#4650 Initial Impact

Summary

TBTL #4650 "Initial Impact" – Detailed Summary

Podcast: TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh
Date: January 27, 2026
Episode: #4650 “Initial Impact”
Theme: “From VHS Time Capsules to Tech Ethics”

Episode Overview

The episode balances playful nostalgia with present-day anxieties, typical of TBTL’s unique blend. Luke, energetic from Miami Beach, and a tired Andrew cover everything from digitizing obscure 1994 VHS tapes to navigating the ethical quagmires of tech consumption. The episode mixes warm childhood memories, quirky community observations, and earnest conversations about modern digital life, with plenty of offbeat humor and classic inside jokes.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening Banter & Tone Setting (00:02-01:53)

• The episode opens with a faux restaurant bit, highlighting the hosts’ improvisational style.
• Luke notes the vibrant nightlife and energy of Miami Beach, which injects him with energy despite the recent drop in temperature.
• Andrew, in contrast, had a restless night working on “digital projects” and comes in with “opposite energy,” reflecting the friends’ tendency to complement one another.

2. VHS Nostalgia: Bitter Lake Community Center Tapes (07:25-28:41)

• Andrew’s Big Announcement: He has digitized a VHS tape from a 1994 Easter egg hunt at Seattle’s Bitter Lake Community Center, found at a garage sale.
• Luke’s Connection: Shares that he was baptized in Bitter Lake, strengthening the personal resonance.
• They reminisce about childhood church rituals and the anxiety of childhood attention (09:00-10:37).
• Tape Details:
  • Homemade camcorder footage, filled with kids preparing for an Easter egg hunt.
  • The joyful chaos of 1990s community events is vividly described, including kids displaying “adorable” personalities, 90s fashion (Supersonics and Mariners gear), and the presence of a mysterious, much-loved woman running the camera.
  • [16:19] Andrew: “These kids, Luke, are beyond adorable... When you see some of the older kids... they’re looking very 1994.”
• Segment includes live playback of digitized audio and descriptions of bubble-blowing activities at the park, capturing the “sweetness and awkwardness” of the era (24:34).
• Quote – Andrew on Tape Vibe [27:49]:
  “Don’t you feel like when you watch an old tape like this... it feels like people spoke differently?”

3. The Evolution of Language & Technology’s Effect (27:59-32:44)

• The hosts delve into how people spoke more formally or differently in the past, referencing both homemade tapes and old radio programs.
• Both agree technological comfort has led to more casual speech and a constant content-creating culture.
• Quote – Andrew [32:12]:
  “Everything is content... Children, generations now, have grown up constantly making things and publishing them.”

4. Listener Connections, Donors, and UK Chimney Sweeps (33:02-36:12)

• Acknowledge donors and listeners, comically speculating on jobs in the UK (“chimney sweep or foggy reporter”).
• Luke attempts to use the word “redound,” leading to a dictionary deep-dive and more wordplay, a classic TBTL moment.

5. Christian Music, Taylor Swift, and Genre Adaptation (36:15-39:58)

• The conversation shifts to recognizing worship music vs. pop, and how Christian music tends to echo prevailing pop genres.
• [37:52] Luke: “You’re never going to hear a style of music on the Christian music station that you haven’t heard other places.”

6. TouchTunes, Jukeboxes, and Personal Rituals (39:39-43:16)

• Extended riff on digital jukebox meta-economics: stories of users spending tens of thousands of dollars to “fast pass” songs.
• [41:44] Luke: “There was a semi-regular patron... who had spent something like $60,000 on Touch Tunes.”

7. Tech Ethics: TikTok, Spotify, and the Fractured Digital Landscape (51:56-70:35)

• The hosts consider the recent transfer of TikTok to a consortium including Larry Ellison. Luke, a TikTok fan, expresses anxiety about supporting platforms owned by problematic figures.
• Related debate on moral responsibility as consumers: can one really “vote with your wallet” when nearly all options are problematic?
• [54:11] Luke: “When something’s free, you are the product... I’m helping the MAGA movement.”
• Andrew describes his personal moves away from Instagram and Amazon, and the push from a friend (Rodin) to leave Spotify over ethical concerns.
• Discussion dovetails into Tidal’s ownership by Jack Dorsey, frustration with the lack of truly ethical alternatives, and the mental slog of conscientious consumerism.
• Consensus: While total consumer purity is basically impossible, it can still be meaningful to opt out for personal peace — but we shouldn’t “go off on each other” about imperfect choices.
• [64:06] Luke: “It’s so difficult to... make sure that every dollar you spend is not going to someone who’s done anything questionable...”

8. Taco Time: The Great Origin Correction (70:37-77:56)

• Luke retracts previous (incorrect) assertions about Taco Time’s origins after being schooled by listener Jared and others: the chain was founded in Eugene, Oregon near the University of Oregon.
• Humorous reflection on his “Seattle ethnocentric” bias and rivalry with Oregon.
• [74:34] Listener Jared (email): “I was surprised to hear Oregon's cultural history being rewritten in a recent episode. ... Taco Time was founded in Eugene, Oregon...”

9. Valentine’s Card Exchange & Listener Community (78:10-80:31)

• Andrew plugs the annual TBTL listener Valentine exchange run by Jamie in Mississippi, reinforcing the show’s community ethos.
• The lighthearted, non-romantic tradition recalls the innocent fun of school-time Valentines.
• Discussion of the show’s newsletter and struggle to get it through Google spam filters (newsletter now in “plain rice” mode until further notice).

10. Podcast Longevity & Industry Bragging Rights (83:22-85:06)

• Mild shade toward other podcasts (notably Comedy Bang Bang) who claim longevity or marathon episode records, with TBTL quietly holding its own 24-hour van episode as legend.

11. Callback Answers & the Loop Closes (85:36-86:07)

• The hosts close the loop on earlier in the episode: Dev is revealed as the vocalist on Far East Movement’s “Like a G6.”

---

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• Andrew, on tornado energy (04:58):
  “I forced myself to go to bed around 4 in the morning... I was working on various digital projects involving computers, not my fingers.”
• Luke (12:45):
  “ALW is a nice set of initials, too. I don’t think LCB... LCB is confusing. Is it LCD Sound System? Is it Long Beach?”
• Andrew, playing tape [16:19]:
  “These kids, Luke, are beyond adorable... they’re looking very 1994. You’re seeing Supersonic T-shirts... it is just such a trip.”
• Luke, on attention [10:37]:
  “Not regretting the decision because I didn’t want to be baptized, but regretting the decision of how many people were paying attention to me.”
• Andrew, on nostalgia [27:49]:
  “People spoke differently. And I don’t know if that’s true or not, but... every 10 years, there’s a way of talking.”
• Andrew, on digital overload [32:12]:
  “Everything is content. Children now... have been constantly making things and publishing them.”
• Luke, on TikTok’s new owners [54:11]:
  “Now it’s going to be complicated, because I’m... helping the MAGA movement.”
• Andrew, on ethical consumption [64:31]:
  “These decisions are not going to make even the tiniest drop in the tiniest bucket... it doesn’t matter to them that I opted out.”
• Luke, Taco Time humility (75:59):
  “My beloved Taco Time is essentially a University of Oregon product... Hurts. It hurts bad. But it is true.”

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Miami weather & host mood: 01:53–03:43
• Andrew’s VHS find & community nostalgia: 07:25–28:41
• Language/time travel analysis: 27:59–32:44
• Tech/consumer ethics, TikTok & Spotify: 51:56–70:35
• Taco Time origin correction: 70:37–77:56
• Valentine’s Card Exchange plug: 78:10–80:31

---

Tone & Takeaways

• The tone is light, self-deprecating, nostalgic, and quick to pivot from serious to silly.
• The hosts’ natural chemistry shines in the way they humorously admit errors, share vulnerabilities, and riff on seemingly pointless ephemera (VHS tapes, instant pancakes, TouchTunes).
• While nerdy in detail, their extended digressions always circle back to wider themes: how we relate to our past selves; the impossibility of perfect digital ethics; the joys and weirdnesses of community, both in real life and online.
• The episode continues TBTL’s tradition of “goofing their way through the world,” giving listeners a comforting mix of laughter, reflection, and warm community bonds.

---

End of Episode

• Luke teases a future discussion about a family text thread drama caused by an iOS update.
• Andrew hints at more listener emails and interaction to come.
• The show closes with their signature, “No mountain too tall. – And good luck to all.”

---

In Summary

Whether you’re in the mood for a warm trip down 1990s memory lane, reflection on the anxiety of ethical tech use, or just want some offbeat banter about Christian music and pancakes, this episode of TBTL delivers in classic form.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Can I start you gentlemen with something to drink? Oh, here we go.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm good with just water.

[Luke Burbank]

You sure?

[Andrew Walsh]

The bar is everything. Oh, no, no, thanks, no.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't drink. Do you mind if we drink?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no, no, of course not.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh.

[Andrew Walsh]

I almost started tearing. Oh, my God. Freaking crap my pants. I'm like, oh, no.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. What am I go. I have a double bourbon into burners. I have a giant glass boot filled with beer. I'm sorry, we don't have that. Well, then your bar doesn't have everything.

[Andrew Walsh]

TBTL. Daddy's here, and Daddy is gonna take care of you. Please don't refer to yourself as our daddy. I am your big daddy. And I am gonna kiss da boo Boo. Are you all afraid? No. Daddy's here for you, my widow. Angels.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know what you did or didn't do, but I do know that I can't know what you know or you don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know. I know, Okay? I know what you're feeling, and it's fear. But not fear of failure. Fear of opportunity. This is the real thing.

[Luke Burbank]

This is the necessary art of our time.

[Andrew Walsh]

This needs respect.

[Luke Burbank]

I see you exhaling, sir. We're gonna be with you in just a moment.

[Andrew Walsh]

You've gotta be patient. Okay? We're very, very. So.

[Luke Burbank]

Our apology.

[Andrew Walsh]

We apologize to you.

[Luke Burbank]

You will not have to wait that much longer at all. Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome to a Tuesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. It's an audiophiles nightmare. My name's Luke Burbank. I am your host. I might have tacos when I go home.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm not quite sure yet.

[Luke Burbank]

Coming to you once again from Miami Beach, Florida. I feel warm and I'm levitating Beautiful Miami beach, where I guess it was unusually warm the first couple of days that we were here. It was in the 80s. I thought that was just the default setting, but then the temperature dropped by 20 degrees today. And yet it's still beautiful. It is still absolutely lovely. Even at 62 degrees. It is great. We will take it. We're enjoying being down here. Although I am watching the wind right now just absolutely pummel, pummel the. The hotel next to ours, the swimming pool area, and just. It blew. It blew 3 of the seat cushions off of their. Off of the, like, chaise lounges they're on, and very soon into the swimming pool. So I don't know, maybe things are a little more raucous here than I was expecting. I'll Tell you something else about Miami Beach. Everything is open late and I love it. I like to party.

[Andrew Walsh]

Do you like to party?

[Luke Burbank]

Now, was I going to any of these establishments, any of these restaurants and bars? It's really the restaurants. I mean, bars are open late everywhere. But like, was I eating at any of these restaurants last night at 11:00pm?

[Andrew Walsh]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

Did I like that they're here open with people sitting around tables enjoying themselves? Yes, very much so. It's fun to be in a place where there seems to be a lot of lively energy. This show. Telling you this episode is going to have a ton of lively energy because I am on my second coffee of the day. This one is an iced coffee. Coffee. It's really good and it's really putting some pep in my step here. As we arrive at episode 4650 in a collector series, let the fun begin. I'm all hyped up. I'm. I'm putting out a very energetic front because I'm being strong. I'm projecting a strong presence because inside I'm sad because I might need to leave.

[Andrew Walsh]

Tik Tok, people of Tik Tok.

[Luke Burbank]

Another one bites the dust. TikTok has now fallen into the hands of Larry Ellison, of Oracle fame and of Donald Trump friendship. There are rumors going around that people cannot send direct messages to each other with the word Epstein in them. I'm a little dubious of that whole thing, but another social media platform that I like and spend way too much time on is now, I don't know, it's very possibly a place I don't need to be spending my time and energy and my attention. What do they say? If it's free, if the product is free, you are the product. It's my relationship with TikTok. Anyway, we'll get into that. Also, I think I may have come up with an extremely elegant solution for my quandary about how and where to watch the Seattle Seahawks in the upcoming Super Bowl.

[Andrew Walsh]

Come on, brain, think of things. Come on, brain, be so smart.

[Luke Burbank]

So we'll talk about that as well with this guy, longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He is Andrew and boom goes the dynamite Walsh. And he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning, Luke. I have a big, important announcement. Almost. Almost like a PSA to make here at the beginning of the show. But before we do that, I need you to know something. Only because you talk so much. Well, that. That sounds pejorative. Only because you mentioned a couple of Times how much energy you're coming into the show with today. I need you to know that like I forced myself to go to bed around 4 in the morning last night around 3:45. I want to say I don't know what happened to me. I was working on various digital projects involving computers, not my fingers. And I just, I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you for the clarification.

[Andrew Walsh]

I just thought some people might need to know that. Which kind of digital. So that's me. And, and I, So anyway, I, I am coming in with the opposite energy of you, unfortunately. I, I worry, I worry about dragging.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what I think, Andrew? Oh, this is an interesting one. I was very likely getting up when you were going to sleep because of the time difference because I got up at about, I woke up at about 7 this morning here. And then I kind of had a meeting. We should have, we could have loop in John.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, we literally could have cause around. So I didn't stay up until 4 but I remember looking at the clock here in my studio and it's like it was like 3:40 and I was like call it, just call it Walsh, go to bed. And I was kind of having, I mean everything's fine but I was just having one of those nights earlier, like my early evening. I think I got into a bit of a head spin on some things. Just you know, maybe world stuff but also just sort of like sometimes your head just gets the bad chemicals in them and you start spinning out on things or whatever. And so I think what happened is it took me a while to get over that and then maybe that, that even though I felt fine by the time I went to bed, maybe my body just wanted to stay up for a while feeling maybe not those feelings. So anyway, I don't know exactly what.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I feel like you need in my knowing of you. I mean we call it Andy times, but I feel like you need that like period of time at the end of the night where there's nobody needs anything from you including yourself including and maybe maybe chiefly including yourself. And like that's a really important part of your kind of wind down for the day. And like I don't have the exact same experience but I can absolutely picture that for you and how it's like, okay, mostly got the bad feelings away and now we need to do the next phase of this, of this cleanse which is like three hours of digitizing.

[Andrew Walsh]

VHS tapes which is exactly the lead in I needed to my big announcement. I would like to say to our audience which I know is not just spread across this country, but across the entire globe. But I also know we have a lot of listeners here in Seattle who grew up here in the Seattle area. And I want to say if you are somebody who would have been a youth, let's say a child or maybe a preteen in 1994, and you attended a Bitter Lake Community Center Easter egg hunt, I have video that you might be interested in. I found a tape. I'm going to tell you about this tape I found, and I'm going to tell you what I saw on the outside of it before I popped it in. And I have not finished going through it yet, but this is a cassette tape, a VHS cassette tape that I found in a garage sale around the Bitter Lake area. When you pull the cassette out of the.

[Luke Burbank]

You are podcasting to a. An audience of one.

[Andrew Walsh]

I wish I could show it to you. I haven't uploaded one yet.

[Luke Burbank]

Is me, my friend. This is. You know, I was baptized in Bitter Lake.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, let me see if this is.

[Luke Burbank]

Because our church was called. We met at this facility that was up there called Burden Bearers, which I think was a Christian counseling center that our church would rent out on Sundays to have our services. When I finally decided I was ready to be baptized, I was baptized in Bitter Lake, which probably might have been foreshadowing. I don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

See, that's really interesting what you just said. This got into a little bit of me explaining a Catholic sacrament to you last week. You said when you were old enough to decide to be baptized or something. How old were you?

[Luke Burbank]

I was probably maybe eight, seven or eight. So the, The. The. The version of Christianity that I grew up in was, you didn't have to be baptized to be saved, I guess, but in the way the Catholic Church, you know, they sprinkle the water on a baby. I think you have to. I think that my church's philosophy was the baptism is only meaningful if the person being baptized has sort of free will to decide for themselves. And so I remember going to my parents and saying, I think I'm ready to be baptized. And then like. And then that subsequent Sunday, us walking down from the Burden Bearers building, which, again, I can. I will never get over what a weird name that is.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's interesting, though. I mean, it sounds very Christian. And also it does sort of sound like, hey, you come to us with problems and we help you. Yeah. Bear this. I mean, it's quite literal.

[Luke Burbank]

Walking down to Bitter Lake. And this is something. I'm sorry, that I'm derailing the DHS talk, but we will get back to it. Having this feeling that I think you could really identify with, Andrew, which was like, not regretting the decision because I didn't want to be baptized, but regretting the decision of how many people were paying attention to me. Like the whole church then after the service, is now walking down to the lake, the whole church being 30 people. Tony Long, who was the pastor of the church, I think was got the, you know, assignment. And also I was like, is they're going to place me under the water? How long are they going to hold me down there? Is it going to be hard to hold my breath? Is it going to be cold also? I just don't like being the focal point of this many adults. Like, we're all going to go down now and baptize Luke. And I was just like, I don't want this kind of attention right now.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's weird, though. It's almost like proto CBS stories that you do, like, just like getting like full now.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm voluntarily swimming in the San Francisco Bay, shirtless.

[Andrew Walsh]

Everybody's looking at me. I'm the only one that this is happening to. I'm going underwater. Which is something that seems to happen a lot to you.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

And everybody and you have to kind of struggle with this amount of attention. It's very similar.

[Luke Burbank]

I've embraced it now. It's the only thing that gives me life. It's actually the energy that fuels me is attention.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now, you said you were around 8 years old and so that kind of scans, remember? I don't know why this came up, but growing up, I grew up in the Catholic Church and very much so, as an ultra boy and everything. And remember I was telling you that, like the. What they call confirmation, the sacrament of confirmation. It came up because I think you were. You were saying that I was throwing my weight around by signing my emails. Alw. Which has really gotten in my head by the.

[Luke Burbank]

No.

[Andrew Walsh]

What are you. I wasn't saying.

[Luke Burbank]

Listen, I wasn't saying you're throwing your weight around. I was just saying it's a choice and I think it's very nice. I wish I would have thought of it. I think it's. I think it's dignified without being stuffy, but I do think it's a choice.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's dignified. You'd be like, we were talking. You'd be the lbc. Oh, no, no, no. You'd be the lc.

[Luke Burbank]

Lcb.

[Andrew Walsh]

If it was the lbc, you have.

[Luke Burbank]

To do it I think ALW is a nice set of initials, too. I don't think lcb. LCB is confusing as, like, is it LCD sound system? Is it Long Beach? I think ALW is actually a nice. You've got a nice little distribution of letters there. Like, again, I'm not trying to roast you. I just was trying to say it strikes me as a choice.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. The funny thing is, it was only a choice. Cause I used to do ALW all the time. And then I shortened it to A at one point. And then it came up on the show maybe a year ago. And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go back to alw. So it was such a choice.

[Luke Burbank]

I like it. For the record, I want you to.

[Andrew Walsh]

Know it happened naturally at first. But one thing that I did used to get a lot of was PR people, when they would write back to me, I would, like, say, hey, can. You know, we're trying to book this person who maybe you represent. I'm writing to a media person. I'd be like, thanks. And then I signed an alw. It would almost always back. Thanks for your interest, Al. Will, everybody thought my name was Al because they were just looking at it.

[Luke Burbank]

It'd be great if they thought your name was alw.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. But anyway. Yeah. So I chose my confirmation name when we decided when, you know, it was time for me to get confirmed. But it was a little bit more like, listen, when you're in fourth grade, that's your time for your confirmation, sort of. But it's based on the same principle that, like, you are of age now to make this decision to confirm your baptism. And I'm guessing this is where I don't do math. Good. Eight years old. That's probably around fourth grade. Am I way off base on that?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm, like, the second worst person at this. But I'm gonna say that maybe third grade.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Yeah, I think. Well, it makes sense because if you enter kindergarten and you're five, and maybe you leave kindergarten at six, anyway, somewhere around that age makes sense. Okay. Putting baptism and confirmation and the way I choose to sign my aside for a moment. This video cassette that I pulled out. Thank you. That I pulled out of the sleeve yesterday. So the spine of the cassette tape itself has a label on it, but it does not say anything. It just says TDK std. Which. That's a choice to name your cassette a TDK std. I guess it stands for standard. My brain.

[Luke Burbank]

Standard tdk.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Anyway, and then on the actual cassette, on, like, the kind of the center sticker, somebody wrote Bubbles Easter. And I don't know exactly what that means. But then when you look at the act, and this is a move that I don't, as a VHS connoisseur going way back, this is a move that I don't like too much. They took another sticker, one of those spine stickers, and they stuck it to the back of the actual box. Does that make sense? Can you picture, like, the box that slips over it? And on that it says, I don't think you're supposed to put the stickers on the box, by the way. Put the stickers on the cassette and then write it. But this one says on the box, Bitter Lake Community center bask B A S K obstacle course January 10th and 11th, 1994. But here's the deal. I think Basque. This is my theory. I think Basque is short for basketball. I think they set up an obstacle course maybe on a basketball court. And I have not gotten to that part of the tape yet. I had to stop the tape yesterday and go to bed like I told you. But what I did see in the first part of the tape, I'm gonna see how long this is, was a homemade video. Not the worst camera work I've ever seen. By the way, the woman running the camera, we never see her, but people are greeting her a lot. Her name is either Terry or Dairy. It sounds like Derry with a D. But Terry makes more sense, basically, as far as names I know. And the whole time, it has that VHS camcorder, date and time stamp on it. And it says 9:40am April 2, 1994. And it's inside of a gymnasium area. And the woman who's holding the camera keeps talking to kids, and she's saying, you know, how many. How much candy are you gonna get today? Clearly, these kids are gonna leave this gymnasium, go outside and hunt for Easter eggs.

[Child or Other Participant]

Guess who you gonna find?

[Luke Burbank]

One?

[Andrew Walsh]

Two. Just one.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought that was all you were allowed to.

[Child or Other Participant]

Well, the prize eggs. Yeah, but there's lots of candy eggs.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I'm gonna get on.

[Luke Burbank]

How many tons?

[Child or Other Participant]

Show me. How filled will your bag be? That's pretty full.

[Andrew Walsh]

Pretty full.

[Child or Other Participant]

Pretty full. Pretty full.

[Andrew Walsh]

These kids, Luke, are beyond adorable. And they're also. When you see some of the older kids who are getting to be maybe, you know, in that 10 to maybe even 13 teen age range, that would be the oldest kids I see in here. They're starting to look. They're looking very 94. They're looking very 1994. You're seeing some Seattle Supersonic T shirts in the crowd. It is just such a trip. And what I love is. I don't know if this is going to work. Everybody is filing out. So it's at the end of everybody gathered inside the gymnasium to hear instructions about how the Easter egg hunt is going to go. We never see the hunt itself, but what we see here is all of these kids and their families leaving the auditorium to go outside where the hunt will take place. The Easter egg hunt. But they're all talking to the woman behind the camera. Cause she's posted up right by the door. So you just have this like this river of people going by. And it is the sweetest thing as they all just. By the way, do you know who the Cobras are? Somebody's wearing what looks like a local sporting team jacket, a soccer ball that says Cobras.

[Luke Burbank]

Sounds tough though. I wouldn't mess with that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And they're all like.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think Handy Andy would have done against the Cobras.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was the Supersonic's color too. Very super. I don't know if this audio will pay off, but it gets really sweet. You can see the personalities of all the kids as they go by. Some stop and like, try to duck under the camera. Others stop to say hello to the woman behind the camera. They're so excited to see her. They don't even care about the camera. Other people are showboating a little bit. I gotta get you, I gotta get your eyes on this, though. I gotta somehow upload it to YouTube or something at some point. I figure there's no issue with publishing videos of children if those children are middle aged adults now.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. I think that's a good, I think that that's, yeah, that's, that's a good idea. Like that's a good way to think about it because. Yeah, were they still children, I think that wouldn't be okay. But the fact that they're grown up now, I think it's fair game.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it's really adorable. I was thinking of you. I think you need to see this.

[Luke Burbank]

I have a feeling. Again, remind me what year exactly you said.

[Andrew Walsh]

So this is April 2, 1990. You're going to be a little bit old.

[Luke Burbank]

You're older. I'm going to be. That's, I'm graduating high school. Actually. I, yes, I'm graduating high school in, in a couple of months. So these would be a little bit younger than me, these kids. But I, I, I mean, yeah, you're like, I'm dying to see this video because it will really take me back. Even if I didn't know these specific kids, I was essentially one of those kids at some point at Bitter Lake, Although I was not a kid who did Easter egg hunts because my parents thought that it was satanic.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I have seen some of those scary photos of Easter bunnies, and maybe that's where they're getting it from.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, they were way ahead of the Donnie Darko curve, my parents. No, it had something to do with the. The original myth of the Easter egg or. I don't know. I mean, it was like, again, my mom and dad are. I love them so much, and they were just doing their best. And my mom might even hear this. Although my mom. My mom has been sending me some real premium texts lately. Andrew. She sent me one. Let me see if I can find this for you. She sent me one last week on Friday. I feel like I was maybe driving to the airport or was coming back from the airport or something was going on. And she said, oh, yeah, it was Friday. She goes, hey, Luke, I listened to TBTL today in hopes of some Seahawks convo, but I didn't get any. What's up, dog? And then she said, correction, dog spelled D A W, G. That was the crossover show. It was the day that we had the Text me back crossover show.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, right.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, Luke, I listened to TBTL today in hopes some Seahawks convo, but didn't get any. What's up, dog?

[Andrew Walsh]

We just got a what's up, dog? From your mom. I've never got up dog in my life.

[Luke Burbank]

And then I said, I think we talked about at the end of Wednesday's show. So if you want to Skip to the 50 minute mark, you'll find a bunch of Seahawks talk. No response.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow.

[Luke Burbank]

And then the latest that came down, which I've now posted on social media because I feel like my private conversations with my mom are fair game. Yesterday, my mom said she sent a message. Hey, Luke, I'm so excited for many reasons, but one being I can wear the NFL official Metcalf jersey because the front is the number 14. I just have to put on a light jacket covering the back. That way I'm sporting Sam Darnold. Sweet.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nice. I saw that text. Didn't she also say, oh, and as a reminder, this is a jersey you and Becca got me a few years ago. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She. She was giving me a little props on. On the gift, but all I was going to say is, like, I know my parents were just absolutely doing their Best and everything. But it's just imagine. Imagine being like, hey, kids, just so you know, let's take two things off the list. Christmas and Easter.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Other than that, enjoy your.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, and Halloween. Let's. Let's take three things off the list, right? Halloween, Christmas and Easter. Like the most number one, fun. And in the case of Easter and Halloween, candy opportunities of childhood. We're going to go ahead and just leave those off the list because Jim Durkin of Gospel Outreach Christian Fellowship doesn't like it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, I'm going to ask for something here. I don't ask a lot on the show, I don't think. I mean, I ask for a raise almost every other day.

[Luke Burbank]

I ask John and John and I consistently outvote you.

[Andrew Walsh]

It just, it really seems like this sort of three person system is not working out. I need somebody on my side.

[Luke Burbank]

It's working as designed.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't like checks and I hate balances.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I've got a job for you, sir.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I've never done this before, but I was telling you about this video cassette tape and what you heard was the part that I had digitized already. And that is just the Easter egg part. But it has nothing to do with the scavenger hunt or obstacle, I'm sorry, obstacle course. And what I wanted to do, just to give us a sense of live radio here, is something I've never done before, which is literally, I've got this VCR patched through my board. I've never done it live before, but I think if I just put this tape. Hear that going in there. If I can put my cassette tape in there.

[Luke Burbank]

I used to have. Not to keep you sort of, I don't know, gilding this Lily, but I used to have basketball games in the Bitter Lake Community center when I played for the Green Lake Community center team. We would go play other community center teams, including the Bitter Lake Community Center. So it's very likely that if this obstacle course is at. Is in the gym at the Bitter Lake Community center, that was also a place where I spent much time in my childhood.

[Andrew Walsh]

If I. Yeah, I'm gonna digitize this at some point this week or it's digitized now, at least that first part is. I'm gonna try to upload it to YouTube so that I can share it with you. Cause I really want you to put eyes on it. I think you'll be pretty excited.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, I really want me to put eyes on it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Even just to see the vibe, but also the chance that you will recognize the Good chance that you'll recognize the interiors of this place. And then the off chance that you might even recognize somebody, a room mother or something along those lines.

[Luke Burbank]

Even, by the way, the woman, the person who is talking to the kids about the.

[Andrew Walsh]

The.

[Luke Burbank]

The Easter egg hunt, it's possible that's somebody I know. That could be somebody's mom from Little League or that's, you know, could be somebody that's more close to my age.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's. That's what I'm thinking. Or. Or she's probably not your age. She's probably older. But I. And it just. I can see.

[Luke Burbank]

Could be Kathy Wynkoop.

[Andrew Walsh]

Her name sounds like Terry or Derry, so I don't think it's Kathy. But the love that the kids have in their eyes when they see her with the camera. And then some really awkward moments where she's trying to get people maybe more her age, like other moms or maybe some teens or something, to talk to her. And they're just like. They just do not want to be on camera at all. And it's just so sweet and it's so 90s. But this next thing I'm going to play for you. Now I believe we're outdoors. There was a big pause in the tape. I think this is a different day. I think what we saw, or we're listening to a moment moment ago, was from Easter of 1994. So that would be, you know, the spring. I think we're going back in time to January here, if I'm to believe the writing on this. And again, this will be. I will be so disappointed if I'm missing something here in my technological setup. And you don't hear this, but we're hitting play.

[Child or Other Participant]

Everybody wants a turn.

[Andrew Walsh]

We're outside. Kids are playing with some sort of big stick that looks like it might be a balloon gun or something. I'm not sure. Now, this says May. So this is. I don't know if this is the obstacle course, but this says May.

[Child or Other Participant]

There you go.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's making huge bubbles with some sort of.

[Child or Other Participant]

Good job, Chris. I think you're done now.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, so we're just seeing now a line of kids. This kid wearing a Mariner's cap right now. And this device they have is like a stick with a big ribbon or like rope off of it. And the bubbles, which is the bubble. This kid has on a backwards Mariner's cap and has wired glasses on. He's probably about.

[Child or Other Participant]

You need more juice now, Jess.

[Andrew Walsh]

Seven.

[Child or Other Participant]

Okay, Kevin. Kevin, yours got open. Somehow your bubble Pop. Okay, put one hand on the slider. Slide it back slow. If you need to move it around to the wind can catch it. There you go. Here comes the wind. Open it up. There you go.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, he got a big bubble. She's so great.

[Luke Burbank]

She's awesome.

[Child or Other Participant]

You can do a couple sometimes. Didn't work.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is the era of Mariners cap with the big S logo, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, sure, that's back.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, they have a whole picnic table.

[Child or Other Participant]

Just covered with Bambi shirt.

[Andrew Walsh]

You mean the one with a white shirt? They have a whole table filled with supplies and soap and everything there. This looks like Green Lake Park. Honestly, I think. I mean, whatever. Maybe all parks. Oh, I think we see the.

[Luke Burbank]

The camera person got a Terry sighting.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think she set it on a tripod. She set it down and now she's in front.

[Luke Burbank]

This is the first.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's her.

[Luke Burbank]

What are we getting? What are we getting? What's Dari look like? What does Terry look like?

[Andrew Walsh]

So she is. I'm gonna put her in here. I'll get a little bit of background audio. I'm gonna say she's in her 30s or maybe very early 40s. She's also got a backwards cap on and sunglasses because it's a bright day and I think I see the community center in the background. She was trying to help the kids with their bubble machine, but then she came back behind the camera again and she's gone now.

[Luke Burbank]

Is she wearing any like 90s era Seattle sports? Anything like what's her outfit?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, let me go back to her. She was only on there for a second. She was a white woman. She was wearing like kind of an oversized button down shirt, a very comfy 90s. She's wearing kind of a big button down shirt with big polka dots on it, but it's a button down and baggy jeans. I apologize. Her hat is not on backwards. Her hat is on forwards, but it is a baseball cap. Okay, that's what we got. That's what we got.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like people don't. You feel like when you watch an old tape like this or listen, it feels like people spoke differently.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And I don't know if that's true or not, but I mean, you know, it really feels like it applies to like if you watch some kind of, you know, sort of accidental recording from like say the 1950s, 60s, 70s, it's just like the sort of scansion of how we put sentences together, the words that we use. It just feels like every 10 years there's a way of Talking. And then we move on to a new way of talking. And it's like, I feel like that way that she's talking to those kids, I just don't think if you had, let's say she's a teacher or a mom or whatever. I don't know if we had a grownup in 20, 26 of the same age as Terry Derry, was talking to kids about doing the bubble loop thing or whatever, if that adult would sound the same way. You know what I mean?

[Andrew Walsh]

I know exactly what you mean. Because you could sort of dismiss that and say, well, it's just because you're also hearing kind of the sound of the VCR and the way camcorders would record a voice closer back then you still sort of get that effect if you're recording something with your phone and the camera person starts talking. But you could sort of dismiss it as just like, well, the technology sort of taints your teeth.

[Luke Burbank]

The medium that's impacting the message.

[Andrew Walsh]

But here's where I get your back on this. I remember being in Los Angeles. The context of me hearing this doesn't matter, but I just got to put myself, got to put myself there. Otherwise I'm going to fall asleep. I told you I was up very late last night. I remember very specifically driving Los Angeles. It was early in the morning and I was driving to work and they, it was an anniversary of Watergate. I don't know which anniversary it was or how it would make sense. And they were playing long clips. I'm pretty sure this was Morning Edition, but maybe I was listening to some other thing. They were playing very, very long clips of a radio call in show from that era. So I'm not hearing clips of, you know, the newsmakers of the time. I'm hearing a host talk to people.

[Luke Burbank]

Aver Joe calling into a radio station.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I swear to God, these callers, every single one of them sounded like they had just put on a suit and tie before calling in. There was a formalness to the way they spoke. There was a quality of their voice. You watch an old movie and you're like, oh, everybody has that sort of mid Atlantic accent or whatever, like a movie from the 30s or 40s, but that's acting. And again, you can sort of dismiss it as maybe the taste of the time, but when you just hear normal people calling in to sort of dissect their feelings or give their opinions about this huge political scandal and the way they talk, it is different.

[Luke Burbank]

And you and I can really speak from experience on this as Talk show producers who have screened many a phone call and as guys who've tried to go out on the street and get what we call vox pops, which is kind of average person on the street, comments like, it can be tough to find somebody who is able to sort of put their thoughts together that way. You know what my version of what you're describing is, is that I listen to a lot of this thing called Dreamland Radio on my Sonos in my house. And it's like it's all the old Art Bell shows. It's like thousands of hours of coast to coast, but just only ones that were hosted by Art Bell and the callers. Now granted, maybe that selects for a certain kind of a person who is doing a lot of their own research around, like aliens and, you know, remote viewing and whatever, but like, it's wild to listen to a caller from 1985 and just how eloquent they sound to me. And maybe, I mean a little bit of this. And I don't want to buy into this idea that we're all sort of slouching towards, you know, whatever. Maybe there is just more. Do you think it's just that there's more casualness in our language now, which again, I don't think is a bad thing for people. People can talk however they want. But do you think that's what sounds different is that in 2026 we just are not as concerned about, I don't know, elocution or vocabulary or like what is what. What do you think is shifting?

[Andrew Walsh]

I do think it's partially that, but I. And I'll bring back technology again in a way that I do think it affects people is. I think it's our comfort level with technology as it progresses. I think the idea of calling into a radio show was a very deal like it. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

You're very falling into a radio show.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. As opposed to now. Like everything is content. You know, people are children, generations now of people who've grown up to be young adults have just been constantly making things and publishing them, you know, potentially globally their whole lives. People are constantly rolling. People are constantly talking on speakerphones or with FaceTime out and about. Like our level of comfort with all this stuff. Stuff also means that we're, I think, a lot more casual about it.

[Luke Burbank]

People are always giving it that old hawk tua.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, geez. Thank you, baby.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, let's thank some donors. These generous folks are sending in a donation each month or maybe they put in a yearly donation at the last thon. And that's what allows this thing to occur five days a week, 52 weeks a year. This is a 100% listener supported podcasting. We would not be doing this if not for the donations from folks like Meredith Gibbons, who's in Farnborough, United Kingdom. Andrew, you said earlier in the show that this, this program spans not just the United States, but the world. And this, I don't think you could have more clear evidence than Meredith checking in from Farnborough.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wonder if Meredith knows anybody in that gymnasium in Bitter Lake in 1994. I feel like Meredith, especially if Meredith grew up in the uk, probably not our best candidate to help me suss out the origins of that tape.

[Luke Burbank]

Although you never know. You know, people, people move around. Meredith may have grown up in North Seattle and then at some point, you know, decided to apprentice as a chimney sweep.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. That is the number one export, as everybody knows.

[Luke Burbank]

Huh. Moved to England to study with the best. Started a very successful chimney sweep company and is redounding some of the financial benefit of that chimney sweep business to tbtl. And we appreciate it.

[Andrew Walsh]

The two jobs that you can get in the London area. If I understand it correctly, Meredith, whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

He'S about to say, please don't, please don't stop donating.

[Andrew Walsh]

You can be a chimney sweep or you can be a reporter in a, like, long jacket, like a trench coat, standing in the fog, Kermit the Frog style, giving the news. Those are the two jobs you can do in London. I think now, I don't know if. And Meredith chose Farnborough is close to London or not. Should look that up.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm wondering if I used redound correctly because I'm saying that Meredith chimney sweep money has redounded. Contribute greatly to a person's credit or honor. That's the formal.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

So I guess you could say. I think that was a. I think that was a kind of a. A little bit of a misuse of the term.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, dude. Oh, I thought you were. I thought you were taking a little bit of a victory lap. How did you use that again?

[Luke Burbank]

No, I don't think so. Because think of what I was trying to say was based on. Basically, it's been redirected in a way or it's been, you know, the chimney sweep money has been. Some of it anyway, has been directed towards tbt. That's all I had to say. But I wanted to try to be fancy and say redound.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, it does redound our efforts. It does redound. So if it means to contribute greatly to something. Yeah, it does redound to TBTL also. I think you could use it in the arcade. Are you looking at the definition now? Do you like the archaeology?

[Luke Burbank]

I am. I've got the formal and the archaic.

[Andrew Walsh]

Look at the archaic. Look at the example of the archaic. I'll let you read it. I really like it.

[Luke Burbank]

May his sin redound upon his head.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's great. We gotta.

[Luke Burbank]

And that's why I wasn't allowed to celebrate Easter.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. To come back upon. To rebound on. May his sin be down upon his head.

[Luke Burbank]

I got. Got in the car last night, Andrew. Speaking of, I'm losing my touch on recognizing Christian music, pop Christian music, like for a long time in five seconds of any song I could tell you, oh, this is Christian. Like this is popular Christian music. Because it all had a sound, a particular sound to it and just an energy that I was very, very dialed into. And last night Becca and I got into the ride share to go get some dinner here in Miami and a song was playing and I said, is this Taylor Swift? She goes, I think this is worship music. Oh. And then like the song ended and then the person came on and they were like reading a Bible verse. And then the Christian music DJ said, I really love this next song you're gonna hear. And it just reminds me, this guy has a real writing style. His writing style reminds me of Johnny Cash. It's incredible. And then she plays a worship song which is just a guy doing a Johnny Cash impression singing like, no wonder it reminds you of Johnny Cash. He's just singing exactly like Johnny Cash. Except the songs, the lyrics are about God. And then we heard.

[Andrew Walsh]

Which is not saying that Johnny Cash was a stranger to either, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

True, true. And then it was like the next song. It sounds like I'm trying to roast contemporary Christian music. I guess I am a little bit. It's an interesting ecosystem kind of creatively because it seems that the key to it is never to innovate. Like you're never going to hear a style of music on the Christian music station that you haven't heard other places. The move seems to be to find a pre existing popular genre and then write your song in that genre with lyrics about your Christian faith, you know, so then you hear the like the Lumineers esque, the kind of footstep. Hey ho. Yes, you know, hey ho, here we go. Jesus or whatever.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And then like you can just listen to. It's like, oh, now here's the reggae, like the vaguely reggae. Here's you Know what I mean? It's just like each genre pretty much gets represented, but then we just have. We've switched up the lyrics.

[Andrew Walsh]

Popping bibles on the ice get. Seriously.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, I'm not far off. Not far off. But I was again. I just felt like, wow. There was a time when I would not have confused Taylor Swift with the. But again, the song. We were listening to Christian music song in the style of Taylor Swift.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what I mean?

[Luke Burbank]

I know.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought I'd get a little bit more love for my Far east movement reference. By the way, that was kind of.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm sorry, I think I was talking over you. Or maybe my echo cancellation. Let's. Let's back that up.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no, never mind. I was just singing. Instead of popping Bible, instead of popping bottles on the ice getting slizzered, I said popping bibles on the ice getting slithered. Do you remember that song? We were obsessed with it. Or at least I was. I don't know who we were. Me, Me.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know who we are.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know. Do you have any idea what song?

[Luke Burbank]

No, I don't feel like I know that song.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right, well, I'm not a good singer, which doesn't help Far east movement. Like a G6 was the song.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. I do like a G6.

[Andrew Walsh]

Popping bottles on the ice.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. I don't think I ever actually. Other than the, like, a G6 part, I don't think I ever considered what the, like, other lyrics to that song were.

[Andrew Walsh]

Luke, would you like to get banned in Romania with me here for a minute as we play?

[Luke Burbank]

Would you make me the happiest cobra?

[Andrew Walsh]

What was the year of this song? I was.

[Luke Burbank]

Andrew, I want to give you credit for. That was a really good joke that you made.

[Andrew Walsh]

And the way that you re.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not kidding. I'm not patronizing. I'm not kidding. The way you re engineered the lyrics on the fly that way was very good, my friend. And I'm sorry I didn't give you enough props. I didn't realize what you were doing in that moment. And it deserves respect.

[Andrew Walsh]

It deserves a quiet night. I have no idea why Far east movement has been on my brain lately. I have been spending a lot of money on jukeboxes in various juke joints around this city.

[Luke Burbank]

I woke up a couple of weeks ago with way more like. I don't know if it was touch tunes or the other one than I. Than I remembered buying.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did you had more in your account? You mean like.

[Luke Burbank]

Like it was it was kind of one of those things where I was like, oh, I guess I did put $40 on my, you know, my. And what's the other one? That's not Touch tunes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, AMI music. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I was like, oh, great. Now I've got $27 of AMI credits.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, transfer that to me. I think that TouchTunes has started to protect me from myself. Twice in the past few weeks I have tried to. When you go to play a song and you're out of credits, it'll say you're out of credits. Do you want to spend like $5, $15 or $30 on credits? And you save more money, you know, based on the more you buy. Of course. And I use them so much, I've been like, I'll just buy the $30 package. But both times it's like, here's your receipt for $15. We're not selling you $30. Nobody has ever hit the $31 before, Andrew. That's just a test. We're going to give you $15 worth of music and then you should leave, go home and hug your girlfriend.

[Luke Burbank]

Did I tell you about the. I couldn't tell you what city in America this was at and certainly not which specific bar. But I was somewhere in the last six months and I was talking to. I was having some dinner or something, talking to the bartender. They had touch Tunes. And the bartender mentioned that there was a semi regular patron of this bar who had spent something like $60,000 on Touch Tunes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. In Wisconsin. In Wisconsin.

[Luke Burbank]

That was Wisconsin.

[Andrew Walsh]

And so he had that. That person.

[Luke Burbank]

He had vi. Like he had concierge service of.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Touch Tunes could always skip to the top of every song everywhere.

[Andrew Walsh]

He had precedence somehow because you can always do that. You can pay a little bit more for like a fast pass to like get ahead a little bit. But like, apparently he had spent so much money and this was at the. It's five o' clock, some lounge. Right. And he apparently had spent so much money that when he goes to play a song, it just mutes every other jukebox in the tri state area and his song plays or something.

[Luke Burbank]

I love everybody in the words of. Oh, gosh now, of course I can't remember her specific name. There was a great song called Everybody's Got Their something and Everybody's Got Their Something man. And like, it's like for me, it's like my Alaska Airlines titanium membership for this guy. It was just. And the other thing, if I remember it was he wasn't a five night, a Week or a seven night a week guy at the bar. That was the other thing that jumped out at me. They were like, he's usually here Thursdays, which I guess his Touch Tunes account is. It would. It would just. It wouldn't matter which bar he was in.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I was imagining. I was thinking, like, how could he do that in one bar? But I guess any. Here's. I'm gonna make an educated guess. If you've racked up that much money in Touch Tunes, you know your way around a cocktail or a beer, and you're likely. If you're that guy, you're probably spending some time at different watering holes throughout the week racking up your Touch Tunes numbers. And anyway. But yeah, that was that. My mind was absolutely blown by that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

That you could spend that much on that. So I would say if you start to rival that guy, you might want to, you know, pump the brakes, not. Not to tell you how to live your life.

[Andrew Walsh]

And he only plays Bad to the Bone.

[Luke Burbank]

Who, Who. Who is the. I always think that the person singing like a G6 is Kesha.

[Andrew Walsh]

The name of the group is. And I've already closed the tab. The name of the group is Far East Movement. And that's all I know by them. I don't think it's a Kesha project, but it was the era. I think I just looked it up before it said 2010. And that would have been the era that a Kesha tune would have caught my ear as well. I liked that era well, because it's.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, there's that Bob song, you know, Airplane in the Night Sky, We're Shooting Stars. And I think that's like. Like Haley Williams from Paramore. There was this. I feel like there was this period of time where you would, like, write a super catchy song and then you would have some kind of known entity come in and sing part of the track. So I think when I heard that Far East Movement song, I always figured that that was like Ke$ or someone kind of famous, but maybe that's just a member of the Far east movement.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm looking this up because now I'm looking at the album cover again, and it seems to show fellas, and I can't. And so I am wondering. And maybe that is. Let's look this up. Like, I'm gonna look this up while you think the donors and see if that is a guest vocal appearance.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you for. We're multitasking here or we're dividing and conquering, I think. And that's how Brandon Lucian likes it. Brandon's in Tumwater, Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey Brandon, thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

Last week we thanked somebody in Tumwater and it started a 40 minute conversation on taco time where I was loud wrong. We will get to that in the emails, Andrew, if not today, then very soon. I have been humbled and corrected on that and I don't blame Brandon, even though he's also in Tumwater, which again was where all my trouble started. Thanks, Brandon. Thanks to Bill Sonnenberg who's in Boise, Idaho. Get Listen Bill, I don't know what you're doing on this Tuesday, but get over to Black Moon Pizza. Or does he got it? Does Barry have a sandwich place over there too now?

[Andrew Walsh]

I think it's the pizza shop.

[Luke Burbank]

I know he's at the pizza shop there, but then he's got this other joint maybe that's in Seattle. I don't know. I follow him on Instagram. I follow this. Barry's got Black Moon Pizza in Boise and then he's got this sandwich shop. Then I don't know where it is, but it's like really causing me to struggle with my decision to not eat meat because they post pictures of sandwiches from this place. And I mean I am like I'm a cartoon. Like I don't know, I'm a cartoon animal now floating on a smell directly towards our friend broadcast Barry's Sandwich Shop. But anyway, thank you so much to Bill for checking in from Idaho. Thanks to Megan Kelso. Hey Seattle, Washington. Our friend, fine artist, both of the of the public art variety, which we learned Megan recently did or maybe it's not that recent anymore down by the Seattle Center. Also incredible illustrator, animator, cartoonist, published author and TBTL donor. And maybe most importantly, Andrew TBTL donor.

[Andrew Walsh]

Mo I mean that that's exact first line of her bio. I think in most public places is exactly that's how she identifies who will make the pancakes. Megan, who will make the pancakes?

[Luke Burbank]

That's her book, Brandon. You know who will make the pancakes around here, Andrew? The public's grocery store where we were doing some shopping the other day and I found every time I'm in a publix, I feel the the spirit of Jameis Winston because that was the grocery store chain where somebody gave him the free crab legs.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay.

[Luke Burbank]

And then he got in trouble for quote unquote stealing the free crab legs. Although I actually don't think he was trying to steal them. I think somebody. This was down in when he played for Florida State. I think somebody was psyched that Jameis Winston, quarterback for the Florida State Seminole, was in their Publix and then tried to give him some stuff for free. And then when he got busted for it, then they acted like they didn't give it to him for free. And everything about Jameis Winston, I mean, I know he had an incident where somebody, you know, it was an allegation that he was inappropriate towards, I think a Lyft driver, an Uber driver. I don't know what went on with that.

[Andrew Walsh]

And also in college around this time, there were some serious allegations.

[Luke Burbank]

Really?

[Andrew Walsh]

The school basically did not investigate until after.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, geez. All right, well, then I guess it's.

[Andrew Walsh]

That that's my problem with him is that' how that was my first time of hearing of him. Was that like, oh, now the school is finally. All these allegations or a. Or all this information about an allegation kind of came out after the Heisman thing, and it sort of had allegations of one of the. Basically Florida look the other way. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Doing everything that they could to keep his Heisman candidacy viable.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maybe that was my understanding of it. I'm going back a long time here.

[Luke Burbank]

And, you know, you're probably. You're probably accurate about that. And there's probably a lot of reasons to, like. I mean, this is what's so kind of complicated and weird about life, which I feel like is a topic that I've been bringing up too much on this show lately. But it's like there's that stuff there, those allegations. And that's all, again, that's. That's something that should be taken seriously and is troubling. There's this other side where Jameis Winston is just a straight up weirdo. Fun in the most fun way. That does not in my mind, invalidate any of anybody else's experience with him. But it's like, it's. It's been a while. And what I think when I think of Jameis Winston, I think of the story of him allegedly shoplifting crab legs from a Publix. So anytime I go into a Publix, I'm like. But here's what I was gonna say. You know what they have at this Publix here in Miami Beach? Pre made pancakes. French pancakes, no less. I don't know what that means, but just like. Like an impulse buy. It's like right by the register. And imagine like a plastic. You know, like, imagine a thing that you might get sort of a dozen donuts in, or not a dozen. Imagine, I think you might get six donuts in six like old fashioned glazed donuts.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Instead it's got pre made pan, it's a little bigger. It's got pre made pancakes in it.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then it doesn't sound bad, but. So I'm not a huge pancake person. Like I like them but usually I'm getting them. I'm like at IHOP or Denny's or something and it kind of comes with, with eggs and sausage or whatever and so I'll get it in that case. But a pancake, the thing about pancake is I usually think of it as it has to be sort of served like right away, right before it starts turning. So when you buy it this way, are you just eating it like Pretty Woman, just sort of with your hands out of the box or are you taking them home and preparing them in some way?

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like I would take them home and like microwave them or something. But I mean I'm not a, you know, since my daughter, you know, aged out of like Saturday morning pancake sessions, I have not made a lot of pancakes in my life. But I just had never seen pre made pancakes. The full, like a full on pre made pancake. I thought for people that eat a lot of them and they want to have a pancake on the go, I don't know, maybe this is the kind of thing that you could microwave it, throw some butter on it might be, might be tolerable. I don't know. Ask Brandon Volbright. Yeah, Bashan Washington. Maybe Brandon knows two Brandons. That's right. Same spelling too. Got Brandon Lucian and Brandon Volbright.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, they spell their. Just to be very clear, they spell their last name slightly differently, but their first names are exactly the same, very slightly.

[Luke Burbank]

Lucian and Volbrite. A couple of, a few small differences.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's when I see one or two in there.

[Luke Burbank]

When we were watching, when we were watching the previous Seahawks game at the Eagles together, I think when I knew I'd had plenty of alcohol was when every good play I celebrated by dancing like Benicio Del Toro at the end of one battle after. Yeah, giving yourself up. I would hold my little jacket out and I would do a couple. I do my few small beers dance. I think that should have been, that should have been an indication of something to me. And it wasn't. Also, we want to thank Wayne Kirkendall who's out there in Mill Creek, Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nice. Thank you, Kirk.

[Luke Burbank]

That's where they mill the stuff. They use the creek to power it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did I just, I just referred, I was looking away and I said thank you, Kirk. But I meant. Thank you, Wayne. Kirk and Dahl.

[Luke Burbank]

I bet you that people call. I bet you that there are people in Wayne's life who. His nickname is Kirk.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, but he's not giving them money. I feel like I have a responsibility.

[Luke Burbank]

He might pay people for that.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is true. No, that is true. Maybe he might pay extra for that. Just call me Wayne.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you to all of our donors. Man, we could not do this without you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello and welcome to Top story.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, Andrew, TikTok has been officially signed over to an ownership group with primarily this, I think, company called Silver Lake, which I'm assuming is a private equity firm of some kind or some kind of investment grouping. And then also Larry Ellison, the guy who founded Oracle and who is pretty close with Trump and whose son is now the owner of the TV network that I work for, CBS Skydance. And I, you know, I got off of TikTok. Excuse me, I got off of Twitter when I felt like it was becoming a kind of a toxic place that was owned by a very toxic person, Elon Musk. And then I. I moved over. I think I probably moved my energy over to looking at TikTok kind of endlessly. And now I'm really wondering if. Am I being. I don't post anything on TikTok. I'm not really helping. Well, that's not true. I'm certainly not helping generate content over there. So I'm not. I'm not building much for them, but I'm also giving them a lot of my attention. As I said at the top of the show, when something's. I didn't make this up, but, you know, the saying is, when something's free, you are the product. I am giving TikTok tremendous hours of my attention, which I guess they can then monetize. And I'm. I'm sort of. I'm struggling with it because I do really enjoy unwinding by scrolling TikTok, but I also really don't enjoy helping line the pockets of. Of, of these folks and also participating in something that may, I don't know, have some amount of censorship now, now that there's this other kind of weird story circulating that Gavin Newsom is apparently looking into now, which is that there are people who are like, Tick Tock, you know, people who have accounts on Tick Tock who are saying that when they've been sending, like, direct messages within TikTok to other people, if the name Epstein is in the direct message, it, It. I don't know, the message doesn't go through or Something. There's some weird erasure of this, which, to be honest with you, if, if I'm the, you know, the first of all, it seems early for the Larry Ellison regime to have already figured out how to rip that out of people's DMs.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

Like it's been one day. And also it seems to me like if you were going to try to stifle the Epstein stuff, I wouldn't do it in the dms, I would do it in the, on the main page. Right, right. So I, to me, that doesn't. That, that exact thing doesn't seem like a huge sign of anything. Maybe just a weird glitch or something. But the idea that like they're, they're, you know, basically, I wouldn't trust these guys to not get in there and start moderating content in such a way that it helps their worldview if they think they're. They are now the owners of this thing. I don't know. It's a bummer for me because it's like I really like looking at Tick Tock, but I'm. It's going to be now it's going to be complicated because I'm, in a way, I'm helping the MAGA movement. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it was always complicated though, or at least it has been for the past several years. When it got politicized before this. I mean, you know what, here, I guess here's my contribution to this conversation. Sorry to turn it over towards me. It's funny because I don't use Tick Tock that much. I don't use it that I use it more now, like a slightly more now because I have been off of Instagram for about a year now, since the last election, and just sort of, you know, just seeing Zuckerberg kind of cozy up to the MAGA movement and the Trump administration more accurately. And so I guess I have been sort of, my eyes have been drifting towards TikTok a little bit more, but it would be kind of weird for me to be like, oh, I don't use Instagram for moral purposes. So I'm on TikTok, which is just like, seems, you know, pretty rotten to its core as well and has been for a while. So, you know, it's just, it's so cliche to say it, but like to be a response. You just can't be a responsible consumer these days in this stage of capitalism and of our country. Although TikTok, of course, was not part of our country until recently. It was, you know, run.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. It Wasn't like it was great when it was owned by the Chinese.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's what I. That's. Yeah, you know, that's kind of what I'm saying here. And so let me just quickly tell you. So we have a friend who actually listens to the show, a good friend of ours who's been pushing me for a long time now, ever, ever, ever more aggressively to get off of Spotify. Right. Because I use Spotify.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I bet I know. I bet I know who you're talking about because I believe I saw this person today, pulled what I'm going to always call a Viking funeral and sort of posted their. Their departure from Spotify. Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

I wouldn't guess so. Because he's been pushing me for a long time to get off of Spotify.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know why. I don't know why I'm not saying his name, but we mentioned him on the show a lot and, you know, I'll just say it's Rodin. I don't. I don't know why. And protecting him, I just didn't feel like getting into it.

[Luke Burbank]

But our friend Leanie also jumped off of Spotify.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really?

[Luke Burbank]

Posted a picture like, was like, bye, bye, Spotify.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Yeah. I don't know. I was being weird about that. I just didn't feel like I needed to bring up the name. And then suddenly I was being protective of his identity. I think he'd be proud for folks to know. But anyway, so Rodin has been pushing me more and more. Like, I don't know, maybe. Has it been a year now? For a while he's been like, listen, Spotify is not good for artists. And also there is a lot of complaints that Spotify. If you're not paying for Spotify and you're listening to the commercials that they automatic force feed you, apparently they were running commercials for like maybe Ice Recruitment, I want to say, or something along the lines.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know if I heard those, but I heard about those things happening.

[Andrew Walsh]

And that really upset people, obviously. And then in behind the scenes, like the guy who runs the company, at first I thought there were Palantir connections, but that's not true. But basically I think that the guy who basically owns it or the majority owner, because I was reading about this this weekend, because I want to make the decision. I want to take Rodin's comments seriously and I want to think about it, but I'm looking at the background of.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, that's the problem. People take rodents seriously, but not literally.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. And I'm going to take them both now. But anyway, you know, there are ties of the major financier behind Spotify, to put it that way, I guess also has ties to the military industrial complex, including like some sort of drone programs that are being used in the Middle East. It's just like it gets into some shit. But I will say that I was doing reading about this recently because I think I've done this a few times because Rodin will be like, are you off Spotify yet? Are you off Spotify yet? And then I go and I look at the alternatives and I know that he uses Tidal and a lot of people use Tidal. I don't know what Leni is pushing. There's a more expensive, more boutique service out there that is supposedly way more, I guess, conscientious. It's like its whole mission is to be a little bit more conscientious and to have like more lossless audio. But it's pretty expensive. And it doesn't seem like as seamless a transition. A lot of people are going to Tidal. But my thing about Tidal is I can't remember who owns it right now. It's one of the big tech people. Who maybe is it. Is it the person who started Twitter, maybe? Who started Twitter?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I know Jay Z was very involved in the early days of Twitter.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's the problem is like title. Yeah, it was started by Jay Z and a bunch of artists, but they don't own it anymore either. Like, I think Jay Z still owns part of it, but the major money behind it. It's just another tech company that started. I don't know if it was Twitter or what. It's not Teal. I can't remember.

[Luke Burbank]

Dorsey.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's Dorsey. So who is Dorsey? Is that Twitter?

[Luke Burbank]

No, Tidal is majority owned by Block Inc. Formerly Square.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Inc. The financial technology company led by Twitter co founder Jack Dorsey.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

They acquired 86% stake in the music streaming service in 20 for 302 million. While Jay Z sold his majority stake, he remains a stakeholder and sits on the board.

[Andrew Walsh]

So here's my point of all of this. I thought it was Twitter. I just can remember Jack Dorsey's name. And then I was confusing him with Sergey Brin, but anyway. Or Sergey Brin, but anyway, all of.

[Luke Burbank]

That is one of my favorite dining partners here in Miami.

[Andrew Walsh]

I am looking at the background of Spotify and saying, okay, yeah, I don't like the fact that the guy who owns Spotify also is part of the military industrial complex. But also what's going on with Title? And it's like, well, Title is owned by the Twitter guy mostly. And it's like, I don't. I know, don't. I don't think I have any receipts on Jack Dorsey or whatever. But my point of it is like, yeah, but if I take my time to move over from Spotify to Tidal, which is just owned by Block, which used to be Square, which was started by Twitter, how long before they make some business decision that I don't like? And I'm not trying to abdicate my responsibility of maybe possibly helping support a service that is tied to bad things in the world. And I guess right now, if Tidal doesn't have those connections, that's the better option. But how long before I have to get off of that one as well? And it's kind of like I was looking for a more specific, real red line in the sand with the Spotify thing. I know it's not great, but I also don't think that Spotify is necessary. I'm sorry. I don't think that Title is necessarily super great for musicians either. It kind of uses a similar payment system based on the tiers of popularity. And so I was just reading about all this. I'm just like, I don't know, am I just gonna keep on? I isolated myself so much in social media by dumping so many of the social media platforms. And I'm not saying that I'm done trying to be conscientious about this stuff, but I'm not gonna keep hopscotching around when all of this shit is owned by huge tech billionaires. I just don't think that there's a really great option other than I am trying more and more to literally buy records by bands and see those bands hands.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. I mean, it's. It is extremely hard if you're going to operate at all in the current state of the world. That is to say you're not moving to a cabin somewhere, you know, with a composting toilet and no Internet connection. If you live in the developed world and you, you know, go most of the places that we go and, and want to listen to the things and watch the things that most of us want to listen and watch. It's so difficult to, you know, sort of figure out and make sure that every dollar that you spend is not going into the hands of someone who's done anything questionable. And I guess I don't mean that as a. A total opt out of kind of like, responsibility as a consumer to be sort of aware. But, like, it's really, really hard right now. And I think the big thing is maybe us not. And I don't think this is what Roden is doing to you, although it does seem like a rodent move. So I don't know. No, but I think the big thing is not. Is us. We, the people who are trying to be somewhat thoughtful about stuff not going off on each other about whether or not we are. You know, we have the purity of every single dollar that we spend. I think we're better served focusing on the people that are really, really bad out there and trying to get them out of power and mitigate the harm that they're doing as opposed to like, like going on. And again, none of this has nothing to do with what you've been talking about specifically. But, like, I think part of what drives the behavior is some of it is just like a moral sense in ourself of like, I don't want my money to go towards people who are bad. And then some of it is like, there will be a point at which it's like, oh, you didn't know that this. This thing is actually backed by that thing. And therefore you using this thing means. I mean, that's maybe what I'm really shadow boxing with here is me and Amazon because. And again, that's to the side of the conversation of music. But.

[Andrew Walsh]

But it.

[Luke Burbank]

It definitely gets to the question of convenience for me versus, like, I. I really respect your and Veeves decision to get off of Amazon and I. Getting closer and closer. I think I could actually do that now. I'm not in this phase of my life where I was needing to acquire so many things for my house that it was almost like it just was. Every day I was. There was some new thing that I realized, oh, I don't have this right now. I'm not in that mode anymore. I could probably get off of there. And maybe it's something I should think about. But, like, I don't know. I guess this idea that to the degree that we're doing any of these things because we don't want to get hollered at by people who. We're of the same political persuasion or of the same moral persuasion as. I feel like we should try to go easy on each other and we should try to go really hard on the actual bad people.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And I have sort of mixed emotions about that because in a certain way. So. Okay. From my perspective as somebody who has decided that I'm not going to use Amazon anymore, which has been kind of a pain. And it's been kind of. I've been trying to relearn certain things. I have some, some just like I had got a package of socks the other day that I had to figure out because I always buy the same package of socks off of Amazon. These are gone. I found my brain.

[Luke Burbank]

I really had that thought.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And so I had to kind of search around, but then I can't remember where I bought it from. But I found another clothing company and I bought the same exact brand, the same exact box, and it just came from somewhere else. And now I have that receipt and I can go and buy it easily again next time. But I find myself kind of spiraling sometimes on like, well, I need this thing, but I don't know where to get this thing. And I don't use Amazon anymore and then I just don't buy that thing. I'm not as much of a shopper as you are. I don't have the patience for it. And so I've actually found myself like sort of kind of spiraling on some of those things and feeling affecting my mood in weird ways. But okay, so here's my point though. I don't use Amazon. I got off of Instagram. Neither one of those decisions are going to make even the tiniest drop in the tiniest bucket of the business practices of those two companies. Like it doesn't matter to them that I opted out. It's just not affecting anybody's bottom line. And I will live the rest of my life not using those services. And it does not hurt Zuckerberg and it does not hurt Bezos, I'm doing, I'm achieving literally nothing by doing those. But it's just something that even though it makes sometimes my day to day life maybe a little bit less rich because I'm not on Instagram or maybe a little bit more difficult because I'm not on Amaz. It's just like in the moment I don't, I just don't want to think about Bezos. I don't want to think about Zuckerberg as I'm doing things. You know what I mean? I'm doing it because it just feels right to do. And so I'm doing it for that. Having said that, this is coming back to what you're talking about. I really never try to make anybody feel guilty or, or, or any kind of bad feelings because they are still on Instagram or they're still using Amazon. Like that is not my role and I am not trying to push anybody. Everybody can make their own decisions. Everybody, you know, in my circle reads the news. They know what's going on. Everybody's gonna make their own decisions. But I do. While I wanna be very careful not to seem judgmental of other people, I really appreciate Roden egging me on this. And like, I don't know that and. Cause he. Well, first of all, I mean, we're good friends and we can, we tease each other. He likes to come in and be like, hey, you off Spotify yet? You know, you know, it's loving. He's serious about it. He does think that we should not support that company. And I know that artists and their welfare are important to him. But it's also, we have that kind of relationship and it never feels, it doesn't feel like naggy to me in a negative way. It's a good reminder, honestly. And I also think that like you said you saw Leanie post something and I haven't seen that post. Maybe it was on Instagram, but that's going to live in your brain a little bit more now too. And maybe the next time somebody else says, listen, and I've reached my breaking point with whatever platform it does start to build and then you do start to maybe see some change. So while I want to be very careful just in my personal life of not seeming like a nag or better than anybody else, like, I don't watch TV because TV is no friend of mine. Like, I'm not trying to take that attitude. But I also don't mind friends just kind of saying, just so you know, like, like you might want to keep an eye on this because you might reach a breaking point morally with, with this product or service as well.

[Luke Burbank]

Totally. I think giving a friend who you really know and have a, a good relationship with, like a heads up on something, possibly in irl, possibly at the Eagles or whatever, that feels just like, you know, that's what friends talk about. Various things like that people kind of people getting online and, and getting kind of, you know, sort of shirty about like, well, I can't believe that you're. I can't believe that you're still going, you know, to that place. Don't you know, that, you know, this, that or the other. I feel like that's energetically not, I don't know, it doesn't feel like it's really helping and it feels like we just had. To me, it seems like there's too many, there's too many in fights still going on amongst the people who generally agree that, you know, we should be living in a country where billionaires have to share more of their money and where people are being lifted up instead of pushed down. That's the general agreement of most of the people. And then you get these sort of side conversations, you know, where people are giving each other grief about if they're doing it exactly right. And that's just something that I'm hoping we'll see less of so that we can all, as you like to say, Andrew, get our oars going in the same direction and get these motherfuckers.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's where I think Tone has a lot to do with that. I mean, Blue sky is, you know, really, I. When I joined bluesky, I just saw it as an alternative to Twitter. And this was a long time ago when there was not the same amount of traffic there as there is now. But bluesky really has become. It's not just who I follow. Blue sky really has become sort of woke. Twitter, for lack of a better word, is a bunch of progressives. And you'll see all kinds of conversations, though. And I think what we're getting at here is tone when it comes to these conversations as well. I've been unfollowing people who I agree with with on various things, but I don't need you screaming at me. I don't need you yelling at me. Whether it's about, hey, why are you still subscribed to X, Y or Z, it's kind of like, okay, yeah, if somebody's tone is like that, it's like, you're not going to move me. In fact, you're going to maybe even make me a little bit more static in wanting to kind of side with that. But it doesn't mean your point is wrong. It means how you're expressing it is wrong. But then on the other hand, and you also have, you know, a lot of people use social media because the world is burning around them and they need to scream. And screaming is kind of important, too, I think. So I think what I've just decided to do is let people scream, but don't join the screaming room. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to tell somebody not to have emotional reactions on Blue sky because I understand what we're living through is not normal. And oversized reactions seem very normal.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Well said, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, thanks. 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. All right.

[Luke Burbank]

Andrew, just a. A quick update, clarification, retraction, apology, and decision to spend more time in quiet reflection with my family here before we get out of here. The other day on the show, Taco Time came up, as it so often does, and I was describing a world in which Taco Time was a, a Washington state, a Greater Seattle area product that was then expanded and then divided, and then I'll just say it bastardized and created one version of Taco Time that I love and I would die for and another version of Taco Time that I wouldn't look at it if it were on fire. That's maybe a little extreme, but I was trying to describe the difference between Taco Time Northwest and Taco Time International, and I got about 90% of it wrong. And even, even Becca, who went to the University of Oregon in Eugene, I was reading this email aloud to her when I got it this morning and she was like, like, yeah, I told you that. I told you the first one was in Eugene. I was like, yeah, but I didn't believe you when you said that.

[Andrew Walsh]

See, I get so confused at this topic after it came up the last time on the show. And it's, you know, you're passionate about it. A lot of our listeners are passionate about it. I ate at Taco time once about 10 years ago and I thought it was fine. So a lot of the details sort of wash over me.

[Luke Burbank]

Sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

And so because of that, I just don't follow the ins and outs. So I can never be the person to help help fact check these things. And also I can just never remember. I just know it's complicated. Right. Because we also got some other people writing in saying, well, you kind of have the split wrong about who split from whom or how that would have worked. And I was kind of like, yeah, I don't know who to believe. And so I just let it go. When I get those emails, I just put them in the palm of my hand and I hold my hand up to my mouth, I go. And I let them blow into the wind like seed.

[Luke Burbank]

I think the only place we can look is where a listener, Jared linked to, which is tacotime.com about history index HTML.

[Andrew Walsh]

That sounds like a good place to start.

[Luke Burbank]

Taco Time's own history. History is written, Andrew, by the casita burrito holder. And so this is what Taco, you know, this is Taco Time saying what the origin story is, which I guess we'll choose to believe them. Here's, here's where I, where I got confused And I don't want to cloud this even more for you, Andrew, but basically, because I grew up mostly in Seattle, I grew up with that kind of a Taco Time, which is called Taco Time Northwest. And because there are these few outliers, those are primarily in Oregon, those are the ones that are called Taco Time International. And those ones have a slightly different menu and a different vibe, even though they're called Taco Time. And I, because I think of the ones from Washington State as the quote unquote, real ones, just because that's what I grew up with, I had assumed that what had happened was the original DNA of the thing had to be in the Seattle area. And then it grew up into a sort of a successful thing. And then somebody else started franchising them. And then eventually the franchiser, the person that was starting their own version of it, they sort of like eventually split off from the company and made this kind of like, like, you know, Bizarro Jerry version of Taco Time. And that's what was in Oregon. This was purely fueled by my own lived experience and my assumption that because I like the Taco Times in Washington State, that must be where it started. Those must be the original ones. And in fact, it seems to be quite the opposite, thanks to listener Jared, who sent one of the most high handed emails we've ever received. Andrew, I mean, honestly, it just, just. I'll just read it to you, okay? And I'll let, let you decide. Hi Luke and Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good.

[Luke Burbank]

I was surprised to hear Oregon's cultural history being rewritten in a recent episode. It seems even established facts are up for debate in today's discourse. I suspect some Taco Time ethnocentricity is at play regarding the claim that the Washington locations were the origin or. Or superior Virgin. To set the record straight, Taco Time was founded in Eugene, Oregon and was only franchised into Washington as Tacotime Northwest years later. Well, we'll come back to that in a moment, Jared. I am standing up for the true history of the Taco Time name. I've included Andrew on this email because he sat idly by pleading ignorance to this podcast crime. Please read through this Ken Burns esque journey into how Taco Time entered our hearts and mouths. And that's where Jared links to the Taco Time history. Best regards, listener Jared. Jared is absolutely right. I have now read this history. It did start in Eugene, Oregon, right next to the University of Oregon campus. This hurts me, especially Andrew, because as a husky, I've got a used to be able to say heated rivalry without it sounding gay. But now there's a heated rivalry with the Washington University of Oregon. So the fact that my beloved Taco Time is essentially a University of Oregon product.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Hurts. It hurts bad. But it is true.

[Andrew Walsh]

This started by Nike, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right. Phil Knight, before he got into waffling the shoes. Yeah. The story is that there was this. This guy who was a traveling salesman and he had traveled through California and he was eating, you know, sort of Mexican food or what was being described as Mexican food food back in the day. And he really fell in love with it and he decided, well, I want to open a restaurant, like a kind of a fast food type of restaurant that serves this stuff. And so, according to the lore of the Taco Time history, he mortgaged his house and he opened this restaurant, this little restaurant, Taco Time, right next to the University of Oregon campus. And it was a big hit. And it was such a hit that then some other folks said, hey, can we start one of these? And I believe it was two years later that they opened one in Washington State. And that's why I say to Jared when he says, only franchise into Washington as a Taco Time Northwest years later. I mean, yes, two years is technically years later, but it's not like 30 years later. So. So I had the origin wrong. Which was. It was started in Eugene and it sort of grew into this thing. And then the folks that wanted to franchise it in Washington, really, it sounds like they kind of. They. What was it? That was a tigtow. That was Taco Timers going their own way.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

They decided the. The Northwest, you know, the. Basically it was the offshoot that I have embraced as my. In my culinary lifestyle. And so the Taco Time International, I guess, is essentially the og, the OG DNA of the whole thing. And I discuss. I like version two. Two, but it is version two. And I need to acknowledge that it's not version one that I like. I like the. I like the. The new one. The new plucky upstart Taco Time Northwest versus the old stodgy Taco Time International.

[Andrew Walsh]

And there's a drive into deep left field by Castellanos. It's going to be a home run. Gonna make it a 40 ball game, my friend. Hey, Luke.

[Luke Burbank]

I was caught in a hot mic incident earlier, and that's not who I am. That's not what I represent.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's the. Ask people who know me. Not. Don't. Don't listen to the words I say. When I think nobody's listening. Hey, I have something important to say with my words, Luke, and I feel bad. It's actually also starting with an apology, which is apologies to listener Jamie. I promised I would do this on yesterday's show, but I forgot and so I'm doing it on Tuesday. Show listeners, are you like me? Do you? I'm doing this as a radio read, Luke, but I'm improvising it. So I don't know how.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, has this ever happened to you?

[Andrew Walsh]

Has this ever happened to you? You want a Valentine's Day card and you go to your mailbox and there isn't one there. Well, friends, go to tbtl.net and sign up for the Valentine's card exchange. That's right. Our friend listener Jamie in Mississippi is arranging it once again this year. And if you want to sign up or just update your information or opt in or opt out if you've already been doing this, this is a way for you to send Valentine's Day cards and receive Valentine's Day cards with, with other listeners. And it's always a blast. People get really no pressure, but people end up getting really creative, creative making these cards and sending them and sharing photos of them. And it's a really fun thing that you and I have nothing to do with. It's purely run by listeners, love and energy, which I really appreciate.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. And it harkens back to the whole premise of the like Valentine's that you would do at school, which were essentially non romantic Valentine's. You know what I mean? Like you would give. The idea was every student would give every other student a Valentine's and it was just fun to get one and it was fun to feel kind of like appreciated and, and let's be honest, get some candy. But like these are, you know, these are Valentine's between people who just appreciate each other and like that they like TBTL and want to kind of like just give everybody a fun Valentine's Day. It does not just want to make sure that people know it's not a dating service. It's like you're a sport valentine with a football player on the COVID of it, which was a good one that I used to give out back in the day at Daniel Bagley.

[Andrew Walsh]

I can smell it. I can smell those little cards. They smell a little bit like sugar. So folks can chew, chew, chews. Yes, good one, Ralph at the TBTL website. Tbtl.net by the way, that newsletter last week, Luke, it got into people's inbox.

[Luke Burbank]

Good. I am slowly Are you happy or sad about that?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I'm happy, but it's going to be a process. And I don't know if I told you this on the air, if I've told you this at all, but I thought it was pretty funny, the comparison that our colleague John made via text message to me, because what I did was this last newsletter I sent out had literally not one image in it. Not one photo, not one gif. I even removed the. The banner of you and I and the boat, the cartoon logo of us. I didn't put in any links. I didn't put in any video. It was just text. And I wanted to see if I sent that out, would I still be sent to people's spam folders or will it go? And I think this is a Gmail issue, so if you're. You have no idea what I'm talking about. It's probably because you're not a Gmail user. But I sent this out on Friday and it landed. It did not get caught up in the fishing nets of. Well, I guess a fishing net is a wrong terminology to use there since they thought I was the fisher of men and lies. But anyway, it landed in the inbox. So what I'm gonna do is slowly build the newsletter back up week after week and see if I can keep it out of people's spam folders. And John said it's kind of like when you have a dog or a kid with allergies and you kind of remove everything from the diet.

[Luke Burbank]

Just slowly remove plain rice.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. Yes. So plain rice was last Friday, and it seemed to have worked. We were able to keep it down.

[Luke Burbank]

You're putting a pinch of salt in this week, so.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I don't know what we'll do this week maybe, but I don't. I don't think we're gonna do Hay Dummies again this week. We're gonna hold off on hey Dummies one more week. So are you happy to hear that? Because it probably would have been your turn.

[Luke Burbank]

I love doing hey Dummies now that I have my Snappy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Your little glasses.

[Luke Burbank]

Filmy glasses, yeah. To make little. Little productions on Butterfly. But, you know, I'm never mad at a lighter lift. I mean, you're the one that does so much work around the newsletter and. And people love reading. It's really good, too. So, you know, all the work does pay off. And I do hope we can get back to the point where it can be sent out with all of the fun bells and whistles. And it can land in people's inboxes. Because I do think it's kind of a highlight of the. Of the end of the week for some people. It's. I know when I see it, I'm like, oh, man, about time to slide down that dinosaur. Andrew's got that newsletter out. And also it's very informative and helpful. Like if you miss something during the week, if you're. You can see the 10 of the week, which is really fun. We can always use more submissions for that, I bet.

[Andrew Walsh]

Andrew, how do people do that?

[Luke Burbank]

They go to tbtl.net you're over there.

[Andrew Walsh]

You'[e-mail], you're signing up for the Valentine's card exchange, of course. But then you see up at the top right hand corner, there's a little link and it says 10 of the week is what it says, not 10 of the wink. That's actually something I'm working on for my Valentine's card. You click on 10 of the week, you can see an archive of all the packs past tens of the weeks from the past couple of years and you can sign up to be one in a future email.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. So please do that and participate and subscribe to the newsletter and.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I need this page.

[Luke Burbank]

This whole thing will continue to work seamlessly as it has for going on 18 years, I think.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I'm starting to round up. By the way, I think we went 18, didn't we, with the last anniversary. Or is that wrong?

[Luke Burbank]

Is that what we decided in January? What I'm doing now, Andrew, is. I'm just telling people we've been doing it for almost 20 years.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's what you should do.

[Luke Burbank]

We're in the range now where I think that's reasonable. It's just easier to say. Also, I'm kind of trying to flex, trying to be like, yeah, well, we've been doing it for almost 20 years now. It's a nice round number.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was pre irritated by Scott Aukerman yesterday because they released a really great episode of Comedy Bang Bang. And it was an even number show. It was number 950, which means he always kind of does this tradition of bringing back the. The three guests who are kind of always on and they get into this epic. There's sort of this epic narrative arc that goes on when Andy Daley and Jason Mantzoukas and Paul F. Tompkins are all on together. It's like kind of a story arc that's been going on all improvised, that's been going on for years now. But the reason I got irritated was I saw that 950. I'm like, Ah, he's 50 episodes away, about a year away from his 1,000th episode. And they're going to make all kinds of claims about their 1000th episode, which are not true just based on our podcast existing. And they did so many things similar to what we did. They claimed that they have done the longest podcast because they did a 10 hour marathon or something for some benchmark episode of theirs or some anniversary. And I was like, we did 24 hours and we did it in a moving van and we took phone calls.

[Luke Burbank]

Shout out Corey Schreppel.

[Andrew Walsh]

Absolutely. Apparently he sent us a note the other day. Apparently it was what, the eight year vaniversary of the vaniversary show? Yeah. But anyway, so I'm pre annoyed by other people stealing our glory while we're hiding our light under a bushel over here.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that changes on Friday when we have 8,000 new subscribers to the newsletter and we finally start to get some heat around this show.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

So that other podcasts are going to have to admit that they've been ripping us off for years. For almost 20 years now. Now is what I'm saying.

[Andrew Walsh]

What you need to know is that Dev Dev was the American singer whose vocals are featured on the song.

[Luke Burbank]

Like a G6, my friend. That's what we call the weave and you wove it beautifully. That's what we call the Hugo Weaving. You brought it back to an open question about who. And it's not Kesha, but who is singing in that song. And then right at the end of the show, boom. Nailed it. Thank you for that.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right, the kind words.

[Luke Burbank]

We are going to wrap things up here today. But. And sorry, by the way, we didn't get. There was another couple of emails that I really wanted to get to maybe on Friday show Andrew I could share them. I got a really inspirational email from a listener that. That warmed my heart, made me feel good about TBTL and you and the audience and everybody. So maybe on Facebook Friday we can get into that a little bit. I also want to talk about the. The sort of, I don't know, the iOS update that's tearing my family apart in the Hawk squad. And I want to hear about this.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was checking out at the grocery store the other day and I use my phone, you know, to like beep out to pay or whatever. And the guy behind the counter is like, is that an iPhone? And I was like, no, no, it's just Android. Everything go okay? He's like, yeah, no, it's fine. It's just the Update. The new iOS is just so terrible. I just wanted to talk to somebody about it. I was like, oh, okay. I don't know what's going on.

[Luke Burbank]

I've got the new iOS, as, unfortunately, do other people in my family, and it's. It's turning into a whole situation. So maybe on Thursday we can talk about that. So. All right, thank you for listening, everybody. We are going to be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. I'll be back at the Madrona Hill studio, so tune in for that. In the meantime, everybody, have a good Tuesday. Stay safe, and please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to all. Power out.