#4521 Muttley Crüe

Summary

TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live – Episode #4521: Muttley Crüe

Release Date: July 30, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode #4521 of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live, hosts Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh dive into a lively mix of humorous anecdotes, current events, and listener interactions. Recorded from the picturesque Madrona Hill studio overlooking the Columbia River, the duo sets the tone for a blend of lighthearted banter and insightful commentary.

Food News Today: Chuck E. Cheese and Little Red Hen

The episode kicks off with the segment "Food News Today," where Luke and Andrew explore quirky and unexpected stories from the food service industry.

• Chuck E. Cheese Credit Card Fraud Incident

  Luke introduces a bizarre incident at a Chuck E. Cheese location involving an employee named Jermell Jones. "[...] someone was arrested in the full Chuck E. Cheese uniform at a Chuck E. Cheese with the head on and everything and had to be walked out in handcuffs fully," Luke explains (43:35). The story unfolds as a regular customer, Courtney Guggenheimer, notices unauthorized credit card charges linked to Chuck E. Cheese. Instead of canceling her card, she investigates by reviewing security footage, ultimately identifying the culprit as a familiar face from her visits.

  Andrew adds humorously, "I wonder if they automatically put 20% on her tab for leaving her card behind the bar. Right?" (46:21), highlighting the absurdity of the situation.

• Little Red Hen Dumpster Dispute in Seattle

  Transitioning to local Seattle news, Luke discusses the ongoing dumpster dispute involving the beloved Little Red Hen bar. "[...] fans of Little Red Hen, Banjos and fiddles in hand, Rally to save Honky Tonk," Luke recounts (57:11). The community rally aims to preserve the iconic bar amidst rising dumpster fees imposed by the property owner. Andrew speculates on the motivations behind the owner's actions, suggesting, "I could see a world in which they just kind of thought that the owner of the hen was kind of an asshole" (63:00).

Political Corruption: James Trafficant and Beyond

The conversation shifts to political news, with a focus on former Congressman James Trafficant.

• James Trafficant's Mugshot Controversy

  Andrew raises concerns about the accessibility of Trafficant's mugshot through Getty Images. "How in the world is Getty owned the rights to that? That doesn't make any sense," he questions (19:38). Luke provides background, explaining Trafficant's fall from grace due to corruption charges and his infamous hair system, which became a talking point among the hosts.

  The discussion broadens as they touch on other disgraced politicians like John Edwards, Tom DeLay, and Bob Menendez, highlighting a recurring theme of political scandals and public perception. "[...] it's just like so many things from Seattle that were beloved from my younger days are just gone now," Luke reflects (63:44).

Listener Emails: The Muttley Crüe Mix-Up

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to addressing listener feedback about misattributions of cartoon characters.

• Mutley vs. Other Cartoon Dogs

  Lynn, a listener, points out Luke's repeated mistake in associating Mutley with the wrong cartoon show, "Clutch Cargo." Andrew shares his own frustration, "I have known of this dog. Like when you say that I can totally picture what you're talking about. But I never really kind of investigated that," he admits (66:22).

  The hosts read multiple listener emails correcting the mix-up, with Patty clarifying, "Mutley and others," and Max affirming, "I threw my phone but I am put Muttley in the show pick," ensuring Lynn feels validated (67:35). This light-hearted segment underscores the camaraderie between the hosts and their engaged audience.

Video Games and Cultural Commentary

Luke and Andrew briefly delve into the realm of video games, discussing titles like Duck Hunt and Red Dead Redemption 2.

• Duck Hunt Nostalgia

  Andrew reminisces about Duck Hunt, questioning its place in modern gaming: "[...] I don't like that idea of me going with my bow and arrow?" Luke humorously counters, "I feel great about that," referencing their earlier jokes about Mutley's laugh (71:30).

• Immersive Gaming Experiences

  The hosts debate the ethics and enjoyment of hunting simulations in video games, reflecting on their personal preferences and the impact of realistic violence in gaming environments.

Closing Remarks and Future Plans

As the episode winds down, Luke and Andrew discuss plans for upcoming segments and tease future topics, including a possible name change to "Mutley Crüe." They share a moment of genuine interaction, emphasizing their friendship and the show's dynamic nature.

• Final Banter and Listener Engagement

  "[...] it feels like we were missing out on Politics Road," Andrew muses, hinting at deeper political discussions. They also touch upon listener emails and upcoming show picks, ensuring their audience feels involved and heard.

  The episode concludes with a humorous take on leaving their regular segments for more relaxed conversations, promising more engaging content in the days to come.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Andrew Walsh on Show Length:

  "If Andrew laughs in a studio and his mic is muted, did it really happen?" (03:30)

• Luke Burbank on Self-Deprecation:

  "[...] my self-esteem is such a crater that [...] I try to sort of self-medicate by being constantly negative about the show." (08:07)

• Andrew Walsh on Political Ejections:

  "I think that the left are way more quick to people out." (29:09)

• Luke Burbank on Wigs and Public Image:

  "[...] it's one of those things where my sense of it is [...] you're not the man you used to be." (17:41)

• Andrew Walsh on Video Games:

  "I always just think there's something about like shooting, you know, if I'm out there hunting for deer, a bow and arrow just seems like the most sort of like, I don't know, humane and sporting way to do it." (70:11)

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Conclusion

Episode #4521 of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live offers listeners a blend of humor, local news insights, political commentary, and interactive segments. Luke and Andrew's chemistry shines through as they navigate a variety of topics with wit and camaraderie, making for an engaging and entertaining listen.

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Timestamps for Reference:

• 03:30 – Andrew on muted laughter
• 08:07 – Luke on self-deprecation
• 17:41 – Discussion on wigs and public image
• 19:38 – James Trafficant mugshot and Getty Images
• 29:09 – Political ejections and the left's swift actions
• 43:35 – Chuck E. Cheese fraud incident introduction
• 46:21 – Humor on credit card fraud
• 57:11 – Little Red Hen dumpster dispute rally
• 63:00 – Speculation on property owner's motives
• 66:22 – Listener email about Mutley
• 67:35 – Addressing listener corrections
• 70:11 – Video games discussion

Note: For the full transcript and more detailed conversation, listeners are encouraged to tune into the episode.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Do you know what you get when.

[Andrew Walsh]

You hire a Party down catering team? At Party down, we have a simple motto. It's your party. You deserve to enjoy it. But how are you gonna enjoy the party if you're worried about whether the shrimp cocktail's been sitting out too long or is there enough ice?

[Luke Burbank]

Or do the guests think the party is lame? Are they stealing stuff?

[Andrew Walsh]

Are they going through the medicine cabinet because they're nosy? Or because they think they might find.

[Luke Burbank]

Something that'll give them a rockin buzz?

[Andrew Walsh]

I used to do that last thing. Not anymore. Cleaning and sober.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow.

[Andrew Walsh]

That.

[Luke Burbank]

That. That is quite a motto.

[Andrew Walsh]

Tbtm. Apparently I've never been on live television.

[Luke Burbank]

Before, but apparently sometimes I don't watch the. I don't watch the news because I'm a kid.

[Andrew Walsh]

You can't be serious.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I'm serious, baby. I am.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yahoo serious. I'm serious.

[Luke Burbank]

Fm welcome to the world Serious of seriousness. Sponsored by Honey Nut cereals. Are you all right?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no. I'm confused.

[Luke Burbank]

I want to be the bad boy of public radio like Elvis Mitchell. This party is gonna be off the hook. Well, all right. Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Wednesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

[Andrew Walsh]

Gotta have that root beer.

[Luke Burbank]

My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host. As Jay would say, he's got flow. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia. Another beautiful late July day and morning. Oh, Ma. Pa, it's just beautiful. The deer were out this morning here, and there was three. I don't know when a deer officially becomes a buck, but there was three of them running together, walking together, that all had their horns coming in and that kind of velvet on their horns. And there was no females in sight, no little babies. Just three teenage deer out, probably up to no good. So anyway, I'll see how the rest of the afternoon goes. If I spot him again, maybe I'll take a picture. It'll last longer. You know what will last forever and ever? This episode of TBTL. It's episode 4521 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. That's right. We record these, we put them on the Internet, and then they're immediately sent to the Library of Congress, where they're archived and treasured, really, by the American people. We have Food News Today.

[Andrew Walsh]

Welcome to Food News Today.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, we have a couple of of sorts stories that involve places that serve food, I guess, including Charles Entertainment, Cheese. Sometimes you gotta stop and Smell the pizza. Where a very surprising. A series of surprising things recently happened at a Chuck E. Cheese that we're gonna tell you about. Also the Little Red Hen, the sort of legendary and very long standing Seattle bar which is in danger of going away. May not have to go away quite so quickly now. Drunk people are so meta. We'll get into that and we'll talk to this guy. Longest running cobra of the show. May be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's Andrew Walsh and he is joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

When you said this episode is going to last forever, I laughed out loud, audibly, but my microphone was muted. So it was. If Andrew laughs in a studio and his mic is muted, did it really happen? But I thought you meant.

[Luke Burbank]

It's so rare that I actually. That I elicit a genuine laugh from you as opposed to the kind of.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, the bullshit laugh I give you all the time.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, not bullshit, just the sort of professional. The professional curse was that it make you feel good, kind of. Okay, see, that worked.

[Andrew Walsh]

That would work good. No, but the thing is, I laughed, but I laughed at the wrong point you were making. I thought you meant this episode was gonna last forever. As in we were never gonna stop talking. As in somebody's gonna look down at their podcatcher to play today's show and it's gonna say show length and it's gonna be the infinity symbol.

[Luke Burbank]

The number will just continue to go up even as it's downloaded into their phone. Improbably, there are listeners who would like that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I know there are a lot of sickos out there.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, you know, we had a. Did we had a two hour show recently?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. People were freaking out.

[Luke Burbank]

Getting a lot of good feedback on that, which is, you know, I mean, again, I feel like we've been. We've been really getting a lot of W's lately. My. My ego is getting sort of pumped up to what is possibly a dangerous degree. We had such a great time in friendship. We raised enough money to keep the show going. All of that stuff, it's felt really, really good. And then also the fact that when we do put out what I think could only be described as a. Like a grotesque. Like a grotesque show in terms of length and in terms of just us rambling for literally hours, the feedback is, oh, this is great. We're excited. You gave us more of this slop.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it's like an. It's like the eating contest equivalent of podcasts. It's like, you notice they're not serving really high end food at eating contests. Nobody is. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Nobody's talking about details on the Nathan's hot dog.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nobody's talking about how great the food was at the contest, just how much of it you could consume or possibly how quickly you could consume it. And that's basically what we're putting out here.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. A lot of that content is now showing up on my TikTok for you page.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, because the hamburger challenge that we did or the big.

[Luke Burbank]

It was sort of before that. It's weird. It'll. It'll come in waves for like two or three days. All of a sudden there will just be a particular, like a style of content. A genre of content. Whether it's people talking about their sobriety or whether it's people who are eating a bunch of food or it's people who are documenting their. They would say narcissistic exes, usually through like videotaping them with their phone while the supposed narcissist in question is being narcissistic. And like, that's not something that I've ever gone out and looked for or searched or was particularly interested in. But then one day it'll just be. It'll be. Every second thing on my feed will be like this sort of version of content. And for a while, and then it'll just like a day or two later it'll shift to something else. And for a while it was just people going to like, not, you know, particularly famous restaurants, just like a random cafe somewhere or a random Mexican restaurant that has some kind of burrito that if you eat it and you finish it, it's free and you get a T shirt. And if you don't, you owe them $40, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

There's a guy named like, what's it like, beard versus food or something? There's like a British guy who's quite skinny actually. He's got a big beard and he eats a lot of stuff. There's this, this dude, I think he might be from the kind of northwest area. He's got like a, a headband on that he always wears. And, and his thing is he'll get. This is going to be impossible to describe over the imaginary radio, but let's just say he has like, he's eating a gigantic pizza. Okay. Like a massive, ridiculously large pizza. He'll. He always has a point where he like folds up a piece of the pizza to like where it's, it's almost more food than you could even get in your mouth. And he goes what do you know about that double pizza fold. And then he takes a bite of it. Or let's say he's eating, you know, Mexican food and it's like some gigantic burrito. He'll like grab some or. And it has, you know, who knows what with it. Some other kind of side dish you'd get. He will then get it and he'll somehow make it into this like monstrously large ball of something. He'll go, what do you know about this mole ball? And then he'll take a bite of it. Like he just. And that's his catchphrase is like what do you know about this triple ham slam? And then like points it at the camera, then he bites it. I now wait for him to say that in the video.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. With anticipation, like waiting for the beat to drop.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. And it's, it's not good content much like this show. You know what.

[Andrew Walsh]

But there's a lot.

[Luke Burbank]

I actually I, I realized. Yeah, there's just a lot of it. I realized something just a moment ago, Andrew, as we were talking. I need to be careful about denigrating the show because what I'm doing, I don't have a problem denigrating my work or your work.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I know, I know you don't have a problem denigrating my work. I've been to the meetings.

[Luke Burbank]

And those are the ones you're invited to. You should hear the ones John and I have that you're not invited to. No, but what I need to actually, I mean, I'm being serious. I referred to this show as slop already once. And it's like if you're somebody who is donating hard earned money to keep this going or you're somebody who really enjoys the show and then I'm calling it slop. It's insulting to the listeners and I need to not do that because again, I have such a, my self esteem is such a crater that I for some reason I try to sort of self medicate by being constantly negative about the show. But when I'm doing that, I'm also insulting something that these people really like.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah. I mean that's my default to those self deprecating humor. It's what got me through life, I guess. Yeah. So it's hard to kind of turn that off. But you make a good point. I mean, I guess you could apply that to our own relationships as well. Like if we're constantly putting ourselves down, how does that make our partners feel or our friends feel or whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

It's an actual issue sometimes. I mean, not like a huge one, but I mean, you know, Becca will say something nice about maybe like, oh, you looked nice in that suit, or whatever. And I am incapable of just saying, hey, thanks, I have to make some kind of a crack about myself and, you know, insult myself. And again, for her, it's like, hey, you know, you're my boyfriend and I love you and I was paying you a compliment. And it's actually unfun for me when you undermine the nice thing that I said. So I need to work on that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, me too. You should say, hell yeah. From now on, when anybody compliments you on anything, you should just say, hell yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, four yeses and one hell yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're accepting it and you're doubling down on it.

[Luke Burbank]

How do we feel about four yeses.

[Andrew Walsh]

And one hell yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, how do we feel about Sarah Palin being used as an audio drop on this show?

[Andrew Walsh]

Is she.

[Luke Burbank]

We've decided that it's okay because she is. So she's. First of all, she's out of public life. And also she never actually got to a position of power where she could really do a lot of damage. Is that. Is that enough? Is that enough cover to play? Because I find her drops to be so funny. But also there's a lot of stuff that used to be funny that's not funny anymore.

[Andrew Walsh]

This sounds like a conversation that we should be having on Politics Road. Luke, I don't know if this is a.

[Luke Burbank]

We did have this conversation on Politics Road.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did we let the listeners in on Politics Road?

[Luke Burbank]

No, we.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know how deep we want to go on this, but there was this one road that we had to take from our Airbnb to the Heart of Friendship where we were doing the TBT L. A THON, of course. And yeah, what was it at? 15. Probably less than 15 minute drive, right? 10 minute drive or something like that. I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, we can make it in nine. If you're trying to get to Wisconsin 106 and you just found out that you're. That you're supposed to be on the air in nine minutes as long as.

[Andrew Walsh]

A local newspaper reporter is not in front of you. But for some reason, usually on the way home.

[Luke Burbank]

Way home. For some reason.

[Andrew Walsh]

Always on the way home, leaving this, like, the makeshift studio. We had done the show, but there was just this one part of the road where we were unintentionally falling into weird political conversations. And I don't think it's weird to be having politics at the you know, top of your mind these days. Because, I mean, I don't even know if politics is the proper way to describe everything that's going on in the country, but, I mean, it's rooted in politics, certainly. And we would just get into more and more kind of strange conversations in the. Sarah. By the end of the week, I started trying to make you guys laugh by thinking of, like, random old politicians and just like bringing them up and just seeing if I could get you guys to slip into that conversation without realizing what I was doing. But the Sarah Palin conversation I do believe came up. I believe I brought it up for some reason, and I believe it was not to troll you, but truly I think my question about her was why is she not. Why does she not have a bigger stage in 2025 when all of the other lunatics do? Yeah. And you sort of the, the, er, lunatic sort of.

[Luke Burbank]

She was. And I think if there were people that are saying, don't play Sarah Palin, I think their, their reasoning might be because even though Sarah Palin did not successfully become vice president, she kind of got the camel's nose under the tent for people who are very clearly not intellectual.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Anti intellectual to it.

[Luke Burbank]

Anti intellectual. And so you could kind of say that she, even though, again, she hasn't. She doesn't have any significant power these days, that she was sort of, you know, she was unfortunately useful to the movement in a certain way. That would be the argument for not using the audio from her politics road. The thing that kept happening was for like the first three days, we just, it just things were not just politics, but like the darkest timeline of politics. Just like utter, sort of bleak, like, everything is terrible and nothing will ever be okay again. We. We kept finding ourselves in some kind of conversation like that at about the same spot on what I then said. Why are we always talking politics here? There was a house that had this like some kind of a. Like a tree made of glass jars.

[Andrew Walsh]

Bottles.

[Luke Burbank]

Right, bottles. Bottles. And. And we were speculating on what it was, but then we were also talking about, like I had sort of suggested half jokingly, but a little bit not jokingly, we should drive like kind of down this shared road and get a better look at it because it was behind this house that we could see from the road. And that was a pretty hard pass, I believe, by our colleague John Sklaroff.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And. And I don't actually know where you came down on it. Probably also not inclined towards driving onto private property.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, the drive, my whole thing was Practical. It's just like the driveway would not have given us a better shot at it. The driveway was solidly in the front of the house and this thing was solidly in the back of the house.

[Luke Burbank]

But then we got into a whole conversation about basically like, are we as sort of coastal elites, are we unsafe in rural America because of our beliefs or because of how we appear or whatever.

[Andrew Walsh]

And for record, I do not feel unsafe. I. Yeah, call it privilege or what. I do not as much as I feel unsafe from my own thoughts at any given moment. I never. I am lucky enough to not traverse the world feeling physically unsafe anywhere. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

And I. And I don't either necessarily, or at least not a huge amount of. Although I have to say, I would be more nervous going down a driveway in a part of the country where it's very likely that people do have guns and are pretty concerned with their privacy and their rights of standing their ground. I would be more nervous about that. I'd be more nervous going up and knocking on that kind of door than I would be knocking on a door in like urban America. Just. That's just how I'm wired, I guess. But anyway, we just kept finding ourselves in these super intense kind of political worst case scenario conversations again at about the same point on the drive home. And then. Yes, you eventually just. Who did you. Who did you eventually bring up? It wasn't like Bob Dole.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was somebody else.

[Luke Burbank]

Somebody from that era.

[Andrew Walsh]

My question for you is, can we play this as an audio drop?

[Luke Burbank]

Am I different? Yeah. Have I changed my pants?

[Andrew Walsh]

No. I didn't even know that was going to be so good. I just looked up the Best of James Traffic hint. And that is the first. That's who it was. This is the first. We were talking. I think it was our final night on Politics Road. And I got you guys going on banner. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

There you go.

[Andrew Walsh]

It starts as a joke and then you. And then. And then you guys were kind of done talking about Baner. And then I asked you about how you feel about James Traffic. And so anyway, I was getting this tape ready just now. That was a needle drop, Luke. I just found something that says C Span Roll called the Best of James Traffic. And I hit. I mean, I was a little bit nervous because I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure how, you know, potentially, you know, awful or dry or whatever. Let's just listen to a little bit more of this, actually.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. Am I different? Yeah. Have I changed my pants?

[Andrew Walsh]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

Can we just. Deep down, you know, you want to wear wider bottoms. You're just not secure enough to do it. Prove it, sucker. Prove it. Prove we're wrong. Do I do my hair with a weed whacker? I admit.

[Andrew Walsh]

Beam me up here.

[Luke Burbank]

Do I wear skinny ties? Yeah, Coach. Wide ties make me look heavier than I am and I'm heavy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Can I ask, is it the person who put this on YouTube who added the music from.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, because this is a bunch of cracker. This is a bunch of different clips. You think that's the Nutcracker? Is that what it is?

[Luke Burbank]

It very much is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yes, yes, yes. I'm a power user of the Nutcracker soundtrack during the holiday.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a funny choice.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's nothing holiday related.

[Luke Burbank]

I've never been a quitter. I don't think I'll quit now. I say it's time for Congress to shove these illegal tactics right up the assets of the IRS.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is definitely not cracker for our president, Mr. Bush to say. Read my lips. Get out. What we're saying is read my pocketbook.

[Luke Burbank]

Beam me up, Mr. Speaker.

[Andrew Walsh]

God, he really leans on the. Beam me up quite a bit. And this wig gets very ridiculous at times. Sometimes he looks like Marge Simpson hiding her rabbit ears.

[Luke Burbank]

It's sort of like a mood ring of hair. Like the more kind of off kilter it was during various special orders and him just sort of standing up there in the well talking. You could kind of sense how sort of unhinged he was. Also, I wonder, is it misleading for him to make the. Which is a good joke. Do I cut my hair with a weed whacker? Yes. When in fact that hair is something that sits. Presumably sits on a mannequin head at night when he goes to sleep.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, there's something. I mean, listen, people can do whatever they want for their parents. They can wear whatever they want. But it's funny. Like, let's say that you're. From my perspective and I don't think that this is right, but I do believe that the hair replacement and the hair, the baldness cover up industry. Everything that is related to like especially male baldness is rooted in shame. I listen to a lot of ab radios, you know, and so it's all kind of like, you know, you're not the man you used to be. It's like John Curly always telling us that we're lesser men. It makes me want to double down on my own baldness. I just want to like, just like it makes me want. Makes me proud to be A bald. I'm not even joking because I hate that. I just hate the desperation and the connection to manliness so much. Yeah. You emanate from my radio, having said all that. So if I do believe that this is all kind of, you know, all of these products is based on this sort of cultural shame about balding. You would argue that James Traffic and is wearing that wig because he doesn't want people to think of him as a bald. So you could just wear that and not say anything and sort of maybe assume that some people know or you know, some people assume. But to actually call it out and make a reference to your haircuts is a doubling down. That is. Yeah, it's. It's. It re. You really think you're getting away with.

[Luke Burbank]

Something or you really want to until you are indicted. And I believe they confiscate.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Your hair system.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

When they take your mug shot, which I believe also happened to Phil Spector. So that's the danger.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Because I feel like I can see James Traffic and mug shot without his wig. But maybe.

[Luke Burbank]

I think he actually might have been allowed to wear it. I think that might have been the story. I do remember that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, Here it is. Oh, it's a way. But it's all pile. It's like a beehive. It's like pile. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But is he wearing it in this mug shot?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I'm looking at it now. On getting images, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

We just professional courtesy from whatever law enforcement because really they're supposed to probably take that away in case you escape later and they need to find you.

[Andrew Walsh]

How does a mug shot become something that I can buy off of Getty Images? How does Getty end up owning a mugshot? Something that was taken with taxpayer dollars. But we did just get through a fundraiser fund.

[Luke Burbank]

Freelance photojournalist side of Andrew Walsh, everybody.

[Andrew Walsh]

It doesn't make so. But I can download the large version of his mugshot for $500. We get the small one for 1. 75. We'll talk about this later. We'll get the listeners involved.

[Luke Burbank]

TB boys on this.

[Andrew Walsh]

How in the world is G. Getty owned the rights to that? That doesn't make any sense.

[Luke Burbank]

That would mean that whatever. I'm assuming this was federal because the thing about James. Okay, we just spent about 10 minutes on James Trafficant with absolutely zero context for our listeners who might be. You know, let's just be hopeful here, Andrew. Under the age of, let's say, 30. James Trafficant was a congressman from Ohio, Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And very powerful in Congress for many years and then eventually went to jail for, you know, for basically embezzlement or graft or, you know, you know, basically doing stuff you're not supposed to do. But he was also just kind of a legendary character. But, yeah, his hair. I was really zeroed in on his not particularly convincing hair system throughout the years. That was what first drew my attention to him.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm on business insiders, 10 mug shots of infamous arrested politicians. And the one at the top is another wig. It's Rod Blagojevich, by the way, for all the younger listeners. Blagojevich, this has got to be a wig, right? Did Blago not have a wig? Did he just have, like, striking hair? And am I totally wrong about what I'm saying?

[Luke Burbank]

I think his hair was so incredible that it looks like it's a system, but I think that's his real hair.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay. Wow. This photo looks. And again, I want to be very clear, and maybe if somebody out there, like my grandfather used to wear a wig. I'm not trying to wig shame here. I'm really not. But when you see somebody kind of wearing a bad wig, it's worth noting, especially these former politicians. Do you want to hear who else is on this list we have? This is not a list of wiggy mug shots. This is just political. By the way, I learned that Business Insider was started by a guy who did time for insider dealings of some sort. Look, can you. While I go through this list, will you fact check me on that? Because I swear I figured this out. Or I learned this on the air with Genevieve one time. Look up, like, Business Insider, Wikipedia, because I think somebody. I mean, that you want to talk about just owning it and then creating a successful brand.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, okay, Now, Insider, Inc. Formerly Business Insider, Inc. Is that what you're talking about?

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm guessing. Yeah, I'm assuming.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it looks like Business Insider was founded by Henry Blodgett and Kevin Ryan. Henry Blodgett was sort of a business blogger, right? For the Times for a long time, maybe. And then, let's see. I'm trying to find another example of. I don't know if either of those guys. Unless maybe this Kevin Ryan character, Blodgett.

[Andrew Walsh]

Was charged with civil security.

[Luke Burbank]

Blodgett.

[Andrew Walsh]

Blodgett was charged with civil.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, that's just a name that begs to be said in that. I didn't know that about him.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'd like to buy a jowl for that one. Blodgett was charged civil Security Can I buy a dowel by the U.S. securities and Exchange Commission and settled the charges. He's the co founder of Business Insider. So like, it is a man who. I don't understand what the charges here are exactly, but I saw it written up somewhere else that basically it was some sort of like, basically dealing with inside information, somehow using inside information, I believe, to profit in some way. That I may be wrong about that.

[Luke Burbank]

The charges, Let me just say this super fast. The charges arose from actions blodgett took from 1999 to 2001 while at Merrill lynch, which included issuing materially misleading research reports on Internet companies and making exaggerated or unwarranted claims about them to customers.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, so maybe not trafficking off of inside information, but certainly, like, using information to, like, deceive people and profit. I mean, it's an interesting.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, this is. But then the thing is, after following his settlement with the sec, Blodgett resumed his career as a financial and economics writer and ended up contributing to Slate, the New York Times, Fortune, New York Magazine, and the Financial Times. So that was how he came to my attention. And it would just never occurred to me that the guy who we're relying on to tell us. Right. About finance and all these things was also a guy who got busted for doing stuff you're not supposed to do. He very. He really rehabilitated his image there pretty quickly.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. Okay, I'm gonna go through. He did not write this article, by the way. This is from 2012. Luke. Nice you want to talk about. This is why I want to do it. It's such a time machine. All right, so the first one listed here is John Edwards. Of course.

[Luke Burbank]

We know his hair is real.

[Andrew Walsh]

We know his hair is real. And the interesting thing about this is these.

[Luke Burbank]

Are these because of the haircut thing?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, right, of course. I mean, expensive haircuts. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, what a time to be alive, Andrew. When an expensive haircut on, I think Air Force One maybe could bring down. I mean, his political career was brought down because of infidelity, but that was also a huge thing. Was the John Edwards expensive haircut. Like, what a time when that actually counted as something.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. The interesting thing is they're all smiling because they're public figures. And so the mug shots of public figures are always different. So he's like, well, this is going to be out there no matter what, so you might as well give your, your, your nicest smile to the camera. Yeah. So you got him. You got Blago, you got Tom Delay three years Ago. I should have opened this up on politics road. Man, we were missing out on this.

[Luke Burbank]

How soon can we be back on politics road? I know Harriet would enjoy it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Three years in prison for money laundering for delay. Wow. Ted Stevens 2000 from Alaska. Was he Alaska? That sounds right. Now he's.

[Luke Burbank]

I think he was a senator from Alaska who famously. He used to get into it with this guy named David Obie from Wisconsin. I think he was a senator. And they used to yell at each other. And I think it was. Don't quote me on the guy who said this, but somebody in the like, again, on the well of the Senate, accused Ted Stevens of being a founding member of the Flat Earth Society.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, geez.

[Luke Burbank]

Because he was very anti science or something. Anyway, I just remember Ted Stevens. He was a kook. What did he go for?

[Andrew Walsh]

He went in for a. It says a slew of ethics violations. Okay. And then it says, a year later, the judge set aside the conviction, claiming prosecutors mishandled the case. He's not smiling, by the way. He looks pretty rough. George Ryan. Illinois Governor George Ryan. This story doesn't ring a bell to me at all. Convicted 2006, corruption charges, wide stance.

[Luke Burbank]

Larry Craig.

[Andrew Walsh]

Larry Craig pleaded guilty to misdemeanor.

[Luke Burbank]

That was a crazy story, too, because it was. He was a. He's Idaho, right? He was a senator from Idaho.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. I didn't.

[Luke Burbank]

And I believe he had. I'm just. I'm gonna just guess now and I. That being a Republican senator from Idaho, he had, I'm sure, outwardly had very bad takes on the LGBTQ + community and, you know, and. And. And. And particular pieces of legislation, etc, that would have, you know, probably limited rights for folks. And then he's in. I think it was the mini. I think it was the airport, Andrew, where you and I really were.

[Andrew Walsh]

I knew it was the Minneapolis. I didn't know it was that airport.

[Luke Burbank]

I think he had over between D.C. and Idaho. And I think the stopover was in many. It was. Sorry, in Bloomington. You happy, John? And he was in Bloomington, Minnesota, and he went into the bathroom that I guess maybe there was. Information had been circulated. This was a place where you could sort of meet other people, meet other men for, like, a sexual hookup was the. Was the rumor. And that you would do something where you would tap your feet in a certain way and you would, you know, indicate to the person in the stall next to you that that's what you were there for. Well, for whatever reason, I guess the Minnesota airport police decided that they were going to crack down on this. And I think he went in there and he tapped his feet to an undercover agent.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, yes. The undercover officer made. Said he made sexual advances in the bathroom.

[Luke Burbank]

And then he said, no, no, no, I didn't. And by the way, of course, officially a. Allegedly a heterosexual married man, again, full of what we would say, quote, unquote, family values. Right. Said, no, no, no, no. I just have a wide stance when I'm in the.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. That was his, that was his excuse, this one. I don't know. Democratic Rep. Dan Rostenkowski.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, Dan Rostenkowski.

[Andrew Walsh]

Tell me that's a.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's what I, what I can tell you is that I recognize the name.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Mail fraud. It says 17 month prison period of.

[Luke Burbank]

Time where basically, like a lot of these dudes from the Midwest, and I know Tom delay is not from the Midwest, but like, what this is reminding me of is like there was a period of time where like a lot of politicians were going to jail for like they were getting busted on ethics stuff and then they were going to jail. And I don't think that they're. The politicians of today are more ethical. I just think that we are so. It's so polarized now. It's so hyper partisan that basically if you're, if a person from your team does something bad, you just circle the wagons around them. Like, there isn't enough bipartisanship to even get somebody like kicked out of Congress or the House if they're, you know, unless they're George Santos, they have to be unbelievably flagrant with.

[Andrew Walsh]

Although, I mean, maybe this is just my own getting people, my own political bias here, but I think that the people on the left are way more quick to people out. Like, I don't, I don't think we have it. Do we see that kind of circling of the wagons as much on the left? I, in fact, I mean, I would almost argue that with. What's his name again? Speaking of Minnesota, but the comedian. SNL comedian, Minnesota senator. How am I doing this?

[Luke Burbank]

Stuart Smalley is his name.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's it. Oh, my God, that's so embarrassing. But anyway, you know what I mean? Like, a lot of people say, boy, we really kind of like maybe didn't hear his side as much. I'm not weighing in on that. But you hear that and with this. Are you familiar with the New York, New York City financier?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, Jeff Epstein?

[Andrew Walsh]

Jeff Epstein. Are you familiar with him? You know, like, people are like, well, the left isn't Gonna like that Clinton is on the list too. And everybody's like, yeah, like, release the list. Like, if that's true. Like, of course. Like, you think that we're circling around protecting Bill Clinton from this shit.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it's. By the way, Al Franken.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm sorry I. I dragged you down with me on that one. Well, I drowned so much on that shit. And you're always.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what they.

[Andrew Walsh]

Saving me.

[Luke Burbank]

When an Andrew is drowning, don't get in the water.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I don't know why I'm so today. Sorry about that. I can't beep him anymore. We're just gonna put the explicit label on the show. But, yeah, sorry about that. I. I knew. I thought for sure you would have that. But instead I should. But a very frustrating moment for the.

[Luke Burbank]

Listeners for some really was. I'm sorry, everybody, but like, Al Franken. For some reason, Al Franken seems very far away from what his name should be to me right now. Like, something about him being from Minnesota. Him. It's the fact that we did know him mostly as Stuart Smalley on snl. Like, I feel like. I feel like he should rethink if his name should be Al Franken or not. But yes, I agree with you 100% that. That the left because. Because we're obsessed with holding ourselves to a high standard regardless of what's going on. The other side said we're very quick to eject people from our. Which again, generally speaking, I think probably is a good thing when. When, you know, when the evidence is pretty clear. But yeah, I mean, the, The Al Franken thing was, was I do think some people look back on that and wonder if they're. If there might have been a better way to handle that as opposed to just kicking him right on out.

[Andrew Walsh]

And who's the other. Who. The. Who's the Democratic politician, like, in the past year who was charged. He and his wife. Right. Were knee deep in all kinds.

[Luke Burbank]

Hoopla.

[Andrew Walsh]

Fraud. Knee deep in the hoopla. This is.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

He's Bob Menendez.

[Andrew Walsh]

Menendez. And like, there was not like a. Hey, we know there were calls for him to resign, like, kind of immediately from his own party.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, that guy's story is so crazy to me. I've been kind of obsessed with that story. That's why I could remember his name.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Because I was like, reading about it obsessively. Because the thing with Bob Menendez was he already got in trouble for this and got found not guilty. Like he. Years ago. Like, he got the incredibly rare get out of jail free card. Like the. I assume the feds came for him for other, like, you know, stuff like this where he's basically taking bribes and stuff he was accused of. He somehow beat the case in court.

[Andrew Walsh]

The jury was unable to reach a verdict. It said in 2015. I just happened to land right in that part of the story.

[Luke Burbank]

And like, I mean, can you. And I think he was looking at very serious time on that. And like, if. Can you imagine, like, you doing this whole thing and then you have to go to court and then you. You get so lucky that there's like a hung jury. And now it's like you get your whole life back and then you immediately start putting gold bars. Ill gotten gold bars in your loafers. Right, that you got from. For basically being a foreign agent for the. I forget the particular government. I think it might have been Egypt, but like, yeah, it's Egypt.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

It's just crazy that he. He skated on it once and then he just went right back. And by the way, his wife sounds like a real piece of work as well. I have to say, the whole thing seemed like a kind of honestly, just desserts for these two, because there is video of Bob Menendez, I think, proposing to his wife in song in front of the Taj Mahal. That is just one of the more unhinged things I've ever seen. It's one of those things that's supposed to be, like, really romantic, but it's just so. Look at me, Louie. And like, they met, you know, kind of like later in life, and she was somebody who was sort of very, it would appear, very obsessed with. With trying to have wealth and status. And then. And then you have this Bob Menendez guy who has status and some amount of wealth, and so they kind of team up, but then they both just absolutely sort of play into each other's worst impulses. But then they also would, like, put all these things on social media about their. About their, you know, love affair they were having. And every single thing they put up was so incredibly cringe.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is so. I didn't realize that they were married or got engaged during the kind of modern times. And I'm watching this now.

[Luke Burbank]

How much of that did I get right? Is it at the Taj Mahal?

[Andrew Walsh]

It does look. I'm guessing this is the Taj Mahal in the background. It looks like it.

[Luke Burbank]

Can we hear a little bit of this?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I was going to ask you, should we? Because I'll tell you what, the visuals of this alone are freaking me out. And yes, by the way, it is posted to YouTube, but it's filmed upsy downsy. So there's tons of black space on the edges and we don't know. Not good. Anything else that we should be seeing? Okay, I need to describe the body language.

[Luke Burbank]

Is she, like, sitting on his lap or something?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my. That would almost be more normal. Because I could say she's sitting on his lap. Yeah. That you would understand what that means. But she's sitting. So she's sitting in, like, clearly this touristy area. I think it's a Taj Mahal in the background. She's sitting on, like a bench, kind of a nice bench on this sort of nice stone kind of patio in a grassy area. She's sitting. He's standing behind her with one foot on the ground and one foot up on the bench. So she's sort of leaning back sort of into the, I guess, crotch. She's sort of leaning back into his crotch looking. But he's standing. So her head is fully pulled all the way back. Like she's looking up to the heavens. But really she's trying to look. Look into his eyes while he looks down into her eyes. It is a. I would use it as a show pick, except I'm not going to get everybody in the picture.

[Luke Burbank]

And this is Menendez singing, right? Yes, sitting. U.S. senator Bob Menendez.

[Andrew Walsh]

Be enough. Never be enough. Powers of global are still too little. These hands. You don't need to just do a regular Wednesday segment called Politics Road because we're like one. We are like one bad idea away from getting into that John Ashcroft tape. I'll tell you what.

[Luke Burbank]

But it's only about politicians from 20 to 30 years ago.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

That's. That's because that's really the sweet spot because they can't hurt us anymore. You know what I mean? We have to use the James Trafficant mug shot as the show.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah. Well, if I can buy it off of Getty for 500.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that's. I'm looking it up now. I forgot how. Just truly ridiculous that. I mean, in that, in that shot, it was, it was extra, extra bet. And I'm with you, Andrew, by the way. I don't want to shame anybody about whatever they're doing with their kind of, you know, decisions around their hair or their hair systems or things like that, but I do think that there, it's like, it's one of those things where my sense of it is. And you're talking to a person who, like, puts Powder in their hair so that my hair looks less thin. Like I am very plugged into this world of shame.

[Andrew Walsh]

But you don't have plugs, just to be clear. That's different kind of.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that's a whole different thing. Although I'm not against it. And I do hear those John Curly ads and it does, it does kind of get my attention. But like, actually, you know, I heard Joel McHale, the second Joel McHale reference this week. Andrew. It's a big, big week for him on the show because, you know, I knew Joel McHale, not didn't know him. I knew of Joel McHale when he was on Almost Live. He was very young. He's probably in his early 20s. And he was kind of like the young cool cast member. So I identified with him a lot and, and I thought he was very funny. But he was a person who definitely, you know, was showing the early signs of, of, of baldness, of male pattern baldness. And then as he became more famous, he suddenly just had more and more hair. And I always feel kind of like an interesting relationship with that when you've been observing someone who's kind of famous but from back before they were famous.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And, and then I saw him on an interview the other day and he said, oh yeah. He goes, I'm on my like fifth hair transplant because he has like a thick, lustrous, beautiful head of hair now. And he goes, oh yeah, this is like five hair transplants worth of hair. He goes, this is all fake. I mean, it's real. It's his own hair.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's good because usually it looks great spot kind of bad plugs and like, good for him.

[Luke Burbank]

Like good for him de. Stigmatizing it, you know?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, no, I mean like that, like.

[Luke Burbank]

I'd so much rather. It's almost like this Deion Sanders thing from yesterday. It's like I'd so much rather he just say, yeah, you know, I work in the very, in a very vanity based industry and I just felt like I needed to do this and so that's what I did. Like, no shame at all. And so I want to make sure that we're not like shaming people who are using whatever they're using to look the way they want to look. But I do think like in the case of somebody like traffic hand, it's like dial it down. Like, because ideally you would just like your hair to go kind of unnoticed and uncommented on. Don't go in and pick out the craziest hair system that you can. The Craziest wig or toupee. Is there a point at which it stops being a toupee and starts being a wig?

[Andrew Walsh]

I think so. Let me tell you what I've always assumed about this because I said my grandfather wore a wig, but I think he wore a toupee.

[Luke Burbank]

Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think the toupee is a smaller thing that just goes on top. When you still have a lot of side hair top of your head.

[Luke Burbank]

That doesn't.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. Yeah, I think you're the one. I think I was like a full on adult when I learned. And I think at your knee, but not. Not in the Bob Mendez way.

[Luke Burbank]

No, you were sitting on a bench. I was standing, yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you were looking. You were looking down at my eyes as I look straight up into yours. Kind of upside down.

[Luke Burbank]

Weird. Hey Dummies video.

[Andrew Walsh]

It got the numbers we were shooting for, though. That was the engagement. When you explained to me that Hair Club for Men was not some sort of a medical treatment, it's just a fancy wig.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

I always assumed it was some sort of procedure.

[Luke Burbank]

No, but they were the ones. I'm kind of using the term hair system somewhat cheekily here, but they were, I think. Or maybe it was Bosley, but, you know, another one where Bosley is. I don't think that their business model was like replaced like, like, you know, putting new hair onto your head that was permanently affixed to your scalp. I think Bosley was also one of those things that was kind of like a, you know, a wig or a toupee system.

[Andrew Walsh]

I never heard of Bosley before. Is that the laughing dog from the Caped Crusader series?

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, you know what? We got a lot of emails about that.

[Andrew Walsh]

We really did.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can we get to those later on in the show? Yeah, I think that.

[Luke Burbank]

I think that was an interesting development. Yeah, but. But no, I mean, I be. I was very concerned when I was in my early 20s, I started to become very concerned about what was going on with my hair. And I. So, you know, I started to clock all of those ads and like, there was a period of time where in like the 90s and 2000s, where if you turned on a television after a certain hour, it was probably a Bosley Hair Club like ad, like an infomercial running all the time. They were just. They would just wear those things out. And the thing with the. Probably the same thing with Hair Club for Men and this Bosley thing was, was it was some kind of a. It was a thing that you had to have tightened down on the regular. So it was actually a pretty smart business model.

[Andrew Walsh]

So you are going in. So that's going in, getting the sort of idea of, of it being more than just a wig that you keep in your drawer or whatever, right?

[Luke Burbank]

No, it's a system. And you basically, you have to go in and every month or two and have it kind of adjusted and re glued or re. Tightened down however they do it. Exactly. But it's again, it's a pretty smart business model because you can sell the person the hair system, but then they have to keep coming in to get it kind of maintained and get the maintenance. And funnily enough, that whole, that world of like, of, of sort of, you know, I guess putting like again, a toupee or a wig on is, has really come back on tick tock. In fact, there was a New York Times article about it recently. Like there's these really interesting, entertaining tick tock pages where these, you know, these folks that they, I don't know if they make them, but they somehow buy these very convincing hair pieces and then they'll, they'll film the whole procedure of like putting them onto a client and they're, they're, they're pretty convincing, I gotta say.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, and I'm with you again now. I feel a little bit sheepish because of course you are. Your, your attempts at, you know, trying to have longer, more flowing hair, whatever they say in the sexier, in the sexier hair are well documented.

[Luke Burbank]

But you're absolutely right, it's all shame based.

[Andrew Walsh]

But you do talk about it and maybe that's it for me. I mean, I don't know. I. Anybody can do whatever they want, but I guess in my own life is just kind of like. I don't like the way these things are marketed and that they leverage shame. And by the way, I don't think that. I think this is one of the rare cases where men are more the target of this sort of shame based advertising, when mostly it is women in so many various ways that are very superficial too. And I get up on my high horse about that. In fact, Genevieve as a woman is less bothered by that. We talk about that a lot after these messages. So it's something that is very clearly triggering for me. People can see, can take whatever products or as long as they're, you know, as long as, as long as they feel like it's healthy for them to do it, that's fine. I think maybe the, the deception and the marketing is what bothers me.

[Luke Burbank]

I think the idea of you going to bed at night and wishing that your hair would fall out at a faster rate just so as to push back against toxic masculinity is absolutely wonderful.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm out there, I'm pulling on it, I'm tugging. Love.

[Luke Burbank]

I love. I love this act of protest from you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, no, that's the way I justify my love.

[Luke Burbank]

That's great. I mean, whatever works.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

Our top story today involves an incident at a Chuck E. Cheese recently which you know, had a few different. I don't know if you got a chance to take a look at this piece yet, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I haven't.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like there was a period of time where we were kind of the go to show for Chuck E. Cheese related content.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, because we're serious people.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, because we had, I think we had found out this data point and who knows if it was apocryphal. And I use that advisedly, sir, who knows if it was apocryphal or not, but that like there's some kind of like there was something with Chuck E. Cheese where it was like the, maybe the number one restaurant that had the police called out to it for sort of domestic unrest because it was this intersection of like kids birthday parties that were being attended by parents who were no longer married to each other and they also served beer. So just a real kind of like perfect storm. And it's a friggin Chuck E. Cheese, which like, if you're a kid it's heaven on earth, but if you're an adult it's hell on earth like it would seem to me. Anyway, just put in the noise and all of that. So this is a story from the New York Times. This is written by Victor Mather, headline come with me. Chucky Mouse arrested on credit card Fraud Charges. So what basically happened was again, there's so many parts of the story that kind of were surprising to me. The first is that somebody was arrested in the full Chuck E. Cheese uniform at a Chuck E. Cheese with the head on and everything and had to be walked out in handcuffs fully. Chuck E. Cheese.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh my God.

[Luke Burbank]

This feels like a setup. Which seems like it would have probably been, you know, scarring for some of the children who were there. But the way the story really starts is there is a woman who is a regular at the Chuck E. Cheese. So just let that sink in. She goes to the Chuck E. Cheese so much that at some point she leaves her credit card there accidentally. And now she basically starts to see that her credit card is being used at different places like Gas stations and other things. And instead of just doing the thing that everybody else would do, which would just cancel the credit card, she starts going to the places where the credit card was being used and asking them if she can see the security footage. And on the security footage, because she sets a regular at the Chuck E. Cheese, she recognizes one of the guys from Chuck E. Cheese. So again, the fact that this woman didn't just turn her credit card off and challenge the erroneous charges, the fact that she went all, you know, gumshoe on it, and that also, by the way, the places let her look at the footage that seems like some time out of their day at the Sit Go or whatever.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And then the fact that she's such a regular at Chuck E. Cheese, like, oh, that's Terry, actually, we know the person's. The actual person's name, I think, is. I can find it here on the fly. Like, Jermell Jones is the person who's alleged to have stolen the credit card. She's like, oh, it's Jermell from the Chuck E. Cheese that I go to all the time. Can you imagine being an adult and being an. Being a regular at Chuck E. Cheese?

[Andrew Walsh]

I know, that is really funny. I wonder if they automatically put 20% on her tab for leaving her card behind the bar. Right?

[Luke Burbank]

Like a bar the next day.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that is.

[Luke Burbank]

By the way, is there a. I mean, I don't know when the last time you did that was, but, like, is there a better use of 20% than the auto? Like, I have no problem whatsoever with a bar auto charging my credit card or my debit card if I left it there.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a tip, right? That.

[Luke Burbank]

That is a tip anyway.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And you'd be leaving that anyway. And honestly, is there a safer place other than the bank to leave your credit card? Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, the first of all, just the. The wave of relief when you go to the bar the next day and you realize they do still have your cart. And then sometimes, again, thankfully, this is less the case in my life these days, but it used to be fairly frequent where you'd kind of go in kind of sheepishly, and I'd be like, I think I left my card here last night. And they'd pull. That would already have been run. And they'd be, okay, just so you know, we did 20%. And I'd be like, you could have done 80%.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

I could kiss. I could kiss you right now and get kicked off of the. The Las Vegas Raiders football team.

[Andrew Walsh]

What.

[Luke Burbank]

What Is that story?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know. I read the New York Times version of it, and there was Pete Carroll. No comment as to whether or not somebody was booted from the team for kissing a teammate on the top of the head. And then I was read. They never. It was Diana Rossini who, like, I think, wrote or contributed to that report. Did we read the same report this morning? And it felt like there were a bunch of, like, facts or. Yeah, I guess facts regarding this that didn't connect, and they just were not able to tell us what the. Sometimes you read a New York Times piece and they're being so careful to not go outside the lines of journalism and truth. Sometimes some of our listeners would argue they don't do that. But in a straight up, straight ahead story like this, they don't want to be slanderous or libelous or whatever. And so they're not telling you certain parts of the story. And you're supposed to fill in the assumptions on your own. But sometimes I'm not smart enough to fill in the assumptions. Was this fella maybe having a breakdown or was there some sort of homophobia on the team? Like, what was going on with this?

[Luke Burbank]

I think it was. I think it was a couple of things. I think the Raiders wanted out of his contract because they owed him $35 million of guaranteed money, and he had had some injury, something called a Jones fracture. Yeah, I never even heard of.

[Andrew Walsh]

Me neither.

[Luke Burbank]

And I think. I think the thought on the team was he was not working hard enough on his rehab. Like, I think the team was starting to kind of, like, feel like we're not going to get our money's worth out of this player. And so I, They. They. I think they're smart enough to say it wasn't because of this kiss. The story was that he playfully kissed a fellow player on the top of their head, and that that player took offense to it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, so you even got the playfully part, at least. I didn't. I couldn't even get that in the.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I might have. I mean, I might have inserted that.

[Andrew Walsh]

But, I mean, that's the thing. We're left to try to piece this all together. The headline is, pete Carroll offers no comment on Christian Wilkins alleged kiss of Raiders teammate. And you're like, what, football players kissing? Like, you got my attention. And then you. You click into the story and there's hardly. There's nary a reference to the kiss. Again.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so here is from an insider talking to espn. The interaction was described as, quote, playful. Okay, but the teammate did not see it that way. It's not known what the fellow player did following the incident. So what I think is the Raiders are smart enough to know that they can't fire this guy. It's going to be harder to kick him off the team and, by the way, claw back the $35 million. That's really what they want to do because he playfully kissed someone on the forehead. So they're. They're chalking it up to him violating the rules of his contract by not rehabbing with proper vigor. So they're still trying to get out of paying him the $35 million, but not officially because he kissed someone playfully on the forehead, but because he wasn't working hard enough to rehab, which is kind of interesting because that seems like that could be. God. Now we're just getting into, like, how NFL salaries are structured. But, like, one of the things about the NFL is very little of the money is guaranteed. That's the whole story with the NFL, because guys get hurt so much. So when you do actually have guaranteed money, when you have money that the team has to pay you no matter what, but they also reserve the right to say you weren't rehabbing, like, you get injured. And now that's when the guaranteed money is supposed to be kicking in. Like, hey, I'm sorry that you have to pay me this 35 million. But that was how the. That was how the contract was drawn up. But they can go, oh, you weren't actually trying hard enough to get healthy, so we just don't have to pay that. It would seem like then there's effectively no guaranteed money in the NFL.

[Andrew Walsh]

Here's another thing that I found confusing about this. Now, this is when I read this this morning. And so maybe now that I'm a little bit more awake, it'll make more sense. But the story has the headline, this is technically the Athletic, which is I can of under the New York Times banner. But you have the headline that I just described. The coach won't say whether or not the kiss had anything to Teammate kiss had anything to do with the.

[Luke Burbank]

It was only a kiss. How did it end up like this? It was only a kiss. And then reach for comment. Brandon Flowers said.

[Andrew Walsh]

Then the story goes on to describe the kind of, like, back and forth the team had had with him over the course of a year about his injuries and rehab. Everything that you just said. And then it doesn't really mention the kiss except for a very brief mention of it. Nothing more than we see in the headline. And it gets into this. Defensive tackle Adam Butler was asked about it. This is what he said. We pretty much just kind of moved on from the situation. I really don't want to comment further on it. So it doesn't say that he was the one who was kissed, but am I to assume here that Adam Butler was the kissee?

[Luke Burbank]

It kind of feels like that. Why would you be going to him for. For a response? And why would he offer a response if he wasn't the person who got kissed?

[Andrew Walsh]

But I feel like they don't specifically say that. And then the quote goes on to say, I really don't want to comment further on it, but I will say that whatever you're through as a person, athlete, non athlete, whoever, whatever your struggle is, if you got something going on in life, just talk to somebody, get some therapy. Whatever your deal is, is your deal. Somebody out there in this world full of billions of people is willing to listen. They're willing to listen, hear you out and help you work through whatever you need to work through. But don't make any hasty decisions. Get help. And that is just in the story, without linking it to anything about that is attributed to Adam Butler, defensive tackle, and it never specifically says he is the one who was kissed. But I guess that's what I mean about the story. It just has a whole bunch of like, unconnected, like storyline, not storylines, but unconnected facts or information that I can't piece together. And it's dangerous if I piece it together because I'm not that smart and I'm going to come out with a really wrong story here.

[Luke Burbank]

And also the amount of ass slapping that happens in professional men's sports, that apparently doesn't threaten anyone's masculinity, but you plant a little smooch on the forehead and it's some kind of a federal case.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I don't know. You're a real forehead smoocher. So you have your own back to Chuck E. Cheese.

[Luke Burbank]

So the police now, you know, the person who had their credit card pilfered, the Chuck E. Cheese regular goes to the police and presents them with the evidence. And so then they go to the Chuck E. Cheese and they see the guy who she says is the person who's been using her credit card, and they come in to talk to the guy a little bit. And then so after verifying that the man matched the woman's description, officers re entered the restaurant only to learn that the employee had now donned the mouse suit. So he wasn't Chuck E. Cheese when they Showed up, he was just like regular guy working there. And we can only sort of speculate that his escape plan involved getting into the Chuck E. Cheese outfit so that then the police wouldn't know which one was him.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not a terrible idea, I guess.

[Luke Burbank]

Honestly, in a pinch, like, I mean what I would have done is I would have just run out the back door of the restaurant myself. But like the idea that, the idea that he, that he got into the Chuck E. Cheese outfit to try to obscure his identity is pretty funny. The New York Times interviewed a woman named Courtney Guggenheimer, who is a math professor from Davenport, Florida who was at the restaurant with her children. And she said, we were eating. And they did the announcement that Chuck E. Cheese was going to come out. Mrs. Gegenheimer said in the interview, My six year old wanted a picture, so we followed him. At the same time, a cop out of nowhere grabs his arm and says, chucky's busy right now. It says that to the kid, Cobb is arresting Chuck E. Cheese. It says to the six year old, chucky's busy. Face it, kid.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, Chuck E. Cheese. I feel like, that's why I feel like they, I feel like the cops were. There's something weird about this story. They were waiting for this moment. I feel like, to go.

[Luke Burbank]

But the thing is I, I would say that if the guy had been in the outfit when they showed up. Yeah, yeah, but I'm saying it sounds like he wasn't in the outfit at all. They interview him and then they go back out to the car for some reason and then that's when he puts like. I don't think they knew this was coming.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. I. Can I read this next part, which I'm assuming you're about to read. So we hear from the customer, Ms. Guggenheimer.

[Luke Burbank]

Gagenheimer. Which by the way, how rude. No, I'm saying no, it's too close to Guggenheimer.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

For it to be Gegenheimer don't have a name. That's exactly like a famous name, but two letters off, please. That's rude.

[Andrew Walsh]

But then the New York Times quotes the police officer in, in the police report. So as the police officer wrote in his report, quote, I grabbed his right arm while giving the verbal instruction, Chucky, come with me. Chucky, the mascot was cuffed and taken out to a police car, still wearing his costume. Only at the car was his costume head removed, revealing the human being beneath for all to see. And then it says, Ms. Gegenheimer says they set the head on the SUV, all the kids were watching this. My kids said, said that's not Chuck.

[Luke Burbank]

E. What a way to find out that there's no Santa Claus.

[Andrew Walsh]

But wait, what is better? What is better to learn that it was a human being inside the outfit the whole time and this human being was flawed like other human beings and was arrested? Or that there's one Chuck E. Cheese, it's a real being and he's a perp. What is, in other words, like, if you don't take off the, the. If you don't take off the mascot head, then the kids just think that Chuck E. Cheese was arrested.

[Luke Burbank]

Right? That's a good point. You need to like, well, like, do.

[Andrew Walsh]

You want your kids to think that, you know, Chuck E. Cheese is doing.

[Luke Burbank]

Crime, that Charles Entertainment Cheese is real, is a mouse or a rat maybe, and is also doing crimes? Or do you want them to learn far too young that it's human beings inside of the outfit and that those are the people that do crime? But the reputation of Charles Entertainment Cheese as an idea remains unblemished.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think, I think it's better for the kids to see him defrocked.

[Luke Burbank]

And you can no longer tell people about our fried pickles. Hey, it looks like this kind of public outcry around the Little Red Hen may have sort of worked, at least in the short run. We were talking about this a while ago, that there was this bizarre garbage dispute with this bar that we love from Seattle called the Little Red Hen. And that they had this dumpster that they were sort of sharing with another business, except the other business was paying the dumpster fees. And then the owner of the building didn't like that arrangement and so kind of ruined that for, for the Red Hen, which was going to, according to the owner, add like $40,000 a year to their bottom line to their costs. So then there was this kind of fight. Then the owner of the building said, you've got to vacate the premises. And boy, I mean, there was. I saw stuff flying around the Internet, you know, these kinds of like, you know, petitions and things people were signing. And apparently, according to Kuow, there was like a rally in front of the Hen, complete with music. This is a piece by Amy Radle. Fans of Little Red Hen, Banjos and fiddles in hand, Rally to save Honky Tonk. And it seems like it might have worked because they have been given a 30 day extension by the owners to try to work this out, to try to solve this. I think I don't have the quote right in front of me. But the owners of the building said something like, as long as the owner of the Little Red Hen makes a good faith effort to work this out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hmm. I did not dig into it. I'd only seen that headline the other day. So they have like 30. I mean they have like 30 more days, as you said. My question is how incentivized is the property owner to working this out? And you think pretty incentivized because that space isn't really. You say that that space isn't as kind of as valuable without the operating bar there. And it might not. I guess we have seen that played out. And what would seem to be some areas of Seattle that seem like they would be pretty, I don't know, attractive places to start a business. But then they, the, you know, the tenants move out and then because the rent goes up and then they just sit there. But it's like, that's Green Lake. I just feel like anybody would want that space in Green Lake. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, I haven't been there in so long. But like the things that stand out to me are the building is actually pretty old, the physical building. And it's dark in there. I mean, by design it's a bar. I guess you could maybe put windows in. It's also kind of. It's not right on Green Lake, you know, where. Which is kind of appealing to like there's other little restaurants that look out on the lake and you can sit outside. It's kind of sort of back one from there. Like, it just seems to me that probably the best thing you could do with this dark kind of old building is leave in a classic bar that people already really like, as opposed to like remodeling it and trying to put it. I mean, you know, the like success rate of like of bars and restaurants is kind of so low anyway. So my theory was that I wondered if the owners had some long term plan to try to actually just raise the building right and put up something bigger and fancier, which has happened all around there there with like what used to be the Vitamilk processing place, which was weirdly owned by friends of my aunt and uncle, which was like my brush with celebrity as a kid was my aunt and uncle know the people that owned the Vitamilk distributor.

[Andrew Walsh]

But like anyone out on that anymore? Can you now that the building's.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm still trying. You just heard it. But I also think it's possible that the owners just got their feelings hurt. Like they were just annoyed at the. I mean the owners of the building got their feelings hurt from the borrowers owner. Like I literally think that might have been part of this too because like assuming that the, that the guy who owns the bar has been paying his rent on time. And so, you know, like, I feel kind of like why would they. Unless there's some secret plan to tear the building down, why would they try to like basically kick out this. This tenant that's been there forever and that also probably pays the rent on time? Again, I'm assuming a lot there. And it's probably going to be more durable than some other thing that you have to put in there. And also by the way, if you own the building, you might have to pay for the remodeling of making it nicer for someone else to come in.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's the thing is I'm sure that if you get a new tenant and or like you'd have to do a major renovation or you'd like you said, raise it and then like build something else there. Let me ask you a question. Let me want you to check one of my assumptions here because I only read that original Seattle Times article about it and I haven't like kind of dug into these follow up stories or even Radles reporting, which I'd sort of seen floating around there. I think I remember from the original reporting that this. The property owners bought the property somewhat recently. Right. Ten or less years. And I am just assuming that they are what would you say, like an absentee property owner. Right. Like I don't get the impression that they live in Seattle or give two hoots about the culture that has been built around this particular bar. I just get the impression that this is just like some sort of faceless property owner that's just like owns this and so it doesn't have really any investment. They just want to do whatever is expedient and doesn't inter interfere with their cash flow.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's what I was thinking. But again, I think if they were to kick them out, my prediction would be a year from now that would just be shuttered.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And there'd be no cash flowing. So that's why I have the hurt feeling theory or just the annoyance theory. Just like literally like because there is a person who owns it who's. Who owns the, the, you know, the building now and who is named. You know, the company has some kind of like the property management company has some kind of incredibly corporate name like RK3 holdings or something. But then there's a particular person whose name.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Keeps getting associated with it. And, and that person. Basically, I could. I could see a world in which they just kind of thought that the owner of the hen was kind of an asshole.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And at some point they just were like, okay, fine, if you're going to be like, like doing weird stuff with the dumpsters, and if you're going to be like, complaining about us on Facebook or whatever, you're just going to be annoying. 30 days. Get out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, I almost could see that being. And now it's like people are showing up with banjos. And also, again, maybe cooler heads are prevailing. Maybe they're looking at the real economics of it going how, you know, how soon do we have to have somebody else in there for this to actually math out for us? You know? And so now they're like, kind of extending it and hopefully, anyway, they'll, you know, they'll figure out a way to keep it around because again, you know, this is not anything particularly new for us to say, but it's just like so many things from Seattle that were beloved from my younger days are just gone now. So it'd be kind of cool to see one of them actually managed to stick around.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I agree. Obviously, we're rooting for that. 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.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, we had a little.

[Luke Burbank]

We had a little foreshadowing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, we did.

[Luke Burbank]

Of the emails today, because I love.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I love this, but I'm going to need your help reminding me of all the different cartoon names. So you are often referring to this giggling cartoon dog from the 1970s, I want to say, and you're associating him with the wrong cartoon. What is the dog's name and what do you usually say he's in.

[Luke Burbank]

The thing that I have, I've. I've mistakenly said was that the dog which is named Mutley, which I think is actually. That is the dog's name.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

So I got the name of the dog right. But I've been. I always say that the dog Mutley is in the. Is in the show Clutch Cargo, which it's not in that show. It's. It's in a show. A different show show that I can't remember scrolling. I'm scrolling trying to find.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, and I think I found what's going to clear this up a little bit. So you always say, oh, Mutley from Clutch Cargo. And I have known of this dog. Like when you say That I can totally picture what you're talking about. But I had never heard of Clutch Cargo. I just. But I never really kind of investigated that. And then our buddy Lynn posted on Blue Ski the other day, I said, the more I think about this, the more it makes me laugh. I swear, each time Luke Burbank says that Mutley was from Clutch Cargo, I can hear the tens of tens screaming out in PA Clutch Cargo's dog is Paddlefoot. Mutley, the laughing, snickering dog is the sidekick to Dick Dastardly, Obviously. Obviously. And so I was laughing at Lynn, saying that this was a really painful. And obviously Lynn. I think that is the joke there, that tons of people are obsessed with this mistake the way Lynn clearly is. And so we wanted to hear from listeners, like, is this something that actually you've heard on the show before and it upsets you this, this, this re airing of this mistake over and over again. And also, quick side note here. Yesterday on the show, I quickly mentioned that I love an email that has a longer subject line than the actual contents of the email. And I think that's also what listener Jennifer is responding to. Because I received a email this morning with the subject line in response to the request to email. If we knew whether Luke was mentioning the wrong cartoon dog, then the body of the email says, absolutely not.

[Luke Burbank]

That was an outlier.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now I. That was only one of two that I got. And then the second one I got could not be more the polar opposite, both in the brevity of the subject line and then the length of the email.

[Luke Burbank]

So I got one from Patty.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

The subject line, Mutley, the Penelope Pit Stop cartoon is where I remember Mutley from. I indeed shouted out loud at work while listening to the episode. So let's see. Do you have a Kent?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah. Okay, go ahead. And then I'll read Max's, if you don't mind.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, sure. Kent just sent in like the subject line, Mutley and others. And then it's just like a screen cap of a bunch of these kind of cartoon characters from that era and from that universe. So I'm going to take that as also, Kent cared about me getting that mixed up because Kent appears to be a fan of this, although Kent does not say specifically, like, I threw my phone. But I'm putting Kent in the the I do care about this stuff camp.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I like it when Lynn feels seen. And I think Lynn is going to feel seen here when Max says Lynn is not wrong. I also screamed out in pain. I have for years all Caps wondered what Clutch Cargo was and why you associate it with the cartoon character. I knew from watching Wacky Races on sick days, Dick Dastardly's snickering dog, Mutley. Thank you for the on air correction and sorry for the piling on because you fixed it, but I just wanted to validate Lynn on this one and you legit on the air invited these emails. So that's.

[Luke Burbank]

I also since we started the show today, Andrew, I got a DM from our friend mickshell.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

In Minnesota. Subject line. I know Mutley body of the email because I am old.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, there you go. There you go.

[Luke Burbank]

And I take that also to mean that. That mickshell knew the difference between these folks and that and it was noted. So that's a lot of folks in the we do care about this stuff. We were throwing our phones. This does matter to us camp. So, Lynn, you are validated.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. And maybe even more than you even wanted.

[Luke Burbank]

Actually at this point there was one more from Anna. Anna, the subject line, Dick Dastardly. Hi, Luke. I did know who Mutley was and that he was paired with Dick Dastardly. I have never watched Clutch Cargo and could have never named his sidekick. Take it easy on yourselves. I mean, we all have to be wrong once in a while. Signed Anna.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm also. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

[Luke Burbank]

My email wants to. The. The auto response. The email wants to offer me three canned responses to Anna's message. Oh yeah, I could say I agree with you. Thank you. That means a lot. Or thanks. Thanks for the advice. They don't have. Thanks for coming. I understand.

[Andrew Walsh]

I understand. Thanks for coming. I understand. I'm trying to. Because you've mentioned that the dog in a Nintendo, in the Nintendo universe, specifically Duck Hunt and other games like that. You always say that it must be sort of based on Mutley, but I can't find any evidence of this. I'm actually on its wiki page right now and it just says because I.

[Luke Burbank]

Feel like that it's kind of. He's a mischievous dog. I don't know if he actually puts his like, you know, cart, his whatever, his digital paw up in front of his face.

[Andrew Walsh]

But like I.

[Luke Burbank]

That could be me blending the Motley thing with what the. With what the Duck Hunt dog does. But they just seem. They seem really similar to each other to me. There's nothing on the Internet confirming that.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, that is. That's the laugh of the dog, by the way. That's. Whoa. That's literally. I'm watching it here. This is the dog Laughing man, this makes you want to play Duck Hunt. How do you feel about Duck Hunt in this day and age? You don't. You, you said, you said, I feel.

[Luke Burbank]

Great about it if you leave the room so that I can hold the gu right up against the TV and then you come back with your snacks and I go, hey, dude, I just set the all time high record. I feel great about that.

[Andrew Walsh]

This wasn't on Politics Road, but on the way back from friendship towards the Twin Cities, John and I were chatting about the video game red Dead Redemption 2. One of the very few games like that that I play and played all the way through. In fact, it's the only game like that I play. Sometimes I play sporting games or other dumb things. I keep the volume down. But that one was like an immersive game that I actually got. I think it's a gateway game for a lot of people. So we were talking about that and how like I have like kind of opted out of like playing the actual story and I'm just trying to stay in this one town and like going around and foraging for herbs and whatever. And I'm, I'm out there with my bow and arrow, hunting. Now there are all kinds of weapons you can get, but I always just think there's something about like shooting, you know, if I'm out there hunting for deer, a bow and arrow just seems like the most sort of like, I don't know, humane and sporting way to do it. I don't know. It's a video game. It doesn't matter. But we're talking about that and you mentioned that you would rather play a video game where you're shooting. I don't think you said people, but I think you said, you said bugs. You said like, because John's playing that other Deep Diver game or whatever. You're like robots and Helldiver. Helldiver. Nice, Nice remembering. But you said, I'd rather shoot like bugs and robots and monsters than animals. So Duck Hunt, I'm just wondering if that gets sort of like a pass because it was from your use your youth.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. And also because the ducks are so unconvincing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Really.

[Luke Burbank]

I guess what I, what I'm. What I wouldn't be be into for myself would be one of these new, very immersive, hyper realistic video games where you're also going out and like killing. You know, you're basically hunting in the game for animals.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So you don't like that idea of me going with my bow and arrow?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I'm, you Know, I have to say this, this was on the drive home, I think. I think this conversation got particularly in depth with the two of you on the drive home from friendship back to the Twin Cities. And I just loved hearing you guys talk shop on this. I mean, not so much that I didn't put my headphones in and look at TikTok, but for about 10min, just listening to you guys compare notes on like weaponry. I found it actually to be quite charming. Not again, not to the degree that I'll start playing it myself, but I thought that was kind of a fun moment. But, but yes, for me, I probably would be not inclined to play a game where I'm going to go around and like shoot beautiful deer like I have in my yard today. But I. I'm not particularly sad about games where people shoot other people. So what's going on with me with that? Like, that's messed up. I should be probably more upset about that than I am.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, at the beginning of the show we were joking about me fake laughing sometimes just kind of keep the show rolling. Yeah, couldn't we just replace it with yes? Like that basically sounds like me. Can you say something funny? That's a great setup. That's. People love that setup.

[Luke Burbank]

Uh huh. Hey, say something funny.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, say something.

[Luke Burbank]

Boy, Andrew, I'll tell you, it's. It is hot today. It is like I need a personal air conditioner for my armpits.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now was that me laughing or the dog?

[Luke Burbank]

Hold on, let me close my eyes. I have to lock in on this. Okay, now let me hear you laugh. Okay, that was definitely you.

[Andrew Walsh]

That was me. Okay. Yeah, you got it, you got it.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, now the thing is, that's a.

[Luke Burbank]

Lot like the thing about that, that quote unquote laugh is, is even like if you delivered the funniest joke that's ever been delivered. If you delivered an incredible joke, just the timing was perfect, it was witty, and then you played that laugh, it would immediately cut the legs out from under the joke. That is probably the worst sonic feedback one could ever receive for a joke.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's so funny that you and I have referenced, especially in these mutley conversations. We've referenced this last laugh so many times and I swear I heard it in my head. I knew exactly what it sounded like yet to play it here. And for you not to even have eyes on the imagery of Duck Hunt, you probably thought this was somebody just going down a pipe to like transport to another part of Mario world.

[Luke Burbank]

I would have absolutely believed that was Mario related.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, there's nothing indicating that this is.

[Luke Burbank]

LAUGHTER well, that's the limitations of the technology they had at the time, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I guess so.

[Luke Burbank]

By the way, is. Is Mutley Crew a possible show title?

[Andrew Walsh]

Mutley Crue, absolutely. Now, how do I get those umlauts is the question.

[Luke Burbank]

Ah, do we have. Did we pay for those? Do we, do we have those on our website?

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you for bringing that up. By the way, I am going to use a picture of James Traffic and I do not. So I'll be. I'm going to be very frank here about something. I'm pretty strict about not using photos that are obviously under the banner of somebody's stock photo operation. Like Getty would be the main one, but there are other ones as well. It's not Alama or something, I don't know, there's a bunch. And when I'm looking for show picks sometimes, or if it's like a New York Times photo, like a photojournalist went out and took this photo for the New York Times, that's not going to end up on our website because I just don't. I think you need to pay the people who take these photos and we can pay for it and that's that. But there are some times where it's kind of like, I don't know, this photo just sort of seems to belong to the Internet now. I find something maybe sometimes I don't maybe like, you know, beat the bushes looking for a copyright just so I can talk myself out of it, you know. So that's basically the rules that, that I, that I personally follow. I am still really confused why Getty seems to think they have the rights to this James Trafficant photo and I'm dubious that they do. They might have just maybe they have the right to resell it, I don't know. But I found a non copyright version of it from I believe the Drudge Report that I will be using.

[Luke Burbank]

So when people drag off of cigarette.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. I know that that could have been that'll be Tomorrow show.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. That's the name I haven't heard.

[Andrew Walsh]

It might have been, you know what, it might have been the smoking gun. But either way, one of those I kind of grouped together a little bit. But anyway, so I have one that I am, excuse me, I am going to use it for the, the show pick today but I don't want people to be like, wait, Andrew said he wasn't going to steal this and now he's stealing it. I believe, believe that we are in the rights to use this. And that is why I'm using it. And I am not trying to steal intellectual property.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm now looking at today's Drudge Report.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's still. They're still doing it, huh? What's up?

[Luke Burbank]

They're still doing it. And it looks absolutely unchanged from the last time I looked at it. Fifteen years ago.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, I mean, wow, isn't this a time capsule?

[Andrew Walsh]

It is amazing.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean Matt Drudge just sitting there probably in Florida. I think that's where he used to be. Just like jamming out these. These hyperlinks and they're all just that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Still like that sort of. What is this font? Like Arial Font. Is that what it's called? The typewriter looking font with. And it's all under. It's all the hyperlinks are underlined. I mean this feels like 1998 to me.

[Luke Burbank]

It's also interesting that we can't go here because we're not on politics. Right. But like to just look at this as a temperature check around where the right is regarding the Epstein thing. So he's got a headline, he's got this photo I think of Ghislaine Maxwell. It says Ghislaine's Dangerous Secrets. But then a link below it says the Don's shifting Epstein stories. So that certainly seems like Drudge is not in the bag for the sort of the Trump talking points around this. If he's calling his. His shifting Epstein stories.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then when you click on that it goes to a Mediaite story. Right. Is that right? Right. Yeah. So. And the Mediaite has a mediate is.

[Luke Burbank]

Pretty left leaning, I think is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that I could generally remember that. Yeah. That's why I thought what's the right. What's the super right version of media? It. There's Media Item. There's a.

[Luke Burbank]

The Daily Caller.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's not though I'm thinking of. But that'll free press for now.

[Luke Burbank]

My new news director, Barry Weiss. Have you heard about this?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, I have been hearing a little bit about this. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

God, it's just, it's just, it's. It's tough out there. It's bleak out there. It is sometimes.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's that. And thus Politics Road. That's how you end up on Politics Road so often. All right. But yeah, we're call it Motley Crue now. I worry about naming the show Politics Road. I feel like that could be a turn.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think anybody that's not going to drive Engagement. So we'll go with Motley Crew. All right, that is going to do it for today's episode of tbtl. But. But we're going to be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary. I will be in Salt Lake City checking in from that beautiful place. I'll have a dirty soda in one hand. So that's looks really big down there. It's basically like the fanciest soda you've ever had because folks there, a lot of folks don't drink alcohol, so they like to. Or coffee, I think for that night.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did they used to call the NBA arena there the Salt Palace? I was watching an old 1980s commercial that had Karl Malone the mailman on yesterday's after these messages. The theme of the show yesterday was all about commercials featuring mail carriers. And the last one I played was Carl Malone. Maybe I'll play it on the show for you tomorrow because it's the one the worst line reads I've ever heard. And he says, I play at the Salt Palace.

[Luke Burbank]

That's funny. They must have tried to call it that internally, but I always knew it as the Delta Center.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Like back in the day when the Sonic Sonics would be regularly in the playoffs against John Stockton and Jeff Hornacek and Karl Malone, there was always coming from the Delta Center. Maybe that was just.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it might have been a little bit later. I think this commercial is from the 80s, so I wonder if maybe it shifted around later. I just wasn't sure if that was going to mean anything to you.

[Luke Burbank]

I remember meeting a Utah Jazz man in Seattle. The Jazz played the Sonics and we got tickets through our church because the Jazz had this player named Mark Eaton, big tall guy who I believe was a. Oddly enough. Was he a Mormon or was he an event? I thought it was maybe an evangelical Christian. Somehow we got to meet this big tall guy, Mark Eaton, after the Sonics played the Jazz. I was a little kid at the time and I remember him sharing some sort of religious message with us.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. But anyway, okay, I'll get. I'll get some research going when I get down to Salt Lake City and figure out out what the origin of that story is and report back tomorrow. Thank you. All right, we'll see you then. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves and please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to all.

[Luke Burbank]

I deliver at the Salt Palace. And nobody can deliver you to Los Angeles better than Morris air service with five convenient weekly departures from only $59 each way, or Morris offers you the San Francisco bay area from $69 each way.

[Andrew Walsh]

So call Morris today. Power out.