#4535 Pay To Complain

Summary

TBTL #4535: “Pay To Complain”

Date: August 19, 2025
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

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Episode Overview

This extra-long episode is classic TBTL: a two-hour, winding ode to neighbor drama, summer salads, dream recaps, and Mariners nostalgia. Luke and Andrew recount a story of escalating tension over a “20 is Plenty” traffic sign and debate the etiquette of dealing with cantankerous neighbors, all while slipping into silly tangents about potato salad, garbage bins, and local sports memorabilia.

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Main Themes

• Neighborhood Tensions: Andrew’s ongoing battle with his neighbor over a traffic-calming sign becomes a surprisingly juicy, detailed saga.
• Processing Frustration: How we handle difficult people, especially when age and community norms complicate confrontations.
• Everyday Joys: Summer salads, vivid dreams, and the quirky comforts of daily life.
• Listener Connection: A "What's in the box?" segment with nostalgic Mariners and Huskies sports cards.

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Key Discussion Points & Notable Timestamps

1. Cold Opens, Dreams, and Summer Salad Talk

[00:01–18:21]

• Dream Recaps: Both hosts remember unusually vivid dreams reflecting work anxiety and lack of control.
  • Andrew: “I had a dream... the gear shift just comes off in my hand while I’m driving. It was such an obvious dream of not being in control.” (08:10)
  • Luke: “I just decided to not go over to where Livewire was happening... I just said, ‘ennui, Laura.’” (04:39)
• Potato Salad Experiments: Luke recounts his ongoing attempts to perfect summer potato salad using al dente potatoes and Greek yogurt, sparking a deep dive into salad preferences.
  • Luke: "[Potato salad]—there’s something on a molecular level that happens based on temperature." (14:18)
  • Andrew: “I don’t like potato salad very much... I don’t want to be misquoted here as I often am: ‘Walsh eschews potatoes.’” (17:23)
• Corn Salad Recipe: Andrew shares his go-to corn and black bean salad, built for consistency and summer ease.

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2. Donor Thanks and Mariners-Memories as Tangent

[19:54–29:51]

• The hosts thank donors in their signature TBTL style, riffing mid-read on cranberries, regional food, and pickleball.
  • Andrew: "I'm not really weighing in... but can't you see a little bit of causality there, dudes? Maybe tennis is getting really popular now because pickleball was sort of a gateway sport." (25:01)
  • Luke: “I’m just surprised that pickleball is still a thing, honestly. Like, it felt so trendy…” (25:09)

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3. Top Story: Andrew’s Neighbor War over a “Slow the Flock Down” Sign

[30:25–85:26]

The Setup

• Andrew has an older neighbor ("old coot"), long-established in the area, known for being opinionated and cantankerous with a heavy dose of ‘busybody.’
  • Andrew re: neighbor: He “would almost be the definition of an old coot... He would refer to the prostitutes on Aurora Avenue as ‘sweet cream ladies,’ which, at the time, we thought was charming.” (31:43)
  • Despite NPR politics, the neighbor often uses outdated or offensive language and dominates conversations.

The Incident

• A beloved, civic-minded neighbor places a “Slow the Flock Down” (20 mph) sign in the nearby roundabout.
• The sign quickly disappears. Both Andrew and the sign-placer suspect the cranky neighbor.
  • Andrew: “She sends an email: does anyone know what happened? ...In the back of my head, I’m thinking it’s probably the guy across the street.” (42:00)
• The neighbor places the sign again; Andrew sees it moved aside and quietly puts it back, starting a passive conflict.
• Concrete is added to make the sign harder to move. When the neighbor returns from vacation, it escalates:
  • Andrew: “I watch him march from his house right to the roundabout… I just yell, ‘I'm moving it back. I want you to know, I'm moving it back tonight.’” (54:00)
  • The neighbor physically destroys the sign. Andrew, finally pushed past patience, yells: “Nice job, asshole!” (56:45)
    • Andrew: “For the first time in a situation like this... I feel freedom. Yeah. I feel a sense of, I don't give a shit.” (58:04)

Aftermath & Reflection

• Andrew feels liberated from fake neighborliness, but Genevieve is deeply uncomfortable: “She does not like the idea of having what I am now calling a hot war with our neighbor.” (59:23)
• Thoughts on escalation, community tolerance for older difficult men versus younger, neighborhood politics.
  • Luke: “I feel like no matter how much he twists it, the basic facts of the case are so hard to refute...” (66:16)
  • Andrew: “If this man was anywhere between his 20s and 40s, we wouldn’t put up with his B.S. as much…” (48:09)
• Neighbor group consensus: The sign stays, gets rebuilt even stronger. “My plan is to not let him get the better of me. I just plan on building bigger and stronger signs until he can't destroy them anymore.” —[Neighbor via Andrew, 73:07]

Tangents & Solutions

• Madcap suggestions: electrifying the sign, making it increasingly heavy, adding barbed wire (80:17–81:29).

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4. “What’s in the Box”—Listener Mail: Mariners & Husky Cards!

[86:32–121:35]

• Listener Eric, a Mariners-usher/postal-worker, sends a box of sports treasures and a delightful note.
  • Andrew: “So far this is maybe my favorite P.S. ever: ‘This postal worker is coming from inside the building.’” (88:27)
• Busting open a sealed pack of 1997 Huskies football cards. Names like Brock Huard, Rashaan Shehee, Tony Parrish, Olin Kreutz, and Cam Cleeland all come up, sparking mini deep-dives into their careers.
• Mariners cards: Joey Cora, Paul Sorrento, Mike Cameron, Bobby Ayala, Adrian Beltre, and others. Tangents about bad closers and beloved broadcasters (“Blau!”).
• The baseball curse: Luke reveals he has a ball signed by Jorge Polanco and The Stewbot. The Mariners' losing streak since acquiring it brings up discussion of TBTL jinxes.

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5. Memorable Moments & Quotes

On Neighborhood Drama:

• “I'm not going to bend over backward to be polite to him. I'm going to make it clear that we do not have any kind of relationship.” —Andrew (60:01)
• “You’ve done me a great favor... now I don't have to pretend to like you anymore.” —[hypothetical burn, 58:37]
• "Do I definitely get to claim that white hat?" —Andrew debating who the ‘good guy’ is. (81:46)

Random Great TBTL-isms:

• "Talk salad." —Luke, mashing up their tangent on potato salads and ‘dream talk’. (10:56)
• "Pay to complain." —Andrew, noting that being a TBTL donor gives you license to nitpick. (29:55)
• “Nice job, asshole.” —Andrew, finally giving the neighbor both barrels from the porch. (56:45)

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Segment Guide & Notable Timestamps

• 00:01 – Dream/Anxiety Talk, Summery Home Vibes
• 10:02 – Potato Salad Deep-Dive
• 19:54 – Donor Thanks, Regional banter
• 25:09 – Pickleball Discourse
• 30:25 – Top Story: The Neighbor War Begins
• 42:00 – The “Slow the Flock Down” Sign Escalates
• 54:00 – Face-Off on the Porch
• 58:04 – Andrew’s Catharsis, Genevieve’s Discomfort
• 73:07 – The Neighbor’s Determined Response
• 86:32 – “What’s in the Box?” Listener Mariners & Husky Cards
• 93:01 – Husky Football Cards Deep Dive
• 105:05 – Mariners Card Parade
• 117:00 – The Stewbot, Polanco, and Baseball Curse
• 123:05 – Wrapping up, General Zod Curse, Classic Movie Plugs

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Final Notes: Tone & Takeaways

The energy is breezy yet cathartic—a blend of exasperation, Midwestern politeness, and the freedom that comes with finally declaring war on the neighborhood crank. There’s delicious specificity: listeners get the granular details of summer salads, 1997 college football rosters, and “real talk” about community boundaries.

The hosts are self-aware, meta, and willing to dig into both pettiness and generosity—both in dealing with infuriating old coots and in cherishing the gifts and recipes that bind neighbors, listeners, and friends together.

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Not to be missed:

• “Nice job, asshole!” as the summer’s new catchphrase. (56:45)
• Multiple plans for increasingly extralegal sign defense strategies.
• The very real freedom in finally dropping fake civility.
• “If you don’t play the [outro] music, I’ll just have to keep tap dancing forever.” —Luke (123:25)

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Power Out.

Transcript

[Andrew Walsh]

Mr. Markovsky, we see a lot of people in here who claim they want to know the ultimate truth about reality. They want to peer under the surface at the big everything. But this can be a very painful process full of surprises. It can dismantle the world as you know it. That's why most people prefer to remain on the surface of things. Maybe you should go home, let sleeping dogs lie. Take it easy. What do you say? I say don't give me the brush off, please. I want to know. This is big. Have you ever transcended space and time?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

No. Time, not space. No. I don't know what you're talking about. Tbtl. Everybody calls it garbage. Most people call it a problem.

[Luke Burbank]

We call it our challenge.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure, it's done in the name of comedy, but is debasing ourselves really that hilarious? Yeah. What's up, Joe? And be getting. That's a tortoise. Toro. I just love our titties. Tito's.

[Luke Burbank]

That's my wife.

[Andrew Walsh]

Act like, wait, right now. The show, it's a little. I don't know. Hmm. And I think that you could bring to it more of a. Mmm. Don't you kind of feel like a sellout?

[Luke Burbank]

Can you really call it a sellout.

[Andrew Walsh]

When they give you a free Tesla for doing the show? Okay. If there's a better use for the. I haven't found it.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Isn't that for techno geeks with spreadsheets? My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. I'm an activist and house party enthusiast. I am literally partying in my actual house today. I'm usually coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, but I didn't have any commute today. I got to stay here inside my little cottage, because out at the Madrona Hill studio, in fact, right next to where I normally broadcast the show, there are some construction guys doing a bunch of construction, and it is extremely, extremely noisy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Too loud and too specific.

[Luke Burbank]

So we're gonna be in here today. We're having school inside, everybody. And I think it's gonna make for an excellent episode of the program. I'm also sitting in a very comfortable chair right now, more comfortable than am typically broadcasting from. So I'm gonna try to keep my energy where it needs to be, which is sky high, even though I'm in a knockoff, like, Eames recliner chair here. As we embark on episode 4535 in a collector series.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let the fun begin.

[Luke Burbank]

If you heard yesterday's show, we ended on a very intriguing note. And that was a story from Andrew that he was sort of forward promoting for today's show about a legit actual serious dust up he's having with his neighbor across the street.

[Andrew Walsh]

They were called the Fighty Ducks.

[Luke Burbank]

So we're going to get a full report on that. Also, time permitting, we can talk about the fact that the first In N Out burger in the state of Washington is opening just down the interstate from me. You call hamburger steamed hams?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, it's a regional dialect.

[Luke Burbank]

Tomorrow morning 10am and the city where the In N Out is going to be has already had to explain that they will be kicking people out of the line if the In N Out line is blocking up the local roadways. This is an emergency. This is all hands on deck. This is a four alarm situation when an In N Out burger comes into your town. So we may talk about that today on the program. Or we could wait till tomorrow and I can just do some live reporting from the line. I could do some real traffic jam. Jimmy, is it too early to get a fish sandwich kind of stuff anyway? We can't do any of that without the help of this guy. Longest running cobra of the show. Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. But we got it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Freaking out.

[Luke Burbank]

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

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning, Luke. Do you have any interesting dreams last night?

[Luke Burbank]

I had a bunch of interesting dreams on Sunday night into Monday morning that I didn't feel like was the strongest return to the airways for me Monday morning. But.

[Andrew Walsh]

So that's the end of your two week vacation and now you're diving headlong into all of your gigs again. And so you're just starting. Did all of the anxiety just sort of pile up into one night of restless sleep?

[Luke Burbank]

The dream that I had, one of them that I remembered was I was at a music festival with Becca, like a Sasquatch type of thing. But we were also doing Livewire live at the festival. And for some reason I just decided as the appointed time for us to do our show on stage was getting closer and closer. I was at a different stage that was just. I was watching, I was in the crowd at an adjacent stage watching some other band performing. And I just decided, yeah, I'm not going into work today. I just decided to not go over to where Livewire was happening. And I think Laura Haddon, our executive producer, and Heather Demichel, our executive director, just co hosted it and I think it went sort of fine. And then the next day, we were walking out of there and Laura said, hey, so I don't know if I'm allowed to ask this, but what were you ailed with yesterday? Why were you not able to come and host the show? And I just said, ennui, Laura, I just had a dream.

[Andrew Walsh]

In your dream, you actually said that?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I just said I couldn't. I don't know, I couldn't do it. And then she looked at me. This sounds like something that Donald Trump would say. She looked at me with tears in her eyes, Andrew, and she said, yeah, I get how hard it is now that I've done it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, it's hard to unpack that dream. There are so many layers of so.

[Luke Burbank]

Much bullshit going on.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, that is so.

[Luke Burbank]

It was like an appreciate. It was like. It was like me dereliction of duty on my part than somebody stepping in, you know, to the breach on my behalf, but then them having a deeper understanding of why I would need to take a mental health of this cross.

[Andrew Walsh]

That you must bear. This cross that I bear.

[Luke Burbank]

That's like the most fun job that I could have where everyone is so nice to me. And yet somehow in my dream, I needed someone to understand. I needed someone to walk a mile in my shoes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, it was the moment really bad for me. It was the moment where she removed the crown of thorns from her own head and put it on yours. It's funny how literal that dream was, because I was gonna make a joke. Cause I obviously, I'm so glad I asked because your dream is actually more interesting and fleshed out than mine. You look like a dreamcatcher came to life. But I was just gonna mention that I had a dream last night. And for some reason, me and I don't know if it was Veeves or some other traveling companion, were driving and staying in, I guess, a very big old RV of some sort. And we had parked in a parking lot overnight. And then the next morning, as I'm trying to leave the parking lot and drive this really. The entire gear shift just comes off in my hand while I'm driving. Now I'm driving very slowly, so it's not like some sort of panicky, like, action movie thing. But I just woke up and I was just like. Like literally in the dream, I'm just holding the gear shift and looking down at the hole where it belongs and just thinking, what now? And I just so, I love this.

[Luke Burbank]

RV was a 5 speed.

[Andrew Walsh]

I guess so. Yeah. And it was literally like on the floor. It was like four on the floor or whatever you would call that. But I, I, it was just like it seemed like such an obvious dream of not being in control or for me having a feeling of not being in control. And by the way, I'm not Nel. I don't know, I don't feel like I'm necessarily in a bad place. Maybe as we tell this story about me standing on my deck and screaming at a neighbor over the weekend, maybe that will betray it. I'll be honest with you too, not to be a bummer, but like, you know, Veeves and I, maybe this is the lack of control of a situation. It's like we're really in a tough place with our cat right now. She's visibly more and more, she's got this ill, she's got cancer that's basically not to be gross but kind of breaking through her face. But she's also still like very much her own personality and like she's still finding a way to eat and she's still coming out and asking us for food and headbutting us. And it's so hard. We thought for sure we'd know, you know, and so I do. That's hanging over our heads. You know, the world hangs over one's head. So I guess there is some anxiety there. But generally speaking, like, you know, we've just come off the tbt. I found it was a super fun, successful tbt. There are no, there are no more. Exactly. Thanks to you, the listeners. There are no more. Huge. There's nothing huge. Like kind of like, I don't know, there's nothing like huge that I'm anxious about in the future other than, you know, kind of the, the day to day and trying to figure out what's going on with our sweet kitty. So. But I'm having a really good summer. I don't think of myself as being necessarily in a bad like emotional state, but there was something about having this dream that just seems so obvious to me. When a pie of the car comes off in your hand, maybe while you're.

[Luke Burbank]

In the steering wheel. Could have been a little bit more on the nose as a metaphor or.

[Andrew Walsh]

My own head possibly.

[Luke Burbank]

But yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good dream talk though. Good. That's pretty. That wasn't bad, right? People probably like that. That was bad. I mean, I was very interested in yours. That's a very good narrative.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it's funny because I typically don't remember my dreams either. And so when I woke up Monday morning and I remembered two of them, I immediately texted Becca, which is, you know, one of the huge upsides of dating me is that you, if I do remember a dream, you'll get a text about it at about 6am in the morning or something. So that's it. I'm glad that I had a dream and I'm glad I remembered it so I could answer that question accurately. I'm trying to scroll back in our text message chain to see what the other dream was, but maybe we should just. Mostly this text message chain, by the way, Andrew, is just a potato salad recipe that I got from her because I'm.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm in a dream or in real life.

[Luke Burbank]

Real life. No, no, no. Dreams come true sometimes, Andrew. Sometimes a conversation about potato salad is literally a conversation about potato salad. I'm really entering my potato salad era.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh.

[Luke Burbank]

Here at the Madrona Hill, slash whatever we call my house up here in, in Southern Washington. I just, when I got back from vacation, I felt it. It just felt very summery here. And I thought, what would be a good, I don't know, you could call it healthy but reasonably healthy meal if, you know, you don't go too crazy on the mayo. And in fact, I've been dialing it in over the week. I've already made two different potato salads and I may go for potato salad number three today.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you're doing a mayonnaise based one, not like the more germ and vinegar one.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's the thing. So I started off okay. This is what happened. Potato salad people are like, please get dream talk back on here. Anything is better than potato salad.

[Andrew Walsh]

Talk salad.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. So the first one I kind of messed up because Becca's instruction was try to do the potatoes a little bit al dente. So you boil them first, but you don't want them to be complete mushrooms. So she said al dente. I've never tried to cook a potato al dente. Pasta al dente, I know all about. That's how I like it. Potato al dente is a. It's a different story because how do you really know? I was like poking a fork in it kind of being like, well, the fork can go in and out. Like, were I cooking this to completion, I would want the fork to go in and out easier than it is. But also, it's just, I've never tried. And then you know what else was like in My head was in Shakespeare. Sorry, not in Shakespeare. In Dickens, when Scrooge is trying to brush off. I think it's the. Maybe it's the Ghost of Christmas Past. I think he describes him as a bit of undercooked potato.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, you've mentioned this before. It's stuck in your head. I don't know why that lives stuck in your head.

[Luke Burbank]

It's really stuck in my head. And then I'm thinking, so I make this whole potato salad. And then I'm like, the potatoes are kind of a little bit still underdone. And they're just like. You don't really want a crunchy potato unless it's a potato chip. You know, you want it to kind of. You don't want it to be mush. But there's. But you don't want it to also be like you're biting into a Granny Smith apple.

[Andrew Walsh]

Here's the quote, by the way. This is from A Christmas Carol, and I don't understand the context for this, but the full quote is, you may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a great line.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is gravy. That is a burn.

[Luke Burbank]

But it's really. Clearly. It stuck with me. And then I'm like. I literally was like, is it dangerous to eat uncooked potato? It's like you just. There's no. Nobody eats raw potatoes. Right? Am I missing something?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think it's dangerous as long as it's clean.

[Luke Burbank]

So the first one, I under did the potatoes. So that was kind of a fail. And then. But the thing is, I bought five pounds of red potatoes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, those. Okay. Kind of the small red ones.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Like, kind of medium size. And that's also something that I've been reading. You want a wa. Potato for this process for some reason. And what I used instead of mayo was Greek yogurt. That's kind of Becca's answer to anything that we've been popularly or commonly eating with, like, a lot of mayo or cream or some kind of a. You know, the stuff you generally don't go for. It's always to swap in Greek yogurt. And so then I made them last night, and I got the potatoes cooked better, but I put a little too much of the Greek yogurt. I actually didn't really. I thought everything in there. So it had a bunch of dill that I chopped up. It had red onion mustard. Basically, it was like a German potato salad. But then at the last minute with this Greek yogurt in there. And my thought was, I don't think it needed the Greek yogurt. I think I liked everything else in there except the Greek yogurt. And I still have some potatoes left. I still have some fresh dill. And so. And the other thing that I've been doing, this is a whole thing, I guess, is that if you. This was a. From NPR too. This isn't just an Internet rumor. But if you boil potatoes, let's say, and then you let them get back to being cold to room temperature, it does something really crazy with the carb content to where it becomes a much more low carb. But you haven't changed anything about the potato. It's not like you take the skin off. There's something on a kind of molecular level that happens based on temperature. You cook them, then you let them go back to being cold. And for a potato salad, that's fine anyway, because I like the potatoes to be cold.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But it's like, so. So I've been doing this thing every day. Every day this week. Well, including Sunday. So I guess Sunday and Monday, where I'm like, boiling potatoes in the midday so that I can, like, let them cool so that by evening they're ready for my potato salad experiment.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Which is a bummer because it's been so hot lately too. You're like spending the hot part of the day heating up your kitchen, toiling away. I gotta say, I mean, while we're here, let's just do it. And I do think this is the reason people tune into TBTL to hear us talk about summer salad recip. Because I'll be honest, I am in the market and have been for a long time now. This is something I think about a lot. But I don't think I've ever been so bold as to bore anybody with my internal dialogue on this. But since everybody was so generous during the TV show, I want that corn.

[Luke Burbank]

Salad recipe of yours, by the way.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's the thing.

[Luke Burbank]

That's. True story.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's my one summer salad recipe. And so. And I'll describe it in a second for listeners who don't hang on my every summer salad word. But there's this very simple recipe that I've been making for years and years and years. And I don't know how I stumbled on it, but it's a very basic corn and black bean salad. And it's exactly that there. You just take some. Some. You can use frozen corn, which I usually do. You mix up some frozen corn and some. A couple of cans of black beans that are rinsed really well. And then you add like little cuts up, little scallions and little like. I use orange bell pepper and some tomatoes. And it's all about. I cut everything so it's about the size of a bean and a piece of corn. You know what I mean? So that it's all a very consistent sort of. I'm trying to think there's pepper in there, a little bit of those green onions. I can't remember maybe a couple of other very. But it's very, very fresh. And then as far as a dressing is concerned, it's just lime and like a lime garlic oil, like olive oil dressing that I don't even use that much of because I don't want it to be super soupy. And it's just a very bright, fresh, good, cold summer salad. I love it. I hadn't made it that much this year, and then I made like three whole recipes of it for pop up to serve, you know, at the volunteer gig a few weeks ago. And I. It all went eventually and then I came home and I was like, man, I didn't get to have any of that. So I made another batch for myself and I hadn't had it. And basically that's what I ate all last week, like, for like, lunch. If I was hungry for a snack, I would just eat some of that. Oh, a little bit of avocado is in there. It's just like, so fresh and so good and check so many different boxes of kind of what you need. But the thing is, I can burn out on stuff like that. And so I've always. Or ever since I've kind of fallen in love with this recipe, been on the hunt for another summer salad that I love. But the thing is, I don't like potato salad very much. Whether it's the vinegar kind or, oh.

[Luke Burbank]

Even the kind that doesn't have the mayo in it you don't like.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm just. It's not that I dislike potatoes. I don't want to be misquoted here, as I often am media ite. I don't want to see headline a mediaite, Walsh eschews potatoes. But that would be a hell of a. I'd love it if that's how we got in there. God, I would love that. But anyway, I don't know. It doesn't seem as light to Me, there's just something that doesn't appeal to me. I've had the vin. I'm not a huge fan of vinegar and I definitely don't like creamy salads, so that's out for me. I don't want to eat potatoes as a cold salad. Cucumber salads, people have tried to tempt me with those. I feel like the thing is you really got to get those thin usually, right? Are there any. Are there any cucumber salads where you can have like thicker cucumbers? Because I gotta say, I like the idea of using one of those special tools to make them.

[Luke Burbank]

Super mandolin.

[Andrew Walsh]

A mandolin. But I don't think I like eating them that thin. I like a chunky cucumber bit.

[Luke Burbank]

Dude. I was just the other day putting something away in the kitchen here and I opened this drawer that has the mandolin in it. You jump at it and I seriously jump scare. You're like, those things are flipping terrifying to operate if people don't know what we're talking about. It's this kind of flat plastic thing with a blade embedded in it and you run your vegetables over it and you get these nice thin slices that you can kind of adjust the thickness or thinness of. But it's constantly terrifying to operate because you cannot get the thought out of your mind of like, what if I get this cucumber down too low and now my hand is making contact with this blade.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ye. We've been taught that they're so scary. Kind of like our story about like being scared of garbage disposals. And again, I'm not suggesting anybody stick their hand in the garbage disposal, but it's not going to be as life changing an event as we might have. Like, because I believed if you looked at a garbage disposal for too long, it would suck your entire body in there and just chew you up. Right, Sarlacc, by the way, this is a total change of change of topic. But I just remembered at the end of the show today, if we have time for a little listener email v Mail, I would like to make that a what's in the box? Because I received something last week that was sent to you and I together, and I think you're going to be very into it. So later on in the show, if we have time, I'd like to share that with you.

[Luke Burbank]

Excellent. I'm looking forward to it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you, baby.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, let's thank some donors who are making TBTL possible. Speaking of the recent, these folks whose names I'm about to read stepped up once Again, some of them for the first time, many of them on a sort of continuing basis to keep TBTL in business. And, boy, are we ever appreciative of folks like Michelle Wendt in Puyallup, Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yay. Doing the Puyallup. That's probably going on right now, huh?

[Luke Burbank]

I bet it is. I bet it is. I mean, absolutely formative. Formative for a young Luke. The Puyallup Fair. Although I believe it's called the Evergreen State Fair now or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

Washington state, I believe. Washington's up north, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah. I always make that mistake. Thank you, Michelle. Thanks also to Jason Lumpkin in Little Rock, Arkansas. Jason says Lumpkin like pumpkin, but with.

[Andrew Walsh]

An L. Yeah, that makes sense.

[Luke Burbank]

That's very handy. Thank you, Jason. Anna Steenstra is in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania. I wonder what that place is known for.

[Andrew Walsh]

Probably their military industrial complex.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that where those two guys, the Ocean Spray guys.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that where.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that the bog that they're standing in? Do you think it's in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't want to besmirch Cranberry Township, but my guess would be that would be in Massachusetts somewhere. Ocean Spray, But I could be wrong.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that also cranberry country up there?

[Andrew Walsh]

That's real cranberry country. Yeah. Big bog.

[Luke Burbank]

Why is it in the bog? It doesn't grow there. They throw it there after they pick it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that true?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I don't know, but, like, you know. You know the guys I'm talking about, Right?

[Andrew Walsh]

I. Well, I think I remember. Were they commercials where they standing waiters? Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. They're in, like, hip waders, and they're in like a. Like a, you know, a pond of cranberries. I assumed that the cranberries are. They grow on a bush or something, and then for some reason, they throw them in water.

[Andrew Walsh]

I didn't think. I mean, I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying that is astoundingly new information, because I used to drive through cranberry bogs up in Massachusetts. I thought they were growing in that bog.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe they are. A cranberry bog is a wetland area specifically managed for growing cranberries.

[Andrew Walsh]

For growing. But not these bogs.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. So I was wrong. They're growing in the bogs. These bogs are characterized by layers of sand, peat, gravel, clay, and are often flooded during the harvesting process.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I see. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

I see. So the. So the cranberries. It sounds like the cranberries. Let's just go to the Massachusetts Cranberries website, by the way. They got to cranberries.org they got there first. How cranberries grow.

[Andrew Walsh]

It looks like you know how they got it. Somebody let it linger. Sorry, that's terrible. Go ahead.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, man.

[Andrew Walsh]

They.

[Luke Burbank]

It looks like basically what happens is the cranberries grow in this kind of special, like sand, peat, gravel, and then some kind of clay like thing. And then once they are mature or something, or at certain point, then they flood the bog.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ah, I feel like. And then that.

[Luke Burbank]

So they're not growing in the water. It sounds like. It sounds like that's like the next step. And then. I don't know what the purpose of that is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I will say driving, like, kind of around those things, it. It gives you a feeling, like, literally a feeling of refreshment, sort of. Because you see all these. You think about cranberry juice, but also you're just seeing all this water and these beautiful bogs. I have not seen one of those in decades.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you know who's looking at them almost constantly is our friend Anna Steenstra. Also, Alicia Schaefer is in Seattle, Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

We don't have any cranberry bogs here, I don't think.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, for now, but who says you can't turn your backyard into one?

[Andrew Walsh]

That is true. Weren't you trying to get me to turn my backyard into like an ice skating rink or something?

[Luke Burbank]

Still no. A botch? I think that I was.

[Andrew Walsh]

Or no, I think maybe pickleball.

[Luke Burbank]

Pickleball court. That could be. That could really be something. That could. That could be something to tick off your neighbors with now that you're in a war.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I don't sound about that. Tick off the wrong neighbors. I saw something. I just thought of this now, so I'll share it. But, you know, there was a lot of pushback on pickleball. I feel like once it got really popular, people like kind of complaining. And I, by the way, I do not have an opinion on this. I'm not really weighing in, but I think there was a lot of pushback on neighborhoods who had, like, tennis courts that were then becoming pickleball courts. And people who love tennis were kind of against that. And I think it was also maybe annoying for people to have so many people interested in this thing. And then I saw something. I. Blue ski is starting to turn on me a little bit here. Really. I mean, it's all. A lot of bad things in the world going on, and we need to talk about them, but it's like all angry all the time. And it's not just about national politics. It's about everything. And I saw somebody like kind of posting about like, you know, tennis is getting huge now. You can see it in fashion, you can see in everything. And all, all these communities are going to get really mad or they're going to be really sad that they turned all of their tennis courts into pickleball courts. And I'm kind of like, yeah, but can't you see a little bit of causality there, dudes? Like, maybe tennis is getting really popular now because pickleball was sort of a gateway sport. You know what I mean? You can't link those things, I don't think.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I'm just surprised that pickleball is still a thing, honestly. Like, it felt so trendy. I mean, did I contribute to the trend by doing a television story about it? Obviously, am I credited with basically the explosion in the popularity of pickleball by some people? But you know, like, it just seemed like the kind of thing that was sort of, I don't know, it seemed so kind of fadish to me that I just thought, well, we'll all move on to something else. But it does not appear that we're moving on to something else. Like, in fact, I just saw some kind of in the Hollywood Reporter or something. There's a new pickleball like film I think it might be. I want to say it's Ben Stiller and somebody else. They've just been green lit on their pickleball film.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, Sandy. And deep in production. They're just starting that.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Like, I just feel like it's. This thing has really, it's, it's, it's proved to be more durable than I expected.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And also, like, it's just so weird to be mad at a trend that is basically people going out having fun in a healthy way. Like, I know that there was some issues with people maybe not being prepared for this kind of exercise and like people breaking ankles or whatever. Especially maybe older people. But like, you know, you educate on that, you get the message out. But generally speaking, people being cantankerous about this idea of, oh, it's just another fad. Yeah, but it's not a fad where you're, we're putting charms on our, on our rubber shoes. It's a fad.

[Luke Burbank]

Subway surfing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Get on top of the subway car and maybe die.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's like people are, have. People are going out, having laughs, having fun, getting their heart rate up, chasing a ball around, enjoying the weather. Like what A thing to be cranky about.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you know, one of the things people get upset about is the noise. Although I have never lived next to a pickleball facility. So maybe, you know, and maybe we have some listeners that do and they've got a different opinion on this. It seems to me like it's being annoyed at the sort of. The gentle dinking of a pickleball on a wood paddle is like being annoyed at the sound of children laughing. Like it seems like to me a pleasant sound. Like it's the sound of people outside enjoying themselves with other people. Which again, I haven't been woken up by 7 in the morning. Nobody around here is doing pickleball. But like, I know there are certain sounds that just. It seems to me like I wouldn't find them annoying because they are generally a pleasant sound. You know, they are the sound of again, people enjoying themselves, people having a nice time. I mean, Becca and I, when we take our walks in Portland, we walk by a number of pickleball courts. Now granted, I'm passing by it. I'm not sitting there, I'm not living in a house next to it. But it seems pleasant to me, the whole affair.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's literally how I feel about our next door neighbors, because they're right next door to us.

[Luke Burbank]

These are the ones you like, the ones you're not yelling at from your porch.

[Andrew Walsh]

And there's like two units in there. But I think they're. But I think the folks are related. Like, I think it's a woman who lives downstairs and then maybe her cousin lives upstairs with a couple of people. But it's like the sounds of summer come from there. You know what I mean? It's like. And they're right next door and we can hear. But it's great because even if they're having a barbecue or whatever it is, there are some kids that stay there for a couple of months in the summertime. There's like one dog, Maggie, that I love who you know, every now and then will bark at. Like sometimes bingo will go in the window and they're kind of like friends. But sometimes she gets excited and barks once or twice. But she's not like an overly barky dog. It's just like every sound is just like, well, how could you be annoyed by that? It's the sounds of the summer. It's like it makes me hearing kids. And it's not like tons of kids, but so just hearing kids kind of running around. The sound of like kind of slapping feet on the concrete as they chase a dog or throw a ball or whatever. Like, it's literally. It enhances the summertime feeling to me.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, me too. And you know who else loves that? Larry Asher of Seattle, Washington, our buddy Larry. By the way, I got an email from Larry just yesterday. I don't know if this was in reference to something that we said on the show or he just wanted to share it with me. Subject line, what's the definition of an annoying person who points out your misuse of a word. And let's see, then it's like a link to notoriety, the word notoriety. I'm wondering if I misused notoriety and Larry is correcting me on that. I'm not sure what the nature.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah, I wasn't sure because I was like, you and I are pretty gentle with each other when we want to correct a word usage. I think it's not like something that you and I. I don't feel like we're overly pedantic or anything.

[Luke Burbank]

I must have misused notoriety. And Larry is trying to gently let me know that I did that. But he's also calling himself out, maybe. What's the definition of an annoying person who points. Larry, you're not annoying at all. No, we love you, Larry, and we love that you're supporting the show.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, you send that email in and you're not a daily donor, then we can talk. But I mean.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, exactly.

[Andrew Walsh]

Pay to play, baby. Pay to complain.

[Luke Burbank]

That's how this whole thing works. We, the complaints from the paying members go right to the top of the list. Thank you, Larry. Appreciate you. And then Jason Shelley, our pal Jason Shelley is out there in Brooklyn, New York. Jason, thank you for supporting the show. Thanks to all of our donors for making TBTL possible.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, Andrew, let's get into it. What in the holy heck is going on with you and the neighbor?

[Andrew Walsh]

All right, so this is not the neighbors that I was just talking about. This is the neighbor across the street from us who I have mentioned, I think, in passing on the show. I think you and I have talked about this fellow more off air, so I can't ever quite remember, you know, what is. What has been discussed on the show and what hasn't. But this is a neighbor who has lived in the neighborhood for a very long time. And he's an older guy and he's like a pretty kind of big personality. He's got kind of a big handlebar mustache, always wears kind of a. Not a cowboy hat, but one of Those like a wide brimmed hat, like, almost always goes on walks a lot. And he is a fellow who loves to talk. He loves the sound of his own voice. He was the first neighbor that Genevieve met when she. After we bought the house, she came over here, I think maybe the day before we got the keys. She just wanted to see the house again. She was so excited. And she, she told me about this next door or this across the street neighbor that we met. He would almost be the definition of an old coot in a certain way. And he was the guy who would like refer to the prostitutes on Aurora Avenue as sweet cream ladies, which at the time we thought was sort of charming. That was a term we hadn't heard before. And it was more of a term of endearment. It wasn't really so much as a put down. But as we kind of got to know the neighborhood better, we kind of heard more and more stories about him being just really difficult in a lot of different ways. And in fact, there's another word for prostitutes that we don't use that he was using on this like neighborhood email chain. I think I told you about this, probably off air. And he would use this really disparaging word which most people know. And then somebody on the chain was kind of like, hey, we don't talk about people that way. But he's like one of those absolute know it all guys who would be like, well, they use it on npr. He's a huge NPR listener. Sometimes I wonder, like, does he hear, does he listen to the Friday show on the occasions I'm on? Does he make the connection that sometimes I'm on that station that he listens to all the time that he sends, he make, he makes up jokes to send into the Sunday morning crossword folks. Like, he's obsessed.

[Luke Burbank]

Does he even know that you're friends with the host of Livewire?

[Andrew Walsh]

Does he know that I'm friends? Are we friends? Colleagues? No. Anyway, so. So anyway, some people were like, this is years and years ago. I was able to like kind of go in, I had heard about this. And then I was able to. To the archives of this neighborhood email like list serve as kind of that old school technology. And so. And I saw like how toxic he became when somebody said, hey, we don't use that word. He's like, they use it on npr. And then he got really nasty to everybody. And it was, it was sort of interesting because I was still sort of trying to like this fella. But then seeing what his online behavior was like Interpersonally with our neighbors, let's say this happened maybe five years ago, they end up kicking him out of the text group. He kind of is, he's a bit of a. Not a text group but email chain or whatever. But he's like, he's kind of like both a big personality in the neighborh but also a bit of a pariah, if that, if that makes sense. And just kind of. He can be very difficult. And the way he's difficult to me is he just wastes my time. And by the way, you can tell that like right now just I'm. I kind of don't care what I say about him. I don't think it'll make it back to him. I prefer that it doesn't. If anybody kind of knows this neighborhood and knows what I'm talking about, let's keep this between us. But I also kind of don't give a shit because I just don't care about protecting this guy anymore. I don't, I don't think that he is a good person. But I was, you know, kind of trying to when I was going back and kind of reading these really toxic emails that he had sent years ago. I'm trying to like kind of square that with this somewhat annoying but generally good natured guy who lives across the street. And he'll tell these stories and the thing is he'll just trap you. Like he'll literally just trap. He'll start talking to you and then like he will not let you back out of the conversation. He'll just go and go, don't we have a drop? We play of like a Chatty Cathy doll that just keeps pulling her own string. Like it's just like that.

[Luke Burbank]

I believe it's Steve Martin explaining to John Cand how to be, how to tell better stories in planes, trains and automobiles.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. Here's another thing. Your stories should have a point is another thing that I believe he yells. I mean it's just really rough. But it's one of those things we sort of chalk it up and it's like, is he good natured? Is he not? Like he and I got into it one time right after the, you know, his politics are very much in line with ours, although it comes out in different ways as far as the way we talk about these things. And like I just. For whatever this is worth, I know this is just all context, but I just want everybody to get a feel, feel for this guy. I do remember after the horrendous debate performance by Biden, but before I think maybe. Maybe it was right after it was announced that Biden was stepping down, or I think it was just like there were calls for it. He and I were on very different sides of that, and we kind of got into kind of a heated debate in the. Literally in the middle of the street about it. But that didn't feel bad to me. That felt like two people who are really concerned about the world. And he just really thought that Biden was getting a raw deal.

[Luke Burbank]

And, you know, it's surprising how generational that was.

[Andrew Walsh]

By the way, that's a good point.

[Luke Burbank]

I did not factor that in. But there were a number of people who I. Who I really admire and love who are of an older generation who were very, very resistant to the idea of Joe Biden stepping aside.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a really good point. And he would be of that generation as well. But anyway, I, you know, basically put up with him. We have basically a fine relationship, except there are times where you just kind of got to like, turn, kind of turn your back and just sort of walk your way out of a conversation.

[Luke Burbank]

Because you live across the. Or, you know, you live near this person. I don't want to be over specific, but that's the whole thing with neighbors is that you've got to constantly do. If you have a neighbor, that's kind of a lot. You have to do this constant calculation of like, I'm going to be seeing this person most days of my life for the foreseeable future, so how do I keep this from getting weirder than it has to be? That's always the calculation, which makes it complicated.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. And he's really persnickety about certain things and like I said, just generally kind of cantankerous about things to the point where it's kind of like anything that's going on in the neighborhood, he wants to one time. So there is a. There's like a kind of a temporary firehouse. I'm really just putting a target. But there's a temporary firehouse like a block or two away from us. And sometimes the trucks drive right between our two houses on the small little side street that we live on to get fire trucks. The fire trucks will drive right, right down our street. And sometimes they have their sirens on, usually they do not. But I maybe, I don't know, you know, what the emergency level has to be that they feel like they need to turn it on right outside our house. It's very rare that it happens, but like, apparently it happened one night like a year ago or Something. He's like, did you hear them turn it on last night? I'm like, no. Our house actually has really good walls. Like, I didn't hear that. And he's like, oh, I walked down there and I want. He's always. He's like such a busy body. He, like, he. He walked down to the fire station and he gave him what's what and said, you don't need to turn that on. He's always like an expert on everything. I talked to this person and they said, you don't need this on there. Just that kind of guy. Like literally marching down to tell firefighters when they're allowed to turn their siren. You know what I mean?

[Luke Burbank]

And by the way, your calendar was not sexy.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. Despite what you've heard, Dalmatians dressed up like firefighters. That's not why I bought that anyway, so that gives you a sense of what this guy is like. Well, we have another neighbor who doesn't live as close to us, but she's in the neighborhood and she's pretty good friends with Genevieve now. And I would call her a friend as well, although I. She has like, kind of neighborhood parties, and I kind of tend not to go to those because I'm always doing something else. She had a neighborhood party this last Saturday, but I was working on the hedges, so I didn't go. So I always feel a little bit rude towards them. But it's this. This woman and her husband and kids, and we love. We love them. We love everything about them. And she's very community minded, especially neighborhood minded. And she's often like kind of writing in either to not, you know, I think. I don't want to give away too many details, but I think her background is she's basically a city planner and she works for the government in some capacity anyway. And she's just a really, I don't know, man, almost like kind of an inspiration, I think, about the way she handles things, the way she handles difficult neighbors, but in a diplomatic way, but also is advocating for the neighborhood all the time. We have. It's like kind of we need a stoplight in our neighborhood because it's really hard to take left turns out of our neighborhood. And she's like going about it in all, like the kind of the right ways. Just tons of respect for this woman. Well, she's also got a couple of kids, and we live in this area where it's a tiny little neighborhood, but it's kind of in between these two really busy throughways. And so we we get a lot of this kind of terrible traffic that is speeding through our neighborhood and through these little roundabouts that are supposed to keep traffic lower. But we have all this construction vehicles are kind of peeling through her all the time like hot rods. It's just rough. So she went and she got one of those little signs, we've talked about them on TBTL before, that you can get from the city and put them up in your neighborhood and just kind of stick them in the earth, or stick them in the middle of a roundabout, in the middle of an intersection that just says, hey, keep it slow. 20. What is the one? 20 is plenty, some of them say. And then there's these bird themed ones that we talked about on the show.

[Luke Burbank]

Slow the flock down.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's a couple of birds on it says slow the flock down. I don't mind the nod towards vulgarity there. I just don't understand what birds have to do with traffic patterns. I just feel like it's a little bit of a stretch, but that's fine. They're cute enough. And I actually really like those things. They are a good little reminder to me. I drive very slowly through Seattle neighborhoods now. And I think. I think in part because those signs are reminding me that there are so many blind spots. These are tiny roads where if cars are parked on both sides, it becomes a one laner. And literally it could be like something out of a cartoon where a kid's ball bounces out into the street, right? And some kids chasing it. You gotta. You gotta drive slowly in these neighborhoods. I'm all for that. So our neighbor bought one of these signs and stuck it in the middle of the roundabout. By the way, this little roundabout that I'm talking about, some of them are very well maintained in neighborhoods with like flowers and maybe a tree or whatever. The one outside near us was totally overgrown with weeds. Nobody had taken care of it. It looked really crappy. And this neighbor who I like has spent like the past, like spring and summer. I think she even started in the winter, like totally pulling all the weeds out, planting some things in there, like putting some logs around it to kind of like spruce it up. She spent so much time and she's out there by herself. I keep on thinking I should offer to help, but I'm never not lazy. And so, like, I'm just really impressed, you know, she's really, really cares and she's. And I just want to stress this enough, she's not like a busybody or anything. She just cares about the neighborhood and goes about it the right way. So she goes and she gets one of these signs that says, slow the flock down. And it says, like, 20 is plenty or whatever. And, you know, they're like kind of floppy little signs with two little sticks. Like a campaign sign sort of. You stick both the sticks right in the middle. Just stick it right in the middle of that roundabout. Well, she did that about, I don't know, four months ago or something. Something. And immediately the next day, we get an email from her on the email chain, the one that the guy who lives across the street from me is not on anymore. So I don't even know if he. If he knows what conversations are going on. And she sends an email and says, does anybody know what happened to the 20 is plenty sign that I put in the middle of the roundabout? And so, because I have eyes on it, I'm one of the houses closest to it. I wrote back. I'm like, hey, just so you know, I. I haven't. I'm keeping an eye out, but I did not see anything. But I'll continue to keep an eye out.

[Luke Burbank]

So the sign's missing.

[Andrew Walsh]

The sign is missing. Someone is just gone.

[Luke Burbank]

It's not, like knocked over. It's not pulled out of the ground, but laid down. It's like someone has actually physically removed the sign.

[Andrew Walsh]

Physically removed it. And at this point, that's the case. And so I write to this neighbor that I like. I'm like, hey, I'll keep an eye out for your sign. I don't know who did it. In the back of my head, I'm thinking it's probably the guy across the street. And she writes back to me. She's like, I think we all know who did it. It's the guy across the street. She's like, I did find it, like, kind of discarded and thr somewhere. So I just recollected it. She says, my plan is to get, like, a bucket. She's like, I'm just going to hang on to it for now. I'm going to get, like, a bucket. I'm going to fill it with concrete and, like, put it in there and then set so it'll be harder to move. Right? And so that was months and months ago. And then she does some more work on the roundabout, and it's looking good. And then, I don't know, about a week ago, I'm going to say, there it is. The sign is up again and again. It's a cute little sign. It's not very tall at all. But this guy who Lives across the street from me. Loves to, like, kind of like sit in his front yard and just kind of like watch the world go by. And apparently he finds it offensive to his view.

[Luke Burbank]

The sign.

[Andrew Walsh]

Just a small little sign, like a cute little sign that every neighborhood.

[Luke Burbank]

Honestly, we were just talking about the laughter of children.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Those signs are the signage equivalent of the laughter of children. When I pass through a neighborhood, as you already kind of said, and I see them or I see even those like, weird plastic. It's like a kind of a man. It's like a plastic guy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Holding a flag.

[Luke Burbank]

Holding a flag or something. And it. Or it's like, you know, drive like your children live here or just whatever. Those are signs of, to me of a thriving local community where people are raising their children and they would like them to not get hit by cars. Like, I have a. I am filled with a good feeling by those things.

[Andrew Walsh]

Me too. The only ones I don't like are those. The ones that are aggressively say, slow down. I wish they would just say. Because I'm always like, you don't know how fast I'm going. I'm already slow. I'm like, I'm already crawling past the sign. Don't tell me to slow down. Maybe just say something more general, like, please drive slowly. And I can look at that and say, I am driving slowly. And I agree with that. But generally speaking, that is a very, very small nitpick. No, I am with you on it. And again, it's like. Because what it signifies is we could have kids or somebody riding a bike with their kid in a trailer behind it. You know what I mean? We love that activity in neighborhoods. And this is a science.

[Luke Burbank]

People are caring about their neighborhood and they're car caring about their children. It just makes me feel like something good is happening here.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. And these are not big obtrusive signs at all. They're small little signs.

[Luke Burbank]

Not like a TBTL billboard or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

Although two guys.

[Andrew Walsh]

If we had saved that. Now I really do want that.

[Luke Burbank]

I want to put angry guys, arms folded. Hey, by the way.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I think hopefully. I got to talk to John about that this week, but hopefully we get our sign back.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know. But now I want to put that up in the neighborhood because I think everybody knows where this is going. So anyway, good neighbor waits a while, gets. Gets her stuff together or whatever. And then a couple of. Or no, about a week ago, I'm going to say, there's the sign back. And it is. It's kind of in a. It's now planted in like a. Kind of a. Kind of a big flower pot sort of like. Right. Like a big plant or pot or whatever that is filled with concrete. And the sign is now stuck in that concrete. So it's not immobile, it's not unmovable, but it's just more of a pain. You're not just going to go along because it could also just be like somebody, some just idiot walking down the street just wants to like at 2 in the morning and. Yeah. Has had too many twisted teas and just wants to flip this thing over. Whatever. It just makes it a little bit more substantial. Well, I see it there and I'm like, oh, good, she put it back up. And I'm interested in seeing where this going. And then maybe, I don't know, later that day or something, I come home and I see somebody has dragged it out of the traffic circle. And it's now like kind of sitting in the corner of a neighbor's yard. And I know who it is. I know, obviously I know who did that. So I parked the car. Is Genevieve. She hates kids. So I park my car and I'm like. And this is the thing about this guy. You just always have the impression that he's peeping out his windows. I don't know if that's the case or not, but like, as I do what I'm about to do, I have a feeling he's probably watching me or I have to assume that he's seeing me, but I don't care. I just go. I grab that thing. It's kind of heavy, but I pick it up and I put it right back down in the middle of the circle. And then I. And then I. And I go inside and it stays there for days. And I'm kind of surprised that it didn't get moved again. And then Genevieve points out to me, she's like, oh, yeah, the guy across the street, he's. He must be out on vacation. He likes to hike a lot. Right. By the way, I'm going to put this guy probably in his early 70s, I'm going to say early to mid-70s maybe, if that kind of gives you a sense. And I think that he's lived a very kind of adventurous life. And. But, you know, I do know that he kind of needs to. He moves a little bit slower now, walks with a walking stick, but I think still likes to go on camping adventures. And so Jenny's like, oh, yeah, he's been gone for the past few days, probably out Camping somewhere. And in the back of my head, I'm like, oh, maybe that's why that sign stayed there. A few days later, the car. His car appears again. So he must be back home. Sign still there. And then this last Sunday, two days, days ago, I am at my volunteer gig, and Genevieve is doing a little bit more hedge trimming. There is one little part, I will admit it, that I did not do on Saturday. And so Genevieve wanted to take care of it, and she did. And. But that means she's, you know, trimming the hedges outside, you know, so basically kind of on our tree lawn, sort of that faces his house. So he sees her. And again, like I have described this fella, he does not look for an. He does not need an invitation. He's not a vampire. He doesn't need an. He's an emotional vampire for sure. But he will, just like Genevieve is basically.

[Luke Burbank]

She's a sitting duck.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Because she's doing a project on your house outside the bounds of your fence.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. And then just, you know, I can picture it. I wasn't there for this. I probably shuffles across, and he starts laying into her how he saw me move it, and he knows I moved it. And he's talked to engineers, and he's talked to traffic engineers, and they don't do any good. And it's a line of sight issue. And, you know, it's not just like, I'm a cranky old man, and I don't like fun or I don't like saving kids or I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a public safety issue.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's just got. He's just that guy. He's just a know it all. A hole guy. Right. And this kind of gets into something, by the way, that I want to kind of address here, which is the age thing. I feel like if this man was anywhere between his 20s and 40s, we wouldn't put up with his BS as much. But there's something about him being elderly and people sort of, like, kind of keep an eye out for him. I heard from an old tenant who used to live in our house recently. I've been getting some of her mail, and so I tracked her down. This is a whole nother story. And so I actually tracked down a tenant who used to live here not all that long ago, before we bought the house. And I was trying to get her some mail, and she even checked in. She's like, how is so and so across the street? I worry about him. And I don't think she, like, worries about him, necessarily because she likes him, but just because he is an old coot. But that's kind of like the general thing. It's like, well, we worry about this guy. He's a bit weird. He's definitely an eccentric. Right? But he's also an a hole. And that's the thing. It's kind of like, how much do we forgive just because of somebody's age or the way they present? And so he's kind of, I don't know, not even bending Genevieve's ear. He's biting Genevieve's ear off with all these complaints about how I move this thing and about you. Well, about me and the sign in general. And Genevieve eventually just apparently ends the conversation just by saying, okay, Mark, I really don't care. And just, like, turns on the machine again because he will not shut up. That's the. He just doesn't stop. Right? Especially.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you consider gently menacing him with the hedge? I don't know if a gentle swipe that was not going to make contact, but it sends a message or just.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, go full depalma.

[Luke Burbank]

Say hello to my little friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Anyway, so anyway, later that day, I come home from my volunteer thing, and I'm surprised to see. I'm so psyched to see that the hedge is totally finished now. And she's like, oh, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But by the way, can I ask a quick question at this point? When you come home on Sunday, is the sign in the roundabout?

[Andrew Walsh]

So the sign is still in the roundabout. But I know that he's hopping mad. Okay. Cause he's told Genevieve about this. I'm like, okay, whatever. And I have plans to do some cooking anyway. It's kind of my Sunday thing. And so I'm sort of, like, preparing some food in the kitchen or whatever where we have a big window. And I can kind of look at out. And I can, you know, see his house across the way. I can see the roundabout. And as I'm chopping vegetables or doing whatever I'm doing, I see out there. And I'm like, there he goes. There he goes. And I watch him march from his house right to the roundabout. So I pull out my camera. I'm like, I want to take photos of him moving this thing. And so I start by doing it through the window, but I'm just not getting that good of an angle. And also, maybe I'm just itching for it a little.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you had that broken foot, right? You were in that weird wheelchair.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Some real rear window going on.

[Andrew Walsh]

I. Who's the who's the woman who plays this kind of secondary lead in that movie.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I don't know. I don't even know if I've ever seen Rear Window. I just know Jimmy Stewart is laid up and he's taking all these photographs out and he's, you know, obviously thinking that he's observing like a murder or a crime or something. It's Hitchcock, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

It is. It's Grayson Kelly. That's who it is. I was trying to make it. Oh, Raymond Burrs in that. I did not remember that. Anyway, so Genevieve is great. Nah, I'm Grace Kelly. She's James Stewart. No, I guess I'm Jimmy Stewart. She's Grace Kelly.

[Luke Burbank]

Anyway, so now you're going outside.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm watching him march there. I'm like, I know what he's doing. So then I've got. I've got. I don't have my camera. I have my phone, you know, which has a camera built in. I don't know if yours. I don't know if iPhones.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you also. The thing is, you also have a camera with a telephoto lens.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't have a telephoto lens, actually. I have some big lenses with a telephone tend to be actually more wide angle. But that's why sometimes people see me with a big lens and they assume I can zoom in and invade some.

[Luke Burbank]

I've always assumed that.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, it's actually. It kind of zooms out. I like a wide angle lens. So anyway. But I'm using my phone, which is probably better than any camera I've ever owned anyway. But then I'm kind of taking it through the. Through the living room window at this point. Then I'm like, no, I'm just gonna go out onto my deck and I'm gonna continue to take these photos. I want to switch to video mode, but I take videos so infrequently. I don't trust myself to switch to video mode in time. So instead I just. I do have sort of a Jimmy Stewart, like a bunch of photos. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm just hearing the shutter of the.

[Andrew Walsh]

Frame, even though my phone doesn't make noise, but it's like that. And so now I'm on my deck and we have these high hedges. So I'm standing and I'm tall, so I can see him, but he hasn't really noticed me yet as he is now taking this thing and sort of manhandling it and dragging it back across the street to where he had sort of discovered Discarded it last time in the concrete thing where I found it last time. And again, where I found it was standing upright, but not where it should be. Just sort of like in the corner of a neighbor's yard. And it. Where it does no good. And it just sits there. And also, why would those neighbors want it there? I tell you, somebody dumped a toilet in our front yard the other day. I got so much.

[Luke Burbank]

I was in England, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

I have so much going on. This all just happened.

[Luke Burbank]

But I just want you to know I was not even in the country.

[Andrew Walsh]

So you cannot blame you on that. No, it's not even like these stores have been building up. It was just a very eventful weekend in the neighborhood.

[Luke Burbank]

It sure was.

[Andrew Walsh]

Anyway, I got a note from the city today saying that they have received my find it, fix it, and that they. Within 10 days, the toilet should be gone.

[Luke Burbank]

Anyway, in the meantime, honestly, do it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Free toilet. It was set up like, hey, free toilet. I'm like, who's putting free toilets in my front yard anyway? I'm watching him manhandle this thing and drag it across the street. And I'm not gonna lie to you, Luke, there's part of me that is sort of pleased to know that it's a bigger struggle for him to move this thing. And by the way, he's a healthy. Not trying to be ableist or anything, but he's an older man and actually has lived a much healthier and much more rugged life than me. But knowing that we are about to enter into a move at one place. Move it back. Move it one place. Move it.

[Luke Burbank]

You like your war?

[Andrew Walsh]

I like my odds. I'm like, oh, it's so much easier for me just to grab that thing and pick it up, even in my. In my not so strong way. So I am. I'm taking photos of him as he's starting to drag it, and then I just can't help myself. I'm just too pissed off and I just yell, I'm moving it back. I want you to know I'm moving it back tonight. Like what? Kind of holds his hand up to his ear. Like, almost like he's got one of those horns. Hearing horn or whatever. And, you know, I'm sure his hearing isn't that great. But also, he sort of seems like the type of guy who would also have conveniently. Yes, exactly. Convenient hearing loss at times. And so I'm just yelling at him. I'm like, I just want you to know I'm moving that back. And then he starts yelling something about, like, whatever he was telling Van about. I don't know if it was city codes or engineering or don't work. I'm just like. I basically yell. I'm like, I don't care. I just want you to know I didn't kill my wife. I don't care. I'm just like yelling. I'm like, I don't care. I want you to know. I'm moving it back. And he's like, well, I'll move it back again. And I'm just like, good. And then I start yelling. I'm like, it sounds like it's going to be great exercise for both of us. We're going to get a lot of exercise this summer. I'm yelling that Adam. And then he start. And then he starts screaming something about. Something about talking to an engineer. And I turn my back and I just close my front door. And I've got tons of photos of him now, like, kind of grappling this thing. Blur out the signs blur out his face. It's just a one big blurry, giant blur. It's just one big black line where I've redacted this entire story. And so I've now sort of engaged. I know that he's mad at me for moving it. I know that he has seen me move it. So. So at this point, I'm like, well, he knows I'm the one who moved it back. I'm not even the one who put this thing out here.

[Luke Burbank]

I know. That's what's so funny.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I am team person who put it out there. And I'm just team. Not the guy who, for no good reason, even though I'm sure he's got a book of reasons that he thinks are good, doesn't want this in his line of sight. I don't know, he just probably just finds it irritating or something that he didn't sign off on. That's probably what it is.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then he. Anyway, so I'm yelling at him that I'm just gonna move it back later. And then he starts to try to engage from again. We're far away, but I'm just kind of yelling at him. And then I just turn my back and I close the door. And I think that enraged him. And so he drags it back over to the other, you know, this kind of corner yard area out of the center of the intersection. And then he breaks the sign. Sign. Because, you know, the sign itself is in, like, the two little sticks that the sign is on are in the concrete. But the sign itself is one of those things that's made out of corrugated plastic. If. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

You slide it on to the metal H frame.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And so it's kind of like thick cardboard, only it's plastic. Right. So it's kind of hollow. He just busts one side off, and he busts the other side off. And then I watch him kind of marching towards a garbage can. And so then I relieve my house and I stand on my deck and I just scream, nice job, asshole. And at the top of my lungs, and he goes, what? And I said, nice job, asshole. And I go back in and I slam my door and I'm, like, seeing red. I'm just, like, at war. And again, this isn't even my sign. But so many times when I'm in a situation like this, I am feeling. Feeling immediately regretful. I'm feeling like I didn't make my point. Well, because I often, when I'm upset, I yell things that don't make sense, like polite car or whatever. And I'm worried about future ramifications. But I gotta say, when I come back inside and I continue chopping my. My vegetables and my hand is slightly shaky, I feel a sense of free freedom. Yeah. I feel a sense of. I don't give a shit. Yeah, we're going to use the explicit label on today's show. I'm like, I don't have to pretend to like this guy anymore.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't have to listen to his goddamn stories. I'm going to turn. And I'm also thinking of things that I'm going to say to him, like, because I know at some point he's going to come to me and he's going to start, like, yelling at me and telling me, like, all of these things. And I was, like, coming up with all these things I want to say. Like, I don't have time for this right now, but why don't you. If you could write it all down for me and then roll it up and shove it up your keystone. I have all these, like, things that I want to say to him, and I'm thinking about it while I'm, like.

[Luke Burbank]

Chopping up my flashcards. And I wanted. I want. I want us to practice throughout the week so that it's just at the absolute tip of your brain.

[Andrew Walsh]

Part of me just kind of wants to say to him, like, hey, you've done me a great favor because now I don't have to pretend to like you anymore. It's just, stay out of my business. I'm Just sort of thinking about things I want to say now. Genevieve, who hasn't witnessed this in person but is in the basement and I keep coming down, giving her updates, is not feeling the same sense of freedom that I am feeling right now. She does not like this new dynamic at all. Like she doesn't like him, she doesn't like putting up with him. But she does not like the idea of having what I am now calling a hot war with our neighbor. I keep on saying that because I sort of feel like it was sort of a cold war before. Although it might have been one sided. It was basically just a fella that I didn't like that I didn't like having having to talk to. But she's very uncomfortable with the idea of being in an escalated. Very fairly by the way I would say. But she is not like me. She's like, we have to live across the street from this person. This is not good. This is just not good. And she's right, you know what I mean? Like if he wants to start like if she's having a party and this is not something we discussed. I was just thinking about it later but like if she's having a party and he wants to like call it a noise complaint or something, you know what I mean? Like she's right. There's nothing good that comes from being in a war with this person. And so I've told her like I'm not going to say anything that escalates it. So our flashcard idea is done. But I have just.

[Luke Burbank]

Sorry, I already made a few. You can keep the intervening three minutes.

[Andrew Walsh]

We can still role play. It'll probably be good for me to exercise this a little bit bit. But I'm not going to be, I'm not going to bend over to be, bend over backwards to be polite to him. I'm going to make it clear that like we do not have any kind of relationship. We do not. Just stay out of my face with this shit is basically the attitude I'm going to have. But I'm not going to be like outwardly like aggressively looking for opportunities. Burn him. I'm not going to escalate. But he's also going to know that like do not talk to me anymore. Like this is not somebody that I'm just going to. Oh, by the way, he also sometimes like believes in ghosts. One time he started telling me the story about. I thought he was joking and so I made a joke. He's like, no, no, it's true because they kid died and then the next owners came and they saw Spectre. I'm just like, oh, my God. Like, this guy is just a old kook, right? Coot and a kook. But I don't have to listen to ghost stories anymore. I don't have to pause my yard work for, like, 15 minutes while he just blabs at me. Our mailbox is across the street, basically in front of his house, by the way, too. So, like, you need to maybe be strategic about getting my mail if I don't want to run into him. But again, again, this is one of those situations, Luke, where I don't feel. I don't feel like a prisoner in my own house about this. I don't. Like, yesterday I went to get the mail, and I'm like, all right, come on out and I'll let you know that we're not talking. Like, that's all. Like, I'm just. I don't want to engage with him anymore. I'm not going to, like, I'm not going to try to go for the epic burn, but I'm also just not engaging with this fella at all over anything. We done?

[Luke Burbank]

So let's game this out a little bit. Bit what? I'm him, and you're going to get your mail, and I come down off my porch or whatever, start trying to talk to you?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And I'm like, now, first of all, it doesn't sound like he's the kind of person who in any universe would ever apologize for this. Any chance that he could come to you and say, hey, I lost my cool. I destroyed that sign. By the way, that's also property destruction, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, no. I mean, I fantasize, actually.

[Luke Burbank]

It's probably technically a crime.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't. I don't know. Like, I also. Pretty low levels it, like, you know, that talk about not escalating things, but I did think about just saying, hey, I don't talk to vandals. That was on. That was lower on my list of sweet burns. But, like, he's a vandal. Like, he's. He's properly damaged, but if he comes.

[Luke Burbank]

Out and starts trying to talk to you, are you just going to say, hey, I don't want to have any more conversations with you? What do you actually think you're going to say to him the next time the two of you interact?

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm imagining it'll be something like, I don't care, and I'll just like, turn and just be like, I'm just done. I'm. You know, I don't know exactly what I'm going do to. To say. And you know me, Luke. I can trust myself in the moment to say something really articulate that will get the point across. No, but what I. My biggest. I'm not worried about that. My biggest concern is not making life more uncomfortable for Genevieve. And so I'm just going to be like, I'm not interested. You know, like I say, I'm not going to try to be overly polite about it. I have no interest in that. But I'm not going to try to, like, say the most cutting thing. You know, how you and I fantasize about just saying the most devastatingly cutting thing that makes him rethink every decision he's ever made. Like, I've gone through that phase on Sunday as I was chopping vegetables small.

[Luke Burbank]

That's where I think that whole you've done me a huge favor, because I don't have to pretend that I like talking to you. That seems like one that could pierce right down to the absolute nitty gritty of that guy's existence. And however crotchety he is and outwardly callous, that could be the kind of thing he just goes back inside and just a single tear drops from his eye, which is kind of satisfying in a way, but. But also, like, you know, I mean, listen, I'm not trying to humanize this guy or whatever, but it's like, well, listen, I've never even met the guy. I was gonna say a lot of times people who are outwardly very sort of the way this guy is are, of course, inwardly very insecure, and that's part of what drives these behaviors. But that's not an excuse. You can be insecure and not just be an annoyance to everyone in the neighborhood and also a know it all, et cetera.

[Andrew Walsh]

I also think that he is a. I think he is. I think he actually, I agree with you that a lot of. Of people's hours included, but even some people who come off more nasty than you and I, that I've had to deal with, I think that that nastiness does come from a place of insecurity. Even though they act like they're the cock of the walk or whatever. Boy, I really have to use that explicit tag now. But in this case, I don't think there's any part of him that is insecure about his actions because he, again, lives in this world where he thinks he's right, where he thinks that NPR uses a slur to describe prostitution like that. He thinks that he's read some Code that he can march down to the firehouse and tell the firefighters when they can turn on their siren and not. I don't think there's a part of.

[Luke Burbank]

He'S suffering from overconfidence versus underconfidence, at.

[Andrew Walsh]

Least as far as the facts. And the other thing that I'm thinking about is it doesn't matter what I do because whatever my next interaction is with him, actually, and including the interaction that we already had, I have not seen him since, by the way, I haven't seen him sunning himself in the front yard like he usually does every evening. I do wonder if he's gone to ground a little bit because maybe he's got a little bit of regret over the actual busting up of the sign. I don't know. Or it's just a coincidence. It could be we don't see him every single day anyway. But it almost doesn't matter what I say or do next. What matters is sort of how he will describe it to the next neighbor because he will tell everybody in the neighborhood who will listen to him because some people still give him the benefit of the doubt. He will, like there's some neighbor who rides his bike by every day and our neighbor will stop him and kind of, what do you say? Button hook him into a conversation.

[Luke Burbank]

I assume trip line. Does he like run a line across the street?

[Andrew Walsh]

And so I think that he's got some people's ears and there are some younger people who live like next to him and I think that they've kind of looked out for him in a way that I have found sweet before. But like I worry about, whatever I say will then be repeated through his prism of reality to another neighbor. And so there's no need for me to escalate what I say because I'm already going to be like the demon in whatever, in whatever narrative he has and that sort of lives. The good news a little bit is.

[Luke Burbank]

That I feel like no matter how much he twists it, the basic facts of the case are so hard to refute. Like Andrew would put in this like drive slowly sign out in the roundabout and I didn't want it there because I think talk to injured any normal person here. And then they'd be like, wait, he did what he sign out that just said like maybe drive slowly here. Like, I just feel like it'd be so hard for someone to side with him even in a one sided description of things because so what he's doing is so ridiculous.

[Andrew Walsh]

You accidentally used my real name there, Luke.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I'm sorry. In 3, 2, and 1.

[Andrew Walsh]

What listeners don't know is I keep on accidentally actually saying my neighbor's name, and then I have to keep stopping and going back. So I'm really trying not to use his name here. And I have to go back probably, and listen to this whole thing. Hopefully I'm not using first and last name, but even still, I've given so much information, I really don't want to use his name here. But anyway, yeah, so that's. That's where things are now. I have not. I've not seen him. At some point, we're gonna have to, like, probably see each other and confront. But, like, if he's across the street, just, like, sitting in his chair, like, basking in the sun, as he often does, by the way, in full. But he's not, like. He's not sexy. Beasting it up like the COVID of that movie. He's wearing. He's always wearing, like, long pants, like, you know, parachute pants. He might. Yeah, I think he actually.

[Luke Burbank]

Break dancer.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I actually think. I think he might have been a paratrooper at some point or.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow, parachute pants. You mean like, with, like, little pockets on them?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, he's got pockets on. But he's always, you know, problem and, you know, so he's. He's like kind of. He sits out there. He's always looks like he's ready to hit the road, sort of. But one time I was like. I always think of him as taking a nap in his front yard, but he calls it meditating. Like, he's a very strange, strange fellow. Because when I first met him, I remember he was kind of like offering to us. Offering his ladder to us because we had some painting job when we were brand new here.

[Luke Burbank]

And I'm like, oh, Genevieve had a substandard ladder she had gotten from the ladder district.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. Of Renton, I want to say. And I was just like, oh, maybe this guy. Because I was so excited. It was spring training time. I was just moving into the new house, gonna do some painting projects, listen to spring training. And I was like, you like baseball? He's like, I don't listen to American sports. And one time he said he doesn't listen to. I was like, do you like this restaurant? He's like, I don't eat American food. Like, he's this weird. Like, he thinks he's higher level than everybody in this certain way, but he's just this crotchety son of a guy.

[Luke Burbank]

And I'm assuming he lives alone by.

[Andrew Walsh]

The way, he does, yes. And the shocking thing that I learned is he's a renter. I thought for sure he owned that place, but he's just rented that place forever. The guy who owns the place, I think, lives behind him and is even a bit older.

[Luke Burbank]

Interesting. Yeah, that's a. For some reason that's a development. Development because you think, you know, particularly going back years and years and years, that would have been a relatively affordable house in Seattle had He bought it 20 years ago or something. It just seems like a guy who, I mean, this is totally irrelevant, but do you know, is he retired at this point and do you know the sort of. Kind of what his vocation was in his working days?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know. Like I said, I think that he was in the. I feel like he might have been in the military. I could be wrong about that. But no, I don't know. But I know that like, he's. He's really lived a very outdoorsy lifestyle. I know that, like, Genevieve was impressed when we first met him that he's got like an industrial grade sewing machine for repairing parachutes, literally, or whatever. So like he's kind of a. He's lived a very rugged lifestyle, sort of. That sounds actually very interesting if you.

[Luke Burbank]

Would talk about that just at a very high rate of speed in such a way that he doesn't want anyone telling him to slow down. He doesn't want any signage anywhere.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, here, this will give you a good example. Maybe it was like the first, first time, maybe our first summer here or something. He said, oh, I'm taking off for a few days. I'm gonna. I'm going on a camping trip or whatever. I'm like, oh, he go, I'm going by myself. Like, he really likes to, I think, rugged it up or whatever. I think he go, I don't even know if he takes it. He might be one of those guys who doesn't even take a tent. I don't even know. But we're talking about. I'm like, oh, good. You know, I like, I really do like to be neighborly. That's the one downside of this. I'm like, well, keep an eye on things, you know, I don't think we need to, but it's good to know that you're leaving. I like neighbors knowing when neighbors are out to of town so they can keep an eye on things. But then I end the conversation by just saying, be careful, you know, be careful on your trip or whatever. Be safe. Maybe he's like, What? I'm like, I just said, be careful on your trip. I don't need to be careful. I know what I'm doing. Wow. Dude. It's just something to say when somebody's going on an outdoorsy trip. I say to Genevieve, it wasn't an insult, my man.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I mean, I totally understand the relief that you have of this bullet balloon of awkwardness being popped now of just kind of like, I don't have to pretend that I like talking to you or whatever. I can just, like, it's a relief for you. That was my first thought when I heard that this thing had finally sort of exploded. My question to you also is, the neighbor who actually created the sign, what's her take on the whole thing? Her sign has now been destroyed. What does she make of this?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I wrote to her. I think I can quote this, um, because my biggest embarrassment about this whole thing was I was so pissed off. Genevieve was shopping for. We're finally replacing this really ugly ceiling fan in our main room. And Genevieve's like, sort of like in the midst of all this, like, showing me really cool ceiling fans that we're gonna replace it with.

[Luke Burbank]

Have you been a big ass fans? No, no, It's a real thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

I believe it. Are you sure it's not bi Gas fans?

[Luke Burbank]

Bi Gas fans? Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, yes. Oh, what a. Is that a big ass fan? The thing is, I'm so excited about this project that she's undertaken, and I am very interested in these fans, but she's like, well, what do you think about this one? And I'm just, like, shaking with rage sort of. And so I do want. I have told my neighbor who's put up this sign before. I've been in email communication with her about, well, about the sign when she first put it up, and some other neighborhood things. But after I watched him punch up or like, kind of bust up this sign, I was like, I should let her know because the whole reason she put it in this concrete was because of his antics last time of just, like, pulling it up out of the ground and throwing it aside, right? It's like, what a jerk. So I write to her. I'm trying to see if I can find this here. And I wrote. I think the subject line was something like, I just watched my neighbor bust up your sign, trying not to use his name there again. And then I got into it and I. I said, I think I just told her exactly what had happened, and I'm sorry that I can't find it right Here. But I basically subject line was, I watched so and so bust up your sign. And then when you open it, I wrote, for what it's worth, so and so moved the sign the other day. I put it back. He was griping to Genevieve about it today. And then I saw him moving it back again. I yelled at him, told him I was going to put it back. And then he busted up your sign. I said, I'm sorry about that. I probably did not make things any better, but that guy's a real asshole. That's literally how I ended.

[Luke Burbank]

What was her response?

[Andrew Walsh]

And her response was something along the lines of like, my plan here is to not let him get the better of me. I'm just going, she's just so awesome, man. She's like, my plan is to not let him get the better of me. I just plan on building bigger and stronger signs until he can't destroy them anymore.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's what I was wondering. I mean, you could really like, next time he goes on a. He decides to. What was the Krakauer book Into the Wild? The next time he goes Chris McCandless on it, get a post hole digger, dig an actual post hole in the middle of the roundabout, put the sign in, pour some quick dry concrete in and see how that does.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. And now I do want to make it bigger.

[Luke Burbank]

I kind of. Listen, I don't want to. I don't want to do any victim but blaming here, but when I heard about the project of putting it in concrete, my first thought was, yeah, but what about the sign?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

There'S a weak link in this logical chain, which is that the sign could be removed from the actual stand that it's on. By the way, those signs are notoriously hard to rip. There's lots of.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what I'm realizing here, Luke? I think the sign, and this doesn't really matter, but the sign is slightly different. I'm now just realizing I don't think it's two posts in the ground that it slides up. And because I think he would have just slid it up, I think it's one post in the middle because he basically busted off half of one. He busted off one half on one side of the post and one half on the other side of the post. And now there's just like a tiny little strip of green of sign remaining in the middle. So it might not have been. He might not have been able just to slip it up and off, did he?

[Luke Burbank]

So he ripped the sign, though.

[Andrew Walsh]

He busted it into three pieces. One piece remains on the pole. And the other.

[Luke Burbank]

That's amazing to me because those little. This is such a boring place to take this. But, like, there's lots of great videos of, like, people raging out and trying to destroy. Like, protesters will be holding a sign, you know, that's sort of like anti Trump or something, and it's made out of that. That kind of plastic. You called it corrugated.

[Andrew Walsh]

The kind that I'm picturing. Yeah, I think it's corrugated. Like, corrugated.

[Luke Burbank]

The kind that I'm picturing. Like my Harris Waltz sign here, which amazingly, nobody messed with, by the way, thankfully, which was not a given in my mind when I put it out. But, like, that kind of yard sign, if it's made out of this certain kind of. Of plastic, it's impossible to tear. And there are lots of funny videos of people raging out and trying to, like, tear up, like, a Kamala Harris sign or Harris Waltz or whatever, or just like, any kind of particularly, like, a progressive political sign. And then someone just, like, wants to rip it, but they can't because it's, like, weirdly hard, too. So this. I'm surprised this guy was able to rip this thing in two. But, yeah, I definitely feel like the solution is to just keep building, build back better, Andrew. It's the build back better plan. Keep making the signs harder to destroy, to drive this guy completely insane. Now back to. You're not going to escalate. What does Genevieve said her plan is? Is she going to try to be good cop? Like, what's she going to say the next time this guy comes up to her?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's the weird thing. She's now on his side. She's like, they're ugly. They clutter up the neighborhood. All these signs.

[Luke Burbank]

I've talked to some engineers.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's a reference to a vulgar word.

[Luke Burbank]

She's just like, from the. From the neighborhood email chain, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

She said, if he comes up to me and starts griping about, she's just gonna say. She's just gonna say, like, I'm not. I'm not interested. I'm not getting. I think she said, I'm just gonna say I'm not getting involved. Because clearly now, like, I was the one who was literally yelling at him. So she can just say, listen, I'm not getting involved with this. And that's some. That's basically what I'm gonna take my. My tone of. I'm not getting involved with this as well. Although I just won't. I just think I'll probably communicate more broadly speaking that I'm not getting involved with anything that he has to say. Yeah, well, I told you I couldn't jam that. In the end of yesterday's show. I needed a lot of buildup to sort of paint this picture of this fella in this neighborhood.

[Luke Burbank]

I was having a weird thought the other day, which is that I feel very fortunate that my neighbors are pretty chill here. I've got two kind of immediate close neighbors, Bob and Brian, and that I. I really like both of them. Although I do think that Brian is probably a little mad that I haven't brush hogged my hill. We haven't discussed blind.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sorry. It's my go to joke.

[Luke Burbank]

Like in the years past, he's described as a fire hazard to not do. And that was the other dream I had last night, was that he and I were having a conversation about my hill. Because my hill has. This year, I've just kind of of let it grow. I like it better that way. I think the deer are happier and then tangy. Is that what is tansy tan, by the way? Everywhere in England.

[Andrew Walsh]

Everywhere, really.

[Luke Burbank]

And in the Hudson Valley. I feel like I like seeing it everywhere. And I feel more and more there's not really much tansy in my yard because I pull it out every year, so it doesn't. But all that is to say, I generally have chill neighbors who I like. And I had this weird, like, thought the other day, which was like, man, I sure hope that they don't neither of them sell their house. And then I get a terror. Terrible.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Because that just sucks. It sucks to have problems with your neighbor because you gotta live near them.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

So I'm sorry that you're going through this. I'm also again, kind of relieved for you that you don't have to do this politeness dance with him of. Of. Of entertaining his stem winders every single day or whatever. So that's kind of a really free. But also kind of sucks for Genevieve.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm looking at photos of Tansy actually kind of pretty. Yeah, yeah. That's all fair. Like. Well, first of all, again, that's why our actual next door neighbors, I love them so much. I always ask them, like, please stay forever. They're renters. But also I think the property owner, he's in touch with Genevieve sometimes, I think also really good people. So we're so lucky in that way because I even remember one time because some of our next door neighbors are so sort of new or were new at the time. And the property owner being like, everything going okay? How are the new tenants? We're just like, love them. Absolutely love them. And so we're really lucky in the. That way. I would hate for it to be, like, if there was, like, somebody who moved in and, like, I guess there's no shared walls here, but if it was, like, really thumping bass music all the time or, like, you know, how the certain sounds, I sort of travel differently. And, like, low bass notes travel differently. Like, it just kind of, like, kind of gets more into your bones. Like, if it was kind of. That kind of stuff, like, it would kind of drive me bananas. But they're. They're wonderful. And this other guy is. He's across the street, so he doesn't. I don't know. I guess my only regrets is it is. It is nice to just go along, get along, and we generally have a very, very nice neighborhood filled with very nice, loving people. And I'm not entirely. I'm not entirely proud of the way I handled this particular thing. And I guess I. I'm guessing that if I had not yelled at him, if I had just watched him move it, he probably would have left it there, and then I would have moved it back the next day. If I had not yelled at him, he probably wouldn't have busted it up in the moment. But on the other hand, I think eventually he would have. And at least I got eyes on it. At least. There's no question that I saw him do it, and he knows I saw him do it. And he busted up community property in front of us. He vandalized community property in front of us. Like, there's no. Like, hey, we came in, and now there's kind of a mystery where we all know who did it, but we can't prove it. We can't prove it. Yeah. So maybe by pushing.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, new plan. Electrifying the sign.

[Andrew Walsh]

Interesting.

[Luke Burbank]

He tries to tear it up, put.

[Andrew Walsh]

It inside of a razor and barbed wire cage. That'll look really nice.

[Luke Burbank]

A free speech cage.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly like they had at the.

[Luke Burbank]

RNC many years ago when I was covering it for npr. I think there was, like, a free speech area that was a bunch of chain link.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Fencing, no. You listen. You put it back out so it looks exactly like it did before he destroyed it. But there's a. I don't know. I don't really know voltage or currents.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But there's just, like, a decent amount running through that thing. Not enough to kill him. Just enough to give him a little.

[Andrew Walsh]

Bit of a jolt or maybe like, even more cartoonish, like, it's because now I'm sort of thinking like it's kind of like a trap, right. It's like cheese at the center of a. Of a mouse trap. But it could be like one of those things where like a rope suddenly, I don't know how these work, but he like steps inside of one of those ropes on the ground and then. And it goes around his ankle and.

[Luke Burbank]

It pulls straight up, whips him up in the air. I've always wanted to make one of those traps. I don't know how to do that either.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, could also.

[Luke Burbank]

You could also. When he's at a of town, you. You basically take the. Again, the. The flower pot thing and you. You attach. You basically dig beneath it into the. You basically attach the flower pot thing down into the dirt underneath it with cement. But he can't tell. So when he goes to move it, it's just like really heavy. It's really stuck.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. Right. Well, I don't think that Genevieve wants this to be the place where she doesn't want this.

[Luke Burbank]

Spy versus Spy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's the good question, though. That is the question we all must answer. Who's wearing the white hat and who's wearing the black hat in this story? Am I definitely. Do I definitely get to claim that white hat?

[Luke Burbank]

You absolutely do. And I'm just glad that you were able to have a moment of totally raging out and then not being mad at yourself afterwards.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was mad. I was just like, he's in the wrong on this one.

[Luke Burbank]

He's in the wrong. He is totally in the wrong. I think you have nothing. I don't think you have anything to regret. And I'm glad that you're feeling. Feeling as you were. God, what I wouldn't have paid to watch you chop those carrots afterwards. Probably didn't even need a knife.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was cutting it with my eyes.

[Luke Burbank]

Just a white hot anger that was radiating off of you. But like, I like the fact that you. That you didn't immediately go into self recrimination because yeah, you. That he is squarely in the wrong. I mean, that is just so antisocial. And again, it sounds like the neighborhood is mostly on to him anyway. Like, it sounds like. It sounds like the response to him at best is tolerating him. But it doesn't sound like he has any strong allies. There's nobody that's team that guy in your neighborhood.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And you know, we should probably wrap this up because I really do want to do a little what's in the box with you. Here, but that was something I did. It's his head that gets really close to the dark, that gets close to the drops in the intro. But I don't know. I want to have this conversation.

[Luke Burbank]

There's nobody team him.

[Andrew Walsh]

But, like, I do think that he is regarded differently if he's younger in a way that, like, if. If a man was. If he was like 29 years old and behavior in all of these ways, and like, we saw him breaking up a sign, we would just be like, this guy's dangerous.

[Luke Burbank]

Somebody called the cops probably.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean. Yeah. And so there's something kind of interesting about, like, his sort of status and. And maybe that. And, you know, but maybe that also just. Maybe it's not about age. Maybe it just speaks. Speaks to how neighborhoods like this work. And people say, well, he is a difficult person. And that's why I kind of respect my neighbor down the street more than I respect what I did, because she's like, I'm not gonna let him get to me. And we all live here together, and so we find ways. We don't have to love. Outwardly love everybody, but we can all get along in a certain way. And I sort of broke that contract a little bit by screaming, nice job, asshole, twice at him. And so maybe I think he had it coming also.

[Luke Burbank]

So I'm wondering, the toilet, maybe you fill it with potting soil, you plant a flower, you carry it up onto his porch in the dark of night.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I did sort of thing. It's kind of like he doesn't drag it when he dragged this thing off. He didn't drag it into the corner of his yard. He dragged it into the corner of somebody else's yard. And now it's like this now. And now, still sitting there. And it's kind of interesting that my neighbor down the street didn't do anything to move it either. I sort of feel bad for the. These. For this other house. I don't know if they care or not. Poland, but it's just like sort of sitting there, along with some other real estate open house sign that he pulled out of there and just threw on the ground outside their house. It's kind of like now that's just sort of sitting there. And for me, I just keep seeing it. And it's sort of like this. It's like the. It's like the aftermath of a battle, sort of. They're both just sitting there as reminders. It was four score and seven minutes ago that I screamed at my neighbor from the porch because it's like this detritus is left over from him kind of raging out and throwing his stuff there. I don't know what kind of. I don't know how human of emotions he has, but I would like to think that maybe he gets a tinge of regret when he goes on his walk and he sees. Cause I know I would. I know that if I destroyed.

[Luke Burbank]

If you physically ripped something that belonged to somebody else and then it was there in tatters or some remnants of it, that's a pretty stark reminder of you kind of losing your shit.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly. So.

[Luke Burbank]

This is the same roundabout, by the way, that this winter when I was visiting, you had a full ass truck.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's right. That was true. A couple winters ago. That big ice storm. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Had just slid down the street and fully. Did it take out like the. There's like a. Is there like a little post in the middle of it that has kind.

[Andrew Walsh]

Of like a yellow little warning reflective side? And I think it did take that out. And I don't know if that's been replaced. It wasn't a huge truck, but it was a full truck. It was a. It was a. It was a pickup truck. It was kind of a small Toyota or something. Like.

[Luke Burbank]

Like an old school little Toyota or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I have photos of that and. Yep, that's the same one. Because somebody tried to drive on our. You can't really drive on our street when the. Because that was where you didn't. You put. That was when you put those little like tire socks on a rental.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, like my snow boots or whatever. My snowshoes on my car. To get out of your neighborhood. And barely was able to get out of there and get down to the. The main. The main road. Well, listen, I. I'm sorry you're going through this, but also I'm very curious about future development, so please keep us posted. All right. Like as the next interaction goes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Will do. This is my box. This is my box. I never travel without my box.

[Luke Burbank]

What's in the box?

[Andrew Walsh]

In the first draw, I keep my magic stones.

[Luke Burbank]

What's in the box?

[Andrew Walsh]

Licorice. Licorice. Black, sweet licorice. Black, sweet licorice. Have some. I was at the post office the other day, Luke and I checked the old TBTL PO Box, which I should probably give that address here. I. I think I know what it is, but I never trust my to do. You know it off the top of your head.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm sure you know, and I feel like it's more complicated than I always like, like PO Box 15 at such and such address. But we've got kind of a long.

[Andrew Walsh]

One, it's a little bit longer. So just if you need to send us anything via the the mail service, it's too Beautiful to live. P.O. box 33687 Seattle, WA 98133. And I'm very excited about both what's in this box that we received but but also a dazzling detail from our listener Eric, who lives in Edmonds, who dropped something off in our box with this typewritten note which I really appreciate. I'm not saying everybody has to do this, but I always get really nervous doing this segment when it's handwriting because my eyes aren't so great and you know, handwriting is sort of takes some interpretation sometimes. This is all this is typed and printed out and it says to my favorite business boys. My father in law, Laurence was a quiet man, but one thing we knew about him was that he loved the Mariners. So much so that one of his retirement jobs, quote in retirement was as an usher for Mariners games, which he absolutely loved. That does sound pretty cool. As we were cleaning out a storage unit recently, we found a bunch of Mariners related stuff that we have no use for. So I thought you guys might enjoy the baseball. Baseball cards, Husky football cards and a little trip down memory lane.

[Luke Burbank]

Now this, now this is awesome guy.

[Andrew Walsh]

I cannot wait to open this with you. But also I want check out this PS So far this is maybe my favorite PS ever. Yes, this postal worker is coming from inside the building. I've worked at that at this Bitter Lake station for years. But I haven't been stalking your P.O. box. I swear. Go Mariners. Go eat a bagel. And happy slab jacking to all Eric from Edmonds. So this is so awesome. But here's what I think is especially interesting. I was like, that is so cool. So I'm next time I'm there because I'm there quite a bit and I usually have to, you know, wait in line and actually talk to a postal worker at the counter. I'm going to ask them if they know Eric. But what I thought was interesting here was you would think if Eric worked at the post office, he could have just dropped this into my PO Box, but it still had postage and everything on it.

[Luke Burbank]

Which means it's probably illegal.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's probably illegal if you're a postal worker just to be like, I'm just going to drop this in Andrew's P.O. box while I'm back here. He had actually put it through the post.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that's interesting. I'm sure that there are rules about that. You cannot just put something. Even if you know the person, you can't just put something in their P.O. box. That's not how any of this works.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's not how it works. So a couple of things here. I don't know if you could hear this, but we also have a Seattle Mariners pin here. It says. It's got the S logo in the middle of it and it says Safeco Field. This is probably what he wore as an usher, I'm guessing. It says. It says safe. Go feel safe, clean, friendly. It's like maybe we doff protest too much. I don't know if you can see that. Oh, yeah, you can sort of see that, right? I like that camera there, that old.

[Luke Burbank]

S logo with the compass rose in the middle of it.

[Andrew Walsh]

We have a Lou Pinella pin that is still on the card. It came on. Sponsored by Lowe's.

[Luke Burbank]

Love it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sweet.

[Luke Burbank]

By the way, I didn't have Lou Piniella thriving in his. I don't know how old Lou Pinnell is at this point. He looks good, doesn't he, in those shag commercials. He looks great. Like he was grizzled when he was the Mariners manager. I mean, I thought he was. I thought I would have given him five years while he was managing the Mariners. But he seems to be doing great.

[Andrew Walsh]

I can't tell what year this is from, but it was from a collection. It was a giveaway one year for Mariner All Star pins. This was number five out of number six. If you turn it over, it's got some stats about Lou Pinella, almost like a baseball card. But this is kind of the card that the pin comes on. And you can see that the giveaway dates were April 20th. I don't know what year. April 20th with Jay Buhner. Pin night. Dan Wilson was May 4th. Aaron Sell. Is that how you say that?

[Luke Burbank]

Aaron Sealy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sealy. Edgar. Edgar Martinez. Who. What did I call him on the show recently? Did I call him like Edmund Martinez or something? Embarrassing.

[Luke Burbank]

Because they liked bat.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then John Olarud was September 7th of this year. So I thought that was cool.

[Luke Burbank]

Washington, we don't have to go through.

[Andrew Walsh]

All of the Mariners cards. I mean, we can, we can, but I'll hold that for a second. I'll go through some of these with you. But here's what I really want to get at is there is one pack of Husky football cards in here, Luke. But this is where things are going to get tough. It's Unopened. It is clear. It's in clear packaging. So I can see that the first one is Jermaine, sophomore cornerback. And this is a. You do a. And it looks like based on the stats on the back, I am guessing that this is a 1997 pack of cards. Okay. The card back I'm looking at on the other side is Jim Lambright was head coach. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Jim Lambeau.

[Andrew Walsh]

The Last stat was 1996 on this card. So I'm assuming that this is the next season, 1997.

[Luke Burbank]

So I'm actually attending the University of Washington at this point.

[Andrew Walsh]

Interesting.

[Luke Burbank]

Now here's a real maybe even writing, occasionally writing. And I did they never really let me write football at the daily because that was the, that was the, that was the primo assignment. I was writing some of the maybe less well known sports. But every once in a while I jump in there and help on a, on a Sunday jam out the football section for that Monday paper. So I may, I may have even been writing about some of these.

[Andrew Walsh]

You might have it. Now the thing is, do we want to break it open right now or is it more fun and more fun for you because I would be happy to ship these Husky cards to you in the unsealed pack and then you could break them open. We either on the show or not. Would that be more fun?

[Luke Burbank]

Let's just do it now because first of all.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Just because first of all anybody who doesn't want to hear this fair warning, then they can just turn the show off.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Join us tomorrow. We've given a pretty long show.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm also not sure depending like even that person, that first name we said Jermaine Smith. It doesn't ring any huge bells. I wouldn't want to over hype this as a segment because you know, the thing about college football is it's a big roster and a lot of the people don't actually end up playing very much. So it's possible that I don't really know many of the people in this, in this particular and also 97 huskies. I'm trying to think were we even good under Lambright? Like, I feel like we, you know, we had the Don James era. We were really good and then we kind of popped up here and there under Sarkeesian and then under Kalin to Bower in his eight minutes of being our coach when we went to the Natty recently. But anyway, can you just lay a couple on me?

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure. I'll open it up then. I honestly do have that feeling of like, should I open this, but I'm sure it's not. We're not going to be able to.

[Luke Burbank]

I promise you, you're not devaluing it by that much.

[Andrew Walsh]

It does. So the 1997. By the way, this is Wikipedia, not the cards. The 1997 Washington Huskies. Huskies football team. Let's see here. In its fifth season under head coach Jim Lambright, the team complete compiled an 8, 4 record, finished fourth in the Pacific in the pack 10.

[Luke Burbank]

So that's a very unremarkable year.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And outscored opponents 4:20 to 2, 15. I mean, you had a winning record.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, but like, in order to be relevant in college football, you gotta be going like 12, like 12 and 0, 11 and 1. You gotta be like, you know, almost not losing any games. If you want to be in the conversation for like a really good bowl game or, or the national championship, certainly eight and four, I think is bowl eligible. We probably played in the Alamo bowl or some shit that you're.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you did lose to the Cougs, it looks like. It says after a 27. Oh shutout of USC on November 1st, the Huskies were 7 and 1 and ranked 6th in the nation.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh.

[Andrew Walsh]

Then saddled with injuries, they lost the final three conference games to unranked Oregon, number nine, UCLA, and number number 11, Washington State.

[Luke Burbank]

Wait a minute.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, so they played the Aloha Bowl.

[Luke Burbank]

The Aloha. Unranked Oregon.

[Andrew Walsh]

Unranked Oregon was Damon.

[Luke Burbank]

Damon Heward, our quarterback?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I guess. Should I open them up?

[Luke Burbank]

And what I'm wondering is I probably have the dates off, but there was. Okay. This is getting so deep in the weeds of Husky sports. But my whole life growing up, the Huskies, our football team was pretty good. And one thing that you could kind of bank on was that we were always going to beat the Oregon Ducks. Oregon was not a very good football team for the 80s. And then there was a game where I think it was. I think it was Damon Heward, Brock Hewitt's brother, I think was the quarterback. I could be getting this part wrong, but I remember watching this game where we basically threw like a 98 yard interception. So we were on like the 22 yard line. And then our quarterback, again, I think it's Damon Heward, throws the ball like a. It's a pass that goes almost all the way across the field. East west. And an Oregon player picks it off, returns it for 90 some yards and a touchdown. We lose that game to Oregon and it felt cataclysmic. Like from there on out, the Huskies Just got worse, and Oregon just got better. To where? To this day, Oregon is constantly in the conversation for the national championship, and the Huskies are almost never in that conversation. It was like the. It was like the. The. The journey of these two teams diverged wildly on this one play.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you think that might have been literally 90.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, just when it said that we lost to unranked Oregon, I'm wondering if.

[Andrew Walsh]

That was, in fact, the beginning of.

[Luke Burbank]

The tournament, if that was actually the game where that happened, because maybe Oregon wasn't considered that good yet. And then they picked us off and then we. We lost that game. And then again, we were kind of. And never the same.

[Andrew Walsh]

Here we're going to answer these cards, are going to answer some of those questions. I have opened it. We can't go back now. The number one card, and I think these are. Oh, I don't know what the numbers mean. Is it the. Oh, I guess it's the number on their jersey. I thought it was the number of the card. So you have. Jermaine Smith was a sophomore cornerback. Rashan Shahi.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah. Rashawn Sheehy, running back.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Running back. I believe he.

[Luke Burbank]

What's that?

[Andrew Walsh]

Senior tailback. I was just.

[Luke Burbank]

He was great, by the way.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, good. So this is worth something.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, definitely.

[Andrew Walsh]

Unless.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I want to say. I think he might have. I definitely think he got into the NFL. He might have been a Kansas City chief back in the day.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay. Tony Parrish, free.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, Tony Parrish. Yeah, Tony.

[Andrew Walsh]

Senior year. Senior year.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, he was. Was he a defensive. He was a defensive. Defensive player. Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

It says that he's a free safety. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Free safety.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Tony Paris. Sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

And now Luke. Now this has got. I should be wearing white gloves. Look at this. A mint Barack Heward.

[Luke Burbank]

Brock hewered Mr. Muscle Mill.

[Andrew Walsh]

Could it have been that you were confusing Damon and Brock? Could that have. Could everything you said. Very possible, but you just confused your Huords.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's see. No, you know What? It was 1994. In the 1994 Oregon Washington Football game, Oregon cornerback Kenny Wheaton intercepted the pass from Washington quarterback Damon hewitt, returning at 97 yards for a touchdown.

[Andrew Walsh]

There you go.

[Luke Burbank]

A play famously known as the pick.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I think Cleveland has one of those, too. Right. The pick.

[Luke Burbank]

So I do think probably Brock was our quarterback, you know, at this time, but this was now a few years after, I guess, the pick.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So, okay, so that's. That's Brock or. You mean Damon was obviously that one.

[Luke Burbank]

Because Damon preceded Brock Hewer.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Then we have. So that. That's going to be the jewel of the collection, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nigel Burton.

[Luke Burbank]

Nigel Burton does not ring a position.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is Rover. Is that a defensive.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think I've ever heard that as a position. My mom claims that. My mom claims that in. In. I think it was like in basketball when she played, like basketball in school, that she. The position she played was Rover.

[Andrew Walsh]

Really?

[Luke Burbank]

I was always like, I don't think that's a real position.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, it is. Maybe she was playing football. How about this one? I've never. I'm. Now I'm more interested in the positions. This is Fred Coleman.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you know Fred Coleman was a. Was he a receiver?

[Andrew Walsh]

Senior flanker. It says here. Yeah. What is a flanker?

[Luke Burbank]

Flanker is a will. Flanker would be like a receiver, but you're not a wide receiver. You're kind of like. You might come out of the bag backfield. You might. You might. You're sort of like a. You're sort of a. Yeah, you're kind of a part tailback, part receiver. You might line up, you know, kind of outside of the guard, but inside of the. Of the wide receiver and you might run some slot routes. That's how I think about a flanker.

[Andrew Walsh]

For a second, I got excited. I was like, could this be the guy who ends up being the famous broadcaster Freddy Coleman, Right. On ESPN radio.

[Luke Burbank]

Espn, like late at night or whatever. I don't think it's the same Fred Coleman.

[Andrew Walsh]

So either I looked at up this. This fella did go. If I'm looking at the right. Fred Coleman here. College. Yeah. Washington. It says he was a wide receiver who was taken by the. Maybe the Raiders in the 1990 NFL Draft. That seems wrong to me. No, Buffalo. It looks like Jerome Pathan.

[Luke Burbank]

P A T H O A Jerome Python. He's a great receiver. He was from Canada, I believe.

[Andrew Walsh]

Split ed, which is good for your football team. Terrible for your hair.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Jerome Payson. That's a blast from the past.

[Andrew Walsh]

Mel Miller, sophomore cornerback Mel Miller. Okay. Doesn't ring a huge bell. Chris Campbell, Defensive end Chris Campbell.

[Luke Burbank]

That seems like a person who was on the team. Based on the football card, I'm going to assume they were on the team.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ooh, let me ask you this, since you were part of the UW media at the time. All of these cards have a photo credit, and the photo credit is all to the same photographer, Rob Hicks. Is that somebody who you knew from. From taking. Was that a photojournalist? That.

[Luke Burbank]

That doesn't ring any Bells, there's no quirky Sherwood of the Mariners.

[Andrew Walsh]

What is the first name?

[Luke Burbank]

Isn't his name Corky? I think it's Corky Sherwood, who's been like the Mariners photographer forever. And like, when you like. So when I, like, threw out the first pitch below those many years ago, he's the guy that runs out and like, poses you with the Mariners catcher and takes your picture. He's like kind of a. Like a. A legend. There's also. Rod Mar has been a photographer for the Seattle Times forever, especially sports photographer.

[Andrew Walsh]

You would think I'd recognize the photographer from the newspaper, but I guess I don't look at those bylines enough or whatever you call it on a photo. Jerry Jensen. Jerry Jensen, senior linebacker.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Jason Chorrock, senior linebacker.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did I say that right? Chorok?

[Luke Burbank]

I think so.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

That's. I think you got that one right. Definitely.

[Andrew Walsh]

Remember that guy, Tony Coates?

[Luke Burbank]

Tony Coates. That name is familiar, but I couldn't tell you his position. Was he like a lineman?

[Andrew Walsh]

Offensive tackle.

[Luke Burbank]

Indeed. I always have thought that is the dumbest name for that position because you are not allowed to tackle people.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is a weird.

[Luke Burbank]

As the offensive tackle, you, guard makes sense.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right guard makes total sense. You're the anti tackle. You should.

[Luke Burbank]

Defensive tackle should be a position because you're trying to tackle the guys. Yeah. Offensive tackle. No, makes no sense.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wonder if it started as a defensive position and then it evolved so that. Well, we need an offensive tackle to defend against the defensive tackle.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe. So it's a weird name.

[Andrew Walsh]

Benji Olsen.

[Luke Burbank]

Benji Olsen, sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Offensive guard, sure.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I think he went on to have. I remember at a decent pro career.

[Andrew Walsh]

We're getting very near the end here, which.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

I really enjoyed. And I have some more listeners I want to tell you about.

[Luke Burbank]

The listeners are dying, but I'm. I'm loving this.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, we still have some Mariners cards if we want. Olin Crutz.

[Luke Burbank]

Olin Kreutz.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did I say that right? Nice.

[Luke Burbank]

You said that absolutely right. Busted someone's jaw in the locker room.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh. In the. His.

[Luke Burbank]

His own teammate. And then went on to have a, I think possibly hall of Fame career with the Chicago Bears.

[Andrew Walsh]

Really?

[Luke Burbank]

Olin Kreutz may be in the NFL hall of Fame. I'm not sure. He had a. A very long and very successful pro career, despite the fact that I believe while at the uw, he got into it with a teammate, punched the guy in the jaw, and straight up broke his jaw.

[Andrew Walsh]

Looky, he was drafted by the Bears. You're right. In the 98 draft. This all makes sense because we're looking at the 90, 97 cards. And he's a senior. Right. He also played for the Saints. It looks like he maybe just played a few games for the Saints and then was a semifinalist for the Pro Football hall of fame in 2020. But it looks like he didn't. He was a semi finalist, but maybe not in the actual Hall.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, you know what? Sorry. Let's see.

[Andrew Walsh]

The.

[Luke Burbank]

This is strange. They're saying that the fight. Did I did I just. Absolutely. I Mandelaed this, Andrew. In 2005, Chicago Bears center Olen Crutz was involved in a fight with teammate Fred Miller where Miller' jaw was broken. So that was not when he was a Husky.

[Andrew Walsh]

Interesting. You just.

[Luke Burbank]

That was when he was a Chicago Bear.

[Andrew Walsh]

Still, though, I still think that's pretty good to recall, if you're asking me. What about Cameron Cleland?

[Luke Burbank]

Cam Cleland? Yeah, Cam Cleland from Cedro Woolley, Washington, had a great pro career with the New Orleans Saints and then later came out as saying that he. He's an announcer for the. The Huskies now these days. But he's also suffered through what he thinks are the effects of cte. And there was a very interesting article in the Seattle Times talking about. Talking about his experience post football and having issues with, like, his mood and, you know, impulse control and things like that, where he talked very open and honestly about what he thinks the effect of his football career have been on his brain.

[Andrew Walsh]

But. And he's still broadcasting, though, you think?

[Luke Burbank]

I think he's like the color guy for the Husky radio broadcast. So when you tune into the Husky football games on the radio, he's the. I think he's the color commentator, Cam Cleland.

[Andrew Walsh]

His photo was taken by somebody else. His photo was taken by Michael Kramer. These are all action shots, by the way. And then I have two more cards here, but they're dupes. I have duplicate here. They're both Jim Lambright, the head coach.

[Luke Burbank]

Lambo. I'm not disrespecting your duplication investigation, by the way. Jim Lambeau, I believe. Rest in peace.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay.

[Luke Burbank]

He's. I think he passed away a few years ago. He was our defensive coordinator. And what happened was basically like, under Don James, this is where nobody wanted this conversation to go.

[Andrew Walsh]

Eric did.

[Luke Burbank]

I think under Don James, the Huskies always had a very stout defense. It was sometimes called Purple Rain. And. And so. And Jim Lambright was the architect of that defense. And so when Don James retired, they passed the mantle. Jim Lambright Became the head coach. And I think there was questions about some of the offensive productivity because Jim Lambright was not an offense guy, he was a defense guy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Do you want me to. They're about the same number of cards. You want me to go through the Mariners very quickly? Let's do it all. Why not? This is just our time now. Like, if the listeners.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, thank you.

[Andrew Walsh]

They got a stem winder that they.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, they got a great story about your. About the battle. The battle of your neighborhood.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

I was going to say the name of your neighborhood, but I don't want to be too specific.

[Andrew Walsh]

Battle of Sweet Cream. Paul Sento. First place. Sure.

[Luke Burbank]

Paul Sento. Former. Former Yankee. And I feel like Paul, before he got here, before he became a Mariner, I think. And I feel like it was one of those things where, as the Mariners often do, we got Paul Sorrento, like after his, you know, best used by. Best if. If used by date.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

After he had done great things for the Yankees. If I remember that, I could have the order. I could have it out of order, but.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, this is interesting. It doesn't mention that, but I'm also not to trying trusting that this card gives all of his stats, but it says he played for Cleveland in 95 and the Mariners in 96.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, maybe he went to the Yankees afterwards and was good.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maybe. Or this isn't a complete listing of his career. I'm not sure. Joey Cora, of course.

[Luke Burbank]

Little Joe.

[Andrew Walsh]

I've seen him in some of those cassettes that I've found and digitized.

[Luke Burbank]

Is it possible Paul Sorrento literally never played for the Yankees?

[Andrew Walsh]

Are you looking this up? Are you. Because I can't. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

11 seasons in major League Baseball. You're right. He was a twin. He was a Cleveland. Now we say guardian. He was a Seattle Mariner. He was a Tampa Bay Devil Ray. He never. Why in the world. Is it just because he's so Italian coded? Why did I think he was.

[Andrew Walsh]

Why did you put him there? I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

Why did I put him with. Sorry. Paul Sorrento fans.

[Andrew Walsh]

Anyway, I can't bail you out of that one. What about Bobby Ayala?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

I didn't do a good job.

[Luke Burbank]

Bobby Ayala. I could do a tight two hours on Bobby. Bobby. So Bobby Ayala was a closer. I believe he also was. Came to us maybe from. Was it either the White Sox or Cleveland? Bobby Ayala was a closer for the Mariners who was very effective for some amount of years, but then very bad like, there was a couple of lost seasons where I feel like they would bring Ayala in and he would just get absolutely rocked as our closer.

[Andrew Walsh]

They're not listing any other teams here, so I don't. Again, I'm a little bit. This is. This is a upper deck, I believe, 97 season because the stats only go to 96. So unless they're not listing entire career, they just have him 94 Mariners through 96 Mariners. And this is his 97 card. So I'm not sure.

[Luke Burbank]

He was a Cincinnati Red and then he came to the Mariners and then he did a little time in Montreal and then Chicago. So he was a Red, came over to be a Mariner for, like you said, From, I think 94 to 98. And again had some good seasons as a close, but then had some absolutely putrid seasons and they just kept running him back out there. He would just get absolutely rocked.

[Andrew Walsh]

I will say these upper deck cards are pretty handsome. This is not an era that I had. I must have had earlier. Okay, so. Oh, Mike Cameron.

[Luke Burbank]

Mike Cameron, center fielder. Mike Cameron was a great story because when Griffey left, I think to go to either the Reds or Tampa, we got Mike Cameron from the White Sox. And then Mike Cameron had an All Star year, his first year as our center fielder. And if I remember right, that was the year that the All Star game was actually played in Seattle at then Safeco Field. And the Mariners had, I believe, Ichiro and were playing really well. And it was this great thing where even though we didn't have Griffey, Mike Cameron was having statistically a better year than Griffey was. So it felt like we lost this generational player center fielder. But we got this new guy who was just. Just absolutely roping and stealing bases like crazy. And then it was this celebration of everything Mariners because the game was played at Safeco Field. And I think there was like a number of Mariners starting in that game, including Mike Cameron.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, this particular. This is a Topps card. This is later than those. This looks like it's the 03 season. In fact, it says 2003, opening day tops. And there's a photo of him in action, but then there's like a little inset of a photo of him kind of relaxing. And unless this is just an incredibly flattering photo, as Genevieve would say, he seems handsome in the the face area.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah, no. Nice looking guy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is he a broadcaster now? That name is so familiar to me.

[Luke Burbank]

I think he helps out. They were trying. I think they were trying to make Him a broadcaster.

[Andrew Walsh]

They were.

[Luke Burbank]

They were putting him on the. He was a Mariner from 2000, 2000 to 2003. I guess he came directly from the Cincinnati Reds, not the White Sox. My bad on that. But I feel like they were popping him on the Mariners broadcast there for a bit a couple of years ago, I think maybe testing the waters of sort of trying him out as a broadcast. I don't know what ended up happening with that, but he was jumping on the Mariners broadcast a lot late a few years ago.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's probably why I know him. By the way, this next set of few cards here are not tops or upper deck or Fleer or Donruss or any of those. These are produced in 2004 by the Disabled American Veterans or DAV. So on the back, these cards don't have any baseball stats. They just give the mission statement of the dav. But on the front, we have. And so this would be. Did I already say the year? Yeah, 2004. Copyright. We have Raul Banyaz. So, yeah, right fielder, primarily. Pinero.

[Luke Burbank]

Joel Pinero.

[Andrew Walsh]

Joel Pinero, pitcher. That name doesn't ring a bell at all to me. I mean, this was. This was.

[Luke Burbank]

He was a starting pitcher. I'm going to. I've been so wrong about the teams that we acquired folks from. For some reason, I feel like we got pinned from the. Maybe the Twins or something. But he was a pitcher.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know how to pronounce this one. Eddie Guidardo. Is that close?

[Luke Burbank]

Eddie Guidardo. That is close. Also a pitcher, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

It gives zero information. Oh, yeah, picture. There it is. That does have that information. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Boy, this was. Let's see, what year did you say this was?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, these are kind of these interesting cards that are part of a nonprofit, it looks like, but it looks like they're. Copyright 2004. So I'm guessing going into the 2004 season, there are no stats.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm trying to think if this was kind of a lost season for the Mariners.

[Andrew Walsh]

2004, it sounds like that is. Yeah, because you hear about. Like there was. 2001 was kind of a high watermark. Like the most wins. Right. And they won the. Did they win the ALCS that year?

[Luke Burbank]

They won. No, they. They won. They got to the ALCS and they lost. They've never advanced to the World Series, but that was the. In fact, I don't even. Did they. I think they got to the ALCS. That was the year. 2000. 2001. They won 116 games, which was the Record.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is it still the record?

[Luke Burbank]

It was tied for the record at the time. I don't know where that stands now, by the way. I believe it looks like he made his major league debut. Joel Pinero for the Mariners. So again, once again, I was wrong. I'm. I have some amount of recall on these guys, but I have absolutely no idea what their. What their journey to the Mariners was.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it sounds like maybe in some cases, though, you're remembering the right teams, but it's just the order whether they went there or kept came from there. We have a Greg McCarthy. This is another pitcher whose name does not ring a bell to me. Doesn't ring a bell for me either. And it looks like he might have just been a Mariner. There's only. He only stats for 96 on that one. Here's an ESPN upper deck trading card. I don't even know what's going on here, but it's Beltray, Adrian Beltray. Oh, sure, he's wearing a Dodgers uniform, but it says Mariners on the bottom. What's going on with this card? Why is he wearing a Dodgers uniform on a Mariners card?

[Luke Burbank]

That's strange to me. Well, he had a career year with the Dodgers and then the Mariners. And it's funny part was I was living in LA at the time, going to a lot of Dodgers games, watching Bel trade, just absolutely rope. And then, of course, the Mariners go out and make a big spend and get him, and he has absolutely his worst, like, one or two seasons of his career as a Mariner, and then I believe he goes to Texas and then just starts roping again.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sounds like. Yep, that sounds like tradition. John Marzano.

[Luke Burbank]

John Marzano, who would eventually become, I believe, our bullpen coach. He was.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really? Oh, he was a catcher. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Did we already do Rich Amaral? No.

[Luke Burbank]

Rich Amaral, utility player extraordinaire.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Offense kind of bounce around Rich Amaral.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. This is a 97 card again. And just list mariner stats from 93 up till the present day. Oh, I don't know about the. This guy. Little blowers on baseball, anybody? Mike Blowers. Base Blow.

[Luke Burbank]

I do think it's weird that they call him blow when the name is pronounced Blowers.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

Love should be Blau.

[Andrew Walsh]

It should be. It should be blow. I'm with you.

[Luke Burbank]

Is Blau not on the broadcast anymore? I feel like I don't hear Blau.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm pretty sure that he. I think it was known that he was stepping away. Didn't he have some health Stuff last year. I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

He had some health stuff last year.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Which he came back. Back from.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think him stepping away and sim. Stepping away might have led to the total reshuffling of how they. Because, remember, there used to be so much more crossover between who was doing TV and radio the last few seasons, and now it's like they really have locked in. Like Riz's radio. Goldsmith is tv. We're making this just more and more interesting. Scott Sanders.

[Luke Burbank]

That does not ring a Bell.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is 97 again. Looks like he's a pitcher. I'm guessing a reliever, if you don't know him. Russ Davis.

[Luke Burbank]

Russ Davis, third baseman.

[Andrew Walsh]

Third base, it says. Yeah, that means nothing to me. I mean, third base means something to me. And then Jeff Fo.

[Luke Burbank]

F. Oh, Jeff Ficero. Sure. Pitcher.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Another pitching. It's starting.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, starting picture, Jeff.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And finally for everybody, drum roll, please.

[Luke Burbank]

Lambright.

[Andrew Walsh]

Utility.

[Luke Burbank]

The third. Jim Lambrite.

[Andrew Walsh]

Brent Gates. Mariner. He's only listed as an infielder. He's got an if after his name, which makes me think that he probably was not a super. He played for the A's from 93 to 96, so he must have been picked up in 97.

[Luke Burbank]

He's no Donovan Solano, I'll tell you that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure. No, but who is?

[Luke Burbank]

I had the weirdest experience the other day. Since we've just fully done this now, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

We're just. You know, how far in our. Oh. Were so close to two hours. Did you know that?

[Luke Burbank]

I didn't.

[Andrew Walsh]

We're, like, minutes away from hitting.

[Luke Burbank]

The two listeners will. The listeners will love that. But, like, I. I had the strangest experience the other day, which is Donovan Solano came in and I felt good. And then he roped a double.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I can. I remember him having a good at bat.

[Luke Burbank]

I was trying to explain that. Was I trying to explain that to, like, Becca or something? Like, I was watching the game, and I was like. I was trying to explain why it's such a weird sensation to see Donovan Solano come to the plate and to not. And to think something good's probably going to happen. That is such a huge kind of mental shift for me and a lesson that, you know, people can change. I was worried that this baby thought people couldn't change. Andrew. But people can change. Donovan.

[Andrew Walsh]

Real pos.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you think this is slicked back? This is pushed back, this.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm in a bad place with the Mariners right now.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm not, like, mad. I'm just like, disappointed.

[Luke Burbank]

You know who I blame? I have. I haven't even.

[Andrew Walsh]

The rain delays.

[Luke Burbank]

Can you see behind me? You see where there's like a clock.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And then there's a fire extinguisher.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was wondering that. You don't seem like the type of person who have a fire extinguisher just on display on your nice floating shelves. I was curious about that.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I went through a period where I became very worried about the house burning down. I think it was around the time when I finished a lot of the projects.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I was like.

[Luke Burbank]

And so I bought a bunch of fire extinguishers and I actually thought it's kind of a cool object.

[Andrew Walsh]

Uh huh. Cool. I like that.

[Luke Burbank]

So that's why it's there. I mean, I could put it somewhere, you know, in a closet. But I don't know why. I don't know why I put it up there. Maybe I'll take it down someday. But in front of it and it'd be very hard for you to see because it's very small. Is there's a baseball.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay.

[Luke Burbank]

That baseball is signed by two people. Donovan Solano. We know.

[Andrew Walsh]

And Donovan Letch, Jim Lambright, and Brent Gates.

[Luke Burbank]

It is signed by Jorge Polanco and by the Stew Bot.

[Andrew Walsh]

What? How do I not know about this?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it's. Technically, we have joint custody of this.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really? Oh, okay.

[Luke Burbank]

When I got home from my trip.

[Andrew Walsh]

I want it for Christmas. And then you can.

[Luke Burbank]

It was a box.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. I'll take Thanksgiving.

[Andrew Walsh]

You get Christmas.

[Luke Burbank]

When I got home, there was a really funny typed note from our friend, the Stew Bot.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my God.

[Luke Burbank]

Saying that baby. Basically, like, when we went independent, he failed to transfer his don. And by the way, I mean, the mensch that is our friend the Stubbot is donating to support the show, even though he's a vibrant part of the show and a personal friend of ours that's always really sweet and also kind of humbling. Our real friends are donating money to us. But he wrote in this letter that he had actually not transferred. He had unintentionally failed to transfer his donation over. He has now rectified that. But he said, please accept as a token of apology, this baseball signed by Jorge Polanco and me.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is hilarious. So Polanco obviously was a twin, Right. So that's from the Twins days.

[Luke Burbank]

He said it was something. It was part of a merch bin that the Twins were hammering the Surly Brewing Company with as an attempt to get Surly to sponsor Twins.

[Andrew Walsh]

Why wouldn't they sponsor Twins baseball?

[Luke Burbank]

Who knows? You know, ROIs, ad buys and things of the like. But basically the Twins were trying to woo Surly and somehow that got Stu in possession of this Jorge Polanco, who I mentioned in my response. I call Rango Jorge Polanco baseball that then Stu also signed.

[Andrew Walsh]

I love it.

[Luke Burbank]

And he said, you and I can share the ball. So I got that baseball. I immediately put it on my mantle. And I predicted that that day, which was Sunday, Jorge Polanco would hit two home runs at the Little League Classic. He hit zero home runs. By the way, the Mariners have not won a game since I took possession of this baseball.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a really good point.

[Luke Burbank]

And I can't help but think the two things are related.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my God. Now, I have assigned JP Crawford baseball from when he was back, I think when he was in the minors, I think. And my friend Paul gave this to me because he used to track all those guys back in the day and he would do some like, kind of blow blogging about players. And I always forget the name of the league there in New England, I think. Or no, no, actually, you know what, I think it was outside of dc. But anyway, so he had. I don't remember exactly what era of JP's career this is from, but right now, between the two of us, you and I have two baseball signed by current, you know, Mariners roster members. That's pretty good.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. So do I need to. Here's the question. Do you. Do I need to throw the baseball into the mighty Columbia? Do I need to do some sort of exorcism because of the.

[Andrew Walsh]

Because of what? I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, we've lost three games in a row since I got the baseball. Three games or two games. We lost the fight. We lost.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, well, we've lose this.

[Luke Burbank]

I guess we've lost. We're on a three game losing streak. But two of them are attributable to the baseball because Sunday was when I put the baseball in its position of honor and we lost to the Mets. And then yesterday we lost to the Phillies.

[Andrew Walsh]

So we also lost the day before that to the Orioles.

[Luke Burbank]

I didn't have the baseball then, so.

[Andrew Walsh]

That'S why I don't know if we can pin it to the baseball. I hate to see that thing go get submerged in the mighty. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. I'm going to give it one more game. One more than I'm chucking it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And I'm sending it north to you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Well, actually, hey, let's wrap up with that question. I don't know if you want these Mariners cards. I can add them to my Mariners collection or I can send them along to you, but I really, really would like to send you these Huskies cards. Would you accept these Huskies cards with the. And will you save the Brock Heward one? And will you only touch it with white gloves on?

[Luke Burbank]

I will. You know what I will do each day? I will walk over and I will massage the Brock you were cart without consent.

[Andrew Walsh]

I miss that so much.

[Luke Burbank]

Those are fun.

[Andrew Walsh]

Just come up behind me. I'm sitting at my desk. He just, like, knead his thumbs right into my. Into my shop.

[Luke Burbank]

Good, Right?

[Andrew Walsh]

So it hurt so good. It literally. That phrase and that song made no sense to me until one day I.

[Luke Burbank]

Found him sharing a workspace.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. And then he would walk by sometimes and not do that, and I'd be like, oh, okay.

[Luke Burbank]

I guess I remember sitting at my desk and I had a huge spindle of CDs that I think were old TBTL episodes that Sean had burned.

[Andrew Walsh]

They were blank. Maybe they. Maybe they.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought that maybe they were like, episodes of the show that were like. It was an archive. And then I think it was there so long that eventually when John Kerr early took over my desk, he, like. I think there was some email that went out that was like, whose crap is this?

[Andrew Walsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

I think all of it got tossed.

[Andrew Walsh]

There was a lot. Yeah. And remember you had a crate of Muscle Milk next to your desk for a while because, well, that was the thing.

[Luke Burbank]

The reason I call him. He would come over, hey, that Muscle Milk's pretty good, but, man, it just really makes you fart.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really? I don't know if I remember that.

[Luke Burbank]

I believe he.

[Andrew Walsh]

Because he.

[Luke Burbank]

I think he was also sponsored by Muscle Milk.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, he was definitely a milker. Yeah, he was.

[Luke Burbank]

He was on it, and he was drinking a lot of it. But he was complaining about the gastrointestinal. I don't think he was complaining, by the way. I think he was just stating it as a fact.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's not. That's, you know, subjective or. I guess that's a good thing or a bad thing. Value neutral is what I was looking for there.

[Luke Burbank]

We did it, Andrew. Unless all of you editing out the parts where you said your neighbor's name takes us under two hours.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. I got to go back and kind of listen to some of that, make sure I didn't let one slip through.

[Luke Burbank]

We did it, though. We got over two hours. So you're welcome, everybody. And Also, we're sorry. All right. I think that should probably do it for today's episode, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

If I never start. If I never start the music, will you just be forced to keep going forever? Because I was grabbing something here, which is why I didn't start the music. And it occurred to me, if I don't play the music, you'll just have to keep tap dancing forever.

[Luke Burbank]

It's the curse of hosting the show, and you've discovered it. I'm like Rumpelstiltskin or one of those mythical characters.

[Andrew Walsh]

Characters.

[Luke Burbank]

If you don't play the music, I'm just trapped here. Like General Zod. By the way, RIP Terence Stamp. Oh, he played Go Watch the Limey, everybody.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wait, he played General Zod?

[Luke Burbank]

He was General Zod.

[Andrew Walsh]

I didn't make that connection.

[Luke Burbank]

Interesting. Okay, but the limey. Go Watch the Limey. I watched it the other night.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's really good.

[Luke Burbank]

Steven Soderbergh. Anyway, there's the music, which means the curse is broken.

[Andrew Walsh]

I breathe. Remove the talisman from your neck.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right. I can go. Thanks for listening, everybody. We will be back here tomorrow with more. I don't know. I might just stay here in my living room in this chair. It's so comfy.

[Andrew Walsh]

What if we just chop today's show into two and make the second half tomorrow's show? It's all baseball cart. We're in really good standing with the listeners now. I think they'll put up with that.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, absolutely. No, you know what? Let's do a show tomorrow. We'll be back here, my friends.

[Andrew Walsh]

Fun.

[Luke Burbank]

In the meantime, everybody, have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourselves. Go Mariners. Go Rango. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to all. You know, everything is not an anecdote. You have to discriminate. You choose things that are. That are funny or mildly amusing or interesting. You're a miracle. Your stories have none of that. They're not even amusing accidentally. It's like going on a date with a Chatty Cathy doll. I expect you have a little string on your chest, you know, that I pull out and have to snap back. Except I wouldn't pull it out and snap it back. You would. And by the way, you know, when you're telling these little stories? Here's a good idea. Have a point. It makes it so much more interesting for the listener. Power out.