← TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live
TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live
#4509 Getting Yammered
01:15:43
Luke enjoyed a very special weekend with his siblings. Andrew has an announcement/apology/request. And listener Bill has the 411 on a classic Seattle fish sign.
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- [00:01]
Host 1
Staff and I went out to go see Minions Rise of Gru. And I just have to say it is fascinating to learn the history of how Gru rose to power. If you don't know Minions, they're these little yellow guys, denim overalls. They speak in a kind of gibberish language. Yabba babbo dabi bebo bonana. Minions is a prequel to the Despicable Me franchise. Rise of Gru is a sequel to that prequel. Essentially, the Minions will seek out the most despicable person they can find, in this case, Gru. And just got us to thinking, who in our society would have Minions if they were real? And are they real? And where can I find them? And how despicable do I have to be to get some? Well, today on our show, we will be answering all those questions and more. I will be attempting all manner of heinous acts in order to court the Minions. Will I be successful? Find out when this American Life returns. Stay with us.
- [01:20]
Andrew
Tbtl. For one thing, I have no shame before another mortal.
- [01:29]
Luke Burbank
All my shame is between myself and Christ. I never drop my eyes to another human being.
- [01:34]
Andrew
It's like the most requested thing when I ask my Facebook what you guys.
- [01:37]
Luke Burbank
Want to see from me.
- [01:38]
Andrew
It's like, get drunk, get drunk, get drunk. And there's a time and a place for it. And guess what? That place is now. And that time is now. Do I wish our fans were a little more hip? Yes.
- [01:47]
Luke Burbank
Do I wish they were a tad.
- [01:49]
Andrew
More on top of their hygiene? Absolutely. Do they have a confused look in their eyes like a dog that's heard.
- [01:55]
Luke Burbank
A straight, strange sound? Yeah.
- [01:57]
Andrew
But strap that dog to a sled, and, baby, you'll be flying across the tundra.
- [02:05]
Luke Burbank
All right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.
- [02:13]
Andrew
Why now?
- [02:14]
Luke Burbank
What are they doing?
- [02:15]
Andrew
And how can you steer clear of it all?
- [02:17]
Luke Burbank
My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host, Carol.
- [02:19]
Andrew
Hold my calls.
- [02:20]
Luke Burbank
Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it's a beautiful July day. Oh, Ma Pa. It's just beautiful. Came off of an absolutely spectacular weekend with my family out here, where it was also. The weather was really great. We had, I guess, what we were calling Sibfest 25, all seven Burbank siblings together in one place. No children, no significant others, just hanging out, looking at photos, sitting in the hot tub, just. It was a magical time. It's a kind of magic. I'm still. I'M I'm honestly still kind of on a bit of a emotional high from the whole thing, which puts me in a. In a great place to bring you episode 4509 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. I'm feeling recharged, rejuvenated, rested, loved, and ready to bring you this episode of the show. Now, am I ready for something that is happening exactly one week from today? Like one week from pretty much right now. And that is the TBT L A thon live from Friendship, Wisconsin. I'm so excited about this show. Andrew and I logged on a good while ago, actually this morning to start the project of sound checking. And of course, we then spent a good amount of time just talking about hundreds, if not thousands of details that still need to be nailed down before next week's tbtl. A thon. Yes, we will be live in Friendship, Wisconsin, broadcasting from Main street and ideally taking your phone calls, zooming with you on Wednesday night and just having a wonderful time together. That is if the equipment makes it to Wisconsin, if we make it to Wisconsin, if everything works out. But, you know, I feel hopeful about these things, as does this guy. I think he could have been at SIB Fest 25. He is. He's like a brother to me.
- [04:16]
Andrew
What's that? What's that brother?
- [04:19]
Luke Burbank
He is Andrew Walter. He's the longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his tall ships, and he is joining us right now.
- [04:25]
Andrew
Good morning. Good morning, Luke. I have. Well, this is sort of history in the making here. Ooh, yeah. Not to build it up too much.
- [04:34]
Luke Burbank
Calm down, Jay Z. I think I.
- [04:36]
Andrew
Have, for the first time ever in this show, an announcement, apology and request all combined into one. And I'm sitting here trying to announce Polygy Quest. I don't know how to put all those words together, but it's an announcement, an apology and a request all at the same time. I don't think you guys have done that before. Did you do that in the radio days?
- [05:00]
Luke Burbank
I think there was an FCC rule against it.
- [05:02]
Andrew
That makes sense.
- [05:03]
Luke Burbank
I think it's called the triple dip. And when they outlawed payola and plugola, a lot of people didn't pay attention. But the triple dip was also banned.
- [05:11]
Andrew
That's right. I'm remembering that now. In fact, I think you guys even talked about it because Jen wanted to do it and you were, no, no. It was vice versa. You wanted to do.
- [05:19]
Luke Burbank
Jen was like, no, Jen. Always a stickler for the FCC rules.
- [05:21]
Andrew
Yes. The Triple Dip act of 1996. I want to say that consolidation.
- [05:27]
Luke Burbank
Yes. I believe it revised something that had been in Smoot Hawley. It amended.
- [05:32]
Andrew
It also allowed radio stations to buy more billboards in each market than originally was allowed. I believe. Anyway, it's all complicated. But here's the deal.
- [05:43]
Luke Burbank
The Marconi provision.
- [05:47]
Andrew
Should we keep going?
- [05:50]
Luke Burbank
Because I believe that's tariff related. I was hoping I'd go through my entire life without ever hearing about Smoot Hawley. And I think because of our current political climate, now it gets referenced. Yeah, it was the Smoot Hawley Tariff act of 1930. I would have been fine never knowing those words.
- [06:09]
Andrew
Yeah. Although as far as acts are concerned.
- [06:12]
Luke Burbank
It is pretty funny.
- [06:13]
Andrew
It's pretty cute. Smoot Hawley, you know what I mean? Doesn't sound threatening to me. Listen, on Friday, I had one job in the TBTL newsletter and that was to let everybody know the details of the TBTL picnic that will be happening at the end of the Thon on July 25th in Friendship, Wisconsin.
- [06:34]
Luke Burbank
Yes, sir.
- [06:35]
Andrew
I put all the details in there. We're going to be meeting up at a park. In fact, I should have the name of that park in front of me right now. And I did.
- [06:42]
Luke Burbank
I don't know if we've ever gotten actually confirmation on the name because we had TBTL numero uno TVTL employee numero uno John Skaroff on the ground there reporting for us. But I think it was a little unclear, the name. It was like there was one name at the parking area. There was another thing at the pavilion. I'd just say drive to Friendship, Wisconsin and ask them where the podcast picnic is happening. I guess I'm guessing it's gonna be the only one.
- [07:06]
Andrew
Just show up and just start shouting. Not unlike Bob. And what about Bob? Instead of yelling, Dr. Leo Marvin in the center of town, just yell, where's the picnic? Where's the picnic? It's Castle Rock County Park Shelter. All of the details of this in the newsletter this Friday. If you did not receive it, I can happily resend it to you. And we will also get some of this information. Actually, it's on the website right now. And the thing that I forgot to do, and this is where the apology comes in, is I got to the end of the email and I'm kind of like, okay, this is. It's Friday, July 25, 5pm it's at the Castle Rock county park shelter. John made a cute little map that helps everybody find it. Apparently, it's very easy to find once you're in the area. And especially once you're in the park, you should find us. No problem with a little shelter there. So even if it's raining, everything is. Everything was perfect. But I got to the end of this email, and it seemed short to me, and I'm like, what am I forgetting? I think I literally even wrote in here. I think I'm forgetting something. But we'll have, you know, keep your eyes peeled for follow ups. John had sent me an RSVP form. There's a weird place for me to.
- [08:13]
Luke Burbank
Pause a jot form.
- [08:14]
Andrew
A jot form. You're familiar with the language. We've got a job.
- [08:17]
Luke Burbank
It's one of the many things. It's one of the many things that you and John constantly reference that I could.
- [08:23]
Andrew
If you.
- [08:23]
Luke Burbank
And this would be the weirdest hostage situation of all time. If you put a gun to my head and said, make a jot for him, I would go. I don't know how to do that. But I know Andrew and John talk about it a lot.
- [08:34]
Andrew
Oh, my God. I don't want to get us too off track, but I went to pet that dog on Friday. We'll talk more about that.
- [08:41]
Luke Burbank
I mean, honestly, that's big news in our world. Okay, you're not getting us off topic. You need to get us on topic for once.
- [08:49]
Andrew
But there were just a couple of neighbors there petting this puppy. And one of them, I can't remember what the point of her story was. That's no offense, but listen. Exactly. But she said she mentioned something about Yammer, which was a online tool that I had to use when I was producing for Ross Reynolds. I remember Yammer, and apparently it's not called Yammer anymore, but it was like an internal Twitter. It was like a private internal, internal, like, sort of like almost like micro blogging platform so you could, like, communicate with your team. But I remember when I got that job, or I guess when I was volunteering at KoW, on the conversation. I think Ross loved playing around with, like, new and emerging technologies. And there were like, three. He was like, put the ideas in the. Not Reddit. I can't remember what. Oh, delicious. I think we still remember De.
- [09:39]
Luke Burbank
I do remember that. I feel like that might have come after my time there, probably, but it was.
- [09:44]
Andrew
And you started by putting your pitches and Delicious. And then we would go through them, and then you would. As you would prep Luke, like, Ross, not you. Ross would be like, it's put it in Yammer. Did you yammer it? There's so much talk of, like, did you Yammer. And then there was a third one. It's like, yes, I delicious and yammered it. And I wish I could remember the third one. It was bananas. All of that is to say that.
- [10:07]
Luke Burbank
Was the name of the program. Yammer. I know you. I know you delicious it. And you yammered it. Did you bananas it?
- [10:14]
Andrew
Right? Did you.
- [10:15]
Luke Burbank
Did you bananas it?
- [10:16]
Andrew
Yet all of that comes back to say I forgot to include the little RSVP mention in the. In the newsletter this week. So we want to get a sense of how many people are going to be coming to this picnic. I literally don't know if it's just going to be you, me, John, and one listener who got lost on the way to the billboard. I don't know if it's going to be 700 people. I'm guessing it's not going to be.
- [10:38]
Luke Burbank
700 people, but it's north of 5, south of 700.
- [10:41]
Andrew
Yeah, somewhere in that range. But we need to know how many kind of burgers and dogs and veggie things we're going to be providing, like, just general picnic fair or whatever. So we'd like to know if you're coming. Go to tbtl.net and click the little link at the top of the page.
- [10:54]
Luke Burbank
Yes, please do. It'll help us know how to plan properly. I. I involuntarily uttered an oh, dude. When you were talking about burgers and dogs, because I realized, I mean, it would. This would be the silliest way for us to get the foodstuffs to Friendship, Wisconsin. But I've got a lot of leftovers here from SIB Fest 25, because I just. Like, on Friday, I just sort of went into a bit of a fugue state at both Costco and Trader Joe's. Like, I didn't. I kept trying to make lists so that I would kind of efficiently and correctly get provisions, but then I just panicked and just started buying large amounts of kind of everything so that, you know, we'd have enough food for Friday night and Saturday and everything. And it turned out we had plenty of food because, of course, my siblings are all like, food people themselves. And, like, you know, particularly my sister Liz that grows all kinds of veggies and stuff, as does my sister Sarah. So, like, everybody brought food, so there was actually too much food. So I am now the proud owner of, like, pounds of, like, organic hamburger that I don't think I'm really gonna eat. And chicken, apple, cerno, sausage things, et cetera, et cetera. If you want to come by Andrew, I've got all manner of cased meats that you could stand over the sink and eat. We got a lot of it going on here.
- [12:10]
Andrew
I will say that, like, kind of the post party leftovers are one of the perks of like, when Genevieve has a summer party or whatever, and I'm like, cleaning up and it's like 4am and you're just kind of like, well, this hot dog needs a home and it's my belly. And you're just kind of like cleaning up and you just kind of. And then like for the, you know, days and sounds like for you maybe potentially weeks afterwards, you can just sort of say like, well, we got. We got to eat this. I don't know what you like potato salad or whatever it is, and you're kind of like, you kind of got to get rid of it. But it's not usually what you'd be eating on a Wednesday. Right.
- [12:39]
Luke Burbank
Like, I've got to eat the rest of Liz's birthday cake that Sarah made. I have no choice but to have this Monday morning with my coffee.
- [12:46]
Andrew
Yeah, right. Ooh, did you. No, that doesn't seem like you. I can't see you eating cake in the morning. Did you?
- [12:50]
Luke Burbank
We did. No, I didn't. That was a. More of a fanciful idea, but I was. But, but. But we did have a delicious birthday cake. Cause Friday was my sister Liz's actual birthday and I sub. Not subcontracted so much as. What is the word? Offloaded the responsibility of the cake to my sister Sarah, who made this incredible. I forget what it was even called, but, like, it had strawberry in it and it was very delicious. I feel like cake has come a long way since I was a kid. When I was a kid, birthday cake was pretty much like a Betty Crocker mix. It would be yellow, it would have chocolate frosting. And by the way, I'm not complaining about that cake. I loved that cake when I was a kid. But nowadays, I don't know. The last time I saw a cake like that out, you know, for a birthday, it's like, it's. Everything is. Everything has really kind of gotten an upgrade.
- [13:38]
Andrew
You know, Genevieve and her friend Jessica, they went to college together. They were roommates in college and post college. I think they lived together maybe longer than Genevieve and I have lived together. That can't be true.
- [13:49]
Luke Burbank
A couple of Wellesley grads.
- [13:51]
Andrew
Couple of Wellesley women. Don't call them girls. Made a mistake.
- [13:55]
Luke Burbank
I just said grads. I didn't even gender it.
- [13:57]
Andrew
No, no, I'm not Saying I just used to always say wellesley girls. And they're like, wellesley women. Yeah. No, that was not me. That was not me reprimanding you. That was me saying, saying out loud what I always have to say.
- [14:10]
Luke Burbank
Yeah.
- [14:11]
Andrew
And I'm not somebody who goes around calling women girls. In fact, that's very counter to how I think about things. But I just remember back in the day we would say wellesley girls, Wellesley women. Anyway, all of that is to say they said so. They're very, very close friends who love cake. And they have an expression, though, that fancy cakes lie. Now, I'm not saying that all fancy cake is bad, but sometimes, especially if you go to the grocery store or maybe like an up, like not just a grocery store, but maybe like a higher end grocery store or some place, and you're looking in like one of those glass refrigerated cases or whatever, or cooled cases, and you just see like, they're so extravagant and they're like works of architecture as well. And there's like these cakes, they lie. They lie. You get yourself a sheet cake, it's going to be so much better. These, these. It's too much lipstick, not enough pig. They didn't say that. I said that.
- [15:04]
Luke Burbank
I know what you mean, because the art of baking, and I know we have listeners who, you know, have different kinds of shops where they do really artisanal stuff. And I mean, it's an amazing talent to be a baker or a cake maker or whatever. But, yeah, what happens with some of these things is it's like you have to constantly kind of push the envelope. And this is like what's happened with donuts. And sort of in my experience, which is like, in fact, I was eating donuts with Bridget Everett in Manhattan, Kansas, at Varsity Donuts there, which is also kind of a locale for the TV show. It's a place where the characters end up going a lot. And we had some, some very yummy donuts. But we were, she and I were talking about the fact that, like, we're both fans of like a donut that, let's be honest, tastes like a donut. Like, it's like. But I think sometimes when people are making something, like, let's say you make donuts all day long, at some point you're like another maple bar. What if we put some cardamom in this? And what if we made it? And that's just the natural, I guess you could say, evolution of things. But sometimes it can evolve away from the original principle, which is kind of the thing that we all like as the consumer.
- [16:12]
Andrew
Yeah. Chris Fleming has that really good bit about his sister coming over with our. Maybe I'll try to play that as opening.
- [16:19]
Luke Burbank
Oh, that's great.
- [16:19]
Andrew
Yeah, that's a great bit. But I'm that way with ice cream too. Like, so many ice cream shops in the trendy neighborhoods of Seattle. It's not like you're not just gonna go in and get like, basketball.
- [16:29]
Luke Burbank
A scoop of strawberry ice cream, please.
- [16:31]
Andrew
It's like, no, you cannot. Strawberry ice cream. Do you mean a strawberry reduced kiwi with basil? You mean strawberry, right? Like, no, I don't mean that. I just want to move back to Ohio.
- [16:47]
Luke Burbank
Okay. Speaking of artisanal food, Andrew, I got to tell you a couple things about this weekend that I had. You know, I was very stressed. I wouldn't say very stressed. I was somewhat stressed last week, particularly on the Friday show, because I had all my siblings coming over and I wanted to try to get everything perfectly set up and whatever. And, you know, I got most of the way there. And of course my siblings are all super sweet and supportive, so, like, they wouldn't have even cared like that. I was mowing the lawn at 7 in the morning. Like, none of that really mattered. Most of that was for me and my insecurity. But it was a really, really fun weekend. I did finally become a pizza oven guy. And I went from like having pretty much zero thoughts about cooking pizza to it now consuming my every waking thought from since Saturday night. Andrew, I am now obsessed with figuring out. I know this is so uninteresting and basic b of me, but, like, I got this ooni pizza oven that, you know, uses propane, and we bought some, you know, some sort of pre made pizza dough and sort of made a bunch of these pizzas. And I was refining the process as it was going on, trying to figure out how to get the crust crispy, which is, it's. There's just, you know, there's a little more to it than I thought. And. And I was experimenting with like heating the thing up and then turning it off so that when we first put the dough down on the pizza stone, which is in the oven, it sort of cooks the dough and then you turn on the, like the gas, you know, the flames, so that then that starts cooking the cheese and the toppings. We tried one where we par baked the crust. So basically cooked the crust by itself in the pizza oven. That seemed to be the best. That was. That was iteration four of the process. The fourth pizza that I made and I think that was probably the best one, actually, in terms of getting the crust fully cooked and even a little bit crispy. It was like, cook the crust a little bit, then put all the stuff on it, then put it back in. But, like, I am, I'm not a detail oriented guy, and I'm not somebody who has any kind of particular food that I can make really well, because I have a system for it. But I all of a sudden understood what the obsession is around trying to figure out how to cook a really good pizza in your pizza oven.
- [18:57]
Andrew
Am I daft? I could have sworn you were a pizza oven guy back in Mount Baker. You didn't have a pizza oven. Did you just fantasize about having a pizza?
- [19:06]
Luke Burbank
Yes, I fantasized about building a pizza oven.
- [19:08]
Andrew
Okay, you know what? I think I stood in your backyard.
- [19:11]
Luke Burbank
And you pointed to an area where.
- [19:14]
Andrew
The pizza oven was going to go, and I.
- [19:16]
Luke Burbank
It was going to be right next to my bowling alley. I bought.
- [19:18]
Andrew
Luke, if this were the Newlywed Game and you and I were newlyweds, I would have, I would have sworn that you had a pizza oven in your backyard. But that is just the power of imagination.
- [19:28]
Luke Burbank
I was obsessed for a while with the idea of building a pizza oven either out of, like, brick or, you know, like, sort of concrete in the way that you see some of these projects online. And I, I, I never actually bought the supplies, but I had bought a few sets of plans. And what I realized was it was actually way more complicated than I thought. Also, I ended up selling that house not at a loss, but at an amount of money that definitely would not have been increased by the presence of a pizza oven I had just built. So that was actually kind of bullet dodged. But. So I've never had a pizza oven. But I was trying to figure out. I sent out an email a couple of weeks ago to my sibs that was like. It was very, like, camp director. It was like, okay, here's the plan. Friday night, here's what we're doing for dinner. Saturday morning, this is breakfast. Saturday midday, this is the activity. Sunday night pizza oven or Saturday night pizza oven? Then it was a Sunday morning coffee, unstructured time. It's like, a little over.
- [20:28]
Andrew
Are your siblings like that? Because I got to say, when I saw on the, on the show sheet, I mean, we always talk about our lives. And so, you know, if I had a weekend like this, I would talk about it as well. But it was funny that you had called. You had. What did you call it? You said, SIB Fest 25. And I mean, you do have this tendency to, like, sort of, like, enshrine things and title them everything. And then this, this breakdown that you have. Like, I am obviously very much the opposite of that. Like, scheduled, unstructured time is like, not my move. How are. You have a lot of siblings with varied personalities. Like, do most of your siblings also sort of lean in towards this sort of showmanship?
- [21:07]
Luke Burbank
Well, first of all, that hurts. You want showmanship? You got it.
- [21:10]
Andrew
You want showmanship? I don't know. Maybe that's the wrong word. I didn't mean that as an insult. I don't know what to call it, though. But this structure.
- [21:15]
Luke Burbank
Well, there was two reasons. There's two reasons for the email. One, I wanted to lock everybody in. I mean, we were already locked. We had all agreed this was the weekend we were going to get together. But I also just wanted to, like, it was kind of a, like a little bit of a. Like one additional thing to say. Like, hey, this is really happening. We've really got a plan in place. And then I also said in the email, look, none of this stuff is written. None of the schedule is written in stone. We can do whatever seems fun. I just wanted. I wanted there to be potentially some structure around the weekend. So we just, we. It's almost like. It's like learning. This is a very weird analogy, but it's sort of like learning a comedy routine or something, or memorizing something so that you can then kind of go off script, throw it out, whatever. But it's nice to have a plan in the back of your mind. I didn't want it to feel like the only plan for the weekend was everyone show up and then we'll just sit around. That felt almost like a weird, different kind of pressure to me. Like, maybe we'll run out of things to talk about. Maybe we'll, you know, some people will be bored. Maybe some people will feel sleepy. I don't know. I just thought it would be nice for it to feel like there was thought going into this and the, the feedback I got from my siblings, because this is also really not in my personality. Like, I'm the oldest of seven, but I'm not a particularly good older brother in terms of, like, I don't know, remembering the birthdays of my nieces and nephews or even of my siblings and stuff. Like, you know, I, I tend to be. Because of, I don't know, just life and my personality, I can sort of think I can be a little checked out of things. And so what the feedback from my siblings was like, they were kind of stoked on the fact that I, like, sent this email out because it showed effort on my part, I guess, if I'm going to be totally honest about it. And the reason that I'm, like, enshrining it, like you said in SIB Fest 25, is because I'm trying to start a thing with this, that we do this every year. So I'm trying to. And my sister Rachel made coasters with each of our names and where we were in the birth order, which was really sweet. So we all have, like, a coaster with our David at Sibfest 25. So, like, now there's, like, merch.
- [23:22]
Andrew
So it is true. And that was my thing. And now I feel a little bit bad. Like, I did not mean that as a criticism other than it being such a disparity between your and my personality. And I just wasn't sure if. Because I know some of your brothers, but I don't know. I think I've met all of your siblings at some point, but I know I know your siblings well.
- [23:41]
Luke Burbank
You're going to be at SIPH. That's 26.
- [23:42]
Andrew
Yeah, sounds like it. I'm there for the hot tubbing, but I. But no, I just wasn't sure if, like, if. And again, there's so many different factors. There's age and place in life, whatever. But I'm just wondering, like. And I don't want to call out anybody here because now I'm nervous that it sounds like an insult, but, like, if another sibling were doing. If almost all of your siblings were doing this, would there be kind of an instinct or tendency to do it in this way that is sort of like, kind of like, kind of like event oriented and also sort of itemized?
- [24:16]
Luke Burbank
I think going forward, we don't actually even need as much structure as I was creating. It's just that it had never happened before and I kind of didn't. I just thought, like I said, I thought, well, if we have a plan, we can always throw the plan out. But then we. But we will have the plan also. It just helped me organize my mind around the weekend. And we ended up not doing, like, a lot of the plan and doing some other things, et cetera. It just. It never felt like we were kind of like bored or wondering what to do next. But I liked the fact that there was a plan that we could fall back on. Now I'm guessing that going forward, we don't need to do that as much. We now, know what it looks like? A weekend of just us seven Burbank siblings getting together and hanging out. And what it looks like is it's a lot of fun. And I don't think we have to over plan it going forward. I think we can just kind of like let it unfold naturally. But I didn't know exactly what to expect. Let me tell you one thing, though, that happened on Saturday night that I swear to God, it felt like kismet that I almost sort of couldn't believe, which was after a fun day of hanging out, we went down to the McMenamins down in Calama and we had some lunch and sat by the river and then we came back and then we did pizzas, which again, it was so much fun. I totally understand how people get kind of geek out on this thing now. I'm looking at the pizza oven right now, Andrew, and I'm like, I'm actually going to Portland tonight. But I'm like, if I get back early enough, could I make myself another? I have one pizza. I have one pizza dough left in the freezer. It's like, I'm just like constantly thinking of, how could I make this pizza a little bit better than the last one that I made?
- [25:49]
Andrew
I love that. And I love the fact, I know that this is a different version of what you were dreaming about in Mount Baker, but I love the fact that this is almost sort of 15 years in the making. And I love the idea. As adults, I think we really need to embrace the moments where we have a new toy that we're excited about, that we're actually excited about, because, like, we have, you know, we have access to almost anything, you know, depending on how expensive it is. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I could buy myself a little, like, I don't know, like, what do you call Nintendo Switch or something? But I'm kind of like, I don't want to, like, spend money on that. I have a feeling like after. After an hour of play, I might like, start to be like, I don't know, this was more of a midlife crisis thing that. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, yeah, but you got yourself something. And the fact that you're thinking about it when you're not using it, like, I. I can really relate to that and I love that.
- [26:37]
Luke Burbank
Yeah. Like the moment when it was funny. My sister Liz was. I mean, it was a family project, so Liz was on the case. My sister Hannah was on the case. I feel like Sam and Dave were really more just kind of like, talking about the Mariners in the background. By the way, we did end up having the Mariners games on pretty much throughout the weekend, even though I said that we weren't. But when you're sweeping the best team in baseball, I mean, you gotta watch a little bit of that.
- [27:02]
Andrew
It was also on it, like, kind of. Well, I wonder if it worked better or worse for you. But, like, they were very strange times, you know, because they weren't at home. They were in the Midwest, and they were day games. So, like, that was Saturday. I was like, you guys were probably kind of having. I don't know where you were in your schedule, but, like, you know what I mean? You're probably hanging out. It's the middle of the day. You can sort of have it on. It's not like. I don't know. I feel like a night game you might be more drawn towards, like, oh, maybe some people are having some beers, and the game can become too much of a presence. But I sort of feel like these gay games you might have been able to navigate.
- [27:32]
Luke Burbank
No, you're exactly right. It was. And also, like, we never really had the sound on, so it didn't. It wasn't like. It was just kind of like, in the background. And if somebody wanted to look at it, they could, and if they didn't, they didn't have to. It didn't take over the. The weekend or anything, thankfully. But Saturday night. So we've had this whole long, fun day Saturday night. Now we're all, by the way, this hot tub that I. That I bought and. And had put in. I think it technically holds, like, four people or something.
- [27:57]
Andrew
So the.
- [27:57]
Luke Burbank
There's seven of us. And I was really obsessed with getting all seven people in the hot tub as some sort of a stunt. Like, you know, they used to, like, see how many. How many kids they could get into a. Like a V dub bug or something like that. It was like, almost as. Yeah, just like a stunt thing. Like all of the Burbank siblings in this hot tub that is not made for this many people. And we're. So. We're sitting in there, actually. I was in the kitchen getting something, and I just hear one of my siblings. It's now Saturday night.
- [28:24]
Andrew
Night.
- [28:24]
Luke Burbank
It's dark, it's warm. It's almost a full moon. The stars are out. We're sitting in the hot tub. We're listening to music. And I just hear someone yell fireworks. And I'm like, huh? And they come outside, and it turns out that down on the Columbia river, right around the bend from us where the town of Rainier, Oregon resides. I don't know if it was like, I don't even know what it's called. I'm gonna just call it Rainier Days. This is my theory. I haven't done any research on this, but I have a feeling that there's some sort of a community day that happens down in this town and all sort of finishes with a fireworks show. Now why they don't do that on the 4th or 5th of July or whatever it was, I don't exactly know because that just happened. But it was so awesome. It was first of all a huge ass fireworks show. I mean, I will say this. I give it up to Red America on the fireworks side of things because Becca and I went to see the fireworks in Portland on actual 4th of July at the Blues Fest. They were fine, hint of basil and mint along. That was way too much cardamom for me, way too much chicory for my liking. They were fine. But they were, you know, I mean, part of it I think has to do with the Willamette river is not, not huge. So I think there's probably all kinds of like rules and limitations etc. It was fine. It was nice. This was, this was huge. Like these things were go. And it was, it took. I swear it seems like it lasted for 20 minutes, which doesn't sound like a long time unless you imagine like fireworks going off continuously for. It's probably less than that. But I was very pleasantly surprised at how long it went on. We've got our music playing. We're in a hot tub, all seven siblings. We're watching like, like a private fireworks show. We also didn't have to hear their music because they were probably playing Lee Greenwood or some shit. We're hearing our music. We're hearing the, the then Dixie Chicks Cowboy Take Me Away, which everyone's then singing like it was it, it. It really came together. We may have to cancel Sib Fest going forward because I don't know if it can really beat that moment. Like that might have been the apotheosis of this whole thing.
- [30:33]
Andrew
You know, I had almost the exact same fireworks moment a couple of weeks. Did I tell you about this?
- [30:38]
Luke Burbank
No.
- [30:40]
Andrew
I'm going to spoil it here and just tell you this could not be more opposite of your experience. So I, I mean I loved it. But again, leaning. Did I not tell you this? Leaning into Mr. North Aurora, as I'm. As I'm still campaigning to do.
- [30:54]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, you've got Pitbull's got Mr. Worldwide trademark, you've got Mr. North Aurora.
- [30:59]
Andrew
So on. I guess the Fourth of July was a Friday, right? And our friends had a little. You know, I don't know if you know about this, but a group of friends who all live up here in north Seattle, your. Your friends as well, they have like, they. I can't remember. Oh, I think they call it the Sweet Cream Crawl. And they've been doing this for years now. And I will sometimes join to varying degrees of this.
- [31:20]
Luke Burbank
Oh, this is that walk, right?
- [31:21]
Andrew
Yeah. They started Kamara, Kev's place, and Anita's, and then they kind of like they. And then they stop and it's a long walk. I think it's like eight miles all told. No, it's a little bit much. Maybe it's five. And then they come to our house and then whatever. We just stop at, like, various friends houses along the ways, and then we usually end up at our buddy Roden's house where we have, like a barbecue or whatever. This year, I don't think I did not join for the walk at all this year. I had, like, I was taking care of some stuff in the yard and I was at home making some salad and stuff. I was just. This year I was like, you know what? It's too hot for this walk for me. I'll just meet you guys at the barbecue later. Which I did. And it was actually a amazing time. That was on Friday the 4th. Veeves and I come home. We probably get home around midnight. Genevieve has to get up in a mere like three hours for her travel. She was leaving on a jet plane the next day. So she comes home and beelines it to bed right away. It's like 12:15 on the ride home. I should mention this as the Lyft driver is giving us a ride now. We're off of Aurora now in our little neighborhood or a few blocks in, and there seems to be a bunch of garbage in the middle of an intersection. And some people kind of running away from it. And then as we get closer, we realize, oh, these are fireworks. People are just blowing off fireworks in the middle of this intersection of Aurora Avenue, not of Aurora, about a block off of Aurora Avenue and maybe about two or three blocks from our house. Okay, so it's one of these little neighborhood streets, but again, it's these streets where it's just. It was very lawless, basically. And we just drive past it. We're like, what is that? And the driver's like, fireworks. And we're like, oh. So then we're at home. Genevieve goes to bed. I'm downstairs, I'm in my office and I think I was about to digitize some VHS tapes as one does on the fourth. And then I start hearing these rogue fireworks go off. And I'm like, what am I doing in here? So I grab myself a Tecate and a joint and I go out.
- [33:16]
Luke Burbank
You and your wife, I love this for you.
- [33:18]
Andrew
And I just stand in the middle of the street smoking this joint, drinking this can of beer, just watching. Two blocks down, some sort of. Is rapscallion the right word? Some sort of law breaking group of.
- [33:32]
Luke Burbank
People who were just extra legal fireworks.
- [33:35]
Andrew
And just the most trashy version of what you had. And I'm watching these figures and there's like they're under a streetlight and I can't see them. I can just see them. And again, they're maybe about two blocks away. I'm guessing they can see me under the street light too. But we're all just like silhouettes. And I will watch these silhouettes run to the middle, middle of the intersection. And I can tell that the. I can't tell. I'm can't. I'm not close enough to see exactly what they're doing, but I know that the longer they're in the middle of the intersection, the better the fireworks are about to be. And by the way, I would like to point out, I know that there are plenty of people in this neighborhood who are probably furious at these people for doing it. I know that people are concerned about pets or whatever. I would like to mention I did not take part in this myself, but if it's going to happen, I'm going to watch. And so I had this weird like from like 12:30 to 1 in the morning, I just had this weird absolute dirt bag fire show going on a block off of Aurora in the middle of the night. And God, did I love it. It was fantastic. Very different though, from what you were.
- [34:41]
Luke Burbank
Expecting, but still scratching the same itch in a way. The excitement of fireworks that you're not even expecting or dealing with. That happened to Becca and I in Italy last summer. We were in Sorrento and the same thing, we had rented this Airbnb, which turned out to be this kind of crazy sort of castle thing that the person who owned it wasn't even there. So we kind of had our run of the place. It was pretty magical. And then to top that all off, there just was this massive fireworks show both nights that we were there. And it's just like and again, offering all of the disclaimers and caveats that I know that fireworks really, really stress pets out. And I know that we have a lot of listeners who are. Who have a really dim view of fireworks. And also, there's the whole, you know, people getting injured part. Like, I. I totally recognize that fireworks are a lousy idea, But I will say that once they're happening and I'm near them or far from them, as I was over the weekend, but within clear sight of them, I do find them to be quite exciting to look at.
- [35:40]
Andrew
I know. It is funny how. It's funny how we have to sort of apologize for liking fireworks. Don't get me wrong. I do understand. And I understand the people who don't like them really, really, really don't like them. And they do affect.
- [35:54]
Luke Burbank
It feels like it's a. Yeah, it feels like a threat to the animals in their life that they love and maybe even themselves, depending on what their sort of situation is.
- [36:02]
Andrew
But we did seem to go from a time where it was kind of like, oh, yeah, we all like fireworks. Like, that's basically the end of the story, too. Not just apologizing for blowing off fireworks, because I haven't blown off fireworks in 20 years. You know, like, you and I have done literally nothing wrong other than maybe not protest fireworks. You know what I mean? Yet we have to almost apologize for admitting that we enjoy something. Something that for years and years and years, everybody has, like. Well, I mean, there's a reason why they're advertising fireworks night at T Mobile park, right? Like, people like fireworks. And again, the rogue fireworks in the middle of a neighborhood. I can't justify people doing that. And again, I would not do that. And if I were doing that, I'd feel terrible. I'd feel guilty. If I were, I'd be scared that I would be, like, getting in trouble if I were blowing off fireworks in the middle of the neighborhood. I'm not doing that.
- [36:47]
Luke Burbank
Definitely not legal anywhere in Seattle these days to do fireworks.
- [36:50]
Andrew
Oh, goodness, I would assume not. I mean, you would need a special permit for an actual show or something, I'm sure.
- [36:55]
Luke Burbank
You think those guys had a permit?
- [36:58]
Andrew
Well, I think they might have, because at one point, a car roared off of Aurora and then did a loop de loop around the intersection where they were doing it. I'm guessing that that hot rod was dropping off the permit paper, right, to finalize. That's why they were probably signed off. That's probably why they were in such a hurry to get there and then peel Away. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [37:17]
Luke Burbank
We got the permit, you guys.
- [37:18]
Andrew
We got the permit.
- [37:20]
Luke Burbank
Lenny's on his way over with the permit.
- [37:22]
Andrew
Exactly. And so anyway, I don't need people to email in explaining why fireworks are disturbing to them. I do understand it. But is interesting that, like, we have to, like, sort of caveat even just we have to apologize just for saying, like, I personally enjoy them.
- [37:37]
Luke Burbank
Right? Yeah. Like, the question is if someone is shooting because I'm with you, like, I haven't lit off. I don't know the last time I lit off any fireworks, actually, it's been a while. But, like, is it also. Are we. Are we also somehow culpable if we look at fireworks, right? If someone else is doing fireworks, is it. Is it now the preferred in like the polite class, Is it the preferred action to shield one's eyes from fireworks so as to not engage in the project in any way, shape or form?
- [38:05]
Andrew
I think the same thing about like, sort of the Blue Angels, right? It's kind of like, you know, for a while there, a lot of people were using this term and Genevieve was using it a lot. Virtue signaling, right? Like, if a blue angel roars over my head, that is going to give me a feeling inside that that is. I don't know what the word for but joyful is near it. You know what I mean? Like, it's going to. It's going to. It's going to make me feel something that I consider positive. But if I go around saying, well, you know, it's really not right. It's really not right to do that, I feel like that is the. And same with fireworks as well. Like, if I'm going, well, it's really not right to do it, but I'm secretly kind of like, please blow off some fireworks near me. I feel like that's literally the definition of virtue signaling. So I just want to be honest about it. Like, I understand why people are upset by that. Them. I don't do anything to encourage or actually light the fuses myself. But I also don't want to be like, well, I'm supposed to say I hate this, right?
- [39:05]
Luke Burbank
Well, you know, it's funny, you're talking about the Blue Angels and stuff. And over the weekend, there was a point at which, you know, a couple of big military helicopters came, you know, down the river and I could hear them. I was in the house doing. So this is. My siblings were still here here. I was in the house doing something. You can just hear the low. Like, there's like a normal helicopter sound that I'm pretty used to that. You don't actually hear till it's pretty close. And then there's the military helicopter, which is. It's like this. And you just feel it in your chest when it's further away. This is because I'm out here all the time. I now have. Can identify the helicopters based on how my chest feels. And I was like, okay, there's going to be a military helicopter. And. And sure enough, it was. I think it was probably a Chinook. I'm not good with the names for.
- [39:53]
Andrew
The record, but two propellers.
- [39:55]
Luke Burbank
I think that's a Huey.
- [39:56]
Andrew
Oh, okay.
- [39:57]
Luke Burbank
I could. Oh, gosh. This is.
- [39:59]
Andrew
Yeah, I'm sorry.
- [40:00]
Luke Burbank
I'm gonna look really dumb, but this was. This wasn't the dual propeller one. Those are also freaking so cool. Those don't even look like they should work. How is it. How are there two propellers? And they look like they're going opposite directions. I know they're not. Anyway, I think this was maybe an Apache, a couple of Apaches. But I was out there with my brother. I think I was out there with David. It was either David or Sam. And I was just like, listen, I hate the military industrial complex. I do not support this. I am. I'm. I'm horrified at what America has done militaristically around the world and continues to do, et cetera, et cetera, including here.
- [40:35]
Andrew
In the United States now.
- [40:36]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, increasingly so.
- [40:38]
Andrew
Yes.
- [40:39]
Luke Burbank
I mean. And yet I cannot deny that it fills me with a certain amount of awe from a purely aeronautics standpoint of this thing that's happening in front of us that we're looking at. And this one was one of those ones where, like, it didn't even have doors and there's. Everybody was like. You could see. I was tempted to wave at them, and I didn't because that was, for me, too much. Like, I'm not gonna wave.
- [41:01]
Andrew
Did you salute?
- [41:04]
Luke Burbank
I got down. I kneeled.
- [41:06]
Andrew
Wait.
- [41:07]
Luke Burbank
First I burned a Kaepernick jersey.
- [41:10]
Andrew
Okay. Yeah, okay, I follow you.
- [41:12]
Luke Burbank
No, but, like, I literally was like. Because I don't know if I've actually seen this. This version before, where there are no doors and you can literally see the guys in the soldiers. I actually don't know what their gender was. You could see the soldiers in the helicopter. They're obviously strapped in, but the doors open and some of them are freaking hanging out of the helicopter.
- [41:32]
Andrew
Somebody. I was going to say they were hanging out, saying, has. Have you seen my surfboard? It was a good surfbo.
- [41:38]
Luke Burbank
Lot of that. I'M sure. Apocalypse Now.
- [41:44]
Andrew
Yeah, I'm sure. I nail. I can't wait to find out what the actual quote is because I'm sure that you're going to let them take a surfboard from our house.
- [41:51]
Luke Burbank
Our house. But they were like, kind of like a couple of, like, legs dangling out and the whole thing. And it was like, you could. I couldn't. Literally, I couldn't quite see the whites of their eyes, but I could make them out in human form. And a little part of me wanted to wave and I did not. I don't even think if I was alone, I would have waved because that does feel to me like I'm somehow I'm. That's. That's too much support coming from me for what I'm comfortable with. But again, I'm looking at it and I am like, holy smokes, this thing is cool.
- [42:24]
Andrew
Yeah.
- [42:24]
Luke Burbank
Fact that these helicopters, not that they exist, I should say, but that they operate the way they do, again, from a flight standpoint, point is impressive to me.
- [42:32]
Andrew
I mean, you're hanging out like, I just never understood that meant, you know me, I'm just so absolutely terrified of heights. The idea of dangling a leg out the open door of a helicopter over the Columbia river, like, just shoot me. Like, don't even take me up. Like, just take me behind the shed like a broken horse.
- [42:53]
Luke Burbank
I wonder how I would react to that. By the way, I want to say also, I think my sister Hannah and my sister Rachel were maybe out there too. And I mentioned this because of the sibs. Well, David will hear this and Hannah will definitely hear this. I think that the rest of my other siblings hearing this is probably pretty unlikely. I kept telling my sister Liz that she's been referenced on the show a lot. And I would jokingly say, well, you're not. You wouldn't know this because you don't listen. Which sent her into an entire, like, apology spiral about not listening. Meanwhile, this is a person who's raising two teenagers, maintaining this, like, huge multi acre property she and her husband live on with all these gardens and stuff. Also is a teacher at a school with a full course load, you know, like, has a lot going on and was like, okay, I'm gonna start listening. I was like, please don't start listening. That was not the point of that story. Point of that story was, I'm impressed with your gardening. But anyway, I want to because one of my siblings, I don't know if it was. I can't remember if it was Hannah or Rachel, just said, like, I would be so afraid to fly in a helicopter. And it had me wondering, like, would I be. First of all, I don't think I've. No, that's not true. I have flown in a helicopter once. It was in Las Vegas. I was peaking on mushrooms, which was kind of awesome. Honestly, it, like, kind of worked out perfectly. But that flight was all of maybe two minutes going up over the Strip and then back down. If I was offered a chance maybe for like, a Sunday morning piece or something, to fly in one of those helicopters and, like, dangle my legs out, would I do it?
- [44:17]
Andrew
It?
- [44:17]
Luke Burbank
I. I say that I would, like here in the safety of the Madrona Hill studio. But I also got really afraid climbing that tree a few years back. So, you know. Yeah, but you were a couple hundred feet up, so, I don't know. I mean, it seems like it would be if I. That whole tree climbing thing really. It really changed my feelings about heights because my thoughts had always been because I'd never been up really high, but feeling really exposed, like, I was, was. We went down to Silver Falls. We were shooting this for CBS Sunday Morning. We were climbing this tree. It was probably 300ft to the top of it. And I'm on this rope and, I don't know, a couple hundred feet up. I just looked down. It's just 200ft to this forest floor. And the only thing keeping me alive is this rope. I thought tree climbing was going to be like, we're in the branches, we're scurrying up, and we're roped in. No, this was just the rope.
- [45:06]
Andrew
I mean, it might as well just be the face of a rock. Like, it just happened to be a tree.
- [45:11]
Luke Burbank
It just. That's a really good. That's a really good comparison. And my thought previous to this had always been, if I know that I have a harness and a safety rope on, I would never be afraid of anything. Like, I could window wash a high rise. I could, you know, hang out of a helicopter. Like, my thought was always, if you have the safety harness on and the safety rope, why would you ever be afraid because you have the safety harness on? And then there I was with the safety harness on, terrified. Like, sometimes the brain does not care that you have a safety harness on because the brain is interpreting the visual information of what's going on. So that really kind of did a mind tweak for me where I. Before that, I would have said, oh, no problemo. I'll hang out of a helicopter as long as I've Got the harness on. I don't know what my reaction would be now.
- [45:56]
Andrew
Yeah, and I mean, the fear of heights is not rational because, you know, this ties into that story. I don't know if you happen to see this, but here at the Space Needle in Seattle, they installed like a glass floor when they did this huge renovation 5, 10 years ago or something. And that's a big like thrill for people. Now walk up at the Space Needle, which was already a breathtaking and for me, anxiety producing experience just being up that high and being able to like kind of look out. I was already nervous with that scenario. Well, now they have this area where the floor is actually made of glass and you can walk out onto it. Earlier, I guess late last week or something, there was some story about how people were seeing cracks in the glass because like, no way viral. But I mean, if you think about it, it's like they explained it. I actually thought this was the perfect analogy. It's kind of like, you know, we have this glass floor and it's got these layers and basically it's like the screen protector on the phone cracked. You know, I mean it's just like this layer that's on top that is like the scuff layer that people walk on and will be replaced from time to time, I'm assuming. Anyway, that's the thing that cracked. But either way, when you're walking out on a piece of glass and looking, I don't know how high the, the.
- [47:06]
Luke Burbank
Speed, say 500ft, but I don't know that for a fact. That's just from being a kid. I remember it being, I thought roughly 500ft. That's, you know what's funny is I use the height of the Space Needle or what it feels like to be on top of the Space Needle to orient myself around height all the time.
- [47:23]
Andrew
That's interesting.
- [47:24]
Luke Burbank
If somebody says, oh, it's 500ft, I imagine being. Because I think the Space Needle, I grew up in Seattle was the first tall thing I was ever on. You know, it's like a school kid. You go up there and so I've always. But I don't even know is it, is it around 500ft, by the way?
- [47:38]
Andrew
If you put how five, by the way.
- [47:39]
Luke Burbank
Okay, okay, 605. If you put how tall into Google, how tall is Donald Trump? How tall is Sabrina Carpenter? How tall is Ace from Love Island? How tall is Huda from Love Island? And then how tall is Tom Cruise from Love Island? From Love Island?
- [47:56]
Andrew
I Boy, now I'm clicking through all These beautiful photos of the Space Needle. I love the Space Needle Needle so much. I love the design of it. I love history. I love what it's. Anyway, is it googy? I don't. That's a really good question because it kind of is that era, right? What I think of kind of space age architecture, that era of the 1960s.
- [48:13]
Luke Burbank
Kind of the curvature of the, like, support section below. Like, that's a really interesting. I wonder how they would exactly classify it. But.
- [48:21]
Andrew
But anyway, so people saw this crack and they were freaking out about it. But of course, it's all in your head, you know, I mean, especially. And like, the spokespeople came out and said we could literally have entire, like, starting lineup. Not starting lineup. What do you call everybody who's activated to play in a football game? You could have, like, the roster. Yeah, I guess the roster. Except that includes the active roster. Yeah, I guess the active roster. I don't know how they put it, but they basically said we could have all the Seahawks players here jumping up and down at the same time and this thing would still be strong. Like it is. The. The. The state of the glass floor of the Space Needle is strong. Yet some people get up there and they were talking in the story about how some people get up there and even without the crack, look down and their instinct is just to go down to all fours. It's like this weird thing when you're scared of heights. And I had that on the roof of your old house when we were watching the Blue Angels. And there was something about it where I was like, I was fine. I was fine, I was fine. Then suddenly I was like, I need my hands and legs. I was crawling by the end. And that's sort of a universal reaction, and it doesn't make any sense. Like you said, you're intellectually saying I'm harnessed in. I could do anything, but it kind of doesn't matter. You could say I'm totally safe. The glass floor is not any less safe than me being on whatever the observation deck or. I was even just going to say in a regular, like, let's say tall office building, that is. Sure, you know. Yeah, exactly. I could be, but I'm just not seeing it. Or like, I was nervous going up in the elevator before, it was more of a glass elevator, and it was because I could kind of see us going up. But if you put me in an elevator and don't give it any windows, I'm just like, I don't know, I'm in this little room, and it's taking me up. You know what I mean? It's like none of it is rational. Rational, yeah.
- [50:06]
Luke Burbank
It's totally about your perception. I wonder if the person who was tasked with kind of letting everyone know that the floor of the Space Needle is still safe. The glass part, which, by the way, I have walked on, and it's pretty intense.
- [50:20]
Andrew
Like, I didn't know that you'd been up there since.
- [50:22]
Luke Burbank
Okay, I went up there with my. My half brother from. Who was not invited. I guess he was invited to Sib Fest, although it would have been an interesting weekend because, of course, I never met my biological father and he had another child later after my mom got pregnant with me. That guy is named Adam. He lives in Philadelphia. Really cool, dude. Actually, we've met, I don't know, a handful of times. He and his, I think now, wife were out in Seattle, and so I was kind of taking them around, and we went up there and we walked on that glass floor thing. And I was kind of. Of surprised at how actually effective it was at making you feel like you're looking straight down at the ground. Like it wasn't just a gimmick. It was like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. This. This feels like something to not have anything solid underneath you. I, like, I definitely was thinking, Andrew, you. It would not be an enjoyable experience for you at all.
- [51:16]
Andrew
I don't even like thinking about it. I'm serious.
- [51:18]
Luke Burbank
I'm wondering if the person who was tasked with letting everyone know that it's still safe is this to going guy. One of the guys from that Taco Time podcast that I got kind of obsessed with a while ago, and I was even a guest on, I think a couple of years back, there was that great piece in. Was it Seattle Weekly about basically the Taco Time podcast and also the sort of the. The. The Taco Time Northwest versus, like Taco Time International or something, which is this difference between Taco Time franchises that only matters to people like me who are kind of obsessed with Taco Time. By the way, I figured out that I can't can. I haven't done it yet, but I can if I want to door dash Taco Time to my house, Andrew. And that. That's a dangerous piece of information for me. I wish I didn't know that. But one of those guys that's on that Taco Time podcast is one of the PR people for the Space Needle.
- [52:10]
Andrew
This is, I think, a colleague, though. This was a woman who, like, kind of was on all the TV shows. And either she was making the rounds or she released some sort of information. She's the one who had the quote about, like, the people jumping.
- [52:22]
Luke Burbank
Oh, the screen disabled.
- [52:23]
Andrew
Yeah. And all of. I want to address something here. We've already talked a lot about our burger challenge that we had, our Whopper challenge, eating it in under a minute. So let me. I think everybody knows what I'm talking about. I don't have to set it up too much. You and I both tried to see if we could do this TikTok challenge of eating a Whopper in under a minute. We've talked a lot about that on the show. It's on our Instagram page right now, and you can watch us both do it. And we synced it up so it looks like we're doing it at the same time, even though we didn't actually do it at the same time. All that is to say, originally, a bunch of TBTL listeners saw that video, and they were like, they had heard it on the podcast first, and we're happy to get the visuals on it. And you get the usual sort of, like, friendly comments of people, like, just talking about, like, I can't believe the guys did it or whatever. You know, you're kind of already all speaking the same language because we're all involved in this weird podcast experiment together. But now it's reaching a lot of people who have no idea what a TBTL is. Is. And I get notifications on my phone all the time. Because I. I'll be honest, we put a little boost behind it. You know, you can kind of boost these things a little bit to reach larger audiences, maybe bring a little bit more exposure to the podcast through this. Through this Instagram story and now this weekend. And I got to say, like, I just got to tell myself, like, these aren't our people, and this is the Internet. But it's just like, more and more.
- [53:44]
Luke Burbank
Are we getting mean comments?
- [53:45]
Andrew
Just more and more people. Everybody's like, oh, my God, I could do it in 30 seconds. Oh, my God, I could do two. Like, everybod. Genevieve's like, I could do it. I just don't want to think she can do it. Everybody, Luke, everybody. And then the latest one we got today was, oh, come on, girls, you could do better than that. Like, it's really.
- [54:02]
Luke Burbank
Genevieve.
- [54:02]
Andrew
Signed Genevieve. Which, you know, using, like, calling somebody a girl as an insult is like, obviously one of my fellow Wellesley girls. Yeah, right, Exactly. I was just like, oh, my God, we are reaching people who think calling me a girl is an insult. Like, that's that.
- [54:18]
Luke Burbank
But so you are.
- [54:20]
Andrew
You. You.
- [54:20]
Luke Burbank
So you don't get this show.
- [54:24]
Andrew
Exactly.
- [54:25]
Luke Burbank
Yes, we are very in touch with our feminine energy.
- [54:27]
Andrew
But it's just so funny how that's why everybody thinks they. And, like, everybody thinks they can do it. And not only does everybody think they can do it, everybody thinks they can do it even faster.
- [54:38]
Luke Burbank
People are, omg.
- [54:39]
Andrew
I'm looking for the comments now, but we don't need them.
- [54:41]
Luke Burbank
This is, like, so funny to me because I've been having. I've been having a kind of an experience with this, but because it's still coming up pretty frequently on my TikTok, which would be people doing this Big Mac challenge. And the more people I've watched trying to do it, actually, the more proud I am of us. Because it is. If you're not talking about, like, a professional speed eater. And when I say professional, just like somebody who is making it really a big part of their life to try to, like, eat things really fast or, like, you know, eat large quantities of stuff. Like, unless you're one of those people, most regular people actually don't finish this thing in a minute. Like, it is very deceptive because it looks like it would be easy. Again, Becca, who has not had a Big Mac, maybe in her life, certainly not in the last 20 years, was like, oh, I think I could do it. I was like, you couldn't eat a Big Mac if I gave you a day. I mean, are you. Something about your mind.
- [55:42]
Andrew
There's something about seeing other people do it that we all think I could do that. You know, understand.
- [55:47]
Luke Burbank
If you haven't tried it, what you don't understand is that the chewing of it and the swallowing of it is the trick. It's not, can you fit the contents of a Big Mac into your mouth in one minute, it's can you chew it and swallow it by then? And that is what always hangs people up. And what happens, and I've now watched countless videos on it, is people will often take a couple of, like, humongous bites. Bites. And then it'll be like, you know, half of the Big Mac will be gone. And you're like, oh, man, they're in great shape. And then they're just chewing for what looks like an endless amount of time. It's like, why are you chewing so much? It's like, well, because we, as humans, generally speaking, have to masticate our food so that we can get it down our throat. And in fact, the only reason I think I was able to do it in A minute was because I took a swallow that honestly could have choked me out. I took a swallow that was not properly chewed. And that was the only thing that allowed me to actually get in in under one minute. Because if I would have chewed that four more times, I would have been at a minute five or something, which was what my body wanted to do. But my brain said, nope, let's risk it. But it is. It's really funny that because the more people I've watched not succeeding at it, the better I felt about our performance. So take that, haters.
- [56:59]
Andrew
I'm trying so hard not to. Like, again, it's like, whatever. These are like random Internet people. Who cares?
- [57:04]
Luke Burbank
But it's just like irritating, reaching people outside of the T BTL fold.
- [57:09]
Andrew
What I like is John responds to every single comment. And so he just keeps on saying, prove it. He just keeps saying, okay, show us. Which I love that. So somebody writes, that's not even a challenge. And then so. And then the response from us, but via John is double, double dog dare you to try it. And then I did every. I worked at a McDonald's. A Big Mac is three bites and that's it. I roll, I roll. But like, okay, show us. Put it on, like. And it's all that. I can eat a Big Mac in about 25 seconds. Everybody's like, I can do 30 seconds or two in one minute. And John just keeps saying, do it, do it, do it. And let's like, let's see the videos. Let's show like, show me, like, again. I think I do the whole thing a disservice by, like, looking so calm while I'm doing it.
- [57:52]
Luke Burbank
But like, you, why it's impressive. You missed it by maybe four seconds, if that. Andrew, like, you really, like, honestly, I think your performance is spectacular because you both maintained your dignity and you all, you got so much closer than so many people I've seen on the Internet Internet who have done stuff like this before. And like, it's part of their whole thing. And you did as well as many of them.
- [58:15]
Andrew
And I do think it's a difference of an approach. I took the biggest bites I possibly could. And so then there was just a lot of downtime of me chow, chewing, chewing, chewing. And I think that's a very frustrating thing to see because everybody's like, you can just chew and swallow a lot faster than that, but you kind of don't understand how much bread is in the mouth at that point. But I'm not even. I mean, I didn't even mean this as a defense of my performance, but I do think I did did it a disservice by seeming so calm. But I think of your analogy often such a good analogy for so many things, but a duck that looks really calm on the water but underneath the legs and feet are just going crazy. Like I feel like that's what's going on inside my mouth at the time, but it just looks very calm. But so I think everybody's like, oh my God, this is so lame. I could do this in two. And so it's just like, I know that I shouldn't let these commenters get me, but like just stop commenting and if you're so confident you can do it, then do it and send us a damn video.
- [59:07]
Luke Burbank
You, I love this side of you. Honestly, like this whole thing, Andrew, I think has been, has been so fun because I love your embrace of the whole thing. I said this multiple times now, but this is just exactly the kind of thing that you usually wouldn't go in for. Kind of eating in front of people and maybe looking a little bit silly etc and then also clapping back at the haters and being like, show me.
- [59:29]
Andrew
Well, I'm not John is doing that but I co sign it. Show us.
- [59:32]
Luke Burbank
I, I, I, I also co sign it. I don't know if it changes if there's three people doing it, but like yeah, I am a long, I like the long tail on this. Now what I would say is we could always talk about trying it again. I personally don't think I'm gonna get any faster. I might get slower. But you, you might be able to shave a couple seconds off your time. We could always, we could try it again at some point in the future if you really, if you really want.
- [59:57]
Andrew
I'm still trying to figure out if I, cause as I describe this to people, I still, some people are like, well, you were at a disadvantage because of less sauce. I really think that I, you were.
- [60:06]
Luke Burbank
At a disadvantage, but you did put barbecue on it.
- [60:08]
Andrew
I put some barbecue kind of lubricant. So that's sort of the question, like, should I have put more on Anyway, I, I'm, I'm still willing just to take the loss and say when I see you and other people eat it with the sauce, I feel like it's more of an, I feel like it would get in my head more and I'd have to be wiping my face more and I'm not going to eat it with that sauce because I don't like that kind of sauce. I would start gagging. So there's no point. So I just don't feel like it's worth me trying it again because I just don't feel like I'm, I'm. I don't even feel like I. For better or for worse, I didn't really truly, you know, do the challenge, but I'm just like all these people who just like, they just see something online. I could do it. I could do it, bro. Eye roll, bro. I do this three bites, bro. I'm just like, God, I love it.
- [60:51]
Luke Burbank
I love that we're finally. Because, you know, we're just. Generally speaking, we're in such an amniotic sack of TBTL 10 love and careful response. Generally speaking, every once in a while somebody says something a little direct and hurtful, but like, we, we are so rarely even making waves in the semi public eye. I love the fact that we're getting some jabronis that like, think they could do it faster than we did. Yeah, that's the other funny part is like I said this in the aftermath of, of the actually doing the challenge. It's like, is it a w. Is it. Is it a thing one should be proud of of to actually like, hey, you know what I did? I hed down 500 calories of processed meat faster than, you know, somebody else did. Like, what a strange thing for us to see as success.
- [61:47]
Andrew
Here's. Here's the one that I really like. I'm going to read to you the comment and then I will say the account is locked, so I can't look at the things they've post posted, but I'm going to just. I'm going to read to you the this comment and then you describe to me what you think their avatar looks like. Okay. How do you feel about this game? I feel very good about. Okay, 20 hours ago, somebody whose username I can't even try to decipher into a word says, wtf, ladies? Took you long enough. What does their avatar look like?
- [62:19]
Luke Burbank
So it's their avatar. Is it a human form or is it some sort of a. Is it non human?
- [62:24]
Andrew
It is a photograph. It is non human.
- [62:27]
Luke Burbank
It's a photograph of something. Is it a photograph of an eagle wearing American flag sunglasses?
- [62:33]
Andrew
It is a photograph of an eagle in front of an American flag.
- [62:42]
Luke Burbank
I swear to God, I am not.
- [62:44]
Andrew
Cheating in front of an American flag. I don't know if you can see this.
- [62:50]
Luke Burbank
Oh, my God.
- [62:51]
Andrew
I mean, there's an actual photo of like an eagle in a tree that happens to have a flag behind it. But. Yeah, right. Wow.
- [62:58]
Luke Burbank
And they, you know, and, and we, and we say that everyone is a unique snowflake yet. And yet. How in the world did my brain immediately know what that was gonna look like? My God, I don't know if I've ever. Not since I ate a Big Mac in under 60 seconds have I felt more proud of myself. Andrew.
- [63:19]
Andrew
I'll tell you what, here I go once again with the email. Every week I hope that it's from a female. Oh man, it's not from a female.
- [63:29]
Luke Burbank
Hey, you mentioned before the show that we actually had an update on something that was bugging me the other day on the show. We were talking about the demise of buildings in Seattle and you mentioned Jensen's on, on Greenwood, I think. Yep. And. And what a bummer it is. That was this cool, you know, kind of smoke shop and everything, sold meat and stuff and. And then they got foreclosed on. Or rather just the owner of the building decided that they wanted to raise the rent or whatever. But now instead of becoming a new thriving business, it's just a shuttered, graffitied building, which is such a worse outcome than a local business that had been there forever. And that had me trying to remember where. What smoked meat shop in that area, I believe in North Seattle had a huge, huge, like a sockeye or something on like a salmon type of fish that it's jaw. My memory of it as a kid was that the jaw would go up and down and then I think at some point the jaw stopped operating because of maybe the, you know, demise of the neighborhood or whatever. But like I couldn't. I don't think it was Jensen's. I couldn't remember where it was. It sounds like somebody may have thoughts on that.
- [64:39]
Andrew
Yeah, I just saw this subject line. I had not opened it yet, but it said salmon with moving jaw sign. And this is a note from Bill who says somebody has probably already emailed you guys. They haven't. Bill. You're the only person. But I think that was on Greenwood until recently. I think around the corner from the rickshaw question mark near Holman Road and Greenwood intersection. So that is exactly where Jensen's is. So that must be it. Although I'm just a little confused. I wonder if the sign was there, but because it wasn't maybe operational when I saw it, maybe I didn't take as close of a notice because I don't. I don't. I used to go to Jensen's when it existed, but I. I don't think I Ever.
- [65:14]
Luke Burbank
I would put your smoked meat bona fides up against anyone's. Andrew.
- [65:18]
Andrew
Well, but what about my observation? I one time looked at you in the eye at a coffee shop and said, excuse me.
- [65:24]
Luke Burbank
So working hard, battling illness, you got a lot going on.
- [65:28]
Andrew
But anyway, so I think I would remember or would have noticed if it had a moving, I mean moving signs. We were talking about things that like make us feel like kids again, like fireworks or jets screaming overhead. I get excited about moving signs. So I feel like I would have noticed if that sign was still chomping when I was going there. But I also really have a proven track record of unobservation. So anyway, but what's weird is that.
- [65:57]
Luke Burbank
I'm doing like a search, I'm trying to do like an image search on the Internet and it's very strange because I can't seem to locate that particular sign which it feels like very much.
- [66:09]
Andrew
Much.
- [66:10]
Luke Burbank
Oh, nope, here it is. Andrew. I got eyes on it.
- [66:12]
Andrew
Yeah, let me see.
- [66:13]
Luke Burbank
It was hanging beneath. So the, the Jensen's sign that was like, you know, I guess you would say out in the parking lot sort of perpendicular to Greenwood. It had a salmon I think hanging under it. It's hard too because all of this stuff is on Facebook and I. Do you know that I'm kind of banned from Facebook right now? Andrew. Oh, I see it. I've got it. Andrew. I've got eyes on. And yes, there it is exactly as I remember it. Maybe this could be the show pick today or a better version of it. I'll send you you the link. No, I'm a little worried.
- [66:42]
Andrew
Are you on the official Jensen's old fashioned Smokehouse Facebook page? Because I'm trying to hack into this thing too.
- [66:48]
Luke Burbank
No, I'm. Well, I'm just getting whatever a Google image search I'm getting. I'm on Flickr. Andrew.
- [66:54]
Andrew
Oh wow, look at you.
- [66:57]
Luke Burbank
I'm playing three dimensional Flickr right now. Yes, but I can see. Oh, look at. This is so sad, Andrew. And yes, the fish is on the building when they close it says Jensen Smokehouse, The thanks for 34 years closed. And if you look below that reader board you see the big salmon with. It looks like a jaw that could have moved up and down back in the day.
- [67:20]
Andrew
And this is. But the. So the sign is not.
- [67:23]
Luke Burbank
I'm send you this.
- [67:24]
Andrew
Yeah, I'm, I'm having trouble. So it's not hanging on the building. Right. It's hanging below a freestanding sign in the park.
- [67:30]
Luke Burbank
So you know, there's it looks like there's two actual buildings here. Here. So there's like a small, like very kind of low one story building that I think might have been the original. It says Jensen Seafood Market. That's the one that I grew up with that has the fish on it. So the fish is attached to the roof of that building. And then next to it is a taller. Looks like a slightly more recently built, still kind of old and dingy, but newer built, larger building that says Jensen Smokehouse. Smoke, salmon, retail, wholesale, custom. So my thought is they expanded over time.
- [68:02]
Andrew
It looks to me in the photo I'm looking at, which is more, I'm guessing more modern. These, you describe this as two buildings. They're connected in mind. So I think this thing. Oh, are they connected in the one you're looking at too?
- [68:14]
Luke Burbank
Yes.
- [68:14]
Andrew
Oh, okay. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, because I'm looking at a photo of that. I just don't see any, any hanging fish.
- [68:19]
Luke Burbank
So can you see, can you see the sign that says Jensen's and does it say thanks for 34 years closed?
- [68:25]
Andrew
You have not sent me it. Right.
- [68:27]
Luke Burbank
Okay, you. I'm going to send. You actually just downloaded this successfully. So the thing I was going to say what has me nervous is, you know, next week Andrew is going to be the TBTL a thon. And what I like to do, I'm emailing you this. What I like to do is, you know, fire up the old club for Eagle Soaring. I was going to get out there in Wisconsin and try to get a few miles in and kind of get the community of folks that want to maybe run or walk or just do whatever they feel like doing. But I am like legit banned from Facebook for reasons that I don't understand. Understand as a person who never uses Facebook except once a year for this. I don't know if it thinks I'm a scammer because of my fact that I will shut my account down for 11 months and then start it up or whatever, but I literally am banned from. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do Eagle Soaring on Facebook. I may have to move it somewhere.
- [69:18]
Andrew
Didn't. Because you've started various accounts. Right. I think we talked about this a little bit and I knew this. I had told you that when I left Facebook years and years ago now, not long afterwards. And honestly, this sounds creepy, but I mean, this completely above board. I did think, well, I should at least have some sort of an account so that I can log in for reasons exactly like this. I'm trying to look at the Jensen's page, but I can only go so far because you constantly get pop ups that say you need to log in to do this. I didn't want to be part of the Facebook community anymore, but I wanted just an account I could log in to to browse every now and then if needed, especially for work purposes. So I created a fake. Not a fake, but I just created a new Gmail account for myself, brand new. And then use that Gmail to sign up for Facebook. And Facebook immediately was like, something's wrong here. We don't trust who you are and know. Like I don't know if it's. They could just tell that my email was too new, that I didn't have enough history. But this was years ago and Facebook knew that I was trying to sign up with, you know, some different email address. So they're pretty savvy. It's weird. They want you in so badly, but they also want sure that you're actually. I guess to their credit, they want to make sure you're an actual person, not just some bot or some. Something who's got a million accounts. So you can go in and say, come on ladies, I could have eaten two Big Macs in a row. But yeah, so maybe you've just tried too many different email addresses and stuff.
- [70:39]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, because I also can never remember how to get. I have all these insane logins. Like Eagle Soar is like a couple of them but the soar is spelled differently because like I got, I got shut down from you know, or I couldn't log back in. I mean, yeah, it's a mess. It is an absolute mess. My Facebook kind of login profile history. And maybe it just, it. Maybe it just was, you know, too much weirdness. But like I'm gonna have to figure this out this week before next Monday so that we can. Cause that's. I enjoy it and I think there's at least a few people who enjoy this kind of being a yearly tradition where we post some photos and all just kind of like, you know, hype each other other up. Andrew, I've got to quickly tell you about something though. TBTL Breaking news. I am sending you something now. Ignore my previous email of the sign.
- [71:30]
Andrew
Because well, I will say it's finally I get a. I got eyes on it. That is a good angle. Thank you for showing me that.
- [71:35]
Luke Burbank
And so I'm sending you a much better angle and I'm finally figuring out what the confusion has been. It's not gender. Jensen's it's next. It's a jib jab.
- [71:47]
Andrew
Mom, it's not real.
- [71:49]
Luke Burbank
It's next to Jensen's. It's called Sandy's Seafoods Market.
- [71:54]
Andrew
Oh, it's not hanging from that sign like you thought. It's coming up off the roof of the other.
- [71:59]
Luke Burbank
Right. Well, I figured that much out, but I thought that the. I thought it was all Jensen.
- [72:03]
Andrew
I see. Yes.
- [72:03]
Luke Burbank
If that makes sense.
- [72:04]
Andrew
I see.
- [72:05]
Luke Burbank
It's not. It is a. It's a different business, at least with a different name. Name called Sandy's Seafoods Market. Okay, but what's confusing is it's next to Jensen's and they also sell, you know, meat, or at least, yes, fish. And it's got this fish on top of it. And, you know, it's. I know that this jaw could go up and down because the picture I just sent you, you can see that the thing broke and now they've got it just like they've got it muzzled.
- [72:30]
Andrew
Yeah. I'm looking at photos of it, though.
- [72:33]
Luke Burbank
Jaw won't just like hang down. Kind of like. Like a. As Tracy Jordan would say, an unattended root canal. I think his dad was from funky North Philly, and I know he suffered from an unattended root canal.
- [72:44]
Andrew
I think that this thing was broken and hanging open for a long time. Because when you go. When you go to the Yelp page for this now closed down business, the big banner photos of it, and I don't. I can't tell. Yeah, I think. I think. I'm guessing that that all happened at the same time. That's what I was trying to figure out. And so my point is, I probably have seen this fish before. I'm guessing I just forgot about it and probably because it wasn't moving by the time that I saw it. But I am getting some views of it here.
- [73:12]
Luke Burbank
The pictures of it with it permanently open are kind of unsettling.
- [73:15]
Andrew
If it's permanently open, I'm guessing. I mean, it could just be motion shots and we're seeing it in the open position. But. Yeah, that's right. They had that little.
- [73:21]
Luke Burbank
The fact that they have it strapped closed in one of the photos, basically, they had lost the ability to control the articulation.
- [73:29]
Andrew
Anyway, it's just such a bummer. Like, that was our original point was like, here you had these two great old school style places where I would still be going, I would still be getting meat there. And they were forced out. They tried to start it. Like, I think the owners sold the business because they Couldn't afford the real estate anymore. The landlords were pushing them out. And I remember the workers tried to kind of band together and start a fundraising campaign so they could open it somewhere else. And I don't think that was successful. And there was just so much love there from the people who worked there. And it's just a bummer that it's all gone and now that building is offering absolutely nothing to society other than just being blight.
- [74:09]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, I know. What a bad outcome. Okay, I think that is probably about enough TBTL for this Monday. Andrew, what do you think?
- [74:19]
Andrew
I think so. Certainly, certainly, certainly.
- [74:21]
Luke Burbank
You said something earlier in the show that reminded me of something I really want to tell you about tomorrow. And it was the basic idea of like something that was we, you and I kind of. I. I guess maybe it was sort of how you referred to fireworks, but it was something more technology based. It was basically something that you don't really like. The fact that you sort of. You find something as compelling as you do because it goes against your general moral principles. And I am dealing with something like that that I want to tell you about tomorrow. It is actually a piece of technology that I'm. I'm not so conflicted that I didn't acquire it. Okay, so. So that shows a certain obvious interest. But there's a piece of technology that I've acquired that is making it so cool. It's making me furious.
- [75:04]
Andrew
Well, I guess this is a funny way to find out that that pizza oven you got is a meta brand pizza oven. So it's.
- [75:11]
Luke Burbank
Is it something from your lips to God's ears, Andrew? We'll talk about it tomorrow. We'll talk about it tomorrow on the show. Okay?
- [75:17]
Andrew
All right.
- [75:18]
Luke Burbank
All right. In the meantime, thanks for listening, everybody. We will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary review Radio is tonight the Home Run Derby?
- [75:24]
Andrew
Home Run Derby is tonight, I believe.
- [75:27]
Luke Burbank
All right, everybody, have a great Monday. Go Cal Raleigh. Go Big Dumper. And please remember, no mountain too tall.
- [75:32]
Andrew
And good luck to all. Power out.