#4497 These Booths Were Made For Sitting

Summary

Podcast Summary: TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live – Episode #4497 "These Booths Were Made For Sitting"

Release Date: June 26, 2025

In this engaging episode of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live, hosts Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh delve into a variety of topics ranging from nostalgic reflections on Seattle’s old establishments to pressing issues in Las Vegas' hospitality industry. The conversation is interspersed with humorous anecdotes, personal stories, and listener interactions, making for a rich and entertaining listen.

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1. Social Media Shenanigans and Light-Hearted Banter

Timestamp: [00:00 – 01:03]

The episode kicks off with playful interactions between Luke, Andrew, and Brenda as they joke about their recent social media posts. Brenda humorously self-deprecates her brunch photos, leading to a series of lighthearted exchanges.

Notable Quote:

• Brenda: “Sunday Funday with these idiots. Yeah, that’s good.” ([00:10])

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2. Andrew’s Nipple Injury and Humor

Timestamp: [03:25 – 04:28]

Andrew Walsh shares a comical update about injuring his nipple by accidentally bashing it into a door frame during soundcheck. The hosts use this mishap to inject humor into their conversation.

Notable Quote:

• Andrew Walsh: “Would you believe me if I told you the injured nipple is the least or has become the second most interesting thing in my life right now?” ([03:52])

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3. Exploring Joseph Mitchell and ASCAP Licensing Issues

Timestamp: [04:28 – 13:56]

Andrew introduces a compelling story from the Seattle Times about a bar facing a lawsuit from ASCAP for not paying licensing fees for playing music. This leads to a discussion about Joseph Mitchell, a renowned essayist, and his work related to ASCAP investigators from the 1930s.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew Walsh: “If you’re a bar or any kind of a public establishment and you have music playing through your loudspeakers, you gotta pay a licensing fee.” ([06:17])
• Luke Burbank: “What was he enforcing at the time?” ([06:20])

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4. Nostalgic Reflections on Seattle’s Old Pancake Houses

Timestamp: [09:24 – 16:04]

The hosts reminisce about Cindy’s House of Pancakes, a beloved Seattle establishment from Andrew’s childhood. They discuss its transformation into an exotic pet hospital and share personal memories tied to the location.

Notable Quotes:

• Luke Burbank: “Cindy’s House of Pancakes. Let me just double check something because I remember this from my childhood very well.” ([09:32])
• Andrew Walsh: “It's like, do I know?” ([09:34])

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5. Pet Care and Exotic Veterinary Clinics

Timestamp: [14:31 – 18:10]

Andrew and Luke explore the challenges of managing exotic pets, particularly Andrew’s cat, Bubbles, who exhibits unruly behavior. They humorously speculate whether an exotic pet clinic could help mitigate Bubbles' antics.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew Walsh: “Or if your cat happened to have a bird claw, that would be exotic, too. Right?” ([15:11])
• Luke Burbank: “That would definitely be exotic.” ([15:20])

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6. Handling Credit Card Fraud While in Las Vegas

Timestamp: [23:06 – 37:14]

Luke shares a frustrating experience of discovering unauthorized charges totaling over $10,000 on his credit card while staying in Las Vegas. The discussion highlights the shortcomings of banking security measures and the emotional toll of financial fraud.

Notable Quotes:

• Luke Burbank: “Somehow being stranded here, my family, when you're here, you have to call Australia to get to the front desk... I've been pretty unfortunate this week.” ([26:24])
• Andrew Walsh: “It was like a Saturday morning and had all the groceries and I'm standing at the thing and I go to use the card and it's turned off because for some reason they were suspicious that the card was being used.” ([26:29])

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7. Dazzling Donors: Listener Messages and Celebrations

Timestamp: [77:56 – 84:34]

The segment features heartfelt birthday messages from listeners celebrating their "Blurs Day." Andrew and Luke read out these messages, adding a personal touch and fostering a sense of community among listeners.

Notable Quotes:

• Annette: “Happy 50th Blurs Day. My love from Annette.” ([79:48])
• Jess in Michigan: “Happy blurs day to Cindy. It's been so long since we've seen each other...” ([83:58])

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8. Las Vegas Hospitality Crisis: Staff Shortages and Service Decline

Timestamp: [55:09 – 75:43]

Luke provides an in-depth analysis of the current state of Las Vegas, focusing on widespread staff shortages affecting hospitality services. He discusses how these shortages have led to deteriorating customer experiences, increased prices, and the overall declining reputation of the city.

Notable Quotes:

• Luke Burbank: “Las Vegas is so understaffed right now. Now it's crazy.” ([62:58])
• Andrew Walsh: “I can feel that I've never been a huge Vegas person myself...” ([73:40])

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9. Upcoming Discussions and Show Teasers

Timestamp: [84:53 – 85:09]

Andrew and Luke tease future episodes, including an upcoming discussion on ASCAP licensing on KUOW. They invite listeners to stay tuned for more insightful conversations.

Notable Quote:

• Andrew Walsh: “If you want it? Like, what were they buying? What was this Microsoft thing?” ([36:14])

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10. Final Thoughts and Sign-Off

Timestamp: [85:36 – 86:14]

The hosts wrap up the episode by addressing listener messages, sharing personal anecdotes, and maintaining the episode's humorous and heartfelt tone.

Notable Quotes:

• Luke Burbank: “Peace and love to our listeners here in Las Vegas.” ([85:36])
• Andrew Walsh: “Happy blurs day to me.” ([84:34])

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Conclusion

Episode #4497 of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live offers a blend of humor, personal stories, and critical discussions on contemporary issues. From nostalgic memories and pet care woes to financial frustrations and the declining hospitality scene in Las Vegas, Luke and Andrew provide listeners with a multifaceted and engaging experience. Their ability to weave personal anecdotes with broader societal topics ensures that both regular listeners and newcomers alike find value and entertainment in each episode.

Transcript

[Brenda]

Let me see it. Is it cute? Yeah, it's so cute.

[Andrew Walsh]

Send it to me.

[Brenda]

Me too. Okay, look what I just posted. Brunch with these two dum dums.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my gosh. So good. Is this good? I said Sunday Funday with these idiots. Yeah, that's good.

[Luke Burbank]

That's great. So cute.

[Brenda]

Okay, okay. So cute. Look what I just posted. Eating crap with these sacks of. If they died tomorrow, no one would shed a tear. So cute.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wait, what the hell?

[Brenda]

You called me a dum dum and she called me an idiot. So.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, when you post a pic of yourself where you look really cute, then you have to say something. Something a little self deprecating so it doesn't look like you're just bragging.

[Brenda]

Oh, all right. This is good. Slopping down some pig with these fat. And I'm the fattest of them all. If I died tomorrow, no one would shed a tear load my fricking lard carcass into the mud. No coughing, please. Just wet, wet mud, bae.

[Luke Burbank]

Jesus, Brenda.

[Brenda]

All right, I got ya. Gulping down some pig with these bags of meat. Sunday Funday with these pig. Hope nobody gulps us.

[Andrew Walsh]

Are we the pig or the bags of meat?

[Brenda]

Okay, let me try another one. Sitting here with two bonafide pieces of hog. They're mad cause I won best hog at the hog snarfing contest. But I'm not mad cause we're all loads of beef sitting on the side of a highway getting our butts sucked by flies. I tagged you both in that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Why?

[Brenda]

Why are you guys bullying me?

[Andrew Walsh]

Tbtl.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe he saw his reflection and thought, mm, mm, mm.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm flying in hot for that hottie. It's like your own mini garden. And, well, now that you think about it, it's kind of fun seeing how good it grows. It's kind of like, you know, kids, like.

[Luke Burbank]

It's kind of like kids growing up. My podcast is on life support. Hey, I need new listeners. I want to be the bad boy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Of public radio like Elvis Mitchell.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, all right. Hello, good morning and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of tbt, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Somehow heartbreak feels good in a place like this. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host, you face. Who are you facing? Coming to you once again from Las Vegas, Nevada. And let's see. Vegas, baby. Vegas. Checking the temperature. Currently 96 degrees. The perfect temperature to bring you a Thursday episode of TBTL, which is episode number 4497 in a collector series Let the fun begin. It's, I don't know, probably like 70 degrees in this hotel room, which I guess I'm. I should be grateful for because it turns out one entire floor of the hotel has no air conditioning and therefore they have a shortage of rooms, which is why I'm in a fairly crummy room here. And it's just part of this overall thing happening in Las Vegas, it would seem, where everything is kind of worse and kind of more expensive, including a $26 bottle of water from the minibar. Sounds expensive. At the Aria Hotel. That's touched off a whole conversation here, which I'm part of. I mean, not formally. I'm not engaging with the other people having the conversation, but I'm telling you all about it because I'm here in Las Vegas. And honestly, this town, not great right now.

[Andrew Walsh]

It stinks.

[Luke Burbank]

What is great is that many people have birthdays this week and we will celebrate those birthdays on this Thursday, AKA Blursday, my birthday today. What's also great is that we have this guy here with us. The longest running cobra of the program may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's playing hurt today, by the way. He's got an injured nipple.

[Andrew Walsh]

You seem to me to be a pretty righteous hombre.

[Luke Burbank]

He's Andrew Walsh and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Would you believe me if I told you the injured nipple is the least or has become the second most interesting thing in my life right now?

[Luke Burbank]

In between when you told me about it during soundcheck eight minutes ago and now something more interesting than your injured nipple has popped up.

[Andrew Walsh]

It has, in fact. And the injured nipple is only nine minutes old too. I was rushing in here and I just bashed myself into the door frame. Just nailed that guy. Really hurt there for a little bit. I'm okay on that now, though. The pain is. Pain is going down. I've taken nipple medicine, so I'm good there.

[Luke Burbank]

Never say the words nipple.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, let's. Let's move off of that. Luke, this is something interesting that I'm interested in kind of your reaction to. And maybe you can help me sleuth something out. I grabbed a book off of my bookshelf that I. There's a. I don't need to get into it now. Do you know who Joseph Mitchell is? He was a. He was an essayist back in like the 30s and 40s, I think, in a lot of New Yorker writings. But he was kind of like a stud circle, I think he, like, would do a lot of, like, profiles of people who were just, like, working their jobs or living their daily lives or whatever. And I'll tell you, the reason I'm grabbing it is because there's a story in the newspaper, I think maybe yesterday, Seattle Times, about a bar in Seattle that is getting, I think, sued or some sort of, you know, complaint is being leveled against them by ascap, the music kind of licensing company. Because apparently, you know, this bar was playing. It's like, just some pop song. Like, it's not even a new pop song. I don't know if it was David Bowie or what. No, it was Radiohead. Some Radiohead song. And something else is what they happen to nail them on. But essentially, if you're a bar or any kind of a public establishment and you have music playing through your loudspeakers and you got to pay a licensing fee, it's a blanket licensing fee, and most, you know, the cost of doing business. And apparently this one bar simply refused to even return their, you know, the ASCAP phone calls on this issue and are now being officially sued or something like that. The reason I bring all this up, and, my God, I'm not even near. What I want to tell you is I thought it was an interesting story from 2025, because Joseph Mitchell, I remember, like, wrote an essay about an ASCAP investigator way back in the 1930s. Like, a guy who would. Who would drive around or walk around.

[Luke Burbank]

What in the name of broadside ballads was that?

[Andrew Walsh]

Ascap, that's.

[Luke Burbank]

What was he enforcing at the time?

[Andrew Walsh]

I think it was live piano music. Honestly, that's what I'm looking for now.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, so if you were to play the sheet music of somebody.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, but it was cheap music.

[Luke Burbank]

You didn't have the rights to.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow. So anyway, and this is something. I'm gonna be on that KOW show tomorrow. So I wanted to make. Oh, here it. AskAP investigator in chapter seven of the collection My Ears Are Bent by Joseph Mitchell. Chapter seven, It's a Living, is a collection of people doing their jobs. And one of them is Ask Gap investigator. So I wanted to. I wanted to reread that before the show tomorrow. I don't even know if we're going to be talking about that news story, to be honest with you. We're getting ever closer to what I'm actually trying to get to. I open up this book, which I have.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like there is. There's some kind of, like, ask Cap questions later joke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, sure, sure.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm trying so hard to make. And my brain's just not, not helping me today.

[Andrew Walsh]

Bust an ass cap in your ass cap.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know, I'm just kind of violent there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ice Cube. I'm just trying.

[Luke Burbank]

By the way, I was, I was listening to NWA on my jog this morning and I really think Express Yourself Express. The N.W.A song might be the best rap song of all time. It might have. And to give credit, to give flowers to our friend o' Shea Jackson, AKA Ice Cube. I think it might be the best rap song of all time. And it's all him.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'd have to relist.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm expressing with my full capabilities and now I'm living in correctional facilities because some don't agree with how I do this. I get straight, meditate like a Buddhist.

[Andrew Walsh]

I just feel like the best rap song of all time. I feel like it's going well. I'm a big Missy Elliott fan. I always, People always laugh at me for some reason. I feel like she's very underrated as a lyricist and a performer. And so I don't, I don't know if I can get on board with that. I do like that song a great deal. I haven't heard it in a while. Here's where I need your help, Luke. I open up this book, this Joseph Mitchell book, and what do I find in there? I don't know if you can hear this. A two page letter written on notebook paper from my friend Andrea that she sent to me way back in 2003. Now keep in. So she must have sent me this let. And I read it and I must have just tucked it in this book, which I probably have not opened since then. And what I find interesting about this is in 2003, I'm living in New Hampshire pretty recently, maybe I'm there a year or two at that point. And I'm just. While you're doing your introduction, I'm just like, oh, what is this letter from Andrea? And this is the first line. Hope it's okay to share this. Andrew, bonjour. Now Andrea's obviously fancy. Andrew, bonjour. I've written to you from here before. Not France, but Cindy's restaurant in Seattle. The woman who says hun and means it isn't here this morning, but I'm pretending she'll be serving my large waffle any minute now. And then she has a little asterisk. Apparently it's Cindy's Restaurant or House of Pancakes, depending on the sign that you decide to read. Where is this place? Do I know?

[Luke Burbank]

Cindy's I don't know if it exists anymore, but let me just double check something because I remember this from my childhood very well.

[Andrew Walsh]

Really? Yeah. So that was.

[Luke Burbank]

That was, by the way, with another place that was called Pancake Haas. H A U s where I used to take Addie on, like, I would go snag her from, like, kindergarten and take her out for lunch. And we would go to Pancake Haas, which was on. On North Gateway.

[Andrew Walsh]

I would go to Pancake Little Joe. By the way, that's a bonanza joke.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah, I got that.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's really good.

[Luke Burbank]

I would go to Hop Singh's House of Pancakes. I believe that was the cook on the show Banana.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow. I was just going to try to throw a Lord Green joke in there. Okay, go ahead.

[Luke Burbank]

Cindy's House of Pancakes. Let's see here. I'm trying to get to the. Yeah, this was. I think it was on Aurora.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was wondering, because I. For some reason, I got Aurora vibes from then. I'm wondering, you know what it was.

[Luke Burbank]

It was not far from your beloved SA. Your SARS grocery store. So basically, what is that 106th where the Arco is? It was literally 105th. It was directly across Aurora from the Arco. That building, whatever is across the street from the Arco used to be Cindy's House of Pancakes. Wait a second.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's like an exotic pet hospital now. I'm not joking.

[Luke Burbank]

Or hospital H A U s.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wait, is it. Well, now we're just getting weight. Well, you know what? Let's just do it. So is it like. Like there's. There are four things on the corners there. There is a. There's the Arco gas station and AM PM as you just said, kitty corner to that. You have the O'Reilly's Tire center across from the O'Reilly's.

[Luke Burbank]

And like the O'Reilly's, by the way, used to be a electronic store called Silo and then it became a golf place. Like a place that sold golf clubs and is now in O'Reilly.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'll bet you I would have liked Silo. And you're reminding me. I think I just heard of Silo for the first time, like, in the past couple of months. Because I think I found a commercial on an old VHS tape for Silo.

[Luke Burbank]

That would check out.

[Andrew Walsh]

I feel like I might have even sent that to you in Camaro. Kev. Maybe it was like a year ago. And I was like, have you guys heard of this place? Okay, so. And then the other thing, there is a dental operation. Kind of across from the. Across 105th from the ARCO. So it must have either been the animal hospital. The. I'm sorry.

[Luke Burbank]

It was the animal hospital Hospital.

[Andrew Walsh]

So it was the animal hospital. Interesting. Wow.

[Luke Burbank]

Cindy's House of Princess.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, I'm sorry to be. I know that. Okay. I filibustered a lot at the beginning of this, but it's just very weird to stumble on a physical letter from 2003 written from a place that is, like, three blocks from where I live now, never even knowing when I received this, that I would someday live in Seattle and almost the location of this letter.

[Luke Burbank]

It's like yesterday when I was talking to Dana White of the ufc, who said he's an avowed atheist, but he thinks God saved Donald Trump from being shot. It's like that. It's just like that.

[Andrew Walsh]

How does that math work?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, the fact that your friend wrote you a letter from Cindy's House of Pancakes and you now live near there is an interesting coincidental development.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I meant how does the math work on what he said he doesn't believe in?

[Luke Burbank]

He also said that Donald Trump should have two Nobel Peace Prizes. So there was. There was a lot. There was a lot to unpack from the conversation. It was actually a very. I have to say, the guy is quite warm and genial, but said a lot of things that I've spent the intervening 24 hours considering and trying to figure out how the math works on them. But back to your point, that is pretty wild that your friend wrote you a letter from Cindy's House of Pancakes, a place that we drove by often as a family on our way to wherever we would go. And it looked so inviting. It was something about. Well, that's two things. One, the word pancakes and the word Cindy. It seemed like a place where a lady named Cindy was cooking up pancakes, and I wanted to go there so badly, but we were not the kind of family we didn't have Cindy's House of Pancakes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I guess not. You weren't hanging out with people who say bonjour at the beginning of their email?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Somebody sends you a letter and they say bonjour. You assume it's coming from France or at least the Paris Casino here in Las Vegas. You don't think it's coming to you from Cindy's House of Pancakes on Aurora?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I need to reach out to Andrea. I haven't. I haven't spoken with her in a while. We. We almost share a birthday, I believe. I think we're one day apart. In November. So that's probably the last time we talked. We like to check in on our birthday week, but. Yeah, I need to reach out.

[Luke Burbank]

Look, it's gonna blow up the sign for Cindy's House of Pancakes.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no. Are you looking at old photos on the Internet?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. It is so classic Seattle. I mean, it really is iconic. It's one of those many iconic things that of course, has now turned into an exotic pet hospital.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. Which, I mean, listen, it's good for the exotic pets. Like, they need their places, too, I guess.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. Someone's got to take care of these cockatiels.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Boy, think about how different my life would be if Cindy's House of Pancakes were still open. Look at these booths. These booths. Sorry. Oh, my goodness.

[Luke Burbank]

These booths are made for sitting. Andrew. That's absolutely what you would have done.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my God. Goodness, this place looks wonderful.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. How exotic does the pet need to be? Could I bring Bubbles in there?

[Andrew Walsh]

That's what I don't. I've never gone in there, Luke. Wow. Big stacks of pancakes. Okay, I'm gonna close this out.

[Luke Burbank]

If I were to, like, bring in, like, a fairly normal cat, I would say Bubbles is pretty. Is fairly exotic. She's a Bengal. But, like, if I brought Bubbles in, would they say we don't even. And she. Let's just say that she had a hurt paw. They would go, we don't even know what to do with this paw. We only work on a paw from a liger.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right, Exactly. Or if your cat happened to have a bird claw, that would be exotic, too. Right?

[Luke Burbank]

That would definitely be exotic. But, like, do they not know how to fix regular animals? The animal has to have. The animal has to be some kind of bearded dragon.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right, Exactly. In this case, it has to be a real beard, too. I mean, that's how exotic. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

No, A bearded dragon with a hormonal issue where it's also growing an actual beard.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm on their website now. It's actually not a bad website. I was expecting much worse based on the outside of the building. Bird and Exotic Clinic of Seattle. The finest in veterinary care.

[Luke Burbank]

And I believe it, by the way. You know, shout out to these folks. They're doing God's work. It's just. I wonder what. I wonder if they. They could probably. Here's the thing. They could probably fix a regular pet, but any veterinary clinic could fix a regular pet. They're the people you go to when your lemur has gout.

[Andrew Walsh]

My lemur has gout. Yeah. You know what? I feel a Little bit bad saying, like kind of judging this place by the outside. Like listen, the outside of this place is absolutely fine. There's no frills, but there's also. It's not like it's trash strewn or something. It's just in a part of town that's a little bit scruffy, but there's nothing wrong. And now I'm looking at the website and it's like giving the bios of the two people. The two vets who work there seem like great people. They have a mission here. Luke. I'm actually very. I'm gonn get a bird and exotic pet to bring here now, I think. Or I'm going to put a little fake beard and mustache on Bubbles. Can I borrow Bubbles and just say good luck my bearded cat? Please.

[Luke Burbank]

I would bring Bingo in. Honestly, I think Bingo will play along much better.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I'm sure Bingo goes to the vet and he's kind of like, oh, new friends.

[Luke Burbank]

Becca has started to try to crate Bubbles overnight sometimes because she's so incorrigible. And if you have the bedroom door open, then she comes into the bedroom and as I mentioned the other day on the show, now knows how to open a jewelry box and just start pulling things out. But then if you close the door, of course she just scratches the door like crazy in the middle of the night. So the thought was maybe put her in a, in a crate, a nice, you know, comfy crate with a little padding in there and stuff in the night. Maybe she'll just go to sleep sometimes for animals that will calm them down and that has not worked. She loves the crate from about 9am till about 10pm goes in there voluntarily, hangs out, sleeps, chills to save up her Energy for the 10pm through 5am.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hours where she becomes a terror.

[Luke Burbank]

Where she becomes an absolute terror. And if she is in the crate and the door is closed at some point in the middle of the night, she just starts absolutely wilding out in there to where then Becca has to open the thing and let her out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I guess she likes it on her terms. I really, I, I can associate with that.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like the exotic pet clinic might be able to help with this. I don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maybe. Yeah, they sell.

[Luke Burbank]

If it's a partial, it was a transorbital lobotomy. I don't know if Bubbles would get smarter or dumber from a lobotomy, but I'm willing to try.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think that we should give cats lobotomies, really. I'D rather have a cat bottle in front of me than a cat frontal lobotomy. Good lord. If at any point you want to restart the show, I'm totally fine with that. Three, two, one.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, can I tell you something actually that I. It's actually very good that we've been talking about these things, Andrew, including Cindy's Pancake house and your friend Andrea, and the topics you may or may not discuss tomorrow on kuow. Because if, if it were left to me, all I would have would be complaints today. And that's not a fun show. That's not fun for the listeners. That's kind of a, that's a negative way to be in the world. But I gotta tell you something that happened to me yesterday after I was done with the filming for cbs. And then I came back to the hotel and then I went down to get a bottle of water from the lobby of the hotel. They have a little convenience store in there because. And this is sort of related more to the. What was going to be the top story, I have a feeling today's show may just sort of sprawl. Although we do have a dazzling donor. So maybe that will create a little bit of, a little bit of structure, a little bit of much needed structure. But I was getting some water because they don't give you like, they don't have a water station in this hotel lobby, which is, you know, most hotel lobbies, decent hotels, they'll just have like a thing of water and some cups and you can give yourself some water. I am of the opinion that they don't give you free water here because they want you to have to go buy it in the convenience store, which again, is part of this, part of this whole larger thing that's going on here. But I went into the little convenience store thingy, got me some Aquafina. By the way, the water that they, they offer, they were. Everybody was very nice at the ufc. Yesterday I went to the UFC headquarters. You walk in though, it's so funny. It's like the front desk staff is like five incredibly jacked 23 year old guys with mullets. It's the most interesting front desk crew I've ever seen. Like, it's a, it's like a totally. It just flips the whole idea, whatever your sort of gender normative ideas about what the, maybe the secretarial staff of the place would be or whatever. It's just all guys who I think are waiting for someone in the UFC to get hurt so they can jump.

[Andrew Walsh]

In, you know, What I feel like if I work. Did you watch the Righteous Gemstones at all?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm, I'm aware of it. I'm aware of the characters. I didn't watch many episodes, but. But who are you thinking?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, well, there was a. Adam Devine is on that show, of course, and he's, you know.

[Luke Burbank]

Is it his boyfriend?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, his friend slash boy. I don't know. Are they Boyfriend. Boyfri.

[Luke Burbank]

But yeah, I thought that was kind of the joke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I think that, I mean, there's some attraction there. I think I, I didn't watch season two, but yeah, that's why I'm picturing that he's kind of got a like really in the character. Really, really sweet guy, but totally jacked with a mullet.

[Luke Burbank]

That was basically the whole front desk. Love it, but I love it. One of these nice jacked, bemolated kids said, hey, would you like some water? I said, absolutely. And again, I think he's just going to hand me a bottle of water. He hands me a, like a kind of monster energy drink looking can of something called Drip. Oh, it's like a giant. I mean, I guess it's good. It's not plastic, so we're not throwing more plastic in the oceans. But it was a giant aluminum can of water, still water, but it was called Drip. It's like only at the ufc, heaven forbid we hand you a bottle of Fiji. This is Drip. This is not your granddad's water.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's for Drips. I mean, what can you say?

[Luke Burbank]

So anyway, I'm going downstairs to get a bottle of Drip at the little store here and I go to pay for it with my card and my card is declined. And I'm like, those stinkers at bank of America, they think that my card's been stolen because here I'm in Las Vegas, Nevada, so I use a different card and I, I go to call them up and while I'm waiting to. While I'm waiting for the them to pick up, I'm looking at my bank of America account.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Someone has charged $10,000.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, no.

[Luke Burbank]

On my card I had 50 cents. Andrew. I had 50 cents of room on the card. Like that's what. And the, the water was like 250, so it was $2 over. Someone had been going ham on my card digitally. They weren't doing this physically. They weren't going around. I think it was. Most of it was just something that was like a string of like nonsense numbers. And then this is kind of ironic considering how I make my side hustle. Something called Microsoft Ads. There was many, many charges to. I'm just looking at this now. I'm going to read it to you directly. Yeah, Microsoft asterisk ads. And then just like a string of.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nonsense numbers and that's how it appears on the statement. Like the digital credit card statement.

[Luke Burbank]

There's like for. They started by, they tested out the Microsoft Store, I think for a dollar and then that went through. So then they bought, they did $250 at the Microsoft store and then another $250 and then a thousand dollars and then $5,000 and then $5,000 and Then a hundred dollars for good measurements.

[Andrew Walsh]

And these, these $5,000 charges are. Did you say 1,000, 5,000 or 500 and 1,000. Sorry, I kind of got lost in the numbers there.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, the point is it's a lot of money.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, the point is it's a lot of money. I was just curious though. But these big purchases are going to this Microsoft ads thing too.

[Luke Burbank]

I know that's not something called Microsoft asterisk ads. And then like a ser. Like a G1202 AJX thing. I don't know if that's like, if that's via the. I mean they must have, because I physically had the card. So they must have, they must have gotten the number somehow and then I guess maybe gone to like a Microsoft. You know, I think they still have those Microsoft stores. Probably like their answer to the Apple Store. But maybe there's a digital version. I mean, I don't even know what that means. But here's what I can tell you. Andrew. Did anybody at bank of America reach out to me to ask if I wanted to spend $10,000 on Microsoft ads? This amazing security focused organization that is protecting my money. The one time someone's trying to take my money, did they do anything about it? And the answer, my friend, is no. They were being total drips. Like this is almost more annoying than the money being stolen, which we'll go back to the card and also this is a credit card. Thankfully it's not like coming out of my bank account, but it's. The whole thing's annoying. But like for all of the talk and I, by the way, I want to shout out, I forget, I'm sorry, I forget the name of the listener who clarified this. But they were very right. When I go on this rant, usually one of the things that I will say is if, let's say your money is stolen out of your checking account, it's protected by the fdic. That is actually not correct. That money is not fdic. That's just covered by the. The bank. The FDIC thing I think has to do with something else. And this person explained it and I've now failed.

[Andrew Walsh]

If banks. If banks fail.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was in reaction, I think, to like the stock market crash of the 30s. Right, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

Joseph Mitchell has an essay about it.

[Luke Burbank]

And you'll find it. Right. With two other notes tucked in from other friends writing you from other pancake houses. But anyway, I just. I was so agog not even that this happened because this happens in life. And again, it's not the end of the world. I'll. I called them. Well, the bummer part is now my card is. Is toast. Like, I have to get a new card, which means I have to change everything that's associated with this card. Every little, you know, good to go, toll account, et cetera. But it's just the fact that, like, I feel like there are so many ways in which these financial organizations, institutions rather make things a little more challenging for me. But it's in the name of protecting my money. It's in the name of like making my life more convenient. And then the thing that they're supposedly protecting me from happens. And I only found out about because I tried to buy a thing of water and I couldn't do it. Like this would have been sitting there indefinitely. I didn't get a text, I didn't get an email from them. I didn't get any notification that this wildness was happening on my card.

[Andrew Walsh]

What are, what are the things that you have to do that you find annoying?

[Luke Burbank]

The things that I have to do? Well, if oftentimes I've tried to use this card in places and it's told me that I can't use it because they think it's stolen, they're very quick to. For instance, I was once buying a bunch of groceries with Addie. I was going to make a big breakfast and the. It was like a Saturday morning and had all the groceries and I'm standing at the thing and I go to use the card and it's turned off because for some reason they were suspicious that the card was being used. Maybe I don't buy enough breakfast food on a Saturday morning, but like those kinds of things happen. And I find those to be an annoyance. But I guess the upside is it is keeping my account safe from bad actors. Except the one time a bad actor tries to bad act, it just goes right on through and they didn't even, I didn't even get a message for them going, hey, you don't ever spend $10,000 at the Microsoft store online. Is this you? You would think this would be one of the times when they would actually step up and do it and they've done nothing.

[Andrew Walsh]

But you're not, you don't, you're not responsible for any of this either.

[Luke Burbank]

That's good, as far as I'm aware. I mean, I talked to the person and they said, you know, again, they destroyed the card or they, you know, turn the card off. I destroyed the card and now I'm just waiting. I mean, it's still all on here, by the way. It hasn't like gone away. So they're doing some kind of, I guess, investigation, but which I am assuming will find that I did not buy these, whatever these items were from this place. But it just, again, it just felt to me like I've been on this harangue for years and years on this show and everyone loves it and no one is tired of it, but it just feels like for. And it. There's something also ironic about being in Las Vegas because in years past when I was a little bit more degen, I would often have them stop me from using my card here because I was trying to get money out of the ATM or something and the bank was being like, actually, maybe the bank was helping me. And they were like, buddy, why don't you calm down? Why don't you go? Why don't you take a moment and think about if this is a good financial decision. But they, you know, they're often turning your card off in Vegas when you're trying to do money things with it. And then here I am in Vegas finding out that someone has been misappropriating my funds, or I guess bank of America's funds to the tune of $11,000 plus.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's always creepy to me, you know, when, when somebody, when you're a victim of some sort of a robbery, think of, you know, luckily I've never experienced any kind of like, you know, home break in or home invasion or whatever you want to call it. I have had, you know, vehicles broken into, smash and grabs, that type of thing before.

[Luke Burbank]

You did get some free headphones though, right? When they.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, oh, that's right. They actually literally stole our entire scooter, our Honda Elite, and drove it around town and then wrecked it. And then when I finally got that and when I went to visit it and it wouldn't, I wouldn't say I got it back. It was no longer usable. But when I went to visit it and give it, like, last rights at the. What do you call the place where the tow trucks bring your car at the impound lot, I opened up the little boot. And instead of my helmet and other stuff being in there that I had left in there was. What was in there? A drill. A rechargeable drill that I think I have. Yes. Some Beats by Dre headphones that I finally threw away. A bottle, like a half a bottle of bullet whiskey and an unopened.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you consider drinking that?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, because it was opened and I think I had just recently stopped smoking. Like probably within a year around this time. No, I remember this because I remember a full unopened pack of cigarettes in there. I'm pretty sure there were Marlboro Lights because I can kind of remember the white box. And I remember thinking, I don't think I would be tempted to smoke them even if I was, like, still a smoker at that time. That's not my brand. And I don't know, it just felt weird. But I just remember thinking whoever ditched this bike was not ready to ditch it. They were running from something. Because any smoker knows you don't just leave a full unopened pack of cigarettes behind. It's just like you just don't, you know where you're. I mean, unless you're. I don't know. In my case, I'd always like. I would know when I'm getting down to the bottom of a pack of cigarettes and I know that I have the next pack or I don't, you know, or I need to get one or whatever. Like, you just are pretty aware of where your next fresh pack of cigarettes are. And I remember finding those in there and thinking person did not have time to get their whiskey and their cigarettes. All that is to say there. I mean, I'm not saying anything super interesting here, but obviously you feel invaded, right? It's like, it's such a. It's a weird feeling of. Of personal violation sort of. But even digitally, even though nothing physically was broken into or whatever, don't you get like kind of a weird bad feeling, like, just because you want it? Like, well, what. What were they buying? What was this Microsoft thing? Or like, when our card was hacked or my card was hacke was buying. I've said this many times, like, pay per view stuff for Dazn fights or whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

And again, you don't think this was Camaro, Kev?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I do.

[Luke Burbank]

I just the number one Dazn watcher, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

I just can't prove it.

[Luke Burbank]

Luke, one of your close friends is a Dazn fan. And then your card is stolen and someone's watching Dazn and you can't connect these dots?

[Andrew Walsh]

I remember I left my wallet on their counter. I went in to use the restroom. I came out five minutes later, and Kamara. Kevin was in a really good mood. I don't know, man. I. I have circumstantial evidence.

[Luke Burbank]

But anyway, maybe like the old joke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, wait, no, no, you go ahead, go ahead.

[Luke Burbank]

The old joke. It's like a guy. A guy thinks that his wife is cheating on him, so he hires a private investigator. He says, I. I think my wife is cheating on me, but I can't prove it. And so the private investigator follows her around and he comes back and he sits the guy down and he shows the guy all these photos and goes, yeah, you know, right after you left the house, she. Then a guy came over and met her, and then they left together. And then they went and got dinner, and then they went to a hotel and photos of them going up into the room, and then they take their clothes off and then they pull the shades and the guy goes, that's what I'm talking about. There's still that doubt.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right? Yes, that's Camaro.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that's Camaro, Kev. But no, you know what? Here's what I will say. I feel weirdly 5% less violated because they never physically had my card, if that makes any sense. Like, this is annoying, but it's like there's something about somebody having your card. And then, like, this happened. Becca had her. Her entire purse stolen out of her car while she was, like, jogging one time. And then it was like we were just watching the places that these people were going with the card and trying to run it and trying to do things, and there's something about it traveling with them. This, to me, felt like this is offshore. This is somebody probably very far away from here who just. Just, you know, I don't know how these things work, but use some sort of computer chicanery to get my info and then, you know, stole it off of the dark web or something and then just like, bought. Who knows, probably a gift card. My guess is this is all gift card. Right. Because that's a very fungible thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that would make sense. Yeah. Yeah. For me, I. Even though it wasn't a physical card, I was still like. Because I was on the phone with a bank representative, I Mentioned this to you kind of recently. And I remember he went like he was going line by line with me. What about this? Did you, you buy this? Who is.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, I was doing that too.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was like, more touch tunes. Yes, the touch. Sir, the touch tunes are mine. Yes. $100 of touch tunes. Yes, that Laura Brannigan song slaps. It needs to be heard many times at the Vibe. Okay. But anyway, like going line by line and being like, yeah, the touch tunes are mine. No, the zone is not mine. Whatever. And you're kind of going through it all. It did. Like, even though there wasn't a physical card lost for me, I was still like, who is this slime ball? You know, like. And I'm trying to like picture them, trying to picture how they got my information, how, you know, what they went around doing. I think the thing about the Microsoft purchases all being from that, like kind of that weird, you know, kind of result or whatever the weird record is, like, that's really like. Like I'm kind of obsessed with that now. Like, what was it? What was the game? You know, our buddy. This is really, you know, we'll keep this anonymous, but I'm pretty sure you know this story. Our buddy was mugged outside of a bar like how many years ago, Luke? Two, three years ago now. Very, very, very scary.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a full on assault, full assault, yeah, like bad news kind of situation. I always think this, like, is there a difference between. Does a robbery have to involve when someone says I was robbed, does that have to involve either force or the threat of like violence or the threat of violence versus. Is there a different category? Like, I don't feel like I was robbed in this case.

[Andrew Walsh]

Interesting.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like you were. I was, it was. I was frauded. My stuff was stolen. But it doesn't feel like a robbery to me. A robbery? To quote Tim Roth in Pulp Fiction. Everybody be cool. This is a robbery. Like, it feels like robbing. Seems like there has to be. Like burgling is. You went into the house, you took stuff out, maybe they didn't even know you were there. That's a burgling. That's not a robbery. A robbery is stick em up in my mind. But I don't know if any of that's true. That's just how my mind categorizes these things.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think you're absolutely right about burglary. And I haven't looked this up yet. I'm kind of laughing because I love hamburgling. I love the word burgle and I Love burglary. I love the word burglary. And so. And this is just so embarrassing to admit. Like, I'm not gonna say I do this all the time, but it's not uncommon. You know, if I'm at the grocery store and I'm doing self checkout, which I do 99.99% of the time. And at some point, if the balance is off or the weight is off or whatever, the computer's like, okay, before you can pay, somebody has to come over here and inspect your stuff or whatever. And I often will say to the person, I don't know, it thinks I'm burglaring or something like that. Or I'll just be like, I don't know, it thinks I'm a burglar. But like, that is. It makes me laugh because I love that word so much. But that is not what a burglar would do. Like, if you're trying to, like, steal a thing of milk at the checkout, that's not burglary. I think you're right that you have to go into a physical. It almost feels like home. Right? But no, a business can be burgled. You could go into a business and steal money or property. That would be burglary. But, like, a mugging is not burglary. I don't think. I do think that's robbery, but I also do think that you were robbed here. I don't know. I mean, because what else would it be?

[Luke Burbank]

Theft. Theft.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's theft. But you've been. I was thieved. You were thieved within an inch of your life last night. Robbery is the action of taking property unlawfully from a person or place by force. Luke. Or threat of force. Wow.

[Luke Burbank]

I was pretty close.

[Andrew Walsh]

You absolutely nailed that. You were not robbed.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I was.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow. You were not robbed. Well, that should put you in a better mood.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel my mood is improving already.

[Andrew Walsh]

You thought you were robbed, but you weren't.

[Luke Burbank]

No. I mean, honestly, today is really turning around. Let's thank a dazzling donor to celebrate. We was hoping for some razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle dazzle. On your mark. On your mark.

[Andrew Walsh]

Get set, get set now. Ready? Ready.

[Luke Burbank]

Go. Everybody.

[Andrew Walsh]

Razzle dazzle.

[Luke Burbank]

Look at this, Andrew. We thought we were all done with the dazzling donors, but in fact, there was one final dazzling donor that we needed to thank. A person who. Who's been donating a dazzling amount of dough, and it is our dear friend Sarah Nichols Smith over there in Crown Hill. Now, this is interesting. Crown Hill, Washington. Has the Crown Hill neighborhood seceded from Seattle, Washington?

[Andrew Walsh]

I did not know about this, but that is definitely something we should explore on KUOW tomorrow if that's the case.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. I think you should. So I have to tell you something, Andrew. I'm very impressed with.

[Andrew Walsh]

With you today.

[Luke Burbank]

The fact that you had that Joseph Mitchell book, that you read it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I haven't read it well, I mean. Oh, yeah, I read it back in the day.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that you read it back in the day. That you saved it. That you remembered that there was an ASCAP reference to it in it, rather. And then you went and found it on your shelf so that you can go into KUOW tomorrow and talk about this. I. That's a very. That's a very sort of very dignified way to go through life. I'm very impressed.

[Andrew Walsh]

You left one thing out. I remembered it, I found it, I banged the hell out of my nipple, and then I'm gonna reread it. The weird thing is, Luke, there must have been something about that story that stuck with me because I'm looking at this. This is filled with. It's a smallish book. They're short essays, but there's probably 50 essays in here or something like that. That's literally the only one I remember. I think it just fits my kind of interest level. Right. The whole. I just find it interesting that way back in the 30s, people were still like, kind of. Or not still, but back in the 30s and in 2025, it's still essentially the same thing. You walk into a bar, you tilt your ear, you're like, hey, they're playing music. Do you have a license? If not, you're busted. Like, it's just, like. It's still just very. It's not a lot different than it was in the 1930s.

[Luke Burbank]

The big question, though, in all this is how will you shoehorn this into the conversation in a way that maximizes your coolness but doesn't seem like you're shoehorning it?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I don't. That's a good point. I mean, I may or may not. I mean, I'll probably. I don't even know for sure if the story will come up. But, I mean, now I'm getting into too much detail. But what I did was, you know, the people who produced the show send out an email to the guests and say, do you have anything that you thought was interesting this week that you'd like to talk about? And we all throw ideas around. So I already sort of tipped my hand on this when I was just like, oh, you know, I find this story pretty interesting in the paper today about this ASCAP bust or whatever. And it reminds me of this essay from Joseph Mitchell. I'll see if I can find it. So. So, I mean, you know, if it comes up on the show, they'll know that I'm not like, I wasn't just thinking of it in the moment. I'm not going to like, lean back, take a puff on my pipe and maybe scratch my elbow where I have one of those pads on the outside.

[Luke Burbank]

That's why they've asked me to not come back to the show, because that's how I was starting almost every comment.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I don't want, I don't want to make fun of you, Luke, but you know that was a bubble pipe, right? I mean, that was the thing. They didn't even mind you bringing a pipe into the studio.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, the real one gives me a headache.

[Andrew Walsh]

I know, I understand that, but it just hits differently. Like when you're like trying to look smart and you're blowing bubbles.

[Luke Burbank]

I think what you need to do, you need to put everybody else on the panel on defense by saying when the story comes up, you go, well, it's like the Joseph Mitchell essay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what I mean? And you don't, don't even contextualize it. You offer it as if everyone knows this Joseph Mitchell essay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I see. Just end it there. Well, of course, of course. It's like that Joseph Mitchell essay from 1950.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, that's. You know what? I hadn't even thought of that. That is a real power move.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, just leave it there. And then when people look at you blankly, full stop. Oh, you're unfamiliar. Do I have to reteach this to you?

[Luke Burbank]

Hold on. I've got it actually here in my back pocket. By coincidence, I carry around a tattered copy of this book.

[Andrew Walsh]

I use this 20 year old note from my friend Andrea as a bookmark.

[Luke Burbank]

Sarah is of course in Crown Hill, Washington and says, hi, business boys. Congratulations on another successful year of being all of our escape mechanism. What you do is truly so important. I'm making the same offer I did last year for potential clients and referrals. If you're a 10 and you use me to help you buy or sell your home, I'd love to sponsor you as a dazzling donor for the TVTL. A thon 2026. Coming to you, Andrew. Well, coming to the listeners from French Wisconsin.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that'll be TBT 2025. This is for the THON after that in 2026, which maybe, you know, if we get detained in friendship in 2025, we. We might be doing the thon there in. We will see.

[Luke Burbank]

I hadn't even thought about that. Also, I'm apparently unfamiliar with what year we're in. I have so much fun working. I have so much fun working with tens. Having a shared language is a helpful framework for a stressful time. Who else knows how to properly pronounce what? Or spreadshee or knows what I mean when I ask if they're a Luke or an Andrew? This framework is very helpful in informing my approach. I love this idea. I love this idea that somebody is looking to purchase a home or sell a home and they're talking to Sarah. And Sarah is able to very quickly understand their needs and the way in which this process will go best for them based on if they're a Luke or an Andrew. Are you a Johnny or a Bobo?

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. So I saw Sarah just the other day. She dropped. In fact, I'm gonna tell you about a gift that Sarah just dropped off for you here in a moment. But Sarah.

[Luke Burbank]

Pour moi.

[Andrew Walsh]

Pour moi. Well, she got us both gifts, but I know about mine. But I'm gonna tell you about. They're the same gift. They're really cool. But so she stopped by and we were chatting and she did say that, like, she did help somebody who's a listener of TBTL sell their condo in the last year. And now that person is going to be a dazzling donor because Sarah is going to sponsor them as a dazzling donor. And she did say, she said, being. Being like two people who listen to the same show, I can literally say, like she said, we had conversations like, well, I'm a little bit of an Andrew when it comes to that. So I'm looking for this. I don't know. It's probably like. Like, I'm a bit of an Andrew. So I'm looking for, like a sauna and like, kind of a sexy hot tub. I like a mirror on the ceiling that I don't like any of those.

[Luke Burbank]

Kind of doors that smash your nipple.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

I've kind of none of those.

[Andrew Walsh]

I've kind of an Andrew. We're going to need wider doors. We're going to need to put pools on them. Yes, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Sarah says if you're not selling a home or buying a home in the near future or if you live outside my region, I can still help. Help. I'll sponsor you at the daily donor level. If you refer me to someone who hires me, or if you let me connect you with a realtor in your area. See how I did not split the diphthong there, Andrew? I'm very proud of myself on that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. In realtor, you mean it is.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I did not say realtor.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, a very easy word to mispronounce.

[Luke Burbank]

Although I think I. In bragging there, I think I said something that doesn't make sense. I think you have a split infinitive or you have a diphthong. I don't think there's a split diphthong.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's interesting. So it is. So. I always forget that. So, like, the fact that E and A are next to each other, but it's one syllable, like real. That's a diphthong.

[Luke Burbank]

I think that might be a diphthong.

[Andrew Walsh]

That makes sense.

[Luke Burbank]

But I said I lauded myself for not splitting my diphthong, but I don't think. I don't think anyone's ever done that. So, anyway, I did it.

[Andrew Walsh]

I ran into a door and I split my diphthong.

[Luke Burbank]

I bet you did. I have been so fortunate this year to work with incredible clients. And a fun twist. My 10th closing of the year is a 10. Who will be a dazzling donor next year? This is the person you're referring to, I believe.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think so. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

If you're in the Daniel Bagley elementary district of Seattle, swing through my office at Lake. Are you. Wait a minute. I don't know if I've discussed this with Sarah in person. Sarah is at the Lake real estate office, Andrew. Do you understand that's right at the sort of intersection of Winona and Greenlake Way.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay. Yeah, I know that area. Okay. Yeah, that.

[Luke Burbank]

That is. That is. That real estate office has been there, I would say, for almost the entire. It was there for almost the entire time that I lived in Seattle as a kid, certainly from like, maybe like 10 years old on. And it is still there. And it is part of the kind of mental map of my life as a child is this real estate office that Sarah works from.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's cool. No, I didn't know that that was, like, kind of such a legacy there. I'm.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, you know what? I know this building. Oh, yeah. What a cute little building there right at this kind of funky intersection that is sort of. It's kind of a tight triangle corner. I know this place. I mean, I know of it from passing it. Yeah. Yeah. That's great.

[Luke Burbank]

That's where Sarah is. Sarah says I'm also a mom on the net. So you can find me at Nicole Smith Realtor and Nickel is N I C K E L and then Smith Realtor and Icklesmith dot. Well, it's on bluesky. Just look at Icklesmith. I don't need to read the whole thing. The BSKY social. By the way, Andrew, I have some bluesky news for you. Do you know who started following me on Blueski during today's show? Show?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think Dana White is spending a lot of time on Blue Ski. Who?

[Luke Burbank]

I don't see him as a blue Ski guy. I think there's a couple of other social media places he likes to hang out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did you ask him? Are you a Blue Ski guy? Was that question number one?

[Luke Burbank]

We know he's on the board of Meta. I mean it was. And I was, you know, asking him questions about basically like fact checking the fact they don't have fact checkers and stuff. It was, it was so interesting talking to him because he was in this moment and I'm not trying to describe. I don't know him very well personally. I don't know what he's like in a million other ways, in a million other situations, but in this moment he was like a very friendly golden doodle.

[Andrew Walsh]

Mm.

[Luke Burbank]

Like he wanted to show me all the stuff in his office. He wanted to like. He was very. He was a very kind person in my experience of talking to him. And yet there were so many things that were said that were just like kind of sort of either contradictory or kind of didn't really make sense or like, you know, know, like he was like, I'm anti war. And then the next thing we went into is a thing he has called the war room.

[Andrew Walsh]

Literally, gentlemen, you can't fight in here. It's the war room.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. Call back to that. I believe that was a weirdly.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

A meme that you injected into the criminals discourse the other day.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's never far from my mind, honestly. It's a great joke from Dr. Strangelove.

[Luke Burbank]

But it was weird. Instead of. I went into the interview wondering if it was going to be sort of adversarial in that I'd be asking questions and his answers would be like maybe terse or he would feel threatened by the questions or he would be somehow sort of, I don't know, brusque with me. And it was the opposite of that. It was a guy who really like. Again, if we could have just like some of the larger Meta context, so to speak, some of the larger contexts had been removed. I'd be like, oh, this guy's just like kind of a. Kind of a sweet doofy guy. But there's. Of course, there is the context, but there. There was. Oh, Norm. Norm. Charlatan started following me on blue ski. Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's who sort of. I already forgot.

[Luke Burbank]

Goldfish.

[Andrew Walsh]

Goldfish. I literally already forgot. You know what I'm doing? I'm walking around as we speak. I'm walking. I did. I did a street.

[Luke Burbank]

Digitally.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. I did a street view shot of the realty building, Lake company real estate. And I did. I just mispronounce it after that whole conversation. But anyway, and then I'm like, oh, yeah, this neighborhood is so great. And now I'm just walking around Green Lake, like on Green Lake Ave. Or whatever, digitally on Google Maps. And I'm like, is this. Does this count as my exercise for the day, honestly? Because this is. I'm really out here. I'm getting some fresh air. Everything is green and beautiful. So beautiful day on Google Maps.

[Luke Burbank]

We may find out sometime eventually that that does actually count for your steps. Like, maybe if your brain.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Is. We will. There will be a study that will find that your brain thinking that you did something gives you 70% of the benefit of doing the thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I could. Because, like, you know, you said something was. I want to get back to Sarah's message and her gift for you here. But you said something once that really stuck in my head because I didn't and I didn't know it or I haven't done reading on the topic. And you mentioned it, like, kind of in passing a long time ago about, you know, we all know that walking is good for you. And I always just think of the sort of physical aspects of that. And I'm somebody who kind of likes walking. You know, I'm not a big exerciser, but I like walking. I like walking around my neighborhood. It's preferred now.

[Luke Burbank]

Don't keep your sugar on the shelf don't hide your light under a bushel Yesterday when I missed our TBTB meeting because I was interviewing Dana White and I called you and I said, can we do it now? You said, I'm actually going to the gym.

[Andrew Walsh]

I said, I'm going to see Jim. Jim is the bartender.

[Luke Burbank]

I misheard that. Okay, that's on me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Jim is the bartender at my gym. It's an awesome gym. Is that.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you just make up that joke? Because that is a really good joke.

[Andrew Walsh]

I also think that could have been.

[Luke Burbank]

On Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think of Lucille Bluth in the hospital saying, I'll be at the bar. And somebody says, there's no bar, this is a hospital. She says, well, this is why people hate hospitals. Yes, but yes, no, I did go to the gym yesterday. That was pretty good. But anyway, yeah, so I do. Oh, the thing that you said that stuck in my head. So I like walking around. I sometimes I think like, oh, I didn't get much exercise, but at least if I'm walking to the grocery store, if I'm walking around town or whatever, you know, I'm getting a little bit of steps in, I guess. But you had mentioned that, like there are the other like, benefits of walking aren't just like the, the heart rate or like your joints or whatever, but also the act motion of like, you're taking in information, you're looking around you, your eyes are a big part of it. And I, I haven't really followed up to learn more about that, but I think that's really fascinating.

[Luke Burbank]

Nor have I, but I did read an article one time that, yeah, basically said when you, when you go for a walk, your eyes are scanning obviously, like the area around you for, you know, things you might trip on, etc. And something about that activity of your eyes doing that thing is very, it's good for your brain for whatever reason. Maybe it's the way your brain is engaged with that or something. But like, so the benefits are not just cardiovascular, but they are in fact kind of, you know, mental, I guess.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, I'm. Now I'm kind of jogging through Green Lake here and now there's somebody like jogging right next to me, Luke. And he has kind of wild eyes and he's not wearing.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, that's my guy from Ms. Covell.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, did you take a Vegas run this morning?

[Luke Burbank]

I did.

[Andrew Walsh]

Was it less? Let's see here. What's.

[Luke Burbank]

What I'm looking for Less. It was, it was less. What, adventurous?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it was less.

[Luke Burbank]

There was fewer. I did not see the green haired joker guy. And also nobody tried to jog with me. I also took a different route because I actually moved rooms in the, in the hotel because the room that I was broadcasting from yesterday was one of those kind of rooms that has like a shared door. Like it's. You could potentially rent out two rooms and then have a, you know, open the door and go between them. Yeah, but the problem was I could hear the guy clearing his voice on the other side of the door, clearing his throat rather. And I was just thinking, this poor bastard is having to listen to me, do an Entire episode of TBTL at 10 in the morning in Las Vegas, Nevada. Like, can you just imagine, like the hangover potentially and the whatever and the. Just the carousing that goes on and then. Then you just hear me through a very thin door. So I moved. Also, I didn't. The room I was in was. Was crummy. That was when I found out, by the way, that the entire top floor of this hotel is apparently off limits because none of the acs work. And instead of fixing it, they're just no longer renting out the top floor.

[Andrew Walsh]

They're going to turn into an orchid garden.

[Luke Burbank]

This feels like. Well, you know what? Let's just say thank you to Sarah and can you tell me about the present? And then I will save my. I'll save my. My complaints about Las Vegas for the part of the show where I complain about Las Vegas.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, good. But we've established that Sarah is now at Lake Real Estate and that building there in the Daniel Bagley elementary district of Seattle, as she says.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, I delivered papers to that place. I cannot overstate how central that is to my childhood memories.

[Andrew Walsh]

Man. Okay, so Sarah swung by the other day and wanted to give us both a little gift. But I think of that we each received one of these, and I'm very grateful for it, but I really think this was sort of like your. This is your vibe and your idea.

[Luke Burbank]

Can I turn the camera on for this? Can I?

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure, yeah. You want to? Yeah. Maybe you can announce what you're seeing. We had our cameras turned off because we kind of had slower Internet today, so. Nice little fuchsia bag here. Beautiful, if you can see that. And then inside is a what?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, my goodness. A pencil sharpener. The exact kind we were talking about.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. You said eventually you want, I think, for your studio, right? Like a wall mounted pencil sharpener here that you can. And also comes with a. Some pencils as well, tied together here in a. Sarah.

[Luke Burbank]

How thoughtful.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So I'll get this.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you very much.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. Awesome. Sarah, thank you so much for all your support over the years and for being a friend of the show and a friend of us. And tell you what you may have messed up by letting me know that you work at that amazing real estate office. Because the next time I'm sauntering around Green Lake, I'm gonna pop in and say hi. I've actually never been inside that place because I've, you know, never had a use as a child to buy a house. But I. Well, no, Maybe I, maybe I went inside when I was dropping off the Outlook. It's been a long time and I'm overdue. So I'm gonna come visit you, Sarah. But thanks again for all the support.

[Andrew Walsh]

If you ever hire Sarah, I want you to describe yourself as an Andrew. Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

It's funny today, Andrew, I saw a story in the Seattle Times about Las Vegas that felt very relevant to my experience here the last few days. The headline is that's criminal. $26 mini bar water bottle at Las Vegas Casino Hotel sparks social media outrage. And the basic story is that somebody was staying at the Aria Casino and they grabbed a bottle of water from the minibar and they were charged $26. And that's a lot of money to, you know, pay for water. So they put that on the Internet and then people got outraged, as they tend to do. This was the part though that I thought was really bad, was apparently at some point this same person who was charged $26 for this bottle of water had to call housekeeping because there was food still crammed in the refrigerator of the hotel room from two guests ago. Two guests previous.

[Andrew Walsh]

How did they know Two guests previous? I read that and I was a little confused by that.

[Luke Burbank]

That is a good question. How would they know that it was not just the people right before that? Maybe there was a receipt. It could have been a doordash order that had the date on it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure, yeah, maybe.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know. I'm gonna go with it because I just feel like being outraged today. Okay. Somehow two guests. I think two guests says it all.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, two guests says it all.

[Luke Burbank]

Two guests. But the, what basically ends up going, you know, being discussed in the, in the rest of the article is that people are saying this kind of stuff is happening, you know, like food being left in the refrigerator. And other things about Las Vegas that are not ideal right now because Las Vegas is very, very much understaffed. And I can just tell you that has been my experience. So not to, you know, not to sort of criticize any of the hard working people who are here, they're doing their very best. But everywhere that I've been going the last couple of days just to get some food or any, just anything I've needed. Like I was sitting out at the pool last night here at the hotel and I was going to order some food while I was sitting at the pool. They don't have anybody coming up and taking care of the, like, there's nobody doing drink service, nobody doing food service. They just don't even have that anymore because they don't have enough staff for it. This town is so understaffed right now. Now it's crazy. And this hotel in particular is. I already mentioned earlier that they don't have any water in the lobby, which. It's the desert. I feel like that's a human right. Like, they should. They should have to give you water. Like, you know, free water.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I mean, in people would. In most cases, people would probably prefer a bottle of water that you can still buy at the Kwik E Mart and then carry around with you all day and reseal it or whatever. Like, it's not gonna totally kill the bottled water. It's just better for the environment as well. Like, you should also just provide. Even have, like one of those little bubblers with the cups pointy for some reason. Why don't they want us?

[Luke Burbank]

Why are those pointy?

[Andrew Walsh]

I was somewhere. Oh, I was at Whirly Ball. I hadn't seen one of those in a long time. And I was at Whirlyball, which has a lot of sort of retro vibes. Right. And I go to drink a little thing of water. And it's those tiny, tiny, thin Luke. They're so thin. Paper cups that come to a point, like a snow cone cup. And I'm like, do you not want me to set this water down? Has there been a scourge of people.

[Luke Burbank]

Here's my question.

[Andrew Walsh]

Down.

[Luke Burbank]

Have you ever, after drinking water out of one of those cone cups, have you ever in your life, not crushed it within your mighty hand?

[Andrew Walsh]

You can't not.

[Luke Burbank]

You can't not. You have to. For some reason, there's. You are not allowed to just throw that in the garbage. You have to go. You have to Hulk smash it for some reason.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, exactly. And I did. I think I smashed a couple of those, actually, because you can really only get one use out of them. But anyway, yeah, I just wanted to back you up. I'm with they should.

[Luke Burbank]

Should.

[Andrew Walsh]

It should be a law. Like, literally, it should be a law that you have to. You have to provide at least a place for somebody to get a cup of water. I understand you don't have to be handing out bottles of Fiji for free and swallowing the co cost, but you should provide a lady water. That's right. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Speaking of Australia, Andrew, or wherever Fiji is, they have the weirdest thing at this hotel, too. This is a Weston I'm staying in. Right. But it is. Is so. It is absolutely on its last legs. It is thread bear like, everywhere you look like the carpets are. Are, you know, dingy, and the doors don't close quite right, etc. But if I were to call the front desk right now of this hotel, I'm, you know, I'm on the. I don't need to give the floor number in case somebody decides to show up, right? But I'm on the floor of this hotel that I am on. If I were to call the front desk, I would get a person in Australia who would ask me if they can help me before they connect me to the front desk of this hotel.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's weird.

[Luke Burbank]

It is so annoying, because yesterday when I was trying to work some stuff out with the hotel, I. E. My room change, I kept calling the hotel. This is when I was like, we were on a downtime at the. At the shoot at the ufc because I had missed calls from the front desk. The guy was trying to help me out with getting me a better room. I'd missed calls. I call back and I don't get the front desk. I get. Get a person with an Australian accent who. The first time I called it, I just thought, oh, this is nice. They have somebody who answers the phone at this hotel with an Australian accent. But by the time I got, like, the fourth woman, who was different but also had an Australian accent, I realized, oh, this call is offshore. And then so they ask, you know, they're very beautiful voices, by the way, and a lovely accent. Australia is a wonderful island, and as arts people, people both direct and warm, but it would be like, you know, you get this. You play this. You know what? I almost am tempted to just do this in the speakerphone into the. You know, see if I can do this. Let me just see if this will work. I don't know. I'm going to try to do this on speaker. This is me calling the front desk.

[Andrew Walsh]

Welcome to Weston Hotels and Resorts. Everything we do is designed to help.

[Luke Burbank]

You be at your best so that you leave feeling better than when you arrived. Even the Australian ladies are busy right now.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right.

[Brenda]

Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

According to Western Las Vegas Hotel Spa, this is Sarah.

[Andrew Walsh]

How am I, sister?

[Luke Burbank]

Hi, could I have the front desk, please? Is there something I can maybe assist you with? No. You know what? I'll just give him a call back. Thank you. That's the other thing. They try to intercept you. They try to not put you through to the front desk if they can at all waylay you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now, this is all news to me. I don't keep an eye on Vegas very closely. I've never been there except for the one time I went with you and we stayed at a trailer park in.

[Luke Burbank]

We did have fun at that little like, casino. I always trailer park.

[Andrew Walsh]

Always look up the name of that place. Place I found it. Five aces. Yeah. Four aces maybe.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it used to be five aces.

[Andrew Walsh]

But they lost hard times.

[Luke Burbank]

They lost their branding deal.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I'm, you know, I apologize if this is implied in everything that you're saying and you already know this, but I was sort of assuming when you said that, like everybody is understaffed. I was sort of assuming that it had something to do with the workforce, you know, post recession and also generational, like people not taking those jobs. But I'm seeing this article from just last month. Yeah, early last month in May, May. It says what's behind all the recent layoffs at Las Vegas casinos. And this whole piece, which is actually, it's in the Seattle Times but reprinted from the Vegas, Las Vegas Journal. Have you already read this? Yeah, like, no. That is basically, I mean, this is really going to, if you weren't already irritated and didn't already assume this, like, this isn't about like, not having people who are willing to do these jobs. It's about these companies, just as you often complain about. I mean, as you often illuminate the audience about.

[Luke Burbank]

Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, exactly. As you research and express yourself regarding. Anyway, yeah, so it's just like these companies are just laying tons of people off to just try to squeeze more and more money, you know, from, from the bottom line, I guess.

[Luke Burbank]

And it is totally noticeable. There's just so much stuff here that used to be pretty good that's now pretty bad because there's just nobody working anywhere. And then again, again, the, the poor folks who are working have to constantly deal with like, annoyed, you know, customers because, like, because there's, there's not, there's only one of them to go around is to say the worker. And I think I have read a different article at some point which said, and I don't know how much this is directly responsible that basically young people, which is to say, I don't know, maybe people in their like twenties are not as interested in gambling as like our generation or the, or our parents generation. And there was a bunch of numbers about like the average visitor to Vegas based on their age and how much they gamble. And it's basically like it sounds like, and I don't want to generalize here, but it sounds like younger people are, what's the word? Smarter, I guess, than, than the generations that came before them that are just like, hey, I got a free steak dinner and all I had to do was lose $1,000 on Lightning Lane. Like, the younger people are not gambling. They want to do. They want to go to concerts and they want to go sit at bungalows by the swimming pool. So a lot of the orientation of these casinos is changing towards trying to figure out what are the next generation of people actually interested in. But it also just seems like.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can I ask you a quick question on that topic, please, before you move on? Do you think that also. And I wonder, I don't think we said this last time, are people not gambling as much or are people not gambling in the traditional in person way? Because if you look at sports betting, which is, is a relatively brand new phenomenon, but that has absolutely taken over the culture. There's just more of a mode of, yeah, I can gamble from wherever I want.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, I don't know the answer to that. Like, I don't know if the total amount of gambling is basically constant, but it's just happening differently. That would kind of, that would make sense to me. Like, I don't think people stopped, you know, wanting to do this thing that for certain people, me brings them a lot of fun. But, but I don't, I can't give you a real answer on that. But what I can say is that things seem to be shifting around here and what's happening is everything. Part of why I'm staying in this absolute dump of a Westin is because there were no other hotels in Las Vegas that CBS was willing to pay for because of the cost of them. That's not true. There. I could have been in like Summerland or Henderson or in the far outskirts of the greater Las Vegas area at like a Fairfield Inn or something. Something. But as far as being relatively close to where we're filming and where stuff is going on, all of the hotels are too expensive. And why is that? That's because a lot of them are like losing money or maybe not making as much money as they want to. And so now they're all jacking up the prices of the hotel rooms. Everything here is really expensive right now, which means I think people are like less interested in engaging with the stuff, which means they have to keep raising the prices because, like, it's a vicious cycle here. I think as far as, like, I just, it feels to me like the Vegas business model is not working.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I'm looking at this article too, and it said something like that, that in recent months that the that the visitorship has sort of declined a little bit at the casinos as well, it seems. Seems like that is sort of a relatively new thing. But what's really galling is the fact that the article kind of starts by saying business is not bad. It's just that these companies are, like, looking to, like, remove it. Like, how. How far can they go in taking away amenities? And I do think that this is still something that is sort of like the pandemic happened, and then it got all these sort of hospitality places saying, like, oh, well, maybe we had to remove some of these amenities for safety reasons. Or at least that's what some of them were saying. And then it's like, oh, well, what can we get away with not providing? People will still come. And let's. Well, what if we lose this? What if we lose this? What if we lose whole floor of rooms and not fix the air conditioner?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that was it. I was in the first room. I was in the one I was broadcasting yesterday. It had two teeny, tiny beds in it. First of all, it was a very small room that had two teeny, tiny beds in it. And then, like, one chair and then like a kind of a. What was it? The fan or the, like, the AC unit that was, like, really kind of rattly and loud and then a shared door. And. Andrew, I don't know if you know this about me. I'm a Platinum Elite. I'm a verified Yelp reviewer. No, I'm a Bonvoy Platinum Elite person. And I. I could not understand how this was the best room that they could find for me in this pretty large hotel in Las Vegas, because my sense of Las Vegas has always been, yeah, it's, you know, it's a bullshit town that is sucking the Colorado river dry and shouldn't exist. Okay, that's just, like, the starting point of Las Vegas. Vegas. But when you're here, your family, when you're here, the rooms usually are actually kind of nice, even in, like, you could be in a not particularly fancy casino. But they usually. I mean, what they try to do is make it so you feel like you're having an experience. So if you're staying at the, like, for instance, the Venetian Hotel, which I can see from here, all of the rooms are what are called suites. Meaning. Meaning you come in and there's sort of the, like, little entry area, and then it's sunken down the living room area and the bedroom. You take a whole step down that little small thing of a change in altitude by, like, 6 inches. Somehow tells your mind, like, ooh la la. I'm in a suite, I'm in a nice hotel room. And I have, generally speaking, I've been pretty happy with most of the hotel rooms I've had in Las Vegas. Because, again, their whole thing is like, this person is very likely going to lose a bunch of money. How do we make this feel less bad for them? The way we do that is. Or maybe even not lose money. This person is going to spend a bunch of money. This person is going to leave Las Vegas with much less money than they came to Las Vegas with for whatever reason. So let's make the experience nice. Let's make the restaurants feel kind of fancy. Let's make the room seem kind of fancy. Let's overdo it on the service. Let's have a thing of water in the lobby. And maybe we'll slice up a couple of limes and put it in there. Like, let's try to, like, juz this whole thing up. And what's happened is Vegas has been unjuzed. And then you have to really face the reality of what it is, which is a town in the desert that, like, Bugsy Seagull set up so that he could, like, have his prostitutes and roulette and no one would find out about it. Like, it just. If you take away those little small things that make Vegas feel kind of nice, you then. Then it was like what Tom Beaudet said to me about drinking those so many years ago when I was trying to get him to come out and carouse in D.C. and he's a sober person. And he said, man, when you don't drink, these things really sound like what they are. Which was like, like very sage thing to say. But anyway, when you're in Vegas and you, you know, you have to call Australia to get to the front desk, you start to really notice Vegas for what it is. And what I will say is, is I probably won't come back here other than maybe to work or I guess if there's like some. I don't know, I'm trying to even think of what the social obligation would be that would be high enough for me to come back here. I don't think I'll come. I don't think I'll choose to vacation in Las Vegas again maybe for the rest of my life, honestly. Because there's just other fun places you can go. And certainly there's not a lack of gambling in the world. I mean, you can go lots of places for that or do it on your Phone, if you. If you must. But like, like, I'm just kind of like thinking this town is sort of, you know, jumped a certain shark.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I can, I can feel that I've never been a huge Vegas person myself, as, you know, as it was just previously stated. So. But I, I, without belaboring it, I just feel like I understand, especially as I get older and older, when you look at something and then suddenly the veneer is gone and you sort of see it for what it is, you know? And I don't know, I'm. Maybe it's a vague feeling that I have right now, but I do just sort of feel like even places. And listen, I'm not a highfalutin person at all, but place. And I will still like, you know, bro, down in some pretty scruffy places. But even the appeal of some places that I used to like, because they might have been a little bit, you know, just a little, again, scruffy around the edges or whatever I look at, I'm like, what is going on here? And that. And that for me is not even like the lack of alcohol. Trust me. We're keeping the Jim at my gym. My personal trainer at the gym. Jim, the bartender.

[Luke Burbank]

Jim Beam, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right, exactly. He's been. He's saying, keep the alcohol levels high, please. It's very important for this stage of your development. I'm like, okay, well, honestly, you're the doctor here.

[Luke Burbank]

You can't. That's a variable. And if you remove it, none of the data is. Can be trusted.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

The only way we can trust the data is if you keep everything constant.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm working this system, Luke. I'm working gym system.

[Luke Burbank]

But anyway, the big book, it's where Jim keeps my bar tab. It's got many pages.

[Andrew Walsh]

All of that is to say, you know, it doesn't even have to be a bar, but maybe even a restaurant that maybe I would at one point have found, like, very like, sort of heartwarming and, and sort of like very comfortable and cozy because it would remind me of being a kid and going to a place like this. But then you kind of look around, you're like, I don't know if I want to be eating here. Like, you look in the corners a little bit too closely or something like that. Like, I don't, I don't know, I might be aging out of some of this.

[Luke Burbank]

I also, it just feels like late stage capitalism to me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I think you're looking at the sphere right now.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, my new room has A dead on view of this, I think. I don't know if it's multi billion dollars, but at least a billion dollars I think went into this thing built by James Dolan, AKA Cabletown, AKA the guy in the fedora who wants to play the halftime show at the New York Knicks just because he owns them. And it's like this thing supposedly anyway is even though it's very popular, it's hemorrhaging money because somehow they never really did the math on like even if we sell this thing out most of the time, it will never recoup what the cost of building it was.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And it's just like, I don't know that just that just seems to. It's again, it's also blindingly daylight. I'm looking at a parking lot. I'm again not drunk. Maybe the Vegas ness of Vegas is really just kind of like coming down on top of me in a way that it doesn't usually because I'm in a totally different state of mind when I've been here. But.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I'll say this, I am starting to really understand why they kicked you off the Vegas tourism board, though. You said, well, let's start with this is a city based on principles or whatever you said before.

[Luke Burbank]

Also, I kept stealing pens.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. As well. There was this, the office supply issue as well.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. As well. So by the way, peace and love to our listeners here in Las Vegas. I do think that there are some cool parts of this town. I just don't think I'm in the cool part of it right now. There's lots of lovely neighborhoods and actually a lot of natural beauty. I'm. If I look past the stratosphere, I can see some beautiful mountains in the distance. So I don't want to sound like I'm being critical of anybody who lives or works here. No, there's just as a person who really, really loved this place in my 20s and who's kind of every time I've been back in my later years, the bloom has kind of been a little bit more off the rose. I just think literally the last petal fell off on this trip and I'm just looking around like, what even is this place?

[Andrew Walsh]

And also you're going through it. I mean, it was a pretty stressful, you know, I mean, I don't want to tell you your emotions, but like, like you kind of indicated on the show yesterday, you're there to do a pretty serious level interview based, you know, compared to some of the other stuff you've done it's not like. It's not like, you know, kind of a fluffy assignment and you can enjoy a lot of time at the pool, you just got burgled thing, and I do believe I'm using that properly, you know, and so you're dealing with all of that, like, it's just like. I think all of those things can combine, too, to give you a certain, like, kind perspective on your surroundings.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. I'm really ready to go, and I still have to watch Power Slap. That's the thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, you're not done yet? I was gonna ask. I was like, why are you still there? Because you had mentioned not wanting to give out your room number, so you're spending another night there.

[Luke Burbank]

You're not out of there today, Andrew. I'm spending three more nights here.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, all for the same story still, huh?

[Luke Burbank]

All for the same story. Because the actual UFC event is on Saturday night night, so I don't come home until Sunday.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, right. You got to be there for the event.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, exactly.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is any part of you looking forward to the event?

[Luke Burbank]

Kind of.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Not the Power Slap song.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I know that. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But the. But the event is. I've never been to a UFC event. I don't. I don't personally have a big moral problem with it, because I do think, you know, it's. People train their whole lives to do this, and I do think that there are, you know, I don't know. I don't want to get into trying to speculate on how safe it is, but I don't. I don't. It's not making me feel bad to go watch this. And I. I. My understanding is a electric environment. It's a very interesting thing going on. So I'm. I'm. The novelty of it is kind of interesting to me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I thought. And, you know, that's something that you've enjoyed on television many times before with buddies and stuff. So, yeah, that might maybe try to. Maybe try to keep an eye on that. That. That. End of the.

[Luke Burbank]

That's the pot at the end of the rainbow is watching a guy knee another guy right to the throat. If I make it through this difficult week of work, I finally. I will get to see a guy knee another guy in the. The throat.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, I have an update here, Luke. I just got the list of topics for the show at KOW on Friday. They are not biting on the ASCAP story, so I can put this book away now. So now I. Or I reread it, and just. What if I just find some Joseph Mitchell related essay for every topic.

[Luke Burbank]

Do they have one for sales tax?

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. What are we talking about here?

[Luke Burbank]

Listen, I'm not, I don't want to, I don't want to do this to you, my friend. I don't want to put. I don't want to even lovingly criticize the editorial decisions of a show. You're going to go beyond. But I think that ASCAP story is a really interesting story. Can we talk about it a little bit tomorrow, Honestly?

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure. We should look into it. I. Yeah, I mean, I, I think I maybe understand it too. It's kind of like, I think that's interesting. You and I are kind of broadcast guys. It might not hold up as a topic for three people to chop it up about, you know.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, let's try to chop it up on tomorrow's show because I'm legitimately very interested in this because I have kind of, I have complicated feelings because I do think artists should be, you know, compensated for their work. And yet something about this feels, I don't know, wrong. A little kind of wrong.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, interesting. Yeah, let's talk about it.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, great. Well, that is what is going to happen on tomorrow's program, which is my way of telling you we are at the end of today's program.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, we are most certainly not at the end of today's program.

[Luke Burbank]

I knew I was going to do that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Very, very important that we need to do.

[Luke Burbank]

No, my. What I was saying is a lot of people have been confused today and they've been thinking we're at the end of today's program. But I'm not one of them.

[Andrew Walsh]

Of course not, because this is your favorite part. You can be having so much fun. Just remember, life is much fun. You can be nothing. All right, here we go. We're going to keep this real, real. Well, I'm not doing by saying, by not finding the word I'm looking to say, I'm doing the opposite of what I'm trying to say. I was going to say we're going to keep this real kind of brief and smooth and clean to the point. Instead, I said a thousand times, these are the blurs days. You email me. AndrewBtl.net, you put blurs day in the subject line. You write a little note to somebody who's celebrating a birthday. Like Annette, who said, I want to wish my wonderful 11 Keith a happy 50th Blursday. Keith is a kind, thoughtful, creative and all around awesome person. I couldn't imagine going through life or celebrating 25 years of marriage with anyone else. This year has been rather. Oh, this is. This year has been rather difficult. Difficult for us and for the world. But our teamwork and love for each other always has and will get us through bioso forever. That's because of and in spite of forever. Because of and in spite of forever. Happy 50th Blurs Day. My love from Annette.

[Luke Burbank]

Five years. That is really, really sweet.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is. Congrats, guys. Happy birthday.

[Luke Burbank]

That just. That thing is called charmed. And I thought it was like a charming, scary Note about their 25 years of. Of marriage.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was kind of scary. It was like enter.

[Luke Burbank]

It kind of was. It comes sort of out of the. Became a left field. I apologize. Was this better?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, there you go. That represents.

[Luke Burbank]

That calmed you right down.

[Andrew Walsh]

There you go. Erica says I'd like to wish my five Matthew of the very happy eighth blurs day. I'm so proud to be your mom because you never get up, even when things get tough. Matthew really loves TBTL just like his mom. He does have one wish on this blurs day. I'm getting nervous here, Luke. I didn't pre read this and I don't know what this wish is going to be and whether or not we can fulfill it.

[Luke Burbank]

Was it to play this sound effect?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. Oh, I don't like this. This goes negative. He does does have one wish on his blurs day. In his words, quote, please change the dazzling donor song or I will throw bees at you and whack you with hot dogs. Bees, beads. Bees. Well, don't act us with hot dogs. Ironic that we had been done with the dazzling donors for like 10 days or something. And today's the one day we had the dazzling. The dazzling donor song that. That. I guess I'm right, right?

[Luke Burbank]

It's the dead song and I will not listen to any criticism of it.

[Andrew Walsh]

I stand by it. Sheila says happy golden Blurs day to Cindy. It's been so long since we've seen each other. We've taken to communicating through our blurs day messages. Oh, my God. We are like the code breakers of World War II. Luke, I don't think that holds up. I hope you have a wonderful day today, friendo. Can't wait to go to another live show with you. Next time you're passing through T Berg on the way to Lodi, give me a jingle. I miss you. Happy birthday, T Bird.

[Luke Burbank]

I wonder where T Berg is.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think they're. I know we're shortening something here because it's letter T, B, U R G. So, right. Would that be Thunderbird?

[Luke Burbank]

We're on the way to Lodge Lodi.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think of Ohio. Lodi is in Ohio, but I know that's not the most famous Lodi. Where's the most famous Lodi?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it's whichever one Credence Clearwater Revival is singing about, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really, Lord?

[Luke Burbank]

Stuck in Lodi again. I think that's about Lodi, California.

[Andrew Walsh]

Lodi, California. So what's tberg, I wonder?

[Luke Burbank]

That's what this is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

More questions than answers when they go.

[Andrew Walsh]

Low yeah, I go Lodi. Happy blursday, Cindy. Levi says I considered. Hey, it's our buddy Levi here in Seattle. Hey, pardon me. Do you have it from here? I'm having throat issues. Yeah, I considered just hoping another Oh, I considered just hoping another 10 blursed me on this, my golden blurs day. But then I thought, why not just blurs myself? Just in case? Anyway, happy 49th Blursday to me. I've now joined Luke in being older than Andrew for a few months, so happy 20th Blursday to BallOfWax. Born in my basement on June 25, 2012.

[Luke Burbank]

That's awesome, Levi. Congratulations. That was me clearing my throat yesterday in the interview. At some point, Dana White asked me how old I was, and I said 40. I might have even said 48, because I'm not that used to being 49 yet. And then later on, he said something he referenced. He goes, well, you're 46 and I'm 56 or something. And I was like, I'll take it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

I enjoyed the experience of someone misremembering my age and then knocking three years and then just.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, because you have that youthful energy.

[Luke Burbank]

That's it. That's what everybody's been telling me.

[Andrew Walsh]

And finally, I love this. Cause Jess just sent this in during the show and said, oh, I think I was too late in sending this in.

[Luke Burbank]

And Jess, wow, we got you in there.

[Andrew Walsh]

You were not too late. This is from Jess in Michigan, who says sending out a happy blurs my nerves. To my dear friend Angela, of course. Okay, so you're not really my nurse, but you are an extraordinary. No, you are extraordinary at being a friend and being a nurse and deserve a shout out for both. So, okay, so Angela is a nurse, but she's not Jess's nurse. But I do like happy blurs in my nurse. Like that is. Yeah, I like that a lot. Yeah, so that's good. Plus, I needed my silly rhyme to work. Oh, there we go. Explaining it means we're already in trouble. Happy blurs day.

[Luke Burbank]

Love you, girl.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's from Jess to Angela.

[Luke Burbank]

Excellent. Happy blurs day.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, not my best blurs day work today, everybody. Sorry about that. I was a little disappointed.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I didn't even remember we still did the segment. This feels like late stage blurs day to me.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is late stage blurs. All right, let's get out of here. I gotta finish reading this Joseph Heller book and just hope that some of it addresses the mandatory abuse reporting and how it affects the Catholic Church.

[Luke Burbank]

Listen, listen. What the listeners are going to hear on tomorrow's TBTL is an expertly executed conversation about whether or not bars should have to pay ASCAP licensing. And I'm not going to say that it is going to cause kuow's program to pale in comparison, but it might happen.

[Andrew Walsh]

It might happen. And I'm just like, if I had gotten this list a little bit earlier, I would have known that we weren't doing that story. I wouldn't have rushed out of here to grab that book and I wouldn't have heard Hurt my Nipple. Yeah, like this is kind of on kuow.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. All right, thanks for listening everybody. We are going to be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio, so please do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves. Go Mariners. Go Twins. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to all.

[Luke Burbank]

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[Andrew Walsh]

Power out.