#4596 Hotel Clevafornia

Summary

TBTL Episode #4596 – “Hotel Clevafornia”

Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh
Date: November 12, 2025

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Episode Theme & Overview

This Wednesday’s TBTL finds Luke Burbank, recording with supervision from Gigi the standard poodle, and Andrew Walsh, newly returned from Ohio. The guys riff on everything from nostalgia over educational TV, podcast branding disputes, and Seattle Seahawks’ TikTok algorithm weirdness, to found money morality, family quirks, and recent airport travel amid shutdown uncertainty. At its core, the episode is a quintessential TBTL blend: meandering, personal, and sharply, self-deprecatingly funny.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Pod Naming Woes & Outlasting the Competition

(06:00–17:20)

• Luke searches for TBTL on Instagram and finds an entirely unrelated show—The Truth Behind the Lens (TBTL Podcast)—with 0 posts and 4 followers. This launches a conversation on naming overlap, podcast SEO, and their own brushes with copycats.
• Andrew recounts the scramble he and Genevieve faced when, just weeks before launching After These Messages, another pod of the same name suddenly appeared:

  "That damn show dogged us for a long time... The first thing to pop up was this parody thing... not even what I'd call parody." (12:12)

• The lesson? “You just outlast them.” Both hosts agree longevity is their secret weapon:

  "Some have tried, some have died, but nobody has done more of this bullshit than we have." – Luke (12:57)

2. “Slim Goodbody” & PBS Childhood Reveries

(22:45–27:45)

• Luke’s running injury prompts a tangent about health and childhood, which spirals into a revisitation of Slim Goodbody—a bizarre, body-suited PBS children’s educator.
• Andrew plays a clip from Slim Goodbody’s Body Symphony, swinging from initial discomfort to admiration for its sincere weirdness:

  “He looks so much like Richard Simmons in that era... I don't know who greenlit this, but it was a bad idea.” – Luke (23:05)

• They marvel at the $4,000 costume factoid in Slim Goodbody’s Wikipedia—presumably self-authored:

  “I promise you, John Burstein wrote this.” – Luke (25:56)

• Vintage children’s TV, the nature of weird childhood educational media, and the longevity of certain creators are all explored with TBTL’s signature affection and arched eyebrows.

3. Family Idiosyncrasies: Notes, Towels & Cleanliness

(37:32–45:46)

• Andrew shares stories of visiting his parents in Ohio and their deeply ingrained paper towel usage—contrasting this with his own evolution towards using cloth towels at home.
• The two trade tales about parental quirks: Bob Walsh’s love of hand-written notes—even turning envelopes and lunchbag messages into works of art.
• The hosts reflect on inherited traits:

  “This is what I do to the coffee maker. I come by it honestly.” – Andrew (43:08)

• Luke confesses his own “visual signature” on greeting cards—a flourish under the recipient’s name and two slashes:

  “You always know it's a card from you... I didn't even realize I was doing it consciously.” – Luke (46:19)

4. Travel in the Age of Airport Shutdowns

(65:02–71:06)

• Andrew shares anxiety-riddled travel tales to Ohio for his mom’s memorial, navigating the Seattle–Cleveland Alaska Airlines direct flight (“Flight 216” as a Cleveland area code Easter egg).
• Both hosts reflect on the recent government shutdown’s effects on air travel, with special empathy for TSA workers going unpaid:

  “I didn’t quite go full ‘thank you for your service,’ but the thought occurred to me.” – Luke (69:41)

5. Playing with Nostalgia: Dulles Airport & 1960s Optimism

(74:45–79:53)

• Luke plays a 1962 industrial film about Dulles Airport and its “mobile lounges”—giant, shuttle-like people movers. The guys delight in its grandiose, somber narration about progress, destruction, and the “monster on wheels”:

  “The story of an airport in the making is a long and painful one... pitiless in its demands” – 1962 Narrator (78:46)

• Andrew requests being introduced as “a monster on wheels” going forward.

6. TikTok, Football, and the Algorithm Echo Chamber

(62:27–64:32)

• Both comment on how the TikTok algorithm now exclusively shows them Seahawks positivity:

  “All of the content I get now is just someone...saying the Seahawks are good.” – Luke (62:27)

• This segues into thoughtful critique about algorithmic bubbles—how platforms feed you not just content, but positive (or negative) opinions tailored to your desires, sports or otherwise.

7. TBTL Listener “Card Exchange” & Community Announcements

(81:35–82:57)

• Mellie’s annual TBTL Card Exchange is back, now with a delightful “space ranger” theme. Listeners can sign up at tinyurl.com/202510cards.
• The hosts highlight and praise the elaborate, thematic design of this year’s exchange.

8. Found Money: Morality, Cameras, & Krugerrands

(85:31–89:40)

• A voicemail sparks discussion of honesty, found money, and the changed landscape due to omnipresent cameras.
• Luke revisits his wallet-left-at-the-casino story, musing on trust and assumptions about people:

  “I made an assumption about the kind of people that would be in the casino...and they turned my wallet with $800 in it back.” (85:31)

• Recommends: if you find something valuable, give your contact info instead of just “turning it in.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Andrew on Podcast Survival:

“We just gotta stick with it. We’re gonna outlast them.” (12:12)

Luke on Brand Longevity:

“Some have tried, some have died, but nobody has done more of this bullshit than we have.” (12:57)

Slim Goodbody Reflection:

“I promise you, John Burstein wrote this [Wikipedia page].” – Luke (25:56)

Luke on Parental Feedback:

“So much just happened in that half of a second...I love my mom so much. But I also love to give my mom grief. And I never know until I hear weeks later from my mom if the grief I was giving her on the show is the kind of stuff that she thinks is funny or if it kind of hurt her feelings.” (47:46)

Luke on TikTok Recommendations:

“It knows the opinion that I want to hear...this is exactly what’s wrong with America.” (64:02)

Classic Dulles Airport Film:

“The story of an airport in the making is a long and painful one. This roaring, space hungry necessity of our hurrying time is pitiless in its demands.” (78:46)

Andrew on Podcast Philosophy:

“You just outlast them.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 06:00–17:20 – Podcast naming conflicts & longevity lessons
• 22:45–27:45 – Slim Goodbody & PBS children’s TV digression
• 37:32–45:46 – Family quirks: towel usage, notes, and domestic habits
• 62:27–64:32 – Seahawks algorithm echo chamber & social media
• 65:02–71:06 – Airport travel and the government shutdown
• 74:45–79:53 – Dulles Airport, “people movers,” and 1962 industrial optimism
• 81:35–82:57 – TBTL Card Exchange returns with space age theme
• 85:31–89:40 – Found money stories, honesty, and a lesson in trust

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Tone & Language

Loose, goofily intellectual, honest, and self-referential. Andrew brings anxious energy and offbeat family anecdotes; Luke balances nostalgia, dry wit, and the occasional philosophical aside. The show’s humor is both meta and casually confessional.

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For Listeners Who Missed It

This episode is a perfect encapsulation of TBTL’s charm—ranging wildly from inside baseball podcast disputes to a warm-hearted analysis of both 1980s educational TV and algorithm-driven football hype. The hosts’ willingness to share (and gently mock) their own neuroses, family backstories, and even bodily injuries is what keeps this imaginary radio truly “too beautiful to live.”

Transcript

[Andrew Walsh]

5, 6, 7, 8. Trident. Gum is the chewiest gum. Give it to your friends and chew it with your teeth. Your teeth are bones that live outside. They hang from your lips like bats. Oh, I'll tie bones. I'll tie bones. Never forget teeth. I'll tie bones. They're bones that you wash and when you're a kid, they fall from your head. And to make things less weird, we say they got stolen by a demon. That's your parents. No trident. In lieu of my usual audition piece. That was a jingle for gum I just made up. Tbtm.

[Luke Burbank]

I consider myself to be an absolutely dead center, normal, average American. Well, my friends are just beside themselves.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I'm gonna get to work with the Cobro. Oh, God, no. Please, just Cobro. Let's face it.

[Luke Burbank]

Some people have a way with words. Other people.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not have a way. I guess the man or beast that.

[Luke Burbank]

I run from ain't been born and its mama's already dead. I know those words, but that makes no sense. Hey, do you think you could be my funniness mentor?

[Andrew Walsh]

I could definitely be your funniness mentor.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, all right. Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Wednesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. It is our turn. My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

[Andrew Walsh]

I got the time if you got the diapers.

[Luke Burbank]

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it's an absolutely gorgeous Wednesday here the 12th of November. Oh, ma pa. It's just beautiful. And I'm being supervised as I record the show by Gigi, the standard poodle.

[Andrew Walsh]

I say, what's up?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm dog sitting for the next couple of days and always, always puts a little pep in my step and makes me extra excited, folks, to bring you episode 4596 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Probably heard that there are problems at the airports still because of the government shutdown. Even when that ends, there's still going to be some issues. And out in D.C. at Dulles Airport, there is a move to maybe get rid of the Dulles people movers, which are kind of a pain in the butt, but also kind of an amazing sort of homage to sort of mid century optimism and Aero Saarinen. And also it turns out the airport itself. Dulles generated one of the greatest, I think one of the greatest, kind of like 1960s era sort of like industrial videos ever. I would have played some of the audio from it. I can't stop watching this video. So we'll get into that. Also, speaking of watching things, I. I'm falling behind on one of the television shows I like, and I'm starting out on another one that I'm not sure if I like it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Television is no friend of mine.

[Luke Burbank]

So we'll talk TV as well. Oh, with this guy. He's been spending some time in airports. I'm back, baby. He's the longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He's Andrew Walsh and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend, and welcome back.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thanks. Thanks for covering for me. I mean, the problem here is, as I told you before, the show, literally the only thing I want to talk about on today's show is the chair company on hbo. It's not television, Luke, it's hbo. And we can't talk about it because we're a little bit. You're a little bit behind. Bingo. Just jumped on me. Sorry for the scare there. If you're wondering what's going on with.

[Luke Burbank]

Me, I don't have my screen up for that. But, like, now it's actually interesting you would say that, Andrew, because obviously you were listening to yesterday's episode of DBTL and you heard me musing on this very question of if we can call HBO Television or not.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, no, I just remember the ad campaign from the 90s, I believe.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I assumed you weren't listening yesterday. That was a joke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yes. No, I didn't. But that was something that you were talking about yesterday.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it came up. I was setting up the interview with Jeff Hiller that we played yesterday from the HBO show, somebody somewhere, and I said, you know, because of that campaign they did, it's not television, it's hbo. I think you and I are both of the generation that's very sensitive about calling it television. But then they went and changed their name to Max for some period of time. Does that mean now all bets are off?

[Andrew Walsh]

Does it?

[Luke Burbank]

If they're not gonna even call themselves HBO anymore, can we go back to calling it television?

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a really good question. And when I say it's a really good question, those are just words I say as I stall for a response to it. I don't really know if that's a really good question or not. I don't. Well, the thing is, I'm trying to remember where they are. They back to HBO Max. Remember, that was the latest headline that they were readopting HBO in some way that seems to have not affected My viewing habits at all.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm saying they've gotten all over the place with their naming and they're not in a position to tell me what I'm calling television and not television. That's how I feel.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, yes, I would agree with that as well. I'll call people whatever I want to call them.

[Luke Burbank]

Anyway, I got some breaking news, some TBTL breaking news. TBTL breaking news. And it's literally involving the letters tbtl. I was trying to find our account, the TBTL account on Instagram, because I knew while the intro tape was playing, I was remembering that our pal John Sklaroff, TBTL employee numero uno, who by the way filled in admirably on Monday. Thanks John. Had posted a clip today and I just wanted to see how the clip turned out. And so I was for some reason on my Instagram account. TBTL is not like the first thing that comes up. You think it would be. It should be probably. So I went into Instagram and I searched for the TBTL podcast and you know the first thing that comes up? The truth behind the Lens podcast. A podcast. It says TBTL podcast. It even has a graphic and everything. It's got the letters TBTL and an old time microphone. It's actually kind of a decent graphic. 0 posts 4 followers 5 following TBTL podcast how is that SEO ing to me before our show where we work for our jobs? Andrew?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I think it's because. And I'm not personally on Instagram anymore, although I am logged into that account. I think that account was set up as too beautiful to live, which is. And I remember John maybe even had some concerns about that at one point because of the thing that you're actually talking about. So I think we're like, maybe it's listed as TBTL when you see it, but if you actually look at the account, it's at too beautiful to live.

[Luke Burbank]

I want to say I'm finding that out right now, but I'm also wondering, I mean, no offense to the behind the Lens podcast, but did you even do one Google of the letters TBTL and the word podcast?

[Andrew Walsh]

When I was on, I want to say Instagram, but maybe it was Twitter as well. There was this very. Seemed from afar, seems like such a nice community outfit called Theater by the Lake. And I would get tagged or we would get tagged in so many things. People are like, we just saw the best production at tbtl. And sometimes I'd even responded like, I appreciate the compliments, but I think that you're looking, I think you're knocking on the wrong door here. So Theater by the Lake is another one that I think we are kins with. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Which I'm fine with. You know, Theater by the Lake, I think that was, you know, may have even existed longer than tbtl. It's also the name of their theater. It's. It's somebody starting a podcast or thinking they're gonna start a podcast, although there are zero posts. Somebody thinking they're going to start a podcast with the pretty specific letters tbtl and then the word podcast. And they're sitting around going, well, what should we call this podcast? How about the TBTL podcast? Wouldn't you put that into the Internet and wouldn't you immediately find that, oh, somebody's been doing for 17 years? I just, I'm just really surprised at the specificity of that and the word podcast that it didn't occur to that person that there was already somebody doing that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Do you by any chance happen to remember the scintillating story of the naming of the after these Messages podcast which Genevieve and I started? I think it was. I think we're maybe at the. Around the 10 year anniversary of us starting that show. I think we started in 2015. Thank you. It's the 10 year anniversary is the. I don't know what you give me for that. You give me a golden microphone. By the way, I was kind of surprised to hear you give a little thumbs up to their logo with a microphone. This new rival podcast that you mentioned, because I always think it's a rule of thumb of yours, which I am on board with, which is like to illustrate a podcast with a, with an image of a microphone is a little bit. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm also not that into the kind of 1950s. That 1950s microphone as a kind of a throwback idea, I think has been. It's been embraced pretty widely, well explored. It's. It's not really my, my style, I guess I just mean it's, it's a, it's a more legit logo than I would expect for a podcast that appears to have no episodes and no posts, but did take the time to name itself exactly the name of our show.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm going to actually see if I can bring in some audio illustration for the story I'm about to tell Genevieve and I. I had been bugging Genevieve to start a podcast with me for quite some time, not heavily, but she always made me laugh so much, especially when we're watching tv. And I think I had maybe even. We're probably going to hear a crash because I accidentally. My studio door and Bingo's on the inside of it, and he is crawling on boxes of tambourines right now. Have you ever heard a pile of tambourines go clattering to the ground? We might be lucky enough to hear that in a moment. Yes. But we. I couldn't get Genevieve to like, kind of sign on to a podcast idea. But then eventually the idea of doing a show all about commercials stuck with her and we started talking about it, you know. You know, eventually, a little bit more seriously. And then we finally said, okay, let's do this. But we took some time. We didn't just, like go into my studio, which was not set up, by the way, for a two person operation back then in la, and we said, okay, well, let's think about this. What do we want to name the show? Of course. And we tried to get all of our ducks in a row before we launched it. And we did exactly what you're describing one should do, which is we googled around and we came up with a bunch of show ideas and we looked at which ones were already taken, and there was no show that was after these messages. And we're like, okay, great, let's lock it in. And so we went forward with that. We made some very rudimentary art and things to go along with it. And I think maybe we waited about three weeks between coming up with the name after these messages and our actual launch. And within those three weeks, somebody else launched a podcast called after these Messages.

[Luke Burbank]

That's like a more crazy version of. Of something that happened to me, which was I had for many years been threatening to try to write a book, and, you know, never did and probably never will. But one of the things, one of the names I had for it in my mind was something like, Failure is an option. And I just took so long in not doing it that eventually H. John Benjamin wrote a book called Failure is an Option. Now that's a less interesting story because that's about me procrastinating over the course of years and years. And yours is like a very compressed timeline. Like, you picked the name and then within the next two weeks, someone else pops up with the name. That's crazy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now, the thing about the other after these Messages podcast, which I'm looking for here, it might have finally atrophied away totally. Because I told Genevieve, like, we just gotta stick with it. Like, we, you know, we didn't. I don't think we realized it until we literally were posting our first show and then we looked it up and we're like, why are we not the first result? And about a week earlier, somebody had posted their show and their show was a short form, high production, like a highly produced but not well produced. I want to be very clear about this highly produced, like five minute or seven minute podcast that was supposed to be like a parody of commercial breaks, but I wasn't sure if it was old timey or modern. But it was just like it was very, very far from what we were doing. And I said, listen, we started this. One of the reasons we took our time to do it right was because we had a plan. We're going to do it every single Tuesday and we weren't going to miss a show.

[Luke Burbank]

We're going to outlast them.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And eventually we did. But I will say that damn show dogged us for a long time because if we told people, look for after these messages on your podcatcher or whatever you say, I don't think people say podcatcher, but if we told people that the first thing to pop up was this parody thing. Thing, and I say parody, I'm giving them so much, so much credit even. I don't even know what to call it, to be honest with you. And you know, I guess now I'm, now I'm leaning towards being a little bit rude about the whole thing. But it really, it was a bummer that I think people were going to listen to our podcast and heard something that not only did I not think too much of, but was very, very different from what we were doing.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, well, that is the key to both after these messages and tbtl, which is you just outlast them.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

You and I both know, Andrew, is that some have tried, some have died, but nobody has done more of this bullshit than we have. And if we just stay here long enough, we'll eventually be. I feel like we will also outlast the behind the Lens podcast. Maybe we already have.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think I have told you about this before because guess what, the name of the person who did this. Okay, so it looks like we're not at the 10 year anniversary because their podcast started in. Oh yeah, November of 2015, which means we started ours probably in November or December of 2015. And they only made it to April of 2016. They released 11 episodes. They range in time from four minutes to nine minutes, it looks like. And the name of the person who owns the podcast is Jason Newman, but spelled differently than our friend Jason Newman.

[Luke Burbank]

The late Jason Newman.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. R.I.P. for sure. Yeah. And so here. This was their very first episode, which was episode one from November 1, 2015, and it's called KJRC Channel 6. So I think that they're making up either radio or television stations and then creating fake commercial breaks. I have no idea.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, there you go. That must have. Can you pause for a second? I don't know if you listened to this back in the day, but if you did, that would have grinded your gears too, because that is very much sonically associated with.

[Andrew Walsh]

With your show. In fact, I believe that is. I'm trying to figure out, can I play mine as well on a. Different messages will be right back.

[Luke Burbank]

I can't believe.

[Andrew Walsh]

So that's how ours starts with our little intro every week. And then theirs starts in the same way. Now I'm gonna hit play on theirs again. You know. You know what I hate? What if we love this? What if you love this more than my podcast? I'm playing a very dangerous.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a not. It's a non. What? There's a non.0 chance I've really painted myself into.

[Andrew Walsh]

We'll return to The Godfather Part 4, Citizens on Patrol, after these messages. This is a child, isn't it? Fetch, Mordecai.

[Luke Burbank]

David, what's Mordecai doing to that other dog?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know, Talia.

[Luke Burbank]

Look at his.

[Andrew Walsh]

Peter. Ew, weird. I think this is a child. This is a young person's podcast. At least they were back in 2015.

[Luke Burbank]

You mean because of their voice?

[Andrew Walsh]

I think their voice and maybe this level of humor that could be.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, I was hanging by.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was hanging by every word. You knew this day would come. But who can afford a costly dog circumcision and why?

[Luke Burbank]

At least it sounds like David Sedaris to me.

[Andrew Walsh]

It does. A young David Sedaris. The money and a vet. Do it yourself in the comfort of your own home, presenting the at home dog circumcision Kit. Don't laugh at this, Luke. Luke is laughing. I don't like this. You know, I'm gonna play more clips of my podcast.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm mostly laughing at you being angry about it. Lure your dog here, boy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Who's a little boy. Grab your dog. You know, I don't know if I want to. I don't know if I'm comfortable.

[Luke Burbank]

That's enough.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think we get the idea of it. Yes. So that was what we were up against. And I gotta say, I didn't realize they made 11 podcasts, but they did.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's the thing, like, I don't, I don't think that that's, for me, that's not the highest level of comedy. It's. But I guess I'm impressed at the, like you said, the, the production level and that they did 11 of those because that definitely seems like the kind of thing that you do one episode of and then you'd be like, God, that was a lot of work, you know, writing, mixing, producing those fake commercials and stuff. So I got to sort of tip my cap to them for getting 11 episodes out even. Even if it's not particularly for me.

[Andrew Walsh]

You don't by any stretch of the imagination, have to drill. Have to tip your cat drill. I'm looking. They must have had a bunch that were like in the can because they were really steady on a one week release podcast for their first month. Like it was very clearly like every seven days. They were dropping them throughout November. And then things start immediately, things start pacing out. There were two in December. You know what it's like a couple in January.

[Luke Burbank]

It's like you're running, you're in a race, you're doing a half marathon and there's somebody that just zooms past you and you have to ask yourself in your mind, is that sustainable? And they go. And then you can't see them anymore. And then eventually at about the 10 mile mark, you start to make out a figure and you realize it's them and they're not going as fast as they were at the beginning. And now you're catching up to them and now you're passing them. That was, that was your experience. Speaking of running, do you know that I've got a, I've got a malady going on. I think it's, I think it's adductor tendonitis. And I can't run right now and it is really bumming me out. And that is not some kind of a humble brag. I'm not trying to be one of those people who just like, you know, it's just like my mental reset, man running. But like, it's throwing me for a loop. I'm, I'm realizing how much of my sense of well being, and by the way, this isn't healthy on a given day is related to if I feel like I did checked my list of things and a big part of that is the running. So yeah, I'm kind of struggling with that a little bit.

[Andrew Walsh]

So what, where's, what's the issue?

[Luke Burbank]

It's basically like a pain, like a pulled tendon or an injured tendon that's kind of in. Not my groin. Get your minds out of the gutter. Not so much like towards the, you know, my crotchal region, but more like the front of my leg, where sort of my. My leg and my hip meet, but the front. Right. Like, when I think about hip pain, I think of it as being the sides of your hips. I've never had hip pain, per se, before this, so I always thought of. When people talk about a hip replacement, I always assumed the pain was on the outside, like, the edges of your hips. I don't know why. That's just where I pictured it. This is more on the front of my leg, the top part of my leg, where it meets where that joint, kind of where the ball joint of your leg is going into your hip, I guess, socket. And I've had it for, like a year, but it hasn't been in. When I was in England this summer, sometimes we'd be walking and it would just kind of flare up. But the weirdest thing is it would then just go away. So we'd be walking somewhere, and it'd almost be like I could barely raise my left leg because of the pain, and then it would just kind of like go away, and then it wouldn't hurt at all. And, and, and about a week ago, actually, we were in New York. We ran Central park, and from then on out, it's been. It was really sore. And then I ran the other day. I was basically fine. Then I went on a run, and then I went and did an event on Sunday for livewire, and I literally could almost not walk into the. Of the venue.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did you start to feel it during the run, or did it only hit you after the run?

[Luke Burbank]

That's what's strange. It felt fine during the run. And in fact, generally speaking, when I'm running, it doesn't hurt, which is very odd. You think that would be the most painful. But what happens is then after a while when I'm like, sitting or something post run, like, if I'm in the car, like, I was driving from here down to Portland for this event, any kind of, like, sedentary thing, it, like, all of a sudden when I get up to walk my left leg, I can almost not lift my left leg. Like, there have been times where I have to physically use my arm to pick up my left leg if I'm getting, like, out of bed or something. And now that I've been laying off running the last couple of days, the last three days, it's not hurting. As much, but it's still there. It's like certainly I can walk around fine. I took Gigi for a walk this morning, but I can still kind of feel it. And I definitely have the sense that if I went for a run today, it'd come right back with full force. And I know that. Well, first of all, I tried to set up a physical therapy appointment with Kaiser. Despite how great you've heard about the American healthcare system, turns out sometimes not great. I was like trying to make a physical therapy appointment. I think it's in like maybe I want to say February or March. So the next time I can get somebody. Well, this is what was crazy. I was looking this up this morning at about 8:00'. Clock. Right. And I could get a physical, in person physical therapy appointment at 8:30 that morning in Clackamas County, Oregon or in March. It was like we can see you in 30 minutes by the way. I'm like a hour drive from that location and was not going to go to the doctor at that moment or the PT, but it was like either in 30 minutes or in five months. Those are your options.

[Andrew Walsh]

Mr. Burbank, a couple of questions about this. So your description or the name you put on this, which I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

Self diagnosis.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is self diagnosis. That's kind of what I figured. Is this something that your other running friends like Becca or others have also had? I thought maybe somebody said, oh, she's.

[Luke Burbank]

A running friend with benefits.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. Well, I know, I know, I didn't want to get into that. But I mean, if you'd like to expand on that, I will.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know anyone else who has this particular issue. I'm sure it is, you know, semi common. The thing a lot of runners that I know, what they get is plantar fasciitis.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Because that's just a repetitive use injury sometimes. And you know people can get that get stress, stress fractures. Fractures rather. There's also the T band. T band is something that a lot of people deal with, which is I think something that kind of goes over your hip on the outside that can get kind of injured and running. I don't know anyone who has this, but when I looked it up on the Internet it sounded exactly like what I'm dealing with. And then I went to like a, a website for some sort of sports medicine clinic and they literally had like the like the sort of human form, you know what I mean? The like a human body, but they don't have any skin on them. It's just the muscles. And they had a pinpoint on where adductor tendonitis hurts. And I was like, that's exactly the spot where it hurts.

[Andrew Walsh]

You were watching Mr. Good Body videos, weren't you?

[Luke Burbank]

That was last night.

[Andrew Walsh]

Do you remember old Mr. Slim good body?

[Luke Burbank]

So unsettling.

[Andrew Walsh]

That was good. Always gave me a bad feeling.

[Luke Burbank]

Unbelievably upsetting.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, not for me. Also, I thought. I think there was a period of my life when I was a little kid where I thought he was Richard Simmons. I couldn't separate the two of them out in my head.

[Luke Burbank]

Hundred percent. I was going to say that exact thing. They looked similar. I think they both had. Wow. You put Slim Good Body in and you don't really. Okay, now you get. Well, until I did an image search. If you put Slim Goodbody in, you get some TV shows or something, the Internet. The first result was not just a picture of the guy. Then I went to image, and yes, he looks so much like Richard Simmons in that era. And I sort of understand the idea of, like, teaching kids, you know, about the human body and maybe demystifying it. But what I can tell you is that this was so upsetting to me as a kid to see a guy in a skin tight. Like, what leotard would that be like a bodysuit? Bodysuit that's then painted so that you're seeing all of his organs, some of his bones and muscles. I mean, I don't know who greenlit this, but it was a bad idea.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, wow. And it looks like he. I'm now looking at it. I'm gonna play the beginning of this. It looks like he's kind of inside of a body, maybe or at least is on a stage with, like, a bunch of, like, organs around him. And I don't mean kind you have in church.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right. This is swinging.

[Luke Burbank]

Better be Leon Redbone Drop kick.

[Andrew Walsh]

Your brain when to fall to the floor.

[Luke Burbank]

This is the inside story of your.

[Andrew Walsh]

Whole body, the Body Symphony.

[Luke Burbank]

And here to tell you about it is the one and only Slim Good. Your body is incredible. It's busy every minute. Amazing things are happening to keep you living in it. Your heart is beating, lungs are breathing, blood is circulating. Mind is thinking, eyes are blinking, skin is insulating. Billions of cells are working together all in harmony, creating the music which I call the Body Symphony.

[Andrew Walsh]

So that's intro tape, right? That is incredible.

[Luke Burbank]

Is it too late to make that the intro to today's show?

[Andrew Walsh]

For today's show and then have to explain it? Wow, that's Actually incredible. I gotta say, I actually, that didn't leave me how I thought it was gonna leave me, which is wanting more.

[Luke Burbank]

Let me give you a little update on Slim Goodbody, also known as the superhero of health, Also known as Mr. Goodbody is Andrew, not was. Good is a recurring character created and performed by John Burstein. Burstein created the character in 1975. He performs wearing a sometimes white, sometimes peach colored unitard with various tissues, organs and organ systems painted in biologically accurate locations and sizes. Each costume costs $4,000.

[Andrew Walsh]

What an interesting thing to have in.

[Luke Burbank]

The very first graph, I promise you. John Burstein wrote this.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wikipedia. Yes, I think you are 100%, which I thought there were rules against that. How did they, how did they let this.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, Slim Goodbody wrote it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

Or John Burstein wrote it, who is not Slim Goodbody for the purposes of Wikipedia. This is, this is a very interesting thing. I also assumed. Oh, yeah, okay. He had a television series called Inside Story on pbs. I was gonna say this was very PBS coded for me as a kid. And.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, and Captain Kangaroo. Between 76 and 81, he appeared twice a week on Captain Kangaroo.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, he grew up in New York City, began working on songs and skits to entertain the children. Oh, he was working at a hospital in New York City and was teaching these kids about anatomy. It doesn't say that he was a physician, so I don't know what exactly his job at the hospital was teaching children, but. And he now lives in Maine. He has two sons, Devin and Luke. You know, I never met my biological father. Yeah, I heard it was some guy named Jim Lane, but I don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

We could have seen how it actually happens, actually. It would have been a very interesting perspective on your formation.

[Luke Burbank]

I really wonder what the appetite for slim good body appearances is in 2025.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I wonder what the appetite for slim good body appearances is on the E line. Like, what if you just showed up? Well, like bus. Like, does he ever take the outfit out of the box when he's not on television or, you know, at a hospital? And did he show up at the hospital with the gig in mind or did he just show up this way and nobody stopped him?

[Luke Burbank]

It was pre 9 11.

[Andrew Walsh]

It really was. He's just like, I'm here. And they're all like, ah, okay, the kid's wing is down there.

[Luke Burbank]

There's a comedian named Fahim Anwar who's very funny, and I saw him doing some stand up on Tick Tock the other day. This is kind of an edgy joke, but I'm. I'm gonna go for it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, kids, turn up the volume.

[Luke Burbank]

Sensitive people. I guess maybe this is his joke. I don't want to claim credit for it, but he said, he goes, Sometimes I wonder what the security was that the 911 hijackers had to go through at the airport. You know, because it was pre 9 11. Like, it couldn't have been more pre 911 than that day.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know. There's something about that idea that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I thought he was. I thought. I'm sorry. I thought that he was gonna. You're gonna expand on that via him. But just generally speaking, like. Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

He just wonders what the security was like for them. Because it was pre 9 11. Y.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like pretty late.

[Luke Burbank]

People. The people who. Who created the conditions.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

That we think of as post 911 and that we all live with in so many different areas to this day. There was a moment that they were going through security at the airport and I'm sure subjected to much less scrutiny because it was, by definition pre 9 11.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Not to be too dark about it, but yeah, they. They really just. Just coasted right through, didn't they? They probably because their last check through was actually.

[Luke Burbank]

They were the last group of people to get to go through the air. Minimal hassle.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Because of the thing they were. They were about to do. Back to Slim Good Body, if we could for a minute. Andrew. When I put Slim Good Body into the Internet searching, one of the first things that also came up was Slim Good Body cosplay. And so, because I thought, well, I've got my next year's Halloween costume picked out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, God. Oh, God. Here, let me.

[Luke Burbank]

What happens if I show up for Genevieve's party? That way.

[Andrew Walsh]

I know. Let's see if she has one. That'll be. That'll be great for me because that'd give me a really good excuse not to be there. I'm going to type in Slim Good. Well, you know what? And let's see what comes up here.

[Luke Burbank]

I've got an article from the Sioux City Journal. This is from 2006. I'm thinking Sioux City. Where would Sioux City be? Iowa, maybe?

[Andrew Walsh]

Sioux City, Iowa, is what I think.

[Luke Burbank]

I believe. St. Luke's that's a hospital, I assume gears up for Slim Good Body, famous children's entertainer will perform next week at the Orpheum Theater.

[Andrew Walsh]

What year? I'm sorry?

[Luke Burbank]

2006. And it's. It's our guy, Slim Goodbody. And 2006 by the way looks great. Keeping it like, honestly looks better than he did in the 1980s. Much shorter haircut, very fit person. He's got the suit on. We now know the suit costs $4,000.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's keeping it transparent. That's good.

[Luke Burbank]

He really is. For the past 30 years. I'm reading now just from the the Sioux City Journal article. For the past 30 years, one man has been providing youngsters with insight on the inner workings of the human body. Hold on, let me fix that. For 30 years, one man has been terrifying youngsters about the innards of their guts.

[Andrew Walsh]

Traumatizing children uninvited.

[Luke Burbank]

On Thursday, May 18 and Friday, May 19, Slim Goodbody will bring his bodyology show to Siouxland. I guess that's what they call the greater Sioux City area. Thousands of local youngsters are expected to pack the Orpheum Theater during Slim Good Bodies live bodyology shows which are being sponsored by St. Luke's Regional Medical center with cooperation from St. Luke's Children Miracle Network. Tickets remain for this two evening presentation and can be purchased at your local Hy Vee food stores.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, good.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you have Hy Vee in Ohio.

[Andrew Walsh]

When you were growing up? This is the first time hearing of it, but I love it. Like I feel like I can picture it immediately. It might be wrong.

[Luke Burbank]

I, you know, my first, the first that I ever heard of Hy Vee was related to the football player Kurt Warner because the story on him was he played college football. He was not able to get any interest in the pros, and he was working at Hy Vee Post College.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, this is H Y Z e e. I think I was picturing it wrong. I thought this was going to be like a, a larger corner store kind of thing, but it looks like this is a full on grocery store.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

And he was stocking shelves at Hy Vee, famously. And I think there was even some story that he used to like. This sounds pretty apocryphal as I'm saying it out loud, that he would like throw paper towels down the aisles. I don't think he needed to practice with rolls of paper towels. I bet he still had access to an actual football even though he wasn't in the pros. And then of course he went on and he managed to get a contract to play in the Arena League. And then he was the like all time leading quarterback of the Arena League. And then he got a shot to play for the Rams and then he led the greatest show on tur.

[Andrew Walsh]

It looks like Peyton Manning went to A Hy Vee to talk to Kurt Warner. To Kurt Warner.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm looking at his Hy Vee times.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my gosh. You know what? This was just posted on the Omaha Productions YouTube page only three weeks ago. Luke.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought I was finding some.

[Luke Burbank]

And the archival gym.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, no, the name of it is Peyton Manning meets the Grocery Store Clerk who Became a Hall of Famer. And it begins with them in the parking lot walking towards a high V. We were just singing the praises of Omaha Productions the other day. I had to say, I'm not somebody.

[Luke Burbank]

Chad Powers.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. Not somebody who, like, follows it closely or even, like, probably, you know, watches most of the content. But, man, when they do things, they tend to do them right, don't they? This is such a good idea. It looks like they put on. It looks like they both put on Clerks outfits and they're helping out around the grocery store while he interviews him. This is. This is good stuff.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that's. So they're just producing that. I wonder if that. I guess that's just for them because they're on that, you know, channel. The Manning brothers are on that channel where they, like, watch Monday Night Football and talk about it. But it's not the main feed. Yeah, maybe it was for that, I guess because. Because they're not.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I think this is just a, like, this is like a 10 minute short that they did. Oh. I mean, maybe inserted it in there. It doesn't seem.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm just wondering what the monetized element of it is. You know what I mean? Like, I wonder. I wonder why it was created.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I mean, I just think that they have their, you know, it's like podcasts, you know, on YouTube. I just think.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

They just clicks. Oh, and guess what they're showing at the end. Him taking a roll of paper towels. Yeah. Both of them throwing paper towels.

[Luke Burbank]

I swear that was part of the story. There's something about him throwing paper towels that's in the origin myth, which, again, is one of those things. If you think about it. It's like Kurt Warner still had a football at home. Like, it was. It's like the story of a kid in Africa who has to, like, make their own basketball because they don't have access to one, and then they become a great player. It's like Kurt Warner still had footballs when he was working at Hy Vee.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I could totally see anybody. Even if you don't go on to be a Hall of Fame quarterback if you're of a certain age. Maybe. No, not. You don't have to be of a certain age. I would say even as a grown ass adult, if you're in a store around rolls of paper towels a lot, at some point you're going to pick up a roll of paper towels and throw it like a football. You have to.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you know that I think of you every time I use a paper.

[Andrew Walsh]

Towel, Andrew, because of my weird thing about tearing them in half or something.

[Luke Burbank]

Not even that. Because you have said on the show a few times just casually how you grew up in a household where you used a lot of paper towels.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, a lot.

[Luke Burbank]

Towel. Do we go with, do we call it paper towels or paper towel?

[Andrew Walsh]

Papers, towel, obviously. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

But. And, and I now, I didn't grow up in a household like that because my parents were cheap, but now I do live in a household like that because I am profligate. And so I do use a fair amount of paper towels for things because I, I don't want to always use a towel like an actual towel and then have to wash it. So. And because I didn't grow up using paper towels, it feels fancy. It feels, it feels both kind of fancy and wasteful to me, but it's also very effective. There's just a lot of stuff that I want to clean up and I don't want to again have to then wash a towel afterwards. So it's very, you know, it's a very practical thing. But every time I rip like three sheets of the paper towel off of there to go get something, I think of you saying I grew up in a household where we used paper towels for everything. And I, I sort of low key judge myself based on your judgment, sort of of yourself, but it doesn't stop me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And I kind of slipped. Like, I'm not somebody, especially when it comes to cleaning habits. I'm not somebody who's always looking to do the most environmentally friendly thing. And I'm not saying that I'm somebody who's like just taking aerosol cans and spraying them into the air just because I like the way it's just one.

[Luke Burbank]

In each hand, just spinning in a circle.

[Andrew Walsh]

Spinning around in my. Mr.

[Luke Burbank]

Trying to layer down.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, exactly. But, you know, I try to be somewhat thoughtful, but I'm not somebody who takes it certainly to any kind of extreme. And honestly, it wasn't even until later in life that I started thinking about these things more and of course talking about cleaning with Hannah on the Spotless podcast. But like, now I'm just, you know, I don't think a big decision was made in my life. I think over time I've just bought more and more kitchen towels. And because like our little laundry area is right off the kitchen, I am just much more in the habit of like kind of you take a clean towel out, you use it as a dry dishes for a while and you try to keep it separate from the counters or whatever, but eventually it's out long enough and it kind of becomes just the counter towel. It just sort of eventually evolves in the day or two that it's in the kitchen. Right. And then by the end maybe you're done cooking something and you're using that towel and you're wiping up the counter. I'll still, usually by the very end of cleanup, at the end of a night of cooking, I'll still probably use one paper towel and zap the counter with some, you know, counter spray and. But I just use towels so much more now and I just have so many and I'm just kind of constantly washing them and using them and washing them and using them and washing them. Having said that, my folks have not evolved much. I was just home.

[Luke Burbank]

You were just in Ohio?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, staying with my parents. And, and I don't even say this judgmentally, I really don't. Although I guess the listeners can feel free to. Although keep those opinions to yourself. I will not be receiving emails where you complain about my parents habits. But, but in my.

[Luke Burbank]

No, you're not accepting those emails.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I'm not accepting those emails. You keep my parents habits out of your mouth. But I use my father's bathroom downstairs. They set up a little room for me in my dad's office. I sleep down there. And then he's got his own bathroom that I use and it's nice. His whole basement was an unfinished basement when they moved in. And I really envious of the fact that they just basically designed an entire basement down there and put in all the walls. I mean the stuff that you're doing as well, I've just never done that before. Just been like, okay, this is an empty space. What are my needs? And let me build for that. And you know, they did this 15 years ago or more maybe, but it's just, I don't know, I give them a lot of credit for having the wherewithal to do that and to come up with it and how there are so many things in this house that I live in that could use some pretty major upgrades. But I just look at them and say well, someday. And then I never do it. So all of that is to say it's kind of cool. My dad's got a bathroom that was designed by him for him. And part of that is he's got a little. He's got like a paper towel dispenser down there that sits on his sink counter. And it's like the kind that's almost like a tissue box. It's like a plastic thing. I think it's. I think the brand might be Torque. Does that ring a bell? Have you ever seen those in a bathroom? Like T O R K, it doesn't matter. But it sits on the counter and you pull paper towels up out of it. And like, I just can't get. I think he just uses that to like, you know, dry his hands, wipe down the sink, and that's, that's the main thing. And I just can't get into that. Like, I always find like a hazel towel.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah, no, this is, this is, this is a nice.

[Andrew Walsh]

Are you looking at tabletop ones?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm looking at a Torque Express tabletop towel dispenser.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Yeah, that's probably it. I don't have eyes on it right now, but yeah. And it kind of, you know, kind of pulls out like a, like a Kleenex box out the top or whatever. And it's nice.

[Luke Burbank]

It's not a roll for people trying to picture this.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And so it really works for him. But like, I just can't get in the habit of using a paper towel every time to dry my hands now, you know, so I always have like, like some sort of a, you know, whatever, a hand towel in there that I'm using. But also one day I went into his little cupboard in the bathroom and I took. I saw that he had a little stack of paper cups that I needed. You know, you can totally picture a little bathroom sized paper cup. Not the kind that's coated in wax, just paper. And I took it out and I took my little. Took a pill that morning and then I took the little cup and I didn't even think about what I was doing. I just set it on the counter. Like, you know, my folks keep everything very, very, very clean and neat. And so, you know, when I'm in there, I'm conscientious of that too. And I'm a generally ne. And so I take the little cup and I set it on the counter next to my. Is it Dopp kit?

[Luke Burbank]

Is that what you call it?

[Andrew Walsh]

Or DAP kit? Dopp kit. And I think I used it maybe two days In a row. And then on day three, my dad had taken a blue pen and written in his just perfect handwriting on the tiny paper cup. You know, you can use a new one every day or something like that. And he's big on leaving notes, which is apparently also where I got that habit.

[Luke Burbank]

I was gonna say that is such an insight that feels like something you would do just in a funny way. Just being kind of like. Like that is such an insight into your personality to me, in a good way. But just like. Because, like, you'll just do funny little things or like the kind of jokes that you like to play or the way that you sort of Just the way you are in the world. That to me makes so much sense that that was his response.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. You know, the notes around the house I found very interesting. And then also my dad describes this one thing he does that I didn't know he did it. And it blew my mind how close it is to something that I do around my house, which is he. I think it's once a week or maybe once a month, a family member comes over and does a little kind of house cleaning for them. A little bit of housekeeping, a little bit of house cleaning. And he pays them, I assume, with a check that he puts in an envelope. And I happened to see the envelope sitting there. I didn't know what it was at the time. I thought it was a birthday card or something because her name was written in like these kind of big block letters, somewhat artfully, almost like, almost mimicking like kind of classic looking graffiti or something like that. And then there was like a sticker on it or something. And later on, I don't know why it came up, but my dad told me, oh, yeah, I do this thing when, when I'm leaving, you know, every week or every month when I give them the check, I put it in an envelope and I always design their name differently. He said, I've already got the. He's like, I got the neck. I got next week's done. I turned one of the letters in her name into a turkey or something for Thanksgiving. And like, he loves, like. And every. Every time he tries to think of some creative way to write their name on the envelope. This is almost literally what I do, or at least used to do with the note that I leave on the coffee maker every morning for Genevieve. I have a little sticky note. And sometimes I don't make the coffee. And so it can get kind of get confusing. So I always put a note on there. If the coffee is Ready? Sometimes I just take the note. I just write, ready? And I put it on there and very simple. Sometimes I. But it used to be much more elaborate. I would draw a coffee cup, and then maybe the steam coming off of the coffee cup would spell the words ready. Like a ghost in a cartoon or something. I at one point got so elaborate that I was finding coffee related memes online and printing them out in my printer and, like, just trying to think, how can I make Genevieve smile every morning when she goes to take her first cup of coffee and then finding out that my dad.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a man who hasn't been divorced twice? Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. Well, you know, I don't know that she does smile every morning. That was just my attempt at it. But, you know, who am I truly doing this for? But hearing my dad say, oh, yeah, every time I make one of these envelopes, I try to think of some creative way to do it. I'm like, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. I don't even know that you do that. This is definitely, I believe, nature, not nurture in this case.

[Luke Burbank]

Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did he.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, do you remember as a kid, him sort of drawing, you know, doodling and drawing things? So that was. So maybe it's kind of a 50. 50, but certainly in your adult life, you weren't ever thinking, I'm being Bob Walsh.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I guess maybe that's what I mean. You're right. Maybe there. Maybe there's some nature in there or some nurture in there, too, because. Yeah, well, my dad has more of an artistic flair than me. Like, he can draw things pretty well. He even took drawing classes at one point. So I've always envied that about him. And he's funny, so he'll. He can draw pretty goofy things pretty well. So I don't really have that. I can't draw. I can draw. I can barely draw a mug of coffee, right? It's like three circles and a couple of lines. But so. So I kind of don't have that. I think I've told you before on the show this note that he left in my lunch bag that I just thought was so funny. I mean, I remember it, you know, 30 some years later. He had packed my lunch in a brown paper bag one day when I was in high school, and apparently as a treat, just took some M&M's and put them in, like, a little mini Ziploc bag. And then he wrote in his again, just meticulous little handwriting. And it's not even really handwriting. It's like printing right. He just wrote, only one of these M and Ms. Fell on the floor. Don't eat that one. Don't eat that one. It was such a good joke. And again, that was a note that was left in my lunch bag years and years ago and I still remember it. So, yeah, yeah, he's always been doing that kind of thing. But hearing him describe that envelope and be like, oh, yeah. So this is, this is what I do to the coffee maker. I come by it honestly.

[Luke Burbank]

The only thing it's. It's so sad in comparison to those things you've described because I'm a very non artistic person. I can't draw anything except for Far Guild. And even that's what problems.

[Andrew Walsh]

Remember our big Far Guild error where our show pick for weeks was some drawing that you would draw with a fake Garfield.

[Luke Burbank]

But the only thing that I have that's kind of a visual kind of signature, if you will. And I didn't even realize that I was doing it until Addie pointed it out, maybe in her teenage years or her twenties, is anytime I give anyone a card, you know, I always do this little line under their name.

[Andrew Walsh]

And.

[Luke Burbank]

Then two little lines through it. So like, this is. I'm just writing on this piece of paper. Imagine, imagine this is a card that I'm giving to Addie.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm looking at this, it's a little bit hard to see. Oh, okay, yeah, okay. So you got a. It's a curvy line underneath it with.

[Luke Burbank]

A couple of short lines, two little slashes through it. I don't even know. I don't know where that came from. But I have been doing it for, you know, 30 years of her life or whatever. And she said at some point, like, oh, yeah, you always know. We always know it's a card from you because. Because you have that thing under it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, it does remind me.

[Luke Burbank]

I didn't even realize I was doing it consciously.

[Andrew Walsh]

I feel like seeing that doesn't necessarily seem like a style that I would associate with you. Although I don't really associate. Yeah, but you saw that as a young person, like your mom put that on a card or something. You saw that. You're like, well, that's how you write my mom.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did your mom.

[Luke Burbank]

My mom. No, she does.

[Andrew Walsh]

She does.

[Luke Burbank]

She writes cards. She definitely. What you heard there, Andrew, in the span. I don't know how, how long they think that the big bang took as far as the initial event, you know, probably was like a, a one millionth of A second. But so much happened. So much just happened in that half of a second that you heard me. Here was. Here was the journey. I was going to say something like, I don't. I probably wasn't my mom because my mom's not really a drawer. But then I also realized my mom has really re engaged with the content here on TBT and is hearing everything when I was on the phone with my parents. This came up yesterday on the show with Jeff Hiller. I apologize everyone to everyone but Andrew. This is all new to Andrew, people. But I don't know if you remember on the show a week or two ago, we were talking about having the house cleaned sometimes and how like, sometimes I won't do it if my parents are coming over because I know things will just kind of get a little sort of, you know, out of whack again just because of having house guests and everything. And I said something about my parents. It seems like they move every single thing in my house by one inch.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I do remember you talking about that. Yeah. And then you even said, I think mom more than dad.

[Luke Burbank]

I think my mom more than my dad. But you know, both of them a little bit. And so I'm on the phone with them on like Saturday and they're like on speakerphone, they're driving. So I'm talking to both of them. My mom says something like, they were coming over that week last weekend. And my mom's just like, yeah, we'll try not to move everything by one inch. I was like, oh, my. This is a very limiting. This is very limiting for me on the show, knowing that my mom is listening. And by the way, like an hour into the show, I think, or maybe a half hour pretty far into it, like, you know, that's gonna be. That's gonna really. So what you heard me there doing was running all these scenarios and trying to not say a thing that was would in some. Because I love my parents so much. I love my mom so much. But I also love to give my mom grief. And I never know until I hear weeks later from my mom if the grief I was giving her on the show is the kind of stuff that she's like, thinks is funny or if it kind of hurt her feelings a little bit.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. And did. Do you think that that hurt her feelings?

[Luke Burbank]

No, I don't think the one inch thing really hurt her feelings. It did hurt her feelings on the Monday show. So another one that I'm guessing you missed, but it was John and I and we. It took. Took Four tries for me to get the show going because I kept messing things up, and I was messing up, like, my audio and things like that. So finally, we're actually going. We're rolling. It's happening. We're into the show. I'm doing my little rap at the top, and my parents just bust into the Madrona Hill studio.

[Andrew Walsh]

I caught wind of this to say.

[Luke Burbank]

Goodbye to me, even though I'd already said goodbye to them. And it was really the frustration that I'd already messed up the top of the show like, three previous times, but I just basically just yelled at them. I was like, mom, I'm trying to do the show.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think that might have gotten posted maybe to social media, because I heard been sending people.

[Luke Burbank]

More than one person pulled that as a drop. More than one person learned how to pull a drop and then did so and sent it to me. I think I've got, like, four or five in my inbox of people who pulled that as a drop and said it to me.

[Andrew Walsh]

So shades of John Clayton. Is that.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, well, that's a third reference. Okay, the. The references that John and I were discussing were in the movie Old School. Will Ferrell's character yells, mom, the meatloaf. And then I was bringing up Rupert Pupkin from King of Comedy. So Robert De Niro, when he's in his kind of basement studio, his character, you know, is obsessed with being on talk shows, and he's built like a fake talk show set in his basement, and he's doing this talk show, and then his mom is yelling down the stairs to him, and he's yelling back at his mother, and you're right. That's a third reference.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, actually, I have. Hey, mom, the meatloaf. We want it now. The meatloaf. Did you already play that yesterday or Monday?

[Luke Burbank]

I played on Monday show, yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Well, there you go again.

[Luke Burbank]

You missed a lot the last two days, buddy.

[Andrew Walsh]

I didn't know you had that drop.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, the sweet sounds of the donor music. How we've missed it around here.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm worried about something. Luke, what do you. This is the part of the show, of course, where we thank all the people who have donated to TBTL during the last TBT throughout the years to keep this show going. And what did I do on my first day back? After a small break, I played a different. A few small breaks, I played a different podcast called after these Messages.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, you did.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is a wonderful parody podcast where you can hear fake commercials. And what if some of these donors decide to give this money to the other Jason Newman instead to try to.

[Luke Burbank]

Get that thing back up and running.

[Andrew Walsh]

Get it back up and running. And to also maybe support, you know, in arrears, the donations that they didn't give back in 2015.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it depends on how interested they are in dog circumcision comedy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. And do we have numbers on that? The overlap of our audience being interested in that particular topic? Ask John to look at that and maybe do a cross reference with Slim Good Body as well and just see what we come up with.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, we'll put that. Let's put that on the agenda for our next TBTV session.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sounds good.

[Luke Burbank]

We are thanking donors and we are thanking. The last couple of days I've been playing the Home Depot music because I didn't have this song, but now we do. And we've also got Molly Huff's name on the list in Wheaton, Illinois.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you, Molly.

[Luke Burbank]

Appreciate you, Molly. Also, Megan Moore, who's in Lake Forest Park, Washington. Megan, Photography district.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's right. That's where I got my camera, which I did take with me over the weekend. Took some photos.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you take any pictures?

[Andrew Walsh]

I did. Nothing super remarkable, but we did see a dumpster full of old pumpkins, like old Jack O Lanterns. Because, like, my dad takes his recycling. My dad is very. I mean, you want to talk about apples, trees, et cetera, falling. My dad is upset with the Bob Walsh garbage. We don't have time. I mean, it's. And again, I'm not even saying that, like, judgmental. I mean, it's just like. But what basically happens is he collects recycling in his garage. And he even laughed at himself. He separates out the cans and the cardboard in two little box in different boxes. I accidentally put the cardboard in the wrong box. I saw within a half hour he had moved it. And then I said, did you move the cardboard? I put that in there so carefully. I thought I was like, abiding by, like, the rules. He's like. He's like, I did. I took it out, I put it in the other box. And, you know, it doesn't matter. When I take it to the place where we drop it off, it all goes into the same dumpster anyway. And he's laughing at himself. He's like, I don't even. He's like, I don't know why I do it. I just do it. I separate it. And then it all goes into the same place.

[Luke Burbank]

Because I was going to say good for him. Because that's probably making life a lot easier on the folks at the recycling center, because they don't have to then, you know, separate everything out. But no, in fact, it goes back. It all goes into the same thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, but it's like. It's one of the. It's like this big police station parking lot in the suburbs, in the west side suburbs. And so there's like a recycling station there. And I guess maybe because of the holiday, the recent Halloween holiday, they put a special huge dumpster, I guess, normal sized dumpster, but you know, that's pretty big, just to collect all of the remnants of people's Jack o' lanterns. So I thought that was kind of an interesting photo. Dumpster just overflowing with Jack o' lantern, with their grimaces still plastered on their faces as they sink into themselves.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you have to, like, tell your dad, hey, hold on, I gotta go take a picture of this?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, my dad told me to get out of the car and take a picture of it. True story.

[Luke Burbank]

We also want to say thanks to another Megan. This is Megan Coughlin in Seattle, Washington. I wonder if Meghan Moore and Megan Coughlin know each other.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maybe. I like that there's a little bit of difference because they are both, you know, kind of in the general Seattle area. They knew one of them had to put an H in their name and one of them didn't. To keep them apart.

[Luke Burbank]

Just to keep it. It. Keep it, you know, easy for everyone to follow. Thanks also to Byron Orm in Shelton, Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you have some roots in Shelton, right?

[Luke Burbank]

I sure do. I sure do. My. My sister Hannah and her fam are down there in the greater Shelton area. Byron, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Jenny Brown is in Somerville. Wait, Somerville, Massachusetts? One of those ones. I gotta say Somerville.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's not a real pronunciation thing. You're saying it right to just Somerville. That's just kind of how people who live there, some of the folks who live there kind of describe.

[Luke Burbank]

Some of them in Somerville say some of them.

[Andrew Walsh]

Some of them. Some of them say Somerville exactly. But yeah, I love Somerville. I get hungry just thinking about Somerville. Of all the great places to eat there really.

[Luke Burbank]

Is it kind of known for its like cafes and restaurants and things?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know if it's known for that. It's probably just like my, you know, I'm a young adult there, and so I sort of feel like a certain amount of freedom and I'm exploring the world. And of course, I live in New Hampshire at the time, but I'm visiting Genevieve in Somerville where she Lived at the time. And, like, there was. Oh, you know, I've talked about this bar that is famous for its burgers, and I'm blanking on the name of it now with every passing year. I just forget more and more. But, yeah, I'm thinking about this burger joint. I'm thinking about this. Is it Anna's Taqueria? That's there where I'd get these great burritos. Do you know my first experience with. Oh, geez, what's wrong with. No, I use it literally every day. Sriracha. My first experience with sriracha was not putting it on Asian food, but actually putting it on these burritos that we would get. I think it was called Anna's, but we'd bring them back to Genevieve's house, and they just had what they called the hot. I think they called it. And it was before sriracha was on basically every table in America. And I would put that on each bite of my burrito. So. Good, good.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you know that those hot sauces are very associated with the kind of, I guess you could say region or maybe ethnic background for me. So, like, I would obviously, if I was eating a burrito or something like that, I would throw some tapatio on there. I would throw some cholula on there. It would feel. Somehow, it would feel like a sin to put sriracha on it, because that's not burrito country.

[Andrew Walsh]

I honestly don't. As I was saying that, I was wondering. I don't know, maybe people are kind of recoiling by about that. That is a different kind of. Of, you know, it is. It's a chili. It's like a chili hot, which is a different kind of flavor that you don't associate with burritos. I don't know if I would still like it, but at the time, I'd love it.

[Luke Burbank]

I bet you it would be yummy. I'm. I'm mostly marveling at how weirdly kind of brittle I am around what hot sauce goes on, what. What food product. Like, I'm sure it's. I'm sure it's fine. I'm sure it's probably very tasty. But that'd be like, oh, sriracha on a burrito. Oh, I'm all out of sorts.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, anyway, I'm just glad that, you know, when people think about the Boston area, they think of Mexican food. So I'm just really glad that I was able to, like, really shout out Somerville for Anna.

[Luke Burbank]

Shout out to Jenny Brown out there in Somerville. Shout out also to Christine and Matt Woodward in Renton, Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey. Hey. Go Seahawks. Down there.

[Luke Burbank]

Wait, I was going to say down there by the vmac. Yeah, I mean, Andrew, I got to tell you, I know that you're kind of a.

[Andrew Walsh]

You've.

[Luke Burbank]

Your relationship with pro football has become a little bit less intense, a little bit less kind of moment to moment. But. But this might be the year to re. Engage with them, their Seahawks.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I watch. I was able to watch. I sort of like on mute while my dad was watching the time shifted Browns game. Which boy? Browns jets race to the bottom. My God. My God.

[Luke Burbank]

That's that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I did feel bad about that one. Can I just say, like they should.

[Luke Burbank]

Be allowed to cancel that game being.

[Andrew Walsh]

What's that? Just take it off.

[Luke Burbank]

They should be allowed to cancel that game before it happens.

[Andrew Walsh]

Just.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, just like it's for everybody involved.

[Andrew Walsh]

Or just like it should cancel itself out like sine waves. Right. Like it's just like y racing itself as it's happening.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. The quality of play is so low.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it really was. I hadn't watched a Browns game in so long and again, and I'm not even saying this to be mean to the Browns or the jets, but I think one of them went into the game with one win. The other team went in with two wins maybe. And now I think. I think maybe it's like now they both are two win teams. But like I was rooting for the Browns, I mean, generally speaking. And you know, I miss rooting for the Browns. I will say that was one thing about being back in the Cleveland area. You know, I still. I stopped watching and kind of caring about the Browns really out of, you know, moral. Moral. Yeah. And again, not. Hopefully not in a judgy way. And I try not to judge the Brown. Lifelong Browns fans who stuck with the team after the team ownership did some pretty, I think rough stuff as far as personnel is concerned. But it was such a part of my life for so long. And also I just sort of like the design. Like I like seeing Browns sweaters and sweatshirts. I was in the airport coming in going and it's like it was really. I stopped and I looked at all the Brown stuff. Like I. I wanted to buy Brown stuff. Luke, does that make sense to you? Like I saw it and I. I'm drawn to it still. And it kind of bummed me out to think about kind of where I am with that team and kind of, you know. Do you think in general, do you.

[Luke Burbank]

Think when Deshaun Watson is I'm shocked he's still on the team.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I mean, he's being paid. I don't think he shows up anywhere, does he?

[Luke Burbank]

I guess he's pupped right now. He's on the physically unable to perform list, but he is listed as a Cleveland Brown still, which is just wild to me. I mean, because he had all that guaranteed money. But I guess my question is, if he. If and when he finally is no longer part of the team, could you see a way back to caring about the Cleveland Browns for you?

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, I think it would just have to be like. I think it'll just take a long time, first of all. And also, this started with you sort of saying that, like, my relationship to football has changed a lot. And honestly, it gives me a lot more time to do other things in my life. So it's like, I'm not, like, excited to take up more. I will say this, though, about the Seahawks, and I don't even mind if I sort of come off as a little bit of a bandwagoner. I haven't been living and dying by the outcomes of football games for a couple of seasons now, and with the big question mark over the Seahawks this season, it's like, oh, it could be interesting. Could be a disaster. We'll see. But seeing them actually be a really good team and just absolutely, just dominate the last two games, I am. This. This next game that they'll be playing this Sunday, it's the first time all season where I'm like, oh, man, this is a big one, because this one will be a chance. This one will be there for, you know, a really big challenge for them, I think, right? Playing the Rams and an important game in the same division. And this, just this morning, I took out my phone. I'm like, wait, when is that game on Sunday? Any chance? I can see it.

[Luke Burbank]

It's happening.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it turns out I cannot. I'm volunteering that day. And I was like, oh, man. Like, I. And not even like, I want to see this game because they're going to pummel their opponent. We had that the last two games. It's because this is a challenging game, and, like, I want to be locked. This is the first game where I'm really like, shit, I wish I could really be locked into this game on Sunday.

[Luke Burbank]

I am having the same experience, which is like, I've got it circled. And I'm like, it's not quite, you know, Mariners in the alcs, but it's like, oh, man, that Sunday, I'm either going to feel really good or really bad.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And previous to this, it's been just kind of like, you know, we're going to go out there, we'll hopefully win some games. I'm not, it's not the Legion of Boom era. I didn't have super bowl sort of expectations. It was just kind of like, yeah, we're playing football games and hopefully we win enough, we go to the playoffs, we're not going to win all of them. Now it's like, oh, we beat the Rams and we make a very strong case for being literally the best team in the nfc. It is insane, by the way, how quickly the tick tock algorithm picked up. Andrew. What I wanted to see, which was people, both, some of them famous sports analysts, a lot of them, not just random dudes saying the Seahawks are good. It's almost all the content I get now is just someone. It's just a guy. And this is like a green screen because, like, and you know, he's at his house and behind him is just some kind of like clip of the Seahawks or whatever. And he's just going like, like, I think Right now Mike McDonald might be.

[Andrew Walsh]

Coach of the year.

[Luke Burbank]

It's just like anything. I don't even know how the algorithm understands that they're saying positive things about the Seahawks because they're just talking and they're not all like Seahawk partisans. They're not like those little hyper localized sports podcasts that are just about the Seahawks. You know what I mean? They're like somebody from like a totally. Like a guy's got a Detroit jersey on or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what I mean?

[Luke Burbank]

He's like, he's like, I just really think you. I'm, I'm, I'm. The Seahawks are a problem. You know, Jackson, Smith and Jigba is a problem. Like, the algorithm knows that that's what I want to hear people say, but they haven't, they haven't. Like, there's not a hashtag, hashtag Seahawks good.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right?

[Luke Burbank]

So how is it, how's the algorithm figure out that they're saying things about the Seahawks being good, that I understand that they can figure out that I want to hear that the Seahawks are good because I'm a fan. But how do they figure out that the people are saying? Is it that the. All of the audio is being transcribed into text and it's analyzing positive comments.

[Andrew Walsh]

About the Seattle Seahawks football team or collecting information about. Well, who are the people who watch this? And just like, just, just an absolute universe, brain of information and lines connecting which losers or which users watch what content. And yeah, I mean, just to me, it's like, oh, yeah, it makes sense. Seahawks content, you know, algorithm understanding that I'm into this band or I'm into this sports team or I'm just even into this sport or whatever. But it's specifically. No, I want to hear this opinion.

[Luke Burbank]

That's it.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's down to the sports.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what it doesn't give me when the Seahawks lose? It doesn't give me a bunch of people saying the Seahawks are overrated.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, I might get the occasional Colin Cowherd saying some shit. But, like, it knows that I want. It knows the opinion that I want to hear, which is, by the way, I mean, this is exactly what's wrong with America. Because Facebook also knows the opinion you want to hear here.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

But it's like, you know, if you looked at it, if you, if you looked at it just on the surface, you would say a football team is being discussed or a political issue is being discussed, but somehow it's figured out what the opinion of that football team or opinion of that political issue, and then it wants to deliver us that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's what I was going to say, too. Good thing. It's, you know, good thing this isn't applied to other important things in life where we're just like, just. We only get what reinforces our beliefs. Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

The airports, of course, are still certain. Airports are pretty messed up because of the government shutdown, et cetera. What was your travel experience like, Andrew?

[Andrew Walsh]

It was anxious making because of all the uncertainty of going on with all the talk of restricting, you know, flights because that didn't start until literally the day after I flew to Cleveland. So there was no concern about me getting out, but there were concerns about me getting back and, you know, Israel Hotel Clevifornia. Well, it looks like we got a show title.

[Luke Burbank]

Good luck spelling that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I know. Do we use hashtags or do we use a dash? Mark works. So I was really anxious about it. This was not a trip that I could put off because we're having a mini service for my mom who passed away recently as well. And so I was like, well, I just got to hope for the best and sorry, Luke, this isn't exactly your question, but let me just tell you about my experience a little bit here. It used to be really, really difficult to fly from Seattle to Cleveland. I think you even experienced this once when you. You're doing some stories on the east side of Cleveland and used to have to. It was always a indirect flight or a non direct flight. And you'd always get bounced somewhere pretty far away. You know what I mean? It wasn't like sometimes you'd stop in Chicago on the way to Cleveland, which makes sense, but often you'd have to go all the way to the east coast, like literally a Carolina, and then maybe I don't know where the big airports are there, and then fly back to Cleveland or down to Houston or Dallas and then up, up to Cleveland. It was really rough. And I think about a year or two ago, Alaska Airlines introduced a flight a day that is a direct flight from Seattle to Cleveland. And I never. I don't fly enough to pay attention to this kind of thing. But it's sort of interesting. My dad mentioned to me before I headed out, he's like, hey, I looked at your itinerary. Isn't it interesting that like, both your flight coming and going has the same flight number? And I'm like, oh, yeah, maybe it's a coincidence. But then later on I realized, oh, no, they have one flight to Seattle and one flight to Cleveland. You know, Alaska Airlines does, and it's always Flight 216 because that's the Cleveland area code I figured out. So it was very interesting to sort of like make that connection because I knew exactly what flights to watch while I was in Cleveland. And so every day I would say, what's going on with those 216 flights? Did it make it out from Seattle to Cleveland and did it make it back? And I just would. Every day I'd wake up and watch that. And I ended up flying back a day early because I was supposed to get in super late last night. But one day I just got so anxious because the news just was unrelenting. And like, okay, on Friday they cut back on some flights, but on Saturday they cut back on more. And it's continuing to grow. And I just. My parents were leaving on a trip after I was leaving. So like, I was just like, I just don't want to be stuck in Cleveland. I was immediately thinking like, well, if everything really shuts down, I was, you know, sort of thinking, will I rent a car and just like, tell you I'm going to buy a microphone. I had my laptop and maybe we could just do the show. From me being on the road for the rest of the week, I was making contingency plans. But then I ended up just kind of booking the 216 flight a day early. And there were some Delays, but I don't think that they were out of the ordinary. And I'll say that, like, very easy getting through the TSA lines. Seattle airport is still under a lot of construction, so was still pretty chaotic there. But I don't think it had anything to do with workers or federal workers and the Cleveland airport heading out on whatever night that was around 8 o' clock at night, it was dead. It felt like being in a school when the school isn't in session. And so I was just, I just personally tried to be very nice to all the TSA people. I didn't give any stamping or guff vibes. You know, when they made me like take out my, my, the chapstick that I accidentally left in my pocket and they sort of acted like I could be potentially trying to blow up an airplane with a stick of chapstick. I was just like, thanks for being here. I didn't give anybody any grief.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, I even. Because I was flying back from New York and it was, it was getting to be that, that people were starting to like, wonder about when the airline, when the airport situation was going to get really bad. And I, I did realize that there were people probably I did. We know. Is the TSA getting paid or not?

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, I guess the idea is they will be paid. They'll get back for the days they worked.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, but so we know that they. Because it was a little confusing to me. I know that the, the, the air traffic controllers were not getting paid would eventually maybe get paid back. I don't know if what budget TSA is on.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a good point, Luke. I'm sorry. I've been assuming that the TSA and air traffic controllers are in the same sit or in the same situation, but I actually can't, I can't confirm that. I could be wrong.

[Luke Burbank]

But it did cause me to feel fondly towards the TSA people as I was walking through JFK on whatever day that was. And that's not, that's not you. I'm not, I'm not, I don't have animosity towards the TSA people, but I would just say I'm indifferent generally. And this was a time where I didn't quite go full thank you for your service, but the thought occurred to me, which, on a normal day it would never occur to me, but like anybody who was out there working and, you know, not getting paid, thank you for doing that so that the rest of us could continue to have something resembling a normal life.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And by the Way. I have confirmed that TSA agents continue working without pay as government shutdown dragons on. That was just from six hours ago.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you for your service.

[Andrew Walsh]

I didn't say thank you for your service, but I did say to several of them, thank you for being here. And they were like, yep. I mean, some of them didn't really respond. Some of them said, oh, of course. And whatever. I will say they were super, super friendly in Cleveland as well. Flying out there.

[Luke Burbank]

My.

[Andrew Walsh]

I. There were literally two people in front of me in the TSA line. And again, I'm not pre check or anything like that. Two people in front of me. I've never, I've never just skipped through an airport so easily as, as my, as my trip out and there, there were some delays. I still didn't get home until about one in the morning the other day. So I was, I was kind of glad not to have to work the next day, but I was very happy to get out.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, some of us had to work.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I know, because you had to pick up my slack. Can we talk about that for a second? Because. Because I did fly out.

[Luke Burbank]

That was a joke, by the way.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I know, but I did. I mean, Luke, I really struggled with something when I, when I rearranged my flight to fly out a night early. I was going. Going to tell you immediately, but then I was like, but there's still uncertainty, like if. What if my new flight is canceled? Also, there was a big, supposedly a big snowstorm coming to Cleveland, which added another level of insecurity as far as the new flight out. And I was. And already I knew I wasn't even. And so scheduled to land until I think 11:30. No, no, I was scheduled to land at 10:30 at night. It ended up being 11:30 at night. And so I was like, well, if I can work on Tuesday, I should let Luke know. But also, I don't know exactly what the situation is going to be. And it was really one of those moments where I was like, he's known for weeks that this is on the calendar. He's got a plan. It's easier to not give the opportunity to possibly do the show, but maybe not do the show and just introduce a lot more, you know, uncertainty into your life. So I hope that you respect my decision on that and that you don't feel like I sent set you up to do extra.

[Luke Burbank]

No, it actually, you know what? It worked out. It worked out just fine because I was able to interview that guy Jeff Hiller over the weekend. And so I was actually very excited to play that episode for folks because I know we have a lot of somebody somewhere fans out there. So, no, it was no big deal at all. And again, again, we. We are trying to run a quasi professional operation where it should somehow exist that people can take days off.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

When needed, you know, so it's like. No, I think that was totally the right call.

[Andrew Walsh]

But anyway, to answer your question, it was. It was scary to fly because I was concerned that things would be canceled. But honestly, all of my flights and the flight back. Well, I'll say this, Luke, I will say this. I'm a popular boy on Reddit because there's a subreddit called Expectation vs Reality. And you can. It's. It's often people will buy a cake and they'll say, look at what this cake was advertised as. And then look at what they ended up giving me. And so sometimes it's bad, but sometimes it's good. Sometimes people are like, look at this. The expectation was this. And look what the reality was. It totally paid off. So it's a fun subreddit where people can weigh in. Well, I took a screen cap of that annoying ass Alaska Airlines commercial. And I love Alaska, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm brand loyal to them. I don't like to fly any other airlines. Having said that, all the airlines basically suck. And they had this commercial that they were airing last, I want to say, maybe last fall, where you can upgrade your seat for some extra leg room. And they show this guy who looks pretty tall because his head is pretty much above the seat, Right. But they show him in slow motion, like crossing his legs in an airplane seat, as if there's all this extra legroom. And I paid for that upgrade because I have not just long legs, but specifically, I guess, long femurs. There's something about my legs that are just like. They don't fit in airplane seats all that well. I bought the extra leg room. The only advantage was the seat wasn't physically jamming into my knees. Like, there was like maybe an inch, maybe a half an inch between my knee and the back of the seat. And if the person in front of me had wanted to put their seat back, I would have been in a lot of trouble. Luckily, the flight was very empty, so I actually moved across the aisle and had a whole aisle to myself. The flight from Cleveland to Seattle was so empty, one time I got up to the restroom. What's that? How empty was it? Everybody was treating the seats like they were park benches. That they could sleep on. It was bananas. And I wonder if all of them, the fear of canceled flights got people just to cancel plans to travel or a lot of people aren't trying to get from Cleveland to Seattle.

[Luke Burbank]

I guess Dulles Airport had an issue recently, which is, have you flown in or out of Dulles in dc?

[Andrew Walsh]

If so, it's been a really, really long time.

[Luke Burbank]

There are two airports in dc. There's Reagan national, which is right there in dc, and the one that I always try to fly into if I can, because it's very close to everything in Washington, dc. Then there's Dulles, which is out in Virginia. I think it might be in, like, Vienna, Virginia, technically. And it's like, further away from everything. I think it's like a bigger airport. And they have had forever these things that are, they call them people movers. This gets back to that whole thing about how people mover seems to be a very general term. Andrew. It could be the standstill or it could be the walkway that you get.

[Andrew Walsh]

On that's moving, the moving sidewalk, or a shuttle.

[Luke Burbank]

A shuttle. Or these things. Google Dulles people mover. Andrew. They're these, they're these like, basically these giant shuttle buses that have these crazy, like, venting off the top of them. That is how you get from one terminal to another at Dulles because they did not build underground walkways or sky bridges or whatever. So you'll, you'll just be walking and then you'll be trying to get to your, your gate, and then you'll just have to get on this thing that you, like, walk into. It's almost like something out of Star wars or something. And then you get on it, and then it drives you over to your place. Well, they had an accident recently where some people were injured on this. They sometimes break down. They run late. It's a, it's seen as a kind of a. I mean, some people love it because it's unique to Dulles, but a lot of people find it very annoying. And in fact, some new Trump appointee who I think is going to be maybe in charge of Dulles or whatever, is talking about getting rid of. So I was reading this New York Times article about getting rid of these people movers, and it linked in the article to this industrial film from 1962, Dulles International Airport, DC's new airport. And they had linked to the part where the people movers are being described. Let me just play you the way that the people movers were described in 1962 as Dulles was Rolling. Oh, let me turn the volume down a little bit and then play it first for you. Dulles International is a radically new concept in airport terminals. The mobile lounge, a monster on wheels, the largest passenger carrying vehicle on rubber tires, is an essential part of that new concept, applied only here today, but tomorrow it might become an integral part of every modern jet age airport listener. It did not. I feel like. I mean, I've been to other airports that use, like, buses and stuff, but this particular thing, I've. I've never seen it anywhere else in the world. I think it was pretty specific to. To Dulles. This is, though, I think, great. This is the beginning of this video, Andrew. This movie, if you will, where they're just talking about, like, airports, basically. This is the. This is the first audio. There's a bunch of, like, film of things, but there's just music and stuff. This is the first talking on this video from Dulles International Airport in 1962. The story of an airport in the making is a long and painful one. This roaring, space hungry necessity of our hurrying time is pitiless in its demands. Everything else must fall before an airport can arise. 580 demolished buildings, 1200 acres of uprooted woods, 11,500,000 yards of excavated earth dissolved into 31,000ft of concrete runways. It's like the world's shakiest airplane footage.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm watching along. I'm loving this. This is so.

[Luke Burbank]

They had not. They clearly did not have any kind of stabilizers for cameras at the time. It's so bad. But I mean, how great is this, though? I mean, I feel like we spend a lot of time trying to either make fake versions of this or find a version of this for, you know, various topics, because it's so. This idea of the. This idea of the kind of newsreel man talking in this certain way, and then we can. I can never locate it. This is like the Platonic ideal of this kind of thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is. And what I love about it is these things are usually so rah rah, and I assume that this is generally speaking, rah rah, but it really.

[Luke Burbank]

But they still use the.

[Andrew Walsh]

They still use the word pitiless, first of all. Yes. And also just, like, really leading with all of the destruction and loss of land and resources and buildings that have to be sacrificed in order to create this pitiless, bottomless monster, this maw of.

[Luke Burbank]

Need that will never be filled.

[Andrew Walsh]

I love it.

[Luke Burbank]

I love it. Yeah, it's great. I feel like there's gotta be some Stuff we can grab for TBTL usage.

[Andrew Walsh]

Absolutely you can. Also, I was hoping that you could maybe use that drop to introduce me where he's says a monster on wheels.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Look for it tomorrow.

[Andrew Walsh]

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

[Luke Burbank]

By the way, Andrew, this is not an email or a V mail, but I wanted to just tell you that I got my hands on some quality blueberries here.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, nice.

[Luke Burbank]

For a reasonable price.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a Trader Joe's. That's a big deal. Trader Joe's.

[Luke Burbank]

$6.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nice. And that looks like it might be two pints, right? I think I saw $6 for one pint at my grandma grocery store. I'm hearing from people there's so much blueberry talk on the various, you know, lines of communication, voicemails. People are shocked in other parts of the country that you would pay more than 99 cents for a pint of blueberries here. Really? Yeah. The best ones I found are 599@QFC. Some people really dying by frozen blueberries. I. You know, maybe the frozen blueberries that I've experienced aren't as high quality.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, so they're saying that there are good quality frozen.

[Andrew Walsh]

I guess so. I think that. I do think that the act. The ones I've seen, the act of freezing them turn them into something else that I'm not particularly personally looking for. But, yeah, a lot of blueberry talk. A lot of people chiming in with the price of blueberries. Like, I got a voicemail from somebody or maybe a text message said, I'm in the store right now, and they're only 99 cents. But I'm.

[Luke Burbank]

Get over here.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm in Virginia, you know, But I did want to. I saw that you had this on your show sheet as well. Luke, I'm going to play a voice mail for you. But also, did you mention the past two days when I was out that Mellie has the card exchange going again?

[Luke Burbank]

I did. I mentioned it, but I also didn't have. Because I'm me, I didn't have great deets on how and where people could actually access the information. I just said that it's live and that it's probably on the Stens page.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's what I got for you, too. I wrote to Mellie today to see if there's any more details about how people can get the link, if they haven't already. I think you.

[Luke Burbank]

If.

[Andrew Walsh]

If you've participated in the past. You probably already have an invitation in your inbox if you haven't before, though. I don't. I'm sure this is posted on the Stens page and other social media places, but I'll give you a tiny URL address. It's tinyurl.com 2025 10cards. That's one word. 2025. T, E, N, C, A, R, D, S. That's the. That's the link to get your. You to the sign up sheet. And I think you probably only have about a week, week and a half to get signed up.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I love this too. By the way, have you actually clicked on the link that Mellie made?

[Andrew Walsh]

Let me. I think I clicked on it earlier. Yes. It's a nice little design.

[Luke Burbank]

It's very space age. So the whole theme is like, it's TBTL cards. 2025. Hey there, space rangers. Let's blast off into another season of card sending.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And then the different, like, mission status. I'm a new recruit. I'm a seasoned veteran. I'm an old pro with new coordinates for returning crew members. How many groups do you want? I like. I just. I like the thematic nature of a good job.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Mellie, thanks for doing this again. And you can ignore my email because I think we got the information out there, but she says she was in an atomic age mood when she made it, but it's really cool. So tiny. Your tinyurl.com2025 10cards. If you want to participate in that. And let me play for you this quick voicemail. Luke. We have a listener named Evan who has been going back through the TBTL catalog and listening to old episodes. And I think Evan's in maybe 2019 now. And Evan, just so you know, a lot of your voicemails are difficult to understand because you're on the go. It sounds like we have Bluetooth. Whatever. This was a very. Whatever you did for this one, my boy. Very good. Very clean audio. This is from listener Evan, who was listening to us talking about found money. I think you told some story. I know I didn't. You must have told a story about some casino situation where somebody had an opportunity to walk away with a lot of money that maybe wasn't theirs.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, my God. That was so long ago.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Okay. You remember.

[Luke Burbank]

I can tell you the story. Yes, I do. I was. Carrie and I were at the. I forget which casino. It was down somewhere south of Seattle and went in and played some slot machines, and I think I won like maybe 800 or something. I had, like. It was a lot of money, and it was in my wall. And for some absolutely asinine reason, I placed my wallet on top of the slot machine and forgot about it. Why would you ever take your wallet out of your pocket and put it on a slot machine for even any amount of time is nuts. But then we were driving home and decided, bizarrely, to go to the Olive Garden. I must have been having a few. A few small beers. And so we go to the Olive Garden, and I believe we have our entire meal. And then I reach for my wallet and realize I don't have my wallet wallet. And I realized it's at the casino. And so I. I call them and I say, did anybody turn in a wallet? And they said, somebody did turn in a wallet. I go, can you tell me about the contents? They go, no, we're not allowed to tell you that over the phone for some reason. So we go all the way back. And the thing about this casino was it's. You know, the part of the casino I was in, it's definitely people that appear they could be struggling. You know, people in the casino. It was. It was just not like. It wasn't like I was in the high limit room at the Bellagio. And so I guess I thought, there's a limited chance that the money is going to be in the wallet. And sure enough, I get the wallet back from security. It's got all the money in it. And I just was so, first of all, just grateful and then also mad at myself that I made an assumption about the kind of people that would be in the casino and what they would do with the money. They. Somebody turned my wallet with 800 in it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Back to the security.

[Luke Burbank]

That's the story.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's. Yeah. When you hear Evan reference this, I don't know for sure that that's the story he's referencing, but it.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe there's a different story.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maybe it is. I'm not sure. We'll hear it here in a second. He just references it very quickly. But the point is, we got obsessed, or I got obsessed with, like, kind of the idea of found money. And people were calling in with stories about finding money because it's always been a dream of mine to find a huge amount of money in a parking lot. But then some people say, yeah, but if that happens, you have to turn it in. Which, I don't know. Jury's still out on that. But anyway, here. Here's what Evan has to say about it. Hey, dummies listener. Evan here. And And I'm listening to I believe 3070.

[Luke Burbank]

And your story of Jake in the.

[Andrew Walsh]

Casino and the $1,037 that he was.

[Luke Burbank]

Forced to give back because someone else put it in. Caused Andrew to bring up, what if you just found $1,000?

[Andrew Walsh]

It reminded me of the story of my buddy Toby back when we were.

[Luke Burbank]

Students at Western Washington university.

[Andrew Walsh]

He found $980 in the bank envelope in the computer lab with no markings on it whatsoever. And no one in the lab. And he sat on it for a little bit while he was doing his.

[Luke Burbank]

Work and then turned it into the campus police.

[Andrew Walsh]

And they said, you know, we'll let you know. And campus police sat on it for 30 days.

[Luke Burbank]

And you were like, oh, shit, we got to turn this into the Bellingham City Police.

[Andrew Walsh]

They sat on it for 30 days.

[Luke Burbank]

In that entire 60 days, no one claimed the cash. Toby walks out 980 bucks richer.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nice. I always think about poor SOB who left that money. Yeah. Anyway, toodle pip. Enjoy yourselves and keep on keeping on. Tootle pip. Right back at you, Evan. Yeah. You know what I was thinking of as I heard this story, too? Times have changed. I think we got to remember that we're also on camera all the time now, too. I was thinking about his friend Toby. I'm like, would I have done that? Would I have just pocketed that money? But in this day and age, if somebody loses that amount of money, and I'm assuming this is maybe before, there were security cameras, like, all the hell over the place. Now, if somebody loses that amount of money, and if they are going to. Assuming that it's, like, on the up and up, and they can go through official channels to search it out, there's probably a camera in that lab now. Right. And so if you left. If you thought you left it there, you could see, oh, there's Toby pocketing my money. And then you could end up being, you know, Persona non grata.

[Luke Burbank]

Here would be my advice. If you find. Find anything of value and you. It's hard to track down. You know, it's not just like a wallet with somebody's driver's license in it. Go to, you know what. Wherever the closest sort of authority figure is. Like, if you're at a store or maybe if you're at a park or something. I know who you talk to at a park, maybe the city. But hang on to this is what you should use, is what you should say, I found this item. It has all of this, you know, money in it. Or I found this diamond ring or whatever. This is my contact information. And if anyone calls asking about it, please give them my number and have them call me. And then I will get them, I'll put them back together with it. Because just turning it over. Not that I'm not trusting the people that work at these places, but once you don't have it anymore now you may end up not able to get it back. I mean, that's what happened in the positive sense. That's what happened with me when I was a kid and I found that gold Krugerrand. I've told the story a billion times, but I found this South African gold coin at a batting cage and I didn't even think of this. I went in, I went in and told them I found this thing. And thankfully the person at the batting cage said, will you hang on to it and give us your number? And then if someone calls about it, we'll have them call you. And thankfully that was their idea because then I brought it home. No one ever asked about it. I called them after a couple of months, they said, no, nobody's asking about it. You can just have, have it. And I was able to sell it for $125 on Aurora, you know, right across from the Mandarin Gate. By the way, you know where there's that overpass?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that overpass.

[Luke Burbank]

And there's that building there that I don't. Is it like have a sex shop in it now or something or did it. Whatever the building is on the other side of the overpass used to have a, A gold. A guy who would buy and sell gold was in there. That's where I sold my gold Krugerrand and got my money to get a bison.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really? Yeah. I will, I will say this. I've heard it, I've heard this said. I. I wouldn't know personally, but I've heard it said that that walking bridge is like the best place to smoke weed in Seattle after you leave the old Mandarin gate. Maybe having a head, a couple of, couple of beers and you stand. One could stand on that bridge and smoke a doobie and just watch the traffic go by underneath.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I hear that a person, one guy, one time.

[Andrew Walsh]

One guy, one time. Yes, exactly. You can watch all the people doing their various, their various occupations along Aurora.

[Luke Burbank]

Does that make its way down to that part of Aurora?

[Andrew Walsh]

Most certainly, yes. We are in the heart of Aurora.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I thought maybe it was more up around the. Well, the last time I passed through, I felt like it was more localized to the Kind of Lowe's lows area. But maybe it's a. Maybe it. Maybe it moves about. In fact, certainly in. When I was growing up, the Olive Aurora, I mean, I used to hear people practitioning that job outside of my dad's sign shop.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nobody has ever, until this moment, maybe about two months ago or so, actually propositioned me, the women who are working the street. But I was. I was parking a lime bike literally under that bridge or kind of like you know, on the sidewalk right at the. At the foot of that bridge on the west hand side. And there were some women working and I was, you know, locking up the lime bike or whatever. And one of them, let's just say that the. The topic of riding came up because I was riding a bike and I said, not today. Stay safe out there, kids. And then. And that was it. So, yeah, they're there.

[Luke Burbank]

I think the only time I've ever had it wasn't in Seattle, it was in D.C. i was walking along a street in D.C. at night. That was a lot of people that were also working in that line of work.

[Andrew Walsh]

Work.

[Luke Burbank]

And. And a couple of gals asked me, you know, if I was looking for a good time or whatever. And I just started giggling uncontrollably. I was so. I didn't know what to say.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm sorry, how old were you? Or was it.

[Luke Burbank]

I was probably 28. I mean, I was not a child, but I was just like. I didn't even know what to say. I was. It.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was.

[Luke Burbank]

I was so kind of slightly uncomfortable, but not in. I didn't feel unsafe or anything.

[Andrew Walsh]

I just.

[Luke Burbank]

I just remember, just like it just made me. I also was probably drunk, but it just made me laugh.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know why I just started giggling uncontrollably at the. I think I might have said, there's two of them. And I. But I think I might have said something like, I'm not man enough for either one of them, let alone both of you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly. I do know that the person who was talking to me, they were kind of joking around with me or whatever. It was pretty funny. Yep.

[Luke Burbank]

Yep. All right, well, that is going to do it for today's episode of tbtl. But we are going to be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary rad radio for you. Please do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday, everybody. Take care of yourselves. Please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to all. Power out.