#4548 Aarke Of The Covenant

Summary

TBTL Episode #4548: “Aarke Of The Covenant”

Date: September 5, 2025
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

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Episode Overview

In this Friday edition of TBTL, Luke and Andrew dive into their pet topics—anxiety around garbage takeout, misadventures in shirtless neighbor etiquette, dreams about public performance stress, and the eternal quest for the ideal seltzer experience. The episode blends classic TBTL whimsy (movie references, Lynnwood roller rinks, existential soda water debates) with discussions of real-life experiments, including Luke’s vow to quit canned sparkling water in favor of home carbonation. The show also features updates on Andrew’s ongoing fly saga, notable listener support shoutouts, and meditations on the small rituals of adult life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening Banter & Movie References

00:01–04:31

• The guys quote heavily from “Sideways” and “The Room,” setting a playful and irreverent tone for the episode.
• Quote: “If anybody orders merlot, I’m leaving. I am not drinking any merlot.” — Andrew (00:31)
• Luke admits to using humor as self-therapy and faking it till he makes it for on-stage gigs.

Timestamps

• [00:44] Luke officially welcomes everyone to the "Friday edition" and dives into the "foggy" Portland weather.
• [03:14] Guest Carolyn chimes in ("That was the fanciest sentence I've ever heard. And I used to watch Frasier.") on Luke's attendance at a classical piano concert in a state park.

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2. In a Landscape: Live Music & Stage Jitters

03:14–16:48

• Luke describes his transcendent experience at the “In a Landscape” outdoor classical piano concert at Silver Falls State Park, noting the genius of using headphones for immersive music.
• Both hosts reflect on how posture and stage anxiety manifest for them, particularly when Luke prepares to go on stage in front of an unfamiliar crowd.
• Luke shares his discomfort about being the “side act” at someone else’s show. He admits to jokingly warning concertgoers, “I don’t know, I’ve heard mixed things about that” before his segment is announced—leaving staff both amused and bewildered.

Notable Quotes

• "I had to physically put myself in a position where I look like I’m at ease in order to try to put myself actually at ease." — Luke (06:30)
• “I need to get out and do more things because I felt so kind of emotionally nourished by the experience…” — Luke (11:45)
• “The Venn diagram overlap of people who will go watch a classical piano concert in a state park and people who listen to Oregon Public Broadcasting, it turns out it’s pretty big.” — Luke (16:48)

Timestamps

• [07:46] Origin of the concert piano’s name, “Maude,” referencing the film “Harold and Maude.”
• [09:34] Rave reviews for the headphone experience at the concert.
• [16:48] Crossover of eclectic audience politics at these mobile piano events.

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3. Stress Dreams: Recurring Festival Fears

18:33–21:02

• Andrew connects Luke’s real-life event anxieties with his frequent stress dreams, particularly those involving festivals and performance confusion.
• “This was kind of like a stress dream, Andrew, because I got to watch an hour and a half performance…knowing that eventually I was gonna have to go stand on that stage…” — Luke (12:34)
• Andrew expresses empathy, having noted a recurring “performance at the wrong festival” motif in Luke’s dreams.

Timestamps

• [19:34] Andrew connects current situations to past festival stress dreams.
• [20:25] Luke previews more upcoming outdoor public events, all hitting his stress dream “sweet spot.”

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4. Garbage Day Solidarity & Shirtless Neighbors

21:02–36:04

• The discussion uncovers the surprising fact that both hosts share the same garbage pickup day (Thursday); Andrew proposes sending reminder texts to Luke to help avoid “garbage morning panic.”
• A long tangent explores the etiquette of taking out the garbage while shirtless, prompting reflection on body image, social norms, and why neither host feels likely to become “old guy with shirt off doing yard work.”
• Quote: “Any sort of additional connection that we can make outside of the show, I think is great.” — Luke (29:05)

Notable Quotes

• “I feel like shirt off is you’re either a shirt off guy your whole life or you’re not a shirt off guy.” — Andrew (31:32)
• “My brain is never going to be comfortable with me shirt off in public.” — Luke (35:44)

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5. Rollerblades, Bowling, and the Beauty of Letting Go

41:45–44:43

• Andrew offers up his barely-used size 13 rollerblades to listeners—a symbolic end to his pandemic-era skating experiment.
• A brief segue into bowling and dating trivia further weaves in the show’s blend of trivial but oddly poignant personal details.

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6. Shout-Outs to Donors & TBTL Community

37:18–45:37

• Luke and Andrew do their recurring round of heartfelt donor shout-outs, lacing in irreverent asides about names, possible locations (including St. Thomas, VI), and the fantasy of a TBTL-a-thon on a beach.

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7. Top Story: Luke’s Anti-Can Seltzer Pledge ("Arca of the Covenant")

46:20–68:29

• Luke experiences a “moment of clarity” upon realizing the wastefulness and expense of his canned sparkling water habit.
• He considers installing a commercial seltzer tap but balks at the $4,000+ price tag and technical complexity.
• Instead, he opts for a designer-style home carbonation device (akin to but fancier than SodaStream)—the “Aarke” (the eponymous “arca” of the episode).
• Andrew expresses skepticism that homemade seltzer will fully replace the "magic" of a fridge-cold can ("I just don’t think that part of the experience is replicable").
• The hosts discuss flavorings, with shared distaste for SodaStream’s attempts to mimic actual sodas (“This tastes like absolute dog water.” — Luke, 66:46).

Notable Quotes

• “The arca of seltzer water is long, but it bends toward carbonation.” — Luke (56:10)
• “Does that mean you’re never going to re-engage with this lifestyle?” — Luke on Andrew selling rollerblades (43:47)
• “The experience of drinking it is a certain thing…and I just think you like drinking cans of bubbly water even if you don’t finish them.” — Andrew (70:40)

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8. Ongoing Pestilence: Andrew’s Epic Fly Saga

71:30–78:44

• Andrew shares a voicemail from listener Carolyn, describing a maggot horror show in her kitchen (“I had maggots dropping into my stove or onto my stove, and it was repulsive.” — Carolyn, 74:07).
• The hosts compare notes on the stages of insect infestation, the weirdly sluggish “black flies” that result from dead rodents in walls, and the catharsis of deep cleaning.
• The segment resonates with the core TBTL motif: laughing in the face of life’s weirdest, grossest challenges.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Luke (about being hyped/stressed for a concert): “I have all this time to think about it. It was too much time to think about it.” (13:43)
• Andrew (on the appeal of live performances): “It drove me crazy. You’re like, oh, this is a great place to wrap it up. And then you look—you’re like, oh, we still have 90 minutes left to go.” (79:00)
• Luke (about SodaStream flavorings): “This tastes like absolute dog water.” (66:46)
• Carolyn (listener): “...I had maggots dropping into my stove or onto my stove, and it was repulsive.” (74:07)

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Important Timestamps at a Glance

• 00:44–04:31: Opening jokes, movie banter, fun atmospheric weather chat.
• 07:46: Naming of the historic Maude piano.
• 12:34: Luke’s stage anxiety at the concert.
• 16:48: Reflection on audience cross-sections at classical events.
• 19:34: Stress dream connections.
• 21:02: Garbage anxiety and the “shirtless neighbor” segment.
• 35:43: Body image, shirtless culture, open mic comedy dreams.
• 41:45: Andrew’s rollerblade life comes to an end.
• 46:20: Luke’s Carbonated Water Epiphany—quitting canned seltzer.
• 57:43: Andrew probes if Luke’s seltzer commitment will stick.
• 66:46: “Dog water” taste of SodaStream cola flavors.
• 71:30: Carolyn’s maggot horror; Andrew’s fly saga and catharsis.

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Tone & Style

TBTL is, as always, conversational, meandering, self-deprecating, and rich with recurring inside jokes and life minutiae. Luke’s enthusiasm for carbonated water, Andrew’s ritualized approach to garbage, and both hosts’ willingness to over-explain any tangential reference add to the episode’s inviting, lived-in feel—a space for listeners to sit in on a rambling, hyper-relatable friendship.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Just try to be your normal, humorous self. Okay? The guy you were before the tailspin. Do you remember that guy? People love that guy. And don't forget, your novel is coming out in the fall.

Oh, really? How exciting. What's it called? Come here.

Mas. Come here. Do not sabotage me. If you want to be a lightweight, then that's your call, but do not sabotage me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, aye, aye, captain. You got it.

[Luke Burbank]

And if they want to drink merlot, we're drinking merlot.

[Andrew Walsh]

No. If anybody odors merlot, I'm leaving. I am not drinking any merlot. Okay, okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Relax, Miles. No merlot. Do not drink too much. Do you hear me? I don't want you passing out or going to the dark side. No going to the dark side.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you bring your Xanax?

[Andrew Walsh]

Tbtm. Guess what day it is. Guess what day it is It's Friday Friday Gotta get down on Friday Everybody's looking forward to the weekend this show really improves with age. Why? Because the jokes get better? No, because my hearing gets worse.

[Luke Burbank]

I had a bottle of vodka, or he had a bottle of vodka. But anyway, we were drinking vodka, and I was so happy that I found someone who would drink vodka with me, you know? Hey, Johnny.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, hi, Danny. What's wrong with Mark? He's cranky today.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, let's toss the ball around.

[Andrew Walsh]

A lot of the times, what we.

[Luke Burbank]

Like to tell people is that you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Have to let life bounce off of you. Yep. Right. And so we are gonna do just that. Literally, in the literal sense.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Friday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. WTF Weather phase. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hi.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm sorry, I didn't see you there. I was too busy blocking out the haters. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it's a foggy day, folks. It's a foggy Friday. We've got the fog. I went out yesterday morning kind of early to run the garbage can up the hill. I don't know why it's so hard for me on Wednesday night to just, I don't know, roll the garbage up the hill at a time that it's not. I'm not wracked with anxiety as I am on Thursday mornings because I never know exactly when the garbage guy's gonna show up. And I'm already kind of on his list. He's the guy that keeps writing things in grease pencil on my Garbage can. But anyway, I got up Thursday morning kind of early to get the garbage up there, and I could. There was a difference in the air. You can feel it. In the words of Phil Collins, she's an easy lover. Anyway, it's episode 4548 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Shout out to the three people who got that Phil Collins jokes joke, that is. I went to something last night, a concert. It was a classical piano concert in the woods in Silver Falls State park. And it was unbelievably classy.

[Carolyn]

That was the fanciest sentence I've ever heard. And I used to watch Frasier.

[Luke Burbank]

And also unbelievably fun. It was like one of the coolest things that I've been to in a long time. It's called In a Landscape. We'll talk about that a little bit today on the program. Also starting this weekend, I am embarking on a bold new experiment. It's unique, it's bold, it's ahead of the competition. We are going to see if I can actually stick to this plan which starts this weekend involving me and a certain consumerism that's been going on in my life and creating great waste in my life for now too many years. So we'll talk about that. Oh, and we're going to talk to this guy. He's the longest running co bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Are you sure?

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

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

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning. I mean, I just want to point out I consider Easy Lover to be more of a Philip Bailey song.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it was weird because, and I don't know if you know this, I didn't write that joke down in advance. That was not a planned comedic moment.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I actually like that song. I got it. I actually really liked that song. I didn't realize it was a Philip Bailey and Phil Collins Come Earth, Wind and Fire. Yeah, I didn't. I did not know that. I just also just thought of it as a Phil Collins song, but.

[Luke Burbank]

Sounds like you're in the Camaro, Kevin. I used to perform that song frequently at the Mandarin Gate. And depending on how much alcohol we had had, which I'll just, you know, I'll be honest. It was a lot. It was never not a lot. So when I say depending on how much alcohol that sounds like. Some nights there was zero alcohol. Some nights there was a lot of alcohol. No, each night was a lot of alcohol.

[Andrew Walsh]

But.

[Luke Burbank]

But based on where either of us were in that particular journey, there would be. We would be vying for doing the easier of the two parts, which I believe the Phil Collins part is easier than the Philip Bailey part. The Philip part gets real high, real high. And I think sometimes Camaro would be like, we should do Easy Lover. And I would be, yes, but I cannot be Philip Bailey. And then he would be Philip Bailey. And then, yeah, we love that song.

[Andrew Walsh]

But the funny part was, seen you guys do that way, way back, probably when we were first hanging out and I didn't know Cam Kev that well. I can picture you guys both on that little stage. What I like to call the old vibe, the Mandarin.

[Luke Burbank]

Life comes at you fast or very.

[Andrew Walsh]

Slowly and stumbling, yes, stumbling all at once. But I can picture you because your hands would be in your pocket, one hand would be in the pocket, and both of you kind of struck that pose. I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

I think Kim, Eric, you have borrowed that from me. That kind of sort of, you know, casual on stage physicality that I'm known for. I feel he borrowed that from me.

[Andrew Walsh]

I could actually see that. I don't know if you're joking or not, but I could sort of see that because I have seen you in radio situations as well. We've discussed this. I don't know if this makes you feel self conscious, me bringing it up again, but I was very intrigued by your body language when you were hosting that Minnesota public radio show and you had to like, they kind of threw you to the wolves. You're just hosting the main mid morning call in talk show in a, in a market, in a community that, where you don't really follow the local news. While we were just visiting and I.

[Luke Burbank]

Walked by Tom in Bemidji and I.

[Andrew Walsh]

Walked by the studio and I know that you were live on the air and I don't think were your feet up on the desk. You were doing something that. And I was like, wow, you're very chill. You're like, sometimes I need to physically tell me if this doesn't strike. Strike you as me remembering this conversation correctly. But I feel like you said sometimes I gotta like physically put myself in a position where I look like I'm at ease in order to try to put myself actually at ease. Like if I'm. I think if I'm relaxed like that, maybe I'm sort of forcing it to try to fake it till I make it. You didn't use that phrase.

[Luke Burbank]

I think that I very much probably said that. And that's really A true thing for me in those situations is trying to kind of figure. In fact, even yesterday afternoon when I was at this thing in a landscape, which, again, if you see that this. If you live in the west and you see that this in a landscape. Piano concert is coming to a place near you. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It was so cool. Andrew. It's this guy named Hunter Nowak, who's a phenomenal pianist, and they bring this grand. It's a Steinway. It's a very beautiful grand piano from 1912, which is named Maude because his favorite movie is. What is it? Harry and Maude. Maud and Harry. What's the movie?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, is it. Wow, that. That's a good.

[Luke Burbank]

Is it Harry and Mod?

[Andrew Walsh]

My brain feels broken. I know this movie, and I liked this movie. In fact, I watched it on a date one time and I picked, and it was not a very.

[Luke Burbank]

That's why I.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's why it's something in Maude. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Harry and Maude. It's a. It's a boy name. And then Mod.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it was.

[Luke Burbank]

And they have an unlikely relationship.

[Andrew Walsh]

Harold. Harold.

[Luke Burbank]

Harold.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's why I knew, like, I was like, harry sounds right, but wrong at the same time. What are we missing here? Harold and Maude. Sorry, everybody. We just made everybody's head explode.

[Luke Burbank]

The piano is named Maude. Hunter said because he loves that movie and because this piano has also seen some things at its hundred plus years in existence. But anyway, one of the things. So he plays this incredible concert. And what they do that's so genius is they give everyone headphones. And they're nice headphones. Like, they work well. They're not like the free headphones that they give you on the airplane if you didn't bring your own. I don't know if they even do that anymore. But, you know, back in the day, they'd give you those, like, essentially disposable United Airlines headphones or whatever. These are not that. These are very nice. And they are hooked up to a radio tower. So you can. You put the headphones on, you can hear the piano music perfectly. But then he keeps encouraging people, hey, if you want to wander down to. This was in Silver Falls State Park. If you want to wander down to the waterfall, do that. If you want to go, like, just kind of move around. If you just go, like, have a nature adventure while this piano music is happening. It's so cool. And also, I never want to go to another concert or movie, Andrew, where I'm not wearing kind of like over the ear wraparound headphones. It was so great. It was so intimate. I'm sitting way in the back of this performance, but it felt like I was right there. Also, I couldn't hear anyone else, like, eating their chips.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, there was. I'm a overly sensitive boy when it comes to noise intrusion. And also, like, if I'm in a movie and people are talking, or if, you know, I'm at something like this, I let it bother me way more than I should. And this was just so perfect because I could not hear anything anyone else was doing. I could only hear the music. And then Hunter, when he was talking in between the songs. So this is. This was a breakthrough for me. I feel like this should be more common. Like, if you go to a concert, they should give you a set of headphones that you could wear to just really immerse in the experience.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, my friend Avishai always. I'm trying to remember if this is actually something he did in the early 2000s or just an idea that he wanted to do, but to have, like, a dance night, like a club night, where everybody's listening to headphones.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a thing now.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And I think they call it, like, silent disco or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Silent raven.

[Andrew Walsh]

Back then, too, he was. He was always obvious. I was a kind of guy. He was the opposite of me in many ways, because he just couldn't get enough of life, you know what I mean? Where he was just like you constantly.

[Luke Burbank]

And you don't want any of life.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't want any of life.

[Luke Burbank]

The opposite of that.

[Andrew Walsh]

He'd be like. I mean, from everything of, like, let's go. Let's stay up all night in what would be a German city where people are clubbing. Like, what's the.

[Luke Burbank]

Berlin.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Like, you go to Berlin and probably not sleep for five days straight because the rave is still going on. But also, back in New Hampshire, he'd be like, hey, I hear a cellist is doing a solo show at the plant shop on Loudon Road. And you go in and you're just, like, eating one.

[Luke Burbank]

His two favorite words were pop and up.

[Andrew Walsh]

What is?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, like a pop.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, like a pop. Yeah, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Unlikely is happening in a particular kind of context.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. And in a certain way, it would go from. And, you know, I'm just thinking of this one particular, like, time where we ended up at some, like, nursery, because it wasn't, like, hip or hipster at all. It was, like, the most, like, the type of thing your dad might drag you to. And like, no offense, and we had a fine time or whatever, but I was just always mesmerized by his absolute lust for life, no matter. No matter what life offered him. He was like, yes, I will take two, please. And I enjoyed that.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, my big thought being there yesterday afternoon was I got to go to more stuff. I really. I enjoyed it so much. And by the way, it was a far drive. It was like two plus hours from my house. Also, it was for my job because I was interviewing this guy on stage after the concert. And so I. But. But I had this feeling of like, I need to. I need to get out and do more things because I felt so kind of emotionally nourished by the experience of doing this. Because, you know, otherwise on this Thursday, I would have been watching Thursday Night Football, which, by the way, no shade on that. I was also kind of sad to be missing Thursday Night Football, but I would have been at my house watching Thursday Night Football, which would be a kind of a typical day for me. Instead, I schlepped all the way down to the state park and I went and I sat and I put the headphones on, and I was so glad that I did. Now, the weird part of it that I didn't quite expect was. And this goes back to physicality and posture and things like that. Usually when I'm doing something like this, like if I'm. If it's the Livewire radio show, I'm kind of like the first person who goes out on stage and talks into the microphone. So it, like, you know, I'm. I might be a little nervous or a little uncomfortable, like right before I go out on stage, but then I'm out on stage and I'm pretty much in it at that point. This was kind of like a stress dream, Andrew, because I got to watch an hour and a half performance from the back of the room as it were, knowing that eventually I was gonna have to go stand on that stage and I was going to be announced. And then I was gonna have to figure out what my physicality was when I was sitting, if I was gonna be leaned back or leaned forward. I had way too much time to consider the moment of going on stage, which is unusual for me. And it really did feel a little bit like a stress dream in real life. This thing is going on, this concert with all these people there, and then at a point they're gonna say my name and I gotta go up there and do something. And I have all this time to think about it. It was Too much time to think about it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is part of that also a control thing? Like so many of the times you're on stage. Not all the time. Like, even when you, you know, if you're interviewing an author or like our friend Chris, when you gu town hall together here in Seattle, that is somebody introducing the two of you and you walk out on stage together, but you don't have as much time to get in your head about it. But so many of the things that you do, you've sort of constructed that universe. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know what the previous Livewire hosts used to do as far as when they came out on stage, but I'm pretty sure that you probably over the years have constructed in a way of like, well, I'm going to get out there, I'm going to warm up the crowd, and then we'll start the show or do whatever you do. I don't, I, I don't pay attention.

[Luke Burbank]

I know you haven't, you haven't attended the show. It's not something interesting.

[Andrew Walsh]

I've been there. I've attended the show. But anyway, you know what I mean? Like, you and I are so different in a lot of ways, but I do think that we're kind of control freaks, maybe in different ways, and I think it's maybe necessary for our various jobs. But I sort of feel like you've also sort of, when you're doing live stuff, often you've constructed that universe.

[Luke Burbank]

I definitely have a system. I don't know if it's a good system or not, but it's my system.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And it involves a kind of a sort of level setting with the audience, a kind of warming them up to whatever it is my vibe is. And in this case, this was somebody else's show. This is Hunter Nowak's show, which again, I cannot recommend this highly enough. Like, he, not only is he a phenomenal pianist, but he, in between pieces, he would sort of talk a little bit about the piece he was about to play and just give some like, totally fascinating insight as to what about the song appealed to him and what maybe the composer was thinking or trying to do a little history. Like, it was just the exact right amount of context. So people were there to see that. They weren't there to see me interview him. So that was another part of. I really, I get in my head about situations where people did not buy a ticket to come be a part of what it is that I'm, that I'm, I guess you could Say, selling. Like people come to Livewire, they know that that's what they're coming to. So I, they, they were so sweet. The people that put this in a landscape thing on together. They were telling everyone who came into the venue, there's going to be an interview afterwards with Luke Burbank from Livewire. And of course, I'm walking in and they're also telling me this. Three different volunteers are telling me this. And I could not stop myself from going. I don't know. I've heard mixed things about that. Did you say that to each person? And then I just continued on leaving them.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's great.

[Luke Burbank]

Leaving them. Flummox.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm so glad that you didn't like.

[Luke Burbank]

What does this guy have against Livewire?

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm so glad that you didn't give in to probably the urge to say, ah, I'm just joking. That's me. I'm so glad that you just left them wondering for real. That's the hard thing about that joke.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I'm not good. I'm not good at letting it lie. That is not my, that's not my forte. But anyway, it was, it ended up being. The good news was the Venn diagram overlap. Andrew if you can imagine of people who will go watch a classical piano concert in a state park and people who listen to Oregon Public Broadcasting, it turns out it's pretty big overlap.

[Andrew Walsh]

Lot of maga, a lot of big pickup trucks probably in the parking lot.

[Luke Burbank]

Not as much that. But it was interesting talking to the executive producer of the show who said that they actually, because the whole premise of this is they take this Steinway piano and they bring it out into all kinds of unusual landscapes. That's why it's called well, in a Landscape is actually a reference to a John Cage piece. But they bring this out to lots of different places. Fields and mountains by the ocean. And that means that a lot of the time they are in very red country. They are in, you know, parts of Oregon and Washington and California even that just, you know, the politics are really different than the politics were probably in Silver Falls State park, which is not too far outside of Portland. But. But what she was saying was it ends up being this kind of great moment of people who have very different politics sitting around because they like this music and then having a conversation and then being forced to confront the idea that, like, at some level they are not monstrous. You know, the both sides kind of understand that the other side maybe, you know, from our side, we might say that there are monstrous things happening unfortunately, with the support of one side of this. But that the people, the actual people at their core who might be supporting, let's say the current president are not themselves monsters. They have, in my opinion, unfortunately, been fooled very badly about something. But anyway, this idea that you were kind of joking about it being MAGA trucks, but I guess when they play like over in the east, it is, and it's like, wow, that's a. This is an interesting outreach program.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I guess I was just assuming that it was all like, tote bag.

[Luke Burbank]

I just don't think there's enough tote bag people in, like, Burns, Oregon. So then it's like, who's gonna come out to this? Or whatever. But I want to.

[Andrew Walsh]

I want to back up on some other things, though, and put you more in the forefront of the story. Once again, we move away from that. By the way, I'm watching an OPB special right now, by the way, on about this. Or. Yeah, it's like a full hour long. If they're interviewing him, they're showing clips of. Or no, I'm Sorry, it's only 15 minutes long. They're showing clips of him playing. I'm seeing people with their headphones on. They're. They're pulling this piano on a trailer through all kinds of kind of rural areas and woody areas. It's. It looks exactly what you're describing. But I have been. You mentioned it was exactly like a stress stream to you. Like this idea of like kind of being introduced on stage and not having maybe not feeling as prepared as you would if you had more hands on the rain. And I had been thinking before you even said that about your stress dreams lately, because I don't know if you know this, but the last two times I asked you on the show if you had any good dreams lately, you've described stress dreams and both of them. Do you realize that they both took place at a festival?

[Luke Burbank]

You've told about both of them?

[Andrew Walsh]

Did you told two dreams.

[Luke Burbank]

So for those one, I was with Hari Kondabalu.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think the one with Anwee was the last one you talked about where your producer filled in as the host. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I decided to not go up there and do it.

[Andrew Walsh]

And that was it. You said it was some sort of a festival. And the one you told before that you had to perform at some festival and you did go on stage or something.

[Luke Burbank]

No, no, I was at the wrong festival.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, the wrong festival.

[Luke Burbank]

Hari Kondabalu brought me to a different festival and I was stressing because I was like, we have to get over to the real festival where I'm supposed to be doing something on stage, but we're at a different festival. And it was like I was so anxious because I felt like we're gonna miss the other festival.

[Andrew Walsh]

And this, what you did last night was not a festival, obviously, but it has some components of that. It was an outdoor kind of concert thing that is somewhat sprawling with people sitting outdoors. I sort of feel like this literally is like one of your stress dreams come to life as you've been describing.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, how about tonight when I'll be at Laurelhurst park with, I don't know, a giant number of people on picnic blankets where I'm gonna be introducing standup comics. Another thing that is pretty close.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's even closer.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, pretty close to my dream. And then Sunday I'll be at Domain Druin for a livewire pop up. We call it Speakeasy with John Craigie. Again, also outdoors, I was talking to Laura Haddon, our executive producer last night. I was like, we're really on a hot streak here of Livewire in the Wild.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, no kidding.

[Luke Burbank]

But all of those are essentially similar to or similar environment to that stress dream that I've been having.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's all coming true for better or for worse. Now there's another thing that you mentioned before we got on the piano talk and stress dream talk. And I don't know how I've never realized this before, but you and I have the same garbage pickup day. We've been talking so much over the years about garbage pickup and we've never.

[Luke Burbank]

Figured out that it's Thursday.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I've always known what mine is. I don't know if you've ever shared what yours is. And so here's the thing. I remember you said something.

[Luke Burbank]

I like the idea of them, of you. For some reason, I don't know why this would be happening, but it's like you, you have to remove your shirt, maybe you're suspected of a crime and they pulled you in and they're like, you know, checking you for gang associated tattoos. And it's just your, your torso is covered in tattoos related to your garbage pickup day. It's got the day of the week, it's got the exact time, it's got notes on the different garbage, you know, pickup people. Like, it's just, it's like, it's like friggin Cape Fear with De Niro, except.

[Andrew Walsh]

It'S all related to your garbage pickup or memento.

[Luke Burbank]

That's probably a better reference Maybe Harold and.

[Andrew Walsh]

Or Harry and Maude. By the way, Bud Court. I always forget that that's Bud Court from the Chocolate War.

[Luke Burbank]

But the thing is. And very quickly, I want to go back to us having the same wish, but they made a movie called Maudie with Ethan Hawke and Aisling Walsh. No, it's directed by Aisling Walsh. It's gotta be a Harold and Maude reboot. It's with Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke. It's with a lot of people that have Hawke. If they got the lead singer of the Darkness, Justin Hawkins, in there, they'd have a triple. A triple Hawking. But it looks exactly like Harold and Maude, except it's with Ethan Hawke and the woman from. You might. I believe she's the woman that was in the. What was that movie about? The sense of water or something, where she is, like, the custodial person who develops a relationship with, like, a water.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, the shape of water.

[Luke Burbank]

I believe she was the shape of water. I think she might have been in Blue Jasmine. But this is called Maud. This is what?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I don't. Harold. I'm on the Wikipedia page for Maudie. There doesn't seem to be any. I know it sounds bananas.

[Luke Burbank]

Cause it's insane if it's not supposed to be.

[Andrew Walsh]

I've searched in the page for Harold. Nothing is popping up. It says it's a 2016 biographical drama film starring those people. It's about the life of folk artist Maude Lewis, who painted in Nova Scotia.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, I'm sorry, but, like, this feels like Stolen Valor. Can we see the COVID of the Harold and Maude? The COVID of Harold and Maude, which I feel like has both. Has Bud Court and whoever played Maude on it. Are they actually on the COVID I don't know. I imagine that they are.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I'm not sure. I guess I'm looking at movie posters here. You think that the movie posters or the movie covers.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, yeah. If you look at the COVID of Harold and Maude, it's just iconic. It says Harold and Maude, and then it's this young boy, Bud Court, standing next to this older woman. Wait, is she the woman who ended up. Was she. Did she throw. Was she the mama who was thrown from the train years later at the same.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think so. I think that she would. You might be right. I was thinking, though, that if this was 1971.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. No, that would definitely not be the same person. Okay. If you look at, like, Harold and Maude, it's like Harold and Maude are always featured on the COVID of, let's just say, the movie poster or things like that. And they're wearing these coats and the Herald and Maude is written in a kind of an iconic. It looks very 70s kind of font. And then you go to Maudi and it's. It's. It's Ethan Hawke and he's. Again, I don't think that they literally. I don't think that they're literally trying to rip off Harold and Maude, But I can't believe it wasn't pointed out the weird similarities. Because if I look at the COVID of this Modi film, I totally have to think it's a Harold and Maude reboot.

[Andrew Walsh]

And again, I have never heard of Maudie until two seconds ago. So I don't want to go hard in the paint here. That's a film term telling you that you're wrong about any connection. But I'm not seeing any obvious connection between you two. And I think you're right that they're.

[Luke Burbank]

Unconnected, But I think it's. I just can't believe that at no time in the. Because this is what came up when I was trying to find Harold and Maude. I also think I mistyped Mod. I think I typed in Maudi on accident. But, like. But this is just. To me, it's like the COVID of the promotional photograph of it, the way that the thing is laid out, the fact that it's called Maudie just feels like there is so many ways that you could misunderstand the connection of these two films, which I think you're right. There is no connection. Anyway, I'm sorry, can we please go back to what we were talking about? Your garbage day is Thursday, and my.

[Andrew Walsh]

Garbage day is Thursday. So a long, long time ago. Long, long time ago.

[Luke Burbank]

Long time ago. Thank you. I love a good Don McLean from you on Friday. That's Phil Collins famously said.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think of it more as a Phil Collins song. I know that I belabor Garbage Talk Too Much on the show, but I didn't know that we have the same pickup day. And I always think about something you said to me, not derisively, but somewhat teasing me one time when I told you that I have it on my calendar to take out the garbage on whatever the night before pickup is, because, yes, I take it out there, the curb the night before. I don't wake up early enough to trust myself to get it out to the curb in the morning.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I don't either. That's why it's a Freaking terrifying.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I remember you saying, like, Andrew, you're the last person in the world who needs to put that on your calendar. It's like probably always in your head and in your heart.

[Luke Burbank]

I made a good point. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, why do you. And I'll be honest with you, this summer, I have twice, Luke, twice forgotten to take the garbage out on Wednesday night. I think both of the times alcohol was involved. I believe Mariners might have been involved as well. I think I had gone to, like, Marine games or gone out with folks or something. Come back late on a Wednesday night, a little bit in the bag or whatever you forgot, and then the next morning I wake up. But the cool thing is, like, the most important thing is that my garbage. Garbage bin is emptied. You know what I mean? Recycling. I can kind of work around that. We have an extra one in the garage. The yard waste, we can compost other ways. But, like, my garbage bin is always full because it's a very small bin that we pay for and it's full to the top. And if I have to wait another week, I'd be in real trouble. I don't want to be collecting like, actual nasty garbage in my garage in between pickups or what have you. So I have. In the morning, I think one day was even maybe after tbtl, I heard the sound of garbage trucks driving up and down the street. And I'm like, ah, shit snacks. I run out there, I put my garbage at the bin, and they didn't come until like 1 or 1:30, maybe even 2 in the afternoon, which is such. I mean, I really felt like I got a freebie on that one. Yeah, all of that comes.

[Luke Burbank]

And by the way, that's somebody's schedule. Think about it. If the folks doing the garbage, if they. Let's say they knock off at 2, let's say they get a real early start and they want to be done by two o'. Clock. Somebody, that's just the reality of their life. Somebody is just, as my friend Brianne would say, somebody is farting through silk. There's somebody in the neighborhood who just so happens that they're at the end of the route and that they zero pressure on. They're getting like a free. An entire free extra day of dealing with this.

[Andrew Walsh]

And apparently that's basically me, at least with that Black Ben. I think the other bins might be a little bit more scattershot as to when they come. All of this is to ask you. And I don't think this makes for good podcasting anything. I've done in the past five minutes. My apologies. I could have. This could have been a text. But since I have a calendar notification that pops up for me on Wednesday nights, and because I'm already doing this whole rigmarole, which is apparently how you say that.

[Luke Burbank]

Appreciate that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Where once the bins are out at the curb, I'm taking photos of them and then I'm putting them on social media just for proof that they were out there on time so that the city can't say my bins weren't out there if they skipped me again or what have you. I'm doing all this anyway. Why don't I just text you every time I take my bins out and just say, luke, take your bins out. Like we're on the same schedule.

[Luke Burbank]

Any, any sort of additional connection that we can make outside of the show, I think is great.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure. Yes. I mean, how would you feel if you literally started getting like a Wednesday evening text from me that just said, take the garbage out? Like, I would feel really cared for.

[Luke Burbank]

No, I would feel cared for. I would appreciate that. Because it is a thing that I regularly forget to do. And then again, because I have forgotten to do it, it means that I will wake up on Thursday morning and for some reason, I don't know why my brain kicks in, you know, whatever, 6am Thursday morning. But I will wake up and it will be a very unpleasant way to wake up because the first thing that will pop in my mind is, oh, crap, the garbage. Did they come yet? Let me go out there in some cockamamie outfit. I considered doing it shirtless last week. Or, I'm sorry, yesterday. Today's Friday, so I guess it would have been yesterday morning because I didn't have a shirt on when I was sleeping. And I was like running through the whole scenario of like, is it, is it scandalizing to my neighbors for me to be shirtless at 6:15 in the morning in basically my own yard, my own area? I'm not going, you know, I'm not going into their yard shirtless. I would never do that. Like, like, is that like, if one of your neighbors came out at 6:15 to bring their garbage out and they happened to be shirtless, would that be scandalizing to you? Or would that just be like, ah, it's six in the morning?

[Andrew Walsh]

No. I see. Because it's been really hot lately. So you see people with their shirts off jogging, you know, like men and women. You see women in sports bras or whatever. I think that, like, I don't especially I guess it would be. I guess it would only strike me if it was like super weather inappropriate.

[Luke Burbank]

I just think I'm not old enough. I'm not quite old enough for being a shirtless guy. I feel like there's an age that you get to where you either go with like, you're either a tank top guy. And by that I mean, you know, the kind of tank top that, like the undershirt tank top. We used to use a different term for it. That was kind of offensive. But like, you're that guy or even sometimes your old guy who's shirtless when he works in his yard. And I feel like it's totally acceptable, but I don't. I'm not old enough for it yet.

[Andrew Walsh]

See, this is. And I. I'm the wrong per. By the way, one thing I just did was. I just took. You're gonna hate this. I just took my calendar reminder that I've had on here for years and I just invited you into it. Now you and I both have the same calendar reminder at 6 o' clock every Wednesday evening.

[Luke Burbank]

Are you raw dogging your garbage calendar?

[Andrew Walsh]

We're just together. Love it. You don't have to accept that if you don't want to.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I kind of. And I'm the wrong person to speak on this because I'm not a shirt off guy at all. But I don't feel like shirt off is an age thing. I feel like shirt off is you're either a shirt off guy your whole life or you're not a shirt off guy. I don't think you get to an age where you're like, now I'm comfortable taking off my shirt because I'm old. Like, I just don't think that happens. I think, I think you're somebody who, like you're. When you were a kid. Well, I mean, little kids, I think are often doing that if you're like running through a sprinkler or something. But when you were like a 14 year old, what would it be common for you to be like, maraud marauding through the Green Lake neighborhood with a shirt off?

[Luke Burbank]

I've never been in, in like, you know, sort of post pubescence or even, you know, as I was getting close to pure. Well, first of all, I was very embarrassed because I didn't have armpit hair. And so I was, I was like, shirt on, arms down, glasses on, hair up. Like, I was very. I would. I've never been a shirt off guy. And you know, and unnecessarily I am A shirt off guy. Enough to get into the pool or the whatever. And that could be in public. If I'm, you know, at a hotel or something. I'm, I'm, I'm enough of a shirt off guy for that, which I think is. Well, that's not true. I think you enjoy that too, but just in very specific circumstances. I am not a shirt off. I'm just in my yard doing stuff guy. And I don't think, I think you're right. I don't think I ever will be.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think you're either that guy or you're not. Yeah. In the same way that I always had this fantasy of, well, someday when I'm like in my 70s, I'll do one open mic night because, you know, like, I feel like I should do it at some point in my life.

[Luke Burbank]

Kickstand comedy tonight. Andrew, I can. I know someone. I could squeeze you in. I'm the host. I can't stop me from introducing you.

[Andrew Walsh]

I have some good reason. Related humor. I actually there. That thing that I was reading to you the other day were like tweets that I didn't share with anybody, but I did at one point. I must still have it in my email. Don't worry, I'm not opening it up. But I was working, I think I've told you this before. This goes back about two years where I was emailing myself like sort of ideas for bits that could be part like more like actually for a stand up sort of situation. And I was trying to figure out if I could put together a couple of minutes that was related to like grocery store observations and the way people act in grocery stores. And I sort of was harboring this idea of, well, when I'm older I'll go in. And I don't know why age had anything to do with it, but I think I thought maybe, maybe I had recently seen like a comedian making his debut as an older gentleman and just sort of thought like the audience is very forgiving of this guy. Sort of. Because there was a, I don't know, sort of a quirk factor to it. And I was like, maybe, maybe I'll. Maybe I'll be a cute guy when I'm older and people will cut me the benefit of the doubt or give me the benefit of the doubt. And I can, you know, do.

[Luke Burbank]

Honestly, you're a charity case already, but.

[Andrew Walsh]

That'S a really good point. That's what I'm saying. Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

You're ready for your moment and they're ready to be nice to You.

[Andrew Walsh]

So anyway, but obviously my point with this is I don't think I'm ever going to be that guy. Whether, you know, I mean, like, nothing is going to just change in me and be like, oh yeah, I'm going to do that when I'm older. And I don't think you're going to be a shirt off guy when you're older either. I don't think you're fundamentally say, I've hit the age now where I do this.

[Luke Burbank]

No, there's no. I used to. I remember like the first time. I feel like I don't. Maybe it wasn't exactly the first time, but, you know, I was a very, a very sort of slender person. I had a very high metabolism and I just didn't have hardly any body fat for like most of my life and would just eat anything I wanted and didn't particularly like. I, I played a lot of basketball, but I didn't ever do a sort of specific exercise practice. And then one day I realized, oh, my body is, is starting to respond differently to these stimuli. Like, you know, I'm in my 20s, my metabolism is slowing down, et cetera, et cetera. And so I remember kind of embarking on a project of doing some running and stuff and thinking when I get down to a certain weight, then it's going to be shirt off running time. Because it was summer and it was hot and I would have my shirt on and it was uncomfortable. And then I remember, I think maybe getting down to what I thought was the, the shirt off weight and doing like one run in my neighborhood. This would have been like Beacon Hill in Seattle. Doing one run in shirt off and spending the entire run.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Thinking about the fact that I wasn't wearing my shirt. That was my one and only shirt off. Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah. And probably.

[Luke Burbank]

And it had nothing to do with the weight because I was at the quote unquote weight that are the goal weight. If it was. Or it's. My brain is never going to be comfortable with me shirt off in public. Unless again, it's a swimming pool and that is. I'm getting in the pool now. I'm getting out of the pool now. I'm putting the shirt back on.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I've told you this before. I'm so self conscious. You were joking about hair up.

[Luke Burbank]

You have no idea what you're doing in college.

[Andrew Walsh]

Whatever. What's that?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, that's Kanye. She's so self conscious. She has no idea what she's doing in college. That major that she major in. Don't make no money. But she won't drop out. Her parents will look at her funny.

[Andrew Walsh]

What about that guy's up to these days?

[Luke Burbank]

I wish I knew.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was just gonna say I've told you this before, that I'm so self conscious even at a pool or something like that. But when I do take my glasses off, I can't see anything. I am. Ah yes. So. So like short. What is it? Nearsighted, I guess. When I take off my glasses, I. Everything is just blurry to me. And it does give me a separation of the world. I can sort of imagine I'm in my own little world and that because I know it's really happening. Everybody's like totally everybody stops when I take off my shirt at the pool. They all stare at me and they all cover their mouths with their hand and they all sniff. These people are paying attention to me at all times.

[Luke Burbank]

Women clutch any small child that's near them and turn their heads away from the monstrosity.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you, baby.

[Luke Burbank]

I'll tell you some people that would never look away in horror from either of our bare torsos. Andrew, it's our donors. These people have not only have they not looked away in horror, they've gone towards the problem.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I disagree. I feel like if you've paid money to tbtl, you have the exclusive right to never see a shirtless actually.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, you know what? I guess we know it's impossible to know what anyone's real motivations are in this world. But I have to assume it's that these folks like tbtl, they want to keep it going and they're donating and they're folks like John Williams in Midwest City, Oklahoma. Now, I don't know if I said this maybe last year, if we read a message from John, but first of all, John, thank you so much. Really do appreciate it. Thank you for the support, Andrew. If I was going to enter the witness protection program, I would probably say my name was John Williams and I lived in Midwest City.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, interesting. So yeah, Midwest City.

[Luke Burbank]

That is Midwest City. Really locks it down like, my name is John Williams, I live in Midwest City. Ask no further questions, please.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm trying to figure out who is the. We were talking about the man who gets all. The composer who gets all John Williams.

[Luke Burbank]

You're thinking of Alan Silvestri.

[Andrew Walsh]

Silvestri, yeah, Alan Silvestri.

[Luke Burbank]

The Salieri to John Williams is Mozart.

[Andrew Walsh]

I wanted this, I wanted that guy. I wanted to make a joke about that guy, but I've already forgotten his name. Silvestri is his name. I'll remember.

[Luke Burbank]

Alan Silvestri. Alan Silvestrin last week has written every single. Everything you got, you got. There's the big three, Andrew. And you know this, you got Hans Zimmer, you got John Williams, and you've got Alan Silvestri, the dark horse.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. So John Williams in Midwest City, Oklahoma, next year around this time when we're thanking you, I am going to make the best Adam Silvestri joke you've ever heard.

[Luke Burbank]

Alan Silvestri. But it'd be funnier if it's Adam at this point.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you. Thank you, John. Thanks also to Teresa Fabella of St. Thomas VI. Now, VI, Andrew, I'm guessing is that Victoria? Is that maybe. Is that. I mean, that's definitely in another country because there is not a US state that's got VI that I know of.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was thinking Canada, but no, this.

[Luke Burbank]

Is in the Korea because the Victoria is in bc.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, right, of course.

[Luke Burbank]

So I'm thinking vi's gotta be maybe Australia. I think Australia is a wonderful island.

[Andrew Walsh]

But also when you type in St. Thomas VI, you get St. Thomas Virgin Island.

[Luke Burbank]

Virgin Islands. Doy. Of course it's in the Virgin Islands.

[Andrew Walsh]

Therese, we have not picked a place for our next TBT L A thon yet. And I have it on good authority that Teresa has room for us to stay with her.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. Or we could crash on the beach. We could crash in a little like a grass hut on the beach. That sounds wonderful.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you. Thank you, Teresa, for having us.

[Luke Burbank]

Theresa and I think Theresa's been supporting us for a while. I wonder if Theresa moved to St. Thomas semi recently. I feel like we would have had a whole thing about St. Thomas Virgin Islands because it just sounds so, so, so tropical and so wonderful. I know who else has been donating for many years, and that's our friend Dadley Patusic out there in Hamden, Connecticut.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you, Dadley.

[Luke Burbank]

Didn't Diadley, like, name their child Johnny and Bobo or something? I feel like there was a. I'm almost sure that they're. No, I do remember Dadley becoming a parent. And I feel like there was some kind of. There was a story about maybe there was either just the kid being subjected to too much TBTL or again, possibly naming the child Luke after me. And if you didn't, Dadly, it's not too late. Yeah, that's what I'd like to say. I think legally doesn't kick into probably 15. It's probably the latest you want to change a child's name to Luke. I think you've still got time.

[Andrew Walsh]

Christian Burbank. The full name.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm just throwing it out there. I think it's a solid name. It's a very solid name. Also thanks to Amanda Wilhelm, who's in Linwood, Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you, Amanda.

[Luke Burbank]

The roller skating district. I found out something about Becca recently that I did not know, which is that she was in a bowling league at one point.

[Andrew Walsh]

Really?

[Luke Burbank]

And that we're going to have to get out and do some bowling. I did not. I mean, I would like to. I would like five years in, you find out that someone was in a bowling league. I feel like that needs to be date one kind of content.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think date one should be at the bowling alley.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, now we're going to go. Because I love bowling. I'm not particularly great at it, but I'm, I'm. I enjoy the experience.

[Andrew Walsh]

So.

[Luke Burbank]

Amanda, I know that doesn't have a lot to do with you, except you're near Linwood bowl away.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. By the way, one thing. I'm just going to do this here. Remember Tradio, Luke?

[Luke Burbank]

Do you remember Tradio? I sure do.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Who can forget one thing?

[Andrew Walsh]

I could have given away on tradio if I wanted to. And this is sort of sad, but you know what? Buy, sell and trade. It's Tradio. I have a pair. This is a six word story. Rollerblades for sale. Barely used, remember?

[Luke Burbank]

I really, really tried to be Fitzgerald.

[Andrew Walsh]

I really tried to be a rollerblader. I put in the time I went somewhere on the east side. I took.

[Luke Burbank]

You took lessons. That was.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think that was pandemic.

[Luke Burbank]

And then the pandemic was that skate king.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, it was like at a community center. It wasn't a roller ring community center with like a bunch of kids and then some adults. It was very. I only went to one class. Then I think the pandemic happened. But then during the pandemic, I kept going to that underground garage and on the university here in Seattle and me and my buddy would. Would, you know, do our rollerblading exercises. But I never got good at it. And I will say I think it's time for me to get rid of my rollerblades. And so if anybody wants a size 13 pair of rollerblades, get at me. They. They are used. But you can literally tell how many times I use them because you can listen to the TBTL archives. And I think I talked about it each time I.

[Luke Burbank]

And I have to assume that one of our other donors today, of course, I'm talking about Sarah Nerper of New York. New York. I have to assume. Thank you, Sarah. That Sarah shares my feelings of. I would say melancholy and a finite amount of sadness. Andrew. That you are actually like end of an era. Exactly. Season over. It's one thing for you to back off of the rollerblading actively, but just to give away, sell them, part with them forever. It means you are never gonna re. Engage with this lifestyle.

[Andrew Walsh]

The only thing that is sort of in the back of my head is if friends ever had like a roller skating party at a rink or something, would I rather pull out my old rollerblades and strap those on than rent a pair of roller skates? But I'll tell you what. But my friend Paul is very into roller skating. And the last two times he's had a birthday party at the roller rink down there. Is it South Center? What's near west Seattle? There's a great roller rink in kind of southwest Seattle somewhere. Oh, it's in White Center, I think. Anyway. Yeah, I didn't roller skate at all. I played video games with the kids. I ate pizza, I drank soda, and I just didn't roller skate or roller skate.

[Luke Burbank]

Roller rink.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Southgate.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that. Yeah, I thought that's. Yeah. Anyway, so there's. Part of me is like, well, maybe I should hang onto it for the possible occasion of a roller skating party. But I've been invited to them and I don't roller skate at them. So anyway, I don't really expect listeners to take my rollerblades off.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I bet you they'd. Honestly, that could be a. I'm not jealous.

[Andrew Walsh]

On premium next year giving them away.

[Luke Burbank]

But anyway, I wonder if Kathleen Muns is interested. Who's out there in Bloomington, Minnesota?

[Andrew Walsh]

You a size 13, Kathleen? That's.

[Luke Burbank]

Why don't you give me the rollerblades? I'll bring them to the Twin Cities when I go out there. Because of course, Friday 26th September, we'll be at the Fitzgerald Theater. We're doing livewire there. Please, please come see us. Come say hi, Sarah. Excuse me, Kathleen. And maybe even Eric Hamilton of Walla Walla, Washington. I know that that seems far away. I consider Walla Walla a far, far western suburb of the Twin Cities.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did I send you seven? We think seven people. I think I included.

[Luke Burbank]

You could tell that like some. Some internal metronome of mine was like, we're probably. We've probably finished the list here. But then look who snuck on there. Eric HAMILTON, WALLA WALLA, WA.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sneaky little donor you. Thank you so much.

[Luke Burbank]

And Kathleen, how many is it usually on a typical day?

[Andrew Walsh]

It's usually six. And see the reason I noticed that is a little behind the scenes chat here. I have a spreadsheet that has all of them on it. What I do is I copy six out of the spreadsheet and send it to you during the segment. So I was just getting ready to copy tomorrow or I guess Monday's six donors. And then I had Eric on for Monday, but Eric's getting in on a Friday.

[Luke Burbank]

We can thank Eric again on Monday too. That's fine.

[Andrew Walsh]

Double dip. Remember you we appreciate.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely thank you to our donors. We could not do TBTL without you. This is 100% listener supported is the only way this thing happens five days a week.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

I had a, I had an epiphany this week, Andrew, at a moment of clarity as I was kind of going around my house and picking up and then dumping out. Well, first of all, picking up and then walking over to the sink and then debating trying to somehow drink a little bit more of but then ultimately deciding to dump out multiple cans of soda water that were spread throughout the house like there was. I often will bring one to sort of bed with me and have a couple sips on the nightstand and then not wake up in the middle of the night and have more of the club soda. So then the next day I think, well, I could still drink it this morning probably. But then by, you know, a day or two goes by and it's flat and there was just, there were cans in various places in the house that and maybe even my mom and dad had been over. So that kind of ups the number of cans of club soda that are being opened that are being unfinished. And what my parents do is they will literally put it back in the fridge and then they'll just like keep working on that thing for as long as it takes, like beavers building a dam. But I had this moment of dumping out. It had to be three or four, still mostly full now in my mind, unusable cans of soda water. And I just thought this does not feel good to me. Like, this is not, not a good, this is, this is wasteful, this is spendy. And I have to imagine, even though it's aluminum, probably not environmentally great on some level. And I just thought I have to, I have to try to do something better. And of course, Andrew, that dovetailed nicely with my favorite hobby, which is buying things so the first thing I thought was I'd actually dreamed of this for a while. I don't know. I was at this restaurant the first time I ever saw this particular thing. It was. So there is a restaurant that's in the ground floor of Rockefeller center in New York, and it's the restaurant that's kind of adjacent to where the ice rink is. When they put in the ice rink in the wintertime, and they came around once when you're in various. I don't know if they do this in Seattle yet, but certainly in Europe and in various American cities that consider themselves highfalutin, sometimes the server will come over and they'll ask you, do you want water? And do you want sparkling or flat or still?

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. Don't they say still?

[Luke Burbank]

Still? Yeah, still or sparkling. And I think in Europe they might say flat and then, like, with gas sometimes. But anyway, it's all this. I know, right? It's all the same thing. It's like, you do want bubbles or not? And these. The server came over and said, do you want bubbles or not? And I said, we'll do bubbles. And. And then they came back and they had a pitcher, just like a regular water pitcher, and they started pouring into my glass. And I was like thinking, oh, they totally got the order wrong. They didn't know I wanted bubbles. I thought they were going to bring over, like a thing of Pellegrino and open it very theatrically. And I think I even said, oh, we wanted sparkling or we wanted, you know, bubbles. And she said, oh, yeah, this is bubbles. I was like, what. What sorcery be this? And she was like, oh, yeah, we just have a tap. There's just a tap that's dispensing carbonated water at all times for our needs. And I was like.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, that is.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a thing. So the other day. So my thought was, I need to stop buying so many. And this is the. This is the big experiment, Andrew. I am done until further notice. Peace and love. This is a serious message going out to all of my listeners on this channel.

[Andrew Walsh]

Peace and love. Peace and love.

[Luke Burbank]

I am not buying any more cans of seltzer, soda water, bubbly water, sparkling water, whatever you want to call it.

[Andrew Walsh]

It.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not buying any more for my home environment for the foreseeable future, because what I'm going to do. So I started off thinking, well, maybe I'll just invest, because those things aren't cheap. By the way, the soda water is not particularly cheap these days.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let's back up just one second here. So you're not talking about a soda stream. I mean, it has to be a device that has gas, right? You used to have a soda stream way back in the day. You were one of the first people to have one. This is different than this. This is actually hooked up to your water supply.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I'm telling you the journey. So the first part was I made the decision. I've got to get off. I've got to break my. My seltzer water can addiction. This is not serving me, and it's not serving the environment. It's not serving my pocketbook. So I first thought, well, maybe I'll actually get one of these taps. Like, buy this tap. I'm sure it comes with some kind of a canister and it hooks into your water source somehow. And I started looking around on the Internet, and it's like. I think the minimum cost for one of them was like. Like $4,500 or something. I thought, well, I don't know. Guys have, like. People have, you know, like, taps, you know, like a beard, like a mini keg on tap at their house. You'll sometimes go in a rumpus room or something, and somebody will have beer on tap. I'm like, how can that be that much more expensive and complicated than just something that dispenses carbonated water?

[Andrew Walsh]

But the key is that it's hooked up to your plumbing. I mean, because beer isn't hooked. That's.

[Luke Burbank]

It's the keg.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it's a keg that you swap in and out. And, you know, and it's. And so that. That's what I. That's why I asked. And I'm sorry if I'm Stepp your story, but that's this idea that there's a device that hooks up to your plumbing, and then what comes out is carbonated, which means you must be swapping in and out some sort of a device to add. But, like, could you describe when you were looking up these $4,000 units? Is it like part of a sink? Do you have to get a special sink or, like, where. I kind of can't picture it. I'm kind of fascinated by it.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's see. I tried to type in home seltzer tap, and I typed Haute Seltzer Gap.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So right now I'm getting.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's the dance craze, Everybody's AI Overview.

[Luke Burbank]

In the Grand Theft Auto series, there's no specific hotel named Hotel Shelter. That's what I'm getting from what I just Typed in. Let's see. Home seltzer tap. Let's see what it brings up here. So actually, you know what? This is a little less crazy now. I'm seeing. Maybe I was also searching under the wrong kind of terminology because I'm seeing one sparkling water maker with gooseneck growler and draft faucet plus CO2 tank from Keg outlet. That's still going to run you $344.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a keg though. Or that's tapping into your thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it says sparkling water maker.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, I'm seeing seltzer here. Seltzer with an. A seltzer tap. Actually it says turn on refreshment. Turn on refreshment. Sparkling water from your, your tap. So this is interesting. Now they're showing like a kitchen sink, kind of like you said. Yeah, kitchen sink thing.

[Luke Burbank]

I think this seltzer tap, I think it's like thousands of dollars.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, interesting.

[Luke Burbank]

And not only is it very, very expensive because this did come up on my previous search, but are you looking at this faucet that they are with a straight one, the seltzer tap? Are you looking at your eyes on it?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I am.

[Luke Burbank]

Yep. Can you imagine, Andrew, you're visiting my house, you're trying to get some kind of water from my and or do dishes or interact in some way with this unbelievably opaque piece of technology. Like there's nothing. You know, Becca's mom at her house in Salem has something that it doesn't have anything to do with seltzer, but it's one of those kitchen faucets that's motion activated. Have you ever seen one of these? No, I don't see one of these deals.

[Andrew Walsh]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

It's actually a very smart idea because the idea is, is, oh, you're cooking and you got junk all over your hands. You want to wash it off, but you don't want to actually touch the thing on the faucet because now that has tomato sauce all over it or whatever. So you just wave your hand under and it starts. It's a very smart idea that I have never operated effectively upon the first nine tries. I am doing tai chi that the great masters have not even considered. When I'm in that kitchen trying to turn that thing on, like there's nothing more confusing than someone else's high tech faucet. Whether it's the faucet in the kitchen or high tech shower situation. Shower. What would you call that? The. Not the handle, but like whatever it is, when you get in faucet Whenever you get into the shower and you're trying to like.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean that's a cartoon by him. I'm blanking on his name. I know it starts with an E, but I would see it all the time. He's like one of those guys who makes cartoons for the New Yorker. And one of his most famous cartoons is. It says your friend's shower faucet. And it's just like the most complicated device. And I always, and I always think of the one that you had in your basement in Bellingham. Cuz I stayed over one time and I.

[Luke Burbank]

You mean an invisible ring that you pull down from.

[Andrew Walsh]

Weird. Yes. I bag of sand that weighed exactly the same amount as a bag of water that was on there. I had to switch it at the right time.

[Luke Burbank]

I call my basement the Temple of Doom. That's right. But so to. To the seltzer thing it. I think it's expensive and also when I looked at it I thought I don't want to have to explain to any person who comes over every time what the flippin frick is going on with the faucet. It's way too complicated. It also looks like it takes up a significant amount of space under the sink, which I kind of don't have a lot of extra space. All that is to say, Andrew, for once in my life I had this idea, this dream of this idea about a home seltzer tap. And then I looked into it and I thought that's not practical for me. What I need to do is I need to just get basically a sodastream but not any soda stream of course, you know me, I have to always go for something that's a little bit more. What designee. So I ordered this. It's basically a SodaStream, but just like a little bit higher design. I like the bottles that they make. They make these stainless steel bottles. I think it's called like an ARCA or something. The ARCA of seltzer water is long, but it bends towards carbonation. Anyway, I got this, you know, I ordered this thing which hasn't arrived yet, but I'm going to. I think it's here maybe next week. But the idea is I still have, I don't know, maybe six or seven cans of seltzer water. And I am not going to replenish those. I'm going to finish those off and then this thing is going to show up which is just basically a SodaStream, but a little bit more aesthetically to my liking. And I am going to, Andrew, commit to a lifestyle of carbonating my own water until further notice and see if that changes. See if it affects my soda water intake. Maybe I'll drink more, maybe I'll drink less. See what it like, you know, just how I feel. Also there's a entire not drawer, there's an entire shelf, entire level of my refrigerator that is carbonated water right now. Because you know, if I go to the store, I'm buying like usually four or five of those of those 12 packs and then I'm loading it all into the fridge. It's actually taking up a lot of real estate in my fridge currently. And the idea that what I could do is it's a nighttime and I'm ready to go to sleep, but I want to bring a little bit of sparkling water to bed with me in case I get thirsty in the night. And I just open up this thing that I've made myself and I pour a little bit in and then I take that and then if I don't use it the next day I don't feel terrible. Like I feel kind of guilty. I think rightfully so when I have all of these cans of seltzer that I've opened and taken three sips of. So I'm not sure how this is going to impact my experience, but I'm committing to you and the listeners, Andrew, with peace and love. No more buying cans of seltzer water for the foreseeable future for me.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right, when am I allowed to check in on this new life goal?

[Luke Burbank]

Tuesday.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

I think I get it on Monday.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

I might get it Monday morning before the show. So I'd say Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. You should check in and see if I've broken.

[Andrew Walsh]

If you broken your covenant yet. We're calling the show Arca of the Covenant, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, that's good, that's good. I just. It also takes me into a whole world, Andrew, of flavorings. Have you seen these? These flavorings.

[Andrew Walsh]

What do you keep. You keep slipping it.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know. It's like a vaguely Sebastian Maniscalco.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's who it is. I couldn't think of the name.

[Luke Burbank]

Have you seen these flavorings? They do for these friggin soda waters really briefly.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm going to try to lead you back to that because my only experience with SodaStream is Genevieve, I think maybe went on kind of a similar journ years ago. And I bet you you do remember this. I do, vividly. You had a nice SodaStream way back when you lived in Mount Baker and then years after that I'm going to say maybe Even close to 10 years after that or something. Genevieve got Soda Stream curious, but didn't want to commit. And, you know, Genevieve always kind of like, looking for a deal or whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

Good for her.

[Andrew Walsh]

She found a used one on, I guess, Craigslist. Is that the one where you meet people in 711 parking lots across from the Eagles? Because that's what we ended up doing. And we met somebody in the parking lot of the 711 and they gave and we bought the SodaStream off of her, including a bunch of her old bottles, which I thought was pretty gross. I'm like, can we at least get old bottles? And I think we. I eventually talked Genevieve into that, but we still have that. And Genevieve will go through phases where she makes it. But then I, you know, it mostly just sits there. And the thing is, I really hate the design of this thing. It's like an early generation, and it is just like the most. And I don't get super obsessed with this stuff, but there are just certain things that have a design quality to it that just seems like you can't escape how shitty it is. And it's not even how it works, but just how it looks. Printers are a big one. Like, I have this printer sort of hidden back here in my studio, and I'm glad I have this weird cutout in my wall to hide it. I have it in a place where it's really inconvenient to change the paper on it and anything or anything related to that. But I hate the look of printers so bad. Also, we have one of those food Ninja Ninja foodie things that it's like you can air fry and do all this shit, and it sits on the counter and it's just in our little basement kitchenette, so it doesn't matter that much. But it's just so inherently ugly. It's just so ugly and clunky. And I would add this Soda Stream to it, although not as big. It's just this piece of plastic that we got in a parking lot. That. That must be the thing itself. Must be 20 years old now, if not more from when the original buyer bought it. And I always thought it was going to be like a. Let's just see. If we like a Soda Stream, we'll buy this cheap one off of Craigslist, and then if we use it, we'll replace it with something that is like, more modern and less hideous. But still it persists, Luke. So that's where we are genes. We've messed around with A little bit of flavoring early on. I don't think that comes into the picture anymore. I think she just makes. Makes it plain if she's making it.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so this is my question. Does that mean. Because the SodaStream is still in use in your house, is that from whence all carbonated water emanates, or do you sometimes augment that with. Do you guys buy cans of soda water?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think we drink as much soda water as you do. I always have a water bottle with me with just still water in it. Can I make it? I don't know if you could hear that.

[Luke Burbank]

That runs deep.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And so that's my move. I just have a water bottle upstairs and downstairs, and I'm constant, constantly putting ice in it and drinking it. I like it to be very cold. So I, you know, and then, you know, if somebody comes over, Genevieve has a dinner party or something like that, she'll get maybe a 12 pack and then of bubbly water, and it'll stick around. And if it's in there, I'll grab one every now and then. But it's just not a constant for me, and I don't think it's a constant for her. Genevieve doesn't drink enough water, generally speaking. I gotta say, I'm not. I try not to be a nag, but every now and then I have to say, hey, Genevieve, how are you? Your. How are you in your water? Because I just worry, Luke.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's the. I mean, that's one of the arguments for, I guess the seltzer water movement and everything is that if it's kind of fun, it's kind of a treat. Sometimes, depending on the flavor, it's. It might encourage a person to drink a little bit more water because instead of it just being, you know, again, something that you feel like you have to do, it's like, oh, it's. It's afternoon. I'm a little thirsty. Let me treat myself to some of this seltzer water. And therefore I will be more likely to consume. Consume it again. I'm. I'm curious what this will look like in my own life now that I won't just be able to open a can. I do also think it'll. I mean, I remember from my soda stream, it takes almost no time to make one of these things. Right. Like, I think this thing comes with, like, two of the little bottles.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Although, of course, always keep one in the fridge if you want.

[Luke Burbank]

You would love this, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

They. This particular company makes also a. They Make a stainless steel to go bottle. So I think it's a lot like what you would just, you know, a typical stainless steel water bottle. But it's, it's, it's the size of the, like, opening that you need to screw it into to carbonate it. So the idea being you can carbonate your water and then take it with you in this water bottle and go out about your day. And if you think, I didn't buy two of those, you, my friend, are.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, that's gotta be the move because you're not going to make a big one and then pour it into a glass with ice. Like, here's my deal. And I don't, I, I don't. You wanted to come back around to talk about the flavorings too, Sebastian, but I. And so I don't want to.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like for less you've been to this place.

[Andrew Walsh]

I feel like I got you off topic here. But I want to be a supportive friend and I think I am in a lot of your ventures.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you for calling it a venture.

[Andrew Walsh]

I do. I am very dubious that this is going to actually be a lifestyle change that sticks. And here's why.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

I just think a lot of people try to talk themselves into the idea that a SodaStream is a good replacement for the feeling they get when they crack open that can of soda. And I'm not even saying this as somebody who drinks a lot of them. I just said I don't drink a lot of them. But you said it's sort of a treat or whatever. And I think a big part of that for you and people who are kind of into that and drinking a lot of those cans of whatever brand it happens to be. I think it's like pulling out of the fridge and cracking it open and getting that crack. And I just don't think you gotta get that crack, Luke. And I just don't think that part of the experience is replicable. And in fact, something like this appeals a little bit more to my personality because it is a little bit more like, hey, I'm going to do this tonight. I'm going to make the coffee for tomorrow morning. I'm going to make two bottles to go of my bubble water and I'm going to make my ice trays right now. I'm doing two of those anyway on a regular nightly bas basis. Now I'd throw in this other one, but I'm not particularly drawn to bubble water, so I'm not doing it. I just think that these things tend to not stick because I think the canned system, while you are totally right, it's not great for the pocketbook and it's not great for the environment to be burning through all of those. I think that it just isn't replaceable in that way that is convenient and still makes it feel like the treat that you want it to be.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I'm. I'm already imagining the experience of going to the refrigerator and opening it and pulling out this again, this little, like, you know, bottle of carbonated water and then pouring it into something and then adding a little eyelet dropper. Because that's the thing. I've now gone into the world. I haven't bought any of it, but there's a whole world of the flavorings. And I don't really. I don't think I'm particularly interested in trying to make it taste like a Coca Cola or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

Uh, those are the worst.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, if you've. There is a particular friend of ours who. How do I put this? I'm trying to be vague, but we have some mutual friends who I think have really embraced the SodaStream lifestyle and the flavoring of the SodaStream lifestyle. And I think maybe because of environment, maybe because of budgetary concerns or whatever, but like, every time I'm offered a. Like a. Hey, you want me to throw a little bit of this in there? If I'm at their house, I'm like, nah, I'm good. Because I feel like those, Those flavorings that are supposed to make it taste like a. Some kind of a cola or a Mountain Dew or whatever, they've just never actually done that job in my mind.

[Andrew Walsh]

For that particular flavor or any flavor.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I guess that's the exclus. Those are. These are the only people I've known who have stuck with the lifestyle. I feel like everybody who gets a Soda Stream, maybe it even comes with some sampler pack or something, there's this. There's this promise, this, this. This dream of a. Of a. Of a brave new world where you're just going to be able to make an unlimited amount of Coca Cola in your own home.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I know one time you're like. This tastes like absolute dog water.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. A little bit of lime, which you can actually just do with a lime. Or like Genevieve would buy, I think maybe raspberry flavoring that you'd put a little bit in.

[Luke Burbank]

Sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

Too. I think.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm trying to think she just don't get overly ambitious. Just a little fruity flavor will be just fine. You know what I mean? Like you said, A little lime, that's all.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, I would just drink it plain. And then if I wanted flavor, like literally squeeze a lemon or a lime in there. I wouldn't even mess around with the.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's an interesting idea. Maybe that's what I could do is just like have a lime on deck and just give it a little hit of that. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the. What I do know is, is that this is like similar to black coffee. Like, I wish that I, I wish my mind were quiet enough that I could just enjoy black coffee. I could just, you know that I'm. I'm very impressed by people like you that that's all they need in the morning is a cup of black coffee. Like, I feel like my needs, my need to be entertained from a flavor standpoint is just so, so gaping that it's like. And the same thing with, with just plain seltzer water, that's just not enough for me anymore. I had a topo chico moment because Toba Chico has so much minerality in it that I was like, this is enough for me. But like, but as far as this stuff goes, I don't think I want to try to get too crazy because you go online, you start looking at all the flavoring you can add to these. I mean that's its whole own industry and it's madness. So I want to figure out a simple thing that's just, you know, a little lime additive or a little something. Or again, maybe it's actually just a bit of fresh lime. But I. This will be something. I'll find out this week. What is the experience like, Andrew? Is the cracking of the can. The. Is that it turns out the most important part of the entire experience.

[Andrew Walsh]

Cause I'll, you know, I drink beer. I don't know if you know that. Speaking of exactly, you saying that made me think of beer. And we should probably wrap up the show. I don't need to extend this more, but like, there are certain things that I'm about to spin off into a totally different topic. But I like cans of beer. And one thing that I really enjoyed when I was in Minnesota and you got a can of beer is it was a 12 ounce can of beer. It was like the. It was just a can of beer in the Pacific Northwest. Somehow tall boy culture totally took over. It is really hard to get unless you're buying a 12 pack of something. It is almost impossible to get like a six pack of 12 ounce light beers. I mean, you can get 12 ounce, you know, bodhisattva or your IPAs and all your craft beers or whatever, but if you just want a Coors Light, a Bud Light, a Miller Light, you know, something along the lines of that they're all Rainier pbr, they're all sold in tall boys. And there is, it's like, am I going to drink more than 16 ounces of beer tonight? Yes, of course I am. But I don't want to drink it where the bottom half of that thing feels like a chore. And there's just all these little things in my life that are a little particular, right? And that's why when I, when I, when we were done with the TB telethon and we drove back to the Twin Cities and I had that one night where I just basically crashed with me and a six pack of hams and the Mariners in my hotel room and those little, you know, 12 ounce cans of classic looking hams, it was like so perfect. And I can't recreate that here. So all of that is to say I wouldn't want a growler of Bud Light in my refrigerator that I pulled out and then poured into a glass. You know what I mean? There are just certain things that I like to drink in certain ways. And for me, for beer, It'd be a 12 ounce can or a 12 ounce bottle. I like glass bottles. I absolutely hate it when you go to a bar and usually this is gonna be a dive bar and you order a bottle of Miller Lite or Bud Light or something and they give you a can that's in the shape of a bottle. Have you ever seen these? You're not a big beer drinker?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. No. It's an aluminum bottle.

[Andrew Walsh]

They call it a bottle, but it's not a bottle. It's a can in the shape of a bottle. Like, it's like the McRib of bottle bottles. Like, it's not, it's not, you know what I mean? And I'm just like, no, no, I ordered a bottle. Like, I don't want to put this piece of metal, this wide mouth metal up to. It's such a bad feeling. And so anyway, I think when it comes to consuming these types of things, and I don't think you're that dissimilar from me, not with beer, but with other things as well. I think the experience of drinking it is a certain thing. And I just think that you like drinking cans of bubbly water even if you don't finish them. But again, I'm not Trying to on your new plan? No, I just do think that there is more going on here than just the pocketbook.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, we're gonna find out next week, Andrew. That's what we call a forward pro.

[Andrew Walsh]

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

[Luke Burbank]

All right, I know we're running a little short on time here, so.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, we're good. I told you noonish. But okay, we don't have to.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, we're moving into ish now, so I'm.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, exactly. I got a couple of good voicemails here. I'm going to play this one because I think this actually rounds out the week nicely. Earlier in the week I was telling you about my fly infestation here in the basement. I mean, this has been.

[Luke Burbank]

I meant to introduce you as Lord of the Flies one of these days ago and I forgot to.

[Andrew Walsh]

One fly, two fly. I almost asked, do we have any fly related drops? And occurred to me, yes, it's like half your library.

[Luke Burbank]

We sure do.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I will give you a quick update on that because as quick recap for folks who didn't follow this whole ordeal. A few weeks ago we had a bad smell in our wall. We realized, oh, probably a rodent died in there. It kind of took us a while to kind of figure everything out. And then about a week or two after that, we started to get a lot of flies in that same area. The smell had gone away, but it was very clear what had happened was some flies laid some eggs or some larva or whatever you call it, laid eggs, I guess, which turned into larva, probably inside that dying creature in our wall. And then this area of our basement has been fly ridden and it was just so, so gross. We had all these fly strips hanging from the ceiling that were collecting these flies that would then die on the vine in front of us. They would buzz for an hour. It was so, so gross.

[Luke Burbank]

Grim.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it's so grim. That's what I just kept saying. It's so grim. And it's been dying down. And then this morning we woke up, I hung up a brand new strip last night. We woke up this morning. Morning, one fly, Luke. We were down to one fly on the strip. Things are finally so it seems like these flies had about a one week cycle. But I've been hearing from a lot of people who live in homes where, you know, critters get into their attics and it's almost like a yearly thing like A critter dies, and they're dealing with flies up there or whatever. And then we have this voicemail from Carolyn, which I want to say, when I told my fly story the first time I did hear from some people who are like, that was an amazing story. Should have had a trigger warning on it, because it got pretty gross at times. And I want to give that trigger warning here before we play Carolyn's voicemail that involves pestilence.

[Carolyn]

Hi, beautiful biz boys. This is Carolyn in Encinitas. Andrew, when you were talking about your fly infestation, I was reminded of a complete horror show in my house that was so similar. I was making breakfast one morning, and all of a sudden maggots started dropping out of the hood above my stove into the food that I was making. And I was like, holy s. What is going on? And I ripped apart part the whole thing. Couldn't find the dead body. Had no idea where these maggots were coming from. But I had dripping maggots from this particular area in my kitchen for at least two or three days. And then it just went away. And then I proceeded to get flies, both the. My upstairs and my downstairs. And they were these weird giant flies that I don't normally see outside. And they were super sluggish, so I could just easily get them with a tissue. And so I was just constantly reaching over and tissue killing flies that were gathering on my windows. And that went on for like a week or two, and then it all just went away. I never had the stinky smell, but I had maggots dropping into my stove or onto my stove, and it was repulsive. And we could not solve it or figure it out. All right, love the show, guys. Have a wonderful rest of your day. What you do is so important.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Been hearing a lot of that from listeners. And also my own research is like, you get. I think they're just black flies is what they're called, but they are big and they are sluggish. It's interesting to hear you say that, Carolyn, because that's one thing I noticed, too. It sort of seemed like when they were first kind of maybe coming up from our floorboards, I could just easily trap them and kill them or grab them with a vacuum. And they just sort of seemed a little bit sluggish. And so, yeah, I think they're. Are they blow flies or black flies? I'm not sure, but they.

[Luke Burbank]

Are they sleepy from, like, did they just have their Thanksgiving dinner? Yes, they're the equivalent of the tryptophan, which I think actually has been debunked. But, like, you wonder about the evolutionary advantage of being a slow fly. Like, how did that get rewarded enough that they're still around if you can just kill them with a tissue?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, well, that's a good point. But I do think there's power in numbers as well. And they just have so many. Genevieve was looking it up, and it said something like, for everybody, for every breeding pair of flies you kill, you've potentially eliminated 25,000 eggs or something absolutely ridiculous like that. So I'm like, well, we got to keep killing them. She's like, yeah, but it just shows you how quickly they reproduce. It's kind of like they just. There's, like I said, power and numbers. They can just recreate themselves so quickly and on such massive numbers. And then I, you know, I don't want to get into the cycle of life. I guess the point of flies is they do break down the dead animals, though. And now we probably have less of a dead animal in our wall because of, you know.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a good point. And you just had to basically trap little microscopic amounts of that dead animal by way of the fly. So the flies were basically, like, they were reducing the amount of dead animal, but then that was now in them, or they were part of it.

[Andrew Walsh]

It.

[Luke Burbank]

And now you caught them and you took them out. So you were taking the dead animal out one fly strip at a time, one fly at a time.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm just so glad. Like, I'd been waiting for this moment, and it was last night where I could start taking down some of the fly paper we had up. And, like, there was a little area. We have a little, like, kind of a. Kind of a wet bar area, but it's just like kind of a cart, sort of a wooden cart that Genevieve bought and assembled a long time ago. And that's usually where we just sort of keep some liquor and an ice bucket and various stuff. But that had basically been taken over with fly removal site stuff, you know, like unopened packages of fly poison or this. A fly swatter and all that. And, like, any counter space around this whole area, I kept wiping it down, but I was just like, I couldn't be in the area. It just felt like fly central. Right? And then last night, when we. I took down the last piece of fly paper that had flies connected to it, took it outside and just cleaned the hell out of everything, then rehung one clean fly paper up just in case, and that's where we caught one overnight. But it just felt. Felt so cathartic to be able to, like, finally, like, reclaim this space and just scrub. I just can't think of anything that is dirtier than what happened there. You know what I mean? And animals that came from. That were born of death coming into my little kitchenette area and landing on things and walking on things, and I'm just like, oh, I like to think about. About it. I get so upset. And so I just. I. I did. As they were saying at the beginning of the pandemic, a deep clean last night.

[Luke Burbank]

You merely adapted to the caucus. I was born in it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Human flies.

[Luke Burbank]

One of the flies have a little Bane mask on.

[Andrew Walsh]

It did, anyway.

[Luke Burbank]

I wonder how wrong I got that. I don't even know if I've seen that movie. What does he say?

[Andrew Walsh]

He says. He says.

[Luke Burbank]

He says, basically, you adjusted to the darkness. I was born in it. You. But why do I make you sound like.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think it's. You adopt.

[Luke Burbank]

You adopted the darkness I was born in. But who am I? I'm making him sound like a Pepperidge Farm cookie commercial spokesman.

[Andrew Walsh]

But he does have a weirdly high voice.

[Luke Burbank]

What if Bane was selling Pepperidge Farm.

[Andrew Walsh]

Cookies, I'd buy it. You think the darkness is your ally? I hate doing this because I've heard other people.

[Luke Burbank]

I was born in them.

[Andrew Walsh]

How do we get up to Milano? Let's see.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that a Pepperidge Farm cookie?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, it is, Yes. I think a darkness is your alley. You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it. Molded by. I didn't see the light until I was already a man. And then it was nothing to me but blinding.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, because Bane was. He was like. He was the baby that was living in that weird, like, pit of horror, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

I think so. I don't remember those movies that well. All I know about those movies is they were good, but they were all twice as long as they should have been. It should have been chopped up into, like, six movies. It drove me crazy. You're like, oh, this is a great place to wrap it up. And then you look. You're like, oh, we still have 90 minutes. Minutes left to go. Fantastic.

[Luke Burbank]

You merely adapted to the editing room. I was. This is my Christopher Nolan impression. I was born in it.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's really good. It's really good.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, thanks for listening, everybody. That's going to bring us to the end of our broadcast week, but we'll be back here on Monday with a whole lot more like a. Like a bot fly. We're. We're going to be reproducing content over the weekend at a shocking scale. And we're going to be ready to bring it to you on Monday, more of it than you ever wanted. So please do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Friday. Take care of yourselves. Have a great weekend. Hey, I can say this. Go Seahawks, and we'll see you Monday. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to all. Power out.