#4632 Grays In The Grass

Summary

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Podcast Summary: TBTL #4632 “Grays In The Grass”

Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh
Date: January 1, 2026

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Main Theme / Purpose

The New Year’s Day episode of TBTL marks the start of 2026 with Luke and Andrew in classic form—riffing on cultural oddities, celebrating inside jokes, and deep-diving into a listener-submitted list of “low stakes adult fears.” The episode is quintessentially TBTL: equal parts pop culture rabbit holes, gentle self-roasting, and communal listener engagement.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening Banter & Kim Cattrall Scatting Rabbit Hole

• Kim Cattrall’s infamous “scatting” tape serves as a launchpad for an extended conversation. Andrew points out that other podcasts (notably Scott Aukerman’s) wrongly believe Kim improvised, when she was actually loosely quoting a Rupert Brooke poem (“A Little Dog’s Day” from 1907).
• Both hosts express a sense of possessiveness and fact-correction when others misinterpret cultural ephemera they know well.
  • Quote:

    “When you have a little bit of knowledge and you hear somebody on a podcast get it wrong, it’s really hard not to be offended.”
    —Andrew Walsh (04:34)

• Discussion of editorial tricks in TV, how bad poetry and dated confections (“the Turkish delight of poems”) can be products of their time, and how pop-cultural misunderstandings propagate.

2. Podcast Evolution & Comedy Bang Bang Parallels

• Reflection on the surprising parallels between TBTL and Comedy Bang Bang (CBB) in their early days, and musings on how both shows latched onto early meme-culture topics.
  • Quote:

    “The broad rhythms of, like, the things in culture that he [Scott Aukerman] and his guests latched onto back then—there are so many parallels to the stuff that you and Jen were doing at the same exact time.”
    —Andrew Walsh (10:01)

• The hosts place their own show in the lineage of “chat” podcasts vs. more performance-heavy ones like CBB.

3. Listener Lists: Choosing Today’s Topic

• Andrew presents a “list of lists” for Luke to pick from, ultimately landing on “Top Five Low Level Stakes Adult Fears” submitted by listener Jamie from Mississippi. Other tempting list options included “Top 5 TBTL Segments I Miss,” “Top 5 Ways to Listen to TBTL,” “Top 5 Types of Recipes,” and more.

4. Low Stakes Adult Fears—Listener Jamie’s List

The List (Detailed Discussion w/ Timestamps):

• #5: Seeing your name on a meeting agenda to present
  • Quote:

    “Oh, I wouldn’t call that low stakes…”
    —Luke Burbank (19:36)

  • Andrew and Luke commiserate about the stress of surprise presentations, especially on Zoom. Andrew notes the irony of thriving in long, public podcast recordings but nervousness in small work meetings.
• #4: Forgetting to do today’s Wordle until after midnight
  • Andrew confesses to losing a long Wordle streak after doing the puzzle while drunk, mistakenly guessing “GRAYS” instead of “GRASS.”
    • Quote:

      “Dude, I totally did a drunk Wordle… I was an idiot.”
      —Andrew Walsh (23:38)

  • This leads to a playful detour into instrumentals—“Grazin’ In The Grass” and “Green Onions”—with an attempted mashup and plenty of banter.
• #3: Phone making a sound in a quiet place (esp. embarrassing ringtones or inappropriate podcasts)
  • Luke shares a mortifying Nutcracker story: his phone inexplicably playing “A Punk” by Vampire Weekend in the moment of quiet before the show began.
    • Quote:

      “As I reach over to hold her hand this starts,… I can't even know it’s me. I’m getting angry at somebody else.”
      —Luke Burbank (29:36)

• #2: Not recognizing someone you should know (or vice versa)
  • Both hosts discuss strategies for gracefully navigating these awkward encounters—introducing themselves anew, using partner “caper” signals to jog their own memories at parties, and generally being forgiving of fuzzy recollections.
  • Quote:

    “If you were to say that to Becca tonight, like, I feel like that’s a problem. You shouldn’t say that to Becca. Like, don’t say, ‘Hey, have we met before?’”
    —Andrew Walsh (32:25)

• #1: Dissing someone on email and accidentally including them
  • Universal anxiety acknowledged. Both share stories of near-misses and social system fails (including family group texts).
    • Quote:

      “I did not know you were on here. And I was about to gently roast you.”
      —Luke Burbank (37:52)

  • Andrew notes he avoids “talking shit” on text altogether; they agree digital communication is a dangerous game.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On possessiveness of cultural knowledge:

  “…It’s really hard not to be offended.” —Andrew Walsh (04:34)

• On drunken Wordle mishaps:

  “Dude, I totally did a drunk Wordle… I was an idiot.” —Andrew Walsh (23:38)

• On Nutcracker ringtone disaster:

  “As I reach over to hold her hand this starts… I can’t even know it’s me. I’m getting angry at somebody else.” —Luke Burbank (29:36)

• On party navigation:

  “I bring you places, you introduce yourself to Becca, and then she has to say her name out loud. And then I know her name.” —Luke Burbank (32:32)

• On email disasters:

  “I did not know you were on here. And I was about to gently roast you.” —Luke Burbank (37:52)

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Timestamps for Crucial Segments

• 00:00–02:26: Cold open, New Year’s banter, hosts greet listeners for 2026.
• 02:43–07:00: Kim Cattrall scatting, poem origins, podcast fact-checking peevishness.
• 09:23–10:20: Comedy Bang Bang, meme culture, paralleled podcast evolution.
• 10:25–13:09: Andrew’s “list of lists,” choosing the low-stakes fears list.
• 18:25–19:36: Launch of Jamie’s “Low Stakes Adult Fears” list.
• 19:36–23:38: Anxiety over workplace presentations.
• 23:38–26:01: Wordle woes and the “drunk Wordle” anecdote.
• 27:19–30:05: Phone sounds in inappropriate situations, Nutcracker incident.
• 30:24–33:00: Social awkwardness—forgetting names, party “caper” strategies.
• 34:45–39:58: Email/text including the wrong person, accidental family thread blunders.

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Language & Tone

Consistently laid back, gently self-deprecating, and improv-comedy adjacent. Andrew and Luke’s signature style is intimate, looping, and friendly, marked by affectionate jabs, pop culture detours, and a perpetual openness with their audience.

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Conclusion

This episode is a classic slice of TBTL life—a meandering journey through pop culture minutiae, self-admitted failings, and community connection, all filtered through Luke and Andrew’s chemistry and wit. From correcting other podcasts to riffing on minor social anxieties, “Grays In The Grass” encapsulates what makes TBTL enduring: affection for the odd, celebration of the mundane, and the camaraderie of shared embarrassment.

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Power out.

Transcript

[Andrew Walsh]

I read poetry and sonnets and he plays the upright bassbo in dog Latin. He quothissore. Well, he bit all the he dogs and winked at all the she dogs. The town never knew such a hullabaloo as that little dog raised till the end of that day. We just have a good rhythm together, you know? He sort of feels me out, I feel him out, and we go for it.

[Becca]

Tbtl. You're hungry, you're confused. Your face is streaked with dry tears and you don't even remember when you started crying. In 1971, Bill Grates invented Microsoft. Wouldn't it be cool if.

[Luke Burbank]

If I can remember my dingus password for my email.

[Becca]

I'm the king of the castle and.

[Luke Burbank]

You'Re the dirty rascal. Crash into me. Crash into me. Ladies and gentlemen, congratulations. This plan is off to a great start. Well, all right. Hello, good morning and welcome everyone to a Thursday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

[Becca]

Two bros broing it up.

[Luke Burbank]

My name's Luke Burbank. I am your host.

[Becca]

I like to party. Do you like to party?

[Luke Burbank]

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia here on January 1st of 2026. We made it, folks. We made it to the new year. Hope you all had a fun either relaxing, quiet or maybe not so relaxing time last night, whatever it was you were looking for. I've had a few.

[Andrew Walsh]

A few what?

[Luke Burbank]

A few small beers. Because we've gotta now focus up and get ready for episode 4633 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. As we launch into 2026.

[Becca]

Things are going to start happening to me now.

[Luke Burbank]

And we couldn't do that, of course, without our trusted companion on this voyage. The longest running cobra of the show may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships. New Year. New Andrew. I'm not a man, I'm a turtle. He is Andrew Walsh and he is joining me right now. Good morning, my friend. Happy New Year.

[Becca]

Thank you. Happy New Year. By the by this time next year, I will be a turtle. That is going. That is my New Year's resolution.

[Luke Burbank]

I can see on the riverside that the procedures are working.

[Becca]

It's just, it's very slow at first. I want it. I don't want to. Don't want to rush once because I don't want people to like, just be shocked at my new appearance when they realize that I am a turtle. I want to talk. Okay. I want to talk to you for a second here about the beginning of the show. We just heard that.

[Luke Burbank]

I do, too.

[Becca]

Kim Cattrall scatting tape. We hadn't heard that in a while. We used to be obsess with that. That's from a. Yes, that's from a. Like some sort of a profile of her from 60 Minutes or some sort of national TV program. And it's just like her inner home. Like, kind of. This is what me and my husband do. And I think ex husband at this point, I believe. But there's one thing that, you know how people. Sometimes I get a little bit irritated when somebody will write in to kind of correct us on something with a bit of a sharp pen, if you will somebody be sharp with us. Like, as if. Like, how did you not know this, that you were wrong about this fact? And it's like, well, because you live in that world and you're an expert in that world. Luke and I talk about a whole bunch of different things. Like, I can't know everything about everything. Some mistakes we make are stupid, and I feel embarrassed. Other times I'm like, you're nitpicking here. Yet I do that with another podcast that also apparently has become obsessed with that tape. And it's one of Scott Aukerman's podcasts. I can't remember which one it is. It's one of the more chatty ones, not comedy Bang Bang. And a couple of times recently, I've heard him playing that tape, and him and or his guests keep on saying how she's just, like, spitting nonsense and just making words up. And you and I know that she is not making those words up. Those are words from a poem that she's scatting that she did not write. And clearly, yeah, the TV producers kind of edited it in a way, so there's kind of two different verses sort of mashed together there. But it always drives me crazy when somebody plays that tape and it's like, oh, she's just making that up. I'm like, no, she's not making it up. That is obviously a poem by Rupert Brook that came out in 1925. I have no idea when it came out. But anyway, so I just, like, I fall victim of the same thing. When you have a little bit of knowledge and you hear somebody on a podcast get it wrong, it's really hard not to be offended.

[Luke Burbank]

It's also a really strange poem to want to scat. He fought with the he dog. So, by the way, she's already. I've got the real lyrics of a little dog's Day by the.

[Becca]

By Rupert Brooke. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So she says he bit all the he dogs and winked at all the she dogs. So she's already slightly changing the words because his. The words of his poem are he fought with the he dogs.

[Becca]

Yeah, you're right.

[Luke Burbank]

And winked at the she dogs. A thing that had never been heard of before. And for the town never knew such a hullabaloo as that little dog raised till the end of that day.

[Becca]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't want to be mean to Rupert Brooke.

[Becca]

You don't?

[Luke Burbank]

It isn't a poem that would. In dog Latin. He quoth uje sophos. Hooray.

[Becca]

It's humorous.

[Luke Burbank]

It doesn't. Of all of the. And also, it raises the question because I'm trying to remember from the original tape now, this could be on the editors of the TV interview and not Kim Cattrall. But does she say in the tape, I'm the sense that we get as the viewer. The sense that I had as the viewer for a long time was she's improvising. She doesn't say, I'm gonna do. Perform a poem by Rupert Brooke. Don't you think that the way it's set up, it sounds like she's just gonna be free jazz and free jamming off the top of her dome?

[Becca]

I don't think. And so I sort of feel like we as humans, we hear that kind of music and we assume that it's her own words.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I hear something that's that bad, and I assume this could not have been played.

[Becca]

And I do definitely think that it is the producers who decided to make an edit between two verses. So if you're taking issue also with the fact that she's combining two different parts of the poem and making it sound like it's together, I do think that that is part of the editing process on the TV side. By the way, this poem is from 1907. So you were pretty close. Yeah, I put it in the 20s, I think, but it's almost like how talk. And I think we did this recently. We talk about how back in the day, candy wasn't as good, probably, but it was all they had, so people liked it. I feel like this is the humorous poem of the early 1900s. Like, well, this is all they had.

[Luke Burbank]

This is the blackstrap molasses.

[Becca]

Yes. This is the Turkish delight.

[Luke Burbank]

Boy, would you like some penny molasses candy?

[Becca]

This is the Turkish delight of.

[Luke Burbank]

Would you like to gather around in here? This ribald tale. He fought with the he dogs and winked at the she dogs a thing that had never been heard before for the stigma of gluttony. I care not a button he cried and he ate all he could swallow and more.

[Becca]

What do we know about him as a poet, by the way?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna assume. I'm gonna assume good intentions on the part of Kim Cattrall and that she said to the. The film crew, this is a poem by another guy that I just like to scat with. And they cut that out because of timing or something. Whereas like Donald Trump's lawsuit against 60 Minutes had absolutely no merit because his issue was allegedly was that they edited. Basically what they did is they took tape of Kamala Harris and they edited it down so it could be in the promo.

[Becca]

Yeah, it was a promo issue.

[Luke Burbank]

It was the promo. And then later in the interview, they played a longer clip of her and a less edited clip. But this is very. This is standard in the news biz. You don't always, like you say coming up, so and so talks about this and you don't play two minutes of them talking about it. You play a clip of them. This was used as a, you know, a way to sue cbs and it was successful because of all of the sort of specific issues of our current media landscape. Meanwhile, I think Kim Cattrall might have a lawsuit with the producers of this piece. If she copped to the fact that this was a Rupert Brook poem and they cut that out, it makes her look kind of bad.

[Becca]

I'm looking to see. Do you think this was actually cbs? I'm now I've been playing.

[Luke Burbank]

Now I. Some reason I keep. I keep seeing it as in my mind, I think it's 60 Minutes, but who knows? It could have been.

[Becca]

Well, I'm looking now at the actual video of it and it doesn't have a watermark. You know how like often wouldn't a 16 minutes probably have the watermark in the bottom corner?

[Luke Burbank]

I wonder. Do you see the. Do you see the correspondent who. The person who's being scat to.

[Becca]

No, it's. It looks like this is just like a 42 second clip in which I pulled the original audio from. I'm going to. So I will. This will be the full focus of the rest of the show for me.

[Luke Burbank]

Irene, Is it Connie Chung asking Kim Cattrall how big if she can jump over an office chair? And she says it depends on how big it is.

[Becca]

I think that's exactly. Oh, look. Yeah, here it is. It's posted on the earwolf Reddit. In fact, because Scott Aukerman talks about it so much, I'm sick of him stealing our. He did a what? He didn't he do a 24 hour.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what the worst one, he does it before we do it. Yeah, that's the worst kind of fact. When he does it first.

[Becca]

It is funny that that podcast, if you go back to Comedy Bang Bang, it launched around the same time as tbtl. And just a reminder for the listeners, I was not around for the launch of tbtl, so this isn't like a personal beef of mine. But it's interesting how. Well, first of all, that show evolved a heck ton over the years, but it's much more of a performative showcase than. Than what we're doing here, which is more of a chat thing. But it is funny how if I go back and I listen to the archives, which I was doing a few years ago, the, the broad rhythms of like, kind of the, like the, the things in culture that he and his guests latched onto back then. There are so many parallels to the stuff that you and Jen were doing at the same exact time.

[Luke Burbank]

Interesting.

[Becca]

Yeah, just kind of like the, the. I don't know, whatever. It's kind of early, you know, not, not early Internet, but kind of early meme culture, early cultural Internet kind of stuff. But that's not what we're doing today.

[Luke Burbank]

Can we, my friend, talk lists?

[Becca]

Yeah, let's talk lists.

[Luke Burbank]

Now, what's going on with. I'm looking at the show sheet which you've put together. And thank you for doing that, by the way. I appreciate it. And it says, Andrew lets Luke pick. And as we always say on the show, you can, you can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose.

[Becca]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

So if that's what you want me.

[Becca]

To do, I can use their bidet and that can shoot water.

[Luke Burbank]

In fact, we asked that you would.

[Becca]

Hoo. Ha. All right. So, yeah, here's what I decided to do because we still have a bunch of lists that people have gone through, but you and I are not going to continue this project into next week. So that means, and I think tomorrow I think we might have Nick Jarin on the show. So if we do a list, it might be something that maybe he comes up with if that works out. We're trying to figure that out. But for today, since this is probably the last listener generated list we're going to go through for this particular project, I wanted, I wanted to protect the Listeners and us from ourselves, which is I don't want to double blind feeling. I want to double blind this. I'm just going to give you a list of lists and you can choose which list we do. But I'm not going to tell you who submitted them because some of them were submitted by your brother and we have heard from him recently. Some were from other listeners, some are emails, some are voicemails. I'm not going to tell you if they're voicemails or emails. I'm just going to tell you the subject and you choose which one you want to go through. Okay, so I have two of these are very tempting to me and I've listened to them and so don't worry about them hurting your feelings or anything. But we have one that is top five TBTL segments that I miss and we have one that is top five ways to listen to tbtl. So if you wanted to start the year kind of already staring at our navels, those would be choices. But we also have some other really interesting things. We have top five low level stakes adult fears. Oh, so like things that we face in adulthood, but they're low level. We have one that is top five types of recipes to have in your repertoire. So like things that you are just like ready to do for various occasions.

[Luke Burbank]

Whip it out.

[Becca]

And then also this listener then lists what their choice for each of those types of recipes are, if that makes sense. Top five showers that we can take.

[Luke Burbank]

That sounds like something you'd love.

[Becca]

We have top five coffees, top five hot dogs. And I don't think these are listing types of coffees or types of hot dogs, but places and experiences to have a coffee having them. Did we not already do coffees? Maybe not. I think I just listened to that and I think that's basically it. Those would be our main choices. Do you remember them? Do you want me to re.

[Luke Burbank]

I think I like the like low stakes adult fears.

[Becca]

Okay. Congratulations to what I would pick. We're going to do that in a moment, but I want to say congratulations to listener Jamie in Mississippi, I believe.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, it's our friend Jamie in Mississippi.

[Becca]

And that is an email. So I will go through that with you. But should we start by thanking some donors first, then come back around to this? Thank you, baby.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, let's thank some of those donors. These along with a lot of listener suggestion and content creation. This week we also get money from these listeners. It's amazing. It is an incredible thing and I sometimes marvel at the fact that it's actually Working, but it is. This is 100% listener supported podcasting, supported by listeners like Michael Plastina of Morgantown, West Virginia.

[Becca]

Hey. Hey.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you. Go Mountaineers.

[Becca]

Absolutely love your logos.

[Luke Burbank]

They once had a guy I think named on their basketball team named Kevin Pit Snoggle. Really?

[Becca]

That's a great name.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I was like, that's a hell of a name for a West Virginia Mountaineer.

[Becca]

Absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

Then they also have. In the 80s, didn't they have. What's his name? Major Harris. Is there a guy named Major Harris that was a. A West Virginia Mountaineer? Maybe he was either their quarterback or a really, really good running back.

[Becca]

You're not thinking of Major dad, are you?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I am. I'm sorry.

[Becca]

Dad. Nice poll, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

Major Harris, West Virginia.

[Becca]

Let's see.

[Luke Burbank]

Major Harris, American football player, quarterback at West Virginia in the 1980s.

[Becca]

You know what else is good about the. Got it. You know what else works for me about the Mountaineers? I love a team that is named after an occupation.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Becca]

You know what I mean? I. I'm a big fan, you know, the 49ers. Not to get into like my actual fan base and who I root for, but like the Green bay packers, the 49ers, the. The things that are based on what people did, the economy. I'm a big fan of economies.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm a big fan of Mafio. Apia Paddy, who's in Alexandria, Virginia and is another donor today. Thanks. Mafio.

[Becca]

Mafio. Look at. We have a West Virginia and a vi. Please be East Virginia, man.

[Luke Burbank]

East Virginia.

[Becca]

Come on, come on. East Virginia. Please, please be East Virginia. Come on.

[Luke Burbank]

But you know what, Andrew? If it's not going to be East Virginia, I'm glad it's Truckee, California, which is where Carolyn Rose is.

[Becca]

Oh, nice. Truckee. Is that named after the trucking industry? Is that another.

[Luke Burbank]

It is. It is, yes. That's where it all started. Truckee, California.

[Becca]

That's where they invented trucks.

[Luke Burbank]

Great.

[Becca]

Thank you, Carolyn.

[Luke Burbank]

Ivan Chabra is in San Francisco, California. Hey, it's our pal Ivan in sf. Ivan.

[Becca]

Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

Ivan went to school with our friend P. Fletch. Know. I don't know if Phyllis turned Ivan onto the program or just found out. I think maybe the story was found out like, you know, some at some part of the journey that her friend Ivan also listens to. Tbtl.

[Becca]

Yeah, that's my understanding of it is maybe. Maybe Ivan turned Phyllis onto it.

[Luke Burbank]

It's possible. I think I turned Phyllis onto it when I got very inebriated during a PRPD event and was walking around with a megaphone, yelling at people.

[Becca]

Oh, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

And talking about Stern on the bus. Phyllis and I on the bus talking Stern. I think that might have been what sold her on tbt.

[Becca]

All right, well, then I guess we're going to be spending more money on megaphones this year if that's how we get listeners.

[Luke Burbank]

There's nothing more fun than being decently inebriated and carrying one of those tiny megaphones around and just using it whenever you need.

[Becca]

I think I'd need to be inebriated to call that kind of attention to myself.

[Luke Burbank]

I know, I know. But by the way, I say there's nothing more fun for the person doing it. Nothing less fun.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Everyone else.

[Becca]

Yep.

[Luke Burbank]

Sorry, Phyllis, but thank you, Ivan. Also thanks to Lars Lang Peterson in Seattle, Washington.

[Becca]

Nice. Thank you, Lars. Appreciate it.

[Luke Burbank]

What up, Lars? And then look who it is. It's Noel Kelly in Sligo, Ireland.

[Becca]

Oh, wow.

[Luke Burbank]

That's real Erin Go brah.

[Becca]

I mean, that would. My. My very first bar that I ever went to in Boston was a cool Irish bar called Sly.

[Luke Burbank]

They had an Irish bar in Boston?

[Becca]

Yeah, it was a very old school, very long, narrow, just like old men drinking at the bar kind of place. And a lot of smoke. I think it was one of the last places in Massachusetts to finally throw away their ashtrays. Honestly. Sligo.

[Luke Burbank]

And Noel's last name? Kelly. That's. That's my mom's maiden name. Susie Kelly. That's the name on my birth certificate. Noel, we have this potentially. I don't know how long you've had the last name Kelly, but potentially we have the last name, my friend.

[Becca]

Wow, you guys.

[Luke Burbank]

On our birth certificate.

[Becca]

Do you think you're related? You're probably related.

[Luke Burbank]

You got Noel. Bad news. We can never date. We're brother and sister.

[Becca]

Well, maybe that's good news.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's be honest. Probably good.

[Becca]

Hey, good news.

[Luke Burbank]

Good, good news. All right, thank you so much to our donors. We couldn't do this without you.

[Becca]

Hello, and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, let's hear from our dear friend Jamie down there in Mississippi with some low stakes adult fears.

[Becca]

Yeah, I'm hitting this. This is called City Lights. I don't know. Oh, this is a little sultry. But anyway, we're gonna go with this for. For some audio spackle here.

[Luke Burbank]

This is the bookstore that launched the career of Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

[Becca]

I think so. I've seen the best minds of my generation. All right. I know that's not Lawrence Merlingetti. All right, so same, same crew. Yes, exactly. All right, Jamie sent this in. This is kind of a short list. Might be able to get through a couple today if you wanted to, but we got this one. So this is in no particular order, and I'm trying to figure. There's literally no numbers, and so I'm trying to figure out to read it from the bottom up or the the top down, but let's do this. I'm going to choose which one of these low stakes adult fears is the most severe, and I will make that the last one. Okay? Yeah. Okay, here we go. Number five. According to me and Jamie producing this together is seeing your name on a meeting agenda to make a presentation during the meeting.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I wouldn't call that low stakes.

[Becca]

No, I call that high stakes. Maybe I did this in the wrong order, but the other one that I'm going to end with is also pretty scary. I don't know that I've had this experience. I'm trying to think. The closest thing I've had to being unprepared to present something, it probably happened at 8pm Maybe I would get so nervous on those Zoom calls. I was just telling somebody recently, a friend of mine who's like, I think maybe nervous about, about a presentation she was going to give. I was saying that, like, it was amazing during our time at APM where I would do an entire episode of TBTL with you, I'd go 90 minutes or two hours talking into this exact microphone to you and putting the show on the Internet so that thousands of people could listen to it and never being nervous about it. And then one half hour later, dialing into a zoom call with a bunch of colleagues that are maybe in the dozens and shaking and sweating my way through any meeting that I had to Talk for like 30 seconds. And it was amazing. Zoom especially, I think, is worse than even doing it in person.

[Luke Burbank]

I was going to say, first of all, peace in love, but it wasn't. The most socially lugubrious crew on the call. And this is also the part where I Google lugubrious.

[Becca]

And this is the part where I'm going to ask you, Luke, how are we feeling today? Hold up how many fingers? If you're feeling really good, hold up four fingers. If you're having a bad day, just hold up one finger. That was how some of our team leaders, our bosses, would start these meetings. And I was like, to borrow a phrase from the Valley Gales, gag me with a spoon.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm happy to report that I literally use lugubrious in the opposite manner than what it should have been.

[Becca]

Lugubrious.

[Luke Burbank]

I said they were not the most lugubrious. They were the most lugubrious looking or sounding sad and dismal.

[Becca]

Oh, okay. All right. Add that to your list that it.

[Luke Burbank]

Was an awkward vibe. Yeah, yeah. Thunder Bay next year. It was an awkward vibe in those meetings. It was that kind of thing where it's the pandemic and it's just like a lot of that happy chat, a lot of that, like, sort of managers who are a few tiers above us and don't really know what's going on with us and honestly probably don't care, but also want to be like, I'm just, you know, I'm always here. My door is always open. Except when it's closed.

[Becca]

Yeah. Then you can open it.

[Luke Burbank]

And that's. That's like. That was the vibe in those meetings. Not from everybody. We had made some lifelong friends.

[Becca]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

At apm, so it's not everybody on it, but it wasn't conducive. It wasn't a relaxed environment. Even though they were trying so hard to be like, what do you mean? We're all just friends. We just hang out here. It's a totally relaxed environment. It's like, yeah, that's not really how it feels. So.

[Becca]

Yeah, I'm. I want to.

[Luke Burbank]

I want to, like, give you a little credit that that was not a fun meeting to talk in for any of us.

[Becca]

Number for if we're going with my numbering system here of top five low stakes adult fears from listener Jamie in Mississippi is forgetting to do today's wordle until after midnight. So once midnight strikes, the new wordle's up. You've missed out. I don't think I've ever forgot. I forgot to do wordle maybe once or twice during that really, really busy summer when we were transferring actually out of APM into starting our own business and like, and doing a live show to kind of cap it all off. Like, that was an incred. And that fundraiser, our very first fundraiser. And so I do remember missing wordle once then. That was the only time I ever missed it. But I will say, a couple of weeks ago, Luke, I was doing the new wordle at like one in the morning, and I was a little turned up and I broke my streak because I was an idiot. I was an absolute idiot. Like, the word was, dude, I totally did a drunk wordle. And it was like the final. This is weeks ago now, maybe about two weeks ago. 3. The final word was grass. And I was. I had a bunch of the letters. Right. I think I had gra. Blank.

[Luke Burbank]

Ironically, if you had been smoking less.

[Becca]

Yeah, right. I put grays. My Fine. I had one more thing and I'm like, why would it be gray? I was. I'm just admitting. I was. I was out. I was like, why would it be grays? And I put grays in there. And I'm like, what the. And I mean, that's not a good word. And no, it wasn't a good word. It was stupid. I should have put the phone down and finished in the morning.

[Luke Burbank]

But it was also theater.

[Becca]

But it was also theater. It was grass. Grass makes so much more. Nobody's pluralizing gray.

[Luke Burbank]

It's interesting to me, first of all, Becca did, I don't know, a month or two ago, just literally forget. And that broke a pretty long streak version. She hasn't been. Right.

[Becca]

That's way worse than losing since then. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But also it's interesting to me that obviously it's doing wordle is a happy place for you. You enjoy it. And so maybe when you've had a couple of adult beverages and you're just kind of in that mode, it's like your brain then wants to seek out the enjoyment of doing the wordle, which I find actually quite charming. But then you're like, you're right. There is a danger because you are not at your absolute most sort of aware or you're not your sharpest and you might get into a graze when you want to get into the grass as Q. Masakela, you're grazing the grass, bro. You're masakelaing it.

[Becca]

What does that mean?

[Luke Burbank]

Hugh Massakela, grazing the grass.

[Becca]

I don't know what that means.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, you know that song?

[Becca]

I don't know. You're saying an artist's name and then grazing.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, Hugh Masakela is an artist and he did a great song called grazing the grass, which is funny because you said graze when it should have been. When it should have been grass. And here it's gonna get us pulled down again. But here's a little Hugh Massa Kayla.

[Becca]

Oh, okay. But this is called grazin the grass.

[Luke Burbank]

Grazing the grass.

[Becca]

Oh, I know this song. Of course.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, an all timer, right?

[Becca]

I mean, of course I know this song. How have I never thought to. I think I get this confused.

[Luke Burbank]

With.

[Becca]

Another song that is an instrumental of the same era and same type that is now I'm. I'm blanking. It's a band that we would quote a lot. It shouldn't be this hard to come up with. I'm just gonna let it go. I'm gonna release Desire on this. But Booker T. In the mgs.

[Luke Burbank]

As soon as I saw Green Onions.

[Becca]

I think I always assumed that that was Booker T. In the mgs.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. I can see that, too. And Green Onions also starts with G. Grazing the grass.

[Becca]

Does it begin with a cowbell like that, too? No, there's Green Onion. Oh, this is very different. This is very different.

[Luke Burbank]

But what a vibe, dude.

[Becca]

No, let me hear Grazing the grass again. Let me hear here. I'll do that. I'll do that. When you let this do a mashup. Let's do it back. Let's do it back and forth. Okay, I'm getting there. I'm getting there.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's get our money's worth if we're getting pulled down in half of Europe.

[Becca]

Yes, exactly. This is how we get pulled out in the United States, just based on taste. Okay, could you stop that? And could you start it from the beginning when I tell you to. And I want to. I want to get this right. Okay, I'm queued up here. Are you queued up? Yep.

[Luke Burbank]

You tell me when.

[Becca]

Okay, I'm going to go, three, two, one, go. But I'm going to hit mine a second later because we're on a slight delay. So here we go.

[Luke Burbank]

You tell me.

[Becca]

So go on. Go three. Not that one, though. This one that's coming up. Okay, you ready? Okay, here we go. Three, two, one, go. Yeah, actually.

[Luke Burbank]

What? I'm hearing the cowbell for a second. The cowbell worked.

[Becca]

Oh, this is perfect.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, now it's getting bad.

[Becca]

Oh, God.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, now it's turning into the color brown. Okay, I pulled. We just brought out too many crayons.

[Becca]

I pulled it.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, we brought out too many crayons. Becoming an audio mashup.

[Becca]

Hey, speaking of weird sounds, let's go to number three on this list. Your phone makes a sound in a quiet place. Especially inappropriate podcasts going off or a dumb ringtone. So you're in church, let's say.

[Luke Burbank]

Or at the Nutcracker.

[Becca]

You're at the Nutcracker. Or a book reading or maybe. Where was I? Oh, I was in a restaurant the other day, and it just. I hit play on something on my phone. It started coming out the speaker instead of my headphones, and I was like, oh, no.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, no, no.

[Becca]

And I turned it down really quickly only to have the guy next to me end up like, 10 minutes later, turn on his phone and just, like, watch TV at full volume on his phone for, like, a half hour. I was so mad, I almost got up and moved to a different place.

[Luke Burbank]

Somebody heard 0.5 seconds of comedy Bang Bang.

[Becca]

Yeah. And they were like, oh, this is fine. Yeah. It was some music I was listening to, but. Did this happen to you at the Nutcracker?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. And I think to this day, my daughter. I don't know if she's forgiven me. All you can do as a parent is own your mistakes and try to learn from them and admit that you also are. You know, you're prone to making mistakes. We were at the Nutcracker many years ago, and the song a Punk by Vampire Weekend, which happened to be the first song in my phone, for reasons that I will never understand. I wasn't touching the phone. I was not trying to play the phone. It's literally the moment. Andrew, we're all seated. My favorite thing. I'm actually. Yeah. My favorite thing about. About going to the Nutcracker with. With Addie was we'd get that. You know, we get there. I'll be honest with you. I'd get some champagne there before. Before we go in, and I'd kind of get a nice.

[Becca]

Just.

[Luke Burbank]

Just the teeniest bit of a little good feeling going. And then we'd sit. We'd be all dressed up. We'd be coming from dinner, sit down, and the whole Seattle Opera hall goes quiet right before they come in with the opening notes of Tchaikovsky's score. And it's just beautiful. And I look forward to the moment I would reach over and hold her hand as the opening notes were playing. It was like a. You know me, and I'm very ritualistic. And as I reach over to hold her hand that this starts, and I can't. I don't even know it's me.

[Becca]

You're getting angry at somebody else.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm getting mad at some. What the hell? And then I'm. I'm feeling through, like. I think I had, like, an overcoat because I was in a suit. I'm, like, under the seat, trying to dig through the overcoat to find the phone and turn it off. And like, to this day, if I say to Addie, a punk, she'll be like, you gotta be kidding.

[Becca]

She's gonna disown you.

[Luke Burbank]

And she was also right at the age. She was probably 17 or something, which is, like, everything I did embarrassed her.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So you put that. You put that at the top of the list.

[Becca]

List. That is Rough. Rough stuff. Yeah. I don't think other than, like, I mentioned, it happened to me in that restaurant a little bit ago. I can't think of a really, really embarrassing one that I'm usually. Usually pretty conscientious about, that if I'm in a movie theater, I always go in and make sure that, like, ringtone is down and media is down. All right, number two on this list. You know, this is a holiday, Luke. We got to get out of here. Yeah, it is New Year's Day.

[Luke Burbank]

We're not even supposed to be here today.

[Becca]

Okay, number two on the list, not recognizing someone you should know or someone not recognizing you after you've greeted them familiarly, which is a hard word for me to say with familiarity.

[Luke Burbank]

I will say the first one is a. Is a living nightmare.

[Becca]

That one is worse.

[Luke Burbank]

Second one, I don't care if anybody remembers me.

[Becca]

Yeah, you're like, oh, hey, buddy, how's it going? It's like, oh, who are you again? I mean, it's a little bit like, oh, I guess you go death.

[Luke Burbank]

But I can take it. The opposite is the. The killer. The absolute killer. I have started doing something. Tell me. And I know we do need to get out of here. But if this is. If this is rude or not, I have now started sometimes saying to people, have we met before? Like, because I want to know if we've met before. And somehow to me, it doesn't sound super rude. It does. It sounds like we have. Maybe we've met. You seem familiar to me, but I want to confirm somehow that doesn't feel super rude to me. And it helps me avoid a lot of confusion and trying to guess or pretend or act like I know the person when I don't or if I shouldn't know them. And I'm acting like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm just. I'm basically. I don't want to operate in this kind of cloud of lack of information. I just want to get right down to it and go, hey, I'm Luke. Oh, have we met before? And I try to say it in a way that. What they interpret it to be as me remembering that we'd met before. But I just want to double check.

[Becca]

Yeah, And I do that in earnest, too. I'll be like, oh, yeah, wait, haven't we met before? And some people are like, no, I don't think so. But also, like, I'm often saying that, though, when I'm meeting up with listeners or something. And so, yes, I don't. You know, again, we have a great relationship with our listeners, but also, it is hard to remember everybody, you know what I mean? Or the context in the situation in which we've met people. So a little bit of a reminder, I think is fair game. You got to be. I mean, let me put it this way. If you were to say that to Becca tonight, like, I feel like that's a problem. You shouldn't say that to Becca. Like, don't say, hey, have we met before?

[Luke Burbank]

I like, well, that's Andrew. That's why you and I have the deal. I bring you places, you introduce yourself to Becca, and then she has to say her name out loud. And then I know her name.

[Becca]

That is. That's a good move, by the way. I'm not some. You know, like, I think that if I hadn't met Genevieve when I met her, I think I'd be living the single life now. And I think that's absolutely fine. I'm not somebody who has always felt the need, like, just some sort of generic desire to partner up, you know, I think I just happened to find the right person. Having said that, I would say that the. The biggest benefit of being in a couple like that is that thing. And you could do that with your friends, too, if you just have that agreement with your buds. Just be like, listen, we're going into this party. I don't, you know, I don't. I'm not sure about everybody. It's a bunch of co workers, but some of them, I'm not quite sure their names. So could you just make sure to loudly introduce yourself first? It's such a good, smart agreement to enter into.

[Luke Burbank]

And it's like you're kind of in on a caper. Yeah, it's not quite, you know, Mr. And Mrs. Smith, but it is kind of like a fun little project. Like, I got your back, you get mine. I'll do this at your work party, you do this at my work party or whatever this thing, and, like, we can both benefit each other.

[Becca]

Yes. And I often tell Genevieve, of course, this is always coming from me. I'm always like, okay. And just so you know, I'm happy to leave. Like, basically, once we're there for like an hour and a half, like, I'm happy to get out of there, you know, like, kind of setting up those sorts of things, too. I think I saw a meme, or was it even Daria related or something. I saw something going around the other day that says, I'm happy to leave before we get there. I'm like, yeah, that's getting more and more what I'm kind of putting on.

[Luke Burbank]

I remember in. I can't remember which relationship it was, maybe it was a couple of them, but I felt like there was even. I even had a sign, like some kind of almost like a third base coach, something going with whoever it was I was with that like if we were ready to kind of bounce, but we couldn't exactly say it out loud out of fear of it seeming rude or whatever. It was just kind of like a certain signal. It was like, all right, I'm ready to wrap this up if you are kind of thing.

[Becca]

Yeah, we gotta let the dogs out. And it's like, oh, you don't have dogs. All right, last one on the list. And I'm assuming this was number one because this mortifies me and just even saying these words puts a chill in my heart, which is dissing someone. Dissing someone on an email and accidentally including them.

[Luke Burbank]

I've done it. Not in a long time. Not in a long time, but I have done it.

[Becca]

Yeah, Rough stuff.

[Luke Burbank]

It's. That's for all of the AI Andrew. For all the AI summary of all my emails that it wants to do.

[Becca]

Yeah. Why don't they do that? It sounds like you are including somebody that you're dissing.

[Luke Burbank]

Can't they fix that? That seems like that's actually. I mean, that could ruin personal and professional relationships. There's thousands if not millions of dollars on the line. That should be the first thing that AI is trying to fix in my email.

[Becca]

Yeah. I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but are you thinking of the same one I'm thinking of? I've mentioned this to you before. One, when I was.

[Luke Burbank]

When I was saying something about you.

[Becca]

About the person festival, you were just like, you sent me an email and copy me on it. And then you immediately sent another one after this, said, don't worry about that one, read this one. And I was like, what a weird thing to say. So of course I went through and I read like deeper into that one that I.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you think I probably wouldn't have done that. Would you have gotten to the bottom of that email if I didn't do the suspicious thing?

[Becca]

I'm. I was going to say no, but maybe 5050 because it was about like kind of a live show thing and it's like I might have been reading like for more conte. Well, what is. It was when we first started the thing festival and what you said wasn't like, oh, well, my Partner's an. So let's see if we can get this past him. You were just like, he tends to be pretty anxious, so I, I'll run this by him. And then you, like, did some sort of emoji that was like, whatever. What is the emoji that goes like.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know what that guy called. Oh, yeah, I use that one a lot.

[Becca]

Yeah, like, he's a little anxious, but, but, you know, we got through that. I wasn't like super offended that, you know what?

[Luke Burbank]

I, I, I, I, I'm not trying to say this to be dismissive. That isn't even the one I was thinking of.

[Becca]

Oh, I'm. Oh, of me. But not with me though, right?

[Luke Burbank]

No, not with you. I was like in previous. Yeah, in previous, you know, like, job, life stuff of just like sending. I almost had one the other day too, which it wasn't like, it wasn't going to be the worst, but what it was was. Oh, man. Yeah, I was going to. You know what it was? It was actually a family. It was a Burbank family thing. And it was like, we have so many, this is the problem. We have so many text chains going. So this isn't an email, but we have so many text chains going. And there's Hawk Squad. That's the mother. That's the, that's the, you know, if it was a sourdough starter, that's the mother that's got everybody on it. So anything you say on Hawk Squad, you know, it's going to everyone in the family. But then there's all these little, kind of break off little groups. And there was one that one of my sisters sent and it was to, I thought it was just to me and a couple of my siblings and they were saying something, I think it was saying something about that get together that I had in my house a couple weeks ago. And I was gonna make, as I often do, a little bit of a snarky joke about my parents because my parents were in like day eight of staying at my place. And so I was, I was just gonna say something that you might say to your sibling in a joking way about your parents. You love your parents, but you sometimes, you know, to your siblings of a shared lived experience. You're kind of being like a little bit like, you know, their mom and dad are being mom and dad or something. And I was just about to do it and then before I could do it, my mom chimed in on the text chain and was like, I love all of you kids so much. And I was like, I did not know you were on here. And I was about to gently roast you.

[Becca]

This. I mean, luckily I no roasting involved here, but I did do this. I was going to actually kind of of quasi throw Genevieve under the bus. Because there have been times I'm on a family chain with her, and there have been times where I remember it was on Thanksgiving, and everybody was like, oh, happy Thanksgiving. This is like Genevieve and her extended family, and I'm on there. And then I went to grab some. I think it was like, we're having Thanksgiving, but we eat Thanksgiving kind of later, like actual dinner time, like seven or something. And so I think it was morning, and I was running out to grab some McDonald's for me and Genevieve on, like, Thanksgiving morning or something, and then I suddenly get this text on the family text chain that was like, you know, quarter pounder with cheese and pickles and fry. You know, it was whatever her order was, and she sent it to the entire family. And she's done that. She's done that a couple of times on that chain. And I'm always like, listen, we don't spend a lot. I can't remember the last time Genevieve and I have, like, talked shit about anybody on text. I think it's just kind of a bad habit to be.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a dangerous game.

[Becca]

But it's just like, I'm just like, you gotta be careful with this stuff, like. Cause one of these days you're gonna send the wrong thing to the wrong group. But Genevieve did send a photo the other day to me of a downed tree on campus because of all the storms that were ripping through here. And she's like, look at this downed tree on the campus. And I wrote back like, oh, yeah, good thing nobody was hurt. And then a bunch of our friends started chiming in, and I did not realize that she had sent it to the wordle group. And it's like, I was just like, oh, geez, good thing I didn't say, look at it. Laying around like a lazy ass like Rodin. You know what I mean? I'm trying to think, like, there's no way I would have turned that into. But just the fact that somebody.

[Luke Burbank]

But the fact that I was talking to so stressed.

[Becca]

Exactly. Also, the fact of me accusing Rodin of being lazy is like, one of the funniest things in the world, considering everything that he gets done in his life while I am, he's building real buildings in his backyard while I'm digging fake mines in Minecraft. Anyway, Jamie, thank you very much for that list. That was a fun way to start the new year.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Thanks, Jamie. Appreciate you all the time. And thank you to all of you out there in listener land for spending today with us.

[Becca]

Us.

[Luke Burbank]

We are going to be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio. So please do jump on the line for that. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Becca]

And good luck to all. Power out.