#4560 Scruggs, The Ballad Of Buster

Summary

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TBTL #4560 “Scruggs, The Ballad Of Buster”

September 23, 2025
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

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Overview

In this Tuesday episode, Luke and Andrew return with their classic mix of personal anecdotes, cultural observations, and comedic riffing. The main theme is media landscapes and personal habits—ranging from Luke’s new “soda-stream lifestyle” and the philosophical importance of the bathroom cup, to the heavy topic of Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension and return amidst escalating government-media tensions. The episode is equal parts slice-of-life humor and concerned civic discourse.

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Key Discussions & Insights

1. Aging, Invitations, and Evites

[04:00–05:56]

• Andrew excitedly relays receiving a classic Evite for a 40th birthday, highlighting nostalgia for older tech and the subtle shift in generational habits.
• Discussion of ads on Evite leads to jokes about marketing targeting their very specific age group, ending with self-deprecating acceptance:
  • “This is us. As the show title says. This is us.” (05:46, Andrew)

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2. Luke’s New Water Lifestyle

[05:56–27:05]

• Luke details his journey from wasteful, half-consumed cans of club soda to adopting a home carbonation system (ARC, a fancy SodaStream).
• The hosts discuss the technical challenge of achieving perfect “bubbulation,” and the perils of flavoring carbonated water the wrong way (spoiler: add syrup last).
• Andrew relates, reminisces about the days of janky SodaStreams, and provides important life advice:
  • “Sometimes some questions asked isn’t the worst policy.” (15:56, Luke)
• Luke extols the satisfaction of a new system and ponders the pressure when hosting guests (“Will the system hold up socially?”), ultimately agreeing with Andrew that it’s okay to break your own systems for special occasions.

Notable Quote

• Sound of success when cracking open fresh fizzy water:
  • “Oh, that was really good.” (19:33, Andrew)

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3. The Bathroom Cup Debate & Adulting Realizations

[27:05–37:53]

• Luke realizes he’s become a person without a bathroom cup and wonders if this is odd.
• Andrew shares a sentimental history with bathroom Dixie cups and describes his thoughtful solution: acquiring a tasteful set of plastic tumblers for rotation and hygiene.
• Both hosts muse on the balance between utility and design, with Andrew warning against leaving a single cup to get grimy and Luke seeking a “pristine bathroom vibe.”

Notable Quote

• “You get two of them. You have an air and a spare.” (36:59, Luke, paraphrasing Andrew)

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4. Spatula City—The Joys of Intentional Shopping

[30:56–35:00]

• Andrew proudly describes his journey to buy the ideal spatula, relishing the intentionality of acquiring household goods rather than inheriting or settling for random utensils.
• “I'm 48 years old and I feel like I'm becoming an adult today.” (32:50, Andrew)

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5. Jimmy Kimmel, Media Consolidation, & FCC Overreach

[51:51–94:52]

Context & Summary

• The hosts shift to the top story: Jimmy Kimmel’s recent removal—and surprise reinstatement—from ABC amidst political and business pressure from the Trump administration and major media conglomerates trying to curry FCC favor for mergers.
• ABC affiliates owned by conservative groups pulled Kimmel after he made comments critical of Trump in the context of Charlie Kirk’s murder—though, as Andrew clarifies, Kimmel condemned the killing and did not “celebrate” Kirk’s death.

Themes

• Government Overreach in Media:
  • “This is the beginning—not even the beginning, maybe the mid-part—of just clamping down on the media.” (59:53, Luke)
  • The conversation ties historic First Amendment benchmarks (the health of democracies measured by whether comedians can joke about the president) to the current perilous environment.
• The Evolving Role of the FCC:
  • Luke explains that “the entire reason…[for] the FCC was because TV and radio stations were using a public thing—frequencies that belong to all of us.” (64:20) He questions why it still matters in a world of streaming and cable and suggests the agency is increasingly obsolete and dangerous in the wrong hands.

Notable Quotes

• On Kimmel’s return:
  • “I'm really intrigued about what that opening monologue looks like tonight, because…he's at the very least not going to say anything he doesn't agree with.” (62:51, Luke)
• On misinformation bubbles:
  • “…in every room you go in [in Arizona], Fox News is everywhere…so far away from representing truth." (55:15, Andrew)
• On the FCC’s legacy:
  • “…the content police should be if I go on this show… and I say something that is a direct, actionable threat…that’s a matter for law enforcement, not the FCC.” (70:53, Luke)

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6. Personal Takes: Cancellations & the Future of Late Night

[82:56–94:52]

• Both hosts reflect on the performative and real impacts of “cancel culture” versus actual government suppression of speech.
• Luke refers back to Colbert’s cancellation, expressing new suspicion the move may be less economic than political, in light of “the Kimmel thing.” (82:56)
• The segment ends with a shared sense of relief that, at least for now, media conglomerates are standing up—however uncomfortably—to direct political pressure, and curiosity about what Kimmel will say on his return.

Notable Quote

• “For me, it doesn’t even need to be—like, I don’t need [Kimmel] to come out and just like, I mean, on some level I would love it if he just came out guns blazing. I just don’t want him to come out guns apologizing.” (94:16, Luke)

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• “I paused there because my own words shocked me for a moment…” (13:23, Andrew, during a SodaStream analogy)
• “Sometimes some questions asked isn’t the worst policy.” (15:56, Luke)
• “You get two of them. You have an air and a spare.” (36:59, Luke, on Andrew’s tumbler rotation for bathroom hygiene)
• “I'm 48 years old and I feel like I'm becoming an adult today.” (32:50, Andrew, about intentionally buying spatulas)
• “This is the beginning…of just clamping down on the media…” (59:53, Luke)
• “He never said one mean thing about Charlie Kirk.” (88:42, Andrew)
• “I will defend to the death your right to mispronounce it.” (24:23, Luke, in a Voltaire reference)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [04:00] — Andrew’s excitement about classic Evites
• [05:56] — Luke unveils his new water carbonation lifestyle
• [19:33] — Satisfying “bubbulation” sound demonstration
• [27:05] — The bathroom cup dilemma: to cup or not to cup?
• [30:56] — Spatula City: Andrew’s proud grown-up purchase
• [51:51] — Deep dive: Jimmy Kimmel, FCC, and media anxiety
• [62:51] — Speculation about Kimmel’s imminent monologue
• [75:53] — Radio, community, and the possibilities of real-time chat
• [82:56] — Reassessment of cancel culture and network TV
• [94:16] — Hopes (and worries) for Kimmel’s return
• [95:04] — Classic TBTL sendoff

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Tone & Style

True to TBTL’s signature, the tone is warmly irreverent, self-aware, earnest when needed, and peppered with in-jokes and pop culture references. There’s an easy rapport that makes even dense topics accessible, and smart, heartfelt threads on politics and media that never lose sight of the show’s goofball roots.

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For the TBTL Listener Who Missed the Episode

This episode zips from the quirks of hydration and adulthood’s unexpected victories to legitimate worry about democracy and free speech. You’ll laugh at Luke’s struggle with homemade fizzy water, nod with Andrew about the joys (and imperfection) of grown-up purchases, and, by the end, feel both amused and deeply uneasy at the weird times we’re living through. The heart of TBTL beats strongest where the personal and political overlap—and where two friends insist on parsing bathroom rituals and national crises with the same sincerity and humor.

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Transcript

[News Anchor]

Breaking news tonight. Finger in a burger. Somebody found a finger in a burger. Could your burger be next? Or worse, your finger? That's ahead at 11. They're calling it the Hokey Pokey. It's a dangerous viral trend where teenagers attempt to turn themselves around. And what are they turning around for? It's Fentanyl. We know cops are good, but are they also really great? Yes. More on this at 11. They're called Labubus. Little keychain toys that kids can collect and trade. But what may be hidden inside them. I'll let our Fentanyl correspondent take it from here. Do police officers deserve double birthdays? Proponents of a new city council measure say yes, while opponents say yes. But they can't all be on the same day. Tragic story unfolding tonight. A dog shot a cat with a gun. Mike.

[Andrew Walsh]

Tbtl. Everybody calls it garbage.

[Luke Burbank]

Most people call it a problem. We call it our challenge. Rated by Independent Research, the most popular west coast program in the history of radio.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think people should listen to TBTL because it will make them funnier, even.

[Luke Burbank]

If it's in their own head. I'm not just about knock, knock jokes.

[News Anchor]

I know a lot of animal riddles.

[Andrew Walsh]

There comes a time in every young man's life when I'm not really sure.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not really sure what young men are doing nowadays.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let me know. I saw a woman psychiatrist and she said it was ocd.

[Luke Burbank]

One cool dude.

[Andrew Walsh]

And she understands the way I think right now. And everything's cool, everything's copacetic.

[Luke Burbank]

Everybody's happy.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I'm happy, too. All right. Take it a run. See you on the flippy flops.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Shame on everybody involved. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. So you mean to tell me that.

[Andrew Walsh]

All of those sounds were coming from your body?

[Luke Burbank]

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, looking at another beautiful day. Although I think we have now technically crossed over into fall.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, ma pa.

[Luke Burbank]

It's just beautiful. I mean, it's September 23rd. For the love of Gosh, it's gotta be fall by now, but it's still gorgeous out here. And it's episode 4560 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. That's where we arrive. On this Tuesday, somebody else is arriving or maybe re arriving on network television. Tonight, the Jimmy Kimmel show is actually coming back to ABC. I'm back baby. Or at least 80% of ABC. I'm genuinely shocked by this development. We'll talk about that. Also, we didn't get to this story yesterday but the question has been raised. Is Gen X? I guess that's my generation. Is Gen X the last generation of people who remember stuff.

[News Anchor]

Memories are made in.

[Luke Burbank]

In your mouth. Remember pop culture from their parents generation comes down to this Robert Redford meme that everybody thought was this guy. How about like pranking an animal? So we'll, we'll look to get into that. Although I got to be honest, I've already got a feeling Andrew and I did like a. A solid 20 minute show before we started the recording today. And usually that means we're going to be busting at the seams with content. So we'll try to get to as much as we can today. Anyway, speaking of Andrew, my good friend and the longest running cobra of the show.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's your lucky day. You just found a USB flash drive.

[Luke Burbank]

In the parking lot. He may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. And he's joining me right now. Good morning my friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning Luke. I just got some. I never thought I'd be so happy to receive this kind of an email in my inbox. You know what I just got in my inbox, Luke? A good old fashioned Evite. Remember Evites before everybody started going.

[Luke Burbank]

Is this because you unsubscribe to whatever that surveillance state one was Party full.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I don't think this has anything to do with my ranting and raving. I think this is just a fellow old. I shouldn't say that. This is somebody inviting me to their 40th birthday party. So a kid in my eyes.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I know compared to us.

[Andrew Walsh]

But, but I'm. But I'm loving it and I'm loving that it's a. It's a classic Evite which God knows what's going on with Evites as well.

[Luke Burbank]

I know. I want to know what are the who's advertising with Evite right now?

[Andrew Walsh]

Maybe I can tell you. Let me.

[Luke Burbank]

And is it open this up entirely the Hallmark channel.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let's see here. There's definitely. Okay there's a. There's buttons for Google Play in the app store but I don't think those are ads. I think those are just functional. When I go to the Evite.

[Luke Burbank]

When you open this Evite is there. Do you have to watch a short video about colloidal silver and or Chondroito.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm actually kind of surprised about this. Let's hear. Okay. Gifting. You can browse gifts on Amazon or Walmart. Now, I don't think that this person put together like a. A list. What do you call it? A registry. I doubt it's that. Maybe these are just the ads. Yeah, these are not registry. So I guess Walmart and Amazon get. Get some ads at the very bottom, but not as. Not as like kind of in your face or destructive. Is that the right word?

[Luke Burbank]

I would. Yeah, I would assume that it would be like, there would be an auto ad that would like, load and take over the Evite. That would just be about direct to you. Pumpkin spice candles.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. You know, I know.

[Luke Burbank]

And. Or the geek squad at Best Buy and other things, you know, other things that may be directed at. Well, honestly, our generation, Andrew. But I. I like to think of it as people even older than us, but let's be honest, probably people in their 50s.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, this is. This is us. As the show title says. This is us. Anyway, love getting an Evite, but I'm not going to.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

We were.

[Luke Burbank]

We really did kind of start in on a lot of really, I think, strong TBTL content before the show started. And then I said, save it, Walsh. I said, put a cork in it, because this is. This is gold. Right before you jumped on the line, I was online trying to find the exact Google search term was hygienic bathroom cups. And this was because. Well, actually, Andrew, you know what? It relates to my new water lifestyle. You didn't even notice this yesterday, but check this out, baby.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, a new water bottle and a glass.

[Luke Burbank]

This is. This is. This is what it looks like, Andrew, when you see a person get off the train. That is hundreds and hundreds of partially consumed cans of club soda.

[Andrew Walsh]

That sparkling water you're holding up.

[Luke Burbank]

My apologies.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was like, that's interesting. And we're getting very excited about water here. And I enjoy.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, listen, hydration is.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, it is. But. That's right. And also. And you know what? As I was doing some TBTL business yesterday, kind of getting things in order on the back end because I was gone all last week, I will say. And I hope you take this in the spirit.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. All right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Intended. I did not.

[Luke Burbank]

Embracing. I did not impact.

[Andrew Walsh]

Listen to any of last week's show.

[Luke Burbank]

Really. Did you have anything else going on that might have been like, let's say, a very big part of someone's life?

[Andrew Walsh]

No offense, I'm. I have them taken. I'm going to get to them. They're on my list. No, not gonna Listen to them. That sounds like so much work. No, it sounds like you had a wonderful lineup of guests while I was gone. But I also didn't miss out on some updates. When I saw the description of Monday show, I'm like, oh, shit, that's right. I want to know how your golf outing went, but I can't really ask you on the show because it sounds like you already talked about it on the show. But I didn't listen.

[Luke Burbank]

I'll give you the two minute version.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Because I was actually thinking about that amidst everything that was going on for you, I. I was kind of sad that I didn't get to tell you about golf because the short version is it actually was really fun and was less embarrassing than I was worried it would be. Certainly I was not good at golf, but it didn't devolve into a total and absolute farce. And in fact, on the very first hole, which was a par 5, which was arguably the hardest hole on the course, I did it in five strokes.

[Andrew Walsh]

The first hole is the hardest.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it. On this course, it happened to be a difficult hole. And by just sheer luck, that was the only hole that I was able to do it in. Par of the entire thing was kind of ironic that it was my first attempt at doing this. But anyway, so that the golfing actually went pretty well and I'm now kind of. My brother left me his old set of clubs.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, nice.

[Luke Burbank]

Which is what I used. So he's, you know, my brother is. Is a good golfer. And also now in that lifestyle where he's like, acquiring, you know, equipment to up his game.

[Andrew Walsh]

Does he talk like a golfer now? I feel like golfers talk more from their diaphragm.

[Luke Burbank]

It's. I mean, I don't know if it's physiological, emotional, psychological for him. Golfological, but like the conversations that were happening. So we were paired up with two complete strangers, one of whom was flying a terrible towel on their bag, as in the Pittsburgh Steelers. And this was the eve of the Seahawks playing the Steelers.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's why there's. The show title. Had something to do with the terrible towels. I was wondering.

[Luke Burbank]

And I was like, oh, great. But anyway, the guy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wait. But that was okay, though, because we beat the Steelers. The Seahawks.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, we did eventually. This was before that game had occurred.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay. Saturday before the Sunday game. Oh, okay, Interesting.

[Luke Burbank]

And we were in Longview, Washington, a long way away from Steel Town. But anyway, it was. Golfing was really fun. And now I've got my brother's old clubs and now, not this week, because I've got a kind of a busy week actually. I'm going to be in the Twin Cities this week and Friday night we're going to be doing Livewire in Minneapolis. You can get [e-mail] Maria Bamford will be there. But anyway, so not this week, but. But soon. And while the weather is still holding, I'm going to get back out and at least go to the driving range. The golfing outing was a success. So there's the update on where you.

[Andrew Walsh]

You did all 18 holes and by the end, were you pretty wiped out? I'm curious. I have never golfed before and so I'm wondering if, even though it's, you know, it's a slow paced game and leisurely in a lot of ways, I do feel that like after 18 holes of doing something you've never done before, you could have some muscle group screaming at you.

[Luke Burbank]

No, it physically was not challenging for me. It was. And we also had a cart. And boy, is that ever fun. Yeah, did you, Boy, is that ever a hoot. I sure I had never, apparently. I don't think I'd ever driven a golf cart in my life and at all, which is wild.

[Andrew Walsh]

Do you know, we had one growing up that we would just drive around the backyard.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh my gosh. I would have absolutely died as a kid to be able to operate anything mechanical that would convey me. I would have been very into that. But anyway, it was very fun driving the golf cart. It also cut down on the physicality of the whole thing. And, and so, no, I was, all in all, it was a big success. I was kind of mentally tired. By the 18th hole, I was like, all right, we get it. Probably by this, like, they should have a round of golf. That's 12 holes.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's about enough because nine is typical. Right? You can do a nine hole course. Is that what they do? They chop it in half?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I mean, I think most full courses are 18 and you can just play nine.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's what I mean, isn't that. Don't people sort of do that? Like, I'll play a nine hole?

[Luke Burbank]

No, I think so. Depending on maybe how much time they have because it is a commitment. It took us almost five hours. Yeah, we were on the carts and, and we weren't, you know, like hitting every single ball into the water. Like we were mostly going down the fairway. It just kind of like takes, it takes the time that it takes. But anyway, it was a big hit. The other, the other plot Line that was started when you were here and then you may have missed out on is yeah, my, my new water situation, which I had mentioned that I just had this moment of realizing that like I start on so many cans of sparkling water and because I really want to have like two sips, I'm a little bit thirsty or I'm going to bed and maybe.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, you're a little.

[Luke Burbank]

Thirsty, but that's actually being generous. I'm a lot thirsty. Or like I would, I would, I would like bring a can of club soda and put it on the nightstand in case I woke up in the middle of the night feeling parched. But then same thing, like I'm not going to consume an entire can of club soda in the middle of the night. It has never occurred to me how much liquid that actually is. Like again, I might want to slake a bit of my thirst, but what's going to happen is I'm going to crack that can open, I'm going to have two sips, I'm going to go back to sleep, I'm going to wake up the next day. I'm not going to deal with it. Now it's two days, it's flat, it's sitting there by the bed. I don't really want that again. I don't want it in the middle of the night. And then eventually four days later I just take this almost entirely full can and dump it out. Just felt wasteful to me. So I said I'm going to try to shift over to a little bit, I don't know, more. Yeah, environmentally friendly approach, if, if that even matters. Who knows? There's probably some story behind these SodaStream type devices that they're actually worse, whatever. But I went out and I got this ARC system which is just basically a more expensive soda stream and they have these bottles, I mean, get a. Get eyes on this, Andrew. It looks like.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what it looks like? It looks like an enlarge. What's the word I'm looking for? One of those cartridges.

[Luke Burbank]

Trying to recover from the word enlarging.

[Andrew Walsh]

I know. I also paused there because I wanted.

[Luke Burbank]

To try to emotionally process that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Something really gross. I'll be honest with you. I paused there because my own. Here's what happened. My own words shocked me for a moment and then I wanted to leave.

[Luke Burbank]

Looks like a nitrous. Are you thinking nitrous?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I was thinking of, well, CO2, like a whippet. Either nitrous or a CO2 cartridge. Because I think first, before I knew what nitrous was, I did have a BB gun as a teenager where you had a CO2 cartridge that you would pop in and then screw in. And then it would be the gas in there that would power the, the pellet gun or the BB gun. And it looks like a, an enlarged version of that.

[Luke Burbank]

It does. And it's very designy and, you know, that's dream design, rules everything around me. And so I got this little system in the mail and I was using it for a few days. Now I'm gonna, I'm not gonna get stuck on this, but I did ask you if you thought I was gonna stick to this system, and you did say no chance. And I thought for the week.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm talking long. Let's check in. I'll check in in six months. All right.

[Luke Burbank]

But I will tell you, you were almost right in the first, like three days because I couldn't quite figure out the right amount of. Everybody knows how one of these SodaStream type of deals work. You have a CO2 canister that's in a device. You put in like tap water, filtered water. You screw the bottle into the device and then you pull down on a lever and it, it charges up. It. It sort of injects carbonated bubbles into the water. I couldn't for the life of me figure out the right number of injections from the device. Sometimes it was too much and it was like almost overflowing or coming out some other part of the device.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's coming out your ears for some.

[Luke Burbank]

Reason, which, I mean, honestly was shocking. And then sometimes it kind of doesn't, you know, it wasn't charged up enough. And so I'd get a bottle already. That's one problem with this design. It looks great, but you have. It's a black box, Andrew. You have no idea what's really happening in here because you can't actually see the wand that is injecting the bubbles into the water. It's all obscured because the bottle is a stainless steel bullet looking thing. So you know what I mean? Like you can't quite tell what's going on in there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And you know the soda stream. And again, we have like the jankiest of janky soda streams. It's a probably gen 1 soda stream that Genevieve got used. It literally picked up in a 711 parking lot on Lake City Way, and we still had no questions asked. No questions asked and not enough questions asked.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's what I'm saying. Sometimes some questions asked isn't the worst policy.

[Andrew Walsh]

But even that one, like it tells you when it's done. It's got, like, some sort. It's a terrible sound, but, like you're.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're, you know, putting the bubbles in there. Then it gets to this point where it goes, and it kind of makes a kind of a robotic fart. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. But yours doesn't have any kind of.

[Luke Burbank]

It kind of does that, but you just. It was a learning. I had to learn its body.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah. And you guys know me. Yeah, exactly. And so it took me a few days, and so there was a couple of times where I had, like, charged up a bottle of the water and I put it in the fridge, and I'm all, like, excited. I, you know, to have my little cup of coffee, of soda water. And then I would pour it in and it would be flat because I didn't do enough of the. Of the bubbulation of it or whatever. I've now gotten that figured out. And the other thing, Andrew, that I figured out, and I don't have it in front of me, I wish I did, but I bought some little flavorings for the water.

[Andrew Walsh]

So. You did like, that. I was going to ask.

[Luke Burbank]

I did do that. And it's. Again, I wish I could remember the name, but. Because I don't have the thing with me. But it's like, you know, it's a little plastic bottle and there's. I got a bunch of them. It was like a sampler. It's like 10 different kinds. And right now I've tried the grape and the lemon. Lime. It's just like a drop of this afterwards.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. You can't put it in.

[Luke Burbank]

That's the other thing that I learned. So I tried something that was a huge mistake, which was I put something called Liquid iv. I mean, what I've been learning is I actually. I don't. I do need a little flavoring in the water. I thought maybe I could raw dog this. I thought I could just become like you with the black coffee. I could just become a person who just drinks unflavored carbonated water, and it's okay, but I don't want a lot of that. I'm less inclined towards drinking that versus a carbonated water that's got a little taste in it, a little bit of a fruit flavor in it, like most of the stuff we get in the can. And so for a while, I didn't have any of this little flavoring stuff. But I do have, like, various things in my cabinet, like Liquid iv, which is, you know, like, allegedly like an electrolyte stuff, and it's flavor.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can we just pause on that for one second? Because I'm sure we've talked about it, but aside from its usage or potentially warning against usage in bubble water, I've always thought that.

[Luke Burbank]

Does it officially say you shouldn't put it in?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I don't know. I thought you were building up to that, but we'll get to that in a second. Just liquid IV in and of itself as a product has always irritated me. As a product name, it makes no sense. IVs are already liquid. You're not changing that aspect of it. The whole IV thing is intravenous. It makes it sound like it's an alternative to IVs, because it's like saying.

[Luke Burbank]

I should not have been injecting this intravenously.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I'm thinking you should have been because it makes sense. It doesn't. I hate the term liquid IV because IVs are already liquid. And what makes them an IV is you put them directly into your arm or into your veins, or not veins, but whatever. And like, I just hate that. And whenever I hear it, it might be the best product in the world. By the way, I've never tried it. This isn't a statement about liquid IV as a product, but as a name, as a branding concept. It drives me up a wall.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it was all that I had to try to add a little flavor to this water situation. And so what I did was I thought, well, I'm going to make. Because I've got like a couple of these little containers, you know, So I. Because the other thing I realized is one of these containers, it's like. It feels like it's about three cups of club soda. Like, they go pretty quickly.

[Andrew Walsh]

How many of those do you have? That was my other big question. How many are you?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I have the one. I have the plastic one that it came with, and then I have two of these aluminum.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. So you have a good rotation going on. That's great.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm going to open this one. So I charged this one up last, and I'm going to refill my. Let's see if we get a little. A nice little sound off of this.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that was really good.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Right. Now let's get a little bubbulation here.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow, that really satisfying, actually. Yeah. God.

[Luke Burbank]

Give me a.

[Andrew Walsh]

Give me a Vernor.

[Luke Burbank]

I know.

[Andrew Walsh]

I need some Canada Dry. Is that the stuff my dad used to drink? Yeah, sure.

[Luke Burbank]

So. So I was like, well, let me add a little flavoring to one of these. So I put the liquid IV powder into one of these and then charged it up. And it. I don't know if the powder somehow sort of activated the carbonation in a way. Like, it was sort of like a. An Alka cell, if it was like a Mentos and Coca Cola type of deal or something. But it was a disaster. First of all, it wanted to, like, overflow with bubbles. It was. The ratio of flavor was off. What I learned was add any flavoring to the process when you've put the water in the cup with the ice.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, we were warned about that a lot when we got.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, okay. Well, see, I had to learn this on the streets. Okay. I had to learn this in the back alleyways of Southern Washington because, yeah, that was really dumb. I thought, well, I'm gonna make a jug of flavored soda water. It's like, no, the soda water needs to just be neutral soda water. And then if there's anything you're going to do to it, you put it in the cup and you add the little thing, which is where these little containers of flavored, you know, kind of flavoring, whatever, are really working out.

[Andrew Walsh]

And the flavoring that you got, not the liquid iv, but the official flavoring, is that powder. I was picturing little. Because Genevieve used to get tiny little jars of. Or little bottles of syrup.

[Luke Burbank]

No, you know what? I'm going to actually find this right now. I'm going to look in my orders online. It is. It's not a powder. It's like a. Yeah, it's liquid. It's called. It's Obrilo Water enhancer. Liquid flavoring drops, zero sugar.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So I was picturing. Okay, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And, and it's been working out really well because I've got the, I've got the, the.

[Andrew Walsh]

The.

[Luke Burbank]

The carbonation kind of thing down now. I've got my three bottle rotation. And then I really like this, like, little flavoring. It just takes a. A tiny drop of this stuff and put it in the cup. And what I'm finding is that I actually think I might be. I'm definitely drinking the same amount of water as I was before, if not slightly more. And mostly what it is. And again, you're right, Andrew. We're a week and a half into this. But, like, I took a cup of water to bed with me last night and put it on the nightstand, and then I was a little thirsty and I drank, like, maybe half of it. Then I got up in the morning and I looked over there and there was like, half of the glass of water, cup of water. And then I just tossed it out and put that cup in the dishwasher. And it was such a different experience for me than going and picking up a can of bubbly. That's, you know, like, I was like. It felt like, oh, this was what I was going for with this, like. And it turns out the amount of water that I need. I already said this, but it's like most of the time what I need is two sips of water and. Or at least that's what I need to feel satiated. Maybe I should be having four sips of water because of course, we're all told that we should be hydrating more. But so far it would appear that the system is working. Now, here's where it hasn't been tested. Andrew, I haven't really had. Well, no, I just told you. Me and my cup of water.

[Andrew Walsh]

Terrible joke on my part and my stories.

[Luke Burbank]

That's all I need in the bedroom. I have not yet tested this with having people over in a kind of a social environment when that's a time when you would normally. At least if I'm having folks over, among other things, I'm probably getting a couple of 24 packs of, like, you know, soda water so that that's available for people. Now, I don't know if this is going to work out when people are over because maybe we're going to go through these little bottles too quickly or people won't know the system or I'll have to. I don't know that you don't have.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I mean, when people come over, you eschew your usual homemaking systems because it's a special occasion. You know what I mean?

[Luke Burbank]

Sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

It could be a treat.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's your business. Do what you do. But I just sort of feel like, well, if people coming over. Yeah, don't rely on that. Just buy yourself a 12 pack of those. Of the cans. It doesn't mean that you don't have to. You don't have to, like, be slavish. The word.

[Luke Burbank]

I need to get it the other word. But we don't really use that other word as much anymore. Unless we're referring to the act of enslaving people.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. Which I think is maybe the root word I was going for there. My apologies for both mispronouncing a word and invoking something that doesn't mean.

[Luke Burbank]

Your mispronunciation made it less, though. And that's, I think, the important I'm Being serious. I like that you stopped yourself from saying that. Well, you know what's funny, Andrew, is.

[Andrew Walsh]

That I'm a huge racist. I just mispronounce all the epithets.

[Luke Burbank]

That's how I sound like an SNL character.

[Andrew Walsh]

I get away with it.

[Luke Burbank]

It's like. I don't like what he's saying, but I do think it's pretty funny that.

[Andrew Walsh]

He'S mispronouncing it, but he's.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what? I don't agree with what you're saying, Andrew, but I'll defend to the death. You're right to mispronounce it. I believe that was Voltaire who said that. Dude, that was a solid joke. Mispronouncing Voltaire. Come on.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, man.

[Luke Burbank]

I stand by that, Jo. Anyway, that's. It's funny that you say that because. And by the way, we still haven't even gotten the bathroom. No, we need to, because I have, But. But it's funny because Rebecca and I went out on. On this boat with our friends over the weekend. And also, by the way, that was a total blast. I just want to say thank you. Shout out Jim and Kara for that fun ride. We went down to this beach in the Columbia River, Andrew, that I'm looking at right now from the Madrona Hill studio. It is a beach that's on an island that I stare at all day. I'd never been to it, and it was wild to be sitting on the beach and looking at the Madrona Hill studio from the river, because for, like, literally two years, I've just been watching people down there frolicking in the summertime. And then finally, it was me who was frolicking.

[Andrew Walsh]

And there was some creep watching you.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, right, Exactly. I was like, oh, you can see right into my bathroom. Okay, lesson learned. No, but we were bringing some snacks along, and I was. At first to Becca, I was like, well, I got these bottles. And then I was like, you know what? No, no, no. I'm just buying. Yeah, I'm just buying some bubble water at the, like, grocery store. And we're bringing that. I'm not gonna. Because I was gonna bring, like, solo cups and these bottles. I was like, what am I doing?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So after that, I think there was, like, two cans of bubbly that we didn't consume. They came back in a, like, a portable cooler that I had, and I put them in the fridge, and it was like, oh, what a treat.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, right.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think that's what is, like, in that having people over and Me encouraging you like. Well, don't worry about that. Because I do think that you should just, like, you know, when you're enter. You have different needs, so you buy different things. You wouldn't buy that, I don't know, package of cupcakes or something if people weren't coming over either. But all of that is to say. And again, I'm not. I'm not rooting against you here. I know it sounds like that, and maybe it's good for the bit. So, sure, I'm rooting against you, but. But I feel like if you fall off the wagon of making this yourself, it will. It will probably look like that you'll have people over. So you'll buy a 12 or 24 pack, and then you'll have some leftover and. And then it'll be just convenient to. Well, I'll just finish these up, and then the next.

[Luke Burbank]

And I'm pretty sure I'm inviting people over.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. You're like, my fix. I'm only a social drinker when it comes to canned bubbly water.

[Luke Burbank]

I've got to have people around constantly so I can just be mainlining.

[Andrew Walsh]

Boy, it's really been entertaining. Waterloo's entertaining a lot lately. No, but I could sort of see that happening and be like. And then you kind of are at the store. You're like, well, I'll just get one more 12 pack to ease me back into my routine or whatever. But. Well, I'm not rooting against you. I'm glad it's working out. And that is a handsome canister. No doubt about it.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I feel like the system is pretty dialed in. But where that has led me, Andrew, is the other morning, again, same thing. I get up, I'm doing my thing, and I go and I retrieve a glass from my nightstand next to my side of the bed. And then I take it into the bathroom. Cause I'm gonna, like, brush my teeth or whatever. And then I placed it down on the bathroom sink. And then I realized, oh, I've never had a cup in this bathroom that's like, you know, my toothbrush. It's an electric toothbrush, so it sits on a charging platform. And because sometimes you'll have that little toothbrush cup, or people will have a couple of different. Maybe ceramic cups. And one the toothbrush is going. And one is for rinsing. And I realized, oh, since I've lived here, probably, and maybe since I've been in my, like, this version of my life, since I moved out of Bellingham, I don't know if I've ever had a cup of in the bathroom to use to rinse out my mouth after I brush my teeth. I think I've moved into this mode of brush my teeth, spit, rinse the toothbrush, put the toothbrush back on the platform, rinse out the sink by hand, by. By sort of diverting the water, and then walk over and dry. I'm literally taking you through exactly what my ritual is. If you can't tell, walk over to the towel and dry my hand off on the towel. I think that's my nightly ritual. And I wondered, should I have a cup in the bathroom? Is it weird that I have totally eschewed that?

[Andrew Walsh]

So here, can I tell you my bathroom cup story? Because it's a long story and it goes back to my childhood, Luke. And if you think I'm just making a joke about the way I tell stories, you're sadly wrong. It literally goes back to my childhood growing up. We always had Dixie cups in the bathroom. They were the paper cups that were sort of wax lined, you know what I'm talking about? And I think we had one of those spring dispensers in the various bathrooms. I think we had two bathrooms growing up, and maybe we had had different dispensers in the different bathrooms. I feel like one might have even hung on a wall and we would pull them down. And then another one maybe was sitting on the, like, you know, sink. On the bathroom sink. And the cups were in there upside down, right? There was a spring pushing them up. And it was just like such a part of growing up. And then as a young adult, I just didn't need cups in the bathroom. Didn't think about it. And then, I don't know, I'm going to say like about 10 years ago or something, I remember saying to Veep, I'm like, oh, it'd be nice to have cups in the bathroom. We always had Dixie cups growing up. And Genevieve was out one day and she came back with a thing of bathroom cups. And they were the perfect size, but they weren't Dixie cups. They were white plastic. And she said, hey, I saw these and I thought of you. So I got them. And it was a very, very nice thought, but I don't think I've ever told this to her. And she might be able to hear me through the door now, but the fact that they were plastic was kind of a bummer to me. Like, I really, I wanted to.

[Luke Burbank]

You don't get to crush them.

[Andrew Walsh]

You don't get to crush them. And it crackles. It just like. But the thing is, I also don't use them that often. So you buy a sleeve of those things, you know, and they're like a hundred or whatever's in a package. It took me years to get through them. I eventually got through them somewhat recently, and then I found myself coupless in Seattle again. And it wasn't a big deal until about a year ago, I started taking all these pills. I now take, like, one little folic acid pill a day, right? And then on other days, I have to take some more pills. And I'm like, you know what? I need a cup in my bathroom. I thought about the great Dixie cup failure of 2010, and I'm like, I don't think I want to go back to that. And also, I don't. As much as I love collecting things that remind me of my youth, I just didn't want that in my bathroom. I'm beyond.

[Luke Burbank]

There's something a little bit. I agree, because when I was googling hygienic bathroom cup earlier today, that's one of the first things you start seeing. And there are little dispensers. And there's something that is, on some level, kind of cute about that. To me, it reminds me of maybe grade school or whatever. But there's also something that's institutional about it that I don't feel like bringing into the home bathroom environment.

[Andrew Walsh]

Especially, like you said, if design rules everything around you. You know, so far, I haven't found one of that would sort of fit your aesthetic. Me, I'm a little bit more eclectic. And again, I have stuff around here. I was using a crappy black spatula for a while just because it reminded me of the one my mom used to use. You know, eventually that thing kind of ended up kind of spatula city. Oh, my God. I should tell you. I will hold quickly. Very, very quickly. As an aside. Yeah, I did we, after that spatula sort of shit the bed. We just had a couple of others. And I'm just like, there are times where I'm cooking and I'm like, I hate all of our spatulas. I have one that I like, but it's a metal spatula. You're not supposed to use that nonstick. So for nonstick stuff, we had this one spatula that had a way too heavy handle. In the early 2000s, they were doing this thing where they had really heavy handled utensils like this so that maybe you can set them down on the counter, but they would always be flipping out of Pots. It was too heavy. I hated the balance on it. And it was melted and chewed up. This other one was too thick. And this other one, I just. And one day I was just like, why am I doing this? And so I did my new system and I emailed myself in all caps, spatula. And that's the only way I get shopping done these days is I hate having a cluttered inbox. So I email myself a useless email. And then I think it was a Saturday. I came downstairs, I was doing some work and then I saw that email that said spatula. I said, genevieve, we have one hour before we're going out. I'm going to Ballard to the spatula shop. And it was the first time in my life that I like made a specific trip to say I need a household good. That I'm not just like inheriting from someone, that I'm not just buying on Amazon, like as quickly as possible. That I'm not just like grabbing at an estate sale or something like that. I'm like, I'm going to go buy myself two.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you mean Culinary Essentials in Ballard or is there actually a Ballard Spatula show?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I think Culinary Essentials is a place I went. You know, beautiful little Ballard esque, upscale.

[Luke Burbank]

I bought all of my plates there.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think, yeah, yeah, it's a nice little shop. I would definitely give it a shout out. But it's just rare that I'm driving to the heart of Ballard to buy a spatula. But I did it and it felt so good. I bought two. My one mistake was I bought two and they're about the same size and they're a little bit. I should have bought a big one in a small one. But instead I bought two different styles of the same size and they're both a little bit too big when flipping my eggs. So I might be going back to Spatula City. But I even said to the woman, she's as she was, as I was paying. She said, have you been here before? I'm like, no, I'm 48 years old and I feel like I'm becoming an adult today. Like I needed something. And I went and I bought the nicest one I could find or the nicest one that suits my needs, you know what I mean? And I was just like. And I was there, I was looking at spatulas, I was comparing spatulas, I was bending spatulas, you know what I mean? It was like for the first time.

[Luke Burbank]

You'Re kicking the tires.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm kicking the tires. I'm not just inheriting it or just finding myself with a spatula. And it felt really good. So going back briefly, as I hold court here, to the bathroom situation about a year ago, I was like, I need a bathroom cup. And so I started down the same sort of journey that you're on right now. The idea of just having a. I don't put my toothbrush in a cup. Right. I put my toothbrush in a drawer. The bathroom. My bathroom is the one place in the house where it's all under my control. Like, everything in there is my stuff. Right. And so I keep it somewhat obsessively sort of organized. When you pull out this drawer that comes out right under the sink, kind of the shallow drawer about the length of the. Of the cabinet or whatever, you pull it out almost like a desk drawer. If you were to take a shot from above. I try to keep it as neat as, like, a Wes Anderson shot would be. You know that knolling thing we were talking about the other day? Right. Like, I have my toothbrush, little sections, and everything is in this little. Or like, I keep everything very orderly. And I like my bathroom to be very sparse as far as stuff. But I needed to figure out where to put a cup that does not hold anything but water for me to take my pills or just grab some water in the middle of the night. And so I found these little tumblers. Now, this doesn't solve your problem of the hygienic thing. I think you have an issue with keeping a cup in there during pooping times and then drinking from that cup later. No, this is.

[Luke Burbank]

No, I've been drinking from the toilet for years.

[Andrew Walsh]

We have to keep the lift.

[Luke Burbank]

You don't remember my toilet diet I was on? No. When I say hygienic, actually, that was a weird search term. What I noticed was the glass, because it was a glass. The glass that I brought from my bedroom environment into the bathroom. It had. Because of the way the light was hitting, it had fingerprint smudges on it.

[Andrew Walsh]

It had.

[Luke Burbank]

And so hygienic is actually the wrong term because I'm. I'm not that I wasn't grossed out by the fact that this is both the bathroom where you go to the bathroom and also where you brush your teeth. It's more. I don't want something that's gonna just, like, immediately look gross and need to be washed. Like, it's not gonna be this. Be covered in, like, toothpaste residue and God knows what else and just kind of mess up the overall vibe. Of the bathroom, which is pretty. Pretty pristine right now because it's this new bathroom that, like, me and my dad built. So anyway, that was the hygienic piece of it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I don't know if this will kind of fit into your sensibilities, but I think this was still when I was on Amazon, and so I think I got them there. But I was very happy with my solution, which was I found these plastic tumblers. Dude, this is a nice little plastic tumbler, right? Yeah. And it's gray. It's bluish gray on the outside, a little bit rounded on the bottom, and it's yellow on the inside. Sort of a muted yell. And you know what the key is, Luke? This is Burbanking it. You get two of them. So the thing is, I can sort of rotate this in and out. It sits on my sink for maybe a week or something. And then if it gets in my head, hey, I should probably take this up and wash it in the kitchen sink. And then I have another one that I keep underneath the bathroom sink, and I can rotate them in and out, and they're perfect for me. And honestly, the fact that they're plastic, even though glass would be classier, works better for me. Having glass on my porcelain sink makes me always think it's going to come. You know, I'm going to set it down too hard, and it's going to crack. Highly. Highly endorse these little. These little tumblers I got.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what? I was looking at those almost exact same things.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And they sell them in sets of two, and it was appealing, but the photographs of them, it's always. One of them has toothbrushes in it, and then one of them is empty. And because I'm not a creative thinker, I was like, well, why would I want these? I don't put my toothbrush in the cup. And. And. And I stopped there. But you're absolutely right. It's just good to have two. You have an air and a spare. You have the one that you're using, and then the one that's over, maybe with your dishes even. And then you just wash that and you swipe. You swap them out. You have convinced me, my friend, that's exactly the route I'm gonna go. And the other part of this. And we. We should thank some donors, and we should talk about Jimmy Kimble, Jimble Kimball, as they call him on the Stern Show. But the other thing was, Addie told me, I don't know, like, a year or two ago, and God knows I mean, these. These millennials, if. Who knows where they're getting their science information. But she was trying to tell me.

[Andrew Walsh]

That, like, yeah, unlike the boomers who are killing their science information these days.

[Luke Burbank]

If you don't think. You don't think Tylenol is what's giving you autism, my friend, you're in the dark. The. She said that, like, she had read somewhere that you're supposed to leave, like, you're not supposed to rinse out your mouth in the toothpaste afterwards. That it was like somehow the. The. Because I grew up, you know, you rent, you brush your teeth, and then you get. You fill up the cup with water and you rinse your mouth and you spit it out. That's the process. And she had heard somewhere, read somewhere that actually, like, you're depriving the toothpaste of its chance to really do its work if you spit it out afterwards, that you should, you know, spit. But, like, the full rinse was a bad idea. Again, I don't. We've got actual dental professionals in the audience who might tell me that that's craziness. But that must have entered my mind, too, because I just have been. I have not had a cup in the bathroom environment, and that's going to change soon. And you're right, Andrew. I don't want something that's breakable because the sink is a pretty large kind of. I don't know if it's marble or something. It's a very solid surface. And I don't want to be putting something down that's breakable on that surface over and over again.

[Andrew Walsh]

Even if it doesn't break, it's just not satisfying. Right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

It just gives you a bad feeling.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. You know what gives me a good feeling? Thanking the donors.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, Luke, I told you that I was not listening back to the shows you did without me last week. Not out of any ill will. I just haven't gotten around to it. Of course. But I was spot checking a recording of Friday's show, and I happened to hear you introducing this segment where we thank the donors, and you were using different music and you seemed to like it. I think you said you didn't have access to this song, so you chose something else. But I feel like whatever you chose, you liked a little bit better. Should we have a production meeting about this?

[Luke Burbank]

No, I like this better. The other thing also, it's been very overused on our show, which was just some lame television greatest soundtrack hits version of the Golden Girls theme song, which.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's right. It was very saxophone. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

It's been well explored on this program. So. No, I like to stick with this. I just didn't for some reason here.

[Andrew Walsh]

I just don't.

[Luke Burbank]

No, no, no. I like this. That though. This is. I like this. And more importantly, Andrew, Kate Adage of Berkeley, California, loves it. Hey, our first donor we're thanking today, of course, we're thanking folks who are donating money to tbtl. This is the only way that this show can exist. It's 100% listener supported. And in these turbulent times, it's incredible that we can do this five days a week. Thanks to folks like Kate and also Heather Woodford in Gilbert, Arizona.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, I don't think I was in Gilbert, but I was in Arizona recently.

[Luke Burbank]

Heather, how many chilies do you have in Gilbert, Arizona?

[Andrew Walsh]

Is I think the key question, and is it enough? And the answer is always no.

[Luke Burbank]

No, cannot be. Chris Corey is in Washington, D.C. luke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can we talk about Chili's for a second? Can we talk about the state of cheese sticks in this country?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, please, can you just give me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like maybe two minutes tops on this, which is a lot in this segment, but just give me two minutes.

[Luke Burbank]

I need. But by the way, based on Robert's rules of order, I then need a two minute rebuttal.

[Andrew Walsh]

You get a 30 second rebuttal. We agreed, we agreed to that this beforehand. So people are probably surprised that I want to mess around with mozzarella sticks. Anyway, I famously kind of quote, unquote, don't eat cheese. But the thing is, I do eat cheese in various ways. It's just a very complicated system I have. And it doesn't make many rhymes or many reasons, but I do like mozzarella cheese. I like pizza. And so therefore I like mozzarella cheese sticks when they're, you know, cooked hot and melty and I can dip them in marinara sauce. Not that much different than pizza, right? So that's why I just to get that out of the way. That's why I like mozzarella sticks. But I feel like something is happening to America's mozzarella sticks. I think everybody's using some sort of like creamy cheese whiz stuff now instead of like melting solid cheese. Cheese sticks do not have. They don't stretch, they don't pull. And I don't like them. I don't like them. They're like, you bite into them and they're more like what I assume. I've never had one like a jalapeno popper or Something like they're all creamy inside and I think it's gross. And maybe it's good that I don't eat as many of them.

[Luke Burbank]

I think you're absolutely right. Is that, and I'm, you know, I'll blame it like I always do on corporate America. I have a feeling that there has been. It's probably cheaper to buy a cheese stick product that is not just like, essentially like you said, think about a chunk of marinara that's sort of like a, like what we think of as string cheese. We called string cheese when we were kids and just that long cylindrical kind of piece of marinara. My sense, not marinara.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, sorry.

[Luke Burbank]

Mozzarella. So like in the olden days, yeah, it would be that kind of a thing. A long tube of mozzarella and then it would be breaded and then they would deep fry it and then that would melt the mozzarella inside. And that's what you're dealing with. You get a nice cheese pull. There's a certain, as they say, regrettably mouth feel to the whole thing. And I'm with you. That and I, I, I can't remember the last time I ordered cheese sticks out somewhere. But I do feel like I have this memory of like being like this does not have the same mouthfeel as the cheese sticks that we used to get at like Red Robin when Addie was little or something like that. And I, again, I'm assuming that it's not because more Americans like this brand the style of cheese stickery. I have a feeling that it's, it's a, it's a less, it's a lower quality somehow it's cheaper for these chain restaurants at the Cisco level. Right. Which is the giant food kind of. I don't even know what you call Cisco food supplier. All I know is that when you see a Cisco semi truck parked outside a restaurant at 10 in the morning, you know what that restaurant's going to taste like. And it's going to taste like every other restaurant that has a Cisco semi truck parked out in front of it at 10 o' clock in the morning. But I have a feeling, I think you're absolutely right, that something is changing with the cheese sticks of America. And I agree that it's not good. You know who else agrees? Chris Corey in Washington D.C. as does Robbie Cowan in New York City.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nice. Thank you. You know, I saw that Robbie included a pronouncer that I did not send your way, but it looks like you nailed it. Cowan.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know, I wonder, is New York City outside of Times Square? Can you get a cheese stick in the borough of Manhattan? It seems like, you know, just so not endemic to the island of Manhattan. A cheese stick. Unless you're in Times Square.

[Andrew Walsh]

Unless you don't have 12 chilies all over the place.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. And they're all inside the same Chili's and they're in Times Square. I'm sure the world's largest Chili's is in Times Square, Manhattan, usa. Thanks also to Erica Sparkenbaugh of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Famously, yes, Cal Raleigh came after Vermont. I'm so mad.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was so mad at that. Well, I'm kind of mad at myself for just nodding along with it at first, too. No, I should have. I should have.

[Luke Burbank]

Honestly. You were complicit. Some of this is on you.

[Andrew Walsh]

I really was. I didn't speak up when I should have.

[Luke Burbank]

No, you know, I am. I'm so mad that I just repeated. It almost makes me want to go back and find that, you know, Sunday night baseball game and, like, listen through to the broadcast to find the part where they said it. Because I swear to God, they said it like. And I heard it and I was like, huh? It jumped out at me because I had never heard about Kyle Raleigh being from Vermont. Maybe he played some kind of like, summer ball there. Maybe, like, I don't know, maybe he had some sort of a. A moment of being up there. But certainly he didn't grow up there. And certainly it's not critical to the Cal Raleigh legend. And I'm so mad we said that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I go on my Wikipedia. I go on his Wikipedia page. I do a page search for Vermont. Whatever he did in Vermont, it wasn't enough to even make the Wikipedia page because there's zero references to Vermont on his wiki.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what I get for repeating Carl Ravitch.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, can I just. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Unedited.

[Andrew Walsh]

This isn't a two minute er, but I'll just kind of read it.

[Luke Burbank]

April Nilsen of Edmonds, Washington will allow it. Andrew. Thank you, April.

[Andrew Walsh]

Love you. No, those announcers. No offense to Buster, only I know that he's well respected and earned that chair.

[Luke Burbank]

But he's in my top three entertainers named Buster. Okay, you have Rhymes and Scruggs.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wait, wait.

[Luke Burbank]

Ballad of.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wait. Hold on though. Who's the guy who passed away somewhat recently from the New York Dolls, wasn't he?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah. Buster Poindexter.

[Andrew Walsh]

Buster Poindexter. You know what?

[Luke Burbank]

Honestly, Buster Olney's gotta be probably fourth Place out of the four.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's up and down. He's. He is.

[Luke Burbank]

Because I forgot about Buster. Jake. Was it Jake? Not Jake Johansson. That's a comedian. Buster. It was David Johansen, AKA Buster Poindexter.

[Andrew Walsh]

I never realized that that was. That Buster Poindexter was a fake name for him. But anyway, all that is to say, I was a little disappointed in the. In the Sunday Night Baseball broadcast. You know, at first, I was a little bit peeved because I was whining on the text chain. I was like, I go to turn on the game on the Root Sports app that I pay for the biggest game of the year, and, oh, it's not available. They're showing some rerun of a golf outing, and it wasn't you and Sammy, by the way. Instead of the Mariners game, I'm like, where is it? And then somebody's like, it's on espn. And I know it's sort of an honor to be on Sunday Night Football. Like, I love baseball, or baseball, rather. I love listening to other teams when they're on Sunday Night Baseball. But when it's my team, I was like, well, so then I had to, like, find, like, kind of a bootleg stream of it, which was fine. It was totally solid. It was. Once I was into the game, there were no technical issues, and I was already watching the Seahawks game that way anyway, so whatever. Then I'm like, okay, well, it'll be fun to watch this from a national perspective, but those clowns. I just think, first of all, the second half of the game was them just reading the credits of everybody who helps them with the show, which I'm sure means a lot to the production crew.

[Luke Burbank]

Cause I think it was the last.

[Andrew Walsh]

Regular season they were wrapping up the season of Sunday Night Baseball. But it was so annoying, and I felt, like, so disrespectful to the game. Hearing some insular talk in the broadcast booth is part of. Of the fun of those things. But it got so far away from the important game we were watching, and they just rattling on. Oh, and Sue. Sue's always been such a huge. Every time we hit the road, we couldn't do it without Sue. Thank you. So. And it's just going inning after inning. And by the end, I was really glad that Sunday Night Baseball was over, to be honest with you.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, the problem, too, is that Eduardo Perez, who's one of the kind of color guys on there, his voice has extra voice in it.

[Andrew Walsh]

I wasn't ready for that.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, he has. It's always Bothered me every time that I watch Sunday Night Baseball. What a draw. Perez is talking. It's like there's a smaller voice inside of his regular voice.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's so funny because I do. I do weird. I do a boo jambi that. Who does. Who does the Sunday night baseball? I boog shopping and I do a Sunday night baseball radio guy. And you do a Sunday night baseball tv.

[Luke Burbank]

I do. Eduardo Perez has, like. It puts the lotion in its basket. There's like another small voice inside of Eduardo Perez's large voice, dying to get out. It's glottal, but it's consistent. And I have a quato.

[Andrew Walsh]

I said like a little.

[Luke Burbank]

It is a quato. Free the air.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's so.

[Luke Burbank]

It's so distracting to me. Like, again, I guess you'll have to wait an entire season, but next time you happen upon the TV broadcast of Sunday Night Baseball and you're listening to. To Eduardo, I'm slipping in and out of the. Of the. Of the impression, but it's like he's got. It's. You know what it's like, Andrew? It's like. It's like there's two. You're listening to. How do I put it? Okay, so my TV set up in my living room. I have the television, and then I have a Sonos sound bar. And. And what happens when I turn the TV on is that it'll be playing on both the TV and the sound bar.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But, but. But they're like a. A 50th of a second difference. Yeah, just 50th of a second delay so that you can't even quite tell. But it's just like an echo. It's the tiniest echo. So I always have to decide do I want this to be on the sound bar or the tv. I either mute the TV and use the sound bar or vice versa.

[Andrew Walsh]

It. I.

[Luke Burbank]

Because when they're both on, there's just.

[Andrew Walsh]

It.

[Luke Burbank]

It. It almost sounds like it's in stereo, but out of phase or something. That's what Eduardo Perez Vor. Sounds like all the time to me. Which, no, no shade on the guy. He's probably a nice enough person, but it's. It's a little distracting for me as the. As the. The listener slash viewer. Thankfully, we never do anything like that on this show. We are so fun and entertaining to listen to that everybody loves it and they donate money so that we can keep doing it. And that's how, you know, they like it. Andrew. So thank you to our donors. Hello and welcome to top story again, you had a lot going on last week. I don't know how much this was on your radar, but it was very much on my radar. The fact that they pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air, clearly at the behest of the Trump administration and the current head of the fcc, because, I mean, the long and the short of it is, as has been happening a lot in various parts of the media, there's a huge business interest in trying to get certain deals done that need approval from the fcc. In this case, abc, Disney, the parent company, they put the show out. But then the stations, a lot of the TV stations are actually owned by these other companies. One of them called NextStar, which wants to do a merger, they own a bunch of TV stations and they want to do a merger with this other company, which is kind of technically probably not okay. Like, there's a lot of rules in place about how many things you can own as a broadcast entity, because we would like it to be the case that it's not all owned by one group of people or a short list of companies, but you can get special FCC sort of permission. And so this company, nexstar, wants that special permission. And who do they have to get that from? Effectively, Donald Trump. So they, when, when they have this deal that's going to be in front of the federal government, are very much, of course, concerned about how the federal government feels about them. And the federal government made it known that they don't like Jimmy Kimmel. You've also got this company called Sinclair. They own a bunch of TV and radio stations. And they're just a conservative company by nature. I don't know if they had a specific business deal in place that they were trying to get through, but they're the same company. They own Como in Seattle, Channel 4. And they're the same company that's like historically put on stuff that's very, very questionable from a fact basis.

[Andrew Walsh]

But they're like, hey, it's our elections right now. They weren't. Were these, were they the ones who played the Swift Boat thing? They definitely played some quote unquote documentary that was heavily biased. One of the before, if not won a couple of presidential elections and put them on their countries across the country. Like, they are, they are capital B biased. They are capital P propaganda, which, by.

[Luke Burbank]

The way, I actually respect more than nexstar, because Sinclair's thing is they're owned by conservative people and that, that's their thing. They're like, we're a conservative. Well, whether they admit it or not, that is what they do. And to me, it's like, I don't really. I guess I don't have a huge problem with somebody who owns something making decisions that they want to make around their ownership of it. What I think is a very, very dangerous precedent is this idea that, like, the federal government, because the President got his feelings hurt about jokes that were made, is now going to bring its full force down on people and companies like ABC and basically tell them, if you don't fire this person or remove them from their show, we're gonna make life impossibly hard on you or impossibly hard, or we're gonna make life worse on these. The stations, which is, of course, how a lot of this gets out to the public. So I just figured when this all went down, well, this is curtains for Jimmy Kimmel because none of the business climate has changed for ABC or for these companies like nexstar and Sinclair. I was quite pleasantly surprised yesterday to see that Kimmel is going back on air. And I will tell you, I am really intrigued about what that opening monologue looks like tonight, because part of the story also appears to be that, like, you had the show that Jimmy Kimmel did that became this firestorm within the teapot that is conservative Internet world. In other words, he basically made fun of the President for not appearing to be actually sad about the murder of Charlie Kirk. I mean, that was essentially the joke because there was a clip of Trump talking. Trump being asked if he was sad about this person who was a friend of his being murdered. And he very quickly transitioned into talking about the construction of the new White House ballroom in a way that did not look like he was a person who was in personal grief over this. That was the main thing that Kimmel was doing that offended people. And so then this whole thing starts fomenting, and then pretty soon they've pulled him off air. I just figured that we would not see. Oh, the other thing I was gonna clarify was there's more reporting now that really what happened was the. The day, Wednesday, I think it was of last week, when he was supposed to do his next show. The powers that be from ABC were like, well, what are you gonna say tonight? And I guess they got eyes on the monologue, and they thought, this is gonna inflame things more. And that's when he was indefinitely suspended.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can I just jump in?

[Luke Burbank]

You.

[Andrew Walsh]

You were asking how much I was following this, and this was a kind of beating drum when I was in Arizona last week. And it really. It made Things harder because, you know, I was dealing with like, you know, family stuff and personal loss and everything. But it. This just seems so serious to me. You know, I'm not somebody who, like, watches Kimmel a lot. It's, you know, like, especially those are the earlier days of his late night show. A lot of pranksterism, stuff that I didn't care for. But as the years have gone by, I realized that he is a good guy. Like, I still, I think, I think he carried the stench of the man show with him, in my own estimation, for maybe a little bit too long. But he's been fighting the good fight. He's been using his platform to say things that need to be said. And I also want to make this very clear. I mean, you said this, but I want to reiterate this. He did not say anything bad about Charlie Kirk. He said the opposite of anything that would even be construed as celebrating someone's death. He said how awful it was. He said all of these things. And then he went on to talk about how the Republicans are leveraging this dishonestly and disingenuously. And that was. That was what he said. And it wasn't even that long. What he said was incredibly reasonable social observations or whatever the proper word there would be. And I mean, I don't need to tell you this, but I just need to tell other people. Because for me, I think a frustrating thing when I was in Arizona, which, you know, is a place with its own kind of complicated politics. Right. I mean, I think it went for Biden in 2020. 2020. Right. Am I doing my math right? But I'm guessing that the vast majority of people that I was around when I was down there, casually or otherwise, do not have the same worldview that I do now. Nobody, nobody, including strangers or any of the many people I was in lifts with, brought up politics or any politics, pop culture or culture war stuff or anything like that. So I don't want to make it sound like when I'm in Arizona, I feel like I'm in some sort of enemy territory. It did not feel that way at all. But maybe it was sort of on my mind that, like in every room you go in, there's just casually. I mean, Fox News is everywhere. When you go into a hotel room, the first quote, unquote, news channel is Fox News. And Fox News is so far away from representing truth. Ironically, it's just like it's such a misinformation, it's such an arm of the right, but everybody just treats it as the news. And so for me, it was this frustration of seeing very good people just kind of going around and knowing that in their minds. I even. I picked up on little snips of conversation here and there. And I don't think the people who. And keep in mind, like, Arizona is where the huge event was this weekend. They were prepping for the huge Charlie Kirk memorial there. So it was on people's minds. And I would hear somebody say, oh, isn't it so awful? You know, and it is awful. We should not be killing people based on their speech. That's terrible. And I condemn it as much as everybody else does. But nobody is also sort of saying what's all over my timelines right in my bubble, which is just like, here are A list of 10 things Charlie Kirk said, like in context, that are absolutely hate filled and awful, like obscenely awful. But you just, they're not getting that information. So the story is only, can you believe those progressives killed that good guy, basically? And Jimmy Kimmel was going after us and so finally he's suspended or whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, and was making fun of Charlie.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it's just simply not true. He did not ever make fun of Charlie Kirk. I mean, the quote from him as he opened his. If you don't mind me, just holding court another second here. His quote as he opened that show was, thank you for joining me. We're still a divided nation where like the rest of the country, we're still trying to wrap our heads around the senseless murder of the popular podcaster and conservative activist Charlie Kirk. His death amplified our anger and our indifferences. I've seen a lot of extraordinarily vile responses to this from both sides of the political spectrum. Some people are cheering this, which is something I won't ever understand. I mean, could he be more clear that Jimmy. Could Jimmy Kimmel be more clear that he was not condoning this type of grotesque violence? He was not. But then to make it essentially illegal that you can almost like you can just lose your platform for pointing out that the other side is disingenuously using this and unlovingly using this as a leverage against the left and to take away our civil rights. It's just so scary to be an American right now, man.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, yeah, and that was the feeling that I had last week was like, okay, so this is the beginning. Not even the beginning. I saw a lot of people saying, a lot of people think this is the beginning of something. This is the mid part. Maybe this is the later stages of it of just clamping down on the media and creating essentially a condition where the. Or a situation where the kind of, the only media that's really allowed to operate is media that is within the favor of the President of the United States, which is obviously an incredibly, incredibly dangerous place to be. You know, there's a kind of a truism that I heard many years ago, I may have already said this last week on the show, I can't remember, but it's like you can diagnose the health of a democracy based on if people are allowed to get on TV late at night and make fun of the sitting leaders. You know, in places where that can happen, you have a certain amount of sort of health of the democracy. And in places where that doesn't happen, you kind of probably can imagine what that looks like. And to feel like, oh my God, that we just moved into like the second category of that is really, was really, really upsetting. I'm not saying, by the way, that Jimmy Kimmel getting to go back on the air tonight has fixed everything, but it does to me appear that Disney, abc, Bob Iger, somebody there has said enough is enough now, you know, because. And basically said, look, we are not going to allow the fcc, but, but obviously really more just the President of the United States to cancel one of our shows because he is offended that the guy is making jokes about him. Because again, this will probably at some point be bad for ABC's bottom line just because the, presumably the FCC and the current administration will make life as hard on them as possible at every turn. They are actually doing something that to me seems, and I'm not trying to like, as you would say, Andrew, what is it? Crown them in glory or something? Because they're, by the way, it's so funny. I remember the olden days, like I'm talking the 90s, where you'd see these graphics of like the octopus of tentacles. That was the consolidation of the media and much of it around Disney and just how like Disney was absorbing so many different things. And it's like, well, if one company has so much media control and they're so vertically integrated, I mean, are we really having the diversity that we want to have of sources of information, etc? And now I'm like going like, thank God Disney decided to.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right, to.

[Luke Burbank]

But you know, so again, I'm not trying to act like Disney is some kind of absolutely, you know, stellar organization from a business standpoint, etc. But what I'm saying is like, it does feel to me that like, at least in some small way, like them giving Jimmy Kimmel back his show and putting him back on the air and I presume not making him. This is why I'm going to watch with great interest tonight, not making him go back on Hat in hand because that was the thing. I think he could have stayed on the air, I think he could have stayed on the air throughout this if he would have the day after the firestorm started up, if he would have gone on television and basically like apologized to the Dear Leader.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, yeah, because that's the, this is the, this is the, the reporting that's emerging in the New York Times and other places is that like part of what happened was there was a disagreement between the, the Disney bosses and Jimmy Kimmel about what his Wednesday show was going to look like coming out of the big controversy, if that makes sense. And so it sounds like if, if he would have agreed with them, if he would have been more conciliatory, he could have just stayed on air. He could have gone on the day after all the firestorm happened or the day of, or whatever it was and basically been like, I'm so sorry that I heard everyone, I'm so sorry that I said these mean things. And they would have let him stay on air. He didn't want to do that. That's what it sounds like was the sort of behind the scenes conversation. So that leads me to believe that he's not going to do that tonight. That leads me to believe that he's going to go on and he's at the very least not going to say anything that he doesn't agree with. With. As far as, you know, I don't know, this controversy. And again, controversy is so annoying because that sounds like there's two sides to it. That sounds like, well, mistakes were made. It's like one side decided they wanted to make a controversy out of it. Here's the other thing, and this is the bigger question that we probably, I don't have the expertise to, to talk about and we maybe don't even have the time today. But you know what I've been thinking about a lot the last week, Andrew? The, the FCC and like when we reach the point that the FCC will actually become unnecessary because the whole reason. And nobody's talking about this. I think it's kind of interesting.

[Andrew Walsh]

Chris is leaving the room. Chris is getting up, he's leaving the room. Nobody's talking about.

[Luke Burbank]

He knows, he knows what I'm about to say. Like the, the entire reason, as I understand the FCC was founded was because when TV and radio stations started, they were using a public thing. They were using frequencies that belong to all of us. Like if a television station was going to be using the frequency that Como Channel 4 in Seattle uses and they're going to make money off it by selling ads, that means, Andrew, you and I can't put our television station on the frequency that Channel 4 is using. That's why these TV and radio stations were regulated. They had to get a broadcast license and they had to do something called, I think, providing for the public good. Which is also why there was X number of hours a week that had to be basically considered public good programming. Now they would bury it on Sunday mornings at 6am, but there used to always be shows that would fall under the definition of event, essentially serving the public good. Because the idea was if you had a TV or radio station and you were making money off of it, you were depriving somebody else of making money off of that frequency was a finite thing. Them using it meant that none of the rest of us could use it. And therefore they had an obligation to the public. The Internet is not regulated by the FCC. Because if you start up a website, cranky yandy.com it doesn't mean, it does not deprive me of, of, of. Of setting up my website, demonspit.com the Internet is not finite in the same.

[Andrew Walsh]

Way your website have an issue with that. By the way, Demon Sweat Live was a dancing record.

[Luke Burbank]

You're, you're like having something that's digital. Like in other words, setting up your website. It does not mean that you're depriving someone else of having their website in the way that you having your TV or radio station, you having, you know, Cairo AM, which is now sports, whatever, 7:10am, whatever they're doing on that means no one else can be on that thing, which is just that frequency, which again is a public thing. It shouldn't be one person's right to take the frequency and make money off of it. That's why this whole system exists. Think about how the pie is changing of how we are getting our things that are broadcasted to us. It is so rarely over the air now. It has got to be a smaller and smaller percentage of people. Because when I go watch, if I, by the way, I can't watch Kimmel tonight on Como4 in Seattle because they're owned by Sinclair and they're, they along with Nexstar, are the, are the 20% of the ABC stations that are not going to broadcast Kimmel, they're still banning him or whatever. But my point is, I feel like we are rapidly getting to the point where the FCC probably doesn't need to exist, honestly, because we are rapidly getting to the point where almost none of us are getting our content through a frequency that is finite anymore. And as soon as it's digital, as soon as it's just coming in, basically an Internet connection, it no longer needs to be, quote, unquote, serving a public good.

[Andrew Walsh]

And not even just the Internet either. But cable would be the same thing. Cable.

[Luke Burbank]

Cable would be the same thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

They can just keep adding stations and stations. Exactions. Exactly. So you're using the. You're using the example of Internet, which is a good point to make. But I do think this conversation went back to the introduction of cable and the fact that cable provided. That's why you would see certain standards sort of. I don't know if slip is the right word. It's a little bit of a loaded word. But you'd see standards applied differently to cable stations about swear here or there. You couldn't. Like hbo. Okay. You could show nudity. You could say whatever swear words you wanted to say. Right. But then there were these other stations that weren't like those sort of elite stations, for lack of a better word. But they had. They could. Oh, we'll slip in a little bit. We can do one F word, a show or something like that. I think there are actual rules like that that I think were just like, industry set. They're just set by the industry themselves. You know, and it's kind of like. Yeah, because you don't have a responsibility. I'm not taking over this part of the spectrum room.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. And we are getting. I mean, there are some people. But I would argue. I don't know the exact data on this, but I would. My guess would be it is now much less likely that somebody is getting their television broadcast of Channel 4 in Seattle Como, through the air and into the rabbit ears or the whatever on their television, the antenna on their television. I mean, there are some people. I know that there are people out there that are still using a regular antenna. But don't you think many more people are getting it through their cable provider or getting it like I do through whatever Internet chicanery goes into my TV that I don't even fully understand. Like, we're rapidly getting past the point now where the broadcasters are using this public thing, the frequency that we. Then. You know what I mean? Like. Like and of course, right now I'm taking a dim view of the FCC because they're run by the President. And the guy, whatever his name is, Brendan Carr, you know, seems to be using it as a weapon against people who the President doesn't like, but just.

[Andrew Walsh]

Generally, he's the propaganda minister. Right. I can never keep the title straight.

[Luke Burbank]

I just feel like the. I don't understand why we're still treating the FCC like, why we still need to have licenses for these things and why we need the FCC to be regulating stuff, because we're not. The information is not being distributed the way that it used to be distributed. I know it seems kind of insane to be like, you know, abolish the fcc, but it's like the FCC is, I guess, existing so that a small number of people can continue, I mean, in their description of things, because what we don't want is content police. And again, we don't have content police for the Internet. We do have content police, as I understand it. But to me, it's like law enforcement and the FBI. The content police are. Which, by the way, I'm not trying to give them any ideas, but. Right. It seems like the content police should be. If I go on this show or my Internet website or my whatever, and I say something that is a direct and actionable threat to someone, and then that person is in danger because of what I said. That is not protected speech. Like, there are things that are not protected speech. But that's a matter for law enforcement, if I understand. Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like law enforcement, just civil. The civil courts, like she had with Alex Jones. I mean, that was a civil thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Right, Right, exactly. I mean, so, I mean, I feel like there are mechanisms for this. I don't think that we probably need an FCC that's regulating the communications. I mean, certainly under this administration, we don't, because, of course, it's obviously being used just to target the people that he doesn't like. But I also just think, honestly, the FCC is a totally antiquated idea at this point, and it's just kind of silly.

[Andrew Walsh]

So it is interesting. I guess your point is. And I don't have. I don't know if I want to fully sign off on everything you're saying, because I don't know the facts about how this all works, but it sort of sounds like you're operating on the assumption, which I guess I would go along with you on that. Like, if you have Trump and the head of the FCC sort of saber rattling about, we can pull licenses. I mean, it's just so ridiculous where we are the conversation, the quotes coming out of the White House just mind rattlingly dumb about like, well, sure. I mean free speech doesn't mean you can make fun of the president at 89% of the time or whatever. It's just, it's incredible the stuff that is coming out that people are taking seriously, putting that aside for a second and taking a breath with all of the talk of like, well, we could yank your license. I guess if any of the three big networks, abc, NBC or cbs, quote unquote, lost their license, they would only be losing, I mean, not that this isn't a big deal. They would be losing their license on the broadcast. Spectru. You're saying, like technically the cable providers could just continue to carry them. They could keep their program and going exactly as it is in the FCC could not pull NBC off of all of the major cable providers. How most people, I'm guessing, are watching that kind of programming.

[Luke Burbank]

That would be my theory. And again, I'm not a, I'm not a communications law. I'm no Don Pember, who is my communications law professor at the University of Washington. Good guy, by the way. Anyway. But can we book him for tomorrow's show? God, he'd be great. If I was it, if I was at KUOW right now, I'd be trying to get Don Pember on. But you know, I'm not a scholar on these matters, but as far as I understand it, yeah, the FCC does not regulate things other than over the air frequency stuff, you know, like the stuff that comes into your television or radio by way of an antenna. I believe that's their domain, that's their area. So yeah, all the stuff that I'm watching on my TV should not be something that the FCC can touch because again, it's the way in which I'm getting it. Now, of course we're not going to get anywhere with this conversation or this movement. And again, historically, under every other. Well, I mean certainly there have been other presidents or I should say other administrations or just other times in our history where I think the FCC is used more as a way of trying to, you know, control speech. But it's never been like this. I mean there are more conservative administrations, which means that in those times the FCC is going to be cracking down on like Howard Stern or I don't know if probably, I don't think the two Live Crew stuff fell under the fcc. But like there are just times when there are moral panics and it seems like something like this is getting used more to try to sort of curtail speech that's found to be objectionable. But again, I would just say that we do have mechanisms. I mean, there is certain speech that's not protected and there are mechanisms for dealing with that sort of speech that is not protected. But it doesn't need to be the FCC and this idea that you need your radio operator's license. Again, I guess radio is also. Radio is much more still in the world of frequency based stuff than television is at this point. We don't. Most of us are, I would say, if we're radio listeners. By the way, Becca and I were. Where are we driving? Oh, we were just driving down to the marina to go on the boat the other day and she just like had the radio, radio on in her car and it was just like music radio. And I was like, God, this is so good. I love this. Like it's been so long since I put on. And there was commercials and it was just like they're playing songs that I didn't pick and then there was a commercial and I was like, why am I not doing this more in my life? Why am I so kind of ensconced in this world of on demand programming and on demand music where I never have any delight of kind of like surprise, you know, of non curated experience.

[Andrew Walsh]

All the time for not listening to more kexp, something that I've been trying to remedy a little bit. Like, I know that if I lived in any other city, I'd be so jealous that Seattle has a station like kexp, which doesn't make sense because you can stream it wherever you, you know what I mean? Wherever you're living anyway. But there's a, there's a pride in that. I mean, it's a wonderful station, right? And it's a, it's another station that is, that is supported by its listeners. I mean, it's just so, so cool. And I gotta say, like, I just don't listen to it that much and been playing some darts in the basement. I have a little radio now. I'm like, you know what? Every now and then as I'm rotating through, what do I don't listen to? A podcast, a record. Sometimes I'll be like, you know what? Why don't you see what KEXP is doing? Or what's the one in New York? Sometimes I stream that one as well. Wfmu. Sometimes I just see.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

Which actually. Quick aside on that, Luke. I'm sorry, I'm getting You off topic, but I think you would. I've been meaning to tell somebody about this, and you're there. There is a function that seems so obvious that when I say it, it's almost not going to make sense. But on wfmu, when you are listening to the streaming service on your phone, which is usually what I'm doing, there's just a chat function and you just swipe on over and there's just a chat room of everybody who's listening to the music station at that point. Now, that's not that much different than, like, what we. How the Stens page started, right? You were streaming TBTL Live. People were going on the website where it was streaming, and that started conversations and everything. But you just don't hear about that with music stations all that often. But you go over, especially if it's kind of like late at night or on, like a weekend night or something. I just put on WFMU and you're listening and then you can be like, hear a song that really moves you or something, or. And the DJ is probably cutting it up in there a little bit, too, and you can just like, see what everybody's chatting about, like, oh, I love this song. It takes me back. Oh, man, you haven't played this in a while, Chris. I don't know who Chris is. I'm making that DJ up. But anyway, it's just like, DJ Chris, DJ Chris, we the best. Anyway, it's so simple that when I describe it, it doesn't sound innovative, but it's so cool.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah. No, I, I. There was this thing that I got kind of obsessed with on TikTok, this guy @ this motel in New Jersey.

[Andrew Walsh]

You called him, right?

[Luke Burbank]

I did call him. I did call him and had like, a pretty long conversation with him. And the whole time I was hoping that he realized that he was rocking with a pro.

[Andrew Walsh]

Cause you were on the air. I say you were a caller on the air.

[Luke Burbank]

I should say I was a caller on the air. And I really wanted him to be like, wait, are you. I wasn't gonna tell him that I was in radio, but I want him to be like, you must be in radio because you're obviously so good at this caller. That didn't happen.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're like, oh, one second. Sorry, I dropped my daytime at me. Let me.

[Luke Burbank]

There's this whole. There was a chat, There was a chat stream going, and it's just people talking, and it's so fun to have a community experience. And people were going, like, I'm really Enjoying this call. And I was like, yes, I know you are. Because. Right, I'm good at this. No, but like, and then, and then sometimes when I wasn't calling him, but just listening, I could be in the chat, just kind of just chatting with people about what was happening on air. And yeah, that idea, whether it's a music or anything else, that we could have a community experience. And of course that can only happen in real time. That cannot happen hours or days later with the kind of on demand experience. But just to go back to, I guess and to wrap this up because I pretty much said my piece, which was. I've just been ruminating on the FCC a lot lately and thinking, thinking we're not going over the air with a lot of. We are still going over the air with the radio part, I think again, you know, they came for Jimmy Kimmel and I said nothing. But it's like, it still seems like I would be pretty surprised if the administration wants to come after radio because it just seems like it's such a, it's such a maligned medium at this point. It's such like afterthought. Like I would, I mean, who knows? I guess if they, if they get shut, if they're not able to do what they want to do on the TV side, maybe they'll get just, they'll come looking for the crumbs that is radio. But I would just feel like radio doesn't even rank highly enough in anyone's conception of media for them to make a target, at least as far as like talk radio, local radio, etc. Obviously they don't like public radio. They've tried to defund that to as much as they can, et cetera, but you know what I mean? I almost just feel like, yes, actually terrestrial radio is still very much under the thumb of the fcc. But would the FCC care to look under its thumb and see what it's even got there.

[Andrew Walsh]

And also I think that radio just probably like talk radio and even sports. Talk radio skews more conservative. Anyway, I noticed, I noticed a big shift in the. And I listened to a lot of AM sports radio. I mean mostly one station, but not exclusively. And I noticed a huge shift in the commercials kind of in the post election months of just first of all, just like there's a heavy campaign for American flags that are made in America. Something I hadn't heard before for. Do you know who Mike Rowe is?

[Luke Burbank]

He's like, oh, sure, Jobs guy.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's now doing. I didn't know who he was I had to look him up, but he's doing these commercials. I hated him immediately. I thought he was a local talk show host or something. But he's kind of like he's doing ads for some sort of network carrier, some sort of cellular network. I can't remember the name of it. And also, I don't want to give them more airtime, but he kind of comes on in the first America Talk probably some. I don't think it was literally that, but it was like, I don't know what Verizon stands for, but I know that this company stands for something. They stand for veterans. They're veteran owned. They just like really leaning into this sort of, sort of like America first kind of thing. And it's just like these very cocky, like I'm on the side of values as I choose my cellular network carrier or whatever it is. I've just been hearing a lot more of that. And it just, it happened sort of immediately like that. That feeling of like as soon as Trump won the election, everybody who was like, sort of just like white knuckling it through what they thought were cancel culture years, ironically, ironically, that was cancel culture, not this, not the government essentially taking late night critics off the air twice now. But anyway, I just sort of noticed everybody just sort of like, oh God, we can just go full on America first on the radio ads now.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, the thing that I said on the show last week was the supposed cancel culture that was coming for everyone canceled Louis CK to the point where he had multiple sold out shows at Madison Square Garden.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right, Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

In the last year. That's how canceled he is. He sold out Madison Square Garden multiple times. It seems that the, certainly the taking off the air of Jimmy Kimmel is an attempt at literally canceling him. And it also kind of retroactively made me even more suspicious about the Stephen Colbert thing. Like I actually, believe it or not around the Colbert stuff was like, well, I can believe that these shows actually lose money, you know, because we don't have as many people sitting down to watch late night network programming anymore. It's just not part of the ritual and the tradition. I mean, these shows more or less exist to generate clips that play online the following day. And I don't know what the exact business model for that is, is. And like, it really bums me out that Colbert is going off air. But I also have not been watching Colbert in real time probably ever really. And like if cbs, you know, had outside of trying to get this, you know, merger with Skydance going If CBS would have just said, like, look, this thing costs us a lot of money every year and it's not worth it. We decided it's not worth it to the brand because it's not profitable, I kind of would not begrudge them that. I'd be bummed, but I wouldn't begrudge them that. But to see what happened with Kimmel, it sort of went back and retroactively informed my opinion about the Colbert thing. And maybe that was just an emotional response for me, but you know what I mean? Like, it was like I could kind of twist myself into a pretzel going, well, Colbert, the show's not making money. And, you know, it's a business decision and it looks bad, the timing's bad. But then the Kimmel thing comes down. I'm like, no, they're just really trying to get rid of everybody who's made jokes about the President or been critical of the President.

[Andrew Walsh]

And they're not even talking into their hands about it anymore. They're just celebrating it. And then they're saying, you know, like, you know, watch out. Like, anybody could be next. Like, we could be. We could be.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, that hair tossels the only thing that's keeping Jimmy Fallon in business. Although he also came for Fallon. I mean, he hasn't literally come for him, but he's as he's listing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, the shows he doesn't like. It was kind of funny because, you know, the knock on Fallon at one point was that he was just kind of giggling past the graveyard and that, you know, he'd had that one interview with Trump where he soft pedal and you know, a lot of people were very upset about that because it seemed like he was normalizing Trump at the time. But I guess I can report, and I'm happy to report to you that Trump also doesn't like Fallon. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I don't know why, because I don't see Fallon as really stepping into any of this stuff. But maybe.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, he makes a lot of like, typical. He makes a lot of typical talk show monologue jokes about the President, which again, has been. Regardless of the President's politics, it is. I mean, some of my earliest memories of watching television is watching Carson or Letterman or. I don't know how much I watch Jay Leno. I think I had taste even in my early days, but like watching late night TV hosts do their often very hacky monologue about the president.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did you. I mean, you must have seen this. It was all over the place. But Jay Leno I'm gonna say about a month ago now, this, like he was in some sort of interview and.

[Luke Burbank]

He'S like, it's just gotten too political.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, like comedy's gotten too political. It doesn't have to be that way. And everybody. And again, I'm in this echo chamber of blue sky, which I actually need to take a break from because it's just like it's gotten to that point.

[Luke Burbank]

It's funny that Blueski started as like a non politics space, I thought. And it sounds like it's, it's very much become now that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it's kind of like it's upsetting to me. I mean, I need to keep an eye on things, but also, I don't know if I just need a million people all rattling around the same anxious cages, you know. But all of that is to say like everybody was like, can you believe the gall of jail? Like, like just what, four years of nothing but Clinton Lewinsky jokes that are completely have not stood the test of time. Like, what are you talking about? Things have gotten too political. Like, that's all you guys do. It's so, it's just like. I don't know. It's just. How can you be so blind to that?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, it's, it's, it's. It is obviously a, A scary time. And it felt for some reason, maybe just because also I'm a quasi talk show host in certain jobs. Not that I again think I create any content that will rise to the level of something that the administration or FCC will ever know exists and or care about. But it definitely has been a rough week, but between the Mariners sweeping Houston and Kimmel getting to go back on air. And again, I'm going to watch with great. I may like tonight. Well, again, I guess I can't watch it on abc. Can I watch it in real time? I mean I get. I guess I could watch it on the Portland feed. I don't know who owns. Is it K2 in Portland, I think might be the, the ABC station. I guess I'll have to watch it on the Portland station. But like I will watch it with great interest tonight because I will be very curious to see. What I was gonna say is it might be the first time I've watched like a late night monologue in real time.

[Andrew Walsh]

I know this is unfair to Kimmel and I do think that Kimmel has been fighting the good fight for a while. So I'm not trying to like actually slam him or anything, but it Was kind of funny. I saw a lot of people making the joke. Like when ABC made the announcement yesterday that the suspension was going to end him. A bunch of people just saying, oh great, we can go back to not caring about Kimmel anymore. Which is like kind of the truth. It's like, well, I suddenly care about Kimmel. Nobody was talking about him anymore.

[Luke Burbank]

But, well, what I care about, I mean, first of all, I do like Kimmel's stuff and I will, you know, I like his. I just, I don't watch the show in real time, but I do again, I watch clips of it. I certainly watch his monologue and stuff. Stuff. And like, I will be very curious tonight to see how he addresses this, how he handles this. I mean, I can't think of a monologue from a late night host that's ever going to have, that's ever had this amount of scrutiny that this will have tonight. Like in the history, I mean, it's weird. We're in the kind of late stage, late night talk show world. I mean, I think all these shows are going to be gone in 5 years regardless. I think the economics will drive all of these shows out within five, maybe five years. Might be actually generous. Like I just don't think the networks are going to keep paying for something that isn't making money for them. And I think these shows cost a lot to make and the ROI is probably not there. That being said, I don't think in the history can you think of. I mean, David Letterman had to like he was away from the show because he got busted in like a cheating scandal. I don't know if you remember this.

[Andrew Walsh]

I do, yeah. It was one of his very close aide, I believe. Right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it was somebody that he worked with and, and, and he had to, you know, he was sort of, I don't know if he was technically suspended or if he just like he took time away. But then when he came back, I remember that being a big cultural moment. David Letterman is gonna come back and address the rumors. But like, I don't think, I honestly don't think that anything compares to this in terms of. Because what it feels like to the people on our side of this is the very question of can the government abridge speech based solely on the fact that it doesn't like it? Not on the fact of is it hate, is it dangerous speech, is it fire in a crowded movie theater, is it slanderous? You know, whatever the other sort of non protected categories are. Can the government abridge speech based on the person in charge doesn't like the person who's doing the speaking or what they've said. This feels so existential to the people on our side of it. And then to the people on the other side, I guess it just feels like, oh, this is a guy who's allowed to say mean things about Charlie Kirk, which, as you said, and as I would agree, was not even what was being said.

[Andrew Walsh]

He never said.

[Luke Burbank]

That's why the headlines.

[Andrew Walsh]

One mean thing about Charlie Kirk, the.

[Luke Burbank]

Headlines were so situation. Well, that's why the headlines were so troubling to me last week, because the headlines were everywhere. Was like, jimmy Kimmel is suspended over his Charlie Kirk comments. And I was like, that's not the comments that were being made. But anyway, I am going to be watching this with great interest tonight just to see what he says when he walks out there. Like, what's, you know, I wonder what he's gonna say.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, we'll have to talk about that tomorrow. And I know we're wrapping, but I also just want to say this is maybe, and I could be wrong about this, but this was Genevieve's interpretation of things. This is maybe a little bit of a victory of voting with your pocketbook a little bit as well. I saw some detractors, again, kind of on social media who were kind of saying, like, well, it's no good to cancel your Hulu if you still have your HBO or whatever. You know what I mean? Because, like, it's all bad. All these companies are bad. Had. And I was kind of like, okay, well, first of all, don't yell at us who are trying. You know what I mean? Like, maybe save that anger for maybe you want to point that maybe not at your fellow liberals and the people who are at least, like, who feel hopeless but are trying to do something. And by the way, I didn't make any moves to, like, as much as I've been sort of boycotting various big tech out of anger and fright, frankly, Genevieve, I didn't realize when I was gone did pause our Hulu and stopped paying for whatever. I guess you can pause it without deleting all your stuff. Stuff. And I don't know if this is it, but, I mean, clearly ABC made a decision and then they were waiting to see, well, what is. What are the consequences of this decision? And it's not impossible that they saw what it was doing to their bottom line because people were voting with their pocketbook. And then they decided, okay, maybe there's an outcry here. And so I just, I would Just also remind people that sometimes these little things that you do, you.

[Luke Burbank]

You can't do everything.

[Andrew Walsh]

Don't yell at people who can't do everything. But sometimes doing small things does make a difference.

[Luke Burbank]

Difference, absolutely. And you're right, that may have factored into this because, I mean, that's a scary thing for, for Disney is to have a, you know, 50%. I don't think it would be that thorough. But to have, you know, if you, if we are a divided country of 50, 50, to have 50% of the country really upset and canceling their subscriptions, that would be bad news for your bottom line. That'd be really, really bad news. And so the other thing that'll be interesting to see is what happens with these owners of a bunch of local stations. Again, Nexstar and Sinclair, they own about 20% of the local TV stations that play Kimmel. And they have not said that they'll never put him back on. They've said that they want to wait and see or what. I forget the language they use. I don't really know. This is what I don't understand enough about how broadcast media works in terms of what the incentives are for them to do it. Like supposedly Sinclair is playing, playing news content now in the slot that they were playing Kimmel. God knows what that actually means to them. But like, you know what I mean? Like, I wonder who has more to lose from not playing Kimmel if it's, you know, if it's the. The ABC needs the stations. My sense is probably ABC needs the stations to play the show more than the stations need to play the show. But I don't know. I mean, that's just. I don't understand how the ratings work.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I don't know how I think would. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

People tuning in at 11:30 for, for that show long term. I also read today, I think in the Times as well that Disney does have the right if. The. If, if. When the contract expires with nexstar and Sinclair, they have the right to put the show on other stations like in those markets, so they don't have to stay on a certain station in a market just because they had a deal with Sinclair, they can put it on. If, you know, I don't know, another station wanted the show, but again, they.

[Andrew Walsh]

Put it, they couldn't put it on. Okay, so the CBS affiliate's gonna have a hole, right? Like when, when, when Colber. But you would never have an ABC show on a CBS affiliate, would you? Or maybe it could have worked that way.

[Luke Burbank]

I Mean, I guess contractually and legally it could. This is what I was reading in the paper today. Again, I don't understand the economics of this. Like, if these shows are drawing enough eyeballs that the local stations even really care that much, you know, like, I don't know, I don't know what the, what the Nielsen ratings are for Como Channel 4 in Seattle. I don't know at that time versus other times versus when the Bachelor is on.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I'll bet you guessing news is high. I'll bet your local news is high. And then it leads in. I'll bet you like the first half hour of it is pretty high.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. And, but, but, and I don't know, for advertising dollars, if it's, if it's significant, like it will, I would hope, I mean, you know, just from my perspective, I would love it if, if Sinclair, who I think has a history of putting questionable stuff on their stations, which again, they own their stations, if they, it would be nice if they eventually have to come back around and go, ah, we need the Jimmy Kimmel show. I just don't know if that's actually the case.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah, I'm interested in, to see what happens tonight as well, because I, I've been sort of braced for. I don't know. Kimmel has really proven his mettle, I think, as somebody who is saying the right things and standing up for the right things and, and not necessarily protecting his neck. But I think he's in a really tough position here. Like, that's an obvious thing to say, but, but I don't know how much to temper my expectations as far as a very fiery monologue goes. I'm very, very curious. Maybe I'll even watch it.

[Luke Burbank]

For me, even Andrews can watch Kimmel. For me, it doesn't even need to be like, I don't need him to come out and just like, I mean, obviously on some level I would love it if he just came out guns a blazing. I just don't want him to come out guns apologizing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, the, that's critical for me is that there is space for this guy to just maybe clarify, maybe push back on almost losing his job, but mostly just not having to do any groveling because I just don't think that's going to be what I'm watching for and what I'm hoping I don't see. I just would be really surprised if after all this, that was going to be his stance.

[Andrew Walsh]

He should just play his. He should just replay the same exact monologue and say show me where I said anything negative about character Charlie Kirk.

[Luke Burbank]

What if he just went full man show and it was just women on trampolines not wearing bras?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, well, we'll see you tonight, I guess, and we'll talk about it tomorrow here on tbtl. All right, in the meantime, thanks for listening, everyone. Have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourselves. Go Mariners. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to all. Power out.