#4480 Nampa Knowm Howm

Summary

Podcast Summary: TBTL Episode #4480 "Nampa Knowm Howm"

Release Date: June 3, 2025
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh
Title: Nampa Knowm Howm

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Welcome to episode #4480 of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live, where hosts Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh delve into a variety of engaging topics with their signature humor and camaraderie. In this episode, titled "Nampa Knowm Howm," the duo explores significant developments in the podcasting world, reflects on their own long-running show, interacts with dedicated listeners and donors, and reviews intriguing documentaries.

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1. Marc Maron Steps Back from Podcasting

The episode kicks off with a discussion about Marc Maron, a prominent figure in the podcasting community known for his acclaimed WTF Podcast. Luke shares, “Marc Maron has announced that he is winding it down. He is voluntarily stepping away from the podcast microphone. It's big news in the podcast world” (01:39). The hosts explore the implications of Maron's decision, noting the impact on the podcasting landscape and reflecting on Maron's influential career.

Notable Quote:

Luke Burbank [01:39]: “Marc Maron has announced that he is winding it down. He is voluntarily stepping away from the podcast microphone. It's big news in the podcast world.”

2. Call for Listener Submissions: Favorite TBTL Moments

Luke and Andrew invite their listeners, affectionately known as TBTL10s, to contribute their favorite moments from the show. They explain the process for submitting these memories via email, aiming to compile a cherished collection for an upcoming project.

Notable Instructions:

Andrew Walsh [05:58]: “You can email your favorite TBTL moments to [e-mail]. Let them know what your favorite TBTL moment is.”

3. Reflecting on TBTL’s Longevity and Potential Records

A significant portion of the conversation centers on the remarkable duration of TBTL as a daily podcast. Andrew muses, “We may become the longest running podcast in world history” (31:04), highlighting their dedication and the challenges they've overcome. They humorously consider reaching out to Guinness World Records to authenticate their status as potentially the longest-running five-day-a-week podcast.

Notable Quote:

Andrew Walsh [31:04]: “Absolutely. As far as I can tell, I think there will be a point at which we have done more daily podcasts probably, than anybody in the history of the world.”

4. Donor Recognition: Celebrating Johnny Calcagno and Family

The hosts take time to express gratitude towards their generous donors, particularly spotlighting Johnny Calcagno and his family from Philadelphia. They share personal anecdotes about their interactions, emphasizing the crucial support donors provide in sustaining the show.

Notable Recognition:

Luke Burbank [36:57]: “Johnny and the Calcagno family, thank you so much for all your years of support and being part of the show. We really, really do appreciate you.”

5. Exploring Recent Documentaries: Pavement and Paul Reubens

A substantial segment is dedicated to film reviews, where Luke and Andrew dissect two documentaries they recently watched:

a. Pavement Movie Review

Andrew shares his impressions of the Pavement documentary, appreciating its multi-faceted approach that blends documentary elements with satire. He remarks, “It’s really well done… It’s like the into the spider verse of rock and roll mockumentaries” (54:05), praising the filmmaker Alex Ross Perry for juggling multiple narrative threads seamlessly.

Notable Quote:

Andrew Walsh [56:48]: “It’s like, I don’t know how you can handle all four of those things at once and not… It was done so well.”

b. Paul Reubens Documentary Review

The hosts also discuss a documentary on Paul Reubens, the man behind Pee Wee Herman. They delve into the complexities of Reubens' life, his struggles with coming out, and his untimely passing. Luke notes, “He has been privately battling cancer for like, six years, and the filmmakers don't know it” (66:19), highlighting the poignant nature of the film.

Notable Quote:

Luke Burbank [67:04]: “It’s really an interesting dynamic because you kind of see a person who is definitely kind of thinking about, probably thinking about their legacy and their life.”

6. Technology and Podcasting Challenges

Luke and Andrew discuss the technical aspects of running a daily podcast, sharing anecdotes about equipment issues and innovations. Andrew enthusiastically talks about discovering voice commands for his new phone, which streamlined his workflow. They also touch upon the evolving landscape of podcast networks, expressing nostalgia for the earlier days of podcasting and slight sadness over changes in industry dynamics.

Notable Anecdote:

Andrew Walsh [35:06]: “I have a new phone now, Luke. I think I told you that I’m pretty proud. We’re getting along pretty well.”

7. Humorous Ad Read Interaction

In a light-hearted exchange, the hosts attempt to create an advertisement for a listener’s business, Pre Funk Brewing. Their playful banter demonstrates their chemistry and improvisational skills, providing listeners with a moment of levity amidst deeper discussions.

Notable Interaction:

Andrew Walsh [45:25]: “Support for TBTL comes from Pre Funk Brewing. We support everything public radio.”
Luke Burbank [46:27]: “That was your mistake. It needs to be less good.”

8. Closing Thoughts: The Future of TBTL

As the episode wraps up, Luke and Andrew reflect on their journey, express gratitude towards their listeners, and tease future projects. They humorously ponder their place in podcasting history and reaffirm their commitment to continuing the show with the support of their dedicated community.

Notable Closing Remarks:

Luke Burbank [85:03]: “We are gonna continue that record setting pace tomorrow when we come back with more imaginary radio.”
Andrew Walsh [85:19]: “Being a disc jockey is really hard. Way harder than I ever imagined.”

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Highlighted Quotes with Timestamps:

• Luke Burbank [01:39]: "Marc Maron has announced that he is winding it down. He is voluntarily stepping away from the podcast microphone. It's big news in the podcast world."

• Andrew Walsh [31:04]: "I think there will be a point at which we have done more daily podcasts probably, than anybody in the history of the world."

• Luke Burbank [36:57]: "Johnny and the Calcagno family, thank you so much for all your years of support and being part of the show. We really, really do appreciate you."

• Andrew Walsh [56:48]: "It’s like, I don’t know how you can handle all four of those things at once and not… It was done so well."

• Luke Burbank [67:04]: "It’s really an interesting dynamic because you kind of see a person who is definitely kind of thinking about, probably thinking about their legacy and their life."

• Andrew Walsh [35:06]: "I have a new phone now, Luke. I think I told you that I’m pretty proud. We’re getting along pretty well."

• Andrew Walsh [45:25]: "Support for TBTL comes from Pre Funk Brewing. We support everything public radio."

• Luke Burbank [85:03]: "We are gonna continue that record setting pace tomorrow when we come back with more imaginary radio."

• Andrew Walsh [85:19]: "Being a disc jockey is really hard. Way harder than I ever imagined."

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Conclusion

Episode #4480 of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live, "Nampa Knowm Howm," offers listeners a blend of insightful discussions on the state of podcasting, heartfelt acknowledgments of their supportive community, and engaging reviews of contemporary documentaries. Luke and Andrew's authentic conversation provides both entertainment and thoughtful commentary, making it a compelling listen for long-time fans and newcomers alike.

Transcript

[Andrew Walsh]

Hi. Hey. Oh, my God. How's your first red carpet?

[Luke Burbank]

I can't believe they flew you all.

[Andrew Walsh]

The way out here for this.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, hey, hey, hey.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nice to meet you. I'm Chase, dreams manager. Yeah. Now, we met last week.

[Luke Burbank]

We had a full meal together.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, gay brother and girl sister, right? Oh, you guys aren't getting married, are you? Because that would be bad optics for this guy right here. Although love is love is love is love, as Linda Manuel once said. It's Lin Manuel.

[Luke Burbank]

Miranda Lin, man.

[Andrew Walsh]

Who's Linda Manuel then? And why do I represent her? Tbt. She's buying, right? Because I will be ordering a bowl of soup as an appetizer, not a cup. Chuck, I know people say I'll fill up, but you have no idea how my body processes soup. I love pickles. You know, it's my heritage.

[Luke Burbank]

I love a pickle.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's embarrassing and it's gross, but at least it's kind of funny. There you have it.

[Luke Burbank]

A practical example of modern communication. How'd it go?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, he's gonna acknowledge me on Instagram, so guess you could say it was one of the best conversations of my entire life. You know, it's just living truthfully in imaginary circumstances. So if you're out there, come find me.

[Luke Burbank]

All right? Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of TBT all, the show that just might be too beautiful. Too live.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is it too early to get a fish sandwich?

[Luke Burbank]

My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Made it. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Colombia, where it's an absolutely beautiful day, nestled in the early part of a beautiful week of weather. It's going to be sunshine, blue sky.

[Andrew Walsh]

I like to be Tam. It just feels good.

[Luke Burbank]

I stayed up late last night trying to see the aurora borealis. There was a small. A very small chance that it might make its way all the way down here to Southern Washington. I did not see it, but it was a beautiful night nonetheless. We got a beautiful show in store for you today. It's episode 4480 in a collector series. Let the fun begin, if you can believe that. Of course, one of the best known podcasters out there in the world is Marc Maron, who has the WTF Podcast. Yeah, everyone's got a podcast. And now he has announced that he is winding it down. He is voluntarily stepping away from the podcast microphone. It's big news in the podcast world. We'll talk about that. Also, when I wasn't looking out the window for the aurora borealis. Late last night I was watching the Pee Wee Herman as Himself documentary on hbo. You don't want to get mixed up.

[Andrew Walsh]

With a guy like me. I'm a loner, Dottie, a rebel.

[Luke Burbank]

Interesting stuff. I was not like one of those folks who was all that obsessed with the Peewee's Playhouse TV show, but I certainly loved the movie and I learned a lot about Paul Rubins in the doc. We'll talk about that. Also speaking of sort of documentaries, Andrew saw the Pavements movie about the band Pavement. So maybe we'll compare notes on all of that. Speaking of my good friend Dr. Andrew Walsh, the longest running cobro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Sometimes just as a sort of a, a sign of friendship. I'll call him Boom Boom off air. That's one of our, that's my little off air nickname for him. And he is, by the way, joining us right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning. I'm sorry if you heard extraneous noise or the sound of me mimicking you or anything during your intro. I realized at the last minute that my microphone has been open this whole time.

[Luke Burbank]

I didn't hear anything.

[Andrew Walsh]

You didn't hear like when you were doing like it's nice outside the window. I'm like, it's nice outside the window. And I do this thing. Usually my mic is muted, but I just sort of like kind of just very, just toxically sort of imitating subtweeting constantly to myself. It's the way I can get through it.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, no, I didn't, I didn't hear any of that. But I'm sure the listeners will pick up on it that I heard that one.

[Andrew Walsh]

I definitely, I could see that being a bit. That's funny for about five seconds until it really turns. I feel like the six second moment that becomes a real problem on the show.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it also, it reminds me of something we did. I think we might have tried this years and years and years ago when I worked on this public radio satire program called Rewind. I, I think we might have tried some kind of a joke where we did basically a radio crawl. So you know how when you're watching CNN or any of those news channels, there's the crawl, there's the other information visually that's going along the screen. And I think, and this was right about when that started. This would have been, you know, I don't know, a little bit post 9 11, but the sort of 24 hour news cycle was very much in bloom at this point and the crawl felt kind of new. And so we tried to do one where it's like Bill was talking and then somebody else was just whispering things. Different things than what Bill was saying. And I think we did it one time and the management said, please never do that again. It's causing people to drive off the road.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I don't know that this is something that you would put on television today, but I immediately think of the. It must have been the 1970s SNL bit where they had Garrett Morris provide audio for the hearing impaired. And I think it was during Weekend Update and basically just had Garrett Morris just yelling his head off. Just screaming what the people had said just prior to him. Yes, I do remember that.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I mean not. Not watching it in real time, but I remember. Yeah, we would have been seeing that in. In the culture. Hey Andrew, by the way, speaking of things in the culture, we would like the TBTL10s to help us with a project that I can't get into all of the details on because this project is still in development for us. But what we would like to try to accumulate is a list of people's favorite TBTL moments.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, me too.

[Luke Burbank]

And again, for something that we're going to be doing that you'll hear more about as we get closer to the reveal, as it were. But for right now, what we would really like is if you could email us. And I forgot to ask who is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Being emailed to us before emailing these to John. I think he's going to try to coordinate this. So if you get in.

[Luke Burbank]

Tbtlemployeenumera uno.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. And John is spelled with no H. It's j o nbtl.net just let them know what your favorite TBTL moment is. If you happen to know an episode number or date, that would be awesome. I would assume most people don't, but we just wanted to try to. I have something. Do I have audio going on over here? What's going on there?

[Luke Burbank]

Did you that me or is that you?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I think it was me.

[Luke Burbank]

If you are also have a small voice inside your computer that negs you while you talk. That's a real.

[Andrew Walsh]

Something must have happened to the setup of my computer where it just went into Ron Funches from yesterday. This is supposed to stop at the end of a track I use. Okay, listen, we got to get back to this announcement that we're making here.

[Luke Burbank]

This could be a showrunner.

[Andrew Walsh]

But no, I'll look into it. Let me just tell you a little story though, because this is a story that can't wait because it is so boring.

[Luke Burbank]

We don't want to close the loop on the call for submission.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm going to come back to that because I have so much more to say on that. But no, I think we're in okay shape. I just misfired something. But I have basically, I don't have itunes on my computer anymore. Itunes doesn't exist. But as an Apple user, your interface basically still looks sort of like what I think of as itunes from back in the day. But as a PC user I don't have that anymore. But that's still what I use to fire most of my audio. So instead of, I have this open source audio player called Music be and it's one of those things that is, that's free. Again, it's open source, which means people can kind of add to it or whatever. It has so many options and functionalities that you don't even want to mess with it because you have to crawl so deep into the system to like figure out how do I make it stop at the end of a track or whatever. So when I thought that it was just rolling through my entire catalog, I was like, this is going to take me a week to figure out, but it looks like we're okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, imagine me at the Apple Store on Sunday trying to explain to the guy why it is that I need to get all of the audio out of my, you know, whatever you call it, Apple music. And like, and, and like he was like, so is it, you know, is it music that you have, you know, is it music that you bought from Apple? Because that's going to be in the cloud. I'm like, no, it's, it's like one second pieces of audio like this, right? It's like, it's like I really, my whole job relies on me being able to migrate this information to my new computer microwave.

[Andrew Walsh]

Any questions about that? That wasn't straightforward. Oh, you want the slowly backed away? You want the handed me to another genius. But anyway, sorry to distract there, but yeah. So first of all, let's just get down to the details again. You can email your favorite TBTL moments to johnbtl.net I know it was a question in the 10 of the week forum for a long, long time, like what's your favorite TBTL moment? And so you might even have one that's sort of front of mind. But yeah, we wanted to sort of see if we could get kind of a collection of people's favorite T. Again.

[Luke Burbank]

This is for a specific project we're working on. So. Yeah, just so you know, I don't know, we probably should have thought of some incentive, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, I think the incentive is just like helping this podcast be the best podcast it can be. Really. I think.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, these listeners. And the thing is, it's time these listeners finally step up, Andrew, and do something for this show.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. What are the car talk guys always say? Write it on the back of a rookie card of, I don't know, name a famous sports player. Luke, do you remember that? The car guys would always sort of say, like, send in your suggestions, but then put it on that. But write it on the back of something very, very expensive. And then.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I didn't ever pick that up. I also. I never. You know, I didn't. I didn't. Well, you didn't grow up with car talk either. But I didn't really grow up with it. And it was one of those things that I knew was very, very still. It was, you know, when I got into public radio, it was still very big in the world of public radio, but it was kind of on fumes. I think one of the Malayazzi brothers was having health issues, and it was, I think, you know, but it was still a pretty big deal. But it was one of those ones that I kind of listened to, and I found it mildly amusing, but it didn't quite hit for me. I think it's the kind of thing that if you, like, for instance, Becca grew up with, you know, driving around on Saturdays in the Volvo, which I believe they called Black Betty, and there would be, you know, OPB playing, and they'd be listening to the Tapit brothers. And it's very associated with childhood and your parents and things like that. I didn't have that kind of bonding experience with it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I. I didn't know about it until college, so I guess I was older then. But I. Relative to where I am now in life, I seem. Seem like a kid and so young, and I actually do have. Even though it was later in life for me than driving around in a family car, I do associate it with, like, bonding. I remember me and my dad kind of fell in love with it. At the same time, my. You know, I kind of got into public radio. I started working on public radio. Then I told my dad. It was like, I remember coming home from college one weekend and spending the weekend with my parents, and they had these, like, so much decks on the back of it. Like wooden deckage, like two layers of decks on the back of this suburban house they had. And we. And I spent a whole weekend at their house, like waterproofing that and staining it with my dad. And we would just dial in like the entire Saturday morning. It was like, what do you know? With Michael Feldman. Yeah, two hours of that stuff. You had Prairie Home, which was like two hours. You had.

[Luke Burbank]

Love it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Car talk, I think, think this American Life, although that was a little bit harder to kind of chat over, you know, but like, those types of weekend programming, I just have very, very fond memories. In fact, my dad sent me a photo yesterday. He must have been going through old stuff. He found the station I worked for back in the day was called wksu, and he just found an actual member card. He was a WKSU member that expired in the year 2000. He said, oh, I'm behind on my dues. We should give, you know what cards.

[Luke Burbank]

I say that I didn't grow up in a public radio household, and I. Because I kind of didn't. But I do remember for some reason, our whole family gathering out and listening to the Prairie Home Companion joke show.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, they used to have one.

[Luke Burbank]

Episode, one episode a year that was just rapid fire jokes. You know, like you said, there was knock, knock jokes. There was, I mean, a bunch of different kind of genres of jokes, but it was just all jokes, the whole show. And I have this specific memory of, like, being in the kitchen of our little rental house on 77th and like listening to it with my parents and like, laughing and thinking, this is really good. So there must have been a little bit of public radio that was making its way into the home environment. But. But it was, it was not so much car talk focused. Speaking of, of broadcast legacies, Andrew, let's talk about this Marc Maron thing. I was quite shocked yesterday to see a post from, from Mark saying that he and Brendan, who's been his longtime producer of the WTF podcast, that they have decided that they're gonna wind it down, they're gonna stop doing the WTF show. I think he said probably sometime in like, August is when it' end, but they'll be doing shows until then. They probably got some in the can. But this had me feeling a whole kind of way because as I. I texted this to you yesterday. First of all, I texted Marin. I said, phenomenal run. He said, thank you very much. That's good. I'm getting responses from him again.

[Andrew Walsh]

There was a period for him too.

[Luke Burbank]

There was a period of time I wasn't getting. But you know, it was actually very, it was very sad age because. Let's see, I'll do this. Why not? I sent him, I said, hey, it's, it's Luke Burbank. I remember you sitting in my house doing my podcast, thinking about starting your own podcast. Congrats on a phenomenal run. He said, thanks a lot, man. Like the previous, the previous message was me trying to get him on Livewire. And then the, and then the previous message of that is me trying to get him on Livewire.

[Andrew Walsh]

And were there any responses to those? And how far back do they go?

[Luke Burbank]

One is from 2019 and the other is from 2017. Hey, it's Luke Burbank from Seattle Portland NPR Radio. By the way, lying. We're never on npr, but sometimes I just feel like it sounds better like just watched. I know something about Lynn Shelton who was alive at the time, who was his partner and trying to get him to do PR for some kind of a book thing. He did put me in touch with the person that was doing the PR for the book. But basically, like there's some of these kind of well known people that I had a very, very casual sort of knowing of association with. And then I hit them up so many times to try to get them on various productions that then they just stopped responding. So I'm glad. Mayor, I was tempted to say, hey, do you want to jump on TV TL to talk about it?

[Andrew Walsh]

But I didn't.

[Luke Burbank]

I literally, because I was like, well, we're talking again. But I was like, no, this can't be where every time he gets a message from me, it's me trying to weasel him onto one of my shows.

[Andrew Walsh]

So especially, I mean, I'm glad he responded because it's kind of, we were talking about this with birthday messages the other day. Like, I don't, you know, you can text somebody on their birthday, but like don't expect a response because that's the day they're hearing from everybody in their, like people they worked with 10 years ago or whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

Probably getting a text from Obama.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. Like, no shit.

[Luke Burbank]

Like honestly, I mean, and that's the thing about that. So the, the reason that this more than other podcasts that I can think of really kind of hits me is because, you know, we, we had Marin on, we used to have him on TBT kind of semi regularly. I mean, I think he was on our LA show, our live show we did at the Troubadour. He was, it was in. Were you there when he was in my house, were we doing the show together?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think I've ever met him.

[Luke Burbank]

But he was, you know, over at my house when we were. When the show was being held up by a stick. And because he was kind of in this. And I think he would say this too. So it's. It's not. I'm not talking out of school, but he was sort of in a bit of a career like his. He wasn't sure where his career was going. He had done Air America Radio that had kind of folded, and then it was kind of like he was doing standup, but it was kind of looking for his next thing. And this very nascent broadcast format of podcasting was going on. And I remember he was doing tbtl and he said, yeah, I'm thinking about starting a podcast. And then I remember he had called up Jesse Thorne from the Sound of Young America Now Bullseye. And I think Jesse had gone over to his house to, like, help him set up his mics, and then we would have him on tbt. I remember one time he told me he was really excited because he was getting free coffee. This is Marin. He was like, yeah, they're giving me free. Somebody's just mailing me coffee. By the way, shout out to broadcast coffee. We've. We've 17 years in. We finally achieved what Mark Maron was doing one month in. Yeah, but, like, I mean, I remember thinking kind of like, oh, they're there because we're getting, like, at that point, we're actually getting some ad money from Chateau Sam Michelle and. And who knows, you know, some other entities and stuff. So I felt like, boy, things are kind of cooking for tbtl. And Marin is. This is this guy who's much more well known than us, but. And me. But he's, you know, he's. He's working for coffee beans. And then six months later, it's like the COVID of the New York Times entertainment section. The greatest podcast of all time is the WTF Podcast with Marc Maron. And so I've always just had. And I've been a listener to the show for years, you know, kind of off and on. But I guess this is why I'm feeling particularly something about this today. It's because we have now observed the entire life cycle of someone else's podcast that is a hit podcast.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, the number one podcast in America at times, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Yeah. And maybe still, I don't know. I don't check those. Ever since we fell out of the top 100. I've stopped checking the rankings.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I mean, if you were to just stop somebody in the street and say, name a podcast, you know, there. I actually don't want to play this game because I couldn't think of a famous sports player before. But. But I don't even know if you call them sports players.

[Luke Burbank]

And I have some sports player cards.

[Andrew Walsh]

But if you'd like, you know, but like, what floats to the top, you know, Rogan. And then people will still cite serial because it was sort of like, it's what kind of made podcasting mainstream in some ways. There are ones that are, you know, been around a lot longer and successful. Like, you know, like my Scott Aukerman podcast, Network Comedy Bang Bang and all of those. But, like, honestly, if you just stop something like Marin is going to be the top of the list yet. It's funny for you to, you know, kind of count these stories because back when. And I remember, I think you and I knew each other around this time. Like, I was vaguely aware of, like, you having Marin on the show or almost like Marin being in a position. I. You wouldn't say this, but in a certain way relying on you more than you were relying on him at that.

[Luke Burbank]

Stage at that moment.

[Andrew Walsh]

But this is a man that I knew from being literally a child and seeing him on two drink minimum and.

[Luke Burbank]

Like doctor Standing in front of various brick walls.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. And doctor Cats and like, all these, you know, these kind of al. Comedy things from the 90s before we called it alt comedy, you know, and it's kind of like, oh, he's going to start a podcast. But it was like, well, you've already. You've already reached the heights of fame. You've. You've, you know, you've been on Squiggle Vision. Like, you've been on Dr. Katz.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, I'm still waiting for that call.

[Andrew Walsh]

What are you going to do after that? You know?

[Luke Burbank]

Right. But just to, like, to watch this thing go from an idea in this guy's head that he's casually talking about with me off air to. It gets started to. It becomes like a massive cultural thing. Like, again, you know, you've got Barack Obama going on. I mean, pretty much anybody who's. Anybody who was out doing a tour, a press tour of any kind, if they could get on wtf, they would. It was. I mean, it reaches so many people. I mean, it's such a runaway hit. And then to watch it just kind of like flourish, and then eventually for him to be like, yeah, okay, we've and by the way, this is. He is so going out on his own terms. This is not because they're. They're struggling to figure out, you know, how to make the finances work. This is just because, as he said in his message, the finances worked and.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now he can retire.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, there's that. I mean, the other thing too, that's part of it is, is that I think because of. I think a couple of things kind of happened sort of concurrently, but I think somewhat related, which was this podcast really took off for him and then the rest of his career kind of re. Energized. Suddenly he's acting in a lot of things. I mean, Mark's actually a really good actor and he starts, you know, getting cast in like that TV show Glow, and he's in a bunch of movies and like, he starts, you know, just his acting career really kind of took off. And so I think that this is basically like he no longer needs to be doing a podcast two days a week, you know, for his professional life, because he's. The rest of his professional life is thriving so much. And so he's, you know, he's moving on from this, but again, to just. Because everything ultimately relates back to us, Andrew. This idea that we watch this thing get born, live a full, rich life, and now it's gonna cross that rainbow bridge and we're still here doing this shit. It's like, I don't. I mean, I don't understand any of that. I don't understand how, how we're still doing this. At some point, we may become the longest running podcast in world history.

[Andrew Walsh]

I would. We do have to knock Aukerman off of that, right? I think you guys both.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, how about five days a week?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, certainly number wise, because that was the thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Marin was like, we've been doing this Tuesday and Thursday for 17 years. And I was like, talk to me when you're doing it Monday through Friday.

[Andrew Walsh]

I will say, and I mean in, in defense of that. And you know this because you used to book people for tbt. It is easier to do a daily podcast when you don't have to book somebody every day, you know, or talk.

[Luke Burbank]

About interesting things or talk or talk.

[Andrew Walsh]

About anything that the art or care about the audience's experience. Honestly, I'm going to say something here that sounds a little bit catty and this is the wrong time to bring this up because I'm really not trying to gloat here, but as you were talking about Marin and how he's acting more, it reminded me that he did have maybe the first TV show that was based on his podcast. Remember, his podcast got really famous, and then he got a TV show called Marin on IFC that I actually thought.

[Luke Burbank]

That was pretty good.

[Andrew Walsh]

I never saw it, but I was thinking about it because I was going through some audio before the show, and I realized a bunch of it is from. It's not actually Marin talking. It's people about talking. It's just drops I took from that pod from that TV show because it was about a podcast. And it's like, I remember, you know, you would talk about how kind of some relatively close brushes to having some interest in creating a. Maybe a TBTL TV show back when there was a little bit more. More fire in that direction. And. And I'm thinking about this is going to be so rude to people that we've known and worked with. But, like, maybe that Marin show was good on ifc, but I don't think it was. I don't think it lasted very long. And it's kind of like there is a problem with trying to make a TV show about podcasts. I just don't think it works. Unless somebody wants to make one about us, in which case I think it's a great idea and you should get at it.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Walsh]

But it's kind of like you had that one and then remember the Gimlet one? Remember they got the guy from Scrubs. I should know his name. And I'm blanking on it.

[Luke Burbank]

Zach Braff. Zach Braff, where he basically plays Alex.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, Zach Braff played Alex Bloomberg for, like, the Gimlet Show. And then, of course, I mean, who could start it? That's right. The show is called Startup. And who could forget. Who could forget God liked Me or. What was that one?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah, My podcast is on life support.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I have drops from that podcast. It was about a kid who was the son of a preacher who was trying to start a podcast. God save my podcaster. Here comes me. It's Millennial podcast, actually.

[Luke Burbank]

That's from like a Dayline NBC, but it's like. Like it's God.

[Andrew Walsh]

God friended.

[Luke Burbank]

How's it all going? You asking me about my podcast?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Still trying to figure it out. So that was the show where a guy has a direct line to God and he also has a podcast and.

[Andrew Walsh]

He'S starting a podcast. I think he's. I think he's the son of a preacher. Here's what I think I know about the show. He's the son of a preacher of some sort. I don't know. Priest, preacher, I'm not sure. And then he though, starts to question his own faith. The son does. And so he starts a podcast about maybe atheism or just sort of maybe about faith and exploration of figuring out if he should believe in God or not. But then in doing so, he believes he becomes friends with God on Facebook, I think, and that's why it's called God. Friend befriended me.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I think you and I are in a, in, in a mood around all this day because this is coming at the same time that our old pals at APM are friends from the brains on and Smash. Boom. Best and, and that universe. That show seems like it's in a bit of flux because APM is, is, is not going to be running it anymore. They're looking to sell the show and, and we're hoping that everybody gets rehired in whatever new version of that show that comes around. But like, you know, I think when you're talking about trying to make TV shows out of podcasts or whatever, I think we felt like there was a period of time at apm, American Public Media. This is where we used to work for any new listeners we just picked up today where they were trying to kind of run it, like a TV studio or something. And like this, I think what sounds like what I'm hearing you say, Andrew, is like, leave the podcasting to us ugly people and let us just operate in relative anonymity. Don't try to make TV shows about us. And also don't try to make it into a TV show. Let us be in our mom's basement doing this thing we've been doing for 17 years.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I just think that there's something like, I don't know, WKRP in Cincinnati is a great show. It's a classic show. It was about radio. Like, somehow that worked for some reason, like trying to like just like podcasting became such a buzzword for so long before it just settled into just another technology, you know what I mean? We don't get excited about streaming services. Nobody's making TV shows about starting a new streaming service. You know what I mean? It's just a new technology that has sort of like kind of shifted the way we consume our media. And I've always seen podcasting is that way as well. And I'm not saying that there aren't interesting podcasts or that we need to like kind of stay in our parents basements or whatever. We can be loud and we can be proud as podcasters, Luke. But like I let your podcast flag fly, I say, but, like, this idea of everybody just somehow, like, something happened. And, like, you know, I want to be careful about the way I talk about our time at apm too. But, like, what we're seeing today is not just the sad news about, you know, kind of this situation that's in flux with brains on and all of our old colleagues there who, you know, many of whom I hold dear and I'm worried about. But we're basically seeing the end of the podcast network that hired us way back in 2015. Back then, it was called Infinite Guest.

[Luke Burbank]

It went through, and as I mentioned to you before, the show, turns out it is finite.

[Andrew Walsh]

Turns out it was finite. Guess and, you know, eventually settled into something called APM Studios, which I think is. Makes much more branding sense, certainly. But during our time there, we just saw it going from, hey, we're trying to, like, kind of put our, you know, we're a radio company, essentially a media company, but we know that podcasting is kind of where people are turning for their content. So we want to kind of, like, put our arms around that a little bit. Like, that makes total sense. Start a little network, right? But then as the more we were there, we just sort of saw the creative, a lot of the original creatives kind of leave and more and more just like TV executives come in. And then the TV executives wanted to hire their TV executives and the TV executives wanted to hire their. Like, do you mean when they were.

[Luke Burbank]

Going to the podcasting up front and.

[Andrew Walsh]

Going to the upfronts and strategically.

[Luke Burbank]

A mistake, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, maybe they're still doing well with the upfronts, I don't know. But it just became like this. Everybody just got dollar signs in their eyes and just saw the word Podcasting for some reason became in their. And wrongfully synonymous with just like the next new gold rush, sort of. And obviously that wasn't sustainable. And it really does bum me out about decisions that were made along the way when people didn't sort of realize, like, people weren't like, oh, there's a new morning radio show on Cairo. Like, that's exciting for a local market. When that happens, you look for some new advertising. You get some marketing around that. But there was something that happened. People. I'm going to say it, Luke. People lost their goddamn minds over podcasting, you know what I mean? And, like, and I think that that led to a lot people eventually being hung out to dry because of a sort of a bloated approach to what the idea of a Network was. And it really bums me out. And today, aside from the Marin thing, which I have zero connection to, and you have a wistful kind of recollection of today we are seeing essentially. And I have no insider information about this, by the way. I want to make that very clear. Just based on the two short articles I read about it. Sounds like APM Studios no longer exists. It's now just going to be under American Public Media again and it's going to be two podcasts. One is the Splendid Table, which is a radio show. You know, it's a radio show that's also a podcast. That's how I started listening to tbtl. Like, no shame there. TBT was a radio show that had a podcast and that's how I listen to it. But like it's that and the Slowdown, which is a great podcast, you know, that's centered around poetry that I love. But I believe that that is a special project that it's probably grant funded and, and that's it. And so. And now they're just APM now and.

[Luke Burbank]

Basically the, you know, just remembering the original podcast game. In other words, they'll, they'll, they'll take stuff that exists on the radio. There'll be plenty of like Marketplace.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Things that they then play as a podcast and offer as a podcast. But as far as like making original stuff that is only exists as a podcast, that seems like those days are kind of over.

[Andrew Walsh]

And the whole structure internally of just like having. Who do you work for? I work for APM Studios. It just doesn't exist, I don't think, or will exist anymore. And so anyway, it's just sort of a wistful day for me too, when I think about all of that, when I think back to 2015 and where you and I were. I will say this though, it's a wistful day as I think about this stuff broadly. But I think the obvious thing here, maybe even as we get close to thanking our dazzling donors for the day, it makes me so, so, so thankful for where we are and the listeners who stuck with us.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, that's the thing. And not to like, not to sprain my arm patting us on the back. Really I should be patting the listeners on the back. Although some of the listeners have asked me to stop patting them on the back. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Because it became kind of circular rubs.

[Luke Burbank]

I'll ask, I'll get consent next time at a fan meetup as far as what the back padding situation is. But like, yeah, I, I keep Going back to this. But, like, when I was buying this, I was getting a new computer this weekend because my old one bit the dust. And I was. You know, it was. There was no way for me to not mention to the person who was selling me the computer that I do a podcast because there's just no way to get into what my needs were for it. I would rather. Generally, this is also why you could say the growth of TBT may have plateaued because you. And I would rather die than tell someone in public that we're doing a podcast. But it was unavoidable in this case. And then you get into explaining, like, how long we've been doing it. And I said, I think we've been doing it for, like, 17 years. He goes, was that, like, before podcasting even existed? I go, pretty close. Pretty close to it. But, like, when you look around and you see so many talented people who are kind of struggling to figure out how to make the finances of this stuff work. The. The fact that we're just here still doing it, and it is actually. It kind of maths out for now anyway. Of course, just. This is because of the donors.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

It's crazy to me. And, like, I was kind of. I was sort of joking, but not joking. Like, they're. They're. As far as I can tell, I think there will be a point at which we have done more daily podcasts probably, than anybody in the history of the world. Don't you think? Like, as far as something that's not a radio show, that's being, you know, in other words, Monday through Friday, doing an original show that only exists digitally. You know, I. We would. I feel like we have to. I don't know of anybody else who's been doing this. There was that Keith and the girl thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's the only one I'm thinking about. There's that there. That's still going, right? There is some other things.

[Luke Burbank]

So every time we have this conversation, I go to their website and I see that they're still doing it, but I don't know if they do five days a week. I mean, there are podcasts that do five days a week now, but I don't know if there's any podcasts that have been doing five days a week since, like, 2000.

[Andrew Walsh]

If.

[Luke Burbank]

Even if we. Even if we say that this didn't really start until we got fired from Cairo and we're doing it from my house, but even if you go, that's like 2009 or something. It's like It's a long, long time ago.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I can tell you they are on Keith and the girl is on episode 3950 15. And we are on 4 Thought. We're getting close to 5,000 now, right? Yeah, we're getting close to 5,000.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, that would be pretty crazy if at some point it's verified or it's. It's. It can be sort of proven that we are. I wonder, should we reach out to Guinness? Should we try to get. Would that be a good promotional opportunity for the show? The longest running daily podcast, the Guinness Book of World Records longest running five day a week podcast.

[Andrew Walsh]

God. Remember we read that real. Was it a Texas monthly piece or something? A really interesting deep dive on how the Guinness Book works. And that guy who goes around and he kind of like, he seemed like.

[Luke Burbank]

Verification is pretty intense.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's intense. But also I remember really liking the verifying guy that that actually is not the worst idea in the world. Also, when you consider all the bonus stuff we did too, like the Game of Thrones recaps and all the sports recaps, those aren't even included in our numbering system. Like the files that we have in our system go up to probably over 6,000 now, I would guess.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, childhood dream unlocked for me if we got in the Guinness Book of World Records. I know that that was my main read. That and Archie Double Digest were my main reading materials. You know what, for a certain period.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm stop clipping my nails right now too. Just as a backup plan.

[Luke Burbank]

Good. Yes, excellent. You're already into photography, which is good because I believe the guy who had the world's longest nails when I was a kid, the whole thing on him was he was also a photographer.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, and how did he click the shutter?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that was, that was the like the big question I remember. And I feel like he kept. He had to keep his super long fingernails in some kind of a. Like a velvet kind of sleeve that he would pull over them because otherwise they'd get caught on everything.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what I learned. By the way, I have a new phone now, Luke. I think I told you that I'm pretty proud. We're getting along pretty well. But I. And this just goes to show you. And this gives us hope too, in our friendship and relationship. In the waning days of my old phone, I for. For another upcoming TBTL project that I'll we can tell people about later. Related to the thon you and I had to take in our own respective studios. Had to take some Photos of ourselves. Right. And usually if I was going to take a photo of myself, I would set up my phone and put it on a little timer, right? You could hit the shutter and then step back and like wait five seconds and then pose and you know, classic, classic shutter timer stuff. But as I was like, doing this, I knew that I was going to have to do a whole bunch of takes and I realized my phone did something. And this is in the last, like, probably couple of weeks of me owning this thing that I'd had for years and years. I realized there was a voice command. This was such a game changer. Do you know this about your phone or does your phone have this? If you are doing a photo shoot by yourself, there's some voice command. I don't know what it is, and I don't want to make other people's phones start taking photos, but let's just say it was like, okay, shoot now. And I was just like, okay, shoot now. And I changed position. Okay, shoot now. Okay, shoot. Whatever the trigger word was. Yes. And I was just like. I was able to, like, just stand there and I just kind of kept. And then I could walk over, see how it looks or whatever. But it was so amazing.

[Luke Burbank]

That makes so much sense.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, Luke. It was a game changer, my boy.

[Luke Burbank]

My boudoir photos are going to really level up with this. Got my feather boa, I've got my soft lighting, and now I've got my voice command.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Because I like. And I'm going to ask you, I really like your boudoir photos, but you could always see that they were selfies. Your one arm was always.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Or I'm kind of like a weird. I didn't know the camera was going to go off. I'm kind of caught a little bit. A little bit by surprise.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, exactly. Which there's a sexiness to that too.

[Luke Burbank]

There is. I consider them candids. But this is a. This is a game changer. We was hoping for some razzle dazzle.

[Andrew Walsh]

Razzle dazzle.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right, man. Razzle dazzle. On your mark. On your mark.

[Andrew Walsh]

Get set, get set now. Ready? Ready, Go. EVERYBODY RATTLES Dazzle.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. Speaking of TBTL's truly unique business model, which has somehow allowed us to do this for all these years and episodes. We gotta thank some of those dazzling donors. Folks are voluntarily donating a dazzling amount of dough each month. And that is. That's how this all works. This is 100% listener supported podcasting, thanks to folks like Johnny Calcagno.

[Andrew Walsh]

Johnny Wait long time ride or die.

[Luke Burbank]

Wait in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did we know about this and forget?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, goldfish possibly, but no. Okay, I, this is, I mean, I. Listen, we know this family well. It's Johnny, Karen and Riley. Riley of the music making. I know these folks lived in Seattle because I, for a period of time I knew where Riley went to school. And also I remember them being behind my car once in the morning when I think I was driving into Cairo and I looked in my rearview mirror and there was the Calcagno family and.

[Andrew Walsh]

They visited us in your old studio, of course.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. So this Philadelphia thing seems like a big development.

[Andrew Walsh]

It does.

[Luke Burbank]

Are we, Is, is this what's happening? Are we all moving to Philadelphia, Andrew?

[Andrew Walsh]

I think so. It does sort of seem like it is drawing us.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a beautiful city, it's got great people. I think it's got a reasonable cost of living. This could be, you know, this could be where eventually all things TBTL end up locating. Johnny says. In addition to being a relaxing and funny alternative to the terrible news of the world, Luke and Andrew do a great job of being on the right side of issues dear to our hearts. Some highlights. Our vegan and vegetarian family loves Luke's compassion for animals, even as he talks about the complexity of the issue for many people. We also so appreciate Andrew's support of Seattle's unhoused community and his annoyance with some of the NIMBY spirit all too present in the city. Both Luke and Andrew channel our trauma about the current political crisis in America as well as our desire to not wallow in it full time. Thank you, dummies. I want to mention, Andrew, that because of this new computer that I got, this shouldn't. Seems like it shouldn't be related to the hardware of the computer, but I guess I'm on a newer operating system on this is my, my smaller portable computer that I take to places when I'm doing the show from the road. The email function on that has some sort of. It's preset with basically an AI summary of the email and I don't know how to turn it off yet so it's just on there And I sent this to you yesterday. I had the summary of Johnny's message was basically Luke loves animals, Andrew stands up for unhoused people. And then it was a reference to our next dazzling donor. Something about them and beer and I think you said, yeah, this checks out.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't have it in front of me right now. I was going to try to read it, but also so For a very hot minute, Google switched over to creating at the very tops of emails these summaries of the email. Which was so annoying because like I read a lot of newsletters and I received my own newsletter and then it summarized it and of course the newsletter is all over the place. It has a ten of the week, it has music suggestions and there is no coherent full theme throughout the whole newsletter that is broken down into segments. But AI, oh, AI will never stop trying to just. I'm getting so irritated with everything. Just they're just, I'm not saying that as a tool it doesn't help some functions, but they're trying so desperately to. For I have this new phone and every single thing I do, it's like, well, don't you want AI to do that? AI can help with that. I'm just like, I don't need to help with this. You're just trying and it's just so annoying. Although it is comical to see my newsletters tried to be summarized by AI.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I, I think I'm going to turn it off. I don't know. I mean it's also like, does it really save me that much time versus just clicking on the email to see what the content of the email is? Yeah. Johnny says 2024 was a year of personal losses for us, but we're working to stay positive. Riley and music partner Viv toured nearly non stop, but made time for their new role as artistic directors of Port Townsend's Fiddle Tunes Festival.

[Andrew Walsh]

Heck yeah. Nice.

[Luke Burbank]

Riley and Viv, by the way, making great music. Yeah, we've played it on the show before. In April, they'll travel to England to record with Big Thief producer Dom Monks.

[Andrew Walsh]

What Big Thief? I saw coming out with a new double disc this week.

[Luke Burbank]

I, I feel like I want to live inside of a Big Thief song. Although emotionally I don't know if I could sustain it. Yeah, there is just like, there's something about that music, particularly the music of Adrian Lenker. But I'll loop the whole band in there and just say that it's like it just does something to me. Which is a good thing because I'm feeling my feelings in a really intense way when I listen. But then sometimes it's almost like too much. So that'd be my advice to Viv and Riley. When you're working with a Big Thief producer is bring, you know, get the music to an emotional level where people will feel intensely but not so much that we're just walking around sobbing in like Longview, Washington like a Bike horn.

[Andrew Walsh]

Every now and then. Right? Just like in the middle.

[Luke Burbank]

Like a squirrel.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Just a little squirrel. What do they call this, anyway? Call. Yeah. Anyway, Johnny and the Calcagno family, thank you so much for all your years of support and being part of the show. We really, really do appreciate you. Maestro, on your mark.

[Andrew Walsh]

On your mark. Get set, get set now. Ready? Ready.

[Luke Burbank]

Go. Everybody rattles hey, look who is. It's Ryan Driscoll in Nampa, Idaho.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nice. Hi, Ryan.

[Luke Burbank]

What up, Ryan? Ryan says so happy to dazzle. TBTL another year as my business Pre Funk Beer Bar is the source of the dazzling dough. I have a little plug. I wrote something six years ago when we were in the midst of a podcast. Boom. Hey, hey. That's. That's kind of interesting. Like, it feels like all the conversation already on the show today kind of leads up to this. I wrote a little something six years ago for our local NPR affiliate that they politely declined. I spent way too much time on it not to do something with it. So would one of you read this ad in your best NPR underwriter voice? The references are dated, but if you've spent as much time with Roman Mars as I have, it will make total sense. Thank you, tbtl, for everything. What you do is so important. So let me see if I'm understanding this. Ryan, who's got Pre Funk Beer Bar there in Nampa, Idaho, I guess was was writing this as an underwriting message that was going to be read on the local public radio station, and they turned it down.

[Andrew Walsh]

Looking ahead, I think I understand why.

[Luke Burbank]

I guess because it does name check.

[Andrew Walsh]

A bunch of a lot of references.

[Luke Burbank]

To names and products. It's kind of a meta joke about public radio and also podcast underwriting, I guess.

[Andrew Walsh]

Also, I'm interested. I don't know if NPR has changed the rules about this. I don't listen to as much NPR these days. But there was a time where the voiceover, whoever's reading it, whether it's like kind of a unnamed voiceover person or an actual, like, host read, they used to not say it in first person. So I'm not like, in this one, it said, you know, like, it says, we support public radio or whatever. I think you'd have to say they support public radio. Right? Is that still the thing? Like, you couldn't say, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

You can't say, we come from Jiffy Jiffy Lube, we believe your car should be lubed. Is that still what they say?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, that is.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's such a weird catchphrase. I think it would be. They believe your car should be lubed.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm trying to find AI voice generator. I'm trying to see if public radio voice. If public radio voice is a thing that I could, like, find somewhere to put this together for Ryan or. I mean, do you want to take a shot of this? Do you want me to.

[Andrew Walsh]

I am. I'm happy to. Let me give it a shot. It's kind of a cold read here. So have you. So we've already read everything up until this. So what Ryan wants us to do is to do a. To do an ad read on this. Okay. So I'm just sort of reading the real public radio.

[Luke Burbank]

Real public. And all the way down to. I think just starting with At Pre Funk. And I think all the way down to the end of the text is the thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. All the way down. I'm going to try that. I'm kind of reading this cold, by the way, so I have to kind of figure it out. Okay. So. And I need to get into it by saying support from TBTL comes from. Or support from.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, did you know that they're. They're considering. This will put you in a public radio mood. CBS might want me to do a profile of Larry Mantle, who's about to be on his 40th anniversary.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, that's really interesting because I love that idea. I'm a little surprised. Do people outside of the LA market know Larry Mantle? This is your opportunity to introduce them. Maybe.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's what I'm hoping it would be. If it happens. It'd be produced by my friend Jay Kernis, who is a longtime public radio person who now works at CBS Sunday Morning. And so I'm only mentioning that to kind of put you in a sort of a kpcc. Oh, you mean la. Oh, I'm sorry.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's easier to remember a public radio station if it's called laist.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, definitely.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I mean, another example of hiring.

[Luke Burbank]

The numbers really reflect that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

God. Well, you know what I have to say about that? No, but I'm trying to put you in, like, a Michael Silver black kind of a like.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's a different voice altogether. We're not.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Okay, well, you choose. You choose whichever one you want.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Support for TBTL comes from Pre Funk Brewing. At Pre Funk, we support everything public radio. Am I being too chipper? Do I need to, like, bring it down a bit? Do I need to be more.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I like what you're doing with.

[Andrew Walsh]

It, but I'm realizing.

[Luke Burbank]

Nice.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is a Good read.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, this would be Ryan actually getting his money's worth. But I do think you might want to dial. I think dial up the boredom. Dial down the. Because you're. You're. You've still got, like.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think I was relying Good. I was trying to make it good.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that was your mistake. You're actually making it good. It needs to be less good.

[Andrew Walsh]

Support for TBTL comes from Pre Funk Brewing. Brewing Brewery. I'm making this part up. It's not in the copy. Support for NPR comes from Pre Funk Brewing. We support everything. Public radio. We would take our rockets, mortgage it, and put on our blue apron before someone can make a quip about meundies. To make things happen, we need zip recruiting, our friend Harry's Razor Thin Cold Cuts and Casper Mattress to make the party bombas. We also specialize in beer. And when you need to pull an audible, our location in downtown Nampa is perfect if you are in need of a square space.

[Luke Burbank]

Nice. Very nice.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not great. I'm.

[Luke Burbank]

No, I thought it was great.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm hot. I'm. I can't. I don't mean I'm sexy. I mean, like, I'm blushing.

[Luke Burbank]

I know. I think it was really good. I liked how many of the product names were broken up because there was a sentence return.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's a tough read. Can I get a bit of a tough read? A little bit. Cool.

[Luke Burbank]

Because what Ryan is doing is. Is wedging in the millions of things you hear advertised on podcasts and on public radio and turning them into a sentence. But, like, in a way, that's a little non traditional.

[Andrew Walsh]

The problem, Luke, is I can't break character now. And this is how. Oh, God. That brings us to pavements. We got to talk about pavements at some point. Yeah. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, listen, Ryan, thank you very much, everybody. If you're in Nampa, Idaho, or anywhere near Nampa for real, we call it Nampa know how. And actually, by the way, Andrew, I just want to tell you, there was a show title.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I think. I think it might have been yesterday. I almost texted it to you because I thought it was so funny. I thought of it after the fact. And I know I'm smelling my own jokes here, but was it I bleach for you?

[Luke Burbank]

No, but that is also really fun. It's. What about bauble? Oh, yeah, that's really funny. That is seriously funny. I didn't even realize that until I was looking for something else and I was like, oh, this is really good. So if you're in Nampa, Idaho or anywhere near it. Head on over to Pre Funk Beer Bar and say hi to Ryan and tell them that TBTL sent you. And Ryan, thank you so much for the support. We really do appreciate you. Hello and welcome to Top Story. Hey, let's talk about this Pavements movie that you went to see. This is the when I first heard about it, I thought it was a documentary, but then when I read more into it, it seems like it's kind of a and part documentary, part art film, part who knows what. What what did you think of this whole thing?

[Andrew Walsh]

Luke? Let me quote one of my favorite artists when I say it is both. It is both. I so I did go see this movie on Sunday because I think it has a very limited release, and so I think it was only playing for a few days in June, so I think I actually got my tickets a while back. And I will say I'm a big Pavement fan. I don't think I would go toe to toe with the biggest Pavement fan. In fact, watching this movie sort of highlighted how little I know about the full band, and I just really enjoyed their albums for a really long time. But I had somewhat low expectations going in, and I and I think that's because I did know that they were both, like, kind of making a documentary, but also parodying people who make documentaries about themselves, but even more importantly, who make biopics about musicians. That's sort of part of it is a parody of, as you said, the the Bob Dylan biopic that came out, or I'm trying to think of some of the the Elvis one. I think specifically, they take shots at the oh, really the sort of method of the main actor trying to, like, really become Steve Malky, which is where some of the best humor comes from.

[Luke Burbank]

And that's Joe Query, right? Who's I did not realize that from Stranger Things.

[Andrew Walsh]

I didn't realize that until later. Now that you say that, of course I recognize his face, but it's like, really funny. There's at one point he's kind of like, maybe I need a he's like, with a voice coach, and he's like, maybe I can get a picture of Stephen Malk, Mrs. Tongue, and that'll help. He's like, just taking it so seriously as he tries to inhabit Stephen Malk. Ms. And so basically and I think you set this up on the show before, but it's it kind of it tries to do four things at once. It tells four different storylines at once. One of them is kind of a straightforward documentary of Pavement Another one is that because this band is, as they describe it, the most influential rock band in America, there is going to be a museum exhibit made for them, kind of a pop up that celebrates their life and legacy. Kind of taking a shot at things like Mo Pop or the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. To a degree, which I've always sort of of rolled my eyes at a little bit too. Like this idea of like, it's John Lennon's report card. He got a C in English. Like there's like literally nothing I care less about than John Lennon's report card. And I.

[Luke Burbank]

What about a golf club once used by Alice Cooper, though? Yeah, that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, what is, what is that a reference to? Is that from.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, just the fact that Alice Cooper is known for loving golf.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

In the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. I was just trying to think of. Because to me, John Lennon's report card would at least I'd be like, like I'd be interested. I feel like there's got to be just some of the. I'm with you, by the way. I don't care about this kind of stuff. I'm just trying to think of what's the worst example of ephemera in the Rock and Roll hall of Fame.

[Andrew Walsh]

And here's one here. I'll continue my description of the movie in a moment, but I'll just say that like Pavement specifically is like, I think, kind of the quintessential Gen X band in a way. Not the most well known Gen X band, but like, they're very eye rolly, they're very, you know, detractors could sort of say that maybe they think that they're above it all and maybe, maybe they are in a certain way, but they just have this very like, you know, kind of slacker sort of outward vibe, sort of. And so. And they've even taken shots at other like, kind of bands of their generation, famously in. In some of their songs.

[Luke Burbank]

Stone Temple Pilots. They're elegant bachelors. They're foxy to me. Are they foxy to you?

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. Smashing Pumpkins nature. But anyway, so. So going in, that was one of the reasons why I had low expectations. I was like, I don't like, I love Pavement, but I don't need to see them just like rolling their eyes for two hours or whatever it is. But this director was so deft me go back to talking about it. So part of it really is it just relies on a lot of real old footage that I've never seen before of Pavement throughout the years it's just really cool and they don't take it too seriously. But it does tell the story of Pavement in a way. And if you're a fan, you're just like, oh God, that's so cool to see this again or see it for the first time. Then it's like, oh, there's also going to be this museum piece which is going to be self serious, right? And it's going to be like, oh, this, like, oh, the shirts that they wore when mud was slinged at them at, at Lollapalooza or whatever. And like you can tell like it's not real. Like the, they've clearly just brought these things in as props. But like they set it up like it's really real and everybody like kind of treating it very, very reverence with reverence and like your sacred items sort of. But then also it really was a pop up museum that they created somewhere to grab this footage. And then you do have like modern bands who you see this montage of like snail mail, a band that we really like around here and Soccer Mommy, like covering Pavement songs at this pop up museum, which is like both sarcastic but also like, oh, this is also kind of badass. Then in one part of the movie is that to celebrate the world's most influential band, they're also making a biopic, the kind we just described like a big Hollywood. Like I'm gonna inhabit this character and retell the story of this important band in the cheesiest and most like unrealistic way possible. And then the, I guess probably the funniest one is and they're gonna make a rock and roll. Rock and roll jukebox musical on stage about Pavement songs and which is like kind of a, you know, that's definitely a dig, I would guess it like Green Day, who literally did that. And just like you, you can't think of a band that is less appropriate for a jukebox musical than like Pavement. I mean you could think when you.

[Luke Burbank]

Say jukebox musical, you mean it's basically a chance to just play the greatest hits of this band, but, but put it on stage and kind of create some minimal plot around it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Mamma Mia, Jersey Boys. Yeah, those like, those are your classic like jukebox musicals. So you have all these like. And then you see the making of both of these movies and you see the making sort of of this museum and then you see all these people interacting with this museum and they tell all three of these stories at once. And again, one of them is sort of true which is it really? Part of it is a documentary, but then these other things are going on. And I'll be honest with you, the description of this as I kind of understood it going in sounds chaotic and like it's going to be a lot of eye rolling or whatever. It is done so well. It is done. This director who I was unfamiliar with his work before this, but I kind of want to go back and see because apparently he has bended genres and stuff before. It's just so well done. I don't know how you can handle all four of those things at once and not. And how do you divide it up and how do you give. And it goes through various split screens at times. And I have a, I have an analogy here that might not work. I do think I'm the only person to review this movie if you consider this a review to make this comparison. And maybe there's a reason for that because maybe it's a bad comparison. But I feel like Luke, it is the into the spider verse of rock and roll mockumentaries. It is like somehow, in a way you really can't describe to somebody who hasn't seen it. They somehow work all of these alternate universes into itself all at the same time using really interesting but not, not distracting film techniques. And I loved it because I went in thinking this will be okay. I'll hang out with my buds who love Pavement and it'll just be a night. But I honestly left thinking like, wow, how did they do that? I almost want to see it again. And I had a lot of questions about this band that I've always loved but never really put under a microscope before. It made me want to read reviews of it and made me want to kind of dig deeper into the history of Pavement. And it also was. Even though it's a band that wants to be so self deprecating and not be cheesy, they're like trying so hard not to be cheesy by making fun of these other cheesy genres. But somehow you really do leave feeling like it. It was kind of the perfect celebration of a hell of a legacy. And they don't, they don't shy away from that, they don't dwell on it, they don't get gross about it. But you can leave, you can be a Gen X slack jawed eye roller like me and still leave the theater feeling like a little bit inspired too. It, it's really well done. You got to give credit, I think, to the, to the filmmaker for figuring out how to do all of this at once without having it just sort of collapse under its own sarcasm.

[Luke Burbank]

Alex Ross Perry is the name of the filmmaker, I believe. And I was just looking up. I don't recognize anything else that he's done before this, so. So, yeah, I just realized it's still playing in Portland. I might have to get down there this week and try to catch it before it's. Before it's gone. You know, the thing with payment, I wonder if they. Again, you've watched the film. I haven't. I wonder if Steve Malkmus is at this point, if he's kind of also relaxing a little bit around his kind of eye rolly Persona. I remember when there was that thing I really liked, these lablago tech takeaway shows where this was some guy, some. Some like French dude was just kind of. Before everybody was having bands play music in unusual places, before there was a tiny desk series and stuff, this guy was just like getting bands to kind of play their songs in the back of taxi cabs or in green rooms or wherever. And I think the only person who was ever rude to him was Steve Malkamis. He had said in an interview. And like, meanwhile, I think that Pavement just played maybe in promotion of this movie or of, I don't know, a tour they might be going on. I think they were on, like. Like Colbert or something recently. And they played Harness your Hopes. And the reason I think this is interesting is because as far as I understand, Harness your Hopes was really kind of a. Not a particularly well known Pavement song. I didn't know much about it. Now, granted, I'm a pretty, like, I love, you know, Crooked Rain. Crooked Rain, which is probably their most accessible and easiest record, which would explain why it's the one that I vibed with the most. I know that. Like, Wowie Zowie and Brighten the corners and Slanted and Enchanted. And the weirder that the record gets, probably the less I'm gonna be engaged with it. But my understanding of Harness youh Hopes is. TikTok blew it up, by the way.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was never on a record. Yeah, it was just a B side. It was released later on one of those expanded records, but it was never released on an album.

[Luke Burbank]

But it was kind of. For some reason, people started playing it on TikTok and it became huge. And the fact that Steve Malkamist would then agree to play it on, like, Colbert or something, doesn't that seem like an UN Steve Malcolmist move? Like, oh, one of our songs got big on TikTok and Now the producers of Colbert are asking us to play our hit song.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, it's interesting. I saw Pavement live, I don't know, last winter or something, and they. And they played it and the crowd went pretty crazy for it. So. Yeah, I don't think he's shying away from that. You're right, though. Like, in this band, this documentary goes back to times where, like, they have a chance to play, like, the Tonight Show, I think. And they play their noisiest, loudest shit. The stuff that I loved. Like, literally the back the of Cubs, the singer just screaming, I'm trying. I'm trying.

[Luke Burbank]

And just like, is that Nosterovich or who is that?

[Andrew Walsh]

I can't remember his. I'm really bad at knowing everybody's names. And I think that is how you say his last name. It has a V in it. I know.

[Luke Burbank]

And Bob Stanovich.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's right. That's Bob. Yeah. But anyway, so, like, they did that anytime they had an opportunity to get in front of cameras, they did their own thing. They didn't soften it up.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought that Malchus had a quote in this again, kind of in the regular documentary. I was gonna say part that makes it sound like it's sort of segmented out, but there's a moment where In Earnest, he's talking about that song and how, like, it's. It's interesting. He's like, I almost feel like I made a huge. Basically, I made a huge mistake by not putting. He's like, I love that people are getting into it. But it also is sort of, like, insulting. Like, I picked the wrong songs for the record. I think that was from Brighten the Corners or something. And so. But he definitely has mellowed out. Like, I think that he's somebody who's not, like, he's not putting on airs of trying to maintain the super sarcasmo thing. There is one moment also that I think is very earnest. So. Oh, man, I just had his name in my head for a moment. There are two famous comedic actors in this. One is Tim Heidecker, and the other is. Go ahead.

[Luke Burbank]

In the movie.

[Andrew Walsh]

In the movie.

[Luke Burbank]

So, like, Jason Schwartzman is the other person.

[Andrew Walsh]

Schwartzman is the other person. Yeah, yeah. And so, like, in the film Fake Mock. In the fake sort of biopic version of it, they play, like, their managers and record label heads, like, the Matador record label head or whatever. But it's like that really, like, overblown trope that you would see in, like, Straight Outta Compton or something. Like, you're not you're. You have these opportunities and you're blowing them. And you won't go on the Tonight Show. Like, we'll go on the Tonight show and we'll just do our thing. Like, just like super, like sarcastic and eye rolly or whatever. And it's just funny to see that. But, but the interesting thing is Schwartzman is clearly also just a Pavement fan. And so near the end, you see unguarded, unscripted, like behind the scenes footage of, I think them chatting maybe before Pavement's first big reunited concert that they started a few years ago. And Malchus, we see a lot of this documentary is them in the studio again, practicing these old songs to take them back on the road. And there's a moment near the end where he's talking to Schwarzman like, you know, very earnestly, just sort of saying, it's interesting. We've been practicing these songs so long for this tour. We never did that before. And there he's like, at some point they're talking about their very, very first show they ever did. He's like, I don't even know if we did band practice for that first show. And he's like embarrassed about that now because he's a professional musician who's like done a lot of things. And he's got like, he's sort of of. He's got the wisdom of age. And he says, you know, like, when we were young, we were just always moving on to the next thing. Like, we didn't have time to practice, practice, practice before a tour because we were writing the next record or we're doing this. You're always moving on to the next thing. And he's like, and now here we are. It's interesting to take this work that we wrote a long time ago, but to really, really drill down on it and really perfect it because there isn't the next thing. And it was an interesting kind of. Not that he doesn't have his next thing. I'm. I'm obsessed with that record that came out last summer, the Hard Quartet, which I. Oh, those guys. The name of that. But that, that double record that blew my goddamn mind when I should listen.

[Luke Burbank]

To that, because everything I've seen from it, that's this band kind of a super group. Although I actually didn't recognize the other guys in the super group other than Malchus.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And honestly, the songs that are not Malchus Letter, my favorite, I remember, like just sending you and Chris just like these long ass text chains. I think even individually about it. I was trying to get everybody to listen to it. It was. It's so good. So, anyway, I'm not making it sound like. I'm not trying to sound like Malchus has given up. Like he doesn't have more projects, but, I mean, specifically that Pavement thing. Like, there was no, like, talk of let's record another album in our 50s or whatever. It's just like that was their only project as Pavement, which was to practice these songs and perfect them to take them back on the road again. And it was just sort of an interesting sort of insight on that. On that process of just, like. It's interesting, like, after all these years to decide to come back and sort of perfect it in this way that.

[Luke Burbank]

Actually would make me. That's. That's an interesting insight because, again, I'm a real basic bee. And I've seen Pavement live, too. And one of the things that I was bummed by was that it didn't. A lot of the songs don't sound like the songs off the record because they like to kind of jangle them up or just kind of get weird with it and have that one guy just yelling in the background for no reason that I can figure out. But I wonder if 5% of that was because, literally they just weren't practicing very much. I wonder if I saw them on their latest tour, if they would have tightened a few things up. Up just because of more rehearsal time.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I do think that. I mean, from hearing your description of what you like out of Pavement over the years, I think that you like a very specific kind of Pavement song that I don't think encompasses their sound. Like, they're a noisy band, you know what I mean? And they kind of had a few songs that I think appealed to you. And I know you've said that before. It's like, can they just make one song that doesn't get into the part of Pavement I don't like? And, like, that's what I like. Like, I. Yeah, I think that I don't. I don't think that they went. I think that they've always been really talented, and I think that they've always known what they're doing. I just think that maybe what I'm trying to say here is that with a little bit of age and not having to be like, well, we're on tour, but we're also writing the next record and we're doing this, and we're doing this, it's just kind of like, I can, like, kind of go back, and I don't know, I think there's sort of a wistfulness to, like, both age and the creative sort of arc.

[Luke Burbank]

I think we'll throw in the fact that Malcomus lives in Portland now and I've, like, friends of friends who's like, kids go to school with him.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, me too. My buddy Ben is friends with him. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And I mean, that's like. I wonder if there'll ever be an overlap where somehow he ends up on Livewire. Who knows? And that will be difficult for me to keep my chill if that. If that doesn't happen. I was also, Andrew, watching documentaries of the much more straightforward variety recently, which is. I watched most of the new Pee Wee Herman documentary that's on hbo. Have you been seeing any clips of this going around or have you heard anything on this?

[Andrew Walsh]

I like his noisier stuff more. I know I only know about it because you mentioned it to me. I don't know if it was on the show or off, but you mentioned it to me recently and I. That's still all I know about it.

[Luke Burbank]

It's. It's pretty interesting because it, you know, Paul Rubens decided that, I guess he. He wanted to be part of this documentary project to kind of, I guess, sum up his career and also, I think, clear some things up and also importantly, officially come out, which he had never really been an out person in his life, in his, you know, his sort of lifetime, I guess, or, you know, his lifetime in the public eye. He wasn't. He wasn't out, and he talks about it a lot in this documentary. What's also interesting is he's at this point when he's interviewed, when he sits down for this long interview session with this documentary filmmaker. He has been privately battling cancer for like, six years, and the filmmakers don't know it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So it's a very interesting dynamic because you kind of see a person who is definitely kind of thinking about, probably thinking about their legacy and their life. And when he talks about death and things like that, it has this real, pretty intense quality to it because you know that he knows something that the people making the movie don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's really. I'm interested in hearing more. I just have a question. Maybe not a question, but, like, when you first mentioned this to me in passing, and again, I think it was off air. I think that I made the assumption that he and the filmmakers were making this all together, knowing that this was sort of his swan song. I didn't realize that it was a secret. He was Keeping from him. That makes it a very different documentary.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Yeah. And they kind of addressed that right up at the top. And then it's also very interesting to see the way that Paul Rubens, the. The person being interviewed is just. He's. He is so all over the map in certain times. And you hear the director going, okay, come, come back to me, Paul. Come come back to me right now. Like. Like, it's like. It's almost like a therapy session. And then Paul Rubens is like, you're not my therapist. And, like, they're having these disagreements, which. All. Which. A lot of which get left in the. In the. In the. In the dock is basically like Paul Reubens not wanting to talk about something, whether it's his sexuality or whether it's certain private things, and then the filmmaker kind of drawing it out of him. But they leave in so much stuff that was probably originally not meant to be. You know, it's. I'm kind of a sucker for that kind of stuff anyway. But it's just an interesting. You know, I said at the top of the show, like, I wasn't somebody who watched Pee Wee's Playhouse. Like, I didn't really actually get how subversive it really was until, like, watching. I mean, I really loved Pee Wee's Big Adventure. I loved that movie and still love that movie to this day. But as far as, like, the other stuff about it, I wasn't, like, getting up on Saturday morning and watching, you know, Peewee's Playhouse or whatever. I didn't have a lot of thoughts about Cherry or, you know, John B. The Genie or whatever. But, like, it's really cool to watch this and realize just how actually, like, first of all, Paul Rubens went to art school. He went to CalArts, and he was a very, like, avant garde art weirdo. That's really what he kind of wanted to be doing. But then he was also super ambitious. So he sort of had all these characters that he was doing at the Groundlings, and he realized that, like, the Pee Wee Herman character was the one that seemed to, like, be hitting the most. So at some point, he just focused. He goes to try out for snl and he doesn't get it because when he shows up and everyone there's like, oh, you're a shoo in. And then the other person auditioning is Gilbert Gottfried, and he's like, oh, we're the same person. Gilbert gets the gig.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're gonna. You're gonna fill. Yeah. If they're not the same person, they fill the Weird role, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Kind of angsty, weird, skinny guy role went to Gilbert Gottfried instead of. Of Paul Rubens. And so he comes back home from that and he just says, like, okay, I'm just going to make Pee Wee Herman a thing. This is. I'm going to drop all my other characters. I'm just doing Peewee. But like, there just was so much like the set design, like just the story of the people that he hired to actually draw, like to do the design of that world of the puppets.

[Andrew Walsh]

TV show.

[Luke Burbank]

For the TV show specifically. And actually really before the TV show, because he was doing it as a live thing at midnight at the Groundling. So he found these people to help do the set design. Who were these kind of cartoonists, basically, who had a really specific idea about what the. And I overused this word. But the kind of look or aesthetic of the whole thing was going to be. And then just like the, like, the artsiness of it. Like, for instance, there was something where he's like feeding his dog. And they literally have a two minute. They have two minute close up of the dog. This is on the TV show. A two minute close up of the dog just eating its dog out of the. Eating its food out of the dog food bowl. Just like an extreme closeup of a dog's teeth and tongue. And it just keeps not cutting away from this thing, which, like, by all normal editing purposes of a children's show, it should have. So there was just all these things that he was doing to really try to just make this show as weird as possible. Also very inclusive. Like, it had a very diverse cast. Then also when you know that Paul Reubens was a gay man who was very much not out to the world, but was just doing. Doing so much stuff that's obviously really gay coded in the show. Like he's doing his Christmas special and it's like he opens some door and this is like these two just oiled up, just shirtless. Just like the hottest freaking dudes you've ever seen who are like decorated this Christmas tree.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now this was this part of the show that was branded towards kids though this.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it was the Peewee Herman Christmas special.

[Andrew Walsh]

So funny, because I remember and I haven't obviously, obviously haven't seen this documentary, but I always think of, like this. There's this sort of like, I don't almost. I want to say grainy, ish footage, although that's probably not true, but it was. It aired on Comedy Central way back in the day, but it was archival even then of like The Pee Wee Herman show, that was definitely pre TV show on stage for adults. And I didn't get the impression it was from the Groundlings. Maybe it was, but it had, you know, Phil Hartman and other, like, famous people in it. And I remember, like, being somebody who I think maybe was slightly more plugged into the TV show than you, although I don't want to overstate that, but, like, being kind of shocked at how, like, adult and sort of grotty it was sort of in its visuals, sort of. And that might have just had to do with the technology of the time.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. That was also something I didn't realize was that Phil Hartman and Paul Rubens had kind of a big falling out over Phil Hartman getting snl.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's a bummer, isn't it?

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, and then there's. This is where I was kind of like, like, so. So Phil Hartman, which. We've talked about this before. I mean, Phil Hartman, talk about a crazy life story. He was just a guy who was a. A graphic designer and was doing the graphic design for basically, like, album covers for very cool and influential bands at the time. But he's just like. I don't know if he has friends that are in the Groundlings or whatever, but he's just kind of, like, interested in it, but a little bit too nervous to ever try it. And he also has this other totally interesting career going. And then finally he just, like, goes for it and does a class with the Groundlings. And everybody there said he was immediately the best person in the cast. Just like, holy. And then he goes and eventually tries out for snl. He gets snl. He becomes, like, one of the biggest people on snl. And I guess that was really difficult for Paul Rubens because now he couldn't be on, you know, Pee Wee anymore. And so they kind of fell out of touch. And then you get. You cut to this. The sort of arc of the documentary is now, you know, Paul Rubens is going to go through these personal trials, one of which is he's caught allegedly exposing himself, I. E. Masturbating in an adult theater in Florida, which he pleads no contest to. Then later on, this was other stuff. He also seemed to be a borderline hoarder. Like, he was a collector of things. But, like, every shot of his house, which, of course, he has this, to me, very cool house in the Hollywood Hills that has a swimming pool and a view of the Hollywood sign. I'm like, okay, I get where this is going. But then every picture of the inside of his house is just, like, stacks of Tupperware boxes and things. And he was just somebody who collected a lot of stuff. And in all of that stuff he collected, some of it was erotica, and it was just basically like lgbt, mostly gay erotica, like, you know, stud magazines and things like this. That for some reason, the l. It sounds like the LAPD and this one, this guy Delgadillo, who is, like, running for. I don't know what it was. Maybe DA Of L. A. County or something, decided that he was going to really try to prove a point here. This was stuff that.

[Andrew Walsh]

That.

[Luke Burbank]

The kind of material that's also in the collection of, like, an LGBTQ sort of oriented part of a. Of a college library. Right. You know what I mean? Like, this is stuff that's actually historically kind of significant, but they branded it as child porn and kind of went after him on that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can I ask you a question? Is that also. Wasn't the actor who played the Prince, Jeffrey Ratzenberg? I don't think, but.

[Luke Burbank]

No, that's the guy from Cheers.

[Andrew Walsh]

He was connected to that, right? Like this same exact, exact bust in some way. Because I remember exactly being like, well, if you just read the headlines, it sounds worse than it is, but they were actually collectors. I mean, again, I. You know more about this than I do, so I'm not.

[Luke Burbank]

I think what happened with Jeffrey Jones is the name of that. I think what happened is that Jeffrey Jones was in trouble for a variety of things he was accused of. I don't know off the top of my head, but I think it was more serious than just the having of the stuff. But the person who. The person who alleged that Jeffrey Jones had done something to them had also at one point been at Paul Reuben's house with Jeffrey Jones. And so it kind of looped Paul Reubens into the whole thing. Even though there was no allegation that Paul Rubens had, like, physically acted inappropriately with anyone or anything like that. He kind of got caught up in it because this person had been at his house at one point. This person who was accusing Jeffrey Jones of, I think, way worse stuff.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay. So maybe.

[Luke Burbank]

So it was just kind of. The whole thing was sort of a mess. But anyway, you've got the. The. Of course, the. The sort of typical arc of these things where. Where you have our. Our kind of. Our hero, if you will, Paul Reubens and then his rise to the top, and then him kind of, you know, sort of suffering a. A fall from grace, and then. I'm not yet to the end of it, where I assume he sort of triumphantly comes back, but. Or at least I know he did a Broadway show that was a really big hit. So I'm guessing that.

[Andrew Walsh]

That the Mystery Men might have been. Have you gotten to the Mystery Men?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, we got to the Mystery Men part.

[Andrew Walsh]

So was that big comeback after his kind of, you know, fall from grace, if you will?

[Luke Burbank]

It was, but it preceded the second fall from grace, which was the porn. The child porn charges. So you have this. Yeah. You have this moment where he's like. Everybody has kind of relaxed over the porno theater thing. I remember even in those days, going, well, what are people going to that theater for if not what he's accused of doing?

[Andrew Walsh]

Even back then.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah, but. But. So he comes back from that and he starts getting cast in things. He was in the movie Blow, and he's in these things as Paul Reubens. He's not playing Peewee. He's in Mystery man, like you said. He's actually doing a lot of acting work. He also, at this time is having a kind of an interesting, I guess you could say, relationship with the actress Debbie Mazer, who I'm just a huge fan of, generally where they're sort of boyfriend and girlfriend, even though she knows that he's gay and she's interviewed extensively in this. And it's kind of like it's a. It's an interesting relationship because he's given her a ring and they're constantly together. But you. You. One would assume that this was not something that they were consummating. You know, it's kind of. That's going on. And then right when he's kind of getting everything back on track and he's having all this success, then the next sort of round of stuff hits him. And that's kind of where. Last night I ran out of steam. I was doing two things. I was watching this movie that I was very interested in, and I was also trying to look for the northern lights. And eventually it was too late for me. I am not able to stay at past 12pm anymore. So I hit the hay.

[Andrew Walsh]

I have some more questions about this. So I was gonna ask you. Cause he says that in your. You said in this documentary he kind of fully comes out in a way that he hadn't earlier in his lifetime. Is there any discussion of any knowing now about this Mazar. Is that how you say her name?

[Luke Burbank]

Debbie Mazar?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I can picture her, although I don't know why I know her. I know probably from the TV show.

[Luke Burbank]

Civil wars that she was the front desk, the secretary on in 1991.

[Andrew Walsh]

I never saw that. Although I do think that it would be unsurprising if she was a 90s crush for me because. Because honestly, who wasn't? But anyway, so is there any discussion of long term relationships with men or anything? Did he have any?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, what happened to him, by his telling, is when he was just graduating from college, he fell deeply in love with someone with a male partner. And they lived together and they were kind of. They were an item for a number of years and then they broke up. Up. And what he said was, basically when they broke up, it was so devastating for him that he just decided a, I'm not going to be an out gay man. So he says he was living his life as a totally out gay man and then intentionally went back into the closet, like deeply into the closet. And he also decided he was never going to have a serious relationship again because of, I guess how kind of traumatic the whole thing was.

[Andrew Walsh]

That must have been a tough time too, when they were in an out relationship and living together. That would have been early 80s or something. Like, like. Yeah, exactly. That's a tougher time to do it than the 2000s. Clearly a lot of stigmatizing. Can I ask you one other question about the tone of this? You were sort of describing him kind of modern day Pee Wee Herman, kind of telling his story with the filmmakers and the interviewers. And you were sort of saying that at times it was kind of like, it was like kind of pulling teeth to get him to talk about the things that they wanted him to talk about. But then they would say, okay, reel it back in. Like, he doesn't remind me as a guy who would slip into bits a lot. But am I wrong about that?

[Luke Burbank]

How is he kind of doing bits?

[Andrew Walsh]

Does he kind of do bits? He kind of is avoiding the tough stuff by slipping into almost a Robin Williams esque sort of like doing bits.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, like a. Much like a Robin Williams on certain amount of Prozac. It's not as hyper as a Robin Williams, but it's very much like, yeah. And he's not doing peewee. Yeah, he's just doing this. Yeah. He's kind of got this running bit going where he'll, he'll say something and he'll go, no, I'm kidding. Or am I? No, no, I'm not being serious. Or is he being serious? Like, he did that a lot.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, I love, I love Pee Wee. You've really got me I really want to watch this now, although I think it's gonna make me deeply sad, because I love him, and I love Phil Hartman, and I just think there's a. Well, there's so much tragedy around both of these stories.

[Luke Burbank]

I know, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

But I do love him. But, boy, that sort of sounds. I feel like if you were interviewing him on Livewire and he kept doing that to you, you would brain it. Him.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, yes. I mean, he would not have survived the interview. Oh, that was the other thing. And for. Somehow I got mad at Howard Stern in all of this, which is a weirdly common thing for me these days. So they're. They're at the part of the. They're at the part of the arc where it's like they're sort of trying to point out that Paul Rubens way of going through the world, he was. The big thing they're trying to establish is this guy was super ambitious, and by his own kind of telling, he was super ambitious, including going back in the closet, because he knew that being an out gay man would make it really hard for him to have success doing a children's show. Things like that. And so. And not because that's how it should be, but because that's unfortunately, where the culture was at and probably still is. But they're trying to point out that he and Phil Hartman aren't, like. Aren't close anymore. And they show Phil Hartman being interviewed by Stern, and it's like Howard Stern just being like, it's normal. It's like. It just felt so. It felt so based to me that all he wants to do is try to get Phil Hartman to admit that he and Paul Rubens aren't friends anymore. And you can tell that Phil Hartman doesn't really want to talk about it that way because. Because it's never established that they, like, had a huge fight. It's just that they kind of grew apart. They were just not really close. There probably were some hurt feelings, but you can just see Howard Stern just, like, trying to extract this thing from Phil Hartman that isn't because it's important information, but because Howard Stern just thrives on just, like, chaos and controversy and things like that. And it's just like watching Phil Hartman rest in peace, have to, like, kind of. Of have this extracted from him kind of against his will in the public space by Howard Stern. Just, like. It made me feel really sad, actually, that.

[Andrew Walsh]

That.

[Luke Burbank]

That little clip in the show made me feel sad. But I do think it. Particularly if you were. If you were more dialed into the whole Peewee's Playhouse thing. I think you'd find it really interesting, literally, just from, like, a television production standpoint of, like, how they were making the show, what was going on with it. Like, anyway, I'm finding it to be very entertaining and informative. And once the Mariners have. Have either triumphed against the Baltimore Orioles tonight or shown that they are not going to win, I will check out of that broadcast and I will check back into my Peewee Himself documentary. So anyway, that's the plan. I don't know, my friend. Should we. Should we wrap it there? Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sounds good to me.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, great.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sorry if I'm a little. I. I am feeling a little wistful here now. I just. I don't know if I can handle that documentary, to be honest with you. I don't know if I. Seriously. Yeah. I don't know. I love being Phil. Just the Phil Hartman of it all alone is just like, veeves. And I can, like, just stop in our tracks with a memory of Phil Hartman. Just like, such a tragic ending to such an early, early loss. And then Peewee Herman. I just can't. Not to extend this conversation more, but, like, it's hard not to get emotional when you think about how he posed for that final photo in the black suit. Suit and sort of, like, preparing for his end and sort of, like, seems like a little bit. Not in a gross way, but sort of like knowing that he had to, like, kind of had a certain amount of time to, like, sort of do what he could for his legacy at the end. It just sounds like it's a. It kind of sounds like a lot.

[Luke Burbank]

It is a lot. But. But also, I. I mean, obviously you have to. You have to follow your heart on this, but I think that it's a lot. But also it's really informative and really interesting. And it's a side of Paul Rubens that you just rarely saw because, I mean, that's the other big part of the. Of the movie is he very clearly kind of created this alter ego so that he could then exist in the world. This alter ego of Pee Wee Herman.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And. And. And he always wanted. He always wanted people to. He wanted there to be confusion around if Pee Wee Herman was a real person or not. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, he never. He didn't ever want it to be about Paul Reubens playing this character. He wanted it to be about this. This guy called Pee Wee Herman. And then Pee Wee Herman gets really big, and then he's kind of sad that nobody knows who Paul Rubens is. Yeah, sure, it's very complicated.

[Andrew Walsh]

But again, yeah, I mean, the story in the 80s was Paul Rubin. No, it wasn't. I'm sorry, I'm saying the opposite of what I meant. Pee Wee Herman caught in theater. You know what I mean? I'm still pretty young at this time, and it's like, wait, Pee Wee Herman was caught in the theater? Like he blurred it and. God damn it, the music is playing. Sorry. It just sort of sounds like he was doing in this interview in 2023 or whenever it was recorded on a small micro level, what he was doing with his whole Life in the 80s and 90s, which was sort of deflecting by slipping into character.

[Luke Burbank]

It's not all deflection, for the record. Just he slips into it sometimes. But I think you do get a lot of good stuff anyway.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right, well, I'll watch Emotional Thinking.

[Luke Burbank]

I'll transcribe it for you and forward you a full transcript. I'll have a transcribe the entire thing and then you can just read it and decide if you want to watch it or not.

[Andrew Walsh]

The truth is, I'm just getting emotional thinking the Mariners might not sweep the Baltimore Orioles. And with all due respect to our fans, I. You know, I love Orioles fans. I love the Orioles for what I know of them, but we should really sweep this series. And if not, it's just gonna make me sad.

[Luke Burbank]

I'll take two out of three.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'll take you.

[Luke Burbank]

Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Me too.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, thanks everybody for listening. We are gonna be right back here tomorrow. Did you know that this might be the longest running five day a week podcast in human history? You might be listening to that right now. So we're going to continue that record setting pace tomorrow when we come back with more imaginary radio. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday, everybody. Take care of yourselves and please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to all. Boy, being a disc jockey is really hard. Way harder than I ever imagined.

[Luke Burbank]

I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you'll come back next time for.

[Andrew Walsh]

My very next show. Please, I'm begging you.

[Luke Burbank]

Power out.