A (3:16)

ball, you catch the ball.

B (3:18)

I just wish he was really into America. Speaking of that friend, it's Andrew Walsh.

A (3:24)

He's got like every meme ever produced

B (3:25)

on the Internet and maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships and being the longest running cobra of the show. He's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

A (3:33)

Your friend also has what I like to call Bob Walsh hands. When I was a kid, Bob Walsh is my dad. For people who don't know welcome new listeners. And when I was a kid, I'd be amazed at how kind of dry his hands would get right at the corner of like especially his thumbnails and the skin would just crack. And I always thought like, that's, that's because my dad's a hard working man. And he is and was a hard working man, especially during that phase of his life.

B (4:06)

Steel fabrication. Not a, not a, you know, kind of, not a line of work for the faint hearted and the soft handed.

A (4:16)

But you know who is not a hard worker? His son, Andrew Walsh, who now has the same thing going on with his hands. And what I attribute mine to is not just this cold weather and dry skin that accompanies it, but also washing too many dishes. I've cooked the past few nights, which means my hands have been in the dishwater more than usual. And I'm pretty sure I'm noticing a pattern.

B (4:42)

Your skin dry or oily? No.

A (4:45)

Is that.

B (4:45)

It doesn't. That's a whole drop.

A (4:47)

Sorry. Just goes. Is your skin dry or oily?

B (4:50)

Do you consider your skin. I don't know why, why did I ever put that drop in and why did I just. I mean, I could have played this one. This is worse. You okay, kid? No, I've got dry paws, so it could have been worse.

A (5:03)

Wait, hold on. I have one here that is. Oh, man. This would have been actually a good one to play. I gotta kill the music here. This is. I just can't hear Bernie Mac's voice without missing him so much.

B (5:15)

Oh, you got some lovely hands here.

A (5:17)

Do you moisturize?

B (5:19)

I'm sorry.

A (5:20)

I tried all sorts of brand of lotions. I even went fragrant free for a whole year. Now my sister, she uses camper aloe vera with a little sunscreen in it. Yeah. And ideally speaking, we all should wear gloves for going to bed. But I found out that would be a little interference in my social agenda, you know. Plus, I get a reaction from the camper. I don't know why I have that.

B (5:46)

Ocean's Eleven, right?

A (5:47)

You remember that pretty well, huh?

B (5:49)

Love that scene.

A (5:50)

Yeah. Yeah.

B (5:51)

Well, it's funny that you had mentioned Bob Walsh hands, because I've told this story many times, so we don't need to spend too much time on it. But like, I. My dad had very dry, kind of cracked around the cuticles kind of working guy hands too, because he. Well, I mean, he just did a lot of physical labor. He was a sign painter. Is technically a sign painter, but it's a lot of like lifting and like heavy wood things and whatever. But also a lot of solvent.

A (6:20)

Yeah, yeah, Just kind of, you know,

B (6:23)

just kind of like the. A lot of stuff that was really like, not great for your skin. And we would, of course, pray before dinner each night at the Burbank dinner table. And like, if you got. If you were, I don't want to say stuck, it was one of the bad things. But if you were holding. If you were sitting near my dad and you're holding his hands, I just remember being like, these are. These are man's hands. And you know, my life has been marked by just the soft hands of a podcaster, so.

A (6:48)

But are you starting to get these cracks, though? Like, I do, like, from what I assume is washing dishes too much.

B (6:53)

My hands remain absolutely flawless.

A (6:55)

Wasn't there a. And in fact. And maybe this will transition us into your cleaning project. But I swear I was talking to Hannah, you know, every now and then.

B (7:04)

Hannah Brooks Olson.

A (7:05)

Hannah Brooks Spotless Podcast. Spotless Podcast. Well, the thing is, I'm pretty sure I was talking to her because every now and then my interests in cleaning and commercials overlap when we're talking about a cleaning related commercial, but I'm pretty sure it was with her where she's a bit younger than me by 10 years or so, so I don't know if this was a childhood memory for her, but there was a commercial that ran when I was a kid that was for a dish soap that actually promised to moisturize while you were doing it. I soaked in it, Madge.

B (7:34)

I soaked it.

A (7:35)

I soaked in it.

B (7:36)

But palm olive?

A (7:37)

Was it palm olive. But they Were the same ones who said, palm, Olive, take me away. Right? Or am I thinking calon, take me away. Oh, Calgon, take me away. Palmolive Moisture. Yes.

B (7:47)

Not to be confused with Mon Cheri, which was a chocolate that you eat in the bathtub while locked in your bathroom so your children can't mess with you.

A (7:53)

Oh, wow. That's been a theme throughout the decades. They still make those types of commercials. Yes, Palmolive it was. And it was Madge.

B (8:01)

Madge. I soaked in it. It's. That's actually not a bad idea.

A (8:05)

Right.

B (8:05)

Considering the time, probably the lack of good dishwasher technology or the fact that you had a lot of women who are probably stuck in the kitchen washing a lot of dishes. I also feel like. I mean, you know what I was going to say, not to turn this into dish talk, but let's absolutely turn this into dish talk. I feel like when I was a kid, I don't know if we even did this in our house, but the trope of how you did dishes was you filled up one sink with. If you had, like, two sinks, maybe.

A (8:34)

Or maybe you need, like a split sink. Right? Kind of a.

B (8:36)

If you had that.

A (8:37)

But.

B (8:37)

But maybe even if you didn't, maybe even if it was just one sink, I felt like the way that it always played out in movies and television and commercials and whatever in the pop culture was there was always a basin that was full of soapy water.

A (8:49)

I did it that way. Yeah, I did it that way for a long time, too.

B (8:53)

I think I'm trying to remember my earliest days of, like, living on my own or. Or living with, you know, like, a girlfriend or something. And like, if I. If I was doing that, because that was just like what you saw on tv, but I feel like nobody does that anymore or thinks that's the best way to wash dishes, partially because most of us have dishwashers. But even if not, it now seems to me like I don't really want a basin of soapy, possibly grimy. First of all, the first step is I'd have to wash out. I'd have to scrub out the basin to make sure that there's. No, not that. You know, I have one of those kind of undermount, double, pretty big sinks in my kitchen. It's not like it's super gross, but it's. It's like, I don't scrub that thing out every single day. And so anyway, I. The idea of filling it up with soapy water and then that being what all the dishes get washed in that Actually seems like slightly less hygienic to me now.

A (9:42)

Yeah, that makes sense. Although if you have the split sink, that's perfect because what you're doing is you have one where things are soaking and then you're ideally pulling them over and to the other side and then applying new clean soap to a rag or something. You're not.

B (9:57)

Oh, you wash it again. So there's a soaking side that's not the washing side.

A (10:02)

I mean, although you're right. Like in. In movies, they would just be pulling it up out of the water and then using a rag to do it. But yeah, that depending on what you've made and what's in that water, that rag is going to get really greasy really quickly right now.

B (10:13)

Right. And that water starts to have food particles in it and stuff, and it's kind of a disaster, potentially.

A (10:18)

But for me, like, so last night I made, like, stir fry. And so along with it, I made some white rice. So when I'm done with my white rice pot, which is, you know, just a decent sized, you know, saucepan or whatever you call it, I made white rice last night, too. Nice. And then, you know, that also I want that to soak a little bit anyway while I'm doing other things just to kind of get some of that rice, you know, any residue off.

B (10:39)

Yeah.

A (10:40)

And so I will, like, put a little, like, soap in there and then fill it up with hot water and let it soak. And then other dishes kind of end up in that little pot if they fit some cutlery or whatever. And so I'm still sort of soaking it, but then my whole thing is. And I don't think you probably use this anymore, but like my main kitchen cleaning mechanism, although they are getting worse and worse and cheaper and cheaper, and I'm going through them quicker and quicker because of that. But I still use those plastic wands that you fill with soap in the handle.

B (11:11)

I love those.

A (11:11)

I still use those. And you gotta replace the. You gotta be careful of that sponge. That sponge can get kind of nasty. But as long as you're keeping that sponge clean on the end of that thing, and then you're, like taking dishes out of the soaking water part, then you're scrubbing them with that thing with, like, fresh soap on that sponge and rinsing. And this is the thing. Do you know that I have a little internal thought that it's like a little argument I have probably at least once a day when I'm doing dishes that I hate, that I'm stuck on this and it is a strong belief of mine, as it should be of anybody. This should not be breaking news to anybody, but especially when you're doing dishes that are in the sink, like, you have to clean all sides of it. If it's a glass, you have to clean the outside of it. If it's a plate, you got to clean the bottom of it. If it's a pot, you got to clean the outside of it.

B (12:05)

It's got to get in the habit.

A (12:06)

You got to clean it all out. And I remember Genevieve, I don't know, made a reference to this on social. This goes back, like, so long ago, 10 years at the very least. And Genevieve said something about on social media, I don't know if you know why it would have come up, but something like, well, Andrew would wash the back of the plates too. And a friend of hers who I believe was a high school friend, and I can't even think of his name. I think I met him once before. He was a sweet guy. Seems very, very sweet guy. And I think continued to follow me on various social media platforms. No beef with this man other than I remember him saying, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. So I interpreted that to be when Genevieve or I play bickering on social media. Said something like, well, of course you have to wash the bottom of the plates. He said, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. And I took that to mean, why would you wash the bottom side of a plate? The reason you've washed the bottom side of a plate is because it's been in contact with other greasy plates if they've been stacked. If you've.

B (13:04)

It will sit. The bottom of the plate will sit on the top of another plate.

A (13:08)

There's just a. You all. You need to wash all surfaces. But, like, have you ever been. I have been to places where they give you a glass. You're just kind of like, I don't know that you wash the outside. Not, not, not public places, but somebody's home or something like that. And it's like, yes, of course you wash every. Every available surface on whatever you're washing. Of course you do. It's gross otherwise. And I swear I choose to believe that guy.

B (13:30)

I choose to live my life in the model of Gandhi and assume. Assume Andrew, that he was saying that he found it preposterous that Genevieve would not. And I know she was playing, but, like, would not wash the bottom. I choose to see him as team Andrew.

A (13:44)

I gotta think so He's a sweet guy and he's got a good head on his shoulders. Do you know by the way, I can't think of this guy's name off the. Sorry. I just paused there for a second because I'm like, I'm excited about this. And it occurred to me, I don't know why anybody would be excited about this other than me.

B (14:00)

Eric.

A (14:00)

Yesterday, our listener Eric in Stockholm said, I have a little dazzling detail of a story about Stockholm syndrome that only I find interesting. And then it ended up being the most interesting story.

B (14:11)

His father was pained multiple times for being the kidnapper who for whom Stockholm syndrome is named. Yeah, Eric, it's. Hey do. It's dazzling. Now, meanwhile, deployed all of my Swedish.

A (14:26)

I am telling you that what I am about to tell you is probably only interesting.

B (14:31)

Do Tallar. Dazzling.

A (14:33)

Sorry, but I was scrolling on Blue sky the other day, as I tend to do, and I saw some comedian that I like congratulate somebody. Like they reposted his post that said, hey, I am, I'm joining Blue sky officially now. Like, and he kind of like re quoted himself twice or something like that. Like, basically what I learned was there was some fella who apparently has tons of followers on Blue sky who took a first temporary gig that just became a permanent gig as somebody who's like Blue Skies outreach coordinator or maybe, maybe he's going to be studying how people use Blue sky to make it a better user experience or something like that. And I look at this guy and I that almost every famous person that I follow follows this person. People are congratulating him, they're calling him the mayor of Blue Sky. And I take a screen grab of it. I'm like, Genevieve, this is your friend. This was a friend who again, maybe the through line here is I just get in fights with all of Genevieve's male friends. I don't think that's the case. Or maybe there's a time in my

B (15:41)

life because this was insecure much this.

A (15:45)

I mean, no joke. Let's examine. This was during a period where Genevieve and I were together for probably more like 5 years or something instead of 25 years and she was working at the Atlantic. She actually had. She had like a full time job but took a big risk and quit her salary job to intern at the Atlantic and then scrape together some other jobs. Like literally like she worked in a Harvard museum gift shop or whatever because she really wanted to kind of, you know, get in to journalism and that kind of writing. And she loved the Atlantic and it was it was an interesting time for us, and we weren't living together at the time. I would go down to Boston and visit her. But then her weekends were sort of taken up with the side jobs. She needed to do this weekly or this daily Atlantic thing during the week. But one of her friends at the Atlantic, now, Genevieve is a young woman who's working at the Atlantic and is around a lot of very impressive people and names that you would recognize and bylines and editors and all of that. But there was also somebody who was closer to our age who worked at the Atlantic that she became friends with. And I'm remembering his name now. His name was Josh. Maybe he goes by Joshua now, according to Blue Sky. And I remember my beef with him was he worked at the Atlantic, but his job was to, I believe, edit the letters that come in from readers. Like, there's probably, I'm guessing like probably a two page spread or something at the beginning of every Atlantic. I haven't read a physical copy of that in a while. And again, this is going back 20 years, years. And he would like, sort of bring in the letters that people had written in, reacting to articles, maybe unhappily in Times. And one thing that he would also do is his job was to respond to those letters publicly if he wanted to. So in other words, let's say that you had just written an article about George W. Bush and then a reader wrote in to take you to task on something. He would maybe decide to publish your letter to the editor. But then he would respond.

B (17:45)

He was allowed to respond in the book. Yes, I believe that's a pretty important job, actually.

A (17:50)

And I remember getting into a little bickering debate with him. And again, keep in mind, this guy is like so much more successful than me already at this point. So I'm probably feeling insecure. But I'm also like, very purist about journalism and all of, you know, and public radio in my corner of the world. And I remember just saying, like, because you're.

B (18:13)

Are you at NHPR at this point?

A (18:14)

Yeah, I must be working for New Hampshire Public Radio. But I just remember being like, listen, you guys published a piece. Now you have a place where listeners can respond to that. How about you give listeners the last word? Why do you have to again, go back and then fight with the. And I just remember kind of, I don't think it turned nasty or anything like that, but I just, it always lives in my head that I got kind of got into it with this guy. And I also sort of think that Like, I probably also. There probably was some insecurity there with me because he was a good friend of Genevieve's and, like, you know, very impressive. And maybe I was feeling a little jealous or insecure, generally speaking. But anyway, this is that guy. Apparently he's the mayor of Blue sky now. Like, everybody follows him. Andy Richter follows him is one that,

B (18:57)

by the way, he was just writing

A (18:58)

on Blue sky follows him.

B (19:00)

I saw his feed this morning, and he was writing that he does think it's okay that the Atlantic would have the last word, the letters for him. So I guess he's moved the fight over to Blue Sky.

A (19:09)

Well, do you know what the. The irony is? I was going to write to him. I was like, Joshua, I was going to write just publicly in the comments, like, congratulations, you probably don't remember me. Like, whatever might say Genevieve's guy or something. I was going to write something. But he. And I sometimes think about doing this too. In fact, maybe I have set this setting on Blue Sky. You can set it so that only people you follow are able to respond to your posts, or people that follow you can respond to your post. But in other words, I was locked out of contacting him in any way. And Blue sky sort of differentiated itself from Twitter in that way to kind of cut down on harassment and people sliding into DMs. When sliding is not appreciated, Blue sky gives you all kinds of options. And he has. As the mayor of Blue sky, he has any ability to contact him shut down, unless, apparently you're like, following him or. Or something. And. And so I was not able to reach out to him. And again, the irony being that this following him, right? He always gets the last word. I don't know. I mean, I don't know how he's got his set up, because there's permission. Maybe he needs to follow me. Like, there are various permissions you can set up. And I will be honest with you, I have messed around with that a little bit. Not that I've ever been harassed on Blue sky or something, but, like, this is going to be a little bit rude, but have you ever had the experience of, like, you kind of post something on Blue sky and people just respond in good humor, but you're just like, you're stepping on the joke and, like, it doesn't even matter. This is gonna get like three views anyway. But, like, you just don't want the comments to be just so wildly, like you're not getting the joke or you're stepping on the joke, or you don't need to follow up on this joke. Like, just let it. Let what I wrote sit. So I sometimes kind of appreciate that. Like, you know what? I'm only gonna let people whom I follow respond to my stuff. Does that sound tempting to you? Do you know what I'm talking about?

B (21:07)

Well, yeah, but the problem for me is that I have just not been able to get over the hump with Blue sky for myself. Like, it's just not.

A (21:19)

I wish.

B (21:19)

I mean, I was very excited when I first logged on because, again, it looked a lot like Twitter, which I missed real bad. And I just. There's. I don't. I don't know. I just haven't been able to integrate it into my, like, daily kind of social media, which, Lord knows I'm putting in enough screen time. There's time for Blue Sky. It's just like, I wish that maybe I need to. Maybe with baseball season coming back, maybe this is a chance for me to, like, really kind of, like, engage with Blue Sky. Start following some of those baseball accounts you're following. Start chopping it up and mixing it up. You know, what part of it is, is that the thing that drew me to Twitter was that. Well, first of all, there was. In the early days, there was a lot interesting going on there. And then it was the fact that I had a few little tweets here and there that would kind of take off. And that was like a real. It's like. It's sort of like you go into a casino and you play a slot machine for the first time and you kind of hit a decent jackpot. That is sort of the worst thing that can happen for you for. Because then you associate it with, like, a good outcome, even though it generally doesn't have a good outcome. I just haven't had that with Blue Sky. I haven't tried hard enough. I haven't been. I haven't put in the reps. And so because. Because I've never gotten any traction on Blue Sky. It's not something that I think about going to. So anyway, my point in that is that I guess I haven't given a lot of thought to the permissions on who can respond to my posts. But if I get to the point where any of my posts actually get some attention, that may be something I have to consider.

A (22:45)

Yeah, I mean, you and I. And this goes back to Twitter, too. I just think I. While I started this conversation by talking about things I post to Blue sky, like, really, I don't find the attractiveness of a social media site about whether or not the things I post are getting tons of traction. It's just a place where I'm reading about what's on other people's mind and hearing about other things. You know what I mean?

B (23:07)

You do care about how your post is perceived, as evidenced by not wanting randos to put a comment down that kind of sort of Denigra or degrades the post.

A (23:17)

Exactly. And that's kind of the difference. Like, it doesn't. I'm going to try to see here, like, as you'll be, you know, like, if I. If I tell you about, like the. What my last fee, what my last posts have gotten. It's like nothing. The last thing I posted got 12 likes, you know, and before that it was 15. It was that Perkins thing, you know, and that probably got a few more after we talked about it. Probably was sitting at 3 until we talked about it on the show. Right. You know, and so. So I don't kind of don't get that. But what I don't like is when somebody. And I'm not talking about you, Hollywoo Mike, for not getting my obviously random Perkins. Is Perkins still. Good reference. But I just mean like some answer. Sometimes it's just. It's kind of like you post something that's sort of random or whatever, and then somebody's kind of like, oh, yeah. And then they want to riff on it too, or riff on it but like kind of not get it. Yeah. I don't care if it's only got three. Three likes. But sometimes I'm just kind of like, really, you need.

B (24:11)

You don't want to comment. That's messing up.

A (24:13)

But yeah, just kind of like you're looking. You're like, oh, it's just kind of a reminder that maybe nobody has any idea what you're talking about, sort of. So that maybe a little bit that way. But yeah, for me, it's kind of like, yeah, just sort of seeing what every now and then. And this is happening live right now. Somebody must have just logged on to Blue sky, discovered my account, and is going back and liking things as I speak. Anyway, should we talk about. We were talking about dishwashing, which was a perfect, perfect transition into your water bottle situation.

B (24:42)

Yeah. So I. I'm also curious to get your thoughts on what needs to be washed and how often, because I've got this. So I'm holding this up to you. You. I've shown you these before. I. I basically bought this kind of, you know, like a fancy soda stream. It's Made by a company called Arc A Arke. And it's just a way that you can carbonate your water and, you know, not have to use tons and tons of cans of seltzer water or whatever. And, and so I, I have been, I've never been exactly sure of like how often and frequently I need to wash these because they, all they have in them is water. And then when they're empty, you know, it's like, it's like, I don't, I do sometimes put flavoring in there, but that's sugar free flavoring. So there's nothing, it's not even like, there's not even sugar residue in there. And so anyway, I've had these for a long time. I always rinse them out after I, you know, when they're done, sometimes there'll be a little bit left and I'll dump that out and then I will rinse them out and then hang and then put them in the drying rack upside down. So they're kind of draining out. And that has seemed sufficient. But this morning I was looking at. Actually truthfully what happened was I had one on my nightstand of one of these bottles on my nightstand. And so I have four of these bottles. Two of them are clear plastic and two of them are this like stainless steel one. I like the stainless steel one more. Of course, it's a, you know, design element. But one of the clear ones was on the nightstand in my bedroom for like a good while, like a week, more than a week. I was, I put it on the nightstand before I went out of town. And then last night I woke up at like 4 in the morning, parched, and I cracked the lid on it. Had no carbonation in it, by the way. I don't know if that was because I hadn't carbonated it properly in the first place or whatever. And then I think it had been

A (26:28)

a week or so though. It had been.

B (26:30)

Yeah, it should, if, if you do it right, it should stay carbonated almost indefinitely because of the design of these things. But it was like, I, I open it, it's like flat and it's got some like, I don't know, maybe a hint of some apple flavoring in it. It's room temperature and I'm drinking it, but I'm also like, what am I drinking right now? Like, I was too lazy to go into the kitchen and get like a proper new glass of water. So I drank it out of desperation. But I had this kind of unsettled feeling of like. And then I'm just Lying there in bed going like, can water go bad? If it's like, like you take water from your sink and then you put it into a vessel like this kind of and then you seal it and then you put it on the nightstand. Is there like, I guess it could develop mold maybe or something? I don't know.

A (27:18)

I mean this is your plastic bottle that was on your nightstand. Did it taste plasticky? Because that's my problem. I have one plastic bottle and I've been talking for years about replacing this plastic one. I can't believe I haven't. Honestly, I have gone online and I really can't find the design. I want, I just want an open mouthed. This is not for carbonation but like I like this one. It's an open mouthed metal canister. I don't like powder coated K U

B (27:44)

O W Nice looking.

A (27:45)

Oh yeah. I don't like straws. I feel like everything that I like the looks of that's a metal canister. But then it's the kind that you have to actually kind of pull on, you know, you have to suck on to get water out. And I really hate that. And so I'm having trouble like kind of finding the proper metal. But the plastic one is like if I leave water in there for like two days or something, it starts to taste plasticky. Like that's bad. That's bad.

B (28:10)

Yeah, this is some other kind of. I don't know what the plastic is, but it doesn't. There is not a. I know exactly what you're talking about because I've had water bottles like that. This one doesn't do that. So it didn't taste like plastic, it just tasted like room temperature water. But. But there was something about it that I was like. Basically what started as like a thought in my brain at 4am came to full fruition at about 7:30am when I was like making my coffee and washing some dishes and it was. I looked over and there are these four water bottles and I thought I need to give these a thorough cleaning. And now what I had was a bottle kind of washing device. Like a long wand with a foam puff on the end of it. Here's the thing. I didn't actually go out and buy this thing. There is. And I know you and Veeves don't use Amazon as much or at all anymore. I don't remember if this was an Amazon purchase or not, but I've. What I've noticed in ordering a lot of stuff online is that stuff is now sometimes showing up with just a Random accoutrement that you didn't even actually necessarily order or think you were paying for.

A (29:17)

Are you getting your real order with it though? Because I've been reading more and more about just random things showing up at people, people's houses.

B (29:24)

In this case, I believe what I bought, this was when I was entering my iced coffee era and I realized I didn't have any pitchers, like any like water pitchers or orange juice or any like I did not own like just a pitcher that you could put liquid in. And so I got one that I of course, you know, thought was stylish. And it just showed up with like a bottle washing thing that just came along with the pitcher, which was not, you know, listed as, as part of the, the, the. The transaction, but that showed up. And so that thing has been sitting now in my. There's. I have a little caddy in my sink, you know, that's got like my dishwashing soap and a couple other things. By the way, you know, what I use now all the time is scrub daddies. More so even than that thing on the wand. Because what was happening to me with the sponge on the wand is the sponge would come detached from the wand eventually, you know that like it would just. It would kind of come unglued or something and then it's hanging on by like 50%.

A (30:20)

Well, do you buy the replacement sponges? Like usually I buy a PA Replacement sponges for that and I use maybe, I don't know. One of those plastic handles can probably survive three sponge replacements, I would say, before you need to replace the whole thing.

B (30:33)

I think I was buying some weird cheapo one that it was like not replaceable or something. It didn't. I don't know. Point was, this is what, this is what changed my relationship with scrub daddies was my brother in law, Josh was like. Because I was saying they're really great until they start smelling where he goes. Well, don't you just wash them in your dishwasher? I was like, like, no. So that I'm sure that you and Hannah know all about that. That was kind of a revelation for me. So now I've got like four scrub daddies, which I've mostly stolen from residence inns that I stay in where it comes with a whole kitchenette that I never use. But it has ample scrub daddies in the pla. Like in the bag still in the sealed package.

A (31:10)

Well, I'm still in the. I'm still on the hunt for you because maybe these are the ones you're Talking about. But years ago you mentioned that you

B (31:16)

go to a Scrub Mommy or Scrub Junior.

A (31:18)

Scrub Junior is the one you liked, right? And it might even be Scrub Mommy Junior, which I don't know what we're getting into with that. That's. That's a. That's its own category. That's its own category on some websites, I think, Scrub Mommy Junior. But you liked the little baby ones, right?

B (31:35)

I did. I did. Now. So these are not that. So my, My. My story about residents. And it's maybe falling apart rapidly, but. But the fact that I can just when I'm doing a load of dishes in the dishwasher, because still I have a pretty new dishwasher and I use that a lot. Like, my general thing is there's a few things that I will wash by hand because they're not supposed to go in there. But I mostly. I know you hand wash almost everything. I tend to put stuff in the dishwasher. But anyway, I really like the Scrub Daddy. And now that I can just throw them in the dishwasher when I run it and they come out smelling great. They're very abrasive in the best way in terms of getting gunk off of things and stuff. But all that is to say, this morning, got these four water bottles. I've got this bottle washing thing. And so I think, well, why not? Let's just do this. So I run some hot water into the first water bottle and I put a little soap in there. And I noticed that I'm to get the. Because it's a foam. It's not like I'm not doing a good job describing it. But the bottle washing tool is not like bristles.

A (32:36)

I know exactly where I have one of these. I know exactly where you're talking. Does yours have a wooden handle?

B (32:40)

It does not have a wooden handle. It's plastic, but it's. It's foam. It's like. It's like com. It's like squishy. Foam is what the little flourish on the end is. Right? And again, I want to point out that, like, this was something that came from China, probably like as just a lanyap. So, like, think about the lack of care that went into the production and thought of this bottle washing thing. Like, I didn't go on Amazon. I didn't go to the wire cutter and go New York Times top five. We've tested the top 20 bottle washing tools and here's our thoughts. Like, this thing is. I mean, this has just come from the absolute depths of not being something that has been particularly thought through. So I get to the first bottle and I kind of have to squish it down and kind of to get it into the bottle because it's bigger than the head of the water bottle. But it goes through. So it's like.

A (33:34)

Goes in, it goes in.

B (33:36)

It's like a mouse going through a dime sized hole in a wall or something. It's like, it's like. Okay. And so, and I'm, you know, scrubbing it out, scrubbing out. And then I pull it out and then I rinse it out. Bottle number one finished.

A (33:48)

Okay, great.

B (33:50)

Bottle number two. Now here is where my strategery was. Really, really poor Andrew. The first two bottles that I washed were the clear plastic ones. The ones where I had some intel, I had some insight into what was happening, happening. The last two that I washed were these ones, these solid stainless steel opaque black boxes. And as I'm washing the final one and I'm pulling the dealio out of there, it tears off. It just rips fully in half. And at the bottom of the thingy of the water bottle is just like, it's. This is the worst case scenario because also by the way, the sponge is larger than the opening.

A (34:31)

Yeah.

B (34:32)

You know what I mean? It's like, it's like bloomed inside the water bottle to where now it's like trying to pull a ship in a bottle back out of the bottle.

A (34:40)

You need needle nose pliers. Is that what you used?

B (34:42)

Well, Andrew, I. Because I. Because abc, because I always be contenting. I've got audio of the whole procedure because I threw on my weird meta glasses and just started them. Well, the worst case scenario has happened. I was cleaning, I don't even want to move it. I was cleaning one of these expensive bottles that I make my home brew club soda in. And I was washing with this bottle washer and I was thinking as I was putting in, I washed three of them already. What if this thing broke off? Because if this breaks off in here, particularly in these solid ones, there's no getting it out. These things are like $90 a bottle.

A (35:27)

So

B (35:29)

I'm going to the tool drawer, I'm getting some needle nose pliers. Putting a lot of faith in these needle nose pliers because I can't if I. Okay, okay.

A (35:40)

Okay, good.

B (35:40)

We're getting a lit. I'm extracting now part of the sponge. I mean, you know, I've got, I've got the like the edge of the broken sponge and I'm pulling it, but now it's hitting the, oh, the, the. The opening, you know. And now we're starting to get some, some resistance from the sponge. A little bit out. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, a tiny corner comes out and the rest of it. Okay, that part came out, drops back down, is to the bottom of the bottle. There's still section in there and it has no, it has no motivation to come out. Golly, life is pain. So I'm sitting there and now the needle nose pliers are not going to work because the thing is too far down inside the bottle even. And if I turn it over, it just kind of rests gently inside the bottle. Like I can't get to it. But I realize that the, the tool, the wand that it came on. Now I rip the rest of the sponge off and now I have this kind of long plastic thing which kind of has like a. You think I would know this as a Mariner fan. Is it a Triton or a Trident?

A (36:54)

Trident.

B (36:55)

It's kind of got a trident, although it's technically two prongs. But it's kind of got like, almost like, you know, the thing that you barbecue like, like for barbecuing hot dogs with a little prong thing kind of. It's like, like it's like a plasticky version of that. And so I take it and I like whittle it down a little bit. This is some real like, you know, basically turn it into a prison shiv. What does Phil Hartman say?

A (37:20)

I will. I know what he says, but we will not say it.

B (37:24)

All right, good point. So I whittle it down a little bit with like just a knife I have in the kitchen and I spear the thing and I'm able to extract it and update. I did it. I managed to finagle all of it out of there. I don't know how, but I think anyway,

A (37:51)

yes,

B (37:53)

we are truly more powerful than we imagined. So there you go. A happy ending to the story. And I guess a lesson learned. Do not wash a bottle like this with some cheap, as Walt would say, Chinese bullshit bottle washer thing. Go ahead and get something that is not going to come detached from that. So you have one of these also,

A (38:16)

though I send you a photo of the one I have. I gotta say, Grove is a, you know, cleaning and housewares brand that we used to do ads for.

B (38:26)

Yeah.

A (38:27)

And it is one of those services or one of those brands, I guess, that we did ads for that like really stuck with me. I don't know if I'd use Grove if we hadn't had like the, I guess, professional relationship. But I am still heavily into my grove routine. And yeah, at one point, I don't know exactly why I got this or if maybe it was something free that they gave me. But there's a nice. Because if you. I. I assume you don't want to go back to this bottle washing. No.

B (38:54)

And by the way, I'm looking at yours. Yours looks a lot more. A lot more sturdy than mine was. Again, mine was a freebie that just came, you know, just came in the mail for something that I didn't even know. So anyway. Yeah.

A (39:06)

But if you look at the design of it, it does have a replaceable head and it's this foamy head. But this has definitely happened to me before where it gets lost in there because it's detachable too. And so I had to do. I can't remember. I think I went to needle nose pliers and just worked. It's worked it out. It might also not have been quite as a tight bottleneck. But anyway, I mean, I could see. I could see you getting something like this because it's a little bit. It's a little bit more handsome, probably with the wooden handle and everything. But it is like, that is the thing with bottle washers, right. I feel like that's sort of universal. Like you can get it in, but can you get it back out? It's always that. Those are always the dice you're rolling.

B (39:43)

I had not thought about it, obviously, sufficiently. And again, the irony that, that it was the. I'm gonna send you a picture of basically the kind of. The kind of thing I was dealing with. Although these ones I'm sending you have some kind of a little lever on them, which maybe that's the detacher. I don't know. It looked. It looked more like the thing that I just sent you or that it's on its way to you. But I just thought, like, the irony that also, who in the hell is buying? Like, maybe it wasn't $90. Maybe it was like $75. But these arc stainless steel bottles are so expensive. And I bought one because I was like, this is an investment. This is a handsome family heirloom that I will pass down. Like I was amortizing it. I was going, okay, if I. This is expensive, but think about how much I spend on soda water. And if I never buy soda water again, which, by the way, I have to say to my credit, if I can, I think I don't get enough credit on this show, Andrew. I'VE kind of stuck with this. Are you like, mildly surprised? Like, I'm still like, this is. This is how. I mean, this is how I get my soda water in my life. Is this arc thing. Like, it's. I'm, you know, I like it. I've got a little system. It makes me feel like I'm, you know, doing a tiny bit for the environment. And also, again, I'm not having that experience of just like tons of partially consumed cans of Lacroix or whatever. But I thought the irony that if this. That this thing would break off inside of the most expensive water bottle that I've ever purchased in my life and if it would be stuck in there, like, that would have just been the worst. But again, all's well that ends well, I think.

A (41:15)

Another thing we were talking about soaking before. That's probably the trick for these things. I was just online. I am shocked that a company like arc doesn't have a little part of their store where they're selling specific bottle washers that like, they can make some extra money on that. And also like that kind of stuff. When somebody's bought into a system like this, people like to buy them gifts or whatever. Like here, you know, like, here's your ARC bottle cleaner because we know you like your thing. I think that they're leaving some money on the there. Having said all of that, I have been having an issue. You know, those big, like, kind of traditional looking. I'm trying to think what the brand would be, but like coffee thermoses that have the pump thing on top. I use these things for pop up kitchen all the time, right. So I make coffee and hot chocolate every Sunday. And then when I get back, I got to clean those damn things. And they are. They are a pain in the ass to clean.

B (42:03)

I kind of don't mind doing them as well.

A (42:05)

No, I don't like. The coffee one is usually pretty clean. The chocolate one is really. You really. I gotta rinse it a whole bunch. I let it soak for a while because, you know, it's sticky and it's sugary and it's all that stuff. But I don't have a good bottle washer for that either. I try to get as far down as I can with my bottle washer or maybe my. Maybe my sponge wand. But again, you're risking the sponge if you do that because that could just end up in there too. But the other day I looked down and, you know, I'm not super precious about it. I try to keep them clean, but I looked down, I'm like, yeah, this is, like, really stained with. With years and years and years of coffee in the coffee one. And I know that there are, like, there's all kinds of hacks for this. I think my dad even sent me one one time. It was kind of like a hack of how to get, like, the coffee stains out of your mug. And, you know, with almost everything online, if you type in how to clean X, the response will be combined vinegar with baking soda, you know. Cause it creates that foam volcano. And from a cleaning perspective, chemically, that doesn't make a lot of sense because they kind of cancel each other out. One is a base and one is an acid. And so, by rights, they're not becoming more powerful by combining them. The only good thing about them, though, is that bubbling action, that effervescent action. And so I tried it the other day. Now, these things are huge. I think they hold a gallon each of hot liquid or cold liquid, but. And so I just put a little bit of baking soda and, you know, white vinegar at the bottom of it to see, and I just let it foam for a while. And it really did pull some stuff up. Like, I then put some really hot boiling water in there and then swished it all around and then just dumped it in the sink. And I saw that, like, water came out that was darkened, and the bottom of it, while still not pristine, was cleaner. And I sort of think at the risk of, you know, not rinsing it out, and you end up having. Taking a sip of water that tastes like galloping. If we can go back to the Bible as we. As we did last Friday. But, you know, if you're not worried about your bottles tasting like vinegar, which I think you can make sure of, that might be a good way to clean those things. Just, like, get something down there that can soak and let it do its own job and then shake it up. Well, maybe put some boiling water in there and pour it out as opposed to actually trying to jam a mechanism down there.

B (44:29)

Yeah. Because I have. And I'll show you this, too. This is. We're trying. I'm trying to do as much on the show today that it doesn't involve the listeners as possible. So we're keeping it highly visual. I've got this coffee maker that I use that I love that our friend broadcast, Barry turned me on to, like,

A (44:43)

a coffee pot you held up. It was like a stainless steel. It's a coffee pot.

B (44:46)

It's a thermos. And so as opposed to, like, A glass coffee pot where, you know, you keep it on a. On a kind of a. Maybe a heating element that keeps the coffee warm. This is like, once it goes into the thermos, it stays warm for a long time, which is great. But what I've noticed is that, like. Yeah, I mean, I wash this thing out. Like. I mean, I run some soapy water through it, but it's definitely got, like, it's all brown on the inside. And every time that I wash it and then, like, put it upside down to. To dry out or whatever, I think I need to descale this. But that feels like a whole thing where I'm going to go on the Internet and they're going to say vinegar and baking soda.

A (45:22)

Yeah, they are. And I just never feel like it's

B (45:23)

the day for that.

A (45:24)

They always, always say that. Yeah.

B (45:26)

Somebody doesn't make a product, I would feel like there's some kind of. And it would be something that comes up on spotless, where there's somebody doesn't mix the vinegar and baking soda for you and throw it in a pellet.

A (45:37)

I mean, it's really. It's about as easy.

B (45:39)

Pretty straightforward. Yeah, I know. Who has the time? We was hoping for some razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle dazzle. On your mark. On your mark.

A (45:49)

Get set, get set now. Ready, ready, Go.

B (45:53)

Everybody rattle dazzle. Hey, let's thank some dazzling donors. Since we don't have that lucrative Grove account anymore.

A (46:01)

I'm giving them money. The money's going one way these days.

B (46:04)

Exactly. We've really inverted the business model where we pay the former sponsors. If I told you the amount of money that I've given to Dude Box,

A (46:18)

I don't think we ever did dude box.

B (46:20)

No, I don't think we did dude box. We did do, like one of those box things where it would, like, kind of.

A (46:25)

It was like Father's Day. We did one main.

B (46:27)

We did one that was like nerd box, too, or geek box or something.

A (46:31)

Something. Yeah.

B (46:32)

It was some things that were geek oriented.

A (46:34)

I. You know what? Yeah, maybe we did do that. But there was one that you sort of get, like. There was one that was like man box or something like that that, believe it or not, you backed out of. You're like, nah, that's weird. And broy. And I was like, I don't know. It's Father's Day. Like, if we have a Father's Day message, I didn't mind the overly genderedness of it, which is Usually something that, you know me usually really irritates me. And so I did it. And I did get something nerdy out of it. I got like one of those little raspberry PI, make your own computer thing. But you also could. I could have chosen, like the leather working one or the, I don't know, kill your own cow and make a steak one or something like that. I don't know what all the options were.

B (47:17)

Well, we're not getting that dude box money anymore, so now we rely on the donations of the listeners. And somehow all these years later, that's. That has worked. 100% listener supported podcasting and thanks to Sara Vela, who's in Booth Bay, Maine. Sarah says, put a little Spanish on it, but not too much. Sarah, nothing strikes fear into the heart of a gringo. Then put a little Spanish on it, but not too much.

A (47:46)

I think these were Sarah's marching orders last year as well. And I believe that we shuttered in a similar way.

B (47:54)

Put a little Spanish on it, but not too much. I don't know where the line is of you either. A little, but not too much.

A (48:01)

Yeah.

B (48:01)

Oh, I know what no Spanish on it sounds like. A mild sense of what too much Spanish sounds like. Oh.

A (48:09)

Oh. Luke is reaching for a sombrero right now. This is getting problematic. Maybe we should just.

B (48:13)

That's too much. Problem.

A (48:14)

That's too much. Let's read the message.

B (48:17)

Sarah says, oh, gosh, it's time of.

A (48:18)

That.

B (48:19)

It's that time of year again, huh? Normally I would put in a plug here for my business and maybe say a few funny things about Maine life, but my brain is mush and I'm not in a promotional spirit. I love you business boys a bunch and I love all the tens. Please play the longish version of that's a Tuna, bro. If you got access to that. Andrew.

A (48:40)

Yeah, I'll get this.

B (48:40)

Yeah, you can. It makes my Massachusetts raised heart happy. Please also know that not all Red Sox fans are a holes like me. For example, I am a good hang. Would not be annoying if I came to a game in Seattle even if we won.

A (48:53)

I thought she was saying not all Red Sox fans are a holes like me,

B (49:01)

period. There's a period in there. Not all Red Sox fans are a holes, period. Like me, comma, for example. I am a good hang and would not be annoying if I came to a game. Sarah, I absolutely believe that about you. And I've really been. I have. I've talked about this kind of a lot now. Something fundamental shifted in me at that Yankees game that I attended. Now, maybe this is part of it. Maybe it's because I was at Yankee Stadium, Andrew. I was. You know, I was. I was in their world, Grandmama. And maybe the thing that's tough for me is if I'm at a Mariners game and then the opposing team's fans are in, quote, unquote, our house and are being boisterous, maybe that would be different. But there was something about me sitting in Yankee Stadium surrounded by these Yankee bros who I kind of liked. They were just. You know, they were kids in their 20s, but they. And they love the Yankees. But it's like, yeah, because you grew up on Staten island, of course you love the Yankees. It. It was good for me because it gave me a little bit more room in my heart for fan bases of teams, particularly sort of iconic teams. The Yankees, the Red Sox, the Dallas Cowboys. These fan bases that I've always just kind of, you know, been. Been pretty, sort of had not much patience for. So. And then you throw in the fact that Sarah has been such an awesome friend of the show and supporter and all that. Sarah, I would. I would absolutely sing Sweet Caroline with you at a Red Sox game or Bingo Loco if. If that's what you wanted to do. Sarah says, that's just something I keep meaning to send you a voicemail about just talking about the Red Sox fandom. Hug everyone you love, tell them you love them as much as possible, and fuck ice. Xo X.

A (50:47)

Done, done, and done.

B (50:48)

Could not agree more with all of those sentiments, Sarah. So thank you for supporting the show. Go Red Sox. And. And. And, yeah, fuck ice. Absolutely.

A (50:59)

All right, so I have a whole bunch of versions of this Boston Fisherman thing cut up, and I have one that's like five minutes long that says full. And the thing is, I think that is littered with profanity. That is not deep. And now I've got two.

B (51:11)

We only use the F word in relation to ice on this one, not in relation to sunfish.

A (51:16)

That's a really good point. What are we doing here? But I have part one and part two that are cut down to about a minute and about three minutes. I don't know how much of this we want to hear, but I like to think this one might have been edited for radio play. I'm not sure, though.

B (51:31)

Sometimes less is more.

A (51:33)

But Jay says it's a big sea turtle.

B (51:37)

Look, it's a baby wheel, man.

A (51:40)

Holy.

B (51:41)

We are witnessing a baby wheel right here, dude. Holy. That thing is big, Jay, what is that thing? It Looks hurt.

A (51:50)

I don't know.

B (51:51)

That thing looks hurt.

A (51:53)

Jay.

B (51:55)

Jay, that thing is hurting, bro. Holy. Look at this thing.

A (52:01)

Oh, my God. What the is that, bro?

B (52:05)

Jay, what the is that?

A (52:08)

Oh, man.

B (52:08)

Pull back up, Jay.

A (52:10)

I always forgot about the biggie in the background. Come on.

B (52:15)

Come on, bro. Pull back up, bro. We're seeing some we ain't never seen before, kid.

A (52:21)

Oh, my God.

B (52:22)

That thing looks dead, man.

A (52:24)

We gotta call the aquarium or something, dude.

B (52:27)

You want to try to pull it in?

A (52:30)

Let's hook it. Oh, man, that thing's just dead.

B (52:37)

What the hell is it?

A (52:40)

That's just the one minute.

B (52:41)

You know what, by the way, I. I'm just. I'm reminded of one of the many amazing things about this or one of the great sort of elements of this is that these guys didn't turn out to be actors pretending to be crazy. It wasn't like, even, you know, viral. Even our favorite, you know, but that doesn't stop a foamer, we learned later was someone doing a character.

A (53:02)

Yeah.

B (53:02)

Really into trains. It seems like so often when something is really over the top and funny, it's because the people doing it were in on the joke. This one, I've never heard any evidence. These people have not been milkshake ducked as far as I know. And they've not been outed as, like, a couple of improv guys who are doing a bit. Yeah. Which we love.

A (53:22)

We were just talking at dinner the other night. Somebody brought up. Oh, I can't think of his last name. The famous milkshake ducking. A mild milkshake ducking of Ken Bone. Bone. Bone. I was saying Boone. I was 10 away from nailing that. But, yeah, Ken Bone, by the way. And then we'll just pop up in conversation.

B (53:41)

There's a great show called you'd 16th minute. It really good podcast that sort of. That sort of finds people who had that moment in time and then kind of, you know, like, follows up and finds out how they're doing now and really deep dives into the, you know, into the original moment. So it's. Ken Bone is one of them, first of all, deeply likable dude.

A (54:07)

And he. He joins the podcast. Or they just talk.

B (54:09)

Yeah, he's on it. He's interviewed, and he's great. He's so likable. And I forget now, even though I listen to him, it. I forget what the. You know, I think what it was is he had written a couple of, like, stupid comments.

A (54:23)

One was sort of ugly about. I think maybe something light. Porn ish Related and he had commented on it or something and. Yeah.

B (54:31)

And a few other things. And the thing that I found really kind of it's. By the way, Jamie Loftus is the host. She does a lot of great stuff that I really appreciate. But like, you know, he is so first of all, he owns whatever the comments were. He owns them in the most like genuine way that you just like hope somebody would. He's just like, yeah, I don't know why I did that. That's really embarrassing. Whatever it was, it sort of. For my mind anyway, it sort of neutralized it a little bit, or at least it was, you know, and then just like, he's just like a really interesting dude actually and you know, very sort of jovial and whatever. So.

A (55:04)

Yeah, and that makes sense. That's why he had that moment of. Of Internet curiosity.

B (55:09)

Right? Well, the whole story of. Yeah, yeah. The story of how he even ended up. It was like a town hall involving Hillary Clinton and I forget who.

A (55:17)

The other undecided voters. Right. He was one of the undecided voters.

B (55:20)

Something like that.

A (55:21)

And he actually, I think it might have been because we were just talking about this at dinner like two nights ago. I think it was a debate. And I don't know if he was at the debate or in one of those rooms at, you know, at NBC or cnn, but he was with a group of undecided voters who were then giving reactions after a debate.

B (55:38)

I think he was in room and he was. It was unclear to him if they were going to get to his question or not in the. Your 16th minute. He talks about the process of like writing down these questions and submitting them and how kind of like he just didn't even. It literally was such a last second thing. I think he might have even worked in the. He asked something about power deregulation or something having to do with coal or energy and he sort of worked in that industry. But anyway, it's a great episode. The other one that's really good is the 40 or 50 feral hogs guy. Oh yeah, Remember this whole.

A (56:08)

Yeah. Gun rights guy. Right.

B (56:11)

Basically it was like. I think it was a. It was some kind of a. I forget what the. What the original post or event was, but it had to do with AR15s or had to do with assault weapons or whatever. And then this guy comes into the comments and is like, yeah, but what. How am I supposed to protect my children in the backyard from 40 to 50 feral hogs? And then he just got absolutely toasted by the Internet and What's interesting is, is she goes back and interviews him, and it's like, yes, it's. It's an insane thing to say, except it turns out that, like, based on where he lived and actual feral hog stuff, like, there was a. It was. It was 5% less unhinged than, like, it just came off as in the comment section. And then again, he also was like, she's like, well, where'd you get 40 to 50? And he's like, talking about it. And again, both with him and Ken Bone. Not that Ken Bone was just making a bad faith argument about assault weapons, which I think this guy sort of was. But this guy is actually very. He's not. He's not as defensive as you would think. He's not as reactionary as you would think. He's actually, you know, he's not on my side of the politics, but he's also not like a complete scumbag. You know, he's a really good show. Would recommend your show.

A (57:22)

Can I ask you a question about the show in general? Would somebody like Tan mom not be. I mean, maybe I should just ask Loftus about this, but would Tan mom not be on that show? Because she did parlay that moment into a bit of continued fame in a very niche area of the Howard Stern fandom. But, like, I wonder if that would make her, like, sort of not really apply to this. Cause she didn't slip back into obscurity.

B (57:46)

I have a lot of thoughts on that, by the way. Sorry. The show is called 16th Minute of Fame. 16th Minute of Fame. And I think the reason that. My guess is that the reason that she wouldn't necessarily talk to Tan mom would be less about Tan mom having extended her minutes and more that her name is Patricia Krentzel is Tan is the real name of the woman we know as Tan Mom. And that is. She does not seem to be a person who is fully mentally balanced.

A (58:15)

Sure. Yeah, yeah.

B (58:16)

Like, because she's on Stern all the time. So, like, I hear a lot of her on that show. And, like, what's. What's interesting about this 16th minute of fame podcast is the people that Jamie is.

A (58:27)

Is.

B (58:27)

Is interviewing are there. You know what I mean? They're. They're all there.

A (58:32)

They have their marbles.

B (58:33)

You might not agree with their marbles, but they've got them.

A (58:35)

She's careful not to. You might not agree with their marbles. Yeah. And she. She doesn't want to be exploitative in any way. Exactly.

B (58:41)

And she's not. And again, it really ends up Sort of humanizing these people in a way that was like, again, particularly the feral hogs guy, because, you know, I'm just like, I just, you know, I want this guy to be, you know, sort of of put up in the town square and tarred and feathered for his idiotic ways. And then you hear him talk for 45 minutes and you're like, all right, don't tar and feather him. Like, we don't agree on everything, but he's. He's not the person that I thought he was when I heard about the 40 to 50 feral hawks comment kind of a thing. One other quick. And then I'll stop promoting that podcast and I'll start promoting ours by way of thanking our second donor. That's where I learned about Elvis. Presto was from Jamie's podcast. And what. What it was was the first ever

A (59:23)

super bowl halftime show that wasn't a marching band.

B (59:26)

That wasn't a marching band. And it was basically a magician who looked like Elvis. The problem was three days, a few days before the super bowl halftime show, the guy who was supposed to do it booked. I think it was maybe a blue jeans ad. This tells you how big the super bowl halftime show was at the time. The guy who was going to play Elvis Preston got a better offer and did it. And so I think it was the choreographer had to, like, be basically don the Elvis suit and do this, like, magic show at midfield as Elvis. And I think she interviews that guy who ended up moving to Portland, opening a yoga studio. It was like, a whole thing. So anyway, your 16th minute or 16th minute of fame, I should say do.

A (60:10)

Check it out.

B (60:11)

As I like to say after you've eaten your tbtl. Maestro, on your mark.

A (60:16)

On your mark. Get set, get set now. Ready? Ready.

B (60:23)

It's Mike Mead out there in West Lynn, Oregon, but moving back to the Seattle area soon. Luke, you outed me a few years ago when I moved to Portland. I believe this was when Becca and I were on a walk. We were walking by a Mexican restaurant in Portland and sitting outside, I believe was Mike and his wife.

A (60:41)

Now, this is Mike's. Oh, I'm sorry, were you going on?

B (60:45)

Well, no, that was just.

A (60:46)

Just.

B (60:46)

That was. I guess I outed you. Maybe I. Maybe what it was was I. I mentioned on the show that, hey, I ran into listener Mike and his wife, and maybe it wasn't public knowledge that they were moving to Portland or something.

A (60:55)

I was just gonna say, this is Mike's second appearance in this year's dazzling donor messages. I don't know if you recall, but I. I'm gonna say a couple of weeks ago we were thanking Asia who said Mike is her new boss there. Oh yeah, for Mike. Now, Mike.

B (61:12)

Mike.

A (61:12)

Mike is like the official ballot counter of tbtl, or at least was for like a Song of the Summer contest at Chateau San Michelle one year.

B (61:20)

By the way, he's in accounting, so I mean, who else he is? He's basically Mike Waterhouse Cooper.

A (61:27)

Exactly. Right for us.

B (61:29)

Exactly. Shows up with a suitcase, it's handcuffed to his wrist. Very official.

A (61:34)

I think he's literally saved in our official, like kind of TBTL voicemail line account as Accountant Mike or. Or known Mike the Accountant, which actually

B (61:44)

sort of sounds like a Jason Statham character.

A (61:46)

That's what I was going to say. Why does that sound so badass? Like, it's one of those things. It's like an understated badass name.

B (61:52)

Mike, I think that is literally. Now that right? Isn't that a Ben Affleck character? Isn't he called the accountant in a movie where he's like, well, a badass accountant?

A (62:00)

I didn't know that, but that answers my question that probably did seep into my brain at some point and ask. Okay, Aston answered.

B (62:06)

We have, by the way, we have an update on that. Which if we do emails and emails today, maybe we can delve into that a little bit too because it was quite illuminating to me.

A (62:13)

Anyway, account in 2016. He's got a gun and everything,

B (62:18)

which is a weird way to do someone's taxes.

A (62:21)

It really is.

B (62:23)

I just shoot at your deductions.

A (62:26)

Signed and signed.

B (62:27)

Okay, Mike says. Honored to be able to dazzle again this year to keep my own write offs legit. And again, if there's anyone who would know, it's the accountant. Check out cla Clifton Larson Allen for your accounting, wealth advisory, tax and digital consulting needs. I'm honored to lead our practice in the Pacific Northwest. But enough about me. What you should really do is head to Respite. Respite Wine and bottle shop on Stoneway in Wallingford. That's where you are. Near Andrew.

A (62:58)

Not so much anymore, but I still.

B (63:00)

You're closer than I am. You're in Seattle.

A (63:02)

Yeah.

B (63:03)

To support a great woman owned business that makes fantastic food and sells good natty wine from a diverse group of suppliers. My cousin and an occasional listener, Hanley is the co owner. I've made a deal with her that the first tens who come in and have a glass, it's on me. Respitbottleshop.com for more info. For more info. And FOMO for me.

A (63:27)

Mm.

B (63:28)

I'm fomoing that. Would it be inappropriate, Andrew, if you and I went in to collect on Mike's.

A (63:35)

Ed just said just leave the bottle. I've always wanted to say that before. Just leave the bottle, you know.

B (63:40)

Yes, it's on Mike. Yeah, it's on the accountant.

A (63:43)

It's on Mike.

B (63:44)

Thanks for.

A (63:44)

I know. I know this area really well.

B (63:47)

Well, yeah, it's a great part of town. You could go there and you could have a little. A little wine, a little. A little snack. You could toddle on down a little further to that Pacific fish and chips or Pacific Inn. Right, Pacific.

A (64:00)

And the PI. I love that place.

B (64:02)

Over on the other side. You've got. You've got. Well, actually, the whale wins. Did the whale win?

A (64:08)

Closest door.

B (64:10)

So. Wow. The whale lost.

A (64:12)

Although I think they're way of putting it.

B (64:14)

I think they're doing some other. I like that. I liked that.

A (64:17)

Yeah, me too. Yeah, that was a nice place.

B (64:20)

So thanks for all you guys do. Signed Mike Langley, Puddle and Lauren. The silent 11. Of course. This is also. This is Langley and Puddle town. Although they're probably like, what are they probably in their twenties now?

A (64:32)

I don't. Because I know they listen to the show and I don't want to like kind of sort of sound patronizing or something, but I'm pretty sure I can't remember if I got a voicemail recently from Langley or Puddle, but it was

B (64:46)

astounding asking you to pick them up from the mall saying they weren't supposed

A (64:51)

to be there again. But it is funny. I don't think I've ever met Langley and Puddle in person or so they would have been very, very, very young. Maybe Langley, but I don't think so. But the point is, I have heard these children grow up in front of my ears, if that makes sense because they call in with jokes and everything and they're just absolutely delightful as a full family unit and as individuals. But I received a voicemail from one of the girls recently and I was like, like, wow, they grow up so quickly. They grow up so quickly. Again, I'm not even just talking about the way I hear their voices on the voicemail line. What?

B (65:30)

This has probably already happened. You know, this is a weird transition. So please, this is. I'm not applying this to Langley and Puddle who are still, in my opinion, young people in the world. But there, if we do this long enough, there will be a point where the so called children of TBTL the people who grew up listening to TBTL as young children will then move into adulthood and will have their own children.

A (65:50)

Yeah, that'd be.

B (65:50)

Have we yet gotten to the second generation of TBTL listeners? That being people who were. And I'm not talking about you were 15 when the show started, but maybe somebody who is like 10, because we've been doing it 17 years. 27. That's a thing that could happen. Like, at some point we are going to start having, like, TBTL grandparents, like people who raise their children on TBTL and whose children are now having children and are ideally raising those children in the TBTL ways.

A (66:20)

And we would be their. Their great, grand, grand podcasters. Just great. We would just be their grandpa.

B (66:28)

We're the parents of the listeners. Okay, so, like, we're. We're the parents of the listeners. And so if their children have children, we're the great grandpa parents.

A (66:37)

I didn't know that we were the parents of the listeners.

B (66:39)

We are. You didn't know that?

A (66:40)

No, I thought they were.

B (66:41)

Have you checked your contract lately? Yeah, we are legally the guardians of the listeners.

A (66:45)

Oh, that's interesting. And so I can write them all off. Off as dependents.

B (66:49)

Ask Mike.

A (66:49)

You've been doing that.

B (66:51)

And a lot worse. A lot worse. Hey, Mike, could you get me out of a couple of jams?

A (67:04)

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

B (67:07)

All right. I was texting with you last night, Andrew, about a TV show that I do want to talk about at some point that I've been getting into. But you said, oh, yeah, I can't watch that right now because I am watching the World Baseball Classic, which, as I said, I think last week, I, I would say traditionally I've sort of had a little bit of a hard time getting into it. Maybe it's like blue sky to me, but man, oh, man, I switched over to the last couple of innings of that USA Mexico game last night, and it was, man, the crowd was amped, the players was amped, the game was amazing.

A (67:41)

I know you missed most of it, but it was just a really good, fun baseball game.

B (67:47)

And I, I, you know, again, I've been seeing. And maybe this is also has to do with the clipification of the world and social media, but because, so let's just say four years ago when the World Baseball Classic happened, I was probably not on TikTok or not on TikTok as much. So it was happening kind of out of sight and out of mind. For me, what's happened this year is, is I keep seeing clips because TikTok knows that I like baseball and just keeps showing me these like fun, memorable moments where like somebody hits a walk off home run or whatever and then they're just like going wild and the crowd is going wild and you kind of, you sort of. I was, I'm realizing something I didn't get in previous years, which is like how much this means to people from other countries. Like if you're somebody from the Dominican Republic, it is such a big deal. If you're somebody from Mexico, if you're somebody from Great Britain to a lesser degree, you see the Netherlands going up against the doctor, it's just like, yeah,

A (68:44)

that's kind of the one thing I told you I was. Because I had never really been into it before this year either. And I really enjoyed a couple of the very early games which were, I'm trying to think like they were basically two underdogs playing each other, one being slightly more underdog.

B (68:57)

Australia and Czech Republic.

A (68:59)

Yeah, there was Australia and the Czech Republic, but before it was the Czech Republic it was Australia. And I want to say Taiwan was the first game and both of them were like, I didn't know very many of the players. You didn't have a lot of American stars or, you know, I guess I should say MLB stars on those teams. But I just enjoyed it because it was like, it was real baseball, but it was like, you know, they. I didn't really know a lot of the players. It was fun in its own way of sort of discovery. But then what happened was, and I missed a lot of these games. Then when the competition moved on, there were all of these just like really bad matchups. You know, just like there's literally. I didn't know this, but there's literally immersed rule. Like I think Japan has mercy ruled at least two teams now, I think, or maybe not, I shouldn't say at least one or two teams. And it's kind of like that's no fun for me. I did not like looking at all these like 15 to 1. Like there's, there's, there's no fun in that. Well, but now that things are sort of sorting out a little bit and will in the next round, it's kind of been fun to see these, the really good teams match up against each other too.

B (69:56)

Well, because you've got like five countries that have a super strong baseball culture. I'm doing that off top of my head. But you got like the U.S. japan, Dominican Republic. I don't know if Cuba is playing this.

A (70:08)

Yeah, yeah, that's A good point.

B (70:09)

Cuba, Mexico.

A (70:11)

Yeah, Mexico.

B (70:12)

You know, and then, and then, you know, Venezuela a little bit. Puerto Rico. Although, I mean, is that a us. Is there a Puerto Rico team?

A (70:21)

There is a Puerto Rico team, yeah.

B (70:22)

Interesting as a, you know, I mean, listen, I think if anything we should, we should consider Puerto Rico to be more part of the United States than we do and have historically in terms of supporting them. But that's kind of interesting that they're their own team, even though technically they're part of the United States.

A (70:36)

Let's see here. Yeah, Cuban, Puerto Rico are played yesterday.

B (70:40)

So those are, I mean, obviously hotbeds of baseball talent. Then you have Great Britain, then you have. Is Ford still a Mariner or did he get traded? This kid whose last name is Ford?

A (70:51)

No. Yeah, he went to, he was a prospect, the catcher that we didn't really use last year, Harry Ford. I'm trying to think where he went, but we traded him in the off, off season.

B (70:59)

Well, he was the only standout player on Great Britain.

A (71:03)

Oh, he's playing for Great Britain. Oh, okay.

B (71:05)

Yeah. The other day I said, isn't there a Mariner on there? But it wasn't, it was a former Mariner, but I've seen him, you know, hit a couple home runs or whatever. All that is to say, this was what I was surprised by last night, Andrew. I was surprised by you, but more so I was surprised by myself, which was United States was playing Mexico and I turned it on and I noticed that the US Was winning five to three. And my reflexive knee jerk reaction was to root for the. It was the ninth inning at that point and the US Closer was on the mound. And my, my initial immediate knee jerk response was to root for the closer, for the U.S. team to close out the game and for the U.S. to continue to be undefeated. And somehow in texting back and forth fourth, you were talking about how it was a no brainer for you to be rooting for Mexico. And I, I was first, I was like kind of surprised by that. But then I thought, well, why am I rooting for the U.S. there's so much about this country that is so messed up right now. We're doing so much bad stuff in the world and yet at the end of all of that, it would be something fundamental in me would be violated if I wasn't rooting for the United States in an international competition. I don't know. So I'm not saying I'm proud of that, but I guess I'm just saying that's how My brain and heart work.

A (72:23)

I don't like. Out of people who are following the world baseball class. I'm sorry, let me rephrase this. Out of Americans. Out of US Citizens who are rooting

B (72:31)

for the US Americans.

A (72:33)

US Americans. By the way, this is such an aside, but something's been eating away at me. Actually, it's somewhat related to the wbc. The other day I saw that basically most of these games have been either on FS1, FS2 or your local Fox affiliate. Okay. FS1 and FS2 stand for Fox Sports 1 and 2. So it's mostly been air. And then I think there's some FUBO in there too, or something like that. But anyway, I don't have cable, but I do have a sort of, let's just say a workaround online that gives me access to various channels. And you're always sort of hunting around. Every time I like, I go to the WBC schedule like three times a day. And every time I go there, it's the Internet's like, you go here a lot. I'm like, I know I go here a lot. Just keep it at the top of my search results, please.

B (73:23)

Filling it in for you.

A (73:24)

Is this game going to be. Yeah. Which one of these channels is it going to be on? And the other day it said it was on Fox, and I was a little confused as to how to use the system I was using. And I put it on Fox News, so. Which was now Luke.

B (73:36)

That's bracing, Luke.

A (73:37)

I was literally on fox news for

B (73:42)

15.

A (73:43)

I'm gonna say 15 seconds out. Like 20 seconds is maybe the most I was on there.

B (73:50)

And you don't think. You live in a bubble.

A (73:52)

And in that moment, I heard. And I can't think of his name, but he's a longtime Fox News guy. I think a lot of the iconic guys are gone now. Right. But it's not like Tucker's not on there anymore.

B (74:03)

Anymore.

A (74:05)

But it was just like one of the guys who presents more as a straightforward newsman, sort of what I've been seeing his face for decades.

B (74:11)

Probably Steve Doocy or Brian Kilmeade might have been. I thought the name two are the longest running.

A (74:18)

Maybe it was. I thought the name would ring more of a bell. It doesn't really matter. But what I heard in this tiniest moment as I was looking for baseball but ended up was, it was after Reverend Jesse Jackson passed away recently. Right? Yeah. And I think they just had his.

B (74:35)

Yeah, they had a memorial for him in Chicago.

A (74:38)

And what I heard Was in just a minute, it. Barack Hussein Obama gets political at Jesse Jackson's funeral. But first. And then I changed it, and then I couldn't get out of my head. You made jokes, like, years ago when we were first friends, you would say, barack Hussein Obama. I say the middle name because it matters. And you'd say that sarcastically.

B (75:02)

I think that's a reference to an SNL bit.

A (75:04)

Oh, okay. But either way, like, I know how much propaganda happens on that station, and it really breaks my heart because I know people who just think of it as the news, and that's a huge, huge, huge problem in the world and in my life. But when I hear it for 15 seconds and they're still leaning on the Hussein Obama because it matters, it never even occurred to me that that would even still be, like, a tiny little needling thing that they would do. I don't know.

B (75:34)

I'm pretty surprised. I'm honestly pretty. Like, I don't watch Fox News. I'm a little surprised that they're still on that one, just because it literally seems almost, like, out of fashion in a way. Not because I think they've become better people or something, but, like, it just shows you how. I mean, this is the. Whatever.

A (75:49)

We're still doing the tan suit. It's like we're doing all of this horrible, horrible, horrible stuff. We're like, you know, we're talking. I was at the gym the other day, and they had a segment on Fox News. I was. I tried not to pay attention to it, but they had a segment on

B (76:01)

Fox News about playing that in the gym.

A (76:03)

Yeah, they have a whole bunch of cities, but one of them is set to Fox News. And it's really driving me bananas because the machines, I, like, are near it. And it was kind of like how, you know, how I will use their language. Not mine, but on the chyron, it's like illegal immigrants are making the roadways less safe or something like that. It was just like. I mean, they're literally like, the propaganda machine is so far past Barack Hussein Obama wearing a beige suit, but they're still not letting go of the. The Hussein beige suitiness of it all. You know what I mean?

B (76:35)

No, because they don't have enough real stuff to be mad about because they have complete domination. They have the White House, they have the Supreme Court, and they have Congress. And so it's like they're almost suffering from a lack of, like, new content. I mean, some of it is a lack of imagination on their part, but a lot of it Is in fact, the only effective, the only way that I've been effective in the last couple of years, however long it's been, year and a half of Trump v. 2 of actually, like, seeming like maybe I broke through a little bit with somebody who was a Trump backer, was I just said to them, you guys have it all. You have all of the branches of government. So if there's anything that you don't like, the only person that you can be frustrated with is Donald Trump and is your own party. There is not another branch of government that is outside of your grasp right now. And I remember the person actually, it was probably like a Uber driver or Lyft driver kind of pausing and go, well, that is a good point. And it's hard to get a. Well, that is a good point from somebody when you're having one of those conversations. But it's almost like, you know what I mean? It's like, yeah, they're still calling him Barack Hussein Obama because they just, they just, like, there's just literally nothing else for them to be mad about. I mean, listen, they'll find something aggrieved and they're all. But it's like, it's like, it's like they're still, they're still replaying. They're still spinning that record because there's a dearth of actual Democrat pushback anywhere on any level that's effective and that they can get mad about. You know, we've just.

A (78:08)

So whatever. Yeah, I can't even, I mean, right now, my brain is spinning with other examples I want to give you about conversations I've had that I really shouldn't and wouldn't and couldn't talk about on this show. But it is so scary when you realize that the party that is in power and is wielding that power in some of the most unimaginably cruel ways without any kind of restraint, still feel like the aggrieved party and always will. Because what Hollywood is liberal. Like, it is just, it's beyond now going back to the baseball classic. What. And I asked this, seriously, what was I talking about? Why in the world. Because I knew that I'd flipped on the TV and I'd seen that thing about Fox and I needed to get that off my chest because I saw that like a week ago and I keep thinking about it and you and your, your joke from back in the day.

B (78:58)

Well, I mean, the thing, this is, by the way, this, I'm, I'm opening a portal into the exact same kind of talk. So we probably shouldn't. We shouldn't go here or we don't need to go here. But again, I. I think I'm a. I think I'm still a USA boy, you know, which is weird because I'm, you know, I'm obviously. Seriously, I'm horrified by everything this country is doing, and I still want us to win international baseball games.

A (79:22)

Well, here's the thing with me, and I was thinking about this a little bit yesterday after our text conversation, because you're like, oh, yeah, I guess I just automatically root for them. And you were surprised that I was rooting for Mexico. And there's just, like. I almost feel like I have too much to say on this now that I think about it and examine it a little bit more. But I honestly didn't examine it all that much before. You were surprised by it? Because I was texting with other friends about it. We have a friend who grew up in Mexico, Neil. And I was texting him, like, literally, my. And I don't. I don't know who he's rooting for, by the way, but he's a huge baseball fan and a baseball player himself.

B (79:55)

And, like, I'm guessing Mexico.

A (79:56)

I would guess so, too.

B (79:57)

Like, listen, if I had one toe in any country that wasn't the U.S. yeah, hardcore. Rooting against or for that team and

A (80:04)

against the US But I was texting with some other friends yesterday, too, who are just, you know, born in the US and they're just like, you know, rooting for. I just think that, first of all, I think the World Baseball Classic really splits up your loyalties. There's just like that. It's like, yeah, you can root for America or you can root for this other team that has a bunch of your players on it. Like, a bunch of mariners are spread across a whole bunch of different teams. And so for me, the fun sort of is each game is a little bit different. It's kind of like, I always kind of root for an underdog situation. I have ever since I saw, I'm going to say maybe in the past five or 10 years, the Mexico national team logo. I've been obsessed with it. I was telling you yesterday that I almost bought. Bought a Mexico hat when I was leaving Mexico our last trip. Like, I think it was at the airport. I was so dumb. This is such a cringe moment for me. I was like, this is a beautiful hat. I was in some hat shop at a fancy airport, and they were like. I was like, what is it for? And the guy looked at Me, he's like, mexico, I don't think there would

B (81:00)

be anything wrong with you wearing that hat. In fact, I would think of it as a moment of solidarity. I think you should totally do that. And I don't think it would be at all like, like, cringe for you to do so.

A (81:13)

What was cringe was when I saw somebody in that Mexico hat at the Arco station near my house a couple of years ago. And I was like, oh, man, I love that hat. And he's like, thanks. And then he tried to dap me up. And I am not good at that. You want to see how white I am? That I am tough one out of the blue.

B (81:28)

I mean, you're not expecting. I am. So you need, as a white guy,

A (81:32)

you need a heads up on a dapping. No. But then if you do that, then I get in my head too much. I just can't do it. And it's really embarrassing.

B (81:38)

So you're talking about the Mexico wbc. That M. That M. Yeah.

A (81:43)

That's like. I think. I think that's way cool, actually. I was talking to somebody about it and they said it's. I think it stood the test of time. I think that goes back to the 60s or something like that, that logo. And they had changed it or something. And it is just. It is beautiful. Their colors are beautiful. I love their unis. Contrarily, I hate the United States uniforms. They didn't look so bad yesterday because they were the white uniforms. But when they wear the blue uniforms, they really do look like Fox News just created these uniforms. And maybe I do have sort of the. This. I'll tell you what, Luke, and this is the truth. Like, maybe I feel more emboldened to say this in 2026, given the state of our country, but I remember when I was a pretty. Actually not pretty, but a very apolitical person and young person. Right? Even let's say a kid and then a young adult. I remember being at some point not a little kid, but let's say in my teens, very uncomfortable with the idea of pledging allegiance to a flag like that always seemed. Not always, but like at a certain point in my life, but at a pretty young age when I considered myself not political. And if you would describe me in any way political, it would be more like libertarian. I was like a smoker at the time. All I knew was I didn't want you to tell me to not smoke and just, oh, I don't know, government sucks. I didn't want to fill out my draft card what my dad made me, I guess those would be slightly libertarian leanings, but really they were just the leanings of an idiot who didn't want to follow world politics or national politics or anything like that. And so. But I remember at a young age being like, what, we pledge allegiance to a flag? That seems like brainwashy to me. I remember being in LA, so this isn't that, that long ago, 10 years ago or something. The World cup was going on and a good friend of mine invited me to watch a game and I have, I don't really follow soccer, but I was in a room full of people and they were chanting USA, USA. And this was before the 2016 election, so it wasn't even like it was like a Trump era thing, but it was just like, I remember that feeling deeply uncomfortable to me. So I've always, I think had this anti jingoistic thing to me before I even really started to examine the nature of our country and our brethren as closely as we have been since 2016 and what's been going on in this country. And I have another question for you. So Blake, and also again, we're making this a little bit more serious by talking about the politics of it. And most of it for me is just sort of like, I like rooting for Randy Rosarena.

B (84:02)

I like a playerist more than a teamist.

A (84:05)

I wouldn't usually describe myself that way, but I guess I can't argue that right now.

B (84:09)

Maybe for wbc.

A (84:10)

Maybe for wbc. For some reason I'm just really enjoying the spectacle. I'm just enjoying everything. Like I was telling you, I think I was telling you yesterday, I was definitely thinking this. Like I love having Rowdy to Lez and Alejandro Kirk on the same team. Like two beefy boys next to each other in the lineup.

B (84:26)

Can you imagine time those guys with a sundial.

A (84:29)

I just, I, but I, but I love that. And also Rowdy hustled out like yeah,

B (84:34)

didn't he leg one out.

A (84:35)

Yes, yes. A broken bat Enfield single the night before. I was watching. So also that's the thing, I was watching Mexico the day before. So whoever they were playing. So I was already sort of like kind of getting into, into their thing. I think it's amazing how much I used to hate the Blue Jays until they actually beat us last year to take us out of the now we

B (84:56)

need a self esteem transplant.

A (84:57)

And now I'm weirdly like sort of like, I don't know, I kind of like Alejandro Kirk. I sort of like in a certain way of them beating us sort of has given me a newfound respect for them.

B (85:07)

That is an odd response because, like, if the Astros did that, you would feel I would.

A (85:11)

I would hate them. But I think that my issue with the Astros and the Dodgers are different. You know what I mean? And there is something, I think otherwise lovable about the Blue Jays. I just don't like it when they, when they take over our stadium. And that's a maturity thing on my part that I'm actually kind of proud of. Like, I liked seeing Alejandro Kirk up there and I sort of was. It was a nice feeling for me.

B (85:31)

I definitely love. And for folks that don't know, Alejandro Kirk is a catcher. He plays for the Toronto Blue Jays. He's from Mexico, original. And he is in a very atypical body type for being a professional athlete. He is not very tall. He is carrying a few extra pounds. And the fact that he is not just a competent player, but a good player is a testament to ridiculous hand eye coordination. Like, this is a guy who is like, has almost nothing going for him in the physical department other than his incredible coordination, his incredible ability to put the bat on the ball, to catch the ball when it's pitched to him, the block pitch. But I do love Alejandro Kirk existing because it's like someone turned a minion loose in Major League Baseball and they're good. So I'm pro Alejandro Kirk 100%.

A (86:21)

So here's my one thing that I've been thinking about since we texted yesterday. Now I was sort of thinking about how you were like, oh, yeah, I just defaulted to usa. And it occurred to me, well, you hadn't seen the whole broadcast and there was like a lot of us jingoism on this FOX broadcast cast of the US Mexico matchup.

B (86:38)

And I like that.

A (86:39)

And I hate. First of all, I just. This is where I still remain as immature as ever in my sports hatreds. But like, I hate Aaron Judge so much. I hate his face. I hate. I mean, he has a beautiful face. I mean, he has a absolutely stunningly beautiful smay face and a beautiful smile. But I hate it because I don't like him being happy because I hate the Yankees and I hate how good he is and all those things. But. But he was saying things. I think I saw an interview with him, somebody saying, what does it mean to play for Team usa? And he just goes into all this. And this is a real question I have for you. I kept hearing every time the question would come up in some sort of soft interview with these Players, it's like, what does it mean to play for the United States? I noticed that every American player talks about the people who lost their life or fought for the country. Not even lost their life. But it always comes back to, oh, yeah, when we don this uniform, we're doing it for the people who fought for this country or fight for this country. And it always comes back to the military. And I'm wondering what the fuck is with that.

B (87:44)

Does every.

A (87:45)

Like, if you interview somebody from Mexico and you say, like, why is America? And this is all just thoughts I was having last night after you and I were texting, and I was sort of thinking, oh, yeah, why are my feelings whatever they are, why don't I feel loyal to the U.S. i don't think I ever had. But then as I was examining it, more. More America seem. And maybe this is an obvious thing, but America seems to have this issue with only equating patriotism to the military. And I don't know if that's true for every country. If you were to interview Alejandro Kirk and say, what's it like to. Or, well, actually, Randy's from Cuba. He defected to Mexico. That's a whole different storyline. But let's just say you're asking Kirk. Yeah. Then there's that whole thing that's blowing up this morning, which we don't have to get into here. But like, if you ask a player from Mexico, what does it mean? Do they go to, well, all the people who fought for Mexico, Is it always we're doing this for the people who fought?

B (88:40)

No.

A (88:41)

There's something inherently American about we can't separate the goodness of our country from military might. And I think that's something to examine right there.

B (88:51)

Absolutely. And I hadn't ever thought of it that way, but I'm trying to think of another country, probably Russia. So that's a good comparison. Yeah.

A (88:59)

Japan, not Japan. They're not gonna talk about.

B (89:03)

No, I don't think they feel great about how World War II ended.

A (89:05)

Yeah.

B (89:06)

Not to be glib, but like, no, I think. I think, unfortunately, the. A country that I could think of would probably be Russia, where it's. The Russian military might is. Is. It's like, basically it's the way that the country self esteem. It's from whence the country's self esteem is derived. And in a way, that's what's happening here. And yeah, this idea. You're absolutely. It's a great comparison.

A (89:31)

Like.

B (89:31)

Or even just like a Canadian player. Imagine, you know, like. Well, I mean, Josh Naylor plays for the Mariners. Is he playing for Team Canada?

A (89:39)

Yeah, him and his brother.

B (89:40)

I can't. Well, Josh Naylor is just. Listen, Josh Naylor is on his own wavelength anyway, but imagine just another Canadian player who's in the major leagues but is playing for Team Canada. And if you ask them, like, what does it mean to play for Team Canada, I would be shocked if they said, this is for all of the Canadian military who died to get us here.

A (89:59)

But in the US all of these bro y players, that's all they can think about as well. This is for, like, you're putting on this jersey that says the United States of America, and you cannot say anything other than, like, you cannot separate that from military service.

B (90:13)

And I don't understand why not to mention that. Like, how long has it been? Well, listen, no disrespect to anybody whose parent or something, you know, was in the war, whether maybe they didn't want to be in the war or whatever, but, like, how about the fact that Since World War II, there hasn't been a military engagement for this country that was necessary. So, I mean, you know, we're talking like, 75 years. 75 years since we did something militarily that was probably make or break as opposed to just.

A (90:47)

That was on the right side of history, you feel like.

B (90:49)

Well, on the right side of history and also necessary.

A (90:51)

Oh, necessary, yeah, sure.

B (90:52)

In other words, I think it was. I do think it was necessary to stop Hitler, and we helped with that. But I didn't mean. I didn't even mean that sarcastically. I just meant, like, you look at every war after that, Vietnam, the Gulf wars, even. Just military incursions into, you know, wherever it might be.

A (91:08)

Clavicular, Getting mogged. All the heavy headlines.

B (91:11)

The ASU frat president brutally frame mogging. Clavicular. It's just so this idea that we're still, like, we're only here because of those who sacrifice. All gave some and some gave all. It's like none of this shit has mattered for 75 years. And we're still acting like. Like. Like we. Like this idea that we. Our way of life is so under threat. Like, nothing that we think of as our way of life in America would be how it is if not for. I mean, we have. Whatever. Now I'm just going off. But, like, we have so many weird advantages as a country. Just geographically, we are a nation that does not have any sort of enemies that are geographically attached to us, which is unique. As opposed to countries in Europe and other places where it's like your border bumps up against somebody who really wants to do you in. Frankly, Canada and Mexico have much more to fear from us than we do from them. We've just as a nation, we were born to keep it in the baseball category. We were born on fucking third and thought we hit a trip to and all these years later. Yeah. And also it doesn't help that most baseball players are meatheads. And so what are they going to say? You know what I mean? They're just kind of like they're just going to. Which is such a bummer that Josh Naylor isn't. Wasn't born in America because I would like to hear him answer that question.

A (92:29)

Right, exactly.

B (92:31)

If he were playing for Team usa, I feel like he would give an interesting answer. But he is like on a very short list of MLB players who I think would give an interesting answer to that question as opposed to the pablum of we're just doing this for all those who sacrificed for this country. And, and by the way, on the

A (92:48)

subject, can I just say, and I don't mean this as an anti military screed either. I know that we have listeners served and that's fine if you do. And like, but honestly, I'm not even saying this as an anti military thing or that we can never acknowledge that. I just have realized and again, just to restate my thesis for the zillionth time, but like, what would another person from another country say? They might say like, let's just use Canada as an example. They might just say, you know, when I put on this jersey, I think about all the folks back home, all the people who are working to make the world a better place.

B (93:16)

You think of all the indigenous women who've gone missing and are not properly being looked for.

A (93:21)

But I mean, like, there are ways that you don't have to bring up like the disparity or the bad things that are going on in your country, but you can like kind of say, you know, or just like, you know, or I don't know, you can talk about various generations or parents or how, I mean, in America, what would be a better answer? Like, let's just say that I was proud to be an American, which I'm not and I'm okay.

B (93:40)

So you just, you just pulled a real alternate universe. Lee GREENWOOD I'm not proud to be American.

A (93:47)

I made it pretty clear that I haven't been for a long time now that I think about it now more than ever. But like let's. So I don't Know what is less likely here? That I would be a good baseball player or that I'd be proud of this country we live in. But either way, this is the scenario I'm playing.

B (94:01)

Well, if somebody asked me, what is it like? I mean, ideally, if I was again. And also, it's a preposterous notion that I would be playing for Team USA and. But that I would also be. Be myself in my brain right now. You know what I mean? Like, some my life would have had to been radically different. But I think to me, a good answer would be something like, what's it feel like to wear the American jersey? It's just like, I'm just so honored to get to represent so many different kinds of people. And this is a country that's just made up of all kinds of different people who value freedom and value each other. And I think that we are much more similar than we are dissimilar. And to get to represent them and to be on a team of people, people that come from all different backgrounds, I feel like this is really what represents what's great about America, which is from. What is it? From few, many or whatever, you know what I mean? Just like, from a lot of people, we all come together to be this one thing that is the United States. Something like that.

A (94:55)

Now let's blow up the moon. No, but yeah, yeah, see, I think that that's really nice. And I was sort of thinking something similar too. Like, even if you totally are bought in on the idea of the American dream and that everybody starts on a level playing field, which I do not believe, but, like, you could bro out that in the interview. You know what I mean? There are other aspects of America, but I just did not hear any of that. I just heard Judge's stupid beautiful face talking about people who don the uniform. I'm just like, why are we bringing that into this? Not to disrespect those people, but why does it always have to be that with America? And maybe again, that's another reason why. For me, there's a lot of reasons why I was not rooting for the US Last night. It wasn't because I was virtue signaling, because how angry I am at the state of affairs. I think the reason I bring that up, by the way, is when I was on Kow a couple of weeks ago, there was a very soft accusation, a very, very, very soft sort of little bit. Like when we were talking about how disappointed I'd be in the Seahawks going to the White House were they to accept the invitation. If they were to get an invitation, I'd be disappointed and it would be harder for me to root for the Seahawks. Somebody was like, yeah, that kind of virtue signaling or whatever. And I did kind of say, this isn't about virtue signaling. I am on the radio saying this publicly like, that's how you feel. I'm not judging other people. I'm not judging other people and saying, hey, you're a bad American if you continue to root for the Seahawks because they visited Donald Trump or whatever. But me personally, I can only control the things that I can control. And I don't feel as comfortable with that connection because I think what's happening from that office is incredibly evil and dangerous in the country right now. I'm not saying that as a virtue signal signaling. That's just legitimately how I feel. And I'm also not going to not say that if asked about it.

B (96:44)

You know who I think? Believe it or not, I don't know why am I. Why are we revisiting this or visiting it for the first time, I guess. But I'll tell you, the, the guys that I have at least 5% empathy for is the US men's hockey team. I'm being serious here because like they're in a locker room, of course they got a lot of grief. Now, listen, I don't know what their politics are. I'm assuming a lot of them maybe not great, or maybe they don't think about polit, which is a incredible bit of luck in your life if you're somebody who is so privileged that you don't even have to consider these matters. But like they're on speakerphone with the President now. Yes, you would hope that these mostly 23 year old guys would like walk out of the locker room when the president is put on speakerphone, right? But he makes this stupid joke about like, I'm gonna invite you to the White House and I gotta invite the women now too. And it's like some of them are laughing or whatever. It's like, yeah, that was like a dumb move. But to me it was like first of all, kind of, I felt like it was unfair for them to have be in that moment and to not know how to respond. Also to be young, probably mostly thoughtless people. That was one of those ones that was a little more. It wasn't as quite open and shut as like, now I'm canceling the US Men's hockey team in my mind, because it was like, it wasn't like their star of the team made the joke and then they all high fived. It was like the presence of president made the joke on a speakerphone. Who knows? I don't know. I guess, I guess that one to me was just such a weird lame thing that where they are now part of this overall lameness that is Cash Patel being there and that is the president being put on speakerphone and that is all of these other things that are sort of outside of their control.

A (98:20)

Well, you know, you and I aren't the best spokespeople for this because we are white straight men or whatever. But I will say that other people making that argument that I have found very compelling, having people like Megan Rapinoe when she was talking to Sue Burton. I didn't know that they had a podcast together, but I saw that and it's like, it's interesting. They're not dismissing the whole thing as a nothing burger, as they would say. They're not dismissing the whole thing. But I've heard a lot of women who are in athletics be very thoughtful about this. And Rapinoe was saying like, listen, this is why I don't let, or I wouldn't let that kind of thing into the locker room anyway. Because she's like, you're just in this moment, you're celebrating, it's the highlight of your life and it's just like you're out of your mind. Suddenly there's somebody in the locker room with you. Suddenly somebody is on a cell phone and it's the president and he says something. You can't hear it that well. You laugh because you're just laughing to get along. And again, I'm not saying that the men, I do think that there are some opportunities where some of those players, when asked about it later, could have done a much better job of saying something strong and supportive of the women as opposed to dismissing it. But I actually have thought that while sort of the sort of like, I would say maybe like female contingent of the sports world were especially offended by that and rightfully so. I've also, while being offended, heard some like, it's also sort of the burden of the responsible female athlete also to say. But I've been in those locker rooms and from a level headed standpoint, I can understand where the men were right there. Like, it's just so classy what I've been hearing people say sort of from that, that perspective.

B (100:01)

Well, and, and yeah, and not to make, first of all, I didn't know that, but I'm glad to hear that. My point of view is being supported by many strong women in this country and many strong female athletes at that. Finally, we're an alliance on something. But I also just feel like not to, in any way. Yeah. Like to sort of alleviate some probably reasonable criticism of these, some of the individual players or whatever. But it's like, it's just another example of how everything fucking so sucks. Like, it should never be the case that the team that just won the gold medal is excited about it, has the FBI director in their locker room putting a misogynist on the phone who happens to be in charge of the country. It's like, did this happen after the, the US men beat Russia in, like, whatever, 1980, you know, the Miracle on Ice? No, there wasn't a moment where the president was like, what, I gotta, like, let the women in here like these again? I'm not saying they're victims. Victims, but there's just such an overarching structure of now that just surrounds so many things and people and events that it doesn't need to surround. That did not need to be part of the story about the men winning the gold medal. It had no reason to happen other than we live in the darkest timeline.

A (101:16)

We should send it there. I, I, because we were talking about Obama before. When I, when I think about, when I think about, like, the hatred of Obama from the right, too, and I

B (101:24)

think, like, Barack Hussein Obama.

A (101:25)

Barack Hussein Obama.

B (101:26)

I use his name because it matters.

A (101:28)

I think about, like, how this party that supposedly hates him is supposedly the party of values and family values and everything. And we had a man in the White House for eight years who raised two wonderful young women into adulthood. Into adulthood, into adulthood. And had a apparently, you know, solid marriage and, like, had all of the things that would seem to indicate good family values. And now we have this absolute assaulter. And I'm just sort of thinking, like, if Obama had called into the men's team, the most offensive thing he would have said would be, like, could you just try to work a little bit harder during the All Star Game? I don't know if I should be doing terrible impressions of Obama, but you know what I mean? Just kind of joking around about the NBA All Star Game, how he wants to see more competition. And it's just like, such a solid man. You don't have to agree with him on everything. But they have such hatred in their heart for this man, man who really seemed to live out the ideals of what it means to be a good American with honestly, the kind of values that they supposedly espouse.

B (102:31)

Well, of course and unfortunately, that's what's been laid bare, is that all of that was bullshit. All of this moralizing, all of this talk about family values and about morality and faith and family and freedom and all of those things, things were absolute and total bullshit when they look at and defend Donald Trump, who has violated every single one of those things. And so, I mean, it's a, you know, it is at this point a party with absolutely not even a slight leg to stand on in terms of the moral high ground or the kind of ideological, I mean, there's no ideology behind it. That's the thing. Like you didn't have to love, you know, George W. Bush. And by the way, he took us into a war we didn't need to be in as well. But there was back in those days some ideology of smaller government, of less. By the way, I just saw this guy who bet his, he was, he's some kind of a quant in D.C. some kind of a policy knower guy. And he bet his entire life savings. And he was married with a young child and his wife, he talked her into this. He had $300,000 in savings. And I don't know if it was on Kalshi, don't come for me people. I don't know. It would have had to be on one of these predictive markets. But he basically bet that Doge would fail. His bet was that spending by each quarter, the government spending would actually be over the amount that was spent the previous year or the before Doge. So in other words, his bet was, was that Doge would not reduce government spending. In fact, government spending would go up each quarter even with Doge in place. And he absolutely won that bet because, because those guys are idiots. And anyway, all that is to say there you could disagree with, with conservative. And somebody's going to point out that, you know, it's been this sort of faux culture war thing has been going on for years and years and years. I'm not saying saying like, you know, Ronald Reagan was some sort of like constitutional scholar, but there was a time where there was an idea behind that party and it was smaller government, you know, less tax, et cetera. And that's just like, you know, that just is completely and totally detached from whatever that mooring was. And now it's just out in this weird trans swimming space and like, you know, trying to punish countries because they didn't give the President a peace prize or something. I mean, it's just, it's just, it's gone into all, all we have left. Andrew is hoping that Mexico wins the World Baseball Classic, which, by the way, Benji Gill, their manager, thinks they will. Did you hear his bold prediction today?

A (105:14)

No, I didn't hear that today. I. I heard a very awkward. I was unfamiliar with him. I looked him up later because he gave such a weird, awkward in game interview and I wasn't sure.

B (105:22)

Oh, I didn't see that.

A (105:23)

Yeah. But I mean, in all seriousness, I'm not trying to.

B (105:24)

Was he like Ranger or something?

A (105:26)

Yeah, I had to look him up. He was. Yeah. And he was. Did he end up coach or maybe manage a team here for a while? But his in game interview was so weird. I couldn't tell if he was distracted by the game or if he had like maybe a speech impediment or something. I couldn't quite tell what was going on. I think he might have just been distracted a little bit. But I know that he did say he's like, this game is important, but even if we lose tonight, that was last night's game. We're really just kind of keeping an eye on the bigger prize so that we can win this whole damn thing. Thing.

B (105:54)

I think he's just a generally kind of weird dude because I saw him doing a post game presser and he was like, my greatest hope. Because my greatest desire is that we will play them again. Well, my greatest desire is. What's the lottery at? I think it's at 800 million. My greatest desire is to win the lottery. Then you'll never see me again.

A (106:10)

If I don't win that, okay.

B (106:12)

But if I don't. If I don't win that, it's that we play them. Because I think we'll be one and one against them. Which was a way of saying we'll win the championship. Because I think the only way that the US And Mexico will meet again would be in the championship. That would be a great.

A (106:25)

See, that would be a great matchup. Again, just talking about the baseball of it all, which we don't have to get into the details here, but that'd be. I would love that. And it does lead to Rowdy Tolez

B (106:33)

driving Alejandro Kirk in from first. He's not a gapper.

A (106:39)

Okay. I have a. But I do have a road.

B (106:41)

Honestly, if that's how that game ends, I'm in total support of it.

A (106:45)

I'm getting a tattoo of one of each of them on each of my biceps. But you know what? And a Vogelbach on my back.

B (106:54)

Love it.

A (106:54)

I'll call it my Vogelbach. No, I have A real question for you that maybe wraps all of this up, and I want you to know that it's gonna sound glib, and I sincerely, after everything that I just said about my own kind of feelings about all of this stuff, I sincerely am not trying to change anybody's minds about whether or not they would root for the United States team or not. I would guess. I think I started to say this before. I would guess that most un. US Baseball fans are rooting for Team usa. That's good. Root for who you want to root for and whoever. Just have fun, you know, who cares? But I'm curious about you. Like, let's see here tonight. I see. I'm going to see if I can. If we can get after these Messages done before 6 o' clock tonight, because you have Italy playing, or as I like to call it, Italia, you have Italy playing the United States. So that could be kind of fun, right? Like, and we have a lot of players, I think, on Italy can zone.

B (107:42)

We know Dom's on there.

A (107:43)

I don't think Dom's doing very well.

B (107:44)

Your guy. Well, he had a home run the other day, but I don't know if that really mattered.

A (107:47)

Okay.

B (107:48)

You know, you know, who's. You know, who's really bringing it there is your boy Pasquin Tino.

A (107:52)

Is he. Is he doing well over there? I knew he was playing on the team. I didn't. I haven't really been following Italy that much.

B (107:58)

I was. We need to. We probably need to wrap.

A (108:00)

My question for you, though, is I want to know who you're rooting for. Like, would you. Would you. Can you still continuing to root for the US Just because that's.

B (108:07)

Well, let me put it this way. If I had watched that whole game and I'd been hearing the, like, announcers on FS1 whatever kind of, you know, sort of be real, you know, usa. Usa. I think it would have gotten under my skin and I would have started to kind of drift more towards kind of rooting for Mexico. I also think it depends on the other country who's playing the usa. So, like, Italy, I don't like Mexico. I'm actually much more like pro Mexico beating the US Than I am pro Italy beating the US Because I feel like, first of all, I just love Mexico and I love people from Mexico. And I also, you know, I don't need to point out the obvious horrors that are going on as far as our immigration policy, which doesn't as much apply to Italy. So I feel like I feel some sort of Strong affection for Mexico and Italy. I'm kind of neutral on like, if it was like us versus the Netherlands. I'm not just looking for any old team to beat the usa, but it also comes down to like how annoying do I find the jingoism. If I watch the whole game, I could see my myself moving over to rooting for any other team that they're playing. If I'm getting annoyed enough by the announcers or by the interviews that are being done by Team USA people or if I see even one American player do some Trump bullshit, you know, where they do some little like celebration that I know is like a Trump related. Like you'll see in football now where they'll do some silly dance after a touchdown that's like known as the Trump thing or whatever. If I see. If I saw one inkling of like a MAGA behavior on the USA team, I would immediately switch my allegiance.

A (109:43)

I'm looking at the Italy team here. It's miles. Master Boni is on it. I forgot that I always. I know I'm going to say his name wrong, but Jack Caglion is on there. He's kind of a. He was a young up and you know, I think he was maybe brought up last season. I think to the Royals you have Pascatino like you mentioned. And I don't. I'm not even seeing Dom on here, but Dom, isn't he probably potentially going to play off the bench or something like that? Like that's just sort of the fun of this too. Like Italy. It is.

B (110:13)

Although this is what. This is the thing that I don't want to be like a no fun Nick or whatever. But like I've been obsessed with and I can't get a straight answer out of the criminal. So I've had to do my own research, Andrew. You know, I've been doing my own research.

A (110:25)

Great. I think it's the answer I think is grandparents. I think you have had to have a grandparent that was born in that.

B (110:30)

I would be shocked, shocked. If Vinnie Pasquintino's grandparents are from the old country, he's not old enough.

A (110:37)

You think that they're just lying?

B (110:39)

I think that they're lying because there's a footnote. I have it in front of me. Let me read you some WBC eligibility. Players are eligible to represent a country if they or at least one of their parents were born there or if they are a citizen or legal permanent resident of that country, which is pretty standard in international sports. What's not standard is that Players can petition to represent a country if they believe they meet the country's requirements to obtain a passport. Passport. Even if they have not been granted one. So like. And so what? I think that passport thing is the back door into it. Because these players are so young, it would be really surprising to me. Of course, I could be wrong, but like, we're not. This ain't 1930. Like Vinnie.

A (111:19)

I would.

B (111:20)

My guess would be Vinnie Pasquintino's parents are in America and his grandparents are in America, but I think the nation of Italy. And by the way, I don't have a problem with this. Like, I. I don't. I don't think it's cheating. And one other thing that was in this write up that I just read was, and I thought it was really well put, was I'm skipping ahead. It's easy to discount the international nature of the tournament when you see rosters full of players with somewhat tenuous ties to the nation they represent. But we shouldn't doubt the sincerity of the players desire to represent these countries. They wouldn't be taking time away from their MLB teams to play in this tournament if it weren't meaningful to them. And I actually think that's a good final word on it. Like, I do think it's kind of like, I would say it's tenuous for a lot of these. Not a lot of the folks from like the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico or anything. I mean those are very strong real connections. But I think when you start to get out into like the Netherlands and Great Britain and Italy, it gets a little bit more tenuous. But like, hey, if Pasquintino wants to go risk a rotator cuff injury to play for Italy, I have no problem with that. And in fact, that's the last thing I'll say about this. I'm a little bit surprised that mlb, I guess MLB sees this as like an expansion of the brand, even though it's not MLB officially. Because I could see a world in which MLB was like, do we really want Shohei Ohtani playing baseball that's not major league weeks before the real season? I mean, doesn't that sound like that could be a problem? Could you imagine if. If he tore a hammy rounding first and plays no snaps as a dodger this year? Like, I would if I were the mlb. I would. The MLB or mlb. I always want to put the definite article on there, which doesn't make sense. If I was mlb, if I was

A (113:06)

in the baseball league.

B (113:08)

Yeah, if I was the N. B.L. and the NBL. Like, I. I could see a world in which you're like, this is stressing us out. If these dudes get.

A (113:19)

If these. Well, the key dudes and not the league so much. Because I think the league. I mean, I'm pretty sure this is a Manfred creation. I'm pretty sure that the commissioner created this. And of course the MLB has connections to it. I'm sure they're making money off of it. But more like the team of managers. Right, because who's the famous closer? Who was a closer for us and then he became the star closer for the Mets, but he injured himself in a. Wasn't. Didn't he injure himself in a celebration at the end of the wbw? Yeah, I'm blanking on his name.

B (113:50)

Not Suarez.

A (113:51)

He's playing for Puerto Rico this year. A closer, but one of the best closers in the league. If not the best. Right. He heard himself. Am I right about this? Maybe closer in league in my life. Okay, sorry. This guy's second Dare you. It's driving me crazy that I can't remember his name.

B (114:05)

I'll figure it out.

A (114:05)

Why you're talking. He was our closer. Yeah, he was celebrated. He's prized. But anyway, I was surprised to see that. I guess he got some just because

B (114:13)

he was playing Edwin Diaz.

A (114:14)

Diaz. He was playing in Puerto Rico. He was closing and I guess just got. Got like a. Just earth shatteringly loud, like applause from the crowd. There's a celebration. And I was like, he's going back for more. Like he literally missed an entire season, I want to say, for the Mets because of potentially a celebratory injury in the wbc.

B (114:37)

Well, that's the thing too. And I mean, I believe that, that mlb, I believe that NBL created this and I believe that they're making money off of it. And again, they probably see it as like a good. Because they're always trying to grow the international market. And so just more baseball excitement means maybe more fans. But again, if Shohei Ohtani were to be injured in this, it would. I mean, yes, the Dodgers would be obviously very bummed. Although they would just grow a new Shohei Ohtani in a lab.

A (115:07)

Right. Within one year and then buy one. Are you kidding?

B (115:09)

Yes, but like, we have Shohei Ohtani at home. Okay. We don't need to buy one. We have them at home. We're growing them in a dark closet right now. But. But no, like the league would. I mean, I don't know how you do the numbers on this, but like, no, Shohei Ohtani in Major League Baseball this season. It is. It is a financial hit to the league. You know what I mean? So it's. It's just interesting to me, even though they're the ones who set it up, it seems like a kind of a risky. They've obviously done the cost benefit, and they've decided that the money that they're making and the international attention they're getting is worth it.

A (115:41)

But.

B (115:42)

But, like, man. And I just keep using him because he's the biggest example of this. But if you. And really, maybe Ohtani might be the only player that's kind of, like, bigger than baseball right now, because I'm thinking about, like, what Tatis Jr. Or who else is really good, you know, like, even a. You know. Oh, I don't know. What's his name? Who's the Mormon guy? Bryce, whatever his name in the. The. The National. Anyway.

A (116:08)

Oh, oh, oh, yeah. All right. Point is, I didn't know he was Mormon, by the way.

B (116:14)

He is, yeah. Like, you know, basically, like, these. There's a lot of star. There are a lot of star players, but, like, there's only one that I think would have, like. It would really. Like Bryce Harper. There's only one that I can think of that would really, really, like, honestly be like, a financial. A massive financial hit to the league, and I think that's Ohtani, right? Yeah.

A (116:36)

Yeah, I suppose so.

B (116:37)

Maybe the risk. Maybe the risk is singular to him.

A (116:39)

Yeah, I mean, I guess Cal was kind snubbed, and Cal still is sort of like, people were still discovering who Cal was, you know, during the postseason last year, because I do think that Seattle's a little bit kind of overlooked in those things, but he's, you know, after his home run derby performance and everything that we learned about him in the playoffs. What's that?

B (116:57)

Oh, nothing. Keep talking.

A (116:59)

No, no, no. I was just gonna say he's a bit.

B (117:00)

I'm literally rubbing my hands because I'm cold, but also because I wanted to mention one thing. It was. I was. It might have even been last night when I was watching. You might have seen it, too, or. It was something I was looking at online, but it was basically like a WBC ad, and they. It was Team usa and they were flashing the players, and they flashed Cal before Aaron Judge.

A (117:18)

Oh, really?

B (117:19)

And I was like, wow, that's really saying something.

A (117:22)

Well, I thought it was a little bit. And I know there's only one game. It's. It's not like the. It's not like anything should be judged just on one game. But for all of the controversy or like argument, let's say the argument about whether or not it should be Aaron Judge or Cal Raleigh for MVP like last year. And then of course Aaron Judge won and I think I was pretty rude about it on the show. In fact, I just really thought it was like, well, he's a Yankee, of course he's going to get it. Cal should have won. Now yesterday here you have Cal and Judge playing on the same team and I think Judge I think got two home runs yesterday whereas Cal like left the bases loaded on I think a three pitch at bat or something. Cal just looked kind of bad yesterday. I think he reached once because he was maybe hit by pitch. I don't know. I don't, I don't have it all written down. I can't.

B (118:08)

He's keeping his powder dry.

A (118:09)

Whatever. Yeah, but also, and we, we won't get into it now, but it was very weird to wake up this morning and realize I had missed what turned out to be the biggest sort of like drama out of yesterday's game, which was that his own teammate on the Mariners, Randy Rosarena, was playing for Mexico. Another reason I'm rooting for Mexico. And Randy went to shake his hand, went to shake Cal's hand. Cal is the catcher. Randy goes up to the plate for his first at bat, goes to shake Cal's hand. And Cal refused to shake his hand. And then Randy, unless it's like he's doing some sort of bit, which I don't think he is, went on a profanity laced tirade in his post game conference, maybe not a tirade, but had some very, very strong words to Cal Raleigh. And now I saw that in the national news this morning. I'm like, why haven't I heard about this? And then it turns out then I got the Seattle Times is sending out push notifications about it. Everybody's like, what is with this inter Mariners beef? I'm not super worried about it going into the, into the regular season, but I kind of don't like it as a look for either one of these guys.

B (119:13)

I am going to choose to think that it's a bit that got kind of. And by the way, I mean because Randy or Rosarena presumably had like a ton of pine tar on his hands, you know, the batters will have, their glove will be covered in schmutz and sometimes catchers maybe don't want to like, you know, get that on their hand because they're, you know, they're not at Bat, they're playing defense. And then maybe like I just, you know, to Occam's razor it. One of our star players going on a profanity laced tirade against another one of our star players is so unlikely to me that I have to think that the more simple explanation is it's a joke that people were missing the point of or it was a sarcastic thing that we were missing the point of. I sure hope. I mean, because of course I want everybody who's a Mariner to get along and also just doesn't seem like it's Cal Raleigh's personality to be.

A (120:06)

To snub him.

B (120:07)

I don't know.

A (120:09)

Yeah, I mean, I could see Randy. See, here's the thing. If we're just talking about this, I could see Randy being legitimately insulted by this. Randy is, is. He is an emotional, emotional guy and I, I love him. I really love him. But you know, are you joking about him? Like, he is a super emotional guy, remember?

B (120:27)

Yeah, he is. And I, I mean I, I have, I've, you know, listen, I've. Some of my more regrettable texts on the criminals have been a Rosarina related over the years because he's a guy who bedevils me. He plays really well sometimes and really badly sometimes because I think he does let his emotions really kind of run things.

A (120:41)

Yeah. And I do think that and, and not emotions. Like, I've seen him get angry before, but just like, you know, when, when he was traded to come here and I, I always get the two Florida teams confused. But he was a Marlin. Is this correct or no? No, he was a Ray. He was a Tampa Bay Ray. Right. He was one of them.

B (120:58)

I'm the wrong person to ask.

A (120:59)

Anyway, I think, I think he was a Ray. And like when he learned that he was coming to Seattle, he stayed in town one night and actually went to his last, let's say Rays game, unless I'm confusing the teams and actually sat in the stands and people were like, wow, he's being so emo about this because he loved his team and he loved Randyland and all of that and then he came here. But I do feel like he's a man who feels passionately, just feels passionately about a lot of things. And it has to do with his story too, again, about defecting and one of the reasons why it's so important to him to play for Mexico, his adopted country and everything. And I think he's an incredibly lovable guy. But I could see him and watching the body language of Them two at the same time when Cal won't take it. And like Randy leans in like three times, almost like he's not. And you only see him from his back side. So enjoy that. But like it's almost like he can't understand why. It's like he doesn't hear something right three times in a row, sort of. And you're just like in. Cal apparently just said to him, it's good to see you, but didn't take his hand. And I, when I say profanity laced tirade that makes it sound like it went on and on and on. Here's how the, here's how the New York Times writes it. He says the only thing that should. That. Okay, so this is referring to Cal, Raleigh's parents. This is Randy saying this. The only thing that he should be thankful for is having such great parents. A Rosa Reina told Mexican journalist Luis Gilbert in Spanish. He's very well educated. Thank God. I was lucky enough to see them a few days ago at the hotel. They came over to greet me, gave me a big hug and were genuinely proud to see me again. Then he launched into a profanity laced criticism suggesting Raleigh could f off and go to, to hell. That good to see you that he said to me. Rosarena said he can shove it straight up his ass. I'm out. Like, I. It doesn't seem like a bit to me. Like, I'm not saying that this is going to be a huge problem for the Mariners. I'm not losing sleep over it. But this doesn't like if these were the pitchers of the Mariners. Like the pitching crew of the Mariners are known to be busting each other's chops all the time. Like, like, like making fun of each other, like teasing. But it's like truly from a place of love. And while I really like Randy, I don't think Randy's the one player who sort of doesn't seem fully Mariners up, you know what I mean? He still seems like a little bit of a fish out of water. And he doesn't seem like a guy who says stuff like this to. As a joke, as a joke to like bust. He doesn't seem like, listen, I haven't spent a lot of time in the clubhouse, I should be honest with you. But like, it just doesn't seem like what I know of these people players.

B (123:40)

And also I don't know that there is some particularly close, long running relationship between Cal and Randy. Like, you know, they're not like, you know, there are certain players Often based probably on position, you know, where they, they, like you said, pitchers. And they spend a lot of time together. They're real buds. You know, it's like, it's, you know, it's, it's like then I, I've never heard about the close, long running friendship between Cal and Randy. That would, that would make this him saying that in a press conference or in an interview, like a joke between the two of them. So I guess you're right. Yeah.

A (124:12)

But then the weird thing is, and this was something that I haven't fully dug into, but I did think it was interesting that again, reading from the New York Times here, it says that although this is similar to an incident that happened in the 2023 World Baseball Classic when the Dodgers and Team USA catcher Will Smith also didn't shake Rosa Rayna's hand. So wait, Rosa Rayna is going around trying to shake all the hands of the catcher? And then I guess in that time, though, he didn't really get angry after the snub. He just joked about it. So I don't know what's going on, man.

B (124:42)

I don't know. But that definitely feels like if you've had two of these incidents, what are

A (124:47)

you putting on your hand?

B (124:48)

Somebody you might be the problem. Randy.

A (124:50)

Yeah, I don't know what's going on, but I really like him and I can, I will continue to root for team Mexico.

B (124:56)

Well, I hope he, when he, you know, when the Mariners reform like a Voltron in a week or so, I hope that everything has been squashed and I hope that they are in the right headspace. Like, because one of two things could happen this season. I think either we are just going to gel in this way where we are going to just be a phenomenal team, or because we did pretty well last year because at least we got, you know, one game away from the World Series or whatever it was. I sure hope, hope we don't somehow end up in like, ego town. Like, what can happen after you win the World Series is all of these guys that were playing hard together and were, you know, one for all and all for one, suddenly now we won the World Series. Now ego. The same thing happens with the Super Bowl. Like, we didn't even get to win the World Series. So I'm sure hoping that we have another season of like, we're going to do this together and achieve this goal, not this. Hey, I was, I was the reason that we did this thing last year, because the thing we did last year was cool. As American Mariner fan but not cool enough. So I really hope that we, I hope that we do not have like a, an ego filled team that feels like, you know, because that'll happen after you win a championship. It's impossible to avoid. But I'd like to win the championship first.

A (126:11)

Yeah, right. I will say and we should wrap this up. Although we're, you know, clearly in the Badlands now, so us getting into like, you know, I think the conversation we had was non basebally for the beginning of this, which is fine.

B (126:23)

But never miss a chance. The Badlands.

A (126:32)

The Badlands. That was beautiful. We had the original saying El Ropo, me singing Steve Nelson and you going with Badlands. But all perfectly timed. I was going to say I have been consuming a lot of baseball Mariners content baseball Mariners, a lot of Mariners podcast podcast content the past few weeks as I'm getting more and more excited about the season. And Gary Hill Jr. Was on one of the shows I like to listen to yesterday and I love him so much. Luke. It was, he's so good and he stuck around for a long time to talk about all kinds of things. And one thing that he said that he really loves about seeing and one of the things he's loving seeing in camp right now is the way that I mean, it sounds cliche, but he does feel like the team continues to gel in this like very uniquely Mariners way that has to do with people like Cal Raleigh and Josh Naylor and a maturity there. But also like he said that lots of times you'll see baseball teams sort of have this like for the rookies or younger players, more of almost a hazing attitude towards them. Yeah. And he says like you don't see that. You see so many of like them like Cal especially. And I think he mentioned Josh and I don't know who else but like you see them just really working with the younger players so much more than you usually do because they kind of realize like, oh, we're going to need these guys. And like there's something, I don't know again, it just sounds so cliche and but I mean I do think that we would also hear rumblings if it seemed like a somewhat toxic, you know, clubhouse or something like that. And it just sort of sounds like the Mariners have a kind of weird culture thing going where everybody seem. And that's kind of one of the reasons this, this Cal Randy thing seems like sort of weird because it sort of sounds like there's some good like gelling going on on.

B (128:19)

Well, I mean look, a fish stinks from the head. And I do think, even though I know there have been some detractors, I think maybe you even. Oh, we had a whole thing about this. I think. Well, yeah, if there is a manager that is like there's, you know, I think this is less and less the case now. But back in the day, back when I was spending a lot of time in clubhouses, the typical manager was like an old, old drunk white guy smoking cigarettes and who had no problem with brutal hazing of players because they were themselves just from their, you know, I do. They called him Sweet Lou, but I can't imagine Lou Piniella was mad when Jay Buhner threw up in someone's batting helmet. He probably thought it was hilarious. Like, I just think there was a cultural thing and I don't know what it's like in the rest of the league. I don't really know even who the managers are these days, but I can imagine that in a Dan Wilson clubhouse. Not even that Dan is police, but he's just not that dude. And so hopefully like the dude of being like, oh, you're a rookie, so you have to wear like a Dora the Explorer backpack and buy everyone's meal on the road trip. Or you have to like, you know, there's all these. Yeah. All this stuff around, you know, the treatment of the younger players, I would just imagine that like, that's not the clubhouse that Dan Wilson is cultivating. And so that's just one more thing that we have working for us about that, about sort of hopefully a somewhat non toxic culture.

A (129:41)

I would agree with that, I think. And again, my issue with Dan was in game decision making, not like kind of a leader or a steady hand. Because I do think that he's a very steady hand. And that's what you always hear about as far as like those sort of

B (129:53)

like, he's got to have a couple of beers at Cafe Lago to steady his hands, get the shakes down. The night before the biggest game of his life. That was, I mean, of all the things that happened last season for the Mariners and how big of a plot line it was on the show and how, how much time and energy and emotion it took up, the fact that we had a man on the inside DFTB who was, I know he wasn't technically the primary waiter for Dan Wilson that night, but who was able to observe the Mariners manager the night before that seventh game that we did win. Right.

A (130:23)

That was the long one. Right. Wasn't that the one that. Wasn't that the Tigers Game. I gotta admit that as I'm listening to these podcasts and people are like talking about game five, game seven of this series or that series, they kind of blur together. Oh, it's so disappointing. Bad. My brain is that one.

B (130:38)

Definitely that one. We came through, we won that one. Was that maybe the Geno home run game?

A (130:45)

I don't think the Geno grand slam game. I don't.

B (130:48)

What was that one?

A (130:48)

So that one was. I want to say that was in the. That was in the Blue Jays series. And that was the second to last game that kept us.

B (130:59)

Okay, that pushed it to the seventh or something. Maybe.

A (131:02)

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I think. Because I think. I think we were losing that game before that grand slam, but I think the one where he was drinking beforehand was the game that went God knows how many. Was it 15 innings or something against the Tigers, game seven. I feel like that was the one that. That your brother saw Dan Wilson before.

B (131:22)

But I just like that we got. We were. Of all of the different sports talk shows, espn, you know, Mad Mad Dog. You want baseball, the doggies got you covered. Of all of these different people speculating. We were the only ones who had eyes on what Dan Wilson was drinking before.

A (131:39)

And that.

B (131:40)

That's the kind of insight and access that people come to TBTL for.

A (131:44)

Did you catch that thing? I put on the text chain a while back, I was listening to a spring training game and Rick Riz was talking about how, you know, Dan Wilson's a great guy or something like that. And I think his. His wife is Jeannie Wilson. I can't remember her name. Wait, no, no. She shares the same Annie, I think, because she sounds like his heart, but I don't think that's the same woman. But anyway, Riz is just talking about. Oh, yeah, after that. After the series last year in the off season, Dan took me to a great Italian restaurant in Seattle with Annie. And it was so good. I'm like, oh, I think I know exactly the restaurant he took you to. If I know Mr. Wilson well, that's

B (132:22)

why we got to get a. It's going to be tough because, I mean, even if we make it through, the Dodgers are out there. That's always going to be hard. But like, if we could get. For all the grief I've given him and his. If we could get a World Series for Rico on the way out, that would be pretty cool.

A (132:36)

I just figured out a really funny joke that isn't tortured at all. Were they keeping wins above replacement stats when Dan Wilson was actually Playing baseball.

B (132:47)

I can't. I don't remember that ever being something that was talked about. Of course, they could go back and retrofit it now, or retrofit

A (132:54)

it would be Mr. Wilson's war, a movie that nobody remembers and doesn't really fit.

B (133:03)

But anyway, the one Tom Hanks, 30 years. And meanwhile, I don't even have my. Where's my. Where's my rim shot? Where's my rim shot? Well, okay, here we go.

A (133:16)

Just.

B (133:20)

I won't do that to everyone.

A (133:21)

Oh, I thought that was a good mashup. These two songs together.

B (133:24)

Oh, is that kind of working? Okay, we'll go back.

A (133:34)

So clean,

B (133:37)

Move over, Girl talk.

A (133:40)

The whole thing just gives me a calming presence hearing these two songs at the same time.

B (133:45)

All right, thanks for listening, everybody. We're gonna be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for all of you. Please do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourselves. Go make Mexico, and please remember, no mountain too tall.

A (133:56)

Good luck to you all. Oh, man. We're calling the Coast Guard.

B (134:06)

Jay, stop.

A (134:07)

Here it is right here, Jay.

B (134:09)

Oh, man. Look at this thing. Holy. What is that thing?

A (134:17)

That's a big flounder.

B (134:19)

If that's a flounder, man, let's pull it in.

A (134:21)

Jay.

B (134:22)

Come on, jj. We could get some big money for

A (134:25)

that if it's a fish, buddy. Come on, let's hook that and we'll be on the news, man. Power out.