that serves as perfect background content—engaging yet not overwhelmingly attention-demanding. This reflection underscores TBTL’s unique niche in the crowded media landscape.

Notable Quote:

• Andrew Walsh [22:41]: "We are so on the vanguard of that with TBTL. We have for years been making a podcast you can fall asleep to, as many people report."

6. TBTL Billboard Initiative and Community Involvement

Highlighting listener engagement, Luke announces TBTL's plans to erect a billboard in the United States. This initiative aims to expand their presence and brand visibility. They invite listeners to submit creative ideas for the billboard's design, emphasizing community collaboration. The hosts express heartfelt thanks to their donors, crucial in sustaining and growing the show.

Notable Quote:

• Luke Burbank [24:00]: "If anyone has ideas for a new TBTL Billboard, it's John. JonBtl.net, hit up our guy, John Sklaroff with your ideas."

7. Listener Interaction: The Signed Seattle Supersonics Basketball

A heartwarming segment features a listener, Mike, who sends a signed basketball from the 1993-94 Seattle Supersonics. Luke and Andrew delve into the rich history of the team, reminiscing about beloved players like Ricky Pierce, Nate McMillan, and Gary Payton. They humorously analyze the authenticity of the signatures and share personal anecdotes related to the Supersonics, fostering a deep sense of community and shared nostalgia.

Notable Quote:

• Andrew Walsh [79:11]: "It's a signed basketball by the 1995 Seattle Sonic.95. So 95, if you like the backstory on how I procured it and why there are two Michael Cage signatures."

8. Technical Challenges with Riverside and Customer Service Frustrations

The hosts candidly discuss their frustrations with Riverside, the podcasting software they rely on. Luke narrates his struggles with accessing collaborative features post-redesign, highlighting poor customer service interactions characterized by scripted, unhelpful responses. Andrew empathizes, sharing his own experiences and emphasizing the need for more responsive and human-centered support systems in tech services.

Notable Quote:

• Luke Burbank [65:27]: "Removing functionality and hiding it behind a much more expensive paywall is not a good look. Being evasive about it when customers are confused is even worse."

9. Comedy, Pop Culture References, and Light-Hearted Closing

In the latter part of the episode, Luke and Andrew transition into lighter topics, sharing jokes and pop culture references. They discuss the movie "21 Grams," comically intertwining it with personal anecdotes about souls and basketball. This segment reinforces their dynamic chemistry and ability to seamlessly blend humor with deeper conversations.

Notable Quote:

• Andrew Walsh [94:07]: "It's Heaven Come Weight meets Airbud meets Hoosiers meets About Schmidt."

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Conclusion

Episode #4396 of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live offers a rich tapestry of humor, personal stories, and thoughtful discussions. Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh navigate a variety of topics with ease, from nostalgic sports memories and technical woes to community engagement and lighthearted banter. Notable quotes punctuate their conversations, providing memorable insights and laughter for both longtime listeners and newcomers alike.

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Thank you for tuning into TBTL. Stay tuned for more engaging conversations and everyday adventures with Luke and Andrew.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Young polar bear comes home from school. True story. And he says, mother, am I really a polar bear? She says, of course you're a polar bear. Go to bed. He comes home the next day, says, dad, are you really a polar bear? He says, of course I'm a polar bear. Good night. This goes on for weeks, for months. Were your parents polar bears? Were their parents? Am I, in fact, a purebred polar bear? The father finally says, enough. Why do you keep asking us these questions? He said, because I am freezing. Good evening and welcome to the pre taped Call in show, where we tape all our shows a week in advance. I'm your host, Ken Doral. And let's try it again.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, so now we have two catch 22 situations simultaneously. Is there even a name for that? How about catch 44? Ooh, daddy's gonna dish out some daddy discipline. As a fellow daddy, I approve. Stop saying daddy. You got it, papa bear. I actually kind of like that one. A lot of energy, a lot of motion, a lot of fun, a lot of high fiving, a lot of smiles. You see what happens, Larry? You see what happens?

[Luke Burbank]

See what happens when you find a.

[Andrew Walsh]

Stranger in the Alps?

[Luke Burbank]

This way to the cafeteria.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right. Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Wednesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Hello, everyone. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

[Luke Burbank]

You're like the Daniel Day Lewis of.

[Andrew Walsh]

Only doing one thing. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio.

[Luke Burbank]

Bring it back home, baby. Bring it back home.

[Andrew Walsh]

Perched high above the mighty Columbia, where we are once again looking at snow flurries. Woke up this morning in Seattle, where it was very snowy, actually, and jumped in the car and sped on down here to my house, where I will spend the day in silent lucidity, drinking clear broth. It tastes like soot in hot water. I'm hooked. That is all I am allowed to have between now and, like, I don't know, 4 or 5pm tomorrow, when my little procedure is done, we've got a procedure for you. Ooh, that's not very good sort of branding. We have an enjoyable experience for you. It's called episode 4396 in a collector series, Let the fun begin. I woke up in Seattle this morning because last night, of course, was at Town hall with our friend, television's Chris Hayes and a bunch of tens. It was an amazing night.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, what did everybody think?

[Andrew Walsh]

Talk about that today on the program. Also, I am flying to England, theoretically, on Sunday for a reporting trip. Gentlemen, to bet for we leave at 9:30.

[Luke Burbank]

Ish.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ish. But I've been having a snafu with my immigration status. I've got an update on that that we'll share with you. And of course, we'll talk to this guy. Longest running cobra of the show. Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. The reviews are in, folks. As Jay would say, you got flow. He's Andrew Walsh and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Luke Burbank]

Good morning. I had a question for you about your commute this morning, but I'm also getting an email here from my old boss, Abby Goldstein, who now.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, well, that's also important. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And she runs what used to be the prpd, but now it's like they changed the name of it. Because why would you want to stick with a brand that everybody knows for years and years and years? But the subject line has helped shape the future of public radio. And I gotta be honest with you, while I'm excited to do the show with you today, as always, sort of feel like they need me to help shape the future of public radio here. And I don't want to miss my chance.

[Andrew Walsh]

Aren't we doing enough by talking about public radio shows from 20 years ago?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Insistently on this program. Incessant. I just invented a word there. I split the difference between incessantly and insistently, which also I don't think is a word. And I just said incessantly. Incessantly. Strong. I don't know what I was talking. I'm sorry. I'm a little. I was bragging this morning that I don't feel tired, but now that I'm talking, I realize I might be a little tired.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what? I have that effect on people that's not on you. Okay, sorry. I just wanted to see if you and I would be interested in changing the shape of public radio, but I can't tell what the action item is there.

[Andrew Walsh]

I want to shape the future of commercial radio, Andrew, because I have gone from listening to very little commercial radio to in the last 24 hours, listening to at least some amount of commercial radio and loving it, Jerry. Absolutely loving it. Yesterday when I was driving up to Seattle, I was rolling into town, you know, kind of in afternoon rush hour traffic in Seattle. Also something I've realized about being out here perched high above the mighty Columbia. I am not used to dealing with traffic and, you know, sort of not just on Interstate 5, but like the hotel that I was staying in, which was the AC Hotel which is kind of down in. I don't even know what we call that part. It's listed as downtown Seattle, but it's really not. It's. It's kind of where Denny. You know what? It's right by Andrew. It's right by Seattle's best karaoke.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Where you once life hacked some mixers for our drinks by going into your 24 Hour Fitness. Your 24 Hour Fitness Powerade that you.

[Luke Burbank]

Could mix with exactly. Some vodka.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. That's the Denny area. Denny Triangle area. Is that what they call it?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, that. You know what? That's. It does have a name and that's what the name is. But I was waiting for the Lyft to come get me last night and I was running a little behind. I was starting to feel a bit stressed. Wanted to come up to Town hall where the thing was happening. And it was one of those things where I'm what? The lift is 800ft from the front of the hotel. But because of the bizarreness of the traffic pattern there in the Denny Triangle, how you have all these. You have literal gridlock going on. And also it's like, you know, because the honor.

[Luke Burbank]

I'll just say it. The honor. There's the honorary. There's a very weird. Seattle is. Maybe Boston's weird too. Maybe I shouldn't make these hyper. Oh, dude.

[Andrew Walsh]

Boston's the weirdest in my experience as.

[Luke Burbank]

Far as like on. Not just traffic, but on ramps and off ramps. Being in weird. In places that are very strange. I guess Boston's weirder because they will have off ramps where there are no on ramps and on ramps where there are no off ramps. And then when you ask for instructions, they say, you can't get that from here. But I will say that Seattle has some weird ass on ramps tucked around the city. And that is one of them. And it was built during a time when traffic around here just was not as congested. And you're right, these small little roads outside the 24 Hour Fitness are not. They're just not built for this weird backup that'll be going like up the hill. It's crazy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And so I'm watching, on the app, I'm watching this. The graphic of this lift just machinate as it's kind of turning but then stopping, but then it's going up. And it's just. I'm like, I literally could have walked to Town Hall. And this is no reflection on the driver who was really cool, actually. I really liked this dude. But it was just Like, I had this kind of. This. This thing flooded back into me, which is the, like, the frustration of urban life, which is, you know, counteracted by a lot of great things about urban life. Like, we were able. Pizza slices is a big one that people cite often in their research on the topic. But I just had this moment of being like, wow, I'm kind of a country mouse again. Like, I don't. I'm not used to this. I'm not used to this packed city environment where I'm. I can see where the guy in the lift is, but he has to go roughly 74 blocks to get to me because of the weird street design. All that is to say, I like.

[Luke Burbank]

The way that you did point out the car's doing that thing that's. It's frustrating. You're looking at the map and it's spinning around. It looks like it's, like spinning on its axis, sort of like. Like a broken watch or something. It is a very frustrating feeling. You're like, what is this car? Why is it spinning around like a top?

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. And is he drunk? Yeah. Because that doesn't seem that mean he's doing donuts. What is going on?

[Luke Burbank]

Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

But all that is to say, as I was cruising into Seattle, I had this again, because I think maybe of my history with Seattle and of the time of day and the traffic, I felt I was in a mood where I wanted to listen to Seattle related sports talk radio. I think what I wanted to do was I wanted to travel to 20 years ago in my life or whatever it was when I just, like, lived in Seattle full time. And when, you know, most of the time when I'm in the car, I'm listening to local Seattle radio. Whether it's Cairo or maybe I worked or whether it's the sports talk folks, I wanted to be. I wanted my life to have not taken all the twists and turns that it has. I really just wanted to.

[Luke Burbank]

Young Matt Hasselback is still slinging the rods.

[Andrew Walsh]

A young Matt Hasselbeck is being trained under watchful eye of Mike Holmgren. Like, I just. I. I literally. There's something about being in the city of Seattle because again, I can't. I can't underscore this enough. It is where I grew up. It's also where I've spent a lot of my adult life. It's where most of my important sense memories have made. And if I'm being honest, it's where some of my best memories are, because they're memories that I made when I was young. They are memories that I made when I was 25 years old and, you know, relatively newly married and my life felt untroubled. And I, you know, I, I just, you know, I felt like, and I say this a lot, it felt like the airplane was taking off. And that's not how it feels at 48. And that's okay. I'm not trying to go to a dark place with it. But when I get into, into Seattle, I think I very much feel this desire to reconnect with a younger and more, if I'm being honest, optimistic part of my life. I don't think the current political scene is helping. It's probably driving me more towards this version of nostalgia.

[Luke Burbank]

So talk about the Sarah Nelson City Council, because I'm with you. I thought we weren't allowed to have those conversations on the show.

[Andrew Walsh]

I've asked you not to, but you continue to force them to shoehorn them.

[Luke Burbank]

In Danny's name will be raised.

[Andrew Walsh]

I swear to God, if this is another, this is another Danny west neat takedown project from you. I'll not entertain it. No, I'm so, I'm like, I'm basically passing, like, the Corson exit or something. You know, I'm on i5 and the traffic's where traffic starts to build as you're coming into Seattle, coming north. And I flip on the afternoon sports talk show, Dave and Bob, or Bob and Dave or whatever they called over there on Seattle Sports Talk. And I'm just telling you, Andrew, first of all, the fact that that station is still on Wyman and Bob. Wyman and Bob.

[Luke Burbank]

Took me a second, but that's what I knew is a combination of their names.

[Andrew Walsh]

Why so Serious man And Bob. No, I, I, I turned on that station and I just was flooded with dopamine. I was flooded with good feelings because one, that station is still on doing sports talk because, you know, you never know in this modern, this fractured media landscape. That station was still on. The two people hosting it are the people that I remember hosting that show. I love the broadcaster Dave Wyman. The former Seattle Seahawk Dave Wyman. I love the commercials. They're trying to convince women that they should buy their female friends Galentine's jewelry. They're talking about minimally invasive medical procedures. They're talking about refinancing.

[Luke Burbank]

They're talking about cyberknife.

[Andrew Walsh]

They're talking about. What's the one that they're talking about? There's one that Wyman's doing now that I think is a live read. That's basically a non surgical option. If you have cyberknife, that. Cyberknife.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Cyberknife.

[Andrew Walsh]

It just leaves a tiny, good Japanese band. I used to listen to the 90s, I think so.

[Luke Burbank]

And then you also have like a whole host of like, commercials for men that is going to like, revig. It's going to reinvigorate them.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

But then they never. But the, the obvious boner pill aspect of it is always mentioned last as if it's an afterthought. It's always like, I just, I can. I have more vim, I have more vigor. I'm great on the golf course. And fellas, she'll like it too.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, it's like you're in the liquor store, but you're just buying like Cheetos.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, right.

[Andrew Walsh]

And a bunch of things. And at the last minute you're like, I guess I'll take some liquor too. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what?

[Andrew Walsh]

Throw in that. Can you get that bottle of vodka? Have you got any. Do you have any vodka back there? Could you throw that in?

[Luke Burbank]

Give me five magnas, please.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, it wasn't the reason you're there. I love it. But there was something that was just so warm and comforting about hearing this. And by the way, I apologize that the show has been so sports heavy of late, but I just want to point this out. We could not be more in the doldrums of Seattle sports. Like, I'm listening to this. I'm surprised they don't just like, hang a gone fishing sign for like two months of the year, because there's nothing like none of our major teams are in. Maybe the Sounders are playing or something. The Sounders are like always playing and they're always about to be eliminated from the playoffs. But then they're in. They're winning the concaf Cup. I don't understand how soccer works, but anyway, it's like, I just love that. It was like 5:20, it's getting dark outside, and it's like these guys are just putting their nose to the grindstone. There was also an act, a genuinely funny moment that I told you about last night off air, which was they were playing some tape of the former NFL receiver Terrell Owens, and he was talking about something in football, basically that the Kansas City Chiefs are, are being sort of helped along by NFL refereeing, but for some reason, and this is just one of those podcasts that every pro, former pro athlete now has. And they're playing the audio front, but for some Reason there's Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is playing under him. Just talking about the Kansas City Chiefs and Dave and Bob and their producer, a guy named Matt, just start, like, kind of going off on, like, what a weird musical choice it is, which I love. You know, I just love this kind of content. And then bopping along, I'm listening to some, you know, Law Tigers for Men ads, whatever. And then they come back from the commercial break and they bump in with Moonlight Sonata. And I just was, like, in the car, I was like, that's. That's some good radio, my friends. And then, of course, then this morning when I get up, it's still on Seattle Sports. So I've got Brock and Salk coming at me. And, like, again, I just. It just felt like a warm hug, this. All this content. And I just started thinking, is it too late for us to get our sports talk radio show off the ground somewhere? Andrew, can we convince someone to give us a show? Because I just love it so much, and I'm like, I feel like maybe the future of my broadcast career is on terrestrial radio on a dying medium in a sports town with whose teams do poorly, generally speaking.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you know, this kind of ties into something that I was thinking about during your conversation with Chris on stage last night, which, by the way, was a really good conversation. And I'm not just saying that, you know, I'm loathe to compliment you. That was a really good conversation. Oh, thanks.

[Andrew Walsh]

I. I definitely felt. I don't want to. I don't want to hijack what your thought was, but I will just quickly get out of the way. My anxiety, which I shared with you last night, which was after I talked a big game on yesterday's TBTL about how, like, I wasn't nervous and about how the one thing I'm good at is chill conversations on stage, immediately ran into two pretty major snags. One, there was an audio snafu where there was this piano music playing while we were sitting on stage, which was a. An error with the backstage public address system, but people couldn't really hear it, but it was really loud for me and Chris. So we're, like, looking at each other and talking, but we have this, like, huge distraction going on, and I'm just furiously thinking, how do we fix this and make it not awkward? It got fixed. And then the other thing was, I.

[Luke Burbank]

Meant to say piano player. It's like, I mean, take care of it.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's. It's. You got to do what you got to do when you're in that foxhole. Andrew. And then the other thing was that I had like a. I misspoke. Something I was talking about. I meant to mention Chris writing at the Nation magazine. I wrote. I said national Review. This is as the piano playing public. New Republic. National Review would have been even funnier.

[Luke Burbank]

That would be a. That would have been hilarious.

[Andrew Walsh]

That actually would have great. But I. But anyway, so I had like. I don't usually do that. Anyway. There was like a couple of, like a couple of little quick moments of like not feeling 100% on that stage right at the beginning. I definitely think that thankfully Chris such a professional and so smart that we got the nose up and it ended up being a really. A really fun event. But it just, it was the. It was not lost on me in the first five minutes when there was a couple of little moments of turbulence that I was like, I just. I knew I was gonna jinx this today when I was actually acting confident for once in my life.

[Luke Burbank]

It's just so funny because, like you saying the wrong magazine. That is like very much similar, like, kind of in the same vein.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

It just went by so quickly. He just corrected you. You made a quick little joke about it and you moved on. Like, nobody in that room. Even I. Then you referenced it back later in the. In the. Which I'm sure you were like, that was really funny.

[Andrew Walsh]

Fat Mind was working on that. Big fat. Exactly. For the intervening 40 minutes.

[Luke Burbank]

I will say you dropped it in a way that was very funny. But I also was like, oh, shit, man. He's been thinking about that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Nobody. It just doesn't live in people's minds.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, I thought of you when I did that callback. I was like, andrew. If Andrew didn't know that I was totally, like, hung up on that, he now knows I was. Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

That might. There were a couple of moments where I felt like I bark laughed when nobody else was laughing in the room. And I was wondering if you could hear me in the back. Bark laughing for better support.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you were saying last as you were watching.

[Luke Burbank]

So this is. I need to kind of. Sorry, talk expansively here, but. And maybe. And maybe you will kind of clean up some of the paraphrasing that I'm going to try to do from your conversation last night. But obviously Chris's book is about the attention economy. We've been talking about it on this show. He's been doing a media blitz that has no comparison in media blitzes. I think it's been amazing to see.

[Andrew Walsh]

In the modern era.

[Luke Burbank]

Hear him all over the place talking about this. And. And he.

[Andrew Walsh]

On the COVID of Costco Connections at my Drive.

[Luke Burbank]

That was what he used to write for.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's what it was.

[Luke Burbank]

It was like 15 years ago when we were first starting to get to know each other. And you were writing for Costco Connections.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, God. That would have been such a funny joke. It would have confused the crowd. That would have been a solid joke.

[Luke Burbank]

But one of the things. And this is where I need to, like, kind of slow down and try to recall this better, because it was the only time I've heard Chris mentioned this. In fact, I mentioned this to him when we were chatting that, like, I just have not heard him repeat a lot of the same anecdotes, like, for as much. I mean, little bit here and there. Because there's no way to not. There's no way to do so much media without. And talking about the same book without, like, you know, kind of repeating yourself a little bit. It's amazing how we're some of the.

[Andrew Walsh]

Only people that are able to not do that.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, we never repeat this show. I mean, that's. Ever repeat our stories. Do you know I was bullied growing up? No, I. So all that is to say he was talking about, obviously, again, the attention economy and how we are, like, what. I think you even asked, like, well, what are the. If we have all these people and companies that are competing for our attention, what is the. What is the new frontier of that? Where can we go next? Like, once they've already mined us as much as they can for our attention, it seems like a finite resource. How are people trying to, like, split our attention even more? And Chris was talking about, like, well, I saw my kid playing a video game, but also at a screen up in the corner where he was watching something on Twitch or something like that. That. And so two screen experiences are trying to steal our attention when we're sleeping through podcasts or whatever. And he's kind of giving these examples. And while we were talking, while you guys were talking about the two screen experience, he mentioned an anecdote. And I don't think he attached any names to this, but a story about an executive, I believe a TV executive, streaming executive.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my gosh.

[Luke Burbank]

Who actually kind of rejected somebody's script idea or production idea because it was too intriguing and it would suck the viewers in, too, to the point where it wouldn't be a good show to split your distraction with, that they were looking for lesser media that you can sort of just have on in the background so you can look up and sort of catch the drift. But also go back down to your phone and scroll, twitch or Twitter. What's the one that every bite dance.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

What were you going to say?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I was going to say I feel like. Well, I want you to complete your thought, but I think I feel like I kind of know where you're going with it because I was having this thought on stage. Please continue.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, so anyway, the reason I'm bringing up now in context of this conversation you were having about kind of reengaging with like just local live AM radio. The reason I like and kind of came to it later in my life, live AM radio, is because it is that they can make a decision on the fly during the commercial break. It can be a little janky. Let's bump in with moon night. So not somebody find that on YouTube. Let's just play it. We can take a call. Cannot take a call. Like, that is so in growing up or coming of age in public radio, where everything had to be planned out days in advance and be like, well, literally me getting into arguments with a host about whether a bump should be 15 seconds or 25 seconds. You know what I mean? Like, you can get into these and some of them are probably good conversations to have as a public radio producer, but it can be a little bit stifling too, you know? And so to have this world where it's like, I don't know, we go on the radio, we do three hours of talk, Some people are gonna remember some of it, some are gonna not remember some of it. It's gonna be a waterfall of us doing this. And that's very much the TBTL model, which is like why I like this job and why I was a fan of the show before I was a part of the show. So to tie all of this up, I'm sitting there listening to Chris talk about the attention economy and how you don't want to have something that is like, gonna steal too much of your focus. I'm kinda like, Chris has also said TBTL is the kind of perfect background thing. Like, not maybe he didn't say background, but the beau do is you don't have to hear all of it. You can leave the room, you can come back in. I'm still telling this story. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you don't have to catch every little thing like a. Like a. An addition of like a. Certainly something serialized, like serial or even.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, even when I. Sure. Or if I listen to Chris's podcast. Why is this happening? Yeah, I find myself, you know, hitting like 15 seconds back a lot because I want to make sure that I understood what the person was saying, because everything has meaning to it and everything is built on something that preceded it. I was. Yeah, that's exactly the thought that I was having last night, which was just to re. For whatever reason, to restate what you were saying, that basically a studio executive was saying, we're going to design shows that are not that interesting so that they don't get in the way of other screens or your real life. And that seems like that would be anathema to making entertainment. And I wanted to say we. We are so on the vanguard of that with tbtl. We have for years been making a podcast you can fall asleep to, as many people report a podcast that you pay maybe one quarter of your attention to. Like, we, we really, we're really groundbreaking in that space and with that kind of content. And I think it's high time we get the credit that is due.

[Luke Burbank]

Not just the credit, but the. The. The financial payoff, reward. Reward for that as well. Like there. Maybe that's our executives out there who are saying we need something that is more mid.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maybe that's the TBT billboard.

[Luke Burbank]

More mid.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. If you missed yesterday's show, we made an announcement which is that we are in fact going to be putting up a TBTL billboard, like a real billboard somewhere in America, somewhere that is more affordable than the place that launched the idea, which was near Andrew's house. That was out of our price range, but we did find a place, maybe a slightly less trafficked area, where we're going to put this billboard up. But we would love some suggestions. If anyone has ideas for a new TBTL Billboard, it's John. JonBtl.net, hit up our guy, John Sklaroff with your ideas. If you can do the graphic design, cool. If graphic design is not your passion, you can also just say, here's what would be on the billboard. We're just. We're collecting up all the ideas that we can get just so we come up with something cool for when we do this billboard. All that is to say thank you, thank you, thank you to everybody who came out last night from the TBTL community. I didn't get a chance to. Actually. I'll just tell you this, Andrew. My mom and dad were really excited to meet Chris. In particular, my dad was really excited to meet Chris. Did you see?

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know why I'm tattling on them. But after all this talk of your parents being excited for this and. And like kind of asking you a million questions about when it starts and parking everything. Did you see them rolling hot, like about like three minutes in?

[Andrew Walsh]

My mom explained to me that she was like, I guess I missed the intro, which I heard was great. So my mom. Yes, my parents, who, by the way, I want to mention, were in Seattle all day yesterday, I found out they were having. They were having a leisurely lunch at my Aunt Mary Lou's house. They had nowhere to be other than town hall at 7:30 and managed to be seated after the program had begun.

[Luke Burbank]

I saw them coming. I was like, that is so classic, by the way. Put it on the poll. Are all lunches at Aunt Mary Lou's house leisurely by definition?

[Andrew Walsh]

Without a doubt. So it was. I have to say it was. I've already made plenty out of this. And in fact, we've recorded a little conversation with Chris which we're gonna play tomorrow. This may even come up then, I don't know. But it was very charming for me to see how excited my parents were in particular, my dad was to get to meet Chris. And last night after the show, you know, I go to talk to my folks and there was a line of people signing, looking to have Chris sign the book. I mean, it went around the interior of Town Hall. I mean, that was a crazy turnout.

[Luke Burbank]

That place was packed. Yeah, it was.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it's a pretty sizable venue for a book event. And. And so I. I was talking to my folks and I was looking at this line and I was like, oh, that's a long. You know, that's gonna take like two hours or something. And I just said to my folks, I was like, you know, I think we missed our window to go talk and say hi to Chris for you guys to get to meet him. And I go, so maybe another time I go, or I guess we can wait. And I had barely finished the sentence where dad said, we'll wait.

[Luke Burbank]

I love that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like it was. So we went and we hung up, but we went out and we sat in this tiny green room. That Town hall is the. See, I guess the thing about Town hall, and this is where I guess I'm just going to get into the venue because that's definitely what people tuned in for. But you were back there with Genevieve before the show. It's interesting because for such a grand. I mean, it's an absolutely grand room and it's a very cool space. The green room leaves a Lot to be desired. It's Spartan. And I guess it's because. And I've noted this when we do Livewire there. Because when we do Livewire there, there's like 20 people from Livewire. Forget the guests, just the people that work on Livewire. There's almost not enough room. There's like two chairs. There's a tiny, like. Like apartment size or motel room size refrigerator that sometimes will have people sign their release on. Like, it's a very. It's. And I think it's because that place is not designed. It's a church. A, its origins are as a church. And then B, it's usually like in conversation with. It's usually like the person who wrote the book and then the person who's asking them questions. Like, it's not. It's not set up for some like, you know, a Cirque du Soleil troupe to be, you know, getting ready in the back and people are doing their makeup and whatever. Like, it's. It's not that scene. But anyway, that back room is kind of funny to me because it's very spare considering the. How grand the rest of the room is. But we go back there and I got my mom and dad and I say, oh, hey, mom, I think there's some leftover, like, nuts, because they had two. You saw those. Like, there was like a thing of coffee and then two little white kind of bowls of like mixed nuts from maybe from Costco or something. And I was like, I guess, mom, there's some mixed nuts or something if you want them. I'm just trying to kill time because I'm gonna be back there with them for like an hour. My mom goes, you know, I love mixed nuts. So I'm sure I give her the bowl and she's just like, eating them and eating them. And then people are coming in, like town hall staffers and other people. And finally Chris is done with this signing. And I see him because it's. The weird thing is there's a can, like you're looking at a monitor backstage where you can actually see what's happening on the stage, but you're backstage. And I see Chris get up from the signing table and then making for the door, and I'm like, guess what? In three, two, one, Chris is coming through that door. And boom, he comes through the door. And my dad's all excited to meet him, and he's shaking his hand, and my mom gives him a hug. And then my dad and Chris are chatting, and I look over and my mom is just calmly unloading both of the bowls of nuts into a paper cup.

[Luke Burbank]

I was wondering. I was wondering when you first mentioned your mom and the mixed nuts. Nuts. I immediately had a picture of her just dumping them into her bag or her purse or whatever she was thinking about.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think she took one of the paper cups that was meant for, like, coffee to go, but it didn't have any in it. And she was just. She was just sliding. And I feel like she said something to me like, I'm going to take the rest of these nuts. I'll tell you why in a minute. But then she never told me why.

[Luke Burbank]

Can I guess for eating? I think there were some. To her credit. I believe there were some craisins, maybe. Yes, there were as well. So, I mean, how could you keep your hands off that?

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm actually texting her, did you take the rest of those nuts last night? And I got to put a laughing emoji so she doesn't think she's in trouble. I promise, you are not in trouble. Exo. That's. That was just like, Susie gonna. Suzie, I just love. I mean, honestly, like, I kind of loved it. I was like, I just. I can set my watch by the fact that my mom's gonna be 15 minutes late, and she's gonna be taking those Costco craisins and nuts with her. Like, I just. I just know. And by the way, I was happy for it, because, first of all, they were gonna go to waste. Second of all, I couldn't eat them.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I know. I saw you eyeing those nuts.

[Andrew Walsh]

Dude, I would have gone ham on those nuts, because being that I am trying to eat more, like, not this week, which is this colonoscopy thing, but, like, generally speaking, what I'm trying to do is, if I'm hungry, absolutely snack on something, but make it so that snack is something like some peanuts or some almonds or just things that are, you know, more identifiable as a food product rather than something that's super duper processed. That's kind of been my thing of late. And what it's meant is that I've been eating a lot of things, like, you know, mixed nuts. And so I was hungry yesterday because I've been, you know, I've been kind of. There's a bunch of foods I can't eat right now because of this thing on Thursday. And so I literally, when I saw those nuts, I was like, damn, I would really love to just go hard on those. But I couldn't. But I was very glad that they were getting. I'm glad that somebody was using them, and I'm glad that my mom was, you know, did not disappoint in terms of being my mom.

[Luke Burbank]

I do think that was it. Rick, the security guard, do you think that he had his eyes on the nuts, though? Do you think that that would be.

[Andrew Walsh]

The one person that would be kind of a bummer? Yeah, I. Because he was a super sweetheart. That's another thing last night that was totally new to me.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Security.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

In case. In case I ever get confused about what a real celebrity's life is like. Because I've done. I've done the show at Town Hall. I've been in events and done shows at town hall probably 15 to 20 times in my life, and I have never, ever has there been backstage security until last night.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you know, I didn't think about it at the time. I mean, I heard you mention that, because, you know, you. We can say that I think this is good. Right Forward promo. We're not trying to not tell listeners that we recorded a little segment with Chris before the show last night in the green room. And so you, me and him, went into this little dressing room area because it was, like, kind of the most convenient place to do it. And then we come out, we had left Genevieve in one of those two chairs. And then when we came out, it was Genevieve and a man kind of standing sort of officially, but not in any kind of a uniform. And it looked like he and Genevieve were chatting a little bit. And then he immediately introduced himself as like, kind of the security detail, sort of. And he might have had an earpiece in or something. And it felt very sort of official to me in the moment.

[Andrew Walsh]

Go for Leslie.

[Luke Burbank]

I am. What's that?

[Andrew Walsh]

Go for Leslie.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right. And I do wonder. I wonder if it's also the kind of political, you know, given where we are in the country. Right. Like, for example, Nico Case is speaking at Town hall tonight. I saw. Which is pretty cool. In conversation with Cheryl Waters.

[Andrew Walsh]

Luke, you from kexp.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I changed Cheryl Waters tire once. And I always think of myself as the mouse who pulled a thorn out of a lion's paw. Like, you owe me at Someday I'm going to cash that in.

[Luke Burbank]

You've interviewed Nico Case, too, huh? As I was trying to.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was going to Live Wire. It was a weird episode. It was at Bumber Shoot. And that was back when I used to do this pretty extensive monologue to start each show. And for whatever reason, I decided to talk about an interaction I'd had with Adelaide at that Bumber shoot. And in the moment of talking about this to a bunch of relative strangers, I realized that she was in the audience. Like, I had thought that she wasn't gonna come to the show, and I got emotional on stage. And then it was like, right after, I was like, ladies and gentlemen, Nico Case.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I'm sorry, Adelaide was in the audience, not Nico.

[Andrew Walsh]

Adelaide was in the audience. Nico Case was a guest.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it was just a very. Of all the shows she could have been on. I mean, honestly, I say this with peace and love. She's kind of a grade A weirdo, so it probably worked for her. She's probably cool, man. They're getting real on this show. But I was a little bit like. Of all the shows for me to, like, have a kind of overly intense emotional moment in front of everyone, it's the one that Nico Case is on.

[Luke Burbank]

But why shouldn't it be Ron Funches?

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, he would have vibed the only thing.

[Luke Burbank]

The only reason I bring that up is. And maybe this is a not a very fun thing to talk about, and maybe I'm just totally off my nut on this. Speaking of mixed nuts. But, you know, I do wonder if, like, Nico. Does Nico Case have that security guard as well? Or is it the state of the country and what Chris's job is, aside from being an author of this book? But, you know, being on msnbc, I wonder if they were thinking about that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I have a clue.

[Luke Burbank]

I have a clue.

[Andrew Walsh]

To help us with this mystery. That security person said, the last time I was here, I said to them, I said, oh, have I met you before? They looked kind of familiar. And then he said, I don't think we have. He goes, unless. Were you here when it was Rachel Maddow? And I said, no. And he goes, I was also hired for that.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. So I guess maybe I.

[Andrew Walsh]

So my guess is MSNBC probably has a corporate policy that when its hosts are doing. I mean, this is my guess.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, not a town hall policy, but.

[Andrew Walsh]

I have a feeling it's part of the overall kind of. I don't know if it falls under the rider or not, but I have a feeling it's a corporate policy from MSNBC regarding public appearances by its on air talent. Would it be my guess. I'm sure if only we knew someone who worked there, who we were getting dinner with last night that we could actually ask this of. Well, I do have enough of them.

[Luke Burbank]

Because I kick Chris right in the nads.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. You do? Yeah, you did. We do have a. Let's see, Stop the show. An update in the question of the backstage nuts. I said, mom, can I ask you a question? Did you take the rest of those nuts last night? I promise you, you are not in trouble. And I put a laugh crying emoji to really blunt things. And she said, we didn't take the rest of them. But mainly I took some in a paper cup that was there to have your dad munch on them to stay awake on the dark ride home.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, that was the reason why.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then I said, smart. And then she said. I even mentioned my reason to the gal cleaning up. And she said, great.

[Luke Burbank]

They weren't going to reuse those. Nika wasn't going to reuse those.

[Andrew Walsh]

Things were going right into the trash. I'm so happy that they were getting consumed by my parents, but I just think it's just so. I'll tell you, you know what? We were again, I don't think this is talking out of school. We went and we got some dinner with Chris and Genevieve, and you and Chris had been at the Microsoft campus talking about the book in the daytime and was just marveling at the amount of free stuff that's available there if you work there. We got a lot of listeners that work there. They know this and Genevieve knows this, having, you know, professionally associated with Microsoft. It's wild, though. Like, yeah, when I'm there and we're filming these security things, like, it's any kind of soda that you can imagine. It's any kind of sparkling water. It's any kind of juice. It's every kind of, like, string cheese snack. Like, there is no end to these little. It's an avanti market, but way better, but with. But without having to obscure your face from the camera. When you're stealing downstairs at Cairo and you're stealing a beef jerky or whatever, peanut butter crackers. And I was just. All I could think when we were talking about that was like, we could not turn my mom loose in that place. It would be a situation.

[Luke Burbank]

It would be. Headline on Wednesday, Susie Burbank Visits Redmond. Headline on Thursday, Microsoft Files for Bankruptcy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, exactly. Microsoft Disappoints in Fourth Quarter Earning Report. Like, I read there is something. And, and the thing is, I've got it, too. I inherited it from my mother, which is this. This feeling. And here's where it doesn't apply. If there's, if someone has put out, like, brownies at work or cookies or something, you know, in the, like an email goes around, hey, there's cake in the break room. Or even like, like, you know, Dick's Drive and brought in burgers or something. I always, I think just out of some kind of weird. I don't know what the word for it is. I. I generally don't engage with that stuff very much. I'm usually kind of being like, I'm. I don't, you know, I don't need to run down there and elbow people out of the way to get my hands on a cookie or something. That being said, when there's like, free stuff around that's kind of like packaged that I could put in. Like, for instance, this morning when I got up in my hotel room, had two bottles of water, like, you know, just that were free to take. And I'll. I'll be gosh darned if I didn't throw those in my bag and bring them with me. Like, I am not gonna sleep on any portable packaged thing that I would otherwise maybe pay money for that I'm gonna get for free. Like, I'm. I'm taking that. Like, I regularly leave those Microsoft events with 30 to 40 seltzer cans of seltzer in my bag.

[Luke Burbank]

Like. So what are those old timey pants that are like. Are they clodhoppers or that where they. Like, you're just feeling your pockets. You jod purse. Jod purse. Is that the.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

Kind of like real poofy.

[Luke Burbank]

Really.

[Andrew Walsh]

Poof.

[Luke Burbank]

You're just like filling it with like, water, snacks, bubbly water.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like the mummy trying to sneak a. A whale bone Long Island Iced Tea into the Saddle Ranch on Sunset. But you have to walk at a very particular gate so you're not spilling it or knocking. All. One time we went out, heard that.

[Luke Burbank]

Term whalebone mean that he put it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, like, you know those long kind of novelty drinks that are plastic and they've got a very narrow, long middle part to them.

[Luke Burbank]

O. Okay. I thought that. I thought you were describing the. I thought he slipped it in his pants in some way that was. Be. That would he did for a whale bone.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no, no. Whale bone is. Is. I don't even think this is the real name for it. But we in our friend group, what we always called any kind of those drinks that are, you know, like a novelty drink you might get in Vegas or on the Sunset Strip, New Orleans, it's going to be in some plastic thing. Now, they are insanely long. But, you know, maybe. Let's just talk about something that's Three feet or whatever. And I remember one night we were going out, and per usual, the mummy had no money and decided. I think maybe had 20 bucks, and decided that instead of trying to buy, like, one drink at the Saddle Ranch, which, by the way, is the kind of country western bar on Sunset that has a mechanical bowl in it, and instead of trying to buy two drinks in two different places, he decided to get a Long island iced tea. To spend his entire alcohol budget for the night on a Long island iced tea. But then sneak it into each bar we were going into, which involved sliding it into his sock so it roughly mirrored his shin bone, and then walking, like, something out of a. Like, keep on trucking so that it's, like, not spilling. Sneaking these things into and out of the various bars of the Sunset Strip, I feel like.

[Luke Burbank]

And I had friends like this. I guess the term is like. Like, dirtbag. I had friends like this in college who, I swear, like, I love to drink. I mean, not to brag, but early on, I love to drink, but I had friends who loved to drink but were also, like, kind of broke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ever since I was a kid, I always knew I wanted to be a.

[Luke Burbank]

Kid alcoholic ever since I was a little kid reading Andy Capp over my cereal. No. But I do feel like there's a personality type that also, like, part of the fun is, can I get away with this? You know what I mean? Like, I almost wonder, and maybe this is wrong. You know him way better than I do, obviously. But, like, I almost wonder, like, even if he had more resources, would he have done this anyway? No. You're shaking your head.

[Andrew Walsh]

No. I think. I think that these were. That These desperate acts of a desperate person.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is my. Is my experience with that being genuine? I'm not saying that I'm or wasn't above that. Like, the idea of, like. Yeah. Trying to get away with something or be a little bit sneaky or, you know, I don't know, push the envelope. But I think in this case, it literally was like, how do I get. How do I get what I think is the most drunk for the $20 I have? We'll go Long Island.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Long Island Iced Tea. Which. Boy, if you ever want to really reframe your relationship with alcohol, have, like, two Long island iced teas and get back to me in the morning. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Or your. Your relationship with sugar as well. Right. Isn' I.

[Andrew Walsh]

And that's. Yeah. That's probably worse than the booze.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you for being a.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let's thank some donors. These wonderful people are donating to TBTL to keep this thing going. And it's vital to the mission to make this commercial free podcasting. We were talking with Chris last night after dinner about he was gently inquiring, how's tb? TB are things. I think it was at the part where our credit card was being declined and he was picking up the tab, I believe, when he asked, how's it going at tbtb, it was strange because.

[Luke Burbank]

We'Re at an American style bar, but a French waiter came out and cut your card in half.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was very interesting. Unnecessary, I thought unnecessarily theatrical. But we were able to say to him, no, you know, it's like this thing is the center is holding. This is a real thing. And I'm really proud of that and really. Yeah. Excited that we can keep doing this for our job and for John Sklaroff's job. And it's thanks to folks like Howard Rosenman of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you, Howard. You know, I want to add one thing that sort of Chris said in that conversation too, was, and I'm saying this now because it's relevant to the donors who are keeping this going. He said that, like his experience in media, he's just witnessed so much boom and bust, not even in the landscape, generally speaking, but just at a company either, like just you're just going like you're high as can be. And then the next minute there's like layoffs or whatever. And the thing about TBTL is it's been really Steady Eddie. And it's specifically, we don't have anybody named Eddie, do we? Oh, that would have been perfect donating today. But it's true. The reason why we're Steady Howards is because of the listeners like Howard, like that we can just kind of like depend on this and just kind of keep this at a slow simmer.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. That's all we're doing here is we're just like, we're not, we're not getting too. I believe the way Chris described it was, it's either we're having a six figure Christmas party where it's an open bar and I believe he maybe he mentioned some illegal drugs that might be there too, or everybody is laid off and we're just, you know, we're just kind of maintaining here. We're like, we're just simmering. We're not getting crazy. We're not boiling over. I promise you, our coffers are not boiling over with donations. But it's not, you know, it's not something that's ice cold either. It's happening for us as a show, as a project, and it's thanks to folks like Howard and also thanks to Kurt Peterbaugh of Shoreline, Washington, my neighbor to the north.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, thank you, Kurt.

[Andrew Walsh]

We love Shoreline. Also thanks to Christine Mintz in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow.

[Andrew Walsh]

Two New Mexico donors in the same day.

[Luke Burbank]

That's not a coincidence.

[Andrew Walsh]

You don't think so?

[Luke Burbank]

You don't believe that's part of the plot?

[Andrew Walsh]

You think the phones are listening to us?

[Luke Burbank]

The phones are listening to us. Santa Fe sounds like a nice, warm place to be right now on a snowy day here.

[Andrew Walsh]

Seriously. How's Seattle sound to you, Andrew? That's where Laura Peterson is. Seattle sounds warm today.

[Luke Burbank]

Laura might have taken the day off today. Might have. Might be working from home because it's a snow day. Unclear. It seems like I was hearing from a lot of friends who are like, I'm the only person in the office. Office today.

[Andrew Walsh]

What is the snow scene at your house?

[Luke Burbank]

Like, if you look outside, I'm looking out the window now. I can't see the ground because I'm below ground level, but I can see that the sun has come out now. It looks actually pretty bright out there. And I'm seeing some drippings, like. So I'm getting the impression that the snow might be starting to melt. But this morning it was. The past couple of days, it's been, like, kind of coming down, kind of big, wet flakes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I was really genuinely surprised at how snowy it was outside the hotel. Luckily, it was the powderiest snow I've ever encountered. It was so dry and so, like. So there was a huge amount on my car, but literally turning on my windshield wipers just went. And it was just gone.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that. You know what that was. I started the show today by saying I have a question about your commute. My question is somewhat simple. I think once you got into your neck of the woods, those roads are a little bit more countryish, a little bit more windy. I was, like, actually wondering this morning, will you dial up on time? Can you even get into your driveway? There was no issues. It was all plowed and cleaned.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was. There's no snow down here. It was when the show was starting, like, when we started recording today, I was. Some snowflakes were coming down, but there's not any snow on the roads here. And also I've got. Andrew, my snow socks with me.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yes. Which go on. Not your foot.

[Andrew Walsh]

No. Yeah, they're. They're for the Vehicle. They're basically chains, but they're fabric. And I got them maybe last year, maybe two years ago, but. But yeah, I feel, I feel so confident with those things. In the way back of my Mazda CX5, I'm like, get at me Mother Nature. But as it happened, nothing happening down here in terms of inclement weather. Thanks also to Wayne Kirkendall of Mill Creek, Washington. I don't know what the scene in Mill Creek is probably snowy, which means. Yeah, Wayne is probably by a cozy fire, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. In Mill Creek. Mill Creek sounds like a place that would be like, it would be snowy. But there's a fire in the hearth and you're seeing. Yes. Cottage. From outside of it, you can see the warm glow of Wayne kind of rubbing his hands together.

[Andrew Walsh]

Absolutely. And there's like a bubbling brook that moves the mill, moves the water wheel. It's turning into a Thomas Kincaid painting.

[Luke Burbank]

I know. You know that Genevieve really told me that it was a bad look after a while and I had to take them down. But for a while there I was collecting those little like, those little dorky paintings of like kids fishing or playing around water wheels with like the balsa wood frames or whatever I had in my early 20s, I had a few of those on my wall in literally this really shitty wood paneled apartment. And Genevieve is like, you just don't look like somebody who's allowed to be near schools. Like, you need to take those off the wall. And so eventually I did.

[Andrew Walsh]

Were they like precious moments? Kind of like, kind of like that.

[Luke Burbank]

Real country kitsch of just like. Yeah, you can picture a kid as his, like his cuffs are rolled up.

[Andrew Walsh]

And he's got a straw hat on.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe a straw hat and like, you know, his sister is just like sitting on a rock while he's got an old fashioned fishing pole.

[Andrew Walsh]

Uh huh. Yeah. I mean that is the line between kitsch and the police showing up is, you know, is a fine line and you want to really stay on the proper side of it. Also, before we wrap this part of the show up, we have to thank Aaron Schultz in Shoreline, Washington.

[Luke Burbank]

Andrew, another shoreline.

[Andrew Walsh]

Two people in Albuquerque or two people in New Mexico today? Two people in shoreline.

[Luke Burbank]

This is good. Thank you, Aaron.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you, Aaron. And thanks to all of our donors. We could not do this TBTL thing without you. Hello and welcome to Top Story. Just another update, Andrew, on my immigration status, my ability to travel to England on Sunday. By the way, one quick plug. I'm back in Seattle on Saturday night. We are doing an event at The Hotel Crocodile. I've never been there before. But you have Andrew, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Well, the thing is like when the Croc reopened, I know that I've been to a couple of different shows there, but in like one was in the like a big ballroom area. One was in like kind of the, the smaller club underneath. So. And I think they might have a couple like a few venues all in there. So I don't know if I, if I can picture where you're going to be, but that is, I've never placed.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean I've never been, I've never been in the new version of the Croc. I'm so excited. But it's just a little kind of intimate pop up show we're doing. It's for Livewire. The singer Emmy Pop is going to be performing. I'll be there. There's going to be great food and drinks. You can get [e-mail] if you would like to see even more of me this week. Maybe you didn't get your fill at Town Hall. That's Saturday night. Then I'm getting up first thing Sunday morning, hustling down to Sea Tac and flying to England. Or so I thought. Now the problem is there is a new rule in the uk something called the eta, which is like Electronic Travel Association.

[Luke Burbank]

I think it's just the show pick. I made the infographic about the ETA a show pick the other day. Electronic Travel Authorization.

[Andrew Walsh]

Authorization, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But it's called with an S because they're in the UK Author.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I've been describing, and I look, I don't care, but I've been describing this as something that just feels like it's a tax on traveling, which again, it's $12. But it, what I don't understand is, is, is what extra security it might be providing because of the fact that the security questions seemed less thorough than the ones you would have to answer for your passport, which you also have to have a passport presumably if you're from the US and you're traveling through England.

[Luke Burbank]

So can I just mention one thing that somebody wants to let you know this is apparently it does go both ways because I'm looking for the email right now.

[Andrew Walsh]

I saw.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. Meredith wrote in to say, because she's I think a US Expat who's living in the UK if I have that right and says that basically there's a $21 cost to go from. You know, if you're somebody who's a British citizen coming to the United States, sure sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I don't, I don't in any way doubt that the United States government's also availed themselves of the chance to soak visitors from other countries for an extra 21 bucks. You know, but like I just, in filling out this application online I just was kind of like this just seems superfluous to me for some reason. But anyways, big announcement and as of, you know, whatever January something 20, 25. So I send through the application and you get this kind of auto generated message that says sometimes it takes up to three days to get your approval, sometimes it takes longer. And weeks. A week goes by, two weeks go by, I haven't heard anything. The trip is getting closer. The trip is now on Sunday. And I like last week I was telling you, Andrew that I was trying to get some help with this from this like UK immigration website, the official website. And you go on there and. Well, first of all, there was one version where they were trying to charge me like per minute to talk on the phone with someone or per topic in an email. I don't know if we've gotten any closer to understanding what 69 pence means.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh yeah, that was also in that email. Basically a pence is a penny. So there's 100 cents, 69 cents a.

[Andrew Walsh]

Minute was going to be the charge if I wanted to call them.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, like eight. Well in the US that'd be like 80. I don't know what the conversion is. 80 cents a minute, 89 cents a minute or something. Something.

[Andrew Walsh]

But so yeah, just like I was, I was running up and then I was, I finally found like a free chat function with them. But it immediately said these are the things we will not be helping you with. The status of your application, a timeline on your application, basically any of the things you'd be wanting to know about your application. And then the line was really long and then finally I went, I missed my window. And then I tried to get online with them a different time and they were closed because of the time difference between here and England. So yesterday morning I got up bright and early and I jumped on the chat function with them and finally was able to get a hold of somebody who started to chat with someone. And what I will tell you is they absolutely will help you figure out what's going on with your ETA application. I had my whole like, I was, I was gonna try to like warm the water up on the frog, if you know what I mean. Like, because it's very clearly written like we will not listen to your dreams. We Are not saints or whatever she says. Did that close out yesterday?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah, I played this little drop. Yep. We are not saying, but, like, there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Are so many, like, things that they're like, we will not do this. So I was like, I can't just come right in and go like, hi, I want to know the status of my ETA application. Like, I can't say that. So what I'm going to have to do is say, I applied for this and I have not received confirmation should I reapply? Which I thought was going to trick them into giving me some information. You know what I mean? And so you're already playing games before.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what the game is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, well. But that's why I'm so effective with these things, because I'm, you know, I'm. I'm miles ahead of these folks. So the person jumps on the line on the chat and I. I'm like, I've got my confirmation number. And I'm like, I applied for my ETA thing. This is my confirmation number. And it's like typing, typing, typing, typing. And they're like, okay, what's your name, address, whatever. I give them all this stuff. They're like, I'm not finding it. And then they're like, do you have the confirmation number? And I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. You guys are as bad as I thought. And I was like, I gave you the confirmation number. And they're like, that's the confirmation for your payment. There's a different one that is the confirmation for your actual application. And of course, I go into my emails and it's like the second one down, and I give it to them, and they're like, okay, please hold, let me take a look at this. And they're like, super helpful. Not a bottle. Oh, that's the other thing that I learned. If you ever find yourself in the same predicament I was in, and you're dealing with this chat function at this very specific United Kingdom website, all you have to do is tell the bot, I want to talk to a human. And then the bot will say, please rephrase the question. Was this helpful? Was this answer helpful? Yes or no? And you tell it no. And then you do the same thing again. And then it says, was this answer helpful? And you say, no. And then it lets you talk to a human. You just have to. You have to neg it twice.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, sounds good. So it's just.

[Andrew Walsh]

Just if you want to know, just tell it. This was not a helpful answer. Two times. And it shall Let you pass on this bridge.

[Luke Burbank]

Anyway, the game how to talk to a human Being wasn't the game where the term like sort of negate. Wasn't that the. Like the. The. What's the word I'm looking for? Anti woman is the sentiment.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, incel the pickup artist.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was called the speed seduction community.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that really what it was called?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, the speed seduction community is what I think kind of started it's way and I mean it's just heavy duty. It's heavy duty incel energy. But I think there was a guy named Ross Jeffries who was. Would teach these classes. I'm sure these were like happening on VHS tapes and at like a shady like Holiday Inn by the airport somewhere where basically you could come out and this person was going to teach you as a man how to you know, hit on women effectively. And then from that there was this other, you know, kind of break off shoot. I think the guy was named. Who went by the name mystery. Who wrote. Who had this crew of guys that their whole thing was just going out and trying to hit on women basically. And then I think his name is Neil Strauss is the Rolling Stone reporter who then lived with them and upped his game and then wrote a book called the Game which they printed to look like the Bible. It came out on 9 11, did not make a splash and then was like re released months later and did make a splash.

[Luke Burbank]

I didn't know a lot of those details about the 911 release and everything.

[Andrew Walsh]

It showed up at my desk in LA when I was a booker for Day to Day. This thing that looks exactly like a King James Bible but was the Game by Neil Strauss. Anyway, that's why I have a bizarre. And also I used it and that's.

[Luke Burbank]

How I think misogynist may be the word I was looking for before I think I was just looking. That's. That whole thing happened because I couldn't think of the word misogynist. Sorry about that.

[Andrew Walsh]

But we all got to learn a little bit more about a truly terrible.

[Luke Burbank]

Piece of literature about the T.J. macification of America.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nice. So I here's the. Here's the end to this already too long story. I'm talking to this very helpful person in England who's so much more helpful and so much less of a bot. And so like isn't doing any of the things that I was worried going in. It's just being helpful and is talking me through it and being like yeah, that's not the right one. You need this other One I find the other one. And then they're just like, have you checked your spam folder?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, no.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I'm like, come on, you kidding me? Have I checked by. As I'm going over to my junk folder. Doesn't check his junk folder.

[Luke Burbank]

Say that to a guy in a $5,000 suit.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. And of course, there it is from two weeks ago. My approval email that was generated roughly one minute after I applied.

[Luke Burbank]

It went through immediately. I don't.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was like a auto. It was an auto approve. And it was just sitting there in my junk folder the whole time that I was being like, oh, my God, am I bar. Am I banned from it? Have they heard what I've been saying about their cooking? Like, are they like, really? I started to start to rack my brain. Like, I thought maybe it was because I don't have the same name on my birth certificate that I use in real life. I was just like, I was spinning out on this a little bit. A little bit bit. And then was just like, oh, no, it's fine. It's right there. You just should have looked in your junk folder.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, first of all, I want to give you a little cover on that. I want to. Even though I give you a hard time about your. Your digital habits sometimes, I would say that I don't think I would have checked my junk folder either. Maybe I would have at that point. But I think that we're not necessarily in the habit of doing that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, we're out of practice with that, I feel as a society, because it so rarely is in the junk folder.

[Luke Burbank]

Now.

[Andrew Walsh]

The junk is in the junk folder.

[Luke Burbank]

The junk is in the junk folder. I am looking for. Do you want to talk about a customer? I wrote a bad review to some. I was worried about biting a hand that sort of feeds us, which is not, by the way, even accurate. I wrote a bad review about customer service to the people that we are customers of, which is this Riverside software that we're using right now to talk to each other. In the past, I have found this to be a pretty good company to work with when I have a question about the system. Now, this is a. I say software, but really it's kind of a web browser based subscription service that allows you and I to do this, talk to each other down the line, record video of ourselves. It's a pretty powerful tool. It'll record isolated tracks of video and audio. And it really does make. I mean, it's become sort of a standard, I believe, in modern podcasting as well. They've become sort of the standard bearer, and I think rightfully so now they, as, you know, the podcasting world changes and needs change. Like, they keep on updating, like, what the interface looks like and stuff. And for the most part, for the best, like, it still feels a little bit like something that was created by engineers. And then it's sort of like they're trying to, like, sort of work backwards to make it a little bit more user friendly in some things. There are just certain softwares that feel very engineering. Like you could understand why. Well, we made it so that it could work this way, this way, this way. And it's like, yeah, but. But you're just not talking into a microphone, so you sort of don't understand why that's not working. So having said that, I give them mostly good marks as a service that we pay for. And when I do have questions, which I've written into them, probably I'm going to say maybe five or six times over the several years we've been doing this or a couple of years we've been using it. And I'm usually satisfied with the responses and they seem mostly human, but with. As with a lot of things, things we're getting more and more. Even if you're in touch with a human being, those human beings, I think are just like copying and pasting. I don't know. People say AI too much. I don't know if I can hang this on AI, but it's certainly some sort of script where you're grabbing this and you're pasting it in and it just sounds. And when I'm talking to somebody. I had this with a financial institution recently too, where I think I was asking for help via, like the chat function. And I think I told you this on the show, like, they promised it was a real person. But I'm like, real people don't talk like this. Like, this is such a strange interaction. And that's what always makes me a little prick.

[Andrew Walsh]

Whether it's a bot or a person who's been stripped of their essential humanity. It's a kind of a. Well, it's a non. It's a non important distinction.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so I'm going to try to explain this away without getting too corny, but then I do have to read to you their response. And then what I wrote back when they asked for a review of the customer service that I helped because I was, as you'd expect, painfully honest. And this has become a real tradition on the show, me writing something in the moment that I'm like, boy, I hope nobody ever actually reads this. And then me reading it myself on tbtl, because I need to wash out the shame that I live with after I get tetchy with something.

[Andrew Walsh]

We're happy to launder it for you here as a community.

[Luke Burbank]

So this software that we use, Riverside, you and I have these recordings. As of today, we're generating a couple of different recordings. A video of you, an audio of you. Same thing on my side, when we do crossover episodes with, like, for example, our friends from Text Me Back or whatever, we'll do that all in our studio. So we'll have four videos because there's four of us or whatever. And then something that I've done many times in the past is there was a way to generate a link to what we call, like, kind of our studio dashboard. So I create a little virtual studio for you and me and Megan and Lindy, and then I can, at the end of the recording, send them a link and say, here you have access to everything now. You can go in there and make edits. You know, we all can. Can collaborate on this together, or we can all kind of clip our own clips or whatever. And it's a great way to kind of share your recording. And I was trying to do this this week with Hannah for the Spotless podcast. And I, after this most recent redesign, which is maybe a month or two old, and for the most part, an improvement, I could not find the sharing of the dashboard link anywhere, like the collaboration link. And I am. And I'm like. I just think they put it, like, some of the layout on this stuff is not super intuitive. And so I spent so much time writing to customer service is a last resort for me. But I spent so much time just trying to figure out why does. Why can't I get Hannah access to this stuff?

[Andrew Walsh]

Stuff?

[Luke Burbank]

And so I basically write that I don't think I have to read my original email. That's basically an explanation of. And then I'm always meticulous, though, because I don't want. I feel like people who offer computer support are always going to say, like, we'll turn it off or turn it back on, or it was right here. Like, I take screen caps, I open those in Photoshop and add little notes. And, like, just to say, like, I'm not crazy, don't tell me something is here that's not here. Right. I feel like people. You can easily sort of feel gaslit in these situations.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

So I asked, like, what. Where is this? I think I said I'm pulling my hair out. I know it's in here somewhere. Where is it? I've used it a lot. Here's the response. Hi Andrew. And this supposedly is coming from a real person named Alan. Hi Andrew, thanks for reaching out to Riverside FM support. I'm happy to help you with this. If you want to share the recording files with someone. After recording, you can follow the steps provided in this Help center article and it's a link to an article already read that does not have information I need there. Please note that files can only be shared with a collaborator and they will only be able now to download them directly from Riverside. If you want to have them access and edit the recording in Riverside, you need to add them as team members, which is only available in business plans. For more information on buying the business plan, fill out this form and a member of our team will reach out to you. Now, I did that when we first were going independent. I reached out to them to ask how much a business plan is. And Louis Duke, and this is a fact here, it is a trillion dollars. It is a trillion dollars for the Riverside business.

[Andrew Walsh]

Roughly.

[Luke Burbank]

Roughly. No, it was like, staggeringly expensive. And I will say that what we subscribe to is pretty affordable. So it's kind of funny. There's this big gap between, like, we're on the pro plan or something. But if you want to step up to the business plan, it's. It would be a significant chunk of our monthly budget and we're. We're not doing that.

[Andrew Walsh]

It feels to me like they established that price point at a time when the hog was high for podcasting.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, and the thing is, it gives you a lot of control. It would be more for, like, I'll bet you. I'll bet you the Levitard show uses it. And you can control people's cameras from afar like it is. You can be an intense, like, TV production with it. And so it makes sense. But like, and I tried to tell them when I was talking to a salesperson, like, we're a very small operation. The only reason we might want the business plan would be more bandwidth or whatever. It doesn't matter. But all I know is when I was.

[Andrew Walsh]

You don't understand. We're going to buy the cheapest billboard in America. That's the kind of show we're running here, sir.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. So here, let me get back to this now, because I'm getting lost in the weeds. But my point is this. What I'm looking for here is a link that I have used Many times when collaborating with our other podcast guests and hosts and co hosts or what have you. Nowhere in Alan's upsell to me does it say, we've removed this functionality. It just says if you want to do that, you can download this here. And there's something about, here's a link to the help center. Like, dude, I've been to the help center, Alan. I read the help center. Okay, don't just send me this passive aggressive link. Secondly, don't just tell me that, oh, it's only available for business plans and we can have a salesperson contact you about that. And so then I write back, Hi there. Thanks for this response. I'm still a bit confused. Is this a new policy? I know for sure that I have invited people to access my full studio dashboard before it was our policy when collaborating with other podcasters. Thanks alw. And then I get the response, oh, this isn't from Alan. Oh, okay. We've been handed off to Patrick. Patrick. Patrick has entered the Patrick discourse. You're welcome. I would like to inform you that this is indeed a new feature along with our projects feature rollout out to more. To know more about this, kindly refer to the following help center article, projects overview. And then it's like, since you want to do this, we're going to have somebody reach out to you for. Click this link if you want somebody to reach out to you about the business plan. And so I'm like, never in your original response, when I specifically say, where is this thing that I've been using? A human being should say, yep, we switch things around. That's now only part of the business. Like, acknowledge that I was using it and you guys changed something and now you want me to pay out the ass for it. For the language, I'm getting upset. So do you want to know when they pinged me two days later to know how I would rate the customer support I received? Would you like to hear what I said?

[Andrew Walsh]

I would love to hear.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought you might. All right, let me scroll down to this. Let me see. Oh, I hope.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let me just make sure I'm following too. They went from. From, you know, not acknowledging that they had removed something that they're basically now going to.

[Luke Burbank]

They're.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's something that we used to have access to that they have now put behind a different sort of tier of payment, but they're trying to act like they didn't or they're not acknowledging it. So that frustrates.

[Luke Burbank]

In my first one, it was, it wasn't just Kind of like, oh, if you want to do this, you have to get a business plan. And not like I said, I've used this before. Wouldn't a human being just say, oh, yeah, we switched that. We changed it. You're lacking access to it now.

[Andrew Walsh]

I wonder, too, if. If part of this for you. I was on a, A different podcast a couple weeks ago, and it was. There were. I know, it's okay. I was thinking of you the whole time. But they, they. It sent me. They were like, we use a program called Riverside. And then they sent me a really long, like, you know, FAQ sheet, slash, you know, here's how you do Riverside. And I was just. I, I sort of a. A wave of. Of disdain coursed through me because I was like, I am one of the most power users of the Riverside program in America. Literally, five days a week, my colleague and I get on this thing and create content that then goes out to apparently thousands of people, at least enough that we can keep this thing going. Anyway, I'm very like, I'm extremely conceited about my familiarity with Riverside because there's. There, There are lots of podcasts out there. There's no one in America that I know of who is on Riverside more times per week.

[Luke Burbank]

Having said, though, you only use a tiny bit of the functionality. Like, obviously there are people at power users are the people who are going in there and clipping things and adding, you know.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I guess that come. That the question of. Yeah, you're right.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, pretty powerful tool with a lot of functionality.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, maybe power user is the wrong term, but what I mean is, I'm not talking about. About Am I using every bell and whistle on it? What I'm talking about is five days a week, do I log on to this with you? And is it how we make our living? Yes. And so anytime somebody wants to tell me about Riverside, I'm a little. And if I were in your shoes and somebody at Riverside, somebody in the help. The quote unquote help department is kind of being like, well, here, check out this. Here, check out this help page or whatever, I would want to be like, you don't understand. I'm not somebody who got a wild hair to start a podcast. And I'm just like, I'm not new to this. I'm not somebody who's just kind of like blindly sort of, you know, poking around and asking questions of this thing because I want to start a classic car podcast with my friend, which will put three episodes out and never do it again. Like, I guess I would be extra mad because if I felt like I was being in any way kind of slightly dismissed or talked down to by the help person, I would just want to like explain to them, like, I know more about this than you do, probably based on just using it so much.

[Luke Burbank]

I think my attitude is slightly different in that it's the way I approach the original email. Like, I am so defensive about somebody just coming back to me with like a Here it's written in the help article that I have already read that I'm so meticulous. I read all of those before I reach out. And then also in my emails, I write it in a way that I try to make it as absolutely clear as possible with the context they need, but not too much information, so that it's a glut of information. So with screen caps to say, like, do not come back to me with just some like simple pat answer like, I'm an idiot. Like, clearly there's all this context here. And again, for me, this goes back to like this upselling. Like, nothing about, hey, we've changed our system. Sorry about that. But by the way, like, here's how you can access it in the future. And just it's like this copy pasta of bullshit that is both an upsell and it seems so unhuman to me, whoever I'm talking to. So anyway, they're like, okay, how do you rate this? The. You know, how do you rate the service you received or whatever the support you received? And apparently there's just a satisfied or an unsatisfied. It's not like a one through five because I thought like, I can just put like a three or whatever in a quick comment, but then it sends you to this other page. It's like, dissatisfied. Why are you dissatisfied? And so what I wrote was this. We should really get music for a regular segment of Andrew Reed's his tetchy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, what would that sound like?

[Luke Burbank]

Like a fax machine or like a modem dialing up in 1989? Let me seeing irritating sound.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean. And sorry. Okay, this is all I have in the it. We'll. We'll work on it. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. I was really hoping it was going to be AC DC saying, are you ready for a good time? All right, here's what we got. I said I was dissatisfied. Then I said, why are you dissatisfied? Here's what I wrote, which may be longer than my original email. My question was about not being able.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm okay.

[Luke Burbank]

What are you doing here? Moon Night, Moonlight Sonata.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's Bob and Wyman's game.

[Luke Burbank]

This takes me back.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is when you're most in your element, which is tilting at windmills. This is when you are your most gangster.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so why are you not satisfied? My question was about not being able to find a function that I'd used many times before your redesign. Your initial response didn't in any way acknowledge that there had been a change and that you were now charging more for that functionality. Instead of making that clear. The copy and paste responses just tried to upsell me on your business plan without actually acknowledging my dilemma in a human, clear way. Removing functionality and hiding. It's. It's always the last line here, Luke. This is the last line. This is where I always like, like, like to punch him in the gut. Removing functionality and hiding it behind a much more expensive paywall is not a good look. Being evasive about it when customers are confused is even worse. Alw.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think it's the ALW that gets them. It's like, am I. Am I corresponding with a British lord? And now. Have you heard back?

[Luke Burbank]

No, I didn't hear back. That's fine. I don't want to hear back. That's a.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's a well crafted. That's. Do you think so?

[Luke Burbank]

You don't. I feel like it might be a little bit. I mean, it's just hard to write something like that without being. Without having that tone of just being a problem per. You know what I mean? Like, no, I hate the per. Like, I'm. I felt like I needed to give them that feedback, but I also, as I read that to you, I hate the person who wrote that, and that's me.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think that that came off as. I think it came off as very measured. And I mean, I would hope that it might land on someone's desk who's a real human, who's, you know, authorized to give real human responses, because that would probably be kind of cathartic for you. But, like, yeah, I think that, that. I think that that seemed actually very, very reasonable and not crazy at all. So, I mean, you could have gone. Yeah, you could have gone way harder on them based on. On just the, the fact that we're the number one power users of Riverside in America at any time of the day or night.

[Luke Burbank]

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

[Andrew Walsh]

It's not from a female. Andrew, can we actually. Can we skip the. The. The vmails, the Emails and Can we.

[Luke Burbank]

Cut to a cmail c mail? Is conventional mail a conventional mail? Wait, hold on. Are you saying. Is this something that came in. This is my box. This is my box. I never travel without my box.

[Andrew Walsh]

What's in the box?

[Luke Burbank]

In the first drawer, I keep my magic stones.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ah.

[Luke Burbank]

What's in the box?

[Andrew Walsh]

Licorice. Licorice.

[Luke Burbank]

Blood.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sweet licorice. Blood.

[Luke Burbank]

Sweet licorice.

[Andrew Walsh]

Have some. Yes, Andrew, it's what was in the box. Many years ago, it was a night just like this, such a long journey to get to you, when listener Mike, in, I believe California, kindly, thoughtfully and lovingly placed a basketball, a Wilson basketball, into some kind of packaging and mailed it to us. And unfortunately, it got lost for, like, a long time. Right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I went to the. I kind of didn't make much of this at the time, but at one point, about a year ago, I went to our post office box and I had a slip of paper in there that said, do you have a package that is too big for your box? So come up to the front of the. You know, comes with the front, we'll give it to you. And then I handed it to a woman, and she said, there's nothing back there. And I was like, what do you mean there's nothing back there? And she's like, yeah, there's nothing back there. It must have been a mistake. I didn't think much of it at the time because I'm a trusting person. But then about, I don't know, two or three weeks after that, I started to get these increasingly frantic emails from listener Mike saying, like, I sent you guys something. Where is it? It said it arrived at the post office and. And you haven't gotten it. I'm like, dude, I don't know. I don't have it. It's not here. Cut to a year later, around this holiday season, I was there. I handed them another pink slip and said, hey, there's something in the box waiting for me. And they bring out this thing that is literally postmarked from a year plus.

[Andrew Walsh]

Prior, and it is a basketball signed by the Seattle Supersonics. I believe this is sometime between 1991 and 94. Andrew. I've been able to narrow that down because it is a time when both Ricky Pierce, who signed this, and Nate McMillan were both on the team, and Ricky Pierce was a seattle supersonic from 1991 to 1994. So we know that it's in that range. And it's got Ricky Pierce. Like I mentioned, Nate McMillan. I believe I see a Vincent Askew, aka the Fiddler on here? Who? Gary Payton? They got the glove. The glove signed it. That's a big get. Who else is on here? Some of the. Some of the. Number four. Was there a 44? Some of the. Some of the writing is a little. Was. Let's see here.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah, dude.

[Andrew Walsh]

Michael Cage. Are you kidding me? The biggest shoulders in basketball. Michael Cage had spectacular shoulders as a stale supersonic and also maybe a Milwaukee buck.

[Luke Burbank]

Anyway, here, can I get the note from Mike emailed me a while back, and when I told him, I'm like, dude, your package finally showed up, like it was lost somewhere in the ether. Mike says, this is great. It is indeed a signed ball by the 1995 Seattle Sonic.95. So 95, if you like the backstory on how I procured it and why there are two Michael Cage signatures. Hint, he's not a star. So there are two Michael Cage signatures on there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, Andrew, no sooner have we gotten this amazing. Have I received this amazing gift from Mike, which, by the way, thank you, Mike. And I appreciate it that we start to ask. We have to ask some hard questions about Mike's story because it's all over the place. He emailed you that it's the 95 Sonics. Well, we know Ricky Pierce wasn't a Sonic in 1995. His reign ended in 1994. And I now have a note from Mike. I've got a note from Mike here, okay, that says, dear Luke, please find enclosed a signed basketball. It is from the 1993-94 Seattle superstars. Hold on. Which is it, Mike? Which is it? Huh?

[Luke Burbank]

The story's shifting.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, Mike says, I have had this for several decades now, and I don't have any allegiance to them any longer. Okay? So I guess Mike was probably, like me, a Sonics fan, and then when they left, maybe that just broke his heart, which is understandable. I thought you would like this as you wax poetic every time you speak of those teams. I sure do. I don't know how poetic it is, but I be waxing. I don't think there is any value beyond a personal price as I have no verification. These are real. I love it. If somebody got like a fake Quentin Daly cue a fake Quentin Daly signature out of basketball would be the most amazing thing to me. I have no verification of these are true. However, I think. I think that no fake would have a 2 number 44 Michael Cage signatures. Enjoy, listener Mike Gully. Now, I'll say this, Mike, you know, who enjoys two Michael Cage signatures. This guy.

[Luke Burbank]

Guess who's got two thumbs and two Michael Cage signatures in his very.

[Andrew Walsh]

Dude. I remember when Michael Cage. I'm gonna find his back, I think. Michael Ca. Cage was a Milwaukee Buck before he was a Seattle Supersonic. And what I remember is thinking that he was an incredible player with whatever team he was with before the Sonics. And let's see. Oh, he was an LA Clipper. Sorry. He was a Cleveland Cavalier.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, look at that.

[Andrew Walsh]

After he. He left the Sonics and became a Cleveland Cavalier. So he must have been an LA Clipper. When I was noting his massive shoulders and his ability to rebound. He was a rebounding expert. Expert.

[Luke Burbank]

Would he have heard under Lenny Wilkins then in Cleveland? Because wasn't Lenny Wilkins as Supersonic before he became the coach of Cleveland?

[Andrew Walsh]

He was. He was a. He was a beloved Supersonic and then a coach for the Sonics, but he is from Cleveland, I believe. Lenny Wilkins has the weirdest accent I've ever heard. It does not sound like what I think of as the Cleveland accent. It's amazing. It's beautiful. It is one of a kind.

[Luke Burbank]

Is it kind of reedy? I'm trying to remember what he said.

[Andrew Walsh]

I can't. I. I don't. I. I can't try and summon it off top of my head, but I know it's. It's like the. The emphasis, the vowel sounds. It's like a totally unique thing. But anyway, it's very possible that Michael Cage went and played under Lenny Wilkins. I just remember when Michael Cage was an LA Clipper. I guess it was. He was like. He might have been the rebounding champion of the NBA or something for a season or two. Like, I think you had really, really good stats. And I remember when the Sonics acquired Michael Cage, I was like, our ship just came in. So what I'm saying to you, Mike, is I do want two Michael Cage signatures on this basketball. Thank you very. I had a lot of thoughts about Michael Cage when he came to the Sonics, and they were positive.

[Luke Burbank]

Now, did he have a nickname? Because I feel like the name.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not that I remember.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe with a name. Maybe that's the thing. With a name like Cage, you don't need a nickname.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right? Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

If you called somebody the Cage on a basketball court, could that mean anything? Like the Cage?

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, I.

[Luke Burbank]

Sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

You were kind of putting them in a Cage. You're kind of like, maybe you're. You're locking them down on defense. I'm actually going to look through. Okay, I'm going. Oh, Rich. King. That's who this other one is. I love it. Rich king, number 25, a center, a lightly used center from Nebraska, Rich King. I'm looking at this. This list of Sonics from. From this year. Let's see, this would be the. This is. Let me go to the actual 1994 Sonics roster. Okay. 1993. 1994. Coached by. By George Carl, of course. Oh, and by the way, this George Carl signed this ball. George Carl really ushered in, sort of. He was kind of the. I don't know if you'd call it the Lou Pinella of the Sonics era or maybe. Yeah, I guess Lupinella probably would be considered the most successful Mariners manager. George Carl came in and really, I think he had been. George Carl had been the coach of the Albany Patroons of the cba.

[Luke Burbank]

That's not a real fig. You know.

[Andrew Walsh]

Will you fact check me?

[Luke Burbank]

I let you tell me a lot of stories that I just believe. What did you say they're called?

[Andrew Walsh]

Look up the Albany Patroons.

[Luke Burbank]

He was the coach. I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but that sounds like something they made up on the Simpsons.

[Andrew Walsh]

He was the coach of the Albany Patroons and then got hired to be the Sonics head coach. And I remember thinking, like, we're getting a Continental Basketball Association Albany Patroons coach. What is. This isn't going to go well?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it's an upstate New York thing, like Steve.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, exactly. Oh, my. So. So the. Let's see. I'm looking at the. What I'm trying to figure out is if this era of Sonics, how many of them had nicknames? And the answer is a decent amount of them. Now, I'm sorry, this is not going to be fun for anyone other than me and Mike and maybe a listener or two out there who cares about this? But this. This. This season of the Sonics, we did have Vincent Askew. He was a shooting guard, and he was known as the Fiddler. Vincent the Fiddler. Ask you, I don't know where he got that. That might have been. I don't know if that was. Kevin Calabro gave him that nickname. I don't know if he got that somewhere, but he was called the Fiddler. Then we had Michael Cage. No nickname needed. We had somebody named Alfonso Ford, who I actually don't have a strong memory of. We have Kendall Gill, who. I don't know if Kendall Gill's nickname was Mighty Mouse or. I just thought he had deltoids like Mighty Mouse.

[Luke Burbank]

That was your nickname.

[Andrew Walsh]

I might have nicknamed Kendall Gill Mighty Mouse in my own mind. We had, get this, Andrew. We had a different guy named Irvin Johnson. He wasn't Magic Johnson. He was a guy named Irvin Johnson who played at the University of New Orleans. The story on our Irvin Johnson was he had been out of basketball after high school. He was bagging groceries in Louisiana and somebody saw him bagging groceries like, you're pretty tall, you should probably come play college basketball. And he worked his way up and I believe was maybe a first round draft pick for the Seattle Superstars.

[Luke Burbank]

And was he. Did you say that his name was like the Bag man or something? Did you say that at one point?

[Andrew Walsh]

Point, no.

[Luke Burbank]

Am I just making that up?

[Andrew Walsh]

I think no. There was a Seattle Seahawk who is known as the Sackman. Michael. I forget his last name, but he was a defensive lineman. But I don't think Irvin Johnson was called the Bag Man. We had Sean Kemp, the Rain Man. So that was a nickname. Chris King, again, not super familiar with him. Rich King. We had two different players named King, who I have no particular memory of. Then we had Nate McMillan, defensive specialist who would go on to actually coach the Seattle Sonics for a while. This is when he was a player. Gary Payton, AKA the Glove. Ricky Pierce, who I don't know if Ricky Pierce had a nickname, but gosh, did I ever love him. He was a. Like a shooting guard, six four out of Rice University. We had Detlef Shrimp. It's not really a nickname, but Detlef Shrimp was a German guy who came and played at the University of Washington and then played for the Sons. And when he would hit a shot, Kevin Calabro would say, hair. Shrimp.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you know, I was just looking at this last night because I was texting a mutual friend of ours and the last time I had texted her directly was sending her this Photoshop that I made for some sort of TBT reasons, I believe at one point, which is. I don't know if you have your camera or if you.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm looking at you.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm gonna hold my phone up here. I made this amazing Photoshop of what I call Death Left Shrimp.

[Andrew Walsh]

Shrimp.

[Luke Burbank]

One of my. I know it's an obvious joke, but there's something about that particular Photoshop that I'm enamored with. I'll make it today's show pick, if you don't mind.

[Andrew Walsh]

Then you had a guy named Steve Scheffler, who did not have a nickname, but he was a fascinating case. He was a big tall white guy out of Purdue. And the thing about Steve Scheffler was he never, ever, ever got. Actually, no. His nickname was Chef, like as in, you know, obviously. But he was one of those guys who he. He rarely got in a game like he was the end of the bench, but when he got into a game at the very end, the crowd would go bananas because like they. When Steve Scheffler came in, you know, the son, you knew the Sonics had locked down that game. You knew that the Sonics had won it handily. And now then it just became this building thing. Is Steve Scheffler gonna get a point?

[Luke Burbank]

Point?

[Andrew Walsh]

And if Steve Scheffler would get even the most kind of awkward looking layup, the place would go absolutely crazy. I'm talking about Kiorina, of course, back in the day. Now I've been kind of tap dancing here because I want to get to Sam Perkins. Six, nine, power forward out of unc, played with Michael Jordan, I believe. He had two nicknames. He had two amazing nicknames that Kevin Calabro would yell when he would do something good. And he did a lot of good stuff. One was Big Smooth. And then at some point, Big Smooth became Big Paper Daddy.

[Luke Burbank]

Why?

[Andrew Walsh]

When Sam Perkins would hit a shot, Kevin Collabro would say big Paper Daddy.

[Luke Burbank]

Why, why, why Paper?

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, we may never know. Like me trying to figure out if it's Seth Meyer or Seth Meyers. We may. We may never know. But that's what. So that is a quick oral history of the nicknames of the 1994 sonics, many of whom are on this basketball from listener.

[Luke Burbank]

Mike, you mentioned that the Sonics had their own Irving Johnson.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And that reminds me, I don't know if you saw this. I reposted this on Blue Sky a couple of weeks ago and it is to this date the funniest joke that I've read on Blue Sky. I said that I think I re shared this and said this is one of those jokes that's going to. I'm going to think of it several times a week for the rest of my life. It's from a comedian named. And I wonder if this is somebody you know of or maybe even have had on your show before. Ian Carmel. K A R M E L. You.

[Andrew Walsh]

Know Ian, of course, he's a. He's a friend.

[Luke Burbank]

Is he an actual friend of yours?

[Andrew Walsh]

He's the. He's. He's. He's from Portland. He's been on Livewire a bunch. He hosts a great Podcast called All Fantasy Everything. And he's the guy who, when we were doing a Livewire fundraiser show, he showed up, performed for free, brought Reggie Watts with him, and then both of them donated to Live.

[Luke Burbank]

I do think maybe I remember you mentioning that. Well, I don't know that I was familiar with his work. I am now maybe his number one fan, or certainly his number one Blue sky fan.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hilarious.

[Luke Burbank]

Listen to this. Thirteen days ago, he just posted this. It would be funny if there was a slightly worse actor named Scotty B. Pippen as a great Michael B. Jordan joke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And totally, in the parlance of this conversation, dunking on Scottie Pippen in a way that, like, you know, this would just fell. Pippin. I don't know. That is just. It is. It's just so economical. That joke is just so economical. It's so great. Tell him he's got a new fan because of his. Because of his. Skeets.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a. That is a really. You're right. It took me a second to fully digest the joke. I mean, I kind of understood the broad strokes of it. But then, of course, course, the idea that Scottie Pippen was kind of second fiddle to Michael Jordan. So if there was. That's. That's a. You know what? I'll. I'll text him right now. I'll text him up.

[Luke Burbank]

Tom, it's been two weeks and I'm still cry laughing over it.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'll tell him. If you listen 93 minutes into today's episode of TVTL, you'll hear. You'll. You'll hear an appreciation of your comedy stylings from Andrew Walter.

[Luke Burbank]

Tell him to. And tell him to give me a. Tell him to give me a follow, too. You know, trying to build a brand here.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure. Absolutely. Smash that, like, button. All right, well, thanks, Mike, for that. And I will tell you, Mike, the basketball has taken a place of honor here in the tbtl.

[Luke Burbank]

I love it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Kind of. It's just located right above the Chico's Pizza T shirt. Now I've replaced it. You know what? Actually, Mike. Mike may have. Mike may have really kind of helped change. Change my life in a small way, which is I had this Wilson basketball that was in that space spot just kind of collecting dust. And. And this is actually a pretty nice indoor Wilson basketball that I bought some years ago when I was playing more like league basketball and stuff.

[Luke Burbank]

Why does it say 89 on it?

[Andrew Walsh]

Where does it say.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought with marker or something you've written.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that says lb.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, lb. Sorry. It was moving Fast.

[Andrew Walsh]

For Long beach, where I stole it.

[Luke Burbank]

From, there's a little shout out to Snoop Dogg.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's right. Cal Worthington. Worthington Ford in Long Beach. No, I. I have been meaning for a while to get on to the phone or the Internet and check in with my local YMCA and see what they're kind of like if they've got open court basketball, open gym, or if they've got some little teams that get together and just kind of re. Engage with that. I was doing that a lot in Bellingham and really enjoying it and to some degree in Portland, but I've really kind of fallen out of the habit. And I'd like to add that into, like, a physical activity that I do. And. And I took down this basketball that was. That has no sentimentality to it or no sentimental value. And I put the cool basketball that listener Mike got me in its place. And now just in the holding of this ball, I feel something inside me kind of like activating of like, I need to get this. I need to figure out if I can go play basketball with this ball against some other people that are equally elderly to me and have some fun. So thanks, Mike. You may have gotten me off my duff on this.

[Luke Burbank]

Might literally have saved your life, maybe.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's very possible or cost me it if I have a cardiac event. Going up for a layup.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, more on that soon, Mike. We'll find out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Honestly, I, you know, I'm at this age. There are worse ways to go, like, going, like, if I just. I'm skying for a layup to win the game, just. And just like tip the ball off. Like, it's a little finger roll. It's a little George Iceman Gervin. That's a great nickname too, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

Iceman.

[Andrew Walsh]

If I just. Iceman. Girving it in and. And then we win the game and I just, like, go down like a sack of potatoes. And that's my last memory, honestly.

[Luke Burbank]

Are you worst. Are you. This is going to get dark. And so people who don't like dark conversations. Maybe we're wrapping up now anyway, so maybe you want to duck out of this because I'm not backing down. Are you alive when the ball goes through the hoop, or is there a chance that it's almost.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's real uncut gems kind of a thing.

[Luke Burbank]

It's just like the. The, like you've already. The moment is just coming off.

[Andrew Walsh]

My soul has already left my body.

[Luke Burbank]

Soul has left the body. And so you're not alive for it, but the ball does go through the hoop and then you, then you land in a pile on the ground.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. In fact, my soul needed to leave my body in order for the ball to go through in this, in this construction. For some reason it was like, I don't know if maybe my, you know, there have been some studies about how much does a soul weigh day then they make a whole movie about that with Sean Penn. I think I saw that in theater.

[Luke Burbank]

I think I heard about this. I did not see it. It was a terrible movie. Right? It was one of those movies.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think it was terrible. I think it was a little self important.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I think maybe Genevieve hates it and that's why I think it's terrible.

[Andrew Walsh]

And maybe it was, I think, I don't know if that's, it's, it's, it's, what's it called? Like 9 grams or something?

[Luke Burbank]

That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's like a measurement of weight and maybe that's actually what the heart, I think, I think what it's about is a heart transplant plant. So I think the, it's not the weight of the soul, it's the, it's like how much a heart weighs. And then, you know, you have like a bad person who's like a bad killer and they die and then their heart goes in like a good person or some.

[Luke Burbank]

21 grams, by the way. Correct. For people who know it better. But yeah, I, I had heard that.

[Andrew Walsh]

So much cocaine they caught me with. That's why I'm looking at federal charges.

[Luke Burbank]

I had heard that. I mean, maybe I'm, maybe you like.

[Andrew Walsh]

I, I, I saw it so long ago.

[Luke Burbank]

I bet you it's not for me, Sean Penn. I mean, I do love Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts. I like those names. I kind of, I, if I never see a Sean Penn movie again, it'll be too soon, I think. I don't need that guy in my screen.

[Andrew Walsh]

But like there have been some studies and again, I don't think these are price scientifically. I don't think they're peer reviewed. But I remember there was a period of time where there was supposed to be being presented as evidence for the existence of a human soul was the fact that like when a person died there was some difference ever so slight in what they weighed and that you.

[Luke Burbank]

Were right the first time. The 21 grams refers to soul, not heart.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, they think the soul weighs 20. That's a heavy ass soul.

[Luke Burbank]

The movie 21 grams is about the idea that a soul weighs 21 grams, which comes from an experiment by Dr. Duncan McDougall.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, have you ever seen 21 grams of something? That's a significant. I've been taught it was just a ghost. A Casper thing, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

That doesn't weigh no 21 grams, but anyway, so I feel like.

[Luke Burbank]

Tends to be in weed. I'm trying to figure out how much.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's the problem. All my references are a little more powdery, but in this version of. This is like airbud meets Heaven Can Wait meets Hoosiers. This is the pitch. This is my pitch to Netflix. Hey, Sharks. This is my Sharks. I've got an idea for a movie for you. It's Heaven Come Weight meets airbud meets Hooers meets About Schmidt. A guy is on a pickup basketball team. He's going up for the winning layup, but he weighs too much to get off the ground until his soul leaves his body, which weighs 21 grams, which lightens him just enough to make the layup. They win the game and he's off on his next. His next journey.

[Luke Burbank]

And for that, I'm out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Laughs. You're probably that Bald Shark, Kevin O'Leary. That's got terrible politics.

[Luke Burbank]

I've only seen that, like with closed captioning at the gym. Like, that's my only exposure to it. But I think I've picked up from pop culture references that. Don't they say that and. Or is it one person?

[Andrew Walsh]

I've also never watched that show. I've never.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, so 1 ounce, by the way, is 28.8.3 grams. So it's slightly. They're saying the soul is slightly less than 1 ounce, which isn't very heavy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, grams are less than an ounce.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah, Grams. There's. Yeah, like 28 grams in an ounce.

[Andrew Walsh]

So wait, okay, look, I'm holding this thing of C and H, pure cane sugar, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

And this says on the back that this is 3.53 grams. Okay, so they're saying. Saying it's 20. 21 grams.

[Luke Burbank]

21 grams? Yeah. Oh my God, we're doing this.

[Andrew Walsh]

So seven of these reaching over and.

[Luke Burbank]

Grabbing more sugar packets.

[Andrew Walsh]

So they're trying to tell me this is a human soul. Try again. Dr. Mc. Dr. McDougall, how many.

[Luke Burbank]

How many packs of sugar do you have there for the listening?

[Andrew Walsh]

Seven. Three gram packs of sugar. Which is 21.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And you think that that's too heavy? Seven packs.

[Andrew Walsh]

Have you weighed your soul lately? Well, this is.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm in the New year. I'M trying to not step on the soul.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's about soul health. It's not about a number on a scale, Andrew. It's about. It's about strength, and it's about having a healthy soul, so.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right.

[Andrew Walsh]

I just think this is just so much more volume and an actual weight than I have imagined the human soul to have all these years.

[Luke Burbank]

You had it at, like, 1.1gram.

[Andrew Walsh]

I had it at a. At a. At a whisper of a fart. Like, like almost. No, no, no, no. No weight to it. No heft. No, you couldn't really measure it.

[Luke Burbank]

It's.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's. It's. It's a vapor of sorts.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Anyway. All right, well, that seems like a good place to. I wish I would have brought this up with Chris last night on stage. I think we could have had a really interesting conversation. All right, thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio. Oh, I will be. I will be a. A man. A podcaster who has only been consuming clear broth for the. The intervening 24 hours. So tune in to see how that's. Oh, and also has taken a bunch of. A bunch of pills to make me go to the bathroom.

[Luke Burbank]

And we'll be listening to our conversation with Chris tomorrow, too.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right? That'll also be exciting for people.

[Luke Burbank]

People are like, oh, we can listen to Luke crap his pants.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, you would be surprised that some people pay extra for that. All right, thanks for listening, folks. We'll see you tomorrow. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday, and please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Luke Burbank]

And good luck to all. Power out.