#4536 Never Go Full Capote

Summary

Podcast Summary: TBTL Episode #4536 "Never Go Full Capote" (August 20, 2025)

Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh
Podcast: TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live
Date: August 20, 2025
Episode Theme:
A classic episode of TBTL blending everyday personal anecdotes, cultural observations, and humor—ranging from balding woes, regional pride over a new In-N-Out Burger, trips to historic graveyards, fast food musings, media rebranding, and the joys and sorrows of Costco, culminating with listener engagement and hot podcast industry takes.

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Main Discussion Points

1. Balding, Sunburns, and Nostalgia for '90s Commercials

• Personal Anecdotes: Andrew laments the awkward phase of balding, particularly the annoyance of scalp sunburns and subsequent peeling. Luke compares Andrew to Doug Martsch from Built to Spill (06:05), which Andrew accepts with characteristic self-deprecation.
• Mock Ad Campaign: The hosts riff on old '90s Head & Shoulders ads, imagining themselves as playful rivals offering each other dandruff shampoo after racquetball ("Where we're going, we want to keep the snow on the slopes." [07:59]).
• Practical Advice: They discuss the pros and cons of wearing hats for sun protection, with Andrew noting how hot hats make him feel—debunking the "most heat escapes from your head" myth (09:09).

2. Small Town Travels: Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown, NY

• Travel Story: Luke recounts visiting Sleepy Hollow, NY, remarking on how the town fully embraces its literary roots—Washington Irving’s presence is everywhere, from schools to the graveyard (10:27).
• Amusing Observations:
  • The juxtaposition of historic locations and modern oddities, e.g., "Legend of Sleepy Hollow Gas Station," selling malt liquor and buzz balls (14:58).
  • Discovery of a "gas station district"—six to seven gas stations on one block, leading to speculation about local zoning and economic clustering (16:15).
• Graveyard Encounter: An amusing moment when other tourists at the cemetery don’t know who Washington Irving is, baffling Luke (18:04).

3. Costco & Amazon: Love, Hate, and the Modern Shopping Experience

• Costco Culture Clash:
  • Andrew finds the store overwhelming: difficulty finding items, lack of focused customer service, and general frustration with shoppers’ lack of spatial awareness (25:57).
  • Luke enjoys the abundance, though he admits living alone means he rarely needs Costco-sized portions (26:21).
• Amazon & Returns:
  • Luke details the saga of trying to return large suitcases to the wrong shipping location, then navigating small-town post offices and libraries to print shipping labels—building local camaraderie (43:32).

4. Fast Food and Regional Pride

• Washington’s First In-N-Out Burger:
  • Luke almost broadcasted live from the opening of the new location in Ridgefield, WA, highlighting local excitement and city efforts to manage the anticipated traffic jams (21:00).
  • Both hosts reflect on the cultural cachet (and taste) of West Coast fast food institutions like In-N-Out and Dick’s, comparing them to the regional phenomenon of Red Robin’s bottomless fries (29:17, 34:33).

5. Podcast Business Model, Listener Thanks, and Sustainable Support

• Industry Context: Both hosts express genuine gratitude for their supportive, ad-free listener community, contrasting it with the financial instability and restructuring shaking the podcast industry ("If we tried to do this podcast with the business model that other podcasts do, it would simply not exist." [52:27] – Andrew).
• Donor Thanks: A heartfelt segment naming supporters and marveling at the show's continued existence (54:00+).

6. Media Rebranding: MSNBC Becomes "Ms. Now"

• News Discussion:
  • MSNBC’s rebranding to "Ms. Now" (short for "my Source news Opinion World") is roasted for its awkward, focus-group feel.
  • Andrew jokes, "Is there a Mr. Now?" ([56:37]) echoing online memes.
  • Both agree reverse-engineering an acronym rarely produces satisfying results. Luke is less bothered, noting that "MSNBC" was always a weird name (58:54).
  • Broader implications of the spinoff are discussed, including how programming might change and who gets talent like Steve Kornacki (61:30).

7. Airplane Jazz & Public Performances: When Delight Becomes Dilemma

• Viral Video Debate:
  • Luke brings up Dave Koz and band performing jazz during a delayed Alaska Airlines flight. Andrew admits preference for the jazz over a child singing Moana, but ultimately feels "it’s kind of obnoxious" to assume a captive audience wants any performance (68:18).

8. Listener Emails and Personal Oddities

• Shrimp Saga: Andrew is flooded with listener advice about how to dispose of four unwanted shrimp, marveling at the intense feedback compared to major travel stories (71:06).
• Stonehenge Story: Listener Lisa reminisces about being able to walk between the stones in 1999 and witnessing solstice celebrations—prompting hosts’ nostalgia and debate about new restrictions (72:54).

9. Movie Theaters, Recliners, and Pop Culture

• Movie Theater Gripes:
  • They debate whether luxury recliner seating has ruined the social aspects of cinematic outings (85:13).
• Comedy Film Revival:
  • Both express support for "Naked Gun" reboot and lament the state of theater ads and trailers, hoping that new comedies will bring audiences back (83:22).

10. Social Media Trends and Viral Content

• Hot Takes:
  • Discussion of the "Subway Takes" video series, with Andrew praising the simplicity and effectiveness of street interviews with comedians on hot-button topics (84:11).
• Modern Production Models:
  • Luke explains how some sticky viral ideas (like "Roommate Court" and "Boy Rooms") are produced on modest budgets, offering hope for new media voices (88:56).

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Memorable Quotes

• On Baldness:
  • "I'm actually looking forward to like kind of having it all leave. But I'll tell you this. The sun can be your enemy." – Andrew (06:11)
• On Gas Stations in Sleepy Hollow:
  • "It's the most unlike Sleepy Hollow thing you could ever have. It's just like a shitty gas station that's selling malt liquor, but it's trying to do it vaguely in the spirit of Washington Irving." – Luke (15:08)
• On Costco:
  • "I just can't be in those stores ... it must take a certain kind of personality type, because being in there is, like, torture to me." – Andrew (25:27)
• On Regional Fast Food Obsessions:
  • "It's, you know, it's like dicks or any of those kinds of things where if you grow up with it, you're probably pretty obsessed with it." – Luke (29:45)
• On Listener-Supported Media:
  • "With every passing year, maybe even every passing day, I realize how unique our situation is. That is 100% voluntarily, listener supported." – Andrew (52:27)
• On The Ms. Now Rebrand:
  • "Ms. Now stands for my Source news Opinion World. Like world. You're just throwing a Geographic idea." – Andrew (62:51)
• On Airplane Performances:
  • "We should not be subjecting anybody to music that they don't want to hear in a situation where they can't escape it." – Andrew (68:18)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Balding/Sunburn/Hair Commercial Riff: 03:12 – 09:51
• Sleepy Hollow/Tarrytown Travel Stories: 09:51 – 18:53
• Costco Shopping Rants: 25:27 – 34:55
• In-N-Out Burger Opening/Regional Fast Food: 19:57, 29:00 – 36:06
• Podcast Industry Gratitude: 52:00 – 54:30
• MSNBC Rebranding Discussion: 55:23 – 64:18
• Dave Koz Airplane Concert Debate: 64:46 – 70:40
• Listener Voicemail on Stonehenge: 72:54 – 74:15
• Movie Theater Rant & Subway Takes: 80:05 – 85:43
• Viral Video Production & Instagram Culture: 85:43 – 92:37

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Tone and Style

• Conversational, irreverent, and self-deprecating; frequent playful “ball busting,” particularly regarding balding, shopping styles, and old commercial tropes.
• Candid insights into the realities of podcasting, both creatively and economically.
• Joyously tangential—often departing from headline topics for story-rich riffing.
• Frequent callbacks to earlier episodes and ongoing community inside jokes.

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For New Listeners: Why This Episode?

You’ll get vintage TBTL: a seamless blend of personal confession, offbeat cultural critique, and affectionate peer-to-peer razzing. If you enjoy stories about the weirdness of everyday life, regional quirks, or just need some company while you do something slightly annoying (e.g., returning a suitcase, picking up sunburned scalp flakes), this episode affirms life’s delightful absurdity.

Transcript

[Unknown Speaker A]

I've got this song that I holler to, and it is entitled Somebody Loves Me. And it goes like this.

[Luke Burbank]

Don't take this the wrong way, but.

[Unknown Speaker A]

You'Ve just been kind of hanging around.

[Luke Burbank]

A lot lately, which isn't a bad thing, but it's also not a good thing. God, you get a lot of B52s.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. I have no idea why I have.

[Luke Burbank]

Fred Schneider's solo album.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Why did I buy this funky little purchase?

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that your Fred Schneider?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Why did I buy this funky little purchase? We have our own friends.

[Unknown Speaker A]

And what we did see is we.

[Andrew Walsh]

Took them turds and we crammed them in between the number there. So that's one turdy, two turdy, three turdy.

[Luke Burbank]

A year ago, this is exactly what Greg Kinnear was doing, but now he has an Oscar for sliding Doors. Three jingle all the Time. Anybody know what this is? Huh? All of this is the digestive system. And now we're gonna have a couple.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Of guys who's gonna give us a.

[Luke Burbank]

Presentation about what happens when the digestive system isn't working properly. Well, all right. Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Wednesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. It's an audiophiles nightmare. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. How about a Fresca coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia? Absolutely. Picture perfect day here on August 20th.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, ma pa.

[Luke Burbank]

It's just beautiful. And we've got episode 4536 in a collector series ready to go for you. Let the fun begin. The MSNBC television network that I watch regularly. I love television. I've got to have that thing on 24. 7.

[Andrew Walsh]

I love the patter.

[Luke Burbank]

They're changing their name and. Well, we're going to talk about it coming up here in a moment. Also, something happened recently on an Alaska Airlines flight. I was not on this flight, but I saw a clip of it. It was the kind of thing that in other circumstances would kind of annoy me, but this one doesn't annoy me as much. Talk about what happens when your flight is delayed and someone on the flight is trying to brighten up your experience. Coming up. Hey, we're also going to talk to this guy. He's the longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's got a name and it's Andrew Walsh. Oh, hey, y' all said my name. And he is joining me right now. Good morning. My Friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning, Luke. You know that I am not a fan of the kind of anti balding commercials that I hear on AM radio, Alex. I feel like there's a lot of shame and stigma about going bald in them. You got your fellows like John Curly coming on and saying, man, you know, you don't have the confidence you used to have. You're not the same person. Let's get your hair back and then you'll be a good person again. I don't exactly understand the line of reasoning there, but you feel like you're.

[Luke Burbank]

Getting more attractive the less hair you have.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no. Oh no, I am not getting more attractive. Not at all. I am not. You know, I'm not going around parading my baldness. In fact, I'm at a very awkward stage right now where I'm mostly bald, but I still have this hair clinging to the top. So it always looks a little bit comb overy, even though I'm not trying to do that at all. So I'm actually looking forward to like kind of having it all leave. But I'll tell you this.

[Luke Burbank]

I think, I think it looks nice. I think you kind of remind me of a young Doug Marshall from Built to Spill.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, I don't know what he looks like and wouldn't I be probably the same age? I don't really know that band that well, but I would assume that we'd be the same age also. I thought you were gonna say a young Brandon Marsh, that weirdo on the Phillies who wets down his hair at every at bat. Have you been tracking.

[Luke Burbank]

Can you please not discuss the Philadelphia Phillies today? That doesn't look like anything to me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sorry, Maggie. Sorry, Maggie. Outside Philadelphia. We're not getting into that. I haven't been returning Maggie's very nice text mess saying, hey, let's have a good game tonight. And I'm just kind of like, well, I think one team will have a good game tonight. No. Love, Maggie. I actually don't have bad feelings towards the Phillies at all except for when we're playing them. But boy, that guy, that guy's got that really long hair. You know what I'm talking about? Then he wets it down before the at bats and he's got this long, dry, like, beard. What, What a. What an interesting. What an interesting look. But what I was going to say is, even though I don't like the commercials that sort of are aimed at making bald men feel bad about being bald, if I were to write one, I have a new, what they call pain Point that I would personally emphasize in the ads.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. This would be the sort of sales pitch. This would be the way that you might convince someone that whatever the product is that you're selling or the procedure that this might be for them.

[Andrew Walsh]

Because, Luke, I got. I told you I'm not a super huge fan of where my hair is right now. With kind of some hair and, you know, some hair and a lot of balding or whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

But I just sent you a picture. I just texted you a picture of Doug Marshall.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, cool. Thank you. Take a look at that.

[Luke Burbank]

I think he's really pulling off not having a ton of hair. It helps that he's in one of.

[Andrew Walsh]

My favorite bands, but I just feel.

[Luke Burbank]

Like he's just like a cool dude and his hair is a little. Actually kind of a little long for the fact that he doesn't have a lot on top. But it just looks cool to me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hmm. I'm waiting for that to come through.

[Luke Burbank]

Sorry.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm definitely a cool dude. There's no doubt about that.

[Luke Burbank]

Without a doubt.

[Andrew Walsh]

What I'm getting at here, Luke, is the sun can be your enemy. Because this is where I sometimes forget that I'm a bald. Lot of surface area. I go outside and I trim the hedges for seven or eight hours in the sun on whatever that was Saturday, which was a nice sunny day, but not a brutally hot day. And I'm just. I never think about sunscreen or anything like that. And again, I'm not fully bald. Like, it's not like a chrome dome up there. So I can't just like, easily rub or spray, you know, or slather. What other things can we say that would be a real turn off for everybody listening? But. But anyway, so I don't even think about. I go out there, I just do my work. And then at the end of the day, I come in and I go to take a shower. The really good kind of shower where you can literally see the dirt coming off of your body into the tub.

[Luke Burbank]

Very satisfying.

[Andrew Walsh]

So satisfying. But you're like, ooh. You know that feeling you get when you get under the hot water and you get a. You have a little bit of a sunburn or whatever. You feel that on your shoulders, your arms, whatever. Now I feel on the top of my head, I'm like, ooh, ooh, ooh. That's a little singy. Okay. Yeah. But now this is so. That's not great. It's not the worst. It wasn't super, super painful or anything. But then about. I'm going to Say, midday yesterday and now well into today into this morning. I am peeling, and I am peeling in this area where I am bald, but there's still some hair. And it is about the worst look and feeling because it probably kind of.

[Luke Burbank]

Looks possibly as dandruffy, Right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Very dandruffy. I feel like you and I should be in one of those commercials in the 90s where we're being very jocular and kind of busting each other's chops a little bit. But then you throw me a head and shoulders. You're like, you got to try this, dude. Because where we're going, we want to keep the snow on the slopes. You know what? I'm going to keep the flakes on the slopes.

[Luke Burbank]

We're in the locker room. We've just gotten done playing. Playing racquetball.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And we're in the locker room at the. At the gym.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And I. Out of. Out of the spirit of friendship, but also in a kind of, like you said, a little bit of a ball busty way.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm handing you a bottle of Head and Shoulders.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly. And we're really just straight out of the 1980s. Yeah. So anyway, that's what's going on with me. I'm just saying if I were writing those commercials, and I'm not saying I would want to take that job, and I'm not saying I like those commercials, but I would remind men in my situation how awful it is when you get a sunburn on your head and you get this peeling situation going on. Because peeling anywhere in the body isn't great. But this is a. This is a rough look I am trying to pull off on this Wednesday.

[Luke Burbank]

Are you now planning for, like, future projects to just kind of always wear a ball cap if it's a sunny day?

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, you saying that reminds me. I wasn't totally blindsided by this because I did go out there with a ball cap, and I remember even thinking, oh, you know what? You get sunburned on your head sometimes. You should wear a ball cap. And I wore a really loose fitting one, one that Genevieve got me with a little robot playing darts on it that she made.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, nice.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, she made the design and then had the hat made. But anyway, I put on the most comfortable one I could think of for this kind of work, but immediately I had to take it off. I get so hot with a hat. With a hat on. I remember we were reading that Reader's Digest Factoids article a long time ago, which is very dubious. And they Said that the whole claim that like heat escapes through your head is a. Is not true. Really, Like a. It's like. Yeah. What would you call that? Like an old rumor or whatever. Old wives tale. But I think it's gotta be true. I am. I run like 10 degrees hotter if I have a hat on. And so I did wear a hat out to start the work this weekend, but it came off almost immediately when.

[Luke Burbank]

We were in upstate, or not upstate New York, but the Hudson Valley. We were actually on like Saturday. We had a little time before our flight, so we stopped off, off in Sleepy Hollow, New York to go visit where, like, Washington Irving's grave is. Boy, you want to talk about a town that is really defined by one story. It's like the high school is like Washington Irving High School. You know, the graveyard is. You know, there's tours going through to look at his grave. Like, the high school is the Horseman.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that makes sense.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, as you might imagine, like, it's like the entire. It's like, what if he hadn't written the legend of Sleepy Hollow? Would this town even exist?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So his grave is there, I don't think.

[Luke Burbank]

Which is ironic because it's also the graveyard from the story where the Headless Horseman.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, I don't think I realized, like, I knew that he was from that area and that, you know, obviously that he. He wrote that. It's not actually called the Headless Horse. And what is his story called? The Legend of Ichab.

[Luke Burbank]

Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

[Andrew Walsh]

Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Okay. But I don't think I realized that the. That is based on an actual place that is named Sleepy Hollow irl and that the graveyard is actually IRL and referenced in there. So that is kind of. Was he born there as well?

[Luke Burbank]

You know what? I don't know the answer to that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I could double check.

[Luke Burbank]

But it's. It was interesting because we're in the. The graveyard there in Sleepy Hollow. The point of this is that I got so hot walking because we had parked our car kind of in town, actually in Tarrytown, New York. Tarrytown, New York and Sleepy Hollow kind of bump up against each other. They're both actually quite lovely little towns. So we went to this, like, farmer's market in Tarrytown. And then we walked over. It was like a mile to the graveyard. So we figured we get a little walk in. And it was so hot, I was not prepared for it. To the point where when I was walking in the graveyard, I got so hot I had to take My sunglasses off.

[Andrew Walsh]

Whoa.

[Luke Burbank]

It was like I couldn't have anything on my face. Slash head region. It was like I was trying to explain to Becca. I was like, I know this seems crazy, but these sunglasses are making me even hotter. I have to take them off right now.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you didn't mean that they just made you look hotter, which they also did. Probably.

[Luke Burbank]

They kind of probably did. See the Ray Bans.

[Andrew Walsh]

Pretty classic. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I've got to be very careful with the sunglasses that I buy, because if they're round, it plays into the fact that my face tends to be a little round anyway.

[Andrew Walsh]

If they're round, they should be kind of big. That's one thing I've realized with my own face, which has its own issues, obviously, as I've been told many times. But, like, I had some roundish, especially round sunglasses. And if they're too small, you can really start creeping into the Dr. Strangelove territory. You know what I mean? I mean, if you're pulling it off, you can look like kind of a writer. Like, I'm trying to think who. The famous writers that Philip Seymour Hoffman played. Who.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, Truman Capote.

[Andrew Walsh]

You could get into some. You know, if you can pull it off and get into some Truman Capote.

[Luke Burbank]

Got to do the voice, though, if you're gonna. If you're gonna go. You gotta go full Capote.

[Andrew Walsh]

Never. Never go full Capote. But. But anyway, yeah, I just think that, like, you really need them. Was I telling you this on the show recently? Or maybe I said this in the hey Dummies video that was asking about glasses recently. Um, but, like, I really feel like the early 2000s was a tough time for all of us who wore glasses because we were all wearing glasses that were too small. The trend was to have these very small and kind of squarish glasses that did not complement our faces. And I am only realizing this in hindsight, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

Washington Irving was born in Manhattan and grew up there. He did die in Tarrytown, New York. And he is buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, which, again, the thing that's funny about that is there's a sign in that cemetery that said that's basically quoting something from the short story. And it's basically saying, like, this is the cemetery that the headless horseman roams in in the Sleepy Hollow story by Washington Irving. And then he would later end up being buried there himself. Like, he wrote about this legend of this cemetery. And then it is also his final resting place, which is kind of interesting.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is his final resting place. Because he made it famous. But I'm just wondering how that. And I'm not asking you this as if you should know, although you did visit it, and I did, so you should know better than me. But, like, if he never lived there actually in Sleepy Hollow, it was kind of like a decision was made.

[Luke Burbank]

He did live there. Eventually he died in Tarrytown. He was born and grew up in Manhattan, but I get the sense he moved to that area.

[Andrew Walsh]

To that area. So Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow are they.

[Luke Burbank]

Almost imagine them as the same place.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, they're the same place. Okay, well, then that makes a little bit more sense, because I was just wondering, did he like, hey, I made this place famous. When I die, I want to be buried there, or what have you, or did somebody else make the decision on his behalf? Behalf.

[Luke Burbank]

The thing that's funny is, like, so you walk out of the cemetery, and there is a gas station that's just like a very normal, kind of crummy gas station. But it's called, like, the Sleepy Hollow Gas Station.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right?

[Luke Burbank]

So it's, like, totally trying to celebrate Sleepy Hollow, except it just has, like, giant window clings for buzz balls, Right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

It's the most unlike Sleepy Hollow thing you could ever have. It's just like a shitty gas station that's selling malt liquor, but it's trying to do it vaguely in the spirit of Washington Irving.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's. Oh, I don't know if this is gonna scan, but it almost is like the equivalent of, like, when you're in a place that has gambling. And so there's a slot machine in a gas station, sort of. You're like, well, this doesn't really belong here, but I guess we're in Vegas. And so you're like, well, I'm in Sleepy Hollow. I guess the Citgo should be the Sleepy Hollow Sitgo.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. And there also was the gas station district. Here's what we noticed. Boy, this is so much more detail about Sleepy Hollow, New York, than anybody asked for today. But when you leave the cemetery, you see the first. You see the first gas station that's like. This is the legend. It's literally called, like, the Legend of Sleepy Hollow Gas Station. But again, that's where. But it's not like it's not turn of the century. It's not Gas lamp.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

It's like, that's it. They just are calling it the Legend of Sleepy Hollow Gas Station. And that is where the sort of, like, verisimilitude ends.

[Andrew Walsh]

If they have those big buzz Balls. They should at least have, like a headless horseman and have the buzz ball in the crook of his arm as if it was the way he shooted his head.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a real missed opportunity. But then you go past that gas station and across the street, there are three more gas stations. And then on the side of the street that we were walking on, where the Sleepy Hollow gas station is, there's about two more gas. We counted, I think six or seven gas stations in a one block, maybe two block stretch of. I guess this may have been technically, back in Tarrytown, New York, if anybody lives out there, can you explain to me what is up with the gas station district? Why are there, like, it seems like a zoning thing. Like, this was the only street where you're allowed to have a gas station.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I'm about to go, you know, out over my skis here, please. But there is an economic thing, theory about clustering, like, businesses together.

[Luke Burbank]

The Mattress District.

[Andrew Walsh]

The Mattress district. You'd think, well, you wouldn't want your competition right across the street. But there, I mean, there must be some sort of a law of diminishing returns when it comes to that. But. But that could be it. Like, maybe spreading them out isn't necessarily the best economic model for them.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe they're all pulling from the same giant underground tank.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

They just had to all be sort of in the same area. All that is to say, Tarrytown, New York, and Sleepy Hollow. Absolutely lovely places, but so hot, so warm that I had to take the sunglasses off and compose myself. We also, you know, I don't want to sound snooty, but, you know, it's the kind of. The big draw of this cemetery is that Washington Irving is buried there. And that also it's written about in this short story. And we were trying to find his grave and we weren't with a tour group, and there weren't any really super clearly marked signs.

[Andrew Walsh]

Really.

[Luke Burbank]

So we're kind of wandering around this cemetery and we bump into another couple that has like a little map of the graveyard or something. They're obviously tourists as well. And I said, did you? I go, do you guys know where Washington Irving's grave is? And they were like, who's that? And it's like, what are you even doing in this cemetery? Are you looking for a different, less famous person in the sleep? Like, the guy did not know who Washington Irving was. The. The raison d' etre of this entire area.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I guess cemetery, though, I mean, they could just be Looking for somebody who's buried there. But. But if you have a loved one buried.

[Luke Burbank]

Touristy to me, like they, like I said, they had this little kind of touristy map. They just. They didn't seem like they were, you know, carrying flowers or they were there to visit. They were wandering.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And I just thought it was funny that they were in this graveyard without any awareness of the whole thing about this graveyard that's kind of noteworthy.

[Andrew Walsh]

I wonder if they were looking for the grave of the guy who wrote the Headless Horseman but didn't know his name.

[Luke Burbank]

Possible. It was a strange inter. I mean, they weren't rude or anything, but it was just a strange interaction. They didn't. They just seemed to be, I guess maybe cemetery enthusiasts. Less than being, you know, Washington Irving enthusiasts. You know, I was considering. Not to change the topic here, but I was actually gonna float an idea to you yesterday, which would have been a little bit nutty, but if we wanted to activate the show, I was considering proposing to you that this morning. Now we've already missed the window on this. That I drive down to Ridge Field, Washington. Ridged Chips. Washington, where Washington State's first and currently only In N Out burger has now been open for about 50 minutes this morning.

[Andrew Walsh]

Andrew, I almost texted you at 11pm last night. I had sort of a busy day and then Veebs and I got home around 10:30 and I had to take a shower because I always have to take a shower. And I was re listening to part of tbtl and you mentioned at the beginning of the show, you're like, oh, the In N Out Burger is opening. Maybe I should go and do a. What did you say? A weatherman.

[Luke Burbank]

Traffic jam.

[Andrew Walsh]

Jiminy. Yes, Traffic jam.

[Luke Burbank]

Too early to get a fish sandwich.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I heard you say that on my re. Listen last night in the shower. I'm listening in the shower. I almost texted you from the shower.

[Luke Burbank]

I like the idea of you listening to the show nude.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know. No, I was in the shower. I didn't say it was nude.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I'm sorry. Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Gotcha. Weird. Fully dressed soaking.

[Andrew Walsh]

I picked up my phone, I used my tuxedo sleeve to wipe some of the water off of the road. No, I literally almost texted you at 11 o' clock last night and said, oh, hey, if you want to do the show from the phone or something, just let me know. Like I'll be standing by for that. And then I think I just. My mind wandered and I never texted you. You and I were sort of Dreaming on the same.

[Luke Burbank]

Thinking about the same thing. I thought it might just be kind of funny for me to be reporting to you what the scene is, because this is a big deal down here to the point where the city of Ridgefield, Washington has already made it known that if you are basically hanging out in the in and out parking lot and there's. You're not actually being served, like, the line is too long or you're somehow. If you're like, if you're basically. If you're being a Looky Lou or if you're in line to get to the in and out and the line is stretching out of the parking lot into the road, they will be forcibly moving you and your car. They are not gonna put up with a traffic nightmare in Ridgefield, Washington. Related to all of the people that they're expecting to try to go to this In N Out today.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, the aggressive kind of people who actually. Seattle hasn't had this for the longest time, but now they have them. They used to have them at the Boston airport all the time. The very aggressive, like, I don't know if they're police officers or some sort of security that, like, do not let you sit in your car for long.

[Luke Burbank]

You want to talk about professional holler.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my God, you got to keep moving. And they got. They just got to have this tone. Otherwise, people. And I got to say, people who are trying to pick up, you know, drivers who are trying to pick people up at the airport often are like, completely oblivious to the other people's needs around them and the other cars around them. People can be very rude there. So I sort of appreciate somebody who's hollering and keeping people moving, but that's what I'm sort of picturing on whatever strode this fast food restaurant is on.

[Luke Burbank]

This is the official news release from the city of Ridgefield, Washington. Ridgefield In N Out Burger will keep customer vehicle lines off public roads. The city of Ridgefield has worked closely with In N Out Burger to ensure that all queues for the restaurant will be kept off public roads, minimizing disruptions for residents and businesses during the restaurant's anticipated high traffic opening period. While the city does not know exactly when In N Out Burger will open, we want to assure residents and visitors that they are able to safely navigate travel to and through Ridgefield. Like, this is such an event that the city has to get in front of what is going to be. This is, by the way, also next to where the new Costco is. This is how you know that I Live in ex Serbia, because, like, people.

[Andrew Walsh]

Got a new Costco.

[Luke Burbank]

God, new Costco smell. Just smell those Kirkland brand jeans. Just the new, but in a brand spanking new Costco. I am a member of that Costco, by the way.

[Andrew Walsh]

I went into a Costco, I stormed out. Like, I don't. Every time I go to a Costco, I don't storm. Like, I got into a fight with anybody. I just. I just can't be in those stores. And the thing is, I think the thing about the Costco experience is you're supposed to go and be open to the Costco universe and just like, see what comes to you. It's like, like, I always use this example of, like, I don't know if this is still true, probably. But like, when you're in the mood to watch a specific movie and then you sit down, you're like, Netflix, I pay for you. I want to watch this movie, or HBO or whatever. The movie is never there. It's just kind of like you can't really find things on streaming platforms. You just have to take what they're offering you. And I feel like maybe that's the thing with Costco, because every time I go there and I need something, I needed these, you know, big fold out tables that we use for my volunteer gig. My job is tables. Luke, right there with you. One of my tables broke. Literally, one of the tables broke, and so I had to go to get a new one. Everybody's like, oh, go to Costco. They're great. You know, you can kind of picture this, right? Six foot folding table, like, very basic thing that you'd set up at a picnic or something. And I'm like, well, this is a very easy thing to find there. And I go in, I ask one person, like, I don't know if we have that. If we do it be, I guess, sort of in that area. And they just sort of gesture.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm really surprised because Costco is famous for its customer service. I mean, truly, like, I mean, nobody.

[Andrew Walsh]

Was rude, but it's like, nobody knows what they sell. They're just like, I don't know. If we had it, it would probably be over there. And then I asked two different. And then I went and I looked.

[Luke Burbank]

My specialty is putting your stuff in a box that used to have tomatoes in it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And I just. And so then I go and ask another person after searching for 20 minutes, and then he sort of just, oh. And like, he's. I can never find anybody to help me there. And so I asked Somebody who's, like, serving, I don't know, samples of Tater Tots or whatever the f they do. And then I'm like, hey, you know, I just hate the whole. And I know that it's a decent company, supposedly. Although, yeah, I did just see them in the news yesterday. They're no. Under some sort of pressure, so they're no longer selling some sort of abortion pill.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, they said they're not going to stock Methopristone.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So anyway, but generally speaking, I've heard, like, good place to work, good to their. Good to their employees and all that stuff. I'm not trying to take them down as a company, and I don't think I could. I'm just saying that it must take a certain kind of personality type, because being in there is, like, torture to. To me, I can never find people. I can never find the thing I'm looking for. Maybe I shouldn't be in there looking for a thing. But I can't tell you how many times I go in and then I just leave. I'm just like, why did I even try that again?

[Luke Burbank]

You know, I have sort of the opposite response. Like, I wish that my lifestyle necessitated more or in some way required the sheer amount of stuff, you know, that you get when you go to Costco. In other words, I'm still, like, from. From going to Costco with Becca six months ago. I'm still trying to work through this shredded parmesan cheese.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right. I also hate that. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, because I, you know, primarily live alone. And so for me, it's like. Like I have a wheel of gouda that I haven't opened that's, like, sealed in plastic. That could feed, you know, it could feed a family for like a. You know, for a week or something that also, I got at that Costco. So, like, the problem for me is I actually really enjoy the experience of being in a Costco, but I don't need the stuff that they sell. I don't need that amount of anything because I don't have a family with a bunch of kids. But I don't find it unpleasant to be there. It sounds like you find it really unpleasant.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, here's the deal, because when I'm shopping, I like to be sort of strategic. I like to be targeted. I like to target what I'm going for. Remember, I used to make my grocery list even before I had an app to do it. I would write that. I would write all of my stuff in order on the grocery list based on my knowledge of the geography of the grocery store. I like to go in with a plan. Get this and that and the other thing that drives me probably the older I get and the, let's see, more appealing I get. No, the crankier I get as I get older. One of the things that is becoming, maybe my number one complaint about my fellow Americans is just an absolute lack of self awareness and the physicality that you're taking up in, in the world.

[Luke Burbank]

And like people just go, is ground zero.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, I literally, I'm behind somebody with my shopping cart and not, not zipping through even fast and oh, that's right, it didn't even involve me. But I just watched this woman, she's standing there in line and then has some notion and just starts walking backwards with her cart. And I, I watch this as she sl. Man and his cart. And it's just like the whole thing is like that you can be looking for something and somebody will just be pushing their cart in front of you and then just stop dead in the middle of the aisle because they, they see.

[Luke Burbank]

But they're small shopping carts.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh yeah, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

They're minis.

[Andrew Walsh]

I got me a cart, it says Big as a whale. We all have our friends.

[Luke Burbank]

That funky little purchase.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's just my absolute nightmare of just people being. I'm in my own world, I'm not paying attention. Anything around me I can. I'm back.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm stopping to have a sample of Muscle Milk.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh my God, it is just like I, I don't know that I can go in anymore.

[Luke Burbank]

Think of it though, she must.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, she loves it. She absolutely loves it.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. No, I mean like again, I, I, and I wish I had more of a reason to go there basically. And the, the other reason, by the way, back to the In N Out. The, the other reason I didn't go is because I don't really eat a lot of that stuff anymore. So it's like, what am I going to get the fries which have. You had?

[Andrew Walsh]

Had.

[Luke Burbank]

You've had an In N Out burger in your lived in la.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now I was gonna ask you like, do you re, do you really think it's a special place or is it just special because of all of the cultural imprint on it? Like everybody freaks out about it when you're in la. You gotta have it. You gotta have it. I did. I wasn't avoiding it. I just never had it. I just.

[Luke Burbank]

You didn't drive over to LAX and get in line for that. In and out.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's actually one Sepulveda there Was one pretty damn near me, I want to say. When I was in Culver City, I think. But anyway, yeah, I just, I don't know, I never had the inclination, I guess.

[Luke Burbank]

I have been there a bunch of times. I mean, when I moved to la, I did go and I do think it's, you know, a pretty, in the words of Samuel L. Jackson, that's a tasty burger. That's from the Capital One ads.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yes.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm doing that just to piss Lynn off. The Citibank, it's the burger. I think the burgers are pretty yummy. But I do think it's very much that kind of thing where if you grow up with it, it's like, it's, it's, you know, it's like dicks or any of those kinds of things where if you grow up with it, you're probably pretty obsessed with it. If you come into it in like adult life, it's just kind of another, you know, it's an elevated fast food hamburger. I would say it's better than, you know, what you're going to get at like Wendy's or something. But, but the fries are terrible.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh really?

[Luke Burbank]

The fries always seem stale and that's like, the fries always seem like they just, they always seem stale. And I know that that's, it's like that's their style. It's intentional. So the fries are not crispy at all. Like a, you know, like a McDonald's french fry or a typical fast food French fry. They're, they're very odd to me. I think the fry, that's, that's the part that I don't get. And I guess maybe if you grew up eating those, you think they're great. But like I don't like the fries. So basically the one thing I would probably get there would be some French fries maybe in a shake or something. But like I don't like the French fries.

[Andrew Walsh]

So it ended up as a non meat eater. Now that's what you would do. And you know, it kind of reminds me first of all that just your description of, hey, if you grow up with something, it means something to you as an outsider, you might just say, hey, it's another restaurant, whatever. That reminds me a little bit of Red Robin, I think. You know, like I moved out here and everybody was shocked. I think you were one of the people was pretty shocked that I'd never been to a Red Robin, even having lived here for a long time. And now, you know, you took me and John Sklaroff to Our first Red Robin experience about three years ago and we have one kind of near our house. So I've probably been maybe four times in my life now, including last night. Oh yeah, me.

[Luke Burbank]

Exciting.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, yes, yes. So we were hanging out with our friend's son last night who's a teenager and he was hanging out while we did after these messages and we wanted to grab some food before we drove him home back to West Seattle. And so we were like, what's kind of a good thing that would kind of like, I don't know, just be a good, like hanging out with a young person for a day. I really, it really underscored how little I think about food. Like, it doesn't mean that I have a good relationship with food or that I have self control or anything like that, or that I have a healthy diet. It's just that I just eat when I think about eating or whatever. There's very rarely a plan. Like, I mean, I guess on Sundays usually I'll tell these, I plan on making this tonight. But generally speaking, we don't sit down at a certain time, we don't think, where's our next meal coming from? And we. I've never been responsible for another human being before. So like before I went to pick up my friend's kid, they were like, okay, well you know, he eats whatever. And I was like, oh, that's right. Eats, eat. We need to work that in the plan. It was no problem. It's just like I never think about it. Then I go to pick them up around three o' clock in the afternoon. Three maybe it was four o'. Clock. And I pick them up and I realize, oh shoot, I haven't even eaten anything today. I had like gone to. And I'm not like you, I'm not like trying to intermittently fast or anything. My day just got.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not doing that anymore, by the way, for the record.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, but in other words, it wasn't, it was just like, oh, I just hadn't thought of it. And then what I'll do is sometimes not think about food for a long time, then get super hungry and. And then I don't know, just slam something into my face. And so anyway, last night I realized, oh, we have to be a little bit thoughtful about like, where are we going to eat? What are we going to do? We're not just going to go grab some, you know, I don't know, dumplings or something. So anyway, we thought that. What a long story. I'll cut all of this out Anyway, we went to Red Robin and I was thinking of you because people are kind of obsessed with that place. And, you know, I got a burger. It was pretty good. What'd you get?

[Luke Burbank]

Which kind of burger?

[Andrew Walsh]

Definitely not for you. It had a bunch of pork on it. I mean, you wouldn't eat any of the meat, but it was like a. It said something was limited time. Anyway, it was something like the backyard barbecue pork burger or something like that. It was a burger that had like bacon and I think maybe some pulled pork on it and some other healthy things. It was on the heart smart menu. But the thing is, they serve those.

[Luke Burbank]

It's free if you finish it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. Those bottomless fries that everybody talks about, but they're those steak fries. I have very little interest in steak fries on a general. Oh, I just, I'm not a huge.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you know why? Because they're a ranch. They're a ranch dip delivery system.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's what I was going to say. When I'm there, I do get a little excited about them because of all the dipping sauces. Like, I am there for the dipping sauces. And I was like, can I get as many of these as I want? They're like, yeah. And so like I got like four or five different dipping sauces and I liked combining the different sauces on one fry. And I wasn't even thinking about the potatoes. I don't think I like potatoes that much. I think I just like dipping sauce.

[Luke Burbank]

And you've been trying to. You told me this off air that you've been kind of chasing the dragon on. The first time that you and John and I went and that we had this really nice server. This was over by my parents place in Silverdale and we had a really awesome server who just like brought out a veritable smorgasbord of different dips. And that you've been kind of trying to recreate that without success.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, because the last time I went, I was like, oh, yeah, you can bring out a whole bunch of sauces. Right. And they, they seem confused by that notion, but they didn't seem to have it listed on the menu at that time. I don't know what my problem was. I will 100% chalk that up to me and my inexperience at places like that. But yesterday I found a little part of the menu that listed all the different sauces you can get. And some are free and some are a few cents or I don't know what it is, a buck per sauce or whatever. And so it was the first time since that very special date three years ago when you took me and John where it was sauces a wild, sauces a go go. And it really. I chased that Dr. And I caught that dragon and I ate that dragon last night. It was good.

[Luke Burbank]

Now I'm like wondering where the nearest red robin to me. Yeah, yeah, I know where the In N Out is. And by the way, it's funny because even though I probably won't be going to that In N Out very frequently and certainly not for the next six months, because it's going to be. It's just going to be a zoo from morning until night, from the moment it opens. But I did feel a weird surge of pride that it's the only one in Washington. What a weird thing to be proud about.

[Andrew Walsh]

And what a weird place to decide to open the first one in Washington. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I, you know, obviously they do some amount of market research. What was funny was I. There have been multiple news articles about this In N Out burger, Andrew. And in one of them that I was reading the. I don't know, somebody with the company was asked, are you considering putting one closer to Seattle? And his answer was no.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really? I had heard a rumor that there was coming, so I guess that's wrong. I was going to ask you that.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm. This one article that I read and who knows if that's, you know, if that's the official line or not. But like, I just. It's funny that they decided to put it in all the way down here and that I felt somehow a sense of pride, which is like, I had nothing to do with this and I'll never go to it. I think it's because I just live in such a kind of a weird, kind of odd little sort of Bermuda Triangle of places. I'm kind of in between a number of local, kind of small towns. A couple of them are fairly unremarkable. It's like, I mean, I really love where I live, the actual particular physical piece of property I'm on. And, you know, the river is quite beautiful. So, like, I'm happy with it, but it's like, I do feel like it's a little bit of a weird place to live. And when I hear that we're getting something like an In N Out for some reason, and it makes me feel proud. It's a strange reaction.

[Andrew Walsh]

I love it, though. It means you're really taken to the culture, as we like to say.

[Luke Burbank]

I guess it's weird. Yeah. I don't Know, you know, I'm still making up my mind exactly about, like, if I'm gonna fully, like. I went to the library down in my. In my local town the other day.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And that was kind of fun. Now, the reason I was in the library, Andrew, was because I was trying to. To print out some. I was trying to print out the return receipts for those stupid mono suitcases. I was trying to mail them.

[Andrew Walsh]

Were you on the go when you remembered you had to print something? Because why wouldn't you? Just as we know you're surrounded by printers at home. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, what happened was, okay, I have these. I was about to go out of town, so I had these stupid suitcases that I bought. Changed my mind, tried to stop the delivery of all within the 20 minutes after hitting buy, and was never allowed to just cancel the order. So. And they're in these huge boxes. These are large. This is a couple of, like, pretty large suitcases. So I put them in the back of my car because I'm trying to get them in the mail before I leave for my trip because I don't want to come back from England and have these monos people be like, sorry, you missed your window of time to return them. So I had like a really busy, like, Saturday or something. I was supposed to go down and meet Becca. I was running kind of behind, but I was like, I have to deal with this. This suitcase thing. So I get these three. I mean, almost the back. I just have a little Mazda. But like, my. The back of my car almost couldn't hold these three boxes. That's how huge they are. I throw them in the back of the car. I drive the opposite direction of Portland because I got to go down to the UPS store. And then I carry these like I.

[Andrew Walsh]

Am listening to you, but there is a giant spider crawling on my wall. So if you see me doing weird things on the camera, just you go ahead with your story. I'm taking care of some spider bits business over here. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Are you.

[Luke Burbank]

Are you phobic about spiders? What is your relationship with spiders?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't like them. I don't like them. I don't like. I don't like them in my house is what I was going to say, but then it occurred to me I wouldn't like them if I was in their house either. I am not a fan. This is a. It's not a particularly huge one. I'm going to say it's about the size of smaller than a quarter. Okay. It's going on the other Wall. Now I may need to, I may need to take care of this before it's out of reach. Usually I would grab a vacuum and vacuum it up, but I don't go.

[Luke Burbank]

Get it and I'll just tell the story into the void. Okay. So basically I was like, it was very inconvenient for me to try to return these suitcases to this UPS store, but I needed to get this done before I went out of town. So I throw all this stuff in the back of my car. I drive the opposite direction of going to Becca's house, I guess. Spider one, Andrew zero. Was that the sound of you? Was that the sound of you killing the spider or was that the spider reacting to your dandruff?

[Andrew Walsh]

That was me getting eaten by the spider. Sorry, go ahead.

[Luke Burbank]

So anyway, I have a lot of thoughts about this UPS store, Andrew, because I use it a lot. Because unfortunately, unlike you and Genevieve who sound like you've been weaning yourself off of Amazon and other delivery services.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh yeah. I think today is either the last day of our Amazon prime or the first day that we are no longer prime members because it ran.

[Luke Burbank]

Mazel tov. Good for you. But I'm in this store a lot because it's not just Amazon stuff. It's just, I just order a lot of things online. And then, you know, the way that the world works now is if you, if you don't like it, typically most of these places have a fairly straightforward return process. And so I end up in this UPS store a lot. And I have thoughts. One of the thoughts is they should not also be a notary.

[Andrew Walsh]

Andrew, we talked about this off air, right? I couldn't, I couldn't disagree more. They've saved my bacon so many times.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, my bacon has been boiled too many times when I'm just trying to return something. And there's like two people that work at this UPS store and one of them is knee deep in the hoopla of how somebody's refinancing their mortgage. And this notary, like this, this person is like doing this whole notary process with these people. It's very time consuming for the employee and it takes them out of circulation. So the line will be going, it's like an in and out, Andrew. The line will be coming out of the UPS store going down the like sidewalk of the strip mall because one of the employees, it's not their fault, but one of the employees is in like a one hour long notary situation.

[Andrew Walsh]

They're never, I mean, I know you're Exaggerating. But like, we've. We've gone to the UPS store by our house a couple of times for like some notary stuff. And it's like, like, it is. I mean, it's more than shipping a package, but it's like 10 minutes at the very top.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, maybe it feels long to me, but of course, time is a flat circle and I'm a, you know, I'm an impatient sort. So I. It's impossible for me to carry all three of these huge cardboard boxes that have the suitcases inside them. Right. Like, so I kind of am awkwardly. I've got the two big ones and I'm kind of trying to, like, whatever, with the crook of my arm hold on to the third box and I'm dropping it and it's like very awkward. I can't open the door to the UPS store. I get in there and it's like a crazy line because one of the UPS employees is doing a notary and I find. And then I'm like, I'm like shuffling with these boxes and again, time is ticking. I'm supposed to already be halfway to Portland to visit with Becca. And I get up to the front and I've got all the like, return labels printed out. And I go, like, I need to return these. And they go, oh, yeah, we don't do that here. You got to take these to a usps. You got to take these to a post office. So I was like, you got. And it's a Saturday, so guess what? All the post offices are closed. So it's just like, ah. So cut to. It's like a day or two later or whatever. I guess it's probably Monday and I really gotta get these things out of my life before I go on this trip because then, like I said, they may not actually accept them when I get back. So I go to the little post office down in my town. But somehow when I'm print, when I've printed out these return labels at my house, I've done it incorrectly. It doesn't have the right barcode. There's just some complicating factors. And the very nice person at the post office. It was fun just to be in a post office. I haven't been in a post office in forever. I know you do it semi frequently.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But she was very helpful. But she said, you know where you can print is the library next door.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a good hack.

[Luke Burbank]

And so I went into the library and very nice folks working there, and I said, hey, I need to print Something. Do I need to get a library card? They said, you don't have to. But I said, well, can I sign up for one? They said, sure. Just like being a part of my local library. And then I printed out these little labels. It was super easy. And then the librarian handed me the printouts. And then I was almost out the door when she said, oh, sir, it's 8 cents per page or something. And I was like, oh, sorry. And I had a dollar. And I want to say, you know, for the three labels, it was whatever, you know, probably 24 cents or something. And I gave her the dollar and I said, can I donate the rest? And she goes, I mean, if you want to. And it was like, everybody calm down. It's 76 cents or whatever. It was like I had shown up with an oversized check for the Kalama library. I mean, she was like Tiny Tim getting that full size goose on Christmas when Scrooge has a change of heart over me giving the rest of my dollar to the library.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did she give you a receipt for your taxes?

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. Would have had I. Had I requested it. I bet you she absolutely would have.

[Andrew Walsh]

So have you ever donated to Goodwill and accepted a receipt? They always ask me that, and I'm always like, I wouldn't even. And again, item. I used to itemize some things on my taxes, but it just got a little bit complicated. And I think these days you have to have so many things to itemize to even make it worth the, you know, to even match the minimum deduction anyway. So it's like, it's just not even worth it to me anymore. But. But I have been donating things to Goodwill since I was knee high to a grasshopper, and I've never accepted and getting the receipt. No, I've never accepted the receipt. I don't even know what it would look like. How would they estimate the value of what you've donated?

[Luke Burbank]

Every time I go to the Goodwill in my town to drop some stuff off, as I'm in line, I start to panic that for some reason they're not going to accept the stuff I'm giving them. And it's not because it's particularly gross or anything. It just, it's. It's because I would personally never probably buy, I don't know, my dish towels from. I mean, I grew up in a house where we literally never bought anything new. Everything was from Goodwill. Maybe that's what my adult life is a reaction to. But, like, I will be giving them a bunch of old T shirts that have gotten A little ratty, or maybe I just don't like the way that they fit anymore. So something about throwing them in the garbage feels kind of wasteful. But also they don't seem like a high quality item. And I always think when that very nice person at the Goodwill comes out to meet me and I'm opening the back, you know, lift gate of my car, whatever you call it, the hatch, I always think they're gonna go, oh, nobody wants that.

[Andrew Walsh]

We've had that happen before with some, like, kind of diner chairs that I would call kind of vintage Y, but they had, like, a little crack on it. And they said, we can't accept this because, like, the material. What would you call that? What. What are those diner chairs? What are they made of? Like, the cushion?

[Luke Burbank]

Vinyl?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, like, kind of vinyl or whatever was kind of cracked, but not like we were using it up until that point. And it wasn't like a super ugly chair. I thought somebody could potentially even maybe reupholster it. Maybe. That's crazy talk, but they're just like, no, that breaks our rules. We can't. Or, you know, doesn't break our rules, but we can't accept that. I gotta say, that is a really bad feeling. I. I often am donating things, so I'm used to just, like, having a handful of things and walking into a Goodwill and putting it in a B. But it sort of seems like around here, those opportunities around here is. Are not as. I don't know, there's a lot more of the Goodwills around here. You have to wait in line with your car, and then you pull up to somebody and then, like. And then they help you unload your car, maybe, or you unload it yourself and you dump all this stuff in these big bins. But. So it's like waiting for a ferry. You're, like, in this long line of cars. And I'm really sorry to be, like, kind of cranky old man today, but it really does play into the same sort of situational awareness or lack thereof that I see in, well, all around me, but in places like Costco. But like, the Goodwill that I go to is in Shoreline. And I don't know if you can picture it, Luke, but the drop off is sort of in the back of the Goodwill. So there's this line of cars that is on the side street until eventually you sort of pull into this little driveway area in the queue before you can kind of like, drop your stuff off. And there is a way to make that work very efficiently. It says you know, there's a sign that says pull up here for dropping off. And the sign is way forward forward. But everybody stops about three car lengths before that and they drop off all of their stuff there and they're holding up the line and they don't leave enough room for anybody to drive around them. There's just like this huge backup of people donating stuff. And it doesn't have to be a huge backup at all. It's just like they're. Nobody is paying attention to the cars behind them. And it is infuriating. As I'm sitting there steaming in my car watching people just like stop in the middle of the way. Nobody can go around them. There's this huge backup on the road. They're not pulling forward to the sign where they should be pulling up. And I get so frustrated. I feel so. I don't. I don't like waiting in lines. I especially hate waiting in lines in a car. Maybe one of the reasons I don't like the ferry. I feel very trapped. I feel claustrophobic. Once you're in that line, you're kind of like, I'm trapped here. If anything were to happen, I can't back up and I can't go forward. And just seeing all of these people not paying any attention to how this could be an efficient system drives me bananas. Having said that, last time I was in that line, I saw some guy like slowly unloading the stuff from his truck, which could have been so much more efficient. But then the one of the last things he grabs is a big ass pillow. I'm like, dude, they're not taking that. They're not taking that. And they didn't. And I was very pleased to see him rejected because they would have rejected my pillow as well. And I didn't appreciate him. Him slowly emptying out his truck and just like blocking the line for so long.

[Luke Burbank]

If you do need pillows, though, Andrew Costco is your place, I have to say. Like, they have a massive selection of pillows and they're reasonably priced. I feel like pillows. I just bought some kind of nicer new pillows. I bought them off of Instagram, of course, and I feel like they've really changed my life. I feel like pillows are one of those things that isn't a big deal in your life that you kind of never think about.

[Andrew Walsh]

One thing I wanted to mention to you is the Sleepy Hollow cemetery has a huge long list of notable burials. So I'm wondering if that's one of the reasons why, even though obviously the main headliners as I'm saying, well, Samuel.

[Luke Burbank]

Gompers appears to be buried there. The union organizer.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Andrew Carnegie is apparently buried there. You have maybe the original. Let's see here. A bunch of.

[Luke Burbank]

I love that you're going to bat for this random couple.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was just sorting of. I was just sort. This is way back when we were talking about. I'm just like, oh, I wonder if somebody else is buried there. I was expecting maybe one other, but it's like there's this notable burials list on Wikipedia and it's like super, super, super long. I don't recognize most of the names, but I think the first Chrysler is buried there. Some Carnegies. Anyway, a whole bunch of very kind of famous people are buried there. So maybe people just like go there because it's a famous cemetery. But I'm still with you. It's still called the damn Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Like there's no getting around that.

[Luke Burbank]

Washington. Washington Irving. Never heard of him.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Thank you, baby.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, let's thank some donors who are keeping TBTL in business. Andrew, before the show off air, on deep background, you and I were talking about some. The podcast industry and various machinations in the industry. And we were, as we often are, we were struck by how fortunate we are that somehow the TBTL business model appears to be functioning. Like thanks to the generosity of the TBTL listeners supporting the show, we were able to do so 100% listener supported. We don't have any ads and it's because nobody has asked to put an ad on the show.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is not true.

[Luke Burbank]

That is not true. Okay, fair point. It is. We think it's a better product without ads and we're able to do that because of people like Mary Simpson and Seattle Washington content.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And I Can I just piggyback on what you were saying, Please take away from Mary. But it is true that literally before the show, this was not performative in any way. Without getting in the details of.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I'm trying to be vague.

[Andrew Walsh]

Another kind of podcast that's kind of transitioning right now. And I was getting some details about where they are and they have a very different business model than us, but it's a much more difficult business model and it's not a model that would work work for us because we are uniquely small and I really appreciate that the listeners, you know, appreciate what we're doing, that we have any listeners at all. But the thing is, if we tried to do this podcast with the business model that other podcasts do, it would simply not exist. We just don't have that. And with every passing year, maybe even every passing day, I realize how unique our situation is. That is 100% voluntarily, listener supported. And before the show today, I told you, I'm just like. It just makes me so grateful that our listeners step up to keep this thing going because without them, it seriously would not exist.

[Luke Burbank]

It is just an absolute miracle. And we are extremely grateful for folks like Barbie Devere in Nevada City, California. See what they did there?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Twist ending there, there.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And then we have Ron and Dana Blascovich who are in California City, Nevada.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is.

[Luke Burbank]

So we've had this interesting symmetry going on the last couple of days. No, they're in Corvallis. Ding. Ron and Dana are in Corvallis. Thank you, Ron and Dana. Thanks to Kit Healy in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This is a chance for me to mention, speaking of the Twin Cities, I'm gonna be in the Twin Cities, maybe even seeing Kit Healy at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. That's September 26th. Maria Bamford will be there. Special surprise guests that we're not allowed to promote. That's what a cool surprise guest they are. They said they'll be on the show, but we can't actually announce them. So maybe we'll see you there. Please come out. It's a big theater. We gotta sell a lot of tickets. Also thanks to Cynthia Wilcox in Aurora, New York.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's also cool.

[Luke Burbank]

I wonder how close to Aurora, New York, I was when I was in the Hudson Valley. I wonder where. Aurora, New York. I did drive through Shrub Oak, which is where our friends the Thalers are.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, it was. I was on the freeway. I saw an exit sign for Shrub Oak. I thought about pulling off, but I then I thought, you know, maybe it would be kind of rude we should call ahead for those things.

[Andrew Walsh]

A lot of beautiful wooden boats in that area, I hear.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. And also Cynthia Wilcox in the Aurora, New York area. And then, of course, Jesse Wesson is in Burlington, Washington. Hey, Jesse. I was just emailing with Jesse the other day. Jesse, hope everything is going well for you, buddy. And thank you so much for supporting the show. It means so much to us. We could not do this without y'.

[Andrew Walsh]

All. Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

You were hot to talk about this story, Andrew. The fact that, that msnbc, which is being spun off from NBC and Comcast, it's. It's part of this package of channels that are now going to be their own company. I was looking this up, that there it is owned still by Comcast shareholders.

[Andrew Walsh]

I had a feeling that they weren't, they weren't selling it. It's still.

[Luke Burbank]

They're not selling it to someone else.

[Andrew Walsh]

Connection but it has to be its own business business now.

[Luke Burbank]

And they're calling it Versant as in like to be conversant. The parent company is is named Versant and they are going to change the name of MSNBC to Ms. Now. Which what does that stand for again?

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm trying to have in front of me but it is. That is the worst part of it for me is like I don't even know where to begin. But it stands for my source News Opinion World. Luke, how would you not know that Ms. Now doesn't stand for my Source news? How would you not know that Ms. Now stands for my source news Opinion World? It's like such a.

[Luke Burbank]

Is there a Mr. Now?

[Andrew Walsh]

That is the joke on Blue sky which is maybe why I was hot to try to talk about it. Like I the I learned this news because I think I saw like like five blue skis in a row that said is there a Mr. Now? And I was like what is everybody talking about? I actually think it's a really good.

[Luke Burbank]

Joke but I want you to know that I made that independent of the Blue sky jokes.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I told you that joke when I said I wanted to tell you talk about this story on the show on Monday.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I was making in my mind before you told me sounds good before you even heard about this.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was making a joke in my mind anyway. It's just like I don't like reversing. I mean I understand some of the thought process. I think behind they had to rebrand. They were for their hand was forced and they don't want to rebrand into something that is so unrecognizable. Like remember when like Philip Morris became like Altria Altria or something like that worked for them because they wanted to distance themselves.

[Luke Burbank]

Well they were hoping you would not notice they were Fort Morris anymore.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is like the opposite of that that they have to change their name. But I am guessing that and I include myself amongst the olds when I say this. I'm not trying to be ageist but like I think that the demographic for the you know, viewership For MSNBC/Miss now is probably on the older side. And again I'm including myself in that and like the world can get a little confusing with everything on streaming and where do you find this? Where do I find my football games? Where do I find my baseball games? Everything is sort of like, like being increasingly difficult to find. And I think they wanted to keep as close to MSNBC as possible for those of us who have trouble tracking things down. As I also saw somebody say on Blue sky, everybody get ready to explain to your mom where Rachel is. And that's really good. So I guess I understand they didn't want to go too far away. It's still Ms. And then three letters, you know, they only had to change.

[Luke Burbank]

Two, which is kind of funny because the Ms. Is for Microsoft.

[Andrew Walsh]

For Microsoft. I always thought it was sort of a goofy name, but I don't know, man. But then reverse engineering an acronym which is something they do in Congress a lot for special bills or whatever. Like, it's always painful, you know.

[Luke Burbank]

Oddly enough, I am not as bothered by this as a lot of other people are. Like, I feel like I will adjust pretty quickly.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean it is, it is a bit odd that the remnant of Microsoft is still what survived. You know, it's a kind of an odd. But it's like MSNBC was itself a weird name to me. Like when it started out, you know what's funny is like this is how old I am. And this is the origins of msnbc. When I played, when we had the KUOW softball team, we were the KUOW static. We played in a medium.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

We were in a media league in Seattle. Boy, what a different time. Andrew. Imagine this.

[Andrew Walsh]

Imagine you have enough media members. Exactly enough.

[Luke Burbank]

Enough actually functioning, functional media outlets of different kinds to where you had a whole ass softball league. It was us. It was the Seattle Times. My buddy Hugo played for the time. I actually played for the Times as well. Before KOW had a team, but it was a couple of the local TV stations and, and it was really fun. But also there was an MSNBC team. Wow. In Seattle, in the Seattle Media Softball League, we would play against an MSNBC team because they were like the Microsoft part of the msnbc.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right, of course. I'm sorry, that. Of course. Yeah. So.

[Luke Burbank]

And they were doing, you know, like, you know, they were doing journalism for the website, but they were just doing it from the Microsoft location. So like, I guess my point is that like I saw that like, oh, the name is being changed. Oh, and people are having a lot of fun with it. But I don't know if I just am out of step or if I'm just. I've just spent a weekend hanging out with an employee, a soon to be employee of Ms. Now. But like, I don't know, it seems about the same as MSNBC to me. And so I guess I may be one of the few people, me and Joe Scarborough seem to be okay with it.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, I. Well, first of all, like, when I say, when you say people are upset about it, I'm not like, well, not.

[Luke Burbank]

Upset, just kind of roasting them a little.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Just to be clear, like, I don't, I don't really care, you know, like, it's not going to affect, you know, the thing that would be, the thing that is more interesting to watch is like, how and if the programming changes because now they don't have the relationship with NBC News, which to me, I think that's really interesting. Right. Like when you're watching MSNBC on election night, you're seeing a lot of NBC folks, right? Like Kornacki, does he work for MSNBC or NBC? Because I, I thought at the beginning.

[Luke Burbank]

He was like, I wonder who got Kornacki in the. You know, in the, in the, whatever you call it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Because like Steven, you're gonna have two Christmases now.

[Luke Burbank]

He's a big. You're getting two pairs of khakis this year. Steven, like, he's become. He has become a kind of a cultural phenomenon across the Peacock network. So I wonder if MSNBC or excuse me, if NBC is going to want to like, retain his services or not, you know, for the, like the, the network stuff. I don't know the answer to that.

[Andrew Walsh]

So there's definitely a lot more interesting stuff happening that we will see play out because. Well, you were just talking about the state of media. It's interesting that in this spinoff you don't have layoffs. Instead you have. What was MSNBC going on a hiring binge? Because they're losing all of, they're losing all of the support of NBC News. So now they'd have to of quickly recreate a newsroom, which is a, which is a challenge anytime, but I think especially in 2025, it's a challenge. So I, I think there are much more interesting parts of the story than the name. And like, if you just say miss now, it doesn't matter. But I just. What makes me cringe so much is just reading Ms. Now stands for my source News Opinion World. Like world. You're not like, you're just throwing in a world, you're just throwing a Geographic idea.

[Luke Burbank]

Wings. Yeah, because you could also, you could, you could spin it off. I mean, Wing. You know, Wingstop is a very successful business.

[Andrew Walsh]

You could play rerun after Rachel, you could play reruns of, of the TV show.

[Luke Burbank]

Wings show.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wings with Tony Shalhoub.

[Luke Burbank]

Some of Tony Shalhoub's and Stephen Weber's best work.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And the other guy. So, yeah, I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

I think it's just the Thomas Church. Thomas Hayden Church.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you. Now, this would be the really deep cut because we've talked about her on the show before. Who plays the woman who runs. Does she run the diner?

[Luke Burbank]

Crystal Bernard.

[Andrew Walsh]

Does she run a diner there or am I being sexist?

[Luke Burbank]

Airport. No, I think she runs the. I think she runs the cafe and I think her name is Crystal Bernard.

[Andrew Walsh]

And didn't we talk about this on the show and we learned. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Her music career.

[Andrew Walsh]

Music career, yeah. Anyway, yeah, that's what kind of hurts my soul a little bit, like in a certain way. I wish they could have just totally rebranded because I remember when MSNBC was new as well, because I'm old and I. I remember even then thinking it was sort of a weird thing. But it was a weird thing and it was a weird time, you know, and the fact that it's almost like this.

[Luke Burbank]

It was mostly playing lockup. Oh, well, just hours of these prison documentaries.

[Andrew Walsh]

But yeah, it's like this vestigial thing. And I, again, I understand why they don't want to change it too much. But like the. I wish they would just said as we're called Ms. Now now and Ms. Now Now. And it doesn't stand for anything. You know what I mean?

[Luke Burbank]

Or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like the way watchers had to back away from the idea of weight. So they start calling themselves WW and. Which is again, a pretty bad rebranding, I think, and disingenuous, but. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Don't try to make it stand for something called Ms. Now. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

KFC says they don't stand for anything. Right. And if you don't stand for anything, you'll fall for anything.

[Luke Burbank]

Colonel I was trying to make it into a. Like a family bucket joke or something. I felt like there was a way to do that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, did you see this story of Dave Caws and his band playing like there he. Dave. Cause is like a jazz musician and he and his band were on an Alaska Airlines flight that was having a problem. It had to make it like an emergency landing in Boise or something. So they broke out all of their instruments and played a concert on the. Like right there in the aisle of the airplane. Let me see if I can play you a little bit of the audio here. This is actual audio from this. There's definitely a guy who's right in front of the Horns, who's kind of enjoying it, but also kind of doesn't know exactly how to react to it. Like, he kind of has a rye smile on his face, but he also looks like he'd be okay if they were wrapping it up.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is so loud if you're a. Right next to them, huh?

[Luke Burbank]

But here's the thing. This. I found this kind of charming. Whereas the person who let the young woman sing like Moana into the phone on that other flight that was delayed endlessly like, that seemed just like the seventh ring of hell to me. This isn't. I don't know if it has to do with the competency. I don't know if it's because at this age, I'm much more inclined towards the smooth jazz sound of a Dave Cozy. Show me. Give me a little Wayman Tisdale fire some, you know, some Dave Brubeck at me. Like, I. I don't know. Would you be annoyed if you were on the flight and they started playing their jazz music?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I think my take on this, and I would like to be consistent about this, like this. I. I was not familiar with this story until you put it on the show sheet today. In fact, the name Dave Coz only rang a very slight bell or tooted a very slight horn. But I do actually like the sound of that. That. I mean, that's kind of cool. Way, way more up my alley than some child singing Moana. And again, there's something about the child singing Moana that it also just sort of like. I don't know. I made a lot of assumptions about the kid and the family based on that. Like, if you're maybe as somebody who grew up very shy and actually is still, like, very shy or whatever, there's something about, like, the. Just the gumption of, like, doing something like that.

[Luke Burbank]

The unmitigated gall.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. So anyway, I. But the thing is, even though I like this better, if I were on an airplane and somebody's like, you want this child to sing Moana? Or do you want a jazz band to play? I would say I will choose the jazz band. But what I actually think is we should not be subjecting anybody to music that they don't want to hear in a. In a. In a situation where they can't escape it, like street musicians, that's fine. Busking. Like, is there a tradition older than busking? You know, like, that's fine. But if I'm walking down the street and somebody is. Whether they're a jazz trio or somebody playing buckets or A solo piano down at Pike Place Market, Whatever it is, like, that's adding to the vibe. And if I don't like it, I can keep walking. You know what I mean? Right.

[Luke Burbank]

But, like, you're free to escape the.

[Andrew Walsh]

Situation, this idea, especially because there's something so egotistical about the idea of, hey, I realize we're all trapped in this, like, not so great situation. We're gonna make it better for you with.

[Luke Burbank]

Let me bless you with this gift.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, exactly. Why? You know, why hide our light under this bush? And it's just, like, you're making so many assumptions that people want to hear what you're putting out there. And again, this is not. In this case. I wouldn't mind if it was. Kaz. Do they call their band. They don't call their band the Cosby Kids, do they? No. K A Z. K O, Z. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

K O Z. Sorry, Koz.

[Andrew Walsh]

But anyway, yeah, I just think that in general, it's kind of an obnoxious move, because I know that there are people who are on that plane who don't want to hear that. And also, that kind of music really does get loud, even if you're just playing acoustically in a small little space like an airplane.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I guess that's what I'm being forced to confront is the fact that because I actually like the sound of that music, personally, I would be like, I'm all for this. But I think you're right. The larger issue is that maybe not everybody. And also think about just the emotional state of the people on the flight who are all missing their connections. Like, let's just say that you're somebody who's not into the jazz horns of Dave Coss and his crew. And you're also, like, not gonna get to see your grandson get born. That's really just like. Like, if that music's already on your last nerve, and you're also just in an emotionally fragile place. It's a very. It's a dangerous game, Dano, to do that on an airplane. An airplane that, by definition, has been delayed.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I will say, and this is, again, me just. My bias in the presentation of this is like, I'm now, for the first time, putting eyes on this little video that you just played. And it looks joyous as all get out. And, like, it is. And they're standing. I wasn't sure exactly how. What this was going to look like. And they're kind of standing, and people. Some of the spectators are kind of standing and dancing along, and there are people Just beaming. Just beaming. And honestly, I think I would be beaming. Like, just to be very clear about that, if I were one of these people caught on camera, I'd probably be like, this is really cool. But I just want to be consistent and say, just because I like this doesn't mean that everybody likes this.

[Luke Burbank]

And if there's one thing our show is known for, it's its rigorous consistency. So I appreciate you keeping us honest on this.

[Andrew Walsh]

That. Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man. It's not from a female.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. Emails, v. Mails.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I have a voicemail I want to play to you from our pal Lisa in Bellingham, the pickleball district, as we all know.

[Luke Burbank]

Lisa.

[Andrew Walsh]

Love her. Before I get into that, I just wanted to share with you a quick note. On Monday's show, you came back from Europe, and you had many stories about your travels through Europe in New York and everything. And I don't even remember mentioning my shrimp situation. I mean, I guess I do a little bit now that I say that, but I have, like, four shrimp in the refrigerator that I no longer want to eat. And I was saying that, like, all of my compost options are sort of, like, filled up right now, and I didn't know what to do about it. First of all, I got so much feedback about the four shrimp in my refrigerator. Wow. I cannot believe I didn't even. I was. My phone started blowing up with text messages from people saying, hey, you can freeze them until you have more room in your composter. You can do this, you can do that, blah, blah. And also, it made me remember two takeaways here. First of all, it made me remember, oh, yeah, I also have a garbage can. Like, I can throw. I can put them in a Ziploc bag to prevent the smell and throw it away. But I am. You play that social engineering drop all the time. I have really been socially engineered to forget that we can sometimes just throw things away. Like, you know what I mean? I'm like, I don't know how to compost this. I also have a garbage disposal. I could put them down. But I also thought it was interesting that in a show that was filled with the rich textures of Europe and upstate New York, the thing that people really wanted to talk about were the problematic four scrimps in my refrigerator. So thank you for everybody.

[Luke Burbank]

We never know what's going to hit on this show.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. During this difficult time, I appreciate all the. All the thoughtfulness, but Speaking of your vacation, I thought this was really an interesting voicemail that we got from Lisa in Bellingham about visiting Stonehenge back in the day.

[Lisa from Bellingham]

Hi Luke and Andrew, this is Lisa from the pickleball district of Bellingham. And I've enjoyed Luke talking about his visit to Stonehenge. We went to Europe in 1999. I think back in those days you could get pretty close. You could walk among the stones. It was pretty darn cool. Couldn't touch them, but you could walk among them. But anyway, we had to leave early as our tour guide explained, because it was the summer solstice and that is the evening when all the pagans are allowed to come to Stonehenge and carry on their traditional solstice celebration. And I mean there are hundreds of people, I mean just people like you and me, you know, families, teenagers, little kids, parents, grandparents, and they are getting all dressed in their pagan finery and it was, was fascinating. I wanted to stay and witness their traditional thousands of year old ceremony that they do at Stonehenge. But anyway, that was Stonehenge back in the day. Thanks for being our cobros. Power out.

[Andrew Walsh]

The idea of being able to walk amongst Stonehenge sounds so much more appealing to me the way you describe it.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that does sound fun.

[Andrew Walsh]

I have no desire to see it from afar, but if you could actually, even if you couldn't touch it, walking amongst it sounds amazing. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I didn't appear that they were letting you do that. Although then again we couldn't get that close because we didn't pay for the ticket. And definitely the solstice is. That's, you know, that's Christmas, the Fourth of July and you know, Canadian Boxing Day all rolled into one in stone engagement. Speaking of Stonehenge, I watched the trailer for the new Spinal Tap.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh yeah. I told you off air that it's rough stuff.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, I mean, I don't know if there's a bigger. I don't know if there's. I mean there. I do know this, Andrew. I know there are bigger fans of the original movie Spinal Tap than me, but there aren't many of them.

[Andrew Walsh]

You are a huge fan.

[Luke Burbank]

I love that movie so much, it makes me laugh so hard to this day. It is really like one of my favorite movies of all time, Spinal Tap. So it's like I love the people, I love the performances of the people that made that movie. And it's kind of remarkable actually that like everybody is still alive and able to do it. You know, Rob Reiner as Marty DeBurghy. So basically what's happening is that there's this Spinal Tap movie that's coming out. That's this, like, idea of, like, what if Spinal Tap was playing a Reunion show in 2025 and Marty DeBurge, the character that Rob Reiner is playing, the documentary filmmaker, is documenting it once again, and what would that look like?

[Andrew Walsh]

So they made this premise, by the way, if you're. If you're. If you're convinced that you need to make a, you know, a. I'm sorry, a sequel to that movie, like, that's very reasonable. The. All the bands from that era do have reunion tours, and they often make documentaries about them. So the premise absolutely is great.

[Luke Burbank]

And you price in the fact that they're all going to be older. You're not trying to do some weird thing where you're pretending that they're not. It's like, yeah, they are older. That's kind of the whole thing. This is, you know, their sort of farewell show or whatever. But it. I've always had a kind of, you know, and who knows, someday I may be interviewing him on Livewire, so everybody be cool. But I've always had kind of an odd. Like, I've never known exactly where to file Harry Shearer's sense of humor in my mind, because, first of all, he's obviously part of the Simpsons, one of the greatest shows in the history of television. And he's also amazing in Spinal Tap, the original one. But also he had le show does or has, maybe has les show.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think I moved around a bit, which I could.

[Luke Burbank]

I loved that it existed, but I could never exactly decide if I liked it or not. I mean, I just liked that it was on. I used to place to play it in la. I mean, he used to do it in New Orleans sometimes. And la, I think he would go back and forth, and he might have a place in New Orleans. But, like, my point is, in the Spinal Tap, like, you know, reunion movie, it's like, I feel like, unfortunately, just age has not sharpened the wit of these guys because, you know, the trailer is going to show you the. And this stuff is famously kind of improvised. So the trailer is going to show you the stuff that's like, the best. The best bits. And if these are the best bits, I'm pretty worried about the rest of the bits like they're playing. Speaking of New Orleans, the idea is that Spinal Tap is playing this reunion show in the Superdome in New Orleans, and the Harry Shearers character is talking to an interviewer and he's saying, you know, there was a last minute availability. We're playing it at this stage at this, you know, stadium, because there was a last minute availability and they said what was supposed to be there. And he goes, an evening with Stormy Daniels. That's just like, oh, my God. Like, Steve Mapple from the Simpsons called and they want their humor back. You know, the Simpsons is just like the one reliable misstep for the Simpsons is when they try to send up corporate culture.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Or I think anything too recent in the culture too, like, it just never has staying power. And it's so cringey in the moment.

[Luke Burbank]

Their take on, like, Apple, you know, being a cult is just kind of like, oh, it's so obvious. And like, like. And I just feel like I don't know why that joke from Harry Sheer, like, it was an evening with Stormy Daniels. It's like it doesn't even. Comedy. It's comedy adjacent. Is it? What is. Yeah. What is the joke there? That we live in a society where Stormy Daniels is overvalued or undervalued or where somebody who's become. Has notoriety because of their liaison with Donald Trump now performs at Arena. I don't understand what the joke even is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nor do I. Was there one moment in the trailer that you laughed? I. I did not laugh once. I was. I don't. I don't. I mean, I've been disappointed a lot in my life. I don't know if I've been ever.

[Luke Burbank]

So I will be again.

[Andrew Walsh]

I will be again. Actually, not to end this conversation abruptly, but I gotta go. No, I. I am going.

[Luke Burbank]

There's another spider.

[Andrew Walsh]

I am going.

[Luke Burbank]

Spider called his friends. Like that time a guy called his brother to fight me at the Mandarin gate. That spider called his brother to come fight.

[Andrew Walsh]

Come on. Why is he wearing sunglasses inside? I deserve to be naked. I mean, I am going to see the Naked Gun movie tonight, so. And I'm going with a couple of friends or whatever. So that should be. It should be pretty fun. I think that's. That's. That'll be a good way to sort of see that movie, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. That's a reminder. I should see where that is playing nearby me and I should go see it so that we can talk about it. Because I'm hearing really good things and.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think it's gonna be in theaters very long. You know, I feel like we kind of got into a conversation about the health of the theater industry somewhat recently or maybe literally. That was something I was Listening to on a different podcast.

[Luke Burbank]

No, we were talking, I think we were talking about the fact that they're adding commercials.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Before the trailers now or they're adding more commercials.

[Andrew Walsh]

In fact, after that conversation, I think I went to see Superman and I did clock. I don't usually pay attention because I just like being in the theater. So believe it or not, even after this show where I feel like I spent so much time griping about everything, I don' gripe about commercials in the movie theater. I just kind of like being in the movie theater. I have my popcorn in front of me.

[Luke Burbank]

It's like the popcorn is doing a lot of lifting for your experience.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I'm just like, I'm there, I'm here, I'm here for the experience. But because there had been so much talk about it, I was like sort of. And so the movie was supposed to start at 7. It ends up like literally the movie starts at 7:35. So that's 35 minutes of trailers. And I love trailers. But it also was just playing random commercials. And here's what really did get me. They showed the same commercial twice. No, they showed the same commercial and it was just one of those boring form, what do you call those types of commercials for cell phones? Like this was an Android commercial, but it was just like kind of like, you know, it showed it spinning in space and all the kind of the shape of it or whatever. It's just like that most boring kind of commercial. And when you're sitting in a theater that you just paid like $20 in and they're showing you in the span of like 15 minutes, the same boring commercial twice. Like that. That kind. It's almost like I wish people hadn't brought this up because now I'm starting like it's sort of invading my. What used to be a non critical space for me. I don't want to be an old man who's grumping about that all the time, but it was a little egregious. But anyway, all of that's the kind.

[Luke Burbank]

Of thing that happens when you're watching on demand programming and for some reason they've just sold one commercial.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And you're just like every time they go to the break, you have to watch the same, you know, cricket ad back to back. Yeah, that's one thing in the home environment.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're right.

[Luke Burbank]

It's another annoying thing to go to a different building to observe that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Oh. Anyway, my original point was we were talking about the health of the Theater industry. And I feel like that's kind of shaping up to be another summer of movies that people really want to see. I think Superman was on the list. I think Naked Gun is on the list. And this is sort of stretching the stretching throughout the genres. But, you know, Sinners was not this summer. That was way earlier. But now weapons. Everybody's talking about this. Weapons, which I don't even like horror movies, but there's so much buzz about this. I.

[Luke Burbank]

That's where all the kids go missing. Right? Like a classroom of kids goes missing.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know anything about it, and I don't want to know anything more than what you just said, because I think I'm going to go in and watch it. But, like, it seems like there are a lot of sort of, kind of, kind of must see films this summer, and I'm all for that.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like the movie industry is like the mall industry to me. I think I said this a while ago, which is like, I'm always hearing that the, like, the whole industry is like in free fall. But then I feel like when I go to a movie, maybe it's because I only go three times a year. It seems like people are going to movies. It seems like there's some good movies coming out. I do. I want to see the Naked Gun. Then we can talk about it. But I just do think generally it's a very encouraging sign to have a big comedy, have a theatrical release, and I'm assuming do well. I actually haven't even checked how the box office is. It just happens to be a movie that everybody who I follow on social media got excited about. So it feels to me like it's a whole thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

I have something. And my Internet is acting a little bit funky here, but I just remembered something that is very relevant to this conversation that I'm going to try to play for you here. And I'm stalling. This is actually kind of good for this segment, I think. Think, because I got a text message from our pal and filmmaker related to that. Cat. Cat soul.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yesterday. And said, I'm sure I'm the hundredth person to send this to you. And she was not. But it was a link to this series that I have been seeing on Instagram. Somebody had sent me another one of these on a different topic called Subway Takes. Are you familiar with. So it's somebody. Whoever hosts this thing talks to people usually. Are they always famous people? Do you know?

[Luke Burbank]

They're usually. Yeah, they're. They're. They're well known well, our friend Andy Haynes has been on there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really?

[Luke Burbank]

I didn't know friend Hari Kondabalu has been on there.

[Andrew Walsh]

I didn't know that.

[Luke Burbank]

So it's a lot of comedians. It's a lot of people who are kind of, you know, thought leaders, movers and shakers.

[Andrew Walsh]

The first one I saw was Jeff Tweedy and every. And it's basically, you know, you have a couple of minutes to share your hot take. And Jeff Tweedy's hot take was silly. Socks are out of style now. Basically. It's like we're done with.

[Luke Burbank]

They're just not as silly as. They're not as silly as maybe we're thinking they are.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that what his argument was? I thought he was just saying that the. The. The trend is over.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought he was saying it's just not as mirthful. Yeah, maybe this is a different. Maybe this is a different way of saying the trend is over. Yeah, maybe we're saying the same thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, but maybe yours is more nuanced. But anyway, this. And the. The only reason I'm hesitating here is because I don't know who this is. I guess it's, oh, Mary Connor Neely. Who's Mary Connor Neely? Do we know this person? Is she a. Maybe she's a comedian.

[Luke Burbank]

Marie Abraham.

[Andrew Walsh]

Anyway, this is her answering the question what her take is, and I'm really hoping this works.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Seat has ruined the moviegoing experience.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, I didn't start.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. This is your hobby horse.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let me try this again. Don't cut off the beginning this time. Instagram.

[Unknown Speaker A]

The recliner. Seat has ruined the moviegoing experience.

[Luke Burbank]

100 disagree.

[Andrew Walsh]

I happen to like the recliner.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Of course you do.

[Andrew Walsh]

What is that supposed to mean, of course I do?

[Unknown Speaker A]

Of course you like to lay back like you're in your own living room. It's a public place.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it's all lay together.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Okay. No, but there are data points and there are vibe points.

[Andrew Walsh]

What are the data points?

[Unknown Speaker A]

The recliner takes up the square footage of 4 normal movie theater seats.

[Andrew Walsh]

So they have to charge more.

[Unknown Speaker A]

So they charge more and there's less seats.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, I'm understanding.

[Unknown Speaker A]

I'm understanding the vibe vibe part about it. How are you gonna, like, accidentally brush your hand up against someone's leg if you're on a first date? Or share popcorn or share a cheeky first kiss? It's so far away.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is true. First date at a recliner movie theater. You cannot.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

You can't do it. I hadn't even gotten that far Those.

[Luke Burbank]

Are very strong arguments.

[Andrew Walsh]

Those are strong arguments. But yeah, just the sort of like lounging around in a public place like, hit me so hard. I was like, oh girl, preach. I don't really talk like that, but.

[Luke Burbank]

That'S what I was like that Subway Takes is a great little. It's one of those things that it's like. And they're always holding like a Metro card. They're holding the microphones, which are like a lavalier microphone. It's always attached to a Metro card that the host and then also the guest are holding. It's kind of slightly awkward, but it's just become the visual kind of identity of the show.

[Andrew Walsh]

I've seen that other places too. I really like that. Not usually a subway car, but like a credit card or something. I think that's really interesting from a technical standpoint because you're doing these things. You don't want to be, you know me like I, I'm always like, I got my big ass headphones and my, and my microphone, my shotgun mic or whatever. You just really can't do that in this day and age. And if you just want to do something sort of subtle like you throw a couple of lavaliers in your pocket with a credit card or a Subway card, it's really smart.

[Luke Burbank]

It's. It's one of these things that works better, I think than it should because the host is really charming and because the people have had some time to think about an actually provocative, interesting take. Because it is also the kind of thing that it's like if you were try to make a show go viral. Well, what could we do? Well, it'll be called Subway Takes and it'll just be like people will be giving us their hot takes. It's like that doesn't seem that inspired as an idea, but it's all about the execution. Yes. And it's been interesting to watch this go. I mean, it was clearly created by somebody actually. You know, there's this, there's a whole other thing I was reading in the Times the other day, the New York Times, about, about this, this guy who is a comedian and he does this little TV show. It's digital, but this TV show that's like Roommate Court. So it's kind of a little bit sort of Judge Judy, sort of a little bit People's Court, but he basically goes to people's apartments and settles debates between roommates. It's a great idea, isn't it? And it's actually created by this little, this company that I forget the name of the guy who started it, but basically like it's this guy in New York. I think his last name is Fazer, maybe Dan Fazer or something. And he, he also created this show that I was seeing on TikTok a lot, which is also very genius. It's called Boy Rooms. It's basically where this comedian Rachel Koster, who I think is starting to do, wait, wait sometimes now, she would go and then kind of analyze the rooms of these like single guys living in roommate situations in like Bushwick. So she. And as you might imagine, some of these rooms are truly something to behold.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're not even talking about messiness, just like lack of sort of care for design or aesthetic.

[Luke Burbank]

It could be so many things including messiness, but not always. Yeah, including total lack of consideration of decor.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like a lot of flat screen TVs and a blank white wall with a million cables coming out the bottom of it.

[Luke Burbank]

Or, or maybe propped against the wall.

[Andrew Walsh]

On the floor, against the wall.

[Luke Burbank]

It's yet to be installed.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's a gamer chair nearby that also he sleeps in.

[Luke Burbank]

It's just like there's something truly feral about a 28 year old guy living in Bushwick who's got four roommates and is spending most of his time out at the bars. It's rare that you're gonna find that guy has put a ton of care into his room. Some of the bed situations are just amazing. Amazingly jacked up. So like.

[Andrew Walsh]

But go back to roommate court though. I love that idea even more. That's great. Like going well.

[Luke Burbank]

These were all created by this little production company that I guess they raised in this New York Times story. They mentioned that this guy who's kind of in charge of this production. I don't think they do subway takes, but I guess I've just been thinking about the ways that videos are made and media is distributed, et cetera. And like it sound. I think they raised like $750,000 of like startup capital, which is a charmingly low number in this day and age. In this, in, in this age of angel investors and things. You know, getting a billion, trillion dollars before like you know, one Rivian rolls off the conveyor belt or whatever the assembly line. Like that's a, that's a lot of money. But it's also like, you know, it's again, it's for a media company. It's, it's a, it's a pretty small starting point. But it just sounds like this guy and the people that he works with have of kind kind of cracked the Code a little bit on making these kinds of videos that are very sticky and that, you know, like I said, roommate chord and boy rooms and stuff like that. So anyway, I don't know where I'm going with that other than to say, I like Subway Takes. I like that show.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And it does make me miss Instagram a little bit. I like it when. So thanks for sending that link, if you're listening, Kat, because I do, like every now and then to dip in and be like, oh, yeah, there are. There are still some interesting things going on. I will say, though, on the occasion that I open up Instagram, you know, I used to use Instagram. Not really how the world uses it. I was really using it to actually use it as a photo platform. But you know that I'm kind of obsessed with formatting and I used to like the squares. And now when I go on Instagram and nothing is square anymore, I'm just like, oh, I got off at the right time. This is not. This is not. At least for me posting stuff. I'm like, I wouldn't want to be posting to this format anymore. That is not for me. So, anyway, enough of that. We don't need to hear about me talking about photo format.

[Luke Burbank]

It is a big thing to you, though. So if it's important to you, Andrew, it's important to us.

[Andrew Walsh]

I love my little. I can't believe when we were doing ads for American Public Media and we would do all these random things that would come into your life, you'd be like, you never know what you're actually. What's actually going to be sticky with you, you know, and there are certain brands like. Like Stitch Fix. I still use Stitch Fix. Grove. Still use Grove. There are a million that I don't use.

[Luke Burbank]

You sent me something in a Grove Collective box.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's right. I had to send you some stuff. And I just grabbed one of my Grove boxes. But all that is to say, I am really shocked at how much I like the. What is it called? Light frame or Lightroom frame.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

I still have that up in my little dart area. And every now and then I'll add some of my photos to it. And it's a nice little just like, thing to have on in the background, is have years and years of photos that you're just scrolling that just kind of scroll through. That's a good format for me. It's like I am getting so insular. I'm off of Instagram, but I. I'm just sharing photos to myself on this little digital frame I have.

[Luke Burbank]

What is that thing called?

[Andrew Walsh]

Isn't it, like, light? I. I have it. I have the app on my phone. That's how you send things to it. But I don't know. It's light something. Lightroom. Light frame. Light frame.

[Luke Burbank]

I gotta go. Maybe light frame. I think it's light frame. I gotta go plug mine in, and then I gotta figure how to. I gotta hack into yours.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, you.

[Luke Burbank]

I forgot to do that.

[Andrew Walsh]

You don't even know this. I'm so mad at you. When you first set the. That up, you weren't. I don't even know you weren't. You were living in Portland when you first set yours up. And I said, give me permission to send you stuff. And you said you did. And then I sent you, like, a photo of me, like, coming at you like a monster, sort of like with my hands kind of outstretched, like I'm coming at you. And then I sent it to your frame, and it's like, you do not have permission to share with this frame. I asked for permission again, and at that point, the joke was up.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm going to plug it in, and.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm going to give you my frame. I'm not even joking.

[Luke Burbank]

Every now and then, you hoisted yourself with your own.

[Andrew Walsh]

It cycles through, and I see this ugly photo of me coming at the camera. I'm like, that's supposed to be scaring Luke, not me.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you know what? I'm going to go plug it in, and I'm going to add you, okay, as a. As a trusted source. And then you can. And then go nuts. Okay?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. Hey, thanks for listening, everybody. We are going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary race radio, so please, if you can join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves. By the way, I'm throwing that Jorge Polanco ball into the river. I'm sorry.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, it's been a rough man.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it's. I mean, I gotta get that Jonah out of here. Peace and love, Stu.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, we need an escape from the thing that we use as an escape. Like, that's a bad situation.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you. I need an escape from my escape right now because it is leaving me feeling much worse.

[Unknown Speaker A]

Worse.

[Andrew Walsh]

Anyway.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, we'll see you all tomorrow. In the meantime, please remember, no Mountain.

[Andrew Walsh]

Too Tall, and good luck to all. Power out.