#4439 The Eyes Have It

Summary

Podcast Summary: TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live – Episode #4439 "The Eyes Have It"

Release Date: April 7, 2025
Hosts: Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh
Description: TBTL is a daily show hosted by two longtime friends navigating the world with humor and insight. In this episode, they delve into local baseball updates, announce a new Tradio segment, share personal reflections, interact with their donors, and discuss a personal medical experience.

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Introduction and Banter (00:00 – 05:00)

The episode opens with Luke and Andrew engaging in their characteristic playful banter, reminiscing about their childhoods and humorous takes on poverty and cleanliness. Luke jokes about bathing in the kitchen sink, while Andrew teases Luke about paranoia stemming from his upbringing.

Notable Quote:

• Luke Burbank (00:00): “Those are the kind of people that I don't tend to want to even mingle with because I'm afraid they're not bathing as much as you'd like.”

Baseball Update: TBTL Little Sluggers Become Parkside Gators (05:00 – 33:33)

Andrew introduces an update on their local baseball team, now renamed the Parkside Gators from the TBTL Little Sluggers. This change aligns with their more mature branding, avoiding overly intense mascots like “Fire Sharks” from the previous season. The hosts provide a detailed recap of the team’s first game:

• Performance Highlights:
  • Saul Castillo pitched impressively, striking out six batters over two innings without allowing a hit.
  • The Gators overcame a three-run deficit in the first inning through strategic base running and timely hits.
  • Bryson, the relief pitcher, maintained a strong performance, holding the opposing team scoreless in the final two innings and executing a clutch double play.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew Walsh (21:06): “Saul had a great game, was actually pitched a no-hitter and struck out six over two innings.”
• Luke Burbank (30:36): “We won the game. So go sluggers.”

TBTL Tradio: Launch and Rules (33:33 – 11:25)

The hosts announce the upcoming TBTL Tradio segment scheduled for Saturday, April 19th at 10:00 AM West Coast time. This segment invites listeners to participate in a classic Tradio (trading radio) format, allowing them to buy, sell, or trade items live on air.

Key Rules Highlighted:

• Participants must provide contact information (email or phone number) for public dissemination.
• The show will not facilitate private connections between callers; interactions are solely live on the broadcast.
• Only tangible goods will be traded; services or intangible items are discouraged.

Notable Quote:

• Andrew Walsh (06:21): “This is basically Andrew and I in a meeting talking about what we want our level of responsibility to be.”

Personal Reflections: Original Sin and Text Chain Interactions (33:33 – 55:42)

The conversation shifts to more personal topics, where Luke and Andrew discuss the concept of original sin, triggered by Luke’s recent experience with a paper cut. This segues into discussions about their interactions within a sports-related text chain, particularly focusing on negative exchanges about the Seattle Mariners’ performance.

Key Points:

• Mental Health: Both hosts express how ongoing frustrations with sports outcomes have been affecting their moods and interactions.
• Text Chain Dynamics: Luke apologizes for his negative tone in the group chats, attributing it to high stress and the overwhelming nature of current events.
• Empathy and Understanding: Andrew echoes the sentiment, emphasizing the importance of giving each other slack during these challenging times.

Notable Quotes:

• Luke Burbank (37:36): “I need to plug my headphones directly into my Scarlett to see if I'm still having the same audio issues there.”
• Andrew Walsh (48:55): “If we can all try to give each other as much slack as we can right now, because we're all going through this, it's making everything hard.”

Donor Messages and Children's Jokes (55:42 – 83:27)

Engaging with their community, Luke and Andrew read heartfelt messages from donors, including one from Marissa encouraging activism against governmental policies. Additionally, they share jokes contributed by Marissa’s children, Leo and Avi, adding a light-hearted segment to the episode.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew Walsh (86:30): “They’re you. Okay, that's obvious.”
• Luke Burbank (67:01): “In a world that can seem full of jerks, you dummies are a balm.”

Andrew's Ophthalmology Experience (83:27 – 108:53)

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to Andrew’s personal experience with an ophthalmologist due to a recurring eye condition. He recounts his visits, the procedures he underwent, and the challenges of managing his condition while fulfilling his duties on the podcast.

Key Points:

• Medical Procedure: Andrew describes the process of draining a sty, involving numbing agents and incisions on his eyelid.
• Emotional Impact: He reflects on his vulnerability during the procedure and the relief he felt once it was completed.
• Practical Challenges: Managing daily activities, such as grocery shopping, with one eye patched, leading to disorientation and self-consciousness.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew Walsh (84:38): “I was like, how do you catch a quadrilateral? You use a trapezoid.”
• Luke Burbank (103:18): “It sounds like he got a lot. I loved hearing that.”

Conclusion:

The episode weaves together updates on their local baseball team, announcements for new segments, personal mental health reflections, community interactions, and Andrew’s medical journey. Throughout, Luke and Andrew maintain their humorous and candid dynamic, offering listeners both entertainment and genuine connection.

Notable Final Quote:

• Andrew Walsh (108:33): “Thank you for listening, everyone. Thanks for being part of TBTL.”

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This episode of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live showcases the hosts' ability to balance light-hearted segments with deeper personal discussions, fostering a strong sense of community and authenticity.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

You were born in Brooklyn? Yeah, I was born in Brooklyn. So you lived in poverty? My mother used to cash in milk bottles to help me go to the movies. That's good old fashioned poverty. Those are the kind of people that I don't tend to want to even mingle with because I'm afraid they're not bathing as much as you'd like. Did you bathe? Yeah, well, we did in the kitchen sink. We had a little kind of kitchen sink. T. You're often included on the list of all time great comedians. How did that happen and what have you done? Are you saying that you for one, don't agree with that or what are you saying? I mean, you're putting it in a way so that all those people who thought I was funny are silly and wrong and you've got a better take on whether. Do you know what that's called? That's called paranoia. And it's coming. And you know what it's caused from it's being not that clean and poor. The child. This has been absolutely so much fun. This is the craziest interview I've ever done in my life. That's why they call me multi dimensional tbtl.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, well, here we are. I want to congratulate you for being on time. Well, it's really kind of simple. See, I speak into this and my.

[Luke Burbank]

Voice is instantaneously transmitted out where it's heard by well over a hundred people.

[Andrew Walsh]

You sound like you might be a little bit jealous, babe. No, and I. I know a little something about being jealous because people have been jealous of me my entire life. This is the place to get something so different, so beautiful, the quality, it's unbelievable. Put my headphones on and here we go. I'm so excited. Well, all right. Hello, good morning and welcome everyone to a Monday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. This isn't what happened last week.

[Luke Burbank]

Have you all got amnesia?

[Andrew Walsh]

My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

[Luke Burbank]

Are you sure? Mm. Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high, high above the mighty and rain soaked Columbia. Didn't know you like to get wet though. This is a really active place this morning. Had a CBS Sunday Morning crew here in the studio at 7am today moving everything around. And I had to practically tear down my whole little TBTL setup so that it wasn't showing up in the background of the interview we were shooting. I was interviewing some people that are in Florida. There was a film crew there. There was a film crew here. Anyway, it's all back together now and we are ready to bring you episode 4439 in a collector series.

[Luke Burbank]

Let the fun begin.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know if we have talked about this on this particular podcast, which is allegedly and officially not a sports podcast. So I don't know if we've mentioned that Baseball's back. The crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right, baseball's back.

[Andrew Walsh]

And we're not going to be talking about the major league variety today because why would you. Because that is a dark, deep pit of sadness if you are a Seattle Mariners fan. But we've got an update on a different baseball project that brings only joy to the world, and that is the TBTL Little Sluggers. They had their first game this weekend. Can you. Can you verify. Can you give me some four, one one. Tell you how that went. Also, I will tell you and Andrew how it went when I went to the ophthalmologist on Friday.

[Luke Burbank]

You shoot your eye out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Things. Things got more intense than I was expecting and also more tentative. It was both more intense and more tentative than I maybe totally wanted it to be. I'll explain just right after I introduced the longest running cobro of the show. Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's the soulful rocker who brought the rock and roll edge to the Eagles. Soulful rocker from New Hampshire, He's Andrew Walsh and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Luke Burbank]

Good morning, Luke. I don't think I can do the show today.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm sorry, I just, I can't. I'm using a temporary audio board until my new one arrives. And there's something going on that I literally can't even explain to you what I'm hearing on my end. And it's driving me bananas. It would drive a normal person not bananas. A normal person would be fine with all of this.

[Andrew Walsh]

Some other fruit.

[Luke Burbank]

But something just sounds off in my headphones in a way that I can't quite explain. And I think I'll get used to it, but I feel discombobulated. And what I would like is for you to do about, let's say a 75 to 90 minute monologue, easy. And then I will. I'll just adjust the settings as you continue to talk. How does that sound?

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, how about this? I'll start.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, bye.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I should. You know what? Dang it, Andrew. I should have had some kind of a special music for this. Let's see.

[Luke Burbank]

I'M gonna kill mine.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maybe, I don't know. This isn't really the right music, but I'm just gonna play this anyway. Coming up Saturday, April 19th. So the wrong music.

[Luke Burbank]

Jalapeno, Jalapeno, Jalapeno, jalapeno.

[Andrew Walsh]

We will present to you TBTL Tradio. That's right. Saturday, April 19th. I think the exact time is TBD.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I put in the newsletter 10:00am oh, okay. Well, that's. Let's do that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not. It's not TBD. It's been deed. Just listen. I'm trying to fill 90 minutes, man.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, you know what's better? Me not playing audio from my end. Once, Once you, once we got rid of that theme music and you and I are just talking. I'm back in the, I'm back in the groove here in the New York groove. It's just audio I play from my computers, apparently, what's really throwing me. So what I need is so we get to work out up for 90 minutes because I have a monologue.

[Andrew Walsh]

I love how quickly that went for. You know, that was basically like I like I'm throwing you a life ring.

[Luke Burbank]

And then I strangle you with.

[Andrew Walsh]

Pull yourself up onto the boat, you strangle me and you steal my boat. CBTL Tradio coming up. 10am West coast on Saturday, April 19th.

[Luke Burbank]

I heard about that thing on the AM radio.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now you probably, if you read the newsletter and I mean, you would be a fool not to, you know, some of these details on. And the plan here. But if I understand and just, just so I can remind myself, yes, this is a chance for the tens of listeners to call in in the classic tradio style, which is a kind of a radio, a very folksy kind of radio show that exists in a lot of particularly rural markets, usually on a weekend morning or weekend afternoon where people will call in and they'll say, I have, I'm looking for this or that, and if anybody has it, I'd love to buy it or, you know, maybe even receive it for free from somebody. And then also people call in to say, I've got a bunch of this or some of that and I'm looking to get rid of it. I'm looking to sell it or give it away or whatever. And we're going to do a TBT so you all can call in 206, 414TBTL and, and trade goods back and forth over the TBT airwaves.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Now here a few things that I'm going to be a little I'm going to be a little, I don't know, school marmish here a little bit. Let's go over some of the rules. These are going to be. These are going to be helpful to folks specific, but they're going to be a little bit specific. Too loud and too specific for people who are not familiar with this style of radio or tradio or swap shop. Of course, the tradition is that you just call in and you let people know what you got and how they can, you know, contact you and stuff. So the key thing here is to remember we're not setting up anything where we are helping you guys connect. The only thing we're going to be doing is doing a live episode of TBTL on Saturday the 19th, because we thought Saturday would. Would sort of befit the moment. And we're going to stream it live over YouTube. You go to YouTube.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, nice.

[Luke Burbank]

Look for. That's how people can listen along and call in and. And if you just look for, you know, almost said after these messages. Don't go to. After these messages YouTube for this. I do want you to visit that during other times, but during this particular time, go to too beautiful to live on YouTube and you can listen to our livestream, watch our livestream. And then you. You say, I got the snowblower for sale. I'm looking for 100 bucks. Anybody is interested. And then you have to leave some sort of an email or a phone number that you're willing to give out publicly. We are not connecting people behind the scenes that once we stream this thing live, that is where our watch has ended, if that makes sense.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is basically Andrew and I in a meeting talking about what we want our level of responsibility to be.

[Luke Burbank]

I want to sell anything, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Buy anything or process anything as a career.

[Luke Burbank]

I was hoping it was the long one because that's like four minutes long.

[Andrew Walsh]

@ some point, Christopher Guest starts talking about Hartford and L. Ol.

[Luke Burbank]

So the things that people should keep in mind is you should have some sort of contact information that you're willing to give out over the air. That's really important. Be specific. We are only taking calls related to this topic. If you just want to call to say hello, that's very sweet, but we're not doing that. And also I think we're sticking to goods. I got a couple of nice. And Luke, maybe you want to. Maybe we have this meeting on the air. But somebody. Somebody had suggested like, oh, well, I can, you know, give away this service. Or somebody said free long hugs. So anyway, I would probably avoid that. Let's just keep it bricks and mortar here. In the classic tradition of swap shop radio. This is. You have an old audio board that you're looking to get rid of, but you don't want to give it away.

[Andrew Walsh]

From the headlines of your life.

[Luke Burbank]

It's just came across. But also, we are. And I believe this is part of the tradition. If you're looking for something, this is where it gets a little bit. This is where it could get a little bit dicey, Luke. Because everybody's looking for something, right? I mean, I believe that means song by the traveling Wilberries. Everybody's looking for something. Yeah. And so if you have something very specific, if you have something specific that you're looking for that, like, you have a reason to believe the audience might have it, that's great. Give us a call and say, hey, this might be a long shot, but I'm looking for the. I'm looking for the The Chronicles of Narnia trilogy in its original box. If anybody has that, I'd love to grab it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that something you had or have?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm looking at it right now, dude. It's the reason I had to. I'm just, like, looking around my office.

[Andrew Walsh]

But you have Voyage of the Dawn Tread.

[Luke Burbank]

I do. I believe that's number three. It's in a box. Yeah, it's in the box. I got it for Easter one year, I think, which is appropriate enough.

[Andrew Walsh]

C.S. lewis's. You know, my dad.

[Luke Burbank]

Given to me by my dad.

[Andrew Walsh]

Read CS Lewis every morning here.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah. No, that's good. Does he. Which one is it? The on.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, it's. It's. I don't think it's, like. It's not. What? Mere Christianity. It might be mere Christianity. It might be an occasional screwtape letter, but I'll go check. But, But. But, you know, in the morning, he does his. I guess you'd call it devotionals, his quiet time, and he's always looking at a C.S. lewis.

[Luke Burbank]

That's nice. That's nice. Yeah. Mere Christianity is what I was looking for there. So thank you for that. But, yeah. So anyway, those are sort of the ground rules. And so if people want to spend the next couple of weeks kind of looking around their house or their barn or their garage. Oh, yeah. I could get rid of this thing. And the number will. You know, we'll say it a lot during the live show, but it'll be the regular TBTL voicemail line only. But taking it live.

[Andrew Walsh]

If you have a barn, find if. When you're looking around in your barn, you find, like, a 67 Mustang with, like 20 miles on it. That's just been like. It's under a thick layer of dust, but it's otherwise pristine. Just DM me slide into my DMs, because I'd like to get that. I'd like to get first wind of that before anybody else does.

[Luke Burbank]

We're already skimming off the top. We're already skimming off the top. This is not how it works.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, when you said, go check your barn, I think of a barn find, which is. My great dream in life, is to have a barn find at some point, to get some kind of cool old boat or vehicle that somebody stashed in a barn and then, you know, forgot about it, slash, passed away. And then someone else discovers it, and there it is, just waiting to be enjoyed by a barn find enjoyer. That would be me.

[Luke Burbank]

And it could be Bumblebee. And it looks like a car at first, but then it turns into a robot.

[Andrew Walsh]

That would be. Does that happen in one of those movies?

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like it does when you were.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a really hard bit.

[Luke Burbank]

I was picturing, like, somebody, like, shaking like some sort of a big tarp off of a car, and everything's dusty around there, but underneath it is sort of this gleaming machine that's been covered, and I feel like it's black and yellow, and then it turns into a robot. I. I don't know for sure that I've seen this, but it feels like something I've definitely seen.

[Andrew Walsh]

I could definitely see that being part of the. I've lost track of where, like, the Transformer universe is if it's like, if they're in the future. And so therefore, Bumblebee could be a barn find. Does that make sense? Yeah, like, also, let's. Let's just. Let's just be real. The Transformers came into our lives in the 80s, in the 1900 and 80s.

[Luke Burbank]

Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

So if Bumblebee were to be discovered, were to be barn found, did we barn find Bumblebee or did he barn find us?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, who. I think who barn found whom who barn found is really the thing he.

[Andrew Walsh]

If, like, the thing is, I'm thinking, like, well, how can Bumblebee be a barn find? Bumblebee is from three years ago. It's like, dude, bumblebees from 40 years ago.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, yes, exactly.

[Andrew Walsh]

Bumblebee could absolutely be a barn find.

[Luke Burbank]

At this point, I'm pretty sure I'm right about this. I'm going to, I believe around But I'm pretty sure he was a barn. Yeah. I want to know. What did the barn become?

[Andrew Walsh]

What did the barn turn into?

[Luke Burbank]

That's right. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Just everything keeps transforming into something else. I really thought that the most underrated Transformer was probably. Or Transformers were the tapes, the cassette tapes that would go into Sound Wave.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Yeah. I had the.

[Andrew Walsh]

That was what I was into. I didn't give two. Two craps about, like, oh, Megatron, He's a gun. That's a dude. Or like, you know, some of the other ones.

[Luke Burbank]

Gun. That's so dumb because, like, how do you move yourself around exactly?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's the thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Turn into a gun.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Will you double check that, please? And you're gonna get a lot of Calvin Johnson feedback. The receiver for the Detroit Lions, who was nicknamed Megatron. You're gonna get a lot of Calvin Johnson stuff. But I believe Megatron turned into a gun.

[Luke Burbank]

It looks like at times he turned into a gun. At other times he turned into a flying machine. Other times he turned into, like, some sort of. But it looks like maybe the oldest one the class. I'm trying to figure this out off of some sort of a. Some sort of an online graphic infographic on Megatron. I do. It would seem like you would be right if you're remembering back to your youth, that he turns into a gun.

[Andrew Walsh]

But you're absolutely right. It's like turning into. And I think it was like. It was vaguely. It was like a. Not a pistol, but it was like a. You know, was a.

[Luke Burbank]

It was a handgun. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

So again, how's that getting around?

[Luke Burbank]

Right? Someone got a hold. Megatron, huge monster to come pick you up and fight. Are you, like.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like they didn't think this through.

[Luke Burbank]

It feels more like Aquatina Hunger Force for some reason. Like, it just turns into a gun and then just falls over onto the.

[Andrew Walsh]

Floor just lying on its side. Please, can you help me?

[Luke Burbank]

That bumps me out, actually, the lack of creativity there. And I mean, you just think that Megatron, like, that's one of the two big ones, right? Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, because prime turned into a semi truck, he could at least go somewhere. He could at least, you know, drive the energy crystals, energy cubes over the road.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Is this the original sin? Was. It was the original sin that they turned Megatron into a gun? I was trying to think of a biblical. Here's the deal, Luke. And I didn't know that we were going to get here so quickly today, but I've been thinking about original sin a lot lately, and there's a reason why. And I don't think I have it anymore, but I got a paper cut. Like, I haven't thought about original sin in a really long time. I grew up, you know, very.

[Andrew Walsh]

You mean like. You mean like the. The Garden of Eden?

[Luke Burbank]

The idea of. Of mankind must live with the original sin. The reason we don't live in paradise is because of original sin. Right, Whatever. Obviously, I'm no CS Lewis here, but generally speaking, I went to ccd.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're Near Christianity.

[Luke Burbank]

Near Christianity.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I studied him.

[Luke Burbank]

Can we name today's show Near Christianity or is that like.

[Andrew Walsh]

To welcome the new listeners from the Parkside Little League who are tuning in for the update and are getting a Bible lesson.

[Luke Burbank]

We gotta be ourselves, though. I'm. I'm. That's.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no, you're right. No, Andrew, you're absolutely right. I went through that whole journey of. Was like. I think there was something that Jibbidi Glick said that I was like, ooh, new, you know, new parents. And then I was like, no, that can't be the show we're doing. We've got to do our show.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

And we love that we're associated with this little league team, but we can't. I can't let. Because there's going to be like, you know, 15 updates this season. We just got to do our show.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And that's why I'm about to release a torrent of swear words, some of which I'll be making up on the fly. No. I got a paper cut the other day. This is a little. Not even worth mentioning. But for some reason, for the first time in probably decades, I started thinking about original sin. And there was something about being cut by. It wasn't even a piece of paper. It was a cardboard package that cat food had come in or something. And all I was doing was like, I don't know, maybe taking cat food out, maybe throwing it away, I don't know. But suddenly the most innocent, banal object I could think of was just like a piece of scrap cardboard cut me and drew a tiny bit of blood. And I'm just like, this is original sin. I don't even know what I mean by that. But this is the Garden of Eden.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Biting me in the ass again.

[Andrew Walsh]

Something that seems like you said, completely non threatening then sort of. And also there's like the idea of kind of like a droplet of blood that feels. Yeah. Not maybe, maybe not even so much biblical, but mythical, you know, that feels like there's a story there. And also I mean, by definition, you only receive a paper or cardboard cut or whatever on something that you absolutely did not expect it from. Because if you had expected it, you would have been being very careful, Right?

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's like no one's ever gotten a paper cut and thought, well, that's about how I assume this would turn out. It's always shocking because you were doing some normal life activity and were then reminded of the fact that we're flesh and blood.

[Luke Burbank]

Imagine handing somebody a piece of paper and saying, be careful.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. And if you, again, if you were being careful, if your mind was like, okay, I'm gonna open this box, this, whatever that has the cat food. And I gotta really watch myself around this.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, right. Look at paper, product, all this paper.

[Andrew Walsh]

You would, you wouldn't, you would not. You would not have received the papercut. But there's something that's so shocking about going from not being in the headspace of this is dangerous to being reminded that anything can be dangerous.

[Luke Burbank]

Original sin, baby.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's what, that's what I've always said since 14 seconds ago when you, when you put the theory out. Well, Andrew, after much ado about something, is it time for us and should we give an update on how the TBTL little sluggers did?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I would love to hear this.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Of course. The TBT little Sluggers, by the way, now known as the Parkside Gators.

[Luke Burbank]

I was. That was a big question. After we had coach Ben on Wednesday, there was still some question about what their official name was going to be.

[Andrew Walsh]

Official name. They went with Parkside Gators, which is actually Gators.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Kind of fitting because as our friend and TBTL employee numero uno, I believe John Sklaroff pointed out, the colors of the little Sluggers are vaguely the colors of the University of Florida.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, not even vaguely. I mean, they are. Right. Like kind of a deep green and a deep orange. They're really sharp.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Really nice looking uniforms there. We featured one of the players, I believe Fox was featured as one of the. As the show pick in the uniform. So Gators is kind of fitting.

[Luke Burbank]

It's. It's notable because Ben mentioned this on Wednesday that like last year there was a big trend towards like sort of superfluously, like kind of building up. It wouldn't just be the Gators who would be like the laser Gators or something like that, like the fire.

[Andrew Walsh]

Fire Sharks. A lot of. Just kind of take. Take a, a really intense thing and then put it with a really intense animal.

[Luke Burbank]

And this is a, this is a more, you know, maybe a slightly more like kind of restrained, mature approach.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, we're dialing it back a little bit here. It's like, you know, we. Please fire sharks was last year, Andrew. This year we are the Gators. We are mature baseball players who pick mature mascots like the Parkside Gators. All right, your TBTL little sluggers, AKA the Parkside Gators, took to the field for the first time this Saturday morning. So that was a couple days ago. It was a sunny and warm spring day, perfect for playing baseball and a welcome change after several weeks of cold and rainy weather. The Panthers and both teams were clearly still shaking off the rust. In this first game of the season, because of the aforementioned rain, almost everyone in the league has had minimal practice time. That includes the Mariners, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's one of the underreported stories. Some of the Mariners problems have been because it was raining at spring training and they didn't get to practice quite enough. So we're still figuring things out. Coaches and players alike. Solomon, who for future reference will be referred to as Saul, stepped onto the hill for the little sluggers. The hurler had a remarkable performance, giving up zero hits and striking out six over two innings. Andrew.

[Luke Burbank]

Holy cow. Holy cow.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, he could be a third. What's his name? Castillo. On our team. He could be the third. Luis Castillo on the Mariners. Impressive, but due entirely to walks. Oh, and several errant throws, early season jitters from a team still finding its. Oh, I see. Sorry. In spite of this great pitching, the Panthers took a three nothing lead in the first inning. So let. Let me just back this up. Saul had a great game, was actually pitched a no hitter and struck out six over two innings. But as can happen with baseball, there's one of the quirks of the game. Andrew. Just because you're pitching a no hitter, it doesn't mean the other team can't get three runs.

[Luke Burbank]

No, it's about. It's about whip. It's about getting on base.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. The whip, the OPS was actually obs or OPS or odb.

[Luke Burbank]

There's. There's obs and ops, I believe. Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's war, there's whip, there's all kinds.

[Luke Burbank]

Now I'm in my head about this. There's. There's on base percentage, there's on base percentage, there's on base plus slugging, and then there's slugging.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I don't even know about that. They're inventing new statistical categories every single day. So in spite of this great pitching. The Panthers took a 30 lead in the first inning due entirely to walks and several errant throws and early season jitters from a team still finding its sea legs. The sluggers immediately righted the ship and got back into the game. Andrew scoring runs in the first and second inning. That's what you got to do when they hit you. You got to hit them right back. That's again something that I want to see the Mariners doing more of. It's like it's okay to give up a run here and there, but then you've got to come back and score on in your half of the inning. That keeps the morale the team.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Something the sluggers are famously known for their high morale. Admittedly, these were generated through walks and stolen bases, but a run is a run. So it sounds like both teams were having some trouble at the plate, but were able to make up for it through crafty base running after errors and walks.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what I'm hearing here? When coach was on, on Wednesday, he said that we're going back to like keeping the kids as the pitchers the whole time as opposed to occasionally having a coach or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

The kids as the catchers.

[Luke Burbank]

Andrew and the kids as the catchers. So we're. We' seeing a little bit like probably for both teams. We're seeing some errand pitches. People are. It's taking a little bit of time for both teams probably to settle into this idea of getting it cleanly over the plate.

[Andrew Walsh]

And if somebody is on first base of a base runner's on first and the ball happens to get past the catcher, that player is allowed to advance.

[Luke Burbank]

Sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

Which is a really big sort of change in the rules and how the game is going to work for these junior sluggers, AKA Parkside Gators. Saul's master for perform, masterful performance was followed by a similar feat by a little slugger, Bryson, who held the Panthers scoreless over the final two innings. I mean, that's huge in relief.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so this is a four inning game.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm. I guess I'm gonna. Unless there was some middle relief that we're not getting a report on. And there might have been because of the final score, which would indicate to me that there were more runs scored. We might be focusing on the positive here, Andrew.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

In other words, Saul's strong start and Bryson's strong close to the game.

[Luke Burbank]

Bryson helped the Taylor Saucedo in there in the middle.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's possible that awesome sauce came in just long enough.

[Luke Burbank]

I knew we sent him down. I didn't know. We sent him to Parkside.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's DFA'd to the Parkside Little League of East Portland. Let's see. Bryson held the Panther scoreless over the final two innings. Bryson notched four strikeouts and in a clutch bases loaded situation, made a stellar double play.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow.

[Andrew Walsh]

Catching a pop up and then catching a runner off base. Well, okay. All right.

[Luke Burbank]

So we're not playing infield fly rule.

[Andrew Walsh]

I.

[Luke Burbank]

Wait, no, no, no, no.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's.

[Luke Burbank]

That doesn't apply. That doesn't apply. Sorry.

[Andrew Walsh]

It would have applied there.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that the idea?

[Andrew Walsh]

Less than two outs.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought you.

[Andrew Walsh]

And there's a runner on first and the ball is popped up in the infield. That would be when the infield fly rule would be invoked.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I guess so. But isn't it also because people were fake dropping the ball so they could get those double plays back in the day?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that. Yeah, exactly. The.

[Luke Burbank]

The.

[Andrew Walsh]

The reason for the infield fly rule was because. Imagine you're the second baseman or person, because we've got all kinds of folks playing in the Parkside Little League. You're the person at second base. The ball is popped up. Now the runner on. There's less than two outs and the runner is on first base. Now, you could drop the ball intentionally, and now that's effectively a grounder. And you could throw to second and throw to first.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you'd have the double play. Or you could if the runner was worried you were going to do that and they start advancing, then you catch the ball and throw it at first. You've also doubled up. It puts the runner in an impossible position, hence the infield fly.

[Luke Burbank]

So. Okay, so it still applies even if you do catch the pop up. Usually the infield fly rule would keep the players at their respective bases.

[Andrew Walsh]

My guess is, at this level, we have not yet really unpacked the implications of the infield fly.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, clearly I haven't. And.

[Andrew Walsh]

But what I know is that Bryson pulled a double play. It sounds like. Also, by the way, unassisted. Is that 9 unassisted. What's the position for the. Because the catcher is one. Right. The catcher. So that make the pitcher position number nine. Defensively, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

I think pitcher is number one.

[Andrew Walsh]

Catcher is one. First.

[Luke Burbank]

Really?

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought the catcher was. Okay, Pitcher's number one, catcher's number two.

[Luke Burbank]

Because I'm pretty sure left field is nine.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right is left field nine. Okay. This now.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, now this is. I feel like you're better at this than I am.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no, I'm really sure.

[Luke Burbank]

It was number one.

[Andrew Walsh]

You. You could be you.

[Luke Burbank]

You.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think you're actually right. I. There's a lot of, like, 1, 4, 3, double play. What would a 1 4. Is the shortstop one?

[Luke Burbank]

No, there's no way the shortstop is one.

[Andrew Walsh]

In my heart, this is always the position I wanted.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm looking it up. But we'll get. We'll get more on this in a second.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. On offense, the sluggers hit their stride in the third and fourth inning. Okay, so we know that it does go more than four innings.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. Right field is nine. I was totally wrong.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right field is nine. What's one pitcher?

[Luke Burbank]

Pitcher is one. Catcher is two. First base is three. Second base, four. Third base, five. Shortstop is six. Then left field is seven. Center field is eight. Right field is nine. My apologies. I thought it went seven, eight, nine. From right over.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wait, so five, four, three, double play would be what?

[Luke Burbank]

Third base to second base to first base?

[Andrew Walsh]

That's because that's a real. That's a common one. That's. You know, when I. You know, when I'm shuffling off this mortal coil, instead of whispering rosebud, I'm gonna whisper five, four, three, double play. That's burned in my brain from childhood. All right, the sluggers hit their stride in the third and fourth inning. Saul, remember him? Saul is high. High value player on this team, it would seem. They're all high value, Andrew. Everyone is high value.

[Luke Burbank]

They put on that jersey. They're high value.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. Saul led off the third with a line drive double into right field and stole two bases, including home, to tie the game in the fourth. Key walks by Ollie and Wilder set the table for Armani. Hey, Armani's back.

[Luke Burbank]

Nice.

[Andrew Walsh]

Armani. A heavy hitter. Last season, I believe I watched Armani do some pitching in my game that I attended. Let's see, I'm also getting.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I see that. Somebody. You're waving to somebody over there.

[Andrew Walsh]

The. My fine. Fine postal. Postal worker. Mail person. Carrier. Mail carrier. That's the word I'm looking for. That's the term, who I really appreciate as a very helpful thing. Knocks on the glass of the door to let me know that she is dropping something off. But it is never not terrifying. Just like when my mom knocked on the door on Friday and terrified me.

[Luke Burbank]

I forgot we got a little camo.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I have a sign on that door that says, please drop off all deliveries down at the house. But really, that sign should say, please do not knock on the glass when the monkey is podcasting.

[Luke Burbank]

But I love her. I think that this, this postal worker is going to make an appearance on the show eventually.

[Andrew Walsh]

She's great, by the way. I mean, I really.

[Luke Burbank]

Sometimes I overhear, like, in between segments, if you have to go, like, say hello, I'll hear you chat. Like, she seems great.

[Andrew Walsh]

We have a great rapport.

[Luke Burbank]

Ye.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I do think I need to change that sign out so people stop knocking on that door or I need to pull a shade down there or something because it's like my heart rate is now elevated. All right, back to the update. So we tied the game, Andrew, which is incredible. Off of Saul. We've already talked about that. Tying the game in the fourth. And then we get some key walks by Ollie and Wilder. That's going to set the table for Armani, who looped a single to the left for the go ahead run. Wow. So we actually. We were actually. Wait, Andrew.

[Luke Burbank]

We won.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is the first that I'm realizing. This is the first that I'm realizing. We won the game.

[Luke Burbank]

We're the champs of the league. I think that's it. Call it a season. We'll take the win.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm going to tell you what happened, Andrew. I was printing this out from Coach Ben today, and I was looking at the score and I mentioned this. I had a lot going on. I'm just like the Capital One guy for a reason. Andrew. We were doing a lot of stuff this morning, and in the midst of all that, I printed this out, and when I looked at the score, I filed it under, the sluggers did not win. And I was okay with that. That's the journey that we, you know, go on as a team, as an organization. You can't win them all. But it never occurred to me that we win this game.

[Luke Burbank]

I think you've been hurt by the Mariners. It was.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I also don't want to blame Coach Ben, but you usually put the lead, the winning score first. Oh, I feel like it should say, slugger six, Panthers three.

[Luke Burbank]

I see.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is a truism of how you report.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Listen, Coach Ben, I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to put this back on you. I don't want to throw you under any buses, but, you know, next time. Sluggers 6, Panthers 3. You'll help me out. You'll get me out of a couple of jams. Andrew, this is exciting. I'm finding out you're, you're, you're getting to hear me find out in real time that the sluggers are one and.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, we need a Win as baseball.

[Andrew Walsh]

I could really use a win here.

[Luke Burbank]

As baseball fans in this area, we could really use a win. And so like, I'm not kidding, I.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wanted to frame this as, okay, not everything baseball related went horribly this weekend. But then because I misread the score, I felt like I couldn't make that argument. But now I'm back to making that argument. Andrew, not everything baseball related went horribly this weekend yet.

[Luke Burbank]

Not at all. In fact, that. Can I ask. Well, I don't want to turn, I don't want to turn the attention away from.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can I finish? There's just a little more, a little more detail from the game and then, and then we'll, we'll go ahead and.

[Luke Burbank]

We don't have enough.

[Andrew Walsh]

Move on to other things. This was a classic early season little league baseball. 26 total walks. Listen.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow.

[Andrew Walsh]

Listen to these numbers, Andrew. 26 total walks, 20 strikeouts, 14 stolen bases. Only three hits across both teams.

[Luke Burbank]

See, it's not about hitting.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's about hitting, not the water. And by the way, I'll say that would mean if I'm. And again, I've already showed myself to be minimally aware of the how this game went. But if I got this right, I've got Bryson with a. Well, okay, so Bryson made a clutch double play with the bases loaded. We know that Saul had a hit. Did we have two out of the three hits? Of the three total hits, were two of them. Do they belong to little sluggers?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm trying to go over the recap in my head now. You have the, the, the script in front of you there, the text in front of you, but it sounds right because.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, so in other words, I'm wondering, did we pitch a one hitter?

[Luke Burbank]

Let's see. Because one of our, one of our pitchers got a hit.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And Armani got a hit. Is this correct?

[Andrew Walsh]

Armani looped a single. You're right. Armani and Saul got hit. So which means if there were three hits, it means the little sluggers had.

[Luke Burbank]

At least two of them.

[Andrew Walsh]

The little sluggers pitching staff only gave up one hit for the whole game.

[Luke Burbank]

Although we don't even know for sure that that third one didn't belong to the sluggers. I suppose you're right.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a very. I think it could have been a no hitter.

[Luke Burbank]

Noted it. Yeah, probably. It probably was 21 hit wise, given.

[Andrew Walsh]

The talent on this team. Coach Ben's talking about the sluggers here. I know the hits will come soon. Post game rally pins were awarded to Saul, Bryson and Micah, who was A terror on the base paths. That's great. That'll help. That's part of that. Part of that. Yeah. Chaos ball. That's part of that. 26 total walks is you've got Micah out there out on the bass pads just like in the pitcher's brain. Yes, absolutely. Gadfly distracting them and causing them, you know, all kinds of turmoil out there on the mound. And then coach Ben adds, the sluggers play again tonight. That's right, Andrew. Monday night. Tonight they're going to be getting back out there. I say strike while the iron's hot. You're one and zero.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right. That's right. Yeah. So this game was sat. Was this game Saturday, Luke? I think it was, cuz.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. Yeah. So that's good. One day of rest and then get back out there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Congratulations, sluggers. And I want to apologize for not understanding what a joyous story this was until I was three quarters of the way through reading it. I was. Andrew, I'm telling you. You know what it was like. It's sort of like when you DVR a game and we've talked about this on the show a lot, but then you accidentally find out the ending of the game, but then you still watch the game and you're trying to figure out how the game ends up at the point that, you know, it inevitably ends up at. This is a real hardcore sports lifestyle that I'm describing here.

[Luke Burbank]

Or if you have a bad brain like me, you watch the entire game and then a couple hours later you're like, how did that go down again? I have a real trouble sometimes remembering the blow by blows of the scoring plays.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I was like, okay, I know the sluggers lost, but I just keep seeing how they're scoring runs and doing well and turning double plays. So they're just. I'm waiting for the other cleat to drop. And then I get to the part where coach Ben has listed the score, and I realized for the very first time that we won the game. So go sluggers.

[Luke Burbank]

I was going to say this is on the baseball topic. And you know what? I'm going to raise something here which will then segue this game.

[Andrew Walsh]

Dano, this is going to be a dangerous game considering the weekend that was.

[Luke Burbank]

I think, though, what it'll do because. Because of some assumptions that I have about your experience on Friday. I think this will actually we can have a very short conversation here and then transition to the top stories where we talk about how you did spend your. Yeah, the donors. But then Also, how you did spend your Friday afternoon, because it is my understanding that you, because you were at the eye doctor, did not consume every inning of that long Friday extra innings game, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I did not.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you? How. Without getting into the game itself right now, how much of it did you see or what parts of it did you see? See the beginning. Did you see the end?

[Andrew Walsh]

I saw parts of the beginning, middle, and then, critically, the end. Because I was waiting at the ophthalmology place. So I was in the waiting room, and I had my Fubo going. So I was watching the game there. I was listening to the game on. I was. I was using every modality Andrew available to experience this game, including listening on Sirius satellite radio as I drove to my appointment, and then watching in the waiting area with no sound on, and then even watching in the exam room while I was waiting for various medical professionals to leave and come back and do things. And then listening on the drive home and then getting home in time to turn on the top of the ninth inning. And then I watched the rest of the game with my mom, including the devastating end.

[Luke Burbank]

The devastating end. And it was a bad ending for the Mariners. But here's the deal. And this. This. This gets into not just baseball, but my attitude lately. Generally speaking, I had a lot of regrets when I woke up on Saturday because I had several, like, kind of communications that I was not proud of. Now you have muted our friend Ders on the text chain, right? You're. You're no longer seeing his text, or have you unmuted him?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no, no. He's. Now. It's a binding decision for the season. He is muted. And I said this. It's funny for someone who's muted. He lives big, large in my brain because I said to Becca on Sunday, okay, now we're jumping ahead. Another devastating game for the Mariners. But we were driving around, and I was looking at the text chain. I said to Becca, hey, I'm looking at my sports text chain. And considering how it's going for the Mariners right now, it's not as negative as I was expect it to be. And I was like, oh. Then I remembered I had muted, right? I had muted a friend of ours who I love dearly, but who. Sometimes the discourse on the text chain is tough for me to deal with. And instead of me getting snarky in the text chain, I just mute it. And then I can be a more positive force.

[Luke Burbank]

And the thing is, and I know we sort of have a different tone via. Or at least you do via football and baseball seasons. I think, like, the baseball season, it's been disappointing and we've all been griping, right? And so the text chain is a gripe chain. I have no problem with that at all. Like, I'm often very negative on it. I'm often negative on it, hoping that I end up looking like a fool because things will turn around.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a strategic move that I see.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, whatever. Sometimes I frustrate. I text things that don't. Don't even make sense, I think. But having said, that's, like, I'm fine with it being a place where there's a lot of negativity going on and I am not like you, where there's. Or anybody. But Ders being like the most negative person. He just doesn't get to me usually. I just don't. Don't mind. Mind it. Now. I also think that you could really make an argument that I was maybe out of the ordinary here for how I felt after Friday's game, because Friday's game was the beginning of a series. We didn't know we were going to get swept at this point. And the way the Mariners have been playing has been incredibly frustrating. And it's been incredibly frustrating because it's echoes of last year. And it's like what every fan predicted, which is the team did nothing in the off season, and then they're rolling it back again, and now we're seeing the same exact results, which is good pitching followed by really bad offense. And just like, we don't have to get in the. We don't have to get the X's and O's of it. But. And are there X's and O's in baseball? That's a good question. Put it on the. Put it on the poll. But there are, like, several key categories that the Mariners have been especially frustrating in. And with the exception of one of them, which is clownish fielding, those were not on display on Friday. Friday's game, which was an extra innings game, which was also the home opener for the Giants. Not a team that I have any really kind of negative feelings towards. It wasn't like the Astros or any of the other teams that I. I don't need to call them out here, but you know which teams I really root against versus teams that. Oh, I root for my team. The Dodgers. Exactly. Hope you're Joe. Great day at the White House, everybody. But anyway, so with. It's like, I don't have any bad feelings about the Giants. It's a day opener for them. It's a sunny day. It's a long game. It's an interesting game. There is a lot of offense. There is so much back and forth. I watch part of the game. I watch probably half the writing, the newsletter. In fact, I kept on giving score updates in the newsletter, which is probably not super helpful for anybody. But basically I was like, I'm so distracted. I got to get out of here. So I, like, got done. I sent out the newsletter and I still had, I think maybe, I don't know, a few innings left of even just like, you know, regular innings, not knowing it was going to necessarily go into extra innings, but like. And it's a beautiful day outside, and it's like 4:00. I close the laptop, I go on. I'm like, I'm just going to keep on walking south down Stone Stone Way until the game's over. But then the game never ends. So then I find a little park outside of a chapel of a church near Green Lake that I was unfamiliar with. And it said, anybody could use this little, little corner park. It's tiny. There's this little picnic table in the middle of it. I go in there by myself and just stare into space. I'm like, I know there's got to be a camera on me. This has got to look weird. I had my camera with me. I'm, like, taking some photos. I'm just, like, walking, sitting on park benches. I'm listening to this game. And then we're like going. Both teams are just burning through their bullpen, their burpen and like, it's one of those games. Eventually somebody's got to win and somebody's got to lose. And then we're on, literally our last active pitcher. Like, after this, we're going to have to go to position players pitching. It turns out it would have been rowdy to Lez, by the way, which actually I kind of would have liked to see. But anyway. And then our last pitcher gets it looks like injured on the mound, pulls something, but we have no option. So he's like, stays out there. And then we do end up losing the game. It was a disappointment. It's been a very disappointing season so far, but this was the first game of the series. Beautiful sunny day. I was entertained by baseball. This is an unusual perspective for me. I tend to let my mood be dictated by wins and losses. But for me, at the end of that one, I was like, God dang, what a weird game. What a long game. What a beautiful afternoon. The Giants got a win on Their home opener, like, pretty likable. Like, I don't know, I just wasn't bummed about it. And then. So there's.

[Andrew Walsh]

I felt the same exact way.

[Luke Burbank]

In fact, you had a less fun way.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, I could see you feeling negatively about it because you were working so hard to listen to snippets of the game in between doing other things, which is a much less pleasurable way. And I could see the loss hitting you harder. Like, why did I try to squeeze all this in while I was headbutting what's going on?

[Andrew Walsh]

Again, not to X and O it, but there was a moment where we really should have lost the game. It was the bottom of the ninth inning. The Giants got a guy on third with no outs. That should have been the end of the game. And miraculously it wasn't. We got three outs without them advancing. And I said on our text chain, well, this is gravy ball now. Like, that shouldn't have. Like, the game should already be over. We survived that. Anything that happens after this, if we win, it's great. But if not, I was. I was very sanguine about the whole thing. And I. I'm with you. Like, I was like, well, this is great that the Mariners scored eight runs and played a wild one and they didn't end up winning in the end, but maybe this broke something loose inside them or whatever. So I've had a generally okay feeling about that.

[Luke Burbank]

The events of Friday now, obviously on Monday, after, like, losing the next two games in more of a old fashioned Mariners way of just like, no offense and just the usual frustrations. Although I gotta say, I didn't see most of Sunday's game, so I don't know if they ended up getting more hits than the score would. Would suggest. But anyway, all of this is to say I got, I got. I felt really terrible because I got a little. I got kind of snippy on the text chain. And you might have seen this, but you wouldn't have seen what I was getting snippy at, which is interesting. And I kind of don't want to litigate this here. I didn't, you know, I really didn't start this to throw Ders under the bus. But I guess it's gonna. Now that I've started it, it's gonna be me sort of defending myself. And really what I wanted to do was talk about this, about why I'm kind of embarrassed about my text chain behavior, because what happened was the game ended, but it's still a sunny day. I'M like, still walking and, you know, and just kind of have. I'm just kind of. I was texting with some other buddies, and we were saying, like, yeah, you know, like, still hard to be in a bad mood after that one. 15 hits or something. Like 15 hits. Are you kidding? So anyway, your brother jumps in the text chain and say, hey, listen, that is a tough loss, but a good game or whatever. I'm encouraged by the hits. And, like. And then Ders is just like, no, that was garbage, or whatever. And then I'm like, I don't know. I can't be mad at 15 hits. And then. And again, I don't hear. I'll just. So it was just kind of. You can imagine. It was just kind of like anything that we said that that was positive was struck down. It was just like, literally. Okay, let's do this. I was encouraged by the game. We didn't have a real starter offense fought at least. Also, by the way, we chased Verlander after, like, three innings or something. Anyway, Dirgeous writes, nah. And I'm just like, well, I'm not Exactly mad at nine runs, 15 hits in a hell of a game. They had a chance to break it open, and extras couldn't manage a sac fly. Don't let them off that easy. And then your brother says something positive again. But, like, well, I understand where you're coming from, but like this. There are some positive indicators. And then it's just kind of like, you missed the postseason by one game two years in a row. There are no moral victories for this sad franchise, imo. And then that's when I sarcastically wrote three texts in a row that wrote, now I feel bad for enjoying a fun baseball game. I've learned my lesson. Won't happen again. That was me being real. I don't like my tone there. That was me being a real bee going after. Like, I was a real cry. I was being a little bit of a baby there. That's right. And I didn't. But I was like that to me now, again, like, I meant this to be more. I did not like my response there. I could have just not participated in that text conversation, but it was a rare moment of me, of somebody literally trying to steal my joy. Like, I was like, okay, that's fine. Like, you didn't like that ending. It's a loss. That's understandable. We're sort of saying, well, it was an interesting game on a Friday in a beautiful Sunday, you know, sunny Friday afternoon, and just saying, hey, you know, like, yeah, that was a tough loss for me. But instead, it's kind of like it just felt like saying, like, no, you're wrong for not being as miserable as I am right now. And I was like, don't. You don't get to tell me my feeling. And so then I wrote that thing, but I hated that I wrote that and it lived with me. And then I had a couple of other communications this weekend that were a little bit snarky. A listener was trying to, I think, correct us on something, but wouldn't say what it was even in a reference to. And I was just like, please don't explain this to me. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm good with this now. Like, and I was just like. And I just kind of realized, like, I think that I am in a place where maybe I need to stop communicating with people, which could, you know, be a problem if I continue to do the show with you. But, like, I. Maybe I want to put out there, like, a general pre apology that I feel like I've. In the past couple of weeks, I've had interactions that I'm kind of like, I'm a raw nerve. And I'm not. Maybe I need to, like, just not engage on some conversations sometimes when they hit my inbox or my. Or my, you know, my text account or whatever. And I definitely love our listeners, and so I want to be careful. I love interacting with everybody directly. But if. If you're going to. If I'm a raw nerve because of everything that's going on in the world and you're going to get a somewhat, like, sarcastic or terse response from me, that's not who I want to be. So either I apologize in advance or I apologize for maybe laying off the replies for a while, because it's not you, it's me. I'm in a bad place. Place.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm with you. That things feel very, very, very close to the surface because of everything that's happening in the real world. And then when the baseball world also seems to be, as I wrote, and maybe this is also adding to the negativity. But at the end of the game on Sunday, which we also lost in heartbreaking fashion after a player of ours injured himself grievously doing something that he shouldn't have been doing, honestly, I don't blame him, though. It was just a reaction, but, like, it was such an insane ending to the game that also involved us losing. But in a new and novel and really heartbreaking way. I Wrote like, this is the darkest timeline ending for this game. Like, it's like you can lose a baseball game, and then there's a way where a guy hurts himself doing something that's actually not the right decision, but doing an incredible thing and trying his hardest, and then it doesn't even count. And then the next pitch, they just win the game. It's like, it feels like the universe is mocking us. And the universe. I feel like the universe is mocking us with what's happening in America currently. And then you throw on this meaningless thing called baseball that also feels like it's mocking us.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it's a lot. And it really makes it hard to just be sort of chill about stuff.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

To just kind of let stuff roll off your back. It's like, I don't have any back anymore for anything to roll off. Like, if it was like the world's going to hell in a hand basket, but The Mariners are 8 and O. Like, that doesn't fix the world. But it's something that I can at least feel something good about right now. I got the junior sluggers and that's it.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's not nothing. But that ain't.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's not nothing.

[Luke Burbank]

And to extend grace to Ders, I mean, I think that is exactly what's going on with him. I mean, obviously he's just been a long suffering fan of the Mariners and, and the Cougars and like, I mean, that can, that can really do something to you over the course of a lifetime. But I also think that he cares very deeply about what's going on in the world. And I've known from previous conversations with him over, not even recently, but just years ago, just that he can lay a lot of the emotions he's feeling about the world into the sports. And so when the sports are going bad, it's like an extension of all of that. And so I think that that is a reality for him too. And so when he's feeling this way, and then also with the Mariners, and I know I've said this on the show, there's this sort of, of. There's a direct tie in to. To money and billionaires and. And what's going on in the world with billionaires. You know what I mean? And you can sort of just say that, like just the selfishness and the. And then, you know, not putting the fans first and how that could sort of tie in with what's going on with the oligarchs and the White House and everything. And you see like, like you had alluded to the doers celebrating with their president.

[Andrew Walsh]

Solid, solid name.

[Luke Burbank]

I will only call them the Dozers going forward. And so, anyway, I just, like. It's just, It' I'm not saying it's hard, but the opposite of that, actually. I'll just say that it's sort of easy to let all of this stuff intermingle, especially when your brain and emotions are so unstable, as mine are. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not trying to justify it. I'm just sort of trying to, like, maybe put words to it and describe it.

[Andrew Walsh]

I actually appreciate you doing that, and I think it's maybe something that's useful for all of us to consider, generally speaking, about everybody else in the world right now, particularly our people that we know, who we know are affected, at least psychologically by what's going on. And I, you know, I want to clarify. You and I as, like, straight white men who are lucky enough to have these. This job, like, we're not the people that they're really coming for right now. But even so, when you're talking about people in the world that, you know that are watching this and feeling horrible about it, that we are all probably not going to be our absolute best for a while when it comes to inerrant comment here or there or getting our feelings kind of hurt or being in a stressful situation, we are not those of us who are horrified by what's going on. We are not right now, probably in our most sort of, like, pliable and flexible selves, or in our. We're not in our moment of being able to absorb. It's why a baseball game. It's why Robless dislocating his shoulder or whatever he did. And I was watching that, and I was just like, is life worth living? Like, that's an outsized reaction to a baseball game. But that's the way it felt to me. And if somebody would have sent me the wrong text message at exactly that moment, I could have very easily said something I regretted or been really harsh or. So I guess I'm just trying to say if we can all try to give each other as much slack as we can right now, because we're all going through this, and it's. It's making everything hard. It's making the little things hard and the meaningless things hard, like baseball scores or, you know, overcooking the roast or whatever, because we live in the 1950s, and mostly what we're doing is cooking roasts and sometimes overcooking them.

[Luke Burbank]

I can. This Is, you know, I say that as a more of a reminder for myself, not for other people. And it's really driving me crazy. I kind of. I can't find this specific piece of tape from Arrested Development where, you know, Tobias is saying, oh, Here he comes. Mr. John Wayne hides all of his feelings. You got to let this out. And then he realizes somebody ate all of his scrambled eggs, and he has a total freak out about it. Like, I'm Tobias freaking out about the scrambled eggs or the hard boiled eggs right now or whatever ate my eggs or something. Yes, exactly. So, you know, it's kind of like that. You're just like, oh, we're just talking about baseball. We're having a good time. And then, like. And then you're ripping somebody's head off or you're being passive. Like, just disgustingly passive aggressive the way I just was to dirt. And I just, like, I woke up on Sunday or Saturday. I just, like, I said to these. I'm like, I don't know, man. I like, I'm having a. Just more intrusive thought. I'm like, if I had just, like, not responded to several texts, I probably wouldn't be having as many intrusive thoughts today. And she said, I wouldn't. I wouldn't bet on that. I think you'd have intrusive thoughts about.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that big old fat brain and looking for a big fat problem to chew on. But here's. I. I will. I will say this as I'm realizing as I reflect on my childhood, that much of my mother's mothering of us was through song, through existing ip, which is redundant, I guess. No, intellectual is not the same word.

[Luke Burbank]

Through.

[Andrew Walsh]

So my mom would do this thing where sometimes she would just, like, sing when we would be asking her something. She would sing us the answer when she was trying to do something, get us to do something. And she used to love when we were just being. When we were being cacophonous and acting up. She would just out of the blue, just go, silence is golden. Which I want to say. Is that a. Is that a Frankie Valli number? There's a. You should know from your Kixie appreciate. There's a song called Silence is Golden, and my mom used to sing it to us when she wants to shut the hell up. And I would just say, you might want to mute. Maybe throw a little. Throw a little mute down on. On. On the. You know, on Ders. Maybe not for the whole season, but for a little while till things turn around, till there's More positivity that can be expressed. I. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what, Andrew. True. Of all the things about the weekend, the highs and lows of my weekend, none of them involved the text chain.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, right.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's very liberating. And, you know, listen, this is. This is not throw. This is not national Throw Dirt under the bus Day. But I will tell you that.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, when is that?

[Andrew Walsh]

It's. I think it's August 2nd Saturday in August.

[Luke Burbank]

I gotta put on my calendar.

[Andrew Walsh]

I know. The first Saturday in August is National Mustard Day. I know. Because I'm gonna have to go back to Middleton, Wisconsin to celebrate. They take over a whole block there in Middleton, Andrew. But I.

[Luke Burbank]

What?

[Andrew Walsh]

I will say the reason that I don't feel like I'm crazy in my reaction to those texts from Ders is because I don't have those reactions to anyone else's texts. And we do. Like you said, there's a volatility there. We all express our negative feelings and we express our positive feelings. It's not like. It's not like you can't have a rich experience of how you feel being expressed on this text chain. Everyone else does it. I'm never having a problem with how anyone else does it. There's one. There's one entity on there that is regularly making it not as great.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

And eliminating that sound on. It's not. That's not how texts work. Taking that out of the mix for me has totally radically transformed my experience around that text chain. And again, I'm not trying to be mean, but it has. I will just say, tells me I'm not crazy. Because if I then just found the next person I was mad at on the text chain, then that's me. But that's. I'm not mad at anyone on the text chain. What is it like John Goodwin. All the McNeese state hype man content that John Goodwin can send. I'm here for it.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I muted him. I don't even know what you're talking about. What is it like when you see a weird, passive aggressive text blur, like. Well, from me.

[Andrew Walsh]

I didn't even realize what you were referring.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's what you say. You must have been like, what the hell is this?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, honestly, I didn't read all of those texts very, very closely. I go in and I put some fire into the text chain, and then I wait to see if there's any response. And when there isn't, it's just like Twitter.

[Luke Burbank]

You only post when you want somebody to react to yourself.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is my new Twitter, Andrew. This is my new Twitter. 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.

[Luke Burbank]

Now.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ready, ready, go, everybody. Razzle dazzle. All right, let's think. Some dazzling donors. These are the generous folks that are donating a dazzling amount of dough. They're making TBTL possible. When I was filming some of that stuff for CBS here in this room with the camera crew, I was. I was talking to one of them, Paul, the camera guy, good friend of mine, and he was talking about the changing media landscape because he was looking at this little setup that I've got over here. And he said something that. To the effect of. And it was flattering. He said, you've done a really good job of staying because we were just talking about generally how the whole industry looks different and a lot of jobs that used to exist, both literally jobs and also, like, projects have kind of gone away or scaled down dramatically. And he said, well, you've just done this really great job of sort of figuring out how to kind of evolve with time. And I said, oh, no, no. You don't realize there's zero evolution on this show. This is what we've been doing for 15 to 17, 16 years. Post the radio, which is get on here, talk about whatever inane stuff is happening in our life, and then pray that people like Marissa Collins in Columbia, Maryland, will somehow find it to be valuable in their life. And. And we're glad that Marissa does, because Marissa has been donating for a while and supporting and. And says in her a message. Hello, Luke, Andrew, Veeves, Becca, Susie, Walt, Phyllis, John, my imaginary TV boyfriend, Chris, and all you wonderful tens, elevens and fives. Oh, that's the whole arc.

[Luke Burbank]

That's everything.

[Andrew Walsh]

Everybody on board. We're gonna ride out this flood together. Longtime listener, medium time donor, first time dazzler. Hey, Marissa. Thank you. My message is mostly a plea for everyone to realize how the current administration is quickly dismantling the government all Americans rely on. I'm a longtime civil servant and I'm watching in horror as the staff around me are threatened. They may be gone by the time the boys read this. Please get out to an in person protest. Google 50501. That's 5501 to find one near you. It's vital to show our strength in numbers. So this is interesting. I'm guessing that Marissa, of course, wrote this a while ago. And was prescient, you know, was. Was. Was definitely accurately predicting what we are now seeing going on. And also, I'm hoping, Marissa, you were heartened, as I was, by what went on over the weekend in terms of many, many, many public protests across the country. And one of the things that I thought was really inspiring was they were in big cities and they were in small cities. This was not just, you know, sort of, you know, geo fenced to New York City and Los Angeles and San Francisco or Seattle and Portland. This was all across the country and in lots of different places and in. In places where you might not have expected it, which I think really showed just how many people are upset by this and what real strength there is in us getting together and saying, this is not normal.

[Luke Burbank]

This isn't politics anymore. This is just people saying, like, what is happening is wrong. It's just wrong. Like, yeah. And, you know, and people like you said, turned out this weekend to show it. It's funny, it was hard for me to get a good beat on that because I would open up my Blue sky app every now and then and I would flip through it and nothing on Saturday would pop up except for just photo after photo after photo of just packed streets, places packed parks everywhere from New York, where apparently it was just like chock a block with people for like an entire mile. Wild Portland, I heard, like, obviously here in Seattle, but like you said, too, like, small communities. In fact, a friend of mine said she was like, you know, I went up to Shoreline because, like, because Seattle being another head in Seattle or be another person in Shoreline, where maybe you don't have as. As dense of a population, you know, but anyway, people turning out all over the place. But it was funny because I was like, man, this is. Everybody must be seeing this. But then I'm like, oh, it's because, like, literally Rachel Maddow and Sarah Spain and I don't know, maybe one other person are just like, retweeting every single one of these things. So for my feed, it would be like, everybody in the world is seeing this. And I'm like, I wonder actually how this is being covered on. Like, it's been so long since I've just like, turned on NBC News or something like that. I was kind of. I was curious as to how much this. This was, you know, being presented to people who weren't there with the.

[Andrew Walsh]

I would guess I also didn't go and like, because, yeah, my Instagram feed, because I'm still on there was just all, you know, people that I know or people that are in sort of nearby orbits of mine, you know, out at these various events. And some of the signs were, were pretty great, pretty sweet street. I'm guessing that the major news also covered it. I'm guessing Fox News buried it or framed it. I mean, what I thought was wild the other day, I don't, I don't usually do this, but like it was, you know, I think maybe day one of the just complete Wall street meltdown. And it was, you know, it was unavoidable and pretty extreme and pretty bad for, pretty bad for, for a lot of Americans. Whether you have money in the stock market or not, it's a bad day because there's a trickle down, if effect, et cetera. And they headline. New York Times, you know, Dow and Freefall, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Oregonian, the Colombian. Out here where I live, I go to Fox News. I'm just curious. Fox News website, no mention of the stock market. I was like, and I'm gonna, Most of the kids have stopped listening because we're done with the little league segment. I was like, when did these mother stop caring about the stock market? It's, it was, it was unbelievable even by their, even by their shady standards. It was unbelievable because it was just like, like I, when, when did the stock market stop being a story for you? How could this not be above the fold for you? Fox news.com website this is th, this is, this is such an intentional attempt to bend reality to your desires. It's just, it was just amazing. I mean, the only thing that made me happy was I know Sean Hannity owns a lot of stock.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I know Sean Hannity owns more stock than I do. How about that? Yeah, and that's, I guess, boy, that's cold comfort. But I don't know where I'm going with this other than to say, Marissa, I hope that it was encouraging to you to see people doing the thing that you're describing or sort of advocating for in this dazzling donor message. Now here's where things get really interesting, Andrew. Marissa says I cede the rest of my time to my two adorable children, Leo and Leo of the Friday, Friday. It's time to get down on Friday. And Avi, here are the jokes they wanted to share with you all. And I have them here. Andrew, can I play them?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, sure, yeah, I have them. I have them. But I have not listened to this yet. But if you have, I.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I know they play and it's only gonna play in one ear and that's gonna make you crazy. Would you like to. Like to do the honors from there?

[Luke Burbank]

Let's just give this a shot as I. It's a good way to troubleshoot this stuff.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, but here's my question. Is this Leo or Avi?

[Luke Burbank]

I think this is based on what you just read. I'm guessing this might be both of them, but I don't know. I haven't.

[Andrew Walsh]

They're listed as Avi's joke. I want to get.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I see. I'm looking at the playlist here. Good call. Maybe you should be the master of audio here.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I'm gonna play. I'm gonna try to play Avi's joke.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm gonna try to start there. Okay. How do you catch a quadrilateral? You use a trapezoid.

[Luke Burbank]

A polar bear walks.

[Andrew Walsh]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Soundcloud. Okay, we're. Hold on. We're backing this up. We're gonna play Avi's joke again. I'm gonna try to pause it.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

This is a SoundCloud thing, by the way. I kind of. I tried to, like, make fun of you for that, but the truth is SoundCloud does this. It automatic. It does one of those things where it just automatically plays the next thing. It's kind of.

[Andrew Walsh]

I want it to be easier to pause too. I've been trying to become a SoundCloud rapper, and this is honestly a disincentive. Okay, let me try Avi's joke again. Here we go. How do you catch a quadrilateral? How do you catch a quadratural?

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know. I can't say that word.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's. I didn't. I've. Let's try this again. How do you catch a quadral? You catch a quadrilateral. Oh, okay. It's like a quadrilateral.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I think it's like. It's like. It's something with four sides, but it's not squared or rectangular because it's lateral, like a.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, so a quadrilateral is a shape.

[Luke Burbank]

I think so that's got.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, it's got four, but then they're lateral.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, well, it's like it's got four sides, but it's not a square and it's not a rectangle. So it's just like a funky four sided.

[Andrew Walsh]

Gotcha. Okay. I think gotcha. Okay. Okay, now we're. Now we're getting the. So how do you catch a quadrilateral? You use a trapezoid. You use A trapezoid. Hold on. Don't rush Leo on us. Okay. How do you catch a quadrilateral?

[Luke Burbank]

With a trapezoid?

[Andrew Walsh]

With a trapezoid. How do you catch a quadrilateral?

[Luke Burbank]

You use a trapezoid.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's good. Okay, that's a pretty solid joke.

[Luke Burbank]

That is a good joke. And also, let's not give the kids too much credit here. How about we give me some credit for being right about that. It's a four sided polygon on.

[Andrew Walsh]

They've.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's not forget who the real winners are here.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you. Who the real heroes are. And they're you. Okay, that's obvious. Joke. Here's Leo's joke.

[Luke Burbank]

Polar bear walks into a bar. He says to the bartender, I'd like a gin and tonic.

[Andrew Walsh]

The bartender says, what do we think? The bartender says, why the pause?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm guessing I haven't heard this yet, dude. Well, I don't want to ruin the joke.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're playing quadrilateral chess here. I just thought that Leo was having a moment. A senior moment.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm guessing it's why the paws.

[Andrew Walsh]

Great. Okay, let's find out together.

[Luke Burbank]

Why the big paws? The polar bear says, oh, these.

[Andrew Walsh]

I've always had them.

[Luke Burbank]

I love that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Pretty. Andrew. Let's do that again. I love this performance, this delivery.

[Luke Burbank]

Polar bear walks into a bar. He says to the bartender, I'd like a gin and tonic. The bartender says, why the big paws? The polar bear says, oh, the.

[Andrew Walsh]

I've always had them.

[Luke Burbank]

That's. I could see you using that joke, Luke. I'm not sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

Absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like this is gonna happen.

[Andrew Walsh]

I feel like it really utilizes, and I use that term advisedly like some other. Like a different mechanism for telling the joke. And it's a surprise.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Thank you. It's performative. It feel. Because it's like I. And, and I fell for it because I just thought again that Leo was just forgetting his.

[Luke Burbank]

Trying to remember the next line.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I got. Because that's would be probably what I would do and do often on this show. So I like that. It's, it's, it's. It's using different ways to be funny and to tell the joke. So very nice work, Leo and Avi and Marissa, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate you. Maestro.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, we're doing this still.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, get set. Why the big pause?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I've always had these.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's James McCracken out there in Louisville, Kentucky. James says, in a world that can seem full of jerks, you dummies are a balm. In a jerk store that called and said they're all out of you.

[Luke Burbank]

In a world full of jerks, you guys fit right in. Now, James, did you say this? My apologies if I'm correcting something that you didn't get wrong. In a world that keeps. Can seem full of jerks. I think I didn't. Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

In my mind I said that. But Andrew, I can't stand by. I can't trust my mind.

[Luke Burbank]

Just want to make sure. I don't want to miss.

[Andrew Walsh]

Don't trust your lion mind.

[Luke Burbank]

Create. Right. Yeah. I don't want to, you know, misquote James there because there's a bit of a difference.

[Andrew Walsh]

In a world that can seem full of jerks, you dummies are a balm. I think what he means to say is the balm store called and they're all out of you.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was. I'm never going to leave that joke alone. James says, I'm happy you're still out there. Keep up the fight against global loneliness. Signed, James and Louisville. Well, James, thank you for. You know, I was going to try to sort of. I don't know if analogy is the right word. I was going to try to go with analogy, saying, we're out here fighting against global loneliness, but your donation is helping give us ammo. But I don't really even like joking about ammo because then it gets more, more, More warlike. Yeah, I'm feeling very war like Andrew.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what I need to do, Luke?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And this is.

[Andrew Walsh]

I do.

[Luke Burbank]

This is relevant to all everybody listening, including you. I need to plug my headphones directly into my Scarlett to see if I'm still having the same audio issues there. Because if I'm not, then I can isolate that it's somewhere between the Scarlett and the board that I'm getting.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you know what's so important about this is you need to do this for 1.5 more days. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let me just.

[Luke Burbank]

I have a new board coming. I'm using intermediate board because I thought it was going to be my new board, but it's lacking some functionality that it turns out I need. And so I just was like, fine, I'll order this brand new board which is coming through. You know, it'll be coming here at some point this week. So I'm hobbling along with this other board that is kind of the worst of all worlds because it's something new that I'm getting used to. And also I Shouldn't worry too much about it because it's only going to be another show or two. And I don't think anybody else can hear the issue that I'm having. Just me. But I just. I'm usually a very go with the flow kind of guy. You said before, things roll off your back when you have a back. You know, I'm like that, too. And this is very unusual for me to be so obsessive over every little piece of audio. It's only the stuff I play from my computer. It sounds. The term is whack. I believe it sounds whack.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that. That's why I'm trying to do the lifting with SoundCloud and other things. I'm trying to keep, you know, take that off of your plate today as much as possible. But the thing is that your experience is also the biggest experience you're gonna have. So it kind of makes sense that it's bugging you, even if the rest of us are completely in the dark about what is going on here.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's see if this sounds funny to you. Is this what your mom used to sing to you?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, only the silence is golden part, but yes. Let's.

[Luke Burbank]

This is the Great Tremolo. Oh, no, it just says the Tremolos. But the album is from the Great Tremolos. Does that band name ring a bell to you?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, but I think the guy's about to come in with it here. Yeah, I don't think this is the version.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

That I grew up.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

So we're gonna getting pulled down in every retirement home in America over this.

[Luke Burbank]

There we go. Do it.

[Andrew Walsh]

There we go.

[Luke Burbank]

This is the version.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, it's the Frankie Valli version.

[Luke Burbank]

There is a Frankie Valley version.

[Andrew Walsh]

And by the way, I'm gonna now play it. You ready, Andrew? I'm gonna play it off of Spotify and it's probably going to be.

[Luke Burbank]

You have your own audio issues.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. There's no. And I. I feel like the Frankie Valli version. I could be wrong, but I feel like it comes right in with. Silence is gold.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, no.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is kind of like what you were playing.

[Luke Burbank]

I do like this, though. This has a.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you're probably only hearing one channel. Imagine if you could hear both.

[Luke Burbank]

Reminds me of, like Tommy James and the Shondell's a little bit with that guitar.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, right. Like Crimson and clover. Here we go.

[Luke Burbank]

There.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Go high. When they go low, we go high.

[Luke Burbank]

The amazing thing is he just recorded this last year live.

[Andrew Walsh]

He did. I saw as vibrant as Vibrant as ever.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

So the other thing my mom would sing to us as a way of sort of trying to I guess, just, I don't know, impress something upon us. She would sing Silence Is Golden. She would also sing the carol. Is it. Wait, who does? Too Late, Baby, It's Too Late. Is that a Carole King song? We'd be complaining about something. Yeah, we had been complaint. We would be complaining about something or wanting something to be different. And my mom would say, it's too late, baby. Now it's too late. Meaning that ship has sailed. We're not. Whatever. That's. Whatever's happening. We're not doing that anymore. We're not complaining about it. It's too late.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, definitely. Carole King. I need to think about it. I need to look it up. But, yeah, I actually. That's a record that I have. That's a really. That Carole King record is. I'm looking at it, but it doesn't show. I'm pretty sure it's called Tapestry. Right. That's a very famous record.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's her big album. I couldn't give you the track listing.

[Luke Burbank]

It's one of those records that has so many famous songs on it that you think it's the greatest hits, but it's actually. Right, Like a studio album. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, exactly. Well, thank you to our donors for making TBTL possible today.

[Luke Burbank]

Hello and welcome to Top Stories.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nothing like Top Stories. An hour and 14 minutes.

[Luke Burbank]

We need to talk about Carol King albums and Mariners. Text change.

[Andrew Walsh]

Gators Radio.

[Luke Burbank]

We've done a lot.

[Andrew Walsh]

We've done a lot today. So on Friday, at the end of Friday's show, I just kind of mentioned in passing, oh, I'm going back to the ophthalmologist because I had had this. This sty on my eye. This chazad, I think it's called. Or that's. That's a Pokemon card. Hard. It's one of the two chaleas in, I think it's called. And basically what it is is it's when an oil duct in your eyelid, on the inside of your eyelid gets plugged up with a little piece of dust or something. And normally it goes away just. And if you get a bump in your eyelid and normally you can go away just from like a hot. Putting a hot compress on it. And I will tell you, if you ever have the misfortune of getting one of these and you have to actually call the doctor, there will be no end of every person at every level of the medical establishment asking you if you're doing a hot compress and there's no amount of telling them that you're doing one, that will convince them you're doing it. Like, I bought a crazy thing on. On Amazon that's like. It's like a sunglasses, but they're made out of beanbags and fabric. And you can microwave them and just put them on your face and they're supposed to, like. I was like, every time I would have to call in to make an appointment around this or do something to. To try to get some help with it, the first question would be, are you doing a hot compress? Yes. How many times a day? I don't know. Four times a day. Like, that's the answer. In fact, when I went in this time, the nurse that was helping me said, are you doing a hot compress? And I was like, yes, I've been doing a hot compress. It's not doing anything. She goes, my boyfriend gets these, and I just make him do a hot compress. Right away. I'm like, yes, I promise you. I have been briefed on the benefits of the hot compress. This is not news to me. But what was interesting about this whole procedure was, first of all, I had a different ophthalmologist, the first ophthalmologist that I went to who did the original procedure. And I don't want to be gruesome here, but so if you're squeamish, you might want to.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, we gave a. We actually gave. This is what we had to give a trigger warning for the last time. So consider this the trigger warning. We don't need a special one at the beginning of the show because things did get kind of graphic that first time.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's. It's. It's pretty gruesome. What, what. Depending on your tolerance for these things, what goes on to try to address these. This kind of, like, little infected, I guess you could say bump in my eyelid. And the first time that I went to actually have this thing, you could just sort of say sort of drained or cleaned out. The ophthalmologist kind of explained what was going to happen to me, and he explained that, like, this little red bump on the outside of my eyelid was actually the bottom, the base of the volcano. And that the issue, the infection point and where the duct was blocked up is on the inside of my eyelid. So they clamp your eyelid, they give you pain, you know, medicine. So it doesn't really hurt. It's just very. It's a very weird Experience, they. They give you some pain shots. Those don't feel great in the eyelid, but then once that kicks in, they put some numbing eye drops and then they put this clamp on there and they kind of flip your eyelid inside out and then sort of go to work, you know, making an incision and kind of trying to clean out whatever the infected matter is in there. So they did that a few months ago. And first it was a way worse because it's kind of a trauma to your eyelid into this thing. But then it got way better. It reduced down in size probably by 60%, but it did not go away 100% and it was still a reddish dot. That always involved me having to, if I was going to do TV or something, put some kind of little. Even when I'm doing tbtl, because we might pull these clips for the social media, I will put some, like, concealer on it because it's kind of a distraction. It's like this red dot right under my eyeball. And so anyway, that doctor who helped me the first time was so booked up that I could not get to see him back to see him till, like, I don't know, May or June. So he referred me to one of his colleagues who had an earlier appointment, that is last Friday. So I went in there and I really liked this doctor, but I'm going to call him Dr. Newhart Heart because he was, like, so understated. He was like a Bob Newhart type. He was probably about my age, maybe a little bit younger, very professional, but also very, like, not. You know, sometimes you can deal with a doctor who is, like, overconfident in the sense that they're just telling you everything as if they just got this. They went up on Mount Sinai and were handed these tablets and now they're telling you that was not how this doctor was treating this. This was a dialogue. He came in, he said, well, well, so I've been looking because I had sent in some photos through the, like, you know, whatever you call it, portal for Kaiser. So he goes, yeah, I was looking at some of these photos of it and I was showing it to my colleagues earlier today, and we're just trying to kind of figure out what the best course of action is. He goes, I think. And he kind of felt around on it and stuff. He said, I think that probably the, the best approach is to go in through the outside of your eyelid this time, because I think that's actually where the majority of the issue now is. So I think the best approach is to go in through your outside of your eyelid. Although we could go in through the inside, too. I mean, that would be also good. Because if we go back in through the inside, then, you know, there's no chance of scarring. There's no chance of, like a noticeable, you know, injury on the outside of your eyelid, because it's the inside. It might heal faster because that's how that part of the body works. So we could do the inside. And I said, well, I'm gonna defer to you on this one, Doc. But I now, in his defense, I was giving him also a lot of timelines. I said, well, I do have to film something on Monday, which I just did. And they go. And then I have this big event in Seattle. We're doing livewire at Benaroya on Friday night. I don't know if there's still tickets available, but there are. You should come out and see us. But that's kind of a big one for me. It's a homecoming. I'm gonna see a lot of my family and friends. I would like to feel confident about how I'm looking or at least as confident as I get.

[Luke Burbank]

Are you going to be doing TBTL from my house that later on this week? I forgot about that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think so. I think we're. I think we're going to come up midday on Friday. So I think. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

I just wanted to interrupt your absolute flow of this story that I was on the edge of my seat with just with a practical matter that the listeners don't need to be involved with. Sorry about that.

[Andrew Walsh]

They're all. Listen, they're all wondering. We're all wondering, when's Luke going to get back to Andrew Studio?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm literally. I'm like, well, I should probably vouch vacuum. All right, go ahead.

[Andrew Walsh]

So it. So anyway, I'm talking to this doctor and I'm like thinking I'm giving him some different dates, which is not normal for his. Generally speaking, a normal person with normal job stuff is not as worried about. I literally said to him, can you promise me that whatever you do, this will only look as bad as it looks now by next Friday, April 11th. That was my, like, baseline. I was like, I can live with how it is right now. I can put some cover up on it. It's generally fine. Fine. What I can't do with you, sir, is enter into a medical procedure where this is going to get a lot worse before it gets a lot better, because that's a problem. For me. And then I had this other date, which was I'm going to be shooting some stuff for a big software concern on the east side. And that's a lot of, like, close ups of my face. And that's in late April. And that's like. I was like, I really. So it's. I was giving him a lot of, like, I was asking a lot of questions and giving him a lot of timelines that, like, are not normal. If you work in. Let's just say, you know, if you're. If you're a tow truck driver and you go in there to ask, how long is this going to take to heal? I was. I was throwing a lot at him, and he was trying to be mindful of that. But what it led to him being was, let's just say, less than 100% on which end. Which side of my eyelid we should be going in towards. To the degree that finally I'm in the chair. I'm sort of reclined back, back. There's been a long break. I've been following the Mariners as this doctor and as the nurse. They come in and out of the room, they're going getting different things. I'm signing a lot of releases, which is always a little stressful when you're just basically going, like, I know this could go very bad. I know I could emerge now with only one working eye, but we got to do it. And so finally, now, doctor has me reclined. He has now injected my eyelid with the numbing agent. He is. The clamp is on. I was a little bummed they had to use the clamp for the outside. Kind of thought that was an inside the eyelid specialty. But no, this was basically the exact same procedure, except instead of the inside, they go through the outside. I thought it would be a little. A little easier, a little less invasive, if you will. And he's holding the scalpel, Andrew. And he comes back and he's shooting me up, and he goes, yeah, he's holding the scalpel. He goes, yeah. How? I think the outside is the way to go in. I don't. He goes. He goes, I don't know. I'm just trying to talk myself into my decision. And I was like, as I've reclined to the sea with a clamp on my eyelid, I was like, well, let's be 100 on this one, Doc.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think you ever want to hear somebody who's about to do something that's pretty intense on your body like this Say, I'm trying to talk myself into the decision now. I appreciate it, the honesty. I actually really liked this doctor. I like, I really liked how he was not like, he wasn't, he wasn't acting overly confident. He was, he was bringing, he was the TBTL of this kind of a procedure. He was pulling the curtain back constantly and talking about his thoughts about the thing that was going to happen. He wasn't coming in. He wasn't trying to, like, fake it until he makes it. He was like, I'm still trying to talk myself into my decision to make an incision on the outside of your eyelid, sir.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, your description of this sounds so intense to me. And literally you describe redescribing what they did last time. Like, almost made me sick to my stomach. I'm pretty squeamish. No, I say that not to complain. I say that to say that I'm not trying to undermine the seriousness of this from your perspective, but it does also sort of sound to me like, because to the doctor, this is a sty. And it's not even though I, I, I would not want to be in your position. And it sounds very serious to me in a certain way. Now that you can retell this on Monday morning, let's say afternoon, we've been going for a long time. It's sort of, it sort of seems to be an indicator that, like, well, this is a sty. I'm going to get it out. I deal with this a lot that you could almost find comfort in him talking about this because he's not talking about removing an organ. You know what I mean? He's not talking about or even actually doing something to the eyeball itself. You know what I mean? So in a certain, I could sort of see like, oh, I wouldn't find comfort in it in the moment. But as you sort of describe it here, I think, well, maybe it's kind of like is the doctor's like, well, half a one or half dozen of one. I can't. The other. Yeah, it might have been more of that kind of situation. What do you end up doing?

[Andrew Walsh]

He ends up talking himself into it. And so, and now outside eyelid, Outside of the eyelid. And he, and so then he is, you know, he's doing the procedure, he's made the incision, he's. And, and as he is. And again, I don't mean to be overly gross, but it is part of the story. He cuts open the eyelid and now he's using this tool to go in and try to like. And he goes. And he just goes, oh, yeah, I'm getting a lot out. This was the right call.

[Luke Burbank]

This was good.

[Andrew Walsh]

This was the way to go.

[Luke Burbank]

And then I just said, I said.

[Andrew Walsh]

From a minute amidst absolute intense teeth gritting, Andrew, which I was doing, like, I'm like, you know, like it's real Clockwork Orange.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Amidst that I go, well, that's better than the alternative.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, what if he had gotten in there and he'd been like, oh no, this was not the way to go. Like, I was very relieved once he had, once he was in there, once he had committed that he was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is good. This was, this was the way to go. And then he had. And Andrew. The genuine relief and excitement in his voice to realize that he had made the right decision was really something because it really like led me to believe. I mean, again, the stakes were not that high. Here I was. This was not a. It's not a life threatening situation. If anything, it's just ego threatening for me because it's like, how long am I going to have something embarrassing on my eyelid? But the genuine excitement that he was expressing over removing some sort of, you know, built up whatever was inside this kind of infected thing on my eye. His excitement indicated to me that he genuinely didn't know until that moment if he had made the right call or not.

[Luke Burbank]

I gotta say though, saying, oh yeah, I'm getting a lot out. Like, that is so satisfying.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was weirdly satisfying. I was like, okay. Like I was. And again, it's weird, it's odd to have this incredibly satisfying moment happen in a moment that is also one of great personal turmoil. Oil. Because I also somehow, and this is actually not that shocking to the listeners because they know about how my insecurity works. I somehow have locked into this thing where it's important to me that the medical professionals I deal with leave every interaction being like, that guy is so unflappable. Like, it's just. Which is a terrible, terrible flex to get locked in.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, no, I'm the opposite. I'm like, I go in just like, this is my soft underbelly. I'm terrible at all of this stuff. Give me all, give me all of your padding. Give me all of your emotional padding and give me all of your physical padding.

[Andrew Walsh]

And that I think is actually the way to go because I have unfortunately chosen the, the other path. And that means I, I would love them to just like, literally, like, just go back to the Nurse's station and go, everybody gather around. I got to tell you about. Well, I got to tell you about this cool cat that was just in there.

[Luke Burbank]

Cool man. He was. He came in on a motorcycle. Michael Hanks, loud noises. What?

[Andrew Walsh]

Came in on the, you know, soda machine. You know that soda machine that's on the, you know that jukebox that's on the fritz.

[Luke Burbank]

I was gonna say, you know that jukebox.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what he did? He bumped the jukebox and a soda came out. Yeah, I've never even seen that.

[Luke Burbank]

It was very weird. We got to get that fixed. Gotta get that fixed.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, you know, I mean that. It's, it's a, it's a terrible, terrible thing to hang any kind of your self confidence on or. I don't know if that's even the thing I'm describing. Like, basically I, I really want to be like tough guy in there. And that's bad because it means that when they're doing something like this, which is again, I'm happy to say, not really painful, but just super weird, deeply weird and uncomfortable because of the part of your body, etc. The fact that you can't not observe it because your eyelid is being pulled open. I did also ask this because a new ophthalmologist, Andrew. You get a second bite at the apple. I asked him, how many Clockwork Orange references do you get a day? He goes, you know, less than when I started my career. He goes, I think that movie is fading in the consciousness.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was like, that's an interesting. This is an interesting indicator on that. Right? But.

[Luke Burbank]

And wasn't the guy wasn't like the. There was somebody evil from that movie that was in the new Space Jam movie a couple years ago. Do you remember that?

[Andrew Walsh]

Was it Malcolm Gladwell, one of the droogs?

[Luke Burbank]

The main droog, Malcolm Gladwell.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not Gladwell. Malcolm. Malcolm.

[Luke Burbank]

I was like. I was really. I was like, boy, I'm really, I'm really out of the loop.

[Andrew Walsh]

What can't that Malcolm gladwell do? Malcolm McDowell, maybe.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that the name of the character of the main.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's one of the main. That's one of the main guys. He's the star of. Of Clockwork Orange.

[Luke Burbank]

It might have been him or it might have been just one of the other people in the little derbies with the cane or something. I'm looking this up now. Are you finding anything?

[Andrew Walsh]

Malcolm McDowell does not appear to have a role in the Space Jam, a new legacy movie or other. Any other space Jam Movie.

[Luke Burbank]

Movie. It says, why The Space Jam 2 Clockwork Orange cameo is so controversial. This is from Screen Rant. So, okay, apparently some of these characters did appear. Maybe not. Maybe not the main one. I mean, I literally have not seen this movie since I saw it once in college. It says a cameo by Alex delarge and his droogs.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, so a different person from Clockwork Orange.

[Luke Burbank]

Alex Delarge is not the main Clockwork. No, it looks like Alex Delarge is a.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is he the main.

[Luke Burbank]

Orange. Main guy? I don't know who you're talking about.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maybe he is. Maybe I just. Maybe Malcolm McDowell, aka Gladwell, is just the only person from that movie that I have any other context for. And so I just, in my mind, assume he was the star.

[Luke Burbank]

But you know what? Malcolm McDowell is the actor. I see we were saying the same things, and I think that you knew this and I didn't. I was saying the name of the character. You were saying the name of the actor.

[Andrew Walsh]

So the actor, Malcolm McDowell does make an appearance in Space Jam.

[Luke Burbank]

Let me see if it's actually. I. My guess is no, it's not the actor. My guess is they have somebody else dressed up like the character. Because the whole thing about Space Jam was they were like, oh, we're going to use all of our ip. And I. So I've never seen sp. I've never seen the first of all.

[Andrew Walsh]

The IP Clockwork Orange seems like, leave that one. Leave that one behind.

[Luke Burbank]

I think they literally used all the ip. I think that's the thing. And I think it's a very, very.

[Andrew Walsh]

That was part of the challenge.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know if it was a challenge or them just like, emptying out the. Emptying out the clip on their ip. But, like, it just sort of. I think it was like, again, I've never seen it. I just. I haven't seen even the first one. Don't spoil it. I don't know who wins.

[Andrew Walsh]

Have you seen the website, though, you know, about this whole thing?

[Luke Burbank]

They just updated it, I think.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

How disappointed would you be? But. But, yeah, anyway, I think that there's some crowd shot that they just show all kinds of people. And I think some of the. The Clockwork Orange goons are in there. But my guess, Andrew, they're not original actors. They updated the website site because of.

[Andrew Walsh]

The movie you dirty dogs in 2021. The landing page for you can go to the 1996 site. But if you put spacejam.com into the Internet, which for many of us Famously was a great kind of time capsule of like, 1996 Internet stuff. You would get the 1996 Space Jam website, which have, of course, was the Michael Jordan version. But then when I just went to do that, it splashed me to Space Jam. A new legacy. The 2021 one with LeBron James. Now I have the option of navigating back to the 1996 site or going forward to the new site. But the important thing is this is experiential, Andrew. This is like, it's not the same if you land on a thing of LeBron James. It's not the same as landing on the 1996 site. Totally untouched by. By, you know, time and development and web development.

[Luke Burbank]

Genevieve and I had a laugh in the car the other day because she was describing something. She was describing some TV show and she was like, boy, I wish they would make like an interactive online experience in the personality of this character or something like that. And I was like, oh, kind of like Veep did with splitnet.net or whatever. But then I said, oh, maybe the first thing I said was, oh, you want this TV show to go full Donnie Darko? And she's like, yeah, exactly. And then we took a moment. Why the big pause? I've always had those. We took a moment to be like, are we the only two, like, Gen Xers who are going around just saying to each other, oh, you want to go full Donnie Darko with the website? And it needs no explanation beyond that. Do you remember the Donnie Darko experience? Were you part of this? Was this a big national phenomenon? Or were veeves and I just geekily into this movie?

[Andrew Walsh]

I. Here's the thing. All of the. There were people that were into Donnie Darko. I'm really into it. And they were people who were into different kinds of movies than I was into.

[Luke Burbank]

But do you know. Are you familiar if I say that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Am I familiar with the film Donnie Darko?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not asking if you know the film Donnie Darko. If I say the full Donnie Darko website experience, do you know what I'm talking about? The Danny Darko website? Okay, so it was an early Internet thing that was very, very immersive in a way that, like, you. Worse. I can't even quite remember the details of it. But basically it. It was somewhere between a website in a game and an immersive experience that was incredibly creepy, just like the movie itself was. And it was like nothing that I had ever seen before. And so it's okay. I'm not asking whether you like the movie or don't like the movie? It doesn't matter. I'm just saying that, like, I don't think there are a lot of people who have a shared language of just saying, hey, go full Donnie Darko on that website in 2025. I don't know if that makes any sense to anybody anymore except for people like maybe Genevieve and I. One listener out there right now. And for some reason I'm thinking it might be Brett in the U district. And I don't know why, but that like might know what the hell we're talking about now. I have no idea if that website still exists in its. In its original.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, somebody on Reddit says. Somebody on Reddit said Donnie Darko website is still active and worth a visit.

[Luke Burbank]

Interesting.

[Andrew Walsh]

But then somebody says the archive page of the official website doesn't work anymore. But Rich Holman, a web developer who always loved the website, has made a re upload@donnie darkowebsite.com at the time of WR writing. Is 100 working? And so then I clicked on that obviously. Andrew. Yeah, and I'm on that website and it's. But I can't quite. It doesn't seem. Oh. Oh, maybe it's. I think I may have.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you just enter the.

[Andrew Walsh]

I may be entering the darkoverse.

[Luke Burbank]

Just give me your hand. I'm scared. I'm scared. I don't. Don't let go. I don't want you to slip into the tangent universe.

[Andrew Walsh]

Collapsed 8563 days, 12 hours, 46 minutes and 2 seconds ago. Proceeded. I'm hitting. Proceed. You've been here before. Enter the level one password. I haven't. Otherwise. Proceed here. Oh, again, Andrew, I'd love to get you on this at some point to tell me if this is. If this reminds you or if this is like note for note with the old.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it rings a bell. You saying that I kind of. Because I haven't even seen the movie probably since it came out. I don't even know if I went. Went back and watched it. I saw it in the theater so. But I forgot about that whole like that countdown thing. It's such a creepy vibe. I wonder if I remember being blown away by it. I don't know if I knew what I was going.

[Andrew Walsh]

State of Virginia recommendation for parole. Yes. Comment. After completions of 12 month curriculum. Resident appears to show signs of complete rehabilitation. I'm guessing this is a plot point from the movie Donnie Darko.

[Luke Burbank]

I was gonna say. I don't know if I would still like the movie today. I remember going in, seeing in the theater and, like, walking out and being like, what was that? I mean. And you have, like.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's how I felt. Walking out of space. Jamie.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. And it has. You know, it has Swayze in it as well, who plays, like, an amazing character in it. Was Drew Barrymore in that, too? I was like, I wasn't prepared for anything that I saw. But now, you know, what is it 25 years later, 23 years later, whatever it would be. I don't even know if it holds up or if it was just a product of its time.

[Andrew Walsh]

I. Interesting. I should actually go watch it at some point because it is. Is. It is something that gets referenced a lot. Like the rabbit. You know, whatever's going. I don't know what's going on with the rabbit. I know there's a weird rabbit in it or a person in a rabbit costume or something. Like, there are. It's. It's one of those things that was so big in a certain. Like, there was used to be like, a. Like in. In la, out at the. Is it. Was it at the Lemley or something? One of those kind of artsy movie theaters. They would have, like, a Donnie Darko, you know, midnight movie every Saturday. Like, it was. It was. People watched it a lot and talked about it enough that I should have watched it, at least to know, get the references.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, I don't take this as a recommendation from me, especially for you, because it is a really dark. It is a very dark movie that I think also deals with a lot.

[Andrew Walsh]

Of, like, oh, they didn't name it Donnie Lyto.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, right, exactly. And I don't know that it all would even hold together, like, you know, if you had, like, frustrations with some of the things not seeming to align for you for, like, even severance. I'm guessing that Donnie Darko is not for you. I could be wrong. I'm not trying to put you in a box. I just don't want you to think that I'm recommending this necessarily probably isn't the best fit. But for myself as somebody, like, you know, what movie I totally feel the opposite about now is American Beauty. I remember seeing that in the theater and just being like, this was amazing. And also I remember, like, I was in one of those really great, like, kind of historic theater somewhere in Akron that was like, you know, an old playhouse of some sort with just like, everything was kind of gilded with big Shannon. It was just like such a beautiful historic space. I went there with, like, some colleagues from work and then like a judge for some reason. So I remember just being like a very young, you know, relatively young adult. I was still in college and just being impressed by the whole experience and then seeing this movie that felt like a. It wasn't a movie. It felt like a film to me. Right. And then I tried re watching it, like, I don't know how many years later, and I was like, oh, my God, this movie is so far up its own behind. Like, I did.

[Andrew Walsh]

How much of that is the spacey factor?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, no, it wouldn't. No, this would have been scandal. No.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Scandal. No, it just seemed like so. And again, maybe I'm wrong. If I see it a third time, maybe my expectations are so low that I'll see it again. Yeah, exactly. So I'm not trying to ruin the experience for people who still love that movie. I just remember holding in such high regard.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And then going back maybe 10 years later or something and watching and being like, oh, this is kind of corny. Like.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. At the time, as I also saw it in a theater, and I was very struck by it. And I thought it was the thing. Like one of the first movies that I could remember where an adult life. I was like, this skewer, the sort of. All this skewers, this. This sort of perfect American dream and family that, you know, we're all striving for, but that is really hollow. And this really perfectly kind of like, points out the illusion that is the quote, unquote, American dream of a certain kind of American dream.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. And you know, what it might have been like. And again, maybe I should watch it again and maybe with some different context, but, like, you remember, like, the poetic boy who, like, takes videos of the paper bag just blows in the wind. And like, it seemed profound to me the first time I saw it. And then it seemed like whatever the opposite of profound is the second time I saw it. But now I'm almost wondering, maybe the filmmaker knew that maybe this was. Maybe it was supposed to be cringe, those scenes. I don't really know. I don't.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think so. But I do think there was a funny. Again, this is going to be so unhelpful because I'm missing so many of the details. But by the way, I think that that actor is named Wes Bent. Bentley. Okay, Wes Bentley. And he was on my radar because Camaro, Kev. And. And I and some of our other friends were friends with a guy who was a filmmaker and. And was. Had Lived in a house in LA with that guy. And they had this. Our buddy Kelly and his brother had made a movie that was, like, making the rounds of film festivals. And they knew Wes, and I think Wes was in their movie. And then he was, like, in American Beauty, filming the garbage bag as it, like, caught on a power line or whatever. And so what was funny is that I can't remember if it was one of the Scream movies I saw. There was some. One of these parody movies that parodied the plastic bag getting stuck on the power line.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

For its faux profundity. And I didn't realize how faux the profundity was until I saw somebody making a joke about. And I can't give you the movie, but I just remember seeing something. Maybe it was an SNL sketch. I can't. I remember somewhere seeing someone making fun of a character where a guy is, like, videotaping a garbage bag that's stuck on a power line and made it so intense. And that was the moment I realized, oh, yeah, that was a little. That was a little overly, you know, whatever. Self involved.

[Luke Burbank]

I believe we have a DVD of American Beauty somewhere that is signed by Alan Ball, the writer, because Genevieve met him at some sort of. I don't know if it was a Microsoft.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did he also make Six Feet Under?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I think he's a Six Feet under guy. And I think he wrote. I think he wrote. I don't think he direct. I don't know if he's a director. I don't.

[Andrew Walsh]

Have you watched the autographed DVD to see if it plays different, maybe?

[Luke Burbank]

That's right. Exactly.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was trying to explain. Not explain. I was trying to unpack BJ Lederman for Becca the other day.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, she's a public. I mean, she's a.

[Andrew Walsh]

She's not veteran. Yeah. That's why I need to. I need to take. I need to walk that way back. I was not explaining anything or even unpacking anything. Just the question was, like, how many songs did BJ Literman do for public radio? And we looked it up and it was, you know, it's a lot of the public radio theme songs. But then I was also noting that on the BJ Lederman music site, there was an autograph CD that he was selling of his new original work. None of it, I think, related to public radio. Just music he writes. And it was an autograph CD that was for sale for $50. Had been $150, but now marked down to $50.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was just trying to imagine first of all, I almost bought it for you as a gift. I thought it would have been freaking amazing.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you spend 150 bucks on me?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, it was marked down to 50.

[Luke Burbank]

If you spend 50 bucks on me, I'd still like to choose what that 50 bucks is going to.

[Andrew Walsh]

You would not like a BJ Leaderman. BJ Leaderman. Original music. Autographed original music. I literally was like, I got to figure out the best person to give this to. I will spend $50. Just blow someone's mind with this. But it's got to be the right person.

[Luke Burbank]

Originally, $150, that was always interesting.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then the other thing was there was the non autographed, who was also selling for $50 dollars. It was a very interesting pricing strategy on the website.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, interesting indeed.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. But it made me think also, if you play a. If you play a CD or a dvd, I guess it's probably the packaging is autographed, not the actual disc.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I'm assuming he signed the underside of the disc.

[Andrew Walsh]

Would that. Andrew, now we're getting into compact disc questions. If you were to write on the underside of a compact disc with a Sharpie, do you think it would.

[Luke Burbank]

It would play Donnie Darko. That's how you get to that website. All right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Anyway, all is well that ends well. My eye is actually a lot.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah, that's what we were talking about. It looks like. I know you said earlier, maybe it was before the show, like here on screen. I know you were taping stuff with CBS before we did this today, but like, I would not know at all that anything's going on with your eye look, because you took a photo of yourself of a huge bandage. Half of, literally half of your face or like a third of your face was covered with bandage on Friday.

[Andrew Walsh]

He is a big, my doctor, Dr. Newhart. He's a big proponent of the, the eye patch. And he asked me, he goes. And he literally kept going, yeah, I usually recommend the eye patch. And I was like, okay, we'll let you do the patch. He goes, I mean, did the other guy have you do an eye patch? And I said, no, he didn't. He goes, ah, we do it differently. I don't know. I usually go with the eye patch. Like, that was.

[Luke Burbank]

I can't overstate.

[Andrew Walsh]

That was the guy's vibe. He was like, yeah, I would do the. I do the eye patch. He didn't do the eye patch. I was like, he didn't do the eye patch. I do the eye patch. Okay. And so I did the Eyepatch. But I hope this doctor isn't hearing this. I did. I had to go to. There was a Safeway right next to the Kaiser that I was at. I need to get fixings because my parents were here and I'm walking through that Safeway and boy, did I not realize how much I need both of my eyes for my depth perception. I know that there folks have diminished vision for one reason or another and can kind of like, I guess acclimate. I was not acclimating. I was having, I'm not handling this well. I was having trouble in that grocery store store and I finally got back to. Also, by the way, I was checking out in the grocery store and there was a very helpful young, young person who was bagging the groceries and I was buying some of my, my beloved Athletic Brewing. You know, if you buy. We talked about this before. If you buy non alcoholic beer, they still card you, they still ID you. Which is kind of weird. But I, I've decided that what it is is that the grocery store does not want their employees to be in the business of figuring out what thing that looks like alcohol is or is not alcohol. Like if it's zero proof, if it's low alcohol.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, but why did it. And I think we've come up with an answer to this. I just can't remember. And I think maybe even we got some, some emails from grocers on this because the odd thing for me is I do self checkout and the machine flags it and makes you get carded for it. So in other words, like if it was just up to the employees to see it, but like if the robot.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, tell the bar. Tell them what the barcode is.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, the barcode should just not do it any more than root beer would.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know that' That's a good point. Well, and I also, by the way, I went through the not self check. I went through the human checkout line because I was like, I don't, I can't with one eye manage all this. But anyway, the, the checker asked me for my ID and then I've been walking around the store with this big thing on my eye and I'm feeling self conscious about it. And then I, so I'm like, am I going to get through this grocery trip without addressing this? And of course I didn't. I handed her my ID for the Athletic Brewing and I said it's going to look a little different because I wasn't wearing this eye situation for my driver's license photo. And then the checker kid goes, I wanted to ask about that, but I didn't want to be rude. So I was like, okay, we're all noticing this. I gotcha.

[Luke Burbank]

Where did you make up a story? You're like, ask away. It was.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was in a grand, dark and stormy night. That's right. I said, oh, no. I had. I tried to explain Chala. The thing that I can't even remember the name of, even though I'm now a world expert on having them. But anyway, I explained, oh, there was something on my eye. And then they were like, oh, but your vision is okay? I went, yeah, it's fine. It's just, it's pretty cosmetic. And anyway, then I got out to the car and then I was just like, I don't want to. I can't drive. I'm not going to drive home with this. Like, this is actually whatever good the eye covering is doing for me in terms of maybe infection. I feel like the chances of me crashing into someone else in this car are greater or worse than that. So I took the eye patch off and I literally threw it in the garbage can at the. At the Safeway gas station, filled my car up and headed home and never looked. I've never looked back, Andrew, except for the last 40 minutes.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm curious as to how many listeners during the past, I don't know, five minute conversation have done what I'm doing, which is I close one of their eyes and let's look around the room or the bus or whatever. They're wherever they are as they're listening to this. I feel like there I've been feeling this very instinctual thing to like sort of close one eye and look around.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what? It almost made me. It made me feel, when I was in the store like I was drunk. It made me feel disoriented a little. A little. Kind of with like some sort of like vertigo or whatever. And again, I'm sure that it's something that over time you can adjust to, but I did not have enough time. And I, I felt almost a little bit like not nauseous or nauseated in the store, pushing around or like I, like I had just, I don't know, taken a hit of something.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, some of that also could be that I fairly. Well, some of it could have been the alcohol.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, is that why they kept asking me for my id? Is that why the police kept asking me for my ID because they were trying to trespass me from the same safely?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

But anyway, it's it's good. I think it was the right decision. I think it's back to where we are today. On Monday is. It's as bad as it was on Friday before I had the procedure, which is an improvement because once it heals now from that, I think I'll be. I think I'm going to be a lot better.

[Luke Burbank]

Sounds like he got a lot. I loved hearing that. Y. I loved hearing that.

[Andrew Walsh]

We got each other, and that's a lot for love.

[Luke Burbank]

How's this music sound to you? Pretty good. Pretty normal.

[Andrew Walsh]

Just, like, one ear.

[Luke Burbank]

Just, like, kind of watery. Kind of odd, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I can't explain it. There's something, like, spatial going on.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

It doesn't matter.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right. Thank you for listening, everyone. Thanks for being part of tbtl. It's early for me to start saying that's usually a Friday statement, but today was such a long show. I have to also thank you for being part of this.

[Luke Burbank]

Do we have to do this again tomorrow?

[Andrew Walsh]

Because, I don't know, we. Could we cut this in half into. Could we? Yeah. Could we find, like, a wishbone? This one? And just make. What I'm doing right now. Tomorrow's show. I would take that. I'm fried. I've been up since, like, 4:45am all right, we'll see you tomorrow, everybody. In the meantime, have a great Monday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Luke Burbank]

And good luck to all. Power out.