#4418 ASCII Anything

Summary

Podcast Summary: TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live – Episode #4418 ASCII Anything

Release Date: March 7, 2025
Hosts: Luke Burbank and Andrew Welsh

---

Introduction to the Episode

In Episode #4418 titled "ASCII Anything," hosts Luke Burbank and Andrew Welsh dive into a myriad of topics ranging from the quirky world of furries to the evolving landscape of cryptocurrency and the emotional ties to their favorite sports teams. The conversation is laced with humor, personal anecdotes, and insightful commentary on current events.

---

Encounter with a Furry ([00:00] - [00:46])

Luke Burbank begins the episode by recounting an amusing encounter with a furry neighbor:

"I was in the other room and one of them kind of bumped into me. I thought the guy was going for my wallet, so I turned around real quick. If he yipped, that means hello. If he yiffs, then you got a problem." ([00:35])

Andrew Welsh adds light-heartedly:

"TBTL Guess what day it is. Guess what day it is. It's Friday Friday Gotta get down on." ([00:46])

---

The Curious Case of Smart Cars ([01:01] - [03:07])

The hosts transition to discussing Smart Cars, pondering their practicality and intelligence in traffic:

Luke Burbank muses:

"What is the deal with the Smart car? How smart is that? Those things are tiny. Can you even drive them in traffic?" ([01:21])

Andrew Welsh chimes in, leading to a segue into the day’s main topics.

---

Daylight Saving Time and Personal Reflections ([03:07] - [05:56])

Luke shares his experience of recording a commentary on daylight saving time at CBS News:

"We’re extending the daytime on Sunday... we're getting longer afternoons and it's not gonna be getting dark at 4:30 anymore. And I find it to just be absolutely life-giving to me." ([03:07])

The conversation shifts as Andrew introduces an idea inspired by Alanis Morissette's music, humorously suggesting a musical review performed by otters:

"Performs all by otters. Called you Otter no." ([04:52])

They engage in a playful brainstorming session about this quirky concept, highlighting their creative rapport.

---

Cryptocurrency Critique ([06:32] - [09:00])

Luke expresses skepticism about cryptocurrency's sustainability and value, comparing it to limited edition items like VHS tapes:

"The fact that there's only 120 million of something does not necessarily ensure that it will only go up and up and up." ([07:46])

Andrew discusses the influence of prominent figures like Donald Trump on the crypto market and the speculative nature of meme coins:

"Meme coins have even less. Somehow. A meme coin is a pure speculative gamble." ([08:25])

They critique the volatility and speculative risks associated with cryptocurrencies, emphasizing their unpredictable nature.

---

Target Boycott Discussion ([09:00] - [11:00])

The hosts delve into the topic of a Target boycott, analyzing its potential impact on the company’s bottom line:

Luke explains:

"The major retailers in America, I will never boycott Target... I think there's a... boycott could actually have an effect." ([22:02])

Andrew reflects on the motivations behind corporate policy changes and how consumer action can influence company behavior.

---

Political Commentary and Personal Anecdotes ([11:00] - [21:53])

The conversation broadens to encompass political frustrations, referencing Supreme Court Justices and congressional dynamics. Luke shares his admiration for AOC's resilience, while Andrew discusses recent political events and their implications.

They also touch upon grassroots activism, recounting experiences with local protests and the importance of citizen engagement in societal issues.

---

Donor Appreciation and Listener Engagement ([30:01] - [34:11])

Transitioning to a lighter segment, the hosts express gratitude towards their donors:

Luke humorously notes:

"These donors are donating a dazzling amount of dough. They are making this a thing that can happen five days a week." ([30:11])

They creatively incorporate listener contributions into the show, with shout-outs to regular supporters like Bobby Pape and Bain Weinberger.

---

Sports Segment: Seahawks and Mariners ([43:52] - [86:33])

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to sports, focusing on the Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Mariners.

Seahawks Updates:

Luke laments the impending loss of key Seahawks players, Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf:

"Tyler Lockett's just an absolute pillar of the Seahawks... DK Metcalf, who's the whole other end of the spectrum... He's requesting a trade." ([43:52])

Andrew discusses the complexities of NFL contracts and player empowerment, comparing trends in the NFL to those in the NBA.

Mariners Insights:

Shifting to baseball, Luke shares his deepening connection to the Seattle Mariners:

"There's so much baseball, there's so much Mariners baseball... This place that I live is really pretty ideal for nice, warm weather." ([72:53])

They express concern over the Mariners' management decisions, highlighting Justin Turner's criticisms of the team's investment in offense:

"Justin Turner... saying, 'They have spent zero money in the off-season to like to get some offense going... It's a recipe for us winning 87 games again and just missing the playoffs.'" ([75:16])

Personal Reflections on Sports Fandom:

Luke reflects on how his relationship with sports has evolved due to lifestyle changes, including frequent travel and prioritizing personal relationships over intense sports fandom.

"I just kind of like, huh, all right, well, I guess we'll see what happens... it feels like this... the nature of my relationship with the team is changing a little bit." ([56:13])

Andrew and Luke engage in a nostalgic reminiscing of past sports experiences, underscoring the emotional highs and lows that come with being a dedicated fan.

---

Technology and Internet Nostalgia ([86:33] - End)

The hosts segue into a discussion about the evolution of the internet, reminiscing about the early days of ASCII art and text-based chat rooms:

Luke shares memories:

"These art pieces that were just made out of the characters on the keyboard... sometimes maybe someone would make like a sexy lady with it or whatever." ([38:44])

They draw parallels between past and present internet culture, emphasizing how technology has transformed interpersonal interactions and content consumption.

---

Conclusion

Episode #4418 of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live is a vibrant tapestry of humor, personal anecdotes, and insightful commentary. Luke and Andrew navigate through diverse topics with ease, offering listeners a blend of entertainment and thoughtful discourse. From the whimsical idea of otter-performed musical reviews to earnest discussions about the state of their beloved sports teams, the hosts encapsulate the essence of a daily show fueled by friendship and a shared journey through life's unpredictabilities.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Luke Burbank ([00:35]): "If he yipped, that means hello. If he yiffs, then you got a problem."
• Andrew Welsh ([04:12]): "Do you ever wake up with a song going through your head, by the way?"
• Luke Burbank ([07:46]): "Might have been a different film, but you get the idea."
• Andrew Welsh ([22:22]): "I have a theory. I think that Fubo TV may be slowly changing..."
• Luke Burbank ([56:13]): "Sunday is often a way that I'm able to get from being gone to back home..."
• Andrew Welsh ([75:31]): "Wow, that's really saying something now."

---

This episode encapsulates the dynamic and multifaceted nature of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live, offering listeners a rich and engaging experience that balances humor with meaningful discussions.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

What's happening? Nothing. It's just. I think a furry snuck in and then he's scratching. What's a furry deal? What's a furry? A furry is simply just someone who likes to dress up like an animal with human characteristics. It's a form of role play. It's huge. Yeah, that's great. But then the scritching thing you said. What is that? Scritching is simply light scratching or grooming. It's a form of affection. Furries love to do it. I do that. That's fun for them. Exactly. We all do it. But I was in the other room and one of them kind of bumped into me. I thought the guy was going for my wallet, so I turned around real quick. It seemed different. Did he yip or did he yiff? He said, skip and I said, no, my name's Buddy. Okay, he yipped. If he yipped, that means hello. If he yiffs. If that happens, well, then you got a problem. You know what Might have been yiff. Might have been yif. Well, if it happens again, just go grouse.

[Andrew Welsh]

TBTL Guess what day it is. Guess what day it is. It's Friday Friday Gotta get down on.

[Luke Burbank]

Everybody's looking forward to the weekend. Hey, what is the deal with the Smart car? How smart is that? Those things are tiny. Can you even drive them in traffic? I'm so smart. E equals MC squared. I drive a Smart Car. I don't know who that is and I don't care to find out. You're not even a real journalism.

[Andrew Welsh]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

WW this and WW that. Let's www.explainit. well, all right. Hello, good morning and welco. Welcome everyone to a Friday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. I don't know if it's video games or what. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio. So unfair to after something like this to blame people in the backseat or say they deserved it. Perched high above the mighty Columbia where I almost can't contain my joy dough that we are getting. We're extending the daytime on Sunday. I've done an entire. I was paid. Not that much. Don't worry. I was paid some amount of money to fly to New York City and sit in something called the Flash Studio. Take up valuable time at the CBS News broadcast facility to record an entire commentary around the topic of daylight saving time. And I'm as I sit here on the Friday before we spring ahead. I'm Forgetting if we're going into daylight saving time or coming out of it. I feel warm and I'm levitating. Point is, we're getting longer afternoons and it's not gonna be getting dark at 4:30 anymore. And I find it to just be absolutely life giving to me. Also episode 4418 that may give life to you. Let the fun begin. Not to set the bar overly high, but that is the episode in the Collector series that we arrive at on this Friday. Something may be changing imperceptibly inside me, and I didn't even realize it related to professional football and my professional football team, the Seattle Seahawks.

[Andrew Welsh]

You gotta be a real football nerd to sit through the whole thing.

[Luke Burbank]

I think there's a technology, a technological innovation that might be to blame for my. My changing feelings on the topic. So we'll talk to that and we'll say hi to this guy. The longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He just dropped his new mixtape as MC Squirt.

[Andrew Welsh]

He's got like every meme ever produced on the Internet.

[Luke Burbank]

He can knock us out with his memes. He's Andrew Welsh and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew Welsh]

Good morning, Luke. Listen, I have an idea and it's a good idea and I'm going to share it with you here. I came up with this. This is the very first thought I had when I woke up this morning. And I don't know why. That's what I say. Thank you for coming into this idea with that energy. I don't know why. Do you ever wake up with a song going through your head, by the way? Just like randomly, you're like, why is this song going through my head first thing in the morning?

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know if that happens to me so much in the morning. I do know that when I'm falling asleep or when I'm waking up, if I'm sleeping lightly, I get a lot of big ideas. They always seem really big.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah. Like this one is big.

[Luke Burbank]

Like big if true, too big to fail.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And then, and then usually what happens is in the harsh light of day, I go, why did I think that was such a breakthrough?

[Andrew Welsh]

Okay, well, sometimes they are good.

[Luke Burbank]

You thought this up in the bright light of day.

[Andrew Welsh]

Well, it was like it was in my head as I awoke this morning. One of those things. So I think we're talking about the same thing. Only I am a good ideas man, of course, because mine are still good. A couple of Hours later. Because here's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about. And I know there's already been one of these. Just hear me out. In Alanis Morissette review. Right. A musical review.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Welsh]

Collection of her songs.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Welsh]

Performed all by otters.

[Luke Burbank]

By otters.

[Andrew Welsh]

Called you Otter no.

[Luke Burbank]

Huh.

[Andrew Welsh]

And that's my idea. That's as far as I've gotten. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought maybe there was, like, pull in you.

[Andrew Welsh]

Otter no. That's it. It's performed by otters. Maybe. Okay, hear me out. I'm open to ideas. If we. Maybe it's all kinds of rodenty creatures.

[Luke Burbank]

Can I help you workshop the pitch a little bit?

[Andrew Welsh]

Yes. Let's go. Let's go.

[Luke Burbank]

I think it's good, but, you know, iron sharpens iron.

[Andrew Welsh]

Sure, of course.

[Luke Burbank]

So, okay, I think it's good, but I don't think in the pitch you can say otter before otter no. I think that the otter no has to be the reveal. Yeah.

[Andrew Welsh]

I realize, as I was saying, that it could just be rodents and then.

[Luke Burbank]

Or you just describe otters in a more vague way. So it's just like, you know, and maybe you. This is where I classically make things worse by over involving them. But you could talk about, you know, vocalization in animals and that there's been some research that certain kind of mammals actually do communicate vocally with each other. So if you could train them in the music of Alanis Morissette and then put this out, maybe either on Broadway or SeaWorld, and it would be you ought or no.

[Andrew Welsh]

Okay. We definitely, like, see how that just.

[Luke Burbank]

Improved it by maybe negative 5%.

[Andrew Welsh]

I'm already angry at the world because I just typed in the word.

[Luke Burbank]

How did you go from being good idea man to angry at the world?

[Andrew Welsh]

You can be both. You can be both because it is both. The ideas come from the anger. You want to be the change harness in the world.

[Luke Burbank]

Harness your anger, Jedi.

[Andrew Welsh]

Just. Why is AI ruining everything? I just typed in otter into Google. Just like what? You know, I was looking for other words for otter. What? Yeah, family, species, class or whatever does it fit into you type Otter into Google now. The first result is not a furry little creature that loves. It's Otter AI. An AI meeting note taker in real time AI transcription. We don't.

[Luke Burbank]

We just announced that we're creating a strategic reserve in Otter AI Making the creators wealthy. You've been following that about crypto, right?

[Andrew Welsh]

No, I have not, actually.

[Luke Burbank]

It's just, I mean, you know, why, why, why do I have to turn A good idea guy slash angry guy into angrier guy here on Friday morning.

[Andrew Welsh]

But bad ideas, the short.

[Luke Burbank]

And the short of it is as I understand it and my understanding is pretty limited. You know, you've got a bunch of people that own crypto and the particularly things like bitcoin, which there's, you know, a, a limitation on. I forget what the number is like 120 million bitcoin to be ever made. And that's pitched as a reason why it will only increase in value because there's a scarcity there. Now I was just pointing out on. Everything I'm saying to you is a watered down version of what I heard on Chris's show a few weeks ago where he was talking to a crypto expert. But if you want a comparison of something else that there's 120 million of. At one point I forget which VHS it might have been Home Alone 2 Lost in New York. They might have printed 120 million VHS tapes.

[Andrew Welsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

And he said you can go online and find them for very cheap. The fact that there's only 120 million of something does not necessarily ensure that it will only go up and up and up.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Might have been a different film, but you get the idea.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah. Well, okay. I did invest in a lot of Home Alone 2 VHS tape. So this is actually crushing me right now.

[Luke Burbank]

So good idea. Guy to mad guy to more mad to poverty stricken guy or the life.

[Andrew Welsh]

Comes at you fast or patient guy. Show you all up. When the Wet Bandits show up in.

[Luke Burbank]

New York and try to catch a falling knife guy.

[Andrew Welsh]

Is that in. Is that in?

[Luke Burbank]

That's like a finance term? No, that's. That has to do with trying to.

[Andrew Welsh]

Like it was a Home Alone two term.

[Luke Burbank]

It may have also the Wet Bandits may have been trying to catch a falling knife at some point is.

[Andrew Welsh]

Hold the line. Hold the line.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that a wet Bandit I hodor. Yes, actually that is another crypto that they've. So here's the thing. The, you know, crypto is only. It only has value as long as someone else agrees it has value. It is purely speculative. I think you could make the argument that most stocks are purely speculative at this point in that if you own some stock in whatever Apple, you don't likely have enough to really go vote at the board and move policy at Apple. You don't have control of what happens to Apple and you can't trade it in for a free Apple computer and you don't get dividends from Apple. If I understand right. So in other Words, even a stock in a regular company. Like, the original idea of the stock, of course, was, I have a company. You buy part of the company through these shares, and then you share in the profits from this company. And because those things had value, because you were entitled to profit from the company, because you own part of it, now you can sell your. Your profit, your. Your share of that company to other people. Now we're selling stocks. But at some point, this went out the door. This idea of, like, you can really trade it for anything tangible. You're just buying it. So you think so because you think somebody else might buy it, you know, for more. So that stocks, basically, but at least something about it has been around for a long time. It kind of feels like a thing kind of diluted ourselves. The only point I ever won rhetorically on Dave Ross when we used to do that show together, was when he would chide me for gambling, and I would say, how are your stocks doing? And he would go, all right, good point. The one and only point I scored. Okay, so cut to crypto. It was pitched originally, and the blockchain, which is like this giant sort of Google Doc that keeps track of every transaction of crypto, it was this. The idea was it was legit going to be a currency that everybody was using and that small nations were using that didn't want to be part of the international situation. And. And that it was going to just be. It was actually an effective way. Like, you were going to go to the dentist and you were going to pay in crypto. And then there people were creating, like, platforms for dentists to specifically accept crypto. It was going to have a use. It was going to actually be something. And then that went out the window. And now it's just a thing that Nelk boys are buying because they want a different Nelk boy. I'm really big on Nelk boy references this week.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

Anyway, the. So. So all that is to say, the.

[Andrew Welsh]

Nelk man always knocks twice. I got so much about that rock. It's rings twice, I think, right?

[Luke Burbank]

No, I like it. I'd rather they knock first.

[Andrew Welsh]

And it's not even Milkman. It's Postman. I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

Elkman. Yeah, I. I liked it. I was there for it.

[Andrew Welsh]

Just throw an otter in there and.

[Luke Burbank]

We'Re gold, spiritually, as a joke for me, like, I know what you mean. A lot of it was factually left, but I understood the spirit of the comedy.

[Andrew Welsh]

Really rough stuff, but.

[Luke Burbank]

So here's the thing. We started off as Friends, it was true. It all began. I'm. This is where I try to quote as much of the song since you've been Gone. That song was going. Oh, you know why I was. I spent so much time this morning in the shower and walking around the house just quoting the song since youe Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson. Kelly Clarkson. I. And why? Because I was listening to Girl talk while I was doing my weights this morning. And he uses since you've been gone. Oh, that must.

[Andrew Welsh]

Newer. Newer or I just forget how old that song is.

[Luke Burbank]

I think you forget how old it is because I haven't gotten on any new girl talk in a minute. This is like, either play your part or, like, feed the animals. It's one of the, like, pretty OG ones. And anyway, okay, so back to.

[Andrew Welsh]

I was excited. I just want to say I was excited for one second. I was like, is there any chance you were in Seattle last night and also hanging out at Goldie's? Because I took a long, not a long walk. I took a walk up to North Seattle to return some cat food yesterday. Don't worry about it. And then while I was up there, I realized I was starting to meander home and I realized, oh, Genevieve's going out tonight. I'm already up north here. How about I just hop on the.

[Luke Burbank]

E line, go up a few blocks.

[Andrew Welsh]

And get off at Goldie's and have some. I didn't even. I didn't even pull tabs. I just go there now I get the, you know, the wings that we like or that. I don't think you're into them, but the salt and pepper wings got a few gin and tonics. Are they. They. The bill was like $22. Like the. It's ridiculously cheap there. Is it? Because they're just not making money on the food and drink. They're just making money on the gambling.

[Luke Burbank]

I There. You know, I've bought a couple plates of thousand dollar Wings.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah, right, Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a loss leader. It's a very smart one.

[Andrew Welsh]

I'm gaming the system. I go in there. I don't. I mean, sometimes I'll pull tabs, but sometimes I just go there. And I just sat between two old men, watch, like, highlights of spring training in my wings, made mild conversation and. And just like, it was ridiculously cheap at the end of the day.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, honestly, since you're impervious to the sirens call, someone should write a book with that title. Yeah. Since you are impervious to, like, the temptation to go over and play Those table games, you really are gaming that system. And you really could just kind of make it your local bar in a way, because you've kind of complained that you don't have a good. You know, you don't really have the ideal kind of. You know, I don't want to say dive bar, but just the unpretentious bar in your neighborhood. But if we're talking E line from walking from your house to Aurora to the E line to Goldie's, that can't be more than a 15 minute.

[Andrew Welsh]

Oh, no, not at all.

[Luke Burbank]

Journey.

[Andrew Welsh]

No, I do it a little bit more than you probably know, honestly. And I do it more during baseball or should know. I do a little bit more during baseball season as well, I guess. Let me put it this way. I do it enough that one of the off duty bartenders, I didn't realize she was behind me and she said goodbye to me yesterday and I said, oh, I think you're mistaken me from some for somebody else. She said, no, I know who you are. And I was like, oh, okay. I honestly. Sorry. You're in the middle of explaining Bitcoin to me. Yes. But it was a moment.

[Luke Burbank]

Finally someone's doing it.

[Andrew Welsh]

It was a moment that lives in my head because I've seen her, like, she's probably been a server for me at the bar, I'm gonna say maybe five times over a couple of years, though, because I go in there mostly to watch baseball games, sometimes with Viv, sometimes by myself. And when she said goodbye, she tapped me on her shoulder and she's like, see you later. And I'm like, oh, I think you're thinking of somebody else. She's like, no, no, I know you. I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, see you later. I. I was thinking about that later because it was a weird, awkward interaction for me. I'm kind of. That's what I'm known for. But I was also like, I really think I'm invisible. I really go through the world think. And I don't even mean that as a oh, poor me thing. I like that. And sometimes it bothers me when I realize people can see me.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. You're not into being. What's the word? Observed.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah, exactly. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

The irony that this is your job, right? That we do live events and we go, we meet people. It's so. But I understand we are complicated. We contain multitudes, as it were.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. So basically, as I understand it, and where there are so many people listening to this right now who understand this so much more deeply than I do. But I listen to one podcast about it, so I think I'm pretty read in. But like, the idea is that, you know, if you are somebody who's holding on to particularly bitcoin, but any number of what are considered successful cryptocurrencies, then, you know, if a giant government like the United States decided to create a crypto reserve, if the United States decided we are going to put taxpayer money, all of our money into buying up some of those 120 million, you know, crypto, you know, bitcoins or whatever they are. Well, and then we're going to hold on to them because this is a strategic reserve like they do with other currencies and gold and things like that. We have these strategic reserves or these big, you know, holdings of a certain thing. Well, if you, if that happens with crypto, that's a boon for people that own crypto already because all it's doing is the government is just saying there's a fixed amount of this thing and you all already own it at a relatively low price. And now we, the government are going to buy a bunch of it and just hide it away forever. So there's A, less of it and B, it's being owned by supposedly a very solvent, very kind of, you know, reliable thing. So they're just basically, it's a massive, massive grab for Nelk boys, for, for crypto Bros, for, for exploding kitties or what was that, what was the whole Gamestop thing? I mean, I know that's actually a stock. It's not a crypto. But my point is just this kind of like, I think already sort of underregulated world of. And what you hear in my voice also is a guy who owns zero crypto. Actually, that's not true. I think I have $1,000 of Ethereum or something that I bought. I think because we were doing promos for a. No, that's not true. We were. We never did any crypto promos, but some was it we did we coinbase or something.

[Andrew Welsh]

I think I back. I said. I think I said I don't want to do this. And I think you. No, no, you had a stock. I don't think that was crypto.

[Luke Burbank]

That was Robinhood.

[Andrew Welsh]

You did something with stock for tbt. You did something with our friend because our friend was into crypto. I think you just got your bequet a tiny, tiny.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe that was it. Yeah, our very, very rich friend who very much. I texted her right away when I, when I heard about this a while ago and I was like, how you feeling about this? And she was like, well, if I'm being honest, pretty great. Because, well, you know, she's like, I don't. I don't love anything about this administration, but I'm not mad at the idea of the US Hoarding crypto because Donald Trump at some point identified, you know, he. He was on the record as saying, that guy doesn't understand regular money, let alone crypto. You know what I mean? Like, he was so. Because he was an old school, you know, New York real estate money person, he was, of course threatened by crypto. He thought it was bs. He was on the record as thinking it was a scam, which it kind of is, honestly. And then, of course, because the crypto bros. Sensed that he needed someone in his corner when he was really kind of losing popularity and his. His run for reelection didn't seem as imminent, they wisely dumped a bunch of money into his campaign. And you'll be. I hope you're sitting down, Andrew. He became very pro crypto and now is. Is super into it. But this idea, like, I don't think the US Needs to be sitting on a bunch of eth. Or a bunch of, like, Doge, by the way. Doge, you know, you want. You know, one of the most successful meme coins is fart. No, I guess Chad Thundercock was taken, right? Like, there are people. I actually said to our friend, the crypto person who has all the money, I said, how much fart do you have?

[Andrew Welsh]

I like the way he just described there as her crypto friend who has all the money.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, all the money in our friend.

[Andrew Welsh]

Group who has all the money.

[Luke Burbank]

I was like, how much fart do you have? She goes, I wish I had more.

[Andrew Welsh]

And I think, I think he needs that in both ways, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, precisely. These meme stocks. I mean, Doge is a meme stock. These are literally just a referendum on the funniness of the name or the person who launched it. And then everyone just trying to. Like a meme coin has. I may have just used the term meme stock accidentally. A meme coin. I mean, none of these coins have any value inherently anymore. Meme coins have even less. Somehow. A meme coin is. We could start a TBTL coin right now, and if we were able to get people talking about it, then there would be some impulse for somebody thinking, I want to be in on the early group of people who buy this TBTL coin because then other people want to buy it, and then I just want to make Sure, I get off the escalator at the right time and so nobody wants to be the last one holding the meme coin. You can't catch a falling knife, Andrew, so. But there is. If you think there's a possibility that this stupid meme coin, I mean, is a pure speculative gamble, which you think I would love more as a person who loves speculation and gambling. Again, I think I'm just mad because I don't know how to interact with the, with the actual technology. I don't really know how to buy a. A fart. Buddy, could you spare a fart that's going to be cut to depression era United States in 2028? Buddy, can you spare a fart? It's the new like, isn't Buddy. Buddy, can you spare a dime? Wasn't that like a song from back in the depression era?

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah, I believe the show title yesterday or the day before was Buddy, can you spare a yubnub? There you go.

[Luke Burbank]

So anyway, all that. Sorry, I don't know where that came from. It's just annoying because I was hearing about this and now it just seems like it's, it's happening. It's like, it's one of the great frustrations about the current moment in, in American politics we're in is that you just hear something that sounds like the worst case scenario and then you just watch it like a slow speed car crash actually unfold. It's like, wow, what if Trump just threw a bunch of money to crypto folks who already have a bunch of money, presumably, and just because he, he just feels like it and then you just see the gears turning and then you see it happening and you can't do anything about it. And it just, it's just so I'm not telling you anything.

[Andrew Welsh]

You don't hold up a little round sign that says, stop doing this. Like, I saw that something you could do.

[Luke Burbank]

Becca lives down in a part of Portland called the South Waterfront. And the other day we were going out on a walk, it was a Saturday. And I saw two, you know, a couple of women, probably in their mid-70s. And they were both just holding these little signs that said this must stop. They were like handwritten. And then the other one had something else. And I was like, they were standing by, they were standing by a restaurant called Little Big Burger. And I thought, is this just like guerrilla protests? Are they just popping up in this corner? Then I remembered, oh, no, no, no, the Tesla dealership.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Is like four blocks from here. And they had been at a get together at the Tesla dealership with their signs. And it's like I wanted to go up and hug them. And I know that it didn't do shit, but I love that these people were actually engaging with the discourse in whatever way that they were, you know?

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, it's. It's weird. It's. Because it is mostly feckless and yet I think it's our only way out of this.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah, I think I, you know, I think I'm encouraged by the. The Target boycott. I think that could actually give us a kind of a long boycott, people.

[Luke Burbank]

Targets.

[Andrew Welsh]

What? Wait, yeah, Targets. Targets. I know, Targets.

[Luke Burbank]

Boycott.

[Andrew Welsh]

I said the. Right. For a second. I got nervous. I say the wrong word so often. I want to make sure. Yeah, but it's Target, right? Not Target, but it's Target. I will. The major retailers in America, I will never boycott Target. Actually, Targets is also a major brand. It's a brand of like.

[Luke Burbank]

What do they make?

[Andrew Welsh]

Bag backpacks? Yeah. Like active bags.

[Luke Burbank]

All my cd, I couldn't find another case logic, so I had to go with a Target CD needs.

[Andrew Welsh]

But yeah, I don't know, it sort of seems like, I don't know, it's just feeling absolutely powerless is kind of like, well, if people can bandy together and, you know, kind of go with their dollars or vote with their feet or whatever, it is like a little bit more like maybe you can send a message. And I sort of feel like based on. Based on Targets, like kind of democratic.

[Luke Burbank]

Thing is dei, right?

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah, it was like kind of them immediately rolling back DEI efforts, apparently, like kind of cutting back on some. They had just like made. They had sort of made commitments to like, sort of support black owned, I think lines of, if not fragrance, I think maybe cosmetics or something like that. Just generally speaking did some very good things that people were on board with and I think do have a little bit more of a. I think that there's a. For better or for worse, there's like maybe a dichotomy between people who see themselves as Target shoppers versus, like Walmart shopper, so that there's not tons of overlap there. But you just sort of think that, I mean, even going back, remember. Do you remember the 90s, Luke? Who was.

[Luke Burbank]

When did Schubert dip come out?

[Andrew Welsh]

I don't even know.

[Luke Burbank]

Now that's what I call a century. Wait a decade. Century.

[Andrew Welsh]

I just sort of feel that, like, Targets always sort of had a reputation for being a little bit like they're designy design.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. They had like. Is it Todd Graves? Michael Graves?

[Andrew Welsh]

There was somebody in the 90s who used to be. This is how I'm gonna say this, and this isn't gonna make a lot of sense. Who was the biggest superstar model of the 90s who had the mole on her lip and she had a show on mtv.

[Luke Burbank]

Her name was Kur. She is.

[Andrew Welsh]

How am. I had a poster of her, which I. Cindy Crawford. I'm pretty embarra. Cindy Crawford had House of Style. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Todd Oldham.

[Andrew Welsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Or whatever. Yes, Todd.

[Andrew Welsh]

No. Yeah, that sounds right. But I'm worried that that is actually. Is Todd hold him a filmmaker who makes dark films or is he the guy. No, it's not all. Okay. Yeah. And I just remember.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Welsh]

My point is, I just remember going.

[Luke Burbank]

Back so long a picture I think of him and Cindy Crawford. That's coming up on one of the first things.

[Andrew Welsh]

And wasn't he one of the early kind of like name brand designers to pay. Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Michael Graves. Todd Oldham. It was like, we're gonna sell you a toaster, but it's gonna be cuter than it needs to be. You know, it's gonna be a little more designy. That was my sense of what Target was.

[Andrew Welsh]

And so anyway, I don't, you know, fully understand why these pri. I mean, I think I have some ideas, but I don't fully understand why these private companies who have like, no, you know, direct connection to the federal government had to suddenly feel like they had to reverse whatever dei, whatever you want to call it, kind of policies. It's kind of. It's pretty. It's pretty gross. And them just voluntarily sort of bending the knee to like some sort of new, like, cultural mandate from the gross White House. I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

It's. I mean, gross. Well, it's. The reason is because none of these companies wanted to do any of that stuff in the first place.

[Andrew Welsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

It was 100% because they were worried about getting a backlash. And. And so they did a lot of stuff that they didn't believe in, but they did it so that they would appear to be keeping step with the culture. And then as soon as they thought that. That they weren't going to be held accountable, they just reversed it.

[Andrew Welsh]

Right, Exactly. So all that is to say, I sort of feel like, hey, man, I, I feel like there is like the, the, the art. The audience. The audience, the, the customer base, I should say, of Target could actually have an impact on their bottom line, especially with, you know, a lot of questions swirling around about tariffs and what have you. Target is already not in exactly the best position Economically, if I understand it correctly, along with some other major retailers and like, this, this boycott could actually have an effect. It would be nice if some. It would just be nice if it felt like the people had any kind of power.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And that may end up being, like you said, kind of, we have to go, not go around. But I was watching Chris's show last night, and I forget who he was talking to. But, you know, one thing that they were saying was it's really easy to be mad at the Democrats in Washington. And I think there's a lot of, like, a really, really valid criticism of their kind of lack of action on things. There also is the fact that they do have legitimately a very limited amount of power, which isn't an excuse, but it's like, you don't have. You don't have the House, you don't have the Senate, you don't have the White House, and you don't have the Supreme Court. Unless Amy Coney Barrett continues with her truly stunning redemption story. Nothing made me happier than that headline I saw in the paper today. Conservatives furious with Amy Coney Barrett.

[Andrew Welsh]

I didn't see that.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, all right, you know, I think she's going to. Maybe Sandra Day O'Connor was Sandra Day O'Connor. Did she come in as a conservative, but then ended up voting very much down the middle? I think there was. I forget which justice it was, but there was a justice who was very maligned by the right because they were a Reagan appointee. But then they ended up voting. The longer they were on the court, the more they drifted to the left and kind of, you know, were a key vote. Anyway, all that is to say, it is super duper frustrating to feel like the world is burning and, like, you know, Hakeem Jeffries is talking about, you know, like, Aaron Judge not swinging at every pitch, and Fritz Schumer. Chuck Schumer is talking about pizza. It's like, get it together. Although they also do have a limited amount of power. I mean, the more that. Honestly, the more that I watch this, the more I think AOC is the future of this whole thing. I swear. Which, look, AOC seems as out there on our side of things as Trump seems out there on their side of things. And yet I feel like, first of all, clearly very, very smart and uncowed. She. She just seems like one of the only ones out there who's not afraid of them, you know, and this is just because I just see her on TikTok just talking about shit in a way that really Resonates. You know, I. I would be unsurprised if we weren't talking about President Ocasio Cortez at some point, which I think would be a pretty good thing.

[Andrew Welsh]

That'd be amazing. Yeah, I was looking for the tape of her talking about how they're just very. How the GOP is just very sensitive and their feelings get hurt. You heard that tape yesterday, right?

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think I did.

[Andrew Welsh]

Oh, this was about censuring Green. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Welsh]

This is longer. This might be a really bad idea for tape, especially since I don't know what I'm doing with the show today.

[Luke Burbank]

We are the place that people turn for their AOC update.

[Andrew Welsh]

I heard literally, like about six seconds of this, and this whole thing is a minute long, so apologies.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I think we can live through a minute of tape. This is, you know, this is not an unusual occurrence, as we've seen. Marjorie Taylor Greene famously disrupted the State of the Union under Joe Biden and Democrats allowed her speech. You know, they allowed for speech. Republicans are the ones that are now issuing censure motions because they dislike what a Democrat did during the State of the Union. So, you know, I think that it's important for us to note that. And it's really because Republicans just. They're very thin skinned and they're very sensitive and their feelings are very easily hurt, and so they have to vote on censure resolutions.

[Andrew Welsh]

That's what I had heard, that little clip at the end. By the way, can we do a little mini fundraiser to buy windscreens for reporters of the Hill? Because.

[Luke Burbank]

Get a caterpillar on there. Come on. You know, NPR sitting on thousands. You know, Howard Burkus alone is sitting on a mountain of that exact kind of windscreen technology. Get any of the NPR correspondents who are regularly covering outdoor events in the West. Yeah, that's the whole. That's the whole look, man. That's a whole move. Anyway, can we pivot ever so slightly, Andrew, to. No.

[Andrew Welsh]

Can we pivot hugely? I would like. I would actually like to request a huge pivot.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, how about this huge pivot? How about. How about we thank some donors?

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And then. And then we talk about a personal pivot that may have been happening in my own life that I didn't even realize until I woke up this morning and it was the music of Kelly Clarkson that. No, not really. But yeah, let's talk about that in a second. We was hoping for some razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle Dazzle, on your mark. On your mark. Get set, get set now. Ready, ready, Go. Everybody rattle Dazzle. All right, let's go ahead and do some dazzling donor appreciation here on this Friday. These donors are donating a dazzling amount of dough. They are making this a thing that can happen five days a week. This is 100%, in fact, 1,000% listener supported. We have received absolutely no support from the fart coin yet.

[Andrew Welsh]

I mean, we've probably contributed more money based on fart jokes than a lot.

[Luke Burbank]

Of people, and we've contributed overall to the fart climate.

[Andrew Welsh]

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

[Luke Burbank]

I have extensively.

[Andrew Welsh]

I have a methane cloud over my.

[Luke Burbank]

I have yet received zero remuneration from our contribution, which is the reason we're so thankful to have our buddy Bobby Pape in Boston, Massachusetts, supporting the show. Checking in. His. His name is pronounced Greg Cody, which if you know, you know. And then he. He requests and Bobby anything for our buddy Bobby Pape, AKA Greg Cody. He requests some ragtime music. Do you have some ragtime music?

[Andrew Welsh]

I think I see where this is going.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so on the Dan LeBatard Show. Do you want to explain it? Andrew, this is really more your world than mine.

[Andrew Welsh]

What's the Dan. What show? Okay, on the Dan LeBatard show with Stu Gott, there is an older fellow named Greg Cody who's a journalist. He's a columnist for Miami Herald, I think. Miami Herald, exactly. And he's always giving these little essays about what it was like back in my day. And so he'll take on. I've encouraged him via social media before to take on light bulbs. For example, I think he could do a whole essay about how modern light bulbs are too confusing. And back in my day, a light bulb, all you had to know was the wattage. So that's the type of thing. Yeah, I know he does.

[Luke Burbank]

That could also be a rant. Yes, if you wanted to, it could be.

[Andrew Welsh]

By the way, this week's newsletter for TBTL is a return of the yays and nays, the tbtl. Nays and nays. We have some great ones from the listeners. But anyway, that's not what this is about. This is a Back in my day from Bobby Pape, pronounced Greg Cody. Apparently.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right. Bobby says tens. There was a time when podcasts were pure. Just two bros, regardless of gender, growing it up, planning to discuss current events, but instead rambling on about Sky Jinx Garbage anxiety and tmi, about their bms and bmis. No production teams, no sponsors, just raw, beautiful nonsense. Now Every washed up and wannabe with a mic and an Internet connection as a podcast. How you living, Jay Piven? I'll tell you how we're living, Jeremy. Drowning in content nobody asked for.

[Andrew Welsh]

This is good by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

I wish I would have wrote this back in my day. A bar stool was something you sat on. True crime was something you read about in the newspaper over breakfast. And Joe Rogan was a dim witted radio station handyman.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yes, he was.

[Luke Burbank]

News radio shout out. We didn't need no high flying A listers or stinking sponsors or multi hour deep dives into topics nobody cares about. Okay, maybe that last part can stay as long as I don't have to keep hitting the skip 30 button. Because that was how it was back in my day.

[Andrew Welsh]

That was really good, Bobby.

[Luke Burbank]

Very well done, Bobby. That was solid. Bobby may be like a BM I had recently. Pretty good. Nice. Double tapered. Sorry Bobby.

[Andrew Welsh]

You.

[Luke Burbank]

You asked for it.

[Andrew Welsh]

Bobby may be the listener who's as obsessed with the Levitard show as I am. I think there's like three of us.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you think there are three of us?

[Andrew Welsh]

Three of us, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you think that was he listening and. And then concurrently with you? Because you started talking about on the show so much before you.

[Andrew Welsh]

My guy, my guess is he probably was listening before me because I was pretty late to the Lebatard game, if you'll recall. You and Stu. I almost said Stu. Guys. You and the Stu bot were trying to get me. You and the Stu bots were trying to get me on Lebitard a long, long time before I finally started like making it a daily habit.

[Luke Burbank]

I think I started hearing it in Bellingham on K pug. There was a local AM sports radio station, K pug, that had the. For a while it had a three hour local afternoon show, which I just freaking loved. It was. I mean it was. It wasn't much to write home about. But the idea, and it wasn't very. The. The studio, the station wasn't too far from my house. I would go past it while I was taking Rudy to the dog park. And the idea that every day there was just some hard working local sports sports broadcast. It might have been called the Zone or something, you know, one of those kind of weird athletic names anyway. But I think that same station, or it could have been a Seattle. So somebody was playing Le Batard in the morning and I was listening and I was like, this is so good. And I got very, very into it. And then, then kind of lost, you know, lost my place with the whole show. And then little did I know my good friend Andrew would become one of the. One of the country's experts, leading experts on the Lebatardiverse.

[Andrew Welsh]

I'm not signing off on that designation, but, you know, I listen to it so much, and Genevieve will sometimes listen to it with me, will maybe play darts and I'll have it on. Or she'll be sort of like playing her bird game on her computer and I'm throwing darts. We're listening, Lebatard. And there are a lot of sonic indicators of that show. And Veeves was very excited the other day because she came home, she said there are a few more food trucks in the university area these days in the U District because, like, certain buildings have been torn down. But while they're, like, waiting to start construction on the new building, there are some, like, various food trucks that have sort of parked in these sort of vacant lots. It's kind of cool. But Genevieve said one of them definitely was playing Levitar because she heard the Dun Dun. Like they play this fanfare sound when they do these ridiculous top five lists or whatever, and she's like, I heard the Dun Dun. You got to talk to that guy. He's.

[Luke Burbank]

Would you say Levitard? Would you say that Genevieve gets the show? Does she get the show?

[Andrew Welsh]

I don't know if I should be doing my imitation of Poppy.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. On the line. But thanks, Bobby. Appreciate you. Thanks, Greg. Maestro. On your mark. On your mark. Get set, get set now. Ready, ready, Go. Everybody rattle daddle. Look who it is. It's Bane Weinberger, AKA William.

[Andrew Welsh]

That's right, William. Goes by Bain.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right, Bain Weinberger. Out there in Paonia, Colorado. Peyonia, Colorado.

[Andrew Welsh]

That's a new one for me.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm going to be in Longmont, Colorado here, coming up for a TV story in a few. Few weeks. Wonder how close I'm going to get to Payonia. Bain says, last year in my dazzling message, I used the turn of phrase, the beautiful Biz Boys.

[Andrew Welsh]

That's where that came from.

[Luke Burbank]

From that ended up being the episode title.

[Andrew Welsh]

And more than that. We call ourselves the Biz Boys all the time now.

[Luke Burbank]

We sure do. Sure do. Yeah. That's big. That's part of the canon now. It's part of the lexicon. Bane. Thank you. I received what must have been my one and only jolt of social media endorphins. Don't get addicted to it, Bane. It's honestly, it's. It's a. It's a wild ride, but it Only ends in heartbreak. It's better to have one great jolt and then wean yourself off of that particular like what is it? Dopamine dump.

[Andrew Welsh]

Take your dopamine and go home.

[Luke Burbank]

As an old 73 year old computer guy who has been on the Internet pretty much since it has existed, what an interesting perspective. I mean, I guess, I guess to a degree. Do we have the same perspective in other words?

[Andrew Welsh]

I'm guessing, I'm guessing he's saying who's been on the Internet pretty much since it existed. If he's a computer guy. We're talking about early Internet that we are probably not privy to. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Stuff where it's like yeah, way before it got. It got UX friendly enough that I was able to log on and you know, try to meet single ladies in my area via a picture of. Picture of Mickey Mouse made out of. Made out of dollar signs and tildes or whatever.

[Andrew Welsh]

Like. Oh, oh the. I lost news there for a second there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like I remember getting on new like alt like you know, something.net or something.alt. whatever. But it'd be anything you were into like the music of Wilco or like the. It was just basically these chat rooms but it was all text based. There was no photos yet.

[Andrew Welsh]

ASCII art. Right?

[Luke Burbank]

ASCII art. Thank you shall receive. Like you know that anything. Andrew, I've kind of a big asky for you, but I just remember like working at the visitor information center and being in these. These. I guess I feel like they were called news groups but it was always the same. It was something.something.something and. But again it was whatever topic you were interested in. But then the people would create these, these, these art pieces that were just made out of, you know, the characters on the keyboard on the QWERTY keyboard that you could use. But you could, if you were smart enough with it, you could make like Aladdin or whatever and I'd just be looking at these things, you know and sometimes maybe someone would make like a sexy lady with it or whatever. But. So that was when I caught onto the Internet. But, but you know, Bane being somebody who's been on since probably the. Before that day. It's an interesting perspective as to where the Internet now is. You know what I mean? Like it's been probably something to behold. I've never felt comfortable with the book faces and such generally considering them evil incarnate. Now do you know what the book faces are?

[Andrew Welsh]

And there's a Facebook.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh yes.

[Andrew Welsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Well Bain, you were ahead of the curve on that realizing book face was probably not going to be. It's amazing that that a website that started out rating the hotness of co eds at Harvard turned out to be a bad thing. I don't know how. How I didn't see that coming.

[Andrew Welsh]

Such a pure start.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, it turned out so great and it's ended so well with. With its. With its founder. But I sure experienced what a trip that was to be a real boy being perhaps the only 10 on the Western SL of Colorado. Oh, Boebert. So now I'm getting a sense of where Peonia is. Bobert was our rep until she found an even redder district in which to run. That's true. Lauren Boebert did, shortly after allegedly having overly sexual time at a live performance of Beetlejuice. I mean, to seek beetles seek redder pastures. Who doesn't get horned up?

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

Watching the touring regional version of Beetlejuice.

[Andrew Welsh]

I think the Beetlejuice. Has everybody got. Got everybody.

[Luke Burbank]

Everybody worked up A little bit worked up. Okay. Live from. From London's West End, Sir Sir Lord. Sir Lord Michael Wilson's Beetlejuice the musical. Anyway, let's see here. All I could do was corner one of my slower friends and play it for her with uncharacteristic glee as she backed away slowly into a hedge.

[Andrew Welsh]

This is him again, just trying to share his victory of the beautiful Biz boys.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right. I see TBTL has been my companion, my refuge and tenuous connection to pop culture for the last dozen or so years. Da boys have been there to share the highs and lows throughout this time, for which I am dazzlingly grateful. Here's to another great year.

[Andrew Welsh]

Well, Bain, we're dazzlingly grateful to you.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you. And keep. Thanks for. Thanks for. Thanks for taking care of the TBTL outpost in Peonia, Colorado. And I'm sorry that when you do have your yearly moment with the show, there aren't enough people to share it with out there. But. But we appreciate you. You fighting the good fight.

[Andrew Welsh]

Absolutely. Spread the word.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right. We'll get. We'll get up to two listeners in Paonia at some point. I think that's achievable. So thanks, Bain. Appreciate you. Thanks. Also, Bobby, we couldn't do this thing without y'all. Hello and welcome to Top Story. I realized something today, Andrew, and that is that you and I have, as I remember, on or off air, had had zero conversation about the fact that the Seattle Seahawks football team appears ready to lose two of its franchise players. One who is a holdover from the glory years of winning Super Bowls and who I. I'm guessing is the last active player from that roster, from the roster that went to the super bowl. And a couple of times in a row, once with a good outcome, once with a less good outcome, and then this kind of incredibly talented. I'm talking about Tyler Lockett when I. I'm talking about the kind of. The sort of legacy aspect of the Seahawks. So you're losing. The. The announcement was that the Seahawks are gonna part ways with Tyler Lockett. They just were gonna have to pay him too much money based on what his actual abilities are, as far as they see it. And Tyler Lockett's just an absolute pillar of the Seahawks for years and years and years. And again, someone who was part of these really, really amazing years and is now going to be gone. That kind of hurt. But I also saw. I also realized, like, I don't think it would have made sense to pay Tyler Lockett the amount of money they were going to need to pay him for the production they were likely to get from him. But it's still a sad thing because he's just been such a great member of the community.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah. Good guy, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Really, really good guy. You know? But then in this, on the same day, there's an announcement. So my family Hawk squad is buzzing because, you know, my mom's favorite thing would be when Tyler Lockett would catch, make a big catch. She would, in all caps, say, lock it up. Lock it on the Hawk squad chain. And that was such a nice. It was a fun family bonding experience. It meant things were going well. It meant Tyler Lockett was making important catches. We were all watching it. My mom's getting hyphy. She's saying, lock it up, locket. That was almost half of why I wanted Tyler Lockett to stay on the team. So my mom could keep typing lock it up Lockett into the family text chain.

[Andrew Welsh]

And remember, way back in the day, his nickname was no E because he had Ricardo. Ricardo Lockett, I think, on the team as well. And he. They spelled their name.

[Luke Burbank]

I'll never forgive Ricardo Lockett for not driving through. For not driving through the pass because he was the person that was part of the interception against the. It's like you're going to throw to a Lockett, but not Tyler Lockett at that point in the game.

[Andrew Welsh]

But he had an E on his. He did. No E. You had Tyler Lockett come in. No E. No E. I don't know. Just thinking. I just Remember me and my friends way back in la, my Seahawks friends in la, talking about no E. And I just happen to remember that right now it was flooded with memories.

[Luke Burbank]

So that's always a sad thing. And football is very much this way because it's such a physically. What's the word I'm looking for? Deadly sport that, like, the difference between being someone who is valued by the team and, like, you know, a critical part of the whole thing, and being someone who the team does not have much use for is often, like, one season because it's just so incredibly hard to keep doing this. So it happens a lot in football. I was a bit bummed. I was not surprised about Lockett. And then, like, an hour later, the announcement comes that DK Metcalf, who's the whole other end of the spectrum, which is to say he's still very much in the prime of his career. He is a physical specimen unlike any other, and he is a player who, when used properly, seems almost impossible to stop. He wants a trade. So we go from, we're losing the legacy guy that we all love, who's just been around forever, and we're also using losing what I would say is still somewhat the future of the team in, like, two hours on one day. And yet. And my phone is blowing up. My girlfriend, who. Who is not an active follower of NFL News, is like, are you okay? She's sending me. She's getting updates about Tyler Lockett at DK Metcalf, and she's like, how are you doing, Jay Piven? I'm like, it's how you live in Jay Piven. Okay, please listen to the show. Stop. Just reading the descriptions to find out if I'm okay, to find out if I'm in a ditch somewhere. But anyway, that's how big of a story it was. Of course, my family text chain is melting down. Everyone's talking about it. And I realized just. I didn't even have any super strong feelings about this to the degree that I would want to put it on tbtl necessarily. Or that, like, I needed to, like, download with you or. Or the. Or the criminals, really. Like, I just didn't feel like you.

[Andrew Welsh]

And I did talk about it. We did, yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Did we talk about it on the show?

[Andrew Welsh]

No, it was off air. I think the news was sort of breaking during the show, so we would take a break and be like, I.

[Luke Burbank]

Think it was pre DK too.

[Andrew Welsh]

No, it happened. It sort of happened during two breaks during the show that.

[Luke Burbank]

So then the DK news came through.

[Andrew Welsh]

But we didn't talk about it a lot. We're just like, man, what is happening? I do want to ask a question, though. This DK thing, like, he's requesting a trade. It doesn't mean that the team has to trade him, but is the idea that, like, well, if you don't trade him, then he's just not going to perform. He'll just.

[Luke Burbank]

It's the weirdest thing about the. I mean, the way that the. I'm, I've explained bitcoin, okay? And now let me explain the NFL. Now, NFL contracts are really, they're really weird and they're really bad for the players. Because what they basically, the way they usually work is we will agree to pay this player a whole. Let's just say you're a dk, Mac Metcalf. We agree to pay you all this money, but also most of it's not guaranteed. So we actually don't have to pay you all of this money. We pay you some of this money as a bonus. And some of it is quote, quote, unquote, guaranteed. But then there's a bunch of it that's in. That's why they cut Tyler Lockett, because they owed Tyler Lockett all this money. Unless they cut him and then they owe him no money. And it's because this is how the NFL deals with the fact that it's a deadly sport is like you promise people a bunch of money and as soon as their bodies can't continue, then you just go adios. But also tied up in that is if you are like DK on a long term contract where you are getting guaranteed money, you can request a trade, which I've never, I can't think of a time where a high profile player has requested a trade and they haven't been granted the trade. Because the idea is, and it's kind of funny because this is a professional business, there's tons of money on the line. You would think it's the kind of thing where you could say, as the player, I'd really like to play somewhere else. And the team says, well, that's kind of a you problem. Your job is to show up and catch footballs when we throw them to you. And yet that's never how it plays out. It's like as soon as somebody invokes the magic word of I want to trade, then it becomes, well, we can't have somebody here who doesn't want to be here with 1000% of their heart.

[Andrew Welsh]

And am I wrong in thinking that this is happening a Lot more in the NFL now. Like, just in the last couple of years. Right. Because, like, the NFL has not been known for, like, a real player empowerment league. This is the kind of thing you see in the NBA a lot. And the NBA players kind of have more leverage.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And those are. Those contracts are locked down, and so.

[Andrew Welsh]

They'Ll, you know, request trades or. Who is our boy out of Miami who pooped his pants the other day? That we were. Butler. Jimmy Butler kind of made a big stink to get out of Miami, so to speak. Hey, that's right. I didn't even. I didn't even realize I was rhyming those words.

[Luke Burbank]

But anyway, Tenacious Andrew.

[Andrew Welsh]

It sort of seems like. It sort of seems like we're starting to see more of this in the NFL or I haven't been paying attention.

[Luke Burbank]

I think we're seeing more of it because, I guess because it's working. But again, it's just a funny thing to me because it's like you signed these legally binding documents that everyone is held to, but then it's like that, the silo. It's like, don't say, I want to go. Don't say I want to go above ground. Because if you say I want to go above ground, you have to go above ground.

[Andrew Welsh]

I keep forgetting about that. I told you, I read the books forever ago. Now that makes me actually want to reread the books. But I should check what's the platform there that. That is on? You know, it doesn't matter. Why am I asking that? I can look.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I think it's on Blimpy Doo Boo. Is that his blimpy? Are they still making subs?

[Andrew Welsh]

I don't really.

[Luke Burbank]

The blimpy. I feel like they could have put a blimpy right in next to a pudge. Brothers really locked down the questionable naming.

[Andrew Welsh]

When I think of blimpy, I think of them as one of the. I think of them and like, the rap and Roy Rogers as restaurants that you only see along the side of highways. Right. When you're on a long road trip.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I feel like blimpy must have, like, franchised or something, because I was. There was no blimpies in my life, and then they were kind of everywhere, and now I feel like I don't see many of them.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So back to this whole football thing. Like, considering the reaction from everyone in my life and just. I'm sure Seattle sports radio is going completely nuts, you know, as well they should. I'm sure that all of the Seattle radio, the Seattle Media, this is some huge deal because again, the Seahawks were not, as I remember it, like an offensive juggernaut as it is. Like, this is almost. Like. This almost feels like it puts them potentially into rebuild mode. Like, they do have Jackson, Smith, and Jigba, who's very promising. So that's, you know, exciting or whatever. And then, as you point out, I am. This is coming back to me now. We do have Jake Bobo, so build around Bobo and. And Smith and Jigba.

[Andrew Welsh]

And the good thing about Bobo is it's only 80 bucks a month.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that, Andrew, actually brings me to my theory. I think that Fubo TV may be slowly, kind of putting. Slowly changing the nature of my relationship with the Seattle Seahawks football team in that I'm not. Like, I'm just kind of. I'm. I guess I would say that I'm. I don't know. I'm ambivalent. Isn't the word agnostic? Maybe? I'm just kind of like, huh, all right, well, I guess we'll see what happens. Like, I'm not, like, like, bummed about it. I'm not excited about it. I have no overly strong feelings about what is now a huge, huge question mark around this football team that I do get pretty into, generally speaking. And in years past, it has been a central part of my life, and I think it has to do with Fubo, because last season, I probably watched, what are there, 17 games now? How many games do they make these people play?

[Andrew Welsh]

It. Was it 17 weeks? 16. 16 games with the.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it used to be 16 games, so I think it's 18 weeks with 17 games. I know they added a game and. Which the players were not happy about.

[Andrew Welsh]

Right. That makes sense because it's an odd number now.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, but, like, of the 17 games, I probably, like, sat down and, like, you know, blocked out my whole afternoon and stared at the screen for, like, let's say eight of them, which might sound like a lot to normal people, but, I mean, it used to be 16. And the preseason, like, it used to be. This was a high holiday for me. And I know what I'm describing is a journey you've been on for kind of a long time with your Sunday pop up and just other things. But, like, I think because I have this way that I can watch it on my phone, it means. And I've kind of de. Emphasized it in my life as a thing that I had to build the whole day around. And also, it's nice because then for Becca, it's like, Sunday doesn't Have to be like, well, I lost Luke every single Sunday, you know, for 17 Sundays or whatever it is during the. During fall, in the winter, it's like, no, we'll go do stuff, we'll go shopping. We'll just live our life. And then I will also kind of low key have this game on in the background and if it gets close, maybe we'll boot it up on the television or we'll kind of sit here in this like, Nordstrom waiting area while I watch how this third down play goes. But then I'll just put the phone back in my pocket and keep it moving. Like the fact that I don't. That I have a way to watch the game to some degree, but like, basically kind of like half watch the game, but get enough of the info. I think it has shifted my actual emotional relationship with the team. And I guess it's a good thing, but also it's a little bit sad for me. Like, it feels just like this. The nature of my relationship with. With the Seahawks is changing a little bit.

[Andrew Welsh]

I totally disagree with you.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Welsh]

And it's weird that I would say that because this is your life in your feelings. And I'm telling you that I disagree. But I do disagree. I don't think it's the Fubo thing. I, as your friend and somebody who has been kind of. Our relationship to football individually has been sort of evolving over the years because of different life.

[Luke Burbank]

Is it the drinking?

[Andrew Welsh]

I think no. Well, I don't know. But I think it's. Your lifestyle has changed because we saw that. I saw this and I think we even talked about it. I think your relationship to football was changing and evolving before you got Fubo. I think Fubo has now given you an opportunity to sort of check in remotely here and there more than you were maybe even the season prior to that. I think it's because you're traveling. I think a lot of factors. And I am going to write the show description. Luke and Andrew talk about how Becca is ruining Luke's love of sports.

[Luke Burbank]

So you know what?

[Andrew Welsh]

She only reads the description.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's see what. And I'm not going to mention it. Let's see what the response is. Okay.

[Andrew Welsh]

I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

I love this.

[Andrew Welsh]

I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

I love this relationship. Dep charge you're going to drop.

[Andrew Welsh]

No, but I do think that a lot of factors. I mean, so many factors in your life have changed, as have mine. And like, let's go way back. I mean, this doesn't. Back in my day, you Know, like when you and I were watching football together with a group of friends. I mean, listen, so much has changed since, but that was like. It was. We'd all get together on a Sunday.

[Luke Burbank]

We all lived in the same town.

[Andrew Welsh]

We all lived in the same town. It was boozy. It was pizza. It was. You get rolling on this with Bloody Marys in the morning, and it goes until then. It just keeps going until you fall asleep Sunday night. And, like, there was that. I mean, so many things have changed. You aren't in your travel, so you have a relationship with Beck, and now you live in a different part of the state. You are traveling so much and doing work on so many things.

[Luke Burbank]

Sunday is often a way that I'm able to get from point, basically from being gone to back home, which means that's the football gets kind of obliterated.

[Andrew Welsh]

There's that. It could be a travel day for you, but also, if it's not a travel day, you have so few days to spend with Becca. I mean, this is my observation. I could be wrong about this. But you are doing. You're trying to prioritize spending time with people that you care about because you realize I'm not. I am on the road so much. I think I've been seeing your relationship to football change before Fubo. Then you got Fubo, and you're like, oh, it's kind of fun. I could watch on the plane, or I could watch over here and then put it in my pocket. I mean, I don't know if I'm part. I don't know if I'm splitting hairs there, but that's kind of how I see.

[Luke Burbank]

That's really interesting. You might be right. Sometimes we are the least able to actually observe change in our own life because we are kind of the ones driving that bus or something. And it's people. Other people observing us. That's more accurate. I could totally see that. Yeah, maybe. Maybe that has been the case, and I just didn't quite realize it, although I'm trying to.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah, you were listening on the radio last, before Fubo. You were telling me. Well, I was traveling here, and I was. I tried to catch some of it on satellite radio. And you were like, I heard the second half of that game.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I remember a lot of times also. So being on an airplane that would be taking off, and, like, I'm trying to listen on Sirius. And I. And it has a buffer of, like. I remember there was this one game that was an insane game, and it was down to the last like, three minutes. And I knew that satellite radio had buffered maybe three minutes of it. And then we take off, and I'm just like, please, God, can we have some finality before I run out of. Because now there's. It was, like, one of those small planes that doesn't have WI fi. So, like, I'm just like, please, gods of Sirius satellite. And I think they didn't. And I think I, like, landed. And I think it maybe even had a good outcome. But. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's just say I take your. I take your observation as being very potentially accurate. It's weird that, like, it's weird that I feel a little. A little, like, wistful about the whole thing. Let's say it started two years ago. Let's say it started three years ago. Whenever. Whenever this started, kind of. And I think you're right. I think me living alone. Me living in another city. I'm not with. With. I don't have a crew in Portland of Seahawk fans that I get together with. It's. I don't know if I'm. If I. If I miss just, like. Because here's the thing. When you care about a team as much as I cared about the team in the. The height of it, when they win. When they do something like win the super bowl, it's just so euphoric. Or when they're winning. Like, I think about that game against the Green Bay packers, the NFC Championship game, when we had, like, a. You know, I think it was, like, a 1% chance of coming back, and we did the. The joy that I felt at the end of that game is in the top 10 joyful moments of my entire life.

[Andrew Welsh]

Well, you were also in the arms of Brock Heward.

[Luke Burbank]

In the arms of a He. Word. Actually, not. That was.

[Andrew Welsh]

Oh, that was a different game against.

[Luke Burbank]

The Niners where Richard Sherman tapped it over to. Tapped it over to whomever it was.

[Andrew Welsh]

That was the Crabtree game.

[Luke Burbank]

That was us in. That was. That was. That was.

[Andrew Welsh]

We.

[Luke Burbank]

We. No, no, please. But that was also. That was. I put that in the top 15. If Brock hadn't lost his wedding ring.

[Andrew Welsh]

Suspicious.

[Luke Burbank]

Very suspicious. You know, it would have been top 10. But no, like, I guess the thing is, I don't know if I'm. If I miss caring so much about it, because when it goes right, it's so euphoric. But it can only be that euphoric if you're also devastated by the bad outcomes. It's like, you. In. In my experience, you have to go so all in on this thing that you take the crushing lows with the crushing highs. I don't have the crushing lows anymore. You know what it feels like is the way people describe being on an antidepressant. Like, the lows aren't as low and the highs aren't as high.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And that's kind of where I'm at with the Seahawk football. And I miss my old life a little bit. But then I also wonder, do I just miss my old life? Do I just miss being 10 years younger and living in Seattle and having my life just a little bit more mapped out for me? Like, I just kind of. I just had a. I had a kind of a sort of. Is the word proscribed? Proscribed? No, I just had sort of like, a thing. I went to Cairo in the morning and did the show probably with you. And then I went here and I went there, and we had these events, and I just. My life felt like it was kind of. It was kind of spelled out for me. Kind of mapped out for me.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And the. The joy that was brought to that I felt in a lot of those events around the Seahawks and around drunken karaoke and stuff. It was just one kind of lifestyle. It's very different than my lifestyle now, where now I'm just like. I live alone. I travel constantly. I'm a little more disconnected.

[Andrew Welsh]

You live alone in a pretty remote area, too. At least as far as I live.

[Luke Burbank]

Alone in a pretty remote area. I do appreciate that. My neighbor does fly a 12 flag. Every single Sunday there's a game, including the preseason. That's how disconnected that I. That's how I find out when the.

[Andrew Welsh]

Seahawks are in distress. I'll ask him, when the trade news happened on Monday, did he fly it upside down?

[Luke Burbank]

Go ask him if you could start doing that. That would be so dope. Anyway. So, yeah, I think maybe you're right. Maybe Fubo. Hey, maybe Fubo's a way back in for me.

[Andrew Welsh]

I wonder about that. Yeah. I want to say one other thing. I do think it has more to do with your life kind of changing and evolving and for. You know, I think mostly for better, by the way. I mean, in a lot of ways regarding especially kind of football, like, probably whatever. I don't want to get judgmental on that for either one of us, but. Because maybe someday we'll both get more into it. I would say one other thing, though, that could be a factor, because I think this is a whole stew of various things. As time marches on, the Seahawks While not bad right now, when are kind of interesting and I think you're with me. Like, we like the quarterback, Geno Smith. I think he's got a very interesting story. He's an interesting guy.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Welsh]

But he's still like, we. We are in a transition as a team. I don't know why I'm saying we. I did know. I don't know if you know this, but I'm part of the team now. Luke. Big news. They're bringing me on board.

[Luke Burbank]

Big.

[Andrew Welsh]

It's true. They call me the new DK Metcalf. Our bodies are both specimens, but just.

[Luke Burbank]

Different kinds of science wants to study both of you for very different reasons. Although you wouldn't be, would you. Would you be like, the third Walsh? Which one was it Walsh or St. Ignatius that had Stefanski?

[Andrew Welsh]

Stefanski.

[Luke Burbank]

It was Mike Verrell.

[Andrew Welsh]

I think it was Verrell. And that was Walsh Jesuit. I only went there for one year when I was.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, but still you would be. You would be joining a long line of Walsh Jesuit football players to make it to the NFL level.

[Andrew Welsh]

Actually, let's. Let's look that up for a second. But anyway, what I was going to say was I also think that, like, it might be different if we were smack dab in the middle of the Russell. Russell Wilson era. Like, even if all of your life things were the same as they are right now. I mean, I think it's mostly just where you. And to a degree, I am kind of in our life right now and all the various factors. But also it's kind of a decent time to be sort of not checked.

[Luke Burbank]

Out, but just kind of a little bit arm's length, maybe.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Welsh]

I was going to say, like, what is the medicine that you take to when it kind of evens you out and the highs are ssri. Yeah. Whatever kind of blocker. It just sort of seems like. Yeah, it kind of makes sense. Like we're transitioning. We don't know. We. Nobody really thinks that, like, Geno Smith is going to take us to the promised land. Right. Like, we're all dividing our time a little bit.

[Luke Burbank]

It's kind of like they're not. They're not particularly great at anything.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what I mean? Like, you're right. I. I wonder. It's impossible. This is impossible to know. But like. Yeah, let's say that this is. We rewind to when we're like, you know, going 12 and 4 and winning the NFC west and going to the Super bowl two seasons in a row. Like, am I able to. Am I checked out? Am I sitting in Sky Harbor Airport and like, like listening to it on Sirius Satellite on a, on a Saturday, Sunday, rather. What do they play on? Is it. It's every given Saturday, right?

[Andrew Welsh]

Given Thursday, I believe it's.

[Luke Burbank]

I've been waiting all day for Saturday night. Right. That's the song, I'm pretty sure. But like, yeah, like if, if this is peak Russell Wilson era and the Legion of Boom, am I, like, am I scheduling my flight on a Sunday such that it's also when they're playing football or am I moving heaven and earth around my CBS assignment to make sure that is not happening? And I think probably everybody loves a winner, right? So if we were just like, if we were just world beating, I probably would be more engaged with the, with the content.

[Andrew Welsh]

The list of grad graduates from Walsh Jesuit High School in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio to go into the NFL is manageable. It's only about. Let's see. It looks like seven players long. Can I go through this?

[Luke Burbank]

Can I say these people? Yeah. And if I can. If I can say what team they played for. Any of them. I bet you most of them. I don't know.

[Andrew Welsh]

We're going back. We're starting with the furthest back, which is not that far back. If you consider the History of the World, Part 1, 1987. It looks like this person only maybe had one year in the league. You're never gonna get this. I don't think. Steve Fitzhugh.

[Luke Burbank]

Steve Fitzhugh.

[Andrew Welsh]

I might be saying that incorrectly. The last name is spelled F I, T Z. That's the easy part. That's the Fitz. Then H, U, G, H. I'd say Fitzhugh.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what I would say. I'm not familiar with the work of Steve Hay. If the, if the game. If the shoe fits. You okay. What list his position?

[Andrew Welsh]

Yes, it says here Denver and was a defensive back, if I know what DB stands for. But that was way back in 87. Now this is 98 to 2000. We're skipping ahead by more than a decade here. Kevin O'Neill.

[Luke Burbank]

Kevin O'Neal. Well, wait, that's not. No, I was Kevin O'Connell. That's the coach of the Minnesota Vikings. Right, Right. So, yeah. Kevin O'Neill. I don't know. Boy, they, they do like the. They like the Irish last names coming out of Walsh Jesuit.

[Andrew Welsh]

I don't think. Oh, born in Twinsburg, by the way. I don't think. I don't think there's going to be a Lot of players on this list that we're familiar with. But this person did I mentioned, by the way, Fitzhugh was played for Denver for that one season. Okay. And then Kevin O'Neill played for Detroit as a linebacker. Okay, then what about. And I'm curious if you know this person. Tom Lepin.

[Luke Burbank]

Brady.

[Andrew Welsh]

Tom Brady, exactly. Tom Lipinski. I'm going to say fullback.

[Luke Burbank]

Tom Lipinski. Fullback does not.

[Andrew Welsh]

Players had like one or two seasons and they're all like fullbacks, linebackers, or.

[Luke Burbank]

These are like positions where it's. I mean, even by the standards of the NFL, especially hard on your body. I could see it being a thing where like, like if you're just willing to run into a brick wall, you could catch on, you know, in an NFL and you were decent college player, you might be able to catch on with an NFL team for a season or two. But then you're likely. I just saw a headline too that was like Washington commander's defensive. You know, the, the anchor of the commander's defense, Bobby Wagner says he's staying put. And I'm, I go, Bobby Wagner is still playing an important role on a defense that almost went to the Super Bowl. Like, why did the Seahawks not want Bobby Wagner?

[Andrew Welsh]

Was another contract thing. Was it a money thing?

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe, but it's like, it's like Bobby Wagner has not. He is not. What's the word? He has not drifted. He is not, you know, said drifted easily into that good night. He's my guy is like anchoring the commander's defense still and, and wants to stay there and they're going to keep him.

[Andrew Welsh]

And did I hear that the. The commanders might be making a play for Miles Garrett too? Is that like the number one place where Miles may end up? They're going to be good next year. Okay, now we have Mike Vrabel, the aforementioned. Now he played for 13 years in the league before he was a coach.

[Luke Burbank]

He played a lot of places.

[Andrew Welsh]

He was.

[Luke Burbank]

I believe he was a patriot.

[Andrew Welsh]

Notably played for Belichick, Kansas City. Those are. Now what about Connor Cook? Luke, that name rings a bell to me.

[Luke Burbank]

Connor Cook.

[Andrew Welsh]

Let's see here was a. Let him Cook. Let Connor.

[Luke Burbank]

Let him. Connor Hinckley.

[Andrew Welsh]

Ohio is where he was born, apparently. 2016 to 2016. Oakland. I'm guessing a backup quarterback in Oakland to get any time at all.

[Luke Burbank]

Trying to get some reps behind Marcus Tuyasasopo.

[Andrew Welsh]

Let me see here. Games. Oh, 17 games. No. Oh, oh, no, no. One game. I think maybe, possibly. I can't drop seven there. Well, it's a little confusing to me is a 17 game average is something that they average out. But I think he might have only played one game and then they kind of like math it out. Okay, this is such a bad idea.

[Luke Burbank]

What about Bobby Hoyer?

[Andrew Welsh]

It's not Bobby. It's Andrew Hoyer, isn't it?

[Luke Burbank]

I thought. Oh, Brian Hoyer.

[Andrew Welsh]

Brian Hoyer, Yeah, he went to Ignatius.

[Luke Burbank]

He's an Ignatius. Why are you giving me the list of people I don't know?

[Andrew Welsh]

Help me set me Jesuit.

[Luke Burbank]

No, I asked for Ignatius. I said. Oh, no. You know what? I got confused. I asked which place Vrabel was from. Oh, I thought. I thought you'd said Ignatius.

[Andrew Welsh]

You just sent me.

[Luke Burbank]

You.

[Andrew Welsh]

You just said the worst thing you could have possibly said.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow, that's really saying something now.

[Andrew Welsh]

I want to know Ignatius grads. Well, yes, this is.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, we know Brian Hoyer.

[Andrew Welsh]

Okay. Brian Hoyer, St. Ignatius, Cleveland, Ohio alumni protest. This is a much bigger list. We're not going to take as much time with this because this is even boring me. Back to deck death. Brian Hoyer so far is the only name I recognize on this list. You got Darian Canard, 20.

[Luke Burbank]

Sounds familiar.

[Andrew Welsh]

That's like concurrent. Like that's current, I should say. Oh, Leon Eichenberg, 2020.

[Luke Burbank]

I would remember that. He helped with the invention of the nuclear bomb.

[Andrew Welsh]

Right. I think a huge I can bar. Remember? I can Barbie summer. I can Barbie summer.

[Luke Burbank]

What a time.

[Andrew Welsh]

Oh, there's. Oh, boy. You have Liam Eichenberg and Tommy Eichenberg, both. They must have been brothers or something. Draymond Jones.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah, Draymond Jones. Seattle Seahawks.

[Andrew Welsh]

Seattle Seahawk. Brian Hoyer played everywhere, including Cleveland.

[Luke Burbank]

Right now he's playing in Seoul, South Korea for the Seoul Dolphins.

[Andrew Welsh]

Weirdly. Weirdly. On the baseball team. Jake Ryan, Dan Fox, Jacob Bell, Anthony Gonzalez, wide receiver for Indian.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, that name I recognize. I can't tell you where he played, though.

[Andrew Welsh]

I don't recognize any of the other names on this list. And I'm not going to go through them, assuming you do, because you have a lot of. Like, I don't. You know, Oliver Luck, the other Luck. Oh, that's Houston, 1983 to 1986. That was a long time ago.

[Luke Burbank]

Actually. No, I think. I think that's Andrew Luck's dad.

[Andrew Welsh]

No. Really.

[Luke Burbank]

And I think he became the commissioner of the USFL or something like.

[Andrew Welsh]

Really?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I believe if that. Unless Andrew Luck has a way older brother, my guess would be Oliver Luck is. Is Andrew Luck's father. And. And. And Was had, like, an important job with a league that wasn't the NFL.

[Andrew Welsh]

Any of this. Yeah. He is the. He is the father of Andrew Luck, and he is now currently executive director of the United Athletic Conference, which is part of the ncaa. But I'm sure you're right. XFL commissioner. XFL for a while. So, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Home of He Hate Me.

[Andrew Welsh]

Huh?

[Luke Burbank]

The XFL let the players put their own names on their jersey, and they famously had a player whose name on his jersey was He Hate Me.

[Andrew Welsh]

I forgot about that. I caught a little wind of that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so I want to go back to your feelings. So that was a really. Can I just say that was a really bad idea on my part.

[Luke Burbank]

Listen to a bunch I love.

[Andrew Welsh]

Absolutely. Well, you didn't know any of those names.

[Luke Burbank]

First of all, I asked. I asked for it.

[Andrew Welsh]

You asked for for it.

[Luke Burbank]

It got us. You asked for it. First of all, I requested this. I enjoyed the heck out of it, and it got me to where we were all hoping I'd end up with just yet another He Hate Me XFL reference. I regret nothing.

[Andrew Welsh]

Okay, here's what I want to do while we're back. Well, here's the deal. I want to ask you a question which could be a pivot to another conversation that maybe the listeners. And we don't even want to have as the show grows long on a Friday. But I do want to stay in the Sports Zone Dust Sports Zone here for just a second. Your feelings about football we've explored. Would you say your feelings about baseball, specifically the Seattle Mariners, have grown deeper in recent years?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Welsh]

Right. So there's a lot going on since.

[Luke Burbank]

The pandemic, I think. Well, actually with an asterisk because the. Because the pandemic stuff was so weird with, like, nobody in the stadium. And I think short was the season shortened to, like. Like, since there was a period, I can't exactly pinpoint it, but there was a year at some point, and I think I was living in Bellingham, where I started to really particularly enjoy the fact that there's so much baseball, there's so much Mariners baseball. Like, it became little something I could look forward to every single day. And not even because they were particularly good, because they haven't been for a long time. But I think because I do live out here alone and there's a lot of lawn to mow and landscaping to do and, I don't know, just summertime activity, this place that I live is really pretty ideal for nice, warm weather. That's sort of the Whole idea of the thing. So there's something about knowing that there's going to be a Mariners game and that I'm going to throw a couple shrimps on the barbie and listen to the Mariners, watch the Mariners. It fills me with great joy. And I think my thoughts about the Mariners and the amount of time they take up in my brain, like you said, they are taking up more space as the Seahawks are taking up less space.

[Andrew Welsh]

And I don't want to make myself a main character in your story, but also the more it's something that I follow closely so we end up talking about on the show more, so it ends up being something that we do talk about more. Am I a main character in your story? I should at least be.

[Luke Burbank]

If you're not, I don't know who is, bro.

[Andrew Welsh]

I should be a supporting Can I win best supporting Actor, if nothing else. So that was a really clunky transition. Just to say, while we're talking sports and the business of sports and the news of our local teams, have you been following this Justin Turner and Jerry Dakota stuff?

[Luke Burbank]

I haven't been following it other than I know what Justin Turner said, and it filled me with complicated feelings.

[Andrew Welsh]

So Justin Turner played for the, for the Mariners just about half a season. We acquired him right at the, at the trade deadline last year. And he's known. I think of him first as a Red Sox player.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I thought of him as a Rocky. Wasn't he a Rocky for a while?

[Andrew Welsh]

See, that's where my limited knowledge of the league comes in. But I just, I think I. I think I. Boy, if he didn't even play for the Red Sox, I guess I'll be really embarrassed here because I feel like that's kind of what I knew him as at some point in his career. But anyway, so he's a guy who's a bit older, definitely a veteran, came in to Seattle and actually did pretty well here. What's that?

[Luke Burbank]

See, that's where you know more about it than I do. Actually. I want to. I want to mention Andrew. Not only was he a Red Sock, but I don't think he was ever a Colorado Rocky. So good for you and bad for me.

[Andrew Welsh]

And I don't, you know, I don't think that he was like. Like lights out with the Mariners, but I think he did what he was supposed to do. I think he was like. I think he was pretty solid.

[Luke Burbank]

264.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so which, as a Mariner, makes him our leading hitter, right?

[Andrew Welsh]

Exactly. I don't know exactly what his slash line is, is it. What do you have? Is. It doesn't matter. But all of that is to say he came in, he was a veteran presence, the Mariners wanted to bring him back this year, and now it sort of sounds like he went over to the Cubs for less money than the Mariners even offered him. It was a, you know, relatively small deal. Like, I think the Marine might have offered him six and a half million for a one year extension or something, but he was like, no. And now he was talking to the press this week and basically saying, you know, here you have a professional baseball player who played for our team and he's speaking out loud. Things that some players, like hell Raleigh have sort of said before, but very, very specifically saying, this is a cheap team, they are bananas. They have a unicorn, I think was maybe his word, a unicorn of a starting rotation. And they have spent zero money in the off season to like to get some, some offense going because the Mariners had some major offensive problems and we're totally squandering the starting rotation. We're like felixing times five right now. And, and so anyway, now you have a player straight up saying just like, yeah, that he didn't say, I don't want to play for that organization, but he said like, it is bananas. They're just not going to spend any money and they're just missing their window, which is sort of like opens up the floodgates and the wounds for all of us Mariners fans who've been screaming that for six to eight months.

[Luke Burbank]

I think if I read the poll quote right, that he said they might have the best starting five in the history of baseball.

[Andrew Welsh]

That is a conversation I've been hearing some people having.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, that is, I mean, that's an intense statement. And I, first of all, I, so I absolutely salute Justin Tucker for speaking his mind and speaking his truth.

[Andrew Welsh]

Turner.

[Luke Burbank]

Turner. But also Justin Tucker. Is that the kicker for the Ravens?

[Andrew Welsh]

Oh, oh, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I think he's problematic. Yeah, I don't think he's long. Hopefully he's not.

[Andrew Welsh]

No, no, no. Is his name Justin? Anyway, go ahead.

[Luke Burbank]

I, I'm very glad that, that Justin Turner has, has weighed in on this. I'm. I remain really, really bummed out that the Mariners seem to be wasting this opportunity. And then I'm also low key, kind of chuffed that he thinks we might have the best starting five in the history.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But really what it sets us up for is just more heartache because what it means is, is we are going to be in it this season, probably. In other words, when you have a staff as good as our staff, you will always be in the game because you're not giving up that many runs and you will probably steal a few games. Like, having a staff this good and a, A lineup of hitters this bad is a recipe for us winning 87 games again and just missing the playoffs, which is exactly the most torturous place you could possibly be.

[Andrew Welsh]

Almost nothing has changed since last year. You know, they moved a couple of little pieces around, but they didn't bring in any big.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, we got Polanc 2.0.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah, the Polanco's coming back because they couldn't. They. They couldn't strike any deals, apparently. And I think one of the reasons is players don't want to come here for various reasons, but one of those reasons more and more is becoming the reputation of this team. And it's just. It's going to be really, really, really sad if. And I'm, you know, I'm really trying the spring training right now. It's supposed to be hope and optimism. I'm usually always blindly optimistic going into a baseball season because otherwise, like, what is even the point of all this? As you and I were saying off air the other day, but, like, it is, you know, if we, the fan base, who are concerned about these things and Justin Turner are right, like, it's just going to be so sad to just like, be squandered, have another squandered season where we get so close because of a major amazing pitching staff that is affordable right now. And the window is going to close on that very, very quickly and then not even, like, bringing in one power player to like, to get us over the hump. Like, it's going to be. And again, it's baseball, so weird things can happen. You know, baseball can happen, but, like, I don't know, man. It's just really. And then when you start thinking about, like, you know, the power that the millionaires and billionaires have in this world, and then you're just kind of like, can we have just one team where the. Where the. Or just like one sort of happiness where the. Where. Where they're paying for players and just bring us some joy. Mariners. But no, it's all tied up into selfishness and greed of the people who already have it all.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know if this is accurate or not, but, like, Becca's got some, some kind of website that she can go to that, like, is it. The design of it is so you can figure out If a corporation or an entity has donated to Republican politics or Democrat politics. So you can, like, look up Home Depot and Lowe's and see what percentage of their officially filed donations are going to one thing or the other. And it's actually. I don't know the name of the website, but if it's to be believed, it's kind of helpful.

[Andrew Welsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

You just kind of see like, what's this? Company, companies, whatever. And so after she was asking me about the Seahawks, she then sent me this screen cap. She goes, is this true? And it was that same little website, and it basically was indicating that the Mariners have donated more to Republican causes and that the Seahawks have donated more to Democrat causes.

[Andrew Welsh]

Really?

[Luke Burbank]

And I don't know of any of that's true. I don't want to be on the record. I don't know if that website's believable, but I was like, I don't know anything about that other than to say there's nothing about the Mariners ownership that has led me to believe they aren't horrible.

[Andrew Welsh]

No, no, no, no. I'm not surprised about the Mariners thing. I'm just surprised about the season. Seahawks thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Who even owns the Seahawks now? Is it like. Is it Joe? Is it. Is it Paul Allen's wife or wife. Excuse me, sister. Jody Allen still? I think.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And maybe the legacy. I don't know what Paul Allen's politics were. I guess they were probably center centrist. Ish.

[Andrew Welsh]

I mean, people with money protect their money.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Although I feel like Paul Allen, he's, you know, obviously since passed. I feel like Paul Allen was in that era where the rich people, either they thought they had to, or they just were more. Their default was more left. Felt like they were more progressive, or.

[Andrew Welsh]

At least they were more part of the country. Maybe they were.

[Luke Burbank]

At least. Yeah. Like, in those days, it was like, if you're talking about a Bill Gates, it's like he's buying, you know, mosquito nets for Africa, you know?

[Andrew Welsh]

Well, here's a headline from 2018. Seahawks owner Paul Allen gives $100,000 to help Republicans keep control of the U.S. house.

[Luke Burbank]

Whoa. Okay. Well, so I don't know if that. If. If now that he's gone, if his sister, who's. Who's sort of running things or whatever. Whatever. If they've hewed to the left. I don't know if that website is actually not to be believed, but mostly the thing was about, like, please don't let the Mariners also be, like, deeply backing Republican causes, because then what are we rooting for them to do. I mean not the players but like the owners. We're rooting for them to basically like deprive us fan, like not do anything really to help us fans have a potentially better team and yet they like. In other words, let's say this season Polanco 2.0 is Polites out just his knee is fixed, his brain is fixed. He's just, he's just, he's a hit and fool. And you know, Cal Raleigh is the big dumper. Is, is, is having a career year and Rodriguez is playing the whole year like he likes to play in the last four weeks of the season. And it just all comes together. Then I guess ultimately let's say they go to the playoffs, let's say they have a, they have an unbelievable season reason. And then I guess it just enriches their horrible owners who might be democr, who might be donating to republican causes. Why is the world, why can't the world just be simple and neat and clean and only the good people win and the bad people lose?

[Andrew Welsh]

And like. Yeah, why can't people just be nice? As my friend Paul likes to say, it's nice to be nice.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. It's not, it's, it's, it's. I. And I think there's enough money to go around. There's not enough winning to go around. That's a zero sum game game. Somebody's gonna have to lose if somebody's gonna win. But the, the finances of the world, of the economies, of the, of the hoarding. I was saying to Becca the other day, and I'm sure I've said this dumb analogy on, on this show a bunch of times, but if you just like were like studying an ant colony and let's say there was a million ants and, and a hundred of those ants had accumulated all of the leaves, you know, all of the resources. And then there was 900,000, 990 or whatever the math is, had no leaves. You'd go, something wrong with this ant colony. First of all, why have the other ants not killed the ants with all the leaves?

[Andrew Welsh]

What is that? I've seen them. I know that I.

[Luke Burbank]

Because this is something else that was going around.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yeah, because I remember you mentioned that one time and I wanted to get the actual quote because I swear that was like a tweet or something that like really? Yeah. Put that exact. You, you would look at that. You'd be like, that is so messed up.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, how are these hundred ants getting away with this, by the way? There are so Many more of the other ants. Like.

[Andrew Welsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

I guess I'm advocating for revolution here, but it's just the fact that we as humans are doing that to each other is. Is. Is. Is. Is pretty. Pretty heartbreaking, honestly.

[Andrew Welsh]

So I guess I can't find. I mean, maybe I thought I invented that. I swore. I saw.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought I invented the idea of ants.

[Andrew Welsh]

I thought I invented the idea of politics. No, I mean, I'm sorry if I'm trying to take that away from you. I swore because you mentioned that once before, and I was like, oh, yeah, I'd seen that. But now that I'm Googling around, what.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm getting is thinking, like, which Burbank's amazing, innovative thought?

[Andrew Welsh]

Which ideology do ants follow? Which. Honestly, I kind of want to know the answer to this.

[Luke Burbank]

Are there people weighing in? Is it like a question of. Of. Of. Of sort of, you know, communism versus the marketplace? Like, what are people. What are the theories on ants. Political system?

[Andrew Welsh]

So this is a Quora question. So this was just somebody saying, which ideology do ants follow? And somebody wrote. I never managed to get an actual answer, but here are my observations. I would say they. Oh, great. They follow their queen.

[Luke Burbank]

Now, the ants.

[Andrew Welsh]

They follow their queen leader blindly and would risk their lives to say her. They're xenophobic, always killing other species. Cultural hegemony. They're always expanding their territory and aiming for total domination. All right, there you go.

[Luke Burbank]

You know. You know, I feel like the Mariners owners could take a page out of the ant playbook and try to get some domination capacity. I'm not saying full domination. I say a little more domination.

[Andrew Welsh]

A little bit of dominant.

[Luke Burbank]

Just a little domination. That wouldn't be sad as.

[Andrew Welsh]

Just control the zone is all I'm asking. Control.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you see? We got to go. But did you see? Did you see? I saw. The only compelling take for not having robot umps, which involves it being bad for Cal Raleigh.

[Andrew Welsh]

No. Really? Oh, because. Yeah, because he does such a good job.

[Luke Burbank]

Pitch framer extraordinary.

[Andrew Welsh]

It up. Yeah, that's point.

[Luke Burbank]

It's so funny how much I. How I want the strike zone to be ironclad unless it involves Cal Raleigh.

[Andrew Welsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

That I'd like a little. Little wiggle room, please.

[Andrew Welsh]

Yep. All right.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Welsh]

Get out of here.

[Luke Burbank]

I do. I've got some ants to slaughter. I didn't know. I didn't know there was a bunch of fascists living in. Living out in my yard and in my bamboo tree. So. Bamboo plant. Okay, that's gonna do it for this broadcast.

[Andrew Welsh]

I don't know how I'm gonna write the description today. What did we do?

[Luke Burbank]

I thought you were gonna put, like, a little depth charge in to see if Becca's reading.

[Andrew Welsh]

Do you want me to actually do that?

[Luke Burbank]

I trust you to do that.

[Andrew Welsh]

It'll be okay. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. That does bring us to the end of our broadcast week. Thank you for spending it with us. We really do appreciate this being our job. We'll be back here on Monday with more imaginary radio for you. So we'll see you all for that. In the meantime, have a safe weekend. Take care of yourselves. Oh, I'm going to Gl and special sauce Andrew.

[Andrew Welsh]

Nice. Have fun.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm guessing you did not make it to the Seattle show. Wait, that's tonight, I think.

[Andrew Welsh]

Oh, yeah. No, I'm not going to say that.

[Luke Burbank]

Pivot. How you going to find out if baby's got sauce or not?

[Andrew Welsh]

How you live it, J Pivot. I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

How you live it, J Pivot is a decent show title.

[Andrew Welsh]

I don't think I'm going to be able to make it, but I'm excited for you. For real. Have fun. That's great.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, see you on Monday. Until then, take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Welsh]

And good luck to ants.

[Luke Burbank]

Power out.