#4539 Can’t Find A Better Cup

Summary

TBTL Episode #4539: "Can’t Find A Better Cup"

Air Date: August 25, 2025
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

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Overview

In this Monday episode, Luke and Andrew, the always self-effacing and goofball hosts of TBTL (Too Beautiful To Live), return to tackle the crucial questions of the day. The main themes circle around domestic rodent drama, streaming service gripes (with a side of sports fanaticism), concert-going disappointments, and laying to rest the confusion about people movers in airports. As always, baseball and Mariners chat closes the show with equal doses of hope, reason, cathartic venting, and over-the-top passion.

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Highlights & Key Discussion Points

1. Andrew’s Rodent Crisis: The Mystery of the Basement Stench

[03:49–24:43]

• Announcement Fake-Out & Storage Woes: Andrew jokes about welcoming a "new addition" to the family — namely a rodent infestation in a weird basement cupboard/storage zone.
• The Hunt for the Smell: After days of musty odors, cleaning, and deodorizers, Andrew and Genevieve discover fresh evidence of mouse or rat life: literal scat appears in the storage area.
• Coping with Pests: Andrew debates humane vs. aggressive responses, wishing the house cats would step up:
  • "It galls me that we have cats. It galls me that I can't catch [the mice]." (17:33, Andrew)
• Cat to the Rescue?: The hosts discuss trying to harness Bingo the cat's primal instincts to scare away or hunt the rodents.
• Relatable Pest Stories: Luke recounts past rodent issues in DC and lamentable experiences with dead animals hidden in walls.
• Listener Advisory: Andrew preempts unsolicited advice emails about pest control:
  • "I know you all have a lot of opinions on this matter... and I'm not going to read them." (25:05, Andrew)

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2. “Please Stop” Segment—Tech, Music, and More

[40:06–64:18]

A. The Fubo Streaming Spoiler Snafu

[40:06–51:08]

• Luke’s Sports Time-Shifting Ruined: Luke tapes the Seahawks preseason game to watch at leisure, only to have Fubo display the current score on the landing page, spoiling the result before he can even start.
  • "When you go to the control screen... it's just going to... blasted me with the score." (45:14, Luke)
• Solution (Thanks, Andrew!): You can turn off live score visibility in Fubo’s settings, but the hosts agree this privacy preference should be opt-in not default.
• Anecdotes: Discussion of time-shifting, live spoilers, and preserving the sanctity of the surprise in sports-watching.

B. Counting Crows Concert Rant – “Stop Jazzing Up the Songs!”

[51:08–64:18]

• Luke’s Longstanding Grievance: Adam Duritz never sings songs live the way they sound on the album, making it impossible for fans to sing along and ruining concert expectations.
• Memorable Rant:
  • “There is a contract with the people... And that is that when they buy a ticket... they will be able to sing along... and when Adam Duritz does this, sings the songs all wackadoo... he has now... given an absolute F-you to the audience.” (57:17, Luke)
• Reddit Validation & Musical Traditions: Andrew tries to find Internet support for the complaint. The hosts contrast this with jam band/jazz traditions where fans expect improvisation.
• Point of View: For some, musical reinterpretation is exciting; for others, especially those who want communal singalongs rooted in the recorded version, it’s a betrayal.
• Luke’s Conclusion:
  • “What I would say is... you need to at least try to do some of the songs the way that people like the songs... It feels to me like a real disrespect.” (63:05)
• Debate About Live Expectations: The hosts note that for some bands (e.g., the Dead, DMB), improvisation is part of the appeal; for Counting Crows, the expectation is faithful renditions.

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3. Oddities, Quotables, and Tangents

Scattered Throughout

• Classic TBTL Banter on parents, unruly bees, and basement “funky” spaces.
• Airport “People Mover” vs. “Moving Sidewalk”
  • [37:19–39:54]
  • Andrew rails against the generic and confusing label of “people mover,” preferring more specific terms.
    • “We shouldn’t be calling anything a people mover... Everything is a people mover...” (38:43, Andrew)
• Howard Stern/Adam Duritz “Metamucil Man”
  • [71:53–74:09]
  • Luke plays a surprisingly good Counting Crows-style song about Metamucil written by Howard Stern, performed by Duritz.
    • "Honestly, musically, that's a good song." (73:31, Luke)

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4. Email & Listener Art: AI-generated Podcast Prayer Circle

[75:38–83:37]

• Listener Melissa Delivers: Andrew shares an AI illustration, at Luke’s previous joking request, depicting luminary podcasters (Call Her Daddy’s Alex Cooper, Crime Junkie’s Ashley Flowers, and Ira Glass) praying over AI versions of Luke and Andrew.
  • “This is a truly horrifying piece of art that I am extremely proud to be a part of.” (82:48, Luke)
• AI Oddities: The accuracy (and wild inaccuracy) of AI-generated images, including notably buff Andrew and a married Andrew (AI ring alert!).

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5. Mariners Baseball Anxiety, “The Vetter Cup,” and Weekly Recap

[83:37–End]

• Series Recap & Upcoming Challenges: Andrew and Luke break down the team’s recent struggles, coming games against strong opponents, and the emotional rollercoaster of fandom.
• Rage About “The Vetter Cup”:
  • [86:53–91:28]
    • Andrew issues an epic rant against the manufactured “Vetter Cup” rivalry between the Mariners and Padres.
    • “It is the cringiest thing... this is the epitome of it [Seattle sports pop culture cringe].” (90:37, Andrew)
• Hope vs. Reason: Debating whether things can click for the Mariners, with Luke irrationally hopeful for a miracle run and Andrew analyzing stats, schedules, and upcoming matchups.
• Bittersweet Farewell to Dylan Moore:
  • [104:01–108:31]
  • Discussion of the Mariners DFA’ing Dylan Moore; his high and low moments, and “happy for him if he succeeds elsewhere.”
• Baseball as Therapy: Expressions of hope, frustration, and the deep emotional investment sports brings to their lives.
• Classic Andrew Line:
  • “We can, if the pitching comes back, I think we have a fighting chance here. But we definitely need the pitching to come back in order to... and our bats to continue to stay awake.” (96:48)
• Luke’s Hope Against Hope for Astros’ Downturn:
  • “What about living in a universe where there is a just God, Andrew, and that just God... could we ever see Houston just go into a free fall?” (99:14)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Kittens in the front, Christmas in the back." (06:22, Luke)
• “There might be some primal that touches off in Bingo’s brain... It would keep him entertained, I think, for a while.” (21:02, Luke)
• “Because I am getting angrier — I will see your Adam Duritz anger and raise you a Vetter cup.” (86:51, Andrew)
• “Dylan Moore was DFA’d and... he is now effectively a free agent... what are the chances he shows up in an Astros uniform and has the game of his life?” (105:30, Luke)
• [On the fake rivalry and its branding]:
  • “How do you make a logo for the Vetter Cup? Oh, I know, man. It’s obviously got to be a guitar pick with a little guitar neck coming out of it, because what is Eddie Vedder known for? His slashing guitar licks.” (90:08, Andrew)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Topic | Timestamp (approx.) | |---|---|---| | Opening Banter | Rodent Smell Mystery | 00:00–24:43 | | Please Stop Segment | Fubo Spoilers | 40:06–51:08 | | Please Stop | Counting Crows Live Rant | 51:08–64:18 | | Airport Rant | Moving Sidewalks vs. People Movers | 37:19–39:54 | | Listener Art | Podcast AI Prayer Circle | 75:38–83:37 | | Mariners Deep Dive | Baseball Therapy, Vetter Cup, DFA Drama | 83:37–End |

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Tone & Style

• Language & Tone: Dry, tangential humor, self-deprecating, sometimes exasperated but friendly and confessional.
• Dynamic: Supportive but teasing friendship, deeply engaged with both life's trivia and the grand drama of sports.

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Final Thoughts

This episode embodies classic TBTL: a swirl of domestic mishap, fixations with TV and tech usability, pop culture hot takes, creative listener interaction, and a closing stretch of cathartic Mariners talk. Whether or not you care about rodent control, Adam Duritz’s vocal choices, or Seattle baseball, you’ll find something both relatable and riotously specific here.

Transcript

[Andrew Walsh]

They said, you know what? We need to have a third interview with you because the notes from the social worker is that you seem anxious, high strung and eccentric. Yeah, that's what I do. That's the cornerstone. It's the business plan. Tbtl.

[Luke Burbank]

That was really good pizza.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, this is the best pizza in a cup ever.

[Luke Burbank]

He ran the old cup of pizza guy out of business. People come from all over to get this.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I just wanted to say a friendly hello in an unfriendly way. Hello. It's the story of a man with a brothel, of a home in a pool filled with human excrement. Would you say that to Tom Petty?

[Luke Burbank]

You wouldn't say that to Tom Petty, would you?

[Andrew Walsh]

When you get there, this is what.

[Luke Burbank]

You will see on the screen.

[Andrew Walsh]

And there's a little arrow over there.

[Luke Burbank]

You press it and congratulations, you're listening to a podcast. Well, all right. Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Shame on everybody involved. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. You paint your bald spot?

[Andrew Walsh]

What bald spot?

[Luke Burbank]

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it is a beautiful Monday here. My parents are staying with me, my dad and my mom.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'll say, what's up?

[Luke Burbank]

Which means after my little jog this morning, came back down into the house and found my dad talking loudly into his phone to his bank about some sort of service charge. He had his account pulled up on his iPad. My mom was out on the deck eating Honey Nut Cheerios and yelling at the top of her lungs at a bee that was following her. So anyway, we're setting in for a interesting week here at the Madroda Hill studio. It's episode 4539 in a collector series.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let the fun begin.

[Luke Burbank]

We're gonna roll out a new segment today on the show. It's called tbtl. Colon, please stop.

[Andrew Walsh]

Please stop.

[Luke Burbank]

There's something that I would like the Fubo streaming service to please stop doing. They did it to me on Saturday, and it's actually kind of got me concerned about the upcoming sports season. This is not gonna be a conversation about sports. This is gonna be a conversation about something the Fubo streaming network is doing to me related to sports. Also, y' all know that if there's one thing you know about me is that I will count some crows, okay? Me love the counting crows. I'm a durret's head through and through. But I need the counting Crows to please stop. Please stop doing something that I saw them doing recently in Bending, Oregon. So we'll talk through all of that and we'll talk to this guy. Longest running Cobra. The show may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's promised me that this week is going to be different for him. Finally, he's taking a big step forward. I won't trash talk.

[Andrew Walsh]

I won't be out there blowharding.

[Luke Burbank]

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

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning, Luke. I don't know exactly how to make this announcement, but.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, wow.

[Andrew Walsh]

Genre for it or something. No, I think I'll just do this.

[Luke Burbank]

This will give you some time to think about it.

[Andrew Walsh]

As you know.

[Luke Burbank]

That should get us almost to the donors. Don't say the thing where you're like, I forgot it or nothing or I don't have an announcement. Don't do that joke today, please. Not this early on a Monday.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you. What's your announcement? I both start a sentence. I'm interrupted by a world's longest drum roll. Then I'm told what I'm allowed to say after the drum roll. Happy Monday, everybody. Woo. I was going to make a joke and say that we are welcoming a new addition to the family today, but that new addition is apparently a mouse or a rat or some sort of pestilence.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, no.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is living apparently in one of our big storage areas. And so now I've got this to figure out.

[Luke Burbank]

Wait a second. When you say big storage areas, you mean in the interior of your home environment? On the exterior of your home environment?

[Andrew Walsh]

Interior. We definitely have mice and rats outside. We see them in the garden and I'm always telling them, shoo, shoo, shoo. And Genevieve's like, they're just eating the bird seed. They're allowed outside. This is their. Yeah, they're allowed outside. Just because they don't look like squirrels doesn't mean that they're worse than squirrels.

[Luke Burbank]

I like them being both outside and outside of the perimeter of my.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Where I live. I'd like them to be both outside and a little bit far away still. But wait a minute.

[Andrew Walsh]

I like them to be outside my consciousness, to be honest with you. I don't want to think about them. But we have this big. It's hard to describe it because I wouldn't call it a closet and I wouldn't call it a cupboard. Although it's more like a cupboard than a closet. It sounds like this is some sort of Riddle of the.

[Luke Burbank]

It has shelves in it.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, it should. If we were smarter and if I were at all motivated, if I ever lived up to the reputation that I supposedly have as an organized person, you would have all kinds of shelving in this. This is a very. This is in the basement of our house. Okay. So sort of a. You know how basements have some kind of funky spaces, you know, and so.

[Luke Burbank]

We have these two funky little space. Why did I purchase this funky little space?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. And we have these two, like, very. They're like very. They come up to my chest about. And they have these two big doors. And we have two of these right next to each other.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you open them up and it's almost square. I'm almost gonna say like four and a half, five feet square. You know, it's a big.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Big area.

[Luke Burbank]

And then usable space.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then it goes very deep back. It would be very usable space. I mean, the problem is it goes very deep back, but because it's at chest high, you can't walk into it. So it's. It's a little bit tough. So basically we have a bunch of storage in the back, like some of those rubber made containers with things that we just, you know, don't need. Some Christmas boxes, classic Christmas boxes are back there. You know, we pull them out once a year or whatever. And then in the front is, you know, storage for things that I need a little bit more frequently, like my pop up supplies or some of the cat supplies and stuff like that. So this is a whole thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Kittens in the front, Christmas in the back.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that a song Classic.

[Luke Burbank]

That's like business in the front.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Oh, kids. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And so anyway, let's see. I think two weeks ago on Spotless, I was telling Hannah, because I had. We had just dialed up to record, and I told her I had spent the day trying to track down a couple of mystery smells. It was weird. Like, I had two mystery smells going on in the basement at the same time. And I couldn't figure out if they were. Did one was coming from, like, my sink. I think I had a dirty Luke. I had a dirty drain.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Dirty, dirty drain. I don't know what's going on with that. So I went to the hardware store and bought some drain cleaner stuff. And then I also was like. But I also. Well, I don't know if I want to retell the whole story, but the day that this happened, Bananas, who was very, very sick, had spent the day in one of these things. And I thought that we were sort of. She left it. And I thought we were sort of smelling her sickness because she's just has. She's very sick and. And has a bit smell to her. It seemed too strong for that. It didn't quite make sense. But I was like, well, maybe she was just sitting here too long. So I pulled everything out of that cupboard. And again, there's two of these things, identical in size, pretty packed to the gills with stuff. I pulled everything out of that. I cleaned it all out. I didn't see any evidence of anything foul. I couldn't figure out what's going on. I put everything back. Then I'm like, well, I don't know what's going on. I think it was maybe the next day or later that day, I open up the one next door to it, the other cupboard where I keep, like, pop up supplies, and. And I'm like, oh, my God. The smell is way worse in here. Way worse in here. And so I apologize to Bananas. I'm so sorry I disrespected you, dead animal. Well, that's what I thought. I pulled everything out, like, everything. It ended up being a great organizing thing. I think we talk about that sometimes. I did not intend to make it a big organizing thing, but it ended up. Pulling everything out of there gave me an opportunity to reexamine some things that had just been thrown in there when we had first moved in. And so I did a lot of, like, actually throwing away and consolidating and cleaning up some other areas of the basement because I had freed up space.

[Luke Burbank]

This.

[Andrew Walsh]

So that was all satisfying, but it doesn't satisfy this story, which was where was the smell coming from? And I couldn't tell you because I pulled everything out. There was no dampness. There was. It smelled really musty. There was no indications of an animal at all. The only thing I could think of was, well, these things. There are holes here like rodents could get in if they were in the walls. But also I could be smelling something from the wall like an animal could have died in the wall. I've heard horror stories about that. People crazy, just taking. Finally taking a hammer to their wall in the middle of the night because they can't handle it anymore.

[Luke Burbank]

Shop Cat.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm like, that's right.

[Luke Burbank]

When I was working at a plumbing company and we had a mangy stray cat wander up, we adopted it. We brushed its fur, we named it Shop Cat. I thought, this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship. We never saw Shop Cat again until we smelled Shop Cat's remains under the steps. I like to think that Shop Cat's last six hours on this planet were filled with love from a saucer of milk.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, you brought some. Much needed, much needed hospice care.

[Luke Burbank]

Little did we know.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's sweet and sad, but anyway, so I wasn't sure what it was, but I pulled everything out. I couldn't. I couldn't find like a. Is Nexus the right word? You know what I mean? Like, I was in there as I even crawled up there and like touching around him, like, is it coming from this corner? This corner? I could find nothing. They're weirdly carpeted, these areas. Just everything. Okay. They had whatever carpeting they laid down here wall to wall before we moved in. They also just carpeted these things. I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

Ran it right into the cupboards.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, up. But it's not. It's up in the cupboards. It's weird. So anyway, I'm like, you know, I can'. Find it. So. So I had gone to the hardware store and bought not. Not any kind of like air freshener, but I only wanted deodorizers, right? So I bought like a bunch of those little arm and hammer plastic balls that have, you know, the baking soda in there and they don't give off a scent. They're not supposed to anyway. They're just supposed to absorb. You're supposed to throw one in your shoe closet and throw one here while I'd like line like three or four of them up in there. But then I bought this other thing that was a little bit more industrial.

[Luke Burbank]

Pin out and just hoisted it into the cabinet. Then plugged your ears and waited for it to go off.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. And then they had something else called. I don't have it in front of me anymore. But it's got a funny name. Just sort of like Odo Race or Odo something. Odo Erase. I don't know. It's not that, but it's a little bit more industrial looking. And you know what it looks like is it's a plastic thing. But picture something the size of like a classic Yankee candle. You know, like kind of short, stubby like that. And you take off the seal and it basically, if you were to look at it, you would think that it's filled with baking soda. It's kind of got like, it looks like it's textured, but when you touch it, it's actually kind of waxy. It's not a powder in there. It's like this waxy stuff and it has a little bit. I was really trying hard. I didn't want to mask the smell, I only wanted things to absorb it. But this did have a little bit of a lemony smell. I was like, I don't know about this, but I put it in there and at first it was a little bit too strong, but I. Either I got used to it or it sort of kind of the smell it was emitting gave up, died down after a while. But basically, for the past two weeks I've been going in there at least once a day, just being like, how is the smell? And like, am I just covering it up? I had this real worry that this lemony Odo racer thing was. It really makes it sound like Odos are racing. I was trying to make sure that it wasn't just covering up or that I was getting nose blind to it. But is it actually. Is the odor being absorbed, Is the issue gone? If it was a small mouse in the wall, has it perished and now has it dried up to the point this. Because eventually, you know, if it's not that will be raised, it will be. It will just. It will just go away. So anyway, all of that, it was getting better and better and Genevieve had some people over this weekend, so I was checking it and on Saturday, I think it was Saturday morning, I opened it up and I know that I stuck my head in there and I took a big draft and I was like, I don't smell anything. I'm like, I honestly thought, I think we might have kicked this if it was something organic. I think it's gone now or whatever, but I really think it's gone. Then I closed it and then Sunday morning I open it up and I don't know if I had just missed this on Saturday or if the rodents like to party on a Saturday night or what, but I pulled something out of there and all of a sudden I noticed, oh, shit, man. Literally, oh, shit. Just like poop, like little bits of. I'm like, genevieve, come down here and confirm what I'm seeing. She's like, oh, my God. And it sort of seemed like a lot. And here's what I can' Figure out. This smell that I was smelling, it would make sense. I don't. I mean, maybe this will sound really stupid as I say it, but I sort of feel like it would make sense if I had seen scat in evidence of a living thing, then tried to get rid of that and then later on smelled the smell I was smelling as if the animals then died. It's like I smelled the decomposition before I saw any evidence of a living creature. So I don't know exactly what that smell was. Maybe they make a smell when they're making a nest. Maybe they make a smell when they're mating or breeding. I have no idea. But now we apparently have something living in our walls that we need to take care of.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, obviously, this is all related because this. When you opened that cupboard or cabinet, you got hit by a crazy smell. So that. That's real. But what's weird is, unless I. Here's my theory. I think, yes, not only do you have mice, but also a mouse died on the interior inside your wall or somehow adjacent to that cabinet. Because here's what I do know about mice and rats. Well, first of all, when I lived in dc, I had. I think it was a pretty robust family of rats that lived in the kitchen of my rental. Which, by the way, it was actually kind of a nice place. But, like, forget what you've heard about New York City rats. Nobody can touch the rat situation in dc. The scariest rats I've ever seen are in dc and you've got a million old, really old buildings and row homes that are all connected. These. These mice. I would be sitting there watching TV in my living room, and I would look over and they would just dart from under the stove to under the refrigerator.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now, you said rats and mice, you think?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I don't know. They were a blur.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So I. What I know is in D.C. i saw lots of rats running around in alleys and outside of restaurants. It was a very common sight. I was once in an Uber on Florida Avenue in D.C. and I looked over and window height, it was someone's yard where they had kind of like a rockery. So it was about eye level. There was a rat that looked easily the size of bingo sitting there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I was back before rideshares. I was taking a cab one time in D.C. and I looked over and the driver was a rat. No, in all seriousness, I think the first rats I ever saw were in D.C. like, just to say, like, I have not spent a lot of time in D.C. but my friend lived there for a while, and we were visiting him, and I remember we went to get these big slices of pizza that we were going to eat on the curb, and we were doing just that. And a huge rat walked over Genevieve's foot. And, like, we're just like. And then we saw, like, rats all over the place.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, well, so what? But here's where I'm going with this. What? Unless they die, and some listeners are going to blast. You're going to blow up my inbox on this. Lukebtl.net My experience with vermin like that is they don't actually smell bad. You don't notice a smell of them. That is, unless one of them dies and then. Then you really smell them. But their. Their general existence is not itself a particularly pungent thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's. Yeah, no, that's why. That's exactly what I was saying. It's like, it's very strange that I saw no evidence of living creatures. The first thing I smelled was a really strong smell that even though I've never dealt with a dead animal in my wall before, I've. You know, we talked about it a lot on Spotless a few years ago, and people were sending in horror stories. And so I was like, I think I have that. I think I have deadness in these walls. And.

[Luke Burbank]

But calm down, six.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, but why then I smell dead people. Yeah. So then why, why. So I'm kind of with you. It seems like a mystery. Right. That's my point. It's kind of like. And now I'm seeing proof of life which has happened after the smell has d. Died down. So. But yeah, maybe it's just generally speaking, there's some.

[Luke Burbank]

There's rats there or there's something. There's something there. Maybe one of those somethings died. The ones that didn't die are now. Are now making it their home.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what? I'm. So we have to have some. I don't want to get into what exactly we're going to do because it's always going to upset somebody. When you're talking about needing to get animals out of your house. I'm sure the first thing we're going to do is we're going to have a sit down. I think we're going to have maybe see if we can have some variation.

[Luke Burbank]

You're going to take away this mouse's car keys? The first thing is letting this mouse drive a convertible.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's a tough conversation to have.

[Luke Burbank]

Cute as it is, it's always hard to take away your mouse's car keys.

[Andrew Walsh]

But anyway, I think that there are certain things you can get that will like, kind of poison them, but then they. They leave the house seeking water or something like that, I think. Because we definitely don't want to do anything that will have them dying in the walls. Right. Like, that's the nightmare scenario. But yeah, you know what I'm sort of tempted to do is clean. Well, I just don't think it's logistically possible, but it galls me that we have cats. It galls me that I can't catch.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's what I was going to say.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. Now, these doors are usually closed, so Bingo is not, like, kind of roaming in there. But I'm sort of like, well, maybe what I should do is pull everything out of there and just put Bingo up there for the evening. But the thing is, I think Bingo will just end up like, kind of coming upstairs and falling asleep in the chair anyway. How does he know? He's on rat duty.

[Luke Burbank]

Here's what's happening. His smell is scaring the rats away. You know about this, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Go ahead.

[Luke Burbank]

One of the theories about why, if you have cats in your house, you will not suffer from mice or rats is not even because they'll catch them. Although, you know, that is. That can be helpful, too, I guess. A little gruesome when you find the evidence of it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But also because the smell of the cat, the vermin become aware that there is some predator living in the house, and they don't want any part of it. So the idea would be you open that cabinet up, you put all of Bingo's favorite toys in there or something and just let Bingo chill in there long enough that. That. That the smell of Bingo is now permeating that area, and that might be enough to drive there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maybe I should just say because he likes going up there. He like. Because he likes to crawl up on top of the boxes and sit sometimes or whatever. Maybe we could. Yeah, maybe we could start with that. Like, I don't want to trap him in there. No, but, but yeah, like, I mean, I would like 100 field trip in there some.

[Luke Burbank]

Hundred percent. Start with him. With him roaming the. Roaming the area and just see if also he might get. There might be some. You know, it's crazy, the primal instincts. I mean, I'm mostly. Bubbles has never had the chance to go after any, you know, sort of wildlife. She's always been indoors, but, like, you know, destroyed. I. I think so. Although I wonder because now she's. However old she is, and she's literally never roamed free one minute of her life other than inside the home environment. I mean, she seems built for it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But I know Olive, my old cat, who was an indoor outdoor cat, was a cunning hunter, unfortunately, and would bring all kinds of things in. Point being, Bingo may, like, maybe it would be really interesting to see if Bingo smells something.

[Andrew Walsh]

Genevieve says she put him up there today and he was like, like, boing, like.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, okay. Okay, we've got an answer. Yeah, I mean, I'm honestly, like, you know, again, peace and love if to the mice or the rats, because, look, they're just. They're just trying to live their life, too. And I, you know, I would like them to not be in my house, but I would also like the end of their life to, like, be as hopefully not torturous as possible. But, like, I'm kind of invested in this story. I kind of want you to, like, loose Bingo on the situation and see if Bingo can, like, like, basically start earning her kitty litter. His kitty litter.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know what to do. Well, I mean, I don't know exactly what this looks like, though, because that's the deal, I guess just, like, leave those cupboards open for the night and see if I can get him to chill in there for the evening. Because, again, I'm like, I would just.

[Luke Burbank]

Leave it open and just see what Bingo do. Because, like, again, what. I know what I know, like, Olive would have done. I mean, Olive once pulled a mole out of a mole hole by sitting over the hole for, like, an entire day until the mole popped its head up, up, whacked it, pulled it out, brought it into the TV room, and displayed this hairless, naked mole on the carpet of the TV room while I was trying to watch a Seahawk game. Yeah, like, that's what these cats will do.

[Andrew Walsh]

I hope the Seahawks were winning, because if not, that would just be so symbolic of a bad Sunday. Man.

[Luke Burbank]

I think Blair Walsh immediately missed a field goal. Like, but you know what I mean, like, these cats are. There's something very primal that is built into them, which is why a lot of people are very down on us releasing them out into the. The world. Because they are hunters and they are an invasive species.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But, like, there might be some. There might be some primal that touches off in Bingo's brain. That would be quite interesting to. To observe of, like, just waiting and watching and smelling and taking on the whole thing. I mean, again, it would. It would keep him entertained, I think, for a while.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, maybe I'll. Maybe what I'll do is I'll clear out. They're pretty clean right now. That's kind of the nice thing is I've. Everything's organized in there, so it's. There's more room, so I can sort of. Yeah, I think it's pretty clear what part of the wall they're coming in from, because it's not.

[Luke Burbank]

So there' hole in the wall.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, there's hole. It's not like a. And it's. It's not like a cartoon hole in the wall. That little archway. That. That would be really cute.

[Luke Burbank]

Have you thought about standing next to that doorway with a mallet? With a mallet behind your back? Behind your back.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, behind my back. Inside, there's a tiny little dining room table, and it's. It's cozy. It's not in a little can. It's cozy.

[Luke Burbank]

Cutting up a bean. The whole family is sharing one bean.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wait, why did I think of that? Oh, you know, what I was making the other day is I like to eat. I've been eating a lot of kind of like. Like pita pockets, sort of like whole wheat. Like those very thin kind you know, that are actually like, they kind of tear very easily, but you can kind of open them up and actually make a pocket out of it and put. So what I've been doing is making these tiny little sandwiches of like, kind of opening up one of those and putting a bunch of hummus and like, cucumber and maybe a little turkey. And I was probably making. I was. I do. I was probably doing this at the Airbnb. You probably know exactly what I was talking about. But anyway, one thing I do for it is I also slice cherry tomatoes, which are already. Anyway. But I like cherry tomatoes in there. So I was taking a cherry tomato the other day and slicing it into thirds. Long way. It was actually one of the plum Sorvino.

[Luke Burbank]

Ing it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, it's like a plum tomato sort of. Right?

[Luke Burbank]

You're right at a good, fellas.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I'm just like, cutting the garlic. And I was like. I am like the mouse in a cartoon right now. I'm just slicing this little bean into more and more pieces.

[Luke Burbank]

I love it. I immediately lost the thread and thought you were thinking that you were like in Goodfellas when Paul Sorvino is in prison cutting the garlic with the razor blade.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think about that all the. It's rare that I need to cut garlic that thin, but whenever I do, I'm thinking about him. I think everybody is right.

[Luke Burbank]

Great moments in thin slices. You've got mouse plus bean, and you've got Paul Sorvino versus garlic.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. But anyway, I don't know. The hole in the wall, it's like. It's just like this janky. It's like this storage area because this. It's a basement. This wasn't always a finished basement. So when things and whoever they got to Finish it. It's like, not super well done in a lot of places. So it's just like, you open up this weird storage area that they didn't know what to do with, so they put some walls up in there, but they did it terribly. And so, you know, there's like, there are places where you could. Not big enough for. Theo. I'm sorry, For Bingo to get into the walls. It's not that big, but, you know, very clear spaces between, like, walls and ceiling or whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

So it's not just a couple of holes that you could patch up.

[Andrew Walsh]

No. I mean, somebody handier than I could make it a project just to redo these.

[Luke Burbank]

You could re Sheetrock it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

You could probably pay someone 200 bucks to re Sheetrock the whole thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

I feel like it would be more than that, but may. That's. That's type of thing. Yeah. Anyway, so that's it. So it's pretty clear where the. Especially based on the fact that, like, the. The scat that I'm seeing is Gat Man's World is right around where these openings are. So that makes a lot of sense. So I could just sort of like, I don't know, not take everything out of there, but like Scatman's World. Take a couple of things out of there and just like, put Bingo up there and see what I would start with.

[Luke Burbank]

Operation Bingo again. There's something that's so elegant about having a problem, but also having the living solution to your problem in the house. I. I'm really curious to hear how. How. How phase one goes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Because if we do end up, like. I know that there. There are various things, and I shouldn't even said this. I told myself I wasn't going to, but I mentioned there's some talk of, like, the, you know, poison you can get. And I'll tell you what. I know that our listeners right now, like, there is somebody who hasn't even gotten to this part of the show yet because they heard me say that, and they're already composing a long email that I'm not going to read. So I just want everybody to know, like, right now, a filter on my email, and I'm putting the word poison in it. Mouse, rat, cat. And I'm blocking any emails on this topic. I know that you all have a lot of. I know you have a lot of opinions on this matter, and I know that they're all really well thought out and they come from a really good place, and I'm not going to read them.

[Luke Burbank]

And I'm not either.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no. Actually, send them to John, but only.

[Luke Burbank]

Because I am a little behind on me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you, baby.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, let's thank some donors who are supporting this program. 100% listener supported podcasting. That's what you are tuned into right now. And it's only existing because of fine folks like Caitlin Neely over there in Winston Salem, North Carolina.

[Andrew Walsh]

Beautiful time of year. Is there a bad time of year to be in Winston Salem, North Carolina? Probably not yet. Is this. Is it the really hot?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it's pretty warm right now.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right, I take back everything I said.

[Luke Burbank]

I think if there's a time of year that it's. It's trying, it's probably right now. I do remember being a kid and we. We flew out to Philadelphia. This was famously the trip where I think we. There might have been three kids in the family, two adults. And I think we flew there on one ticket on twa. I think it was each other's laps, like, pretty much. It was like that, like, caps for sale book. It was just hundreds of Burbanks stacked on top of it. I think it was like, buy one, get one free ticket. So my mom bought a ticket, and then my dad's ticket was free. And then it was like, kids under two fly free. And I think that my parents were just lied and said we were all under two.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're shaving. You got one of these electric shavers.

[Luke Burbank]

And ironically, I still don't have to shave. Yeah, that's why I've been able to. That's why I'm still sneaking into movies as a junior. But we. We went to Philly, and then we rented a car, and then we went. We somehow made our way down to where my granddad, Farnum Burbank, had moved. Had moved in his retirement to North Carolina. And I remember just being a kid in the back of the rental car and just driving through North Carolina and just seeing just the beauty of rural North Carolina. And also just all of these tobacco sheds that were now just totally being taken back over by nature because, like, they were no longer the way that I don't even know what the tobacco industry was doing at the time. But certainly these drying sheds were no longer. They were barns, basically, but they had stopped using them for that purpose. And so just vines had kind of grabbed them and they were all just being torn down. It was like a actually very, very beautiful kind of scene of. Of nature reclaiming things. Anyway, that's what I think of when I think of North Carolina and Of course, Caitlyn Neely. Thanks, Caitlyn.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

I think of Dana Hoyle when I think of Portland, Oregon. It's the only thing I can think of when I think of Portland, Oregon.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is, is Dana the only person that you know in Portland?

[Luke Burbank]

The only person I know in Portland. It's the only person I associate with in Portland. I don't have any job stuff there. There's nothing comes to mind about the city of Portland, Oregon for me other than there's no restaurants there owned by siblings of mine. It's just Dana Hoyle. That's what comes to mind.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is a weird bold prediction from me, but mark my words, I think someday you're gonna meet a nice lady in Portland.

[Luke Burbank]

Huh? God, I sure hope so.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sparks are gonna fly. Hey, by the way, how did. I meant to ask you, I almost texted you this weekend. How did this imaginary girlfriend fare on Friday in the super hot weather?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh my goodness gracious. She ran six miles in 102 degree.

[Andrew Walsh]

Heat in Dana's town.

[Luke Burbank]

Right, right, in Dana. Danaville. In Danaville. Yeah. The irony was that. So this thing that Becca was doing is called Hood to Coast and it's a like a 200 mile relay. Your team has 12 people on it and everyone. You end up running three sections. I think you run somewhere in the neighborhood. Neighborhood of depending like you might run about 17 miles total as your contribution to this. But what Becca kept saying to people as we were hanging out yesterday when we were talking to her family and stuff is it is not the distance now that that's a distance that might get you or I Andrew, 17 miles, that'd be. That by itself would be like game over. But for pika people of Becca's ilk, it's actually that's not an amount of running that is a challenge for her. It is the, the schedule that basically this thing, Hood to Coast is exactly what you would do if you were intelligence officers and you were trying to break a witness. You would put them in a van. You would make them run six miles in the pitch black dark down Mount Hood. Then you would put them back in the van. Then you would drive around, you'd make.

[Andrew Walsh]

Them listen to a D antword record for some reason very loudly. I don't know why I picked that.

[Luke Burbank]

That does. No, that seems torturous. That does. Yolandi Visser. And what's the guy's name? Weird ass name. And then you would then take them to another location. Then you'd make them get out of the van and Then you make them run for another so many miles. Then you would take them to like a collection of tents, which there actually was in a place, I think, called Mist. There's a town called Mist. And there was an Alaska Airlines sponsored tent village where if you had an Alaska Airlines credit card, you would be allowed to go lie down in a tent.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's, that's. I mean, I guess you need sponsors for events and I don't want to go too hard on that, but man, that is a weird.

[Luke Burbank]

Isn't that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought that was weird. Insert into a Portland run that I did not see coming. I didn't like. So you can have a certain amount of, let's just say, much needed healthful rest. If you have a certain credit card.

[Luke Burbank]

That is, if you have the Alaska credit card, it would be you plus one guest and you and this other person that you chose would be allowed to go lie down in a tent. That was it. No cot, no mat. Just a tent in a field. You could go lie down in the tent for a while. This is what these people are signing up for. It's like, it's basically no sleep for like two plus days. No good sleep. No. The access to showers. This is where you'd really, this is where you'd really struggle. Andrew, the. Andrew, the access to showers is limited. So like, eventually Becca described taking a shower at like a middle school somewhere in the old school kind of like, you know, locker room.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Where it's just like a pole in the middle of the, of the shower area with like four shower heads coming off of it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Geez Louise. And so no privacy. Or did she have zero privacy?

[Luke Burbank]

And it's just you and some of your teammates and then just a bunch of people you don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And you're just, just adult people. Adult women showering in this, like in like a junior high. Like it's the whole thing just.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, she shouldn't have held up that bank. She wouldn't be in this situation.

[Luke Burbank]

So anyway, it. So it worked out that her second leg that she was doing was not only in Portland, which was one of the, like, tougher spots because, you know, some of the runs are out in nature and there's some shade and there's maybe a little mountain breeze. This is just like the, the impermeable urban environment of Portland, Oregon, which has lots of concrete, lots of metal. She's also running through her actual neighborhood in the south waterfront of Portland. So it's like, I love that you got in a van and went all the way up Mount Hood to just end up running in your actual neighborhood in 102 degree weather at 3pm but.

[Andrew Walsh]

She got through it. She got through the.

[Luke Burbank]

She survived it miraculously. And I felt bad because at the same moment that this was happening for her, I was easing into my 8 foot diameter by 2 foot deep cattle stock tank, aka improvised swimming pool environment here at the Madrona Hill studio. And just like vibing, like, it was so refreshing. It was such a hot day on Friday. And as she was near death and she told me that like some of her friends, their husbands were beside themselves. They couldn't sleep at night because these women were running in the middle of the night in the pitch blackness. And there was so much worry. And I was just like vibing in this converted, like livestock drinking tank while she was almost dying in Portland.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, she. I mean, you know, I will just say this and like, it's. It's. No. You guys were both reaping the fruit of your own choices. Thank you. Not that you shouldn't worry. Like, if Genevieve decided that she wanted to go skydiving, it's. I'm not saying I wouldn't worry. But on the other hand, in something like this, like you said, you felt bad. It wasn't like this was some sort of state mandated, no, you know, cross country trek that she was doing.

[Luke Burbank]

No, it was all volunteer.

[Andrew Walsh]

She could have been in that tub with you, like one of those Ed commercials. You could have been faced. Absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

A bathtub with no plumbing. That's where I do my best work. I know in a field somewhere. Alan Jones knows it. Andrew. He's in Los Angeles, California. He knows about my bathtub work. Thanks, Alan.

[Andrew Walsh]

A.

[Luke Burbank]

It's our friend Camion Guyer of Belfair, Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

Belfair.

[Luke Burbank]

Belfair, Washington. That's right. That's right. In my parents and my sister's Q zone. Got a sister that lives down there in Mason county, in Shelton. My folks are up in Silverdale. There are frequent flyers through Belfair. What Lovely. Belfair, Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

It has to be lovely. I don't know if I've been to Belfair, but with a name like Belfair, it is.

[Luke Burbank]

It lives up to the high. It's exactly how you figure it would be, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, look at this.

[Luke Burbank]

Look at this.

[Andrew Walsh]

Look at this.

[Luke Burbank]

Look at this.

[Andrew Walsh]

Look at this.

[Luke Burbank]

Look at us. Look at us, Andrew. Look at us. About to thank our friend Angie Dominguez, who's in Austin, Texas.

[Andrew Walsh]

Angie.

[Luke Burbank]

Angie one time of Marfa, Texas.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's Right very. One time of Los Angeles where we became friends.

[Luke Burbank]

First time of Los Angeles, then time of Marfa area and now time of Austin. I just remember so fondly that our little time in Marfa, Texas on our road trip where Angie came down and flew a drone while we were. While I was jogging.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, we were.

[Luke Burbank]

You and I were. We'd parked the RV at the Tumble Weed or the. At the Tumble in RV Park.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that what it was called? I don't remember that epic sign.

[Luke Burbank]

The Tumble in. Anyway. And we had such a fun time with Angie.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Angie, thanks.

[Andrew Walsh]

Literally the best friend. Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, Mary Gerlock Hamilton might have something to say about that. Mary is also the best and is in Aurora, Colorado. I saw something the other day, day, Andrew, that I felt. I felt seen. I felt validated. You know how I'm always complaining about Denver International Airport and it's, it's just voluminousness. It's just. I just feel like airports in general are getting so large and luckily I'm at the point still where my body allows for me to walk. So I sort of, it's just kind of like, hey, I guess I'm getting more steps. But like, man, if I had a. Any kind of mobility issues or whatever, it's like the size of these airports is crazy. And sure enough, I read an article about how airports are getting way bigger. And one of the certainly one of the busiest airports in America, but also one of the largest just in like square miles is dia Denver International Airport. I was glad to see that I'm not imagining it. It was nice to know that I have not, I've not just hallucinated this. It's really what's going on.

[Andrew Walsh]

Am I wrong, though? Wasn't your original complaint with the Denver airport or maybe I, maybe I'm totally wrong. I thought it was also that it was very difficult get to. I thought you felt like no matter where you are, it's hard to get to the airport.

[Luke Burbank]

That's. Thank you for remembering, Andrew. That's my other complaint. The soup is terrible and the portions are too small. And it is both impossible to get to. And then when you get there, it is impossible to navigate.

[Andrew Walsh]

The horse is too blue and the horse is too big.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, that is the thing about DIA is that it is so far away. There's nothing out there. You are like if you leave Denver, you're still. If you live anywhere in Colorado where people live, you are an hour from actually being at that airport. And then once you're within the airport, once you have parked your car or gotten out of the Uber or whatever, gotten off of there. I don't even. Is there a light rail out there? Is there public transport out there? You're then in the airport. Now you're entering a whole new issue of just like it's absolute vastness. But anyway, we don't hold any of that against Mary Gerlach.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, not at all. We appreciate Mary and everybody who donated. I just want to follow up on one quick thing because this has been sort of living large in my head. Literally the last show that I think we did before you went to Europe, we talked a little bit about airports and we talked about moving sidewalks versus people movers.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

And there was some confusion. I said that I like to call them moving sidewalks, even though I know they're technically called people movers. And then you said, I think it was at LAX you're talking about specifically is that they call like what you and I would call maybe a tram or a shuttle, a people mover. And we were flooded with emails. I don't know. Did you catch some of this too? People saying. Now traditionally though, like, Disneyland famously calls their like shuttles people movers. And like all over the place, I guess people do call shuttles and trams people movers. And, and in the case where you have an airport that is both, they will refer to the moving sidewalk as a moving sidewalk, which I sign off on that I think they should have moving sidewalks.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, I, I will give it to the sharp eared listeners who are correcting us or correcting me. I do think that the original sin was someone calling those moving sidewalks people movers. I'm okay with because look, people movers is a more. That's probably a better way to describe the thing that you get into that then takes you around the airport or out to where the public transport is rather than the tram or the shuttle or whatever. I'm good with calling that people mover, but I find it confusing now because this other use of that word, which is to say to describe those moving sidewalks, has, I've heard those called people movers. Whoever called those things a people mover, that's who messed up on this whole deal.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, this is my, this is my take on the whole thing, and it is sizzling, is we shouldn't be calling anything a people mover. It is a completely unimaginative and confusing thing. Because you know what else is a people mover? A car, feet, an airplane, a bus. Like how all of those things move People. It is not only an incredibly boring and unoriginal thing to call something and it just weird, like almost science fictiony. Like, oh, board the people mover.

[Luke Burbank]

We are taking you get on the meat transport.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right? Like, why are we calling anything a people mover there? A bicycle could be a people mover. A scooter, like everything is a people mover. Let's not use it. Let's call it a tram, let's call it a shuttle. Like that is more specific about what kind of people mover you're talking about.

[Luke Burbank]

I like it. You've made a very good point, my friend. And I appreciate. You know who else appreciates that? The donors.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

Who. That's what they're paying money for. Is. And you think I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not. That is a very good point.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't hold back, man.

[Luke Burbank]

No, you don't. No holds barred here on tbtl. Thank you to our donors for making the show possible. Couldn't do it without you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, Andrew, I'm going to send you a photo. I don't want to put you on the spot, but I'm going to send you a photo that I took took on Saturday. And I'm going to see if you can spot again. This is kind of a lot of pressure, but I want to see if you can spot what is wrong with this photo. Now, I know we've been having some issues. Should I email this or text it to you?

[Andrew Walsh]

Why don't you email it to me? Especially if there's a chance that it might end up being the show pick. I don't know if that's what we're getting at here.

[Luke Burbank]

Also, for some, your email is grayed out to me and now it's in red.

[Andrew Walsh]

Out and is in red. What do you mean? I don't know what that means.

[Luke Burbank]

I'd never had this happen before. Let's see if this goes through because I'm trying to send you a photo out of my telephone phone. Let's see. It looks like it's working on it. I think something is. Really something has. There's been a falling out between our phone systems, I think. And it's because. Let's see. I'm going to.

[Andrew Walsh]

If this is email, it shouldn't involve. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, you know what? Yeah, that was the pro. Well, now I think my phone is trying to do something where sometimes it wants to text you a photo, which is not what I want.

[Andrew Walsh]

I will say that actually, while you figure that out, can I just say there are some listeners and I don't know if this is, is a mistake that you're making or something that you're doing. And I will say the one person who I know does this to me sometimes is Mike Pesca. And I can't tell.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it's a big Pesca move.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's this thing where people will. They think they're, I don't know, they're sending me emails like to my andrewbtl email address. But I think the iPhone makes texting and emailing so seamless that you don't realize you're sending me text messages to my email. And so it doesn't come in as an email, it comes in as like a, like a text document that I gotta open. And it's like sometimes hardly readable. So if you ever send something to me, I don't respond to all emails, but certainly if I get something like that, it is impossible or it's very difficult to open and read. And so I never usually respond to those unless I just say, hey, listen, I think you're sending, I think you're trying to email me a text or something like that. So just ahead, heads up to folks about that.

[Luke Burbank]

So I've tried to. Now, yeah, I've tried to email you and, and text this to you this, this photo in question. So. And I'm going to resend it to. In a different format.

[Andrew Walsh]

You got the text message here. No problem. Okay. It's a photo of a. Do you want me to describe it?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. It's a, it's a photo of a very cluttered home. It's very. I can see the dust. No, I'm just joking.

[Luke Burbank]

It's an unquiet mind.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, it's a very clean looking TV mounted on a wall underneath a floating shelf that has a clock on it, a cursed accursed baseball, a fire.

[Luke Burbank]

It's that. That baseball is 2 out of 3 since I almost buried it.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. Okay, think. A photo of you and your daughter in a fire extinguisher. That's what's on the floating shelf. Below the floating shelf though is the wall mounted television. And it's on the page that shows you where this is Fubo. You can choose what kind of sporting event you want to watch and you have it paused on Seattle Seahawks at Green Bay Pacific Packers.

[Luke Burbank]

Now let me give you. That's great, great describing. Let me give you a little setup as to what had gone on. So it was Saturday The Seahawks were playing a preseason game against Green Bay packers and I was out and about doing things also. You know, preseason games are like, whatever, but so I thought, I was driving around and I thought, well, you know, what I'd like to do is I'd like to tape this game so that I can just do whatever I need to do today, all my errands and come home and work in the yard and. And then when I'm good and ready, I'll go inside, I'll sit down, I'll make myself a little lunch, and I will watch this Seahawk game. And so that's exactly what I did. What is pretty cool. I'll give FUBO a put up. I could. I was sitting in my car, like at a stoplight or something, or maybe I was parked somewhere. And if I go into the FUBO on my phone, I can just tell it to record the Seahawk game, like at my T on my tv. Well, it's basically recording it in my FUBO account, which I can access from anywhere. So that's like a pretty slick feature, I'm sure. Otherwise other systems have that. I've just never known how to use it. So basically if I realize there's something on that I want to tape and I'm not planning, I don't have it set up to do that. I can just from anywhere that I am, just go, hey, can you record that Fubo? And it does. So that's pretty slick. But now, Andrew, imagine this. It's now the game's been on for three hours or something, and now I come inside, I'm done with my work and I'm ready to watch this game. And one of the things I'm kind of interested in is Jaden Milroe, who's this, or Jalen Milro, this guy Milroe who we've got as a kind of our backup quarterback, but who's got some real upside. He's going to be playing, playing quarterback the whole game. That's kind of a plot line. Kind of excited to see how this goes. It's the final preseason game, so I go to my landing page for FUBO to watch the game. And now remember, the game's been on for three hours. The game is in progress. I see. Andrew, based on an email that you've sent me that you have already sussed.

[Andrew Walsh]

Out, you got to turn that off.

[Luke Burbank]

My major malfunction is. Okay, so we've sort of jumped to the end of the story here.

[Andrew Walsh]

But.

[Luke Burbank]

But like, I didn't know that was Something I can turn off. What you guys can't see because you're not seeing the photo is I basically go to this landing screen to go watch the game, and it is showing me we are in the third quarter of the game and it is 0 to 20. Seahawks are losing 0 to 20 to Green Bay. And like, hey, you want to watch this? And it's like, not now.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, because you know the score. Yeah. Like my. My MLB app, kind of like when I first set it up, it's kind of like, do you want to. Do you want to disable or do you want to. I don't. I don't know if you would. Are you disabling spoilers? Basically, so you can choose a game and you can see on the pause screen where the progress of the game is, or you can turn that off if you don't want spoilers. Because, yeah, if you see. If you go, you're like, I'm gonna watch this from the beginning, but you already see that you're down by 20. That's gonna have a huge impact on your viewing experience.

[Luke Burbank]

The whole point of time shifting. And I'm gonna have to do this in a couple of Sundays because Sunday the 7th is the first real game for the Seahawks, but we have a livewire event all day. And so I'm like. I'm already kind of thinking about this. Like, how am I going to, like, take evasive action? So I don't know the score, but, yeah, the idea that you would be timeshifting a game, and then when you go to the control screen to start watching the game, it's just going to. First of all, thank you, Andrew, for finding the Fubo help center and how I can turn this off, which I will immediately do after the show. I'm wondering why anyone would want this on or.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I will be with. I will certainly give this to you. It should not default to. No, it should default to not seeing the score.

[Luke Burbank]

And then you opt into this.

[Andrew Walsh]

You want to see it. You should opt in. You shouldn't have to opt out. Because the way probably most people learn this is because it's at least one game ruined for them. At least one game has been spoiled for them. Yeah, I think it should be. And it should. And it's probably. I didn't really look deep into what I just sent you as far as the instructions of turning that off. I'm guessing it's just like a preference or something. But, yeah, if that's going to be buried down in menus, you should. First of all. You know how when you ever have a new device or a new service, they just love telling you all about the new updates or whatever. You got to pop this balloon. You got to pop this window. Hey, did you know you could do this? It's like wordle. I'm just here to play wordle. I don't care about all these. How we've made this experience better for you. I feel like they should. Like, I believe when I set up my MLB app on my tv, it said, do you want spoilers on or off as far as scores are concerned? And I think I chose it. And Fubo should have done the same thing. Thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Like, I don't want to overstate this, but, I mean, this was a. This was a preseason game that didn't really mean anything. So I was like. I was like, okay. But I honestly, it was like my life flashed before my eyes because my thought was, what if this was a real game? Like, how pissed would I be if this was an actual regular season game that I had, like, been really looking forward to watching unspoiled and like, it was almost like I almost had, like a jump scare from this event, which, again, is. Is an overreaction because this isn't that important in life. But anyway, okay, luckily you learned it on the.

[Andrew Walsh]

On the preseason, at least. Totally. And actually, can I use that as a little doorway into something I want to say that I'm very much looking forward to? You know, back in the day when I was following both the Seahawks and the Browns, you know this well, it was. Sundays were a big football ritual for me. I'd watch both games and time shift if need be, avoid spoilers and everything. But then I stopped Dud doing that. And the last, I believe, two years, I just have maintained my Sunday volunteer gig. Usually I would take the entire fall off of volunteering on Sundays, unless there's a Thursday night game or something. All of that is to say I'm still not taking the season off of Pop Up. I'm still going to do my volunteering. Except I did take off the first Sunday of football season. So I am very much looking forward to. Because it is the. The season opener is a Sunday for the Seahawks, I believe. It's not a. It's not a Thursday or a Monday. So I'm like, you know what? I just want to be wherever the gang up here in North Seattle is watching the game, whether it's at the Eagles or the, you know, whatever bar they go to, or if it's at somebody's House, probably a bar though. I just want to like have that, that. That Sunday free and clear. So I'm going to do that and boy, I'm really looking forward to it. I don't. I don't have regrets about not doing it every single Sunday. It can get too obsessive. And I actually really. I enjoy my pop up volunteering gig and I'm a control freak. And also if I'm not there, I know who all the works gonna fall on and it's not fair to them, you know, like, there's a million reasons I'm not doing this long term term, but I'm very much looking forward to just like taking. Often if I'm taking a day off of pop up, it's because I have some responsibility. And now I'm just doing it because of my responsibility is to drink bloody Marys and watch the Seahawks.

[Luke Burbank]

Nice. I. You deserve that because again, you do put a lot of time into this volunteer thing on Sundays. And Yeah, you have, you have a. You have a pretty good relationship with the sort of football Sunday thing, which is to say that you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

You no longer just sort of shut the world out or whatever. Block out, you know, however many Sundays.

[Andrew Walsh]

A year that is.

[Luke Burbank]

And so I think you. I'm glad that you're getting at least a little hit of that kind of old school football excitement. It'll be interesting, I guess, to see what my relationship ends up being this year. I feel like last year I had kind of thanks to this FUBO thing, which, by the way, I've now turned off live score visibility. Thank you for that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, it's already off. And double check that. That will transfer to your TV too, though. That's the thing. So you just did that on your FUBO account via your computer. Are we. That. That'll probably trace to your.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Because all the TV is doing. Showing my account.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

And that's what. Yeah, but that's. That's listed in here, so that should be fixed. And yeah, thank goodness we got ahead of that. But like, I mean that seriously.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Because like, I could imagine myself coming home on September 7th and just like I've been like, my phone has been, you know, in airplane mode and hawk squad is blowing up and the criminals are saying. And I've. Maybe I've let. Maybe I've unblocked Ders for a beautiful three to four hours before I reblock him. All this is going off on my phone.

[Andrew Walsh]

You can't handle Ders during baseball. You don't deserve Ders during Football or vice versa. That or whatever. I think that the football stuff is what you used to not be able to handle at all. Season over before kickoff.

[Luke Burbank]

But. But anyway. And then I got home and then I turned on the Fubo to watch it and just like blasted me with the score. I would have been so bummed about that. So I'm glad that that happened. It was a blessing that that happened when it did now. So that's. Please stop item number one. Although I'll say I was able to actually.

[Andrew Walsh]

Please stop it. Maybe Please stop. Let's see if I can solve some Counting Crow's issues.

[Luke Burbank]

If you can, Andrew, you would be a stronger man than I am. Because this is the thing. This weekend, at some point in between spreading rocks around my yard and worrying about Becca and installing a livestock trough as a sort of a quasi swimming pool at my house, I was also, of course doing a little bit of TikTok scrolling and I saw something that I've always known to be the case, but which. And I've said this to people many times, but I don't know why it hit me different this weekend. But this is why I'm putting it in the Please Stop segment. So you know that I love the band Counting Crows and I'm a Durret's head. I mean, there's one thing that you know about me, I'm a Durrets head through and through. One thing I. From the very first Counting Crows concert that I ever went to, which I believe was a gift from my then college girlfriend, Francesca Severity, two tickets to the Counting Crows or just Counting Crows. I remember we went, we brought a picnic basket, we spread it out on the lawn. It was just like, I was like, this is everything in the world that I. I'm thinking maybe recovering the Satellites was. Was their. Their hot record of the moment. And. And pretty much as soon as Adam Durrett started singing, which I was so excited to hear these songs that I love, I was so excited to sing along. I had a very troubling realization, which was that he's not singing the songs the way they sound on the record. And so when people, when we talk and I've seen Counting Crows live like three times probably since. And every time I go, I like am bummed out because you can't really sing along with the music because he's not singing the songs the way they sound on the cd. And I know this is because Adam Duritz is complicated, complicated brooding dude and he tired of just singing Mr. Jones the way that Mr. Jones sounds to those of us who like the song. Mr. Jones. But I've just always kind of known this and I guess I've just priced this into the Counting Crows experience. And yet for some reason this weekend on TikTok, it just. Somebody had posted and they weren't saying anything. By the way, the point of this post on TikTok was not create. Not to spark a conversation. I think I might have just actually inadvertently said no. He says Mr. Jones strikes up a conversation, almost inadvertently quoted a Counting Crows line while discussing a counting Crow song. I don't think this person was trying to strike up a conversation about how Adam Duritz sings these songs, but. And maybe we could do this. I know this is gonna get us pulled down in Romania, but let me see. Andrew, can I play a.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like a little bit live, I think. Oh, you're gonna play the original and then compare it to the live.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I mean, I don't do how many people. People know this song, but people. Do people know this song? Do we know. Need a. Do we need a refresher on what?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think so then. And if you're going to be playing something live off a TikTok, I doubt it's going to get flagged. Also, our thank you baby song gets flagged every day on YouTube. So what are you going to do?

[Luke Burbank]

Most people, I think at this point have, at some point, whether they want to or not, have been subjected to the song. Mr. Jones. By the Counting Crows or I think it's just called Counting Crows. So this person was just posting. They were probably just having a wild, a wonderful time in Bend, Oregon, again watching Counting Crows. But for some reason, even though I've known this Andrew for the better part of 25 years, a quarter of a century, I've known that. That Adam Dur doesn't sing the songs the way they sound on the record. When I saw him singing this, it just made me furious because it. Well, just play it. First of all, he just missed a sha la la la la la there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. You don't think we're counting that? Come on.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, in. You think crows are the only thing we're counting? We're counting. If that's a. That's on the record. There's a shalala there that he just didn't even do.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sh.

[Luke Burbank]

We do. It's a fun part of the song. I think we might have just missed another sha la la. Okay. Okay. So listen, it's supposed to go. Sorry for the singing, but it's Supposed to go like I was down at the New Amsterdam. Mr. Jones strikes like it's supposed to go in a certain way from a note standpoint. And he is like doing some jazz singing where he's doing like. I don't know if it's the exact opposite note. He's doing something here where he's basically like. It's not supposed to. Supposed to be staring at this yellow haired girl. It's supposed to be a talented new answer staring at this yellow haired girl. He's. He's going. Instead of doing whatever the notes are, he's just doing the exact like opposite version. So it is in tune. It is tuneful, but it is so unsatisfying to listen to. If you, if your brain has absorbed the regular version of the song, praise. None of these notes are the notes from the song on the record. And you can hear in my voice, Andrew, that A, we're earning that explicit label today and B, all of a sudden, after many years, it got to me what an absolute F you to the audience this is. I understand artistic freedom, artistic creativity, artistic license. But there is a contract with the people, the good people of Bend, Oregon, between them and the Counting Crows. And that is that when they buy a ticket to go see the Counting Crows live, they will be able to sing along with the songs of the Counting Crows that they, they love. And when Adam Duritz does this, sings the songs all wackadoo because he's just bored of singing them. He has now. It's like if you bought a ticket to go see Shakespeare and, and, and somebody decided to just change all the lines because they were tired of saying to be or not to be. Like, unless you better, you better put that on the ticket somewhere. You better have a disclaimer that says Counting Crows coming to Bend, Oregon. By the way. Way, if you buy tickets to this, he is not going to sing the songs the way that you know the songs. And if you like that, great. But just know this is not going to be the experience you're going for. If you want to sing along to the songs. It. You can hear my voice. It, it went from being a mild annoyance to feeling like a middle finger to the Counting Crows fans of the world.

[Andrew Walsh]

I remember you talking about this so early on in TBTL that I was not on the show. I remember being in New Hampshire listening to you to talk to Jen, by the way, that's not a slam. I'm just saying that you are consistent on this point. I can't. I went to the FUB website. There's no button that you don't have that I can't say normally. But what I am frustrated by something like this. I still turn to the Internet, but what I do is I look at other people. It usually leads to Reddit, but you just say like you just look for somebody else addressing this in some way. And I found four things and yes, they. So I typed in. And this is like, this is a pretty funny way to do this. But I was like, thank you. Trying to listen to you and like kind of type at the same time. I wrote why doesn't Adam Durich sing songs normally live? That's a weird way to put it, but I'm just to going, going with it. And I would say the better analogy is probably like jazz. Like if you're a real jazz head.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

If you're going to see somebody performing. The whole thing about that is that it's a little bit different.

[Luke Burbank]

Improvise.

[Andrew Walsh]

Improvise or whatever. So I'm sure that he sees it in that tradition. I'm not trying to dismiss your lack of enjoyment of it, but there is a musical tradition of it and you don't like very much. But again, not trying to solve the problem. But sometimes like I thought I love count. I'm going some somewhere with this. I love counter histories. I love alternative history stories. I was so geared up to love the man in the High Castle. I heard so many great things about it. And I watched the first two episodes of that show and I could not believe how terribly it to me, to my eyes that it was executed. I just couldn't believe how bad it was. And I felt like somebody who's looking around knowing I was surrounded by vampires but nobody would admit it. Right? I'm just like, is nobody. So I like. I remember I was on an airplane after finishing episode two and just being like, am I insane? Is this really bad storytelling here?

[Luke Burbank]

That's basically counterfactual history where the Nazis won?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, I think so. It's been a very long time, but I believe that is the broadest strokes. And I was called 2025. Yeah, yeah, nobody's watching that. But I started, I had to scroll down. I'm just like, I'm literally on the third page of Google results and I finally find some crazy person who agrees with with me. I'm like, look, it says it right here. Alt History 69 says that he doesn't like this either. Anyway, so I am trying to do that with you. When you type in, why doesn't Normally live, you get Adam. This is from eight years ago. This is the subject line on a Reddit post. Adam seems to talk out most songs rather than sing is Adam Durrett's over Counting Crow's music. And then there you get the usual back and forth that you expect. Some people complaining and some people saying. That's what I love about it. Here's one from one year ago. Is Adam singing the melodies yet? I love this one.

[Luke Burbank]

I Saw count.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is. This is Lurbank. Oh yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh yeah. This guy's on to something.

[Andrew Walsh]

It says I saw Counting Crows twice in the 2000s. Adam was talking the lyrics. It absolutely sucked as he's singing the melodies these days. Let's see. The first response is nope. So I suggest you just listen to the albums and be happy and let us enjoy the live shows. Okay. They're gonna get into it. Yeah, let's hear eight Months ago. So this is getting. And more. Do you guys actually like the spoken word thing they do live? That's in the Counting Crows subreddit. And then finally here, this is where I was really excited for a moment. This is from 12 years ago. I am musician Adam Duritz from Counting Crows. Ask me anything. So I'm like, here it is. It's an ama with Adam Durrett. So then I do a find in page the word live and I'm like, is anybody question? Is anybody confronting him? But instead we just get a sycophant who does not ask a question and then just says, wait, where was it? I had it here.

[Luke Burbank]

More of a comment.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I love how you always switch things up when you perform live. Your commentary is always incredibly interesting to me. And you guys seem to be so in sync with each other and that is the. So nobody. No. But also that person's favorite song is Goodnight Elizabeth. I'm sorry to leave that part out.

[Luke Burbank]

That song is actually pretty good.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know it. But anyway, I just wanted you to feel like, don't go to the show.

[Luke Burbank]

Hoping Adam Duritz is going to sing it. Normal.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, maybe that's my. My favorite version. Maybe I'll see it. I'll hear it live for the first time and I'll hate the album.

[Luke Burbank]

I wonder if part of this is because I do like to sing along and maybe if you're somebody who is not given to that behavior, it's less of a bummer for you because you just want to go hear them play the song and hear Adam Durrett sing. And however he's singing It. You're enjoying it. Although I still think, again, if you just think about a song that you really love, I mean, there's like, let's go back to the beat Beatles, who we've been talking about a lot of late, and just imagine like, if they were. If you really loved the song hey Jude, okay? And you were just seeing Paul McCartney, it doesn't have to be the Beatles. And then you're just like, you love the song hey Jude and even if you're not gonna sing along, you just love the sound of it. You love the way that the song exists. And then Paul McCartney decides to just like play it on ukulele, inverting the melody or talking the words out. It does feel like it would be a kind of a letdown because you enjoy this thing as it exists. And again, I understand. Don't come at me, please. Folks that are like, well, listen, musicians are not our little puppets. They don't have to just perform for us exactly as we want them to. And yes, if they're the Counting. If Counting Crows has been playing Mr. Jones for literally 25 years, they're allowed to be a little tired of it. But what I would say is you, you need to like, at least try to do some of the songs the way that people like the songs. Because people. Here's the reason. Because people have paid money to come to this thing. That's the reason. And they have paid money based on their listening to the albums. And so it feels to me like it's. I mean, there's. It's as if it's. It's like a band that doesn't want to play their hit songs. Let's say a band has some big hits and you really like those big hits and you buy a ticket to go to their concert and they're just tired of playing their hit. This is a version of that to me. And it feels to me like a real disrespect to the audience of people who paid their hard earned money to come to have a certain experience based on, I think, a reasonable expectation. You are denying them of that because you just don't feel like it. That is the part of this that actually I've gone from just being a little annoyed to it to feeling like it's actually really disrespectful.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't feel strongly about this, so I'm not trying to push back just to argue. But I mean, I think that the one thing that would sort of mellow me out at this point is I feel like at this point, the word is out there. And people do know and different people do enjoy different experiences. Like, for one. One thing, like, you raised the Beatles example of them doing something in a way that the crowd wouldn't enjoy. We also discussed that they stopped touring, possibly because of exactly that. The expectations that are put on them. They didn't want that lifestyle anymore. And the Counting Crows could just stop touring if you feel like it's a bait and switch. Certainly maybe when they're still releasing a bunch of new Counting Crows records, like back in the day. Know. Oh, oop, I almost said under the Table and Dreaming. That's not them, is it?

[Luke Burbank]

That's Dave Matthews Band.

[Andrew Walsh]

Matthews, sorry.

[Luke Burbank]

I believe Dave Matthews plays the songs a lot. Like, we're going to have some DMB heads come for me. But anything I've seen of him, like or dislike his music, he mostly plays it like it sounds on the record, I think.

[Andrew Walsh]

But that. Well, but then must extend it, right? Because he's a jam band now.

[Luke Burbank]

Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

So it must. So. And I'll bet you. And that's kind of. That would be kind of what I'm saying, too. The Grateful Dead would be a good example. And I'll bet you DMD would be kind of a good example of that as well. You have the record. But then when you go, the Deadheads don't want to hear exactly what's on the record. The whole experience that they're traveling around back in the day and doing is like, it's going to sound different every time. And that's why my buddy who was a big Deadhead, had like such a bootleg collection, because it's like, oh, you know, those Deadheads can tell you, like, oh, the Phoenix show in 78 is when they did the nine minute Dark Star. Don't know if that's a song or an album. Just go with me on that. You know what I mean?

[Luke Burbank]

So.

[Andrew Walsh]

So at a certain point, it's like certain bands do say, this is what we do live. And I'm just sort of thinking like accounting crows at this point. It sort of sounds like word is out. Right. Like, either you don't.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. But what I would say is different to me about what I sense that the. That Grateful Dead were doing or even like, probably Dave Matthews Band is like, let's say that the song is by the. By Grateful Dead. It's what Casey Jones. Let me like, name like one.

[Andrew Walsh]

Touch of Gray. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Touch of Gray. Thank you. So like Touch of Gray. I even know that song. And I like that Song. My sense, by the way, if I'm wrong about this, let me know. Deadheads. My sense is that they would play Touch of Gray. They would have a part of the song where they just jam. That song could go on for the Touch of Gray radio version is however many minutes long. The Touch of Gray that you see them performing live could be 20 minutes long. If that's what they were feeling. They're gonna noodle. They're gonna, in the middle of the song, go off and do all this stuff. But there is going to be the part of the song where they say, we'll get back. That's all I need.

[Andrew Walsh]

They're not gonna say, I. I can't even.

[Luke Burbank]

I will survive.

[Andrew Walsh]

I can't even like un. I can't even do it wrong in my head. But you know, that is true. And you could say the same thing with jazz, too. You're coming back to the theme and then you're varying and then you're coming.

[Luke Burbank]

I would be so if, if, if the Adam. The way I blame this 100% on Adam Duras, I don't blame any of the crows. I think the crows are just along for the ride. They're getting paid. They're like, I think this is all dur. But like, if they were to take a song like Mr. Jones and they were to start it off in the way that we experience it, usually on the record. And then like, by the way, it's not even in my top 10 counting Crow songs just for the record. Like, it's just people want to know. And I will be starting a subreddit where I rank Counting Crow song on. Based on. On my opinion. But like, yeah, I'm cool with a band playing a well known song of theirs and then improvising within the song and going and doing other things and expanding it and taking it as long as you have those benchmarks that feels like you get the moment of the song that you're kind of hoping for, which is typically the chorus or maybe a particular lyric delivered in a way that is familiar to you. I don't have any problem with. In fact, I would find it really fun if Counting Crows took a song that I knew performed it largely the way I understand the song to exist, but then took a bunch of fun liberties with it and then came back and that was the song. I would be so cool with that. What these tend to be are just things that bear no resemblance to me to the original song. Now you're right, Andrew. Also, if people want to buy a Ticket to that. Great. Like, that could be really fun for some people. It's just. It's less fun for me, and I don't know why. This is more a topic of, like, my just, like, weird, deep rage this weekend over it. Like, it just like you said when you were living in New Hampshire, mowing your lawn, listening to tbtl, I was on the. I was whinging about this. Like, what has changed in 20 years? Nothing, except I woke up and chose violence on Saturday when I saw this clip. Like, I saw this clip, and I became irrationally mad at Adam Turret.

[Andrew Walsh]

How's he look, by the way?

[Luke Burbank]

He's got. He doesn't have those locks anymore. Well, you know, he had. He unfortunately had. And I. I'm. My understanding is that we have erased the term or we're not using the term dreadlocks anymore. I don't know. Are you up on this?

[Andrew Walsh]

I think locks, you can say. Just don't.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, locks, we say. We don't say the dread part because the implication there is that there's something dreadful about this particular hairstyle. I do think locks on a white guy is sometimes a pretty complicated situation, and he had that going in the early days of Counting Crows. He's got a much. I think he's got a much simpler and I would say more flattering hairdo going these days, which helps. He looks great. Looks like he's doing well. I've seen him interview. Interviewed, and he seems like he's a happy guy. He's really. He really loves the Howard Stern show. Oh, and Howard Stern once wrote a song about Metamucil, so. Howard Stern.

[Andrew Walsh]

Howard Stern. I'm sorry. I just want to think about these words for a second.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I want you to consider them carefully. I mean, I want to roll them over this.

[Andrew Walsh]

Roll them around a little bit in my head.

[Luke Burbank]

Andrew, there's a lot for me that. There's a lot. A lot for me to describe here. So I need. I need. Everyone, if you're in your car, I need you to pull over and need you to. I need you to park. I need you to. Everyone, let's get eyes up here, everybody. So Howard Sterd has this, quote, unquote band that he is in with a couple of the producers. On the show, the band is called Tookus. Okay. And in the band is Steve Nowicki. And I forget. Oh, Richard the producer. Richard is the drummer. So it's. It's guitar and drum, and then Howard Stern. And it is. It's. It perfectly encapsulates what's right. And what's wrong about Howard Stern in that his. All of his comedy instincts are wrong. He wants to name the man Tukas, because that's Yiddish for but. And then he loves talking about Metamucil. He loves. He takes Metamucil, and he really loves these Metamucil crackers. Now that instinct is right. That's very funny. So then he writes a song called Metamucil man, which is just about him liking taking Metamucil and how it helps him poop better. That instinct is wrong. But then that.

[Andrew Walsh]

By the way, like one of the foremost appreciators of parody songs about poop, as far as I'm concerned.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, not. I don't like songs about poop. I like telling stories about times I had a problem and. Or I like other people telling those stories. Song where the.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let me poop.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Because I liked that because it was a frozen parody. There's Andrew. There's so much nuance here. You'll never be able to understand what the. What the grading system is for these. Because even I don't understand. Understand it. But. But then. So I think. I think naming a band Tuchus is dumb.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

I think. I think writing a song called Metamucil man is dumb. But then I think turning the lyrics over to Adam Duritz from I'm gonna try to find this Diritz Med.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know if I want you to find it or not. You do, because I'm already pretty turned off by this whole thing.

[Luke Burbank]

But listen, so Metamucil man, when Howard Stern sings it, snarls it in Tuchus is lousy. When Adam Duritz gets the song and then writes. Does the basically Counting Crows version of the song Metamucil man, it becomes a musical masterpiece.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's great. She's apple crisp viber thin.

[Luke Burbank]

So good.

[Andrew Walsh]

It'S a hot damn sin she helps me move, makes me go I got perfection in my toilet bowl Know my stool ain't loose I drop a real nice dude I'm a Metamucil man.

[Luke Burbank]

So there you go. That's. That's Adam Duritz performing the song Metamucil man, written by Howard Stern, originally performed by his band Took us. I honestly think, musically, that's a good song. Like, if that was on a county. I mean, lyrically, I still don't like it, but the. The sound of Adam Duritz's voice with the acoustic guitar and the way the chord progression goes and the way his. The melody of the song I guess you could call it deviates from the sound of the guitar. All of that, what you just heard there, minus the fact that the lyrics are about pooping. That is the sound of Adam Duritz's voice along with a musical instrument that fills me with great joy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's the thing I think I love so much about Howard Stern, a show that I don't listen to, but the thing that always makes me sort of wish I was part of that club is when you. The relationship that other famous people have with that show, and whether it's Adam Duritz, somebody who you would. You could maybe assume from the lyrics and presentation of his songs, who would be very self serious, but then taking that song and putting it in his self serious style is so fun. And I'm trying to remember there are just other comedians or not even comedians, but like actors or whatever that you would think maybe would be like, oh, I don't want to like, I'm thinking, I'm trying to think. There was. Oh, why am I blanking on her name? The, the, the woman who is behind Girls, the TV show Girls, Lena Dunham. You know, I know that she's a big fan, but I remember like the first time I heard that being like, oh, that's funny because you could see her possibly taking offense at some of the things he does, but instead she's like, oh no. And but she's like, well, you don't take them that serious. And you go on and it always sense makes. Makes you like seeing Howard Stern through the eyes of other people that you appreciate. Makes me appreciate him more, if that makes sense. And on a personal level, like you seeing you and Phyllis geek out about it or whatever, you know.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, this is. I'm pretty much just programming directly to our friend Phyllis Fletcher right now, so you're welcome.

[Andrew Walsh]

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

[Luke Burbank]

Andrew, I don't want to drive the curriculum here, but in the emails and VMAIL segment were you planning on discussing. You forwarded me an email yesterday.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh my gosh, I forgot about that one. Yeah, no, that should be. That'll be the show pick. Yeah, absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

Floored me.

[Andrew Walsh]

I. I totally forgot I sent that to you this morning or last night.

[Luke Burbank]

Yesterday as I was driving back from Salem and I was like, huh, let's. The subject line being praying. AI photo from listener Melissa. And what this was was we were talking very briefly the other day last week about the sort of Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, and how his social media team has gone on this real direct kind of assault on. On the sort of Trump administration. And the way that they've been doing it is by doing all of their social media posts in a style that is almost exactly note for note what Donald Trump does, whether it's all caps or just yelling at, bragging about Gavin Newsom or making fun of things about other Republican politicians that you don't usually make fun of because it's considered low class. And one of the things that they created was like a this AI slop kind of like painting, which is a sort of a. It's a parody of. There's a lot of Donald Trump is being prayed over art that's out there. There's a lot of, like. Because there are people that support Donald Trump that see him almost as a messianic figure. He's almost godlike to them. And so as part of that, there are these weird paintings of, like, various, you know, Jesus and other people praying over Donald Trump. Trump, and just like all of this stuff that's out there on the Internet. So what the Nome people did was released their AI Slop version where Gavin Newsome is being prayed over by Tucker Carlson, the ghost Angel, Hulk Hogan, and then Kid Rock.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my God, I forgot about the Kid Rock. I was like, who was the Kid Rock?

[Luke Burbank]

And it's just. It. It's. It's pretty funny to me. Anyway, so I had thrown out a joke on the show asking if somebody would criticize create the AI version of this, but us with, like, luminary podcast creativity.

[Andrew Walsh]

So you threw out that prompt. I didn't remember that. I thought Melissa just came up with this.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't want to take anything away from Melissa's creativity, but I had said maybe we could have the people from call her daddy. And like, I forget who else I mentioned praying over us. And Melissa said, this is the best podcast equivalent to the gas Gavin Newsome Hulk Hogan painting I could get AI to create while listening to the Friday show on my lunch break today. I'm sure you've been flooded with these, but I couldn't resist. No, Melissa, I don't think we've been flooded with them.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is the only one. And I had totally forgotten. I mean, I didn't forget the conversation about the original news and one, but I did not realize that you had put a call out for this. So this Melissa, you're the only one who heard that call and stood.

[Luke Burbank]

And sweet Melissa, thank you. Those praying are supposed to be. Call her Daddies. Alex Cooper, do you know about. Call her Daddy, Andrew?

[Andrew Walsh]

I. I mean, I know of it, and I know. I mean, everything to me is through the filter of baseball. I remember she ticked a bunch of people off at.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, really?

[Andrew Walsh]

It was. She was a Cubs game because she did the take me out to the ball game and everybody booed her during the game or something like that.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's a very, very, very popular, very successful podcast. Call her Daddy. Crime Junkies, Ashley Flowers, Crime Junkie, also a very popular podcast. And this American Life's Ira Glass. And they're praying over an AI version of you and me, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

And look at how jacked my forearm is by. Have you noticed that I. I did not skin.

[Luke Burbank]

Also, you're married, apparently in this AI. Don't you have a wed. You have a wedding ring?

[Andrew Walsh]

Wedding ring on. Oh, wow, it's.

[Luke Burbank]

So.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sorry, ladies. Sorry, AI ladies. I am AI taken.

[Luke Burbank]

It's. This is really interesting because. Because, like, it's weird to see us rendered in AI art. We've been, you know, we've had our voices now, you know, some of the listeners have taken our voices and run them through some of those processors to where there's, like, an audio version of us. But it's very interesting to see. I'm guessing that Melissa must have put a photo of us in or maybe there's enough photos of us on the Internet that if she just tells the AI, go find a picture of Andrew Walsh and Luke Brady. Burbank. I don't know what the process is, but it's really interesting to look at the painting of us because it kind of really gets some things right, but then it still kind of really gets some things wrong.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. My face looks like my face. I don't feel like your face looks as much like your face. Your hair.

[Luke Burbank]

Mine looks a little off. I think my. I'll take the hair that it's giving me more hair than I have in real life, which I'll take. That's nice. It's got me in this kind of a shirt that I would wear. It definitely has you in a shirt that you would wear.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's literally a shirt that I wear a lot.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, I feel like that's where wondering if Melissa, like, took a photo of you and me, and maybe I had this green shirt on. Maybe something from. I feel like I was wearing a shirt like this a lot in Wisconsin. And then Ira Glass looks vaguely Hispanic, which is not something that I know to be Part of his sort of family origin. Like, it's. Everything is kind of almost there, but then a little bit off. But then you look at a little longer and you go, well, they did nail this part of it. Like, I mean, they got your super buff arms.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, those arms are amazing.

[Luke Burbank]

And that you're clutching my forearm.

[Andrew Walsh]

And that's funny. You're right over. Your hands are folded like you're praying, like in a clasped, praying style. But I am. You and I are sitting very close to each other and I am with my big hand and huge form. I'm like grasping your forearm. And then. And then Alex and I can't remember the other.

[Luke Burbank]

Alex is on. Alex is praying over me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And Ashley Flowers is praying over you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Her hand is on my head. Yeah. And. Yeah, so. And then Ira. I didn't get that. Ira, I think really looks like Ira. That was the first thing when it was like, when I saw it on my phone, I'm like, what is this Ira Glass thing? I was like, oh, that's us.

[Luke Burbank]

Ah. I. I recognize it as Ira because his glasses are so iconic.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And it definitely got a lot of him. Right. I don't know if he tends to rock this mustache.

[Andrew Walsh]

Does he have a mustache?

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe? He must have had a mustache in the foot. I know he has a beard.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought that was just shadowing, but yeah, maybe mustache. I can't tell. I'm zooming in. It's almost like a five o' clock shadow of a mustache. You're right. That's weird. I kind of.

[Luke Burbank]

Which I don't. I've never known him to happen. That look. But that's where I feel like maybe that was the AI hallucinating or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, maybe. Yeah, that's a good point. Is that.

[Luke Burbank]

But what I can tell you is. And again, I'm a safe driver. I pulled over, but I immediately screen cap this and I sent it to Becca. And her response, she was. I mean, that's when I know it's a good piece of content because I need to immediately tell Becca about it. And she said, let me see what her response was. She said, all caps. Oh, my God. God. I knew that was Alex, Ira Glass, and Ashley Flowers without even reading the description.

[Andrew Walsh]

See, I wouldn't have known that.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I would have only known the aira part from, you know, from first look. But anyway, thank you, Melissa. This is a. This is a truly horrifying piece of art that I am extremely proud to be a part of.

[Andrew Walsh]

And also. And this is a bummer way to break the news. But unfortunately, Max, your services are no longer needed. This is the new image that is going on the. On the tambour. Tambourines that we are giving away. No more Alvin and the Chipmunks. It's this of us being prayed over and us being very intimate with each other. Honestly, I like that.

[Luke Burbank]

And I think we should explore that more in real life. We should take that to the brick and mortar kind of level of our existence, which is more being prayed over by people and more of you clutching my arm as if it's a piece of driftwood and you're drowning in the ocean.

[Andrew Walsh]

It really does look that way. Well, that's really good. No, I'm glad that you brought that up. And let's make that our email segment today. And I saw a bunch of good stuff come in on the voicemail line this weekend, so I need to kind of see what came in over the weekend. And we'll. We'll play some more voicemails tomorrow.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, Andrew, now that feels great. Now that we're at the end of the show, now that we've. Now that we've punched the clock and we've delivered on the promise of tbt, We've.

[Andrew Walsh]

We've sung the songs the way you expected up to this part.

[Luke Burbank]

We provided Mr. Walsh and me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Does it.

[Luke Burbank]

Mr. Walsh and me. What are you doing right now? As Mr. Collard used to call it fun times. Let me just ask. On Friday, at the end of the show, I said, we might be living. This is a baseball conversation now. We might be living in a totally different world come Monday. We might sweep the A's. The Strohs might drop three. We could be in first place. That clearly did not happen. What we did do, though, is at least take two out of three. Three. We are. We remain two games back from the Houston Astros. How are you feeling about the weekend? That was.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, how am I feeling about the. I thought you're gonna ask me how do I feel where we are now? Because I will say we are precipice of a very difficult series at home again. And while yesterday. So the first game we won, but just barely. It was, as you indicated in the text chain, it was much more difficult than it needed to be.

[Luke Burbank]

May I read the.

[Andrew Walsh]

Some things are for us fair. And we had a fun little Texas change. And that was Friday night. But it was kind of like I enjoyed watching the game. I think, you know, oh, my God. This is totally an aside, Luke, but, you know, these. And I like to play gin rummy. And often, now that it's summertime, we'll go outside. I like to light a little incense outside. I like incense. I just got a bunch of.

[Luke Burbank]

Really smell it outside.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. It's so much better. I think you would like it outside, in fact.

[Luke Burbank]

Nice.

[Andrew Walsh]

A nice little.

[Luke Burbank]

It's not like, overwhelming.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nice little hint of it on the. The wind, like kind of somewhere near you, but not overwhelming. We light a little bit of.

[Luke Burbank]

Or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I got some stuff. I got some different branded stuff. This is like, really nice stuff that. That my friend Anna recommended to me. Anyway, and so we're just out there. Usually we could, you know, a baseball game is, you know, well, what on average now is still under three hours. Just under three hours.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

V. And I played one game of gin rummy. I didn't really realize until the end of the game, in the end of the baseball game that we were still playing the first game of gin rummy. We just kept going back and forth. I don't know. Like, usually you could because, you know, you play hands and usually, I don't know, maybe a game will last like 20 minutes tops or something. Watch the entire game with Veeves outside playing cards. It was an amazing evening, but that game was very frustrating.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

The loss the next day was even more frustrating, as you might expect. And then yesterday was a banner day with a just absolute blowout 11, 3 win win where Cal Raleigh tied and then broke the home run record for catchers. I mean, just a great day. We needed a blowout win. Coming off of this terrible, terrible road trip. I really hope they kind of parlay some of their. Carry some of that energy into this Padres series, because the Padres are capital G. Good. And I'm worried about this, and I'm really worried about my mental health because I am getting anger. I will see your Adam Durrett's anger, okay. And raise you a Vetter cup.

[Luke Burbank]

I cannot, Luke.

[Andrew Walsh]

I. I almost don't. I'm gonna sit out this series because this fake idea of this goddamn.

[Luke Burbank]

Will you please explain for the listeners who don't know what the Vetter cut.

[Andrew Walsh]

I literally. I mean, yes, I will, but I've tried to explain this to Genevieve a couple of times, but my anger, and I don't know why, it's just because I'm no fun. But my anger over this Astroturf bullshit gets. Clouds my ability to actually describe what's going on. But let me start from the beginning. There's a team. It's called the Seattle Mariners. There's another team, San Diego, Padres, they are not in the same league. One is an AL team, one is a National League team. And they. At some point, somebody decided, I believe as a marketing ploy, to say that we are, quote, unquote, natural rivals with this team. We don't really think about this team. They're not in our league, let alone division. We don't think about them most of the time. The only reason the Mariners don't have, like, a. There are teams that we definitely hate, but we don't have a classic rivalry. Yankees, Red Sox, what? You know, fill in the blank, whatever. We don't have one of those. So at some point somebody started saying, well, these are your rivals because you share a spring training facility. Well, first of all, if I know anything about shooting, sharing, that doesn't make you rivals. That makes you friendly. Like, I just. We. I am a fan of the Mariners. There are other teams that I absolutely hate that I smell sulfur when I see them. The Padres are not that team. It's not a rivalry. And then there's this idea that. Well, Eddie Vedder, of course, is a Seattle guy, but he also lived in San Diego, and I can't remember San Diego originally. Okay, that. And so. So he's like.

[Luke Burbank]

Or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

And he's a baseball guy. I know that.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

But the thing is, wasn't he a Cubs fan? I swear. Video. Okay. Yeah, you can back me up.

[Luke Burbank]

Take me out. You see him. You know, he's famously performed that at. At Wrigley Field. Okay, so with Harry Carey, maybe even.

[Andrew Walsh]

I didn't know that, but, I mean, I had some feeling that he was a Cubs fan, like, famously wearing Cub stuff. So he's not even a fan. I mean, I'm sure he's happy to root for the Mariners when the time comes, or the Padres at the right moment. But, like. And he's just a baseball guy, but he's identified as a Cubs fan, but there's this thirst to, like, try to make this Padres Mariners thing a thing. And I guess a couple of sports writers who I've learned is maybe the one of them who came up with this is a friend of our friend, the Stubbot, I think maybe.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I was wondering if we could figure out who actually who was the ad wizard who. Who I. Who identified the Vetter Cup.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I guess that it was a background thing for a while when some, like, baseball writers who are, I'm sure, you know, like kind of aging Gen Xers or whatever, kind of like. Oh, we. They called it the Vetter cup. In the background or something. But this year, they. They decided. The mlb or maybe the two teams. I don't know who decided this. Decided we're going to officially call this the Vetter Cup. Every time the Padres and the Mariners match up and they have this logo. Here's the. I mean, it's so goddamn lazy. I mean, it is. You already said we have. It is so lazy.

[Luke Burbank]

They.

[Andrew Walsh]

They have this Vetter cup, which is not a real thing at all. They're totally making it up in the year of our Lord 2025. All right, well, let's make it. It cool. How do you make a logo for the Vetter Cup?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I know, man.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's obviously got to be a guitar pick with a little guitar neck coming out of it, because what is Eddie Vedder known for? His slashing of guitar licks. He's not. I mean, I'm sure he plays guitar, but that's not what Eddie Vedder is known for. It should be a kid in front of a classroom with a gun. That is what the logo for the Vetter cup should be.

[Luke Burbank]

Yngwie Malmsteen Steve Von by Joe Satriani Eddie Vedder. Those are the four greatest rock guitar players in the history.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is the cringiest thing. I mean, this makes Macklemore's song at Mariners games seem like something that I invite into my home. I mean, like, for all of the cringiness that I often see in, like, sort of these. These collaborations of pop culture and sports in Seattle that always seemed so thirsty and fake and embarrassing and capital C. Cringe. This is the epitome of it. And I honestly might not watch these games only because I cannot stand hearing the announcers talk about the Vetter cup like it's a real thing. I have some opinions on this song.

[Luke Burbank]

She said, have I got a little logo for you. A guitar pick. What you thought was a rivalry was nothing but made up.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's so just like, oh, yeah. Well, it's rock and roll, man. It's got to be a guitar. Like, you don't.

[Luke Burbank]

You don't even have a veteran. Okay, first of all, I love the passion. I absolutely love the passion. And I'm so. I. I'm so happy that you feel so strongly about this. I agree with you on everything you're saying. I will say that it does not. Mostly, I want to beat the Padres. Like, I'm still. Where my. Where my emotional sort of labor is. Is still. It's mostly around the question of if the Mariners can somehow beat a really good team which has been challenging for us in it seems although every. I can't think of can't give you a good example but I feel like every once in a while we do play well against good teams which can be feel a little surprising and I don't know, I'm maybe I just hope springs eternal. I feel whatever that now when we, when we had just picked up Naylor and Gino at the, at the trade deadline and then we went on that tear of winning like 8 out of 9 games. Were we playing crummy teams or good teams? I can't really remember. I feel like if at some magical point and maybe this will never happen this year, like the hitting somehow starts hitting and the pitching somehow starts pitching. I feel like we should theoretically buzz saw through some teams. I mean there was this whole moment where there was credible baseball writers were saying the Mariners might be the best team in the American League based on their lineup. Now maybe that was just wrong, but I just wonder like you know, a.

[Andrew Walsh]

Lot of people were saying that after the tread deadline. It sounded like I was doing a parody there. But no, like I, I was. It was unbelievable to hear these national voices that, that I'm so familiar with talking about the Mariners. Like hands down, the Mariners have the best lineup in the AL now.

[Luke Burbank]

And you. And they were doing that based on statistics. The statistics were what is the era of the pitching staff, what is the era of the bullpen and then what is the batting averages and the productivity and the on base percentage, et cetera of the people that will be hitting. So, so like I think those, you know, those stats were real when this theory was hatched that the Mariners might be good. Mike, my what I'm hoping is that at some point we live up to all of those stats at the same time, which is to say Geno Suarez starts hitting home runs and, and Furious George is pitching well and, and you know, like our Munoz is not loading the bases with one out and letting one run in and taking years off of my life like he did did on, on whenever that was Friday. Like I guess my point is I feel like this team has the players that if it clicks it should be a good team. We should be able to be and I, I continue to be delusional thinking like yeah we might just, like we might just jump up and, and we might just jump up and sweep the Padres which on paper doesn't make a lot of sense because they have a really good record but who knows it could.

[Andrew Walsh]

So here's. I want to address several things here. So the. The. That amazing Homestead record, which I am not doing the math here, but I'm pretty sure just gut check. I think we went 8. We took 8 out of 10 on that home stand. Does that sound right to you? Like, maybe.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, we won. I think we won eight in a row or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think it was eight in a row, but I think we took eight. It was a great homestand. But to your point. So the first team we faced were the Rangers. That was really important because the Rangers were kind of really competing.

[Luke Burbank]

Nipping at our heels.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. Nipping in our heels. We. I. Did we sweep them. We definitely took that series. We definitely made them not a problem anymore, which was huge. But then we played the White Sox, who were bad, and then we played the Rays, who. I have a losing record, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

I see. So we were beating teams that are not. We're not beating elite teams.

[Andrew Walsh]

Although we did sort of put the. We kind of put the Rangers down, which is, like, really, really important. I don't want to, like, kind of dismiss that. And then we knew the road trip, the second half of the road trip was going to be tough. I mean, the Phillies and the Mets are tough. Like, those are losses that are kind.

[Luke Burbank]

Of like, they hurt, but you can't get swept.

[Andrew Walsh]

But you. But losing two out of three to the Orioles going into those other two series, that is what really, really hu. But here's the deal. Here's where I'm feeling about this right now. The bull you mentioned, Munoz, the bullpen is definitely a consistent problem, but some of these starting pitching collapses that we saw, I believe were glitches. Like, first of all, we saw it with Logan. Logan couldn't get. Logan Gilbert couldn't get out of those two innings in. Was that in Philly? That was in Philly. Right. Total.

[Luke Burbank]

There were a few games where I literally just astrally projected right out of Mariner fandom and didn't watch or think about. So there's going to be some blank spots.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, well, that was the one where. And it was also those weird day games because they were on the road and you. And doing TBTL during games or whatever. But there was a game where Logan Gilbert literally only got through two innings. I mean, that is not how it works. But he came back yesterday and had a career day with 13 strikeouts, which he'd never had before, so. And I think George had a terrible collapse on that national Sunday night baseball game against.

[Luke Burbank]

At the little league field.

[Andrew Walsh]

Or was that the Mets or the. That was the Mets. Yeah, that was the Mets.

[Luke Burbank]

The Mets in Williamsport.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And that was again unusual and it was a total collapse. I don't think that is who Kirby is and we know that's not who Logan is.

[Luke Burbank]

I think that's not the Furious Jordan I know.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, those are going to come back. I think the bullpen is still the problem. I think the lineup is good but we need. I don't know anything about Padres pitching but that's where I am. I think that we need. We can. If the pitching comes back, I think we have a fighting chance here. But we definitely need the pitching to come back in order to. And also. And our bats to continue to stay away.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that's the pro. The problem I feel like is for all of our, you know, with the addition of Naylor and Geno and everything and I mean it's so fun. Here's what's actually fun about having at least one player who's doing something historic. Even if we lose a game, you can. Even if we're losing. The idea of Cal Raleigh hitting a home run is so friggin fun at this point that it's like it's this extra. It's this little side quest of every Mariners game is like will they win? That's the number one. That's the number one thing. But then if they don't win but Cal hits a home run at least it's kind of cool. Like well that was a good thing that happened, you know. But like I feel like the thing is is that we have a really hard time scoring runs consistently so we might explode for 11 runs like we did yesterday. But there's so many times where we're like. Like we were facing a guy I think for the Mets who was literally making his major league debut and he just frigging now granted he was a high draft pick, he's a talented pitcher but his major league debut I think he held us to zero or one runs through like six and like we just keep. I feel like like in the. One of the A's pitchers on like Saturday when we lost, what was it? Two to one. Like I feel like we are constantly getting tied up by. It's one thing if you get, you know, if you get put down by Paul Skeens or something but we're constantly having struggles against pitchers who are not particularly noteworthy. They just like so and so has got his career high for strikeouts against the Mariners. Like I'm sick of hearing that. I'm sick of like mediocre starting pitchers having the best game of their season against the Mariners hitters, and that seems to happen a lot.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, here's where my concerns lie regarding where the Mariners are in both the wild card, but more in the independent race. Here is while we start a series today, I think. Today, right. Yeah. Today against the Padres. The Astros are starting their series against the Rockies. And then.

[Luke Burbank]

Are the Rockies good?

[Andrew Walsh]

The Rockies are terrible. The Rockies are. Oh, you're. Oh, sorry. Sorry, Luke, I wasn't looking at you. I didn't see the smirk when you said that. And then we go on to play the guardian who. You know, they're stuck in the middle of that AL west thing there, and I. They might be breaking even right now. I'm not exactly sure. But they're not going to just lay down for us right when the Astros are facing the Angels, who they're probably. So I'm worried about the Astros literally going into just sweeping two series in a row while we're facing a very difficult team and a team that could be pesky. And so that's what I'm worried about. While you still have the role.

[Luke Burbank]

What.

[Andrew Walsh]

What about this nipping at our feet in the wild card race?

[Luke Burbank]

What about living in a universe where there is a just God, Andrew, and where that just God. Because everything that we see right now in America points in this direction.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was going to say I hope.

[Luke Burbank]

That just and loving God step in.

[Andrew Walsh]

On some sports first. But then we should fix some things in the past.

[Luke Burbank]

Right after you fix sports karma, could you just a couple things over here on the non sports side we could use help with. But like, it just seems like for the last 10 years, every time that the Houston Astros could somehow be a thorn in my side and somehow just like. And again, a team. Peace and love to our listeners in Houston, a team that very clearly cheated its way to a World Series victory, which they'd never have taken away from them. They are, to me, they are the equivalent of the model movement. They are. They represent everything bad about competition and fairness, et cetera. And just the way in which they've. Like Jordan Alvarez hitting that home run off of Robbie Ray. Like they've. They're not only bad people, but they've hurt me in specific ways that I may never recover from as a sports fan. And like when, Andrew, when does the karma catch up to them? Could it be between now and the end of the season? Could we ever see Houston just go into a free fall? Like it never happens, but it feels it should, shouldn't it happen at some point? Could this be the year? Why not them? To quote Russell Wilson again, why not them? Why can't we? Could it be possible that Houston would just go through a real shitty streak like every other team does?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's that. Well, that's kind of where I get into some self loathing here though, because they did everything they possibly could do to let us leapfrog them in the standings on that last and but then. And we just totally squandered it again. Mets, Phillies, I know those aren't hand me games, but the Royals, we definitely should have won that series. I was hoping for a sweep like thanks Taylor. The Mariners did. The Mariners did nothing to to, to help themselves and we did not capitalize on our opportunity. We're losing and we could have so easily or if not easily conceivably taken that lead. And so in that way, it's not like the Astros are unbeatable. It's just that we're not doing our we're not doing what we need to do as a team. I don't know why I'm saying we now. Am I in the locker room?

[Luke Burbank]

You could be. If Mooney keeps loading the bases in the bottom of the night, they will be looking for a new closer.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Everything you're saying is logical and that's why I'm deciding to counter it with that's why I'm deciding to be unreasonable in these unreasonable reasonable times. Yeah, I am. The likelihood is that we because we are playing harder teams and they are playing easier teams at the, at the best case scenario we'll be holding steady at maybe two games back from them by the end of the week or end of this little stretch. It seems unlikely we would gain ground on them. And yet first I feel irrationally hopeful and I don't know why. Maybe it's just because we have had a nice game. I keep also waiting for some sort of psychological dam to break with this team. You know what I mean? Just kind of like, like somehow it just all clicks. Like something energetically shifts and everybody just starts hitting on all cylinders. I will have to say this. I do think Julio has been really overperforming for the last month, don't you think?

[Andrew Walsh]

As far as offense goes, I mean it's sort of funny overperforming or doing exactly what he always does, which is.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I'm glad he's at least doing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly what he always because he has care seasons. That's what people keep saying. I'm sure you've Heard it on the. On the broadcast as well. Like, every season begins with everybody saying, when is Julio going to be Julio? He's just not good. Why did we pay him? Why do we pay him?

[Luke Burbank]

But then he mostly.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then he ends the last three. Did I hear right? He ended the last three seasons with 30 home runs and 30 steals, stolen bases. Like, he. He just. He just. He's a crammer, like me in college.

[Luke Burbank]

Compiler.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's a compiler. It all happens at the end of the season and when it's important. So you do have that. And again, our last lineup is. It's fun to look at. Like, on paper, it is.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like Randy has also been hitting pretty well lately.

[Andrew Walsh]

Randy has started to heat up. We need a Heno Suarez to heat up a little bit.

[Luke Burbank]

Gino needs to. He needs to focus on the vibes that involve not striking out weekly on three pitches.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, take a pitch.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's going to be huge. That's going to be huge when he starts.

[Luke Burbank]

And by the way, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Luke has a real bugle. I didn't even see you holding that bugle the whole time.

[Luke Burbank]

RIP Demo.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really? DFI or df?

[Luke Burbank]

Dfa. D. Dmo. Dfa.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, God. Couldn't happen sooner.

[Luke Burbank]

I took my hat off everyone. You can't see this because this is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Audio, but, like, I mean, I did. Didn't Durs used to hate him? You'd make a lot of base stealing mistakes and everything. I always thought, like, nah, he's a great. Like, you know, he. He could play. Was like, he was the utility player.

[Luke Burbank]

Golden glove winner for 2024, which I.

[Andrew Walsh]

Think everybody is a little bit. I think everybody has. Yeah. But I will say like this. You know what he was. I heard some. I can't remember if. I think it was on 710 they were talking about this. He was one for August, he was one for July, and he was one for June. Now he's not an everyday player, but that is one hit per month. Month. He is three for the summer. Like, that is. I mean, again, I don't wish him.

[Luke Burbank]

Ill. That sounds like a Beach Boy song.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. Three for the song. I dig it. I don't wish him well ill or anything like that. There are some players where I'm just kind of like, good, get your skanky ass off. Since. Since we're just.

[Luke Burbank]

Would you like to name some of those players?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Well, no, because he got death threats last week, and so I don't want to go hard on him, but I Am not a fan of sausage potato. You know, I'm just like. I don't. I don't like his vibe or his performance. Robbie Ray.

[Luke Burbank]

I would be just Ray.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

He was.

[Andrew Walsh]

I didn't like dignity. I didn't like his vaccine stances and the fact that he couldn't play in Toronto because he was a vaccine denier. Another one. And even though he was a better player, I was like, see you later, sucker. I'm taking myself on a hot air balloon ride.

[Luke Burbank]

So, anyway, so Dylan Moore was DFA'd and as his meaning, and nobody tried to claim him off of waivers, which means that he could then go to the play a AAA for the Mariners. But his agent has already said he has no intention of playing in the Miners, which means he is now effectively a free agent. And so, I mean, what are the chances that he shows up in an Astros uniform and has the game of his life?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not sad, though. I mean, honestly, like, he was, I don't think, that miserable at the plate by the end. You know what I mean? Like, he was. He. Here's what I didn't realize until I was reading his postmark. He had a torrid start to the season. He was the only person hitting at the beginning of the season.

[Andrew Walsh]

I know that because we were watching. I was watching a game with Genevieve at a bar, and he had two errors in a row early on in a game that essentially cost us a game. I remember the text chain was hopping. I can't tell you what game it was, but I remember we were all talking about it because I kept on talking about his golden Glove. He had one error that led to. To something like five. Like, it would have ended the inning, but he had.

[Luke Burbank]

I believe it was at second base.

[Andrew Walsh]

It probably was. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

It made me so, so mad. It left the door open. And then they came on and scored, like, five runs in that inning.

[Andrew Walsh]

But the reason I bring up that is I remember there was some guy sitting next to me. I'm just like, this son of a. I'm just, like, so mad at Dylan Moore. He's like, dude, you can't be mad at him right now. He's been kind of carrying the team. And it was true. Like, when Julio's bat was just doing nothing, when nobody was doing anything except for Cal. He had a really, really, really strong. I guess that would. Or no, I guess April, right? He had a really, really good April. But then, yeah, after that. God. Remember Rowdy to Lez. I feel like I lived a thousand lifetimes since. Since April.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, then Rowdy to Les comes back and it's just actually kind of stinging. The Mariners. What, a Ranger or something? Yeah, it's actually getting some base knocks. It's like, oh, Rowdy, I don't blame you. If I got DFA'd by a team and then I went to another team in their division, my own only happiness in life would be coming back and hitting against them.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Having success.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I will say. And because I do have so much bitterness towards, like, sometimes I make it really personal. I will say that like a player like Rowdy going somewhere else. I don't want him to. I don't want the Mariners to suffer at his hands. But, like, I'm happy for him. You know what I mean? I'm legit. I want him to. Yeah. I'm glad that he's an everyday. I think he's an everyday first baseman for the Rangers. Right. And I kind of like, want him to do well. Not to our nose.

[Luke Burbank]

Not to our, you know, detriment.

[Andrew Walsh]

Detriment. And I sort of feel the same way about. About demo. Like, if he goes, like, I don't want him to come back and hurt us, but if he goes somewhere else and next season, it's just like, I don't know, settles in with the Twins or something. Like, which sort of. Doesn't that sort of seem right? I don't know. Like, you just sort of see him like that. I don't know. We need it. We need somebody. Somebody to slot in from time to time or whatever. You could see him ending up on a team like that and just being okay and good and being able to hold his head up high. I hope he can do because, like, you know, he. He did a lot of good stuff for the Mariners.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like he was the longest tenured Mariner. Oh, that crazy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, more. You mean active, right? Because Kyle would have been. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, you know, I mean active.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, of the people that were.

[Luke Burbank]

As of four days ago, of the people on the active roster, he was the longest serving member of the active roster.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's the Kenan Thompson of the Mariners.

[Luke Burbank]

Precisely. I love him in the. What's up with that sketch?

[Andrew Walsh]

Who doesn't? Is Kenan Thompson still doing snl? He must be.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. You know, last time I checked, I think he was. I think he's. I think he's really, really found his. Found his groove there. His niche there, so. All right, well, that was fun for me and hopefully for you, obviously, a.

[Andrew Walsh]

Little cathartic for me. I'm sorry about all the language, everybody.

[Luke Burbank]

I. I love we got to the better cups.

[Andrew Walsh]

I hate it so much. I don't know if you picked up on this, but my thesis is. I hate it.

[Luke Burbank]

I picked up on that. And I think you're. I think you're a. No is well founded.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think my whole neighborhood picked up on that.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm gonna spend the rest of the day rewriting various Pearl Jam songs to be about Mariners, Padres conflict.

[Andrew Walsh]

Will you work on a better logo?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm gonna start with. I'm gonna. Let's see. I'm gonna start with maybe old woman behind the desk or whatever's off of a verses. I seem recognizable.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, Dillmore used to be a Mariner.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that even flow?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, of course. How could you not recognize that? I got a cat I got to go put in a closet.

[Luke Burbank]

All right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Am I going to do that?

[Luke Burbank]

I guess you should. Absolutely. Don't close the doors. Just let. Let bingo explore the space. All right, thanks for listening, everybody. We're going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio. In the meantime, have a great Monday. Take care of yourselves. Go Mariners. Please remember, no mountain too tall and.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good luck to all. Power out.